Monday, February 26, 2007

Four More Books

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai:
The 2006 Booker Prize winner, another great, but of course depressing, look at India during the 80s through the eyes of characters still clinging to the cultural remnants of the British, those forging ahead and those caught in the middle. If you liked 'The God of Small Things' you'll enjoy this one, they are pretty similar in style.

Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides:
One of the best books I've read on this trip and that I would highly recommend, this is both the story of a Greek family and their migration to Detroit, Michigan as well as a girl in that family who finds out that's not quite what she is.

Next by Michael Crichton:
I'd have to rank this as Michael Crichton's worst book to date, or close to it. Several disjointed story lines about genetics, the bio-technology of it, the laws surrounding it, and the social reprecussions of all of the above. The book is confusing at times and laughable at others, and I would recommend staying away from it.

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung:
The harrowing story of a young girl and her family's experience living under the Khmer Rouge during the genocide in Cambodia. While the book was an interesting story, and a decent high-level look at the what happened in Cambodia, I would recommend reading it only if you're interested in a story of survival but not necessarily looking for any real look at what happened in Cambodia.

Varkala

I'm currently passing the time doing as little as possible in Varkala, in the south of Kerala. Varkala is a small community of guest houses that reside on a cliff overlooking small beach; another nice spot to do as little as you like, so again, not a whole lot to share. Tomorrow I will head north to Cochin and fly back to Hyderabad on Thursday morning and be ready to fly to Bangkok and on to the last leg of my trip on Friday morning. I'll admit, I'm a bit travel weary and glad to be entering the fourth quarter and the easiest leg of the trip...

Photos: Varkala

Palolem Beach, Goa

Goa couldn't come quick enough for Josh and I could see the relief and stress release as soon as we arrived. I have to admit that it was a big relief for me too, to finally be in a place where things were a bit easier. We flew to airport in central Goa and headed straight down to the southern most area, a beach town called Palolem, supposedly the most laid back area in Goa. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we did little else besides sit in the sun, eat good food, explore the beach, listen to the surf, read, adn have long meandering conversations about life in general. On Saturday evening Julia, having tired of Mumbai, decided to come hang out in Goa for a couple of days and so joined Josh and I at palolem beach. With Josh having worked for an Indian organization for close to a year now and Julia considering it, we had some interesting chats about business and work in India.

Josh took off Sunday afternoon to head back to Hyderabad and jump back into the fray before packing for a trip to the US Wednesday morning, and left me to flouder on the beach a bit longer. Having spent most of my time doing nothing but reading, Julia cajoled me into a short boat ride on Monday morning up a nearby river, which turned out to be the most active thing I did during my week in Goa. She too took off and headed back up to North Goa to explore some of the remaining Portugese church's and architecture and I was left on my own for a few more days of beach vacation in Goa. I'm happy to say that I didn't do anything worth reporting really during my time in Goa other than read a couple of books and do some journaling and enjoy some tastey fish, but after a week there it was time to press on and head further south to another beach in Kerala known as Varkala.

Photos: Goa

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Hyderabad

I flew to Hyderabad from Mumbai to meet up with my good friend Josh (who I had also met up with in Varanasi) who moved to Hyderabad in May of last year to work for the Indian IT organization Satyam, working for them at their School of Leadership. My two days in Hyderabad were pretty low key: hanging out with Josh, catching up with photos, blog, etc, and eating some good, western food. Josh, being the thoughtful person that he is was also incredibly generous in setting up a massage for me at a local spa...it was absolutely heaven and long overdue! After the massage Josh's driver Steven spent the afternoon driving me around and giving me the rough tour of Hyderabad, cruising around in Josh's black 'Ambassador'!

Photos: Hyderabad

Mumbai

I had flipped back and forth about whether to stop in Mumbai or not and then about three weeks in to my time in India I got an email from my friend Julia, a woman I'd met in Croatia, telling me that she would be in Mumbai for a week for a job interview. Coincidentally it happened to be while I was passing through the area so I thought I'd stop and say hello. Deciding to avoid a repeat 'Sleeper bus' experience I opted for the 'super luxury, just like flight' Volvo bus ride and after a comparatively easy 17hrs on the bus I arrived in an overcast, rainy Mumbai. The first order of business, and really my only other reason for coming to Mumbai, was to go and see the 'Leopolds Cafe' that is such a fixture in the book 'Shantaram' that I read while I was in Europe. I have to admit that I'd had high hopes and was pretty disappointed by what I found. I had been expecting a dark, dingy, smoky interior where shady business took place, but instead found a light, cheap feeling interior with unfriendly staff and overpriced food. I admit I was a bit perturbed when my waiter told me there was no way I could get scrambled eggs, only fried eggs, and even worse I couldn't get Masala Chai (a staple of any Indian meal) only Mint Tea! But it was worth it, and I met an Australian couple who were there for similar reasons having just stepped off an 18hr late train ride which had lasted a total of 40+hrs! I spent the rest of the day playing phone and email tag with Julia , due to some cell phone issues with my Indian SIM card, but finally managed to sort out a place to meet up the next day.

I spent the day time walking around and getting lost in the Colaba area of Mumbai, along Marine Drive, and over to Chowpatty beach, another key location in 'Shantaram', before making my way to meet up with Julia at the grand 'Old Taj' hotel near the India Gateway Monument. We finally caught up after some more confusion and did a walking tour of the India Gateway, and some of the surrounding Colaba area where a lot of the old British architecture still remains and had a great meal, with my first chicken in 4 weeks.

I didn't have a chance to see a whole lot of Mumbai and unfortunately due to my short time I didn't get to see the massive outdoor laundry mat (apparently a must see), or make it to Bollywood or be an extra in a film like a lot of other travelers had done. The Colaba area was a nice easy area but it seemed like an oasis, outside of Colaba Mumbai is an incredibly populated, polluted, and very poor city.

Photos: Mumbai

Udaipur

The 'A.C. Sleeper bus' from Pushkar to Udaipur was one of my less pleasant transportation experiences in India. When the bus pulled up close to 1am it slowed down just enough for me to hop onto the bottom step and then we were going again. I made my way to the very back of the bus, all my bags in hand, only to find someone already asleep in my bed. The conductor woke and cajoled the man out and I tossed my bags up and climbed up...they had told me there was no room under the bus for my backpack.

It quickly became apparent that I was in for a long night; with my bags in the bunk with me there was little room and laying straight the bunk was too short for me, and with every bump that we hit, which was pretty much constant, I slid and shuddered around. I was sort of getting used to this about 20mins into the ride and starting to doze off when there was a screech and we hit a speed bump hard and I flew up and slammed into the ceiling, smashing my forehead, and then crashing back to down onto the bunk, leaving me with an immediate headache. This happened many more times during the night, but fortunately to a lesser degree.

Despite being 'A.C' (which I've realized in India seems to mean just 'climate controlled' as opposed to 'cooled'), cold air still managed to leak in through every window and much like my ride to Rishikesh it got very cold. As the night wore on we seemed to pick up speed and the faster we went the more cold air rushed in, the more extreme the bumps became, the louder the screeching, and the more exaggerated the swerving; I kept waiting for the bump/swerve that would either topple us completely or toss me from my bunk and break my neck in the process.

When we would slow down enough to ease my fear or death, air circulation would diminish and a pungent foot odor would take over and being to overwhelm, an odor that might gag the average person but that I, thanks to months of raw sewage smell conditioning in Africa, managed to resist, but only just. Despite the difficulties I did manage to catch a little shut eye and at 8am emerged from the bus in Udaipur suffering only minor fatigue and a sore head and neck.

Udaipur turned out to be a fantastic place. I ended up at a hostel down by the lake with a great view of the floating palace, which is now used as an exclusive hotel, where apparently Mick Jagger was staying around the time I was there. I have to confess that I didn't make much of an attempt at seeing all that Udaipur had to offer, I spent my days lazily wandering the streets and shops, eating good food on rooftop restaurants while looking out at the lake or watching the sunset, and chatting with fellow travelers about past and future destinations. My last day there I wound up in a fairly large group of fellow travelers and we did manage to squeeze in a tour of one of the local palaces, which left me with more palace/monument fatigue, but a few interesting photos.

Photos: Udaipur

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Pushkar 2: The Andre Adventure

The next day having breakfast I met Kay and Karen who had just wrapped up a couple of months at a yoga retreat outside of Mumbai and decided to tag along with them to go meet a friend of theirs they had met the day before...Andre. A Canadian in his mid forties that had been to Pushkar off and on for 20 years, but living there for the past 5 year, Andre turned out to be quite the character, with a strong affinity for dancing and need to be the center of attention. We all had lunch together and it was apparently fairly quickly that Andre was one who didn't so much talk with you as talk at you, and had a habit of jumping from one tangent to another and saying a lot without ever really finishing anything. It was mildly entertaining to watch/experience for a while but before long became tiring.

After lunch we followed him around as he led us through back streets to place we wouldn't have otherwise seen, which was nice, but he seemed to pay little heed to the ladies requests for specific stops while at the same time asking what they wanted to do/see. Everwhere we walked he did seem to know quite a lot of locals but I couldn't quite tell if they were actually his friends of if they simply endured him and had fun with him as the 'eccentric foreigner'; there were definitely times where people seemed decidedly annoyed with him (such as when he started dancing in the middle of what appeared to be the female contingent of a wedding party), but he either feigned ignorance or genuinely had no idea of his inappropriate behavior and the resultant negative vibes from the locals around him.

We shuffled between a few temples and after much cajoling, back-and-forthing and side-tracking finally made it down to the lake for sunset, a spot where the tourists flock for the good view. As we approached Andre heard the music playing and used the opportunity to dance with revelry his fairy dance and get a few eyes pinned on him. We sat for a while watching the sun go down and decided to walk back along the water to our hotel. Andre insisted we go a different way and when we refused he danced away with closest passerby and like that he was gone, somewhat thankfully.

After a long day, close to midnight, I made my way to the bus-station to wait for my 'sleeper bus' to Udaipur, something I had been told was quite a comfortable experience, bunk-beds in a bus...unfortunately the reality turned out to be less than fun...

Photos: Pushkar

Pushkar 1

For the most part the bus to Pushkar, being only 4 hours, was a non-event in comparison to my other travels within India...except for one minor detail: about halfway through the ride I got tired of reading and reached into my bag to pull out my iPod only to immediately realize that I had left the iPod on my bed next to my pillow! Needless to say a bit of hyperventilating ensued but I eventually resolved that it was likely gone but just in case I would call the hotel when we got to Pushkar. As soon as we checked in to our rooms at the Paramount Palace I called back to the Paradise Inn in Jaipur and much to my surprise they told me that they did have my iPod and would hold it for me until I arrived to pick it up the next day. I let things go and tried to relax and we passed the night on the rooftop restaurant with a great Indian buffet dinner and listening to a local white Hare Krishna sing several seemingly different sounding songs whose lyrics were all the same.

The next morning I got up early and made it to the bus station just in time to catch the 9am bus to Jaipur. I spent 3 1/2 hours heading back to Jaipur, had the most harrowing rickshaw ride of my life (largely in oncoming traffic) as I hurried to the hotel grabbed my iPod (which was not quite as I'd left it, since someone decided to try and peel off the 'invisible shield' I had on it), and then braved more oncoming traffic back to the bus station, arriving just in time to catch the 1pm bus back to Pushkar. It was a long day and I was glad to have my music back, even if it was a little worse for wear, and then 7 hours on the bus did give me some good time to read most of my book, 'Middlesex'.

The following day I started my Pushkar visit proper. At 5:30am Jeff and Kerri knocked on my door and we rode on rented scooters to a small hill at the edge of town where we watched the sunrise, which too much longer than expected. After breakfast we spent a lot of the day cruising around on the scooters, narrowly avoiding people, cows, and giant, laden trucks headed straight for us. Having spent so much time in the crazy traffic in the back of a rickshaw it was fun to finally have some level of control in the melee; kind of like you always wanted to drive as a kid, with no rules and of course no helmet. We also came upon a monkey man down by one of the ghats; an older man in a big red turban who was feeding the large gray monkeys bananas from his hands, with the occasional monkey making a sudden lunge at the group of us tourists spectating nearby. Kerri and Jeff pressed on to Udaipur that night and I decided to hang on in Pushkar one more day.

Photos: Pushkar

Jaipur

I showed up at the train station a little before 6am to catch my 6am train only to find out that it was delayed for 5 hours (I was of course only told of the delay in 30min increments). While I was waiting I started chatting with a couple from Australia (Kerri and Jeff) who were on a 2-3month tour of Tibet, Nepal, and now India. After hours of waiting and a few more hours on the train we finally rolled into Jaipur in the early afternoon and I tagged along with them to the Paradise Inn, we dropped our bags and headed back out. Jaipur, the 'Pink City', turned out to be much larger and busier than I had expected. As we wandered through the crazy traffic, toward the pink walls of the city, we came across the immediately recognizable golden arches (yes, McDonald's) and all being quite hungry decided to go in to see what the Indian branch had to offer. I settled on the 'McChicken Maharaja Mac', which looked like the BigMac but tasted nothing like it...the chicken patty was spiced and they changed the special sauce! A big disappointment.

After much wandering and misdirection we finally found and made our way into the P'ink City', a pretty amazing area of just street after street of different shops, similar to the Turkish 'grand bazaar' but on a much larger scale, with different areas for different products (jewelery, textiles, housewares, etc). Karri was on the hunt for some silver jewelery so we found that area and she 'put her bargaining hat on' and went to town. She is a great bargainer and it was incredibly entertaining and educational to watch her work. After she cleaned up and secured a couple of pieces we all made our way to the 'Hotel Om Tower' with its rotating, rooftop restaurant and enjoyed some tasty indian food as we gazed down at Jaipur moving around below (hint...it all pretty much looks the same from up there).

I had been planning on staying in Jaipur for a couple of days, but upon seeing how much of a big, busy, polluted city it was I decided to press on to Pushkar with Kerri and Jeff after just one day.

Photos: Jaipur

Agra

The train to Agra was about 3 hours late leaving the station and by the time we arrived in Agra the gap had grown to 6 hours. Fortunately I was in the 2nd AC class for this ride, a much roomier, more comfortable, climate controlled cabin, so the wait was a piece of cake. We finally arrived around noon and I dropped my bag off and was at the Taj Mahal (my only reason for passing through Agra) within an hour.

Everything about the Taj was amazing: the size, the detail, the grounds, the symmetry of everything. It had been suggested that I hire a guide when I got there to make sure I got the full experience, so I did. At first I was learning some interesting things about the Taj being built by the King for his deceased wife, the symmetry of the entire complex (down to a real mosque on the left of the Taj, facing mecca, and an identical 'fake' mosque on the right side just to maintain the symmetry but never used), the time it took for the amazing marble screen on the inside (10 years). After a while, due to a combination of travel weariness and being tired of seeing monuments and buildings, I largely tuned the guide out and finally sent him away while I spent another hour walking around the grounds on my own. Having spent three hours in the complex I was tired and decided to skip the Agra Fort and retired to my dingy hotel room to sit under the ceiling fan and watch loud Bollywood movies...I'm finally starting to appreciate them. Despite being worn out on monuments the Taj was still an amazing site...at least now I can check the box and say I passed through India and I saw the Taj...

Photos: Agra

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Varanasi

I made my way to the 'Ajay Guest House' and up to its roof top restaurant overlooking the Ganges and found my buddy Josh, and after such a long, draining journey it was good to see him. Josh had moved to Hyderabad, India last May to work for the Indian IT organization Satyam and had taken a weekend break to come see Varanasi. We chatted for a few minuted before we were joined by a colleague of his, Ibanga, who had just wrapped up an internship at Satyam and wanted to see Varanasi before heading back to the US. Having all spent the day traveling we decided to call it an early night, but not before taking a night stroll along the Ganges. Things were quite eerie down at the water, a fair amount of smoke/mist, strange and intermittent spotlights, near and distance chanting, and half to full naked sadus, ascetics and devotees walking around in pseudo-trances, covered in white powder. One such group sitting at the main ghat (steps into the water) appeared to be eating what looked like literal (cow?) shit...that was enough for night one.

By the light of the next day it was easy to see that Varanasi is probably the filthiest city I have been to, in no small part thanks to the the giant piles of cow-pie everywhere (like green, slimy land-mines), the big piles of garbage that the cows eat, and people relieving themselves in any spot that struck their fancy. Surprisingly the stench isn't as bad as one might expect, or I've become desensitized. I have to admit that in the midst of all of this filth it was tough to peer through and see the religious importance of this area. After breakfast we wandered down to the water again and caught a boat to the other side of the river, which is almost entirely devoid of buildings (aside from small shacks), due to the monsoon washing everything away when it comes. The pollution of the river was astounding...it seemed like we were floating in a river of pure sewage, and yet on both banks people were wading in to wash clothes or themselves, brush their teeth, or relieve themselves, and apparently these people don't get sick, their bodies have adapted to the incredible pollution. At the onset of our trip had thought about taking a dip in the Ganges himself, but later decided against it. When we got to the other side, we had a tough time finding a spot close enough to shore to disembark and so Josh and I (being in sandals) decided to hold tight while Ibanga jumped across and had a look around before we headed back to the populous side.

When night fell we observed a ceremonial puja, an interesting experience of fragrant smoke, fire, flowers, singing, repetitive sound and motion and incessant, loud bell ringing. After an hour of this we decided it was time to go see the burning ghats...

The area where the bodies are burned was very eerily surreal; a filthy place of mud, ash, wood, and constantly busy untouchables working away...it felt like I was walking through a movie set. There were giant piles of wood all around and a dozen fires (bodies) in progress. Despite seeing the forms of bodies, quite apparent, I confess to not feeling much aside from slight sacrilege at being a 'tourist' in such a spot. We had a guide who explained things to us: the burning takes place within 24hrs of death. In the case of a parents death the eldest son has his head shaved, gets a registration number, dresses in white, washes the body in the Ganges and wraps it in preparation for burning. A pyre of wood is prepared by an untouchable and the body is placed on the pyre by the family. The eldest son lights some grass from the 'eternal fire' (apparently kept burning for over three thousand years) and walks around the body 5 times (to symbolize the make-up of the body: wind, water, fire, earth, spirit/ether) after which the pyre is lit. The untouchable then takes control of the fire. It takes a total of 3hrs for the body to burn but after 1 1/2hrs the skull is cracked open by the eldest son, using a bamboo stick, to release the spirit up to nirvana. At three hours all should be burned, however sometimes the chest of men and the hips of women may still remain. If these pieces remain they are removed by the eldest son and thrown into the Ganges. The burning continues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, usually burning 300-400 bodies per day.

The next day Josh, Ibanga and I tried to catch the sunrise on the Ganges but we met with such heavy mist that we couldn't even tell where the sun was and were only aware of a gradual lightening of the sky. Josh and Ibanga took off that afternoon and I was left to explore Varanasi a bit more on my own.

About a month before I arrived in India I got an email from my friend Mijin, who I first met in Sarajevo, saying that she was also going to be in India in February. The day after Josh and Ibanga took off Mijin arrived in Varanasi and I gave her the 10 cent tour of the things I had seen the days before. I had only planned on overlapping my time with her there by one day, unfortunately due to all the trains to Agra being booked I ended up staying in Varanasi for 3 more days. I passed the time exploring the narrow alleys and trying out different restaurants (one of which had a welcome sign stating 'yes, we are less dirty' a good indicator of how dirty Varanasi is), while Mijin did a lot of shopping. After more time than I'd wanted in Varanasi I was finally able to get on a train to Agra and Mijin headed to Calcutta.

Photos: Varanasi

Rishikesh

I have to admit that when I got to Delhi I was feeling the lack of desire in getting back into constant travel mode, but I finally rallied and made it out of Delhi on an overnight bus up to Rishikesh, about 6hrs north of Delhi. The bus ride was pretty hellacious; luckily I was at the front of the bus so I missed out on a lot of the big bumps, but that was more than compensated for by the draft that came in through the 2inch gap in the window next to me, the air was absolutely freezing continued to get colder and colder all the way up until we arrived in Rishikesh at 6am. I'm positive that if there had been any moisture in the clouds above it would have snowed. Definitely the coldest I've been on this trip, even with all my top layers (6) on I could barely keep from shivering. Rishikesh is in the foothills of the Himalayas which explains the cold air...I was ill prepared.

I met a nice English guy on the bus who had been to Rishikesh a couple of times before and I tagged along with him to the 'swiss chalets' up the hill. He told me that Rishikesh is considered the 'Yoga Capitol of the world' and it showed as I walked around and saw that every person with a shack to their name, no matter how meager, had an attached sign offering yoga classes, lessons, etc. Unfortunately I was only there for a brief 24hrs and so I spent my brief day and a half there wandering around the small town and taking things in, breathing in the fresh air (the last gulps I would get for a while), and having some good food and tea. I was somewhat surprised to see how clean and clear the Ganges was, something that would change in Varanasi.

Around 3pm, about 30hrs after arriving I headed to the nearby town of Haridwar to catch my train to Allahabad. The train was about 45mins late and because it was tough to find info about where it was arriving, I found myself running from one platform to another trying to make sure i didn't miss it. I had been warned that 'sleeper class' was pretty crazy and when I finally loaded everything up I found out exactly what 'sleeper class' was all about; instead of individual 'rooms' as I was accustomed to from the trains in Europe there were just 8 beds setup in repeating rows next to each other for a total of 72 beds per car. A bit cramped maybe, but not bad I thought. It wasn't until we started rolling that additional people piled on and our area set to seat 8 people was now holding almost double that with another 10+ people standing in the aisles. At each stop these 'extra' people would hop on and off and this continued for the next 6 hours or so until it was time to put the bunks down and get some sleep. I got to know my neighbor, Praveen, and at each stop he would pull me off the train and treat me to some great hot tea or food, refusing to let me pay anything. The food often came in small bowls made of dried leaves and the tea in small clay cups, both of which we would just toss from the train window when we were finished. In this time the temperature had also dropped significantly which I feared would lead to another sleepless, shivering night and I was about right. Despite wearing a wool hat I had acquired in Rishikesh as well as all my top layers I was still frigid and got little sleep.

We arrived in a town called Allahabad, where I needed to transfer to a bus, about 2hrs late and I got on a bus to Varanasi. Allahabad was actually hosting a 6 year religious festival called the Kumbamela and was filled with pilgrims, sadus, and other religious/holy hindu men and women. It took us close to 2hours to finally get out of the town and as we crossed the bridge spanning the Ganges I looked out the window and on either side there were tents as far as I could see. Apparently there were close to 10 million people in the town for this festival. The bus, like the train, was also filled to capacity with people standing in the aisles, with the added element of the driver playing chicken with all oncoming vehicles and his hand heavy on the exceedingly loud horn, which sounded like some mutant goat. Finally, about 25hrs after leaving Rishikesh I made it to Varanasi...

Photos: Rishikesh