Merry Christmas to all. Laura and I spent it in the gorgeous hills of Darjeeling, taking scenic train rides on the toy train (wait until you see the photos, it's fun in a post-colonial sort of way) and trekking to the Tibetan Refugee Center to buy a handwoven rug (!). A fun Christmas gift to ourselves.
That, due to back-orders, won't be finished until Nov 2009 so we'll likely see it Christmas next year. Or even in early 2010.
We've had the usual cell-phone issues. Plenty of battery juice, but the minutes drained like glaciers melting off the Himalayas due to global warming. And no one knows how to give us a refill because we bought the damn thing in Mumbai. So instead we missed our families and consoled ourselves with a happy Christmas feast with the latest travelling friends: the mysterious and entertaining Phil, our new friends Bjorn & Anna (more on that soon), a young Aussie couple named Michael and Tarsh we met that night, and a nice gent from southern British Columbia who we met only in passing.
We packed and split town the next day, headed to a safari at a distant nature reserve ...
Friday, December 26, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Where Dragons Dwell
It's been quite a haul since Agra. Laura and I spent a few (surprising very nice) days in Varanasi, the holy city along the Ganga (it's only polluted in your mind the locals assured us, while we eyed oil slicks and a dead calf floating downstream).
Leaving Varanasi and heading to Darjeeling is where the real adventure begins. Too much to recount, really, but here are the highlights.
- our train was 20 1/2 hours late arriving at the Mugalsarai station; we holed up in a (shockingly clean) cafe and met some fellow travellers headed our way, including a well-travelled Brit named Phil (actually from the Isle of Man) whose family has been in the Kolkatta/Darjeeling area since 1853
- the train was an additional 4 hours late arriving in NJP (station near Darjeeling) on top of the 14-hr ride. Total train time: 40 1/2. We arrived 3 hours after the same train that left the next day
- We've been resting and thoroughly enjoying Darjeeling. The Himalayas, amazing tea, fresh mountain air, friendly people, ski-cabin atmosphere of our hotel. There's a combined Buddhist/Hindu temple in the middle of town here, the only one of its kind in India (or the world, I think). This is an incredibly harmonious, friendly, and cooperative place. Our hotel owner (Tibetan Buddhist, fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet) talks about going to Catholic school as a girl and celebrating Eid (Muslim holiday) with her Muslim neighbors.
- And as India is a land of deep contraditions, there's an active Gorkhaland separatist movement going on at the moment, mostly protests but it's more-or-less confirmed that the town's going on strike on Dec 27th. The Gorkhas want their own state within India. They've been a supressed minority since British times, and things have only gotten worse since the Brits left. Regardless, the politics up here shouldn't affect the tourists -- the people here are very friendly, as described above. The current Gorkha movement is non-violent (unless the police incite them otherwise). According to Phil and local accounts it got bloody during the 80s, but even then it was quite safe for tourists. Phil was here when the GNLF was openly hostile -- guns, home-made bombs, the lot -- and he was cheerfully waved through road barricades, taken out to lunch with GNLF leaders, the works. Just to be safe, though, we'll be leaving town on the 26th just after Christmas in the mountains.
- Now about this Phil character: I don't know what it is about him, but we keep running into him EVERYWHERE. Granted, the town is small. But the rate of coincidence with which we end up at the same restaurants for dinner, bookstores, coffeeshops, breakfast joints, randomly on the street while lost on the back roads ... it is truly uncanny. Way off the charts. There are plenty of other tourists here, but for some reason there's an odd karmic magnetism. "We must have known each other in a past life," he joked.
- R&R time: there's been plenty of it up here in the hills. I've been furiously scribbling away at a novel, rediscovering the feel of pen on paper. Meanwhile Laura's been sorting through her photos. And at night we'll run into friends for dinner (Phil has figured largely into this) and return to our ski lodge hotel, curling around the wood stove with a book before turning in to our warm bed with hot water bottles tucked between the sheets.
There's something curious about this town, inspiring and addictive. I don't want to leave (but then, I didn't want to leave Jaisalmer or Varanasi either). It's certainly a place we'll return to.
Given the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan I wonder if we're headed from the frying pan into the fire. While the Gorkhas may be openly taking to the streets (we've seen two protest marches since arriving in town), at least I feel SAFE here. There are no nuclear weapons involved, and the people are incredibly hospitable. Besides, this place makes a great setting for an Agatha Christie- or Graham Greene-style novel. I'd love to have more time to write about it.
That's the quick update. Our adventures get curiouser and curiouser ...
Leaving Varanasi and heading to Darjeeling is where the real adventure begins. Too much to recount, really, but here are the highlights.
- our train was 20 1/2 hours late arriving at the Mugalsarai station; we holed up in a (shockingly clean) cafe and met some fellow travellers headed our way, including a well-travelled Brit named Phil (actually from the Isle of Man) whose family has been in the Kolkatta/Darjeeling area since 1853
- the train was an additional 4 hours late arriving in NJP (station near Darjeeling) on top of the 14-hr ride. Total train time: 40 1/2. We arrived 3 hours after the same train that left the next day
- We've been resting and thoroughly enjoying Darjeeling. The Himalayas, amazing tea, fresh mountain air, friendly people, ski-cabin atmosphere of our hotel. There's a combined Buddhist/Hindu temple in the middle of town here, the only one of its kind in India (or the world, I think). This is an incredibly harmonious, friendly, and cooperative place. Our hotel owner (Tibetan Buddhist, fled the Chinese invasion of Tibet) talks about going to Catholic school as a girl and celebrating Eid (Muslim holiday) with her Muslim neighbors.
- And as India is a land of deep contraditions, there's an active Gorkhaland separatist movement going on at the moment, mostly protests but it's more-or-less confirmed that the town's going on strike on Dec 27th. The Gorkhas want their own state within India. They've been a supressed minority since British times, and things have only gotten worse since the Brits left. Regardless, the politics up here shouldn't affect the tourists -- the people here are very friendly, as described above. The current Gorkha movement is non-violent (unless the police incite them otherwise). According to Phil and local accounts it got bloody during the 80s, but even then it was quite safe for tourists. Phil was here when the GNLF was openly hostile -- guns, home-made bombs, the lot -- and he was cheerfully waved through road barricades, taken out to lunch with GNLF leaders, the works. Just to be safe, though, we'll be leaving town on the 26th just after Christmas in the mountains.
- Now about this Phil character: I don't know what it is about him, but we keep running into him EVERYWHERE. Granted, the town is small. But the rate of coincidence with which we end up at the same restaurants for dinner, bookstores, coffeeshops, breakfast joints, randomly on the street while lost on the back roads ... it is truly uncanny. Way off the charts. There are plenty of other tourists here, but for some reason there's an odd karmic magnetism. "We must have known each other in a past life," he joked.
- R&R time: there's been plenty of it up here in the hills. I've been furiously scribbling away at a novel, rediscovering the feel of pen on paper. Meanwhile Laura's been sorting through her photos. And at night we'll run into friends for dinner (Phil has figured largely into this) and return to our ski lodge hotel, curling around the wood stove with a book before turning in to our warm bed with hot water bottles tucked between the sheets.
There's something curious about this town, inspiring and addictive. I don't want to leave (but then, I didn't want to leave Jaisalmer or Varanasi either). It's certainly a place we'll return to.
Given the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan I wonder if we're headed from the frying pan into the fire. While the Gorkhas may be openly taking to the streets (we've seen two protest marches since arriving in town), at least I feel SAFE here. There are no nuclear weapons involved, and the people are incredibly hospitable. Besides, this place makes a great setting for an Agatha Christie- or Graham Greene-style novel. I'd love to have more time to write about it.
That's the quick update. Our adventures get curiouser and curiouser ...
Friday, December 19, 2008
Death by Ganges
A boatride down the Ganges in Varanasi is considered to be one of the richest experiences in India. Varanasi's dozens of riverside ghats (steps to the water) reveal nearly every aspect of life in this country. Here people come to bathe, wash clothes, water their buffalos, enjoy a boat ride, deposit household garbage, grow watermelons, await the monsoon, fly kites, beg, drink holy water, meditate, find a guru, die, and sell souveniers and snacks to tourists. The Ganges is both purity and filth, all at once, and one cannot be separated from the other. Around one fourteenth of the world's entire population live along the banks of the Ganges, and a great number of them reside in Varanasi. It's also one of the most polluted waterways on earth, with raw sewage constantly emptying directly into the river.
A typical boat ride passes along most of the major Varanasi ghats. There are ghats for several Jain temples, a Nepali temple, Hindu temples, and one named for Jesus (via the Hindu lens). Nearly every ghat has at least one small shrine to a Hindu god, usually the locally favorite god Shiva, from whose head the goddess Ganga (the river Ganges) is said to spring. Every boat ride is certain to pass by two important locations: the main ghat, Dasaswamedh, with a great concentration of people, colors and smells, and the most important burning ghat, Manikarnika, the most auspicious place for a Hindu funeral.
I admit I was a bit nervous to see the burning ghats, unsure to what degree the cremations would be visible and if they would be ghastly. I remember quite vividly a scene from one of the Koyaanisqatsi-type documentaries depicting a close-up Hindu cremation in time-lapse that I saw probably in the early or mid 90s. It had a lasting impression on me. Americans are not used to being confronted with death in any way - we hide it and are shamed by it. Funerals are mournful and private affairs and cemetaries are quiet, well-maintained refuges. Accidents are cleaned up immdiately. Roadkill is about all we are likely to see on a given day.
In India, everything is open and visible, and sometimes (for better or worse) it feels like there is no such thing as privacy or shame among the spitting, burping, snoring, smelling, poor, diseased, and disabled masses on the sidewalks and in the trains. I didn't really expect death to be any different, and as we approached the burning ghats with smoke spiraling upwards from a handful of fires, my stomach clenched in anticipation. Would this experience haunt me? Make me feel ill?
At first, all I could see were massive piles of wood perched on the ghat, and I noticed immediately that Manikarnika Ghat was visibly darker than the others. The towering buildings were gray and there was somehow a lack of color. It seemed the deep grayness came from the constant fires - ash sent spiraling upwards clung to the sides of buildings surrounding the vicinity.
Then I noticed my first funeral in motion. Facing the river, an adorned stretcher lay on the bank awaiting the ceremonial dip in the Ganges prior to cremation. A body was bound to the stretcher and was mostly covered in bright yellow flowers, with only the head and feet visible. The deceased man was ancient and looked incredibly serene. It wasn't at all a disturbing sight. It seemed as natural as any other part of life, maybe due to the contextualization of India, and at that moment my stomach slowly started to relax. I looked around and in-progress cremations were taking place at that moment - a number of fires burned on the banks, but there was no gruesome imagery to witness. The area smelled of sweet wood, not of burning flesh (9/11 comes to mind), and the bright fires had a palpably spiritual meaning.
Our boatman then pointed out two men over a tiny white bundle. This bundle contained an infant, but it would not be cremated. He explained that there are five categories of deceased that do not get cremated on the banks of the Ganges: babies, pregnant women, death by snake bite, lepers, and sadhus (holy men). Instead, these bodies are ritually immersed in the waters of the Ganges, their funerary stretchers laden with heavy rocks to bring them down to the bottom. Remember, normal people bathe in and drink from these waters every day. I realized fully that there are hundreds of dead bodies at the bottom of this river. Yet, while this thought would be horrible in the U.S. it was part of the flow here, and the Ganges seemed all the more powerful for it.
Over the few days I spent in Varanasi, I saw dozens of Hindu funerals taking place. I never saw anything remotely frightening or disturbing, even when I looked up one evening and noticed a pair of feet of a dead man just inches above me, his funerary stretcher lashed to the top of an autorickshaw for transportation to the ghats. Everything I saw was purely absorbing. The dead were treated with respect and were beautifully decorated for their final moments on earth in human form. A deep sense of faith permeated all action and no one seemed gripped by despair or horror. Families of the dead were certainly present but I couldn't tell them apart from the spectators - everyone watched each funeral taking place with infinite patience and calm. No beating of the breasts, tearing out of the hair, no wailing, so sobbing, no covering and no shame. There for all to see, these funerals struck me as almost pleasant. A very odd feeling to have for an American, and what a relief from the terrible anxiety we put ourselves through.
One funeral really stood out above all others. One evening after dark had fallen, we took dinner at a pizzeria overlooking a serene ghat. Far away we heard the sound of bells and dismissed it as a typical ceremony putting the gods to sleep. But the bells approached and became louder and we realized this was something different. Suddenly from a stairwell emerged a dozen men clanging bells and garbed in white robes. Several of them held up a funerary stretcher. These men had a purpose and did not walk slowly or mournfully - they were headed straight for the holy Ganges, no looking back. I saw on the stretcher a very gray head bobbing around with the motion of the monks' feet, moving so much that for a moment it had the illusion of being alive. Immediately, I thought this must be the death of a sadhu; for they paint themselves with gray ash once they make a commitment to the ascetic life.
The procession was down at the banks of the river very quickly, where they intercepted a waiting boat. The monks loaded up, pulled the stretcher on board and gunned up the motor. Within moments they had disappeared into the night somewhere on the river, where they would ritually deposit the dead sadhu into the holy waters. Ten minutes later the boat returned and the monks unloaded, sans-sadhu, and dispersed. There was nothing else to it - again no long drawn-out agony or mourning, yet plainly visible and firmly in the real world. It doesn't get more real than the Ganges.
I thought about what I knew about sadhus and the pieces fell into place. I knew that once a sadhu makes the transformation to ascetic, they are mourned as already dead by their families. I then realized fully that this is meant literally. The family of a sadhu holds a complete funeral and at that moment he becomes a holy man. The family comes to the ghats and commissions a funeral, and in place of a body they burn a physical representation made out of chapati (flatbread). This "chapati-man" is the only traditional Hindu funerary ceremony a sadhu will receive in his lifetime. The fire represents his soul's release from the bounds of the physical world, and this is taken as real; this is how a sadhu achieves enlightenment. The painting of the sadhu's body with gray ash is a literal reference to the state of being physically dead, and going naked or with only a loincloth or beads reinforces the absence of attachment to the physical realm. Not because they are spiritually above it but because they are truly relased from it - they are literally dead.
So when a sadhu expires physically, it's different from the way we understand it in the West. He has not died as such. His funeral has already occurred, his family is not allowed to have another or come to witness this second ceremony. There is nothing left for his disciples to do but give the remnants back to the holiest of spots - the Ganges.
A typical boat ride passes along most of the major Varanasi ghats. There are ghats for several Jain temples, a Nepali temple, Hindu temples, and one named for Jesus (via the Hindu lens). Nearly every ghat has at least one small shrine to a Hindu god, usually the locally favorite god Shiva, from whose head the goddess Ganga (the river Ganges) is said to spring. Every boat ride is certain to pass by two important locations: the main ghat, Dasaswamedh, with a great concentration of people, colors and smells, and the most important burning ghat, Manikarnika, the most auspicious place for a Hindu funeral.
I admit I was a bit nervous to see the burning ghats, unsure to what degree the cremations would be visible and if they would be ghastly. I remember quite vividly a scene from one of the Koyaanisqatsi-type documentaries depicting a close-up Hindu cremation in time-lapse that I saw probably in the early or mid 90s. It had a lasting impression on me. Americans are not used to being confronted with death in any way - we hide it and are shamed by it. Funerals are mournful and private affairs and cemetaries are quiet, well-maintained refuges. Accidents are cleaned up immdiately. Roadkill is about all we are likely to see on a given day.
In India, everything is open and visible, and sometimes (for better or worse) it feels like there is no such thing as privacy or shame among the spitting, burping, snoring, smelling, poor, diseased, and disabled masses on the sidewalks and in the trains. I didn't really expect death to be any different, and as we approached the burning ghats with smoke spiraling upwards from a handful of fires, my stomach clenched in anticipation. Would this experience haunt me? Make me feel ill?
At first, all I could see were massive piles of wood perched on the ghat, and I noticed immediately that Manikarnika Ghat was visibly darker than the others. The towering buildings were gray and there was somehow a lack of color. It seemed the deep grayness came from the constant fires - ash sent spiraling upwards clung to the sides of buildings surrounding the vicinity.
Then I noticed my first funeral in motion. Facing the river, an adorned stretcher lay on the bank awaiting the ceremonial dip in the Ganges prior to cremation. A body was bound to the stretcher and was mostly covered in bright yellow flowers, with only the head and feet visible. The deceased man was ancient and looked incredibly serene. It wasn't at all a disturbing sight. It seemed as natural as any other part of life, maybe due to the contextualization of India, and at that moment my stomach slowly started to relax. I looked around and in-progress cremations were taking place at that moment - a number of fires burned on the banks, but there was no gruesome imagery to witness. The area smelled of sweet wood, not of burning flesh (9/11 comes to mind), and the bright fires had a palpably spiritual meaning.
Our boatman then pointed out two men over a tiny white bundle. This bundle contained an infant, but it would not be cremated. He explained that there are five categories of deceased that do not get cremated on the banks of the Ganges: babies, pregnant women, death by snake bite, lepers, and sadhus (holy men). Instead, these bodies are ritually immersed in the waters of the Ganges, their funerary stretchers laden with heavy rocks to bring them down to the bottom. Remember, normal people bathe in and drink from these waters every day. I realized fully that there are hundreds of dead bodies at the bottom of this river. Yet, while this thought would be horrible in the U.S. it was part of the flow here, and the Ganges seemed all the more powerful for it.
Over the few days I spent in Varanasi, I saw dozens of Hindu funerals taking place. I never saw anything remotely frightening or disturbing, even when I looked up one evening and noticed a pair of feet of a dead man just inches above me, his funerary stretcher lashed to the top of an autorickshaw for transportation to the ghats. Everything I saw was purely absorbing. The dead were treated with respect and were beautifully decorated for their final moments on earth in human form. A deep sense of faith permeated all action and no one seemed gripped by despair or horror. Families of the dead were certainly present but I couldn't tell them apart from the spectators - everyone watched each funeral taking place with infinite patience and calm. No beating of the breasts, tearing out of the hair, no wailing, so sobbing, no covering and no shame. There for all to see, these funerals struck me as almost pleasant. A very odd feeling to have for an American, and what a relief from the terrible anxiety we put ourselves through.
One funeral really stood out above all others. One evening after dark had fallen, we took dinner at a pizzeria overlooking a serene ghat. Far away we heard the sound of bells and dismissed it as a typical ceremony putting the gods to sleep. But the bells approached and became louder and we realized this was something different. Suddenly from a stairwell emerged a dozen men clanging bells and garbed in white robes. Several of them held up a funerary stretcher. These men had a purpose and did not walk slowly or mournfully - they were headed straight for the holy Ganges, no looking back. I saw on the stretcher a very gray head bobbing around with the motion of the monks' feet, moving so much that for a moment it had the illusion of being alive. Immediately, I thought this must be the death of a sadhu; for they paint themselves with gray ash once they make a commitment to the ascetic life.
The procession was down at the banks of the river very quickly, where they intercepted a waiting boat. The monks loaded up, pulled the stretcher on board and gunned up the motor. Within moments they had disappeared into the night somewhere on the river, where they would ritually deposit the dead sadhu into the holy waters. Ten minutes later the boat returned and the monks unloaded, sans-sadhu, and dispersed. There was nothing else to it - again no long drawn-out agony or mourning, yet plainly visible and firmly in the real world. It doesn't get more real than the Ganges.
I thought about what I knew about sadhus and the pieces fell into place. I knew that once a sadhu makes the transformation to ascetic, they are mourned as already dead by their families. I then realized fully that this is meant literally. The family of a sadhu holds a complete funeral and at that moment he becomes a holy man. The family comes to the ghats and commissions a funeral, and in place of a body they burn a physical representation made out of chapati (flatbread). This "chapati-man" is the only traditional Hindu funerary ceremony a sadhu will receive in his lifetime. The fire represents his soul's release from the bounds of the physical world, and this is taken as real; this is how a sadhu achieves enlightenment. The painting of the sadhu's body with gray ash is a literal reference to the state of being physically dead, and going naked or with only a loincloth or beads reinforces the absence of attachment to the physical realm. Not because they are spiritually above it but because they are truly relased from it - they are literally dead.
So when a sadhu expires physically, it's different from the way we understand it in the West. He has not died as such. His funeral has already occurred, his family is not allowed to have another or come to witness this second ceremony. There is nothing left for his disciples to do but give the remnants back to the holiest of spots - the Ganges.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thanksgiving in India
Thanksgiving in America is about enjoying a big feast with family every year in late November. Like most holidays, its exact origins are murky, but it's generally tied to the peak of the autumn harvest and the survival of the early Pilgrims at Plymouth during a particularly harsh winter in 1621. Everyone, inlcuding the poor, should have abundant food that day and in return all are to feel some sentiment of thankfulness for the feast, whether to God, the company or state welfare.
The American Thanksgiving varies by family: some gatherings are traditional and large, with mom, dad, the kids, grandma and grandpa, and an assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered around a large table with an enormous roast turkey in the middle of the setting. Other gatherings are small and avant-garde, like my own family's growing up: me, Mom and usually Unca John sitting on a couch together enjoying Mom's home-cooked vegetarian feast with eggplant parmesan as the main dish.
I don't remember exactly where Nick and I were on November 27th this year, for our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. We noticed at some point in the day that it was Thanksgiving back home - we may have been traveling by train that day or preparing for a long journey the next morning. We thought of family but couldn't really conjure up a Thanksgiving of our own in our environment. The context was missing. Thanksgiving Day is supposed to be cold outside, so the comforts of hot, rich food are appealing, and, though we were together, the warmth of family was absent. Outside was the normal bustle of an Indian day, the tourists and hawkers were out in the heat, the local mosque called prayers to Allah five times a day, and the smell of curry, chapati and chai wasn't exactly reminiscent of either turkey or eggplant parmesan.
Later, I think by some internal clock we noticed that we had missed Thanksgiving and wondered if we would find our own way to experience it in India, to make up for the lost holiday.
Per my earlier blog post, I did not like Agra very much. Nothing particularly bad happened there, it's just that I found the place to be unappealing and a touch hostile. I didn't feel as welcome there as I have in much of India, and my Taj Mahal experience was tainted as a result. We did happen to be in town at the right time, since entry to the Taj was free due to an important Muslim holiday starting that day.
It turns out that Muslims have a Thankgiving too. Eid, pronounced "eat," is a festival of sacrifice and in some respects it's much like the American holiday. Substitute sheep for chicken, up the moral tithe to a duty (it's a requirement to divide the food equally among the poor, the relatives and oneself), make the holiday last three days instead of one, spend time with family and friends, and you have Eid. To a vegetarian the partitioning of meat isn't particularly helpful or interesting, but the concept of distributing food to the entire community, in particular helping the poor, is noble, and the idea of spending time with the people you love for a grand feast is very familiar.
The guards at the Taj may have been sour, but the community of Muslims was vibrant on the morning of the first day of Eid. Thousands entered the Taj gates, but not as tourists: they were Muslims going to a special prayer in the mosque adjacent to the famous mausoleum. Since the window of free entry was early, only between 8 and 10 am, we skipped breakfast in order to take advantage of the holiday (we're not early risers you see). After touring the Taj Mahal, we set off to find a meal. Suddenly tired of white toast or cornflakes in lukewarm milk, I told Nick I wanted to find the "sumptuous breakfast buffet" recommended by Lonely Planet at a hotel restaurant called Bellevue.
We set off down Taj East Gate Road and found the luxury hotel firmly behind an iron gate with an armed guard and costumed host standing outside. The polite host, in full sparkling Raj-era outfit, explained that as a member of the Oberoi hotel chain, they were not letting anyone past the gate without a reservation made at least 2-3 days in advance. Smart given the bombings in Mumbai, but frustrating. The host did recommend we try the restaurant at ITC Mughal, another luxury hotel pick that they send many of their guests to for a change of pace.
We were warmly greeted at ITC by the receiving hosts and even the sharply dressed female guard searched for weapons in the most pleasant manner, saying with a huge smile, "Namaste. How are you?" We walked down a long verdant corridor to the main sliding doors and into a huge chandelliered lobby. A male host walked us all the way through the hotel and downstairs to the restaurant, Bagh-e-Bahar.
Again, ridiculously pleasant staff attended to our every need. The manager checked on us several times, one man came by exclusively to serve coffee, the female host encouraged us to check out the breakfast buffet, and a team of cooks make omelets to order. For 500 Rs per person ($10) the buffet was all-you-can-eat. It was roughly equivalent to buffets I've found at American luxury hotels, usually for $30-$40 per person, only better.
Nick looked at me in a state of near-shock and said "oh my god" several times. It was a nice but sudden change of pace from our outdated 70s era, musty hotel room stuck in an awkward and smelly alley. The napkins were cloth. The chairs were clean and padded. The lighting and smells were pleasant.
The food was out of this world. I wandered over to check out the buffet and promptly came back to the table, completely disoriented and not sure where to start. I saw 7 different kinds of juices and became overwhelmed. Nevermind the safe and edible mounds of fresh fruit, which I saw as my first real chance for fiber intake in a loooong time. I don't really need to explain why that bit was important and truly exciting in a way that it shouldn't have been.
Piled on my plate: fruit salad, including watermelon, pomegranate seeds, a date-like fruit, and papaya; freshly made whole-milk Indian yogurt in a clay cup; a bowl of oatmeal topped with cinnamon sugar, raisins, and almonds; a single hash-brown; a danish-like pastry (hard choice among the plethora of pastries, muffins, and fresh breads); a selection of imported cheeses and crakers (including cheddar and smoked gouda). I went hog-wild and combined the guava and watermelon juice 50/50 and welcomed a cup of fresh coffee. Nick almost passed out when he saw the smoked salmon.
That was just the first course, and unable to resist more, I went for seconds. This time, some fresh granola with honey, strawberry milk, and more coffee. The affable host insisted I try an "Indian specialty" and when the potato-stuffed paratha arrived I started to laugh giddily. They had served me two of them, about 10" diameter each, along with fresh curd (yogurt) and there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to finish, I was truly at the bursting point. I got through about 1/2 of one paratha and had to call it quits.
As we struggled, very slowly, to finish up the second course, Nick looked around carb-happy and noted, "this is our Thanksgiving, isn't it? How fitting that we end up having a feast like this on Eid."
So we found our own Thanksgiving on a whim in an oasis in the middle of Agra, and paralled the Muslims as they celebrated their own feast. We strolled the immaculate empty grounds afterwards to walk off the weight in our bellies. I noticed that no one was around ITC Mughal except for a few subtle guards and some grounds staff. The blue pool was empty, the paths were clear, and the gardens silent. I wondered if the Mumbai attacks had hurt luxury tourism so badly that this was the result and recalled that only two other tables were seated at breakfast (though we had arrived late in the morning). The hotel grounds were lovely but eerily quiet, and it felt like a massive but welcome splurge to treat ourselves to this ridiculous feast before we returned to the world of mediocre food available in the Taj Ganj neighborhood.
Fortunately, eating all that fruit paid off as well!
The American Thanksgiving varies by family: some gatherings are traditional and large, with mom, dad, the kids, grandma and grandpa, and an assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered around a large table with an enormous roast turkey in the middle of the setting. Other gatherings are small and avant-garde, like my own family's growing up: me, Mom and usually Unca John sitting on a couch together enjoying Mom's home-cooked vegetarian feast with eggplant parmesan as the main dish.
I don't remember exactly where Nick and I were on November 27th this year, for our first Thanksgiving together as a married couple. We noticed at some point in the day that it was Thanksgiving back home - we may have been traveling by train that day or preparing for a long journey the next morning. We thought of family but couldn't really conjure up a Thanksgiving of our own in our environment. The context was missing. Thanksgiving Day is supposed to be cold outside, so the comforts of hot, rich food are appealing, and, though we were together, the warmth of family was absent. Outside was the normal bustle of an Indian day, the tourists and hawkers were out in the heat, the local mosque called prayers to Allah five times a day, and the smell of curry, chapati and chai wasn't exactly reminiscent of either turkey or eggplant parmesan.
Later, I think by some internal clock we noticed that we had missed Thanksgiving and wondered if we would find our own way to experience it in India, to make up for the lost holiday.
Per my earlier blog post, I did not like Agra very much. Nothing particularly bad happened there, it's just that I found the place to be unappealing and a touch hostile. I didn't feel as welcome there as I have in much of India, and my Taj Mahal experience was tainted as a result. We did happen to be in town at the right time, since entry to the Taj was free due to an important Muslim holiday starting that day.
It turns out that Muslims have a Thankgiving too. Eid, pronounced "eat," is a festival of sacrifice and in some respects it's much like the American holiday. Substitute sheep for chicken, up the moral tithe to a duty (it's a requirement to divide the food equally among the poor, the relatives and oneself), make the holiday last three days instead of one, spend time with family and friends, and you have Eid. To a vegetarian the partitioning of meat isn't particularly helpful or interesting, but the concept of distributing food to the entire community, in particular helping the poor, is noble, and the idea of spending time with the people you love for a grand feast is very familiar.
The guards at the Taj may have been sour, but the community of Muslims was vibrant on the morning of the first day of Eid. Thousands entered the Taj gates, but not as tourists: they were Muslims going to a special prayer in the mosque adjacent to the famous mausoleum. Since the window of free entry was early, only between 8 and 10 am, we skipped breakfast in order to take advantage of the holiday (we're not early risers you see). After touring the Taj Mahal, we set off to find a meal. Suddenly tired of white toast or cornflakes in lukewarm milk, I told Nick I wanted to find the "sumptuous breakfast buffet" recommended by Lonely Planet at a hotel restaurant called Bellevue.
We set off down Taj East Gate Road and found the luxury hotel firmly behind an iron gate with an armed guard and costumed host standing outside. The polite host, in full sparkling Raj-era outfit, explained that as a member of the Oberoi hotel chain, they were not letting anyone past the gate without a reservation made at least 2-3 days in advance. Smart given the bombings in Mumbai, but frustrating. The host did recommend we try the restaurant at ITC Mughal, another luxury hotel pick that they send many of their guests to for a change of pace.
We were warmly greeted at ITC by the receiving hosts and even the sharply dressed female guard searched for weapons in the most pleasant manner, saying with a huge smile, "Namaste. How are you?" We walked down a long verdant corridor to the main sliding doors and into a huge chandelliered lobby. A male host walked us all the way through the hotel and downstairs to the restaurant, Bagh-e-Bahar.
Again, ridiculously pleasant staff attended to our every need. The manager checked on us several times, one man came by exclusively to serve coffee, the female host encouraged us to check out the breakfast buffet, and a team of cooks make omelets to order. For 500 Rs per person ($10) the buffet was all-you-can-eat. It was roughly equivalent to buffets I've found at American luxury hotels, usually for $30-$40 per person, only better.
Nick looked at me in a state of near-shock and said "oh my god" several times. It was a nice but sudden change of pace from our outdated 70s era, musty hotel room stuck in an awkward and smelly alley. The napkins were cloth. The chairs were clean and padded. The lighting and smells were pleasant.
The food was out of this world. I wandered over to check out the buffet and promptly came back to the table, completely disoriented and not sure where to start. I saw 7 different kinds of juices and became overwhelmed. Nevermind the safe and edible mounds of fresh fruit, which I saw as my first real chance for fiber intake in a loooong time. I don't really need to explain why that bit was important and truly exciting in a way that it shouldn't have been.
Piled on my plate: fruit salad, including watermelon, pomegranate seeds, a date-like fruit, and papaya; freshly made whole-milk Indian yogurt in a clay cup; a bowl of oatmeal topped with cinnamon sugar, raisins, and almonds; a single hash-brown; a danish-like pastry (hard choice among the plethora of pastries, muffins, and fresh breads); a selection of imported cheeses and crakers (including cheddar and smoked gouda). I went hog-wild and combined the guava and watermelon juice 50/50 and welcomed a cup of fresh coffee. Nick almost passed out when he saw the smoked salmon.
That was just the first course, and unable to resist more, I went for seconds. This time, some fresh granola with honey, strawberry milk, and more coffee. The affable host insisted I try an "Indian specialty" and when the potato-stuffed paratha arrived I started to laugh giddily. They had served me two of them, about 10" diameter each, along with fresh curd (yogurt) and there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to finish, I was truly at the bursting point. I got through about 1/2 of one paratha and had to call it quits.
As we struggled, very slowly, to finish up the second course, Nick looked around carb-happy and noted, "this is our Thanksgiving, isn't it? How fitting that we end up having a feast like this on Eid."
So we found our own Thanksgiving on a whim in an oasis in the middle of Agra, and paralled the Muslims as they celebrated their own feast. We strolled the immaculate empty grounds afterwards to walk off the weight in our bellies. I noticed that no one was around ITC Mughal except for a few subtle guards and some grounds staff. The blue pool was empty, the paths were clear, and the gardens silent. I wondered if the Mumbai attacks had hurt luxury tourism so badly that this was the result and recalled that only two other tables were seated at breakfast (though we had arrived late in the morning). The hotel grounds were lovely but eerily quiet, and it felt like a massive but welcome splurge to treat ourselves to this ridiculous feast before we returned to the world of mediocre food available in the Taj Ganj neighborhood.
Fortunately, eating all that fruit paid off as well!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A Teardrop on the Face of Eternity
I set out to Agra expecting the Taj Mahal to be one of the most beautiful buildings on Earth. Crafted of luxuriant pure white marble and set on a pedestal against the sky, it's been described as "a teardrop on the cheek of eternity" (Rabindrath Tagore). It's survived nearly 400 years of changing dynasties, rulers, and progress. Going in I knew a brief history: it had been constructed by Mughal (Muslim) emperor Shah Jahan as the greatest mausoleum of all time for his wife Mumtaz, who died giving birth to their 14th child in the early 1600s.
I was not at all prepared to witness agony in stone. Tagore's beautiful but misleading words are far too poetic, too romantic. There is something about the Taj that holds beauty and romance, but it is deeply shadowed by misery. It is certainly a masterpiece of architectural achievement, but if Shah Jahan was looking to immortalize his mourning in marble then he succeeded. The weighty marble is milky white in the way that death is white and heavy. The shadowy interior, where Mumtaz's grave is located, is like the Shah's heart; dark with sadness. The Arabic words from the Koran crafted of marble inlay framing each archway are like a cry out into time.
As we stood gaping up at the distant carved ceiling, a local guide was giving a tour to a small group of foreigners. He demonstrated the sound capabilities of the soaring domed interior. The man sang a moment of a wailing Muslim prayer, and the sound of his voice carried high and strong into the very center of the bell and reverberated throughout the entire room like nothing I'd ever heard. The sound was that of agony. I thought about the Shah and wondered if he had designed the mausoleum to carry his wails right up into Heaven so God could hear his pain.
The central chamber of the Taj Mahal is extremely stark. The craftsmanship of the inlay is stunning, but aside from analyzing every detail of the marble there is not that much to see. There is a tomb in the middle of an empty room surrounded by an intricately carved screen. A single ostentatious chandelier hangs over the graves, suspended from a taut 200-foot wire, sparkling in silence. There is only black and white.
I came away from the Taj more with a palpable sympathy for Shah Jahan's 4-century old loss than I did feeling like I'd found beauty in stone. If you ever visit the Taj, you will see for yourself, but be prepared for more starkness than richness and a shadow of sadness. The Taj Mahal is, in the end, a tomb and a memorial, more for the Shah's heartbreak than for the glory and greatness of Mumtaz's life.
Outside, I did not find Agra city to be a very pleasant town. Of all the places I've been in India so far, Agra has been my least favorite. The Taj Ganj area just outside of the Taj Mahal is seedy and slightly unsavory. The Taj staff were all unfriendly to the point of being unhelpful. One staffer at the ticket counter refused to acknowledge us or answer our questions one evening, and rudely dismissed us. A guard took his post seriously but aimed a rifle directly at the crowd in the street. No one was wiling to tell me why I could bring my digital camera in, but had to check the USB cable at the gate (no electronics allowed... clearly the camera utilizes far more electronics than a mute USB cable).
The Agra locals were overall a friendly bunch, and in particular several Muslim boys were very helpful and told us to come to the Taj on the morning of their festival "Eat" so we could enter for free (and they were right). They did not hassle us too much with touts to buy souveniers. But I could have done without the extreme rudeness of the Taj staff. It affected my ability to enjoy the monument and in the end I don't know if the normal exhorbitant fee of 750 rupees ($15) is worth paying.
I was not at all prepared to witness agony in stone. Tagore's beautiful but misleading words are far too poetic, too romantic. There is something about the Taj that holds beauty and romance, but it is deeply shadowed by misery. It is certainly a masterpiece of architectural achievement, but if Shah Jahan was looking to immortalize his mourning in marble then he succeeded. The weighty marble is milky white in the way that death is white and heavy. The shadowy interior, where Mumtaz's grave is located, is like the Shah's heart; dark with sadness. The Arabic words from the Koran crafted of marble inlay framing each archway are like a cry out into time.
As we stood gaping up at the distant carved ceiling, a local guide was giving a tour to a small group of foreigners. He demonstrated the sound capabilities of the soaring domed interior. The man sang a moment of a wailing Muslim prayer, and the sound of his voice carried high and strong into the very center of the bell and reverberated throughout the entire room like nothing I'd ever heard. The sound was that of agony. I thought about the Shah and wondered if he had designed the mausoleum to carry his wails right up into Heaven so God could hear his pain.
The central chamber of the Taj Mahal is extremely stark. The craftsmanship of the inlay is stunning, but aside from analyzing every detail of the marble there is not that much to see. There is a tomb in the middle of an empty room surrounded by an intricately carved screen. A single ostentatious chandelier hangs over the graves, suspended from a taut 200-foot wire, sparkling in silence. There is only black and white.
I came away from the Taj more with a palpable sympathy for Shah Jahan's 4-century old loss than I did feeling like I'd found beauty in stone. If you ever visit the Taj, you will see for yourself, but be prepared for more starkness than richness and a shadow of sadness. The Taj Mahal is, in the end, a tomb and a memorial, more for the Shah's heartbreak than for the glory and greatness of Mumtaz's life.
Outside, I did not find Agra city to be a very pleasant town. Of all the places I've been in India so far, Agra has been my least favorite. The Taj Ganj area just outside of the Taj Mahal is seedy and slightly unsavory. The Taj staff were all unfriendly to the point of being unhelpful. One staffer at the ticket counter refused to acknowledge us or answer our questions one evening, and rudely dismissed us. A guard took his post seriously but aimed a rifle directly at the crowd in the street. No one was wiling to tell me why I could bring my digital camera in, but had to check the USB cable at the gate (no electronics allowed... clearly the camera utilizes far more electronics than a mute USB cable).
The Agra locals were overall a friendly bunch, and in particular several Muslim boys were very helpful and told us to come to the Taj on the morning of their festival "Eat" so we could enter for free (and they were right). They did not hassle us too much with touts to buy souveniers. But I could have done without the extreme rudeness of the Taj staff. It affected my ability to enjoy the monument and in the end I don't know if the normal exhorbitant fee of 750 rupees ($15) is worth paying.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
When You Gotta Go
I was halfway up the long climb to the top when I realized I had to go.
"Shit," I spat.
"What's wrong?" Laura turned to me. The hot sun beat down off the walls of the old fort and I broke into a sweat. I ducked into the shade. Could not afford losing water.
"I need to go," I said.
"Can you use a bush?"
"Not that kind of go."
Laura eyed me wearily. "Is it bad?"
I shrugged. "Enough."
"Why didn't you go at the bottom?"
"Didn't have to then."
Laura sighed at me. A thirty-something husband no older than five. "Want to turn back?"
"Nah. Only if it gets bad-bad."
Bad-bad. Cute.
We continued the climb, old stone walls rising above vast valleys below. Breathtaking. Built to withstand the Mughals in the 16th century. Still standing for tourist hordes today.
Between views a sign. Bathroom. Pointing behind what looked like the remains of a grist mill. OK, no problem. When you gotta go. So I stepped around behind the building.
I was back on the path with Laura in less than a minute.
"That was quick."
"Yeah. Kind of a problem."
"No bathroom?"
"Not exactly. It was the same bathroom that was originally built into the fort five hundred years ago."
"Can I see?" Laura looked curiously at the ruined grist mill.
"Only if you want. It's still in use. Toilet paper and everything."
"And?"
"Imagine the outhouse at camp. Only no hole."
She considered, then shook her head. We continued our climb. In India everything is an adventure. Including the little things. Like finding a bathroom.
During its long history the fort was only captured once, and even then was re-taken within a few days. Climbing, we understood why. A simple walk to the top was exhausting. My stomach mostly cooperated, well-traveled and used to long holds. I enjoyed views, buildings, climbs, intricate stonework and paintings, temples, marble halls. At the top we saw miles of brown countryside with a snaking wall, the second largest in Asia.
How little we in the West know of empires and peoples, politics and cultures. From a turret I saw Europe the dwarf, America the baby. Asia the everlasting.
Our descent was rapid. My stomach drove me onward and Laura, politely, accepted. A few pauses for photos, water, escape from the heat of the sun. A free bathroom waited at the bottom, around the back of a cafe. I stepped around and inside, and rejoined Laura after a few minutes.
"Better?" she asked.
"Partly," I admitted. "Couldn't do everything."
Laura laughed. "What happened?"
"Do you know Frank Lloyd Wright?"
"Sure," she said hesitatingly.
"Well when he was designing buildings there was an interesting toilet that was in vogue at the time," I explained. "See, all these Brits and Euros were encountering so-called native peoples and got it into their heads that the healthiest way to use the bathroom was to do what they did. Squat."
"What's your point?" She looked at me, hot and frustrated.
"The bathroom was like the outhouse, only no seat."
"You going to be alright?"
"Sure, sure, I can hold it until we get back."
"Sure?"
"Yeah. I'm strong." True.
We wandered through a few more temples, then our guide drove us to a restaurant for lunch. The food was bland, the conversation slow. I needed to go.
Laura went to test the bathroom and returned a good five minutes later.
"You're going to like the bathrooms here," she smiled.
That was all I needed to hear. I grabbed our travel tissues and bolted for the back. Found the door, stepped inside. And stopped short.
There was no seat, no bowl. Instead there was a porcelain squatting area. How to describe it? My mind marveled. A tread area along side a trough, shoulder distance across. All in glistening, white, clean porcelain.
Shit.
I couldn't stand it. I needed to go.
I tried various positions. The shoes and socks, obviously, had to come off. Standing wasn't going to work, but my pants got in the way when I squatted. There was nothing else for it. I removed everything from the waist down, placed it carefully in the corner and got my squat on. Like any Indian toilet the paper went in a waste basket. There was a bucket to wash everything away with down the smooth porcelain hole.
I did my best, wiped, dressed, washed thoroughly outside and returned to lunch with even less of an appetite.
Later in the car I leaned over to Laura.
"Very funny about the bathroom," I said.
"Huh?" she looked at me.
"The porcelain squat hole. It was quite an adventure."
"Oh," she said. "I was wondering what took you so long. I guess you didn't notice the regular toilet in the other bathroom."
Monday, December 8, 2008
Call to Allah in Agra
A monkey sidled past me today as I opened my window for fresh air in our newest pick of budget hotels. We are staying in the Taj Ganj neighborhood of Agra, just outside of the South Gate of the most adored of Indian monuments, the stunning Taj Mahal.
Agra lay under a heavy smog today and from our rooftop restaurant the Taj sat heavy and looming just on the other side of the gate. Despite the poor viewing conditions it still struck us as incredibly surreal. The building is massive - more so than is possible to represent by photos. And it's 400 years old, dating to a time when America was a series of colonies in their infancy. The visitors milling beneath the ivory exterior were tiny compared to the soaring structure and four guardian minarets. The call to prayer from the local mosques set the scene with a wailing "Aaaaaaallllllllaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" calling out to all Muslims under the thick air.
Tomorrow we go to visit the Taj Mahal on the same day as a major Muslim holiday, Eat. It's a day of sharing food among all classes and the locals are very excited about it. A group of friendly Muslim boys chatted with us today in good English, telling us of their pending holiday and the best time to visit the Taj, and they were simply nice young men. They didn't even try to sell us anything.
I thought back to my casual midday conversation with an artisan's son in a silversmith shop called Hari Om in Jaisalmer. The son is about my age and is engaged to be married to a younger woman soon. We discussed politics and the recent violence in Mumbai.
"I no friends with Muslims now. Before, had friends, we meet and drink chai together and talk. Now I will say namaste but no more. Because I don't know. You see, Muslim support Muslim and Hindu support Hindu. So this not good situation. I come away from all my Muslim friends now." He's willing to be amicable to his Muslim friends but has distanced himself completely from their friendship, apparently associating all Muslims with the violent terrorist minority.
I can understand being afraid and having difficulty trusting, that's natural. But without maintaining and strengthening friendships across these cultural and religious lines, should doomsday break we shall be far the worse for it. It's a shame that the actions of a tiny but terribly violent minority have succeeded in any way among the civilized, but in this way I fear they have.
Agra lay under a heavy smog today and from our rooftop restaurant the Taj sat heavy and looming just on the other side of the gate. Despite the poor viewing conditions it still struck us as incredibly surreal. The building is massive - more so than is possible to represent by photos. And it's 400 years old, dating to a time when America was a series of colonies in their infancy. The visitors milling beneath the ivory exterior were tiny compared to the soaring structure and four guardian minarets. The call to prayer from the local mosques set the scene with a wailing "Aaaaaaallllllllaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" calling out to all Muslims under the thick air.
Tomorrow we go to visit the Taj Mahal on the same day as a major Muslim holiday, Eat. It's a day of sharing food among all classes and the locals are very excited about it. A group of friendly Muslim boys chatted with us today in good English, telling us of their pending holiday and the best time to visit the Taj, and they were simply nice young men. They didn't even try to sell us anything.
I thought back to my casual midday conversation with an artisan's son in a silversmith shop called Hari Om in Jaisalmer. The son is about my age and is engaged to be married to a younger woman soon. We discussed politics and the recent violence in Mumbai.
"I no friends with Muslims now. Before, had friends, we meet and drink chai together and talk. Now I will say namaste but no more. Because I don't know. You see, Muslim support Muslim and Hindu support Hindu. So this not good situation. I come away from all my Muslim friends now." He's willing to be amicable to his Muslim friends but has distanced himself completely from their friendship, apparently associating all Muslims with the violent terrorist minority.
I can understand being afraid and having difficulty trusting, that's natural. But without maintaining and strengthening friendships across these cultural and religious lines, should doomsday break we shall be far the worse for it. It's a shame that the actions of a tiny but terribly violent minority have succeeded in any way among the civilized, but in this way I fear they have.
Thor in the Great Thar Desert
The desert is a charming place. It's refreshingly empty and quiet and the people who inhabit it have charmed me. Dadya's young wife smiled a brilliant grin with a gold nose ornament flashing in the light, pleased as we gushed over her tiny daughter but without any need to say a word. Desert food is simple and delicious. Fresher meals made with more care than anywhere else in India.
Frankly, I was disappointed by the two "Franks," some Dutch travelers who joined us for lunch in the huts on our final day in the Great Thar Desert. They shrugged and said the food was all right and made crude jokes. Typical European travelers, at least those I have witnessed so far in India. Such little respect and appreciation for hard work and good intentions. A real lack of enjoying the moment and making the best of it.
I wasn't joking when I told Madya that he was "#1 chapati maker." Those were darn good chapatis. I watched him mix the flour, salt and water by hand, knead the dough by the light of the fire for fifteen minutes, and carefully fry two dozen, one at a time, on a perfectly heated griddle. Perhaps the Dutch would have preferred white bread from a factory but Madya's chapatis made my day.
A desert lightning storm is a different experience. There is no escape in the desert, like there is in the city, no civilization to surround and protect us. When the sky darkens, the whole world goes gray, and when the thunder booms you count every second until the lightning blindingly flashes the ground into brightness. Twenty seconds, there is time before the rain but the crash is already loud. Ten seconds, it's time to find shelter and watch the approaching lightning coming faster and faster on the horizon. Two seconds between crash and flash and there's nothing more to do but huddle in the dimness of the hut and thank goodness you are there and not in the middle of the darkening wilderness. The desert is wild and empty and in a storm a human being is a contender for being the tallest thing around for miles, save the camels.
I warily eye our thatch roof hut and all night I am paranoid that lightning will strike our roof. Nick reassures me: "Think about how many storms these huts have survived." But the storm is upon us and furious wind picks up wet grit from the desert floor and blows rain, sand, and dust through the hut window grate, covering everything in a dirt film. Who's to say this storm won't be different and our hut won't go up in flames?
We watch the storm through the open door in the relative dryness of the hut. Flashes of lightning make the land as bright as daylight and thunder rocks the ground beneath us. Lowing cows wander past eerily, waving their huge horns in perturbation at the weather. They seek shelter under the open-air thatched pavilion a few feet away from our hut, but they eye our spot with envy and the bovine bodies seem larger and stronger than usual. I am intimidated by the cows and bulls, a true city girl. Their huge eyes are not calm tonight: they bear the glint of the terrible storm.
The wind and rain pick up stronger, the eye of the storm, and we struggle to shut the tin door against the elements and the cows. The latch doesn't work and, stared down by a calf, Nick drags a heavy bag of concrete mix against the door, blocking us in for the night. Dozens of spiders flee the scene and I dwell on the urban legend that an average person swallows eight spiders per year (an aside: this is listed as False by Snopes.com).
A long night of mooing cows, crunching gravel, eerie flashes of lightning illuminating the empty desert, and deep thunder as our soundtrack. I wake up several times and cling to Nick.
In the morning the storm is still not over, but is subdued, limiting itself to the occasional drizzle and a flash of lightning on the horizon. The desert smells of fresh relief from the dry spell. Our camels sat out the storm kneeling on the desert floor, completely undisturbed by the circumstance. The cow convention under the pavilion has disbursed, and they have left gifts of mounds of manure.
A flock of goats and sheep come through our little valley to munch their way through the desert scrub, bleating and baaing helplessly. The desert is returned to its normal sense of slowness, silence, and isolation and I am truly sad to leave it behind that afternoon and return to the world of city people.
Frankly, I was disappointed by the two "Franks," some Dutch travelers who joined us for lunch in the huts on our final day in the Great Thar Desert. They shrugged and said the food was all right and made crude jokes. Typical European travelers, at least those I have witnessed so far in India. Such little respect and appreciation for hard work and good intentions. A real lack of enjoying the moment and making the best of it.
I wasn't joking when I told Madya that he was "#1 chapati maker." Those were darn good chapatis. I watched him mix the flour, salt and water by hand, knead the dough by the light of the fire for fifteen minutes, and carefully fry two dozen, one at a time, on a perfectly heated griddle. Perhaps the Dutch would have preferred white bread from a factory but Madya's chapatis made my day.
A desert lightning storm is a different experience. There is no escape in the desert, like there is in the city, no civilization to surround and protect us. When the sky darkens, the whole world goes gray, and when the thunder booms you count every second until the lightning blindingly flashes the ground into brightness. Twenty seconds, there is time before the rain but the crash is already loud. Ten seconds, it's time to find shelter and watch the approaching lightning coming faster and faster on the horizon. Two seconds between crash and flash and there's nothing more to do but huddle in the dimness of the hut and thank goodness you are there and not in the middle of the darkening wilderness. The desert is wild and empty and in a storm a human being is a contender for being the tallest thing around for miles, save the camels.
I warily eye our thatch roof hut and all night I am paranoid that lightning will strike our roof. Nick reassures me: "Think about how many storms these huts have survived." But the storm is upon us and furious wind picks up wet grit from the desert floor and blows rain, sand, and dust through the hut window grate, covering everything in a dirt film. Who's to say this storm won't be different and our hut won't go up in flames?
We watch the storm through the open door in the relative dryness of the hut. Flashes of lightning make the land as bright as daylight and thunder rocks the ground beneath us. Lowing cows wander past eerily, waving their huge horns in perturbation at the weather. They seek shelter under the open-air thatched pavilion a few feet away from our hut, but they eye our spot with envy and the bovine bodies seem larger and stronger than usual. I am intimidated by the cows and bulls, a true city girl. Their huge eyes are not calm tonight: they bear the glint of the terrible storm.
The wind and rain pick up stronger, the eye of the storm, and we struggle to shut the tin door against the elements and the cows. The latch doesn't work and, stared down by a calf, Nick drags a heavy bag of concrete mix against the door, blocking us in for the night. Dozens of spiders flee the scene and I dwell on the urban legend that an average person swallows eight spiders per year (an aside: this is listed as False by Snopes.com).
A long night of mooing cows, crunching gravel, eerie flashes of lightning illuminating the empty desert, and deep thunder as our soundtrack. I wake up several times and cling to Nick.
In the morning the storm is still not over, but is subdued, limiting itself to the occasional drizzle and a flash of lightning on the horizon. The desert smells of fresh relief from the dry spell. Our camels sat out the storm kneeling on the desert floor, completely undisturbed by the circumstance. The cow convention under the pavilion has disbursed, and they have left gifts of mounds of manure.
A flock of goats and sheep come through our little valley to munch their way through the desert scrub, bleating and baaing helplessly. The desert is returned to its normal sense of slowness, silence, and isolation and I am truly sad to leave it behind that afternoon and return to the world of city people.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The 100 Rupee Hotel Room
I like to save a buck where possible, and there´s a certain thrill in finding a hotel room for the equivalent of just a few dollars. I've stayed in such a wide variety of hotels in the past decade: the San Francisco Clift at $400 per night, $200 per night romantic B&Bs, a $30 plywood cubicle with a twin cot and chicken wire for a roof in Brooklyn NY, a $2 bed in a crumbling hostel in Managua Nicaragua, and so on, up and down over the years. Comforts are nice to have but hardly essential and staying cheap has never bothered me much one way or another.
When it comes to hotels in India, what you pay for is what you get. We find our most recent room at Hotel Mehrangarh in Jaisalmer´s old city for an uber-cheap 100 rupees a night ($2). It has a private bathroom, is free of vermin, and is located near the entrance to the old Fort on the hill. I discuss with Nick and the older English bloke who shared our ride and we agree it´s not the nicest place we´ve ever seen, but it´s servicable. We go ahead and book a room and are happy just to be settled.
But as we spend our first nights in town in the hotel I become unsettled. The bed turns out to be a glorified wooden board (technically there´s a mattress but it doesn´t do much for softness), the wall is crumbling near a huge water stain, and the only window faces into the hotel and is occupied by an enormous portable A/C unit surrounded by ripped cardboard to stuff the holes. I can live with these flaws, but the room also is located near the central stairwell and I discover the staff have a habit of waking up pre-dawn and shouting loudly to each other right outside of our cardboard-covered "window." The flourescent hallway light just outside our door buzzes very loudly and they flip it on at odd hours of the night and forget to turn it off. Light + annoying noise + shouting in Hindi = cranky Laura.
Another thing I really happen to enjoy is shopping around and understanding what my options are. While Nick is stuck in bed with traveler's sickness one day, I decide to give myself a tour of Jaisalmer's hotel accommodations. With no set budget in mind and Lonely Planet in hand, I head off to Ghandi Chowk, the town's central market square. Vendors call after me, "madam, madam, please look madam, best deal, half off, madam..." trying to get me to buy stitchwork bedspreads, clothing, faux silver jewelry, leather bags, bottled water, camel safaris, and bike rentals, but I'm on a mission and ignore them all.
I limit myself to choices surrouding Ghandi Chowk, so we can relocate much closer to the action. I see a midrange hotel first, which has much tidier rooms and softer beds. The man who shows me around has a lazy eye and thick tufts of hair growing from the sides of his ears (not in, on), but for 650 rupees ($14) the rooms are significantly more comfortable than Mehrangarh. I feel better already.
For kicks I tour luxury rooms in a former mansion, Hotel Mandir Palace, set well back from the noise and chaos of Ghandi Chowk in a huge private courtyard. The hotel is made of beautiful polished marble and has all the modern amenities in a romantic setting fit for a maharaja. The room is extremely secluded and quiet, but at 4600 rupees ($100) I think this might be a bit overboard.
Next I see several Lonely Planet recommended budget hotels along a street off the Chowk: Hotel Swastika, Hotel Renuka, and Hotel Ratan Palace. The rooms here are a (small) step up from Mehrangarh and hover around 300 rupees ($6), but I'm not in love. They are much more central and are reportedly low-hassle on the camal safari front, but the bottom line is that these places are still shabby and very minimal, with hard beds and questionable bathrooms.
I have wandered into a nice-looking textile shop called Killa Boutique, sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of the dusty market. This is a store in the proper sense and the glass door closes behind me blocking out the street noise and mooing cows. I chat casually with the employee, and he doesn't pressure me to buy anything at all. I learn that the boutique sells some items to the Anthropologie chain in the US and that they are associated with two Jaisalmer hotels: Killa Bhawan and K.B. Lodge. Killa Bhawan is as expensive as Mandir Palace and built into the fort walls, so staying there is an ethical no-no (the fort itself is crumbling due to current water usage at 12x original capacity on the aging sewer system). But I do decide to check out K.B. Lodge and set off down yet another cow-pie covered lane to find it.
The moment I walk into K.B. Lodge my mood changes. The rooms are tastefully decorated in shades of deep reds and warm yellows, the bathrooms are clean in the truest sense, the beds are soft and have proper pillows, linens, and blankets, towels are provided, and mosquito-repellant incense burns a wonderful smell into the hallways. The staff is friendly and happy to show me rooms at two price levels: 1600 ($34) for a small room, 2200 ($47) for a larger room. Complimentary Chai, tea, coffee, mineral water, and breakfast is included to boot.
As a final option, our "internet man" Kamal shows me a hotel he's associated with, Hotel Peacock. A nicer room is 500 rupees a night ($11) and at that price falls in comfort level between Mehrangarh and K.B. Lodge, but the hotel is across the street from Swastika and Ratan Palace putting it in a perfect location off the Chowk.
Later I return to Hotel Mehrangarh and discuss options with Nick, who's finally starting to feel better. We desperately want to move hotels that night but by the time we get out for dinner it's already late. At least armed with a variety of options it makes staying on one more night a bit easier.
I'm hesitant to splurge on K.B. Lodge though by far it's my favorite of all the hotels. Nick, always the more romantic of us, encourages me to worry less about cost and pick the hotel that I liked the best. He says my mood has changed dramatically for the better just having seen options, but he can easily tell how much I want to stay at K.B. For context, at $47/night the room is more than our entire daily budget (about $42).
We decide to compromise by staying at Peacock for one night, going on a camel safari for a few days, and then treating ourselves to one night in true comfort at K.B. when we return with sore asses. This feels by far like the right choice.
I've learned a few things while in Jaisalmer. It's not as easy for me to stay in the cheapest-of-the-cheap as I thought. Maybe I'm not as young anymore, or maybe I've gotten too used to comforts, or maybe it never was that easy and I always just settled. I don't need to stay in a real luxury hotel (trust me, there are some - one maharaja's palace outside of Udaipur hosts the likes of Bill Gates for $2000/night), but there's something to be said for spending a little more to get a little more. We should be able to spend 300-500 rupees on hotel rooms for most of our stay and take a nicer K.B.-like room once every few weeks to break up the routine and get a really good night of sleep.
At our next stop, Agra, we'll definitely shop around and view several hotel rooms. It's not worth taking the first room we see for the sake of squaring our luggage away immediately. It's also not necessarily worth taking the cheapest room we find, even if it is fun to bargain down to 100 rupees a night.
When it comes to hotels in India, what you pay for is what you get. We find our most recent room at Hotel Mehrangarh in Jaisalmer´s old city for an uber-cheap 100 rupees a night ($2). It has a private bathroom, is free of vermin, and is located near the entrance to the old Fort on the hill. I discuss with Nick and the older English bloke who shared our ride and we agree it´s not the nicest place we´ve ever seen, but it´s servicable. We go ahead and book a room and are happy just to be settled.
But as we spend our first nights in town in the hotel I become unsettled. The bed turns out to be a glorified wooden board (technically there´s a mattress but it doesn´t do much for softness), the wall is crumbling near a huge water stain, and the only window faces into the hotel and is occupied by an enormous portable A/C unit surrounded by ripped cardboard to stuff the holes. I can live with these flaws, but the room also is located near the central stairwell and I discover the staff have a habit of waking up pre-dawn and shouting loudly to each other right outside of our cardboard-covered "window." The flourescent hallway light just outside our door buzzes very loudly and they flip it on at odd hours of the night and forget to turn it off. Light + annoying noise + shouting in Hindi = cranky Laura.
Another thing I really happen to enjoy is shopping around and understanding what my options are. While Nick is stuck in bed with traveler's sickness one day, I decide to give myself a tour of Jaisalmer's hotel accommodations. With no set budget in mind and Lonely Planet in hand, I head off to Ghandi Chowk, the town's central market square. Vendors call after me, "madam, madam, please look madam, best deal, half off, madam..." trying to get me to buy stitchwork bedspreads, clothing, faux silver jewelry, leather bags, bottled water, camel safaris, and bike rentals, but I'm on a mission and ignore them all.
I limit myself to choices surrouding Ghandi Chowk, so we can relocate much closer to the action. I see a midrange hotel first, which has much tidier rooms and softer beds. The man who shows me around has a lazy eye and thick tufts of hair growing from the sides of his ears (not in, on), but for 650 rupees ($14) the rooms are significantly more comfortable than Mehrangarh. I feel better already.
For kicks I tour luxury rooms in a former mansion, Hotel Mandir Palace, set well back from the noise and chaos of Ghandi Chowk in a huge private courtyard. The hotel is made of beautiful polished marble and has all the modern amenities in a romantic setting fit for a maharaja. The room is extremely secluded and quiet, but at 4600 rupees ($100) I think this might be a bit overboard.
Next I see several Lonely Planet recommended budget hotels along a street off the Chowk: Hotel Swastika, Hotel Renuka, and Hotel Ratan Palace. The rooms here are a (small) step up from Mehrangarh and hover around 300 rupees ($6), but I'm not in love. They are much more central and are reportedly low-hassle on the camal safari front, but the bottom line is that these places are still shabby and very minimal, with hard beds and questionable bathrooms.
I have wandered into a nice-looking textile shop called Killa Boutique, sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of the dusty market. This is a store in the proper sense and the glass door closes behind me blocking out the street noise and mooing cows. I chat casually with the employee, and he doesn't pressure me to buy anything at all. I learn that the boutique sells some items to the Anthropologie chain in the US and that they are associated with two Jaisalmer hotels: Killa Bhawan and K.B. Lodge. Killa Bhawan is as expensive as Mandir Palace and built into the fort walls, so staying there is an ethical no-no (the fort itself is crumbling due to current water usage at 12x original capacity on the aging sewer system). But I do decide to check out K.B. Lodge and set off down yet another cow-pie covered lane to find it.
The moment I walk into K.B. Lodge my mood changes. The rooms are tastefully decorated in shades of deep reds and warm yellows, the bathrooms are clean in the truest sense, the beds are soft and have proper pillows, linens, and blankets, towels are provided, and mosquito-repellant incense burns a wonderful smell into the hallways. The staff is friendly and happy to show me rooms at two price levels: 1600 ($34) for a small room, 2200 ($47) for a larger room. Complimentary Chai, tea, coffee, mineral water, and breakfast is included to boot.
As a final option, our "internet man" Kamal shows me a hotel he's associated with, Hotel Peacock. A nicer room is 500 rupees a night ($11) and at that price falls in comfort level between Mehrangarh and K.B. Lodge, but the hotel is across the street from Swastika and Ratan Palace putting it in a perfect location off the Chowk.
Later I return to Hotel Mehrangarh and discuss options with Nick, who's finally starting to feel better. We desperately want to move hotels that night but by the time we get out for dinner it's already late. At least armed with a variety of options it makes staying on one more night a bit easier.
I'm hesitant to splurge on K.B. Lodge though by far it's my favorite of all the hotels. Nick, always the more romantic of us, encourages me to worry less about cost and pick the hotel that I liked the best. He says my mood has changed dramatically for the better just having seen options, but he can easily tell how much I want to stay at K.B. For context, at $47/night the room is more than our entire daily budget (about $42).
We decide to compromise by staying at Peacock for one night, going on a camel safari for a few days, and then treating ourselves to one night in true comfort at K.B. when we return with sore asses. This feels by far like the right choice.
I've learned a few things while in Jaisalmer. It's not as easy for me to stay in the cheapest-of-the-cheap as I thought. Maybe I'm not as young anymore, or maybe I've gotten too used to comforts, or maybe it never was that easy and I always just settled. I don't need to stay in a real luxury hotel (trust me, there are some - one maharaja's palace outside of Udaipur hosts the likes of Bill Gates for $2000/night), but there's something to be said for spending a little more to get a little more. We should be able to spend 300-500 rupees on hotel rooms for most of our stay and take a nicer K.B.-like room once every few weeks to break up the routine and get a really good night of sleep.
At our next stop, Agra, we'll definitely shop around and view several hotel rooms. It's not worth taking the first room we see for the sake of squaring our luggage away immediately. It's also not necessarily worth taking the cheapest room we find, even if it is fun to bargain down to 100 rupees a night.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Into the Great Thar Desert
Never, ever go on a three-day camel safari into the desert while you are still getting over traveler's diarrhea.
Fortunately this was not a problem for us or the experience would have been much more ... messy.
-----------------------
Our camel trip was defined was silence and music.
"On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life."
The last song we heard before leaving Jaisalmer was America's "Horse With No Name."
"Neil Young?" Laura asked me.
"No," I said, explaining the context, Neil's lawsuit after the release of Harvest. I heard the words again for the first time. The song might have been written about a desert trip here. A city full of sound, a desert of wind, the anonymity of campfires and sky and sand.
A jeep took us out to old stone shrine(s) framed by wind power turbines, then to a smaller Jain temple full of idols with radiant eyes. There was a numerology chart so I sat with my notebook writing the Hindi number system with associated (Jain?) numerological symbology -- sun, swastika, lotus, lion. Then it was off to the camels. The driver spoke little English, so we enjoyed silence for the first time since arriving in India it seemed. Finally someone who did not want to talk to us. We could cocoon.
The driver left us with our guide and his young associates. Dadya was an older man, we guess around mid-40s. In any case he was desert through-and-through, dark and weathered with a wide smile. One of the young boys was Hansoo ("Like monsoon," I joked), the other I didn't catch. Dadya's English was very good, as was his Hindi, Maranthi, Gujarati, Tamil and Japanese (!). I wouldn't be surprised if he knew Spanish, French and Hebrew as well.
Not bad for an old desert man.
I tried talking to the boys in Hindi, but the people out in the Great Thar Desert only speak Maranthi (aside from children who know the following English: "hello," "school pen," "one chocolate," "one cigarette" -- there's something disarming about a 4-year old with no pants in a desert village who asks you for a cigarette). So I picked up what Maranthi I could.
daga = camel
goonga = sand beetle (EVERYWHERE, and the size of a large thumb. You wake up in the morning and a handful scurry out from underneath you.)
goongi = plural
didi = sun
pichineh = pen
adding -dya to a name is a sign of affection. Hence Dadya. Or Nidya, your humble narrator.
(is "-i" the plural? if we were in Rajathan longer I would spend more time figuring it out.)
It's difficult to write while on camel back and when you get off you're sore and tired and unwilling to write. And, at night, the sun -- your readily available light source -- goes down around the time you've recovered. So you practice talking and remember what you can but are mostly fascinated by how Dadya and Madya, another older guide who doesn't speak a word of English (aside from "chapati good?"; read: "you like the food?"), cook amazing food around a small campfire on gristled old cast-iron. Dal, rice, hand-made chapati (a flat bread that is also your utensil -- Ken, I need to teach you how to make this, you would greatly enjoy it). Oh, and chai. How do they make such good chai in the desert? It's a mystery, and one that you savor. My one regret is not getting a video of campire cooking. I did, however, get a video of a good long camel fart (that's for you, Matt & Goss).
So you lie out under the stars which is nice but honestly I see more in Maine on a regular basis. But still, it beats the city. And the fresh cool desert air is worth the trek. My lungs feel clear for the first time in ages.
And there's also the silence.
We awoke after the first night to an early sun. Rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit. A wild dog found us hidden behind a dune, curled up on our blankets and napped with us until we all arose for breakfast.
"Three days in the saddle, you know my body hurt."
After awhile I began singing. First to myself, then out loud. "Me and My Uncle," as sung by Bobby Weir and the Grateful Dead. A nice long cowboy song that fit the scrub and the sand and the slow plod through the silence. I imagined touring the American southwest on horseback, a band of guitarists and mandolins singing our way across small towns in old-time style. Practicing harmonies as our horses trotted along.
A few times through the song and I picked up a new one. "Dark as a Dungeon." Something I've been singing recently at home. Then, inexplicably, a sailor's song: "Captain Kidd." I knew more of the verses to that one, and there are about twenty in the version I sing. Good way to kill a half-hour or so and get your mind off the saddle burn.
I badly wanted a guitar. Your legs are busy keeping balance, but your arms are free.
At a camel watering hole pit-stop a flock of boys surrounded us for pens and chocolate. We had none to spare, but when they discovered the little hand-held video recorder in my pocket the fun began. At first they were unsure. I had them stand a few paces off and recorded them tentatively waving hello. Then beckoned them over for playback.
Aha!
A few more takes of hello-waving, then we set up a stage and one started dancing.
"Bollywood," I called out.
He danced on. And danced, and danced. We found the Michael Jackson of the desert. He would run over, see the video, and run back to dance some more. His friend, meanwhile, became interested in my glasses. Another with my hat. I cautiously loaned them out.
Fortunately none of them ran off.
I started asking for words using the pointing technique. I caught a few, wrote them down.
Pen. Grab, grab, grab.
"School pen?"
"My school pen." I was not about to lose my G2 to the Great Thar Desert. G2 is sacred.
We tried drawing pictures, pointing and asking names. Sun, moon. The kids were good mimics, mimicking asking. Lots of verbs, no nouns. Dadya helped clarify later.
We left, plodded further through plants and birds and rocks and things. Peacocks. Gazelle. Goats. Sheep. Cow. Our dog friend followed us until we camped for lunch.
Rain appeared on the far horizon, so we broke camp and headed back for the safety of the huts in the valley near where we camped the first night. We arrived just before the rains broke and were joined by two couples from the UK. The first left, having to head back home in a driving storm. We were left with Katherine and Dave, a girl from London and a guy from Dublin. They had just met a few days before and were traveling together for a bit.
Katherine was a history teacher who had done a recent crash course in Hindi. We quickly hit it off and began comparing notes. She greatly expanded my repetoire, adding some important words and phrases.
aap ka nam kya-he? = what is your name?
mara nam ____-he = my name is ____
(-he indicates direct object)
kyum = why?
Dadya wandered over to our shelter, digging through packs for food supplies. He and his crew were in a hut working on food and chai.
"Kya mean what," he said (I think). "Kyum is how." He rattled off a few more, but my pen couldn't keep up.
Kitna? = how much?
Kitna paycee? = how much money? (paycee = money)
important haggling words:
bod megha = too expensive! (a good one; people respond to Hindi)
na-hee = no
ha = yes
acha = good (as in "that's good enough")
bus = enough (as in "leave me alone!")
Katherine and I compared notes on Hindi numbers. I had them written from the Jain temple, so she helped fill in the pronunciations.
1 = ech
2 = do
3 = teen
4 = cha
5 = panch
6 = chay
7 = saat (like Saturday, Saturn)
8 = aat (like German = acht)
9 = nau
10 = das
The more you travel the smaller the world gets.
It poured that night. No sunset or stars, but a gorgeous lightning storm. We watched it creep up on us, distant bolts striking closer and soon streaking across the sky. Hard to describe. Watch the lightning in Ghostbusters as Zuul arrives in NYC. It's something like that. Only majestically large and arching over your head.
We rigged up a light in our hut and stayed up with Katherine and Dave. Dave shared his beer. We compared notes on our travels. They're both here indefinately. Katherine quit her job in England, gave up her flat, is traveling until she needs more money at which time she'll find a place to teach abroad. India, Thailand maybe.
I am inspired. Why did I never consider this? It's so ... feasible. I never knew.
The more you travel the larger the world gets.
A night in a dusty hut, afraid of wild cows encroaching on our shelter, watching us ominously during flashes of lightning. The land is black, suddenly bright-lit, then black again. We laugh about Gary Larsen, then stare silently into the awesome storm. The UK pair retreat to their hut and we fall to sleep to camels snoring, shattering thunder, occaisonal wafts of sand on our faces and the lurking cows.
More rain the next day. We bunk in, work on crosswords, play cards, chat, laugh, drink chai. Talk about life, travels. Two Dutchmen join us. I miss their names (I keep thinking Peter -- both the same -- but that's not right). They'll be on our train tonight towards Agra. After lunch there is a promising break in the rain so we saddle up to return, leaving the Europeans behind.
The silence and music are gone. I am sore and tired of camel riding. Dadya and his young friend jabber away on the lead camel. After a short trek to the road -- too long -- we dismount.
"Your jeep meet you here," Dadya declares.
"Ok," I say, and promptly fall asleep on the blanket he lays out for us while Laura works on a crossword. Our desert adventure is pampered and plush, blankets and long breaks. I am too sore to complain.
I am in a deep dream when the jeep arrives. Laura wakes me, we jostle back to town and move into a high-end hotel for the night. A small luxury to recover. Soft bed. Hot-hot shower. The first hot water since arriving in the country.
"I've never seen you enjoy a shower so much," Laura laughs.
"Me neither," I sigh.
We are exhausted. Sleep is needed. We go out for dinner, I treat myself to a visit to a (legal!) bangh shop. Conversation is stilted, cranky. At the hotel I fall into the soft bed and sleep blissfully.
Today is much, much better. Well rested, packed, relaxed, able to write at a computer and digest our journey.
And now a long, long train ride to Agra and the Taj Mahal. Much traveling to come as we head out for Darjeeling.
One last note: during the safari a boy named Fareed joined us at the campsites to help with the fire and entertain the tourists. The first night out he sang "Frere Jacques" in some mix of French and Maranthi. When I recognized the tune I laughed and sang along in French. A girl from Amsterdam was at the fire the first night and sang along in Dutch.
As I write this some musicians prepare for a(nother!) wedding across the street from the internet cafe, blaring away on reedy pipes. After an hour or so of otherwise classical-Indian-sounding music, what do they burst out with? Frere Jacques.
The more you travel the more familiar the world becomes.
Americans should travel more. Leave your day jobs. Go see the world.
(I've been encouraging foreigners to visit America as well. And not NYC. But Oklahoma, Montana, Tennessee, Kansas. States that are well worth visiting, and could use exposure to the rest of the world.)
(Though maybe not the French. The snobbiest tourists I've seen have all been French -- no offence, Julie. At the bangh shop, a halting conversation with a nice French tourist.
"Speak English?"
"No," he answered.
"Spanish?"
He shook his head.
"Je ne parle pas Francais," I said sadly.
"Ah," he nodded. "French people are no good with language. Only know French, no more," he said.
"Ha," I laughed. "Same with Americans."
The more you travel, the more similar the world becomes.)
Fortunately this was not a problem for us or the experience would have been much more ... messy.
-----------------------
Our camel trip was defined was silence and music.
"On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life."
The last song we heard before leaving Jaisalmer was America's "Horse With No Name."
"Neil Young?" Laura asked me.
"No," I said, explaining the context, Neil's lawsuit after the release of Harvest. I heard the words again for the first time. The song might have been written about a desert trip here. A city full of sound, a desert of wind, the anonymity of campfires and sky and sand.
A jeep took us out to old stone shrine(s) framed by wind power turbines, then to a smaller Jain temple full of idols with radiant eyes. There was a numerology chart so I sat with my notebook writing the Hindi number system with associated (Jain?) numerological symbology -- sun, swastika, lotus, lion. Then it was off to the camels. The driver spoke little English, so we enjoyed silence for the first time since arriving in India it seemed. Finally someone who did not want to talk to us. We could cocoon.
The driver left us with our guide and his young associates. Dadya was an older man, we guess around mid-40s. In any case he was desert through-and-through, dark and weathered with a wide smile. One of the young boys was Hansoo ("Like monsoon," I joked), the other I didn't catch. Dadya's English was very good, as was his Hindi, Maranthi, Gujarati, Tamil and Japanese (!). I wouldn't be surprised if he knew Spanish, French and Hebrew as well.
Not bad for an old desert man.
I tried talking to the boys in Hindi, but the people out in the Great Thar Desert only speak Maranthi (aside from children who know the following English: "hello," "school pen," "one chocolate," "one cigarette" -- there's something disarming about a 4-year old with no pants in a desert village who asks you for a cigarette). So I picked up what Maranthi I could.
daga = camel
goonga = sand beetle (EVERYWHERE, and the size of a large thumb. You wake up in the morning and a handful scurry out from underneath you.)
goongi = plural
didi = sun
pichineh = pen
adding -dya to a name is a sign of affection. Hence Dadya. Or Nidya, your humble narrator.
(is "-i" the plural? if we were in Rajathan longer I would spend more time figuring it out.)
It's difficult to write while on camel back and when you get off you're sore and tired and unwilling to write. And, at night, the sun -- your readily available light source -- goes down around the time you've recovered. So you practice talking and remember what you can but are mostly fascinated by how Dadya and Madya, another older guide who doesn't speak a word of English (aside from "chapati good?"; read: "you like the food?"), cook amazing food around a small campfire on gristled old cast-iron. Dal, rice, hand-made chapati (a flat bread that is also your utensil -- Ken, I need to teach you how to make this, you would greatly enjoy it). Oh, and chai. How do they make such good chai in the desert? It's a mystery, and one that you savor. My one regret is not getting a video of campire cooking. I did, however, get a video of a good long camel fart (that's for you, Matt & Goss).
So you lie out under the stars which is nice but honestly I see more in Maine on a regular basis. But still, it beats the city. And the fresh cool desert air is worth the trek. My lungs feel clear for the first time in ages.
And there's also the silence.
We awoke after the first night to an early sun. Rolled over and went back to sleep for a bit. A wild dog found us hidden behind a dune, curled up on our blankets and napped with us until we all arose for breakfast.
"Three days in the saddle, you know my body hurt."
After awhile I began singing. First to myself, then out loud. "Me and My Uncle," as sung by Bobby Weir and the Grateful Dead. A nice long cowboy song that fit the scrub and the sand and the slow plod through the silence. I imagined touring the American southwest on horseback, a band of guitarists and mandolins singing our way across small towns in old-time style. Practicing harmonies as our horses trotted along.
A few times through the song and I picked up a new one. "Dark as a Dungeon." Something I've been singing recently at home. Then, inexplicably, a sailor's song: "Captain Kidd." I knew more of the verses to that one, and there are about twenty in the version I sing. Good way to kill a half-hour or so and get your mind off the saddle burn.
I badly wanted a guitar. Your legs are busy keeping balance, but your arms are free.
At a camel watering hole pit-stop a flock of boys surrounded us for pens and chocolate. We had none to spare, but when they discovered the little hand-held video recorder in my pocket the fun began. At first they were unsure. I had them stand a few paces off and recorded them tentatively waving hello. Then beckoned them over for playback.
Aha!
A few more takes of hello-waving, then we set up a stage and one started dancing.
"Bollywood," I called out.
He danced on. And danced, and danced. We found the Michael Jackson of the desert. He would run over, see the video, and run back to dance some more. His friend, meanwhile, became interested in my glasses. Another with my hat. I cautiously loaned them out.
Fortunately none of them ran off.
I started asking for words using the pointing technique. I caught a few, wrote them down.
Pen. Grab, grab, grab.
"School pen?"
"My school pen." I was not about to lose my G2 to the Great Thar Desert. G2 is sacred.
We tried drawing pictures, pointing and asking names. Sun, moon. The kids were good mimics, mimicking asking. Lots of verbs, no nouns. Dadya helped clarify later.
We left, plodded further through plants and birds and rocks and things. Peacocks. Gazelle. Goats. Sheep. Cow. Our dog friend followed us until we camped for lunch.
Rain appeared on the far horizon, so we broke camp and headed back for the safety of the huts in the valley near where we camped the first night. We arrived just before the rains broke and were joined by two couples from the UK. The first left, having to head back home in a driving storm. We were left with Katherine and Dave, a girl from London and a guy from Dublin. They had just met a few days before and were traveling together for a bit.
Katherine was a history teacher who had done a recent crash course in Hindi. We quickly hit it off and began comparing notes. She greatly expanded my repetoire, adding some important words and phrases.
aap ka nam kya-he? = what is your name?
mara nam ____-he = my name is ____
(-he indicates direct object)
kyum = why?
Dadya wandered over to our shelter, digging through packs for food supplies. He and his crew were in a hut working on food and chai.
"Kya mean what," he said (I think). "Kyum is how." He rattled off a few more, but my pen couldn't keep up.
Kitna? = how much?
Kitna paycee? = how much money? (paycee = money)
important haggling words:
bod megha = too expensive! (a good one; people respond to Hindi)
na-hee = no
ha = yes
acha = good (as in "that's good enough")
bus = enough (as in "leave me alone!")
Katherine and I compared notes on Hindi numbers. I had them written from the Jain temple, so she helped fill in the pronunciations.
1 = ech
2 = do
3 = teen
4 = cha
5 = panch
6 = chay
7 = saat (like Saturday, Saturn)
8 = aat (like German = acht)
9 = nau
10 = das
The more you travel the smaller the world gets.
It poured that night. No sunset or stars, but a gorgeous lightning storm. We watched it creep up on us, distant bolts striking closer and soon streaking across the sky. Hard to describe. Watch the lightning in Ghostbusters as Zuul arrives in NYC. It's something like that. Only majestically large and arching over your head.
We rigged up a light in our hut and stayed up with Katherine and Dave. Dave shared his beer. We compared notes on our travels. They're both here indefinately. Katherine quit her job in England, gave up her flat, is traveling until she needs more money at which time she'll find a place to teach abroad. India, Thailand maybe.
I am inspired. Why did I never consider this? It's so ... feasible. I never knew.
The more you travel the larger the world gets.
A night in a dusty hut, afraid of wild cows encroaching on our shelter, watching us ominously during flashes of lightning. The land is black, suddenly bright-lit, then black again. We laugh about Gary Larsen, then stare silently into the awesome storm. The UK pair retreat to their hut and we fall to sleep to camels snoring, shattering thunder, occaisonal wafts of sand on our faces and the lurking cows.
More rain the next day. We bunk in, work on crosswords, play cards, chat, laugh, drink chai. Talk about life, travels. Two Dutchmen join us. I miss their names (I keep thinking Peter -- both the same -- but that's not right). They'll be on our train tonight towards Agra. After lunch there is a promising break in the rain so we saddle up to return, leaving the Europeans behind.
The silence and music are gone. I am sore and tired of camel riding. Dadya and his young friend jabber away on the lead camel. After a short trek to the road -- too long -- we dismount.
"Your jeep meet you here," Dadya declares.
"Ok," I say, and promptly fall asleep on the blanket he lays out for us while Laura works on a crossword. Our desert adventure is pampered and plush, blankets and long breaks. I am too sore to complain.
I am in a deep dream when the jeep arrives. Laura wakes me, we jostle back to town and move into a high-end hotel for the night. A small luxury to recover. Soft bed. Hot-hot shower. The first hot water since arriving in the country.
"I've never seen you enjoy a shower so much," Laura laughs.
"Me neither," I sigh.
We are exhausted. Sleep is needed. We go out for dinner, I treat myself to a visit to a (legal!) bangh shop. Conversation is stilted, cranky. At the hotel I fall into the soft bed and sleep blissfully.
Today is much, much better. Well rested, packed, relaxed, able to write at a computer and digest our journey.
And now a long, long train ride to Agra and the Taj Mahal. Much traveling to come as we head out for Darjeeling.
One last note: during the safari a boy named Fareed joined us at the campsites to help with the fire and entertain the tourists. The first night out he sang "Frere Jacques" in some mix of French and Maranthi. When I recognized the tune I laughed and sang along in French. A girl from Amsterdam was at the fire the first night and sang along in Dutch.
As I write this some musicians prepare for a(nother!) wedding across the street from the internet cafe, blaring away on reedy pipes. After an hour or so of otherwise classical-Indian-sounding music, what do they burst out with? Frere Jacques.
The more you travel the more familiar the world becomes.
Americans should travel more. Leave your day jobs. Go see the world.
(I've been encouraging foreigners to visit America as well. And not NYC. But Oklahoma, Montana, Tennessee, Kansas. States that are well worth visiting, and could use exposure to the rest of the world.)
(Though maybe not the French. The snobbiest tourists I've seen have all been French -- no offence, Julie. At the bangh shop, a halting conversation with a nice French tourist.
"Speak English?"
"No," he answered.
"Spanish?"
He shook his head.
"Je ne parle pas Francais," I said sadly.
"Ah," he nodded. "French people are no good with language. Only know French, no more," he said.
"Ha," I laughed. "Same with Americans."
The more you travel, the more similar the world becomes.)
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Photos on Flickr
Visit my Flickr photostream for best photos taken in India so far!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauradunnmark/sets/72157610382102173/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauradunnmark/sets/72157610382102173/
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Marriage Tourism in Jaisalmer
Laura's had a few days to roam about town while I've been incapacitated, so now that I'm up and about she's been showing me her favorite spots and introducing me to some new friends she's made in town. We just had chai with her "chai guy." An older, front-tooth-missing gentleman who was very talkative and friendly. He's been collecting puzzle-games for years and is assembling a book of them. Mind games: laying out 3 matches in a triangle shape, he asks us to use just 3 more to create a total of 4 trianges of the same size. He entertained us with these while we drank his chai, pausing every once in awhile while he sold something from his shop to a passing customer.
Someone stopped in to pick up a package hidden behind the counter. A birthday present, Chai Guy explained. For a young girl from America whose father is Indian.
"Oh?" We enquired further. The mother was an American woman who met an Indian man here in Jaisalmer. They got married and she raises the girl in the States and sends money to him to help "boost quality of life," as Chai Guy put it.
"Very common here in Jaisalmer," he continued. "Many women come, marry men here. No hassle, no pressures. It's no problem."
It turns out we know the family in question. We overheard them at breakfast this morning at the new hotel we moved into. Small town.
I asked for more info and Chai Guy was more than happy to talk about it. He brought out some photo albums to show us pictures.
"Many women come visit here. Europe, America, Japan. Meet Jaisalmer men, especially on long camel safaris. Women here get very jealous, accuse the men of always sleeping around with foreign women. Sometimes accidents happen, women and men meet and have time together. It's best to be honest.
"So for us, easiest thing is to not marry. Women here want men to be their servants, do everything to please them. Sometimes if you work with tourists, women won't want you. Say, 'No, you are with foreign women.'" He shrugged. "What can we do? Best not to get married."
But some do. According to Chai Guy, 20% of men here marry foreign women who then send support money from abroad. Another 30% won't marry at all because, according to him, dealing with local women is too much of a hassle and it seems that they'd rather keep themselves available for foreign women looking for a little something-something on a nice long camel safari in the desert.
This isn't unique to Jaisalmer. He also said this happens in Jodhpur, the closest big tourist city. But given the relaxed atmosphere here, the small-town-ness that provides a low-stress and low-hassle environment (certainly compared with the other tourist cities we've been in) and Jaisalmer's unique position as a camel safari Mecca (giving the ladies and men plenty of long, romantic desert nights together) has created a marriage/"romance" tourist trade here that brings a steady flow of foreign money for those lucky enough to secure one of these "low-hassle relationships."
"They foreign women like Indian bananas," Chai Guy laughed and put up his hand to slap me a high-five.
I want to promote Laura as a wedding photographer around town so we can learn more about it. Don't know if we'll stay long enough, though.
---------------
To translate into Mainer: imagine women from away taking long lobster boat tours to find part-time husbands. Or guides into the deep woods, along the Appalaichan Trail. Nah, the lobster boat tour is funnier.
"Jeezums crow, Bert, just wait'll she gets a peek of my lobstah!"
"Dunno, Mahshal, she likely won't be too impressed."
"Why's that, Bert?"
"Well it ain't hahdly a one-poundah."
Someone stopped in to pick up a package hidden behind the counter. A birthday present, Chai Guy explained. For a young girl from America whose father is Indian.
"Oh?" We enquired further. The mother was an American woman who met an Indian man here in Jaisalmer. They got married and she raises the girl in the States and sends money to him to help "boost quality of life," as Chai Guy put it.
"Very common here in Jaisalmer," he continued. "Many women come, marry men here. No hassle, no pressures. It's no problem."
It turns out we know the family in question. We overheard them at breakfast this morning at the new hotel we moved into. Small town.
I asked for more info and Chai Guy was more than happy to talk about it. He brought out some photo albums to show us pictures.
"Many women come visit here. Europe, America, Japan. Meet Jaisalmer men, especially on long camel safaris. Women here get very jealous, accuse the men of always sleeping around with foreign women. Sometimes accidents happen, women and men meet and have time together. It's best to be honest.
"So for us, easiest thing is to not marry. Women here want men to be their servants, do everything to please them. Sometimes if you work with tourists, women won't want you. Say, 'No, you are with foreign women.'" He shrugged. "What can we do? Best not to get married."
But some do. According to Chai Guy, 20% of men here marry foreign women who then send support money from abroad. Another 30% won't marry at all because, according to him, dealing with local women is too much of a hassle and it seems that they'd rather keep themselves available for foreign women looking for a little something-something on a nice long camel safari in the desert.
This isn't unique to Jaisalmer. He also said this happens in Jodhpur, the closest big tourist city. But given the relaxed atmosphere here, the small-town-ness that provides a low-stress and low-hassle environment (certainly compared with the other tourist cities we've been in) and Jaisalmer's unique position as a camel safari Mecca (giving the ladies and men plenty of long, romantic desert nights together) has created a marriage/"romance" tourist trade here that brings a steady flow of foreign money for those lucky enough to secure one of these "low-hassle relationships."
"They foreign women like Indian bananas," Chai Guy laughed and put up his hand to slap me a high-five.
I want to promote Laura as a wedding photographer around town so we can learn more about it. Don't know if we'll stay long enough, though.
---------------
To translate into Mainer: imagine women from away taking long lobster boat tours to find part-time husbands. Or guides into the deep woods, along the Appalaichan Trail. Nah, the lobster boat tour is funnier.
"Jeezums crow, Bert, just wait'll she gets a peek of my lobstah!"
"Dunno, Mahshal, she likely won't be too impressed."
"Why's that, Bert?"
"Well it ain't hahdly a one-poundah."
Monday, December 1, 2008
Getting down with the sickness
On the plus side, having massive traveller's sickness that confines you to your hotel room for two days gave me the chance to watch a lot of cricket. I don't know the difference yet between a Test and an ODI (One Day International), but I get the basic rules of the game. Also, it has helped convince Laura and I that paying a little extra for nicer hotel rooms is OK. The cheapie place we were in before was OK for the price, but not the kind of bed you want to stay on for several days. My back hurts.
You don't want to hear about the rest.
Oh, one quick anecdote. My middle-of-the-night-emergency-mode seems to be well honed. All was well with the world (or at least my intestines) when I went to bed. When my body woke me in the middle of the night, however, I tried to roll over and sleep it off. It quickly became clear that sleeping wasn't going to be an option. Within seconds I was out of bed with my bathroom slippers on, turned on the light in the bathroom, got the bathroom door open and was croutched over the bowl in perfect position with both lid and seat up. Perfect aim, no holding back, just letting it out. I don't know how I accomplished it.
"Do you need anything?" Laura called from the bed.
"No, thanks, I'm fine." Aside from the heaving, of course.
"Try to brush your teeth if you can," she called again.
I did before coming to bed.
The second time I awoke that night my aim wasn't so good. No problem, though. That's what they have the wash buckets for. A little well-directed water clears away the mess.
The system of floor drainage in the bathrooms here is well thought-out. Dad, you'd be impressed.
You don't want to hear about the rest.
Oh, one quick anecdote. My middle-of-the-night-emergency-mode seems to be well honed. All was well with the world (or at least my intestines) when I went to bed. When my body woke me in the middle of the night, however, I tried to roll over and sleep it off. It quickly became clear that sleeping wasn't going to be an option. Within seconds I was out of bed with my bathroom slippers on, turned on the light in the bathroom, got the bathroom door open and was croutched over the bowl in perfect position with both lid and seat up. Perfect aim, no holding back, just letting it out. I don't know how I accomplished it.
"Do you need anything?" Laura called from the bed.
"No, thanks, I'm fine." Aside from the heaving, of course.
"Try to brush your teeth if you can," she called again.
I did before coming to bed.
The second time I awoke that night my aim wasn't so good. No problem, though. That's what they have the wash buckets for. A little well-directed water clears away the mess.
The system of floor drainage in the bathrooms here is well thought-out. Dad, you'd be impressed.
Sleeper Train from Ahmedabad to Udaipur
I´m sitting at a computer in Jaisalmer with true high·speed internet, and outside there seems to be a group of cows chewing cud in the dirt. Only in India do we find a new computer covered in dust from the road and stores selling beautiful handicrafts with piles of fly·covered manure just steps outside. I had a glass of the most delicious chai from a man with no front teeth, and just below the chai stand sat a stinking open sewer. And Nick has gotten sick from a nice restaurant with real tablecloths and a menu in good English, while the street food at the train station went down with no problems.
I left off at Ahmedabad. We had sleeper seats on our second train ride, from Ahmedabad to Udaipur. We arrived at our train car and the lights were dim and the aisles too narrow. We found our seats occupied by an Indian family with a full dinner spread before them, and they peered at us curiously and said hello. We shoved our luggage under the seats and Nick, exhausted, pulled himself onto the top bunk to fall asleep as quickly as possible. My bunk was still acting as the seat back for the main row of seats; it needed to be raised and locked in place before I could crash. While I waited for the Indian family to finish their meal, they invited me to partake.
I politely declined, an automatic response. Nick admonished me from above, saying, ¨Eat, it´s rude not to.¨
The youngest of the women, dressed in a lovely sari, asked again if I´d like to try. I nodded okay this time, and she blushed with happiness. I had forgotten that in India people love to share and expect you to accept gifts, even when a complete stranger. She piled a plate high with spoonfuls of each dish and gave me a stack of parathas.
I left off at Ahmedabad. We had sleeper seats on our second train ride, from Ahmedabad to Udaipur. We arrived at our train car and the lights were dim and the aisles too narrow. We found our seats occupied by an Indian family with a full dinner spread before them, and they peered at us curiously and said hello. We shoved our luggage under the seats and Nick, exhausted, pulled himself onto the top bunk to fall asleep as quickly as possible. My bunk was still acting as the seat back for the main row of seats; it needed to be raised and locked in place before I could crash. While I waited for the Indian family to finish their meal, they invited me to partake.
I politely declined, an automatic response. Nick admonished me from above, saying, ¨Eat, it´s rude not to.¨
The youngest of the women, dressed in a lovely sari, asked again if I´d like to try. I nodded okay this time, and she blushed with happiness. I had forgotten that in India people love to share and expect you to accept gifts, even when a complete stranger. She piled a plate high with spoonfuls of each dish and gave me a stack of parathas.
¨We´re all housewives,¨she said proudly. ¨This my mother, this my auntie, they cook the food. That my cousin,¨she said pointing to their bored-looking male escort. ¨Where from you?¨
¨USA,¨ I said, and received a blank stare. I tried again, ¨America, New York City,¨ and she nodded vigorously in understanding. Most Indians don´t seem to recognize U.S. or United States, but always understand me when I say I´m from America.
¨You like?¨she asked, pointing to the plate as I munched away. I was actually grateful for the food, as we´d only had a chance to snack so far and a real meal was well in order.
I nodded, ¨Yes, yes! Very good. You are good cooks!¨ All three woman smiled and spoke among themselves in Hindi, giggling.
The food was good, a homecooked veg meal prepared by the two older women. There were buttered homemade parathas, a spicy green vegetable, a spicy pickle, a dish made of chilis, Ruffles·like chips, a mealy fruit that tasted like dates, and mandarin oranges. They kept saying ¨try, try¨and smiling. The pickle was an odd taste for a Westerner but overall the dishes were tasty and a nice sampling of homecooked food rather than the usual restaurant fare. I couldn´t understand a word the two older woman said even when they attempted English, so I mainly chatted with the younger woman. They were all headed to a cousin´s wedding in Udaipur.
After they finished dinner they put the entire meal setting away in about one minute flat. Nested containers were fit back inside each other, used disposable plates were thrown out (the train window, of course, where else?), and everything was neatly packed away and shoved under the train seats with the rest of the luggage. They promptly pulled out a complete array of sheets, blankets, and blow-up pillows, pulled the middle bunks up and locked them into place, and were lying in bed so fast I wasn´t sure what had happened.
I fumbled with my own bedtime preparations feeling more an idiot tourist than anything else. Nick and I hadn´t really prepared ourselves well for the sleeper train; we had nothing but a single thin sheet and no pillows or blankets. It had been so hot on the daytime train but overnight journeys get quite cold with night air rushing through the open barred windows. I needed to use the bathroom, take out my contacts, and figure out makeshift pillows by using our laundry bag and our down vests. As I chained the luggage to the seats, recommended for travelers on sleeper trains, I was pretty sure my shenanigans seemed pretty silly and strange to the Indian family. The women happily chatted among themselves, but they were really waiting for me to finish banging around. As soon as I finished getting ready for bed they reminded me to turn off the light and then fell completely silent.
In the morning, the train rumbled to a halt and bright light shone in through the windows. In my sleepy daze I swore I heard the Auntie look up at me and say in perfect English, Keep sleeping, we´re not there yet.
But then Nick was up and telling me we had arrived in Udaipur, and before I knew it the Indian family had whisked their luggage away and were gone without a trace. I realized then that Auntie must have said something to me in Hindi, like Hey you get up or you´ll miss your stop!
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