Like everywhere I’ve visited, it took me a little bit of time to adjust to Georgia. From when I left Delhi, it was almost 24 hours before I got to a bed in Georgia. There was lots of time in between on planes without sleep, and in the Istanbul airport without money, food or sleep. Note: if you travel around the world, always have some American money in your carry-on. I was smart enough to have some, but not smart enough not to pull it out of my duffel before I checked it for my long flight.
I arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capitol city, at 2:30 in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised that Qatar Airways followed through with their assurances, and my bag that had been checked for three flights and on two different airlines reached Tbilisi the same time I did. So I met up with Nicholas and his friend Ryan, who were patiently waiting for me at the exit, and off we went. Nicholas has been in Georgia for nine months now, and he is full of practicality and pride for his new home. We rode through the streets at 3:15 a.m., and he pointed out the freshly-cleaned streets and the packs of wild dogs that would tear us alive if we got out of the car. Welcome. We got to the nika, a guesthouse that often serves as the weekend home for Peace Corps Volunteers in Georgia, and passed out within the hour. But not for long. Neither of us could sleep, so after about four hours we were up and heading out again.
We took care of uninteresting things for a bit, then we headed to my first marshutka, which I learned is a minivan used in most post-Soviet country as a way to get a lot of people from one space to another without taking up a lot of space. There were nine or ten of us crammed inside the van, and for my first experience we chose poorly. The marshutka had a slow start and had to stop about every twenty minutes to fix something in the engine or dump water in as a coolant. But we finally made it to Telavi, a town two hours northeast of Tbilisi. We stayed with Nicholas’ friend Ariana and her host family for the weekend, and I got my first taste of fairly well-off Georgian life.
Georgians have a few traditions that I learned immediately. The first was drinking wine and toasting. This country was the pioneer of wine, and they drink it at all festivities. We were Ariana’s guests, so her host mom had food on the table quickly. We sat to eat some dishes that I would be seeing a lot during my stay. With the food came a bit of wine, and I had my first toasting experience. They don’t drink unless someone toasts, and I was thirsty. So after the first toast, I drink a few sips. Nicholas and Ariana didn’t notice, but Ariana’s host mom did. So she politely said, “let’s have another toast” and looked at my glass. Ariana and Nicholas quickly explained the protocol, and I never again took sip out of turn.
Not only are you not supposed to drink out of turn, if you make the toasts you need to follow a good bit of structure. The toasts talk about God, family, ancestors, parents, kids, women, men, friendship, peace, the reason for the party (or supra in Georgian), and some other pretty major ideas. At a supra, there are toasters and there are pour-ers. There may be a toastmaster who does all the toasts, or it may go round-robin with everyone participating. After everyone drinks following a toast, pour-ers are supposed to keep an eye on people’s glasses to refill as necessary. Men are pressured to drink a lot, women are pressured symbolically but are supposed to drink lightly. At most supras I attended, the men participated in all of the drinking and drank heavily; women paid attention to the kids and the food and drank when they could. Sometimes men giving a toast would ask other men to stand up as they toasted, but women were always supposed to stay seated.
My first toasting experience was at a snack-time meal, with only about eight dishes. Bread, pickled sprouts, cabbage stuffed with meat and rice, beets and some chicken. It was a small meal with a bit of wine. But full-out supras are where it’s at. At a supra, there is a huge spread in honor of an occasion, a holiday or a person. I came during their most important holiday time, and I was a guest from America. So we did some supra-ing.
We spent Easter Sunday with Ariana’s family in their village. We hiked up to the church and met up with many families who had the same idea. Cars, trucks, carts, horses, mules and people were milling about everywhere. A man was using a tree trunk beside the church as a slaughter block to kill the chickens for the feasts. Nearby, a group of men were working together to carve up a lamb that was hanging from a tree. And beside the church, a pile of dead lamb lay slaughtered as sacrifice. Happy Easter. Or, as you say in Georgian, “Christ has risen.” (response) “He has risen, indeed.”
Before eating, we walked around the church twice, went inside the to light a candle at the entrance and the interior, some of us made a short prayer, then we finished with a last circle around the church… as is the Orthodox tradition. Then we ate. Barbequed meats, potatoes, cheese bread and more wine. We promenaded around the church and watched the festivities. Teenagers were hanging out, flirting and eyeing each other. Little kids were playing with toy guns and gnawing off meat bones. At one point, we walked back to the church for more pictures. We three Americans got stopped by a family of Georgians who were very curious. There was a young girl who fancied Nicholas, or fancied a ticket to America. They formed a group for us to take a picture of them. They asked us to be in pictures with them. At one point, Natia (Nicholas’ new girlfriend) got in a picture with the three of us. Nicholas put his arm around Natia and said under his breath, “I’m just trying to be a gentleman”. Natia heard and understood, and she responded happily, “And you are…”. With her father’s urging, she boldly asked for Nicholas’ number. Within a day he had been texted. A few days later, he got a poem about life and her affections and questions about why he hadn’t responded to her first attempt. Nicholas said he wanted to have fun with it, but I don’t know if anything ever developed.
The other two nights in Telavi we supra-ed with a Georgian friend named Nick that all the volunteers loved. Nick voluntarily attended an English meeting at some point, and everyone immediately recognized how eager he was to befriend Americans who spoke a lot of English and wanted to make positive change in Georgia. He continues to practice English with the volunteers, but he has become more involved. This summer, he’s going to be a camp counselor with a boys’ leadership camp that Nicholas is helping organize.
The first night a group of ten of us met at Ariana’s school director’s sister’s restaurant to feast. I had my first taste of kenkali, which are dumplings twisted at the top and stuffed with ground beef or potatoes or cheese. It’s a dish that is easy to find in restaurants but rare at home. Georgians like to eat a lot, so to show their record they eat everything but the top of the dumpling and count the total number of tops at the end of the night as a competition. I ate the tops and don’t think I did that well anyway, but I enjoyed the dumplings a lot. The second supra night, which happened the night after our Easter hilltop celebration, was much of the same with beer instead of wine.
Telavi was my first experience with cold Georgian weather, but Nicholas and Ariana were happy that it had finally warmed up. They finally didn’t have to wear thermal underwear all of the time. Coming from the 90+° heat of India, though, I was wearing four shirts every day, and I was still cold all over. At night we used thick wool blankets, and I still woke up from the cold.
Nicholas and Ariana were telling me stories of a few months ago when it was much, much colder. Nicholas’ school didn’t have any heat, and the cement walls served as a refrigerator. Students stopped coming in December and only started to re-attend in April. It would rain and freeze and mud is everywhere. Many houses here don’t have heat. I really wouldn’t be able to handle Georgia. I don’t think I would be able to get out of bed for four of five months out of the year. I have the highest respect for these volunteers who got up during the week to teach in an icy room to students who either didn’t want to be there and acted like it or didn’t show up at all.
A few days into my stay, I started to get used to the change. We left Telavi and headed to Kareli, the town where Nicholas lives and works. Nicholas had anxiety about coming back home because I think I came at the most dramatic part of his stay.
Let me provide some background. As part of the Peace Corp program, all volunteers arrive to the country and live with host families for a total of nine months. They live for three months with a training host family, and they spend a minimum of six months with a family at their actual working site. After those nine months, they are allowed to move into an apartment if they are at a site where apartments are available.
Nicholas had a great training host family. They loved him, and in proper Georgian tradition they took great care of him as their honored guest. Then he moved to Kareli for his permanent post and moved in with a new family. In many ways, this new house defied the idea of a traditional Georgian family. While lots of people lived together in one big house – the kids, parents and grandparents – they host mom was divorced and clinically depressed. So from the beginning, there was some tension about Nicholas coming into the house. By the time I arrived, though, things were just bad. The week before I arrived (we had planned my visit two or three months out with approval from the host mother), the host mother went a little crazy. She came into Nicholas’ room the day before he left for Tbilisi to pick me up and explained that I could not stay at the house. To refuse a guest – especially the American volunteer’s American guest – is pretty much unheard of in these parts.
So Nicholas was baffled. He told Maria his situation, and she quickly arranged for us to stay with her and her host family when I arrived. In Tbilisi, Nicholas went to the main Peace Corps office to talk to the staff about the situation. A staff member called Nicholas’ host mom, and the host mom had a new announcement: Nicholas was no longer welcome in her home. What?! This is pretty much unheard of in Georgia, and when I finally arrived Nicholas was full of anxiety. Kareli is a significantly smaller town than Telavi, and finding apartments can be slow and unsuccessful. He told his teachers and Maria’s host family (this is a town where everyone knows everyone), and they all conceded that the situation was ridiculous, embarrassing as a reflection of Georgia, and all due to the depression of the mother.
So we stayed with Maria’s family, who is awesome. Maria lives on a compound of three houses, and the place is full of energy. There are usually between five and seven young people running around full of attitude, and the women were strong and full of life. The men, when we saw them, were full of good cheer and hospitality. The first day everyone cheered when we finally arrived – both Nicholas and Maria had spent the weekend away. There were hugs and hellos all around. They immediately said we could stay as long as we wanted, and they asked Nicholas if the crazy lady had come around at all. We took a grand tour to see the houses, the fresh garden, the dogs and puppies, the fields and the uncles in other rooms who had been sleeping off hangovers.
We were called back to the main house for supra, and my formal introduction to the house began. Five men – friends and relatives – Nicholas, Maria and I sat down to feast. Much of the same good food was brought out, and the toasting began immediately. The men got pretty well drunk pretty quickly, and Nicholas was no exception. They took a lot of toasts “to the death of the glass” where they finished the glass in one shot out of respect for the toast. At some point, linked-arm toasting began and it wasn’t long before Nicholas and I drank our whole glasses linked through each other’s arms. At some point after Nicholas should have stopped drinking, they brought out the horns for drinking. He refused, saying he was a small guy, but they got the best of him and he had to finish. A large uncle next to me was enchanted with both Maria and me and kept asking questions about America or going off in Georgian about culture and life. I had to thank many toasts in honor of me as a guest, women in general and Georgian-American relations (brotherhood). By the time we got to bed, my stomach was absolutely full of food and my face hurt from laughing. The other nights at the house we didn’t supra; instead we played Uno, Phase 10, Jokeri (a game I still don’t understand) and watched TV. The kids were a lot of fun. I taught Vakho, the youngest son in the house, how to play hot hands and table hockey. He studies German in school, but he knew some English and we had no problems having fun and making fun of each other the whole time I was there.
During the days, though, I left Vakho at home (he didn’t really ever go to school), and I went with Nicholas to school to be stared at, questioned and included. Every class began with my introduction, an explanation of where I was traveling, and an explanation that the mehendi on my hands was from India and was not permanent. The sixth graders were scared of the red all over my palms the first day, so they were pretty quiet, but by the second day the class had doubled in size and they felt more comfortable. The eleventh graders asked me a lot of questions about travel and food and language. The fifth graders didn’t ask me many questions, but glanced and laughed at themselves and me anytime they could. They were funny and full of chaotic energy. As they worked, they would look up at me and rattle off a question in Georgian then laugh when they remembered or realized I had no idea what they were saying. They yelled over each other and competed to do the best job in the quickest amount of time. Some things are the same between Georgian and American kids.
By the end of my first school day, I was freezing. We finished our lessons, and I was shivering. We walked to the cafeteria with Nicholas’ two Georgian English-teacher counterparts for coffee, but were quickly invited to another office to drink the coffee. Zura, the P.E. teacher who was the only Georgian male on staff, ushered us into his office for tea and a mini-supra. We took a shot of strong vodka to make us warm, and we snacked on leftover Easter dishes. Teachers came and went as they had class, and we all talked about the differences between American and Georgian schools in structure, timelines and pay. The teachers seemed shocked that American teachers usually got to school at seven in the morning and were expected to stay until at least three in the afternoon. Here, teachers arrived around nine or nine thirty, and they were gone anywhere between noon and one thirty. They don’t make a lot of money from their job, so the compensate through a booked schedule of afternoon- and weekend-tutoring. Students have tutoring for everything, and they often opt to do tutoring and homework rather than attend class. So classes never have a consistent number of students, and there is no way to have a weekly schedule or progression with activities. Georgian teachers expect this as a norm, but the volunteers here are wringing their hands as they try to make change with the system. Once again, I have the utmost respect for volunteers in this country for not just giving up and going home.
One Georgian teacher who defies the norm is Manana, counterpart of Katherine – a third volunteer that lives near Kareli. Manana is a converted Evangelical Christian who gives all of her energy to the projects to which she is committed. She vowed to help Nicholas with his housing problem, she supports all of the volunteers as they work in Kareli and she is happy and excited to take guidance and assistance from Peace Corps educational programs. So Peace Corps has gotten quite close to Manana.
So on our third day in Kareli, it was only natural that she invite us to a supra in her home village. I think this was my favorite supra because it had so many of the traditional elements but had a twist on things as well. We got there in the late afternoon and got a tour of the house. Manana and her sisters and mother were happy to show the bread-baking oven, the other cooking stoves and the wine cellar. Everything we ate was from the garden and homemade, so it was delicious. There were many, many dishes out. As we went in, Nicholas and Maria reminded me that, “it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon”. There was freshly-baked bread (plain and stuffed with cheese and potato), homemade pastries, stuffed cabbage, chicken, beef, olives, oranges, grape paste, small crepes stuffed with ground beef, salad, almond and chestnut paste, spinach and almond paste, chocolates and Turkish coffee.
Manana presented this supra as an international supra because her family was from all over the Caucasus. In addition to Americans and Georgians, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Greece and Osetia were represented. We had thirty people at the table(s) at one point. Manana explained that the doors to the house were open to anyone in the village, and people trickled in throughout the meal. There was a drama star who sat across from me, and after a few glasses of wine he was serenading us with nice Georgian music. He said if someone would fund him, he would perform at La Scala. He then pleaded that we respond with American music. Maria finally sang some Lou Reed for them, and everyone was happy. It was the first time I captured video with my camera, and they loved it. The singer continued to sing, and other joined in. I took a video of everyone smiling making introductions, and when we finally got up to leave no one wanted us to go. It took us over half an hour to say our goodbyes because everyone wanted hugs and kisses on the cheeks, the old men who had the most wine wanted longer hugs and more kisses on the cheek. They wanted us to take a lot of pictures. They wanted to sing more for us. They wanted us to stay. At one point, a neighbor got word that we liked music and wanted to hear guitar, so he came with his instrument and serenaded us in the driveway as we tried to make our getaway. But, unlike most supras, there were people who stayed sober. Some of the men didn’t drink at all, and our glasses of pear soda were refilled more quickly than our wine glasses. Manana and her children don’t drink, so we were off the hook. We got a ride back from a nephew who hadn’t had a drop of alcohol during the whole meal. It was refreshing and lots and lots of fun.
After our time in Kareli, we headed back to the capitol and then headed west to spend time with another volunteer friend in another village. We went to Chiatura, which is known as the former Proletariat Paradise. This town, situated in the mountains west of Tbilisi, used to be a bustling mining town with 50,000 people and smooth efficiency. Today the population has dropped 80%, and it is one of the poorest places in Georgia. Once the Soviet system collapsed, residents either left the country or headed to Tbilisi. We stayed with Heidi, a volunteer from California, and met up with Jenn and Seth. This was an “American in Georgia” weekend. Heidi had recently moved into her own apartment – she pays $30 a month for a five-room apartment that used to be owned by a police officer. The family who was there before left everything – there was a piano, bookshelves, dishes and silverware, chests and bureaus, and lots and lots of kitsch. The family wanted to get out of Georgia immediately, so they took what they could carry and headed west to Greece to resettle.
In Chiatura, the apartment was much easier to arrange because of the abundance of abandoned Soviety block apartments. They were everywhere. The town is built into a gorge, and we took skyline buckets to get from the main part of town to Heidi’s apartment. It’s a beautiful place. All the buildings were terraced, and just above the town you can see the mining site where many men still work today. We visited the abandoned Young Pioneers house, which was the Communist equivalent of the Boy Scouts. We checked out the skyline, with its Hollywood-esque sign reading “Chiatura My Pride” (unfortunately, the hammer and sickle that originally adorned the sign had been removed). I asked about a metal billboard in the rock face that looked like it had numbers; Heidi said that used to read out the time to alert all of the workers when they should head to work. Nearby the clock, Seth pointed some columns where a picture of Lenin used to be – everyone in the town could see it, and it changed colors depending on the time of day. We took the free skyline bucket up to the mines and took the long walk back down, and throughout the walk we were brainstorming how to market Soviet Disneyland to jumpstart the tourism industry. The first step would be to fix the roads that wound through the mountains to the town (even Georgians were throwing up into small plastic bags from the curves and bumps), and then they could reinstate the signage, thrown in a ski resort and market supras at $30-a-head. Talk about a getaway weekend. Before sunset each night, we made our way back up to Heidi’s apartment and cooked makeshift international meals (curried meatloaf with sort-of Persian rice and curried cabbage) and played cards. It was quite the weekend.
Chiatura was my last Georgian trip. We headed back to Kareli for my last two days, and left at just the right time – it was snowing the morning we left Chiatura, and the mountains had two inches before we left the area. We went back to Kareli on the day of Maria’s host dad’s birthday, so we supra-ed for him and for my departure. Again, lots of food, lots of wine and this time some dancing, piano playing and singing. I needed to be back to take the 13-hour bus from Kareli to Trabzon, so it was only proper that I leave from the place that had become my home. I had to assure the family that f I am back in Europe before Nicholas’ service ends, I will be back in Georgia to visit. We’ll have to see whether my future holds more supras or not.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
India
knoI may be completely off base, but I think there will be a point in my future when I live in India. Maybe for two months, maybe for a few years. But I loved too much about being there to not go back for longer. I know three weeks isn’t exactly representative of living somewhere, and I know I missed the hottest and wettest time of year, but I felt capable of dealing with what came my way.
I ate so well. I am very much a meat-eater, but I ate chicken probably three times while I was there and didn’t miss meat at all. The breads are wonderful – baked, buttered, stuffed, fried, puffed, wheat, white, soft, crunchy, delicious. The vegetables are tasty and their sauces are spicy and filling. The tea was sweet and satisfying. The lime soda was cold, sweet and satisfying. The fruits were fresh and flavorful. The snacks were all pretty unhealthy but very delicious – we ate too many samosas and pakora, too much pani puri and those potato things that I love. But I just couldn’t stop myself! There were ice cream and gelato stands everywhere – we could get a cone for less than twenty cents at eight in the morning. We could and we did.
And there was so much to see all the time. I think that’s why people stare. They aren’t just staring at me as a foreigner, they’re looking at everything. I noticed people usually woke up early, took a nap in the afternoon and stayed up late. So at really any point in the day, people were milling about. Hanging out or buying things. Working or just sitting on the side of the road, watching for something exciting to happen. Shops didn’t open until ten or so, but they stayed open until nine at night. The local markets didn’t open until the afternoon, and you could find anything if you looked hard enough. There were air-conditioned shops selling chintzy knick-knacks that were appealing because they were western and had English on them. There are outrageous jeans and silly shirts in department stores. Or there are open markets for buying bindis or sold baby clothes or fabrics or wholesale newspapers, magazines and books at 1/3 the published price. If there was a need, people figured out a way to provide the service.
Of course there was poverty and times when life there gave me a heavy heart. When we left in the early morning, we saw men waking up and packing up their makeshift rooms from storefronts and alleyways. Train stations were full of aggressive beggars who were pimped by someone or the government and had perfected a non-existent limp or deep, watery eyes. Small kids and animals were everywhere and seemed attached to no one. Maid servants were commanded and expected to be invisible in some of the houses we visited, and women were expected to take care of all domestic affairs.
But compared to Bangladesh, India was progressive. While women were expected to take care of the house, Kavi’s fufferji and cousin did help bring out food and clear away dishes. Kavi’s cousin’s wife only got married on the condition that she could have a job, and many women were demanding independence. They were driving, they were traveling alone, they were studying what they wanted and they were creating a voice. I stayed in houses where there was no live-in maid servants; instead, they paid someone to come in once a day to clean. I got to see an actual middle class, which most people claim doesn’t exist in India.
It’s just a neat place. I talked to people in Mumbai who seemed worn out from trying to see this country via second-class trains, broken English and lots of hand gestures. A new town or city every other day. Constant paranoia that they were being chumped, kidnapped or hurt by every Indian face on the street. I don’t think that’s the way I would travel here. There is so much I didn’t get to see, but I think if I came back I would find a spot to live. Then I would make friends and see India with them, the way they would travel. It was much richer experience to travel in a country with country(wo)men who helped me experience a place as it is meant to be experienced. A Lonely Planet is helpful, but with only that and your own cultural baggage, you wind up with some neat pictures, a lot of headaches, probably a lot of sickness, and a sense that you missed something even when you tried to see everything.
As many people know, I’ve joked for a few years that I want to be an Indian princess. I’d never want that life, but I would mind being able to get mehendi and samosas when I want… at least for a little while.
I ate so well. I am very much a meat-eater, but I ate chicken probably three times while I was there and didn’t miss meat at all. The breads are wonderful – baked, buttered, stuffed, fried, puffed, wheat, white, soft, crunchy, delicious. The vegetables are tasty and their sauces are spicy and filling. The tea was sweet and satisfying. The lime soda was cold, sweet and satisfying. The fruits were fresh and flavorful. The snacks were all pretty unhealthy but very delicious – we ate too many samosas and pakora, too much pani puri and those potato things that I love. But I just couldn’t stop myself! There were ice cream and gelato stands everywhere – we could get a cone for less than twenty cents at eight in the morning. We could and we did.
And there was so much to see all the time. I think that’s why people stare. They aren’t just staring at me as a foreigner, they’re looking at everything. I noticed people usually woke up early, took a nap in the afternoon and stayed up late. So at really any point in the day, people were milling about. Hanging out or buying things. Working or just sitting on the side of the road, watching for something exciting to happen. Shops didn’t open until ten or so, but they stayed open until nine at night. The local markets didn’t open until the afternoon, and you could find anything if you looked hard enough. There were air-conditioned shops selling chintzy knick-knacks that were appealing because they were western and had English on them. There are outrageous jeans and silly shirts in department stores. Or there are open markets for buying bindis or sold baby clothes or fabrics or wholesale newspapers, magazines and books at 1/3 the published price. If there was a need, people figured out a way to provide the service.
Of course there was poverty and times when life there gave me a heavy heart. When we left in the early morning, we saw men waking up and packing up their makeshift rooms from storefronts and alleyways. Train stations were full of aggressive beggars who were pimped by someone or the government and had perfected a non-existent limp or deep, watery eyes. Small kids and animals were everywhere and seemed attached to no one. Maid servants were commanded and expected to be invisible in some of the houses we visited, and women were expected to take care of all domestic affairs.
But compared to Bangladesh, India was progressive. While women were expected to take care of the house, Kavi’s fufferji and cousin did help bring out food and clear away dishes. Kavi’s cousin’s wife only got married on the condition that she could have a job, and many women were demanding independence. They were driving, they were traveling alone, they were studying what they wanted and they were creating a voice. I stayed in houses where there was no live-in maid servants; instead, they paid someone to come in once a day to clean. I got to see an actual middle class, which most people claim doesn’t exist in India.
It’s just a neat place. I talked to people in Mumbai who seemed worn out from trying to see this country via second-class trains, broken English and lots of hand gestures. A new town or city every other day. Constant paranoia that they were being chumped, kidnapped or hurt by every Indian face on the street. I don’t think that’s the way I would travel here. There is so much I didn’t get to see, but I think if I came back I would find a spot to live. Then I would make friends and see India with them, the way they would travel. It was much richer experience to travel in a country with country(wo)men who helped me experience a place as it is meant to be experienced. A Lonely Planet is helpful, but with only that and your own cultural baggage, you wind up with some neat pictures, a lot of headaches, probably a lot of sickness, and a sense that you missed something even when you tried to see everything.
As many people know, I’ve joked for a few years that I want to be an Indian princess. I’d never want that life, but I would mind being able to get mehendi and samosas when I want… at least for a little while.
Punjab
Immediately after Jaipur we were on the road again. We took an express train north the next day to Amristar to see the Golden Temple, a famous Sikh temple close to the Pakistan border in Punjab. We rode first class in the AC car, so within minutes we were drinking tea and eating terrible naan with jelly and butter. Kavi dozed because the train’s rocking and stopping and accelerating made her feel not great, so Kavi’s fufferji and I worked on a tough sudoku and looked at pictures from our other adventures.
By the second meal, Kavi was kind of awake and kind of feeling okay, so we were all talking and looking at pictures. That’s when Kavi noticed our new small friend. A little Sikh kid kept roaming up and down the isle as we were talking. He would sit in front of us and peer through the seats quietly to listen. He would sit behind us to see the pictures on the LCD, and he put his finger over his mouth with a smile to tell Kavi not to say anything when she saw him. He had a great smile as he watched and absorbed. Finally, after looking at pictures and finishing a game of Rummy, we decided to play an innocent game of Bluff and I wanted our new friend to play. So we invited him to play. Of course at first he flat-out refused. Then we asked again with a promise of fun, and he made the humble half-nod-half-shake that so many Indians do that doesn’t make sense to me. Is it a yes? Is it a no? It was a yes, we started to play, and he caught on quickly. His English was perfect, and he was also tricky and good. But not as good as Kavi’s fufferji. That man was sly, which I never would have guessed because he’s so good-natured and all smiles otherwise. He would be down to one card when I would be stuck with so many that I couldn’t fan them with one hand.
We finished playing just before we got to Amritsar, so we quizzed our friend about what to see and do in Amritsar. He was so happy to be able to give us information. When we finally got off the train, he said bye at least six times and headed off with his family.
We said goodbye, but we couldn’t waste time. Our train was an hour late arriving, and we were already booked on a return train for early that evening. So Amritsar was a warp-speed tour. We found an auto-rickshaw that promised he could get us to everything we needed to see and back by the time our train left, so in we went. We weaved through streets full of people and dogs and cars and rickshaws and carts. We made it to the temple, and realized how right people on the train were when they said it was too bad we were going on a Sunday. People were everywhere. More than any other place, I was an object of curiosity here. There weren’t as many foreigners, and I wasn’t wearing a suit. I just didn’t make sense to some people, so they had to stop and stare for a while to try to figure it out. But they didn’t have long because we were on the go!
We were carried by crowd to the shoe depository, through the holy water to wash off our feet, stopped by guards to cover our heads and pushed into the courtyard. Then I had to stop because the Golden Temple is beautiful. Like at many other temples in India, it was anchored in holy water from the Ganges. The temple was in the middle of a large, square marble pool, with a plank as wide as a road that tunneled all the visitors from the edge of the pool to the temple entrance. Across from the temple on the outer edge of the pool, men were bathing away their sins and kids were splashing clean despite their innocence. On the marble between the courtyard walls and the pool, everyone was walking and praying and making their way to the long line to get inside. People were bent in prayer, leaning to drink the holy water that volunteers were taking from the pool to wash over the marble. Others were doing their duty to wash the water back into the pool. It was a cycle of drinking, washing, praying and replenishing.
Kavi’s fufferji pushed us through the crowds. We made it to the line and waited for about ten minutes, after which point it was clear that we would never make it inside at the rate the line was moving. So Kavi’s fufferji left for a bit, came back to us and took us to a room in the courtyard. There we stood looking sad as he pleaded in Hindi that we had come from America and had only a few hours to see the temple. Welcome to India. The man inside took Kavi’s fufferji’s hand and wrote a word and the number 3, and we were off with many thanks and promises of donations. We were sent through the exit line to the temple and were in within ten minutes – because we were from America, because this was India and because we asked.
Inside the temple was small, cramped, chaotic and beautiful. The walls and ceilings were covered in patterns with gold leaf, and the center where the religious leaders sat was carpeted in red velvet. There were tabla players and singers overriding the mass of visitors, and people were crammed everywhere. I had no control of where I went once I got inside. I was pushed and pulled and smashed into a spot near the center, and when I had been there long enough I was pushed to the exit. There was a man in the center near me who was methodically sweeping the piles of money being offered into a box. Another man was stabbing the bills down with a dull knife to maximize space for the offerings. It was a fluid, rich operation. Everyone was throwing money in hopes for holy food, and it was the promise of a small orange packet of goods that kept people crammed against golden barriers waiting. We got one packet and that was plenty for us. We were thrust outside and made the short walk around to see the fish in the holy water (that people were bathing in, walking on and drinking) and then were ushered back down the same lane we had illegally entered a mere twenty minutes earlier. It was the most cramped I had ever been in India, but I expected as much when we were visited the most important temple of a major religion. On a Sunday.
There was no time to soak it all in. We took some pictures and headed to our next stop, a nearby historic site. We left the temple as quickly as we had come, and got a rickshaw to the ?????, to see a courtyard where half a century ago thousands of Indians were peacefully protesting British rule and the British opened fire, killing ????? people in a matter of minutes. The site was a small, closed-in courtyard, and Kavi’s fufferji explained that the British gave a two-minute warning. But with the only exit being an alleyway that five feet wide, very few were able to get out before the massacre began. There was a well on site that people jumped into to miss the bullets, and there was a small building that had bullet holes on the exterior. It was very strange going from the chaos of the holy temple to a relatively quiet spot where
After we saw the ?????, our driver delivered us back to the train station on time as promised, and we were off to Ludhiana for the night. This town was home for part of Kavi’s family, who live in a big house with a great garden and a vicious German Shepard. We arrived late and still managed to eat a ridiculous amount. We only stayed the night, but it was absolutely wonderful. Agra, Jaipur and Amritsar are smaller city, but they sustain through tourism. Ludhiana was the first city we visited that wasn’t really famous for anything. It was quiet. It didn’t have insane traffic. It was relatively clean. It was a nice change. And the family was great. It was like as soon as the train arrived, I could feel warmth. Kavi’s cousin and his wife picked us up, full of hugs and chatter. They laughed easily and often, and there was fun music as we made our way to the house.
As soon as we got to the house, everyone came to say hello. They didn’t speak a lot of English, but I was welcomed immediately. We had Coke and vegetables within five minutes of being inside, then we went for a yard tour. Roses, lemon trees, mango trees, carrots, chilis… everything was there. Green grass and vines growing on the walls. We then had potato pancakes with chutneys and sauces. They were delicious, and I finished two quickly. Too quickly. I wanted to stop snacking because I knew that even at 11 p.m. we would still be eating dinner, so I wasn’t going to have anymore. But they saw the empty plate, and loaded me with another one. They were happy I liked the food, and happy to give me more even if I said I was full.
During the snack, Kavi’s 3-year-old nephew came home, and he was awesome. He and his parents came in from being in the car for five hours, and he was ready to run around. So run around he did. And jumped on the chairs. And turned up the music on the computer. And brought his bike inside and rode in circles, intentionally running over feet and into shins. And rolled around on the couches. And screeched for toys. But he was a lot of fun. I made him give me a lot of high-fives, and he made me come into the yard and chase him. When it was finally time for bed, he screamed “bye bye ta ta!” about ten times before finally getting closed into his room. Little kids are great to have in a house where there is a language barrier because even if I don’t know the language, I know kidspeak and I can have fun for hours without saying much of anything.
We left early in the morning, and I was sad to leave such a fun house. But the cousin and aunt drive us to Patiala, a town closer to Delhi, for our next family visit. Patiala was a lot like Ludhiana, with relative peacefulness in the streets. We went to another big house, and this one had even more people. Fourteen people lived together. Six kids and eight adults. And visitors… us and people coming to see Kavi. So it was another crazy house. At first I spent all of my time in the sitting room, drinking Coke and pretending to pay attention as Kavi was grilled in Punjabi. I had no idea what was going on, and aunties seemed disappointed not to be able to satisfy their curiosity about me. We sat, people came, Kavi answered questions, the room went quiet for a bit, some kid would run in and be shy, we would laugh, conversation would start again.
A few of Kavi’s male cousins trickled in, and one asked if I was tired. I was actually exhausted from all of the traveling and waking up early and heat, but I shook my head that I was fine. I think that was all he needed to break the ice because then we began to talk about everything. He was one of the six parents, and he talked about his kids and Patiala and India and cell phones and industry and schools and language and life. He spoke English very well despite confessing that he hadn’t used it in years, and he had the curious personality that works well for conversations among travelers. We compared notes about our countries for the rest of our stay there. People would come, sit and listen. They would contribute questions and answers, and we all got more comfortable.
When there was a break in the stream of visitors, eight of us piled into the car and went to a maharaja’s house. Patiala, I learned, was the home of a maharaja who invited the patiala peg – a shot of alcohol that is enormous. Apparently this king was visiting England and kept telling the bartender to keep pouring when he was getting a drink. Everyone was amazed when he put back so much alcohol, and the drink was named after the town. ????? Another king or this same king was also famous because he wanted to buy a Rolles Royce. The car dealership didn’t know about the small-time king and refused him service. Finally the dealership realized the king had money to spend, and they sold him ten cars. He was so offended he brought the cars back and used them as a garbage-truck fleet. So Patiala may not have been the home of Indian tourism, but it did have some interesting history.
After our town tour, the whole family recognized that Kavi and I were worn out. Kavi’s fufferji had napped while we toured, so we went for a rest when we got home. We were woken up when more visitors came, and Kavi went back to her sitting-room post. I was in there for about five minutes, but I couldn’t handle it. So I went outside with the uncles, small cousins and dog. I played some tag and talked more about random stuff, then we all had dinner. Kavi was jealous of me… I was glad that I wasn’t the one coming back to India for the first time 14 years.
After a delicious dinner, I was presented with material for a suit as a gift, and another nephew came over. He was 17 and had a motorbike. I had seen them all over, and I wanted a ride. So at almost 10 p.m., I changed into pajama pants and went for a ride in India. Unlike most girls, I did not sit on the back of the bike with both legs on the same side. It was only after we were headed down the main road did I learn that Kavi’s nephew only had a permit, and he wasn’t really supposed to be driving. Oh well. I later found out that one of Kavi’s aunts had a license for three years before she learned how to drive. Her husband knew someone with the driving board, so she figured she may as well get licensed. Public systems in India are very similar in theory to those in America, but in practice everything changes because of corruption and evasion.
We got back from the ride, and the small kids wanted to play games. So Kavi and I ran around playing freeze tag and categories, we tried sardines but they wouldn’t close their eyes for long enough and we ended with some sort of tag. We went to bed close to midnight, but the kids would have stayed out running around until the sunrise.
The kids ranged in age from three years old to about 14 years old, and there were two three-year-olds who were so funny to watch. One boy, one girl, two different families. They lived in the same house and were insanely jealous of each other. It was sort of ridiculous. As soon as I got there, I saw the comedy unfolding. In the sitting room, the girl came in to see her uncle. She climbed on him and acted shy. Not long after, the boy came in to see his dad – the girl’s uncle. He climbed up into his dad’s lamp and immediately pushed the girl away. She didn’t cry, but she resolved to regain her spot by pushing right back. There was some grunting exchanged, and the girl started to cry. Finally the uncle took them both outside so they could get distracted with something else. It was the same with everything. At one point they both had glasses of Coke to drink. The girl gave her mom the drink to hold, and the boy followed suit. The girl took the boy’s drink from her mom’s hand and with a grunt handed it back to the boy. The boy shrieked, and the mom had to quickly take both glasses and put them on the table. Later the same thing happened with bread. And the same thing happened when the boy was in the grandfather’s lap. And the same thing happened when the girl got her bottle. And the same thing happened when the boy got to go outside. It was hilarious. They both grew more comfortable with me, and about five hours in I was able to hold them. When we were outside playing games, I was swinging the girl around and throwing her up in the air. I set her down to go run around, and she saw the boy walking over. She looked up at me and tugged on my pants with a squeal. I wandered away, and they both followed. Laughing, I picked up the girl and started hopping around. The boy chased after and pulled my pants hard to start climbing up my leg. So I hoisted them both up, and they started pushing each other out of my arms. I was laughing, they were starting to cry, and all that I could do was spin them until they both started laughing, hope they got bored and set them off to go find someone else to clamor over. Talk about in-home entertainment.
By the end of my day in Patiala, I was exhausted and sore. But it was a fun, fun day, and I was sad to leave at five in the morning because we couldn’t see the whole crowd together in full swing before we headed out. But I got emails and pictures before I even got back to Delhi, so I feel like it was more of a “see you later” than a “goodbye”.
By the second meal, Kavi was kind of awake and kind of feeling okay, so we were all talking and looking at pictures. That’s when Kavi noticed our new small friend. A little Sikh kid kept roaming up and down the isle as we were talking. He would sit in front of us and peer through the seats quietly to listen. He would sit behind us to see the pictures on the LCD, and he put his finger over his mouth with a smile to tell Kavi not to say anything when she saw him. He had a great smile as he watched and absorbed. Finally, after looking at pictures and finishing a game of Rummy, we decided to play an innocent game of Bluff and I wanted our new friend to play. So we invited him to play. Of course at first he flat-out refused. Then we asked again with a promise of fun, and he made the humble half-nod-half-shake that so many Indians do that doesn’t make sense to me. Is it a yes? Is it a no? It was a yes, we started to play, and he caught on quickly. His English was perfect, and he was also tricky and good. But not as good as Kavi’s fufferji. That man was sly, which I never would have guessed because he’s so good-natured and all smiles otherwise. He would be down to one card when I would be stuck with so many that I couldn’t fan them with one hand.
We finished playing just before we got to Amritsar, so we quizzed our friend about what to see and do in Amritsar. He was so happy to be able to give us information. When we finally got off the train, he said bye at least six times and headed off with his family.
We said goodbye, but we couldn’t waste time. Our train was an hour late arriving, and we were already booked on a return train for early that evening. So Amritsar was a warp-speed tour. We found an auto-rickshaw that promised he could get us to everything we needed to see and back by the time our train left, so in we went. We weaved through streets full of people and dogs and cars and rickshaws and carts. We made it to the temple, and realized how right people on the train were when they said it was too bad we were going on a Sunday. People were everywhere. More than any other place, I was an object of curiosity here. There weren’t as many foreigners, and I wasn’t wearing a suit. I just didn’t make sense to some people, so they had to stop and stare for a while to try to figure it out. But they didn’t have long because we were on the go!
We were carried by crowd to the shoe depository, through the holy water to wash off our feet, stopped by guards to cover our heads and pushed into the courtyard. Then I had to stop because the Golden Temple is beautiful. Like at many other temples in India, it was anchored in holy water from the Ganges. The temple was in the middle of a large, square marble pool, with a plank as wide as a road that tunneled all the visitors from the edge of the pool to the temple entrance. Across from the temple on the outer edge of the pool, men were bathing away their sins and kids were splashing clean despite their innocence. On the marble between the courtyard walls and the pool, everyone was walking and praying and making their way to the long line to get inside. People were bent in prayer, leaning to drink the holy water that volunteers were taking from the pool to wash over the marble. Others were doing their duty to wash the water back into the pool. It was a cycle of drinking, washing, praying and replenishing.
Kavi’s fufferji pushed us through the crowds. We made it to the line and waited for about ten minutes, after which point it was clear that we would never make it inside at the rate the line was moving. So Kavi’s fufferji left for a bit, came back to us and took us to a room in the courtyard. There we stood looking sad as he pleaded in Hindi that we had come from America and had only a few hours to see the temple. Welcome to India. The man inside took Kavi’s fufferji’s hand and wrote a word and the number 3, and we were off with many thanks and promises of donations. We were sent through the exit line to the temple and were in within ten minutes – because we were from America, because this was India and because we asked.
Inside the temple was small, cramped, chaotic and beautiful. The walls and ceilings were covered in patterns with gold leaf, and the center where the religious leaders sat was carpeted in red velvet. There were tabla players and singers overriding the mass of visitors, and people were crammed everywhere. I had no control of where I went once I got inside. I was pushed and pulled and smashed into a spot near the center, and when I had been there long enough I was pushed to the exit. There was a man in the center near me who was methodically sweeping the piles of money being offered into a box. Another man was stabbing the bills down with a dull knife to maximize space for the offerings. It was a fluid, rich operation. Everyone was throwing money in hopes for holy food, and it was the promise of a small orange packet of goods that kept people crammed against golden barriers waiting. We got one packet and that was plenty for us. We were thrust outside and made the short walk around to see the fish in the holy water (that people were bathing in, walking on and drinking) and then were ushered back down the same lane we had illegally entered a mere twenty minutes earlier. It was the most cramped I had ever been in India, but I expected as much when we were visited the most important temple of a major religion. On a Sunday.
There was no time to soak it all in. We took some pictures and headed to our next stop, a nearby historic site. We left the temple as quickly as we had come, and got a rickshaw to the ?????, to see a courtyard where half a century ago thousands of Indians were peacefully protesting British rule and the British opened fire, killing ????? people in a matter of minutes. The site was a small, closed-in courtyard, and Kavi’s fufferji explained that the British gave a two-minute warning. But with the only exit being an alleyway that five feet wide, very few were able to get out before the massacre began. There was a well on site that people jumped into to miss the bullets, and there was a small building that had bullet holes on the exterior. It was very strange going from the chaos of the holy temple to a relatively quiet spot where
After we saw the ?????, our driver delivered us back to the train station on time as promised, and we were off to Ludhiana for the night. This town was home for part of Kavi’s family, who live in a big house with a great garden and a vicious German Shepard. We arrived late and still managed to eat a ridiculous amount. We only stayed the night, but it was absolutely wonderful. Agra, Jaipur and Amritsar are smaller city, but they sustain through tourism. Ludhiana was the first city we visited that wasn’t really famous for anything. It was quiet. It didn’t have insane traffic. It was relatively clean. It was a nice change. And the family was great. It was like as soon as the train arrived, I could feel warmth. Kavi’s cousin and his wife picked us up, full of hugs and chatter. They laughed easily and often, and there was fun music as we made our way to the house.
As soon as we got to the house, everyone came to say hello. They didn’t speak a lot of English, but I was welcomed immediately. We had Coke and vegetables within five minutes of being inside, then we went for a yard tour. Roses, lemon trees, mango trees, carrots, chilis… everything was there. Green grass and vines growing on the walls. We then had potato pancakes with chutneys and sauces. They were delicious, and I finished two quickly. Too quickly. I wanted to stop snacking because I knew that even at 11 p.m. we would still be eating dinner, so I wasn’t going to have anymore. But they saw the empty plate, and loaded me with another one. They were happy I liked the food, and happy to give me more even if I said I was full.
During the snack, Kavi’s 3-year-old nephew came home, and he was awesome. He and his parents came in from being in the car for five hours, and he was ready to run around. So run around he did. And jumped on the chairs. And turned up the music on the computer. And brought his bike inside and rode in circles, intentionally running over feet and into shins. And rolled around on the couches. And screeched for toys. But he was a lot of fun. I made him give me a lot of high-fives, and he made me come into the yard and chase him. When it was finally time for bed, he screamed “bye bye ta ta!” about ten times before finally getting closed into his room. Little kids are great to have in a house where there is a language barrier because even if I don’t know the language, I know kidspeak and I can have fun for hours without saying much of anything.
We left early in the morning, and I was sad to leave such a fun house. But the cousin and aunt drive us to Patiala, a town closer to Delhi, for our next family visit. Patiala was a lot like Ludhiana, with relative peacefulness in the streets. We went to another big house, and this one had even more people. Fourteen people lived together. Six kids and eight adults. And visitors… us and people coming to see Kavi. So it was another crazy house. At first I spent all of my time in the sitting room, drinking Coke and pretending to pay attention as Kavi was grilled in Punjabi. I had no idea what was going on, and aunties seemed disappointed not to be able to satisfy their curiosity about me. We sat, people came, Kavi answered questions, the room went quiet for a bit, some kid would run in and be shy, we would laugh, conversation would start again.
A few of Kavi’s male cousins trickled in, and one asked if I was tired. I was actually exhausted from all of the traveling and waking up early and heat, but I shook my head that I was fine. I think that was all he needed to break the ice because then we began to talk about everything. He was one of the six parents, and he talked about his kids and Patiala and India and cell phones and industry and schools and language and life. He spoke English very well despite confessing that he hadn’t used it in years, and he had the curious personality that works well for conversations among travelers. We compared notes about our countries for the rest of our stay there. People would come, sit and listen. They would contribute questions and answers, and we all got more comfortable.
When there was a break in the stream of visitors, eight of us piled into the car and went to a maharaja’s house. Patiala, I learned, was the home of a maharaja who invited the patiala peg – a shot of alcohol that is enormous. Apparently this king was visiting England and kept telling the bartender to keep pouring when he was getting a drink. Everyone was amazed when he put back so much alcohol, and the drink was named after the town. ????? Another king or this same king was also famous because he wanted to buy a Rolles Royce. The car dealership didn’t know about the small-time king and refused him service. Finally the dealership realized the king had money to spend, and they sold him ten cars. He was so offended he brought the cars back and used them as a garbage-truck fleet. So Patiala may not have been the home of Indian tourism, but it did have some interesting history.
After our town tour, the whole family recognized that Kavi and I were worn out. Kavi’s fufferji had napped while we toured, so we went for a rest when we got home. We were woken up when more visitors came, and Kavi went back to her sitting-room post. I was in there for about five minutes, but I couldn’t handle it. So I went outside with the uncles, small cousins and dog. I played some tag and talked more about random stuff, then we all had dinner. Kavi was jealous of me… I was glad that I wasn’t the one coming back to India for the first time 14 years.
After a delicious dinner, I was presented with material for a suit as a gift, and another nephew came over. He was 17 and had a motorbike. I had seen them all over, and I wanted a ride. So at almost 10 p.m., I changed into pajama pants and went for a ride in India. Unlike most girls, I did not sit on the back of the bike with both legs on the same side. It was only after we were headed down the main road did I learn that Kavi’s nephew only had a permit, and he wasn’t really supposed to be driving. Oh well. I later found out that one of Kavi’s aunts had a license for three years before she learned how to drive. Her husband knew someone with the driving board, so she figured she may as well get licensed. Public systems in India are very similar in theory to those in America, but in practice everything changes because of corruption and evasion.
We got back from the ride, and the small kids wanted to play games. So Kavi and I ran around playing freeze tag and categories, we tried sardines but they wouldn’t close their eyes for long enough and we ended with some sort of tag. We went to bed close to midnight, but the kids would have stayed out running around until the sunrise.
The kids ranged in age from three years old to about 14 years old, and there were two three-year-olds who were so funny to watch. One boy, one girl, two different families. They lived in the same house and were insanely jealous of each other. It was sort of ridiculous. As soon as I got there, I saw the comedy unfolding. In the sitting room, the girl came in to see her uncle. She climbed on him and acted shy. Not long after, the boy came in to see his dad – the girl’s uncle. He climbed up into his dad’s lamp and immediately pushed the girl away. She didn’t cry, but she resolved to regain her spot by pushing right back. There was some grunting exchanged, and the girl started to cry. Finally the uncle took them both outside so they could get distracted with something else. It was the same with everything. At one point they both had glasses of Coke to drink. The girl gave her mom the drink to hold, and the boy followed suit. The girl took the boy’s drink from her mom’s hand and with a grunt handed it back to the boy. The boy shrieked, and the mom had to quickly take both glasses and put them on the table. Later the same thing happened with bread. And the same thing happened when the boy was in the grandfather’s lap. And the same thing happened when the girl got her bottle. And the same thing happened when the boy got to go outside. It was hilarious. They both grew more comfortable with me, and about five hours in I was able to hold them. When we were outside playing games, I was swinging the girl around and throwing her up in the air. I set her down to go run around, and she saw the boy walking over. She looked up at me and tugged on my pants with a squeal. I wandered away, and they both followed. Laughing, I picked up the girl and started hopping around. The boy chased after and pulled my pants hard to start climbing up my leg. So I hoisted them both up, and they started pushing each other out of my arms. I was laughing, they were starting to cry, and all that I could do was spin them until they both started laughing, hope they got bored and set them off to go find someone else to clamor over. Talk about in-home entertainment.
By the end of my day in Patiala, I was exhausted and sore. But it was a fun, fun day, and I was sad to leave at five in the morning because we couldn’t see the whole crowd together in full swing before we headed out. But I got emails and pictures before I even got back to Delhi, so I feel like it was more of a “see you later” than a “goodbye”.
Jaipur
Agra was the only tour outside of Delhi where Kavi and I were on our own. Our next trip was an overnight to Jairpur, India’s “pink city”. This time we got a driver and Kavi’s fufferji (uncle) came along. I spent most of the car ride through Haryana and Rajasthan taking pictures of the backs of trucks, and later as we approached Jaipur I got shots of camels and their carts padding along beside us. Rajasthan’s climate was much more desert, and we felt the heat by nine in the morning. The land on either side of the road was dry and dusty, and everyone on the road had their heads covered as a shield from the heat. I, of course, forgot to put on sunblock for the day. So my left arm that was leaning out the window for pictures was pink before we even got to Jaipur. Oops. This was the visit where I got my flip-flop tan, and my lips were blistered within a few hours. It was hot in Jaipur.
But we had a great time. We stopped first at a palace where we got to ride an elephant up to the palace. Awesome! It sprayed water up at us a few times as we made the climb, and the elephant driver (?) gave his token English response: “air conditioning”. We toured for a long time all day, and I will post more when I have time to write about the spots we saw.
We took a nap after all of our outside touring, and then headed to our entertainment for the night. It was a mock Rajasthani village where the admission was ridiculous and the staff was dressed in traditional garb. I was convinced it was set up for non-resident Indians who were afraid to take their kids to an actual village but who wanted them to have a village experience. It was so campy it was great. We saw young girls dancing on a stage who knew that asking the crowd to join them would make everyone smile. We saw a magician who got a bird to come out a shoe. There was a henna artist and a masseuse. We could buy tea or (in the ancient tradition) snow cones. There was a wooden ferris wheel and a merry-go-round. We got our fortunes told (I’m going to live until I’m 90. I am very lucky, but I cannot be lazy. I’m going to get married late and have two kids. I like people so I should do something that is creative and lets me work with people like theatre or – accounting.) There were shops with great stuff with English misprinted on it. I found two keychains: “It’s for you my brother like friend” and “Friend are like soul male”. I was highly entertained.
We could have ridden another elephant, but we opted for a camel instead. Camels are awesome for so many reasons. They have such a goofy, uninterested look to them. They walk around like they couldn’t care what they’re doing, and when they’re chilling they seem so content. And it is fun to get on and off of them. Kavi and I rode one together, and the camel gets up and down front-end first. So I was soaring in the air long before Kavi had left the ground, and I came crashing down with Kavi’s head banging into my back after the front had grounded. Kavi’s fufferji tried to get a picture of us on the camel, but all he got were our heads thrown back yelping as we came down suddenly. It’s an awesome picture.
They provided us dinner but berated me for my English, and they filled our plates every time they came by even if we said no. The food was okay, but it was more the experience of sitting cross-legged on the floor and using bowls and plates made from leafs. To help with digestion, we found the long wooden slide and ended our night skidding through red clay. Then we headed back to the hotel to sleep off sunburn and our very full stomachs.
The next morning we shopped. Our guide took us to a government emporium, and by this point Kavi and I were wise to the ways of commission and indoor shopping. Kavi’s fufferji was also pissed with the guide for taking us there. So he apologized and took us to a string of stores that had fabrics with the regional block printing. I found some placemats and a great purse. I bargained and got the price down a lot through banter with the owner, but in the end the price wasn’t what I wanted. It was the only time I regretted not paying more than I wanted for something because the purses were cute! Oh well, it happens.
Afterwards we headed to a monkey temple, which was cool at first. We got some peanuts, and at the entrance some cute monkeys took the food from our hands. We threw shells on the ground and they came up to snack. We had been warned all along against red-faced monkeys, and as we headed closer to the temple, we saw some to avoid. But they are feisty! The temple had some holy water that boys were dive-bombing and cannon-balling into, and it seemed like a party for the monkeys. They directed us up some stairs to another temple area, and then the monkeys came out. Probably twenty came out when they saw the bag. They advanced toward me, looking at my eyes as they moved. I threw peanuts away from me so they would go toward the shells. But they saw the bag and kept coming. Yikes. There were red-faced ones who looked hungry. I did not want to be eaten by monkeys in a desert in India. They came up to me quickly, and just as quickly Kavi’s fufferji grabbed the bag and started emptying on the ground. Finally we all got so panicked that we just sprayed out all of the nuts and dropped the bag on the ground. And we hustled down the steps. I never thought I would be so afraid of monkeys, but that was probably the most terrified I got the whole time I was in India. Those holy monkeys were too smart and too hungry to be friendly.
Our goodbye to the temple was our goodbye to Jaipur. We left at the hottest part of the day to go back in a car where the air conditioning had unexpectedly stopped working just before we left. So I dozed and sweated and listened to music and looked at trucks as we left the dessert and headed back to Delhi.
But we had a great time. We stopped first at a palace where we got to ride an elephant up to the palace. Awesome! It sprayed water up at us a few times as we made the climb, and the elephant driver (?) gave his token English response: “air conditioning”. We toured for a long time all day, and I will post more when I have time to write about the spots we saw.
We took a nap after all of our outside touring, and then headed to our entertainment for the night. It was a mock Rajasthani village where the admission was ridiculous and the staff was dressed in traditional garb. I was convinced it was set up for non-resident Indians who were afraid to take their kids to an actual village but who wanted them to have a village experience. It was so campy it was great. We saw young girls dancing on a stage who knew that asking the crowd to join them would make everyone smile. We saw a magician who got a bird to come out a shoe. There was a henna artist and a masseuse. We could buy tea or (in the ancient tradition) snow cones. There was a wooden ferris wheel and a merry-go-round. We got our fortunes told (I’m going to live until I’m 90. I am very lucky, but I cannot be lazy. I’m going to get married late and have two kids. I like people so I should do something that is creative and lets me work with people like theatre or – accounting.) There were shops with great stuff with English misprinted on it. I found two keychains: “It’s for you my brother like friend” and “Friend are like soul male”. I was highly entertained.
We could have ridden another elephant, but we opted for a camel instead. Camels are awesome for so many reasons. They have such a goofy, uninterested look to them. They walk around like they couldn’t care what they’re doing, and when they’re chilling they seem so content. And it is fun to get on and off of them. Kavi and I rode one together, and the camel gets up and down front-end first. So I was soaring in the air long before Kavi had left the ground, and I came crashing down with Kavi’s head banging into my back after the front had grounded. Kavi’s fufferji tried to get a picture of us on the camel, but all he got were our heads thrown back yelping as we came down suddenly. It’s an awesome picture.
They provided us dinner but berated me for my English, and they filled our plates every time they came by even if we said no. The food was okay, but it was more the experience of sitting cross-legged on the floor and using bowls and plates made from leafs. To help with digestion, we found the long wooden slide and ended our night skidding through red clay. Then we headed back to the hotel to sleep off sunburn and our very full stomachs.
The next morning we shopped. Our guide took us to a government emporium, and by this point Kavi and I were wise to the ways of commission and indoor shopping. Kavi’s fufferji was also pissed with the guide for taking us there. So he apologized and took us to a string of stores that had fabrics with the regional block printing. I found some placemats and a great purse. I bargained and got the price down a lot through banter with the owner, but in the end the price wasn’t what I wanted. It was the only time I regretted not paying more than I wanted for something because the purses were cute! Oh well, it happens.
Afterwards we headed to a monkey temple, which was cool at first. We got some peanuts, and at the entrance some cute monkeys took the food from our hands. We threw shells on the ground and they came up to snack. We had been warned all along against red-faced monkeys, and as we headed closer to the temple, we saw some to avoid. But they are feisty! The temple had some holy water that boys were dive-bombing and cannon-balling into, and it seemed like a party for the monkeys. They directed us up some stairs to another temple area, and then the monkeys came out. Probably twenty came out when they saw the bag. They advanced toward me, looking at my eyes as they moved. I threw peanuts away from me so they would go toward the shells. But they saw the bag and kept coming. Yikes. There were red-faced ones who looked hungry. I did not want to be eaten by monkeys in a desert in India. They came up to me quickly, and just as quickly Kavi’s fufferji grabbed the bag and started emptying on the ground. Finally we all got so panicked that we just sprayed out all of the nuts and dropped the bag on the ground. And we hustled down the steps. I never thought I would be so afraid of monkeys, but that was probably the most terrified I got the whole time I was in India. Those holy monkeys were too smart and too hungry to be friendly.
Our goodbye to the temple was our goodbye to Jaipur. We left at the hottest part of the day to go back in a car where the air conditioning had unexpectedly stopped working just before we left. So I dozed and sweated and listened to music and looked at trucks as we left the dessert and headed back to Delhi.
Agra
The second tour we went on was to go see the Taj Mahal in Agra. This time we got up early and joined a group of four foreigners on a minibus. The government has pumped money into the road from Delhi to Agra because of all of the tourism, and our van fell in line with hordes of trucks, buses and cars all headed in the same direction. The interstate roads are awesome in India. We passed through some villages where the people hanging out on the main road slowed us down some, but mostly the trip was a few hours of fields, gas stations and solitary houses on the side of the road. I couldn’t see any speed limit signs, but the traffic regulated the speed. The trucks all asked us to “blow horn”, “wait for signal” and “use dipper at night” in brightly-painted signs that covered their back end. So it wasn’t a quiet trip, and we didn’t stay in a single lane for more than two minutes. Like in Delhi, we stopped at sanctioned restaurant/hotel spots that seemed to be waiting for only us, and we were promised top-notch shopping as part of the day’s program.
We got to Agra after a few hours. We met up with our guide – a dynamic local man who spoke loudly and wanted to know all of our names. He repeated facts and dates a few times each time he explained something, and he ordered us to take pictures whether we wanted to or not. We left our minibus far away from the site and were ushered quickly onto a battery-powered bus… I was pretty impressed. Then the guide told us that Agra was a city based completely on tourism. There were no factories or production plants because of pollution control. There weren’t even a lot of cars in the city proper. So the lesson is: India cares about the environment when it means that it will bring in lots of foreign money. The town was crawling with hawkers (who we were once again warned against) and foreigners. We made it to the building. Kavi tried to pass off as a resident Indian, but they recognized her western clothes, accented Hindi and foreign entourage… so when they asked for Indian ID, she stammered for a minute and finally paid the charge that was more than ten times what an Indian resident has to pay.
But the $25 in admission fees for the day was worth it. The Taj Mahal really is beautiful. The courtyard, gates, mosque and guesthouse were all a deep red color with white trim and great detail in both red and white flower designs. There were gardens with flowers healthy-looking flowers despite the heat, and still-water pools that led to the Taj Mahal. We had to walk through the north tower to see the building, and it was like a giant, awesome surprise as we headed through the archway. Our guide – who ushered us along by yelling out random names and instructing “this way!” – forced us to take some group pictures, and we each got one of those depth-perception shots that makes it seem like we’re picking up the building. He told us the love story of a King who had many wives but really love only one – a wife who died young after producing a ridiculous number of children. He built (or forced 20,000 slaves to build) a magnanimous building as her tomb. The building was impressive from far away, but I was more interested in the detail. Its white marble is covered with inlaid patterns of gemstones. The exterior had carved flowers and small arches all over the walls. Everything was covered with intentional patterns.
We got to Agra after a few hours. We met up with our guide – a dynamic local man who spoke loudly and wanted to know all of our names. He repeated facts and dates a few times each time he explained something, and he ordered us to take pictures whether we wanted to or not. We left our minibus far away from the site and were ushered quickly onto a battery-powered bus… I was pretty impressed. Then the guide told us that Agra was a city based completely on tourism. There were no factories or production plants because of pollution control. There weren’t even a lot of cars in the city proper. So the lesson is: India cares about the environment when it means that it will bring in lots of foreign money. The town was crawling with hawkers (who we were once again warned against) and foreigners. We made it to the building. Kavi tried to pass off as a resident Indian, but they recognized her western clothes, accented Hindi and foreign entourage… so when they asked for Indian ID, she stammered for a minute and finally paid the charge that was more than ten times what an Indian resident has to pay.
But the $25 in admission fees for the day was worth it. The Taj Mahal really is beautiful. The courtyard, gates, mosque and guesthouse were all a deep red color with white trim and great detail in both red and white flower designs. There were gardens with flowers healthy-looking flowers despite the heat, and still-water pools that led to the Taj Mahal. We had to walk through the north tower to see the building, and it was like a giant, awesome surprise as we headed through the archway. Our guide – who ushered us along by yelling out random names and instructing “this way!” – forced us to take some group pictures, and we each got one of those depth-perception shots that makes it seem like we’re picking up the building. He told us the love story of a King who had many wives but really love only one – a wife who died young after producing a ridiculous number of children. He built (or forced 20,000 slaves to build) a magnanimous building as her tomb. The building was impressive from far away, but I was more interested in the detail. Its white marble is covered with inlaid patterns of gemstones. The exterior had carved flowers and small arches all over the walls. Everything was covered with intentional patterns.
New Delhi
For our sightseeing in Delhi, we got a car tour with Kavi’s cousin Bob, and they arranged a bus tour that took us all around the city. The bus tour was supposed to be in English, but their were three non-natives on the bus, so most of what was said was either in Hindi or heavily-accented English that was blaring from a microphone that was far too close to the guide’s mouth. But it was still a great tour. There was an Italian girl named Sara with us who was studying village architecture, so we wandered around together and exchanged stories. We went to the India gate and the President’s house where the lawn was being used by Army officials who were trying with everything they could to lift a hot air balloon into the air, the Kutab Minar where we saw some beautiful Arabic architecture and some precious puppies, a Hare Krishna temple where we were told that we weren’t circling an idol correctly and that the temple was where they turn western “hippies into happies,” the famous B’hai Lotus Temple where even Indians had to be completely quiet for the two minutes they were inside, a Swaminaren Temple that forced us to give up everything but our souls before we entered, the very crowded Indira Gandhi house where she lived and was assassinated, and the Gandhi memorial with its eternal flame. The tour driver tried to take us to the Red Fort, but apparently – a surprise to be the tour participants and the guide – the road and memorial were closed. It was the first of a few times that the glaring organizational disparities between American and Indian tour companies was made evident. But we went with it.
This tour was also the first time we figured out the system for the tour business in India in general. For shopping, the guides emphasize that we shouldn’t buy stuff from the street. It’s dirty, they’re trying to rip you off, it’s not good quality, they’re not good people, etc. etc. etc. Instead, they propose a shopping stop (that is never advertised in the tour information you get prior to the tour) where you go inside an air-conditioned building full of stalls where a staff is at the door to greet and guide you through shopping, and the prices are fixed at a considerably higher price than the hawkers you were just chatting with at a temple or memorial. In Delhi, Agra and Jaipur we were ushered into emporiums with promises of top-quality goods and cheap prices, and each time I found something that I had seen before marked up three or four times the original price. It is a great marketing scheme aimed at people who have no idea what prices should be, and it worked on our friend Sara – she left the emporium with a green silk salwaar kamiz that cost her probably as much as three of the same type of suits Kavi ordered later in the week. Kavi and I figured it out early on, and we waited to do shopping on the streets or with her family who could finesse a price to numbers that seemed so low that a profit to seem impossible. For eating, the guides usher us to restaurants that seemed to have opened just for us. In Delhi, in fact, we took a huge detour back to the bus depot because he wanted to take us to “good cuisine with north and south Indian food options”. Really, he just wanted to make us go to the restaurant that was owned by the tour company. The staff was ready to take our money, and the prices were once again some of the highest I had seen. It’s a good business being a tour operator.
This tour was also the first time we figured out the system for the tour business in India in general. For shopping, the guides emphasize that we shouldn’t buy stuff from the street. It’s dirty, they’re trying to rip you off, it’s not good quality, they’re not good people, etc. etc. etc. Instead, they propose a shopping stop (that is never advertised in the tour information you get prior to the tour) where you go inside an air-conditioned building full of stalls where a staff is at the door to greet and guide you through shopping, and the prices are fixed at a considerably higher price than the hawkers you were just chatting with at a temple or memorial. In Delhi, Agra and Jaipur we were ushered into emporiums with promises of top-quality goods and cheap prices, and each time I found something that I had seen before marked up three or four times the original price. It is a great marketing scheme aimed at people who have no idea what prices should be, and it worked on our friend Sara – she left the emporium with a green silk salwaar kamiz that cost her probably as much as three of the same type of suits Kavi ordered later in the week. Kavi and I figured it out early on, and we waited to do shopping on the streets or with her family who could finesse a price to numbers that seemed so low that a profit to seem impossible. For eating, the guides usher us to restaurants that seemed to have opened just for us. In Delhi, in fact, we took a huge detour back to the bus depot because he wanted to take us to “good cuisine with north and south Indian food options”. Really, he just wanted to make us go to the restaurant that was owned by the tour company. The staff was ready to take our money, and the prices were once again some of the highest I had seen. It’s a good business being a tour operator.
Mumbai
So Mumbai was my first stop in India, and it was the only time in this trip that I was completely on my own. No one to meet up with, no one staying with me, not crashing with anyone. In a way, first the first time I felt like I was truly backpacking.
The week had its good and bad moments. Most of the bad moments happened during my first 36 hours in the city. My plane was an hour late, and my hotel was not there to pick me up. The information desk at the airport called a hotel for me, and they said they would come soon. Awesome. I waited as the sun was coming up. I got to a hotel and started to check in… they had no record of me, and the price I was quoted by email was not one of their rates. Theirs were all higher. Awesome. So I pulled out some information and realized that I was actually supposed to be checking into a different hotel. Apparently the information desk doesn’t know the difference between Hotel Airlines International and International Airlines Hotel. Go figure. I was sort of panicked because I didn’t want to pay, and I wasn’t sure how to reach the other hotel. But I think the concierge recognized my fright and called my original hotel. Twenty minutes later, I was on my way to the hotel I was supposed to stay in. I slept for the first time in two days at eight in the morning.
I didn’t sleep long because I wanted to get out and see the city. And because I was roused from sleep every ten minutes or so by the phone on my floor that is the front desk’s way of communicating with bellmen on other floors. It was about ten feet from my door and the walls were great conduits of sound. I got up at 11 or so and headed downtown. Two hours later, I got there.
I went first to the Gateway of India and Taj Palace and Towers. One was an arch to welcome arriving British officials, the other a hotel opened when Tata – a huge name all over India – was turned away from British hotels because he was India. Imperialism permeates tourism here. I was badgered from the moment I got out of my taxi. Postcards, Madame? Giant balloons with splatter paint, Madame? Map of Mumbai, Madame? Ice cream, Madame? Small metallic toys that make a junkload of noise when you throw them in the air constantly like this, Madame? NO! Then, my First Friend in India came to talk to me. She spotted me right away and started chatting. Aw, what a nice girl, I thought. She was from Mumbai and she spoke five languages (all the better to cheat international tourists). She asked me where I was from, first time in India?, by myself?, am I married?, do I like Mumbai?. She took a picture for me and tied flowers around my wrist. All at lightening speed. She was an eight-year-old who knew how to work it. I got out money to pay her, she said no charge. I insisted. Something small. She said, welllll, if you want to give me something you can buy me food. Fair enough. So after walking around for a while she took me to a small grocery stand. And she piled on rice, milk, oil… all to cook for her younger siblings. The grocery told me… almost $40 of food. What?! No way, man. I told her to take something off, and something else, and get a smaller bag. She was disappointed, but I was adamant. Finally we agreed on something and she took me where I needed to go next. Later I find out that little kids get you to buy stuff for them so they can resell it to the grocer and use the money for God knows what. Goodbye, new friend.
I was already tired, and I hadn’t been downtown for more than an hour. I started walking in the direction of a Modern Art Gallery and was stopped every ten feet by hawkers. The roads weren’t well marked, so I stopped every 20 feet to ask someone how to get to the road. It was a long walk. When I was looking for the gallery I met my Second Friend in India. I was wearing a salwar kameez that day, and a guy stopped me to tell me that I looked nice. He then started asking me about my travels, etc. He wanted to know where I was headed, and I wasn’t yet completely suspicious of everyone. I told him I was looking for somewhere to eat, and he led me somewhere. Cool, someone to guide me. Then he came inside, and I guessed we were having lunch together. We had a nice lunch – tandoori chicken for me and pasta for him – and exchanged info about families and such. He has met a lot of travelers from the west, and he said he liked meeting new people. Cool. So after lunch, we went to a nearby department store so I could get another outfit. I have limited clothes, and I knew I would go through my three outfits before I could do laundry. In the store, he insisted I try things on and show him, and that’s when I got a little uneasy. I got an outfit and then, just to make my escape, told him I needed to head back to the hotel. He was helpful and showed me where the train station was and how to take the train, but we ended up making plans for the next day that I just couldn’t follow through with. Nice as he was, he left me with an uneasy feeling that I shouldn’t be alone with him. And as a girl in India, I decided to trust that feeling.
I finally made it back to the hotel after my train ride through Mumbai burbs, and relaxed in my room. I was terrified of the water, terrified of the food, terrified of the streets after 4 p.m., terrified of anyone I met who seemed nice. It was not a fun night. Then, to top it off, I took my malaria medicine that night, and after about an hour threw it back up… along with everything I had eaten that day. Awesome.
That was the worst of the worst. I didn’t get up the next day until late, and it took all the energy I had to go back downtown. It just seemed so hard. But I did get up and did make it out of the hotel. And things got easier.
I think I got to see quite a bit of Mumbai. In addition to the Gateway and Palace, I made it to a museum on India, Elephanta Island, Nariman Point, Chowpatty Beach, Hanging Gardens, Nehru Museum, a Jain temple, Ghandi’s Mumbai residence and shopping in Bandra and Santa Cruz. I know I got chumped by taxi drivers who were either (a) lost and didn’t want to tell me, or (b) straight up lying to me about the meter conversion. So I stuck to the train, and most of the time made it up and back okay.
I met some really awesome people because I would just start talking to foreigners. After the first dreadful day, I met up with an American from Emerson and an Israeli who had just finished his military service. The American was headed back to her house in burbs, so the Israeli and I walked around for the rest of the day. He was very pro-American diplomacy, so I stayed quiet. He was funny though. As we walked around, he would say funny things to hawkers. If someone was trying to sell us drums, he would sternly say “No. We hate music.” If someone was trying to sell us jewelry, he would sternly say “No. We hate jewelry.” If someone was trying to sell us ice cream, he would sneer “No. Ice cream is disgusting.” I took him back to the Taj Palace and Towers because the first day I didn’t go inside, and we pretended we were trying to find meeting space for an important event (me wearing a salwar kameez without a dupatta… him in khakis and a beat-up shirt). We went to the top floor and looked at the restaurant, and then we went into the meeting space to see a view of the whole city. The staff of about 20 stood up as we walked in, and we started discussing how well the meeting space might work for our meeting. I was entertained. He was only in Mumbai for transit, so the next morning he was off to Nepal and I was off to find new friends.
The second day I happened upon two new friends, this time because of a taxi driver that worked in my favor. I walked out of the Gandhi house and tried to find a taxi. One was outside, and I told him where I wanted to go. He told me to come on. As I was getting in, two young guys who were in the museum when I was started yelling, “hey!”. Obviously I was stealing their cab. In the end, I ended up riding with them. They hired their driver for the day, and I just gave him some money to supplement. The two guys were in the French Navy, and only one spoke English (and only because he grew up in Senegal). We were driven all over the place, and at the end of the day we had dinner together at a nice restaurant where we were the first customers for the night. In typical European style, dinner lasted two hours and included beer and coffee. It was my second delicious meal, and the gentlemen treated me to it. Now that I can truly say awesome about.
The next day I met a Canadian girl on my ferry back from Elephanta Island. She had lived in the states and was traveling around south Asia for something like eight months. We talked standard travel talk, and then I went with her to meet up with her friend and go to dinner. We went to a fusion restaurant (read: they serve Italian, Chinese, French and Indian… and cakes). Another good meal, more good Kingfisher. We were quite a site: two white girls and one tall (a foot and a half taller than I am) Indian who didn’t speak any Indian languages and was considerably taller than anyone on the street. It was great. After dinner we headed to Chowpatty beach for the night. There were probably 200 people on the beach. Couples lounging, families strolling and picnicking. Men selling food, giant balloons and massages. Precocious girls who came up to us to practice their English and smile proudly when they finished a short conversation. It was neat to see the city so social after dark. We then sampled some fine Indian gelato and I headed back north to the burbs.
The last day I did shopping in the hood and went to dinner with the parents of a cousin of Neil. People I had never seen or talked to invited me out for a nice meal. It was great. We went to a restaurant that was playing to India v. Sri Lanka game (cricket’s March Madness is going on right now) and talked culture and travel for a solid three hours. I sampled everything vegetarian on the buffet and had mango ice cream with kiwi sauce. Yum. The mom was so sad we hadn’t gotten together sooner, and I was sad not to be able to spend time with some Mumbaikers who weren’t out for something. But at midnight I headed back to my hotel to fly out the next day.
Mumbai was great. It was hot and sticky – considerably more of both than Delhi. It was crowded and hectic, and I had my first taste of hard travel. I met cool people and struck out on my own.
The week had its good and bad moments. Most of the bad moments happened during my first 36 hours in the city. My plane was an hour late, and my hotel was not there to pick me up. The information desk at the airport called a hotel for me, and they said they would come soon. Awesome. I waited as the sun was coming up. I got to a hotel and started to check in… they had no record of me, and the price I was quoted by email was not one of their rates. Theirs were all higher. Awesome. So I pulled out some information and realized that I was actually supposed to be checking into a different hotel. Apparently the information desk doesn’t know the difference between Hotel Airlines International and International Airlines Hotel. Go figure. I was sort of panicked because I didn’t want to pay, and I wasn’t sure how to reach the other hotel. But I think the concierge recognized my fright and called my original hotel. Twenty minutes later, I was on my way to the hotel I was supposed to stay in. I slept for the first time in two days at eight in the morning.
I didn’t sleep long because I wanted to get out and see the city. And because I was roused from sleep every ten minutes or so by the phone on my floor that is the front desk’s way of communicating with bellmen on other floors. It was about ten feet from my door and the walls were great conduits of sound. I got up at 11 or so and headed downtown. Two hours later, I got there.
I went first to the Gateway of India and Taj Palace and Towers. One was an arch to welcome arriving British officials, the other a hotel opened when Tata – a huge name all over India – was turned away from British hotels because he was India. Imperialism permeates tourism here. I was badgered from the moment I got out of my taxi. Postcards, Madame? Giant balloons with splatter paint, Madame? Map of Mumbai, Madame? Ice cream, Madame? Small metallic toys that make a junkload of noise when you throw them in the air constantly like this, Madame? NO! Then, my First Friend in India came to talk to me. She spotted me right away and started chatting. Aw, what a nice girl, I thought. She was from Mumbai and she spoke five languages (all the better to cheat international tourists). She asked me where I was from, first time in India?, by myself?, am I married?, do I like Mumbai?. She took a picture for me and tied flowers around my wrist. All at lightening speed. She was an eight-year-old who knew how to work it. I got out money to pay her, she said no charge. I insisted. Something small. She said, welllll, if you want to give me something you can buy me food. Fair enough. So after walking around for a while she took me to a small grocery stand. And she piled on rice, milk, oil… all to cook for her younger siblings. The grocery told me… almost $40 of food. What?! No way, man. I told her to take something off, and something else, and get a smaller bag. She was disappointed, but I was adamant. Finally we agreed on something and she took me where I needed to go next. Later I find out that little kids get you to buy stuff for them so they can resell it to the grocer and use the money for God knows what. Goodbye, new friend.
I was already tired, and I hadn’t been downtown for more than an hour. I started walking in the direction of a Modern Art Gallery and was stopped every ten feet by hawkers. The roads weren’t well marked, so I stopped every 20 feet to ask someone how to get to the road. It was a long walk. When I was looking for the gallery I met my Second Friend in India. I was wearing a salwar kameez that day, and a guy stopped me to tell me that I looked nice. He then started asking me about my travels, etc. He wanted to know where I was headed, and I wasn’t yet completely suspicious of everyone. I told him I was looking for somewhere to eat, and he led me somewhere. Cool, someone to guide me. Then he came inside, and I guessed we were having lunch together. We had a nice lunch – tandoori chicken for me and pasta for him – and exchanged info about families and such. He has met a lot of travelers from the west, and he said he liked meeting new people. Cool. So after lunch, we went to a nearby department store so I could get another outfit. I have limited clothes, and I knew I would go through my three outfits before I could do laundry. In the store, he insisted I try things on and show him, and that’s when I got a little uneasy. I got an outfit and then, just to make my escape, told him I needed to head back to the hotel. He was helpful and showed me where the train station was and how to take the train, but we ended up making plans for the next day that I just couldn’t follow through with. Nice as he was, he left me with an uneasy feeling that I shouldn’t be alone with him. And as a girl in India, I decided to trust that feeling.
I finally made it back to the hotel after my train ride through Mumbai burbs, and relaxed in my room. I was terrified of the water, terrified of the food, terrified of the streets after 4 p.m., terrified of anyone I met who seemed nice. It was not a fun night. Then, to top it off, I took my malaria medicine that night, and after about an hour threw it back up… along with everything I had eaten that day. Awesome.
That was the worst of the worst. I didn’t get up the next day until late, and it took all the energy I had to go back downtown. It just seemed so hard. But I did get up and did make it out of the hotel. And things got easier.
I think I got to see quite a bit of Mumbai. In addition to the Gateway and Palace, I made it to a museum on India, Elephanta Island, Nariman Point, Chowpatty Beach, Hanging Gardens, Nehru Museum, a Jain temple, Ghandi’s Mumbai residence and shopping in Bandra and Santa Cruz. I know I got chumped by taxi drivers who were either (a) lost and didn’t want to tell me, or (b) straight up lying to me about the meter conversion. So I stuck to the train, and most of the time made it up and back okay.
I met some really awesome people because I would just start talking to foreigners. After the first dreadful day, I met up with an American from Emerson and an Israeli who had just finished his military service. The American was headed back to her house in burbs, so the Israeli and I walked around for the rest of the day. He was very pro-American diplomacy, so I stayed quiet. He was funny though. As we walked around, he would say funny things to hawkers. If someone was trying to sell us drums, he would sternly say “No. We hate music.” If someone was trying to sell us jewelry, he would sternly say “No. We hate jewelry.” If someone was trying to sell us ice cream, he would sneer “No. Ice cream is disgusting.” I took him back to the Taj Palace and Towers because the first day I didn’t go inside, and we pretended we were trying to find meeting space for an important event (me wearing a salwar kameez without a dupatta… him in khakis and a beat-up shirt). We went to the top floor and looked at the restaurant, and then we went into the meeting space to see a view of the whole city. The staff of about 20 stood up as we walked in, and we started discussing how well the meeting space might work for our meeting. I was entertained. He was only in Mumbai for transit, so the next morning he was off to Nepal and I was off to find new friends.
The second day I happened upon two new friends, this time because of a taxi driver that worked in my favor. I walked out of the Gandhi house and tried to find a taxi. One was outside, and I told him where I wanted to go. He told me to come on. As I was getting in, two young guys who were in the museum when I was started yelling, “hey!”. Obviously I was stealing their cab. In the end, I ended up riding with them. They hired their driver for the day, and I just gave him some money to supplement. The two guys were in the French Navy, and only one spoke English (and only because he grew up in Senegal). We were driven all over the place, and at the end of the day we had dinner together at a nice restaurant where we were the first customers for the night. In typical European style, dinner lasted two hours and included beer and coffee. It was my second delicious meal, and the gentlemen treated me to it. Now that I can truly say awesome about.
The next day I met a Canadian girl on my ferry back from Elephanta Island. She had lived in the states and was traveling around south Asia for something like eight months. We talked standard travel talk, and then I went with her to meet up with her friend and go to dinner. We went to a fusion restaurant (read: they serve Italian, Chinese, French and Indian… and cakes). Another good meal, more good Kingfisher. We were quite a site: two white girls and one tall (a foot and a half taller than I am) Indian who didn’t speak any Indian languages and was considerably taller than anyone on the street. It was great. After dinner we headed to Chowpatty beach for the night. There were probably 200 people on the beach. Couples lounging, families strolling and picnicking. Men selling food, giant balloons and massages. Precocious girls who came up to us to practice their English and smile proudly when they finished a short conversation. It was neat to see the city so social after dark. We then sampled some fine Indian gelato and I headed back north to the burbs.
The last day I did shopping in the hood and went to dinner with the parents of a cousin of Neil. People I had never seen or talked to invited me out for a nice meal. It was great. We went to a restaurant that was playing to India v. Sri Lanka game (cricket’s March Madness is going on right now) and talked culture and travel for a solid three hours. I sampled everything vegetarian on the buffet and had mango ice cream with kiwi sauce. Yum. The mom was so sad we hadn’t gotten together sooner, and I was sad not to be able to spend time with some Mumbaikers who weren’t out for something. But at midnight I headed back to my hotel to fly out the next day.
Mumbai was great. It was hot and sticky – considerably more of both than Delhi. It was crowded and hectic, and I had my first taste of hard travel. I met cool people and struck out on my own.
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