It’s strange that we travel to far away and foreign places just to seek out the things that make us feel at home like a good room, good food and good friends.
I've been back in Dharamsala a week. The bus ride from Delhi turned out to be pretty good. No major complications, besides a flat tire (which I slept through) or weird men. And when I arrived, I was happily greeted by a wonderful and kind familiar face – my good friend Choedar. Coming back to Dharamsala felt like coming home. I went back to my old room in McLeod with the sweet Tibetan landlady and it was available! I couldn’t have felt luckier.
It’s so nice to be back. The weather is great. It’s sunny and warm during the day, rains a little bit in the evening and cool at night. Walking around the first couple of days I passed by and ran into so many familiar faces, but at the same time there’s a whole new crowd of travelers in town.
Traveling alone has been so intense and rewarding. I’ve had to confront (but yet to conquer) my deepest insecurities and fears, and I’ve been rewarded in countless ways. It’s hard to realize all of this during the hard or frustrating parts, but at the end of the day I feel so fortunate and grateful for this opportunity.
The other night I went out to grab dinner thinking it would be a quiet night. I ended up at Carpe Diem, a great after school hang out type of café run by two really nice, young Nepali guys. I walked in and it was packed full of people and the house band was just getting started on a jam session. Everyone was sitting at the tables in huge groups. At first I felt like, ‘damn, I don’t know anyone,” but let it go and relaxed into the scene. The band was great. They played everything from Pink Floyd to Coldplay to Indian pop to Bob Marley. Then the band opened the mic up to musicians in the café. A Danish couple went up and performed a few of their own songs. The entire restaurant was captivated by their songs. It was so beautiful and genuine. At one point everyone in the room was singing along with them. I ended up joining a table with about 20 people from all over – Norway, Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Israel, Zimbabwe, Belgium, Yemen, Holland, France, Japan, Korea… It was so beautiful to be there with so many travelers, most of them also traveling alone and in their twenties, listening to each other sing their hearts out, eating good food and having great time.
There’s an indescribable, fulfilling sense of friendship and humanity in traveling that I’ve fallen in love with.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Delhi
I realize that I must have sounded extremely dire in the last posting. But how quickly things change. Saying goodbye to Eva was so emotional. We both cried. It was just so damn touching.! I know I’ll see her again, but God knows when and where. It’s crazy how quickly attached I become. It’s just so hard to let go of the good people. I love that traveling brings people close together so quickly. The friendships that form are beautiful. I switched guesthouses to one nearby where Dikla was staying called Shiva Ganga Lodge. I wished I had stayed there from the beginning of my time in Varanasi. It has just a relaxed and peaceful vibe. It’s run by an Indian family, has a beautiful coutyard of tropical plants and flowers, and is next to an ashram that overlooks the Ganges. The other people staying there were from all over – Thailand, Nicaragua, UK, Germany, Israel, the US, and they were all chill. I only stayed a day and a half more after Eva left. I would have stayed longer at the new place, but I already bought my ticket to Delhi.
Indian train rides are an experience all their own. This one was only my second time traveling on a train. Luckily, I got placed in a section with other tourists – a young, chain-smoking, infatuated French couple, a lesbian Korean couple, and a middle-aged Italian man who couldn’t wait to leave India. It was a good mix.
Indian men are all about staring. Six Indian men squished into a space that only fits two people comfortably, to stare at us. It doesn’t matter what we do, and it doesn’t matter what we say, they stare and stare and stare and don’t see that there is anything awkward, annoying, or creepy about it.
The train got in late and after haggling with and getting hassled by rickshaw drivers, and escaping some crazy Indian woman trying to scam me, I found the pre-paid taxi booth and got a legitimate rickshaw to drive me. Especially around tourists hubs, like railway stations, rickshaw and taxi drivers will offer to take you for a fair or cheap price if you just ‘stop and take a look’ at a couple of shops. You end up getting taken to places where either you’re in the middle of nowhere, the stuff is crap, or you get interrogated to buy overpriced crap, or they keep taking you to shops until you do buy something before dropping you where you needed to go in the first place. It’s a big headache dealing with those kind of people. That’s the part of traveling I hate. All the haggling sucks me dry and turns me into the bitch demon I never knew existed within. I don’t like that. But these parts of India bring it out in a person.
While I’m in Delhi, I’m staying with my friend Bryce, a Fulbright alum. It was heaven getting to his apartment. It’s like home!! It has A/C, Internet, premium cable, a kitchen, a clean shower and toilet, and an extra mattress! And his roommate Nandani is the most hilariously, sarcastic down to earth Indian woman I’ve met yet. She’s a black sheep in this society. She’s successful, independent, living on her own and not looking to get married any time soon. To us that’s normal. Here, it’s blasphemy. She’s only 26 and already the senior art director of a big Mumbai-based production design house. After decompressing from the train, I chilled out with her in front of the TV. A perfectly pleasant way to spend any hot, lazy Sunday afternoon.
I walked around in the late afternoon. I finally got my hair cut after like 5 or 6 months of not cutting it, and my legs waxed, after 3 months of not shaving. I feel like a new person. Since I’m in a residential place and around locals, I realized I’ve been so removed from regular life where people where regular clothes, and have clean shoes, and carry normal bags. It’s nice to be back, if only for a few days.
Indian train rides are an experience all their own. This one was only my second time traveling on a train. Luckily, I got placed in a section with other tourists – a young, chain-smoking, infatuated French couple, a lesbian Korean couple, and a middle-aged Italian man who couldn’t wait to leave India. It was a good mix.
Indian men are all about staring. Six Indian men squished into a space that only fits two people comfortably, to stare at us. It doesn’t matter what we do, and it doesn’t matter what we say, they stare and stare and stare and don’t see that there is anything awkward, annoying, or creepy about it.
The train got in late and after haggling with and getting hassled by rickshaw drivers, and escaping some crazy Indian woman trying to scam me, I found the pre-paid taxi booth and got a legitimate rickshaw to drive me. Especially around tourists hubs, like railway stations, rickshaw and taxi drivers will offer to take you for a fair or cheap price if you just ‘stop and take a look’ at a couple of shops. You end up getting taken to places where either you’re in the middle of nowhere, the stuff is crap, or you get interrogated to buy overpriced crap, or they keep taking you to shops until you do buy something before dropping you where you needed to go in the first place. It’s a big headache dealing with those kind of people. That’s the part of traveling I hate. All the haggling sucks me dry and turns me into the bitch demon I never knew existed within. I don’t like that. But these parts of India bring it out in a person.
While I’m in Delhi, I’m staying with my friend Bryce, a Fulbright alum. It was heaven getting to his apartment. It’s like home!! It has A/C, Internet, premium cable, a kitchen, a clean shower and toilet, and an extra mattress! And his roommate Nandani is the most hilariously, sarcastic down to earth Indian woman I’ve met yet. She’s a black sheep in this society. She’s successful, independent, living on her own and not looking to get married any time soon. To us that’s normal. Here, it’s blasphemy. She’s only 26 and already the senior art director of a big Mumbai-based production design house. After decompressing from the train, I chilled out with her in front of the TV. A perfectly pleasant way to spend any hot, lazy Sunday afternoon.
I walked around in the late afternoon. I finally got my hair cut after like 5 or 6 months of not cutting it, and my legs waxed, after 3 months of not shaving. I feel like a new person. Since I’m in a residential place and around locals, I realized I’ve been so removed from regular life where people where regular clothes, and have clean shoes, and carry normal bags. It’s nice to be back, if only for a few days.
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