Sometimes it feels so surreal to be doing what I’m doing. Backpacking or traveling like this isn’t in my family. Granted my family did the ultimate kind of adventure traveling – escaping their homeland on a fishing boat, still I feel kind of like a pioneer because I’m the first and only person in my entire family to ever travel like this. It’s awesome. I think most of my relatives think I’m crazy and partially sadomasochistic, and sometimes when I’m in disconcerting situations I also wonder why the hell am I doing this, but mostly, it’s exhilarating and liberating the kind of self-reliant and independence I feel traveling by myself in a foreign country.
I’ve really fallen off updating the blog. I just haven’t been into the rhythm of it. But there have been a lot of wonderful things that happened since the Tibetan settlement. It was so hard to leave there. It’s so hard to leave a lot of places. It’s easy to love a place, and meet a wonderful group and people and want to stay. But I had to keep the momentum going, and after a week in the settlement, I headed to Mysore.
Dolkar and her family gave me such a warm send-off. The night before I left they made a special traditional Tibetan dinner called ‘momos.’ Essentially, momos are dumplings or gyoza. They made special vegetarian momos for me since the family prefer meat filled momos. In the morning I packed my things, and before leaving, Dolkar, her grandmother and her uncle Tashi, each offered me khatas – white scarfs that represent the purity of one’s self. Tashi dropped me off on the main road just as the bus came. We jumped out of the car waving our hands and shouting for the driver to stop. I threw my stuff on board, hugged Dolkar goodbye and took off.
Mysore is a ‘small’ Indian city. I think there’s still over a million people there. Maybe two. I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s a green city, with lots of trees and parks, and was the seat of the old Maharaja throne. I stayed at the guesthouse that Dolkar recommended called Indira Bhavan. The hotels in this city are from the ‘40s or ‘50s and have a rundown, old school charm. I only stayed in Mysore for a couple days and visited the Maharaja Palace and the Mysore Zoo. The Palace was amazing! Unfortunately they don’t let people take photos of the Palace. But basically it looked like how the Titanic ship looked like in the movie except with more Indian flavor and brighter colors.
I didn’t know what to expect at the Zoo. I was preparing myself for a decrepit, depressing animal prison, but instead I was blown away by the beauty and size of the place. The animals have fairly big enclosures and in between the animal dwellings are manicured gardens and lush plant life. The Zoo had so much variety. It’s the best Zoo I’ve ever been too. Even nicer and bigger than the National Zoo in DC!
I left Mysore after two days. There was not much else for me to stay around for. I took the morning train and got to Bangalore by early afternoon. I stayed with a Fulbright High School Exchange Teacher and his family. Paul and his family are from a small California town outside of Yosemite. They came to India for 6 months for the Fulbright Teacher Exchange program. I spent nearly a week with them in a neighborhoody area of Bangalore. Bangalore itself is completely chaotic, loud, polluted and like every other congested Indian city. But this neighborhood had a lot of character and had a great local South Indian joint on the corner. I think I ate there at least two meals a day. South Indian food is delicious. Unfortunately we don’t get South Indian food in the States. So sad.
Paul and his wife Karen have three girls: 3, 7, and 9. Super cute family. They also have a blog which is way better than mine, updated regularly and has lots of pictures: www.amtutzfamilyindia.blogspot.com. I recommend it.
From Bangalore I wanted to go to the Ajanta, the place of ancient caves of Buddhist carvings dating from the 1st century. The carvings are the pinnacle of Buddhist art and are a World Heritage site. I’ve only heard amazing things about them. But the trains were full booked for weeks going through the nearest railhead to there so I had no other choice but to go to my next spot on the list—Diu.
Diu is really far away from Bangalore. It’s back toward the north and Bangalore is way in the South. I flew into Ahmedabad, an enormous multi-million populated city and the industrial capital of India. It’s not a tourist place so it was unlikely I’d see other foreigners there. The only flight there was at night and I got in really late around midnight. It’s sort of unnerving to arrive any new place late at night. But my nerves were eased by the pleasant conversation I had with the 24 year old girl sitting next to me about her arranged marriage. What a trip that is. She only met her husband to be twice before the wedding ceremony. I think for a total of 3 hours. She’s been married a year and a half now. I asked her if she feels in love or even loves her husband. And she says she’s beginning too now. It makes me wonder what intimacy was like the wedding night and in general. But I didn’t get to ask her that.
I took a cab from the airport and stayed in a Lonely Planet recommended guesthouse. The budget options are slim in Ahmedabad. The room was a crap hole, but the guy who ran the hotel was nice. I don’t know why hotels seem to like that institutional faded neon green color. It’s so jarring when combined with fluorescent lighting.
The next morning I woke up early and walked a few kilometers to the long distance bus station, bought my ticket to Diu for that night. That area of the city is known as the Old City. There are about four old huge mosques in the area with old stone walls and lots of Muslim-owned shops. Just walking around there felt like a time travel. Everyone else was in Muslim garb and I was wearing denim jeans and a long sleeve and pumas. I walked through the market, which was just beginning to open up. The people looked at me, but didn’t care too much that was a foreigner or woman walking around in their world. It was a cold morning, and all the men that were awake and out were huddling around little chai stalls drinking their tea. And like every old place in India wouldn’t be complete without cows roaming around eating from trash piles, or random homeless bums sleeping in the middle of the street.
I didn’t know how I was going to pass the day since there’s not much in Ahmedabad, but while taking breakfast at this random street corner food stall, a French woman traveler came stumbling in. She, like me, was catching a night bus and had to spend the day in Ahmedabad. She was a Godsend! I think she felt the same way. We stored our stuff in my hotel, and spent the whole day out walking around that huge city. We visited the City Museum. It had the most random stuff about Ahmedabad in it. But the absolute hightlight of our explorations was after the museum we went to look for someone to eat. Everything is really spread out in Ahmedabad. We were walking a dusty road for a long time, and then all of sudden came upon this restaurant with a picture of a thali and some Gujarati writing. So we went into the restaurant and it turned out to be a really fancy restaurant that served an amazing unlimited Gujarati style thali. The waiters walked around barefoot with tin buckets of food that they scooped onto your plate with the snap of a finger. It was amazing!
Luckily that night our buses left from the same place only an hour apart. I left first around 8p and so we went on our separate ways.
When I bought my bus ticket, which was challenging because absolutely no one spoke English, they told me the bus would arrive at 5am. But I didn’t think it would actually be on time. And I didn’t know it would be so cold at night. The bus ride was freezing! I decided to take a Dramamine to help me sleep and prevent carsickness. But has it turned out the bus arrived very on time, and the drowsiness effect of the Dramamine was stayed in full effect.
The bus stopped several times for the toilet and chai breaks. When I fell asleep at the beginning of the journey the bus was half full. And when I woke up around 3am during a stop, the bus was nearly empty except for 2 or 3 passengers including myself. We were in the middle of nowhere and I was fully groggy. I remember stumbling, and I mean stumbling out of the bus in the middle of the night in this place in the middle of nowhere. The guys standing around the chai stall just stared (but not the creepy stare). I just think I was the last thing they’d expect to exit the bus.
At times like these I wonder whether I made a good choice to travel to locally. Most foreigners would have taken the tourist bus, which takes you directly to Diu, and is full of other tourists. But the local government bus is always a lot cheaper and always on time and usually isn’t crowded. It can seem more intimidating or isolated, but there’s something special about traveling the way locals do.
The bus I took actually only got me as far as Una, the city outside of Diu. From Una I was supposed to take a local bus to Diu, 12 kilometers away. But since we arrived on time in Una at 5am, there were no buses for at least 45 minutes. I was praying the sun would rise soon. It didn’t. It was okay though because I didn’t get a bad feeling from the place. There were a big handful of other people waiting for the same bus as me. Mostly fisher men and women waiting with their big baskets. It was freezing in Una at 5am. There were a few chai stalls about 100 meters across the way. I could barely feel my fingers. The guy turned the fire on really high let me warm my hands after I drinking 3 cups (their tea cups are the size of a shot glass) of tea.
The locals on the bus were so kind and so lively at 5:45 in the morning. I think they must all know each other because they were laughing and talking and joking. They all greeted me and when my stop came they all told me it was my stop and helped me with my bags. The bus dropped me on the side of the road and sped off. It was still dark as night at 6:15am. Not knowing the short cut, I walked down the dark, unlit length of road to the archway entrance to Diu town. There was no one out except for some cows, stray dogs and an old woman. I walked around the narrow winding roads looking for Super Silver Guesthouse, the place where Pau, my friend from Gokarna, said he was staying. I finally found it at daybreak. The guys running the hotel were asleep in front of the reception door. They gave me a room right next to Pau. I left a note on Pau door and then crashed back to sleep, newly arrived in Diu.
It took me all of a day to fall in love with Diu. It’s an amazing place with such a special energy. Being here is like being a kid again. Pau showed me some highlights of the town and the surrounding villages, and introduced me to the group of people he’d met in the past couple of weeks. There are a lot of cool people here from all over. A few of them are long-term visitors.
Diu is an old Portuguese colony that was only returned to India in 1961. So many of the older people here speak Portuguese, as well as Gujarati. There are beautiful, old Portuguese-style Catholic churches in and around town, and a lot of the houses are built in a Portuguese architectural style. Many of the people on the island look mixed, and there are even some people of African origin. Diu is an island, and it covered in palm and coconut trees. The people are really friendly and chilled. The only thing that’s not so nice about the scene are the seedy, sexually repressed, or alcohol deprived men who come here from the mainland on the weekend to drink. Gujuarat is a dry state and in Diu they can buy alcohol. But that crowd tends to be in one part of town so it’s easily avoidable.
Since coming I’ve spent my days with our group riding our rented vintage bicycles to the beach swimming all day, playing in the sand, having barbeques, riding on the back of tractor trailers, sitting on the roof of the Old Church, eating dinner from the thali stand and dancing lassi man, and then finishing off the day with ice cream from the best ice cream parlor in town. The other day we visited the waterpark that’s a coupel kilometers down the road and spent all afternoon riding water slides and playing the wave pool with intertubes. It was swell.
I’m thinking of staying here through the holidays. There’s a bunch of people that will be here at least through Christmas. I think it’s a good place to hang around for a while.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Friday, November 30, 2007
On the Road
sorry i don't have pics yet. i'm working on that. but i've been moving a lot and out of good internet for a while.
since i last wrote i've moved around to such different places and environments. from gokarna i went to hampi. it was a bumpy 12 hour journey on the state long distance bus. hampi looks like it's straight out of the flintstones. in the middle of nowhere, all of sudden you come upon a place huge piles of boulders, with banana and sugarcane fields, and coconut trees. the boulders, precariously balanced on top of each other, are strewn about temple ruins. i stayed in a village and spent my days bicycling around to the ruins, climbing on rocks, and watching sunsets. hampi is such a chilled out place where there's a lot to do if you like to be outside. i met some british friends traveling together, and we biked several kilometers out of the ruins to a lake on top of a mountain. the water was so clean and refreshing. there was a sign that said there were crocodiles in the lake, but we figured it was just to scare people from swimming in it. we spent the whole afternoon swimming and chilling out lakeside and then later we found out there really were baby crocs in the water! another night there was word of a jam session inside a teepee. so a bunch of us walked out to the edge of the village. a young indian couple built a huge teepee and made a lounge cafe inside of it. some people brought different instruments and played some music, but mostly ended up as a laid back evening of conversation.
i wish i could have stayed in hampi longer, but it was time to go. i had to be in manipal for the fulbright conference.
being there was a complete 180 from how i'd been living before. they put us up in a classy hotel. it's the first time i've had a piping hot shower since i left the us. and the first time I've eaten hotel buffet food for every meal. Around 100 Fulbrighters and guests attended the conference. All of the other Fulbrighters are really talented, amazing people. Some are high school exchange teachers, other Doctoral dissertation researchers, and others like myself, recent college grads. We met in workshops and sessions all day, shared our experiences and met one another. After the conference ended, I transferred to Mangalore, a couple hours from Manipal and stayed there overnight to catch the morning bus to Bylakuppe the Tibetan settlement.
I might have had the worst night of my India trip in Mangalore. I have never felt so terrified in my whole life like the way I did that night. I had stomach issues throughout the conference. Despite the food being fancy and from a hotel, it was very rich, oily and spicy. I couldn't eat much while I was there. My stomach was so upset and on the last day of the conference it finally culminated into diarrhea and vomiting. I went to a nearby clinic where the doctor told me I had inflammation of the intestines and infectious diarrhea. He gave me a bunch of Cipro and said it would be fine in a few days. That's why I decided to stay in Mangalore for a night. I stayed in a Lonely Planet recommended hotel. Mangalore is a quiet city, and will a lot of college students around and banks. The hotel was an old hotel something out of the art deco period, very sixties. It was huge and had a lot of rooms and had a creepy dark vibe to it, but I didn't realize it when i first checked in. i came around 4pm and showered and rested in my room til 6:30p when i left to have dinner, but before i left, the phone rang. that was weird because who would be calling me at the hotel. i picked up and it was some guy that said he was staying on the second floor and saw that i just arrived and wanted to offer the internet to me if i wanted to check mail. i declined and hung out. after dinner, that guy called again. "i thought you were going to call me," he said. all this time he's being polite and normal sounding. then it turned creepy. he started asking me all these questions, and i of course dodged answering them, and was politely trying to get off the phone. he wasn't getting the message, at all. then i turned on to bitch mode (being in india really teaches you how to do this) and told him i wasn't interested and then i hung up. i went to bed early, but i could barely sleep all night. the guy started to call me in the middle of the night, letting it ring and then hanging up. the ring of the phone cut through the silence in my room so i woke up with my heart beating fast and hard. the ring was something out of a hitchcock movie. then he i could hear someone coming down the stairs and then a knock on my door. this happened at 11:30p, 1:15a and 2:30a. i eventually unplugged the phone. i was so scared. weird shit happens in india all the time. and there's no shortage at all of creepy, disgusting and weird men in this country. i encountered many on my travels. but i never felt so scared by one like that guy. the lock on my door was flimsy too. i was scared that he might try to break into my room while i was sleeping so i couldn't fall asleep. after he knocked on my door (who would knock on someone's door in the middle of night when obviously they are sleeping?) i could hear him standing there for some time. silently i crept over to the door and put a chair there as a block. then i could hear strange noises coming from the second floor. i kept looking at the clock, thinking that i just had to make it through the night. every time i fell asleep a little, i'd wake up panicked from whatever weird sound i heard, or his knocking. and during that sleep i had nightmares about the hotel. one dream i still remember was that of me being in the hotel and seeing the ghost of an old man. next to him was a little girl who looked unhappy and trapped by the old man. i went over to the girl to pull her away and the man took my hand and was trying to pull me with him into the ghost realm. i couldn't free my hand, so in my dream i started to invoke a demon spirit in order to overpower and scare the man. i started to hiss and turn into a scary deity like the ones i've seen painted on tibetan temples. he freed my hand, and simultaneously i woke up, threw my head forward and realized i was hissing out loud. theni heard the sound of something jump off the bed and run away. the morning didn't come fast enough. right when day broke, i got out of bed, packed the rest of my stuff, and left to the bus station.
after 7 hours I made it to the largest tibetan settlement in india. Around 10,000 Tibetans lived in Bylakuppe. It's sort of in the middle of nowhere. There are 20 camps in all spread out in between farmlands and hilly fields. Each camp is like a neighborhood or cluster of homes. Some camps are just shops and restaurants and some are monasteries. On the edge of the settlement is a forest where elephants and other wild animals roam. Before I left Manipal, another Fulbrighter studying Buddhism put me in touch with a colleague of his who lives here. Her name is Dolkar, and she's been a life saver. After coming from Mangalore and that whole incident, it's been pure joy to stay with Dolkar and her family. She went to one of best international schools in Asia so she speaks English fluently. I've been here for the past 3 or 4 days. I've already lost count. I've quickly fallen into with her family and everyday life. She and her whole family are really warm, generous and welcoming.
I visited some monasteries, but the real highlight of being here has been experiencing and learning about everyday life in the settlement. Although people here are very modern looking and wear the best and latest fashions, carrying the flashiest phones, they still are very down to earth people and live a very traditional lifestyle. Dolkar and her family are very close and they all help each other with all the chores. As the oldest child, Dolkar (who's my age) has to cook for her whole family (around 10 people including grandma, cousins, dad, brothers and sisters) 3 meals a day, and clean. she happily does it, and they all help her. there is so much work to do so everyone helps out. the others are younger and go to school still, but when they are around they help with laundry, food prep or other farm work. her dad and grandmother take care of the dairy farm and all the other crops there. their kitchen is very traditional. it has a traditional tibetan hearth on one side that takes up the entire wall. for someone like myself who grew up in an american city, this kind of this is completely surreal. during the day i help out with some on the housework, or dolkar and i go around town doing different things. today i churned butter, and then we went to hear her cousins sing in the local school singing competition. all the kids were dressed up in tibetan clothes singing songs in homage to HH the Dalai Lama. it was really cute. later on i helped them churn butter in this long cylindrical vat.
at night when all the kids come home from school everyone hangs out outside on the porch or in the yard. they all get along and never fight with each other. all the siblings and cousins love each other so much. it's refreshing to see such love within a family and between friends. strangely it feels like she and i are old friends or i've known her for a long time.
feeding a lot of people is not an easy thing to do. i've never eaten so much potatoes and bread in different variations. in the morning they typically have milk tea with pa le, thick flat round brown bread (she hand rolls each one and then cooks them one by one on a skillet). Lunch is usually pa le with stir fry potatoes or cabbage. And dinner is usually some kind of meat, either mutton or beef cooked in broth with turnips or tomates and either rice or pa le.
i love being here and being with their family. one thing that i realized from being here is how wealthy a lifestyle i feel i have in the US. from accomodation to food, i have so much variety and abundance. i love to eat green vegetables and i feel like it's a treat when we have a different vegetable for lunch or dinner other than potatoes. and it's a treat that we have a sink to brush our teeth in as opposed to brushing my teeth over a squat toilet. or that there is hot running water.
i always knew that i was fortunate and blessed, but i now i really get why.
since i last wrote i've moved around to such different places and environments. from gokarna i went to hampi. it was a bumpy 12 hour journey on the state long distance bus. hampi looks like it's straight out of the flintstones. in the middle of nowhere, all of sudden you come upon a place huge piles of boulders, with banana and sugarcane fields, and coconut trees. the boulders, precariously balanced on top of each other, are strewn about temple ruins. i stayed in a village and spent my days bicycling around to the ruins, climbing on rocks, and watching sunsets. hampi is such a chilled out place where there's a lot to do if you like to be outside. i met some british friends traveling together, and we biked several kilometers out of the ruins to a lake on top of a mountain. the water was so clean and refreshing. there was a sign that said there were crocodiles in the lake, but we figured it was just to scare people from swimming in it. we spent the whole afternoon swimming and chilling out lakeside and then later we found out there really were baby crocs in the water! another night there was word of a jam session inside a teepee. so a bunch of us walked out to the edge of the village. a young indian couple built a huge teepee and made a lounge cafe inside of it. some people brought different instruments and played some music, but mostly ended up as a laid back evening of conversation.
i wish i could have stayed in hampi longer, but it was time to go. i had to be in manipal for the fulbright conference.
being there was a complete 180 from how i'd been living before. they put us up in a classy hotel. it's the first time i've had a piping hot shower since i left the us. and the first time I've eaten hotel buffet food for every meal. Around 100 Fulbrighters and guests attended the conference. All of the other Fulbrighters are really talented, amazing people. Some are high school exchange teachers, other Doctoral dissertation researchers, and others like myself, recent college grads. We met in workshops and sessions all day, shared our experiences and met one another. After the conference ended, I transferred to Mangalore, a couple hours from Manipal and stayed there overnight to catch the morning bus to Bylakuppe the Tibetan settlement.
I might have had the worst night of my India trip in Mangalore. I have never felt so terrified in my whole life like the way I did that night. I had stomach issues throughout the conference. Despite the food being fancy and from a hotel, it was very rich, oily and spicy. I couldn't eat much while I was there. My stomach was so upset and on the last day of the conference it finally culminated into diarrhea and vomiting. I went to a nearby clinic where the doctor told me I had inflammation of the intestines and infectious diarrhea. He gave me a bunch of Cipro and said it would be fine in a few days. That's why I decided to stay in Mangalore for a night. I stayed in a Lonely Planet recommended hotel. Mangalore is a quiet city, and will a lot of college students around and banks. The hotel was an old hotel something out of the art deco period, very sixties. It was huge and had a lot of rooms and had a creepy dark vibe to it, but I didn't realize it when i first checked in. i came around 4pm and showered and rested in my room til 6:30p when i left to have dinner, but before i left, the phone rang. that was weird because who would be calling me at the hotel. i picked up and it was some guy that said he was staying on the second floor and saw that i just arrived and wanted to offer the internet to me if i wanted to check mail. i declined and hung out. after dinner, that guy called again. "i thought you were going to call me," he said. all this time he's being polite and normal sounding. then it turned creepy. he started asking me all these questions, and i of course dodged answering them, and was politely trying to get off the phone. he wasn't getting the message, at all. then i turned on to bitch mode (being in india really teaches you how to do this) and told him i wasn't interested and then i hung up. i went to bed early, but i could barely sleep all night. the guy started to call me in the middle of the night, letting it ring and then hanging up. the ring of the phone cut through the silence in my room so i woke up with my heart beating fast and hard. the ring was something out of a hitchcock movie. then he i could hear someone coming down the stairs and then a knock on my door. this happened at 11:30p, 1:15a and 2:30a. i eventually unplugged the phone. i was so scared. weird shit happens in india all the time. and there's no shortage at all of creepy, disgusting and weird men in this country. i encountered many on my travels. but i never felt so scared by one like that guy. the lock on my door was flimsy too. i was scared that he might try to break into my room while i was sleeping so i couldn't fall asleep. after he knocked on my door (who would knock on someone's door in the middle of night when obviously they are sleeping?) i could hear him standing there for some time. silently i crept over to the door and put a chair there as a block. then i could hear strange noises coming from the second floor. i kept looking at the clock, thinking that i just had to make it through the night. every time i fell asleep a little, i'd wake up panicked from whatever weird sound i heard, or his knocking. and during that sleep i had nightmares about the hotel. one dream i still remember was that of me being in the hotel and seeing the ghost of an old man. next to him was a little girl who looked unhappy and trapped by the old man. i went over to the girl to pull her away and the man took my hand and was trying to pull me with him into the ghost realm. i couldn't free my hand, so in my dream i started to invoke a demon spirit in order to overpower and scare the man. i started to hiss and turn into a scary deity like the ones i've seen painted on tibetan temples. he freed my hand, and simultaneously i woke up, threw my head forward and realized i was hissing out loud. theni heard the sound of something jump off the bed and run away. the morning didn't come fast enough. right when day broke, i got out of bed, packed the rest of my stuff, and left to the bus station.
after 7 hours I made it to the largest tibetan settlement in india. Around 10,000 Tibetans lived in Bylakuppe. It's sort of in the middle of nowhere. There are 20 camps in all spread out in between farmlands and hilly fields. Each camp is like a neighborhood or cluster of homes. Some camps are just shops and restaurants and some are monasteries. On the edge of the settlement is a forest where elephants and other wild animals roam. Before I left Manipal, another Fulbrighter studying Buddhism put me in touch with a colleague of his who lives here. Her name is Dolkar, and she's been a life saver. After coming from Mangalore and that whole incident, it's been pure joy to stay with Dolkar and her family. She went to one of best international schools in Asia so she speaks English fluently. I've been here for the past 3 or 4 days. I've already lost count. I've quickly fallen into with her family and everyday life. She and her whole family are really warm, generous and welcoming.
I visited some monasteries, but the real highlight of being here has been experiencing and learning about everyday life in the settlement. Although people here are very modern looking and wear the best and latest fashions, carrying the flashiest phones, they still are very down to earth people and live a very traditional lifestyle. Dolkar and her family are very close and they all help each other with all the chores. As the oldest child, Dolkar (who's my age) has to cook for her whole family (around 10 people including grandma, cousins, dad, brothers and sisters) 3 meals a day, and clean. she happily does it, and they all help her. there is so much work to do so everyone helps out. the others are younger and go to school still, but when they are around they help with laundry, food prep or other farm work. her dad and grandmother take care of the dairy farm and all the other crops there. their kitchen is very traditional. it has a traditional tibetan hearth on one side that takes up the entire wall. for someone like myself who grew up in an american city, this kind of this is completely surreal. during the day i help out with some on the housework, or dolkar and i go around town doing different things. today i churned butter, and then we went to hear her cousins sing in the local school singing competition. all the kids were dressed up in tibetan clothes singing songs in homage to HH the Dalai Lama. it was really cute. later on i helped them churn butter in this long cylindrical vat.
at night when all the kids come home from school everyone hangs out outside on the porch or in the yard. they all get along and never fight with each other. all the siblings and cousins love each other so much. it's refreshing to see such love within a family and between friends. strangely it feels like she and i are old friends or i've known her for a long time.
feeding a lot of people is not an easy thing to do. i've never eaten so much potatoes and bread in different variations. in the morning they typically have milk tea with pa le, thick flat round brown bread (she hand rolls each one and then cooks them one by one on a skillet). Lunch is usually pa le with stir fry potatoes or cabbage. And dinner is usually some kind of meat, either mutton or beef cooked in broth with turnips or tomates and either rice or pa le.
i love being here and being with their family. one thing that i realized from being here is how wealthy a lifestyle i feel i have in the US. from accomodation to food, i have so much variety and abundance. i love to eat green vegetables and i feel like it's a treat when we have a different vegetable for lunch or dinner other than potatoes. and it's a treat that we have a sink to brush our teeth in as opposed to brushing my teeth over a squat toilet. or that there is hot running water.
i always knew that i was fortunate and blessed, but i now i really get why.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
It was like the Twilight Zone
i thought the drama would cease yesterday. even the end of yesterday things chilled out. the sea had been crazy since i arrived, and not until today, after claiming 3 lives, the sea was calm. i had come back from town, hot and sweaty and tired, i decided to go into the water. i wanted to get rid of the creepy feeling i had about the whole ordeal. so me and another friend, a guy from spain named Pau went in to the water. after wards we walked over to this other cafe, and as we're walking there, i see something on the shore. and i'm like, oh shit, is that another body? and yeah, it was. it was the body of the half english half indian man who drowned and wasn't found yesterday. he was beached on the shore. his best friend saw him in the water and pulled him out. he was more than 24 hours in the ocean so you can only imagine the state of his body. he was white and purple and bloated and his face (which i didn't have a good look at) had been smashed against the rocks. the police finally came 3 hours after we called for them. i'm not sure there's a such thing as emergency response here. they just covered it with a sheet and left it there all night until around 11pm when his family arrived from England. As it laid there all day in the setting sun, decomposing, hundreds of flies landed all over the body. it was terrible.
the strange thing is, but i guess more natural things is, life goes on, and on, in the most normal fashion. death happens, even when it's violent or morbid, and life stills goes on.
Today, we finally had a normal, pleasant day in Kudle Beach Gokarna. I ran with Liz, and Michal and Dov played frisbee. People were swimming, and hanging out in the sun. We all sat together during the sunset.
It's starting to feel okay here.
the strange thing is, but i guess more natural things is, life goes on, and on, in the most normal fashion. death happens, even when it's violent or morbid, and life stills goes on.
Today, we finally had a normal, pleasant day in Kudle Beach Gokarna. I ran with Liz, and Michal and Dov played frisbee. People were swimming, and hanging out in the sun. We all sat together during the sunset.
It's starting to feel okay here.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
there's something wrong with the sea
my parents left two days ago. after they left i took four local buses for almost 5 hours and ended up in a small dusty middle of nowhere town called gokarna. it's a place that's been recommended to me to see. there was no one around. it's the type of place that closes down randomly in the middle of the afternoon. i spotted some rickshaw drivers and hopped in one. i was headed to kudle beach. he brought me to the edge of the mountain/foothill. i was confused. this didn't look like beach. then he pointed to a footpath down the mountain. i grabbed my stuff and hiked down the footpath. it opened up onto this beautiful beach nestled between two mountains. a cove of sorts. it was like a secret beach world. barely anyone there. just a handful of foreigners. this was kudle beach.
i walked a few hundred meters and saw liesbeth, a friend from dharamsala, sitting in a cafe, smoking a cigarette and drinking a coffee. it was good to see my friend again.
two days later, i woke up and went out to the beach. it was early for here so there weren't many people out except for a group of young indian student tourists playing together in the waves. i went for a walk with my friend dov along the beach. while we were walking back when we saw this israeli girl standing there crying and pointing toward the water and panicked. she said that they was an indian guy drowning in the water and her boyfriend went in to save the indian guy. then several girls from the group i saw earlier came running over to us screaming that their two friends were in the water and couldn't swim and were drowning. they were frantic, crying and screaming, help us, somebody call an ambulance, call the police, save them, please, please, help us, go save them, please somebody that knows swimming.
we were running back and forth along the beach trying to find someone that could help, but remember we're not near civilization at all. the closest town is a 20 minute trek along a rocky path, and even that place is like a ghost town.
more and more people came out to the beach to see what was going on. there were about 5 people who were trying to go in to the water, but the waves were too strong. they relentlessly came one after another. and i stood there holding the girls whose friend it was in the water. he was so far out in the sea. we could all see him struggling. it was clear that swimming out there would be impossible. there was a old wooden rowboat beached on the shore. dov ran to it and screamed to people standing near to help him. There must have been 40 indian men, standing around, and none of them helped him. it was tourists that were running quickly to come help dov, finally they got the boat to the water, and dov and a few others tried to get the boat past the breaking waves, but it was just too strong.
everyone was out on the beach watching what was going on. there are only about 30 foreigners staying on this beach. the rest of the people here are indian construction workers, and cafe/restaurant workers and other locals.
all this time, none of the internet cafe people or restaurants, who all have phones, called the police or an ambulance. i was running up and down the beach trying to get service on my cell phone to call the police. i finally got through and explained what was happening and that we needed an ambulance right away.
a tourist, i think he was american, was able to save one of the indian guys from the water. it had been at least half an hour by now that he'd been drowning. where were the fucken police?? we were at the closest beach to town and they should have been there right away. we called again and again, and they said help was on its way. but so much time passed and no one showed up.
we immediately started cpr on the first guy that came out. he was a young man, probably in his early twenties. between myself, the american guy that saved him, and this french guy, we took turns giving cpr. everyone crowded around us. there was no doctor, and no one who knew anything about emergency medical care. the indians just stood there, looking at us, not helping, just staring.
there was just so much water in his lungs. sea water was foaming from his mouth. we pumped his chest and turned him to his side to drain him of all the water. after most of the water was out we gave him mouth to mouth recessitation. i was doing the pumping and the other guys were breathing into him.
i kept wondering if there was still a chance for this young man to live. he'd been in the water for so long, and didn't have a pulse for so long and he wasn't breathing for so long. the brain can only live without oxygen for so long. but we kept on going until the police arrived. but the police did absolutely nothing. the victim's friends went screaming for the police to come help. but they just stood there. we screamed at them to get an ambulance. they just looked at each other, not knowing what to do, not knowing what number to call, doing nothing. i can't describe how unbelievable it was. then they said there was an ambulance waiting at the top of the foot path. we got a sheet, and put the young indian man on the sheet to carry him to the ambulance. we were on the opposite side of the footpath. it was about 600 meters away. several foreign men came to help, but among the 100 able-bodied indian men standing around, not one of them came to help us carry him, even though we were struggling. it was me and another girl, dov and two foreigner men. we were all barefoot and the footpath is entirely uphill made of jagged, sharp rocks. it was so hard to carry him. we had to put him down a couple of times and then the sheet we were carrying him on started to rip. people passed us, and no one helped. at one point the guy at the front and his girlfriend said that he was already dead. he was foaming at the mouth and nostrils. he was excreting greenish yellowish fluids. after the sheet ripped they said maybe we should just leave him there. i couldn't fucken believe it! leave him on the footpath!
we finally got him into the ambulance.
during the time that i was helping give cpr, dov and michal, along with some other saved the israeli guy that had gone in to save the drowning indian guy. he too, got swept away by the water. his girlfriend was hysterical and crying, but he would be okay. they pulled him out, and as we walked past them on the shore while carrying the first indian guy, i saw that he was coughing up water, breathing, and was able to respond to questions. another group of people carried the israeli guy to the ambulance soon after.
completely shocked and fazed i walked down the footpath back to the beach. went home and took a shower. i came out to the cafe in front of my guesthouse and was sitting there with liesbeth. then we see a crowd of people standing in front of our cafe pointing in the water. they were pointing at a floating body in the water. there were about 30 indian people standing there and none of them did a thing. when liz and i realized what they were pointing at we ran from the cafe and into the water to pull the body out. it was the second indian guy, the other friend in the group of indian students. she and i struggled to get the body out of the water. it was so heavy. all those people stood around and none of them helped us pull him from the water and onto the beach. we yelled for the guy at the cafe to call an ambulance. but he just stood there and said he's probably already dead. i couldn't believe these people. she and i didn't know what to do. an israeli guy came running over and tried to drain water from the young man's body. i ran into the cafe to tell them to call for help. finally he did. we got a sheet, and put the body on the sheet. i know that he must have already been dead when i pulled him out of the water. but we still needed to get him to a hospital. it's like if we didn't do anything, they would have just left him there. we eventually some other tourists came over to help us and they carried him to the ambulance waiting at the top of the footpath.
afterwards i went back to the cafe to sit down. then i heard news that actually there was another person still in the sea. he was a half english half indian man who lived in the area. i had no idea there was a fourth person who drowned. his body has not turned up yet, and we're not sure that it will. we found his backpack with his wallet and car keys in the sand.
the rest of the day dragged. i guess people saw me help give cpr, so when i took a walk in the afternoon everyone was asking me if i was okay. i guess my face couldn't hide that i felt twisted up inside. i can't describe it. i just feel it.
it's very ironic. a few days ago i finished reading Blindness by Jose Saramago. I had this book for years but never read it until now. Throughout this entire ordeal, I kept thinking about the story in Blindness.
A city is struck by a sudden blindness. Everyone is the city goes blind except for one woman. The government starts to quarantine the blind in a prisons until eventually even the government goes blind. The story tells about the terrible things that people begin to do to each other because they are only concerned with themselves and their own survival. It talks about greed, and fear, about violence, about apathy, and about the perverse and twisted lack of humanity that pervades the people struck with blindness. but despite this, there still is the glimmer of love and compassion that exists between the people who selflessly help each other.
today i lived that story.
i walked a few hundred meters and saw liesbeth, a friend from dharamsala, sitting in a cafe, smoking a cigarette and drinking a coffee. it was good to see my friend again.
two days later, i woke up and went out to the beach. it was early for here so there weren't many people out except for a group of young indian student tourists playing together in the waves. i went for a walk with my friend dov along the beach. while we were walking back when we saw this israeli girl standing there crying and pointing toward the water and panicked. she said that they was an indian guy drowning in the water and her boyfriend went in to save the indian guy. then several girls from the group i saw earlier came running over to us screaming that their two friends were in the water and couldn't swim and were drowning. they were frantic, crying and screaming, help us, somebody call an ambulance, call the police, save them, please, please, help us, go save them, please somebody that knows swimming.
we were running back and forth along the beach trying to find someone that could help, but remember we're not near civilization at all. the closest town is a 20 minute trek along a rocky path, and even that place is like a ghost town.
more and more people came out to the beach to see what was going on. there were about 5 people who were trying to go in to the water, but the waves were too strong. they relentlessly came one after another. and i stood there holding the girls whose friend it was in the water. he was so far out in the sea. we could all see him struggling. it was clear that swimming out there would be impossible. there was a old wooden rowboat beached on the shore. dov ran to it and screamed to people standing near to help him. There must have been 40 indian men, standing around, and none of them helped him. it was tourists that were running quickly to come help dov, finally they got the boat to the water, and dov and a few others tried to get the boat past the breaking waves, but it was just too strong.
everyone was out on the beach watching what was going on. there are only about 30 foreigners staying on this beach. the rest of the people here are indian construction workers, and cafe/restaurant workers and other locals.
all this time, none of the internet cafe people or restaurants, who all have phones, called the police or an ambulance. i was running up and down the beach trying to get service on my cell phone to call the police. i finally got through and explained what was happening and that we needed an ambulance right away.
a tourist, i think he was american, was able to save one of the indian guys from the water. it had been at least half an hour by now that he'd been drowning. where were the fucken police?? we were at the closest beach to town and they should have been there right away. we called again and again, and they said help was on its way. but so much time passed and no one showed up.
we immediately started cpr on the first guy that came out. he was a young man, probably in his early twenties. between myself, the american guy that saved him, and this french guy, we took turns giving cpr. everyone crowded around us. there was no doctor, and no one who knew anything about emergency medical care. the indians just stood there, looking at us, not helping, just staring.
there was just so much water in his lungs. sea water was foaming from his mouth. we pumped his chest and turned him to his side to drain him of all the water. after most of the water was out we gave him mouth to mouth recessitation. i was doing the pumping and the other guys were breathing into him.
i kept wondering if there was still a chance for this young man to live. he'd been in the water for so long, and didn't have a pulse for so long and he wasn't breathing for so long. the brain can only live without oxygen for so long. but we kept on going until the police arrived. but the police did absolutely nothing. the victim's friends went screaming for the police to come help. but they just stood there. we screamed at them to get an ambulance. they just looked at each other, not knowing what to do, not knowing what number to call, doing nothing. i can't describe how unbelievable it was. then they said there was an ambulance waiting at the top of the foot path. we got a sheet, and put the young indian man on the sheet to carry him to the ambulance. we were on the opposite side of the footpath. it was about 600 meters away. several foreign men came to help, but among the 100 able-bodied indian men standing around, not one of them came to help us carry him, even though we were struggling. it was me and another girl, dov and two foreigner men. we were all barefoot and the footpath is entirely uphill made of jagged, sharp rocks. it was so hard to carry him. we had to put him down a couple of times and then the sheet we were carrying him on started to rip. people passed us, and no one helped. at one point the guy at the front and his girlfriend said that he was already dead. he was foaming at the mouth and nostrils. he was excreting greenish yellowish fluids. after the sheet ripped they said maybe we should just leave him there. i couldn't fucken believe it! leave him on the footpath!
we finally got him into the ambulance.
during the time that i was helping give cpr, dov and michal, along with some other saved the israeli guy that had gone in to save the drowning indian guy. he too, got swept away by the water. his girlfriend was hysterical and crying, but he would be okay. they pulled him out, and as we walked past them on the shore while carrying the first indian guy, i saw that he was coughing up water, breathing, and was able to respond to questions. another group of people carried the israeli guy to the ambulance soon after.
completely shocked and fazed i walked down the footpath back to the beach. went home and took a shower. i came out to the cafe in front of my guesthouse and was sitting there with liesbeth. then we see a crowd of people standing in front of our cafe pointing in the water. they were pointing at a floating body in the water. there were about 30 indian people standing there and none of them did a thing. when liz and i realized what they were pointing at we ran from the cafe and into the water to pull the body out. it was the second indian guy, the other friend in the group of indian students. she and i struggled to get the body out of the water. it was so heavy. all those people stood around and none of them helped us pull him from the water and onto the beach. we yelled for the guy at the cafe to call an ambulance. but he just stood there and said he's probably already dead. i couldn't believe these people. she and i didn't know what to do. an israeli guy came running over and tried to drain water from the young man's body. i ran into the cafe to tell them to call for help. finally he did. we got a sheet, and put the body on the sheet. i know that he must have already been dead when i pulled him out of the water. but we still needed to get him to a hospital. it's like if we didn't do anything, they would have just left him there. we eventually some other tourists came over to help us and they carried him to the ambulance waiting at the top of the footpath.
afterwards i went back to the cafe to sit down. then i heard news that actually there was another person still in the sea. he was a half english half indian man who lived in the area. i had no idea there was a fourth person who drowned. his body has not turned up yet, and we're not sure that it will. we found his backpack with his wallet and car keys in the sand.
the rest of the day dragged. i guess people saw me help give cpr, so when i took a walk in the afternoon everyone was asking me if i was okay. i guess my face couldn't hide that i felt twisted up inside. i can't describe it. i just feel it.
it's very ironic. a few days ago i finished reading Blindness by Jose Saramago. I had this book for years but never read it until now. Throughout this entire ordeal, I kept thinking about the story in Blindness.
A city is struck by a sudden blindness. Everyone is the city goes blind except for one woman. The government starts to quarantine the blind in a prisons until eventually even the government goes blind. The story tells about the terrible things that people begin to do to each other because they are only concerned with themselves and their own survival. It talks about greed, and fear, about violence, about apathy, and about the perverse and twisted lack of humanity that pervades the people struck with blindness. but despite this, there still is the glimmer of love and compassion that exists between the people who selflessly help each other.
today i lived that story.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sarees and My Serogate Family
The other night Kusum (CP's wife) dressed me up in a saree and then we took pictures in their living room. They are the sweetest people ever. It felt like old times when I used to dress up in my mom's clothes.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Dharamsala to Delhi to Mumbai
It’s been a seriously long time since the last time I wrote. So I’ll do my best to catch up on what’s been happening.
To start off I’m in Mumbai now. I got here about two days ago. I finally made it to the south! I left Dharamsala a couple of weeks ago. The weather there was just beginning to become perfect – warm, sunny days, and chillier nights. A whole new flux of people were arriving because the Dalai La,ma gave another teaching. But I felt like it was time to go. The south beckoned so with the help of Eric, a friend from Paris, I got my bus ticket bound for Delhi. Before we left though, the last bunch of us had a farewell picnic on a grassy knoll behind the Dalai Lama’s palace.
Saying goodbye to any place like Dharamsala is so hard. The place itself and the people I met there has left me with a great feeling of warmth. Eric was also headed to Delhi because he was flying back to Paris. His trip in India was already over. Eric was part of the group I met when I returned Dharamsala so after saying goodbye to him in Delhi, it really felt like a new phase in my travels.
I chilled out at Bryce’s house in Delhi. Bryce is a Fulbrighter from last year who still lives in Delhi. I didn’t plan to be in Delhi so long, but I ended up hanging out for a week. I did a little sightseeing, but mostly just chilled out and figured out what I’m going to do next and where I’m going to take my parents (they’re coming to visit on the 15th!). I finally bought a guitar while in Delhi too. I started to learn how to play guitar in Dharamsala. So now I’m traveling with a guitar myself to hopefully learn along the way. I also went to the Hare Krishna temple complex in Delhi. It’s HUGE. And while there saw the most amazing show on the Bhavad Gita. I usually don’t expect things to be so fancy in India, but this ‘Vedic Expo’ as they call it, was a walk through maze of sound, lights and smoke upon different themed displays of the Bhavad Gita. It was like a ride at Disneyland, Hare Krishna style. There are parts of the show where I walked into a room and then a spotlight goes on and I saw the mirror image of myself and then a deep dark voice goes, “Look at yourself! Do you think that you are your body. That piece of matter, your clothes, that container is who you are??” Then you’re shown a display of figures that are going from birth to a decrepit death. And of course, no Hare Krishna experience is complete without chanting! I happened to come at the time when there was a famed speaker who came from America and was leading a huge room people in mantra song and dance. Since it’s a temple I didn’t take any photos, but damn, I wish you could have seen what I saw. It was so fun, everyone in the room, including myself got swept up in the energy, chanting and singing and dancing and clapping, “Hare, Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Hare Hare!”
I got into Mumbai two days ago. The train ride was cool. Traveling in the A/C coach is the way to go for a clean and comfortable ride. I recently joined couchsurfing.com. It’s a network of people around the world who have decided that we’re all part of a global community and have opened up there homes to host travelers. It’s an amazing concept, especially in this day and age, that people can travel to other places and meet and by hosted by local people in that town or city. The Mumbai Couch Surfing group is great. I contacted them and got connected with an older couple who offered their spare bedroom for me to stay in. Mumbai is ridiculously expensive compared to other places in India. The cheapest room I could find here at a hostel is about 600 Rupees ($15). Compared to the 125 Rupees ($2.75) I was paying in Dharamsala, it’s a lot.
But more than just the money or a couch or spare bedroom, it’s a great opportunity for cultural exchange. CP and Osoom, my hosts here, are retired and live in the beachfront area of Mumbai. They are truly the youngest couple I’ve met. They’re so full of life, and are so warm, friendly, open and generous to me. CP told me that the only rule he has for me is to make myself feel at home. This is the first time I’m experiencing some true Indian culture. Like breakfast is usually around 10, lunch at 2, tea at 4 or 5, and then dinner is at 10. They’re a social couple and have tons of friends in the area. CP and Osoom just want to enjoy life at this point. Their daughter is grown and married, and CP only works when he feels like it (in finances), and the rest of the time they travel, talk long walks on the beach (which is a two minute walk from the house, but you can’t swim there cause the water is so dirty), eat, drink, sleep and enjoy.
My first day in town I met up with another Mumbai CS member, Sanu and walked around South Mumbai and saw some sights there. Mumbai is huge! There are tons of different neighborhoods. Mumbai is an island so it’s tropical weather – humid and hot. The architecture is amazing all around the city, and it’s super green with lots of tropical trees and plants everywhere. And just like every other Indian city, it’s heavily polluted and overcrowded with people, cars, buses and rickshaws. I’ll be here for several more days. On Saturday there is a Mumbai CS meet up at a downtown art gallery and then my parents arrive on Monday. I hope everyone is doing well wherever you are.
XOXOXO
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