The sad farewell to India

Well, I know it's been a little while since I've posted, but with electricity problems (which I fixed with my Leatherman!), a significant lack of working wifi, and having far too much fun to bother posting anything at all about anything, I figure I should sum up my last week. 

Today is my last day in Mumbai, and indeed, my last day in India, in Asia, my last day away from home.  Arambol was a blast, and maybe once I'm settled at home I will do a detailed recount of my time there.  For now, because I've just packed my bags for the flight tonight, and I'm sitting in an internet cafe (and who wants to spend their last day on the computer?)  ...this will be brief. 

Arambol was awesome.  I met some really awesome people: Cal, the Australian from Melbourne, Trish, an American from Seattle (we sound the same!), Jono, a brilliant British bloke from Reading, of all places, and a few others along the way.  Dave, a guy we visited one night with a broken foot.  Vishnu, my younger-than-me massage instructor, and his whole workplace/people he lived with.  I never learned any of their names, but the woman who owned the place cooked me breakfast twice, and they were all really great people.  Calan (I mispelled it in my last post), Rashan (also mispelled in my last post), and Raphael, who all invariably disappeared without goodbyes, as is the way with traveling sometimes. 

I ate a lot.  We drank quite a bit - saw some live music one night, and spent the evening drinking illicit beers on the beach in the dark the next (in order for the po-po not to see us: it's election time in Goa, which means no drinking past 11PM) ...mid-afternoon port-from-a-bottle-for-60R.  Lots of lounging in restaurants, on beaches, in cafes.  A few catastrophes involving scooters, and Trish and I even went paragliding.  Videos and pictures will get posted when I get home.  PARAGLIDING.  It was fantastic.  I loved listening to her scream as she had to run off the cliff, with a small German man attached tandem to her.

The day of the paragliding, Trish and I went for a hike up to Sweet Lake, a freshwater lake right next to the beach, and we found a giant banyan tree with a baba (guru) sitting underneath it, and we sat underneath it also.  It was peaceful, and when we departed, he gave us both huge hugs which lasted so long they had me giggling in mixed emotions.  We found another tree also, which had two babas, and a circle of people playing chess, sharing melon, and sharing chillum (a particular pipe you smoke hasheesh from) ...it was definitely an experience.

Leaving Arambol was harder than I expected it would be, and I've had very little sleep lately.  A sleeper bus is a terrible idea from Goa to Mumbai, apparently.  It was like the road to Pai, but really cold due to constant AC, and laying down.  The intermittent times I was awake, which was often, was peppered with the desire to fight oncoming nausea.  It was almost impossible to sleep that night.  When I got into Mumbai yesterday, I obtained a place in Colaba, and after going for an expensive brunch (I forgot how much food costs here in relation to the rest of India!) ...I spent the entire afternoon asleep.

I woke up in the evening, just in time to freshen up, get some tea, and go meet Heman for dinner.  We had some pretty tasty Indian food, and we were going to go drinking, but yesterday was a dry day, and so no alcohol shops were open.  Instead, we walked to the beach that I sat on when I first came to India, on my very first day, and at one point, Heman commented on how obvious it was that I was accustomed to crossing the roads in India.

Sitting on that beach, in the dark, was a surreal experience for me, and I exclaimed as much to Heman.  It was strange to come full circle to the place where I was so overwhelmed by India that I was in tears, and how I carry myself in comparison to that first day.  India continues to surprise me, but it continues to delight me also, and I know that I'll be coming back again, and again, and again.

Until then, I catch my flight home in about 10 hours, my bags are packed, and I'm just going to wander around and eat street food, and soak in the atmosphere, the chaos, that I've come to love so much.

See you all in a few days!  ...and for those I've met along the way, see you all in another time, and another place.  Namaste.  

Being a hippie in Arambol

January 24:

Well, despite everything, Arambol is still my favourite place in India so far.  

I left Vagator without a fuss.  Got up early (the first night in DAYS that I haven’t been up half the night due to nightmares and other things.  Seriously, it’s been that bad, lately) and headed down to the beach for the ol’ sunrise.  I try to do it every morning that I’m not up half the night in cold sweats.  Bumped into the old English man who gave me directions on the first day I arrived, and we went to breakfast together.  

He was a charming old chap; at least in his sixties, retired, and spends his life half in Spain, half in India.  This year’s six month long India trip is the southern beaches.  Last year it was Maharashtra.  Pleasant enough to talk to, though the age gap made things a little awkward.  My life exists in five year segments; his in multiples of ten.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed it well enough.

 

 Took a pre-paid taxi to Arambol, because it was easier than taking the public bus to Mapusa, and then another public bus to Arambol, when they’re only 25 kilometres apart from each other.  Getting a room was a huge hassle and undertaking though, which is ridiculous, considering I booked the damn thing in advance.

What the webpage, Lonely Planet, and GOOGLE doesn’t inform you of, is that there are three, possibly four different guesthouses in Arambol called Om Ganesh.  And they’re all run by different members of the same, seemingly gigantic family.  So, the taxi dropped me off at one of them, and all I had to confirm my reservation was an email, which didn’t suffice, so phone calls were made, a man from Mumbai helped me out/tried to hit on me (go away, Indian men!) ...and I walked from one Om Ganesh to another Om Ganesh, and I was registered with neither.  So another man on a scooter showed up and told me to get on; and all conversations at this point were in Hindi, and not directed to me at all, but to the random man from Mumbai.  It’s like I was invisible.  It’s MY reservation, people!

 

So, after much arguing on my part, I got onto the mysterious scooter with my things and this other man, who dropped me off down the street, where another random man showed up, and took my backpack from me, and started walking down the beach.  1.5km, and a short hike up a cliffside later, he opens a room to a building and puts my stuff down on the counter and says “You pay now?”  ...uhm, what.  Where am I, why has nothing been explained to me, and why doesn’t this room look like the one I booked on the webpage?

Oh, the webpage.  It promised hot water, access to internet, a room with a view, and a nice restaurant to eat from.  Well, no hot water, no internet, I’ve just discovered that BOTH my electrical plug-ins don’t work, there’s no bug netting, but open windows, and the bathroom is kinda small and gross.  800R a night.  I was paying 550R for my way-awesome place in Vagator.  

But I’ve got a view, right?  WTF.  And no, I didn’t have the money for all nights up front, so I had to walk the 30-40min to the ATM outside of town, just to learn that it’s the one and ONLY goddamned ATM in all of goddamned INDIA that doesn’t accept my card.  So...I’m running rapidly out of cash, and I still have to pay my hotel bill.  

I’m going to make another attempt at the ATM tomorrow, but in the meantime, I still have that $100USD that papa gave me, so I’m going to convert it tomorrow, which will cover the cost of my room for the next four nights, and leave me some cash until I can get to an ATM that works. 

After my half an hour of arguing with this random man about whether he’s taken me to the correct place, and no, I wasn’t going to hand over my passport, and where was the reservation office, and more things along this line, I was pretty pissed off.  I was also starving.  So I went and had second-rate falafel in some random restaurant (I think I left good food behind in Northern India – it’s all shitty attempted western-catered to tourists crap here) ...and wandered around.  

Arambol so far, despite the two pages of writing above, seems pretty stellar so far.  There are hippies everywhere.  It’s like a goddamn pandemic.  A lot like Pai in Thailand, in that regard, actually.  I can’t look left or right without seeing those stupid pants with all the fabric in the middle, dreads, and nose rings.  And that in itself is pretty spectacular.  There’s yoga classes everywhere, and after some careful browsing, I signed up for five days of aruyvedic massage lessons, which I started this afternoon.  By the sounds of it, I’m going to get massaged a lot in the process.  I’m also very oily.  Very, very oily.  Like a fish.

January 25:

I’m still wondering why I didn’t just come here first.  Or come here sooner, at least.  I’m absolutely loving Arambol.  I’m still harassed a bit by shop owners and things, but I can’t change the colour of my skin, or fault them for their livelihood.  I still ignore them, but hey, I’m running on a limited amount of money, patience, and space in my backpack.  

My massage course so far has been, uhm, educational.  Yesterday was my first day, and I was taught by being given an aruyvedic massage to the head and to the body, while my instructor, Vishnu (yes, like the god) explained the motions he was making while I was receiving the massage.  Today was considerably more uncomfortable.  He was going to do the same again, but with more detail, but I asked if I could try it myself, because I am paying 1000R a day for this, and so...I massaged him.  

Needless to say, touching a complete stranger who is laying near-naked on a massage bed is unnerving.  I alternated between averting my gaze, laughing nervously, and my memory went to hell because I was so uncomfortable I couldn’t retain anything.  To add to the distraction, there was a poi-spinning class happening outside the massage parlour, and it sounded both more exciting and less uncomfortable than the course I was currently doing (and it made me miss spinning poi.  I’m definitely going to have to dig them out of whatever box I packed them into when I get home.  Bring on the buzzsaws!) ...anyhow.  The head massage wasn’t so bad for me.  I could stand behind him while he sat on a stool (fully dressed) ...and I learned how to do each step for the head massage, using the special medicated oil for the head.  Everything I use is in Hindi, and sadly, my memory for Hindi words is poor at best, so I don’t recall what it’s called.  It’s a cooling oil, and leaves that minty tingling feeling that Head and Shoulders sometimes does.  Learning the body massage was uncomfortable at best.  On the back was not as bad, because it’s just a back, but he stripped down to his briefs, and didn’t cover up or anything, and I was beside myself with unease trying to figure out where I should look that was safe, or how I could learn the massage strokes with touching him as little as possible. 

Quite frequently he’d have to tell me not to remove my hands, or to press harder, or use more of my fingers and palms than I was using.  Then I did the arms, then the backs of the thighs, and the calves, and when I had to massage behind the knees, I actually cringed so much he made me stop.  Apparently, not only do I despise having my knees touched, but I can’t touch someone else’s knees.  I kept shuddering the way someone does when they have to do something really gross, until he finally let me stop.  I declined learning foot massage also, because I couldn’t bring myself to touch another person’s foot.  I can touch Tim’s feet, but apparently not any other human being.

After that, he rolled over, and I became more uncomfortable, if that’s at all humanly possible.  So now, I have a mostly naked Keralan man laying on his back in front of me, and instructing me how to massage his stomach, up through the chest and down into the arms.  Many of the arm strokes involved holding his hand the way you would a lover, and stroking up and down, hitting key points with specific pressures.  By that point, I was running out of time, and so he quickly instructed me how to do the fronts of the legs, which uses the same three strokes as the back of the legs, so it was a bit easy, except I couldn’t remember anything very well because I wasn’t comfortable touching another man’s thighs.  

I’m not really sure when I became such a prude – I used to be comfortable naked, and indeed, I’m sitting in my little hut in just a shirt and my underwear, but I can’t even fathom the thought of wearing a bikini on the beach, where other people might see me.  I think I have spent too long in countries where showing skin is disrespectful, that now I’m in a location where it’s okay, I can’t deal with it.  Oh Asia, how you’ve broken me so.

For tomorrow’s lesson (each lesson is two hours long and 1000R, which is the best price I found) ...I’m going to be massaged for one hour to be shown how to do correctly the things I did wrong today, and then I’m going to massage a woman for one hour, to practice on a different body (because men and women have slightly different strokes for particular muscles).  

As far as I can tell, the whole point to aruyvedic massage is to increase blood circulation, and/or to relax the muscles, including the tiny muscles that live inside your bones.  The end of the massage always includes running your fingers feather-light across the skin, which is supposed to relax the mind.  When done to me, it just tickles.  When I do it, I just feel extreme discomfort.  It’s just not a platonic act to me, I’m sorry. 

In the case of the head massage, which I think I remember the best, oil is spread through the hair to coat it so that everything is oily, but not dripping in oil.  The point is to be able to run your hands through the hair without tangling.  In the case of my hair, this is impossible, and I’m quickly running out of shampoo trying to wash the damned stuff out because SO much is needed/used.  Then you comb the hair with your fingers, after burying the oil all in the hair.  Then you do different things, like burying your fingers in the hair, and pulling the hair outwards, or using the thumbs to press different points on the head, or tugging at the little hairs at the base of the neck.  All these things increase blood flow to the brain, it was explained to me. 

The body is more about relaxing the muscles.  It is meant to be healing, and depending on what you do, it heals different things: one of my lessons will be the powder massage, which apparently due to the herbs in the powder, combined with a diet plan can help reduce obesity by up to 7kg in 7 days (which I think is unhealthy, but Vishnu isn’t perfectly fluent in English, so I take the descriptions as they are handed to me).  It’s neat, and I like it, minus the discomfort at touching another person’s body.  Hopefully I am more comfortable with a woman, though I doubt it.  The woman at the massage place that I’ve met is really sweet, though, so if it’s her, I might not have too much of an issue. 

Oh, and I met a teeny tiny kitten at the massage place.  It, plus its sibling and its mother seem to be strays, but it (I think it was a he, so I will say he from now on, because I hate disgendering animals) ...I picked him up and he mewed a little, and then fell promptly asleep in my arms, and I almost had a pet in India.  And of course, I took a photo on my phone.  

 

  The remainder of my day was decent.  Before the massage course at 10AM, I went for breakfast at one of the numerous bar/restaurants here and had a pretty amazing fruit salad, and exchanged that $100USD note for some rupees, which I’ve now used to pay my rent at this hostel, though I learned today I could have bargained them down for less money.  Oh well, lesson learned.  It’s not that bad, really.  I McGyvered the plug outlet back into semi-working shape, so now I at least have an electrical outlet that works, and the cold shower sucks, and there is a frog that lives in the hole above the shower tap, and two geckos that live behind the mirror.  The bed is still too hard to sleep on, but not overly hard in comparison to the crap I’ve been sleeping on for the last three months.  I don’t even remember what pillowtop feels like.  

After the course, I made attempt number two at the walk to the ATM, and miracuously, this time it worked.  I also did some banking and discovered that it’s time to come home for financial reasons.  I’m about to break the $1000 barrier.  Work, hurry up and hire me back!  I had lunch in the village that houses the ATM, just a simple veg. thali.  It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad, and it was only 40R, so I was pleased enough.  After that, I spent some quality time on the beach, in my new beach attire – some flowy yoga-hippie shorts/pants, and a tank top I purchased today.  

Oh!  And I did something cool to my hair that I almost forgot to mention.  It’s called a lulu? ...probably not spelled that way, but that’s how it sounded.  It’s like a single dread, but made of string, and with a shell from the beach attached at the end.  It’s not a proper dread, and it’s the length of my hair, behind my ear – and it should last about 8 months, or less, should I choose to unravel it.  I’m curious to see how long it lasts, but I really like it.  And it’s got a seashell from India attached to it!  I love seashells so much I’m attaching them to myself now.  Apparently, it’s not enough to have them all over the house.  

 

 While watching the sunset/reading outside my room, an Aussie man walked past me to take some photos, and we started talking, and then I went to dinner with him and two men he met earlier, an older Afghani man, and a Frenchman.  They were all really nice, and I’m just getting back from being out with them, at midnight.  The Aussie – Callum – and I chatted outside of my room for a while before going to dinner, and he’s been traveling since February, and he said he’s been living in England, and then he traveled to Egypt, Greece, and Turkey, and he just arrived in India two nights ago.  He’s got a really neat tattoo, which is new, that he got in Istanbul of a quote which is lined on the side of his foot.  That’s a really terrible description, but I thought of mom when I saw it.  I think she’d really like the idea – actually, I do, too.  

We met the other men at a different guesthouse down the way, and we all went to a restaurant right on the sand.  The Afghani - ...fuck, I forgot his name.  Rasheem? ...I think – and the Frenchman – Raphael – had acquired some hasheesh, and offered some to me, but I won’t touch the stuff if it’s got tobacco in it (and not even then, but this is India, yes?), so I declined.  Dinner was okay – they loved their freshly caught fish from the sea, but I ordered veg. jalfrezie, and it was a bit creamy, and not quite spicy enough.  Tasty, but I needed to take Lactaid, and the spice level just wasn’t quite there.  After a beer, we walked along the beach until we found another place and sat there for two cups of tea (for me), and two cups of coffee for the menfolk.  It was a nice place where we sat on the floor on bamboo mats (my favourite kind of places) ...and I got to watch a couple of people play with glowpoi, and I kept trying to pinpoint the moves they were making.  The girl was way better at the overhand butterfly than I am, and the guy was just downright good.

 Rasheem was fairly outspoken, and his accent astounded me – he’s Afghani, but living in New Zealand for 21 years, and so his accent switched back and forth in a very curious manner.  I quite liked it – it was a strange blend to hear, and his accent would be a thick Afghani, and then his next sentence would be pure Kiwi...I love accents.  We’ve all agreed to go to an afternoon yoga class tomorrow, which suits me well, as I had planned on going to an early morning one tomorrow, but this way, if I don’t make it (which I invariably won’t) ...I don’t feel bad about missing it, because I know I’m going in the afternoon.  And then hopefully, I’ll have worked up an appetite for dinner!         

 

    

on the joys of intermittent wifi, beaches, and strange men

I forgot what a royal pain in the ass it is to be consistently covered in sand.  There's sand on everything.  My body, in my hair, on and in my backpack, on and in my clothes.  I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get any sympathy, but there we go.  Sand.  Sand, sand, sand, sand, sand.  And it's everywhere.

Anyhow, I'm in Goa.  Getting here was a royal pain in the ass, too.  My flight was four hours delayed, and then I had to take an hour and a half long taxi ride from the airport to where I am now, Vagator.  I was supposed to originally arrive here early in the day, and I didn't get in until well after dark.  I also had an extraordinary time trying book accommodations for the full four nights I wanted to be here - so, after calling (yes, with roaming) every place I could appropriate a number for, I found a place for the first night, and then a different place for the remaining three.

The first place was...special.  Or nothing special, depending on your outlook.  They provided a towel, but not bedding, so I was grateful to have my Indian shawl, which is as large as some of the blankets I've been given to use in certain Thai guesthouses.  The windows didn't close, and there wasn't a bug net around the bed, and you had to walk through a Western Union to get to the guesthouse.  I'm glad I was only there for a night.  In the morning, there was a frog in the toilet, and I'm pretty sure it was poisonous.  I mean, I don't know my amphibians that well, but when the frog in your toilet is bright red, it's usually a good indication.

(interlude: the monkeys in the trees are pissing the birds off in an ungodly manner, and everything is making a ruckus)

The place I'm at right now is much more up my alley.  For the same price, I have hot water (when I have water at all, that is) ...a bug net, bedding, my room is properly nice and clean (not much to ask for, non?) and it's attached to the lovely free-range, free-trade, organic vegetarian (with vegan options) restaurant I'm sitting at right now.  And there's wifi...for my computer.  For whatever reason, it will not work on my phone.

Goa has been...interesting, I suppose is the right word for it.  I consider myself to be relatively inexperienced when it comes to the land of tropical beach vacations, so I'm not sure how much merit my opinion actually carries in the grand scheme of things.  My only other experience has been Thailand, which frankly, was pretty good.  The beaches, like everything else here in India, are dirtier than I think they should be.  Beautiful stretches of white sand coastline, but marred by random piles of rubbish, or by ten thousand suntanning tourists.  The contrast is almost comical.  And there's cows.  But I'm learning that cows are truly everywhere in India.

I've been to three beaches now, and I've done a ton of walking.  I can't really stand to suntan for longer than an hour or two, and so, when my hour or two of sweltering in the heat is done, I go walk around (because, unlike many of the tourists here, I just can't bring myself to strip down to bikini - which I would have to purchase anyhow - in India of all places.  I have seen people in thongs!  IN INDIA.  What on earth is wrong with you people?  I get my photo taken left, right, and centre and I'm in a knee length skirt and a tshirt!)

And speaking of, what the hell Indian people?  There are tourists everywhere.  This whole fucking state is crawling with foreigners.  Yesterday, while I was on one of the beaches (Vagator Main Beach - which by the way, would be gorgeous if it wasn't for the tour groups of Indians everywhere) I had no less than four separate groups of people approach me and ask to take a photo of me, with me, with this person, and then this person.  I did it once, got annoyed, and moved.  Then, sitting on a rock, I had three more people approach me, in less than a five minute span.  I couldn't even read a single page at a time in my book because they interrupted me so many times.  I'm never amused by this.  Ever.  I have TRIED to be good-natured about it, but it's just too strange for me.  I allowed the first three.  I would have allowed it only twice, but the third group of people was a father with his two daughters, and he approached me as "Excuse me, sister.  Sister, my daughters would like a photo with you." ...sister is the English equivalent of a Hindi word, which you typically use to address a female stranger in a polite way.  I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but he was polite to me, so I allowed it.

The last one, though.  The last time it happened, was RIGHT after the girls, it was like, a group of men saw it happen, and thought to do it also.  And I lost my temper: I exploded in a flurry of words, which in hindsight, they probably didn't understand.  I said, "WHAT, have you never seen a white girl before?" ...and I got up and left.

Then, while walking between the two beaches, another Indian approached me.  I was looking for seashells, which, by the way, Indians seem to think is the strangest pasttime in all the world, and an Indian man walked up to me and asked me if I lost something, so I explained, no, I'm looking for seashells.  Then, he asked "Have you ever caught a fish with your hands before?" ...and then dashed off to a little tidal pool to try and catch fishes the size of my fingers.  For once, here was an Indian not looking to sell me something.  So we wandered around and chatted and talked, and sadly, it became pretty apparent that he was just chatting me up to get into my pants.

He entertained me for the afternoon though, until I made an awkward goodbye.  He said that he was in pharmacueticals, and he was spending his weekend off work in Goa, and he lived in Mumbai.  He also said that he had just gone through a breakup, and was single, and wanted to know if I was single also.  I said no, and mentioned Tim, but it didn't really dissuade him.  We hung out for a few hours, and at one point, we were sitting on a rock, overlooking the ocean, and he stretched behind me and said "isn't this so romantic?" ...I was tacturn, as usual.  My response was no.  He also bought me a soda, and asked if we could stay together the whole weekend, because he liked my company, and various other comments like this over and over, which I repeatedly avoided, responded bluntly, or any other combination of words I could come up with to say "Look buddy, but I'm not interested" ...without actually saying that.  Finally, I feigned heat exhaustion, and left him to go back to my guesthouse.  We agreed to meet for breakfast, and I felt bad going back on my word (this was before he put the moves on me) ...but at the very end, he said he might not make it, and not to wait for him if he didn't.  I think I was stood up by an Indian man.

Which is fine, because this morning, I had breakfast and left Vagator before our appointed breakfast time.  I'll never know who stood who up, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Today, I walked from Vagator to Anjuna Beach, and it took about a half hour or so.  I enjoyed myself: I climbed down a cliff face and sat on some volcanic rocks overlooking black sand and the Arabian Sea.  I collected some sand for myself in a baggie, and read my book for a while (it's almost done already!) ...and then found the beach proper.  It wasn't really any different than Little Vagator or Vagator Main Beach, the usual shops and cows and tourists.  I found an organic café and wiled away some hours drinking a smoothie overlooking the ocean.  It was nearly perfect.  I spend probably 22 or 23 hours a day alone each day, and I've had a lot of time to think.  The only thing missing is Tim.  I'm enjoying the beaches, but in a bittersweet way: I can have fun for a few hours at a time, but then, the lonlieness strikes.  The only type of friend making here seems to be of the "please buy something", "please get in my pants", or "please come drink alcohol with me" variety.  Maybe I'm wrong and I just haven't tried hard enough.  I'm not sure.

On the way back, I stopped at a massage parlour, and had an aryuvedic head/neck/face/shoulders massage.  I smell of coconut, chocolate, and herbal medicines, and my face feels fantastic.  I was a bit uncomfortable being topless in front of someone, even a woman, because it's been so many months since it's been okay for me to show my body to anyone (that, and I'm pretty sure, despite what I've heard of India, I'm gaining weight) ...but she was nice, and tried to make conversation in the little English she knew, and I liked it.

But I'm getting tired, and I feel like this is dragging on now, and I think I've officially lost the net, so I'm going to go and try and reconnect and post this, and then just chill out.  Maybe I'll do laundry if there's running water.     

Going Postal

India has the most unorganized postal service I've ever seen, in any country I've ever been to.

I spent over an hour today mailing two parcels, and not because I had to wait in a line.  It was because:  Not all post offices are able to send parcels.  Apparently, it turns out, most post offices exist only to purchase stamps.  So, I wasted my time going to the first post office I found.  They told me where to go to send parcels, and I walked the twenty minutes to the next post office (thank goodness it was in a part of town I knew!) ...and told the teller I wanted to send a parcel.  He asked me where the parcel was, and told me I had to go outside the post office a few shops to a man who would 'stitch' up my parcel.  Stitching, what?

 An average meal in India.  All the plates are like this.

 My henna.  It's gone, now.

So I went to this man.  He gave me a box for my one parcel, I put my stuff in it, and he proceeded to handsew a sheet of canvas over top of the parcel.  Ooooo...kay.  I then had to go back into the post office, ask for a customs declaration form, go back to the man, fill it out, give it to him.  Then, I needed to photocopy my passport.  Did the post office have a photocopier?  No.  Did this random man on the side of the curb?  No.  So, another man took me down the block, through a dark alleyway (which, surprisingly, didn't smell like urine) and into a rundown little courtyard filled with workers eating lunch at a street vendor.  They stared at me.  We went to one shop, did they have a photocopier?  No, it was broken.  They sent us into an apartment building, up a flight of stairs, down a flight of stairs, and through the back entrance of another shop.  I photocopied my passport.  What.  THEN, for my other little parcel, I had to buy an envelope.  So we went to a different shop.  Meanwhile, I've left 6 kilos of my stuff with a complete stranger sitting on a stool outside of the post office.

I get all these things.

Then I need an address.  Apparently, I can't send a parcel from India without an Indian address.  What.  I don't have an address, I don't know the address of my hotel.  So, they ask for a contact number to be written on the box.  My contact number is Canadian.  This, too, was unacceptable.  So in the end, I wrote my name, my Canadian number, and "New Delhi, India" on the parcel.  I paid 120R for this, though I didn't know that until they were finished.  This is apparently the only way to send a parcel in India.

 Banana bread

 The only picture I took of Harpal: he's hiding under a blanket with his computer in the sunshine.

 At Devraj's birthday party.

 The only part of housewifery I enjoy: making tea!

 My usual existence: unspooling sweaters

 I took my box and my envelope back into the post office.  They weigh it, slap a few more customs papers on it, and I pay for it.  This whole ordeal took nearly an hour, and then the random man with the box told me to wait for him, and then tried to offer me a tour of Delhi.  Also, the post office thinks my zeros look like Q's, and so I hope Canada Post isn't confused when they read the paperwork and the postal code hasn't any numbers in it.

 What freedom looks like.

 My bitching foot tan!

Seriously, India.  What the hell.  I even went so far as, once I was done at the post office, to walk past the random man on the stool stitching parcels, stop, and inform him that while I may like, and even love many things about India, their postal system is retarded, and they should take a clue from the British.  Most of the time, India makes Thailand look organized.  This is one of those times.

Anyhow, I've escaped the farm, though, that too wasn't without incident.

My last few days with the Grewal family were pretty decent, all things considering.  The hot water tank broke again, so in the last week of my stay, I had only two "showers", because it meant boiling water on a fire outside, and then frantically scrubbing myself down with soap in the 5L of clean, hot water I had to wash with.  The bathroom I was allowed to use during my stay, was, of course, outside, and therefore almost always freezing.  When I had my first, hot shower yesterday in Delhi, (which I wasted excessive amounts of water during, and it was FANTASTIC) ...it was the first time I'd washed more than my face in 4 days.  The entire stay at the farm, I only washed my hair once, because it used too much water to do.

There's something to be said about being clean on a daily basis.  And about not showering from a bucket in 5L of water.

Surrinder and I started to get along at the very end.  I think breaking down in front of her might have procured some kind of reaction on her part: she no longer bothered me if I was in the kitchen cooking, and she stopped asking me to peel vegetables for days on end.  I started offering to do more, and we even went shopping in town for an afternoon, which proved to be both infuriating and rather fun at the same time.

The whole time I was there, I never really got very much excitement, so when I was offered a chance to go shopping in town with her for my last day on the farm, I readily agreed.  We were dropped off in the fabric market, and we browsed all kinds of fabric shops, and I helped her pick out a bunch of things for some Indian suits she was getting made.  Designing, altering, and colour coordinating fabric is something I can do.  I don't know if it's much of a skill in this day and age, but hey, I was being asked to do something I feel skilled at, and that's been pretty rare as of late.  The day dulled a bit when we were in a yarn shop forever, and she kept asking me if 'insert colour here' matched a variegated wool she had at home, which I couldn't recall to save my life.  Just because I touched it for a day doesn't mean I can recall what it looked like.  The days I had to spool yarn are a blur: a combo of some serious thought thinking (aka daydreaming), and an iPhone.  I don't remember what colour her yarn was, sorry.

 This is what you hear in the background of the ants video.  PARROTS!

We munched on popcorn from a street vendor, with her ever present admonishment of "this is okay, because it is not heavy".  The food we ate was always rated by whether it was "tasty", or "heavy" ...and the whole family has this massive belief that food is medicine.  You know, sometimes, you just gotta eat a chocolate croissant, okay?  Some foods having medicinal properties, sure.  I can believe that, and I know it to be true.  Sugar isn't medicine.  But I digress.

I bought myself a very pretty shawl, though I was completely willing to buy one from the first, cheap shop we went into.  I looked at a few things, and then she dragged me out, saying that there were better places.  So instead of the 500R I was perfectly willing to pay, I ended up with a 2000R shawl, though, the one I got is a mix of pure wool and pashmina, and it's from a proper company brand in India, not a hole in the wall on the street.

My shawl.

We wandered around for ages, and well after dark.  It was a bit like shopping with mom, or mama.  A total lack of a sense of direction.  She would see something, and say that we could go back to it in a minute, and then forget how to get back to where she was, but she was adamant it was 'insert direction here', only for me to tell her it's not, and then us wandering for 10 minutes until she's thoroughly lost, and...anyhow, my "I told you so"'s were unappreciated.  Some people's children.  

One cute moment, though: it was after dark, and we were both hungry, but her and her husband never eat out.  I saw a dosa stand (those delicious fried pancake things I mentioned a few posts back), and the panicked look on her face was priceless!  She wanted to eat them, but that meant eating from a street vendor, and she was worried someone would see her and tell her husband she was eating out.  So we ended up at some other street vendor, and ate these fried potato-smothered-in-tamarind sauce things (I love tamarind sauce.  I could eat that shit on its own.), but we ate there, because the sitting area was behind the vendor, so if people walked past, they couldn't recognize her and tell on her.  The life of an Indian housewife.  That was the first time she'd been into town in the entire two weeks I'd stayed there.

The goodbyes were a bit rough, as all goodbyes always are for me.  I think I got three massive hugs from Harpal at varying instances before I left, and I told him I really enjoyed staying there, but that I'll admit there was a break-in period in the beginning, and he was glad that Surrinder and I finally got along a bit (we had a discussion about it once when I was really upset) ...and Surrinder got up extra early and cooked me porridge, and made me some aloo paranthas for the road.  My train was scheduled for 8AM, which is earlier than we were getting up at the farm.  Right before I left, Harpal picked me a rose from the garden, and I carried that rose the entire train ride, to the hotel room, where I pressed it into one of my books.  I had wanted to dry it, but I just can't carry that and preserve it while I'm traveling.  So I pressed it.

 

My pretty rose.

Getting onto the train was a bit of a disaster, though it worked out in the end (obviously).  I had been asking for DAYS if I could go into town and reserve my train ticket, and well...things on a farm don't work like that.  So, the day before I left, I got my train ticket, and I was on the waiting list, because there weren't any more seats available.  I bought the ticket anyhow, and when I got to the station the following morning, I found out I wasn't on the list.  Ergo, no train for me that day, but I needed to be on it!

Khan was the one who dropped me at the station, and he advised me to just get on the train anyhow, and talk to the train supervisor.  So...with the train being late 30 minutes, I had an agonizingly slow thirty minutes to transform into a nervous wreck about whether or not I was going to get on the only train of the day heading to Delhi, and how I was going to find my way to Delhi otherwise.  It looked like the options were: third class bus on bumpy roads, and I was still nauseous from the anti-biotics (oh, yeah, I never mentioned - I suffered two days of ridiculously crippling nausea ...maybe because of the anti-biotics, maybe from the food, I still don't know) ...or second-class train (which is worse than the bus - you know the movies of people hanging off the roof and out the doors?  second-class trains, baby.)

The train finally arrived, and we sorted things with the attendant.  I had a seat in AC chair until a certain stop, and after that...the great unknown.  Thankfully, oh so thankfully, things worked out.

The rest of my time in Delhi has been a bit busy: when I got in yesterday, I checked my email, had a shower (oh sweet showers!) and then headed to the tailor's to pick up my suits.  Well, nothing fit correctly.  The pants were too tight in the calves - like I told him they would be - and the tailor decided I needed 'variety' so he didn't listen to any of the instructions I had on sleeve length, neckline cut, etc.  Both suits were too loose.  I made a list of adjustments, and I think they are unaccustomed to people coming in and knowing how to sew - but they said they'd have everything adjusted and ready for tonight.  I vegged out on some Subway, for reasons unknown to me, because I hate Subway, and found myself at a bar during karaoke night, of all things.  And I have to say - Asians, of all shapes and sizes...man, can they sing.  I think karaoke should be their national sport, or something.  It was seriously good.  What wasn't, however, was my weak wine and weaker manhattan.  I gave up after the second drink and went home. 

Today, after some breakfast, I went to Khan Market for chocolate soy milk and French pastries, spent a good deal of my time at that damned post office, and spent the remainder of the afternoon in my room trying to find a place to go/stay/sleep in Goa tomorrow.  I found a place, but their number isn't working, so I shot them an email, which they haven't responded to.  I think I'm just going to show up.  Sometimes, that works for me. 

These are all terrible photos.  Deal with it.

I've got the suits now.  They fixed everything up.  I'm not 100% happy with them, unfortunately.  Certain finicky things aren't how I wanted them to be, and I have a hard enough time finding clothes I like as it is.  But they fit, now, which is more important to me, I think.  I was hoping to be madly in love with them, and I'm not quite.  But it's okay - they're comfortable, they look good by Indian standards (just not by my own). 

 

My first Indian rainfall

I find the smell of rain to be really invigorating.  Tonight, it rained, and while that might not be anything special to anyone else here, I adored it.  I was sitting on the terrace reading through my India guidebook (I should have been unspooling a knitted sweater, but I was in hiding instead) ...and I could see the clouds coming in, and the skies getting grey, and I sat there for as long as I could get away with without being noticed, and watched the rains come.  As it turned out, the clouds lingered, and it didn’t rain until several hours later, but that’s not the point. 

The point is, several hours later, the front door is still open, and the sitting area (and coincidentally, my sleeping area) is overflowing with the permeating scent of a fresh rainfall. 

As soon as Surrinder mentioned to me that it was raining, I stopped doing what I was doing – which was essentially nothing – and I ran out into the courtyard and let myself get rained on.  Both her and her servant were giving me strange looks; one does not go out and jump around the courtyard in the dark and laugh and shake their head like a wet dog in the rain, it seems.  I didn’t care.  I jumped around, and opened my mouth to let the rains in, like you do with the first snowfall (and every subsequent snowfall thereafter), and twirled in circles, and let the rain fall on my upturned palms.  I stayed out until I was soaked, whispering ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ to the open skies, and then I came back in and made a point of shaking all the rain from me. 

It was just so beautiful.  And for this reason, I belong in a temperate rainforest.  I miss my eight months of rain a year.