shenanigans

Being a hippie in Arambol

2012-01-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-19T10:17:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-15T20:26:00.001-08:00

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.

Happy Lohri!

2012-01-13T21:36:00.001-08:00

Today is a special day in India. It is Lohri – an Indian festival day which goes by a different name in each state. Here in Haryana and Punjab, it is called Lohri.

Lohri, as it was explained to me, has many significances. Firstly, it is the coldest night of the year, and all the days following this night will be warmer, much like we consider the Spring Equinox to be in the west. Today, we celebrate the coming heat, and many people are sitting around bonfires as I write this. We, due to work and time restraints, are sitting in the living room, watching a special on the television of a beautiful woman singing and dancing. Lohri is for singing – even Harpal broke into song when we arrived home earlier today. Let me tell you – a Punjabi man with a belly, singing fresh out of the bath with his hair down (as opposed to its typical location inside a turban), in a voice that was astonishingly good, and shaking hips in the way that only Indians can, is quite a sight. His wife was arguing with him for something, and he responded by singing and dancing around the living room. I giggled with joy, and it was the first time I realized that I could learn to love this man.

There’s just so much joy hidden inside his gruff exterior.

Another reason for Lohri dates back to mythological times. The story line is a bit blurred for me, because it involves events and places and times I’ve never heard of, and it involves a religious mythology I have very little knowledge of, but to the best of my recollection, in a time out of mind, there was an army of moghuls, one million of them, and they came across 40 soldiers. Those forty soldiers decided to forgo the wisdom of their master guru (holy man), and they wrote down on paper that they would not follow his words any longer, and they did not wish to fight the army, even though the holy man told them that if they fought the million men, they would win.

Their wives and children were to hide in the hills, and the wives shamed the men into fighting, saying that they would take off their bangles and they themselves would go to war, and the men who did not heed the wisdom of the guru could wear the bangles and protect the children. Ashamed, they went to war, but without the blessing of the guru (and therefore, the gods). When they came against the opposing army, they were annihilated, all except the leader. Then, the guru came down and asked the leader what it was that he needed, and he responded by telling the guru to tear up the paper that said they would not follow the words of the guru, and then he died.

How exactly this ties into Lohri, I don’t quite understand, but I listened attentively as the story was being told. Harpal is quite a good storyteller, it turns out.

Coincidentally, it is also Friday the 13^th today.

Another way Lohri was explained to me was as the Indian New Year. Today, we bought sweets for the workers, and we visited some family friends in the village and brought them sweets also.

Not related to the holiday at all, I finally managed to go to the doctor today. Actually, I might as well start at the beginning of the day. I woke up feeling really sick, but I was super hungry, because we skipped dinner last night, except to eat a little bit of dhal and chapatti (I forget why, really). I was going to just boil some water and make instant oatmeal, because I still have a few packets left, and then Surrinder suggested making pancakes, because it was still early enough in the morning for a real breakfast. The prospect delighted me, let me tell you. So, merrily, I started to make pancakes, and...it turned into a fight.

I made the batter from an eggless recipe that I had never used before, and it involved 2tsp of baking powder in it. First, baking powder was ‘not good for the stomach’ and I shouldn’t use so much. Second, it called for white flour, and I was told to use ‘whole wheat because it is more nutritious’, even though I thought the recipe was better suited for white flour (and it was, I found out when I made a second batch from the white flour). Then, when she saw me using butter in the frying pan, she got upset and told me I should use ghee because ‘it will be tastier and not make the pan so brown’. Then the pancakes were too thick, and I should thin them. Then I should have made them sweeter. Then I should have added fruit like blueberries or bananas or peaches. We don’t have blueberries, bananas, or peaches. Finally, I got annoyed, and told her to go away and that I wanted to make them North American style, not European style (thin and sugary) or Indian style (salty). She got angry with me and started to tell me that it was her house, and I should not order her around in her house, and that her own daughter doesn’t even treat her so poorly, and that no wonder I lived alone, because how would anyone want to live with me? She even went so far as to tell me that I would never find a husband, because no man would want to be with me, and that I will always be alone because I can’t compromise.

I was really upset, and I have only two default settings when I get more than mildly upset or frustrated. I either see red and hurt you really badly, or I cry.

I started to cry. In front of her. I tried to come to her and tell her I was sorry, and that I just didn’t appreciate the way she was trying to tell me things all the time, and she started to tell me she was just looking and wanted to learn how to make them, because she’s never made them before, and that was it. I was in tears – I couldn’t even finish my sentence. I think she felt a bit bad, because she started to tell me about how Harpal thinks of me as a daughter, and that I should not be so upset, but I should just learn to compromise a little bit, and that when she offers suggestive help, I should take it because it is her kitchen and her country and her culture that I am trying to fit into. Things will not be tasty for everyone if it is not done the proper way.

And I believe her, I think this whole time she has just been trying to be helpful, just like I have been, but we are both helpful to each other in the wrong ways. Sometimes, people’s personalities just don’t work well together, and I think that might be the case for us. Her way of helping makes me feel useless and horrible, and my way of helping makes her think I want to do everything myself and that I am ungrateful.

But either way, I ended up having a near-breakdown. I just couldn’t control myself. Normally, I can just sniffle a bit, maybe let a tear or two go, and then shove it all back inside and I’m reasonably okay again. But for nearly an hour, every time I stopped working, my eyes would fill with tears, and I’d have to go hide for a minute or two to control myself. Eventually, I gave up all pretences of working, and grabbed my phone and went to the roof and called Tim. We talked for a while until I felt stable and was a bit happier (he’s good for that) ...although my poor phone bill is going to be atrocious. We’ve talked on the phone a few times this trip so far, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have at least a $500 phone bill at home for me. I hope it’s not more than that, anyhow. After that, I was called in because we were supposed to go to the doctor.

We didn’t go to the doctor for FOUR hours after that. I was told to get ready right away and then we would go. I waited four hours to go, and had to ask three different times if we were still going today. Farm life isn’t conducive to being on time, apparently.

Anyhow, we went to the village doctor (for some reason, I pictured a voodoo man when I said that), and it was a strange experience. The doctors building was completely empty, and we saw a surgeon, who is their family doctor, and he served us water and Indian tea (I always take mine black with loads of sugar to offset the lack of milk – that shit is spicy, otherwise...and loaded with caffeine) ...and yeah. I was served biscuits and tea by a surgeon in a small village in India. What.

Anyhow, he checked me out, and Surrinder knitted (I think she lives to knit), and thank god he spoke English! Much better than my Thai experiences with doctors. Anyhow, temperature was way below normal – 97.3 – and I don’t quite have bronchitis, but I do have a minor infection of some kind in the chest, so I was prescribed a weak anti-biotic that I’ve never heard of before, and a ton of other things: cough lozenges, cough syrup, pills for the throat, etc. I paid 110 rupees for it all. My medicine cost me two dollars. Naturally, I’m not going to take any of it, except the one thing I went for: the antibiotics. And maybe the cough lozenges, because they are tasty.

We wandered around some of the shops in the village after visiting the doctor and the chemist, and we bought the sweets for Lohri, and I’ve eaten so many of them. I had them once, at Thomas’ house – they’re these weird tubular sweets filled with a sugary syrup. I distinctly recall disliking them the one time I tried them at Thomas’, but here they are good. Maybe my tastes have changed being in Asia. I know my spice tolerance has gone up. Jaspal made some grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner for himself, and put hot chillies in them, and offered me half a sandwich, and I immediately regretted it because of all the dairy – I’m practically resigned to the fact that I’m going to have GI problems until I get home – but they were delicious. They were so hot my eyes were watering, and I loved the taste. Crazy spices.

Speaking of home, it’s only two weeks away! I’m stoked. SO STOKED. Going to spend a week on the beaches of Goa refurbishing my tan, one last-minute shopping spree in Mumbai, and then that’s it. Time to go home. When I get there, I think I’m going to go vegan for a while, just to offset all the fish sauce and dairy I’ve been forced to eat over the last three months. It’s pretty hard to think that I’ve been away from home that long, but thems the breaks. I’ve got vegan, non-gluten, things to eat, and nectar of the gods (wine) to consume, and it’s gonna be damned glorious, I tell you.

It’s ridiculous, the simple mundane things I’m looking forward to doing: wearing pajamas, doing my taxes, going for Booster Juice, and Starbucks, and Tim Hortons and IHOP. Being rained on, and browsing in Chapters, and feeding the ducks, and going to Granville Island, and the Naam, and La Trattoria, Commercial Drive, and playing XBOX at Thomas’ house, EMP, and cuddling my cat.

And 3G. Oh my god, 3G.

Day after day: peeling carrots

2012-01-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

I may have said this before, but life in rural India is so strange. As I fall into a routine, I find I have less and less to say each day, but something happened yesterday that I want to stand out, even once it fades from my memory, like all little moments do when given enough time.

Yesterday, like every day, I woke up, and was put to work peeling vegetables. We start preparing lunch around 9AM, and then we eat for the first time each day around noon or so. We only eat two meals a day, both times a curry with chapattis. The rest of the day, I’m free to munch on as much fruit as I’d like, although, I think if I eat one more guava straight from the tree, my tongue is going to split. I’ve had way too much citrus lately. I can’t help it though, I love citrus fruits. Oranges, pineapple, guava...they are the bane of my tongue’s existence after a while.

Anyhow, I wasn’t feeling very well, and I was put to work peeling an entire bucket of carrots. It was well over a hundred carrots, possibly on the upwards end of TWO hundred carrots. So I plugged in my headphones, put my phone on shuffle, and sat against the wall in the sun of the courtyard peeling carrots. At one point, Harpal (who is more and more my saviour these days – he provides me with the little moments that make this WWOOFing thing worth it) ...he came up and asked me if I was enjoying myself. I gave my usual noncommittal answer of ‘yeah, it’s okay’ ...or ‘well, I’m peeling 200 carrots, but other than that...’ – and he gave me a mini-lecture on how I should only do things in life which are enjoyable, and not do things which are not enjoyable. I told him I enjoy being useful, and I ended the conversation and put my headphones back in.

A little while later, he told me to grab a jacket, he needed me for work. So I ran into the house real quick, and told Surrinder I had to leave, and I had done only so much of the peeling for her, and I took off. As we headed out in the broken down work truck, Harpal confessed that he knew I was bored out of my mind, but it amused him that I let Surrinder tell me to do whatever she wishes (which invariably involves peeling vegetables for hours on end), and that he finally decided that I had enough of peeling carrots, and dragged me along with him because he said I needed some fun, too.

So crammed three people to a two person vehicle (I sat on the center console) ...we took off to that village that I went to a couple of days ago, where the mechanics shop is. And this time was a lot better – we were both more talkative, and we talked about all kinds of things, though I regret having brought up the topic of religion, because it sparked a huge rant on Harpal’s end, and me and Khan (a friend visiting from Uttar Pradesh) got really quiet and the conversation became pretty one sided. All I wanted to know is the difference between Hindu and Sikh! I still don’t know, by the way. The second someone starts to talk about religion, apathetic-atheist brain kicks in, and I just don’t give a shit. I just wanted my question answered, damn it!

Anyhow, we got to the village, and it was a nice day, and the sun was shining – I wasn’t feeling very well, but I’ve never let that stop me in the past. We checked out the machine he’d brought in, which was being fitted with parts so that it can be driven through the field and remove weeds from between the rows of wheat. Harpal thinks it will be a revolutionary invention to the Indian farmers. Do machines that get rid of weeds not exist in this world already? It was pretty ingenious, considering the whole thing was built in two days by men using welder’s arcs without face masks or any formal schooling. We tested it out, and we were there for two cups of tea (I think time is measured in the number of cups of tea someone offers you during your stay) and well after sunset.

Again, I was stared at, but I decided to take Robbie’s advice, and not be so awkward about it, and smile once in a while, and I think it worked. That, and they recognized me from a few days ago, so they were even MORE curious – who is this foreigner who comes to our village, and then comes AGAIN? I had a conversation with an old woman who only knew how to say ‘water’ in English, and coincidentally, that’s the only Punjabi word I know, too – ‘pani’. Khan did some translating for us, and it was a pretty neat experience, to converse with someone in the way that only two people who can’t use words to say what they want to say, can manage to converse. Also, I think that was a terrible sentence. I’m sick, so sue me.

At one point, and this is the point that I wanted to make sure I remember, though I don’t understand how I could ever forget – at one point, I was surrounded, in the dark, by about twenty Punjabi men, and they were all staring at me and shouting questions at me, and they pushed a teenage boy to the front of the group, and he looked at me really shyly, and then he started to translate their questions for me. “Where are you from? What is it like there? Do you like our village? Why are you in our village? Thank you for coming to our village, we are very glad you came to see us. Do you like India? Is Canada the same as India?” ...I told them I thought their village and their people were very beautiful, and that it was very good, also. India is also good, but it is very different from Canada, and I told them my name, and they all took turns trying to pronounce my name (it is hard for the Indian tongue to pronounce, it turns out) and then one of them brought out a Nikon, and wanted all the mechanics to pose next to the machine, and they wanted me in the picture too! So we had our picture taken in the dark, and ten minutes later, a boy shyly handed me a copy of the pictures, so now I have copies of them. It’s crazy. When we left, I made Harpal translate for me to say that I really enjoyed conversing with everyone, and in my lingering uncomfortableness at the situation, when I had to leave I did the Thai hand-bow thing without thinking, and a few of them copied me and did it back to me. It’s funny how when I’m extremely grateful of something, I revert to that Thai gesture now.

This is why India is strange, and wonderful, and why I get so upset when people keep telling me I should leave, and that they are horrible people. This is why it is not true.

the saga continues

2012-01-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

Jan 10, 2012:

Today I worked the most I’ve worked since I got here, though it came about in a rather unfortunate way. Somewhere in the last couple of days, I’ve made a royal mess of things.

I’ve been frustrated, and stubborn, and as much as I would like to help, I keep getting given jobs that annoy me, or that I suppose I feel are ‘beneath’ me, or whatever. And the things I like to do, I’m always under supervision, and therefore, I don’t do them right. Well...I finally had enough. On top of this, I haven’t felt well since I got here, I’m sweating to death in the heat of the day when the sun comes out, only to freeze at night, or on cloudy days (honestly, this morning felt like zero) ...the hot water rarely works, half the day there is no electricity, and I’m constantly having to ask what to do, what to do. Needless to say, I’ve been a little testy lately, and I made a mistake last night.

Yesterday during the day was pretty neat, though slow and unproductive, like all my days here seem to be thus far, and I went for a ride in the countryside with Harpal as he returned a motor and a machine to a different place, about 50km away from the farm. It was a nice drive, and the countryside of India is gorgeous. Up here, it’s completely flat, but with luscious green fields on either side of the highway, growing all manner of things: wheat, mustard seed, rice – to name a few. I even saw a couple of monkeys on the side of the road.

Better than monkeys: I SAW A CAMEL. Actually, I saw three camels. They were being used to pull a really huge, really heavy load of...I’m not sure what...down the side of the highway. I burst into a peel of laughter as we drove by, and I think my expression must have been reflected in Harpal’s face somewhat, because he looked at me with almost child-like glee in his eyes. A goddamned CAMEL. They’re huge, too! They came taller than the truck we were in, and definitely much larger than a horse. Apparently, they are part of the giraffe family, and the giraffe is the only hooved animal bigger than a camel. Crazy stuff.

We dropped the motor and engine off in this little village, after a bit of a bumpy drive down India’s backroads in a vehicle that probably should have had its suspension replaced ten years ago. And the stares I got when I got out of the truck! I think this village has never seen a white person before. By the time his business was concluded, there was approximately 20 people surrounding us, staring at me, and when we went inside this house to sign some paperwork and be given tea, a little gaggle of girls stood there staring at me and taking photos of me repeatedly on their camera phones.

What gives? You are worldly enough to own a phone with a camera, but not to have seen a white person? Watch the news, damn it. I KNOW India gets the BBC. It made me really uncomfortable, but not as bad as when Surrinder and I went for a walk through the village here the other day. THAT was bad.

We went for a walk to see the sugar cane plant (which was really neat) and then through the village, and it was a really surreal experience. For poor people living in mud huts (MUD HUTS! The photographer in me wished to go wild, but I didn’t due to mortification) ...anyhow, they were really all dressed in bright colours, and oh, how they stared. One woman in particular, looked me up and down like I was some kind of threatening animal, and I made a small, uncomfortable game out of staring her down until she looked away, only to repeat when she resumed staring. The children, though – they were the worst. There was about ten of them, on the roof of a building, and I couldn’t quite understand what they were screaming at me, but I definitely caught the word ‘gora’, which is Hindi for white person/foreigner, and it has a bit of a derogatory tinge to it. Similar to ‘farang’ in Thailand, but here, I think the connotations are worse.

We even had a little group of children running after me and shouting things at me. I was thankful for the small relief the scarf on my head and my sunglasses gave. It’s easier to be brave when people can’t see your eyes. To be honest, it’s an experience I don’t really wish to relive, should the occasion arise again. How stiff and ungraceful my motions were, it felt like I was walking under the scrutiny of several tiny, judging eyes, and it had caused a stick to be shoved into my spine with indignity.

But that was a massive detour of the original story: After we left the village, we drove back in a different direction towards Sirsa, and went to the market. Harpal refused to let me buy any vegetables, and graciously offered to pay for them himself. He even haggled the people for me, because he thought it would get us a better price. Buying groceries may have been the highlight of the past few days – it was such a normal experience. Buying fruit from a market is something I can DO.

When we got back, there were some family members/guests over to visit, including a little boy who is eight years old today. I was indignant, because I had been out all day, only to come home and have to peel garlic (I. Fucking. Hate. Peeling. Garlic.) ...and it put me in a bad mood. I enjoyed spending time with the little kid, and we watched a Christmas cartoon on my laptop, and I let him play Angry Birds on my phone (which was a mistake, he will NOT leave me alone about it now) ...and his mother was trying to make small talk with me, but it came out really poorly, or maybe I didn’t receive it well, or...something, I don’t know.

She found out I’m in geology, and then started to lecture me on how there are only two rock types (there are three) and how coal is formed from trees falling down in a forest and then sand going on top of them, and how with the heat of the sun, that turns it into diamonds. INTO DIAMONDS! When I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t like that, she wouldn’t listen, saying she learned it in school and she was right because she has a “MBA in geography” ....a masters of business in geography? ...anywhooo. I was feeling really testy at this point, and I think at one point I said “LOOK, ma’am, I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. Have you been wrong before? Because you are now.” ...or something to that effect. So she changed the subject to how rocks have metaphysical powers (I do actually believe this to some degree, but when spoken about by someone else, I turn into Ms. Skeptic Pants and I can’t shut it off) and then she started talking about how coral is a rock, and it’s used for “insert whatever she said here”...and then she grabbed my hand and read my palm and told me that my right hand says I’m fickle, and my left hand says I’m stubborn, and the way my cheeks are shaped means I’m always going to have economic crises because I spend too much money.

I actually got mad at this point and got up and left, got my things ready for bed, and disappeared. I was just so angry. Who is this woman to walk up to me and say all these things, and be so bloody WRONG, and not accept that I’m right on some things?

This morning, I woke up feeling really sick, and coughed a bunch of mucus out of my lungs (oh yay me) ...and my sinuses have been draining for two days, which means I’m almost certainly going to get bronchitis in the next week. And I slept poorly, because the kid wanted to play with my phone at 6AM. What.

So when I got up, I was a bit grumpy, and I ate some porridge that was handed to me, and it was only after I ate it that I thought to ask what it was – it was semolina flour and ghee, LOADS of ghee, and I got upset because I like to know when there is dairy in my food (so I can make the choice of being sick myself), and it caused an argument between me and Surrinder, and I basically stepped over a line.

So she hasn’t spoken to me at all today, except to give me things to do, and I wasn’t even called in to eat lunch until everyone else had eaten, and I’ve done all sorts of things today, but so far as I can tell, they are all things that only the servants do here. I think I really messed up somewhere.

I apologized profusely, and while she was out today, I did everything that was asked of me, and I even took the initiative and cleaned out their cob oven and part of the kitchen, without being told, and it took me two hours to do it was so dirty, and now I’m filthy, and when she came back, and I said I had a surprise for her, I showed her the oven, and all she said to me was to complain about how dirty the surrounding area is. What good is a clean oven if she doesn’t want to be in that part of the courtyard because it’s so dirty? ...I was crushed.

So anyhow, I messed up something fierce, and now I’m trying so badly to backpeddle to make amends. When I apologized to her this morning, she told me it ‘didn’t matter, because I’d be leaving soon’. I even apologized to the woman who I was arguing with last night, and she said it was fine, and she wasn’t offended, because it’s written in the stars that it’s my nature and because she realizes that I’m not mature enough to accept what was being told to me, and that I’m too stubborn. I just stood there and accepted everything she said, because I didn’t know what to say, and I’m glad I had glasses on, because my eyes started to well up with tears. I felt so bad, and that’s how my apology was accepted. I’m apparently a person with hard thoughts, but soft actions: I am stubborn and have firm beliefs, but I can’t stand up to them in an argument. It might be true, which might have been why it hurt so much more, but I prefer the approach of being completely apathetic. If I can’t care, it can’t hurt. It’s an easy philosophy, and one that gets me by pretty well in life.

Tonight, (bear with me) we went to the cinema for some food. We never actually went and saw a film, but there was a restaurant there, and an arcade, and it was for Dehraj’s eighth birthday, and it amused me to see a little Indian boy acting like a regular little boy with irritations and joys and a love of cake (even if it was eggless cake, because everyone here is pure-veg). There are two diets here: pure-veg, and non-veg. Pure-veg means no meat products, but dairy is okay. So no meat, no eggs, basically. It works well for me in all aspects except I like eggs, and I can’t have dairy. I wish it was no meat, no dairy. Then folks, I’d be in dietary heaven. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

I was having a really hard time for a while. On and off all day, actually. We got to the cinema, and I don’t know why, but it was empty, and the few people who worked there were staring at me, because I imagine goras don’t walk into the cinema at Sirsa very often, and I thought I was going to break down and cry. I excused myself and hid in the bathroom for a little bit until I could handle the world again.

I tried something pretty tasty; it’s this type of Indian fast food called pani puri, and it was these little ‘puri’, which are puffy hollow shells, kinda crunchy like chips, and you spoon a potato mixture into them, and then fill them full of ‘pani’ – which means water – but it’s sweet water and spicy water, and then you throw the whole thing into your mouth. It was absolutely delicious. I tried one of Harpal’s, at first, because I didn’t know if I’d like them, but I squealed in delight when I tried one, and I loved them, so he ordered me my own dish of them. We ate many different dishes, and unfortunately, way too many of them had mushrooms in them (mushrooms, gross) but I ate the curries anyhow, because it was that, or dairy.

By the way, eggless cake is kinda gross. Seriously the most anticlimactic chocolate cake I’ve ever tried.

Anyhow, we had a massive dinner, and I think there were ten of us in total, and Harpal’s older brother made an appearance, and we sung the most unorganized “Happy Birthday” song I’ve ever heard. Harpal’s brother is also a farmer, and I really took to him right away. He apparently has his Canadian citizenship, and used to live in Yellowknife, and used to work at the old mine there in the 60s.

I’m beginning to realize that this questioning/cutting people off in the middle of their sentences is just the Indian way, and I regret the harsh things I said about the family in the previous post. I was frustrated and I let my emotions get the better of me. I’m here, trying to induct myself into a different culture, but without actually giving the other culture any leeway. I’m no better than the Indians who move to Canada and expect their culture to stay the same. I made a mistake.

I guess I really just wanted to clear that up. These aren’t bad people – they’re just different people. It’s the way that they are. Housewives worry about how their husbands will like the food they cook, and so I have to prep it just so; farmers are interested in their crops and the world, but they have strong opinions on both. And for the record: that tap water thing wasn’t malicious – they can drink their own water here. It’s just me who cannot. I’ve taken to boiling it and then drinking from my filter just to be safe, but my stomach still isn’t great, even with homeopathic meds and immodium.

I really relish the idea of heading back home to Canada and eating a proper meal, that doesn’t cause me stomach pain, or bloating, or any multitude of unhappy internal things that’s accompanied me this entire trip so far. But yeah, I’m really ready to come home. So ready. Too much ready, to coin the Indian mistranslation.

On a farm, what was I thinking?

2012-01-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

Jan 07, 2012:

Well, I made it and I’m okay.

I’m not entirely positive where to start, so I might jump around a bit, and for that, I apologize. Oh hell, I might as well start chronologically. Ergo, my day in Delhi the day before I left:

Short and sweet; I didn’t really do a whole lot. I went to Khan Market again, so I could enjoy more things from the pâtisserie, and I wandered around aimlessly for a while. Kinda just browsing, I guess. I was going to hop in a rickshaw (I have a hard time not calling these tuk-tuks still) but after speaking with 5 different drivers, only one of them knew where the location I wanted to go was, and he wouldn’t do it for less than 200R. I looked on a map: Gandhi Smriti was only a few kilometres from the market. So I didn’t go, and that was a bit disappointing. I wanted to see the house that Gandhi lived in before his death. He died there, too. I guess it’s a bit of a shrine to him, and since Gandhi is practically god in this country, I thought it would be nice, and respectful to check out, non?

C’est la vie.

I was pretty aimless for the remainder of the day. I found some international grocery shops and spent far more than my daily allotted amount on food (this isn’t a concrete number, but I just know I went over it anyhow) ...I got a few apples, and a chocolate soy milk, and some pumpernickel bread, and some sharp cheddar. The chocolate soy milk complimented my lunch quite well – a baguette with brie from the pâtisserie. Hell, I was just excited to have proper milk again. None of this lactating-cow-business.

I spent most of the afternoon cloistered away in my hotel room – browsing the internets, and organizing all the little souvenirs I’ve purchased in the last three weeks, and organizing my travel journal. I was a week behind.

In the evening, I went out for a cheap dinner – little place just down the street that does thali’s for 50R. A thali, which means ‘lunch’ in Hindi, is a type of ‘try-everything’ dish. It was a dhal, a potato curry, rice, and some chapattis. It was okay, but I mean, I can’t complain – it was a dollar. After that, I went on a search for a post box, and bumped into this American from New York City, who walked up to me with the ubiquitous “Where are you from?” that all touts start with. Thankfully, or unthankfully, he wasn’t a tout, and after showing me where the post box was, he tried to take me to dinner. I declined, fervently, but somehow got convinced into going for a drink with him.

I was nervous, but he seemed friendly enough, though in hindsight, I regret going. I try to be nice to everyone, if I can, and I don’t think I had much of a choice with this man. His name is Roger, and he is 37, and of Indian descent, and he was in Delhi visiting his parents (as he explained it, he kinda does the half and half thing) ...and he was the most insecure, rude, nervous, unconfident thirty-seven year old man I’ve ever met.

Firstly, I thought he was a raging homosexual. Which is cool, believe me – but he was insistent on telling me over and over that he is straight, even though I never asked about his sexuality. Come to think about it, I never asked him anything. I spoke to him when he asked me questions, and I listened, though mostly because I didn’t have a choice – any time I said anything, he interrupted me to say something of his own. He’d start almost all of his sentences with “So, tell me about you – no wait, that came out wrong, oh, I should confess something, oh, now you’re looking at me funny” etc, etc. And apparently we “clicked on an extremely deep level” ...which, if that was the case, he was really poor at reading people. We didn’t click. I just didn’t want to say anything ill towards him, because he had the demeanour of someone who would jump off the roof if I did. And then he started to hit on me – and I was like “buddy, are you serious?” ...which launched the “I’ve got a boyfriend” speech, so then he switched to trying to invite me out for a ride in his jaguar, which his daddy bought for him in Delhi, and to see his apartment, because he was apparently an architect, and designed it himself (but his father bought it for him) ...but only during the daytime, he said, because he was afraid to anger my boyfriend.

The shit I put up with because I don’t want to be rude, I swear.

Thankfully, I had a Skype date with Damon right after that, and used it as an excuse to get out of there, my soda untouched. I took down his details, with the promise to add him to Facebook, but I have absolutely no intention of doing that at all. I’ve already deleted it, and I never gave him my last name or my email address. He tried asking for my number, and that was the only point in the conversation where I blatantly said ‘no’. He also tried to go in for a hug when we parted, and I made a slow, deliberately obvious step back, and allowed him to shake my hand instead.

But really. I mean really. If I was a man, I wouldn’t have this problem – I don’t even look other people in the eyes here. Anything that involves a possible conversation initiation I avoid like the goddamned plague. Leave me alone, weird strangers!

Anyhow. Rant completed.

The train ride was a long 6 hours to Sirsa, and uneventful for the most part. I fell asleep almost immediately, and when I awoke a half hour later, it was because the train attendant was yelling at the THREE people sitting in the two seats next to me. Where did they come from? How did I not wake up to three people squishing into a two person spot? I was awake after that, and the three people had to become two people again, so I finished reading Shantaram (I’m done now!) ...while I was reading, those people got off the train and were replaced by two little kids, their parents sitting in a few seats up the train aisle from them. And I loved it – I learned the entire family’s names by the end of the journey. The boy must have been about 8 or 10, and his name was Hemansool (not responsible for all misspellings – I’m spelling them phonetically) ...and he could speak a little English, and he was practicing his English by reading my book over my shoulder. It was adorable. He’d stop and ask me to pronounce words when he wasn’t sure, and I stopped reading, or slowed down my reading a lot so he could follow a few paragraphs a page. His little sister, I later learned, is named eye-ewe-she (I really don’t know how to spell her name, this is how it sounded) ...and she couldn’t speak much English, just ‘hello’ and ‘hi’. She stood at my legs for a while and stared out the window, and the siblings consistently tickled each other next to me. I joined in on their little games after a while. The girl kept staring at me, so every time I caught her doing it, I’d wink, or stick out my tongue, or grin back at her. Then, when they were spinning the little footrests around in circles (they spun on a horizontal axis) ...I joined in just long enough to make sure they noticed I was doing it too. I really liked them, and we had very simple conversations with each other, and I made sure to speak really slowly.

A few hours into the train ride, the seats in front cleared up, and the parents moved to be closer to the children, and so I got to know the father, Ramesh. He introduced his wife as “and this is my wife” ...and I regret not learning her name. I imagine it is practice to not introduce your wife by name, but I feel like it was something I should have spoken up and asked for. She was very quiet, and didn’t speak to me, but she did smile at me when she saw me speaking to her children, and her smile was radiant.

They were very pleasant and helpful, but as I got closer and closer to Sirsa, I started to get really nervous, and I was fighting a really bad surge of loneliness at the same time. I think in the half hour prior to arriving (an arrival that was a half hour late, to boot) ...I think I took Rescue Remedy probably three times, to try and calm my nerves. My insides were writhing in pain, and I could feel my stomach turning to liquid, and my legs were shaking. At this point, I had no idea if I was going to get off at the right stop, because they don’t announce the stops, and they don’t stop for long, and I had no idea if someone was going to meet me at the train station. I arranged and arranged and arranged by email, and I never received a full confirmation.

I was in a bad way when I got off the train, in the dark, to a light drizzle, and the station was dark, with several sleeping bodies strewn across the floor. I walked out of the station to the car park, and somebody called my name across the station, and when I looked up, and saw a friendly, portly looking Sikh man, and I heard my name, I broke out in a laugh and a grin, and the flood of relief that coursed through me was almost audible. I was terrified nobody was going to be there, in a town where English isn’t prevalent, and all I had was a string of cell phone numbers to call if there wasn’t anybody.

I learned the man that picked me up was Harpal, the same man I’ve been conversing with through email (his English is much better spoken than written, it seems) ...he was supposed to be in Delhi, but his plans changed, and so he was available to pick me up. We got into his car and started driving to his village, Theri Baba Sawan Singh, about 15km outside of Sirsa.

He introduced me to his wife, and then his...farmhand, servant? ...served us some dinner and some tea. I didn’t make it to bed last night until midnight, and I slept on a hard pallet under a pile of blankets, but I am used to such discomforts, and my sleep was reasonably well.

As for what I am to do here, I haven’t a clue. I’m not allowed to work in the farm field with the workers, because I am a girl and girls don’t do those things, but there is a kitchen garden that I can work in if it needs work, and when Surrinder (the wife) learned that I can make bread from scratch, she decided we should do that on the weekend. Other than that, I’m not sure what I will do, but I’ll figure it out.

There is hot water, apparently, and they have a filter to filter tap water into drinkable water, though it makes me nervous to consume, because after one cup last night, my stomach was in a bad way this morning. I might filter their filtered water through MY filter just to be safe. We’ll see how the day progresses. There isn’t, however, any toilet paper, except for the bit I brought myself, and they use a stream of water that comes from the toilet bowl to clean themselves with. I’m okay with this if I absolutely have to, but I prefer to use toilet paper. Yet again, I’m having to lower my idea of what a civilized life is – after all these months abroad, it is hard to imagine a time when I thought squat toilets were unthinkable, or that washing ones self with water instead of paper wasn’t acceptable. But I guess this is life.

Jan 08, 2012:

I dislike when my first impressions are unfounded. These are very angry people, and their anger makes me uncomfortable in its ferocity. I can’t speak or understand Hindi, but insofar as I can tell, the husband and the wife are constantly angry with each other, and they sleep in separate rooms. Both take turns yelling at the servants – I’ve yet to see them offer kind words or kind facial expressions to the two servants.

Their son showed up late last night, and so far, I’m quite fond of him, simply because his English is proper, and when he woke up this morning to his parents yelling, he walked into the room, and in English told them both “to chill”. Just the simple use of the English slang, the modern clothes he wears, and the way he handles his arguing parents makes me feel immediately attached to him. He doesn’t know this, and I’m okay with that.

The husband and the wife haven’t stopped arguing, but at least there is a moderator now who speaks Hindi. I’m currently hiding on the hard pallet that is my bed, lavishing in the fact that we have electricity right now, enough to charge and use my laptop, anyhow, and I’m blasting Atmosphere in my ears, in the hopes that I can drown out their angry voices. It’s almost working.

I’ve been in India long enough now to hear Hindi spoken softly, with compassion, with love, and so, I know it’s possible. Maybe it would be better if I couldn’t read facial expressions so well – I was tempted to tell Harpal this morning that being angry is bad for his health. It seemed like a poor idea, though.

So, I am here, and I am allowed to do very little. I was told that I can do whatever I want, which sadly, doesn’t include everything I’d actually like to do. I’m not allowed to work in the field with the workers, though I was taken on a tour of the farm yesterday morning, and it’s beautiful. The farm here grows everything organically, using a layer of hay mixed with cow manure to fertilize the fields in between crops. They grow chickpea, lentil, mustard, wheat, guava, radish, and flaxseed. Then there is their personal garden, which has spinach and other vegetables. Carrots, peas, etc.

(I’ve just been told by the son that there hasn’t been any fighting: it’s apparently just how they express themselves. He told me that if the house is silent, then I should worry. Either way, the noise is stressful.)

Anyhow, back to farming: the farm is about 600 acres, spread evenly between a few sons, so Harpal owns about 200 acres. In the distance, there are sugar cane crops, and on one of his brother’s sides, there is non-organically grown cauliflower, guava, wheat, mustard, tomatoes, and banana trees.

The crops are growing, even in Indian winter – in fact, I learned, that they grow the best during the winter. In the summer during the heat and then the monsoon, all they can grow is basmati. The fact that things are still growing is surprising, only because it is actually cold here. I have to wear socks and a sweater in the mornings, and it isn’t until the heat of the day that I can go back to barefeet and a t-shirt. At night, it’s chilly, and it rains every other day, making the field muddy. I’m not dressed for muddy.

There is rarely electricity, only sporadically and at night. They have their TV hooked up to a generator, and so that works all the time, but the rest of the house is dependent upon faulty electrical plants across Haryana – according to the news, three of them are down right now. There is only hot water when there is electricity, and it takes an hour to heat the tank enough to have a bath. I’m back to washing from a bucket, which when I asked if there is a shower, I was told “you would not enjoy a shower. A bucket is better.”

Both husband and wife are very opinionated, and the western world is very, very wrong, regardless what I have to say on the contrary. For the most part, I stay silent and just do as I’m told. Yesterday, I spent all afternoon untangling the wife’s yarn trunk so she can knit, which is all she does all day long. I have mixed feelings about each:

Surrinder: She’s whiny. Oh my god, is she whiny. And she repeats herself to me four or five times, and if I have an opinion on the contrary, she dismisses it by telling me her way is better and I can do things my way in my home country. This includes chopping vegetables (I got in trouble for cutting cabbage into chunks that were too big for the soup last night. It’s a fucking leaf – it’ll shrink.), I have to do everything just as she says, and she wants me to do different things than the husband all the time. Yesterday, I got a big lecture about how if I was her daughter, I would be taking better care of her, because she’s sick right now, and I should take care of her. I’m sorry, ma’am, but fuck you. At the same time, I pity her, which is a terrible state of mind to be in, this pity – I think she is just very lonely, and hasn’t got anyone to talk to very often. And so, I put up with it – half listening – and I let her whine without saying too much. And she thinks I’m a bad daughter because mom is single, and that’s somehow my fault. It’s my fault that I don’t live at home to raise my siblings, too. Again, a singular four letter word follows my thoughts on this.

Harpal: He reminds me a lot of Alex’s father. He’s in his mid-sixties, and rather...portly – and he is very stubborn, and has a very strong opinion of the world, to the point that when I found out he had given me tap water to drink, and then I was rather sick from it, it was ‘my fault because my western stomach couldn’t handle it and India’s water is perfectly drinkable’. He’s very knowledgeable about farming, and I admire that; I admire his strong opinions, too, though I dislike how quick he is to dismiss anything I say. Both of them ask me questions, and then interrupt me when my answer isn’t “Indian” enough.

Anyhow, that’s enough of that. Life is slow (oh god, is it slow) and I’m getting a cold, I think. The wife gave me some homeopathic meds for my stomach yesterday, because India really isn’t agreeing with me, and they work better than immodium was, surprisingly. However, I woke up this morning with a really sore throat, and I feel a little headcoldish, not too bad, but just a bit. I think it’s just because India is so unhygienic and I don’t exactly have the best immune system right now. Also, Surrinder is sick, and she is not very clean – I think I maybe caught something from her.

Things are interesting here, and as far as I can tell, I’m allowed to cook (I helped make vegetable soup last night, and by damn, it was the best thing I’ve eaten in a while) ...and today, I’m going to hand wash my laundry, and help to make bread and banana bread, but other than that, I’m basically just allowed to lay around and do nothing. I think the wife is going to get me to organize her medicine cabinet later – she’s really lazy. She wants to start going for jogs in the morning, and I agreed to this morning, but when I woke up at the appointed time, she was still asleep, and I didn’t bother to wake her. The silent moments in the morning are the only ones I get.

I’m not going to stay here two weeks – I’ll let it go a week, I think, and then after that, I’m going to come up with an excuse to leave. It won’t be hard, I think. I was expecting this to be peaceful, and that illusion has been shattered for me. Maybe WWOOFing in India was a bad idea, but then again, I know I am being harsh because I am frustrated. My opinions on things, like usual, will probably change day by day until I realize I love it here (or at least, that has been my experience so far – I still miss Thailand and Thai culture).

2012: the year the world ends

2012-01-05T07:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote this up on New Year's Eve, and going through my computer, I just found the word document for it. I had completely forgotten that I did it. So I thought I would toss it on the blog before I randomly delete it, or forget about it again.

2011. It’s been a pretty crazy year, when I stop and think about it. I tore my tricep and my deltoid muscles, I went back to work in the arctic, I ran away from one relationship, only to run to a new one by the end of the year. I’ve been to England, France, Spain, Thailand, and now India, all in this year. I moved away from the only city I’ve ever lived in, and I’ve got my first roommate. I cycled across Vancouver Island, and I entered my first real bike race. I got a new tattoo, and I’ve been bitten by countless mosquitoes. I’ve seen the aurora, and been kissed by an elephant, and I high-fived a monkey. I watched the sun set from the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and I worked 84 hours a week, for 6 months of the year, in one of the coldest places on Earth. I turned a quarter century.

It’s pretty ridiculous, when you stop and think about it.

Everybody makes New Year’s Resolutions, and I think they’re stupid. I refuse to make a New Year’s Resolution. Instead, I have good intentions of accomplishing many things next year. I might not do them, and that’s okay. I can only try, right?

2012, I wanna:
-Raise $2500 so I can cycle the Ride to Conquer Cancer, a 250km ride from Vancouver to Seattle, in support of cancer research. (Donations are more than welcome here)
-Save money like it’s going out of style
-Alternatively, purchase a new: SLR (60D or 5D Mark II please!), road bike, laptop
-Rock the Smithers backroads until I have them memorized
-See the Queen Charlottes
-Cut down my first Christmas tree
-Have a white Christmas
-Winter camping in Yellowknife
-Proper aurora photography
-Not have my relationship fall apart because of distance
-See Thomas get married
-Go to Shambhala
-Not have my job suck the soul out of me
-Get my TEFL certificate
-Get a good old fashioned game of D&D started up, Smithers style
-Learn to cook a good, proper, hearty stew without meat or milk

And the list goes on. I’ve opted against partying in Mumbai for New Years Eve, though I did stay out until 10PM tonight (which is practically forever for me – I turn into a pumpkin at midnight anyhow) ...but today after I posted my last post was good, regardless (irregardless, even). I went and saw Don 2, a bollywood film with India’s top actor in it (whose name I forget). There weren’t subtitles, but I understood the majority of the film. Bollywood is NUTS. It was a high-impact action movie, where the actors would occasionally just burst into song. And I loved every minute of it. I think I need to see more of Bollywood now.

After that, I wandered the shops for a bit, and headed back, and here I am. Tomorrow, to Delhi!

Obviously, I'm in Delhi now - but I wanted to add that before I forgot it existed/deleted it/an asteroid crash landed directly onto my computer ruining it forever. I'm tired tonight, I'll write about my day tomorrow before I leave for Sirsa. It wasn't that exciting anyhow - I slept really poorly last night and was super lazy today, but hey, it happens. Right. Post. Tomorrow.

Finding France, everywhere I go

2012-01-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

You know, today I was walking down the street lost in thought, and I distinctly recall having the thought "Oh shit, I'm learning to love it here." ...and the thought was part slap in the face, part déja-vu, because I remembered the moment I had that thought in Thailand. After over a week of not being all that impressed with Thailand as a whole, I was standing atop a temple in Ratchaburi, overlooking rural Thailand, with its luscious green mountains and fertile rice paddies, and I couldn't help myself.

Today was a bit like that.

I woke up reasonably early (6:30 - yes, I realize this is an unheard of time for most people. For me, it's approaching sleeping in) and laid in bed talking to Tim until the ungodly hour of 9:30 - a time which no person should ever be in bed - and then I got up and went out for the day. Most of my mornings are like this, lately. Wake up early, and lay there for ages on the internet or on the phone. I'm really tired in the mornings lately, and I haven't been going to bed earlier than 11PM, which is unusual for me. As it is, it's 9PM right now, and I'm writing a blog and munching on roasted peanuts I bought off a street vendor. I'm starting to experiment with street food, but only the stuff that I can see no possible way of making me ill (like peanuts and cookies).

I decided to hit up some of the markets today, and basically, my day consisted of eating and shopping; two things which, if left to my own devices, I secretly love doing. I hopped on the metro (and let me say this: even in India, the metro lines are better than the Skytrain line at home) ...and went to Khan Market. It's a fixed price market, catering to expats and more modern fashions and things. There were lots of restaurants and cafés, and a bunch of clothing retailers, like Nike, Puma, Adidas, etc. I was told I could find a tailor there, so I browsed around for a while. And it was awesome. I didn't get harassed, I didn't have to haggle, and people didn't ask me if I wanted: a taxi, a good deal, a place to stay, etc. It was just regular middle-class people, shopping, much like you would find at home (except that it was designed more like a strip mall down a series of streets, rather than an open-air market or a full shopping centre).

I found a pâtisserie there, and sat down to an excellent cup of darjeeling tea and a sugar brioche. I was so excited. It was a reasonably decent brioche, though I prefer them to be nature, and the tea wasn't bad. I'm not a huge fan of black teas (or the tea leaf in general), but herbal teas are rare here, and I don't mind the taste of darjeeling if it's got a teaspoon of sugar in it. I even dipped my brioche in my tea. For 30 minutes of my life today, I was French, and it was fantastic. French expats kept coming into the café, so the background noise was soft music, and the lilting tones of the langue d'amour. I grabbed a vegetable quiche and a grillé aux pommes (little apple tart) for the road, with the full intentions of returning tomorrow for another tea and another delectable item.

After wandering around, I learned that I couldn't get an Indian suit tailored there (only men's suits, sadly) - but there were many shops with premade kurtas, and I bought one, after nearly an hour of trying things on. I was worried that I would leave India without an indian suit (or indian dress - I think these words get used interchangably) ...and so I patiently kept trying things on until I found something I liked. It wasn't cheap, but I've noticed so far that the nicer things in India aren't really all that cheap, anyhow. I would love to buy a Kashmir shawl while I'm here, but the finer ones run prices near to 5000RS (I could make that last 5 nights accommodation, plus a few meals if I needed to)

A bit blurry, but this is the premade outfit I bought.

In a last-ditch effort to find a tailor, I decided to travel to this other market that the man in the suit shop told me to go to. So once again, I found myself on the metro traveling towards Lajpat Nagar, and after a half-block of walking, I found a shop selling fabric, walked in, and found out they also did tailoring.

I must have been there two hours. I explained to the tailor what I wanted, and he showed me lots of fabrics that made my eyes pop out of my head in disgust - I just can't stand sequins, I'm sorry - and so we settled on two outfits, one plain and one fancy, and the total cost of getting that done came to just over the price of purchasing my ONE outfit premade earlier. I was a bit upset about that, but not terribly so. I can't pick these kurtas up for two weeks (when I pass back through Delhi after WWOOFing) and I wanted an outfit to wear in the meantime. So really, it's win-win ...I just spent more than I planned to. The price for the tailoring was really reasonable, though. When he gave me the grand total, I was visibly surprised, and therefore lost any edge I would have had on haggling, but c'est bon. I'm happy with what I got.

And I am purposefully being vague. I plan on keeping the colours and designs a secret until they're finished.

After that, I wandered around for a bit, and headed back to the main drag that my hotel is on. I got some henna done, in a light orange colour, which is a new one on me - I've had red, dark brown, and black done so far, but light orange was a surprise when I washed off the paste. I like it, a bit - it's subtle, but it blends into my skin more than I would have liked. It's okay, though: I think the orange is supposed to be more traditional (because indian ladies have such dark skin). I think it's just a bit odd on my pale skin.

The paste

After the paste

Oh, and I keep meaning to mention, but continuously forget: people keep mistaking me for either French or Israeli. I can understand the French. I am French. But Israeli? Don't get me wrong, I fully intend to take it as a compliment, because I think Israeli women are some of the most beautiful women on the planet, but I just don't see how I resemble someone of Arabic blood. ...maybe it's the scarf.

Delhi Belly

2012-01-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

OH MY GOD YOU'RE GOING TO GET PHOTOS AND VIDEOS AND EVERYTHING. (I lied, no videos - I loaded them, but they're rubbish. Just traffic, and trains, and me talking and messing up my sentences. NO VIDEOS FOR YOU)

(No, I didn't eat here.)

I've had too much sugar. So, there's this place nearby in Delhi that makes amazing dosas, which are these Indian crepe/pancake type things, and you can get them with different stuff in them: shredded coconut, vegetables, stuffed with potatoes and spices, etc. They're cheap, and reasonably filling, and fantastic. And by themselves, they aren't very spicy. But I'm a sucker for spicy sauces, and they serve a mildly spicy sauce with them, and so, by nature, I cover the dosa in this sauce, and my mouth gets all burny (in the good, delicious way) ...and then regardless of how full I am, I have a sweet tooth like nobody's business.

So I went on the prowl for sugar, and bought some amazing cookies from a guy on the street (yeah, how sketchy does THAT sound?) ...I think they were butter cookies, or shortbread cookies, or something. But they were hot off a bed of charcoal, and tasty, and I devoured them. EXCEPT, I had just visited a convienience stand and bought a cheap pack of chocolate chip cookies...and when I got back to the hotel, I decided to try one, since I had just bought them...and one turned into the whole little pack.

Half a bottle of fanta later, I feel like shit.

I'd like to say 'lesson learned'...but I know it's not. I really, truly shouldn't eat spicy food this often, if only because I really, truly shouldn't consume sugar this often. I hate sugar. But I love sugar. It's an evil thing.

Interlude: Some pics from Mumbai

(Trying to photo my foot tan/new silver anklets - you can't really see either very well, but a good shot of my tattoo!)

Just being silly.

Anyhow, I'm in Delhi now. I got here well enough, though, the train system in India is strange; (yeah, yeah, stealing from an email; sue me) I got a class called 2AC, which is like second class air-con, with two sleeping tiers. However, that is four people per berth. On the train to Chiang Mai, we had two seats, and they converted into one bed. Here, they convert into two beds. Plus two up top. With only one curtain blocking the area from the aisle. So I slept beside three Indian men, and a child. And I don't understand how seating works at all. I sat beside no less than 6 different people before it got dark. Random people just kept showing up, and then other people would leave. It's like, your reservation doesn't matter, and people just sit where they fancy. Or something. But I don't get it at all. We got served dinner and breakfast on the train, and in the end, it took 19 hours, not 16. Neither meal was anything fancy, and I only picked at the dishes. The food is too spicy here, and it makes me not really want to eat (and when I do, sugar overdoses usually occur thereafter).

(more email stealing, I'm lazy, and this is what happens when I write an email before I write a blog post - I really can't be bothered to write it twice. Sorry, Tim)

My first impressions of Delhi: If one more person tries to befriend me, give me directions, ask me to buy something, or go somewhere, or just talks to me in general - I'M GOING TO PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE.

The touts here are insane. I mean, I normally blatantly ignore when the travel guide warns about touts. Whatever, I can fend them off. But here, they are INSANE. I went four blocks out of my way yesterday to shake one of them off. They walk up to you and ask where you're from, and start to chat to you, and they follow you...FOR BLOCKS. I walked a block the wrong direction, stopped, turned around, took a photo, and like 10 minutes later bumped into the same dude again, where he kept walking with me, and when you tell them to go away, they get offended. And they are really helpful and nice.

New Delhi makes me feel like an asshole, basically. Other impressions: So far, much less poverty, the streets are wider, there are less people and less traffic, though, I think there is more pollution. Yesterday was a really foggy day, and I can't quite figure out why. I mean, the weather was cool, but not cool enough for an all-day persistent fog, you know? It was blocking out the sun to the point that it was just a glowing orb in the sky. And I walked halfway across town only to uselessly find out that the museum I wanted to go to was closed, but c'est la vie.

(End of emailing stealing - it's not copyright if it's my own work, right?)

I managed to make it to that museum today, and while it was neat, it wasn't anything special. I'm not big on museums to begin with, and I was most impressed with the textiles, the coins, and the artwork, but once you've seen one marble pillar carved from the *insert century here* ...it's kinda all the same. Sure, the style was Indian and the carvings were from Indian myth rather than roman-greco, but...it's all the same to me. There were some really beautiful sketches that I tried to snap shots of, because I've got art ideas revolving around Indian artwork when I go home, but that was really the highlight for me.

Also, I seem to have a knack for going to closed places lately. I went on a massive metro/auto-rickshaw journey to go to this area in Delhi where I could get Indian outfits tailored...and they are closed on Tuesdays. Museums on Mondays, Markets on Tuesdays, apparently. I wish there was a sign somewhere saying this. I wasted over 2 hours in the last two days trying to go places that weren't open.

To placate myself, I went to this place of worship shaped like a lotus flower. It's called the Bah'ai House of Worship, and the Bah'ai faith are a group of people who believe that all of mankind is good, regardless of what religion they worship, and this massive lotus flower temple allows worship from every religion. A few times a day, they give a prayer service where they recite passages from different holy books from different religions. The concept is pretty spectacular. I never did actually go inside, but only because there was a 200 person lineup to get inside. The number of Indian tourists that come there was crazy. I made friends with the guy at the information desk, and he told me that 14,000 people go everyday. I really wanted to go inside, but not badly enough to wait in a line for it.

(They were posing for someone else. I was sneaky!)

Maybe if I have time, I'll go early in the morning before I leave Delhi. I'd love to see one of those sermons, if only to prove to myself that somewhere in the world, somebody thinks all religions can co-exist harmoniously. Just because Joe has one god, Sally has several, and Bob doesn't have one at all, doesn't make any one of them right or wrong. I think the concept of the Bah'ai faith is kinda neat from an academic standpoint.

But yeah, I actually spent more time at the information desk talking to the guy there, than I did taking photos of the temple, or walking the grounds. I was there for, I think, two hours talking to Andrew. He's an American of Irish descent (a point I mention only because it describes his features; he has black hair, and those clear blue eyes that I've only ever seen on the Scottish or the Irish) ...eyes that I have a particularly distinct weakness for. He kept reminding me of the blue-eyed teenager who served me shortbread on the shores of Scotland. Those eyes! Anyhow, he's living in Delhi now, and working at the Bah'ai temple, and once a week he teaches English to a group of 23 schoolchildren. We had a really good conversation, and we talked about places to go in India, and he gave me directions to some good places to get some Indian clothes tailored. He invited me out for dinner, but I was starving and didn't want to wait the 3 hours I would have had to wait for him to get off work, so I tried to invite him out tomorrow night, which also didn't work. Either way, I left him with my email address, and how long I'd be in Delhi. So if I hear from him, we might go for dinner or something. He was pretty interesting, and I don't get to talk to too many people anymore these days (maybe I'm not approachable by anyone but touts, or something) ...either way, I enjoyed my afternoon.

I want to go to Agra while I'm here and see the Taj Mahal, but I'm not sure if I have time for it. There's a bunch I want to do/see in Delhi, and I don't want to do a day-trip to Agra, because that would be nearly suicidal, I think. I'm not sure - I'm trying to hash out plans for the next three weeks. I leave for Sirsa on the 6th - I got my tickets today - and I'm hoping someone picks me up from Sirsa to go to the village. I honestly have no idea how this will work, but I hope it works out okay. After that, I was going to head into Rajasthan, but the place I wanted to go to doesn't have a train, and I'm leery about taking the bus, mostly due to motion sickness. Mind you, long train rides are giving me vertigo really badly, so I'm not really sure if motion sickness versus vertigo is a good trade off! ...anyhow, Andrew mentioned a place called Kalka, in the Himalayas, and I'd like to look into it if there isn't snow (I'm simply not dressed to be that cold, sadly) ...and then slowly head back to Mumbai before I leave. I've got some last-minute shopping to do in Mumbai, so I need to leave myself a bit of time.

Although, I'm starting to run out of money, so I suppose that will be the defining factor to a lot of things, I suspect.

Crazy Mumbai

2011-12-31T01:38:00.000-08:00

This post will be a bit strange, as I am too lazy to rewrite my post from the other day, that I foolishly forgot to put on my USB stick before setting out for a day in the city. Anyhow, I'll include more recent events after I copy/paste my blog from the other morning.

My experience of Bombay seems to change day by day. Yesterday was a much better day, though a bit long, and equally exhausting. And my lungs are even sorer today – my educated guess would be that I’ve got another two, maybe three days before it turns into a respiratory problem.

I went out yesterday around 10AM, after finally getting to do some laundry and things, and wandered around the market that’s downstairs from Heman’s place. The stares I got! I stopped and bought an apple, and everybody stopped what they were doing to watch me. Or it felt like they did, at least. I wanted to take some photos, especially of this vendor who was selling spices in towers, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because the man just looked so menacing. I eventually gave up and went to the train station. I bought first class tickets to Churchgate (where Fort and Colaba are), which was good and bad in a way, and I hopped on the train.

It took an hour to get to Churchgate from Kandivali on the Western line, and I stood the whole way. The train was not too crowded, though, being after the morning rush. Still crowded, yes, but I wasn’t suffocating, though now in the future I think I am going to carry rescue remedy with me, because there have been moments when I have to fight panic attacks just because of the pressing throng of bodies. I hung off the side of the train for a bit for fun, until a man asked me to come back in, because people would be getting on that side of the train at the next stop, and he didn’t want me to get hurt or pushed. I was really touched, because it was the first gesture of kindness from a stranger I’ve received so far in India. He made a spot for me next to him in the train, by asking someone to move out of the way, and I didn’t argue it because I didn’t know how. So I just thanked him, and stood in that spot for the rest of the way.

I got a little bit lost trying to find Colaba; the only map I possess is the shitty one in the Lonely Planet guide, but after some aimless wandering, I figured it out. It was a lot further of a walk from the train station than I thought it would be. I got a bit peckish along the way, and decided to try my luck at a street vendor stand.

In India here, people eat their food from the street vendor on little paper plates and they stand around the vendor until they are finished, and then they move on. I did the same – and I was the talk of the entire group of people. A foreigner, eating street food? I got a samosa, which was far spicier than any samosa I’ve ever had before – even my eyes were watering! – and I got it with some chilli sauce which was sweet. Don’t get me wrong, it was completely delicious, but my body is used to Thai spices, not Indian ones, and it was a crazy overload on my senses. My nose was running, and my eyes were watering, and my mouth was burning. But I stood there and ate it, and told the vendor what a good samosa it was. There was a sugarcane juice stall right next to him, so I tried a glass of sugarcane juice, too. I imagine it was probably really sweet, but my mouth was on fire, and I couldn’t really tell. It may also have been my downfall, as I learned later to never, ever try things on the street that involve water in any form. But I guess we’ll see.

Colaba was an interesting experience, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s the touristic part of town, where the art galleries and monuments, and markets and things are. I’m such a sucker for markets. There were stalls selling ‘antiques’, but they were gorgeous brass compasses, and sextets, and spyglasses. I wanted one so bad...but I couldn’t reason out buying it in my head. I was also propositioned by a ‘holy man’ who wanted to ‘bless’ me. So now, I have an angry holy man and some string tied around my wrist. He wanted to put a bindi on me, and I didn’t allow it, so then he gave me sugar to eat, which I didn’t eat, and then he tied string around my wrist, and ‘blessed’ me, and then asked me for money. I told him I didn’t have any money, and he got angry with me and stormed off.

But hey, I have a new string on my wrist.

I went to Leopold’s Café for a snack – a little maple walnut tart of some kind – more or less for the novelty of being in Leopold’s. I’m reading this book right now called ‘Shantaram’, by Gregory David Roberts, and it takes place in Bombay in the mid-80s, and a lot of things that occur in the book revolve around Leopold’s, so I had to go check it out. I wasn’t really expecting it to be the seedy drinking hole that they make it out to be in Shantaram, and it wasn’t, so I wasn’t disappointed, either. It’s just a slightly pricey café filled full of tourists. It made a good safe haven from the outside world for a bit, though.

After that, I just browsed the shops and looked around. I got myself a little jangly ankle bracelet – I wanted to buy more as souvenirs for friends, but the man wasn’t haggling very well, and I wasn’t willing to pay the price, so I only got the one. I also bought a crystal pillar from one of the rock shops, from a man claiming to be a geologist. I’ll admit he knew his shit, but he wasn’t a geologist, he just knew all the names of all his rocks, and kept selling the healing qualities of them to me. “You need wealth? Take this tiger’s eye. Buy my tiger’s eye for a special price, and it bring you wealth” ...right.

I had practically given up on finding an internet café, when I stumbled across one by accident. I glanced down this seedy, dark alleyway between two buildings, and just sticking out from my view was part of the word “internet” ...intrigued, I walked down and found a place that has spectacularly fast internet for 35R/hour. That’s how I uploaded yesterday’s post – I tossed it on a USB stick before leaving the house, and then just uploaded it on the computer I was using in the internet café.

After that, it was time to start heading back to Kandavali, because I had Heman’s keys and needed to be back before he got home from work. It really surprises me when people are kind to me, and I’ve never been able to figure out why. I think I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve it, but because of that, it’s positively delightful when little things happen, and it’s those little things that make traveling worthwhile for me.

While buying a kiwi and some figs (figs, oh my god) at a fruit stand, the man selling them to me was eating some coconut, and he cut a piece of the coconut off and gave it to me, along with some little sugar balls. He made me take a bite of the coconut and a little sugar ball at the same time, with the proclamation that it would make ‘a very good taste in my mouth’. It was pretty tasty, and I told him so, and he cut me off another piece of coconut, and gave me a few more sugar balls, and sent me on my way. I munched happily as I continued walking back to the train station, until I was stopped again, by a man who saw me eating lunch with the locals at the street vendor, and he wanted to talk to me. So I stopped and talked to him, and he said he had a friend from Montréal, and then he started speaking French to me! I was so excited that I blathered on in French with a fluency I wasn’t quite aware I possessed, and we exchanged names (his was Rahul) and he was from Rajathstan and he said I should go to Jaipur if I can. I finally managed to pry away and start heading to the station, because at this point, I was beginning to worry that I would be late. I spoke with one more fellow before I made it to the station, mostly because he was willing to stay in step with my long legs, and we talked for a couple of blocks until I got to the train.

People in this country are just so curious. It speaks to my inner child.

On the way back, I took second class, but in the ladies compartment – for whatever reason, here in India, trains have a separate ladies section, and I had a seat the entire way, and it was much less crowded. Hawkers jump on at stops and selling bindi dots, and cheap bangles and things, and I saw my first Indian crossdresser. He jumped on the train at a stop and tapped us all on the head and said something in Hindi or Marathi that I didn’t understand, and some people gave him money. I’m not really sure what it was about – but even men are attractive in saris, apparently.

I made it back, and found out plans had changed. I’m no longer going to Gujarat with Heman – in fact, if I was, you would not be getting this post – as Gujarat is India’s only state where drinking is illegal (this is because Gandhi was from Gujarat and he was against drinking) and apparently, this friend who is hosting the party got in a bit of trouble with the police a few days back, and is nervous to have a big house party now. So effectively, the house party has been cancelled for all but a couple of friends, and I’m no longer invited.

Heman and his roommate Julian were really awesome about it, though – and I am staying here now with Julian, until I can find another place to stay, or until I leave Mumbai. They said I can stay as long as I like, and I believe them in their sincerity, but I don’t want to overextend my stay, either, so today I’m going to go to the train station and see what the sooner ticket to Delhi I can get will be, and my plans will be defined by that. If I can’t get one before the 2^nd of January, then I think I will suffer the cost and fly there (though it is expensive this time of year – 6500R) ...but we will see today. I’m also going to look into finding a tailor, both to get copies of my dress made, and to get a few pairs of silk selwar kameez’s made. They are this beautiful long tunic with flowing pants (or tight pants also, I have seen) and a long scarf. And it’s positively gorgeous. I think I want two pairs.

Oh, and last night after Heman left, Julian and I went out for food at an Indian restaurant – which sounds silly to say, being in India – and our food was delicious, and I tried pickled lemons, and we had roti, and dhal in fried butter, and corn palak, and Julian was super nice and we got it all mild, because my poor stomach is like “WHOA, what is all this spice?!” ...and it was actually the mildest Indian food I think I’ve ever gone for. And so buttery...my lactose-intolerant stomach isn’t happy with me. I think I’ll have to start carrying my lactaid around with me if food continues to be this milky.

So yeah. Them’s the breaks!

I don't know why I even try to write these, sometimes. Maybe it keeps me sane. Everyday, I am exhausted. I'm staying in the suburbs of Mumbai, and I have to take a train into the tourist area that takes me just over an hour. Everything I need/want to do, however, is at least that distance away. So I make it twice a day. From there, Colaba (where the only internet place I can find is) is a half hour walk from the train station. There's markets and shops and such, but it makes for a very long day.

And the smog, oh my god, the smog. I thought Bangkok was bad, but Mumbai is so bad that when you stand on the shores of the Arabian Sea, and overlook the city...you can't see the city. At all. My lungs are deteriorating, and I've developed a cough. I'm thankful to leave Mumbai tomorrow, but it is to head to Delhi, which I've heard is just as bad, or worse in terms of air pollution. I'm more afraid of going to the doctor here than I was in Thailand. In Thailand, the health care was amazing, they just didn't speak English. Here, they speak English and the quality of health is rubbish. I'm not really sure which is better or worse.

Today is New Year's Eve, and I have no plans. I'm sure there are big things going on in the city, but what fun is partying when you are alone? Besides, I'm exhausted by 2PM, let alone midnight, and I can't really be bothered to do anything. I'm stuck in a world of being woefully lonely, but at the same time, being so overwhelmed by people that I don't want anything to do with anybody by the time the sun sets. And I miss creature comforts.

I've been showering in a bucket for the last couple of days. There is a hot water tap, and a water tank which is filled by the city once a day, so once you use up the tank, that's it for your water for the day. It, of course, isn't potable. The tap on the wall fills up a bucket, and then you use a smaller bucket to pour water on yourself. It's okay, but I don't feel properly clean without a proper shower. But I mean, hey, at least the water is warm.

Oh, and I finally sewed up my backpack this morning. The strap tore open, and I was lazy, or busy, or careless, and didn't fix it for a while, and it got worse, so this morning I finally fixed it with some seam sealer and a bit of sewing. Though, I'm hoping to call Arcteryx when I get home and get it professionally fixed, or replaced...

Every day for me is hectic, and I'm beginning to miss normality more and more. It's hard for me, because I'm loving being in India, but at the same time, I just want to come home so badly that it consumes my thoughts during those empty spaces when I'm not being violated by some kind of chaos. I went on a search today, that led me through streets in Mumbai that I detested so badly I wished to be anywhere else. I was trying to find a silver jewelry bazaar, with a bad map and a poorer set of directions. I had a rough idea which navigational direction it was, so I just started weaving through streets in the hopes of finding it (I did, after asking for directions twice) but it led me through streets that were so shockingly...dirty, that I had a hard time coping with it all. I felt violated, to be walking down them. There were cows on the streets, and therefore feces as well, and the sidewalks were in very bad repair, and the smell was just very bad, and the people were very dirty, and for some reason, it's totally okay in India to urinate wherever you feel like it, to spit wherever you feel like it, even if it is on another person, etc.

Don't get me wrong - I'm enjoying India, but...only to an extent. I keep telling myself things will get better. You don't fall in love with a nation because you read a book about them. There are moments, sure - when a total stranger dazzles me with a smile, or with the ubiquitious head waggle, or protects me from oncoming traffic (whether that traffic is automobiles or humans). Individually, Indians are amazing, beautiful, helpful people. As a nation, I've experienced, they are less than desirable. They are very aggressive, and quick to anger, and while I'm sure it is just a difference in cultures speaking, I find them quite rude. But that only seems to happen when you group them together. I really have met some amazing strangers so far. And I've met dicks.

I do have to say though, I finally understand why they are targeted as being such poor drivers in Canada. The way they drive at home is actually how Indians drive here. Nine car lineups in four lane roads, and I learned yesterday that pedestrians are actually at fault if someone hits them. If I get hit by a car here, the legal blame goes to me, not the driver. It's nuts. I find crossing the road very stressful, and this is with almost two months of crossing the crazy traffic in Thailand.

I meet all kinds of random people - often not by choice - and today, someone wanted to take a photo with me. And then all his friends wanted to as well. It was like they had never seen a foreigner before. Maybe they hadn't. Yesterday, I went to tea with someone, and then his friend showed up, and I got scared and left. Yesterday, maybe you would have gotten more detail. Today, I can't bother.

And this has become my life. But I miss home.

Dear god, India

2011-12-29T01:58:00.000-08:00

This is a post of sleep deprivation, like so many other posts in the past. In a city that never sleeps, I didn’t really get given the chance to, either. I awoke a short time ago, and mind, I was half asleep at the time, but I awoke to...I’m not even sure. It was loud and persistent; in that precise way that absolves the listener of any hope of sleep thereafter. It sounded like drums, and jackhammers, and it was rhythmic: and there was singing. For probably two minutes this went on, and I don’t understand what it was, or why it was, or why it had to be so loud.

Welcome to life in India.

But I suppose I should backtrack a bit. I left Thailand without incident, though in Bangkok I nearly missed my connecting flight. WHY is that airport so huge? It boggles the mind. I had to check in again, because Thai Airways doesn’t do connecting flights to Malaysian Airlines, and then I had to go through security again, and my gate was the last gate, at the end of the international departures section, and I only just barely made it. After that, though – things went as well as 12 hour flight days can go. Except that they play classical music during takeoff and landing, and I couldn’t help but think that crashing during a particularly moving piece of classical composure would be probably the worst way to go. It made the whole experience of takeoff and landing to be really surreal, and I felt like I was outside of myself. I can’t say I liked it.

I got into Kuala Lumpur, and by the way, flying over Malaysia was gorgeous, and the airport was gorgeous, and the people in Malaysia are gorgeous. The airport was a bit of fun – after having been nowhere near western shops or western things, it was nice to shop around in the duty-free. I bought my mandatory Starbucks (Malaysian Starbucks receipt: obtained!) ...and the airport even had a HARRODS! Only my British friends are going to know what that is – but it’s just this high-end upscale department store in London, but it’s pretty famous, and I was so stoked to see one in Malaysia, if only because it was something familiar.

I also got this magazine from the UK called “Very Nearly Almost” and it highlights graffiti and street art from across the world. I thought it was really neat – but I do have an almost unnatural obsession with beautiful street art (think: Banksy).

The plane to Mumbai/Bombay (so far, people who live here still call it Bombay, so I will too) was a bit of an interesting experience: the men were served scotch on the rocks, though I doubt it was real scotch, or good whisky, for that matter – and I was stoked that the plane had in-flight movies: I watched Cowboys and Aliens (which is a TERRIBLE movie, by the way) – but the fact that I could sit down and watch a movie at all was a bit of a novelty. It’s been nearly two months now, since I’ve just sat down and vegged out to something. Oh, and I sat next to an Australian woman who was flying to Bombay to visit relatives, and I have to say, there’s something about the Indian-Australian accent mix that is almost attractive. On a side note, she kind of reminded me of my family doctor, and she was really nice, and when I bombarded her with questions about

Bombay, she was kind enough to answer as many of them as she could.

I didn’t get into Mumbai until almost 11PM that evening, and getting to the hotel was somewhat of a disaster. I booked a car/shuttle service to my hotel from the airport, which is fine, except that when I went to go meet the guy with the name card for the hotel, he informed me that the driver wasn’t here, and that he was sleeping in his apartment and we’d have to wait. So after several phone calls in Hindi that I didn’t understand, with the attendant occasionally telling me “five more minutes” – we sat in an underground parking lot at the airport for thirty minutes. I was exhausted, and after a few minutes, I was also the only white person left there, and I got stared at a lot. Coming from a country where I was all but invisible most of the time, it makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I don’t know how to deal with it.

I finally arrived, and checked into my four star hotel, which deserves its four stars for being perhaps in a third-world country, and perhaps it deserves it for how polite the staff were, or how nice the poolside breakfast eating lounge was, but my room? I’ve stayed in better in Thailand for dozens of dollars cheaper. I was really disappointed – my room was carpeted with stains and cigarette burns; there were stains on the walls, and the bathroom was just as run down as most of them in Thailand. There was actually hot water, which was a plus, but it ran out of the showerhead like it would run from a tap. The room was moist, and smelled really badly of mould, and the A/C had two options: Frigid, or off. My view from my window was of a wall...inside the building. Needless to say, for the price I paid, I was royally disappointed.

Despite all this, my initial impression of Bombay was a good one. 24 hours later, my impression has changed, somewhat. At first, all I could do was take in the sights and the sounds (a chaos that makes Bangkok look sane), but the people are beautiful. The women in their brightly coloured saris, and the children, and the sea. Although, it amuses me to note that there is a distinct lack of geckos here. I didn’t think that would be something I’d pay attention to, but it’s noticeable. Unfortunately, there are pigs and rats instead.

My second night, and my first full day in Bombay ruined that initial impression. I left the hotel at noon and took a taxi into a part of town called Bandra: the taxi driver charged me 570R when I later learned it should have cost 120R. I tried to haggle it, because I knew I was being royally ripped off, but when you have no idea how much something should cost, how do you haggle it? I said no to him, and tried to lower the price, but then he refused to take me, so I didn’t know if it was negotiable, and eventually, I gave in. Despite that, he was a nice taxi driver, although, I had to slouch in his car because it was so short. He tried to cheat me again when I paid, by only giving me 200R change when it should have been 430R. Why do people see white skin and think they can take us of all our money? This is a point that’s going to come up again in a little bit.

I took the taxi to Mehboob Studios, where I waited to meet a Couchsurfing host on his lunch break from work. Even just sitting there, minding my own business, people came up to me to talk to me, or would stop and talk to each other as they stared at me before moving on. One boy came up to me with a change jar, and asked if I would give him money. Not having any on me at the time, I said no. Then he demanded I give him money. I still said no. And then he begged, and demanded, and pleaded “you give me money, you give me candy. I’m hungry. You should feed me. Give me your money, I want it, please madam. Please.” Over and over again he said this, and if I looked away, he would step into where my gaze took me, and ask again. And finally, he just stood there, silent, and stayed there staring at me, and as I ignored him, people were staring at me, with glares for someone, either myself or the boy, and I felt my heart break, just a little.

After that, I became really pensive and put my headphones on as loud as I could bear to try and drown out the sound of Bombay.

Heman finally met me, and I regarded him as my saviour. We chatted for a few minutes, and then hopped in a tuk-tuk (though, they call them auto-rickshaws here) and headed someplace to lunch. We ate at a place called Candies, which is hilariously backwards: it was a super upscale fast-food joint. We got security checked coming in, and the building it was in was positively gorgeous, with three or four levels of tables sitting outside, and a rooftop veranda. We ate at the very top – and the food they served was self-serve, same as any fast-food place, and we ordered what I’m presuming are the Indian version of ‘hot dogs’. I got curried paneer in a hot dog bun, with some chips and a lemon iced tea, and Heman got ...something. Minced lamb, or something. It looked like sloppy joes, but it wasn’t beef.

It was an interesting place, and nice: there were clay mosaics everywhere of famous people – Steve Jobs, Ché Guevara, Michael Jackson.

After Heman’s lunch break was over, I got the auto to drop me off at some promenade next to the sea, and we agreed to meet again after he got off work.

I have mixed feelings about the few hours I spent alone. In a way, it was really pleasant, because it was a boardwalk on the sea, and the wind was blowing, and the sun was shining, and I even burnt my nose a little, which is surprising considering how many weeks of sun my face has seen. I took some photography, though I think I only got one really good photo out of the bunch (wishlist: new lens). The place I went seems to be popular with young couples – after being in Thailand, the shock of so much public affection was almost embarrassing for me. I’m just not accustomed to it. After a while, I just sat around, though in hindsight, I wonder if that was a wise decision. I was the only white person I saw all day yesterday, and I’m pretty sure

I’m the only white person most of them saw all day, either. I got stared at. I got sat by. I got propositioned, and spoken to, and close to a dozen children over the course of a few hours asked me for money in the same way that first boy on the street did. I only gave money to one – I had been watching him and his friend play, and then I watched them discuss which of them was going to walk up and ask me money – it was like I was watching a business discussion, or something – and when the smaller of the two finally came up to me, I told him I would give him 10 rupees if I could take his photo. So he gave me a big face, and I took his photo, and gave him money, and the grin he gave me was worth it. I think he hadn’t really expected to get so much, but I didn’t have anything smaller. Maybe I was trying to absolve my heart from the anguish I was feeling, I don’t know. It temporarily worked, and was probably my downfall. At one point, I had six kids around me, harassing me and touching my things and demanding money from me. I had to actually raise my voice and say ‘no’ ...which nearly brought me to tears. I don’t like being so rude or impolite.

It wasn’t just children, though. Men came up to me and asked me for money, or would tell me I had to give them the water I was drinking, or they would just come and sit right at my feet and stare at me. Eventually, I put away my fancy electronics, got out a book, and wrapped my scarf around my head to try and hide my white skin, and put some headphones on. Those noise-cancelling headphones may save my soul by the end of this month in India.

When Heman finally got off work, it was a godsend. I had been reduced to tears twice, and I was feeling like everything I did was being watched (which I think is true, maybe). We got in an auto and headed to the train station – and oh my god.

Chaos.

We took first class, which by the way, isn’t really any better than second class, except that the people hanging off the train are business people, rather than poor, smelly unwashed bodies writhing in a mass of their own sweat and grime. The ticket was 78R, and for second class, it was 7R. We were on it for a half-hour with my giant backpack, and I was usually the only woman, and the only foreigner. If Heman wasn’t there with me, I don’t think I’d have even known what to do. The trains were packed – there was actually people hanging off the outside of the train. Photos weren’t even a thought – it’s hard to muster the desire to take photos when every single person is staring at you. I wish I was invisible.

On a positive note, I briefly recall seeing that the train station we got off at sold gulab jamin. I almost stopped to buy them – such tasty treats! On the walk to his apartment, we stopped and bought a weird fruit – a thick black skin on the outside, and white fruit on the inside, the texture of a potato. It was strange, and I ate it because it was new, but like so many times in Thailand, I don’t think I need to eat it again.

Heman’s apartment is charming, if old. When we got there, he has two other couchsurfers from Poland staying right now, and they greeted us at the door (which is good, because they had the keys!) ...I slept on the couch last night, which was okay. We sat around and talked for a while, and Heman’s cook came and made dinner (it’s a normal thing here) and then his roommate came home. I was up way too late last night, but nobody wanted to sleep, so what was I to do? I didn’t make it to sleep until 2AM, and I awoke to that noise at 6AM.

We went for a walk last night, and bought some paan – it’s...indescribable. It’s this brown paste, topped with some kind of seeds, and candied cherries, and then rolled into a leaf. It can be made with tobacco in it, or betel nut, and you eat it as an after-dinner breath freshener. It was very strange: it smelled like incense, tasted like menthol, and had an after-taste of soap. I only ate half of mine, because I wasn’t hungry, just curious, but it was a very strange thing.

And the air pollution in Bombay is worse than Bangkok, and my lungs and throat are very sore this morning. To top it off, both Heman and his roommate smoke inside the apartment. I had plans of staying in Bombay longer, but I’ve scratched that. Heman is heading home to Gujarat for New Years, and invited me along – so, I’m fleeing the city tonight on a sleeper bus, and I guess I’m going to go experience what an Indian house party is like. I just want to leave the pollution behind, before I get bronchitis again. I’ll be back in Mumbai on Jan 2, when I think if I can get a ticket, I will leave straight away for Delhi.

Which I’ve heard is worse.

Katee: 1, plague virus: 0

2011-12-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

Why do all the best lines and phrases for my blog occur when I'm walking down the street alone, and then completely leave my head once I settle in to start writing? It's the writer's curse, I swear. I bet, if I actually bothered to stop and write down my little witty comments I come up with to myself, I reckon I'd be a much better writer.

That said, I'm feeling a whole ton better today. I still woke up feeling a bit sick, and I've had to take today a little slow, but my fever is completely gone, and I'm feeling much better, if not still a little weak. I just came back from dinner at Blue Diamond, my favourite restaurant in Chiang Mai - I wasn't really hungry, and after getting off the plane, I was starting to get really nauseated again, but I figured I should make the attempt at dinner, and two bites into dinner, I realized my problem: I wasn't getting sick again, I was ravenous. I felt so awful and ill during the plane ride, and during the time it took me to find a hotel to sleep in (I ended up back at RCN house on Moon Muang Soi 6) - and then when I started to nibble at my delectable, delicious avocado salad with tahini and homemade vegan mayonnaise dressing, I realized the real issue. I was starving. And then it clicked: I haven't eaten anything, and I mean anything in the last three days, except: two pieces of toast, half a pancake, and a box of saltines.

So I satisfied my craving of nourishment (I love avocados) ...and topped it with a mango-banana smoothie, a small slice of mango-strawberry pie (I had to try it, I finally caved) ...and a take-away scone. Tomorrow morning, I'm going there again for breakfast before I catch my flight, but I think I've gotten ahead of myself.

The rest of my time in Mae Hong Son was reasonably decent, I suppose. I mean, as decent as it could be, considering I spent two straight days in bed. I'm thankful I paid the extra money in the beginning, because two solid days in a hard Thai bed would have killed my back and hips. Sometimes, you pay for comfort.

Worst freeze-frame face, ever. Seriously.

The guesthouse/bungalow/hotel I was staying at was really beautiful, and on the outskirts of town, so it was either a 30 minute walk into town, or a 5 minute motorbike ride (while I was sick, I obviously opted for the latter) and it was being run by an Aussie in his early twenties, who had a bunch of friends staying with him. They were all really solid people, and I wish I wasn't so sick while I was there. They would have been "heaps" of fun to hang out with - but c'est la vie. They drove me into town one day when I was really sick, and it wasn't necessary for them to do that, so I really appreciate it. There was loads I wanted to do while I was there, but I was sick, and we make sacrifices sometimes.

Christmas passed rather uneventful, the stomach flu from hell, and a multitude of calls home because I was sick and homesick. Christmas meant nothing to me this year - I was alone, and I was ill, and it wasn't Christmas in my eyes. Not really. The Thai's tried, but small school children singing - I use that term loosely - mumbling - 90s alternative pop songs such as "Kiss Me" by Sixpence the Richer, or that one Cranberries song everyone knows doesn't really count as "live music on Christmas Day". I watched a few specials on my laptop that I downloaded while I was still at home especially for the occasion, and that kept me reasonably sane while I was too sick to read, or get out of bed.

I hope for a white Christmas next year. Or just a Christmas at home, wherever home happens to be. I don't like to quote things often, but this quote has been on my mind a ton lately, and it's my favourite scene in Garden State. Zach Braff and Natalie Portman are sitting in the shallow end of a swimming pool (because Zach Braff's character can't swim) ...and...oh hell. Just read it - I can't explain storylines worth anything, anyhow:

Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
Sam: [cuddles up to Andrew] Maybe.

But it's strange, because flying into Chiang Mai today, I caught myself smiling. I realized for the first time in days, I wasn't homesick at all, and I was glad to be back in Chiang Mai. The whole song tao ride into town from the airport, I just looked around at all the familiar sights, and was gloriously, ridiculously, simply happy. It was like I had come home, in a way. Which I suppose, considering how many pieces of my heart I've left scattered across the globe, shouldn't really surprise me, but I didn't think I'd be leaving any of them in Thailand.

I love Chiang Mai. Just simply. Until I made it to my hotel, the same I shared with Tim a few weeks back, and I became lonely instead. But these things happen.

Here, look at pictures: BE INUNDATED!

Gingerbread making:

At Doi Suthep with Tim:

(oh, the jackfruit tree. Imma eat you!)

Around Mae Hong Son:

There. Love yo faces.

Christmas - at least Thailand tried.

2011-12-25T04:30:00.000-08:00

I miss vegging out to a solid wireless connection. Surfing the net seems to be a thing of the past, and for someone so dependant on wireless, that’s a sad thing. I really don’t think I should have to drive 5 minutes and buy a shitty smoothie just to steal someone’s wifi to make a skype call. There’s so many things I need to do in the next couple days involving the internet (booking rooms, organizing travel plans, etc) and I just can’t be bothered, because the effort it takes to take my laptop down into town, and hope the battery lasts long enough is far too much effort for me to deal with. Especially now that I’m so sick. I can’t justify getting food so I can use wifi, if I’m too sick to eat said food.

So yeah, for those of you who don’t know, I’m dying of the plague. A few days ago, and I’m not really sure how many – two, three? – I met a Swedish man from Couchsurfing, and he invited me over to his place to bake a gingerbread house, and so I went.

And it was an awesome gingerbread house! Once I’m back in Chiang Mai, with the proper internets, I will do a solely photo blog to make up for my lack of photos lately. I only have two nights left in Thailand, and then I’m off to India. Anyhow, I went to this man’s house, his name is Janis (think yawn-is, not ‘janis joplin’) and we baked a gingerbread Burmese hut, and I made a little igloo with a Canadian flag, and what a wretched little thing it was! I tried to spruce it up a bit with tons of icing sugar, but it’s still an ugly little igloo. I loved it though, in the way that only a Canadian could. I was so proud of my ugly little igloo.

While I was there, he bought some tofu and veggies for lunch, and let me cook up a stirfry, although, he threw in a bunch of random spices, which annoyed me, because I don’t like eating things if I don’t know what they are. Either way, I spent the day doing that, but then I started to not feel well, and I went to bed early at 7PM that night.

At 10PM, I woke up vomiting, and continued to do so until about 4AM, when I finally fell asleep for a few hours. I’ve been horrendously sick since then. I also have absolutely no desire to ever eat rice, or drink ‘Miracal 13’ – a sesame based soy drink – ever again after having spent an evening heaving it up. So, I’m now sick for the third time in Thailand. I thought it was maybe food poisoning at first, because of how sudden it happened, but when it didn’t go away during the day, and a fever persisted, now I’m not so sure.

I think it must be a stomach bug of some kind. I’m not vomiting anymore, and I’m keeping down liquids, but all I can manage to eat is saltine crackers (thank god they exist here in Thailand) and I’m not eating very many of those – though I am munching on a few as I type this in bed. Crackers in bed, I know, I’m a bad girl.

I don’t want anyone to think that being sick has ruined my time in Thailand at all – right now it’s pretty shitty, because I’m unable to eat and I’m dehydrated, but it’s rather the contrary. I don’t think of Thailand and think of being sick. I’ve got a weak immune system, and shit happens sometimes. I don’t even think of the time I’ve spent sick when I think of Thailand. I got the flu really bad in Wales in 2008, actually, at the same time of year – Christmas. I was sick for a week and a half, and I don’t even really think about it when I think about visiting Wales. If I recall correctly, I was so sick that even going out to see stuff was a chore, but I did it. And I’m glad for it. It’s the same here. I get sick sometimes. Moreso apparently when the pathogens are foreign, but hey, it happens.

My fever though. I have one hell of a fever, and it’s a bit of a worry. I read somewhere that this is how malaria starts, and I’m almost positive I’m overreacting, but if I still have a fever tomorrow night when I land in Chiang Mai, I’m going to go see a doctor and get tested.

I’ve felt so horrible in the last 48 hours, I’ve done almost nothing but sleep. Sleep, and get up to drive into town to make phone calls (I rented a moped) ...and then sleep more. Drink some fluid, eat a cracker, and sleep more. I was in town for two hours today sitting down making calls, and it was exhausting. The only reason I’ve even attempted writing this is because there is something at the night market I want to pick up tonight, and so I know I’ll be back in wifi areas long enough to post this.

So this is my Christmas. Merry Christmas to me. I’ve contracted either a stomach flu or malaria, I’m homesick, and I’m in a country that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. My feet haven’t been clean in six weeks, I miss western food, and western weather, and my cat and my friends and my family and my boyfriend and my roommate. I’m tired of being dirty, tired of showering in cold water, or luke-warm water, or “hot” water that I pay extra for but never get. I’m tired of being bitten my mosquitoes, and nearly dying in traffic every day, and eating strange but wonderful foods. I just want to wake up, in my own four-post bed, eat a proper breakfast of oats, or homemade bread, or cereal with soymilk that doesn’t taste of ass, and wear clothes that I haven’t been wearing for six weeks straight. I want to cuddle my cat. Go to the cinema. Go grocery shopping in English. I want to be western again.

I almost booked a ticket home yesterday, but I feel like I should be giving India at least a chance. Unless this is actually malaria, in which case, fuck it...I’m coming home.

But I guess we’ll see.

BLOGGITY

2011-12-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

Everything lately is flavoured with a tinge of loneliness, but Mae Hong Son is beautiful. The people are really friendly, even though I can barely speak their language, and they can barely speak mine. I’ve had a few people now just walk across the street to ask me where I’m from, and my name. So far, it’s been a bit of a disaster, but I’m coping as best I can.

The place I booked online (which I only booked because I could online, and it was last minute) was a bit of a hole, and I could only stay there last night. All the good places listed in Lonely Planet are full up to Christmas – apparently, it’s peak season, and trying to book a room on the fly was a poor decision on my part.

I got in yesterday afternoon, after a mere 30 minute flight, and seeing all the mountains from the plane, I’m really glad I flew. The roads would have had me vomiting left, right, and centre. My time so far has been a bit lacklustre, as yesterday evening was a frustrating ordeal of walking all around town trying to find places to give me change so I could use the payphone, or to find wifi, so I could use Skype. As it is, in a frustrating two hours, all I managed was a ten minute call to Tim in Bangkok, and he’s on his way back home now. I collapsed exhausted sometime before 9PM last night and slept fitfully.

I awoke early this morning, and ate a rather disgusting breakfast of frozen soy milk and Frosted Flakes (or Frosties, as they are known to the rest of the world) – I was so disappointed. I had been looking forward to a proper cereal breakfast since I found the little box of Frosties, and then I put my milk in the fridge and it froze overnight. That besides, it was really gross soy milk.

Unsatisfied, I went in search of wifi to check my emails and have a lonely cup of cocoa. After that, I had to search for a place to sleep. Rather after the fact, I found out I could have found a place for 200B a night in the centre of town, unfortunately, I didn’t realize it was even a place to sleep until a bit later in the day. So I’m at a place called Sang Tong Huts, which is very pretty, and run by a young Thai man with an Australian accent. He’s half Thai and half Oz, and I guess his dad used to own the place, so now he runs it half the year, and lives half the year in Australia. I haven’t spoken to him much, but he has some Aussie friends visiting right now, and they told me all this while I was registering for my room earlier this morning.

My room is really nice – a big hut with a big bed and a separate shower (for once). I have a private balcony and a comfortable bed, unfortunately, it comes with feather pillows, but I feel as though the windows are just for show anyhow, and there should be enough fresh air that my allergies don’t bother me too much anyhow. I made a little video on the deck earlier – if the internet gods are kind, I’ll load it to this blog. I think it’ll be sans photos though – I have no wifi here either, and am typing this offline at the moment, with the intentions of going to snag wifi when I head down to the night market.

(the internet gods were not kind! no video for you.)

Today’s been a bit of an interesting day. I emailed a couchsurfer in desperation last night, the only one in town, actually – but he couldn’t host me (hence me being here instead) ...and I bumped into him today at lunch. I was eating khao soi at a restaurant earlier, and he walked in, and stared at me funny, and asked me if I was on couchsurfing. Surprised, I said yes, and asked if his name was Janis (sorry Tim, I’m stealing this straight from my email to you – call me lazy) ...it was really random. He sat down with me while I ate my lunch and we talked; the reason he declined me was because he’s supposed to have an American couchsurfer show up today. After I finished my lunch, he asked if I would walk with him, so I did. And we visited a bunch of little stores in town, it turns out, he made gingerbread cookies and was giving them to the owners of all his local haunts – the baker, the lady at the market, the owner of the restaurant I ate lunch at...and he’s going to make a gingerbread house tomorrow, and invited me to help him if I want.

I walked back to his house with him, and found out that the nice lady who gave me directions this morning is his neighbour, and we all ate cookies and beverages together, with another invite to join them for Christmas dinner on the 24^th. I don’t know if I will go to that – we will see how making gingerbread goes tomorrow morning. I told him I plan to make a gingerbread igloo, to go with his gingerbread Shan-style Burmese hut. And I’m going to make a Canadian flag for it. I have to meet him at his house around 11AM tomorrow.

What can I say? Strange things happen to me, sometimes.