This blog's title was on a restaurant sign at some forgettable road junction. Engrish is really getting the edge on English. I also really enjoyed a burly weightlifter-type wearing this bright purple t-shirt: "WHERE ALL DA WHITE WOMEN AT?"
I just came back from the Himalayan Zoological Park in Darjeeling, and may have discovered my new totem animal - move over, Welsh Corgi! The red panda appears to bear no resemblance to the regular ol' panda that you already know from such antics as "refusing to breed in captivity" and "being dull". The zoo was better than most, because it only had a handful of species that are either native to the area or thrive somewhere in the Himalayan zone. Several endangered species are involved in successful breeding programs. Tigers, wolves, leopards, yaks, monkeys, and nature's clowns - the Asiatic black bear. If you ever get a chance to see one of these bears, do so. Like all of the best animals [and people], they have an extremely undignified manner. As in every other zoo, about 30 minutes into the experience I got sick of watching painfully bored critters pace around in circles. So it goes.
Me and Darjeeling started off on the wrong foot - I was unbearably cranky after two back-to-back overnight trains. Downright toddleresque. I spent the first day stomping around under a black cloud and wrote some whiny emails. It passed. It seems that the occasional tantrum isn't the worst thing in the world with no friends or acquaintances to bear proper witness.
Speaking of friends, my eyes and brain have been collaborating on the crazy trick of assuming that every Indian is someone I know from Canada. And it always turns out to just be the Indian version of that person. Indian Trevor Belley here, Indian Bruce Warnsby there... and every old man's bird-boned, hunch-shouldered bouncing hobble is an Indian Aaron Burnie, if only for a second. Y'know how Aaron looks after five beers: an elderly Fraggle.
Yesterday I hooked up with a friendly English couple and wandered around a tea estate - tea fields, processing plant, and all. Even a tea-tasting at the end, wherein the tea leaves were steeped for a mere 5 seconds! And damned if it wasn't the finest cup of tea I've ever had, no milk or sugar required. Later on, I laid down Rs8000 [~$200] for a 3' x 6' Tibetan-style wool carpet. Fat cat coming through! A pretty fine deal, actually - handmade by a local women's collective from yak's wool and shipped to my p.o. box in Dawson. This is the kind of purchase that makes me feel bizarrely grown-up. The feeling will fade when the carpet is destroyed by cat barf and careless use, but let's treasure it for the moment.
As hill stations go, and this will be my last in northern India, Darjeeling's main failing is its size - over 100,000 people today, in what started as a small British outpost. So the issue of traffic is especially apparent:
-exhaust
-honk honk honk beeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeep beep
-very narrow roads designed for pedestrian, horse, rickshaw - not cars and trucks!
Nevertheless, once you haul yourself up the hill and off the main roads, it's quiet and peaceful. "India Light", as Paul G. described Mussoorie. The haggle and hassle of India is diluted in these northern hills. Something that threatens the peace is the Gorkha ethnic people's bid for self-government in the Darjeeling region. Every business claims to be located in Gorkhaland, a place which is currently theoretical. (I thought we were in West Bengal? But I'm just a tourist.) On the separatism spectrum, I suppose the Gorkhaland movement would be located somewhere between the persistence inefficacy of the Quebecois and the undiminished brinkism of contested Kashmir. In the immortal words of my close friend Jay-Z, "Can I live?" He was talking about regional autonomy in South Asia, right??
Time to head south. The how-to, the method, may prove problematic. November 5 is the Indian mega-holiday Diwali, so train schedules are booked solid for the next couple of weeks. Instead of getting stuck in train stations, I've elected to fly to Kolkata (Calcutta) tomorrow morning. But how to get further south, after Kolkata, without dipping my toe into nightmare itineraries and dangerous train waitlists? Perhaps more domestic air travel is the best answer for the rich and lazy. Well, I've got the lazy part figured out.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
i have yet to receive my flying car
"Ohhhh, I wore a fifteen-pound beard of bees for that woman, but it just wasn't enough."
Until Shimla, my travels in India were almostly entirely by bus, owing mostly to the hilly nature of the northern regions. Can't build railways on such steep grades. Learning of Shimla's talked-about narrow gauge, I was determined to take it. As a child, I understood trains to be large metal boxes exclusively used by the Alberta Wheat Pool (and other such gangster organizations). I forgot that passenger trains existed for years at a time. So, cut to Shimla, I'm very excited to begin properly traveling around India.
Probably should have done some research on the internet. Probably should have booked my travel in advance. Didn't! It took 4 trains, 1 bus, 1 autorickshaw and almost 24 hours to get from Shimla to Rishikesh. By car it would have taken 6 or 7 hours. Well, I'm an idiot. It's probably a blessing that I'm alone, because my internal monologue turned external would have been an unbearable tirade of complaints. For real - thanks universe!
I get it now. Showing up at the train stations without a ticket has mixed results, ranging from irritation to minor catastrophe. Though it appears all of the folks in Bangalore's computer biz were too busy to make a respectable Indian Railways website, I come out of this past week with respect for the complexities of Indian Railways. A few rules to live by: book ahead, book far ahead, learn the codes and acronyms, and do not lose patience.
Rishikesh was decent enough, but I'm not the ashram type so I wasn't bound to last long.
The past couple of nights have been spent in Mussoorie, another old British hill station. I'm staying at the empty house of Paul Gerberding - brother of Tim, uncle of Spruce and Louis. (All roads lead to Dawson, even here.) He's currently out of town with a pile of 15-year-old students, hiking in the Himalayas. The house is great - if any readers ever come across this particular Gerberding, be sure to hook him up with ice creams and other delights. Paul teaches at an international school just outside Mussoorie and lives next to campus, so the walk to the centre of town takes 45 minutes. Most of the walk is along quiet country roads - not the quiet of midwinter Dawson, but plenty quiet enough. There are very few streetlights and you can see the stars so clearly. All of the smog and haze sits in the valley. Mussoorie and surroundings are built on and around the ridges, and far below is the glowing city of Dehra Dun. (It's quite amazing how twinkling and serene DD appears from above at night, as it has no redeeming characteristics in the regular, ground-level context.) There's nothing built in the elevations in between, just trees. It's hard to get a spatial understanding of this place, as the bends and folds of hillsides obscure relative distances. Around one bend of the road, you'll come upon a half-dozen families living in shanties made of plastic sheeting and scrap metal, barely off the road, cooking over an open fire. Around the next bend is a posh, upper middle class home nestled in the hillside.
Tomorrow night I'll take a sleeper train from DD to Delhi and then transfer to another long-haul affair to New Jalpaiguri. NJP is just a means to an end - Darjeeling. The whole affair will take a day and a half - but this time I'm expecting it! Will travel avec toothbrush, fresh underpants, better outlook etc.
I've imbibed approximately one metric buttload of masala chai since arriving in this fine country, and only a small handful of beers. Not much of a drinking culture. In the spirit of something-or-other [Puritanism? Hinduism?] I expect to get appropriately tea-crazy while in Darjeeling. But if you hear about a line on some stronger stuff, hook a brother up.
Oh, speaking of brothers, Ben and I have indulged an episode of joint whimsy and booked flights to the Andaman Islands for the first half of December. Hooray! We both earned record-breaking awful sunburns while snorkeling in Belize in 2007 (2008?). I'd like to think that we both learned important lessons and emerged from the incident two sunblock-savvy individuals. But alas... mama raised two fools. Wish us luck on our future melanomas!
Until Shimla, my travels in India were almostly entirely by bus, owing mostly to the hilly nature of the northern regions. Can't build railways on such steep grades. Learning of Shimla's talked-about narrow gauge, I was determined to take it. As a child, I understood trains to be large metal boxes exclusively used by the Alberta Wheat Pool (and other such gangster organizations). I forgot that passenger trains existed for years at a time. So, cut to Shimla, I'm very excited to begin properly traveling around India.
Probably should have done some research on the internet. Probably should have booked my travel in advance. Didn't! It took 4 trains, 1 bus, 1 autorickshaw and almost 24 hours to get from Shimla to Rishikesh. By car it would have taken 6 or 7 hours. Well, I'm an idiot. It's probably a blessing that I'm alone, because my internal monologue turned external would have been an unbearable tirade of complaints. For real - thanks universe!
I get it now. Showing up at the train stations without a ticket has mixed results, ranging from irritation to minor catastrophe. Though it appears all of the folks in Bangalore's computer biz were too busy to make a respectable Indian Railways website, I come out of this past week with respect for the complexities of Indian Railways. A few rules to live by: book ahead, book far ahead, learn the codes and acronyms, and do not lose patience.
Rishikesh was decent enough, but I'm not the ashram type so I wasn't bound to last long.
The past couple of nights have been spent in Mussoorie, another old British hill station. I'm staying at the empty house of Paul Gerberding - brother of Tim, uncle of Spruce and Louis. (All roads lead to Dawson, even here.) He's currently out of town with a pile of 15-year-old students, hiking in the Himalayas. The house is great - if any readers ever come across this particular Gerberding, be sure to hook him up with ice creams and other delights. Paul teaches at an international school just outside Mussoorie and lives next to campus, so the walk to the centre of town takes 45 minutes. Most of the walk is along quiet country roads - not the quiet of midwinter Dawson, but plenty quiet enough. There are very few streetlights and you can see the stars so clearly. All of the smog and haze sits in the valley. Mussoorie and surroundings are built on and around the ridges, and far below is the glowing city of Dehra Dun. (It's quite amazing how twinkling and serene DD appears from above at night, as it has no redeeming characteristics in the regular, ground-level context.) There's nothing built in the elevations in between, just trees. It's hard to get a spatial understanding of this place, as the bends and folds of hillsides obscure relative distances. Around one bend of the road, you'll come upon a half-dozen families living in shanties made of plastic sheeting and scrap metal, barely off the road, cooking over an open fire. Around the next bend is a posh, upper middle class home nestled in the hillside.
Tomorrow night I'll take a sleeper train from DD to Delhi and then transfer to another long-haul affair to New Jalpaiguri. NJP is just a means to an end - Darjeeling. The whole affair will take a day and a half - but this time I'm expecting it! Will travel avec toothbrush, fresh underpants, better outlook etc.
I've imbibed approximately one metric buttload of masala chai since arriving in this fine country, and only a small handful of beers. Not much of a drinking culture. In the spirit of something-or-other [Puritanism? Hinduism?] I expect to get appropriately tea-crazy while in Darjeeling. But if you hear about a line on some stronger stuff, hook a brother up.
Oh, speaking of brothers, Ben and I have indulged an episode of joint whimsy and booked flights to the Andaman Islands for the first half of December. Hooray! We both earned record-breaking awful sunburns while snorkeling in Belize in 2007 (2008?). I'd like to think that we both learned important lessons and emerged from the incident two sunblock-savvy individuals. But alas... mama raised two fools. Wish us luck on our future melanomas!
Monday, October 18, 2010
onwards and upwards
Earlier this week I finished reading The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. I like his travel writing, despite (or because of) his somewhat appalling personal qualities. He has an irritating habit of filling his characters' dialogues with literary quotations, which tends to steal the non-fiction from his work. Only a turd or a liar would claim to pull out a meaningful quotation for each clever moment. This is my primary reason for suspecting that Paul Theroux is, in fact, a lying turd.
Then again, I spent all of my formative tween and teen years reading sexy pulp paperbacks thinly disguised as fantasy/science fiction... so what do I know? In any case, here's a passage from The Great Railway Bazaar that still holds true, nearly 40 years later. I do not claim to have memorized it:
"...one of those strange conversations I later found to be the mainstay of American small talk in India: The American on His Bowels. After the usual greetings and pauses these people would report on the vagaries of their digestive tracts. Their passion was graceless and they were as hard to silence as whoopee cushions."
This past week, onwards and upwards to Manali I went. It's very likely the furthest north I'll go in India. Manali was all crumbling brickwork decorated with antique wooden window frames and balconies. The main drag in central Manali was hung with strings of thick, coloured tinsel rustling in the air. The sound of the tinsel was nearly familiar... a sweet combination of strung-up cornflakes and autumn leaves and origami. Manali is a mountain town, and every river in every valley in the area made a pleasant whitewater white noise. Unless you're interested in "adventure tourism", a term that generally spooks me, Manali's mostly good for strolling about and snacking. OK, twist my arm.
I saw a terrifically ambiguous road sign between Manali and the nearby village where I was staying (Vaishisht):
Uh huh. After Manali I began my slow drift south and east. The 9-hour bus ride was a predictably terrifying screech around narrow mountain roads, winding one-lane affairs that hug the ridges. The bus loudspeakers blared Indian cowboy music: the melodrama of Hindi vocals laid over Ennio Morricone instrumentals. Far below in the valleys, cows appeared to be sleeping while immersed up to their ears in milky turquoise rivers. Unlikely vehicles zoomed around on what I thought were goat paths.
I'm now in the state's capital, Shimla, renowned for being the 'summer capital' during British rule. The crusty old colonial architecture proves it. Hordes of domestic tourists fill the pedestrian-only streets to eat ice creams and ogle girls. On no fewer than four occasions I witnessed young parents placing a toddler on the back of a placid pony for a tourist photo op, only to have the photo spoiled by hysterical screaming. Haha! Is it sociopathic to find the situation hilarious? Just so familiar, like everything else in this bizarro Little England. Every second stroller contains a tiny person bashing a toy keyboard to produce tinny versions of 'Oh Susanna' and 'London Bridge is Falling Down'.
One of Shimla's main sights is a temple way up the hill, the Jakhu temple, which celebrates the monkey god Hanuman. After several days I'm still too nervous to go, because I know there will be hundreds of rhesus macaques up there. These aggressive little monsters are all over Shimla - ranging from chihuahua to bulldog in size. There's something about monkeys that I don't trust - those little beady eyes know too much, those little brains contain only judgments and poop-flinging. Can you imagine getting undressed in front of a monkey? It would probably be snidely thinking "Buzz's girlfriend - woof!" instead of the more appropriate "eeeee! EEEEEE!" Last night I took a wrong turn and got cornered in a back alley by a dozen of them, screeching and lunging in my direction. I surprised myself by screaming loudly and windmilling my arms in a monkey-wards flail. Then I ran like hell. In your dreams, monkey temple!
Tomorrow morning I board the Himalayan Queen, a train that runs the Shimla-Kalka line, which is famous for being one of the narrow-gauge rail lines in India. Later on, I hope to travel on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and the train to Ooty in south India.
Yeah, yeah, so I just figured out how to include links in my blog posts and I'm going nuts with my newfound power. Being a simpleton has its advantages.
Then again, I spent all of my formative tween and teen years reading sexy pulp paperbacks thinly disguised as fantasy/science fiction... so what do I know? In any case, here's a passage from The Great Railway Bazaar that still holds true, nearly 40 years later. I do not claim to have memorized it:
"...one of those strange conversations I later found to be the mainstay of American small talk in India: The American on His Bowels. After the usual greetings and pauses these people would report on the vagaries of their digestive tracts. Their passion was graceless and they were as hard to silence as whoopee cushions."
This past week, onwards and upwards to Manali I went. It's very likely the furthest north I'll go in India. Manali was all crumbling brickwork decorated with antique wooden window frames and balconies. The main drag in central Manali was hung with strings of thick, coloured tinsel rustling in the air. The sound of the tinsel was nearly familiar... a sweet combination of strung-up cornflakes and autumn leaves and origami. Manali is a mountain town, and every river in every valley in the area made a pleasant whitewater white noise. Unless you're interested in "adventure tourism", a term that generally spooks me, Manali's mostly good for strolling about and snacking. OK, twist my arm.
I saw a terrifically ambiguous road sign between Manali and the nearby village where I was staying (Vaishisht):
BRO
REGRETTABLE INCONVENIENCE
REGRETTABLE INCONVENIENCE
Uh huh. After Manali I began my slow drift south and east. The 9-hour bus ride was a predictably terrifying screech around narrow mountain roads, winding one-lane affairs that hug the ridges. The bus loudspeakers blared Indian cowboy music: the melodrama of Hindi vocals laid over Ennio Morricone instrumentals. Far below in the valleys, cows appeared to be sleeping while immersed up to their ears in milky turquoise rivers. Unlikely vehicles zoomed around on what I thought were goat paths.
I'm now in the state's capital, Shimla, renowned for being the 'summer capital' during British rule. The crusty old colonial architecture proves it. Hordes of domestic tourists fill the pedestrian-only streets to eat ice creams and ogle girls. On no fewer than four occasions I witnessed young parents placing a toddler on the back of a placid pony for a tourist photo op, only to have the photo spoiled by hysterical screaming. Haha! Is it sociopathic to find the situation hilarious? Just so familiar, like everything else in this bizarro Little England. Every second stroller contains a tiny person bashing a toy keyboard to produce tinny versions of 'Oh Susanna' and 'London Bridge is Falling Down'.
One of Shimla's main sights is a temple way up the hill, the Jakhu temple, which celebrates the monkey god Hanuman. After several days I'm still too nervous to go, because I know there will be hundreds of rhesus macaques up there. These aggressive little monsters are all over Shimla - ranging from chihuahua to bulldog in size. There's something about monkeys that I don't trust - those little beady eyes know too much, those little brains contain only judgments and poop-flinging. Can you imagine getting undressed in front of a monkey? It would probably be snidely thinking "Buzz's girlfriend - woof!" instead of the more appropriate "eeeee! EEEEEE!" Last night I took a wrong turn and got cornered in a back alley by a dozen of them, screeching and lunging in my direction. I surprised myself by screaming loudly and windmilling my arms in a monkey-wards flail. Then I ran like hell. In your dreams, monkey temple!
Tomorrow morning I board the Himalayan Queen, a train that runs the Shimla-Kalka line, which is famous for being one of the narrow-gauge rail lines in India. Later on, I hope to travel on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and the train to Ooty in south India.
Yeah, yeah, so I just figured out how to include links in my blog posts and I'm going nuts with my newfound power. Being a simpleton has its advantages.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Get me out of this monkey suit
After much deliberation over the past couple of days, I bit the bullet and purchased some cheap baggy cotton pants in expectation of many, many hot days ahead. Dresses with tights are too slutty; jeans are too heavy. When I returned to the hotel at noon for check-out, I showered and changed into The Pants. Now I'm camouflaged in the haute couture of India's white gypsy throngs.
Not two hours after climbing into the loose anonymity of The Pants, I begin to wonder if they will be a magnet for evildoings. The first stop, post-Pants, was at a Tibetan-run cafe, where I planned to kill a couple of hours reading. (I'm in limbo until my bus leaves tonight.) Not 30 seconds later, I was joined by a sketchy Venezuelan named Alfredo, or alternately, Ananda, his Indian name. Uh-oh... immediate wariness regarding adults who choose to forego their birthnames in favour of monikers more ethnic, flaky, and stupid. It's great fun to obstinately refer to these folks by the name they're trying to shake off, pretending ignorance of the attempted change. In this instance, I prefer "Alfredo" due to the signature hand-flapping arrogance of the most peculiar Latin Americans.
Alfredo was raised in a middle-class Venezuelan home in the slums. This was the first of endless contradictions. He joined the Hari Krishnas with his mother at age 14. His current passport, Spanish, is fake. He threatened to throw his French girlfriend out the window when she asked him not to drink so much in the morning. According to Alfredo, I shouldn't use shampoo because it's composed mainly of hand sanitizer. I shouldn't bite my nails unless I intend to play the guitar. Alfredo began to refer to himself as "a Frenchman at heart" during his initial attempts to kiss and grope me. I was planning my escape while Alfredo lured a meaty young Finnish man over to the table that was no longer mine. Their conversation turned to Rainbow Gatherings. I sprinted away. If you're seeking an outlet for hate mail, please direct it to anandaji108@hotmail.com!
I've been in McLeod Ganj for 3 days without any form of hassle. Is it safe to blame The Pants for those 45 minutes I'll never get back? I was not even remotely Alfredoed while clad in regular ol' trousers.
A suspicion has been confirmed: travellers are far more likely perverts than any local creep. The night bus to Manali, another mountain town in northern Himachal Pradesh, leaves at 8:30 pm. This gives me over five hours to avoid my new best friend.
There's something about the Rainbow Gathering that I really resent. On principle, it's difficult to take a stand against tenets of peace, love, harmony and beautiful locales. But perhaps we can compare the Rainbow Family to Crocs -- decent in theory, horribly ugly in practice.
Not two hours after climbing into the loose anonymity of The Pants, I begin to wonder if they will be a magnet for evildoings. The first stop, post-Pants, was at a Tibetan-run cafe, where I planned to kill a couple of hours reading. (I'm in limbo until my bus leaves tonight.) Not 30 seconds later, I was joined by a sketchy Venezuelan named Alfredo, or alternately, Ananda, his Indian name. Uh-oh... immediate wariness regarding adults who choose to forego their birthnames in favour of monikers more ethnic, flaky, and stupid. It's great fun to obstinately refer to these folks by the name they're trying to shake off, pretending ignorance of the attempted change. In this instance, I prefer "Alfredo" due to the signature hand-flapping arrogance of the most peculiar Latin Americans.
Alfredo was raised in a middle-class Venezuelan home in the slums. This was the first of endless contradictions. He joined the Hari Krishnas with his mother at age 14. His current passport, Spanish, is fake. He threatened to throw his French girlfriend out the window when she asked him not to drink so much in the morning. According to Alfredo, I shouldn't use shampoo because it's composed mainly of hand sanitizer. I shouldn't bite my nails unless I intend to play the guitar. Alfredo began to refer to himself as "a Frenchman at heart" during his initial attempts to kiss and grope me. I was planning my escape while Alfredo lured a meaty young Finnish man over to the table that was no longer mine. Their conversation turned to Rainbow Gatherings. I sprinted away. If you're seeking an outlet for hate mail, please direct it to anandaji108@hotmail.com!
I've been in McLeod Ganj for 3 days without any form of hassle. Is it safe to blame The Pants for those 45 minutes I'll never get back? I was not even remotely Alfredoed while clad in regular ol' trousers.
A suspicion has been confirmed: travellers are far more likely perverts than any local creep. The night bus to Manali, another mountain town in northern Himachal Pradesh, leaves at 8:30 pm. This gives me over five hours to avoid my new best friend.
There's something about the Rainbow Gathering that I really resent. On principle, it's difficult to take a stand against tenets of peace, love, harmony and beautiful locales. But perhaps we can compare the Rainbow Family to Crocs -- decent in theory, horribly ugly in practice.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Free Tibet with every purchase
McLeod Ganj is the name of a small town just outside Dharamsala, in mountainous Himachal Pradesh state, in the northwest of India. It's full of Tibetan refugees, being the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. It's also full of hippies - doi oi.
View Larger Map
This morning I was woken by beautiful sunshine and a man singing devotional hymns right below my balcony. First I imagined him as a small, red-robed Tibetan monk, smiling beatifically re: the awesome state of his eternal soul, etc. Then I imagined the chanter as a 60-something white guy with dirty trousers and a scraggly beard. I was so enraged by the second vision that I purposefully did not investigate further, fearing disappointment.
Despite its spiritual significance and beautiful setting, McLeod Ganj forcibly reminds me of other places along the beaten path - Vang Vieng in Laos, San Pedro (Lake Atitlan) in Guatemala. I have no doubt there are a dozen more in a dozen countries I haven't visited. Internet cafes, international menus, Israelis: the holy trinity that marks a very well-travelled backpacker hotspot. I want to find this irritating, but there are also a fair number of resident normals who balance out the hordes of shabby travellers. Also, Tibetans are the total babes of the Asian world! Who knew?
The bus trip from Amritsar to here was lengthy and tiring. An urgent desire to get out of the stuffy and sweltering plains nagged at me. All of the villages and towns in the Punjab had a sort of unfinished look, with stalks of rebar spraying from the roofs of concrete structures like headless bouquets. My hair was stiff with grime by the end of day two. But the best part about Amritsar, and Punjab in general: people are polite as hell. Very welcome after the exhausting experience of Delhi. (Do not recommend.) A friendly local guy in Amritsar told me that the roads between Manali and Leh are open until October 31 so I may give it a shot. Leh suffered some terrible flooding and mudslides a couple of months ago so I'm sure they'd welcome the tourist bucks.
On the way to breakfast this morning, I was dropping off my laundry and lookee - baby's first sacred cow incident! I was talking to the Tibetan bakery/laundry shop owner while behind me in the street a cow was snuffling around my heels, whistling innocently with hooves in her leather pockets. The bakery guy started tsking and shouting over my shoulder, running out just too late to stop the frisky cow from grabbing a loaf of bread from the shop across the street, tossing it into the air with her teeth so that slices of bread flew everywhere. She proceeded to block traffic for several minutes while taking care of the tasty mess. The scammed Hindu shopkeeper grumbled helplessly; the cow was very pleased.
While in these backpacker meccas, it's important to live this shit up! So I'm gonna eat three+ delicious meals per day, read my book, perhaps dabble in yoga, see a movie, visit a museum and go for walks.
It can be so hard.
View Larger Map
This morning I was woken by beautiful sunshine and a man singing devotional hymns right below my balcony. First I imagined him as a small, red-robed Tibetan monk, smiling beatifically re: the awesome state of his eternal soul, etc. Then I imagined the chanter as a 60-something white guy with dirty trousers and a scraggly beard. I was so enraged by the second vision that I purposefully did not investigate further, fearing disappointment.
Despite its spiritual significance and beautiful setting, McLeod Ganj forcibly reminds me of other places along the beaten path - Vang Vieng in Laos, San Pedro (Lake Atitlan) in Guatemala. I have no doubt there are a dozen more in a dozen countries I haven't visited. Internet cafes, international menus, Israelis: the holy trinity that marks a very well-travelled backpacker hotspot. I want to find this irritating, but there are also a fair number of resident normals who balance out the hordes of shabby travellers. Also, Tibetans are the total babes of the Asian world! Who knew?
The bus trip from Amritsar to here was lengthy and tiring. An urgent desire to get out of the stuffy and sweltering plains nagged at me. All of the villages and towns in the Punjab had a sort of unfinished look, with stalks of rebar spraying from the roofs of concrete structures like headless bouquets. My hair was stiff with grime by the end of day two. But the best part about Amritsar, and Punjab in general: people are polite as hell. Very welcome after the exhausting experience of Delhi. (Do not recommend.) A friendly local guy in Amritsar told me that the roads between Manali and Leh are open until October 31 so I may give it a shot. Leh suffered some terrible flooding and mudslides a couple of months ago so I'm sure they'd welcome the tourist bucks.
On the way to breakfast this morning, I was dropping off my laundry and lookee - baby's first sacred cow incident! I was talking to the Tibetan bakery/laundry shop owner while behind me in the street a cow was snuffling around my heels, whistling innocently with hooves in her leather pockets. The bakery guy started tsking and shouting over my shoulder, running out just too late to stop the frisky cow from grabbing a loaf of bread from the shop across the street, tossing it into the air with her teeth so that slices of bread flew everywhere. She proceeded to block traffic for several minutes while taking care of the tasty mess. The scammed Hindu shopkeeper grumbled helplessly; the cow was very pleased.
While in these backpacker meccas, it's important to live this shit up! So I'm gonna eat three+ delicious meals per day, read my book, perhaps dabble in yoga, see a movie, visit a museum and go for walks.
It can be so hard.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Twin Flavor American Softy
After the train pulls out of Ludhiana, I finally check out the 'western style' bathroom in between train cars - not bad! It's not as stinky as expected, probably because no waste is actually stored on the train. Down the toilet's shaft, I can see that the ultimate destination for all semi-liquids is the train track itself. Mental note: never cross train tracks on foot, ever. It seems worth noting that I've had about 3 litres of water enter my body this morning, but only 300 mL escaped. There must be some mystical passage to Narnia buried along the way in my guts.
The farmlands of Punjab enjoy a thick haze only slightly lesser than that of the big city. I'm reminded of being in a very dark place and foolishly trying to focus my eyeballs in the featureless gloom. Straining to look through the grey obscurity hovering over farmers' fields, I'm filled with the same indignant panic as one who is afraid of the dark. Why is smog so damn insulting? I hope that every low, dusty town we pass through is not Amritsar.
Ah, arrival!
Down the street is the Golden Temple, which I visited in the sticky heat of mid-afternoon. The temple itself is wicked neat - Sikhism's holiest place - I think their temples are called gurdwaras? - but the process is the best part. You go down to a little basement and give your shoes through a tiny window to a tiny man, who stands in a vast storeroom full of dirty ol' shoes. He gives you a numbered token. Trudge back to ground level, wash your hands/face in big communal sink, cross a threshold trough full of running water (make some show of washing your feet) and then enter temple grounds. The marble floor is crazy hot from hours in the sun, so I look silly hopping around before joining some wiser grandmas in the shaded edges. I'm mildly worried that my short attention span will weary of temples (mosques, churches, gurdwalas) right quick, so I'm glad to be checking out Amritsar and its Golden Temple at the very beginning of things. No regrets. It's quite beautiful.
In the past 48 hours I've received non-stop stares; this is to be expected. Surprisingly, though, people keep coming over and make a point of talking (in Punjabi or Hindi) about my earrings. They are either saying "Hey, I wish I had great earrings like you!" or "Big red earrings are for hookers!" I want to get to the bottom of this, without getting slapped.
Right next door to the temple is Jallianwala Bagh, which is a grim monument to the British Raj's legacy of assholes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_Massacre. The garden and memorial is actually quite lovely and peaceful. It sort of reminded me of another place I've been, where people did horrible things to each other: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum... Jallianwala Bagh was decidedly less harrowing. The solemnity was certainly broken by bands of toddlers grabbing my legs and brosephs swaggering around singing along to their shrill hip hop ringtones.
Out the open window of this internet room I can see a lot of signs, but my two favourites are "Jimmy-Jimmy Ice Cream Zone" and "Softy Parlor: Twin Flavor American Softy"... it seems I've landed in the ice cream neighbourhood! Not unlike the fabled 'cupcake district' of Edmonton's Whyte Ave. You can probably guess where I'm going next.
The farmlands of Punjab enjoy a thick haze only slightly lesser than that of the big city. I'm reminded of being in a very dark place and foolishly trying to focus my eyeballs in the featureless gloom. Straining to look through the grey obscurity hovering over farmers' fields, I'm filled with the same indignant panic as one who is afraid of the dark. Why is smog so damn insulting? I hope that every low, dusty town we pass through is not Amritsar.
Ah, arrival!
Down the street is the Golden Temple, which I visited in the sticky heat of mid-afternoon. The temple itself is wicked neat - Sikhism's holiest place - I think their temples are called gurdwaras? - but the process is the best part. You go down to a little basement and give your shoes through a tiny window to a tiny man, who stands in a vast storeroom full of dirty ol' shoes. He gives you a numbered token. Trudge back to ground level, wash your hands/face in big communal sink, cross a threshold trough full of running water (make some show of washing your feet) and then enter temple grounds. The marble floor is crazy hot from hours in the sun, so I look silly hopping around before joining some wiser grandmas in the shaded edges. I'm mildly worried that my short attention span will weary of temples (mosques, churches, gurdwalas) right quick, so I'm glad to be checking out Amritsar and its Golden Temple at the very beginning of things. No regrets. It's quite beautiful.
In the past 48 hours I've received non-stop stares; this is to be expected. Surprisingly, though, people keep coming over and make a point of talking (in Punjabi or Hindi) about my earrings. They are either saying "Hey, I wish I had great earrings like you!" or "Big red earrings are for hookers!" I want to get to the bottom of this, without getting slapped.
Right next door to the temple is Jallianwala Bagh, which is a grim monument to the British Raj's legacy of assholes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_Massacre. The garden and memorial is actually quite lovely and peaceful. It sort of reminded me of another place I've been, where people did horrible things to each other: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum... Jallianwala Bagh was decidedly less harrowing. The solemnity was certainly broken by bands of toddlers grabbing my legs and brosephs swaggering around singing along to their shrill hip hop ringtones.
Out the open window of this internet room I can see a lot of signs, but my two favourites are "Jimmy-Jimmy Ice Cream Zone" and "Softy Parlor: Twin Flavor American Softy"... it seems I've landed in the ice cream neighbourhood! Not unlike the fabled 'cupcake district' of Edmonton's Whyte Ave. You can probably guess where I'm going next.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
filthy (habits)
I realize that this blog template is a bit hard to read, but I can't be bothered to mess around with http://blogger.com/jerkstore/fuckthiswebsite.html......... not yet, anyway.
So I've just completed my first day in India, Delhi to be specific. As stories have told, it is indeed a bouquet of delightful odours:
- urine (human/other)
- incense
- meat?
- hot garbage
- hot pavement
- hot molly
- all kinds of poops
- sulfur
- spicy food
- air pollution
With great relief, I must report that the pollution in Delhi, while bad, is nothing like the obscured cityscape of Beijing. The thickness of smog in the good old People's Republic is staggering and soul-crushing. During my 15-hour layover yesterday, I did battle with the Beijing subway system and ended up popping out of its sweaty cooch at Tian'anmen Square. It's a nondescript open space surrounded by buildings that celebrate Mao and other old dead guys. And it's filled with thousands upon thousands of Chinese tourists. And it's so smoggy that you can't see past two city blocks in any direction. I know I shouldn't obsess over the pollution for too long, but let me just say now: yuck. Such a spooky mindfuck when you're coming from a place with very clean air.
Speaking of cleanliness, I should explain the subject line of this post. Today I resolved to immediately stop nail-biting cold turkey. I've bit my nails, or really the skin around my nails, for most of my life. It occurred to me this morning with great force: a culture that frowns upon using your left hand for anything but bum-wiping may take great offense if I'm suckin' on my paws at every opportunity. Despite my devout opposition to hand-washing and hand sanitizer, there may be a time and place for heightened health practices. (Time = now, place = here!) Soon after making this promise to myself, I witnessed a gentleman brushing his teeth using gutter water. Surely I can reproduce such gusto and dedication to oral hygiene!
I stopped by the train station today and made a [hasty, random] decision to get the hell out of Delhi. I'm not particularly opposed to checking out the Commonwealth Games, but why start faking an interest in sports now? Especially after all those years committed to scorning televised hockey. Well, tomorrow I'm boarding a flashy express train to Amritsar, Punjab; the journey should take six hours and change. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amritsar) It's in the northwest corner of India (ish), very close to the Pakistan border. Using a Venn diagram, the shaded intersection would be "Amritsar" while the three circles that overlap would be labelled "butter chicken" - "Golden Temple" - "awesome Sikh beards". Yes!
I figured I would do something touristy on my only day in Delhi, so this afternoon I tried to visit the Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India, but only saw it from the outside I'd been told that women cannot enter unaccompanied and was too lazy to enquire further. Close to Jama Masjid was the Red Fort, another iconic Delhi site. I paid to look inside - big, red, old, okay. I reckon I'll be back in Delhi at least a couple more times, considering Ben's arriving here November 30 and I'll be holding a clever sign at the airport.
You may have overheard me loudly decrying jet lag for its wussy-baby lack of merit. I may have been wrong. It's not fatigue so much as it is a raw, humorless ache. The train station calls my name at 6:30 am tomorrow, so I'll "see" you (who?) when I get to Amritsar!
So I've just completed my first day in India, Delhi to be specific. As stories have told, it is indeed a bouquet of delightful odours:
- urine (human/other)
- incense
- meat?
- hot garbage
- hot pavement
- hot molly
- all kinds of poops
- sulfur
- spicy food
- air pollution
With great relief, I must report that the pollution in Delhi, while bad, is nothing like the obscured cityscape of Beijing. The thickness of smog in the good old People's Republic is staggering and soul-crushing. During my 15-hour layover yesterday, I did battle with the Beijing subway system and ended up popping out of its sweaty cooch at Tian'anmen Square. It's a nondescript open space surrounded by buildings that celebrate Mao and other old dead guys. And it's filled with thousands upon thousands of Chinese tourists. And it's so smoggy that you can't see past two city blocks in any direction. I know I shouldn't obsess over the pollution for too long, but let me just say now: yuck. Such a spooky mindfuck when you're coming from a place with very clean air.
Speaking of cleanliness, I should explain the subject line of this post. Today I resolved to immediately stop nail-biting cold turkey. I've bit my nails, or really the skin around my nails, for most of my life. It occurred to me this morning with great force: a culture that frowns upon using your left hand for anything but bum-wiping may take great offense if I'm suckin' on my paws at every opportunity. Despite my devout opposition to hand-washing and hand sanitizer, there may be a time and place for heightened health practices. (Time = now, place = here!) Soon after making this promise to myself, I witnessed a gentleman brushing his teeth using gutter water. Surely I can reproduce such gusto and dedication to oral hygiene!
I stopped by the train station today and made a [hasty, random] decision to get the hell out of Delhi. I'm not particularly opposed to checking out the Commonwealth Games, but why start faking an interest in sports now? Especially after all those years committed to scorning televised hockey. Well, tomorrow I'm boarding a flashy express train to Amritsar, Punjab; the journey should take six hours and change. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amritsar) It's in the northwest corner of India (ish), very close to the Pakistan border. Using a Venn diagram, the shaded intersection would be "Amritsar" while the three circles that overlap would be labelled "butter chicken" - "Golden Temple" - "awesome Sikh beards". Yes!
I figured I would do something touristy on my only day in Delhi, so this afternoon I tried to visit the Jama Masjid, the biggest mosque in India, but only saw it from the outside I'd been told that women cannot enter unaccompanied and was too lazy to enquire further. Close to Jama Masjid was the Red Fort, another iconic Delhi site. I paid to look inside - big, red, old, okay. I reckon I'll be back in Delhi at least a couple more times, considering Ben's arriving here November 30 and I'll be holding a clever sign at the airport.
You may have overheard me loudly decrying jet lag for its wussy-baby lack of merit. I may have been wrong. It's not fatigue so much as it is a raw, humorless ache. The train station calls my name at 6:30 am tomorrow, so I'll "see" you (who?) when I get to Amritsar!
Monday, October 4, 2010
one sleepy cracker visits the world
since i'll have nothing but time on my hands until february, it seems prudent to start bloggin'. i'm off to the vancouver airport in a couple of hours - delhi via beijing - and should arrive at my final destination before the mayan calendar ends.
my only goal for the 15-hour layover in beijing: do not pull a "cakemaker". how could customs officials ever find blake anything less than adorable?? truly, a mystery for the ages.
my only goal for the 15-hour layover in beijing: do not pull a "cakemaker". how could customs officials ever find blake anything less than adorable?? truly, a mystery for the ages.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)