Cheapest and Best!

Yesterday I finally cruised down from the Himilayas on an overnight bus from Manali, and now I am back where I started in the Pahar Ganj area of New Delhi. It is extremely hot and filthy. I think I stayed in one of the most rundown guesthouses in all of New Delhi last night. Very cheap. It was really more of a cell on the third floor of a dilapidated, empty building that reeked of burning garbage and was seemingly designed with the intention of inducing suicide. It had a solid fan though, and in Delhi a good fan is priceless!

It feels like its been forever since I have been in the thick of polluted, overpopulated, congested India. Its good to be back! I just finished a couple of weeks in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, Indian states where the temperature is a bit cooler and the pace of things is slower. Kashmir is world famous for its amazing natural beauty, its world class hand made products, and its long history of international conflict. It is a very hard place to describe. Its like a big ball of violence and salesmen. There is too much conflict in the area to describe in depth; India and pakistan have fought wars over the place for 60yrs, Muslim insurgents cross over from the Pakistani border and carry out terrorist attacks on just about anybody in the name of Islam, the large Indian military presence clash violently with local Kashmiris, and the locals frequently protest and strike against the Indian military as they seek independence.

I first visited the Kashmiri city of Srinagar, a heavily touristed area where most people stay on houseboats on Dal Lake. The touts (people who approach you and try to sell you hotel rooms and other crap you don't want) came to be the defining characteristic of the area. They are so relentless it alternated between being really annoying and completely hilarious. Walking on the lakeshore there are hundreds of these guys, and you can literally see the greed in their eyes as they see white tourists approach. They come up to you attempting there most congenial smile (which invariably comes off as sinister), and say something like "hello friend! You want shakara (boat taxi)? I give you cheap price, 350 Rupees an hour." This price is ridiculous for the service, but you are a white tourist and they hope you don't know any better. Then, many follow you for a while talking while you ignore them. "Okay, good price 250 rupees for one hour... Do you need a hotel room? Houseboat? Good price, cheapest and best!". Then as you wave them back and start to distance yourself, they raise their voice and holler, "100 rupees for one hour! Do you want to look at some jewelry!? It is the best in Kashmir. I have Kashmiri carpets...do you want hashish? wait!wait!!". It always felt like they were on the verge of diving on the ground and wrapping their arms around your leg to make you drag them along with, like my 8 year old niece often does.

After a couple of days in Srinagar I met up with a Canadian friend, Jared, from Amritsar, and we set out on a Shakara to find a houseboat. Within a day or two you learn to cut through the bullshit, and you can bargain your way down to almost any price. The salesmen set enormously high prices hoping that you'll go for it, but in the end they will stoop to any price to keep from parting without a sale. Jared got us a totally killer deal on a deluxe houseboat when he employed the infamous standup-and-get-ready-to-walk-out technique in the middle of negotiations. The houseboat was quite nice, but even there the salesmen proved to be inescapable! Our first day on the boat we were hanging out on the awesome deck that overlooked a quiet and peaceful lake with Himalayan mountain peaks set as a backdrop. We were really reveling in what a great deal what got, and how perfect the boat seemed. About that time a small wooden boat floated by carrying a variety of snacks and drinks for sale. This, too we thought was perfect. We bought a ton of stuff off this guy. Mistake! Early the next morning I stumbled out to the deck to read and there were six different boats outside just waiting for us to wake up! Word got out about us, and each of these guys would come by several times a day trying to sell us this and that, or they would send their relatives.

For the pain in the ass these salesmen were, they also had some amazing products. One time a boat-taxi begged us to stop at an island that had a group of guys who made and sold paper mache products. This didn't interest me at all. I could only remember paper mache from kindergarten art projects, when I made a cat one time, and I'm pretty sure it looked like crap. These guys made amazing pieces of hand painted work though, from small boxes to big vases and elephants and stuff. We did have to constantly refuse their offers for houseboats that were not only the best, but also the cheapest, however it was still worth the stop.

From Srinagar I took a jeep through the mountains to a Tibetan Buddhist city called Leh. The city itself rests at an elevation of 11,500 ft, more than twice that of Denver. This place was beautiful, full of old Buddhist shrines built into the mountainside, and snow-capped Himalayan peaks all around. The way everything looked I felt like I was going to come across that temple from the beginning of Ace Venture 2!....though I just looked it up and that was a fake set. Local people here live in simple mudbrick homes in a city that is virtually closed down half of the year due to snowfall cutting off the roads, yet they seem pretty happy.

I have become a big fan of the Buddhist culture. In the places I have stayed everybody is genuinely friendly, and they seem to treat tourists and each other respectfully. Their community is such that you do not see any Tibetan beggars, a problem that plagues the rest of India. Not to mention Thukpa, an awesome soup a bit similar to Vietnamese Pho'.

After Leh I began a hasty journey to make my way over to Kolkata, the jumping off point for the Andaman islands. This has become a bit of a whirlwind, but a good old time as well. I took a 19 hour bus from Leh to Manali to meet some friends for two nights, and then a fifteen hour bus to Delhi. I was actually looking forward to a night in Delhi, and its been a good pit stop. Plus, earlier today I found a Mcdonalds, and filled up on a Maharaj mac and french fries! A good change up from lentils and rice!

Well, in an hour I catch a sleeper train to Varanasi. Varanasi is a very famous religious city on the Ganges, and one of the few places where a total solar eclipse will be visible on Wednesday, and then I head to Kolkata and the Andaman islands!

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