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Published: February 27th 2007
A tribute to love
The Taj Mahal, wow.Alright, now that I am seriously too far behind in this blogging nightmare I will have to do my best to write a concise India blog wrapping together the craziness that it was. India is a completely insane place, its totally jammed with people, crowded and dirty, noisy, smelly, and filled with traffic, even scary at times, but somehow it all comes together to feel welcoming, beautiful, happy and amazing.
We started off by arriving in the middle of the night in Delhi, but luckily we had an airport pickup that sped us right to our hostel in what must have been the center of the insanity. At 2am when we got there the streets were only filled with trash and a few cows but the next morning when we ventured out of our hostel (who's electricity had gone out by the time we got up, thanks again for those headlamps Noah!) the streets were filled to the brim with rickshaws, bicycles, auto rickshaws, cows, people, and some crazy cars honking their way through. It was pure insanity, and a real shock coming for uber-clean and orderly Japan. That morning was our first introduction to the nice way of conning
Two Realities
A living god and a river of nectar, or... a seriously polluted river? newly arrived tourists. A guy walked us all the way to the city center so that he could "practice his english" (we've heard that one before) and also said he would take us to the government tourist office. Of course it wasn't the government office even though the big sign outside said government of India. Too bad the guy with the free Delhi maps had gone off for Friday prayers...right. Luckily it was right next door to the airline office we were trying to go to anyways and we got all our flights booked right away with no commissions going to shady tourist agencies.
Our next day we decided to go for the cheap tour to Agra (starting at 6am) so that we could see the Taj Mahal. It was supposed to be a big bus taking us around to several different sights with 30 other people. The bus took us out there but we made the mistake of getting off the bus and into an auto-rickshaw (or Tuk-tuk) and had a tour that included plenty of time at shops in the city. Well it was still fun and we got some great photos of the Taj and I
was even able to bargain a guy down from $80us to $15 for a nice ring, ha! The whole Taj Mahal complex is this amazing oasis of gardens, with the the actual palace flanked on either side by mosques. We heard the great story about it too, apparently it was made for the king's wife who'd seen it in a dream and asked him to build it for her, unfortunately he didn't build it until after her untimely death as a tribute to his love for her, great story. After we'd spent a good amount of time in the Taj we made our driver take us back to the bus before he could take us to any more shops (or kidnap us) and we started the long ride back to Delhi. We didn't realize that the tour was just getting started, we made several random stops at important Hindu sights along the way home and didn't get back to the hotel until after 2am! Long day, we probably should have taken the advice and hired a private car, although expensive we wouldn't have needed a day of recovery. The next morning we both felt awful, probably due to the fact
Not for the faint hearted
Bet the missionaries were shocked by this one that we'd been on this long ass "tour" the day before. We took it easy and eventually went out to see the big red fort in Delhi, it was cool.
The next city was Varanasi, which is the big holy city in India where the river Ganges runs through and everyone bathes, goes to the bathroom, washes their clothes, and burns their dead. No joke this river is polluted, but our wonderful and toothless guide drank some and told us about its two realities. One is that this is a polluted river, and the other that its a living god and the water is nectar. Our tour started before sunrise so that we could see all the bathers, clothes washers and visit the burning gats where they cremate the dead. (Its believed that if you die in Varanasi and are cremated there, you will escape the cycle of rebirth and go straight to heaven) It was an intense morning for sure, but really incredible at the same time. We walked through the alleyways filled with decomposing trash, urine, and lots of cow shit (and cows) to a temple and then breakfast. Our full day tour took us to many
other sights around Varanasi (while also being stuck in the insane traffic amongst rickshaws with monkeys riding them) and our guide was actually really nice, we didn't even go to any shops! Good call booking direct with the government tour office. That evening we also got to watch their nightly one and a half hour ritual along the river which involved lots of music and methodical dance and ended with us eating some corn and sugar mixture sorta like having communion at church. It was a very spiritual day. Our hotel looked over a very calm piece of the river and was complete with warring monkeys by day and night. Despite the fact that the wait staff for its restaurant weren't the most diligent of workers, the food and atmosphere were awesome.
After Varanasi we went to the small town of Khajuraho to see what our LP said were some of the best temple arts in the world. They were the most sexual for sure! Khajuraho had lots of temples scattered around the village and one big complex right in the center. To escape the touts we decided to just rent bicycles and go around on our own. After
The beautiful side
Goa, paradise in a crazy place about 5 minutes on the bikes we were accompanied by 4 guys, 2 really young boys and 2 older boys, they all spoke incredible english as well as spanish and french I think! They rode alongside us from one temple to the next until we asked them why they were following us and Aaron politely told them that we didn't need guides and we weren't going to give them any money. You really can't escape it, they are tenacious in India. The main temple complex was really impressive. There were several temples and most of them came with great erotic sculptures. Apparently this sect of Hinduism saw tantric sex as a form of meditation which could bring you closer to enlightenment, sounds good to me. After our day of trekking around the temples we needed some beers and really wanted to enjoy them on our cute balcony overlooking the garden, but we couldn't find any place just selling beer. So we decided to ask some kids that worked at the convenience store across the street and after trying to get them to lower the price we finally agreed to have them ride their bike out 1 mile to the only
place that sells beer and get us a couple. They promised strong ones and came back with Power 5000, strong but disgusting. When I asked the younger one how old he was he said "16, and if you want to marry me, okay!" It was hilarious. The best part was that we had to take the beers in his school bag and return the bottles and bag later on while some other kids laughed and pointed at the bag, asking if we were going to school.
From Khajuraho we had to fly back to Delhi before we could fly on anywhere else. Our flight to Goa was just the next day so we decided to spend the night somewhere close to the airport as well as somewhere nice and ended up at the Delhi Hilton. The lobby looked great but the price tag for our room just wasn't worth it, the towels were ragged and not so fresh, they smelled a little too much like India (no offense to India). But we did get to watch a great National Geographic show about monkeys living in Thailand.
After so much traveling around in general, not just India, we needed
Me and the Actor
He's famous in India you know... some beach time, so we went to Goa. It was a little slice of paradise for us. As we lied on the beach the shops came to us, every few minutes a girl would come by selling jewelry, sarongs, and various other items, one even got real mad at me for buying an anklet from a different girl. We met some guys there and luckily they got all the attention and the girls eventually left us alone. What makes the beach in Goa quintessentially Indian is the cows, so random, always trying to eat something off someone's plate or butting heads with each other, they just stroll and shit through the sand all day. We spent the first day on lounge chairs protected from the sun by umbrellas, but still ended up majorly sunburned? I guess those umbrellas weren't UV rated! Luckily the next day we applied lots of sunblock. The main bar/club at our beach, Vagator, was also really great, techno music spun out under the stars, but only til 10pm so you'll always go to bed early. At the bar we met a super friendly Indian guy who happened to be the main lead on a daytime soap
Elephanta Island
Or monkey island! Maybe I should have posted a pic of the ruins, but these baby monkeys are irrestable! opera called Bhahia or something similar, which means sister-in-law. In the soap he is falling in love with his sister-in-law, of course, and he even showed us some clips from the show on his laptop, it was great, real soap opera stuff, like coming back from the dead, all drama for sure. He also showed us a bunch of his modeling photos as well as 2 music videos he was in. We ended up hanging out with him a bunch and getting to know the proper way of eating our aloo ghobi with nan and he told us loads of stories about his travels around India and London. He even invited us for a ride on the back of his motorcycle to the after party, we took a cab instead, and it ended up to be a bust anyways. Goa wasn't all beach time we did spend a morning hiking up to the ruins of a fort on the hilltop nearby and that's where the great views of the beaches are from. Up there we were even popular and a group of Indian guys asked to take a picture with us! One even wanted to wear Aaron's safari hat for
Taj Palace Hotel and Gateway to India
View from our boat ride out to Elephanta Island the photo, haha! In all ways Goa was great and we even found a place selling real coffee! We just can't drink that nescafe crap. We were sad to leave paradise but had to get back to Mumbai for a couple days before we left India all together.
A short story interjection (as if any of my stories are short): Back on the flight from Khajuraho to Delhi I left behind yet another thing, my journal in the seat back pocket! Luckily it was a new journal that I'd bought in Japan and only written about 10 pages, but I thought I'd try and get it back. When we were at the airport the next day for our flight to Goa I asked at the check in desk if they'd found it. The girl goes to check and comes back saying that they do indeed have it! Wow! I wait around for about 15 more minutes and she comes back again and tells me that the person with the key for the lost and found doesn't come in until the afternoon. Brilliant, so that if anyone needed to find something they'd be at the mercy of this one employee... So the very nice lady takes the address of my hotel in Mumbai and says that they'll send it. I told here what days I'd be there and everything. But when I called the office from Goa after a few days to make sure they'd sent it, they hadn't. She said she called the hotel and we weren't there! Of course we weren't there, I told her what days I would be there! So then they said they would send it the next day, but I wouldn't be at the airport the next day...so I called again the next day from Mumbai to find out the status and after a lot of back and forth which included going to and from the internet cafe down the street where we could make long distance calls to Delhi and then the phone service at the hotel went dead so I couldn't receive or make calls to the Mumbai airport, it was just crazy. Finally this guy said he had my journal and was going to bring it to our hotel which was about an hour and a half from the airport! I couldn't believe he was really going to drop it off. We decided to give him a big tip and when he finally arrived an hour late, Aaron tried to give him the money and he refused! What a great man! I still can't believe that I got my journal back, its really amazing. (Too bad I still lost my really nice pen that I'd bought for like $7 in Tokyo at Tokyu Hands)
We landed in Mumbai in the heat of the day and when we were approached by a guy offering a taxi for a decent rate we took it. First bad sign, the taxi was parked outside the airport parking lot, second bad sign, there was already a driver inside and the other guy got in too, third bad sign the guy tries to switch bills on us and make us pay twice, fourth bad sign we stop, he gets out, we follow him in another taxi, then we switch taxis, at this point we ask what the heck is going on and are starting to get scared, fifth bad sign they give the new driver 1000 rupees (the ride only cost us 400) and say its okay its okay, so we get in the cab and drive off...super scared, and thats when Aaron remembers that he read about taxi drivers being complicit in robberies of foreigners from the Mumbai airport! Ahhhh, so we just immediately told the guy to take us to the international terminal, finally he did and we escaped. It was seriously scary though, worrying the whole time that we were going to get killed. At the international terminal we were able to get a pre-paid taxi and air-con as well and arrived at our hotel safe and sound, but not without the driver asking for an even bigger tip than Aaron had handed him!
Our hotel was in the Colaba district of Mumbai (formerly called Bombay) and for those of you who have read Shantarum by Gregory David Roberts we even stopped in at Leopold's, but it wasn't nearly as run down as we'd hoped. (if you havn't read Shantarum you should, its awesome!) We got into Mumbai on February 13th and decided to have our Valentines day dinner at the famous five star Taj Palace Hotel and it turned out to be super nice. The next day we went out to Elephanta Island, as recommended by the Actor, to see the caves filled with big Shiva carvings as well as watch all the cute monkeys inhabiting the island as well.
Thats basically it for India, we had to catch our flight at a great time, 4am, and amazingly the airport was packed just like the rest of India! We got to Tel Aviv around lunch time and welcomed the comfort of a big westernized city.
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