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Published: November 3rd 2009
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Continuing North with my friends from France, we headed up to Dharamshala, the home away from home for the Dalia Lama. The state of Himachal is a land of rolling green hills chasing up to the base of the Himalayas. The culture is much more relaxed and less hectic than the rest of India. In Dharamshala specifically, there is a large settlement of Tibetan refugees. Due to continual occupation of Tibet by China, many Tibetans have opted to escape to Northern India. It takes about a month of heavy walking through the Himalayas to cross the boarder. Some stories of escape were violent, but most were a battle of endurance of the harsh conditions. Every single person in town had their own unique story of escape.
We decided to take a Tibetan culinary course and see how to make
momos. They are like pot stickers, where the outside is a doughy and the inside can be filled with cheese, spinach, potato, veggies, or chocolate sesame. Steamed and then sometimes fried and then you can chuck it in a chili sauce for a kick. They're killer. We were taught by one of the refugees who did not mess around. He was
serious about making momos the right way and making them perfect little creations. Maybe a bit stern for a cooking course but a good teacher.
Well, I had to rush back down to New Delhi cause I was gonna pick up another partner in crime, my sister Alice. We planned to travel for two months and we would head to the south of India. We spent a couple days in Delhi to acclimate to the intensity of it all. Walking through Old Delhi we saw some dentistry work being done on the sidewalks next to fruit vendors and locksmiths. Not sure if they'd accept my dental plan. But without too much ado we were high-rolling in 2nd Class AC to Mumbai! It was the nicest train in all my Indian travel experience. For dinner we received some delicious vegetarian delight and as we were enjoying such scrumptious a meal, a man sharing our compartment was not so elated. He calls over the local conductor.
The old man claims that he wanted a vegetarian meal and that this was unsatisfactory.
No meat or egg so what's the problem? There's garlic and onions in this!
Uhhhhhh. There
needs to be an option for a true vegetarian meal!
Ah but there's a warm body of rational under this coat of non-sense. In Jainism, a Indian religion well known for it's views of extreme pacifism, they have strict dietary habits. Not only do they refuse eating any sort of animal life, they take precautions in which obtaining other sources of food does no harm to life either. Thus for a long time any vegetable that grew underground, such as onion, was left alone because digging them up could kill lots of little worms and bugs. This theory has been incorporated into their everyday practice. Some have lightened their restrictions but this man was a long way from satisfied.
Hitting the heart of Bombay without a plan, Alice and I set off from the train station into the depths of the city in search of shelter for the evening. What started as an innocent hop around the block metamorphized into a two hour march through the slums of Mumbai. People's 'homes' in the middle of gutters, people showering in the street, as they endure their morning ritual in the privacy of a public sidewalk. Oh, and it smelled
really bad. Lot's of animals roaming the streets made this financial capital of a booming nation bare a scent proper for a fertilizer plant. We finally managed to find a Salvation Army to stay at, which in terms of cleanliness, was just a grade higher than camping out on the sidewalk.
We saw the Gateway of India and the Taj hotel, which is still closed from the terrorist attack last year. In fact, we visited three spots which were victim to attacks and still bore bullet holes as a reminder. But overall, Mumbai was swamped with rain and streets were hit with flash floods daily. When everything of yours is wet, it sucks the warmth from your body and siphons your energy to travel. So we kept moving along to find an ancient temple outside the city - Karla Cave.
Constructed in the 2nd century BC, this Buddha temple was carved out of rock by hand. Throughout the years it has maintained its artwork without much erosion nor destruction. To call it a ruin is an insult - it was most definitely all intact and is still used today. However, the most exciting part of the day came
on the ride home. The train we took was a local and we had a entry pass just like everyone else. Well, the same as the 40% of the people who opted to actually pay for their ride. We were told to stand in line on the opposite side of the platform until the train came. With a few hundred people waiting and the full train pulling in, we had little hope of getting on let alone a seat. But there was one officer with a big bamboo cane and he opened an empty train car and would allow the people in line to move in order to the door. Whenever someone tried to sneak in line, the crowd yelled and cried him out. Whenever a man tried to sneak through the door, the officer would raise his cane above his head and threaten him with a righteous smash. We were funneled in like cattle and managed to find seats for the ride. Order was restored and we continued on through soggy India....
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