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Published: April 22nd 2007
hello!
McLeod Ganj From Mumbai, I had a 5:50 a.m. train to Ahmedabad, from which I had connecting train to the romantic city of Udaipur. So imagine my shock and disbelief when I woke up at 5:50 a.m.!!! Somewhere in my sleepy brain, I actually envisioned that by some stroke of luck, I would make it on time. I grabbed my prepacked bags (see I'm not all that irresponsible) and bolted down the stairs and tumbled into the streets. I asked a cabbie driver, "How much?" to which he replied Rs50, so I threw my bags and myself in, and told the driver to hurry because I was late. Surprise, surprise-- two minutes later, he pulled over the cab and suddenly changed the price of the ride to Rs100 because he realized that it's 12 km away. WTF? Ok, up till now, I've been pretty civil to these types of gimmicks, but he unwisely chose the worst possible time to pull this price-jack on me at 5:55 in the
morning when I was stressed and half-asleep. So I yelled, "NOoooooOoo!
>😞 You said Rs50 so just f***ing drive, or pull the f*** over!!! I don't have time for this s***!!!" Felt a little
bad after I exploded on the guy, but NO. That's not the way to do business, especially at 5:55 a.m. to a sleepy patron, namely sleepy Grace.
Needless to say, I missed the train. 😞 But got on one two hours later, and on the train, another "Sleepy Grace Explodes on an Indian Man" story.
I unfortunately had a aisle sleeper, which gives passerby’s more access to bug me. Since I was missing several precious hours on my beauty sleep, I zonked out on the train... but then somewhere in sleep, my dream was interrupted by a hand grabbing my knee and leg.
It's just a dream I thought... until I felt the hand again. So without even opening my eyes, I said, "Stop touching my leeeggg...zZzzZz..." Then I felt the hand again! Ok, so the wrath of sleepy Grace came out and I sat halfway up, blindly looked at the guy standing in front (didn't have my contacts/glasses on), pointed my finger at him and icily said, "You! Stop f***ing touching my leg!!...ZzZzZzzZzz"
The rest of the ride was a sleepy haze, and I arrived in Ahmedabad at night. The city is in the state of
what?
Udaipur Gujarat, which is famous for it's thalis that are sweeter than those of the rest of the subcontinent. I had about four hours until my overnight train to Udaipur, so I took a rickshaw to Pakwan and had the most scrumptious thali with such a huge variety of food. Yuuummm~mmmyyyy.
Pretty Little City :: Udaipur, Rajasthan
On the train ride, I met a Slovenian girl named Ursula, who was my age, traveling in India for two months. We hit it off right away and by the time we arrived in Udaipur, we planned to share a room together. Udaipur's global claim to fame is that it was the location for the James Bond movie, Octopussy. And 24 years later, the city will not let any visitor forget it, as nearly every guesthouse plays the movie at night. The whole city in general is peaceful, serene and fairytale like. The lake in the middle that divides part of the town has a floating, whitewashed palace, and the rest of the area consists of small winding roads and buildings with brightly colored shutters. For the first day, we spent it lazily walking around the city and efficiently shopping for leather-bound dairies
(must have looked at well over 100 designs at 5 different shops).
The next day, we had planned to look at the whimsical sites around town, but over breakfast, we met an Australian man who insisted that we hire a car to take us out of the city to Kumbalgarh and Ranakpur. He raved about the scenic drive and about the whole experience in general. So Urska and I took him up on his recommendation, and hired a driver for Rs1000 to go to both places. Kumbalgarh is 84 km away from Udaipur, and it's a well-preserved ancient fort built in the 15th century, perched high upon the dry mountain. The majestic vastness of the fort, combined with the unforgiving sun made us lazy and we only looked at the main palace, and from there, we had a spectacular panoramic view of the surrounding landscape.
Next we drove to the jaw-droppingly stunning Jain temple of Ranakpur. I don't know much about Jainism, but I know that they are complete vegans and are against the idea of killing any living thing or organism, where the extremist Jains wear masks so they won't kill organism by inhaling them. Also, I
heard that many Jains are wealthy because many got into the diamond business by default of their religion, since these minerals are technically non living. But don't quote me on any of this... I just heard it during a drunken conversation in Goa (Ok, I think that admission took away all my credibility).
I've seen more than my fair share of beautiful temples and palaces that it's hard to really be wowed by them... but the beauty and purity of this Jain temple was so brilliant that it made me wide-eyed. It's a massive complex built entirely of white marble, supported by 1,444 intricately carved pillars, where no two are alike. This temple was built in 1439, and itself has hints of Hindu architecture throughout the compound.
The next day, Urska and I decided to take a cooking course with a wonderfully strong and courageous woman named Sashi. The whole course is about four hours long, and we learned how to make chai, vegetable pakora, mango and cilantro chutney, aloogobi (potato cauliflower curry), briyani (veg rice), paneer (yogurt cheese), naan (white flour pita), chapati (wheat flour pita), and sweet paratha. Drool.
Sashi is a talented woman and
our guesthouse... so pimp!
and you can see the lake through the window! (Udaipur) teacher, but even more admirable is her courage to overcome the adversity dealt to her. She is a Brahmin (highest caste) widow, meaning she is not allowed to remarry. Her husband was murdered, and after his death, her in-laws pretty much cut all ties with her and gave her no financial support. Traditionally, according to Sashi, for the first year or so, Brahmin widows are not allowed to leave the house because she is in her mourning period, where she has to sit covered in a veil, only to leave the house to use the toilet. Also, as a widow, she is no longer allowed to wear a bindi, colorful saris or precious metal jewelry; so now she wears dark or neutral saris and plastic bangles. To make ends meet, her son brought home laundry, where in the secrets of her own home, she would do laundry-- a job that is too menial and petty for high caste Brahmins. One day, her son brought home a foreigner (Tom?), and he was so amazed by her cooking that he suggested that she start a cooking course. He helped her by getting her a stone table to replace her wooden table, so
Sashi and her sister with Urska and I after the feast
Don't be fooled...we are both holding our breaths and sucking in our stomachs. she could have a proper set up. Her sister-in-law, who lives upstairs flipped out in a rage of jealousy and Sashi and her got into a catfight, to which Tom had to come to the rescue and split the enraged women away from each other. It's been 3 or 4 years since Sashi started her cooking course and it's a huge success. She raises and supports her two teenage sons entirely from her cooking lessons, and she has three comment books to prove her long list of happy students. Even on the day we were there, one of the former students sent her a gift all the way from Brazil.
After the cooking lesson was over, we topped it off by eating everything we had made, and we were completely stuffed! Each time we'd stop eating, Sashi worriedly said, "Food no good? Why no eat?" to which Urska and I responded by re-picking up our fork and stuffing ourselves even more than is realistically possible. By the time we left her home, I thought we would pop from all the aloogobi, chapati and briyani.
I bought a "spice box" from there, so my lucky buddies from back home
are going to have a nice Indian meal cooked entirely by yours truly. 😊
Yoga Capital of the World:: Rishikesh, Uttaranchal
I first heard about Rishikesh from the Beatles class I took at USC. I had heard about how the Fab Four had gone there in search of spiritual fulfillment, to find the answers of life's suffering and death, etc... but later discovered that the Maharishi was sort of a greedy, horny, self-indulgent fake who was using the Beatles' fame to promote himself (through which he became extremely wealthy from). Lennon wrote the song Sexy Sadie while leaving the Maharishi's Ashram in Rishikesh, and in the song, he claims "You made a fool of everyone" and "However big you think you are, Sexy Sadie, you'll get yours yet." Beyond the Beatles' connection, Rishikesh is famous for being the "Yoga Capital of the World," thus is littered with ashrams all over town.
Before arriving in Rishikesh, I spent a night in Haridwar, which is considered a holy Hindu city, as this is the where the Himalayas merge with the Ganga. The day I was leaving Hardiwar, there was a massive religious gathering, and there were tens of thousands of
pilgrimers there. I could not believe my eyes at the number of people who were waiting in line for the religious ceremonies. While in Hardiwar, I got my lazy ass to go to both the Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi Temples, which are both prominently perched on top of hills several kilometers away from each other. You have the option of (1) leisurely walking uphill in the heat or (2) riding a Disneyland-like cable cart. No need to explain which of the two I opted for. I saw some babas trying to get on the tram for free, and the workers were so mean about saying no. I thought that you're supposed to give babas a lift (along with food, money, etc) since they've given up all materialistic possession for the sake of their religion. Well, I guess not. So along the ride, I saw many colorful robed babas making the trek up to the temple. At the first temple, Mansa Devi I didn't even realize I was in the temple, and only when I started walking around the crowd, I realized, sh*t! I have my shoes on! I felt so disrespectful and embarrassed once I realized, so I took
it off. Well, I completed puja with the others, shamefully holding my shoes under my arms. Oops.
Later, I hung around the ghats at the Ganga. I could not believe that this clean, fast-flowing water would later become the filthy, polluted water in Varanasi. The water here is so swift that there are guard rails along the ghats for bathers. Also, another difference between here and Varanasi is that the babas are a bit cleaner (probably the water) and organized, and the ghats are very well-maintained. Many people I noticed were also here to collect the Ganga water to take back home, which I assume is common practice based on the number of container sellers I saw.
From Haridwar, I hopped on the bus for the 25 km drive to Rishikesh, where the timing would allow a reunion wth Elad. I stayed in Rishikesh for about a week, and because I was short on time, I didn't do a yoga course. Instead, I navigated around and did more scenic things, like a mini-mini-mini trek to the waterfalls and sunbathing at the beach along the Ganga. It's been a treat seeing the Ganga in three different lights: Varanasi, Haridwar
and now here. We all got in our bathing suits and went into the holy river. The dip into the river was a shock to the body and it felt like needles were poking me all over. It was so refreshingly cold, a nice contrast to the lurking heat that was hanging in the air.
For our way back to the guesthouse, we (Elad, Oren, Mira and I) decided to be "Indian" and get all four of us on the motorbike, which is just about as common on the streets as is honking. It was sooooo funny, but our laughter was short-lived when a police man flagged us over, and eventually chased us down when we gleefully ignored him. The police man acted shocked that we did such a ludicrous thing, and when we tried to explain that we didn't know it was illegal in India since we see it all the damn time, he wouldn't hear of our "nonsense." In the end, the guys went to the police station and had to pay baksheesh, which they negotiated down from Rs2000 to Rs300ish. The surprises we find each day. 😊
The real Tibet:: McLeod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh
Dharamsala/Mcleod-Ganj
Free Tibet
McLeod Ganj is home to the Dalai Lama, and thousands of Tibetans living in exile. Each time I come to a community where there is a large population of exiled Tibetans, I feel even more furious about the atrocities taking place in Tibet under China's rule... and even more scared of the prospect of this human rights-violating country (whom by the way has the world's highest rate of capital punishment alongside countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq) taking over the US as the next super power.
I think back to my time in Tibet and feel like it was all an ignorant illusion, realizing more and more that it's not Tibet. It's Tibet with a Chinese face-lift, making Tibetans a minority in their own country. The Chinese gov't has successfully gone about it's plan to eradicate the Tibetan culture through forced abortion, forced sterilization, destroying scripts (with the explanation that they were "eaten by rats"), teaching monks with Chinese-edited religious scripts, and committing mass executions throughout the rural regions of Tibet-- all of which still happens today. And I wonder how many travelers go to Tibet with the fairytale pretense of it still being Tibet, as the Chinese gov't places more
Scenes from the train
Haridwar to Dharamsala and more Han Chinese there with the thought that foreigners are too dumb to tell the difference between a Chinese and a Tibetan.
I came to Dharamsala/Mcleod-Ganj as a mini-trip from Rishikesh. I was told by the travel agent that my overnight train from Rishikesh to Chakkibank (from which I would have to ride a 2-hour bus to Dharamsala) would arrive at 4 a.m., so I promptly set my alarm for 3:30 a.m. and went to sleep. I awoke at 3:30 with a weird feeling inside... like I had passed Chakkibank. I nervously asked another passenger when we would reach Chakkibank and he said we passed it 30 minutes ago!!! So I ended up staying on the train three additional hours to Jammu, from which I re-boarded a train at 9 a.m. for a 5-hour ride to Pathankot, from where I would have to get on a 3-hour bus to Dharamsala. Mamamia!
Within the three short days I spent in Mcleod-Ganj, I was surprisingly able to do a lot. For one, I met three Israeli software engineers (Uriel, Hadar & I forgot) who invited me to a Sabbath gathering. It's funny because I jokingly say that while I
Himalayas
Dharamsala was in India, I feel that I learned more about Israeli culture than about Indian culture since there are so many Israelis here. Even a restaurant I went with the guys had a menu in Hebrew and had an Israeli waitress! The guys were so hilarious to hang out with and I couldn't stop laughing in their presence. They taught me this "hello" game, where if you say hello and a local says hello back, you get one point. If they say hello and smile/wave, then you get two points. If they ignore you, you lose all your points! Hhahahaa... with all the hellos we get from locals anyway, it's fun to make a game out of it.
One day while I was at Tsuglangkhang Complex, which is the most important temple in Mcleod-Ganj and the home of the Dalai Lama, I met a monk named Kalsang, who had escaped over to Dharamsala from Tibet. His family is still back in Tibet, and his younger brother is a monk at Drepung Monastery in Lhasa. Kalsang knows how to read and speak in Chinese because his education in Lhasa was done in Chinese. It's so interesting because when we think
of monks, we think of primitive, basic, religious men-- and put them on a pedestal in admiration of their devotion and purity. But it's not like that. You can see that they are curious about women just as any guy would be, and many of them have cell phones and Kalsang also had a mini DVD player in his room.
Within the Tsuglangkhang Complex, there is a Tibetan Museum that chronicles China's invasion of Tibet, and the consequences thereafter. Knowledge is power, so I'll share a bit of what I was able to gather and understand: In 1949, the Chinese invaded (or according to them, "liberated") Tibet. Shortly after, an agreement favorable to the Chinese was signed to restore peace. Eight years later, in 1959, a national uprising to resist the Chinese resulted in thousands of Tibetans losing their lives and the Dalai Lama being exiled (and safely escorted to the Indian border).
In the 45 years since then and now, the Chinese has successfully gone about to erase the culture, religion and identity of Tibet (mostly during Mao's Cultural Revolution), as well as eliminating 1.2 million+ Tibetans through hunger, torture, forced hard labor, death camps, and concentration
camps, all of which continue today (wonder why so many parts of Tibet are off-limits?). Also, the ecosystem of this beautiful country is deteriorating as the Chinese are exploiting its resources through mass deforestation and unchecked hunting, as well as using remote parts of Tibet for nuclear testing and dumping.
There are many personal account stories, and one in particular was so moving. It was the story of a monk, Migmar Tsering, who refused to denounce the Dalai Lama. As a result he was forced to flee on foot through the Himalayas with three other monks. Weeks into their escape, they were caught in a severe snowstorm, and severe frostbite and amputation inevitably followed. The four finally managed to reach a Tibetan encampment, where unfortunately, two of the monks were considered healthy to be returned to Tibet. Migmar was too weak to be sent back, so he and another monk were permitted to stay. He remembers, "
When we reached Dharamsala, we were taken for an audience with His Holiness. I cannot remember anything that happened there, I just cried."
I wonder what will become of Tibet. It almost feels so late to reverse the damage and to "Free
Tibet," but there still exists a lot of talk and hope. It's a bit like the U.S., where we're just waiting for the 2008 elections to see if the country can be restored; in the case of Tibet, it's waiting for the 2008 Olympics, when Beijing is on the world's stage, and perhaps that will be the tipping point of change and hope for this vanishing country, Tibet.
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Jacques
non-member comment
Luv your blog
Hey Grace... I must say that you're one of the prettiest blogger around. Too bad I didn't run into you when I was traveling. Anyway, love reading your blog, keep it up. You must be almost done now, hah?