The Place of Stink and the Place of Pink

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Well after completing my brief stint in the Middle East I managed to hop on a swift 5 hour flight over the Arabic Peninsula where I landed safely in Mumbai (Bombay). The flight was at a horrible hour, I was exhausted and very behind on sleep having spent my last night in Egypt on a train. However, the flight attendants were all very nice and helped me construct a bed across the four seats in the middle aisle plus brought me three dinners.

I woke up off the coast of India, and made my way through customs and immigration effortlessly. There was no useable ATM in the airport so I changed some money and hoped in a prepaid Taxi all the way to the other side of Bombay to the swank area of town where Jord set us up in a hostel. The ride was great, far longer than I thought but it didn't take long to recognize all the different changes and realize I was now in Asia. Jord and I had our "book off" (where we both attempted to burden the other with already read books) then took a walk around and I enjoyed my first Indian meal, in India. After that it was nap time before we went out and tried to hit the town. There wasn't all that much nightlife to take part in, however we found an outrageously plush hotel, where rumor has it you can buy a drink that costs more than a large portion of Indians make in one year. Our main mission was to drink Bombay Sapphire Gin in Bombay. No problem there! We sat in this very plush bar with lounge singers and hot shot Indians for long enough to enjoy our cocktail before heading back for a good sleep.

We left Bombay the very next day and spent the better part of it riding the rails. We saw more of Bombay en route to the main train station and thoroughly enjoyed the awesome castles, buildings and other landmarks. There are some very gothic buildings and other wonderful things I'd never before seen anything like. We bought our train ticket from the local urban train office and left downtown in search of the long distance train station. Dozens of tracks criss crossed each other and rusty trains racing here and there and everywhere left me a tad overwhelmed but thankfully it was midday and we avoided the rush hour crowds. Mobs of beggars and children then swarmed me in search of free rupees but it was actually rather entertaining seeing the kids try to climb me like a tree and hang off my arms while I simply flung them away. I decided then and there that bodybuilders in India without good weights should just use children.

We somehow found our train station and our train with a quick ride on a tuk-tuk rickshaw thing. We crammed onto our 20hour train like caged animals and sat in silence amongst hundreds of sweaty Indians for the entire duration of our voyage to Jaipur. The train was interesting because it was in fact a sleeper, but through the creative ingenuity of some space planner I'm rather certain they had more people in "beds" than they could have even fit in tiny little seats. I for one love it though, since there's essentially a 0% chance any seat will have enough leg room for me, the "beds" seem to provide much more comfort for yours truly. Even with my feet dangling precariously into the aisle and getting in the way of all kinds of people, I still managed a fairly decent sleep. Waking up at points and looking around was like being in a nightmare, but after my bearings returned each time and the claustrophobia wore off I'd be back and 100%.

We wound up in Jaipur and over the course of 10 minutes we fought off dozens of cabbies and rickshaw guys only to find ourselves desperately lost. We B-Lined it away from the train station in order to escape the touts but found ourselves in a really shady area. When I say "shady area" that term brings a very new meaning in India. Where most of the dwellings exist, its simply large piles of garbage with rancid and stale sewage seeping everywhere in sight. In the end, we had to get a rickshaw anyways and it turns out our targeted hotel was actually farther away than we thought. We checked in there and relaxed before heading to the OM Restaurant which is on top of a revolving tower and from what I can tell easily the most expensive restaurant in town. All Object Manager jokes aside, the building was great. Dinner cost us roughly $10US between the two of us even with an amazing dessert. From there we got back into some sort of transportation medium, the name of which is unknown to me, but amounts to a modified bicycle welded to a park bench on wheels. Our driver was able to coast this thing through 5 lanes of traffic on a 2 lane road down to the hot shot local Movie Theatre where Jord and I splurged for first class "Diamond" tickets to the most popular Bollywood/Hindi movie of today! I don't remember the name of the film but there's a photo of the poster on Jords blog.

While we anxiously waited for the inevitable dance scenes and attempted to laugh on queue, the crowd was so excited that constant cheers and claps erupted after almost every event. We stealthily escaped during the intermission not wanting to offend anyone and subsequently fled back to our hotel. The pleasures experienced watching an Indian film are quick to fade and torturous screenplay and acting in Hindi overtake anything enjoyable before turning the whole escapade into some kind of disturbing torture.

Our next day in Jaipur was spent viewing and exploring the "Pink City" which I formally motion to have renamed to the: "Stink City". While I can see the "Pink City" being quite a fascinating visual display in times of old, today it just doesn't seem to be that impressive. In contrast to the enormous walls and forts on the neighboring mountains, the "Pink City" has the look of some failed Arizona mini mall project overrun by homeless people. With that being said, some small portions of it (like the palaces) are really quite interesting. My favorite was the beehive looking old palace which is probably one of the most unique buildings I've ever seen.

We also managed a visit to Amber and the Palace which resides on the lake en route to Amber. Jord and I hiked up the hill to the top and explored the palace on top of the hill that overlooks the much quainter city-village that lies at the foot of it. While the palace was impressive, but it’s sad and nauseating to find most of the hallways within it absolutely reeking of urine and human feces, and for obvious reasons that seems to take away from the experience as a whole. We managed to successfully dodge the local Elephant touts trying to sell us rides up the short hill, and although impressive, the ornamental elephants seem a total tourist gimmick and I want to save my first elephant riding experience for something much more grandiose.

I forgot to mention that for all these adventures we've been using our local rickshaw man (and sometimes his buddies) to transport us here and there and everywhere. They seem to have formed some kind of deranged local rickshaw guild that bullies people in the alley near our hotel and scam them in all kinds of ways. I made good with them right off the bat, and thanks to my anti-tout skills from all the other places I've been able to repel their attacks quite well. Thus the deal was simple; we were to get free and subsidized rides all over town in exchange for "visiting" a few dealers of gems, carpets, silks and other general crap. Since we were mighty keen on seeing these gem scams for ourselves the whole thing fell into place quickly. The scams are pretty stupid and make little sense to anyone who has brains, but they try anyways. The first lob they sent our way was a brief discussion on how their friends in Canada (yes they have many they said) make far more money selling these gems than they ever would in the software industry. Fair enough I guess. After that they explained how their shitty gems actually gain value and by the time I'm ready to give them to my kids they should be roughly seven times the value they are today. At this point I'm nearly sold. Thankfully at this point we ended things off rather swiftly and made our escape in time to show up at the carpet and textile dealer. After walking through the copisous amount of slaves weaving carpets we made our way into the plush showroom where we also managed to decline carpet after carpet unrolled in front of us. The dealer of silks and other stuff wasn't any better. I can safely say in the end that the money saved on the rickshaw was not at all worth the time spent in the grasp of these lowly merchants.

In order to make up for our horrible lost time in the shops, we decided to experience our first ayurverdic massage and for 60 minutes the worlds problems disappeared while a small Indian boy coated my entire body in some kind of cooking oil and made me feel like a million dollars. Things began rather hesitantly when he explained what I would be wearing for the whole ordeal and then pulled out this rag thing and through gestures explained I was to wear it. I took it and realized it was clearly for a small child and there was simply no way this thing would work. I heard Jord laughing in the room next door and chuckled myself before trying to fit into this so called garment. In my hand I swear it was no bigger than a condom with two holes cut for my legs but after stretching it over my midsection it seemed more like a hair net that was totally see through. After the massage I realized I should have probably just been naked but in order to keep the Johnson in one place the loin cover was certainly needed. This guy certainly didn't shy away from the netherregions.

So there you have it, my first 6 days in India. First impressions are certainly good ones. The price is right, the food is right, and although the touts are plentiful they aren't as aggressive and if you scream and curse and grow fire in your eyes they quite quickly back down. Plus, it seems that having 7 weeks here we're in absolutely no rush and thus far more calm and relaxed going into all the different situations we'll inevitably face. Tomorrow night we're off to Jaisalmer and to explore western Rajasthan.

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Photos

The Pink Palace
The inside smells like urine and the outside looks like a beehive. Only in India.

Glorious India!
I've seen a lot of shady places around the world but spots like this still get me excited. I hope I have time to explore them in more detail later. So much garbage I'm not sure whether its just litter or an actual garbage dump. I see people throwing stuff on the ground everywhere but I'm not sure if they're cleaning up and putting it someplace better or just making a bigger mess, who knows?

Reflecting
Life often brings us to these solemn moments of quiet thought, but it seems on the road they can be thoroughly enjoyed in better places. What's on my mind? I believe I was debating the cause of Indias stench.

Water Palace
One more palace. Thankfully our ricksaw driver was so drunk when he haphazardly pulled us off the road for photos he didn't bother trying to scam us for a few moments and I managed a fine photo.

Riding the Rails!
Now this was fun! Jord and I carefully posing for a photo will the delapitated train runs through the Bombai slums at light speed. I've decided the palaces and tourist attractions are far too boring after 11 months and it's simply all about slums!

Some Palace on the Hill
The forts and palaces in the distance all over the place are really impressive especially with the massive walls snaking up the neighbouring hills.

The Food
Indian cuisine is quickly topping the list worldwide. At home you have the option of eating whatever you feel like -anyday. Elsewhere you have fewer choices, except in India. So many dishes, so many spices, so many stomach aches.

Comments

[Rebecca]

India seems interesting
Hey - I have a blog on this site as well...and yours caught my attention when i was logging in... I'm teaching English in Taiwan and was hoping to head to India when I finish next April-ish. I know internet is probably not the easiest thing to get out there...but if you get the chance, let me know how much money you would suggest for around a month there (i travel pretty cheaply). Much appreciated - Rebecca (aka Becks14 on the site if you're ever interested in Taiwan!!)

[jann]

in the pink
Hi Jason: So glad you and Jordan have finally connected. It looks like you are eating very well and seeing humanity at its best and not quite its worst. Enjoy your long stay there and drink in the color and activity. Duncan and I bought a view lot half way up Silver STar in a new subdivision this weekend. The market is very active here so we thought we should get a smaller piece for retirement and eventually try to build a cool house again. A bit smokey here from fires in Washington. We love reading your blogs. love your auntie-miss your grin. xoxo