The Merits of Wal Mart (and other stuff too)

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It's been a few days since my last entry and we have covered quite a bit of ground since then, so this is going to be quite long, apologies if you are trying to read this discreetly at work. After chilling in Pondi for 2 days (we went to check out Auroville which was pretty strange - some interesting philosophy but the giant gold orb in the middle freaked me out a bit) we took a bus to Mamallapuram. The bus was 2 hours and along the East Coast Road (ECR) which is a toll highway that runs along the Bay of Bengal so it was a really beautiful trip.

Mamallapuram is famous for its rock carvings, which after going to Petra I was pretty excited to see, alas they were no where near as cool. There was this strange rock ball sort of thing that looks as if it should roll down the hill its on instead of perch precariously in one spot called the "Butter Ball" which was pretty sweet. Might have even changed my life. There were a few wall carvings and a site called the 5 Pathas which LN and I decided was not worth the 250 Rupees to get in as you could see it all through the fence around it. The rates for sites they charge foreigners compared to Indians are pretty insane (think 10 rups compared to 250).

The best part of Mam for sure was meeting this guy from Colarado, let's call him Billy Jay. Billy Jay really felt himself to (a) be a very spiritual person (everything is Shanti Shanti man) as well as (b) the foremost expert on all the best places/things in the world. In LN's words "Everything he said was the most boring thing he could have said about anything, he talks to you like you know nothing." This may sound like someone who you wouldn't want to spend time with, but it was priceless for a number of reasons. First, Jimmy is a former Mormon who grows medical mj for a living. And because it's semi-legal he says he can take pride in his work. Are you kidding me? All the people he grows for don't actually have asthma they need to treat, they are his friends! The kicker is that he launders his money through Wal Mart. No joke. You bring them cash, they give you 1000 dollar money orders. But technically its all legal because you are allowed to grow 6 plants for every person you hook up with a medical card. He failed to see what was funny about being able to launder money through Wal Mart but I thought it was the perfect commentary on American society.

Other gems of conversation include:
"The first 300 pages of Shantaram are the BEST piece of literature ever written."
"Growning medical mj is the next gold rush, it feels like 1848 all over again."
Anything to do with Colorado was immediately announced to be THE BEST, at 10pm we were sitting in the roof and he goes, "At this time, in Colorado, there would be riots and couch burnings." At 10pm?
"U2 is the biggest band in the world." At which point he puts on their greatest hits album and tells us we MIGHT recognize some of the songs.
"I LITERALLY buy whatever I want," Including this rock carving he bought for 10,000 RPS which was THE MOST exquisite piece of art in the entire city, which was THE BEST rock carvers in the world.

Enough about Billy Jay though, as hilarious as I thought he was. LN was less impressed, her final thoughts of the night being, "What are you trying to prove, I get it, your life is meaningless." Haha.

After Mam we took another bus to Chennai and spent the night there. From Chennai we flew to Kolkata and spent the day there. We went to the Victoria Memorial which was really beautiful and had an interesting museum inside. Then we walked around BGB Badgh (sp?) which is full of all these old crumbling colonial buildings. I really liked they city, definitely a place I would be happy to return to and spend some more time in.

Our overnight train to Varanasi was supposed to leave at 8.30pm, but instead departed at 1am, so we spent a good 3 hours in the train station playing War after we were unable to think of any other two people card games (besides the inferior go-fish). On the train we met 3 Canadians, 2 from Brampton, one of which went to middle school with our friend from McGill and the other who went to high school in Orangeville, so pretty small world. They were all musicians and good fun so we ended up staying at they same place as them and hanging out in Varanasi.

Varanasi was probably the most incredible place I've ever been, totally insane but exhilerating at the same time - cows roaming freely on main roads and small alleys, burning dead bodies, all these crazy holy people, laughing yogis etc. We were staying at a place in the old city right near Lalita ghat which is next to the burning ghat. Bodies covered in sarees and other clothes are regularly being carried through the streets to the ghat where they are put on a pile of wood and burned and then sent into the Ganges. The old city reminded me quite a bit of the old city in Jerusalem with small winding alleys and lots of shops. We went to a few saree and silk stores and saw some really nice stuff, alas I dont have the money or a reason to spend $150 dollars on a pure silk saree. We took a 6am boat ride down the Ganges which was great and then just did a lot of walking around. We also went to Sarnath which is where one of the 4 holy Buddha sites is (the others are in Nepal) at which he gave his speech. There was also a Jain temple dedicated to the 11th of 24th Jain holy men and a pretty good archeology museum. We fit 5 people into one rickshaw Indian style and got some priceless looks as we were driving.

After Varanasi we took another overnight train to Dehli which was also 4 hours late to arrive. Thanks to the excellent advice of my friend M who lived in Dehli all summer we went to a market in the south which was thankfully empty of any tourist but us, meaning that the store owners were not nearly as aggressive by nature. The whole market (as well as another we went to at Janpath) was filled with H&M, Gap etc surplus clothing for a fraction of the price, pretty good. Last night the manager of the hostel had a b-day party on the roof of the hostel which was really nice - got to meet other guests and he gave us all free beer and chocolate cake. Pretty pretty sweet.

Today we went to the Red Fort, wandered around the old city and went to Jama Masjid which is the largest mosque in India, it was an incredible building, although they did make us wear the MOST hideous dresses I have ever seen because our ankles where showing. Inside the mosque I did witness however, a child shitting on the floor of the large open atrium outside the mosque, his mother did clean it up so I guess that makes it a bit better, but really? That can't be right.

So far Delhi has been great otherwise, there has been haggling for sure but in spite of that it's been a great place to spend a couple of days and I think I'm going to come back after LN leaves from Mumbai at the end of the month.

Tomorrow we are headed to Agra to see the Taj and then heading out that night to Udipur. Should be good.

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