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Published: March 4th 2010
Maharaja Joel
As bad as I ever was. If you don’t realize how fortunate you are to have food and shelter (much less education and the incredible excesses of western life) while in India, you never will. India possesses a stunning
one third of the world’s most abject poverty and walking in its midst makes you own the incredible prodigal sloth of the advantaged life filled with constant complaining. I am, of course, as guilty of this as any, more so than most, evident by the fact that I’m traipsing around India in the first place. I can’t drive home enough the squalor in which people live, the pictures don’t do it justice and words fail in any attempt to describe it. Make no mistake though, India is beautiful. It’s beautiful in its geography but also in its history/culture and its people. India’s the only truly poor place I’ve ever been where I never felt in danger, not only of a physical nature but not even of the petty theft which is any traveler’s constant companion. But alas beloved subscriber, I realize you come seeking mirth not matter and I’ll strive to hold to Al’s sagely advice sent to me when I was in Mexico, “the best part of
First night in Delhi
We slept in this disaster, on the floor. visiting other countries is making fun of them” responding to a culturally insensitive email which are my bread and butter. India stinks. Russell Peters isn’t kidding when he says of India, “It’s almost as if they hired someone to shit in front of every plane that lands.” Even the Air India gate smelled bad, and the plane, oh the plane. The hostesses went up and down before we took off subtly spraying air freshener all over everyone. We arrived quite late to the feces splattered, cow loving, trash covered, subcontinental mustache competition that is India. The guidebook strongly suggests booking a decent hotel for the first night in Delhi as a transition into the touting/scamming press of humanity. Adam and I slept on the train station floor with about 4,000 homeless people. I suggest everyone go straight from the airport to the homeless shelter nicknamed the New Delhi Train Station and just jump right in. It was a freezing but entertaining way to kick off the trip though. Our first five nights’ accommodations in India: 1. Train station, 2. Bed, 3. Train station/train/empty restaurant, 4. Train, 5. Sand dunes. We’re all about comfort. If you have never used a squatter
toilet, let me recommend for your first try - the public restroom in an Indian train station. I’ve gotten into the spirit of squat dumping. After seeing numerous people just drop and do it on the street it’s hard not to get swept away in its shit stream like Andy Dufrain escaping from Shawshank. The Taj Mahal looks like you think it’s going to look. Maybe that was the problem, visiting Machu Picchu for example is so much better than the photos, the Taj is exactly like them. Anyways I was decidedly underwhelmed and (like any good male) was more entertained by the two Spanish lady doctors who waited out the morning fog with us. I asserted my individuality by taking many pictures of the most photographed building on Earth. We left Agra for Jaipur, Rajasthan on the midnight train. We were about a half hour early and I was sleepy so we laid on the train platform and I unadvisably believed someone nicknamed The Sleeper when he told me he would stay up while I took a quick nap. I woke up around an hour
after our train was due, and immediately woke Adam up for the five minute
Adam
He jumps high with or without a cast. walk to the arrival/departure board to see if we had missed the train while we slept. Once we got there, I told him to watch the bags while I went in and checked at which point, even after a long walk with me, he disorientedly told me he couldn’t watch the bags because he left his friend (me) sleeping on the ground back on the platform. Last time I leave The Sleeper in charge. Rajasthan is like a life-long mustache competition, and like most life contests, I was winning. I’ve never had so many people offer positive reinforcement on my physical appearance. Maharaja and Mr. Desert (the annual Rajasthan mustache competition) were the two most commonly applied monikers. Jaipur was pretty cool, we hit it in a whirlwind, taking the night train in, spending the day getting worked over by touts and the ubiquitous monkeys and taking the night train out. In Jaisalmer we went straight on the camel safari, met some pretty cool folks and the standard weird ass Canadian. Much of India needs quotations attached to differentiate from what westerners think of when I refer to something and the dust in your eye “express bus” to Jodhpur was
Taj Mahal
But what you're really looking at is my spectacular mustache, see how the Taj pales in comparison. no exception. The most interesting town of the trip, Jodhpur, is a warren of blue “houses” and “streets” and “salesmen” touting “food” and “quality” textiles, spices, incense, and everything else. Mehrangarh Fort was much more impressive to me than the Taj, in large part because I’m always more interested in views than architecture, and the Fort has a great one while the Taj does not. Chennai was like a vacation from our vacation. If not for the constant side to side head shake of the chauffer it would have been easy to forget we were even in India, especially since we behaved in a manner more befitting Carnaval entrenched Barranquilla. We ate lobster, steak (you could almost taste the sacred flavor), spent a day at a resort drinking gimlets and being warned by a typically humorless German to discontinue our backwards diving competition. We swam in the Indian Ocean, crushed a world heritage site (Mamallapuram), and in my only taste of the Olympics, cheered on the underdog Chinese curling team against the heavily favored Canadians. We played Taboo, got hit on by a table full of wealthy gay men (Sarah defended her man with the fierceness of a lioness from
Baby with Cobra
Yeah, that's a baby with a cobra. the girl sent to recruit us for their nefarious cornholing enterprise) and ate Dominoes. Basically we enjoyed Brad and Sarah proving once again that Midwesterners are sincerely nice human beings while reminding us that they are also bigots and perverts. It was an amazingly enjoyable four day chauffeured chiva which left me a hurting unit. From there we flew to Bombay. Our sleeping arrangements took a terrible turn south in Bombay (“you can tell you’re a foreigner b/c you call it Mumbai” ~ Adele). Adam upon returning from the hostel’s bathroom claimed it was a mere step up from bathing in the Ganges. The city looks like it’s been underwater for some time, which isn’t to say it’s clean, just that all the buildings have the discoloration indicative of stone which has been underwater for a couple decades. Bombay was great though b/c we were posted up and we had Adele who was both gracious and fun and showed us a side of India we certainly hadn’t gotten yet. In a nice break from getting Gumped by my Korean barber I got a fine haircut and head massage in India for the grand total of about a dollar. You haven’t
Monkeys
At Monkey Temple in Jodhpur. lived until you’ve had an Indian man comb and twirl your mustache for you. Babies all over the north wear eyeliner which, depending on who you ask, protects against: infection, evil, or the sun. I’m inclined to believe it mostly indicates a heady case of superstition but this won’t stop me from inking up my own baby’s eyes should I ever claim one. Hands down the worst part of India are the touts, the worst of which are the total sketchballs who come breathe their nasty hot breath in your ear and exhale “hash.” I proudly only lost my temper a little bit once, and forgive me if I don’t feel too bad for spewing some venom on a shady Bombay hash dealer. To sum up - India is a horribly dirty, shit covered mass of the heartbreakingly impoverished and yet somehow remains proud, beautiful and as mind opening a place as I’ve yet had the opportunity to visit.
movie: Wanted. My first Bollywood film of the trip, it was very entertaining and subtitled in English which was nice since the headphones didn’t work on the 1960’s plane and it was in Hindi anyways. Ayesha Takia’s pretty smokin’ as
The horizontal jump
The greatest innovation in jumping pictures since the using of both legs. well.
book: There’s something magical about reading Midnight’s Children while in the exaggerated reality in which it’s set. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to have done so. Plus, it’s a great read, impossible not to make comparisons with 100 Years of Solitude.
music: Mumford and Sons and The xx rocked my world most of the trip.
Hilarious Youtube bit: What the F is JUICE!? This had me cracking up the whole 26 hour trip home.
Back in the Future,
~Maharaja T
“We’ve been living a lie. We do talk like Apu.” ~ Adele’s friend Verushka after hearing my impersonation of their accent.
“I thought Latin America was bad, this takes poverty to a whole new level. At least in Latin American the poor people are dancing.” ~ Adam’s take on the world’s poor.
“It’s like a junkyard, but with old buildings.” ~ Adam describing Agra.
For further reading, both Adam and Sarah keep a blog:
Adam: http://adamhereandnow.blogspot.com/2010/03/back-to-future.html
Sarah: http://sarahincolombia.blogspot.com
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colin
non-member comment
smell
yes. the smell. most overwhelming olfactory experience imaginable. nothing before and nothing since even in the same game. you are ruined in the antiseptic west where noses are only for picking. fantabulistic place to spend some time is that india c