India
India was a magical trip....It was wrought with colour, smells of Indian food and incensed burning garbage, holy people and poor people. It was as if we lived in an Aladdin storybook for 3 weeks - we ate breakfast in a meadow, toured castles that looked like they were made of sand, passed a family carrying a dead loved one shrouded in white cloth and covered in pink and yellow flowers and drove past Hindu statues that towered hundreds of feet in the air. There is a magic about this country that sweeps you up in it when you're riding an elephant or running through alleys following children and music to a wedding that is just about to take place.
january 25 2000
We embark on our journey at the airport where someone left their luggage by us and we thought we might be part of a bomb scare while my friend Meryl got 3 teas for us - funny thing is there was only 2 of us travelling...one was for our imaginary friend perhaps?
Fast forward two days later and we arrived in Mumbai after 17 hours. It was hot and noisy outside but still dark when we crept into a taxi. We tipped in change and a handful of smartfood popcorn which I think he liked! One hour and 5 million honking horns later we mashed through traffic - through shacks, bicycles, between motorbikes and a city that was waking up. We checked into Hotel Moti in Colaba and had eggs, tea and toast for $3 each. We walked to the gates of our hotel and felt like movie stars since everyone was asking to take photos with us - weren't we the tourists here? As we wandered farther outside the gates we declined a thousand offers to buy things and then broke our first rule - don't eat candy from strangers. A stranger blessed us, gave us a red bindi mark on our forehead for long life and the Jain festival and candy. I discreetly spat mine out but Meryl had already swallowed hers. Our hotel manager Raj hooked us up with a day tour to the hanging gardens, Gandhi museum, laundry and train stations and a temple. While driving, you would glimpse bare feet walking behind a bus, a woman knotting flowers together against a brick wall or the bare bums of children sitting with their mother in the street on a tattered blanket - or headlights coming towards your car door, promptly followed by honking. Calm and chaos have never been so intertwined. It was an intense first day and we ate dinner at Leopolds - a cafe where a couple years earlier, people had been executed by terrorists while having a beer.
january 28
Beer for dinner, followed by a malaria pill down the hatch and off to the Elephant caves, just a ferry ride away. We walked the stairway of outdoor shops and stood bewildered in front of giant Shivas. Monkey bandits were everywhere. Right in front of us we saw one look left and then right before grabbing a package of sparkly barrettes, stuffed it into his mouth as the vendor chased him with a broom and curse words. We pet one of the hundreds of cows roaming the street and befriended a goat but I was not to make friends with the giant beetle that had cornered me in the bathroom.
Our second rule that we broke - don't eat fruit from the street unless it's encased like a banana or orange. Luckily our juice of indecision hadn't come back to haunt us yet - we were livin on the edge. A girl braiding jasmine flowers coralled us into buying rice and milk for her family, but we had to stop her when she pulled out her grocery list.
january 29
Today we said goodbye to Mumbai and after a one hour flight, accompanied by a 20 minute bus ride, we arrived in Goa. We've learned not to accept help with our luggage since they will demand a tip after walking only 10 ft and the driving here is even worse because it's faster and we almost set the back seat on fire trying to light a cigarette. We checked in to Julie Jolly which is only 5 minutes from the beach, if you head out in the right direction. We received a mini scooter lesson and only made it to a restaurant before the sun went down. Then we broke our third rule and went home with strangers but to be fair, they cooked us a home made masala while I made sure our drinks weren't spiked, just to be safe. We agreed we could survive on garlic bread forever after someone brought back Domino's. Later that night we went to the hilltop market and had the locals haggle the best deal for us.
january 30
Meryl wouldn't let me drive a scooter so we had to walk to the beach and literally 5 steps onto the sand, we had ice cream vendors and women circling us to buy their wares. My friend was named "white chicken" and I almost blew away with the shade umbrella. A family offered to do some henna for us which we were told later was black ink, but we had a good time laughing with them and playing the haggle game in which they always replied, "you're killing me, you're killing me." Our friends from the night before brought garlic bread for us, but they couldn't follow us any farther than our hotel gates in which there seemed to be some sort of invisible forcefield they couldn't cross. For dinner we had black cod fish and chips overlooking the water while we fed the dogs and almost fell asleep in our comfortable lounge chairs. There was a market on Saturday and we wandered around with drinks until I saw a huge stick bug on Meryl's back. Trying not to alert her, I grabbed her hand and shook her drink all over her while at the same time scaring and pissing her off. The favor was returned when she pulled a spider out of my hair.
january 31
Today we roamed the spice plantation in Ponda and we rode Mala the elephant! As she sauntered closer to the road she was almost in a full out run to escape but she reluctantly turned around to stop and see her elephant boyfriend who was tied up with a wound on his leg before she took our dollar bills in her trunk. On the spice tour we identified cinnamon, vanilla, cashew, bay leaf, pepper and tumeric. In the afternoon we drove to a church and then a museum where we had Kashmir tea with a man from Kashmir and tried on a $1000 diamond ring. There were locals smoking hash while we visited the pharmacy for some antibiotics for strep throat that would prove not to work. As the sun was dipping lower in the sky, we headed down a cliff to Vagator beach where we served some of the best coffee we'd ever had - which turned out to be Nescafe instant coffee, no joke. The sun went down but we realized we still had to get back in the pitch dark and this was before I had an iphone flashlight! I pushed off of a rock to help lift myself up, only for it to move and let out a moo - it was a cow! Then we triple rode on a teeny motorcycle, Indian styles, to Bean me up Soya Station - the best vegetarian lasagna I'd ever had. We stumbled upon a rave on the way home but when the party moved to the town, we moved to bed.
february 1
After breakfast we went to a doctor down the road for my persistent sore throat but left after he was an hour and a half late since we had a plane to Delhi to catch. The taxi dropped us off in a market that was buzzing, kicking up dust, flooded with cars, bikes, people and electrical wires. We were then hussled into a rickshaw and I grabbed it with one hand and Meryl with the other so he couldn't drive away with our luggage but it seems to be normal practice and we ended up at AJ's guesthouse which we had just randomly picked from the guide book moments before. Drivers will try to tell you your accommodations have been burned down - this is a scam so they can take you to a hotel where they get commission, but if you don't have any yet I guess you've got nothing to lose. We had a doctor make a "house" call and took my blood, after he mistook my lazy friend reading the paper on the bed as the sick one. Walking out at night a man came near us, but if you shout they tend to run away or make friends with a stray dog - they all seem to be scared of them. We ate, had some drinks on the roof and watched the wedding fireworks that are forever lighting up the sky.
february 2
Most people take trains in India - we didn't take any. We had limited time and ended up getting a driver that arranged our accommodations, took us to local spots we never would've found and it was definitely money well spent. Our friend that ran the guest house brought us to by jewels in a seller's house, all spread out on a blanket. We visited the Lotus temple where there was no talking, but a hundred little school kid heads that whipped around to stare at us and try to film us - it's confusing who the tourist is sometimes...After that we visited the Gandhi museum, the gate and learned how to "moonwalk" astronaut style as opposed to the Michael Jackson way - lost in translation couldn't have been funnier.
february 3
We left at 5am and when we loaded our suitcase into the car, the once bustling streets were no longer filled with people, but lined with cows shuffling back and forth in the empty city!! A couple hours later in the rising sun we stopped in a meadow to have breakfast while chipmunks scurried back and forth. On the road we stopped at a truck stop for some chai tea which seemed to surprise the locals every time. A few nature pees later, we arrived in Jaisalmer - the desert city of barking dogs.
On the road we passed a gypsy caravan and the children were running alongside our car for a while and it all seemed very magical - if I would've had a fistful of sparkles I think their minds would've exploded. At a rest stop we were offered a large sparkling jug of water and as Meryl put the glass to her lips and took a huge gulp, her eyes went wide as she remembered we weren't supposed to drink the water - rule number four broken. It was kind of funny watching her try to finish a conversation with a full mouth of water she was waiting to spit out after our host left.
january 25 2000
We embark on our journey at the airport where someone left their luggage by us and we thought we might be part of a bomb scare while my friend Meryl got 3 teas for us - funny thing is there was only 2 of us travelling...one was for our imaginary friend perhaps?
Fast forward two days later and we arrived in Mumbai after 17 hours. It was hot and noisy outside but still dark when we crept into a taxi. We tipped in change and a handful of smartfood popcorn which I think he liked! One hour and 5 million honking horns later we mashed through traffic - through shacks, bicycles, between motorbikes and a city that was waking up. We checked into Hotel Moti in Colaba and had eggs, tea and toast for $3 each. We walked to the gates of our hotel and felt like movie stars since everyone was asking to take photos with us - weren't we the tourists here? As we wandered farther outside the gates we declined a thousand offers to buy things and then broke our first rule - don't eat candy from strangers. A stranger blessed us, gave us a red bindi mark on our forehead for long life and the Jain festival and candy. I discreetly spat mine out but Meryl had already swallowed hers. Our hotel manager Raj hooked us up with a day tour to the hanging gardens, Gandhi museum, laundry and train stations and a temple. While driving, you would glimpse bare feet walking behind a bus, a woman knotting flowers together against a brick wall or the bare bums of children sitting with their mother in the street on a tattered blanket - or headlights coming towards your car door, promptly followed by honking. Calm and chaos have never been so intertwined. It was an intense first day and we ate dinner at Leopolds - a cafe where a couple years earlier, people had been executed by terrorists while having a beer.
january 28
Beer for dinner, followed by a malaria pill down the hatch and off to the Elephant caves, just a ferry ride away. We walked the stairway of outdoor shops and stood bewildered in front of giant Shivas. Monkey bandits were everywhere. Right in front of us we saw one look left and then right before grabbing a package of sparkly barrettes, stuffed it into his mouth as the vendor chased him with a broom and curse words. We pet one of the hundreds of cows roaming the street and befriended a goat but I was not to make friends with the giant beetle that had cornered me in the bathroom.
Our second rule that we broke - don't eat fruit from the street unless it's encased like a banana or orange. Luckily our juice of indecision hadn't come back to haunt us yet - we were livin on the edge. A girl braiding jasmine flowers coralled us into buying rice and milk for her family, but we had to stop her when she pulled out her grocery list.
january 29
Today we said goodbye to Mumbai and after a one hour flight, accompanied by a 20 minute bus ride, we arrived in Goa. We've learned not to accept help with our luggage since they will demand a tip after walking only 10 ft and the driving here is even worse because it's faster and we almost set the back seat on fire trying to light a cigarette. We checked in to Julie Jolly which is only 5 minutes from the beach, if you head out in the right direction. We received a mini scooter lesson and only made it to a restaurant before the sun went down. Then we broke our third rule and went home with strangers but to be fair, they cooked us a home made masala while I made sure our drinks weren't spiked, just to be safe. We agreed we could survive on garlic bread forever after someone brought back Domino's. Later that night we went to the hilltop market and had the locals haggle the best deal for us.
january 30
Meryl wouldn't let me drive a scooter so we had to walk to the beach and literally 5 steps onto the sand, we had ice cream vendors and women circling us to buy their wares. My friend was named "white chicken" and I almost blew away with the shade umbrella. A family offered to do some henna for us which we were told later was black ink, but we had a good time laughing with them and playing the haggle game in which they always replied, "you're killing me, you're killing me." Our friends from the night before brought garlic bread for us, but they couldn't follow us any farther than our hotel gates in which there seemed to be some sort of invisible forcefield they couldn't cross. For dinner we had black cod fish and chips overlooking the water while we fed the dogs and almost fell asleep in our comfortable lounge chairs. There was a market on Saturday and we wandered around with drinks until I saw a huge stick bug on Meryl's back. Trying not to alert her, I grabbed her hand and shook her drink all over her while at the same time scaring and pissing her off. The favor was returned when she pulled a spider out of my hair.
january 31
Today we roamed the spice plantation in Ponda and we rode Mala the elephant! As she sauntered closer to the road she was almost in a full out run to escape but she reluctantly turned around to stop and see her elephant boyfriend who was tied up with a wound on his leg before she took our dollar bills in her trunk. On the spice tour we identified cinnamon, vanilla, cashew, bay leaf, pepper and tumeric. In the afternoon we drove to a church and then a museum where we had Kashmir tea with a man from Kashmir and tried on a $1000 diamond ring. There were locals smoking hash while we visited the pharmacy for some antibiotics for strep throat that would prove not to work. As the sun was dipping lower in the sky, we headed down a cliff to Vagator beach where we served some of the best coffee we'd ever had - which turned out to be Nescafe instant coffee, no joke. The sun went down but we realized we still had to get back in the pitch dark and this was before I had an iphone flashlight! I pushed off of a rock to help lift myself up, only for it to move and let out a moo - it was a cow! Then we triple rode on a teeny motorcycle, Indian styles, to Bean me up Soya Station - the best vegetarian lasagna I'd ever had. We stumbled upon a rave on the way home but when the party moved to the town, we moved to bed.
february 1
After breakfast we went to a doctor down the road for my persistent sore throat but left after he was an hour and a half late since we had a plane to Delhi to catch. The taxi dropped us off in a market that was buzzing, kicking up dust, flooded with cars, bikes, people and electrical wires. We were then hussled into a rickshaw and I grabbed it with one hand and Meryl with the other so he couldn't drive away with our luggage but it seems to be normal practice and we ended up at AJ's guesthouse which we had just randomly picked from the guide book moments before. Drivers will try to tell you your accommodations have been burned down - this is a scam so they can take you to a hotel where they get commission, but if you don't have any yet I guess you've got nothing to lose. We had a doctor make a "house" call and took my blood, after he mistook my lazy friend reading the paper on the bed as the sick one. Walking out at night a man came near us, but if you shout they tend to run away or make friends with a stray dog - they all seem to be scared of them. We ate, had some drinks on the roof and watched the wedding fireworks that are forever lighting up the sky.
february 2
Most people take trains in India - we didn't take any. We had limited time and ended up getting a driver that arranged our accommodations, took us to local spots we never would've found and it was definitely money well spent. Our friend that ran the guest house brought us to by jewels in a seller's house, all spread out on a blanket. We visited the Lotus temple where there was no talking, but a hundred little school kid heads that whipped around to stare at us and try to film us - it's confusing who the tourist is sometimes...After that we visited the Gandhi museum, the gate and learned how to "moonwalk" astronaut style as opposed to the Michael Jackson way - lost in translation couldn't have been funnier.
february 3
We left at 5am and when we loaded our suitcase into the car, the once bustling streets were no longer filled with people, but lined with cows shuffling back and forth in the empty city!! A couple hours later in the rising sun we stopped in a meadow to have breakfast while chipmunks scurried back and forth. On the road we stopped at a truck stop for some chai tea which seemed to surprise the locals every time. A few nature pees later, we arrived in Jaisalmer - the desert city of barking dogs.
On the road we passed a gypsy caravan and the children were running alongside our car for a while and it all seemed very magical - if I would've had a fistful of sparkles I think their minds would've exploded. At a rest stop we were offered a large sparkling jug of water and as Meryl put the glass to her lips and took a huge gulp, her eyes went wide as she remembered we weren't supposed to drink the water - rule number four broken. It was kind of funny watching her try to finish a conversation with a full mouth of water she was waiting to spit out after our host left.
february 4
Rode a camel through the desert and taught the alphabet to the men in the sand dunes. Funny enough they wanted my business card but I couldn't help notice the scarcity of telephones....
february 5
Discover India by colours....Jodhpur - the city of blue near the deserts of Rajasthan mirrors the blue sky above it. In Pushkar, the holy city, there are no eggs for breakfast in the form of our much loved masala omelette since everyone is vegetarian but I did get to touch a cow with a third leg coming out of its head - as you can see I'm a bit sceptical on touching it....
Here we also did a blessing for our families with a Brahman priest, fed children and got pulled into a wedding in the middle of the street! Later we hit up an outdoor children's disco birthday party - you will find yourself welcome at any party! The dichotomy of seeing a wedding and a funeral that day touches a part of your soul that you never even knew was there.
february 8
The Taj Mahal is a magical place and it looks like you've stepped into a painting. What most people don't know is that on the other side of a marshy river there is the foundation of a black Taj Mahal that was halted in production, but was going to be an exact replica in midnight black.
february 8
We navigated towards the Ganges and onto Rishikesh - a land of mountains, cooler temperatures and people swaddled in fuzzy blankets. We took a chance when ordering room service and luckily ended up with hash browns or "hush bins" as they were called that we deliciously cheesy and even better since we ate them in bed!
february 10
In Hadawar we stopped to see people blessing, washing and living by the Ganges river. Well of the beaten path, we attracted crowds of people that would gather in circles around us to quench their curiosity. As we meandered through the worshippers, there was a witch doctor with his face painted white and slapping a man in a small makeshift temple, causing white powder to spray in the bursts of sunlight shining through.
february 11
As we left India I came down with the dysentery - I was running between the bathroom and the garbage bin before boarding the plane home and the experience would last well over a week. Unfortunately sometimes you can't get around "Delhi belly" but I like to look at it as maybe we had too much fun and our bodies just couldn't contain it all and had to expel some happiness. It was a trip well worth it.
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