Chaalaa

Jaipur Part 2

2009-04-23T23:17:00.001-07:00

Jaipur Part II

When I awoke the next morning, my first thought was to roll over and go back to sleep. My second thought was to figure out if I could find some sort of train, bus, or plane that might take a more complicated route but would keep me from spending another minute in this awful place.

The debate continued while I tossed and turned and tried to fall asleep for an hour or so. Finally, realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep my way through this, I figured it was time to do battle. And with only 500 rupees in my pocket and no idea where the nearest Western Union was, these battles had a chance to get quite interesting.

My first battle of the day was the Chowki Dhani tour manager, Islam. I had thought late into the night, and had determined exactly what I thought would be a reasonable solution. Now the question was whether or not I would be able to convince him that my solution was reasonable as well.

I walked downstairs and asked the concierge to call Islam. He entered the lobby a few minutes later, dressed all in white. He smiled at me and asked me to sit. We began our conversation:

“Sir, the tour is 700 rupees,” Islam began.

I took a hard line. “I know that now, but you originally said…you said that it was all together”

“But sir, the tour is 700 rupees. Just the tour.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“700 rupees, not including the entrance to Chowki Dhani.”

“I know…I understand what you’re saying, but just…just hear me out for a second.”

“Ok.”

“I understand that you charge 700 rupees for the tour to Chowki Dhani, but I need you to understand my position. When I signed up for this tour, I was told – by you – that the cost of the tour would include the ticket.”

A grin spread across his face. “But the cost of the tour is 700 rupees. You pay the ticket.”

“Please just hear me out. I understand that what you are charging is what you think is a reasonable price, but I also know that I would not have signed up for the tour had I known it was going to be so expensive. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Between the grin and the simple answer, I can tell I have his attention. I decide to go ahead and make a try at it. “Anyway, I know that you think you charge a reasonable price, but I also think that the price I agreed to was reasonable. So I am wondering if perhaps there is a way to compromise, so that you do not feel cheated, and I do not feel cheated either.”

His grin widens. “Ahh…a compromise! What do you suggest?”

I know what I can get, but I also understand what is reasonable. The fact is, 500 rupees for the cab ride would be totally ripping him off. And even 600, which I could have wormed out of him, would be somewhat unfair. So I’m not asking for much. “I tell you what. All I want is for you to get me a cab to a Western Union so I can cash money, and then when I return, I will give you your last 200.

He realizes that he’s getting off extraordinarily easy, and decides not to push his luck. “That sounds like a good compromise. Is it ok if it is an auto?”

“Sure. I just want to get there.”

“Great.” He motions to the young man currently staffing the tour desk, gives him a quick order in Hindi, and he runs off to fetch a rickshaw.

As you’ll soon see, sometimes, settling for what you need rather than what you can get pays off.

Islam and I stood outside for a minute waiting for the auto. Finally, a blue and brown one pulled up to the hotel, a skinny Indian man with a small grey beard in the driver’s seat. I hopped in, Islam gave him a few directions, and off he went.

As it turned out, the nearest moneychanger was right around the block. I cashed a couple traveler’s checks and now, assured of the fact that I wouldn’t be kicked out of the hotel or run out of Jaipur, the auto driver and I went back to find Islam.

The auto driver was the one to strike up the conversation. “What is exchange?” he asks.

“Around 40 rupees per dollar,” I reply.

“40 rupees per dollar? Hmm…” Then, after a minute of silence, “40 is a lot.”

I can see his English leaves something to be desired, so I begin to speak a little more simply.

“Yes. Dollar is strong. Rupee is strong now too, though. Dollar is going down.”

“Yes. Good.”

By this point we were back outside of the hotel. The once busy street, though, had emptied, and worse, Islam was nowhere to be found. “Wait for Islam, I say.”

The auto driver yells into the empty street in search of Islam. After he tries three times with no response, he concedes to the thought that Islam may be unavailable, and so turns and begins to talk to me.

“You want to go see city? I can show you Amber Fort, Hawa Mahal, City Palace…”

I’m still debating just staying in the hotel for the day.

“Maybe. I tell you what – let’s see Islam, and then we’ll talk about it. Ok?”

“Ok.” He yells out Islam’s name again, and after a moment of silence, decides this is a boring way to wait.

“You want coffee?” He asks.

“I dunno. I already had tea this morning…”

“Nay, nay nay. We’ll get coffee. Share a cup. Ok?”

“Ok.” He begins to drive towards the tea stand up the block.

On the way, we notice Islam coming out of a store ahead of us. “ISLAM!” the auto driver yells again.

He walks over to us, and I give him the money. We joke for a quick minute, and then he walks off. The auto driver gestures to me. “Coffee?”

“Sure, why not.”

We drive a few more feet up to the nearest chai stand. The owner exchanges a few words with my driver. “You want chai?” the driver asks.

“Definitely.”

We settle in and begin to talk while the owner has an assistant, who is probably 10 years old, fix the chai. I soon find out that the owner of the chai stand and my rickshaw driver are brothers. I find out because the owner of the chai stand tries to explain, and the end result is that I think he is calling ME his brother. He laughs very hard when I call him out on it, and explains.

My rickshaw driver’s name is Kayumbai (I don’t know even approximately how to spell it) and between his English and my Hindi, we are able to communicate most of what we want to communicate. We talk about his family and his job. I talk about my family, and what it’s like to be an American traveling. Finally, Kayumbai’s brother charges me 50 rupees for the chai – a ripoff by Indian standards, but still not too awfully bad. I pay willingly and I ask Kayumbai to show me the city.

Our first stop is Amber Fort, which is pronounced like the first half of America. On the way there, I ask him to stop so I can take pictures. As I stand there taking in the beauty, a man in a turban walks up beside me with a sack. He hastily kneels, and pulls out a snake and a flute-like instrument and begins to play. The snake stays put, obviously uncharmed – which is no surprise as the man appeared to have not bathed in months.

To the best of my knowledge, snake charming is a Persian thing more than an Indian one, but I watch him try to charm the snake for a short while. Then he asks if I want it around my neck. After making sure the snake is in fact de-fanged, I submit, and he leans in to put the snake around my shoulders. I hand the camera off to Kayumbai, and he takes my picture. Immediately after the picture was taken, the snake charmer leans in and whispers in my ear softly enough that Kayumbai cannot hear to object.

“300 rupees.”

“That’s a fortune!” I reply. “100 at most.” He agrees quickly – 100 is still a huge amount of pay for about 5 minutes of work, but better than I ever would have bargained for 2 days ago – and I get back in the rickshaw.

At Amber Fort, I am greeted by a friendly man who asks me to take a tour. At first I am skeptical, particularly given the events in Agra a few weeks before. Kayumbai steps in, however, and lets him know both that I am a poor American tourist with very little money and that I need a guide who can speak English. For a very reasonable price, the tour guide sets me up with what seems to be a perfect fit – a tour-guide in training who told me that he spoke “70 percent” English – which was not amazing but definitely good enough for the tour.

The tour was amazing. Amber Fort was a palace and a capital in the 1600s, and it is massive. There were multiple areas where I was told to wander around without my guide, and I was very nearly lost. There was a huge open space, a parade ground where the army would come to parade before the king and queen. There were secret passages connecting Amber Fort to other nearby forts – the passages were full of bats. There was an entire building made of mirrors. And there was a beautiful view of Amber the town and the neighboring forts – all of which were connected by a wall. The number of different styles of architecture was unreal – Muslim towers, Hindi ivory and mirrors, vast underground passages – the works. Not only did I get the full tour with a good guide, but just having him got me through the line into the fort, which looked like it might have taken over an hour!

I stayed there for as long as they let me, then was ushered very forcefully to a gift shop and given a coupon to see a viewing of the world’s greatest model of the Taj Mahal. I shopped around for a little while, and went to see this fantastic monument. It was actually pretty neat – the model was about 3 feet tall, and actually changed color depending on the type of light that was shown – modeling the Taj’s look at dawn, midday, dusk, and midnight. Unsuprisingly, afterwards, I was shown a fantastic array of marble work and pressured to buy, buy, buy. I rushed out of there as quickly as I could, with the (true) excuse that Kayumbai would charge extra if I was later than I said I would be.

On the long drive out of the fort, I convince Kayumbai to stop at the Jal Mahal as well. The Jal Mahal, or the Water Temple, keeps with the Zelda framework. The temple is located in the middle of the lake and, according to Kayumbai, is inaccessible. I think I may have been able to swim out to it, but I hadn’t brought a change of clothes, so I took some pictures and continued on.

By this point, Kayumbai and I have become quite jovial with one another, and so I get him to recommend a hole-in-the-wall Rajhasthani diner for lunch. I have an amazing dish of potato and onion (“Aloo Pyaz”), eaten with a very soft and fluffy roti. I am very happy. Kayumbai purchases some candy, in anticipation of his hard-earned rupees, and I try a piece. Like many Indian snacks, it tasted somewhat salty and bitter. I only had one.

Afterwards, I ask Kayumbai to take me shopping. He tells me most of his American customers he would take me to a place with fake goods and high prices, but now that he has seen my Indian savvy, he thinks I should instead go to a government-run store in town.

When we get there, there is a school bus filling up with Indian children returning from a shopping trip to this very store. The store is huge – I see everything from rugs to jewelry to 5-foot tall artwork. And I buy multiple pieces – gifts for my family, and for myself. Their prices are standardized, mostly written on the back of the piece, and definitely fitting the nice, handmade craftsmanship. There is no pressure, no bullying, no haggling – in short, it’s exactly what I wanted.

When I leave the store, Kayumbai wants chai. We go to the nearest chai stand and – much to my surprise and joy – Kayumbai offers to buy. I have a glass with him and we talk about shops in India and how they are different from America.

We talk for a while, then return to the hotel just in time for me to go find dinner. I do, and then I spend some time before bed analyzing my day. In retrospect, I was probably ripped off more than the day before. The chai, the snake charmer, the tour guide, the government store – all were really expensive. Perhaps the only thing that was actually cheap was the rickshaw. But somehow, during those few hours with Kayumbai, I began to trust Jaipur, trust India, and most importantly trust myself. It was a big, emotional moment. Chariots of Fire should have been playing in the background as I sat in my chair and thought. And then I went to sleep, ready as I have ever been to hop on a bus and go home the next day.

Here it is

2009-04-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry this took forever - I'm still working on this stuff. Anyway, I didn't edit this, and most of the writing is junk, but this is the part of India where I began to be excited about the place, and I figured you should experience it. So I'm going to release the last few post unedited, but I'm going to release them. Just as soon as I write the others.

2008-08-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

I'm working on Jaipur part II, but I wanted to take a brief minute to point something out about what happened in the Olympics today.

People say that there is no doubt: Phelps is the greatest Olympian of these games. However, allow me to introduce a track star by the name of Usain Bolt:

* Only 9 men have ever won gold medals in two sprinting events during the same Olympics. The last time the 100 and 200 were won in the same year was 1984. Bolt just did it.

* Nobody has ever broken the 100 and 200 world records in the same Olympics before. Bolt made it look easy.

* Since 1996, when Michael Johnson set the old world record in the 200, nobody had even come CLOSE to matching him. Other than Johnson, the fastest other time ever recorded in the event is three tenths of a second slower than Bolt, meaning that for years, all the best runners in the discipline could only run at around 19.65 seconds. Bolt and Johnson are the only two people to ever break 19.6, and they both did it in 19.3.

* Not only did Bolt break the world record in the 200, but during his world record breaking time in the 100, he SLOWED DOWN TO CELEBRATE. That would be like Phelps swimming breaststroke during a freestyle race and still winning. Umm...no.

* While most of the swimming world records are being broken on a yearly basis anymore, Johnson's 12-year old record was still fairly new in terms of track records when Bolt ducked under it. Some records have been in existence for over 25 years. What I mean to say is this: in swimming, the world record means that the athlete was competing in a really fast pool with a brand new, top of the line Speedo. In track, the world record means that the athlete ran faster than anybody has ever run before.

* Had you ever heard Bolt's name before he came to these Olympics? Didn't think so. He apparently was completely a no-name as of a year ago.

* If you took Bolt's time in the 200 as the sum of two 100s, both of the 100 splits would have beaten his record in the 100.

Now, I'm not arguing that Phelps isn't a great athlete, or isn't the greatest Olympian at these games - but I do think the argument exists to say that Usain Bolt has equaled him - not just by beating everybody else (by over half a second in the 200), but by beating, through skill and not technology, everyone who has ever come before him.

Ok...object as you like.

Jaipur, Part 1

2008-08-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

Note: if you are my mom or dad and have somehow gotten hold of the URL for this, please, please, PLEASE do not read this post until I am back in the US. I am currently in good health and returning home in a little over a week. I’m not doing any of this stuff again, so knowing about it will only make you unjustifiably nervous. Plus you'll enjoy it more when I tell you in person anyway.

************************

They say that truth is often stranger than fiction. I think that at the very least it tends to be more entertaining. Either way, I can tell you that this story WILL be the definitive tale of my trip to India, and one that I will consider life-changing many years from now. It also makes a great blog post.

This weekend contained the rare coincidence of Indian Independence Day (August 15) and the Festival of Sisterhood (there’s another name for it, but I don’t know what it is – it’s according to the Indian lunar calendar and thus is on a different day every year). The ensuing three-day weekend provided a perfect opportunity for a trip except for the issue of companionship – because of the Festival of Sisterhood, every Hindu in Delhi was returning to their parents homes and was unable to travel. I originally had planned to accompany one of my friends to her family’s home in Hyderabad, but the combination of being unable to stay on a military base (her father is in the navy, and I am not an Indian citizen) and the fact that the plane ride alone would cost 600 USD, sort of spelled the end of that plan.

So two days before Independence Day, and I had plans for a three-day weekend staring at my wall (I even had a spot picked out). But it was also my next to last weekend in India, and I couldn’t let that stand, so I got a friend to help me book a last minute train ticket and a hotel in Jaipur, the Pink City and the capital of the desert-state Rajasthan. There are no train tickets available for Thursday night, Friday or Sunday, so we settle on a 6:30 am Saturday train with a return by bus. I am supposed to get the bus ticket upon arrival in Rajasthan.

I spend Friday in boredom – it’s Independence Day, but it’s sort of like the US Independence Day without big fireworks shows – just not all that much to see. I go to bed that night excited, and awake at 3:30, a full hour before my 4:30 am alarm. Note the time: if you are careful here, you will be able to spot at least one misfortune that befalls me for every two hours I am awake today.

The cab company I got to take me to the train charges extra if you begin the ride before 5 am, so I wisely settled on 5 as my pickup time. Unfortunately, what they neglected to tell me was that if the cab gets there early, regardless of the time you booked the it, they will still charge you extra if you get in at 4:55. And the cab driver doesn’t speak English. The ride to the train station costs me an extra 100 rupees or so (about a 33% hike). Yikes. One misfortune in the bag. Trust me though, this is one of the minor ones.

It is still dark when we arrive at the station. While it is early in the morning, there are still over 100 people waiting, including a couple of foreign tourists, easily recognizable by their large, stuffed backpacks. Oh, yeah, and the fact that they’re white.

There’s a voice recording that announces the train arrivals and departures. Unfortunately, they missed the entire point of a speaker system, and opted to begin each message with a loud “TA-DA” just to make sure you weren’t confused into thinking it was the guy right beside you yelling directly in your ear. And there was one going off maybe every 30 seconds. At 5:30 am.

At around 6:00, THE VOICE (and I say it in all caps because it was almost as pervasive as the “TA-DA” announcing it) says something in Hindi that includes my train number, and all of a sudden my train is no longer listed on the departure board. Figuring it’s been delayed an hour or two, I sit down for about ten minutes, then begin to explore my surroundings. I stop close to some steps leading to the train platforms, and while I am standing there a man gestures to me. I walk over to him.

“Which train?” he asks.

I show him my ticket, and he points somewhere off in the distance. I look, and see in the darkness a hidden platform.

“That track,” he says.

“And it’s on time?”

“Yes,” he says, a grin spreading across his face.

I walk over to the platform, and sure enough there it is, ready to go. I take a seat, and stare out the window as the train pulls out of the station.

Two hours later, the man next to me starts a conversation. His name is Kaifi, a Muslim from Delhi. He and I talk about the differences between India and the US, religion, work, even our names (which surprisingly, mean nearly the same thing). He is traveling to Jaipur for the Festival of Sisterhood.

A quick bit about the Festival of Sisterhood. It is a Hindu ritual recognizing the bond between brother and sister. Sisters take a band or a bracelet and tie it around their brother’s wrist. That’s the formal ceremony, at least. The fun part is that often girls will approach men who are not their brother and try to give them the bracelet, making them their brother – this is apparently particularly common with children, and leads to girls chasing guys around the playground (for a change). In fact, my coworkers told me that if I saw a girl approaching me with a bracelet, (at least, if she was hot), to run like the devil himself was at my heels.

Anyway (and I hope I have this right), Kaifi met a young girl at a train station one day and helped her with her bags. Through another series of events, they became pretty close and stayed in touch, and became sort of like brother and sister to each other. Kaifi, being Muslim, does not celebrate the Festival, but his “sister” does. And so this year, his sister was asking him if he would come down for the festival. Kaifi originally said no, but was now taking a 5-hour train ride to Jaipur with the intent of surprising her.

While I am talking with Kaifi, we arrive at the train station in what seems like no time. Note that I have now been awake for 8 hours and only one thing has really gone wrong. Don’t worry…I’ll catch up soon.

When I exit the train station, I am immediately hounded by a bunch of rickshaw drivers. I pick one who, surprisingly, gives me a fair price with almost no bargaining. Be wary of that sort, by the way.

As I tell him which hotel I am going to, he immediately pipes up. “No, no, no, that hotel is no good.” He tries to explain why in some garbled Hindi that I can’t understand, but another rickshaw driver comes over, apparently hoping for my business. When he hears us talking about hotels, he asks my driver something in Hindi. When my driver responds with the hotel name, he looks at me and goes “oh…that hotel is no good.”

I have never seen this before, but I recognize it immediately as a scam – and a bad one at that. Besides, my friend called his uncle, who lives in Jaipur, and had him book me the hotel. I can’t just turn it down.

I get into the auto, and the driver starts asking me about my visit to Jaipur – what I plan on seeing, things like that. He brings up the hotel again, and warns me that it’s not good and that I should let him take me to one that is a third of the price.

“Really, is it close to tourist things?” I ask. He doesn’t understand me.

We pull up to the hotel. He tells me to go check the room and figure out if I like it, and that he will wait here. I tell him it’s ok. He asks if I want him to show me around the city or go to some of the touristy spots. I respectfully decline.

He leaves, and I go inside, to face problem #3 – I am now operating under a false identity. According to my reservation, I am now a member of a certain corporation known for making baby shampoo – the name of which will be left out here with the thought that, since I am obviously NOT a member of said baby shampoo making corporation, there was obviously something awry.

The minute I walk in, the manager comes over, shakes my hand, introduces himself, and tells me that as a member of this baby shampoo-making corporation, I will be getting a discount – which turns out to be what I was told by my friend that the room would cost. I am baffled, so after hearing the price and inspecting the room, I try to call my friend to just make sure this is what was intended.

Problem #4 – no cell phone reception.

I go on ahead and decide to operate under my new false identity, and so Nic of the baby shampoo-making corporation signs everything he needs to sign and heads to the bus depot. Where he learns that there is not a single bus available for his return on Sunday. The first bus available bus is 8:30 am on Monday, and I buy a ticket while I still can.

Frustrated, I do the logical thing, and wander around until I am totally, unbelievably lost.

Yeah, I know…genius, right?

The walk is actually quite nice, though. The people here are extremely friendly, with kids jumping in front of my camera to get their picture taken (I have a really cute one that will be on photobucket once I upload) and walking alongside me. Everybody says hi and waves. However, there are some…issues.

Take, for example, the man who pulls away from his group of friends as I approach and starts to walk beside me. We talk, he introduces himself, asks my name and where I’m from, and then says that he loves the US, and wants to sit down for tea and have a talk with me about it.

I tell him respectfully no. He asks again.

When he realizes that I’m not going to come for tea with him right now, we turn back to conversation. He says he is trying to learn English and would like to practice. I tell him that it’s a very good thing to know. He asks me where I am staying. I tell him I am staying in a hotel. He asks which one. I ignore the question. He asks if I am traveling alone. I lie through my teeth.

Then he asks me again to come sit and have tea with him. I turn him down again. Please note that I am currently in a strange city, on the other side of the world, alone, with no cell phone reception, fighting to keep from being conned tooth and nail by a guy who is in the middle of his own neighborhood. What could possibly make this any worse?

…

At that point, it begins to rain.

…

Seriously. I’m not making this up.

The conversation continues relatively as follows:

“You know, you can see all these touristy things all you want, but you should really get to know the real Jaipur.”

“I know. That’s why I’m on a walk over here.”

“But you could get to know Jaipur even better if you sat down and talked to somebody from Jaipur.”

“I know, but to be honest, I’m away from my friends right now and I don’t know that I can trust you. I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

“No, you aren’t being rude.”

A moment of silence.

“You know, I know there are a lot of people here who come and want to take your money because you are a rich American. But…they don’t know how hard you work for it.”

I don’t have a response, other than a seething anger that he immediately assumes that I have money when the only reason I'm able to be here is because I'm being funded (and thanks to those guys, who I know definitely read the blog). I hide it though, and just say that we’re not all rich, and that I’m not rich. I refrain from chewing him out.

He offers to show me around if I get tea with him first. I ask him how I get to the City Palace, a tourist attraction that is not near my hotel (although I tell him it is). He says he’ll get me a rickshaw, and begins to talk to one of the nearby ones. They’re obviously not bartering for a price.

I wait for him to get engrossed in talking to them, and then start walking away. When he notices I am leaving, he calls out to me. I turn and wave and continue walking.

Two blocks later, after he is out of sight, I get a rickshaw back to my hotel. I walk in and collapse on my bed for a minute, before deciding to venture out again. Mysteriously, in the time between abandoning the con man and getting to the hotel, my cell phone has connected again. But now it’s not sending texts and nobody I know is picking up the phone. Not a worry for right now, though.

Eight mishaps. But we’re not out of the woods yet.

When I get back down to the lobby, two things that are important happen: I sign up for a tour of Chowki Dhani, this traditional Rajasthani restaurant/theme park. The price is 700 rupees, including the ticket to Chowki Dhani. I confirm that two or three times. The second important thing is that the manager tells me that the places I would like to go touring at are only about a mile away, and that I could walk there.

The rain has stopped, and so I start out on another walk.

Not five minutes later, another guy comes up to me. This one is a little better with his con. He talks to me a little first, then starts asking the personal questions. Am I traveling alone? Of course not. What’s my name? Phil.

“This today is the festival of sisterhood. Sisters give brothers a bracelet like this:” he pulls out a bracelet of red yarn with some gold tassels. “You are my friend, and so I want to give you this bracelet.”

“I don’t know, dude. I don’t know you very well, and I don’t think I’d feel comfortable taking your bracelet. Especially if your sister gave it to you.”

He looks hurt, but changes the subject. “So the people you are traveling with…two couples? Boy and girl?”

“No. I’m with my team.”

“Your team? How many people?”

“Six.”

“But there are 11 on a cricket team. My cricket team has 11. Where is the rest of your team?”

“No. It’s my wrestling team.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Wrestling…like, beating people up.”

The look on his face was jaw-droppingly, eye-wideningly PRICELESS. But he decided to go for the con anyway. “I would really like for you to meet my mother. Will you come back to my house with me to meet her?”

Ummm…no.

I dodge another couple feeble attempts, and then I ask him where City Palace is, that I am meeting my friends there. He says he will get me a bicycle rickshaw. The rickshaw driver gives me a price that is heinously expensive, and I then demand one that is equally cheap. My new “friend” begins yelling at the rickshaw driver. Meanwhile, I sneak away, grab the next rickshaw I can find, and get him to take me to an attraction called the Hawa Mahal, or Temple of the Winds.

On the way, the rickshaw driver starts acting funny. He stops in the middle of the street two or three times and gets out to adjust the back wheel. He is calling out to other rickshaw drivers and asking in Hindi for a price to go to Hawa Mahal. Finally I notice: the bicycle has a huge crack in it, and is about to break in half.

It has been approximately two hours since I arrived in Jaipur.

He finds a rickshaw driver who is willing to split the fare with him 50/50 after we get a ways down the road.

In 1876, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Albert came to visit Jaipur, and in preparation, the entire city was dyed pink. Not sure if pink was Prince Albert’s choice of color, but the end result was a great reception for the Prince and a new name for Jaipur: the Pink City. As I ride by in the rickshaw, the city is a swath of pink dotted by the whites and grays of newer shops. There is a large wall surrounding the inner city, and we go through that. A few minutes later, we arrive at the Temple of the Winds.

The temple is a (pink) structure built into the surrounding city. It really isn’t a temple – it is a set of open air spaces and walkways – a building with no roof. The side of the Temple that is facing outwards is quite ornate, and the other walls barely exist – once you get to the second floor it is like being on the roof. Other than the lack of walls, the twisting passageways on the sides and the number of locked doors remind me of a Zelda game, and a structure that looks like a block with a crescent moon in the center confirms to me that this is where Miyamoto’s team conceived the idea. Besides – its name is the Wind Temple, and the Jal Mahal, or Water Temple, is nearby.

With some confusion because of the passageways and some trick walls, I make my way up to the top of the structure. There is a small crowd up there, and I get an Asian man to take my photo. We chat for a quick minute – he is from China, and I ask him why he is in India instead of watching the Olympics. He says he wanted to come to India. I say “Go China” in what I’m sure is a very bad, very garbled Chinese (I only know the phrase because my friend Zoe mentioned it in an E-mail to me), and he responds with “Go USA.” Touching moment indeed.

I leave and go on to the next attraction, the Jantar Mantar, or magical instrument, which is next door geographically, although tricky to get to. On the way there, a young child starts walking in front of me. “Jantar Mantar?” he asks. “Yes,” I say. He begins to lead the way (which is definitely helpful). Before too long, a veritable army of five children has joined us, walking in front of me.

We reach the entrance to the Jantar Mantar, and one of the more talkative children, possibly the only one who knows English, turns to me and says “Ok. Give us our rupee now.” You could tell that they expected it, probably because every white man who passed that way before probably gave one to them. I gave them one apiece, not only because they were cute but because there was no way this cycle was possibly going to break. May as well just go along with it.

The Jantar Mantar is a series of large devices for measuring time, the season, the constellations, etc. It is sort of like a very modern (built in the 1700s, I believe), much more Indian Stonehenge, and includes the biggest sundial (or equivalent) that I have ever seen – it actually has steps in the center so you can walk up to the top, although the steps are now blocked.

After Jantar Mantar I went to look at the City Palace, but the tickets were expensive and I had to stay an extra night at the hotel, so I decided to pass and go home. In retrospect, that was probably my biggest mistake all day. And no, the craziness isn’t over yet.

I finish Jantar Mantar, and got ripped off by a rickshaw driver on the way back. This time, his boss says the driver will take me to a Western Union to change money, and he totally doesn’t. The guy doesn’t speak English, and I don’t know how to communicate to him an idea as complex as “We agreed on going to a money changer and then the hotel,” so I just let it lie – the price he charged was somewhat reasonable anyway.

I go into the hotel and rest for a bit, then come downstairs for the Chowki Dhani tour. When I get in the taxi, the manager of the tour service asks me to give him 500 rupees up front. No problem, but I’m smelling scam.

The driver drives me into the middle of nowhere. Luckily, Chowki Dhani is also in the middle of nowhere, so I’m ok. While I’m standing in line for a ticket, I realize the con: he’s making me pay for my own ticket, which makes the whole trip 120 rupees more expensive. I explicate very briefly to myself, and then walk in.

Chowki Dhani is a world unto itself. Originally created as a shack that served all-vegetarian, traditional Rajasthani food, it has expanded to include games, rides, and performances.

In the rush of arrival I had skipped lunch, but before dinner, I wandered around a little bit. Women with 8 pots balanced on their heads danced on daggers, shards of glass, and spikes (I believe all of them were blunt and not dangerous, but it was impressive nonetheless). There was a magic show, a puppet show, and a large number of musicians and dancing. Children were getting elephant rides, while adults were shooting real arrows at a target. There was also a haunted house, and some museums and shops.

After walking for a bit, I decided to sit down to dinner. According to my friend, previous dinners involved the Chowki Dhani staff spooning food onto your plate until you could eat no more. The format had changed recently, however, and was now a buffet. The meal was still vegetarian, though.

I got a plate and tried every dish they had. My favorite was the Alu Piaz, or potato and onions. Every dish, though, was buttery and delicious, and I ate until I was full.

I wandered around and watched some more shows. Some were good, others were boring. I had said that I wanted to ride an elephant before I left, so I rode one. I was out of change, otherwise I would have ridden the camel too, but I had already sort of done that, so I was happy.

Towards 9 pm (the party goes on until around 1 am if you stick around long enough), I began to watch some traditional Indian women’s dancing. I was in the dark, towards the back, but at some point, I happened to make eye contact with one of the women on stage, who gestured to me to come up. She tried to teach me a couple of her dance moves, but I have trouble doing modern men’s dance moves – learning traditional women's dance is just a little out of my league.

And then after about 30 seconds comes the bomb. She looks at me and furrows her brow questioningly. “Tip?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“Money? Tip? Change?”

“Oh, uh…I’m out of change.” I still had 9 rupees in my pocket, plus an insurance 500-rupee note that I was not about to break.

“Tip?”

This went on for another couple seconds, until I realized that not only was I having a conversation with this woman on the middle of the dance floor, but that I was no longer dancing. Given what I had seen of Jaipur so far, I figured that the odds of her making a scene if I walked away were not in my favor. So I dug the coins out of my pocket, turned, and walked out of Chowki Dhani.

Now I want to be clear about this: I had fun at Chowki Dhani. A lot of fun. But I just could not abide the image I had gotten of Jaipur today, and this woman’s complete shamelessness in asking for a tip after humiliating me on the dance floor was just too much.

I walked back to the driver, who took me to the cab and we left to go to the hotel. I spent the entire ride doing two things: fuming about the woman at Chowki Dhani, and swearing to blow a gasket if the taxi driver asked for a tip.

He didn’t ask for a tip. He asked for the rest of the payment – the other 200 rupees.

I tried to explain to him that I had to pay for my own ticket and was not about to get cheated again, but he didn’t understand. Finally, I resisted enough that he decided to come in so we could get the hotel staff to sort it out.

He talked to one of the men behind the counter, who then turned to me and said in a brusque, dismissive voice “give me 200 rupees.”

I took a step back and started defending myself. The argument started to grow heated, me talking in English and the concierge in Hindi, neither of us understanding the other.

Finally, another concierge came out. He spoke better English. “What is the problem?” he asked.

I explained to him the situation. It took about 4 tries. Finally, he responded. “It is a misunderstanding. The 700 rupees did not include the ticket.”

I responded with the honest truth. “But he told me it did. I specifically asked him. ‘The ticket is included?’ I asked, and he said ‘Yes.’ ‘And the food?’ ‘Yes, yes, it is all included.’”

“Yes, but the price is 700 rupees. It is a misunderstanding.”

“I know, but I would not have signed up for it had he asked for 700 rupees. That price is INSANE.”

He shakes his head. “But the price is 700 rupees for the cab.”

We go back and forth for a little longer. By this point I am apologetic, but unwilling to pay.

Finally, the concierge has a solution. “You keep the money for now, and I will talk to the manager in the morning.”

“Fine,” I say. “But can I talk to him as well?”

“Sure.” He agrees. He then explains the plan to the driver, who agrees. He leaves for the night.

I go up to my room, furious. I pace for about 10 minutes, then lie back on my bed. After a while, I start to wonder: I know what he said and what I said, but what is a fair price? Was I cheating him by keeping the money? Or was he cheating me by making me pay it? And either way, should each of us get something because it was, legitimately, a miscommunication?

While I was pacing my belt broke.

Thoughts racing, I tossed and turned for an hour or two, and then finally went to sleep at around midnight with a solution to the problem. But like any good cliffhanger, you’ll have to hear about that in the next post.

***************************

As an aside, a number of people have told me so far that these adventures would make a good book. While I was hesitant at first, this trip to Jaipur has made me wonder if a book might actually make sense – there are a lot of funny moments and a good number of overarching plotlines that I could put together. I’m thinking sort of like Vikram Seth’s From Heaven Lake except a little funnier and dealing with a different set of themes (the clash between the traditional Indian Hindu culture and modern Indian Western culture and what that says about American culture and whatnot)

So if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask whoever has read this far to post a comment, acknowledging that you’re reading it (so I can tell how many of my friends are interested enough to read the blogs), and (voluntarily, of course) answering a few (meaning any of the following) questions:

1.)Do you think I could pull this off as a book? Keep in mind that many of the stories (Jaipur, Agra, Megan in the Hospital) may wind up being put in practically word-for-word. This is a question both about me as a writer and about the stories in general.
2.)What improvements would you like to see made to my writing style? What (other than an overarching connection between everything blogged so far) do you think a book would need that these posts don’t have?
3.)What other things about India would you be interested in hearing about?

Post anonymously if you don’t want me to know who you are. I know there are enough people that have read these blogs in the past that I won’t be able to know who it is from one comment. But please be honest – lavish, undeserved praise is one thing that gets me upset, and I genuinely do love hearing about how I can improve.

Jaipur

2008-08-18T03:13:00.001-07:00

Oh man, I totally did not think I was gonna make it back from Jaipur this weekend. Update to come soon. Right now, I'm relaxing with a Pepsi and trying to figure out exactly how I'm not either dead or stranded somewhere.

Nic’s Search For Beef, Take 2

2008-08-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

Quick Note: I’ve decided to postpone (or maybe just not include) my blog posts about having home cooked meals (which are probably much better face to face), and Megan’s departure and how I dealt with it (which could be the subject of a book). There’s just too much stuff going on here and I’m not going to be able to get it all up. If you’re really curious about that stuff, E-mail me or call me when I get back to the states.

Anyway, here goes.

My search for beef didn’t just stop with the lambburger. Since then, I have been asking around, collecting information, and hoping that sooner or later I might find what I’m looking for. For a long time now, I have been hearing whispers about my prize being at a certain ancient restaurant, deep within the heart of Shahjahanabad, which you may have heard of from my adventure about two months ago to the Red Fort and Jama Masjid. And while yells oftentimes are false, whispers tend to be true, so I picked up one day at around lunchtime and made my way back into the ancient city-within-a-city, along with a couple friends.

As mentioned previously, Shahjahanabad is impassable to automobiles, and so we parked a ways outside the city and took the subway, arriving deep within the heart of the city. As we walked back out onto the street, I realized how much I had changed in the past two months.

I have never seen a place more crowded than Old Delhi – people are EVERYWHERE, and the chaos is apparent. Our rickshaw ride to the restaurant was less a ride and more a prolonged stop that somehow seemed to end in a different place than it began. Multiple times we actually hit the rickshaw in front of us and were simultaneously hit by the rickshaw behind us, a double crash that might be cause for concern in the United States but here is just another way of saying “I’m behind you” (along with the horn, flashing your brights, and yelling out the window). Somehow, though, where before I felt guarded and insecure, unwilling to embrace the atmosphere around me because of the crowds and my own unwillingness to be a part of them, that day I felt almost comforted by the massive chaos going on all around me.

The weather was perfection itself – not too hot, not too cold. We passed by literally thousands of shops, selling everything from stolen automobile parts to decorative plates to, yes, even kitchen sinks. And again, instead of being confused by the commotion and the overwhelming amount of people, goods, and animals, I sat there and peacefully took it all in.

Along the way, I heard stories about this fabled restaurant. Begun hundreds of years ago, it had been maintained since by a family of chefs who originally served the Mughal kings. The recipes were all secret, of course, but the food is still authentic Mughal recipes, served in the finest form, worthy of kings and queens.

I should point out here that in India, food is a higher calling. It’s a traditional source of sharing and bonding, and people here take their food VERY seriously. So when I say that the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India were served from this restaurant to seal an incredibly difficult and incredibly important truce over the state of Kashmir, I want you to understand that this is not something to be taken lightly.

When we stepped out of the rickshaw, I was a bit confused. Where was the restaurant? I could only see a mass of buildings – no fancy doors, no signs to proclaim its existence, nothing. Then my friend Samir grabbed me and we ducked into a small alleyway.

The alleyway, as it turns out, was the entrance to the restaurant. It opened up into a sunlit corridor with small rooms on each side. Waiters in long gowns scurried around between the rooms, taking orders and carrying food. One gestured to us, and we walked over into his room and took a seat.

As we looked over the menu, I and my friends noticed two things. One was almost every dish on the menu had meat, an extremely rare thing in India today and reflective of the Mughal culture fueling this restaurant. The second thing was that there was no beef on the menu.

My disappointment was acute but short lived, for not five minutes later, I began one of the greatest feasts of my life.

We began with some murg sikh kebabs – soft, minced chicken, perfectly prepared and served with a dash of lemon and some green chutney, which is a somewhat spicy, very green sauce. Sikh kebabs are cylindrical and hollow, while their alter ego, kalmi kebabs, are flat and look like sausage patties. These were the best kebabs I have ever had, but weren’t nearly the best part of the meal.

The next course consisted of two chicken dishes and a mutton dish. The chicken tasted as though it had been cooked over woodchips for days, and the mutton melted in your mouth. All three were served in buttery, oily gravies, so heavy you could barely eat them and yet so well flavored that you could barely help coming back for more. One of my friends noted that for breakfast each morning, they serve mutton that has been cooked overnight and literally disintegrates upon contact with the inside of your mouth. I was awed.

These dishes were served with this fluffy, golden roti, like nothing I have ever seen. Most of the roti here (in fact, most of the bread in general) is pretty flat and dry, but these were like a much fluffier, softer, more buttery version of a pizza crust. Just writing about them gives me shivers, and I can see myself at some point later in life becoming obsessed with trying to reproduce them.

We ate until we could eat no more, and then ordered desert. I don’t remember the name of it now, but it was a sort of creamy, rice-based concoction served in a clay bowl. A perfect finish to a perfect meal.

We paid, washed up, and left. The cost of one of the best meals I have had in my life? $5.

I love India.

On the ride back to the office, we all basically passed out. I didn’t fall asleep, but as I relaxed in the back of the car, I felt the same sort of peace and contentment I might find swinging on the swing at the lake watching the sun go down after a full day of wakeboarding. And those of you who know me well enough know what a powerful statement that is.

I think there is a moral to this story – you don’t always have to find what you’re looking for. Sometimes, the fact that you searched is enough.

That doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on beef though – I have two more leads and I’m hoping to try each of them in the next week and a half.

This weekend I am going to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan and one of the most popular tourist attractions in India, and next weekend I will be going to Dharamsala, the exiled Dalai Llama’s encampment deep in the Himalayan Mountains. I may not have a chance to post again until I get back to the States. But I will continue to update from home until my story is finished.

Lodhi Gardens, Lotus Temple

2008-08-03T21:00:00.000-07:00

This is Part 2 of a 2-part post that starts with Lost, or Just Wandering?

The rickshaw driver dropped us off on the side of the block that was nowhere near Nienke. Which by this point is basically same old, same old. We took a hike, and met her about five minutes later.

As we were talking, I noticed a Western Union. Now, I had no money with me at all, and so I figured I’d be best off running over there for a minute. So I did, and cashed out. When I came back, Megan and Nienke were…

wait for it, wait for it…

looking at shoes.

Go figure.

I got back and we talked for another couple minutes while the girls selected what shoes Nienke should buy. We were just about to leave when I realized that I had forgotten my passport in the Western Union (yes, I know, I know…I’d forget my own feet if I could go anywhere without them). I went back, grabbed my passport, and we went to the Baha’i Lotus Temple.

The Lotus Temple is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like a cross between a lotus flower and the Sydney Opera house. Pictures are on Photobucket. We walked onto the grounds, and, after shrewdly stashing our shoes in my backpack so we didn’t have to check them, we made our way up the steps to the temple in our bare feet.

We filtered up and joined a line right next to the door. The doors were shut, so I figured the line was just meant to be for getting into the temple once the doors were opened. So imagine my surprise when just a minute later a cute Indian woman is next to the line yelling out instructions in Hindi. My first thought was that we had accidentally joined a tour group…as it turns out, she was just giving instructions for entering the building. I understand maybe 3 words, but enough to recognize that one of the commands was to turn off our cell phones. Unfortunately for me, though, after my cell phone is off, she repeats the instructions in English, so I don’t get that rewarding feeling of having a heads up because I can understand enough Hindi to know what she’s talking about.

We walk in, and it’s more beautiful on the inside than on the out. Far from the extravagance that marks Hindu temples, the Baha’i temple was as plain as could be. Other than a small, clear podium and a rug at the end of the pews, the only other decoration was a golden symbol at the highest point on the ceiling (which looked to be over a hundred feet above me).

The beauty, though, was in the simplicity and harmony. The place was silent, and yet simultaneously the light from the windows made it bright and welcoming. A bird flapped its wings as it flew from side to side. All in all, the image was nothing short of serene.

Megan, Nienke, and I sat at a pew for a few minutes and took it all in, then walked outside. We headed down to a poster presentation that was spread out below the temple, under a walkway and out of the sun, which talked about the Baha’i faith.

Baha’i is one of the most forward thinking meta-faiths that I have ever seen. Its basic premise is that there is a god or gods who changes his appearance to suit the needs of the era, and that notes that each incarnation suggests that another will come after him. According to the Baha’i, that final god is the Baha’u’llah, who lived in nineteenth-century Persia.

While the religion is based in the 1800s in a land that is still a ways away from racial, religious, and gender equality, the Baha’i faith is almost as modern as the western world. It recognizes and practices gender equality, and treats itself more as a belief system than as a faith – there is no church hierarchy or services, per se, although there are occasionally speeches made by members of the community. Its belief system is very loose, and the affairs of the church are managed through a republican form of governance.

In other words, this was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever stumbled across by accident. When I was done looking at the posters, though, and joined back up with Megan and Nienke, it began to rain. We had two choices – pack out all our garb, in our bare feet, in the rain, or wait it out. And so we sat down.

A few minutes later we were joined by a random Indian woman in a saree with a young child. I have no earthly idea why – maybe they just wanted to hang out with the white people. Either way, I made faces at the infant for a couple minutes and we tried to carry on a conversation with the woman, who didn’t speak a word of English. Most of the 15 minutes that we sat there together were spent in awkward silence. Meanwhile, a second parent was trying to attract my attention so I could make faces at her baby as well. Go figure.

Finally, a guard came to stop people from loitering. We pretended we didn’t understand him because he wasn’t speaking English, and did nothing. However, about 5 minutes later the rain stopped, and so we got up and left.

When we exited the grounds, we were set upon by the auto drivers who wanted to either charge us 200 rupees (an exorbitant amount) to get to the Lodhi Gardens, or 20 rupees (an exorbitantly small amount) if we agreed to visit a shop they new first. If it was a con (and I expect it was) it was a pretty horrible one, and I can only hope they didn’t get any takers. We walked down to a major highway and hailed a rickshaw to get us there for a reasonable price.

Before we entered the Lodhi Gardens, we ate at the Habitat Center, which is where I tried my first Raj Kachori. I can’t really describe it, but here’s an attempt. It is a big hollow ball of fried dough with lots of good stuff inside. It tastes sweet and spicy at the same time and is nothing short of beautiful. If you’re ever in India, I highly recommend trying one (and yes, they are vegetarian). And that’s as close as I can get.

The Lodhi Gardens include a collection of structures built in the 16th to 18th centuries. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what they actually were, other than that they were built as early as 1517 and thus are OLD. We saw two tombs and a mosque. In the mosque, I was standing around when a bunch of Indian men came up and wanted a picture with me. Again, there are enough white people around here to see one or two on occasion, so I don’t know what the big deal is…but I took 3 pictures with these guys before they left.

After the Gardens we went back to Dillihaat, the sight of the Indian Food Tour from the weekend we went to Old Delhi. There we ate and the girls shopped a little. Finally, we went back to Nienke’s flat. I should note that the rickshaw driver dropped us off at the SAME PLACE as before. Luckily this time we knew which way to go (Nienke hadn’t been to that side of the market before). Did I mention I’m getting used to things just not working the way they should?

We went back to Nienke’s and hung out until about 9, then caught a rickshaw back to the guest house. All in all a good day.

Lost, or Just Wandering?

2008-08-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

So I’m going to skip around on the road map a little here and tell you what is perhaps my favorite story so far (although I highly expect it to be supplanted by my trip into the hills).

Megan and I hadn’t interacted with any Americans since my first weekend here. So about a week before she went back to the states, we decided to head into Greater Kailash to see our friend Nienke, who technically isn’t an American, but is about as close as you can get. Nienke is a fellow Princeton student who lives in South Africa. She’s a tall white girl, which makes her stand out about as much as you possibly can in India. And I’m pretty sure (although by no means certain) that this was her first weekend after settling into her apartment, so we figured we could hang out and pretend like we actually knew something about India (which by this point we realized was probably never going to be true).

GK is a part of Delhi, and since Megan and I were in Noida, we first had to take a cab in. We told Nienke we’d call her when we got there, and so on about 11:00 we arrived at nearby Defense Colony, and called, waking her up in the process. She told us we should kill an hour or so and then give her another call. We figured we could spend the time in Defense Colony Market.

We got the cab driver to drop us off in the parking lot at DC Market. The cab fare was around 250 rupees, and the driver asked for exact change. Megan didn’t have change, and I actually had no money at that point, and so we sat around for a second not knowing what to do. Finally, the driver says he can make change if absolutely necessary, and so we give him a 500-rupee note. The driver subsequently opens the door and gives the note to a complete stranger, who upon receiving it runs into a nearby store. Megan and I look at each other skeptically. The driver lounges back in his chair, completely unconcerned.

We sit for about 5 minutes, and finally the man comes back with change. We settle the score and Megan and I get out. Our tour of Defense Colony Market takes maybe 15 minutes. Nothing to see.

Next we go…well…er…I don’t exactly remember where. Nor did I remember at the time. I guess that’s sorta the definition of being lost, right? Not knowing where you came from or how to get back?

Our story after the fact was that we weren’t really lost because we didn’t really have anywhere we were trying to go – and so we didn’t actually have any issues finding anything we needed to find. Of course, had we needed to find anything, it might have been an issue.

I guess now that you know where we weren’t (specifically, any place we knew existed), it’s probably time to tell you where we were. Although that is also kind of difficult. We were in a neighborhood in Defense Colony, but not one that I think sees many tourists. The streets were muddy, dirty, and narrow. Shops were EVERYWHERE selling everything from marriage paraphernalia (nose rings for the ladies, ornate feathered hats for the guys) to spices to groceries. All mom and pop stores – except with the number of stores in the area, it’s totally possible that mom and pop both own a store – and given the prices they may need it to make ends meet. The thing that most impresses the two of us though are the power lines – when you look up, there are at any point probably 7 or 8 wires above your head, criss-crossing in random tangles. Megan notes that if one of them became defective, it would be like untangling all the cords behind your desk, only a couple miles longer.

Megan sees a saree shop and wants to buy one, so we go in to see what’s available. Sarees are very colorful dresses that are very popular here – generally if you think of traditional Indian clothing back in the states, you’re probably picturing a woman in a saree. Anyway, we sit down and watch as the shopkeeper brings out dress after dress for Megan to inspect.

After a minute I get bored and strike up a conversation with the man next to me. He is a grocer at a store across the street, and we talk about good places to see in Delhi and what it’s like living in America (he’s never been but has friends that live in California). Finally, he sees a customer go into his shop and rushes back, leaving me to help Megan sort through about 6 different dresses to find this nice blue one, which she eventually buys.

The shopkeeper is the only person we’ve met so far who speaks English in this area, and I remember that we don’t know how much a good price would be for a rickshaw from here to Nienke’s place, so we decide to go to the shop and talk to him a little longer. We buy some of his wares (specifically some chocolates and cookies), find out a reasonable price, and head out. Remember that we still have no idea where we are.

We continue wading around through the mountains of shops, on occasion stopping in one or another. The streets are becoming narrower and narrower, and we soon notice that there aren’t any rickshaws around (meaning no public transportation). I step on a large pile of cow dung lying in the middle of the road, and we get a quick laugh out of it. At this point, our method of travel is to walk to alternate choosing the next direction we travel from each intersection. Thus, not only do we not know where we are generally, but we don’t even know how to backtrack along the streets because each of us is only paying attention to the half of the route that is our decision.

Finally we decide we’ve had enough of exploring – plus it’s been almost two hours and we told Nienke we’d be there soon. So we start trying to get to a road. Thing to note: generally when you’re trying to find your way OUT of a place, it’s best to NOT to have different people choose directions at each intersection. Because next thing we know, we have gone from a well lit street that can fit two abreast to a dark alley (keep in mind it’s the middle of a bright sunny day) in which we have to walk single file. On either side of us, door to door, are tiny, cramped apartments, and we occasionally have to dodge out of the way of a child running from building to building or press ourselves against the wall so some skinny Indian men can walk back the way we came. Nobody is going in the same direction we are. Finally, after walking for a couple minutes, we come to a small clearing, just enough for a small shack, and then we plunge our way back into darkness again.

After a few minutes of this, just as I’m starting to wonder if maybe we shouldn’t be turning back, the road begins to widen, and we make our way back out into the light. A couple children are playing cricket in the road, and we move quickly through in between hits so as not to disturb them. We are still passing through some overhangs and shadowy areas now, but nothing like the blackness that we had just been through.

We make our way onward, finally exiting this path out onto a real road. There are still no rickshaws in sight, but there are a group of well-dressed Indian men who look like they might know English. They don’t really, but we manage to communicate that we’re looking for a big road and they point us on our way.

Shops start reappearing, and we buy some bananas at a stand. I take a picture of a couple goats that are cuddling on the steps of a house (picture available on Photobucket). We see a well-trafficked road and try to make our way there, but we run into some deep, funny looking water that is covering the road and can’t proceed any further.

We finally run into a small group of bicycle rickshaws and are overjoyed. When we ask them how much it is to get to Greater Kailash, though, they respond with a figure that almost makes me laugh, and then go back to talking and ignoring us. We continue onward. Next thing we know, we reach an area that we have been to before, and all of a sudden, two and a half hours after we entered, we make our way to a road, find a rickshaw, and proceed to find Nienke.

A Morning in NOIDA Traffic

2008-07-30T21:02:00.001-07:00

9:00 am - Wake up to the phone ringing. Roll over and pick it up. "Good morning sir, your cab is here." New day, same sentence. Kind of comforting really.

9:10 am - Groggily stumble out the door. Leave the key at the front desk so that people can come in and rearrange everything in your room while you're gone.

9:11 am - In the car. Try to buckle the seat belt. Remember that they don't exist in the backseats of Indian cars, and think about how nice it is that people are so concerned about the comfort of their passengers.

9:12 am - 12 minutes after getting up, you're stuck in traffic as the driver tries to make a turn into the sector across from you. Nevermind the fact that if he went straight he could make the same turn onto a major roadway and get you there without the jam. Either way, there are horns honking, men shouting, and you just want to go to bed.

9:15 am - Out of the jam. Sit and watch as your driver pulls into oncoming traffic and speeds up to pass the bicycle rickshaw in front of him. Try to buckle your seatbelt again. Remember that they don't exist in the backseats of Indian cars, and think about how you're going to DIE.

9:16 am - The driver winds up behind another rickshaw, and this time thankfully can't pull over into the pathway of the oncoming bus. He honks about 30 times. The rickshaw driver, despite having enough space beside him to move, doesn't get out of the way.

9:17 am - Driver finally makes a daring escape, dodging between the rickshaw and a cow my mere inches to pass the rickshaw.

9:18 am - A bus pulls out from an intersection right into your path. The driver swerves to escape, and it misses you by about a foot.

9:19 am - Tailgating a red car...and by tailgating I mean about a yard of space.

9:20 am - Red car stops, driver is forced to slam on breaks and barely misses hitting red car.

9:21 am - Red car moves again. Continue tailgating as before. Note to self: perhaps driver is attempting to seem nonchalant about his death wishes so that passengers feel like it's no big deal.

9:22 am - Come to another intersection. There is congestion here EVERY SINGLE DAY, and EVERY SINGLE DAY there is another way to go that isn't congested. And yet which intersection do we wind up at? You guessed it.

9:27 am - Out of congested intersection, after cutting off two motorcyclists and a very angry rickshaw driver.

9:28 am - Left turn on major roadway at high speeds into oncoming bicycles and pedestrians. Feel more secure because if you do hit them, you yourself won't die.

9:29 am - Make a hard right turn, with a bus and three cars coming straight towards you. Luckily they slam on their brakes when they are about a foot away from broadsiding the car.

9:30 am - dodge three cows on opposite sides of the roadway and pull in to your destination. Sign a form saying you made it to the end, thank the driver, and get out. And in a show of convenience only India can offer, you don't even have to unbuckle your seatbelt before exiting.

That was this morning, but note that something similar happens every morning.

In Which Nic Attempts To Find Beef

2008-07-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Hopefully by this point you are well aware of the vegetarian fiasco; if not, let me summarize it here. I love meat. Chicken, pork, mutton, fish – I love all kinds. But there is a special place in my heart for that most wondrous, most tasteful, most delicious of all meats: beef.

Unfortunately, I now find myself in a country where such meat does not exist. Well, it does, technically – cows are everywhere here, even oftentimes lying peacefully in the middle of major roadways, but not only is it considered a grievous sin to kill a cow, it would also be quite unhealthy, as these cows feed on garbage and whatever weeds may pop up on roads or between parts of the sidewalk. Most of them barely seem able to survive, and you find many a cow that is nothing but meat and bones – mostly bones. It’s a sad situation – an animal with no natural predators, forced to live a life of scrounging, and barely eking out its own survival.

However, I should note at this point that the cows do run free, that there is a large amount of poverty and hunger in Delhi, and that I have not seen nor heard of a single Delhi cow being killed. It’s a testament to the dedication and resolve of India that such a noble religious practice is upheld even under great duress. However, as I have discussed with people many times here, the cow owes its entire existence to two polar beliefs – those of the Hindu people, who believe in treating cows with the highest respect, deference, and freedom possible, and the belief that cows may be bred for milk and for slaughter. Were it not for the latter, cows would probably only exist in India. Add in a loss of the former, and they might not exist at all.

Anyway, the moral of the story here is not actually the moral of the story, but rather, that I like beef. And so it was that on the day Megan got out of the hospital, I got a call at around 5:30 pm telling me she was on her way out, and was just waiting for the driver, who would probably be a while. Now, unbeknowndest to me, when a girl says that she is waiting for a ride home and may not be there for another hour and a half, what she means is that she is already home and wants you to spend the next two hours doing whatever you might want to do. So due to a slight miscommunication, I had the next two hours to myself, to do whatever it was that I might want.

What I wanted to do was the following: one week before I had been in a mall not far from the office. The mall was 4 stories and a basement, and a full lap around the bottom story might be a circuit of about half a mile or more. Now in this gargantuan mall there were many things – a movie theater, some hairdressers, a shop devoted entirely to ties…but on the top floor, almost glistening in its American grandeur, was a TGI Fridays.

On that fateful day one week before, I asked to look at a menu. What I had seen there was wonderful – chicken wings so juicy they would make your eyes pop. Strips of bacon on practically anything. And near the back, 6 burgers, including the oh-so-famous Jack Daniels Burger. There was beef, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a whole 7 days.

So of course, when I have an opportunity to eat by myself, the last thing I want to do is put it to waste (and Megan is a vegetarian and doesn’t want to eat any American food while we’re here anyway, so no use convincing her to come along). Anyway, within 15 minutes I was dropped off at the doorstep of Great India Place. Two security checks, a bag check, and about 5 minutes of traveling later, I arrive at TGI Fridays, eager to sate my weeklong obsession.

I walk in and don’t even look at the menu. “A Jack Daniels Burger and a coke, no ice,” I say (and for all those of you who are looking at me like I’m a wimp, I should point out my previous post about ice here being DANGEROUS). And I sit there, thinking that this restaurant is entirely too American and that I don’t want to be here at all except for that delicious, mouthwatering taste that is soon going to appear before me.

It comes, and before you can say PETA, I take a nice big bite out of it…

…and almost spit it back out.

Yes, that’s right – in my eagerness for a hamburger I had made a grave, grave mistake. Not looking in detail at the menu, and not realizing that TGI Fridays can only be so American, I had ordered a hamburger and received…

…a lambburger.

Disgusted with my stupidity and with my burger, I quickly scarfed down what I could (with a heavy dose of Coke) and left the premises, never to return. Oops.

Megan's Trip to Apollo Hospital

2008-07-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

So for my next adventure, I figured I’d pick up where I left off before Agra – with Megan being sick. Pretty please, don’t get sick in India. Although the odds are not in your favor if you do come.

Anyway, Megan got sick on a Friday night, and I heard about it Saturday morning. Now, on this particular Saturday Megan and I were supposed to be working. As such, I went to work, and Megan stayed home.

Come about 3 pm Megan calls me up on my still working phone (this is before the government got ridiculous and cut my service off because…well…I don’t even necessarily know why) to tell me that she’s running a fever and has called for the driver, but that he hasn’t shown up yet. I immediately go downstairs and find somebody in HR who can help. They figure it out, and before I know it, Megan has been taken to what I hear is the nicest hospital in NOIDA.

The name of the hospital is Apollo, and the care is…well…better than Megan says she got in China. Which makes me wonder about Chinese hospitals. They stick an IV in her…quite painfully, from the way she’s grimacing every time they change it, and pump her full of so many drugs I can’t even count them. The one solace (for me) is that the night nurse is absolutely gorgeous. I guess the one solace for Megan is that this whole thing has to end at some point.

Now, being at a hospital in a country halfway across the world, getting filled up with more medicine than you’ve ever seen before in your life and worse, not even knowing what that medicine is or why it’s there…it can be a scary experience. So for the next two nights I wound up staying on a nice leather couch (paid for by the IV drips and by the fact that a 5 minute consultation with the doctor runs something like 15 USD). I wasn't the only one being helpful - the guys from the office all came by, and everyone was really supportive. I just wound up relocating - which was no skin off my back. It was pleasant, until people came in to check on her. The following describes a REAL conversation, from start to finish (maybe not word for word, but I’m not making this up or exaggerating AT ALL).

6:30 am

(door creaks open. Random Indian Male walks in).

Random Indian Male: Hello.

(Megan remains asleep. Nic opens his eyes and closes them again, hoping that the man was making a general greeting and will go away soon).

RIM (looks at Nic, who appears fast asleep): Good morning sir.

(Nic continues to keep his eyes closed and his breathing regulated.)

RIM: GOOD MORNING SIR

(Megan awakes)

Nic (opens his eyes): Huh? Oh…hello.

(RIM walks over to Megan’s table, places some food on it, turns around and leaves).

End scene

Yes, that was 6:30 in the morning. And no, he doesn’t know that the only thing between him and the basement 4 flights of stairs below him was that I was too tired to get up.

Anyway, after gouging Megan for all she was worth for 2 nights (her fever had disappeared after 1), the doctor, in the infinite wisdom of his 600 rupee 5 minute consultations, decided that she should stick around for a third night. Which makes sense from his perspective, since the bed is right there and he could keep pumping saline bags into her as long as he wanted. But it wasn’t quite as great from Megan’s perspective. So, hero that she is, while I’m at work on Monday she has a long conversation with the doctor where she convinces him that she’s not paying for another night and that he should discharge her, and then actually has to sneak out of the room to sign the bill so she could leave. Yes, I said sneak out – she got them to take the IV off her under the premise of going to the bathroom, then hustled out of the room, paid the bill, and got someone else to get the IV line out of her. Finally, after all this is over, she calls me, leading to the adventure that is the subject of my next post.

Still Here

2008-07-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

So I would imagine that many people by now have heard about the blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. I wanted to assure you all that those are nowhere near Delhi, and thus quite far from me as well. However, I should also note that the group that has claimed responsibility has hit both Uttar Pradesh (the state in which I currently live) and Jaipur, which may take the place of my hill station visit if work keeps me from traveling too far away, in the last 8 months or so...so I have plenty of reason to be a little cautious.

And cautious I am being. I have been staying away from very crowded public places, other than a movie today at a very sparsely populated mall, and have temporarily postponed my trip to find beef, mostly because my guides wanted to be cautious but also because being an American in a Muslim neighborhood may be a little more dangerous than normal over the next week or two.

In other news, I have started a photo album other than my facebook album (though there is a large overlap). It is available here: http://s354.photobucket.com/albums/r408/nicrbyrd/India/. Go check it out.

I'm working on new posts, and promise to have at least one up by the time everybody back home wakes up Monday morning. Until then, adieu.

By the way, bonus points to the first person from back home who can comment to tell me why Christmas and Halloween are the same holiday to a mathematician.

Nic

Sorry for the Silence

2008-07-22T21:06:00.001-07:00

First I want to apologize for the silence of the past two or three weeks. The issue with keeping a blog is that when you’re having enough adventures, you don’t get time to blog them. Rest assured that I have been busy and have plenty of stories to share: and now that Megan is gone I may have time to share them.

I figured at this point though, it might be best to write up a list of everything interesting and exciting that has happened in the last few weeks. This is both a means for you to hold me to the fire about my adventures, and a means for me to keep track of exactly what has happened that needs writing. I should note now that some of these may come under one blog post. They are:

1.) Megan in the hospital
2.) Nic’s (unsuccessful) search for beef
3.) Indian lunch, Indian Weddings
4.) Nic and Megan get lost in the Defense Colony ghetto
5.) Lodhi Gardens and the Lotus Temple, babies and the strange white man
6.) Cooking, fullness, and green chiles
7.) A goodbye to Megan
8.) Nic’s first solo adventure and how it went much smoother than any other adventure before it.

And hopefully soon to come:

1.) Nic’s (successful) search for beef
2.) Nic in Hyderabad
3.) Nic in a Hill Station
4.) (only if there is a windfall of money – and you are welcome to donate!) Nic in Goa

And while I’m at it a quick update on work. The project I had originally looked into is not a good idea. It is time consuming and the product may very well be quite slow. I realized this a week or two into the research, and have since talked with my coworkers and decided to move on to other things. So since then I have been doing many small tasks that are all part of one big task. I have a lot of freedom to dabble, and apart from chomping at the bit to move to a programming language other than Java, this has been so far a great experience and I have learned a ton (and hopefully am becoming somewhat productive as well).

Part IV: Lost in India (Take 1)

2008-07-22T21:03:00.000-07:00

Note: this is part 4 of a 4 part series. It begins with Introduction to Agra.

The way to the temple involved more head ducking, which I was unbelievably unhappy about. By this point Megan had covered her head with a scarf and was unrecognizeable – I, on the other hand, no longer aching for sleep as I was in the morning, lay down to carsickness and an aching head, wanting desperately to do anything except rest my head on my bookbag and pretend to be sleeping. This part of the ride was short, but painful, and thankfully we were not detained.

We stopped at a McDonalds and I got a Maharaja Burger (think of it as a combination spicy-chicken sandwich and Big Mac), and we traveled on to Khan Temple (I think that’s how it’s spelled/pronounced). The temple is in a random town (I don’t know the name) halfway between Agra and home, and is, shall we say, in a crowded section of town. By this point, I know that cell phones and cameras are not supposed to be used in the temples, and so I take them out and place them in my bag, which stays in the backseat of the car.

We were dropped off in the dark in the middle of a traffic jam. When I say that, know that I mean we were dropped off in the middle of traffic. While our lane was not moving very much, immediately upon exit we were assaulted by hordes of fast moving traffic. Now there was actually slightly more to it than that. In these temples, not only are you supposed to be barefoot, but they discourage taking your shoes with you, so we left them in the car.

After dodging through the traffic, we made our way through the metal detectors and walked into the temple. The whole thing smelled of roses. Bright colors, yellows and blues and pinks, adorned the walls. While the back was lined with shops, the front had some beautiful idols. A crowd of people gathered around the idols, some falling flat to the ground and moving their arms up and down, their bodies in a straight line. In the center, near the area where the idols stood looking happy and excited and golden, a group of men sat cross-legged on the floor singing praises to the gods. The center of the temple was open air, and a tree grew up through the center. While the hubbub of people was difficult to deny, the tree, the air, the smell of flowers and the singing made it all a purely serene experience.

I waded untouched through the crowd, stopping here and there to look at this painting, that idol. When we were all done, we went outside, where I immediately went into one of the marble buildings on the side. Turns out it was a shrine to a guru, some wise man who is now worshipped. As yet I cannot figure out what the purpose of that worship is or the rationale behind it (even after talking to Megan, who seems intensely knowledgeable on the subject), and I would imagine that it may be something which is inevitably outside my grasp.

We try to get in touch with our driver using a cell phone one person had brought with him, but cell phone service seems not to work in this area, and so we are left with no recourse but to find the car ourselves. And thus I wind up halfway across the world, on a street somewhere in India, so lost I know not which town I am in, with no cell phone, and in bare feet, wandering around with no knowledge of where I might find my transportation home. Worse, as we wander through the streets, we get company…and not the good kind. A young girl, skinny as a stick, in dirty, torn clothes comes up to us and holds out her hand. She whispers so softly that I can’t hear her, and I realize that if I could I wouldn’t be able to figure out what she was saying anyway, as it’s in Hindi. But I don’t need to – she’s asking for money.

A note about beggars: they’re here. All of them. Every streetcorner, every stoplight – if you look around, you’re bound to find a couple. And they are persistent. Every guide you might get regarding travel in India, and every native you meet, will tell you never to give to one, unless you want to attract the mob. Many of them also seem organized, as though there were a beggar’s union and they were pooling their profits.

Anyway, the point of the story is to not give to beggars. So as a reminder, not hours after being coddled by this amazing tour guide at one of the world’s most beautiful places, I find myself on a dark, dirty street corner, lost, in bare feet, and with a child beggar nipping my heels with her hand held out.

Okay, that’s where the ridiculousness ends. Eventually, a friend got the beggar to go away, we managed to get just enough reception to get our driver to come look for us, and we hung out at the street corner until he arrived. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring the car with him, so we hiked a short ways back to his car. And of course, as luck would have it, he winds up being parked next to a 25 foot tall golden statue of a Hindi god. Go figure.

We got into the car and drove home, with only one minor minor issue – THE ENTIRE ROAD WAS COVERED IN 18-WHEELERS. Apparently, they let them come into the city at night so they don’t crowd it in the daytime – a good policy, until you’re the small car stuck in between them. It was a 360-degree view of the sides of trailers. And of course, if you know anything about Delhi driving, you know that there was every chance that one of them would run over us.

When we finally got to the guesthouse, it was a little after 11. Man was I tired. But also excited – in one day, I had seen one of the most beautiful places in the world, and the land where people take bull dung and dry it out to cook food over. I was in a popular tourist attraction and a place where nobody appeared to have seen a white man before. I had seen peacocks, camels, and monkeys, that were native to India, and plants and trees from all over the world. I had a bad tour guide, a good tour guide, and toured without a guide. I had a morning where all I wanted to do was sleep, and then when I finally got a decent chance to put my head down, all I wanted to do was put it back up again. And best of all, I had gone from the beauty of farms and plains into the small town of Agra, and then into the truck-infested Delhi suburbs. All in all a pretty good day.

Part III: The Tomb of Shah Jahan

2008-07-08T21:57:00.000-07:00

Note: this is part 3 of a 4 part blog that begins with Introduction to Agra

We got into the car and began to drive towards the Taj, but it was not long before Sravanthi turned and started yelling “Nic, Megan, put your heads down.” Obediently, we complied.

Silence ensued in the car, and according to Sravanthi, the officers looked directly at the driver and walked towards the middle of the road as if to stop us. However, upon seeing that there were only four people in the car, all of whom were unmistakably Indian, they recognized it as a time-suck and walked back to whence they came.

A few minutes later we stopped the car to go get lunch, and I feebly poked my head out. We tried to find a guide, this time one who spoke good English, but Megan and I talked everyone out of it. Why did we need a guide to the Taj? Isn’t its beauty enough?

We caught a rickshaw ride and made it to the Taj in the middle of the afternoon. Dodging tour guides left and right, trying desperately not to get one, we made our way to the ticket window.

Tourism, as I said before, is either a religion or a sport or some other form of obsession in India, and they do it well. At the ticket booth, an Indian may pay 100 rupees ($2.50) or less for a visit to a national treasure. An American or other foreigner might pay 10 times as much.

Amit and Sravanthi decided to go to the window to get the tickets, and Megan got in the female line to get searched, which left me with Venkat staring at the impossibly long and incredibly slow guys line. Amit apparently saw it to, because as he was waiting in line, he ran into an older man who offered to be his guide. Amit at first said no, but when he heard the guy could get us through the line quickly, he got interested. Deciding that it was more important to not spend an hour in line, he accepted for 100 rupees, which is relatively cheap for a guide at such a nice place.

And what a guide he was. Not only did he get us through the line, as he said he would, but he spent every moment he could fighting voraciously to keep us from wasting our time. This man was practically pushing people out of the way so that we could take photos, he gave us all foot-covers so we didn’t have to take off our shoes in the tomb, and he took pictures for us in a place where pictures are strictly prohibited (apparently only unless you’re a VIP Guide). And his English was great.

I will grant you that I’m biased. The man, like the tour guide at the last place, was basically fawning over me. At one point he turned and pointed at me and said “You sir.” After I gave him my attention (at which point everyone else had long since tuned in), he points to the card around his neck and says “I am VIP Guide. YOU are my VIP.” And turns and walks to the next talking spot. At every photo we took, I would give him my camera, he would take a picture of the group, and then would ask me to stay to get a picture just by myself. We convinced him to take one of each of us a couple times, but every single time he wanted one of me.

The man was legitimately incredible as a tour guide, however. Very knowledgeable, but humble, he was there when we needed him but would always walk far enough ahead that we had all the space we could ask for. He recognized my nervousness about my camera and constantly gave it back to me after he had taken pictures. He sat with us for 15 minutes when we found a nice breeze and decided to take a break. He was…beyond belief. And I have his business card, so if you’re ever in the area, ask me and I’ll give you his contact information. Assuming he hasn’t changed it.

The Taj itself was perhaps even more incredible. Originally built to be the tomb of Mumtaz, Shah Jahan’s wife, it is an architectural masterpiece that I doubt I will ever see rivaled. Merely walking through the gate onto the grounds is an experience: everything is lined up, and the gate acts sort of as a lens, giving at first a view of only the main building, then two towers on the sides, then four, all in perfect symmetry. As you walk out onto the grounds, you notice more and more exotic flora than I have ever seen in one place before, and all designed to be permanent – evergreens, tall trees from Siberia, short ones from the Middle East, plants from all over the world that were put here as the Taj Mahal was built and have stayed until today.

The Taj Mahal took 22 years to build, and the architects planned on it taking exactly that long. The gate you walk in has 22 domes on it, in two sets of 11. One set is back and below the other, so for the full majesty of all 22 standing together in perfect symmetry you must look from the floor of the Taj itself, rather than merely being on the grounds. To get there, after passing through half of the garden, you reach a platform with a few seats on it. These seats have apparently been host to such greats as Shah Jahan and Bill Clinton, at least according to the tour guide. As you look towards the Taj, you see that perfect reflection in the pool of water that is so memorable from pictures of the place.

We walked past the pool, reached the building itself and put on some shoe covers. There are 22 steps to get to the entrance, one for each year. The entire building is made of marble, with chipped gems lining the walls in unbelievably intricate patterns (and the amount of gemstones embedded in the Taj must be worth more than the rest of India. The first four books of the Koran are printed around entrances – the first two on the gate to the courtyard that lay a couple hundred yards behind us, the third and fourth on the entrance to the tomb itself. As is the case with other monuments, the writing was made bigger the higher up it was so that everything looked the same size from the floor.

A guest house and a mosque are on the right and the left sides of the Taj, making the similarity truly complete. One step inside the tomb shows a hole in the ground that leads to where Mumtaz is really buried. Walking past that, the next room is a replica of what is below, with the most ornate marble carvings you have ever seen in your life. Mumtaz sits directly in the center, the midline of her body marking the line down which the symmetry rests on. Lying next to her, the only thing to break the perfect symmetry of this entire, perfect place, lies the tomb of Shah Jahan himself, placed there unknowingly by his daughter after his death. There is something vaguely eerie and thoroughly mystical about the entire area, and even now, three days later, just thinking about it sends a small chill of excitement down my back. We left the Taj, paid the tour guide with a (deservedly) outstanding tip, and returned back to the car, for our journey to Khan temple, and then home.

Part II: Fatehpur Sikri

2008-07-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

Note: this is part 2 of a 4 part post that begins with Introduction to Agra

Less than half an hour later, we reached Fatehpur Sikri. I still don’t know exactly what it is, other than it had something to do with Akbar, one of the Mughal rulers. I believe, though I’m not certain, that it was the location of the capital during Akbar’s time, but I also know that the belief could very easily be wrong.

How could I go to Fatehpur Sikri and leave without knowing exactly what it is, you ask? Weren’t there signs? Didn’t you hire a tour guide? There were, and we did.

Let me explain something quickly – tourism is practically a sport in Agra, and if it were, tour guides would be the competitors. As we originally made our way into the city, we CONTINUALLY dodged numerous Indian men that ran out in front of the car, almost as though they were daring us to hit them. Finally, on one narrow stretch of the road, one of the men managed to get in a position where there was nothing else to do but hit him. Or stop. So of course, we did the reasonable thing and put on the brakes.

He came over to the window and asked in Hindi if we needed a tour guide. We said we were fine. He began to argue, and showed his certificate as a licensed guide. Thankfully, we would have none of it.

Finally he left, and we managed to dodge the rest of the guides until we got to Fatehpur Sikri. Were that it were enough just to reach the parking lot. However, our next step was to catch a rickshaw to the historic site itself. We go to the road and all of a sudden I am surrounded by people. “You need guide,” one says in broken English, and between him and the others who are speaking in Hindi, I have no option but to stick my hands tightly in my pockets and try not to lose my friends.

In the shuffle of the crowding tour guides, I feel a pull on my arm. “Get in, quick,” Sravanthi says, and the rickshaw starts to move.

I duck in with a lack of flair and am confronted with an appalling sight. Rickshaws are meant to seat at most three people and a driver – three in the back, one in the front. We had successfully maintained the three in the back rule, thankfully, but in the front, I saw Amit and Venkash, two of my Indian friends, on my left, and on my right, a horde of tour guides clawing to get in.

The auto takes off, leaving a short young man in a lavender shirt. My friends talk to him in Hindi for a minute, and arrange a price for him to be our guide. Note that, as yet, he has not spoken a word of English.

The reason becomes apparent soon after we exit the rickshaw. Now to be perfectly fair to the man, he does know the language. He seems to know the language quite well, in fact. But his North Indian accent is thicker than the gravy in a pot of Cream Chicken, and I can understand maybe one out of every 100 words.

This was an unfortunate fact – more unfortunate was the fact that I was too stubborn to admit that I didn’t understand him. So I nodded, tried to act interested, and refrained from reading ANYTHING that might make it look as though I needed visual aids.

We reached the gates of Fatehpur (apparently a Mosque – which makes sense because the Mughals were Muslim) and took off our shoes. Our tour guide said…something…and we walked inside. The one thing I had gotten out of the tour so far was that the gate on our left was the tallest gate in Asia. No idea what that means, why it’s important, or its significance in Muslim culture. What I did see, however, were ancient, two hundred year old graves dotting the floor of the mosque, with names written in ancient and flowery Urdu.

Our tour guide immediately leads us to the only back alley in the entire mosque. I catch him saying random words… “Marble,” “cloth,” and “charity” are among them, and so I automatically assume he means to tell me that the men hiding in this back alley hawking bandannas are actually trying to give me something to place inside the marble structure out front. Now, why a charity would have to hide in a back alley, selling cloth to tourists and giving the proceeds to someone other than the well dressed men selling them, is beyond me, but what really confused me was when one of these charitable men answered a cell phone, asked who it was, then handed it to my guide, who engaged in a quite jovial conversation for a minute or two before hanging up. Anyway, my group of friends must have been the only ones who found it suspicious, because according to the tour guide (who repeated the phrase until he was sure I understood) “EVERYBODY does it.”

Well it must have been everybody minus five, because we went into the marble temple (which one friend told me was in fact Hindu) without being at all charitable. After dodging some more requests for donations, we made our way out from the statuesque marble and began to further explore the mosque.

We went to the front of the mosque and our tour guide said something unintelligible about a row of arches we had just walked through. I peered knowingly down the stretch and oohed as though it all made sense. When I looked around, Megan had a baby in her arms.

Apparently, the child’s parents either thought her a goddess or wanted to one day convince their child it was white. I’m banking on the latter. Either way, they approached her, said “just one photo,” and all of a sudden, there she was with a baby in her arms while the family snapped pictures. I took one too, just for kicks. Apparently Megan contemplated just walking off with the baby like it was a gift. Mothers, please think twice before giving your baby to anybody from California.

On the far side from our entrance there were multiple artisans selling wares, which was where our tour guide took us next. I was hoping he had decided he wanted a trinket for himself, but he in fact had a far more devious plan in mind. As the others pulled away to take pictures or look at trinkets, our tour guide approached me, and spoke about twice as clearly as he had at any point so far.

“Sir, I [garbled English]. I am student. My girlfriend and I [garbled English] and it would be great if you could pay me in American dollars.”

Touched as I was by the story, I had no American dollars with me. I told him so and moved away hurriedly, hoping to lose him in the crowd. I walked through Volan gate, and everything paused for a second.

Volan gate is beautiful. You walk through it, and you are all of a sudden standing on top of the world. It’s like a redstone terrace overlooking the entire Indian countryide. Beautiful isn’t a description one could use to describe walking out that gate, nor could pictures do it justice. I could almost imagine myself, in a mosque somewhere deep in the Himalayas, looking out over the whole world.

Then the vendors descended. They were EVERYWHERE. Snow globes, handmade rattles, handiwork and crafts of all sorts. There were VEGETABLE vendors, for goodness sake. At VOLAN GATE.

I went out and looked quickly, shot a picture, and ran with my tail between my legs to get away from the mob. Back inside Fatehpur, I waited until we collected everybody, and then decided that the next step was to leave without seeing Sikri.

As we leave, someone brings up the camel rides that are available to go back down to the parking lot. Earlier that day I had brought up my ambition to ride a camel while I was here, and so we very quickly decided to make the camel ride our course of action.

The ride itself, disappointingly, was in the back behind the camel. But our guide, who at the very least gets points resilience, asked if I wanted to ride. Is that actually a question?!

Next thing I know, I’m up on the camel as it trots slowly down the road. A stream of people walk past, most looking up and either staring or laughing hysterically. I don’t care. I’m riding a camel. From the cart where the others were riding, I hear my tour guide shout, nearly as loud as he could, “HANDSOME AMERICAN MAN ON TOP OF THE CAMEL,” as though announcing my presence to the entire world. He was to do it two more times before I dismounted.

The camel itself was incredible. Its legs, sinewy and strong, spoke of its raw power. There was no saddle, but rather a harness, which turned out to be even easier to ride in. The ride was not bumpy, nor was it the slightest bit uncomfortable. In a sense, it wasn’t a true camel ride, but just to say “I did it,” this was enough. Next up is the elephant, which I’m hoping will be even more rewarding.

When we got to the parking lot, I knew exactly what would come next, and I hope you do as well. As everyone disembarked, our tour guide sidled up beside me and softly whispered “You can tip me. Whatever you like.” After the tour we had just gotten, I totally ignored him, and as I brushed past him to walk away his entreaties became slowly louder and louder, until finally I moved past any distance that could allow for remorse and he became silent.

Introduction To Agra

2008-07-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday could not in any way be described adequately in a single blog post. The symmetry, the adventure, the absolute freshness and beauty of it all not only renders anything I might be able to say meaningless in my mind, but also means that I cannot hope to even touch on half of what I have seen in the last 24 hours. To be brief, yesterday was the day I went to the Taj Mahal. Except that doesn’t describe it. Yesterday was the day I went to Agra. No, I guess the best way to put it is this: yesterday was the day I saw rural India. Except Agra is most certainly not rural. So how about this: yesterday was the day I saw the most beautiful collection of sights I have ever seen.

I will be splitting this post, then, into four sub-posts: rural India; Fatehpur, the Taj Mahal, and the return home, including Khan Temple and possibly a cohesion meant to bring to light the elemental forces blowing like the wind throughout the entire day. I will not aim to be brief – while any expression of yesterday would be inaccurate, a brief summary would fail to do justice not only to the events of the day, but to the awesome power it held and its serene, Hindu-esque balance, and I cannot allow such an injustice to stand.

It all began at around 6:00 in the morning on a silent Noida street (actually, it began at around 5:30 when the cab got a flat and the driver had to get it replaced before picking us up, and making us coincidentally about half an hour late, but I’m starting the story at 6). The reason this street was silent was that it was a Saturday, and that it was 6:00. While the silence normally would have been somewhat eerie, I was unable to process it in my own half-awake state. What I do remember, though, is the driver talking in loud, harsh Hindi tones to my friend Sravanthi. She responded in turn, keeping me awake by a bare half decibel. It was torturous, and I finally realized that sleep, unfortunately, was just was not going to happen.

The situation was that the car we had hired for the day was not a licensed cab. Or the situation was that Megan and I are foreigners, depending on how you look at it all. Rationally, in my mind, the situation was that India is internationally known for its amazing tourist attractions.

The situation in fact centered around a rule that required all tourists use vehicles that had a tourist permit. The permit included all registered cabs. Our car, obviously, was not a registered cab, nor did it have a tourist permit, but that was perfectly fine because the police didn’t actually check at tourist sights. You had to be very unlucky to get caught. At least, you were unlucky unless you were in the tourist capital of India with two white people in your car – then it was just a simple process of deduction and an equally simple ignorance of the need for proof, and all of a sudden your stupidity left you facing the long arm of the law.

After debating for a while, the driver stopped the car and we sat, making phone calls to try to get a car with a permit, updating various people about the situation, and generally trying to find a solution to the conundrum however we could. Five minutes later, having found nothing, the driver inched out into the road again, leaving the issue threateningly unresolved. We continued on to get the last member of our party, then headed towards Agra.

The driver claimed he knew a shortcut that would take us straight to Fatehpur Sikri, our first destination. It had the advantage of keeping us outside of Agra, and therefore outside of the range of the cops, for longer, and so we agreed. I put my head against the window and tried once again to regain the precious hours of sleep I had lost for this trip. Once again, however, my efforts were cruelly thwarted, this time both by our Indian companions discussing breakfast options and the quality of the roads on this shortcut. I was too tired to eat, and did not like the thought of food getting in the way of sleep. However, as before, I bent knee to the powers that be and decided to stay up just a little while longer.

The next thing I know, we are out of the city, which brought a temporary cease-fire to my struggle with the one major issue I had with Delhi – the crowds. I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, a day in which there would be no loud clanging, no noisy chattering, no healthy women trying to beg for food in nice dresses (uh-huh…I know what you’re thinking, and yes…normal here). I got up and began to take stock of my surroundings.

The North Indian countryside is beautiful. It is green, stretching as far as the eyes can see (which is not far, given the Delhi smog). On occasion, one might see a farmer working the field (with his bare hands) or a woman carrying a jug of water on her head. Every mile or so, we pass a small farm town, full of pink and blue house-like structures and with children and cattle running amuck. Men walk to and fro with large stems of some vegetable across their back, and on occasion a pony, bull, or camel pulls a cart full of crop into town.

After a while, the car lulls to silence, and I turn and put my head down, trying once more to fall back to sleep. As soon as my head hits the wall, however, I hear Sravanthi yell “Roko! Hey guys, look, a peacock!”

I grudgingly get up once again from the nap that was never to be and faced a small field. A dirt mound sprung up in the center, seemingly out of nowhere, and on top of that stood the bird. Full in all his glory, the peacock’s beautiful turquoise neck and light midsection gave way to a closed tail. His head was held high, as he stood at the center of the dirt mound, seemingly watching the whole field from that one little roost. He kept his head high long enough for me to take a picture, then walked down the mound and back up again, as if to show that yes, we may have caught his beautiful form on camera, but it was merely a glimpse of what he truly was.

We got back in the car and continued on our way. The road became steadily rockier as the countryside became somehow, indescribably more rural. The spacing between farm towns did not change, but the people became fewer and farther between. As we moved through a town, we passed a child, stark naked, standing right next to the street, adults all around him, and nobody minding. All of a sudden, though, the car began to slow down and lose a little control. Flat tire, take two.

We pulled over to the left side of the road, right next to a pair of bull-cows. As the driver got out of the car, a man on our right exited his home (there are no doors on the houses on these farms – only a roof over their heads, so he merely stepped down from the structure into the dirt to leave his abode. He was wearing a towel around his waist, and nothing else. As I watched, he moved to the water spout outside, filled a bucket, and began to shower, staring awkwardly at the car full of outsiders the whole time.

I turned away, unable to bear this invasion of privacy, just in time to see one of the bull-cows defecate directly in front of me. I pointed this out, and the Indians in the car began to give us a detailed description of how the bullsh*! would be picked up and made into dried cakes, to burn as fuel.

As we sat there, the smell of manure began to slowly seep into the car. A crowd of children had gathered around us now, eager to see the outsiders – especially the white man (for some reason, they took a quick look at Megan and seemed to pass her by. I claim she looks more Indian than I do – perhaps I’m right).

Five minutes later, with about 10 children staring at me, stupefied, the driver manages to put on a new tire. Luckily for us, it was a full one, rather than a spare, and so rather than driving to the nearest auto shop and sitting in rural India for the rest of the day, we continued on one of the best journeys of my life.

On Indian Food

2008-06-30T22:31:00.001-07:00

When I landed in India, I decided to become a vegetarian while I was here.

…

Ok, those of you who know me well are hopefully in hysterics right now, and those of you who aren’t…well, let’s go get coffee the next time I’m in town and get to know each other better. And I’m serious about that one – take me up on it.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m pretty much a sworn carnivore. I have in fact previously stated that I would never even DATE a vegetarian – then of course every single girl I’ve wanted to date since then has told me that they don’t eat meat. Go figure. (By the way, ladies, just to clarify – that stipulation has been replaced with one that merely demands that you promise to not make ME into a vegetarian. Just don’t push your luck).

Let me give you an idea of what Indian food is like. As far as I can tell, it mainly consists of three of your basic food groups: grains, gravy, and fried stuff.

Starting in the back, we have the fried deliciousness of vegetables. Yes, that’s right, I said veggies – I haven’t seen any meat in this food group, much to my dismay. People here will deep-fry a lot of things – from onions to chili peppers (and the chili peppers, let me tell you, are good). Fried food is very popular among street vendors, because, while it may be the sort of thing that could kill you in the States, on the Delhi streets, anything out of a deep-fryer is naturally more healthy than the alternative – and that’s not just because one of the flies that drowned in the gravy could have been your great grandmother in a past life.

Gravy here is what people in the states who are not chefs might call “sauce.” It usually consists of some kind of meat (usually chicken or mutton) or vegetable in a thick, spicy liquid. While there is some available on the street, for a couple bucks more you can keep from risking your life and get some at a nice restaurant (high-end food at one of the best restaurants in town might run you about 10 USD). Of course, that’s assuming you know the ins and outs of eating, which is where the third food group comes in.

Grains take two varieties here – rice and, for lack of a better word, bread. Rice is commonly just your ordinary, steamed rice. If you’ve eaten at almost any Asian restaurant before you know how it works. However, unlike a lot of Asia, India generally prefers bread as not only its main grain, but its main utensil as well. That’s right – bread here is a disposable spoon. As such, it’s usually laid out in flat pieces, called roti, naan, prantha…I’m not really sure which one’s which.

To eat with bread, you break off a triangular piece, being careful not to use your left hand at all – it’s considered unsanitary and would contaminate not only the bread but any gravy that it touches. You then fold that piece up, pointy part facing out, and scoop up some of the gravy and eat it, once again without using your left hand. It’s a slow, sometimes frustrating process that can take days to master.

Even given a full working knowledge of how to eat Indian food, however, the question of what to eat, or drink, is about as difficult a question as any – specifically for an American tourist. I’ll give it to you in the form of a quiz: which of the following is the most dangerous: a piece of fried broccoli from a street vendor, some Daal Makhani (lentils in gravy) from a sketchy cafeteria, an ice-cold coke, or water from the cooler at my office?

Seriously…take a second and guess.

Hopefully the question didn’t catch you too much off guard, and you wound up washing down the lentils and broccoli with some water. If you didn’t, you might have wound up like Megan, who spent three days getting over 10 bags of IVs pumped into her at a nearby hospital because she took ice in her drink at one of the nicest restaurants in Noida. And yes, I’m serious about that – she just got back yesterday, and had to fight to get released even at that.

The issue is that while boiling water can kill parasites, freezing it isn’t quite as effective. And most restaurants, even nice ones like Geoffrey’s, may skimp a little by NOT using filtered or bottled water to cool their drinks, using instead the unfiltered tap water. Most Indians can handle this quite well, as their bodies have grown accustomed to it after generations of sending those parasites packing, but our frail, sheltered American bodies don’t stand a chance. And so we spend days tethered to a leash in an Indian hospital with an American friend and (thank goodness for me) a couple really hot nurses while enough drugs are pumped into our system that we have more drugs than blood. And then we escape by sheer force of will. But that’s either a story for another day or for Megan’s blog.

And by the way – the vegetarian thing? I broke in about 3 days. The bitterness of failure was totally drowned out by the taste of the chicken, too.

Swaminaraya Akshardam Temple

2008-06-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

When Indians decide to build a monument, they do it right. Not just a statue, or a garden, or even a small building. When there’s something worth celebrating, it’s worth at least a couple of acres worth of gardens and crenellations.

So it is with Swaminaraya Akshardam. Named for Swaminaraya, a master yogi from the 18th century, this temple is large in every way. From its sweeping Lotus Garden to the 27 foot tall statue of the young yogi, the Akshardam is more a tourist attraction than a Hindu temple.

While anyone who works at the temple will tell you that it was built between 2000 and 2005, in reality there is still work being done on it today. The amount of construction is hardly noticeable, however, beside the amazing beauty and size of the temple grounds.

One enters the temple after what is the most exhausting security search I have yet been through. I’m fine being patted down for guns, knives, and whatnot, but when they ask me to check my bag and any electronics at the door, including cell phones, I get a bit nervous. Megan and I did so, however, and after the metal detectors and pat down, we found ourselves on the grounds.

A left took us to an information center, and another right then took us to the most beautiful structure my eyes have ever beheld. The temple itself is situated at the center of the grounds, is a tannish copper in color, and is maybe 50 feet tall, seated on a series of steps that perhaps double its height. Every inch, and I do mean every inch, of the outside of the temple is decorated with intricate stonework. A pillar might have its weight held by eight symmetrical foot-tall human statues, or you might see a herd of elephants lifting from the temple’s base.

A walkway forms a square around the temple itself, and is equally ornate. It is perhaps half a mile in perimeter, and every so often branches into a lookout where you can get a good view of the temple artwork.

To your left as you face the temple is a fountain, and that is where Megan and I first headed. The fountain was under repairs, but the surrounding area must seat thousands of Hindu yogis and scholars during their ceremonies. At the far end, facing the temple, is a 27 foot tall statue of Swaminaraya at around 11 years old, as he began a 7 year journey through India on his way to becoming a yogi and a master.

Megan and I head past all this without inspecting the statue and make our way to the first exhibition. That’s right, an exhibition, like a theme park ride. In a religious temple. The exhibition depicted the life of Swaminaraya from his journey at age 11, through the miracles he performed, and past his ascension to master to the impact he has had on the world since his death. It focuses in particular on his message of peace on earth and nonviolence towards all creatures great and small (yes – Swaminaraya’s followers are all vegetarians). According to the Hindu religion, his first miracle was actually bringing fish back to life and making them disappear, then convincing the fishermen to give up their ways and become nonviolent.

As all Hindu yogis, Swaminaraya began a journey of prayer and meditation, but unlike the others, he did it at the tender age of 11. This trek led him to face carnivorous animals, the cold of the Himalayan winters, and even the roaring sea with nothing but love and his bare feet. During this time he became a yogi, and at the end of the journey, he ran into the old master, who made Swaminaraya into the new master, calling him “the one true master” and saying that he was only Swaminaraya’s servant.

The most interesting part of this exhibition was the plea towards vegetarianism at the end. It had pictures of different animals all complaining about how their lives were hurt by human plundering. My favorite was a lion who complained that he had paws and teeth for hunting, but humans didn’t and were taking his prey anyway. Before I could find the nearest person to expound the virtues of canine teeth and opposable thumbs to, Megan found me and whisked me off.

Next we went on a ride that Megan described as “It’s a small India after all.” The basic scheme is that you get on a boat, and you ride through this dark maze while they tell you all about the different parts of Indian culture. Sound like an accurate name? You betcha.

I have to say I found it a little…inaccurate, though. According to the ride, India is the land that discovered gravity, invented the zero, created chess, flew the first airplane, created plastic surgery, and was the birthplace of democracy. And yes, it seriously claimed all that. No joking. It was fun and air conditioned, though.

Next, after food and checking out that 27-foot tall statue, came an Imax movie about Swaminaraya. Basically the same things as the first exhibit, but with some more detailed information.

Next came the temple itself. To enter, you must first remove your shoes, then walk up about 50 steps onto the raised dais where the temple sits. It is then, as you slowly walk into the temple, that you see a 10-foot tall golden statue of the yogi himself in prayer, surrounded by supplicants.

The inside of the temple is solid marble and is, if anything, even more ornate than the outside. Every inch of marble is covered by intricate, detailed designs, each working into a larger design and into the pattern as a whole. Pictures of the yogi, his life, and many Hindu gods and goddesses line the walls. While many Hindu men, each wearing the dot on his forehead to symbolize his faith, hold up signs asking for silence, a quiet chatter can be heard throughout the temple. Megan and I look around and then exit.

Next is the lotus gardens, which are unremarkable except for the great samosas at the food court. We eat, then leave, without checking out the gardens below the temple’s entrance.

On our way back we perform the best bargaining of our careers. We get a horde of auto rickshaw drivers to surround us, and then talk them down. Our original price is 75, but they won’t go below 100, because it’s touristy here and we’re white. Finally, I mention to Megan that she should call a cab, and she gets on the phone with EZ Cab. We actually purchase a cab and begin to walk away before the rickshaw drivers relent. It goes quickly to 75 after that.

Next comes shopping at Sector 18. We begin with some food at this amazingly nice, very expensive restaurant on the second floor of the building. The price of a meal there? $6. And yes, that includes the swing you’re sitting on as your seat with the plush cushions, and the waiter who refuses to let you serve yourself ANYTHING. And part of that was that they charged 50 rupees ($1.25) for a bottle of water.

I racked up at Sector 18. I got three nice shirts (two Van Heusen shirts I could use to go to a bar, and a pink button-down), a pair of black Diesel jeans, a belt, and some Indian formalwear. Grand total? About $100. Megan tried to get an Indian dress, but they totally screwed up the tailoring and she had to get her money back.

When we got back to the guest house at the end of the day, they had set up an open air farmer’s market. We got some mangos, some bananas, and some fruit that I had never heard of and have no idea how to pronounce or spell, but is still reaaaaally good. Just when I was starting to feel like a local, though, I realized that I had no idea how to bargain for fruit, and there is definitely a great video of me trying to bargain while the rest of the Indian world laughs at me. The video, by the way, will most likely be deleted by the time I get back to the states.

Excuse the prose-y introduction, but Old Delhi is a good story.

2008-06-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

The old man silently approached me at the steps of the antiquated mosque, whip in hand. He stood silently, watching as I joked with my friends. And then, when the time was right, he struck.

The story begins at the Connaught Place Metro Station. Some of Megan’s coworkers and I had begun our journey into ancient Shahjahanibad, the city of the great Mughal ruler from the mid 16th century. After purchasing our tickets (which are these really cool little circular “chips” – they look a little like thick blue coins) we made our way to the metro.

Metros in Delhi are much more high class than anything I have seen anywhere else. The stations are all air conditioned, as are the rail cars. As if that weren’t enough, they actually keep it clean, both in the terminal and in the car. Security is tight here. They split you into two lines, one for males and one for females, and send you through a metal detector. Then they search you, which involves, at the very least, patting your pockets and running a small metal detector over your body. Then comes the bag search – every pocket searched, every metal object described. Then you swipe your ticket, and you’re good to go.

After taking the metro between two stops whose names I didn’t understand (because they were in Hindi), we arrived in Shahjahanibad, or Old Delhi. Imagine New York, only twice as dirty, more crowded, and with only brown-skinned people and Hindi signs, and you’ve got a decent picture. Dodging large automobiles whizzing by us at lightning speeds, we slowly made our way towards the Red Fort.

We go to the Fort and purchase tickets, then make our way inside. It’s a hassle, and there’s almost as much security as the metro station. Once we make it into the outer fort, we’re greeted with shops and other touristy things. Inside of that is a garden, and then the checkpoint where we hand them our tickets. Unfortunately, the tickets we bought were all for Indians only, and we somehow can’t convince them I’m a native, so we wind up going back and paying about 10 times as much for a set of foreigner tickets for me and Megan.

The Red Fort was Shah Jahan’s abode while he ruled India, and is as extravagant as you would expect it to be. Everything is as open air as possible – the Shah’s throne is located in a throne room that is open on three sides, and even the bedchambers have no doors and many entrances. To walk from one part of the palace to another takes you out under open sky. Water plays a key role here – it’s scarcity in Indian culture makes its presence in this fort all that more extravagant. Water begins by flowing through the center of each bedroom, making its way to a central area before it filters slowly down to a fountain in the center of the courtyard. There are multiple museums here, and we go to two of them – an archaeology and a war museum, both with artifacts dating back as early as the 14th century.

Upon exiting the fort, we take a bicycle rickshaw (yes, I have gotten BACK INTO those things, and not just once, either) towards the Jama Masjid – the largest mosque in all of India. We exit the rickshaws, and are there, at the mosque. While we are deciding whether to ask the rickshaw drivers to wait on us or not, an old, grizzled man sneaks up on us with a whip. I turn in surprise.

“You want whip?” He asks. “It’s camel leather.”

I hold it in my hand. “Looks nice,” I say, and then ask how much it costs. “kitna?”

“Only 450 rupees” (11.25 USD) he says. My entire group snickers. I politely say no, and we move up the steps of the Mosque, with him following comically in tow asking how much I would pay for it.

At one point, he stops and looks confused for moment. “Wait. What are you doing at a mosque?” He asks my friends in Hindi.

“What would we be doing with a whip?” they reply, then laugh as we continue up the steps.

The mosque is an experience unto itself. Separate from the hubbub of the Old Delhi streets, it is quiet, peaceful, and serene. There is a water fountain in the center of the courtyard, where people in white robes sit and wash themselves. A flock of birds fly around and land as they please, their cawing adding to the peacefulness found inside these walls. To come in, we are asked to put on long skirts so our legs are not bare, and take off our shoes. We comply willingly. They also ask us to pay 200 rupees to bring in our cameras. No such luck. We finally decide on leaving two people behind with the cameras and sending everyone else in to the mosque.

After moving through the inside of the courtyard, we reach a building that is open on one end. Inside, my feet feel cool on the marble floor, and I watch 20 or so Muslims kneel, their arms and torsos moving up and down as they worship towards Mecca.

After paying some money, we climb to one of the tall towers located at each corner of the mosque. The steps are narrow, dark, and steep, and every time we come upon someone going down, we are forced to flatten ourselves against the side and hope that they missed lunch today. When we finally get to the top, the view is outstanding, and you can see all of Delhi. The people, though, are not as outstanding, and it is in fact the most crowded place you can imagine. I manage to weasel my way to the side of the tower for the best view, and before I know it I am pressed up against the grate unable to move because there is literally no room for anyone else out here.

I’m fine with it for a moment, but after a while I get tired of this and so I spend a good two minutes turning myself into a position to push away from the wall. Once that happens I use my elbows a little, and in about five minutes I have walked the 3 feet to the stairs. Back down, then out, and then on to the Street Food Tour.

The Street Food Tour is almost what you’d expect it to be. We meet my coworkers and head to Dellihaat, an open air tourist market. There, lined up in a row, are eateries from most states in India. Not the most sanitary places in the world necessarily, but good enough. And I don’t think these guys really understand exactly what we can and can’t eat.

We got food from two places – South Indian and Rajastani. I was still hungry, but at that point it was worth not getting anything more just to keep from dealing with the awkwardness that was paying. I half get the feeling that everybody is being paid to entertain us because they’re being so generous, but I don’t want to push too hard to pay for things for fear of offending anybody. I managed to get them to let me buy some things with a little persuasion, but still...

Anshum’s sister took Megan to get some gifts and a Henna tattoo, and the guys went drinking. Apparently Anshum’s sister is very good at bargaining. Megan says it was a sight to see, sort of like a catfight, and I can only wish I had been there.

We took a cab back to NOIDA, and I’m going to pass out. Tomorrow we decided to go to Akshardam temple. From the looks of it, that might be another post on its own.

The Beauty Within the Chaos

2008-06-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

I realize that I have been writing posts so far that are dangerous, scary stories designed to sweep you off your feet with my bravery, daring, and intelligence. But while the East may be different, I would hesitate to call it backwards.

Today’s story begins when I walked into the office on day 1 (ready to go, and close to 3 am your time. I’m like Hillary Clinton. Word.). After a meeting with HR and with my new boss Vibhore, I meet the Naukri tech team and get introduced to a problem they had been working on for some time now.

Within the space of two days, Anshum, the guy who was showing me the ropes in the office, and I had designed a complete overhaul of the entire resume searching part of the site. It’s pretty thoroughly researched, and totally genius – I can’t tell you the design, but all in all it will cut the amount of data being stored on the Naukri servers and at the same time speed up search, and make everything more flexible for upgrading, allowing you to customize the system both to accommodate more data and more access…separately. It may be the most beautiful thing I have ever had a hand in creating. And I actually had a hand and made a number of decisions early in the planning stages.

I’ve heard it said that people here spend more time talking about what they’re going to do than they do actually doing it, and while that may be the case, I think that what I have seen more than anything else is just care in approach. We’re giving ourselves an open-ended timeline, sure, but we’re into the “doing” part now, after about 3 days of talking, for what may be the biggest overhaul this company has seen since it was created. And there are only two people working on it.

The guys are great. They all speak English very well, and many have actually been to the United States. By the end of the first day, I already had a busy social calendar – drinking, watching (and playing) soccer, going on food tours of Old Delhi and to see Agra…the list goes on.

After the (honestly) dullness that was my life at Princeton, this is the kind of experience, the kind of challenge I’m looking for. And it’s difficult on all fronts. Hopefully, the rickshaws will turn out to be as much of a positive experience as work has been already.

The Post My Mom May Never Hear About

2008-06-17T05:07:00.001-07:00

So I haven't told my mom about this blog, and I haven't said anything for a reason (and, coincidentally, I'd ask you not to as well). There are certain things about Asia that mom would freak out at if she knew. And I'm about to tell you about one of them: the bicycle rickshaw.

Imagine, if you will, riding in a small, open carriage behind a horse. Only now there's no horse, there's a bicycle. And somebody biking on it while you sit in the back. The carriage is fairly open and really flimsy, and not only could you be thrown from it, but the whole thing shakes with every pedal. Further, imagine that this driver is biking not on the sidewalk, not in a garden somewhere, but in the middle of heavy traffic, with cars whizzing by a mere foot or two from the outer edge of the carriage at around 40 miles an hour. Further, your driver is being somewhat unpredictable, sometimes moving out into the middle of a lane, sometimes turning not away but towards cars, buses, trucks...

What you have is something called a bicycle rickshaw. Yes, it actually exists. And a lot of people ride them, surprisingly. Including most recently, me.

You see, Megan's phone went dead because of some bureaucratic issues - some forms that other people didn't turn in on time. So when we wanted to go home last night, we couldn't call EZCab, and instead had to fend for ourselves. We tried to find a regular cab, or an auto-rickshaw (which are gas powered and slightly more closed), but the search revealed nothing other than a great picture of a cow traveling alone down the middle of the road (I'm still trying to get the time to get one of a cow on a really crowded street - and the jackpot would be two cows in "courtship" with cars whizzing by). Anyway, we finally got frustrated because it was getting late and started hailing down the bicycles.

The guy we got was old and out of shape, but only charged us 50 rupees (about $1.25) to get back to the house, and that was without bargaining very hard. We were getting passed, not just by the cars and buses and auto-rickshaws, but by other bikes. I felt so bad for the guy.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we finally got to the house, alive, and got a great experience out of it. Yay!

In which I am not kidnapped.

2008-06-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

I am here.

I almost came here either broke or very very late. As it is, the fact that I am here at all, rather than in the basement of some man's office, is quite lucky. Silly American man that I am.

When I get to the airport, there is supposed to be a car picking me up. There is not a car picking me up. I look everywhere - the airport, the private car section - I even checked every single license plate. Meanwhile, a man named Mr. Omid comes up, greets me in near-perfect English, and offers me a ride in his cab. He's nice enough that I tell him "ok, sure, if I can't find my driver, you're next in line."

Since my driver doesn't show up, he gets another man to pull his car around, we get in, and he says it will be 3000 rupees. That's $83. I say turn around and take me back to the airport. As he explains the expenses involved, including the fact that the tax to Uttar Pradesh is 600 rupees alone, I just continue iterating that it's too much. He can come as low as 1700, he says, but no more.

We make a deal. He drops me off at his office, where I get into another car and another driver takes me to Uttar Pradesh. 1200 rupees. So here I am, my first car ride in this country, and I'm in the back behind two large men who are planning on taking me to some unknown location, making me get out and switch my bags to another car of their choosing, and driving for two hours into and then out of the middle of nowhere. Needless to say I'm nervous. In fact, I'm gonna go with scared. And it doesn't help that they are eerily nice - they give me a business card, they talk to me in detail about what's going on, and are generally so reassuring that it's like they know I should be freaking out.

I really don't want to be kidnapped, but I think it's definitely possible and maybe probable. So I ask one man if I can borrow his phone to call my emergency contact for some information. I don't really need to know anything, I just want him to know I am alive and well and in India and reachable at this number at the moment, so if I do get kidnapped there is a chance someone might find me. He lets me make the call. While I've got Mr. Kaul on the line, I let him help me haggle a little on the price - but no avail - 1200 rupees it is.

With Mr. Kaul informed I tell Omid and the driver that I was nervous but am feeling better. They're talking Hindi over my head - not that I could understand them if they were speaking the 5 sentences I do know, but I get the feeling they're laughing a little at my paranoia.

We turn off at the office and make the trade. My new driver speaks no English at all. He's a great guy though - works his butt off trying to find Sector 55. The new car is not air conditioned and has flies and mosquitoes flying around, but I could sure care less. What I do care about is the clusterf**k that is the driving around here. There are lanes that the Indian government has quite nicely painted on the roads - it would be awesome if people actually used them. As it is, a 3-lane highway fits about 5 cars and 3 motorcycles side by side. And people are constantly shifting around and jockeying for position. People are walking right in between the cars while they're moving, and everybody gives the cows in the road a wide berth (yes, that's right, cows. In the middle of the road. And it's normal.)

We drive for over two hours just to get there because traffic is so bad. When we finally get to NOIDA (in Uttar Pradesh), we start driving a little slower, and my driver asks basically every fifth person how to get to A-1, Sec-55, where I will be living. About half of the people tended to point one way, and another half would point the other way. Didn't matter how close we were: I think we were looking at the building at one point and somebody told us to drive past it and take a left.

When we finally arrived, about 4 hours after I got off the plane, I paid the man his 1200 rupees, and tipped him 100 (about $2.75 USD) in gratitude. His eyes got really big and he looked really excited. Me, I was just excited to know that I was going to have a bed for the night.

IT'S CALLED MEAT!

2008-06-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

Don’t read books, and meat is weird. That’s the message I have gotten from my first international flight.

It all began on a puddle jump from Richmond to JFK. The flight was only about an hour and a half, but I spent all of it reading a book on loan from a friend (The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch). Don’t read books.

Here’s why: at the beginning of the flight, the woman next to me makes a comment about how good the book is, and I sort of dully respond. It is not until I put down the book with five minutes left before we get off the plane that I realize this blond-haired woman in her early 40s is in fact the owner of a number of pharmaceutical companies all across the world, and is currently traveling to one in Switzerland. She’s a veritable fount of information, and as bubbly and talkative as you can be. Unfortunately, after about five minutes, we part ways, and the only things I really get out of her are that she thinks she has an “entrepreneurial spirit,” and very detailed instructions to get to terminal 4.

The next step was Air India flight 102, also known as WOW. It’s this massive Boeing 777 (I’d never been on a plane so big), with beautiful stewardesses in full Indian dress and Bollywood films as in-flight movie options. Now I don’t tell many people this, but I’ve got a bit of a fear of flying. Every buck, every roll, every drop or change of direction sends this big adrenaline rush through my body, and I want to jut flip out and tell the pilot to land. Most flights previously have consisted of me trying to deny my own fear for a good 4 or 5 hours, which totally isn’t going to stop me from flying but does make things a bit uncomfortable. The 777, however, is so stable that I was fine for the entire 14 hour long flight – even slept for a couple hours.

The in-flight experience was kind of a funny one, though. Imagine, if you will, me, an American on his first flight out of the country, randomly being sat next to an old grandmother who only spoke Hindi (I speak maybe 5 sentences) and needed someone there to take care of her. She would gesticulate wildly with her arms, and say something completely unintelligible to me (except for the occasional “handbag”), and I would be left saying “I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” which she obviously didn’t understand either. This went on for a good five minutes, and then she finally got up and switched seats with a teenage boy in the row behind her so she could be with people who could understand her (which apparently is everyone but me here).

Then came the in-flight dinner. The options were “veg or non-veg.” And the horror began. For those of you who know me well, I am not just a person who eats meat. I’m a meat-eater. A carnivore if you will – a friend one described my perfect meal as “steak on top of steak with a side of steak, and maybe some steak for dessert.” It’s not that I don’t eat other things – in fact, I really enjoy steak fries. It’s just that I really like meat. Anyway, the point is that here I am, for the first time in my life being described not as “regular” or as “a meat eater,” but as “non-veg!” What am I getting myself into for the next couple months?

I took my non-veg (and simultaneously non-Indian) dinner, though, and I ate every bite. I have sort of decided to start warming up to the experience by not refusing to try any food that’s put in front of me. While that may not be the case once I begin to eat in India (due to the untreated water), for now I think it’s putting me in the mood to experiment and take (healthy) risks.

An Auspicious Moment

2008-06-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Chaalaa. While its common Hindi meaning is "motion," it also refers to "An auspicious moment considered fit for going on a journey" (and yes, I did have to look that up). Anyway, that's what this is - one slice of time so beautifully contrived that it is not only fit for an epic traveler's tale, it requires one.

This voyage to India began as if by fate, and I do believe that fate provides the motive force that will see me through. It is as though my whole life, all those failed attempts at trips to France, Canada, Mexico - everything was building to this one point at which I embark on a journey of exploration and dedication. Now that my undergraduate education is complete, I have an opportunity to recognize what parts of that education are universal. What a fortunate time to get a glimpse of the world!

I leave in two days. Am I excited? Of course. Nervous? You bet. But I already have learned so much just from thinking about going, just from the idea of it, that the vast stores of knowledge and truth awaiting me halfway across the world pull at me like the earth pulls at a compass needle, drawing me slowly but surely towards the great land where curry is an art form and cows freely roam the streets.

This blog is meant to chronicle my journey and provide both glimpses of what I have seen and what meaning I have found in those sights. While the majority will (sadly) be seen from the inside of an office, my hope is to break out from the work and make my way as much as possible into the daily life of Delhi. Join me.