May 15 -- 8:13pm
I get back to my Kathmandu hotel exhausted. My legs hurt from the knees to the toes. All I want to do is lie in bed and watch TV while eating room service food. That and go downstairs to use the internet in the business center, to check my fantasy baseball scores.
But no. I always have to push myself too far. I decide that since this is my last true vacation day (and who knows if I'll ever be in Nepal again), I should do something I haven't done all trip -- shop. I figure I can mostly get gifts for others, though I wouldn't mind finding that elusive perfect floppy hat for myself. I'll use the internet in the business center after I’m done shopping.
With my legs ready to snap off in a stiff wind, I walk back to Thamel. And as the sky grows darker, I do my touristy shopping. I even find a cool floppy hat! I call the Western Hemisphere from a cybercafe to let them know I'm still alive. I wander around a bit more for just one more gift. By the time it’s totally dark, I am lost.
I try to find my way out to the main street of Durbar Marg, but my locale works against me. So many blocks look nearly identical. The maze of little streets and alleys keeps causing me to lose my sense of direction. I feel like I’m walking in circles. I pass the same stupa that I passed fifteen minutes earlier. I keep seeing the same street person sleeping with his head cocked to the left side.
I am so tired. I need to get out of here. I need to lie in bed and watch TV while eating room service food. And I need to check my fantasy baseball scores.
Thamel is crazy, especially at night. A chaotic mishmash of cars, bikes, motorcycles, pedestrians and bike rickshaws (I guess that’s what you call them) fighting to get through. Everyone going every direction at once. I suppose I could hire one of the cabs or bike-rickshaws to take me back to the hotel, but that wouldn’t feel right. It’d be cheating. I need to find my own way back out. I need to earn it.
Beggar children accost me from all angles. Shopkeepers seem pushier than they did the other day, more forceful with their buy-my-items "namaste"s. Is it just my imagination?
My legs ask what they ever did to deserve such punishment. They threaten to stop working entirely if I ever mistreat them again. I tell them to shut it. Their job is to walk, not to talk back.
And then it happens -- I find Durbar Marg. Finally. I trudge back to my hotel, gulping down a strawberry smoothie along the way. The hotel's business center closed five minutes ago. Guess I won't be checking my fantasy baseball scores today. Good. I need to rest already.
May 16 -- 6:04pm
I'm in the Delhi airport, my stopover on the way back to Bangalore. When my flight came in, they announced the temperature was 43 degrees Celsius. I never got the hang of Celsius conversions so I didn’t bother to think what that would be in Fahrenheit. I just knew that it was hot. Very, very hot.
I remember that I have a temperature converter in the cell phone I haven't used in a week. 43 degrees Celsius = 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh well. At least there’s no air conditioning.
My connecting flight is delayed. There's an announcement that anyone on my delayed flight should proceed to the snack bar "for refreshment.” I choose a different kind of refreshment by using the bathroom. As expected, it’s very, very hot.
May 16 -- 9:45pm
The plane touches down in Bangalore. My vacation is over. I'm glad I didn't start it until I was totally done with work out here. I had no responsibilities and a clear head.
I did things on this trip that I'd never done before. I learned to scuba dive in the warm waters of a tropical island. I trekked through the hills and villages of Nepal. I became close friends with all sorts of insects and pests and cows and goats. It was all fascinating and tough and gorgeous and sweaty and fun and exhausting and amazing. I'm glad I took this trip while I had the chance -- I may never get back to this part of the world again.
The passengers have all exited the plane but I'm stuck in the window seat, next to a very old couple who need help getting off. As the flight attendants decide how to assist them, I hop over the seat in from of me. I exit through the door in the back.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
trek
May 12 -- 10:12am
I sit in a 30 seat propeller plane which will take me to Pokhara, 30 minutes away. I'll start my trek from there.
I'm flying on Yeti Airlines. It sounds made-up, but it’s actually called Yeti, which is awesome. We're next in line for takeoff, right after a small plane from Buddha Air.
May 12 -- 5:01pm
Trekking is hard. It’s long and strenuous. Seems like it’s just one uphill stone step after another. And just when you reach what you think is the top step -- bam! -- ninety more. Then another two hundred after that. I like to walk, but walking all day is tiring. Maybe I'm just old and out of shape.
By Trekking standards, I'm doing a very short trek -- just four days. Day one is done. I can’t wait for day four. Tuesday afternoon. Just getting back to where I started from, taking the one hour car ride back to the small Pokhara airport. Sounds restful.
But don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful up here in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. Walking along a stony path past churning waterfalls, elaborate steppe farmland, roving oxen and horses, cute little villages. And the rickety suspension bridges are cool too.
For the first few hours, the sun is shining. Since I burn easily, I (finally) decide to put on some sunscreen. I apply it liberally, then look up as ominous dark clouds form overhead. Then the rain comes. Nothing torrential, just enough to make me feel silly for slathering on the sunscreen. My timing sucks.
Now I sit in one of the surprisingly comfortable twin beds in my room at the Chandra Guest House in the little village of Tikhedhunga. I write by the natural light that comes in the window since the electricity doesn’t come on until 7pm. Oh well, I'm just glad they have electricity at all.
May 13 -- 7:41am
I sit in the Chandra Guest House's restaurant. I pour some sugar from the sugar bowl into my coffee, but I accidentally pour in way too much. Coffee and sugar/coffee sludge spill all over the table. I'm such a slob. Of course my porter (the guy who carries the bags) immediately runs over. He cleans up my mess and brings me a fresh cup of coffee. It’s odd -- when eating at these little restaurants, my guide (Ang Kazi Sherpa) and my porter (I forget his name, he only speaks Nepali) go in the kitchen as the food is prepared. They make sure everything is sanitary and such. I asked Ang Kazi if the restaurant workers are offended by this. He said they aren’t, that it’s pretty standard along the trek routes.
My guide and porter eat in the kitchen (also standard, it seems). I wish they'd eat out in the dining area with me. It’s weird eating alone while the few other trekking parties eat with their groups, keeping to themselves. It’s not the busy trekking season so there aren't that many people around. If there were, I' m sure I'd end up talking to some of them, which would be nice. Oh well. At least the scrambled eggs are tasty.
May 13 -- 9:32am
An hour and a half walking up a mountain, up (roughly) a zillion stone steps. I am exhausted, though my calves love the workout. Stupid calves. Today is Sunday. Tuesday afternoon feels so far away.
May 13 -- 11:00am
The path goes from steep incline to not-as-steep incline. It is wonderful -- like a vacation for my feet. I have a fine pace going but my guide wants to stop at a restaurant for lunch. Fine, whatever. Guess I could eat. So now I sit outside at a little table with a spectacular view of the hills and valleys that I’ve spent all morning climbing up. I wait for my potato rosti (with egg) to be served.
I have a nice conversation with two British girls (Grace and Kate), med students. We'd passed each other numerous times on the way up to this point, climbing the (roughly) zillion stone steps. There's a small handful of trekkers that I’ve repeatedly passed and been passed by, depending on where we'd all take our breaks. A few travel solo but most go with guides. And sometimes porters. I was against it at first, but I quickly embraced having a porter to carry my heavy backpack. It’s strenuous enough without a twenty pound weight (or whatever my bag weighs) strapped to my back. And these porters do this all the time, they're good at it. My porter (I need to find out his name but I' d feel weird asking again) has it easy compared to some of the others I’ve seen, carrying up to four (!) backpacks at once. Impressive.
May 13 -- 11:20am
I just talked to a nice couple from Holland. They're on day 20 of a 21 day trek (with no porter or guide), on the tail end of a post-graduation, five month trip through Asia. That’s awesome. Wish I did that after my graduation.
I am glad that I'm meeting and talking with people a bit now. I don’t need to do it a lot just enough to break up the monotony. Because I am quite enjoying all the “me” time.
May 13 -- 5:28pm
According to a map I just bought, we ascended 1210 meters today. 3939 feet. That’s a lot of ascension, at least for me. But I have grown to dread declines in the path even more than inclines. Because I know that the more we walk down, the more we'll have to walk back up later. I love steady, flat ground. Steady, flat ground is my friend.
I'm staying at the elegant Kamala Lodge in the relatively large village of Ghorepani. What makes it so elegant? The bathroom is indoors! And on the same floor as my room! I mean, sure, there’s no real toilet, but still...
I watch some Ghorepani guys play volleyball on a paved court. They have some skills -- they' re more fundamentally solid than we are at our games in Santa Monica (pass -- pass -- THEN hit!). And the stunning Himalayan vista certainly beats our view of the beach. The only drawback here is when the ball goes off court over the adjacent schoolhouse. It takes a player ten minutes to climb down and retrieve it.
May 14 -- 6:34am
We start trekking toward Poon Hill at 4:30 in the morning, leaving our bags in the lodge. We'll be doubling back after watching the sun rise against the snowcapped mountains. Poon Hill is the highest elevation we'll reach on the trek. I forget how high it is exactly, I forget where I put the elevation map.
Guided by the light of the crescent moon, we go up and up and up. 500 meters up in the 45 minute journey. My right knee is killing me. Every time I step up with my right foot (which I do, surprisingly, every other step), a sharp pain shoots through my knee. It started hurting yesterday afternoon, so I was sure to stretch when I woke up this morning. It didn't help. Neither does the frigid temperature. I can deal with the pain, I guess. Not much other choice.
We reach the top of Poon Hill...finally. A few other people mill about. Within half an hour, there are sixty. Ang Kazi tells me that during the busy season, thousands of people show up every morning.
The sun rises behind Fishtail Mountain (I forget the traditional Nepali name for it), illuminating its shape. It’s pretty, but not as spectacular as I'd hoped. Aren't sunrises supposed to be shades of red and orange and such? Or is that just sunsets? I forget. I haven’t been awake for many sunrises.
I eat breakfast and sip coffee back in the Kamala Lodge. The Nepali bread is okay, but the scrambled eggs are amazing. They have an ever-so-slight sweetness to them. I don’t know how they do it, but those Nepalis sure can scramble an egg.
Soon we will start our overall trek descent. I can't wait. My knee doesn't hurt as much walking downhill and, obviously, it’s just plain less strenuous. I'm enjoying seeing so much nature out here but I'm glad I'm only doing a four day trek. Anything longer than four days and I'd lose my mind. Or my leg might fall off.
May 14 -- 7:38am
From the top of some big hill (dagnabbit, I thought we were done going up big hills)...
Right after breakfast I had a pleasant conversation with a girl from Korea. Finally another person (who admits) that trekking is hard, that it’s not really her thing. I'm sure others feel that way too, but are too macho (or for girls, ‘macha?’) to admit it. She was on day three of her trek too -- but she had six more to go. And she was not thrilled about it. I wished her luck, playfully told her to be strong and was off on my merry way.
May 14 -- 10:07am
I’ve complained a lot about the trek (mostly the going uphill part) but it really is beautiful. Crossing stunning mountain passes, over riverbeds, through quaint Nepali villages with cheerful Nepali people. They seem to talk a lot. Sure, I don’t know what they're saying, but I can appreciate that they say it in a friendly manner. And only occasionally do I suspect they're talking about me.
May 14 -- 4:41pm
For a while, it’s just up and down, up and down. The rough stone stairs are horrible when there’s hundreds of them in succession. Walking down, I now feel pain in both knees, especially the right one.
A “village” here usually means a lodge, a restaurant, a few trinkets for sale, a few families, wide stone slabs covering the ground and random wandering chickens. And most villages also have a big hand-painted map of the trekking region. It doesn't list the distance from one place to another, it lists the time it takes to get there. I have learned that, say, a nine inch distance between two points marked as three hours is WAY better than a three inch distance marked as an hour and a half. Why? Elevation changes. When the times seem unusually long for what appears to be a short distance, you know there will be a lot of up and down.
So when I see that the village of Ghandruk, today's destination, is three very spread out hours away from my current location, I am excited. And with good reason. The trekking is mostly flat (hizzah!), through a gorgeous rhododendron forest. Surrounded on all sides by lush (I’ve noticed I use the word "lush” a lot. I like that word. Lush.) green plants and trees. Thick moss sweeps over rocks and sticks, creeping over anything in its path. The beauty here is sublime. This is why I went trekking.
We arrive in Ghandruk around 2:30 in the afternoon. So early! Much time to relax and rest. I notice one lodge that looks nicer and more modern than the others (and nicer and more modern than any lodge I’ve seen the last three days). Please let this be our lodge, please let this be our lodge. And it is!
The Annapurna Guest House is da bomb. It's a five star Hilton by trek lodge standards. The room is comfy with big windows and an awesome view of the snowcapped Himalayas. There are electrical outlets. And the bathroom has a shower with hot water. And it’s indoors. And there’s a toilet! A real toilet, not just some ceramic-edged hole in the floor. (Sure there’s no toilet paper, but why quibble over such unimportant details?) It's amazing how being without modern amenities for a few days can really make you appreciate them.
After gaining cleanly refreshment, I walk through the village to purchase necessities: bottled water and candy bars. It would also be nice to find an internet cafe, but that is the longshot of longshots.
I like Ghandruk a lot. It's a village of 8000 people, which is ginormous out here. The locals are friendly. I exchange smiling "namaste"s with many passing villagers and uniformed schoolchildren (a few kids follow up with "want a sweet?,” which I politely decline). Even an adorable two year old, wobbly in his footsteps, gives me a "namaste.” That’s cool.
I pay an old man thirty Nepali rupees to go inside a tiny museum and see the traditional items that the local Gurung people use. I'm done in four minutes. Afterwards, the old man invites me to sit down. He seems friendly, so I oblige. The younger woman who runs the adjacent shop (the old man’s daughter?) joins us. I chat for a little while, mostly with the daughter since she speaks decent English. My Nepali is a tad rusty.
The daughter shows me the men’s traditional attire: a wraparound vest-type thing. She invites me to try it on. I have no idea how so they old man helps me into it. It’s neat -- just a random bit of hanging out with genuinely friendly villagers. And I think they liked having someone new to talk to.
May 14 -- 7:14pm
Mmm...tuna fish pizza. Now there’s a fine dinner. Actually it’s not bad, though it could do without the tomatoes.
May 15 -- 12:19am Okay, so this lodge isn’t so perfect after all. Turns out to be infested with fleas and a few other little pests. Yuck, gross. Not what I wanted to find all over my mattress.
May 15 -- 10:37am
Well, the trek is practically finished. We spent the first hour walking down another lovely long series of stone steps. After that, it was (mostly) flat, walking alongside a narrow river until we hit a point I remember from the first day. I write this from the same little outdoor restaurant we ate at when the trek began.
My calves have grown so rock hard I could hammer nails with them. I never want to see another stone slab. The trek was really tough and grueling at times. But it was amazing and beautiful too. But too often, I couldn’t really look around aimlessly as I walked, instead having to carefully watch the ground in front of me. Trying to avoid slipping or tripping or falling and sprawling, cracking my head open on the rocky terrain. I probably slipped 80 times these last four days, at least half those times yesterday, when my legs were really tired and I wasn’t lifting them high enough. Thankfully, after each trip, I'd manage to catch myself and not actually fall. Though I would get paranoid right after and close my mouth tight. My thinking was that if I did fall and my face hit the rocks, at least with my mouth closed I couldn’t knock my teeth out.
It was neat seeing how the Nepali people lived in their little villages. Seeing how they carry everything -- stone slabs, laundry, leafy green plants -- with their heads. Whatever items need carrying would be in a large bag or basket, the wide, flat handle of which would rest against their forehead, bearing the weight. I don’t know how they do it. They must get lots of headaches.
Much of the time, they would just carry baskets of these leafy green plants. I asked a village woman what the plants were called and she just said "jungle vegetables.” They collect them from the forests, then dry them out.
Despite my original misgivings, it ended up being good to have a guide and a porter. A few times I felt a little self conscious (many other trekkers just had one guy to do both jobs), but whatever -- this is what I ended up with and it was fine.
Ang Kazi, the guide, was helpful arranging which villages to stay at overnight and such (he obviously knows the area a little better than I do). And he was pretty good at answering the numerous Nepali-way-of-life questions that I peppered him with, all of which I had never wondered about until that very moment.
Ang Nima, the porter (aha -- I got his name!) was cool too. In the villages, he’d randomly burst into song to make the young lady shopkeepers laugh. Or swing on a random vine hanging over the trekking path. He seemed like a really funny guy. It’s just too bad we didn't share the same language. I'd like to have known what he had to say.
In a few hours, I take the little Air Yeti plane back to Kathmandu. Then tomorrow I fly back to Bangalore, then back to the states the day after that.
purty pictures from the trek: CLICK HERE
I sit in a 30 seat propeller plane which will take me to Pokhara, 30 minutes away. I'll start my trek from there.
I'm flying on Yeti Airlines. It sounds made-up, but it’s actually called Yeti, which is awesome. We're next in line for takeoff, right after a small plane from Buddha Air.
May 12 -- 5:01pm
Trekking is hard. It’s long and strenuous. Seems like it’s just one uphill stone step after another. And just when you reach what you think is the top step -- bam! -- ninety more. Then another two hundred after that. I like to walk, but walking all day is tiring. Maybe I'm just old and out of shape.
By Trekking standards, I'm doing a very short trek -- just four days. Day one is done. I can’t wait for day four. Tuesday afternoon. Just getting back to where I started from, taking the one hour car ride back to the small Pokhara airport. Sounds restful.
But don’t get me wrong, it’s beautiful up here in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. Walking along a stony path past churning waterfalls, elaborate steppe farmland, roving oxen and horses, cute little villages. And the rickety suspension bridges are cool too.
For the first few hours, the sun is shining. Since I burn easily, I (finally) decide to put on some sunscreen. I apply it liberally, then look up as ominous dark clouds form overhead. Then the rain comes. Nothing torrential, just enough to make me feel silly for slathering on the sunscreen. My timing sucks.
Now I sit in one of the surprisingly comfortable twin beds in my room at the Chandra Guest House in the little village of Tikhedhunga. I write by the natural light that comes in the window since the electricity doesn’t come on until 7pm. Oh well, I'm just glad they have electricity at all.
May 13 -- 7:41am
I sit in the Chandra Guest House's restaurant. I pour some sugar from the sugar bowl into my coffee, but I accidentally pour in way too much. Coffee and sugar/coffee sludge spill all over the table. I'm such a slob. Of course my porter (the guy who carries the bags) immediately runs over. He cleans up my mess and brings me a fresh cup of coffee. It’s odd -- when eating at these little restaurants, my guide (Ang Kazi Sherpa) and my porter (I forget his name, he only speaks Nepali) go in the kitchen as the food is prepared. They make sure everything is sanitary and such. I asked Ang Kazi if the restaurant workers are offended by this. He said they aren’t, that it’s pretty standard along the trek routes.
My guide and porter eat in the kitchen (also standard, it seems). I wish they'd eat out in the dining area with me. It’s weird eating alone while the few other trekking parties eat with their groups, keeping to themselves. It’s not the busy trekking season so there aren't that many people around. If there were, I' m sure I'd end up talking to some of them, which would be nice. Oh well. At least the scrambled eggs are tasty.
May 13 -- 9:32am
An hour and a half walking up a mountain, up (roughly) a zillion stone steps. I am exhausted, though my calves love the workout. Stupid calves. Today is Sunday. Tuesday afternoon feels so far away.
May 13 -- 11:00am
The path goes from steep incline to not-as-steep incline. It is wonderful -- like a vacation for my feet. I have a fine pace going but my guide wants to stop at a restaurant for lunch. Fine, whatever. Guess I could eat. So now I sit outside at a little table with a spectacular view of the hills and valleys that I’ve spent all morning climbing up. I wait for my potato rosti (with egg) to be served.
I have a nice conversation with two British girls (Grace and Kate), med students. We'd passed each other numerous times on the way up to this point, climbing the (roughly) zillion stone steps. There's a small handful of trekkers that I’ve repeatedly passed and been passed by, depending on where we'd all take our breaks. A few travel solo but most go with guides. And sometimes porters. I was against it at first, but I quickly embraced having a porter to carry my heavy backpack. It’s strenuous enough without a twenty pound weight (or whatever my bag weighs) strapped to my back. And these porters do this all the time, they're good at it. My porter (I need to find out his name but I' d feel weird asking again) has it easy compared to some of the others I’ve seen, carrying up to four (!) backpacks at once. Impressive.
May 13 -- 11:20am
I just talked to a nice couple from Holland. They're on day 20 of a 21 day trek (with no porter or guide), on the tail end of a post-graduation, five month trip through Asia. That’s awesome. Wish I did that after my graduation.
I am glad that I'm meeting and talking with people a bit now. I don’t need to do it a lot just enough to break up the monotony. Because I am quite enjoying all the “me” time.
May 13 -- 5:28pm
According to a map I just bought, we ascended 1210 meters today. 3939 feet. That’s a lot of ascension, at least for me. But I have grown to dread declines in the path even more than inclines. Because I know that the more we walk down, the more we'll have to walk back up later. I love steady, flat ground. Steady, flat ground is my friend.
I'm staying at the elegant Kamala Lodge in the relatively large village of Ghorepani. What makes it so elegant? The bathroom is indoors! And on the same floor as my room! I mean, sure, there’s no real toilet, but still...
I watch some Ghorepani guys play volleyball on a paved court. They have some skills -- they' re more fundamentally solid than we are at our games in Santa Monica (pass -- pass -- THEN hit!). And the stunning Himalayan vista certainly beats our view of the beach. The only drawback here is when the ball goes off court over the adjacent schoolhouse. It takes a player ten minutes to climb down and retrieve it.
May 14 -- 6:34am
We start trekking toward Poon Hill at 4:30 in the morning, leaving our bags in the lodge. We'll be doubling back after watching the sun rise against the snowcapped mountains. Poon Hill is the highest elevation we'll reach on the trek. I forget how high it is exactly, I forget where I put the elevation map.
Guided by the light of the crescent moon, we go up and up and up. 500 meters up in the 45 minute journey. My right knee is killing me. Every time I step up with my right foot (which I do, surprisingly, every other step), a sharp pain shoots through my knee. It started hurting yesterday afternoon, so I was sure to stretch when I woke up this morning. It didn't help. Neither does the frigid temperature. I can deal with the pain, I guess. Not much other choice.
We reach the top of Poon Hill...finally. A few other people mill about. Within half an hour, there are sixty. Ang Kazi tells me that during the busy season, thousands of people show up every morning.
The sun rises behind Fishtail Mountain (I forget the traditional Nepali name for it), illuminating its shape. It’s pretty, but not as spectacular as I'd hoped. Aren't sunrises supposed to be shades of red and orange and such? Or is that just sunsets? I forget. I haven’t been awake for many sunrises.
I eat breakfast and sip coffee back in the Kamala Lodge. The Nepali bread is okay, but the scrambled eggs are amazing. They have an ever-so-slight sweetness to them. I don’t know how they do it, but those Nepalis sure can scramble an egg.
Soon we will start our overall trek descent. I can't wait. My knee doesn't hurt as much walking downhill and, obviously, it’s just plain less strenuous. I'm enjoying seeing so much nature out here but I'm glad I'm only doing a four day trek. Anything longer than four days and I'd lose my mind. Or my leg might fall off.
May 14 -- 7:38am
From the top of some big hill (dagnabbit, I thought we were done going up big hills)...
Right after breakfast I had a pleasant conversation with a girl from Korea. Finally another person (who admits) that trekking is hard, that it’s not really her thing. I'm sure others feel that way too, but are too macho (or for girls, ‘macha?’) to admit it. She was on day three of her trek too -- but she had six more to go. And she was not thrilled about it. I wished her luck, playfully told her to be strong and was off on my merry way.
May 14 -- 10:07am
I’ve complained a lot about the trek (mostly the going uphill part) but it really is beautiful. Crossing stunning mountain passes, over riverbeds, through quaint Nepali villages with cheerful Nepali people. They seem to talk a lot. Sure, I don’t know what they're saying, but I can appreciate that they say it in a friendly manner. And only occasionally do I suspect they're talking about me.
May 14 -- 4:41pm
For a while, it’s just up and down, up and down. The rough stone stairs are horrible when there’s hundreds of them in succession. Walking down, I now feel pain in both knees, especially the right one.
A “village” here usually means a lodge, a restaurant, a few trinkets for sale, a few families, wide stone slabs covering the ground and random wandering chickens. And most villages also have a big hand-painted map of the trekking region. It doesn't list the distance from one place to another, it lists the time it takes to get there. I have learned that, say, a nine inch distance between two points marked as three hours is WAY better than a three inch distance marked as an hour and a half. Why? Elevation changes. When the times seem unusually long for what appears to be a short distance, you know there will be a lot of up and down.
So when I see that the village of Ghandruk, today's destination, is three very spread out hours away from my current location, I am excited. And with good reason. The trekking is mostly flat (hizzah!), through a gorgeous rhododendron forest. Surrounded on all sides by lush (I’ve noticed I use the word "lush” a lot. I like that word. Lush.) green plants and trees. Thick moss sweeps over rocks and sticks, creeping over anything in its path. The beauty here is sublime. This is why I went trekking.
We arrive in Ghandruk around 2:30 in the afternoon. So early! Much time to relax and rest. I notice one lodge that looks nicer and more modern than the others (and nicer and more modern than any lodge I’ve seen the last three days). Please let this be our lodge, please let this be our lodge. And it is!
The Annapurna Guest House is da bomb. It's a five star Hilton by trek lodge standards. The room is comfy with big windows and an awesome view of the snowcapped Himalayas. There are electrical outlets. And the bathroom has a shower with hot water. And it’s indoors. And there’s a toilet! A real toilet, not just some ceramic-edged hole in the floor. (Sure there’s no toilet paper, but why quibble over such unimportant details?) It's amazing how being without modern amenities for a few days can really make you appreciate them.
After gaining cleanly refreshment, I walk through the village to purchase necessities: bottled water and candy bars. It would also be nice to find an internet cafe, but that is the longshot of longshots.
I like Ghandruk a lot. It's a village of 8000 people, which is ginormous out here. The locals are friendly. I exchange smiling "namaste"s with many passing villagers and uniformed schoolchildren (a few kids follow up with "want a sweet?,” which I politely decline). Even an adorable two year old, wobbly in his footsteps, gives me a "namaste.” That’s cool.
I pay an old man thirty Nepali rupees to go inside a tiny museum and see the traditional items that the local Gurung people use. I'm done in four minutes. Afterwards, the old man invites me to sit down. He seems friendly, so I oblige. The younger woman who runs the adjacent shop (the old man’s daughter?) joins us. I chat for a little while, mostly with the daughter since she speaks decent English. My Nepali is a tad rusty.
The daughter shows me the men’s traditional attire: a wraparound vest-type thing. She invites me to try it on. I have no idea how so they old man helps me into it. It’s neat -- just a random bit of hanging out with genuinely friendly villagers. And I think they liked having someone new to talk to.
May 14 -- 7:14pm
Mmm...tuna fish pizza. Now there’s a fine dinner. Actually it’s not bad, though it could do without the tomatoes.
May 15 -- 12:19am Okay, so this lodge isn’t so perfect after all. Turns out to be infested with fleas and a few other little pests. Yuck, gross. Not what I wanted to find all over my mattress.
May 15 -- 10:37am
Well, the trek is practically finished. We spent the first hour walking down another lovely long series of stone steps. After that, it was (mostly) flat, walking alongside a narrow river until we hit a point I remember from the first day. I write this from the same little outdoor restaurant we ate at when the trek began.
My calves have grown so rock hard I could hammer nails with them. I never want to see another stone slab. The trek was really tough and grueling at times. But it was amazing and beautiful too. But too often, I couldn’t really look around aimlessly as I walked, instead having to carefully watch the ground in front of me. Trying to avoid slipping or tripping or falling and sprawling, cracking my head open on the rocky terrain. I probably slipped 80 times these last four days, at least half those times yesterday, when my legs were really tired and I wasn’t lifting them high enough. Thankfully, after each trip, I'd manage to catch myself and not actually fall. Though I would get paranoid right after and close my mouth tight. My thinking was that if I did fall and my face hit the rocks, at least with my mouth closed I couldn’t knock my teeth out.
It was neat seeing how the Nepali people lived in their little villages. Seeing how they carry everything -- stone slabs, laundry, leafy green plants -- with their heads. Whatever items need carrying would be in a large bag or basket, the wide, flat handle of which would rest against their forehead, bearing the weight. I don’t know how they do it. They must get lots of headaches.
Much of the time, they would just carry baskets of these leafy green plants. I asked a village woman what the plants were called and she just said "jungle vegetables.” They collect them from the forests, then dry them out.
Despite my original misgivings, it ended up being good to have a guide and a porter. A few times I felt a little self conscious (many other trekkers just had one guy to do both jobs), but whatever -- this is what I ended up with and it was fine.
Ang Kazi, the guide, was helpful arranging which villages to stay at overnight and such (he obviously knows the area a little better than I do). And he was pretty good at answering the numerous Nepali-way-of-life questions that I peppered him with, all of which I had never wondered about until that very moment.
Ang Nima, the porter (aha -- I got his name!) was cool too. In the villages, he’d randomly burst into song to make the young lady shopkeepers laugh. Or swing on a random vine hanging over the trekking path. He seemed like a really funny guy. It’s just too bad we didn't share the same language. I'd like to have known what he had to say.
In a few hours, I take the little Air Yeti plane back to Kathmandu. Then tomorrow I fly back to Bangalore, then back to the states the day after that.
purty pictures from the trek: CLICK HERE
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
and then i flew to Kathmandu
May 11 -- 10:29am
I’m sitting in the Delhi International terminal, my stopover before I jet off on Jet Airlines to Kathmandu, Nepal. I’m excited about going to another country. After five months and three weeks, I’m India-ed out. Tired of the queues, tired of the crowds, really tired of the rickshaws. Seriously, I don’t ever want to see another auto-rickshaw ever again. I don’t know why, I just don’t.
I’m ready to go back to the states. Back to my American creature comforts. Back to rest. I’ve had a really good time at this end of the world, but I’m ready to go back now. Hopefully a short trek in Nepal will rekindle my adventurous spirit, at least for these last few days.
May 11 -- 11:45am
I’m on the plane, which is taxi-ing to the runway. Guns n’ Roses’ “November Rain” plays quietly over the intercom. Surprising choice, though not a bad one.
May 11 -- 12:25pm
More unexpectedness, this time in the air, as the flight attendants give everyone a Heineken. Free beer -- pretty cool for just an hour and a half flight.
May 11 -- 6:49pm
Customs at Kathmandu’s airport is challenging, it takes a while. Not because the lines are very long (in fact they’re quite short), but because I have to pay for a short visit visa to enter. It doesn’t cost a lot ($30 American), but they don’t accept my Indian rupees at the customs desk. So I go the currency exchange counter. They don’t take Indian rupees either, not even to exchange. They tell me there’s a cash machine outside the airport. So I go there and, with only a passing knowledge of what a Nepali rupee is worth, take out a fat wad of Nepali cash.
I walk back into the sparsely populated airport. Passing by the two bored security people, I start to explain my situation, telling them why I need to get back in even though my flight had already landed. They barely listen, instead just waving me in with a ‘yeah, whatever’ attitude. Works for me.
I go back to the customs desk to pay for my visa. Unfortunately they don’t accept Nepali rupees. In Nepal. They don’t accept Nepali rupees in Nepal. I’m taken aback, but I deal. There’s not really any other choice. So I go back to the currency exchange counter, exchange a few thousand of my Nepali rupees for thirty American smackers, use that money to pay for the visa and I am set to jet. Finally.
On my way out of the airport, I notice a clock. Apparently Nepal time is fifteen minutes ahead of Indian time. Where that extra fifteen minutes comes from, I have no idea. I’d originally wanted to trek by myself, to enjoy the peace and solitude of being alone up in the mountains. But everyone I’d spoken to convinced me that this was a bad idea, that I’d get lonely or get harassed (or worse) by Maoists. So I relented and tried to latch onto some group trek. But I couldn’t find one to latch onto, so I enlisted the services of a company recommended by a friend, Snow Leopard Trek.
One of the good people from Snow Leopard Trek meets me at the airport and takes me to the office. They really are good people. They're ever so friendly. And I honestly don’t think it has anything to do with the healthy sum of money I'm paying them. We discuss trek details, then I'm off to my hotel. My trek doesn’t start until tomorrow.
Snow Leopard had given me a choice of local Kathmandu hotels back when I made my reservation a month earlier. I chose the one noted as being comparable to a five star hotel since it was at a good location and only cost $70 (US). Yep, 70 bucks for a five star hotel. I'm always fine with a simple Motel 6 back in the states, but I'm not complaining now.
The Hotel de L'Annapurna is nice -- but not too nice. It’s got the standard doormen in funny hats and the bellboys to carry your bag to your room, but it’s not as fancy schmancy as other swanky hotels, like yesterday's in Calcutta. And I mean that in a good way. The carpet isn’t spotless and the walls are a little worn. It’s a little grubby around the edges. But it’s comfortable, and so much more my style than those uber-pristine hotels where they seem to encourage snobbiness among the staff. It’s like when I was a kid and I'd go to a rich friend's house. It would have all this neat expensive stuff, but it all felt so antiseptic, like you'd be afraid to touch anything because you might break it. I always preferred to be in the slightly messy house where you could throw a ball around until your mother told you to stop, which was handy since that’s the kind of house I grew up in. The Hotel de L'Annapurna is like that house. Except now I don’t have a ball to throw around.
I resist the desire to watch the second half of "The Queen” in the comfy confines of my hotel room. Instead I brave the on-and-off rainfall and walk to the nearby district of Thamel, looking to buy four things that could be useful for my trek: a rain poncho, a rain poncho for my backpack (it’s rained every day of my trip so far, monsoon season is rolling in), sunscreen and a big floppy hat (for the rare moments when it’s not raining). I actually bought a floppy hat back in Bangalore but it’s rather ugly (too orange). I bought another on the street yesterday in Calcutta but it’s rather ill-fitting (too small). So now I have two floppy hats I don’t want to wear while I look for a third. Yeah, I' m logical.
Thamel is very cool. Narrow, meandering streets packed with trekking gear shops, knitwear shops, Nepali tchotchke shops -- really just a ton of little hippie shops tightly squeezed together. I love hippie shops. This is a great place to buy my first souvenirs on this trip, but I can’t go pverboard buying stuff just yet. I have limited bag space. And besides, I should have a little time back in Kathmandu after I finish the trek. That would be a better time to shop. Right now, I just need to find my four things.
I find the backpack rain poncho and the Jeremy rain poncho in the first trek shop I enter. I'm halfway to my goal. After a few failed attempts, I buy some sunscreen. But the big floppy hat proves more difficult. There are tons of big floppy hats for sale (Thamel seems to be a leader in the big floppy hat industry) but none of them feel right. The patchwork ones are too colorful, the plain ones are not colorful enough, the ones that say “trek Nepal” are too touristy, the hemp ones are too heavy. I admit it, I' m a picky bastard. I end up not buying a big floppy hat. I guess I can wear my ugly orange one.
The shopkeepers in Thamel are similar to the ones in India. If you pause to look at anything, they spring into action, ready to assist and/or pester you. But unlike in India (generally speaking), the small shopkeepers are more polite here. They don’t keep badgering me when I walk away. They don’t act nearly as desperate for a sale.
As I wander, it starts raining harder and harder. I don’t realize just how hard it is until I'm completely soaked. I remember that I have a freshly-purchased rain poncho with me. Feeling a little silly since I'm already sopping wet, I put on the poncho. And of course the rain immediately stops.
Now I sit here at Nepali Cholo, a restaurant recommended by one of the trek company guys. I'm in my socks, sitting on a flat cushion on the floor, watching a woman dance with a candle on her head. Someone in a furry Yeti costume comes up to me and shakes my hand, then playfully squeezes my head. All in time to traditional Nepali music.
The food is excellent -- 12 courses (!), though each is very small. The local whiskey is strong and the entertainment is entertaining. It all makes for excellent background ambience as I write this (I can’t see the dancers most of the time anyway since my view is partially blocked by a wall). But I do wish I had someone to share the experience with. I wish she was here with me, instead of being back in L.A., going about her daily life. I don’t talk about it much (at least in my writing), but it really is hard being away from her for so long. I'm glad she's stuck with me as I quench my wanderlust. And I'm glad she'll be there when I return.
pix from Kathmandu: CLICK HERE
I’m sitting in the Delhi International terminal, my stopover before I jet off on Jet Airlines to Kathmandu, Nepal. I’m excited about going to another country. After five months and three weeks, I’m India-ed out. Tired of the queues, tired of the crowds, really tired of the rickshaws. Seriously, I don’t ever want to see another auto-rickshaw ever again. I don’t know why, I just don’t.
I’m ready to go back to the states. Back to my American creature comforts. Back to rest. I’ve had a really good time at this end of the world, but I’m ready to go back now. Hopefully a short trek in Nepal will rekindle my adventurous spirit, at least for these last few days.
May 11 -- 11:45am
I’m on the plane, which is taxi-ing to the runway. Guns n’ Roses’ “November Rain” plays quietly over the intercom. Surprising choice, though not a bad one.
May 11 -- 12:25pm
More unexpectedness, this time in the air, as the flight attendants give everyone a Heineken. Free beer -- pretty cool for just an hour and a half flight.
May 11 -- 6:49pm
Customs at Kathmandu’s airport is challenging, it takes a while. Not because the lines are very long (in fact they’re quite short), but because I have to pay for a short visit visa to enter. It doesn’t cost a lot ($30 American), but they don’t accept my Indian rupees at the customs desk. So I go the currency exchange counter. They don’t take Indian rupees either, not even to exchange. They tell me there’s a cash machine outside the airport. So I go there and, with only a passing knowledge of what a Nepali rupee is worth, take out a fat wad of Nepali cash.
I walk back into the sparsely populated airport. Passing by the two bored security people, I start to explain my situation, telling them why I need to get back in even though my flight had already landed. They barely listen, instead just waving me in with a ‘yeah, whatever’ attitude. Works for me.
I go back to the customs desk to pay for my visa. Unfortunately they don’t accept Nepali rupees. In Nepal. They don’t accept Nepali rupees in Nepal. I’m taken aback, but I deal. There’s not really any other choice. So I go back to the currency exchange counter, exchange a few thousand of my Nepali rupees for thirty American smackers, use that money to pay for the visa and I am set to jet. Finally.
On my way out of the airport, I notice a clock. Apparently Nepal time is fifteen minutes ahead of Indian time. Where that extra fifteen minutes comes from, I have no idea. I’d originally wanted to trek by myself, to enjoy the peace and solitude of being alone up in the mountains. But everyone I’d spoken to convinced me that this was a bad idea, that I’d get lonely or get harassed (or worse) by Maoists. So I relented and tried to latch onto some group trek. But I couldn’t find one to latch onto, so I enlisted the services of a company recommended by a friend, Snow Leopard Trek.
One of the good people from Snow Leopard Trek meets me at the airport and takes me to the office. They really are good people. They're ever so friendly. And I honestly don’t think it has anything to do with the healthy sum of money I'm paying them. We discuss trek details, then I'm off to my hotel. My trek doesn’t start until tomorrow.
Snow Leopard had given me a choice of local Kathmandu hotels back when I made my reservation a month earlier. I chose the one noted as being comparable to a five star hotel since it was at a good location and only cost $70 (US). Yep, 70 bucks for a five star hotel. I'm always fine with a simple Motel 6 back in the states, but I'm not complaining now.
The Hotel de L'Annapurna is nice -- but not too nice. It’s got the standard doormen in funny hats and the bellboys to carry your bag to your room, but it’s not as fancy schmancy as other swanky hotels, like yesterday's in Calcutta. And I mean that in a good way. The carpet isn’t spotless and the walls are a little worn. It’s a little grubby around the edges. But it’s comfortable, and so much more my style than those uber-pristine hotels where they seem to encourage snobbiness among the staff. It’s like when I was a kid and I'd go to a rich friend's house. It would have all this neat expensive stuff, but it all felt so antiseptic, like you'd be afraid to touch anything because you might break it. I always preferred to be in the slightly messy house where you could throw a ball around until your mother told you to stop, which was handy since that’s the kind of house I grew up in. The Hotel de L'Annapurna is like that house. Except now I don’t have a ball to throw around.
I resist the desire to watch the second half of "The Queen” in the comfy confines of my hotel room. Instead I brave the on-and-off rainfall and walk to the nearby district of Thamel, looking to buy four things that could be useful for my trek: a rain poncho, a rain poncho for my backpack (it’s rained every day of my trip so far, monsoon season is rolling in), sunscreen and a big floppy hat (for the rare moments when it’s not raining). I actually bought a floppy hat back in Bangalore but it’s rather ugly (too orange). I bought another on the street yesterday in Calcutta but it’s rather ill-fitting (too small). So now I have two floppy hats I don’t want to wear while I look for a third. Yeah, I' m logical.
Thamel is very cool. Narrow, meandering streets packed with trekking gear shops, knitwear shops, Nepali tchotchke shops -- really just a ton of little hippie shops tightly squeezed together. I love hippie shops. This is a great place to buy my first souvenirs on this trip, but I can’t go pverboard buying stuff just yet. I have limited bag space. And besides, I should have a little time back in Kathmandu after I finish the trek. That would be a better time to shop. Right now, I just need to find my four things.
I find the backpack rain poncho and the Jeremy rain poncho in the first trek shop I enter. I'm halfway to my goal. After a few failed attempts, I buy some sunscreen. But the big floppy hat proves more difficult. There are tons of big floppy hats for sale (Thamel seems to be a leader in the big floppy hat industry) but none of them feel right. The patchwork ones are too colorful, the plain ones are not colorful enough, the ones that say “trek Nepal” are too touristy, the hemp ones are too heavy. I admit it, I' m a picky bastard. I end up not buying a big floppy hat. I guess I can wear my ugly orange one.
The shopkeepers in Thamel are similar to the ones in India. If you pause to look at anything, they spring into action, ready to assist and/or pester you. But unlike in India (generally speaking), the small shopkeepers are more polite here. They don’t keep badgering me when I walk away. They don’t act nearly as desperate for a sale.
As I wander, it starts raining harder and harder. I don’t realize just how hard it is until I'm completely soaked. I remember that I have a freshly-purchased rain poncho with me. Feeling a little silly since I'm already sopping wet, I put on the poncho. And of course the rain immediately stops.
Now I sit here at Nepali Cholo, a restaurant recommended by one of the trek company guys. I'm in my socks, sitting on a flat cushion on the floor, watching a woman dance with a candle on her head. Someone in a furry Yeti costume comes up to me and shakes my hand, then playfully squeezes my head. All in time to traditional Nepali music.
The food is excellent -- 12 courses (!), though each is very small. The local whiskey is strong and the entertainment is entertaining. It all makes for excellent background ambience as I write this (I can’t see the dancers most of the time anyway since my view is partially blocked by a wall). But I do wish I had someone to share the experience with. I wish she was here with me, instead of being back in L.A., going about her daily life. I don’t talk about it much (at least in my writing), but it really is hard being away from her for so long. I'm glad she's stuck with me as I quench my wanderlust. And I'm glad she'll be there when I return.
pix from Kathmandu: CLICK HERE
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Oh! Calcutta!
May 10 -- 6:08pm
The Hindustan International Hotel is in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). It was the cheapest hotel I could find online that was at least vaguely close to the airport. But it turns out to be uber-swanky. The shower even has hot water. And it stays hot the whole time! It makes me realize just how sunburned my kneecaps really are.
I shuffle out of the hotel at 2pm. It’s hot, but the downpour an hour earlier keeps the temperature at a reasonable level. I walk to a big cafeteria-style veg (vegetarian) restaurant. The food looks good, but each pick-up area has a long line. And of course by “long line,” I mean an unorganized crush of people jammed up against each other. No thank you. I leave and grab a masala dosa and a pineapple juice in a grimy eatery a few blocks down.
I go to the creatively named Indian Museum. It’s the oldest museum in India and you can tell. Looks like little has changed in the 200 years since it opened. The exhibits are old, the placards are dusty -- but at least there’s a lot of stuff. Man, is there a lot of stuff. But so little of it is even remotely interesting. There’s an inverse relationship between the sheer volume of stuff compared to how much you’d actually care to see. Thousands of rocks on tables and spices in jars. Barely-there fossils and mediocre dioramas. A whole room devoted to hundreds of cross sections of different kinds of wood, which all look exactly the same. Not to mention the animal skeletons covered with pen-scrawled graffiti.
The tiny Egypt room is neat though. There’s a cool 4000 year old mummy with a visible skull. And air conditioning.
I walk in The Maidan, a big green park with wide open spaces. Seems similar to Central Park in NYC, only with more garbage on the grass. But still, it’s surprisingly nice.
I must say, I expected Calcutta -- err, Kolkata -- to be depressing. I thought I’d see a lot of poverty, a lot of suffering. Maybe that’s prevalent in other areas, but not so much where I’m at.
Since this is the only Indian city that still allows human-pulled rickshaws (they tried to ban it a few years ago but the rickshaw pullers protested), I wanted to snap a picture of one in action. I personally think it’s an inhumane practice, but it would still make a good shot. Unfortunately I don’t see any, so I have to settle for photographing extraordinarily decrepit buses.
Two young-ish women stride toward me as I cross the street. I know what they’re after. I try to sidestep them, but they block my path and start begging for money. I say no as I keep walking. One follows alongside me. I snap “don’t follow me!” and she stops cold. I immediately feel terrible. I probably wouldn’t have felt so bad if she’d ignored me and continued following.
I don’t regret saying what I said, I just didn’t like the tone I said it with. Entirely too harsh. She was (shockingly) the first person all day to ask for money, and one of only a handful during my weeklong trip. But I guess this had built up after six months of dealing with countless persistent beggars. And while I did have a nasty tone with the woman, I know I’m making too much of it. I have too much empathy. It’s annoying.
I walk to an old planetarium and grab a seat inside for a space show. Before the lights go down, I watch a screaming match between a man sitting near me and a woman by the doorway (husband and wife?). It must take a lot of anger to fight so loudly in a room full of people. After a few minutes, the woman leaves. I have a growing paranoid vision of her coming back in with a gun and shooting the guy. I know it’s unlikely, but I still move to a seat at the other side of the planetarium.
The space show is pretty boring. The live narrator is dry and doesn’t say much of note. At least I don’t think she does. Hard to be sure since she’s speaking Hindi. The next show is in Bengali, and the one after that in English. I’d prefer to actually understand what was being said, but I don’t feel like waiting. My eyes close, I sleep during much of the show. Why do I always fall asleep in dark rooms in public places?
The pavement outside is wet. It had poured while I was in the planetarium, enjoying the dull Hindi space show. I still feel bad about telling off the beggar woman. I decide to set things right and get my karma back (this seems an appropriate place for karmic matters). I decide I should give money to a beggar on the street. I’ve done this every now and then, but I rarely give money to anyone who asks and (as much as it breaks my heart), almost never to children. I just don’t think it teaches the right lesson.
As I walk back to my hotel in the light drizzle, I look for a beggar to give a 500 rupee ($11 U.S.) note. But, for a change, I don’t see any beggars. Finally I spot a barefoot woman with a dirty face leaning sadly against a wall. I offer her the 500 rupee note. She doesn’t take it. Too proud to take my money? Not actually a beggar? Not sure. Perhaps I wasn’t truly meant to give anything away. I resign myself to this.
A couple blocks from my hotel, I see an old man sitting on a step. Clearly a beggar. He doesn’t notice me until I hand him the 500 rupee note, which he takes without hesitation. I continue walking.
pix of beat-up buses and other fun Calcutta stuff: CLICK HERE
The Hindustan International Hotel is in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). It was the cheapest hotel I could find online that was at least vaguely close to the airport. But it turns out to be uber-swanky. The shower even has hot water. And it stays hot the whole time! It makes me realize just how sunburned my kneecaps really are.
I shuffle out of the hotel at 2pm. It’s hot, but the downpour an hour earlier keeps the temperature at a reasonable level. I walk to a big cafeteria-style veg (vegetarian) restaurant. The food looks good, but each pick-up area has a long line. And of course by “long line,” I mean an unorganized crush of people jammed up against each other. No thank you. I leave and grab a masala dosa and a pineapple juice in a grimy eatery a few blocks down.
I go to the creatively named Indian Museum. It’s the oldest museum in India and you can tell. Looks like little has changed in the 200 years since it opened. The exhibits are old, the placards are dusty -- but at least there’s a lot of stuff. Man, is there a lot of stuff. But so little of it is even remotely interesting. There’s an inverse relationship between the sheer volume of stuff compared to how much you’d actually care to see. Thousands of rocks on tables and spices in jars. Barely-there fossils and mediocre dioramas. A whole room devoted to hundreds of cross sections of different kinds of wood, which all look exactly the same. Not to mention the animal skeletons covered with pen-scrawled graffiti.
The tiny Egypt room is neat though. There’s a cool 4000 year old mummy with a visible skull. And air conditioning.
I walk in The Maidan, a big green park with wide open spaces. Seems similar to Central Park in NYC, only with more garbage on the grass. But still, it’s surprisingly nice.
I must say, I expected Calcutta -- err, Kolkata -- to be depressing. I thought I’d see a lot of poverty, a lot of suffering. Maybe that’s prevalent in other areas, but not so much where I’m at.
Since this is the only Indian city that still allows human-pulled rickshaws (they tried to ban it a few years ago but the rickshaw pullers protested), I wanted to snap a picture of one in action. I personally think it’s an inhumane practice, but it would still make a good shot. Unfortunately I don’t see any, so I have to settle for photographing extraordinarily decrepit buses.
Two young-ish women stride toward me as I cross the street. I know what they’re after. I try to sidestep them, but they block my path and start begging for money. I say no as I keep walking. One follows alongside me. I snap “don’t follow me!” and she stops cold. I immediately feel terrible. I probably wouldn’t have felt so bad if she’d ignored me and continued following.
I don’t regret saying what I said, I just didn’t like the tone I said it with. Entirely too harsh. She was (shockingly) the first person all day to ask for money, and one of only a handful during my weeklong trip. But I guess this had built up after six months of dealing with countless persistent beggars. And while I did have a nasty tone with the woman, I know I’m making too much of it. I have too much empathy. It’s annoying.
I walk to an old planetarium and grab a seat inside for a space show. Before the lights go down, I watch a screaming match between a man sitting near me and a woman by the doorway (husband and wife?). It must take a lot of anger to fight so loudly in a room full of people. After a few minutes, the woman leaves. I have a growing paranoid vision of her coming back in with a gun and shooting the guy. I know it’s unlikely, but I still move to a seat at the other side of the planetarium.
The space show is pretty boring. The live narrator is dry and doesn’t say much of note. At least I don’t think she does. Hard to be sure since she’s speaking Hindi. The next show is in Bengali, and the one after that in English. I’d prefer to actually understand what was being said, but I don’t feel like waiting. My eyes close, I sleep during much of the show. Why do I always fall asleep in dark rooms in public places?
The pavement outside is wet. It had poured while I was in the planetarium, enjoying the dull Hindi space show. I still feel bad about telling off the beggar woman. I decide to set things right and get my karma back (this seems an appropriate place for karmic matters). I decide I should give money to a beggar on the street. I’ve done this every now and then, but I rarely give money to anyone who asks and (as much as it breaks my heart), almost never to children. I just don’t think it teaches the right lesson.
As I walk back to my hotel in the light drizzle, I look for a beggar to give a 500 rupee ($11 U.S.) note. But, for a change, I don’t see any beggars. Finally I spot a barefoot woman with a dirty face leaning sadly against a wall. I offer her the 500 rupee note. She doesn’t take it. Too proud to take my money? Not actually a beggar? Not sure. Perhaps I wasn’t truly meant to give anything away. I resign myself to this.
A couple blocks from my hotel, I see an old man sitting on a step. Clearly a beggar. He doesn’t notice me until I hand him the 500 rupee note, which he takes without hesitation. I continue walking.
pix of beat-up buses and other fun Calcutta stuff: CLICK HERE
Sunday, July 22, 2007
leaving the islands behind
May 9 -- 2:14pm
It’s hot and muggy and I’m in a pissy mood. I’m waiting at the dock for a boat that’s already here, but it won’t be leaving for another hour and 45 minutes.
The scuba resort owner told me there’s only one ferry that goes from the island of Havelock (where I am) to Port Blair (where I need to go). That ferry is the slow one, a 4 ½ hour ride (I was on the “fast” one on the way here. It still took 2 ½ hours and was unpleasantly uncomfortable). The owner gave me the ticket and said the boat leaves at 2pm.
With a few hours to kill before then, I wandered around taking pictures, went on a nice walk, then took a rickshaw to Number 7 Beach, which is I read somewhere is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world -- or at least in Asia. It’s a cool beach. I don’t know if it’s one of the best in the world (or in Asia), but whatever. I dig it.
I made sure to be back at Café Del Mar well before 1:30, the time the “shuttle” (another rickshaw) was scheduled to take me to catch the ferry. The rick showed up at 1:40, we reached the dock at 1:50. I tried to board the ferry, but the ferry guy said there’s no boarding until 15:30 (3:30pm). The boat wasn’t delayed, he said, it was always scheduled to leave at four. Dagnabbit. I could’ve had an extra two hours to do whatever, instead I get stuck here at the dock. I called Café Del Mar to say they got the times wrong. I wasn’t able to talk to the owner -- just Jez, the annoying British hippie scuba guy. He said it wasn’t really the owner’s fault since the ferry times change a lot. Whatever. The guy handed me a ticket and said it was for 2pm, it turned out to really be for 4pm. Sounds like his fault to me.
So now I sit outside the packed passenger waiting room, swatting the more-than-occasional fly, watching goats and dogs fight for the used coconuts that were tossed into piles after people drank the sweet milk inside. I’m sweaty and uncomfortable and irritable. And I still have another hour and a half until the boat even leaves. I just want to reach Port Blair. I want to get to the hotel and take a shower.
May 9 -- 3:34pm
I’m on the ferry. After waiting in another of those hellish Indian queues, I am on the ferry. This one is actually much better than the fast one on my way over. It’s bigger. There’s more leg room. The seats all face the same direction -- and they recline! Actually they seem to be stuck on permanent recline, but I can live with that. Plus I’m in the direct path of a large (oscillating) fan. Nice. Now I shall rest, perhaps snooze, drink the (cold!) water I’d just bought and read my book. Just five hours till I reach Port Blair. Woohoo!
The scuba resort manager actually came down to the dock to talk to me an hour ago. He didn’t have to do that (and I never asked him to) but I thought it was a classy move. He’d felt bad about the departure time mix-up, which I appreciated.
May 9 -- 6:48pm
It’s night time. The ferry has been moving for a while. I read a few chapters of my book (an anthology called “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.” I bought it a year ago after I heard the author on NPR. Book scholar that I am, I only just started reading it -- but it’s very good). I have grown used to the saran-wrap thing layer of sweat covering all my human and clothing surfaces. My lips taste salty. I decide to walk around and stretch my legs.
Many people sit in their seats. A few stand, sticking their heads out the portholes. On the dirty floor, some barefoot men play cards while an old woman sleeps under a blanket.
I walk up the steps and down a narrow passage I stumble into a food service area (is “galley” the proper word?). The menu taped to the wall lists times for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The dinner time was been crossed out by hand, changed to a time after which the ferry will have reached Port Blair. Was this done deliberately so passengers couldn’t have a solid meal? Hmmm... But no biggie. I’m happy buying chips. I eat them as I stand by an open rectangular window, watching the fuzzy reflection of the ferry lights in the undulating waves of the dark sea water. The wind feels good against my face -- not cold, or even cool -- but cooler.
I decide I need to pee. I can actually hold it a while, but looking for the bathroom gives me something to do. A goal to reach for while exploring the passageways of the boat. I end up outside on the back of the boat, then outside on the front. It’s very dark. I can only see the silhouettes of the other passengers, talking in a language (or languages) I do not understand. I see bright lights in the distance. Port Blair? I can’t imagine there’s much else out there, at least much else with such bright lights.
The bathroom I find is vile, as expected. But at least it smells okay. All the toilets are in their own little rooms. The first one I check has a small palette of wood covering the floor. It’s floating in some liquid (water, I hope). I decide to look for another toilet.
I find a less objectionable toilet but it’s still a little strange. It looks like a bathroom would look in the 12 Monkeys universe, presuming the 12 Monkeys universe had bathrooms. I stand on two small metal platforms, each shaped vaguely like a foot, and have to aim for a drain between them, far, far below. A challenge, yes (and I can only imagine the challenge if I had to do anything more). But then, I am always up for a challenge. And I succeed.
May 9 -- 8:30pm
Finally, after traversing the reams of hotel check-in paperwork, and climbing up and down (roughly) a bazillion stairs, I am in my hotel room. I’m at the Megapode Nest, apparently named after some species of bird. Some species named Megapode.
I’m excited that I’ll be taking a shower. I would love for it to have hot water (haven’t had that since leaving Bangalore), but at this point, even if the water was piped in directly from the arctic circle, I would still be very happy.
May 9 -- 8:47pm
The water was only hot for 30 seconds, but man, those 30 seconds were AMAZING. And they allowed me to overlook the lizard that greeted me upon entering the bathroom.
May 10 -- 7:17am
I wake up naturally at 6:30am. I have to meet the airport-bound shuttle at 6:45. I must’ve passed out before setting my alarms last night. And I have no recollection as to whether I received my wake up call or not.
I hurriedly get all my stuff together, of course it’s strewn everywhere. I run around jamming things into my bag. In my haste, I slip on the non-skid (!) bathroom rug. I manage to brace my crash landing with my hand, right on one of my many little cuts. Now my wrist hurts.
I do a super-quick paranoia check (making sure I’m leaving nothing behind), the speed of which makes it even more paranoid. I run up and down the (roughly) bazillion stairs. I make it to the shuttle just five minutes late. Oh yeah, I rock.
On the ride to the airport, I get a call from Indian Airlines. “Oh no,” I silently exclaim. Has my flight been cancelled? Nope, just delayed. There aren’t many flights that leave Port Blair, so I’m fine with just a delay. And it was nice of the airline to call me.
Now I sit at the gate in the small Port Blair airport (whose airport code is IXZ, for some strange reason). I’m near the TV, which is showing something in Hindi (I think it’s Hindi). At first I thought it was a shop-from-home show. Now it appears to be a read-your-astrological-forecast-from-home show. I guess. Unless maybe it’s a shopping show that sells tarot cards.
Since another flight was boarding as I first came in, I sat in an empty seat in a whole sea of empty seats. And of course two minutes later, some guy has to sit right next to me. Of course.
May 10 -- 10:44am
It’s wild. I’m flying on the plane and a handful of people (in different groups) are taking pictures of each other. I’ve never seen that before. It’s been going on for fifteen minutes now. Maybe these are their first flights or something. Weird.
(Pix from Number 7 beach and the dock at Havelock? Click the link at the bottom of the previous post. Because who doesn’t want to see dogs and goats eating coconuts?)
It’s hot and muggy and I’m in a pissy mood. I’m waiting at the dock for a boat that’s already here, but it won’t be leaving for another hour and 45 minutes.
The scuba resort owner told me there’s only one ferry that goes from the island of Havelock (where I am) to Port Blair (where I need to go). That ferry is the slow one, a 4 ½ hour ride (I was on the “fast” one on the way here. It still took 2 ½ hours and was unpleasantly uncomfortable). The owner gave me the ticket and said the boat leaves at 2pm.
With a few hours to kill before then, I wandered around taking pictures, went on a nice walk, then took a rickshaw to Number 7 Beach, which is I read somewhere is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world -- or at least in Asia. It’s a cool beach. I don’t know if it’s one of the best in the world (or in Asia), but whatever. I dig it.
I made sure to be back at Café Del Mar well before 1:30, the time the “shuttle” (another rickshaw) was scheduled to take me to catch the ferry. The rick showed up at 1:40, we reached the dock at 1:50. I tried to board the ferry, but the ferry guy said there’s no boarding until 15:30 (3:30pm). The boat wasn’t delayed, he said, it was always scheduled to leave at four. Dagnabbit. I could’ve had an extra two hours to do whatever, instead I get stuck here at the dock. I called Café Del Mar to say they got the times wrong. I wasn’t able to talk to the owner -- just Jez, the annoying British hippie scuba guy. He said it wasn’t really the owner’s fault since the ferry times change a lot. Whatever. The guy handed me a ticket and said it was for 2pm, it turned out to really be for 4pm. Sounds like his fault to me.
So now I sit outside the packed passenger waiting room, swatting the more-than-occasional fly, watching goats and dogs fight for the used coconuts that were tossed into piles after people drank the sweet milk inside. I’m sweaty and uncomfortable and irritable. And I still have another hour and a half until the boat even leaves. I just want to reach Port Blair. I want to get to the hotel and take a shower.
May 9 -- 3:34pm
I’m on the ferry. After waiting in another of those hellish Indian queues, I am on the ferry. This one is actually much better than the fast one on my way over. It’s bigger. There’s more leg room. The seats all face the same direction -- and they recline! Actually they seem to be stuck on permanent recline, but I can live with that. Plus I’m in the direct path of a large (oscillating) fan. Nice. Now I shall rest, perhaps snooze, drink the (cold!) water I’d just bought and read my book. Just five hours till I reach Port Blair. Woohoo!
The scuba resort manager actually came down to the dock to talk to me an hour ago. He didn’t have to do that (and I never asked him to) but I thought it was a classy move. He’d felt bad about the departure time mix-up, which I appreciated.
May 9 -- 6:48pm
It’s night time. The ferry has been moving for a while. I read a few chapters of my book (an anthology called “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.” I bought it a year ago after I heard the author on NPR. Book scholar that I am, I only just started reading it -- but it’s very good). I have grown used to the saran-wrap thing layer of sweat covering all my human and clothing surfaces. My lips taste salty. I decide to walk around and stretch my legs.
Many people sit in their seats. A few stand, sticking their heads out the portholes. On the dirty floor, some barefoot men play cards while an old woman sleeps under a blanket.
I walk up the steps and down a narrow passage I stumble into a food service area (is “galley” the proper word?). The menu taped to the wall lists times for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The dinner time was been crossed out by hand, changed to a time after which the ferry will have reached Port Blair. Was this done deliberately so passengers couldn’t have a solid meal? Hmmm... But no biggie. I’m happy buying chips. I eat them as I stand by an open rectangular window, watching the fuzzy reflection of the ferry lights in the undulating waves of the dark sea water. The wind feels good against my face -- not cold, or even cool -- but cooler.
I decide I need to pee. I can actually hold it a while, but looking for the bathroom gives me something to do. A goal to reach for while exploring the passageways of the boat. I end up outside on the back of the boat, then outside on the front. It’s very dark. I can only see the silhouettes of the other passengers, talking in a language (or languages) I do not understand. I see bright lights in the distance. Port Blair? I can’t imagine there’s much else out there, at least much else with such bright lights.
The bathroom I find is vile, as expected. But at least it smells okay. All the toilets are in their own little rooms. The first one I check has a small palette of wood covering the floor. It’s floating in some liquid (water, I hope). I decide to look for another toilet.
I find a less objectionable toilet but it’s still a little strange. It looks like a bathroom would look in the 12 Monkeys universe, presuming the 12 Monkeys universe had bathrooms. I stand on two small metal platforms, each shaped vaguely like a foot, and have to aim for a drain between them, far, far below. A challenge, yes (and I can only imagine the challenge if I had to do anything more). But then, I am always up for a challenge. And I succeed.
May 9 -- 8:30pm
Finally, after traversing the reams of hotel check-in paperwork, and climbing up and down (roughly) a bazillion stairs, I am in my hotel room. I’m at the Megapode Nest, apparently named after some species of bird. Some species named Megapode.
I’m excited that I’ll be taking a shower. I would love for it to have hot water (haven’t had that since leaving Bangalore), but at this point, even if the water was piped in directly from the arctic circle, I would still be very happy.
May 9 -- 8:47pm
The water was only hot for 30 seconds, but man, those 30 seconds were AMAZING. And they allowed me to overlook the lizard that greeted me upon entering the bathroom.
May 10 -- 7:17am
I wake up naturally at 6:30am. I have to meet the airport-bound shuttle at 6:45. I must’ve passed out before setting my alarms last night. And I have no recollection as to whether I received my wake up call or not.
I hurriedly get all my stuff together, of course it’s strewn everywhere. I run around jamming things into my bag. In my haste, I slip on the non-skid (!) bathroom rug. I manage to brace my crash landing with my hand, right on one of my many little cuts. Now my wrist hurts.
I do a super-quick paranoia check (making sure I’m leaving nothing behind), the speed of which makes it even more paranoid. I run up and down the (roughly) bazillion stairs. I make it to the shuttle just five minutes late. Oh yeah, I rock.
On the ride to the airport, I get a call from Indian Airlines. “Oh no,” I silently exclaim. Has my flight been cancelled? Nope, just delayed. There aren’t many flights that leave Port Blair, so I’m fine with just a delay. And it was nice of the airline to call me.
Now I sit at the gate in the small Port Blair airport (whose airport code is IXZ, for some strange reason). I’m near the TV, which is showing something in Hindi (I think it’s Hindi). At first I thought it was a shop-from-home show. Now it appears to be a read-your-astrological-forecast-from-home show. I guess. Unless maybe it’s a shopping show that sells tarot cards.
Since another flight was boarding as I first came in, I sat in an empty seat in a whole sea of empty seats. And of course two minutes later, some guy has to sit right next to me. Of course.
May 10 -- 10:44am
It’s wild. I’m flying on the plane and a handful of people (in different groups) are taking pictures of each other. I’ve never seen that before. It’s been going on for fifteen minutes now. Maybe these are their first flights or something. Weird.
(Pix from Number 7 beach and the dock at Havelock? Click the link at the bottom of the previous post. Because who doesn’t want to see dogs and goats eating coconuts?)
Monday, July 16, 2007
below the surface
May 5 -- 6:42pm
A storm rages outside. I stay dry in the covered multi-purpose space, watching instructional DVDs (one of which is delayed an hour after the power goes out halfway through) and taking little quizzes. Yep, flew across the Bay of Bengal to take little quizzes. Missy, the hippie chick, teaches an Austrian couple around my age and I the fine art of not dying while scuba diving. The main focus: preventing your lungs from exploding.
Local food options are limited (there’s only the outdoor restaurant at the “resort”), so after class I take a walk into town to buy necessities: bottled water and cookies. And some chocolate since they happen to sell it.
Then it’s back to my duplex hut. The hut itself is elevated. The bathroom is at the bottom of the outdoor steps, next to where six vagabond dogs have made their home. The shower has no hot water, but at least it’s a shower...in the loosest sense of the word. The drain is just a hole cut into the corner tile where the floor meets the walls. The floor slopes slightly so the water drains through the hole.
My hut upstairs has a couple fans, a couple lights and a bed. A door leads to a balcony, but even with the door closed, there’s still a two foot space between the top of the wall and the ceiling. Thus, many strange and unusual creatures make their way inside my hut. The bamboo-framed bed has mosquito netting atop the canopy. You have to pull it down and tuck the bottom edges underneath the mattress. I do this, but still find many a little critter chilling next to me in bed. And even with the bugs that the netting keeps out, it’s still rather unsettling to see half inch black beetles directly above your head, separated from you by only the thin mesh fabric they rest on.
May 6 -- 6:18pm
Today we dive. Missy, the Austrians (Mike and Sigy) and I take a 45 minute boat ride to the shallow practice site. The boat is called a dunghi. It’s nothing fancy -- a narrow wooden ride with peeling paint and a ripped tarp hanging over the center. The motor is loud and repetitive. Bat! Bat! Bat! Bat! Bat! But any unpleasantness is made up for by the pleasing stench of burning fuel wafting through the air. Ahhhhhh...
We arrive at small, mostly secluded, Elephant Beach. Some uprooted trees lay sideways in the water, ferns growing on top of their now sideways trunks. Apparently after the tsunami a few years ago, the whole island sloped to one side, causing the seawater to drift toward the trees. The saltwater poisoned the roots and the trees toppled over.
Wearing our wetsuits, flippers, BCDs (the scuba vest that has hoses and other stuff on it), masks and big canisters of air, we go shoulder deep in the water. As Missy explains the “skills” we have to practice so that we don’t die, it starts raining -- first light, then hard. We ignore the loud blasts of thunder and continue our lesson, though apparently if there was lightning, we’d have stopped.
We put the breathing devices in our mouths and go underwater, kneeling on the sandy floor a few feet below the surface. One of the very first skills we must do is clear water out of our masks while underwater. It’s very basic -- you tilt your head down, lift the bottom of the mask off your face, then blow out through your nose while tilting your head up. The Austrians have no problems with this but I just can’t get it. I struggle. I swallow water. I repeatedly panic and rise up to the surface. I didn’t expect this to be so hard.
Missy has to spend extra time helping me. I feel dumb, like the slow kid in class. I get frustrated. And nervous. If I can’t master this simple skill (without panicking), how could I possibly do a real dive? I’m totally not a quitter, but I think about quitting. It doesn’t sound so bad. I could just spend the next three days relaxing in this tropical island paradise, playing with stray dogs and dodging torrential downpours.
But I know I’ll forever regret it if I don’t keep trying. Finally I sort of get it, clearing at least some of the water from my mask. We move on to the other skills, which I’m decent at. Not as good as the Austrians, but at least acceptable.
We do skills for a while, then take a short break, then more skills -- this time a few meters below the surface. I’m feeling better now, a little more confident. I’m still the slow kid in class, but even slow kids pick things up eventually.
And then, we dive. For 25 minutes, we explore the warm water of the Andaman Sea, swimming by colorful fish, blue sea stars, a huge and oddly beautiful sea cucumber. It’s very cool, the feeling of floating underwater. I’m glad I didn’t quit.
We take the dunghi back to Café Del Mar and log our dive. 25 minutes, 11.6 meters deep (at our deepest point), who we dove with, what animal life we saw. And then the four of us talk for a few hours over tea and coffee and a couple baskets of French fries. I knew I’d have a lot of time to myself on this trip, so I enjoy this bit of group interaction.
After the sun goes down, I walk along the beach, leaving my footprints in the slightly moist white sand. On one side of me lies a forest of mangrove and palm trees. On the other side, tied off dunghis bob gently in the low tide water among poking sprags of coral. The faint sound of water rolling in, the smell of sea salt in the air. I’m glad I came to the Andaman Islands.
May 6 -- 7:28pm
The power just went out during the middle of my (cold) shower. In the dark, I let the water continue to stream out, washing the soap off my body. Reaching blindly, I managed to get outside and back up the stairs to my hut. I write this by the light of my flashlight. I’m glad I remembered to bring a flashlight.
May 7 -- 4:29pm
Two big dives today. We start the first one by sitting in our gear on the edge of the boat, backs to the water. Then with one hand on the mask and the other on the weight belt, we roll in backwards. I’m nervous as I watch the others do this, but I do it anyway. It’s not so bad.
The first dive is breathtaking. We go as deep as 18 meters and see many exotic fish, a freaky moray eel, many sea cucumbers and sea slugs, which are actually cool and brightly colored.
And then comes what I’ve really been dreading. We have to do another skill to earn the official PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) open water scuba certification -- we have to swim 200 meters, then float for ten minutes. To do the 200 meters, we have to circle the boat ten times. Now I’m okay with swimming underwater. But on the surface, I totally suck. I can swim for a (very) short distance, but that’s about it. So after I swim around the boat once, I am completely spent. I do my remaining nine laps floating on my back, kicking. Sure it’s cheesy, but Missy says it still counts. I’m just happy to get it over with, even if it seems to take forever.
After our second dive, we take the dunghi back to Café Del Mar, eating our typical dive lunch along the way: a hard boiled egg and rice with a few veggies, wrapped in plastic wrapped in newspaper. We eat it all with our hands. We also drink hot tea, which normally I don’t care for. But coming out of the water, it rocks.
Back on dry land, we are wiped out. I nod off repeatedly as we watch the last section of the instructional DVD. We take a final exam and I pass. Hizzah! It’ll be cool to get the certification, I guess (and the card will make a nice souvenir), but I doubt I’ll be scuba-ing again anytime soon.
May 9 -- 2:09am
My knees are sunburned. From just above the kneecap to just below, they are bright red, the result of the sun shining for the first time in days. It was between dives, for maybe half an hour. I was still wearing my wetsuit (which, coincidentally enough, extends to just above the kneecap), at least on my waist. I had pulled out of the upper part to let my chest breathe a little bit, to ease the tight wetsuit-created restriction. We sat in the rare sunlight while waiting for our nitrogen levels to go down, which you must do when doing multiple dives in a single day. After 15 minutes, I pulled back into the shade, which was a good decision as I now look at my sunburned face, neck, arms and chest. But they’re not as bad as my knees, which still poked into the sunlight and got some extra baking.
The dives are awesome. For the first time, we have almost no skills to work on. Just a few minutes playing with oversized compasses strapped to our wrists. We do a couple more “fun dives.” As seems to be my M.O., I get a little nervous just before the first one. Not sure why, since I’d already done it a few times before. But after we’ve been underwater for a while and we have to swim back up to the surface, I don’t want to get out.
We swim to a depth of 18 meters, checking out the picturesque corals and sea anemones and such. I see a puffer fish (non-puffed up), a lobster, a lionfish -- even a big octopus hiding in a hole in the wall. Even if I didn’t see these creatures, it was still neat just seeing all the fish and floating around in their element. Though I wouldn’t have complained if I got to see a sea turtle either.
A few times it hits me – at that exact moment, my co-workers are staring at a computer screen, eyes glazing over. And here I am in the middle of the Andaman Sea, a school of yellow striped fusilier swimming through me. I like my situation better.
Sigy takes a few pictures (including a few of me) with a disposable underwater camera. I hope the pictures come out. It would be so awesome to see pictures of me underwater, though who knows how recognizable I’d be under my mask and all that gear. It’s great that Sigy has a camera, but it distracts me a bit from just enjoying the below-the-surface scenery, embracing the serenity. I’d occasionally find myself subtlely posing when she’d be snapping a pic in my general direction. Oh well. They’ll email me the pictures later, presuming they came out. [7/16/07: it’s two months later and I have not received any pictures…dagnabbit]
It’s pouring rain by the time we get back to “dry” land. Seems like it’s always raining here. It makes sense since the monsoon season is about to start (my group is Barefoot Scuba’s very last group of the season). As we fill out our dive logs (and Missy gives us PADI stamps for legitimacy and fish stickers for fun), the rain still hits me, despite being eight feet in from the edge of the roof in the open-air restaurant.
Nobody else seems to care, but I watch 15, then 20, then 30 mosquitoes congregate on our table. Balancing on the edges of our glasses, exchanging pleasantries with each other, climbing into the cup of ketchup. It’s really gross. Though thankfully I don’t eat ketchup.
I look forward to my next hotel not having mosquitoes everywhere. And my bed not having fleas. Let’s hope it is completely critter free. My legs are covered with bug bites and I have little cuts all over my hands and feet (I’m not sure if saltwater is good or bad for those). Not sure how I got them all, probably from climbing in and out of the dunghi. But I know I got the nasty little cut on my finger when my folding chair abruptly folded and it caught my skin.
Pretty much everywhere I walk at the “resort,” I do it barefoot. Seems appropriate since Barefoot is the name of the place. And I might as well be barefoot since all the walking paths are covered with thick mud. I don’t want to completely ruin my shoes. And I just like being barefoot anyway.
When the rain takes a break, I go for a nice aimless walk down the one lane street, passing little farms and palm trees on my right, the entrances to small, ramshackle huts-on-the-beach resorts on the left. I exchange hellos with a few locals as we cross paths. A little girl asks me to take her picture, which I do. She smiles when she sees it. It’s a nice walk. I just hope it doesn’t start raining again.
I have dinner back at the outdoor restaurant -- an omelet along with chicken and noodles – the walk made me hungry. I give small pieces of chicken to my tiny kitten friend, who is visiting me again. The tiny kitten must have been starving because she even eats a noodle that fell on the ground. So I give her a bunch more. I’ve never seen a cat eat noodles before.
I go back to Port Blair tomorrow (technically today), then Calcutta the next day and Kathmandu the day after that. I’m tired, I feel ready to go back home now. But I already planned and paid for this long vacation after nearly six months abroad. Guess now I should actually finish it.
pictures from Havelock: CLICK HERE
A storm rages outside. I stay dry in the covered multi-purpose space, watching instructional DVDs (one of which is delayed an hour after the power goes out halfway through) and taking little quizzes. Yep, flew across the Bay of Bengal to take little quizzes. Missy, the hippie chick, teaches an Austrian couple around my age and I the fine art of not dying while scuba diving. The main focus: preventing your lungs from exploding.
Local food options are limited (there’s only the outdoor restaurant at the “resort”), so after class I take a walk into town to buy necessities: bottled water and cookies. And some chocolate since they happen to sell it.
Then it’s back to my duplex hut. The hut itself is elevated. The bathroom is at the bottom of the outdoor steps, next to where six vagabond dogs have made their home. The shower has no hot water, but at least it’s a shower...in the loosest sense of the word. The drain is just a hole cut into the corner tile where the floor meets the walls. The floor slopes slightly so the water drains through the hole.
My hut upstairs has a couple fans, a couple lights and a bed. A door leads to a balcony, but even with the door closed, there’s still a two foot space between the top of the wall and the ceiling. Thus, many strange and unusual creatures make their way inside my hut. The bamboo-framed bed has mosquito netting atop the canopy. You have to pull it down and tuck the bottom edges underneath the mattress. I do this, but still find many a little critter chilling next to me in bed. And even with the bugs that the netting keeps out, it’s still rather unsettling to see half inch black beetles directly above your head, separated from you by only the thin mesh fabric they rest on.
May 6 -- 6:18pm
Today we dive. Missy, the Austrians (Mike and Sigy) and I take a 45 minute boat ride to the shallow practice site. The boat is called a dunghi. It’s nothing fancy -- a narrow wooden ride with peeling paint and a ripped tarp hanging over the center. The motor is loud and repetitive. Bat! Bat! Bat! Bat! Bat! But any unpleasantness is made up for by the pleasing stench of burning fuel wafting through the air. Ahhhhhh...
We arrive at small, mostly secluded, Elephant Beach. Some uprooted trees lay sideways in the water, ferns growing on top of their now sideways trunks. Apparently after the tsunami a few years ago, the whole island sloped to one side, causing the seawater to drift toward the trees. The saltwater poisoned the roots and the trees toppled over.
Wearing our wetsuits, flippers, BCDs (the scuba vest that has hoses and other stuff on it), masks and big canisters of air, we go shoulder deep in the water. As Missy explains the “skills” we have to practice so that we don’t die, it starts raining -- first light, then hard. We ignore the loud blasts of thunder and continue our lesson, though apparently if there was lightning, we’d have stopped.
We put the breathing devices in our mouths and go underwater, kneeling on the sandy floor a few feet below the surface. One of the very first skills we must do is clear water out of our masks while underwater. It’s very basic -- you tilt your head down, lift the bottom of the mask off your face, then blow out through your nose while tilting your head up. The Austrians have no problems with this but I just can’t get it. I struggle. I swallow water. I repeatedly panic and rise up to the surface. I didn’t expect this to be so hard.
Missy has to spend extra time helping me. I feel dumb, like the slow kid in class. I get frustrated. And nervous. If I can’t master this simple skill (without panicking), how could I possibly do a real dive? I’m totally not a quitter, but I think about quitting. It doesn’t sound so bad. I could just spend the next three days relaxing in this tropical island paradise, playing with stray dogs and dodging torrential downpours.
But I know I’ll forever regret it if I don’t keep trying. Finally I sort of get it, clearing at least some of the water from my mask. We move on to the other skills, which I’m decent at. Not as good as the Austrians, but at least acceptable.
We do skills for a while, then take a short break, then more skills -- this time a few meters below the surface. I’m feeling better now, a little more confident. I’m still the slow kid in class, but even slow kids pick things up eventually.
And then, we dive. For 25 minutes, we explore the warm water of the Andaman Sea, swimming by colorful fish, blue sea stars, a huge and oddly beautiful sea cucumber. It’s very cool, the feeling of floating underwater. I’m glad I didn’t quit.
We take the dunghi back to Café Del Mar and log our dive. 25 minutes, 11.6 meters deep (at our deepest point), who we dove with, what animal life we saw. And then the four of us talk for a few hours over tea and coffee and a couple baskets of French fries. I knew I’d have a lot of time to myself on this trip, so I enjoy this bit of group interaction.
After the sun goes down, I walk along the beach, leaving my footprints in the slightly moist white sand. On one side of me lies a forest of mangrove and palm trees. On the other side, tied off dunghis bob gently in the low tide water among poking sprags of coral. The faint sound of water rolling in, the smell of sea salt in the air. I’m glad I came to the Andaman Islands.
May 6 -- 7:28pm
The power just went out during the middle of my (cold) shower. In the dark, I let the water continue to stream out, washing the soap off my body. Reaching blindly, I managed to get outside and back up the stairs to my hut. I write this by the light of my flashlight. I’m glad I remembered to bring a flashlight.
May 7 -- 4:29pm
Two big dives today. We start the first one by sitting in our gear on the edge of the boat, backs to the water. Then with one hand on the mask and the other on the weight belt, we roll in backwards. I’m nervous as I watch the others do this, but I do it anyway. It’s not so bad.
The first dive is breathtaking. We go as deep as 18 meters and see many exotic fish, a freaky moray eel, many sea cucumbers and sea slugs, which are actually cool and brightly colored.
And then comes what I’ve really been dreading. We have to do another skill to earn the official PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) open water scuba certification -- we have to swim 200 meters, then float for ten minutes. To do the 200 meters, we have to circle the boat ten times. Now I’m okay with swimming underwater. But on the surface, I totally suck. I can swim for a (very) short distance, but that’s about it. So after I swim around the boat once, I am completely spent. I do my remaining nine laps floating on my back, kicking. Sure it’s cheesy, but Missy says it still counts. I’m just happy to get it over with, even if it seems to take forever.
After our second dive, we take the dunghi back to Café Del Mar, eating our typical dive lunch along the way: a hard boiled egg and rice with a few veggies, wrapped in plastic wrapped in newspaper. We eat it all with our hands. We also drink hot tea, which normally I don’t care for. But coming out of the water, it rocks.
Back on dry land, we are wiped out. I nod off repeatedly as we watch the last section of the instructional DVD. We take a final exam and I pass. Hizzah! It’ll be cool to get the certification, I guess (and the card will make a nice souvenir), but I doubt I’ll be scuba-ing again anytime soon.
May 9 -- 2:09am
My knees are sunburned. From just above the kneecap to just below, they are bright red, the result of the sun shining for the first time in days. It was between dives, for maybe half an hour. I was still wearing my wetsuit (which, coincidentally enough, extends to just above the kneecap), at least on my waist. I had pulled out of the upper part to let my chest breathe a little bit, to ease the tight wetsuit-created restriction. We sat in the rare sunlight while waiting for our nitrogen levels to go down, which you must do when doing multiple dives in a single day. After 15 minutes, I pulled back into the shade, which was a good decision as I now look at my sunburned face, neck, arms and chest. But they’re not as bad as my knees, which still poked into the sunlight and got some extra baking.
The dives are awesome. For the first time, we have almost no skills to work on. Just a few minutes playing with oversized compasses strapped to our wrists. We do a couple more “fun dives.” As seems to be my M.O., I get a little nervous just before the first one. Not sure why, since I’d already done it a few times before. But after we’ve been underwater for a while and we have to swim back up to the surface, I don’t want to get out.
We swim to a depth of 18 meters, checking out the picturesque corals and sea anemones and such. I see a puffer fish (non-puffed up), a lobster, a lionfish -- even a big octopus hiding in a hole in the wall. Even if I didn’t see these creatures, it was still neat just seeing all the fish and floating around in their element. Though I wouldn’t have complained if I got to see a sea turtle either.
A few times it hits me – at that exact moment, my co-workers are staring at a computer screen, eyes glazing over. And here I am in the middle of the Andaman Sea, a school of yellow striped fusilier swimming through me. I like my situation better.
Sigy takes a few pictures (including a few of me) with a disposable underwater camera. I hope the pictures come out. It would be so awesome to see pictures of me underwater, though who knows how recognizable I’d be under my mask and all that gear. It’s great that Sigy has a camera, but it distracts me a bit from just enjoying the below-the-surface scenery, embracing the serenity. I’d occasionally find myself subtlely posing when she’d be snapping a pic in my general direction. Oh well. They’ll email me the pictures later, presuming they came out. [7/16/07: it’s two months later and I have not received any pictures…dagnabbit]
It’s pouring rain by the time we get back to “dry” land. Seems like it’s always raining here. It makes sense since the monsoon season is about to start (my group is Barefoot Scuba’s very last group of the season). As we fill out our dive logs (and Missy gives us PADI stamps for legitimacy and fish stickers for fun), the rain still hits me, despite being eight feet in from the edge of the roof in the open-air restaurant.
Nobody else seems to care, but I watch 15, then 20, then 30 mosquitoes congregate on our table. Balancing on the edges of our glasses, exchanging pleasantries with each other, climbing into the cup of ketchup. It’s really gross. Though thankfully I don’t eat ketchup.
I look forward to my next hotel not having mosquitoes everywhere. And my bed not having fleas. Let’s hope it is completely critter free. My legs are covered with bug bites and I have little cuts all over my hands and feet (I’m not sure if saltwater is good or bad for those). Not sure how I got them all, probably from climbing in and out of the dunghi. But I know I got the nasty little cut on my finger when my folding chair abruptly folded and it caught my skin.
Pretty much everywhere I walk at the “resort,” I do it barefoot. Seems appropriate since Barefoot is the name of the place. And I might as well be barefoot since all the walking paths are covered with thick mud. I don’t want to completely ruin my shoes. And I just like being barefoot anyway.
When the rain takes a break, I go for a nice aimless walk down the one lane street, passing little farms and palm trees on my right, the entrances to small, ramshackle huts-on-the-beach resorts on the left. I exchange hellos with a few locals as we cross paths. A little girl asks me to take her picture, which I do. She smiles when she sees it. It’s a nice walk. I just hope it doesn’t start raining again.
I have dinner back at the outdoor restaurant -- an omelet along with chicken and noodles – the walk made me hungry. I give small pieces of chicken to my tiny kitten friend, who is visiting me again. The tiny kitten must have been starving because she even eats a noodle that fell on the ground. So I give her a bunch more. I’ve never seen a cat eat noodles before.
I go back to Port Blair tomorrow (technically today), then Calcutta the next day and Kathmandu the day after that. I’m tired, I feel ready to go back home now. But I already planned and paid for this long vacation after nearly six months abroad. Guess now I should actually finish it.
pictures from Havelock: CLICK HERE
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
getting drenched getting there
May 3 -- 7:20pm
After not getting much (any) sleep last night, I take a late morning flight to Chennai (formerly Madras), an hour away from Bangalore. I get off the plane. The sky is dark and dingy gray. I’d heard Chennai was smoggy, but this much? A moment later, I realize my mistake upon hearing a giant thunderclap. It starts pouring. Following the man from the prepaid taxi stand with a plastic bag on his head, I run through six inches of water to beat the crowd and catch my pre-paid taxi. Five minutes into my ride, it stops raining.
I crash at the obviously named Hotel Shelter for a few hours, then walk the neighborhood in my still-sloshy shoes. Not a bad city, at least the small sliver of it I explore. I see a couple temples and am mildly hounded by peddlers and beggars. Typical. I’ve grown used to these things by now. My ignoring and saying “no” skills are top notch.
Back at the hotel, I hang my shoes and socks under a light in the bathroom. I hope they dry out completely.
May 4 -- 8:44pm
I wake up god-awful early to catch the 5:45am flight to Port Blair, Andaman Islands, a couple hours east of the Indian mainland. While preparing to land at Port Blair, I am loving the scenery below -- lush green islands with very few buildings. Reminds me a bit of the aerial shots in Survivor, though without the zippy camera zooms.
My ferry to Havelock Island doesn’t leave for a few hours so I have some time to kill, which is fine because I want to explore Port Blair. Shouldn’t take much time. Even though it’s the largest city in the Andamans, it’s still rather small.
The city is noticeably peaceful and quiet, especially contrasted with the crowded busyness of Bangalore. I walk along a tiled path by the water, not seeing any humans for minutes at a time. Nice. In my entire time in Port Blair, only three rickshaw drivers ask if they can give me a ride. Very nice. And of course I don’t take a ride. My feet work fine.
After a little while and a lengthy walk, it starts to rain. Just a drizzle at first, then a downpour, then drizzle, then downpour again. I jump a small gate and stay dry under the sheet metal roof of an unopened outdoor restaurant. The raindrops make thousands of simultaneous metallic pings over my head. The rain holding back slightly, I dash to a nearby aquarium and explore that for a little while. Nothing much to see, but then, I wasn’t expecting much.
The sky clears and I make my way up the hill to the Cellular Jail. I knew nothing about this place beforehand but I find it to be fascinating. This is where the British government sent (and tortured) the Indian freedom fighters who dared to want control of their own country. Interesting story and cool buildings. The nooses and torture racks are neat too.
I’m in the third story balcony hall of a jail cell wing when it starts pouring again. Not in the mood to get re-drenched, I duck into an open jail cell. Might as well take some pictures. Not much else to do as I ride out the weather. I set the auto timer on my camera and get some interesting shots of myself in jail. Because I am just that vain.
Wandering downtown Port Blair in the rain, I get nice and soggy. I stop by a grubby little restaurant with no front wall. There is no menu. The waiter/owner just gives me a plate of rice, then comes by with veggies and chicken and other such tasty Indian staples. It’s very good.
At two o’clock I catch the ferry to Havelock. The seats are uncomfortable and they face each other. Why do they do that? Who really wants to stare at some stranger’s face for a 2 ½ hour sweltering boat ride? I suspect the ferry also has a special discount -- get half off your fare if you’re accompanied by a screaming child. I did not know this ahead of time or else I would have borrowed a screaming child in Port Blair and saved a few rupees.
I have a large bottle of water tied to my bag, which sits just in front of me. I bought the water, frozen, just prior to the boat ride. Since it’s now melting, it’s sweating on the outside of the bottle. The mischievous little girl sitting opposite me reaches out and touches it. She waits for my reaction. I’m fine with it so I give her a small smile. She then encourages her brother to touch it. They are quite amused at their little game. Their mother sees them “bothering me” and tells them to stop. Havelock Island. I reach Café Del Mar, Barefoot Scuba’s “resort.” I immediately go and lie down in my sea-facing duplex hut.
I go down to the scuba “office” and meet the male British hippie and the female American hippie on staff. I have paperwork to fill out -- emergency contact information, papers saying it isn’t the company’s fault if I die. I decline to fill out the email section for my emergency contact. If I am to be devoured by a school of barracuda, I’d prefer for my mother to not find out via email.
As I try on flippers, a beach dog walks in and pukes on the floor.
I eat dinner at the outdoor restaurant. The world’s smallest kitten jumps on my lap, spooking me. She eats her entire bodyweight in the pieces of cut-up shrimp I give her from my plate. I wasn't going to eat them anyway.
pictures from Chennai: CLICK HERE
pictures from Port Blair: CLICK HERE
After not getting much (any) sleep last night, I take a late morning flight to Chennai (formerly Madras), an hour away from Bangalore. I get off the plane. The sky is dark and dingy gray. I’d heard Chennai was smoggy, but this much? A moment later, I realize my mistake upon hearing a giant thunderclap. It starts pouring. Following the man from the prepaid taxi stand with a plastic bag on his head, I run through six inches of water to beat the crowd and catch my pre-paid taxi. Five minutes into my ride, it stops raining.
I crash at the obviously named Hotel Shelter for a few hours, then walk the neighborhood in my still-sloshy shoes. Not a bad city, at least the small sliver of it I explore. I see a couple temples and am mildly hounded by peddlers and beggars. Typical. I’ve grown used to these things by now. My ignoring and saying “no” skills are top notch.
Back at the hotel, I hang my shoes and socks under a light in the bathroom. I hope they dry out completely.
May 4 -- 8:44pm
I wake up god-awful early to catch the 5:45am flight to Port Blair, Andaman Islands, a couple hours east of the Indian mainland. While preparing to land at Port Blair, I am loving the scenery below -- lush green islands with very few buildings. Reminds me a bit of the aerial shots in Survivor, though without the zippy camera zooms.
My ferry to Havelock Island doesn’t leave for a few hours so I have some time to kill, which is fine because I want to explore Port Blair. Shouldn’t take much time. Even though it’s the largest city in the Andamans, it’s still rather small.
The city is noticeably peaceful and quiet, especially contrasted with the crowded busyness of Bangalore. I walk along a tiled path by the water, not seeing any humans for minutes at a time. Nice. In my entire time in Port Blair, only three rickshaw drivers ask if they can give me a ride. Very nice. And of course I don’t take a ride. My feet work fine.
After a little while and a lengthy walk, it starts to rain. Just a drizzle at first, then a downpour, then drizzle, then downpour again. I jump a small gate and stay dry under the sheet metal roof of an unopened outdoor restaurant. The raindrops make thousands of simultaneous metallic pings over my head. The rain holding back slightly, I dash to a nearby aquarium and explore that for a little while. Nothing much to see, but then, I wasn’t expecting much.
The sky clears and I make my way up the hill to the Cellular Jail. I knew nothing about this place beforehand but I find it to be fascinating. This is where the British government sent (and tortured) the Indian freedom fighters who dared to want control of their own country. Interesting story and cool buildings. The nooses and torture racks are neat too.
I’m in the third story balcony hall of a jail cell wing when it starts pouring again. Not in the mood to get re-drenched, I duck into an open jail cell. Might as well take some pictures. Not much else to do as I ride out the weather. I set the auto timer on my camera and get some interesting shots of myself in jail. Because I am just that vain.
Wandering downtown Port Blair in the rain, I get nice and soggy. I stop by a grubby little restaurant with no front wall. There is no menu. The waiter/owner just gives me a plate of rice, then comes by with veggies and chicken and other such tasty Indian staples. It’s very good.
At two o’clock I catch the ferry to Havelock. The seats are uncomfortable and they face each other. Why do they do that? Who really wants to stare at some stranger’s face for a 2 ½ hour sweltering boat ride? I suspect the ferry also has a special discount -- get half off your fare if you’re accompanied by a screaming child. I did not know this ahead of time or else I would have borrowed a screaming child in Port Blair and saved a few rupees.
I have a large bottle of water tied to my bag, which sits just in front of me. I bought the water, frozen, just prior to the boat ride. Since it’s now melting, it’s sweating on the outside of the bottle. The mischievous little girl sitting opposite me reaches out and touches it. She waits for my reaction. I’m fine with it so I give her a small smile. She then encourages her brother to touch it. They are quite amused at their little game. Their mother sees them “bothering me” and tells them to stop. Havelock Island. I reach Café Del Mar, Barefoot Scuba’s “resort.” I immediately go and lie down in my sea-facing duplex hut.
I go down to the scuba “office” and meet the male British hippie and the female American hippie on staff. I have paperwork to fill out -- emergency contact information, papers saying it isn’t the company’s fault if I die. I decline to fill out the email section for my emergency contact. If I am to be devoured by a school of barracuda, I’d prefer for my mother to not find out via email.
As I try on flippers, a beach dog walks in and pukes on the floor.
I eat dinner at the outdoor restaurant. The world’s smallest kitten jumps on my lap, spooking me. She eats her entire bodyweight in the pieces of cut-up shrimp I give her from my plate. I wasn't going to eat them anyway.
pictures from Chennai: CLICK HERE
pictures from Port Blair: CLICK HERE
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Let me eat cake
Cake, you surround me. Black forest, pineapple gateaux, chocolate bomb. You come in so many colors and shapes and sizes, each of you more delectable than the one just before.
Tempting, moist, delicious sweet cake – you are everywhere. You’re on every coffee shop counter and movie theatre snack bar. Chocolate mousse, chocolate fantasy, chocolate doughnut – you’re not technically cake but you’re eaten with a spoon.
Meals are healthy. But cake, you balance it out. Thick and heavy, weighed down with icing. How do so many stay so thin when you show your sweet self?
Falooda, jalebi, gulab jamun – they’re all very tasty. But cake, you have the numbers. Cake, you have the reach. Cake, you dominate. And you taste good.
Tempting, moist, delicious sweet cake – you are everywhere. You’re on every coffee shop counter and movie theatre snack bar. Chocolate mousse, chocolate fantasy, chocolate doughnut – you’re not technically cake but you’re eaten with a spoon.
Meals are healthy. But cake, you balance it out. Thick and heavy, weighed down with icing. How do so many stay so thin when you show your sweet self?
Falooda, jalebi, gulab jamun – they’re all very tasty. But cake, you have the numbers. Cake, you have the reach. Cake, you dominate. And you taste good.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
and now, the scramble
I’ve reached the counting down point, but I have many different dates to count down to. I roughly have:
2 weeks left working in Bangalore
4 weeks left in India
5 weeks till I’m back in balmy L.A.
And of course, because I always put too much pressure on myself to be productive with my time, I have a lot of stuff to do. And only two weeks to do it. Namely, I have to edit my final India short film (I’ll also be doing something with all the urban monkey footage I’ve shot, but that will come post-balmy L.A. return). And I want it to be totally finished and online before I leave Bangalore. Self-imposed deadline. And I also have some writing I need to finish.
I spent all weekend shooting b-roll of interesting Bangalore stuff, including my interactions with it (like talking with cows). And I still have to shoot some indoor bits as well. And cut it all together. This will likely be the longest and most complex of my adequately named “Bangaloring” series. So of course I cannot spend my last few weeks relaxing. I’ve got work to do. Blechh.
I always guilt myself into being productive when all I really want to do is relax and watch TV and eat ice cream. Stupid self-guilt.
2 weeks left working in Bangalore
4 weeks left in India
5 weeks till I’m back in balmy L.A.
And of course, because I always put too much pressure on myself to be productive with my time, I have a lot of stuff to do. And only two weeks to do it. Namely, I have to edit my final India short film (I’ll also be doing something with all the urban monkey footage I’ve shot, but that will come post-balmy L.A. return). And I want it to be totally finished and online before I leave Bangalore. Self-imposed deadline. And I also have some writing I need to finish.
I spent all weekend shooting b-roll of interesting Bangalore stuff, including my interactions with it (like talking with cows). And I still have to shoot some indoor bits as well. And cut it all together. This will likely be the longest and most complex of my adequately named “Bangaloring” series. So of course I cannot spend my last few weeks relaxing. I’ve got work to do. Blechh.
I always guilt myself into being productive when all I really want to do is relax and watch TV and eat ice cream. Stupid self-guilt.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Sweatin' Mumbai
Last week was Good Friday, a holiday on the Indian calendar. Rather than wile away my day off on the streets of Bangalore, playing with wild dogs and dodging gaping holes in the sidewalk, I decided to fly to Mumbai. Bollywood.
Formerly known as Bombay (a way cooler name), Mumbai is home to the biggest film industry in the world, bigger even than Hollywood. Even after the city’s name change, the Bollywood nickname stuck. “Mullywood” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
It would be awesome to see filmmaking from the Indian perspective. I’d imagine it would be much like American filmmaking, but with a lot more Indian people. And big, over-the-top song and dance numbers – many taking place on hillsides and adjacent to water – where rhythm and movements symbolize a couple’s passion in a morally acceptable way.
Sadly, you can’t visit the Bollywood studios – they’re closed to the public. So I couldn’t witness firsthand a director telling his lead actress that her performance is “too realistic.” That she needs to heighten every expression, every gesture. To make it bigger, less subtle, more artificial. To make it more Bollywood.
I’d heard that occasionally a Bollywood production will pluck random tourists to be extras in a film. I’d be down with that. It would be neat to compare the experience with that glamorous period of my life when I worked as an extra, making background crosses like no other.
But that didn’t happen. I was never discovered by Central Casting: Mumbai.
When you want to drink a beer in India, chances are that it’s a Kingfisher beer. And when you want to fly on a really nice plane in India, you fly Kingfisher Airlines, which is what I did. For an hour and a half flight, I get a nice meal with dessert, a personal video screen on the seat in front of me (of course nothing good is on save for a claymation penguin show called Pingu), a little goody bag – even this weird spicy buttermilk drink in a juice box. It’s actually pretty nasty, but at least it’s free.
I arrive in Mumbai and step outside. It’s mid-afternoon and it’s hot. Very hot. Too-close-to-the-sun hot. I can’t find a “cool cab” (cab with air conditioning) so I take a regular one for the long ride to my hotel in the Fort district. The open cab windows create wind on my face as sweat dampens the back of my shirt.
The ride takes a while as we pass through neighborhood after neighborhood of slums. Homes made out of random pieces of wood and sheet metal and old plastic tarps. Ladders leading up to second story hovels. Children playing, some of them naked, some of them bored. Adults chatting or sleeping on the ground, on cots, on boxes, whatever. With the stifling heat, a nap is not such a bad idea.
I get to my hotel, The Residency, My room is small but it has an air conditioner. So I crank it up and sit motionless in front of it for a while. It’s lovely.
Finally I roust myself from my icy bliss. I should go outside and do something – but what? I need an objective. Looking through my assorted guides and maps, I see a movie theatre is nearby. Yes, I’ll see a Hindi movie. A Bollywood movie in Bollywood. I am pleased with myself for this brilliant plan.
The movie doesn’t start for a few hours so I go outside and wander aimlessly. I like to do that in strange cities. Pick up the atmosphere, the vibe. And Mumbai has a great vibe, a robust energy you can really feel.
I walk on the sidewalk, alternately ignoring and rejecting the countless vendors hawking bootleg DVDs, underwear, and what appear to be vibrators (seriously, a bunch of vendors are selling them and they don’t look like anything else). It seems every vendor makes an extra effort to grab my attention. They must know I’m from out of town – but how? Is it because I’m one of the few people wearing sunglasses? My nice sneakers? Or perhaps my blonde hair and milky white skin gives me away. Hmmm…
I have a nice dinner at a veg restaurant called Samrat. The soup and main course are fine, but the starter (appetizer) is the bomb. Twelve baby corns, deep fried. Mmmmm…deep fried baby corns…
Done with my herbavorian feast, I mosey over to the Eros Cinema with my ticket for the just-opened, destined-to-be-a-classic Shaka Laka Boom Boom. Some flick about the cutthroat music industry. I sit up in the balcony, the movie starts and twenty minutes later I fall asleep. This is not uncommon for me. In the states, I would often have a few dozing moments before snapping back awake for the rest of the flick. But today I sleep for most of the first half, right up until intermission. Which is fine. I manage to stay awake for the second half and wish I were still sleeping. Major overacting (which is obvious despite it not being in English), way overdramatic music – even the dancing is lame. A poor cinematic experience. Perhaps my expectations were too high for a film called Shaka Laka Boom Boom.
Saturday, I go to the Gateway of India. It’s pretty much as I expected – a large gray structure that doesn’t do anything and you can’t go inside, like the Arc de Triumphe in Paris or that big arch in Washington Square Park in NY. You see it, say “wow, that’s big,” you take a few pictures. And five minutes later, you’re done. At least from here, I can take a boat ride. Which is good, because the boats go to Elephanta Island, which is where I want to go.
The boat ride is hot. Thank goodness for the partial canopy or I’d completely wilt. After an hour, my fellow tourists and I arrive at the end of a long dock leading to Elephanta Island. I walk alongside a toy train that transports the kids and the lazy. My pace is only slightly slower than that of the train. I grab a bottle of water and snack on homemade nut brittle and some slices of mystery fruit (at first I think it’s an apple, turns out not to be) I bought from one of the many peddlers sitting on the ground.
Traditional women pose with objects on their heads, imploring you to take a picture (and give them money). I take a shot of the first one I pass as she mugs from the camera. I give her ten rupees and she says “twenty.” I continue walking. (Later I delete the picture. It feels too artificial, too inorganic)
I reach the base of a lengthy stone incline, a gauntlet of peddlers on both sides as far up as I can see. But at least these folk sell interesting souvenirs – carvings and bells and Ganesha figurines. And not a single vibrator. I pace myself as I climb the many steps, not wanting a repeat of my last sweltering staircase shlep, when I puked from walking too fast.
Reaching the top of the steps, I am sweating profusely. I taste it as it trickles into my mouth. It tastes like sweat.
I explore the wide open caves, or at least the one that’s open to visitors. Thousand year old columns and sculptures of Hindu gods. Same gods I’ve seen at many temples, but this time it’s in a cave. Which makes it cooler. Figuratively and literally. Gotta love caves.
I return to the mainland and look for snake charmers around the Gateway of India, for I’d heard they sometimes gather there. Unfortunately, I find none. Though I do see some teenagers diving boldly into the water and I grab some nice action shots.
My sweat almost makes me miss my dinner reservation. I knew it had seriously dampened my watchband, but I didn’t realize it had diffused into the timepiece itself, causing it to slow down time. So when I think it’s five o’clock, it turns out to really be six. Lousy sweaty watch.
I have an excellent dinner at the super fancy schmancy Taj Mahal Hotel. The restaurant is Wasabi, created by Masaharu Morimoto, one of the Iron Chefs. I hadn’t had real sushi since coming to India and this makes up for it. It’s ever so tasty and the presentation is superb. And it doesn’t hurt that the waiter keeps bringing me free sake.
On the hot walk back to the hotel, my shirt returns to its nearly liquid state. All I want to do is take a shower. But of course the hotel bathroom doesn’t have a traditional (Western) shower, it only has a curtain to divide the room and a random shower head sticking out of the wall. It also has, like most Indian bathrooms, a bucket and a cup with which you can pour water on yourself to “bathe.” I opt try my luck with the random shower head.
The water isn’t even lukewarm but it feels great. So nice for the liquid covering my body to be water instead of sweat. The water ends up leaking out of the bathroom and into the main room so I spend the next ten minutes sopping it up with a towel. I know I could just ask some hotel guy to do it, but I’m tired and don’t want any people coming in for floor mopping duty. I just want to relax.
On Sunday, my final day in town, I hit some art galleries and museums. There are some nice works of art. And air conditioning. Did I mention I like air conditioning?
With my return flight time fast approaching, I walk south toward the water, to Colaba Market. It’s a bustling marketplace with vendors selling fruit, veggies and the like. As I walk deeper into the market, the path becomes narrower. There are more people going about their daily routine, not just exchanging goods. Goats wander freely. Children play. And then it dawns on me that I’m right in the middle of a slum.
I continue walking, hoping the maze-like path will eventually lead out of the endless sea of shanties. But it doesn’t. I end up on a beach covered with more garbage than sand, a wall of shacks on one side, Back Bay on the other. The place is teeming with life. A man washes a cow in the water while children happily dive from the top of well-worn fishing boats. An oddly beautiful scene, in its own sad, colorful way.
I take some (what I hope to be) surreptitious pictures and continue my exploration, still looking for the way out. I never feel unsafe, but I am clearly an outsider here, despite the friendly waves of the toddlers who say hello to me as I pass.
Hitting a dead end, I turn around and go back the way I came, stumbling upon another out-of-place white guy. He looks more lost than me. He says he’s from Denmark, in month nine of a ten month trip around the world. Now he’s trying to reach the Gateway of India. We retrace my original steps, back out of the slum, through the market and back to middle class Mumbai. We go our separate ways, he to the stationary landmark, me back to the hotel to pick up my bag.
Before my cab ride back to the airport, all I want is a cold drink. Unfortunately it’s Easter, so almost nothing is open, at least among the small shops and fruit stands by The Residency. Just when I’m about to give up, I find an open juice stand and order a glass of pineapple juice for ten rupees. The juiceman takes a few pieces of pineapple, slices the ends off with a knife and puts them in a blender. He blends for a long time, long enough for me to repeatedly wave off the troop of mosquitoes flying about. Finally he pours my glass. It’s not cold, but it’s tall and frothy, more foam than juice. Kinda like an Orange Julius, only completely natural. And man, is it good.
And with that, I finish my glass. And my weekend in Mumbai.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
slip
An hour ago, I almost cracked my head open. Yes, by accident.
I turned off the shower and started to walk out when I slipped, my feet flying up behind me. My face headed straight for the hard tile floor at an alarming speed. In the split second before collision, I managed to brace myself slightly, extending my forearm out just enough to take some of the impact. Thankfully.
My arm slammed into the floor, as did the side of my chin and, somehow, my ankle. As I lay there on the cold wet tile, surrounded by the little beard hairs I had shaved off pre-shower, I took inventory. My much-knocked-out (and now totally fake) front tooth was still intact. My chin was sore but still all together. And the only trace of spilt blood was congealing gently around the nail of my right big toe.
In five seconds I went from a fine mood to sudden terror to great relief. Because this is no place to get yourself injured. Another American had told me how his friend had dislocated his shoulder here, and about the bloodstains he saw on the hospital wall. And I knew that if you had major tooth problems, the most common fix would be pulling the tooth, often by dentists who do it out on the street.
As I stood back up, I took a deep, contemplative breath, very thankful that I barely avoided serious injury, that I braced my fall just enough. Because this is not a place to get hurt.
I turned off the shower and started to walk out when I slipped, my feet flying up behind me. My face headed straight for the hard tile floor at an alarming speed. In the split second before collision, I managed to brace myself slightly, extending my forearm out just enough to take some of the impact. Thankfully.
My arm slammed into the floor, as did the side of my chin and, somehow, my ankle. As I lay there on the cold wet tile, surrounded by the little beard hairs I had shaved off pre-shower, I took inventory. My much-knocked-out (and now totally fake) front tooth was still intact. My chin was sore but still all together. And the only trace of spilt blood was congealing gently around the nail of my right big toe.
In five seconds I went from a fine mood to sudden terror to great relief. Because this is no place to get yourself injured. Another American had told me how his friend had dislocated his shoulder here, and about the bloodstains he saw on the hospital wall. And I knew that if you had major tooth problems, the most common fix would be pulling the tooth, often by dentists who do it out on the street.
As I stood back up, I took a deep, contemplative breath, very thankful that I barely avoided serious injury, that I braced my fall just enough. Because this is not a place to get hurt.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Service
The service industry is huge out here. If there’s some simple task you need to do, you can bet there will be four Indian men with neatly trimmed mustaches ready to do it for you. Need to open a door? They’ll take care of it. Need someone to guard an ATM? They’ve got it covered. Want to buy a shirt? Rest assured, a handful of workers will make sure you see every one available…even if the first one was fine.
It’s nice when people do things for you, especially if that’s their job. But with each task someone is assigned to, that’s one less thing you can do yourself. And I’d rather do things myself. I have no problem picking out a shirt or opening a door.
Don’t get me wrong – there are some aspects that I like. I live at the Melange, a serviced apartment (like a hotel) where they wash and fold my laundry. And wash my dishes every day. And clean my studio apartment and make my bed (too tightly). But I don’t need them to do all this. I would not die if I came home to a messy room. My world would not crumble if a dirty dish was left in the sink.
Unlike back in the states, I don’t enjoy many of those wonderful do-nothing, never-leave-the-house days. I feel I should be out as much as possible since I have no idea when/if I’ll ever be back again. But there have been a few days where I just wanted to just veg out, to only move the distance between the bed and the refrigerator (and later, the bed and the bathroom). As I do every time I’m in the apartment, I’ll leave the “do not disturb” sign on the doorknob. In the early afternoon, I’ll get a phone call from the cleaning staff. “Good afternoon, sir. What time would you like us to clean the room, sir?” A few time I’ve said that it’s fine, I don’t need the room cleaned that day. In the worker’s response, I can hear the faintest hint of sadness in his voice, of disappointment in his tone. And I feel guilty.
And what happens when a service employee isn’t doing his job? Most nice stores have a doorman to open the door for you. And I want to let him do it – it’s what he’s paid for. But sometimes the doorman isn’t paying attention. Do I wait a moment for him to notice me, then let me in? Do I open the door halfway, hoping the movement is spotted by his peripheral vision so that he’ll open it the rest of the way? Do I just open the door myself and go in, possibly making him feel he’s not doing his job properly? Too many options – and all I want is to go inside.
I’ve accepted having a driver, even if I’ve never gotten totally comfortable with it. It is nice not having to deal with the challenging driving conditions out here – countless motorcycles, insane drivers jockeying for position, occasional slowdowns caused by random cows wandering into the street. And being in the backseat, I can write and stay productive with my time.
But I feel embarrassed when (about a third of the time), Thankachen will see me approach the car and he’ll run around it, rushing to open the door for me. Especially when he does it in public. I’m not someone special, I need no such special treatment.
I also miss the control of being able to drive myself places. Of not having to arrange transportation ahead of time. If I want to go somewhere on the weekend, it’s polite to give Thankachen some advance notice, so he can plan his own schedule accordingly. But I don’t always plan my weekends. I’d rather just do what I feel like it, go where the day takes me (to speak in clichés).
That’s why I walk as much as possible. With walking, I don’t have to rely on anyone but myself and my feet and my comfortable shoes. It’s independent. Nobody is leading me anywhere, I can go any direction I want and I don’t have to stop if I don’t want to. I just hope that wherever I end up, the doorman is paying attention when I walk to the door.
It’s nice when people do things for you, especially if that’s their job. But with each task someone is assigned to, that’s one less thing you can do yourself. And I’d rather do things myself. I have no problem picking out a shirt or opening a door.
Don’t get me wrong – there are some aspects that I like. I live at the Melange, a serviced apartment (like a hotel) where they wash and fold my laundry. And wash my dishes every day. And clean my studio apartment and make my bed (too tightly). But I don’t need them to do all this. I would not die if I came home to a messy room. My world would not crumble if a dirty dish was left in the sink.
Unlike back in the states, I don’t enjoy many of those wonderful do-nothing, never-leave-the-house days. I feel I should be out as much as possible since I have no idea when/if I’ll ever be back again. But there have been a few days where I just wanted to just veg out, to only move the distance between the bed and the refrigerator (and later, the bed and the bathroom). As I do every time I’m in the apartment, I’ll leave the “do not disturb” sign on the doorknob. In the early afternoon, I’ll get a phone call from the cleaning staff. “Good afternoon, sir. What time would you like us to clean the room, sir?” A few time I’ve said that it’s fine, I don’t need the room cleaned that day. In the worker’s response, I can hear the faintest hint of sadness in his voice, of disappointment in his tone. And I feel guilty.
And what happens when a service employee isn’t doing his job? Most nice stores have a doorman to open the door for you. And I want to let him do it – it’s what he’s paid for. But sometimes the doorman isn’t paying attention. Do I wait a moment for him to notice me, then let me in? Do I open the door halfway, hoping the movement is spotted by his peripheral vision so that he’ll open it the rest of the way? Do I just open the door myself and go in, possibly making him feel he’s not doing his job properly? Too many options – and all I want is to go inside.
I’ve accepted having a driver, even if I’ve never gotten totally comfortable with it. It is nice not having to deal with the challenging driving conditions out here – countless motorcycles, insane drivers jockeying for position, occasional slowdowns caused by random cows wandering into the street. And being in the backseat, I can write and stay productive with my time.
But I feel embarrassed when (about a third of the time), Thankachen will see me approach the car and he’ll run around it, rushing to open the door for me. Especially when he does it in public. I’m not someone special, I need no such special treatment.
I also miss the control of being able to drive myself places. Of not having to arrange transportation ahead of time. If I want to go somewhere on the weekend, it’s polite to give Thankachen some advance notice, so he can plan his own schedule accordingly. But I don’t always plan my weekends. I’d rather just do what I feel like it, go where the day takes me (to speak in clichés).
That’s why I walk as much as possible. With walking, I don’t have to rely on anyone but myself and my feet and my comfortable shoes. It’s independent. Nobody is leading me anywhere, I can go any direction I want and I don’t have to stop if I don’t want to. I just hope that wherever I end up, the doorman is paying attention when I walk to the door.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
travel troubles
I hate planning ahead, really hate it. It’s a pain personally and it can stifle spontaneity. When I did my London semester back in the day, I bought a Eurorail pass. During my vacation time, I took trains all around, stopping at whatever random country I felt like stopping at. I fully embraced the concept of winging it.
Sadly, I do not have the luxury of winging it here. At least not in regard to my long vacation, the one coming at the end of my time here, the one I’ve been looking forward to since Bangalore day 1. The way I set it up, I’ll finish working in early May, then I’ll have two weeks off to gallivant around the country. Jeremy’s Farewell India Tour 2007 ©. Since the infrastructure here is not quite as stellar as in Europe, and since the trains don’t have as much zip, I’ll have to fly from place to place. And when you have to fly, you really can’t wing it, so to speak.
There are three main places I want to travel to: Mumbai (Bombay), Nepal and the Andaman Islands. I never heard of the Andaman Islands until a few months ago (at least I don’t think I’d heard of them – sometimes my memory plays revisionist history tricks on me), when I stumbled upon a website called barefootindia.com. Now I really want to go. The islands are a couple hours east of mainland India, close to Thailand. They look very beautiful, and apparently are still in their not-yet-swamped-by-tourists-with-fanny-packs phase.
One of the big things to do there is scuba dive – and from the pictures I saw, it looks like an amazing experience. An underwater world filled with exotic looking creatures, interesting reefs and, umm, water. I’ve never scuba dived before (except briefly in a five foot tank outside a scuba shop in Albuquerque when I was twelve) but somehow the idea of doing so has permeated my brain. Now I have to scuba dive. It must be done.
Monsoon season rolls in around mid-May, scuttling opportunities to scuba. So I decide to make the Andaman Islands my first destination. Hopefully I can beat the monsoons.
But getting to the Andamans seems no easy task. I have been trying to book airline tickets for the past week, with varying degrees of dismal failure. It’s not unexpected. I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to fly from L.A. to Vegas -- I’m trying to reach some obscure little chain of islands in the Indian Ocean.
There’s no direct flight from Bangalore to the Andaman Islands – there are only flights to/from Chennai and Calcutta. So one of those cities will have to be my stopover, my “via.”
The “name” travel sites, shockingly, do not offer any flights to Port Blair, the Andaman Islands town with an airport (which, for reasons unknown to me, has the airport code IXZ.). One of the main sketchy Indian travel sites, india.makemytrip.com (which I used to fly to Delhi in December), has an Indian Airlines flight that goes out there, but it leaves Chennai really early in the morning, making a same-day connection from Bangalore impossible.
So I continue searching online, visiting all the local airline sites. Some of the sites work well, most work poorly. I learn the only airlines that fly to Port Blair are Jet Airways, Air Deccan and Indian Airlines. Jet only has hella expensive business class seats. Indian Airlines doesn’t have a workable connecting flight. That leaves Air Deccan, which actually has a terrific fare listed on its website. And as a plus, unlike many of the domestic airlines in India, Air Deccan has the same prices for foreigners as for Indian nationals. Sweet!
I go to the Air Deccan website, select my itinerary, put in my credit card information and click to purchase. It doesn’t work. There’s an error message. But of course it doesn’t tell me what specifically the error is, only that there is an error. Very helpful. I double-check all my info, re-enter my credit card number and (hoping I don’t somehow get charged twice), click the purchase button again. No dice.
So I find the, roughly, eight different phone numbers listed on the site. I should mention that making a phone call out here is a baffling ordeal, at least for me. You can’t always call the same number from a landline and from a cell. There are various codes to dial before the “main” part of the number, depending on a myriad of factors that I don’t remotely understand. They even incorporate the “+” sign, but only sometimes. How I long for the subtle simplicity of the three digit area code…
Anyway… after trying countless digit combinations, I finally reach Air Deccan. I wait on hold for ten minutes, enjoying the latest Bollywood tunes. Then a real person picks up and I tell her my purchasing problem. She explains that I couldn’t buy the ticket on their website because my credit card wasn’t issued in India. Makes sense, though it would’ve been nice if the website could have told me that. I ask if I can purchase tickets over the phone. She says I can’t. She says I can only purchase tickets at one of their two Bangalore offices, paying with cash. She directs me to the one at the airport. Yes! I get to go to the airport on a day I’m not even flying anywhere! Hurray!
After work, with wads of paper money weighing down my pockets, I go to the airport. I wait in a very short yet very slow line at the Air Deccan counter, distracting myself with the “Bounce” game on my cell phone while staving off wannabe line jumpers by blocking them with my elbows. Everyone in front of me is frustrated, arguing with the clerk. I don’t care what they’re arguing about. I just want to get to the front of the line so I can buy my ticket and go home. I’m tired, I’ve been working all day.
Finally I reach the clerk and he tells me they don’t accept cash. I’m taken aback. “But they told me on the phone that I could pay cash here.” The clerk gives no reaction. “Well can I use my credit card?” No. “Can I write a check?” No. “Well then what do you actually do here if you can’t sell me a ticket?” The clerk just smiles dumbly, seemingly amused by the reaction to his own powerlessness. Now I can see why all the people in front of me had been arguing with the guy.
The next day, also after work, I go to the other Bangalore Air Deccan office. The place looks fairly legitimate. And there’s a cool electronic map of India that shows the status of all current Air Deccan flights. I manage to get to a ticket agent in short time. I show her the flights I want, the same ones with the great price I’d found on the website. Strangely (?), those tickets now cost twice as much. Hmmm… I’m annoyed, but I just want to get the tickets and be done with it. And the price is still way better than the Jet Airways business class tickets. Unfortunately I don’t have enough cash in my pocket. I’m a few thousand rupees short. The ticket agent says I can use the ATM across the street. I ask if she can hold that reservation for me since I’ll be right back. She says she can’t.
I come back ten minutes later, my pockets even more overloaded with cash, courtesy of the fine ATM at ICICI bank. I go back to the same ticket agent. She looks at the computer screen again and – what do you know? – one of my flights now costs 8000 rupees more than it did just ten minutes earlier. That’s nearly $200. So I’m pissed. I thank her for nothing and walk out.
On the drive to the Air Deccan office, I had noticed a small travel agency. So now, not wanting to end another day ticket-less, I walk inside. It’s 5:45pm. The woman behind the counter is exceedingly friendly, which is refreshing. She says they can’t hold reservations, I would just have to buy the tickets outright. Sounds perfect to me.
Weighing all my options, I realize that unless I want to spend a buttload of money, I’ll have to fly into Chennai on one day, and then fly to the Andaman Islands the next. It’s not ideal, but whatever.
The woman behind the counter and I discuss flight options, itineraries and such. We find the flights that best suit my needs. I’m ready to buy the tickets. But she says that I can’t. “But I thought you said I HAD to buy them, that you couldn’t hold reservations?” She says that after six, they stop selling tickets. It’s 6:15 when she tells me this.
So that evening, I go back home, determined to book those Indian Airlines tickets myself at india.makemytrip.com. And of course my payment doesn’t go through. At least the website was kind enough to say it was because of my lovely non-Indian credit card. But then, I figured that out already.
Now it’s today. I call the makemytrip office from work. The young makemytrip man I speak with, Shashank, is very helpful. He sets me up with the flights I want at a reasonable price. He’ll even keep the tickets on hold for 24 hours while he waits for me to fax over some form and a copy of my credit card, front and back. I’m not so keen on the idea of faxing copies of my credit card, but my options are limited. And I had to do something similar (with much trepidation) when I used makemytrip for my December Delhi flights, and that worked out okay.
So I get my papers together and am ready to fax. But where’s a fax machine? I work at the massive Infosys campus, Electronics City. The center of a tech hub in a tech city. It should be easy to find a fax machine, right? Right??
My friend/boss Eshwari knows of only one fax machine on campus (I’m sure there are more hiding). We take the long walk to another building, where two guys attempt, repeatedly, to send out the fax. Doesn’t happen. The machine just won’t send it.
Fine, I say, I’ll just have the concierge at my service apartment send it. He tries to fax and he also fails. Repeatedly. And I’m pretty sure the number I was sending to wasn’t the problem.
So I give a call to good ol’ Shashank at makemytrip. He says I can just email him the forms and the copies of the credit card. Thank goodness. I email him all the needed stuff and the ticket is purchased. At least I think it’s purchased. I know my credit card was charged...
Sadly, I do not have the luxury of winging it here. At least not in regard to my long vacation, the one coming at the end of my time here, the one I’ve been looking forward to since Bangalore day 1. The way I set it up, I’ll finish working in early May, then I’ll have two weeks off to gallivant around the country. Jeremy’s Farewell India Tour 2007 ©. Since the infrastructure here is not quite as stellar as in Europe, and since the trains don’t have as much zip, I’ll have to fly from place to place. And when you have to fly, you really can’t wing it, so to speak.
There are three main places I want to travel to: Mumbai (Bombay), Nepal and the Andaman Islands. I never heard of the Andaman Islands until a few months ago (at least I don’t think I’d heard of them – sometimes my memory plays revisionist history tricks on me), when I stumbled upon a website called barefootindia.com. Now I really want to go. The islands are a couple hours east of mainland India, close to Thailand. They look very beautiful, and apparently are still in their not-yet-swamped-by-tourists-with-fanny-packs phase.
One of the big things to do there is scuba dive – and from the pictures I saw, it looks like an amazing experience. An underwater world filled with exotic looking creatures, interesting reefs and, umm, water. I’ve never scuba dived before (except briefly in a five foot tank outside a scuba shop in Albuquerque when I was twelve) but somehow the idea of doing so has permeated my brain. Now I have to scuba dive. It must be done.
Monsoon season rolls in around mid-May, scuttling opportunities to scuba. So I decide to make the Andaman Islands my first destination. Hopefully I can beat the monsoons.
But getting to the Andamans seems no easy task. I have been trying to book airline tickets for the past week, with varying degrees of dismal failure. It’s not unexpected. I mean, it’s not like I’m trying to fly from L.A. to Vegas -- I’m trying to reach some obscure little chain of islands in the Indian Ocean.
There’s no direct flight from Bangalore to the Andaman Islands – there are only flights to/from Chennai and Calcutta. So one of those cities will have to be my stopover, my “via.”
The “name” travel sites, shockingly, do not offer any flights to Port Blair, the Andaman Islands town with an airport (which, for reasons unknown to me, has the airport code IXZ.). One of the main sketchy Indian travel sites, india.makemytrip.com (which I used to fly to Delhi in December), has an Indian Airlines flight that goes out there, but it leaves Chennai really early in the morning, making a same-day connection from Bangalore impossible.
So I continue searching online, visiting all the local airline sites. Some of the sites work well, most work poorly. I learn the only airlines that fly to Port Blair are Jet Airways, Air Deccan and Indian Airlines. Jet only has hella expensive business class seats. Indian Airlines doesn’t have a workable connecting flight. That leaves Air Deccan, which actually has a terrific fare listed on its website. And as a plus, unlike many of the domestic airlines in India, Air Deccan has the same prices for foreigners as for Indian nationals. Sweet!
I go to the Air Deccan website, select my itinerary, put in my credit card information and click to purchase. It doesn’t work. There’s an error message. But of course it doesn’t tell me what specifically the error is, only that there is an error. Very helpful. I double-check all my info, re-enter my credit card number and (hoping I don’t somehow get charged twice), click the purchase button again. No dice.
So I find the, roughly, eight different phone numbers listed on the site. I should mention that making a phone call out here is a baffling ordeal, at least for me. You can’t always call the same number from a landline and from a cell. There are various codes to dial before the “main” part of the number, depending on a myriad of factors that I don’t remotely understand. They even incorporate the “+” sign, but only sometimes. How I long for the subtle simplicity of the three digit area code…
Anyway… after trying countless digit combinations, I finally reach Air Deccan. I wait on hold for ten minutes, enjoying the latest Bollywood tunes. Then a real person picks up and I tell her my purchasing problem. She explains that I couldn’t buy the ticket on their website because my credit card wasn’t issued in India. Makes sense, though it would’ve been nice if the website could have told me that. I ask if I can purchase tickets over the phone. She says I can’t. She says I can only purchase tickets at one of their two Bangalore offices, paying with cash. She directs me to the one at the airport. Yes! I get to go to the airport on a day I’m not even flying anywhere! Hurray!
After work, with wads of paper money weighing down my pockets, I go to the airport. I wait in a very short yet very slow line at the Air Deccan counter, distracting myself with the “Bounce” game on my cell phone while staving off wannabe line jumpers by blocking them with my elbows. Everyone in front of me is frustrated, arguing with the clerk. I don’t care what they’re arguing about. I just want to get to the front of the line so I can buy my ticket and go home. I’m tired, I’ve been working all day.
Finally I reach the clerk and he tells me they don’t accept cash. I’m taken aback. “But they told me on the phone that I could pay cash here.” The clerk gives no reaction. “Well can I use my credit card?” No. “Can I write a check?” No. “Well then what do you actually do here if you can’t sell me a ticket?” The clerk just smiles dumbly, seemingly amused by the reaction to his own powerlessness. Now I can see why all the people in front of me had been arguing with the guy.
The next day, also after work, I go to the other Bangalore Air Deccan office. The place looks fairly legitimate. And there’s a cool electronic map of India that shows the status of all current Air Deccan flights. I manage to get to a ticket agent in short time. I show her the flights I want, the same ones with the great price I’d found on the website. Strangely (?), those tickets now cost twice as much. Hmmm… I’m annoyed, but I just want to get the tickets and be done with it. And the price is still way better than the Jet Airways business class tickets. Unfortunately I don’t have enough cash in my pocket. I’m a few thousand rupees short. The ticket agent says I can use the ATM across the street. I ask if she can hold that reservation for me since I’ll be right back. She says she can’t.
I come back ten minutes later, my pockets even more overloaded with cash, courtesy of the fine ATM at ICICI bank. I go back to the same ticket agent. She looks at the computer screen again and – what do you know? – one of my flights now costs 8000 rupees more than it did just ten minutes earlier. That’s nearly $200. So I’m pissed. I thank her for nothing and walk out.
On the drive to the Air Deccan office, I had noticed a small travel agency. So now, not wanting to end another day ticket-less, I walk inside. It’s 5:45pm. The woman behind the counter is exceedingly friendly, which is refreshing. She says they can’t hold reservations, I would just have to buy the tickets outright. Sounds perfect to me.
Weighing all my options, I realize that unless I want to spend a buttload of money, I’ll have to fly into Chennai on one day, and then fly to the Andaman Islands the next. It’s not ideal, but whatever.
The woman behind the counter and I discuss flight options, itineraries and such. We find the flights that best suit my needs. I’m ready to buy the tickets. But she says that I can’t. “But I thought you said I HAD to buy them, that you couldn’t hold reservations?” She says that after six, they stop selling tickets. It’s 6:15 when she tells me this.
So that evening, I go back home, determined to book those Indian Airlines tickets myself at india.makemytrip.com. And of course my payment doesn’t go through. At least the website was kind enough to say it was because of my lovely non-Indian credit card. But then, I figured that out already.
Now it’s today. I call the makemytrip office from work. The young makemytrip man I speak with, Shashank, is very helpful. He sets me up with the flights I want at a reasonable price. He’ll even keep the tickets on hold for 24 hours while he waits for me to fax over some form and a copy of my credit card, front and back. I’m not so keen on the idea of faxing copies of my credit card, but my options are limited. And I had to do something similar (with much trepidation) when I used makemytrip for my December Delhi flights, and that worked out okay.
So I get my papers together and am ready to fax. But where’s a fax machine? I work at the massive Infosys campus, Electronics City. The center of a tech hub in a tech city. It should be easy to find a fax machine, right? Right??
My friend/boss Eshwari knows of only one fax machine on campus (I’m sure there are more hiding). We take the long walk to another building, where two guys attempt, repeatedly, to send out the fax. Doesn’t happen. The machine just won’t send it.
Fine, I say, I’ll just have the concierge at my service apartment send it. He tries to fax and he also fails. Repeatedly. And I’m pretty sure the number I was sending to wasn’t the problem.
So I give a call to good ol’ Shashank at makemytrip. He says I can just email him the forms and the copies of the credit card. Thank goodness. I email him all the needed stuff and the ticket is purchased. At least I think it’s purchased. I know my credit card was charged...
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
marriage, touches and bumps
India is a marriage-minded culture, with a great many people getting married in their early twenties. Sometimes the bride and groom pick each other, sometimes it’s arranged by the parents. Last month, a male co-worker of mine in his early thirties (and still unmarried – gasp!) wanted to take a few weeks off because he was getting married. He was asked who the bride was, to which he responded he didn’t know yet. He had to find one. But he did indeed find someone in time and he did indeed get married – just like that.
That’s not that atypical either. A few weeks ago, I read a story in the local newspaper (The Deccan Herald, of course) about a woman on her wedding day. Just as the ceremony was about to commence, it was revealed that the groom was already married to another woman. The horrors! The bride was understandably disappointed. But another young man present said he would step in and marry her instead. And she said yes. So they got married.
The personal ads (which I assure you I peruse only out of curiosity) have headings like “man seeking bride” and are separated by religion. And some ads note that they are open-minded -- they’ll accept a mate from any religion, from any caste background. How very modern.
Despite the cultural obsession with coupling people off at an early age, it’s unusual to see a man and a woman holding hands. Public displays of affection are frowned upon, especially by “old school Indians” (that’s a technical term). And apparently this extends to a man and woman holding hands, because I’ve almost never seen it. And forget about seeing a man and a woman kissing in public. Perish the thought.
Yet it’s socially acceptable for men to hold hands with other men and women to hold hands with other women. The Indian people are very touchy feely when relating to their own gender. Friends will hold hands while walking down the street or sit with their with arms around each other in a bar. But a man and a woman doing this? Never. Or, well, almost never.
Maybe I’m just overly slovenly, but Indian men have much better grooming habits than me. Many times when I enter a public bathroom, I’ll see a young Indian guy looking in the mirror, brushing his hair. I’ll use the facilities, wash my hands and be ready to step out – and the same guy will still be brushing his hair. This sort of thing takes time to do right…apparently. And I’m not even going to get into the art of the finely trimmed mustache.
And then there are bumps. What are bumps, you ask? Bumps are when a young Indian man is picked up by his arms and legs with his back to the ground. Once this is spotted, many more young Indian men will rush over and proceed to kick him repeatedly. Occasionally one person will start from a few yards (err, meters) away, so he can get a running start and more power in his kick.
I’ve only seen bumps given at the workplace, but I’d imagine they extend to other situations as well. Bumps are given to young Indian men on their birthdays or any other special occasions. But they’re not just for special occasions. It’s always a good time to give bumps. Bumps begat laughter and merriment for all. I’m just glad that when my birthday rolls around, I’ll be back in the states.
That’s not that atypical either. A few weeks ago, I read a story in the local newspaper (The Deccan Herald, of course) about a woman on her wedding day. Just as the ceremony was about to commence, it was revealed that the groom was already married to another woman. The horrors! The bride was understandably disappointed. But another young man present said he would step in and marry her instead. And she said yes. So they got married.
The personal ads (which I assure you I peruse only out of curiosity) have headings like “man seeking bride” and are separated by religion. And some ads note that they are open-minded -- they’ll accept a mate from any religion, from any caste background. How very modern.
Despite the cultural obsession with coupling people off at an early age, it’s unusual to see a man and a woman holding hands. Public displays of affection are frowned upon, especially by “old school Indians” (that’s a technical term). And apparently this extends to a man and woman holding hands, because I’ve almost never seen it. And forget about seeing a man and a woman kissing in public. Perish the thought.
Yet it’s socially acceptable for men to hold hands with other men and women to hold hands with other women. The Indian people are very touchy feely when relating to their own gender. Friends will hold hands while walking down the street or sit with their with arms around each other in a bar. But a man and a woman doing this? Never. Or, well, almost never.
Maybe I’m just overly slovenly, but Indian men have much better grooming habits than me. Many times when I enter a public bathroom, I’ll see a young Indian guy looking in the mirror, brushing his hair. I’ll use the facilities, wash my hands and be ready to step out – and the same guy will still be brushing his hair. This sort of thing takes time to do right…apparently. And I’m not even going to get into the art of the finely trimmed mustache.
And then there are bumps. What are bumps, you ask? Bumps are when a young Indian man is picked up by his arms and legs with his back to the ground. Once this is spotted, many more young Indian men will rush over and proceed to kick him repeatedly. Occasionally one person will start from a few yards (err, meters) away, so he can get a running start and more power in his kick.
I’ve only seen bumps given at the workplace, but I’d imagine they extend to other situations as well. Bumps are given to young Indian men on their birthdays or any other special occasions. But they’re not just for special occasions. It’s always a good time to give bumps. Bumps begat laughter and merriment for all. I’m just glad that when my birthday rolls around, I’ll be back in the states.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
I'm not making rice anymore
Many of my microwaveable dinners go well with rice. So a couple months ago, I bought a big bag of rice. Never got around to making it until just now. So I measured the rice, measured the water and put it all in the pot. I saw a few little black things floating around. Stale rice or something? Nope, little bugs. Little dead bugs. I'm not making rice anymore.
Friday, February 16, 2007
E v. I
At this time nine years ago, I was living on Cricklewood Lane in North London, taking college theatre classes and embracing the pound coin. Ever since that most excellent semester, I’ve been fiending to travel again, to live in a foreign place. That foreign place ended up being Bangalore, India. Can’t say I saw that one coming.
Since I’m halfway through my time here, I decided to tally up some of the differences between my two international jaunts. England versus India. E v. I.
(there are differences between England and India? Who knew?)
Stated reason for going
England: school
India: work
Actual reason for going
England: travel
India: travel
Time living abroad
England: 5 months (Winter/Spring ‘98)
India: 6 months (Winter/Spring ’06-’07)
My age
England: 20
India: 29
My maturity level
England: low
India: low
My hair
England: long and blonde
India: short and blonde and slightly graying
My weight
England: gained
India: lost
Will return to
England: New York
India: Los Angeles
Left behind
England: girlfriend
India: girlfriend, cat
Daily transportation
England: bus, tube (subway), my feet
India: car with driver, my feet
Roads
England: mostly good
India: mostly bad
Street animals
England: pigeons
India: cows
Street people
England: won’t bother you much
India: will follow and tap you
Currency
England: pound
India: rupee
Cost of living
England: expensive
India: cheap
My money
England: student = broke = max out the credit cards
India: job = regular income + tax-free per diem
My debt
England: build it up
India: pay it down
Home base
England: gated dorm in Irish ghetto
India: gated service apartment (like a hotel) in decent neighborhood
Living quarters
England: a narrow shoebox, I live like a slob
India: roomy studio, cleaning staff cleans and makes my bed
Kitchen
England: share with 30 Irish nursing students
India: all mine, stocked mini-bar
Bathroom
England: share with three others
India: all mine, they change the towels daily
Phone
England: share with 30 Irish nursing students
India: Skype on my laptop, cell in my pocket
Laundry
England: shlep my clothes to basement to wash them
India: cleaning staff does the laundry (and folds!)
In-home entertainment
England: CD player/radio
India: high speed internet with spotty connection, satellite TV (¾ of stations only play Hindi music videos)
Fun weekend trip
England: farmhouse in Wales with my comedy class. Play comedy games, sleep in a barn. Everyone gets drunk, then performs stand-up comedy
India: Jungle resort in Wayanad. Hike in the jungle, relax in a hammock, bathe elephants in a lake on the way back.
Other weekend trips
England: Amsterdam, Edinburgh
India: Mysore, Ooty
Fun local slang
England: “cheers” (thanks)
India: “do the needful” (do what is necessary)
Civil disobedience spotted
England: Marijuana legalization rally
India: Looting overturned soda truck, state-wide strike
Logging supplies
England: notebooks, sketchbook, art supplies, film camera
India: notebooks, laptop, digital camera, digital camcorder
Typical meal
England: beans on toast
India: chicken biryani (chicken and rice)
Typical local weekend
England: see West End musical
India: Champagne brunch
Local pub
England: low key and mellow, shoot pool
India: crowded and loud, have to say “what?” a lot
Beer enjoyed
England: Grolsch
India: Kingfisher
Can’t drink
England: in bars after 11pm
India: the water
Since I’m halfway through my time here, I decided to tally up some of the differences between my two international jaunts. England versus India. E v. I.
(there are differences between England and India? Who knew?)
Stated reason for going
England: school
India: work
Actual reason for going
England: travel
India: travel
Time living abroad
England: 5 months (Winter/Spring ‘98)
India: 6 months (Winter/Spring ’06-’07)
My age
England: 20
India: 29
My maturity level
England: low
India: low
My hair
England: long and blonde
India: short and blonde and slightly graying
My weight
England: gained
India: lost
Will return to
England: New York
India: Los Angeles
Left behind
England: girlfriend
India: girlfriend, cat
Daily transportation
England: bus, tube (subway), my feet
India: car with driver, my feet
Roads
England: mostly good
India: mostly bad
Street animals
England: pigeons
India: cows
Street people
England: won’t bother you much
India: will follow and tap you
Currency
England: pound
India: rupee
Cost of living
England: expensive
India: cheap
My money
England: student = broke = max out the credit cards
India: job = regular income + tax-free per diem
My debt
England: build it up
India: pay it down
Home base
England: gated dorm in Irish ghetto
India: gated service apartment (like a hotel) in decent neighborhood
Living quarters
England: a narrow shoebox, I live like a slob
India: roomy studio, cleaning staff cleans and makes my bed
Kitchen
England: share with 30 Irish nursing students
India: all mine, stocked mini-bar
Bathroom
England: share with three others
India: all mine, they change the towels daily
Phone
England: share with 30 Irish nursing students
India: Skype on my laptop, cell in my pocket
Laundry
England: shlep my clothes to basement to wash them
India: cleaning staff does the laundry (and folds!)
In-home entertainment
England: CD player/radio
India: high speed internet with spotty connection, satellite TV (¾ of stations only play Hindi music videos)
Fun weekend trip
England: farmhouse in Wales with my comedy class. Play comedy games, sleep in a barn. Everyone gets drunk, then performs stand-up comedy
India: Jungle resort in Wayanad. Hike in the jungle, relax in a hammock, bathe elephants in a lake on the way back.
Other weekend trips
England: Amsterdam, Edinburgh
India: Mysore, Ooty
Fun local slang
England: “cheers” (thanks)
India: “do the needful” (do what is necessary)
Civil disobedience spotted
England: Marijuana legalization rally
India: Looting overturned soda truck, state-wide strike
Logging supplies
England: notebooks, sketchbook, art supplies, film camera
India: notebooks, laptop, digital camera, digital camcorder
Typical meal
England: beans on toast
India: chicken biryani (chicken and rice)
Typical local weekend
England: see West End musical
India: Champagne brunch
Local pub
England: low key and mellow, shoot pool
India: crowded and loud, have to say “what?” a lot
Beer enjoyed
England: Grolsch
India: Kingfisher
Can’t drink
England: in bars after 11pm
India: the water
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