India tourist style

I don't know where I left off. I feel like it was so long ago. I'm in a nice car being driven from Jaipur to Agra. The past few days have been the most touristy of the past 5 months of travel. I'll start from Delhi. My last day in Delhi I finally get sick. I'll call it 'gastrointestinal issues' and leave it at that. Ended up not doing much that day, which worked because Servesh was all for just hanging around the house. We meet Marianne outside the train for a few minutes and then don't see each other until Udaipur. The way between first class and sleeper class, where we were, was blocked. We slept fairly well on the train. I felt great in the morning but Servesh felt awful. We met a driver outside the train who took us to our hotel. Servesh spent the day in that hotel while Marianne and I went out. We met up with a couchsurfer she talked to online. He took us to one of the lakes that is not commercialized yet. So let me tell you about Udaipur. Udaipur is one of those testaments to what is possible with limitless, cheap, expendable labor. It is called the city of lakes. All the lakes are man made. There is a main lake, which faces the palace and contains “pleasure island” and a massively expensive hotel in the middle of it. Then there are a series of lakes that are used as overflow destinations for the main lake. There are no rivers in Udaipur, as all the lakes are man made, the water comes just from rainfall which, they tell me, is significant in the monsoon season. On this trip we are tourists, and every part of every interaction makes you really feel like a tourist, a tradable commodity in India as you quickly recognise. Drivers do not even conceal the fact that they get a commission on where they take you. So you end up being driven to all these places where the prices are 3 to 5 times the already increased prices that you have been paying. On occasion the guide will sit with you and try to conceal that he is paying 1/3rd or less than what you are paying for the same thing. All the prices on everything are different for foreigners and all the prices are negotiable. The attitude toward foreigners is very interesting here. I believe that people in India genuinely like foreigners. People in the park will stop you to take a picture with you, sometimes to sit and talk to you for a bit. While eating at a restaurant the father of what looked like a very respectable Indian family came up and said that they were betting on where I am from (he bet London) on tours the Indian tourists will ask me where I am from and occasionally chat for a few minutes. I feel like a movie star. Even more interestingly I get more attention than Marianne, don't get me wrong the girl is gorgeous and the boys make no effort to hide the stares (they will literally walk by and with their heads turned stop a few feet away to just stare at us) but due to what I think must be a cultural thing people very rarely approach her. It makes sense when you think about it girl walking around with guys is not someone you would talk to in the Indian culture. In fact you never see anyone trying to strike up a conversation with Indian girls. This is the land of arranged marriages, the only mixed groups you see are relatives or couples. You would never assume that girl is 'just friends' with the guy she's hanging out with. There is no difference in behavior between couples, relatives and friends. Guys will hold hands only with other guys in public. In fact I just realized why handshakes here are so strange, the guys see no reason to let go of your hand after the 'shake' has been completed. A group actually asked if we were married and even after I said no they could still only muster together enough courage to get her to join us for a picture, then they continued to talk to me. Her tour guide from her first day sends her texts. They are amazing. I wish I could share them with you lets just imagine what a 13 year old would send over text to a girl who he thinks must obviously be interested in him because she asked so many questions during the tour. Now imagine this guy is in his 20s and the text gets twice as funny. Anyway, I went off on a tangent. Ummm visit Udaipur, it's beautiful.

Being a tourist, it sucks. You feel like everyone is trying to shaft you and not just on the prices. The tour guides want to be sure that you visit the shops but the actual tourist attractions always some with some effort. If there are 5 great things for you to see they will show you 2, slowly, and make sure you see some shops before going to the third. There is never time for everything. Everyone has a cousin who has a shop. When Servesh asks where to go and what something will cost they tell him that everything will cost twice as much because he's with a white guy, right in front of me. On one side I like that tourism hasn't raised the cost of living around here for the locals. Sure it's the difference of a couple bucks at most unless you're buying expensive stuff but nobody likes to feel like they are getting ripped off. And after shafting you on pries everyone expects a tip. Everyone.

I'm in Kajuraho as I write this. Waiting for the internet to start working again. I have hundreds of pictures poised and ready to be unleashed on Picasa. The internet is down. They say nobody can ever predict when it will work and when it won't. That sucks. I said goodbye to Marianne today, I keep saying the wold is small and you never know, but I'm starting to doubt I'll ever see most of the people I travel with again. It hasn't stopped me from wanting to know them as well as possible while traveling though. I hope not to lose this aspiration. I figure as long as I have long hair everyone I meet will be able to pick me out of a crowd and say hello in case we meet again. I hope that I will remember them as well.

Back to the travels. After Udaipur we got on a train to Jaipur, the pink city. We did not sleep on the train to Jaipur, the beds were not made for people taller than 5'5” and position was just the worst on the train. Jaipur is called the pink city because the center of it is painted many different shades of pink. We saw more temples, palaces, forts. It was beautiful, you should see it. I have pictures. Marianne is an avid photographer. Every day she passes me over 100 pics for me to sort through and pick out a few choice ones. Servesh and I take some as well but not in the same quantity. After Udaipur we learned that hotels are usually against the 3 of us sharing a room. When we got to her room in Jaipur we told them that we are not staying there. Then made it very obvious that we left at one point in the night only to sneak back in 30 min later. In the morning she made sure the coast was clear as we sneaked back out again and pretended to walk back in the front door. It was fun, she's paying for like 4 star hotel rooms, the prices may as well be in euros. After Jaipur we made our way toward Agra, famous for being the city that holds the Taj Mahal. What can I say aout it? It is said that after seeing the Taj, Bill Clinton said “there are two groups of people in the world, those who have not seen the Taj Mahal, and those who have” I advocate one day finding yourself in the latter group. Very sadly we saw it on a foggy day. The day before and after were crystal clear the day we saw the Taj it looked like it was in a cloud, and the stones did not sparkle. Even still it is impressive. The fog comes and goes every day. You never know when it will hit and when it does visibility drops to like 10m. It cleared out a bit at the end of the day but not enough. Also through the poor planning of the travel agency we were only able to see the Taj and not all the other things found in Agra. This, I hear is a tragic loss and I advise anyone doing such trips to plan for more than one day in Agra. Between lines and everything else the Taj alone will take half your day. And we started our day with 6 hours of driving ahead of us. In Agra Marianne stayed at a bed and breakfast and we learned that A) Servesh is somehow traveling without his passport, and B) this is not cool after the Mumbai attacks. Finding a hotel was difficult but not impossible. A little money greases any wheel. After Agra we took a 2 hour train that was 4 hours late, and then drove down to Kajuraho, famous for the erotic carvings on the temples. Tourists flock to these temples and examine every one to find the occasional carving of people fucking. (and the on carving of a guy fucking a horse) This is just about the only reason to come here. The tour guide convinced Marianne the leader of the group to go to some light show with a story about the temples. This show was so bad that we could not keep our selves from busting out in laughter at half the bullshit spewed throughout the show. And then one of these tourists who has also come here to glance a peek at carvings of people fucking dared to call us immature. The laughter that ensued was uncontrollable and loud enough for the whole crowd to hear. We were not kicked out and after this show was over we loudly and facetiously praised everything that was wrong with the presentation... so everything. In the morning we actually saw these temples. The carvings were cool, you only need to see one or two temples to get the gist of it. We made it a point to see every one. I'll get the pics from Marianne when she gets back to Dubai. Hell I may just put a link to her picasa site. And so this pretty much brings me to now. Of all the days mentioned in this post I have been healthy for about 1. On the plus side you can go to a street pharmacy and ask for just about anything you want. Antibiotics? Sure, 5 bucks. It's awesome but it won't make you better. I plan on being healthy tomorrow. It's scheduled on my calendar and it had better not be late. Oh the food in India. So, we refuse to go to tourist food places. When the tour guide takes us there we look at the menu, walk out, and tell them to take us somewhere they would eat. And oh do they. A few things surprise me about the food here. Rice is not common. Most people eat their curries or whatever with roti. Naan is at every restaurant but when you order a Tali you get a bunch of sauces and roti. The next thing that surprises me is how much these people love their butter. Sticks of butter are found slowly melting when you get your food. There is tons of butter in your curry, on your roti, everywhere. My body is not used to so much butter and fried food. It is actually difficult sometimes to order because I just can't take any more butter. I'm in India and all I want us a salad. It's time to go. Gonna see if there is a wedding to crash somewhere. It's the cheapest/best food you can get.

Delhi2

I've been fortunate enough to have 2 Delhi experiences. Servesh, the guy who let me sleep on his couch in Dubai, invited me to stay with his family just outside of Delhi. As with everything else it was a giant pain in the ass to get to. I left what I later leaned was the busiest, shittiest bazar in all of Delhi and arrived in a small village just outside. I am sitting on the roof of the two story building that Servesh's grandfather built. It is on par with or above most of the other buildings I can see. The second floor is completely unused, and on the first is a very simple yet charming house. Made mostly of what I would guess is clay, brick and cement, it has an open air square in the middle surrounded by rooms on the outside. On my first night here Servesh's cousin Anu made me some amazing Aloo Paratas. She has her MBA and as far as I can tell is the only one working in the house. Her English is good enough for us to communicate. Her mother and I talk at each other using as many hand gestures as possible as she knows little more English than I know Hindi. She is constantly offering me food, luckily I can understand that in any language and have been well trained on how to handle it. Servesh's other cousin Davey, the final resident in this house, has been driving us around Delhi for the past few days. His driving is something New Yorkers could learn from. The car horn is used a very different way here. Instead of showing displeasure with the surroundings and demanding a change as it is used at home here it is used for everything from “I am here” to “I am passing/would like to pass you” to “I will not be stopping before entering this intersection” to “I haven heard a car horn in a while”. 8 times out of 10 it is completely ignored by the target, 1.5 times out of 10 I'm not certain who the target is, and 5 out of 100 times the target moves over and allows the car to pass. Davey understands very little English, speaks even less. Basically the two of us can only speak to Servesh when we are hanging out. His job in the house is to take care of the cows. In an enclosed parking lot across the street about 5 cows (one of which was born yesterday) are kept. Servesh's family in the area seems very large, every time I'm in the house I meet a new member. I believe they all help with the cows in some way. Every morning I get milk that has probably been in the cows tit no more than a day ago. Everything I have eaten is amazing and I feel that my spice tolerance is perfect for this place. Nothing has been too spicy and the spicy dishes are still noticeably hot. But then again I did empty a spice bottle of cayenne and one of red chilli flakes just on home cooking in Oz. The most exciting thing that has happened recently came in the form of an email. A captain who's plan I particularly enjoyed said that he is excited about talking to me about joining him in his sailing trip of undetermined length. All I have to pay for are my on shore expenses and I can see the costal cities of the world at a relaxed pace. I call him tonight, he sets sail from Florida in March. If we really see eye to eye as much as I hope we will I will not return to Oz, I will stay in Asia until Feb then come home for a short time before going out into the world again.

Servesh just told me that I need to get ready as I will be going to an Indian wedding in a few minutes. I don't want to hold up the party. I'll get ready and continue typing after.

The wedding was amazing! It was day 6, the final day of the process. We arrived just in time for the groom entrance ceremony. Alu is friends with the brother of the groom. About a dozen of her buddies from grad school were there too. They all spoke great English. As soon as we entered they dragged me to join the dance that preceded the groom's path. I gave the natural “what the hell is going on” hesitation but when they finally got me to the front and started dancing, I did what I had to do. They were sold, I was part of the crew. Throughout the night they would stop to explain all sorts of goings on to me. One guy warned me that the food might be spicy. I told him to try to find me something that I could not eat. With his dignity on the line he spent half the night finding me the spiciest food and getting me to try it. There was soooo much food. I think per pound there may have been as much as people there. A giant hall with food stands lining 3 of the walls, guys walking around with food trays, and fruits and stuff near the middle. I said that I wanted to try a little of everything. While this was completely impossible I did my best. Everything was good. Nothing came close to my spice limit. I was explained that since this was a traditional wedding all the food was veg and there was no alcohol. Vegetarians come to India! I got stares all night long as I was the only white person there, the long hair attracts a lot of attention as well. The boys did a lot of dancing to the Indian music and, when in Rome... I asked why only the guys were dancing and none of the girls came out to dance. The answer I received was “most of the girls are here with their families” even dancing with the guys can be frowned upon. Anu did not dance either, Servesh was the only one there from her family. In fact I did not see any of the guys talk to any of the girls other than Anu who was already their friend from school. At midnight Anu said she needed to get home, girl leaves for work around 7 every morning, I couldnt blame her. We had plans to wake up with her and go with her into town. That did not happen. It's nearing 11 now. I could not reach the captain last night, I'll try again tonight. We start proper traveling 2 days from now.