Videos!

I finally figured out how to add videos to this thing.  Turns out it's ridiculously easy, and for the first time ever I had to have a student show me how to do something online.  That officially makes me old; it's all downhill from here.

Anyway, here they are in chronological order and with a short description below.  Enjoy!

New Delhi:

The view from the bus I took across the southern section of the city.  This is what I was referring to when I said the city was in a constant, unidentifiable state of either being rebuilt or falling apart.  Notice the bus doesn't so much stop as slow down to a non-lethal speed to jump at.

Four girls and my giant packed crammed into a touk-touk to go into town from our hostel.  How that thing moved with all of us plus the driver and his friend is beyond me, but it was a bumpin' ride.

And this is how Delhi said goodbye.  I was walking down the road from my hostel to the train station and almost couldn't get through the cows, the people, the band...it was hilarious.

Amritsar:

A quick tour of the Golden Temple, the holiest site for all Sikhs.

All of these videos show different parts of the border closing ceremony between India and Pakistan. I sat on the Indian side (obviously), so you have to look closely to see the Pakistani guards dressed in black. It must be just about the only thing to do for entertainment in this area because there was a huge crowd and they were all natives! A lot of fun, even if I had no idea what the cheers said.

This is back in the Golden Temple.  Every evening they take the copy of the scriptures, a massive book about 3' by 2' that they believe is the several-hundred year-old original version, from its place in the main temple to a secure chamber in another building.  But not to worry, there are priests reading other copies 24 hours a day, so you can get your canonical fix, even at 3am.

Rishikesh:

Swimming in the Ganges, in the winter, close to its glacial source.  Really not disgustingly dirty here (that would come later in Varanasi), just cold!

Bhavesh, my Indian brother, totally wimps out on his chance to swim

Varanasi:

The view from our boat on the Ganges (absolutely disgustingly filthy in this location, bodies and all) of the evening Pooja.  The priests honored their 'Mother' river.

Udaipur:

Another poorly shot video from the handlebars of my motorbike and again not the crazy/dangerous part of the ride, but I don't need anything else distracting me on the roads when it's that busy.

Jodhpur:

A little music to get us in the mood for touring Jodhpur Fort.

Jaisalmer:

An odd scene on the streets of Jaisalmer.  I really don't know exactly what was going on here.

Agra:

Whatever this was rehersal for, it kicked off at about 11pm.  I almost got locked out of my hostel because I stayed out to watch it.

Nothing clears up a cold faster than being around 2 cute boys

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All right!!  It’s 8am and I’m up, at ‘em and eager to get out of the hostel.  Apparently that label-less cocktail of drugs cleared out my system very well because my headache and fever are gone, there’s a hell of a lot less pressure in my sinuses and I can walk up the stairs to the front desk without wheezing or stopping!  Today I will be the queen of small victories if I can feel good enough to make it from the dorm up to the restaurant, from the hostel to the touk-touk, from the touk-touk to the fort, from room to room in the fort into another touk-touk, a restaurant, and back to the hostel.

I don’t think I’m going to take any more of those pills, though, because quite honestly it scares me that there’s no brand or label on the packet and because I was tripping balls by the end of last night but without the pleasant feelings that normally go with it.  Just to illustrate how bad I thought it had gotten, I sincerely thought I hallucinated the guy who moved into the dorm while Marco and I were at dinner last night until I woke up and he was sitting on his bed stroking his long, wiry beard, staring at the wall and rocking gently back and forth.  Now, while I’m glad I wasn’t off-my-rocker high last night, part of me wishes I had dreamed up someone this bizarre.  This guy was two feet away from me the whole night while I slept…

When I run upstairs (I can run again!) to ask about laundry services, I find a definitely un-creepy guy: Marc!  Perefct!  And he’s already had an interesting morning himself: the train arrived at 4am, at which point he came to my hostel and asked to stay in the dorm; they said it was full (blatant lie, by the way, there are 2 empty beds down there); he went to the other hostel I had considered; also told it was full; has the touk-touk take him to a random hotel then argues down the exorbitant, couple hundred rupee bill demanded by the driver.  I’m not surprised that he’s finished his breakfast by the time I get dressed and get up to the café; ridiculous Indians make me surprisingly hungry, too.  I guess my stomach knows getting some of their good food in me will automatically make me willing to deal with them for another couple of hours.

I introduce Marc and Marco, who almost immediately alienate me from the conversation by talking about cricket, living in London, traveling for long periods of time and countries they’ve been to but I haven’t.  Thanks, guys.  But no worries, I’m having loads of fun drinking the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted and picking onions out of my tomato omelet (where the hell did those come from?).  Although to be honest, I’m pretty content to listen to them talk because their accents are easy on the ears.  Marco’s got a very smooth, polished, well-bred English accent that makes me picture the rolling hills of the British countryside.  Marc’s voice, on the other hand, is more of a drawl that’s bright but a little rough and brings to mind sunny weather and beers on the beach.  I may or may not smile into my omelet every now and then when one of them says something in a way that’s particularly, albeit inadvertently, sexy.  Eventually, I force us all to bring our attention back to the guide book and we discuss the short list of sights.

We decide to head to Mehrangarh fort, Jodhpur’s finest attraction.  We cram into a small touk-touk, in which the driver somehow found the room to stuff decorative chrome, pleather, stickers and dashboard ornaments.  Our little car struggles with, but eventually takes us up, the 400 foot hill that the fort sits on, overlooking the Blue City.  Three hundred rupees is a pretty steep entry price, but the fort is huge and the views of the city alone might be worth it.  As we listen to the audio-guide and wander from room to room, I casually bounce back and forth between Marc and Marco, enjoying hearing how their reactions to things are similar or different.  The colors of Rajasthan are of course on display in every room, as is the wealth of the Marwar line: gigantic elephant howdahs (seats); gold and silk palanquins (shoulder carriages); knives, swords, rifles and daggers; throne rooms; miniature, hand-painted masterpieces of art; ornately painted courtyards; jewelry and heavily embroidered silk saris and turbans.  I doubt the bats sleeping on the ceiling of one of the stairwells are antiques, though.

When we leave the museum and walk further up to the walls of the fort, we’re rewarded with incredible panoramic views of the blue-washed buildings that lay hundreds of feet below us.  Far off in the distance, barely visible in and tantalizingly hidden by the ever-present smog, sits the gigantic palace I intend to visit tomorrow.  Further along the wall, past the cannons, sits a white temple with lines of colorful flags blowing in the wind.  Despite the idyllic situation of this rather small temple, Chamunda Devi has a bloody history: last year 250 people were killed and 400 more injured when worshippers, during a Hindu festival, stampeded into the temple when it opened.  The scary thing is that I can picture this happening; rides on trains and buses as well as visits to temples and stores have shown me that Indian people enter and exit almost everywhere the same way: through force.

At this point I think we’ve seen every part of the fort we can possibly see, from the cannonball dents that Marc doesn’t quite believe are all from cannonballs to the throne they use to crown each maharaja (the current lord was crowned at the age of 4 on the death of his father).  We take a short walk down the hill towards town to see Jaswant Thada, the memorial to maharaja Jaswant.  This large, white marble cenotaph has a good view of the city and fort, but, after 3 weeks of seeing so many similar structures, is just another white marble cenotaph and I can’t be bothered to take my shoes off to see inside.  Besides, the grass under the shade of a tree is calling me to sit and rest and stop pretending that I’m not getting tired from all of the walking.  Soon enough Marc confesses he’s tired, too, so we go get veg thalis for lunch.  These are basically sampler platters: a large silver tray with naan/roti/parantha in the middle surrounded by several little cups of different foods.  I chose dhal, veg curry, boondi raita, jeera rice and a few other veg mixes I can’t remember the names of anymore.  Not the greatest I’ve had, it tasted like cheap ingredients, but the dessert was like an Indian take on a donut and not bad despite being served sitting in sugary water.

The boys have errands to run so I’m going to take a nap at the hostel then get back online.  I sleep well for a couple of hours –actually a good hour longer than I intended—but have trouble finishing what I wanted to do online.  It takes me an incredibly long to type up a blog post for a day, sometimes 2 or 3 hours!  When I started to feel sick about a week ago I got off-track and didn’t have the energy to put down what had happened for several days.  I have spent all of my spare time yesterday and today making up for it, but I’m finally finished.  And what’s even cooler is that I was able to upload a photo album for my Delhi shots onto Facebook!  I’m not sure why, but it really feels incredible to know that I’ve finally been able to share SOMETHING from my trip.

But all too soon I’m out of time for the internet, again.  Marc has bumped into a couple of girls he knows from home (how that happens in India is beyond me) so Marco and I are going out to dinner by ourselves.  The restaurant is on the roof of a very nice haveli that has been turned into a hotel.  Marco, all class, is impressed by the large brass knockers on each door and decides to try one out before dashing up the stairs.  Very mature.  But he manages to keep a lid on his inner ten-year-old and we have a nice candle-lit dinner looking up at the fort—oddly not lit up—and Jaswant Thada, glowing an incredibly bright white from the floodlights around it.  I decide to try a lemon honey lassi (the real chunks of curd made it like drinking very watery, thin, sweet cottage cheese, in a good way) and govind gatta.  This is the dish that kicked my ass when I had dinner at Ambrai with Marc in Udaipur, but I’ve made them promise to keep it mild so I can actually taste it this time.  And despite my suspicions that it was better at Ambrai, it’s quite nice, as is the company at dinner and on the slow walk home.  Marco likes to tease, but I can give as good as I get and at least he leaves mocking my accent to my other favorite Brit, Bhavesh.

I’m sorry Marc and Marco are leaving me tomorrow; these guys have been a buoy of normalcy for me as well as amazing company these last few days.  It’s tough to know when you meet someone whether you’ll still be able to stand them hours later and I’m really glad we seem to get along so well.  Although, I guess I should have expected it because over the whole trip I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that 99% of the people I’ve met have just been incredibly cool.  If you think about it, though, most people traveling the world alone and on the cheap probably have similar interests and personalities and thus would make good friends.  Shared traits of the poor world traveler: can stand a certain amount of physical and mental discomfort; like to try new things; extroverted and adventurous; have a solid sense of humor and a lot of common sense; laid-back, level-headed and flexible; can always find something to entertain themselves; curious about the people and things around them.  Does this sound like you?  Then you would probably do fine traveling the 2nd and 3rd world alone.

And alone is definitely what I will be tomorrow, but that’s okay, I’ve got work to do.  I’m going to update my blog and finally ADD PHOTOS!  I’m excited to share the images I’ve been capturing so that people will finally be able to see exactly what I’m talking about in my posts.  Any skill you see, though, is due to my kick-ass camera, not any skill of my own.  Hopefully you can enjoy them, anyway.  Signing off from Jodhpur.  G’night.

Here's hoping my pride doesn't lead to a very big fall

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Sorry to be a whiny little baby, but I feel like CRAAAAAAP.  It figures that I’m totally unprepared to be struck down by a cold/sinus infection, but I am prepared for every other medical calamity (well, I guess except malaria; I never did buy any pills for that).  I can’t believe that after all the forums I went through and guidebooks I read no one mentioned that 90% of the foreign tourists develop a cough or cold here.  The air is obviously shit and the Indian government tells its people that the best way to prevent the spread of disease is not to cover their mouths or stop spitting wherever they feel like or to pee in a toilet and not against walls, no, their advice is to WEAR MORE LAYERS.  Yeah.

Woke up at 11am feeling like I hadn’t slept at all, despite the 12-hour coma I just came out of.  At least I’m still the only one in the dorms; even though I try to sleep in dorms to meet people and save money, today I’m glad I can be miserable in solitude.  It takes me an hour and a half to shower (if you call huddling under the bathtub faucet showering), change, secure my stuff in my locker and go up for breakfast on the rooftop.  It's already pretty hot, but I'm not sure if I'm sweating because I'm sick or just a lightweight in the heat.


After only thirty minutes, though, I'm exhausted again and can't be bothered to raise my bread to my mouth.  I head back down to the dorms and pass out for approximately three hours.  I wake up every now and again and at one point I'm fairly sure someone arrives to stay in the dorms.  I hope I didn't scare them off.  Oh, who am I kidding, I couldn't care less about that right now I feel like death warmed over.  I nod off for another hour or so.

All right, I can’t just lie here anymore; I need to be proactive about getting better.  I call up to the desk and ask if they have a doctor on call.  They do, but can I please give them a list of symptoms that they can relay to him over the phone?  No problem.  When I sit up the room doesn’t spin much, which I take as a positive sign and starting writing.  Here’s what I come up with:
Last 7 Days: Periodically felt tired, coughing (sometimes phlegmy, sometimes dry), pressure in sinuses, blowing nose a lot (sometimes clear, sometimes green and clumpy), clearing throat a lot, sometimes just breathing tickles throat and makes me want to cough, some sneezing
Yesterday and Today: Headache in middle of forehead, very tired, no appetite, face is very hot, body alternates burning up and getting chills (despite being under blanket), green gunk when blow nose, clearing throat lot and coughing up phlegm.

I take it up to them and say that since I’m going home soon I’d like to save my rupees if I can so would they please ask the doctor if this sounds like a sinus infection.  If it is, I know what to go get from the pharmacy myself.  If it sounds like something else, I would like the doctor to check me out.  One man gets on the phone for about 30-45 seconds with the doctor then hangs up and tells me he’ll be here at 6:30.  Now, for your reading pleasure, I write out the dialogue that followed this announcement:

Me: “Did you ask him if it sounded like a sinus infection?”  (I’m suspicious from how short the call was)
Hotel Guy: “Madam, he cannot say that without checking you out first, he must come.”
Me: “Okay, but did you ask him if it sounded like a sinus infection?”
Hotel Guy: “There is no point to asking he cannot say on the phone.”
Me: “Did you ask him if it sounded like a sinus infection?”
Hotel Guy: “Madam, he was on a motorbike—“
Me: “You managed to talk to him about other things, so did you ask him my question?”
Hotel Guy: “Madam, he was on a motorbike.”
Me: “Listen, will you just answer my question?  Did you ask him or not?  The answer is either yes or no.” (Voice is getting quite a bit louder)
Hotel Guy: “Please, madam…
Me: “So you didn’t ask him, did you?  I am so mad right now.  You know what, call him off.  I don’t want him to come.  You cannot believe how angry I am.”  (Shouting pretty darn loudly at this point and not sorry about it at all)

At this point I walk down to my room, grab my backpack, ask another traveler where the nearest pharmacy is, stomp icily past the men at the desk and go out to get myself some medicine.  Wow, the air here is filthy, though.  After 5 minutes I’m a sweaty, weezy mess, but the pharmacist gives me a cough and cold pill as well as a decongestant, which he swears will sort me out.

When I return to the hotel, an older man is sitting at the desk (the one who placed the call has wisely disappeared).  The older guy asks me what happened with the doctor.  Again, for your reading pleasure, I transcribe our conversation:

Me: “Oh, the problem wasn’t with the doctor.  The problem was that I asked the gentleman who called to ask a very specific question, but he didn’t.  What really made me angry was that when I kept asking him if he had done it he wouldn’t give me a straight answer.”
Second Hotel Guy: “Oh, I see madam.  You know the doctor can’t tell that over the phone, though.”
Me: “I know, but like I said, the problem is that he wouldn’t just tell me if he had asked the doctor my question.”
Second Hotel Guy: “Well, you see the doctor was on a motorbike, madam.”
Me: (Choking back disbelief) “I know, but he was able to talk to him about other things for nearly a minute.  He could have asked.”
Second Hotel Guy: “Yes, but the doctor was on a motorbike.”
Me: (Walking away and totally pissed off) “Oh, just forget it.  This is ridiculous.”
Second Hotel Guy: (Calling after me) “Yes, well, whatever.  I’m sorry, madam.”
Me: (Calling back) “Yeah, sure.”

An open comment to all Indian managers, salespeople, vendors, etc: If a customer comes to you with some type of complaint, the best way to respond is to apologize first rather than defend yourself.  I know this is difficult, I struggle with it, too, but you’re going to make your customer much happier this way.

Marco, the guy who told me where the pharmacy was, is a good sport and lets me vent for a minute (or 5, but who’s counting?) then joins me up on the rooftop café.  We have a really nice conversation over a couple of pots of chai.  Some things I learn about him: he’s half British half Italian, he’s been traveling the world for 8 months, he wants to be a writer, he took ancient Greek in college like I did, he thinks he might move to Italy for a while, and he’s a lapsed Catholic.  Eventually we kind of settle in and he reads while I try to add photos to my blog.

Quick question: I’ve only met 2 other women traveling alone, but Marco is like the 9th or 10th guy I’ve met doing the same thing.  Where are all the single ladies?  Not that I’m complaining, all the guys are really, really cute and fewer women means less competition. 

Mmmm.  The nearby mosque has started the call to prayer.  I haven’t heard this much in India; Muslims are in the minority here (they were encouraged to move to Pakistan after Independence) and mosques are much less common than other temples.  There’s usually only a few prominent ones sprinkled throughout the cities (the biggest being called the Jama Masjid, or Friday Mosque) that everyone must make their way to. 

Now the music is changing; it began with a lone voice singing like usual, but after about 5 minutes it changes into something I have never heard before in my life.  It’s more like notes resonating and vibrating in the air, occasionally clashing then slipping back into harmony; they seem to be coming from instruments now.  Voices drop in and out and it alternates between being the eeriest and most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life.  It’s almost alien.  Can this be coming from one mosque or are there several sources?  And as quickly as it began it’s over and the typical soundtrack of car horns, accented by the fountain the café has, come back to the foreground.

Okay, I don’t know if the pills I got from the pharmacy are super strong or if I accidentally swallowed some of the bug spray I put on earlier or what, but for the last hour or so I’ve been getting pretty light-headed.  Marco probably thinks I’m a bit nuts because my sentences aren’t making as much sense as they used to and from time to time are just fragments.  I’ve got a horrible taste in my mouth, like chemicals, and I just feel foggy.  But on the other hand the pressure in my head is totally gone and my cough isn’t as bad.  I’m not sure it’s worth the loss of mental clarity, though, so hopefully after a good night’s sleep I won’t need the pills anymore.