I had a lot of ground to cover in this post, so this is Part I. This is just the text about the trip and you can look below for the corresponding photos. I did this because because I will kill myself if I have to spend another two hours of my life formatting photos and text together on my wonderful blog host, Blogger.com.
After Hyderabad I went to Chennai for a few days to kick it with Padma and Scott in their apartment before we drove over to Goa, which was fairly uneventful. Except for the time when Scott asked me to run over to the Chennai High Court to coax a lawyer into getting him some documents. Yeah, except for that. I spent two hours with this lawyer; he took me into every single courtroom and explained, I think, everything he learned in law school. He turned out to be a really nice guy, and even bought me a cup of chai.
The car trip to Goa was pretty easy. We almost only listened to "This American Life" and songs from the Civil War the entire time. I think there may have been some Elvis Costello. Anyway, it was fine and the cockroach count for our one night stopover hotel was only four.
Goa...Oh my god Goa. I don't think I really have a lot to say about Goa. My daily routine was something like this:
10am-12am: Breakfast with Scott and Padma
12am-4pm: Lie on the beach
4pm-5pm: Eat sandwiches
5pm-8pm: Shower, nap or read
8pm-10pm: Dinner
10pm: Sleep
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
It was amazing. I- I really can't talk about it or do it justice. Christmas in Goa was brilliant- though I did find myself missing the standard snowy New England Christmas. But I got over that real fast.
After a week of amazingly delicious food and sun and ocean, I had to say goodbye to Goa and move on to Bombay. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to try taking a bus to Bombay instead of sticking to train travel. My brother drove me to the bus station, I said goodbye to him and Padma, and they drove away. The following is the story of what happened afterwards.
After wandering around the "bus station" which is really just a mish-mash parking lot of bicycles, motorcycles, and bags of grain, for an hour or so, my bus finally arrived. By this point I had met a Finnish couple (what is it with me and finding couples from small European countries?) who were also going to Mumbai on my bus, and we set off together. The Finnish woman got on the bus, while her boyfriend and I went to the back to drop off our bags. As we were putting our bags in the the bus, it starts moving. At first it was slow, and we though it was just reparking. That, not surprisingly, was wrong. The bus sped up, and Sven (That was probably his name, right?) and I just stood in silence watching the bus drive away. After it turned the corner, we realized that it was not reparking, and we somewhat half heartedly ran after it. Finally we found it behind the bus station, which should have been obivous I guess, and got on.
I then found my bunk, which was the bottom bunk in the third row. I got in and was immediately ecstatic. The berths in buses are at minimum 1 and a half times as big as the ones in trains and cushier. There's a built-in pillow on the bed and the bed and there's a window that spans the entire berth that you can open. Finally, there's a curtain in between you and the aisle that you can close at your leisure. I was in the process of writing that description in my journal when an Indian woman sat down next to me.
"So, could I have the inside?"
Snap.
So I move over a little to allow room for person number two in my berth and she is immediately incredibly friendly and I notice that her English is impeccable. Throughout our entire time together I never heard her speak Hindi once. She spoke English to everyone on the phone and to the driver. Well, sort of. Instead of writing out our conversation I'll do one of those dialogues I'm oh-so fond of.
Her: So where are you from?
Me: I'm from America.
Her: (Smiles and slowly nods) You are a committed Christian.
Me: (bewildered) umm not- not really...
Her: (Smiles and nods) I see.
(Insert more chit chat)
Her: So you are learning Hindi?
Me: Yeah.
Her: Make sure the Hindu religion doesn't suck you in.
Me: (At this point realizing that the friendship may be strained from here on in) Uh huh. Don't think that will happen.
Her: (She says this in a completely soft voice as if it was all something I had heard before) It's just...you know, it is a very silly religion. There was no religion before Christianity and all religions are based on of it. Even Hinduism, whith its many Gods says that truly there is only one God. Islam says the same thing. All of the world religions are based off of Christianity, you know. They have just all deviated from The Path. Even Catholicism has. I used to be Catholic, but I have accepted Jesus as my Personal Savior and have been born again.
Me: Uh huh. Kay.
Her: (After a moment) What do you think about the world situation?
Me: The world? Like...the whole world?
Her: (Knowlingly knods)
Me: Umm...well uhh I'm happy Barack Obama was elected. I think Israel's being overly violent. The economic crisis is pretty serious. Is there something specific you wanted me to respond to?
Her: Do you think there's a hidden agenda?
Me: ....By whom?
Her: There's a hidden agenda to rip the morals from today's youth, from people like you. By the media.
Me: Mmm...
Let's just say it continued like that for a while...Until she made the decision to tell me about how it is the Endtimes.
Her: The Bible proves to me that this is the Endtimes because of everything that is happening. In the next few years, this is what will happen. The world will get worse and worse for 3 years. There will be almost complete chaos, and no one will be able to stop it. Then, all of a sudden, the world will become peaceful for no apparent reason. A calm will come over the world, but it will only last for 2 years. And then it will be Armageddon.
Me:
Apparently the people who accepted Jesus as their personal savior will get into Heaven. But, the people who haven't will go to Hell. Also, the people who have accepted Jesus as their personal savior in the final 5 years (so pretty much anyone who isn't Born Again already) STILL might not get in because there is "limited space". Heaven is like an 21+ concert and I'M AUTOMATICALLY GOING TO BE LAST IN LINE.
I really don't have a joke to say about her. She turned out to be really nice woman and helped me get into Bombay safe and sound. She was a very good woman, and an even better Christian.
So after that conversation in the middle of the night, I went to the bathroom. This meant that when the bus stopped so all these men jumped off to pee (no women) I was followed suit and became that crazy Westerner. I scurried passed all the men and scrambled over a stone wall to shelter myself from the bus's headlights. As I was sitting there, I looked at the sky and saw the most stars I think I have ever seen. Due to the lack of pollution and dust, I could see about ten times as many stars as I can normally see. It completely blew my mind. After I got back in the bus and laid down, I looked passed the back of Yvette's (that was her name) head and watched the stars for hours. It was exceedingly beautiful.
After arriving in Mumbai I walked around my first day. I think in total I covered about 5 miles of Bombay's Bandra neighborhood. The second day Sara came with her two friends, Lisa and Jocelyne, and we went out with a few Indian friends for New Year's Eve, which was awesome. We went to a club and danced for a few hours. The men were CRAZY. We all went to the bathroom in a group, and someone grabbed Sara. I proceeded to berate the guy, yelling at him in a really thick Hindi accept IN ENGLISH (It's a weird thing that starts when you've been here for a while- when you can't speak Hindi to them, you start talking to Indians in their accent). I was yelling, "Sir, you grabbed my friend. You grabbed her! You can say you didn't, but sir, why would she lie? You can't do that. That's not okay." My hands were waving in his face and I had pretty much taken on the attitude of a stereotype of a really pissed of Indian woman. Who spoke in English. Happy New Year.
The next day we walked around South Bombay, which is more or less exactly like Manhattan. It was a pretty fun day and we ate lunch at the place that the Bombay attacks started, a restaurant called Leopolds. The bullet holes were still in the walls. The next day we went to Elephanta Islan which has all sorts of relgious importance that I would describe to you, but I wasn't really listening to the guide so I can't tell you anything correct about it. There will be pictures in the next post.
I left that night to come back to Varanasi and take the second 36-hour train ride of my winter vacation. I slept the first night without much problems and spent the entire next day sitting and staring at people. I just napped and stared. Most Indians on the trains just sit and nap, so I decided to try it out (well, I was also avoiding copious amounts of homework I had and still have). It was surprisingly easy. The time still went about as fast as it would if I have music and books.
The next morning I woke up at 3 AM to the coldest temperature I think I have EVER experienced. Ever. At least, the coldest temperature that I was in NO WAY prepared for. I had two sweaters and a blanket on and I would have let someone chop off my feet if it meant an end to the pain. Later on in the morning, I woke up, and sat with a huge family. They were amazed that I was learning Hindi and surrounded me. The family had one grandmother, 8 aunts and uncles, and each of those people had at least thirty children of their own that I met. And every child that met me was forced to shake my hand and say good morning before they would be allowed to eat breakfast. It was great and didn't make me feel awkward at all.
Upon finally getting in the vicinity of Varanasi, I asked how much longer. Everyone said twenty minutes. Our train was doing the seemingly impossible- it was going to arrive on time. But, as that is impossible for India for do, the train stopped. It came to a full stop and didn't move for another five excruciating hours. Five hours of sitting in the middle of this family and talking to all of them, being asked to sing American songs as well as well known Bollywood songs, and being flat out laughed at. Roundabout hour three, one of the many girls asked me for a gift from America. At first I said I didn't have anything American (most of my stuff at this point is Indian). but finally I dug up a three-year-old mini perfume bottle that I had never used and gave it to her. In return I got an elastic bracelet with mini roses on it meant for a six-year-old. What a sucker, right?
So after I sat in that train for a total of 34 hours, and when I arrived I found out that a) my wallet was stolen and b) Varanasi is 57 degrees but feels like the blueish center of a snow bank. My wallet only have about 600 rupees in it (about 12 dollars) and I still have my passport so that wasn't hugely bothersome, but still was pretty annoying.
My first day of class back we had a really painful two-hour long meeting about logistics. I don't want to talk about. What I DO want to talk about is the fact that my program coordinator, Shashank, was late to work. When he got here I asked him why he was late. He said that he couldn't leave his house because someone had performed black magic in front of his doorway, so he couldn't leave. Someone is trying to kill him or hurt him, so he had to get someone to sweep it away form his front door before he left the house...obviously.
Yeah. So...yeah.
I'm overall very happy to be back. I worried lot about my time in India for the last four months. I was just always worried that I wouldn't like it here or I would miss being at school too much. I guess I was just worried that I wouldn't adjust well. But I think my time in these past few weeks (i.e. lying on the beach, traveling alone so much, figuring out everything myself, seeing so many new cities, standing up for my friend, getting my wallet stolen) has somewhat tied me close to India. Also, Varanasi feels a lot different than it felt last year (It's 2009, guys). Maybe it's the cold, or maybe it's the fact that I've been here for four and a half months, but I really feel at home here. Well, at home and really really cold. I need at least one pair of socks if I plan on surviving, and, taking my previous week into account, it seems as if I'm going to do that.
-allison
After Hyderabad I went to Chennai for a few days to kick it with Padma and Scott in their apartment before we drove over to Goa, which was fairly uneventful. Except for the time when Scott asked me to run over to the Chennai High Court to coax a lawyer into getting him some documents. Yeah, except for that. I spent two hours with this lawyer; he took me into every single courtroom and explained, I think, everything he learned in law school. He turned out to be a really nice guy, and even bought me a cup of chai.
The car trip to Goa was pretty easy. We almost only listened to "This American Life" and songs from the Civil War the entire time. I think there may have been some Elvis Costello. Anyway, it was fine and the cockroach count for our one night stopover hotel was only four.
Goa...Oh my god Goa. I don't think I really have a lot to say about Goa. My daily routine was something like this:
10am-12am: Breakfast with Scott and Padma
12am-4pm: Lie on the beach
4pm-5pm: Eat sandwiches
5pm-8pm: Shower, nap or read
8pm-10pm: Dinner
10pm: Sleep
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
It was amazing. I- I really can't talk about it or do it justice. Christmas in Goa was brilliant- though I did find myself missing the standard snowy New England Christmas. But I got over that real fast.
After a week of amazingly delicious food and sun and ocean, I had to say goodbye to Goa and move on to Bombay. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to try taking a bus to Bombay instead of sticking to train travel. My brother drove me to the bus station, I said goodbye to him and Padma, and they drove away. The following is the story of what happened afterwards.
After wandering around the "bus station" which is really just a mish-mash parking lot of bicycles, motorcycles, and bags of grain, for an hour or so, my bus finally arrived. By this point I had met a Finnish couple (what is it with me and finding couples from small European countries?) who were also going to Mumbai on my bus, and we set off together. The Finnish woman got on the bus, while her boyfriend and I went to the back to drop off our bags. As we were putting our bags in the the bus, it starts moving. At first it was slow, and we though it was just reparking. That, not surprisingly, was wrong. The bus sped up, and Sven (That was probably his name, right?) and I just stood in silence watching the bus drive away. After it turned the corner, we realized that it was not reparking, and we somewhat half heartedly ran after it. Finally we found it behind the bus station, which should have been obivous I guess, and got on.
I then found my bunk, which was the bottom bunk in the third row. I got in and was immediately ecstatic. The berths in buses are at minimum 1 and a half times as big as the ones in trains and cushier. There's a built-in pillow on the bed and the bed and there's a window that spans the entire berth that you can open. Finally, there's a curtain in between you and the aisle that you can close at your leisure. I was in the process of writing that description in my journal when an Indian woman sat down next to me.
"So, could I have the inside?"
Snap.
So I move over a little to allow room for person number two in my berth and she is immediately incredibly friendly and I notice that her English is impeccable. Throughout our entire time together I never heard her speak Hindi once. She spoke English to everyone on the phone and to the driver. Well, sort of. Instead of writing out our conversation I'll do one of those dialogues I'm oh-so fond of.
Her: So where are you from?
Me: I'm from America.
Her: (Smiles and slowly nods) You are a committed Christian.
Me: (bewildered) umm not- not really...
Her: (Smiles and nods) I see.
(Insert more chit chat)
Her: So you are learning Hindi?
Me: Yeah.
Her: Make sure the Hindu religion doesn't suck you in.
Me: (At this point realizing that the friendship may be strained from here on in) Uh huh. Don't think that will happen.
Her: (She says this in a completely soft voice as if it was all something I had heard before) It's just...you know, it is a very silly religion. There was no religion before Christianity and all religions are based on of it. Even Hinduism, whith its many Gods says that truly there is only one God. Islam says the same thing. All of the world religions are based off of Christianity, you know. They have just all deviated from The Path. Even Catholicism has. I used to be Catholic, but I have accepted Jesus as my Personal Savior and have been born again.
Me: Uh huh. Kay.
Her: (After a moment) What do you think about the world situation?
Me: The world? Like...the whole world?
Her: (Knowlingly knods)
Me: Umm...well uhh I'm happy Barack Obama was elected. I think Israel's being overly violent. The economic crisis is pretty serious. Is there something specific you wanted me to respond to?
Her: Do you think there's a hidden agenda?
Me: ....By whom?
Her: There's a hidden agenda to rip the morals from today's youth, from people like you. By the media.
Me: Mmm...
Let's just say it continued like that for a while...Until she made the decision to tell me about how it is the Endtimes.
Her: The Bible proves to me that this is the Endtimes because of everything that is happening. In the next few years, this is what will happen. The world will get worse and worse for 3 years. There will be almost complete chaos, and no one will be able to stop it. Then, all of a sudden, the world will become peaceful for no apparent reason. A calm will come over the world, but it will only last for 2 years. And then it will be Armageddon.
Me:
Apparently the people who accepted Jesus as their personal savior will get into Heaven. But, the people who haven't will go to Hell. Also, the people who have accepted Jesus as their personal savior in the final 5 years (so pretty much anyone who isn't Born Again already) STILL might not get in because there is "limited space". Heaven is like an 21+ concert and I'M AUTOMATICALLY GOING TO BE LAST IN LINE.
I really don't have a joke to say about her. She turned out to be really nice woman and helped me get into Bombay safe and sound. She was a very good woman, and an even better Christian.
So after that conversation in the middle of the night, I went to the bathroom. This meant that when the bus stopped so all these men jumped off to pee (no women) I was followed suit and became that crazy Westerner. I scurried passed all the men and scrambled over a stone wall to shelter myself from the bus's headlights. As I was sitting there, I looked at the sky and saw the most stars I think I have ever seen. Due to the lack of pollution and dust, I could see about ten times as many stars as I can normally see. It completely blew my mind. After I got back in the bus and laid down, I looked passed the back of Yvette's (that was her name) head and watched the stars for hours. It was exceedingly beautiful.
After arriving in Mumbai I walked around my first day. I think in total I covered about 5 miles of Bombay's Bandra neighborhood. The second day Sara came with her two friends, Lisa and Jocelyne, and we went out with a few Indian friends for New Year's Eve, which was awesome. We went to a club and danced for a few hours. The men were CRAZY. We all went to the bathroom in a group, and someone grabbed Sara. I proceeded to berate the guy, yelling at him in a really thick Hindi accept IN ENGLISH (It's a weird thing that starts when you've been here for a while- when you can't speak Hindi to them, you start talking to Indians in their accent). I was yelling, "Sir, you grabbed my friend. You grabbed her! You can say you didn't, but sir, why would she lie? You can't do that. That's not okay." My hands were waving in his face and I had pretty much taken on the attitude of a stereotype of a really pissed of Indian woman. Who spoke in English. Happy New Year.
The next day we walked around South Bombay, which is more or less exactly like Manhattan. It was a pretty fun day and we ate lunch at the place that the Bombay attacks started, a restaurant called Leopolds. The bullet holes were still in the walls. The next day we went to Elephanta Islan which has all sorts of relgious importance that I would describe to you, but I wasn't really listening to the guide so I can't tell you anything correct about it. There will be pictures in the next post.
I left that night to come back to Varanasi and take the second 36-hour train ride of my winter vacation. I slept the first night without much problems and spent the entire next day sitting and staring at people. I just napped and stared. Most Indians on the trains just sit and nap, so I decided to try it out (well, I was also avoiding copious amounts of homework I had and still have). It was surprisingly easy. The time still went about as fast as it would if I have music and books.
The next morning I woke up at 3 AM to the coldest temperature I think I have EVER experienced. Ever. At least, the coldest temperature that I was in NO WAY prepared for. I had two sweaters and a blanket on and I would have let someone chop off my feet if it meant an end to the pain. Later on in the morning, I woke up, and sat with a huge family. They were amazed that I was learning Hindi and surrounded me. The family had one grandmother, 8 aunts and uncles, and each of those people had at least thirty children of their own that I met. And every child that met me was forced to shake my hand and say good morning before they would be allowed to eat breakfast. It was great and didn't make me feel awkward at all.
Upon finally getting in the vicinity of Varanasi, I asked how much longer. Everyone said twenty minutes. Our train was doing the seemingly impossible- it was going to arrive on time. But, as that is impossible for India for do, the train stopped. It came to a full stop and didn't move for another five excruciating hours. Five hours of sitting in the middle of this family and talking to all of them, being asked to sing American songs as well as well known Bollywood songs, and being flat out laughed at. Roundabout hour three, one of the many girls asked me for a gift from America. At first I said I didn't have anything American (most of my stuff at this point is Indian). but finally I dug up a three-year-old mini perfume bottle that I had never used and gave it to her. In return I got an elastic bracelet with mini roses on it meant for a six-year-old. What a sucker, right?
So after I sat in that train for a total of 34 hours, and when I arrived I found out that a) my wallet was stolen and b) Varanasi is 57 degrees but feels like the blueish center of a snow bank. My wallet only have about 600 rupees in it (about 12 dollars) and I still have my passport so that wasn't hugely bothersome, but still was pretty annoying.
My first day of class back we had a really painful two-hour long meeting about logistics. I don't want to talk about. What I DO want to talk about is the fact that my program coordinator, Shashank, was late to work. When he got here I asked him why he was late. He said that he couldn't leave his house because someone had performed black magic in front of his doorway, so he couldn't leave. Someone is trying to kill him or hurt him, so he had to get someone to sweep it away form his front door before he left the house...obviously.
Yeah. So...yeah.
I'm overall very happy to be back. I worried lot about my time in India for the last four months. I was just always worried that I wouldn't like it here or I would miss being at school too much. I guess I was just worried that I wouldn't adjust well. But I think my time in these past few weeks (i.e. lying on the beach, traveling alone so much, figuring out everything myself, seeing so many new cities, standing up for my friend, getting my wallet stolen) has somewhat tied me close to India. Also, Varanasi feels a lot different than it felt last year (It's 2009, guys). Maybe it's the cold, or maybe it's the fact that I've been here for four and a half months, but I really feel at home here. Well, at home and really really cold. I need at least one pair of socks if I plan on surviving, and, taking my previous week into account, it seems as if I'm going to do that.
-allison
No comments:
Post a Comment