back on track

i'm ashamed to admit it, but while i was sick, i actually contemplated just buying a plane ticket to paris or some such place, and spending my pre-korea time there instead of here. i was so sick, and had hardly even set out on my indian adventure. but india was beginning to repulse me. i would go out on to the street, suddenly more aware of the garbage, the incessant noise, the pollution, the smell of sewage, all so naseuating, so unwelcome. and i was beginning to get annoyed by the crowd mcleod ganj was attracting. these trendy, super-smug, holier-than-thou quarter-life-crisis-ers who haunted the myriad cafes in the mcleod ganj area, loudly proclaiming the infinite wisdom gained from their first meditation or yoga session. there's something grossly self-indulgent to me about a western suburbanite walking around in a maroon tibetan monk's robe amidst real displaced tibetans. i suppose it is the feeling that being here, for many people, seems to be just another commodity, another fashion. i'm at a loss to describe the frustration and irony in people believing that this is spiritual progress. anyway...it wasn't so much the thought that this place was like that, here is mcleod ganj, but that every place i had dreamed about and romanticized in my mind for so long was nothing more than slums, congestion, garbage, and sewage. there was never going to be a destination that lived up to my ideal. india was all the same.

but luckily i talked to a friend from philadelphia, mridul, when i was online, and he persuaded me not to leave mcleod ganj until i had undertaken the short triund trek, into the himalayan mountains. i was actually quite intriqued by this and blindly set out down the road, unsure of even how far it was (though he assured me it was no more than a day's hike). i soon reached the village of dharamkot, which, even as i write this, i have hardly seen anything of. i simply passed a teashop that i know is at least on the outskirts of dharamkot. here i met a group of 4 people, half from canada and half from the states, and we hit it off really well and headed off to triund. the walk there, which took place as the sun was setting and provided me with my first intimate encounter with the himalayas - walking along rocky, winding paths, tucked into the side of steep valleys, beyond which rose the monoliths of rock and ice that have captivated, in photos, even those who hold no interest in the natural world. the horizon was a blazing strip of gold as the sun was setting, picturesquely siloutetting the foothills against a sheet of rolling fog. it was like stepping into a page in national geographic. i loved it.

we reached triund, a small outpost of guesthouses and shacks selling dal and rice (the trekking staple). we stayed up for a bit near a campfire that some other trekkers had started and met some new friends. we got both rooms in a small, rustic little structure with a very handmade feel. it was one of those little painted concrete houses that make you actually wonder about how the builder shaped the different parts with his hands, how he erected this, that this must have been put there before this, or the whole thing would have collapsed - wouldn't it have?

in the morning, we got up and ate breakfast, and i set out with a friend i had met the night before named dan. we trekked up to a place called the snowline cafe, i guess because it's the last place to get supplies or tea or food before the snowline, before you're high enough to just be on pure steep rock. the rocky ridgeline that had looked so distant yesterday was now right in front of us. apparently it is possible to go further, and part of me wanted to, but dan wasn't motivated and we just hung out in the meadow, admiring the scenery. eventually we decided to go all the way back down to mcleod ganj, and started a very scenic, but not very interesting, descent back to town. we did get into a really meaningful discussion on the way down - i had been avoiding talking to people about anything philosophical, which seemed to be what people did here, because the conversations always seemed so stonerish and comically shallow, with every pretense of depth. but luckily dan and i had a good, thoughtful conversation, one of those talks where you can put everything out there honestly, even what you think of the people in mcleod ganj sometimes, and then we worked through it and came to positive, constructive conclusions. i often experience a feeling of helplessness when i'm lured into a "spiritual" conversation, because i feel many assumptions are made about beliefs i share with the other person. i am at pains to explain that i cannot have a casual conversation about these things, because i simply don't have enough faith or confidence in the concepts. how can you know? how can you know for absolutely sure, 100% of the time? hmm....here i sit back in my chair and realize that i cannot even explain this properly, not without straying far and long from where i should be in mcleod ganj, and to there we will now return:

i parted ways with dan in dharamkot, and i walked down the pitch black road back to mcleod ganj alone. it wasn't very creepy or scary or anything, although a huge, lumbering monkey who was making his way across the street to a tree gave me a bit of a start. i went to a vegatarian japanese restaurant dan had told me about in town and we met up there and talked a bit more about india, which he's traveled in for almost a year now, and just life in general. it was interesting to observe that we were paying about $1 for a full japanese meal. how much does that cost in the states?

i think i'll move on from mcleod ganj today, maybe to amritsar, site of the golden temple, then maybe to rishikesh and gangotri, source of the ganges river.

oh yeah, and correction to an earlier entry - you can't see the world's third tallest mountain from here - i was recalling (incorrectly) the description of darjeeling from my guidebook, way on the other side of the country. also, you can speak the tibetan language in tibet, but it's not taught, and you cannot display the tibetan flag or the likeness of the dalai lama. i'll try to be more accurate in the future and not pander to your interests with false and outlandish statements about my surroundings. until next time...for now i'll just sit back and enjoy the view i have here of majestic kilimanjaro.

recovering

actually, i don't have much to say because i've just been sick for about 3 days so i didn't really go out, just got a hotel room with a tv and mostly stayed in trying to find movies in english, and sometimes settling for english movies dubbed in hindi. it was pretty bad, and since i only just got my appetite back somewhat (i didn't eat for 2 days straight), it's not an experience i really want to relive with words just yet. for now you can just look at some pretty pictures i took:

above: tibetan museum in mcleod ganj


above: tibetan temple near the dalai lama's residence


above: tibetan temple near the dalai lama's residence


above: tibetan monks


above: monkey in mcleod ganj


above: mcleod ganj


above: cow on a street in mcleod ganj


above: me in mcleod ganj

above: ceremony at tibetan school before the dalai lama came to speak, which i didn't get to see

welcome to the himalayas

getting the train from delhi this time was actually uneventful - i just went to the station, found my train on the board, went to the appropriate platform, found my berth, and scrambled on to it. i slept, and 9 hours later i was the small town of pothankot, where it was pitch black at 5:00am. i navigated through some overly aggressive taxi drivers who wanted to take me all the way to mcleod ganj for like 1500 rupees and found one to take me to the bus station for just 50. that is probably still too much but i just wanted to get out of there. happily, at the bus station, i could buy a ticket that took me all the way to mcleod ganj (i had heard it was harder to get one going further than dharamshala). i only had to wait about 15 minutes for it to leave, so it was perfect timing and actually good that my train had arrived about an hour late. a funny thing happened at the bus station - i was trying these little cigar/cigarette things called "beedies" (i think it's a small amount of tobacco wrapped in a dried eucalyptis leaf). this guy comes up and says "excuse me sir, no smoking." so i just dropped it and nodded. then he gets out an official-looking pad of papers and says "you have to pay fine, 20 rupees." i looked him up and down, he didn't seem to be wearing an official uniform or anything, so i said "ok, let's go check." he followed me to the booth where i had bought the ticket. i stuck my head in the window: "excuse me..." - i pointed to the guy next to me - "does he work here?" the guy behind the window looked at me quizically. "he said i have to pay if i smoke." the guy laughed a little and shook his head. i looked at the guy trying to impose the fine, and he looked back at me sheepishly. i patted him good-naturedly on the shoulder and laughed, and he laughed too. "you're good," i said. then he said "ok, you want taxi? 500 rupees." i love the flexibility of indians to engage in any number of different business disciplines at the same time. smoking police and long-distance taxi operator.

it only cost me 90 rupees for the 4 hour bus ride to mcleod ganj, which was probably the most spectacular bus ride i've ever had in my life. it was really cool - i got to see rural india. we passed all these tiny little villages, driving through streets lined densely with huge trees, watching people begin their day. i love the transparency of village life. you can see "ok, that is where people buy their groceries...that's where they go to pray...that's where they go to school...that's the restaurant." there's just one of everything. people were bathing themselves outside, just wearing pair of shorts and dumping what must be ice cold buckets of water over themselves. i saw wild-haired, wild-eyed saddhus, the holy men, smoking their chillums and gazing spacily right through us. i saw vast open fields where people were working, though i'm not sure what was being grown there. occasionally we would pass a trail of dirt and stone steps, leading up to a barely visible temple in the forest. every now and then uniformed children would file on to the bus and quickly get off again. the bus drivers are totally insane. this wouldn't fly in most of the world but here it's the norm. we would fly down extremely narrow, winding himalayan village streets, blaring the horn around blind turns, occasionaly rounding them to discover that another bus, of equal or greater size, had the exact same idea, and we either slam on the breaks or turn sharply at the last moment. sometimes we would skirt precariously the unguarded rim of a alarmingly tall and preciptious dropoff, at the bottom of which i half-expected to find the rusting carass of a bus piloted by a driver with an extravagant surplus of confidence. it must happen from time to time. other times, we would pause to allow bands of ambling monkeys to migrate across the street, where they would perch themselves on the guardrail and look at us inquistively. we spent a lot of time in the opposing lane or traffic for some reason, or at least straddling both lanes, and often we would just barely avoid certain death as our driver was roused from staring dreamily out the side window by the blaring horn of an oncoming vehicle. sometimes when skirting these and returning to our former place in the road, the backsides of our bus and the other would barely knick each other with a sharp click. never has avoiding fiery collision with, say, a careening tanker of propane, been so casual.

at one point, we had to reverse quite a bit because, on a street only allowing one vehicle, there was an oncoming military convoy.

the last part of the trip involves crawling up winding roads to get us to the relatively high mcleod ganj, at almost 7000 feet. on the entire ride, you've been getting glimpses of the himalayas - these white-capped horns rising out of the horizon. apparently we have a view of the world's third highest mountain, the name of which i forget, from this place.

i thought that perhaps i would be one of only a few tourists here in mcleod ganj, but it turns out it is a huge tourist mecca. i wonder if there are more people now than usual, or less. it seems to be about perfect temperature, much cooler than delhi, so this might be peak season. i think i'm treating the tourists here unfairly in my head because i haven't met any of them yet, but they don't seem to have the open and friendly attitude of the travelers i met in delhi. these are more like the people i met in a hostel in montreal...everyone seems to think they are cooler than everyone else and are afraid of being discovered as otherwise.

i haven't really explored this place much since i've been here, but i can tell you that it may as well be in another country when comparing it to delhi. this seems to be a very small, quaint, himalayan hamlet. the pictures below, for the first time, aren't mine, i got them online, but i may as well have taken hem. my camera is in my room and i'm too lazy to go get it.

the reason why i haven't explored much is that i was totally exhausted upon arriving here. i got a room, went to a restaurant, and fell asleep waiting for the food. when it came, the waiter woke me up, i ate, then i passed out in my room, and when i woke up, it was dark. tomorrowing i'll explore the place, go to the monasteries, visit the home of the dalai lama, and more importantly find out if he is here so i can register to be part of a group meeting with him. there's also a village called bhagsu only a mile's walk away, which i'll probably check out. i paid 200 rupees for my room here, but i think i'll try staying in either a monastery or this place that has dorms for only 25 rupees (about $0.50) per night.

i've been thinking about where i want to spend diwali, the largest indian festival, and trying to decide between here and delhi. still not sure but i could see spending at least a week here, in which case i will be here for diwali, which starts on october 28th.

i think i've decided to not go to nepal and china on this trip, but just concentrate on india. actually, going to china, if you plan on going to tibet, is a lot more complicated than i originally imagined. and really, i'm not super interested in china right now. i'd rather just save the money and explore more of this country, then go right to korea.

i just realized i haven't really described the town of mcleod ganj itself, exactly what it is. basically, this is a town where the population of tibetans outnumber that of indians. the tibetans are refugees, or children of refugees, who came here after china invaded their country, just north of here. this is also the home of the dalai lama. i could say "the spiritual leader of tibet," or whatever, but i guess he doesn't really need any introduction. sometimes i wonder if this isn't a more authentic tibetan experience than going to tibet itself. for example, you won't hear the tibetan language spoken in tibet - it's against the law. here people speak it freely. in tibet you will find no images of the revered dalai lama, but here his likeness is everywhere. groups of monks, clad in maroon and saffron robes, are a familiar sight. a sarcastic poster hanging in this restaurant says "Celebrate Human Rights Violations: Beijing Olympic Games 2008"

one strange thing about this place is that resturants. i've been to two already, and they both serve mostly, of all things, italian food. pizza and lasagna are easily to come by here, but i haven't found any indian food yet. i did try tibetan food in delhi. it's pretty bland, maybe they are offering western fare to suit tourist's tastes. i don't know.

trapped in delhi

i don't think i have the heart right now for a long entry. i'm pretty well demoralized by delhi and my 3 failed attempts to escape it:

first night: missed train

second night: ticket office closed

third night: train cancelled?

i don't really know if the train was cancelled or not. here's what happened: last night i hung out with bharat again and we went to yet another gem of delhi that 99% of travelers must pass by: dilli haat. it's sort of a cultural expose where restaurants and merchants get a booth with their state's name on it. so you can buy food from rajasthan, or clothes from madhya pradesh, or whatever. a great learning experience and a clean, orderly place unlike most markets in delhi. actually, you have to pay 15 rupees to get into dilli haas, but it is worth it, and the fact that you have to pay is probably what keeps it so nice in there. bharat also really dove into his passion as we chatted - he's the founder of an organization called World Without Obstacles. it's a budding endeavor with about 200 members. the mission and operation are a bit loose, but from what i gathered, he is trying to knit together an intercultural community where any member can begin an effort in their particular country, or partipate in another country's effort, to make a change for some sort of good. for example, bharat has started a program where they take poor children in and teach them computer skills, then try to connect them with employers. but the efforts seem to be varied - for example, apparently there are members in the united states working on giving yoga and meditation sessions. these efforts can receieve support from the organization. but it seems like bharat doesn't want people to stay in their own country - he wants indians to go to russia, to china, to wherever, and for americans and russians (or whatever), to come to india. the cultural exchange is a really important part of this for him. to check out his website, visit http://worldwithoutobstacles.org/

so i went to the train station, extra early this time for obvious reasons, and stared at the big electronic board that displays the trains about to arrive and depart, and from which platform. many people had told me this was very simple - just find your train number and find the corresponding platform. my number, 1077, was not on there. i waited and waited, and it still did not appear. there were mobs of people at the station, and i just stood there like a statue while a sea of people just flowed around me. with 20 minutes left until 9:00, when the train was supposed to leave, i decided to walk to a different part of the station. suddenly, while walking, i heard a voice from the loudspeaker say "may i have your attention please. train number 1077" - here i froze in place - "is reported approximately 2 hours, 20 minutes behind schedule." the message was then repeated in hindi. ohhh...this is nice. so i wait 2 hours and 20 minutes basically standing in place again near the board. my train number never appears. i go to where they are making the announcements through the loudspeaker. they never mention my train again. it's past midnight. i give up and walk back to pahar ganj, where the hotel i was staying at every night is full, and i just walk down the slightly eerie, entirely closed, barely lit street of the main bazaar until i found a decent, vacant, hotel.

i called bharat this morning and he suggested that maybe the train was cancelled. maybe. i was just really pissed last night because it seems like nothing can go smoothly here. that's part of the trip, though...i know, and i just have to accept it and even like it, but at the time i wanted to scream and swear at someone, just to get it out of my system.

above: dilli haat

above: ramakrishna ashram marg metro station, near pahar ganj

the other delhi

another e-mail i copy/pasted, sorry for the spacing problem, future entries won't be like this:

yesterday was my best day in delhi yet. i loved it. it started offwith buying that shirt, which i've already described and am stillwearing. then i bought my ticket for mcleod ganj. in actuality, thiswas a dark point in an anotherwise bright day. as any traveler canattest, this may be the most bewildering, disorienting,embarassment-inducing activity available to visitors of new delhi. itshouldn't be. the ticket office, air-conditioned, calm, clean,sparsely populated, and catering specially to foreigners with helpfulticket salesmen, is on the second floor. but no employee there willtell you that. you stand in line with an imposing number of indianswith no idea what you're doing, everyone packed in so closely the guybehind you is leaning on you, and you're leaning on the guy in frontof you. you get to the window. "pathankot?" i say. this is thestation i want to go to. "no" she says. "other line, to left, yougo." i leave the line and go to the one in the left. i wait in lineand reach the window. "pathankot?" "no, you go other line, inside."i go inside another area of the station. here there are tons ofindians lined up as well, and it says "second class." ok, i wantsecond class sleeper, so this could be where i need to be. i wait inline. when i get to the window, the lady gets up and leaves. thepeople behind me are getting angry and peering out from the end of aqueue 100 indians deep. i turn to them, grimaced, and try to shruginnocently, as if to say "this isn't my fault, i don't know whathappened." a few minutes later she comes back. "pathankot?" i say."you go outside, turn, go inside, other line." she gestured to the
place i had just come from. i left, dejected, embarassed, confused.i was also beginning to feel really angry. i should also mention thatduring this process, there is an army, the worst i have ever seen, ofscammers trying to lure travelers to the fake ticket offices acrossthe street, where you'll pay twice or more what you should for ticketsthat may not even be valid. a couple canadians i met later were takenin on this, but i've learned to ignore anyone trying to get yourattention in public. your frusteration is doubled for this reasonbecause you cannot ask anyone in the station. out of the question.you cannot do it. they will lead you elsewhere.what the *hell*, i thought...what the hell. i was going back into theother line. i wanted to get the window and strangle the person on theother side. i wanted a god damned ticket. to my salvation, while iwas in line a couple from spain, who i noticed looking similarlybewildered earlier, came up to me and told me they found the place toget tickets on the second floor. they led me there. they wereextremely nice. to the people working at the new delhi train station- when you see a foreigner, tell them to go upstairs. is that sohard? what the hell?i got my ticket and met a nice couple from montreal in the process.we left together and agreed to meet up in about an hour in the cafeacross from me. i used the computer for a bit in the cyber cafe nextdoor and noticed bhagat, from couchsurfing, had e-mailed me, saying"sorry i can't host you, but let me know if you want to get together." if he had sent that before i left, when he meant to, i would haveignored it and we would have never hung out. but it sounded prettygood now that i was here. i called him and he told me where to meet
him and that he was just going to hang out with two friends. i met upwith the canadians and asked them if they wanted to meet bhagat andhis friends. they said they did, so we left and of course had a bitof trouble finding them, which is a boring story, but we finally foundthem. this was the beginning of me seeing "the other delhi," which ishow i think of it in my head. we hung out near india gate and thepaliamentary district at first. finally, just some grass for us tolie on, hardly any people, lots of space, extremely impressive capitalbuildings. we talked about delhi and india and the world, everyonewas having a great time. it was our first real conversation withlocal indians who we weren't paying for something. it was awesome.it was also the first time i realized there were "normal people" inindia. i had e-mailed my friends rachna and vivek, asking how thiscity could have possibly produced two well-adjusted people. but iunderstand now. i had only, up until this point, inhabited the poorparts of delhi. we left india gate and they took us to a restaurantin some district of delhi, had to be south but unfortunately i don'tknow exactly where it was, where things were almost familiar, but withan indian flare. this is the delhi most high-paying tourists willexperience, i expect. luxury hotels and the upper class districts ofdelhi. i can't tell you how different it is than a place like paharganj or old delhi. it is similar to a modern city in the west, but itis stylistically indian. we went to a restaurant and they ordered thefood for us, it was so delicious, and i discovered anar juice(pomegranite juice). sooo good. 25 rupees ($0.50) per glass. idrank a lot of anar juice. i happily made myself sick on anar juice.
it's not at all like what you get in those pomegranite drinks in thestates. the guy goes to his pile of pomegranites and squeezes themright there in front of you until there's a cupful. it's ridiculouslygood.we parted with our newfound friends and experienced the delhi metrofor the first time, proving that delhi wasn't out of surprises yet.the subway is immaculate, pristine, extremely modern, far beyond mywildest expectations. the only thing i've seen like it is themontreal subway. it makes the new york and philadelphia subways lookfilthy. it's also dirt cheap, usually costing only a few rupees (justa few cents) to travel long distances. it is the way to travel indelhi if you can.we emerged, alex and saldrine (the canadians) and i, from the subway,and stepped out into a transformed connaught place. i realized i hadnever been in the inner circle of connaught place, only the muchseedier outer circle. we had emerged near a central park of delhi,where well-to-do couple and families were happily lounging on thegrass in the warm night. connaught place was glowing romanticallywith beautiful lights, idyllic and picturesque. i'm not sure how todescribe it but it struck me that i hadn't seen delhi before thatnight.we retired to pahar ganj and went to a bar. it was good to have madethese new friends, we got along really well. we talked abouttraveling and life and the such. they spoke very good english buttheir first language was clearly french.to make a long story somewhat shorter, i missed my train to mcleodganj. delhi for another day. i was hanging out with alex andsaldrine, and i realized it was getting pretty close to being time toleave. i ran to the intersection of the main bazaar and new delhirailway and found a rickshaw - "can you get me to old delhi station in
5 minutes?" i thought it was nearby. he looked grave. "we can try." what followed could have been in a carchase scene from a delhi actionmovie - the lights of delhi streaked past, headlights of oncomingtraffic were narrowly avoided at the last section, we weavedgracefully, avoiding death by seconds. sometimes, after an extremelyclose call, the driver would laugh manically (he was enjoying this)and call "fast driving, yes?" i was having too much fun to be scared,and i laughed along with him. i missed the train, i wasn't evenclose, but i had a good time on the ride. i walked to the stationjust to make sure. old delhi at night seems a bit seedy, but i'm notscared of any part of delhi any more. yes, many areas around here areabhorrently poor and pulse with people, but there's no reason to beworried here. bad neighborhoods don't really equate with dangeroushere as they do in philadelphia. there doesn't seem to be so much asdistinction between good and bad neighborhoods as between well-to-doand poor neighborhoods.so that was yesterday.today i woke up late for the first time, like 10:00, i couldn'tbelieve my watch but i needed the sleep i think. i didn't sleepduring the 20 hour flight, and every morning i've gotten up at about4am-5am just from pure excitement. i felt really comfortable in delhitoday. delhi is fun, delhi is exciting. no longer overwhelming ordisorienting. i went to mejnu ka tilla (sp), a tibetan colony innorth delhi. i took the metro, then a cycle rickshaw (these arecheap, like 20 rupees even though it was quite a distance). i'm prettygood at haggling reasonable rickshaw rates now, though you can'tescape the fact that you will always pay more than an indian. that'sjust how it is. mejnu ka tilla looked pretty haggard and run-down, a
ghetto like most places in india, i couldn't understand it's novelty.then i noticed a white marble building with an open gate. nooneseemed to be coming in or out. i went in and entered a very large,all-marble room where a little girl was peering out at me from one ofthe adjacent rooms. it appeared to be a place where people lived, butit was like nothing i've seen before. very clean, very exotic, verystrange, like something from a movie, like how the people on anotherplanet might live. a man came out of one of the rooms. "hello?" isaid. "can i come in?" he motioned for me to take my shoes off, andi did. then he wanted me to leave my bag, apparently he was going togive me a tour of whatever the hell this place was. i didn't want toleave my bag, but i looked around and thought "well, you can eitherleave it and see this place, or keep it and walk out now." i made aquick judgement of the place and decided to leave the bag. i felt icould trust these people. besides, there was hardly anyone here. heled me through a tour of what i would discover is a tibetan temple,with quite a few people living in it. it was completely amazing. wewalked down into descending, narrow marble corridors and emerged,bizarrely, into tiny, cell-like cavities fashioned into impressive,glittering shrines. picture it. it's so much fun, like exploring anancient tomb. there's this room, oddly shaped, circular i believewith a sherical ceiling, i'll have to check my pictures but this ishow i remember it, and branching off of it are two narrow marblepassageways. so you are in this tiny, otherwordly room with theseexits providing the sense that you are also underground. it was likebeing at the center of the earth. not marble floor, all marble. the
whole place is a milky polished marble. he led me back upstairs.occasionally these adorable tibetan children flitted past, laughingand stealing curious looks at me. he asked me if i wanted to eat, andi said i could eat a little. he led me into an eating area, a largeopen room with a cook at one end. they had rolled out two mats andabout 15 people were eating communally. there was one row on one matand one row on another mat. we were all facing each other. we atedelicious rice and spiced potatoes with out hands right off our plateson the floor. we looked at each other and smiled and laughed. i wasa spectacle here. the children were loving it, telling their parentsunintelligable things and laughing. "from america?" one woman said."yes" i said. this was the limits of our language exchange but wesmiled and laughed together, the universal language. we were happy.i washed my own dish and left. i really, really wanted to give themmoney, it was so nice of them not to ask me for any, but besides 500rupee bills (which i should have just given them, i'm so cheap, i'mkicking myself) all i had was 20 rupees, which i needed to get thecycle rickshaw, which might not be able to change 500 rupees. i tookthe cycle rickshaw back to the metro, then to the other end of theline, to an auto rickshaw, to kauz haus (sp), a neighborhood i hadheard was extremely rich and posh. i wanted to see more of the "otherdelhi." i didn't...he took me to kaus haus market, i have no idea ifthat's the same thing but it's no different than many of the marketsi've seen in delhi so i'm sure i didn't go to the right place. iwalked around it a bit but i saw no posh neighborhoods. i went back,i was done with running around for the day. i went to connaught place
and ate for the first time in a nice western-style restaurant just totry it. it was nice and air-conditioned and extremely well decorated(the posh was here, at least), but expensive, of course. still, itwas only about $12 for two bottled waters and a very good gourmetpizza.time to buy another ticket for mcleod ganj, since i wasted my lastone. i took a rickshaw to new delhi station (basically synonymouswith pahar ganj here, the station is at the beginning of the mainbazaar street). i couldn't believe it - the ticket office forforeigners closes on sundays at 2:00pm. i laughed. another day indelhi, looks like. no problem, i'm beginning to like this, and notjust in the way i liked it before, in that it is so different and loudand exotic and adventurous. i'm beginning to feel a bit endeared withthis delhi place, now that i feel i understand it a little. lastnight i peered out from the roof of my building, the only personthere, and looked over a darkened, sporadically
lit, still bustling,delhi. it's winning me over. i like this place.

above: me and the canadians

above: in the parliamentary district

above: india gate

above: couchsurfing friends bhagat and mohit

above: the delhi metro



above: mejnu ka tilla (tibetan colony in delhi)



above: mejnu ka tilla
(tibetan colony)

first impressions

i wasn't going to do an online journal, but it's just going to be a lot easier than trying to e-mail everyone. instead of re-typing what i've already told others, i'm just going to paste here the first two e-mails i sent to my parents (something is messed up with the spacing, i know, but i can't fix it):

so basically what i did today is get off the plane in new delhi and start looking for the bus. it's hard to find any directions at all to anything because anyone you ask will try to take you somewhere elsewhere they can make money. i eventually got to the bus and went to caugnnaut place (sp) in the middle of the city. this made me thinkthat maybe delhi isn't so bad. in actuality it is really quite crazy. things got kind of frusterating trying to find pahar ganj, the placewhere i am now. everyone was trying to take me to a fake tourist office (not the official government one, even though they all printout fake "official government" cards and stuff). i was determined towalk there and not yield to the unrelenting, aggressive solicitations of the rickshaw drivers. the city changes drastically from street tostreet. the circular street that confines cannaught place is not badat all. every street branching off from it, and the streets branching off from them, are a crapshoot. some just have trash and corpse-like beggars strewn about. one thing that doesn't change from street tostreet is the congestion. humans, dogs, cows, cars, buses, bikes, andrickshaws flow down the streets in one unorderly flow. indians seemto liberally employ their car horns, not in anger, but to let peopleand other cars know they're right behind them. it's complete chaosbut it somehow retains a feeling of fluidity. i gave up at one pointand went back to cannaught place to regroup and duck into a cafe i hadseen in order to get my head together and consult my guidebook. ihave confirmed with other travelers that service in indian eatingestablishments takes forever. i just ordered a coffee and it tookabout 15 minutes for him to bring it to me. the next try at findingpahar ganj was pretty much just me committed to walking around until ifound it, but on that attempt, probably my 5th, i made it to thebustling bazaar of the main street, where rickshaws, bikes, cows andpeople all go at the same pace and occupy the same narrow dustycorridor lined with walls of cramped "hotels" and stores sellingpretty much anything you can imagine. i say "hotel" because it's notquite what you would imagine. there are no freestanding structures.it's like there's just one long building that occupies an entire sideof the street for a mile - a building has been sliced up as many timesas possible to allow the maximum number of establishments in the leastamount of space. my hotel is in a small side street, almost an alley,so i'm not right on the main crazy street. there's a restaurant onthis street that is quite good. i suppose delhi is really dirty butit doesn't bother me at all. nor is it as bad as many accounts hadmade it out to be. although there was a mouse and a huge cockroach inthe restaurant, as there is a mouse in this cyber cafe. outside atangle of power lines hangs just above the heads of pedestrians.a big meal cost $2, my room cost $5. it's going to be really cheap totravel here.i'm meeting a lot of cool people from around the world.i think my plans are as follows:- stay here for 1 or 2 more days and see some sights around new delhilike the red fort, india gate and so on- head north to mcleud gang (home of dali lama) and possibly rishikeshbefore it gets too cold- head back south and go to agra (taj mahal), jaipur (pink city),jodhpur (blue city), udaipur, and jaisailmer, a desert town where ihope to do a 2 or 3 day camel trek- head to varanasi, or delhi if rancha is there then- go to the wedding in lucknow- don't go to nepal anymore (i was talked out of this by veterantrekkers who said it will be too cold in december/january)my small pack is a big hit...this one girl wanted to take a picture ofme with it. people seem to wish they had done it that way.that's about all i can think of for now. i'll try to call youtomorrow morning, which will be night for you. i'm definitely havinga blast and am amazed that i am on the other side of the planet,absorbed in such a totally different world. it's amazing to think ihave experienced so much and i've barely scratched the surface andhave been here less than 8 hours. in spite of all the chaos, i do feel safe here.


-- second e-mail --

well, today is going a bit better than yesterday. yesterday wasreally trying for some reason. i started by trying to take care ofthe chinese visa thing, which was a hassle of going to the chineseembassy, which wasn't where i needed to go, then going to the visaoutsourcing place in a palacial luxury hotel. it's interesting to seemost of delhi, so impoverished, and enter the lobby of this huge,$400/night hotel in delhi. it may be the nicest hotel i've everstepped foot in. like going from one world to another. anyway, ifound out i need:1. to fill out a visa application form2. to submit a (typed and printed) application letter3. to submit an itinerary4. to get a passport photo taken5. to submit a phoocopy of my passporti did the 2nd and 3rd ones from the "business lounge" of the hotel -where prices match the setting...200 rupees per page you print out.$4 per page...insane. i still need the passport photo. i didn't tryto do the visa yesterday because although they can do next-dayprocessing, they don't work weekends so i would have had to stay untilmonday (or leave my passoprt behind, which i can't do obviously).after i did the most i could do with regard to the visa, i wentsightseeing. i'm realizing how much more i'm paying forauto-rickshaws than i should. i thought i got a pretty good deal withan 80 rupee ride the other day. i've paid 100. drivers have askedfor 200 (i didn't give it to them), but i realized that i should bepaying like 20 to 50. by law they should be just charging you whatthe meter says, but they have it rigged so it is "broken" by the timethey see you coming. you can, in theory, report this to the law, butit's not worth the hassle. you just have to accept that there is aparallel economy here...one for indians and one for everyone else.
indians pay by what is on the meter...you have to haggle.so anyway, i took a rickshaw to jami masjid (the mosque that holds25,000 people). i originally said i wanted to go to red fort, like 2blocks away from jami masjid, then changed my mind, then the driverupon arriving tried to charge me twice as much because it was adifferent destination. sometimes you just have to hand them themoney, whatever amount (it'll always be more than they usually getfrom indians) and walk away, listening to their cries of "sir! sir!hello!" grow more and more distant, till they give up and drive away.jami masjid...what to say about this place? the structure itself isvery impressive. however, i don't think i've yet been sickened asmuch as by the surrounding neighborhoods of the old delhi monuments(red fort and jami masjid). there are children pooping right in thestreet, inbetween the myriad street vendors selling food that looksbizarrely clean and fresh. you have to step aruond quite a fewbeggars. it's amazing how emaciated some of them are...i didn't knowhumans could reach that state. imagine legs no thicker than my arms.the smells were overpowering. this is the bazaar street leading up tothe mosque. i entered the mosque and was instructured to remove myshoes. i left them with this guy, who put them in a pile under ablanket. i recovered them later, but inbetween i remember thinking ishould have just carried them, that guy is going to steal my shoes,which bothered me the entire time. the mosque is basically a walledstructure, walls enclosing a central open plaza, which is how so manyfit inside, but it is still impressive, and there are still manyinside areas. however, there were still throngs of people inside andyoure walking on stones covered with bird poop in your barefeet. most
of the people are indian and foreign tourists, but there are alsoquite a few muslims actually utilizing the mosque.i remember at some point starting to feel not very well, mentally,somehow. just depressed or something, maybe it was just sensoryoverload. i paid 50 rupees to climb a high tower, maybe a few hundredfeet, and got a really great view of new delhi. climbing the towerwas intersting - a high spiral staircase of stone, parts of which youcouldn't see your hand in front of your face, and so narrow you couldhardly fit in. things got really interesting when you passed someonetrying to come down. nothing to do but squeeze up against each otherand keep going. leaving the mosque, i got my shoes back from the guy,thankfully, and walked away from him when he demanded money.sometimes you don't know who's legit and who's not, but i figure ifthey don't chase you, they're not legit. as i was descending themosque stairs, a street kid attached himself to my forearm and startedwringing his hands on it. i pretended it wasn't happening and keptwalking. i was almost dragging him along. he was very little, but iremember being struck by how eerily mature his cries were, like thatof a wailing grandmother at a funeral. they were tearful, mournful,desperate, he seemed to be in agony. of course part of it must beshow, he appeared otherwise healthy, but i don't even really want tospeculate on the kind of hardship you must have to endure in order tosound like that as a child. it was chilling.so anyway, now i'm feeling really weird, like this is all too much totake in at once, and i go to the red fort. i had my sandals too tightand had the same problem as when i first started wearing them on thetrail - they rubbed a really sore spot on my feet, making it painful
to walk. the red fort is pretty interesting, actually more sedateinside than in the mosque. there are huge grassy lawns, widewalkways, impressive and expansive architecture. i think i actuallyliked it a bit better but at this point i was *really* ready to goback to my room because i had just received the one element i lackedin order to be truly miserable: i suddenly noticed my t-shirt andpants were covered in birdshit. i believe this happened in thestaircase of the tower, where birds hang out in the small, squareopenings cut into the stone. i must have rubbed up against a bigconcentration of it on the walls. i'm normally not one to feel dirty,i don't really care too much about showers as you know, but for thefirst time in as long as i could remember, i needed desperately totake a shower, to buy a pair of clothes at the bizarre, to settle inmy room a bit and absorb what i had just seen, to remedy the state iwas in. so i get back and buy a pair of clothes - 120 (about $3)rupees each for pants and shirt. then i got into the shower. it'sfunny - of course there's only cold water, which isn't too bad becauseit's quite hot here, but the "shower" is basically just a showerheadcoming out of the wall of the bathroom. no tub, no curtion, no"shower" to speak of. you turn it on and everything - toilet, sink,floor, pipes - gets completely soaked. it drains from a drain in thefloor. so i cleaned myself really well, got into my new indianclothes...which actually looked a little ridiculous in my opinion.not totally absurd, but i was getting looks from the indians, at leasti thought i was, which made me feel extremely self conscious. i gavemy dirty clothes to the hotel but they said they wouldn't be washedfor 24 hours. i spent the rest of my night watching movies on tv with
english subtitles and ordering beers and food to my room.this morning i got up and got breakfast on the roof, then set out tobuy a different top, which was, in my opinion, what was wrong with myindian outfit. i went into a store in the early morning (a strangetime in the bazaar, the stores are mostly closed and there are a lotof cows hanging out, many more than you see during the day, i thinkthey stray to less crowded areas later on). there i met the nicestindian salesman yet. seemed very down to earth and educated...he sayshe works in sweden for part of the year. young guy, like my age. thestore was really colorful and clean. by "store", i mean it's one ofthose slices of buildings, no door or anything, no sign, open at thefront, just two walls, the merchandise, and the salesmen. i wasreally smitten with this hemp top, i thought it was extremely cool.but he said it was 900 rupees, almost $20, quite high but it did seemto be a high quality garment and a higher quality store than most. isaid: "hmm...i'll give you 500." he put it hand on his heart andlooked pained, and staggered back, as if i had just shot him. "thisis very bad for me!" he protested. i tried on some other things, but ikept coming back to that shirt. "you can't come down on the price atall?" - he looked grave and serious all of a sudden. he pressed hishands together. "i'll give it to you for 800." i tried on some otherthings. some time passed. "i'll give you 600 for that hemp shirt."he called in his boss, who said "ok...i offer you 700, this is not hisprice, this is not your price, this is the final price." i tried tolook noncommital and said "ok, i'll tell you what. i'll either giveyou 600 right now, or i'll walk around outside a bit, see if i see
something i like better, then maybe come back later." of course, weboth knew what i was doing, leaving him with no choice in the nicestway possible, and he loved it. he found it absolutely hilarious. hedoubled over laughing. he recovered and looked at his worker,pointing at me: "you listen to him!" he turned to me: "where you didyou learn that, where are you from my friend?" he seemed genuinelysurprised and amused at this display of haggling skills, which ididn't even know i had. he put his arm around me. they were the mostsincere people i have yet to meet. the young guy gave me some saneadvice about avioding scammers in the train station today when i go (ithink i need to get out of delhi). i hope to take an overnight trainto the hopefully more subdued mcleod ganj, home of the dalai lama.so now i look pretty good i think. i like my shirt a lot - i'mthinking about maybe getting one for amy. i have no idea where thepost office is though. the shirt i yesterday got but don't like somuch may fit mike, it's pretty huge on me (size large), but it alsomay shrink a ton in the wash. is there anything you want from here?here's about the prices of things here:big meal with soda: $1 - $2taxi ride: $1hotel room: $1 - $5 dependingand delhi is known as being as much as twice as expensive as the restof india. amazing.i wanted to write you because i'm not sure what services will beavailable when i get to mcleod ganj. i may not call or email for aweek, so don't worry. oh and if any of this sounds dangerous, it'sreally not. i believe most indians will steal from you in aheartbeat, but i wouldn't fear violence. the danger is theft, and itis admittedly everywhere. having a tiny pack you can always take withyou helps.well, i guess that's it for now. of course there's a lot more butthis is already getting pretty long. don't worry about me, i'm havingfun and being safe.

above: red fort

above: view of delhi from jami masjid tower

above: himalayas from the airplane