Okay, so I have decided to put in 3 different entries that constitute about a week of travel. In this week I've gone from breaking point to inner peace. Enjoy and I shall write again when I return from the first of two extensive movements to and through the Himalayas.
I know there are typos, but I gotta get out of this internet cafe. Please excuse my situation....
DATE WRITTEN: Thursday, 20 May 2010
Today I finally left New Delhi: Thank The Gods.
That place was getting tom me. Paharganj is dinge-slum concentrate. It is chaos, madness, and disparity (even by Indian standards) manifest as a neighborhood. I was doing just fine with it all, a patient sense of humor and whatnot, until yesterday evening when I reached my breaking point. I was a nanometer from going Michael Douglas in Falling Down on the entire scene. Seriously I had pushed it too far into the darkness. I fought to keep it together, luckily succeeded in this brawl of sanity, and have since moved onward.
Earlier in that day I'd purchased a train ticket with a departure time of 10.20pm that evening. I'd ran into an American couple (Brock and Maris) from Tennessee who'd been living in Thailand for one year, at the train station while purchasing this ticket and afterward we three went for lunch and what would be my first and will be my last while here, bottle of beer. We had struck up a conversation consisting of standard backpacker fare: Origin of nationality? Where you coming from? Where you going? How long you here? Etc, etc, etc.....
While having this meal we discovered that Brock and myself had both been Music Directors at college radio stations (KBGA! 89.9fm! Listen for The American Trucker!) back in the states. We spoke of Terrorbird, TeamClermont, Chouette - promotions labels that we had each seperately exchanged emails with in the past, and that we had now met in a train station in New Delhi on the other side of the world.
What a small place the world becomes.
We decided to meet that evening at Restaurant Madron, just across from the hotel I was staying in, Karlo Kastle. (Do not EVER give your money to this place, Karlo is a rat bastard).
Okay, so I got my train ticket, met and had a beer with the Americans, made plans for a 7pm dinner rendezvous, went back to my hotel room, made the same dinner plans with Delfina and Santiago (an Argentian couple I hooked up and had been loosely rolling around Delhi with since we met at the airport. Santiago had been in India one month, Delfina was meeting him. It is a godsend to have a guide for your integration to the Mad Hatter Manner of Indian Culture, I assure you), and now I needed to grab some money and gather my things for departure.
I decided I would pack my bag, clean my room a bit, and alert either Karlo or one of his child-minions that I'd be checking out as I passed the front counter on my way out to smoke a biri and snag myself some Rupees.
It was 6.15pm.
I could go by the money store and be back no problem I thought.
How foolish of me. How naive I was in my young days......
At the hotel counter I was informed that Karlo would wake from whatever strange evening time nap I was told that he was taking, in about one hour.
Okay then, good enough timing for me.
I walked out the hotel doors, lit my biri, and walked to Main Bazaar Road where I would then take a right and go straight down the road the cash exchange, turn around and come back, check out of Karlo Kastle, have dinner, then catch my train to Haridwar to then hop a bus to Rishikesh.
Hitting the main road involves all kinds of bullshit. No joke. No exaggeration: mothers carrying babies who may or may not actually be hungry asking you for only 25rps for milk, children with lame or altogether missing limbs asking "10 rupees. Chapati. Chapati. 10 rupees" and using sticks to compensate for their bodily losses, 9 year old children following you down the road tugging at you for money; and always the cacophony of crazy crazy crazy horns, insane traffic [for lack of a better word let us call them] patterns/maneuvers, and the always bellowed: "Hellow Friend! You want _______? I have ________ for you. Good quality. Best ________ for cheap. Come, come my friend."
The moment that I took that right hand turn, I had already dutifully dressed my psyche in the chainmail armor of "Ignore Everybody."
Asshole you say? I dare you to try it.
Matter of fact, I triple dog dare you.....
The trip was horrible. Every person I'd ever had an exchange with during my 5 days or so in Delhi had decided that I needed to be hit harder and more persistantly than in the past. That perhaps, more aggression was what I needed to make my informed decision to let myself get cheated. From the boy who asked me 10 times per day if I wanted my canvas shoes polished despite my telling him "Nayee, Nayee" which is "NO" in Hindi each time, the milk-for-my-baby woman was especially in need of dairy, to the group of men who I sat and spent 40 minutes talking with the day before about people trying to rip me off and how quite literally EVERY person I'd met besides a 9yr old boy selling cigarettes had lied straight to my face over and Over and OVER again. These men had sympathized with my troubles, shared a chai with me, taught me some Hindi words, then of course as is the Indian custom (at least in the major cities) attempted to sell me a "package" to Kashmir.
Again, no exagerration, I said "really guys? After our conversation? I don't want a package and even if I did, I don't have the money anyhow" The response from them was "why not?" Well, because "I don'te want it, and I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY."
The response? "You go now, go on credit, you pay me when you get back."
?What?
"How does that work? I won't be making money while there, so if I don't have enough now, I won't have enough later. That doesn't make sense." was my rebuttal. I walked away saying "Have a nice day. Shukriya [thank you in Hindi]"
Now, two of the original four men from this conversation saw me walking down the street (on my way to get my money) and began in with "You never came by today! We wait all day for you! I have other place to be, but I wait for you to come get package!"
Oh really? I'm sure you had plans not to open your cloth store and attempt to sell anything all day today, but had decided to keep your business open for the day simply to sell me your credit package to Kashmir. Yeah, makes perfect sense buddy......
Also, does anyone at this point go "Oh yeah the package? Yeah yeah yeah, let's do it. Send me to Kashmir on credit!"
I mean really.
I just want to take 15 minutes to get some money, meet my friends, and eat. It is maybe maybe maybe a 1 km roundtrip walk.
I keep walking away from them as the continue on about my package, ignoring their words and shouts;
(Yeah, the hidden message is: Fuck you! Leave me the fuck alone! And no, I won't be at
bowling practice!)
I shake them with negation and not 30 meters later I run into another member of these "package" men from the previous day. I repeat my lack of interest and financial means as well as curtly pointing out that I had not in fact, changed my mind nor won the lottery in the last 24 hours and quickly attempted to scoot along down the road.
Got to the cash exchange where earlier in the day I'd spoken with the owner about the commision/fee that would accompany my withdrawal and upon now receiving my money, my card had been run with a fee that was double what I was told.
You Bastards! Why do you lie all the time? Why not just say yeah I'm gonna charge you more and if you don't like it fuck yourself? Instead they look you in the eyes, they smile, they act with the most Malice laden of intent to take advantage of you. Just let me know you're gonna rip me off man, I really would be just fine with that. Don't lie to me anymore.
I argued for a moment, sweat dripping from every pore and my body yearning for water that isn't as warm as what I have in the bottle accompanying me on this lovely little walk, then sign the paper and walk out heading back to Karlo Kastle.
I made sure I was the opposite side of the road as the "package men" (albeit still only perhaps 20 feet away), ignored every attempt of beggery with a ice-cold body of lifeless blood which is difficult to realize that you are capable of, and got back to the hotel around 6.50pm.
Went to my room, did a once over, then grabbed my 29liter bag and went to check out.
Karlo was at the desk and says abruptly to me with the screen of a calculator to match his words "1,950 rupees."
At 350 rps per night, 4 nights of lodging, and a 10rps late fee, my math added up to 1,410rps.
The slimeball wouldn't even look at me. Instead he kept a pseudo-hypnosis gaze at a TV set that was mounted just behind me, over my right shoulder and says "5 nights, plus tax."
There is no such thing as tax.
I shot back, way way way passed fed up with this whole I-will-lie-and-cheat-the-dumb-westerner-into-giving-me-his-riches scene, that in fact "NO! Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday," I showed him my fingers, "FOUR NIGHTS."
He did not even look at me. "Five nights, plus tax."
I rubbernecked my eyes into his line of sight. He still looked just to the side of me and beyond me.
Fucker.
I only had a series of 500rps bills, so I did not have the exact change of 1,410rps that was my legitimate bill. I threw down three of them, reached into my pocket and tossed two 5rps coins across the counter haphazardly as I turned and walked away. (Read this action as being my adaptation of Uncle Buck telling the school principle to pay a rat downtown, 25 cents to gnaw the mole off her face).
I thought for sure I was about to be jumped from behind, beaten, maybe sent to the police or something horrible. Nothing happened though. The extra 100rps I'd tossed at him must have sufficed his greedy and contemptuous will.
In this time I'd found no real congregation of examples to inform that Indians are indeed a friendly people. They were friendly, until you don't give them money. It was a disheartening and cynical loss of naivety.
But alas, there are of course antidotes to this poison of Con.
Rishikesh for example.
The family at the train station whose children I entertained with a magic trick for 15 minutes while waiting for the train. The children laughed and smiled as did I. At the end, the father wrote his phone number down offering me a sofa to sleep on if I passed through Delhi again (But is it a trick? I'm rotted with paranoia....). The same man helped me by leaving his family to aid my search for the unlabeled train car that was to be my trusty iron steed out of that place. He got me on board, shook my hand, and waved me off.
The family at the train station whose children I entertained with a magic trick for 15 minutes while waiting for the train. The children laughed and smiled as did I. At the end, the father wrote his phone number down offering me a sofa to sleep on if I passed through Delhi again (But is it a trick? I'm rotted with paranoia....). The same man helped me by leaving his family to aid my search for the unlabeled train car that was to be my trusty iron steed out of that place. He got me on board, shook my hand, and waved me off.
Perhaps things will change for the better on a more permanent daily basis; I suppose I shall see......
DATE WRITTEN: Saturday, 22 May 2010
Buying water in a foreign country for the first time is exhilarating and as scary as anything you've ever done. You get up the courage to ask a local, maybe you eat at his restaurant a number of times and develop a nice little rapport, maybe you've just met a man and decide to risk it all. No matter the means. What makes the task at hand such a daunting thrill is the ends.
The potential consequence. How terribly wrong things could go if you've invested your faith incorrectly. You imagine, in this case, Midnight Express. You get told "just you," and walked to a little shop that sells a little bit of everything and is the size of a standard American gas station bathroom. You pay the man, he gives you your bottle, and now you must just walk away acting natural and whatnot. It is a moment of adrenaline overload in which you must show zero signs of the "fight or flight" chemical imbalance coursing through your mind and muscles. This is a moment that if you ever experience, will never stray too far from the faculty of memory. Its intensity will always linger, and it will make you smile. Rather than decomposing in The Box, you are on the roof of your hotel at night, lying down looking at the stars that are both completely different and completely identical to the sky back home, listening to music, waiting for a lone monkey to go Dahmer and attach you while you are vulnurable, drinking your water; a grin on your face whose extremities extend beyond the ears.
Rishikesh can be magic.
Or maybe its just the water.
Regardless, life is magic. Or at minimum: Good.
Always it is a fine endeavor, and a fine endeavor it must always remain......
--Rishikesh, Uttaranchal, India
DATE WRITTEN: Wednesday 26 May 2010
Slept in til 11am today. This is wholly amazing as it is hot here. I mean Hot. It is over 100F by either 10am or noon. Even on climate friendly days it gets hot early. "Gets" hot is misleading really because it is quite simply always hot, it's just that during the daytime it gets hotter.
I've been in Rishikesh for one week as of today. My bus ticket is for tomorrow at 4pm. I shelled out 900rps for an air conditioned bus, through a "Government Authorised" tourism agent.
Why oh why, after coming to the firm realization that "Governemnt Authorised" really means "prepare for a tourist rape," would I do this?
Because it is a 14 hour bus trip to travel a few hundred Kilometers. This means winding and narrow passage by the way. So what right?
Well, if there were a train then I would say no problemo. You get a 'sleeper-class' ticket with open windows, mingle with your day-to-day working Indians and just roll. But think for one moment about an school bus from 1977, 100-110F temperatures, open windows on a dusty dirt earth pathway that more closely resembles an accident heavy motorcycle trail hugging the jungle cliffs than anything you may want to refer to as a "road," bench seats packed to the brim in a culture with no such concept as Personal Space, for 14 jangled and grotesque hours.....
In my decision I feel spoiled on one hand, and justified on the other. I think of hearing someone argue that renting a room with ceiling fans is "too posh for experiencing India man. You have to embrace the heat," and how silly this would be in practice. While it may be true to an extent, let us not get carried away.
(remember the Crusades?)
You ever try sleeping in 105F night in bug infested, stagnant blow dryer air?
It's fucking rough.
And so, I've justified my extravagance of an A/C bus with padded seating; knowing that this is the Exception and most certainly not the Rule. I simply cannot, and do not want to, hide myself away in calm cool padded environments; India is not any of these things at its core. In fact it most often is the antithesis of these luxuries.
It is completely crazy, hot as balls, and sterile-hard in most every direction.
It is not how the majority of Indians live.
It is not how a backpacker can live on 10-20 USD per day.
It is not the way in which you immerse yourself in the culture: the smells, sounds and staring Indians have all been removed.
It is how you join the lame and life retardant foreign mass.
It is how you visit a country without ever visiting the country.
It is how you spend excess money, however cheap it may still be.
It is how you hide away from and learn to loathe.......the ever-present and detoxifying sweat that is Indian in May.
But.
But, but, but.
It also is how you can get some form of sleep on a 14 hour, 4x4 bus journey.
It is how you can rest (Phhhhp! maybe....) and cover some ground simultaneously - making the investment equalize is potential deficit by acting both as lodging and as travel; dodgy though they both may be.
Ultimately, it is how I will go from Rishikesh to Dharamsala (by the way, the Street Fighter character you're thinking of is named Dhalsim, not Dharamsala).
Imagine if Andy Dufresne had never gotten those bottles of ice-cold suds for Red and the boys, allowing them to feel like free men if only for a short while.
Red illustrates: May is one damn fine month to be working outdoors.
And so I'm off in exactly 24 hours from this moment. Though it may not be the bottom-of-the-barrel style travel that I've promised my adherence to, I assure you the nerves will still be dancing unhappy upon my skin and my mind. Big bus, one driver for 14 hours, slim roads, and Jungle cliffs with in a tears' distance at all times for over half of a day with the Fates deciding my duration of existence.
I meditate and that these Fates have not yet drawn their string and shear: I don't want to leave this world breathing conditioned air.
Written in the Little Buddha Restaurant, Rishikesh, Uttaranchal, India
-- Oh yeah one more thing. Red, I must adopt and edit your wisdom to suit my needs:
May is one damn fine month to be riding indoors.
Dhalsim
In addition to his extending limbs, Dhalsim has three other signature moves:
- Yoga Fire – shoots a projectile of fire from his mouth
- Yoga Flame – creates a short-range ball of flame
- Yoga Teleport - teleporting through the astral plane to a new location
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