I feel as if I have been traveling forever. I’ve traveled to over 8 countries, using planes, trains, automobiles, buses, mopeds, bicycles (both tandem and otherwise), tuk tuks, and I have been chauffeured by at least one 10 year old on a motorcycle. My favorite way to get from here to there is by jet pack or floo powder but as neither is readily available in India I will just have to make do.
After landing in Delhi at 3 am, I was horribly disoriented and spent the next two days recovering from jet lag and eating the best food I have eaten on my entire trip. I also had the interesting opportunity of getting scammed by one of the travel agencies in Delhi (which I am currently contesting through my bank) which put a bit of a sour taste in my mouth regarding Delhi. Delhi is also one of the dirtiest and smelliest cities I have ever been to…not good smells mind you, more like sewage and dust and sweat. I did get some time to myself in Delhi and in my delirium, I wrote 2 songs. I saw a few of the sights in Delhi but overall it was not one of my favorite places, so I quickly moved on.
Things got better in Agra. On my first afternoon in the town, I had my first of many close monkey encounters (in the restaurant where I was eating), and I soon discovered the majesty of the Taj Mahal. I could not believe that any building that is hyped as much as the Taj could possibly live up to such expectations; it exceeded them. I have never seen a more beautiful structure anywhere and its surrounding area is beautiful. Too bad the rest of Agra isn’t so nice.
I had heard that Jaipur was quite beautiful so I thought I would give it a try. I arrived too late by train to get into my hostel so I spent my time in Jaipur at the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at, which I paid $24 dollars a night for. In Jaipur, I had so many animal adventures. I went to the temple at Galta, which is colloquially called the monkey temple. According to the holy men who maintained the temple which was quickly falling to ruin, there were a thousand monkeys. Not sure if there were quite that many but there were monkeys everywhere you looked. The Indian people tend not to like the monkeys, thinking of them as a nuisance and dangerous and not as super cool, tiny people. I fed several of the Macaques peanuts from my hand. One monkey I fed ripped off the flowers around my neck and ate them and another jumped on my bookbag as I tried to walk away without feeding him anymore peanuts, but otherwise they were like tiny adorable gentlemen and ladies. The temple is also situated in the mountains surrounding the city of Jaipur which gave a great view of the city. It was gorgeous. I also had the opportunity to pet elephants. They were being kept by people who rented them out for weddings and other fun occasions ( speaking of, I want an elephant on hand for all important events in my life- marriages, graduations, birth of child, etc.) I was so excited to be so close to these massive mammals but I was a little saddened by the tiny enclosure in which they were kept. They all looked super drugged up as well.
Outside of Jaipur, I also visited a temple where I had read that exorcisms were performed on people with ghosts. Well I didn’t see any ghosts in the temple but I did see some things that would haunt Dorothea Dix. As I entered the temple chamber, the air was filled with incense, smoke, clapping, and chanting. I walked around the room feasting my eyes on all the strange sights: people flailing their arms as if in a trance, writhing on the floor and shaking, doing somersaults, screaming, and running into a wall repetitively. I had the good fortune to talk with one individual who believed he was possessed by at least 3 ghosts. His condition began when he awoke in the night 3 months prior with a ghost child sitting on his chest making it impossible for him to breathe. He hadn’t slept for weeks afterward and he eventually sought help at the temple. His condition sounds remarkably similar to Laotian Sudden Death Syndrome, which I read about in one of my many psyc classes at UNC (Go Heels!). He told me the way to rid himself of the ghosts was by punishing them, so he flung himself into a stone wall several times in a row after which he told me that a normal person wouldn’t be able to do that more than once without falling down from pain but his ghosts gave him unnatural strength.
I then made my way to Mumbai via a 16 hour train ride. Mumbai was the cleanest of the cities I had visited so far but it was still rather dirty. The beaches were in a disturbingly bad condition- I was told the only people who went in the ocean there were people who were incredibly poor or those trying to catch dysentery. I found my eagerness to get in the Indian Ocean declining. I went to a laughter club in Mumbai, which I had been very excited for but I found myself a little disappointed. The laughter was very mechanical and less spontaneous than I had hoped. The people in the club were much older than me and I believe they used the club more for physical exercise. I’m not sure about the positive physical and mental effects of forced laughter, whereas I feel like natural, spontaneous laughter may be more effective, which I will have to do more research about when I return home. I also talked to a doctor of Alternative medicine, who had some very interesting ideas about treatment for the mentally ill while maintaining scientific credibility.
Mumbai is also where I made some North American friends! I was staying at a western style hostel, where I ran into an American who had been traveling for a long time and recounted many tales of his travels. I also met Matt and Jess who are a really cool couple who had been in Asia for over 3 years teaching English in Korea, where they had first met. I also met a fellow by the name of Steven, who was a beginning traveler and to him I was considered a bit of an expert traveler, which I thought was hilarious. I spent my nights in Mumbai, drinking, smoking (I tried my hand at cigarettes when they were available, and as Matt and Jess smoked heavily I had many opportunities), and playing cards (I’ve gotten respectable at Cribbage and Uker which I am told are both farmer’s games). Jess, Matt, Steven and I all decided to head to Goa together, so we formed a foursome and made our way south.
Goa is very different than much of the rest of India. Goa was a Portuguese colony and as such, the dominant religion is Christianity, not Hinduism. In India, the party religion is Christianity, which I found odd but nonetheless awesome. Goa is the type of place where you (or me at least) could get stuck for ages. Beaches, beer, illicit substances all over, and sooooo chill. I saw so many westerners there and some of them I saw at the same bars more than one night in a row. If you are going to be a burnout, there are worse places to do it. There are beach bars all over and the part of Goa away from the beach looks like a jungle. While in Anjuna Beach, I had my first moped experience and my first crash. After my rough start, I had to regain my confidence which I did eventually because it is incredibly dangerous to ride scooters here. There are basically no rules of the road in India, just everyone trying to get where they are going as quick as possible with little to no regard for the lives or well-being of others.
I also went to the most beautiful beach I have ever been to at Palolem Beach in Goa, where I have been told the beginning of the 2nd Bourne movie was filmed. Of all the places I have been in India, this is place I would come back to first. It is a pristine beach, not too much trash, beautiful sand and water and no high rise hotels. It’s also situated in a private bay flanked by several islands, which we hiked/swam to on our last day there. It was around that time that my camera fell a few feet from a table and now the view finder is a bit spotty so nearly all of my photos now are taken free hand and some are a bit…artsy (off center or out of focus). It has forced me to take a million pictures of the same thing which is how I hear you get a few good pictures anyway.
After our stay at Palolem, Jess and Matt headed to Kerala while Steven and I made our way to Hampi. Hampi was a very cool town. It’s in the middle of nothingness as far as I could tell and is filled with boulders of all shapes and sizes. There are mountains of boulders and several beautiful plantations for bananas and rice. We also found another temple overrun by monkey,s but this time they were Langurs which are way cool. Steven and I also explored a temple filled with bats, which smelled terrible but was quite an adventure. That night, I had an intense, slightly horrible experience that I will not relate here but if I don't repress it perhaps it can be related later.
Steven and I parted ways upon reaching Bangalore. Bangalore was pretty cool for a big city and I had a great day by myself, reading, writing, playing guitar, and singing. I also had a great opportunity to talk to some mental health professionals. This foundation had three homes which treated individuals with schizophrenia. It was very similar to the company I worked for in Chapel Hill but with some differences, some very good which I think could help improve the lives of the people I serve.
After Bangalore, I flew to Delhi and I am currently on a bus to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama resides in India. He is doing a teaching on October 1st through the 4th which I hope to be able to attend and maybe…just maybe…find some enlightenment. Before arriving in India, I had planned on staying for nearly 2 months but I think I may curtail that some and see some more of what the rest of Asia has to offer. If you have any questions about my trip feel free to message me (l love hearing from the people I miss) but otherwise, until we meet again dear reader…
An aside about staring: Throughout this adventure in India, I have begun to learn what it is like to stick out like a sore thumb. I gather stares like sugar draws flies. Walking down the street, I tend to keep my head phones in and my eyes straight ahead. If I should look around too much, I get yelled at by merchants trying to get me to purchase their goods or else just to yell at the white guy walking around in a sea of Indians. It’s especially bad when I go to exercise here…apparently, people in India don’t jog much, especially without a shirt. In Delhi, I was chased by a group of children from Afghanistan who stopped me from jogging so they could ask me why I was running and also attempt to pull down my shorts (which happened again in Mumbai). In Agra, I had two kids watch me jog around a park for 20 minutes. White people seem to be a novelty here, despite there being quite a few of my pasty brethren in the country. At the Taj Mahal, I had two groups come up to ask to take a picture with me and in Jaipur, one group of Indian gentlemen fed me and talked to me for a long time. So, you take the good with the bad…
Animals and their place in Indian Society: Many animals are revered in India, including cows, monkeys, and elephants. That is not to say that they are all treated well. Monkeys are chased away constantly and many people throw rocks at them, while others feed them (including me). Cows and dogs litter the streets. Dogs are so plentiful here and the people here can be very unkind to them. I saw one little boy pick up a stone and slam it into the head of a dog sleeping on the beach. The dogs themselves are rather adorable from a westerner’s point of view but it’s a bit hard for any rules of traffic to be seriously enforced when thousands of dogs and cows wander the roads. The cows are at least treated better. Both male and female cows here have horns and most are used to people, allowing themselves to be touched but I have seen my fair share of rampaging cows and one cow stampede. I have also seen these same noble Brahmin eating trash and cardboard and sleeping in a pile of garbage.
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