News from the Boat_India

Well, this took a really long time… I think I just needed to come to terms with the fact that India simply didn’t live up to my expectations. The reason for that is probably a combination of high expectations, bad planning, and bad luck. I still had a good time, but India just didn’t “rock my world.” That’s okay. Not every country can be my favorite country in the whole world.

That said, I went into India with zero planning. My first day was taken up by a field trip for one of my classes where we visited a street theatre performance and a village of traditional artists. Sounds cool, right? The only problem was that the theatre show was condensed from 7 hours into 20 minutes, for our convenience, and then we sat there for four hours with nothing to do. It was still cool to see the traditional art and the costumes, but still… I probably could have thought of a better use for my time. Like a Bollywood movie! A friend and I went to see “Robot” that night. “Robot” is the newest blockbuster. It’s about a scientist who develops a robot that develops feelings for the scientist’s girlfriend. And then there are random dance numbers in the desert (by a lagoon), bad CGI, evil Germans, and – most memorably – talking mosquitoes. It probably didn’t help that it was in Tamil with the occasional “That’s so cool” thrown in in English, but still. It definitely puts the more outrageous Hollywood action flicks in perspective.

The next day, we took a two-hour rickshaw ride to Mamallapurum, a city that houses 22 temples, including two out in the ocean that were discovered in 2006 when the tsunami sucked all the water away from the shore. I saw a few old temples and carvings (“old” as in 1400 years old, which sort of puts our version of old to shame) and Krishna’s Butter Ball, a sort of circular rock that sits on a slope. No one can explain why. Apparently the British brought in seven elephants to pull it down because they deemed it dangerous to the public, but no luck – it just stayed right where it was. I couldn’t resist giving it an experimental push myself, but when we left, it was still where it was supposed to be.

More temples the next day when we took the bus out to Kamcheepurum. As we were informed, it was a really nice bus – it didn’t have windows, so we got free air conditioning. But it was cheap, a grand total of 50 cents for a two hour ride, and being the only white people on a bus full of Indians was certainly cool to see. Hindu temples, on the other hand, are bizarre. If I had to come up with a word to describe them, it would have to be *kitsch*. Not necessarily in a bad way, but really, Hindu temples look like someone covered them in superglue, took the toy chest I had as a kid and upended it over the building. Pastel-colored figurines of hundreds or even thousands of Hindu gods cover every tier. The inside is not much better – here, the statues are bigger, but to the Western eye, they’re still pretty unbelievable. Of course non-Hindus are not allowed to enter the inner sanctum, but the outside of the temple is enough to give a taste of just how different this culture is to anything we’re used to.

Sadly, I wasn’t very lucky with the food. Even the traditional meal I had in Kamcheepurum (meaning you eat it all with your hands) wasn’t particularly tasty. But very environmentally friendly – your ‘plate’ is a palm-tree leaf that you roll up and throw away when you’re done, and instead of bringing you individual dishes, everybody just digs in from a shared platter. It made me sad though. I spent so much time hoping for really spicy Indian food, and all the restaurants we ended up at had strangely bland dishes.

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Bear with me, people, we’re already halfway through my tale of dissatisfaction. Now comes the crazy part: How to see the Taj Mahal in forty hours.

1) Get on an early plane. As in, seven o’clock in the morning early. But be alert. Indians show no mercy to the sleepy-eyed traveler, and if you keep a respectful two feet distance from the counter, they will cut in front of you.

2) Get to New Delhi, 200 km away from Agra and the Taj, at 10 am only to learn that all the trains to Agra that run that day have already left. Luckily, your hotel (that you booked at the New Delhi airport twenty minutes ago) has a cab service that will get you there before it closes at 5:30. And it only costs about $120 round trip. So you can pay for it even when your fellow traveler’s ATM card doesn’t work. So far, you’re still on track.

3) Fight with the hotel manager over the phone because he wants you to pay the 5000 rupees for the cab in advance. Give in when he threatens to have the cab driver turn around and drive back to the hotel. You’re still good, though. If you leave right away, you’ll still have an hour at the Taj.

4) Take a break-neck cab ride to Agra. It’s too terrifying to sleep, so you watch the minutes tick by with growing dread. But you’re *still* good. The cabbie is trying his damndest to get you there in time (although you’re kinda starting to wish he wasn’t).

5) You make it. It’s 4:45, you’re two kilometers away from the East Gate. Your cabbie stops at a money-exchange. Then he stops to pick up a guide that you somehow manage to get rid of, because at this rate your money is barely even enough to pay for a ticket to the Taj, let alone dinner or a guide.

6) Get through security when the sky is already turning orange. There are tourists everywhere. But that’s okay – it’s beautiful enough to make up for it.
Breathe in, breathe out – this is worth it.

7) Fight to get back to the cab through a slew of postcard and magnet sellers, all fifteen year old boys who tell you how sexy you are and ask if you like the Kama Sutra. Stop at another ATM, where your fellow traveler’s card still doesn’t work, fight with the cabbie until he takes you to a restaurant that isn’t ridiculously overpriced. Take a 4.5 hour ride back to the hotel. You’re about ready to crash, but the AC is so cold that once you do happen to fall asleep, you wake up sore and cramped up.

8) Fall into bed at the hotel and sleep for eight hours.

9) Try to check out and realize that you, again, don’t have enough money. Have a clerk walk you to several ATMs that don’t work before you can finally pay the hotel fee.

10) Take a rickshaw to the Lotus Tempel, an absolutely gorgeous building, stark white under a clear blue sky. Aside from the one guy who tries to touch your face with his wet hands, people are really nice here. When you enter, a man sings a psalm that echoes through the entire chamber.
This was a good decision. This is worth it.

11) Take a rickshaw back to the airport. Find out that your flight is delayed for an hour and a half. Fly for two hours. Spent another hour and a half fighting your way through Chennai traffic before you finally, finally make it back to that familiar string of lights in the darkness. You’ve been gone for 40 hours. 28 of those you traveled. 8 of those you were asleep.
The other 4? So worth it.

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So that was that. In retrospect, I feel like I should have spent less time looking at old buildings and more time trying to experience the culture, as I had originally planned. I heard so many wonderful stories about Indian hospitality, about people who randomly got invited to Indian homes, that I feel like I missed something fundamental. In my experience, India is loud and dirty and everyone wants your money. Even the Taj and the Lotus Tempel weren’t totally satisfying because as awesome as they are, they’re just buildings. They’re beautiful buildings, yes, but when it comes down to it, I would rather have had that connection with another human being than taken a picture and crossed something off my bucket list.

Not that I want to ruin anyone’s day, or convince anyone not to go. India was strange and wonderful and yes, mystifying. If anything, that gnawing feeling that I have in my gut whenever I think about this country makes me want to go back even more – because I can’t help feeling that there has to be more to India than what I experienced.

Lots of love from 27˚ 3.7N/166˚ 35.9E.
Alexa

India pictures are here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=252395&id=834707681&l=3129f5fdd1