Sandy Does The Subcontinent

* Tibetan monks riding in cycle rickshaws

* the sound of bracelets tinkling

* air so hot it hurts to breathe

* banana honey lemon pancakes, masala chai, momos (Tibetan dumplings), dal and rice, lemon sodas

* constant power outages

* two women in bright saris walking slowly across an empty windswept field, carrying baskets on their heads

* returning the bows and namaste greetings of holy men with eternity in their eyes

* taking a cycle rickshaw (note to Mary: finally!) tour of monasteries representing every Buddhist nation, like a Buddhist UN

* sitting under the bodhi tree where the Buddha reached enlightenment – meditating with Christian prayers while surrounded by Buddhist pilgrims in a Hindu country

* my first run in with ‘Delhi belly’ and subsequent love affair with antibiotics

* finally learning to put my mind where my mouth is (but more about that later…)

Warning: if you aren’t in the mood to listen to me vent, please skip this entry.

While despising an entire country is probably never fully justified, I have had a perfect storm of frustrations. It started when I was leaving the train station in Gaya – in my exhaustion I slipped and took a really bad fall down the slick marble stairs, with about three of the edges slamming me in the lower back. The impact was so hard that I blacked out briefly. I was terrified for a moment that I’d broken something in my back or somehow concussed myself. I looked up, half expecting help struggling out of the heavy pack and to my feet, since I was shaking so hard I couldn’t quite manage it, but aside from some blank staring, the crowds of passengers were just stepping over me. I realized in complete terror that I could die right there and no one would do anything except steal my stuff. I have never, ever seen such a total lack of compassionate humanity in people’s eyes in my life, and frankly, what I saw scared me. It was not the best opening to a stint of solo travel.

Aside from residual pain in my back, neck and shoulders, and not being able to lift my right leg, I pulled out of the physical effect in a day or so but the psychological impact wasn’t so easy to shake. It doesn’t help that everyone – and I mean everyone – here lies all the time, from the guy at the post office to people at the internet cafe. I would bet my life savings that if I went and asked right now how much a bottle of soda cost, they would say 25 rupees, even though the maximum retail price is printed clearly as 20. At least they’re consistent.

When they’re not lying, they’re just generally harassing you, unless of course they’re sleepy and then they just part their eyes enough to wave you dismissively out of their open shop before going back to having a snooze. Now I understand that Bihar is one of, if not the, poorest states, but I’d really like to retain at least a few of my liberal illusions, like the one that says poverty does not necessarily engender a culture of grotesquely dishonest, lazy and aggressive people.

Oh and then I started my period. So add cramps to the already awesome pain cocktail happening in my body. I took some ibuprofin before going to sleep, telling myself that everything would seem a lot brighter in the morning.

But morning, as it turned out, was 2:30am, when I woke up with a familiar feverish, nauseated feeling. I immediately made myself throw up, and once I was convinced I had everything out for the moment, I took an antibiotic and mixed a bottle of oral rehydration solution. I was lucky to treat is so quickly because the glimpse of the intestinal trauma known as ‘Delhi belly’ I got during the next nine hours was shocking enough to put me off the idea of eating until I get back to Stef’s next week. The only thing holding me back from the ledge of sheer self-pitying panic as I dozed fitfully was the comforting sound of English-language channels on TV, whereupon the cable promptly went off for the first time since I got here two days ago, and stayed off.

I can’t say I’m surprised I got sick, though. There is something palpably unhealthy up here. People look unhealthy, animals look unhealthy; there’s something foul in the hot wind. Compared to the south, it feels diseased, almost sinister. And that’s saying something in a country that on the whole fails to grasp even the most basic concepts of sanitation or hygiene. Many a Howard Hughest freakout has been brought on so far by suddenly remembering that people wipe their asses with their hands and then don’t wash with soap. Every time I even think about this, I have to dump like half a bottle of sanitizer on my hands. The justification is some nonsense about only using their left hands and water being more efficient than toilet papers. Um, sure. And it will probably remain a huge mystery why there’s so many diseases here. Just as long as they don’t look at me like I’m an ape the next time I accidentally use my left hand to accept something. I certainly wouldn’t be pointing any poo-y fingers if the situation were reversed.

But it still took more to break me…it took the power going out (which it does constantly) at the height of the 110 degree afternoon. For some reason the generator didn’t kick in so there I was, weak and feverish in the crushing heat, battered by every kind of pain, laying alone in a room that smelled like a sewer. And that, friends, was when I finally had the inevitable “I Hate India” moment. The end.

Mary went home on Friday and I was sad. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better traveling companion. She likes the same sort of things I do (i.e. eating food, laughing at stuff, and not running around to see a bunch of sights all the time) and she took to Asia like a fish to water. I was so lucky to have her to travel with. It was great that I had the transition of being back at Stef’s those first few days after she left because I think I would have freaked out otherwise.

As it was, I had a stellar birthday weekend. On Friday, Stef and I went to the opening night performance of the first ever staging of Carmen in India. It was a co-production with some French company, and was very well done. The only thing I didn’t like was the freezing cold air conditioning in the performance hall.

We spent most of Saturday running around doing errands – I had to get my onward train ticket, picking up things for the party, taking a stroll around Pahar Ganj (I think that’s how you spell it) which is the utterly disgusting backpacker’s ghetto of Delhi. I caught three diseases just walking around there. No wonder Delhi has a bad rep with so many travelers.

Our birthday party (Stef’s birthday is two days after mine) was a great success. It’s a tad vague in my memory since I tossed out the sage advice of ‘never mix, never worry’ after the first half hour or so, but I had a great time and made lots of new friends. Needless to say, I didn’t have such a great time nursing my hangover on Sunday while trying to get ready to go. I survived, however; in large part to Stef who saved the day by running to pick up my four pairs of new trousers (pink, green, blue and orange – naturally!) from the tailor’s while I finished packing in a mad rush.

Stef’s cousin was kind enough to accompany me to the train station and make sure I found my platform and even the right car. Considering how hot, tired and ill I was feeling, this was no small life saver. Everything was fine once I was on the train. The second class sleeper cars are so nice – cool but not cold AC, plenty of space and privacy, full meals provided, free bottles of water. It would have been perfect except that I was getting to my station at 4:30am and without an alarm clock, I was afraid I’d oversleep and miss it, so I barely slept.

Oh yeah, sidenote: my ipod died within an hour of being on the train. It’s been acting a little crazy the past few times I’ve used it but I just can’t believe that it died at exactly the point when I really needed it. iHate Apple.

The only other person getting off at my stop was an Indian man who lives in Nebraska. He’s here visiting his parents in a town really close to where I am, so he gave me his phone number in case I have any trouble here or need help. I thought that was extremely kind, and it took off some of the I’m All Alone In This Big Foreign Country panicky feeling that I think I’ll probably always get no matter how much I travel solo. In fact, everyone on the train was very solicitous of me. I was in a compartment with Indian Muslim men but the only time they paid any attention to me was to say, “Dinner? Dinner?” when I’d slept through dinner being delivered. Silly little American needs to get fed, for sures.

Anyway, I made it to my station in Gaya and then did the 13 kms to Bodhgaya squished in an autorickshaw with three generations of an Indian family. I’m staying in a guesthouse run by the Tibetan monastery here. It’s really nice – cable and hot water, which have been rare commodities at guesthosues on this trip so far. More about Bodhgaya to follow…

OK so this is what people are talking about when they paint a lurid portrait of India…

We started off in Trivandrum, which although it had the best Indian Coffee House ever (ICH!!!), was bleak, traffic-y and tiring. We had taken the train there from Kanyakumari to catch a flight to Delhi, with a layover in Bangalore. And what a flight that first leg was, on the propeller-plane-of-death (see previous photo blog) that was nothing less than a two and a half hour long nauseating roller coaster of terribleness. The adrenaline come down alone was enough to ruin this part of the trip.

From Bangalore, we had a big fancy jet engine plane to Delhi. Things were definitely looking up. At least they were until we were flying in over Delhi and heard two guys behind us say, “Oh shit, look at that traffic jam” (foreshadowing! foreshadowing!). When we landed at the domestic terminal, we collected our bags and headed straight to the pre-paid taxi queue, but something was obviously amiss as we approached the desk. A woman in front of us translated the bad news: massive traffic snarl to the extent that the pre-paid taxis were quitting giving out tickets since no taxis could get in or out of the airport and there were already about 250 people waiting outside. We decided to go out there and try our luck finding an auto, but after battling the waves of travelers back and forth, our luck was nill. The traffic police told us the only option was the pre-paid taxi, so we went back inside to the end of a now massive queue. Mary and I were convinced at this point that we were never getting out of the airport. I slunk off to phone Stef and let him know we’d be much later than expected. Sigh.

The line, however, went quite quickly and by the time I got back from negotiating the pay phone, Mary was near the front. We got our ticket, went outside to a short wait and finally got in our minivan taxi. The first bad sign was our taxi driver doing everything but rolling his eyes at having to take us. Wait, I think he did actually roll his eyes. And huff and puff. He was acting like a bratty, stoned teenager who’s been asked to take out the trash. The traffic cop literally made him take us.

The driver drama quickly escalated as we were trapped in the parking lot of traffic. “Extra money, extra money” became his mantra. “No,” we replied, “we’ve already paid. This is a pre-paid taxi.” On and on it went – the extortions, the threats (“I go back to the airport”, “you get out here”, etc.), the general sullenness. And then the mosquitoes started streaming in the windows along with the exhaust fumes.

There we were – sitting ducks. Everyone turned off their cars and got out to socialize and compare notes on how terrible the situation really was. We were literally moving about 10 feet every 15 minutes. Mosquitoes, fumes, crabby driver, blaring horns. It was beyond miserable. We were now at 3+ hours since landing, with a layer of oily sweaty grime covering our skin yet somehow not protecting us from the aggressive ministrations of the mosquitoes. Our driver kept indignantly telling other drivers the story of how we were refusing to pay extra. I’m sure the only thing that kept me sane was Stef’s promise on the phone that he would have fruity cocktails waiting for us on arrival.

When traffic finally – finally – started moving, we noticed that we were on a strange dark road in the middle of nowhere. And that’s the very first time Mary and I got scared. After all the craziness of this trip, we saved it for her very last night. But it turned out okay. We finally got to Stef’s neighborhood and basically ran away from the van after throwing money at him and taking down his car’s number to report him to the traffic police.

The happy ending is that Stef was waiting for us with fruity cocktails. Give me the alcohol, I am going to drink all of it. So we had rum drinks, recounted our now distant tales of traffic horror, and a good time was had by all. The end.

Mary and I got hella good at moving around from one place to another. Here is a sampling of our transportation options: autorickshaw, taxi, train, bus and propeller-plane-of-death (no photos of our boats, sorry)…

Kanyakumari was never on our travel itinerary. We only decided to go there after talking to Santosh Tom, who owns the Vasco Homestay in Cochin. He is an Indian Catholic living in a strongly Catholic city and state that has a history of Christianity reaching back to the 52 AD, even before Christianity arrived in most of Europe. Yet, the glow on his face as he described worshiping God came not as he was talking about church, but about bathing in the sea at the tip of the country, where the Bay of Bengal meets the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. It is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus, where they bathe in the sea as the sun rises. Santosh explained that this is a way of giving thanks to God for a new day and for all the new days we are blessed with throughout our lives.

We were convinced. It had nothing to do with his words and everything to do with the enthusiastic devotion on his face and in his voice. And so it was that five days later Mary and I found ourselves standing ankle deep in the confluence of three seas, surrounded by four thousand Indian pilgrims, all of us watching as the sunrise painted the sky pink. We were the only westerners but there were enough nuns in the crowd to make me think that this group was strongly ecumenical.

Women came down periodically to anoint their heads with the water and then touch their face in a pattern that is still a mystery to me. But mostly there was just a lot of splashing and laughing and waiting, until everything became very still as the halo of the sun began to peek from behind a mountain of clouds piled at the horizon. Four thousand people becoming still and silent is a very loud sound. And at the moment the sun emerged, everyone pressed the palms of their hands together in prayer. Ahhhhhh. Light, warmth, love – all the greatest things we have to be thankful for – flowed through that moment of silent prayer offered simultaneously by thousands of people of different classes, nationalities and religions.

This is what I was looking for in India. Hinduism, besides not recognizing a separation or duality between Creator and created (which is one thing that made the moment of worship so powerful), is very inclusive. I’ve been getting increasingly interested in inter-religious exchange, and especially of the ways that people can value and retain their own traditions while worshiping together with people of other traditions. It seems to me that if the world is getting smaller and therefore more volatile as we’re clashing through misunderstanding and the fear it creates, maybe the best way to resolve conflicts is through faith sharing. Simply put: people who worship together understand each other in a deep way and are going to look out for each other.

Anyway, I’ve learned a lot so far, by participating in my own tradition as interpreted by another culture (like how in Kanyakumari, there are no pews so everyone sits cross-legged on the floor at mass – it’s so great!), and by worshiping together in different ways with people of other traditions, whether that was hours of singing and chanting at the ashram temple or one concentrated burst of loving prayer on the beach.

Like I mentioned last time, the plan was to catch the jungleboat ride at 3:30pm from the ashram to get to Kollum, where we’d have to spend the night and then figure out how to get to Kanyakumari (at the very tip of India) via Trivandrum the following day. It all sounded a bit exhausting and we’d been traveling pretty hard, so I took immediate note when I noticed on the travel info board that one of the options to Trivandrum was a pre-arranged taxi for 1500 rupees (about $38). And then it occurred to us that maybe we could just get driven all the way to Kanyakumari and be done with it. The conversation about whether or not to spend $75 to buy ourselves a whole day where we didn’t have to do anything lasted all of about three minutes.

As it turned out, an Italian guy came along too so we only paid $25 each for the five hour taxi ride to the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, but we still felt like decadent western mem sahibs stepping into our silver SUV with tinted windows.

We kept it going by checking into a hotel with cable tv, a balcony overlooking the ocean, and… wait for it… room service! Surprisingly, we managed to wait until the staff had dropped off our bags and left before jumping around singing, “I love it! I love it! Yay!!” Mary vowed to do nothing the next day except watch tv and order room service. As I write this at 5pm we’re laying on the bed watching the Discovery Channel and trying to decide what to order up for dinner. It’s the best thing ever.

All this ease and luxury made me ambitious. I’ve needed scotch tape so I can tape all the little odds and ends I’ve accumulated – ticket stubs, newspapers clippings, etc. – into my journal. The concierge pointed me to the main bazaar, where people pointed me to a general store, but the store was out of tape. As I was leaving a man in a storefront called out, “Madame, internet.” “I don’t need internet,” I replied, “I need cello tape.” He pointed across the street to the general store. I told him I’d tried but they didn’t have it. He looked at me like the clueless, incapable child that I basically am in their culture and said only, “Come.” We went back to the general store where a typically long, involved exchange took place in Tamil before Internet Guy was satisfied there truly was no tape to be had. So he pointed me to another store I never found.

I’d already asked about three hundred people but figured I’d ask one last person before turning into the driveway to my hotel. The exchange went like this:

Taxi Guy: Madame, taxi.

Me: No taxi. But I do need cello tape.

TG (clearly not getting the t-word at the end): Tomorrow?

Me: Maybe. But now I need cello tape.

TG: Temple?

Me (trying not to laugh at his serious, concentrated attempts to guess what I wanted): Tape.

TG: Tape, tape, tape. (Long pause before an idea dawned on him and he made a hand-to-mouth gesture)  You want eating?

At that I couldn’t help laughing. “Usually, but not right now. Thank you for your help.”

So now we know what whitey wants: taxies, temples and eating. Sounds about right to me.

I hadn’t expected that nearly all the westerners on the backwater jungleboat ride from Alleppy to Kollam would disembark at the Amritapuri ashram but that’s exactly what happened. I guess Amma (aka The Hugging Saint) has gotten herself quite a reputation. It increased my cynicism about the whole endeavor being a thinly viewed scan aimed at spiritually bankrupt whities. I am suspicious, to say the least, of Americans and Europeans who can only find fulfillment – including spiritual meaning – in the Exotic Other, and teachers who cater to this audience are difficult for me to take seriously. It didn’t help that as we walked to the check in office, every western white-clad devotee had that annoyingly self-conscious “look how serene and blissed out I am – look!” somber half smile that I seriously started to want to slap off people’s faces in Thailand.

Mary and I were assigned our own room on the ninth floor of one of the non-Indian acccommodation buildings, where we settled in after picking up sheets from the bedding office on the ground floor. Nearly 2,000 people live on the premises, in pink highrise buildings surrounding the main temple. Our room was airy and simple, with a window overlooking a wide swath of coconut palms and the Arabian Sea beyond.

It wasn’t until evening that I started to feel a certain spiritual current running through the place itself. It happened when I was sitting on the beach during evening meditation time, as a thunderstorm approached. The sky and sea were painted in dramatic tones of gray. I counted prayers on my beads while watching the sea rise and fall behind a rough stone wall. And for just a moment, something opened up and I heard a rhythm behind it all, a rhythm behind the roll of the sea, the thunder, the pattern of the words in the Hail Mary – the same rhythm underlying everything, linking it all together…a song of God.

That night there was another kind of sea – one of white-clad women sat cross-legged on the floor of the cathedral-like main temple singing bhajans (traditional devotional songs). I can see now how people could get very, very high on a practice like that. Even though I obviously couldn’t understand the words, when I closed my eyes and let myself merge with the music, I couldn’t help swaying along to it and a few times had a strong urge to lift up my arms in praise and thanks, as the saying goes. I’m pretty sure I had one of those dumb blissy smiles on my face, too.

The next day was Kerala’s Vishu (astrological New Year). I got up at 4am to go to a special viewing of the Divine Mother, which turned out to be an Amma doll and giant photo plus statue of another goddess (not sure which one) surrounded by candles, flower, piles of offerings, and even though this sounds hokey it wasn’t at all. The shrine was beautiful and it was moving to see the glow of love as each devotee approached to prostrate themselves.

Oh, I forgot to mention there’s a superstition that whatever is the first thing you see when you open your eyes on Vishu, is how your year will go, so people make elaborate shrines using symbolic objects and colors. I did my own but then the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was light coming in between the wall and curtain by my bed. I immediately thought that I could do worse this year than to have new light flowing in through a break in the darkness.

After Archana (chanted recitation of the 1,000 names of the Divine Mother), Mary and I had breakfast and gave some thought to our next move. We had planned to get back on the jungleboat ride, continuing down to Kollum, spend the night there and the next day work our way through Trivandrum and down to Kanyakumari (at the tip of India). That’s not what we ended up doing but I’ll save that for next time since this is already way longer than you should be expected to read.

I’d just like to say that even though I was a bit cynical to start off with, Mary and I both left Amritapuri feeling really positive about the ashram and about Amma. It was fascinating to see both men and women from all over the world dedicating themselves to following an embodiment of female energy. We were glad Amma hadn’t been there because it was much quieter than it would have been otherwise, but her embracing spirit of compassion and service was unmistakably present. I’m really looking forward to going to the east bay when she gives darshan in June.

Not a particularly interesting day but an example of a typical travel day, to give you an idea of how long the days are and why it already feels like we’ve been here for months…

I woke up at 4am and lay there listening to the bird song madness outside until it was light, when I got up and went to the 7am Malayalam mass at the Basilica. When I got back Mary and I had breakfast but I was defeated again in my request for idly (ground fermented rice cakes with sauces that are a typical south Indian breakfast). Then we packed, said goodbye to the glorious Vasco homestay, and got in an auto bound for the central bus station, where we quickly found a local bus to Alleppey. I had a Howard Hughes moment in the bus station bathroom (blog to follow soon about these moments).

The bus ride was an easy two hours. We went to the government tourist office right by the station in Alleppey and booked tickets for the southbound backwaters boat the next morning, confirmed the location of a good guesthouse nearby, and got a recommendation for where to eat lunch.

The guesthouse had a nice big room available so we checked in, relaxed for a bit, then walked to the restaurant, which was packed with locals eating thali – a meal of rice and lots of different sides and sauces all served on a banana leaf. My favorite part is you get to eat with your hand. One of the servers kept stopping by and making ‘mixing together’ motions with his hand while smiling encouragingly. I say “hand” because you only eat with your right hand as the left is typically your poo hand but more about that later (yes, it’s related to the Howard Hughes moments).

After lunch we went on a three-hour tour of the backwaters – just Mary and me on this tiny covered boat driven by a guy with a canoe paddle. It was slow but quiet and we got to go down a narrow shaded waterway that was basically a residential street where the houseboats and bigger engine boats can’t go.

When we got back, it started to rain during walk to the Internet place and by the time I’d bought my return ticket to Delhi (we’re flying back from Trivandrum on Thursday), there was a massive, showoff-y thunderstorm going on outside, so we had to get an auto to the restaurant we’d decided on for dinner, but as soon as we were on the way I realized my scarf had fallen off my head and not just any scarf but my Very Favorite Silk Scarf, which I imagined had come off in the shuffle of trying to get through the downpour, around the mud lakes, and into the auto, and the frustration of that almost brought on a mini travel crisis but then Mary found it in the auto and I was happy again.

We had red meat (!! me – beef, Mary – mutton) malasa at Kreme Korner which was a nice middle-class family restaurant, and Mary was happy because we finally got basmati rice instead of the big fat rice they usually serve. When we got back to the guesthouse, they had set out candles for us since the storm was causing a brown out, leaving our room with only one weak light and a slowly turning fan. So we each showered by candlelight (yay another new experience compliments of India!) and ate the cold candy bars we’d brought back from the restaurant. Then we went to sleep.

The end.

Next stop: Amritapuri ashram

1. Colors. I’m drunk on the colors here. I’m especially fixated on women’s clothing because the colors of their outfits are combined in unexpected but such beautiful ways. I always wear a lot of black and neutral colors because I’ve never known how to wear colors together. But now I’m suddenly getting it. Well, maybe. As you probably noticed in one of those previous photos, I basically look like a four year old who’s allowed to dress herself, if that four year old also has a clown fetish. More colors! More colors!

2. Women. Aside from matching their clothes really well, the women here are just generally fascinating to me. Suffice it to say it’s a good thing that staring is culturally appropriate here. Their clothing, jewellery, hair, makeup – they are just so immaculately put together and spellbindingly feminine. And not like, “Oh me so little Thai flower” bullshit either. There is something very real about Indian women, in the midst of their highly cultivated feminine trappings.

3. Bhakti. I’m not sure if I’m spelling that right but I mean the Hindu devotional path, which I’m naturally very drawn to. And then I see things like two autos (what they call tuk-tuks here) in a row – one with a sign saying “God is Love” and the next saying “Love is Life”, and I get that warm yay feeling of being in the right place.

4. Synchronicity. It keeps happening. Like one day Mary and I saw this book called “God Loves Fun” and were so impressed by the phrase that it immediately earned heavy rotation in our repertoire. A day or two later we get into a conversation with our Indian Catholic homestay owner who told us about how a Hindu teacher helped him deepen his love for Jesus. Yeah, it’s obvious right? – the same guy who wrote “God Loves Fun.”

Maybe it’s just because this is such a huge, busy, overflowing culture that you don’t expect to see the same detail presenting itself more than once, and so it feels really significant when it happens.

5. Warmth. It’s nearly the height of the hot season here in Kerala and I love it. It actually hasn’t been that hot here or in Delhi, at least not for me. But then I’m the one who needs three layers in San Francisco when other people are wearing tank tops. I’m finally warm all the way through, for the first time since I left Southeast Asia last spring. What a relief.