I woke up, went out to buy milk with my Ama La, and as we talked I watched her make breakfast and her amazing fresh Tibetan brown bread to send with me on our long journey to Delhi. Apparently, everyday she takes old chapatis to the monkeys while she walks her dog. She announced this before she left, and naturally I wanted to go with. The monkeys already hang out along the side of the road going up the mountain, and when they saw her approach they knew. She gave me some chapatis and told me to break them into smaller pieces and throw them. These monkeys kept getting closer and closer; they seemed to know and respect Ama La but because I was a newbee they had no such respect for me. The biggest male, the one Ama La knows to be the leader, came over to one side of me and while I was absorbed in worry of the other monkeys closing in on me, grabbed my pant leg and yanked to get my attention and chapatis. Of course, this only made me want to teach this monkey a lesson so I gave him no chapatis at all. He was not going to have it. So while I was feeding the others he strategically walked around behind me and when the moment was right, literally grabbed the rest out of my hand. I love their miniature, hairy human hands--I could sit and watch in awe at our similarities for hours. All the same, I'm lucky that is all the more he did because I would not want to carry the rabies cooler around during our trek.
My Last Day in Mcleod Ganj
In the afternoon, I finished the Rogpa mural! Even David (the wishy washy, procrastinating English hippy) finished which turned out to be quite the feat. We carried it down to the shop and had its final unveiling and placed it in its rightful place in front of the giant hole in the wall.
Our bus departed at four and my host Ama La walked me to the station. She put a traditional Tibetan prayer scarf around my neck and gave me a traditional Tibetan bracelet that she made herself. It is black and white woven wool and has nine eyes that represent…something that she could not translate. Bugger. Many of my traveler friends came to the bus station to see me off and I said my goodbyes while my Ama La bought me time and entered the bus with my daypack to save me a "good seat" in the front like a true loving mom.
After a four hour bumpy bus ride much like the one before, we transferred to rickshaws to reach the train station. This particular rickshaw ride--even more so than others in the past-- was a laugh out loud experience (a motor rickshaw is almost like a motorcycle engine pulling a two wheeled cart comfortably for two, or uncomfortably for up to seven as we or most Indians do.) Perhaps this particular ride seemed more intense because it was dark outside and roads were relatively clear so headlights made swerving more noticeable and fewer cars on the road meant we could go faster. The rickshaws were taking all of us from one, same location to another, same location, all for the same price. Yet they each felt the need to race, overtaking one another in front of oncoming traffic again and again, speeding over pothole and through intersections. One would swerve out around our rickshaw, swerving back in to avoid an oncoming truck on one side and a bicyclist on the other, and moments later our rickshaw would be passing the first. It was again--like on the bus--like racking up points on a video game. Fun as long as we make it safely, I guess. Done all for their personal enjoyment at our exclamations, I am sure. At the train station we had several hours to wait and so played travel Scrabble and chess. As we were sitting on our bags playing, we attracted a crowd of at least 20 Indians in a semi circle close around us watching, talking to each other about us and staring, or crouching to get a better view. Inhibitionless, these Indians.
Delhi
Big cities again…gahh! I can barely stomach foreign big cities. There is too much to take in and you often end up leaving without having understood anything. In Jaipur (also very large and the capital of Rajastan) we had Rishi Gi, Reka Gi and our host families to give us direction so we got a slight glimpse of the inside, but with no direction in a city as big as Delhi you gain little from the experience. I do not think that I dislike big cities--I loved living in Manhattan--but unless you spend enough time to find a nook, you risk gaining next to nothing. The second day I felt was more successful because I went out with Mike, our group leader.
We went into Old Delhi on the subway. The Delhi subway is very new and very nice. Much of it is less than two years old; I cannot imagine streets and time needed to get from point "a" to point "b" in this city before subway transportation (see later description of streets.) I have never seen a New York Subway become as packed as this one did at times; it was awe-inspiring. Just when I thought that it was against the laws of physics to fit one more person inside a man came up and threw his weight against us to fit in. I also received a significant ass grab when the subway became this packed (again, see later description for explanation) to which I grabbed the hand and squeezed with all my might and gave dagger eyes to whom I thought was the perpetrator (lucky for him it was too packed to tell.) Overall, the Delhi subway is a grand, fast, shiny experience and at about 20 cents compared with $2.00 USD in New York, it is a significant gain.
Streets
The terms busy, crowded, or even teaming do not even begin to apply here. The streets of Dehli make NYC seem like a Port Clinton, Ohio in the winter (meaning desolate, if you are not from Ohio.) Streets are shared equally by cars, buses, rickshaws, motorcycles, bicycles, bicycle drawn carriages, walkers, dogs and cows. And the vehicles in the beginning of the list are packed compared to what one from the west would expect, with a bus carrying about three times the Greyhound average. If you choose to walk across the street, the responsibility is on you not to get hit. It is unlike many seemingly chaotic European cities where the key is to walk across steadily and confidently and cars will slow. Here, no such luck. They will not change their speed at all, will possibly speed up to discourage you, and will not always necessarily stop at red lights for pedestrian crossings, either. There are no lanes, either (or when there are there might as well not be.) Traffic is finely tuned chaos weaving in and out with priority given based on size of vehicle.
Dogs are everywhere, sleeping on sidewalks and under cars. They survive because people throw trash everywhere so they, along with city cows and goats, find sufficient food. Looking for lunch, we walked through narrow back allies with live chickens overpacked in cages ready to be purchased and fresh fish in wooden crates on display or being cut into more manageable pieces for customers. We passed many sketchy small hole-in-the-wall places to eat but with fish guts around and questionable sanitation we forewent them all (giardia still fresh in our minds.) This is the area frequented by Indians alone and not tourists; there is an immense difference in catering to natives and catering to tourists. In this same ally we found a hostel used by Indians clearly rather than tourists. It was packed with people with no space or privacy and when we walked in they were hosing down the floor from the inside, pushing out grime and grit. It was a very unpleasant looking place to stay, but nonetheless I am glad that we saw it because it reminds me that we are not always immersed in Indian culture but instead often have a nice cushion around us from the real India and from how the average Indian lives. Our guesthouse was clean, they offered breakfast, and it was in a quiet lane rather than at the end of a narrow, sketchy, fish smelling ally. Our guesthouse owner wore a solid grey sweatsuit and looked just like the old man in Jerry Seinfeld's father's Florida community gym who challenged Jerry to a contest of strength, making our guesthouse even better.
The streets are lined with street sellers. Food stands, sellers of belts, wallets, pirated cds and dvds, jeans with "cool" but unfortunately non-sensical English, scarves, lunghis, peanuts, popcorn, chapattis, crackers and chai tea...and even a bicycle with two telephones attached in case you need to make a phone call mid-intersection. If you can imagine it, there is someone here to sell it. I don't see any unemployment offices here or safety nets for those who fall through the cracks. This is the unaccounted for sector of business here, the outside of mainstream work force searching for inventive ways to make a living in this pitiless country. There is no way to escape seeing the suffering here (unless you stay in posh, five star hotels, but after this past week at the Taj Mahal in Mumbai it has become clear that even there suffering becomes a harsh reality.) Children with matted hair grab your arm and ask for money, adult lepers with their amputations displayed and adult men with completely atrophied, unusable legs (I'm not sure why; they appear atrophied prisoner-of-war style) hope that their pain will merit pity and pocket change, women with babies ask for money and point to their young ones or beg, "No money: milk. Milk," and people sleep openly in the daytime on busy sidewalks just narrowly escaping being trodden on by the shoes of the masses.
I am struck by the honesty of India. The concept of "dirty laundry" does not seem to exist; you see all and are sheltered from nothing. The people lack any sort of embarrassment or shame in the culture as a whole; there is no room for it when you are sharing precious resources in a country with 1.2 billion others. People beg aggressively, stare openly, follow, question you intensely, and get into your idea of "personal space" as much as suits them. Everyone is aggressive, from homeless to rickshaw drivers to money exchangers to hashish sellers to shop owners. Everyone wants you to give to "them", buy "their" product, use "their" service. In the night, at 2 am after failing to leave the country while returning from the airport to a hotel, we were unloading the taxi of all of our bags and immediately two bicycle rickshaw drivers began prodding us to give us rides. "Yes. We are unloading all of our luggage from the trunks and roofs of these taxis at 2 am because we dislike the convenience and would prefer less space and no storage on your bicycle rickshaws. Thank you." They prod you to "come into my shop" "Hello! Hello! perhaps you would like some fine scarves? Oh--just looking. These handbags are very good quality. Jewelry, perhaps? You have good earrings?" When you walk into a store and ask for something specific that they do not have, they seem to find themselves in a mad frenzy listing off other items that perhaps you will like instead. Tibetans were the far opposite; in Mcleod Ganj on the same street while Indians were beckoning you to "come have a look" the Tibetans seemed uncomfortable crossing that barrier and sat back smiling and waited until you had a question.
A boy walking next to me with his friend began to try to make conversation. "You are very beautiful. I would like to f**k you," (at which point I called out "husband!" ran ahead, and grabbed Tate's arm lovingly.) Again, no shame. Indians have such a sad image of western women. From their perspective this was a perfectly acceptable exchange, as our culture portrays us as completely loose whores, not completely unrealistic when they see our movies and advertising in contrast to their own. They think that they can get away with worlds more than they can with their own women, thus the ass grab and the sex invitation.
Being in Delhi is in a sense like smoking one pack a day. There is an immense amount of pollution, the air always seems foggy, inhaling deeply feels unhealthy, and you have dark pollution snot after only one day.
After our last group meal and our last meal in India, we began our four day travel bonanza of airport to hotel to airport to Singapore to Malaysia to airport to airport to Vietnam. We are quite the spectacle while traveling, what will all of the extra bags we have acquired for carrying Christmas gifts, four sitars, one guitar, one Tibetan guitar, and two tablas (instruments are cheaper in Asia.) A group of sixteen whities carrying enough luggage for a traveling orchestra tends to merit a lot of gazes.
Singapore
Singapore is a nation/ city-state/ island all in one attached to the Malay peninsula by a bridge. It is the next smallest independent nation (in land mass) to the Vatican city, I was informed. It is definitely a booming, developed country, full of wealth, tourist traps and accommodations, and very clean. With a total population of only about 4.8 million, it is one of the Four Asian Tigers and has one of the busiest ports in the world. The airport is immaculate. Bathrooms are Korean airport bathroom clean (a scale that we now use after travelling through the fabulous Korean airport) and I would not be opposed to eating off of the floor. Everything is new and shiny. When we stepped outside, it was like stepping into the tropics (it is only 85 miles north of the equator) or stepping into Miami, Florida: hot, humid air, vast, beautiful blue sky, fresh lawns with flowers and palm trees, and every car in the parking lot apparently new and clean. Even the taxis are impressive; some were electric. And, to top it off, people are pleasant and peaceful. Singapore is a far cry from crowded India. We had to take the airtrain from the airport to the bus station and saw all of the immense differences. First, everything is on a smaller, more manageable scale. Looking out the windows, we saw both towering apartment complexes and smaller two and three story shops and housing, but all were either shiny metal and glass or brightly, freshly painted. All of the green that you see looks intentional, planned, and taken care of: greener grass than is probably always natural in this heat, evenly spaced trees, primly trimmed bushes, and palm trees. I cannot decide whether I like the beauty or dislike the unnaturalness. The streets are all well maintained: litterless, smooth, and freshly painted, and drivers, believe it or not, drive within the lines with little honking or passing and complete rhyme and reason! (Much of this would seem more spectacular if you were coming from a month in India.) Both on the subway and on the roads, people seem to have such patience and seem to have a more placid "I'll get there when I get there" mentality. People neither push nor stare, and even when the subways were full, the pushing seemed to be polite. On two occasions people began conversations with me, so neither are they impersonal or very shy. Keep in mind that I was only out in Singapore for about eight hours, so my expert cultural annotations are very surface. With that said, I also did not see much poverty. It seems that economically the society is all around much better off. Everyone's clothes and shoes seem new, clean, crisp, and fashionable, styles are very western, and there are girls walking around in tank tops, short shorts, and I even saw a strapless top (none of which you will see in India.) While this more western image may be true, this country also seems to have some particularly stifling laws, such as no gum chewing whatsoever or no holding hands in public.
Malaysia
We experienced relatively nothing of Malaysia, so I will spare you my grand cultural assumptions and deductions, except to tell you that they poorly planned two separate airports with the exact same name in Kuala Lampur with no form of mass transit between the two. This made for yet another glitch in our four day journey to Vietnam getting five taxis at three in the morning to take us between the two.
Hanoi, Vietnam
So far, this country is fabulous! I have quickly become enamoured.
First perceptions of Hanoi:
-It is clean. You do not see trash, everything is well kept, and in the park there were not only trash cans (apparently non-existent in public in India) but also recycling!
-It has many public spaces. There is a small lake in the center of the city surrounded by a park with paths, benches, greenery, and loads of happy people. In the little time I spent wandering I came upon another beautiful little park and a nice public square, both great public spaces.
-Cars slow for pedestrians. It is again like Europe: they will not slow unless you walk out, but walk out and they will slow and swerve to avoid you, much in contrast to India.
-Shop owners are at least slightly less pushy than in India.
-There are public displays of affection! All around the park, foreigners but mostly natives, are holding hands, kissing, and courting. It makes me so happy to see after being in India where holding hands or hugging would be an improper public display of affection. Leave it to the 200 some years of French rule to annihilate any of the sexual repression of this Asian society.
-Much tourist shopping. This is definitely a tourist friendly city.
-The calm of this city relaxes me. In actuality the traffic IS quite heavy, but somehow it seems lighter because it is mostly small motorbikes and bicycle rickshaws and because the traffic is so much more polite with patience and little honking.
-The sky is blue and the weather is nice! (but granted, it is nearly December so in June it could be quite miserable.)
-Fashion is prime here. This is not the majority and is a stark contrast to the peasants in their Vietnamese hats and two baskets balancing on a pole over their shoulder, but there are girls walking around in stilettos and tight pants, with well made up faces and fashionable hairstyles. There are also men in trendy shoes and designer jeans like Dolce and Gabana (a VERY expensive brand that I became all too familiar with living in Italy.) This is likely one more influence that the French left on Vietnamese society, along with PDA, french coffee, baguettes, and Laughing Cow cheese.
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