where in the world have i gone?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
singapore
we are only in singapore for 3 days and 2 nights, which is plenty of time to be here. it is very clean and pretty, but it is also uber-modern with a mall every 100 feet. it just feels like a city. i could be in la, sydney, nyc and not know the difference. annette hates it here. i wouldn't say that i hate it, but i am pretty nonplussed. we are staying in chinatown, which is a pretty cool area, although there is not much to do if you don't want to shop. yesterday i walked to east coast park and got to bike for a few hours near the water, which was simply lovely. i also got to race some kids on their bikes. there is something quite gratifying about beating 3 year-olds on their tricycles. my ego was definitely stroked. i have been drinking a lot of coffee (there are coffee bean and tea leaf coffee shops everywhere!) and doing lots of crossword puzzles. this is a very expensive city and so there is not too much that i want to spend my money on. this is the first place since australia where we have had to stay in dorms. being in places like india, thailand, cambodia we could get our own rooms (granted they were not the fanciest or cleanest) for 3-5 dollars. here we are paying 15 dollars to share a room with 8 other people. but tonight we leave for bali. and go figure, the airline that we were on canceled the segment from singapore to denpasar, so we have to fly through tokyo from singapore to get to bali. what normally should be a 2 hour flight, is going to take us 24 hours (with a 10 hour layover in tokyo). oh, the joys of airline travel. at least i get to catch up on my tv. :)
Monday, June 15, 2009
thailand
thailand...what can i say? it is basically everything you expect it to be when you think thailand. annette's brother and her friend came to to meet us for 2 weeks, so we were more on vacation instead of traveling. and there is a difference. we did more resorty things and spent way more money than we have been as travelers. it was like we were on spring break, instead of backpacking. it took a while to get used to, but looking back on it, i can say that it was fun. a nice change of pace. the boys were amazing because they helped curb some of our costs, which was very nice.
we did the things tourists do. saw the islands (and of course did the boat tour to where the movie, the beach, was filmed. and yes, it is that beautiful). we went to an infamous show in bangkok and saw things that i am still having nightmares about. we went to a drag show and saw some of the most beautiful women ever (it really does not matter that biologically they are men). we also went scuba diving. and laid on the beach. all the thailand good stuff. i was able to dive 6 times so i am feeling a lot less panicked when i get in the water, which is comforting. i am glad i visited, but when it was time to leave, i was relieved to leave that tourist life and get back to it! and cambodia was a good way to acclimate back to backpacking culture. :)
the wonderful and beautiful lady boys at the drag show. they were amazing!
annette, her brother (kevin), me, and her friend, david out for a night of fun
this was so cute! at one of the restaurants that we ate at, this is how they brought out the rice. sadly, the waiter did not take my order and i did not get to eat lunch there that day. but this cuteness made watching all the others eat their food a lot more tolerable.
one of the many temples that pepper the landscape of thailand.
annette and me at the lying down buddha in bangkok. it was a ginormous statue. we got to put a piece of the gold paper on the body, so good luck will come to us. or something like that.
we did the things tourists do. saw the islands (and of course did the boat tour to where the movie, the beach, was filmed. and yes, it is that beautiful). we went to an infamous show in bangkok and saw things that i am still having nightmares about. we went to a drag show and saw some of the most beautiful women ever (it really does not matter that biologically they are men). we also went scuba diving. and laid on the beach. all the thailand good stuff. i was able to dive 6 times so i am feeling a lot less panicked when i get in the water, which is comforting. i am glad i visited, but when it was time to leave, i was relieved to leave that tourist life and get back to it! and cambodia was a good way to acclimate back to backpacking culture. :)
the wonderful and beautiful lady boys at the drag show. they were amazing!
annette, her brother (kevin), me, and her friend, david out for a night of fun
this was so cute! at one of the restaurants that we ate at, this is how they brought out the rice. sadly, the waiter did not take my order and i did not get to eat lunch there that day. but this cuteness made watching all the others eat their food a lot more tolerable.
one of the many temples that pepper the landscape of thailand.
annette and me at the lying down buddha in bangkok. it was a ginormous statue. we got to put a piece of the gold paper on the body, so good luck will come to us. or something like that.
angkor wat (cambodia)
We spent two days visiting the gloriously incredible temples of Angkor Wat in Siam Reap, which is in northern Cambodia. Some of the temples are being restored (a Japanese company has taken over this project and now controls the finances of the temples in Cambodia). But other temples are just collapsing and deteriorating back into the jungle. My favorite temples were the ones that were still intact, but had tress growing out of them and overtaking them. There were some temples that had herculean trees seemingly constricting the life of the temple walls and slowly crumbling some of the structures as they grew around them. We spent our first day seeing the temples by tuk-tuk, which was a good way to get our bearings. We started the morning at 5 am to see the sunrise (which was no all that) and then walked around some of the major temples and got a sense of the grandeur of the structures. Annette was sick (and also she had been chugging cough syrup, thinking that it was non-drowsy) and was kind of a downer the first part of the morning, but once the cough syrup wore off, she bounced right back to life. So while i climbed up some of the steps of the temples, she acted as group photographer (thanks annette!).
The second day, we rented bikes and biked around the temples. The day before we had done the little loop so we opted for the grand tour. It was awesome because this tour was more off the beaten path. Since so many tourists want to see the famous temples on the little loop (including the one where Tomb Raider was filmed), we didn't have to deal with as much traffic or as many people. This coupled with the fact that there were a few rainstorms, we got to see a very peaceful part of Angkor Wat. Also, I think the temples on the grand tour were so much more beautiful than the ones we saw on the little loop. Mostly because these were the ones that were overtaken by the gargantuan trees and had a mysterious nature to them. I loved being there. Annette was also happier this day (she stopped chugging drowsy cough syrup) and the biking was flat so she did not complain at all. This was a far cry from her about to keel over and die at the claws of hawks when we were in Easter Island. We biked about 35km, and did get to see a lot. I was happy to be on a bike (a privilege that has been denied to me most of this trip) and be out in a such a beautiful space and experience such an important part of Cambodian history.
despite the fact that some of these temples are close to 1000 years old, there is beautiful art carved into them, which still looks pretty detailed. i am flummoxed by the craftsmanship that so many ancient civilizations had that was built to last for so long. what a contrast to present day societies, where everything is meant to be disposable or upgradable.
me in front of one of my favorite temples, called bayon. there were heads carved out of each side of the temples so that it looked like you were always being watched. it was eery and flattering both at the same time. kind of like having a stalker.
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxztrYlbbo78-_WmVDbzx0h5qa8YcGniauG7Y_baUFZMmPJHotvHp4EGQGjdbk9rMGhZm6ORxtOyqb4oPwzFHvVDWv5YKkLFpjtLkNy7AleEufEvle96aiFIQmFk30N6bm7UISNykSubu/s1600-h/ra+005.jpg">
more beautiful temples
here are a couple of pictures of the temples where the trees are overtaking them. isn't it beautiful?
scaling the steps of one of the temples. i felt like a bad-ass.
another beautiful picture of one of the temples of bayon
The second day, we rented bikes and biked around the temples. The day before we had done the little loop so we opted for the grand tour. It was awesome because this tour was more off the beaten path. Since so many tourists want to see the famous temples on the little loop (including the one where Tomb Raider was filmed), we didn't have to deal with as much traffic or as many people. This coupled with the fact that there were a few rainstorms, we got to see a very peaceful part of Angkor Wat. Also, I think the temples on the grand tour were so much more beautiful than the ones we saw on the little loop. Mostly because these were the ones that were overtaken by the gargantuan trees and had a mysterious nature to them. I loved being there. Annette was also happier this day (she stopped chugging drowsy cough syrup) and the biking was flat so she did not complain at all. This was a far cry from her about to keel over and die at the claws of hawks when we were in Easter Island. We biked about 35km, and did get to see a lot. I was happy to be on a bike (a privilege that has been denied to me most of this trip) and be out in a such a beautiful space and experience such an important part of Cambodian history.
despite the fact that some of these temples are close to 1000 years old, there is beautiful art carved into them, which still looks pretty detailed. i am flummoxed by the craftsmanship that so many ancient civilizations had that was built to last for so long. what a contrast to present day societies, where everything is meant to be disposable or upgradable.
me in front of one of my favorite temples, called bayon. there were heads carved out of each side of the temples so that it looked like you were always being watched. it was eery and flattering both at the same time. kind of like having a stalker.
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxztrYlbbo78-_WmVDbzx0h5qa8YcGniauG7Y_baUFZMmPJHotvHp4EGQGjdbk9rMGhZm6ORxtOyqb4oPwzFHvVDWv5YKkLFpjtLkNy7AleEufEvle96aiFIQmFk30N6bm7UISNykSubu/s1600-h/ra+005.jpg">
more beautiful temples
here are a couple of pictures of the temples where the trees are overtaking them. isn't it beautiful?
scaling the steps of one of the temples. i felt like a bad-ass.
another beautiful picture of one of the temples of bayon
Saturday, May 9, 2009
getting into nepal
nepal is a gorgeous country, with a troubled political climate that i am struggling to make sense of. i really know nothing, though. when we were crossing into nepal from india, we were warned that an overland crossing could take a super long time because there are all kinds of protests against the government, which close down the roads. if buses try to go through the demonstrators, they throw rocks at them. regardless, when we got to kikarbhitta, the border town in nepal, we still opted for a bus to pokhara (where we would be starting our trek). it is supposed to be a 12 hour bus ride, but we were told that it would take closer to 18 hours. in fact, it ended up taking closer to 24 hours. we did get to a road that had protesters on it, so the bus pulled over on the side of the road behind all the other buses. everyone filed off the bus and just hung out for a couple of hours and chit chatted. i wasn't in the mood so i listened to a couple of episodes of this american life. yes, i am a westerner. after 2 and a half hours, people filed on, and the bus started up again. there was a sense of anticipation in the air, but it was all for naught. there were a couple of false starts, but we didn't really hit the road for at least another hour. by this time all the electricity in the area was out (the government does daily, sweeping blackouts in the country) so the roads were pitch black. we drove for about an hour until the us was stopped by army personnel and told the bus driver that we were going the wrong way. after much arguing, the bus driver had to turn around and retrace all the ground we had just covered, which was a real pain. but it all seemed fine and good, until we were stopped by another gaggle of army officials. these guys were angrier than the previous army men and started shouting very loudly in nepalese and waving their guns around. the bus driver had to get off the bus, have a yelling session with the small men with guns, and then go a different way yet again. the men with guns always win. eventually after hours of sitting on a seat that was broken on a bus made for people less than 5 feet tall, we got to a destination only to discover that it was not our destination. we had to get on another bus to get to pokhara. so we got on another bus, squeezed into seats and were on our way. this bus driver also is close friends with death and careened through the mountains like satan on a harley. it was madness. he would also go over these huge ruts in the road so fast that we in the back would jump up from our seats almost 3 feet high. my back is still feeling the aftershocks. but 5 hours later we arrived in pokhara, which is a cool little town. it is very touristy, but has some of the comforts of home. like real filtered coffee and espresso. you can also buy knock-off trekking clothes and other such goodies. this was a good place to rest up before getting on the trekking road.
trekking in nepal
nepal was definitely one of my favorite places on this trip. i just wish that i had been able to stay longer than one week. the beauty and sanctity of nepal deserves much more time. sadly with a trip like this, there is just no way to spend a great deal of time in any one place. not that i am complaining or anything.
we opted for a 6 day trek because we only got a 2 week visa and annette wanted to do a 4 day kayaking trip. i decided to do a 4 day mountain biking trip, but that didn't pan out since most of the organized biking trips leave from kathmandu, which is 6 hours away. the trek was magnificent and a lot of hard work, but totally worth it.
the first day i struggled, seeing as how i made bad choices the night before. i realy need to learn how to say no when someone says, "just one more". needless to say, the next day was rough. i threw up on 2 separate occasions. the first time my dinner from the night before and the 2nd time the 2 liters of water that i had been drinking to quell my aching head. i really didn't think that i would be able to hike that day. we even had to stop for about 45 minutes so i could take a nap. the nap did the trick and we were able to make it to the first tea house where we were sleeping for the night at around 4 pm. i was promptly asleep by 5 and did not get out of bed until the next morning. there was a gnarly thunder and lightning storm that went on all night. i was terrified and titillated all at the same time.
while i was sleeping annette got to talking to some british kids who were just finishing their trek and decided that instead of doing the circuit we had planned to do, we should instead hike up to annapurna base camp, which takes most people 10 days to do. i was against this, considering that it didn't really seem we would have enough time, we didn't have warm clothes or sleeping bags, and i hate the cold and we would be hiking up to 12,800 snowy feet. but, despite my better judgment, i agreed to go. looking at the prodigious mountain that is annapurna was quite humbling. not too many people actually go on expeditions to summit annapurna (which has an elevation of 26, 545 feet and is the 10th highest mountain in the world). for every 2 people who summit, one person dies. actually a couple of days before we got to base camp a ukranian guy was up a bit on the mountain and slipped on a sheet of ice to his death. so seeing this herculean mountain was not only humbling, but a bit harrowing.
the good thing was that i was feeling remarkably better ater 14 hours of sleep and the toxins being out of my system. but day 2 was long, becausewe had to go further than we had planned in order to get to base camp in enough time to descend. the thing about this hike is that you are constantly going up, up, up (obviously. we are climbing a mountain) and it is exhausting. also it is not a gradual uphill. we had to climb at an almost 90 degree angle up all these uneven stairs. i did love the challenge, but at around 2 pm, i hit my wall and had to stop for food. eating lots of carbs was a good motivator though and after lunch, i instantly felt better.
here are some of the stairs that we had to clamber up
the trek was magnificent and really cathartic. i hadn't realized how much i had missed being out in nature after so much time being a city dweller, with no real escape (especially in india). the only bad thing, besides the little bit of snow walking and the shivering cold at one of the camps, was that annette got sick on the way down and seemed pretty miserable. we think it may have been food poisoning. trekking up and down all those stairs with an unstable body is no picnic. but annette was a trooper and managed to get through the entire trek (and was well enough to do her kayaking clinic!).
annette and me after making it to annapurna base camp. i really am awed by the people who actually summit annapurna. they are either the bravest or craziest people ever.
here are some pictures of the annapurnas. there is annapurna 1 and annapurna south, i am not sure which one is in the pictures, but the scenery is glorious.
as you are trekking, you encounter many different people who live in the mountains. i loved meeting the children, even though they were always disappointed that i did not have any candy or gum to offer them.
this is what the little villages that we slept in looked like. most of them were pretty small. they are cut off from roads so porters (who are men who carry up to 80pounds of goods on their backs) carry in all the supplies they need. seeing these men walk up to 20 miles a day with all this weight on their backs made me feel like a real weakling and also reminded me how amazing people are.
children would have to walk anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours each way to get to school, depending on what village they lived in. their tenacity was moving and inspiring.
we opted for a 6 day trek because we only got a 2 week visa and annette wanted to do a 4 day kayaking trip. i decided to do a 4 day mountain biking trip, but that didn't pan out since most of the organized biking trips leave from kathmandu, which is 6 hours away. the trek was magnificent and a lot of hard work, but totally worth it.
the first day i struggled, seeing as how i made bad choices the night before. i realy need to learn how to say no when someone says, "just one more". needless to say, the next day was rough. i threw up on 2 separate occasions. the first time my dinner from the night before and the 2nd time the 2 liters of water that i had been drinking to quell my aching head. i really didn't think that i would be able to hike that day. we even had to stop for about 45 minutes so i could take a nap. the nap did the trick and we were able to make it to the first tea house where we were sleeping for the night at around 4 pm. i was promptly asleep by 5 and did not get out of bed until the next morning. there was a gnarly thunder and lightning storm that went on all night. i was terrified and titillated all at the same time.
while i was sleeping annette got to talking to some british kids who were just finishing their trek and decided that instead of doing the circuit we had planned to do, we should instead hike up to annapurna base camp, which takes most people 10 days to do. i was against this, considering that it didn't really seem we would have enough time, we didn't have warm clothes or sleeping bags, and i hate the cold and we would be hiking up to 12,800 snowy feet. but, despite my better judgment, i agreed to go. looking at the prodigious mountain that is annapurna was quite humbling. not too many people actually go on expeditions to summit annapurna (which has an elevation of 26, 545 feet and is the 10th highest mountain in the world). for every 2 people who summit, one person dies. actually a couple of days before we got to base camp a ukranian guy was up a bit on the mountain and slipped on a sheet of ice to his death. so seeing this herculean mountain was not only humbling, but a bit harrowing.
the good thing was that i was feeling remarkably better ater 14 hours of sleep and the toxins being out of my system. but day 2 was long, becausewe had to go further than we had planned in order to get to base camp in enough time to descend. the thing about this hike is that you are constantly going up, up, up (obviously. we are climbing a mountain) and it is exhausting. also it is not a gradual uphill. we had to climb at an almost 90 degree angle up all these uneven stairs. i did love the challenge, but at around 2 pm, i hit my wall and had to stop for food. eating lots of carbs was a good motivator though and after lunch, i instantly felt better.
here are some of the stairs that we had to clamber up
the trek was magnificent and really cathartic. i hadn't realized how much i had missed being out in nature after so much time being a city dweller, with no real escape (especially in india). the only bad thing, besides the little bit of snow walking and the shivering cold at one of the camps, was that annette got sick on the way down and seemed pretty miserable. we think it may have been food poisoning. trekking up and down all those stairs with an unstable body is no picnic. but annette was a trooper and managed to get through the entire trek (and was well enough to do her kayaking clinic!).
annette and me after making it to annapurna base camp. i really am awed by the people who actually summit annapurna. they are either the bravest or craziest people ever.
here are some pictures of the annapurnas. there is annapurna 1 and annapurna south, i am not sure which one is in the pictures, but the scenery is glorious.
as you are trekking, you encounter many different people who live in the mountains. i loved meeting the children, even though they were always disappointed that i did not have any candy or gum to offer them.
this is what the little villages that we slept in looked like. most of them were pretty small. they are cut off from roads so porters (who are men who carry up to 80pounds of goods on their backs) carry in all the supplies they need. seeing these men walk up to 20 miles a day with all this weight on their backs made me feel like a real weakling and also reminded me how amazing people are.
children would have to walk anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours each way to get to school, depending on what village they lived in. their tenacity was moving and inspiring.
Friday, May 1, 2009
darjeeling and sikkim
after the madness and chaos of most of india, darjeeling and sikkim were a welcome reprieve. although they are technically part of india, these 2 states really feel as separate from india as elizabeth taylor is from one of her many ex-husbands. both states are in the himalayas so i think that the calm mountain energy and the influences from nepal and tibet just completely shift the culture. there is a lot less staring (in india no matter what you are doing, people are falling over themselves staring. i almost just want to walk around in a bikini covered in paint so i can really give people something to stare at). there is also far less hassle. people may ask you for something or ask you to come into their shop, but if you decline, no one starts yelling at you or shouting, "good price, good price" or "just looking, no buy". don't get me wrong, the absurdity and chaos of india keeps me on my toes and makes me feel...something. and i appreciate india for that. but sometimes you just need a break. it brings me back to my teaching days. i love each and every class i have ever taught. but there were days when they were so outrageous, i just needed to escape somehow, someway. but i always went back and found one me reason to love them. india is my out of control class and i just need a break.
in darjeeling, we walked around the town and saw some astounding views. we found a local pub, called joey's, where we hung out nightly. everyone knew my name for a second, but promptly forgot it. but it was ok, because at least they asked. we discovered that the owner of the pub was in a hindi, bollywood movie called chowrstra (which is also the name of the main square in darjeeling). all in all, it was quite a relaxing experience. which was the same with sikkim.
after a torturous ride in a jeep through the himalayas from darjeeling(which they managed to squish 12 people into), we did arrive to gangtok (the capital of sikkim) safely. i don't really know how, seeing as every turn seems like a dance with death, and an almost deafening experience since the horn is the dominant form of communication. the horn can mean anything: move, asshole; hello; i like your car; my head hurts; will you marry me?, etc. and i can never make any sense of the messages so i just try to block it out. maybe i will take up horning as an alternate language for the next time that i am back here.
this is the steam train that rides up the himalayas to get to darjeeling. i really wanted to be on the steam train going up, but somehow we got on the diesel train. but i did get to see it as it was getting ready to go down the mountain. it takes the train 8 hours to go 88 km (about 60 miles) because it is so slow. kids were running alongside it and jumping aboard, which looked fun.
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYp2XAfuxjl3ZEebTh048kh7N3Ko5qR0WXYF2lRvuYkvgPsKNhRzSjGBlHXQFZDyFGP84ao35qJFdKead_smGNjLYTTcOXxkRPIOptJY5dUOTSSyshXvtWMAB6AL1aBW_kgQJMHHqrVd9n/s1600-h/ra+002.jpg">
while in sikkim, we visited a couple of buddhist monasteries. this was on one of the walls. i have no idea who it is; i just thought it was pretty.
in darjeeling, we woke up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 to take a jeep up tiger hill and see the sunrise. on a clear day, you can see some of the highest peaks of the himalayas. we did not get a clear day. there were throngs of indian tourists there to see the sunrise. when the sun came up they all ooohed and aaahed. i was trying not to fall to the floor from exhaustion.
the sunrise. the sun did in fact come up that day. whoopty doo...
there are street vendors everywhere, especially when you are near any kind of transport, like the jeeps and trains. they sell the most delicious street food. my favorites are the samosas. i have probably eaten at least 50 in the 2 weeks i have been in india.
this is the owner of joey's pub who was in the bollywood movie. and the other guy is brad, an aussie fellow who we met on the toy train to darjeeling. he has been traveling with us ever since, although he opted for a different trek in nepal. annette must have been getting on his nerves.
in darjeeling, we walked around the town and saw some astounding views. we found a local pub, called joey's, where we hung out nightly. everyone knew my name for a second, but promptly forgot it. but it was ok, because at least they asked. we discovered that the owner of the pub was in a hindi, bollywood movie called chowrstra (which is also the name of the main square in darjeeling). all in all, it was quite a relaxing experience. which was the same with sikkim.
after a torturous ride in a jeep through the himalayas from darjeeling(which they managed to squish 12 people into), we did arrive to gangtok (the capital of sikkim) safely. i don't really know how, seeing as every turn seems like a dance with death, and an almost deafening experience since the horn is the dominant form of communication. the horn can mean anything: move, asshole; hello; i like your car; my head hurts; will you marry me?, etc. and i can never make any sense of the messages so i just try to block it out. maybe i will take up horning as an alternate language for the next time that i am back here.
this is the steam train that rides up the himalayas to get to darjeeling. i really wanted to be on the steam train going up, but somehow we got on the diesel train. but i did get to see it as it was getting ready to go down the mountain. it takes the train 8 hours to go 88 km (about 60 miles) because it is so slow. kids were running alongside it and jumping aboard, which looked fun.
href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYp2XAfuxjl3ZEebTh048kh7N3Ko5qR0WXYF2lRvuYkvgPsKNhRzSjGBlHXQFZDyFGP84ao35qJFdKead_smGNjLYTTcOXxkRPIOptJY5dUOTSSyshXvtWMAB6AL1aBW_kgQJMHHqrVd9n/s1600-h/ra+002.jpg">
while in sikkim, we visited a couple of buddhist monasteries. this was on one of the walls. i have no idea who it is; i just thought it was pretty.
in darjeeling, we woke up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 to take a jeep up tiger hill and see the sunrise. on a clear day, you can see some of the highest peaks of the himalayas. we did not get a clear day. there were throngs of indian tourists there to see the sunrise. when the sun came up they all ooohed and aaahed. i was trying not to fall to the floor from exhaustion.
the sunrise. the sun did in fact come up that day. whoopty doo...
there are street vendors everywhere, especially when you are near any kind of transport, like the jeeps and trains. they sell the most delicious street food. my favorites are the samosas. i have probably eaten at least 50 in the 2 weeks i have been in india.
this is the owner of joey's pub who was in the bollywood movie. and the other guy is brad, an aussie fellow who we met on the toy train to darjeeling. he has been traveling with us ever since, although he opted for a different trek in nepal. annette must have been getting on his nerves.
Friday, April 24, 2009
frustrations in india
one of the places that i was really looking forward to visiting while in india was darjeeling. and I was especially riding the toy steam train up the himalayas to get there. and yes, part of my desire was prompted by having watched the darjeeling limited. but also, darjeeling is supposed to be this really amazing town in the himalayas and i really liked the idea of getting into the mountains. but getting here from agra (where we saw the taj mahal) was no easy feat.
you can pretty much get anywhere in india via trains, but you spend an exorbinant amount of time getting from point a to point b, often times having to stop at point z, q, and l along the way. we only wanted to stay in agra for a day, just to see the infamous taj mahal. annette has already been here, and agra is a wicked dump of a city. so we wanted our stay to be as short as possible. we had even thought of getting into agra (after being on a 10-hour overnight train), hustling ourselves to the taj and then getting back on a train out that evening to head to darjeeling. but we should have known that nothing is that easy, especially in a massive city like agra.
as soon as we got off the train we were accosted by this man, saleem, who is a rickshaw driver/hustler. one of the things that people do when they want things from you is bombard you as soon as you get off the train in order to confuse you, i think. and you really don't know which way is up. we were just trying to make our way over to the ticket counter to get our next train tickets and saleem just kept telling us that it was not possible to go to darjeeling from there and we had to go to this town called new jailapurgi and that there was no train, blah blah, blah. usually i am pretty passive when it comes to people hustling me, but i was in a particularly foul mood so i started gettng snippy. and as the morning unfolded, i got angrier and angrier. the bureaucracy in this country is pretty unbelievable. there are 10 people behind the glass and only one person is actually working, if you can even call it that, while the others watch and drink chai. and lines do not in any way matter here. yu can just be standing in line and then 5 people will push to the front. being the tourist you don't know what is going on initially, because you were taught to respect line so you end up waiting and waiting and waiting and being a sucker until you can't do it anymore and then you become a royal bitch. and by "you", i mean me.
when we finally got to speak to rhe man behind the glass, he told us we couldn't buy tickets there and we had to go to delhi, which is 3 hours away, in order to go to a foreign tourist bureau to get to darjeeling, which i knew for a fact was BS. so i started getting mad at him and the asshole just sat there with this smug look on his face saying there was nothing he could d, but he could not sell us tickets to darjeeling. so then we asked him to sell us tickets to delhi, just so we had a plan of action out of agra, but he said he could not sell us tickets to delhi.
it was like i was asking the local butcher to book my train tickets. i mean, this is the ticket person at the ticket counter at the train statin. but i was the crazy tourist who wanted him to sell me a goddamn train ticket. he kept saying we had to go to another train station. eventually we got so frustrated, we walked out and guess who we met? our friend saleem. and then saleem proceeded to tell us that of course we could buy tickets to delhi from there and that the man just didn't want to help tourists. saleem offered to go buy the tickets for us. and of course, my tourist hairs stood on end a bit, sure that he was trying to rip us off. but we were so tired (and i was very hungry) so we acquiesced, and went back to the train station. We waited for saleem to get us tickets; which he did, although we were wait listed. i kept asking him what would happen if we didn't get on the train and he kept saying that we would and we went back and forth like this for a bit before i had to just give in and assume that we would get on the train.
after this delightful experience, saleem took us to our hotel (after a side trip to the travel agency of a friend of his, where we did manage to get tickets to new jailpaguri so we could move onward to darjeeling. although we did have to stay in agara an extra day, against our will). The good thing is that the hotel was just a 2 minute walk from the south gate of the taj mahal. and the great things about it was that the room was just 250 rupees, about 5 dollars for one night! and despite our pretty crappy morning, we found out that admission to the taj mahal was free the day we arrived, so we were able to save 20 dollars, which is a nice reward for our misery. obviously the taj mahal was magnificent and big and all those positive adjectives, so i will spare you the details.
our next travel venture out of agra was a 26 hour train ride, which i wasn't really all that worried about. we had been traveling in 2nd class ac sleeper cars, but opted out this time because it was 20 dollars cheaper to ride in the sleeper car. we figured we should save the money and just forgo ac. and that would have been fine, except for the fact that we were the only 2 female non-indian people on the train with mostly males. they just had no idea what to make of us. i don't think there was even one minute where we were not stared at on this journey (which ended up being 28 hours, by the way). we paid for sleeper beds, but we quickly discovered that during the day, you do not get your own bed-seat, anyone can sit on the seat you paid for, which they do. i was on the bottom bunk, so i shared my seat with anywhere from 1 to 6 people. i figured at night we would be able to lie down, and i was partially right. as it got later in the evening, less people were on the train, so i finally got to lay down. but, while i was sleeping, i felt something on my le, so i jolted up, and there were 2 kids sitting on my "bed", which was fine, but then one of the girls used my feet as a pillow and curled up right away, while the other girl curled into my knees. so i had to sleep in a cramped fetal position for a couple of hours, which was not the most comfortable. my body did adjust though and i finally fell back asleep, only to be jolted awake by a woman who had another child with her, who somehow managed to squeeze herself and her toddler into the bed with us, so we were a total of 5 people sleeping on a bed that is maybe 6 feet long and is really just a twin. needless to say, i did not sleep too well. annette, luckily, had no one bothering her because she was on the top bunk.
the other thing about this train ride is that since there was no ac you had to keep the windows open and every once in a while i would get sprayed with some kind of liquid from outside and had no idea what it was. we think maybe someone was peeing off the top of the train and we were getting some of the yummy after effects. yum. but the icing on the cake was when annette and i were sitting on my seat, playing cards, and we happened to be next to a group of the indian equivalent of frat boys who just could not stop laughing at us and talking abut us in hindi. we really didn't take to them all that much, especially when they tried sneaking pictures with their camera phones. when i decided that i really despised them was when one of the onboard toilets overflowed, which they saw. the pee and other such delights were all over the floor and seeped onto our backpacks, but they said absolutely nothing. a woman from another berth had to come and tell s so we could get our packs off the floor. all these guys did was laugh.
anyhow. As you can infer I have not had the most pleasanr last few days. But the good news is that we did get to darjeeling. And absolutely love it! So my next blog entry will be more positive. I promise. Namaste.
there are all kinds of animals walking the streets in india. cows are ubiquitous. while we were in agra we saw camels and elephants being led around by people. there are also hordes of wild pigs and goats rummaging through trash. actually all the animals rummage through the trash, i think. look how skinny this camel is...the state of the animals here (like many of the people) is quite grim.
monkeys are also all over the cities of india, mostly these red-faced monkeys. i love, love, love the monkeys (as i am sure i have mentioned before). but sadly, they do not all love me. while we were at the fort in agra, we stopped to look at this family of monkeys. i was in monkey heaven. there were also these kids getting kind of riled up by the monkeys and one of the moneys in a different part of the lawn let out a warning cry at the kids, which riled up the other monkeys sitting on the lawn where i was. all of the sudden, the monkey you see in the picture, looked at me with such hatred in its eyes, jumped the fence, shrieked, and started chasing me. i started running and shrieking too, trying to copy the monkey's sound so it would leave me alone. it came within an in inch of swiping my leg and biting me. now every time i see a red-faced monkey in the city, i am terrified. there were a group of them sitting at the train station and i couldn't walk down the stairwell, i was so on edge. i hope this new phobia leaves me soon.
this is me looking on with disgust as annette makes me stand in another embarassing pose picture. she knows i hate them, which is why she makes me do them. these pictures are a constant source of humiliation for me. alas, annette's rock-hard heart does not care.
these are the little rickshaws, or tuk tuks, that careen us about town. this will also be the last thing i see as i die on the roads in india.
the people in india are constantly asking the whiteys if they can take pictures with them. seeing as annette is the whitey in our dyad, she gets asked quite frequently. as soon as she is asked, i run away, and sometimes secretly take her picture from afar. even at the taj mahal, people were taking more pictures of her than they were of the actual building. it is pretty hilarious because it is not me.
you can pretty much get anywhere in india via trains, but you spend an exorbinant amount of time getting from point a to point b, often times having to stop at point z, q, and l along the way. we only wanted to stay in agra for a day, just to see the infamous taj mahal. annette has already been here, and agra is a wicked dump of a city. so we wanted our stay to be as short as possible. we had even thought of getting into agra (after being on a 10-hour overnight train), hustling ourselves to the taj and then getting back on a train out that evening to head to darjeeling. but we should have known that nothing is that easy, especially in a massive city like agra.
as soon as we got off the train we were accosted by this man, saleem, who is a rickshaw driver/hustler. one of the things that people do when they want things from you is bombard you as soon as you get off the train in order to confuse you, i think. and you really don't know which way is up. we were just trying to make our way over to the ticket counter to get our next train tickets and saleem just kept telling us that it was not possible to go to darjeeling from there and we had to go to this town called new jailapurgi and that there was no train, blah blah, blah. usually i am pretty passive when it comes to people hustling me, but i was in a particularly foul mood so i started gettng snippy. and as the morning unfolded, i got angrier and angrier. the bureaucracy in this country is pretty unbelievable. there are 10 people behind the glass and only one person is actually working, if you can even call it that, while the others watch and drink chai. and lines do not in any way matter here. yu can just be standing in line and then 5 people will push to the front. being the tourist you don't know what is going on initially, because you were taught to respect line so you end up waiting and waiting and waiting and being a sucker until you can't do it anymore and then you become a royal bitch. and by "you", i mean me.
when we finally got to speak to rhe man behind the glass, he told us we couldn't buy tickets there and we had to go to delhi, which is 3 hours away, in order to go to a foreign tourist bureau to get to darjeeling, which i knew for a fact was BS. so i started getting mad at him and the asshole just sat there with this smug look on his face saying there was nothing he could d, but he could not sell us tickets to darjeeling. so then we asked him to sell us tickets to delhi, just so we had a plan of action out of agra, but he said he could not sell us tickets to delhi.
it was like i was asking the local butcher to book my train tickets. i mean, this is the ticket person at the ticket counter at the train statin. but i was the crazy tourist who wanted him to sell me a goddamn train ticket. he kept saying we had to go to another train station. eventually we got so frustrated, we walked out and guess who we met? our friend saleem. and then saleem proceeded to tell us that of course we could buy tickets to delhi from there and that the man just didn't want to help tourists. saleem offered to go buy the tickets for us. and of course, my tourist hairs stood on end a bit, sure that he was trying to rip us off. but we were so tired (and i was very hungry) so we acquiesced, and went back to the train station. We waited for saleem to get us tickets; which he did, although we were wait listed. i kept asking him what would happen if we didn't get on the train and he kept saying that we would and we went back and forth like this for a bit before i had to just give in and assume that we would get on the train.
after this delightful experience, saleem took us to our hotel (after a side trip to the travel agency of a friend of his, where we did manage to get tickets to new jailpaguri so we could move onward to darjeeling. although we did have to stay in agara an extra day, against our will). The good thing is that the hotel was just a 2 minute walk from the south gate of the taj mahal. and the great things about it was that the room was just 250 rupees, about 5 dollars for one night! and despite our pretty crappy morning, we found out that admission to the taj mahal was free the day we arrived, so we were able to save 20 dollars, which is a nice reward for our misery. obviously the taj mahal was magnificent and big and all those positive adjectives, so i will spare you the details.
our next travel venture out of agra was a 26 hour train ride, which i wasn't really all that worried about. we had been traveling in 2nd class ac sleeper cars, but opted out this time because it was 20 dollars cheaper to ride in the sleeper car. we figured we should save the money and just forgo ac. and that would have been fine, except for the fact that we were the only 2 female non-indian people on the train with mostly males. they just had no idea what to make of us. i don't think there was even one minute where we were not stared at on this journey (which ended up being 28 hours, by the way). we paid for sleeper beds, but we quickly discovered that during the day, you do not get your own bed-seat, anyone can sit on the seat you paid for, which they do. i was on the bottom bunk, so i shared my seat with anywhere from 1 to 6 people. i figured at night we would be able to lie down, and i was partially right. as it got later in the evening, less people were on the train, so i finally got to lay down. but, while i was sleeping, i felt something on my le, so i jolted up, and there were 2 kids sitting on my "bed", which was fine, but then one of the girls used my feet as a pillow and curled up right away, while the other girl curled into my knees. so i had to sleep in a cramped fetal position for a couple of hours, which was not the most comfortable. my body did adjust though and i finally fell back asleep, only to be jolted awake by a woman who had another child with her, who somehow managed to squeeze herself and her toddler into the bed with us, so we were a total of 5 people sleeping on a bed that is maybe 6 feet long and is really just a twin. needless to say, i did not sleep too well. annette, luckily, had no one bothering her because she was on the top bunk.
the other thing about this train ride is that since there was no ac you had to keep the windows open and every once in a while i would get sprayed with some kind of liquid from outside and had no idea what it was. we think maybe someone was peeing off the top of the train and we were getting some of the yummy after effects. yum. but the icing on the cake was when annette and i were sitting on my seat, playing cards, and we happened to be next to a group of the indian equivalent of frat boys who just could not stop laughing at us and talking abut us in hindi. we really didn't take to them all that much, especially when they tried sneaking pictures with their camera phones. when i decided that i really despised them was when one of the onboard toilets overflowed, which they saw. the pee and other such delights were all over the floor and seeped onto our backpacks, but they said absolutely nothing. a woman from another berth had to come and tell s so we could get our packs off the floor. all these guys did was laugh.
anyhow. As you can infer I have not had the most pleasanr last few days. But the good news is that we did get to darjeeling. And absolutely love it! So my next blog entry will be more positive. I promise. Namaste.
there are all kinds of animals walking the streets in india. cows are ubiquitous. while we were in agra we saw camels and elephants being led around by people. there are also hordes of wild pigs and goats rummaging through trash. actually all the animals rummage through the trash, i think. look how skinny this camel is...the state of the animals here (like many of the people) is quite grim.
monkeys are also all over the cities of india, mostly these red-faced monkeys. i love, love, love the monkeys (as i am sure i have mentioned before). but sadly, they do not all love me. while we were at the fort in agra, we stopped to look at this family of monkeys. i was in monkey heaven. there were also these kids getting kind of riled up by the monkeys and one of the moneys in a different part of the lawn let out a warning cry at the kids, which riled up the other monkeys sitting on the lawn where i was. all of the sudden, the monkey you see in the picture, looked at me with such hatred in its eyes, jumped the fence, shrieked, and started chasing me. i started running and shrieking too, trying to copy the monkey's sound so it would leave me alone. it came within an in inch of swiping my leg and biting me. now every time i see a red-faced monkey in the city, i am terrified. there were a group of them sitting at the train station and i couldn't walk down the stairwell, i was so on edge. i hope this new phobia leaves me soon.
this is me looking on with disgust as annette makes me stand in another embarassing pose picture. she knows i hate them, which is why she makes me do them. these pictures are a constant source of humiliation for me. alas, annette's rock-hard heart does not care.
these are the little rickshaws, or tuk tuks, that careen us about town. this will also be the last thing i see as i die on the roads in india.
the people in india are constantly asking the whiteys if they can take pictures with them. seeing as annette is the whitey in our dyad, she gets asked quite frequently. as soon as she is asked, i run away, and sometimes secretly take her picture from afar. even at the taj mahal, people were taking more pictures of her than they were of the actual building. it is pretty hilarious because it is not me.
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