Archive for the 'India' Category

Monday, November 17, 2003, Mysore, Karnataka, India

Fri. 11/14/03

“Mmm… I simply must have the recipe!”, if only I could actually say that at so many of these restaurants I could compile one helluva cookbook.

Now, for the sake of proper appreciation on your part of this blog entry, imagine that I am writing this in unitelligably catastrophic handwriting in a ratty-tattered orange notebook. Which, mind you, is precisely what I’m doing. You are reading it thanks to the kind efforts of my future-self (and editor) whom I have asked very kindly to type it all up next chance he gets. [Editor’s note: Hi.]

There’s a cat by my table meowing piteously, expecting, I presume, some of my food. Ha! Yeah right. I done ate it all already anyway. And it was really damned good. I’ve already forgotten the name of the dish; I used the point at random in menu method. Some people gamble in casinos, I gamble in restaurants. It turned out to be / was chicken in in gooey green sauce with whole cashews in it. Gooey green sauces are always good, that’s, like, one of the Four Noble Truths er something.

(1. Life is suffering.

2. The root of all suffering is desire.

3. Gooey green sauces are always good.

4. Oh well, what ever, nevermind.)

I happen now to be in Mysore, the former residence of the former Maharaja of the former state of Mysore (with a serious palace to prove it), and 3 hours by slow scary bumpy dirty bus. Got here in the afternoon. Skipped the palace and went for a run. I read in the Lonely Planet about a temple at the top of a big hill overlooking the town. Apparently the pilgrims are supposed to climb the 1,000 steps to it (the L.P. suggests taking a bus). I figured I’d impress the gods and run up it. There happens to be something on the order of 3.6×108 gods in these parts, at least one of them will notice, don’t you think? I struck off in the direction of the big prominent hill with the temple on the top, assuming that’s the one. Certainly no direct way from my shit-hotel to the bottom of the steps. Let’s just say that I took a very scenic route which left my with the privilege of trespassing, hopping various fences, and bleeding a bit from my arm and leg. Definitely without doubt the best run I’ve had in India yet. I made it to and up the steps (there really mighta been more that 1,000) in time to watch another impressive sunset. Sweaty, stinky, and generally gross, I fit right in on the public bus back into town. The driver, it might be noted, drove the steep, windy road WAY faster than even I would have in a little light car. And this was in a huge, old, and very shaky bus full of people. Luckily I had a suitable oh-shit-handle to grab onto for dear life. Tomorrow in the early morn’ I, along with 12 other wolunteers like me, am on my way to spend a day & night at some ginormous wildlife preserve. Should be awesome. Several sources have told me that there’s a serial killer supposed to be hiding somewhere out in the national park in which this wildlife preserve is located. I love how everything in this c’razy subcontinent has to have some terrible and ominous danger lurking behind it.

Sat. 11/15/03

Sat right at the windscreen on the bus ride from Mysore to the wildlife park, which afforded me an excellent view of all the dogs, sheep, cows, goats, bicycles, and small children the bus came inches from crushing. Totally gorgeous up here in these hills. I can see why the British colonialists always loved to retreat into the hills when in India. The brochure claims where at 7,000 ft., (they still measure heights in feet here). I don’t quite believe that, but we definitely are pretty high up. Went on some adventurising; I found a baby turtle in a puddle, saw some monkeys, a deer, a bunch of frogs, an enormous spider whose web I just barely noticed in time to not walk through, and, the highlight for sure, a dung beetle. And all this before lunch! Later we split up, with some of us going on an elephant ride, and some of us going on “safari.” I opted for “safari,” which was fun. It involved careening around on dodgy roads in the back of a jeep. Saw bison, “jungle fowl,” deer, sambar deer which are as big as horses, a wild boar, an eagle hawk, an owl, BUT no tigers. There are tigers and panthers here, so maybe tomorrow, maybe. We’re scheduled to watch a “wildlife film” now, before dinner. I don’t know how likely that is though. There’s a big group of rowdy Indian men watching very avidly the New Zealand vs. India cricket match on the only TV. Don’t know how they’d recieve the idea of being revoked of the TV. I really don’t understand how anyone can get so worked up over such and incredibly boring game. I mean, c’mon, it’s worse than baseball for god’s sake!

Sun. 11/16/03

Back in Mysore, on my way back to Bangalore. Stopped over with Ian to see that Maharaja’s palace close-up. They really know how to make shnazzy yet gaudy and weird palaces. It was built in the beginning of the 20th Century, and is the most impressive mix of colonial-English, over-the-top “traditional” Indian, and turn of the century modernism. The walls of my favorite room had heads of boars, leopards, bison, etc. (some of which had plaques claiming they were shot in the hills I just visited); interspersed with daguerreotypy pictures of the Maharaja, some with him dressed in hunting gear, some in tweeds, some in robe and big funny hat; interspersed with antique mandalas and paintings of the Hindu pantheon. All this with vintage ceiling fans overhead with cast-iron G.E. logos. You can say what you want about the Raj and all the horrible things attributable thereto, but they sure had style. We should trade. California can get a Maharaja on a war elephant, and India can get Arnie in his hummer. They have some 10’s of 1,000’s of light bulbs installed on the exterior of the palace, and they turn ’em all on on Sundays from 7:00-8:00. That was well worth sticking around for.

[Editor’s note: I learned my lesson after Kerala that I can’t be arsed to write about trips after getting back from them. Hoping to keep working with this method of scribbling while it’s happening, and then typing it up afterwards.]

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Here I sit with too much to tell, so will mostly not try to tell it. They really need some new shitty synthesized muzak in this internet cafe this one tape is really getting old. Sometimes they play such awesome rockin’ stuff… but at least once or twice a night some one puts the damn-ed tape on. I theorize that one of the employees made it and gets a sick thrill out of having a captive audience. Yes, it really is that bad.

Got in today at 5:00 am after 23 hours on the train. Were it on the Shinkansen or the TGV the trip might ‘ve taken 3, maybe 4 hours, but you couldn’t pay me to have not taken this train ride. The scenery is indescribably wonderful (I have confidence any description I attempt cannot do the job). Kerala, I have decided, tops the list for beautiful tropical places I have so far visited in my short life. We met a man on the train yesterday whose son, incidentally, is applying as a transfer student to UC Berkeley after two years at City College of SF; proving Walt and his boat ride right one more time. Well, this guy asked each of us to say one sentence describing our experience in Kerala. While I don’t remember exactly the words I used in reply, essentially I told him that I could encapsulate it best in the sunset that I watched while hanging out of the door of the carriage in the wind. Sunsets, apart from the simple majesty of their colors and size, are so wonderful in that no instant of the display is the same. With this sunset, not only was the sky morphing its light and dark and clouds and reds and yellows and light blues and whites, but the backdrop was constantly changing with it; I saw the sun set behind a mountain just to come out on the other side, and the water passing me in the lakes and the rivers and the rice patties reflected and broke up the colors of the sky with its own surrounding colors: red clay earth, white and tan sand bars, and brightest green of blades of rice soaking in neat rows, and just when I though the oranges had finished their slow fade to blues and purples, out pops Venus, shining solar bright for no reason, I’m sure, but to suprise a smile onto my face.

Tuesday, November 04, 2003

GUEST ENTRY by Shalini Vimal:

He [David] later took me out to the most incredible chocolate cake because he knew about my intense craving for real chocolate and lack of its presence in my bloodstream therefore only exacerbating my homesickness. The cake was called “chocolate excess”, what an oxymoron, yet nonetheless exactly what I needed—a rich moist cake with chocolate mousse and fudge strategically interspersed between the spongy layers creating the most decadent slice of heaven that was then melted enough so that the chocolate was oozing off exploding and encapsuling my tastebuds in the most satisfying way. As the perfect contrast lay two scoops of cold creamy vanilla ice cream on either end that intensified both the richness of chocolate and and the creamyness of the vanilla—back to my theory about extreme juxtapositions of objects resulting in intensification of both extremes….

Monday, November 03, 2003, Bangalore

Reading through the guide book and hearing stories of Goan adventures inspired the idea in my mind that renting a motorbike would be an incredibly dangerous idea, which of course means, sign me up right now. In pursuit of this I’ve been asking all over town in countless bike shops about renting motorbikes. After giving me blank stares, usually I had to ask for “hiring” bikes, with my r’s rolled. That way they could understand me enough to say no, and that they didn’t have any idea where I could either. Finally I found somewhere that said the expected no, but they did know somewhere that I could. “Unicorn motors,” they told me, “on Airport Road. Somewhere.” Seeing as how my school is half a block off of Airport Road, this sounded fantastic. I set off for school with intentions of giving a hunt down for this place afterschool. Lo! and behold, on my way to school in the morning, I notice a scooter zooming past, and on the sparetire-cover is an add for Unicorn Motors. There were what looked like two phone numbers, one of which I missed, and the other being 3333333, I actually caught it in the passing of the scooter. So, this number in my brain, after school I head straight to the STD/ISD – or, to ye uninitiated, the payphone. (Buffalo Thompson, anyone?) I dial up the phone number, ask if it’s Unicorn Motors. This being India, of course it wasn’t. But she could tell me the number if I wanted. Yes, I wanted. Called the number. Learned first in English, then in Kannada that the number had been changed. Called that number. “Is this Unicorn Motors?” Nope. Wrong number. Disillusioned, I set off for a phonebook. Amazingly, found one. Looked up the number. Amazingly, found it. Called the number. “Yes, this is Unicorn Motors,” I barely heard over the traffic noise. “Do you hire motorbikes?” “Sorry?” “Mo-to-r Bi-kes??” “Yes yes! Motorbikes!” I got an address in somewhere I had never heard of (Aganynagar er something), told it was across from Reliance Mobile, on the main street. Hopped in an autorickshaw, rattled off all I knew, and off I went. Soon I was basically leaving Bangalore and way out in some fields on some highway worrying with the thought that this driver might pull a Rio de Janeiro and working on memorizing his license number. Well, got to some almost entirely dirt-paved ‘burb/village. Saw Reliance Mobile, looked across the street, and there it was. Got out, walked in. “So, you rent motorbikes?” “You want a motorbike?” “Yes, for rent.” “Sorry, rent?” “Hire. For hire.” “Oh, for hire. Sorry, we don’t hire motorbikes.” “Oh.” “But, we are a branch office. Here is the phone number of the main office, they hire scooters.” Finally, this number really worked. I got the low down and the address. Not on Airport Road, but also not out in the middle of some village. 100 rupees($1.25)/24hrs for a Honda Kinetic, which seems a pretty nice kind of scooter. I love the way to find things here. Back home I just stumble to the old glowing button machine and type something into the information super highway. Now one of these weekends (my number of weekends here is dwindling at an alarming rate) I and some adventurous others can go ride off somewhere fun.

Oh, and mom. Don’t read any of that part because renting a scooter is a horrible idea that I would never consider. Though if someone forced me to at gun point consider it, I yes will wear a helmet.

I’m taking a train to Kerala! I’m sooo excited to ride the train. There was a big derailment a week ago, lots dead. That makes it SO much more exciting! Besides, trains really are just pretty damned cool.

Here’s some info on Kerala, for which I will be leaving Wednesday night, and from which I will be returning the following Wednesday mornin’:

“Kerala lies in the southern part of India. In the east is the state of Tamil Nadu and some parts of the northeast is bordered by the state of Karnataka. The state is divided in to three geographical units; (a) highlands, (b) midlands and (c) lowlands. The slope down from the Western Ghats is the highlands and is at an average elevation of 900 meters and having some peaks of 800 meters in height. The midlands are between the mountains and the low land. This is an area of thick cultivation. The low lands are the low-lying areas in the costal region, river deltas and the backwaters.

“There is an interesting legend about the genesis of Kerala, which is held true by theists. Parasuram, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu slaughtered about twenty-one generations of Kshatriyas (the warrior caste) in a fit of anger. But soon after the monstrous act, overcome by a deep sense of regret he retired to the Western Ghats and went into penance. The gods were moved by this and offered him a stretch of land that his axe could cover. The Western Ghats was then running along the coast of the Arabian sea. Parasurama flung his axe across the sea and it is believed the land that emerged from the depths along the trajectory came to be known as Kerala.

“Kerala has a warm tropical climate the most pleasant with no extremes of hot or cold. Throughout the year the mercury varies between 32º Celsius and 22º Celsius. Summer is from March to May while December, January and February are the months of pleasant winter. Kerala gets her annual rainfall from June to August followed by a week northeast monsoon. The southwest monsoon strikes Kerala first before advancing northwards to the rest of the country. The monsoon is in the Aushadi Masam (June & July), the month for rest and recuperation.”

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Sleeping in is good no matter what country one’s in.

I had been meaning to get up a blog entry for a few days now, but I’ve been pretty lazy. I was going to on Wednesday, while I loaded up pictures, but they moved the computers around in this place and so I ended up installing the software for the camera again on a different computer. But Windows sucks and it took way to long, and, well, you get the idea.

Wanted to write about a dream I had (on Monday night, I think). Was in some city, not sure which, don’t think it mattered. I had with me a briefcase/bag type thing, in it was a smallish atomic bomb. The people who had sent me there with it expected me to detonate it, and I knew that for some reason it had to, like, the whole world would die if I didn’t do it or something. Before setting off the bomb though, I had just enough time to round up all the friends and family I had in this town and try and convince them that they had to get away. Some I told why, and some I couldn’t. Portentous dream it may be, so watch out for guys with briefcase/bag things telling you to get outa town. Then again, Peter ate blue ramen and lived to tell the tale, so maybe my soothsaying can be safely disregarded.

I think my sickness is getting better. Nonetheless, one of these days I will heed Dr. Mom’s advice and get tested for malaria. Just in case, y’know. Oh, and the deafness in the right ear is no longer as bad, and has been replaced with a ringing which is getting louder. A good sign, right?

I hear rumors of a sushi restaurant somewhere in Bangalore. Of course, I dunno about raw fish in the middle of inland south India. Maybe they have tandoori sushi or something weird and culturally-miscegenated. I wonder what this place would be like if the Japanese had won back in dem Zweiter Weltkrieg and added this to their empire.

Ok ok ok. Too much musing not enough telling anything worth reading.

Tschuss, mes amies.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003, Bangalore

I wonder if I had grown up somewhere more tropical if I would even notice the bugs. Goddam they’re everywhere. Ugh! I bought ant poison today, and as a response, the ant gods decided to have dozens of freaky littled winged dying ants falling onto the dinner table and onto my and everyone else present’s food. Seems one just can’t win.

My dehydration (see end previous entry) I think very much weakened my immune system. That – hand in hand with the dodgy place I ate lunch, all the dodgy things I must have inhaled, and all the dodgy insects that surely bit me – sent me for yet another day of this trip in bed with a fever. There’s something psychologically troubling about reading Crime and Punishment while couped in a little room and delirious with fever. Did have an almost too vivid dream about being in the front yard with Willie and Henrietta and Faun and Sam and Stephen and Talitha and Rose. That’s all, no plot, just sitting out the under the Cherry tree. I managed to leave the room at about 2:30 to procure cereal. God I wish they would have just left me alone! My “good name” is bugger off and just let me buy some cereal and some milk-in-a-bag without 5X as many store clerks as there are mes cornering me in the aisle and asking what I want and getting it for me and “which country” and… I had a fever, alright? Sometimes I can’t handle this whole hands-on approach to store clerking, especially when I’m worried about the bags of spices and boxes of biscuits baring their teeth at me. (That’s a sign of aggression.)

Felt better on Monday, still a bit delirious, but had to get up and out and went to school. Tried to get to sleep early and of course ended up with complete insomnia. Finished Crime and Punishment, now no more reading about fevers and no more having fevers.

The streetcows here do not sleep standing up! Are Indian cows just lazy, or is the whole premise behind cow tipping just a big lie? Not that I would want to harm one of the very carnacious godly incarnations. I just need to know if I’ve been lied to all my life.

And, you, remember, if I wrote about interesting things, that would be an entirely different and not-boring blog, now wouldn’t it? (You know what I’m talking about if you’re the one I’m addressing and you’re readin’ this.) Besides, don’t I want to keep a little bit of mystery for my readers back home? Keep ’em coming back, y’see.

Booked tickets for a little journey to a little land named Kerala. More on that in a while, crocodile.

Saturday, October 25, 2003, Bangalore

Well, I officially like Diwali. Asked at a shop if they had any fire-crackers, and before I could do anything about it a guy hops on a bike and rides off. Other guy tells me he’s off to get me a box. Well, I certainly did not imagine that the box would be so big! Sooo many things that go boom of every kind imaginable. Needless to say, I’m now somewhat deaf in my right ear and have no hair on my right hand. May Allah will it only temporarily I hope.

Had dinner at a restaurant on the top of a 13 story building. Excellent view. The whole town is just a big fireworks show. 4th of July not even close. They sure know how to make big booms here. People keep setting off many-foot-long strings of crackers in the street. If you just close your eyes you’d think The Revolution finally came. Well, comrades, one day it will, one day it will.

Today went out to part of town called the City Market. Absolutely incredible. Makes the part of town I’m in seem positively asleep. It’s just many many blocks of tiny little muddy streets jampacked with people and animals and trucks and mopeds and god knows what else. And it’s all for sale of course. It seemed almost like some medieval town with all the alleys and the smells and animals. Excellent place to get lost, which I sure did. I bought a bicycle. Actually, this is the second bicycle I’ve bought. The first buying was the most catastrophic waste of time of my life. I had to wait forever while they fixed it up, just to find out that though it had gears, it had no shifter and just had a chain fixed in one spot. Seeing as how I bought it having been told it had gears, I came back very unhappy. They said, “of course you can’t shift gears, you need another part. Give us more money, and we’ll put it on for you by tomorrow.” This did not go over well with me. Try someday getting you money back off an Indian bike dealer, no easy task, but I managed. I didn’t even have to threaten to call the police. Well, this bike I bought today has no gears, but was priced accordingly.

The bike ride home was fun. My ‘hood and City Market are on opposite sides of town, and the streets here are not too friendly. I didn’t drink enough water, though, and then going running afterwards I ended up getting really dehydrated. Not fun.

Friday, October 24, 2003

It’s Diwali. Big Hindu festival. “Diwali, the popular festival of Indians, celebrates the return of Lord Rama and Sita from exile. It also celebrates the day Mother Goddess destroyed a demon called ‘Mahisha’ & Victory of Good over evil.The day is celebrated by lighting lamps, diyas, visiting relatives, feasting, and displaying fireworks.” They seem to REALLY do the fireworks here. Mind you, I am usually the last person to object to explosives… but when I want to sleep at 6:00 in the morning… I honestly couldn’t care about Lord Rama’s return. Am being rushed outa internet cafe. More later. Maybe.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

I actually successfully subdued a room of children and gave them an assignment and made them do it and maybe even learn something and it was actually pretty cool. I tell ya tho’, I don’t know if I’d make too good of a real teacher; I definitely can’t help having favorites. I really like the smart kids and some of the dumb ones I find myself having a hard time putting up with. Yes, that does make me kind of a real bastard, but hey, that’s just how it’s been. If I ever would be a real teacher, it would have to be at higher levels and it would have to be an elective course, so that the students would be smart and interested. Of course, I’m one to talk considering my long history of slackerdom – but then again, I never didn’t get something the teacher tried to explain, I just might not have cared. Some of these kids I was teaching, they seem to care, but don’t really get it. Maybe I just really suck at explaining things. In fact, I’m sure I do.

I wanted to nap after school, but ran instead. Of course, right about exactly halfway through my run it starts absolutely pouring. Running barefoot in the rain in Pondicherry is one thing, but on the muddy, congested, infested streets of Bangalore with shoes that water-loggedly make squish each step… well, it was still kind of fun. But it was yucky. I hope my shoes dry out. I’ve got the fan sideways on the ground pointed right at them. Should help.

One nice thing about a country like this is that I was able to research my bedbug bites and look up a treatment (all online, of course), and then walk up to a pharmacy without even notion of a prescription and buy prescription drugs. And the best part is the dude packaged the pills in a recycled magazine page (their actually working is pretty good too).

Missing you all ..er.. most of y’all anyway. Hasta luego … same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Monday, October 20, 2003

Back from Pondicherry. Cut school today as a result of being super “knackered” (a.k.a. tired) and not wanting to deal with the kids’ pleasant reactions to the state of my skin. I have, despite years of earnest warnings, let the bedbugs bite. Luckily the bites are only localized to one arm, one shoulder and the back of my hands. Oh, and the best part is that they are horribly contagious, all you would have to do is look at me and “boom” you’ve got leprosy. Well, maybe not that contagious, or even at all. And they don’t itch… but it’s still really yucky to imagine little vampire insects coming out the the cracks in the wall and swarming me in my sleep. I hope to god my malaria medicine does more than make me see funny colors that aren’t there and actually keeps anything the bedbugs might have donated to my bloodstream from infecting me. Oh, and I have learned the valuable lesson that I might pay for a $2.50 room in ways more than just money. And to bring my mosquito net and my sheet sleeping bag with me everywhere I go.

Aside from that unpleasantness, I had oodles of fun in Pondicherry. I found it to be a nice little quite seaside town with lots of little quaint colonial French architecture. The quiet part was quite impressive, as I hadn’t yet imagined that possible in this country. The bus ride there was absolutely ridiculous, the driver seemed to think that it would be fun to take the most nonsensical potholed (if paved at all) side roads through all these little villages. And, it wouldn’t be so bad if that was the only way there, but the way back seemed to be all on highway and ended up taking hours shorter. We rented bikes and rode around and that was friggin’ awesome. I love the fact that the bike rental place didn’t ask for a deposit or anything and probably we could have paid after, so that there would be no reason (aside from silly ethical ones) to return the bikes. On Sunday, meant to bike to a specific beach (Aurobeach) but Shalini and I biked ahead of the others then missed the beach by about 10k too far. I had the time of my life, though. Made friends at one deserted beach in the form of some guy who walked by, squatted in the bushes, got up (with his pants still down) walked down into the water, and washed off his bum. He then sat right down next to me and talked to me about being a mechanical engineering student. Another friend of his then came up and talked about biochemistry and how he wanted to marry Shalini. But he also said he wanted only to marry a white American girl… so who can trust him and his mixed messages. Oh, and running/biking in the mad pouring rain on Saturday was good too.