TravelStream™ news feed for member explr9 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/explr9 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:16:23 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1216533720/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1216533720/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1216533720/tpod.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:16:23 -0400 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Los Angeles,, California, United States

After spending 10 months living in India, 3 weeks traveling through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, and 24 hours on airplanes, I flew through the thick L.A. smog layer and landed back in the U.S. on Wednesday, July 16th feeling excited to be home, a bit overwhelmed/disoriented, and already nostalgic for India. My homecoming has been bittersweet, as I knew it would be. While I had been looking forward to all of the comforts of home, not to mention seeing my mom and friends, I also came home prepared for some level of "reverse culture shock," combined with my need to get my life in the U.S. back on track and figure out my future plans.

I've been home for about a week now, but my body is still running on Indian time. I think the 12.5 hour time difference will take me a while to adjust to!

Since there will be many things that I'll miss about India, and also many things I won't, I thought I'd try to write down all those things to help me remember the best (and worst) parts of the country where I spent the last 11 months, as well as the best and worst things about being back in the U.S. (DISCLAIMER: All my opinions are based on being here in Los Angeles, where things are always a bit more extreme, and of course, these are just my thoughts after being home for a week, and I'm sure some of these things will change after I've been back a while longer). Anyway, here it goes...


THINGS I'LL MISS ABOUT INDIA:
1) My boss and coworkers, and our crazy office parties
2) My Hindi and Kathak teachers
3) Rickshaws, of all types
4) Indian Mangos
5) Lychees
6) Haggling - I have a feeling people will look at me funny if I try to do that at my local supermarket
7) Billboards with pictures of John Abraham - I have to get myself a poster, at least :)
8) Bollywood songs/music
9) Colors/Colorfulness
10) Indian English
11) Speaking and hearing Hindi
12) Kathak Class
13) Gulab Jamun
14) Dal Makhani
15) My Pressure Cooker
16) Cows
17) Being able to get anything I needed within a 1 km radius of my apartment or office
18) Cute babies wearing dark, black eyeliner
19) Hindu temples
20) Hearing the call to prayer at least twice a day
21) Afforability
22) Roving herds of animals in the streets
23) Feeling like I'm never alone, and that people are watching out for me
24) Dosas
25) Being able to buy fresh fruits and veggies for dirt cheap
26) My neighborhood Gujarati fabric store
27) Sleeper trains and their comfy beds
28) Festivals
29) Women wearing sarees, and men wearing kurtas
30) People's ingenuity with limited resources (ie. Bags made from recycled newspaper, bowls made from leaves, etc.)
31) The constant noise of people, cars, radios, animals, etc. (I do actually miss it)


THINGS I WON'T MISS ABOUT INDIA:
1) Cow poop
2) Men using the side of the road as a public urinal
3) Paan chewing/spitting
4) Being stared at, constantly
5) Piles of garbage on the sides of the roads, and the stench of burning garbage
6) Mangy-looking Stray dogs
7) Over-eager sales clerks at stores, the supermarket, basically anywhere I went shopping
8) And overload of fried and oily foods
9) Hand-washing all my laundry in a bucket
10) Indian bureaucracy


THINGS I APPRECIATE ABOUT BEING BACK IN THE U.S.:
1) Washing Machine & Dryer - Who knew clothes washing didn't have to take 3 hours of manual labor?
2) Being able to see friends and family, or at least talk on the phone
3) Lettuce - Oh, how I've missed salad
4) Bluberries, Strawberries and all summer berries, in general
5) Internet access AT HOME
6) Mexican Food!!!!!!!!!!!
7) Avocado
8) Cheese, other than "Paneer"
9) The Beach
10) The comfort of knowing that I can communicate with the majority of people around me in a language in which I am fluent.
11) My cozy, comfortable bed...a far cry from the wooden plank and lumpy mattress I slept on in India
12) No (or fewer) power outages


THINGS THAT FRUSTRATE ME ABOUT BEING BACK IN THE U.S.:
1) Everything is BLOODY EXPENSIVE!!!
2) Self-centeredness and the "me first" attitude of many Americans
3) Companies' automated phone answering services, especially the ones that hang up on you
4) American bureaucracy...different from Indian bureaucracy, but equally as frustrating
5) SUVs, especially the huge ones - I mean, consider the environment, please!
6) Local TV News - It's infotainment...no wonder so many Americans have no comprehension of what's going on in other countries, or states, for that matter.


So...with that I'll conclude my travel blog. I know I wasn't the most "regular" of bloggers, but I'm glad I did it because it allowed me to reflect on my experiences (at least the ones I had time to reflect on) and share my stories and thoughts with all of you. Hope you enjoyed my posts, and thanks for reading them! Until the next adventure...........................................................................
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1209641400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1209641400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1209641400/tpod.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:15:32 -0400 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India

For Passover, I decided to make my one-and-only trip to South India. A few of the other fellows were heading down there, and I thought this would be as good an opportunity as any to be with friends on Passover and see a small slice of South India. We were planning to have a Passover Seder on Saturday night in Chennai, but figuring out what to cook and how to gather all of the requisite "Passover foods" was quite a challenge. The biggest challenge was how to get Matzo, since Indian kitchens don't typically have ovens and even specialty/imported-food stores in India didn't seem like they would have ever heard of Matzo (or Passover, for that matter). Worst case, I figured we could "cheat" and use plain crackers as a substitute, but deep down inside I really wanted to have matzo and started thinking of ways that I could get some.

I took the night train from Lucknow to Delhi on Thursday night and arrived at New Delhi Station on Friday morning. I was feeling hungry, and in the mood for some "non-Indian" breakfast food, so I decided to head over to Paharganj, a tourist-filled area located right across from the train station. I found a café and sat down to a yummy plate of omelet and hash browns. After finishing my meal, I went in search of Chabad, since I'd been to services with them once before and knew that they were located in one of the budget hostel buildings in Paharganj. When I reached the hostel where I'd remembered Chabad to be located, I asked at the desk if the office was opened. To my surprise, the man at the desk told me that Chabad had moved and gave me some vague directions about how to get to their new office (typical India). I walked down the street a little, looking for any sign of Chabad, but after a while, I decided it was a lost cause. So, I decided to seek out a cheap internet café where I could pass the time (my flight to Chennai wouldn't leave until 5pm) and maybe get some work done. I found what I thought to be a good, modern looking internet place and asked to use a computer. About 10 minutes into my "session," the internet connection on my computer stopped working, and after I sat there for 20 minutes trying to get it fixed, I decided that it must not be my day to be productive and packed up my stuff. Just as I was walking out of the internet café, 3 Hassidic rabbis, dressed in their black hats and long black coats, walked passed me. They were being followed by a young backpacker couple. I decided to follow them to see where they were going, since I suspected that they'd lead me to the new Chabad location. Indeed, just a few doors down from the internet café, the rabbis turned off into a narrow alleyway and began to ascend a staircase.

Before heading up the stairs, I tapped the woman backpacker on the shoulder and asked if she was going to Chabad. She told me she was, and that the rabbis had offered to let her and her boyfriend store their stuff there for the day. I told her that I came in search of matzo and asked her if she thought they'd have some at Chabad to give me. She said she thought so, and so together we followed the rabbis up the stairs. When we arrived at what seemed to be the Chabad kitchen, the rabbis had disappeared, but a nice Israeli man who seemed to be the Chabad cook greeted me and the Israeli couple and told us to put our bags down and join the rabbis on the roof for the burning of the hametz. I'm usually averse to participating in Chabad-led services or prayers, since I don't exactly support Chabad's treatment of women during services. However, not feeling that I had much of a choice, especially if I wanted the rabbis to give me matzo, I followed the Israeli couple up the roof where the 3 black-coated rabbis were standing around a small metal oven-like contraption. Two of the rabbis were holding prayer books and the third was holding a bag of what looked like tiny pieces of bread...the hametz. With the strong Delhi sun and the warmth and smoke coming from the oven, I don't know how those rabbis didn't pass out from heat stroke in their long black coats and hats. However, they seemed fine and spent about 20 minutes saying prayers and burning hametz while the 3 of us watched. I chatted a bit with the couple and found out that they were Israeli...which is a really good thing since the rabbis didn't really speak English and so the Israeli woman ended up being my interpreter.

After the hametz burning ceremony had ended, we all went downstairs and stood around the kitchen for a little while the rabbis scurried about doing what I suspect was more Passover prep work. The cook finally encouraged me to ask the rabbis for what I wanted, suggesting that if I waited until they weren't busy, I'd be there all day. Since I couldn't really communicate with the rabbis, I asked the Israeli woman to help me. We caught the rabbis coming up the stairs and I told them (with the Israeli woman translating) that I was having a Passover Seder the next day in Chennai and would like to bring matzo if they had any I could take. The rabbis seemed to be considering my request and one of them asked, "are you Jewish?" I was a bit offended...I mean, why else would I want matzo for my Seder? But, of course I had to be polite, so I nodded and asked again if they would be able to give me some matzo to take with me to Chennai. Seemingly satisfied with my answer, the rabbi reached up onto one of the bookshelves and took down a large, square cardboard box with Hebrew writing on it. They told me that it was matzo direct from Israel. I didn't think they would ask me to pay for the matzo, but I had to ask just to check. In response, one of the rabbis said, "Yes, give us $1000." I laughed and thanked them for the matzo. Before leaving, I thanked the Israeli couple for their help and wished them and the rabbis a happy Pesach...Haag Sameah. Matzo in hand, I couldn't help but smile at the fact that I had accomplished my mission of finding matzo in India...I couldn't wait to tell me story to my friends in Chennai.

Luckily, my flight to Chennai left on time (something I've heard that the cheap Indian domestic airways aren't always too good about) and I arrived in wet, sticky Chennai around 8:30pm.

Jacob, the friend whose house we were all staying at met me at the airport and took me back to his place. He lived about 30 minutes south of Chennai in a house that was a hop-skip-and-jump from the beach. When we arrived at his house, the smell of the ocean and the salty air made me recall how much I love living by the beach! That night, my friend Myla led the 4 of us who were there in a Shabbat service and I pitched in for some of the songs.

The next morning, Myla, her friend Nalasa and I headed out on a mission to look up recipes, create a menu and buy ingredients for our passover seder that night. We took the local bus (something I would never do in Lucknow since the buses there are always PACKED to the brim) to an internet cafe and looked up recipes for Passover-ish dishes we could make. We knew that we wouldn't have all the ingredients or kitchen implements (ie. an oven) to make a perfectly traditional seder meal, but I think we came up with a good selection of typical Jewish dishes to cook.

The next stop was 3 or 4 different markets and fruit/veggie sellers along the road. When we found most of the ingredients we needed (and when our arms were overloaded with bags), we hopped the bus back to Jacob's house.

When we arrived back at Jacob's house, all 3 of us were hot, sweaty and dripping from the humid heat. We relaxed for a bit and watched a movie before beginning to cooking prep process.

After getting everything started cooking, we were again dripping with sweat, so we decided to take dip in ocean. The beach near Jacob's house was not exactly a swimming beach. In fact, it was more of a fisherman's beach and had lots of debris to prove it. However, the water was cool and we need to cool off, so we jumped in and had a good time splashing about in the waves. I also discovered that the beach had some amazing shells, and being the shell-collector that I am (I inherited this gene from my mom), I decided to wake up early the next morning (when the best shells are usually out) to go searching.

Our swim refreshed us and gave us the energy to finish final seder preparations. We made a seder plate with everything except the Shank Bone, since most of us were vegetarian and we didn't know where to find a bone without buying a whole chicken or something. Our menu also included Humus, Simus, Veggie Borscht, Charoset, Potato Salad and several other yummy dishes that I can't remember because there was just so much good food! ]

That night, all of us (about 10 people in all) gathered on Jacob's roof for our Indian Seder. My friends Myla and Leah led our seder and everyone got involved at some point. The thing I usually hate about seders is that they're too long and I'm starving, or past the point of hunger even, by the time we eat. Luckily, this seder was an abbreviated version and we spent the bulk of the time eating rather than reading through the Haggadah (seder guidebook). By the time we ate the matzo at our seder, however, it was almost stale-tasting...though this might be due to the fact that it was sitting in my bag in the hot, humid Chennai air for over a day. However, despite the staleness, everyone was quite impressed that I had managed to find matzo for the seder and, in the spirit of tradition, we ate it anyway. Everyone thought the food we had prepared was delicious and ate a ton, and we still had leftovers to eat the next day for breakfast (and lunch and dinner if they were still good). After completing the requisite "Search for the Afikomen" (the middle piece of matzo), we all helped clean up, sat around chatting for a while, and then finally went to bed with our tummies still full. I think that this will definitely be one Passover that I'll remember!!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1205401260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1205401260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1205401260/tpod.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:14:27 -0400 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Bangkok, Thailand

My appreciation for and excitement about Thailand began on the Thai Airlines flight from Mumbai to Bangkok. Although this was an overnight flight, and we were supposed to be sleeping since we'd be having sessions the next day in Thailand, I guess I was too excited, because I couldn't force myself to sleep. Instead, I read, watched the stewardesses (Or is it "stewardai"?), who wearing beautiful royal purple sari-like outfits (I'm not sure what they're called in Thai), hustle up and down the aisle, had a glass of surprisingly good wine (why can't U.S. airlines offer free cocktails?), and ate dinner when they served it on the plane at around 3am - I guess I was hungry! When we touched down in Bangkok, the stewardesses came by and gave each passenger a pretty fresh, purple flower to welcome us to Thailand...and so began my 4 days in "paradise."

Now, I can honestly say that the inside of the Bangkok airport looked like something out of a sci-fi movie...a futuristic, sterile and immaculately clean man-made environment made out of metal, complete with high vaulted-arch ceilings supported by large metal pillars and crisscrossing beams. Of course, I'm aware that my perception of the airport was probably magnified by my being sleep deprived and by the fact that we were arriving at around 5am to an almost-completely-empty terminal. However, I still maintain that the Bangkok airport was the most modernistic, futuristic airport I've ever visited. Another highlight of the airport were the huge, brightly painted Thai sculptures of gods and other mythical figures that were placed at intervals along the terminal corridor. We all cleared customs and went out to the baggage claim area where we were greeted by our guide, an extremely friendly young man (who I thought was about 20) who spoke good English, though with a thick Thai accent. When we'd all collected our bags, our guide led us outside where a luxury bus was waiting for us. I don't say "luxury" lightly...this bus was decked out, complete with a flat screen TV up front, spotless seats that reclined almost to beds, and tray tables in the seat-backs. During the 1 hour ride out of Bangkok to reach the Ashram where we'd be staying, I spent about half the time looking out to window and taking in all I could of my first glimpses of Thailand.

The second half of the ride, I was finally overcome by tiredness and got a much-needed 30 minutes of rest. 1 hour outside of Bangkok. I woke up a few minutes before arrival at ashram and noticed that we were driving through an area that looked like one big nursery, with plant stores and small, wooden houses lining both sides of the road. We pulled over next to one of the nurseries, and I couldn't imagine where the ashram could be, unless it was a nursery-ashram sort of thing. It turns out that the ashram was quite tucked away behind one of the nurseries. In fact, we had to take a short wooden raft ride across a small river to just reach the ashram grounds.

The ashram was absolutely beautiful, peaceful, serene, etc. On arrival, we all gathered in the dining hall for breakfast, which consisted of a gorgeous display of noodles, rice, broth, vegetables, and lots of seasonings...not your typical American breakfast food. Though I didn't really know what anything was or how to put it together to eat, I experimented. It was kind of like how I felt in India when I first arrived (ie. Do I eat the yoghurt for dessert, or do I mix it with my food? Do I use my bread to eat my vegetable dish, or do I eat them separately). There were some other longer-term guests in the dining hall, so I just watched what they did to get a sense of how to prepare my plate.

After breakfast, almost everyone went back to the dorm and crashed before our sessions were to begin after lunch, thin, straw mat beds with tiny square pillows were surprisingly comfortable and had long draped mosquito nets. But I was too excited to be here at this beautiful ashram in Thailand....so I decided to walk around, explore, take pictures of water lillies, browse the books in the library, investigate the shop and play with the shopowner's cute, chubby baby.

Lunch was a repeat of the delicious breakfast...with the same dilemma...do I use a plate or a bowl? Once again, I went with both!

After lunch, we all meet for sessions on topics pertinent to our "midpoint retreat" (ie. How is everyone adjusting to their work/life in India, what are the shared frustrations, excitements, etc., what skills do we want to build during our remaining time in India, and the like).

I guess that the "change-from-Indian-food" meals were definitely a highlight of my first day in Thailand, because I recall that we had another delicious meal for dinner. Afterwards, 2 of my friends led us in a rousing game of India trivia that was good fun and also showed me how little I still know about the diverse country I'm living in.

Since I hadn't slept much on the plane and hadn't taken a nap that morning, I was hit by a wave of tiredness right as trivia was ending and so, I tucked myself into my cozy mosquito-netted cocoon and fell asleep.


Day 2 in Thailand
Anna had volunteered to lead yoga this morning for whoever wanted to join, so I woke up early and went to meet her outside the dorm. Me and SharON were the only ones who managed (or tried) to get up early for yoga, so Anna suggested that we go over to the covered landing neat the Ashram's office and lily pond for our yoga session. Although doing yoga on wooden slats was somewhat of a challenge, I couldn't thing of a more beautiful spot in which to spend my morning. We did about 30 minutes of yoga, and then met up with the rest of the group at breakfast.

As usual, the bulk of the day was spent in sessions. In the afternoon, as an energizer before the last few sessions, I led the group in a West African dance activity. I have REALLY missed African dance since I've been in India, especially since last year in Boston I took at least a class or two each week. And as much as I am enjoying Kathak, there's no comparison with the energy I get when I do African dance. So, I was thrilled about the opportunity to teach my fellow fellows a few West African moves and to get back in the movement myself! We did some across-the-floor exercises, by the end of which half the group had collapsed on the cushions in the back of the room...too hot and tired to do more. I was pretty out of breath myself, since it was at least 85 degrees outside, and I hadn't done this kind of movement in over 6 months. However, a bunch of the other fellows were still into it, so I taught them a short dance and we did it a couple of times to the sound of Ghanaian drumming music that my friend had on her ipod. Then all of us who had stuck it out took a water break to cool down and catch our breath.

Dinner that night was another scrumptious combination of rice, noodles, veggies and broth. After dinner, a bunch of us attended an optional session to share job search tools and resources. The session, in addition to providing me with some useful websites and names of organizations to check out, also got me thinking seriously about the big questions of what I'll be doing after the fellowship ends. Since I have a lot of future goals, and always do better at meeting those goals when I know that my next step will be, I don't do that well with uncertainty...always like to have a plan...if anyone knows of any good International Health/Human Rights-focused NGOs with offices in the U.S., or better yet, someone who works at one, please send info. my way...I'd love to talk to people working in these places about their experiences!!


Day 3 in Thailand
This morning after breakfast, we all got into 2 luxurious mini-buses for our trip into Bangkok. The drive into the city alone provided some culture shock, for the highway roads were smoothly paved and absolutely pristine, with no sign of garbage anywhere (which is a big change from India, where the side of the road is usually littered with debris). When we approached Bangkok, I was startled by the shininess of the sparkling high rises, and I almost gasped as we drove past a Starbucks and an Au Bon Pan.

When we arrived in Bangkok, we headed to the office of a local NGO called Burma Issues for a informational meeting about their work and the issues they address. During the meeting, we learned about the horrific human rights abuses being committed by the Burmese government against its own people and got information on how we could help in the advocacy effort to stop such abuses. I'm glad that I got the chance to learn about an issue that I had very little prior knowledge of.............

After the meeting ended, we were all set free to explor Bangkok, at least until dinner time, that is. About half of us wanted to visit the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, the 2 most famous attractions in Bangkok. We hailed tuk tuks, used our well-honed Indian bargaining skills to try to not get ripped off, and hopped in for the ride to the Grand Palace.

Because the area where we were going was on the other side of the city, we were able to have a mini tour of Bangkok on our way there. One the way, I made a few first observations of Bangkok. For one thing, the Thais sure like their 7-Elevens, because there was one on practically every corner! I'd also been told that the Thai people love their king, but I didn't understand to what extent until our drive through Bangkok. The king and queen's pictures were everywhere: at intersections, on sides of buildings, oustide of the ancient Wats, etc. I wonder, though, whether the pictures are put up by members of the royal party, or whether the Thai people actually choose to have the king's face staring at them from every direction!?

The Grand Palace complex was quite an impressive sight, and it might be the most elaborately decorated piece of architecture that I have ever seen. Mosaics and tiny mirrors lined the walls of the buildings which were topped with golden roofs in the traditional style. Until the turn of the 20th century, the King of Thailand and the Thai government were located within this complex, and it sure looked like a place fit for a king. We first visited the temple building where the famous "Emerald Buddha" is located and watched as devotees burned incense and offered fruit and flowers. Since I wanted to explore as much of the complex as possible in the little time we had, I told my friends that I'd meet them back at the entrance and went off with my camera at the ready. After walking around and through all the intricately-decorated buildings and posing with some of the statues, I met back up with everyone and we left the Grand Palace to continue our sightseeing.

Next, we decided to head to Wat Po which housed the Reclining Buddha, a 45-meter long, gold-plated Buddha statue lying on its side. The Buddha was housed in the middle of a large traditional-style building and it was possible to walk around the inside of the building to examine the Buddha from all angles. I loved the huge Buddha and took tons of photos of it, from head, toes, and all.

After visiting Wat Po, the group decided to break up and go in different directions. A few of my friends went to take a ride on the river taxi...one of Bangkok's main modes of public transport, but also a nice way of sightseeing from the river. Jess, Becca and I decided to stick together and visit some other parts of the city, including the Flower Market and Chinatown/Pahurat (Little India). We also volunteered to go shopping for a gift for our program director that all the fellows had chipped in for.

We were pretty hungry when we left Wat Po, so we walked for a while in search of a good place to eat. We passed a lot of "tourist" restaurants, but weren't thrilled with the menu nor the prices, so we kept walking. I'm glad we did, because we eventually came upon an outdoor food-stall market. While I would never eat food from a stall in India, these stalls looked very clean and tidy, so I decided to give it a try. I had pad thai, and it was delicious! In fact, all of our meals were really good!

Next we headed to the Flower Market which was one of the places I really wanted to see. The market consisted of stalls lining both sides of a wide street, with each stall bursting with beautiful colorful flowers in all sorts of arrangements. There were also several fruit stalls at the flower market, with every kind of fruit imaginable. And this is where Becca introduced me to the joys of the custard apple...it's an apple that looks like an artichoke on the outside, but tastes like apple pie on the inside. They had had them in India in the fall, but I never bought them because I thought they were artichokes, not fruit. We also got a dragon fruit, this pink spikey-looking thing that could be mistaken for a torture device. We sampled a bit of our fruit as we walked through the market, heading (we thought) towards some shopping area where we could buy a gift for Anna, our program director.

Locating a shopping area wasn't as easy as we thought it would be, and we had to ask several different people for directions. Although I am a stickler for foreigners trying to learn and speak the local language, I find it strange that so few Thais speak English, given the fact that Thailand is such a big tourist mecca. Jess, Becca and I had to ask at least 6 different people before finding a woman who could even understand what we were asking. Luckily, this woman told us about a nearby shopping mall that had nice gift items and pointed us in the right direction.

The mall was located in the Pahurat, or Little India, part of Bangkok, not far from the flower market. It was kind of comforting to see all the familiar Indian clothes and fabrics, and even some Indians themselves. We located the mall and then spent the next 2 hours scouring the stores on every floor for a suitable gift. It did take lots of searching, but we eventually came up with a nice purse and some other little things to put inside.

By the time we had made our purchase, it was already past the time that we were told we needed to meet back at the Burma Issues building to get a ride to dinner. Anna had arranged dinner with a former AJWS volunteer who started her own organization in Thailand to work on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. We knew we might not make it to dinner in time, but we decided to try our luck and hailed a taxi to take us there. Jess sat up front and did a hell of a job using handsignals and pointing to the map to give directions to our non-English-speaking driver. The traffic was terrible, and it took us over an hour to get to the restaurant, by which time we thought the dinner would be finished. However, when we arrived, it seemed that half of the others had just arrived as well due our inexperience with timing journeys during Bangkok's rush hour. So, it luckily all worked out, and we got to enjoy a lovely, authentic Thai food meal and get to hear about the work that this woman was doing. On the bus ride back to the Ashram after dinner, we shared stories about our different adventures in Bangkok. It was a wonderful day, and I hoped I would be able to get back there sometime for a little bit longer.


Day 4 in Thailand
The next day, and sadly our last day in Thailand, we enjoyed another yummy breakfast, this time a type of porridge with things to mix in, dragon fruit, sweet mini bananas and an old American favorite, toast. Breakfast was followed by a couple of short wrap-up sessions that I won't go into detail on. Then we all went back to the dorm to pack up before lunch, and a few of us went to "raid" the ashram's store in order to spend some of the Bhat we had left over. I had been eyeing several things in the shop since my first day at the ashram, and the prices were reasonable, so I decided to use my bhat here and purchased a beautiful old Thai-textile pursue for my mom (since she had one exactly like this that is currently in shreds from wear) and a pair of fisherman pants for myself. At lunchtime, I savored our "last meal" at the ashram, not wanting my experience here to end. However, we eventually had to leave when the mini-buses arrived.

After dropping our bags at the mini-buses, my friend Leah and I visited one of the mom & pop snack shops/dhabas (I know that's NOT what they call them in Thai, but I'm not sure what the right term is) to see what goodies we could buy for the plane. To my sheer and utter amazement, the little mom & pop store had small bags of my favorite candy - gummy coke bottles. In India, gummy coke bottles are almost nonexistent, and in the U.S., you can usually only find them at stores with specialty candy sections. So, this was a special treat and I bought a couple of bags to take back to India with me.

Our luxury mini-buses drove us to the airport where we all "shopped til we dropped" to get rid of our extra Bhat. I didn't have that much left because I had spent most of my extra money at the Ashtram store. However, I did have enough to buy a mixed bag of dried fruit and a box of cookies for my colleagues at work.

Those fellows that were living/working closer to Mumbai took a different flight an hour earlier than the 6 of us who were flying to Delhi, so we said our goodbyes at the airport. The Thai airlines flight back to Delhi was nice and uneventful, and this time I managed not to spill my salad dressing all over myself.

Getting into the airport in Delhi gave me major dejavu from when I first arrived in August. As I stood in the same customs line I stood in before, I thought about how in August, I had no idea what to expect when I exited the airport doors, and how I now felt like an old pro.

When we got outside, we all said goodbye to Dan and Sammy, the 2 fellows who live in Delhi, and then the 4 of us remaining went to Anna, our program director's, apartment and crashed for the night.

The next morning, Friday, we raided Anna's cupboards for breakfast food, which there wasn't much of because we had all been away for over a week. Around 11, Dan and Sammy came over and we all took taxis out to Gurgaon to have lunch at Sunita's house. Sunita, our Indian program director, wasn't able to join us at retreat because of a family emergency at the last minute. However, she wanted to see those of us who were in Delhi and so invited us over to her house for lunch. Once again, she had prepared a FEAST for us, like the first time we all came over, with one of every dish imaginable, 3 kinds of desserts, 3 types of Roti, 6 different chutneys, etc. The food was delicious, and it was a nice "re-introduction" to Indian food after being away from it for about 4 days.

After lunch, we went back to Anna's for a bit of quality internet time (a luxury to not be sitting in an internet café or at work). That evening, my friend Leah and I decided to venture out to the Chabad that was located in the touristy backpacker area of Delhi...Paharganj. Now, I must say that I'm usually the last person to want to go to Chabad, since I'm against their discriminatory orthodox practices towards women. However, I decided to go at Leah's suggestion because I had heard that they had really good middle eastern food at their Shabbat dinners.

It took us a bit of looking to find the Chabad, but we eventually found it tucked away in a small room on the 2nd floor of a backpackers' guest house (perfect location for all the Israeli Jews who come to India). When we arrived, they had already begun services (or so we thought), so we took a seat behind the "Mehitzah," a curtain that is hung to separate the men from the women but that doesn't allow the women to see anything going on during the service. An Israeli girl came in and joined us about 15 minutes later, and we chatted a bit about our travels, work, army service, etc. It seemed like almost an hour had passed and the service still had not concluded. Since we couldn't see what was going on behind the curtain, we didn't know that they had been waiting for a 10th man to come to make a "minyan" (In orthodox Judaism, 10 men are needed to have a service; women don't count). Finally a couple more guys came in and they began the service. Finally, about 1.5 to 2 hours later, the service was over and we could finally eat. The food better bet good after having sat through all that, I thought. Well, Leah and I weren't disappointed. The food was fantastic!! We had challah, hummus, babganoosh, chicken, vegetables, etc., all delicious and just what we had hoped for. After we finished eating, the rabbis started to lead another prayer, but Leah and I snuck out quietly, feeling a little guilty for eating and running, but also very full and satisfied.

The next day, I did some errands around Delhi (since there are things in Delhi that I just can't get in Lucknow, like Tahini sauce to make Hummus :), and then I boarded my train for the ride back to Lucknow. I slept most of the way back, and was happy when I finally reached home, if not a little disappointed that I wasn't in Thailand anymore...but I still have my memories, my dried fruit (which will be gone soon!) and my fisherman pants to remind me of my short but sweet glimpse of Thailand.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1204886340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1204886340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1204886340/tpod.html Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:47:54 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Mumbai (Bombay), India

I thought that I wouldn't get a chance to see the famed "home of Bollywood." With only 1 week of vacation during my fellowship, and with me living so far away, I figured that I'd have to just come back to India another time to see Mumbai. However, as luck would have it, I got just that opportunity during my fellowship's week-long midpoint retreat which took place at the end of January. The retreat brought us all back together after having adapted to life for 4 months in our various parts of the country. We spent 3 days in Mumbai and then flew to Bangkok, Thailand for 4 days. Now you're probably thinking that it seems somewhat impractical for AJWS to have flown all of us to Thailand and back within a period of 4 days. I agree, but they technically had to take us somewhere out of the country because they had required us to get Tourist Visas which only allow us to stay in India for 6 months at a time, and, after much deliberation, it was decided that Thailand was the "least unsafe" country within relative proximity to India. Even though we did only have 3 days in Mumbai and 4 days in Thailand, the trip was fantastic and gave me a glimpse into what Mumbai and Bangkok are like, not to mention a cool new stamp in my passport.

Now, onto the beginning. Getting to Mumbai was a 2-day affair. Sharon and I took a 24+ hour train journey from Lucknow to Mumbai that wins the prize as the longest train trip I've taken in India so far. The ride, although long, wasn't too bad, since we only had to take one train (unlike a couple of our fellow "fellows" working in more remote parts of the country), and it was basically a straight shot to Mumbai from Lucknow, though of course there were lots of stops along the way. Because AJWS made the decision about going to Mumbai kind of late, all 2nd and 3rd AC seats were sold out on the train we needed to take, so we got the luxury of going 1st AC class. Now, I don't know where I got this idea, but for some reason I was expecting 1st AC to be the lap of luxury, and I was convinced that our fellow 1st AC passengers would be from among India's rich and famous. However, later I realized that it had been pretty absurd of me to think this, since why would any member of India's elite take a 24 hour train ride, no matter how luxurious, when they could fly to Mumbai in a an hour and a half?

Anyway, Sharon and I met up at the Lucknow train station on the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 16th. We found our train (called the Pushpak Express) and headed for the 1AC coach. Since I've only traveled on 2 and 3AC class, I had no idea what the seating/bedding arrangement of 1AC was like, but I had a suspicion that we would get our own cabin. I was partially right. The 1AC coach contained 3 separate cabins, each with 4 beds inside. The beds were still bunk-style, like 2AC and 3AC, but they seemed a little wider than the 2AC beds, and were covered with a red sort-of padding instead of the typical blue plastic that covers the beds in all of the other classes. In addition, our cabin had red carpeting (though it didn't seem like it had been cleaned in a while) and a small table that lifted up to reveal a sink underneath which I did appreciate.

Sharon and I settled into our cabin and unloaded the snacks, reading material, etc. that we had brought for the journey. We were in the cabin by ourselves for a while before an old man came in. He asked us in half-Hindi, half-English which beds we had, and we told him that we had one top bunk and one bottom bunk. As I expected, he asked us if we wouldn't mind taking the 2 top bunks so that he and his wife could have the bottom ones. We considered for a minute, but then, as usual, we agreed and told him that we'd take both top bunks when we went to bed. The man thanked us and then left our cabin, though we expected that he'd be back shortly with his wife.

However, when the train got going and the conductor came to collect our tickets, the man and his wife has still not shown up. Maybe they'd realized that they were in a different cabin? After we'd been traveling for about an hour, and just as we began thinking that we might have lucked out and would have the cabin to ourselves for the whole trip, the conductor came into our cabin and, without saying anything to us, sat down on one of the bunks and started counting and tallying tickets. We figured he just needed a place to sit while doing this "official" business, so we didn't say anything. However, soon a few other men who were friends of the conductor came by our cabin, and the conductor invited them right on in to sit and chat. After a while, there were about 5 men, including the conductor, sitting in our cabin and chatting. Then the conductor ordered chai for all of his friends and they sat in our cabin drinking their chai, chatting and joking in rather loud voices. While it was awkward to have 5 Indian men having a "tea party" in our cabin, they weren't bothering us that much, so Sharon and I didn't say anything and just hoped they would soon go back to wherever they had come from. Eventually, after about 2 hours, the train pulled into a station and the conductor and his friends got off.

Then we really did get the cabin to ourselves, so we spread out a bit. I ordered dinner on the train since I'd done a very good job of cleaning out my fridge before leaving and thus, didn't have anything left to cook and bring for dinner.

Around 11pm, Sharon and I were getting ready to go to bed when we pulled into a station and two men, one around 50 and one younger, maybe in his 30s, came into our cabin. I was a little disappointed, since I thought that we weren't going to have any more "cabin guests" for the rest of our journey, but we came to terms with the situation and continued getting ready for bed.

Sleeping was a bit difficult, however, due to the awful, guttural snoring/snorting sounds coming from the older man in the bunk opposite mine. I have kind of grown to expect a bit of snoring on any train ride I take in India, since it's a common occurrence. But, I was hopeful that this train ride would be snore-free, especially because there were only 2 other people in the cabin with us (rather than 50 people, like in the other classes). The snoring first woke me up after I had just drifted off the sleep. I decided to put in my headphones, hoping that my music would drown out the snoring sounds. It kind of worked, and I think I went back to sleep for a bit. The second time, I was woken up by Sharon mumbling something in an attempt to make the snoring man wake up. I also chimed in and asked the man to please change positions in hopes that his new sleeping position would make him less prone snore. That seemed to work for about 10 minutes, but then the snoring started again. So, in conclusion, I had a hard time falling asleep on the train, though I did get some off-and-on sleep, and figured that I could sleep the whole next day, since I'd still be on the train.

In the morning, we pulled into the station at Bhopal and, to my relief, the two men got off. For the next 12 hours, Sharon and I really did have the cabin all to ourselves, and it was definitely nice! We read, watched a movie and did work on the sessions we were leading at the retreat. We also spent time looking out the window at the changing landscape. We passed farmland, tropical areas complete with palm trees, and even some huge mesa-shaped sand formations that reminded me of New Mexico. We also observed people we passed and came up with theories as to how and why people dressed differently in the areas we passed through, as compared to people in Lucknow.

We reached Mumbai around 9pm, about an hour later than scheduled, though I was impressed that for such a long journey, we were only 1 hour off. When we got in, we called Becca and SharOn, the 2 fellows living in Mumbai, since we had planned to have dinner with them and Anna, our program director. They told us to meet them at a movie theater in Colaba, the touristy part of Mumbai, which was conveniently close to the train station.
We went to eat at a loud, crowded restaurant that looked like it could be in any touristy city and oddly-enough reminded me of places I've eaten at in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. Since we hadn't seen Becca or SharOn in 5 months, we had a lot to chat about over dinner. It was great catching up and sharing experiences of how we've adapted to life in India. After dinner, we said goodbye to Anna and took a cab back to Becca & SharOn's apartment in Banda where we'd spend the night. It was late, around 11pm, so there was minimal traffic on the road, though I soon learned that this was the only time Mumbai streets weren't completely clogged with traffic.

Becca & SharOn's apartment was really cute! It was located on the 2nd floor of a walk-up apartment building and had 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms and a nice modern kitchen set-up. We were all tired, Sharon and I especially, so we chatted a bit more and then hit to sack. Luckily, the next day was a free day until around 6pm when we were scheduled to meet up with the rest of the fellows for an opening-of-retreat Shabbat.

I woke up the next morning and, luxury of luxuries, was able to go on the internet from their apartment! I definitely miss having Internet at home, and will be even more grateful for it when I get back to the states. I was checking my email, and it just so happened that my friend Aditi was online too, so I talked to her for a bit and asked her for suggestions for what I should see Mumbai, since she'd been there before.
In a little while, 2 of the other fellows who had just come in from Hyderabad met us near the apartment, and we all went out to breakfast at a place called "The Bagel Shop." Now, I don't know about the other fellows, but I certainly hadn't had a bagel since I'd been in India (which was a big change from last year at JOI, where we had bagels at least once a week), so I was pretty excited! The menu included exotic things like goat cheese, avocado, etc. And since avocado is one of my favorite foods that I've been missing here in India, I was tempted to get it. However, I was a bit skeptical that it would actually be available since I had definitely not seen avocado anywhere else I'd been in India, and in many places in India, like in many countries where I've traveled in Latin America, it seems that every restaurant has at least a few things on the menu that are perpetually out of stock. Indeed, I was right...no avocado in stock. So, I got a bagel with chive cream cheese instead, which was still a big treat!

After breakfast, we walked back to the apartment, taking the "scenic" route so that we could see the ocean. I have missed living on a coast, so seeing the ocean was definitely refreshing, even though there was a not-so-pleasant smell emanating from the rocky beach area. Along the way, we passed a coconut seller who was hacking off the tops of coconuts to sell as drinks. Though they sell coconuts to drink in Lucknow, I have felt that walking around the street with a coconut in Lucknow would earn me too much unwanted attention. However, since I was in Mumbai and feeling like a "true tourist," I took advantage of the opportunity that vacation allows and bought a coconut to drink.

When we got back, the other girls decided they were going to hang out in the apartment for a while. I really wanted to see a bit of Mumbai, so I decided to branch off and meet up with some of the other fellows who had arrived that morning and were doing some "sightseeing" in the touristy part of the city. It was around 11am, and I hailed a taxi outside of Becca & SharOn's apartment, thinking naively that there wouldn't be much traffic at this time of day and that it wouldn't take me more than an hour to reach the area where my friends were. Well, I was wrong. After inching forward through gridlocked streets while breathing in diesel fumes for over an hour and a half, I finally arrived at the restaurant where my friends were waiting for me. It was great to see all of them after so long, and we caught up a bit as we walked down the street, perusing the rows of tourist trinkets, clothes, shoes, etc. being sold by sidewalk vendors. As we walked around and I got to check out part of the city, I found that Mumbai reminded me more of a European city than of anywhere I'd been in India, mostly because of all the old gothic architecture left over from days of British rule.

We decided to go see the old Mumbai synagogue next. I hadn't really had any contact with Indian Jews or Indian Jewish culture since arriving in India, so I was curious to find out what an Indian synagogue looked like. The synagogue was located down a small alley near the touristy part of town. It was a large 3-story structure painted bright blue on the outside and had a sign that said "Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue." There was an older man in a guard's uniform sitting outside the entrance, and as we went to go inside, the man stopped us and asked if we were Jewish. We all said yes and told him we were here on a fellowship sponsored by a Jewish organization. That seemed to satisfy him enough to avoid the need for a more rigorous security check, and he welcomed us inside. The main sanctuary was located up a long flight of stairs. On the wall next to the staircase, there were lots of photos of rabbis and benefactors from Israel, Europe and American who had visited the synagogue. It seems that the synagogue has a lot of international support. The sanctuary itself was beautiful. It was painted white and blue and had a raised platform in the center with chairs on it (the bima), and rows of benches lined up around the edges of the room. There was a pretty stained-glass window at the front of the room, over the arc area, and many elaborate old light fixtures. There was also a balcony, probably for the women who attended services, since Indian Jews followed orthodox practices that mandate the separation of men and women during prayer.

When the five of us walked into the sanctuary, we were greeted by a very cute old man who we found out was the official caretaker of the synagogue. He told us that his family was descended from the original "Bnei Israel," the Jews that had come over to India centuries, if not 1000s of years, ago (there's still much debate about when this group of Jews came to India and where they came from - some say Iran/Iraq). We asked if they still held services at the synagogue on Friday nights and he said yes, of course. It would have been a fun cultural experience to have attended services at the synagogue that night (even though I would likely have been relegated to the balcony), but because of the jam-packed nature of our retreat, it seemed like it wouldn't be possible. We spent a while talking to the cute old caretaker and he showed us photos that people had taken with him at the synagogue and mailed to him from all over the world. We decided that we should have a photo too, so we took a group shot with our new friend and got his address to mail him a copy when we get back to the U.S. Before we left, I decided to ask the man if he knew where we might be able to get Challah for our Shabbat celebration that night, since I figured that he would know better than anyone. He told me that there was a kosher bakery that made Challah for the synagogue, but it was located pretty far away. However, he also mentioned that a fancy hotel nearby had a bakery that sold Challah from the same kosher bakery that supplies the synagogue. Since the hotel was close-by, and since we thought it would be nice to bring good, fresh Challah to share with the group that night, we decided to check it out. We thanked our friend and wished him a "good Shabbos" (now, how do you say that in Hindi??) before heading out on our "quest for Challah."

On the way over to the bakery we passed by India Gate, a huge arch much like the one in Delhi that overlooks the ocean. It just happened that they were setting up for some sort of music festival that week and were rehearsing a number for later that night...a black dancer with dreads was performing a street tap piece while accompanied by tabla music, now how's that for a meshing of cultures? The dancing was awesome and I wanted to stay longer, by my friends reminded me that we had to get back to meet up with the rest of the group soon and had to accomplish our Challah mission before leaving.

The hotel that the bakery was located in was gorgeous...I guess it would have to be a high-class place to have a fancy bakery on the premises. The bakery was unlike anything I'd seen for at least a few months. They had all types of fresh-baked breads...seeded ones, ones with sundried tomatoes, you name it. They only had one small Challah left when we arrived, so we snatched it up and decided to buy a loaf of another yummy bread to share with the group as well. Bread in hand, we hot-footed it out of the hotel in search of cabs to take us to the hotel where we were all staying.

We made it back to the hotel in time to meet up with everyone who had arrived throughout the day. Then we had Shabbat as a group, which was, in my opinion, a nice way to welcome us all back together. And fortunately the Challah and other bread were a big hit!
After Shabbat, we had the night free, so Becca & SharOn had decided to invite us all to a little soiree at their apartment, since we were all in their city. I went with a few of the other fellows to have dinner at a "burrito place" (of all things) near Becca & SharOn's apartment. However, similar to my ride through Mumbai earlier that day, the streets were again gridlocked and it took us a good 1.5 hours to get to the restaurant, by which point we were all famished. We ordered nachos for an appetizer which actually tasted like nachos, and then we each got burritos that, to my surprise, were really tasty, if not completely "Mexican" in flavor.

After we had all finished, we took auto rickshaws over to Becca & SharOn's apartment where the party was in full swing. In addition to us fellows, Becca & SharOn had also invited some of their Mumbai friends to their party. The party provided a welcome opportunity for all of us to relax after our long journeys, catch up with each other, and meet some real-live Mumbai-ites and expats. Luckily, the ride home after the party wasn't nearly as bad as the ride there, since it was late and the traffic on the road had thinned considerably. Back at the hotel, I chatted with my friends Myla and Leah for a bit before we all crashed for the night.

The next day was chock-full of sessions, so I won't go into detail. All I'll say is that sitting in the moldy, cloth-paneled, windowless conference room all day wasn't my cup of tea. That said, it was interesting to hear about everyone's experiences so far living/working in India and to be able to complain and laugh together about things we've gone through in our various cities. For dinner, we had a group meal at a pretty posh seafood restaurant right next to the old Mumbai synagogue I had visited. While all of us really enjoyed the delicious meal, I felt conflicted about the fact that AJWS was spending their money on a fancy dinner for us in Mumbai rather than using this money to fund some of the programs AJWS is supporting in India, or at least to give us a bit more in our cost-of-living stipends. As a group, we've had many conversations about the relative costs and benefits of international volunteer programs like this one, and especially about how much it costs to have us here in India, so it's kind of strange that AJWS would choose to spend more money on fancy meals for us...just a thought.
After dinner, a few of us went to a bar nearby. The bar was open, but was completely empty due to the early hour (it was only around 9pm). But the DJ was there, so we were able to have our own private dance party for a while. We were all tired, so we left before any of the big crowds arrived...but I guess I can claim that I got a "taste" of Mumbai nightlife.

On Sunday, we had more sessions, including an awesome photography lesson from Becca, our "resident" photo expert. She took those of us who chose to attend her session outside and gave us a few pointers about shooting. Then, she sent us all off for 20 minutes to take photos using what we'd learned. I wandered down the street in front of our hotel and snapped several photos of the wonderful, old Mumbai taxis parked in a row along the street. As I continued further down the street, I noticed a lot of Muslim men wearing white caps and all white garb heading in the same direction. I walked forward a bit more to see where they were all headed. It looked like there was a mosque up in the distance, and it must have either been a holiday or time for mid-day prayer, because a huge mass of men in white were gathered in the street in front of the building. I really wanted to take pictures of the white-clad crowd, but, as has often happened here in India, I felt uncomfortable snapping people's pictures since I didn't know how they'd feel about my intruding on their religious gathering. So, I turned back and took a few more pictures down the street of shops, street signs, etc. I definitely need to work on being a braver photographer if I want to get good pictures! All of us "amateur" photographers came back together as a group and Becca shared some of the best photos with us. Then we all headed back inside for yet more sessions.

Early that evening, we packed up our bags, had a quick bite at the hotel and then piled into taxis for the trip to the airport. I'm glad we left almost 4 hours before our flight, because it took almost 2.5 to just reach the airport. We spent most of our trip to the airport sitting in a single-file (and sometimes double-file) line-up of cars on a road that could have been much wider had it not been overrun by pedestrians and bicycles going every which way. The Mumbai traffic is something I definitely was happy to be leaving behind.

Stay tuned for Part II about Thailand - coming soon!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1203401760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1203401760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1203401760/tpod.html Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:31:09 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Agra, India

For Christmas, I met an old friend and her 2 friends in Delhi for some quality time as a tourist. It was a nice change, since so far, I haven't done much "touristy stuff" during my time here. The funny part is that my friend Elana and I had lost touch since we went off to college, and it just happened that my mom ran into her and her mom at High Holiday services at our synagogue and found out that Elana was planning a trip to India over Christmas. Elana and I got in touch, and we planned to meet up for a couple of days in Delhi. I had a great time visiting with her and her friends and seeing some of India's famed architectural wonders, though we of course had a few unexpected scares and surprises during the course of the trip to help keep things interesting.

On the night of Sat., Dec. 22nd, I took the night train from Lucknow to Delhi. This was the first time I'd taken the train by myself, so I was a little nervous heading into my journey. However, I lucked out and got a top-bunk at the end of the train car with no one sleeping across from me (and, as an added bonus, no one snoring during the night), so I slept almost the whole way to Delhi. Upon arriving in Delhi around 9am, I exited the station and went in search of the pre-paid auto stand, since I've been told that's the safest way of not getting ripped off by Delhi's always-eager-to-overcharge-a-foreigner auto rickshaw drivers. After looking around and not being able to locate the stand, I decided to ask at a snack shop out in the train station parking lot. I guess that the snack shop clerk and the few men standing around sipping chai were surprised to hear me speaking Hindi (either that, or they had trouble understanding what I was saying because of my terrible accent), since they first looked confused, but then eagerly gave me directions (both verbally and with lots of pointing) towards the pre-paid auto booth located on the other side of the parking lot.

I waited in line and successfully secured a pre-paid auto (for the reasonable price of Rs 60) to take me to the youth hostel I planned to stay at during my 2 nights in Delhi.
I picked the hostel from my Lonely Planet book because it was located right near my friend's hotel, so it would be easy for me to meet them in the morning and get home at night. It was also, somewhat surprisingly for a youth hostel, located in the "posh" diplomatic area of Delhi where all the embassies are.

I reached the hostel around 10am, checked in and dropped off my bag. My friend Elana and her two friends weren't arriving until around 2pm, so I had made a plan to grab lunch with my friend (and "fellow" AJWs fellow) Dan who is living/working in Delhi. After getting settled at the hostel, I called Dan and we planned to meet at a bus-stop that he suggested in a nearby neighborhood.

Apparently the bus stop isn't that well-known because my auto driver got lost and had to ask at least 3 people before dropping me off at a bus depot (that turned out not to be the bus stop after all). I called Dan and after exchanging some info. about where we each were (ie. Landmarks, geographical markers, etc.), we determined that we were in 2 different parts of Hauz Kaus and made a plan for me to come meet Dan at a nearby shopping complex that would hopefully be easy to spot. Trusting my feet more than the auto rickshaw drivers, I decided to walk up the street to the shopping complex, since I remembered passing it in the auto on the way to the bus depot. Luckily, my sense of distance and direction were right, and after about 10 minutes of walking, I reached the shopping complex where Dan was waiting.

We had lunch at a small restaurant nearby and caught up, exchanging stories on how things are going in our respective cities, and commiserating about some common frustrations we're facing at work. It was great to see Dan and find out about his life in Delhi so far. After lunch, I headed back to my hostel and took a short nap, since my stomach was "acting up" a bit (which, I was hoping, wasn't a sign of the impending onset of the infamous "Delhi Belly").

I was feeling a bit better after my nap, and I went to meet Elana and her friends at their hotel around 3pm. I decided to walk over, since on the map their hotel looked relatively close to mine. It, in fact, was close, but after receiving some not-so-helpful advice from the doorman at my hostel, I took what I later learned was the "long route" and arrived after walking for about 40 minutes. When I reached the hotel lobby, a bit of apprehension crossed my mind - would Elana and I be able to even recognize each other? My worry quickly vanished, however, when a young Indian man approached me and asked if I was Ms. Rachel. I was a bit surprised that he knew my name, but then he told me that he was the travel liaison for Elana and her friends, and that Elana had asked him to tell me that they'd be down shortly. After a few minutes of waiting, Elana and her 2 friends came down, and although it had been quite a long time since we last saw each other, I was luckily able to recognize her right away and went over. Elana introduced me to her friends Alex and Ricki, we exchanged a few exclamations of "it's been way too long," and then we were shuttled out the door by the travel liaison to begin our afternoon sightseeing in Old Delhi.

Elana and her friends had hired a car and driver for their time in Delhi, so the car met us at the hotel and drove us to our first sightseeing destination, Delhi's famous Red Fort, one of Shah Jahan's many architectural (and tourist-magnet) gifts to India (To clarify, Shah Jahan constructed the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Red Fort, and Jama Masjid - the largest mosque in India, among other things).

I'd been to Red Fort back in August during the part of my fellowship orientation retreat that was held in Delhi. However, the last time I visited, the Fort was mostly empty, except for a few tourists. This time, the place was packed with both foreigners and Indians. I think the fact that it was a Sunday, at the peak of India's "Tourist Season" could help explain the crowds. We wandered through the fort and snapped some photos of the beautiful marble and stone architecture. I began feeling a bit woozy as we turned to head out of the fort and quickly considered my options. I could either stay and do more sightseeing, or I could go back to hostel to sleep so that I would hopefully feel better for tomorrow.

As we left aRed Ford, the guide directed us towards our next stop, Jama Masjid. However, my stomach was talking to me once again, so I made the decision (which I later thanked myself for) to go back to my hostel and rest, not wanting to miss our next day's trip to Agra and the Taj. I'm happy to report that sleeping for almost 12 hours straight did the trick! The next day, I woke up at 5am (we were leaving for Agra at 6am) feeling MUCH better, with no objections from my stomach.

I took an auto over to Elana's hotel, and at 6am we were on the road for the 5 hour drive to Agra. Our journey was definitely a harrowing one, though it also taught us all a bit more about life in India (and what it's like being a white, American tourist here). The first "incident" took place a couple hours into our journey, as we were crossing the state border into Uttar Pradesh (that's my state!!). There was a big line-up of cars waiting to get through the border crossing, so our driver left us sitting in the car and went to pay the entrance tax. Of course, this Delhi-to-Agra route is frequented by tourists like us who visit the Taj as a day trip from Delhi. So, I wasn't too surprised when, out of the window of our parked car, we saw a few men with monkeys on leashes doing flips and tricks (I mean the monkeys, not the men). Elana wanted to take a picture of the somersaulting monkeys. The three of us told her that she'd have to pay the men something if she took a picture, but she was fine with that and snapped a photo out of the rolled-down window. After Elana took the photo, two of the men approached our car demanding the exorbitant sum of Rs 500 (around $12.50) each. Although Elana gave them a generous amount, one of the men seemed to not be satisfied, and attempted to get more money from us by sticking his arm in through our car window. Despite our requests (mine in my limited Hindi), he would not budge his arm, even as we started trying to roll up the window. Even when his arm was about to be crushed by the window, he still refused to move, and only backed away from our car when our driver came back and yelled something at him in Hindi (I'll have to learn what he said!).

Back on the road, we discussed the "money incident" for a good 30 minutes before calming down and settling back into the drive. Harrowing Incident #2 took place when we were about 2/3 the way towards Agra. I was sitting in the way back looking out the side window when, all of a sudden, our car screeched to a halt and it sounded and felt as if we had run over something. I didn't see what happened because the seat in front of me was blocking my view, but apparently we had hit a motorcycle with 2 riders, a man and a woman. As I was told, the motorcycle sped out in front of us from a side street without even looking and, upon collision, the two riders somersaulted off the bike and landed on the ground. They both got up, so it looked like they weren't too seriously injured, but I was still worried. Moments after the collision, a large crowd of mostly men had surrounded our car. Our driver got out of the car to talk to the other party, and I couldn't see what happened. The four of us in the car were pretty scared, thinking that we'd be blamed for causing the accident and repercussions would follow. The men surrounding our car kept staring through the window at us, and we couldn't tell whether they were just fascinated by us 4 white tourists, or if they had other ideas in mind. After a few tense minutes, the driver came back to the car, the crowd parted, and we drove off, still uncertain about what had taken place. We were all quite shaken up. I kept trying to ask the driver what happened and if everyone involved was ok, but the most I could get out of him with my basic Hindi was "sub tikay" (all's well). I'll tell you one thing...next time I go to Agra (if there is a next time),
I'm definitely taking the train!

As all of our nerves calmed, the car got really quiet and we all spent a while taking in the roadside scenery through the car windows. As we drove along, one of us noticed camels pulling wooden carts along the side of the road and we all turned to catch a glimpse. While this may come as a shock to some, there have not been camels in the Indian cities and towns I've been in so far, so this was my first time seeing a camel up close and personal (aside from in the zoo when I was little). What shocked me was the size of the camels...they were enormous! I guess I had always imagined that camels were a little larger than horses, but these camels looked like a throwback to prehistoric times.

We arrived on the outskirts of Agra around 11am and stopped to pick up our tour guide along the side of the road (yeah, it does sound a little strange, but I guess it's common practice for tour companies in India). Our guide, a thin, older Indian man with relatively-understandable English, first took us to the place we had all come to see...the Taj Mahal.

Now, the joke in India, which is based in a truth, is that any job that could be satisfactorily completed by 1 person has at least a few middle men involved in order to "spread the wealth." There is no place where this is truer than in India's tourism industry. To demonstrate this point, I'll describe our Taj visiting experience.

Our guide spent the drive up to the Taj Mahal explaining the logistics of getting in to see the famed tomb. He explained that because of pollution, cars were no longer allowed to drive all the way up to the Taj entrance, so we would have to park some distance away and take a "green powered" rickshaw to the rest of the way. The rickshaw, of course, would cost us an extra Rs 50 each. Since you're not allowed to bring any bags onto the Taj grounds, we left everything but our wallets and cameras in the car and boarded a "green-powered" rickshaw to take us to the entrance. It turned out that the distance between the car park and the entrance was walkable, though we didn't know that before handing over our money to the rickshaw driver. Our rickshaw ride wasn't a waste, though, since we did help support our rickshaw driver and his family with our generous payment.

We got out of the rickshaw and walked up to the Taj entrance, where we were greeted with metal detectors and guards...high security!! Surprisingly, though, there wasn't a long line of tourists waiting to get in, and that's kind of what I was expected since it was "prime tourist season." Our guide took money from us to buy us our tickets (Foreigners cost $20, Indians cost $1...quite unfair, but the Indian tourism industry can get away with it). After we passed through the security check, our guide led us into a beautiful red-brick courtyard. But where was the Taj Mahal? It was nowhere to be seen, but our guide quickly reassured us that this was just the entryway to the Taj. As we approached the large red-brick archway that would lead us in to see the Taj, Elana spotted a group of Indian women and kids wearing bright, colorful salwar suits. They were looking our direction, and we were looking theirs, so Elana finally approached them and asked if they would take a picture with her. They were more than thrilled to be asked, and after Elana took a series of shots, they took several shots of their own with Elana. It was a pretty funny scene, since it's the reverse of what usually happens in India (ie. Indians asking foreigners to take pictures with them).

After the brief photo stop, we continued towards the entrance. As we approached, I caught glimpse a twinkle of white marble on the other side of the archway through which throngs of tourists, Indian and foreigner alike, were passing. And then I saw it...the Taj Mahal...white, glimmering in the sun, and exactly how it looks in all the pictures! I didn't think I'd be so impressed, since I'd seen many Taj photos, and often photos show an "enhanced" view of things. However, I can honestly say that seeing the Taj Mahal in person is SO MUCH better than in photos. And even though there were tons of tourists there with us, the place didn't feel packed-to-the-brim and there weren't random people's heads popping up in all my photos (which is usually one of my pet peeves about going somewhere really crowded with tourists). We all took lots of pictures before following our guide to the see the inside of the Taj. Now, in case you didn't know, the Taj Mahal is a tomb, or mausoleum, constructed by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (who also build Red Fort in Delhi, Jama Masjid, etc.) for his much-loved second wife Mumtaz Mahal who died giving birth to her 14th child in 1631 (NOTE: Maternal mortality seems to have been just as big a problem back then as it is today!). Shah Jahan is also buried in the Taj Mahal. If you already knew all that, then you might also know that the actual tombs are not visible to tourists since they are deep underground below the main chamber. The tomb that tourists can visit that sits right inside the main entrance under the big dome is an elaborate fake, with tons of inlaid stones arranged in beautiful mosaics.

Before leading us up the steps to go inside the main chamber of the Taj, our guide gave us these shoe-coverings that looked like they came straight from a surgical unit of a hospital. At most holy sites in India (both Muslim and Hindu), you're required to take off your shoes before entering. However, I guess that in its effort to be "tourist friendly" and not turn away those tourists who have issues with going barefoot, they decided to permit people to wear these scrub-like coverings that go on over your shoes. We put on our new "footwear" and then followed our guide up the stairs towards the main chamber. Apparently our guide takes many groups of foreign tourists to the Taj, since he seemed to be good friends with the guards stationed at the chamber doors and definitely knew how to "maneuver" us through the cramped space packed with people, at times even shooing away other visitors to get us right up close to the intricate mosaic work on the false tomb.

The main chamber is really all there is to see inside the Taj (or at least, that's what our guide told us), so we quickly came back outside and strolled around the shiny white courtyard surrounding the structure. After several more "photo ops," our guide ushered us towards the exit. I've heard that the Taj Mahal changes colors with different types of light at different times of the day, and it would have been fun to stay there for part of the day to see all the colors. But, unfortunately, we had too many other things to see, and too little time to spare, so I'll just have to come back another time (that is, if I want to fork over another $20).

When we got back to our car, our guide told us that he was taking us to a special marble shop where we could buy things made by the same family of craftsmen that had worked on the Taj. I was a bit wary, since I had the feeling that this was just a "commission-making opportunity" for our guide and driver, and I wasn't that interested in buying marble work. However, the others seemed to want to go so we went along with the guide's plan. At the marble shop, we watched 2 artisans demonstrate the "mosaic" technique of inlaying tiny pieces of precious stones in patterns cut into marble slabs. It was pretty interesting, I must admit. Following the demonstration, the shop owner took us downstairs to a red-velvet-carpeted room stocked, wall-to-wall, with different stone and marble items...from coasters to coffee tables...and most of which were extremely costly. We looked around for a while and then Elana decided that she wanted to buy a small marble elephant as a souvenir, so we spent some time helping her pick a good one. With our one purchase made, we thanked the shop owner and went out to the car.

We were all hungry, so we decided that this would be a good time to make a stop for lunch. We asked the guide to take us somewhere he recommended, and he took us to what turned out to be a very good restaurant that, like most everything in Agra, was filled with toursits. The highlight of the restaurant, aside from the delicious food, was the music and dance performance going on outside. The dancer was a little boy who must have been about 10 years old, and who was wearing quite an elaborate Punjabi costume, complete with a turban and thick eye makeup. He was accompanied by an older man playing some musical instrument that I don't know the name of. Each time the restaurant door opened to let anyone in or out, the boy would break out into vigorous Punjabi dancing, bouncing shoulders up and down and jumping from one foot to the other while winking repeatedly at each passerby. While the little boy's show was great fun to watch, I couldn't help but feel a bit of guilt, since this boy probably wasn't thrilled about the fact that he had to stand outside a restaurant all day and dance for wealthy and often-aloof tourists who probably either view him as some "exotic Indian artifact" or ignore him completely. The situation was one more in a series of experiences I've had in India that reminded me of the tragic yet all-too-real stories in Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" which was the first book I read when I got to India and which has definitely influenced the things that I notice here (I recommend reading it if you have an interest in India).

After some discussion during lunch about our plans for the day, we realized that we probably wouldn't have time to see everything we wanted to see in Agra, so we asked the driver to take us straight to Fatehpur Sikri, the ancient abandoned palace of Mughal Emporer Akbar (Shah Jhan's granddad) and his three wives. Fatehpur Sikri is located about an hours drive away from Agra, but we all really wanted to see it, so we decided to bypass the other Agra sites, like Agra Fort and the Mini Taj, and had to repeatedly tell our guide and driver that we were not interested in doing any more shopping (they tried several times to convince us to let them take us to other stores with "specialty items from Agra"...or, in other words, touristy stores where our driver and guide would have likely received a nice commission for bringing us by). Apparently, our guide was only hired to be with us for the Taj Mahal and Agra sites, so on our way out of town, we thanked him for his time, gave him a tip, and dropped him back off on the side of the road where he would most likely pick up his next tour group.

It only took us about 45 minutes to reach Fatehpur Sikri. When we pulled into the area near the ruins, our driver was quick to call over a man to be our guide. I usually like to explore places myself, without a guide, especially when I don't know how knowledgeable the guide will be about the history of the site I'm seeing. However, we thought we should at least ask how much a guide would cost, and it turned out to be really inexpensive, so we ended up hiring the guide to lead us to the site and show us around. The guide told us that the ruins were quite a climb up the hill and so, he flagged down an auto to take us up the road (just one more example of how in India, people try to spread the wealth among as many others as possible). The auto ride took maybe 5 minutes, but it wasn't nearly as expensive as our 5-minute ride to the Taj Mahal, and it did save us from some uphill walking.

When we entered the site, I was struck by the uniqueness and beauty of the red sandstone buildings which were in extremely good condition, especially considering that they were built almost 500 years ago. Our guide allowed us to look around for a few minutes before telling us a little about the site's history. He explained to us that Mughal Emporer Akbar was equally accepting of all religions (which in India, not to mention at that time in Indian history, was not so common) and thus, had 3 wives, one Hindu, one Muslim and one Christian (I guess there were not enough Jews in India at that time for him to fancy a Jewish wife too). At Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar built a palace for each wife, each one with a different architectural style and character. Our guide took us around to each of the palaces, and at some point during our visit, we decided to turn it into somewhat of a "photo shoot" with our guide as our "official" photographer.

After having fun posing with the ruins, we followed our guide to the Jama Masjid (it seems that most big mosques in India are called Jama Masjids) that was located next to the palace compound. We had to take off our shoes to go inside, which was a new experience for Elana and her friends. I remember the first time I took off my shoes to walk barefoot through a temple...I admit that thoughts of foot infections, not to mention stepping on unnoticed sharp objects, definitely crossed my mind, but then I realized that everyone else was going to be barefoot too and I reasoned that the ground would have to be relatively clean/smooth. Anyway, after some deliberating, we all decided to "take the plunge" and go inside, shoeless. At the mosque, our guide took us into a "temple-like" structure where we were asked to make a donation to buy flowers and a prayer cloth to do some kind of puja. We were also given red and yellow strings that we were supposed to make wishes with as we tied them onto a particular window in the temple. We each waited in line to do our pujas and then tied our "wishing" strings onto two windows that were so covered in red and yellow that it was hard to find a spot to tie anything else. When we got back outside, we looked around the mosque's courtyard a bit more before deciding that we needed to head back to Agra in order to make it back in time for our Christmas Eve dinner reservation. We gave our guide a tip and thanked him for being such a good sport, and for standing in as our photographer during our "photo shoot." And then we hopped back in the car for the ride back to Agra.

Based on a friend's recommendation, Elana, Alex and Ricki had made a dinner reservation at the classy Amar Villas Hotel in Agra. It was definitely one of the fanciest hotels I've seen in India so far, with 4 beautiful marble fountains in the courtyard and posh lounge areas inside. And because it was Christmas Eve, the hotel was all decked out, with everything from a huge Christmas tree with fake presents underneath to the Indian hotel staff singing Christmas carols on the staircase landing. All this, and especially the carol singers, seemed quite surreal and out of place to me. I think it felt so weird both because I've been here in India so long and have gotten more used to the Hindu and Muslim festivals' way of celebrating, and because I'd missed out on the Holiday Season preparations that take over everything in the U.S. starting the day after Thanksgiving. Anyway, the dinner was a delicious treat! I ordered an Indian dish, figuring that if they couldn't do it well here, where could they? The waiters also brought over a scrumptious bread basket (I hadn't seen seeded roles like this since I was back in the U.S.!) that they kept refilling as we gobbled up the bread. We finished dinner around 8:30pm and hurried out to the car for the long drive home.

I think our driver was rightfully a little frustrated that he had to drive us back to Delhi at such a late hour, and I was hoping that he'd be able to stay awake in order to avoid any further accidents on the road (one for the day was quite enough!). Luckily, the ride was uneventful, and we reached the hotel around 1am. I said goodbye to Elana, Ricki and Alex and took a cab back to my hostel for some quick shut-eye.

The next morning (Christmas morning), we met at my friends' hotel at 8am. When we went out to the car, the driver told us that our guide for the day wouldn't arrive until 9am, so we had an hour to kill. We decided to check out email, and it's a good thing we did because by pure coincidence, I got an email from my friend Aditi who just happened to be in Delhi visiting her cousins. I knew Aditi had been planning a trip to India, and we tried to coordinate seeing each other, but it seemed like it wouldn't work, since she was supposed to attend weddings in South India and then leave from Mumbai. So I was happily surprised when I got her email telling me that her plans had changed and that she was currently in Delhi for a few days. I wrote her back that "coincidentally" I was in Delhi too and would love to see her before my train back to Lucknow that night.

We went back out to the parking lot to meet our guide, who introduced himself as "Alan" and was quick to let us all know that he was a Brahmin. I know I haven't talked much about Caste in my blog entries so far. I think it's because I still don't know that much about the Caste System in India...probably because, like racism in the U.S., it's something that's so embedded and "taken for granted" in Indian society that most Indians choose not to discuss it, even though it plays a large role in determining how people live, what jobs they have, what opportunities are available to them, how much discrimination they face, how much power they hold in society...the list could go on for a while. Anyway, hearing Alan say "you know, I'm a Brahmin" made me kind of angry. It seemed like he really wanted us to know that he was from the Brahmin Caste and that being a Brahmin, he was, obviously, superior...at least that was my interpretation. It was also irritating because it's not like people usually go around introducing themselves by their Caste, though often Indians know what Caste others of from based on their last name or other defining characteristics. Anyway, that was my first impression of Alan, and it probably colored my opinion of him for the rest of the day.

The first place Alan took us was the famous Jama Masjid in Old Delhi, since it was closed on Sunday when they tried to go. This was my second trip to the Mosque, but it was still fun to climb to the top of the minaret for that amazing view of Delhi.

After visiting the mosque, we went to Rajghat, the memorial to and final resting place of Gandhi. Aside from the beautiful park surrounding the black marble memorial stone, there wasn't much else to see. However, when we were ready to go, our guide Alan was nowhere to be found. This turned out to be a theme throughout the day...he just kept wandering off and making "important " calls on in cell phone when he was supposed to be showing us around.

Upon leaving Rajghat, we went in search of a camera store where Ricki could buy a new memory card for her camera and ended up at Khan Market, the upscale market popular with expats that I've been to several times before. I remembered that Fab India, a nice, modern home and clothing store, had a shop in Khan Market. Based on Indian prices, Fab India is somewhat expensive, but they also have a huge variety of clothes that are generally well-made and stylish, so I thought that Elana, Ricky and Alex might like to check it out. I was right, they seemed to love Fab India and bought several things for themselves and friends. Then Alan took us to a restaurant that was owned by one of his friends. It was another "tourist-filled" spot, but nothing too remarkable. I ordered Chinese, for a change, hoping that it wouldn't be too spicy (since, as some of you may know, Chinese food in India is always spicy!).

We headed to the National Museum next. The museum was huge, with room after room of archaeological artifacts, sculptures, paintings, etc. Although I'm usually a fan of museums, I get frustrated when there aren't labels on the items on display because then I have no context for what I'm looking at. While certain pieces in the museum were labeled and dated, most things weren't, so I didn't feel the need to spend too long in the galleries. While I was in the museum, my friend Aditi texted me with her Delhi phone number, so I went outside to call her and we made a plan to meet at her cousin's house after my day of sightseeing was over.

As we were about to leave the museum, we noticed a temporary exhibition space tucked away in a part of the museum we hadn't seen before. The exhibit was a wonderful collection of paintings and textiles depicting the blue Hindu god Krishna, and I'm glad we didn't miss it! And, next to the exhibit space, we discovered the museum shop. I love museum shops! They always have the most eclectic collection of things and are often reasonably priced. We all spent a while browsing in the shop, and while looking around, I noticed some pretty-looking boxes containing different series of tiny clay figures depicting important figures in India's history. Yes, they were totally touristy (though I guess they could also be considered folk art), but I liked them, so I bought the "revolutionary leaders of India" series, including figures of Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar, etc. My only qualm was that all the figures were men, and I know that India had a least a couple female revolutionary leaders!

With our purchases in hand, we left the museum and went in search of Alan and our driver, both of who seemed to have vanished with the car. After a good 15 minutes of searching, during which we found lots of cars that looked identical to ours, we spotted Alan, on the phone (as usual).

Back in the car, the driver took us to Humayan's Tomb, something that I had wanted to see for a while! The Tomb was beautiful and looked much like the Taj Mahal, though in red. Alan led us around the tomb, not really telling us anything much about it, but telling us that we should "make enjoy" (I think he meant "enjoy yourselves") which sort of became the "theme word" for the rest of the day. We wandered around the tomb for a while, taking pictures and having fun talking to Alan about his family and other topics of interest.

We left the tomb around 5pm or so and headed back to Elana, Ricki and Alex's hotel. Tonight they were going to dinner at a famous Delhi hotel, and though I know it would have been fun to join them, I also really wanted to see Aditi. So, when we returned to the hotel, we settled our accounts with the driver (since Elana, Ricki and Alex were heading to Goa the next morning) and said goodbye.

Because it was late, I decided to hail an auto rickshaw to take me straight to Aditi's cousin's house, rather than going back to my hostel first to drop stuff off. One reason I'm glad I don't live in Delhi is that it's almost impossible to get an auto at certain times day. This was one of those times...around 5:30pm...the height of the after-work rush hour. After about 15 minutes of standing and flailing my arm desperately at any auto that passed, an empty one finally pulled up the curb. Although my driver didn't seem 100% certain of where he was going, I figured that it would be at least another 10 minutes before another auto came along, so I got in and hoped that I could call Aditi and have her help us navigate the way to her cousin's house. On second thought, maybe I should have waited for another auto, since getting to where I was going (which looked pretty close on the map) ended up taking over an hour. First we got stuck in lots of traffic, then my auto driver said he had to stop for gas, and then I think we drove the wrong direction because my driver didn't understand the directions I was giving him (even though I was speaking what I knew to be correct Hindi). At one point, I called Aditi and her mom got on the phone with my auto driver to direct him...but that seemed to only do minimal good. Finally, I asked him to pull over and ask a few people, since I figured that we must be in the vicinity of where we were headed. I've learned that in India, asking multiple people and taking the directions that the majority of people give is kind of what you have to do, since everyone tries to be helpful and will point you in SOME direction, even if they have no idea where you're asking about. After pulling over a series of different times and asking several different people, we finally entered the neighborhood where Aditi's cousin lived and began looking at the house numbers. My driver seemed to be getting a bit exasperated and probably wanted to get rid of me, so I was especially glad when I spotted the house. I paid and thanked the driver, and then went in to meet Aditi.

The house was beautiful inside, with lots of modern art hanging on the walls. Aditi was upstairs getting ready for a party for one of her relatives. When I arrived she quickly finished getting ready and then we had tea and talked for almost an hour! Since Aditi's family is from India, we had a common point of reference, and I was able to share things with her about my experiences that someone who hadn't been to India before wouldn't understand as well. It was fun to tell her about all the adventures I've been having in India, and to hear about her adventures back in my former city, Boston!! Seeing Aditi was great, though this brief connection to my life back in the U.S. also made me miss everyone back home!

When Aditi and her family had to leave for her relative's party, they arranged for the driver to drop me off near the train station, so I didn't have to risk exasperating another rickshaw driver . I sat in a coffee shop for a while and then headed over to the train station with plenty of time to spare. Like my ride to Delhi, the train ride home was fine and uneventful, and as usual, I slept the entire way back to Lucknow.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1202472001/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1202472001/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1202472001/tpod.html Sat, 09 Feb 2008 05:31:31 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Lucknow, India

Hi Everyone!!

I know it's been quite a long time since my last blog post...I apologize and can only offer the excuse that I've been swamped with work, who would have thought?

So, to try to make up for being such a slacker on my blog entries, I've uploaded a short video that I created to show the other AJWS fellows a little about my life in Lucknow during our recent midpoint retreat in Mumbai/Thailand (don't worry...I'm working on a blog entry about the trip that will be ready soon...I hope!). All the fellows made slideshows and showed eachother pictures of our lives in our various respective parts of India. The activity was titled "My Life is Like...Whoa," which, in my opinion, is fitting for the crazy, wonderful, frustrating, etc. experiences we've all had so far.

To watch the video, click on the Photos, Videos, MP3s link next to the title of this entry. It might take 5-10 minutes for the video to download, but good things come to those who wait :), so enjoy!

Hope everyone's doing well!!

xx
Rachel
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1198916640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1198916640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1198916640/tpod.html Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:43:37 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Kushinagar, India

The week before Christmas, I had the opportunity to go on my first "field visit" with my NGO. I had been wanting to go on a field visit since I started in September, since it's important to me to meet the people on whose behalf my organization works. So, when I was told that my long-awaited field visit was going to happen during the week before Christmas, I was thrilled! My colleague Sangeeta and I were going out to Kushinagar, another district of Uttar Pradesh, to spend 3 days visiting some of the villages where one of our partner organizations had been working to form women's health and rights groups. The main purpose of our visits (as I understood it) was to meet with these women's groups, talk to them about their experiences getting (or, in most cases, no getting) their government-entitlements (ie. Ration cards, maternal health care, unemployment compensation, etc.), and educate them about their rights and how to demand these entitlements from their local village headmen (called Pradhan). Of course, Sangeeta would be doing all the talking and I would be mostly observing (and taking pictures, of course).

Our journey began at around 10:30pm on Monday night when I met Sangeeta at the train station for our overnight train to Gorakhpur, another district of UP that's about an hour away from Kushinagar. Apparently there are no trains that run to Kushinagar, so we would have to take a train to Gorakhpur and then a bus or car the rest of the way. Sangeeta told me that Gorakhpur wasn't the train's final stop, so we wouldn't be able to sleep too soundly because we didn't want to miss our exit.

One thing I've gotten really good at here in India is being able to sleep on trains! I usually go to bed almost immediately after I get settled and can sleep at least 4 or 5 hours without waking up. This train ride was no different. A few minutes after I made my bed and laid down I was out cold...only to be woken up at around 4:30am by Sangeeta who herself had just gotten up and realized that the train had stopped. She asked another passenger where we were and it must have been our lucky day because he said "Gorakhpur." The train had arrived early, which is usually unheard of in the "often-running-late" Indian railway system. Not wanting the train to pull away from the station with us still on it, we quickly shuffled on our shoes, grabbed our bags and dashed out the door and onto the platform.

Sangeeta led the way down to the station entrance where we had to get a cycle or auto rickshaw to our partner organization's Gorakhpur office. Surprisingly, there were several cycle rickshaw walas (drivers) standing around outside the station, so we hailed one and smooshed in (luggage and all) for the long ride to the partner org.'s office. The roads, of course, were pretty empty at 5:00am, but luckily we were able to flag down a man out for a morning walk to ask directions. We reached the partner org. around 5:15am. The gate was latched shut, so Sangeeta and I attempted to undo the latch. We made so much noise in the process of attempting to open the gate that the gatekeeper woke up and came out of his little house to meet us. After we explained what we were doing there at 5:15 in the morning, the gatekeeper opened the gate and led us into the organization's "compound." Compound is really the only way to describe the partner organization's offices. Although it was dark when we entered, I could see that the grounds were well-groomed, with tons of potted plants and trees. The organization's offices and training rooms were housed in several large, yellow, concrete buildings. Sangeeta had told me that this partner organization was a Christian group that led trainings for villagers in the area. The big cross and Jesus pictures on the walls of the buildings made that clear, but I couldn't help but feel that these Christian symbols were somewhat out of place here in India. I know that there is a growing Christian population here, but so far I hadn't run into any Christians here in Lucknow, and I wondered if Christian Indians incorporate any Hindu beliefs or rituals into their practice of Christianity, kind of like I've seen among Indigenous groups practicing Catholicism in Latin America.

Anyway, the gatekeeper went to check on something and then led us up to one of the guest rooms (usually for people attending trainings at the organization) where we both went to sleep for another couple of hours.

We woke up around 8am and went downstairs to the "Mess" to have breakfast and meet the Father who directed the organization. It just so happened that the Father, who spoke perfect English, had just gotten back from a sightseeing trip to NYC, so we spent a while talking about New York and the tall buildings and the snow. The Father then arranged for one of the organization's vehicles to take us to the organization's field office in Kushinagar so we could make it in time for our 10:30am meeting that Sangeeta had told me about. As we were heading towards the car, we crossed paths with a group of about 10 village women wearing their beautiful sarees and with their "signature" large gold nose ring in their left nostril. They all, almost in unison, touched their hands together to greet me with "Namaste." Then they erupted into lots of questions for me, few of which I understood. I smiled, said Namaste back to them several, and tried to speak a bit of Hindi to tell them that I was visiting from my NGO in Lucknow. Then we said goodbye and made our ways towards the car.

The one word I'd use to describe our 1.5 hour ride to Kushinagar is bUmPy! The road was definitely in bad shape and we bounced and bumped over god knows how many potholes for almost the whole way. I'm glad we were in a big car, though, since braving that road in a cycle or auto rickshaw would have been even more "jostling" of an experience.
When we arrived at the Kushinagar field office (also like a compound), we were greeted by two very sweet, young nuns (both spoke some English) who ushered us into their office for tea with the Father who directed the site. The father was very nice and asked us about our visit and our plans. After tea, a few other people showed up and we had a "planning meeting" (as far as I could tell that's what it was, but it was all in Hindi, so I'm not 100% sure). After the meeting Sangeeta explained to me that soon women leaders from each of the local villages would arrive for a leaders meeting. While we were waiting for the women to arrive, the Father showed me around the enormous school that the organization runs at their Kushinagar site. The school has 1,700 students from grade 1 to grade 10, and serves mainly Hindu families, since most people living in that area are Hindu, not Christian. As we walked through the school grounds, the kids were at recess, and it seemed that they couldn't help but stare at this strange white person walking through their play yard...Luckily by now I'm used to all the stares!

By the time I came back from the quick tour of the school, many of the village women had arrived and were getting seated around the edges of a large cloth laid out on the ground in the courtyard. Most of the women looked like they were in their 40s or even 50s, though there were a few women who seemed to be in their mid-late 20s and early 30s (Warning: I have no idea if this is an accurate estimation of their age...I could be totally off). Like the woman we had seen that morning at the Gorakhpur office, all of these women wore brightly-colored sarees, had gold nose rings, and used red bindis and a red line of Henna down the part in their hair to signify that they were married. A couple of the women had brought along their kids, including one extremely cute baby wearing black coal (Kajju) around its eyes to "protect it from evil spirits."
I took off my shoes and sat down next to Sangeeta, fully aware that the women were staring at me (though, why shouldn't they be....it's not every day that a strange-looking white woman comes to visit). Sangeeta began by giving an introduction (in Hindi, of course) and asking each of the women to introduce herself by saying her name, village and women's group (I learned later that these women were already part of organized women's groups in their villages). When it came to my turn to speak, I said (in as complete Hindi as possible) that my name is Rachel and that I am from America but now living in Lucknow and working with Sangeeta at our NGO. I'm not sure that the women understood me, since my accent's so bad, but I think that they appreciated my attempt to speak in their language.

The rest of the meeting was pretty much unintelligible to me since it was all in Hindi, but I did get some impression about what was going on by picking up a word here or there and observing the women's facial expressions, body language and dynamism as they spoke and listened. I was impressed by the women's eagerness to participate and share about their experiences, and I remember that at several points in the meeting, at least 5 women were talking at the same time and Sangeeta had to remind them the take turns. Of course I had to document this experience, both for my NGO and my own selfish reasons, so I had Sangeeta ask the women if I could take some photos of their meeting, to which they agreed.

The meeting went on for almost 3 hours, and towards the end, one of the Sisters from our partner organization kept motioning for me to come inside for lunch. After the meeting ended, the Sisters eagerly ushered me and Sangeeta into the dining room where a delicious Indian lunch was awaiting us. We were both hungry, so the home-cooked meal just hit the spot.

After lunch, Sangeeta and I sat down and she gave me a brief recap of what happened during the meeting. Since Sangeeta's English isn't that great (though it's nearly fluent compared to my Hindi), I don't think I got a full picture of what everyone said at the meeting, but I was able to understand the gist of what took place and get some of my questions answered. From what I observed, many of the women had something to say and were eager to participate in the discussion. There seemed to be two or three women, including the young mother of the cute baby, who were more vocal (and more respected by the group) than the others, and Sangeeta told me that she noted down these women's names as potential "leaders" for the group. Sangeeta explained that she had asked the women to tell her about their experiences seeking and receiving government entitlements, such as ration cards, job guarantee money (the Indian government passed a law that says people who live below the poverty level are entitled to a certain number of days of work per year, and if they don't have work for that number of days, they are entitled to get money from the government...sort of like "unemployment compensation"), maternal health care, etc. After hearing from the women, Sangeeta informed the women that they had a right to receive these government entitlements which seemed to surprise and excite many of the women. It turns out that many of these women believed that the village headman (Pradhan), who is in charge of distributing and ensuring that the women receive these government entitlements, was giving out the ration cards, job cards, etc. as gifts or charity, and thus they had no idea that they had a legal entitlement to these benefits. I was shocked, but also excited that this first meeting had made such a big impact on the women!

On each of the next 2 days we visited 2 villages where we held meetings with groups of between 15 and 35 women (and sometimes children, teenagers and some men too). In each village, a tarp would be set out on the ground and women would come back from their fields, or from working in their homes, to sit with us for an hour or two and talk about their experiences getting (or not getting) their government entitlements to food, work, and maternal health care. These meetings proceeded pretty much like the first meeting, with lots of active participation from the women in attendance! Of course, I got a lot of stares, since foreigners don't visit the villages too frequently. But in spite of the staring, I felt so welcomed by the women in the each of the villages. When we arrived in each village, women getting us at our car with smiling faces and warm "Namastes," and when we left, it often seemed like the whole village would come out too see us off, waving to us as we drove away.

I won't describe every village visit, but will give a picture of my experience in the first village we visited, since that one was, for me, the most "educational." On the morning of the second day of our visit, Sangeeta, 2 partners from the Kushinagar organization, and I got into the organization's big SUV and headed off for our first village visit. We drove for about 30 minutes before turning off the main road onto a long, dirt path that seemed to lead straight into the sugarcane fields. As we drove through the fields of sugarcane, the dirt road narrowed and I began to question how this big SUV would be able to fit down this ever-more-narrow lane. Once we passed the sugarcane, beautiful mud-brick houses and thatched-roof huts started popping up along the side of the road. The houses became more common as we drove along, and it seemed like we were entering the village. Somehow the car managed to take us all the way into the village center (after some tight-squeezes along the road with ox-carts, hay bushels, and a few bicycles), and as we stepped out of the car, we were greeted by several of the village women who'd attended our meeting yesterday, as well as many curious children.

We had arrived a bit early, so the women invited us on a little "tour" of their village. They led me and Sangeeta down a small path past several houses, a herd of water buffalo, stacks of freshly cut sugarcane and many bushels of hay towards one of the women's houses. When we reached the house, they motioned for us to sit down on a wooden bed/bench and brought us fresh cow's milk to drink. Now, I knew that I would be offered food when going out to the village, since it's the universal sign of hospitality. However, I was also somewhat worried about getting sick, since I know that my stomach isn't that strong and the standards of cleanliness in the village aren't what I'm used to. So, I tried to decline the milk, telling the women I had eaten a very big breakfast, but thanking the women for their generous offer. However, they kept insisting, and Sangeeta told me that it would be insulting if I didn't take it. So, I reluctantly accepted the cup and took a few small sips, hoping that I wouldn't regret this decision tonight!

After I had finished about half the milk, it was time for the meeting, so we all walked back to the village center where a blue tarp had been laid on the ground and about 25 women and children had gathered. Sangeeta led the meeting like she did yesterday, first asking everyone to introduce themselves and then asking them to tell her about their experiences with receiving ration cards, job cards and maternal health care. During the meeting, Sangeeta had a long conversation with an older woman who seemed very distressed. Sangeeta told me later that this woman's daughter-in-law had died in labor 2 days ago after the ANM (Ancillary Nurse Medic) gave her 13 injections while trying, unsuccessfully, to deliver her baby. It's hard to hear, but this sort of thing happens daily here in India (and in U.P. especially). The ANMS are often untrained, treat the village women poorly, and only want to make a buck. Seeing this woman and hearing about her daughter-in-law's death made me angry, and also made me think that the work I'm doing is valuable, although I am also pulled to do more...the question is, what can I do to help these women in a way that will be create sustainable and lasting improvement in their lives?? I'm working on figuring out an answer to that...but I'm open for suggestions if anyone has a good idea!

After about 2 hours, Sangeeta brought the meeting to a close by thanking the women for coming and telling them that she would send them some forms that SAHAYOG created to help women document local cases of denied government entitlements and negative maternal health outcomes. Since I had sat there for 2 hours without saying anything, the women began pointing and motioning at me to speak. In my broken Hindi, I couldn't really express what I wanted to say to them, so I said thank you in Hindi and then asked Sangeeta to tell the women that I really valued the opportunity to attend their meeting, that I was thrilled to see how much everyone participated in the meeting, and that I learned a lot from them. As we were leaving, the women asked me (though Sangeeta) if I could give them a job, or take them with me to Lucknow (or to the U.S., that wasn't quite clear). Their question made me feel so helpless...what could I do for these women?? They had so many basic needs that were not being met...how could I make a difference, where would I be able to help and where would my help be needed most? I know that I can't solve everyone else's problems, but I do feel compelled to use my privileged position as a "rich-in-their eyes," white, American to do something.
Although I was thinking all of these things when they asked me their question, all I could do at the moment was to lamely tell them, through Sangeeta, that of course I would give them a job if I had any jobs to give, but unfortunately I did not even have a paying job myself at the moment. I also added, to try to get their spirits up a bit, that I would use the information they provided to us to try to create policy changes in India , since that's the goal of this maternal health survey I'm working on at SAHAYOG.

The rest of that day, and the next day, was spent visiting a few other villages very similar to the first, coming back to the partner organization's field office for lunch, and spending the rest of the evening reading with a break in the middle for dinner. The Father and Sisters at the Kushinagar field office took very good care of Sangeeta and me throughout our 3-day stay, making sure we had at least 3 hearty meals a day, plus teatime, and arranging all of our transportation to/from the villages, and back to Gorakpur and the train station at the end of our trip. When we left, Sangeeta and I both thanked them so much for being so caring and generous.

In fact, the only unpleasantness during our trip was the 2-hour delay of our train back to Lucknow which left us sitting in the Gorakhpur train station until 12:45am. Sangeeta and I made it back to Lucknow around 9:00am and, because we had to go into work in about an hour, we quickly said goodbye and ran home to shower and change before heading back to the office for a normal, and slightly less exciting, day of work.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1186991700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1186991700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1186991700/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 04:10:53 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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New Delhi, India

After over 24 hours of flying, and a nail-biting transfer from my delayed flight to London to my connection to New Delhi, I am have arrived in India saftely and in one piece (and even with all my luggage!).

Thanks to a sweet British Airways staff woman who met me at my gate at Heathrow, I made my connection to the New Delhi flight, which was located in a terminal half-way across London, with only 35 mintues between flights.  I'm so glad I made it because I was able to travel with 7 of the other fellows who were also onboard.  They all seem like wonderful people and I'm excited to get to know them all better during orientatino over the next few weeks!

When we arrived in New Delhi, Anna, the AJWS Field Officer, met us at the airport.  We loaded into 2 vans, piling our luggage on top, and set off for the youth hostal where we're spending the night.  As we were pulling out of the airport, we saw a wild green parrot fly out of a tree, while driving we passed a cow standing in the middle of the road, and we were constantly bombarded with children selling things at our car window when we were stoppped in traffic.

New Delhi is enormous, HOT, humid, packed with people and a lot like I've seen in pictures and movies. 

Due in part to the jet lag and to my inability to speak or understand Hindi, I am feeling a bit disoriented, but I hope that with time I'll become more comfortable.

I definitely packed WAY too much, so I'm trying to figure out what I can leave behind in Delhi before going to Orientation at a Hill Station in Musoorie (in Utarranchal Province).  All the fellows will be together at Orientation for 1 full week, then will be back in New Delhi for 4 days, and then the group will split up into 2 groups for language training.  I'm in the group for North India and am going to learn Hindi...I can't wait to be able to communicate even a little!

I can't write much now because I'm sharing the internet time with 2 of the other fellows, but I'll write more when I'm back in Delhi in 2 weeks on a break from our Orientation Retreat.

Hope all of you are doing well and keeping cool!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1196782080/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1196782080/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1196782080/tpod.html Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:13:01 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Lucknow, India

A few weeks ago I began taking Kathak lessons. Kathak is a form of Indian classical dance, and it just so happens that the Lucknow style of Kathak is world famous, so Lucknow has at least one claim to fame.

I'm taking class with 2 other American girls and a British girl who are part of a group of 8 or 9 Americans and Brits studying Urdu at an Urdu language institute here in Lucknow. Class meets three times a week, which is a bit intense, but I'm enjoying it. The only downside is that our teacher, who usually teaches children, has a very tiny room in which to teach us. Because of the space constraints, the four of us often feel like we can't extend our arms all the way or do the movements full out or else we may very well slap each other. We've somewhat solved the problem by taking turns practicing the larger, faster moves like spins, but it's still a bit tight.

Kathak is, in many ways, the antithesis of many other types of dance. Let me clarify: Most forms of dance that I've taken part in encourage dancers to be "soft and light footed," and to try to not make any sounds as they move across the floor. However, the core facet of Kathak is the stomping patterns that the dancers make with their feet, and the harder they stomp, the better. Also, while in most forms of dance, especially modern and ballet, dancers are expected to have a deep foot arch, Kathak dancers are better off the flatter their feet are, since it's easier to make the requisite slapping sound while stomping if you have flat feet. I definitely need to work on making my feet flat! In addition, unlike other forms of dance where your body is supposed to be loose, in Kathak your body must be very stiff, with movement coming only from your feet, arms and eyebrows, though I haven't quite understood how to do the eyebrow part yet.

Our teacher is great, and an amazing dancer! She doesn't speak much English, and I don't speak much Hindi, so I don't completely understand everything she says in class. But luckily, my Urdu-speaking friends can clarify for me if I look realy lost (FYI - Urdu and Hindi are almost the same language, except that they use different alphabets for reading/writing). I'm glad I can provide some comic relief for my teacher, though, since she gets a good laugh out of my attempts at pronouncing the Hindi words in the chants and songs we're learning.

On Sunday, Oct. 28th, our teacher and her Kathak troupe had a show at the state theater in Lucknow, called Rabindralya, and the three of us decided to go to see what "real" Kathak dance looks like. When we arrived at the theater, we were escorted in and told to sit close to the front in seats that looked as if they had been reserved for special guests. We didn't complain though, since we had a great view from where we were seated. The theater was huge and old, although oddly, the ceiling looked like something out of a modern art museum from the 1970s or 1980s.

Before the show began, a couple famous Lucknowites (I still have no idea who they were) came up to the stage to light to ceremonial oil lamp. After they took their "seats of honor" in the front row, a woman wearing a beautiful sari came up on stage and gave a long introduction to the performance, all in Hindi of course. By the time the show started, we had been in the theater for about a half hour. But it was worth the wait, because the show itself was amazing!! The dancing seemed to be a combination of modern dance and traditional Kathak, not at all what I had expected. And the costuming and lighting effects were also quite spectacular, with lots of beautiful colors, shadow effects, etc.

The first "act" featured a dance by my teacher's troupe which told a story about the relationship between a woman and a man who fall in love and get married, but then something happens (I couldn't understand quite what) and they are pulled apart. Because the story was narrated in Hindi, I couldn't pick up much about the storyline and decided to just focus on the dancing. My teacher was the "lead dancer" in this piece, playing the part of the main woman in the story. She was fantastic, and though I know that few months of lessons won't teach me how to dance nearly as well as her, it made me feel good to know that I'm learning from such a talented dancer!

During the second act, a different dance troupe composed of 5 women performed a more traditional Kathak piece, though once again I couldn't really understand the story being narrated. Unlike my teacher's piece, this piece was accompanied by live musicians who sat on the side of the stage, including the requisite tabla player. The live music definitely added to the performance.





The next week, I found pictures of my teacher and the performance in the local newspaper. "My teacher's famous," I told my coworkers as I showed the pictures to everyone at my office. I'm definitely excited to be learning from such a "Kathak master."

On Sunday, Nov. 4th, my teacher and her dance troupe had another performance. This one was at a big Mela (festival) about an hour outside of Lucknow, near an area called Barabanki. My friends from class wanted to go, so with help from their Urdu school, they arranged for a car and driver to take us out to the show. A few other people made the trip out with us, and so there were 6 of us "foreigners" all together.
I don't know quite what I was expecting, but I was a bit surprised when, at around 7:30pm, we pulled off the road and into a dirt parking lot. Apparently cars weren't allowed to drive all the way up to the Mela area, so we had to leave the car and driver here and walk with the crowds to the festival grounds. We walked down the dirt road in pitch blackness, only finding our way by keeping our focus on the lights of the festival up ahead. When we arrived at the festival entrance, one of my Urdu-speaking friends asked someone where the dance performance was taking place, and after asking two or three more people along the way, we were able to locate the stage.

The stage was set at the front of a big, bright tent with two separate seating areas. The farther back seating area consisted of plastic chairs placed on each side of a narrow aisle leading towards the stage. About halfway up the aisle towards the stage there was a chain-link fence, and in front of the gate were plush, cushioned sofas and armchairs, a far cry from the plastic chairs located behind the gate.

Assuming that the "posh" area in front of the gate was closed off and reserved for special guests, we headed towards an open section of plastic chairs. Just then, a uniformed guard approached us and exchanged some words in Hindi/Urdu with one of my friends. Apparently, he told her that we should go sit in the front "VIP" section, and he pointed us towards a separate, side entrance that led into the front seating area with the couches and armchairs. We made our way over to the VIP section, which was almost completely empty, and chose a row of couches to sit on. While it was nice to get the good view from the VIP seats, I couldn't help but be aware of the irony of the situation. While the VIP seating area remained almost completely empty throughout the performance, the area with the plastic chairs behind the gate continued to get more and more packed with people until many were forced to stand. However, no one would even have considered allowing some of the non-VIP people to sit in the empty chairs of the VIP section.

During the show, several men came over and took pictures of our group, claiming that they were from a local newspaper. I've gotten somewhat used to people doing this by now, though I'm still tempted to say "Rs 500 for my photo."

The show began with a music performance by a group of five musicians and singers. Then the musicians relocated to the side of the stage and the dance performance began. The performance was very different from the last one we saw, for it was much more of a traditional kathak dance piece. While this performance was also fun to watch, it was not nearly as fabulous or elaborate as the one I'd seen last weekend, due, in part, to the different setting, size of the stage, etc.





At the end of the performance, we looked around for someplace to eat that looked relatively clean, but couldn't find anything other than stands selling huge puffed breads which looked delicious. However, the groups of flies milling around the breads made us wary. So, we decided to forgo eating at the Mela and headed back home.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1195485300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1195485300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/explr9/rsinindia2007/1195485300/tpod.html Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:07:12 -0500 Rachel's Adventures in India

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Lucknow, India

This last Wednesday was my birthday, marking my "official" entry into my mid-twenties. Although I was excited to celebrate my birthday in India, I welcomed the day somewhat reluctantly since this was the first birthday I've spent out of the U.S., away from those of you who usually help me celebrate (thanks for all the emails and cards, by the way!). However, I usually don't make that much of a fuss about my birthday, so I figured that I'd just have a low-key day at work and maybe plan a nice dinner out with a few friends over the weekend. Little did I know that my birthday was to be a day of celebrating and of more sweets than I could possibly eat.

I decided to use my birthday as an excuse to do some baking and to test out a recipe for "stove-top cookies" that I planned to bring into work for my colleagues. So, the night before, I made the dough and cooked the cookies one by one on my tawa, the small round griddle used to make chapattis, paranthas, and other Indian breads (roti). To my surprise, the cookies ended up tasting good, though no one would know that from their slightly blackened appearance. After the cookies worked out, I got ambitious and decided to make frosting to cover the burned cookie tops. Thanks to my blender, whose wonders never cease, I was able to whip up some pretty good frosting too.

My birthday celebrations began early the next morning with a call from my mom as I was walking back from the gym. When I got home from the gym, my landlady presented me with a small box of brownies and pieces of cake, quite a delicacy for India, where sweets are of a totally different variety. And when I got to work, Sharon gave me a box of Indian sweets that she had gotten from the good sweet shop (Mithai Walla) across the street. I knew that I was in for a sugar overload. At the morning staff meeting, everyone somehow seemed to know that it was my birthday, although I only recall telling one or two people. And just in case someone forgot to say happy birthday, one of my colleagues made it his job to remind each new person that joined the meeting.

I had a pretty busy day at work, as I'm helping my boss coordinate a civil society meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health who will be visiting India at the end of the month to report on maternal mortality in the country. So, my work kept me busy until lunch time, when I brought out the frosted cookies I had made to share with everyone. Homemade cookies aren't very common in India, so I had to explain to many of my colleagues what these things were that I had made, and I even did a little coaxing to get them to try my creations. Although they definitely weren't as tasty as cookies made in an oven, I think that most of my colleagues liked the cookies, and I was glad that I finally showed them that I could cook SOMETHING that tastes good (in contrast to my many failed attempts at cooking Indian food).

At the end of the day, my colleagues called everyone into the meeting room. I was trying to finish up something for my boss so that I could leave on time to head to my Kathak class, so I at first thought I could skip out on this meeting since I assumed that, like most meetings, it would be in Hindi and I wouldn't be able to understand much. However, my colleagues insisted that I come, and so I finally agreed and came into the meeting room where everyone was already gathered. I wasn't expecting anything more to be done for my birthday, so I was completely taken by surprise when I saw that the office had organized a birthday party for me, complete with cake, candles, singing, etc. I blew out the candles and helped cut the beautiful little cake. We then sat around and exchanged songs, poems, etc. Some of my colleagues, mostly the men, had what seemed to be "love poems" on their cell phones, which they read aloud to the group, making everyone laugh. One poem in particular is worth mentioning. Unfortunately, I don't remember it word-for-word, but the last sentence went something like "Friends are like pages in a book, but YOU are my index page." Likening someone's lover to a book's "index page," is, in my opinion, not the most romantic metaphor, though it makes sense that my colleague who read this poem is a quantitative research assistant...not exactly the type to use flowery language.

Because I didn't want to skip out on my own party at work, I made it to Kathak about 20 minutes late, but I still managed to get in some practice and was able to share the cookies I had saved with the teacher and my friends from class.

I would say that this birthday experience far exceeded my expectations! And since my cookies were a hit, maybe I'll make them a "birthday tradition" and bring them to work for everyone's birthday, that is, if I can manage to not burn them.
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