10.07: INDIA: Letter of a Solo Female Traveler

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  Delhi, India
Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Tuesday, Oct 7: Delhi

Dear Mom & Dad,


I admit - as terrifying and dangerous as it can be to be a first time solo female traveler traveling through developing countries, there are also a great advantages I'm experiencing.

The first - No remote controls. You are forced to interact with people and are no longer an observer or passive participant of your travels. You're almost reliant upon strangers as you are vulnerable and you must with great caution, distinguish between trustworthy advice and lie. And while you try your best to be on your toes about things, there's a huge language barrier & a level of "trust" in strangers you have no choice but surrender to. This makes you vulnerable to being fucked with! One rickshaw driver in Varanasi dropped me far from my hotel because I haggled him down to the local price vs. the tourist's & he was not happy with that. My intuition told me that something "felt wrong" but being foreign to the mass of crazy alley-streets w/ no signs, how was I supposed to be certain? So I did in my mind the wisest and ONLY thing I could do to ensure justice on some level- before handing him my money, I said "If this is not the right place and you cheat me, then this is ...Karma!" The driver nodded agreement, I paid him & he went off on his way, leaving me in Fuck-you, Goodbye-land! Sometimes, you take a risk and make mistakes - this only enforces the learning of what your surrounding environment and the "local way" can truly be about!


Secondly- you must survive upon your own RESOURCEFULNESS while learning COMPASSION.  Most travelers and soloists are in the same backpacking boat as you,
feeling equally naked, equally budget-minded and equally excited to chatter about their
adventures or observations on this foreign-ness they're experiencing. Some travelers aid you in the passing of time, offer insights and advice to the cultural ways or are there to momentarily conspire with you in "The Art of Stretching your Rupee" (ie. Li from China). You meet travelers from every part of the world and most of the backpacking/traveler types  come from differing economies, lives and longer days of travels. The gift you learn through this is compassion and open-mindedness, that not everyone sees the way you do or has a spending pocket such as yours.  With Li, she was doing most of her travels via local bus or train because a $100 flight while allowing for more time to sightsee a city, was way TOO expensive. She even passed on a 100Rs (roughly $2USD) boat ride on the Ganges, even though it was something she wanted to do and I offered to split the cost with her because I didn't mind taking it again. Sometimes you forget that what is "CHEAP" for you is "NOT CHEAP" for others, even when they're your peers...  You learn to watch your expensive tongue and be sensitive and respectful of  the fact, Hey- wake up! ALL PEOPLE aren't YOU.


Thirdly- you discover the world, while round, is also VERY small. When meeting people on the road, you inevitably trip upon those No-Way! coincidences and ironies. On my last day in Varanasi I tripped upon a 6'4" gawk-ward boheme and artsy Frenchboy, Dorian! I told him how I fell in love with this little town that I spent nearly a month in in Southern France, Die & he exclaimed in an exuberant scribbly French accent "Die! Mon Dieu- what a coincidence...that's where I'm from!"

Fourth- Kind hearts. There's a reassurance that you are not alone and that there are angels watching over you (sometimes, in the form of other travelers.) Traveling solo and being female, I feel people admire my strength of spirit and are more compassionate and protective for my well-being and safety than they would be others.  Tonight, arriving back in Delhi, I spent time in the airport & on the plane with an older couple. Doran, a quiet-looking Israeli scientist was traveling with his wife through India after having attended a conference in Hyderbad. I was bonding with his wife through our observations of poverty in the Varanasi homes & how I wished I could also experience Rishikesh (they were going there next) as a way to buffet my hectic experience of Varanasi with a sedative, when I noticed over her shoulder that Doran, like myself was a hobby photographer with a wonderful and amazing compositional eye for capturing irony. When I reached Delhi, the couple extended a potential meetup invitation in Rishikesh and a contact number should I get into a tight spot in my travels. In such a short time, this couple had built a firm memory in my heart. And when I left them, they also introduced me to my next pickup companions.

Doran & his wife introduced me to a young Israeli girl who was traveling alone. The Israeli girl asked if I wanted to share an airport cab w/ herself and  Marianne, a French female traveler whom she just met on the plane...(you see where I'm going with this "you pick people up along the way" backpacking/traveler mentality)! When it was discovered that we were all going to the Paharganj area, it felt like my devotion to the Hindu god Ganesh was paying off!

On the Road at last...in the spirit of Jack Keroac
I suggested taking a pre-paid airport taxi- a 175 Rs cab ride was rougly a $4 fare and divided 3 ways, it cost us each about $1 per person!  The girls were holding out for a cab that cost even LESS but finally realized this was probably the cheapest it would come. Riding from the airport to Paharghanj area in Delhi with these ladies worked out great! The cab was alive with regaling travel stories of "Why solo travel is the best way to experience a place, its culture and people!" ( and still a bit of my anxiety about being solo)  Everything is on your OWN terms when you travel alone- NO COMPROMISES and you get to do what YOU want to do without wasting time on the (as Marianne puts it) "touristy crap". My pickups were obviously NOT of the touristy crap sort and it was ludicrous for them to think of paying for their experiences (hence, I DID NOT- repeat- DID NOT reveal that I was stupid enough to pay money for a tour let alone that it was a scam one)  Like me, they have a bit more of a bohemian Jack Keroac mentality towards "the art of traveling". The wanted to experience the freedom of their travels by living off the land and... for free (or close to it)! Afterall, as Marianne put it "why pay a tour where they have a local show me the company prescription of "what India is about", when I can meet and be-friend fellow travelers and locals with whom I can create my own experiences of India with?  This is true.

Somewhere in my early 20s and being an artist, I had come to romanticize other artists' lives and what they lived through in observation and experience in order to arrive at their art- Paul Bowles, Jack Keroac, Larry Rivers, all writers, poets, artists of the beat culture.  Up until this trip, most of my travels have been a bit like this- I'm not "a Planner" or "an Itinerary Survivalist" and definitely NOT "a Tour-ist" by nature!  I'm used to traveling with artists and production crews with a similar boheme agendas and who covet their alone/creative time as well (this trip, previous companions M&D, have been more "tourist" types ). Majority of my experiences are either natural or "accidental" but I trust the device of Instinct and whether great or horrible... in the end, they become experiences I'd NEVER want to forget and are far more fulfilling than any tour could plan.

If I didn't want to experience India- dirty bedsheets, piss-poverty-n-all (& by all means, not saying this is ALL there is to India, but just the forefront of my reactions), then I am best off watching it on the Nat Geo Channel where there are no smells and no extremes suffered unto my bubble. My life is one long luxury vacation compared to my experiences here but the very reason I travel is to NOT experience MY LIFE.

So suck it up! I'm back in Paharganj, staying at an $8/night Dirty-looking Bedsheets #2, the Cozy Inn Hotel! (and secretly still having a both, grand and terrified time!)  ;-)


Love, Chris

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