Jahlandar, India
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2006
1
7
19
Trip End
Mar 24, 2006
Jahlandar, Punjab,
India
Saturday, March 4, 2006
Well it's been adventure so I'll begin at the beginning of the trip to hell and back.
We checked out of our hotel in Bangkok at 12 noon and squatted by the pool to escape the mid-day heat. By the end of the swimming session I resembled a pink quail's egg. With slightly more colour than normal and freckles in spots I didn't know I could get them. The rest of the day we meandered around Bangkok and watched an enormous aerobic class taking place near the city hall square of "Krungthrepmahanakorn Amornrattanakosin Mahintrayuthaya Mahadilokpob Noparat Rajataniburirom Udomrajanivej Mahasatharn Amornpimarn Awatarnsatis Sakatadtiya Wisanukamprasit" or Prutnam as the locals call the city of Bangkok. We watched children leaving school in their uniforms that are similar to the Japanese Anime? cartoon characters/super heroes, short sleeves with big loose bow ties and blue shorts or skirts.
We walked around Khoa San road a wee bit more and then it was time to depart for the airport.
Our flight was due to leave at 2:45 am but departure was delayed a further 45 min. We should have taken this as a warning!!!! The harbinger of things to come. We finally got air born but 10 minutes into the flight we were turned around and sent back to Bangkok. Never, ever fly Air India. I repeat NEVER EVER FLY AIR INDIA. Even the Indian people laughed when we told them of our troubles. They never fly Air India unless they couldn't avoid the aggravation. We sat on the tarmac for 4 1/2 hours before we were asked to leave the plane. Then we boarded buses and were dropped in the middle of now where. Bangkok has a huge airport. We had to ask several people before we managed to find out where we were supposed to go, find our way through security again and then it was another 4 hours before anyone from Air India bothered to explain what the hell was going on. After waiting over 10 hours and hearing conflicting stories we finally made it on to the original plane, with much trepidation. What was supposed to be a four hour trip to New Delhi, unexpectedly found us in Bombay 6 1/2 hours later. Another trip through security found us boarding 747 to Delhi with now more expected problems. The doors wouldn't close. But eventually after sitting in extreme heat, no A/C, we passed Air One (this was our only brush with Bush) on the tarmac and we were finally headed to Delhi. We arrived at 10 pm local time and of course we missed our train up north. We insisted Air India put us up in a hotel, which they did...but it was a glorified Super Eight. As it turned out, Air India owned the hotel (probably because they were losing a fortune putting up their many disgruntled customers). We were told The Centaur was a 5 star hotel but it was a filthy joint that need a darn good cleaning and a hell of lot of bleach. I ordered a mulligatawny soup and the slop the sent me resembled the soup only in its dish water brown colour and the cannelloni had no similarity to anything I've ever eaten in my life.
We had arranged to take a taxi to Jalahnder, Pujab the next morning. We were told the difference in payment would be slight as it would cost us extra for the last minute tickets and cab fare to the station. But of course...No taxi awaited us in the morning and the price had no jumped to triple the original arranged price. We were so upset we decided to take it anyway. $150 Canadian.
We arrived in Jalandher at 10 pm the next evening, a full 46 hrs after leaving the city of Bangkok proper. It should have taken us approx. 12hrs, at least, according to the original plan to reach Jalandhar. We spent ten hours (quoted six), in the cab with no A/C or shocks to speak of, to drive 430 kms (It would take approx. 31/4 hrs in Canada, or at least here in Alberta - where speed limits are sometimes just a suggestion, he he). It was a rude awakening. The roads in Bangkok were a teaser. This was sheer chaos. Everything you can imagine on a main highway was there. Stray cows, horses, oxen and donkeys pulling overloaded carts, bicycles, scooters and motorbikes with up to 5 passengers, three-wheelers (tuk-tuks here) trucks, buses, cars, SUVs, dogs and people on foot. You can't drive here without a horn, brakes are negotiable. The few street lights, red lights, are scrum session with everyone elbowing for space, one inch at a time and honking for the shear sake of noise.
We could not reach anyone on the phone till we made it to town. Every time Romeo called, whether from Bangkok or India, whoever answered the phone hung up because (of course) the spoke little or no English. Or as I later found out...Our accent and accelerated rate of speech was too hard to understand.
Our first night we stayed in the hotel owned by a Punjab ambassador to a European country. This place was equivalent to the first hotel but with better food. All mattresses in India are thin, cardboard thin, no fluffy mattress tops here!!! The people who picked us up were pleasant enough to us, but by God they treated the staff with little more than contempt. One guy had been a cab driver in NYC for 15 years. I guess he saved all his venom for his return. Of course they took advantage of our hosts hospitality and ate and drank (Peter Scot - I'll explain more later) till the wee hours. We probably wouldn't have slept anyway. There was a wedding banquet in the halls below and guests were erratically shooting air born in celebration of the recent nuptials.
They next day 5 of us piled into a compact car and headed to the wedding, 3 hrs away or in India about 50 kms away. The most beautiful buildings in India are in order of importance/impression...car show rooms, banquet palaces and the homes of the rich. Everything else is in some state of decay. India is a beautiful country, but blinders are needed.
The wedding banquet was held outdoors which was a good idea because the inside of the "palace" was pretty gruesome. The toilets alone sent cold shivers up me spine.
There were scores of colourful tents set up with more food and booze imaginable, a stage of dancers who entertained for 5 or so hours in the heat of the day and a ton of servants waited at your beck and call. Kudos to them all... The food and drink tents kept moving from the front area to the back then to front again.
The wedding itself was held in a temple a few kms away. It was a very simple building in the midst of repair. Its dome was being rebuilt. The inside walls were unadorned and white, women in swaths of coloured Punjabi suits and saris provided the eye candy. A group of classical musicians played and sang throughout the ceremony as did the priest? behind the simple alter? draped in gold cloth. The Bride wore a beautiful red sari, decorated with gold thread with crystal and pearl beads, hennaed hands and arms and the yellowiest of gold jewellery. The red turbaned groom's suit was made of finely spun silk, gold and white richly blended and embroidered. In a Sikh ceremony, the bride and groom literally tie the knot. They walk around the alter 4 times, aided by family, in symbolic gesture of what the road ahead, what marriage really entails. It was very moving and thankfully very brief. Unlike some of the orthodox weddings I have been too.
Outside the premises, security guards kept the beggars away but they congregated around the temple and outskirts waiting a rambling guest. They would run and converge on us foreigners in the blink of an eye and they did, once, was enough of a lesson. There were line ups to take my picture. I'm a rare commodity in these places. White and Female. I was trying to be polite but Romeo and several friends had to rescue me or the sessions would have never ended.
After the afternoon attractions, we were invited to a private club. There we met the mayor of rural Jalandher and his cronies. More Peter Scot. He was everywhere. Indian scotch served up always in the same fashion. First came the highball glasses, then a bottle of water, then two bottles of soda then Peter would arrive followed by snacks. Same story every time. Indians don't eat dinner or lunch, they eat snacks.
We met another friend at the wedding who took us under his wing and brought us back to his house, where we stayed for the next few days. His father is a state government minister and federal MP as was his father before him. A family institution since the beginning of Indian independence. So from that time on we had police escorts, a roomy governemnt SUV with a red revolving/strobe light on top and A/C to drive around in. It was quite nice actually. The disparity between the rich and powerful could not have been more obvious though. Even beggars generally gave us a miss.
If vehicles didn't move when expected, the army guards would jump out and point a gun in the offenders face forcing them to promise never to make the same mistake again. One man, a truck driver, even cried and begged for his life when confronted with an ak47. We think he was spared because of us, but then...we could be placing our importance rather high.
However, the vehicles have precedence. A vehicle is allowed to pass once, if it slows down and then tries to pass again, its good-bye sailor. You don't get a second chance.
The next morning we were awoken at 4:00am. The local priest in the village temple started his prayers, over the loudspeaker; he spoke a little and then sang the holy book words till day break. Then came the street vendors peddling their bicycle through the village singing their wares. Each with a different tune, a harmony of exotic melodies.
The minister's house is huge with courtyards and balconies, a guest house and meeting house across the pathway, a school for girls and a memorial garden set up in his parent's memory are also within walking distance within his village. The village borders the city and is really a special subdivision with specially chosen neighbours.
The next night we went to the evening wedding reception, paid for by the groom's father, an even fancier shindig. Again held outdoors at another "5 Star" hotel/banquet palace", Tonnes of food under more beautiful tents, drinks and entertainment. I actually shot a gun into the air and almost deafened myself and shortly after was stopped by the second in command chief of the Police Rapid Action Force (for the 7 lower Indian states) and given a stern warning. Not, as I erroneously thought, because I was a woman, but because it is illegal for anyone.... There are signs everywhere forbidding such action but not one man paid attention. Thankfully, he is the groom's father's brother so he let my indiscretion slide with a smile.
We met a guru dressed in the finest silk outfit, who had sitar students in T.O., the family hosting him were all doctors but he was the "most auspicious guest".
We were taken to villages; saw how farmers lived and how they farmed.
Punjab at this time of year is like Alberta mid summer, mid twenties during the day - cool at night. They too have 4 distinct seasons but unlike ours, theirs are Hot, Foggy, Rainy and typical prairie summer. Punjab or all of India really is flat, Saskatchewan type flat but Punjab has water, unlike the rest of the country. When we flew from Bombay to Delhi we could see the land is dry, brown from above. It kinda looks like the back of an old peasant's hand. Slightly rounded mountains and shallow valleys predominant the sun burnt landscape.
In a country where water is a premium, I was shocked to see the complete disregard for water. Every waterway is polluted, canals and rivers are dumps. I saw a dead dog, bloated and floating, in the same water children played in. It's beyond disgusting. In Bangkok any standing water, including the smallest plant pot has fish to number the amount of mosquitoes, not so in India. Standing water there is putrid.
I will write more in a day or two.
I've been on the net for about 2 hrs and I want to go and do some stuff. I was going to go swimming but our so much of our stuff had been pilfered.
The Dude and I were also very, very sick. Up until two hrs ago, neither of us had eaten a thing in three days. Delhi Belly got us. Sadly the second we arrived in Bangkok we were affected. The minute I hit the heat I was puking. I honestly don't think I've ever been that ill. We still have the odd pain but I hope the end is in sight. We spent the first two and half days holed up in our overnight train compartment and then the hotel room for an entire day. We think it was food we had eaten in the Delhi airport. The restaurant was gross and the tomato soup was sour. For the first time, waiters didn't hover either. The restaurant was probably owned by Air India. So I guess we deserved it.
