From Ocean to Ocean

Closure

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 14:14:06 -0400

I have neglected to put up my final thoughts for nearly 2 weeks. Granted, as soon as I returned to the States I went up to first Boston, then Downeast Maine, and then New Hampshire for nearly a week. I’ve still had a week to get this final post made, but I keep procrastinating like it is some kind of school assignment. On a related note, this is the first September I can ever remember where I didn’t go back to school. It’s going to be a strange adjustment.

My trip in India closed out with a torrential downpour on Thursday. It rained so much that in monsoon-drenched Delhi it was still newsworthy for the shear amount of flooding. Roads had at least a foot of rain on them, one of the roads I was on had rain as high as the tires. Why was I out in this weather? Well, I was taking a trip to the National Museum. By the time I reached the rain had stopped and I had a good two hours to spend at this museum.

I cut Thursday short, because I needed to hurry to sleep so I could wake up bright and early the next morning. I took a quick flight to Amritsar and by 9:00 I was in a different city and on my way to the Golden Temple. I’ll be honest and say I found the Golden Temple to be much more astounding than the Taj Mahal. One is simply a tourist site, that being the Taj Mahal. The Golden Temple is serenaded by prayer and song and for as many people there to see the complex there are at least the same amount of Sikhs there for strictly religious reasons. I had a good driver on this day, he showed me around the entire complex. I visited corners of it I would not have seen had I just been there by myself.

A short walk away is the Jallianwala Bagh, site of an infamous massacre in 1919. Today the place is a memorial for the roughly 1,500 Indians who died. The incident has been covered in history enough that if you are curious about it you can Google it. I’ll just say that this is a very solemn place, the bullet holes are still in the walls and you can see the well where so many jumped into to escape gunfire. It reminds you of the independence struggle of the first half of the 20th century, and the amount of people who died for it.

I then spent the next few hours at Amritsar’s lesser-known tourist sites. The Maharaja Ranjit Singh museum, dedicated to the legendary Punjabi leader of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As with Jallianwala Bagh, historians have covered him extensively so if you’re curious you can search for more information on him. The museum is small, but has interesting dioramas of important moments in his life. About halfway through my walk of the museum the power happened to go out, and it never fully was restored. As a result all the daytime scenes turned to nighttime scenes.

I also visited two Mandirs in Amritsar. During the entire time I spent in the city it was overcast and the weather was comfortable. There was still some humidity, but it wasn’t the overpowering heat I was used to. This all changed when I reached Wagah Border at about 3:00 in the afternoon. The sun magically came out and the temperature skyrocketed. You have to get here early to guarantee yourself a spot, there’s a section for foreigners but I chose instead to sit in the section with Indians (they separate males and females). The flag lowering on this border with Pakistan doesn’t begin until later in the evening, I think close to 6:00. I was sitting with thousands of people for over an hour waiting for it to start. It was so overwhelmingly hot that I was absolutely drenched in sweat, and the funny part was as soon as the ceremony was over I would have to hurry back to my driver and get to the airport for my flight. You can imagine how terrible I must have looked at the airport, but I doubt I was the only tourist who had just come from Wagah.

On Saturday I visited Akshardham, a massive Swaminarayan temple in Delhi on the banks of the Yamuna River. It is a new complex, having just opened in 2005. I went to a Swaminarayan temple in London during my time there in 2006. That temple was beautiful, but Akshardham is much, much bigger. It comes complete with the Hall of Values, a tour featuring lifesize robotic dioramas, an IMAX theater, and a boat tour of Indian history. The main temple itself is beautiful. It’s certainly a must-see for someone visiting Delhi.

With that my tour of India came to a close. The next day, following a farewell meal of South Indian food I said goodbye to India. My flight left on Sunday night and by Monday morning, thanks to time zones, I was back in New York City. That afternoon I took a long bus ride to Boston and managed to fend off jetlag. Perhaps that last accomplishment is the greatest one of my entire trip. I would love to do it again, and I can’t wait to return to India sometime in the future.

The Home Stretch

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 03:45:37 -0400

In a few short hours everyone who came on this trip with me will have boarded a flight back to the United States. This great experience is coming to an end. I still have a few days remaining, but on Sunday I will be at the airport. On one hand it feels like it was short and too many days flew by, but then I think about all the little things I did almost every day and I realize that in the 3 weeks since I left the States I have seen and done a ton. I have seen so much construction completed since I got here, despite the amount of rain work still gets completed. It leaves me optimistic that in a little over a month Delhi will be prepared to host the Commonwealth Games and much of the controversy will be pushed aside.

I’ve seen more than enough markets and with it the creations of all the states of India, the best example being Dilli Haat. I’ve taken the opportunities at these markets to get quite a few souvenirs, which I am well aware are necessary purchases to make during a trip. Delhi is flooded with markets, on a drive through the city we always pass at least two or three. Unlike a lot of cities, the culture of the markets isn’t just targeted at tourists. Dilli Haat is much more than a place like Janpath, but both are a convergence of locals and people from all over the world. The same blanket someone might buy to take back to Germany with them could be purchased by someone in Delhi and used for the same purpose. While shopping malls might be wearing away the popularity of markets, as they have done back home, the change hasn’t been truly felt yet. I hope the change never fully comes into existence.

It’s been a challenge to bring myself to go outside in the heat, but also a challenge to convince myself not to go out and explore more of the city. Since my return to Agra & Jaipur I’ve visited a handful of places in and around Delhi. The aforementioned markets took up some of this time, but I was able to see Humayun’s Tomb. It is, perhaps, Delhi’s most visited monument and is an early example of the architecture that went into the Taj Mahal. The tomb itself was seeing some renovations, in anticipation of the CWG no doubt. Despite this, I am glad I went as it provided me with a good perspective on the development of Mughal architecture leading up to the famous Taj Mahal in Agra.

On this past Monday I went back to Neemrana Fort-Palace in order to go on their Flying Fox zip line with Amy and Alyssa. The trip took 2 hours in all, 30 minutes of which was spent climbing up the rocky slopes to the top of the hill that the hotel rests on. At the top we had a beautiful view of rain pouring down off in the distance, but we were lucky to avoid all but a brief shower. Where we were in the hills is a place filled with peacocks, and I was fortunate to get extremely close to one. There were five zips in all, and it took a total of an hour to work our way down I estimate. The first two are the longest, at 350 and 400 meters respectively. From there they become much shorter, but the view on all of them is still fantastic. I recommend that people who come to Delhi in the future make time to do this, you don’t need to stay at the hotel but it’s such a beautiful place that it might make perfect sense to do that as well.

I’m excited about the next few days here, I’ll hopefully visit some more of Delhi’s museums and on Saturday I have a trek to Amritsar and the Golden Palace planned. With today being everyone’s departure day, I only have three full days here left so I will make the most of them. I have fortunately made friends during my stay here, and despite some leaving I am hopeful to spend time with those still around. I am not looking forward to leaving, but I am looking forward to the last few days here.

Agra, Jaipur, and the Open Road

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:21:16 -0400

Well I’ve at last gotten into a brief session of a frantic tourist sprint the past few days. The relaxation of my first week here transitioned to the social aspects of the second weekend which included a game of poker and seeing a play. I traded those social activities in for long days on the road, stresses at hotels, and scorching heat outside. I was able to complete the “Golden Triangle” of tourism for people coming to Delhi though, going to Agra and Jaipur. Seeing my second Indian city gave me a good glimpse of how different Delhi is from much of the country, which is something I have both been told as well as read.

We had to leave bright and early in the morning in order to reach Agra and the Taj Mahal at a reasonable hour, this hour ended up being about 2:30 in the afternoon. On the way there we stopped at Mathura, only because the guidebook I bought happens to have a section about it included. There we saw ghats, similar to those at the very famous Varanasi and surely making up for our inability to see them. Mathura has a temple with the reputed birthplace of the god Krishna, so the ghats are dedicated to him. The challenge of this trip though, because of the popularity of Varanasi, is that western tourists rarely make it to Mathura. As a result, going here created an interesting experience of navigating, getting lost, and then getting fleeced on a boat ride. I point these details out to show how certain parts of India are very detached from the world Delhi seems more and more integrated with. The challenges of a language barrier were fortunately avoided by having a driver and passenger fluent in Hindi.

After this small detour we continued on our way to Agra and the jewel of Indian tourism, the Taj Mahal. The trip was interrupted by a 2 hour traffic delay at a crossing on the highway, making our day which began at 5am even longer. After the merciful end to the boredom of this delay we finally reached Agra, and set out for the Taj Mahal. I don’t know what more to say about it, everything about the famous tomb has been said thousands of times. It’s very beautiful, and is huge when you are seeing it in person. Unfortunately for us the temperature was so hot, and only exacerbated by the sun’s reflection off the white marble of the Taj Mahal, that we hurried our departure a bit. That said, I am glad I was able to go there and see it in person and understand why there is such an appeal to go there.

With 6 hours already clocked in the car, we returned for a drive to Jaipur and our hotel. I quite enjoyed this ride, I spent much of it watching the terrain transform into the rocky hills around Jaipur. Most of the drive is through agricultural land, which reminds me of long drives I’ve had on vacations before when I have been a passenger through central Pennsylvania and western New York. Of course, the plants and animals I saw were completely different. Peacocks and camels were the unique highlights, though after Jaipur the latter seem completely normal to me now.

It was late in the evening, I think around 7:30, when we got into Jaipur and proceeded to get lost looking for our hotel—Golden Tulip. Once we saw a map, after the conclusion of our long journey, we realized we probably were within a few blocks of it before making one wrong turn and going literally around the entire outer edge of the city. I thought our troubles were over, but once we arrived we were greeted with an issue regarding three of us not having a passport for check-in. This problem, not unique to India but certainly expected of a place with the recent history of India, lingered throughout our entire stay at the hotel. We are fortunate I brought my passport, because at least then we were able to get into the room since they were registered in my name. In the end, despite the headache, we stayed in our rooms and the hotel itself was nice. As of now we all are of the assumption that everything has been taken care of, but it is in the hands of the travel agency.

We spent our only full day in Jaipur within the historic Pink City. Here I was able to see the City Palace Museum, one of the city’s must-see sites. From there we spent much of the day in a market, which is targeted towards tourists in some regards but nowhere near the level of markets in Delhi. Seeing a day in Jaipur showed me more of what an Indian city is like, Delhi is fantastic but its disadvantage to understanding India is its status as a national capital as well as a bustling financial center. Seeing Jaipur showed me the more quiet side of Indian life, I say quiet with a little bit of sarcasm. It was still a crowded and noisy city, complete with construction and a confusing layout. Like smaller cities in the U.S. (such as Buffalo, Cleveland, or my native Baltimore) there was much more of a unique local flavor, in this case that of Rajasthan. As the gateway to the desert to the east, Jaipur brings in many parts of the desert lifestyle into its urban area. In the case of Delhi, it brings in parts of Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab as the focal point of its unique culture. Despite that, the size of the city brings in traditions from all over India as well as a noticeable influence from the west. The influence of the west is much less vivid, or at least much less promoted, in Jaipur I feel.

Today we saw the Amber Fort, which is surrounded by the longest wall in India. It looks like a small-scale Great Wall. The fort is beautiful, complete with the mirrored room of the Sheesh Mahal. Unfortunately, like my day at the Taj Mahal, the heat was suffocating. With that said, I feel I saw the entire fort during my time there. As someone with a B.A. in History and International Studies, going to Jaipur and being able to study both without much effort made my trip there worth both the headache at the hotel and the heat from the sun. On our way back to Delhi we mercifully got respite from the high temperatures with rain. The storm was much more than needed, it was an absolute downpour the likes of which you expect to see in a hurricane for example. The monsoon’s brief vacation appears to be over. With its return I can expect to a return to the slower, relaxing pace of the week of rain that greeted me at the start of this trip.

One Week In

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:13:15 -0400

It’s hard to take in and describe everything that’s been going on this week. Nice dinners, nice travels, nice sites, and nice conversations have been the norm. The last few days have been rather slow, at least in the tourist sense. I’ve been meeting and spending time with some of Aashish’s friends, who are good people. My days have been in Delhi, which hasn’t yielded a lot of new sites, but new people.

Monday we went to Neemrana Fort-Palace which is a luxury hotel built on the side of a mountain. It was started in the 16th century, and recently became a hotel. We didn’t stay, just walked around the amazing hotel. On our trip there we saw such great sites like people walking to the sacred spot on the Ganges where they gather water and take it back to their cities, towns, or villages. We also saw a nomadic tribe walking along the side of the highway. Taking this in was pretty interesting, the fact that they have been dressing the same way and living the same way for thousands of years and are simply adapting to a changing world around them.

Tuesday I went to Gurgaon, a town within the Delhi economic region. On one side of the highway are sparkling new highrises and malls. On the other side is a sprawling town which has many dirt roads and the more simple parts of Indian life. I paid visit to a temple while there, and being able to walk around this peaceful and serene spot next to a bustling road was a unique experience and one I won’t get in a more well-visited temple.

My times in Delhi have seen both the popular tourist spots in Lodi Gardens and the Lotus Temple as well as less-visited trails in an artist colony and Nehru Place. We’ve gained one American today and two more tomorrow, and then the real hectic part of the trip kicks off with trips to both Agra and Jaipur. I’ve adjusted well to India, and despite not being able to avoid Delhi Belly haven’t had become an encumbrance. The next few days will be great, and I’m charging my camera as right now to prepare for them.

There's a lot of people

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:40:52 -0400

My first experience in Delhi was to take a trip to the (in)famous New Delhi train station. I expected a train station, albeit one that belonged in the developing world. What I got was that but with an addition of hundreds of people who honestly were sleeping on concrete, likely waiting hours upon hours for a train. Having this, as opposed to one of New Delhi’s malls or museums, as my first experience put everything in perspective. Despite all the great things this city has to offer, like fantastic malls and as I learned tonight beautiful houses, it comes complete with an entirely unique element—its poor population. I have seen poor people before, but never this poor nor this widespread has helped me add a new perspective to my trip. There’s only so much I can do, and I’ll refrain from those arguments about what to do about the problem only to say that it exists and that slums are very real.

On more positive notes, I’ve been able to see much of the development forward India is having. The malls, as mentioned, stack up to many of our American malls and are better than most. The middle class here is huge, the biggest in the world, and it shows on a Sunday afternoon when there are as many people shopping as there are at the New Delhi train station. I’ve seen two films, both were sold out in huge theaters. Inception was my English-language movie, I needn’t say a thing about this masterpiece. I saw a Hindi-language Bollywood film as well, Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, and thanks to Aashish and his cousin I was able to understand what the dialogue was saying. So, in the end, I enjoyed the movie well-enough. After all, one can’t come to India and not see a Bollywood film.

For tourist sites, I’ve been to India Gate and seen the Presidents’ House and Parliament where the world’s largest democracy is governed. I’ve also driven past Qutub Minar on multiple occasions. I fortunately went to an Engagement Party and saw a performance from the winners of India’s Got Talent. While I’m not familiar with the show nor the winners, there holds some significance in this. Much of my time has been spent simply taking in the city and all it has to offer. The traffic jams, the honking of horns, the houses that have their doors on the road, the restaurants and cuisine, the construction, the construction, and the construction. There’s so much of it, everywhere. India Gate was covered in scaffolding, as was the guitar for the New Delhi Hard Rock Cafe. The new stadiums, facilities, and subway for the Commonwealth Games in October. Only the catch is that as it stands now, if you ask for my personal opinion, Delhi will not be ready to host the games. So much stands unfinished with two months to go. I don’t rule out a miracle and the desire of people to finish the work, but right now I fear that contingency plans are in place to transfer the games to either London or Sydney.

India’s work at becoming a leading global economy is already underway, perhaps in my lifetime they’ll leapfrog my native United States. But the work that India still has to go through to pull itself up from the colonial era is immense, and I think they might be trying too hard to get there and actually setting themselves back. So much emphasis is being placed on fulfilling their destiny as a stable and secular democracy, which I won’t dispute, that the needed infrastructure in between the developing world and the developed world is being ignored. The Commonwealth Games are one example of this, so is the fact that at the same time you have luxury hotels and some of the world’s largest and much successful business building massive highrises for themselves you have slums looking up at them.

Perhaps the best way to put all of this is that I saw a man riding and elephant on the road. It’s not his own personal transportation, he was simply taking it from one place to another. But still, an elephant walked amongst cars during a monsoon.

No Longer in Transit

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:29:57 -0400

Well, it was a significantly long day but I made it into Delhi last night. I’m going to be adjusting to being over here for the next few days, I think I already got the time difference down fine though. I understand that back in the States everyone was enjoying the new premiere of Jersey Shore, which I’m fairly confident I could find on TV here if I searched hard enough. It’s currently remarkably foggy outside, which I’m expecting to transition into rain later today. The rain will be something I get used to very quickly, it’s on the forecast for every single day.

My stay in Dubai was a bit different than I anticipated, but still a positive time. I had hoped to spend a few hours exploring the city, visiting the Burj Khalifa and Burj Al Arab and seeing a beach. When I felt how hot it was, early in the morning, I changed my plans. Fortunately, a friend I made from the plane ride offered me her place to recharge my batteries at. The heat was so lethal that if I stayed outside for too long I probably would have fainted from dehydration. So, now that I both have a connection in the city as well as a desire to actually experience the city I’m going to put Dubai high on my list of places to return.

I flew into the new airport, Terminal 3, at Delhi. It was chaotic, the airport just opened on short notice for the visit of David Cameron. As I walked through the airport to the Arrivals section there were men setting up furniture, putting shelves in the Duty Free shop, and doing all sorts of construction that is hard to do when people are running around you. The baggage claim was also a mess, our belt kept stopping. It took me 45 nerve-racking minutes to get my luggage, forcing Aashish’s sister to wait and wait and wait at the entrance of the airport.

On the ride back it took 10 minutes for me to see cattle on the road. I was fully prepared for this moment, and anticipating it, but I figured it would take a few days. I’m glad I got it out of the way. Hopefully the next time it happens it’ll be in the middle of the road and blocking traffic, for the full effect. The sounds of little kids playing basketball outside woke me up this morning. I’m enjoying my morning with my first ever glass of coconut water and an always needed cup of coffee. To quote Cosmo Kramer “They’re very refreshing.”

Here’s looking to an exciting day adapting to Delhi, can’t wait to see what I can of the city today and tomorrow. Hopefully by then I’ll have some photos to post.

Awaiting Departure

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 08:55:59 -0400

Well, this time tomorrow I’ll be at JFK standing in line waiting to go through security. So the trip is definitely about to happen and it’s kind of hard to believe. Obviously I’m filled with those small worries of remembering everything. This morning I woke up and said to myself “I need to pack socks!” As someone who abuses the wearing of flip flops this is a perfectly natural thing to overlook. As a trip is about to begin there’s always that little feeling that it’s just not worth the headache. Truth, traveling halfway around the world is basically the longest trip one can make. It’ll of course all be worth it, but I find that pre-departure feeling all too interesting. As soon as I’m on the plane and miserable and uncomfortable with everyone else it’ll subside and I’ll be ready to go.

I take a bus out of Baltimore this afternoon to spend the evening and night in New York, Brooklyn to be exact. Then fly out in the morning and go to Dubai for most of the day. This has me very excited, I’ve pre-ordered a ticket to go to the Burj Khalifa. Beyond that I’m not terribly sure what I’ll do in Dubai. I’ll only have my backpack on me, so I’ll have a lot of freedom with what I decide to do. After a far too short stay there it’s time to get back on a plane and fly into Delhi, getting there late at night. A nice treat after I get back in the USA is that I’ll be going to Boston and Maine with my cousin, as well as being met up there by my dad and brother. This will be, I hope, a great way to relax after the end of a long, long, long month.

With the trip so near, but still sitting in my parents’ kitchen as I type this, it’s hard to really say much. I’ve finished my reading of Crime and Punishment, and what more need I say? It’s a fantastic book, upon finishing it and thinking back on it there was so much I missed as it unfolded. I think that can be the mark of a great book, when the story is so much to captivate you that you miss the deep themes and ideas the author is presenting. I’ve got a few books to take with me, as I anticipate both long plane rides and once in India long train rides. Two Murakami books—Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood— will keep me occupied as well as Raj Patel’s The Value of Nothing. It is of course more reading than I need for the trip, but two books are under 300 pages. In a flight as long as the one between Dubai and New York I can read that much with ease.

Here’s hoping the next 48 hours go smoothly, I don’t forget anything that is expensive, and that I can easily find coffee in Delhi.

It was almost 4 years ago that the screen on my digital camera...

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:36:22 -0400

It was almost 4 years ago that the screen on my digital camera got smashed, it was already obsolete then, so as the years have passed the camera has basically become a relic. It was too big to pack properly as well, defeating the entire purpose of having a camera since I only take photos when I’m going places. I’ve rewarded myself, thanks to gift cards primarily, with this new digital camera. I’m excited to have it and can’t wait to shoot pictures of everything and everyone in India. Obviously this isn’t a picture of it as I’m not a magician.

Starting Somewhere

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:03:03 -0400

I thought I had already posted this brief introduction, but evidently I’m not as knowledgeable about the world of blogging as I believed. It comes as a surprise of course, having been a blogger during my high school years and pretentiously viewing it as an activity for high schoolers. But with my upcoming trip to India, as well as trips in the ensuing years all over the globe, I think it is necessary to find a nice way to chronicle all these experiences. I am sure some people are interested to hear stories and see photos of my adventures. So, with that realization I returned to using the public internet as a way to share personal stories.

For the next month there will likely be very little I have to talk about. I leave for my trip on July 28, and until then I will be more than busy with other tasks. Perhaps something will come to me, and I will feel like sharing it. I have plenty of observations about the world I can make even without a plane ticket, and perhaps those will be shared as summer boredom sets in. The World Cup has been the greatest cure of summer boredom, and it is a shame it only happens every 4 years. Despite the break adding more magnitude and importance to each moment in a match, the three straight summers spent without this event have such a void.

When matches are not on, I am preparing for my trip by other talking to the people going with me about things to do and places to see or by working so I can afford the expensive plane ticket. For leisure I am at last reading Crime and Punishment, and of course working on the occasional crossword puzzle. Adult enthusiasm post-graduation is currently at a high, and I am taking advantage of it by reading books that I don’t think are typically read for relaxing enjoyment. As someone growing into the role of an academic, reading a Dostoyevsky novel over a Tom Clancy novel seems obligatory.

This trait is making my trip to India seem more like an historical and anthropological experience than a vacation. I wouldn’t have it be another way though.