Half an hour off everyone else

First off, I’m sorry that no pictures will accompany this post.  The reason for this is 2-fold, a) my computer crashed in Delhi 3 weeks ago so I haven’t been able to download any of my pictures and b) there is no card reader where I am now, nor a usb cable to hook my camera up to the computer.  So you’ll have to suffice with just words. I’m sorry. 

Currently, I’m sitting in a friend’s house in Hyderabad, India.  We’ve spent the last three weeks traveling around, getting a taste of India.  Writing about all of the adventures we’ve had over the last 21 days would be rather boring, so I’ll just highlight a few

I spent way to much time in Delhi and at the Delhi airport.  I flew into the city with Cera and Derek and we had a great few days seeing the Taj Mahal (yes it’s amazing), the Bahai Lotus Temple, Connaught Place and the old fort (rather boring, especially compared to what was to come in Rajasthan).  After they left I had two days to occupy myself before I picked my brother up at the airport.  On the allotted night, I went to pick him up, waiting an extra hour and a half because the plane was delayed.  Two hours after the plane had landed there was still no sign of Mica.  I was getting pretty anxious at this point; a whole litany of ‘what if’s?’ running through my head.  Neither he nor I had a phone and he didn’t have any contact info about where we were staying in Delhi.  I eventually left the airport around 1am and managed to get a few hours sleep before I went off in search of an internet café to see if maybe I had an email from him or mum explaining why he hadn’t been at the airport the night before.  I discovered that the cause of the last 12hrs of stress was due to my lack of realizing that if he left on the 1^st, he wouldn’t arrive till the 2^nd.  Oops.  I spent the rest of the day in bed, watching movies on HBO. :P

After finally meeting up with everyone, (Mica, Mum, Monica (a friend who was raised in India and now works for my dad) and her dad, we set off for Rajasthan, the desert!! (Side note: Indian trains are an adventure).   Besides the typical palaces and forts and markets and temples, there were two highlights to Rajasthan: feeding monkeys in the park and riding camels in the desert.  One park/garden that we went to was inhabited by 100’s of monkeys (and a few cows).  While we were enjoying watching the monkeys, a couple of Indian men arrived with baskets of bananas, grapes, potatoes, and bread.  They started handing it all out to the monkeys and then offered some to us, so we could feed the monkeys.  It was pretty cool! And the cows enjoyed eating the leftover potatoes.

Our last night in Rajasthan we spent lying out under the stars, in the desert!  We took a 45min camel ride into the sand dunes and then set up camp for the night.  There were 2 camel minders with us and they also doubled as the camp cooks.  The food was fantastic: simple and delicious, a nice break from all of the spicy, flavour laden stuff we’d been eating (no offense to Indian food).  Did you know that camels are the only animal with 4 knees?  They’re pretty interesting to watch walking.  Sitting on them when they stand up and sit down is like riding a roller coaster!  Sleeping out under the stars was a nice break from the city hotels, where there’s constant traffic noise and people and smells and dogs.

Our next stop was Goa, which was not so impressive.  But after Goa we went to Kerala: God’s Own Country. It was BEAUTIFUL! And green!  And there was water everywhere!  It’s not called ‘The Venice of the East’ for nothing.  We spent one night on a houseboat in the backwaters of Kerala, gliding by rice paddies and miles of dykes and a duck farm, other houseboats, fishermen, schools, a bank.  It was an interesting feeling, watching the people on the banks live their lives while we sailed on by.

We then spent 3 nights on the beach, having a proper tropical holiday – lounging on the beach/by the pool, swimming in the beach/pool, getting massages, ordering lunch to be ready at 2, watching the sun set into the ocean, you know, typical tropical paradise stuff. J

We’re now in Hyderabad, at Monica’s place, taking a breather before we tackle the last city on our trip: Mumbai. 

These last three weeks have been pretty jam packed with sights, sounds, people, dogs, cows, trains, taxis, planes, temples, beaches, more people, a few more cows and 1 dead rat in the ocean (it looked like a decapitated head!)  We’ve seen so many different parts of India: the capital city, the desert, the coast, the rice paddies and canals, small villages where everyone looks at you when you walk by and bustling cities where a few less than ‘everyone’ looks at you.  I don’t know how many times I’ve had my photo taken, both with and without my permission, it’s like I’m the exotic one here.  Every state has its own language (or 2 or 3 or 100), so most official signs are in English, Hindi (the national language) and the local official language.  And the scripts don’t look anything alike.  I met a boy the other day who spoke the state language, English and some German, Russian and Italian, but no Hindi.  The only thing that appears to be similar between the states is the sari dress style worn by most women, the presence of cows, dogs and goats on the streets, the auto-rickshaws, the insane driving and the building made out of concrete.  Everything else is so different.  Truly Incredible India

The Indian Shuffle

Although I first observed the movement on the metro in Delhi, I’ve since seen in employed in other circumstances as well.  Indians are terrible at forming lines.  Sometimes an attempt is made to make something mildly resembling a line, but as soon as the door/booth/train opens, the line dissolves into a crowd of shufflers.  On the trains, when the doors open/close and people get on/off, there are so many people that the most movement you can make is a shuffle.  If there’s even the slightest room on the bench for one more bum, everyone else shuffles over and the small space becomes occupied.  When even more people crowd onto the train, you shuffle over into your neighbours space to make room for the new arrivals.  Indians are very good at ‘shuffling.’ 

The Indian sub-continent is 1/2 hour off GMT, just because they can.