She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

In answer to Nicole's demands, I can't put up any photos yet because I am not traveling with my laptop, but when I get back to Hyderabad on the 3rd, I plan on going back and adding photos to all of these unillustrated posts. So be patient.

In India it is next to impossible to use a credit card. As a result, I ran into a rather tight financial situation for my last few days in Dharamsala. This wasn't a huge problem. Actually, it's pretty easy to live on about 2 dollars a day in India, it just requires that you make some more adventurous choices in dining establishments. The Tibetan Yak Cafe, for example, is a tiny hole-in-the-wall lunch place in Dharamsala where one can enjoy a large lunch for about 60 cents. I entered the Yak cafe to find six old local men, three plastic picnic tables, and one mural of a yak. I sat down and space being limited, soon found myself sharing my table with a Tibetan man, who from appearances must have been well over 200 years old. He was served without ordering, and before my soup had even arrived he had put away three heaping plates of food.

The following morning I dined across the street at a similar establishment which advertised "Special Muesli." I did not really know what this meant, so of course I ordered it. What arrived was a giant bowl of every fruit, nut, and grain known to man covered in yak yogurt and honey. I plunged my spoon in and began eating, which apparently was the wrong thing to do. The elderly woman running the cafe ran over, removed my spoon from my hand and very delicately and meticulously stirred the bowl for several minutes much to the amusement of everyone else in the restaurant. To be fair, it did taste better her way.

Another dreadful overnight bus ride brought me to Manali early this morning. I haven't had cell phone reception for days so I had no way of booking a room and when I arrived at 4:30 AM none of the hotels appeared to be open and I was in no mood to make decisions, problem solve, or do anything sensible. Against all odds I was able to find a really decent hotel room with a spectacular view of the mountains.

If Dharamsala was beautiful then Manali is BEAUTIFUL. While Dharamsala is more of a town, Manali is more of a resort. It is mostly made up of little hotels and cafes hidden in the forest. Actually, Manali might just be the Portland of India. This occurred to me this morning as I sat shivering in a trendy Bob Dylan-themed cafe surrounded by latte-sipping outdoor enthusiasts. The area is very green (with real fir trees!!), there are plenty of nature trails, it is actually cool and overcast outside, and the two main activities of the area seem to be drinking coffee and exploring the outdoors.

I started my day today with a long hike out to visit Hadimba Temple. Seeing as the area is packed with tourists I was shocked when I arrived at the temple and found myself the only Westerner there (evidently all of the other Westerners are only here for the rafting, paragliding, etc). This of course, resulted in the usual excitement among the Indian tourists wanting to take their picture with me and the shouts of "Which country? Which country?" One family took a particular interest in me and the matriarch of the group kept asking "Indian Culture very high, is it?" I did not understand the question but I responded with "Uhh...Mujhko India bahut pasand hai" (I like India very much). This butchered Hindi had very positive results.

After surviving the uphill hike to the temple, one finds ones self immediately bombarded by aggressive souvenir peddlers, many of whom are tribal people with yaks or giant, long-haired Himalayan rabbits trying to get you to take photos with their animals for money. This is the first time in my life that the opportunity to ride a yak has ever presented itself to me and I was not about to pass it up, but the yak hustlers were demanding 50 rupees and the didn't seem to take my counter-offer of 10 rupees very seriously. No yak ride today, but I still have another day in Manali.

The Wheels on the Bus go bump bump bump

I spent my last hours in Delhi unsuccessfully searching for a new pair of designer knock-off sunglasses. I nearly bought one pair just out of curiosity because while the lenses bared the "Ray Ban" insignia, the sides read "Dolce and Gabbana." I didn't know it was possible.

My hotel in Delhi was in Pahar Ganj, a busy, dirty, touristy bazaar area where, as a single white female, I was subjected to the constant shouts of "Hello! Madam! My shop! Good Price! Rickshaw?! Hello? Yes Please? Madam, Madam!!" While this may have annoyed me once upon a time, I have now quite well perfected my "I can't see you, I can't hear you, Get out of my way, stone-cold bitch glare," which allows me to move through crowds undisturbed. I must remember to break myself of this habit before returning to the USA.

I left Delhi that afternoon on a bus to Dharamsala. One benefit of traveling alone is that I ended up with a row of seats all to myself so I was able to stretch out to sleep. This was really the only positive aspect of the journey. I was the only person on the bus sporting neither dreadlocks, nor tie-die, nor gauged earlobes, and though my hippy travel companions may well have been good, loving people, on their way to some grand Himalayan mystical adventure, they were at times annoyingly loud. Around one in the morning a group of them got into some kind of brawl in the front of the bus. Other passengers began demanding that one particular assailant be kicked off the bus, and though the bus drivers did not comply, they did decide to take a "shortcut" in order to end the troublesome journey sooner rather than later.

The "shortcut" was a windy, unpaved, bumpy bumpy road, which as it turns out, was actually closed to traffic. We then had to backtrack to the main road, so the "shortcut" of course, took longer than the original route.

For the most part, it was a bumpy, sleepless, nightmare of a bus ride, but the experience of driving into the Himalayas at sunrise made up for everything.

Dharamsala/ McLeod Ganj is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen and it is easy to understand why tourists, pilgrims, and Tibetan refugees alike happily flock here. Of course, the hotel that had promised me a room on the phone the previous evening acted like I was crazy when I showed up, so I walked 20 yards to the next hotel which is probably cheaper and cuter anyways.

I spent the day wandering the town, eating delicious food, and taking lots of amazing Himalaya photos. This is probably the most touristy place that I have visited in India so far, but it is touristy in the best sense of the word meaning there is a lot of see and do and there are tons of really amazing restaurants (although there was just a little too much cockroach in my Tibetan momo soup last night).

I have yet to spot the Dalai Lama or the Yeti, but I am keeping my eyes peeled for both.

Northern Exposure

My first order of business upon my arrival in Delhi was to photograph the toilet in my hotel room. It is the first such fixture I have ever used to have a faded pastoral scene painted on the tank. The small farmhouse among tiny green trees and wispy clouds so perfectly complements the room's neon lighting and broken tile floor. You can expect photos as soon as I am reunited with my computer. It takes something like this to make me want to take a photo anymore...while the bustling street scenes and historic buildings in the city go by unrecorded, I take pictures of toilets. I guess my perspective on what counts as a novelty has changed.

Luckily, where I'm going today should be a completely new and unusual setting. I may even take a picture or two. Dharamsala, mountainous home to the Dalai Lama is populated mostly by Tibetans in exile, and as I understand is a wholly different culture than anywhere else in India. I will be hopping on a bus today at 4:30pm and arriving there tomorrow morning, so naturally, the most important item on my agenda today is to purchase some dense reading material. When I called a hotel to book a room in Dharamsala I discovered the first hotel I've ever heard of that "doesn't take reservations." I guess I may have to ask the monks to put me up for a few days.

Jaana, to go.

I just finished my last final exam for the semester and tonight I'm hopping on a plane to go to the Himalayas via Delhi. I planned this excursion "Indian Style," meaning, I have no plans, nothing is organized, I have no clue what to expect, and after a lot of chaos somehow in the end everything will fall perfectly into place.

I'm thinking of going from Delhi to Dharamsala to Manali so I checked the weather reports for those places last night. Delhi is expected to be well over 100 degrees for the next week, Dharamsala will be somewhere in the 70s-80s range, and Manali is expecting snow...yes, snow. Leave it to me to find a way to visit three distinctly differnt climate zones in a 10 day period. I have no idea what to pack.

This week has been kind of emotionally tumultuous as I slowly come to the realization that I'm going to have to say goodbye (forever?) to this group of people that I have lived with, traveled with, shared three meals a day (and tea time) with, etc, etc, etc, for a whole semester. Add to that the stress of studying for finals, and the stress of packing, and the stress of impending culture shock, in addition to the looming reality of summer unemployment, and you can perhaps imagine the strange mood that I've been in lately.

Sounds like I need a vacation, eh?

Oh! What a coincidence.

Mumbai, or Humidity.

Being in Mumbai in April is a lot like being in a steam room, except hotter and more humid. A lot of people compare the city to New York, but it actually reminded me more of the posh parts of LA, or the affluent LA beach towns like Santa Monica...if Santa Monica had 14 million residents and expansive slum communities.

2 days is not enough time to see Mumbai and 5 minutes is not enough time to write a blog about 2 days in Mumbai. I have to study for finals. We'll catch up later.

Preview of Coming Attractions

Nicole keeps asking about my plans for the rest of my semester, so here's a little rundown.

17 April (today)--To Mumbai! I will be staying with a former business friend of my father's for the weekend in Mumbai.

19 April--Return to Hyderabad and study really hard for finals.

22-23 April--Take finals, turn in term paper, fail miserably.

23 April--To Delhi! I'm going to Delhi for a few days before heading up to the Himalayas!

23 April- 3 May--Adventures in the Himalayas, I hope to visit Dharamsala (home of the the Dalai Lama), Manali, and Shimla. Possible adventures include going on a mountain trek, taking Tibetan cooking classes, riding in a hot-air balloon, and/or achieving enlightenment.

3 May--Back to Hyderabad for laundry, packing, goodbyes.

5 May--To Amsterdam!

5-20 May--Getting into trouble in Europe. From Amsterdam I will be traveling around Europe for a few weeks, I don't have official plans yet, but I hope to make it to Prague and maybe Budapest among other places.

20 May--To Portland!! My summer plans are still up in the air. Any advice or input is welcome.

Tied Up

Recordings of my dance performances have now made their way youtube. HERE is the video for Kathak, I was shocked to see that the performance was nine minutes long…I knew it felt like a nightmarish eternity onstage, but I didn’t realize it was such an eternity for the viewers as well. As I said before, the Kathak teacher decided to make us go WAY faster than we had ever practiced the dance so we are all visibly making mistakes in the video…especially me…so don’t judge, Kathak is really hard. Also, keep an eye out for two of the girls’ hair pieces falling out. HERE is the video for Kuchipudi. Bet you can't tell which one is me...actually, you can barely see me at all since there is a man taking photos standing in front of the video camera for most of the time...

Last night was the CIEE Farewell Dinner and Re-Entry orientation. It’s so hard to believe that it is already time for events to have the word “farewell” in their titles. I leave Hyderabad in nine days! The Re-Entry orientation was similar to our welcome orientation at the beginning of the semester in that it was long and boring and caused us a lot of undue panic, only this time instead of telling us how hard life in India was going to be they told us about how depressed and lost we’re going to feel when we return to life in the USA. I suppose what they said was partially true; we have really changed and adapted to life in India over the past few months. For example, we all dressed up in our saris last night (the ones we wore to the OBAMA BALL in January) but the novelty that the situation had at the beginning of the semester had completely worn off. In January it seemed so funny to see everyone dressed up in traditional Indian formal wear, but last night it seemed like standard practice—what else do people even wear to fancy events? I also managed to tie my sari myself, having somehow telepathically absorbed that skill over the past few months. This, I felt, was quite a milestone.

Our program arranged for all of the girls to get Henna designs on our hands for the event, so my hands look very lovely right now. Since we were all henna-handed and sari-clad we assumed the dinner would be very formal and elegant, but as with everything that CIEE organizes, the dinner was almost successful...but not quite. The food was really delicious…but we had to eat it picnic style in our formal wear… For some reason they did not feel the need to provide tables for the dinner, they just made us eat the food in the chairs we had been sitting in while watching a sitar and tabla performance before eating…at least they provided plates. It was a little lackluster and anticlimactic—very CIEE.

We returned to our dorm and I was untying my sari and reflecting on how well I have adjusted to life in India when the two girls in the room next to me started shrieking. I ran over to see what was happening and then saw the largest spider I have ever seen in my life, easily the size of one of my hands with long fat, white legs, crawling out of my friend Laurel’s closet. I also shrieked. So I guess I haven’t really adjusted to everything in India.

An Impromptu Excursion

It’s important to be impulsive in life. A conversation last week went something like this:

Julia: My homestay sister and a few of her friends are going to some beach this weekend and we’re invited. It will be cheap and they will organize everything. Want to go?

Brenda and Katie: Uh… Sure, why not?

And so began our strange weekend. My friend Julia is staying the semester with the Ramanans, a family whose generous hospitality we have taken advantage of several times. Their daughter Sowmya recently received her MA from the University of Chicago and is now working in Hyderabad. She, along with her fiancé, and her two friends, Ajay and Prashanth, decided to visit Chirala, a tiny town on the coast of Andhra Pradesh this weekend. Julia, Brenda, and I joined them on Friday evening for an overnight bus ride. The bus was surprisingly comfortable and I actually arrived Saturday morning quite well rested.

After de-bussing, we took a rickshaw (with a weird picture of a baby in a Santa hat inside) to the beach-side hotel where we wanted to stay only to find that it was completely booked. The problem here was that this is the only actual hotel in the area. Chirala is really tiny and isolated. It is one of those rare places in the world yet untouched by McDonald’s, Starbucks, or tourism. Indians and Westerners alike prefer to visit beaches in Goa or Tamil Nadu, so the Andhra Coast is left purely at the hands of its locals and has no need to cater to tourists. All of the street signs are only in the Andhra language, Telugu (no English, no Hindi) and the only suggestion of Western influence is in the presence of the occasional Coca-Cola product...or the occasional pictures of naked white babies decorating rickshaws...

The driver took us back into the town where we were able to get rooms. It was not a hotel, per se, just a building with rooms that you could rent. And they weren’t rooms, per se, just cubicles with bunk beds. But the beds were clean and there were working showers and it cost us less than $2 per person so no one complained.

We went to breakfast in a very tiny, very local, very delicious establishment down the street before heading out to the beach. The restaurant patrons and other locals were more than a little surprised to see the three American girls in town. Our four Indian friends were highly amused by how much attention we were attracting, but it was just the typical celebrity treatement of staring, pointing, cameras flashing, and shouts of "Which country?" that we Americans have become used to in India. Luckily, the beach we went to was completely secluded so we had the day to ourselves without causing too much commotion. The beach itself was really ideal with perfect warm water and swaying palm trees and empty wooden fishing boats sitting on the sand. Of course, in spite of the heavenly conditions, I developed a hellish sunburn.

On the second day our little brunch consisted of traditional Easter favorites like Iddly and Bajji with coconut chutney. As we were eating breakfast, Julia stood up to go wash her hands and in the time she was gone, an old woman in a bright green sari approached our table and sat down in Julia’s chair with no explanation. She looked around at us all and smiled then spoke some slurred, colloquial Telugu that even our Indian friends couldn’t make sense of. Julia returned, had a confused, comical exchange with the woman, and eventually won her chair back.

For our second day of beaching, we decided to try out a different, more popular spot. The beach was very crowded and the demographic was an interesting mix of teenage boys swimming and a small village community sacrificing a goat (not kidding). It was actually much harder to ignore the teenage boys than the goat slaughter, because as soon as the boys spotted us they started swarming. We actually had to approach a security guard and ask if we could swim in the “restricted area” of the beach so that the crowd couldn’t bother us. Here are my soggy friends with the curious boys sneaking up in the background. Though we felt a little like animals in a zoo, the crowded beach was just as beautiful as the secluded one from the previous day and we even spotted dolphins splashing around in the water.

After enjoying a leisurely lunch we returned to our secluded beach from the first day to find it COVERED with little red crabs at low tide. As it turns out, crabs are very scared of people and they dive back into their crab holes when you approach instead of viciously attacking you with their pinchers as I imagined they would.

When time came for us to leave our lovely beach, the sun had begun to set and all forms of transportation had disappeared, as had everyone’s phone signals. This left us essentially stranded, but we began walking toward the road. The town we were staying in was still several kilometers away so the road led us into a tiny, beachside grass-hut village. No one was really around when we walked in, but word spread and soon enough the whole community was gathering to look at the sweaty, sunburned, foreign strangers. Ajay thought it would be a good idea to take a group photo, which seemed like a popular idea among the locals as well. In the end we discovered that one of the men from the village happened to own a rickshaw and he kindly agreed to return us to the town.

After showering and dining we made our way to the bus station for our return to Hyderabad. We hadn’t been able to get tickets with the same bus company that we took the first time, but procured tickets on something called the “Special Bus” which we assumed must be even more luxurious than the first one. What we got instead, was the same caliber of vehicle as the dilapidated Hyderabad city buses with three-person, not plush, not reclining, not arm-restable, bench seats. Sowmya, who had developed a bad flu by this point, looked around once and said “Oh my god. Can’t we take a taxi to Hyderabad??!” The answer, sadly, was no. The uncomfortable seats coupled with the sounds of the rumbling motor, incessant horn, and screaming babies, did not create a very relaxing environment for sleep. Instead, Julia, Brenda and I, crammed into one seat, remained awake for most of the night. We passed the time by eating unhealthy amounts of candy at 2 AM, gossiping about everyone we know, and deliriously discussing works of American literature.

We arrived, fatigued, sunburned, and badly in need of food and showers at 5 AM, but in my book, these circumstances are the signs of a weekend well-spent.

Gana Bajana!

Last night was the infamous SIP Cultural Show. This event occurs every semester as a final show for all of the international students who have been taking Indian cultural classes like Indian dance or Sitar. It is also a nice opportunity for Indian students to gather and mock the white kids as we dress in funny costumes and make embarrassing, beginner-level attempts to perform something we've only been learning for about three months. It is also the Study India Program's favorite thing to publicize in all of their informational material. The program website is covered with pictures of past shows and all semester long our professors and program coordinators have been talking about it in excitement while the rest of us looked forward to it with anxiety and fear.

Because I was in two dance classes this semester I got to perform two silly dances in two silly costumes. Dance costumes, in general, tend to be flashy and elaborate, but we're in India and here there is no such thing as flashy, there is only extremely ornate or under-dressed. Not wanting us to be under-dressed, those in charge instructed the dancers to arrive to the theater for hair, makeup, and costumes at 2:45 for the 6:00 show. It took most of this time for a the hair and makeup people to make us look fit for the Indian stage. Our faces were caked with makeup, and jewelry was placed wherever we had a free body-part, and we were each given a lovely false braid in our hair. Somehow I ended up being the only blonde in either of my dance classes, but this did not deter the hair/makeup crew from giving me the same black braid that everyone else got. The black didn't necessarily match everyone else's hair perfectly, but from the stage it blended in ok. The blonde-to-black transition was much less subtle.

The show began promptly one hour and fifteen minutes late.

My first dance was Kuchipudi, a beautiful South Indian classical dance form that I have grown to hate because of our cruel cruel professor. In spite of the long hours of brutal practices, the dance came together quite nicely, and the elaborate costumes hopefully distracted the audience from the glaring mistake that we made as a group in the middle of the dance.

After Kuchipudi, my friend Laura and I had to run backstage for a fast costume change into our Kathak dance costumes. It's a bit of a miracle we were able to do it considering the Kuchipudi costumes took three hours to get on in the first place. Unfortunately, since this was such a quick transition we didn't get quite as many photos of the Kathak costumes...we do, however, get to keep those costumes, so I can give you all a live showing some time.

Kathak is a North Indian dance form which is a lot harder and, in my opinion, more enjoyable than Kuchipudi. (Interesting side note: One theory of ethnochoreology suggests that Indians who traveled to Spain in the 11th century brought Kathak with them which eventually developed into Flamenco and a few hundred years later when the Spanish Armada crahsed in Ireland, Flamenco evolved into Irish step dancing. It's a debatable theory--it seems like if it were true I should be much better than I am at Kathak.) Kathak involves a lot of fast, complicated footwork which we have been practicing very hard. The dance could have looked really good...if our teacher, who was controlling the drum and therefore, the speed of the dance, had not decided as we entered the stage that he wanted us to go about 50 times faster than we had ever practiced. I kept missing steps and making mistakes from the speed then halfway through the dance I looked over to see that two of the other girls' false braids had come flying off from spinning around so fast. Another girl's earring flew off into the audience, hitting a representative from the American Consulate. A good Kathak dancer's face should be expressive with a lot of coy smirks and smiles, but I have a feeling my face (exaggerated by the extreme makeup) was generally panic-stricken throughout the piece.

I spent most of the rest of the show backstage trying to wipe off the makeup at least to get to a point where I was recognizeable again. The general reaction among my friends afterwards was "That was great! Good job! Just...uh...which one were you?"

I know the majority of the show was videotaped and is making its way to youtube, so I will share the videos when I get a chance...that is, as long as all of the mistakes I was making aren't too obvious.

And there is the story of my Indian classical dance debut (and likely farewell).

Everything is wonderful...except for one thing...

Let me clarify that I am not complaining, I just have a few interesting facts to share, such as:
-It is so hot that I break a sweat before I wake up in the morning.
-It is so hot that I think I'm sweating from my fingernails.
-It is so hot that the daily low is higher than the daily high for most of the year in Oregon.
-It is so hot that it doesn't even matter what clothes you wear.
-It is so hot that I never left the building all day on Friday.
-It is so hot that I can't come up with anything to blog about.
-It is so hot that it feels like I'm in India or something...

And as I understand it, this isn't that bad, after all, I'm going to sticky, humid Mumbai in a few weeks. And since the "cultural show" is coming up this week, we get to have extra dance class rehearsals at midday all week in the hot little dance room that is a long bike-ride away. As a result I require a lot of showers throughout the day, although, with solar-heated water systems if it 100 degrees outside, your shower water is also 100 degrees.

No one likes a complainer.

Kickin' Asana

This week my attention has been primarily focused on my four-part yoga certification exam. Recall my strenuous first day of yoga? I probably had more doubts than anyone, but with a little determination I actually made it to yoga class at 6AM five days a week for the past three months. Once I got used to waking up before dawn I actually began to really enjoy the course. I certainly know a lot more about yoga now, but I’m looking forward to sleeping in a little longer for the next few weeks now that the exam is over.

On Monday we arrived at 6 for the first part of the exam in which our two cartoonish yoga instructors, known affectionately to the American students in the class as “Old-Man Yoga” and “The Younger Guy,” tested us on our knowledge of the asanas (yoga poses). Each person was asked to do a series of poses which was difficult enough, but the real challenge was having to memorize all of the unpronounceable Sanskrit names like “Shalambasana” and “Gomukhasana” so that we could perform the correct poses. They also asked us to meditate and then evaluated our meditating. I still don’t have any idea how one can be graded on this...but I’ve learned it’s easier not to ask such questions.

Part two of the exam was a written test on yoga theory. This took place at 6AM on Wednesday and required us to sit for a few hours and write essays for prompts like “Name the seven Chakras and describe their role in the body” or “Describe the method of practicing Sarvangasana and its variations.”

Part three of the exam was the same as part two except this time it was held at 5PM when the yoga studio had heated up to 106 degrees (that's not an exaggeration) and this time we were writing essays about anatomy and psychology with questions like “How does meditation support mental well-being,” or “How does yoga benefit circulation?”

The final part of the exam was the same as the first part of the exam except this time with an “external examiner,” meaning this time we got to perform yoga poses for some stranger that we had never seen before. Again, this exam had a 6AM start time and lasted an exhausting, asana-filled four hours. I totally failed my headstand, but I did a pretty beautiful Supta Vajrasana and Chakrasana if I do say so myself. We were also asked to perform “Jalaneti,” the cleansing yogic practice of pouring water into your nose until it starts draining out of the other nostril. It feels not unlike drowning and I have lovingly named this practice “Waterboarding-asana.” Body stretched, mind cleared and sinuses full of water, I hastily left the exam at 10 AM with my fellow survivor, Craig at which point we devoured an enormous breakfast like a pair of enlightened savages.

The exam, and the semester of 5:30 AM alarm clocks is now behind me and I am well on my way to becoming a diploma-holding mystical yogi. I should find out about my certification within a few weeks. Tonight, myself and the two other Americans who survived the yoga exam process plan on some well-deserved partying and tomorrow…WE’RE SLEEPING IN!!!