The Pilgrimage

My first solo adventure in India was a great success. After all, any weekend to which I can apply the phrase “circumambulating the ancient stupa” is, in my opinion, a good weekend. I had learned about Sanchi, a Buddhist pilgrimage site, in my Asian Art History class last year and it was one of the places in India that I was really keen on going to. It just so happened that I no one else was quite as interested in going, so my weekend trip to Sanchi also became my first attempt at traveling alone in India.

To get to Sanchi, one must go through Bhopal, a smallish city in Madhya Pradesh, a few hours north of Hyderabad by plane. I would never have anticipated that at any point in my life I would be able to boast of being the only single Caucasian female traveler in any given city in the world, but I think I can safely say that I held that title this weekend in Bhopal. The city is neither large, nor touristy, nor pretty to look at, so my presence there generated a lot of confusion. I was asked, in seriousness, more than one time, “What are you doing in Bhopal?” I wondered the same thing myself when I landed there. I felt a little like I had traveled through time to a dingy, shadowy, more depressing era. To be fair, I read later that I was staying in the ugliest part of the city and that I completely missed the pretty part on the other side of town. Ranjeet, my hotel, lacked the “Mediterranean Atmosphere” that Brenda’s guidebook told me it would have. It also lacked such luxuries as soft mattresses or light bulbs in the bathroom, though it did include a working TV and an inexplicable salt and pepper shaker set on the bedside table.

I pretty much arrived and went straight to bed on Friday night, but Saturday morning I set out early to go to Sanchi. Breakfast in the hotel was scheduled to start at 7am, but the confused doorman told me, in fact, that it would not be served until 10. Instead, I ate at the only restaurant I could find which didn’t appear to actually be open when I walked in. There were also about 100 items on the menu, of which, one, “The Veg Sandwich,” was available. Filled with sandwich, I set out on my way.

I was actually quite concerned about finding my way to Sanchi which is about 2 hours away from Bhopal. I had no real plan for getting there and I was growing more concerned about communication since, without the tourist industry of other cities, people in Bhopal seem to speak a lot less English. Luckily, my Hindi comprehension and reading skills are just good enough that I was able to recognize signs for things like “Bus Stand.” After the initial panic of wandering Bhopal alone with no direction wore off I realized a quick solution for my situation. I generated so much attention and curiosity from locals on the street that all I had to do was say “Sanchi?” a few times and before I knew it I was on a charming little pink bus heading North for 25 rupees (50 cents).

After 2 hours of sitting on the bumpy bus being stared at in disbelief by every other passenger, I hopped off in the middle of nowhere. I was expecting a small village at Sanchi, or perhaps a whole town, but what I found was just a deserted crossroads in the middle of expansive farmland. One road leads to/from Bhopal and the perpendicular road leads up a steep hill to the Stupa. I only really knew I was there when I said "Sanchi?" a few more times and the other passengers shooed me off the bus.

The Great Stupa of Sanchi is the oldest standing religious monument in India and one of the oldest Buddhist pilgrimages in the world, dating from the 3^rd century BC in the reign of Emperor Ashoka. It is known for really elaborately carved sculptures in pristine condition. Even so, it doesn’t generate a lot of tourism. Even on a Saturday I was one of the only visitors there. My guidebook told me I would feel like an explorer discovering something secret and grand, and cheesy as that sentiment may be, it really is the best explanation for the feeling. I had a 2000+ year-old monument on the top of a hill in the middle of the scenic Indian countryside all to myself on a beautiful, peaceful day, so yes, I allowed myself to feel a little like Indiana Jones.

I circumambulated the ancient stupa a few times and admired the sculptures. You can tell it’s a really early Buddhist monument because there are no actual images of Buddha, he is usually just represented as a tree. There are also a lot of really old pre-Hindu images like these “Yakshis” or tree-spirits.

After making my Art History teacher proud I explored the rest of the area which includes the ruins of a Buddhist monastery (you can see where the little cells were!), and the remains of one of Emperor Ashoka’s famous edict pillars.

Pilgrimage completed, I made my way back down the hill to the road hoping the bus to take me back to Bhopal might appear. I had no reason to believe that such a bus existed, and had no alternative plan if it did not, but I was only waiting about five minutes before it showed up to take me back to the city.

After a long bus ride and a late lunch I took a little stroll around Bhopal, but was unable to find the particular bazaar that I had been looking for (maps are useless without street names or landmarks) so instead I hopped in a rickshaw and visited the Darul Uloom Tajul Masajid. There are three beautiful, historic mosques in Bhopal, but the sun was going down and I only had time for one so the decisive rule of “eeny-meeny-miney-mo” led me to this one. It’s pink! Very nice.

I was going to eat dinner in my hotel, but when they told me they didn’t have the first three things that I tried to order I decided instead to go back to the place where I had had my before-hours breakfast. Here, I played my favorite game with Indian restaurants which is to choose whichever item in the “veg” section I have the least understanding of and hardest time pronouncing and order it. This game had been 100% successful, always resulting in something delicious up to this point. The dinner (some kind or rice thing) was ok, but the dessert “Rasgulla” was a spongy, gross mistake.

In the morning I flew back to Hyderabad. On the four hour flight they feed you 2 meals (which, as I described in an earlier blog, are actually delicious on Indian airlines)!

I now have a very successful pilgrimage and my first solo trip in India under my belt. And now…back to school.

See Ya Later/ Phir Milenge

This past week I have been going to classes, preparing for my yoga certification exam next week, applying like mad for summer jobs/ internships, phone-interviewing, trying to come up with an idea for my senior comps project for next semester, trying to figure out what classes I need to take next semester and panicking about all of the aforementioned things.

The sum of all of these parts is stress, fatigue, and something I call "blogger's block," or the inabilty to come up with anything interesting or cultureclashtastic-worthy to share.

This problem can be solved if:
1) Someone comes up with a feasible senior project for me
2) Someone hires me for the summer
3) I go somewhere really historic and interesting so that I can dazzle you all with photos and stories of exotic travel.
Lucky for you, I happen to be leaving for a very exciting weekend trip today and I will surely have lots of stories to share upon my return. Option #3 is taken care of, so the rest of you can get to work on numbers 1 and 2. Thanks.

By the by, the rain went away and it is now unbearably hot again.

RAIN!!!!!!

Revolutionary Road

The three month anniversary of arriving in India is fast approaching and along with this milestone comes a strange assortment of cravings for Americana. I have now arrived at a place where I have pretty much completely adjusted to the Hyderabad lifestyle. My cravings for things from home now come spaced at large intervals and though they are quite rare, they seem to come on much stronger than before. I am not, for example, sick of Indian food, but last night I was viciously attacked by the sudden, insatiable NEED for tortilla chips and salsa.

I suspect I am not the only American here that is having these strange, three-month withdrawal symptoms. My suspicion was confirmed when a group of us came up with the idea to venture to Hyderabad's swankiest movie theater the other day to see Revolutionary Road. A very expensive 100 Rupee ticket (2 dollars) gains you admission to this posh structure which boasts a shopping mall, an Imax screen, a McDonald's, a crisp, cold air-conditioning system, and big clean theaters with plush seats. Guilty, guilty pleasures. I really do love Bollywood movies, but Revolutionary Road was a nice break from Indian Cinema. It was bleak, depressing and thought-provoking and included realistic acting, flawed characters, violence, rough language, sex scenes, and not a single musical number. It was also in a language that I understand.

I highly recommend this film even if you aren't having America-cravings. I suspect it's good in the USA too.

I'm beginning to wonder what kinds of India cravings I will have after returning to the States. Will I suddenly have the urge to eat a whole box of soan papdi? Will no food ever taste spicy enough for me? Will all American films seem too dark and too lacking in pop music? What's a girl to do?

Planes, Trains, and Auto-Rickshaws

I have taken nearly every form of transportation possible in India, and each has been an eye-opening experience. A few words on getting around:

Bicycles

The high price of gas petrol along with the massive size of campus makes bicycles a popular choice and a necessity for the University of Hyderabad student. There appear to be a lot of large corporate monopolies in India and so even with a few thousand bikes on campus, it is a few thousand of the same crappy, one-speed bicycle in a few different colors. They are only differentiated by the varying states of disrepair and customized bike seats. My bike (the piece of junk on the left there) and I have a very hostile relationship; I’d rather not talk about it.

Buses

Traveling farther afield from campus usually requires a bus ride. I believe I described Indian public buses before as a “big, sweaty, group-hug with a lot of strangers.” This remains true. Luckily, buses have two separate entrances in the front and the back, the front being for women and the back for men. The seats are divided in the same way with the front section reserved for ladies. The men’s section is usually much more crowded and as a lady I can usually get one of the coveted front seats, although, having a seat sometimes means you get to have a tired old woman or someone else’s child sitting on your lap for the duration of your 8 cent journey.

Rickshaws

You must haggle your price with your rickshaw driver before you get in. The meter is always “broken.” 100% of Rickshaw drivers are 100% crazy. Your rickshaw driver may stop at any point to buy himself a snack or to ask a stranger for directions to your desired destination. The inside of your rickshaw will, generally, be decorated with pictures of Bollywood stars, and if you're lucky the driver will deafen you with loud Bollywood music as you drive.

Trains

Indian trains are a cheap and decent way to travel long distances, but they move inexplicably slowly and they bear no resemblance to the trains in The Darjeeling Limited. The sleeper cars have three-tier bunks, which, if you happen to be less than 5’6” are just the right length. With the gentle swaying motion of the train, these can actually be relaxing beds to sleep in. That is, of course if you can sleep with a few ticketless passengers sitting on the foot of your bed, or with a family of strangers staring at you every time you open your eyes, or with cockroaches climbing over your face, or with Tea-peddlers periodically walking through the cars yelling “CHAI! CHAI! CHAI!” Fortunately, India has toughened me to such elements and most of my friends and I have learned to travel quite comfortably on trains.

Planes

Indian planes are relatively cheap and relatively luxurious. A recent flight I was on began with the flight attendants distributing a small mango juice-box to each passenger. I had been in India long enough at this point for this to seem unsurprising, but when I took time to remove myself from the situation I realized how bizarre I would think it was if I was given a box of mango juice on an American airline. Even one-hour flights in India will serve a meal. You will be given the options of Veg. or Non-Veg. which usually consists of rice, daal, a curry, a salad and a dessert. It is by far the best plane food I have ever eaten…as in…it is actually good food, food I would pay to eat. I tried explaining the lukewarm, rubbery, inedible food found on American planes to an Indian friend and he really didn’t seem to understand where I was coming from.

Other transportation in India

The streets of Hyderabad are filled, not with cars, but primarily with trucks, rickshaws, and motorcycles. The concept of seating and towing capacities for each of these modes of transportation is stretched to its limits. A truck may move a pile of raw materials twice its own size, a four-seat rickshaw can hold at least eleven people, and a motorcycle is a family vehicle. Because trucks are generally loaded sky-high with goods, rickshaws have no back windows, and motorcycles are generally not equipped with mirrors, no one speeding down the road has any rear-view vision. The problem is solved by constant noise-making. As any moving vehicle approaches any other moving vehicle, the drivers create as much obnoxious honking as possible. The backs of most trucks and buses read “Sound Horn!” or “Horn OK Please!” in colorful letters. The streets of Hyderabad are very noisy. Luckily, many cars and buses are outfitted with vanity horns that play bits of music when they honk. Even better than the musical horns is the “back up music” that most motorized vehicles have. I believe this also has to do with heavy traffic and low visibility, but most cars and buses play music when going in reverse. Though this music is meant as an alert to bystanders, the song choice is rarely anything intimidating. Popular songs include, but are not limited to, “Happy Birthday,” “Silent Night,” “Fur Elise,” and of course, “My Heart Will Go On.” Nothing screams “get out of the way” like Celine Dion, eh?

Drive safe.

Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder

Yesterday was cloudy, overcast, and cool enough to wear jeans. It RAINED for about ten seconds at 2:30 in the afternoon. This was the first weather that I had seen in 78 days. My mood was enormously improved, things looked prettier, food tasted better, everything (and everyone) smelled better, I had more energy, and I spent all day happily exploring the city.

Today it is sunny and deathly hot again. Misery. Lethargy. Monday.

Pantleg Ponderings

I could speak for pages about gender roles in India. Even after all of the time I've been here I still don't have a good understanding of gender in this society. The two conclusions that I can safely draw are 1) Gender roles in India are very very different than they are in the United States. 2) Indian women are a lot more modest in dress than American women. It would be somewhat frowned upon to wear shorts in the hot weather for example. Now, I am not a person who has the capability to get a tan by any stretch of the imagination, but dressing modestly in India has left my body with a very strange color scheme. My legs, which haven't seen sunlight in months, remain the ghostly shade of translucent white that they were in December in Oregon, while my forearms look like they have been in India for three months. Since I can never see my legs behind the long pants and long skirts that I typically wear here, I had forgotten entirely about them until my friend Nick posted this horrifying picture on Facebook. One hot day in the desert of Rajasthan, I had decided to be scandalous and roll up my pants. The result, as you can see, was blinding.