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.