on India and Indians...

Hi Buddies. Daniel signing in for a post.

Its strange that we have been away for a month. Time has past both quickly and slowly. It seems forever ago that we were in Rishakesh rising before the sun, lying in the yoga hall listening to the howling wind coming off of the Himalayas while pigeons fought for their rightful position on the roof and we waited for our teacher to lead us into the class with a sleepy yet resounding Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti - we break our silence and our day begins. Later we would be sipping mint lemonades and planning businesses in amazing cafes overlooking the beautiful blue River Ganga while other seekers shared ideas or read Eckhart Tolle over their chai masala and cigarette. 

Since then we have been hot and hateful in the Himalayas and Varanasi. It has been an extremely testing time. It is easier to be loving, forgiving, to see the divine in the other brother, when I have rest, a shower, air conditioning, reliable electricity and WiFi. I have struggled to choose India and Nepal for exactly what it is and everything that it isn't. We have been extremely short with beggars, merchants, children and particularly guides and drivers, who want to rip you off most of the time. My rackets about these people, I hold on to tightly. I hope that in time I will remember in my heart all of the kindness that we received, because right now I am for the first time, feeling justifyably racist.

We have met many great travelers who will host us across Europe and Canada. I will tell you about some great Indian people.

In Rishakesh we met Happy, who used to work for the Indian Mafia, but he couldn't honour his parents and God in this work. He exposed the Dehli scam to us. He is a Siek but he has a Hindu goddess in his massage parlour. He explains that she is the Mother God, that God is One but has many faces and he likes that face. He says we pray to the Father but we must honour the Mother which to me means Earth. If all people thought this way, the cows here wouldn't be eating garbage and the river would flow cleanly even to Varanasi, where suewage and burnt corpses now dominate the Ganga. Things would be better in Australia too.

In Kathmandu we met a man named Milan, who is building a guesthouse in a small village for homestay purposes. He connected us with Deve and we stayed with this farmer whose future looks like president of the jungle conservation board and his village, a successful organic farmer, educator and community developer. His past was civil war, seeing his friend killed by the Maoists for doing social work, being forced to earn money so he could be taxed, working for a dollar a day in tourism restaurants and having his wife and daughter move to India because money is better there. His present is a simple room, one light bulb, a wonderful view if the fire ever stops and monsoon comes, climbing mountains, building his pig and goat farm and learning what your meant to do with these strange coffee trees that the Germans brought. He needs $150 for a male pig so he can breed pigs. He doesn't need a male goat. One takes ones goat herd to the jungle to get the job done. Its economical.

We stayed with another Deve in Varanasi, a Couch Surfing fanatic. When he arrived in Varanasi, he began to observe the silk and textile market that Varanasi is famous for. He watched tourists being taken advantage of by guides, who would take westerners to their friends' shops. We would pay 10x the market price for fake pashminas etc and the guide would get a nice commission. This would happen on boats, rickshaws, hotels, everything. He wanted to save tourists, and he found couch surfing. He took us to all of the must see spots in one day, had a saree made for Lauren and trousers and shirt tailored for me by an honest, passionate Muslim man for a wedding that were fortunate enough to be esteemed guests at. He has found all of the honest traders in town so his guests will not be exploited. I have seen that life is cheaper in the villages than it is in the cities, which is cheaper than Australia. The weavers in the villages receive a little, but all of Devs contacts are connected and have their needs met. Now, having hosted over 200 couch surfers, he has contacts all over the world. Soon he will begin to export silk, pashmina, textiles etc to his friends. Now he has Australian contacts too. You can check out his website. We would love to know which items you like (market research).www.facebook.com/zuranutancollections

Deve says that the love that Lauren and I have for each other inspired him to reunite with his Ukrainian girlfriend Zoryana. I think it's that we called him on his romantic bullshit and encouraged him to take action and communicate.

We left Varanasi to see the Taj Mahal. We chose an unairconditioned sleeper train overnight, having learnt our lesson in taking second class, where children of lower castes are made to sit on your feet with their mum and fat moustachioed men push you from all sides as your sweat coats your sweat again and again. Its brutal.


[I'd like to mention here that during said lesson, whilst being crushed by the weight of anti-birth control beliefs and the exploding Indian poplulation (not to mention the over population of the luggage hook in our faces), Lauren and I managed to have a romantic moment - sharing headphones, listening to I Can't Stand it by Wilco from their Summer Teeth Album, looking each other in the eyes and stealing a kiss, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all]

The trains stop for no reason, sometimes for hours. In the middle of the night on sleeper class, I woke up to realise that the train had a lot more Indians on it compared to when we first boarded and consequently it smelt like shit. Lauren was on a lower bunk, a mistake - she has to fight off the Indian boys who want to sit on a western girls bed because they think it will become a porno. At least that's what we've been told.

This train arrived 5 hours late, a grand total of 18 hours travel and waiting time (which is used for men to try desperately to be bumped up, buy and spit tobacco while their teeth rot, and vendors to pimp their rubbish or maybe some yummy pakora or chai).

If it was 1982 and I was writting a letter by hand it may be in a different colour from here, as a few days have past since my first entry. I tell you this as much has happened and there may be a detectable change of mood and style.

Upon arrival at Agra Fort station (a train station built in to an old fort, but entirely uninteresting) we were confronted with the usual onslaught - an entourage of Tuk Tuk drivers all vieing to overcharge us for our services. Any western country with a monument as grand as the Taj Mahal would have official services (albeit overpriced) to connect the tourist to the destination. I've explained commission previously. We have become very distrustful of random dudes offering assistance. It's never free and rarely what you want. After much mucking around, we ended up at the Taj in 40 degree heat and Lauren was quite distressed. We were again met by guides who told us that we wanted them to pay them money to help us skip the queue. We had already paid 45X as much as the Indian vistors for a ticket ($14 each) and we weren't really interested. But we went with a man anyway. When in Rome...

At the gate, police men and women with big guns searched our bag and found *gasp* - condoms and a notebook! You can take a phone, camera, etc to the Taj but not a notebook. As for condoms... they call it the Monument of Love, right? I had to leave my medicine bag in an allegedly goverment authorised shop where I was asked what was in the bag. I loudly said Condoms, to the extreme pleasure of the 30 immature men standing around in the store. This is the second time in my life that I've had trouble getting condoms through security. Feel free to ask about the other time.

Meanwhile, Lauren was losing her shit in the most non-literal sense. This is an important clarification when traveling in India. She had burst in to tears because it was all too much, people were shouting, it really was too much. Indian men are really uncomfortable when someone cries. They want to make it stop. They let her keep the notebook but I'm sure you get that the notebook is of minor significance to her. 

Lauren:  on that afternoon the fight against the Indian rail system - 18 hour train ride, the fight against the weather - 45 degree heat, the fight against lack of sleep, the fight to find clean, safe water - probably dehydrated, not being able to remember my last shower, the fight against extortion - paying a stupid amount to see something because of the colour of our skin (it's cheaper if you just look Indian, you don't even have to be Indian), the fight against the constant seedy glares of sexually frustrated Indian boys and having to fight off every 'tour guide' in Agra were simmering away with a lid on, but when combined with the ridiculous request to abandon my notebook (which I still don't understand), after 6 pretty patient, tolerant, accepting weeks (I didn't develop the same racism as Daniel, although if I never eat Dahl or rice again I'll live), they refused to remain suppressed and I totally lost it. Seriously. I was sobbing! Freely, dramatically, crazily. For at least 2 minutes. It felt great.

To make a short story long, our guide settled down and as he is an unpaid Christian preacher, he managed to segway into asking us about faith. He was very excited to hear that my father is a pastor and Lauren is a worship leader. He enthusiastically invited us to his house for lunch/dinner/our first full meal for 24 hours. We ended up eating delicious chicken (which may have provided an entry to our next adventure), singing Give Me Oil in my Lamp and This is The Day until they offered us their only bed, a wooden board clad in upholstery, while the family slept on the floor. They wouldn't take no for an answer and Edwin, our guide come host, found it very difficult to accept money even for the tour.

The rest of our time in India deserves a dedicated expression, which will likely take form on our blog www.roamingstrelans.blogspot.in

Keep an eye out for a post titled I Shat My Pants - for my telltale confession of my darkest hour.

Much Love & Gratitude

Namaste

Daniel