Happy-to-be-leaving-India New Year!

I can't believe that 2008 is just around the corner. Tonight we leave India (whew...finally!) on a red-eye to Kuala Lumpur. Hello Malyasia! I have to admit I'm barely able to contain my excitement to depart this crazy country. I never once thought for a second that India would be easy, but lately, I've found myself missing China. That says a lot! Of course, I haven't had a chance to share my thoughts on China here yet, but when I do, you'll understand why it's pretty nuts for me to make the statement I just did.

Bodh Gaya, as you know if you read my previous blog, was amazing, spiritual, insane, sad, dirty, noisy, and enlightening all at the same time. On the morning we left, we endured a 5:30am wild auto rickshaw ride in the dark at the hands of two young Indian punks who drove as if they were characters in a video game. I honestly wasn't sure if we'd arrive at the train station in one piece. Luckily we did, and were pleased to see our train pull into the station on time at 6:25am.

We were looking at a 13-hour ride to Agra in a 2nd-class sleeper car. Sounded doable, except we weren't expecting to sit on the track after lunch in the middle of nowhere for 2.5 hours (this part of India runs on a single track, so apparently you have to wait for passing trains a lot of the time); or have endless cockroaches crawling over our seats and up the walls for the bulk of the journey; or be visited several times by a mouse, let alone experience the nasty personal habits that most Indians exhibit in public without reservation (hacking, spitting, loud talking, vocal belching, slurpy eating). That aside, the mouse didn't bother me too much (remember I'm a former pet rat owner) but the roaches made my skin crawl. No, they gave me a full-blown panic attack. Add to that continued delays along the way, and needless to say, David and I pulled into Agra bleary-eyed and at our wits' ends at 12:15 the next morning. Ugh! Those are 18 hours that we won't forget too soon but surely were happy to put behind us.

Agra is a pit of a city, with dirty old streets and funky little hamlets surrounding one of the most famous, pristine sites in the world. Hard to believe this is home to the Taj Mahal. We enjoyed our visit to the architectural marvel, but to be honest, I thought the place was a bit overhyped, and the drizzling rain didn't help much either. The money shots with blue sky behind that pearly white just aren't there. We toured the cool fort the next day, checked out the view of the Taj from across the river (haze prevented us from seeing too clearly), and had a nice dinner and good chat with two Indian brothers at their local restaurant. Our hotel was run by a bunch of cheats and scammers, but at least our room was clean. (Sadly, that theme will repeat itself throughout the rest of our time in India.) Things were, dare I say it, looking up.

The next morning a driver picked us up at 7:00am, and we embarked on our two-week road tour of Rajasthan. In 14 days we visited Jaipur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Rohet, Ranakhpur, Udaipur, Bundi, and Ranthambore National Park. Whew! We didn't see any tigers (for which the latter is famous...bummer!), but we did take in a heck of a lot of old forts, museums, city palaces, ancient towns, desert sand, crazy highways (if you can call them that), good food, and yummy masala chai. Hey, we even slurped opium (no joke!) with the local Rajasthani villagers and smoked a bidi (hand-rolled Indian tobacco). That was a fun day. (Don't worry, mom...the opium, when filtered down as a liquid and drunk, merely creates a stimulating sensation, unlike the smoked version, which can really mess with your head.)

We had mixed feelings about our tour. Our driver was lazy, uninspired, constantly lost, and pretty lame. Nevertheless, we made the best of it. A highlight of the journey was a camel ride on the dunes outside of Jaisalmer, just a stone's throw from Pakistan and really out in the middle of nowhere. We watched the sun set over the desert, got our camel driver to run Michael Jackson (our camel) a few times (which was really fun and bouncy), and spent the night at a "luxury" tent resort that was everything I'd hoped our African tent camp safari experience would be but wasn't. Apparently $132 a night buys a lot more in India. We enjoyed several hours of Rajasthani music and dancing; snacks and drinks around the campfire; a huge yummy vegetarian buffet; and a delightfully comfy night of rest in our cozy deluxe tent complete with stone-floored bathroom, Western toilet/shower, and tasteful furnishings in the bedroom. Too bad bliss only reigned for one night.

Cockroaches in our room in Jodhpur forced us to change hotels, only to endure an even dirtier experience at the next dump the local agent ushered us into. Given that it was 10:30pm by the time we'd unpacked, we really had no choice but to hunker down for the night, demand a sheet change, and try our best to ignore the last guest's cigarette butts and body hairs in our bathroom. Lovely. Luckily the next morning, we stood firm with the local agent and demanded to be moved to yet another hotel. After 10 minutes of arguing with him (these businessmen love to lie to you), he had our driver take us to a lovely heritage hotel with beautiful gardens, a great room, amazing dining, and the nicest hotel manager we've met since we arrived in India. We were furious to learn that this great place cost only 100 rupees more than either of the dumps we'd been booked into the night before. They say anything is possible in India, but you sure have to fight hard to get it.

We spent Christmas Eve in the lakeside town of Udaipur, where we met a great German couple named Joe and Sylvia, who were on a similar road trip of their own ripe with problems and hassles. We drank beer together on a rooftop guesthouse restaurant, admired the city palace aglow in evening lights, and shared war stories about our travels thus far. It was a nice way to spend a holiday evening away from home. Too bad our hotel was filled with Indian families who like to leave their room doors open, shout across the hallways to one another, and let their children run amok through the marble-tiled courtyards. That's something about this culture that I really won't miss nor ever really understand. We managed to eek out a decent night's sleep despite the ruckus.

Christmas Day was less eventful and pretty dreary in the small funky town of Bundi, but as fate would have it, we ran into Joe and Sylvia again and had the pleasure of their company at yet another rooftop guesthouse restaurant with an amazing view of the old palace just above us. Another German guy joined us, and our table of five made for a nice holiday celebration. We called our parents afterwards, which made us both insanely homesick but also super happy, then called it a night. No visit from Santa; just a spooky walk out of the old city in the pitch black with no auto rickshaws in sight. We finally found one and were amazed at how eerily quiet India can be when everyone goes home for the night. Just you and the homeless dogs and the endless cows patrolling the streets.

And as I mentioned at the beginning, no tigers! But we did see Asia's largest antelope (the blue bull), a ton of Indian deer, wild boar, a mongoose, monkeys, and lots of cool birds. Save for the drunken hotel managers (who again lied to us like most hotel staff here), we had a decent stay in Ranthambore for two nights before catching an express train back to Delhi. That experience in chair class was much better than our roach-ridden slow train to Agra. Too bad they only offer chair class on a handful of Indian trains. It's a much more civilized way to travel for sure.

Back in Delhi we met with our travel agent and spent several hours sharing our woes. He was pleasant enough, but again, this is India, and he's only so sympathetic to our cause. We had reserved a room last month at a great little hotel in Karol Bagh, the main shopping district, and were happy to see the friendly face of the front desk manager, who remembered us from our August visit. After a quick nap, we struck out for a beer at a local bar we'd seen last time we were in town but never visited, and discovered a hidden little gem. I realized how long it'd been since I'd eaten anything other than chapati and paneer butter masala, or heard Western music, or had readily accessible cold beer, or been greeted by a smiling face at the door. We grubbed on tasty Chinese food, laughed with the restaurant manager, and had a real hot fudge sundae of all things. Rock on, Jade Garden!

But wait! Did I mention the leering men? How could I forget? As a woman, I'm a huge target for ogling, despite wearing baggy blouses, scarves, and no makeup when I go out. But Rajasthan proved really disgusting on this front. I can understand in small villages that many of the people have seen few white folk, but honestly, could you be more obvious about staring at me all of the time, people? Or ignoring the concept of personal space? Or treating me like some animal at the zoo? Unfortunately my tactic of staring back just as blatantly fazed none of them. They just continued to gaze at me with these disturbed, odd, longing looks on their faces. David tried to block and cover but couldn't keep up the game all of the time. After a while, it wears you out to the point where the four walls of your hotel room become more pleasing than sightseeing for the day. Sad but true.

Despite the endless hassles, lies, dirt, poverty, and constant noise, I have mixed emotions about leaving India. There are some truly beautiful, kind people here. There are some amazing historical sites. There are places of seriously holy worship. And dare I say there's almost a method to the madness that goes on here day after day. India really is like no other place on Earth, and I'm glad to have had the chance to experience it. But ironically, I've felt most at peace when surrounded by influences of another culture.

It's in India that I walked in the Buddha's footsteps, toured the hillside community of the Dalai Lama, and got a blessing from the second most powerful Tibetan in the world. Interestingly enough, I'm writing this post from an Internet cafe in Delhi's Tibetan Refugee Camp. In fact, I'm surrounded by Tibetans as I type this, and David is listening to a Tibetan CD we just bought here. We'd discovered this singer while in Lhasa but could never find his album in any of the shops there. It took 10 seconds for a Tibetan woman to locate it on the shelf of a music kiosk here, and five seconds for us to buy it.

And that woman...Yangchen...the reason we're here on our last day, and a really heartwarming story. A few hours after we'd boarded the train from hell in Gaya, I realized that I'd left behind at our guesthouse my new silk mala beads pouch (which I'd just bought the day before at a Tibetan meditation center in Bodh Gaya) and cherished bracelet from Swayambunath temple in Nepal. Doing my best to practice non-attachment as a good Buddhist would, I tried to talk through the missing of these items, the lack of importance they held in the grand scheme of my life, and remind myself that I was lucky and happy to be alive and in one piece, yada, yada, yada. It worked for a while, but then the basic sadness of loss returned.

Later the next day in Agra, I emailed the hotel in Bodh Gaya and asked if there was any way they'd be able to mail the items to my hotel in Delhi. I wasn't expecting much, and I didn't even know if they'd found them in our room, if they'd been stolen, etc. I didn't hear back from the hotel until a week later, and to my surprise, one of the front desk guys we'd befriended wrote back apologizing for his delay in responding. He said they'd been really busy lately but were sending my items back to Delhi on December 24 with a girl who lived at the Tibetan Refugee Camp there. I could pick them up when I arrived back in the city. I was ecstatic. Non-attachment flew out the window. I had a chance to get back some cherished little things that held good spiritual energy for me. I was thrilled!

And that's how we came to be where we are right now. Grateful to have seen a mere speck of this huge crazy nation but excited to move on. Inspired by many of the people we've met but worn out by the actions of others. Moved to tears by the poverty of many but enlightened by the compassion of a cherished few. As the new year approaches, I have much to be thankful for and many things to look forward to. I can only hope that 2008 brings a fraction of the many blessings and wild experiences to which we've been privy so far. This global journey may be more than half over for us, but I know there are many great things yet to come.

Wishing you a year filled with peace, happiness, and open-minded heartfelt bliss!