Adam’s Not Here

I met up with my Mother and Grandmother almost a week ago now. We stayed a day in Delhi and then drove through the Shekawati region, which has all these old mansions (called havelis) that belonged to the old merchant and banking class. Nowadays it’s just a bunch of small towns and villages and the havelis have fallen into disrepair.

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Date: 01/25/2006Views: 562

From there we went to Jaipur, where we met up with John and his agent, Vinod. The two days going through Shekawati had a lot of walking and sitting in the Jeep, so I was starting to feel pretty pooped. I spent most of the two days in Jaipur just hanging out at the guesthouse, reading, eating, napping. It was relaxing, but I still felt just as tired, go figure.

We arrived in Pushkar yesterday which is a small town and one of the five holiest placest in India. The town also has a sort of hippie backpacker feel to it that is reminiscent of some of the stops in SE Asia. It’s the sort of town that some travellers get stuck in, and will stay in for weeks, months, and even years. Again there has been a lot of lounging, playing cards and sitting in music shops listening to CDs.

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Date: 01/29/2006Views: 549

The experience of Jaipur, Delhi and my previous visit to India has led to the conclusion that I can’t stand large Indian cities. They are just a mess. Garbage, traffic and pollution are everywhere. I find the whole experience pretty stressful. Most of them are pretty spread out too (they seem to have an aversion to tall, high-density buildings here) which means you have to take taxis and autorickshaws through the traffic if you want to go anywhere. The smaller towns are a lot more chilled out though. Pushkar care has a gorgeous lake surrounded my temples and you can just sit on the terrace at the front of the guesthouse and relax. It’s great.

My time in Shimla was fantastic. The train ride up was very scenic. It was a narrow gauge “toy train” that winded its way up steep hills while passing through over 100 short tunnels. On the way up I met a really nice Australian couple, Tom and Merrin (sorry if i got the spelling wrong!). We had a nice chat on the way up and decided to meet the next day to tour around the area near Shimla. The funniest part of the touring was definitely the Monkey Temple. It was strange as the people at the temple sold us food to give the monkeys but also rented us big sticks to bang on the ground when the monkeys got too aggressive. The monkeys were very used to people and so would come and rifle through your pockets or grab things out of your hands if you weren’t looking. The small ones were pretty cute, but there were also some big bullies that you really had to look out for.

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Date: 01/20/2006Views: 522

The next day I headed up to a small village known as Tattapani, which is famous for its sulphurous hot springs. The springs were right beside a river that ran its way through the base of a valley. I got the bath to myself late at night and was able to have a soak while looking up at the stars and listening to the river. Peaceful does not even begin to describe it. I also went on a couple of short hikes in the surrounding area. At the top of the hills one could really get a great view of the Himalayas, which looked quite impressive. It has got me wanting to come back at a later time and do a real multi-day trek through the mountains.

At Tattapani I also ran into a couple of really friendly Aussie guys. As it turns out, one of them is moving to Shanghai to work after he finishes in India. So I gave him my info and said I’d help him get settled. Pretty much the exact same scenario with me meeting Laura in Vietnam. It’s definitely one of the best parts about travelling, the chance encounters with great people. The way everyone reciprocates such hospitality really makes things so much more enjoyable.

I had about a week between teaching my last class and coming to India. The time was pretty much spent at home finishing my grad school applications (to U of T, Queens’ and NYU, for those of you who are interested). Being cooped up for so long was making me feel pretty lethargic, so I was really looking forward to getting out on the road again. In transit I was already writing this blog entry, I am so happy to be travelling again, yadda, yadda, yadda. But then I actually arrived here.

It was pretty much entirely my fault, but first evening here was not pleasant. I was unable to purchase rupees in China, but the guide book said there are lots of international ATMs in Delhi. So I arrived at Delhi airport only with Chinese RMB. Of course the ATMs at the airport are out of service or don’t accept my card. The only money changer that will accept RMB is giving the most ridiculous exchange rate and has a minnimum amount, pretty much guaranteeing that you get totally ripped off. So I find a cabbie outside the airport who will take me into the city and stop at an ATM on the way to hotel. He starts off really friendly, offering me some vodka from his glove compartment (I start eyeing him to make sure he’s not sauced). We chat and things are good. Then he starts trying to recommend hotels (so he can get commission) but I stick to my guns and tell him to drop me off near the train station. He finally gets the message and we agree to go find an ATM. We spend 2 hours driving around and about 10 ATMs later, nowhere has accepted my card. By now it is getting close to midnight, he’s pissed that he has been driving me around for three hours and its compounded by the fact that I have no money to pay him. So at this point I realize I am kind of screwed, so we spend another half hour driving around to find somewhere that will take me without any money. This of course means I get charged a ridiculous rate for the room, but they’ll take me and give the cab driver his due in the morning when I get some cash. I end up having to pay the cabbie double for his time (he at first asked for ten times his original fare!). In the morning someone from the hotel escorts me to the ATM and everything gets settled. At this point I am ready to get the heck out of Delhi. Stressful night + general chaos of Delhi + terrible pollution (yes, it seemed terrible coming from Shanghai) = me leaving.

So the next day I take the train up to Chandigarh. I was very excited to visit Chandigarh as it offers a rare example of the completely planned city (i.e. planned out and built from scratch). It was built in the 1950s, based on designs from some Americans and the famous French futurist architect Le Corbusier. The city is similar to a suburban style layout, with everything being planned around main thoroughfares and residential districts being hidden away on the inside, away from the main roads. Stores are limited to designated shopping streets. While I generally really don’t like this type of layout, I found it worked out ok over here. It served to really give the city some organization and structure that you don’t see in most Indian cities. The effect is to make the city a lot less chaotic and a lot more relaxing than most of the other Indian cities I have been to. There was some interesting 1950s style modern architecture, which nowadays obvious appears rather dated and contradictory (historic modernism?). The highlight of my stay in Chandigarh was without a doubt the Rock Garden. It is somewhat hard to describe, but is essentially a winding series of landscaped sections that contain sculptures made out of rock and industrial refuse. Very original and beautiful stuff. I am having trouble finding somewhere to upload my pictures, so they will probably have to wait till I get back to Delhi on the 24th (EDIT: the photos are in the gallery now). But there are lots of the Rock Garden to give you a better idea. All in all, the stay in Chandigarh was great and just what I needed.

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Date: 01/18/2006Views: 527

Today I headed up to Shimla, which used to be a British hill station during the colonial area. It is pretty close to the Himalayas, so the landscape is fantastic. The internet cafe here is about to close, so I’ll have to write about it more in the next entry. To be continued….

Yesterday, on the 15 minute walk home from People’s Square I was approached by prostitutes 4 times. This was more than usual, I guess the afternoon isn’t that busy. My route was along Nanjing walking street, which is the most famous shopping street in China. On a typical walk along Nanjing Lu (Rd.) one will be approached by (in order of most to least frequent):

1. Vendors selling fake merchandise (you want watch, bag, shoes, DVD? looky looky!)
2. People holding giant menus, trying to entice you into restaurants
3. (tie) Prostitutes (hey, where are you going now?)
3. (tie) Guys telling you to come to their bars for sex girls
5. Xinzhangese people trying to sell you hasheesh (now I am falling into stereotyping them like the locals do, but they really all do look like they are from Xinzhang. Xinzhang is the northwest of China, which is essentially Central Asia and so has a strong Middle Eastern influence. Most people from this area have noticeably different features from ethnic Han Chinese.)
6. “Art students” from Beijing inviting you to their “free art show”. (In Beijing you get approached by art students from Shanghai) Should you attend, they will try to pressure you into buying one of their pieces at an exhorbitant price. These guys were a lot more frequent in the summer; don’t see them so much now.

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Date: 08/07/2005Views: 498

Since I live 2 blocks away from Nanjing walking street I had to come up with a good way of dealing with these people pretty quick. By far the best approach I have found is to continue walking. The trick is to not make eye contact or give any indication by way of body language that you have actually heard them or aware of their existence. This may sound kind of harsh and it does leave one feeling like a bit of a jerk from time to time, but it really works. It means they will leave you alone after about 3 seconds, where as a “no, thank you” can lead to them following and pestering you for up to 30 seconds.

This may sound kind of annoying, but after a while you don’t notice that much. In a weird way it sort of adds to the charm of the street. At night it is glowing with neon lights, which some people might deride as tacky, but it all sort of fits together into a nice package.

Nothing much is new to report, so I hope you enjoyed that tidbit.