Ah, incredible india...

I was sick yesterday.  I don't know what I ate that did it, but I can think of a few things!  I think I'm going to go back to being ultra conservative and picky about what I put in my mouth.  You miss out on some good stuff, but then again you don't die...

One thing I noticed was that I was a lot less patient and tolerant of some of the petty annoyances here yesterday when I wasn't feeling well.  My hotel for one -- it's overpriced and I get the impression the main difference between a budget hotel and a midrange one (besides the price) is basically the presense of a tv.  From now on I'm sticking to budget hotels -- the first night I was here it was impossible to sleep because there were a number of indian families staying on my floor and they decided to all hang out together in the hallway outside my door.  Somebody's TV was going at full volume and their door was open -- probably so they could hear it from the hall over everybody elses shouts.  In the morning the noise started up again and I wanted to go scream at them. 

I eventually got up, had some "corn flex/pooridge" which was corn flakes with hot milk.  Then I hopped on my first bicycle rickshaw.  I offered 20 ruppees to get to the south most ghat -- he finally agreed and then dropped me off half way.  I walked the rest of the way along the river (I'm in varanasi by the way...) and ignored most of the people trying to sell me something.  The sales approach is usually the same.  It starts out with "Hello friend" or "Hello Uncle" or "Excuse me sir" and then progresses to "What country you are [sic] from?"  I generally respond with "United States". They apparently all understand America and most get USA, but I think United States might sound a little too much like "You something something" which confuses them.  Thats when they usually repeat the question and after a few more rounds sometimes I'm nice and just say America.  Then of course there's the "how long you are in India?" and "How you are finding Varanasi?"  That one had me confused for a second -- did they want to know how I got here or how I like it?  After about 2 minutes of chit chat they generally want you to come visit their store.

The rickshaw wallahs are much more direct.  Simply "Hello friend, where you going?"  I hate to be rude, but really, I didn't ask for a ride, so what business is it of theirs?  You can't walk 20 steps from your hotel to the internet cafe or just some street shop to pick up water without five guys asking where you're going and saying they'll take you there for 50 rupees.  The last few nights I walked back to my hotel from the town center -- I gues it's about 5 km. 

"Hello friend, where you going?" 

"This way.  For a walk."

"I give you ride.  50 rupees."

"No thanks"

"Ok sir, 40 rupees."

"For what, I'm just taking a walk!"

"Ok, 30 rupees sir". 

At this point I just try my best to ignore the guy for the next 5 minutes as he rides along side me waiting for me to ask for a ride.  Sometimes I have fun and offer to take them for a ride on my back for just 5 rupees, but yesterday I was tired and that game gets old quick. 

Ok, I should really get out of here.  I need to head over to the train station to see if I can get a ticket out of here in two days.  It's insane.  I went to the tourist office next to my hotel to ask if they could help me arrange a ticket out of town. 

"Sir, it's very easy.  We make nice office for you at train station"
"I know, I've been there.  Its a room with 50 people all waiting for one person to help them get their ticket"

"No sir, we have special room for tourists.  Very nice.  Very easy."

"Yeah, that's the room I was talking about -- there are 50 tourists sitting on the ground waiting to get helped.  Is that the only way to get a ticket?"

"Then now there will be 51."

"So that's the only way?"

"Yes sir, only way."

Time to go be number 51...

New pictures of an adventurous day trip

Ok ok, enough with the laundry jokes...  Sorry I didn't check in earlier, but that story had a happy ending -- the day I left all my left over laundry miraculously turned up and nothing was lost!

 

I'm in kajuraho now -- in between I stopped off at gwalior and orcha each for a night.  The orcha stop involved taking a train to jhansi and walking about five kilometers across town with my back pack.  I was looking for a hotel but didn't like what I saw so when I got to the bus station I took a cheap tempo (kind of like an oversized rickshaw) to orcha.  A private rickshaw probably would have been rupees 150 -- this was only 30 (It should have only been 10 but I was tired, hungry, didn't care and let myself got ripped off -- all I cared was that I didn't pay the 150 rupees).  The tempo had two benches facing each other, each about as wide as the back seat in most western style midsized cars.  We squeezed in 12 people (don't worry, four of them were kids) and my back pack. 

 

The next day I was fortunate to find a tempo back into jhansi. It was relatively empty -- only seven adults -- two of them were travelers with backpacks like me. They were both headed to Kajuraho and we all found our bus together.  It was kind of an unusual meeting in that we exchanged names immediately upon meeting in the tempo!  "I'm sarah." "Hi Sarah, I'm Jeff".  "Oh, I'm Jeff 2" the other jeff said -- the explained its actually jeanfrancois but gets shortened to Jeff.  We all checked into the same hotel and met a french guy named Damien that night.  Somehow that night we also met a few locals and i didn't find out exactly how we met them until a few days later but they showed us around and one offered to take us out to a tiger reserve with water falls 40 kilometers from town.  I don't have time now to go into the details of that adventure but I just uploaded the pictures and until I have a chance to say more I'll let them speak for themselves...

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dscheffy/sets/72157594495891495/

 

Until next time,

Namaste

Just uploaded new pictures

I just uploaded the rest of my pictures since thanksgiving so you can find them all over on my flickr account -- <http://www.flickr.com/photos/dscheffy>

I'd love to stick around a bit longer and say more at this point, but I've already been here a while and my bladders about to burst...  It looks like I'll be here one more day and then I'm going to head out early morning toward gwalior on my slow way to Calcutta.  My cold is SLOWLY getting better and I've been sleeping a lot since getting here, but my ears are still going crazy from the plane ride. 

It's like being home here, but there is one slightly annoying thing about staying at the shivalik house in Delhi -- laundry.  The moment I got here I hesitantly deposited a bag of dirty laundry knowing full well I'd likely lose about half of it...  I don't know that things actually get lost, I think they just get shuffled in the laundry queue.  Imagine a gallon of water with a small hole in the bottom.  Everyday half a gallon of water trickles out but another half gallon is added and stired into the vessel.  A week later some of that initial gallon of water is still waiting to spill out...  At the moment I'm missing 4 socks (not 4 pair of socks, but 4 socks -- two of which happen to be from the same pair) a hat and at least one pair of my precious underwear...  Another half of my things I can see hanging outside my door after having been washed this morning -- three days after I put them in the laundry.  Oh well, that's india for you...

Ok, I'm going to run off, grab a bite, use the facilities and go see the Red fort again (it was closed yesterday for monday...)

Namaste

Safe and sound at Shivalik

Well, after two short and pleasant flights (punctuated by a relatively long and uneventful stopover in bahrain) I arrived safely in New Delhi.  It took about an hour for my luggage to show up, but after that the prepaid taxi line was short and the way to my Auntie's house was familiar.  I wasn't sure if they even knew I was coming, but I knew I'd be welcomed with open arms...  Fortunately they were home and awake -- or maybe I woke them...  I had some tea, took a quick nap up in the room on the roof and then I was off on my hunt for idli, dosa and sambar!  Mmmm.  The sambar left a warm and loving feeling in my tummy, but now that feeling has moved to my intestins and it doesn't seem to be stopping so I'd better keep this short and skip my way back to a lieu. 

Just wanted to let everybody know that I'm cozy warm in sunny India.  I have an indian travel book now and a local sim card, so I'm ready to venture out into the world -- as soon as I recuperate from my cold...

Happy orthodox newyear everybody!

Leaving on a jet plane...

Don't know when I'll be back again.  Two days ago I was singing leaving on a night train...  Funny the songs that get stuck in your head.  All through aya sofia I kept thinking now its istanbul, not constantinople.

Anyway, my bag is broken down and stuffed in a duffle bag, my airport shuttle is coming in a few minutes, and I have eggs and coffee coming up for breakfast.  Just another day and I'll be home in india!

Till then...

I finally made it to istanbul with very little extra time to spare -- I fly out tomorrow afternoon. I suppose I could have really pushed my luck and arrived tomorrow morning on the night train, but that would have meant nearly three days of straight travel without any shower. That and I wouldn't get to see istanbul! I think last nights train ride was the most stressed I've been. On the ride from belgrade to ljubljana some canadians told me about a guy they met who was traveling to greece, slept through his stop and somehow ended up in istanbul without a visa. They arrested him and he spent a day in a turkish prison. Apparently the cops took pitty on him and that night when he got out they all took him out for a drink and he had a great time. I don't know the guy, so I have no clue how valid the story is, and after making the border crossing certain parts of it seem unlikely, but still, it had me a bit worried because I didn't want to end up in prison and miss my flight tomorrow. My travel guide indicated that you could get a visa upon arrival, but I hadn't met anybody who had personally done the entrance by train and could explain how the whole visa aquisition process would work. I asked on the train, but nobody who worked on the train spoke english, and nobody who spoke english (namely one girl from prague who was only traveling as far as bulgaria) knew.

It all worked out fine in the end, the train stopped at the turkish border around 3 in the morning. Everybody shuffled out to get their passport stamped. I was at the end of the line and by the time I got up to the front the officer told me I needed to go around the corner to get a visa. On my way over I saw too english speaking looking types and asked if they knew where I needed to go -- they pointed off in the direction I was headed and I eventually found it.

Back on the train I was finally able to get some sleep. The train was relatively empty and I had the whole cabin to myself which was both nice in terms of noise and privacy, but also a little bit sketchy... Sometimes its just nice to share the confusion with a fellow traveler who's just as confused -- even if they don't speak your language. The door had a chain on it though, so I really wasn't worried about getting gassed or having my things stolen -- it was just this worry that I'd sleep through the border crossing that kept me from sleeping well until 4 in the morning. That and the cold I caught a few days ago.

In the morning when we arrived They Might Be Giants was playing over and over in my fog filled head. When I got off the train I bumped into the couple that pointed me to the visa office at the border. I asked where they were from -- the standard travelers introduction (which is the reason you can go days without ever learning somebodys name). When they said chicago I was just speechless for a minute. Three months. I went three months and never met anybody from chicago. Then in Salzburg I meet somebody from Roselle. A week later Two weeks later in Wien I meet a girl from Gurnee. Then in Budapest one from Geneva and then just recently in Brasov somebody from Kenosha. She was pretty embarassed to claim to be from Chicago when she isn't even from the right state, but I didn't complain. When you're half way around the world, what's a hundred miles... So what's with the sudden burst of wannabe chicagoans? I explained my surprise to the couple and said from the looks of it they might even be "real" chicagoans.

"No," they replied, "we've only lived their five years."

"Actually I just meant you look like you live in the city -- as opposed to roselle, gurnee, geneva or kenosha. What neighborhood do you live in?"

"Logan Square"

More silence. Finally "Hmm, that might explain why I thought you looked familiar =) I lived at fullerton and kedzie over the summer."

"Yeah, that's right by us."

Of course I never did get their names, but Ruth or Leslie, if you have any friends that went to europe for five weeks, tell them that was your exroommate they bumped into.



I now have a friend in Prague. I finally finished the hat I started a week ago with yarn I bought in Budapest. It didn't take long, but I hadn't spent much time on it and I wanted to finish it before leaving europe -- it had become some kind of a farewell project. At one point I was in a bad mood while crocheting a few rows and felt a little bit like I was releasing all my frustrations into the hat -- that was good for me, but I felt bad about the idea of giving somebody a hat with bad karma... Anyway, when I took it out to finish on the train yesterday, the czech girl I was talking to seemed to take an interest. I had her try it on for the last few rows to help me decide when to stop and then asked her if she'd like it. I explained the whole bad karma thing, but said I was in a good mood for most of it, so the yin balanced the yan out. She graciously accepted and said that she had to give me something in return. I said she should just send me a photo of her wearing it on her ski trip in bulgaria. She apparently wasn't much of a negotiator though as she ended up throwing in a place to stay if ever I was in prague -- so now I have a friend to visit in Prague =)

I really should get going. I'm hungry and I only have a day to see Istanbul. Its been a great last week in europe though. Romania was nice. I spent a day in Sibiu -- apparently this years culture capital of europe -- and another day visiting draculas castle. One of the girls I was traveling with woke up one morning with two mysterious looking bites on her arm! We were all pretty sure they were probably just bed bugs though and not a vampire. Based on the spacing that would have been one wide @$$ jaw if it was a vampire bite... So I don't think she'll be cringing from the light of day anytime soon.

Some gipsy kids tried to pick my pocket in Bucharest. We were walking to the palace -- aparently the worlds second largest building after the pentagon -- and I had my backpack with me because I was going straight to the train. Two kids started asking me for money and wouldn't leave me alone when I said no. They kept following, or rather should I say staying in front of me and making it impossible for me to move. I started yelling "No" and "Go" and motioned for them to get away. After a bit I had to start pushing them away and I caught one reaching for the breast pocket of my jacket. Afterwards I noticed he had succeeded in pulling the zipper all the way down. Whenever they reached for my pockets I'd smack their hands away and it was to the point where I really felt I needed to start elbowing or pushing them down to the ground to get my point across, but some local people started yelling at them and they finally left me alone. A few blocks later though they were back and with reinforcements. Now two had become four and they were hassling all of us. I got a little more aggressive, but we finally just walked into a coffee shop to get away from them -- that and some of the girls wanted to rearrange their passports and wallets.

When we left the coffee shop the kids were gone and I had to head back to the train. I only hope they didn't come back to bother the girls more.

Ok, time for me to go fill my tummy and see the city.

Two more days to Dehli -- Sagar get the idli sambar ready cause here I come!

Transylvania 65000

So I hear Transylvania bites, but I figured I'd have to go and see for it myself.  I've been here chilling out in budapest for a week now.  Had some good fun, walked around, mixed weather -- some days were foggy, some were beautiful.  The baths were nice and relaxing and yesterday I did some caving.  It's been a bit like hotel california though.  Every day I say, I'm going to leave tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'll move on.  But tomorrow comes and I haven't made my plans, and the next thing I know another day goes by. 

Today I met up with some girls that I met caving yesterday.  A friend asked where I'm hanging out that I meet all these girls in caves -- duh, in caves of course...  We went to a wine tasting and they mentioned they were heading to brassov on a night train tonight.  That's exactly where I was planning on going next in between here and turkey, so I asked if I could join them, and now I have an hour to catch a train out of town. So as usual I have a convenient excuse for keeping this short =) 

One more week to india -- It was so tempting to get indian food here, but I think I can hold out one more week...