Straining Your Senses

There is a lot to say about traveling in India, we stepped off the plane in New Delhi at the bright an early hour of 5 am. Luckily there was a driver to pick us up because we already felt lost. We found our driver in the crowd of people and he rushed us out the door without speaking a word. It wasn’t long after that we realized that our English-speaking driver that we supposedly hired didn’t speak any English. It was good to know that we were about to spend 8 wonderful days with him. We left the airport and our India trip was officially on its way.

First, it is necessary to describe India a little bit upon arrival. IT IS INSANE!! India is a constant barrage of activity; a full-frontal, continuous shock to all your senses. You are slammed from arrival to departure. The first thing you notice is all the people. They are everywhere. There is no place to get away from the people, you see them walking everywhere even on the highways. You find yourself wondering how far they are going to walk and where they are walking too. Then, you see all the trash in the street which they heaps are constantly being added. You notice that the trash collection agency is somewhat reminisence of a Flinstones cartoon including cows, pigs and dogs munching away at it as you step over or try to avoid them. Then you smell the pollution. It infiltrates every pore of your body. And if you haven’t already noticed India is loud! The sounds of car horns begin to echo in your head and they never go away even when you are sleeping. The car horn is a cultural necessity to navigate through cars, bikes, people, camels, wild dogs and cows that all seem to use the middle of the road in the same proportions. Did I mention India is loud?

They say India is a love/hate relationship for a foreigner. As you step off the plane you feel right away that you want to get back on and leave. For us it took 2 days before we felt acclimatized. In fact in the first few days we were a bit afraid of everything including the food and especially the water. We ate only one small vegetarian meal a day for the first 2 days because we just didn’t feel hungry. Once you begin to feel more confident about the food you realize that it is really very good and you begin to branch out. Each night we were trying different things and I must say the Tandoori is excellent especially my personal favorite Chicken Tikka Labrador. (It really could be dog!! jk)

They also say that between 30 and 70% of travelers experience some form of diarrhea during their travel. We were in the lucky minority who somehow avoided diarrhea, dysentery, malaria and all the other horrible diseases that scare you. There were 2 nights during my trip that I heard someone puking everything up in a toilet. This was not a pleasant sound. On the other hand we didn’t avoid travelers’ constipation. But I guess you can’t always be lucky.

We learned a new word as well, a "tout", anybody who attempts to take you -- at any cost and at great lengths -- into their or their friend's hotel, taxi, auto-rickshaw, store, whatever, for the commission they expect to receive. Scamming is like an art form in this country. My favorite was in Pushkar, they try to give you a bunch of flower peddles to throw in the lake as a religious gesture. You think how nice of them to offer you this small gift and you head to the lake with them and throw in your flowers. Then they demand a couple of hundred rupees. Luckily we read about it before and didn’t fall for it. Everywhere you go people are trying to take your money. The tour guides seem to be the worst, they hit you up the second you arrive at an attraction and tell you they know everything about the place and then charge you 10 euros or more to take you on a tour. It is a bit pathetic when you consider that a whole day usually costs no more than 20 euros. At one point we had a little girl following us in Ajmer demanding us to give her money. She wouldn’t leave us alone. It took us more than half the trip to get the right tone in our voice when saying NO to make them go away. At least some are honest about it. In another town, one rickshaw driver wanted to charge us 100 rupees to go somewhere. We said no, and then he said I will charge you 20 rupees if you go to two stores just to look (no need to buy) and then he would receive his commission from the store. So we bought in. Of course in the end the place we originally wanted to go could have been right around the corner. You have to realize they live on 180 rs a day and if just 3 tourists give them a 50 rs (less than 1 euro) or more they have made there day without doing any work. Life is good…

Another crazy thing was the way everyone wants to check you out, see what you’re doing, shake your hand, and take their picture with you. For Valerie it was even worse. Indian men seem to have no shame when it comes to staring. They see a western girl and boom the girl is like an eye magnet… I think at times they would ask me, just to be polite, if they could take my picture and then Valerie’s. My opinion is that they then throw my picture out or cut out the section with me in it so they can just have Valerie.

We found negotiating to be extremely funny for a little while. The tourist price can at times be 5 times the price for an Indian (or maybe I should say always). You automatically need to start at half and then negotiate up. You can never get the Indian price and after a while you just become plain fed up and start to pay the second price offered.

No blog about India is complete without a discussion about driving in general. Foreigners beware. There is a pecking order for right of way to this chaos: cows are at the top, trucks and buses are second, and dogs and pedestrians are at the bottom. In between buses and pedestrian is every other contraption (term used loosely). I find that if you are not driving a bus you better get the hell off the road because a bus coming barreling down the road will not get out of the way for anyone and he doesn’t care if there is not enough room to pass he is going to pass anyway. With that said the buses are the fastest vehicle on the road. However, our non-English speaking driver wasn’t too bad. When it comes to the rules and laws for driving in India I have come to the conclusion that there are really no rules or laws.

Here are the few I picked up while sitting in the backseat of a car hanging on for dear life:

1. The most aggressive driver always wins.

2. If you don’t honk at least 50 times every 100 feet you may cause an accident.

3. Push through pedestrians at all costs. Pedestrians have no rights even if there is a pedestrian crossing.

4. Do not hit the sleeping cow in the middle of the street. You are better off hitting another car.

5. Passing is expected and must be accompanied by honking the horn.

6. If there is room on the street (small or large) use it even if it seems like there is a not enough room or it is a sidewalk because of the thousands of people walking along.

7. Lanes have absolutely no significance. They are more considered street art if they are actually there.

7. Park in the middle of the street if there is no parking anywhere else.

8. The driver behind is responsible for knowing exactly what is going on the mind of the driver in front.

I personally found that your normal day consisted of a cold shower, lots of sun block and a good prayer that today is not the day I will get diarrhea and your night consisted of a cold shower, lots of mosquito block and a good prayer that tonight I will not get diarrhea.

Here I could go on and talk about all the forts and palaces we visited but you would probably just get bored. The real adventure was in the north so in quick summary we visited Taj Mahal in Agra, then on to Rajasthan to Jaipur, Pushkar, Bundi, Ajmer, and Udaipur. In the Kerala state in the south we visited Alleppey and Varkala. But instead I am going to tell you the highlights.

1. Obviously we couldn’t make a trip to India without seeing the Taj Mahal. It was amazing. The amount of marble used to build it and the share size leaves you in awe. A quick history lesson for those interested: The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan built it as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took only 16 years to build.

2. Udaipur was beautiful and very relaxing. After spending a night in a hotel for 300 rs (6 euros) we decided to step it up and took a nicer hotel for 1500 rs (with breakfast). It was worth it. We spent 4 days there and really eating at some of the nicer restaurants; however, the most famous, the Lake Palace which is situated right in the middle of the lake was booked when we tried to go there. And unfortunately, the only way you can go is if you have a reservation to eat or are staying at the hotel. We did pass by it on a boat. It is an impressive palace that has been renovated into a hotel. You may not know this but the James Bond film Octopussy was shot in Udaipur. Almost every hotel and restaurant has a free showing of Octopussy at 7:30 each night so of course we watched it. Valerie and I discovered beer there as well. There are only a few regions that you will find bars or clubs in all of India such as Bombay and Goa. In fact it is even difficult to find alcohol in restaurants. The ones that do serve beer usually don’t have license so they make you place the beer in a coffee cup and the bottle under the table. It is quite funny actually. One night we were at a restaurant and we both wanted to have a beer but there was nothing on the menu. Valerie had read there was a term that is used in some restaurants called ‘Special Tea’ so she ordered a ‘Special Tea’ and it just so happened that it was a beer. What luck! We learned the hard way that local Indian beer only comes in 32 oz bottles which are a lot if you only want one small beer but it is really cheap.

3. House boating in Alleppey was incredible. We flew from Udaipur to Kochi and in the airport we met two travel writers who wanted to share a ride down to Alleppey in order to cut costs. Initially we wanted to go to Kochi but we decided what the hell. They told us that they had a motel on the backwaters that we could stay at for 900rs (little under 20 euros) per night. The motel was so hidden we the taxi couldn’t even find it. We had to wait in the taxi on the side of the road for 15 minutes for a boat to arrive. From there a man on a small rowboat picked us up and took us 10 minutes down the river to the motel. What a surprise! It was a small 4 cottage place right on the edge of the river with rice paddies behind hence the name ‘The Rice Garden’. We absolutely loved it. The only sound you could hear was the river. After being in noise and pollutions for 9 days it was a welcome retreat. They made us a home-cooked dinner of traditional Varkalan cuisine that night and a Varkalan breakfast in the morning. The rooms were very simple including a small terrace looking at the river but you didn’t need more. And like the atmosphere the owner was extremely nice. I would highly recommend this place.

The next morning we got on a houseboat (Kettuvallom) and spent the next 24 hours on the backwaters passing rice paddies, palm trees and quaint villages. At night we watched the sunset and then lay on the mats at the stern to look for constellations in the night sky. The houseboat was the perfect way for exploring the beauty of the Kerala backwaters.

4. Finally Varkala. This part of our vacation was all about relaxing. We arrived in Varkala where we had already booked a room in a hotel just five minutes walking from the beach. The first night we were unhappy with our choice (or should I say my choice of hotels). We wanted to end in luxury but it really wasn’t luxury. It was a small room with a tiny bathroom in bad condition. Plus we were hidden on the ground floor on a corner without any light. So we set off to search for another hotel the next day. We found one but it was charging double the rate which wasn’t a problem but we decided first to ask our hotel if we could change rooms and it just so happened they had a much nicer second floor room with balcony over look the pool for the same price as our original room. We decided to change and this made all the difference. I felt sorry for the lady who took over our old room. In fact she changed rooms not long after. Anyway, there isn’t much to do in Varkala but get massages, do Yoga, go to the beach, watch the sunset over the Arabian Sea, eat and drink in the restaurants on the cliffs overlooking the sea. We did them all and it was the perfect ending to our time in India.

On a final note, tips are not required in India and of course the American in me wanted to give tips at restaurants and to rickshaw and taxi drivers. However, after a while Valerie was getting fed up with me and tipping so I finally put a stop to it. Don’t know why I added this but it was funny how many little arguments we got into over tipping.