Going Radio Silent

Our roommates are leaving one by one, and with them goes the computer chargers. After tonight we will no longer have regular computer access.

Handed in our last papers today, got tickets for Rajasthan for tomorrow. Everyone came by our place and we had a big family dinner with everyone who is still in Delhi. Even though we all partied last night, it was nice to see everyone in a more relaxed setting. It is going to be really strange not seeing everyone all the time. We have made a great little family here.

So, I will see you all on or near the 27th.

Done!!!!

We're done!!!!!

We both finished all our papers and took our Hindi final, and are now officially free from all academic obligations! Yay!!!

Last night everyone in EAP got together to celebrate the end of the program, since people start leaving for their various adventures today - actually, our roommate Ronny has actually already left, and his presence at the party was sorely missed. We ended up not getting home until almost 5 AM, but even though we're not normally big partiers we had a lot of fun. This is a great group of people and it was great to hang out with everyone. Going through an experience like this together definitely has a way of bonding people, so there was a lot of love and group hugging going on. It was nice.

So now, Jordan and I just have to turn in our papers, clean up the apartment somewhat, do some shopping for last minute things we want to get before we leave India, and work out our travel plans. Unfortunately, we just found out our travel agent totally failed us and we ended up not being able to get tickets to Darjeeling. So, much as that sucks, we're going to see if we can get tickets to Udaipur for tomorrow night instead. Although it doesn't have the clever tie-in with the start of our relationship (going to see The Darjeeling Limited on a date), by all accounts, Udaipur is incredibly beautiful, peaceful and romantic, which sounds perfect to us. Plus, it's in Rajasthan, and I love Rajasthan! It's full of camels!

Good news

I have lots of good news today! The first piece of good news (that I'm sure our family and friends will be excited about) is that Jordan and I are coming home two weeks early; we'll be flying back November 27th. We haven't officially changed our tickets yet, because it's the weekend and the travel agent won't be open until Monday, but they did tell us that it shouldn't be a problem. So we'll be in Sac first, then I'm going down to spend the holidays in LA while Jordan stays in Sac, then we'll be moving back to Santa Cruz. Which brings me to my other piece of good news...

We're getting our old house back!! We had assumed our old roommates had moved out long ago and our landlords had found new tenants, but I just got an email from our old roommates this morning saying that they're moving out December 15th and we can have the house back if we want it. Which we totally do! We love that house, and I am beyond excited that we get to move back in. We will have to have roommate(s), which wasn't what we were planning on, but this time we're in a position to be picky about it. Our landlords are awesome and cool with pets (which is a lifesaver because we're getting a dog when we get back, and renting in Santa Cruz with a dog is almost impossible), the location is perfect, we don't have to go to the trouble of finding a place to live, and we just really love that house. So yeah. I'm really excited!

Uh... School

Just sitting around trying to be productive today. Finally trying to stop procrastinating and get some work towards my finals done. I've been kinda' stressed about my lack of momentum which is making me want to avoid the cause of my stress by goofing off instead of just doing some work to remove the stress itself.

I'm eating some lunch right now (spicy fried rice) that we just had delivered and then it'll be back to work. My goal for today is to send out one email and read and take notes on one of my three sources.

Good times.

Diwali and the Pushkar Fair

Jordan and I have been so busy procrastinating writing our final papers that we've been kinda neglecting the blog. While we haven't been doing much to write about in those past few weeks, there have been a few things worth mentioning, so I figured I'd mention them. Plus, I'm sick again, so I'm just lying around doing nothing today. I don't know why I just can't seem to go more than a couple weeks without getting sick here. Bluh. Anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, Delhi celebrated Diwali along with the rest of India. Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is a huge holiday here, and interestingly enough, it has religious significance in three major religions. To the Hindus, Diwali is a celebration of Rama's return from the forest; to the Sikhs, it marks the day that the 6th of the 10 Sikh gurus was freed from prison; and to the Jains, it celebrates the day Lord Mahavira attained enlightenment. In a larger sense, though, it is a symbolic celebration of the triumph of good over evil, and the spiritual light within every person. Even though it's a religious holiday, it's sort of like Christmas in the US in that it's a national holiday and I think everyone celebrates it to some extent, even if it doesn't have particular significance to their religion. It's hard to say, though, since the vast majority of Indians are Hindus, and most people in our neighborhood are Sikhs, so Diwali is certainly celebrated with gusto around where we live.

Although only one day is officially designated as Diwali (which is based on the Hindu calendar, so the date changes every year), the celebration lasts for weeks. People decorate their houses with strings of colorful lights, light dozens of tiny oil lamps, buy gifts for friends and family, eat sweets, wear nice new clothes, and most importantly of all, set off tons of fireworks. I don't think there's any regulation of fireworks in India, so people were setting off seriously huge and impressive fireworks.

The night of Diwali itself was amazing. The fireworks, which had been going off for weeks, came to a magnificent crescendo, as people across the city all celebrated Diwali together. From our roof, we could look around and see fireworks go off every couple of seconds in every direction - it was one of the most breathtakingly beautiful things I've ever seen. Jordan and I brought our mattress up to the roof and lay there for at least an hour, watching the fireworks go off all around us. It was pretty spectacular. I wish we could have taken pictures, but our camera has been unusable since our battery charger got stolen. What a bummer!

The only downside to Diwali is that the entire city has been blanketed with thick smoke ever since. It's really gross - it makes Delhi even dirtier than it already was, plus it sets off my allergies.

The other exciting event that took place recently was the Pushkar Fair (also known as the Pushkar Camel Fair). The Pushkar Fair is a week-long event that combines Hindu festivities at Pushkar Lake (the site of the only Brahma temple in India) with a huge livestock fair, primarily for camels and to a lesser extent, horses. The end result is something like the state fair back home, complete with carnival rides and cotton candy, only about a million times more interesting and with a distinct Indian flavor.

I drove out to Pushkar, a small tourist town in the state of Rajasthan, with 3 other people from our program (Jordan decided to skip it). It took us over 10 hours to get there and almost 8 hours back, making it a kind of insane day trip, since we only ended up staying in Pushkar for about 8 hours. It was worth it though, since we ended up having a lot of fun. We saw hundreds of camels, had awkward conversations with locals in broken Hinglish, ate delicious chole from a street vendor, went on one of those swinging boat carnival rides, rode a camel, peeled raw sugarcane with our teeth and ate it, and saw a cultural exhibition featuring various Rajasthani performers. The show was pretty fun to watch, and included acts like a drummer with a drum strapped to his front, one to his back and one to his head, who was playing them with a flaming drumstick; a couple of bellydancing hijras; a very talented 10-year-old dancer; a performer dressed in an elaborately embroidered dress who balanced spinning, flaming wheels on his head; and a group of women who danced while swinging small cymbals on ropes along with the music, holding swords in their teeth and balancing vases full of flowers on their heads.

We probably won't be doing any more traveling for the next two weeks, since our final papers are due then and we haven't really started them yet. But November 17th is our last day of academic responsibility, when we will have our Hindi final and then be set free! This also happens to be the date of our two-year anniversary, so I guess being free from school is a pretty nice way to celebrate that.

After our semester is finished, we intend to spend the final 3 weeks or so of our trip traveling around India. We haven't got an itinerary planned out yet, but we are hoping to head to Darjeeling as soon as we can (to celebrate our anniversary, which we thought was fitting because we saw The Darjeeling Limited together on the day we consider the first "official" day of our relationship) and then from there, basically head clockwise around India and see how far we can get before we run out of time and have to head back home. It's hard to believe we're so close to the end of our trip now - I still feel like I have so much to do. I think by the time our trip ends, though, I'll be ready to go; India is amazing and I have come to feel pretty at home here, but it can also be exhausting, and it will be kind of nice to get back to life as usual.

New Photos Up

Roxy and I have been diligently working at uploading the huge backlog of photos on our computer (mostly because it is yet another way to put off writing our final papers). So we now have about 250 new photos up on our Flickr account.





Keep checking it because we have about 250 more photos that will be getting uploaded over the next two or three days.

India Rewind: Varanasi(Benares)

Roxy and I have been finally getting around to uploading our huge backlog of pictures and so now feel obliged to tell you about the adventures those pictures correspond to.

This India Rewind takes us back to September 24-27th while Roxy was at her meditation retreat and I was living over at my friends place. We made a spur of the moment decision to go to Varanasi which is also known as Benares.

We got in Friday night after a crazy adventure on the trains. We had wait-listed tickets for a comfy, sleeper car on evening Thursday, we were pretty low on the list and so weren't too worried about not getting on. When we got to the train station we asked at the information window whether we had seats or not, the guy said "yes" and so we got on the train. As the train was pulling out of the station the ticket agent checked our tickets and informed us that we, in fact, did not have seats.

So got off the train at the next stop and decided, what the hell, let's keep trying for Varanasi. In that spirit we got the only tickets that we could, general seating for Varanasi. After waiting at the station for about three hours our train came. We forced ourselves in; I say "in" but what I really mean is "hanging out of." I spent the first three hours of the ride hanging out the door of a completely packed car. Ever chair had three people in it, every four person bench had 10-12 people crammed on.

I wish you could get more of a feel for how crowded it was from this picture. Every person you see here was standing and that fellow sitting above everyone was perched on the top of the open door and braced against the opposite wall. He had no headroom and he stayed in that position for at least three hours.

After a few hours we hit a station and enough people moved around for me to get a spot sitting cross legged on the floor, which I did for two hours, after which I got a third of a chair for another two hours. My break came when a few people got off the train and I was able to move around some luggage enough to fit on the overhead storage rack and get a few hours of sleep.

When I woke up we had been on the train for about 10 hours and I was informed by Bree that we were on the wrong train. Damn. (We found out later that our ticket was not to a particular train but a pass on any train to our destination and the ticket agent only told us the first train that we would have to ride) but we met some people who were going to Varanasi and so we got off the train with them.

After two more hours in the terminal where I almost got in a fight with a cripple, we set off once again on a new, less crowded train. As you can see were were able to get some much needed sleep. We had at that point been traveling for about 18 hours, but this train was only supposed to be a three hour one, so our spirits were lifted by the nearness of our arrival. Eight hours later we arrived in Varanasi.

Varanasi was an amazing city. We got in late, crashed and then the next morning went out to explore. We wandered down to the burning Ghat where a guy took us around and explained what was going on, who was being burned, what the rules and traditions for burning were. He then took us to see the sacred fire, a flame that has been burning for thousands of years and is tended to by its own order of priests. After that we took a boat ride out on the Ganges.
This is the best photo of the burning ghat I have as photos were not allowed on the ghat itself.


After dinner we met up with another group of Americans and wound up going out with some of them to the huge festival called the "Durga Puja" that was just hitting its climax the days that we were there. Durga is the goddess of female power, is a protective warrior and is the patron goddess of India and "Puja" loosely translates to respect. We were led around by a street kid for, like, four hours.
This is one of the many tableaux of Mata Ji (Durga) slaying the shape-shifting buffalo demon that was contracted for the festival. These are dancers at one of the many ceremonies.

The next day we came wandered a bit more and explored the city and watched people bathing in the Ganges. Fun Fact: Indians believe that water from the Ganges has healing properties, and if you swim in or drink it you will be healed. This is especially true in the holy city of Benares, which is why over 60,000 people take a dip at the ghats there every day. In actuality the Ganges at Varanasi is likely to make you ill. According to the Lonely Planet India guide, the Ganges at Varanasi is septic and has 3000 times the safe amount of feces in it than is safe for bathing. I've had two friends get hives just from from dipping their arms in the Varanasi water.

Then it was back to Delhi in comfort, the day after that Roxy came back home and the next day Caleb got into India.

pictures and retrospectives

Let me start off by saying, "ha, I got pictures up before either Jordan or Roxy!"
Here's some of my favorite pictures that i took:A Building in Srinagar, Kashmir.


A mosque in Srinigar, Kashmir. The inside has been made from painted paper-mache.
A busy street in Old Delhi.
More busy streets in Old Delhi.
A not-quite-as-busy intersection in New Delhi.
A waterfall at a Mughal Garden outide Srinagar, Kashmir. I ventured out by myself and took these while Jordan was sick.
Another picture of a Mughal Garden.
Overlooking the town of Leh from inside an ancient Tibetan Fortress.
Leh and the Himalayas. See the storm clouds?
The Tibetan Fortress in Leh.
A boy in Kashmir. His family self-identifies as "mountain-people", not Indian or Kashmiri.
Jordan and I in front of the Taj Mahal.
Jordan and Roxy sitting in a window at the Agra Fort looking across the country-side at the Taj Mahal.
Jordan and I in front of the Golden Temple.
A tree covered hill in the Himalayan foothills of Kashmir Valley. Taken during our horse trek.
A creek in the Kashmir valley foothills. Taken during our horse trek.
The Kashmir Valley foothills. Taken during our horse trek.
A view of the mountain glaciers from Leh.
The Golden Temple at night.
A very artistic photo that I took while looking out a bathroom window in Leh.
Dal Lake.
Dal Lake in the morning.
Me picking up the Taj Mahal.
Me, looking majestically over Leh at the Himalayan glacier caps.
Part of the outside wall of Agra Fort.
Marble inlay work at Agra Fort.

India was amazing. There's a whole world out there that does things so very differently that us (in the US). I could try to write a literary montage of things that Indians do differently, but that would be very long, and ultimately, lose impact. The over-arching theme is that the government, and media, is trying really hard to bring India (especially Delhi) up to modern-world standards. The government has established building codes, outlawed dowries and caste discrimination, established police and emergency response, and created traffic laws. Now, whether any of this is followed is another story. Bribes bypass all laws, and tradition and social norms are hard to change. Why pay somebody to take my garbage to a land-fill if its cheaper, easier, and faster to throw it out the window? Then there is the media who is trying really hard to sell the western culture out there (fashion, dating, skin-whitening creme). Interestingly the advertisements are more risque in India than they are here. This is really strange when you consider the super-conservative tradition they have. This leads to a very unique new/old-fusion that encompasses everything.

Honestly, I was glad to return home to the safety of normality. In India I was always aware of how my safety was completely entrusted in people that I did not trust. This was especially true when I went anywhere by myself. It was always on the back of my mind that the rickshaw driver might not be taking me to where I asked him to take me, but instead to some back alley. That the driver who was supposed to pick us up at the end of the horse trek, might not be there. That the houseboat owner might not let us leave the boat (the only way off was if he called for a water-taxi). Luckily, my fears were ill-founded.

So, I had a great time in India. I saw a country successfully operating by standards and values completely foreign to what I was used to. I was forced to let go of being in control of anything. Nothing happens on-time, and worrying about how much longer till..., or when will... won't fix anything. I saw beautiful countryside and decapitated buildings. Smelled some of the worst smells ever. Experienced dental work at non-health-insurance-escalated-prices. Road a horse. Ate a leg of goat. got eaten by bugs. didn't poop for a week. Drove in a jeep with 6 other people for 17 hours straight. Learned to haggle and barter. And much, much more.

Bad times

We spent our last full day in Kashmir going on an amazing horseback trek through the mountains, guided by two men from a local village of self-identified "mountain people," who have a distinct language and culture from the rest of India. Afterwards, we enjoyed some delicious Kashmiri tea with them before heading back to the city. We have tons of pictures, which we will hopefully post someday, but we have an enormous backlog of photos now that need to be sorted through, resized and uploaded. And it doesn't help that Caleb managed to take 1800 pictures during his trip here.

Unfortunately, our trip to Kashmir ended on kind of a sour note. Our houseboat host, who appeared at first to be extremely kind and hospitable, turned out to be kind of ripping us off. He offered us dinner the first night we were there, and when we asked him if he would charge us for it, he said, "No, no, no problem," so we accepted and had dinner there. He also offered us tea on our first day, which I accepted and Jordan and Caleb declined, but he brought all 3 of us tea and biscuits anyway. We thought this was just hospitality, especially considering that offering tea is extremely common if you go into anyone's house or place of business for more than 5 minutes, but it turned out that he was adding all of this to our bill without telling us. And for an unfair price, to boot. We ended up getting into a big fight with him and the owner, which resulted in us paying for the tea (at 20 rupees per person, when a fair price for tea is 10 rupees at the absolute most) but not paying for the meal, because we explicitly asked about the price and were told there was no charge. Our host's explanation that "I was telling you that it was no problem to make dinner for you" did not hold up as far as we were concerned, since it was in direct response to our question about how much dinner would cost. The owner's argument that he could have charged us more didn't really help, either.

Even though we ended up getting minimally ripped off, it still was a really unpleasant way to end what was a otherwise very peaceful and pleasant trip. Except for the day when Jordan got wicked food poisoning or something and was throwing up. But yeah, except for that, it was nice.

Our experience at the airport tacked more stress on to the residual stress we were already feeling from our argument with the houseboat proprietors. Upon check in, we were told that we must check our bags, and were told by the lady checking us in that we needed to hand them over immediately. As soon as she told us that we would need to check our bags, I started writing luggage tags for us, but as I was doing so she kept insisting that we hand over our bags right away, even telling me directly to "please do that faster." When I finished scribbling our information on the tags as fast as I could and handed over the bags, she handed us our boarding passes and told us to hurry. This was totally uncalled for, since we were quite early for our flight and ended up waiting at the gate for an hour and a half before we could board.

When we unexpectedly had to check our bags at the Srinagar airport, we were too rushed and disoriented to think about our valuables. The unfortunate result of this was that when we got to Delhi, we found that our iPod and our camera battery charger had both been stolen out of Jordan's bag.

So we spent a while dealing with security at the airport, who told us they had frisked all of the baggage handlers at both airports and didn't find our stuff, so they had us file a complaint (just so we could feel like we had some degree of control over the situation, I'm sure). That took a while, and then we got stuck in traffic on the way home, so by the time we got home, we had just enough time to pack for Amritsar and head to the train station.

We ended up being 5 minutes late, but the train was delayed by an hour and a half, so it was okay. Our trip to Amritsar pretty much consisted of seeing two sights: the Golden Temple, and the border closing ceremony. Both of those were very cool, but I think I'm going to leave the telling about those for later, since I'm really worn out after the last couple of days and want to rest.

By the way: the lack of a battery charger does mean we won't be able to take pictures, but Corey told us tonight that he'd be sending us a new one in the care package he was planning to send out today anyway. So never fear, we will soon be able to document our trip again, although you may not be able to see the photos for quite a while, since we now have a backlog of literally thousands of photos.

mountians...lots, and lots of mountains

So here we are in Kashmir city of Srinagar, staying in a beautiful houseboat in Dal Lake overlooked by the Himalaya Mountains.

Let me back up a bit.

Last I left off, I mentioned going to the Taj Mahal. Well we went, and it is incredible. So ornate, so majestic. It almost loses some of is grandeur up close. There's not a whole lot I can say about it that does it justice. It's sad how even the Taj Mahal cannot escape the work of graffitiers. Carved in the white marble side of the building is a couple names. Damn kids.

On Thursday, we boarded a Kingfisher airways plane (yes, the same Kingfisher that makes beer!) and flew to Leh. Leh, is this awesome Himalayan town that is full of Tibetan refugees. The view of the mountains is breathtaking. The Himalayas are huge. I knew they were big, but I didn't expect them to be this big. So tall, So steep, so white. We had planned on renting motorcycles then on Friday, but it started snowing, and we figured driving motorcycles in the mountains while its snowing was going to be dangerous, so we didn't. Instead we visited this awesome Tibetan Palace overlooking the town. The problem is the Leh is 11,483 ft above sea level, so hiking was a bit more work than it should have been. We managed though.

Friday at 5:00pm we boarded a shared jeep (7 people total) and started the very long, kind of scary, drive to the Kashmir city of Srinagar where we are now. To give you an understanding of how long the drive was, we didn't get in until 11:00am the next morning. The drive is only 480km (280 miles), but the road is so rough, tight, windy, and steep that it took a long time. We drove on the worlds second highest highway (18,000ft) through the worlds second coldest inhabited place (Drass), and over the worlds most dangerous mountain pass (driving down single-lane switchbacks with no shoulder over a mile above the valley floor below.) We made it though, and wow!, Srinagar is a sight. Blue skies, mirror blue lake, green trees, mountains rising miles above in all directions.

We will be back in Delhi on Tuesday for a few hours before catching a train to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple.
www.goo

So, I was just got back from my first solo venture across town. It was HECTIC. I had to get from Mukherjee Nagar, where we live, to East of Kailash, where I had an appointment. The mode of travel goes like this: auto-rickshaw from home to the subway, subway to a certain station, and then auto-rickshaw to the appointment, and repeat backwards home. If all goes well, the trip should take about an hour each way. Well, I got to my appointment okay, but the auto-rickshaw driver that was taking me from the subway to my destination got lost and tried to get me to pay for his extra driving around. You see, here in Delhi, there isn't really any set structure for building addresses. You have neighborhoods (Mukherjee Nagar), and addresses numbers; There aren't really any street names. So, in order to get to where you need to go, you have to know exactly where in a neighborhood a particular address number is. My appointment was in East of Kailash, which makes things more confusing, because it is not a neighborhood, it is east of a neighborhood. Long story short, the driver got lost for like 15 minutes and wanted me to pay extra. The trick in those situations is to give him the pre-agreed upon sum of money and walk away.

Things really got tricky on the way home though. First, I had difficulty getting a good price on a rickshaw back to the subway, they all wanted rs. 100 ($2) for a 6km ride. Ridiculous! Finally, I got one for rs. 60, still a bit pricey, but not a rip-off. The subway was uneventful, but the auto-rickshaw ride back from the subway station home was crazy.

So, I get off the subway and walk outside to find that there are no auto-rickshaws in sight. I manage to flag one down and ask him "camp" which I understood to be a pre-determined rs. 5 ride to a pre-determined place. he looks at me like he has no idea what I'm saying. The subway is only about a mile from home, so I decided to walk. Mind you I was a bit turned around and started walking down the wrong street. So I walk for about a half hour before realizing that I'm not where I should be. I know that sounds like a long time to not know where you are going but this part of Delhi all looks the same. It's all the same crazy dilapidated buildings, busy intersections and markets packed with people everywhere. I cannot tell one area from another. Needless to say, I figure out that I am not where I should be and walk back to the subway station. Did I mention that the power went out during my walk. Add pitch black to the crazy traffic and it gets a bit scary.

I figure the best thing to do is take a rickshaw to Mukherjee Nagar at full cost, rs. 15, its a bit more expensive, but at least I'll be home. I jump in the rickshaw and about 1/4 mile later his bike breaks. The pedal snaps off. The driver jumps off the bike, holds up the broken pedal and starts waving it at me as if its my fault his bike broke. I try to offer him rs. 5 for the portion of the trip he took me but he keeps angrily talking at me. I don't understand a word he says, and he doesn't understand a word I say. I turn and walk away and he follows. Finally, I turn, offer him rs. 7 which I forcefully put in his hand and walk away. I guess it worked because he stopped following me. I walked the rest of the 3/4 miles home. Good to be home. Its a crazy city out there.

Well its off to Agra tomorrow to see the Taj Mahal.

wowzers

This is Caleb. I know it says who wrote the post at the bottom, but then you would have to read all the way through thinking "this doesn't sound like Jordan or Roxy" before finding out the truth...it's not.

So, I got into Delhi last Thursday, a few minutes after midnight. The first thing I thought when I walked out of the plane was, "Man, It's hot in Delhi." The second thing, after getting in the taxi to Jordan's was "Holy crap, drivers and traffic here are crazy." Sadly I was mistaken on both accounts. 1st, It was 1am, so it was actually about as cool as it gets, and 2nd, it was 1am so traffic was light and the drivers comparitivly sane.

Since then, I have found that traffic in Delhi is scary. Lane markings are merly suggestions, traffic lights, non existent, and police, bystanders. In order to get anywhere you have to take your place. Drivers here cut people off, drive on the sidewalk, drive within inches of pedestrians and bicycles, and even against traffic.

Well, since I got in, we have gone to a bunch of market places, but haven't really done any shopping. Its been so interesting to see the culture, people and stores, its almost nothing like America. the class discrepant between areas is huge. It is such a culturally diverse population. Depending on what part of town you are in, you can get a good plate of the same food for 50/rs ($1) or 450/rs ($9), the population could be in traditional attire, western-Indian fusion attire, or name-brand western attire. You see ads for jobs with benefits and vacation pay, and then see rickshaw drivers sleeping on the sidewalk. Everybody communicates to each other in Hindi, but business is conducted in English. Yesterday we visited Khan market, the most upscale market in Delhi, it is an eclectic mess of signs, hanging power lines, and various levels of decay on the outside, but indistinguishable from an American store (even the price-tags) on the inside.

Everybody here dresses to impress. They want to look good. Even the laborers digging sewer trenches wear new, un-faded, un-torn jeans and a nice, bright button-down, long-sleeved shirt. In America, all the teens aspire to be rock stars (grungy, long hair, torn up jeans), here they aspire to be professional (clean, new, slick)

All the buildings are in crazy states of collapse. Packs of dogs roams the streets, exposed trenches serve as swer lines, and piles of garbage are plentiful. Shops and merchants are packed into every open space, you cannot 5 feet without somebody trying to sell you something, and man, shopkeepers are tenacious. It's a huge chaotic mess, and somehow beautiful at the same time. Strange thing is, the Subway system is spotless: big, open, clean and well-maintained...weird.

Okay, so enough about culture shock. We just bought all our tickets to go site-seeing. On Tuesday we are taking a train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Then on Thursday we are taking a plane to Kashmir (Leh, and Srinagar where we are going to rent motorcycles and tour around the Himalayas, then rent a houseboat on the lake. We then fly back to Delhi next Tuesday and board an overnight train Amritsar to see the Golden Temple and Pakistan/India border closing ceremonies on Wednesday. We will then take an early morning train back to Delhi on Thursday, and then back to the airport to fly home. Busy two weeks.

Mom/Dad, don't worry, I'm taking LOTS of pictures, I just don't want to go through the work of posting them right now.

I don't know how to close this, so I won't.

Vipassana

I'm back from my Vipassana meditation course! I actually left a couple days early, on the morning of day 8, instead of staying for the entire 10 days. I definitely respect the technique, which incorporates mindfulness (which is emerging as a very effective psychotherapy technique), but Vipassana as a whole didn't really work for me. I disagreed with some of the philosophical elements of it that they put forth as being central to the practice, which made it hard to maintain my motivation through something so incredibly difficult.

The place itself was really nice and peaceful. It was extremely quiet, out away from the city, and the grounds were full of trees, flowers and long grass. There were butterflies everywhere during the day, and fireflies at night. The residences were like little houses that were all joined together, and each person got their own little house. The furnishings were pretty spartan: nothing but two rusty metal cots with thin foam mattresses that smelled like mold, but they gave me a clean sheet and pillowcase to use, and the room did have a fan, even if most of the time the power was out and I couldn't use it. My shower didn't work, but I had a bucket and a faucet so it was okay, and I had a Western-style toilet, which I wasn't expecting. There was no hot water, but it was way too hot to even think about taking a hot shower, anyway.

Everything there was completely segregated by sex: the property was divided down the middle by a fence, and we had separate residence areas and dining halls. The only common area was the meditation hall, but that had an aisle dividing it down the middle, and separate entrances for men and women. We even had separate assistant teachers who lived in the residence areas along with the students (called "assistant teachers" because all of the teachings are actually tapes recorded by the program's guru, and the assistant teachers are only there to answer questions about the technique).

A very important part of the program is observing Noble Silence, meaning no communication of any kind with anyone (except the management or assistant teachers if you need something) - so no talking, no gestures, no eye contact even is permitted. This is surprisingly easy to do, although by day 2 I had started talking to myself a lot while spending my breaks in my room. I guess talking helps me process things, and I definitely had a lot of stuff to process with what I was going through.

Another important part of the program is that they don't allow anything that will distract your mind from the work of meditation. That means no reading, no writing, no listening to music, no dancing, no singing, no engaging in religious practices - basically, you can't do anything. I spent my rest periods lying on my bed, sleeping or just enjoying the time off from having to concentrate so hard.

Here is the schedule we followed every day:

4:00 AM: Wake-up bell
4:30-6:30 AM: Group meditation in the meditation hall
6:30-8:00 AM: Breakfast break
8:00-9:00 AM: Group meditation (Strong Determination after day 4)
9:00-11:00 AM: Meditation in the hall
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Lunch break
12:00-1:00 PM: Rest
1:00-2:30 PM: Meditation in the hall
2:30-3:30 PM: Group meditation (Strong Determination after day 4)
3:30-5:00 PM: Meditation in the hall
5:00-6:00 PM: Snack break
6:00-7:00 PM: Group meditation (Strong Determination after day 4)
7:00-8:30 PM: Teacher's discourse (taped lecture about the technique and the philosophy behind it)
8:30-9:00 PM: Group meditation in the hall, then dismissal back to our rooms
9:30 PM: Lights out

So, as you can see, that's a pretty rigorous schedule of meditation. Over 10 hours a day! (I'll explain the "Strong Determination" in a sec.) For the first few days, though, I was working so hard that I didn't even feel bored.

In order to prepare us for Vipassana meditation, we spent the first three and a half days practicing Anapana meditation. This entails breathing naturally - not controlling the breath in any way - and focusing your entire attention on the physical sensations in the area around your nose. As the course continued, the focus area shrank until we were supposed to focus only on the area of the upper lip below the nose. I found this part of the course to be really rewarding: when I first started, I couldn't feel anything on my upper lip, and I couldn't keep focused for more than about a minute at a time, if even that. I also got really bad pains in my upper back from sitting upright with no back support for so long. By the fourth day, I could easily feel the touch of my breath on my upper lip, and was able to concentrate for a full half hour or so without my mind wandering at all. It also became easier to sit up in a cross-legged position, but my back pain didn't really go away until I started practicing Vipassana.

Anapana meditation isn't exactly relaxing, in the same way that chanting meditation or getting a massage will actually produce a feeling of relaxation: at least for me, it just quiets the mind. You don't feel relaxed, but you feel calm. Being the kind of person whose mind is racing all the time, this was a really new experience for me. I remember once, during a rest break, I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling, and I realized that I had completely stopped thinking. I wasn't really capable of having a reaction at the time, since I my mind was so exhausted from the intense, continuous concentration of meditation, so I just sort of thought, "Hm, interesting," and carried on staring at the ceiling.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, we began actual Vipassana meditation. This entails observing physical sensations, like Anapana meditation does, but you scan the entire body part by part, starting from the top of the head and moving all the way down to the toes. The focus here is on maintaining equanimity as you observe, neither feeling desire for pleasant sensations nor aversion from pain or unpleasant sensations. This is where the Strong Determination comes in: three times a day, for an hour each, we would have these sessions. Strong Determination is so called for good reason: you have to sit in a position of your choosing without moving at all or opening your eyes for the entire duration. This doesn't sound nearly as hard as it is. When you normally sit, you make all kinds of minute adjustments to make yourself comfortable - this becomes clear when you're not able to do so. Within 5-10 minutes, my legs would be completely asleep, which was a sensation that was really hard for me to tolerate for extended periods at first, and for the first few sessions I couldn't last longer than 20 minutes because of it. But I talked to an assistant teacher about it, who assured me that the feeling in my legs would come back on its own if I sat long enough, so I resolved to sit for longer.

At about the 20 minute mark, I would start to feel pain in my upper thighs, where my weight was resting. This would be unpleasant but dull at first, but if I pushed though it, about 10 to 15 minutes later it would become excruciating. This severe pain is what the exercise is designed to produce. While experiencing the pain, you're supposed to keep in mind the impermanence of all things, and that the pain will pass if you wait long enough. In keeping with the Buddhist concept of self, you're also supposed to view the sensations you experience objectively, without attaching personal investment into them. So, the idea that "this is hurting me" is an illusion, because there is no "me" to hurt, at least in the sense that you conceive of it. If you simply say, "oh, that sensation is pain," but feel no personal attachment to it, then you can endure it without difficulty, or so the theory goes.

Even when I couldn't last the full hour and was still fully connected with my pain, it was interesting to watch my body's reaction to the sensations I was feeling. In addition to the 95+ degree heat and the fact that they always turned the fans off during meditation, the sheer concentration made me sweat, and then withstanding the intense pain made me sweat even more. It gave me an interesting opportunity to see the way my brain prioritizes sensations: even when I had sweat rolling down my face, beads of sweat hanging from the tip of my nose, if I was in pain, that feeling was very easy to ignore, even though it would have been maddening otherwise. My back pain, which had been persistent for the first few days, vanished almost completely as well when I started practicing Vipassana. Even when I wasn't in pain, though, I was surprised how easy it is to learn not to be bothered by itching, or tickling, or other sensations that normally drive you immediately to scratch them away.

The first time I managed to withstand an entire hour of Strong Determination was on the evening of the 5th day. As I was sitting through the pain and trying (and failing) to focus on the different parts of the body one by one and ignore the pain (you're supposed to give painful sensations no more importance than any others), I found that I needed to support myself to get through it. I tried to keep in mind the concepts taught by the course, repeating to myself, "this is the reality of your experience, just observe it, don't try to escape it." As I kept thinking this to myself, suddenly something happened, and I felt my mental state change. I felt the pain, but it didn't hurt anymore. I was calmly aware of it but didn't feel any aversion to it. I then felt this really strange sensation that my body was made of empty space (that's the best way I know how to describe it) - like each part of the body that I focused on was miles away from every other part. I finished the hour with relative ease, and when I got up, I found that my legs were fully functional and not asleep, and that my whole body felt lighter than air. I was in a sort of trance state for about two hours afterward, but even though it felt awesome, I didn't feel as though I had "recognized the truth at the experiential level," as the tapes claimed was the entire purpose of the practice. As far as I understood it, it was self-hypnosis, plain and simple.

That was definitely the peak of the trip - after that, things started going downhill. On the 6th day, I had trouble focusing, and noticed myself starting to feel increasingly agitated and irritable. I was able to sit through the full hour of Strong Determination on the last session of the day, but I had no experience like the one the night before. I had a few moments where I felt personally disconnected from my pain, but they were very brief and I spent the majority of the session just trying to grit my teeth and bear it. I lasted the whole hour, but just barely. In the latter half of the session, I found myself silently chanting the same mantras I had the night before, but this time I was critically analyzing them instead of just accepting them. Awareness of the temporary nature of my experience seemed like a much less compelling reason to endure it this time - temporary or not, it still hurt, and I could have easily taken action to end it. This was how the first seed of doubt was sown in my mind. Afterward, in that night's discourse, the guru was discussing the theory behind the practice. He talked about how the practice will teach you "at the experiential level" that all sensations arise just to pass away, and "why trouble yourself with something that arises just to pass away? It is so meaningless." And even as excited as I was at the time to have made it through another hour of Strong Determination, I felt another twinge of doubt here. The fact that something is temporary makes it meaningless? That doesn't sound right. But, I didn't analyze it and just went on with the rest of my night.

The next day, at our first Strong Determination session, I found that the seeds of doubt from the night before had grown. As I sat there in pain, I thought to myself, "Why am I doing this? If the 'truth' I'm supposed to realize is that you shouldn't care about things that are impermanent, then I'm never going to get this." Not believing in any kind of eternal life or eternal cycle of reincarnation, and that everything is impermanent, the logic of the course would force me to conclude that everything is meaningless and that you should not care about anything.

I talked to the head teacher about it, but due to a language barrier issue, he was unable to understand my question and told me to "not create problems for myself" and go back to the practice. Of course, I couldn't do this, so I went back to my seat and kept thinking about it, and the more I thought, the more objections I came up with. The aim is to free yourself from attachment to impermanent things to avoid the suffering that comes when you lose, or fail to acquire, something you are attached to. But I'm not even opposed to the idea of attachment - I think that we often attach excessive amounts of meaning to inconsequential things, which can cause undue hardship, but I really don't want to rid myself of attachment entirely. If Jordan leaves me or dies or something, I want to be upset about it. Plus, I treasure the happiness that comes from getting something I really wanted, and accept the occasional disappointment that comes when I don't. So, basically, I think they have a good idea - I agree that sometimes our attachments can develop into unhealthy dependence, and that it's important to keep things in perspective - but I just don't take it as far as they do.

So, I decided on the morning of the 7th day that this wasn't the program for me, and I wanted to leave. I told the male assistant teacher as much, but he (as I had expected) was reluctant to let me go. He attempted to put my questions to rest, but, again thanks to a language barrier problem, was unable to do much more than just repeat phrases from the tape. When I told him that my issues weren't resolved, and I wanted to use their phone so I could call Jordan to ask about train availability (they didn't have internet there), he refused. He told me that if he let me use the phone, he would be allowing me to drop out of the course, which he couldn't do.

I was totally taken aback by this, and walked back to my room, stunned. I knew that leaving early was highly discouraged, but I didn't think they could actually forbid you to leave. At the beginning of the course they took all of my valuables for safekeeping (because the residences don't have locks on the doors), so I couldn't just pack up and leave without their permission. I was stuck there. I was upset, probably more upset than was warranted by the situation, but the stress of being there was really wearing me down. A schedule consisting entirely of prolonged periods of extreme boredom, punctuated by regularly scheduled hour-long intervals of severe pain, causes a lot of psychological stress.

Determined to leave, I tried again later that day by asking the female assistant teacher. I got much the same result, although she was a lot more hostile about it. She asked me to explain my problem, which I did, and she responded by spouting dogma and belittling my beliefs. (Example: Her: "Do you believe in God?" Me: "No." Her: *rolls eyes* "Well, what DO you believe in then?") I told her I was feeling very stressed and that there wasn't any point in staying there if I didn't believe in what I was doing. Her response was, "No, no, that agitation is just your sankaras coming out." (Sankaras, at least according to my understanding of what the course teaches, are like sins in Buddhism - they're attachments that keep you weighted down and bound to the cycle of reincarnation.) When I told her I didn't believe in sankaras, she exclaimed, "What do you mean you don't believe in sankaras? It is truth, not belief!" She ended up getting very irritated with me for not just accepting the "truth," repeatedly refused my requests to leave, and then abruptly ended the discussion when the bell for nighttime meditation rang.

At this point, things got a little scary for me. Here I was, out on my own, far away from everyone I knew and trusted, and I was basically being held captive by people who increasingly seemed to be religious fanatics. The program bills itself as being totally nonreligious, but it makes assertions about metaphysical concepts as though they are objective fact. It seemed completely unthinkable to the staff that I might object to anything said in the course, since, as the tape said repeatedly, "dhamma is the law of nature, it is truth." They didn't recognize it as being a belief system that someone could disagree with.

So I went back to my room, stressed out, scared and exhausted, and cried. I didn't fear for my physical safety at all, but it is incredibly unnerving to be (unexpectedly) deprived of your freedom, especially on the very first time you go traveling alone in a foreign country. Plus, my ability to handle things was considerably eroded by the regime of the course. I barely slept that night.

The next morning, I got up for meditation at 4:30, and sat in the meditation hall silently crying some more. Naturally, I was totally unable to meditate, and at this point I stubbornly didn't want to, anyway (not the most productive attitude, I admit, but I was feeling pretty stressed out). After breakfast, I went back to my room, determined to leave that day. I showered, packed up all of my stuff and waited. When meditation reconvened, I planned, I would demand to be let go and threaten to disrupt meditation until they kicked me out, if necessary. But, to my surprise, 15 minutes before meditation started, the female assistant teacher came to my residence and told me to go pick up my passport and things from the office and I would be free to go. Apparently they had seen me crying during meditation and finally realized that this course was not a good thing for me.

The male assistant teacher wanted to give me a ride into the little town 4 km away, since we were out in the country, but the head teacher refused to let him use the meditation centre's auto for that purpose. I thought it was a bit strange for someone who is supposedly motivated solely by compassion to be so petty, but whatever. The assistant teacher walked me out to the street and got me on a tempo, which is like an auto rickshaw but bigger, and holds more people. I had to take a series of vehicles to get back to Lucknow, which I only managed with the help of a little Hindi and several friendly and helpful strangers.

Having left early, I found myself out in a strange city all alone, with no idea how to get home. But, the oppressive atmosphere of the meditation centre having been lifted, this was now incredibly exciting and fun instead of stressful. Again, with the help of several friendly strangers, I ended up with a second class ticket on a train back to Delhi, and got home around midnight.

Although it ended badly, I'm still really glad I went to the course. I did take away a few important lessons from it, and I feel calmer, happier and more mentally stable in general than I did before I went. Plus, it was really empowering and fun for me to go on a big adventure like that all by myself. As much as I'd heard it's not a great idea to go traveling alone in India if you're a woman, I found that strangers were incredibly eager to help me with everything. It was an experience like I'd never had in India, where I'm used to being wary of people, because they are often trying to scam you or sell you something. But I actually felt like I could trust the strangers I met, and everything worked out well in the end. I had borrowed some pepper spray just in case, and was glad I had it, but I never even got into any situations that made me feel like I might need to use it.

Sorry this turned out to be such a long post, but it really was quite an experience. My taste of Anapana meditation was a very positive thing for me, which gives me even more reason to try to work some kind of meditative practice into my life. I think yoga might be the next option I look into.

So, Caleb is currently on a plane on his way to visit us, and Jordan and I are both super excited. We have lots of fun planned for Caleb's visit: trips we have tentatively planned are to the Taj Mahal (of course), to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple, and a week-long trip to Ladakh and Kashmir, so Caleb can see the Himalayas and we can enjoy what we've been told is some of the most beautiful scenery in India.

Emo

Wow, 19 days between post, I've hit a new low. Thing is, I haven't uploaded any more of the Agra pictures and I feel as though if I make a new post I'm abandoning (or at least interrupting) the Agra trip narrative. But it's better I post on unrelated things than not at all, so...

Roxy is in Lucknow right now doing a 10 day Vipassana Meditation retreat. She left on Sunday and I have been fending for my self ever since. All my room mates have been gone as well so I am alone with an empty house. Because of that I have been living at my friends' place for the last three days. It keeps me from rocking slowly in an empty apartment with my hair over my eyes. We've been hanging out and cooking a lot, it's been pretty good times.

We went up to Dharamsala two weekends ago but I'm waiting for the pictures to tell you guys about it (it'll never happen, I am way to lazy). I probably won't make any more trips until Caleb gets here. Looking forward to that.

As always,
don't drink the water.

Frog blast the vent core!

So we're still stalling with getting the rest of our pictures up. But in the meantime I figure I'll get you guys up to date with what's been going on around here.

We've been talking to a bunch of people back home on Skype recently. That has been really good. It's nice to reconnect and get to see people after so long. We would love to talk to all of you guys, so email Roxy or me and I'll give you our Skype ID.

We didn't go anywhere this past weekend; Roxy and I were both kinda over old buildings after our big trip to Agra so we decided to spend our time winding down and relaxing. However, this coming weekend we will be taking a five day trip up to Dharamsala.

Dharamsala is right across the border from Tibet and is the seat of power for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Well be taking two trains and two busses to get there which will take about 16 hours. The views from the train as it winds through the Himalayas are supposed to be breathtaking. Then on the way back we will be taking a 12 hour bus ride which will probably be no fun at all but is faster than the train.

Right now I’m just killing time between my D.U. Classes and my Hindi Class at the study center. I have another 2.5 hours to kill but it’s not really worth going home in the meantime. Today I had “Philosophy of Human Rights” which I am really enjoying. It fits in well with what has been my philosophic focus of late of the philosophy of law and justice. I have my first paper for that class due on Monday so I’ll have to step up my game and get it done quickly because I’m certainly not going to do it in Dharamsala this weekend.

One thing that we're dealing with right now is that we don't have running water at our apartment. Our water pump started working only occasionally last week. It then stopped working entirely and so we got a guy out to fix it. Yay! Except that it then stopped working the next day, but not entirely, not until after I was forced to admit to my landlord that it still worked sometimes. So, we have been reduced to stealing water from our downstairs neighbors by opening up their water tank on the roof and dipping in with a bucket. Never thought that I would be in a situation like this... interesting.

Anyway… I’m running out of things to run on about so I’ll leave you here.

Until next time: Remember not to swim until at least 30min after eating.

Jaipur/Agra trip photos

Man, did we ever take a lot of photos on this trip! Lots of photos of US, too, as per several parental requests. I've spent hours sorting through and resizing them, and am less than halfway done, but I figured I'd put them up in installments instead of waiting until I had them all done. So I've uploaded the first 80 photos to our Flickr photostream - they'll take you through the first day and a half of our trip. My account of the events of the trip will differ a bit from Jordan's, because he got the events of the first couple days mixed up chronologically. But, I have photos, and they were in order. So yeah.

So on our first day, we ended up getting to Jaipur later than we planned, and we didn't have time to do of the sightseeing that was planned for us. Instead, we went shopping in Jaipur for a couple of hours and then headed back to the hotel. I wish we'd had more time to go shopping in Jaipur - though kinda touristy, they actually had some really high quality stuff. Jaipur is famous for its blue pottery and its enamel work (jewelry, vases, sword hilts, etc.), and I didn't have enough time to buy any of either. I did get a sweet pair of earrings, though. And we can always go back, since Jaipur's not very far from Delhi. We took a couple of photos while we were out:





This is the Hawa Mahal, or Palace of the Winds, so called because of the way the wind whistles through the honeycombed windows. Even though it's a palace, it's right off a busy street full of shops, which is kind of a weird juxtaposition.

As Jordan said already, our hotel was ridiculously swanky. After spending a month on hard beds with no air conditioning and inconsistent power and water, the level of luxury at the hotel seemed absolutely absurd. We had a Sony Bravia flatscreen TV in our room, for god's sake. Ridiculous. Here are some pictures:





I know you guys don't care about the hotel, but it was a huge deal to us. HUGE. We had AC for three whole nights! And real, thick, soft mattresses! And delicious buffet meals!! It made me realize how much luxury I'm used to living in back home, that I've become accustomed to doing without.

Anyway, the next day we went out sightseeing in our giant tourist bus (it literally says "TOURIST" on the front in huge letters - not very subtle). We stopped briefly at the Hawa Mahal again to see the outside, but we'd already seen it the day before. What was new, though, were a couple of snake charmers sitting on the sidewalk:



They ended up inviting us to come sit with them and pet the snakes and stuff, which I didn't, but a few people did. We have a few more pictures of this on our Flickr photostream, and a video on our youtube channel.

After that, we headed off to Amber palace. We stopped a distance away from it to take pictures before we headed up to the palace itself:



Then we all rode elephants up the hill to the palace, which was fun. Here's us on our elephant:



The palace was beautiful, and full of intricate carvings and paintings.







The walls of this building, the Hall of Private Audience, are totally covered in mosaics made of tiny mirror shards. Back when the palace was still in use, the floors were covered in colorful carpets, so the colors were reflected throughout the hall.

While we were in there, some people came up to us and asked to take their picture with us. We agreed (as we usually do), and took a picture with them. Then more people wanted to take their picture with us, and more, and we kept taking pictures with people as a crowd gathered. So, we ended up like this:



After Amber palace, we went back to the hotel for lunch, and then set off to the City palace. But I haven't gotten through those photos yet, so I'll have to write about that when I finish with those. More to come!

We made a new set for this trip on our Flickr photostream - please please go look at it, as there are way more photos from the trip so far, with beautiful art and architecture, and of course, more pictures of us!

Mughals and their buildings

We are back from Jaipur and Agra. We left on Friday morning and got back yesterday night. It was good times.

Friday we drove to Jaipur, stopping on the way at the Amber Fort which was the Mughal capital of Rajasthan. Parked at the base and rode up on elephants. We spent a few hours there then left again for Jaipur arriving around 4:30pm. We had planned to go out to the central palace that evening but it was closing at 5:30, so instead we spent the evening before dinner in downtown Jaipur shopping. The hotel that we were staying at was amazing... AMAZING. Super classy, nice rooms, hot water, TVs, real mattresses and bedding, the works.

The next day we went to the wind palace and the central palace and stopped to look at the water palace from outside. Some things about Jaipur: It's the capital of Rajasthan, it was the one of the first planned cities ever, and downtown Jaipur is entirely painted pink to honor the Prince of Wales when he visited in the 1850's.

We stayed another night and left early the next morning for Agra. We stopped at Fatehpur Sikri which was absolutely amazing before continuing to our hotel in Agra. We ate, then went to the Taj Mahal. I was worried that with all of the pictures and hype that the Taj gets, it would be a bit of a let down when I got there... you know, that it would be smaller that it looks in pics or something like that. NOT THE CASE. The Taj was amazing! There is a reason that it's one of the 7 wonders. I would gush more but I think it will be better if I just wait until you can see the pictures.

The next morning our group had a planned trip to Agra Fort but a lot of people (Roxy and I included) decided to stay at the hotel and take our last opportunity to sleep in on real mattresses in a room with AC. We took off back to Delhi around 1:30 but before leaving Agra we made a quick stop at the tomb of Akbar the Great. The tomb was astounding, the grounds were perfectly kept and full of peacocks, parrots, and antelope. It rivaled the Taj Mahal on everything except scale. From there it should have been a 4-5 hour drive to get back home, but it took us 8 hours because of traffic.

It was a great trip and great experience. We should have the pictures up soon; but we took about 400 pics and it will take a bit of work sorting through and resizing them.

I miss avocados

So, I have been feeling a bit under the weather of late as I have been sleeping very poorly due to the heat. So yesterday I woke up all like, "India *grumble grumble*," and got it in my head that what I really needed was a bit of home, an American experience if you will. So I set out (Roxy in tow) in search of a cheeseburger.

After searching the intertubes for the location of said meaty treat we found that the closest place to get one was a TGI fridays about an hour away. And so off we went. Roxy pointed out that I must be getting really homesick after two months abroad for me to be like, "I'm going to travel an hour to a restaurant that I never go to in the US because it sucks to pay 5-10 times the price of a normal Indian meal for something to remind me of home."

Fridays was totally the same as in the US; the same stupid crap on the walls, the same stupid flair on the waiters and the same truly atrocious service. We were the ONLY ones in the joint and we still waited 20 min for our order to be taken, half-an-hour for our food, and had to ask for our bill after waiting for about 45 min and all this without ever getting a drink refill. However, the food was exactly what I wanted; it was an extremely average bacon cheeseburger with fries and American style Ketchup (the Indian Ketchup is strange, two sweet and not vinegary enough or something). It was soothing. I was soothed.

The only thing different about the burger I had here was that it was not beef. It was a lamb burger and I must say, I was impressed. We need to eat more lamb and goat meat in the states, that is certainly one thing that India does right.

All in all the day was quite good, Roxy and I got to relax and talk about subjective morality and applied Aristotelian metaphysics in an air conditioned space. Then we poked around the mall that the restaurant was in for a bit before dropping into a coffee shop and discussing religion, education, and evolutionary ethics. We wound up spending about five hours just hanging out, eating and talking. It was exactly the relaxing sort of day I needed.

The moral of the story: Meat makes everything better.

Remember what I said yesterday? Yeah, nevermind.

Apparently the level of confidence I exhibited in my last post was deemed unacceptable by the gods, who took it upon themselves today to put me in my rightful place. I have been thoroughly humbled.

As you may know, I'm supposed to be on a train to Amritsar right now. Let me tell you the story of why I'm not.

Our train was scheduled to leave the station at 2:40, so Jordan and I planned to meet for lunch after my class and then head to the train station. I ended up getting delayed at school because I needed to talk to the professor, and I was 25 minutes late. This was still ok, though - we'd have to eat fast, and we wouldn't have the same healthy margin of time to figure out where to go, but we'd be able to make it. So we got our food and ate it fast, but about 5 minutes before we left the restaurant, it started pouring rain. And when I say pouring, I mean buckets - India means serious business when it rains. We hailed an auto rickshaw to take us the short distance to the train station, to save time and to hopefully not get as wet. The auto crawled through the rain along the street, which was in an extreme state of disrepair, until we were close enough to see cars going by on the street that the train station was on. At this point, our driver got a phone call, told us "ek (one) minute," then got out of the auto to talk to some guys in a shop. We sat there wondering what was going on, but figured we might as well just wait. After a minute, he came back and started up the auto again. But instead of driving the short distance to the train station, he turned around and started driving back the way we came. We said, "where are you going? We're running late for our train," to which he simply replied, "ek minute." He drove us back practically half the distance we'd already come, then stopped and delivered a package to some guy. Then he sat there while that guy made a phone call. At this point we were practically yelling at our driver, "We need to go! We're going to miss our train!" When he failed to respond to this, Jordan and I hopped out of the auto and into the rain.

We ran through the pouring rain, through ankle-deep puddles of a mud, garbage and excrement slurry, as we tried to make it to the train on time. When we got to the station, soaked and disheveled, it stopped raining almost immediately. Someone who worked there called out to us from the crush of people and asked to see our ticket. He told us to go to platform 3 for our train, like it said on the electronic board. We looked at the board, and didn't see our train anywhere on it, but when we tried to tell him that, he just rushed us along and pointed us up the stairs. On the overpass that led to all the train platforms, we scanned the electronic signs to look for our train. We saw that the train at platform 3 was definitely not the one we wanted, but just at that moment, a voice on the loudspeaker informed us that the Amritsar Express train was pulling in to platform 5. I was a bit hesitant, since it didn't have the same train number as the number on our ticket, but it had the same name, destination, and departure time as the one on our ticket, so we decided to head down to platform 5. Once there, I showed my ticket to a random stranger and asked him if I was in the right place - he said yes. Uncertain, I asked one of the uniformed guards who worked at the station, and he told me the same thing. We looked everywhere for some sort of official whose job it was to tell us where to go, but we didn't find anyone.

So, we figured we must be in the right place, boarded the train, and walked down the length of it, car after car, trying to find our coach. We walked all the way down to the end without finding it, and asked the family who invited us to sit with them if they knew where the sleeper coach was. They told us it was down all the way at the front end of the train, so we set off again, walking the entire length of the train, down a narrow aisle that was becoming increasingly jammed with people and their baggage. When we got all the way to the front of the train without finding our seats, we went out and asked another uniformed guard. He told us that this wasn't our train - our train was on platform 9 - so we dashed up the stairs and over to the platform, only to find it empty; the train was gone.

Just then, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that the train to Amritsar at platform 5 was about to leave. We ran back and tried to find a spot on the train, figuring that it could still be our train after all. We managed to find a ticket examiner, finally, and asked him where we were supposed to go. He told us that we weren't on the right train, and that we had missed ours after all. We tried to ask him what we should do, how we could get a ticket for this train, but he walked away from us and refused to answer our questions. A nice local man took pity on us and communicated with the ticket examiner (who spoke perfectly fine English, as it is a requirement for his job) who was refusing to speak to us. He told us some very confusing information: first that we could buy a ticket, then that we couldn't because it was too late, and if we stayed on, we would have to pay a fine that was double what the tickets cost us. Plus we figured that if we were fined for traveling without a ticket, we probably wouldn't be allowed to stay on for the entire duration of our trip, and would be kicked out at the next stop. So, we hung our heads and left the train, dejected, still soaking wet, and covered in foul-smelling mud.

So yeah, like I said. Thoroughly humbled.