Goodbye, my Friend

I was taking in an expanding view of the Pink City Thursday morning, riding an elephant up the embankment of Jaipur’s Amber Fort, and a kind of relief dawned on me, a relief that superseded even the fact that I was on the back of such a beast: I was away, above, and entirely separate from the streets below me, with their beggars and hustlers and traffic and trash and sewage. I was seeing Rajasthan but I was separate from Rajasthan. I was, for one of the first times this trip, a sight-seeing tourist, complete with camera strap around my wrist as we, the elephant and I, slowly made our way up a once-mighty fortress.

The ironic part about this bit is that I’ve never been a sight-seeing tourist and I didn’t intend to become one in India.

As I mentioned a couple entries back, Northern India—the real India (one of them, anyway), separate from Goa’s idyllic, tourist-infested beaches—is intense to say the least. One thing I learned is that sight-seeing—namely, privately-escorted sight-seeing—is a sort of solace from such intensity. The truth, however, as I gleaned it from my time in Agra, then Delhi, Jaipur Thursday and Friday, and now the blue city of Jodhpur, is that India is actually overwhelming, and not just intense. I wish I could use as a singular rationale the poverty. Or the overt dishonesty of much of the population. Or the smell and lack of sanitation. Or the poor infrastructure. Or the overcrowding. Or even all those factors combined.

But it just isn’t that simple.

Nor is it all negative, or even mostly so. The problem is that the positive moments—many in number!—are so hard to sort out amid the sensory overload caused by the negative—in other words, I am experiencing a perceptual deficiency which is, understandably, perverting my concept of reality.

And while it is true that there is a logical discrepancy in visiting dirt-cheap, third-world countries as a tourist in hopes of experiencing holistic personal growth and enlightenment, there are infinitesimal moments of personal growth and enlightenment that occur when people—hustlers and rich men and everyone in between—break out of their roles, as we out of ours as their observers and judges. To Sonya who sells saris on Candolim; to the man from Kashmir with the camouflage shorts who sold me the leopard pashmina shawl; to the Goan taxi drivers who risked their lives to transport us between beaches and transportation hubs; to the 17 year old waiter at Ma-Rita who I hope has gotten up enough confidence to talk to the girl he secretly like; to the manly man at Titanic Coffee Shop on Palolem, who swam a mile to shore from our dolphin-watching boat when it became clear that there wasn’t enough room for all of us; to drunk Howzah, and all your drunk British friends: you reinforce all my stereotypes about your island in the most delightful way; to Aslam, for driving us to and from Agra and for putting up with us assuming you planned to leave us and plotting to kill you and steal your car; to Amit in New Delhi for your kindness and your beauty; to the driver of the Pink Taxi in Jaipur: you’re as slimy as your hair, I can tell, but you own that shit; to the cleaning lady here at Ratan Villas in Jodhpur, who cared so much about me feeling better after I got sick that she mimed her concern despite her lack of knowledge in English; and to all you stray dogs that still manage to wags your tails and smile and act like canines despite all your obstacles in life. I love all of you now and did when I met you and will always remember you. I will, in fact, always remember even those of you I didn’t mention or even think of consciously. All of you are individually and collectively India to me; the rest I will remember for days, perhaps weeks, months at most. You are what I will remember years on when my cynicism has faded with the smell of the cow dung stuck in the grooves of my shoes.

Thank you.

A Study in Contrasts

Constructed over a period of two decades in the 17th Century by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tribute to his undying love for his second wife, the so-white-it-looks-like-a-fake-in-pictures Taj Mahal rises on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra, whose population is almost uniformly destitute, whose streets overflow with paper waste and feces, and whose overall aesthetic can most accurately be described as tore the fuck up.

Up the Yamuna in New Delhi, landmarks such as the Indian Parliament Building, India Gate, and the Red Fort align to form an axis of sorts for the city, outward from which a myriad of pristine boulevards radiate. Just minutes away by car, beggars and hustlers—many of whom are very young children—carpet the streets and sidewalks like the very dust they walk upon, six or more vehicles often occupying roads made for three. Less than half an hour from the glass, chrome, electronic, automatic Indira Gandhi International Airport stand both the old and New Delhi Railway Stations, whose tracks are covered, inches deep, in mold from decades of excrement allowed to drip down from trains, which as of 2009 have yet to be fitted with plumbing or even trash cans.

Now I’m not an expert in infrastructure planning, and let’s face it: often times, I can’t even take my own trash out. That said, I find it very hard to believe that the Indian Government can’t improve some of the most basic elements of its societal functionality. At the moment, I find the majority of urban India to be too overwhelming to withstand for more than a few minutes at a time.

The Gandhi Museum is a notable exception.

Walking into the South entrance of the white-walled house where “Bapu” (as he was called “round these parts) lived out his final stretch of life—up to and including the very last steps he took January 30, 1948, which are, to this day, marked on a path—was an experience that was otherworldly, no doubt. But to bear witness to his life and legacy, to the clarity of truth that sired this nation 60 years ago and then to see how little has changed for a vast majority of Indians during that time is sobering. Hope springs eternal reading Gandhi’s words, however—“I have nothing new to teach the world,” he is quoted as having said. “Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills”.

Likewise, while my trip has, overall, left me feeling far more consumed that refreshed, I find that the filth, the splendor, the dead men on the highways, the ornamentation, the stench, and the faith of India coalesce and somehow, at the end of each day, there is a synchronicity and a certainty about the journey I am on that trumps all my doubt.

Perhaps it is such a paradox that buzzes under this drowsy giant six decades on?

The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore

“Of course I work at the train station you fool! It’s Sunday and we don’t have to wear uniforms. That is very disrespect!” the man standing to the right side of the main entrance to New Delhi Railway Station exploded as Dora and I attempted to pass. He was unkempt, smelly, and clothed in dingy, grey slacks and a pinstriped long sleeve shirt. He removed from his pocket a piece of card stock that consisted of his picture surrounded by blurry, Hindi script. “You see? My badge. You no have ticket, you no enter. Come, I take you to buy ticket”.

As he lead us in the exact direction we’d came, first down the busy main walkway leading to the station and then across the heckler-infested street where the cab had dropped us, memories of the pristine Indira Gandhi International Airport, its tempered glass exterior, marble flooring, and electronic signage began to fade, the chorus of “wow, this is so much nicer than Mumbai!” that had been repeating inside my head as we drove through the well-manicured, tree-lined boulevards—with lanes!—of Delhi changing pitch and cadence and losing all its melody to make way for the ending to the proverbial swan song: trust your instincts—you’re being hustled!

It wasn’t until the small, unairconditioned Hyundai hatchback driven by a man whose name we only knew to be of Muslim origin rattled away from the “Tourism Office,” where we’d just been made to pay 65 times the national daily income for a taxi to and from Agra, less than 200 km away, and one night in a nondescript roach motel, that the reality of just how well we’d been hustled set in. Just minutes prior, the aforementioned “railway employee” had dropped us off at the “National Railway Booking” center, which had little semblance to anything official or related to transportation, save a few mass-produced, grainy photos of Indian Landmarks like the Gateway to India and the Lotus Temple pasted on as wallpaper. The beady-eyed man behind the computer—who was also not wearing a uniform and didn’t look, in the least, official—turned the monitor toward us, to reveal a website drowning in red “SEATS UNAVAILABLE” text. “The train is booked until tomorrow—I arrange taxi for $160? Oh and I book you Rajahstan tour too? Good price”.

It was at this point that I ceased attempting to be cordial and made my way back down to the streets, hoping to make it to the railway station in time for the 7:30 departure to Agra, for which I’m still sure reservations are not even required. Unfortunately, fatigue got the better of Dora and I, our limbs sore from hauling our bags up and down the steep stairwell of the illegitimate booking center. We soon found ourselves in another “office,” in front of another poorly-attired and coiffed man, and facing another price tag that seemed far too high to be valid. Indeed, it was as if the compassion I’d expressed feeling in my last post had come back around to me. Maybe I shouldn’t feel bad about taking financial advantage of these people?

Of course, that feeling began to fade quickly, as Dora, our driver, and I dined at a roadside café just beyond the border crossing between the Delhi National Capital State and Uttar Pradesh, home to, among other attractions, Agra and the Taj Mahal. The blue building, adorned with red, bubble Hindi letters and Pepsi logos on either side might have—save those details—been more appropriately placed in the old West, or at least the sort-of old West, the makeshift kitchen closed off the elements only by the stucco wall surrounding the corridor to the food preparation area, the three of us eating off of a McDonald’s style tables and plastic, red lawn chairs. In spite of its simplicity, the scene was actually very charming; I regretted not having taken my camera out of the car once we pulled up to the flashing, neon road signs draped in the Christmas-style lights that starred most establishments we’d seen en route up until that point. The food—dhal mahkani, another lentil dish, and a tomato, onion, and cabbage salad served with unleavened roti—was delicious, if a bit salty. The hospitality, too, was incredible, especially since we were, again, dining at a dusty, roadside establishment at just 30 minutes before midnight.

But I’ve gotten off track from my point: compassion, or lack thereof.

In fact, as the three of us dined there under dim, fluorescent lamps and the hazy collective headlight of the highway, the driver revealed to us that he supports a wife and three children—two girls and a boy—with his work. “I make about one thousand per month,” he said, and continued wolfing down what appeared to be the first good meal he’d had in some time.

It took me a moment more of sizing up the establishment—I was, at the time, so in awe of the stark contrast of my current surroundings with the lazy beach scene of Goa that I felt a bit comatose, from a sensory perspective—until I comprehended (as I should have immediately) that he meant Rs 1,000, or about $20 per month. This kind and hardworking man supported his family on less than a dollar a day while his hustler boss collected 130 times that. Assuming that petrol both way had run about $20, and that our roach motel cost about the same, that means his “employer” had still made nearly 900% profit on a route whose driver made only half the already minuscule average wage here. I know you’re probably, by this point, quite sick of me reasoning through everything in terms of percentages and proportions, but the fact is, this realization not only resurged my compassion, but made me resent, even more, the idea of “the establishment,” how it takes advantage of the very workers that power it, perverts trust, and, ultimately, divides people. Indeed, when our white Hyundai rounded the first turn out of central New Delhi, both of us still hot and bothered from being so taken advantage of, blind to the fact that our poor cabbie had nothing to do with that process, Dora and I were discussing potential courses of action to take in the event that he decided to try and leave us somewhere, drive us in the wrong direction, or, worse, kill us, Dora removing the neon pink retractable pen from her bag and clutching it menacingly, as if it were a syringe filled with tranquilizer. No, this petite man with sun-shriveled eyes, neatly combed hair, and a light-up Ganesha statuette on his dashboard had no intention of taking advantage of us. I felt terrible for asking whether or not I should pay the bill instead of simply doing it. I make about one thousand per month.

The rest of the journey was hazy, the two of us in the backseat falling in and out of sleep, exchanging and opposing it as if it were a conversation, only to be awakened fully by the periodic speed bumps that occurred frequently along the way. The dusty streets of Agra, alive even past midnight with Banquets and beggars and shopkeeper closing up, were line with trash much in the way the boulevards of Delhi had been lined with whatever type of tree it is they were lined with. This alien cityscape, which fluctuated between mid-rise and shack, and was lit up, overall, despite the hour of the morning, seemed in ways like a scene culled from one of my dreams, though and I can’t qualify or quantify that at the moment. Heavily and, in a way, beautifully influenced by Islam in its architecture, color, and ambiance, the urban scene outside my window conjured Egypt more than India as I awoke brain dead at 6:30 am to a fully-risen sun and the sound of young girls jubilant about seeing the Taj Mahal today.

Speaking of which, I love my red American Apparel briefs, but something tells me I should cover up a bit before heading out to do the tourist thing.

A Small Place

As a disclaimer: I have absolutely nothing against the British on a person-to-person level, or even as a societal group, outside the context of this post. Remember this in a few paragraphs!

Dora and I’s last day in Goa is drawing to a close and I am at once mentally refreshed and famished, at once spiritually awakened and stagnant, at once emotionally at ease and aggravated. More than anything, however, I am left with more questions than answers, with dozens of ambiguities and resentments have arisen to replace every lie I unlearned and every misconception I found to be just that.

On a broad level, it leaves me less excited to return home, not because I think life would be easier, better, or more fulfilling here in India, but because the way things are here negates the existence of Western Capitalism in so many ways. I’ll illustrate with a scene.

Picture it: one of the dozens of Ayurvedic Massage Huts nestled in the palm forests straddling Palolem’s main road. “500 rupees,” the shop owner says to the British tourist, who has just received a full body massage—included head, neck, and scalp—during the preceding hour.

The tourist hands the man the large, bright banknote. “Thank you very much.” As she begins to arise from her chair, she notices the blank expression on her masseuse’s face deepen into a grimace and then a scowl and she reaches full posture.

Her companion taps her on the shoulder. She whisper something into her ear. Aren’t you going to tip?

“Oh yes, and this is for you,” she says, and hands the masseuse a green five rupee note, a sum equal to approximately 7 pence, or 10 US cents. “I appreciate your time”.

This appreciation does nothing for the scowl. The tourist has just received an hour of intensive, professional massage for $5.10, only $.10 of which actually went directly to the person who slaved over her pasty body for sixty minutes. This is not an endorsement for better tipping the world over. Indeed, the issue here is irony, an irony that blinds me each time I pass a merchant, on every point on the circumference of the semicircular beach, and from the service counter—at window-shaking volume—of the coffee shop at which I sit and type this: the British—and a few other usual suspects—turned India into what it is: a flailing, sad parody of its Imperial Mother now theoretically enslaved to its former occupants and their way of life. They flock here en masse, in awe of its cheap liquor, societal disarray, and “simplicity” of life, oblivious to the fact that their continued omnipresence and frivolity with regard to the relative—but livable, compared to say, the slums of Mumbai—poverty seen here both ensures the continued stratification of this region and mocks the people who live here. This ties not necessarily into the cultural custom of tipping as we know it, but the idea of money as showing value. What the swine should have said as she walked away from the massage place is “I appreciate the fact that you took time to ease my pain in this very moment, but I will forget you ever existed as soon as I turn my back on you and I will encourage all of my semi well-off friends to come see you and tip you, in kind, the moment I land at Heathrow”.

And I say this feeling only slightly better about myself, having tipped $6, approximately 3 times the average daily national income. Indeed, America and Americans hold similar blame—and I use the word blame only in the sense that our standard of living is nothing more than a boardwalk supported by the barnacle-encrusted pillars that are the billions-strong residents of the third world—for having addicted the residents of the Western world to the fraudulent economic system that holds nearly religious importance to us.

So while I have greatly enjoyed my visit to Goa, met amazing people—tourists and natives alike—and made a lot of personal gains, I feel that it will be difficult for me to go back to the life I’ve been living since birth without feeling like a genuine impostor.

Yesterday, the day before yesterday, and today, I climbed to the top of the highest peak overlooking the smooth and wave-washed rocks where Dora and I watched the sun set Thursday evening, and saw the whole of Palolem spread out before me like an accessory for an upscale children’s pool. I marveled at the view, that I was so easily able to scale the boulders that led to it, that this beach was compact and navigable enough to take in so completely, that I was driven an hour and a half through the most primitive, dangerous back road and haggled the driver—who had to drive back without a barely-paying tourist (or two) in his backseat—down to minimum wage, that I purchased 13 massive, hand woven, individually-sequined tapestries for less than the price of a queen bed-in-a-bag at Wal-Mart.

More than anything, however, I am left feeling ignorant: how naïve of me to think that a trip to India would improve the way I thought of myself and my own life! Piecemeal, I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do. Increase my cultural awareness? Check. Take incredible photos of views only a very small portion of the non-native population sees? Sho’ nuff. Add another notch to my travel belt? Tighter already! I’m in the midst of an experience I’ll never, ever forget, alright. But, in the same moment, I kind of feel like a piece of shit.

It's not all doom and gloom though. On future trips, notably "the biggie" I'm tentatively planning from October of this year until further notice, I hope to continue meeting and showing genuine appreciation toward amazing people all over the world, to report on their daily realities in an objective, compassionate, and (hopefully) wide-reaching manner, and hopefully investigate ways to quell and perhaps reverse the momentous and seemingly unstoppable stratification that has turned our human population into a human liquid layer cake.

Ah, Third Grade science class. For the scope of understanding to be so narrow once again!

Happy Holy!

After swimming through a strong current to what she and I affectionately refer to as “the rock,” I joined Dora at Titanic coffee shop for what I intended to be a snack. When I finished consuming my Potato Carrot Burger—which encompassed at least twice the surface area of its accompanying standard-sized bun, and was also served with a hefty portion of fries and and an herb salad—I felt as if the Titanic herself had penetrated my digestive tract, and sank, each of the flailing passengers ripping at my insides on their way to death.

OK, so it wasn’t that bad. But for 140 rupees (about $2.75), I assumed it would be more of a snack. The problem with prices in India is that, in most cases, they say very little about the size or the quality of a meal. What they do say, however, being so uniformly low, is that one most closely monitor how many excesses one orders. While three courses for about $10 is hardly expensive, spending $30 per day on food in a country where a vast majority of the population subsists on a minute fraction of that is downright wasteful, and results in the aforementioned indigestion. Let’s just say I think I’ll try to make friends with the salad page from now on.

As I was saying before, however, I went for a walk. I walked farther than I’d done up until this point, past the lagoon at the north end of Palolem and toward rocky Monkey Island, which I’d previously mistaken as the fabled Butterfly Beach. As nature would have it, the area between Palolem’s horizontal precipice and Monkey Island was also quite rocky, and it was in climbing over these rocks and finally to the point where they meet the Arabian Sea that I found the perfect place for Dora and I to watch the sunset.

And Dora found the perfect music. Well, uh, perhaps perfect is not the correct word.

“What’s it gonna be?/’Cause I can’t pretend,” one of the members of 90’s R&B group En Vogue shouted into my ear after Dora gave me her left iPod headphone. I continued. “Don’t you wanna beeeeeeee moooooooooore than friennnnnnnds? Hold me tight and don’t let goooooooo. Dooooon’t let gooooooooooooo.”

Dora was perplexed. “How do you even know those words?”

“I just do.”

The two of us must have been quite a spectacle to behold. Dora had just finished a run, so she was in her sports bra, bike shorts, and running shoes. I was covered in magenta and purple dust that had been thrown onto me several times that day—in the morning by a young Indian girl and later by some drunken Brits—to celebrate “Holy,” a three-day Hindu celebration, in honor of at least one of the following: (a) Krishna (b) Vishnu or (c) the Goddess. I make a list only because I’ve been given a different explanation by each person I’ve asked. Regardless of the purpose, the spectacle is amazing, even in Goa, which is highly Catholic, owing to its Portuguese colonial heritage. On the TV at Titanic, footage of the festivities in holy Varanasi looped, uniting whole herds of people into a single colorful whole, an idea which is my favorite of the celebration.

After the sunset, Dora and I encountered a very cute and very drunk man from Surrey, England named Howzah. After some general “get to know you” questions, Howzah began asking us a familiar series of questions asked to us by nearly every person we collectively encountered.

“So you guys a couple?”

We chuckled. “Uh, no”.

“Former couple?”

We continue chuckling. Beyond Goa’s notoriety as a hot spot for couples, the concept of alternative sexuality is basically alien to most Indians, and apparently most non-Indians who travel here as well. It’s interesting, because it furthers my belief that many stereotypes Americans hold in this regard are mostly self-contained and often self-fulfilling, all the more reason they should be done away with all together. Nonetheless, it’s fun to humor people sometimes, and in some situations, we’ve been forced to, as a simple side effect of the social homogeny here.

“Lovers?” he continued. “Fuck buddies?”

“No,” I said barely able to contain myself. “Just friends. Good friends.”

“Best mates,” he said. As we walked southward on Pal he moved from my left side over to Dora’s right, dashing the hopes I’d had of him too being a renegade ‘mo like myself. He put his arm around her. “Nothing wrong with that”.

I felt jealous at that point, not of him, but of Dora. As I spoke, the irony was as thick as the wave-wet sand getting stuck between my toes. “Nope. Nothing wrong with that at all!”

Swimming with the CEO

“He’s a CEO,” said Puneet, as a large wave crashed against him. “Can you believe that?”

I couldn’t, initially; I assumed it must have been a joke. But I would soon come to discover that Ali—as he was called in my presence—was in fact the CEO of a company in Mumbai, from where he and his five friends were traveling. I’d smoked some hash with them the night before at Ali’s invitation, and met all of them in succession. I’d heard each of their “real” names exactly once, but since I’m bad with names, I’d only learned one of them. Puneet, like Ali and the rest of his friends, also held a high level job.

I was shocked to find out that just a couple years before, all six of these men had started out in call centers making around $4 per day—and subsisting on such wages! Apparently, since the vast majority of Indians earn less than $1 a day, salaries for “respectable” clerical jobs are often in the $2 range, and $4 is considered “great”. CEOs, from what I gathered eavesdropping to the infighting that occurred quite frequently among these six friends, earn around $30,000 per year.

Suffice it to say, my chief source of education here on Palolem Beach has continued to be the myriad of people I encounter.

Tuesday night, while Dora chilled in the hut and read, I stumbled—already having had a couple—up the beach to Cuba, a beach bar ever-so-slightly upscale in its ambiance while only living up to its namesake with the presence of the Mojito on its drink menu. In any case, I ordered a caipirinha and stood at the counter long enough to be told I had to sit down because I was standing in a service area. Just moments after I sat down, a girl came out of nowhere and sat down next to me, extending her hand to me. “I’m Shiri,” she said. “Nice to meet you. Where are you from?”

I should take this one line to explain that aside from Ryan from Idaho, I had yet to meet a single other American. Naturally, Shiri was surprised and excited that I hailed from the US of A, a fact that informed the vast majority of our conversation, which focused on American influence in just about every part of the world, including Israel her home country.

“Six months,” Shiri responds, when I ask her how long she plans to be in India. She outlines her trajectory. “First Delhi, then down the Ganges to Kolkata, then Chennai, then around the bottom from Kerala to Karnatka and finally to Goa.” Scheduled only three weeks in India at this point and having only seen Mumbai at Goa thus far, I’m naturally envious. As we continue speaking, another Israeli girl pops in and out. Shiri informs me that although she knows this girl from Israel, and has run into her several times during her travels, they are not traveling together.

“I spent 28 days in Hampi,” Shiri goes on, referring to a bizarre place in the middle South of India where, as Shiri puts it, “it appears as if an asteroid impact occurred,” a bizarre configuration of palm trees, rocks, and temple strewn about an otherwise uninteresting landscape. As Shiri continued, sound broke free of the large speakers on the ceiling, and within 30 seconds, a makeshift dance party began, the center of which was a large, shirtless Sikh man wearing jeans and a robin’s egg blue turban. A shirtless Sikh, can you believe that?

Dancing, nonetheless. See attached photographic evidence. I think it’s kind of sexy in a way. Unfortunately, the party was soon ended out of concerns for noise. In the not-too-distant past, Goa’s beaches—specifically Palolem—were internationally lauded for their days-long circuit parties. The locals, however, tired of the noise, trash, and other problems created by the parties, and the police now strongly enforce a curfew of sorts.

And speaking of curfews, I’ve only slept about an hour in the past day in a half, so I’m going to impose my own curfew. Goodnight!

Night Walking

It’s amazing the things that can befall someone when he or she rents a plywood beach hut for $7 per night. Most recently, the “someone” was yours truly and what befell me was a conversation with the owner of this establishment, a Nepalese man name Bijan, who works here on Palolem Beach in South Goa 8 months out of the year so that he can make money to support his family more efficiently than in Nepal, where wages are low and work is scarce.

Before this conversation, I was just sitting down on the plastic lawn chair on the makeshift porch of this little plywood beach hut to rest my sore knee after the second of two moonlit walks up and down Palolem, during which I thought about my priorities in life, the value of work, what exactly I’ve been doing in Austin the past three years, what I plan to do when and if I go back, and ultimately, the purpose of my life. All of these bullet points, however, were (attempting, thus far stalling) to answer one question: do Dora and I make our way to Darjeeling tomorrow or stay here, where perfect strangers approach you and begin to speak with you about exactly what was ricocheting around the inside of your skull the moment it stops ricocheting?

Prior to Bijan hobbling over to me from the beach shack restaurant and bar attached to the village of huts, a cane in his left hand and a cigarette in his right, I’d just returned from the second of two moonlit walks up and down Palolem, a fact I’ve already stated, but that bears repeating because of it having been the second and that there were two. At the beginning of the first, when I turned left on the beach against my better judgment, I turned my head just after turning at the South end of the beach and met eyes with Ryan, a man from Idaho who also just happened to want to talk about the very things that I was thinking about. It’s amazing the things that can befall someone when he or she walks alone at night among others walking alone at night among others walking alone at night.

And it’s amazing to me that I’m considering cutting out an entire leg of the trip (a consideration for which Dora too has her own reasons), one that includes seeing the Himalayas and the most sacred city in Hinduism, to remain among the wild packs of dogs, whole Tandoori cooked Tuna, and familiar strangers of Palolem.

So back to that.

What the ultimate answer to this question will really come down to is this: what is my purpose? Immediately, said purpose is the purpose of this trip. On a broader level, as I walked through the mushy sand wet by the evening tide where a newborn puppy with Sasquatch paws played cricket with Indian boys just hours before, however, I simplified the equation: why travel 30 hours to see the world’s highest mountain when a broad and wide path to happiness starts at your doorstep and leads in every direction? This is not only the case for me here in my little beach hut, but indeed in my daily life. When I become content somewhere, I instantly begin finding flaws in things so that I have motivation to go somewhere else. But why?

Is it for the sake of adding another notch to my belt? “I saw Mount Everest today, and I’m going to Varanasi tomorrow” and “I made $300 today and I want to make $400 tomorrow” are two statements that inevitably conjure the same perplexion: do you want a fucking medal?

At the end of the day, I booked three weeks in India to disconnect from the way I’ve been living my life, so as to find a more fulfilling way forward. To mandate to myself that the vacation must take me to every place I planned to go in order to be successful is to ensure disappointment. Which is not to say that Darjeeling among the Himalayas or Varanasi on the Ganges would be disappointing, but more broadly to say that I’ve spent the past 24 years chasing happiness. I have happiness right now. If I leave this happiness tomorrow and continue the chase for the sake of continuing the chase, then what does that actually say about the success of my vacation?

To make a decision with such familiar logic would be to negate the very concept of vacation, methinks.

Ryan offered me as a parting gift—and I say gift lightly, as I don’t imagine he actually knew how blessed I felt to receive it—a profound truth: you can get as much love as you want, but you can never keep it.

“What can I do?” Bijan asked shortly before stumbling over to the beyond my hut to investigate a disturbance he saw, in reference to my question as to whether or not his working situation left him, ultimately, happy.

I know his question was rhetorical, but I know the answer: be. A prerequisite, as well as a guarantee, for happiness is to be. That is the answer.

It’s amazing the things you learn in Goa.

Sweaty Walls and Prawns

As many of you probably know, I'm very attentive to detail with regard to most things in life. Appropriately, I noticed the tiny, red skull and crossbones on our air conditioning unit. Unfortunately, my attention to detail was less obnoxious than usual, and I didn't take time to connect the dots between the skull and crossbones and the message underneath, which says, in so many words, "don't turn off the AC, or else".

Dora was actually the one that turned it off, but that's not important. What is important is the "or else," and the "or else" ended up being a bizarre condensation that dewed on everything in the room, from the floors, to the canvas armchair, to the walls, which genuinely appeared to be sweating. Thankfully, we corrected our error prior to it destroying our electronics, and I'm happy to report that Candolim's Phoenix Park Inn Resort is officially one of the nicest hotel's I've ever stayed in.

The room itself is furnished like a small studio apartment, with glossy, tile floors, the aforementioned armchair, several tables and desks, a queen-sized bed, and a wall-mounted flat screen TV. The bathroom features one of the fancy above-counter sinks, working toilet paper, a real toilet, and the first shower I've seen in India that didn't scream "you'll get hepatitis by looking at me!"

The free breakfast and dinner buffets simply sweeten the deal. This morning, we enjoyed savory South Indian pancakes with link sausage, hard boiled eggs, and fresh mango nectar while taking in a view of the two large swimming pools at the hotel, surrounded by the three towers of the resort and more and a jungle of skyscraping palms.

BUT WAIT! This is not a TV infomerical, so hold your horses. The hotel is, however, an extremely short walk from Candolim Beach, all the conveniences of the town, and most importantly, some of the best food I've ever had.

Tonight, Dora and I dined at "Casa Sea Shell," a classy restaurant with white stone fences, columns, and a variety of tropical foliage, lending it a very Polynesian feel. We had initially stopped in "just to have a snack," as we're trying to have several small meals a day instead of a couple big ones in hopes of avoiding the "Indian 15".Once we saw the menu, though, it was all over.

Like really over. Like, I had Dahl Mahkni (lentils in a spicy cream sauce), Garlic Prawns, basmati rice, and a tomato and onion salad. The Garlic Prawns, who swam in a sauce that was much more orangey than garlicky, were the nail in the coffin of my previous shrimp infatuation, which had been severely damaged last night, when I dined on Prawns Vindaloo at a nondescript beach hut with non-nondescript food. (ed: difference between prawns and shrimp, anyone?) My choix-a-boire was sweet lime soda, of which I had two. Can you say glutton? You can? Oh good--just hold on one more second, because I also had a pina colada! OK, you can say it now.

Dora actually ate healthy, having grilled Kingfish with rice and vegetables, with club soda and a Diet Coke. The cost for all this? Monentarily, about 18 US Dollars. To our love handles? Who knows, but we're upping the length of our beach run tomorrow morning just in case. I mentioned "Indian 15," because a good friend of Dora's--and one of the more athletic women we both know--chose only to exercise her mandible when she was in India, and came back looking much more...uh...three-dimensional than she had before departure.

This blogger doesn't plan on letting that fate befall him or his travel partner, but with three-course meals in fancy restaurants running less than $20 and tasting like they do, we may just have to skip the trains--fecal trails, trash, and all--and run the remainder of our journey.

Or at least 90 minutes in the morning. D'oh. Speaking of which, it's after midnight and I haven't even rinsed the sand out of my ass crack. I should really get to that.

"Shit Falls Right Out of the Train in India" and Other Stories

Yes, you read that correctly. To be fair, I was peeing when I noticed that the bottom of the "toilet" basin empties directly onto the train tracks. Even better, there are no trash cans on the train. In fact, when I asked an IRCTC staff member to dispose of my food container, he threw it out the train door. The sides of the train tracks are absolutely covered with litter. According to National Geographic, the Indian Government's official reason for expanding its train network is to "reduce pollution". I'm sure the atmosphere is very grateful. Too bad for you, land and water.

Speaking of trains, the two most dramatic people in India naturally experienced (self-induced) drama on their first train journey in the country. See, Thursday morning it was coming close to 10:45, our scheduled time to disembark from the train in Magdaon, Goa's main station, so I began to monitor the names of the successive stations before then to ensure we didn't miss it.

"Mangalore?" I asked myself aloud, a bit panicked, when I saw the sign at the station we passed around 10:00. That's in Karnatka, I thought, almost all the way down India! Lonely Planet confirmed this. We're doomed.

I won't go into all the gory details of the mayhem that ensued, but as you can probably imagine--especially those of you who know at least one of us intimately--it was ridiculous. Let's just say that right before it got really good I realized that Mangalore was the direction (Mumbai being the other) that the train was traveling. 10:45 came and we were at Magdaon.

Unfortunately for us, Magdaon is the South Goa station, and our first stop in Goa was the Northern Beach of Candolim. Thankfully, a taxi cost a cheap Rs. 775 (about $15). No problem, right?

Well, yes and no.

See, we got to go on a long taxi ride that gave a great overview of the stunning Goan beaches and waterways, Portuguese colonial architecture, colorful streetscapes and locals, and the overall diversity of the small coastal state.

Unfortunately for us, we came close to having several heart attacks on the way, as streets in Goa wire--both in thickness and in bendability between backwater and jungle, often pitting car against bus and scooter (sometimes several at once), at speeds so great that collisions after often avoided only by mere seconds. In fact, Dora was talking to her cousin this morning, who informed that death here was not taken seriously and that he saw "several fatal accidents".

Oh well. Such is lif...er, death. We'll find out, anyway, when we travel to South Goa's Palolem Beach on Monday.

Speaking of beaches, I really can't praise Goa enough. From the beach bars and Polynesian-style dinner houses sprinkled along main drag and beach alike, to the cobra-stature palms that literally grow like wildflowers, the cows that roam and feed with the wild dogs of the area, the warmth and good nature of even the most annoying hecklers, and even the rusty tanker wrecked several hundred yards out from the shore, it's a more vibrant, rougher (I say that in a good way!), and lively version of what I'd imagine Hawaii to be like, and best of all, at only a small fraction of the price. There's only one thing about the place that's preventing me from completely divesting in the US and taking the next rusty tanker out of the Port of Houston and wrecking along the shore of Candolim.

Drama. This place brings out the drama in me. The ocean totally stole my neon yellow sunglasses, and we got scammed not once but twice on wireless internet purchases--$19 for less than an hour!

But what the fuck am I saying? Those things are very minor. Goa is may-jah. And I don't just type it that way because of all the Australian tourists. Goa is a place that makes me want to talk funny and overeat and not think twice about shitting in an outhouse. It's a place where I let go of my social anxiety, and haggle with beach side textile weavers as if I'm talking to myself in the mirror before I decide to forgo the bar in lieu of a nice night at home. It's a place where, to quote Dora's cousin "death isn't a big deal".

But life is. It's a really big deal. And two days in Goa have made me see that more than the past 8,760. For all you lazy people out there, that's approximately the number of days I've been alive. And for all you antfuckers, no, I didn't adjust for leap years, or for the number of days that have passed since my recent birthday.

The things we do for...Malaria Prevention

For those of you who have never been to India, it is probably not common knowledge that a traveler must take malaria preventative during and, in some cases, after his or her journey. There are three common choices of drug: Lariam, Malarone, and Doxycycline. Lariam is convenient—taken only once per week—and relatively inexpensive. Unfortunately, a typical side effect is hallucination. And not the fun kind. Malarone is a new drug that has basically no side effects and is taken once per day during the journey and for one week after the journey. Unfortunately, Malarone is extremely expensive, running over $100 per week, which leaves as the most typical malaria preventative Doxycycline, a broad spectrum antibiotic, with side effect typical of antibiotics: sensitivity to light, yeast infections in women, and nausea.

Serious fucking nausea.

One must begin taking Doxycycline two days before departure, and since I hadn’t experienced any side effects as of this morning, I didn’t think anything of taking it on an empty stomach as I typically do. Big mistake—less than five minutes after walking out of the hotel, saliva was pouring out of my mouth. I’m sure you can guess what happened next.

The moral of the story? If you aren’t a cheap motherfucker like me, just get the Malarone.

After my vomitocious date with the sewer cover, Dora and I took a taxi down to Indigo, which is hailed as one of Mumbai’s premier restaurants. Painted a simple white on the outside and adorned with modern decorations and table settings indoors, it was easily the “nicest” place we’ve seen during our time in Mumbai. After inhaling two baskets of bread and two bottles of Perrier a piece, Dora and I began our salad course. She got a beautiful Tuna Sashimi salad and I got an Asparagus Fennel Salad with Parmesan Vinaigrette. For the main course, Dora had a pan-seared Red Snapper, and I had Risotto with Grillled Prawns and Squid; we finished the meal off with a delectable crème brulee.

After lunch, we walked over to the Gateway to India, an Arc-de-Triomphe style monument erected in MCMXI—whatever year that was—to commemorate the landing of King George V in India—the first British Monarch to do so. On the way, we passed by the Taj hotel, site of the recent terrorist bombings.

Now I had expected hecklers in India, though I assumed they wouldn’t be as bad as in movies and folklore because…well…it’s a filmmaker’s job to portray things as more dramatic than real life to make them more interesting. Unfortunately, the heckling is almost overwhelmingly bad, particularly at tourist attractions such as the Gateway to India. Nearly every person we encountered had a story to tell about starving relatives or disease, or some other tragedy. I know that sounds insensitive, since this is India, and they probably weren’t lying. We did give one person money, a young woman who made fragrant flower bracelet for Dora, though, as expected, nearly a dozen other hecklers came our way once they saw us hand her the bill. So my advice? Don’t make eye contact with or talk to anyone when you’re doing tourist things, unless that person is working at the attraction. Again, I know that sounds horrible, given the abject poverty here.

And the poverty is abject. What disturbed me even more than the women bathing their infants in sidewalk puddles was the sheer quantity of homeless dogs and cats. It seems literally every time I looked at the ground, there was at least one of these poor animals, covered with flies and fleas, without companionship, food or water. What’s worse is that a large quantity of animals in India have rabies, so while I would have loved to pet every single one of the animals, it simply wasn’t realistic. There was, however, a beautiful cat at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Museum. I didn’t touch her, but she was very photogenic.

The museum itself was interesting, if a little overwhelming, teeming with artifacts from every era of India’s civilization from the early Harrapans to early Buddhists, from ones left by invaders such as Alexander the Great to paintings done by Europeans during the colonial period. Thankfully, there was an “audio tour” headset given out as part of the ticket package, which explained fully the stories behind and intricacies of many of the pieces of art.

After about two hours at the museum , Dora and I trekked northward back to our hotel, where we planned on freshening up and hitting the town. We instead ended up crashing out until about 10 pm, when we packed up and took a taxi to Victoria Terminus—the busiest train station in Asia!—and boarded the train to Goa, from where I’m typing this. We’re in 3AC, an air conditioned class with individual beds, though I don’t think we’ll be getting much sleeping done, as our coach is packed and there are eight teen girls seated very near us. Eight very loud teen girls.

Oh well. Next stop: the beach!