My last days of 2007 - First days of 2008

Day 3

Friday in Delhi. Time to get some train tickets to varanassi. During my walk I had come across the train station so I knew where I’d find it. No problem. I get there, to the tourist office and I see the first real concentration of travelers. No success with the ticket tho. Everything in india requires a passport, from reserving a train ticket to getting a SIM card. It’s ridiculous. On the one hand you can get any kind of service you can think of quickly and easily, but on the other, everything legit requires paperwork. The paper. Wow. I can’t imagine where it all goes. Paper for everything.

The train station brings me to my first real traveler experience. Meet a couple and a solo traveler, then we head off to another rooftop terrace for some food and tea. Really cool. Flocks of pigeons guided by the shouts of men competing from roof to roof in a game I still don’t understand. Hawks in the hundreds in the dusty sky. Even up here you get whiffs of urine, here above the grand bizarre in Delhi. To get here we had to walk through crowded streets packed with shops on either side filled with incense, thousands of people, lots of tourists and colors; blinding beautiful colors. Behind the colors are electrical wires connecting building after building in triplicates, balls of wires, all over the place. How can this place stay functional? It boggles the mind. My body knows I’m here but my mind still can’t fathom I’m in India, despite the smells, the sights, the sounds. I walk through the streets practically drinking urine with every breath and I still don’t feel any different. How can this be? What was I expecting? Why is this all so familiar?

Time to head back and do some work, get my SIM card, try again to get train tickets from an unofficial "tourist" office. No luck again. Leita’s gonna be disappointed. I’ll have to deal with that tomorrow. Today, I’m just happy I got to do the things I did. It’s been a good day.


NY’s 2008

Hung out and slept in on the 31st. All the running around with the family before they left and all I could think of was taking it easy and doing nothing but lying in bed. I hardly left the room and did so only to check email. The 2 singapore women I had met came by to see if I wanted to join them in trying to find something to do that night to celebrate NYs. I was a bit reluctant, but in the end I decided I had nothing to lose so I went. We walked around for what seemed like forever. Everything closes so early here, even on the 31st. Plenty of places were offering open bar packages, 2000 here, 5000, 7000, all were too much as far as I was concerned, and they all closed around 12, 1, maybe 2. Ridiculous. Eventually, Julio, a fellow traveler the girls had met who had joined us asked these 2 other couples for directions and next thing you know they were joining us in our pointless search for a non-existent party. In the end it was lucky for us as they brought us to a liquor store where I managed to get another bottle of rum for $4. There are some beautiful things about being in India; the cost of living is one of them. So, from there we headed away from Connaught place and back to our headquarters in Pahar Ganj. More walking, more indecision, more complications and compromises seeing as we were a pretty big group by now, 2 russians (couple), 1 spanish and Czech couple, the 2 singapore girls and Julio the Spanish guy. Eventually we settled on a tiny coffee shop that seemed to have the coolest owners or managers. Either way, the vibe was good, we were able to open our bottles of rum and pour our own drinks, the workers and friends of workers, many of them Nepalese, were drunk and dancing. All in all it was a good sight, even if a little boring at times (cause of the seating arrangements I simply couldn’t have any decent conversations and didn’t feel like dancing). So it was, a couple hours later I was ready to head back. Got home to my little Anoop, got online, went into my room ordered some food, watched some tv and ended my year with the closing of my tired eyes.

Jan 1, 2008
Still kinda tired or I should say bored, and not really feeling like doing much. Finalized my plans for the next little while, will buy my ticket tomorrow, might meet up with the Singapore girls again to swap music, and then I’ll call it a night and get up tomorrow to go to the train station and see about getting tickets to Jammu. This is how my year began.


Jan 4
I've gone to the net cafe 3 times today. I had no idea I'd be using the net as often as I am. I had no idea I'd be spending so much on it either, but it's a cost I feel I have to pay not just because it's my main connection to the real world but because it relieves some of my apprehension towards work.

It's 9:31 PM here. I'm gonna have to crash early tonight since i'm being picked up at 6 in the morning tomorrow by jeep to go to Srinigar, assuming of course that they didn't just outright steal my money. It was stupid of me. I can't believe I did that. I know better. I just slowly began accepting him because I figured "he's with the government, it's ok". And the Lonely Planet said that that place was ok. But now, I wonder, even if the jeep comes by, what house boat I'll be thrown into. Will it really have heating or will i freeze out there on the lake? I think in the end, he may have worked in the government offices, but made a personal deal. I doubt they'll screw me on the jeep. That would be a little much, but the houseboat, that could be a nightmare and there are apparently tons of stories of people who get screwed reserving a houseboat ahead of time before seeing them, some people even being held hostage to pay up or god knows what else. We're not talking kidnapping hostage, just having life made really difficult. But hey, I came to India for a challenge and for experience and for growth and came to Srinigar during off season for more of that, as I felt in Delhi I wasn't getting enough of it, and even though this isn't the kind of challenge I had in mind, you can never really choose that can you? A real test comes when you haven't been studying and aren't prepared. So wish me luck.

The people here are generally fairer skinned. In fact. they often speak to me in whatever language, Kasmiri I guess, until I look back at them with questions in my eyes and they realize they got me wrong. I don't think any think I live here, but maybe an ex-pat come back to his country after a few years, cause my clothes certainly make me an outsider. It's not that they're all that different, but these jeans are baggier, i have a small packpack on, my hair is short, i have the 2 earrings, but still sometimes they can't believe i'm not kashmiri. Kinda cool to blend in that way, without really blending in of course. If I had a scarf, one of the typical ones from around here and changed my pants, they'd have no clue and I could walk around as a full on kashmiri, except of course for my packback which holds my laptop. But hey, i can't part from it, so what to do?

God, I'm so glad I brought my sleeping bag and a sheet. So far the most valuable things I've brought have been, and in order 1. laptop for some sort of connection and simply cause without it, i simply will have no way to stay or no business to go back to, 2. my sleeping bag, for those extra cold nights and train rides when i'm in the sleeper class, 3. my sheet to give me some separation between my body, even though I sleep clothed, and the usually nasty sheets that so many of the hotels have had, whether clean or not, they just never look it, 4. phone for its camera and music and lastly for its sms and providing a feeling of being accessible in emergencies, 5. compass, for just helping me confirm my bearings from time to time, it just puts me at ease and allows me to be more efficient and less dependent on people 6. clothes

Ugh. It's hard to find a comfy position to type from with a laptop. My hand always ends up hurting. And lately, i've been doing a lot of typing.

Got a bit of new music from those Singapore girls. They came by and hung out and we swapped music on their last night in Delhi. I think it was my last night too. Ya. It was. I got a singapore electro band called, wait for it, Electrico, hehe, and another band called KT Tunstall, and Nouvelle Vague, and Rachael Yamagata. Anyway, haven't really listened to em yet, maybe i'll do that tonight or throw them onto my phone for the ride tomoro. And they took a bunch from me, Gotan, Shpongle, Thievery, and a few others. Was one of the few moments of hanging out with anyone for more than an hour. Took a couple pics of them and got their emails. Young girls, a little conservative, surprisingly not aware of a lot of pretty basic scientific theories out there. Sorry, but i just assumed asians had a pretty good grasp on science, but that was probably a generalization, maybe it's just math. HAHA.