first impression of India

Someone, (very clever) once described India as being designed by a 12-year old boy. It is all very loud, and bright and chaotic and funny and dirty and fascinating and exhausting and a bit more loud again. If you have a problem with digesting a thousand and one things attacking all your sense at the same time, then just don't go to India. But if it doesn't bother you to get hit by rickshaws, slipping on cow shit, stepping in urine of unknown origin, getting stared at, having people tugging on your sleeves, trying to think through all the noise, almost suffocating on diesel fumes, marvelling at beautiful women in colourful saris, admiring the turbans of the men, getting hassled, jostled and scammed - then India is your place.

It takes a day to get anywhere, then it takes another day to recover. If I could describe India in one word it would be "exhausting". But so far I'm loving it. Ask me again in four weeks time though...

alone in Jodhpur

As Brina has gone back to Delhi, I'm on my own for the next few days. So it is going to be just me and you, my three readers, from now on (hi mum, hi dad, hi Irina!) You are my only friends.

private space, hello?

So living in one of the most densly populated countries in the world, you'd think that the Indians had learnt how to respect each other's private space, like in for example Japan. But oh no. Here, if you feel like listening to some music, you just turn on your portable transistor radio, never mind if the rest of the bus don't feel like suffering through Indian make-shift techno. If you need to spit - why not do so out of the window, never mind if your saliva drenches someone below. And if you need to discard your plastic bottle, just throw it out of the bus window, never mind that it might hit the person sitting two places further down straight in the face.

I was 2 centimeters from seeing the news flashing before my eyes: "Unknowing tourist gets killed in freak accident by a flying plastic bottle". It would be either that or "unsuspecting tourist gets killed by a cow who got tired of posing for photographs". This is the cow that decided to charge at Brina about 2 seconds after this picture was taken (she was closer than I):

getting scammed

I have now been in India for a week, and I've only seen ONE beggar. Apparently people don't really beg here, instead they scam you. Anywhere, everywhere and all the time. Fair enough, to a westerner it is only a matter of a few dollars here and there, but it is a question of principle.

The scams can be anything as simple as trying to get you to pay 200 rupees for each piece of your luggage (the bus ticket itself cost 200 rps), to more elaborate scams where for example a kid persuades you to buy some milk and food (for let's say 150 rupees), but "no madame, I don't want your money", only to sell the groceries straight back to the shop as soon as you turn your gullible western ass.

Brina has learnt most of these tricks the hard way, but we've still been had a few times, paying twice the real price for a rickshaw or a scarf, or toilet paper etc etc.
Once Brina bought a bottle of water for this kid, who promptly started to run away as soon as he got the bottle in his hand. Brina tracked him all the way through the village, and just as he was about to hand over the bottle to the shop owner, she rushed out from her hiding place, opened up the cap and yelled "HA!" in the kid's face. Everyone, including the kid who just got caught red handed, started to laugh.

So even if you catch an Indian trying to scam you, he won't be very bothered by it. He will just shrug his shoulders, smile and go looking for another tourist to fool.

jaisalmer - jodhpur

Trying to get ANYWHERE in India is a matter of patience, patience and having a very stretchy bladder. A bus that is supposed to take 5 hours, with a rest/toilet break, is actually a 7 hour journey with no stops unless you're lucky and the bus gets a flat tire. It is often a choice of either not drinking any water, and risk getting dehydrated in the stifling heat, or quench your thirst, and risk a ruptured bladder. Essentially something between a rock and a hard place.

Brina and I travelled from Jaisalmer to Jodhpur today on the "tourist deluxe"- bus, thinking that that way we would a) leave on time, b) arrive on time; c) be able to pee during the journey. We were wrong, but oh so wrong. The "tourist deluxe" bus is in fact a slightly better quality bus with both seats and sleeper sections, but this doesn't really mean much in India: if the bus has 30 seats, then you have 45 people sitting and another 60 standing in the aisle.


We were the only foreigners on the bus, which seemed to amuse the rest of the, mostly male, company. They were staring at our faces, at our books, at our bags, and then repeating the procedure all over again. And I never thought that watching a white girl applying suncream on her face could be that fascinating, but apparently it is.

small pieces of useless information

Fascinating fact 1: there is mobile phone EVERYWHERE in India, even in the remote desert of Thar.

Fascinating fact 2: A camel guide earns about $20 a month. A good camel costs $1000. Brina and I would apparently be worth 5 camels, compared to the 2 camels that a good Indian wife would be worth.


Fascinating fact 3: Indian cows seem to like munching on cardboard

camel safari

Today I got kissed by a camel named Johnnie Walker. I kid you not. Here is proof:

Instead of the standard 2-day camel safari trip, we opted for a one day version without the sleeping under the stars bit. (As I hate camping) We got picked up by our four legged friends at a nearby Oasis, and were then lulled through a boiling hot landscape of sand, sand and some more sand. Thankfully I had been clever enough to buy a scarf and a hat the day before, so I managed to pull off the "Lawrence of Arabia"-look to almost perfection.



As I have never ridden a camel before I was hoping to be able to go galopping a little bit, but unfortunately they only let us trot whilst tied together in a line. Apparently the camels like to run off into Pakistan otherwise, not stopping even at border control. And that is an experience that I can live without.



After several hours we finally reached some sanddunes. As the idiot I am, I tried to roll down along a dune, which only made me dirty and nauseous. Just don't do it.
We had dinner whilst the sun was setting, and suddenly a man appeared out of the middle of no-where selling COLD beer. A perfect end to a perfect day, even though I normally actually don't even drink beer!

Jaisalmer

I have to say though, the train ride was totally worth it: Jaisalmer is probably one of the coolest places I've been to. The city centres around an old fort, which unlike the rest of the forts in India, hasn't been turned into a museum. This so called "living fort" is a hustling, bustling cacaphony of colours, smells, cows, narrow mazelike streets and doorways looking like they will take you to Shangri-La.

And so far I've been pleasantly surprised how friendly and helpful the Indians are. Even when you're not considering buying their hand-carwed camels.

the cockroach express to Jaisalmer

Ok, so any train/bus/car that makes 600 km in EIGHTEEN hours really shouldn't have the right to wear the title EXPRESS. Our train from Delhi to Jaisalmer was probably the slowet the train was actually pulled by two donkeys. Who manage to go backwards too, from time tost journey I have done in my life. Not only did we stop at every hut along the road, but I swear tha time.


The whole journey started out by us almost accidentally ending up in Bikaner instead of in Jaisalmer, because as the shining stars that we are, we just plonked our white asses in the first "3A"-class carriage that we saw, not realising that the train was to be divided later. Thankfully, a very helpful Indian gentleman sent us packing and running to the other end of the train, and this time we even double checked that our names were on the list that they slap next to the doors.
Passing by the train I nearly vomited from the stench coming from toilets of the "sleeper class" carriages. Note to self - if possible,always travel first class in India.


Because of the Diwali holiday the train was remarkably empty, or so we thought until 2 hours south of Delhi when the carriage was suddenly swamped with 50 army guys, who were undressing us with carnivorous eyes. They were staring at me as if I were a piece of uncured bacon, and at Brina as if she were a piece of very fine veal. Now, as we're talking about Hindu's here, who both rever the cow and tend to be vegetarian, you might get the picture.

I think I slept a total of 2 hours. The rest of the time I was giving anyone passing by the evil eye. When I wasn't trying to avoid using the toilets of course, which were actually not that bad smell wise. They did however host a fair amount of cockroaches, and albeit small as they were, I didn't really feel like hanging around to meet their parents.

delhi - jaisalmer

Today Brina and I are catching a train to Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. It will take 16 hours. I'm not completely comfortable with being stuck on a train for that lenght of a time, but it seems like it is the only way to get ANYWHERE this weekend, as all the train tickets out of Delhi were sold out long time ago.

In Jaisalmer we'll try to arrange a short camel-safari trip, I'm totally aiming for a day trip because I absolutely hate camping and the idea of sleeping under the stars in a freezing desert appeals to me about just as much as swimming in a lake of crocodiles. Brina, who is made of much tougher steel than me, thinks those kind of things are fun. Yeah...

As this will be my first visit to the "real" India, I'm getting a bit nervous. I'm completely expecting to be robbed, drugged and ripped off at the first possible occasion. But what scares me the most is the thought of the toilets on the train, I mean, not even European trains have acceptable standards of cleanliness at the toilets, so I'm slightly concerned that I'll just sit there and rather letting my bladder rupture than go pee. It is mostly the smells I'm concerned about, my olfactory senses are quite sensitive and I easily tend to gag/vomit. Now, for someone who spends the majority of their day subject to the plethora of various animal excrements and their adjoining smells, this might seem like a strange thing to say. But for some unknown reason I don't have a problem getting covered with pee, poo, blood or similar - as long as it is from an animal. The human variety is however a completely different story... I shudder just thinking about it.

Matt has already warned me that yes, the toilets are bad and I'll probably get pee on myself regardless on how I do, but that Brina uses the toilets. Then again, she likes camping and thinks cockroaches are "cute", so I think Brina is disqualified for this discussion.

invitation

I have somehow managed to become "invited" to a traditional Indian wedding up in the Himalayas. It is Brina's driver from Jeevasharam who is getting married, an arranged wedding where the bride and groom only have met once before. Originally it was Brina and Matt who were invited, but since both of them are going to be in the US at the time, Brina bluntly asked her boss whether it would be considered rude to ask if I could come in their place (white person as white person = tomato, tomatoe...)

A quick exchanged in hindi between the boss and the groom followed, and then the boss turned over to me with an assuring smile, "yes, he would love to have you at his wedding, but you might not be able to stay at his house". All this time the poor groom looked terrified at the whole prospect.

If I'm going? Hell, yes! It is gonna be me and 600 Indians who don't speak a word of English. I will just smile, say namaste and show them the latest Bollywood moves. How could it possibly go wrong?!

Being a vet in India

Today Brina and I went to her work, the Jeevasharam charity veterinary clinic in southern Delhi. As this is India, the vets there have to manage with a minimum of medications, surgical instruments and diagnostic equipment. A lot of the drugs we use in the western world of veterinary medicine, are just not possible to get hold of in India. And surgical sterility... is simply an issue of wishful thinking, not due to lack of effort, but because there are no reliable autoclaves to get hold of.

The clinic provides both basic and preventative care for all animals in the area, de-sexing the animals is a top priority due to the rapid spread of street dogs/cats/donkeys etc.

Unfortunately, the Indians don't believe in euthanasia, so instead of ending the suffering of a pet that has for example been hit by a car, has septiceamia or eaten something which gets stuck in their intestines (and later cause ruptured bowls), they let them die a slow and often very painful death. To western vets like Brina and myself, this is often very frustrating, because we don't like seeing animals suffering without being able to do anything about it.

I got to do a keyhole flank spay on a dog today, which was very interesting and rather messy, I don't like not seeing what I'm doing! A keyhole flank spay is something we never do in the west, because if something goes wrong, as in if you accidentally drop a blood vessel, you have very little chances of finding it again. It is an "oops" with a big "O". On the plus-side, the wound heals very quickly and the dogs can be released back onto the streets again after only 3 days, compared to 14 with a midline incision.

Next to the clinic was a pretty little hindu temple, with a big Kahuna statue of Shiva and of course - a cow. I just love cows.

planning

I've spent the majority of the day recovering from my flight, then Brina took me to the local stores to get some food. As her little haven of a flat is located in one of Delhi's more fashionable areas, India hasn't really hit me full force yet. Tomorrow we're going to Brina's work, I'm hoping I might get the chance to do a flank spay on a dog, I've never done one of those before.

I've also enjoyed what I believe might be my very last salad here in India, I don't think other people BLEACH their vegetables for an hour the way Brina does, in order to kill all the germs and protozoa.

We've tried to do a rough outline of our travels for the next couple of weeks, nearly having a major fit at the inefficacy of the Indian train reservation system. Unfortunately both Brina and Matt have to leave for the States at the beginning of November, which means I'll have to tackle India on my own from there on. It might be...interesting...

brina and matt

Let me introduce my hosts: Brina and Matt are both Americans, and originally come from Seattle. Brina and I attended vet school in London together, and we also shared a house for 3 years. She is currently trying to save the street dogs of Delhi more or less single-handedly, doing volunteer work at various clinics. Her husband Matt, is a diplomat at the American embassy, and as the super-intelligent creature he is, also fluent in Hindi. As you are.

But let's rewind this a little bit. About 2.5 years ago, Brina tells me that's she's going to Ireland in March for a week, with this great friend of hers from high school (who I had never heard of), and who's currently working at the American embassy in Pakistan, and isn't he cute?! She admits to have had a secret crush on him for years, but as they've always been in relationships with others, they've stayed just friends.

A few weeks later, on her return from Dublin, I pick Brina up from the airport. We haven't even left the Stansted area before she announces that she thinks she is in love and that Matt and her are probably getting married. I'm like "ooookay..., don't you think you might be jumping ahead of things just a tiny bit.". "No, he's the one, I know it". I leave the discussion at that, not really thinking more about it.

Now Ireland was their first "date". A month later, in April, after millions of phone calls and emails back and forth from UK to Pakistan, they meet up in Paris. Where Matt proposes to her by the banks of the Siene. That was their second date.

On their third date, in May, Brina and Matt went to Dubai for a long weekend of loooove.

And on their fourth date, in June, they got married in Istanbul, in front of a small crowd of family and friends who had flown over just for the occasion.

Now, for all of you who think that a relationship like this can never last, I hate to disappoint you, but Brina and Matt are still as bubbly about each other as when I first picked her up from that airport, and they aren't shy about publically declaring their love either. "Matt, you are the best husband in the world", I read on Brina's Facebook status. "Oh I cannot wait to get home to my beautiful wife", I see a few hours later. "Oh, hurry home, I miss you my fantastic husband".

Now, for a long time I thought that this was just a private joke between the two of them with the aim of driving their less fortunate, and single, friends insane. But no. The moment I walked into their kitchen here in Delhi I realised that their love is very, very real. On the fridge, there are little messages scribbled down on a whiteboard: "I love you more than life, my whole world revolves around you", "I cannot wait to go away to Borneo with you, my love", only to name a few.

Their story is almost better than a Bollywood movie, and it makes even a hardened cynic like myself believe in true love. However, I have to confess that I'm still secretly expecting for either of them to suddenly burst out singing and dancing, wriggling their hips and bellies, true Indian style. Something tells me I will be waiting for a long, long time.

Arrival: New Delhi

I have now landed in New Delhi, India. It is 5 am local time. I thought it was a bit exciting having to pass through a "health check", which basically consisted of answering either "yes" or "no" on a "have you got the piggy-flu"-form, and then walk in front of bored Indian officials with face masks and infra-red cameras measuring the body temperatue. I had to fight the urge to write "yes" just to see what would happen.

As I arrived in the middle of the night I haven't really managed to get a first impression of India yet, apart from noticing that it smells like in Sri Lanka. According to B, this is the smell of cow dung burning. It is not a totally unpleasant smell actually, and I think I'll just have to get used to it whether I like it or not.

It was great seeing B again, I don't think I've seen her since she and M got married on a roof top in Istanbul with the Blue Mosque as a backdrop 2 years ago. It was the most amazing wedding ever, and their love story is something worth making a movie about, and I might consider telling you all about it later when my brain isn't scrambled. Now it is time for bed.

Oh, and I think there is a high risk I might become a consumer of Bollywood movies. They contain enough escapism to even make JR Tolkien jealous, and more kitsch than I though was possible on this side of Elton John.

Gothenburg -New Delhi

Ok, procrastination time over. I have to go to the airport now. I think I have my passport...somewhere. I'm not yet fully aware that I'm actually doing this. It probably won't hit me until I land at New Delhi airport and go "holy F"...

spam filter

Now, for any of you feeling like commenting on this blog you are welcome to do so. I have however had to enable to "word verification"-function. The reason for this is because I got tired from the very persistent inviduals, who despite my protests, seem concerned that my penis is not of adequate size. You can all rest assured that it is.

not a child of the sun

Years of travelling has made me realise that it is just impossible trying to "blend in". I'm 1.70, of medium built and with a skin so pale that it would make Edward Cullen look like an extra from Baywatch in comparison. Wherever I go, I get oogled.

Now, I like my skin. It is very soft and supple and goes well will black clothes. But I have to admit that there is something slightly uncomfortable having six apple-sized Thai woman abandoning their work stations and rushing over to where you're standing in the lingerie section with a lacy bra in your hands, just to touch your arms and go "oooh" and "ahhh" and "so welly, welly white".

Being of the transparent kind I am also extremely sensitive to sunlight. EXTREMELY. I suffered from 2nd degree burns as a child and I have managed to get burnt even with SPF 100. I don't melt, but it is not far off. Most often the best solution is simply to stay out of the sun, or even better, don't go out at all. Unfortunately, this makes travelling slightly complicated, and I have therefore had to come up with ways to work around this "sun-issue". In Spain, I became a creature of the night. In California, I just never did any activities that required being outdoors. And in Bolivia, at 4000 metres, I simply bought an umbrella. This worked superbly, until it broke and I found myself in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, a small oasis in one of the world's driest desert, desperately trying to describe what an umbrella was to the local shopmonger's. It didn't work that well. In India, well, we'll just have to see how I tackle this delicate little problem over there. I have sunscreen with SPF 50, sunglasses the size of a small country, white shirts covering my neck and arms, and I'm going to buy a safari hat as soon as I possibly can. I don't care if I look like and idiot, I'm gonna get stared at regardless.

Here's a picture of B and I, just to give you an idea. I'm actually even sporting a bit of a tan here.

the woody

B called me at 4 am just to give me the lastest information, and some carefully placed "head-up"-hints. As she has known me for several years, she knows of my "tendency" to worry. In fact, it is not even a tendency, it is whole new character: The Woody Allen.

My worrying streches the whole abyss from "will he call me?" to "will I be seated next to a man with horrible peridontitis who insists on yawning and burping all the way from Singapore to Europe, forcing me to breathe through a glass of orange juice for 12 hours?" ´

I don't like uncertainty. Most of the time I reside somewhere in the limbo-land between dwelling on past nostalgia and trying to predict the future. If I had a crystal ball it would be in need of constant repair. I rarely live "now", seize the day and all that malarkey. The fear of the unknown just gives me too much anxiety.

So even now that I have been warned that people in India tend to stare a lot, even more than you expect them to do, I know I'll walk around worrying that someone has drawn a penis on my forehead.

you have now been warned

Just in case anyone feels like saying or posting something negative about me, my family or our chickens, I would hereby like to present my father. He will come kick your ass. So think about it twice. Ok?