New Year, New Beginning

The rest of our time in Goa was spent with our happy crew, swimming and lazing on the beach and sharing meals that stretched out for many hours. What a joy it was to laugh heartily with six, seven, eight people! Although it was sad to go our separate ways, it's nice to know we have friends in far away places, making the world a little smaller. We left for Mumbai in high spirits, filled with new year's rwsolutions, recharged and ready to begin again.

Mumbai: what a cool city! Compared to the rest of India, it's clean and modern, sophisticated and charming.. Like the New York of Asia! Formerly Bombay (when it was a Portuguese colony), Mumbai is characterized by grand old colonial architecture and lush tropical vegetation, wide cobblestone streets and awesome black and yellow taxi cabs from the fifties. We were glad to meet Sarah here rather than in New Delhi, which by comparison is a dense, medieval shitstorm. We spent a few happy days in Mumbai and then whisked away to other corners of the Indian state of Maharashtra, our first amble through southern India.

Where did we go? First, to Ellora and Ajanta, where enormous Buddhist and Jain temples were once carved into granite cliffs, hundreds of years ago. It was pretty astounding, seeing the remnants of all that work of human hands upon solid rock. We scrambled all over the hillsides and along the gorges, into secret stone rooms where people once lived and worshiped. Sarah wasn't yet accustomed to some of the more peculiar habits of Indian people, like sneakily photographing white people or urinating in every unmanned corner in sight. Boy was she in for a surprise!

We headed further south and spent a few days in Hampi, which was dream-like and otherworldly. In Hampi, more ruins from bygone eras rise up from a golden landscape strewn with gigantic boulders. Rice paddies, pebbles, towering rock slabs, mountains and rivers... We rented mopeds and rode through all of it. Hampi felt like a sort of timeless place-- even the sunlight seemed to stand still, like a long afternoon. We didn't spend as much time as we would have liked (feels like we're really racing the calendar lately!) but I made a secret promise to myself that I would return again in the future. More and more, I'm finding, you can't make that promise about too many places you go.

10:37PM
Mumbai, India

finally popular

S&G in the town of Bedrock

sup Mumbai

Homesickness, Magic, Superstitions

By the end of 2011, J and I were a little weary of traveling. We spent the better part of this year away from home: working in Miami, hiking around the pacific northwest, backpacking through southeast Asia, tackling the Indian subcontinent, and exploring an endless array of pristine beaches, ancient temples, glorious mountains and tropical fruits. Christmas time came and we spent it together--our very first away from home--in a sleepy beachtown in Agonda, eating seafood by candlelight and feeling a little lonely. Those were the plans we made-- to spend the holidays in a beachy paradise, then meet Sarah up in Mumbai and hit the road again for one more ramble around India. But after two months of dust and curry, sleeper trains and Delhi belly, just us two... We missed our friends, and our families, and just being home.

And then, the magic of India intervened! Rather than feel sad and lonely on a deserted beach, we decided to pack our bags and relocate to a place with a little more action in northern Goa. Up there, we serendipitously ran into all sorts of characters we had met at one place or another along our travels, as though the stars had been listening and aligned themselves just for us. India has a way of bringing people together like that, under strange and wonderful circumstances. We shared a beer with the Japanese cats from that long ago Delhi train! I was nearly run over by the Alaskan firefighter from Rishikesh, who was riding into town on the back of someone's motorcycle at 7:30 in the morning (what was I even doing in the middle of the road at 7:30 in the morning?)! We found the lovely Adriana again in an Internet cafe-- our third time crossing paths with her in a country of over a billion people. What else could it be but magic?!

So, at the end of 2011, J and I found ourselves sitting around a bonfire on a beach in southern India, sharing strawberries and rum with a solid gathering of new and wonderful friends. We shared stories of our homes (Colombia, Germany, Morocco, Eritrea, Vancouver, Brazil, New York) and laughed over the mishaps and amazements of the journeys that brought us together from so far away. We mixed up a few new year traditions (superstitions?) from our varying cultures and combined them at the stroke of midnight to insure the best luck and fortune in 2012: We wore underpants with the corresponding colors of our desires (red for love, yellow for luck, green for money); we doused our heads in tea infused with the seven sweet herbs ("for a sweet year!"); we ran a wide circle around the bonfire ("so that you will travel often and far!"); we ran into the ocean and jumped over seven waves, making seven wishes, just as the whole beach exploded with a thousand shouts of joy and a thousand dazzling fireworks on the sand.

Seven wishes is a lot, I thought, while I jumped over waves and thought about this unbelievable year, and this amazing life, and the great bigness and beauty of the world. If I wasn't so excited about this upcoming year, I would wish to do it all over again, from last January until now, and relive each happiness and frustration without changing anything. But, time moves on, and it's important to look forward -- great things are on their way.

8:10PM
Mumbai, India

mud luv

Nights in Rajasthan

Time flies, and goes slow. Two weeks ago we came and left Rajisthan under the cover of darkness, and already we are sunburnt and sandy on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Where did it go?

Under the cover of darkness, we came: the train pulled into the station well before dawn in Jodhpur. We stepped out and into the foggy mayhem of street lights and taxi drivers and chai wallas and groggy travelers, and disappeared into the city-- which was quiet and still asleep, for the most part. In big Indian cities, it's easy to get lost; guesthouses and restaurants often paint their names with arrows on the corners of buildings and in twisting alleyways, so you don't get discouraged and give up. So, we followed signs in a dark and winding maze, finally arrived, and banged on the door until an old man let us in and showed us a room. We collapsed into bed and were moments away from sleep when, out of the darkness, the morning prayers of ten thousand people rose to the sky. Astounded, we crept out of bed and up to the rooftop and saw the whole city sprawled out beneath a massive red stone fort, and the sun making its hazy ascent over all of it. Jodhpur is called the 'blue city', because members of the Brahmin caste paint all their houses varying shades of blue. So, through the fog: a holy chorus of ghost voices warbling from mosques and distant loudspeakers, an eery echo; a sea of blue rooftops, the mountainous Mehrangarh Fort ("impenetrable to this day!") and the blood red sun creeping up and setting it all on fire... It was a pretty special moment to be awake, we thought.

What else did we do in Rajasthan? We visited Jaipur ("the pink city"-- not so nice) and Jaisalmer, which was an ancient city built in an around (another) ancient fort. Like a page out of Lawrence of Arabia-- cobblestones, camels, men in turbans, women wearing big gold chains all over their faces and wrists and ankles.. We spent a night sleeping under the stars in the Thar Desert-- an Indian treat for sure. While our camels wandered off to find greener grass, we slid up and down the dunes and followed the trails of one hundred different desert creatures trekking across the sand. At night, our guides cooked dinner over a fire and we took turns drinking and singing songs from our respective countries. The Frenchmen with us did a poor job, and we did okay with a little Johnny Cash (traditional American music?) but the Rajasthani boys definitely nailed it with their enchanted folksongs about two cursed lovers along the India/Pakistan border, about a shepherd searching for an idyllic pasture to graze his sheep..all in all it was a magic night in the desert, and not one we will soon forget.

So, under the cover of darkness, we left: in the middle of the night, from another filthy train station, with our bags packed and no reserved tickets. The Indian railway system, computerized only ten years ago, has evolved to suit the traveling needs of 1.3 billion people-- efficient, but tough to get a last minute seat. It was a 30 hour ride to Goa, and the next train didn't leave for another week, so it was a toss up between "don't go" and "just get on the train". Easy! I have a T-shirt that says "Sab Kuch Milega" which is Hindi for "everything is possible" and I wear it for extra luck in times like these. We alternated between sleeping in a then-empty berth, sitting with nice Indian families (and sharing their delectable Indian snacks) and eventually bribing the ticket collector to get a sleeping bunk. Everything is possible! Especially in India.

7:56AM
Agonda, Goa, India

Indian Love Stories

Our first sleeper, to Varanasi: 12 or 13 hours in a rowdy train car packed with Indians, rambling westward through the night. The sleeper cars are lined three high with plastic bunk beds, and the windows have steel bars instead of glass. It's a real adventure! Also a real test in patience and fortitude-- it gets really cold at night, and there are one thousand and one noises happening at once: people talking, laughing, arguing, snoring loudly, testing cellphone ring tones, playing high pitched Indian pop music, hocking horrible loogies through the window grates... The first night was the worst night, but we stepped out bleary-eyed into the hazy sun of Varanasi alive and with all our limbs intact.

Varanasi was not, however, the holy refuge from New Delhi that we might have been expecting... It was just as busy, only a bit smaller and had a ton of cow shit deposited in every secret alleyway and open space. Apparently if you die or are cremated on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi, your soul is lifted from the cycle of reincarnation and you go straight to wherever Hindus dream of going when they die. Subsequently, there is a lot of holy (and unholy) activity going on at all hours of the day and night, on the steps of the giant ghats lining the riverside. People bathing ceremoniously, washing clothes, praying, splashing around, drinking and eating, washing dishes, washing their water buffaloes, selling boat rides, tossing garbage, going to the bathroom, burying their dead... It's an unbelievable sight and just a lot to take in all at once.

On the cremation ghats: At any given time throughout the city, the feint sound of chanting rises in some faraway corner and gets louder and louder until a group of men march by, enthusiastically shouting in unison and carrying on bamboo sticks a colorfully decorated and bedazzled human corpse. Hello sir or madam! They squeeze past passersby in the narrow streets that lead to the cremation ghats, where there are bundles of wood (sandalwood is the most expensive) and specific pyres upon which members of different castes are burned. I almost lost my lunch at the sight of it-- a real burning woman-- and at the smell of it. Once roasted, they are all tossed into the river and bid a final adieu. How anyone can then drink that water is unfathomable to me, but they do. A scruffy kid took us on a boat ride at dawn and proudly explained how only real Indians could drink the Ganges water, and tourists can't because they get sick. Good for you, I thought.

Some highlights: J got a class-A shave right on the Ganges, and now wears a dapper little mustache like everyone else. We had the best lassies in India, and saw a baby monkey electrocuted on haphazard wires above-- and then spring back to life amidst a crowd of cheers! I saw an old man gathering tiny puppies in a hectic alley and tossing them lovingly into a hole in the wall, out of harm's way. India is an intense place-- sometimes little moments like this make a big difference.

From there, we went to Khajuraho and saw those famously erotic temples-- the only ones of their kind to have survived the destruction of Muslim conquerers, who apparently did not appreciate graphic depictions of people doin' it. It had been a tiny dream of mine to someday see those temples in person, instead of in an art history textbook; being there, standing in their long shadows, one hot day in rural India... It was pretty good! We journeyed on to Agra and saw yet another expression of love set in stone: the Taaaaaj Mahaaaal. What a thing of beauty. They call it a "teardrop on the cheek of eternity". Its creator said that "the moon and sun shed tears from their eyes when they saw it". All true! We were expecting a cheesy tourist trap, and were pleasantly blown away. It's so huge, and so mathematically perfect, and in the same pristine condition as the day it was built. It's actually a mausoleum built by a heartbroken king after his favorite wife died giving birth to their 14th child. It took over 20 years to build, and shortly after its completion, the king's son overthrew him and forced him to live in a sort of exile in Agra Fort, where he was able to gaze wistfully at the Taj from a tiny window across the river... For 8 long years. When he died, his tomb was placed next to that of his wife and remains to this day the only asymmetrical component of the whole big thing. An Indian love story for sure

That's enough writing for now. We're rolling on to Rajasthan, the Land of Kings: where mustachioed men in white turbans will sit high on embroidered cushions, exhaling deep plumes of hookah smoke and laughing at our whiteness and our western shoes.

10:00AM
Jodphur, India

J getting Hepatitis 

wet sari

this

Life on the Ganges

Just three weeks in India feels like.. Three months. What have I been up to? Intrepidly exploring the culinary secrets of New Delhi street food, practicing yoga in the Himalayan foothills, meditating in the chilly morning hours before dawn, making new and international friends, singing 'kumbaya' around a hippie dippy bonfire, reading and writing, unexpectedly having the time of my life...

For real! I was so nervous about going solo around India, being a lone female in a sea of men, having to figure out where to go and how to get there, but things are never as dire as they first seem; time alone turned into a happy, cathartic adventure and now I just feel like a brand new Galen.

So, a few days in an ashram and a few doing yoga. At the ashram, a naturopathic healer was in town lecturing on the magic of nature and ways to live a long, healthy life-- the secrets of mud, sunlight, salt and water were revealed at long last! This healer-- 70 years old, snappy old turtle of an Indian lady, vice prez of the Int'l Naturopathy Association, the Indian prime minister's doctor AND the singer Jewel's personal doctor on the Pieces of You Tour!!! What a woman, and what a message too. I made a resolution to live very differently when I get home-- more raw foods, less meat, more mindfulness, less medication, less coffee, etc. I met a 104 year old swami who was the picture of good health-- all his teeth in tact, fit as a fiddle-- who started living naturally in 1927. There's something to it I think! Somebody remind me of this when I come home to the land of the cheeseburger.

I also ran into some people in and around Rishikesh that were a total joy to spend time with -- a French Canadian girl, a Brit on her way to a new life in San Diego, an Alaskan firefighter, an Indonesian Californian, a bearded Burning Man musician.. Together we laughed and played, sang songs and shared stories, hung out on the Ganges and enjoyed getting to know one another. We went to THE original ashram where the Beatles stayed in 1968 (now abandoned, overgrown and run by monkeys) and sipped on the (reputedly) best chai in India. It was nice hanging with girls for a change (traveling with boys all the time can be a real drag) and especially nice finding my kind of people so far away from home. They're not hard to find! You just have to look!

So, I came back from Rishikesh refreshed, rejuvenated, reenergized, reorganized and ready to meet J and start our next big adventure. He met me in New Delhi right off his mountain retreat to the top of Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo, so he was of a similar mindset. It felt good to spend a little time apart, and good to reunite again happy and new. Plus, I took him around New Delhi like a total pro and booked our train tickets and knew all the ins and outs of India according to our guide book and the internet. What else do you really need? Two of us, our backpacks light and essential, new shoes, postcards and packages mailed, parents phoned, bottle of water, list of places to go... Varanasi, Khajuraho, Agra, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodphur, Udaipur, Goa, Mumbai, Hampi, Kerala: we're ready to paint them all red! There will be blood...

7:16 PM
Varanasi, India

PS: up in Rishikesh, where it's cleaner and colder, I swam ceremoniously in the Ganges River! I dunked three times and washed my sins away! What a world :)

Lord Shiva 

swami

Beatles Ashram

A Sea of Moustaches

New Delhi is, hands down, the craziest city I have ever been in. How can I even describe it?! It's noisy, filthy, dusty, colorful, smelly, and teeming with more Indian people than I have ever seen in my life. It's a sea of moustaches. There are 20 million of them here, and it seems as though all of them have at some point asked me what my name is, where I am from, where I am staying, how long I will be in India, etc. It's a real exercise in willpower to refrain from responding politely to every tug on your sleeve, but if I didn't ignore it I'd be locked in conversation (or someone's dodgy scheme) from morning til night.

Some things here are nice-- people are generally courteous (hello madam thank you madam) and the weather is sunny and temperate. I'm staying in a great big bazaar, so I went out and bought all sorts of special treats for unfathomably low prices. For example: sending an international postcard costs... 15 cents. Everything under the sun is for sale and it is all super cheap. Silk saris, car batteries, bushels of bananas, sticks of incense, bags of herbs and spices, bootlegged DVD's, monkey leather handbags, hashpipes and wallets and brassieres and vegetables and big glasses of milk and every single other thing one could ever imagine. I indulged in some comfortable shoes, a pair of sunglasses, some conservative clothing (sounds like the perfect disguise). It's important to wear long pants and keep your shoulders covered here, and my skinny jeans and tank tops weren't cutting it. Now I can go out into the light of day again!

Other things about New Delhi are decidedly not nice. The pollution is god-awful and the sunlight just sort hangs in the air in a smoggy, stinking haze. They weren't kidding about all the homeless little kids mingling around; it's really hard to say no to a hungry four year old, but there are just so many of them and there's only so much you can give. The common street scene in general just isn't all that pleasant: cars, scooters, and rickshaws barreling through crowds of people, kids running through the legs of cows carrying loads of bricks, lopsided cripples, people thrusting wristwatches and zipdrives into your face, women begging with nude babies in their arms, men urinating in a sidewalk urinal, food being cooked and eaten on the ground, lots of shouting and talking and laughing, stray dogs sleeping or dying right in the middle of it all... It's a sight to behold and a hard thing to get used to. This is India!

Actually not true; I keep running into other travelers that all say that New Delhi is the worst of it, and that it's a completely different experience than the rest of the country. With that in mind, I've decided to take a trip north for a week to Rishikesh, a town at the base of the Himalayas and on the banks of the Ganges River. Apparently, it's a very holy pitstop for Hindus who make a pilgrimage to the mountains. For me, there are assorted ashrams where I can stay for a week and do yoga, meditate, read and write, work on my inner yogi, etc. The Beatles went there in 1968 and loved it! I thought I'd give it a try, since J isn't coming for another two weeks (much to my great annoyance) and I don't want to spend all that time waiting for him in this dense shithole of a city. There are way more men than women out in public; at any given time, I'm surrounded by men, and most of them are staring at me. Being a woman alone here has been a little more daunting than I expected, and I imagine it will be easier once I get out of the urban sprawl. My mom is somewhat miffed about the whole situation, but I've been skyping her nightly to let her know that everything will be alright, and I'm feeling better about it every day. I miss J, but it feels good to miss him, and I'm looking forward to the day when he comes to New Delhi and we resolve our differences and kiss and make up and begin our Indian odyssey together.

Until then... Who knows what the days will bring! It's good to be alive!

7:36PM
New Delhi, India

Up In the Air

Several days before leaving Bali, J and I got into a minor motorbike accident. We hit an enormous pothole going down the slope of this mountain, and we flew and tumbled and hit the ground hard. I've got some road rash, and J thinks he might have broken his collarbone, but it's a miracle nothing worse happened. The bike was fine, we were both wearing helmets, and we rode home a little shaken--but all in one piece.

I feel like that is the point where things really soured. We (me and J) have been having some problems getting along and the accident just sort of set things in motion. I won't get into details of our disputes, as they are numerous and trivial. Wa wa wa.

So we left Bali-- it was an amazing island. We arrived in Singapore and spent our time with the sisters Woon and their family, who were all gracious and super cool people. I think we got caught up in the activity of planning our next moves (booking tickets, buying supplies) and making decisions, because we (me and J) evidently offended them bigtime by overstaying our welcome in their home, an oversight for which I am truly sorry.

In the end, I decided not to join them on their trip to Borneo, and instead to just hightail it to India. J and I probably need some time to be apart, I didn't want to hang with his friend Claude anymore, and mostly I just didn't want to spend a week in Borneo feeling angry and hurt and unresolved with J and a bunch of strangers. I hope they have a good time.

So that's it. I got on a plane, spent a long and very sad night awake at the international airport in Kuala Lumpur, then boarded a flight to New Delhi the next morning.

I never thought I'd be alone in India, but here I am.

4:07PM
New Delhi, India