reflections

A few things I've been thinking about but haven't yet written:

India is a place to see with a companion. Traveling alone was fun, and it certainly gave me a sense of agency - that I can do it, and can get around just fine - but there is so much about this country that is absolutely exhausting if you don't have someone to laugh about it with.

The food isn't as scary as it seems. Sure, I'm being extremely careful, but there are far more safe things than unsafe things. Most things are very fresh - the yogurt (dahi), bread (chapati or nan), fruit (safe if peeled).

Other foreign tourists are almost as fun to watch as Indians. Everybody 'goes native' a different way, and you see a lot of really crunchy tourists with the lonely planet and funny Indian clothes, often worn the wrong way, or by the wrong sex. But they're so comfortable most people don't care. I've taken to wearing whatever is clean, without regard for things like matching outfits - nobody seems to notice, and since the style appears to be full acid-washed denim, no matter what I wear I'm toned down from the native population.

Most tourist and transportation hot spots are full of people who think you wear a dollar-sign on your forehead. It's funny to turn down 10 rickshaw-wallahs and still get asked, 'want a rickshaw?' by the 11th, as if he were THE ONE, preferable to all the others. Some of them really get in your face and are exasperating, asking lots of probing questions, like 'where are you going,' 'where are you staying,' 'where are you from,' 'are you married.' Sarah and I decided we're from Estonia, which seems to help end conversations quicker. It's funny - it doesn't feel as threatening as it could, I've decided there's only so much that your average 90lb Indian man can do to me.

Most shopkeepers are not honest, even when you want to think so. Though they're all very friendly. We had a hilarious experience today trying to buy yak cheese at Varanasai's only western bakery, where they first gave us a block of 140 grams of cheese and then tried to prove that it was actually 200 grams. They brought out an old-school scale, with the two sides: one for the food, the other for metal hexagons of a marked weight. He proceeded to place 200 g on the weight side, then chuck the cheese into the food side, making the scale temporarily sink in its direction, before settling back on the weight side. We then realized it was not the inexpensive cheese we requested but a rare one, and we had do go through a whole negotiation to get what we'd originally asked for. By the end Sarah and I were just laughing, and so was the guy. It was all just quite ridiculous, and quite funy.

There are some sayings that we've taken to using: here, many workers learn english from listening to their customers, so if a rickshaw-wallah is going to wait for you somewhere and then take you somewhere else, they might say 'you wait for me here.' hmm. Everything is 'no problems! you will be happy.' I love that they plan to ensure my happiness at all times. The word 'wallah' refers to someone who does something, and is usually used in reference to the rickshaw driver. We've taken to using it everywhere, as in the fruit-wallah, the internet-wallah, the bead-wallah, etc.

I'm now in Delhi, awaiting a train to Amritsar, which is 2 hours late. This morning we took a boat ride down the Ganges in Varanasai, which was a magical way to see the life of the city. The city flooded in 1978 and from the river you can see the high-water mark, about 3 stories up on buildings that are already set above the river about 30 feet. It's pretty unreal. I also found a fantastic tailor who made some Varanasai silk into a pair of pants and a skirt for me overnight. And mom, I got some great scraps.

We will be in Amritsar just long enough to take in the famous Sikh Golden Temple and go to the border with Pakistan, where they do a nightly border 'parade' - a lot of marching and grunting on each side, which is quite a spectacle. I'm excited to peek into Pakistan - not something I ever thought I'd do. But it's not a dangerous thing to do. Then it's on to Dharamsala for a bit of Tibetan goodness and mountains.