The Grande Finale of India Adventure
Anna's entry:
Well, we made it all the way. Today is our last day of traveling in India. I am writing this blog at the Mumbai International Airport while waiting for our flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Four months traveling in India have been absolutely incredible. Now, I know why they say "you have not traveled anywhere until you've traveled in India". Initially I was concerned about going to India, but it took only two weeks for me to overcome my fears, and start truly enjoying the experience.
I accept India for what it is. Yes it's crazy, yes it's unpredictable, yes it's unexpected, but it is truly incredible! I have never traveled in any place like India, India has put a very high standard to beat, and I expect that no other country would ever come close. Every day brought something different. From overwhelming chaos of Delhi to cosmopolitan Mumbai, from kissing cows of Paharganj to burning ghats of Varanasi, from ancient erotic temples in Khajuraho to wild elephants in Kumily, from the monument of love of Taj Mahal to the unforgettable sunrises of Kanyakumari, from dessert beauty of Rajastan to backwaters of Kerala, this is just a tiny fraction of introduction to India. We could spend hours telling thousands of stories and looking at thousands photographs, the images will stay forever in my mind.
India is incredible, but what makes India incredible is its people. People of India have won my heart over, and this is what makes India for me absolutely unforgettable. I have so many images and faces in my mind when I look back now... I am going to miss this special feeling of Indian hospitality and welcome, I don't know if I ever will experience it again in any other country I travel or live in. I feel that India has made me a better person, and a part of my heart has become Indian, or at least I hope so...
Ellora-Ajanta-Aurangabad, India
Anna's entry:
A World Heritage site, the Buddhist caves of
Ajanta are the Louvre of Central India. The caves date from around 200 BC to AD 650. The 30 caves are cut into the steep face of a horseshoe-shaped rock gorge. The caves are magnificent example of hand-carved rock architecture. I mean these are the real huge rocks of the gorge that are made into temples with columns, balconies, staircases, numerous statues of Buddha, etc. - all done by hand! Talk about patience! Some caves have gorgeous ancient painting all over the ceiling, walls, and columns. When you are standing inside the caves, you feel as if you went into a completely different ancient world, it is a very interesting perspective that a person gains walking in almost complete darkness among all the grandeur of the Buddhist Gods. But, presence of local monkeys, who are begging for food and water, quickly remind you that you are indeed in the contemporary India.
Ellora cave temples is another World Heritage listing. Compared to Ajanta, they are different in the rock design and architecture. Still all hand carved and magnificent, they represent five centuries of work by monks (Buddhist, Hindu and Jain). The masterpieces is the breathtaking Kailasa temple - dedicated to Shiva, it is the world's largest monolithic sculpture, carved from the rock by 7000 laborers over a 150-year period. The images are absolutely striking!
We stayed in a town of Aurangabad as our base for Ajanta and Ellora cave exploration.
Aurangabad turned out to be a nice surprise for us in one way. We discovered that this is here that the 2nd Taj Mahal. Do you remember that love story about the original Taj Mahal in Agra? If not, I entered a quick description on our blog under Agra entry if you care to refresh the love story details. Anyway, the original creator of Taj Mahal was imprisoned by his own son; well the son decided to create his own version of Taj Mahal, to honor the love of his life, and built it right here - in Aurangabad. He called Bibi-Qa-Maqbara. Apparently, a lot of tourists are unaware of its presence here, so we had a great pleasure of having the "baby" Taj Mahal all to ourselves - no crowds, no hustle, no outrageous cost to enter. And, I must tell you this version of Taj Mahal is equally stunning and significant. As a matter of fact if you put side by side the photos of both Taj Mahals, I doubt you would be able to tell the difference. We stayed at Bibi-Qa-Maqbara until the sunset, the views were beautiful and peaceful, and we were reminded yet again how fortunate we are to experience the world...
Indian Traditional Thali Meal:
Mumbai Version of Meal (Chinese influence):
My View - Mosque Men, gift givers, and other beggars [Rob´s India Entry (#14)]
Beggars come in many forms in India. As mentioned before, there are the shop personnel that insist 20 times to see their store. Ran into a couple of new variants while in India however.
The first was when staying with a friends family in India. They were kind enough to take us sight-seeing and we ended up in a very large mosque. Very quickly we were escorted by a man that began pointing out all sorts of 'who-cares' trivia about the mosque, and I must add, not doing a very good job at that. As Anna and I have seen just about everything in India, we quickly smelled a scam, and I informed the man that we don't want a guide, and will pay him no money for such services. I was immediately informed that he wasn't a guide, but a "Mosque Man". He continued his tour of the mosque, but Anna and I were still very skeptical and we drifted behind him and one of my friend's relatives. At the conclusion, he hit Anna and I up for money. We just laughed in his face and walked away, sorry- been there/seen that. Sell that story to someone who's buying it. Next, he began working on my friend's relatives, one of which seemed particularly susceptible to his flavor of pressure. When she began to pull money out, I intervened stating that he was getting no money. Once the 'mosque man' saw money, he all but pushed me aside to get at it. In the end, he got his undeserved payment, and tried to be friendly, asking us what our names were. I immediately informed him that 'my name is F*** OFF!!', almost yelling across the mosque. One of my friends also yelled the same. I was extremely angry at the situation informing the outside guard that the so-called 'mosque man' was nothing more than a ******** beggar (and to get rid of him)!
The next in interaction of this variant was when at a prominent tourist attraction (Ellora and Ajanta). A man approached us while we were off by ourselves with a free gift. We immediately have two issues with such a notion. First, nothing is hardly ever free (there have been a few exceptions), and even if it is truly free, we much rather prefer that they keep their modest resources for themselves. The free item offered was some polished stones. Nice, but really, who cares? The last thing we want to haul around is a bunch of rocks. His insistence of accepting his free rocks was an introduction to consider buying better rocks from him. No, we don't want the free rocks, and don't want to buy others. He kept trying to make us take the freebees, and buy others. This kept up for many iterations and covered the usual "no thank you's", "I'm not interested", "I'll come find you if I want some", and so on. He explained how he was a farmer, not a rock seller, but still insisted on selling rocks. After about 20 minutes of this pestering, I offered him some water. He said that as a farmer, he had plenty of water. OK, so if a farmer has plenty of water, they are probably growing things, and isn't hungry, and therefore not too poor. In any case, I explained that we didn't want any of his rocks, and his insistence constitutes begging after the twentieth refusal. Well, that did it. He informed me that he was NOT a beggar, and that I was not a good person (in fact, a very bad one)! Incensed and outraged, he left, but not before collecting his 'free' rocks given. Oh well, at least we were left alone again.
Hyderabad, India
Anna's entry:
Hyderabad visit was very special for us. Rob has an Indian friend from college, Prabhakar, and his family live in Hyderabad. So, we welcomed a great opportunity for a complete culture immersion. Indeed, it turned out a wonderful experience! Prabhakar's family took an excellent care of us, we gained some extra weight from all this wonderful homemade cooking, and we spent numerous hours conversing on various peculiar Indian topics. Family took us to various sightseeings, but the best part was spending time with them and seeing the real life of an Indian family. I must comment on one of the sightseeing outings though... Our first night in Hyderabad we were taken out to a boat cruise, which also turned out to be an entertainment boat. That entertainment included a "dance performance" or an Indian version of hip-hop dance accompanied by various pop Bollywood tunes. Well, if you happen to follow our blog, you probably know that we spent some time in Mumbai, where we got up to speed to an Indian pop-culture, which also included our involvement in Bollywood movie set. In addition, both Rob and I love all these crazy Indian songs and dance, where lots of hips moving and shirts are flying open. Anyway, when the music started on the boat, Rob and I began imitating some "dance moves" we had observed for the past months traveling in India, we did so a couple of times, not thinking much about what we were doing... Well, our moves were apparently noticed by a dance group on the boat, and all of a sudden Rob was asked to the stage. One of the dancers announced in the microphone that "that foreign guy sitting in such and such chair" (that would be Rob) is asked to join on the dance stage. Rob obeyed and went to the stage, he also tried to invite some of the Indian audience join him on the stage, but no one followed (later on we were told by our family that it was not typical of Indians going to dance on the stage in front of complete strangers). Anyway, I wanted to give Rob some support on the stage, so I joined in. So, there we were, standing on the stage, on the boat, in front of complete strangers, with the Bollywood music blaring, and our host family staring at us in disbelieve (this was our first day meeting them). What should we do, we were asked to dance, so we danced! Rob tried to imitate all this hot dancin' he saw on the Indian television - there was crutch grabiibg, butt shaking, macho hip-hopin', on my part hips moving (shy in comparison with Rob's). The audience was taking pictures of us, crazy gringos, and our sweet host family just accepted their destiny to be associated with us on that boat. What can be a better ice breaker to get to know each other, right?
On other outings, our host family took us to the magnificent Golconda Fort and Charminar. I am not going to write about the latter, I think Rob will dedicate a special entry, but I must say it was another outing that may have left some memories for the host family. All I am going to say about it is that Rob made quite an appearance among the local market sellers, he also won the high popularity contest, and gained enough fans and hand shakes to be running for parliament (a mosque man not included who managed to piss Rob off if you can imagine that).
By the end of our homestay, we have become part of the family, and we will cherish our memories about this sweet kind caring family for a long time to come. I am looking forward to a special occasion to put a special sari on, which was created for me by Babita, the hostess, in the memory of our friendship!
Tirupathi-Tirumala-Puttaparthi, India
Anna's entry:We are not Hindu, we do not believe in organized religion or cults, and nevertheless, we decided to visit the places that hard core pilgrims follow. How could we not? This is a part and parcel of Indian life, culture and tradition, and it certainly offers a cultural exploration for us.
You may have heard about Tirumala. Thousands and thousands of pilgrims visit this sacred place every day, flocking here from all parts of India; some are walking 17 km up the hill, then stand for hours or even days in line to enter the special temple, where they have only a couple of minutes to say their wish, and then they shave their hair off as a sign of offering and rejecting their ego. We did not shave our heads, but we certainly joined the pilgrims for the traditional lunch provided absolutely for free to keep some nourishment for pilgrims in their respectful endeavors of reaching that special wish granting place in the temple. Needless to say, we were the only foreigners in the pilgrimage land. Some people were staring at us, probably wondering what on earth brought us non-Hindus here, some were smiling at us as if welcoming us to try something different, and some at our table just talked to us and told us that it was an honor for them to meet the foreigners. Yes - we should learn such gesture of hospitality from Indians. When was the last time you spoke to a foreign tourist in your town and told them you were honored to meet them? Probably not in a while... Anyway, the lunch was served on a banana leaf, and it was done very efficiently. We saw hundreds of tables served at the same time, all for free. Rob and I walked around Tirumala - we saw lots of families camping out right in front of the temple, sleeping on the ground, some already were able to enter the temple, some had their heads clean shaven, including the kids. I asked one lady how her baby took the shaving process, and she told me the child hated it and screamed non stop. But, it had to be done for the wish to fulfil, so they went on with the procedure. Also, before leaving Tirumala, I needed to use the ladies room. To my surprise, when I entered the washroom I saw a bunch of ladies standing in peculiar positions with their exposed lower parts of the bodies and washing vigorously their private areas - they looked at me casually and proceeded with their business. I thought OK, business as usual today. When I went to use the bathroom, a lady wanted to help me out - she brought two containers with water, which were former fuel canisters, and told me to help myself. I wasn't planning to wash myself, but I thanked her, closed my bathroom door, and thought to myself "oh boy, it sure is nice to be a foreigner sometimes, preferential treatment even in bathroom".
Speaking about the bathroom... Rob had his entry early on when we got started in India about his Delhi-belly... Well, it was my turn to experience the inevitable. When staying in Tirupathi, I ate or drank something (I suspect it was chai prepared with bad water, I seem to remember one stinky cup of tea) that made my stomach, seemingly robust by now, misbehave. Fourteen runs to the bathroom in 24 hours, I stopped counting after 14 actually. In addition, our hotel room bathroom had a squat toilet, which represents an additional challenge for the exploding process. It was not fun, my friends... Actually, I am surprised that I did not have more of those bad days while in India. Rob and I eat pretty much everything, and we just found out that our water filter has not been working for a while, so we had plenty of reasons to have rebelling tummies. Anyway, it is all part of experience.
Back to the pilgrimage route. We rested up for a few days in an ashram in Puttaparthi which was recommended to us by a few Russian travelers we met during our travels here in India. This ashram is very famous in India, and lots of celebrities are contributing to this "faith and idol". The ashram's leader (some crazy, but nice dude who believes he is the reincarnation of some Indian saint Sai Baba who died in 1900's) is the main drawing here, he is known worldwide for his teachings and yoga (though Rob and I have no idea about him). We thought it would contribute to our cultural exploration to visit this friendly cult - so, we settled in the self contained village - had our private room (only $3), very inexpensive meals in three offered restaurants on premises, peaceful gardens, security provided, etc., the whole nine yards. The funny part was that the majority of guests in this ashram were Russians, so the dominant language of guests here was Russian. Sometimes someone would start addressing Rob in Russian assuming he was fluent, so it was amusing for me to watch that. We had a few restful days here. We didn't care about the cult or the leader, but it was peaceful here, and sometimes it is exactly what we need. India is one crazy place, and we love it, but once in a while it is nice to have a piece of serenity, so we appreciated the opened doors of the ashram community.
Pondicherry-Mamallapuram, India
Anna's entry:I like traveling in India, but Pondichrry was the first town I couldn't wait to get out of. Too touristy, to "gringo-ish", too "sweet", too "not-so-much-India" for me. The city has a French history roots, and is pretending to be French, but not in a good way in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I love France and I love French people. As a matter of fact, last summer cycling in Europe, France was my most favorite country to travel in. However, Pondicherry seems to attract snotty and snobby French people, the city is way over-priced, and I don't frankly get what all this fuss is about? I love India for being India, if I wanted to visit France, I would go to France, so you can see that Pondicherry made me irritable. It could be due to the fact that hotels were over-booked and over-priced. Luckily, for the first night we met a decent tout (very rare occurrence here in India to meet a decent tout), and he helped us with an accommodation. It was pretty basic, and was called a "capsule house". Basically, it was a roof of the historical house converted into a room. The walls, windows and doors were simple bamboo waved sheets, they created a kinda soothing sound when the wind was blowing, but we had only one single bed in the room, so well needed sleep was out of the question. Luckily, the next morning Rob was able to secure a very nice room for us in the posh ashram (yes, India seems to have quite a few luxurious cults and ashrams), the room was about 10 USD by the way. Our room had a picture perfect view over the ocean, and a large balcony over the garden intended for meditation. We used the balcony for slightly different purposes though. The first function was to dry a long over-due laundry, and the second was food related. Rob and I decided to treat ourselves to a big amount of ice cream. So, we brought the ice cream to the balcony and enjoyed it while watching the waves, and people strolling on the beach. But, the room was available only for one night, so the next morning we headed out away from Pondicherry. I must admit however, that I do have a few pleasant memories about this stop-over (besides a great ocean-front room). Rob and I took a stroll on the beach, and we were taking photos of locals - ice cream sellers, fruit stall sellers, etc. Some of them felt so honored that we found them interesting, so they began feeling very comfortable with us, and moved their business closer. We sat down under a beach umbrella, and soon enough several local Indian families joined in and filled up our area. So, there we were, surrounded by a dozen of relatives, smiling at us, offering us food, pushing their babies to us for photos, etc. At some point an old toothless babushka joined us with a big smile on her face, we took her picture too, and showed it to her, she gave even bigger smile, and we all began laughing, like one big family of strangers. At one point I looked to my right, and saw a group of foreigners sitting at an expensive coffee house surrounded by the security gate. They were looking in our direction with a sort of envy look - there they were sitting lonely and isolated at an expensive establishment protected "by a security gate", and there we were sitting under a free beach umbrella, right on the sand, surrounded by a large group of happy strangers. It was obvious who had more fun, and it made me realize again why I like traveling in India. India does not care for expensive fun, it is spontaneous, unpredictable, and crazy, with good hearted strangers that make me feel so good here, and and make me feel like a part of one big family. I really like Indian people, they touch my heart in so many ways. And, except for annoying touts, I can not imagine a better place to feel more welcomed.
After Pondicherry we headed out to Mammalpuram, located right on the ocean, or to be exact, on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. Mammalpuram felt definitely like India we got used to it - crazy, loud, fast, unpredictable, a little seedy, but very friendly and comfortable. The usual creatures everywhere - cows, goats, dogs, monkeys, basically business as usual. The entire village is the World Heritage site, because of the incredible rock carved temple art. The temples were constructed from one piece of rock carved by hand. You try creating a house from a big bolder, using only a chiseling knife! Anyway, they were a work of art. Among other things, we did the usual - went to the ocean to meet the sunrise, and to the temples to meet the sunset. Some of the temples are erected high in the sky, on the rock, so we had to climb there. But, what was unusual about the climb, was the following. As soon as the sun began setting, and we started climbing, we were joined by an invasion of monkeys. Apparently, monkeys LOVE watching the sunset too. They quickly climbed the temples and surrounding rocks, completely oblivious to our presence, took the best seats for the sunset watching, and just were having a great time. A little bit too much of a great time to be exact. I came to a conclusion that not only us, humans, feel romantic about sunsets and sunrises. A few monkeys seemed to be inspired by the sunset so much, that they began making luuuuv right in front of us. They couldn't care less if they were watched, or not, they just wanted to do it right then and right there. I must add, that every night we would go to watch a sunset, every night we would see the monkeys rushing to see the sunset too. And, a few still felt that powerful emotion of sharing the beauty in a passionate way. How could you not feel that way about the dramatic sunset, right? You have to appreciate their feelings in that way, after all we are all related...
Madurai-Trichy-Tanjore, India
Anna's entry:Madurai was just a stop-over for us on the way to Trichi. Though Madurai is famous for the awe-inspiring Sri Meenakshi Temple complex, the city itself was annoying. Touts seemed a lot hungrier for tourists, and therefore were more annoying. About an hour after we got off the bus with our big backpacks and were heading out to locate our hotel, we were swarmed by touts trying to persuade us to go to their hotel (they would get a commission if tourists are brought in). Normally, after several "no thank you" we would be left alone, but not this time. Just like mosquitoes, touts would still swarm around us, trying to get "a piece of action". I told one of them that I was getting angry, and that I was tired and hungry, and that when I am tired and hungry, I turn into a bad woman, and that he wouldn't want to be around when I am in those moods. The tout laughed, but still proceeded on bugging me. Eventually, realizing that no commission coming from us, they stopped bugging us, and one of them pointed out the direction to us to that hotel we were looking for about an hour. The next day was better except for fighting with a restaurant for being over-charged, and walking several kilometers in the mid-afternoon heat trying to locate a long distance bus stop. I swear the temperature was close to 40° (104°F). We did get a nice big watermelon though, and took some good photos while hanging around the bus stop, so it worked out OK. Rob went to the famous temple in the early evening, and I treated myself to a few HBO movies in the room - I needed a little escape and re-charge that day, so even a world famous temple couldn't beat a bourgeois TV channel for me that day. :)
Trichy was refreshing after Madurai. And, I was again enjoying the temples. One of them was absolutely fantastic. Called Rock Fort temple, it is perched 83 meters high on a massive rocky outcrop. We had to climb bare-footed about 437 stone-cut steps, and once we made it to the top, the views were incredible. Eagles were soaring beneath us, the entire city was below us, pilgrims were climbing the rocky steps, air filled with burning insents brought from the temple - it all seemed to have an element of mystery... The next morning we also visited a vast Sri Ranganathaswamy temple and Sri Jambukeshwara temple. Both were interesting, but not as mysterious as the Rock Fort temple. As a matter of fact they were too real - lots of beggars, touts, and pseudo-priests, business as usual. In both, we saw domesticated (or I call it captured) elephants. They were trained to accept donations by taking money by their trunk, then people would bow down and the elephants would touch the heads by their trunk, thus giving a blessing. It was sad for me to watch this... These magnificent animals that I had an opportunity to see in the wild were standing all day long, some with chains around their feet, and ignorant people thought it was cute to get "blessed" by these captured creatures. I came closer to one of the elephants, and looked into her eyes. Her eyes were so beautiful, and so sad... I whispered to her how sorry I was for us, cruel humans, destroying their habitat and turning them into slaves. I so much wanted to tell to the people wanting to be touched by the elephant how wrong it was, but I didn't. They would never understand me, or accept that the ignorance is dangerous, so I bid a sad good-bye to the elephants and walked out of the temple grounds...
Tanjor temples have a Unesco World Heritage status, and rightfully so. We took a special trip there to watch the sunset over the temples, and it was absolutely beautiful. The setting sun gave a special golden glow to the temples, and the sunset over the temple peaks and old trees was dramatic and gorgeous. We took a lot of photographs that day, and we also talked to a lot of strangers too. We were used by then to be asked by locals the usual questions where we were from, if we liked India, etc. That day was no exception, lots of school kids wanted to talk to us, take pictures with us, shake our hands, etc. By then, during out trip around India, we made thousands acquaintances, and answered thousands of questions, and took thousands of photos. It was all good, people treated us very decent, and we try to be good ambassadors of our countries and cultures as well.
