Lap of Luxury

April 23, 2010
New Delhi, India

On the night of April 22nd, Stacy and I set off from Udaipur on our last overnight train ride in India. She would be going to London the next day (if the Icelandic ash cloud allowed it, and if our train was not horrendously late), then home to the States. I would be spending the night in Delhi alone, and then continuing on to Kathmandu the following morning.

We traveled second class sleeper A/C on overnight trains. In this class, there are four berths on one side of the corridor, separated by a curtain, and two berths on top of one another against the other side of the train, running lengthwise. Upon showing your ticket, you were handed a sealed brown paper package containing two sheets, a blanket, towel and pillow. (I always got excited when receiving this package, as if I expected something different to be inside the brown paper. Maybe I just liked the clean linen scent I got after tearing open the wrapping – it was one of the few things in India I could count on to be properly laundered.) On every prior trip, we had shared the four bunk compartment with strangers, but it never mattered much. I liked the fact that we were separated by curtains instead of trapped in a locked room, as it was in first class. Curtains lent a bit of privacy, but allowed for a quick escape if you woke up with some creep putting his hand down your shirt (which never happened, but I had read that it was not unheard of). Earplugs or iPod and an ambien drowned out the noise most of the time, and people actually sleep on these trains.

For this trip, we were stuck one of top of another in the lengthwise side sleeper for the first time. From the outside, they look just fine, identical in price and size to the larger 4-berth compartments we had grown accustomed to. These side bunks are like mini-coffins. They are narrower and have fewer amenities (such as a power outlet or fan) than the ones across the aisle. They are claustrophobic and kind of a bummer. I crawled up to my top bunk, giving Stacy the bottom one since she'd be traveling for 30 or so hours, and tried to get some sleep. There was a massive altercation one curtain over, which of course 12 people got involved in. After the noise became so loud it was drowning out my music, I even screamed for them to shut the hell up through my curtain. I think they actually listened, though I half expected someone to swing back my curtain and move the fight to my bunk. I was cranky and uncomfortable, and had my diatribe prepared for them. Thankfully, I didn't have to use it. During the night, some woman got on with her extremely loud toddler who she refrained from telling to shut up. This kid whined and talked and sang at the top of his lungs all night long. It took all my willpower to not get up and give the mother a good tongue lashing on her shit parenting skills as the child was well within the age of being able to understand “shut your mouth, people are sleeping. ” That directive never came so the whole car had to suffer. I felt bad for the two business men sharing the compartment with the kid; they would obviously be unrested for their morning meetings in Delhi. But as this is India, nobody says a word about such things. Just an aggravating head waggle. It was not the best train journey we had.

One of the major flaws with train travel in India, in addition to the delays (and trains are almost always delayed) is that station stops are not announced,ever. You simply have to know what and when and where your stop is. For regulars who know the route, this is obviously no problem. For foreigners and natives alike who don't take these trains often, it can present a huge problem. Sleep is never sound since you are always worried about missing your stop. This trip was a prime example. We were set to to arrive in Delhi at 6:15 AM, and know our train left on time. So we set our alarms and woke up groggy and early, hearing the requisite deep voice chanting, “Chaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeee” over and over, so we knew it was morning (the chai-wallahs always materialized on the train at dawn, no matter if we'd stopped at a station or not. I think they jump on and off from their villages, like in the movies.) Then you get up to use the toilet and lug your bottle of water and toothbrush along, brush your teeth as some dude clad only in a lunghi and flip flops is hanging out the side of the train catching some air (err, dust) and take in the morning spectacle of every villager in India having their morning crap on the train tracks. In this case, I asked one of the train workers (conductor I could not find, but this was a car overseer guy) when we would be arriving in Delhi. His English was not happening, so I carefully examined his head waggle and could only gather that we'd be late. I went back to my bunk and fell asleep again.

I awoke from a dream to some guy pulling my curtain open. Stacy was up and frantically gathering her belongings. We were the last two people in our car, along with Stacy's new friends, the luggage porters who had jumped on the train as soon as it pulled into the station, and aggressively made their way to the white girls. Stacy decided to hire them, which was fine with me. I didn't want to carry my heavy bag any more than she did. We were escorted to one of their pals, a taxi driver, who wanted to way overcharge us for his cab. In my half awake and annoyed early morning state, I started arguing with him. When he learned our destination, the Oberoi New Delhi (a birthday present from my parents), this guy had the gall to tell me that I was going to a five star hotel and should not be arguing with him over 100 rupees. My response was short and the only time I've lost my temper in India (not a cool move), “What I pay for my hotel room is none of your business, asshole. I know how much it costs to get there so stop trying to rip me off.” He walked away, and I wasn't sure whether I'd won or lost that one. We had the option of about three hundred rickshaw drivers to choose from, but I could not fathom rolling up to the Oberoi in a rickshaw. I doubt they even allow them on the property. My giant backpack was enough to turn heads. We luckily found another black Ambassador cab, and got to our destination within an acceptable rupee level.

By sheer luck, Stacy's plane was scheduled to leave for London that day. After several days of zero flights from India to anywhere in Europe, coupled with virtually zero news coverage due to the developing cricket scandal, this was great news. We had some tea and caught the end of a terrible Sharukh Kahn film on TV before she headed off to the airport. And just like that, I was on my own again. I settled in for the day and night with a survey of my surroundings. I was in New Delhi, which I had not seen a lot of. I had only gone to one Ghandi Museum (there are two), and had not gone with my friends when they went to the India Gate. There was an interesting art exhibit at one of the modern galleries, and I did not spend nearly enough time or money at the Ghandi Khati cloth store. But all of that held little appeal. Despite the fact that I'd been on a train for about 14 hours, I had not really been slumming in the past week. I did, however, decide to take full advantage of my luxury hotel room and not leave the grounds until I had to, which was not until check out the following day.

As far as luxury hotels go, the Oberoi was nice, but the room and the amenities could have been better. I think I got spoiled having stayed in one of the best hotels on earth in Hong Kong, but if I'm at a hotel that claims to be five star, I do not expect to see anything (like wallpaper) older than 10 years. I expect combs, razors, shaving cream, loofahs, mouthwash and any other toiletry I desire to be there already. About this, I've already informed the management. Everything else, especially the service, was excellent. I discovered a wasp in my room (I am deathly afraid of wasps, bees, hornets) and called downstairs to have it removed. At first the man hesitated, but then he killed it. Poor guy, it was probably totally against his religion. I tipped him well, I think. Then it was off to the pool, which was so cleverly landscaped you might think it was part of the lawn if the sun was shining the wrong way. My room had a view of the pool, which I initially noticed was dirty and looked old (as the day went on there was an army of people out vacuuming it). Turns out my view was only of the show pool; the real one was hidden far from view. I had an assigned cabana boy, who brought me cold water every 30 minutes, a refrigerated rose water spritzer for my face, cool washcloths for my neck, and a wide array of complimentary sunscreen. As I've said before, India does luxury well.

Part of the reason I chose the Oberoi Delhi was for their award winning Italian restaurant. I had eaten pizza once since February, and was slowly dying from macaroni withdrawal. The menu looked good, and so I made a reservation for one, put on a dress and headed downstairs. I was greeted by the matrie'd who was a real live Italian from Calabria. He had a poor man's Valentino look, though minus the orange tan. He liked me instantly, and sold me on an appetizer of San Danielle prosciutto and Indian melon with mint (you'd think it wouldn't work, but it did. And well.) followed by linguine with fresh blue crab and white wine sauce, the blue crab having been flown in that morning from Kerala (a province in the south). I liked the mix of local ingredients with traditional Italian preparations, and the food was great. So were the two glasses of wine, the white table cloth, the leavened bread, the silverware... I savored it all. It was nice to be able to throw in an upscale meal amidst the 2 dollar thalis every now and then. I was full and happy and only wanted an after dinner drink. Unfortunately, Amaretto nor Grand Manier were available in Delhi due to import export problems. Valentino told me that Amaretto was not allowed in the country. I corrected him; I'd had a glass after dinner at the Oberoi restaurant in Udaipur, so he should recheck the laws as well as with his employer. Clearly offended, he insisted “it would be his honor” to get me a glass of limoncello, which in my book translates to “on the house.” I don't drink limoncello often because it makes me instantly drunk and has none of the digistive properties of its less toxic cousins. But what the hell, it's not like I had anywhere to go except upstairs. I was also reluctantly sold on dessert, which I didn't need or want but ate anyway (I have got to make cinnamon ice cream when I get home, it was tasty). A large group of Indian business men walked in sometime between my ordering the dessert and limoncello, and I waited a bit too long for both. I ate and drank them quickly, paid my bill (which included the ridiculously priced drink), said goodnight to the staff who were all my friends by dinner's end (guess they don't see too many white women with elephant tattoos dining alone) and promptly ran up to my room and threw up violently. Maybe it was the drink, maybe it was the crab, maybe my body had become more accustomed to daal than I thought, but my nice Italian dinner did not want to stay down.

And that's how I spent my last night in India – alone and puking. It was the first time I had thrown up during my entire trip. At least it was into a sparkling clean and private porcelian bowl, and only a few times. It was not on a train, or on the street, or in some dingy guest house toilet. I'd managed to escape India without catching food poisoning or dysentery, or worse. Not a bad run.

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

April 22, 2010
Udaipur, India

Udaipur is, like much of Rajasthan, a land of riches. The home to the famed Mewar empire, it has no fewer than four visible palaces, with the gigantic City Palace complex serving as part museum, part fort, part luxury hotel and part home to the living Maharaja (a cool looking cat who I really wanted to meet, but to no such avail. We got busted when we sneaked onto the grounds as non-guests and were asked to leave). The city's most romantic and notable landmark is the famed Lake Palace, once also a home to royalty, now a Taj hotel likely housing visiting royalty and other people who can afford its starting price of 800 bucks a night. It sits in the center of the man made (king made, actually) Lake Pichola and even though the lake is low in this pre-monsoon season, it is still scenic. Parts of Octopussy were filmed there, and I was disappointed to learn that following the Mumbai bombings in 2008, non-guests are no longer allowed to visit. I had big plans to go to dinner there impersonating a Bond girl. There's another palace, Jag Mandir (that I think still functions) to the south of the Lake Palace where Shah Jahan once hid out from his father before he built the Taj Mahal. High on a hill of the western shore sits the Monsoon Palace, the best place in town to catch the sun dip behind the mountains for the night. Down below is the recently built Oberoi hotel (though not a real palace, but with the same floor plan and some palatial name), more expensive than the Lake Palace and with each suite boasting its own swimming pool. We had dinner there one night and it was pretty special. Having to make reservations in advance to be allowed on the premises, we were announced and escorted basically everywhere we went, including the bathroom. There was a man hiding in the servant's closet in the ladies' room, who was there cleaning up after me before I was finished (in yet another fine example of India's extreme sexism, they don't even hire women to clean the women's rooms. But more on that later.) Dinner was excellent as expected, and while I felt a bit weird sipping 15 dollar cocktails while there were people on the street who did not earn 15 dollars in a month, it was nice to experience India's famed hotel hospitality. Hyatt should take a cue from these folks. When it comes to real luxury, Indians know best, despite my unwanted bathroom attendant.

And that's basically how we passed our time in Udaipur, palace hopping as it were. After we were palaced and shopped and massaged out, we had one last day to kill before the overnight train back to Delhi. What better way to spend it than to learn how to cook some of the wonderful food we'd been eating for the past three weeks? Stacy found a woman named Shashi who ran a cooking school from her home, and we booked a class with her. What we would take away would be more than recepies.

Shashi's cooking school turned out to be only a few paces from our hotel, but it was worlds away from the opulence and riches we'd been touring in Rajasthan. As soon as we climbed the steep stone steps, I knew this was going to be unlike any cooking class I'd ever taken. Most classes I've attended have had 5 or 6 students and a fully equipped kitchen where each student had his own burner, all ingredients prepped for you by a line cook, etc. Most were actually restaurants that offered classes during off hours. This was something entirely different. There were no prep cooks. There were no prep tables. There were no burners for us. There was only Shashi's modest two room home in which we'd be cooking for the next five hours.

The stairs led straight into the small, windowless living room, which housed a double bed, two chairs, a TV and a coffee table. Next to the living room was the kitchen which consisted of two burners attached to a gas tank, a stone counter top and shelves which held spices and dishes. There was a small outdoor “terrace” adjacent to the kitchen, where Shashi's illegal turtle pets lived and where some water (in a bucket) and extra grain was kept. The supplies for the class, including mostly vegetables, were sitting on the bed, still in their plastic bags from the market that morning. I noted that in addition to there not being a bathroom (Shashi and her two sons used the toilet one level up, which also belonged to the rooftop restaurant. Where they bathed, I don't know.), there was no running water and no refrigerator.

She invited us to sit down and immediately began to tell us her story. Her face was honest and sweet, and there was a sparkle in her eyes that said “nothing gets past me,” yet those eyes were also tired and worn, with premature wrinkles around them. She was once, (and still was as far as I was concerned, though no longer by Indian standards) a very beautiful woman. She wanted us to guess her age, and we tried to avoid that because I knew she looked older than she was and did not want to offend. Turns out she was 41, and I might have guessed closer to 50.

Shashi comes from the Brahmin, or priest caste. It is the highest caste in India, and a wealthy one. Their rules for food, family and faith are extremely strict. The Brahmins do not eat meat, fish or even eggs, only vegetables, legumes and paneer (cheese) or curd (yogurt). She was married young (we guessed 15) to an older man by way of arranged marriage. Her husband was allowed to see her photograph prior to their wedding date, but she did not see her groom until the day they were married. She moved into the house of her husband's family, as is custom in India, and bore two sons. She preformed her duties, in joining her sister in laws in preparing the daily meals for the entire family. (She jokingly called them beasts when recalling how sometimes she would have to hand make over 100 chapatis per meal. We rolled out and cooked 10 or so and I thought that was excessive.) When her sons were still young (I think she said 6 or 8?) her husband was murdered by his friend over a financial grapple. Neighbors and friends who she might have counted on to right the wrong kept their mouths shut. The murderer bribed the police and spent only one year in prison.

As Brahmin customs are strong in life, they are equally harsh in death. Shashi fasted for over 40 days following her husband's death. She was only allowed some chai (tea brewed in milk) and a bit of bread in the morning, then she would sit in the corner of a room and weep for the rest of the day. Following that initial mourning period, she was not allowed to leave the house for an entire year. According to the rules of her caste, she will never be allowed to remarry. To attempt to do so would leave her outcast by society. Even in 2010, tradition of this sort just is not broken. It would be a disgrace.

Now, one would think that being of a high caste, she would be looked after following her husband's murder. One would think she would be given money, or taken in, along with her sons, by a relative. One would be wrong. Her parents were both dead, so she could not go back to them. Her one brother was not to be called on either, because if he helped her, it would not only cause tension with his wife, but would also cause jealousy amongst her five sisters (who, incidentally, were all married and had men to provide for them). They would expect something from the brother as well. Her husband's family, with whom she lived, stopped talking to Shashi and her sons following his death. They still shared a house, but all communication and finances were cut off, down to the most minute detail. If she cooked bread, used a bucket of water, fed her sons a glass of milk, she was charged by her in-laws for not only the food, but the gas to light the fire, the oil to cook the food, the usage of their pots and pans until she could buy her own. She was crippled with grief, without a means to provide for her children and well on the road to becoming destitute. May I point out again that she is a Brahmin.

One of her sons, who dropped out of school for the time being to try and earn some money, got a lowly job at a hotel. He helped his mother by convincing a few of the guests at the hotel to let her wash their laundry, and this is how Shashi started to get her life on track. One of the tourists whose laundry she did stopped by to pick it up while Shashi was cooking. He smelled the food, must have tasted some (her cooking is superb), heard her story, and suggested she start a cooking school.

This was less than three years ago. Up to that point, Shashi spoke not a word of English. She was in her late '30s. Her boys were approaching university age. She had to find the money to get them an education. Shashi's Cooking Classes were born. With the help of tourists and her sons, Shashi has learned English, translated her menu from Hindi to English, German, French and Italian, has gotten herself mentioned in the 2009 Lonely Planet India book, and is now making (from what I can figure) a pretty decent living. A woman once dependent on her husband is now an entrepreneur, not from desire for something of her own (women's lib ain't exactly a big movement in India), but from an urgent need to feed her children. A lesser woman would have ended up a beggar on the street. A man in her position would have received all the help of his family and friends, been pitied and praised as a widower and quickly found another wife to cook and care for his sons. Abandoned by everyone she knew and left to her own devices, it was sink or swim. Thankfully for Shashi (and for us, that food we cooked was outstanding!), she is a quick study in high seas.

During our five hour class (note: our class was 500 rupees and lasted 5 hours. Most cooking school classes cost double that and lasted half the time.) we learned how to make everything from chai to paneer to pakhoras to naan to the masala base for any kind of curry to the single best thing I tasted in India: sweet coconut pharatha (a fried bread in which the dough, sugar and coconut are folded with layers of ghee, same concept as a croissant). We made chutneys with well water, about which I was nervous eating, but the mango chutney was one of the best things I've ever tasted and Shashi assured me I would not get sick. I did not get sick; I just craved more. We washed the vegetables in basins of water brought in by her sons. We cooked as the boys came home from their jobs/school and watched TV with the neighbors who dropped by to say hello and also watch TV – at one point there were 5 people sitting on the bed around the television as we fried bread in the kitchen. Stacy mentioned that it was like a sitcom, and it was. The random cast of characters that revolve around the building – the cooking school, Shashi's family, the restaurant upstairs, and the jewelry cart dude from across the street, along with 2 foreigners, always with Shashi's wit, humor and cunning at the forefront, would make a great storyline. (Maybe that's my new job; I certainly have the time to write a pilot).

The hours we spent at Shashi's made for a remarkable, enlightening and memorable experience. Not only was this one of the top three meals I've had in India (the other two being leftovers cooked by Sam and Laura's housekeeper in Calcutta, and the Bengali restaurant they took us to), it was one of the only experiences I had involving real family life. Shashi's story, while tragic, has a somewhat happy ending. She should be featured in Bust Magazine (and if any of my editor friends want to help me turn this blog into a submittable article, I'll take you up on it). What struck me most, though, was that Shashi stands out from the millions of women who do not have a happy ending. If your husband dies in India and you are of a lower caste, you are thrown out and will live your remaining days on the street as a beggar. You might sell your children to slavery or prostitution. You might, if you're in a small and remote village, commit sati (the act of a woman throwing herself on top of her husband's funeral pyre, to die with him. It's illegal in India, but still does happen in some rural villages). You will always be thought of as a lesser being than a man, regardless of caste or status. Interesting that practices from the middle ages are still commonplace in a country that in other ways, is far beyond my own. India elected its first and only female prime minister, Indira Ghandi, for four terms. She served as the leader of a billion people for fifteen years before her murder. Keran Bedhi was India's top cop before her retirement and is now a social activist for prison reformation and child welfare. This woman single handedly turned around India's largest and toughest prison full of murderers, rapists, child molesters by forcing the incarcerated to do yoga every morning and treating them with a slight bit of dignity. The prison currently has very few incidents of internal violence. Ruchira Gupta, the founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, was just honored by the Bill Clinton foundation in 2009 for her work to end sex trafficking of women and children in India and beyond. Here's a woman who was sold into prostitution at a young age, chained and raped every day for a month before she was forced to work as a prostitute for many years, and has gone on to buy her freedom from her brothel madame, found an award winning NGO, make several documentary films on the subject, and continue outreach arcoss the globe.

It is no secret that India is a giant paradox, full of unfathomable injustices. This particular situation struck a chord, considering all I really have to complain about is that my paychecks are (well, were) less than a man would receive for the same job. And I live in a country where if I scream about it loud enough, someone might even listen. Hopefully Shashi's business continues to thrive and lends some inspiration to other Indian women who desperately need it.

Too Much Magic Bus

Jaipur to Udaipur
April 19, 2010

Our arrival in Udaipur was not as smooth as that to Jaipur. We had booked a wait listed train ticket, thinking we'd get 2 overnight bunks. When the morning of our departure date came around and the train station could not confirm tickets, we got our money back and weighed our options. I hated the thought of missing Udaipur; it's rumored to be magical and we had left it for our last stop in India for that very reason. We could have detoured to Pushkar for a couple of nights, but Pushkar just didn't hold the same appeal to either of us. After a bit of deliberation and consultation with our driver Ali, we decided to take the plunge and buy overnight bus tickets. I'd done sleeper buses in Vietnam and they were not exactly fun but so long as you did not have to pee, they were tolerable. I was not expecting the overnight buses in India to be any better.

Our “super deluxe first class a/c sleeper cabin” bus ticket, as Ali described it to us, cost almost as much as a train ride (surely the agent doubled the price and added on Ali's commission to us), which was annoying. I hate getting ripped off in India, even if it is only for 5 dollars. We visited two travel agents who would not even deal with bus tickets. But for our man Ali, it was all he had to do but snap his fingers and “poof,” magic bus tickets were ours a mere 4 hours before departure time. We boarded the bus and were directed to our “cabin,” which was in an upper row of bunks above the bottom floor of seats (in which we were not allowed to sit, even though they were printed on our ticket). It was like a coffin for two, about the width of a twin bed. The sleeper floor was lined with a carpet which I quickly disinfected (thank you, Lysol, for making travel size cans) though still feared germs and bedbugs and lice. The ceiling was barely high enough to sit up, and we quickly spread our travel sheets down before motion sickness set in. I popped a couple of dramamine and laid down to sleep, which came quickly.

It was a restless drug-induced sleep, especially since the fan died shortly after we left Jaipur, and with the stop and start of the bus, the honk of the horn, and the general feeling that we might topple over at any given turn. Sometime in the middle of the night, I was startled from a dream when I thought we'd had an accident. Either that or aliens were audibly attaching tractor beam holds to the very window I was sleeping next to. Something large and heavy was banging on the outside of the bus, the wall of which my face was pressed against. We were too high up to be colliding with another car, and there was no lane next to us, so I did not know what was happening. Stacy sat up and reached over me to open the curtain. What we saw was beyond comprehension: a giant piece of the bus's roof was literally hanging over the side and banging hard against the window that lined our compartment. I figured my luck had run out, and the piece of steel was going to crash through the window and impale my leg, or cut it off completely. The roofing was hitting hard against the glass, and for some time. No sooner did it fall off, when a second piece came crashing down, this one harder, faster, and larger. We both were terrified and knew this was dangerous situation. I kept having visions of the movie Alive, where a piece of steel crashes through the plane's window and gets stuck in one of the soccer players' calves (he later dies due to gangrene poisoning). My fate was going to be the same, I'd be going home from India an invalid. I held my breath and waited for impact.

Just as Stacy, who was closer to the aisle and a bit more coherent than me, raced up to tell the driver to pull over, the second piece of roofing fell off and that seemed to be the end of it. Relieved and dumbfounded, I fell back to sleep to bad dreams. I don't think Stacy slept much after that. When we arrived in the morning and tried to tell the driver, he could care less. Did not want to hear a word. As we drove off to our hotel, we saw the damage done to the side of the bus. It looked like a giant cheese grater had been raked across the whole right side of the vehicle, and an entire panel of roofing was missing. We were lucky that the luggage rack didn't come crashing down. I hoped no passengers in cars or pedestrians or cows on the road behind us were injured, and was very thankful that we had our limbs intact. New rule: no more bus travel in India.

What Have You Done? You Made A Fool of Everyone.

April 14, 2010
Haridwar, India
Kumbh Mela

In the late '60s, the Beatles, at the recommendation of George Harrison, spent a few months in Rishikesh (about 20 km from Haridwar), hanging out with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in his ashram, palling around with Donovan and Mia Farrow, studying yoga and Hinduism, and writing the White Album. The story goes that Lennon wrote the song “Sexy Sadie” (said to have been originally called “Maharishi” until Harrison demanded it be changed) after the Maharishi exhibited some very unorthodox behavior towards the women in the group, as well as tried out his best extortion techniques. In India, then as now, spirituality has its price.

I awoke, a lot worse for wear, bitter and disgusted with myself for thinking this festival was something that I wanted to see. If we had been in a tolerable hotel, or if I'd at least been in a room with air conditioning, semi-clean towels and a TV, I would not have left. But at about 7AM, I found myself out in the worst chaos I've ever experienced. Our road was blocked off at both ends, and we had to pull the white man “my hotel is down there” card a few times just to escape (I was scared about being allowed back). I don't know what the barricades were for, maybe for crowd control, maybe for some other purpose. They didn't seem to hold very well and were only sporadically enforced. We were seemingly en route to the river, to try and at least catch a glimpse of it, when the police shoved (I was literally man handled by a whistle-blowing lady cop 4 times in as many minutes) us aside and I saw 3 passed out women, slung over the shoulders of police, being carried out (we later learned that we narrowly missed a stampede in which 7 people were killed). I was feeling frantic from being poked, pushed, shoved and deafened by the police whistles, when we saw an opening on the ghat and hurried down the steps to the river. I'm not sure why or how that break in the crowd happened, but Kurt, Mio and Stacy all found their chance, and on this auspicious bathing date, went into the Ganges. Maybe they thought I was being a bitch, but I wanted no part of it. Fast as that river was moving (and it was moving – there were chains hanging from the bridges for people being swept away to grab onto, as well as swimmers in life vests ready to dive after anyone unable to withstand the current), there were still millions of people bathing in it, and I'm sure millions of particles of their excrement bathing right along with them. I also am not Hindu, nor do I pretend to be. I don't take communion, I don't offer lotus flowers to the Buddha, and I certainly was not getting into the Ganges.

I am not on this trip for any kind of spiritual enlightenment. My views on organized (or in this case, disorganized) religion are pretty firm. I am happy to observe and respect peoples' customs and beliefs, but I don't expect to be converted to believing in anything but myself. After two days at the Kumbh Mela, my observations yielded little more than disgust.

In India, the Sadhus, or holy men, are revered. They take a vow to renounce all earthly possessions and physical desires (for the more extreme Naga Sadhus, this includes clothes), and on paper, only eat what people give them, taking alms. What money they receive that is not essential for food or shelter, they are supposed to give up. They ride free on buses and trains. Their lives are devoted to God, and they have been known to do things like hold their arms up above their heads for a year, or place a pinky ring around their penis to prove an existence devoid of sexual desire, or roll around in ash. They come to Kumbh Mela from beginning to end, and live in camps. It is in many parts their festival. And guess what? They are, for the most part, as far as I'm concerned, totally full of shit.

I've got a problem with all religious extremists, which is what I consider these guys. Their motives are supposed to be all for god. That means no possessions, only eating hand outs, etc. So, then, why did the first guy we tried to photograph hand the few rupee coins we offered back to us – stating that he only takes bills? What about the other one, who seemed fine enough, but after posing for photos and taking donations from not one but each of us, opened up his leather case to expose a handheld sony playstation that had video of HIMSELF? Why did he even have one? What about the guys riding around in cars? (We learned that the stampede was created by an SUV full of Sadhus. Godlike, don't you think?) What is possibly most infuriating is that many of these guys are from the Brahmin, or priest caste. It is the highest and most wealthy caste in India. These are educated dudes, calculating and conniving. They walk around like rock stars, because people treat them that way. Say you can lift 20 pounds of bricks with your balls for God? Good for you. That kind of “devotion” does not impress me. Its narcissistic, egomaniacal and stupid. I harbor far more respect for people such as Ghandi, who was also of a higher caste yet devoted his life to abolish that archaic system, or Mother Theresa who lived and died with lepers. The Naga Sadhus are opportunists, who sit around and get baked all day and talk about Shiva. They don't give back to the community, they take from it. And there we were, the white people paying them to take their photos and feeding their egos. I found the whole thing nauseating. If I could have found my way back to my hotel alone, I'd have gone.

Thanks to India's wide availability of prescription drugs, I was able to buy some Valium at the pharmacy, which I took and stayed in my room (they moved us to a smaller slightly cleaner room with a tv and a/c) for the rest of the day and night. I had seen enough humanity to last me a lifetime. It's a shame, since I had really been enjoying India up to this point. I just did not need to see all of India at the same time, crowded into a town half the size of Hoboken.

The next morning a miracle happened. I was awoken from a Valium induced sleep at 7am by the bell boy, who told me we had a phone call. It was Arun, our driver, who I thought we'd lost forever. We had been calling him since we left him in the parking lot and his phone was dead. I was in a state of panic over how we'd ever get out of town, and this news was most welcome. He said he'd get to us by 10 AM. I told him to try hard, though did not believe it would happen. Sure enough, at 11 AM, there was Arun, waiting to take us back to Delhi. He'd managed to borrow a bicycle after sleeping in his truck for two nights and going one day without food. I could have hugged him. We knew it would be hell to get back though, and we gave him the key to our room and insisted he nap for awhile. Knowing that I would not be trapped in Haridwar with all of India, I braved the streets again. The crowds were a bit thinner, but the Sadhu bullshit no less thick.

Part of the Naga Sadhu life is to smoke charas, or hash, from a chillum. The vessel, as well as the smoke and the weed are all part of the ritual. It must to take them to another level or whatever. My friends were all into meeting and hanging out and getting stoned with these dudes; for me, the idea held about as much appeal as sticking my hand into a pot of boiling oil. I don't really smoke pot anymore; don't like what it does to me. But hash, well that's an entirely different story. So it was, on my second morning in the worst place on earth, I found myself rolling a couple of hashish and tobacco joints and heading for the baba camp. I was in better spirits than the day before, knowing that I'd be leaving soon, though kind of just going through the motions to go with the flow of my friends. If I had my way, me and Arun would have been hitting the road, 12 hour traffic jam or not.

We wandered into what looked like a private ghat for Sadhus. Immediately a youngish guy, definitely not a baba – he was rocking a loincloth and some beads and long black hair like he was Cassanova- walked up to Mio and she and Kurt followed him into a corner. Stacy had been talking to an older, bona-fide ashen covered naga, who invited the two of us to smoke from his chillum, which we did. The slick son of a bitch also saw that I had transferred a piece of hash from my purse to my pocket and refused my offer of a pre-rolled joint (such arrogance) and kept pointing at my pocket and demanding it. So I broke off a piece and gave it to him, and in return he surprisingly gave me some of his (which has since been flushed). While this was going on, there was major commotion to my right. Kurt had their “friend” up against the wall and was screaming and cursing like mad in his face. Apparently, this young poseur in what is surely a rehearsed move, put his arm around Mio and KISSED HER. All I could think of was what a vain, opportunistic bastard: our very own Sexy Sadie. Kurt should have decked him and split his face all over his ashen friends. He didn't, which is probably for the best, but how still I wish he had. Because here was where I really drew the line – these “holy” men, devoted to god and of the highest religious order and above all sin and guaranteed moksha and bla bla bla, did not a goddam thing when a young impostor compromised their beliefs . He made them all look like fools by using their mystique to 1)get free drugs and 2) make a hugely unwanted pass at a woman and 3) largely offend her husband. This behavior supposedly goes against everything the Sadhus vow stands for, yet not one of them lifted a finger in Mio's defense, or raised a voice in their own to ask the guy to leave their sacred camp. Maybe they were too baked or maybe they didn't give a shit. Either way, it solidified my opinion. John Lennon was right. Their whole self important existence is a sham.

We parted ways with Kurt and Mio in Haridwar. Stacy and I were able to ride via cyclo rickshaw most of the way back to Arun's car, and took off for Delhi at sunset, 48 hours after we arrived. I was drained and sick and had a couple of serious India moments in one of the grottiest roadside squat toilets I've ever seen. I tried to sleep most of the ride home, despite traffic. It was uncomfortable at best. At 2:30 AM, Arun dropped us off at a clean, semi-well appointed hotel in Delhi. The air con was pumping and the towels were devoid of stains. A twin room was unavailable and although I was too tired to care, the bed was giant and round. After our ordeal, I'd have slept on the marble floor as long as it was clean. I never thought I'd be so happy to be back in New Delhi.

So much for the holy Ganges. Smell ya later (eh, probably sooner considering the way stenches linger in this country.)

Walking A Road Other Men (and women) Have Gone Down

April 13
Haridwar, India
Kumbh Mela

The Kumbh Mela is a massive Hindu festival that happens at auspicious places every twelve years. This year's festival started in January and is taking place in Haridwar, some 200 KM north of Delhi, the town where the foothills to the Indian Himalayan range begin, on the banks of the holy Ganges. Haridwar, a spiritual town even when there is not a mass pilgrimage taking place, is 20 KM from Rishikesh, India's premier center for yogis and ashrams. It's a pretty groovy part of the country. That is, probably just about any time except when the world's single largest gathering of humans hasn't descended upon it.

I'll be honest – I had dreaded this since before I left New York. It sounded like an interesting idea, but I was never really sure it would materialize. Train tickets from Delhi had been sold out months before hand and the local bus option was rather unsavory. Some friends who live and have traveled extensively in India told us not to go. As I've said before, I get claustrophobic in elevators, so this probably was not the best destination for me. I was hoping to find a nice spot in Delhi to stay while my friends took off for the Mela. Well, my first Delhi experience was not so good so my choices were to navigate its ugly, shady streets by myself or go along for the ride to Haridwar and hope for the best. Unwisely, I chose the latter.

Our journey to hell began at 6AM sharp on April 13th. Our driver Arun (who I nominate for Indian beatification. There are something like 30 thousand gods here, what's one more?) met us in his sweet, giant air conditioned Toyota SUV and we hit the road. We learned that Kurt had been sick all night with some kind of food poisoning, so I hoped that our ride was swift and we could get him to a hotel quickly. Arun, who had been to Haridwar countless times but never to the Kumbh Mela, estimated that our ride would take approximately 4-5 hours, 6 max with traffic. Sounded good to me. We were cruising in style, with the A/C blasting and Arun's favorite, R. Kelly bumpin' on the stereo. An hour in and things seemed to be going OK. Then we had to stop so Kurt could puke. He wasn't doing so well. Strike one.

We got to probably within 15 (maybe 20?) KM of Haridwar with relative ease. We knew that all auto traffic had been banned from the city and that we'd have to take an auto or bicycle rickshaw to our hotel from the parking area. What we did not know is that the main road to Haridwar was closed. Strike two. We were routed on a detour, and there's where the nightmare began. At around 10:30 in the morning, we hit some serious traffic. I'm talking 1010WINS red alert, “stay home, 12 tractor trailer pile up” style traffic. At first I assumed that it was just because of the detour, and that the multiple buses were causing problems, not being able to pass other vehicles. We took our detour and came to a solid stand still. Arun got out and talked to some other drivers. “8 hours traffic,” he said, laughing. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not. It was only about 12 KM to town. As the midday sun scorched us (had to be 110 degrees; India is experiencing the hottest April in 53 years), we realized this was no joke. This was the beginning of a horror movie.

I can only imagine that Woodstock was something like this, with people abandoning their vehicles on the Thruway and walking miles to the festival. Except it was nothing like Woodstock, save for the wild marijuana plants lining both sides of the road. I didn't really detect a “hell, yeah, I'm going to see Jimi Hendrix, want some acid, man,” vibe. It was a bit more serious. Lots of people were abandoning their rides and walking, Arun even suggested we do the same. Had this been America, people would have been beating the shit out of each other. A two lane highway was converted into 4, with drivers just deciding to create a second and third lane, thus blocking the oncoming traffic entirely. There were no rest stops. There was no water (and we were dangerously low on our supply, having expected to stay on the main road and hit a restaurant), no toilets and little relief from the sun. After awhile, we had to turn the car off to conserve fuel and prevent overheating. Kurt was pale and feverish and was worrying all of us. If there was a way to turn around, we would have. I was contemplating draining my bank account to charter a helicopter. But where would it land? There was no way out. We were completely stuck, trapped between two gigantic fields of palm sugar. People who had been crammed into buses were running into the fields and hacking down stalks of palm sugar, breaking them over their shins and handing them out. Hard to eat, but at least they provided a small amount of sugar and hydration. We had to pee on some farmer's property with little cover in broad daylight, and mid-stream he came running over chasing us away. I'm sure three thousand people saw my ass. I wanted to turn around immediately, and was hoping that Arun would throw caution to the wind, turn on his 4WD, and plow through the crops to get us out. That did not happen.

What did happen was sitting in the car for twelve hours. We left Delhi at 6AM. We finally pulled into the parking area at about 6:30 PM, just as the sun was setting. It was total and utter chaos. We had phoned the hotel, and they could not get to us. We didn't even know where we were. How could they know where we were and moreover, if they were able to send someone on foot, how would we know him/he know us? Strike three. It was getting dark and seemingly all of India was walking, a veritable tidal wave of humanity rushing the town. Entire villages of pilgrims, probably many of them traveling for days, having never before left their homelands, were arriving en masse. It's said that 5000 people are lost and never heard from again at each Kumbh Mela. I was starting to see why.

Trying very hard to contain my building panic, I strapped my mega heavy backpack onto my back, then strapped my other only slightly less heavy daypack onto my front side and we set off on foot with the crowd, no idea where we were going or how far it would be. We had heard rumors that it would be possible after crossing a bridge and walking 1 or 2 KM to get a bicycle rickshaw to at least transport our luggage. Maybe that was true on any normal day at the Kumbh Mela. But we were getting there for the specially auspicious April 14th bathing date, where a dip in the Ganga is even more purifying, and so was everybody else. I had not packed nor planned to carry my bags for more than a block or so, so pain and misery were setting in. I was close to toppling over, not having had any food and little water since about 8AM. Stacy had a bag on wheels, which does not fare so well over terrains of pebbles, sand, cow shit, toes and other detritus. Kurt (who somehow pulled it together enough to navigate the crowds) and Mio had smartly left some of their stuff in Delhi, so their packs were lighter, but I'm sure they were both very unhappy as well.

Picture an entire football stadium exiting through one entrance in the dark with no signs, few lights, no place to sleep (most pilgrims came and just set up camp on the street) and not a lot of ways to communicate (India has 22 official languages and over 300 dialects). It was chaos. There was not enough police presence, and the police that were there were useless. NOBODY, not one single person that we asked, could direct us to our hotel. We knew it was near the train station – a location one might think the cops directing the flow of millions would know about – but we could not get there. There were road blocks everywhere, so we took a total of 4 bicycle rickshaws, some rides only a few hundred meters, just to take a load off. One person would say that the train station was 5 or 6 km that way, another would tell us it was 3 km in a different direction. Nobody knew what the fuck was going on and I was starting to lose it. At 10:30, after approximately three and a half hours of wandering around on foot in a sea of madness, we got to our hotel.

As luck would not have it, our rooms that had been booked online a month earlier at a “new” hotel, were not quite ready. Translate: the goddam hotel was not even finished being constructed! There were piles of debris and construction material on the banister-less staircase, open patches of drywall exposing rebar, broken fans, scraps of tile lining the hallways. None of the door or window frames were sealed. Of course one of the reserved air con rooms would not be possible on this first night, because apparently there were problems connecting the power, or the actual A/C unit couldn't get there or some other such bullshit. The guys running the hotel were total creeps. One of us would have to suffer, and since Kurt was sick, and he and Mio had spent two sleepless nights in fan only rooms, Stacy and I took the room with the fan. When saw it, I recoiled in disbelief. It was an 8 X 8 windowless hole that looked like a cement mixer had thrown up all over it. There was one double bed, a fan, and that's about it. The filth, some of it real dirt, some of it construction mess, was unspeakable. The bathroom, which we later learned had no hot water, was missing a shower head. Just a pipe in the wall that did not spout water. The journey had left us all covered in a thin film of dust and god knows what else, and all I wanted was a hot shower and a clean place to sleep. My shower experience was a cold spout of water about knee high. It was possibly the worst night of my life and for the first time in longer than I can remember,I sobbed myself to sleep, hoping that somehow we would find a way out of this mess.

I would rather be anywhere else than here today

April 11
Delhi, India

I was not looking forward to Delhi. I tried to figure out a way to visit India without ever setting foot in the city, but it was a necessary connection point for our future destinations. We got to town late – around 11 PM, and headed straight for our hotel. We were staying in the Tibetan camp, which sounded like the best possible place to be. Kurt is heavily involved with Students For a Free Tibet, and one of the SFT folks in Dharamshala recommended a hotel and set up special rate rooms for us. Well, upon arrival, all of these advance plans fell apart. The hotel had somehow lost our reservations and was very confused. The guys running the lobby were asleep, having to unbolt the door to let us in.. It was too late and Delhi too much of a maze to go anywhere else. So, we got one fan room and one a/c room (all they had available even though we'd requested 2 a/c rooms). Up the dark creepy staircase we walked to our room, which was all the stuff travel nightmares are made of. The room had bare bulbs and live wires (concentration camp style) hanging from the ceilings and walls. The floors were abhorrently filthy with big black stains on them. The bathroom did have a toilet seat, though it was sitting on the floor next to the bowl. The lead paint peeling from the ceiling was surely toxic. There was also a surprise guest: a piece of watermelon sitting on the bathroom sink. Dimly lit and loud and filled with about 200 mosquitoes, we sprayed down with Deet, laid or travel sheets on the beds and stacy and resigned to get the hell out of there first thing in the morning. I still woke up with several mosquito bites on my face, the only uncovered part of my body. Unfortunately Kurt and Mio, who had taken the fan-olny room, fared far worse. They were kept up all night by hungry mosquitoes and bedbugs.

The next morning, we met the owner and had tea with him and resolved any problems from the night before.. He helped to arrange a ride to the Kumbh Mela for us, and ended up giving us a room discount in the end. He also recommended another hotel in the area, since his was (thankfully and questionably booked). Nice guy, not sure why his hotel is such a shithole. The problem was that by now it was 1 in the afternoon, and a trip to a nice hotel across town would kill the rest of the day. So we checked into a hotel a block away, which while a little bit cleaner, was no real step up quality-wise. I'm just too old to stay in places like this. I like to shower in the light, and not have to worry if rats are going to be crawling over my suitcase when I sleep. The whole area of the Tibetan camp was also very dimly lit, with narrow streets. Maybe this is what Tibet looks like, I don't know (though probably; I'm sure China keeps the electricity flow as low as possible). I suppose it was better than being outside in Delhi proper, which is a filthy maze of construction sites and constant hawkers, “come inside, you just looking, no buy” or men accidentally on purpose bumping into you to cop a feel. I'd much rather be surrounded by monks and photos of the Dalai Lama. But I did not get the greatest vibe from the place. When you're in a dirty, grimey, dark hotel, you feel dirty, dark and grimey, or at least I did. I had hoped to relax in a clean and well appointed hotel room for the night, because the next day, we were n heading to what I was sure would be the ultimate in dirt and grime...the largest gathering of people anywhere on earth, the Kumbh Mela. My anxiety was starting to rise.

P.S. I Love You

April 10, 2010
Agra, India

We arrived in Agra almost 24 hours after we left Khajuraho. It was a 4 hour drive from Khajuraho to the Satna train station, followed by an overnight train that was delayed for EIGHT HOURS. The manager at our hotel, when trying to convince us to hire a private driver to Agra, said “In India, train no wait for you. You wait for train.” And how. I was feeling pretty crappy, having woken up with a sore throat on my birthday and was steadily getting worse. An overnight train was not really the best place to spend a sick night, but one that was twice as long as it should have been, with 4 hours of that time sitting on a filthy platform...well, uncomfortable never knew a better definition.

This is the hot, dry pre-monsoon season, with temperatures soaring above 100 degrees every afternoon. The only sane option for viewing the Taj Mahal (or any other sites) was sunset or sunrise. I awoke at dawn feeling like I needed a nebulizer and a shot of penicillin. Had this been any other monument on earth, including the Eifel Tower or Coliseum or maybe even the Pyramids, I would have skipped it and slept in. I felt like shit. But thanks to our delayed train, this was our only day in Agra and I was not about to miss my once in a lifetime chance to see the Taj Mahal.

Apparently the rest of Agra knew about the midday sun too, because as we walked through the park that surrounded the Taj in the 6am light, it was like a July Saturday afternoon in Central Park. Cricket games were in full swing. Fruit vendors were sold out of half their goods. Hawkers were out in full swing. Laundry was being hung out to dry. Kids who “collected American money” were about, begging to add to their stash. As my head thumped and nose ran and chest heaved, I wished I had the power to vaporize all of them.

We hired a guide, got our shoe covers (to prevent you from dragging all the filth of India onto the white marble) and entered through the western gate. The first glimpse you get of the Taj is through the doorway of the gate, and it's a tiny peek of a white facade through the brown sandstone. From there, it's all anticipation until you walk through the corridor (which is grand enough on its own) and see the white marble building glowing in the morning sun. For a moment I forgot I was ill and stared in awe...no structure I have ever seen lives up to its reputation like the Taj Mahal. It almost looks fake, like it is painted on a sky blue canvas. Its perfect symmetry and equally perfect reflection in the long pools adorning the entrance are unearthly. It is simply the most magnificent building I have ever seen, and in a state of perfect preservation. Apparently the translucent marble glows and inlaid jewels become illuminated in the light of a full moon. I'll have to come back some time to see that.

The story behind the Taj goes something like this: in the early 1600s Shah Jahan had 2 wives, neither of them able to give him children. His third wife proved a wise choice: she produced several children, a few of them sons. The Shah was so taken with her that he decided to celebrate. He could have bought her diamonds or planted a rose garden or even thrown a gala ball in her honor (and who knows, maybe he did all these things).But instead he went one step further. He decided to build the biggest and brightest building in the world for her and her tomb, so she would be remembered the world over for all eternity. He had marble brought all the way from Rajasthan. The lapis lazuli was imported from Afghanistan, the cornelian and other semi precious stones from Burma. The entire building is simple, stunning, fine white marble inlaid with designs that look painted from afar, but are actually all stonework. Even the Arabic writing, passages from the Koran, that adorn the main doors are black onyx. What is most impressive to me is that such a massive structure was not built to commemorate a military victory, or as a religious monument. It is the world's biggest monument to love (although my guess is showing off wealth was an ulterior motive), which I think is kind of nice.

The Shah had planned to build a mirror Taj Mahal for himself in black onyx across the river, and the two buildings were set to be connected by a silver bridge. Unfortunately, his son overthrew him before construction began on the Taj II. Jahan was imprisoned for the rest of his life, which basically meant he was confined to his quarters in the fort, where he could only see his Taj and mourn his wife (who died before completion of the building) from his balcony. My guess is that he was still allowed conjugal visits from some of his 332 concubines, thus softening the blow of the loss of his beloved. His son had his father entombed next to his mother inside the Taj Majal, their resting spot having become one of the seven man made wonders of the world. Not too shabby.

You Say It's Yer Birthday

April 8
Khajuraho, India

I had hoped to spend my birthday at the Taj Mahal, which sounded pretty grand. Our travel schedule didn't exactly work out that way, but we ended up at a pretty grand location nonetheless. We were in Khajuraho, the location of some of India's best preserved Hindu temples, dating from the 1st century. It's off season here, with the next 2 months being the hottest and driest before the monsoon comes. Being out midday when temperatures soar above 100 degrees is uncomfortable ill advised. So it was that at 5:30 am on my 35th birthday, I woke up before the sun to go see some sexy temples.

The temples here are famous for one thing: Kama Sutra. The relief sculptures adorning them are impeccably preserved; it seems as though minimal work has been done restoration wise. They also give a glimpse into the minds of the kings who had them built. Birds do it, bees do it, and in India in 1000 AD, people and horses and elephants apparently did it all together. I won't go into detail but let's just say that if some of the sculptures were made in modern times, they would NOT be on display at the Met.

Khajuraho is small by Indian standards, with a rumored 19,000 population (which is small by any standard, but when you consider that India has 1.2 billion people, that's basically saying the town is invisible). It is a few blocks long and basically geared towards tourists, with lots of stores selling trinkets, fabric, clothes, etc. We were befriended by 2 local guys who wanted to make a party for me at the river, which I thought was a nice gesture. Had it been Stacy or Mio's birthdays, we may have spent the afternoon there. But it was my day and the thought of a dusty riverbed with no shade in the middle of nowhere India with 2 strangers yielded one response: thanks, but no thanks. We spent the afternoon at the Radisson's pool, swimming and sipping cocktails.

I had woken up with a cold and felt pretty lousy, so going out and living it up was not really an option because I was beat and, well, there was not really anyplace to go. The town was virtually shut down by 10 PM. We went to dinner at the same restaurant where we'd eaten lunch. My cold was kicking in and I was about to call it a night, when the waiter ran up to our table and asked who's birthday it was. Stacy had asked for a candle without my knowing, and apparently the “surprise” factor was lost on the Indians. I saw ice cream and waffles on the menu, so that's what I expected. Kurt and Mio thought we'd be seeing a giant wax candle in some rendition of bananas foster, which was also on the menu. What was brought upstairs by the entire staff of the restaurants was pretty remarkable – an entire chocolate ice cream cake adorned in not only chocolate chips, but with my name proudly written in chocolate sauce! Apparently this place had the cake sitting in the bottom of the freezer, fully wrapped and boxed. The staff told me that if they had known it was my birthday at lunch, they would have prepared a dance for the occasion. I was blown away, and pretty psyched to be eating chocolate ice cream. If you've never been sitting at the only table in a restaurant in the middle of India being serenaded “Happy Birthday” by a bunch of dudes in broken English, you should try it. It was a trip.

Is This Burning An Eternal Flame?

April 6
Varanasi

Varanasi is the oldest city in India, and is probably the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. It's older than Rome, Jerusalem and Athens. It is the city where Mark Twain wrote his famous quote, "Benares (old name of Varanasi)is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." It is the most holy city for Hindus, and the place they to be cremated, or for some, to die.

The Ganges river is life here. Lonely Planet says this stretch of river's fecal content is 1.5 million bacteria in every liter. 500 is considered safe. There are parts that are completely septic, which means zero oxygen content. Sewage from the millions of people who live in and visit Varanasi, along with all the dogs, goats, cows and other creatures who inhabit the city, as well as waste from the surrounding towns is dumped directly into the river. The remains of the dead, along with whatever disease killed them, go into the water. It's not uncommon to see human remains from a body that was not 100% cremated (I think I saw a patch of hair, but looked away before I got too close). Yet people bathe in and drink from its holy waters every morning, hoping to wash away a lifetime of sins.

Up the steps and away from the ghats, the city is similar to other ancient cities, like parts of Rome or even Venice, its narrow, windy, cobblestone streets impossible to navigate and easy to get lost in. Where it differs is in just about every other way. The streets are too narrow for auto rickshaws so it's all foot traffic with the occasional motorbike cruising through the chaos, waiting to honk their horn until they are within inches of running you over. Many of the buildings are in states of disrepair. The stairs leading up to restaurants, guest houses, temples and yoga centers are hundreds of years old and would certainly be considered hazardous in any western country. There are hordes of people everywhere you go, trying to sell you stuff or make a buck by guiding you someplace. Children follow you asking for rupees. It's impossible to walk more than 4 minutes without somebody falling into step with you and asking where you're from and where you're going. You have to watch out for the cow plop everywhere, not to mention the cows themselves. It smells of shit and piss and food and garbage and incense. There are daily and nightly power outages that leave the ghats in total darkness. For many people, it could be an intolerable mess of filth and stench.

But once you move past that, Varanasi is a pretty special place. We woke before dawn and took a boat ride on the Ganga, as it's pronounced in Hindi, to watch the sun rise and the city come to life. As soon as first light broke, everything slowly started to move. First were the morning bathers, dipping three or four times with their eyes closed and noses held. Then were the laundry men, beating lungis, saris, sheets, and probably tourists' laundry on the ghats and rinsing them in the river. The ladies all bathe in their saris, so the digney grey steps were dotted with technicolor. There were kids jumping and splashing around. Hawkers set up their stalls on the main ghat, food was being prepared, and another day was in full swing. All this, of course, coinciding with the sacred activities at the burning ghats.

There are a few burning ghats, but the main one has performed cremations 24 hours a day for over 1000 years. Being cremated in Varanasi and having ones remains placed into the Ganga means you are free of samsara, the cycle of life and death. Dying here also yields the same result. Sadhus, babies, pregnant women and lepers are already pure and therefore do not get burned, they go into the river whole. We met a local guy who talked with us for awhile and explained what was going on as we watched cremations take place. I think there were 4 or 5 going on at once. The bodies are carried through town by the male relatives and placed on the wood, which is lit from a fire that has been burning in Varanasi for 1000 years, from the same flames that cremated Shiva's mother. That fire has been kept alive ever since, and every cremation is lit from it. There is only wood; no lighting fluid or matches are used. The cremation takes around 3 or 4 hours, and then the remains go into the river. The family of the dead stay until this task is complete. If a family cannot afford wood, friends and neighbors chip in to get as much as possible. Bodies are cremated according to how much wood a family can afford, hence unburned remains sometimes end up in the river. Women are kept away, so there is no weeping. Next to the funerals, Varanasi life goes on as usual. There are dogs running through the ashes, sadhus doing yoga, the sick waiting to die, hawkers selling post cards and blessings, street urchins begging for rupees, dudes flying kites, random piles of cow diarrhea, pujas being performed, boats of tourists taking photos (which is strictly prohibited, though not strictly enforced), goats wandering around and various other bits of daily life going on. There is no separation of life and death here; one is part of the other and if there is sadness and mourning, I didn't see it. I wouldn't exactly say it was a rejoicing vibe, but it was definitely one of believing that being put to rest here is the best possible end to an earthly life. I don't think being burned at the Ganges is the way I want to go, but it sure beats being put into a box in the ground.

Back In The High Life Again

April 1-3
Calcutta

Shahrukh Khan is omnipresent in Calcutta, and probably in all of India. He is Bollywood's answer to Brad Pitt and India's leading man. He is also the proud owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders, Calcutta's cricket team and everyone's obsession. He is on billboards advertising everything from cell phones to concrete, in the papers every day, and we were going to his party.

My friends and their friends were buzzing about this party since we arrived; it was definitely built up to be a night to remember. One thing I can say about Calcuttans: they know how to party. First order of business was what to wear. I got the vibe that this was a party to see and be seen, which would be tough based on my limited backpackers' wardrobe. Luckily, I managed to scrounge together an acceptable outfit involving a beach dress and some gold sandals that I had made in Vietnam. The party was a perfect excuse to go shopping, and my stylin' new Indian jewelry and scarf rounded out the look, though I still felt underdressed.

It was a full night out. At home, my friends and I might pop open a bottle of wine, or meet at a bar for a drink before heading out for the night. Here, it's a little bit different. We were invited to Sam & Laura's friends' home to pre-party. They had a designated party room, complete with a full finished bar, landscaped terrace, wrap around sectional and 72 inch plasma screen showing the cricket game. We could see the game on TV (crucial to watch till the end, so we could time our arrival at the gala to that of the players and cheerleaders) as well as the stadium (the world's largest) from the terrace. There were cabana boys who never let my Ciroc and cranberry get below three quarters full. Around midnight, the coffee tables were cleared and piping hot kati rolls stuffed with deliciously spiced chicken or shrimp were brought out. This was a party unto itself. At about half past 12, we all piled into our respective vehicles and headed to one of the city's luxury hotels for the main event of the night.

The KKR won, so spirits were high and celebratory. For a minute I felt like I was working, escorting some rock band, since there were paparazzi, VIP lists, security check point, red carpet, etc. except this was not work, this was my first night out in India and it was fabulous. The entire event was open bar (those are a thing of the past in the States, where you're lucky if Bud Lite Lime wants to throw you a couple of cases and demands a huge banner in the middle of your party in return). The next two hours were spent drinking, dancing, hobnobbing with Calcutta's jetset crowd of natives and expats, bumping into cricketeers, and eagerly awaiting the arrival of Shahrukh Khan. It was a definite steady build (“Is Shahrukh here yet?” “Do you think he'll speak?” “I heard his car just arrived.”) as if the entire room was waiting with bated breath. When the moment finally arrived, and he was introduced on the stage...his arrival culminated with. a.....full runway fashion show! I kid you not; this was like being at Bryant Park in February. Cutting edge actor, cutting edge cricket team, cutting edge Indian fashion. Where was I again?

At about 2:30, around the time when dudes would be getting rowdy and tossed from New York bars, the gigantic buffet opened and we all ate a full meal again. Whatever Indian delicacy you wanted (and some western too), it was there. It must have given us some new energy, because next thing I knew, we were climbing up onto the catwalk behind the dj and starting the night's dance party. I think we got home sometime close to 4. It was a night to remember, and I hoped we made the papers the next day.

No paparazzi shots of our crew (though some of the people I met made it) in the morning's papers, just a combo of a hangover and my weak stomach reacting to India. I felt pretty lousy and a massage sounded like a great idea. Off to the mall we headed, where I got a very painful Thai massage which did something bad to my back (thankfully Laura was later able to fix it). Massage unable to soothe my hangover, retail therapy was the only option I had left. I got a dress by a famous Indian designer (which would probably sell for $400 bucks in Calypso), and it was a good thing I found it, since there was yet another party to attend that night!

This party started at the respectable hour of 9 pm, and was for a friend who was leaving town. Though there was a different vibe, it was in many ways no less grand than the night before. It was held on the tiled marble rooftop of a building that was a city block square and looked to be at least 100 years old. From that roof, you could see all of Calcutta. The cricket stadium, the Victoria Memorial, the Maidan. It was a pretty stunning view, and offered a cool breeze to beat the heat rising off the pavement. I was low energy, exhausted from the night before, so drinks were not my thing that night. I did however, sample some of yet another amazing spread of food. Meter long kebabs grilled in a tandoori oven, biryanis, and the new best dessert around: palm sugar ice cream. I was going to miss this amazing Calcutta night life.

We spent our last day strolling around town. Went to the new market (which isn't really all that new; it's at least 100 years old), where the old Jewish bakery was selling pound cake and Easter baskets. We had egg and potato kati rolls for breakfast, a Calcutta specialty that puts breakfast burritos to shame. We walked around a part of town that makes sculptures for religious holidays to order. We chanced upon a procession of women doing a puja along the river. Some were in a trance, others were just committed. All were doing full prostrations on the hot asphalt for several kilometers. It was a random glimpse of daily life here, and one I was glad to have seen.

We had a royal send off, with twilight swimming and drinks at the club. Vishnu then drove us over the famed Hooghly Bridge to the station, where we would catch our overnight train to Varanasi. I was sure we would wake up to a very different India.