Fate

I got a hotel in Paharganj, and I actually like the area after all (it is the area where last time, when we stayed here after Varanasi, there was no electricity and no water, when all we wanted was a shower and AC; this time I have a slightly nicer hotel). But weirdly, after I'd been trying idly to find this bike shop since, as I said, three months ago when I came, it's right next door to the hotel I happened to get. Awesome!

I'm trying to find a non-dodgy theater (bike shop people said the one right next to me is bad news for Western ladies) so I can catch up on US movies. I have a lot to see this summer. Dark Knight, of course, being first on my list. Actually, that's all I can think of right now, but really there are lots of movies to see, aren't there? I missed the end of Indiana Jones when (don't read!) the crystal aliens completed their intelligence module and launched into space. Unless Alex was messing with us. This is probably as accurate a movie about alien culture as Temple of Doom was about India. I haven't had any chilled monkey brains here yet, but maybe it's because I keep saying "veg" and not "non-veg."

Train Station (in chandigarh)

My second experience with the tranis here, but my first in top class, and my first alone. And, I just realized, my last travel day before the big one home. I happened to call the airline to discover my flight had been moved up by 45 minutes and that I should get to the airport 3 1/2 hours early. Good thing I called! I might have missed my flight!

But my last travel day! Thank god! I tried to search myself for a sense of regret, but there wasn't much. There was a little, to think I will no longer be "traveling India" anymore, but rather just biding my time in Delhi till I go home.

I actually have plenty to do in Dlehi, and plenty of it is part of the project, but all the same, it's the end. I'll be looking for closure as I go through all the activities I have. Meeting the Loyola group, going to Bullet Wallas. The Loyola group is a group that will work with Tibetan refugees (I think), and BulletWallas is the motorcycle shop Eric told me about that I've been trying to get to ever since I landed 3 months ago.

Slip slidin away

Well, the band has officially broken up.  Sarah is on her way back to the States now, and I already miss her. Alex is in Dehradun, working on a project that is bigger than expected.  Jenny and I are starting our solo projects with a new record label.  OK, wait, this metaphor doesn´t work exactly.  But the point is it´s very sad.

Ladakh continued to be wonderful, and I miss it very much now.  Maybe not everyone should go there because that wouldn´t preserve its natural beauty.  After doing my interviews, I realized how much the tourism is hurting the region.  Too bad.  But maybe I´ll go back to volunteer for an NGO, and then I´ll feel better about it.  No indoor plumbing would be a start to making it better.

Sarah and I spent an entire day together yesterday with all our stuff (so, basically, immobile), so we ended up talking a whole lot, which is one reason I miss her all the more acutely tonight.  We also spent our time compiling a list of quotes, which I will update shortly (we agreed they belong on all our blogs, so once Alex has his say, we´ll have a full collection of quotes).  I would put them up now, but my computer can´t get online.  I´m using Jenny´s roommate´s computer, and it´s in Spanish, which is confusing.  But look what I can do!

ç  ¿what the hell did you just say to me? ¡I said to go f yourself!

This is actually a sample conversation between me and my rickshaw driver a few days ago.  I was so angry.  I was so angry, I cursed to a person.  Who deserved it, no question, but what of it?  

Today I went to a ladies´s beauty parlor down the street from Jenny´s and got a manicure and pedicure for just a few dollars.  Amazing, yes, and it was so nice to have clean feet for the five minutes between the end of the pedicure and the start of the walk home.  Feet do not stay clean here.

Well, that´s all I have for now.  I´m going to start updating really detailed accounts of my days in my ¨Studies¨ blog, so those who are stalking me, or mom (the only people I can think who might have interest in this) can read it there.  None for now because my own computer won´t go online, as I said.  I´m tired from a party so I´m going to sleep now.

Delhi Interstate Bus Terminal (ISBT)

[note: it has come to my attention that people may be coming to this page to search wtf the ISBT in Delhi is all about, so I'm adding a pre-paragraph of everything I actually remember about the station. It's at the Kashmir Gate metro stop, and it's about 90 Rs by rickshaw from VasantKunj, way down south. When the rickshaw driver dropped me off, there was someone there asking me where I was going, and he told me which stall to go to, so he must have legitimately worked there. There's a confusing pathway from the road to inside the stall, at least to stall 43, where I was catching my bus to Dehradun/Uttaranchal. There is an information booth, and they may be able to help--I had a guy who wasn't fluent in English, but was at least willing to try to communicate. They will be yelling the name of the desintations usually, and you have to jump on the bus first to claim your seat. I didn't buy a ticket in advance. It was annoying because I had to get a stranger to watch my big suitcase so I could claim a seat, then come back out and get the suitcase under the bus. I lucked out that the stranger was trustworthy, but it's hard to travel alone if you have a lot of stuff. Anyway, a little ways through the trip, they'll come selling the tickets, and you just pay them cash. To Dehradun it was about Rs 275 I think...really can't remember, but it was an AC bus, which I thought was quite comfortable, even in the very back, but maybe I'm used to Indian roads by now.

Now, if you have a question about the Dehradun ISBT, you're out of luck. That one completely defeated me. I just know vikram 5 gets you there, and a taxi can get you away from there to Delhi for about 2500, which is useful when they start auctioning off your bus between Delhi and Jaipur, which is what happened to me. Feel free to leave a comment or send a message otherwise if you have other questions. I'll try to answer them. If I can get any use out of my helpless travel experiences, I will be glad]

Am right now in the most desperately confusing bus station, trying to get to Dehradun. you might wonder how I'm calmly writing in my journal while standing up and standing guard over the World's Largest Suitcase. I assure you it's only to calm my nerves by finding the experience a wacky time, trying by writing about it in the present tense to make it into a fun "remember when" experience in advance, rather than the stressor it threatens to be now. Or something. I'll let you know when this method starts working.

I think I actually have figured out something about when my bus is going, and I might even understand when the bus with AC is going, so I'm waiting for that one, and also waiting to see if my theory is correct. My theory about when the bus leaves. It's like physics--you can prove something with guesses and math, but it's onlly as useful as much as it can predict things in the real world. Ergh. This writing is helping a little bit, but I still think a better theory about what will destress me in this situation is needed. Chocolate also didn't help much ,which may just mean I'm too far gone. And now I'm attracting beggars from standing still so long. Nothing destresses me like Western guilt. Yeah. Great.

But it reminds me of a funny story from the rickshaw ride over here. Every stop had adorable kids tugging at my heartstrings, some selling flowers or latest issues of Cosmo ("number 75!" as they point proudly to the issue and volume number). But at one stop, a lady came up (a well-fed looking lady) with a wad of 10's already in her hand, hit me on the head, clapped her hands very masculinely, and demanded "Give me money!" I actually laughed, but she was dead serious, so I added "Uh, no." And she clapped again and put her hand out: "Give me money!!" Again! I said I didn't have any, did the empty hands gesture, and she leaned to my auto driver and said something in Hindi, which I assume was "Watch out, your fare has no money" said sarcastically because he laughed, and she left somewhat annoyed with me. Some people! But it kept making me laugh the whole rest of the way.

Lodhi Gardens and National Museum

We went to Lodhi Gardens, which were beautiful. I took so many pictures, and the air finally smelled like air, not like care fumes. We actually got a decent price no an auto-rickshaw, but the driver had a rather sour look on his face as we left. I hate not knowing the baseline. I don't mind paying a little extra above what would be normal, but paying three times as much would make me a bit angry. Anyway, we next went to the National Museum, where I missed out on a 1 rupee admission by not having my ISIC card with me. It as the same old-cultures, eras, broken pottery or those cultures and eras. We met a guard who gave us some mango, then some cookies, then some nuts, warm from his pocket (eeyuck!). But he was sweet. Poor Jenny twice got pegged as older than us-one guard tasked if she was our teacher, and another if she was our mother. She's three years younger than me and looks it. It was really weird. Another haggle-ridden rickshaw ride home, by an elderly Sikh man who'd been a driver since 1961 ("the taxi change, I the same!") tried to make a commission off of us. I ended up getting a pashmina for 200 rupees, much to Jenny's chagrin (she'd wanted to talk them down even lower). But it's green and lovely.

morning

Last night we didn't end up going to the girls' hotel because they never answered when we called (they were down in the bar it turned out). So we went back to the Banana Leaf Café, where we'd gone with Raj and Mir. It was full of Indian families, children glancing shyly at us. Jenny brazenly asked people on either side of us what they were eating, and both answered friendlily. One even gave her some of what he was eating! I told her about hat unofficial couple's experiment I heard on NPR. It's morning now, and we're waiting for Marissa to come by the hotel. Marissa just came and she looks like a faerie child, or a lot like SleepyBird. They just ran back to the room for something. Marissa didn't want to go to Agra with the other group, opting to go with the full group at the end of June. I tried to set up my water pump but hit a few snags-chlorine expired, for one thing. But hopefully we'll get it working. We drink so much water in a day! But speaking of annoying on the personal level, we ran into Raj at Café Coffee Day this morning, and apparently Mir was angry we couldn't go out last night-he had it al planned because it was some kind of couples-only concert, so they weren't able to go. Oops. But I really did feel pretty sick in our defense.

in which we meet raj and mir

One never knows where I day will take her! We were getting coffee when somehow we started talking to two dudes, Raj and Mir (numbers on opposite page of this journal). They dot their Is with a star and a bubble, respectively, so they can't be fearsome predators. They took us to another coffee/chai place, Raj's store for carpets and silks (we thought this was their game at first-salesmanship), a shop where I got a nice embroidered red shirt, and eventually, Raj's apartment so Jenny could see if she'd be renting it for part of the summer. We've been in so many tourist bureaus today! I got the old "You look Indian" (or, you know, insert country I'm in), which I find flattering. Maybe people will rip me off less when I'm on my own, or it could be that I don't actually look Indian at all. Mir assures me I will have a deep tan in no time at all. But in the meantime, I'm whiter than this sheet of paper. Hmm, no, but disturbingly I am exactly the same shade as this paper, and that is true. Instead of going to a concert with Raj and Mir, I was feeling sick (That was the cover story, too), and we were going to go hang out with the girls in the other hotel. But we can't get in touch with them now, so I'm not sure what's going to happen, despite this afternoon's great nap. I would be happy just staying in and reading all the stuff I'm supposed to. I got some contacts this morning from Daman at ERM. I think they will be good contacts for the water research but we'll see. I really need a better grasp on what I'll be doing. And I really need to finish the IRB submission.

first morning

I arrived last night and couldn't keep my eyes open. I had slept plenty on the plane so suspect it was the combo of cold medicine and the 10 hour time difference at work. My seatmate was a PhD student, studying nanotoxicity in quantum dots. It made me feel foolish when I had found this out, as I had spent most of the flight thinking she was 12. I spent the rest of the flight reliving all our interactions to figure out if I'd revealed this to her. I think I expressed that I was impressed she was traveling without her family. Surely it's not the first time she's gotten that, though. Prepaid taxi drive was...interesting. Terrifying would be another word, but not so bad that I didn't fall asleep sitting up. There was a long time when I wasn't sure we'd find the place (Asian Guest House), and I envisioned what it would be like stranded without a place to sleep. I would have cried if I hadn't been so numb from exhaustion. One funny thing about the way people drive here is that they honk the horns constantly. For the most part, it's done without ill-will, more like "Hey, here I am, and I'm not stopping for you, buddy!" Makes for a noisy city. But maybe the horns are better utilized than to express annoyance and anger, like the in States. They allay annoyance and anger this way! Woke this morning with a headache and no voice. Took medicine for both, then promptly, with minimal warning, threw up. So, that sucked, but I felt better.Now Jenny and I, up 2 hours earlier than we intended, are talking about the men I saw waking up on the neighboring roof. And about what to do with our day.