Hello from the edge of the Thar Desert!
We're writing from the turret of a fort in Jaisalmer, on the western edge of Rajasthan about 200km from Pakistan. While we were catching you all up on our Nepalese adventures, we've been traipsing around India. Our itinerary thus far? Delhi>Varanasi>Agra>Jodphur>Jaisalmer. We just returned from a wonderful two-night, three-day camel safari in the desert. We're hoping that after this post and one about our safari, we'll be all caught up and will be able to report in something closer to real time. We'll upload our photos from these fascinating cities (including the Taj Mahal!) as soon as we have better internet access.
On our first night in Delhi, we took a walk in the local bazaar, just a couple of blocks from our hotel in a small, non-touristy neighborhood called Jangpura. After the simplicty of our life on the Annapurna trail and the limited scope of Nepal's depressed economy, we were stunned by the liveliness of the neighborhood. At 8:30pm it was buzzing. People were out buying all manner of goods, street-side snack stalls were doing a swift business in samosas and laddos, and pedestrians, cycle rickshaws, and motorbikes all vied for space on the roadway. We watched Afghani naan being made in a clay oven, admired a tiny cooking-pot repair stand and marvelled at the number of fruit and veggie hawkers. In those first few hours, we were in love. India felt so alive and dynamic. We reveled in luxuries that we would normally take for granted: consistent electricity! Refrigeration! A/C! Western toilets! We heart India!
Within a few days, we'd also experienced some of the things that make India's cities tough places to travel: chaotic traffic, persistent touts, and everywhere evidence of the brutality of poverty. Within a couple of blocks of a Sufi shrine where devout Muslims are likely to fulfill their religious obligation to give alms, Zach and I saw more people with crippling deformities and diseases than we'd probably seen in the rest of our lives. We walked passed ten-year olds doing hard drugs on the sidewalk of Delhi at midday. We learned that anyone who approaches you on the street and says, "I don't want money, I just want to share my city's history" definitely wants your money.
But every moment of frustration or exhaustion has been richly rewarded. Our first two weeks in India were full of surprises, the kind of surprises that remind you to remain open to the kindness of strangers and to lean into the unfamiliar.
Here are a few of those strange and wonderful moments:
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| Street in Old Delhi at sunset |
The Traffic Jam:
Our second evening in Delhi, we caught a cycle rickshaw just as the sun was setting. We were on our way to the New Delhi train station to reserve some tickets. On the way, we soon got caught in a massive -- and I mean massive -- cycle rickshaw traffic jam. For blocks and blocks, at a complete standstill, all we could see were cycle rickshaws, hand-pulled carts piled high with bags of cement or sugar, even a few horse-pulled wagons. After sitting at a standstill for about fifteen minutes, we realized that we weren't going to go anywhere anytime soon. Unfortunately, we had no idea where we were or how far we were from the train station. We abandoned our rickshaw and, in the dark, with a growing stream of pedestrians, began to pick our way across the traffic jam, literally climbing over bike wheels and loads of cement. We saw a blind man being passed hand-to-hand, from rickshaw driver to rickshaw driver. Being the only tourists as far as the eye could see in a neighborhood we didn't know and in the dark, we were trying hard to be inconspicuous. When we got to an intersection a few blocks up, we discovered that the jam was caused by two massive trucks parked in the middle of a four-way intersection, blaring music and campaign messages. They were both full of children- probably thirty in a truck bed-- in elaborate bejewelled traditional costume. As we walked around the trucks, heads down, the kids spotted us. The trucks erupted in a chorus of English and sixty little hands reached for ours. "Hello! Hello! Where are you from? Pen? Picture? Hello!" It was a touching moment of celebrity, even though it totally blew our cover.
The Holy Man:
One evening in Varanasi, we decided to wander the streets of the old town, since it had finally cooled off a bit. We found ourselves at a quiet ghat (set of stairs) and sat down to watch the Ganges roll by. A few feet away was a sadhu, a holy man, wrapped in orange with a massive beard and long, dreadlocked hair. He and Zach got to talking about how he, Baba Somanth, ended up becoming a holy man and exactly what a holy man does each day. (Prays, walks, writes.) About fifteen minutes in, he pulled out a pipe and offered it to Zach. "Ganga"? Since Ganga is also the name of Ganges in Hindu, it took Zach a minute to figure out what was going on. We sat together for awhile, then eventually wandered away, leaving him to puff and pray in the fading light. (The picture was taken the next morning when we ran into him coming out of a temple in another part of the city.)
Vijay and Sonam:
We were on the train to Agra, probably about half an hour into the journey, when a woman entered our compartment and started clapping. The couple sitting across from us gave her a few rupees. I was looking at her and trying to figure out just what was different when the guy across from us leaned across the aisle and offered an explanation. "She is... I don't know the word in English.""Transgender?" I offered.
"Yes," he replied. He told us all about the community of hijras in India, and how they are marginalized, and so form their own "families" amongst themselves. We ended up chatting with Vijay and his wife, Sonam, for the next two hours. They were on their way back from Delhi, where Sonam, who has Lupus, had a doctor's appointment. Just before we arrived in Agra, they consulted privately for a minute and then Vijay turned to us and said, "My wife and I would like you to come and stay with us at home." We already had reserved a room at a guesthouse and had a driver picking us up at the train station, but were able to convince the driver to detour with us to visit their home on the way. They served us chai and homemade sweets and introduced us to their two vivacious daughers, Angel, 6 and Annie, 14 months. Their home was modest, three rooms in total, and they already had Sonam's sister and brother visiting. But they were absolutely sincere in their offer and in the pleasure they took spending time with us. We were amazed by their hospitality and generosity.
Driver: "Do you know God?"
Zach: "What?"
Driver: "God. Do you know God?"
Zach: "God?"
Driver: "No, not gad, God. G-O-D."
Zach: "No, I don't. What is God's name?"
Driver: "Aryana."
Zach: "Who? Do you mean Shiva?" (It was hard to hear over the noise of the engine.)
Driver: "No, Aryana. I go to see God. On the eleven."
Zach: "Wow. Where? Where does God live?"
Driver: "Delhi. If you see this god, you will believe, 100%!"
Zach: "..."
Driver: "I go on the eleven. Will you come with me?"
Zach: "....". Followed by polite but firm "No."
Driver: "................"
Zach: "But... thank you. Does this god have a website?"
Driver: "Yes. www.jagatgururampaljimaharaj.com"
Zach: (In disbelief) "What? Can you repeat that?"
Driver: (slowly) "w w w dot ja gat guru rampaljimaharaj dot com"
Zach: "Oh. Okay, I will look him up."
Driver: "Yes. You will see. You will believe. 100%."
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