I started this post but didn't have time to finish it all in one sitting, so here is a post from Sunday -- more to come on the rest of the trip:
_________________________
We are all now still in Rishikesh.
Yesterday, we wandered around the town, ate lunch overlooking the Ganges, relaxed, and walked about 5 km up the road to see a tremendous waterfall. The whole day was full of incredibly interesting people.
As we were trying to find an ATM earlier in the morning, we met a kid from Georgia and a woman from Toronto. Brandon, from Georgia, was just finishing up a 3-week yoga course in Rishikesh and was about to go home. The woman, whose name I don't remember, was just travelling through Asia until she got to Singapore to meet up with her boyfriend in December. No plan. No companion. Just travelling.
Later in the day, we wanted to go visit a waterfall that we had heard about. After Aaron was nearly attacked by a monkey (his fault), we reached a sort of trail/non-trail that an Italian guy had told us about at breakfast. We had asked some women earlier, on our way there, where exactly the waterfall was, but they said that they couldn't make it up because there was a guard with a gun saying there was a wild elephant. At the head of the trail sat 6 or 7 French punk-types from Tours, but no armed guard, so up we went. About five minutes up, we found some lovely evidence of an elephant which must have been there earlier -- but since it wasn't steaming, we decided to continue up the trail. Once we reached a fork in the trail, the last 'bad omen' hit us in the form of a man screaming. I turned to Jackie, Jackie looked at me, Aaron was looking at something else, as he usually is, and we decided to walk back down. When we ran into the French punk-types again, as they were heading up, and who had now been joined by two Brits, we changed our minds again, turned around, and joined the larger group back up the trail. Aaron said to one of the Brits 'Well, if we're all trampled by an elephant, it will probably be on the BBC,' to which they replied 'Oh that's funny and quite likely, seeing as we work for the BBC.'
When we reached the waterfall, it turns out that the screaming man was actually this dude having a religious experience under the waterfall. He was also partial to growling and being generally odd. The waterfall was beautiful and well worth the going up and down and back up again. The water was clean, the colors were vibrant (a far cry from the monotonous, though likewise beautiful, desert) and it was a very nice find. After the waterfall, we walked back with the Brits, Howard and Jack, and talked the whole way. It turns out that Howard has the coolest job ever and frequently reports with Jack, who has the second coolest job ever. Howard was posted in Bangladesh until quite recently and just moved to Delhi. He's reported from Japan, Bangladesh, India, Uganda, the US and, of course, Britain. Jack has filmed him in most of those places, but from what I understand travels less. If you want to see their reports, look up 'Howard Johnson and Jack Garland' or one of their names and 'couchsurfing.'
Later that evening, we went to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner. As Jackie and Aaron were sitting down at a corner table, an older gentleman with a book, long grey hair and robes was just sitting down at the same time. When I joined them, they were talking and eventually we just invited the man to join us for dinner. As it turns out, he was also an interesting character. Living in Rishikesh, he had become a Hindu monk when he was 17 and somewhere along the way, his guru had told him to study anything and to do it anywhere and everywhere. He told us about how he followed Martin Luther King Jr. around in the 60s, how he had devised a plan for peace in the Middle East (which involved moving Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula and creating a new state) and sent it to Arafat (??), went to Thailand every year for visa purposes but has another life there, created a space-dancing computer game, studied in Germany for a number of years, knows some professor at Harvard really well....and that was only what we learned over the course of a few hours. I know it all seems a bit far-fetched and I'm not sure how much of it was true, but regardless, the conversation was phenomenally interesting. He has a website, which Jackie, Aaron and I will soon visit, where he posts his ideas and his photography.
______________________________________
More to come on Delhi and making it back to Amman.
Love,
anneke
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
To Infinity and Beyond
Hello all,
I'm on the clock (a whole 20 rupees per half hour...which is like 50 cents), so this is going to be quick and dirty.
Jackie, Aaron and I are now in Rishikesh. When Aaron and I arrived in New Delhi yesterday at 5:00am, I was so happy to finally see color. In the desert, there is not much color. Despite the beauty that is countless tons of sand, it has been nice to see trees, shrubs, brightly painted vehicles and goats (also brightly painted, in case you wondering). We wandered around for a bit and we learned how to ignore insistent people, that I look Indian (...with this hair?), where to hide your money and that 4am fireworks are acceptable. We spent most of the day being hassled because we didn't no any better but made it home alive, had a wonderful dinner with my friend Raman and his wife and watched a little anime in Hindi.
This morning, Jackie arrived (hamdulillah, seeing as the hostel is unmarked, two streets past one dirt road, across from a building without an address and between an Indian food restaurant and an apartment, both so clearly marked...) and we moseyed over to the bus station, found a bus to Rishikesh at 9:30am and made it here by around 7. Awesome.
Jackie and I are staying at a dank (good dank, not bad dank) place at the top of a mountain and drinking tea while overlooking the Ganges. Jealous? Thought so. Aaron is.....somewhere else and hopefully we will find him in the morning. He's the only white person in a baseball cap for miles, so I can't imagine it being too difficult....*sigh*. Good thing we have a nice vantage point?
love,
anneke
I'm on the clock (a whole 20 rupees per half hour...which is like 50 cents), so this is going to be quick and dirty.
Jackie, Aaron and I are now in Rishikesh. When Aaron and I arrived in New Delhi yesterday at 5:00am, I was so happy to finally see color. In the desert, there is not much color. Despite the beauty that is countless tons of sand, it has been nice to see trees, shrubs, brightly painted vehicles and goats (also brightly painted, in case you wondering). We wandered around for a bit and we learned how to ignore insistent people, that I look Indian (...with this hair?), where to hide your money and that 4am fireworks are acceptable. We spent most of the day being hassled because we didn't no any better but made it home alive, had a wonderful dinner with my friend Raman and his wife and watched a little anime in Hindi.
This morning, Jackie arrived (hamdulillah, seeing as the hostel is unmarked, two streets past one dirt road, across from a building without an address and between an Indian food restaurant and an apartment, both so clearly marked...) and we moseyed over to the bus station, found a bus to Rishikesh at 9:30am and made it here by around 7. Awesome.
Jackie and I are staying at a dank (good dank, not bad dank) place at the top of a mountain and drinking tea while overlooking the Ganges. Jealous? Thought so. Aaron is.....somewhere else and hopefully we will find him in the morning. He's the only white person in a baseball cap for miles, so I can't imagine it being too difficult....*sigh*. Good thing we have a nice vantage point?
love,
anneke
Friday, November 5, 2010
Addendum 2
things that should not happen:
Seti, the maid, should not tell me that I'm more beautiful than she is because I'm whiter than she is.
some bitch at the gym should not tell me that I shouldn't run because that's not how one loses weight.
said bitch should not touch me when explaining to me where she thinks I should lose weight.
people shouldn't confuse brown people for other brown people just because they are brown.
epithets that demean certain groups.
war.
Seti, the maid, should not tell me that I'm more beautiful than she is because I'm whiter than she is.
some bitch at the gym should not tell me that I shouldn't run because that's not how one loses weight.
said bitch should not touch me when explaining to me where she thinks I should lose weight.
people shouldn't confuse brown people for other brown people just because they are brown.
epithets that demean certain groups.
war.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Hellooooooo!
Well, the whole daily posting thing has (clearly) not worked out. For that I apologize. This week was actually particularly hard because of midterms. I would, however, like to thank the good people of Oregon for not electing the governor whose name was easiest to pronounce.....as I was somewhat afraid about 3 hours before all of the results were in that that was what had happened.
Internal dialogue of the Oregon voter that I fear:
- Kitz-ha-what? Ooooo Dudley. Yes, like Doright. Or the kid in Harry Potter. He's got my vote!
In other news, this week was went well. Last weekend, I stayed in Amman to do research for the professor that I work/slave/do-things-for-without-charge-for-the-sake-of-let's-be-completely-honest-here-my-future-career-and-job-prospects. Staying in town led to a terribly fortuitous outing with Ella, Jackie, Alyssa and Chris, which ended with Jackie and me deciding to go to, no, not Beirut, not Damascus, not Egypt, not even Turkey, but to India. Yes, ladies, gentlemen and intersex, by this time next week I will be in New Delhi, India. We've also managed to convince our friend Aaron to join us on this trip and he will (hopefully) be buying his ticket this week.
Most of my week, thus, was spent preparing for this trip and studying for midterms. The process began with a panic attack. I am not the most organized person and so, when I realized that my ticket had already been bought and that the visa process, for a non-resident, would take between a week and 10 days, I went through all the required phases. My denial and isolation stage consisted of mostly talking to myself (out loud and, of course, in a public place) and reassuring myself that everything was going to be ok and that awful things like spending money on a plane ticket and having that plane ticket go to waste don't happen...My anger stage should really be called 'visible nervousness,' wherein I sort of twitched a lot, called myself stupid over and over again (again, out loud and in a public place) and called one of the program administrators waaaay too many times and waaaay too late...The bargaining stage proved fruitless, since the only deity I could think to pray to was Squat, who is actually the goddess of finding parking as opposed to foolishly impulsive decisions regarding plane tickets....Depression....Finally, I reached acceptance, which meant that I started to constructively look for answers.
I started to think. I considered skipping my midterm and applying for the visa as soon as possible, which turned out to be an exceedingly bad idea. I considered attending another section in order to take the midterm and apply for the visa as soon as possible. Finally, though, I found the answer in the form of a lovely woman on our program named Alyssa -- she shared with me that, if one has residency, one can get one's Indian visa in just one day. One day!
I, thus, now have Jordanian residency until October of 2011! This apparently also means that I can get discounts at certain grocery stores like 'old-people-tuesdays' at New Seasons.
The plan now is that we will land in Delhi, leave for Rishikesh the next day (a wonderful place for Yoga), spend 2 or 3 days there, return to Delhi for the remainder of the trip but spend one day going down to see the Taj Mahal. I do not look forward to the day that I run out of luck, as I have spent most of my life being very fortunate in recovering from my ineptitude (luck being, I'm sure, a combination, of privilege, crackpot creativity and the forces of the universe).
Once this ordeal was finished, I studied for my midterms, took my midterms, went through the grief process one more time over said midterms and am now quite at peace. The weather has been getting colder (which merited, for those of you who saw my status on that-site-that-I-said-that-I-wouldn't-go-on-anymore-but-lasted-only-like-4-days-because-i-have-no-self-control-dilini-you-know-what-i'm-talking-about, my Smartwools) but the weather has stayed nice, which has given Amman a nice autumnal feeling. Coming home today at around 4 o'clock reminded me of leaving school to come home in September in Portland, when everything still felt new from the beginning of the school year and there was nothing to worry about besides waiting for my afternoon snack (preferably Graham Crackers, if anyone cares).
I will write more times this week as I prepare for the trip and, hopefully, have some insightful thoughts.
Love,
anneke
p.s. I'm not sure how all of you from Australia, Russia and Poland found my blog (welcome to the information age....creepy, huh?) but thanks for reading!
Well, the whole daily posting thing has (clearly) not worked out. For that I apologize. This week was actually particularly hard because of midterms. I would, however, like to thank the good people of Oregon for not electing the governor whose name was easiest to pronounce.....as I was somewhat afraid about 3 hours before all of the results were in that that was what had happened.
Internal dialogue of the Oregon voter that I fear:
- Kitz-ha-what? Ooooo Dudley. Yes, like Doright. Or the kid in Harry Potter. He's got my vote!
In other news, this week was went well. Last weekend, I stayed in Amman to do research for the professor that I work/slave/do-things-for-without-charge-for-the-sake-of-let's-be-completely-honest-here-my-future-career-and-job-prospects. Staying in town led to a terribly fortuitous outing with Ella, Jackie, Alyssa and Chris, which ended with Jackie and me deciding to go to, no, not Beirut, not Damascus, not Egypt, not even Turkey, but to India. Yes, ladies, gentlemen and intersex, by this time next week I will be in New Delhi, India. We've also managed to convince our friend Aaron to join us on this trip and he will (hopefully) be buying his ticket this week.
Most of my week, thus, was spent preparing for this trip and studying for midterms. The process began with a panic attack. I am not the most organized person and so, when I realized that my ticket had already been bought and that the visa process, for a non-resident, would take between a week and 10 days, I went through all the required phases. My denial and isolation stage consisted of mostly talking to myself (out loud and, of course, in a public place) and reassuring myself that everything was going to be ok and that awful things like spending money on a plane ticket and having that plane ticket go to waste don't happen...My anger stage should really be called 'visible nervousness,' wherein I sort of twitched a lot, called myself stupid over and over again (again, out loud and in a public place) and called one of the program administrators waaaay too many times and waaaay too late...The bargaining stage proved fruitless, since the only deity I could think to pray to was Squat, who is actually the goddess of finding parking as opposed to foolishly impulsive decisions regarding plane tickets....Depression....Finally, I reached acceptance, which meant that I started to constructively look for answers.
I started to think. I considered skipping my midterm and applying for the visa as soon as possible, which turned out to be an exceedingly bad idea. I considered attending another section in order to take the midterm and apply for the visa as soon as possible. Finally, though, I found the answer in the form of a lovely woman on our program named Alyssa -- she shared with me that, if one has residency, one can get one's Indian visa in just one day. One day!
I, thus, now have Jordanian residency until October of 2011! This apparently also means that I can get discounts at certain grocery stores like 'old-people-tuesdays' at New Seasons.
The plan now is that we will land in Delhi, leave for Rishikesh the next day (a wonderful place for Yoga), spend 2 or 3 days there, return to Delhi for the remainder of the trip but spend one day going down to see the Taj Mahal. I do not look forward to the day that I run out of luck, as I have spent most of my life being very fortunate in recovering from my ineptitude (luck being, I'm sure, a combination, of privilege, crackpot creativity and the forces of the universe).
Once this ordeal was finished, I studied for my midterms, took my midterms, went through the grief process one more time over said midterms and am now quite at peace. The weather has been getting colder (which merited, for those of you who saw my status on that-site-that-I-said-that-I-wouldn't-go-on-anymore-but-lasted-only-like-4-days-because-i-have-no-self-control-dilini-you-know-what-i'm-talking-about, my Smartwools) but the weather has stayed nice, which has given Amman a nice autumnal feeling. Coming home today at around 4 o'clock reminded me of leaving school to come home in September in Portland, when everything still felt new from the beginning of the school year and there was nothing to worry about besides waiting for my afternoon snack (preferably Graham Crackers, if anyone cares).
I will write more times this week as I prepare for the trip and, hopefully, have some insightful thoughts.
Love,
anneke
p.s. I'm not sure how all of you from Australia, Russia and Poland found my blog (welcome to the information age....creepy, huh?) but thanks for reading!
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