Travel Blog

Mumbai Mania!

12/19/2011

Mumbai is most certainly an interesting place! The walk along the water reminds me a bit of Rio de Janeiro's boardwalk! The Gate of India is where the King and Queen of England used to be received when this was first colonized and it is right by the water! Staying in an area called Colaba provides for a budget option, which is wonderful and useful!

My cousin Evan set me up with his friend's contact information, so I spent an evening with them in Malabar Hill before they were to head off from Denmark! I saw a COMPLETELY different side of India here! Not having really been in a home (aside from the houseboat) I was naive to what it was like. There was a woman to take care of the kids, a gentleman to take care of the cooking and receive/fetch groceries, and yet another gentleman who handles the cleaning. There is a staff quarters below their apartment I was informed. The apartment was kept immaculately clean and the food was delicious! I did grow up with a babysitter, but never with so much help in the nice, how useful and nice to have! I hope to visit them again upon my potential return to Mumbai for a flight!

I was quite saddened not to find the gentleman described to me by a nice guy from California. This guy gives REAL tours of Mumbai, meaning that he takes you to all the places that normal tourists would not go, such as the slum where Slumdog Millionaire was filmed in, the Red Light District, Crawford Market and other spots! I was told that the tour was particularly eye-opening and one with many hard sights to witness. I really hope that I get the opportunity to embark on it if flying out of the country via Mumbai! The next location is Goa, and we will be heading there via sleeper bus tomorrow!

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The Most Romantic City in India

12/16/2011

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The timing on the train ride from Jaipur to Udaipur was incredible; we actually arrived EARLY for once! ...Is this still India? The train however, was so cold that I could not sleep well, and hope to do so tonight! I explored Udaipur and will see the City Palace tomorrow. The train station had the cheapest food I had ever eaten in India however the rest of Udaipur seems to offer food a lot more expensive! I found a reputable guy who owns a restaurant and will probably eat there tomorrow! Chris and I are staying in a family-operated guest house and had dinner with them tonight. It was amazing! There was rice pulao with peas, a lemon pickle, stuffed peppers of two sorts, saffron spice, a dal, curd, 2 butter chapatis and 2 desserts consisting of dried fruits, nuts and sugar...ALL HOME MADE! It was fantastic, but so spicy that I hope my stomach will forgive me :)

Well, as I lay here on the sleeper bus to Mumbai it is apparent that my stomach has not forgiven me yet...sometimes you find yourself busy worrying about your health in this country and at those points you have to really remember to enjoy your trip and to be so thankful for the good health you do have. Sometimes it is a random thing that can make you sick but you can certainly take certain precautions to avoid getting sick, like not eating from sources uses tap water, much of the street food which contains oil rarely changed and bacteria that bodies from the Western world are not used to being exposed to...

Reflecting back, the City Palace Museum was quite a nice place and contained lots of paintings. Just seeing where the king and queen used to live was quite neat, and experiencing being in their quarters gave an authentic and rustic feel to this particular leg of the journey. The steps were steep in the area around where the King resided and the passageway only allowed for one person to be passing through at a time in a particular direction. The ceiling had some sort of cement decoration extending down a bit, causing anyone passing through to have to lower there head...interestingly enough it all came together when I overheard a tour guide explaining why. The steps were so steep and uphill towards the king's quarters to slow the speed of invaders and the way the ceiling was designed, causing people to have to duck their head under to come through would allow the king's bodyguards to instantly kill any invaders with their head already lowered, the guards waiting outside the stairs to deliver a deadly blow with the sword.. Some of the stained glass was absolutely gorgeous and some of the paintings on the wall were as well!

We discovered a fantastic restaurant called the Millets of Mewar! The prices were quite reasonable and all of the food was made with a health-conscious focus (all vegitarian as well which was a plus!). They had things like Paneer Wraps and Indian Tacos, along with Date and Cikku (a small, sweet fruit relatively prevalent in the markets here) shakes with coconut milk - items I had previously not seen. So they used a bunch of interesting and healthy grains as well, making this delicious trat a must-try when in Udaipur! You will see signs from it when you take the main bridge over from the main area, Lal Ghat to this area.

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Post-Graduation Trip Recap from July 17th --> Present Day

12/13/2011

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So, let's recap here from when I started back on July where I've been :)

China: Beijing (Day Trip to Juyongguan part of Great Wall), Changping District in the North, Chaoyang District in South --> Shanghai: day trip to Suzhou, overnight trip to Tongxi, Huangshan and Hangzhou --> Chengdu --> Lijiang --> Shangri La --> Dao Cheng --> Litang --> De Rong --> Shangri La --> Lijiang --> Lugu Lake --> Lijiang --> Dali --> Kunming -> Southern/Eastern Guizhou Villages and Ancient Towns: Kaili --> Zhenyuan Ancient Town --> Kaili --> Langde --> Rongjiang --> Chejiang --> Basha --> Congjiang --> Zhaoxing --> Guilin --> Yangshuo, cycled around the area, boat Ride from Yangdi --> Xingping down the Li River --> Guangzhou --> Hong Kong (Flight from HK to Delhi, India)

India: Delhi --> Srinagar --> Jammu (for a few hours) --> Amritsar --> Haridwar --> Rishikesh -->Varanasi --> Agra --> Delhi --> Jaipur --> (Udaipur --> Mumbai --> Goa --> Kerala)

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Buddhist Enlightenment Tactics...For 10 Days Straight!

12/13/2011

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So put aside your daily routine for 10 days, go into the depths of nature and surrender yourself to the technique. "What technique?" you might inquire... The technique of Vipassana, which is the method used and taught by Siddhartha Gautama, Buddhism's most recent and perhaps most influential Buddha. He used this path to gain and show others the way towards enlightenment. People of all races, religions, colors, shapes, sizes, etc. are free to participate as it is a non-sectarian course which does not discriminate against anyone. Throughout the course you must keep "Noble Silence", which is silence not only of speech, but of gesture as well. Essentially, you are allowed no communication with other human beings aside from the staff if you need something or have a course-related question (and although segregated by gender, there are MANY human beings around with whom to interact with). CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW DIFFICULT THIS WAS FOR ME?! You also are not allowed to practice any other rituals or physical excercise techniques that could interfere with the teachings. You are fed, housed and taught, with an optional donation at the end of your spiritual journey as the only possible money involved in the whole ordeal. YES, IT IS TOTALLY FREE! The reason is because by not paying you are not having the feeling of "I paid for this, so I had better get 'x', 'y', and 'z' out of it!" Also, as you are living these 10 days as a monk or nun does, you are living off the charity of others, thus aimed at dissolving the ego. You, as a participant are not allowed to have any monetary transactions either. The whole experience is taught by audio tapes and video discourses by Mr. Goenka who is an experienced meditator and a hilarious one at that! His discourses at night were something to look forward to and one of the things that kept me sane throughout the process!

Many come here to seek inner peace and some even go crazy during the process! The days are long, and by long I mean 10 hours of planned meditation long, so you can imagine the strain on both the mind and body for these days. I will refrain from discussing in detail all of what you experience (although it differs from person to person), because YOU reading this entry should experience it for yourself! Check out more at www.Vipassana.org, and there are centers in almost all countries where you can do a course! You can come back as an old student as well, and continue to do the courses over and over again as many times as you would like!

It was the most time-concentrated challenge I had ever undertaken and now can call it an accomplishment! An incredible sense of achievement came along with feelings of happiness and new viewpoints for me as takeaways. I would go as far as to say that it may be the biggest hurdle I have ever overcome in my life! I realized many benefits. Not just coming out more compassionate for other beings as the technique aims, but learning to observe emotions and sensations objectively, by assigning neither positivty nor negativity towards either of the two. Try not reacting negatively towards pain for instance, or happy towards a pleasurable sensation the next time one arises - it is CERTAINLY not easy, as our minds are trained to react in this manner. A few other takeways were to observe the actual emotion itself instead of what caused it and to view an event that caused anger for example, from the inside instead of seeing the outside person or words as the cause...perhaps your own inner physical structure, or your mind being the entity allowing it to bother you instead....interesting, huh? Think on that one for a minute..

By observing my body at the physical level, I became more aware. I became more aware not just of myself however, but of nature as I took this time that I would usually spend on the internet or chatting with friends and spent it in a sea of dragonflies on top of a golden temple overlooking the mountains, or under a swooping flock of birds which were taking off in a whisp and circling the area, their destination unknown to me and maybe to them either...or watching a national-geographic-like experience unfold right in front of my eyes as I observed a group of monkeys playing with one another, running, jumping and doing flips off of the walls of buildings, swinging from tree to tree with the children clinging to their parents from their undersides, or causing mischief by grabbing a friend's tail. The Vipassana Center in Jaipur could not have been situated in a better place, away from all the noise and smack in the middle of nature where you can observe all of these insects and mammals as they behave naturally, not as in the zoo where they are caged up and certainly acting differently. I saw numerous peacocks, tons of types of exotic-looking birds of all colors, someone pointed out a scorpion (which I did not happen to see), along with tons of monkeys, small squirrels and lots more!

Another benefit I received from being more aware of my body was becoming more aware of my eating habits. Until this point, I had always consumed what I considered to be a lot of food, still eating at the point of being stuffed (often). I learned that I could feel satisfied by taking in a significantly smaller portion of food and waiting for my blood sugar to rise. It sounds so simple, yet such a hard task to actually achieve. Hey, when you have free time during the day with none of your normal apparatuses, gizmos or gadgets to distract you, you would be surprised at what you discover about yourself and the world around you!! By no means can I say that I can adhere to this new eating pattern every time that I sit down with a plate of food, but the important aspect to entertain here is that I have become aware of this and will aim to be a more conscious and less "glutonous" eater. I know I will reap benefits both in the short and long term from this positive change in my life!

From Jaipur Chris and I will leave today for Udaipur, and then off to Mumbai after a few days, to be followed by the infamous beaches in Goa...stay posted for more soon!

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From Rags to Riches

12/1/2011

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I have spoken before about the poverty here, but am unsure about the burns. I have heard that the mafia burns women and children, but am not sure of the validity of this. I have certainly seen these burns on the skin and faces of many, including women and children. The street children will follow you around, but seem to want particular foods and drinks instead of appreciating what you might be willing to give them. This makes me think (as terrible and cynical as it might sound) that there are connections between these children and the shopowners. I have actually heard this to be the case from several people, that the kids are sent out from a main guy - a pimp almost who might feed or provide minimal (if anything) things for the child, when he/she brings them the business. Many women also carry babies around, asking for money. I have heard that they switch off babies, not even holding their own many times. It's a game to see how pathetic they can appear, the more pathetic the more willing people might be to give them. Interetingly enough, they are making either ALL of or A LOT of their money off of us, whom many seek to trick and decieve on a daily basis.

Child labor also appears to be an issue (as I may have mentioned once before in my blog) as many children work to support their family. They most likely get paid minimally or, if working for the family business, may not get paid but just taken care of with food, rent, etc. The age of work starts young though, and many of the older generation have stories of the same. They speak of having begun work at age 10 even, wow! The government's policies are not nearly as stringent in terms of child labor laws as we have in the United States!

Bus and train selling also is quite an interesting phenomenon. People come onto the buses and trains to sell random items and the buses will even begin moving, allowing them to remain on for a bit to try to make a sale or better explain their product. When they finish, they just leisurely stroll of the bus as if the escapade had never happened.

Another terrible thing going on here is prostitution. I am unsure even as to if the women make any of the money that is paid, or if it goes all to the "pimps" or gentleman collecting the money and trying to sell the women. The government certainly knows what is going on and is doing nothing to stop it. I have thoughts that there may even be a connection to the government, as bribing is so common here...it may be that a portion (maybe majority even) of the money goes to the government in order for the officials not to shut the illegal practice down, and continue to let these people live on the minimal money they make. However, it seems that many guys (from speaking to locals) go to G.B. Road in Delhi to get their fix after a night out in Gurgaon. I visited Gurgaon and all of the dance clubs appeared to be in the upper floors of malls. When I arrived it was a bit early, but I wanted to have a look and ended up dancing in a club for a bit and had a nice time! The ratio was about 20:3 guys to girls, and there were essentially around 23 people there. This was the first time I was out in over a month, so I was certainly happy about it! I headed home early before the metro closed to limit my spending to 25 rupees, rather than shelling out anywhere between 400 and 750 of them (depending how unwilling the rickshaw drivers were going to be on bargaining).

I had visited this cafe called Madan Cafe right on the main road where we were staying and made a friend named Aditya. His suggestions about where to get the best milkshake in Delhi, how to get to Gurgaon, and other various things were actually not aimed at getting him money, and were spot on! This was truly special because most people here are trying to deceive me so when I met someone who was legitimate and could tell was honestly interested in being my friend, I was even more ecstatic. It is great to find great people, but when you have such a difficult time finding honesty in people, finding it means MORE. Aditya invited me to his relative's 25th Wedding Anniversary, and immediately I accepted the invitation. The party was CRAZY! They hoisted the married couple up to put the leighs around one another's head again (same as what takes place in the marriage ceremony) to remember how wonderful it was 25 years back and how it has been still for these past years! After that, we were all sprayed with champagne, and the dancing continued. The DJ was excellent, dishing out local tunes, tunes I was used to hearing, and interesting electronic fusions - I was LOVING it! Aditya and some cousins were on the floor "shimmying" like the belly dancers do back and forth to each other. Other dances called for a hokey pokey type motion shaking one leg in the air and waving one hand in the air, all of course with an Indian flavor to it all :) The food was out of this world. There was everything from finely prepared paneer curry to nan, to golab jamun, and even had appetizers of fried mushrooms, french fries, etc. This was perhaps the best food I have had to date in India. The next part of the night was the main reason I was so upset about forgetting my camera for the party. The elder men got up to do a dance (sort of like at a bar mitzvah when the older generation gets up to dance "Buttercup Baby" or something a bit dated). Aditya told me that this song meant "I just want two drops of the beer, pour the rest on me". The 4-6 Indian men on the dance floor followed the song's directions to the tee, as I witnessed a variety of circus tricks occurring in this magnanimous moment! One gentleman balanced (or attempted to) a glass of beer on his forehead before pouring it all over himself! Another slick guy got down and dirty on the floor, sliding around in the beer that had been spilled, while yet another covered the husband's eyes with Rupee bills, throwing them all around while the caterers fought over who would grab the large bills! I could not believe that I was witnessing what appeared to be some sort of strange bachelor party-type event occurring at an Indian family's celebration! After this, the leftovers of the cake were smeared on the faces of many and we continued to talk. I touched all of the older womens' feet and then touched my heart (after each time) as a symbol of respect, and got their blessings. This was so cool to be a part of this and I kept being told not to thank him as I consistently uttered the words, "Thank you" to Aditya. Having a real friend in any country is a special experience because they know where to take you. Having a real friend in INDIA is an even more rewarding experience because of how hard it is to find it (although you hear "Hello my friend" ALL DAY LONG ironically...)

Now, I have entered the "Pink City", as Jaipur is often called, in the land of rajas and palaces - Rathasthan. Jaipur is called the "Pink City" due to the color of many of the buildings, and the glow it gives off into the night sky! I walked around, got some chai and saw the Jawa Mahal, the Wind Palace! This place is unbelievably cool, designed like a bee's hive with tons of windows nestled snugly into the honeycomb! Women would look out of these windows back in India's past I was told... Around this place were many shops with "smart" Indian salesman. They spoke great English, and many even speak SPANISH here too! I have to use Portuguese if I want them to leave me alone it appears...anywho they were friendly and interested in chatting and not rushing me into a sale. So, I actually looked in their shops and told them I would recommend them to someone looking for their goods - much better marketing/selling strategy than "Hello friend, have a look...". Before this, I went to the city palace, but didn't enter because I don't want to be endlessly spending on tourist complexes and things - I am picking and choosing! Seeing the outside was enough for me, it looked quite regal! Actually, the last currently planned tourist excursion will be doing a backwaters tour in Kerala on a cool boat!

Perhaps most exciting is that I will be doing the Vipasanna course here, tomorrow!! So, expect not to hear from me from December 1-11 as I will be following a course where silence is observed and meditation is practiced throughout the day for 10 hours a day! It will certainly be one of the hardest experiences I have ever had and I am nervous. I am eager and anxious, yet ready to tackle this immense challenge! I will write more about the experience when I complete it and can once again do other things aside from just thinking.

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Mumbai Mania!

The Most Romantic City in India

Post-Graduation Trip Recap from July 17th --> Present Day

Buddhist Enlightenment Tactics...For 10 Days Straight!

From Rags to Riches

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