Bargains

You never stop bargaining in India. It's insane. Everything is bargained for, and I'm not just talking about stuff you are going to buy. Prices, of course are bargained. Deadlines. Deadline extensions. Deliveries because of deadline extensions. Whether or not a financial institution is going to exchange your Traveler's Checks. (They aren't.) Rooms. Room types. What's included with the room? Whether or not you are going to pay the dudes who just put all of your luggage on top of your rented 16 passenger tour van even though you didn't ask them to. Snickers bars on the Jaipur-Agra highway. Tips in general. Tips for the bellboy who shows you how to turn on the hot water in your room, as if you wouldn't be able to figure that out on your own, and even though he's already been told he will be tipped by Deep on behalf of everyone when we leave the hotel.

All of the time. If I spoke Hindi, I think I would have been completely exhausted.

the curry jet

Drunk on alcohol and sleeplessness, almost missing the Spice Jet to Siliguri out of Delhi:



(photo courtesy of Lisa)

Hello. Hello. Money?

The whole first ten days of the trip I kept wondering where all of the poor kids asking for money were. Before you travel to India, this is something that other previous India travelers tell you about: the poor kids that swarm you and tug on your shirt and how you feel bad for not giving them money because you know they haven't eaten but if you do give them money they won't leave you alone - they'll just want more and all of the sudden the group multiplies and you have to run away.

Ok, that's not what they say, but it is what I anticipated in my brain. And, it wasn't that far off from the truth.

So, this did not happen to me ONCE while we were in Siliguri or while we were traveling to Jaldapara for the elephant safari or during the couple of days we were in Gangtok.

When we got to Jaipur I realized that we were just lucky for that first leg of the trip. Jaipur and Agra are on what I am calling the Tourist Loop. And, these poor kids are *$^&#ing everywhere. They are just begging or trying to charge you for a magic trick or they are trying to sell you postcards or pens or tiny Taj Mahals for next to nothing. Srsly, one girl was going to sell me 15 glass pens for about 2 dollars.

Dawn broke the rules once and gave two kids 10 rupees (25 cents) a piece, at which point a third kid materialized out of thin air. She was nearly tackled by the two who were now demanding money for the third. If she would have loosened her purse strings a second time, I am convinced that three kids would have become seven.

BTW, kids: 4 feet tall. Dawn: like, 6'4 or some shit. Kids win.

These little kids installed some fear into us...I'm not sure how I would've been able to handle a whole two weeks bombarded by them. Some of us even fell off of walls while trying to escape the perceived notion that they were rushing us. Ahem.



It doesn't do it justice to explain this experience to you on this blog. You have to understand our frustration: these kids followed us for at least ten minutes while we tried to get away from them.

The worst part was that you simultaneously felt so bad for them and also wanted to scream in their faces to leave you alone. It left you feeling pretty heartless, but also feeling justified in your heartlessness. Does that make sense?

Some things that I will really miss:

the kechup. dal makhani and dal tadka (black.) having a driver. fresh, fresh, fresh tea. kit kats for 26 cents. packaged foods being price regulated by the government. inexpensive tailor made clothing items. the crazy-ass driving. that hotel in Jaipur. mike and sam and our early morning breakfasts. all of the really nice people that i met. the tiny cars. the Nano. Gangtok.

Synopsis

A bunch of us went to witness Arijit, a.k.a. Deep, a.k.a. TripMasta, and Daisy get married in Arijit's hometown of Siliguri, West Bengal, INDIA. We flew from the states into Delhi, and then on a domestic "Spice Jet" to Siliguri. 8 of us (Me, Andy, Annette, Jay, Lisa, Vanessa, Sam, and the other Mike) were in Siliguri for almost a week before the four others (Anna, Dawn, Betsy and April) met us. The second week the TripMasta took us 12 plus Daisy and her parents on a journey to Gangtok in the Himalayan foothills and back to the tourist loop of Jaipur and Agra which are both just south of Delhi.

Coincidentally, my mom's good friends Sarah and Dave left for Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra two days after I got home.

It was the trip of a lifetime. Srsly.

(not pictured: Anna, and Dawn)

MAP: (Ignore the driving directions, I don't know how to get rid of them)


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You're proabably not getting anything: a primer on when not to shop in India

So, probably you aren't getting a souvenir from the trip so don't expect one.

Before I left, Angela showed me the blanket her friend had purchased for her in Nepal. She told me that she cherishes it and that it was cheap. I had already heard that other stuff was inexpensive too (I got a tailor made suit for about 180 bucks) so I thought to myself, "awesome. Empty suitcase, cheap stuff, amazing trip, I'll get a bunch of keepsakes for people. Said people will be happy and they will love me."

When Air France lost the empty suitcase borrowed from my mom on our flight there, I guess that was Universal Foreshadowing. Further reason to believe in signs.

Honestly, we didn't have a whole lot of time to shop. It seemed that if there was an opportunity, it happened to be a holiday or the "King of Communists" had died and there was a declared state of mourning and businesses were closed. In the case of Gangtok, up in Sikkim, we were unable to visit the government price controlled handicrafts store (pictured above) because it was Republic Day. That was the big bummer. Can you imagine all of my hippie-hearted friends with trinkets handmade by Tibetan Buddhists? It would've been like 6 year olds at Christmastime.

We did visit a textile place near the end of the trip in Jaipur that tried to pull the wool over our eyes (pun intended,) showing us the shop on the ground level where their goods were supposedly made which Arijit assured us was just a dog and pony show. Things there weren't so cheap...the place wasn't so willing to bargain when they saw 12 dollar signs with legs walk in (read: white people.) I bought some really beautiful things, mostly because at that point I was feeling desperate to leave the country with something even if I was paying Shakti or Art Gecko prices. At least I got it from India.

Oh yeah, I purchased a new suitcase to replace my mom's, as we didn't have time to pick up hers from the Bagdogra Airport, where Air France allegedly sent it. It was then allegedly sent back to Delhi. By the time we had a chance to inquire about it in Chicago, we found that there is no record of it having ever existed in the first place because the agent in Delhi never entered it into the computer system. Thank the good LORD in heaven that they lost the empty one.

HOME

So, here I am. Home. After another 16 hours of plane travel and a long (but clean) 6 hour layover at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, I had a refreshing night of sleep. When I woke up, I brushed my teeth with water from the faucet, had pancakes at Perkins, and drank coffee (coffee!) from EVP. Tonight I will eat a cheeseburger or some Glass Nickel pizza. Andy and I already split a gyro yesterday from Uncle Nicks in Rockford.

It's good to be home and breathe the air (how we take vehicle emissions standards for granted!) and to just be able to have some quiet refuge and time to relax. By the end of the trip I was definitely missing some things from home (mostly food - see above) and I was definitely tired of the noise and the exhaust and the massive throngs of people.

But, I kind of miss it already.

While I was gone, I wondered to myself how I would be able to explain how the trip was. I consider myself well-traveled, but this was so different than anything I have ever seen and have no idea how to speak any justice to my experience. I'm gonna try though.

I've got a bunch of time at work this week in the booth, and I still plan on writing about the trip and posting pictures...it will just be a couple of weeks later than I had originally intended.

If you have any specific questions, email me and I will try to answer them. It's easier to know what to say if I'm asked.