Today I asked The Kinks, "This time tomorrow, where will we be?" And they replied, "In a space ship somewhere, flying over an empty sea." That Ray Davies is a frickin genius. I assume that he was referring to my long-awaited journey to Thailand, which commences tomorrow after surviving and enjoying two months in India.
It's been a few weeks since I've written in my blog, mostly because I've been having the best time I've had on my travels thus far. I've noticed that there is an inverse relationship between happiness and writing. Thus, I'm hoping the next few years of my life don't produce a novel :)
Actually, happiness can produce lots of writing, you just have to wait a while for some free moments. Last we spoke, I was leaving Gokarna, hippie beach paradise. My only problem with the experience was that I mostly experienced it alone. There were other people everywhere, and I'd meet people while eating occasionally, but I didn't really get to know anyone or do anything that could be correctly classified as "hanging out". But that all changed as soon as I got to the train station en route to Kochi.
My train was delayed 5 hours, but that was fine because I had the greatest achievement of mankind in my pocket injecting musical medicine into my ears, and a few new acquaintances who would later be upgraded to the category of friends. I met an Irish-Italian couple, a Russian couple, and an Israeli guy while waiting. Actually, I never met the Israeli guy, but I witnessed him meeting the I-I couple. This is important, because when I got off the train, the three of them happened to meet up at the same spot where I exited the station, all bleary-eyed. We decided to find a hotel together, and the four of us checked into a nice homestay run by an old man who was too friendly. I say this because after breakfast we were hanging out on the roof when he came up and literally force fed us rice cakes, which I think strictly violated the "growth and maturity" goal of my travels. Anyway, the Israeli guy (named Ilan) and I split a room next to the Irish-Italian couple. The next couple days we wandered around Kochi, a nice quiet town at the northern end of the Keralan backwaters. I've never been so happy to be surrounded by Christianity, because unlike Hindus, Jesus taught that cows can fuck off for all he cared. Thanks to that nice man hanging out on a plus sign, I was able to enjoy a delicious three dollar steak for dinner my first night.
After a few days Ilan and took a trip on the backwaters, first taking a bus down to Alleppey, then renting a canoe paddled by a friendly old man. For lunch, we "randomly" stopped at a restaurant on some side canal, where we ran into two older Norwegian women I'd met in Varanasi. The last time I'd seen them was the day I was horribly sick. They said I looked much more "in the groove" this time. Even if my whole trip had been terrible in between, I would have looked this way anyway as all I had to do was lounge in a nice long canoe and enjoy the scenery. Even so, it was a nice reminder of how I'd adjusted to things in India.
Originally, I'd been planning to go to Madurai next, a large temple city further south. But after a few days with Ilan I noticed it was much easier to meet fellow travelers when you travel with an Israeli, because Israelis are all over India and tend to travel in groups when they meet up, even if they start as strangers. After having dinner with the first girls not attached to boyfriends since I got here, thanks to Ilan, I decided it might be a good idea to follow him to the next point on his itinerary. Plus he's a cool guy.
So that's how I ended up in Munnar, a place I'd never heard of, but certainly felt like destiny as I raced around its mountain curves on a moped, avoiding buses, motorbikes and stray cattle while I took in the breathtaking views and the breathtaking views took in my breath in a happy exchange. Munnar is a hill station (elevation 1600 m) developed by the Scottish a hundred years or so ago, and I've never seen anything like it. Due to the tea bushes or plants or whatever they are (hey, I'm not a botanist), all of the hills are so GREEEEN. And the weather is crisp and clear, like the third week in April in upstate New York.
On the way to Munnar we met another Israeli named Yohai (pronounced with a throat-clearing "h"). The three of us split a double-room for 500 rupees, roughly $2.50 a night each. I slept on a mattress on the floor. After hanging out in the fields for a day, we rented bicycles and traveled to a waterfall, where we met a Belgian named Eric. We got tired on the way back, and it was getting dark, so we paid some guy with a truck to take us back over the mountain while we rode in the back, which was almost as fun as biking (more fun since it was uphill).
The next day we rented motor scooters, which obviously aren't as cool as motorbikes, but if you've never driven any motorized bike of any sort, or on the left side of the road, or in the chaos of India, let alone its winding mountain roadways, it feels pretty bad ass. We rode up to the highest viewpoint the first day (where we ran into Eric again) and made it home just after dark. The next day we all needed some alone time, so I zoomed around wherever I felt like going, which is probably the most free I've ever felt in my life. I recall shaking an elephant's hand at some point during my travels.
My companions were heading on to Kodaikanal next, another hill station (2000 m) further south in the state of Tamil Nadu, so I decided to go with them. Three chaotic bus journeys later (the third of which imitated that scene in The Simpsons with the crowded train where all the Indians are running on and throwing their bags through the windows, and involved Ilan and I riding on the stairs by the open doorway as we wound around more mountain curves), we were in Kodaikanal. But the Israelis don't stay in Kodai, they stay in Vattakanal, an area 20 minutes away that isn't in any of the guidebooks. It's the side of a mountain where Indians rent "apartments" (very cold rooms) to mostly Israelis since they're the only ones who seem to know about it.
Our first night we stayed 1 km down the mountain steps in a large room with an attached space called a kitchen, sleeping on rugs passed off as mattresses. I cooked noodles in a metal cup heated on a candle because the firewood in this area has a strong held belief against combusting. After two days, we upgraded to a spot further up the mountain next to apartments with other Israelis. The three of us shared a room again, and I got used to cooking on a gas cooker and washing my clothes by hand in a bucket. The mornings were clear, but by 10 am white mist would cover everything, only to clear out once the Cheshire Cat Smile in the sky was triumphantly at its apex soon after dark, complemented nicely by some stars. There was a clothesline and spot for a fire out front, which was convenient save for the exceptionally stubborn firewood (even newspaper doesn't like to burn here). My last day I explored waterfalls and valley views with an Israeli girl I met the day before. On the way back up at the mountain at nightfall, we met a man from Bangalore who was wearing a shirt that read "I Smile Because I Have No Idea What's Going On", summing up my life philosophy perfectly. By the time I left Vattakanal, I knew many of my neighbors and oddly felt my first sense of community since I came to India. Yet I might as well have been in Israel.
On the 22nd, I bid farewell to Ilan and Yohai, with whom I had been traveling for 15 and 12 days respectively. It was great to have friends during the journey, even if at times I got sick of organizing things in a group. On one hand, we had much in common as we were Westerners experiencing an Eastern land as outsiders. On the other hand, we were very different, as I'd already been to college and working for 3 years, whereas every Israeli male I met had just finished mandatory military service and was enjoying the much expected voyage abroad before going to university ("you're an American?? But Americans don't travel anywhere! I haven't met any Americans! i thought India was an Israeli thing!"). Thus, although many of them had experienced dangerous situations which I can't imagine, there was a strange college freshman partying mentality that surrounded the area (as evidenced by the atrocious trance/techno music that other groups blared, disrupting the mountain peace that I assumed most people would come to Vatta for). But Yohai knew how to play Beatles and Bob Dylan songs on acoustic guitar, and we all sang Sweet Baby James by James Taylor around a campfire two nights before we all split up.
On the way to Madurai, I traveled via bus with an American-Israeli girl. She was on her way to Kerala by train upon arrival, but the bus ride was a nice methadone to ween us off constant companionship, as she had been traveling with another girl for 6 weeks and was now on her own. In Madurai, I met another American guy as soon as I checked into my hotel. By the end of the next day with him, I was starting to look forward to solitude again. Not because of him, but just because I realized how nice that can be when you're traveling the world. Some alone time does you good. It's all about the variety. Keep mixing it up.
After seeing an enormous temple complex in Madurai (my first temple entry since coming to India), I took a bus to Thanjavur, which most people don't know about. It's a decently sized city with a popular temple, but not many tourists come here. For me, it was a fitting way to end my travels in India.
You see, I have this thing about personal myths (see Joseph Campbell). And pyramids have entered their way into my myth (I'll explain this more some other time). And this temple had a pyramid-shaped top to it's main building. So I hung out within it's walls for about 5 hours until the moon and stars came out. While Tamils connected to the mystery of awe through organized chants, I did the same through watching the mostly-full moon align with the top of the pyramid, singing along to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots as I listened on my iPod.
One year ago, I was organizing Super Bowl hotel reservations for over 100 different employees of Sirius Satellite Radio and enduring verbal onslaught after onslaught from my boss about how important it was, even though I never made one mistake (the year before they outsourced the job to a specialized company who screwed things up). In 2010, I'm sitting barefoot by a pyramid temple in southern India, singing my favorite Flaming Lips song and posing for pictures with Indians who think they're the first person to tell me I resemble a popular picture of Jesus (I'm going to get a trim when I go to Thailand). I think this is what Joseph Campbell meant by "follow your bliss".
After Thanjavur I took a 9 hour bus to Chennai, India's fourth-largest city, endured a two hour wait at the train station, and boarded a 29 hour train to Calcutta. The train ride was actually really cool, because I had a window seat and great view of the landscape all day. No worries or distractions, just staring. When it got crowded in my berth, I stood in the open doorway near the end of the car and let the wind give me a Jesus-to-Cousin It makeover.
We arrived at 4 in the morning today. I split a cab with an older American from New Mexico and found a place to stay some time around 6 in the morning. Tomorrow I go to Thailand, which is where I wanted to go the whole time. But for some reason things drew me to India, and I'm happy they did.
So India is almost over for me. The first month was both awesome and hard as Hell, and the second month was just plain great. Let's go see what the Land of Smiles might bring. The scar on my arm is getting excited.
Peace
It's been a few weeks since I've written in my blog, mostly because I've been having the best time I've had on my travels thus far. I've noticed that there is an inverse relationship between happiness and writing. Thus, I'm hoping the next few years of my life don't produce a novel :)
Actually, happiness can produce lots of writing, you just have to wait a while for some free moments. Last we spoke, I was leaving Gokarna, hippie beach paradise. My only problem with the experience was that I mostly experienced it alone. There were other people everywhere, and I'd meet people while eating occasionally, but I didn't really get to know anyone or do anything that could be correctly classified as "hanging out". But that all changed as soon as I got to the train station en route to Kochi.
My train was delayed 5 hours, but that was fine because I had the greatest achievement of mankind in my pocket injecting musical medicine into my ears, and a few new acquaintances who would later be upgraded to the category of friends. I met an Irish-Italian couple, a Russian couple, and an Israeli guy while waiting. Actually, I never met the Israeli guy, but I witnessed him meeting the I-I couple. This is important, because when I got off the train, the three of them happened to meet up at the same spot where I exited the station, all bleary-eyed. We decided to find a hotel together, and the four of us checked into a nice homestay run by an old man who was too friendly. I say this because after breakfast we were hanging out on the roof when he came up and literally force fed us rice cakes, which I think strictly violated the "growth and maturity" goal of my travels. Anyway, the Israeli guy (named Ilan) and I split a room next to the Irish-Italian couple. The next couple days we wandered around Kochi, a nice quiet town at the northern end of the Keralan backwaters. I've never been so happy to be surrounded by Christianity, because unlike Hindus, Jesus taught that cows can fuck off for all he cared. Thanks to that nice man hanging out on a plus sign, I was able to enjoy a delicious three dollar steak for dinner my first night.
After a few days Ilan and took a trip on the backwaters, first taking a bus down to Alleppey, then renting a canoe paddled by a friendly old man. For lunch, we "randomly" stopped at a restaurant on some side canal, where we ran into two older Norwegian women I'd met in Varanasi. The last time I'd seen them was the day I was horribly sick. They said I looked much more "in the groove" this time. Even if my whole trip had been terrible in between, I would have looked this way anyway as all I had to do was lounge in a nice long canoe and enjoy the scenery. Even so, it was a nice reminder of how I'd adjusted to things in India.
Originally, I'd been planning to go to Madurai next, a large temple city further south. But after a few days with Ilan I noticed it was much easier to meet fellow travelers when you travel with an Israeli, because Israelis are all over India and tend to travel in groups when they meet up, even if they start as strangers. After having dinner with the first girls not attached to boyfriends since I got here, thanks to Ilan, I decided it might be a good idea to follow him to the next point on his itinerary. Plus he's a cool guy.
So that's how I ended up in Munnar, a place I'd never heard of, but certainly felt like destiny as I raced around its mountain curves on a moped, avoiding buses, motorbikes and stray cattle while I took in the breathtaking views and the breathtaking views took in my breath in a happy exchange. Munnar is a hill station (elevation 1600 m) developed by the Scottish a hundred years or so ago, and I've never seen anything like it. Due to the tea bushes or plants or whatever they are (hey, I'm not a botanist), all of the hills are so GREEEEN. And the weather is crisp and clear, like the third week in April in upstate New York.
On the way to Munnar we met another Israeli named Yohai (pronounced with a throat-clearing "h"). The three of us split a double-room for 500 rupees, roughly $2.50 a night each. I slept on a mattress on the floor. After hanging out in the fields for a day, we rented bicycles and traveled to a waterfall, where we met a Belgian named Eric. We got tired on the way back, and it was getting dark, so we paid some guy with a truck to take us back over the mountain while we rode in the back, which was almost as fun as biking (more fun since it was uphill).
The next day we rented motor scooters, which obviously aren't as cool as motorbikes, but if you've never driven any motorized bike of any sort, or on the left side of the road, or in the chaos of India, let alone its winding mountain roadways, it feels pretty bad ass. We rode up to the highest viewpoint the first day (where we ran into Eric again) and made it home just after dark. The next day we all needed some alone time, so I zoomed around wherever I felt like going, which is probably the most free I've ever felt in my life. I recall shaking an elephant's hand at some point during my travels.
My companions were heading on to Kodaikanal next, another hill station (2000 m) further south in the state of Tamil Nadu, so I decided to go with them. Three chaotic bus journeys later (the third of which imitated that scene in The Simpsons with the crowded train where all the Indians are running on and throwing their bags through the windows, and involved Ilan and I riding on the stairs by the open doorway as we wound around more mountain curves), we were in Kodaikanal. But the Israelis don't stay in Kodai, they stay in Vattakanal, an area 20 minutes away that isn't in any of the guidebooks. It's the side of a mountain where Indians rent "apartments" (very cold rooms) to mostly Israelis since they're the only ones who seem to know about it.
Our first night we stayed 1 km down the mountain steps in a large room with an attached space called a kitchen, sleeping on rugs passed off as mattresses. I cooked noodles in a metal cup heated on a candle because the firewood in this area has a strong held belief against combusting. After two days, we upgraded to a spot further up the mountain next to apartments with other Israelis. The three of us shared a room again, and I got used to cooking on a gas cooker and washing my clothes by hand in a bucket. The mornings were clear, but by 10 am white mist would cover everything, only to clear out once the Cheshire Cat Smile in the sky was triumphantly at its apex soon after dark, complemented nicely by some stars. There was a clothesline and spot for a fire out front, which was convenient save for the exceptionally stubborn firewood (even newspaper doesn't like to burn here). My last day I explored waterfalls and valley views with an Israeli girl I met the day before. On the way back up at the mountain at nightfall, we met a man from Bangalore who was wearing a shirt that read "I Smile Because I Have No Idea What's Going On", summing up my life philosophy perfectly. By the time I left Vattakanal, I knew many of my neighbors and oddly felt my first sense of community since I came to India. Yet I might as well have been in Israel.
On the 22nd, I bid farewell to Ilan and Yohai, with whom I had been traveling for 15 and 12 days respectively. It was great to have friends during the journey, even if at times I got sick of organizing things in a group. On one hand, we had much in common as we were Westerners experiencing an Eastern land as outsiders. On the other hand, we were very different, as I'd already been to college and working for 3 years, whereas every Israeli male I met had just finished mandatory military service and was enjoying the much expected voyage abroad before going to university ("you're an American?? But Americans don't travel anywhere! I haven't met any Americans! i thought India was an Israeli thing!"). Thus, although many of them had experienced dangerous situations which I can't imagine, there was a strange college freshman partying mentality that surrounded the area (as evidenced by the atrocious trance/techno music that other groups blared, disrupting the mountain peace that I assumed most people would come to Vatta for). But Yohai knew how to play Beatles and Bob Dylan songs on acoustic guitar, and we all sang Sweet Baby James by James Taylor around a campfire two nights before we all split up.
On the way to Madurai, I traveled via bus with an American-Israeli girl. She was on her way to Kerala by train upon arrival, but the bus ride was a nice methadone to ween us off constant companionship, as she had been traveling with another girl for 6 weeks and was now on her own. In Madurai, I met another American guy as soon as I checked into my hotel. By the end of the next day with him, I was starting to look forward to solitude again. Not because of him, but just because I realized how nice that can be when you're traveling the world. Some alone time does you good. It's all about the variety. Keep mixing it up.
After seeing an enormous temple complex in Madurai (my first temple entry since coming to India), I took a bus to Thanjavur, which most people don't know about. It's a decently sized city with a popular temple, but not many tourists come here. For me, it was a fitting way to end my travels in India.
You see, I have this thing about personal myths (see Joseph Campbell). And pyramids have entered their way into my myth (I'll explain this more some other time). And this temple had a pyramid-shaped top to it's main building. So I hung out within it's walls for about 5 hours until the moon and stars came out. While Tamils connected to the mystery of awe through organized chants, I did the same through watching the mostly-full moon align with the top of the pyramid, singing along to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots as I listened on my iPod.
One year ago, I was organizing Super Bowl hotel reservations for over 100 different employees of Sirius Satellite Radio and enduring verbal onslaught after onslaught from my boss about how important it was, even though I never made one mistake (the year before they outsourced the job to a specialized company who screwed things up). In 2010, I'm sitting barefoot by a pyramid temple in southern India, singing my favorite Flaming Lips song and posing for pictures with Indians who think they're the first person to tell me I resemble a popular picture of Jesus (I'm going to get a trim when I go to Thailand). I think this is what Joseph Campbell meant by "follow your bliss".
After Thanjavur I took a 9 hour bus to Chennai, India's fourth-largest city, endured a two hour wait at the train station, and boarded a 29 hour train to Calcutta. The train ride was actually really cool, because I had a window seat and great view of the landscape all day. No worries or distractions, just staring. When it got crowded in my berth, I stood in the open doorway near the end of the car and let the wind give me a Jesus-to-Cousin It makeover.
We arrived at 4 in the morning today. I split a cab with an older American from New Mexico and found a place to stay some time around 6 in the morning. Tomorrow I go to Thailand, which is where I wanted to go the whole time. But for some reason things drew me to India, and I'm happy they did.
So India is almost over for me. The first month was both awesome and hard as Hell, and the second month was just plain great. Let's go see what the Land of Smiles might bring. The scar on my arm is getting excited.
Peace
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