Hari Hari, Hari Krishna, Rama Rama, Ramakrishna

So it's the end of my yoga ashram time, and I end up sharing a cab to the train station with this American guy from NYC I meet who is a Ramakrishnan devotee. If you want to read about the whole yoga ashram experience up to this point, read my previous blog posts Getting to Rishikesh, India and My Yoga Ashram Spiritual Experience in Rishikesh, India.

When I wake up at the ungodly hour of 4am to catch a cab to the train station, I soon get a call from this guy I've meet. It's been 2 months since this actually happened at the time of this writing so I don't remember his name, but I know met I met him he introduced himself with a complicated indian sounding name, but I later got it out of him that he has an English name too that he stopped using once he became a Ramakrishnan devotee. I'll call him Tom from now on.

On the phone I tell him I'm about to go pick him up at our specified place.

Me: "I'll see you soon"

Tom: "See you soon at the mercy of Ramakrishna."

Me: "Ok..."

Tom: "We'll be in front of the building in 5 minutes with the mercy of Ramakrishna."

Me: "Ok...see ya."

So we pick him up and him and his friend join me for the ride over. I'm sitting in the front, his friend is sitting behind me, and he's sitting in the other backseat. Other than introducing myself to his friend, I didn't speak to him at all. I just started talking with Tom. We do some traveling small talk like where we're going and what we're doing, but it quickly comes up about his life as a devotee. He talks about places he's been to promote Ramakrishna and how I should go to visit some of the Iskcon temples near Agra. At some point I mention I'm Jewish, and he says he's Jewish too. He seems to think of the Judaism religion and his devotion to Ramakrishna as distinct, separate things that both describe him, but he talks like Ramakrishnan plays a more major role in his life.

The entire time we're talking, I'm noticing that his friend sitting behind me has been mumbling under his breath. He's saying something like "Hari Krishna Ramakrishna Hari Hari Hari Krishna" really fast. It sounds like what they were singing with their song the night before. I ask Tom what he's doing back there, and says he's showing his respect for Ramakrishnan. Starting this conversation doesn't even phase his friend, who continues to mumble his respect. Tom says that every day, as devotees, they need to pay their respect to Ramakrishnan by essentially just repetitively saying his name for 2 hours. 2 hours every day!! I'm aghast with this new information, but Tom continues on.

Tom: "Usually I wake up at about 4:30am every morning so I can meet everyone for the group prayer at 5am. That's done by 6am so I then have 2 hours to pay my respects before it's even 8am. It works well for me."

In my head: "Whoa, how do you have time for anything else...and sleeping. Quite the devotee..."

Me: "Ok..."

I'm really in disbelief at this point. I could never handle something like that. We finally get to the train station, and I kind of want to shake them before he tries even more to make me a devotee. I hope they aren't on the same train as me. They're headed to New Delhi, and I'm going to Agra a bit farther south than Delhi. We pay and I say goodbye and maybe I'll see ya later. Then I head off to find my seat on the train while they're getting their luggage out of the taxi.

It's still super early, about 6am, so I find my sleeper seat next to a family of four and pass out.

I wake up a bit later, more refreshed at about 10am. The train doesn't get to agra until about 3pm or so, so I have a bit of time to chill. Soon afterwards while I'm hanging out, Tom walks by! We say hi to each other and he comes to sit down. He comes with food though, so I'm ok with that. He starts giving me fresh dates, mmm, weird "packed with vitamin c" fruit, and some kind of weird nuts. After the food he gives me a little book that's an Into to Ramakrishna. I took it so as not to be rude, but I left it at the next hostel I stayed at. He continues to tell me that I should go to another one of these "holy" cities. I've definitely had enough of the holy cities with Rishikesh, but there's this one he keeps talking about north of Agra that has all sorts of temples and is the birthplace of Ramakrishna.

At one point he starts showing me some pictures and videos on his iPad of places he went with other devotees to spread the word. At one point he was talking about how Russia was trying to ban the Ramakrishan book, and they organized a parade to protest that. I asked why they would try to ban it, and his answer was pretty much that he didn't know. I haven't done too much research into it, but I think he knew but was in somewhat denial that the teachings are kind of a cult religion that Russia doesn't want its citizens being a part of. But then again that's religious freedom, right?

I also realized that when I was in New Delhi, I actually ended up going to an Iskcon temple. We got drawn in from the noticeable architecture(check it out on wikipedia) and it ended up having a party going on when we arrived. Once I thought about it they must've been singing the same song they always sing. I showed Tom pictures and he mentioned that's where he was going in New Delhi as well.

I'll take this time to describe the look of Tom. He only had on an orange robe and some kind of sandals or flip flops (I don't remember). The robe wasn't at all like robes monks wear, it didn't seem to out of the ordinary. He also had an interesting haircut. His head was mostly bald with just the top of his head with hair in a little tiny pony tail. On the front of his face he had some painting from the top of his nose up to his forehead. It looked like a little bit extra on top of what most Indians have with just the dot on their forehead. Since we'd been traveling all morning the paint looked like it was crumbling off his skin a bit. I asked him how often he re-applied it, and the answer led to even more interesting facts as I asked for clarification.

He said that he reapplied it after every shower. Well how much does he shower? 3-5 times a day! Whoa. He can't use soap every time right? There's no need. Well actually he doesn't use soap at all. Actually he showers with 2 towels. One he keeps dry and hangs on a hook. The other he actually wears into the shower. So he doesn't actually shower naked, he says he thinks it's disrespectful to Lord Krishna. After he showers by just rubbing down his body with water, he drys himself with the dry towel and then wipes himself down with the wet towel. He says he thinks he gets a better clean that way (by using the wet towel afterwards). Radical, I tell you.

Every time I hear another answer to a clarifying question I'm more and more surprised. That is the weirdest shower routine I have ever heard of. Anyway, he puts back on his face paint after every shower.

We talk about a few other things, but nothing as interesting as what I wrote here. His stop at Delhi came up before too long so we said our goodbyes and I had some time to enjoy my last train(and yummy meal) before I headed off to the rest of my trip in Rajasthan, India!

My Yoga Ashram Spiritual Experience in Rishikesh, India

Read my post of Getting to Rishikesh to find out why and how I went to Rishikesh, India in the first place. Recommended to read first.

Anyway, so I arrive at Rishikesh at 5am, kind of tired from not sleeping a lot and from the crazy epic day I had before. (As I said, go read Getting to Rishikesh).

I show up at the Yoga Ashram I have booked at 5am, and everything is very quiet. But it's not because no one's around. People are around, but no one is talking and it's completely silent. I have some booking problems because it was double booked or something like that so I end up in another hotel around the corner...whatever at least it had a nice view of the mountains.

I find a little schedule paper at the front of the ashram. Since it's Sunday, it's the only day that there isn't a set schedule. The whole day has no official yoga sessions, but you can do free yoga and meditation from 5am to 8am in the upstairs studio. Since it's just about that time, I go up there and do my own thing, as well as watching and listening to what other people are doing. Only a few people struck me as odd. One guy was just laying down breathing weird (really just breathing exercises I have discovered), and a few other people were laying down probably in shavasana. After a while of that I explore the ashram a little, they have a nice rooftop with a great few of the mountains, so I watch the sun rise.

All this time I've heard not a word from anyone. I think something's up, but I'm not sure what. I tried to take a few pictures of myself and then a girl sees me and offers to do it for me. The first words I've heard spoken all day! We talk for a little, and I tell her that I'm new here, but she doesn't tell me about this silent time I have yet to completely understand.

As you can see by the picture it was also a bit cool in the night and morning, but got nice during the day. "Om" in hindi was written on the wall on the roof. Anyway, I hang out for a little longer, get weird looks and no words from people if I try to talk to them, and finally it's 8am for breakfast. We go into this room with little stools that are actually tables for the meal. We sit on the floor and wait while our meal is served by the volunteers who are training to become yoga instructors. Still in silence. By this time I know better than to speak, it's obviously some kind of silent time. Breakfast goes by in complete silence...only the clatters of spoons and dishes as people ate.

Breakfast consisted of dates (which were pretty hard and not fresh, so it took a few days until I actually knew what they were considering I wasn't supposed to talk during breakfast and by the end I would usually forget to ask), some main course like a somosa or some kind of rice or oatmeal dish. Maybe an orange sometimes (like in the picture, yes it's actually an orange). Whatever it was it was vegan and healthy. I had to make sure to finish my first course by the time the servers came around with seconds so I could maximize the amount of food I got at every meal...there was rarely enough to really fill me up.

Finally breakfast is over and it's time for the real day to start. People start talking, people are friendly, it's nice and relaxing. Ahh I'm at the yoga ashram.

Every day but Sunday there is a set schedule at the Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram:
5:30 am - optional meditation time
6:00 am - morning yoga session (usually lasts until 7:45ish)
8:00 am - breakfast
8:30 am - some kind of chanting and singing session around a fire
9:00 am - silent time ends
12:00 pm - lunch
4:00 pm - afternoon yoga session (usually lasts until 5:45ish)
6:00 pm - dinner
7:30 pm - tea time
9:00 pm - silent time starts
9:30 pm - ashram doors close and lock (curfew! I don't even know when they open again, maybe 5am?)

Since there isn't really a set schedule for anything on Sunday, I decided to go rafting on the river Ganges that Sunday. It was actually a lot of fun, except for the fact that my camera broke...and I still don't even think it was water damage that did it in. Everything was in the dry bag, and the rafting guides started to open it up to take pictures of us at times. The first time they did it they I got my camera out for them, but then they did it another time without asking, and he comes up to me and asks, "Is the battery dead?" I had put a new one in the day before or so, so it definitely shouldn't have been dead, but the camera was off with the lens stuck open. It never did anything ever again. Fortunately insurance paid to get a new one, but I didn't find the same one until I got to Hong Kong a week or two later. Here's the last picture he took before it broke (some of the other pictures are from my phone cam).

The actual rafting was some of the best rafting I'd done in a while. Nice big rapids with clean, crisp, cold water, since in Rishikesh the water comes straight from the Himalayas. The guides were even drinking it. They even had a little break with (small) cliff jumping and guys selling cookies and making you ramen masala they call Maggi. Mmm it was tasty.

I made it back for dinner and some socializing with some other folks at the ashram, but people go to bed soon after dinner since you have to wake up at 4-5am for morning yoga!

The days of the real yoga ashram were busier than I thought! Since it was raining the first morning, we went to the downstairs studio since the upstairs studio would be really loud with the clattering rain.

The downstairs studio is, however, much smaller, and it could barely hold everyone. Because of this I thought, it was a much more relaxed session with lots of...actually I barely remember because I was half passed out the entire time. That'll happen at 6am yoga when you're laying down on a comfy mat. There was a lot more chanting that I was used to, where we said "Ommmmmmmmmmmmm. Shaan-ti, shaan-ti, shaan-tiiiiii. Ommmmmmm." There was also a lot of breathing exercises, where we had to practically hyperventilate ourselves breathing in and out only through our noses.

All the other morning yoga sessions were up in the upstairs studio, with the sun streaming in mid-session as the sun rose. They also had a bit more physical activity yoga, but still always a bit of chanting and breathing to do as well.

The chanting session after breakfast was also interesting. A few people would sit around a fire as a leader changed songs and we threw spices and oil into the fire. I'm still not quite sure what it was all about.

The afternoon yoga sessions are usually less crowded or near empty, since many people just don't show up for it or do their own practice (so they just go to the rooftop and practice on their own for a while), so the afternoon sessions are in the downstairs studio. I didn't want to miss this, since I was only here for a few days I wanted to get all the yoga I could out of it!

In the breaks between yoga sessions, I usually just hung out with others from the ashram. We went up to a monk temple to see a view of the distant Himalayas. You can see them waaay in the distance.

We went over to the beach of the river Ganges. The girl and guy in the right of this picture were tasked with dunking themselves into the river Ganges every day as part of their yoga teachings...so they jumped in clothes and all. It was pretty cold too.

I also played a little ukulele and met some Indian guy who was doing some sort of ritual washing.

We also explored the town a bit. The easiest way to explore the town was to cross this "walking" bridge over the Ganges over to some area with some main shops. You'd think it would be a nice relaxing walk over the river, but thanks to all the motobikes that were apparently allowed to cross it as well, it was the most stressful part of the walk. The motobikes would go down this path, honking at all the pedestrians to get out of their way and zooming past them. Very few were actually considerate in not beeping as much and going a little slower. Whew, oh India.

And once you got across this bridge, it was this small street that could only fit one car through, lined with nice shops. But again, there were no rules against cars and motobikes driving through, so there was just constant honking from all the vehicles trying to get through, and you could often not even hear yourself think as people held down their horns, even in the shops. So much for getting away from the city!

I also ended up unfortunately spending much of my extra time trying to book a train ticket away from Rishikesh. Like getting my ticket to Rishikesh, it was difficult because it was booked and I had to wait until 24 hours before it left and then go to a travel agency to have them do it for me. Once I knew what to do it was ok, but no one had any good info so I tried in vain for a few days before I finally got it (the day before I left).

Another thing to note is that Rishikesh is a meat and alcohol free town! Although that did make it easy to go to sleep after dinner since I knew there was no nightlife at all, and I had to wake up at 4 or 5am to do it all again. Here I am with the head yogi of the ashram.

On my last night of the yoga ashram, there was a special event where a Hari Krishna group was going to come and play some music. They set up their equipment in the upstairs studio and after dinner people started to flock in.

They sang their songs (or should I say song) and told stories about Hari Krishna and Ramakrishna. The song was pretty much the same thing but with sometimes a different tune. You can probably find it on Google somewhere. I had no idea what this was about (seemingly a common occurrence of Rishikesh in hindsight while writing this...I don't know why I didn't ask more questions. I think the answers didn't make much sense), but apparently it's some sort of religion? But not really? I still don't completely understand. Anyway, we sang and danced and had a good time, and at some point one of the guys mentioned he was headed out on a train the next morning. I had to go to the train station at around that time too, and a taxi was kind of expensive because of the distance, so I approached him about sharing a cab. I already had a cab set up, so I agreed to pick him up the next morning after I caught it at 4am. There's a whole nother story about my experience with this Hari Krishna guy, written in my next blog post here.

Getting to Rishikesh, India...the worst day ever

About halfway through my trip in India, I noticed that the spiritual experience that I thought would come to me naturally wasn't happening. I had to do something about this, but I didn't know what. I was thinking about heading north to one of the towns with a spiritual reputation, but some of those places would take a bit of time to actually get there. On my flight to New Delhi, I sat next to another American who was going to Rishikesh to practice yoga and become an instructor. Perfect. I picked his brain and found out that Rishikesh was only 4-5 hours away from New Delhi, among other things. We also talked a lot about burning man, and he told me of his experiences there the last few years. I can't wait to do that next year! Burning man 2013!

Anyway, I decided I was going to Rishikesh, but as with most things in India, booking a train ticket was a complete mess. The servers never work so you can't book anything (actually you can't anyway because they don't accept foreign credit cards) and travel agents can't book anything and...you get the picture. So after spending the day and night in New Delhi I decided to just show up at the train station for a train that was booked. They were always all booked, and the guys at the hostel said that I could just get a standing room ticket or something even if it was full. What a mess I was about to get into. I may not remember all the specifics because it's been about 2 months now at the time of this writing and it's a somewhat repressed memory hah.

So I show up at 2:30pm or so hoping to get a ticket for the 3:30pm train. The train station is bustling with Indians, not a foreigner in sight. I tried to go to a line that said "Current Reservation & Cancellation", and after fighting my way through the throngs of indians trying to cut in front of me I finally made it to the front where everyone was yelling and trying to get standing room like me I think. Everyone around me spoke only Hindi.

The lady didn't really understand English either so when I got to it she wasn't much help for me either, but she told me to go upstairs and I could do it there. So I go upstairs, and on the way I see a tourist office. I go into the nice, peaceful, empty office and talk to the lady there who speaks some English, but she pretty much tells me everything is full and says I should go to platform 1 where there's this tourist office of some sort. I don't really understand though because it seems like I'm in a tourist office. She also doesn't stress really how important it was to go to this specific tourist office.

Anyway I go upstairs and wait in another line, this time a few Indians try to help me and talk to Hindi with the people who tell me to go there, and then not there, but there, and then not there, but downstairs to where I was in the first place! I think by this point it's past 3:30pm so now I'm just trying to get any train to Rishikesh. Really though you're going to Haridwar, which is a city nearby, and then taking a taxi to Rishikesh since there's only 1 train a day directly to Rishikesh. So I go back downstairs and talk to them again after fighting through the line, and this time the lady can speak a bit more English and starts telling me all the trains later in the day that I can catch, but I can't book them with her. No, I have to go to a different train station to try to book it there. Seems like a pain. I leave again with just a note of train numbers and names of the station they leave at.

Picture of homeless people at the train station:

Now I go back to the tourist office I went to in the first place and she tells me again to go to this other tourist office, and I really have nothing left to try unless I want to go to another train station so I made the trek over there. It was quite a walk since I had to go upstairs and around and across 16 platforms to the other side where I finally started seeing signs for the foreign tourist ticket office. On my walk over there I encountered another clueless foreign tourist and I just told him to follow me. I finally arrive and I feel like I've walked into heaven. Quiet, calm, and people actually selling tickets. Seriously I'm not sure if there were any tickets being sold to anyone in the other area of the train station, it was like hell. So back in heaven, I see other foreigners who speak English and we all talk about our crazy experiences of finding this office. I think by this time it's now 4:30 or later, and it's taken me 2 hours to find this place haha. I was also somewhat stubborn in not going to it when I first heard about it, but then again I thought it was going to be the same as the messes I was in before. So I fill out a form of what I want, and wait in a small line to buy my ticket.

While in this line, I'm approached by another foreigner who turns out to be an American from Boston. He tells me he's studying there and he wants to go someplace (I don't remember where), but the train is booked for the Indian quota and they won't sell him a ticket here because he doesn't have a tourist visa, he has a student visa (so I think they have special tickets at this tourist office that they sell only to tourists even if the train is "full" with the Indian quota or something like that...I'm still not really sure how it all works). I see where this is headed, but I keep listening. He wants me to buy him the ticket using my name and passport number. Right about then it's my turn and I kind of tell him I'll think about it and go to the desk.

The guy shows me my options, and I begin to realize how this all works. First of all some of the trains I was thinking about catching are only on certain days of the week. That's was displayed on computers using a nondescript dash system with 7 dashes and the first letter of the days at the top, so it's easy to miss among the hecticness of nearby hell. So the next train is actually a night train that leaves at 10pm and gets in around 4am. Fine, I guess I'm doing the overnight. I get a second class sleeper and it's pretty cheap, I think under $10 or so.

So now that I have my ticket, I look at it to find no indication of my name or passport anywhere, and decide what the hell I'll help out a fellow citizen, especially since he offered to slightly compensate me for the risk and inconvenience. So I fill out another form with him telling me what to put in and I sketchily buy a ticket using his money. Whew, I have a ticket, he has a ticket, everyone's happy. Except now it's 5pm or so and my train isn't for 5 hours.

So we go downstairs back to hell and find the cloak room so I can drop off my bag, since I've been carrying it around this entire time and it's killing me. There's also a crazy line for that with everyone just cutting everyone because really there is no line. Another 30 minutes passes before I actually get my bag in there. Boston says that there's a nice rooftop restaurant nearby, so we leave hell and make it to a nice rooftop bar for some food.

Now we say our goodbyes and I explore the city a little bit more with the time I have left. This is another series of stressful experiences with tuk tuk drivers and cycle rickshaws trying to rip me off and screw at every opportunity possible, as well as getting chased at and barked at by crazy probably rabies infested dogs. Whatever, I eventually make it back to the train station for my train, catch it, meet a cool Japanese guy, sleep a little, and wake up literally at 4:02am and realize that the train is stopped at the station and I have to get off at that moment. Boom fast pack-up (not much I didn't really unpack) and escape from the train before it leaves the Haridwar station. I take my overpriced taxi ride into town, a little less than an hour away, and make it to Rishikesh by sunrise at about 5am.

To find out more about what happens once I arrive in Rishikesh, see my next blog post on My Yoga Ashram Spiritual Experience in Rishikesh, India.

Shipping souvenirs home and some shopping in India

Since I only have 2 generally small backpacks, if I'm going to have any souvenirs from this trip I have to start sending things home. I can usually carry a few extra things in my backpacks before they get too full, but I've already sent 3 boxes home in the 2 months I've been gone.

The first 2 I sent from Brazil, and they didn't actually have too many things in it since I didn't go so big on the shopping. Fortunately I found a post office in the international airport, so it was easy to just stop there once when I arrived (to send everything from Peru and Bolivia) and once before I went to India (to send everything from Brazil and Argentina). Those boxes made it home in under 2 weeks with the cheapest shipping option, I figure they drove it up to Texas through Central America maybe? Shipping things in Brazil was a familiar experience, not at all like India.

In India, sending a box home was done like I would have never expected. Once I got all my souvenirs together, my friend Jaclyn and I went over to the post office. First you have to go to the packer dude. He takes all your stuff and packs it so it's ready for shipping. We expected he would pack it a box...this was not the case. He took my stuff, organized it a little more, and then put it back in the plastic bag I gave it to him in. Then he wrapped it tight in string how you would wrap a gift. Once he did that he took some white cloth he had handy and started to sew a little bag. Once sewn enough he put my plastic bag in it and finished sewing it shut. Now it was pretty much just my stuff in a white bag, and he wrote "To" and "Sender" on the cloth. It was then that I realized there was going to be no box.

I asked about boxes, but this guy was very noncommunative the entire time, so he continued to be of little help. He managed to say "market" though while shaking his head when we asked about boxes. Oh well! I wrote the info and then he told me I needed a customs slip. I never needed a customs slip in Brazil, but this is India. I filled out a few of the things that I remembered to put in the box and gave it to him. He folded up my customs slip and sewed a little piece of string to the cloth that he slipped the paper under. It looked like it could fall out any moment haha. We pretty much stood there in awe the entire time. Oh I almost forgot. After sewing the cloth, he lit a candle and then took a stick of wax and made stamped seals all along the seams of the package. I guess this would make sure it was tamper proof, still it was quite the process. It almost seemed like an ancient ritual with the burning wax and everything.

Here's what mine looked like when it was done.

So now we have our packages and we manage to get him to tell us where to go next, which is window 4 or 5 right behind us where the lines are. We practiced balancing our packages on our head while waiting in line, but it was much harder than all the Indians made it look!

Behind us then came another guy with a white cloth package. He stood behind us for a few seconds, and then proceeded to walk behind the post office desk (!?) and put it down next to the teller behind the window, and then walk back to us. As he was doing that, we were thinking maybe packages can be done different from regular mail or maybe there was a different line for foreigners, so Jaclyn went to ask. He told her to go behind the desk and talk to the teller directly. So she essentially just cut the line and had the teller do her entire transaction behind the desk. Wtf? Anyway, once she started paying I left my spot in line and followed suit. Again essentially cutting the line and paying for my package while all the Indians in line stood there with unsurprised looks on their faces behind the glass window. Never in the US would they let anyone step foot behind the desk haha.

I sent my package by SAL mail, which I think means by boat, so we'll see how long it really takes as a cargo ship goes 20 knots (maybe not even?) across the Atlantic ocean. I hear 3 months or so. Hah I'll practically be done with my trip by then! But it was only 1300 rupees which comes out to about 28 USD. For 4 kg(about 9 lbs) I say that's a bargain! It cost me $30-45 to send both of my Brazil boxes and they were significantly lighter. India was cheap so I could get flip flops, pants, shirts, and other random things for all $5 or less each. Maybe $6-10 if the vendor was really stubborn.

Of course you have to bargain hard to get those prices. They still start at prices that aren't that bad if you convert them to USD, but still a rip off compared to what they're worth. They all want higher margins. (Prices in rupees 50 rupees = 1 USD) They would start out at 900 and I'd bring them down to 250. If I really showed that I didn't want them I could get 150 or 200 from something that started at 600-1000. Sometimes they would even start at 1200 or so for something you could get for 200, it was ridiculous. After spending a few hours shopping I really got the hang of the bargaining thing. I could talk them down real quickly. I was with Jaclyn at the markets, and there was one store we had the most epic bargaining session ever. The vendor started out at 1450 and she retaliated with 650 (for multiple items here). They argued with each other for minutes, only moving by 50 at a time until it ended up at 900 where they both agreed haha. It was quite the scene.

 

 

Transportation in India. Trains, planes, buses, and cars!

I've heard great things about the Indian Railway service, and it is a fully functional service that connects many places in India, but my experience shows that there is much to be improved! I'm still not sure how they do the bookings, but I hear that the available tickets are divided up and given out to different agencies, so if one agency says that train is full, it may not actually be full. Since I've been mostly booking fairly last minute trains, all the agencies/websites I asked said it was full. Then people told me that there are general admission cars on the train, which I think means that people can get in it as long as they can fit, kind of like a subway or local metro. There's also another kind of ticket, called Tatkal, which you can only get 24 hours before departure. It's pretty much all the leftover tickets that weren't sold at all the different agencies, so if they're out of tatkal tickets then it's actually full, but it can be quite frustrating.

Booking agencies can book for you, but as I said they might be full for their quota.

There's also tons of different kind of classes. I don't understand them, I just took second class ac the few times I took the train.

The bathroom in the train was literally a squat hole to the ground underneath the train. So the train track is essentially a bathroom, that'll keep people from walking on the tracks haha.

The meal was tasty!

Buses were much more fun and easy to use. Of course the bus stops aren't marked and the buses sometimes don't stop moving haha. Maybe I'll write more of my story later.

India is cheap! Sometimes.

When I went to Bolivia I thought it was cheap, but then I got to india. 50 rupees is 1 dollar here. Most countries I've been to the prices are maybe a little cheaper while still being equivalent to what I would spend back home. It's different here. I can get a little sandwich on the street for less than 10 rupees. I can get a package of cookies for less than 10 rupees. I can get a taxi ride a kilometer for about 20 rupees. That's pocket change in America.

Since things are so ridiculously cheap compared to what I'm used to, the vendors, taxi drivers, and the like catch on to this and start charging prices that I'm used to. A taxi ride that could easily be 20 rupees will cost 100 rupees once he sees the color of my skin and hears my accent. Even if I know the going rate I sometimes can't reach it since they know I have more than that as a budget. The only time I consistently get a fair price is for street food in less touristy areas. Usually 15 rupees or less for something pretty tasty, it's hard to resist.

Of course when you're buying from people on the street, it's usually a lower class business. Everyone on the street nearly without fail takes my money and then gives me my food with the same hand. The first time it happened I was surprised, but I was also hungry! And now it just happens regularly and what can I do? Also, to save money they usually wrap it in newspaper or magazine paper. Kind of gross considering I know what happens to my fingers after I read a newspaper for a while...they turn black from all the ink rubbing off on them. But that's just the norm here! Mmm a little newspaper ink with lunch.

Now even though there are things that are cheap, there's also a higher class in India that can afford prices like I'm used to, and there are establishments that cater to these people. They usually have a much nicer atmosphere at these places, and the people there are more likely to speak english and there definitely won't be anyone begging. At these places you could have an entree that's almost 10 USD or more, but sometimes it's worth it to get some high quality food and sanitary measures.

 

Incredible India

After traveling through South America for over a month, I started to see a lot of the same in the general culture of all the South American countries. This led to believe that India might just be another foreign country to me, but boy was I wrong. As many people say, the first thing I noticed when I came out of the Mumbai airport was the smell. Quite interesting, a mix of auto fumes and sewage...not something you'd want to smell.

On the taxi ride to my friend's house the different India became even more apparent. We passed by some places (usually near water) where the smell was almost unbearable and I was trying to hold my breath. Traffic was also the worst I've ever seen. There are practically no rules, and everyone honks all the time. I mean all the time. Never in my life have I heard this much honking, and if you're a pedestrian it's right in your face. The traffic lights are sometimes followed, but sometimes people just go, honk a few times, and the other people have to stop anyway to avoid an accident. On turns everyone is cutting everyone off so it's not even a big deal.

Oh yeah, and they drive on the left side of the road. I have to remember to look the other way or I'll get run over. After being here a few weeks I think I've gotten it down, but it really threw me off for the first few days. Even as a pedestrian I can actually walk across the street whenever I want. People may honk at me but they'll stop nontheless, usually drivers are more on the lookout for this kind of stuff. Of course I don't try to do that, although I've been in a hurry a few times and it works like a charm. There are also very few sidewalks, and if they're there it's usually so crowded many people are walking on the street anyway.

I've come to dread being on the street in any form. Walking is stressful and loud, sitting in a taxi is also stressful and loud if I'm looking at the road because I see all the near misses as they swerve through traffic. The only way to avoid it is to close my eyes or get distracted with conversation.

Another problem with the street, at least in more popular tourist areas, are all of the beggers. They look old and frail or young and helpless, sticking out their hands and begging for food or money. They have followed me down the street continuously asking me for money like I'm going to change my mind, it can be quite hard to shake them once they see you come out of a nice car or looking at a nice smartphone.

Pollution here is also the worst I've ever seen. When you're in a big city like Mumbai or Delhi you can't see the blue sky unless you drive out of town. Yes it's that bad. It looks like there's constantly a light haze over the entire city. You can also see it from a distance, it's freaky.

There's also such different clothes for everyone! Especially the women who are usually dressed up in what I think of as a costume when it's really just regular clothes here. In America the only time people wear that is during halloween or a Bollywood performance.

Everybody here loves Cricket! They have big parks (which they don't actually call parks, parks are only for small grassy areas) where everyone just plays this sport.

And here you can get a taste of the poverty. There are people sleeping on the street everywhere.

And even on stairwells...

By the time of this writing I've already been in India a few weeks, and I have a few other posts to add as well, but internet is a little harder to come by here in India. Not many public places or hotels/hostels offer wifi, even though India is now a huge software engineering hub.