Planz

Right now I'm in an internet cafe near Neah's family condo in Benaulim. Tomorrow afternoon I leave for Pune (Poona) where B.K.S. Iyengar teaches. B.K.S. Iyengar is the person credited with popularizing Hatha Yoga in the West, and Iyengar yoga is the style. Unfortunately he's stopped teaching since he's 88, but I hope to take an Iyengar style yoga class or two there before I get back on the train and head up to Mumbai on my way to Delhi.

Note: I think I may have forgotten to mention that Mumbai and Bombay are the same place. As part of the Indian Nationalist movement, many place names are being changed to sound more Indian. This gets very confusing at times---especially when it comes to streets---because sometimes people still use the anglicized versions, and maps usually only list the official names for everything.

Hindi Music Part 1

One of the mainstays of the Bollywood movie industry is soundtrack sales. Bollywood singers are famous in their own right and the songs are ubiquitous here. Whenever I ask people what they're listening to on their mp3 players their response is almost invariably one of these soundtracks. Here’s a track from a pretty popular movie called Metro.

01 In Dino - Soham...

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The program is over

Tomorrow everyone leaves Goa but me and Neah. We’re going to Candolim where her family owns a condo. Goodbyes haven’t started just yet because people are wrapping up papers and projects for class but you can feel it coming. I wonder how many of these kids will keep in touch.

For me it’s not so sad though. I’m starting the part of the trip I was most looking forward to: the unsupervised part.

Zoroastrian Burial Rites

Mumbai has the highest Parsi population anywhere in India. Because of this there are lots of agiaries, or fire temples, easily distinguishable by the winged lion gargoyles which guard their doors. These aren’t the only Zoroastrian buildings in the city though. Hidden in the forest below the Hanging Gardens is the Tower of Silence. This is where the Parsi dead are laid out to be eaten by scavenger birds. Only the faithful are allowed to come but the vultures can be seen circling from a distance.

Evil Eyes

A lot of people in India believe that when certain people give compliments, bad things happen to whoever receives it. These people are said to have the evil eye. It’s not necessarily even intentional, but for whatever reason misfortune always follows these people’s kind words.

That’s why lots of parents will put black face paint on their babies. This makes people less likely to call their children cute. Also, the black spots can potentially absorb the power of the evil eye. Alternatively, there are rituals that can be performed to cleanse people of its negative effects.

Low Court

We went to the High Court of Mumbai and I asked a lawyer if we were allowed into the courtrooms and he said yes so I decided to sit in on a case. Everybody was wearing judge-like robes, even the defendants. Although everything was conducted in English I had a hard time understanding the debate but afterwards I talked to the plaintiff and she explained what the case was about.

A development corporation had bought out some slums and was going to tear them down without relocating any of the tenants and was only going to pay a fraction of just compensation. There are apparently laws against this since it’s a common problem but the defense lawyer was a former judge who was good friends with the judge deciding the case. He actually sat up at the judge’s table and they left together after the case was postponed yet again over another technicality. It sounded like it involved a petition that was submitted a day late or not properly paid for.

Victoria Terminus

Due largely to overcrowding in the city and the lack of proper housing for the poor—especially with developers buying out slums to build high-rises for the middle and upper class—lots of people sleep on the streets of Mumbai or, when it rains, under whatever overhang they can find. This sort of thing looks pretty strange against the backdrop of stunning architecture left over from the century long British Raj. The eeriest part is that this man’s ancestors could have been the very same impoverished artisans who the Empire conscripted into carving the gargoyles looking down on him.

Sunrise Stinkers

Three of us got on the Konkan Railway yesterday at 5pm and arrived in Mumbai at about 7am, only two hours behind schedule. The first thing I noticed as we neared Victoria Terminal was that lots of people came out to the rails to take their morning dumps. Like, literally dozens of dudes of all ages dropping deuces in broad daylight, completely visible from the train, their wangs all hanging droopy as they squatted.

My first thought was ‘why would you deliberately go to the most public place available to unload your pile?’ Then I realized that the tracks were already covered in crap because the train toilets are just holes in the floor. Also the plumbing-free slums are located directly adjacent to the tracks because that land has so little property value.

Not to scare you but . . .

Two girls in the group have come ill seriously enough to want to spend the night in the hospital. We visited them and brought them banana bark strip necklaces with flowers tied in which we had gotten at a spice farm we visited.

Apparently the hospital didn’t have syringes so the professors had to walk to the pharmacy next door and buy some. Also the nurses stopped bothering to check on them and they woke up in the middle of the night to find their IVs hadn’t been changed. Luckily this is rather unusual even for public hospitals, according to all our Goan friends at the ICG.

Divine Diving

We went back to Ponda today—a town about 30 km from Goa’s capital, Panaji—to visit a spice farm. On the way we stopped at one of the Shaivite temples we’d been to the last time we were here and this part had flooded to about 9 ft deep. There were people diving off of the walls and off the centerpiece monument to Shiva. Coincidentally I had brought a bathing suit so I joined in and so did Sean Charles. I’m not sure how Shiva will respond but I’m pretty sure we’ll either be blessed or cursed for it.

Fruits

The fresh fruit here is delicious. You just have to cook it, boil it, or peel it. The last one is usually the easiest because the most common appetizing fruits (e.g. bananas and mangos) can all be peeled fairly easily. It’s possible to pick it right off the tree in some places but there are stands for them almost everywhere.

The people selling them can’t possibly be making much money though. There aren’t any real preservatives for them so they don’t last long and it looks pretty hard to move this kind of volume. I mean that’s a lot of bananas, and nobody’s gonna pay much considering there’s always another vendor like ten feet away.

Garuda Mall

The malls here are mostly pretty crappy by our standards but Garuda was pretty impressive. They were having some sort of bizarre promotional event for Jumpin’ Juice and were giving it away to anyone who would scream “I love jumpin’ juice” for them. They also had a little trampoline for small children to jump on and it looked like there might’ve been other products being advertised too. Massage chairs and video games were scattered around and there was a car with a bow on it in the middle.

Mostly what impressed me was the cleanliness (by Indian standards) and the size. There were seven or eight floors, including the movie theater, and lots of good smells wafting around instead of the stench of pee and rickshaw exhaust that pervades many parts of Bangalore.

Telemarketers are dicks in real life too

We went to visit a call center in India today. You know all those telemarketing calls you get from that clearly Indian guy who keeps saying his name is Dean Martin? I met Dean Martin. They take training courses on how to pronounce words and place emphasis so Americans can understand them. Most Indians are about a thousand times harder to understand.

We asked him if there were any problems with women in the workplace. He said no, they have all the same accommodations as the men except they pay less taxes and get escorted home late at night (which is necessary because if you work eastern standard time but live in India you don’t go home until 4am). However, the women don’t do as well anyway because it’s a high pressure job so naturally men are better at it. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the patriarchal nature of Indian culture and of course there’s no sexual harassment or exploitation.

Lame Laws

About two years ago there were some scandals involving prostitution in night clubs so a law was passed saying anywhere with dancing can’t serve alcohol and anywhere that serves alcohol has to close at 11:30, which is basically the lamest thing ever. However, we didn’t understand this, and thought all clubs closed at 11:30 always so we were back from the lounges by like midnight every time and never did any dancing. I am so fucking pissed off about that you have no idea. DJ Sasha apparently plays at one of those clubs too and I missed it.

Bangalorious

The streets here are pretty crazy. Auto rickshaws (three wheeled motorbikes with a compartment that seats two or three people in back) abound and amazingly none of them know where anything is in the city. Drivers are forever stopping and asking other people for directions.

The streets are incredibly crowded and there are very few if any crosswalks or stoplights so getting across the street is somewhat dangerous. Traffic laws aren't enforced at all either and people even drive on the sidewalks.

Explanation

So I haven't updated for the past week because I've been without internet access. However, the whole time I was still writing entries and have posted them all just now. Hopefully you all didn't give up and stop checking.

The elephant is half-cocked

We woke up at 5:30am this morning and had tea before trekking up a nearby mountain. The path was incredibly steep and I’m amazed no one was injured. The view from the top was absolutely worth it though.

We came back for breakfast at around 8:30am. They had toast and omelets in addition to the Indian breakfast, which was wonderful because my stomach still isn’t settled from my last bout with Delhi Belly.

Then it was off to ride elephants. It’s easy to forget how big they are until you get on top of one and see how high up you are. The loading dock was on roof level so we had to climb a flight of stairs to get on.

Elephants move really slowly most of the time since they’re usually grazing so the driver had to keep kicking at the poor guy’s ears and whacking his head with a bamboo stick to keep him moving. Apparently, though, carrying a person for them takes about as much effort as carrying a sandwich does for us.

Ordinarily they’re used to transport lumber and once they’re trained they will do it all on their own totally unsupervised. We saw one carrying a huge log across the street. They’ve been doing it for like thousands of years.

While we were there I noticed a big group of people singing and dancing. Apparently they were street performers practicing a play that will be aired on national TV in a few days. It’s a government sponsored infomercial sort of thing about women’s rights, avoiding domestic violence, and how to use the Freedom of Information Act to combat local corruption. It’s all done through song because that’s how you get locals to pay attention.

I’m in the elephant room

We left Mojo Plantation in Coorg this morning after breakfast and five hours later got to our residence for the next two days. All the rooms are named after rainforest animals and are decorated with hand painted wallpaper, drapes, and blankets depicting that animal.

This afternoon was amazing. We went on a safari into the jungle in a very long green jeep that fit well over a dozen comfortably. The highlights were a veritable army of tiny macaque monkeys being adorable, wild peacocks which run surprisingly fast, and perhaps too close an encounter with an elephant family.

We spotted about a half dozen of them from a ways away and they stood their ground even after the jeep got to about ten yards. It was clear the adults were protecting the young and the males kept grabbing dirt with their trunks and throwing it on their backs. I took a picture with the flash on because it was getting dark but apparently that pisses them off so the guide made me stop.

We drove on and came back to make a second pass, this time with my side of the jeep directly facing the family. I was taking pictures with no flash but I think the alpha male recognized me. He definitely made eye contact. Then he trumpeted, throwing his trunk over his head, and charged the jeep. He stopped just a couple yards short of us. I could’ve leaned out and touched him. He could’ve flipped the car.

The Largest Land Mammal

We went to an elephant reserve today and got to bathe and feed elephants. The place is run by the national forest reserve here and was only recently opened up to tourism but it’s clear the government hadn’t been doing such a hot job since long before then. Employees carried sticks with vicious looking spikes on them and some elephants had torn ears from where riders rest their feet. It was all glossed over, and everyone said ‘oh, they can’t feel it’ but this is difficult to believe.

We got to wash and feed the elephants in the river and one of the elephants mistook one of our scrub brushes for a mango. Hopefully they are relatively easy to digest. Another of the elephants stood up and dropped a gigantic deuce while we were washing it. It was upstream too so a lot of people got pretty poopy.

Buggy Biodiversity

As I write this there is a really gorgeous gigantic dragonfly sitting next to me on my bed. There are a lot of friendly bugs around here, like this massive caterpillar-like bug with a very hard shell that it balls up into when disturbed.

The most interesting creepy crawly is probably the leach, which is surprisingly not that bad. They don’t spread disease at all and they don’t even have teeth. They produce enzymes which numb you, dissolve a little skin, and prevent the blood from clotting. Then it absorbs your blood through contact until it’s full and then it falls off. People still use them medicinally to this day, especially because of the anticoagulant it excretes.

Neah actually left one on and watched it for about twenty minutes. I’ve found probably approaching a couple dozen on me but so far I’ve gotten them off before they’ve drawn blood. It’s just still too gross a concept for me to go zen on it and let them do their business. I wish I had the balls to though, it’s hell of distracting to have to check for them and you miss out on the forest. We pick lime and tobacco leaves which you can rub on your skin to repel them but that washes off and they only come out in full force when it rains anyway.

Tree Hugger Paradise

We got to Coorg rainforest and are staying at a coffee and spice plantation for three days. The place is totally eco-friendly and is run by a couple of microbiologists who know basically everything about everything ever. The coffee here is delicious. I’ve started drinking it way too frequently again.

There are all sorts of wild fruits and berries which are delicious. There are pineapple plants and mango trees all over the place, as well as lemon, lime, and a million other native fruits whose names I can’t spell.

The wild geese here are really aggressive and will actually bum rush you if you piss them off. There’s a gang of them which trolls around under the bridge that leads to the cottage I sleep in and occasionally they block off the path and honk a lot.

Monsoon Trains

We took a train to Mangalore this afternoon. It was four hours late. Sleeper class is surprisingly comfortable for being about $3 for a five hour train ride. In classic Indian style, the staff did not give a SHIT about safety, and it was quite common to hang out the open doors. Hopefully I'll have a video of it to post later. It was probably the coolest thing we've done in India so far. The rains started just after sunset and we were moving so fast it looked like it was coming sideways instead of down.

The 5 star hotel we're staying in provided a stark contrast to the train station, where a man who'd lost a leg to polio was begging for change and emaciated untouchable boys cleaned the floors instead of being in school. The place has a pillow menu where you can order any of nine different types, sporting names like energy, supersoft, and meditation. Whoever decided to drop 5 star dollars for us to roll up at 11pm, eat a mediocre buffet dinner, spend the night two to a bed because they're out of double rooms, and then leave at 9am the next morning was an idiot.

Trips

Sorry for the hiatus there, the internet access here broke for a while. Anyway, now we're going on a week long trip which will make getting internet access even harder. I'll still manage when I can but I will be busy riding elephants and stuff.

I'm Level 28

Traveling with our group is exactly like questing. It is fucking fantastic. Many of us have unique skills, like Sean is an experienced backpacker who can get around well, Ben speaks Latin and can translate lots of religious writings in various churches, I took a Hinduism class and can identify deities and things, etc. Even better, there are very specific objectives like yesterday’s mission to ‘find the tomb of the Incorruptible St. Xavier.’ It was in one of the holiest structures in Catholicism, the Basilica of Bom Jesus. How epic is that? Way epic.

Wandering through exotic cities or rural villages, finding ancient forts and shrines, I basically am in Final Fantasy. We buy supplies, identify artifacts, and heal sick party members. There are even boss encounters like packs of angry dogs and creepy Indian men or benevolent encounters with people in towns who will give you useful information about where to find necessary questing items.

And I Said . . .

We had yoga class in the courtyard today because it was so nice out and, while I was in a particularly challenging balance pose, “Yeah” by Usher came on one of the migrant workers’ radios. I was really feeling the flow too and was in a really contorted position but obviously I had no choice but to rock out, seeing as that is completely my jam.

Needless to say, I immediately lost whatever Indian street cred I might have gained with the workers by practicing yoga. I did, however, potentially tap into a whole new world of wicked cross-cultural dance moves, which I fully intend to bust out next time we in da club.

A Day in Fontainhas

We checked out the Portuguese district of Panjim today. All the architecture is Portuguese, especially the myriad churches. Here's a picture of the High Court of Bombay in Goa, which is one example of this, however the really cool ones are actual family houses that have been passed down for generations and are still lived in.

On the way back we passed a couple of little boys playing soccer. They looked to be around 12 years old, maybe a little younger. I was with two girls and one of them asked if they were playing football. In response to this, one of the kids cold whipped out his ding-a-ling. He straight up presented his package like that is completely how to woo western women.