I saw red.

I do believe that yesterday was my low point in India. There have been too many high points to count and mostly just awkward points that lie somewhere in the middle. Honestly, I haven't been so angry at another human being since... well, probably since I was about five.

I know that I've written in here a bit about my host family, mostly earlier on in the trip when my comments were general and cultural rather than specific. I guess I didn't really want to get into it, since even though this started out as a journal, it's public. But right now, I just need to write about this or I'll go crazy. OK, crazier.

Things have been up, down, and all over the place since I've moved in. There have been some amazing experiences when I've felt close to them. Most of the time it's just weird, which is understandable given the cultural and language differences. Sometimes they won't speak to me for a day, and I'll have no idea why. When they have guests over, I'm usually told to remain in my room. It used to bother me quite a bit in the beginning, but I'm fine with it now. If nothing else, I've learned to toughen up and when to shut up. I know, I never thought I'd see the day either. Normally I say what's on my mind, usually as tactfully as possible. But here, I don't really have that luxury. Technically, I have the freedom to say what I want, which I have a few times, but a person can only take so much of the silent treatment that inevitably follows. So usually, I just sit back, smile, and think about something else.

But last night I just couldn't. I'd been feeling sick for a few days but chose not to go to the doctor. I'd feel better each afternoon and figure that I could tough it out, but then in the evening I'd get pretty sick. After a few months here, it didn't really seem like a big deal. I'd been sick before. I'd planned on going to the doctor yesterday, but there were riots all across Pune (all across Maharashtra, really) as the result of the defacing of a Dalit statue. The Dalit (previously called Untouchable) caste still faces a oppression from everyone else, even though the caste system's technically illegal. But it's sort of like outlawing racism or sexism... it doesn't root the problem out, just officially covers it up. So there were riots yesterday around the city that eventually spread to the rest of the state. Protestors were running around certain areas of the city in mobs, and several trains were set on fire. I was in a safe area, but ACM still told us to stay in the Deccan area and not go to shops or businesses. I went over to my friend's house in Deccan, supposedly to study Marathi, but really to watch some episodes of Friends. I'd never seen it before, and it definitely hooked me. But, regardless, businesses were closed, and there was no way I could've gotten to the doctor. Besides, I was feeling better.

At dinner that night, my host parents asked me why I hadn't gone to the doctor. I explained the situation with the riots, and they didn't really want to hear what I had to say. My host father started berating me for not going, which I kept telling myself was just his saying that he was concerned. I told them that I appreciated that they were looking out for me.

Somehow this led us to the topic of one of the other girls in my program who had switched host families a few months earlier. She hadn't been happy with her host father, but she stuck it out and hoped things would get better. They didn't. Her host father made blatant sexual advances at her, and she moved out. She is one of the strongest people on the program, and probably put up with it longer than she should have. But my host father started talking about how you "can't clap with one hand," and how the girl had deserved the advances. It takes two to tango, even if the tango involves unwanted sexual advances from a married man who she's supposed to see as a father figure. My host father had met this girl once, and apparently her body language and way of talking justified such behavior on her host father's part. She'd asked for it, apparently. Nevermind the fact that she was living in this man's house with his wife and two children, and that the man was more than twice her age.

I just sat there at the dinner table, not sure whether I'd start yelling or crying first. He then had the audacity to tell me that surely, I must agree with him. I just didn't know what to do. Every inch of me was screaming to set him straight or at least to politely disagree. But I just couldn't take what I knew would follow. I'd seen him argue with his wife, and he would never admit when he was wrong. I knew that if I voiced my opinions, there was no way that I'd escape the dinner table with any sort of composure. And I would not cry in front of him.

So I just sat there. "I see what you mean," I said, and betrayed everything that I believe about standing up for yourself and what you know is right. Certain cultural things cannot be challenged, and I'd let a lot of potential arguments go because of this. But this is a family who has hosted dozens of students before. The father has traveled all over Europe. They have a son who loves watching American movies and the latest Bollywood production. And this was wrong. I don't give a damn if it was cultural or not.

After what seemed like an eternity, I excused myself and crawled back into my room. Blasting the angriest music that I own on my iPod, I sat seething, both at him and myself. I picked my my phone to call a friend before remembering that there's no place in the house you can talk privately. India has taught me when to keep my mouth shut, and I know that this can be valuable. But there are lines you just don't cross, and this was one of them. Even now, I wish that I'd said something. I wish I'd told him exactly what I thought and not cared how he reacted. I'm only here for a week more. It may not be constructive, it may not be wise, but at least it would've been right. I've had enough.

Love,
Sarah

iPod: "Gun In Hand," Stutterfly, "Cross Out the Eyes," Thursday

Pictures from the North

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Rupees and Guilt

So, here's an original post from an American abroad in India... Lately I've been feeling guilty. Not just sort of, "Oh Gee, I sure come from wealth" kind of guilty. It's the sort of guilty that makes me feel that maybe, just maybe, I've been wrong.

When I decided to come to India, I decided to prepare myself by reading every possible source I could find. I read fiction, history, and those infamous guidebooks/survivial guides/rough guides/tourist guides. At least one section of each tourist guide talked about beggars, explaining that giving money only perpetuates the cycle and that donations discourage them from finding jobs. I was able to sort of process this back before I left, sitting in my cozy, air-conditioned room. It made sense, I supposed. Apparently, the only way to make it through a semester would be to become jaded, which I didn't want to do. I'd been warned by nearly everyone who I met that India would be tough on me, mostly because of what I'd see in my everyday encounters. And it's true. Things upset me easily, especially seeing other people suffer. So, I'd resigned myself to getting upset over here.

But the blinders went up. When I first arrived, I couldn't fathom the way that Indian citizens were able to ignore legless women sitting on the curb and starving children pulling at their shirtsleeves. It seemed callous and inhuman to ignore it. I didn't know what I should do, exactly, but I knew it had to be something. The months went by, and I started to get less and less upset. I'd read articles in the Indian Express about beggars who were offered jobs but turned them down because the jobs paid less than a day of begging. An amazing girl on my trip, Sara, came up with the solution of giving food to children instead of money. After a few times, we noticed the children tossing the food to the ground as soon as we turned our backs. It was disheartening, to say the least. I believed, and possibly still believe, that giving coins to children doesn't help. It goes to their families, who are then probably encouraged to put their barefoot children back on the streets to weave through traffic. But then, what do you do?

I started ignoring it. It makes me feel horrible to say it, but that's what I've been doing since October or so. Telling myself that I couldn't really do anything, since food was wasted and money would encourage it, seemed to help. But, to use an already overused expression, it was like putting a Band-Aid over a bruise. When the logical disconnect of hanging up my cell phone to deny a rupee to a beggar started to pick at my brain, I just shut it off. But I don't know if I can do that anymore.

The last thing that I want is a few nice, cleansing, alleviate-my-guilt-from-white-priviledge paragraphs followed by months of inaction. That's not going to cut it anymore. The truth is, I do next to nothing to help others around me. I make some money at campus jobs, but I donate next to nothing of it. I spend hours reading Stephen King, but no time reading to children. Why? I don't want to think that I'm so selfish. But maybe I am.

So, what brougth on this surge of confusion and waking up? I wish I could say it was a poignant, Hallmark Channel-worthy moment with a little girl. Nope. It was reading John Grisham's The Street Lawyer. Figure that one out. Now that I've acklowledged my self-inflicted blindness and justifications, I need to do something about it. If I don't, then thoughts like this and writing like this are pretty much worthless.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Pain," Jimmy Eat World; "23," Jimmy Eat World

Awkward Turtle

The Urban Dictionary defines "awkward turtle" as "[a hand motion to use] when in an awkward moment. Place your hands on top of each other, and spin your thumbs forward. Thus creating the creature know as awkward turtle."

I first heard of this concept through some friends at CC, and I've grown to use this motion in tense and/or awkward situations. These situations ranged from simply funny to really rather uncomfortable. However, I had never known the true meaning of an awkward turtle situation until yesterday.

I'd spent the weekend in Mumbai, shopping, sleeping, not working on my project, and shopping a little more. After an exhausting weekend of the previously mentioned, Tim, Gemma, and I hopped onto a bus to get back to Pune. The easiest (and quickest) way to get back is via AC bus, a coach-style contraption with windows that don't open to the muggy air outside, hence allowing for the maximum cooling factor. I'd been feeling a little off all day, but I'd just assumed it was from staying out late the night before. I'd been joking for the past few weeks how remarkable it was that I hadn't been sick yet in India and that my time must be near. But as our bus prepared to get on the Pune-Mumbai expressway and my mouth started to salivate, it wasn't so funny anymore.

The bus stopped quickly to pick up a few last passengers, and I ran to the front. The driver had just closed the doors and couldn't understand why I was trying to get out of the bus. It took several seconds of pantomiming what was about to happen before he grudgingly opened the door. I leapt out into the busy streets of Mumbai, knelt next to a pile of trash, and "lost my lunch," as they say.

Stranger things happen on the street every day, and nobody gave me a second glance. I sat there, trying not to faint, and realized that the bus driver was honking at me. I suppose he wanted me to hurry up and finish vomiting so we could be on our way. A stray dog came over to sniff me, and I looked at him weakly. Hey, buddy. Got a napkin?

Awkward, yes. But I feel like it's important to balance out my meandering poetry about pretty mountains and spiritual moments. Such is life, right? At least it's funny now. Oh, by the way, the play is coming along nicely.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Polaris," Jimmy Eat World

Brangelina in Pune

Just when I think I'm done writing for the next month or so (um... six entries in about two days?), something else happens that I just can't ignore or skip writing about.

So, I've alluded briefly to the Angelina Jolie film, A Mighty Heart, that's been filming in Pune for the past few weeks. The buildup alone is worth writing about, actually. I've heard some people tease Americans about being obsessed with Hollywood and celebrity lives, but for the entire week before Angelina and Brad's arrival in Pune, the Pune Times couldn't write enough about the couple. One day in early October, the entire front page was covered with articles about the food that they'd be eating, where they'd be staying, which movies we'd recognize them from... basically everything but the plot of the movie they were coming here to shoot. But hey, I'm glad it was seen in a positive light.

A few months ago, we'd had auditions for roles of extras in the film. The audition consisted of showing up, smiling for a Polaroid, and writing down our contact info. We hadn't heard anything by the time we left for our Epic Trip, so I figured I'd better just forget about it.

The day before we returned to Pune, a few of us received e-mails letting us know that our presence was requested on the set the next day. Well, sure! Over the next two weeks, I ended up going to the set five different times to be a pushy reporter. The scenes were shot in the Sindh Society, one of the ritziest areas of Pune. At the start of each day, we'd be ushered to the "cast house," a sort of giant green room filled with costumes and British people in equal numbers. After the quick glance-over and addition of a scarf by the costume directors, we shuffled off to the set, cameras (without film, of course) and press badges in tow. We'd shoot for a few minutes, usually screaming "Just one question, Miss Pearl!" or "Over here; just one minute of your time!" before being told that the energy was too high, too low, or both at the same time.

Many of the scenes were miniature battles between the Pakastani Army and the "International Press," aka any European-looking people the casting director could dig up. We were supposed to try to get a picture of Mariane Pearl, aka Miss Jolie, and the guards were supposed to stop us. I quickly figured out after being on the set for three weeks, the actors playing guards forgot about the acting part. They constantly chided us for talking and would yell, "Back, madam!" whenever the director walked up to talk with us. Once I told them off with some fractured Marathi, they just laughed instead of pushing us back. Much better, in my opinion.

The first day on the set was fairly ridiculous. Our call time was one PM, and we finished that night around ten-thirty. The actors playing guards got fairly enthusiastic about keeping us at bay, and I have the bruises to prove it. I even bounced off the trunk of a parked car once. However, it was worth it for me just to be in the proximity of film in the making. And then there was the minor detail of Angelina being inside the car window that I was scrunched up against. I tell ya, if there'd been film in my prop camera, I would've gotten the shot of the day.

After a day of filming, we'd walk over to the production house to get paid. After our second day of work, I was just stuffing my thousand-rupee note into my purse when I realized that the girls who lived in the house next door to the office were screaming their heads off. I looked up just in time to bump into Brad Pitt, who was heading into the production office as we were leaving. Right... what just happened?

During my time on the set, I was elbowed, pushed against cars, used as a subject for camera phone photography, and laughed at as I tried to speak Marathi. I also got to see the inside world of film production, learning about different camera lenses and speaking to the art director, Mark, about film and life in general. It was one of the best weeks that I've had in India. I hadn't realized how much I missed drama until I got onto the set again. I hadn't done much work with film, but I got the same feeling there that I do whenever I'm on stage or working back stage. I need one of these experiences once or twice a year to keep me on the course that I'm on. It reminds me how much I love theatre and film, and reassures me that it'll all be worth it in the end.

So, when A Mighty Heart comes out, look for an awkward girl with short blonde hair yelling at a car. That'll be me.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Work," Jimmy Eat World

Intimidation, Part Seven: The End?

Whew.. almost done. After this post, the memories of 5 October- 29 October will be forever preserved, or at least until the Internet disappears. You never know.

Our last stop was Varkala, a touristy but supposedly beautiful stretch of beach south of Aleppy. Our plans after Kanyakumari were open-ended, and after the chaos of the previous three weeks it didn't take much convincing for us to decide to lie on the beach for the last three days. Since Gemma and Zach had gone ahead, our hotel was already reserved and all we had to do was show up.

We arrived at the Dream Shore Resort, driving up through palm trees to a immaculately painted, deluxe-looking hotel set on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. With our budget of Rs. 200 per night flashing warning signs in my brain, we agreed to look at the room. Our philosophy for hotels was basically "the cheaper the better, as long as the cockroach-girl ratio didn't exceed 10 to 1. However, the low price of the room was only the first of many pleasant surprised we'd receive in Varkala.

After checking in, I walked up to the cliff's edge. From the hotel, it looked as though we were the only people around for miles. When I reached the edge of the cliff, I looked to my left and was shocked to see an endless line of restaurants and stores advertising Mexican food, American breakfasts, real coffee, cheap necklaces, and everything in between. To my right was nothing but pristine black sand and endless ocean. Awww, yeah.

The next three days were a blur of excellent shopping, lying on the beach, reading in a hammock, getting pounded by huge waves, dancing the night away, and good American food (don't get me wrong; I love Indian food as much as the next person. But we all know how I feel about pasta and bean burritos). Every so often I'd look around and ask myself how the heck this had happened. I know that what we were seeing was a tourist-censored, overly clean and artificial version of South India. But Varkala really gave a new meaning to the concept of "vacation." There was a different pace of life here. Nobody was in a hurry about anything, which definitely included the restaurant staff. Anywhere else, I would've been agitated about a two-hour-long dinner, but I couldn't object to lingering over dessert while looking at the ocean.

Our last day, I decided to glue myself to the beach. I read in the sun and fell asleep until a giant wave swamped me, sending my book flying and solicited a giant, comical squeak from yours truly. Clouds had descended on the beach while I slept, and I could feel a storm brewing. Most of the other tourists had left for more sheltered quarters, and after a few minutes I was the only one left. The ocean turned the indescribable pre-storm color that I love so much, and I walked out into the water just as the rain started to fall. It felt like a bookend to the Om room and the way that I'd felt... so alive and awake and me. Varkala had come in like an impossible illusion and come out with beautiful meaning. Such is India, I suppose.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Goodbye, Goodnight," Mae

Intimidation, Part Six: The Ocean and The Spirit

From Kumily, we traveled by bus to Aleppy, also known as Alappuzha. Since the second is nearly impossible to pronounce (go ahead, try it!), we reverted back to the British, pre-Independence name. I felt bad, but after the first few stumbling Ah-la-um...-poo-tsa...um...s, Ah-lep-pee won over. Normally pronunciation is easy now that we know how to read the script. Instead of our insane Roman characters that have a dozen or so different sounds apiece, each letter in the Devanagari script has just one sound, or "one sound only." However, in the south, that script isn't used. I didn't realize how much we relied on being able to read the street signs until we arrived down here. Instead of confidently striding to the correct bus, we now relied on a shaky network of "English" and the kindness of strangers.

Nevertheless, we found our bus. After the usual flurry of stuffing our (ok, my) overly large bags under the seats and scrambling for sitting space, we set off down south to Aleppy, a major backwater cruise hub and casual beach town. I already mentioned how much water dominates the landscape here, but before this bus ride, it was limited to snatches of ponds and shallow lagoons. Here, we were driving next to the ocean, which came to life as the sun went down and the palm trees cast tangled shadows into the water. Listen to Mae's live version of "Sun" and you'll get the same feeling of beauty and awe.

Needless to say, our first stop after getting off the bus was the beach. The hotel manager directed us down a side street bustling with fish sellers and children hawking shell necklaces. Arriving at the beach in total darkness, we ran towards the sound of lapping waves. I ran knee-deep in the water the temperature of bathwater. Now, when I say "bathwater," I mean bathwater. My dad's (in)famous for plunging into frigid lakes and insisting that the water's balmy. Sure, Dad. Growing up on the edge of the Pacific, I learned that oceans aren't ever really warm. Apparently I'd never been to the Arabian Sea after the monsoon season.

After splashing for a few minutes, we wandered down the deserted beach towards the activity a hundred yards down the shore. Little crab shadows scampered out of our way as the breeze blew salt against our faces. Shop lights and the glow from beach fires bobbed up ahead as we walked, searching for our friends in the clumps of people up ahead. Somehow we'd stumbled on this perfect stretch of deserted beach. We'd find out the next day that we'd been frolicking in Aleppy's public latrine, but for now, ignorance (not to mention a strong breeze) was bliss.

We found our friends along the road and found our houseboat the next morning. Alex and Gemma had already bartered for the boat a few days earlier, so all we had to do was hop onto our drifting palace. The houseboat was absolutely huge, with cavernous rooms and a staff of four to cook for us and navigate the boat. We drifted down canals flanked by palm trees, watching dhobis (clothes washers) beat the living daylights out of dirty clothes on rocks by the river. That evening, we were treated to another blazing sunset cut against palm trees and power lines. The combination was strangely beautiful, actually.

After our boat journey, half of our group headed down to Kanyakumari while Gemma and Zach headed for Varkala, our final destination. Kanyakumari, the southernmost part of India, is located in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu. The first morning we arrived, I decided to be ambitious and get up at five AM to watch the sunset with Sara, Danielle, and Alex. We headed down to the breakwater that marks the last bit of southern land before Antarctica as the first bits of light stretched over the horizon. Those bits of light were the extent of what we'd see, as the morning sun turned into a drizzle and then into a squall. We retreated back to the hotel for another few minutes of sleep (ok, I'm the only one who went back to sleep), and by the time I'd gotten back up an hour later, the air was clear again.

Kanyakumari is a tourist destination, but only for fellow Indians. It's a site of religious pilgrimage, so even though the area was choked with tourists, we still stood out. We took the short ferry ride across choppy waters to the famous ashram on an island. Walking through the temple was interesting but strangely uninspiring. That's what I've found with most temples over here, actually... the ancient, historical temples are beautiful to me, but I don't really find much of a spiritual connection there. In the old but still used temples, the crackle of burning oil and soot-smeared walls are more palpable, more real. In this pristine and eerily silent stone temple, I looked around politely before exiting out the back. On my way out, I passed a sign near a narrow door listing about fifty different rules. The door led to a mediation chamber, and the rules demanded silence and focus. Danielle, Sara, and I looked at each other nervously before tiptoeing in.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see the hulking shadows of a dozen or so people sitting cross-legged on a thin carpet. The only light came from a glowing green "om" in the front of the room. "Om" is an essential part of Hindu spirituality. I'd try to explain it, but I don't fully grasp it myself. After a class on Indian philosophy and almost half a year in India, it's still a fluid concept. Meditating on "om" is supposed to be powerful and a strong way to focus. Back in my class at CC, we meditated by speaking/singing the word, but this room was silent. I figured I'd give it a try, anyway.

After my breathing slowed to a constant rhythm, I realized that the room wasn't silent after all. Very soft, subtle tones rose and fell with the sound of the waves outside. I'm not sure exactly where the humming sounds came from, but I was reminded of a place in San Francisco that my parents used to take my brother and me when we were younger. There's a place called the wave organ settled within some of the rocks on the coast where cement pipes have been placed. If the weather's just right and you're quiet enough, you can hear the ocean air and waves blowing through the pipes like the sound you make blowing across the top of a glass bottle. The result is an eerie, beautiful piece of music. I haven't been back to the wave organ for half a decade. In the Om room, I heard those sounds again.

I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but I know that sitting in that room, I felt a peace that I hadn't experienced before. The wave organ and the glowing Om settled into one, and everything just left me. The trip had been an amazing experience, but traveling through and living in India had tensed my muscles. In that room, I realized what I'd been doing the past few months. Somewhere in the last month or two, "living in India" became just "living." I've talked a little about how things that shocked me in the beginning seem normal now. I suppose it's a sign of adjusting and assimilating into the culture, but I'd almost forgotten what I was doing here. My casual acceptance of the differences had led me to forget how amazing it is over here. I'd almost adjusted too much, to the point of apathy. But in that room with the waves crashing and singing around me, something brought me back, and I was in awe.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Sun (Live)," Mae, "Embers and Envelopes," Mae

Intimidation, Part Five: Jungle Trek

After a fitful night's sleep, we woke up at the crack of dawn for a jungle trek that we'd scheduled. The hotel owner's uncle offered to take us on a trek on the edge of the sanctuary, away from the other tourists (read: illegal). He greeted us in the morning with khaki-colored knee socks, which we were to pull on over our pants and under our shoes. Once we reached the edge of the jungle, he pulled out a bag of what looked like powdered cinnamon. He pulled out pinches and flung them over the khaki socks, saying only, "Leeches coming." We gathered that the powder would keep the leeches from coming, at least somewhat.

Our guide (I'll call him Stan, for simplification) then proceeded to act like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, tiptoeing and then leaping from place to place. He spotted a tree with bark scraped off and jumped over, wiping his finger in the sap and sniffing it suspiciously. "Elephants coming," he whispered. A few feet farther, we found elephant dung near a pile of fallen branches. He reached down, his hand hovering milimeters from the dung. "Elephants, evening," he informed us before striding silently ahead. We all exchanged looks and followed.

Walking through the jungle catapulted me into a time and place that seemed familiar yet surreal. In the six AM sunlight that filtered through the canopy, we could see endless trees and vines covered by a thick mist. The only sounds were insects and howler monkeys up in the trees, sounding like ghosts as they called out to each other. The only movement was Stan ahead of me, pointing out a footprint or a colorful spider to my left. For the first time since Jibhi, I felt a sense of solitary calm.

Five minutes later, I ran straight into Stan as he suddenly stopped and motioned for us to listen. Straining, I could hear leaves rustling about a hundred meters away. He raised one finger to his lips and whispered, "Problem elephants. We coming." A three-hour-long cat-and-mouse game ensued as we tried to catch a glimpse of the elephants without them knowing we were there. A month ago, several people had been killed by elephants near here, he informed us. Most elephants are peaceful and relatively silent, but "problem elephants" scrape the bark off trees and crash through the underbrush.

We had been perched in one area for about fifteen minutes, and I'd started staring off into space when suddenly a giant bottom appeared through the mist. I held my breath as the bottom turned into an elephant flipping her trunk over her shoulder. Seeing the elephants the day before had been powerful, and this nearly knocked me over. There were four of them all together, casually munching their way through the jungle. Once in a while we'd hear a snurffle as one would sigh, the air blowing out through his or her trunk. In that moment, watching the elephants with the mist swirling around my legs and the howler monkeys' soft hooting above me, everything was as it should have been.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Table For Glasses," Jimmy Eat World

Intimidation, Part Four: The Jungle

Flying from Jaipur to Kochi was surprisingly pleasant. Since trains are plentiful and affordable, only the extremely wealthy or the extremely rushed fly across India. Since our twenty-four-day vacation would've been somewhat hampered by a three-day train ride, we decided to bite the financial bullet and fly to the south. As we made our way to the airport, memories of the dark and dingy Mumbai airport loomed, and we figured we'd just make the best of the situation.

However, walking into the Jaipur airport was like entering a spa in comparison to what we remembered of Mumbai. Marble floors, plush couches, restaurants... I felt like I'd been transported back to a smaller version of Minneapolis's Mall of America. When we tried to get some food, we found that a meal that would've cost Rs. 40 anywhere else cost Rs. 400 in the airport. So, we decided on Rs. 75 Snickers bars and tried not to fall asleep on the couches.

When we arrived in Mumbai on our way to Kochi, the airport looked nothing like we'd remembered from our first hours in India. Clean and well-lit, it was a perfectly comfortable place to crash for a few hours. I looked around for signs of recent renovations or a new paint job, since the airport looked so dramatically different from what my sleep-deprived brain remembered from July. It took me another few minutes to realize that nothing had been changed or rebuilt since our arrival... well, nothing but my own perception, I suppose. I'm almost nervous to get back to the US with this in mind. I'll probably feel like I'm in an overly-sanitized, blindingly bright hospital when I'm on the streets of Minneapolis.

But anyway... the south! After a brief stay in Ernakulam, we hopped onto a six-hour bus to get to Kumily, home of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. Surprisingly, all six hours of the bus ride were enjoyable, since we weren't careening down mountain passes at three in the morning. There weren't even any crying babies. Danielle, Sara, and I munched on our kayla (banana) chips and sipped our mango juice as we watched the city buildings give way to endless greenery and shaded lagoons. I could almost feel the air change as we entered the part of Kerala where water dominates the scenery. Ahhhhhh....

We arrived in Kumily in the evening with nothing on our minds but food and lodging. We'd decided to forgo booking a hotel in advance, since advance booking has been a bit of a challenge. Sara had tried bravely to make reservations at a place called the Coffee Inn, but the receptionist didn't speak English. Flustered, Sara valiantly tried Marathi before realizing that this regional dialect wouldn't work in the south. She finally asked, "Hindi?" but the receptionist slammed down the phone. Hindi, India's "national" language, isn't looked upon well in the south.

Stepping off the bus, we were surrounded by hotel managers of all shapes and sizes, each waving a brochure and promising cheap rooms close by. We agreed to look at one room set off of the main drag. The Mountain View Hotel ended up being a quiet, clean homestay right on the edge of the jungle. With our bags deposited and our room registrations complete, we collapsed in a nearby restaurant. Halfway through our entrees, it registered that we were the only women in the establishment. I wasn't really surprised by this, nor when each of the men dining would stand up, mid-meal, to adjust his lungi, or knee-length, wrap-around skirt. In my ten days in Kerala, I would see two men wearing pants. Now I see why I get some funny looks when I don my wrap-around skirt from the US.

After a good night's sleep, we headed off to the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. We booked our Rs. 15 boat tickets and sat down to wait in a parking lot-type area. On our way to the booking office, I'd nearly fallen over a family of red-faced monkeys, looking at me as if I were the one with the funny-looking bottom. While we waited, a baby monkey sidled over to me. He tried to take my water bottle, which was fortunately clamped to my bag. He yanked at it a few times before wandering off, sulking. In Kumily, monkeys are like pigeons. People might occasionally toss them a bit of chapatti or a piece of fruit, but by and large they're unexciting pests. My constantly clicking camera and huge grin were bigger sources of amusement for the people working in the park than the monkeys were, I suppose.

Getting onto the small boat, I grabbed a seat by the window and prepped my camera. The boat was full of middle-aged couples and one group of teenaged boys at the back. Three yuppie families ended up hopping onto the boat just as we were leaving, but being on the water was still a wonderful pocket of calm in a otherwise crowded and noisy trip. Watching the families interact was something of a sociology project in itself. I mentally placed the families' hometown as Mumbai, since the wives' spike heels and professionally streaked hair didn't exactly scream Rajasthan. Their Western clothing-clad children munched on potato chips and drank illicit Pepsi, which has been outlawed in Kerala. We didn't see any wildlife for most of the trip, which may have had something to do with the children screaming "TIGER! TIGER!" as they waited for one to emerge from the forest.

When I glanced back at the families, I noticed the teenage boys taking pictures of me with their cell phone cameras. I'd mostly grown used to this, but at the moment, it drove me crazy. One of the brave ones walked over and sat down about four inches from me, still taking pictures with his phone even as I turned to glare. He gave me a slow, cocky wink, ignoring my discomfort.

However, just as my blood pressure started to rise, we rounded a bend in the lake/river and a herd of elephants came into focus. Five or six of them had wandered down to the river, and they splashed each other as they bathed. Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors, talks about the calming effect that elephants have on him, and I've found that I agree. There's just something about seeing a being so large and so graceful at the same time. I've heard about clans of elephants that care for each other and mourn their dead. My mom told me about a baby elephant that was killed by villagers in Africa. The other elephants mourned the baby for a day and then destroyed the village in revenge. I hadn't really thought about elephants in that way, but seeing them now, even from this distance, I could tell it was true.

As we stepped off the boat, I saw the same boy hop down and start taking pictures from the shore. There must be a peaceful way to deal with this, I thought. As most of my close friends know, I'm a pretty happy person, and it takes quite a bit to make me mad. I knew that yelling at the guy wouldn't accomplish much, but my patience had run out. So instead, I decided to try a different approach. I sauntered up, all smiles, saying, "Hi! What's your name?" I asked if I could see his phone, which looked soooo cool. I mean, golly, we didn't have anything like this back in the USA! Cockily, he handed the phone over, looking at his friends as if to say, "You see? She loves me." I navigated my way through his menu and to his photo gallery. Pulling up one of the dozen or so photos of me onto the screen, I pushed the picture in his face. "This is unacceptable. You will never again take pictures of a woman without asking her permission. Do you understand?" He turned pale and said yes, yes, of course, and then sheepishly ran off. Darn right, buddy. If only there were elephants around every time I get frustrated, right?

Back at the homestay, the girls and I joined the family for dinner. The homestay owner's wife prepared a dinner for us with subji, rice, chapatti, and egg. I spied a green bean on my plate and popped it into my mouth. It took a few seconds for me to realize that it had been a mirchi, not a green bean. Mirchi is the spicy green pepper that flavors nearly every dish in Indian cooking. In one pot of vegetables or dahl, the cook adds one mirchi for flavoring. Everybody knows you're supposed to push it off to the side while you eat. Back at my host family's house, my host mother always chops up the mirchi into little pieces. I hadn't seen a whole cooked one before, especially not one this big.

Needless to say, I started sweating as the heat hit my empty stomach. I started hiccuping as I tried to remain perfectly still. The quickest way to recover from excess spice is to relax the body and take deep, slow breaths. I'd had spicy food before, but never a plain pepper. Right then, the hotel owner's wife came in to see how the food was tasting. "Great!" I squeaked as I tried to breathe. My plate of untouched food sat in front of me. If I had been anywhere else, I would've left the room to go lie down. But here, in a relative stranger's house, I knew that there was absolutely no excuse to exempt me from dinner. I started mentally talking myself through eating the rest, since my stomach was now rebelling against anything else going in it. Sara and Danielle tried to help me out the best they could, but then dessert came.

Long story short, Danielle has wheat and milk allergies, Sara's allergic to milk, and I had just eaten death in vegetable form. The dessert was sweetened, pure ghee, which is a derivative of milk. The hotel owner's wife smiled as she set the bowls down and then returned to the kitchen. The three of us exchanged nervous looks across the table. "You (hic) guys," I said, "I (hic) can try to (hic) eat some of (hic) that if you need (hic) me to..."

This is getting really long, so I'm going to break it up into a few entries.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "We Both Go Down Together," The Decemberists

Intimidation, Part Three: Desert

The last time we saw our heroes, they were boarding a train to Jodhpur. Or so they thought.

I think I should probably take a minute to explain the ambiguous concepts of "train," specifically the different classes within the train. There are four classes on the train, including two-tier AC, three-tier AC, Sleeper (three-tier non-AC), and General, going from most to least expensive. Two- and three-tier determines how many bunks are in each compartment. Picture a long hall with rooms without walls to your right. In two-tier, each side of the wall is like a bunk bed. In three-tier, there's an extra bed sandwiched between the two, which means that sitting up or drinking from a bottle of water is an Olympic sport. The AC compartments are air-conditioned, as is to be expected, which means that the windows are sealed shut. There are fewer people in the AC compartments since they're so much more expensive. Traveling Sleeper can be fun, since you can see and feel the countryside rushing by as the hours go on. We traveled AC three-tier for our first train from Pune, and it was pretty nice. However, in the interest of cost and romanticism, we booked Sleeper tickets for the desert leg of our journey, going from Agra to Jodhpur to Jaisalmer and then back from Jaisalmer to Jaipur.

Arriving at the Agra station, we quickly discovered that the tickets our travel agent had "confirmed" were actually not confirmed at all. Fortunately (really), our train was delayed by about five hours, so we had plenty of time to argue and whimper and charm and eventually pay three hundred extra rupees each to upgrade our tickets to AC two-tier so we could made it to Jodhpur. Vowing revenge and compensation from the travel agent, we hopped onto the train and entered the world of AC two-tier.

We'd figured it'd be similar to AC three-tier but with fewer people. Instead, we walked into swank. Heavy curtains closed off each compartment from the rest of the train. Clean sheets, blankets, and pillows greeted us on our berths. A smartly-dressed gentleman brought us extra pillows and then asked us if we would be requiring any more service before we "retired for the evening." I proceeded to get the best ten hours of sleep that I'd had in months. In the morning, I was greeted by a "bread omlette." Needless to say, we arrived in Jodhpur in high spirits.

We had about twelve hours to kill as we waited for our night train to Jaisalmer, so we shopped, wandered, and ate, wandering into the blue city. Jodhpur's Old City is entirely blue, supposedly to keep the mosquitoes away, or to announce its Brahmin heritage, or any number of reasons that I've heard. Either way, it looked pretty cool.

At the train station, we waited in the Tourist Retiring Room, a little nook tucked into the side of the station. The room, which was under construction, held a few surprisingly comfortable mismatched chairs. The attendant in the room was charmingly awkward, and apologized for the construction and the "rathes." Rathes? Then I understood, as I heard the squeaking and saw the little furry guys scampering around. I named the two that I saw the most Thelma and Louise.

We traveled sleeper to Jaisalmer, conking out again amidst crying babies and a family band singing and pounding out a rhythm on the seats and railing. The open windows brought in a nice breeze, and I feel right to sleep. Danielle woke me up around five for our stop. I sat up in my berth, clonking my head on the ceiling and causing a cloud of sand to rise up around me. Scrambling for my glasses, I almost started laughing as the half-inch of sand that covered everything came into focus. Well, we made it to the desert, anyway!

We made it to our hotel just as the sun was rising. We'd booked the place based on price, so we were astounded to find a beautiful little place in the middle of Old Jaisalmer, complete with a rooftop restaurant with an amazing view of the fort. After booking our camel safari for the next day, we set off for the fort.

The Jaisalmer fort is famous for its beauty as well as its shops of mini-mall-like proportions. Stalls dotted ever square inch of space within the gates, hawking everything from anklets to quilts to skirts to religious figurines. With a few hundred rupees burning a hole in my pocket, I strode confidently up to the first vendor and started looking through the beautiful merchandise with practiced disinterest. "How much for this? What about this? Oh, that's far too expensive." I offered a fair price, expecting a good round of bargaining that would satisfy each of us. Instead, the vendor just laughed. Uh... what?

Standing back for a second, I watched a blonde family of four walk up to the same vendor and buy a statue of Shiva for five times the price they would've paid after bargaining in Pune. I see.... so much for bargaining over here! As they day went on, Jaisalmer's talent with tourists became incredibly clear. Instead of the men shouting "Ay! Madam! Come here!" that you'd find in the non-touristy areas, the Jaisalmer shopkeepers knew what worked on tourists. Instead of yelling something about merchandise, they'd greet us with a soft-spoken, "Namaste. May I offer you a cup of tea?" It was almost impossible to not answer back. Fortunately, I'd already paid for the camel safari, so I couldn't do too much damage.

Ah, yes, the camel safari. We departed the next morning in a Jeep, driving through scrubland past children herding goats and women dressed in colors so brilliant they'd seem to glow. We arrived at our camel stand (ha) around nine AM, and the desert sun was already sweltering. I wrapped one of the cotton scarves that I'd bought in Jodhpur around my head, turban-style, and made sure that my sunscreen and water were within each reach. My camel's name was Kalu, and he greeted me with a boisterous "ARGOOOGHHHARGHHHHH!" and a glare that nearly stopped my heart. Good camel... nice camel...

Kalu and I ended up getting along fairly well, and he shared my ambition for side trips and sudden bursts of trotting. He also enjoyed playing bumper cars with the other camels, which was fun in a bruising sort of way. We rode for a few hours until the afternoon heat forced us to stop for lunch. Our camel driver guides cooked for hours, making us chapattis and subji, a mixture of vegetables, broth, and enough spice to clear out my sinuses for a week. Instead of continuing our journey after lunch, our guides signaled us to lie down for a nap in the shade. Lying on the ground, ants crawling around me, the desert heat and food in my stomach lulled me off to sleep. Sara walked around our temporary campsite, collecting some of the tiny shells (huh?) that were scattered everywhere.

After our nap, we continued on to the sand dunes. We'd been traveling through scrubland and small trees, but all of a sudden, we stepped onto nothing but soft sand. Kalu's footprints were the only disturbances in the sand as we rode into the sunset. We reached our campsite just before the sun went down, so we all ran around snapping pictures and just staring. We ran down the dunes, buried each other in sand cocoons, and danced in the rapidly cooling air. We asked our camel drivers where we were.

"Oh, about twenty kilometers from Pakistan only."

Of course... we should've known. Regardless, we were the only people around for miles. When darkness closed in completely, we collapsed in the dunes under the brightest stars I'd seen in my life. Up in Canada, I'd seen some amazing celestial displays. However, we were so far from light pollution that the stars stood out in a way I never thought I'd see. We lay on the sand, watching half a dozen shooting stars as our camel drivers prepared dinner around a fire. They brought us chai that tasted deliciously smoky from the fire and we sipped in silence.

After dinner, we spread out blankets on the sand to sleep. Around three in the morning, I woke up to a tingling in my right hand. I figured that my arm had fallen asleep, so I sat up to shake it out. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw that my arm hadn't fallen asleep.. there was a dung beetle the size of my thumb crawling on it. Looking around our blankets, I could see hundreds of little black shapes teeming everywhere. Oh God.

Naturally, my reaction was to fling the beetle as far away as I could. That didn't turn up to be very far, however, as it landed on Sara's face. She woke up, and I quickly filled her in about Operation Beetle. We decided that there wasn't much we could do about the beetles on the blankets, but the ones under the blankets and in our clothes had to go. I used my glasses case to flick them onto the sand, but in the darkness without our glasses it was difficult to figure out what was what. Danielle woke up briefly during the beetle war, and merely grunted and turned over when we told her what was going on. As she brought her arm down onto the blanket, I heard a crunch. She didn't seem bothered.

Sara and I ended up giving up, exhausted, and gingerly lying back down. I covered my head and face with a scarf, but that didn't block out the scritch scritch scratch noise that the beetle legs made as they crawled across my pillow towards me. I kept sitting up and flinging beetle everywhere before I eventually fell asleep, trying to ignore the beetle legs tickling at my toes.

I woke up when the sun rose, disturbing a few beetles as I sat up. Putting on my glasses in the early morning light, I watched as the beetles burrowed into the sand as the air started heating up. The sand was completely covered in their tracks, looking as if a really, really tiny monster truck derby had taken place last night. There wasn't an inch of smooth sand left for at least twenty yards around our blanket.

Stepping into the now beetle-less sand, I watched as the few remaining beetles battled over the last bits of uncollected camel dung. One would be rolling a ping pong ball-sized piece towards a burrow when another would come and tackle the first. After a few seconds of crunching shell and flailing legs, one would triumph and the other would run away to sulk.

Danielle and Sara ran across the dunes as the sun came up, making tracks of their own amidst the snake, beetle, camel, and fox tracks in the sand. I walked up to the top of one of the dunes, taking pictures and trying to convince myself that this was real.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Cross Out The Eyes," Thursday, "Surprise, Surprise," The Starting Line

Intimidation, Part Two: The Taj Mahal

Now, with the Himalayan Mountains under our belt, we stopped briefly in Manali to do some serious shopping. The north is famous for shawls and Tibetan work, so I was definitely happy that I had extra space in my backpack. We ate dinner at some crazy place that advertised itself as having authentic Tibetan and Chinese food. I'm not sure how authentic the food was, but I do know that the manager was very happy that a group of Americans decided to enter his restaurant just before closing time. It probably sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm not (for once!). We were the only ones in the restaurant, so it gave him the chance to blast Bryan Adams and Eminem at alternating intervals. I heard songs that brought me right back to the awkward high school dances where I'd hop from foot to foot, surrounded by the most awkward, whitest people I'd seen in my life. Oh, Orono, how I miss thee. Anyway! We finished our meal and hopped onto the most hellish experience I had on the entire trip.

In order to get from Manali to Agra, our next stop, we had to take a bus to Delhi and then a train to Agra. The bus to Agra was an overnight bus, supposedly twelve hours. For some reason that only nature understands, I simply cannot sleep sitting up. It's not "won't," or "is difficult to," it's CAN'T. Planes, cars, trains, buses, whatever... if I can't lie down, "sleep will not come," as they say over here. But hey, I figured, how bad could it be?

Famous last words, right? Well, the important thing is that we got to Delhi in time for our train. However, at some point between our departure at four in the afternoon and our arrival at ten the next day, I went temporarily insane. It might've had something to do with the baby in front of me who cried for two hours straight (I timed it, folks), or maybe the dirtiest and most spider-infested bathroom I'd experienced thus far, or maybe the hairpin turns that our bus made for the first two-thirds of the journey. I can't even count the number of times that I'd start to drift off and then wake up with my head slamming into the seat in front of me as the bus narrowly avoided God-knows-what. Either way, I will never ever complain about a car journey ever again. Getting off the bus and breathing in the Delhi air was nothing short of blissful.

So, we collapsed into the Delhi train station and waited for our train to Agra. A few short hours later, we arrived at the Taj Mahal. I know, it's cliche, but we had to do it. Arriving at the ticket office, we saw a happily stenciled sign that let us know that if we'd been Indian, we'd have entered for a mere twenty rupees (roughly 45 cents). Instead, us foreigners had to shell out seven hundred and fifty rupees. You do the math.

Either way, it was definitely worth it. All three of us were feeling the aftermath of our bus journey and the "food" that we ate on the way, so we decided to split up and walk at excessively leisurely paces for the next few hours. It was about three PM by then, so we had a few hours until sunset. Barefoot, I walked through groups of incredulous tourists wearing gauze booties to protect their bare feet from the floor. I briefly flashed back to a time when I didn't drink tap water or eat street food. Oh, back in the days of my innocent youth, aka July.

We'd been to a miniature (smaller, but still building-sized) version of the Taj during one of our ACM trips, and I was worried that seeing the real thing might not be as exciting as a result. Every detail had been duplicated, at least at first glance. However, as I got closer to the tomb, details jumped out that the miniature couldn't possibly reproduce. Semi-precious stones dotted much of the outer face, and Arabic script decorated columns that rose higher than I could fathom. After half an hour of gaping, I plopped down on the West-facing side to wait for the sun to go down. A flock of birds circled one of the towers, dive-bombing each other as the light dimmed.

All of a sudden, a woman planted herself in front of me and bashfully asked if I would take their picture. "Of course!" I said and started to hop down from my perch. "No, don't move! Stay exactly where you are!" Turns out she wanted to take my picture. After she left, I sort of chuckled to myself until I looked up and saw a line forming. The British woman had started a trend, apparently, as six groups of Indian men asked to pose with me. After months of people taking "snaps" of us American women without our permission, I was just happy that they'd asked my permission. However, after seven pictures or so, it was enough. If I ever end up getting famous, God help the paparazzi...

Post-Taj, we headed to the Agra station to board our train for the desert.

Love,
Sarah!

iPod: "Red Letter Day," Get Up Kids