India

Incredible India – that is the tag line that is currently used on all the tourist maps and brochures. There is not a truer statement. India is incredible. It has incredible poverty and incredible wealth…incredible beauty and incredible trash and pollution…incredible kindness and incredible ruthlessness….there are incredible smells, sights and sounds at every turn. India is an incredible assault on your senses, your values, beliefs and comfort zones.

I was really nervous coming back to India, particularly Chennai (Madras). Last time I was here Chennai drained me, overwhelmed me, and frustrated me. I didn’t dislike India I had just had never been to a country that so constantly and completely decimated my energy (and sometimes my spirit) on a regular basis. There really is no way to describe India and no way to prepare for the experience. Hence, my apprehension as we approached India last week.

I am happy to report that I had a great time in India. It still zapped my energy and strength and challenged my nerves and comfort zones but I didn’t feel as shell-shocked and battle-weary 24-7 as I did last time. Why did it seem easier this time? Because I had been here before and knew what to expect? Because I am a more savvy traveler and better bargainer than I was two years ago? Because this is the first port in six months that catapulted me completely out of what is familiar and comfortable to me (the part of traveling that I love)? I think all of those reasons played a part in why I enjoyed India more this second time around.

I spent the first few days working a bit – I attended pieces of the Academic Field Programs but I also spent some time shopping and eating good food. I didn’t get hassled too much by rickshaw drivers and I knew where to go to find the rickshaw drivers that were less likely to rip you off (on our first day they were trying to charge 400 rupees for a ride that – even with tourist inflation – should have only cost around 50 rupees (about $1)). Because things were going well I was in much better frame of mind to SHOP!! India has some amazingly beautiful fabrics and clothes. I bought some really fun clothes while I was there – I can’t wait to show them off when I get home.

Well I guess things were going a little too easy so what do I decide to do? I decide it would be a good idea to take a public bus four hours south to a little town called Pudacherry (recently changed from Pondicherry). Now I don’t know if any of you have ever ridden a public bus in a foreign country but it is always an interesting adventure and boy did India come through on the adventure part.

Getting to Pudacherry was not too difficult – we negotiated a rickshaw ride across town to the bus station and at the bus station we found out that we just get on a bus and pay for our ticket. The buses to Pudacherry leave every 20 minutes so it’s not difficult to get on a bus. The bus is not air conditioned so all of the windows are open. It’s actually not too hot once the bus is moving. The worst part was that we had a driver that REALLY liked to use his horn. He used it CONSTANTLY – he probably hit the horn an average of every 30 seconds to a minute – for FOUR HOURS! Other than that it was an uneventful trip. The trip home was another story.

On our trip home we arrived at the bus station at 7pm and found it to be mad chaos. People were swarming and pushing to get on buses. It was noisy, loud, hot and dirty. You still buy your ticket onboard but people seemed to have pieces of paper that had some significance about whether or not they got on the bus. We wandered around trying to figure out this crazy system. Finally someone directed us to a ticket window with a CRAZY long line in front of it. Apparently you can’t buy tickets at the window but you can pay 10 rupees for a reservation on a bus.

So we get in this crazy long line – all of us debating if we should go back to Pudacherry and stay another night and give up on this mess. Luckily a very nice woman pointed out to us that there was a Ladies’ line and a Men’s line. The men’s line was crazy long – the women’s line was much shorter. An interesting thing about India – you tend only to see men out and about. Men are everywhere in restaurants and public places but women are rarely out. It’s kind of weird to see just men everywhere. One of the women I went to Pudacherry with went to a dance club one night and she and two other western women were the only women in the whole place. Odd.

So we get into the women’s line and the pushing and pressing to the window begins. All of the women were very nice but India (like most of the Asian countries we’ve been to) has a different sense of personal space and waiting in lines than we do in the west. The theory is push and shove and press until you get to the front. If you can push past other people than you go first. I ended up being the one that played the line squeezing game all the way to the window. The entire time there are men trying to get the women to buy tickets for them. I had to constantly tell men no while I jockeyed for position with the women – oh and I had to do all this while carrying my two bags and making sure no one could get to where my money was.

The whole time I was stressed because I didn’t know what bus they were giving reservations for. I was imagining it was for the 11:30pm bus which would put us back in Chennai at 3:30am – not a trip we want to do in the middle of the night. So I finally get to the window and the funny thing is they only had one person working the window – for both the ladies’ and the men’s lines. They were very nice to me and I got our reservations and luckily it was for the 8:20pm bus – woo, hoo!

Next I had to push my way out of the line and then our next challenge was to figure our where to find the 8:10pm bus. Having a reservation only means you get on the bus it doesn’t mean you get a seat (yes some people stand for the entire 4 hours) so you need to be there right when the bus arrives.

Luckily there were many nice people that tried to help us find where the bus would be. We didn’t even ask for help – people just offered and really tried to take care of us. It was very nice. So we are standing in front of the 7:50pm bus because we’ve been told that the 8:10pm bus will arrive in that spot as soon as the 7:50pm bus leaves. All of a sudden the guy who seems to be in charge of the 7:50pm bus comes up to us and motions for us to get on the bus. We try and explain we have reservations for the 8:10pm bus but he insists we should come with him. We ask if there are seats and he indicates yes (with the head bobble nod that Indians are famous for). Sure enough there are seats and we are now going on the 7:50pm bus. I’m not sure how that happened but it did.

So we think we were home free at this point. Boy were we wrong. Little did we know that we had just gotten on the suicide bus from hell. Our driver did not use his horn quite as much as our first driver but this guy was a speed demon! He whipped around curves and around speed barriers. There was one stretch in the middle where all of us were just praying that the bus wouldn’t tip over. The driver spent the entire trip trying to pass vehicles – he drove on the wrong side of the road trying to pass on curves and barely making it past and swerving into our lane before the oncoming vehicle came by. When he didn’t have a vehicle in front of him he flew down the road at Mach 5 and we watched as vehicles passing cars in the opposite direction barely got over before we flew past. It was one crazy ride. We did make it safely back to Chennai in one piece and after that experience I felt a bit like I did during my first visit to India – stressed, frazzled and drained.

So let me tell you a little bit about Pudacherry. It was the only French colony in India – it’s a small seaside town that is becoming popular with both domestic and foreign tourists. They speak Tamil, French and English there. It was quite funny to walk down the street and have Indian kids saying, “Bonjour!” So why did I go to Pudacherry? Well there isn’t a whole lot to see and do on the south east part of the country where Chennai is. I really wanted to get over to the south west part of the country and visit Kerala but with only two and half days I didn’t think it was worth the hassle of traveling 12 hours on the overnight train. So Pudacherry was a reasonable distance and seemed reasonably interesting.

I headed down there with three other staff members – Ashley, Amanda and Bonita. Ashley is our PR officer, Amanda is an IRC (residence life staff member) and Bonita works in the Media lab. We spent two nights in a guest house on the beach. Our days were spent walking, shopping and eating. It was quite relaxing and nice to be away from the ship.

On our second day we got Ayurvedic massages (yes, apparently I am on the world tour of massages). I had never had an Ayurvedic massage before – it was quite an experience and quite different from any massage I’ve ever had before. First off you are completely and totally naked – no sheets or coverings. They completely douse you in oil. I’m not talking a little bit of oil like a Swedish massage….I’m talking drowning in oil – dumped it on your head – spread liberally all over – eyes, face, ears and every part of your body. There was so much oil that my skin felt kind of suffocated and I literally felt like I would slide right off the table. It was pretty comical. The funniest part was when it was all over they give you a tiny bar of soap, a bucket of water and a small faucet. There was so much oil that that tiny bar of soap had no hope of overpowering the oil. I must have been quite a sight trying to get enough lather on the soap to attempt to get enough oil off my body to at least put my clothes back on. It was quite a process. It’s been three days (and many good showers) and I STILL feel like there is oil coming out of my pores.

I’m glad I came back to India and I would come to India again if the opportunity arose. One of my favorite things was to see all of the beautiful sarees and outfits that women wear. Women dress beautifully and elegantly every day. The beautiful and brilliant colors and patterns are incredible. It’s quite a contrast – men wear pretty much anything they want – shabby clothes, dirty towels and wraps as pants – anything goes but the women (even those without much) are dressed in beautiful clothes. It’s also weird to see women dressed so beautifully – including sequins, shimmer materials and jewelry -- in the heat and dirt of the city and the heat and dirt of the villages. No matter where you went or what level of society the women seemed very put together wearing gorgeous fabrics.

Coming to a place like India always teaches you lessons. I think the biggest lesson I will take away from India is one that I learned the first time I was here – this trip was a big reminder that I live a VERY comfortable life – we all do. I have a comfortable bed to sleep in, a shower to bathe in and I know where my next meal is coming from. I cannot describe to you how many people in India do not lead such comfortable lives or have any assurance that their basic needs will be met. When we took a rickshaw back to the ship at midnight after our death bus ride back from Pudacherry I couldn’t believe the throngs and throngs of people sleeping on the street. These weren’t just the beggars and homeless that you see out on the street day in and day out. These were the shop keepers, stall workers, rickshaw drivers, and street sweepers.

When I’m back in the “real world” I tend to stress and worry about things that are minor in the grand scheme of things. Work pressures, frustrations with companies or stores, money worries, challenges with friends or family all seem so huge at times – it gets that way for all of us. That’s why I appreciate coming to a place like India – it helps me to shift my perspective back to what truly is important in life and what is worth worrying about and spending energy on. All of the stresses, frustrations and worries that tend to consume our lives at times are ridiculously stupid BECAUSE we know where we are sleeping tonight and where our next meal is coming from.

So that was Incredible India for me – thanks for reading.