Shoshanablank’s Weblog

Mahatma Gandhi Museum in Delhi

After a fun five weeks in Kodaikanal and a lot of hugs and goodbyes, I left on October 30th. My water samples from my research project are currently in a lab where they are getting tested for many parameters, the most important one being mercury. I am anxiously awaiting those test results so that I can finish writing my research paper.

Anyways, I I took a bus alone, with my huge back and yoga mat attached and somehow I made it to my final destination in Kumily, Kerala, a bordertown between the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. I had to take two buses, use all the Tamil language I knew, borrow multiple cell phones, and sit 6 hours on a bus. India is an exhilarating place to travel alone! I stayed the night at a homestay owned by my new friend Meena. Meena was one of the persons responsible for closing down the thermometer factory that I was studying. It felt good to arrive at a friend’s house when I was alone, rather than at a hotel.

In Kumily the next day I went to Meena’s neighbor’s house, Sebastian, and he gave me an hour and aa half long tour of his spice garden. Kumily is called “the spice belt of Kerala” so I knew I wanted to do something like this. I learned a lot about common medicinal plants, and when I saw that my ankle was getting swollen and red from some allergy he just rubbed some leaf on it and it got better. Amazing!

I checked into a “hotel room”, but in reality the room was a treehouse. But it was cool, who wouldn’t want to sleep in a treehouse once in their life? I shopped  around there, and finally at 10:30pm I saw Rebecca Dyer through the window of the lounge. Ahhhh!!! I was so happy to reunite with the six of them that came to Kumily that night.

The next day we took a guided hike in the Periyar wildlife sanctuary ( early morning so that we could see wildlife). But, we didn’t see too much. It was a beautiful place though. And I guess I’d rather not be trampled by an elephant or eaten by a tiger. That day we also got to ride elephants!!! Four people fit on my elephant and we rode for 30 minutes. Surprisingly, it is a really comfortable angle for the legs. The next morning we took a yoga class and then Rebecca and I were off on a bus heading to Alleppey, Kerala.

Alleppey is one of the cities sitting right next to the Keralan backwaters, a major tourist destination. We took a canoe-boat throught the backwaters for 6 hours. It was a very peaceful ride, and because our boat was so small we fit into really tight canals that led us through villages. We ate this yellow mush for lunch (squash maybe?) and tried the homemade coconut beer. The coconut beer was one of the worst things I’ve ever tasted and Rebecca and I took one or two sips each and were done. It was like sesame oil, basically WAY too fermented.

That night we hopped on another train to Trivandram, really South. We got to the airport at 10pm that night,m even though our plane wasn’t flying out until 6am the following morning. Our plane was originally supposed to fly out at 3pm the next day so that we could have more time in the backwaters, but Indian Airlines sucks and “preponded” our flight by 9 hours. We did not want to pay for a hotel, just for 5 hours, so we figured that we would wait in the airport. Well, we got there and saw that the waiting area was outside. So, luckily, after much persuasion and raising our voices, the airlines paid for a hotel for us across the street. We at least got a shower and a little rest, but the room was GROSS.

We flew to Delhi the next day, but once we got there we decided that we wanted to get a nice hotel room so that we could watch the election comfortably. We had no map or travel guide, so the taxi just dropped us off in the ghetto. Two white girls with huge backpacks, walking in the ghetto. Eventually we got taken to another ghetto area and we had this creeppy guy following us around for 10 minutes before we had a rickshaw literally drive us away from this man. I was starting to doubt our ability to travel without a male. Everything worked out though. After meeting a travel agent that looked and acted like he was a member of the Indian mob,we locked ourselves in a nice hotel room for about 16 hours, only going out to get dinner, and we watched CNN.

What an election!!!! So glad Obama won, I almost cried along with   Oprah an dJesse Jackson during his speech. I don’t have to be ashamed anymore to be an American abroad, and I have something to look foward to when I get back, Inauguration! From Italians “We love Obama!” to South Africans “One Love Obama!” the people we met in Delhi over the next day were thrilled about it too.

   We left Delhi on an overnight train for Bikaner, Rajasthan. Probably the closest I’ll ever come to Pakistan. The sleeper train is dirty and people ask you questions like “Are you alone?” and “Where are you going?”, but at least you get to sleep for most of thee 12 hour journey. I started coming up with different answers when men would ask me weird questions. I am from MExico, I am a social worker, I am 25 years old and newly married. My husband is in Chennai. Then I would speak to Rebecca for the rest of the train ride in Spanish to make it believable, and so no one could understand what I was saying. I really should have told more people that I was from Israel, because everyone thought I was. I wonder why they would think that?

We got to Rajasthan and spent a day and night in the guest house of the camel safari owners. Thje next day we left on the camel safari at 10am. The desert wasn’t exactly what we thought. I was picturing miles and miles of unending sand dunes with no trees or anything green in sight. Here there was quite a bit of shrubbery and trees, they thinned out as we got further into the desert. We really enjoyed the group in our safari. There was a Dutch couple and a German dad and his daughter (around our age). Together we had good conversations comparing U.S. to Europe,; we may look similar in skin color, but we are SO different culturally. Two Rajasthani musicians played for us before dinmner and we had a campfire before bed in our tents. I woke up early (it was cold in the morning) to watch the sunrise. The secomd day on the camels was okay, except that my saddle was uncentered, so it was a bit uncomfortable. But I think I enjoy riding a camel over a horse, it’s slow and like being in a dream you just float along. And I really enjoyed the dryness of the desert rather than the humidity everywhere else in India. We left Bikaner on another overnight train for Delhi.

  In Delhi we went to the Indira Gandhi Museum and the Mahatma Gandhi Museum. Together these were the two most influential people in modern Indian history. I learned so much about the country and its politics. They were both assasinatedby extremists, but they bothknew that their work and beliefs would lead to a martyr death someday. I never studied any Indian history in school, except of course learning about the basics of Gandhi, so I’m really learning a lot about ancient and modern Indian history here. We also went to Humayun’s Tomb, housing some dead Mughal kings. The architecture for this tomb was what the Taj Mahal was based off of. The Mughal empire ruled for hundreds of years in India before the Brits came along in the 18th century.

   After another day in Delhi we travelled to Agra by train and got to the West Gate of the Taj Mahal at 6am. It was magnificent, beatifully detailed and enormous in sze. Everything is symmetric, except the king’s tomb was to the left of his wife’s tomb. He seriously must have LOVED his wife to have gone through so much trouble, 22 years, to build the Taj. He imported stones from all over the world to make the intricate flower details on the walls of the tomb. It was magnificent and definitely worthy of being a world wonder.

  The rest of travel break was a blurr, among other thing we watched Quantum of Solace in English at a movie theater in Delhi. It was SO good, and I normally don’t even care about  James Bond movies. We had popcorn and Pepsi, it was like America.

  Right now I’m in Auroville about to start my second research project. I’ve been busy today, already went to a yoga class and I’m going to a free foreign film tonight. Perhaps too much play and not enough work here, but I’m not complaining. After I get my stuff together with my research project here, I wil blog again telling my tales from Auroville.

Happy Thanksgiving in advamce!