Well, in answer to your comments and questions; I write this to entertain, and I personally am far more entertained, in the reading and writing, by stories of people being alienated and critical, than I am by stories of people 'having a great time! Everything's so cool here! My energies are really aligned with the chakras of this country, and I never want to leave - and the clothes are so cool, you MUST see these yak-fur slippers I bought for less than the price of a coffee in Starbucks...'
We chose India because it's huge and thoroughly different from what we are used to (I'm familiar with much of Europe and most of Latin America, but have never gone East); yet we did know that it can offer us cracking vegetarian fare at prices that meant we could afford to stay away for a really long time. I'm afraid if we were wrong about anything, it was about how long it take us to get used to it here - we researched so thoroughly, and spoke to so many people who had been here, and then we talked about it for a year or more before we came (didn't we, darling?) so that there was really nothing in the way of novelty about any of it. It was like moving in with someone you already know as a friend - sometimes it's better to know nothing whatsoever of a housemate before you start spending your life together.
So instead of it taking a month or more to get used to it here, and not really liking it until then, I just liked it immediately, and then, er, well, kind of got bored of it really. What we expected to see as challenges quickly became irritations; what we expected to be eye-opening has mostly just been a nuisance. That's not to say we don't like it - it's a huge place and there's lots to offer, it's all different, we've hardly scraped the surface of the geography yet - but I've been to quite a few places, and I work in an environment full of people from nearly every country in the world, and the people we encountered in our first month or so here were mostly a bit disappointing.
We had a significant conversation with a French guy and his Taiwanese girlfriend, who are travelling around the entirety of Asia over a couple of years (pro photo journalists), and at some point we said 'so was Cambodia nice?' and she said 'Well, it's always just nice to get out India. It's just not that so annoying in Cambodia' and this baffled us completely. We were only three weeks into our quest, and still being very tolerant and accepting of this new society. We said' Er, how do you mean, annoying?' We thought she was being funny. And she said, 'they don't stare that so rude - I mean, they still interested, you still exciting new sight, but they not horrible about it. And the cars don't just all hooting, the all time. And the people in the hotels, they clean sometime.' And we laughed and identified with her, and commiserated, and didn't take her too seriously, and then picked our way back through the litter-strewn, excrement-covered streets, trying to ignore the constant hooting and unbelievably foul smoke of the autos, fended off horrible oily little men treating Jess as though we are all still tree-dwelling primates, failed to get any water, hot or cold, out of our filthy hotel bathroom, and lay awake trying to convince ourselves that if this was our country we'd be the same - that it probably just wasn't possible to keep things clean or provide proper services for more than a couple of hours a day, that they probably just have too many people to organise any refuse collection method beyond 'not running over cows if they're eating rubbish'.
And then we went to Delhi. Which was the epitome of hideousness in every way. (Woody's great-uncle, who designed much of it, would be spinning in his grave, except if he's buried there he's probably been ungratefully disinterred to make space for another massive hole in the ground.) Except that we stayed just outside Delhi. Where the Tibetans have set up Majnu Ka Tilla, their home.
And their home is clean, with no open sewers, no litter, no rubbish, no cows in the street, and therefore a less rich, less fetid smell. The women and girls are allowed to wear T-shirts without being treated like imported sex slaves, because all the men there are Tibetan, and they're not so rude. There is no hooting because it is closed to traffic, and it backs onto a river, with tiny patchwork fields bordering it, littered with nothing but poor agricultural children picking crops, who, despite clearly not being at all wealthy, are happy and clean with lively eyes. And our hotel was spotless, with friendly staff, and when we asked people questions they gave us information which was fundamentally correct. And best of all, we were seen as people, not as white-skinned ATMs which, approached in the right way, might just start spewing rupees out onto the street. Which, without wanting to labour the point, was nice, after a month in Rajahstan.
And although I'd like to imply that this was exceptional in terms of clarity, we are now up near Dharmsala, after a few days in Shimla ('India's favourite hill station' populated by the cream of Indian society, wealthy Indians on holiday, parading up and down the main pedestrian drag like Italians on a Sunday afternoon (not quite going to Italian lengths of Armanifying and accessorising their children and, God forbid, their fucking DOGS, but still certainly faring la vasca) in their nicest shirts. Still staring. And in Mandi (anyone got any Mandi? Probably not, if our impressions of the town were correct), which was a nondescript little town where Jess had already had to shout at someone to make him leave her alone before she even took her bag off. And even when we got to McLeodganj, which is infinitely more chilled than Dharmsala, which is already more peaceful and civilised than down on the baking dusty plains, it was relaxing (because it's where the Tibetans all live, along with the exiled Dalai Lama government), but it was still a bit popular with Indian tourists, and all the taxi drivers are Indian, which means that the cute, narrow little streets are jammed with hooting traffic all day long. So we left.
And now, I'm sorry; this will be a bit dull. Because I love where we are now. We have a hostel half-way up a mountain for 200 rupees a night, no hot water, no furniture, and barely any mattress (we had to move next door because our first room was rather comprehensively furnished with budbugs, which weren't great for storage but which saved Jess the need to consider henna or any other form of personal body decoration. TWO HUNDRED BITES, she had when we stopped counting. Poor itchy little sweetie went all weird with all the crawliness of it. She'll listen to me next time, when I say, 'I think we've got bedbugs' and suggest sleeping with rather more clothes on) - but we both love it. We've been here eight days already, and we are officially On Holiday. Eating four meals a day, popping down to the village for occasional ninety-p bottles of rum, sitting around in virtually-free little humus-cafes with hippies playing chess and cards and watching the world cup, enjoying the various benefits of the local foliage, planning our walks to waterfalls and round mountains to try and avoid the four or five thunderstorms a day, and going days without seeing a wheel of any description let alone a car, - this is what we came to India for. Not for the Indians, but for the India. We are finding the people in the mountains to be far more pleasant to be with - less rude, more considerate, and simply less totally incompetent. Some of them can add up, even. We've also made some friends, Ed and Liona, who are so similar to us in some ways it's a bit spooky. We're going to go up to Triund, rent a tent, stay up there for a night and go and find the snow line the day after. That's going to be some proper trekking, and it's going to be great.
Not so much fun to read about though, eh?!
When I come back to the machines, I'll talk about Agra. That'll be far more interesting. It was flippin GRIM there. But now I'm going to have to log off to try and upload some photos. It's nice being away from the traffic in this semi-village, but the general level of rusticity is such that it's not the best place to accomplish things on the internet...
Missing everybody (expecially Rich Chard, who looks a bit like Ed, and who we are therefore reminded of frequently, and Chrismann, because Ed has just left himself with a seventies Mexican' tash which Chris would greatly appreciate). Cheers for staying in touch, especially Steve and Ingrid (hello Ingrid! Hope to meet you when we get back, and show you that in real life I'm not actually cynical at all) and Jur and Minno, and nice photo Richking. You didn't have to wear all the clothes at the same time, you know, but I'm flattered!
All the best (thunder! Lightning!) and 'Good Luck England's No-Hopers' in the game tomorrow,
Jake xxx
