Where I Slept: Jaipur, India

Jaipur, India | 19 December, 2006 | $6.67

Jaipur was my first stop in what became a thorough tour of Rajasthan, one of the most popular tourist regions of India. After visiting a handful of similar forts I became a bit jaded and unimpressed—what a shame! This was my first Rajasthani fort though, and the town was lively, littered with carts selling fried treats and small shops stacked to the ceiling with colorful bangles.

While I was exploring town I came upon a movie palace and decided to take in a film, Indian-style. Patrons were dressed in their best and I enjoyed the beautiful art deco interior for its campy, art deco style. Oddly, one of the groups listed on the ticket window besides “foreign tourists” was “freedom fighters.” Of course, they received a discount.

More colorful photos from Jaipur can be found in the gallery.

Where I Slept: New Delhi, India #2

New Delhi, India | 13 December, 2006 | $6.11

No, I didn’t sleep at McDonalds—but look at the recycling options! As a designer I spend a lot of time looking at packaging and signs on the road. It’s always a treat to see how international brands change their product and design for local markets. I get a lot of flack for eating at McDonalds abroad but not only is it culturally fascinating, it also helps with the kind of homesickness that a traveler is prone to get after six months on the road.

This hotel was much cheaper and just around the corner—sometimes changing is worth the hassle. Delhi was a refueling top for me, as most big cities are, where I had new pants made, bought toothpaste and sent a package full of souvenirs and guidebooks home.

More photos from New Delhi can be found in the gallery.

Where I Slept: New Delhi, India

New Delhi, India | 11 December, 2006 | $20

My first night in India’s capital was spent at an overpriced hotel in a maze of tiny alleyways. The train from Agra only takes four hours but the Chinese traveler (whom I’d met in Khajuraho and I traveled all the way to Delhi with) didn’t have much luck finding rooms arriving late in the day.

Surprisingly, I ran into Sui (my travel partner in Tiber and Nepal) walking down a crowded street in while I was here. After parting ways in Pokhara, Nepal we ran into each other in a Varanassi alley an hour before she left for Calcutta. When her train was late she decided to head West instead of East at the last minute, ensuring we would spend yet another holiday together.

A highlight of New Delhi for me was the lotus-shaped Baha’i Temple. Despite huge crowds of tourists and an entrance line, once I entered the temple I left the loud bustle of India behind and was surrounded by silence. What a huge difference from the colorful, crowded Hindu temples I’d seen in Nepal!

More photos from New Delhi can be found in the gallery.

Where I Slept: Agra, India

Agra, India | 8 December, 2006 | $4.45

This is it. The Taj Mahal is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world and an iconic image that everyone I know is familiar with. These places are always the trickiest to visit because they are always overly-crowded and often a let down from the mystique surrounding them.

A number of tourists staying my hotel refused to go into the Taj because of the high price (almost $17 USD at the time for non-Indians). I guess they were satisfied with the great view from the hotel’s rooftop resturaunt, but I was determined to see the Taj in the best light possible with the least amount of people. I had a cartwheel photo to take, after all. Setting off at dawn I made arrived at the gate as the grounds opened. It was much more crowded than I expected for the time but I did well in getting there so early and avoiding the school groups and tour buses that streamed in after I’d spent a few hours exploring.

There are other attractions in Agra, including the gorgeous Fatehpur Sikri and Agra Fort (both UNESCO Heritage sites). Unfortunately, despite clear agreements beforehand, my rickshaw driver asked for three times the agreed upon price. I didn’t give in but he was sure persistent, following me down the street and yelling at me. By this point in my travels being asked to be in a stranger’s photo isn’t very surprising but this was the first time I was asked to pose with a newborn baby in an extended family group photo before. I wish I had a copy!

Oh, you want to see the pretty Taj photos? They’re here in the gallery.

Where I Slept: Khajuraho, India

Khajuraho, India | 6 December, 2006 | $4.33

I love going through my photos and updating all of these locations, most of which I never even bothered to write about in the first place. However, the images of the rooms have to be the ugliest images I have. I’m making an executive decision and using whatever image I want up top.

Khajuraho is a notable tourist destination but just far enough away from Delhi that it gets left out of the Agra tourism loop. I hadn’t originally intended on staying but the detour from Varanasi worked out and I found myself in this very strange little town surrounded by overly excited men.

Most people come with tour groups and never walk through the town or frequent the shops so I found myself being followed by a group of men at most times. When I walked into a shop to buy water five men would follow me and the shopkeeper would ask me to stay for tea. I love getting to know the locals over tea but couldn’t stay cornered in a little shop surrounded by men. I’m used to being stared at—China broke me of any illusions of privacy or Western boundaries but this was different and didn’t feel right. Thankfully my hotel had a lovely little courtyard with plants and fish where I spent time discussing politics with an interesting Chinese tourist—the first Chinese tourist I’d met traveling alone and a woman to boot!

If you like temples, there’s plenty more in the gallery.

Where I Slept: Gorakhpur, India

Gorakhpur, India | 30 November, 2006 | $2.80 (my portion, shared with 2 others)

The journey from Lumbini, Nepal to Varnasi, India was too long to complete in one day so the couple I’d met in Lumbini and I stopped in Gorakhpur, India after crossing the border. Its a town of no interest to tourists and I found myself watching kids play soccer in the field behind our hotel for entertainment. You can read a bit more about the journey to Indiain the post I wrote at the time.

After spending the night in Gorakhpur we were directed to what turned out to be the wrong train. A conductor kicked us off in the middle of nowhere, at a stop with no station and directed us to wait for the next rain. We ended up sitting beside the tracks for three hours being intensely studied by a group of curious locals, as you can see in the video below.

Indian Staring Contest from Megan Kearney on Vimeo.

Chicago Satsang

Sunday night I got a little travel fix, or at least an international culture fix. The girlfriend of one of my old high school friends is planning a trip to Southern India and she was interested in ashrams. When she discovered that I spent eight days at Sivinanda Ashram in Nyer Dam on my last trip she was excited. She frequently attends satsang at the Chicago chapter of the organization, Sivinanda Yoga Vedanta Center, on the North side. When she invited me to satsang on Sunday I jumped at the chance to do something that related to travel and to see how the service compared to the ones I was forcibly waken up at 5am for in India.

The service consists of thirty minutes of meditation followed by chanting and singing. Some of the same chants that you hear in my videos from Nyer Dam were used on Sunday night. Sitting indoors on carpet with ten people was a little different than sitting outside at dawn with seventy people but it was similar enough to leave me with a smile, remembering the good parts of my yoga vacation in India. Sivinanda has centers all over the world and satsang is usually free so if any of you are interested in seeing what it’s like I suggest you go for it. I am not a religious person but I do find the cultural aspects of satsang interesting. Just because we’re not on the road doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the effort to find some culture when we can.

Me-go Mix: Track 4

Me-go Mix: Track 4
“Raat Baaki” — DJ Akbar Sami
To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do.

Chowpatty Beach in Mumbai (Bombay) at sunset. Behind me is a busy six lane road, a Baskin Robbins and a Levi’s store. Despite that, this scene feels like it fits the song.

One of my last stops in India was Bangalore where I stocked up on guidebooks for Jordan and Egypt. At the bottom of my shopping bag among half a dozen glossy flyers and ads was a free CD sampler featuring remixed songs from popular movies. “Raat Baaki” is a remix of a song from the 1982 Hindi Bollywood film Namak Halaal. Here’s a link to a short scene from the movie where the original version of “Raat Baaki” is sung. Below is a short live version of the song with different singers than my mp3.

Out of India

After three days in transit from Bangalore, including a 24-hour train ride, a 1am airport appearance and a brief layover in Kuwait, I have finally arrived in Jordan. More importantly, I got out of India.

I don’t think I’ve talked much about my frustrations in India here, because when I was so angry I had to clench my fists at my side not to hit someone I was in no shape to be composing blog posts. India is not a hard country to travel in. In fact, it was one of the easiest I’ve been to. Most people speak English, there’s a comprehensive transportation system and it’s inexpensive. But the every day hassles I had to deal with wore me down.

After the first month of “rickshaw madams” and “your countries” I was becoming violent. Even though I’ve been to countries where everyone wants to know where you’re from (Uzbekistan comes to mind), they didn’t continue to talk to you and tell you everything they think about anything without letting you speak. When I did speak or beg off I was usally told I was wrong or yelled at for not being interested in the locals and so on.

More than that, I can’t stand being told what to do. Generally, when someone gives me unsolicited advice (“sit down, go there, eat this”) I automatically want to do the opposite. This lead to many situations in which I got into an argument with an Indian man because I wouldn’t sit down. Sometimes I would be walking straight down a street and a man would come up and point the way I was walking and say “yes, that way.” I would have to find some side street to turn off of just to prove him wrong!

Add to that horribly greasy and/or spicy food, pollution and a population that apparently can not tell the truth and I was out. If I had left after the first month I think I could still look back fondly of the sites I saw and the few nice people I met. Even though the South was much more hassle-free I still got into a physical alteration with a drunk rickshaw driver in Fort Chochin and yelled at people in Bangalore.

In my mind I kept hearing those people who say “you’ll either love India or you’ll hate it.” I struggled with that statement because I didn’t hate India and I didn’t love India. Mostly I was just undwhelmed and dissapointed by it. In the end it’s just better for both me and India that we’ve parted ways.

Jordan is a breath of “fresh” air compared to India and I’m excited to be in a country smaller than the state of Virginia with plenty of really old, really important sites—all more or less on the way to Egypt. I’ve already bought my red and white checkered head scarf and Iraqi Dinar with Saddam’s picture on it. For lunch today I had a grilled chicken wrap with avacado, salsa and fresh sour cream. Sure, it cost more than my hotel room but it wasn’t Paneer Butter Masala.

When I arrived at 3pm yesterday I immediately went to sleep and didn’t wake up until 6 the next morning. The hotel staff later admitted that they were worried about me, that something was wrong, but they soon realized I just had to sleep India off.