"India...It's WOW"
sorry i've been out of commission for so long...while away on these temple trips, it's near impossible to find the time to update...it ususally involves either a.) walking around trying to find a working internet cafe and being unsuccessful or b.) astronomical internet prices for too short a period of time to get anything substantial written down.
so here i am. back in mysore after 16 days of travel abroad. i feel list form is the best way to go about sharing. it will include:
-beautiful scenery
-how i fell in love with an indian man
-eating 2 of the best meals i've had in a long time
-having old men who are british hot-shots buy you drinks at a bar
and many other things.
so here it goes:
a.) started off by taking an overnight train from Bangalore to Hampi. the last time i was on an overnight train was from paris to nice, and that was when the train had actual compartments with doors and locks. this was not that train. each compartment was divided into 4 beds with a fold out table in the center. the other 2 for that compartment were across the isle, parallel to the walls of the train, and stacked one on top of the other (so the bottom one could convert into two seats if desired). and no doors. just large, blue, plastic curtains which slid in front of the bed (or pseudo-compartment, if your bed was part of the four). i didn't feel tired right away when we first got on, so i took out some embroidery to work on. every indian that passed by just lingered over my shoulder until i turned to face them, and then walked away. later that night, when it was lights out time and i was tucked away into my little coffin of a bed, the snoring began. indian men snore. loudly. i'm sure this is an obscenely large generalization, however, there were MULTIPLE within 5 feet of me who were extremely loud. made it v. interesting...that along with all the commotion that occurred at every place we stopped at.
b.) Hampi - we finally arrived after an overnight train and a mega-bus ride later. we were given about an hour to get all we needed to in order before we left for our first temple visit...Let me tell you about Hampi: it's one of the most surreal looking places i've ever visited. we lucked out and had perfect weather our whole 2 weeks we were gone, but this one day in particular was absolutely beautiful. the landscape of the area looks like it was once covered in a giant glacier, and left behind all these crazy rock formations. HUGE boulders balancing on smaller ones, temples mixed in with bright green trees and the bluest sky with the greates clouds i've ever seen...part of it almost seemed like Sedona. Hampi is the former capital of the Vijayanagara empire, and has multiple old temple sites. One of my personal favorites was this one temple where all of the pillars were constructed so that they could be played as instruments. they're not hollow...they're solid stone. however, depending on where and how they were struck, they would produce a noise similar to a marimba. some were really loud, and others you could only hear if you placed your ear on another pillar opposite that pillar being struck. it was amazing, and especially to just imagine all of these being played at once...crazy.
c.) Badami - from hampi, we got on our bus and drove several hours to Badami. It's here that we saw some pretty crazy rock-cut temples...like, these temples weren't built. they were carved out of rock and made into cave temples. it was nuts. also! there were monkeys! but terrible, horrible, no good monkeys. so bad, in fact, that "BEWARE OF MONKEY MENACE" signs were placed everywhere. word on the street is that these meanies will steal your water, your wallet, your watch, etc. we were careful, and had no run-ins, thankfully. after viewing the cave-temples, we went on a walk up to these smaller fort/temple things looking down over the entire city. it felt so good to just stretch our legs and be out of a city to a place where the air was much fresher. we climbed so high, you almost lost all sound of the honking rickshaws and cars below.
d.) Goa - oh. goa. it took us about 10-12 hours to drive from Badami to Goa, but we finally made it (after several near concussions with the bus flying over bumpy roads and sending those in the back to be sent flying towards the ceiling). we stayed in a resort, which i kind of feel like is a cop-out for being in india, but it was so nice, i don't really regret it that much. there are no temples in goa, so essentially, 4 days of play was just worked into our budget for fun. every day consisted of waking up at 10, eating a decent western breakfast, going to the beach/pool, laying in the sun/swimming/going for a walk, coming back for lunch, completing the two tasks mentioned before that weren't completed the first time around, watching the sun set, getting in the hot tub, quick dunk in the pool, shower, dinner, sleep. repeat x4. except for one night, when we went to this club. we rented a bus, and drove about 2 hours to this supposedly "hot club" where i guess is the place to be seen. we weren't charged to get in since we were 10 american girls (+2american boys), but it was really strange. just a huge porch connected to a bar with a bunch of strobe lights and black lights and weird music and 1/2 indian men.
we didn't stay long.
oh, and i got mega burned. but what do you expect when you're whitewhitewhite?
e.) from goa, we went to aurangabad. there's nothing in aurangabad directly (except for a mini-replica of the taj mahal. but by mini, i mean, still bigger than my house), but it's the best place to stay when one wishes to visit Ajanta and Ellora, the buddhist caves. Ajanta is more famous for its beautifully preserved paintings (some of which date back to 2nd C. BC) while Ellora is more well known for its sculptures. and in addition to this, bot of the caves are rock-cut temples, meaning that they were simply hollowed out from the rock that was previously there, making it that much more impressive.
here's where it gets great.
our guide while here was a young guy named Sanjay. we calculated that he couldn't have been older than 26, and worked as a laywer (the only one in his family to go to school!) but loved archaeology and art so much that he volunteers his time at these caves as a professional tour guide. he wore the worst pants (india, we've noticed, is notorious for it's terrible taste in pants) but was so adorable it didn't matter. he heard someone refer to him as "sanjay man" and then continued to refer to himself in the third person as the same. he would bound through the caves, jumping and spinnging, all excited and saying things like "when general john smith saw these caves, all he could say was 'WOW' " and at the end of the 2 days, he announced to us on the bus that "this has been 2 of the very best days in all my life". i thanked him after for doing such a good job, and he said "oh, it was such a pleasure to get to know you! thank you!".
adorable.
i want to run away with him.
unfortunately, it was an airplane to Mumbai that dragged me away...
f.) mumbai - Mumbai is one of the only cities in india that has jews. the community that lives here, the Bene Israel, claim that they are, indeed, decendents from one of the lost tribes of israel. through DNA testing, it's been proven that they're Cohanim (the priestly class of the original Tribe of Levi...one of the 10 lost tribes). crazy. they've lost a lot of their population to the fact that many members of the younger generation wish to go back to israel...get back to their roots, but have left only around 2000 individuals still in mumbai. however, many of thier synagogues still exist, and we went on a tour of several of them. it's weird, because these people look and dress just like other indians. however, they keep kosher. they go to services. they speak and read hebrew. Jake, Becky and I, along with the Brodkin clan ended up joining one individual family at their house for shabbat dinner after friday night services (which were completely in hebrew, mind you). the meal was delicious, and everyone was so nice...even though we had only met that afternoon, i felt like family with them, and it was nice to know that there's that sense of community between us.
ungh. fresh baked challah. and hummus. ungh.
the next day was spent playing "the game". it's sick and twisted and i won't get into it, except for that it involves buying a lot of wholesale jewels and not feeling guilty for doing so because they're such a good price.
after, alana, lizzie, elizabeth and myself went to dinner together at this asian-fusion place. now here comes meal 1 of one of the best meals: split a salad of mixed mushrooms in a soy-sauce of sorts with alana, along with blanched asparagus in a peanut dressing. then ordered salmon teriyaki...and for those of you who know me, i NEVER EVER order fish. i don't know what came over me, but i'm happy i did because it was FANtastic. that, plus 2 bottles of wine for the table and we were happy campers (others got sashimi, kobe beef, etc). while we were sitting there, not only the manager comes over to talk to us, but the CEO of the place as well. we knew there was a club/bar next door, but didn't really feel like paying the cover-fee to get in. however, the CEO informed us that he'd let us go for free. just walk right in. so we did...right under the velvet rope and into the club, no questions asked (when we came out later, people were lined up trying to get in and being turned away. yikes). i don't even like clubs, but this place was just so outrageous, i couldn't help but enjoy myself. we were approached by this older (40?) british guy who is apparently some big real-estate guy in bombay or something, and were invited to sit at his private table with a bunch of other people, including some older british man, a russian prostitute, and a few assorted indians.
it was an experience.
sunday was spent at the elephanta caves, which are more rock-cut temple caves, but are more of the experimental period. was cool. took an hour long boat ride over to the island on which it's located. BOATS! !!!! MARITIME ADVENTURES! LOVEBOATS!
dinner that night = good meal #2 (in case you weren't aware, all we talk about these days are the regularity of our bowels and food). that night, i had: half a bagel with creamcheese, capers, onions, and lox (again with the fish! ???), followed by a sandwich of french bread with roasted peppers, roasted summer squash, roasted eggplant, buffalo mozzarella, lettuce, onions, and balsalmic vinegar. WITH A POTATO WEDGE! and dessert! chocolate and creamcheese brownie with homemade hazlenut ice cream! now THAT IS WOW!
anyway. that was my trip. i'm sure a lot more happened, but i don't feel up to boring you longer than you need to be bored. that is, if you even were able to make it all the way to the end of this.
we had a discussion over this trip about our program compared to others. i know someone else who is in india currently, and travels by themself, etc, and i feel is getting a more "indian" experience. we are not. i admire that so much...though, i'm afraid it's something i just wouldn't be able to do...but when we were thinking about the perks of this SATA program, we realized that we have been to a TON of places...and not just any places, but AMAZING places...for example, the caves at Ajanta are going to be closed by the government at the end of the year, and it's unsure if they're ever going to re-open to the public again, or if a replica will be made and the original will be used for research only. but the fact that we got to see something that people in years to come may not be able to see...something that's so amazing and old and important to the buddhis tradition is amazing. i guess it depends on what your priorities are for what program one should choose when going abroad...if you want to get the "indian experience" and go really into one aspect of being here, or to lightly touch on many many many different areas of indian culture.
only 5 weeks left...and in those 5 weeks i need to write a 25 page paper, a 5 page paper, take 2 finals, 1 quiz, give a dance performance, and go to kerala for 3 days...oh, and cook our delayed thanksgiving dinner (which is turning out to be more of an end of the semester-thank our teacher-feast).
and only 10 more days of class left. yikes...
BONUS! http://conncoll.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010920&l=09b51&id=14100144 !!! YOU MADE IT TO THE END, SO NOW YOU GET TO LOOK AT PICTURES!
ok, i miss you all. feel free to email or IM me if you want...i like to talk. rly. i do.
and, i'll be up in new london december 18 and 19th, i believe, if you want to play.
just putting that out there.
sorry i've been out of commission for so long...while away on these temple trips, it's near impossible to find the time to update...it ususally involves either a.) walking around trying to find a working internet cafe and being unsuccessful or b.) astronomical internet prices for too short a period of time to get anything substantial written down.
so here i am. back in mysore after 16 days of travel abroad. i feel list form is the best way to go about sharing. it will include:
-beautiful scenery
-how i fell in love with an indian man
-eating 2 of the best meals i've had in a long time
-having old men who are british hot-shots buy you drinks at a bar
and many other things.
so here it goes:
a.) started off by taking an overnight train from Bangalore to Hampi. the last time i was on an overnight train was from paris to nice, and that was when the train had actual compartments with doors and locks. this was not that train. each compartment was divided into 4 beds with a fold out table in the center. the other 2 for that compartment were across the isle, parallel to the walls of the train, and stacked one on top of the other (so the bottom one could convert into two seats if desired). and no doors. just large, blue, plastic curtains which slid in front of the bed (or pseudo-compartment, if your bed was part of the four). i didn't feel tired right away when we first got on, so i took out some embroidery to work on. every indian that passed by just lingered over my shoulder until i turned to face them, and then walked away. later that night, when it was lights out time and i was tucked away into my little coffin of a bed, the snoring began. indian men snore. loudly. i'm sure this is an obscenely large generalization, however, there were MULTIPLE within 5 feet of me who were extremely loud. made it v. interesting...that along with all the commotion that occurred at every place we stopped at.
b.) Hampi - we finally arrived after an overnight train and a mega-bus ride later. we were given about an hour to get all we needed to in order before we left for our first temple visit...Let me tell you about Hampi: it's one of the most surreal looking places i've ever visited. we lucked out and had perfect weather our whole 2 weeks we were gone, but this one day in particular was absolutely beautiful. the landscape of the area looks like it was once covered in a giant glacier, and left behind all these crazy rock formations. HUGE boulders balancing on smaller ones, temples mixed in with bright green trees and the bluest sky with the greates clouds i've ever seen...part of it almost seemed like Sedona. Hampi is the former capital of the Vijayanagara empire, and has multiple old temple sites. One of my personal favorites was this one temple where all of the pillars were constructed so that they could be played as instruments. they're not hollow...they're solid stone. however, depending on where and how they were struck, they would produce a noise similar to a marimba. some were really loud, and others you could only hear if you placed your ear on another pillar opposite that pillar being struck. it was amazing, and especially to just imagine all of these being played at once...crazy.
c.) Badami - from hampi, we got on our bus and drove several hours to Badami. It's here that we saw some pretty crazy rock-cut temples...like, these temples weren't built. they were carved out of rock and made into cave temples. it was nuts. also! there were monkeys! but terrible, horrible, no good monkeys. so bad, in fact, that "BEWARE OF MONKEY MENACE" signs were placed everywhere. word on the street is that these meanies will steal your water, your wallet, your watch, etc. we were careful, and had no run-ins, thankfully. after viewing the cave-temples, we went on a walk up to these smaller fort/temple things looking down over the entire city. it felt so good to just stretch our legs and be out of a city to a place where the air was much fresher. we climbed so high, you almost lost all sound of the honking rickshaws and cars below.
d.) Goa - oh. goa. it took us about 10-12 hours to drive from Badami to Goa, but we finally made it (after several near concussions with the bus flying over bumpy roads and sending those in the back to be sent flying towards the ceiling). we stayed in a resort, which i kind of feel like is a cop-out for being in india, but it was so nice, i don't really regret it that much. there are no temples in goa, so essentially, 4 days of play was just worked into our budget for fun. every day consisted of waking up at 10, eating a decent western breakfast, going to the beach/pool, laying in the sun/swimming/going for a walk, coming back for lunch, completing the two tasks mentioned before that weren't completed the first time around, watching the sun set, getting in the hot tub, quick dunk in the pool, shower, dinner, sleep. repeat x4. except for one night, when we went to this club. we rented a bus, and drove about 2 hours to this supposedly "hot club" where i guess is the place to be seen. we weren't charged to get in since we were 10 american girls (+2american boys), but it was really strange. just a huge porch connected to a bar with a bunch of strobe lights and black lights and weird music and 1/2 indian men.
we didn't stay long.
oh, and i got mega burned. but what do you expect when you're whitewhitewhite?
e.) from goa, we went to aurangabad. there's nothing in aurangabad directly (except for a mini-replica of the taj mahal. but by mini, i mean, still bigger than my house), but it's the best place to stay when one wishes to visit Ajanta and Ellora, the buddhist caves. Ajanta is more famous for its beautifully preserved paintings (some of which date back to 2nd C. BC) while Ellora is more well known for its sculptures. and in addition to this, bot of the caves are rock-cut temples, meaning that they were simply hollowed out from the rock that was previously there, making it that much more impressive.
here's where it gets great.
our guide while here was a young guy named Sanjay. we calculated that he couldn't have been older than 26, and worked as a laywer (the only one in his family to go to school!) but loved archaeology and art so much that he volunteers his time at these caves as a professional tour guide. he wore the worst pants (india, we've noticed, is notorious for it's terrible taste in pants) but was so adorable it didn't matter. he heard someone refer to him as "sanjay man" and then continued to refer to himself in the third person as the same. he would bound through the caves, jumping and spinnging, all excited and saying things like "when general john smith saw these caves, all he could say was 'WOW' " and at the end of the 2 days, he announced to us on the bus that "this has been 2 of the very best days in all my life". i thanked him after for doing such a good job, and he said "oh, it was such a pleasure to get to know you! thank you!".
adorable.
i want to run away with him.
unfortunately, it was an airplane to Mumbai that dragged me away...
f.) mumbai - Mumbai is one of the only cities in india that has jews. the community that lives here, the Bene Israel, claim that they are, indeed, decendents from one of the lost tribes of israel. through DNA testing, it's been proven that they're Cohanim (the priestly class of the original Tribe of Levi...one of the 10 lost tribes). crazy. they've lost a lot of their population to the fact that many members of the younger generation wish to go back to israel...get back to their roots, but have left only around 2000 individuals still in mumbai. however, many of thier synagogues still exist, and we went on a tour of several of them. it's weird, because these people look and dress just like other indians. however, they keep kosher. they go to services. they speak and read hebrew. Jake, Becky and I, along with the Brodkin clan ended up joining one individual family at their house for shabbat dinner after friday night services (which were completely in hebrew, mind you). the meal was delicious, and everyone was so nice...even though we had only met that afternoon, i felt like family with them, and it was nice to know that there's that sense of community between us.
ungh. fresh baked challah. and hummus. ungh.
the next day was spent playing "the game". it's sick and twisted and i won't get into it, except for that it involves buying a lot of wholesale jewels and not feeling guilty for doing so because they're such a good price.
after, alana, lizzie, elizabeth and myself went to dinner together at this asian-fusion place. now here comes meal 1 of one of the best meals: split a salad of mixed mushrooms in a soy-sauce of sorts with alana, along with blanched asparagus in a peanut dressing. then ordered salmon teriyaki...and for those of you who know me, i NEVER EVER order fish. i don't know what came over me, but i'm happy i did because it was FANtastic. that, plus 2 bottles of wine for the table and we were happy campers (others got sashimi, kobe beef, etc). while we were sitting there, not only the manager comes over to talk to us, but the CEO of the place as well. we knew there was a club/bar next door, but didn't really feel like paying the cover-fee to get in. however, the CEO informed us that he'd let us go for free. just walk right in. so we did...right under the velvet rope and into the club, no questions asked (when we came out later, people were lined up trying to get in and being turned away. yikes). i don't even like clubs, but this place was just so outrageous, i couldn't help but enjoy myself. we were approached by this older (40?) british guy who is apparently some big real-estate guy in bombay or something, and were invited to sit at his private table with a bunch of other people, including some older british man, a russian prostitute, and a few assorted indians.
it was an experience.
sunday was spent at the elephanta caves, which are more rock-cut temple caves, but are more of the experimental period. was cool. took an hour long boat ride over to the island on which it's located. BOATS! !!!! MARITIME ADVENTURES! LOVEBOATS!
dinner that night = good meal #2 (in case you weren't aware, all we talk about these days are the regularity of our bowels and food). that night, i had: half a bagel with creamcheese, capers, onions, and lox (again with the fish! ???), followed by a sandwich of french bread with roasted peppers, roasted summer squash, roasted eggplant, buffalo mozzarella, lettuce, onions, and balsalmic vinegar. WITH A POTATO WEDGE! and dessert! chocolate and creamcheese brownie with homemade hazlenut ice cream! now THAT IS WOW!
anyway. that was my trip. i'm sure a lot more happened, but i don't feel up to boring you longer than you need to be bored. that is, if you even were able to make it all the way to the end of this.
we had a discussion over this trip about our program compared to others. i know someone else who is in india currently, and travels by themself, etc, and i feel is getting a more "indian" experience. we are not. i admire that so much...though, i'm afraid it's something i just wouldn't be able to do...but when we were thinking about the perks of this SATA program, we realized that we have been to a TON of places...and not just any places, but AMAZING places...for example, the caves at Ajanta are going to be closed by the government at the end of the year, and it's unsure if they're ever going to re-open to the public again, or if a replica will be made and the original will be used for research only. but the fact that we got to see something that people in years to come may not be able to see...something that's so amazing and old and important to the buddhis tradition is amazing. i guess it depends on what your priorities are for what program one should choose when going abroad...if you want to get the "indian experience" and go really into one aspect of being here, or to lightly touch on many many many different areas of indian culture.
only 5 weeks left...and in those 5 weeks i need to write a 25 page paper, a 5 page paper, take 2 finals, 1 quiz, give a dance performance, and go to kerala for 3 days...oh, and cook our delayed thanksgiving dinner (which is turning out to be more of an end of the semester-thank our teacher-feast).
and only 10 more days of class left. yikes...
BONUS! http://conncoll.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010920&l=09b51&id=14100144 !!! YOU MADE IT TO THE END, SO NOW YOU GET TO LOOK AT PICTURES!
ok, i miss you all. feel free to email or IM me if you want...i like to talk. rly. i do.
and, i'll be up in new london december 18 and 19th, i believe, if you want to play.
just putting that out there.
posted by nadelblog at 5:55 AM
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