Tuk Tuk? Tuk Tuk?

The Calcutta airport is an interesting, simple, dirty and a bit of a sleazy place compared with other airports I have been to. I arrived very early on Sunday the 16th of November to find that there were less than 100 people in the entire tiny airport and only two morning flights, little need for security and long waits to wait. The food shop before passing security was less expensive by a comical amount than on the boarding side!
Arriving in Bangkok, the airport is beautiful, huge and bustling with people. Bangkok feels like the Disneyland of Asia, to quote an Aussie fellow traveler I met. The streets are clean, the buildings large and ultra decadent and modern, the traffic is comprised of nice, new cars, no cows walking through the streets or anything. And, THE STREET FOOD!!! is clean, and lively and bright and delicious, mangoes, jack fruit, watermelon, papayas.... sooo good:) I went to a beautiful Thai cinema and saw a dumb action movie, Tropic Thunder, the previews lasted 30 minutes, during which, was a long ad with the national anthem in which everyone stands up to salute the beloved Thai king... finally a people that really LOVE their leader! Hopefully America will now follow suit!
Two days later, up early again, I got on a big bus and headed in the trails of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, to the border of the Kingdom of Cambodia, famous for Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, the killing fields and the bloody 1975 slaughter of 3 million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge Empire. The first part of the journey was air conditioned and smooth, the second half was hilariously bumpy and deviated because there are few real roads, but one can see them being slowly constructed from the dirty windows of the bus.
There are two classes here, the INSANELY rich, who drive jeeps, Lexus and Mercedes and eat at great restaurants, and the AMAZINGLY poor, who are sleeping in the streets, working in the streets and begging in the streets. The country had many mine fields over the bloody revolutions and coups and it is common to see 'survivors of mines' people playing music to make money and finding other ways to make money by begging. The local people LOVE pyjamas and I have seen all varieties on the women, teddy bears and hearts and you name it, kids and adults wear pyjamas everywhere. Bicycles, tuk tuks and motorbikes seem to be the main mode of travel, much like the rest of Asia, people pile by families of 4 onto the bike to commute to their destinations.
Here, people are constantly on the tourists to SELL anything and everything, mostly I hear the phrase 'TUK TUK TUK TUK' when I leave one building and step out onto the street. It feels like a way of saying hello at this point, although it annoys me greatly as well.
I am staying at a place on the riverside of Phnom Penh, this city, the capital, has its charm but is nothing like the beautiful Siem Reap, where the atmosphere is thick with the ancient and the holy, beautiful temples, smiling people, and a friendly place called, Old Market, where dozens of tourists have set up well decorated and delicious (and inexpensive) restaurants. I have been blessed to find a stellar vegetarian restaurant in Siem Reap (Chamkar!!) and took a cooking class there!! Today, finally managed to find K'nyay, Phenom Penh's vegetarian and Vegan hidden haven. Thank god for Vegetables and creativity!! I feel less like running out of this strange city now.
There is a huge French influence in this country, since it was for a long time a French colony until a few decades back. It is interesting to see the familiar Rue de France and Rue Pasteur street signs and see menus in French and English. Although, during the Khmer Rouge, the majority of educated people were brutally massacred, so it seems like people here are not as bilingual as one might think. They are beautiful, thick lipped like the buddha statues, dark haired, thin and overly accommodating to tourists though, hoping to make litterally a buck... they use American dollars here more than their local Reals! Strange to have Washington in hand again! Signs and campaigns are posted everywhere not to give money to beggars, not to come for sex tourism, not to touch the children... a sad state of reality indeed. And yet, what about adult prostitution? I see men and women alike, all dressed up and ready for the night scene here, older foreign men pretending to give company to the dolled up local girls. The money industry mixed with tourism and poverty makes me very sad here!
The tourists seem to be all stoned and drunk, and the locals seem to be the same.. at least near my guest house, which, funny enough is run by a police man! They offer all types of drugs here and it is frankly an odd vibe. I am excited to leave here for the Cambodian beaches and am craving my return to beautiful, natural, tranquil Koh Pha Ngan where I hope to find a temporary sense of home, purpose and routine. Give me a bungalow and a yoga course:)

Full Circle back to Calcutta

Ten days later...:) the adventures have slowed down with the last two destinations. Travel by train was a major blessing, not only was I able to lay down, even SLEEP on the long night journey from Dehli to the holy city of Varanasi, I also met other foreigners to continue on with. Of the six beds in the 'compartment' we were all foreign, from the foreign train ticket quota given by the Dehli train ticket office.
Arriving at the busy train station, four of us, two Australian girls on their gap year and an exporter from Uruguay who lives part in Switzerland and part in Mallorca, took an auto rickshaw into the old and holy river city of Varanasi and searched for a guest house together using their thick lonely planet guides. We found a 'nice hotel' on Assi ghat, meaning door to the Ganges river, in the quieter area of town and commenced exploration of the city... Varanasi is famous for its cremation centers... the Ganga is a holy river capable of purifying one's soul, so I sat and watched bodies burning and relatives receiving mantras and blessing their loved ones, dressed in white with newly shaved heads. I was spellbound watching this intensely private family experience happen in public.. there is no privacy in this country, people seem more real in that way, because they don't hide.
We found a guest house the next day, more my style, large and spacious, utterly simple, inexpensive, and cozy, with us filling the place for the week:) A morning boat ride at 5am let us see people doing their morning rituals and bathing in the (very dirty) Ganges waters, we even saw a dead cow floating by and were instructed that children under 15 are thrown in with a stone and not burned like everyone else, that animals make it into the river, as well as trash, sewage and flower offerings.
The town was intense... beggars everywhere and very overly attentive vendors of 'anything' waiting to divert your attention and empty your pockets as soon as one steps out of a restaurant or store or guest house door! I did enjoy my long walks along the busy city and although it was not easy to see so much death, I also saw a lot of love as well and a lot of people seeking spirituality.
My last week in India has been spent in Calcutta. The weather has cooled and is perfect, no rain, not as hot, not as humid. My hotel is comfortable and homey by my new standards, and one of the cleaner places I could find as well. Again, I met Australian girls to Guest house search with. I revisited the family I know here and shared a simple meal and a few hours of baby holding and chat about my impressions of India.
I did a bit of touring finally, not volunteering as last time. The Sri Ramakrishna mission was a beautiful place with gardens and Indians meditating! a first for me to see! and the boat ride was crowded and fun to the Kali Temple along the water...Quiet week, even went to see the new Bond movie and today, a Hindi film complete with song and dance and silly laughter to help me follow the film since the language is foreign!:)
I say goodbye to crazy, beautiful India for a few months.

The Craziness of Solo travel in India

My lovely time in the quiet mountains of Almora finished Saturday night in an overcrowded jeep. We were 14 people in one jeep for a three hour BUMPY road down the mountain to an insanely busy bus depot. Several people, including me, got carsick, although only one person vomited in the car. I was lucky to get in the front seat of an a/c bus to Dehli after a quick but very nice meal of dahl and tandoori roti. I arrived in Dehli at 5.30am and was very confused by the early morning and of course, every rickshaw and taxi driver is trying to sell me their ride and tell me I am further away from my destination. I turned and walked the other way, finding fairly easilya local city bus to take me to ANOTHER bus depot to continue on to Jaipur, this time on a normal bus, in a seat with two other people and my bag, among others, obstructing the center aisle.
Six hours later, I found myself in the capital of Rajistan, the desert of India, again with lots of taximen selling their services. I thought I chose rightly by hiring a prepaid government taxi and went to the ONLY guest house I had written down from a lonely planet guide I had seen in Darjeeling...it was full and from there, I couldn't rid myself of the taximan!They get commissions for showing tourists to hotels and I let him showme one before getting my friend in Jaipur on the phone and telling me where to go. I was in Jaipur to meet an Indian girl I worked with only by internet during my college days in AIESEC. I met her and her boyfriend for a nice dinner in a fancy railcar themed restaurant and we went to a hindi film about the Bombay fashion scene.
The next day, I took a city tour as per my friends' suggestion and was all day in an out of the bus, visiting museums, fortresses, taking photos of monuments and temples, mingling with the other tourists from all over that were taking the tour and in general,enjoying a rare 'tourist' experience. At around 5pm, I was done and separated myselffrom theothers for somemeditation and asanasbefore walking downthe fortress stairs andhaving some foodwhile waiting for thebus... well, the bus parked somewhere different andI DIDN'T findit. Luckily, I had one of the guy's number and someone was nice enough to let me put my sim in his cell phone because, of course, my battery was dead. I was picked up a half hour later and returned to the tour, a bit nervous, but thankful for the reunion. Five of us had gone missing at that fort and only three made it back to the bus to return to Jaipur city again. Too tired to leaveJaipur thatnight asplanned, I stayed again in my guest house and when taking a shower, realised, someone was spying on me from the service stair area through my bathroom screen window!I told the manager about it in the morning and said it was very upsetting, which it was, he returned my room fare to me and apologized. I was shocked that he did that, but grateful thathe acknowledged there being something wrong. Sexuality is highly repressed here and foreign women are always stared at unfortunately.
I took an early local bus back to Dehli yesterday morning to meet another Indian friend I knew through my interest in the Bocconi University years back. She was coming through Dehli for an interview and we were to meet. I couldn't get ahold of her until late afternoon, once already in the city and frazzled from the long and perilous trip. The bus driver had hit a tractor carrying a large quantity of red bricks about 2 hours from the city and the tractor turned over, pinning the driver below... I had dozed off a bit and awoke to the crash, then another crashas we were hit from behind by another bus, breaking our back windows, harming only one person slightly, thank God, and disfuguring a few rows of seats. We all filed off the bus and many men attempted unsucessfully to take the tractor off it's driver. Everyone else was unscathed and my seatmate led me to theother side of the road where traffic had been diverted and we got on a new bus and agreed about how lucky we were to have escaped unharmed from that disaster. He invited me to his sister's wedding in February if I should be back in India then and wished me asafe journey.
In the craze of Dehli, I took another hour long bus in heavy traffic, stuck against the other 50 standing passengers in yet another local bus and arrived in the middle of the main bazaar area. An Israeli tourist led meto the Chabad house, kind oflike a local synagogue, where I can come for peace or leave luggage safely and eat dinner or study Torah:) I checked into the tiniest room I have seen and headed with him for lunch and the train station...taking the train the next two big travels!!! I leave tonight for Varanasi, where I look forward to staying for 5 days, hopefully more peacefully!
I met three tourists from the Gran Canaria island (at the reservation office) and went with them in a fun, cramped rickshaw, hanging half out of the window to fitin! We went to some beautiful sites, a mosque and a huge red fort, taking photos of the sunset and being taken photos of by Indian tourists (very common). Then we all went out for a fabulous dinner and several laps around the inner circle of a commercial center before finding our way again.
My neck is sore in the muscles from the accident, but I slept well and am happy to be healthy, alive and constantly finding good company!I am also THRILLED that Obama is the NEW PRESIDENT!!!! YAY