The Cornered Washing Machine

Ok, the Taj kicks ass actually. It’s the only monument in India, which is well maintained, has all the channels filled with real water and looks like just build. Not the usual decay everything seems to have in India and no building facility either.

That’s probably also the reason it is so expensive: 750 Rps (around 15 Euro) to get in as a foreigner (500 Rps is state tax 😉 ). An Indian pays 10 Rps.

In comparison, the Agra Fort has the usual building facility / overusage feeling. The Taj is an exception it seems.

I had a very nice relaxing trip to Agra in AC – Class. I love it now. Agra so far is alright. When I arrived in my hotel I ran into a Indian business man waiting for a friend. He did offer me some wiskey. Fantastic. I haven’t been drinking anything since Darjeeling and I actually missed it. Plus Indians get drunk like nothing. It’s fun.
Tomorrow sightseeing then.

Old Delhi is very much like India, small, narrow, a lot of old buildings, very loud, very pollutted and a lot of annoyance. New Delhi is nice, clean, somehow posh, spacy and not very full. The buildings there are very impressive, like the India Gate. The underground system is pretty cool, a full body search is a totally new experience for an underground. 😉 But somehow the city is not really my style. I wouldn’t want to live there. Not my kind of town.

This morning I met a stunningly cute half Indian, half French girl in a restaurant. After the where-are-you-from-talk she managed to tell me her past, her life philosophy and her future plans until 2020. In half an hour. Then she had to go. Even if I would have tried I don’t think I could have told her anything about me. Now I think I know how all this people felt who met Sophie on her big trip several years ago. 😉

I wrote about Delhi before I could tell about my nice welcome there. I took a sleeper class train (the standard class, most Indians use it) to get there . It was a 7 hour trip during the day. It was horrific. We had a bench for 3 people but 5-6 people trying to squeeze on it. Every 5 min a beggar, mother with child or very loud chai seller came true. Not to forget the rats running around my luggage, the flies everywhere, the mosquitos …
I know why I pay more for AC now – peace of mind.

When I arrived in Old Delhi train station (I had to go to the New Delhi train station), the ticket inspector told me it will take 15 min for New Delhi. After one and a half hour of no train movement at all I lost my patience and took a autorickshaw. The driver wanted 100 Rps (a lot) and didn’t want to negotiate. Then he took me to a different hotel not even in the same neighbourhood as the one I wanted. The hotel guy came out and try to convince me to stay in his place. With as much patience as I could find I told him that I had a pretty bad day and can’t stand this shit and just want to go to the hotel I’ve already booked. The guy gave a shit. When we finally manage to get on the way to the hotel, the driver wanted 200 Rps – he had more to drive now was his opinion. I just threw 100 Rps in the dirt in front of his rickshaw and went into my hotel.

I call this a Delhi Welcome.

First impression of Delhi: it’s loud, annoying, dirty, fucked up, ripping off, dragging around hell of a town. I kinda like it. It must be terrifying for people arriving here. Even Calcutta wasn’t that bad with people annoying you, trying to rip you off and “Hello friend, want to see my store?” and so on. Okay, Caluctta was way more fucked up and run down.

I saw the Red Fort today. Very impressive, but also looks a bit like it needs restoration and the water canals running between all the buldings are empty unfortunatly. I also went to the Jama Masjid which was surrounded by goats. Rephrasing. I was surrounded by goats when I got out. A really really big goat market with myself in the middle. I had a hard time getting out of there. I was told later the a special muslim holiday is coming up where you have to sacrify a goat.

So much for first impressions.

Yesterday night the rich owner of my hostel gave a birthday party for his 1 year (!!!) old son. He invited the whole hostel including me. The party head a complete tent full of food plus dj and dancefloor. And booze. But I think the son was already in bed when it started. 😉 Everybody danced to very strange Hindi pop music. I refused (the French girl tried to drag me) ;). After a while the DJ played one traditional Hindi and one Indian pop song in turn – but only the beginning. Suddenly two Indians were fighting. What happend was that one wanted traditional music and one pop. They couldn’t agree and the poor DJ had to change all the time. But the fight was fun.

When this is the 1st Birthday please invite me to the 18th!

P.S.: Today I’m off to Delhi.

Rishikesh is a nice town alongside the upper Ganga. I guess in the 60s, before the Beatles got here to become enlighted, it must have been very nice and very quite. Now it’s pretty busy with backpackers and you can eat brownies and pasta at every corner. Still for India it’s remarkable quite and laid back. The only really annoying thing is the monkeys stealing your bananas – out of your hand while eating.

The town basically breathes spirituality. You can get everything from yoga boot camps (you have to get up at 4am and yoga the whole day) to the protection gemstone corresponding to your star sign. One overenthusiastic American tried to convince me to join “Enlightenment Next”, but after “Yoga Next” and “Railway Crossing Next” I’m kinda done with “Next”.

Never the less I do like it here. I did a 15km hike to a temple on top of a mountain yesterday. Fantastic views. On arrival the chief priestess dragged me in the temple, painted my forehead red, made me ate strange rice and glued stuff on my head. I haven’t checked but I might be Hindu now. I thanked her by bowing Indian style but she put out her hand and said “Don’t want thank. Money!”. So deep believes always wake up my spirituality …

The backpacker crowd is also pretty cool, I ran into a pretty nice French girl who is traveling around India for her university and three Americans from Seattle. One of them was an Half-Indian who liked to thank god a lot that she was raised in the U.S. and can choose her husband herself. 😉

Before I talk about Rishikesh, I’ll tell something about Dehra Dun. I had to pass through Dehra Dun, because my train was stopping there. It’s about 2h by bus to Rishikesh. I took a autorickshaw which was dropping me off at this nice, big, new building supposed to be the central bus station. It look very strange because it was somehow almost empty. I followed the signs for the ticket counters but every singe one was empty. After checking about 20 ticket counter (all about 10m from each other), it seemed the place was somehow like a school during summer holiday. There was some life at the places where the buses left (people selling stuff) and one single counter with a guy giving directions but not selling ticket. Why build about 30 ticket counters when you sell the tickets in the bus?

Also the buses were not fitting in. They were very old, rusty, dirty. Nothing compared to clean and neat bus station. It was like the bus station was not fitting into this city, not really fitting into India. Somehow put there by accident and then abandoned. When my bus finally came there were only like 3 people waiting for it including me. I was looking forward to a nice and relaxed trip. Then the bus left the bus station and as soon as he passed the gate, there was a crowd of 30 people. They were waiting for exactly this bus. More than 30 people in a bus build for 20. Very cosy.

But why have a big, modern, nice bus station which probably cost a fortune here – when the people are not using it at all?

I spend the night before the 2nd in Gaya which is just a completely poor and fucked up town with a train station. Spend most of the time watching TV in the hotel. At 5am my train was leaving. 26 hours train ride. It was 30 hours in the end (4 hours too late).

But I was in 2AC which was cosy and quite and I met a couple of interesting people. Like a Brahmin who took over the compartment as soon as he entered (Brahmins never forget to mention that they are Brahmins in the first 15min of the conversation). And a former Oracle database admin who quit 10 years ago and went into mining! He is now fucking rich and told my a lot of funky stories about his life. Right now I’m in Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the universe (official title).

That was definitely a different New Year.

The 30th was basically just getting to know the place. It is actually a semi-monastry run by Westerners but in the Tibetan tradition. It had some rules you had to follow: no killing (even insects), no stealing, no lying, no sex, no drugs/smoking/alcohol (basically everything fun 😉 ). There a lot of Western monks and nuns around (easy to distinguish – no hair and red/yellow coat) and some residents who are in personal retreat. At diner I ran into a couple of Australian monks and a very funny Australian nun who was always complaining about the lack of Cappuccino in India (that’s the kind of nun I like 😉 ).

The 31st was teachings in Tibetan Buddism and a lot of meditation. The teacher was a 50+ nun from Switzerland who is a nun and in India for 15 years! Half an hour before midnight we started burning black seeds to symbolize our bad karma being purified. After New Year we started burning white seeds to symbolize our good karma (being burned? I didn’t get it either). That was it.

The 1st started actually at 5am, but I skipped the going to the Holy Tree part and showed up for breakfast. The rest of the day was more teaching and meditation.

It was a pretty cool New Year. Something completely different. Very relaxing. Unfortunately the Buddist food gave my stomach a hard time and I had a lot of stomach pain during meditation. I consider it training (keeping concentration with pain makes concentration without pain easier). There were a couple of cool people in the retreat but also a lot of idiots (Student: “My sister is angry a lot of times. What can I do?”, California Zen Buddist: “You have to show empathy. I’ve seen it, it works. EMPATHY.”, Teacher: “Just get out of your sisters way until it’s over.”).

But I think I wouldn’t do it again, Buddist philosophy and my personal philosophy are not fully compatible and this praying to different Buddhas is nothing for me. When it would just be meditation, it would be ok but here is too much religion involved. Also to many nut cases. 😉