Monday November 29, 2004, 2:19pm

Derek had a rare day off yesterday, so we went off to adventure around the city. We started by heading for a man-made lake, or tank or... I dunno, we never got to it. Derek's been there before though, and apparently it's the place that everyone was taking their Ganesh statues recently and dumping them in the water, according to the traditional celebration that was taking place at the time. On our way I spotted a little altar down a lane and suggested that we go have a look. I'm a big fan of lanes & alleys, and this one proved to be a fine example, and as even in Vancouver, offered an interesting look into the local community life that one doesn't often get from the front. Anyway, just as we got to the end of a long straight stretch and were going to hang a left, some older gents harkened us over to find out where we were from, etc. We entertained them by answering some questions in response to almost unintelligible questions - they spoke less than a half-dozen english words, and we speak about the same of Hindi. As it turned out one of them had been drinking, and was quite hammered. Through a series of non-communications he indicated that he wanted to know where we were going, and through more non-communications we indicated god only knows what. After 5 - 10 minutes of this sort of thing a large crowd had gathered: some ~20 kids, teens, men & women... Well it felt like a large crowd in the confines of the rather small lane we were in. You see, here in Nagpur there are apparently almost NO non-indians ever, and so we become a very huge source of curiosity. Things were getting a little out of hand so we decided we'd best graciously bid them all adieu, and take off. Easier said than done, we wound up being followed and... harrassed, pestered, I dunno what the term would be, but suffice it to say that most of the crowd went with us including the drunkard. Crowds beget crowds. We got back on the main road, but after another 10 minutes of walking it became clear that things were not going to improve on their own. The drunk fellow would ride his bike 100' ahead and stop and wait and when we caught up would go on and on about something we couldn't understand at all. Doctor something, hands over eyes something, 'no no' something, don't go something, dead body something, an indication to follow him the way we were already going... and of course all the kids were still all around us, and more people would come over to see what the commotion was.

We decided at that point to turn around and head for home as things only seemed to be getting more crazy, and we really just wanted to be left alone. After walking back home for 10 minutes much of the crowd had drifted away, tho there were still some waiting further ahead, and behind and slowly keeping up. Some kids approached again and indicated that there were a couple of men that were going to follow us home, and another kid, a young girl, who seemed to be saying that her uncle would like us to visit his house, and we should head over there. We finally hopped into a motor-rickshaw in order to outrun them all, which we did.

They had all been friendly enough, but... as I said later, a swarm of friendly people is still a swarm.

After a while we hopped out of the rickshaw and continued on our way. We headed to a very busy shopping area... many long streets of shops spilling out onto the road, and tons of people milling around doing their thing. We made our way down to the end of the 'shopping area' to where there were some key-cutters, and got a couple spare keys cut for Derek. (They turned out not to work.) Then we went off wandering around and seeing the sights. I spotted a large stadium, and upon seeing that the gate was open, suggested that we go in and check in out. Derek was a little wary I think, what with the success of my earlier bright idea, but this turned out to be much more pleasant, and offered some great views of the surrounding areas from the top of the bleachers. Down below on the field were groups playing football (soccer), cricket, and a few people jogging around. Having had our fun there we went on to a tasty dinner, a shopping mall, and then caught another rickshaw home. All good.

Now I'm starting to wonder what to do next. Derek is leaving Nagpur soon to meet his g/f in Mumbai (Bombay), and then they're going to want some time alone, so I've got to come up with something to do until ~Dec 20 when I plan to hit Delhi again to meet my old Punjabi teacher who's invited me to a week-long Sikh wedding to take place there in Delhi, and then head north to the Punjab with her after that.

We'll see... hmmmm... India... what to do...

dharma

November 27th, 2004, 3:55pm

So, here I am in Nagpur... I arrived just 3.5 hours ago, having taken an overnight train from Delhi. I'm going to recount now some of what transpired in Delhi, and I'd appreciate not hearing any... hassly things about it being that I already feel pretty embarrassed, shitty, angry, etc, about the whole deal. Anyway, I'll first say that I've learned some hard & good lessons pretty fast. Unfortunately not quite as fast as I'd have preferred.

I arrived in Delhi at about... 5:30 or so, already it was getting dark, or rather, was dark. I managed to detach some taxi driver from me, and got to the E.A.T.S. bus, and for Rs. 50 got into town. Once I hopped off the bus there was an auto-rickshaw there, and I indicated that I wanted to go to the Paharganj area - 20 Rs he said, good. On the way I explained that I wanted to go to the Navrang hotel, and asked if he knew of it by chance. I can't remember now for certain exactly what he said, but the gist of it was that the main bazaar area that I wanted to go to was "closed", off limits, due to the massive metro construction that was evident all around us. He said even to foot traffic the area wasn't accessible. I asked him to take me as close as he could, and show me. He tried to and was stopped by a metro worker who indicated that the way was closed and we should turn around, so what do you know! Ok, so what next... he said that there was an adjacent area that would suffice, and that all of these areas were within some small 2KM distance to each other so it wouldn't really make much difference. He mentioned that there were currently two major problems in Delhi: one was that the metro construction was causing all manner of difficulty
around, and the second was that due to a combination of this apparently being in the high-season, the next day being a major Sikh holiday for the birthday of Guru Nanak Sing, and there being a huge multi-national business convention happening in town, hotels were full to the point of being a bit of a problem. Anyway, he said we'd look and find something. So we stopped at a hotel, he ran in to check while I sat waiting with my bags, and came back: full. Damn. We went on, found another, and again: full. We tried some half a dozen, and after each and every one was full, no matter if it was a high-priced place or cheap, he asked what I'd like to do. Having not too many bright ideas of my own, he suggested that we go by a tourist information office to see what they could offer or suggest. So we wound up pulling into a tourist information office and I went in while he waited.

I.T.D.C .Com (India Travel Development Information & Reservation office.)

The fellow inside asked what he could do for me, and I explained that I was planning to be in Delhi for a night or two, and then head to Nagpur. A very bad time to be in Delhi he informed me, what with this combination of elements - the ones the rickshaw driver had already made
me familiar with. It apparently didn't matter how cheap or pricey a hotel one would go to, they'd be full - which was as per my experience thus far. Well ok, so what's a guy supposed to do? Well, being a tourist information office he has access to a quota of rooms around, and so he'd be able to hook me up with something. As for my plan of
taking the train, due to most of those same elements, 72 hours would be required even for a tourist at this point, to secure a ticket. Christ, my bad luck fuckin pulling into town when I did. He agreed, Delhi is not a good place to be right now. So anyway, I can't remember all of the details precisely now, but the deal was he could get me a hotel room for the night, I could do some sight-seeing tour around Delhi the next day, and he could wrangle up a first class A/C (air conditioned) train ticket to Nagpur that would leave in the evening. All that would come to... let's see... just... ... $550
USD. What?? You've gotta be fuckin NUTS. What the fuck are you talkin about? (and for forth)

Over the next ...half hour or whatever it was, he managed to come up with something a bit less. I had suggested I would sleep on the street if I needed to, and he suggested that I might end up hurt, or at the least empty-handed if I chose to do that, and he'd have to part in helping me with any of it (like the train ticket) if that was going to be my choice. Anyway, he wound up coming up with this: $75 USD for a hotel for the night, where I'd get breakfast the next morning, and a tour around town the next day, and $110 for a 2nd class a/c ticket the next day. The train ticket price was not "his" price he said, it was a standard cost, and would be the same if I were to do it at the train
station. I could plainly see the official government designation hanging on his wall, this was not just a private business, this was a government controlled scene. And I could see for myself, the ticket would have the price printed on it. All of this still sounded waayyy over the top though, so I took my bags and went out to the rickshaw. I told the guy what I'd been told inside, explained my idea of sleeping out for the night, and asked him what *he* thought. He said he thought sleeping out would indeed be a bad idea, and offered that he felt this
office and the fellow inside was offering a safe option in this very difficult time. Some other fellow, half cut, who took in on the conversation indicated general agreement on the situation. So, it was ...prolly about 10pm by that time and this guy was wanting to close shop and get out of there for the night so what did I want to do?

In the end I wound up signing over $150 in traveler's cheques, and $36 worth of rupees, thinking that basically the one thing I needed to do was to get the fuck out of this hell-hole called Delhi. I was not happy at all as you no doubt can understand, but what the fuck was I supposed to do. If I took my chances out on the street I'd still have the long wait to endure before I could get a train out of town... all that.

So, one of his underlings hopped in the rickshaw with me and directed the way, and soon we arrived. I paid off the driver, giving him 50 Rs extra for all his efforts & time, and dropped my bags. "John" (aka Lalu to his Indian friends) would come by at 10am to connect me with the sight-seeing and give me the train ticket. This was not a fancy
hotel by any stretch. Anyway... christ, what a night. I wandered around the hotel for a bit, and after a while these two westerners walked in - a guy from Canada, and a guy from Germany. I intercepted them from going to bed, and instead we went up to the roof top and chatted for a bit. With my focus of questioning, it became immediately
evident that I'd been taken, seriously, as they had too to varying extents. After a while the German guy went to sleep, and the Canadian & I went walking the neighborhood just to do something. They'd been informed much as I had been, but had discovered that in fact that very hotel was mostly vacant, as were all the other hotels around. We went
into several, including a rather fancy place that my rickshaw driver had stopped in on, and they all had plenty of vacancies. The cheapest place he could haggle - and he seemed pretty damn good at haggling, was 400 Rs. Anyway, it was miles away from the 3300 Rs I had wound up giving away. Had we walked into our very hotel as unknowns and
haggled, we'd probably have gotten our rooms for ~600 Rs.

It was all shit. I'd been scammed & lied to by the rickshaw driver, and the tourist information office - Lalu. He had a full name which he gave me, even on the "receipt" he wrote me, but the hell if I know how to say it or can even read it on the page.

So at that point I didn't know if I'd actually see any of them the next morning, or get my train ticket out of the deal, or anything. My best bet, it seemed was to play as though I didn't know I'd been raped by them (is that too harsh?), and see what I could get out of them. If I started going on and on I might not get anything, and would be screwed absolutely completely.

They did come by the next morning, and I did get driven all around Delhi for 5 hours or so checking out the Baha'i Lotus Temple, the ISKCON Hari Krishna temple, and so on, and in the end was hand delivered to my train car & seat. 2nd class a/c, with the price clearly indicated: 1559 Rs. $110 USD, which I paid, is 4840 Rs.

So, I won't bother summing up the math right now, but it's pretty sad. On the up side, I learned quite a bit about not trusting *anyone*, not telling Indians about who I am and what I've got planned, checking for myself, trusting myself, and... I dunno, some other shit. I'm pretty certain I won't be taken again. Also, I *am* in Nagpur, and
had a very nice train ride and met a couple cool Indians who were a pleasure to spend time with. Among other things, they said that people in the Punjab are on the other end of the spectrum, and are very honest people. They felt certain that no such event would ever take place
there. (Neither has any affiliation per se with the Punjab.) I was very happy to hear that, tho I will certainly be very guarded and suspicious of almost everything from now on. And, it's *possible* that I might get back some of that money. There's a REAL government tourist office which according to the Canadian guy's travel guide may reimburse tourists who have been scammed. I'll investigate and see. Yeah. Hopefully things will get better and better. Fuckers...

Well... that's about all I have to say right now. I've been here now for almost 2 hours, and I'm gonna head back to Derek's place and await his arrival. He came and picked me up from the train station today and took me to his place.

Take care y'all...

Dharma

November 1st, 2004, 7:30pm

Last night was Halloween...

We didn't have any trick or treaters around here, we're a little too far removed for that. What we had instead was ~20 minutes or so of enchanting howling from the local coyotes. It was the first time I'd heard them since being here, and it was quite something. They were yipping, howling, barking, with their sounds echoing through the otherwise still forest. Dad had just gone to bed, and I was adding some wood to the fire so that I might continue with my reading & playing guitar. I left that and stepped outside to listen... The moon & clouds were visible up through the trees, and I listened, trying to judge how far away they might be, and wondering why this was the first time I'd heard them. I thought of the european settlers back in the day, and considered how they might have felt hearing such incantations. For me there was wonder, fear, awe... I decided that they were likely not moving as such, but staying put wherever they were. It sounded like they were within a thousand feet, not too far, but I really couldn't tell. Beyond "C" & "L"'s cabin anyway... After a couple minues I began to recognize different voices in the choir, characteristics of that particular call, and that one, and that one. Soon enough they were silent, and I went back in to the comfort of the couch, there in the midst of the forest, surrounded by glass walls, and warm.

A time of transition is upon us... in the next couple days we'll close up camp for the season, and head north. This has been an interesting time for sure. A great chance for my dad & I to spend a good long time together... and a great chance to be immersed in beautiful nature.

So... onward...