Our 7 weeks in India are long over. And I've been so busy relaxing, drinking beer and eating food with Aran's family in Koh Samui I haven't been able to update the blog. It's tough this travel stuff...
So I thought it was about time to share a bit more about India than just my culinary obsession.
I sent an email home to my family after our first week in India and Holly responded with, "sounds intense". She is so right. That's India. Intense.
Intense stink, garbage, dirt, filth. Intense history and architecture.
Intense colours and beauty. Intense noise.
Intense poverty.
And while my camera is pretty sweet, I cannot capture the sensory overload of sounds, smells, tastes and feelings that we experienced in India.
We've seen some interesting things. Most obvious are the incredible forts and temples...those Raj's sure know how to build a palace! But it's not always a pretty sight. Sometimes it downright sucks. Seeing dead dogs lying in the street or cows eating plastic bags. Ragpicker women going through piles of rubbish or children being made to walk a tightrope to earn money.
If you look closely though, there's beauty there, under all the tourist signs, and piles of garbage. You find it in the mini temples to Lord Ganesh carved into the walls of buildings. And in the marigold garlands hanging over doorways. It's hiding in the glittering saris of Indian women and the big bright eyes of the dirty, barefoot kids begging in the train station.
Sometimes the sights make you laugh. Like when I saw a man grooming with an electric shaver WHILE riding a horse down the street.
That's where it is all happening. On the street. A bustling, throbbing, living entity, bursting with colour and of course, smells.
Now I'll be honest. Every once in a while you get a whiff of something really nice. Flowers, perfume, incense or garlic from some delicious concoction ...I think I've covered the tastes of India adequately enough so let me elaborate on the smells. Aran and I found through weeks of practice that you take each good smell for what it is. You enjoy it. You don't get greedy and go for another deep breath through the nose to get more. Why you ask? Because without fail, that good smell is long gone, and will most DEFINITELY be replaced with the foul stench of sewage creeping up from the gutters or a pile of garbage or a huge cloud of exhaust from a tuk tuk as it nearly knocks you over into that pile of cow dung you were tip toeing around.
Oh and while that tuk tuk is coming at you, he is most likely blasting his horn. Aside from cricket, India's favourite past time is definitely honking their horns. My ears were constantly ringing from, "all the noise, noise, noise, noise". The never-ending, intense honking.
More powerful than all the sights, smells, flavours and sounds India produces, are the feelings it invokes in you.
Intense feelings.
Feelings of pure fear took over as our driver (who must be training for the Indi500) took us through 36 hairpin turns up into the hill station of Ooty at breakneck speed, while my knuckles turned white from hanging on to the holy-shit handles. Driving is this indiscernible, chaotic system of unwritten rules that leaves me breathless and therefore, incapable of spouting my usual road rage, which - on a side note - I save for walking the street. Street rage is what I have now.
I felt intense pain when an innocent-looking cow swung its head at me, driving its huge horn into my back, so hard that I was surprised it didn't leave a hole! And following that, a feeling of pure embarrassment as an India woman scolded me in Hindi for getting too close.
We felt extremely lucky to be snuggled up in our sleeping bags in the sand dues of the Thar desert as the sky revealed millions of stars to us.
Frustration was another common feeling as we elbowed and pushed to keep our spot in the apparently invisible queue for train tickets. Personal space is non-existent when you live in a country with one sixth of the world's population - yeah, that's right, over 1.2 billion people - I guess you have to fight for yourself. But if you do call someone out on queue-jumping (and oh did I ever!), they smile sheepishly, head-wobble in apology and move to the end of the line.
Which is why frustration is often followed by a sense of guilt as you catch yourself being upset over something so silly when all around you people are happy and friendly no matter what.
I have never encountered such consistent and sincere friendliness. Whether its a young man asking if he can help us when we look lost at the train station or a small boy offering to cross the insanely busy road with us, which by the way feels more death-defying than swinging through the Batoka gorge in Africa. Indians are genuinely kind and helpful people.
Despite the fact that it leaves me uncomfortable and stressed out, frustrated and bewildered, it also leaves me blissfully exhausted and content.
India has a way of balancing its intensity that has left me utterly bamboozled.
And that's why I love India.
It gets you down
It gets you down
You travel far
What have you found?
That there's no time
There's no time
To analyze
To think things through
To make sense
~ Analyze, Thom Yorke
So I thought it was about time to share a bit more about India than just my culinary obsession.I sent an email home to my family after our first week in India and Holly responded with, "sounds intense". She is so right. That's India. Intense.
Intense stink, garbage, dirt, filth. Intense history and architecture.
Intense colours and beauty. Intense noise.
Intense poverty.
And while my camera is pretty sweet, I cannot capture the sensory overload of sounds, smells, tastes and feelings that we experienced in India.
We've seen some interesting things. Most obvious are the incredible forts and temples...those Raj's sure know how to build a palace! But it's not always a pretty sight. Sometimes it downright sucks. Seeing dead dogs lying in the street or cows eating plastic bags. Ragpicker women going through piles of rubbish or children being made to walk a tightrope to earn money.If you look closely though, there's beauty there, under all the tourist signs, and piles of garbage. You find it in the mini temples to Lord Ganesh carved into the walls of buildings. And in the marigold garlands hanging over doorways. It's hiding in the glittering saris of Indian women and the big bright eyes of the dirty, barefoot kids begging in the train station.
Sometimes the sights make you laugh. Like when I saw a man grooming with an electric shaver WHILE riding a horse down the street.
Now I'll be honest. Every once in a while you get a whiff of something really nice. Flowers, perfume, incense or garlic from some delicious concoction ...I think I've covered the tastes of India adequately enough so let me elaborate on the smells. Aran and I found through weeks of practice that you take each good smell for what it is. You enjoy it. You don't get greedy and go for another deep breath through the nose to get more. Why you ask? Because without fail, that good smell is long gone, and will most DEFINITELY be replaced with the foul stench of sewage creeping up from the gutters or a pile of garbage or a huge cloud of exhaust from a tuk tuk as it nearly knocks you over into that pile of cow dung you were tip toeing around.
Oh and while that tuk tuk is coming at you, he is most likely blasting his horn. Aside from cricket, India's favourite past time is definitely honking their horns. My ears were constantly ringing from, "all the noise, noise, noise, noise". The never-ending, intense honking.
More powerful than all the sights, smells, flavours and sounds India produces, are the feelings it invokes in you.
Intense feelings.
Feelings of pure fear took over as our driver (who must be training for the Indi500) took us through 36 hairpin turns up into the hill station of Ooty at breakneck speed, while my knuckles turned white from hanging on to the holy-shit handles. Driving is this indiscernible, chaotic system of unwritten rules that leaves me breathless and therefore, incapable of spouting my usual road rage, which - on a side note - I save for walking the street. Street rage is what I have now.
We felt extremely lucky to be snuggled up in our sleeping bags in the sand dues of the Thar desert as the sky revealed millions of stars to us.
Frustration was another common feeling as we elbowed and pushed to keep our spot in the apparently invisible queue for train tickets. Personal space is non-existent when you live in a country with one sixth of the world's population - yeah, that's right, over 1.2 billion people - I guess you have to fight for yourself. But if you do call someone out on queue-jumping (and oh did I ever!), they smile sheepishly, head-wobble in apology and move to the end of the line.
Which is why frustration is often followed by a sense of guilt as you catch yourself being upset over something so silly when all around you people are happy and friendly no matter what.
I have never encountered such consistent and sincere friendliness. Whether its a young man asking if he can help us when we look lost at the train station or a small boy offering to cross the insanely busy road with us, which by the way feels more death-defying than swinging through the Batoka gorge in Africa. Indians are genuinely kind and helpful people.
India has a way of balancing its intensity that has left me utterly bamboozled.
And that's why I love India.
It gets you down
It gets you down
You travel far
What have you found?
That there's no time
There's no time
To analyze
To think things through
To make sense
~ Analyze, Thom Yorke
This is my favourite post so far. You are a writer, my dear friend. Makes me miss you, though (as if I didn't already. Sheesh).
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Katie
Food on a stick, ... nothing better!
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