**I started writing this in August after a delightful visit from some Peace Corps Bolivia buddies (B-39 represent!). Then I started having laptop troubles that sidelined my writing until now. So now it seems pretty outdated, but I will soldier on.**
We're halfway through our second August in India. It's hot and humid and muggy and sticky; it is monsoon season after all. But despite the weather, which, quite frankly I prefer to the oppressive dry heat of May and June, both Augusts we have had friends brave that horribly long flight and the mugginess to come to India and visit the TK family. (Well, mainly they've just come to see me. But they don't mind Mr. ATK. In fact, some were meeting him for the first time.)
Last year, on August 15 (Indian Independence Day) our very first visitors came to India. I shall affectionately refer to them as "The Sarahs" because they are both named Sarah. Mr. ATK was doing temporary duty in Mumbai so I was all alone (with the exception of our crazy dog).
It seems so long ago now, but it was a pretty fun learning experience. Since we hadn't been in country that long (about four months), I wasn't really familiar with the tourist scene. My first trips to the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort in Delhi were with The Sarahs, as was my first bicycle rickshaw tour of Old Delhi. It was the first time I really noticed the staring. Fun story: While the Sarahs and I were at the Red Fort, I was reading the Lonely Planet trying to figure out what everything was (we didn't pay for the audio tour and the buildings aren't well marked) when we noticed this group of Indian dudes taking pictures of us. I think there were like five of them. They were maybe 30 feet away and would do that thing where it looked like they were taking pictures of each other, but they were clearly setting the shot so we were in the background. The Sarahs noticed these guys, but I was too wrapped up in the guide book ("I think that's the mosque...no wait, I think it's the throne room. That over there must be the mosque.")
Well, the guys got more and more brazen as we sat down on a bench ignoring them. They came closer and started posing next to us--not asking permission or anything. This is super common in India actually, but at the time, it was new to me. The complete ballsy-ness of these guys was just so unbelievable that we were laughing about it. This probably encouraged them. One of them sat down on the bench next to us. I kept reading the book. Finally, one dude came over and made the universal "scoot over" motion so he could sit in the middle of us. That was the final straw. I was like, "Nope. We're done here." And we got up and walked away.
Anyways, it was great learning about and exploring India with The Sarahs. I do feel a bit bad, though, because as our first guests we were sort of flying blind. There are lots of cool things they could have seen but didn't because I didn't know about them. They wanted to see monkeys and elephants and I think they are our only guests who saw neither. Even the guy who stopped by from Nepal for a day saw monkeys! We've since perfected the house guest routine. It's a fine tuned machine.
Now for some pictures (circa 2012)!
Charlie's Angel-ing it up at the Taj Mahal. We learned after taking this that you aren't actually allowed to pose like this in front of the Taj.
Here we are at the Gateway to India in Mumbai. It was rainy. I was unimpressed with Mumbai.
First time coming upon the flower sellers in Old Delhi.
Flash forward one year: It's August 2013. Two great Peace Corps friends, I shall call them Mateo and Kathy Snant, made the long journey to India to visit (Mateo even came from Bolivia via Brazil and South Africa! He wins the "Longest Flight" award). They came for three weeks and stayed at ChezTK for a week. During this time they went site seeing by day and hung out at home with us boring people in the evening. Mr. ATK got the privilege of listening to reminisce about the days of yore (2005-08) living in the Bolivian campo eating potatoes.
Of course, Mateo and Kathy Snant are seasoned and wily travelers so that whole routine that I have for guests was not needed. Still, I think they enjoyed their time here--even if it was godawfully hot. While they normally do the thrifty backpacker style of travel, they did start springing for air conditioning.
The ATK-Snant-Mateo travel itinerary included hanging out at ChezTK (where they were terrorized by Aloo) and traveling to Amritsar over Eid. Mr. ATK and I had been to Amritsar already (if you've forgotten, you can read about it here.) Well, Amritsar was still hot and humid and crowded, but it really is a must see for anyone traveling to India. It was nice to vindicated when Kathy Snant agreed that walking on the street barefoot is pretty gross. And this time we waited in line to enter the actual Golden part of the Golden Temple.
The Golden Temple part of the Golden Temple. Notice the line to get in. Inside is where they keep the Guru Granth Sahib- the holy book of Sikhism.
And here we are in the line to get into the temple.
There I am with a random stranger who asked to have her picture taken with me.
That said, I have no intention of ever going back to Amritsar. Waiting in that massive crowd at the Wagah Border is not something I need to live through a third time. But you definitely should see it at least once, if you haven't already. I'll be happy to give you directions and send you on your way.
Way back over Labor Day weekend, Mr. ATK and I went to Amritsar in the Punjab (a state in northwestern India.) Of course, every time I hear the word "Punjab" (and I hear it quite a bit over here) I think of the Daddy Warbuck's valet from Annie. Do you remember the part where Tim Curry is chasing Annie and she ends up climbing, like, a railroad drawbridge that's raised? And Carol Burnett and Bernadette Peters are chasing him and yelling, "Oh, Tim Curry, stop!! She's just a child!" Even though it was their plan to extort money from Albert Finney, er, Daddy Warbucks? Then Annie gets to the top and has nowhere left to go and Tim Curry is getting closer and then Albert Finney's helicopter shows up and Punjab is, like, hanging out of the helicopter trying to save Annie and she is just screaming "Punjab! Punjab!" Then he unravels his turban and she grabs onto it and he saves her while Tim Curry falls to his death. Or maybe not. That seems kind of dark for a children's movie. I don't remember what happened to Tim Curry's character.
Anyways, I think of that scene a lot.*
So Mr. ATK and I decided we would spend the long weekend up in Amritsar. Notable things to see include the Golden Temple (the holiest gurdwara in Sikhism), the Wagah border closing, this crazy Hindu temple that is like a fun house maze (the name escapes me at the moment), and the memorial at Jallianwala Bagh.
We took the train up (our first train ride in India!) The station was chaotic, even at 6:45 on a Saturday morning. The Arrivals/Departures board only contained information for about six trips, not one of which was ours. This naturally led us to panic a bit (since we weren't outrageously early or anything--our train was scheduled to depart at 7:20) and think that perhaps we had gone to the wrong train station. We decided to get in line at the help desk when a random person came up and asked to see our tickets. There was no indication that he worked for/at the train station, so I was kind of wary, but we showed him the tickets and he seemed to know right where we were to go. So he starts leading us to the platform (which was up some stairs, over a bridges, way at the end of the station. We would have never found it without this guy. Of course, the suspicious traveler in me was thinking, He's probably leading us to a dark corner where a gang will be waiting to mug us. Happily, I was wrong.
The train arrives and we climb aboard, with the help of another random person who clearly recognized "clueless foreigners" when he saw them. He looked at our tickets and led us to the appropriate car and seats. I'm fairly sure we could have figured out where our seats were, but this was much easier. So we just tipped him and thanked him for his help. Again, I am unsure if that person was employed by the train station or was just a guy who hangs out on the platforms and makes money showing people to their seats.
The first class car was not particularly fancy or nice, but it was serviceable. The steward came by fairly regularly with tea and food. It was certainly better service than I ever received on any 6 hour flight in America. The tracks out of Delhi pass through the not-so-nice areas of town that we rarely see. We saw a lot of tent cities, piles of garbage, pigs, and a lot of people pooping. Delhi is a major cosmopolitan city with all sorts of haute couture shops and expensive restaurants. It also has a lot of homeless people and people whose homes don't have indoor plumbing. It's a pretty stark dichotomy. Apparently for a lot of people, the place to poop is next to the railroad tracks.
Six relatively uneventful hours later, we arrive in Amritsar. Despite being north of Delhi, it was hotter and more humid than the city we had just left. We went to our hotel and then decided to go to a neighboring hotel to see if we could get in a tour that evening to see the border closing. Lucky for us we found a tour that took us not only to the border, but to the Golden Temple as well.
Here are some things I learned on this trip:
1) I really don't like taking my shoes off and walking around Indian streets and temples. Most holy sites in Hinduism and Sikhism require you take your shoes off before entering the temples. I get that and totally respect that. Apparently you can't even bring the shoes in, like in a backpack or anything. I tried to sneak my flip flops in and was scolded by the guard. Despite the giant pile of shoes outside, I keep being paranoid that someone is going to take my flip flops. (They are very nice flippy floppies). It's probably unnecessary paranoia, but I can't help it. I also dislike the length you have to walk barefoot from where you leave your shoes to the temple's entrance. This distance varies depending on the monument. For the Golden Temple, I found it a considerable distance. And you had to walk a ways on a major road to get to the temple from the shoe depository. Granted they put down a path of carpet, but that was as dirty as the road. Then you need to walk through water to clean your feet before entering. Again, I understand and respect the custom, but not only is the water dirty from the thousands of people walking through the water, the marble on the other side of the water is really slippery. I kept worrying that I was going to fall.
Not a very clear picture, but there was a fireworks show that was pretty neat.
2) I don't handle giant crowds and heat well. We ended up going to the Golden Temple on Saturday, which is not only the weekend, it's the Sikh holy day, so it was super crowded. The temple itself is amazingly beautiful (though Mr. ATK was not a fan of the Christmas lights used to illuminate it at night. He felt that was tacky. I didn't mind it so much on the actual gold, but they have the "racing lights" and "waterfall lights" decorating the outer walls, which I thought was a bit odd.)
This is the massive crowd we were in in order to get into the changing of the guard. You can't tell from the picture, but it was a very pushy crowd. No personal space.
The real crowd, though, was at the India-Pakistan Patriotic Border Competition.** There had to have been several thousand people there at least. As you may remember from your high school world studies class, India and Pakistan have a contentious relationship. At this one area on the border which is in between Lahore, Pakistan and Amritsar, each side has constructed a mini-amphitheater to cheer their respective color guards as they stomp theatrically and bring down their country's flag at sunset. I honestly can't even explain it. There was a guy in a tracksuit warming up the crowd before the ceremony--like a homecoming pep rally. He kept yelling, "Hindustaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!! Hindustaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!" And then everyone would cheer. There was a lot of running with the Indian flag and dancing before the actual ceremony started.
Seriously, you just need to see this for yourself.
The next day, while Mr. ATK went back to the Golden Temple (to see it without Christmas lights on it), I wandered around the market and found the Martyr's Well. Mr. ATK and I had been looking for it, but were unable to find it, even though we had walked by it about five times the night before. Jallianwala Bagh is a public garden near the Golden Temple where, in 1919, British troops opened fire without warning on a peaceful crowd. In order to escape, many people jumped into a well and died. Many others were shot down. I think over 20,000 rounds were fired in fifteen minutes or so. The garden itself is closed off, with only a narrow walkway to enter and exit the garden, so the people had nowhere to run. You can read more about the massacre here.
Anyways, I was reading one of the informational historical plaques when an Indian man came up to me and in broken English asked, "England?" I assume he was asking me if I was from England and I could not protest my non-Englishness enough. "English? Me? Oh, no. Nope. I'm American. U-S-A! U-S-A!" Since this guy's English was no so good, I did a couple "U-S-A"s just to make sure he understood that I wasn't English. It's not like he was menacing or anything, in fact, he asked to have his picture taken with me.
We flew back to Delhi rather than taking the train, as the train left at five in the morning. The flight back was uneventful, though this guy totally cut right front of us as we were waiting to check in at the airport. It's like that yellow line on the ground means nothing here
* "Don't forget to drink your Ovaltine." Also, apparently the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie" was "Hooverism in the funnies." Hated FDR.
** That's not the real name of the ceremony. I just made that up.
