Punjab

First, a disclaimer: the M key on this keyboard is dodgy at best. Please excuse any lack of that letter in the following text. The north is so far decidedly different from any other part of India. As we got off the train, several indicia told us that this place was different. For instance, there was a clean dog. There was art near a train station. We were only approached by two taxi drivers. Most surprisingly of all, there are garbage cans! Still, signs of not being quite like Canada persist. A small beggar boy came up to me to beg. He would not leave me alone no matter what I did. This persisted for several inutes, incuding a few occasions when he grabbed onto my leg for dear life. This was soewhat heart-wrenching, but it was also just a tactic that I can't endorse, to give in to such persistence would only encourage future harrassment for others. I stayed strong. Finally he was deterred by the threat of a smack fro the police, an effective technique, I must say.

We are currently staying in Chandigarh, the capital. Almost everything is clean, and most of it is made out of marble. It is truly nice in some places and so far strikes me as the only place I could live in all of India (my lungs have almost recovered from y time in Delhi). The only downside is that the marble is hard and consequently it hurts my back. Oh well, I'd rather see India than nurse my crippledness.

The other notable thing about Punjab is that it does western style things correctly. I have been eating mostly Indian food, which I love, but not exclusively. Anyway, most of the non-Indian stuff I have had has been a poor-an's version. Not in Punjab though. Great breads, even good hot dogs.

I believe that Punjab is so affluent as a result of separatist mentality. Spiritually, it has never been a part of India and there are strong separatist feelings (think Quebec with turbans). Anyway, for a number of reasons they eigrate ore than ost parts of the Indian population, this is why Punjabis are so apparent in Canada, despite being a smaller fraction of the Indian population. Anyway, Raju explained to me that it is a popular move to get out of Punjab and send money home. This and other differences have contributed to Punjab being a fine exaple of what India could be.

On a final note, we stopped into an air conditioned billiard hall yesterday in order to avoid heat stroke. While there, we met a guy who introduced himself as Deepak (and a last name that none of us caught, but sounded like Chopra). Anyway, I am wary of touts and people who just sidle up to us, he seemed nice but I wanted to keep my distance. Anyway, Raju and Gavin wanted to go to a bar he suggested, so we went with him. The bar was too loud, and too expensive, and too much of a gay bar for our taste. I think Deepak thought we were gay. Also he just wanted us to treat him to drinks. He never really loved us. Anyway, we politely excused ourselves and went home to have a tickle fight. Then Raju and Gavin blamed us as a group, I must object to this ischaracterisation. They fell for it, I didn't. I am the smartest man alive.

Taj Mahal

I saw the Taj Mahal today, cross another wonder off the list. It was, as you might anticipate, way better than the pictures could ever let on. The intricacy of detail in all the marble lets you apreciate why it took a labour force of 20 000 to build the complex. Imagine the kind of power you would need to command in order to accomplish such a project.

I was also struck by the contrast between the magnificence that was, and the terrible care that is now taken of it. It is not on the level of mismanagement of the Egyptian pyramids, but there is still trash, pools of dirty water, and broken benches all around the property.

Outside of the Taj, you are truly back into the third world. It really stinks, there is garabage everywhere, and touts try desperatly to extort any money they can. We saw monkeys chasing each other over rooftops fighting for a scrap of food, cows wallowing in their own filth, and dogs that... well, let's just say that I don't think those dogs will be around when anyone who reads this blog makes it here.

Off to the train station now. My last experience on a train was buying what I errantly thought was a second class ticket, only to get on my car and find that it was no class of any identifiable kind. Picture the hottest place you have ever been (including saunas) then imagine it full, then multiply the size by ten, and the people by thirty, and you have an idea of the worst car on a Indian train. Pushing is the only rule, and no, it does not exclude small old ladies who look as though pushing might put them in the grave. We upgraded.

First Impressions

My ride into Mumbai on the very first night in India was the most sensory stimulation I have ever received on first landing in a city. The smells were incredible (and mostly good). We passed a massive construction project on the highway, where workers were using a hot tar cauldron burning actual wood. These workers didn't have safety shoes on. As a matter of fact, they didn't have ANY shoes on. That was pretty wild. It was a long day of travelling, and we all felt like we could use a cold beer. The place to go for beer late at night in Mumbai would be lucky to qualify as a garbage dump, maybe if they cleaned it up a little bit. Some guy sold them from his "house."

Mumbai is pretty dirty, and very expensive, so we decided not to stay long. We saw a Ghandi museum, housed in a former residence of him. The highlight was a letter he had written to Adolf Hitler, it was quite powerful (though obviously failed to do the trick). We also some some other cool things, including hanging gardens, and an enormous laundry complex, where workers "clean" clothes by swinging them over their heads and smashing them against rocks. I would keel over from heat stroke in my first 15 minutes on that job.

The ride from Mumbai to Goa was 14 hours by bus, we figured we would kill two birds with one stone by sleeping on the bus. There were "sleeper" tickets, which we naively assumed meant we would get a sleepable chair that reclined. Instead, we got a shelf that fit two people on it. The top of my head and soles of my feet could simultaneously touch the boundaries of my coffin. I was fortunate enough to sleep 9 miserable hours, the other 5 were terrible. Especially when the trip was unnecessarily prolonged so that the bus driver could take a massive detour down roads that wouldn't accomodate a bus all to drop off some friend of his. Of course there was no apology. We were pretty miserable when we got off that bus, but within an hour we had booked into a beautiful breezy room with an ocean view. Things picked up from there.

The animals I have seen in Goa are numerous, the ones I can name are elephants, wild pigs, dogs, cats, rats, mongooses (mongeese?) and innumerable types of lizards. Others, I can't name but they include several types of cool bugs. We rented scooters on the first day here. Fortunately, we had met a cool Aussie named Nick in Mumbai who gave us a quick tutorial on crooked cops. He told us that they often try to stop anyone white just to get a bribe. He said he just didn't stop ever, and they usually figured he was not worth chasing/new what was going on. We managed to put Nick's theory into practice three times here. Police really aren't interested in chasing someone who hasn't broken the law, and since there are no road laws that I can perceive here, that works just fine for me. We spent several days in Goa seeing beautiful sights and getting into all sorts of back trails on our bikes.

A final, yet gruesome sight, was somewhat hard to take, weak stomachs, especially those who love dogs proceed with caution. We were playing poker in our hotel room and all of a sudden I heard an ungodly dog noise, beyond a howl, more like a scream. It took a moment to locate the noise, but several other dogs ran to the source, which helped me see it. Now my dog, Toby, is a vicious little guy, but I have never seen anything like this. Some dog had pissed of a pack of street dogs, and I truly think they were trying to kill him. The biggest dog from the pack had his mouth on the victim's throat while others tore at his legs and belly. In the end he pulled a physically amazing maneuver to get away from them, but I think he might have died anyway from wounds. It was a sad sight to say the least.

Stay tuned for more, but don't expect any more tales from overnight buses.