tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41531560899344712772024-03-13T22:37:20.891-07:00The Frosh ReportUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-40399502503202490742007-07-16T19:49:00.000-07:002007-07-16T19:55:22.567-07:00Journey to VarkalaThe next morning we set out to make our way south from Kochi to Varkala. I was glad to be leaving Kochi, and not only because it has such scary mosquitos. Kochi had been somewhat disappointing. I still think Kochi was worth seeing; it was just that I had expected it to be so much better. <br /><br />There were now three of us. Somewhere the afternoon before, while walking through a park, Daniel and I had met Stav, a young amber headed Israeli girl. I hadn’t spoken to her much at the time, but Daniel had told her our immediate travel plans and she had wanted to come along. The night before, she had invited us to some Christmas dinner they were having in her guest house, but we had declined. I did not want to go because I have a well documented aversion to Christmas. Daniel declined the invitation because he wanted to go the Kathakali play that was on the same evening. I don’t really know why it was the case, but when we had met Stav, there was a mild iciness between her and I. She seemed to be a bit lacking in self-esteem. I’ve often found girls with low self-esteem avoid conversation with me. Again, I’m not exactly sure why this is, but I think because I have a kind of dark sense of humour that they might find unsettling. I know this probably sounds trite on my part, and maybe it is (your feedback is welcome), but I don’t have any other explanation.<br /><br />I didn’t know exactly how we were getting to Varkala. I had left it up to Daniel’s excellent navigational and planning skills. The morning bus we boarded at Kochi was close to being full. It was a regular day bus, as opposed to an overnight bus, and thus most people did not have large bags, unlike us. And unlike an overnight bus, the bags did not go underneath the bus nor on the roof, but had to be taken on board with us. There was a section up the front of the bus to dump out large packs. However, this presented a bit of a dilemma. There was only one spare seat close enough to the front to allow one of us to watch the bags. And then there was a spare double seat way down the back. One of Daniel and I would have to take the single seat, and the other would have to sit with Stav up the back. There were two reasons for this. Firstly, it was better to have a guy watching over all of our bags than a girl – this was not sexist, just realistic. Secondly, it was safer for Stav to be sitting with a guy than by herself, in respect to drawing unwanted attention from local males. Not having much of a conversational history with Stav, I volunteered to take the loner seat down the front and watch over our packs.<br /><br />After a while, Daniel came down the front to pay me a visit, and offered to relieve me of my post. I was fairly bored, and thus didn’t refuse his offer. I walked up to the back of the bus and sat down next to Stav. Somehow we got into a conversation about how she didn’t like her name. Stav means autumn in Hebrew. “Why, do you want to change your name? I think it’s a nice name, but tell me, were you named Stav because you were born in Autumn or because you were conceived in Autumn? ….Hey, have you got a sister named Aviva (spring)? …. So, what would you prefer your name to be?”<br />“I like Alice. Alice is a nice name.”<br />“Alice? Alice is not really a sexy name, you know…”<br />“Well, I like it.” She then revealed a small tattoo of Alice from Alice in Wonderland on one of her limbs…I forget which one. I have never liked tattoos. It’s far too much commitment to a graphic for my liking. Nevertheless, I started to see a more likeable (sort of) side to Stav. She was just a young girl struggling with her own self-image.<br /><br />After a day involving various buses and rickshaw rides, we finally arrived in Varkala, very sweaty, and rather exhausted. It was now the late afternoon. We were just starting to discuss finding accommodation when we were approached by a couple of touts. They offered some overpriced accommodation, and tried to persuade us that everything else was sold out due to the holiday season. We largely ignored them until they eventually became discouraged. Daniel and Stav started discussing about how we were going to go about getting a room. Daniel was saying to Stav that I was the fussiest of the three of us when it came to room standard, so I needed to go on the search party otherwise I would be unsatisfied with the accommodation chosen. It was a wise suggestion from Daniel. On the other hand, they recognised that they both had tighter budgets than I did so if the decision was left purely up to me, it might be more than they wanted to pay. Fair enough. They were also in agreement that only a true Israeli (one of them) could be the negotiator when it came to price, as everyone else in the world gets taken for a sucker. One of them would wait with the bags, while the other one would go with me and walk around the village seeing what accommodation was available. Somehow they decided that Daniel would be the one to wait with the bags, and Stav would come with me to search for a room. Perhaps Daniel, being the gentleman, didn’t want to leave Stav alone by herself to mind all our bags while being hassled by touts. <br /><br />Stav and I set off around the windy red gravel roads of the village. The roads seemed to be surrounded by jungle-like terrain, and I was a little concerned, given my poor spatial orientation skills, that we would get lost and be unable to find our way back. At one stage a huge elephant and its handler passed us. I noticed that the elephant did a giant shit – it was literally the size of a watermelon.<br /><br /> About the second place we looked at was the very groovy house that I think might have been called “Johnny Cool’s.” The lady who came down to speak with us was a Kiwi. I felt a vibe that she was very trustworthy, and it wasn’t just my ANZAC bias. It was a two-storey house and she said they were looking to rent out the whole top floor. On the top floor there was a bathroom and two bedrooms, one with two single beds and the other with only one single bed. There was also a gorgeous large balcony area with some pot plants, straw mats, a table, various other pieces of cane furniture on it, as well as a fourth bed which was protected by a mosquito net. When the Kiwi lady told us the price, I had to make a great effort to not show how inexpensive I thought it was. Only 600Rs for the whole top floor! That’s 200Rs each or if we find a fourth person, 150Rs each (about US$4!) There were some other people who had apparently booked it but they hadn’t shown up yet, and she was fairly sure they were not going to, given how late it now was. The Kiwi lady said she was going to give them until 5pm to turn up, which was under half an hour away, and then it would be up for grabs. <br /><br />I communicated to Stav that I thought we should definitely take this place, and that we should ask the Kiwi lady to reserve it for us assuming the no-shows never turn up. She responded as if I was so naïve to jump at one of the first good places that came along. She forced me to come along with her as we checked out all these other dreadfully dingy places, most of them working out more expensive per person too. The more places we looked at, the more obvious it was to me why we should take Johnny Cool’s. It was really pissing me off, and I started to question her basic mathematic ability. We had the chance at this gorgeous house for next to nothing and she was weighing up various places that had rooms which reminded me of that shit-hole in Queens where the Prince of Zamunda stayed in order to convince everyone that he was a poor student from Africa. Stav reluctantly started to admit to me that she had never been very good at maths back in school, but the point of logic seemed lost on her. I responded that “I’m practically a math teacher” and that she should leave all these decisions up to me. Eventually I somehow <strong>convinced </strong>her to agree to take the beautiful house for next to nothing and give up her quest of finding a putrid room that was actually going to cost her <strong>more </strong>money! If I hadn’t been there, she’d have probably ended up renting something that looked like a solitary confinement cell and paying handsomely for it too. We went back to the funky Johnny Cool’s guest house. I was relieved to hear that the guests who had booked had failed to turn up, and no one else had got in ahead of us either. We told the Kiwi lady we’d take it.<br /><br />We had been gone close to an hour by now and I was feeling bad for Daniel. I know that if I had been left for that long, I’d have been getting very impatient and edgy. I think it is because I live in the mobile phone age. Back home, if ever left waiting too long, one can always call the person they were waiting for to see what is taking long. Here though, none of us had a mobile phone, so there was no way to contact each other remotely. <br /><br />All this walking around the windy roads of the village had left me disoriented. I have rather poor spatial orientation abilities. Thankfully, this was one area where Stav’s abilities actually seemed to exceed my own, and she was able to quickly retrace our path back to where we had left Daniel. <br /><br />We got back to Daniel, and to his credit he was not pissed off with how long we had left him, or at least he didn’t show it. He was just sitting on his bag, calmly reading a novel I had leant him – <em>The Great Gatsby</em>. I was excited to tell him what we had found - what I had found! “We found the best place, it is so nice, and what’s more, it’s an absolute metziah! The greatest metziah you’ll ever see. I had to twist Stav’s arm a bit to take it, but…” The three of us set off down the windy red gravel road, on our way to the groovy guesthouse. <br /><br />While we were walking, a guy with a backpack was hiking up the road from the opposite direction. As he got closer, I could see that he had wire rim spectacles, dark curly hair, mildly dark skin, was probably just a little younger than Daniel, and was almost unmistakably Sephardi-Israeli. The fact that he was wearing his large backpack was a good indicator that he might have just arrived and was looking for a place to stay. <br /><br />As we got within speaking distance, I took the initiative.<br />“Hey, are you looking for a place to stay?”<br />“Ah…. yes, I guess so”<br />“Well, we have just rented out the whole top floor of this great house. It sleeps four, so you are welcome to share. And with the four of us it’s only 150Rs each!”<br />“Wow, ok.”<br />“Cool, well come with us then. Hey…Mah Shimkha?”<br />“Amit”<br />“Hey Amit, nice to meet you. I’m Anthony, this is Daniel and this is Stav.”<br />When I think about it, it’s so funny that we had resolved to share accommodation together before even exchanging names, but there was something immediately disarming about Amit, and his broad smile.<br /><br />We arrived again at the guesthouse and the Kiwi lady briefly showed us around the place, for the benefit of Daniel and Amit who hadn’t seen it before. There was beautiful recorded jazz music that could be heard throughout the house. The music only added to both the groove and tranquillity of the place. I noticed under the stairway a laptop computer connected to a sound system, as this was obviously the source of the music. Downstairs in the kitchen was a guy with olive skin and dreadlocks who I gathered was the partner of the Kiwi lady, and together they ran the guesthouse and attached café. He was preparing to cook. His movement seemed to be in time with the music. <br /><br />We didn’t hang around at the guesthouse for very long, however, as they were all in a hurry to get to the beach for the sunset, which was now seemingly only a few moments away. We dumped our bags upstairs in the bedrooms, and the four of us excitedly strode down to the beach. After a frustrating day of swinging from branch to branch of the local transportations systems, there was now an amazing unspoken feeling amongst us that it had all been worth it.<br /><br />……………….<br />The scene on the beach cannot be conveyed with mere written words. Or at least I am not a skilful enough writer for the task. Nevertheless, I will attempt this in my NEXT blog entry.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-81207672879109318222007-06-21T01:25:00.000-07:002007-06-21T01:34:44.505-07:00Fear, Loathing, and Boredom in Kochi.After seeing the key historical attractions of Kochi, we had worked up quite an appetite. We set off on a walk to find a restaurant to eat a late lunch. It was very hot and humid, and on the way we stopped to buy bottle water. Back in Australia, a friend who had been to India advised me that it was important to check the seal on bottled water as unscrupulous types sometimes try to resell tap water as bottled water. Therefore, while in India, I always elected to buy bottled water with the clear plastic foil seal around the bottle lid. For some reason, hardly any of the shops in Kochi seemed to sell the brands of bottled water with this extra plastic seal. <br /><br />After stopping at several roadside stores, with none of them having the desired type of bottle seal, we were forced to buy bottled water without this seal. Daniel tried to assure me that it was ok, and was explaining that if certain plastic bits on the bottle lid matched up with some other plastic things on the bottle, then that meant the bottle was safe. I had no idea what he meant, and still don’t, but I knew I needed to drink, so I reluctantly bought a bottle of water with a ‘suspect’ seal. <br /><br />Just as we were walking away from the store, Daniel noticed they had some lemons hanging down in a net, and purchased a couple of small lemons.<br />“What’s that for?” I asked<br />“You’ll see.” He replied.<br />There we were, on the side of a lane under the great heat of the sun, and Daniel was squatting down leaning over a ledge that he was using as a bench, and with what looked like a switch-blade, he started cutting up the lemons into wedges, and then squeezing them into his bottle.<br />“Mah zeh?” I asked. <br />“What does it look like?” Daniel replied sarcastically?<br />“This is hardly the time nor the place to open up a lemonade factory! Besides, what are you doing carrying around that knife?” <br />He said something to the effect that it was for personal safety.<br />“Do you think it’s really necessary? It seems pretty safe here.”<br />“You forget, I’m going to South America later.”<br />“Well, you be careful that you don’t get yourself killed with that thing.”<br /><br /><br />And just at that moment, he cut himself. In fairness, he most likely cut himself because I had been distracting him with conversation while he had been carving up his lemons. It was not a serious cut thankfully, and I couldn’t help smiling at the irony.<br /><br />We eventually found a nice restaurant to have our late lunch. We were sitting in the alfresco and I noticed that the mosquitos were already out in force, despite it still being the mid afternoon. Some Israeli travellers there at one of the other tables were putting on mosquito repellent. Now, as I think I have told you in a previous journal entry, I am genetically predisposed to have mosquitos love biting me. I get it from my mother. In fact, if I am not wearing repellent and in a room with other people, my presence can actually stop them from being bitten. I am as a sacrificial anode if you will allow the analogy.<br /><br />Up until this point in my trip, I had managed to avoid the worst mosquito environments my staying close to the coast, and away from swamps etc. But now I started to wonder: if the mosquitos in Kochi are already this bad in the mid afternoon, what are they going to be like in the evening?? Even though I was on the Larium (mefloquine) that would hopefully protect me from contracting malaria, the prospect of being bitten all over my body by a swarm of tropical mosquitos was to me still somewhat frightening. An American traveller seated at the table next to us (I’ve forgotten his name, I think it might have been Richard), who was about 40 years of age, informed us that the reason the mosquitos were so bad in Kochi was because many the surrounding rivers and tributaries were so clogged with garbage, which in turn created stagnant waters, optimal for mosquito breeding. Another classic case of the Indians not caring for their environment.<br /><br />After finishing lunch, we went with Richard down to the foreshore on the tip of Fort Cochin to watch the fishermen pull up their cantilevered fishing nets. There were some tables and chairs for people to sit at, being serviced by a number of food stalls. One of them was selling ice cream, and Daniel and Richard each bought an ice-cream. There was also a guy with a juice stall. I was wary of these juice guys, as I had read in Lonely Planet that they often water down their juices with non-bottled water (I know I’m starting to sound neurotic here, but this is India, and if you want to give yourself the best chance of staying healthy, you need to be a cautious about what you consume. Although, one should also be cautious about not being too cautious, as the stress of being overly cautious can also make you sick. You need to find a good balance between caution and not getting to stressed out. <br /><br />There were a stack of oranges at the juice stall, and they were the type with the skin that one could easily peel by hand. I approached the juice guy and asked how much to buy an orange. He didn’t reply, and I figured it was probably a language problem. I put down a 5R coin on his table, an amount that I thought was at least a fair price if not more than a fair price for an orange in India (given that I had bought a whole bunch of bananas from a street stall back in Colaba for only 10Rs). Thinking there might be a language problem, I non-verbally indicated that I wanted an orange. To my utter surprise, he picked up the coin and angrily threw it away, with the coin landing somewhere on the beach sand. He shouted something aggressively, which I gathered was a diatribe about him being a juice seller, not a fruit seller!. “That’s just unnecessary!” was the only verbal response I had to his aggression. It was the first instance I had in India of encountering such psychotic behaviour. I went over to Daniel and Richard who were sitting at an outdoor table eating their ice cream. “Did you see what that guy just did? What’s his problem?” They were engaged in some conversation, with Richard, who was something of an intellectual, explaining to Daniel about the apathy and ignorance of his fellow Americans concerning foreign politics, or something like that. They were fairly disinterested in the escalating hostilities between myself and the local juice peddler. <br />“What do you expect? He’s selling juice, he’s not selling oranges…”offered Daniel<br />“What, you’re taking his side? The guy’s psychotic.”<br />“I’m not taking his side, I’m just saying…”<br />“Just let it go.” Richard advised me, saying that it was not worth going to war for. They continued with their conversation as if nothing had happened, while I looked over at the juice guy and we exchanged menacing glances. <br /><br />It was now late afternoon, and Daniel and I said goodbye to Richard and headed back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel we went through a grass park. A small boxing ring was set up in the park. A crowd was gradually starting to build up around the ring. I have always been attracted to combat sports, and the prospect of seeing some was worth hanging around for. A referee had now entered the ring, and it was clear that the contest was imminent. As neither the boxing ring nor ourselves were elevated off the ground, it was difficult to see what was going on in the ring. I was immensely disappointed to discover that the boxing competitors were only boys. They may have been wearing head protectors, but there is something that still bothers me about watching children in combat sports. Even when I have attended judo tournaments as a competitor, I always found it uncomfortable to see the children’s divisions. Martial arts competitions should only be between consenting adults. I expressed my displeasure to Daniel and he either agreed with my sentiments, or had not been overly interested in the first place. Either way, we departed the scene by the end of the first round.<br /><br />That evening Daniel dragged me to a kathakali play, which is apparently a specialty of the region. We had a difficult time finding the venue. While we were looking for it, we met a couple of Canadian girls. I thought they were quite cute, although possibly a little young. I very soon discovered that they were looking for the same venue we were. I talked with them as the four of us together found the theatre. When we got there, it was clear that the tickets were clearly for the tourists, even though they were not expensive in western terms. <br /><br />The kathakali play turned out to be less of a play, and more of a folk dance performance, a very long folk dance performance. At any rate, I must confess to have found it incredibly boring. Having spent many a vacation in Bali (with its Hindu culture) as a young child, seeing this type of performances was not a novel experience for me, as it might have been for Daniel and the Canadian girls. Furthermore, it was extremely hot and humid inside the crowded non-air conditioned venue. After a while, when it became obvious there would be virtually no dialogue in this show, I subtly informed Daniel that I couldn’t take much more of it. The only reason I had lasted that long was that I was hoping to go out somewhere afterwards with the Canadian girls. However, it got to a point when even that was not enough of a motivator. <br /><br />For Daniel’s part, as I suspect was the case with much of the audience, he was trying to enjoy and be interested in the play, mostly out of cognitive dissonance. As human beings, once we commit to something, we don’t like to then take on an attitude that it was a mistake to have made that commitment. Once people buy a ticket and attend a show, they normally don’t like to immediately concede that the show was a poor choice. Going to the movie cinema is something of an exception, because it is a more common thing to do, and people no longer feel duped if they attend a film they don’t like. Indeed, they can sometimes take pleasure in giving their own personal harsh critique. However, the more special some art form is made out to be, and the more it is billed as being high culture, then more likely will people suffer from cognitive dissonance or persevere with the attitude that the art form is interesting or enjoyable.<br /><br />Daniel finally conceded to my desire to leave. I suspect he was actually deep down pretty happy to leave himself, even though he portrayed his decision to leave as concession to my suffering. I said to the Canadian girls, “Sorry ladies, but I prefer a my plays to have at least a little more dialogue than this.” They smiled, as if to say ‘I know what you mean!’ But unfortunately, they didn’t join Daniel and I as we stood up and walked out. Thankfully, We were near the back of the theatre anyway, so it didn’t make a scene.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-62928813368233316452007-05-28T00:17:00.000-07:002007-05-28T00:23:07.928-07:00What's in a Name?After freshening up, Daniel and I set off a for a day of sight-seeing in Kochi. We decided to go see the famous Paradesi Synagogue. However, on the way, Daniel wanted to check out the Mattancherry Palace, built in 1555 by the Portuguese as gift to the local raja, and then renovated by the Dutch in 1663. I was not all that keen on stopping for this, but the Lonely Planet promised that is had murals with ancient Indian pornography, so I agreed to go. We had to join a short queue to enter. In front of us in the queue was a middle family who spoke with strong American accents, dressed like Californians, but were clearly of Indian heritage. The father, who might have been close to 50, was making fun of the local Indians who were running the place, especially for their ban on photography. It was kind of a curious scene. I got the impression of a man fully educated in America who now looked down on these ‘backward’ folks from the mother country. I couldn’t really blame him either. I failed to see the harm in allowing people to engage in non-flash photography. “Just don’t let them know that you have a photographic memory” I said to him, and he laughed, “…or that’ll have to be switched off too.” As it turned out, the pornographic murals did not live up to expectations. <br /><br />The next stop was the famous Paradesi Synagogue. It was built in 1568, apparently making it the oldest synagogue amongst the old British Commonwealth. It was partially destroyed in 1662 by the anti-Semitic Portuguese occupiers, and in what I feel is something of a common theme in Jewish history, was rebuilt two years later under the patronage of the far more tolerant Dutch who had seen off the Portuguese to become the reigning power. The Synagogue located in an area of Kochi officially called Jew Town, on a long street called Synagogue Lane. There is evidence all over Jew Town of a once thriving community, from the Jewish names of the streets to the Jewish emblems found on the buildings.<br /><br />There are three synagogues still standing in Kochi, but the Paradesi Synagogue is last quasi-functioning one. That is to say they have services there on Shabbat and Yomtovim, with Jewish tourists helping to make up the minyan together with the dwindling local population. There are only a few Jewish families left now, as most Cochin Jews have either immigrated to Israel, or migrated to a larger Indian city such as Mumbai. During the week, the Synagogue functions as a kind of museum. In the town of Kochi, every local knows where this synagogue is – it’s arguably the town’s greatest tourist attraction – it’s clearly what Richard Court wished “The Bell Tower” to have been for Perth. <br /><br />A strict dress code is enforced by the non-Jewish Indians to whom the tourists pay their money (only a token sum by western standards) in order to enter. However, they seem to do this by their own customs rather than Jewish customs. For example, all entrants must have their legs fully covered, but men are not even requested to have their heads covered. Daniel was initially not permitted to enter, as he happened to be wearing ¾ pants on what was a stiflingly hot and humid day. He returned minutes later having purchased a cheap pair of cotton trousers from a nearby merchant. Inside the Synagogue, we met a tourist from Israel who had taken the opportunity to lay tefillin that he had brought with him. When he spoke English, I detected a faint South African accent, and indeed he had been born in South Africa. Daniel was once again impressed by my ability to distinguish between different accents which all sounded the same to him. I in turn found it rather curious how a guy who spoke four languages incomparably better than any second language I had was nonetheless continually impressed by my mundane ability to derive the geographic origins of various English language speakers from their accents.<br /><br />Along with the actual Synagogue, tourists also enter an adjoining room in the building that has a number of pieces of artwork and accompanying information plaques documenting the history of the Jews of Cochin. Underneath one of the paintings was a plaque stating something like: The First Jews to Arrive in Kerala were spice traders who came from Palestine during the time of King Solomon’s temple. “What the? Does that say Palestine!” It was the type of historical linguistic revisionism that I was determined not to put up with. I warned Daniel (much to his amusement) that up to that point he had only seen the laid back Mahatma Gandhi side of my personality, and now he was about to witness me as the ugly tourist on the warpath. I looked around to find someone who might be responsible for this, to whom I was going to indignantly explain that the term Palestine had not even been invented at the time referred to, and was only invented by the Romans in order to offend the Jewish population. Unfortunately, it was about 2pm, which was closing time for the siesta, and the people in charge disappear circa 1.59pm. I found a mature aged Jewish man who I had noticed earlier serving as a guide for a group of tourists. He was trying to get home on foot, while conducting a conversation on his mobile phone. I somewhat pitifully pursued the elderly gentleman down the street, politely putting forward my argument and asking him to take up my complaint with whoever might have the power to change the plaque. While he seemed to have understood my argument, to the point that he was interested, he was rather defeatist about the whole matter. I got the strong impression from him that he would not be able (nor willing) to get them (whoever “them” was) to change anything.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-69173647107488831092007-05-08T22:38:00.000-07:002007-05-08T22:39:09.066-07:00A Very Kochi ChristmasKochi (Cochin) consists of a mainland area called Ernakulum, a few islands, and a peninsula section, containing the areas of Fort Cochin and Mattancherry. Ernakulum is essentially a commercial and industrial centre. All the cultural and historical sites of interest are on the peninsula. Unfortunately, our bus terminated in Ernakulum. To get to the peninsula you need to take either a rickshaw over the bridge, or a ferry. Since we didn’t know exactly where we were in Ernakulum, and couldn’t see any water, auto-rickshaw was the clear choice. <br /> <br />Once off the bus, while Sandra, Aaron and I were thinking about finding transportation to the peninsula, Daniel adamantly expressed that he wanted to first find a place to stay in Ernakulum, and then commute to the peninsula, because he had it in his head that the peninsula was going to be crazily expensive, given that it was the peak Christmas season. This was the first I had heard of this idea, and neither I nor Sandra and Aaron were at all keen on this plan. The three of us had always just assumed that we were going to find accommodation on the peninsula. Ernakulum, at least the part where we had been dropped off, was totally unattractive; plus everything I had read said the peninsula was the place to stay. It was one thing for Sandra and Aaron to make their own decision independently of Daniel, but for me it was a different story. I wasn’t willing to split from him so easily. I tried to reason with him. Firstly, there was no certainty that accommodation on the peninsula would be any more expensive. Secondly, “if everything was about saving money, then I wouldn’t have travelled at all; I would have just stayed home and worked.” Aaron joined in with me on that one. Finally, if money was a problem, I was happy to cover his accommodation costs. However, while Daniel might have been trying to save money for the rest of his lengthy around-the-world trip, he had far too much pride for that, and immediately dismissed that offer. Aaron and Sandra now had a rickshaw flagged down and were going to head to the peninsula. They were waiting for an answer from me. There was no time left, so I played the ultimatum card. “This is really silly for it to come down to this…but we either go [to Fort Cochin] or I’m very sorry to have to say this, but I’m going to have to go with them…” It wasn’t easy for me to say that, and I hoped he could see that from the pained look on my face. Daniel rolled his eyes upward and held out his palms as if to say “ok, you win.” I was immensely relieved. Daniel had become a good friend, and it would have left a sour feeling to the rest of my trip if I had split from him like that. It also was a milestone in my life, being the first time in my life that an Israeli had ever given in to me in such an argument.<br /><br />With our large backpacks, it wasn’t possible for the four of us to pile into a single rickshaw. So Daniel and I took a second rickshaw and arranged to meet Aaron and Sandra at the restaurant in the Elite Hotel, which Lonely Planet listed as a good place to tap into the traveller network. Plus, we were badly in need of a decent breakfast. Their rickshaw must have been much faster than ours, or maybe their driver took a more direct route, because by the time we got there, they were sitting down in the restaurant having already managed to reserve a room there. Daniel inquired about a room, but it seems that Aaron and Sandra must have gotten the last free room. Daniel joined Aaron and Sandra at the table, minding our luggage, while I set off to quickly find accommodation in a nearby establishment. I came across an Indian looking guy with very dark skin hanging out in front of the restaurant. He looked to be in his 20s, and he was with two other guys, both of the other guys being Caucasian. I was startled when he started speaking with a broad Australian accent. In Australia, I would not think there to be anything unusual to come across of a Chinese, African, or Indian etc looking person who speaks with a full-on Aussie accent, such is the diversity of the modern Australian population; but in India…well, it is just much more unexpected. I guess even some Aussies of Indian heritage go backpacking around India!<br /> <br />I asked if he knew any nearby places that might have vacancies. He pointed to a guesthouse less than 100m down the street where he believed I could get a room. “It’s nothing flash, but it’s awright, you know…” he said with typical Aussie expression. “Thanks mate, I’ll give it a go.”<br /><br />As soon as I stepped inside the guesthouse I could see there were Christmas decorations everywhere. The next thing I noticed was a portrait of Jesus Christ sitting on the reception desk. I remember thinking to myself “typical European portrait of Jesus – the real Jesus would have looked much more Semitic than that!” The desk was unattended, so I rang the bell. An Indian man who might have been in his mid-sixties or older came down the stairs. “Hello!” he said in a deep voice. He immediately exuded a certain avuncular quality, sort of like Kamal does in those commercials for Dilmah Tea. I asked him about a room. They only had two left, and he offered to show me them both. The rates were cheap, given that it was the peak season, although it must be said that the rooms were very meagre, and there were mosquitoes everywhere. I would have chosen a place a little more upmarket, but since Daniel agreed to stay on the Peninsula, I was happy to compromise on this point and stay in a budget place. Plus, I had a good feeling about this guy that I was dealing with – he seemed very trustworthy, a feeling I had rarely had with accommodation managers in India, at least up to this point. However, I couldn’t stay in a room with that many mosquitos, especially as there were no mosquito nets, only a ceiling fan for protection. I asked if they had insecticide spray to kill the mosquitos and once he physically confirmed that they did, I agreed to take the slightly better of the two available rooms. <br /><br />We went back to the desk so I could pay for the first night and complete the paperwork. I asked him if he had the decorations up all year, or just at Christmas. He answered that it was just for the Christmas season. I knew that already, but I wanted a safe and natural lead in question, as I had momentarily forgotten that asking people about their religion is no big deal for the Indians, whereas it is often considered a more private matter in the West. “And what about this?” I asked, motioning to the portrait of Jesus, “is this always here, or is that just for Christmas also?” No, that was an all-year round thing he informed me. I still felt the need to qualify my question and added “Oh…I don’t mind, I was just curious. So, you are Christian?” He answered affirmatively. And then he asked me “You are Jewish?” I answered that I was, but was confused and curious about how he had guessed this, although for some stupid and unknown reason I neglected to ask him about how he detected my Mosaic heritage. He commented that there had been a great Jewish community in Kochi previously. I understood him to have meant this statement in terms of in his own living memory, and not just in historical memory. <br /><br />With a room reserved, I went back to the Elite Hotel to join the others for breakfast. Aaron and Sandra were just finishing their breakfast, and not long after this, they checked into their room and went upstairs for a shower. Daniel and I were at the table, and somehow some girl from France asked if she could sit at our table, as there were no other free tables. The restaurant was filled beyond capacity, and the noise levels made dialogue a bit trying. I think she told me that she “studied sculpture at St. Martins College.” Actually, not really, I can’t really remember, but it was something like that. She looked Middle Eastern, and I remember wondering if she was Jewish or Arab. Strange, isn’t it? She was in her early 30s I think, and would have been reasonably attractive if she hadn’t been so anorexic looking. I also wondered if she looked like that before she came to India, or only after. <br /><br />There was a young family at the table next to us, and I noticed a very familiar accent. Two parents about 40, with a couple of toddlers. I asked them where in Australia they were from and they said Perth. “Me too. Where in Perth?” “Inglewood.” Wow! The neighbouring suburb from where I live, maybe five minutes by bicycle. I tried to convey to Daniel what an amazing coincidence this was, but in the typical Israeli way, he was not especially impressed. The husband, who had the appearance and speech of someone highly educated told me that they had just come from a place further south, near the southern tip of India, called Varkala. What was that like? “It’s beautiful, it’s not really like India though - it’s very relaxing – you can just unwind on the beach. It’s great if you need to just have a break from it all for a few days.” I made a strong mental note that this is where we should go next, after Kochi. In retrospect, it was a pivotal moment, like when the Leonardo DiCaprio character hears about the existence of that island in the film (or novel) The Beach. Ok, that’s almost certainly a gross exaggeration, but hopefully you get the idea.<br /><br />After our hearty breakfast Daniel and I exited the restaurant and walked down the road toward the place where I had just booked accommodation for us. Kochi was full of Christmas decorations.<br />“Man, I left Australia to get away from all this Christmas stuff!” I joked, albeit in a non-humorous way. “I didn’t realise they were going to have all of this here too.”<br />“What do you mean? It looks quite nice.”<br />“That’s because you’re from Israel, you haven’t had to be irritated with this stuff all your life.” I of course wasn’t referring to the religious celebration of Christmas, but the commercialised paraphernalia that goes along with it. In Australia, this means the annoying music that saturates broadcast media and also public and commercial spaces (Jingle Bells isn’t exactly Mozart!), the sappy advertisements appealing to Christmas spirit to get people to consume more crap which is going to be half a few days after Christmas…I could go on, but I don’t want to get too much into a rant. In Israel, Christmas is limited to being a religious celebration by the minority Christian population. There are no signs of the commercialisation that exists in Australia or the U.S.A. etc. I guess this is the opposite of Japan, where Christmas has zero religious aspect, and is purely a commercial fascination. I recall when I was teaching in Japan that the school asked me to teach the students about Christmas. “But I’m not Christian!” I tried to explain, but they were unconcerned by this, replying “None of us are Christian either…but we LIKE Christmas! Please teach students about Christmas in Australia.” When the Christmas songs CD got too annoying, I swapped it for a Ben Folds Five CD and told them it was the new super-cool Christmas music they play in Australia. I’m not sure if the staff truly believed me, but since none of them could understand the Ben Folds’ lyrics, what were they going to do? Good times!<br /><br />I told Daniel how I thought we should head to Varkala after Kochi, and he was happy with that suggestion. I would leave it for him to work out how we were going to get there. When it came to plotting transportation routes, he rivalled if not surpassed any other traveller I ever met. Whenever Daniel would explain a route that he had planned, it was like it was something devised by a navigator from Homer’s Odyssey. But for now, it was time to set off for us to set off and check out some of the culturally historical sites of the Kochi peninsula.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-36042984066624261462007-04-25T02:51:00.000-07:002007-04-25T03:27:18.189-07:00The Terror of NightmaresThe sleeper bus from Mangalore to Kochi was a completely new travel experience for me. Unlike on the sleeper trains, where it is one person per berth, this bus was a two people per berth set-up. I’m not sure what happens when you are travelling alone, or in a group but with an odd number of people – perhaps you have to pay double but get a berth to yourself, or perhaps you get ‘coupled’ with a complete stranger. I would have been a small child the last time the last time I had shared a bed with another male, and now here Daniel and I were climbing onto the top bunk together. At least we did not share a blanket or anything – with the warm conditions not requiring one – and so I can say that I still have “an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality” as George Costanza once professed. We lay on our backs so that our feet faced the front of the bus. I used a small travel bag as a pillow. Just like on the sleeper train, I could never manage to avoid getting my little shesh-besh board in by bag from sticking into the back of head.<br /><br />I had the window position; Daniel had the aisle. Normally, on an aeroplane, I prefer the aisle. However, with no toilet onboard the bus, the aisle had little value. On both the window and aisle side of the bunk was a draw curtain. With both curtains closed, it was almost like we were sharing a coffin. You wouldn’t want to have been overly claustrophobic. Despite the bizarre conditions, not to mention the movements of the bus, I managed to fall asleep.<br /><br />As I mentioned in my entry on <a href="http://froshreport.blogspot.com/2006/12/india-trip-entry-1-mind-altering.html">Mind-Altering Experiences</a>, I was using the drug Larium (mefloquine) as preventative against malaria, and one of the side effects I had experienced were extremely vivid dreams. The dreams had a tendency to start out as fairly non-disturbing (as far as dreams go) until right before the end, where there was a terrifying twist, often leaving you waking up feeling like you are in the Twilight Zone.<br />There might be something about sleeper trains and buses, because up until this night, the worst dream I had experienced had been on the train from Mumbai to Goa (see my entry titled <a href="http://froshreport.blogspot.com/2007/01/journey-to-goa.html">Journey to Goa</a>).<br /><br />It isn’t easy to write about dreams and portray them as they seemed. This is because some of the most bizarre things can appear completely ordinary to the dreamer (at least while they are dreaming). Not to mention the plots frequently make absolutely no sense to the reader. So bear with me as I make this clumsy attempt to let you into another of my bizarre nightmares.<br /><br />I’m not sure why, but this dream I had aboard the bus, like then one I had aboard the train, also started with a religious backdrop. While the changes I describe in the dream seem abrupt, to me while I was dreaming, they were seemless – as if each stage of the present was how it had always been. The first thing I can recall from the dream is that I was walking down the street in B’nei B’rak, Israel, where my Grandfather’s Sister lives. As you’d expect, a lot of Chasidic people were walking down this street. It was a Saturday around noon or 1pm, and they were presumably walking home for lunch after Shul. Then the streets were no longer the streets of B’nei B’rak, but the streets of the Perth suburb of Yokine, where I live, however, it was still B’nei B’rak – that is it was physically Yokine, but cognitively B’nei B’rak (I hope this makes sense). Pretty soon after that, it was no longer just physically Yokine, but cognitively Yokine also. However, there were still plenty of religious Jews walking on the streets. And just as seamlessly as the place had changed, so had my means of transport. I was no longer travelling by foot, but by car. I was thinking to myself as I passed by so many religious people strolling on the footpath: “ Since when did Perth have so many Chasidic people? It’s almost like B’nei B’rak here! And I hardly recognise any of them either! So many new people!”<br /><br /><br />Heading down Flinders street now, near Dog Swamp shopping centre, and must have turned right onto Wanneroo road (As I write this, I now realise that you can’t turn right at that intersection, but it was dream). At some point, if I had been the driver of the car (with no passengers), I was no longer. I was now a passenger in the back of a car, although somehow I was still essentially alone. Up to this point, as bizarre as the dream may seem, to me, in the dream, it felt quite normal and not really that disturbing. It was at this point though that the dream took a terrifying turn.<br /><br />From the back of the car, I noticed a young girl of primary school age, perhaps 10 or 11 years old, standing in the middle of a busy intersection, not too much further up the road than the string of shops with the Marco’s Pizza and the Ezy Plus convenience store. Her head was facing down and she was holding her hands, in the way one might hold their hand up if ordered to do so by a person with a gun. There was a look of helplessness and despair about the girl. She had fair hair and skin, and was dressed in drab shorts and a singlet. I should add that she was not even Jewish, and thus I have no idea how the B’nei B’rak thing earlier in the dream was relevant to this latter part of the dream.<br /><br />When my persona saw the girl, I recognised her from being in the news a week or two ago as having been standing in an intersection like this due to some psychopath(s) having her in the site of a sniper rifle, as well having taken her family hostage, and threatening to kill them and her. If she moved from this position, she would be shot dead, and her family would also be killed. My persona had not paid much attention to the news story at the time, but was now freaked out by the realisation that she was STILL standing there as this hostage of psychopaths, a week or two later after first casually reading about her in a newspaper. I had a sudden understanding that this situation with the girl was somehow of enormous importance, perhaps even to the fate of the whole world.<br /><br />Now came the final phase of the dream. I suddenly became aware that the driver of the vehicle that I was in was involved in this psychopathic cult. I was now sitting in the back seat of his supercharged hot-rod, but it was if I was only now aware that he had stealthily hijacked me from my normal car or driver). He was accelerating the car, faster and faster (thinking about it now as I write this, I wonder if the real-life bus driver was accelerating the bus as such while I was experiencing this part of the dream). For some reason, I knew that I was the only the only person in the world who could save this poor little girl, and if I was going to do this, the first step was going to be to overcome this villainous driver. I could not see the driver’s face, just the back of his head – he had a short slick black ponytail, tied up in a way that it barely hung down from his head, if at all. Here was the most subjectively horrifying thing: even though I could not see his face, I was aware that when I did see his face, it was going to frighten the absolute hell out of me. I realised that his face was going to be not-quite human, but rather some kind of satanic face, straight out of the Polanski film, Rosemary’s Baby. It was with petrified anticipation, that I waited for him to turn around to reveal his face, and I knew it would happen within the next five seconds….<br /><br /><br />And then I woke up from my dream. Being a mefloquine-induced nightmare, it wasn’t as simple as sighing, “Ah, it was all a dream” and then moving on. I lay there in this coffin, with a few odd tears coming even out of my eyes and rolling down my cheeks, feeling both freaked out, but also guilty that I had not managed to save the girl. I knew it had been a dream, but I nonetheless felt that the girl and her family had been horribly murdered, and with the responsibility of saving them been thrust on to me, I had failed. I also then thought about why I had failed. I never had a chance of saving her, because I allowed my fear to virtually paralyse me. I should have reached over and applied a choke or strangulation technique to the satanic driver, but I had been afraid of him, afraid of seeing his face, his inhuman face. I was a coward.<br /><br />I felt like I really needed to talk to someone about how I felt, to tell them what had ‘happened.’. I looked over to my left, and there was Daniel, who was sharing this coffin with me. Was he awake? I didn’t think so, but even if he was, I then I thought to myself: “Hang on, I can’t just tell him about this now. It will seem very strange. After all, we are just two guys travelling together – we are not a gay couple. Furthermore, I have tears on my face, so not only will it seem gay, but much worse than this, it will be like I am the woman of the couple!”<br /><br />I know this seems ridiculous to you as the reader, that I should have been so upset about from a dream, but if you’ve ever had a drug induced dream like this, then may be only then will you understand how real it can all seem. Unlike regular dreams, the emotions and the events of these mefloquine dreams do not immediately fade away once awake. Rather, they linger with you for a little while. I didn’t really have a concept of time, but I am estimating that for the first 15 minutes I was awake, I was lying there feeling quite disturbed, with tears in my eyes.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-11795626879032845322007-04-09T05:13:00.000-07:002007-04-10T06:04:47.751-07:00Don’t want to be a Fryer.<p class="MsoNormal">The next morning Daniel and myself met Aaron and Sandra for breakfast. Our goal for the morning was a simple one: to obtain train tickets to get out of Mangalore and get to Kochi (Cochin) as soon as possible.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The first step in this process was to get to the train station.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Auto-rickshaws were in abundance, but taxis were far and few between.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>It wasn’t easy to fit four of us into the back of a rickshaw but we managed.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>We got to the train station and found the section for reserved tickets.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>After surviving the general unreserved section the previous evening on the train from Goa to Mangalore, I wasn’t yet ready to take that option again so soon, especially all the way to Kochi, which was an overnight train.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Ideally we would get reserved sleeper class, but I was certainly prepared to pay more for a superior class if that was all that was available.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The queue at the reservation counter in Mangalore had a luxury that I did not see anywhere else in India.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Instead of having to stand in the queue, they had a series of numbered seats.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The seats are arranged in horizontal rows and the numbers snake their way to the front. As one progresses in the queue, one keeps having to get up and move to the next seat; so it’s a lineball decision whether it is more of a luxury or an inconvenience.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Unfortunately, after queuing up for sometime in the seated queue,<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>and finally making it to the ticket counter, we discovered that there were no reserved tickets still available for the train that evening, not even in first class. This probably should not have been so unexpected, as it was the Christmas/New Year holiday period, the busiest time of the year for the railways. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Mangalore is a transport hub, and as a tourist, you really don’t want to have to spend more than one night, as there’s not much to do there.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>We were all determined to get out of Mangalore that evening at the latest. Our next option was to find the appropriate bus station and see if there were any long distance buses we could take.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Finding the bus station proved more difficult than we thought it would.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>My map in the Lonely Planet book showed a number of different bus depots scattered around Mangalore, and we had no idea which one was the one we needed to get to.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>These bus depots are far more chaotic than the train stations.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>There are no inquiry desks and no apparent central authority.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Rather, they are just a parking lot full of buses either coming, going, or waiting.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>It was highly frustrating to ask various people around the lot about a bus to Kochi, and get various answers, all of these answers while probably well intended, were nonetheless unhelpful, succeeding only in sending us on a goose-chase. We rickshawed around to the other depots, asking the same question, but getting no closer to finding out what we needed to know. When it became obvious we were not making any progress, I suggested we go to a travel agent and inquire there. “It might cost a bit more, but it’s worth it if we can get out of here sooner rather than later.”<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Someone remembered seeing a travel agent around the corner from our hotel, so we all squeezed into yet another rickshaw and headed back to the hotel.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">For Aaron and Sandra, seeing an Israeli in negotiations with an Indian was a new experience.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Aaron tended to have the attitude that whatever things such as a rickshaw ride costed, it was almost nothing in terms of Euros.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>My own attitudes and behaviour on the matter now lay somewhere in between Daniel’s and Aaron’s.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>There were certainly many times when I felt like it was worth fighting for the best price, and many other times when I thought: “Who cares in the whole scheme of things – we aren’t exactly dealing with large sums of money here.”<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I would often see Aaron shake his head and roll his eyes in bewilderment as Daniel, for example, expertly negotiated a rickshaw driver down from 70Rs (US$1.70) to 50 Rs, and then down to a final price of 30Rs (US$0.70). </p><p class="MsoNormal">For me, the main cost of travelling through India (after the airfare to get there) was not the cost of living, which was minimal, but the cost of not working and earning back home.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>From Daniel’s point of view, he was on a very long trip, taking a year away from work to go around the world.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>While on each instance it might not be a significant amount of money, eventually it all adds up, especially over a long period of time.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>For someone just travelling through India for a month or two, it adds up to a less consequential sum than for someone travelling for a year or more.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">There was also one other reason for Daniel driving such a hard bargain.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>On one occasion, Daniel tried to explain to Aaron that it wasn’t just about the money, but it was about one’s esteem in knowing one was not getting totally ripped off.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>This was part of the national psyche in Israel.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:+0;"></span>“For Israelis,” Daniel told Aaron “no one likes to be thought of as a …”<br />“A <i>fryer” </i>I contributed as a third party listening in.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span><br />“Yes, in Hebrew we call it a <i>fryer</i>” Daniel continued, “Israelis hate to feel like a fryer, a sucker. This is why Israelis are the best hagglers out of all the foreign travellers in India.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">We got to the travel agent and told him we wanted to get to Kochi as soon as possible. One of the guys working at the travel agent suggested we hire a car, but none of the others seemed to take any notice of that suggestion.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>We asked the main guy if there were any private-run buses going to Kochi.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>He made some phone calls, and seemed to be on hold, telling us that he had two tickets available.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Aaron and Sandra suggested that Daniel and I take them, but I wasn’t comfortable with that.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>“No, we all go, or none of us. We’ll find a way.”<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I told the travel agent that two tickets wasn’t satisfactory, essentially telling him that we needed four tickets or it was no sale.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>He spoke again to someone on the phone, was on hold for a little bit longer, and then eventually came through with an affirmative for four tickets.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>It was a great relief, and there were smiles and back slaps all round.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>We now all had tickets for on an overnight sleeper bus leaving that evening.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">With the tickets secured, it was now time to find a place for lunch.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Daniel had in his possession some flyer that was adverting a restaurant in a shopping mall and he suggested we all go to check out this great big shopping mall.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I humorously ridiculed the idea that there would be a large modern shopping mall anywhere near here.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“A shopping mall? I doubt it?<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>In Colaba, I saw a shop calling itself a supermarket, and it was the size of little corner store.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>And this was in Colaba, which is far more upmarket and has far more tourists than here.”<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Sandra laughed also, and was expressing agreement with my opinion, but Daniel insisted that it would be a real shopping mall.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I continued with the ridicule.<br />“What do you think it’s going to be like? The Dizengoff Centre??” I asked sarcastically, enjoying my own humour, and then taking a moment explain to Sandra and Aaron “That’s the biggest shopping centre in Tel Aviv” so they could fully share in my amusement.<br />“Actually, we have one now that is bigger than that” said Daniel a little curtly, who was not finding the conversation as humorous as the rest of us.</p><p class="MsoNormal">With nothing to really lose, I agreed to go. “It will be worth it just to get there and then see the look on your face when this so called mall turns out to be non-existent…” We got a rickshaw, and showed the driver the advertisement on the flyer, so he’d know where to take us.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>We had little idea of how far it was, so there wasn’t much negotiation for the price.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The journey took us to a totally different part of Mangalore from where we’d been before.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>To my utter amazement, it turned out that there really was a five storey air-conditioned building that resembled a shopping mall.<br />“Ah, you see?” said Daniel as we approached.<br />“I can’t believe there really is a modern shopping complex here!<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I’m glad to say that on this occasion you were right, and I was wrong!” I offered.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Sandra was also shaking her head in amazement and offered a little <i>mea culpa</i> of her own.</p><p class="MsoNormal">As we got out of the rickshaw, we could see that there was a Pizza Hut joint at the front of the mall, one storey up.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Daniel and I were keen to check it out.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I would never have any reason to go into a Pizza Hut joint in Australia, but I was rather curious to see how this American franchise would manifest itself in India.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>It was the first time on the trip that I had seen this type of franchise in India.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Aaron, however, had a different attitude and plainly refused to even set foot in there.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>“It’s a terrible company and they cause a lot of harm all over the world.” </p><p class="MsoNormal">“We don’t have to eat there, but I’d like to just check it out, as I am curious to see if or how it is modified for Indian tastes.” I replied.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“No, I don’t mind if you guys eat there, but I personally will never enter a Pizza Hut store.”<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>He didn’t fully elaborate on why he hated the company behind Pizza Hut so much, and I preferred not to ask. I gathered it was probably some anti-imperialist thing.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I was too hungry to discuss politics, and it was a non-issue to me.<br />“Nah, don’t be silly,” I said. “There are plenty of places to eat here. We’ll find a place where we can all eat together”</p><p class="MsoNormal">I soon gathered that the Indians who frequented the mall (and I still saw no other foreigners there) must have been rather well off.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The prices in most stores were closer to the prices of things back in Australia than they were to the typically inexpensive Indian market prices I had become accustomed to.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">After lunch we decided to split up for the rest of the day, with Daniel and I arranging to meet Aaron and Sandra outside the travel agent that evening, as that was where the bus would be departing from.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Daniel and I checked out the mall a bit more, and then we took in a film at the adjoining modern cinema.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I would have preferred to see the Indian film “Kabul Express” that was advertised on posters outside the cinema; however, it had not been released yet.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Daniel preferred to see the Bollywood film “Dhoom2,” starring the gorgeous Ashiwarya Rai, but I was secretly glad to see that it wasn’t showing at a time for us – I can’t stand musicals. <span style="font-size:+0;"></span>With a limited choice of films, we ended up seeing “The Guardian” with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, which was about the US Coastguard rescue swimmers.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>From what I could tell, most of the audience was made up of middle class Indian students.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>I thought it was a mediocre film, and I was amazed by how the parts of the movie that seemed so predictable or corny to me were met by expressions of surprise or general positive reaction by the rest of the audience.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">After the film, Daniel and I went to a small (but large by Indian standards) supermarket under the mall and stocked up on snacks for the long bus trip that lay ahead of us.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>We got a rickshaw back to the hotel, had some dinner, fetched our bags from the hotel locker, and then walked up the road to meet Aaron and Sandra outside the travel agent where the bus was to pick us up.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>When the time came, the bus had still not arrived.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>The travel agent assured us it was just running late.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>In India you can never be certain about these things, and it was a relief when it finally did arrive.<span style="font-size:+0;"> </span>Kochi, here we come!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-89600743380984655642007-03-25T22:18:00.000-07:002007-03-25T22:19:11.188-07:00Solving the World’s ConflictsDaniel and I sat down with Aaron and Sandra. It seemed like at least a month since I had lunched with Aaron and Sandra at the famous Leopold’s restaurant in Mumbai. However, it had only been a little over a week. Time goes so much slower in India than back home.<br /><br />Remembering that Aaron was also a vegetarian, I asked him what the food was like that he had ordered. He was having, amongst other things, the spring rolls from the Chinese section of the menu. Many restaurants in India often have an Indian section and also a Chinese section. I ordered some and indeed they were excellent. They were the best ever spring rolls and chill sauce I could recall having, with the notable exception of the Katong Singaporean restaurant, which my family unfortunately became unofficially blacklisted from. No, we didn’t name names. Rather my sister and Mother tried to improvise on an order. I could see that the unfortunate waiter who didn’t speak English (“Please, just point to a number and leave it at that” I had begged them) clearly had no idea what they were talking about, but they nonetheless persevered, and then somehow assumed they were going to receive the dish they desired. They then had the chutzpah to complain and refuse to pay for the resultant unrecognisable and unappealing dish that was served to them; hence the blacklisting. But I digress…<br /><br />I did the catch up thing with Aaron and Sandra, filling each other in on where we had been since we had last seen each other in Mumbai. Daniel was meeting Sandra and Aaron for the first time, so they did the “where are you from?” thing. When Sandra told Daniel that she was from Peru, he decided to exercise his conversational Spanish. Aaron, despite being from Austria (although, in my mind at least, he didn’t really come across as your stereotypical Austrian – more like a citizen of the world – either that or Danish) could also speak Spanish. While I can vaguely understand a little bit of Spanish, I can’t string a sentence together. Such is the disadvantage of growing up and living in an isolated place like Perth, Australia. In addition, think it highlights the disadvantage (and yes, there are advantages too) of being a native English speaker. Due to English being such a wide spoken language, one is rarely given the incentive nor opportunity to develop their skills in other languages.<br /><br />Finally, the conversation switched back to English. Aaron and Sandra had explained to Daniel that they were “Peace Studies” students, and as part of their masters’ project, they were travelling to somewhere near the southern tip of India to attempt to facilitate some sort of conflict resolution. Daniel then said “Do you mind if ask you something: What is your opinion on a solution to the problem in my country?” I winced a little bit. In parts of the world we have that rule about not discussing religion or politics. Israel is not one of those parts, and politics are often discussed freely. In fact, when I thought about it, it was rather odd that Daniel and I had never discussed politics before, and I didn’t really know where his political attitudes lay. Remarkably, I couldn’t recall a single political conversation with any Israelis since I had been in India. Perhaps in India travellers like to leave the home world behind. Furthermore, I certainly had never really discussed politics with Aaron and Sandra. While I was a tad concerned about where this conversation was going to go, this concern was outweighed by my curiosity.<br /><br />“Actually,” started Aaron “we have studied your conflict in our course in quite some detail…” He went on to describe how they did some workshop on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the framework he described involved bringing in all these other countries to facilitate peace talks and draw up land boundaries acceptable to both sides. This internationalisation of the conflict seemed not much different to the existing and failed strategies of The Quartet or the United Nations. I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to interject. “Ah, you Europeans, you love to internationalise everything.”<br />“What about you?” Sandra asked Daniel, “What do you think is the solution?”<br />“Well, I think what is needed is for both sides to have strong leaders. When both of our sides have leaders strong enough to make the necessary compromises…” offered Daniel.<br /><br />“I hope we can all still be friends after this” I said with a little jokingly to Aaron, as I was about get myself labelled as a hawk “but I have to disagree with all of you. Firstly the conflict is not about land. In 1947, do you know what percentage of land Israel was out of the total Arab land? Well?” I paused for an answer, but none came, so I answered it myself “Not 10%, Not 1 %, not even ½ of 1%, but approximately 0.16%. And the Arab countries still rejected the UN Partition Plan, so clearly the conflict isn’t going to be resolved through the exchange of land. It is about the acceptance of existence.”<br /><br />“Furthermore” I continued “and most importantly, there are some conflicts I don’t feel can be resolved simply through negotiations. For example, how would you have combated the rise of 20th century fascism in Europe through peaceful negotiations? Or how would you have resolved WWII simply through negotiations?” Again I paused for an answer, but I only got forfeiting looks from my peace studies friends, so continued “The fact is it took armies and war to defeat fascism. Some conflicts will unfortunately only be resolved when one side uses enough overwhelming force so that the other side stops believing they can win and thus surrenders. War is a terrible thing, don’t get me wrong, but I think there are times when it is the best of some very bad alternatives. ”<br /><br />I realised I had taken them by surprise with my von Clausewitz attitude toward global conflict resolution. Thankfully the conversation changed to something else. Sandra wanted to know whether we found Indian women to be good looking. Aaron said that he was yet to see any very beautiful Indian women since arriving a week ago. I said that I felt that some Indian women were very beautiful. I also brought up the scientifically interesting point that lighter skinned Caucasians generally prefer a suntan, but the Indians have a mate-selection preference to lighter skinned Indians over darker skinned Indians. May be we all naturally have a preference for a skin colour that represents the middle of the global human skin colour spectrum? With the conversation having shifted to a safer place, I knew the next morning we would all wake up friends.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-20512102122230344122007-03-12T02:11:00.000-07:002007-03-12T02:12:54.988-07:00Journey to Mangalore<p class="MsoNormal">Daniel had drafted a travel plan for us. I didn’t really ask him too much about the details of this plan.<span style=""> </span>I trusted him enough in this department.<span style=""> </span>He had a tremendous amount of travel experience, both in Latin America, and now India.<span style=""> </span>Plus, he had the type of personality that was highly organised and paid enough attention to detail.<span style=""> </span>At this stage, he knew far more about negotiating the Indian transport system than myself.<span style=""> </span>That’s what he brought to the <i>SuperFriends </i>table, along with his natural skill for languages.<span style=""> </span>What did I bring to the table? Well, I possessed the most up-to-date version of the Lonely Planet guide to India – and it was the English version, which Benyamin (back in Mumbai) had informed me was, if anything, slightly more comprehensive than the Hebrew version.<span style=""> </span>I also was able to befriend almost any Indian with my ability to have in depth discussions on cricket related topics.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">With regard to the itinerary, I told him I didn’t have any specific places on a ‘must-see’ list, apart from Kochi in Kerala.<span style=""> </span>I also had to get ‘back’ up to Ratnagiri (north of Goa) by December 31<sup>st</sup> to reunite with my penpal Sarita, and experience a stay with her family.<span style=""> </span>Other than that, I was cool with whatever he planned.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For Daniel’s part, when he initially suggested that we perhaps travel south together, and this was back when we first arranged to share a room in Palolem, he had asked about my linguistic competency.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“If we are to travel together, I need to know how good is your Hebrew.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“What do you mean?” I queried.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Well, if we are to travel together, we need to be able to discuss things with each other in Hebrew while we are negotiating prices with the locals.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, sure, for this I’m ok.” And then added in a deliberately overly emphatic tone,. “I know all the numbers!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Daniel continued the joke. “Well, of course you do, you’re Jewish. Knowing the numbers is the most important thing for us!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To get to Kochi, we needed to travel through Mangalore, the next major transport hub.<span style=""> </span>Daniel had found out when the train to Mangalore would be stopping at the local train station.<span style=""> </span>We took an auto-rickshaw to the station, and it cost next to nothing between the two of us.<span style=""> </span>Auto-rickshaws are these three-wheeler taxis that have motorbike style controls for the driver. In Thailand, they call these vehicles tuk-tuks (took-tooks). Outside of the really big Indian cities, they are far more prevalent than regular taxis, and they are generally cheaper.<span style=""> </span>However, like many things in India, the price is almost always a negotiation.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The local station Canacona, which is the closest one to Palolem, seemed almost deserted when we got dropped off that afternoon.<span style=""> </span>I thought to myself “Is this the right place?” Evidently, Daniel thought similarly, and he checked with the driver that this was really the place. The driver nodded and pointed upwards.<span style=""> </span>You had to walk up several flights of stairs up the cliff-face to get to the train platform.<span style=""> </span>This was just the vehicle drop off point. At this time, a large dirt-bike approached from the road we had just travelled up in the rickshaw, and then pulled up next to us.<span style=""> </span>The passenger on the back hopped off the bike, and then paid the driver, who took off again back down the road. The dropped off passenger was wearing a bright yellow shirt and big oversized cap. He had a thick beard, even thicker than Shauli’s.<span style=""> </span>He looked like he had been ‘in country’ a long time – a real hard core traveller. Indeed, he reminded me a bit of Shauli in his appearance – he had the “turned-native” look about him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Both Daniel and I needed to relieve our bladders, so we took turns watching our bags while the other urinated in the bushes.<span style=""> </span>After this we walked up to the platform, which seemed out 10m higher in elevation than the drop-off point.<span style=""> </span>When we got up the top we bought two tickets and then set our packs down to wait for the train that was due in about 20 minutes.<span style=""> </span>At this stage, the platform was sparsely populated.<span style=""> </span>I started up a conversation with the guy who had been dropped off on the motorbike.<span style=""> </span>He told me he was trying to get away from the crowds of people who would be arriving for the Christmas-New Year period. He was going to try Gokarana, which was not too far south from where we were – just over the border in Karnataka.<span style=""> </span>He was hoping the devout atmosphere of Gokarna would mean less party-going tourists.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My assumptions of his hardcore travel experiences were not wrong.<span style=""> </span>He had travelled to India overland from his home in Germany. First through the Balkans, then through Turkey, then Iran. <span style=""> </span>He was denied an entry visa into Pakistan, so had then been forced to resort to air travel, getting to India via flight through Dubai.<span style=""> </span>Despite that, I was extremely impressed by his efforts to travel to India overland from Germany, and I wished that I could undertake such an adventure.<span style=""> </span>I was curious to hear about Iran in particular.<span style=""> </span>He said almost all the people he encountered had been very nice and helpful, and some of the women would even subtly flirt with him, in their own way, which was surprising. <span style=""> </span>I asked if had any trouble with the authorities there, but it sounded like he hadn’t noticed any problems, although he added something about the majority of the people in Iran not wanting all the Islamic restrictions that the government enforced upon them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>When I asked him about what he did back in Germany, he told me he was a farmer, and this was the year to leave his fields fallow, so he was taking that opportunity to travel while his fields rested.<span style=""> </span>He farmed plums and other crops like that, producing schnapps. He looked like he was in his mid-thirties perhaps, but it was hard to tell with the beard. I asked him if his parents were also farmers, and in what was an awkward moment, his face became very sad, like he was remembering something very heartbreaking, and he told me his parents had died.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t know how to respond, except to give an empathic look and say, “I’m very sorry [to hear that].” I wanted to know how his parents died and when, but I did not feel it was my place to ask.<span style=""> </span>After all, ten minutes ago we had never even met before. However, I now got a profound sense of how lonely his life was.<span style=""> </span>His parents had died, leaving him a farm that he now runs by himself. And presently, while his field were in their sabbatical year, he had taken off on an enormous adventure, but still alone.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The conversation was interrupted by a PA announcement – the train would be delayed approximately one hour.<span style=""> </span>By now, the small crowd on the platform was starting the build up.<span style=""> </span>There was a group of three Israelis (two girls and guy) who Daniel spoke to for a bit.<span style=""> </span>There was also a couple that were smoking, but seemed to be having some kind of relationship trouble.<span style=""> </span>He was from England, and I think she was from somewhere else, but I couldn’t quite tell from where.<span style=""> </span>The girl looked upset, and the guy had a look of resignation on his face.<span style=""> </span>There were also now many Indians. There were some Indian high-school kids and they had some sort of hand-held electronic game they were preoccupied with.<span style=""> </span>I think they went to boarding school, and were travelling home for the holidays.<span style=""> </span>One of the Indian guys on the platform started a conversation with me.<span style=""> </span>Like most such conversations, it started with a “Where are you from?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Guess!” I replied.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Israel?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Well, in a round about way you are correct – you could say that my ancestors are from there, but I’m born and raised in Australia.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">With that, we got into a huge and animated conversation about cricket.<span style=""> </span>He was very knowledgeable about international cricket, but was keen to hear my opinion on various players, and how I thought various teams would go in the upcoming Cricket World Cup. He told me he was travelling back to his hometown where his family lived. He would spend the holidays with them. It turned out that the barbershop on the main tourist strip of Palolem was his.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to know if I had seen it before.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yes, I’ve seen that barbershop.<span style=""> </span>You’ve got all your services and prices advertised on a chalkboard out the front, in Hebrew.<span style=""> </span>How did you manage that?<span style=""> </span>Do you speak Hebrew?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, I got someone Israeli to do that for me.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Finally came sight of the train. All the foreign travellers strapped on our backpacks in readiness to board. As this extremely long train came to a stop, we were confronted with carriage doors that were open, but far too congested with people to board.<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t possible to buy a reserved ticket from Canacona – we all had only tickets that allowed us into the general unreserved sections – which were incredibly crowded at this time of year, being the peak holiday season for locals and foreigners alike. We kept walking down the platform, passing carriage after carriage, but all seemed to full to board, with the space near the door packed with people, almost hanging out of the doorways.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then it happened. I was still walking down the platform, hoping to find a carriage that I would be able to enter. And all of a sudden, with no real warning, the train started to move again.<span style=""> </span>There I was, standing on the platform wearing my backpack and carrying by smaller bag in one hand, when I looked back and saw Daniel standing on the step of the now moving train, holding onto the hand rails, wearing his enormous backpack.<span style=""> </span>He was not IN the train, but he was nonetheless attached to the train, which was more than I could say for myself.<span style=""> </span>He called out for me to jump onto the train.<span style=""> </span>Now normally I would probably be able to board a slow moving train. However, wearing by heavy pack, it simple wasn’t possible to exercise that kind of agility.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t run fast, and AI couldn’t jump with my large pack on my back.<span style=""> </span>I was now really panicked, running (well, lumbering) alongside the train, and shouting back at Daniel to “Get off the train, I can’t get on!”<span style=""> </span>He shouted back again for me to try, and I continued to shout back “I can’t! You have to get off!”<span style=""> </span>The train was now getting a bit quicker, and Daniel was now getting further and further from me.<span style=""> </span>It was like some crazy scene from a movie or something.<span style=""> </span>I must have taken my eyes off Daniel and rather been looking at a passing train door, because I didn’t see what happened next, but the next thing I knew Daniel was lying on his back, with his pack sandwiched between himself and the platform. He was like Ninja Turtle in shell-shock. The good news was that the train was once again coming to a stop. It seems Daniel had tried to step off from the train, but with the weight of his attached pack, and the inertia from the train’s motion, he had taken a tumble.<span style=""> </span>Someone had helped Daniel to his feet, perhaps a train marshal. The marshals from the train were now walking up and down the platform shouting at the Indians to move further into the carriage and stop blocking doors. They appeared to have cane-like objects with which to hit people who refused to move down, but I’m not certain about this – the scene was kind of a blur, and perhaps I was just imagining this bit as I now scrambled to board the train, busting through the congestion of passengers, in what felt exaggeratingly like a fight for survival.<span style=""> </span>With great difficulty I was now aboard a carriage, with Daniel in front of me.<span style=""> </span>I was exhausted from running alongside the train with my pack, and fighting through the crowd, and I heard from behind me the English guy who had been near us on the platform telling me in a hostile tone “C’mon, you have to keep moving [toward the centre of the carriage], we need to get on too!”<span style=""> </span><br />I replied back, matching his tone “I’m doing my best here!<span style=""> </span>It’s not easy!” as Indians blocked by path, and I did my best to squeeze between them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, I know.” he replied in a far more conciliatory fashion.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When we got on board, Daniel told me about his fall.<span style=""> </span>It seemed his pack had fortunately spared him from the main impact.<span style=""> </span>“Shit, you are lucky you didn’t crack your head open.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">His palms were cut and bleeding from the tumble.<span style=""> </span>With no available seats, and feeling exhausted, we sat down on our packs.<span style=""> </span>I took out some Betadine, tissues, and cotton swabs from my medical kit in my smaller bag.<span style=""> </span>“Trust me, this is good stuff, it doesn’t sting – not like the clear stuff does” I assured him. On application to Daniel’s palms he said, “Yeah, Bullshit it doesn’t sting!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Well, it might sting a little, but trust me, way less than the clear stuff.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The train was incredibly hot and sweaty. After an hour or so of sitting on our bags, some space on a bench seat became available for us.<span style=""> </span>Once we sat down, and it did not take long for the Indians sitting on the bench facing us, who were initially just staring in amusement, to make conversation.<span style=""> </span>They asked us where we were from.<span style=""> </span>When I said I was from Australia, the conversation once again turned to cricket, and when I mentioned the great Indian spinner Anil Kumble, they took great pride in telling me that where we were now (Karnataka) was his home state. Likewise for any other Indian cricketers from Karnataka. This was the advantage of being Australian and following cricket.<span style=""> </span>It was a natural way to get a conversation going in India.<span style=""> </span>For Daniel, being form Israel and knowing absolutely nothing about cricket, this possibility did not exist.<span style=""> </span>For the next few hours until we arrived at Mangalore I had various conversations with many friendly Indians.<span style=""> </span>One young girl named about eighteen years old (but looking much younger), named Preeti, was travelling with her younger brother to some kind of art or drawing competition.<span style=""> </span>Quite suddenly, she asked for my email address, and then also asked Daniel for his (although perhaps she just asked for his out of politeness, since she was mostly talking to me).<span style=""> </span>He displayed a bit of dismay at the request (while I did my utmost to hide my own dismay) but we both gave her our email addresses, although perhaps he gave her a rarely used address – I didn’t ask. Anyway, now she writes to me occasionally.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When we got to Mangalore, we had missed any chance of a connecting train to Kerala.<span style=""> </span>This didn’t bother me, as I felt too exhausted to travel any further that night, and thought it was best we crash in a hotel, and resume the journey the following day. I looked up the Lonely Planet (which Daniel and I had nicknamed the <i>Chumash</i>) for the best budget hotels in Mangalore.<span style=""> </span>It was a choice between the Hotel Manorama and the Hotel Surya. I decided upon the Manorama, but by accident I initially told the auto-rickshaw driver Surya. Within ten seconds I corrected myself, but the driver must have had a commission deal with the Surya, as he was not happy about the Manorama, and wanted to charge us extra to take us there.<span style=""> </span>I knew they were essentially the same distance, and I got into an argument with the driver.<span style=""> </span>Daniel resolved the argument by saying “Let’s just go to the Surya,” which he was happy with, since it’s room rates were a bit less expensive than the Manorama.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our energy levels were way down after the tryingness of the journey.<span style=""> </span>After inspecting the room, I agreed to stay there.<span style=""> </span>I’m glad I did, for when we walked into the hotel’s restaurant for a late dinner, I got the most excellent surprise.<span style=""> </span>The only other couple sitting in the restaurant were none other than Aaron and Sandra, who I had becomes friends with all the way back in Mumbai.<span style=""> </span>I greeted them both heartily, and introduced them to Daniel.<span style=""> </span>We joined them at their table.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The more I thought about it, the odds of randomly bumping into Aaron and Sandra like this was amazing. Keep in mind that India is such a massive country, but we happened to both end up in Mangalore at the same time. Mangalore is not a tourist place, just a transport hub, where most travellers try to remain for as little time as possible if they can’t get a connecting train.<span style=""> </span>Outside of the train station, you hardly see a single foreigner in Mangalore – most of the hotel guests are Indians. Furthermore it was only by fluke that Daniel and I ended up at the Hotel Surya.<span style=""> </span>And finally, there was still the timing of bumping into each other in the restaurant. I usually don’t eat in hotel restaurants as I like to get out and explore the town – it was just that on this occasion we were too tired after the trip to go anywhere else.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My spirits were lifted on reuniting with Aaron and Sandra, both because they were such nice people, and because of the whole cosmic improbability of it all. They were also working their way south, to get to the village where their volunteer work was located.<span style=""> </span>It was quickly settled that we would all go tomorrow together and look for a way of getting to Kochi together.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-46783364796791220092007-02-19T17:56:00.000-08:002007-02-19T17:58:01.782-08:00The Confines of Your CliqueOne of the things I had noticed about the traveller’s life in India (and I don’t at all suggest that this is specific to India) is that people are both a lot less self-conscious, and lot less cliquish than in Australia. For example, if you are out in Australia, most young people are preoccupied with how they look and appearing fashionable. Furthermore, people rarely socialise outside of their own group. This true at the pubs and clubs, and it is even true at many of the beaches. However in India, few travellers are too concerned about how they appear to others, and socialising outside of the group is totally natural. To illustrate, if you go hang out Palolem Beach in Goa, there is almost zero hesitation to go up to a group of people playing Frisbee, volleyball, or whatever, and just ask to join in. I doubt any Perth locals would say the same of Cottesloe Beach. Likewise, those same Perthites could tell you that down at the Brisbane St Hotel, you’re not likely to join nor are you likely to be invited to join a group of people unknown to you. However, such an experience is far from uncommon while travelling.<br /><br />The importance is perhaps not so much the location, but rather the situation. European travellers I’ve met in Perth have told me they find it a great place to make new friends, and how back home strangers are much less sociable. I think it is just that when you are travelling abroad, you have a type of social license that you don’t have in your hometown or home country. A foreign accent is great ice breaker. <br /><br />Having said all that, it doesn’t mean cliques don’t operate in travelling circles; it is just that they are less rigid and serve different purposes. Travellers still hang around in certain crowds, but those attachments don’t serve to exclude others. At times while travelling, group structures can feel like they serve to compulsorily include people rather than exclude people. As I experienced numerous times in my travels, once a group structure forms, even if that group simply formed from being on the same bus or train and starting up a conversation, it can sometimes feel rather awkward to put yourself outside that group. This can be just as true for trivial issues as it is for less trivial. Where you stay, what method transport you take, and where you eat dinner all implicitly become somewhat subject to the group consensus. Departing from the consensus creates UNKNOWN risks to the integrity of the group structure. I emphasise unknown risks because back home you know your friends well, and thus not only are your groups structures more robust to individual deviations, but given you’ve known your friends for a longer time period, in most cases you will be instinctively aware of what deviations the a relationship can and cannot be tolerate. For example, sometimes through unfortunate coincidence, you are forced to decline consecutive invitations to a social arrangement from a friend. You will instinctively know how many times you can decline a social arrangement with an old friend or group of friends (even if you always have a genuine situational reason to decline) before they get pissed off and decide to cut you off for a while. I am aware all this sounds a bit reductionist or clinical, but nevertheless I think most of us operate like that at times.<br /><br />In Palolem, I was now in an entrenched group. Every breakfast, every dinner, every evening was a given. Shauli, Shoham, Daniel, and I would always eat together, play cards (Yaniv) together, explore remote beaches together, and go out to bars together. Partly this was great, but there was a downside to this. Since Shauli and Shoham were a couple, and while I greatly enjoyed their company, I felt that hanging out with them so much hindered both mine and Daniel’s chances with meeting more single girls. I had been meaning to say something to Daniel about this, but I never did get around to it.<br /><br />On Friday night we went to have Shabbat at the Beyt Yehudi. Every single person there except for me was Israeli – I was the lone diasporite. After Maariv, it was time to find a seat for dinner. There were a bunch of low oblong-shaped tables, with people sitting on cushions. I was looking around for suitable table (i.e. one with plenty of girls), when I heard Daniel call out “Hey Aantoni, we’re over here!”<br />Daniel, Shauli, and Shoham were seated, along with a few others. I had also just noticed a spare seat at a section of a long table that was composed entirely of girls.<br />“Umm, that’s ok, but I think I’m going to sit over there…” I mouthed from a distance.<br /><br />And with that bold move, so began the most disappointing and in some ways distressing evening of my trip so far. These girls simply would not talk to me. Later on I would discover that at least two of these girls I was sitting with were man-hating lesbians (how I discovered this if for another time). By the way, I have nothing against lesbians, but lesbians who hate men are no better than men who are misogynistic or homophobic. Apart from not talking to me, they did not talk to each other all that much. They were not only rude, but they were also boring. <br /><br />The only interesting thing to happen was that on one on occasion I seemed to draw their utter contempt for the most curious reason. Let me explain. The Yiddish that I know comes not from learning the language formally in school, but simply from exposure. As a result, I sometimes am not sure whether a Yiddish word I know has a Hebrew root or a Germanic root. Under normal circumstances, there is often no need to know this. However, I have discovered that most young Israeli travellers (and I’m only talking about the Ashkenazim here, I’m not even counting the Mizrahim/Sephardim) do not recognise a single word of Yiddish unless it comes from the Hebrew root – and even then, if you do use a Yiddish word with a Hebrew root, they will more often than not simply assume that you mispronounced the corresponding Hebrew word. Anyway, there was a dish of cooked carrot slices on the table, and I politely asked for them to pass them to me. I used the Yiddish word for this dish (tsimmes), failing to realise that it was not a word in the Hebrew vernacular. Upon uttering this request, they looked at me in a way that clearly indicated that they did not understand what I asked for.<br />“You want what?” someone asked.<br /> So I just pointed with an open hand at the dish of tsimmes saying “Bevakesha.” Someone passed the dish of carrot slices, but the girls asked, in a strangely uncalled for hostile manner<br />“What did you say? What word was that?”<br /> It might seem to you that they were just being curious, even friendly, engaging in conversation and showing interest. Well, I promise you, their tone was anything but friendly. I know it made no sense for them to be hostile, but that’s what makes this worth writing about.<br /> “Sorry, I used a Yiddish word – Tsimmes – I didn’t realise it wasn’t the same word in Hebrew. What do you call this in Hebrew again? I’ve forgotten.” <br />They didn’t answer my question, but rather mumbled some disdainful comments to each other like “Yiddish!” And while they may not have said, they also exuded the following derisive sentiment about me: Galuti! Above all, they acted as if I was the weirdest geek they hadever met; as if I were someone who had just told them that my favourite hobby is translating Danish trigonometry textbooks into Finnish. Looking back, it’s little more than like a punch line of a not very funny joke, but at the time it was the most disconcerting experience I had endured since those giggling drunks I passed in the alley while walking to the hotel on my first night in India. In a way, it was worse than that, as then I was just a bit spooked out with the intial culture shock of India. But here there were no mitigating factors. Here at the Shabbos table, this was the last place or situation where I had expected to feel so uncomfortable. If truth be told, it was beyond uncomfortable. Their rudeness was, to use a word I hardly ever use, hurtful!<br /><br />About the time dessert was being served, I abandoned my table and went over to sit next to Daniel at his table.<br /> “Well, that was a failed experiment” I remarked. “They were the rudest and most boring people I have ever sat with. They didn’t talk to me at all.”<br />“May be they’re just shy.”<br />“No, trust me, it’s not about shyness; they’re just rude!”<br /><br />Walking back from the Beyt Yehudi to the room, I told Daniel in more detail about what had happened, and asked him how common he thought these attitudes were among Israelis. However, he downplayed the whole thing, and I’m not sure he really understood what I had told him, saying that I had probably just misconstrued the whole incident. Either way, he was fairly indifferent and uninterested by the issue, giving it little more than a 15 second reply before moving on to an unrelated topic, like asking me my opinion of some girl who had been at his table.<br /><br />Despite Daniel’s nonchalance, the lessons from this were clear. If you are in a social group and it concerns you that may be it is all getting a little too cliquish, don’t let it bother you. Also, do not try to extend yourself from the comfort zone that your clique provides you. Stay within the safe confines of your clique, and you’ll never suffer the contempt of a group of rude, boring, man-hating, galuti-hating lesbians! Stay within the confines of your clique and you to be assured that you’ll be protected from such a fate. Finally, the next time you hear any amateur social commentator such as myself making any disparaging comments concerning the existence of clique culture, you best remind ‘Joe Sociology Minor’ where we’d all be without our cliques!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-788549330280955302007-02-12T19:00:00.000-08:002007-02-12T06:11:50.799-08:00The Profoundness of Silence: Memoirs of a Temporary Mute.<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">An interesting thing happened to me in Palolem.<span style=""> </span>A combination of a throat infection, too much passive smoking (Shoham mostly – she’s practically a chain smoker), and possibly too much shouting in some boisterous games of beach volleyball and football resulted in the loss of my voice. Now, I’ll grant you that a lost voice in itself is not that interesting.<span style=""> </span>I’ve lost my voice many times in my life, but this was quite different.<span style=""> </span>Firstly, those other incidences were before adulthood, generally occurring mostly at the latter stage of a youth camp.<span style=""> </span>Secondly, at those other times I had lost my voice, it was really just that my voice became quite weak and it was difficult to talk. However, in Palolem, I lost my voice in a totality that I cannot recall previously.<span style=""> </span>Finally, and most importantly, I do not recollect learning anything interesting from those previous occasions.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Losing my voice was initially a very frustrating thing for me, for I’m not shy when it comes to giving my oral input, and it pains me to not contribute a remark or witticism when the situation calls for it.<span style=""> </span>However, if I consider it from the perspectives of my friends, it probably sounds like pleasant relief from my interruption.<span style=""> </span>Someone else could finally finish a sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">I first noticed my voice getting weaker while Daniel, Shauli, Shoham, and I (we had become something of a regular social foursome) were dining one evening.<span style=""> </span>It became harder and harder to talk, but luckily we had moved from conversation to playing <i>Yaniv</i>, an activity that doesn’t require too much from one’s voice.<span style=""> </span>I won’t go into the details of what Yaniv is, except to say that it is probably the most fun type of card game I have ever played, and there are few things cooler than giving someone an <i>Asaf</i> (ok, I understand that very few readers will know what the hell as <i>Asaf</i> is, but for the very few that do, I had to write that!). And by the way, all this is coming from someone who is not normally into card games.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">As was typical, we started the game while waiting for dinner to be served (the service can be very slow, so it works as a nice distraction), After dinner was the perfect time to finish a Yaniv game, as it gives time for the food to digest a little bit before moving on.<span style=""> </span>When the Yaniv was over, it was naturally time to find a pub.<span style=""> </span>I indicated that I wasn’t that keen to go along, as there was no way I would be able to speak to people (i.e. girls) in a loud pub given the state my voice was in.<span style=""> </span>Shoham countered that it was a good challenge to see if I could pick up a girl under those conditions.<span style=""> </span>My voice was almost totally gone at this stage, and I was often resorting to writing things down on the disposable napkins that they had on the table.<span style=""> </span>I took the pen we had been using to keep score during the Yaniv game, and I wrote on a bar napkin: <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="">Hello, I’m not able to speak. However, I’m the strong silent type.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">I showed it to Shoham who then recited it to the others, who were all keen to know what I had written.<span style=""> </span>Shoham and Shauli were more amused than I expected.<span style=""> </span>Shoham especially liked it, and she said she thought it had a good chance of working on a girl, as it was something very different, and apparently it was also wittier (to Israeli perceptions) than I had thought it was when I wrote it.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">So off we went to a pub, and I was determined to use my napkin on an unsuspecting girl.<span style=""> </span>However, and I promise it was not a case of chickening-out, but I simply did not see one suitable girl (i.e. single and attractive and in a remotely approachable situation) at the pub that night, which was rather unusual to say the least.<span style=""> </span>I guess it was just had bad luck in pub selection that night.<span style=""> </span>It was especially disappointing, as I had already decided in my mind that the napkin move was a no-lose situation.<span style=""> </span>Embraced or rejected, it would have made for a very funny story.<span style=""> </span>Not seeing any suitable candidates to try my mute act on, I decided that all that passive smoking in the pub wasn’t helping my throat condition, and I headed back to the room to get some sleep.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">When I awoke the next morning, I had expected my voice to have at least partially returned, but it hadn’t.<span style=""> </span>I really could not talk at all.<span style=""> </span>My voice was so bad that I made <i>Whisper</i>, the sidekick of the chief antagonist in the Bond film <i>Live and Let Die</i> sound like Frank Costanza by comparison.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Daniel and I met Shauli and Shoham for breakfast, and after I ordered through pointing at the menu and giving a nod to the waiter, I was only able to contribute to the morning conversation through writing comments on napkins. As this is a somewhat slow and cumbersome task compared to normal talking, I had to be select about my contributions.<span style=""> </span>What I discovered from this was that it made everything that I did contribute seem more profound than I think it would have otherwise. For example, they were discussing relationships, and Daniel (who at around 25 was the youngest of our group, and who on an earlier occasion had revealed to us that he did not believe he had ever been truly in love with any of his previous girlfriends or any one else for that matter) was adamant that he could never stay in a relationship with a girl if he didn’t completely trust her.<span style=""> </span>Up to this point, I had not made one contribution on the topic in the five minutes or so that they had been discussing it. I wrote on a napkin “Yes, but you have never really loved anyone before, so you can’t be sure. If you will be in love with someone but don’t trust them, only then can you know.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Peculiar grammar not withstanding, I passed the napkin to Daniel.<span style=""> </span>He read it to himself, and in his typical way, was not impacted greatly by it, offering up a shrug. However, Shauli and Shoham naturally wished to know what I had written, so Daniel then showed it to them, and their responses were along the lines of “Yes, that’s very true.”<span style=""> </span>In retrospect, it was not simply that I was making so few contributions, although that probably was a factor, but it was what went along with each of these offerings. It was the anticipation, the waiting, them knowing a comment had been made, but not yet knowing what the content of that comment was. That was the key to the apparent profoundness to be found in a disposable napkin.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Also at that breakfast, Shauli told us about a strange and disturbing dream he had experienced overnight.<span style=""> </span>It was impressive how he was able to recall such vivid detail, and he wasn’t even on Mefloquine! As he recounted the events of the dream, I took notes on a napkin.<span style=""> </span>To my mind, almost all the incidents in his dream, disjointed as they so often are in dreams, seemed to involve having to protect someone of something. When he finally finished his dream story, and it was an impressively long recounting, I presented to him this napkin, feeling that I had quite possibly interpreted his dream, although I wrote at the top of the napkin the word <i>efshar</i> (possibly).<span style=""> </span>I made a point of double underlining the word in an attempt to lessen the weight of my interpretation. Below that I had written in the second person narrative, that he had been travelling a long time now, and had been away from his home in Israel for many months. His dream reflected a feeling of either guilt or at least worry that he isn’t in Israel to protect some entity.<span style=""> </span>I then drew an idea-tree suggesting three possible alternatives for what that entity might be. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="">-Mishpacha? <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="">-Chaverim? <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="">-Medinat Yisrael?*<br /><o:p></o:p></span></i><br /><span style=""><span style=""></span>i.e. Either his family, a friend(s), or the State of Israel? (after all, he was a fighter-pilot back home I reminded him, via my a footnote on my napkin notation).<span style=""> </span>He read it, and then showed it to the others, who were eager to see what I had written.<span style=""> </span>It felt like it was as if Freud himself had written it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">After we had finished eating breakfast, Shauli and Daniel had some business to attend to, having to negotiate with a motorcycle hire guy.<span style=""> </span>Shoham and I stayed behind at the breakfast café, and waited for them to return.<span style=""> </span>Shoham started telling me a little about her personal history.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t mind at all, and it was not in anyway uncomfortable, but given that I was unable to speak, I have neither recollection nor idea of how such a ‘conversation’ developed.<span style=""> </span>Shoham would talk, and in my mute phase, I would just nod.<span style=""> </span>She told me about her first serious boyfriend that lasted four years.<span style=""> </span>She also spoke of some uncertainties she had about her current relationship with Shauli (she was 34, and he was 27 – she was going back home soon, but he was staying for several more months). She spoke about how she felt she was living the life typical of someone more than ten years her junior, and the uncertainties she had about what was going to happen in her life once she returned to Israel.<span style=""> </span>All I could do was nod along, look empathetic (which I sincerely was) and on rare occasions write a brief comment or question for her on a napkin.<span style=""> </span>I guess I came across as a very good listener!<span style=""> </span>It was so unusual for me, as I am normally a compulsive interrupter, but on this occasion, I was forced to be the best listener I had ever been.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">One story Shoham told me was unreservedly intriguing.<span style=""> </span>A female cousin of hers in Israel once went away to a summer camp, where the kids on the camp came from all around Israel.<span style=""> </span>While on summer camp, her cousin became friends with another girl of the same age.<span style=""> </span>The two new friends discovered their fathers had many things in common.<span style=""> </span>Both of their fathers had the same first name; both of their fathers were from the same place in Latin America; neither of their fathers were Jewish; both of their fathers were the same age and had the same birthday; both of their fathers had the same physical description.<span style=""> </span>As the similarities mounted, they realized that both their fathers were the same person.<span style=""> </span>That’s right, a whole second-family, with each family unknown to the other.<span style=""> </span>As a result, both their mother's eventually terminated their marriage to him.<span style=""> </span>However, it turned out they weren’t the only families he had.<span style=""> </span>There were others still.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, it all came out, and all of them (at least it was assumed “all of them”) terminated their marriage with him. From their experience, the ex-wives and their families later became friends with each other, and have frequently attended each other’s <i>simchot</i> – such as when one of the ex-wives has gotten remarried. <o:p></o:p><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">***<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">If the perception of profoundness amongst my friends was not enough to make me fantasize about life as a mute, the added bonus of the reaction I would receive from local Indians trying to sell me things certainly was.<span style=""> </span>I would walk down the street, and when the street-side merchants would try to sell me something, I would use an improvised sign language to indicate that I was not able to speak. They might at that stage think I was pretending.<span style=""> </span>However, once they saw me use my improvised sign language to communicate with Daniel, they would then just assume that I was a permanent mute.<span style=""> </span>From that point, their fascination with encountering a mute would make them forget about their focus on trying to sell me something.<span style=""> </span>In turn, I enjoyed their reaction immensely.<span style=""> </span>In fact, I was enjoying being a mute so much now, that I was not at all missing having a voice, and was even a little bit disappointed when it returned, as it marked the end of this most novel and interesting experience.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps in the future I could on occasions go around the place pretending to be a mute.<span style=""> </span>Or is that like when Cosmo Kramer started wearing an eye patch because he thought it looked cool.<span style=""> </span>I can hear George Costanza now “What? That’s like me getting a wheel chair to just cruise around in!”<span style=""> </span>Thus I think I better give that idea a miss.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-65027177007646978312007-02-07T04:55:00.000-08:002007-02-07T04:58:00.401-08:00Not Everyone Loves Chanukah.It was Wednesday night in Palolem, the sixth night of Chanukah. My new roommate Daniel and I went to the Beyt Yehudi for the candle lighting. After staying for a little while to enjoy the singing and jam session, Daniel prompted us to leave.<br />“Leave? Why? I think they’re about to serve a meal.”<br />“But we want to go to this restaurant where you can order steak.”<br />There are not that many places in India where you can get beef, given the Hindu reverence for the cow. However, the state of Goa, being an ex-Portuguese colony, is largely Christian, and thus beef is often available at restaurants.<br />“I don’t eat steak– I’m a pescetarian, remember?”<br />“Come on, we will have steak, and you can order fish.”<br />I didn’t know who “we” was at this stage. To my surprise, and in what seemed like another recurring coincidence, Daniel had somehow become friends with the couple who Marios and I had seen on the train on the way to Goa, and then had also sat at a table with in the pub the night before.<br /><br />Just before leaving for the restaurant, Daniel said quietly to me that he had forgotten their names, and wanted me to ask them. I in turn told him that I had also met them before, and having also forgotten their names, I didn’t feel comfortable asking them. When we got to the restaurant, I suggested, without providing much of a reason, that we all exchange email addresses. That allowed us to rediscover their names. Shauli and Shoham. They had been in India at least six months already, mostly in the North. Shoham spoke English with a slight London accent, rather than a regular Israeli accent. I asked her about this, and she explained that she had spent a few years there as a child. Shauli was moderately tall, and was quite thin, a typical characteristic of a guy who has been travelling in India for a while. He also had a thick (but not long) beard, another characteristic fitting that profile. Later on, Shauli would show us a picture of himself not long before he left Israel. He was unrecognisable. His pre-India appearance was clean-shaven, reasonably solid build, and a buzz cut on top. In Israel he had been a combat pilot in the air force, flying F-16s. Now, far removed from that, he looked like a total hippy, carrying around his flute, which he played intermittently.<br /><br /><br />Daniel, Shauli, and Shoham all had good spoken English, and when in my company, they more often than not conversed in English for my benefit, although I never requested them too. In fact, I didn’t mind when they spoke in Hebrew, as it was good practice for me, and when possible, I would make an effort to use Hebrew too. Otherwise, I was quite good at speaking English with people who speak it as a second language.<br /><br />At one stage, Shauli and Shoham were discussing in Hebrew something about the beauty of the Chanukah Menorah lighting ceremony as done by the Breslover shaliach at the Beyt Yehudi. I made some unmemorable comment, and then Shauli said something surprising to me, in English..<br /><br />“But you know, in a way, I don’t like Chanukah that much” he opined.<br />“You don’t like Chanukah? What’s not too like? There’s no fasting, the food is delicious, mmmm latkes, sufganiot, and there’s no prohibitions against anything…”<br />“Yes, but it is about the Maccabees…I don’t like the Maccabees.”<br />“Oh, I think I know where you are going with this. I’ve thought about this before, although I don’t think I’ve ever discussed it with anyone. I can see how, from a certain point of view, not mine by the way, but some people who are some kind of post-modern revisionists might twist it this way…they might frame the Maccabees as the Al Qaeda of their time. You see the Greeks, they were occupiers, but they weren’t occupiers like the Romans were. The Romans occupied through brute force - they weren’t interested in the cultures of the lands they occupied. However, the Greeks were very interested in Judaism, from an academic point of view, not a religious one. But at the same time, they were trying to get the Jewish people to fuse their own culture with Greek culture. Thus the Greek occupation was as much intellectual and cultural as it was physical. And this was not always forced, but many Jews at the time embraced the Greek culture, which they saw as more modern and liberated – Greek culture and thinking was the most ‘modern’ of its time. The Maccabees took a stand against this cultural fusion or assimilation, “Ah, they were sort of anti-globalisation?”<br />Shauli commented<br />“Yes, in a way, they could have been seen as an early version of it” I continued, “And they didn’t just fight the Greeks, but also other Jews they saw as cultural collaborators….And while I don’t believe they were terrorists, I can imagine some revisionist moral relativists framing it that way.”<br />“That’s very interesting, but this isn’t why I don’t like the Maccabees” Shauli stated.<br />“Then what is it you don’t like?”<br />“In Israel, I support Hapoel. I hate Maccabi. They are our rivals” he laughed. In Israel, the most dominant sporting association is Maccabi, which is named after the Maccabees. Hapoel (which translates as ‘the worker’) is the next most dominanat. Both organization have professional teams in various sports in a number of cities throughout Israel.<br />“Do you support Hapoel in football or basketball?”<br />“Both…. You name it, if they are playing it, I support it. In any sport, I support Hapoel, and hate Maccabi”<br />“Ok, that’s the strangest reason I’ve ever heard for not liking something.”<br />“Yes, I know,” conceded Shauli, who was smiling broadly.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-65641386827199438612007-01-28T22:13:00.000-08:002007-01-28T22:51:13.524-08:00It's a small world in Palolem<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">After a shower, I went back down to the beach to see the sunset, bringing along my camera, in an effort to capture it.<span style=""> </span>It was still a little bit before sunset, and there were some Indian guys playing cricket on the beach.<span style=""> </span>The great tidal movements leave a large area of firm sand that is perfect for beach cricket.<span style=""> </span>I wanted to play with them, but I needed somewhere or someone to leave my camera with.<span style=""> </span>I saw a tourist sitting down nearby.<span style=""> </span>He looked about 40, wore glasses, and most importantly, was holding a baby.<span style=""> </span>It seemed like a safe option.<span style=""> </span>I asked him if he would be there for a while.<span style=""> </span>He would be, at least until after the sunset, so I left my camera with him, and went to play some cricket.<span style=""> </span>They soon let me bowl, and I immediately proved a destroyer with my yorkers and off-cutters, beating the batsman with my first couple of deliveries, and then dismissing him caught and bowled. The batsman had mistimed the shot, and skied it into the air. On taking the return catch, I threw it back up into the air in an ecstatic celebration, a la Roger Harper in the prime.<span style=""> </span>While, my bowling proved a success, when it came time to bat (they had a batting order), I gave a poor showing.<span style=""> </span>Maybe it was the fading light combined with my bad eyesight, maybe it was the suspect bowling action of the fast bowler, but I played and missed at the first delivery, blocked the second one, and then top edged the third one, providing an easy catch to the fieldsman at short mid-on.<span style=""> </span>Regardless, it was something of a spectacle, as I was only foreigner in the game, and I raised a few curious looks from the various tourists who walking up and down the beach.<span style=""> </span>I must confess to it being a source of pride for myself, being the only foreigner willing and able to play with the locals. In some ways, although to a lesser extent, it was a bit like when I was the only foreigner to have ever joined the karate dojo in Ichinomiya Japan.<span style=""> </span>I played on for a bit longer, succeeding again as bowler, and failing again as a batsman. As the sunset approached I retired from playing due to the diminishing light, not to mention that if I sweated anymore I was going to have to take another shower.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">I went over to the tourist with whom I left my camera.<span style=""> </span>He asked me how I knew how to play cricket.<span style=""> </span>I told him that I was from Australia, where it is a popular sport.<span style=""> </span>He then asked me where in Australia I was from, so I told him Perth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Oh, I have been to Perth, maybe about five years ago. I have some friends there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Really?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Yes, they manage a cafe.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Do you know where it is?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">He couldn’t remember the name of the area it was in.<span style=""> </span>He mentioned the name of a woman, but it was unfamiliar, then he mentioned the name of a guy “Dror”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“I know a guy named Dror, but I don’t know anything about a café, but maybe he used to…may be Dror Snir?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Yes!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“That’s unbelievable! I play futsal with him every week.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Futsal? What is this?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Five-a-side football…umm… <i>kadur-regel katan, l’chamesh ishim</i>… I didn’t know him when he was in the restaurant business, but anyway, he’s got some importing business now. In fact, he’s in China right now on business.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">We exchanged a few details about Dror, and confirmed for each other we both talking about the same guy.<span style=""> </span>We were both quite excited at the amazing coincidence, or just at how small the world can be.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Please tell him you met Ronny.”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Hey, I’ll take your picture and show it to him”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Yes, take my picture, then show it to Dror, and ask him ‘Do you know this guy?’”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Ok, I will definitely do that.” I took my camera out of its case to take his photograph.<span style=""> </span>“Hey, is this your kid?”<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t, he was just baby-sitting the shaliach’s youngest kid.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">After taking some pictures of the sunset, I headed over to the Beyt Yehudi to celebrate the fifth night of Chanukah.<span style=""> </span>There I bumped into Daniel, an Israeli guy I had briefly met the night before at the Chanukah celebration at Beyt Chabad in Mumbai.<span style=""> </span>In Mumbai, he had told me he had been born in Moldova, but his strongly Zionistic family had moved to Israel from the Soviet Union as soon as it had become possible for people to freely leave. That was around 1990-91, when he was about ten years old.<span style=""> </span>He has said that in Israel he tried to always be friends with real <i>Tsabras</i>, and not other émigrés from the USSR; that way he didn’t grow up to speak Hebrew with a Russian accent.<span style=""> </span>Apart from Hebrew and English, he also could speak Russian, and had decent conversational Spanish too, from traveling in Central America.<span style=""> </span>In Mumbai, he had become heavily involved in discussion about photography with the French photojournalist (keep saying that word in a French accent), trying to learn as much as he could to improve his own photographs, and as a result, we didn’t speak much more after that.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming to Goa.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“I didn’t know either, it was a last minute decision.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“We must have been on the same train, but I didn’t see you. What carriage were you in?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">In India, especially in the high season, it is not easy to get a reserved bunk on a train unless you book in advance.<span style=""> </span>Daniel told me that he had just turned up to the station, bought a general ticket, and then asked a conductor to find him a vacant bunk, paying him the difference.<span style=""> </span>Does the conductor just pocket it? Possibly. Probably. We discussed our respective accommodation, and somehow resolved that from the next day we would share a room, since a double room generally costs no more than a single room. We arranged a time and place the next morning to meet for breakfast, with the idea that after breakfast we would sort out the accommodation.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Hey, shouldn’t we synchronise our watches?” Daniel asked, just as he was about to take off for the rest of the evening.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“What are you talking about? Why do we need to do that?” I asked, totally puzzled.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“I don’t like to be kept waiting, that’s all...It’s a thing I have”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Ok, but how much out could our watches be? Like 2 minutes? It’s not a military operation.<span style=""> </span>I’ll tell you what: I’ll make sure I’m a few minutes early tomorrow morning, instead of undergoing a watch synchronization, ok?” I laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Ok, if you say you’ll be on time, that’s fine, you’ll be on time, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Have a good night.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“You too, <i>layla tov</i>, see you tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">I must mention that the Chanukah celebrations at the Beyt Yehudi in Palolem were really beautiful.<span style=""> </span>After the menorah lighting, and a meal, the shaliach would hand out a whole bunch of percussion instruments to everyone, from bongo-style drums, to tambourines, to instruments I knew no name for. Some people also had flutes.<span style=""> </span>It was a quite a scene and a sound as all the Israeli travelers sat around on mats and cushions, singing Chanukah songs, and jamming with their instruments.<span style=""> </span>At one stage, a local Indian guy who sells drums on the beach brought his own drum along (as well as his young son) and joined the jam session. Him and the shaliach really seemed to be feeding off each other’s sound. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><span style=""> </span>After hanging around at the jam session for a while, I left, walking back to my hut.<span style=""> </span>On my way back, I walked passed the hut of Paul, Marios, and Ricky.<span style=""> </span>Paul and Ricky were going to sleep, but Marios was hoping to go somewhere for a drink.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t quite ready to sleep either, so the two of us went to look for a suitable pub.<span style=""> </span>There are several pubs along the beach, and we found one that seemed relaxed enough, named “Café del Mar.” Most of the tables had a <i>nargileh</i> (water-pipe) set on them, a sure sign the pub was catering to Israelis. The television screens were showing cricket, perhaps to cater for the English tourists, but more likely just for the benefit of the local staff.<span style=""> </span>I ordered a White Russian, and though they didn’t quite have the exact ingredients, they managed to make the drink up with approximates.<span style=""> </span>While we were waiting at the bar, I heard Marios exclaiming to someone<span style=""> </span>“Hey, I remember you. You’re from the train.” I turned around, and he had bumped into the very hippy-looking Israeli couple we had seen on the train, the ones who had asked us if we minded if they smoke. They nodded at his exclamation, and somehow, just from not much more than that minimal encounter, the four of us then all took our drinks and went to sit at a table together.<span style=""> </span>Still concerned about an interaction with the Mefloquine, I limited myself to one drink for the night, and then headed back.<span style=""> </span>Besides, I had begun to feel a bit tired, and I didn’t want to oversleep and keep Daniel waiting the next morning, particularly after I had rebuffed the watch-synchronization process.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">The next morning, I met Daniel for breakfast at a café by the beach. I managed to get there before him.<span style=""> </span>The Canadian couple was there, finishing up their breakfast.<span style=""> </span>I inquired as to the quality of the food, and they said it had been fine.<span style=""> </span>After breakfast, Daniel taught me one of the numerous card games popular with Israeli travellers, and we then played that game with some people at a neighbouring table. It was the time to sort out the accommodation so I suggested that Daniel first see my hut, as it was quite a nice, and thus the simplest thing would be for him to just move in to there.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><span style=""> </span>“As long it has two beds it should be ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Yes, it definitely has two beds in it already.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Good, because I like you, but not THAT much.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Don’t worry, by coincidence, I feel the same way” I continued the joke.<span style=""> </span>“By the way, on a different note, I have several duplicate keys for my padlock, so I can give you one of them, and then we won’t have to worry about who has the key.” In India, almost all budget and mid-range places use a bolt and padlock (I never once came across a place that had an internal lock in the door). They give you the use of a padlock when they rent you the room, but smart travellers use their own.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">Daniel saw my hut and it was to his satisfaction. When we exited the hut, I happened to see Sambi walking by, “Mr Everything’s Possible,” the manager who had been so cheerful in his desire to hook me up with various vices the day before.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Hey Sambi, this is my friend Daniel, he’s going to be sharing the place with me, ok?” I said this with no expectation whatsoever that there would be an issue. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Fine, but now it’s 600.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“What? No, still 500. It makes no difference to you.”<span style=""> </span>I said. I knew Paul, Marios, and Ricky were paying a lot less, albeit without an en suite bathroom.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">He wasn’t in his cheerful mood of the day before.<span style=""> </span>He seemed pissed off about something, may be nothing to do with the matter at hand.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“No, 600.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“We’re not paying extra.<span style=""> </span>Either 500, or we’ll go elsewhere” Daniel cut in.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Fine, get lost then! Six hundred or get lost!”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">It was most un-Indian of him to not negotiate, as well as very unlike his accommodating personality of the day before. On principle now, I decided I didn’t want to stay anymore.<span style=""> </span>I made a mental note to avoid staying at any future places where the manager offers to hook me up with drugs and prostitutes.<span style=""> </span>We went and looked around for some other places.<span style=""> </span>We found another similar hut in a neighbouring complex for 400Rs, and we decided to take it.<span style=""> </span>We walked back to get Daniel’s stuff from the place where he had been staying, and on the way we walked passed another accommodation option - rooms in a building, as opposed to huts. For curiosity, we enquired about the price for a double room with two beds with an en suite bathroom, and it was also only 400Rs.<span style=""> </span>We looked at a ground floor room, which had it’s own little verandah section, and seemed very nice.<span style=""> </span>Apart from the bathroom having more water pressure than the bathroom in the hut, the room seemed so much more secure.<span style=""> </span>It even had security bars on the windows.<span style=""> </span>Compare this to the situation of a straw hut that anybody could just punch a hole through the wall of. We both wanted to take the room, but I was not comfortable with the idea of reneging on the previous place we had just agreed to take ten minutes before. “Don’t worry about it, that’s no problem” assured Daniel.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">“Ok, but then you can do the talking when we go back and tell him.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="">When we went back to the previous hut complex that we had intended to stay in, Daniel simply said to the manager we had spoken with “I’m sorry, we can’t take this place anymore – we received an offer we couldn’t refuse.”<span style=""> </span>The poor old guy just shrugged. Daniel repeated, “This is very nice, but I’m sorry, we received an offer we couldn’t refuse.”<span style=""> </span>I don’t think Daniel was at all aware that he was semi-quoting from <i>The Godfather</i> film.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-58210176810361123522007-01-22T01:04:00.000-08:002007-01-22T01:08:57.952-08:00Journey to Goa<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I was booked for the 10.50pm train for Goa.<span style=""> </span>Having checked out of my hotel, I went down the road to the Beyt Chabad. They were to be celebrating the 4<sup>th</sup> night of Chanukah there. Every night of Chanukah, just before the large Chanukah Menorah is lit in the ground-floor courtyard, a lot of local Indians (especially little kids) gather around behind the large gate that separates the laneway from the courtyard.<span style=""> </span>I guess it is a curious spectacle to them, as these strange foreigners light their big candelabra and sing songs in an unknown language.<span style=""> </span>Before too much of a crowd had gathered outside of the gate, I noticed two innocent looking boys standing there eagerly awaiting the spectacle, having got themselves a front viewing position.<span style=""> </span>One of them looked about seven or eight years old, and the other one looked a few years younger.<span style=""> </span>The older one appeared to be looking after the younger one, with his arm around him in a protective manner.<span style=""> </span>I asked them if they were brothers, and they were.<span style=""> </span>I decided to take their picture with my camera, and then I showed them their picture on the little screen on the back of my digital camera. This gave them a bit of a thrill, which was my original intention of the exercise.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">After the festive meal in the courtyard, I got some information about Goa from an Israeli guy, whose name I think might have been Binyamin.<span style=""> </span>“Is your train going to Panjim or Margao?” he asked me.<span style=""> </span>I had no idea.<span style=""> </span>I took out my ticket, and saw that is was Margao. “Does it matter?” It did. Panjim is in North Goa, and Margao is in south Goa.<span style=""> </span>We each took out our copy of the Lonely Planet, my copy in English, and his in Hebrew, and examined our maps of Goa. “If your train stops in Margao” he showed me “the best place to head for is Palolem.” I asked him about places to stay in Palolem.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“When you get to Palolem, you will see on the main street, a sign pointing you toward the Jewish House.”<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“The Jewish House? What’s that? Is it like Chabad?”<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“Yes, it’s like Chabad, but different. They’re from a different organization, but it’s similar. Anyway, you can go there, leave your bag there, and then there are lots of places to stay close to that.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">As it was my first time to take a train in India, and the CST station in Mumbai is so massive and hectic, I decided it was best to get there close to an hour early.<span style=""> </span>I took a cab from Colaba to the train station. When I got in the cab, I said to the driver “CST station. 15 Rupees, ok?” He nodded and said ok.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, I didn’t have exact change. When we arrived, I gave him a 50Rs note, and waited for my 35Rs change.<span style=""> </span>He tried to pretend that the fare was 50Rs instead of 15Rs. We had a heated argument, and I initially refused to get out of his cab until he gave me change. Eventually he gave me 10Rs change.<span style=""> </span>It was a stalemate, and I decided that given the discrepancy was now not even one Australian dollar, I would just ‘learn from the experience.’<span style=""> </span>I got out his cab, making a mental note to myself to have exact change next time.<span style=""> </span>A porter in his 20s approached me.<span style=""> </span>He was with a more senior man, perhaps his boss or supervisor. He tried to negotiate a fee for carrying my bags for me. He wanted 50 Rs. I knew it was way too much. The more senior man tried convincing me it was reasonable fare, as the train was along walk from where we were, on the other side of the station.<span style=""> </span>I was happy to carry my own bags, but the problem was I had no idea where my train was, I had no experience with the Indian railway system, and the chaos and size of CST station in Mumbai result in it not being the easiest place to navigate through. I therefore reluctantly agreed.<span style=""> </span>He picked up my large backpack and carried it on top of his shoulder.<span style=""> </span>He would have carried my smaller bag too, but I insisted on holding onto that one myself.<span style=""> </span>I think we had walked for less than 30 seconds before we came across these industrial looking trolleys, the kind you might move a stack of crates around within a warehouse.<span style=""> </span>He put my bag onto this trolley.<span style=""> </span>“What’s this? I thought you were going to have to carry my heavy pack<span style=""> </span>kept the whole way. If I had known you were just going to have to push a trolley….” He just smiled, and we kept walking.<span style=""> </span>It did prove to be a very long walk, and if he hadn’t had the trolley, it probably would have been worth the 50Rs.<span style=""> </span>When we finally got to my train, he found my specific carriage for me.<span style=""> </span>It was still quite early, and he decided to sit with me on the platform, just outside the carriage, as if it was part of the service to baby-sit me until boarding time.<span style=""> </span>I told him it wasn’t necessary, but he insisted.<span style=""> </span>We sat down together, and he asked me how old I was and whether I was married.<span style=""> </span>I answered these questions, and then returned the questions back at him.<span style=""> </span>He was 25, and wasn’t married, but would be getting married next year. “Oh, you have a fiancee?” He didn’t have one, but his parents would be arranging his marriage the following year to a girl he doesn’t know. After five or ten minutes, he told me he had to go. I paid him the 50Rs.<span style=""> </span>He then, almost in an embarrassed fashion, informed me that there was another 10Rs to be paid as a “trolley charge.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“Trolley charge?” I laughed “The trolley only made it easier for you! Hey, I really don’t mind that you ripped me off once, but you don’t think I’m going to get suckered twice in a row, do you? 50 rupees was pretty good fee for you.”<span style=""> </span>He nodded and smiled, as if to acknowledge that he had been a bit ambitious asking for the dubious ‘trolley charge’. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I boarded the train, and found my bunk.<span style=""> </span>There are many different classes of carriage in India.<span style=""> </span>I was in “sleeper class.”<span style=""> </span>Sleeper class means that it is open-air (not having A/C, which wasn’t needed this time of year anyway) with a pair of three tier bunks in each subsection of the carriage, with each bunk reserved for a specific passenger. Fortunately for me, in my subsection were three guys from Europe traveling together, who were also going to Goa.<span style=""> </span>They introduced themselves to me.<span style=""> </span>There was Paul and Marios from England, and Ricky from Holland.<span style=""> </span>The passengers for the other two bunks were to be boarding at later station.<span style=""> </span>Marios, a very laid back individual, noticed the vinyl upholstery on his bunk didn’t look that clean, and was futilely trying to wipe his bunk clean with a paper napkin.<span style=""> </span>I had a large tube of anti-bacterial wet-tissues, and offered it to him and the others to take a few tissues each if they wanted to wipe down their bunks.<span style=""> </span>The wet-tissues were very effective and much appreciated.<span style=""> </span>We all then took out our bicycle chains and diligently chained our backpacks to our bunks. We discussed the possibility of theft, and I said I thought it was unlikely, given that there were four of us, and the odds are that all four of us would not happen to be asleep at the same time. In very little time, the three of them were all asleep and I still found myself awake. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I’m not sure how those guys slept so easily.<span style=""> </span>There seemed to constantly be people walking up and down the train shouting out the name of whatever food product they were selling, such as chai, coffee, sandwiches, samosas, or omelets. I was using my small bag as a pillow, and it was feeling rather uncomfortable.<span style=""> </span>I think it was the small <i>shesh-besh</i> (backgammon) set I had that was sticking into the back of my head. Eventually I managed to get a bit of sleep. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Somewhere in the night, I had what I believe was a Larium (mefloquine) produced dream.<span style=""> </span>My Larium dreams start off as normal and pleasant enough, but always seem to have a horrifying and bizarre ending. To cut a long dream story short, in the dream I had helped organize a Chanukah party that had been great until an unwelcome guest had shown up whom I recognized as a perverted exhibitionist. I tried to evict him from the party, only for some witchy-women (who were confederates of the exhibitionist) to try and stop me. They had their hands on my face, and I was feeling suffocated and also had the feeling that they were digging their finger nails into my face.<span style=""> </span>I awoke at this stage, gagging for breath, and though I realized it was dream, it felt so real that I had thought it must have been inspired my physical stimuli. I looked up and down the carriage to see if some beggar was aboard and had put their hands on my face while I was asleep.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t see anyone in the carriage who didn’t appear to be sleeping, so I put it down the Larium, and tried to get back to sleep.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">When the morning came, with still a couple of hours to go until the train reached our destination, we unchained our bags and collapsed the middle bunks so the bottom bunk can be used as bench for sitting.<span style=""> </span>This is the usual practice.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, being the morning, I needed to urinate, which meant having to brave the train toilet, and its stench of decomposing urine. With the daylight, Marios and I were keen to look outside the train, but found the view through our windows a bit limiting. We went to section between carriages, where there was an open door to which we could look out from.<span style=""> </span>I noticed that the air was very hazy.<span style=""> </span>I wondered where the pollution came from, since we weren’t in a motor vehicle infested metropolis anymore. While there, a very hippie looking couple (from appearance, they were almost certainly Israeli) came to where were standing and asked if we minded if they smoke.<span style=""> </span>We gestured that we didn’t mind. Officially, smoking is not permitted on the trains, but they were intending to smoke, holding the cigarette out the open door. “Be my guest.” When I returned to our seats, Paul, as he was often doing, was rolling a joint.<span style=""> </span>He offered me, but I declined.<span style=""> </span>An Indian man was there with his daughter, as they had boarded during the night and taken the two other bunks.<span style=""> </span>The man offered me some Indian style chips, which I accepted, but felt bad, as I had nothing to offer in return.<span style=""> </span>I made another mental note to pack food on the train with me for such occasions.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The train arrived at Margao around midday, and as it turned out, Paul, Marios, and Ricky were planning to go to Palolem.<span style=""> </span>As Palolem was where Benyamin had recommended going, it was all the more reason to go along to there too.<span style=""> </span>Between exiting the train, and walking to the carpark in the train station, we had befriended a Canadian couple. All of us wanting to go to Palolem, we looked to get a taxi-van to take all six of us, instead of trying our luck with the public bus service.<span style=""> </span>I negotiated with a guy, and got him down to 500Rs, which seemed ok given that it was less than 100Rs (AU$3) per person.<span style=""> </span>Well, in fact it was 100, since when it came time to pay the driver, Ricky paid him with a 500R note, and we all gave Ricky a 100R note, without change being returned from Ricky.<span style=""> </span>The van ride to Palolem lasted for about an hour, and was very bumpy.<span style=""> </span>During the trip, Paul took out the joints he had been rolling and had a smoke.<span style=""> </span>He offered to everyone but no one took.<span style=""> </span>I said I never smoked on account of wanting to preserve my short-term memory.<span style=""> </span>This led to a discussion on the adverse effects of marijuana on short-term memory, and even Paul admitted that his memory is probably terrible from smoking pot at a frequency that generally exceeded once a day, although he required Marios to remember for him how often he smoked.<span style=""> </span>The Canadian girl was from Indian heritage, though not her partner (presumably her husband), and I discussed with them some of the problems I had encountered from my night out with Sarita.<span style=""> </span>They didn’t offer me any real insights, however. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The taxi dropped us right at the main junction of Palolem, and amongst a sea of other advertising signs,<span style=""> </span>I noticed a big sign in Hebrew, transliterated as “HaBeyt HaYehudi 100m” and with an arrow pointing the direction.<span style=""> </span>It was just how Benyamin had described.<span style=""> </span>Wearing a large backpack in a place like Palolem functions as billboard on your back effectively stating: “Please come and approach me and try and persuade me to take up your offer of accommodation.” After I realized this, having had a number of touts approach me, I decided to do as Benyamin recommended, and go and take my bag to the Beyt Yehudi (Jewish House), before looking any further for accommodation. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I walked about 50m down the road, and then another “HaBeyt HaYehudi” sign with an an arrow that pointed toward the direction of the beach.<span style=""> </span>The Beyt Yehudi resembled a large Bedouin tent with a small housing structure attached. The tent area was covered with rugs, mats, various cushions, as well as small tables designed for people sitting on the floor.<span style=""> </span>I saw a few toddlers playing there, with haircuts to indicate they had religious parents.<span style=""> </span>I removed my shoes before entering.<span style=""> </span>As I did this, a guy appeared who was obviously the shaliach, stating it wasn’t necessary to remove my shoes, but I did anyway.<span style=""> </span>He was a fairly tall guy, and looked very much like a hippy in all manner of his dress and appearance, except that he was also wearing tzitzit and long payes in his hair.<span style=""> </span>I introduced myself to him in Hebrew.<span style=""> </span>Because I said I was from Australia, and much more so because my Hebrew is inflected (or that should that be ‘afflicted’) with an Australian accent, and is generally of an appalling standard, he replied to me mostly in English, although I could tell that he wasn’t such a confident speaker of English either, so I did my best to reply to him in Hebrew.<span style=""> </span>He was very friendly, said I could keep my bag inside. I asked what time they would be lighting the menorah, and he told me 7pm, and that there would be songs and food afterwards.<span style=""> </span>I then asked him if he was a Breslover, and he said yes. He was somewhat surprised by my question. “You know about Breslover?”<span style=""> </span>Not really, I said, “Just a little bit.”<span style=""> </span>I added that I saw the film Ushpizin, and he asked if I liked it. I said I thought it was very good and interesting.<span style=""> </span>He nodded with satisfaction.<span style=""> </span>I left my large backpack there, and set out to find a place to stay for the night.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I found the others from the taxi-van.<span style=""> </span>The three guys were staying in a beach shack for 300Rs total.<span style=""> </span>The shack, with no bathroom, was suitable for only two people in that it had two beds.<span style=""> </span>They actually offered me to also stay in there with them also!<span style=""> </span>The Canadian couple had also got themselves a beach shack in the same group.<span style=""> </span>The guy running it, calling himself Sammo, approached me. I asked if he had a shack with it’s own private bathroom, and he did, for 500Rs.<span style=""> </span>I took a look and it seemed very nice. It had a balcony with chairs and hammocks, and two beds inside.<span style=""> </span>The bathroom didn’t have much water pressure, but at least it seemed nice and clean.<span style=""> </span>I figured I would stay there for one night by myself, and then see if I can find someone to share with for the following night.<span style=""> </span>Sammo asked me if I wanted anything else, like drugs, women, etc, he could arrange it. “Everything’s possible!” he emphasized. I declined, saying the only service I might require is a laundry service.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">By the time I had my room, I was so hot and sweaty that I was desperate for a swim. The three musketeers were all now taking a snooze in their hammocks, so I decided to hit the beach by myself.<span style=""> </span>I had a swim to cool off, and then not yet having anything to sit on, I just walked around on the sand to dry off.<span style=""> </span>I saw group of Israeli guys, some playing cards, others playing <i>shesh-besh</i> (backgammon). I approached the guys playing shesh-besh.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“So, are you guys playing for money, or just for fun?”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“We are playing for fun, but we can play you for money if you like” they smiled</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“No thanks, I’m new here, so I’m not yet looking to make enemies by taking all your money.”<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“Ok, you can play the winner, for fun” they laughed. The two guys playing shesh-besh introduced themselves. They were both named Asaf.<span style=""> </span>Asaf-1 had dark curly hair, and Asaf-2 had lighter and straighter hair. After a game or two of shesh-besh, it was decided to play a game of football (soccer) on the beach. The playing personnel consisted of a mixture of those Israeli guys, plus some Indian teenagers.<span style=""> </span>I played on the team with the Indian teenagers.<span style=""> </span>Asaf-2 played on the opposing team and was a very skillful player.<span style=""> </span>After we finished playing, some of us took a swim to cool off.<span style=""> </span>While in the water, Asaf-2 told me he had been selected to play with a professional club when he was 17, but then he took up smoking cigarettes, and from then his fitness was never good enough for that level.<span style=""> </span>He sighed when he told me this, looking downward, with a facial expression that said he was wishing he could go back in time and not make that mistake. I didn’t say anything in reply, but I couldn’t understand how a guy could have had that talent and opportunity, and then ruined it all by taking up smoking.<span style=""> </span>After the swim, I said goodbye to those guys, saying that if they turned up to the Chanukah celebration that evening, I would see them then. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-39245574446023417882007-01-14T18:35:00.000-08:002007-01-14T18:38:14.742-08:00Meeting Sarita<p class="MsoNormal">Having said goodbye to Aaron and Sandra, I went back to the hotel, had a shower, and a brief rest (catching up on the news on cable television).<span style=""> </span>I had arranged to meet my penpal Sarita at 5pm at the corner of Henry Road and Colaba Causeway, the nearest intersection to where I was staying.<span style=""> </span>I had never seen her before, so I didn’t know who I was looking out for, and like all intersections along Colaba Causeway, the sidewalks were madly congested with pedestrians, amongst other things. She had seen a small picture of me before, the one that appears automatically when you chat with somebody on <i>MSN Messenger</i>. She had never entered a picture into her profile, which is why I had never seen her face before.<span style=""> </span>After waiting about 15 minutes on the street corner unable to find her, I returned to my hotel room to phone her mobile.<span style=""> </span>As I didn’t have a phone, she had no ability to phone me.<span style=""> </span>She said she was running a bit late, but her train had now arrived at Churchgate station, and she was getting a cab.<span style=""> </span>After another 20 minutes or so, I went to call her again, as she should have certainly been there by now.<span style=""> </span>It seemed she and the cab driver were lost.<span style=""> </span>Incredible that the cab driver couldn’t find the place, considering Colaba Causeway is only the absolute main street in Colaba. I gave her more precise direction, and returned to the street corner.<span style=""> </span>After another 15 minutes or so, not able to find her, I went back to my hotel room for a third time. She told me that she was there at the corner waiting for me, and was also told me that she was wearing a black skirt and a white top.<span style=""> </span>I went down, and we immediately found each other.<span style=""> </span>It was almost 6pm by this stage. “Sarita?” “Ant!” We both laughed a bit, and then I suggested we walk to somewhere else.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">For some reason, I had unconsciously developed a mental set that I was looking out for a girl in traditional Indian dress.<span style=""> </span>Sarita was smartly dressed wearing fashionable and modern western clothing - a long but figure-hugging skirt, as well as a figure-hugging top with very short sleeves.<span style=""> </span>Girls dressed in such modern western ways weren’t even being considered in my mental radar as I had previously scanned the crowd awaiting her arrival.<span style=""> </span>She had a slim build, about 5’7, dark skin, and facial features that at least in my mind, weren’t stereotypically Indian.<span style=""> </span>Later she would tell me that her parents are from Varanasi, so I thought perhaps heer facial features were more typical of that region.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">She took my hand with hers as we walked.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t sure what this meant, but she smiled, so I simply returned the smile.<span style=""> </span>While walking, two guys holding hands walked passed us, a sight I had seen many times since I had been in India.<span style=""> </span>I had assumed it was no more than an indicator of close friendship, but was not 100% sure. I decided it was the perfect time to find out, so I asked Sarita about this. “It just means they are friends” replied Sarita.<span style=""> </span>“So, they are just like us then?” I followed up, but that was the end of the dialogue on that matter, and we both smiled as we continued walking in no specific direction.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Whenever some tout or beggar would approach us, Sarita’s personality appeared to change instantly, and she would sharply tell them to get lost.<span style=""> </span>Her personality would then appear to instantly change back into the warm friendly person she was to me.<span style=""> </span>Likewise, when we went to a restaurant for a drink (non-alcoholic), she appeared to speak to the waiter in a terse fashion, almost as if she was speaking down to him.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was when we were in the restaurant that I really noticed other people were staring at us.<span style=""> </span>In this part of Mumbai, foreigners are very commonplace and thus one is unlikely to be stared at.<span style=""> </span>However, the sight of an Indian girl out with a foreign guy was clearly a different matter.<span style=""> </span>People were not just staring out of curiosity, but also out of a disapproving attitude.<span style=""> </span>As we walked back toward the hotel after the restaurant, I was no more aware of the disapproving looks such as the ones we received from a group of girls in their early twenties who walked passed.<span style=""> </span>However, far from bothering Sarita, I was getting the feeling that she actually revelled in the attention, although she would never explicitly admit this to me.<span style=""> </span>I think it was somewhat similar to an older man who dates a much younger woman.<span style=""> </span>On one hand, his contemporaries might look on disapprovingly, but also a little jealously.<span style=""> </span>It’s conceivable that the older man takes some satisfaction from the jealousy of his contemporaries.<span style=""> </span>I think Sarita took satisfaction in believing others were jealous of her.<span style=""> </span>If this perception of mine sounds a little conceited, it isn’t that I necessarily think that I am that special, it is just that I have a certain western appearance, which in the context, did make me special.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When we were almost back at the hotel, Sarita asked me what my room was like.<span style=""> </span>I told her truthfully how I had a really nice big room the first few nights, but as I hadn’t reserved it and the hotel was close to full capacity, I had been forced to move to a small room that morning which wasn’t as nice.<span style=""> </span>She expressed a desire to see what the room looked like, so I her invited her in.<span style=""> </span>When we walked into the building, the guy guarding the entrance (to keep out undesirables) called something out to her in a language I didn’t understand, presumably Marathi (the primary language in Mumbai), and presumably something not very polite. Sarita replied, shouting something back in the same language.<span style=""> </span>I looked back, but she motioned me to keep walking.<span style=""> </span>When we got inside the room, I immediately asked her “What was all that out about?”<span style=""> </span>“Nothing.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“It wasn’t nothing. Tell me, I want to know what was said!”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Nothing.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Please, tell me!” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“He just asked how long I was going to be staying in the room, and I replied ‘not that long’.” I wasn’t convinced, and now the warnings that Almora had given me back in Perth were at the forefront of my mind. “I think I better walk you back to the main street to catch a cab.”<span style=""> </span>“Ok” she resigned. We walked across to the other side of Colaba Causeway, away from the hotel, sat down at a bus stop and talked a little, but the mood was now a little strange. “Are you ok to get home by yourself? Is it safe?” “Sure, I can ride in the ladies’ carriage.” Eventually, we said goodbye, and I she took a cab to the station.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As I walked back into the hotel, this time by myself, one the door guys made some comment I didn’t understand, which I assumed to be related to earlier incident, and which I also assumed to mean something like “Have a good time?” in the sarcastic connotation.<span style=""> </span>I stopped, walked right up to him, and said “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Did you say something?” He didn’t reply, but the guy with him tried to gesture that he didn’t say anything, but I continued, challenging him “No, you said something, but I didn’t hear. Why don’t you repeat it to me now while I’m listening carefully?”<span style=""> </span>He was may be about to say something, but the other guy, sensing confrontation, started to try drag him away, saying “Nothing, nothing” as if he were breaking up a potential bar fight. “Oh, because I could have sworn I had heard something” I continued, “Oh, you were asking about my friend, weren’t you?<span style=""> </span>She just wanted to see what the room looked like, that’s all, nothing else.” I said patronisingly.<br /><br /> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">N.B.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At this point, purely for future reference, I should point out that there are certain things in life that one would should not publicise to all and sundry, and I would not write such about such things to be published on a freely available website.<span style=""> </span>Quite simply, I am above that.<span style=""> </span>It would take something like a GENEROUS BOOK DEAL for me to abdicate from these high principles of mine. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-45797657882255206402006-12-29T04:19:00.000-08:002007-01-14T18:12:43.233-08:00Chaos bringing people togetherMaking friends amongst travellers in India is really easy. For a traveller who arrived here alone, such as myself, the thanks is owed to the Indian railway system. I think it is the fact that we all feel so much at the mercy of this cumbersome, confusing, congested and often unreliable system. This results in independent travellers feeling so joined together. Not that I am complaning. I understand why the railway system is like this - it is a huge country, largely poor, and it is heavily populated throughout.<br /><br />As I said, the upside of the railway chaos is that it draws travellers together. I had arranged to meet my pen-pal for the first time on Sunday evening. As a result, I decided that I would try to book a ticket to Goa for the Monday night. The overnight train from Mumbai to Goa departs Mumbai at 11pm, getting to Goa about 12 hours later.<br /><br />In Mumbai, there is a special queue for travellers applying for tickets on the tourist quota. My first task that Sunday morning was to find that queue (ticket window) - the central train station in Mumbai is massive! I saw two very attractive European looking girls in the station, and I approached them to ask where the tourist counter was. They were very friendly, and told me they had just found the tourist counter and bought tickets, so they related to me exactly where to go. They told me they were from Argentina (from memory), and on closer inspection, they appeared to be identical twins. Damn it, i should have asked them that - it would have kept the conversation going longer.<br /><br />On finding the tourist counter, i joined the queue, which was not very long, but very slow moving. The noise levels in the station make it very difficult to communicate with the ticket officer behind the plexi-glass, and the strong Indian accent only makes it more difficult when the customers are non-Indian. It should be noted that there are many Indians who appear to speak perfectly good English from a vocabularly and grammatical perspective, but the strong accent (often far stronger than the normal Indian accent of Indians who live abroad or work in call-centres) can literally make it seem like they are speaking a different language altogether. In front of me in the queue were couple about my age. The guy (Aaron) was from Austria, and the girl (Sandra) was from Peru. They are both doing their masters in "peace studies" somewhere in Austria, and are trying to work their way down to the south where they have some project to do related to their studies. Apparently, they are to me mediating in some conflict. But for now, they have their own conflicts to deal with. Firstly, with the Indian railways system. And secondly, like myself, Aaron is suffering from a bad sore throat. They hold my spot in the line, and I go to look for throat lozenges for both Aaron and I. I also go to enquire about buses, in case we can't get on a train, which are often full. I return with both western style menthol lozenges, as well as these curious tiny black Indian pills in a green vile. Aaron tries really likes the Indian pills, vowing to buy more.<br /><br />Aaron and Sandra discover that it is not enough to have money and passport - a tourist needs proof that they have acquired Indian currency legitimately. Either a receipt from a legitimate money-changer, or an ATM receipt. They have neither, but I have fortunately kept my ATM receipt, on the advice of an Israeli I had met at Chabad. They give me the cash for their tickets, and I buy tickets for all 3 of us using my ATM receipt. Unfortunately for me, they are wanting to leave that night, but I can't leave until the following night as I don't know what time Sarita and I will be finishing our evening. Nevertheless, the friendship struck up in the queue led to us going out to lunch together as well as doing some browsing in the markets. They had just arrived in Mumbai, while I was already a veteran of a few days, so I was acting as something of a guide to the Colaba area. They had flown in to Delhi, where they had a day, and then a flight to Mumbai. They told me that Delhi was far worse than Mumbai (well, at least Colaba and Churchgate area) in terms of poverty and dirtiness etc.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Not long after this conversation, we came across the body of a man lying on the sidewalk. The body was covered up except for the head and feet.<span style=""> </span>There were flies all over the body, and I asked Aaron and Sandra sincerely “Do you think he’s just asleep, or is he dead?” Sandra reflexively replied “No, I don’t think so, it couldn’t be, he’s just asleep.” But Aaron and I moved in for a closer look, nodded to each other, and then Aaron looked back to Sandra, who had maintained her distance, to indicate that he did think the man was dead.<span style=""> </span>No longer being our first day in India, we all pretty much took the discovery of a corpse in our stride, and moved on, without giving it too much more discussion.<span style=""> </span>Context is everything. I doubt if the same thing had happened in Australia or Austria for that matter, that we could have been so casual about it as to continue on our way to find a nice place to eat lunch. </span><br /><br />When I say goodbye to Aaron and Sandra that afternoon, it was really quite heartfelt considering the brief amount of time we had known each other. We said to eachother that hopefully we will bump into each other in Goa, but I know realistically that probably won't happen, as neither of us has even decided what part of the Goa region we are going to.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-38766602757966669232006-12-24T04:31:00.000-08:002007-01-14T18:08:21.089-08:00Shabbos in MumbaiFirst day (Friday 15th) in Mumbai was crazy. Thanks to all the scary stories I had heard, I was really paranoid (the paranoia passes after a day or so) about pickpockets and bag snatchers etc while walking down the street. After a fairly meager room service breakfast of toast and tea, I realized I didn’t have any bottle water to wash my teeth with. I decided to use tea instead of water, such is the paranoid madness that infects someone on their first day in India. After brushing my teeth, I locked all my baggage, summoned my courage, and I ventured out into the streets. I was clutching my small backpack the whole time, and constantly checking that my wallet, passport, and money belt were all in place. After a bit of a walk, I decided to try and find Beyt Chabad, as I planned to go there that night anyway, so I figured it would be good to work out where it is. The map I had was good, except that I overestimated the distances. It turned out it was only two blocks from my accommodation. It is down a tiny laneway (frequented by pedestrians and goats) off the main road (frequented by oxen and everything else). It was heartening to see a menorah amongst all that chaos.<br /><br />The Shabbos dinner on Friday night was excellent. It was about 40 people. Most were Israeli travelers, but not all. Some were volunteers for various organizations, some Israeli businessmen, and even a photo-journalist (say it with a French accent) from France. There was also one Jewish Indian family there – very nice people. I got plenty of valuable information from the travelers I sat next to.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gil, the guy sitting next to me on my right, about my age, was in India to buy diamonds for his company. He had, with a degree of guilt, confessed to me that information, as well having had confessed to having what he described as a "soft landing” in India, as he had arrived with his boss and they had been staying at the luxury Taj Mahal Hotel (which is confusingly in Colaba, Mumbai - no where near the actual Taj Mahal which is in Agra near Delhi - but one of the world's more famous hotels nonetheless). However, his boss had gone back to Israel, and he was now in India on his own, "finishing off some other business," what ever that meant, and now staying in far less luxurious accommodation. I asked Gil what the Indians were like to do business with and he said something to the effect that he had found them to be surprisingly tough and cunning in the negotiations. Gil asked me if I normally have a Kiddush back in Australia. “Yes, every Shabbat, normally with my family.” He then replied, again quietly, that this had been one of the very few times in his life.<span style=""> </span>I said “That can’t be true. Do you have a Pesach seder every year?”<span style=""> </span>“Yes.” “So then I’m guessing that you say the opening Kiddush there, so you have a Kiddush at least once a year.”<span style=""> </span>“I guess so, sort of…”<span style=""> </span>“Well, you’re here now, that’s what counts” I said, as if to reassure him, but he looked at me puzzlingly. <span style=""> </span>Thinking he didn’t quite hear me, I repeated myself, “Well, you’re here now, that’s what counts,” but he didn’t seem to understand that English language expression.<span style=""> </span></span><br /><br />They also did the thing where they went around the room and everyone introduced themselves, gave their Hebrew name, said something interesting, or told a story, or suggested a song. I told them all about my Lariam experiences, and it got quite a few laughs, but I don’t think it quite amused the crowd as much as my name, “Alter Leyzar.”<br /><p class="MsoNormal">Later, I noticed Gil had missed his turn. “Hey, you didn’t stand up and tell everyone about yourself.” </p> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Oh no, not for me, believe me, this is not for me.”<span style=""> </span>He was the only person who didn’t take their turn.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps it was that he was somewhat embarrassed about his profession in the present company of all these hippy-like travellers, many of whom were about his own age. “Actually, I really need to get going…” and he excused himself to me, and left.<span style=""> </span>It was if I had served as a kind of counsellor for Gil to confess a few things that for his own reasons had been causing him anxiety.<span style=""> </span>I think, because I was not a fellow Israeli, that he had felt more comfortable to confide in me all that he had believed in his own mind to put him on the outer from almost everyone else.</span><br /><br />The next morning, I went to Knesset Eliyahoo, the famous Iraqi synagogue . When I was called to the Torah, the gabbai asked me in Hebrew “What’s your name?”<br />“Alter Leyzar ben Shmuel” to which he replied in Hebrew “No, what’s your Hebrew name?” I repeated “Alter Leyzar ben Shmuel – Alter Leyzar, it’s a Yiddish name.” Clearly, the Iraqis had never heard such an Ashkenazi name before. Myself, the Ashkenazic rabbi (who was there from Beyt Chabad), and the Gabbai, all just laughed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-82559095478523211552006-12-18T02:22:00.000-08:002006-12-18T02:24:12.227-08:00Passage to IndiaWell, here is my first post since I left Australia. Don't expect champagne writing – I don't have the time to for that. When I get back to Australia, I'll hopefully write a bit more elaborately about my trip. For now, I'd just like to update you on what's been happening.<br /><br />The flight over was a long process, as it always is when you fly to anywhere from Perth. On the flight to Phuket, they showed "The Illusionist." It was a good film, but I thought the ending was weak and not consistent with the incidents in the film. As far as 2006 films about magicians go, I'd place it second behind "The Prestige." OK, enough with the film critique already.<br /><br />The plane was on the tarmac in Phuket for about 45 minutes (passengers going on to Bangkok were told to stay on the plane). Some new passengers boarded, and next to me sat a Thai guy, a surgeon who turned out to be both a windsurfing enthusiast (although he's now much more into kitesurfing). That gave us plenty to talk about. "Kitesurfing is addictive" he told me, adding "I think about kitesurfing constantly." Apart from talking about that, I also asked him what he thought about the military coup in Thailand. He wasn't too concerned, and was largely positive about it, as he said the government had been corrupt. It's funny how people just get used to things, be it annoyingly ubiquitous mobile phone ring-tones, or military coups. I can't imagine a similarly educated Australian person being so nonchalant about the elected government being displaced by the military.<br /><br />The new Bangkok airport terminal, which has only been opened a month or two, is absolutely massive, and a true marvel of human architecture. It reminded me of the Death Star in "Return of the Jedi" but not so much of the one in "Star Wars (A New Hope)." While browsing in one of the duty free shops, I saw two girls, one of them with Hebrew writing on the back of her t-shirt.<br />"So, I'm guessing you two or on your way back from Shnat?"<br />"Yes, how did you know that?" as if I might be psychic.<br />"Well, to be honest, I just read the back of your shirt" I said, as if disappointingly confessing that I wasn't. We all laughed a bit at that.<br />"We're on our way back home"<br />"Where's that?"<br />"Perth."<br />"Oh yeah? I'm from Perth too." Something of a coincidence I thought.<br />"Do you know what Habonim is?" they asked.<br />"Yeh (I'm not stupid), I'm just a lot older than you, that's all."<br />"Did you go to Habo?"<br />"A little bit, but I wasn 't like a huge Habo person or anything. My sister was really into Habo though. She went on Shnat and was a madracha and all that"<br />"What's her name?"<br />I told them. It drew a blank, as I expected. "You won't know her, she's even older than me!" It was a reminder of how fast time has flown the last ten years or so. It's really scary where all these years went.<br /><br />I went to the departure gate, hoping they'd be some other travellers to meet – may be we could even split a cab. However, it was virtually all Indians in our departure lounge. I spoke to only one person, an Indian guy named Mathu, who had the appearance of someone who worked in I.T. I asked him a few questions about India, and he was very polite. When we boarded the plane, by amazing coincidence, it turned out his was the seat next to mine. I gave Mathu the address of my blog, and said I'd mention him...well, there it was.<br /><br />On arrival at Mumbai airport, I changed some money, and took a pre-paid cab to the hotel. When I got in the cab, I showed the driver a printout of the address of the hotel. However, I soon realized that he was probably illiterate (later this was confirmed by an Indian friend that almost all taxi drivers are illiterate), so I just told him orally. Amazingly, he managed to drop me right to the door. The ride from the airport was a big shock. The chaos of the traffic (which included the odd horse, bull, and goat), the masses of poor people sleeping on the ground by the side of the road, or under a parked bus. Forget motorcyclists having helmets, some didn't even wear shoes. Many times it seemed that we were going to be in accident, but we never were – it's just how people drive in India.<br /><br />When we arrived at the hotel, it really looked like a dump from the outside. They told me my room was in the guest house, an annex around the corner. A guy carried my large backpack, I held onto to my overnight bag, and we walked to the guest house. A large rat ran by on the street, just in front of where we were walking. Two couples of foreigners (Americans I think) also walked passed about the same time. They appeared intoxicated, and they laughed, as if either at myself or the porter. I was feeling very disconcerted – the dirtiness and poverty was still affecting me – but those laughing Americans, they really exacerbated that feeling. I wanted to turn around and say "Can I help you with something, friend?" Travis Bickle (DeNiro character in Taxi Driver) style.<br /><br />We got to room, and it was a relief to see it was nice and spacious with colonial furniture, just like on the pictures I saw on the internet. I unpacked some toiletries, took a nice cool shower, and went to sleep.<br /><br />Coming up in future blog posts: I go to Shabbat Chanukah at Chabad, and then later, I meet Sarita (my Indian penpal) in person for the first time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-34008492123323708252006-12-11T18:34:00.000-08:002006-12-11T18:44:27.458-08:00India trip, entry 1: Mind-altering experiences<strong>Frosh Travel Diary – India trip, entry 1: Mind-altering experiences:</strong><br /><br />Ok, some people may be thinking why I am writing my first entry to my travel diary now, 2 days before I leave to India. In a word: <strong>Mefloquine</strong> (sold under the brand name <em>Larium</em>).<br /><br />After, much deliberation, and internet research into anti-malarial medication, as well as consultation with my Father, I decided to take Larium. You only have to take it weekly and it’s commonly prescribed in Europe. It is not the usual medication prescribed in Australia, however; that’s doxycycline (which has its own problems)- plus you have to remember to take that one daily. <br /><br />I took my first tablet last Thursday. So far I don’t think I have suffered any of the more uncommon and serious side effects that I had been worried about it. However, I have noticed that I had been feeling sleepy at times when I ought not to have, and not feeling sleepy at times when I ought to have. Furthermore, while sleeping, I have been experiencing for more dreams than usual. Dreams that feel far more vivid, more detailed, feel more real, and stay in the memory for longer. I looked it up online today, and these sleep problems, as well as the dreaming, are apparently common side effects. I think the Europeans must view mind-altering side effects less seriously than Australians do.<br /><br />By the way, apologies to anyone whose face I may have yawned in over the last few days.<br /><br />On Saturday night at Frank’s (from Judo) going-back-to-Europe party, I mentioned I was taking Mefloquine (in the context that I was refusing alcohol). Some guy with a broad Aussie accent, a registered nurse so he said, started lecturing me that I was crazy to be on it, and that it’s a toxic drug, and was extremely bad for you etc, I don’t think he got the irony that he was both drunk and stoned while he was giving the “don’t take drugs” lecture.<br /><br />Last night, I was at the airport, I had all this luggage (far more than I will actually be taking in the awake world) – I had to repack it at the airport for some security regulations, and my immediate family were all there, but they weren’t helping one bit. My friend Marji was there too (in this alternate universe, he was joining me on the trip, but had almost no luggage, just a tiny day pack. “Yes, am I travelling light. It is typical Czech, actually”). Marji wasn’t helping with the luggage repacking either. So real did the dream feel, that it took me several minutes of being awake this morning to stop being pissed off at my family and Marji. (Marji, quit giggling while you read this!) “You didn’t have to help repack, but you could have at least hung around and watched my other bags for me, instead of all selfishly wondering off to have a coffee.”<br /><br /> I will try to write regular journal entries, but that will depend on availability of internet facilities amongst other things. Don’t expect entries to be proof-read!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4153156089934471277.post-86310996881713523022006-12-11T16:52:00.000-08:002006-12-11T18:20:26.960-08:00The Day After Yesterday: The aftermath of daylight saving<strong>The Day After Yesterday: The aftermath of daylight saving.<br /></strong><br />Yesterday (Sunday 3rd Dec) was the first day of daylight saving in Perth for nearly 20 years, and I must admit the first day went pretty well. On Saturday night I adjusted all my watches and clocks – I even went around to my grandparents and adjusted their video clock for them, thus cementing myself in their top four favourite grandchildren. “Take that, Blake, Alana, and Michelle!” But I digress…On Sunday morning, I woke up, rode my bike down to Inglewood pool to swim some laps, all at a lazy 10am. However, in UV radiation terms, it was like swimming at only 9am – no sunburn for me - pretty sweet!<br /><br />Then, after playing in the “Jay Margo ‘Improv’ Softball Invitational” at 4pm down at Yokine Reserve – where I stole so many bases that I hear the police are now looking for me – there was still plenty of daylight left for me to head over to Maccabi grounds and play the Great Chanukah Soccer Comp. In fact even after this finished, there was STILL enough daylight to ride by bike to Fresh Provision to buy milk, plus a few ingredients for dinner.<br /><br />It was the first sign of trouble. A girl who works there who kind of knows me warned me<br />“We’re not meant to tell customers this, but we’ve heard from our suppliers that the cows couldn’t be milked this morning, as they are apparently upset with daylight saving.”<br />“Upset? Who’s upset?”<br />“The cows! They don’t like daylight saving. They’re pissed off and want us to change the clocks back to how they were.”<br />“Oh dear, well we can’t just give into their bovine demands – otherwise it won’t end there. You know what cows are like. Give them an inch…”<br />“Yes, I suppose you’re right” she said, but you could tell that neither us were convinced.<br /><br />I left the store feeling with a slight eerie feeling. However, I put it behind me, realising that I could always switch to soy milk and just hope that people wouldn’t think that I’m some kind of lactose intolerant bigot.<br /><br />I was a fool to think that would be the first glitch in the new regime. I woke up this morning, and in the light of day, I noticed that while my vertical blinds were okay, the curtains in my meals area did look a little faded. On closer inspection, more than just a little – they were a lot faded! I was starting to panic just a wee bit, so I phoned my sister to see what the story was with her.<br />“Hi Mish, it’s me, no time for niceties, sorry. Think very carefully about what I’m going to ask you. Now I want you go and take a good look at your curtains and tell me: DO THEY LOOK FADED?”<br />“What?”<br />“Quit stalling, there’s no time for that – ARE YOUR CUTAINS FADED? Yes or no?”<br />“I don’t have curtain, only blinds. What’s this all about?”<br />“Sorry to yell…It’s just that I think that my…well, I’m fairly certain actually, that my curtains are faded, and I’m kind of freaking out over here.”<br />“Ok, calm down, I think your curtains were already faded. They’ve been that way since you moved into that house – it’s a fairly old house, with fairly old curtains.”<br />“Really?”<br />“Yes.”<br />“Hmmm. Well, I’m going to have to think about this, I’m not fully convinced.”<br /><br /><br />So, there I am driving in the car this morning, knowing I am going to have to switch to soy milk next week due to the impending dairy shortage, plus live in a house with faded curtains. I turn the radio to the AM band to get some good news. But there was no good news. I hear on the radio the dams have now almost completely evaporated, apparently due to the ‘extra’ hour of daylight we had. I called my father at his work from the car (hands-free of course), now in a mad panic. I told him what I had just heard regarding the water-shortage, and asked him if it was possible to switch to soy-water. He told me he’d inquire with his suppliers and order some in to his pharmacy. He also said that, now that he thinks about it, the swimming pool was totally empty this morning.<br />“Really? The swimming pool? Gone? Empty?”<br />“Oh wait, perhaps I’m thinking of the bath tub. To be honest, I can’t recall which one. I’ll take a look after work and get back to you.”<br /><br />By the time I got to my desk, I was so distraught that I needed some cheering up. I phoned my comedian buddy Jeff Hewitt (check out the Wikipedia article on him by the way) who also moonlights as a divorce lawyer. He’s very good – he’s drafted all the pre-nuptial contracts I gave to all those girls who wanted to marry me, and I’m still single.<br /><br />Anyway, Jeff informed me that he had no time to cheer me up. He’s been inundated with all these new clients this morning. “What the?” It seems that with everyone doing outdoor things to all hours, wives weren’t in the kitchen at 6pm to cook dinner for the family, yada yada yada, family break down etc, and Perth society has gone from Pleasantville to Sin City in less than 23 hours.<br /><br />So that does it, next week I’m getting out of this hell-hole that Perth has become. I’m going to India, where there’s no daylight saving, curtains are gloriously bright, the drinking-water is not a problem, and only 1 in 26 (arranged) marriages ends in divorce. Sadly, the cows still run the show over there, but no society is totally perfect.<br /><br />A.Frosh<br />Monday, 4 December 2006Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2