The DeeJarLings

I had never seen rain like this before. I didn’t know clouds could hold this much water. It was more than just buckets; it was a waterfall that was everywhere at once, and showed no signs of ceasing. After a matter of seconds spent outside, one would be completely saturated. All of our gear was drenched and draped over chairs and tables in the small one-room tour shop in a futile attempt to dry. Everything smelled musty and the nine of us were getting anxious as we waited for Gautam, our trip organizer, to arrive. He was running close to an hour late. There had been no electricity in Darjeeling for the past two days.

“Has the monsoon hit already?” I asked. No, it was late May, and despite it starting in the south a week earlier than expected, it was still too soon for the Indian Monsoon to have made its way to Darjeeling.

“I hear it’s a cyclone,” someone said, “so it’s probably not a great idea to set out today. Where the hell is Gautam?” My cell phone still worked, so I called up my friend Neil in California, where it was 10 or 11pm, and asked him to get to a computer and find out what the hell was going on in the state of West Bengal. Thirty minutes later Neil called me back with some details. It was a cyclone alright; it had a name and everything. Cyclone Aila had hit Calcutta hard but was rapidly moving north dissipating as it moved past Darjeeling and towards the state of Sikkim, precisely where we were heading to start a seven day Himalayan trek up to Dzongri, 5000m above sea level.

“Everything is fine,” insisted Gautam who had finally showed up, “I’ve driven in much worse than this.” We were skeptical to say the least. “It’s already breaking up. Calcutta got the worst of it. By the time we’re half way to Sikkim, we’ll be past the rain.” Even if that were true, the hiking boots and down jackets we had rented were now soaked, along with our newly purchased quick dry pants, trekking socks, hats, gloves; all of our gear needed to dry before we put it on, and nobody felt up for a six-hour jeep ride up a mountain while a cyclone raged on. We agreed to postpone the trip for a day, and to play it by ear from there.

Hours later we were all in a room in Hotel Ailement, getting drunk and playing a candle lit round of “mafia”, a group game I had learned years ago during a weeklong freshman orientation on a Connecticut farm. Cyclone Aila had made the mainstream American news. 300 had died in Calcutta, 11 in Darjeeling just down the road from us, and millions had been displaced across West Bengal. Of course both of my parents had called me up, frantically pleading with me not to go to Sikkim, and to wait the rain out in Darjeeling. The sentiment was shared amongst the rest of our group. With the rain continuing to pound into the night, the general consensus was that we would not be leaving early the next morning as planned. So we got drunk.

It was fitting that the nine of us had all convened that night in Hotel Ailement, having all checked out from two or three different hotels that morning thinking we would be leaving then. After all, that’s where we had been when we first got to know each other as a group two nights earlier. Darjeeling shuts down at 10:30pm each night, and Joey’s Pub had been no exception. The town’s main westerner hang out, Joey’s Pub was a great place to meet other backpackers, have a few beers, and share stories of traveling across India. The crowd had been rowdy that night and nobody seemed keen on going to bed come closing time. So I had invited everyone back to my place to continue the party on the roof of Hotel Ailement. About 20 of us bought as many beers as we could carry, and made our way up Darjeeling’s steep and windy roads towards the top of the hill where the hotel was situated. Around 2am, with only ten or so of us left after about a half dozen noise complaints, Bryony, a gap year traveler from England, pitched to us the idea of trekking to Dzongri.

She and a couple others had done their homework, having shopped around the area for the best price and most trustworthy organizers over the past couple of days. 10,000 rupee, or $200 USD, would cover everything for a week: permits, gear rental and purchases, a jeep to and from Sikkim, a guide, porters and cooks, food, yaks, a hotel for the night we returned, and storage for all the things we‘d leave behind. We’d sleep in sleeping bags in tents and huts, eat home cooked meals around camp fires, walk about 7 hours a day, and only get a couple hours of light rainfall each afternoon. It would be cold at night and at the top but we’d have thick down jackets and hats in addition to water proof jackets and pants.

I had only been in Darjeeling for about a week, loved it, and didn’t really want to move on quite yet. Before the cyclone had hit, the weather had been utterly perfect. I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Leanne and I had arrived via a 3-hour overcrowded and bumpy jeep ride from New Jalpaiguri (NJP) after a 10-hour overnight train from Calcutta. We had explored the area, visiting and taking photos of Darjeeling’s various Buddhist monasteries, churches, monuments, families of monkeys, and the gorgeous mountains surrounding us while downing cup after cup of the area’s world famous tea. We had taken a 3 hour tour on Darjeeling’s fairy tale toy train—an old school, coal powered delight that precisely corresponded with the image that pops into my head whenever I think of a choo-choo train. Darjeeling is part of an area of northern West Bengal demanding a separate state called Gorkhaland and “We Want Gorkhaland NOW” signs peppered the streets. The Nepali speaking locals would be the kindest, most articulate and best educated I would meet in India. All in all, other than the recent rain, I was having a wonderful time there.

But I’m not one to pass up a great opportunity, and this trek sounded like a fantastic time. The monsoon was rapidly approaching anyways. So the next morning, a day before the cyclone, the nine of us who were on board met with Gautum, went over all the details, and spent the day on a whirlwind tour around the town collecting the necessary permits and trying on gear. It was clear by the end of the night that we had an awesome group dynamic. We had three 25-year-old Americans, myself included, three 19-year-old Brits on gap year before university, a 21-year-old French Canadian on summer break from university in Quebec, a 30-year-old Australian police detective taking a year or so off to see the world, and a Dutch social worker taking time off before settling down to a career.

After leading a few rounds of “mafia” myself, John, the Aussie, tried his hand at narrating. Within the first few sentences of his introduction, he had mispronounced Darjeeling as “dee-jar-ling“, and the group’s designation as the “DeeJarLings” was born.

The next morning when my alarm went off, hung over, exhausted, and generally miserable, I rolled over and peaked out the curtain to see sunshine, blue skies, and chirping birds. “Fuck,” I moaned, “looks like we’re driving to Sikkim today.”

India Rail and Getting Out of Goa

May 16, 2009

It’s often said that the greatest legacy left by the British in India is the Indian Railway. An expansive behemoth, the railway crisscrosses across the country, and, with 1.6 million employees, serves as the world’s second largest employer behind China's Army of 2.3 million. While India's various airlines can get you across long distances within the country for around $120, the train is drastically cheaper, the preferred method of travel for backpackers, and a part of the Indian experience in and of itself. With 1.1 billion citizens, one can safely assume that, at any given time, a whole lot of people want to get from one destination to another. Add the nation’s diversity and financial contrasts to that equation and you get a massive permutation of quotas, classes, waiting lists, cancellation requirements, and options for getting from point A to point B. After some time exploring the IRCTC website, it became apparent I was going to have to get over a bit of a learning curve.

That led me to IndiaMike’s expansive coverage on the topic, a whole lot of time spent at an Internet Cafe, and the scary realization that every train heading north out of India’s blistering summer south had been booked up months in advance with waiting lists in the triple digits. Hope was not lost however, as no country wants to go around stranding tourists in a foreign land, and, as such, the question of Foreign Tourist Quota availability was still open. For whatever reason, probably because they need to see your passport and tourist visa, Foreign Tourist Quota tickets cannot be purchased online, only in person, and only at certain main train stations. There seemed to be a mass exodus of backpackers heading north out of Goa towards the Himalayan hill stations of Himachal Pradesh, so I signed offline with the intention of finding one such traveler who could offer some advice.

While still fighting a mild heat-stroke-induced fever, I followed the sound of live music to a local restaurant where a jam band was performing. I bumped into a friend there who was heading to Himachal Pradesh in a few days. She had been able to get a foreign tourist ticket to Delhi from Pernem, a train station about 45 minutes away by motor scooter. From there she’d take a bus to Manali, Dharamsala, Shimla, or any of the other hot spots in Himachal. Sounded like a plan. I began to pay my bill and go home to get some rest when I met Leanne.

A teacher from California, Leanne had taken a 2 year sabbatical from her inner city post in the LBC to travel the world. She was 8 months in and had an incredible set of destinations already under her belt. Her plans were to head from Goa to Darjeeling in the northeast state of West Bengal. This was going to involve a flight to Calcutta, a 10 hour train to NJP, and a 3 hour jeep up the mountainside to Darjeeling. She began showing me pictures of the gorgeous town known for its world famous tea.

“And best of all, the temperature is in the 60s. The 60s!!” This was a good point. But Himachal Pradesh would have similar weather and seemed to be the place to be in May. “That may be, but the monsoon hits Darjeeling in two to three weeks. It’s totally underwater afterwards while the rains don’t hit Himachal until July.”

I said I’d sleep on it, and the next morning was on board. There was still the matter of getting the train tickets from Calcutta to NJP, so that afternoon we rented a scooter for about $3 USD a day and set out for Pernem.

“No,” the man in the booth said.
“What do you mean 'no'? No, there aren't tourist quota tickets left? No, you can’t sell them? Or no, you don’t understand?”
“No.”
“A friend bought a tourist quota ticket here just yesterday to Delhi.”
“Yes, a ticket from PERNEM, not Calcutta,” he replied, and before I could say anything else another man pushed in front of us and started talking to the man in the booth in Hindi, who completely ignored our attempts to express that, no, we weren’t finished. We were eventually referred to Thivim, the next train station down the line in Goa. Back in the blistering heat, on the scooter, and another 45 minutes later we were in Thivim with more bad news.

They had no access to sell foreign tourist quota tickets from this station. This ticket man was far nicer, actually turning the computer screen around to show us as he selected Calcutta as the source station, NJP as the destination, and foreign tourist as the quota. “YOU DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO PERFORM THIS OPERATION,” blinked the terminal coldly in black on white text. Crap.

Leanne then went to talk to the station manager to see if she could get some sympathy points for being a poor, stranded, foreign woman, traveling by herself. Her description of the station manager’s office coincided with one I would eventually have weeks later in Varanasi. One man (or two in the case of Varanasi) sat behind a desk covered in telephones, all ringing at once, while speaking into two handsets at a time, as various other men ran in and out with papers and requests. It was like walking into a 1950s newspaper room during a breaking political scandal. All this for a small train station in rural Goa, so one could only imagine what the state of Calcutta’s station manager’s office was like. Needless to say, Leanne did not manage to get us tickets.

At this point I enlisted the help of a trusted travel agent, who looked into it, found out that tourist quota tickets were still available, and that the train station in Vasco De Gama was our best bet. Vasco De Gama was 2.5 hours from Arambol, and it was already getting dark, so we headed back for the night, sore, sunburned, but still determined. We set out again the next day, this time with an overnight bag packed, as I really didn’t feel like driving 2.5 hours and back in one day just for train tickets. This was a good call because by the time we got to Vasco De Gama the station was closed for a half day…go figure. We found a reasonable guest house to stay in on the nearby beach of Bogmalo, a popular Indian tourist (and thus considerably more expensive) spot.

The next morning, after an hour of waiting in line, filling out forms, and waiting in line again, we had our tickets. As I stood there, staring at the ticket that had taken so many hours and miles to obtain, I realized that, though it was priced at 630 rupee ($12.60), this piece of paper in my hand was priceless. I carefully folded it into my wallet, got back on the scooter, and spent the rest of the day sightseeing our way across the Portuguese colony back towards Arambol.

Just a Heads Up…

For those of you following along, keep in mind this blog has particularly lagged behind my actual adventures in India. I’ve been placing more emphasis on quality over timeliness, and as such, I put off writing about my actual experiences here until they have time to settle in. For an up to date feed of the places I actually am in, and the activities I’m doing, just check my Facebook feed . For those not able to do so (or just don’t want to), as well as for posterity’s sake, here’s a brief timeline slash recap of my time in India so far:

April 19th to May 5th - Delhi.

Did sightseeing, got over not-Typhoid, made new friends, and got a taste for middle class 20-something life in Delhi.

May 5th to May 21st - Goa.

Soaked up the sun on Arambol Beach. Explored the state on a motor scooter. Met random backpackers from around the world and fought to get train tickets on a tourist quota to escape from the hellish heat and humidity.

May 21st to May 26th - Darjeeling.

Savored the perfect weather, delicious tea, and gorgeous vistas while getting to know the most intelligent and hospitable locals I’ve yet to meet in India. Brought the patrons of a local pub at closing time to my hotel for a roof top after-party that ended around 2am with the remaining 2 Americans, 3 British, 1 French Canadian, 1 Australian, and 1 Dutch travelers agreeing to go on a 7-day trek into the Himalayas together two days later.

May 26th to June 3rd - Sikkim

After a day’s delay due to cyclone Aila (killed 300 people in West Bengal, 10 of which were in Darjeeling, and displacing 5 million people), the DeeJarLing Trekkers set out to Dzongri in the Indian state of Sikkim, 5,000m high. One of the most amazing experiences of my life, I spent it with a wonderful set of people all sharing a great group dynamic. The pictures are phenomenal and I’m finally over the mutual cold we all ended up sharing. It also made me realize that I need to inject more camping and trekking into my trip and my life in general.

June 4 to 5th - Varanasi

Myself and 5 of the 8 other trekkers went to Varanasi along the Ganges River. The holiest city in Hinduism, Varanasi facilitates 300 cremations a day as well as thousands of pilgrimages. Fascinating experience but awfully creepy in a Temple of Doom sort of way. Saw a dead body for the first time. Several actually. With their eyes open. And on fire. Also crazy hot and crazy humid.

June 7 to 8 - Agra

Mysef and two of the trekkers visited Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, Red Fort, and a forgotten city. While it lived up to the hype as a spectacle of human architecture, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Taj was just one big (and extremely expensive) photo op. The other sites were remarkably similar to ones I had already seen in Delhi and less impressive.

June 9 to 10 - Delhi

Food poisoning from Agra kicked in on 110+ degree train ride to Delhi. Miserable. Stayed with a friend in Delhi for two nights recovering before getting on a bus to Manali in Himachal Pradesh.

June 11 to Now - Manali

I took a 14 hour bus ride on my own to the hill station town of Manali in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Gorgeous town. Completely overrun with Israeli backpackers. I’m getting to practice my Hebrew again while loving the fact that I’m finally done with the heat. The views are incredible and there are ton of outdoor adventure activities to do. I’ll spend at least a week here before exploring a few more sites in Himachal Pradesh including Dhara Masala, the home of the Dalai Lama in exile, before returning home in mid July, the six month mark, for a 4 to 6 week break from traveling.

Actual posts will follow on (this is more of a to-do list for me):

• The ordeal of getting tourist quota tickets in Goa
• The joys of traveling with a netbook
• Dealing with a sense of escapism and the looming real world “plans” waiting for me on my eventual return
• Darjeeling and meeting the DeeJarLing trekkers
• The trek to Dzongri
• Varanasi and the crematorium
• Agra, the Taj Mahal, Delhi seeming a lot more expensive now that I’ve been in the rest of India, and getting used to and then sick of no longer traveling alone
• Riding the trains in India and the awe inspiring power that comes with a commanding moustache
• An eventual (I honestly am going to write this) high level post mortem on my Israeli experience

Goa: Paradise in the Off Season

As I tumbled and bounced around the back of a dilapidated taxi-van, driving north across the Indian state of Goa, staring at the jostling trees, rice paddies, and huts streaming past my window, and trying not to think about the sweat pouring down my neck, it occurred to me that I was only now really starting the “backpacking” portion of my adventure. Despite three nights spent in dorm style hostels in Masada, Haifa, and Eilat, my three months in Israel were spent in guest rooms or on spare mattresses of friends and family. The lodgings in Holland were even cushier with comfortable and clean hotels booked ahead of time and another guest room waiting for me with my Uncle Shimon. Then there were the three air conditioned weeks in Dehi split between extra rooms with Rahil and Bekkah, and the 5 days spent in the hospital with not-Typhoid.

But, no, those days were over. I was on my own with only vague notions of where I would be heading, sleeping, and going after. My main concern was whether there’d be any other travelers or even open guest houses given the off season date of my arrival. According to Lonely Planet there were 14 beaches in Goa, and I had opted to try Arambol, the northernmost one, first. It’s reputation as a chilled out, scenic, and cheap hippy destination seemed to resonate with what I was looking for in my escape from Delhi’s congested city life. What I found was an Israeli spring break ghost town. About half of the shops were closed and those that were open offered huge price cuts to lure in the remaining westerners. Every restaurant had an Israeli food section and I saw a spattering of Hebrew on signs around the town.

One of a few of my regular breakfast spots

View from my guest house patio

There were, however, no Israelis, just 20 to 30 backpackers and aging hippies who had set up shop years ago and got by on the occasional yoga lesson or massage appointment. It wasn’t hard to see why. A great meal (King Fish is amazing) would cost you under 100 rupee ($2 USD), beer was 40 rupee ($0.80), a bottle of 80 proof coconut fenny was 80 ($1.60) and lodgings ranged from 50 to 350 a night ($1 to $7). The sun was always out, the ocean was always gorgeous, and, because there were so few tourists there, all 20 to 30 of us got to know and become friendly with each other pretty quickly. I met a great group of British gap year students, recent Nigerian university grads, and Australian, Belgium, Dutch, German, Spanish, Austrian, Norwegian, and Swedish travelers. I met one American on my first day and another on my third to last, but generally speaking I was the only US representation around. Everyone had various reasons for traveling ranging from taking a year off before university to living half the year in Goa every year and it all made for some very interesting late night conversations and debates. I found myself taking on three Europeans in defending America’s entrepreneurial spirit as the source of its success one moment, and hearing about the level of corruption in Africa the next. There was a decent amount of drugs going around but not as much as I had been lead to believe, but then again, it was the off season. As for the locals, they seemed to recognize the degree to which tourism funded their lives and were considerably nicer and more laid back than in Delhi though just as persistent in touting their wares.

Anjuna

Felix from Nigeria

British Gap Years

Simon and Caroline from England

Like the rest of India, Arambol was covered with stray dogs (but no cats!) that all looked related. Every area in India that I’ve been to so far has its own hyper extended canine family and at this point I could probably differentiate a Goan pup from one in Delhi, Darjeeling, or Sikkim. They’re all cute, lovable, and sleepy during the day, and loud, rowdy, and territorial at night. The Goan pups’ night time transformations were especially disconcerting and I found it often in my best interest to win over the love of one when walking home late at night to follow you and bark off the others who would growl viciously at you along the way.

Adorabe pup wearing my sandals and waiting for me to wake up

There was plenty of Internet access and for 150 rupee a day ($3, just double it and divide by 100) you could rent a motor scooter and explore the rest of the state. While there was a decent number of sights to see, the real joy in this was the act itself of riding a scooter down windy roads, over bridges with gorgeous views, stopping to talk with the usually friendly locals or to grab a bottle of Limca (why don’t we have this stuff in America??) One day I rode on to a ferry, headed up to Teracol Fort, and enjoyed some freshly made brusccetta while gazing over the water below. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more relaxing getaway.

Ferry ride with scooter

Teracol Fort

Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s a reason it’s the off season and a reason that I eventually left after 2 weeks. Every day was hotter than the one before. While the ocean provided a breeze, it also brought with it a suffocating humidity that left everyone just plain used to being wet all the time. While dirt cheap and with gorgeous views, none of the accommodations had air condtioning, and it wouldn’t have made much a difference given the rolling blackouts that were a regular part of the day. You take the bad with the good but only up to a point. After a walk to buy a new phone (travel tip: swim trunks with pockets are super convenient. Swimming with your phone in your pocket, not so much) left me sweating out so many electrolytes that I ended up with a fever, I decided it was time to head north.

This wasn’t an easy decision. My plan was to head south from Goa into Kerrala to see Cochi, Trivandrum, Pondicherry, and Aurroville among other major south Indian destinations if not for the stifling heat. But the fact is that India is an enormous and diverse country and there’s no way I was going to see all of it in one go anyways. You can spend years returning to this country and still only see a portion of all there is to see, by which point all that you’d already seen would have completely changed anyways. So for me, missing out on the wonders of the south is just another reason to come back here again some day. Another thing that made this decision difficult turned out to be how hard it was to get a train ticket out of there. In a country of 1.1 billion people, trains fill up fast, especially when summer hits and everybody flees to the north. After about an hour of online research I realized I was going to have to do some leg work to find a way out of Goa…

Coming to India

I’ve done my best to model this trip with a gradually increasing difficulty so coming to India immediately after Israel was never part of my original plan. They say that if you can travel in India, you can travel anywhere. This is, of course, a gross exaggeration, but it still seemed like a country I should warm up to with, say, a month or two in South East Asia first. However, I had two good friends, Rahil and Bekkah, who were both in Delhi on respective social action projects and who would only be in the country until the end of May. I hadn’t seen either in awhile, and wouldn’t for a while longer, plus having that kind of home base in a new country isn’t something that you pass up, so I opted to come here to India first, and work my way east from here.

Besides the jump-in-the-deep end facet, there was another downside to my timing. I arrived in India in mid April, just as temperatures across the country were starting to rocket upwards and about 6 weeks before the epic Indian Monsoon would hit the southern and north eastern states and begin to work its way across the country. The monsoon here is the result of the country essentially boiling over. As the land heats up, the air rises to be replaced with cooler air from the sea, bringing with it evaporated ocean water to fall over the land as rain. The energy released when the vapor condenses into rain over the land causes this wet air to warm up and rise further, which in turn enables even more wet air to come in from the sea. This self propelling engine is driven on two fronts by the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and makes it’s way across the country over the course of a month. Tourists flee and locals rejoice as the entire agricultural backbone of India depends upon it’s very often fickle schedule. The six weeks leading up to the monsoon are some of the hottest of the year which humidity rising past 90 percent in the southern states bordering the sea. The off season; not the greatest time to visit India.

Delhi was between 105 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit during the 3 weeks I was there, and it was only getting hotter when I left. I saw on the news that it was the hottest April in Delhi in 60 years. Rahil’s room mate Andy was out of town which meant I could stay in his air conditioned room while he was gone-- a real godsend. While my nights were comfortable, my afternoons seeing the sights of Delhi were blistering. The sun was relentless and wind was non existent but I dealt with it and kept myself busy in my first week, suffering only the occasional sun stroke and mild dehydration. I walked around the historic Red Fort where the Mughals ruled, coming back for a night time audio and light show that chronicled the history of the fort and its inhabitants. I donned a makeshift leg covering, left my sandals with the shoe keeper, and explored the sprawling Jama Masjid, India’s largest mosque, including a winding climb up a minaret for a stunning view of Old Dehi. I gave in to a persistent rickshaw driver for a makeshift tour of the crowded bazaar of Old Delhi and was equally amazed both at his ability to navigate through the windy streets packed with merchants, customers, beggars, cows, and (lots and lots of) dogs and with the sense-overpowering combination of scents, sounds, and colors.

Red Fort

Jama Masjid

View of Old Delhi from Minaret

Rickshaw ride through Old Delhi

I saw the gorgeous architecture of Humayan’s Tomb, a precursor to the Taj Mahal. I walked the length of the Rajpath between India Gate and the Secretariat and the president’s estate (did I mention the sun stroke?). I also went to the Ghandi Smriti museum, and explored various marketplaces. It was a whirlwind first week of pretty straight forward tourism, crowds, touts and scams, and good food.

Humayan's Tomb

India Gate

Secretariat

Delhi is a sprawling city similar to LA in terms of layout. It’s not a city you can walk around so most get around via auto-rickshaws: three wheeled contraptions that run on natural gas and look like a mix of a golf cart and a motorcycle. Autos are everywhere and always seem to have a meter that’s “broken” making every ride a lesson in the tourist tax as drivers initially demand up to three times what the meter would charge. Most areas are filled with enough of autos, however, that you can just walk away from any driver who’s being unreasonable. While cheap and convenient, autos are completely exposed subjecting you to suffocating levels of smog when stuck in traffic. Delhi ranks number two in terms of world cities with the worst air pollution and it’s definitely something you pick up on. Another disadvantage to being in the open is the number of beggars that come up to you at every red light, poking and pleading for a few rupee.

While I was prepared for India’s massive poverty problem, it was particularly striking in a city where the cost of living is remarkably low yet night clubs charge NYC prices for drinks and often ask for cover charges of $100. The dollar is just worth less in Manhattan where even waiters make more money so it’s easy to wrap your mind around over charged venues. The same is obviously not true in Delhi making witnessing that kind of excess unsettling. This paradox is a much talked about theme of India. I’ve been reading In Spite of the Gods, a book chronicling India’s strange, fast, and uneven rise to modernity and it’s provided some wonderful context to my time here.

The range of prices is interesting across all products. Pharmacies are on every corner and charge bare bottom prices for even name brand drugs. At the same time there’s no guarantee that the pills you receive aren’t counterfeit sugar pills. A few friends I met are working on a startup called PharmaSecure to address this problem by printing serial numbers on the back of pill packs that can be sent via SMS to a service that reports on their authenticity (and prevents the same number from being used again). In general, Indian labor is dirt cheap so services such as auto rickshaws, house keepers, lock smiths, and food service cost low where as packaged goods can be a crapshoot. Many American products still cost American prices while others, presumably that can be fabricated locally (such as Coke) are considerably cheaper. You also find fast food joints like Pizza Hut have become full service sit down restaurants with elaborate menus and eager waiters. The food in Delhi was delicious and not restricted to Indian food only.

So my first week in Delhi was an informative one. I made several new friends, saw, photographed, and appreciated the obligatory tourist attractions, improved on my bargaining skills, learned my way around a sprawling city, got a taste for both ends of the financial spectrum, fine tuned my scam-o-meter and got used to a state of constant sweat. I spent a weekend in Rajasthan that I’ll talk about in another post, followed by the week of hell in a Delhi hospital I described in a previous one.

From 04-30 Hospital

I spent a third week in Delhi with Bekkah’s host family recovering further and, in general, cheering up. Getting as sick as I did really depressed me and for a few days I just wanted to get the hell out of India. That feeling eventually passed and I decided to reinforce my rediscovered excitement for India with a relaxing couple of weeks in Goa, a beach state in the south west. More on that incredible experience later.

Goa - Night 1

I suppose it was my own fault.  The “guest house” was off the beaten path.  I followed the manager there and the walk back to the main beach was entirely self explanatory.  It just looked so self descript I didn’t think I’d have any problem identifying it again.  During the day, anyways.  I suppose I also should have recognized that the fact I didn’t get cell phone reception in the hut wasn’t a fluke.  My service just didn’t extend very far past the beach, which should have been reason enough to blackball the spot as a viable housing option.  It was just so damn hot, and my bag was so damn heavy, and it overlooked the water, and really seemed just fine at the time.  And I suppose it’s just fine now.  Now that I’ve found it again.  The last hour of wandering around the path, exploring every make shift stone stairwell before verifying that the building it led to was in fact deserted, before giving up and walking back to the beach no less than 3 times to call the manager and plead for better directions was anything but fun.  Thank god I took down his number.  The fact that the directions got better and better with each plea just made me mad.  Why didn’t he tell me it was between Lude Guest House and Neeru Guest House the first time?  Why didn’t he tell me that the first sign for Om Gesh is a restaurant, the second leads to an abandoned building (after a bit of a hike), and the third isn’t well marked but is well lit and is also the spot I’m looking for?  At least he picked up his phone each time.  Man, did I start to panic.  

I’m here now, and that’s what really matters.  I’m praying for an easy night’s sleep and for my thoughts and dreams to not dwell on the funky mattress and sheets (that’s what the silk dream sack is for), nor the humidity, nor the mosquitoes (lets see what this repellant is really made of).  Even if I do sleep soundly, I think odds are high that I’ll switch residences to the better reviewed Residensea in the morning now that I’ve actually located it.  In the meantime I’ll focus my thoughts on the interesting folk I’ve met so far, the feeling the ocean surf had on my skin, and the prospect for an adventurous scooter ride in the A.M.  

Delhi Belly, Baby

“Have fun in India,” Neil said to me on gChat during our last online conversation before I left Tel Aviv, “try not to eat, touch, or look at anything.” I laughed and groaned at the same time, knowing full well that the Indian rite of passage affectionately referred to as “Delhi Belly” was an inevitability I’d have to face eventually. I had no idea what I was in for.

Weeks later, sitting in the bathroom of the Max Super Speciality Hospital in Saket, a neighborhood of New Delhi, I wrote the following line in my journal, “how did I get here?” I’ve always been enamored with the practice of taking a mental snapshot at the start of a big trip on which to look back on at various milestones thereafter. Looking back on a moment captured mere weeks earlier can seem like peering back ages at a different version of myself. This helps me to appreciate the degree to which my experiences change myself and my views of the world and, at the very least, always makes for a good “wow” factor. This snapshot effect was especially pronounced as I sat there comparing where I had been two weeks earlier compared to my current predicament. Five days in a Delhi hospital with symptoms --a 102+ fever that wouldn’t respond to normal doses of antibiotics or fever medication, a swollen liver, spleen, and nodes, and a torrential waterfall coming out of me that showed no signs of relenting no matter what the nurses gave me-- that all indicated Typhoid Fever as the most likely cause. And I had been doing so well.

As one week in India had become two, including a weekend excursion beyond Delhi and into the province of Rajasthan, I started to think that a mild form of Delhi Belly must have had come and gone without me taking notice. Granted, I was being careful, but not obsessive. I only ate at street vendors vouched for by ex-pats, stuck to bottled water unless a restaurant was filtered, avoided anything uncooked, and carried around hand sanitizer wherever I went. And while I knew that a fever was a possibility, I definitely didn’t foresee myself spending close to a week getting my own first hand account of India’s hospital system.

My tests for Typhoid eventually came back negative, leaving me with a mere yet severe gastrointestinal bacterial infection to blame for my woes. Was it the sip of water I took before Rahil told me not to trust any restaurant’s water? The onion masala dosa I ate that was filled with an obscene amount of onions that may or may not have been raw? The god awful mango lassi in Pushka? Did I possibly brush my teeth with tap water one night in Jaipur and not realize it? Why do most get 24 to 48 hours of diarrhea while my immune system was completely crippled for close to a week? Did it really matter? All I could do moving forward was raise my vigilance level up a few notches and try to see the experience as a set of stories I can tell and questions I can answer about my hospital stay in Delhi.

The doctors were great. They spoke English, knew their stuff, and were better equipped to treat something like Typhoid than any western physician. The facilities were on a western par and were, in general, very hygienic. Conversely, the nurses and attendants, and service in general were all pretty horrible. I’ve become used to dealing with language barriers by now, as well as the ways different cultures deal with them. In India I’ve noticed a tendency for locals not to acknowledge that they don’t understand you. “Yes,” they will answer to a question or “that way” they’ll arbitrarily point when not understanding a word you just said. While only a small nuisance on the street, this can be agonizingly frustrating when in a hospital and asking for something like “an injection to keep me from throwing up all the pills you just gave me” from a nurse who stares back blankly and insists she can speak English just fine when you ask her to send for someone else. You just had to get used to this sort of thing along with the door to your room being constantly left open, requests for items as critical as toilet paper (did I mention the waterfall?) going ignored three times over, and food trays being nonchalantly placed completely out of reach by an attendant who chooses to ignore your pleas as he walks out of the room. And while there’s a hand sanitizer dispenser on the wall, nobody uses it, so you better get in the habit of asking each nurse to put on a pair of clean gloves before giving you an injection or taking blood. And while people like the dietician who insists that sipping Coca Cola and Ginger Ale doesn’t soothe an upset stomach and calls an attendant to hand you your bag rather than grabbing it herself were often counteracted by a few very attentive and sympathetic nurses, in general my interaction with the staff was less than pleasant. But I’m out now, almost done with my oral antibiotic prescription, and able to consume solid foods again, and that’s what’s really important. I’ve also lost a good amount of weight which is always nice.

I’ve had a tendency to deal with bad traveling days with an involuntary muttering of “get me the hell out of this country” and I’ve been trying to keep that sort of negative sentiment under control, or at least confined towards Delhi, its daily barrage of 105 to 110 degree temperatures, and suffocating levels of air pollution and not to the entire sub continent. After all, I just got here. As my mood has increased over the past few days I’ve become more excited about exploring the south before the monsoon strikes in June and less anxious about what has proven to be a rather shitty immune system. I haven’t purchased a flight yet, but the plan right now is to fly to Goa on Saturday or Sunday in the hopes of decompressing by the beach and possibly rendezvousing with some Israeli backpackers (watching videos from Israel on my camera while stuck in the hospital bed made me long to hear Hebrew again). From there I’ll most likely follow the path of Alexander Frater as depicted in his Chasing the Monsoon but we will definitely take all things one day at a time.

Last Post in Israel

After returning from my trip north, I moved into the apartment of a friend I met here. He’s gone this month, doing his reserve duty for the Israeli Army, so it’s been extremely convenient and a lot of fun to take his place and live with his awesome flat mates while he’s gone. My main focus since moving in has been to catch up on sleep, get over a cold, spend time and party with the amazing friends I’ve made here, and prepare for India. The latter involved getting immunized against Hepatitis, Polio, Typhoid, and Meningitis, picking up the cure to Malaria, applying for and picking up a 6 month double entry tourist visa, pouring through the Lonely Planet guide, and talking to and reading the blogs of the three friends in Israel that have been to India. I’ve found I can accomplish most of my objectives while at the beach so, needless to say, it’s been a real nice couple of weeks.

Life had been so damn difficult that it seemed prudent to take a vacation from all the sleeping, sunning, and clubbing I’d been doing with a trip to Eilat, the Red Sea resort on the southernmost tip of Israel, with my friend Jon whom I met at Ulpan. But before we set off I had to witness and take part in the extravaganza of Tel Aviv’s Centennial Birthday Celebration. The city of Tel Aviv was founded April 4th, 1909 and, 100 years later, it ranks among the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, and the second biggest city economy in the Middle East (also the 14th most expensive city in the world). The city pulled out all the stops for the celebration, accept for the security ones of course; the whole city was on lockdown with security checkpoints on every corner. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into Rabin Square Saturday night for a concert, dance party, fireworks, and light show. The nearly 20 million dollar show included Israel’s Philharmonic Orchestra, various rock and singers and bands, and a trance dance party that spanned 5 blocks. A friend of mine lives right next to the square and she held a roof party that night giving us all one of the best views of the festivities. It was incredible: hundreds of thousands of people covering every inch of ground in all directions. It was a really great time. The festival ended surprisingly abruptly at 10:30 (Saturday night is a work night in Israel) without any finale, or closing remarks. The music just stopped and people lingered for about 20 minutes waiting for something else to start. Still, it was an incredible time.

From Tel Aviv Centennial

The next morning Jon and I set off for Eilat via a 5 hour bus ride through the desert. Just by glancing at a map, Israel appears to be about the size of New Jersey. On closer inspection, however, you see that the West Bank takes up a pretty sizeable chunk and that the entire southern half is nothing but empty desert. So the country is even smaller than most realize, with most of the habitable places no more than a couple of hours apart. I’ve heard a lot of hype about Eilat and it didn’t really live up to my expectations. While the Red Sea is one of the clearest and bluest bodies of water I’ve seen, there’s no actual beach around it, just a 20 foot wide strip of gravel and rock. The club and bar scene was okay, but nowhere near what you’d find in Tel Aviv, and the city in general is somewhat trashy. The real highlight of the stay in Eilat was snorkeling in the Red Sea (around Passover no less) and seeing all sorts of beautiful fish and coral.

From 04-07 Eilat

This, however, paled in comparison with the highlight of the whole trip south: our daytrip over the border to visit the historical, archeological, anthropological, and geological wonder of Petra. Getting to Petra was half of the fun. We took a cab to the border, handed over our passports, went through security and customs, paid the border tax, and walked across no-man’s land between Israel and Jordan. In between we hid our Israeli passports and took out our American ones, reminding each other not to speak any Hebrew once we got there. Once in Jordan, we negotiated a fare with a taxi driver for a round trip to Petra that including him waiting for us once we got there. The Jordanian Dinar is loosely pegged to the British pound and we got the price down to 110 Dinars ($155 USD) for the trip, which we of course split.

From 04-06 Petra

We hit the taxi jackpot as the driver to which we were assigned had lived in America for 15 years, spoke perfect English, was extremely nice, and talked to us the entire 2 hour drive to Petra about life in Jordan versus the rest of the Arab world, Israel, and the United States. It was a really interesting and beautiful drive through desert, planes, and the hills of Jordan.

From 04-06 Petra

Built around 100 BCE by the Nabateans, Petra is breathtaking. The pictures really don’t do it justice. The level of intricacy and detail that was carved into the rock was staggering and I had to repeatedly remind myself that this wasn’t built, but rather was carved out of the cliff face. The red stone was gorgeous and seemed to flow as if liquid. Take a few minutes and skim the Wikipedia article on the city, as it’s a fascinating find. The site had a large number of Arabic teenage girls wearing head dresses who, surprisingly, weren’t at all shy, and all wanted to talk to the Americans. There were also dozens of donkeys, camels, and horses, all with owners insisting we ride. We spent 4 hours walking around the site, me singing the Indiana Jones theme song more often than I’d like to admit, and only saw about half of it before having to turn back. The Israeli border closed at 8 and we really didn’t want to get stranded there.

From 04-06 Petra

On the way back we stopped for an all you can eat home cooked Jordanian buffet that was amazing. And Petra Beer isn’t half bad either.

From 04-06 Petra

I returned to Tel Aviv for less than 24 hours before hopping a train up north to Nahariya to spend Passover at the house of my dad’s sister and her family. We were joined by my dad’s brother from Tiveria , his brother from Toronto, Canada, and his other sister from Hatzor, along with all of their families. It was a huge turnout and made for an amazing first Pesach in Israel. I was overjoyed to see that, just like my family in America, my Israeli family all argues over how to do the Seder. Someone interrupts a prayer to sing it to a tune only she knows, before someone else tries to correct her with a different tune, before a few others join in half heartedly only for everyone to trail off as they all eventually forget how it goes. Best of all, as I hoped, there was a good hour of singing and banging on the table after the Seder concluded. It was glorious. After the singing thinned out, I hooked up my brother’s laptop to the big screen TV and called up the various family members around the world for video conferencing over Skype. It was really, really nice.

From 04-08 Pesach

As I write this, it’s my last day in Israel. Tomorrow morning I head to the northern border with Jordan, no easy task as the entire public bus system is shutdown until late afternoon for the last day of Passover. I’ll take a service taxi (private mix between a bus and taxi) to Afula, and another one to Beit She’an, where I’ll cross the border by bus. Once in Jordan I’ll take a taxi to Amman where, at 8pm, I fly to Delhi, India. I’m excited, anxious, pumped, and very nervous. More than anything, though, I’m really sad to be leaving Israel. I had an amazing 3 months here and made some incredible friends. I’ve gotten in the habit of referring to any return trip to Tel Aviv, as “coming home” and it really has felt that way. I don’t think I could move here full time, at least not anytime soon. It’s just too far from my family and friends back home. Like everyone else, ideally I’d want to work out a way where I could spend 3 to 6 months out of the year here. Hopefully whatever sort of tech company I end up starting once this trip is over will facilitate that sort of lifestyle, but it’s getting ahead of myself to really think too deeply about it. For now, I’m just assuming it will be a long time before I’m back here, and am trying to wrap my head around the experience I just had. I really wanted to write a high level piece on this experience while still here, but with the clock ticking down towards the last night of Passover (with family plans in Tel Aviv), my bag still unpacked, and me needing to return this computer to my brother, that article will have to wait until I get a hold of a computer in India. Maybe that’s a good thing as it’ll give me time to process what it is I want to say exactly. We’ll see. Until then, Shalom Yisrael, it’s been epic. Wish me luck on my journey to India.

Comment tu t'appelle?

George: What is Holland?
Jerry: What do you mean what is it? It's a country, right next to Belgium.
George: No, that's the Netherlands.
Jerry: Holland is the Netherlands.
George: Then who are the Dutch??

I thought it would be ignorant to fly to Amsterdam without clarifying this issue so, after skimming the relevant Wikipedia article, I decided that I would henceforth refer to the country as its given name, The Netherlands. By the end of the trip I had reversed this position –the final vote tallied being cast by the Dutch spin-off of “America’s Got Talent”, which, as you might have guessed, is titled “Holland’s Got Talent.” I knew ahead of time that my family in Nijmegen, an eastern municipality bordering Germany, referred to the country as Holland, but soon learned that this sentiment is shared almost universally amongst the locals when referring to their home. This may not be technically correct, but, in my opinion, you can call yourself whatever you want to and that’s fine by me.

For example, my last name is Guez and so is my father’s. It’s spelled with a “U” because, along with Arabic, they speak French in Tunisia where he grew up, a language which pronounces “Gez” as “Jez.” Conversely, “Guez” has a hard G like “Guess” or “Rodriguez.” His father’s last name, however, was Elguez. My father dropped the “El” when he moved to Israel. I’m not entirely sure about this, but I feel like he’s told me a different reason for the change every time I’ve asked him. He also changed his first name from Masseoud to Moshe so, in the end, I suspect that it was because Elguez sounded too Arabic. Similarly, upon taking up a career in the Israeli Army, one of his brothers Jew-ified his last name, as was the custom in career soldiers, to Gazit, while conversely the other brother kept the original and, upon immigrating to Canada, dropped the “U”. Three brothers, three names: Guez, Gazit, and Elgez.

But wait, there’s more. Though technically my cousin, my uncle in Holland was adopted by our grandmother after his biological mother, my dad’s older sister, passed away when he was still a baby. He was raised as my father’s youngest brother, a fact he didn’t discover was untrue until the age of 8. He went through his youth as an Elguez/Guez only to find, upon joining the Israeli Army, that his last name was Maimon, the surname of his biological father, which coincidentally happens to be my grandmother’s maiden name. He also found out that his first name was different, a family name that never stuck, though that was easy enough to change. Upon marrying a Dutch woman and immigrating to Holland he to simplified (Dutchitfied?) it further to Mimon.

So who am I to call foul? In both French and Hebrew the way you ask for someone's name is to say the literal translation of "How do you call yourself?"  As far as I’m concerned, when looking across paternal cousins, I’m a Guez, she’s a Gazit, he’s an Elgez, she’s a Mimon, and all our fathers our brothers. And if they want to call it Holland then, by golly, so be it.

Return from the North

The bus and train system in Israel is fairly robust, and you really don't need a car to explore the country. That said, renting a car and driving across the north of the country was a fantastic idea. Accelerating through windy roads through gorgeous hills or along the coast with the sun shining and the music blasting was as, if not more, enjoyable an experience as the ones I had at my actual destinations. I had everything I brought with me from America in the car along with a wonderful feeling of freedom that I didn't quite have when I had a home base in Tel Aviv. There was a real sense of adventure in pouring over a map of the country, planning my route to the next location, then pulling into the first hotel I spot to get a local map of the area I was visiting. By now I’m not only used to being alone, I actually prefer it most of the time.

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Tiberias, or Tiveria in Hebrew, is a town on the western shore of Lake Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee. King Herod had a large influence over most of the historical areas of Israel and Tibierias follows this trend as his son, Herod Antipas, established the town in 20 AD as his capital and named it in honor of the Roman Emperor of the same name. The city has a rich history of revolts, reprisals, Judaism, and Christianity. It was at one time the cultural center of Judaism, the home of the Sanhedrin (Jewish Court), the birthplace of the Talmud (the recorded oral Torah), the burial ground of Maimonides, Rabbi Akiva, and others, and a center of Jewish learning in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today it is regarded as one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism, which are aligned with the four elements Earth (Hebron), Air (Tzfat), Fire (Jerusalem), and Water (Tiberius). Its water component is based on its location along Lake Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee, which is the lowest fresh water lake in the world, and the second lowest lake in the world (the Dead Sea).

While in Tiveria, I visited and took a dip in Hammat Tiveria, the natural hot springs. The water in the spring is rich in minerals and over 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The water is pumped up and down a hill to cool it to a more comfortable 100 degrees before reaching the spa where visitors have come from around the world for its apparent healing properties. I also visited the remains of a synagogue from 341 with a beautifully preserved mosaic depicting the zodiac, and hiked up a small mountain for a breathtaking view of the city and lake. Actually, I almost made it up the mountain. A herd of cows blocked by my way, and while I pondered the safety of walking between them with their young in tow, I spotted 3 or 4 bulls among the lot and opted against it.

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While Tiberias makes up the water component of Israeli’s holy cities on account of the Lake, Tzfat makes up the air component on account of its wind. Set high in the hills (2,650 feet above sea level), the air was crisp and the temperature was cold. Tzfat, also known as Safed, Safad, and Zefat, is the home of Jewish Mysticism, or Kaballah, in Israel. Supposedly the place where the Messiah is supposed to first arrive, Tzfat is filled with Hasidic Jews and famous synagogues, all set amongst cobblestoned streets and yellow bricked buildings. I spent Shabbat here at a place called Ascent, a Chabad center for tourists and those interested in learning about Kaballah. I met three other Americans there, each with a different reason for coming to the holy city. We had Shabbat dinner with a local family, learned about Hasidic Judaism and Torah codes, and toured the old city. It was a very nice time. The highlight of my time in Tzfat was finding the graves of my grandmother and aunt who are buried in the old cemetery there, overlooking Mount Hermon. My dad gave me treasure-hunt-style directions to the spot and I finally found it as the sun began to set over the hills. It was a very rewarding experience.

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My next destination was the Nahal Hermon Nature Reserve, also known as the Banias. Located in the north east of Israel, alongside Mount Hermon, the Banias is an archeological site, nature reserve, natural springs, and waterfall. I visited a temple, courtyard, and grotto all built in 87 AD to worship the Greek God Pan (goat-footed god of victory) and the mountain nymph Echo. It was a really nice hike and I got some amazing photos.

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After spending the night with family in Hatzor, I drove west, stopping in Karmiel to see another cousin, and ending up at my aunt’s in Nahariya, a city along the Mediterranean Sea. We went to a religious wedding together and the following day I tried to visit Rosh Hanikra, a set of grottoes and cavernous tunnels carved into the soft chalk rock by years of sea action. Unfortunately the site was closed to prepare it for the summer season.

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The last day of my trip was spent in the port city of Haifa, Israel’s third largest city where I spent time with my friend Yuval, explored the city, and walked around the outskirts of the stunning Baha’i Gardens built in the late 1800s as a shrine of the Baha’i faith. Haifa is built on a very steep hill, with winding streets cutting across the hill side. Ascending the hill by foot is extremely difficult, so Haifa is also home to Israel’s only subway, the Carmelit. More of a funicular than what one might envision when thinking of a subway, the Carmelit pulls a car underground up the steep incline via an electric pulley system. It was closed by the time I headed back to the hostel, which was fortunate as the journey downward by foot was a lot of fun. Some stairways lead to private houses while others lead to alleyways that cut down the hillside. Finding my way downward was adventurous and offered beautiful views of the city lights along the way.

I returned to Tel Aviv this afternoon for some much needed R&R. The constant travel and lack of good deep sleep has been catching up to me and I’m planning on vegging out to prepare myself for the journey to India in April. At some point I’ll head to Jerusalem and there’s been some talk about making a trip to Eilat and Petra before that. We’ll see what plays out.

On to Northern Israel

Holland is a beautiful country and I had a fantastic time exploring and catching up with friends in Amsterdam and getting to know my family in Nijmegen.  A detailed recap of my week in the Netherlands will have to wait, along with my forthcoming look back on Tel Aviv.  I returned to Tel Aviv Monday morning, leaving only Monday night and Tuesday to both plan my trip to the north and to set in motion the process of getting an Indian tourist visa.

Getting a visa for myself in Israel to visit India is cheaper and faster than for most Americans because I have an Israeli passport.  That said, the process is  still longer and more expensive than I assumed it would be and is further complicated by the fact that my passport is too new. The Indian Embassy outsourced the application process to a travel agency down the street from where I'm currently staying.  Because my Israeli passport was issued only this year, and I didn't bring the old one with me, I have to get some paperwork from the Ministery of the Interior first.  Getting there took longer than I thought (notice a trend here) and I didn't get there until 12:10 today, 10 minutes after they had closed for the day.  I'm hoping to get it all taken care of before I leave tomorrow.

The plan is to pick up the rental car at noon, drive to the city of Tiberius along Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) tomorrow and spend a couple of days seeing the sights.  I'll spend Wednesday and Thursday night there with family and then drive up to Rosh Pina for lunch Friday with my Aunt Rashel.  After lunch I'll go to Tzfat to spend Shabbat with the Ascent of Safed.  Tzfat is the world center of Jewish Mysticism and Kabala and I've heard some good things about the Ascent organization so it should be a pretty interesting and spiritual experience.  I'll also get to see the town my dad grew up in and might bump into some older locals who knew him. 

On Sunday morning I'll leave Tzfat and head up to the north east of Israel to visit the Banias Springs by Mount Hermon and the country's largest waterfall.  I'll spend Sunday hiking the Nahal Hermon Reserve and will head back to Rosh Pina afterwards to spend Sunday night with one of my cousins there.  Monday morning I'll drive to Carmiel, have lunch with another cousin, then continue west towards Nahariya.

I'll stay with family in Nahariya and will spend Monday afternoon checking out the cave formations at Rosh Hanikra as well as exploring the city and its beaches and visiting more family in the area.  

Tuesday morning I'll drive south to Haifa to see the Baha'i Gardens, stay overnight in a hostel, then head back to Tel Aviv Wednesday morning to return the car.

I'll have my brother's laptop with me most of the time which gets Internet everywhere so at some point in all of this I should get the chance to upload my pictures and share some stories from the Netherlands.  

First things first, though.  I'm now off to see what Saint Patrick's Day is like in Tel Aviv...  

Beyond Tel Aviv...

Today is my last day living in Tel Aviv. I'm going to the Dead Sea tomorrow with my friend Avi whom I met in Hebrew language class here and who, crazily enough, happens to be from Canton. He graduated Canton High School 2 years before I got there, knows my sister, acted in all the plays, played in the band, etc. etc. Talk about a small world! He, his wife Heidi, and I will drive down to Ein Gedi tomorrow morning, spend the day at the Dead Sea, and stay the night at the Masada Guest House. Friday morning we're waking up early to hike Masada and will possibly catch the sunrise. It should be a great time.

From there I plan on taking a bus to Ashkelon, 10 miles from Gaza, to spend Shabbat with my cousins there. Saturday night I'll take a car to the airport, and then fly to the Netherlands to spend a week in Amsterdam. My college friends Doug, Mike, Ben, and Gaurav will all be there that week so it's shaping up to be an amazing time. I have another cousin who lives about an hour or two from Amsterdam and will be spending Tuesday and Wednesday night with his family. He plans on showing me the sights outside of Amsterdam and and taking me into Germany for an afternoon as well. I'm really looking forward to it. So I'm staying two days at a hotel with Doug and Mike, two days with my cousin, one night on my own at the Flying Pig hostel, and two nights with Gaurav at the Truelove Guesthouse. The first two nights I'll be alone in a double so if anybody feels like joining me, then by all means go with that feeling.

I'll return to Tel Aviv next Monday, March 15th, early in the morning. I'm renting a car that Tuesday and have tentative plans to explore the north of Israel including Haifa, Carmiel Forests, Tiberius and the Sea of Gallilee, Tsfat, Naharia, Rosh Hanikra, and Yehudiya. That will take me close to the end of March, and I'm not sure what I'll do from there. I want to spend Passover here, most likely with family in Jerusalem, so I'll most likely have about 2 and a half weeks to fill. I've grown really attached to Tel Aviv and the friends I've made here so I'm sure I'll spend about half of that time here couch surfing and hanging out with friends sans Ulpan. After Passover I'll head south to spend a day in Eilat, a resort on the southern most tip of Israel, cross into Jordan and visit Petra (where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade took place), then head up to Amman, the capital, in order to fly to Delhi, India. Tickets from Jordan are literally half the price of those from Israel. It's an exciting time folks.

I'm only now starting to plan my trip to India, and just picked up a used Lonely Planet guide this afternoon. I have two friends there currently, Rahil and Rebekah, and I plan on going to Jaipur with Rahil the weekend of April 25th then staying at his place in Delhi the week after. The question now is what date I'll arrive before then and where I'll stay -all to be worked out over the next couple of weeks.

Looking at a map, I'll most likely go from India up to Nepal, over to Burma/Myanmar, down to Thailand, cross into Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, then fly to Guangzhou to vist Andrew and all the other Yalies in China. Andrew and I will do a weekend trip to Hong Kong, and I'll have to check out Taiwan and Japan as well. From there I could head south to the Philippines, Bali, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. I'll probably come home at that point, but who knows? I could visit Yana in Hawaii from there and then friends in California. There's also the whole rest of the continental US to explore, not to mention all of South America, but I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I'm focusing on Amsterdam and India.

If this seems like a fairly superficial entry considering this is my last night in Tel Aviv, that's because it is. I'm working on a more detailed piece covering the time I spent here, the things I've learned, and my observations of Tel Aviv and Israeli culture in general. However I wanted to get all of the logistical items out of the way first. Stay tuned.

Transitions to Solitude

I chose Israel as the first stop on my partial world tour for a number of reasons. I didn't want to have to work again for awhile so I planned on spending most of my adventure in South East Asia, where the dollar still packs a punch. At the same time, I definitely wanted to spend a couple months in Israel, visiting my family here, learning the language, connecting with my roots, and seeing what it would be like to possibly live here one day. That said, the obvious reason for starting here is a logistical one: it's on the way.

But beyond that, Israel as a starting point serves as an ideal transitional period to the open ended adventure ahead of me. It's a western country bordering the eastern world, a gateway to the east; you might even call it a middle east (Ha). I'm far from home, but have plenty of family here. I have to approach a lot of strangers in order to make friends, but I already had two very close friends waiting for me here when I arrived and am in a country who's people have a reputation for their approachability. The locals all speak a foreign language here that I've determined myself to learn, but nearly everybody speaks English as well and it was easy to sign up for a month worth of Hebrew language classes. I have to get used to sleeping on an uncomfortable bed, in a noisy environment, with no way to block the sun at dawn, but it's my own apartment in a nice part of town. I have to learn my way around a major world city I know nothing about, including a robust bus system, but I have widespread support from everybody around me as well as parents who are Tel Aviv experts just a phone call away. I've lost all track of the dates, forgetting one friend's birthday, Valentine's Day, and the Superbowl so far, and have to get accustomed to being disconnected in general, but my brother, Tomer, has lent me his laptop and my apartment has Internet access, so I've been able to stay in regular touch with a lot of people back home. (NOTE: Download Skype to video chat with me anytime I'm online. I'm 7 hours ahead and usually up late.) In short, from day one I've had to face many of the obstacles and challenges that I'll encounter throughout this trip, but within a much easier context. I took this into account when planning the trip and I'm happy to see how well it's worked out thus far.

There's another transitional aspect to my stay here that I haven't yet touched upon. I'm finding myself increasingly more accustomed to being by myself most of the time. This path towards comfortable solitude and tangible independence actually started back in New York, when my job ended in early November. I spent most of November and all of December roaming around Manhattan, exploring all the sites, galleries, museums, and shows that I never had the time to visit before because I was always working; And, for the most part, I did it by myself. That path has continued here, along 13+ hours of flight time, and countless hours looking at bus maps, sitting in cafes, lying by the beach, bike riding down the Yarkon River, and a whole lot of walking, all without anyone to keep me company. I've been able to spend time with my brother, cousins, friends, and students at the Ulpan, and they have all been a wonderful help in this transitional period, but a very and increasingly large majority of my time is spent alone. And it's getting easier.

When describing my plans for 2009, many of my friends would immediately jump to this aspect, "you're going by yourself? Wow, I couldn't do that." I said that I wasn't too worried. Every year of my life I've gotten better at introducing myself to strangers and every person I talked to that had done such a trip stressed the importance of going it alone.

"You'll meet people everywhere you go," was the general sentiment, "and you won't want to be tied down to the plans and preferences of someone else. This is YOUR trip." Besides, who else could I convince to quit their job to go to Israel with me as a conflict tore on in Gaza? But I never really considered trying to convince anyone either. In retrospect, however, I can tell you that I was really scared about this concept. I talk a lot; I love to share new experiences and create memories with people I care about; I like having someone to regularly sanity check my decisions; and I hate to eat alone. I considered myself a pretty independent person, but knew that this was just a relative measure, and that on an absolute scale I was a ways away from the degree of self-sufficiency I wanted.

Tomorrow will mark the one month point since my departure and three months since the true start to this lesson in autonomy when my employment ended. What have I learned? One. Audiobooks are amazing. Walking and reading at the same time?? The future is now! Stephen Fry delivers Harry Potter better than any film version ever could, the BBC's production of the His Dark Materials Trilogy (aka The Golden Compass) is beyond cinematic, and David Sedaris is just plain hysterical. Two. I still very much love to read the old fashioned way. Hours spent at a cafe alternating between cups of cappuccino and glasses of wine while pouring through David Quammen's fascinating essays, the Picture of Dorian Gray, and an interesting book Phillip gave me that takes a modern and broad approach to surveying philosophical thought entitled "This Is Not A Book" make one happy not to have someone expecting conversation. Three. Writing in a journal has been easy, therapeutic and hard to stop. Once I fully grasped the concept that no one but me will read the Moleskine that Phil bought me, I stopped focusing on presentation and outside critique and started to just write for the sake of writing. It was tough to find the right balance. While I don't want to feel someone else's eyes over my shoulder I do want to improve my writing and not to end up with a babbling stream of consciousness. I think I've started to find the rhythm but am still adjusting. Four. I've missed piano terribly and have been worried that I'll lose a lot of the newer songs in my head. To try and amend this I bought a harmonica the other day and have been teaching myself via YouTube. The theory is that if I can bang out a tune and corresponding harmony on harmonica, I can write down the corresponding notes to avoid losing any fleeting muse.

Five. Finally, and most importantly, I'm trying not to always immerse myself in outside stimulation. I'm trying to spend a good amount of time without a book, headphones, Internet, random conversations with strangers, or harmonica and to just think quietly, or not at all. This is the area of Independence that I have the most room to improve on. On some level, independence is contentment with yourself and your surroundings. Growing up with the Internet and living in an environment like NYC has made me more addicted to material things and constant stimulation than I'd like to admit. Not surprisingly I had a rather hard time getting over leaving my Treo behind. Instant answers, unlimited information, and a constant connection to everyone all in my pocket is a tough thing to give up once you take it for granted. I bought a new Nokia here for 200 shekels (about $50) from a kiosk and love it! It's small, light, simple, with a black and green screen, lasts a week on a single charge, has a built in flashlight and a few games, and never freezes, crashes, or drops calls. What more do you really need?

New Apartment, Polics, Ulpan, and Photos

This past Thursday I moved into my new apartment on Dizengoff. It's a beautiful studio apartment with a small kitchen and bathroom and is furnished with a large couch, big screen TV with satellite, hammock chair, and a couple of tables and chairs. The decor is a bit...out there (and feminine) but pleasant all the same. It has a great view of the Mediterranean Sea and is located near a lot of popular bars and clubs of Tel Aviv. After rearranging the furniture with Assaf we investigated the satellite TV to find it had 500 channels, of which about 450 are Arabic with the remaining 50 being Italian, French, and Polish. There are also a few Christian church stations and at one point I was able to get BBC News and Bloomberg International, but both have since vanished. There are no Hebrew stations. The running theory is that the owner isn't actually paying for a service but just picks up whatever stations are freely broadcasted, something Israel and America aren't really big on. But whatever, it's not's like I came to Israel to sit on the couch all day. Tomer lent me his laptop and I've been able to download Lost, Flight of the Conchords, and 30 Rock which I can then watch on the TV via some cables I picked up today, so the big screen certainly isn't going to waste.

A slightly more pressing setback turned out to be the street noise. I'm right above a very big and busy intersection and the window does extremely little to block out the noise of engines and the horns of passing (angry) motorists. With Israelis' well deserved reputation of being amongst the worst and rudest drivers in the western world, my room has been filled with what seems to be a near constant horn that no fan or TV white noise has been able to block out. Sara was quick to point out that, having lived in NYC the past 3 years, I should be used to this. Cars driving by, yes, constant horns, no. Fortunately the ear plugs I picked up before leaving do a great job of blocking out sounds. Unfortunately, so far I've had a rather talented knack for pulling them out of my ears in my sleep, only to wake up shortly there after. Oh well, better to get used to sleeping with ear plugs in the comfort of my own apartment then above a snorer in a hostel somewhere in South East Asia.

My neighbor is a girl from Ashdod who's house was hit by a rocket shot from Gaza. The Israeli government is paying for her to stay here in Tel Aviv while they rebuild her house. You don't go very far here without some reminder of the conflict going on less than 100 miles away. It's been interesting to hear the perspectives from those who live here. I've found a common theme of futility and bitterness towards the outside world.

"Hamas has been shooting rockets into this country every single day for EIGHT YEARS," one friend exclaims, "I'd like to see how long any other country puts up with that." Others want to know why the world media expect the IDF to operate flawlessly without causing any collateral damage or civillian casualty whereas they never highlight the fact that the IDF do both telephone call blasts and drop pamphlets over intended strike areas warning civilians to get out before hitting a target. There's been a lot of talk from those involved that the actual number of deaths from the Gaza offensive is 600, not the 1,300 the media is reporting, and that only around 50 were civilians. A few people I've talked to are planning on voting for the relatively unknown Avigdor Leiberman, leader of the extreme nationalist party Israeli Beitaynu, in the upcoming election for prime minister. His campaign slogan is "No Loyalty, No Citizenship" and is claiming that all citizens be required to take an oath of loyalty to the country. In a world where most anti Israel advocates are merely uninformed I respond that what Israel needs is better PR, not a leader who comedy programs compare to Stalin. But again, the sentiment I pick up is that this is futile, "people will always come up with a reason to hate the Jews. No PR will change that."

In less depressing news, I took the Ulpan Hebrew placement exam yesterday and start classes tomorrow morning. After taking the written exam I had an oral exam with an instructor who was confused by my results. She said most students are able to converse in Hebrew but have horrible written and grammar skills. I'm just the opposite, but I already knew that. I can conjugate like it's my job but put me on the street and I'm constantly saying "Ach omrim bih ivrit..." ("how does one say in Hebrew..."). She's putting me in a lower class than the exam would dictate in order for me to improve my conversational skills and told me to switch up if I got bored. The class meets Monday through Thursday from 9am to 12:30pm and I signed up for one month. Because I'm an Israeli citizen, there was some talk about getting me some paperwork from the Absorption Ministry that would make the lessons free until someone else in the class pointed out that, "there's this small issue of required Army service" that would make free Hebrew classes not really worth the savings. I haven't been in a class room in three years so I'm a little nervous but also looking forward to having a reason to get up early, a place to meet new people, and, you know, learning Hebrew.

And finally, I've posted a lot of pictures on Facebook of my first two weeks in Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv, as well as my weekend visits to family in Tiberius and Nahariya. They're visible to friends only. I'm in the process of uploading the complete set in full resolution to Picasa Web Albums and will share those out to family and friends as requested as soon as they finish (it's been taking HOURS). Here's a preview for you:


Looking through these photos reminds me of something Jenna told me about how when stressed out she reminds herself that she lives in a land of palm trees and a tropical climate, with a beach blocks away, and then whatever was on her mind doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore...