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…