Delhi Impressions
Delhi is everything everyone ever described and more. We are staying in a rather dingy hotel (the"Smyle Inn") in Paharganj near Old Delhi. Last night we discovered the meaning of "cleanish" rooms- ie. there's hair on the sheets and pillow and the blankets smell like a dirty dog. Actually, it's not so bad for seasoned travellers such as ourselves. Well, we did sleep covered head to foot in our clothes (primarily due to the chilly night air though), banged the bed several times to kill any microscopic flesh munchers, and surveyed the wall thoroughly for blood (it is said the bed bugs lie in wait on the wall instead of in the beds for their prey). We also covered the pillow cases with Cara's sleeping bag to make sure no remnants of the last sleepers haunted us at night. You see, Cat is a little paranoid after being attacked by those mysterious bed bugs in London, that left her itching for weeks and scarred still.
Paharganj is a bustling tourist haven. Bright oranges, purples, blues, greens, yellows, golds, silvers, and every color in between dangle from shops. The streets are just wide enough for two rickshaws and a motorcycle to squeeze by each other, of course, narrowly missing colliding with the scores of pedestrians also trying to pick their way through the busy streets. Street vendors constantly haggle passersby to come into their shops and sample their wares. Blaring horns urging anything in front of it to get-out-of-the-way. Cows really do seem to "blend right in", unperturbed by the noise, chaos, and frantic mobility. It is common for a cow to stop in front of a cafe and gaze at you while you eat, or to see an elephant walking through the streets while eating dinner. The cows often graze in the garbage (wouldn't want to eat that) though shop owners do feed the lucky cows a carrot or two in the evening. The streets are uncommonly clean considering the cows wander throughout, in fact we do not have to "watch our step"at all. Although we have decided that this may be a result of the constant traffic, resulting in the fact that any fecal matter is simply ground into the street, rather than the possibility that there are persons specially employed to clean up the shit of these holy animals.
We are still discovering the food. Indian food definitely deserves its good reputation. So far, we've only tasted the vegetarian fare, and lots and lots of chai masala (what we know as chai in the states- a milky, sweet, ginger, cardamom delight). We've also had a couple of fabulous sticky honey sweets from street vendors, and samosas of course.
Peanuts cooked in hot sand, rice balls boiled and topped with syrup, samosas (a pastry filled with curried veggies and potato) with chutney and yellow curry served in a biodegradable leaf bowl, many forms of chapati, etc also line the streets . ..
We arrived in Delhi on Saturday morning, fortunately avoiding the exceedingly long immigration line at the airport through the stealthy work of a business man Cat befriended on the plane. We then sailed through the crowds of taxi cab drivers, having pre-arranged airport pickup with our hotel. Ahh, smooth sailing . . .we loved India already.
The people are joyful, kind, friendly and helpful, save a few amusing calls, "where are you from? Are you from Australia? You are very beautiful. Why are you so serious?" As far as the impending tormet that we were told awaited us, we have experienced very little of it. Of course, there are the typical pushy shopkeepers and male stares, but this is nothing threatening in the least. Maybe many people who've travelled here and felt immensely harrassed had not travelled to Arab countries previously. So far, nothing compares!
As far as begging goes, yes, it is intense. This is definitely a country of contrasts. Children and elderly people do tug your arm, but children seem to know you will not give them $$$ and ask for chai instead (of course this request is much harder to refuse). Their feet are black with dirt and crusty from walking on pavement. Mothers with babies wrapped in their arms follow you and look after you with pitiful eyes. It is a difficult situation to deal with because we want to do all we can to help them, but we're not sure what the best approach is. We have had a number of conversations about this, but these social problems remain unresolved. The poverty in India is more "in your face" than in many other places, so it makes one have to confront the problems, rather than simply push them to the side... How many countries have open, tiled urinals in side streets where men go to relieve themselves, backs to the street, requiring passersby to squeeze past them as they urinate and fill the air with their filthy stench? (the street referred to is on the way to our hotel. Funnily enough, we didn't notice that men were actually openly peeing right next to us until maybe our 4th or 5th time passing by. Wondered where that smell came from...)
We had a discussion with a shopkeeper the other evening who loved Bush, and thought all Muslims were bad people (of course we do not share his opinion). He said that everyone here has his or her place (referring to the caste system) and told us of his state, Rajasthan.
Yesterday evening we wandered to Connaught Place, past families and groups of rickshaw drivers cooking their evening meal on open-fires on the sidewalks. Trees overhang the dark street that glows with the firelight. . . .we meandered through a labyrinth of concrete barriers blocking the construction on the metro, and finally found our way to the heart of Connaught Place. Here, wealthy Indians go to have icecream and eat in nice restaurants. McDonalds and Pizza Hut were available. After wandering around for awhile we decided to hire an auto rickshaw back to Paharganj.
We spent much of today and yesterday wandering the bazar in Pahaganj and have already broken down and purchased gifts. We know of two friends getting married and just couldn't resist the urge to buy wedding gifts. There are many tempting products in the shops here, and we simply can't resist the prices!
Somehow three days have disappeared and we're not really sure what we've done with ourselves. Wandering up and down Paharganj, talking with shopkeepers, sleeping late into the morning, trying to make plans to leave Delhi (seems we keep postponing a departure), getting caught up on email, and simply commencing the real vacation.
We’re trying to figure out what to do for the next couple of weeks. We have two girls from the office coming down to meet us here on Sat. Masha, the director of YHRG and Nadira, the program director, will be here with us for New Years. We can't wait to see them, but it does make our touring a little complicated as Masha has already been here and will only stay for a week. I think our best travel options are to either visit Rajasthan or Kashmir during their time here. Maybe Cat and I will go to Varanasi for a few days before they arrive this Saturday. Well, that's all the news for now.
-Written by Cat, with a few additions by Cara
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Monday, December 22, 2003
Travel adventures begin anew as we wander the streets of Delhi, taking in the vibrant life of one of the world's most crowded and exotic countries....
First, however, we want to post some rather amusing anecdotes on Central Asia, written by two British travellers-- Basher and Jeremy-- who we met during our last week in Kyrgyzstan, and who added a bit more fun and flavor to an already memorable week in Bishkek. Here are Jeremy's observations on Central Asian Livin':
[This is an account of Jeremy and Basher's visit to Uzbekistan (one could easily substitute Kyrgyzstan- the cultures are very similar), with insights into Central Asian families, food, and toilets.... ]
"So with equal amounts of curiosity and trepidation, we arrived in Samarkand to the home of Feruza's spinster aunt Madluba, a mafia hunter employed by the government, and a sort of ball-busting version of Dorien from Birds of a Feather. Madlubu had devoted her off-work hours to caring for the hibernating bundle of blankets in the corner who she introduced as her mother. Grandma manifested few visible lifesigns, but stirred sporadically to mutter something in Russian to nobody in particular. You are like Jesus・she told me inexplicably. Unfortunately, my healing hands didn't run to curing advanced dementia.
Next up was the home of another aunt, Madriga, whose domestic arrangements involve labouring all day to bring in the mutton, while hubby sits around in a khalat, and occasionally gives his teenage son a clip round the ear. Then finally to the Bukhara abode of Feruza's own dear mother ・a journalist of some local renown, apparently, but one battling behind closed doors with the demon drink (Anyone for vodka? Oh, just me again then)・. Despite putting on her Best Mum in the World act for our benefit, mother-daughter tensions were clearly running high. The What are you doing with your
life・routine was the favourite, although the truth is that Feruza is engaged in highly daring political activism as well as putting hand to mouth as a waitress, whilst her mother subsidises big bruv professional naval-gazing. Nevertheless, the order of the day was plov-a-plenty (see below), many jovial enquiries into all things British, a rather disturbing randy fascination with Basher, and an insistence that we propose a lot of toasts, as a poor excuse for the woman to neck more vodka.
The Uzbek Book of Hospitality contains only one golden rule: offer your visitors everything you've got, and don't take no for an answer. Whatever food you have must be served up immediately (We got six mint humbugs,
half a melon and some vodka), and if your kids have any amusing talents they must use them to full effect (Dance girl, can't you see we've got guests?!). Oh, and remember: mutton equals happy guests.
Food, spurious food
Central Asian cuisine has evolved from the traditional diets of ancient Turkic tribes. The sum total of this accumulated culinary wisdom comes down
to this: catch an elderly beast that's fallen behind the herd, then boil it. Vegetables are an unnecessary extravagance for a hardy nomadic folk. Plus, I think, seasoning was outlawed as unrevolutionary during Stalinist times. So Uzbek dishes are all offal-based: ostensibly comprising either udders or double chins. All the regions of Uzbekistan put their own spin on dinner time, investing an inordinate amount of effort in reparing the kinds of cuts of meat that your cat would laugh at scornfully. Thus, the pride and joy of the Jizzekh region, for example, is the incomparable, salty
Jizz. What every Uzbek family prays for when gathered round the dinner table is, however, the nation's favourite plov. Here is a recipe for plov, just like your mother used to make:
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1. Some form of meat・ Ask your butcher for something that died in mysterious circumstances・
2. Plov is a rice and mutton dish. Calculate the quantity of rice needed for the evening to end like the Gluttony scene from Seven. Then double it.
3. Vodka for the chef (mandatory).
4. Garnish of soggy carrot scrapings, fished out of the plug hole (optional).
5. Spices or flavouring of any description? Not for this recipe Delia!
PREPARATION:
1. Laying your pound of flesh on a chopping board, carefully cut out the leanest, most tender morsels. Throw those bits away.
2. Tenderize by dropping on the floor a few times. Any bits of fluff that get stuck on only add sophistication.
3. Heating the rice in chip oil will be much more original than doing it the old-fashioned way.
4. At this point in the cooking you will probably begin to realize the sheer scale of the cock-up you've created. Start drinking your vodka NOW.
5. Serve the whole lot on a single plate in a great steaming heap. Stand over your guests swigging vodka menacingly until they either finish it or start to cry. As they run to the toilet, cheerfully inform them that it doesn't work.
Tummy trouble
After a few days with an Uzbek family, mealtimes will start to look a bit like this:
Breakfast: garlic and pig trotter soup
Lunch: cocktail of antacid tablets and Imodium, washed down with tea that looks like crude oil.
Dinner: plov time again, is it Mother?
Now the human digestive system really is a miraculous thing. Think about it: day after day it does its duty, sifting through the inappropriate matter you shovel down to find something salvageable and nutritious, and
compacting the rejected remainder into soft, manageable pellets for easy disposal. After a particularly good clearout you congratulate yourself, with nary a thought to who the real hero is. Yet your stomach labours on.
After this much punishment, however, your well-maintained plumbing will have degenerated into a bubbling, gastric Chernobyl. Dashing from the dinner
table to the bathroom, therefore, you will not be best pleased to find that the antique lavatory hasn't flushed since Stalin, and is now a museum of mutant parasites, trapped like flies in amber in the encrusted bowl.
Time for a trip outside, then, where yet more horrors await.
A rickety shed down the street houses the communal dumping ground where bad plov comes to die. A letterbox shaped hole in the floor goes down 15 feet
to what can only be indelicately described as an enormous pile of crap. You're going to spend a good deal of time here, getting to know every knot in the timber, and striking up a decent rapport with the old woman from up the street who seems to walk past like clockwork every time the wind blows the door open. Aiming your watery bowel movements accurately from a
squatting position ought to be a training exercise for the RAF. Bonus points if you can make the turd pillar topple over by the sheer force of your own discharge. Twenty odd minutes of listening to the faint patter of
turd on turd later, thoroughly drained, its time to go for a lie down, and hope to God that everything will be alright in the morning."
Well, at least Cat and I didn't have to endure any stomach traumas quite that horrible, although we did have an encounter with the toilet in Osh that made us vow to become vegetarians forevermore (hmm, that didn't last long). The letterbox toilets are definitely a favourite out here, and I must note that in some ways at least, guys have it a lot easier than girls on that account!!
Written by Cara
(with a lot of help from Jeremy)
First, however, we want to post some rather amusing anecdotes on Central Asia, written by two British travellers-- Basher and Jeremy-- who we met during our last week in Kyrgyzstan, and who added a bit more fun and flavor to an already memorable week in Bishkek. Here are Jeremy's observations on Central Asian Livin':
[This is an account of Jeremy and Basher's visit to Uzbekistan (one could easily substitute Kyrgyzstan- the cultures are very similar), with insights into Central Asian families, food, and toilets.... ]
"So with equal amounts of curiosity and trepidation, we arrived in Samarkand to the home of Feruza's spinster aunt Madluba, a mafia hunter employed by the government, and a sort of ball-busting version of Dorien from Birds of a Feather. Madlubu had devoted her off-work hours to caring for the hibernating bundle of blankets in the corner who she introduced as her mother. Grandma manifested few visible lifesigns, but stirred sporadically to mutter something in Russian to nobody in particular. You are like Jesus・she told me inexplicably. Unfortunately, my healing hands didn't run to curing advanced dementia.
Next up was the home of another aunt, Madriga, whose domestic arrangements involve labouring all day to bring in the mutton, while hubby sits around in a khalat, and occasionally gives his teenage son a clip round the ear. Then finally to the Bukhara abode of Feruza's own dear mother ・a journalist of some local renown, apparently, but one battling behind closed doors with the demon drink (Anyone for vodka? Oh, just me again then)・. Despite putting on her Best Mum in the World act for our benefit, mother-daughter tensions were clearly running high. The What are you doing with your
life・routine was the favourite, although the truth is that Feruza is engaged in highly daring political activism as well as putting hand to mouth as a waitress, whilst her mother subsidises big bruv professional naval-gazing. Nevertheless, the order of the day was plov-a-plenty (see below), many jovial enquiries into all things British, a rather disturbing randy fascination with Basher, and an insistence that we propose a lot of toasts, as a poor excuse for the woman to neck more vodka.
The Uzbek Book of Hospitality contains only one golden rule: offer your visitors everything you've got, and don't take no for an answer. Whatever food you have must be served up immediately (We got six mint humbugs,
half a melon and some vodka), and if your kids have any amusing talents they must use them to full effect (Dance girl, can't you see we've got guests?!). Oh, and remember: mutton equals happy guests.
Food, spurious food
Central Asian cuisine has evolved from the traditional diets of ancient Turkic tribes. The sum total of this accumulated culinary wisdom comes down
to this: catch an elderly beast that's fallen behind the herd, then boil it. Vegetables are an unnecessary extravagance for a hardy nomadic folk. Plus, I think, seasoning was outlawed as unrevolutionary during Stalinist times. So Uzbek dishes are all offal-based: ostensibly comprising either udders or double chins. All the regions of Uzbekistan put their own spin on dinner time, investing an inordinate amount of effort in reparing the kinds of cuts of meat that your cat would laugh at scornfully. Thus, the pride and joy of the Jizzekh region, for example, is the incomparable, salty
Jizz. What every Uzbek family prays for when gathered round the dinner table is, however, the nation's favourite plov. Here is a recipe for plov, just like your mother used to make:
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
1. Some form of meat・ Ask your butcher for something that died in mysterious circumstances・
2. Plov is a rice and mutton dish. Calculate the quantity of rice needed for the evening to end like the Gluttony scene from Seven. Then double it.
3. Vodka for the chef (mandatory).
4. Garnish of soggy carrot scrapings, fished out of the plug hole (optional).
5. Spices or flavouring of any description? Not for this recipe Delia!
PREPARATION:
1. Laying your pound of flesh on a chopping board, carefully cut out the leanest, most tender morsels. Throw those bits away.
2. Tenderize by dropping on the floor a few times. Any bits of fluff that get stuck on only add sophistication.
3. Heating the rice in chip oil will be much more original than doing it the old-fashioned way.
4. At this point in the cooking you will probably begin to realize the sheer scale of the cock-up you've created. Start drinking your vodka NOW.
5. Serve the whole lot on a single plate in a great steaming heap. Stand over your guests swigging vodka menacingly until they either finish it or start to cry. As they run to the toilet, cheerfully inform them that it doesn't work.
Tummy trouble
After a few days with an Uzbek family, mealtimes will start to look a bit like this:
Breakfast: garlic and pig trotter soup
Lunch: cocktail of antacid tablets and Imodium, washed down with tea that looks like crude oil.
Dinner: plov time again, is it Mother?
Now the human digestive system really is a miraculous thing. Think about it: day after day it does its duty, sifting through the inappropriate matter you shovel down to find something salvageable and nutritious, and
compacting the rejected remainder into soft, manageable pellets for easy disposal. After a particularly good clearout you congratulate yourself, with nary a thought to who the real hero is. Yet your stomach labours on.
After this much punishment, however, your well-maintained plumbing will have degenerated into a bubbling, gastric Chernobyl. Dashing from the dinner
table to the bathroom, therefore, you will not be best pleased to find that the antique lavatory hasn't flushed since Stalin, and is now a museum of mutant parasites, trapped like flies in amber in the encrusted bowl.
Time for a trip outside, then, where yet more horrors await.
A rickety shed down the street houses the communal dumping ground where bad plov comes to die. A letterbox shaped hole in the floor goes down 15 feet
to what can only be indelicately described as an enormous pile of crap. You're going to spend a good deal of time here, getting to know every knot in the timber, and striking up a decent rapport with the old woman from up the street who seems to walk past like clockwork every time the wind blows the door open. Aiming your watery bowel movements accurately from a
squatting position ought to be a training exercise for the RAF. Bonus points if you can make the turd pillar topple over by the sheer force of your own discharge. Twenty odd minutes of listening to the faint patter of
turd on turd later, thoroughly drained, its time to go for a lie down, and hope to God that everything will be alright in the morning."
Well, at least Cat and I didn't have to endure any stomach traumas quite that horrible, although we did have an encounter with the toilet in Osh that made us vow to become vegetarians forevermore (hmm, that didn't last long). The letterbox toilets are definitely a favourite out here, and I must note that in some ways at least, guys have it a lot easier than girls on that account!!
Written by Cara
(with a lot of help from Jeremy)
Sunday, December 14, 2003
Our time in Kyrgyzstan (well, my time, since Cat is coming back here after our India trip) has flown by so fast and now there is only a week left! We've barely had time to write in the blog here, but we will make more of an effort in India when we resume our vagabonding ways. We fly to Delhi next Saturday morning, the 20th. Unfortunately, our schedules are so packed that we haven't had much time to do any preliminary research on what we would like to do in Delhi, so that will all be done on the spot.
Anyway, winter has definitely entrenched itself out here now. Yesterday was probably the coldest day of the year. Poor Cat was freezing at her work out at the base- most stores here are along the lines of open-air stalls with only small, portable heaters for warmth- and the North Face shop at the base is no exception.
I've decided that Kyrgyzstan at this time of the year is a combination of winter wonderland and winter nightmare. Everything is blanketed in white and it is gorgeous. The air is crisp and clear and the white mountains tower behind the Soviet buildings. Lenin points skyward from underneath a blanket of snow (the Lenin statue is ironically now right next to the American University- it was banished to this less conspicuous locale earlier this year and replaced on the main square with a statue of liberty-esque thing). Everywhere I go, I see mothers and fathers pulling their small children behind them on sleds.
This winter joyousness is directly juxtaposed with the vision of a woman sitting on the roadside, shivering beneath a plastic tarp that is draped over her like a shawl, hoping to make money from the small pile of sad-looking pickles that is vanishing under the falling snow. The work goes on and you would think this country would be equipped for winter, but it is not. All of the markets are open-air. Vendors weigh out oranges with chapped and swollen hands. Sniffling and rosy-cheeked children wander around trying to sell whatever they can get their hands on. I know that there are hundreds of street children in this town- you cannot avoid them- and I cannot imagine how they cope with the cold. I mean, we suffer because the heat isn't turned up high enough! This is another appalling problem that the Kyrgyz government must face: lack of gas to provide heat. Uzbekistan supplies Kyrgyzstan with gas, but their tyrant of a leader makes this relationship as difficult as possible. For example, now, for the first time in thirteen years Uzbekistan has demanded that Kyrgyzstan must pay entirely in cash for their gas imports. Of course, there is no way Kyrgyzstan is capable of doing this. So the Kyrgyz people will likely have to suffer from no heat right in the middle of the coldest part of winter. No wonder people still yearn for Soviet times.
written by Cara
Anyway, winter has definitely entrenched itself out here now. Yesterday was probably the coldest day of the year. Poor Cat was freezing at her work out at the base- most stores here are along the lines of open-air stalls with only small, portable heaters for warmth- and the North Face shop at the base is no exception.
I've decided that Kyrgyzstan at this time of the year is a combination of winter wonderland and winter nightmare. Everything is blanketed in white and it is gorgeous. The air is crisp and clear and the white mountains tower behind the Soviet buildings. Lenin points skyward from underneath a blanket of snow (the Lenin statue is ironically now right next to the American University- it was banished to this less conspicuous locale earlier this year and replaced on the main square with a statue of liberty-esque thing). Everywhere I go, I see mothers and fathers pulling their small children behind them on sleds.
This winter joyousness is directly juxtaposed with the vision of a woman sitting on the roadside, shivering beneath a plastic tarp that is draped over her like a shawl, hoping to make money from the small pile of sad-looking pickles that is vanishing under the falling snow. The work goes on and you would think this country would be equipped for winter, but it is not. All of the markets are open-air. Vendors weigh out oranges with chapped and swollen hands. Sniffling and rosy-cheeked children wander around trying to sell whatever they can get their hands on. I know that there are hundreds of street children in this town- you cannot avoid them- and I cannot imagine how they cope with the cold. I mean, we suffer because the heat isn't turned up high enough! This is another appalling problem that the Kyrgyz government must face: lack of gas to provide heat. Uzbekistan supplies Kyrgyzstan with gas, but their tyrant of a leader makes this relationship as difficult as possible. For example, now, for the first time in thirteen years Uzbekistan has demanded that Kyrgyzstan must pay entirely in cash for their gas imports. Of course, there is no way Kyrgyzstan is capable of doing this. So the Kyrgyz people will likely have to suffer from no heat right in the middle of the coldest part of winter. No wonder people still yearn for Soviet times.
written by Cara
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