Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Bombay & Goa

Bombay/Mumbai

Our arrival in India was filled with great anticipation as Jason had never been there before and Priti had not been since her sister Julie and Kiran's wedding in 1999. We allotted more time here than any other country, seven weeks, which is really not very long because India is massive, hence its nickname as the sub-continent. Stepping out of the airport at around midnight, we saw a sea of brown faces awaiting their friends and families; thankfully our host Rajesh and his father were waiting for us with our names on a sign and it was pretty easy to spot Jason amongst the crowd (and contradicting our speculation in the Philippines entry that we’d never again be greeted at an airport with a personalized sign). Although we had never met them, and our connection distant (family friends’ in-laws) they treated us throughout our stay as if we were immediate family, and referred to Jason as ‘dhamadh’ or son-in-law. We arrived at their place in New Mumbai and were immediately offered a wonderful home-cooked Indian meal; the best cure in the world for a minor bout of homesickness. As we continued eating, not wanting to leave food on our plates for fear of offending our hosts, more and more food kept getting piled on. By the end of the meal we were both stuffed. Somehow we were uninformed that in India an empty plate signals that the person is not yet satiated so more food will be offered until there is food left on the plate…vital information for anyone traveling there and staying with hosts.

The following morning, after another wonderful meal (a phrase you will read often), we learned that there was a water shortage and thus they had to fill up buckets whenever the water was turned on. It was Jason’s first time taking a bucket shower and we both came to realize how much water is wasted using western showers, although we still prefer them. Freshened up, we went to the train station where we met Raj’s friend Ashok and his family, who were new arrivals to the city and thus accompanied us to the sights. Since we were not in a tourist area, Jason was the only non-Indian, and received lots of stares from the locals. Once in the train station, we got to witness the daily chaos that defines Indian rail travel. As the train approached, we could see passengers hanging out of the doors of each car and before the train even stopped dozens of them jumped off running in order to stop their momentum. As the throngs around us surged forward, it quickly became obvious that all six of us were not going to get aboard, so we held back and waited for the next one. Our strategy changed and Priti and Ashok’s wife went to an area to board a women's-only car so they wouldn't have to be subjected to the inevitable groping that happens in the dual-sex cars. As we once again pushed forward toward the door, we managed to squeeze in to the large sardine can with wheels; although we had ridden packed trains before (like in the Philippines), none of them compared to this one. From the station we took autos (same as tuk-tuks in Thailand) to the Gateway of India, which is a large fort dedicated to some British bloke and also the launching point to Elephanta Island. Behind it was the famous Taj Hotel. It was very hot and we had to wait quite some time for the ferry. The ferry itself took another hour and by the time we arrived at our destination we were both pretty exhausted. Also, having just seen Angkor Wat, the highlight of the island, a massive three-headed statue of Shiva, the Hindu god of creation and destruction, was not as fascinating to us as the rest of visitors. There were also temples built into caves. Inside some of them were lingas, which are phallic symbols of Shiva that represent fertility and adorned with coins, which would attempt to stick on; if the coins stuck it meant a baby would be forthcoming. We abstained since we want to wait until our trip is over before having our own. Speaking of, whenever we told Indians that we had been married for four years, their immediate follow-up question was "and how many children?" They never failed to look disappointed, and often sympathetic, when we replied "none yet."

However, at least then we weren’t stuck with the rest of them trying to get somewhere as we were from the moment we got in the car at 9:30 am until the moment we got out at 9:30 pm. Twelve hours in 90 F with humidity in a non-air-conditioned car is enough to drive anyone insane; we have no idea how the drivers do it day in and day out. Having lived in Arizona for four years, we thought we had acclimated to the heat, but the humidity in Bombay is suffocating, and set a record low temperature of eight degrees Celsius (~ 45 degrees F) a month after we left! The first stop (about three and a half hours after we left) was the ‘aquarium.’ Hailing from Omaha and Chicago, home to two of the best aquariums in the world, we had a hard time calling it that ourselves. It consisted of one medium-sized room, with rows of tanks, all of which were too populated, too small, or in most cases, both, for the marine life inside. Nonetheless, it wasThe next day we woke up early for a day tour of the city with Ashok and his wife and one-year-old daughter since Raj had to work. In short, Mumbai is HUGE. There are about 25 million people and throughout the three days we never found ourselves not surrounded by them. Geographically, the city never seems to end, as we had discovered the day before on the ferry. packed, and we were whisked along by the other visitors and were finished after about 20 minutes. Then it was back into the incinerator for another hour until we reached the Hanging Gardens. They were a much-needed respite from the city congestion, but we were disappointed that the famous view of Chowpatty beach was virtually non-existent due to the intense smog, which was much worse than anywhere else we’ve been. While strolling through the gardens, a group of young Indian men stopped Jason to have their photos taken, the first of many such instances. He tried unsuccessfully to keep it from going to his head. From there, we visited one of the Bollywood set locations. It is normally off-limits but since Jason was sitting in the front seat the guards assumed he was someone in the biz and didn’t stop us. We drove around and saw some of the sets and then turned around because the driver didn’t know where else to go. As we left, Jason had the tour book out and so the guards stopped us and questioned our whereabouts before letting us proceed. Our next stop was this pond that draws unsuspecting visitors to paddle around its confines. During our 30 minutes of paddling, we figured out that the reason pictures and video is strictly forbidden is because if word got out how pathetic it was, no one would ever visit. After the ride, we stopped for some snacks and had some massala-flavored snacks that had the texture of crunchy cheetos. Finally, we visited the Hari Krishna temple, which had scenes from the Bhagavad Gita represented with life-size models as well as a live re-enactment of one of the scenes. Although not religious, Jason found some of the passages accompanying the models to be very aligned with his mystical views on the nature of reality. We bought some tasty ladoos to cap off our long day. Throughout our entire stay, our hosts refused to let us pay for anything and did everything they could to make sure we were enjoying our stay. Too bad they couldn’t control the weather or the traffic. Raj and Jason spent the remainder of the night sharing music and Raj even loaded six CDs of traditional Indian music onto our jump drive.

Our final day in Mumbai/Bombay (like Ho Chi Minh City, it seemed whenever we said one the person said the other) was much more relaxed. Since Raj was working, his father took us out for massala dosa, which is a crepe filled with vegetables and one of our favorites. The dosas were massive and filling, yet we had to convince Uncle not to order more food. Afterwards, we went to see the latest Bollywood blockbuster, Welcome, a comedy where the hero falls in love with a woman from a mafia family. India actually produces more films every year than Hollywood and the locals we’ve met in just about every single country on our trip are big fans. Amitabh Bachan, with his snow white goatee, his replacement Shah Rukh Khan, and the former miss universe Aishwarya Rai, who married Bachan’s son, are household names throughout Asia and were ubiquitous, their faces plastered on just about every billboard. Front-page news stories during our stay included the release of Khan’s income tax returns (he earned five times the next highest paid actor) and a school being named after Mrs. Rai (although her husband was inexplicably absent). Incredibly, none of them were in the movie, although the stunning Mallika Sherawat (far right on poster) played a supporting role. There were no sub-titles so Priti had to translate, though there were many English words sprinkled in, as English and Hindi are both official languages (Hinglish?). The movie was funny at times and the soundtrack was good. The house was packed and we suspected that the Nepalese guy sitting next to Jason was high on something; he went to the concession three times during the movie and each time brought back something for Jason, all of which he politely refused. After the movie we browsed some of the shops and then got our bus tickets to Goa, as the much-preferred trains had long been booked for the upcoming New Year’s celebration. We took photos with our hosts and noticed something odd—no Indians smile in their pictures. Jason decided from then on to stop smiling in pictures while in India, much to the annoyance of Priti.

Goa

We were a bit nervous heading to Goa during the most popular week because with the booming Indian economy, many more Indians are traveling and thousands flock to the beach-infused state for the final week of the year. The sleeper bus to Panjim (the capital) was not too bad but we initially thought our fears had materialized, as the first four guesthouses that we stopped at (all from the guidebook) were completely booked. Mercifully, travel life exists outside the confines of Lonely Planet, and we managed to find reasonably priced accommodation (albeit still double the normal rate). Jason courageously or foolishly decided to rent a scooter so that we could visit Old Goa. Despite a couple close calls, he managed to get us there intact. Because Goa was first colonized by the Portuguese, it has the highest proportion of Christians in the country and we actually managed to make it to church on Christmas Day.
We visited several of them in fact, one of which houses the remains of St. Francies Xavier. It was surreal for him to see groups of Indians kneeling in prayer before a large crucifixion sculpture while listening to Christmas jingles in the background. Since Panjim was not on the beach, we decided to head north to check out some of the different beach towns because there are about a dozen to choose from. First we checked out Anjuna, which is popular with westerners for its supposed ‘hippy’ vibe. After our previous experiences in Pai, we were skeptical and after seeing hordes of yapping yippies with Bob Marley blaring in the background, we crossed it off our list.

After checking out a few other spots, we took the public bus to Calangute. We stopped at a few places to stay but they were either booked up, outrageous or total dumps. Once again, the fears were creeping in, so we headed for the beach and just started walking along it, hoping somewhere would fall into our laps. Thus, for the first time in five months, we had to convert our larger bags to backpacks. So for those of you considering taking an extended trip, we highly recommend getting bags with wheels. We walked for about fifteen minutes before someone brought us to a guesthouse just a few hundred meters off the beach. It was still overpriced by Indian standards for essentially a beach hut ($20) but we didn’t want to press our luck. We quickly changed and headed back to the beach, which is one of the longest uninterrupted beaches in the world, and stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. It was packed with mostly Indian men, many of whom walked hand in hand and way too many donning only tighty whities. Others had cameras and were furtively taking pictures of the women in bikinis. All along the beach are shacks that offer food and drink and padded beach chairs with umbrellas. Jason went out to ride the waves of the Arabian Sea, which would turn over all the way to the beach. Several times they were so strong that the flipped him over and he ended up more than once with his head planted in the sand. Because of the violent surf, the lifeguards were vigilant and would not let swimmers go out further than about 30 feet. Many of the Indians in the water did not appear too comfortable and Jason almost had to rescue one Sikh man who had strayed too far out. About a dozen passers-by stopped to have their photos taken with Jason, who had by now-in his-mind-attained full-on rock-star status.

Meanwhile, Priti mostly stayed in the shade, engrossed in Zorro, an excellent novel by Isabel Allende. One of the best things about traveling (or more precisely, not working) is that there is so much free time to read books. We have read many great and some not-so-great books during our trip, and at the end will post a complete list along with brief reviews (in honor of Sapna, who told us in Bangkok that she had been rating all books she had read to post on their blog but in a spate of self-consciousness had shredded them). At nights, many of the beach shacks would turn into dance clubs that blasted trance and bhangra music until dawn. And so our days at the nearest beach shack and nights in the clubs passed by in Goa. After frantically zipping around SE Asia and then Mumbai, we were content to just kick back on the beach and enjoy the nightlife. Actually, another recommendation for those considering extended travel is to plan interludes of ‘vacations-within-the-vacation’ where you just veg out, because although traveling can’t really be described as difficult, it is easy to get worn out by trying to see and do everything in every place on one's itinerary.

Some of the daytime highlights included the daily procession of cows that straggled onto the beach before being chased away by the dogs. One chilled out cow spent most of one day lounging next to us. A British family that spent every day in the same shack had two teenage daughters who were constantly being stared at, even though one wasn’t older than 13. Several times, they started shouting obscenities at Indian perverts who were taking video. On the one hand, we sided with them because the Indian men could be completely obnoxious perverts. For example, while we were walking down the beach at night, obviously together, a group of men passed by and one of them reached out and groped Priti’s rear end. She yelled at him and Jason started to go after him, but he ran off just as would be expected from desperate loser. At the same time the older daughter was wearing a very skimpy bikini in a modest country, so could it really come as a surprise when she got stares? One unattractive older woman even had the audacity to sunbathe topless! Another highlight were the sand castles they constructed which were huge and looked like some of the temples we would soon see. We returned to Anjuna for the famous Wednesday market that was ridiculously huge, with merchants descending from regions far and wide to sell their goods. Jason couldn’t resist and purchased a few shirts and a necklace.

Nighttime highlights included the restaurant right next to our guesthouse, Mirabai. They had live music several nights a week, but the food was outstanding. Their tandoori chicken ($4 for a whole chicken) was the best we’ve ever had and the took over an hour to prepare on the grill; by the time we left, we were eating there exclusively. We also sampled the Kingfisher beer which was decent enough. One night we watched a Rajasthani music/dance group which featured a cross-dresser who, among other amazing feats, balanced pots on his head while dancing on broken glas. At most of the clubs, 95% of the dancers were men, and we couldn’t help but laugh when some of them would get up on the platforms and twirl their shirts around, a scene we would expect to see at a gay club. We reluctantly spent New Year’s Eve at a nearby shack/club that provided a full dinner and unlimited drinks for just $20 per couple. As expected, the food was sub-par but at least they didn’t run out of booze and had good music and entertainment, including fire dancers that mesmerized the guests and onlookers alike. Speaking of entertainment, Jason proved to be one of the biggest draws of the evening, for every time he went out to dance he was literally mobbed by dozens of Indian men who wanted to dance with him. Furthermore, when he was dancing, big crowds would gather at the barrier to watch him, and then some even paid the entry fee just to join in the frenzied dancing. Thus, the owner of the place was thrilled and even offered us to his house for dinner the following night. During the insanity, Jason began to understand the dual-sided nature of celebrity; the fans may appear to adore the celebrity but really they just relish what the celebrity represents. In his case, it was a white man who could dance like an Indian. While the throngs fawned over Jason, Priti was being looked after by a very nice, albeit naïve, Sikh man, who warned her about her Bacardi Breezer "benji (sister), that’s not juice, you know that has alcohol in it?" Meanwhile, his friend started putting the moves on her, and eventually Jason had to enlist his handlers to take of him (hah, actually, he took care of it himself). When we returned to the room, Jason capped off his rock-star fantasy by serenading Priti with long songs from his MP3 player, much to her chagrin and anyone else within listening range.

We spent our last day in Goa as we had the rest, lounging on the beach. We booked a bus ticket back to Mumbai, which had increased a ridiculous fifty percent because of the date. We looked into flights directly to Udaipur, our next stop, but they were prohibitively expensive, so we booked a much-cheaper flight from Mumbai because we couldn’t stomach back-to-back 10 hour bus rides. The shuttle bus that was supposed to take us back to Panjim from Calangute was full so we had to wait an hour for it to make the roundtrip return. There were some children begging and one of them reacted to receiving our bananas as if we’d just made her day; it broke his heart when she came over and clutched Jason’s hand as our shuttle departed. When we got to the bus station, we got shuffled onto our bus and realized that is wasn’t the same company we’d taken to Goa; the sleeping compartments were smaller, and the driver was much less considerate of his sleeping passengers…so concludes part one of our India adventure.

No comments: