Please check out my latest story on World Hum, titled The Bucket and the Cup. It's all about how India kicked my traveling ass.

Labels: india, travel, World Hum, writing

Labels: india, photography, wedding

I apologize that I cannot dish about last night's Oscars. I watched about 30 minutes and fell asleep. Very, very asleep.

So, on an entirely different subject...

I love reading newspapers when I travel and the Indian newspapers were particularly entertaining.

I had a hard time connecting the gracious, friendly, gentle and soft-spoken people I encountered on the trip with the frequent news stories I read of politicians trading insults, angry protests, strikes, raids, violence…Still waters, I guess.

I also enjoyed the coverage of Bollywood, even though I know none of the stars. It’s always refreshing to visit a country that doesn’t rely on America for pop culture, as so many seem to. In one big story, a Bollywood star (male) quelled rumors that he had married his Bollywood girlfriend by pointing out that she still lives with her mother. She’s a nice girl, see?

Anyway, I clipped a few of my favorite things from newspapers to share with you. (And since I did see news stories about India’s lack of intellectual property laws, I have thrown caution to the wind and scanned this stuff in.)

Valentine’s Day received a huge amount of ink but my favorite is this photo of a couple obviously having the romantic time of their lives. Where is the love?

Oh, here is the love, if you yearn to spend your life with a “strict disciplinarian.” Yikes.

I caught only the tail end of stories about dancing bans in Bangalore, but I did find this tidbit intriguing. And we did see eunuchs around town—they look like transvestites in saris.

Anyone need a uterus wall hanging?

And finally, the Times of India (which I preferred to The Hindu) includes an essay of guru-es que wisdom in every issue. I liked this one. (I think if you click on it, it will be large enough to read.)

Labels: india, newspapers

Clothing was a big player on this trip. My newly purchased items were OK but didn’t entirely cut it, especially for the wedding, and I ended up shopping for yet more clothes so as to not stand out. While men mostly wear Western style clothes in the cities, most women wear traditional dress.

It struck us as kind of funny that while saris reveal an expanse of skin from just under the bust to the waist , modesty requires shoulders be covered. The bride whose wedding we attended wore a sleeveless top one day, inspiring comment from one of her aunties, who said, “My, aren’t you modern.”

My theory is that while women’s stomachs range widely in attractiveness, especially as years and gravity take hold, shoulders usually manage to remain alluring.

Catherine and I took a walk around the lake in Hyderabad one day wearing our Western clothes—nothing sexy, just jeans and loose (although scandalously v-necked) t-shirts. We were kind of sweaty and really not looking our best but were nevertheless hollered by passing men as if we were hoochie mamas. This convinced us to change our style for the duration of the trip.

Don’t you love saris? They’re so beautiful—all those mouth-watering jewel tones, the drapes, the trim. The bride bought saris for all the women in her wedding party and so our first day in Hyderabad included a stop at a sari shop for last-minute fittings. Most of the women had already mailed their measurements for cholis, the little tops worn under saris, but we then spent a while sitting in a closet-sized shop surrounded by beautiful fabrics while they were measured again and shown the colors they would wear for the wedding.

We also all shopped at a department store as well as at a chaotic market for the more casual uniform of the Indian woman: the salwar kameeze, which is long full pants worn under a tunic and accessorized with a long scarf.

This outfit fascinates me not only because it’s incredibly comfortable and appropriate for the climate but because I love the simplicity of having a uniform. Women all wear the same thing in different colors and patterns with slight variations in the cut of the pants, the length of the tunic (I’m told shorter tunics are more modern), the way they drape their scarves. And everyone looks beautiful in it. I purchased three of these outfits and I’m trying to decide if I would look foolish wearing them in Dallas.

Shopping in the market was fun. You slip off your shoes and sit on the padded floor of a stall while the owner whips out outfit after outfit for you to admire. It’s like prestidigitation—magical piles of colors and patterns, sparkle and silk until you finally walk away or succumb to one, two or as many outfits as they can persuade you to buy. Bargaining wasn’t difficult, although who knows if I got the best price. I got prices good enough for me—a full outfit of salwar, kameez and orhna could be had for about $10-$20.

This also was my first experience of seeing many women in burqas. While I wouldn’t want to be required to wear a burqa, I confess to finding the sight of dark almond-shaped eyes looking out from the heavy black drapes strangely alluring. And, having blossomed to bodaciousness at an early age in New York City, where many men imagined that kissing, sucking, hissing noises were appropriate appreciation of women on the street, I also could imagine enjoying the freedom such a covering would provide. In fact, through much of my hippie-dippy adolescence, one of my favorite garments was a vintage nurse’s cape, which provided me and my overdeveloped body some protection.

I did note, however, that lots of women wore sassy shoes with their burkas, and the clothing didn’t prevent them from being among the many courting couples we saw in city parks.

Today I am a hoochie mama in sweatpants and a 20-year-old sweatshirt. I miss dressing as an Indian.

Labels: fashion, india, travel

Catherine and I arrived home late last night none the worse for wear although hardly looking our best. Tom picked us up at the airport and his first reaction was to laugh at us. “You look like a couple of drowned rats,” he said. Yeah, 37,004 hours on airplanes will do that to you. Our first flight in the epic journey home was about 14 hours (give or take--all the time changes confused us) and that just got us to London.
I am far too jet-lagged and addled to sort through my impressions of India yet except to say it was absolutely wonderful and thrilling but may also be the Most Confusing Country Ever. No matter what we thought we knew each day, we quickly realized that we didn’t. I did get comfortable with the whole concept of the bucket shower after it was explained to me by a smarter traveler, and I even got to like it. So there is that.
Let’s do the math, shall we? Two weeks, 11 airplanes and seven hotel rooms, including a houseboat and two rooms in one hotel because our India-based travel agent confirmed our reservation with us without actually confirming that the room was available at the hotel. The hotel management was nice enough to move us to another room that came available instead of kicking us out. The trip was kind of like that all the way through. Count on nothing, you know? We learned that, too.
I want a do-over on this trip because two weeks was hardly enough to get our bearings. There was so much we didn’t see or do … Granted, it’s a whole sub-continent and two weeks is barely a blip of time and included travel days and three days of wedding festivities, at the wedding of a friend of Catherine’s. (It was a small wedding by Indian standards, just a few hundred people. I’ll tell you about it someday.) But still, I feel like I did a bad job of the trip because the learning curve was so steep. So much I would do differently…
Next time. And there will be a next time, somehow.
It is now tomorrow in India and jet lag is starting to make me queasy and cross-eyed so I will end with a small moment of homecoming culture shock before I collapse back into deep, painful, drooling jet lag sleep.
Our last pee in India was in the Bangalore airport bathroom, which had four stalls with both Western style toilets and squatters, typical nefarious puddles of water on the floor, typical Indian lack of toilet paper (fortunately Catherine had supplied us with 12 years' worth of little Kleenex packets) and a woman sleeping soundly on the floor. She was the restroom attendant, who had spread newspaper on the floor to sleep on but was nonetheless sleeping on an airport restroom floor. Catherine gave her our last 50 rupees. That's just a few dollars but it could at least buy her a few months' worth of clean newspapers. (Actually, the floor couldn't have been much harder than the beds in our first hotel, into which we flopped with exhaustion, nearly giving ourselves concussions.)
Our first pee in America was at O’Hare in Chicago, in a huge, hushed, gleaming rest room with at least a half dozen stalls with automated toilet seat covers, automated toilet paper rolls, automated flushers and automated faucets. And nobody sleeping on the floor.
It was kinda different.

Labels: india, travel

A moment of respectful silence, please, for a retiring workhorse.

It’s been a fine old daypack and has covered a lot of ground with me. It attaches to a convertible pack that I bought in 1994 (I think it was) for a trip through five Alpine nations. Alone. By train. In 10 days. Oy, what a stupid trip I planned. The resulting article was titled “The Fabulous Alpine Adventure and Its Evil Twin.” Every two days, I was in a different country, trying to find my hotel, trying to figure out what to eat, trying to wrap my mind around the money, since this was pre-euro. I get a headache just thinking about it. I saw some lovely places thought. Ever been to Slovenia?

I haven't used the main pack much, since I discovered the beauty of rolling bags, but it's going to India with me because I suspect surfaces I'll encounter won't be rolling bag-friendly. And I'm packing light so carrying should be OK.

Anyway, it will be a while before I can bear to actually throw this old pack out—it’s served me so well. Well traveled, Hale Fellow.

But it's time for in with the new.

I just realized that one of my professional organizations gives me a whopping 50 percent discount on Eagle Creek’s quality travel accessories. I first ordered the Vienna, but they were out of stock, so I’m trying something new—the Vagabond, a snazzy little messenger-style bag rather than a pack. It’s a bold change, but I’ve been carrying messenger bags for urban travel recently. This might be a comfortable option for more ambitious travel, too. I like the look and it has lots of pockets and zippered sections. It will either be perfect or I’ll spend the entire trip trying to remember what pockets I put things in.

This is an intimidating trip to pack for because we have three days of wedding festivities, a conservative culture and malaria-carrying mosquitoes. (Note to self: Start taking malaria pills today.) Lonely Planet and our contacts in India urge conservative dress for women. Loose t-shirts, long skirts (also for sun and mosquitoes) and shoulders covered. And flip-flops.

I don’t have a lot of appropriate skirts so I took a quick romp though the Marshall’s clearance racks and hit pay dirt with a pretty maroon Jones of New York skirt for $10. At Target, I spent $12.99 on little black Massimo top, simple but suitably dressy with the right jewelry, I think. I hope.

The big purchase is my new camera, a Canon Rebel XP. I’ve been using a little point ‘n’ shoot for the past few years. I’m taking it back up a couple of notches.

I’ve got my packing organized, now I must run off for a pedicure. Much barefoot will occur on this trip. Gnarly winter feet will not do.

Labels: india, packing, travel