Another goodbye...

My friend recently gave me this picture- me in awe after seeing the Dalai Lama :)

Intricately carved temple in Udaipur

Location: Udaipur and Agra, India
Date: March 11, 2010

A month in this fascinating country was not nearly enough. I only got the chance for a tiny taste of what India has to offer, and it has definitely left me wanting more. Yet, I have to admit that leaving is also a bit of relief. Though I had come to love so many things about this country, I also had a lot of trouble processing the kinds of things I was seeing. A child walking around the train station with a cloth covering his mouth and then removing it to reveal his cleft palate and beg for money, a woman scooting around on a piece of wood all day begging for money and then walking in the night, a woman begging for milk (no money!) while holding her sick baby and then going back to the store to return the milk for money, a dead puppy covered with flies on the side of the road….the list goes on and on, and I still haven’t been able to fully comprehend these things. One of the drawbacks to moving from country to country is my inability to process the things I experience. Though I see and hear and smell these things, I keep going from one place to the next and seeing new things, and it is tough to take a moment to ponder what is around me…the sights just whiz by and later on I find myself waking up in the middle of the night just thinking of something I saw.

Inside the palace

Palaces on the water in Udaipur
But…. I am forgetting the beauty. there are many heartbreaking and difficult experiences, there are also so many wonderful things about India that I can’t imagine finding anywhere else. The feel of lying on a top bunk of a sleeper bus and staring out the window at the villages full of water buffaloes, eating a hot honey covered chapati on the street for breakfast, the street chatter of the vendors as you pass the shops in the evening, the immediate calm you feel after surviving a rickshaw ride, the offer and sharing of a pot of chai and a conversation with a merchant who invites you into her home, the quick exchange of a head bow across the busy streets, the satisfaction of waking up and realizing you only got 20 bed bug bites…


So yes, I am confused. I wonder about the mix of the good and the bad and the sad and the happy….India makes me so confused. I wonder about the children who were injured by their parents so that they could get more money when begging (this is true- not just on Slumdog Millionaire), I wonder what the women who sell the milk back to the shop do with the rupees they get (don’t they have to eat?), I wonder about it all, and I don’t have any answers. But I know I’ll be back, and hopefully I will learn more.

Baby Monkey!

In the last few days of India, I spent some time in Udaipur, Rajasthan, a pretty lakeside town with palaces on the lake and then caught a bus to Agra, where the Taj Mahal sits.
The Taj Mahal is exquisite- it appears almost as ghost in the background of the horizon, and only upon touching it do you realize that it is real. This gigantic monument is a terrific love story. It was erected by a king in honor of his wife, who had, one her death bed, requested that he build something for her to represent their neverending love. So only after thousands of pounds of marble and semi-precious stones were carved and fitted perfectly together, was this monument completed. Sadly, the father had a money-grubbing son who decided to lock his father up in the nearby Agra Fort. So after 6 years of residing in the Taj, the dad was imprisoned, and his only request to his naughty son was that he should see the Taj Mahal from his cell. So, what does the son do? Well, he puts a giant rock of a diamond into the cell, and fits it in a location so that no matter what angle his father is looking from, he can see a reflection of the Taj Mahal in the stone.

I had the absolute pleasure of meeting a very special family yesterday while visiting the Taj. They were kind enough to take a picture for me, and then as I walked away, the dad came up to me and invited me to come with him and learn about the Taj and the other sites of Agra , since I was alone. So the day turned out quite fantasically, and I not only saw many sights of Agra, but I also had the most fabulous company of the Gnosh family. Thank you again! It is only when you are traveling alone that these amazing experiences can happen, and I know I have met a family that I will be friends with for a long time.

The Gnosh family and I in front of the Taj.

Where the king was held captive after his son imprisoned him.

Eating our rasgullah after seeing the Taj.

The crazy Delhi bus station...

Where I bought my last chai.

I ended my trip to India by grabbing a street side chai on the main bazaar of Paharganj, Delhi, and watching the people pass by. It was funny thinking back that I entered the country with such a fear and that on that very same street, my first hours in India were spent locked inside of a hotel room and scared to death. One month later, I felt confident and happy sipping the chai and reveling in the chaotic beauty of Delhi.

Namaste, India. You have enchanted me with your charms and your scents and I am sure to be back soon. Next stop: Bangkok.

Roisin and Thayaa, thanks for everything.