I’m skipping ahead a little in my documentation of this tour of India. Really, I’m just bored.

In my normal usual life I don’t really talk to strangers in the street. I’m slow to make friends and feel relatively uncomfortable in strange social situations. But then I went to India and everything changed. After a few days of incredulity and backwards glances, I tentatively started conversing with randoms and my existence improved almost immediately. I went from feeling empty, lost and lonely to playing cards and drinking with new friends, sharing breakfasts with locals in Varanasi and getting the low-down on eating options in Udaipur. But no random meeting was as heartwarming as when I met this family in Jodhpur.

Walking back from an early morning solo turn about Mehrangarh Fort, I was called over to a group of men sitting in the shade having a chat. Anywhere else in the world I would have ignored their words, looked straight ahead and kept on walking, but India changed me. I sat and chatted with the one man who spoke English. He ran a nearby Government subsidy store, and seemed to spend his days just hanging around. Tea was brought and kids ran around. Then the man told me story. Recently his brother died, and he was now looking after the widow and her son. They were all very sad and the child still bore the signs of a recently shaved head. I have no idea what to say in this situation, so I played with the kids, took some photos and somehow found the opportunity to politely excuse myself (one skill I have yet to learn). As I wandered away, smiling, I passed an open doorway and was grabbed and invited in by the women of the family.

These people were so sad and kind. We chatted in broken English while the little girls played with my hair and jewellery. They fed me lunch and even sent a kid out to buy me a bottle of mineral water. The elder girl painted the fingernails on one hand without me noticing, I played carrom and took loads of photos. The kids dragged me on a tour of their brightly coloured house, two rooms downstairs, a small kitchen and large bedroom upstairs (with a balcony with a great view of the fort) and a searingly hot roof terrace. It was lovely to be in the warm embrace of a family again, even for a few short moments.

These people were so obviously poor but wonderfully generous and kind. I left, promising photos in the mail, with gifts of bracelets and a smile on my face, so glad to have returned that first ‘hello’.

More photos on flickr

Victoria Monument, I didn’t actually go inside.

Kolkata. Calcutta. I don’t know. I don’t understand you and I don’t think I ever will.

I arrived late in the afternoon and in a bit of a mess to this unruly city and was soon out in the centre of it. I wandered around, shrouded, attempting to minimise the incessant staring. I was uncomfortable, hot and hungry and I had no idea how things worked. What bothered me most was the hordes of gaping men everywhere, their eyes boring holes in me. Every eatery I passed was swarmed by flies and rubbish or filled with men, or both. Eventually I forced myself into a hole in the wall greasy spoon for a fabulous chilli paneer kathi roll. But more on that later.

After inhaling dinner on the street, I got back to my hostel just as the rain started. The monsoon arrives early here. Somewhat exhilarated by my successes I watched some hilarious Indian TV. The next morning on my way to buy some new, more appropriate, clothes (before I realised that nothing here opens before 10am at the very earliest), there were goats just across the way. GOATS! (C’mon, India was new to me at this point, I’d yet to get goated out).

My time spent in Kolkata was mostly devoted to being OK with this. I bought clothes and just figured shit out, really. One morning I was up really early, and the streets were eerily quiet. Every so often a yellow cab rolled through the mist, human rickshaws trotted by and chai stalls served sleepy customers. It felt like the India I had imagined, the India I knew from movies and photographs. There were loads of people around going about their business, no one was talking to me. I figured this scene was repeated daily and not feeling at ease as yet I left my camera in my bag. Maybe I just never felt this way again here, but I never saw Kolkata like this again.

One day I visited the Victoria Monument before the heat set in. I sat in the park, ate a samosa from a bag made of newspaper and enjoyed the quiet. On my way back to the town a man tried to talk to me, I ignored him (I was ignoring everyone at the stage, every “yes ma’am” and “hello sister” was scratching at my very soul), he countered with “but sister, don’t be sad, you’re in India!”. I’m not sad, I’m just totally freaked out.

Hello!

India is intense, tiring and spectacular. I have been lulled into that fabulous holiday state of not knowing what day it is and have somehow failed to tell my stories here. I have been writing some things down though, to be posted with pictures later. Speaking of photos, I’ve taken a heaping helping of them and some aren’t half bad.

To say it has been hot is a bit of an understatement. Stepping outside is like being blown by an enormous hair dryer. The temperature barely drops when the sun goes down, so nothing had a chance to cool down. The walls heat up and the bed is warm before you even lie down. This would all be ok if it weren’t for the power cuts. For the last 10 days the power has gone out every night. I know, because I’ve woken up bathed in sweat, unable to go back to sleep. Cold showers are the best, even when it is just a bucket of cold water thrown over your head. Don’t worry about drying off, that would defeat the purpose. Unfortunately though, watertanks being on the roof the cold tap often emits a scalding stream. But I am getting used to it, I’ll have to because I’m heading further into the desert.

I just arrived in Jaipur, a short train trip from Agra, sleep deprived and starving. It’s time for lunch.

I wasn’t happy about coming to India. I rally wanted to, but the actuality of visiting terrified me. I dreaded the plane landing, dawdling as long as possible in order to delay the inevitable. Happily waiting in line for the sole money changer to complete endless paperwork, rewarded with my very first head wobble.

Then to the taxi coupon window, waiting again and studiously ignoring the group of men who always seem to gather on the fringe of allowable at airports world wide, just past the armed guards. Harmless enough, just trying to catch an eye to communicate their wares. I ignore them, take a deep breathe and emerge into India.

What scares me about India? Where do I start? Mostly it is the unknown. This is an enormous country that I know little about and bears little resemblance to the other Asian countries I’ve visited. What about the food? Elsewhere I’ve always been able to fall back on boring but reliable noodle soup for a meal. I don’t have an Indian equivalent.  I’m scared of getting sick, scared of getting hassled and groped, scared of offending people. Just scared. But the tickets have been bought ans I’m on the cusp of knowing what I’m so scared about.

Outside Kolkata’s Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International airport gather the usual gaggle of touts. I adopt my coping mechanism, pay attention but don’t show it, and make my way unmolested to the line of waiting yellow taxi cabs surrounded by men.

The whole process is painless enough and with little delay we are zooming through the outskirts of Kolkta, windows down, horn blazing and bumping along suspensionless on bench seats, brakes squealing. I’m used to this kind of driving from Hanoi, but there taxis are new (cars are a recent addition to the roads of Vietnam) air conditioned bubbles bumbling along at low speed. Here, these old ambassadors are getting run down by smoking creaky hulks of buses, wile the drivers indicate by sticking their arms and heads out the window,  yelling to each other to move.

The driver takes an unexpected right turn (I have no idea why I have expectationsbout this journal) and we depart ‘Salt Lake City’ to bowl at full speed through tiny alleys and around blind corners, dodging people and oncoming cars, bikes and rickshaws. Just as I’m starting to enjoy the ride and have relaxed enough to realise we aren’t going to hit any pedestrians, I start to recognise street names. All too quickly I’m out of the car and the driver is asking me for something, a tip. In the chaos of my first hour on Indian soil I have failed to properly sort my money out. I know the exchange rate, but have no idea about how much is an appropriate tip. I apologise profusely, but I’m not about to open my wallet here on the street, surrounded by hordes of passers-by and try to sort out the thousand rupee bills from the hundreds, from the tens. I fear I may have upset the fine balance with this horrendous failure on my part, but if so, I’m yet to see the outcome.