72 hours

There are no words to describe the past 72 hours to those who have not been to India. I was going to write about how Alex and I volunteered at this shelter for women and girls in distress called Ish Kripa Sadan, which is run by nuns with MSW degrees. I wanted to write about the plight of some of the women and children we met there and also talk about the last days in Goa and the near goat attack we experienced while trying to feed the baby goat and the serial killer who moved into the hostel room next to us the day before we left Anjuna...and the 4 bus rides, 2 flights and subsequent taxi ride to get from Anjuna Goa to Delhi to meet my sister, but all of that just does not even seem relevant or interesting when compared to the past 3 days in this country. Ok, I will tell you about the serial killer, as it is too good to pass up...a German man (or a man putting on a German accent) moved into the room next to us in Anjuna. He was strange and spoke strangely and wore bright yellow pants, and orange shirt and a red coat (he looked like a rainbow). We just got a weird feeling about him so we just avoided him, as he kept saying "you stop rain, you stop rain" over and over again. The following morning (when we were leaving), we went outside and discovered that he had left us 2 cups of some liquid, a pack of mentos and polo candies and his weird scrapbook on our patio table. The scrapbook had all sorts of magazine cut outs of women and articles about women who had either been murdered in some horrific way or been caught cheating on their spouse and then were subsequently killed by their spouse. There were also love hearts around random women's faces and the word "titing" throughout the book as well. Not sure what that meant, but we ran fast and far! So, I will preface the rest of this story by saying that we are SO excited that Wendy is here with us and that she is getting the real true India experience and not the cushy one we promised her and tried so hard to organize, but this is Melissa and Alex after all so that means there will always be some sort of obstacle or snafu, despite our best intentions! Alex and I made it to Delhi airport after a harrowing use of all possible public transport systems to find Wendy in good health and good spirits, but without the arranged taxi driver promised by the hotel we had pre-booked. We thought she just might have missed him, as there are thousands of taxi drivers lined up at the exit of the airport to retrieve their passengers so perhaps they did not see each other. Now, one would think that you just go back inside the airport to go look for the taxi driver, but not in India. One has to purchase an 80 rupee ticket to re-enter the airport exit area, but is not allowed to walk down the row where all passengers are exiting to see the signs with names on it, one has to stand on the other side of the barrier and ask each and every person there to show their sign only to discover that one's name is not on any of the signs so one has to make one's way home one's self! Cue influx of shady cab drivers. I think that after 9 weeks in India, I am strong and tough and can bargain and am aware of bad people, but oh how wrong I am. We were herded to the curb by this "taxi driver" who tried to fleece us out of a ridiculous amount of money for a cab ride and as we were all discussing this, some undercover and non-undercover police officers approached this man and interviewed us about our relation to him, as he is some shady man that is in trouble with the law. So, the police eventually escorted us to a safe cab and we were well on our way to the hotel...at 2:00am. I was already rehearsing my speech to the hotel to ensure that we would be reimbursed for the taxi ride. When we arrived at the hotel at 4:00am (for a journey that should have taken no more than 30 minutes), as our taxi driver had NO idea where we were going and just drove around in circles asking all the derelicts who are out on the street at 4:00am where the hotel was! Luckily, Alex and I had already stayed in this hotel when we first arrived 9 weeks ago, so we kind of recognized it and eventually made our way there. Despite our exhaustion, we stayed up laughing about childhood stories until sunrise, as which time we fell asleep until about noon. We went downstairs so I could demand our taxi fare back and organize a tour of Delhi for the day, as Delhi is not a walking city. We were able to finagle a deal with the taxi and adopted a poor non-English speaking Spanish travelling man who looked like a deer caught in the headlights on his first day in Delhi. We can all relate to that look and feeling on ones first day in India. We took him with us for a day in Delhi. This was actually a wonderful day with delicious food and many sites to behold. Wendy took 1 million pictures and our little adopted Spanish friend Sergio, was actually a delightful boy who was mesmerized by the fact that all the Indian men hold hands and cuddle, but are not gay. Hmmm...you can all reach your own conclusions about this interesting Indian loop hole. They (Indians) have actually created a third gender called Hijras who are made up of hermaphrodites, trans-gendered individuals and gay men (oh, and Lonely Planet says those who were unfortunate enough to be kidnapped and castrated) and they all live together and are considered the third gender. It is a strange and difficult place for anyone struggling with their sexual identity or those with any sort of disability or deformity, but back to my story!
We visited Red Fort, the Lotus Temple, a Muslim Mosque, Hindu Temple, Sikh Temple, Humayan's Tomb markets and went to a government run bottle shop to purchase a few beers and some Indian snacks to have a drink with our new friend and celebrate Wendy's first day. We had our drinks, ate our tasty snacks (crispy peanuts and fried things and a fruit salad I made with apples, mangoes and pears) and taught Sergio how to play Rummy. Then Wendy took the first shower and drifted off to sleep. Alex and I still had showers to take and in the middle of mine, while still with a head full of shampoo and body covered in soap, the water pressure started dwindling and eventually stopped all together. Now, I thought that a cold shower late at night was the worst thing, but I have now changed my mind and the new worst thing about bathing in India is when the water stops and you are covered in some soap, some shampoo and your own filth with no way of getting it off of your person. Cue positive attitude and the quote, "only in India." So we pushed through that hurdle and fell asleep, as we had a 6:00am start to our next day to Riskikesh. We all fella sleep around 4:00am...this bit is crucial further down the story!
We met our driver and loaded our bags onto the roof of the smallest car in the history of the world...and by loading our bags on the roof, I mean the driver used the random dangling straps from our bags to tie the backpacks down onto the roof...not sure if those would not fly off, but we just pushed through. To note, the monsoon has ended and the weather reaches highs of 48 degrees. This was not to effect us, as we were tucked away nicely into our air conditioned taxi to Rishikesh. As we drove down the 300km road to Rishikesh, we observed thousands of men dressed in all orange carrying these ornate half moon shaped wooden creations over their shoulders, curved side up in the air and straight edge resting on their shoulders. On either side of these creations are baskets with offerings to the G-d Shiva (the snake G-d), and every year they walk the 300km from Rishikesh to Delhi for this 10 day festival. Now, we all get excited for a festival and we are no different. How lucky that we just randomly timed our trip to Rishikesh to fall during this festival...what a huge mistake. First, all the roads up to Rishikesh were closed down due to this festival, therefore we had to drive on closed roads illegally and through some dirt paths never before trekked upon! Still, all three of us positive happy travellers enjoying this crazy experience...how foolish we were! After 8 1/2 hours of what should have taken no more than 6 hours (again, India time) we arrived at the road block to the only road leading to our hotel. What to do, well what you do is you park the car about 3 miles away from the hotel and make the travellers carry all of their 70 pound backpacks and other random bags and walk through to the hotel in 48 degree weather with 2 hours of sleep (as previously discussed above), no food in their bellies and full bladders and colons...oh and with thousands of men dressed in orange starring at you following you and taking snaps of you. You start off in the parking lot and push your way through up several flights of uneven rock stairs along a dirt and rock path bordering a very rapid and deadly river in which they all like to swim in their tiny boy panties. You then come to the end of the "paved" path along the Ganga River and have to navigate your way down a rocky cliff to the base of the river in which you find the most shallow and least deadly bit to cross and pray that you don't slip, but not out of fear of injury, more out of fear of the laughter and abuse that will be heaped upon you from these orange men that have circled around you. I will attempt to paint a picture of these man boys for you, they range in age from 10 to 70 and they are all perverts and have no social awareness whatsoever. The locals here call them "zoo people" and "crazy people" and these are the nice words they used. As I sit here typing this blog to you in the internet cafe with glass doors, there are about 25 of these man boys starring at me through the glass doors....G-d how I wish they were made of metal! I use the word man boy to describe that despite their physical age, they all appear to be no older than 14 years old due to their behaviors of giggling uncontrollably as we walk by, starring without breaking their stare and you will not win a starring contest...we all tried! After you cross the most shallow part of this river, which is about knee deep, you continue to walk up another hill to a very thin bridge to the other side of the town...you walk across this bridge that looks quite sturdy from a far, but when there are thousands of man boys and 3 white female travellers (us) on this bridge it tends bounce and sway from side to side. Cue the positive quote, "wow, what an experience!" Once on the other side of the bridge, one tends to think the hotel must be close by at this point! Well, one would be wrong...oh so wrong! We roamed around and around through various tiny thin streets, we all stepped in cow shit multiple times, passing the sign to the hotel missing the arrow bit indicating which direction the hotel was located. We thought, it's called the Green View Hotel, so perhaps it is closer to the tree covered mountains. We did eventually make it, only to discover that they do not have triple rooms in all hotels in India so one of us has to sleep on a tiny thin mattress on the floor. Cue the rock/paper/scissors game! I lost...of course, as usual.
At least this hotel has a hot shower, air conditioning and a television with 1 English Channel! The only thing that broke in this hotel was the toilet...meaning it wouldn't flush, but the water kept running. Now is India so you all know what is floating in our toilet in the hotel at this very moment...and multiply that by 3 people!
So, we woke up with the best intentions for the day and braved the hoards of zoo people to make our way to various ashrams to take some yoga classes and explore the mountain trekking paths, which is the only reason we came to Rishikesh. We were told that it is not safe to go trekking at this time due to this Shiva Festival for safety purposes, but we thought yoga must be safe. We turned the corner to walk to the first yoga ashram to investigate classes and there we saw the cutest little monkeys sitting in the road. Now, Alex hates monkeys and has an innate fear of them, which I make fun of regularly and Wendy is just a very "safety first" kind of girl. So that leaves me...the brave stupid one. I just carried on walking down the road when the cute little monkey made angry eye contact with me and began to run after me chasing me up the hill. Its' teeth snarled and its' calloused black paw hand at the ready grabbing my calf to pull my leg towards its' mouth! Alex screamed my name and closed her eyes, Wendy reached her hand out towards me and ran and I grabbed my backpack, ripped it off my body to use as a weapon. No injuries were sustained to my person, but the pride is a bit dented and Alex looked at me with those "I told you so" eyes. I now hate monkeys too! We did find the some yoga classes and will take one tonight and tomorrow morning. I think we might cut the 4 days here short due to this horrific festival of death (but only for the white people and locals) and move out and away. There are some many amazing places here and I know we will all laugh about Rishikesh and the mishaps we have encountered since Wendy has arrived...maybe laugh after we cry! Cue laughter through tears!