Time Travel

Ah! This website looks as foreign as I do because I haven't written in so long. I have been to five different states in the past fifteen days and I wnt to tell you all about them. This keyboard is really hard to use, so please forgive spelling mistakes.I am writing from Jaipur, Rajasthan. I did what tourist companies call the “Golden Triangle” in three days: Delhi, Agra, Jaipur. When they say “golden” they must mean the sights, which really are great. They can’t mean any other part of the trip. I have been hassled, harassed, pushed, cheated, tormented, bothered, and jostled more in these past three days than ever in my three months here. And, yes, it had been three months. The money-makers of north India lurk on this path- quick to be your friend and lure you into their shop or hotel. Those types are easy to avoid. They won’t go far from the front of the shop. The ones that really get me, that even marred my Taj Mahal experience, are the followers. They can be kids selling pictures of a famous temple or a toothless old man handing me junk keychains. They do not let up and they will not let go of a potential buyer. They are the rickshaws slowing to a walking pace and following, begging to take me for a ride, only to reap a hefty commision from a shopkeeper when he drops me there. One little boy (who obviously still had some things to learn about street selling) followed me for more than twenty minutes trying to get me to buy some pictures. When I boarded the bus heading home, he stood outside the window, tapping the side to get my attention until we pulled away and he couldn’t keep up. You may say, “just buy it and get them to leave,” but it doesn’t work that way. You buy from one and every single one of them is on you, throwing things in your face until you can’t see in front of you. By the time I returned last night from my adventures in Agra, I had had too much India and needed a break. Allow me to explain what I’ve been up to in the past weeks and why I won’t be able to write for a while after today.
I am in Jaipur for a Vipassana meditation retreat. It begins tomorrow afternoon. I will be on a strict vegetarian diet, eating two meals a day. Dinner is tea and snacks. I will also be upholding a vow of noble silence for the duration- no communiction whatsoever unless I need to ask someone thre about my meditation, which I may be doing frequently simply to exercise my vocal cords. You may begin placing bets on the length of my stay now.
I arrived here this morning. Of course the bus driver said it would take four and a half hours when it actually took six and a half. Why do I even bother to ask anymore? The hotel where I satyed in Delhi booked my bus hre, but I guess it was full because I had the honors of riding up front in the cockpit with the driver and his sleepy assistant. I sat on a padded bench, trying to keep cool because this compartment wasn’t a/c. It was the first tme I have felt hot since I got to the north- Delhi felt quite cool compared to Chennai and Agra was downright cold. It only warmed up a bit in the afternoon.
Jaipur has some great sightseeing, but after Agra and Delhi, being a hermit in my hotel room sounds quite appealing. I saw enough on my way in to give me a good sense of the place. Jaipur looks like any other Indian city, but thrown into a blender so the streets don’t make sense (wait, do they ever?), sprinkled with a hefty dose of camels and elephants, drizzled with turban-clad Sikhs, and doused with sand. I am in the first scene of Aladdin where he steals the bread from the market of wooden carts topped with ripped pieces of cloth. That is Jaipur’s old city aka the pink city due to the reddish hue of the ancient buildings. The new city is your regular, commercalized traffic zone set amongst a backdrop of mountainous desert. In Chennai, carts pulled by water buffalo slowed traffic. Here, it is the camels.
Yesterday I was in Agra all day. I started at the beautiful Agra Fort, built by Mughal kings. It is the real thing fort, complete with a whole building for 500 mistresses, tiger pits, a moat, and columns arranged so perfectly the king could see anyone who entered. Then it was the Taj Mahal, which is far more stunning in real life than in any picture. I stood and gaped for a while, then snapped enough pictures to make you think I discovered the place. It was another one of those “can I take your photo?” kind of places, which actually means can one guy take the picture and the other get in it, then they switch. I even had a dad ask for one, shove his shy little five-year-old son next to me, and take the picture.
Actually, I have to run. I am going to a resort which doubles as an ethnic Rajasthani experience for dinner and my auto comes in five minutes. Again, excuse spelling errors, the keyboard is hard to use. More tomorrow before I go silent! :)