Week 1

I’m writing this post from bed: after a week, those sneaky microscopic bastards finally got me.  I spent most of Tuesday in a feverish stupor and in the end saw a doctor (a strange experience) and picked up some antibiotics (doctors visit + antibiotics and other medicine = $3). On a related note, I will probably never eat tandoori chicken again.  Luckily, I’m surrounded by amazing people who were unimaginably helpful in taking care of me.  I feel blessed to have received such an outpouring of kindness from people I’ve only known a week; it only reinforces what a special place this is.

Travel Ganesh says- don't eat meat in India!

Earlier in the week, I took my camera out exploring.  It’s impossible to truly capture how colorful and vibrant India is, but here are a few of my sights and experiences.

With my friend Isabel, I took a rickshaw to the Mysore Zoo, one of the “must see” attractions of the area.  

Even rickshaws have to stop for gas

I’m starting to get more used to rickshaws.  Between swerving around stray cows and weaving in and out of oncoming traffic, they require a certain amount of blind faith in your survival.

Unbeknownst to us, the day we picked to go to the zoo was also one of the biggest holidays on the Muslim calendar, so it was packed.  We soon found that we were as much of a novelty to our fellow zoo-goers as the lions and elephants.  Children were thrilled to have us take their picture, or better yet to take a picture with their whole family.

These little guys were characters 

My Indian family

Fascination with the unusual aside, I think in most cases the children are just excited to have a chance to practice their English.  The inevitable series of questions: “Hello, how are you? What country? Can we take a picture?” (followed by giggles).

On our day off from yoga practice, a group of us took a road trip to a nearby Tibetan village, Bylakuppe.  But first, we had breakfast at Santosha’s, a delicious highlight of many of my days. 

French Press and French Canadian

The land for the village of Bylakuppe was donated by the Indian government to Tibetan refugees and is now home to a prosperous community that includes hundreds of monks who gather at the famous Golden Temple.  The photo requests continued, especially since we were traveling with someone who is 6’7. 

The girls and their fan club

Take a picture with the tall guy!

Inside, the massive temple houses three 60’ golden statues.  We timed our trip so as to be present for the mid-day prayer ceremony, at which point the temple floods with monks chanting in rhythmic unison.  It was a powerful and unique experience. 

One thing that troubled me about the temple, and that pervades many other experiences in India generally, was the stark contrast between opulence and poverty.  Just outside this beautiful and lavishly decorated temple, small children in tattered rags tug at your shirt, begging for money and food.  Every morning as I walk to yoga, the servants of wealthy households diligently scrub their front walks as barefoot women from nearby slums pick through the piles of garbage that collect on abandoned lots.  An orphanage nestled amidst mega-homes has a basket for abandoned babies with a sign that tragically reads, “Do not kill your baby, leave it here.”  It’s strange to see such extreme stratification of wealth socially accepted… then again I feel that, given the brevity of my time here, there is still much more I have yet to learn.

First Impressions

Greetings from India!  I’ve only been here a few days, yet I already feel that I’ve experienced so much…

Even though from what I hear Mysore is kind of like India ‘light,’ it still feels very foreign to me, and has from the minute I boarded my flight at Newark.  Without exaggeration, I was one of 3 non-Indians on the flight (out of ~350 people).  Upon arriving in Bombay(/Mumbai) some 16 hours later, the abundance of poverty was apparent immediately.  We flew over miles of slums that surround the airport, practically spilling onto the runways.

All of the blue you see is tarps

From Mumbai I took a 2 hour flight to Bangalore, where a car was waiting to take me on the 3 hour drive to Mysore (for less than $40).  I decided to sit in the front seat for the ride, which may or may not have been a mistake as driving in India is absolutely terrifying.  Halfway there, the driver stopped to have a smoke and picked up some roadside chai, my first of the trip!  I was slightly nervous that my digestive system might never recover, but too tired to care.  It was unfathomably delicious, and I didn’t get sick!  Finally, at 2AM, 30 hours after leaving my home in North Carolina, I arrived at my apartment in Mysore.

It didn’t take long to make friends the next morning.  After wandering around for a bit, I eagerly ran up to the first obviously-western couple I saw.  They turned out to be wonderfully pleasant and helpful New Zealanders who immediately put me at ease and pointed me in the right direction.  Since then I’ve met people from Poland, Norway, France, Australia, and Cyprus, to name a few.  Everyone connected with the yoga community here has proven to be friendlier than I could ever have hoped.

A few things I’ve learned so far:

Do not disrupt a monkey that is crossing the street

Real chai is on a whole other level (and only costs about 25 cents)

Pet dogs are considered a status symbol

Loud burping, frequent honking, and blatant littering are not considered taboo (or in the words of my driver as he threw his garbage out the window, “yes yes, it is India, no problem”)

You can buy a lot with 100 rupees! (~$2).  In fact, if you try to use a 100 rupee note to buy something like, say, lunch (40 rupees!), they will often belligerently refuse it.

A good portion of the time I have no idea what the locals are saying.  This usually ends in me squinting and them bobbing their heads ambiguously (what does it mean??).  I’ve taken a few photos of my apartment with my camera, and hopefully soon I’ll be brave enough to take it out for a walk to capture the surrounding town of Gokulam. 

Meanwhile, back in Charlotte…

A week before I left for India, we unexpectedly had a new dog thrust into our lives.  Her name is Renee, and she is a former show dog whose princess antics and ‘bad behavior’ were causing her to show poorly.  We reluctantly took her for a ‘trial run’ to see how she got along at our house, and she immediately won us over.  It’s nice to know that on my return I’ll have this ball of love waiting for me!