Ok, let's pick up where we left off, shall we?
Varanasi - Dec 26-28
To understand my experience of Varanasi, we have to begin at the Delhi airport. Having arrived via an overnight train from Udaipur and having not eaten for a good 16 hours, I was quite enthusiastic when Erica and Nancy pointed out the KFC in the departure area. After sating my appetite with a Big Box Meal, my spirits continued to improve as I took advantage of the free wifi access to upload photos, post a blog entry, and make some Skype calls home. My good mood was brought to a screeching halt a few hours later, when sitting on the plane waiting for takeoff, I was hit by a powerful wave of nausea and began sweating profusely. Yes, folks, it's true: after nearly three months in Southeast Asia and India, sampling street food with abandon, my first bout of food poisoning was the result of an American fast food chain. Go figure.
As luck would have it, Erica also came down with food poisoning later that night, presumably from a majorly unclean glass at our hotel's rooftop restaurant. Her condition ended up being far more severe than mine, but we both were out of commission the next day, leaving Nancy to explore the city by herself. We managed to pull ourselves together by the evening though, allowing us to take an evening boat ride along the Ganges (with the river's slowest oarsman) to witness the cremations along its shores. The hour spent on the Ganges that evening and another two the next morning to watch the sunrise and see the religious rituals, bathing, and laundering that happen there daily, together accounted for practically the entirety of my experience of Varanasi. Those three hours on the Ganges were entirely unlike anything else I have ever witnessed, and the chance to experience the river's mystical beauty made the whole ordeal more than worth it. The pictures I took didn't turn out well in the low light, but even if they did, there's no way they could have captured the peace and awe I felt as we floated along and took everything in.
Goa - Dec 29-Jan 1
Getting to Goa from Varanasi was a bit of an ordeal. As I had waited until the last minute to book transport to Goa due to changes in my New Years plans, flights were quite expensive, so I ended up flying to Mumbai and then taking an uncomfortable 12-hour night bus the rest of the way. When I got off the bus in Margao and started negotiating prices with motorbike drivers to the hotel Nancy had booked for us in Colva, I was annoyed that they all insisted the price was more than double what it should have been due to a "road closure." I was sure that this was just a lie to justify charging the higher price and normally I would have continued arguing for a few minutes, but I was exhausted and the exorbitant fare being demanded was still less than $2, so I sucked it up and agreed to pay.
When I got to Colva, I was surprised that almost every shop and restaurant was closed at midday on a Tuesday. While waiting for our room to be prepared, I picked up the local paper and learned that a member of the community had recently released a music CD which included lyrics defaming a local priest with whom he had a feud. Many people got up in arms, forming a mob of over 200 and rioting, burning tires and blocking the main road, massing outside the "artist's" house and smashing his car. Inquiring with the hotel manager, I found out that all the businesses in Colva were closed that day as part of a boycott demanding the arrest of the artist and his producers, but that they would be open again the next day. Craziness.
The next two days were wonderfully relaxing. I had been expecting Goa to be party central, but it turns out that all the young people mass in northern Goa, while we had decided to stay in southern Goa--a resort area popular with older couples and families--to meet up with a couple of Nancy's friends. While not what I had originally envisioned, five of us ended up spending a quiet but pleasant New Year's Eve on the beach enjoying a fresh seafood dinner and aged bottle of scotch. The next morning, I packed Erica and Nancy off in an auto-rickshaw to the airport and found myself alone for one final week in India.
Mangalore and Mysore - Jan 2-3
I arrived in Mangalore around 7am via an overnight bus from Goa. By noon, I had already visited all the sights I planned to visit, none of which were particularly impressive or memorable. I arrived at the train station that night a few hours early, only to discover that I had advanced 23 places on the Wait List from #24, leaving me as the #1 person to not have a seat reserved in the air conditioned cars. As a result, I had to buy a general boarding ticket and cram myself as the 5th person on bench designed to seat three people. I soon realized I was one of the lucky ones, as more and more people packed in, sitting on the luggage racks and floors and standing when no more seating of any kind could be found. So passed my overnight journey to Mysore, by far the least pleasant and least restful transportation experience I've ever been through.
I arrived in Mysore at 5am, checked into a hostel, set my alarm for 2 hours later, and promptly passed out. Waking 3 hours later, having slept through my alarm, I threw some clothes on and rushed downtown just in time to catch a 12-hour bus tour of Mysore and the surrounding area. We visited temples, museums, a zoo, and a palace (the Mysore Place?), the latter being the most impressive palace I've seen yet, but unfortunately photography was not permitted inside, so I don't have any pictures to share. The day was capped by a visit with one of the other members of the tour to a famous sweet shop, Bombay Tiffany's--you know it's famous, because there were at least three imitators with the name "New Bombay Tiffany's" on the same street--where we tried Mysore pak, a local delicacy made from chickpea flour, sugar and ghee, which had the consistency of an extremely soft fudge and a taste reminiscent of baklava. The Mysore pak was so good, I went back five minutes later for some more and also picked up a box of assorted sweets to bring with me to Tanzania.
While I missed having Erica and Nancy with me in Mangalore and Mysore, I found myself enjoying my newfound solitude far more than I had anticipated. Erica, Nancy, and the Brits I traveled with in SE Asia were all good travel companions, but I discovered that being alone again meant not only complete freedom to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, but also relieved me of any nagging concern that anybody might be less than fully satisfied with a group decision or that I might be judged for haggling too hard or not hard enough. Admittedly, those are fairly minor concerns in the grand scheme of things and don't come close to outweighing the benefits of good travel buddies, but I guess two months of near constant contact with a small group of other people helped me gain a greater appreciation for having time to myself.
Bangalore (Bengaluru) - Jan 4-6
Hypothetical scenario: say you arrive at a hotel you've booked, get shown up to the room, and discover that the private bathroom does not have a shower. Let's also say you haven't showered for four days (yeah, gross, I know), so getting clean using a bar of soap and the sink just isn't going to cut it. Do you:
a) Remember that although you've had shower fixtures in all your other rooms thus far, this is a budget hotel in India, so you're supposed to bathe by filling the provided bucket with water and pouring it over yourself;
b) Figure you've only got a few days in the city and plenty you'd like to see, so just fork over an extra $5.50 per night to get a double room which includes a bathroom with a shower fixture; or
c) Stand on principle (how dare they quote you one price and then try to up-sell you by not providing a "standard" amenity?!), throw back on your 30-pound pack, storm out in a huff, and set off without a map in the general direction you think will lead you towards the central area where you think you can find other hotels, few if any of which are likely to have single rooms for less than the price of the double you just turned down?
C sounds about right, doesn't it? :/
The first place I come across quotes me a room price 2.5x that of the double at the original hotel and I start to question the wisdom of my decision, but rather than go back 100 meters and sheepishly request the room I've just turned down, I press ahead. A few blocks later, I spot a Cafe Coffee Day, India's version of Starbucks, and decide to stop in and grab a sandwich and cool drink and try to collect myself, as it's after 2pm and I haven't eaten yet and it's clearly affecting my ability to think rationally. (Side note: while I describe Cafe Coffee Day as being like Starbucks, unlike its Western counterpart, the odds of being able to order any particular item off their limited menu on any given day is in the ballpark of 50%, frequently leaving you with the feeling that you were not able to get whatever it was that you were craving.)
Refreshed and mildly sated, I set out again. A few blocks later, I set off down a side street that looks to have a promising number of non-retail business signs. There are no hotels, but spotting a business center and a couple restaurants/cafes grouped together, I pull out my iPhone and check for open wifi network, miraculously hitting on the first try! I proceed to spend 45 minutes trying without success to find a suitable hotel online before giving up and resuming my search on foot. At the next corner, I spot Ullas Refreshments, a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet for its delicious snack food, so I decide to stop in and am rewarded with probably the best samosas I have ever had... ok, and to satisfy my sweet tooth, a cool lassi and some gulab jamun.
Back on the road 30 minutes later, just half a block from Ullas, I find a hotel with a room available that is slightly nicer than the one at the original hotel, at a price between the single and the double. When I learn that it also does not have a shower, a light bulb clicks on in my head and this time I go with option A. As a further reward for my earlier stubbornness, I later discovered an open wifi network within range of my room with by far the fastest speed of any internet connection I have found anywhere in my travels, allowing me to replenish my supply of movies and TV shows before I head to Africa. Sometimes things just work out, huh?
My remaining two days in Bangalore turned out to be relatively uneventful. I accomplished the one goal I set for my stay there, which was to see Avatar in 3D, and otherwise spent most of my time getting ready to head to Tanzania by catching up on some correspondence, getting a haircut, doing some shopping, and getting a final fill of Indian food, including ordering and finishing (without any trouble) a plate of roast chicken ghee, a Mangalore specialty which was marked "spicy" on the menu (yes, I'm very proud of myself for being able to eat that).
The highlight of my time in Bangalore was meeting up with Sameer Segal, a friend I'd made at the StartingBloc Institute in Boston last spring. Sameer is a recent graduate and dedicated social entrepreneur, currently working at HSBC but also continuing to grow Engineers for Social Innovation (a leadership incubator he started in college) and launch MySlate, a microfinance and education-focused tablet computing venture. I'd previously given Sameer some feedback on a business plan and marketing materials for MySlate, so I was very excited to get an in-person update and some hands-on time with the prototype he and his partners had developed. We spent the morning catching up on each other's lives over coffee and wandering around a mall discussing our shared passions of consumer electronics, social innovation, and the intersection between the two.
Wrap-Up
Well, that's it for the India adventure. While my photos from India are unfortunately still unsorted and unlabeled, Erica has a fantastic collection of photos from our trip, many with detailed descriptions.
Next up: Tanzania! Man, am I looking forward to staying in one place for longer than a week!
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