July 2010
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To the burst in new followers who caught wind of...
Flattered by your attention, but this blog will barely be updated after the end of July. It was used to document my travels in India while I was here. If I travel again during my winter/spring/summer breaks from university, I will continue to use this blog address, so you can keep me on your list if you so choose. If you want to peruse the journey that my last two months entailed, feel free.
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Value of wisdom
I told my friend that the mansion I was staying in was studded with rubies and diamonds (which wasn’t really THAT much of an exaggeration), and she responded, “Does it make you mad? Because I can see how it would make people feel that way - these jewel-encrusted homes.” And I couldn’t really say it did.
Something I’ve come to accept is that as much as one could...
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Comfort Zones
I’ve experienced some of the bottom and some of the absolute top of the wealth spectrum in India in these last two months. My first month was in a village, eating rice and lentils for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with occasional watermelon, mango, and other goodies. The first week of my second month was in a huge tourist center in the Himalayas, trekking with a cook who made me gourmet...
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Language Awkwardness
So I came to Mumbai yesterday night and my cousins speak English, so I’ve been speaking a lot of it lately, but I’ve mixed up my Hindi and English. My Hindi was miserable two months ago, and now my thoughts are in Hindi first, so speaking English, I find myself stumbling to find the right word. My English is getting worse. I’m sure it’ll get better when I’m back to...
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RIP DSC-W290
So my camera broke.
It’s been revived on numerous occasions, but it’s been unresponsive for about 5 days now, so I think I’m ready to declare that it’s done. Cause is unknown, but various pieces of evidence point to sand and dirt infiltration due to wind at the deserts in Jaisalmer. Thus, photos from a number of temples in Rajasthan, scenes in Udaipur, Jaipur and Mumbai...
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Cultural awakening
[This might not make sense without being there or having a picture. Also, I don’t know if the title makes sense. I think it does. If it doesn’t, well, at least it sounds nice.]
I went to a traditional Rajasthani cultural show in Jaisalmer, the cultural capital of Rajasthan - as far as I’m concerned - and it was phenomenal. There were three men in white kurtas and bright, various...
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The Wordless Conversation
I was waiting for a rickshaw after browsing through the Kothari Haveli (the mansion-turned-museum of the Kothari family of Jaisalmer), so I sat in a doorway that I thought was empty. When I sat, I saw this old man just…staring at me. Initially, it was kind of creepy, so I drew my attention upwards to the 10 or 15 pigeons coo-ing and jumping on top of each other on the ledge above the doorway. I...
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Home home
As phenomenal as this whole trip has been for the last 1.5 months, I’ve been ready to come home ever since the middle of my trek. That’s not because I’m tired of India, but rather, I’m tired of…not having loved ones around. Traveling alone entails the most intimate relationships I’ve had childish fun with village kids, random talks about the difficulty of a trek with my trekking partner, and...
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Indian brotherhood
One of the awesome things about village life is how familial it is. This probably extends beyond village life in India, but I’ve caught it a lot more in the villages where I worked and the villages we crossed through in the mountains. My guide, Prakash, lives in a village around 2400m, and they have a local dialect in the villages throughout the area. Any time we would pass anybody on the trek, my...
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