Welcome to India

Strangely, I can trace my desire to travel to India to the semester I spent in Cameroon when I was a junior in college.  In the northern desert area where I spent most of my time, Bollywood movies and music videos were hugely popular.  There was even an evening call-in radio show dedicated to the goings-on of various Bollywood actors.  Why didn’t Hollywood dominate the way it does in most other parts of the world?  (I have my speculations about this, but I think they would both bore you and lead us away from the point of this post – to tell you about Delhi and Jaipur, not to muse pseudo-academically about the possible cultural correlations between to regions of the world I know very little about).  All of this to say that, while in N’Gaoundere, I woke up first to the dawn call to pray and then to Bollywood music videos blaring on the family’s t.v.  The music was strange and beautiful, the colors in chanting, and the dance moves unreproducible.  I wan’t to go.

During the following semester in France, in an attempt to explore my growing curiosity about India, I enrolled in a Histoire Religieuse d’Inde course at the French university.  The professor spent the first day explaining that the religious history of India had only developed in the context of the mousson.  That without the mousson, India would not be India!  Not other country in the world had the mousson!  In fact, to understand India at all, one must first understand the mousson. 

My notes from that lecture read:  “Figure out what mousson means.”  Then later:  “Monsoon.  Duh.”

The only other thing I remember from that class is the stunning slideshow of pictures of temples that the professor showed one afternoon.  The temples were mystical, stunning, crumbling, and sometimes topped with monkeys.

During my senior year of college, India seemed to appear more frequently in the books I read for class and the novels I read for fun.  India seemed to confuse yet inspire every character who came to her (except maybe Kipling’s and the postcolonialists have pretty much written him off).  Lauren and I listened to the sound track of The Darjeeling Limited a lot. 

The next year in France, Lauren and I took a Bollywood dance class with our friend Julie.  I learned that I can’t do different symbolic hand gestures with each hand while dancing and that a surprising number of French women can’t do a sit up.  We went to see Slum Dog Millionaire.  I read Satanic Verses.  I read The God of Small Things.  I read Interpreter of Maladies.

I bought an Indian cook book in French.  The next year in Switzerland I was given an Indian cook book in German (by an Indian friend I met in German class). 

And that’s about what it amounts to: a growing curiosity that I never really actively pursued but continued to encounter, a series of indistinct impressions and ideas, a developing taste for cardamom.

........

So, what did I expect when I landed in Delhi?  I don’t think I would have been able to tell you.  What I didn’t expect was that everything would be just like what I imagined, but More.  It was a Bollywood music video, Mother Theresa, chai wallas, a scene from Slumdog, rickshaws, fuchsia, the echo of the Marabar, cows, hennaed feet, the Enlightenment of Buddha, burning trash, a cold lassi, Shiva, bracelets, coal-eyed babies, honking horns, and everything-for-sale.  It was everything (and more) all at once and all the time.

For the two days we were in Delhi, the whole city crept around in a bone-chilling, low-lying fog.  And, I think that was the only thing that surprised me.  It was cold.

Delhi, as you might expect, was jampacked and difficult to navigate.  In our time there, we had a couple fabulous meals (including a rose-scented lassi – a cold yogurt and filtered water drink – yum!) and visited a few sights.

Jumping at Delhi's Red Fort - a massive and intricately inlaid marble fort/palace dating to the 17th century.

The room (now part of a museum about Gandhi's life and the history of partition) where Gandhi spent the days that ultimately lead up to his assassination.  These were his only possessions.

After Delhi, we headed to Jaipur (the “Pink City” that looks more terra-cotta than rosebud) for the Jaipur Literature Festival, lauded as “The Greatest Literary Show on Earth!” (which must be true since Oprah came). 

 Jaipur street view.

Entry badges to The Greatest Literary Show on Earth.  (Watch out Barnum and Bailey).

We spent three days in literature-lovers heaven.  We listened to many Indian and international authors give a variety of talks, the highlight probably being listening to Tom Stoppard talk about how he writes plays.  And, we magically ran into Jamaica Kincaid at the city palace and turned into fawning school girls.

Fans.

City Palace architecture.

The lit fest was great but Jaipur is big and busy, and added to the hustle and hassle of Delhi, we’re excited to move on to the calmer waters of Pushkar.

Same Same (But Different): Adventures In Chiang Mai

After Bangkok and the beach, Lauren and I headed north to Chiang Mai, a city that utterly enchanted us.  With its vibrant glowing street markets and ancient crumbling temple ruins, the city kept our jaws dropping and our cameras clicking.  We stayed on a street that was filled with tiny boho art galleries, Thai coffee shops, tea houses, and secluded temples (including this one that was apparently dedicated to dogs).  Not only was the courtyard filled with statues, there were real dogs wandering everywhere that seemed to have found a safe home with the monks.

Would have been my favorite temple as a child, hands down.

Chiang Mai is known for its many temples.  Each one is brilliant, stunning, and entirely captivating in its own way.  Some are secluded and out of the rush (like the dog temple) and some are buzzing with activity.  In some there are monks chanting.  In some, not a soul is present.  At each one I told myself not to take too many more pictures, but I couldn't help it.  Here's a handful to give you an idea...

Novices (young boys training to become monks) trying their best to be still and pay attention.

After taking so many photos of temples, I really didn't think there was anything else I'd go quite as snap-happy over.  But then came the magically-light, food-packed, music-filled Sunday street market.  On Saturdays and Sundays, the main street in Chiang Mai is blocked off to cars and jam-packed with pedestrians.  Street musicians come out to entertain and sell C.D.'s or raise money.  Food vendors fill street-side courtyards with every Thai treat you can imagine (sticky rice with mango, Tom Yum soup, fried everything, cake-wrapped bananas on sticks, fruit smoothies, fried quail eggs, curries, banana leaf-wrapped mystery treats, etc.)  And vendors of every imaginable trinket and accessory display their wares, from spices to scarves to carvings to knock-off RayBans (proving that Thailand is very up-to-snuff on hipster culture).  

After seeing so many enthralling things, I really didn't think our visit to Chiang Mai could get any better.  It did.  The morning we arrived in the city, Lauren and I just happened to walk past a vegetarian restaurant on the way to our hotel.  We came back in the evening to check it out.  The food was drool-worthy scrumptious and the menu informed us that the restaurant offered cooking classes.  Bah!  We barely had the patience to finish our meal before signing up.  We got to choose 9 dishes from the menu and spend 5 hours with the chef learning how to prepare them.  It was, without exaggeration, one of the best days of my life.

So much fun to cook when you have a kitchen staff preparing every ingredient for you!

The chef, Lauren, me, and our lovely classmate, Minda.

We made these!  But, don't get your hopes up.  As it turns out, one of the biggest secrets to fabulous Thai food is fabulous Thai ingredients that may prove impossible to find in the U.S.  Another one of the secrets is having your own personal chef standing beside you telling you whether you're putting in too little or too much of any given ingredient.  The exchanges would go something like this:

Chef:  "One teaspoon mushroom powder."

Me:  "This much?"

Chef:  "More!  More!"

Me:  "This much?"

Chef: "Haha!  Too much.  Little less."

Me:  "This much?"

Chef:  "Ok."

I don't have high hopes for success at home, but I'm excited to try.   I'm already telling myself that if the dishes don't turn out the way they did in Thailand, at least I'll be the only person who can tell :)  As our chef was fond of saying - in response to queries like "If I don't have a T-shaped bamboo basket to cook my rice in, can I use a pot?" -  "Yes, yes. Same same, but different."