Sunrise at Kanyakumari

Kanyakumari is one Indian city that wakes up and gets going before 9 am. Since we arrived in this country, we’ve looked for morning breakfast places in various cities that are open before 7:30 and usually there’s just the one, but almost all the Kanyakumari is awake by 5 am, if not earlier.

Loud music of a woman singing starting playing around 5 am. We had set the alarm for 5:30 to get to the southernmost tip of India – where the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea meet – in time for sunrise. Scott and I were on the street well before 6 am and joined the multitudes of red pilgrims and others on a march toward the beach. Surrounding us on the sidewalks were shops and vendors selling tea and coffee. As we got closer and closer to the beach, the vendors were selling seaside trinkets, fake pearl necklaces, postcards, sunglasses, even cameras.

Instead of a quiet sunrise, we were with probably a thousand others, including school kids in red and white checkered plaid. Vendors were yelling, kids were squealing, people were posing. We watched a few brave (or foolish) folks get drenched with crashing waves in an effort to get the best glamour shot. We waited and waited, all of us facing the Vivekananda Rock Memorial and the Thiruvalluvar statue – the island icons of Kanyakumari. Scott and I realized we could’ve slept in longer. When the sun finally made its first appearance around 6:40, there was an applause from the audience, people excitedly pointing. We watched for around ten minutes before, like others, we turned our gazes away and went on with our day.

Bus Travel

We left the hill station of Kodaikanal on the 8:30 am bus back to Madurai. As was expected, the cool temperatures got warmer and then hot as we dropped elevation. We got into Madurai around 12:30, took a local bus to the central bus station, and jumped onto another bus leaving for Kanyakumari at 1:10. Without planning it at all, the busses worked out really well time-wise. I was just groggy the whole time, as bus travel tends to make me, falling in and out of sleep the whole day. The trip to the southernmost tip of the country took six hours but it felt like double that. Around 6 pm, we got in view of the Western Ghats and hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines. I have never seen so many before and, while I find wind turbines to be quite fascinating to the eye, I kept thinking about the birds, if they indeed find themselves flying into the turbines, into their deaths.

Banana Leaf Knowledge

The third stop on our Indian lecturer tour was to see Jagan in the city of Chennai, formerly known as Madras. Shortly after our train arrived, Jagen met us on the platform and put Scott and I on a local bus while he followed the bus on his motorbike. When we got to our stop, Jagan’s father met us on his motorbike. Scott jumped on the back on Jagen’s bike as I hopped on the back of Jagan’s father’s. His hair, to my delight and surprise, smelled of coconut oil.

After a bumpy ride through small streets, past houses and shops and people and piles of garbage, we arrived at Jagan’s parent’s place, a bright green building. As luck would have it, Scott and I happened to arrive on a very auspicious day, for that evening, there would be no moon in the night sky. In honor of this, Jagan’s family, as well as households throughout the country, celebrated tai ammavasai. They offered food to remember past loved ones and, that night, set a whole pumpkin outside their house on the street.

Scott and I watched as they offered food to Jagan’s dead grandfather and were then welcomed to join them for a special meal in honor of the day. It was our first time eating off a banana leaf, something we’ve since come across time and again in South India.

But that first time was special. The banana leaf was placed in front of us, broad end to our right. Water was sprinkled on to rinse the leaf off before separate small piles of food were heaped on – all vegetarian, all delicious. The biggest pile was the rice.

Scott and I have eaten with our hands before, and while I’ve gotten used to it, it’s not something I prefer. When I do eat with my hand, I try to just use the tips of my fingers in order to avoid the discomfort of  getting my whole hand dirty. Jagan’s father must have noticed this because he instructed us to use our whole hand to blend the rice with the curries as this would produce the best blend of flavors. It wasn’t enough to simply use my fingertips in, what I guess is, a weak attempt mix the rice with the curries; I had to place the rice and curry in my whole hand and, making a fist, totally mash the two entities together. That was how to eat.

After being served seconds and even offered thirds of the different dishes, Scott and I were ready to call it quits. Jagan told us that when eating off a banana leaf, to show that you’re done eating, you must fold the banana leaf. I folded from the top of the leaf down. Scott did the opposite. Only after we had folded our leaves did Jagen tell us that even in this small action, there was meaning:

If you fold from the top of the leaf down, it indicates that you would like to be invited back to your host's home. If you fold from the bottom of the leaf up, it means that you do not care to be invited back.

Now we know.

Henna-ed

Usually I don’t take part in such tourist activities as getting your hair braided on the beach or getting henna tattoos by four different women at the same time. But when Vijay’s 12-year-old niece offered to henna me up, I couldn’t resist. She loves doing it and wanted to practice; I couldn’t possibly deny a young girl that wish, now could I?

On three different sittings, here are the results:

Boy with a dragon tattoo.

What We Ate With Vijay

At a park with Vijay in Tenali.

I thought my mother was the epitome of showing love and care through food, and she is, but so is our friend Vijay. 

Scott and I were very lucky to become friends with Vijay while we lived in Bhutan. Vijay is one of those extremely giving people who never wants a “thank you” or to be given anything back. One night during our time in Bhutan, after walking Vijay back to his place on the Sherubtse campus around 9:30, he invited us in for tea and coffee. Tea and coffee led to conversation, of course, and when 11 pm rolled around, Vijay was offering to cook us dinner since none of us had a proper one. By midnight, we were eating a delicious multi-part dinner, and by early morning, we left his place full and tired. 

When Scott and I left Calcutta, we boarded a 19-hour train headed to Vijayawada to visit Vijay in his hometown of Tenali. We ended up spending three comfortable days and nights there and were just completely stuffed full of food and drink by Vijay, his brother Kiran, his friends, and his mother. Scott and I tried a whole gamut of new foods, fruits, and beverages with Vijay in Tenali. Here is a sampling of what we consumed:

a bucket of KFC, fresh coconut juice, grilled corn, grape juice, badam (almond) milk, hot lemon tea with mint, samosa, plam tree root, guava, raw sweet corn, grilled chicken with a green sauce, chapati with chicken curry, savory curd, fresh coconut, raw sweet potato, sweet potato cooked in a fire, idlies with daal, roti with potato curry, slices of unripe green mango with salt and chili powder, sugercane, biriyani, fish curry, pickle, daal with drumstick (a long green vegetable that grows from a tree), a brown fig-like fruit, mosambi juice, a coconut cookie, a dairy sweet, buttermilk, chili chicken, chicken biriyani, upma with pickle, banana, chapati.

Vijay's mother's upma. This was the best new thing that I tried. We've had upma since but it wasn't nearly as good as this one.

Kiran, Vijay, and Scott at the bakery. Here, Kiran and Vijay were buying yet more food.

Tiger!

Scott and I decided to do what we mainly try to avoid when we travel – a packaged tour. But we really wanted to go to the Sunderbans and since we didn’t have much time to do research (the Lonely Planet said going to Sunderbans independently was both expensive and difficult) and our local Calcutta friends didn’t have any insight into how to do it on our own, we decided to go on a tour organized by the local Calcutta outfit, Backpackers. (While we had an overall fine time with Backpackers, Scott would probably reccomend to any traveler who wanted to go to Sunderbans independently to do just that.)

The reason for going to Sunderbans – it’s the largest mangrove system in the world and... there’s a chance to see a tiger. The chance is small, but still a chance nonetheless. Aside from big cats, there’s plenty of other wildlife to keep one entertained.

A village in Sunderbans. Of the over 100 islands that make up Sunderbans, about half of them are inhabited by people. 

We were lucky to see an array of wildlife, from crocodiles to kingfishers to monitors and lots more. But alas, below is the only tiger we were able to glimpse.

Sights of Calcutta

Leaving Calcutta

We just returned to our hotel room at the Broadway Hotel after another exhausting day of roaming around Calcutta on the hottest day we've experienced thus far in India. There are so many things about this city to make one so tired - the ENDLESS honking, the quick maneuvering around people, being pushed and shoved, and the always dangerous act of crossing the street.

I thought I've experienced chaotic cities - Cairo, Mombasa, Hong Kong - but nothing quite compares to the frenetic chaos of Calcutta.

One can do everything right on the streets and sidewalks of Calcutta - get shaved, pee, bathe, drink tea, eat (and eat and eat and eat...), brush your teeth, do laundry, pray, cook, get a haircut... everything.

It's been nice to spend these leisure days in Calcutta. At first Scott and I were dreading any extra time in this crazy city but it's worked out well. We've done laundry, we've spent time at the cyber cafe, we've gotten to know a tiny fraction of a great city, and I wouldn't have necessarily called it great two days ago. But people here are friendly, the food is cheap and plentiful, we have friends Muk and Madhu here, there are beautiful buildings and just a millions things to look at if you're lucky enough to find a place to sit for a while.

Tomorrow we leave for Vijayawada to visit another friend. It's our official descent into South India.

300 Kilometers of the Himalayas

After two days in Gangtok, Scott and I took a shared jeep to Darjeeling to meet up with fellow ex-BCF teachers Shauna and Julian. The plan was to do a 5-day trek on the Singalila Ridge and catch views of Kanchenjunga, which is, at 28,169 feet (8,586 meters), the third highest mountain in the world, and if we were lucky, Everest. In fact, from certain viewpoints, we were hoping to see a panoramic view of the Himalayan Range from Jomolhari in Bhutan to Everest in Nepal - 300 kilometers of the Himalayas.

Even though clouds seemed to be settled in on Darjeeling, we decided to go on the trek anyways and hope for the best. Well, the best is pretty much what we got. 

 

We spent our first night in Tumling.

Sunrise at Tumling. Kanchenjunga looms behind me.

Shauna, Julian, our guide Ram, and Scott on the trail. Kanchenjunga resembles the profile of a sleeping man, from his head on the left to his large tummy in the middle to his feet poking up at the right. Can you see it?

On the trail on day three. The skies stayed clear until the afternoon. And last but not least...

Everest. From our first morning to the last, views of Everest followed us. Everest is the peak immediately to the left of what appears to be the tallest peak.

A $14-Dollar View

Our first full day in Gangtok, the biggest city in Sikkim, was in a cloud – socked in and foggy. We walked up and down the main strip of shops, got India SIM cards for our mobiles and a UV lens for my camera, and took care of other practical matters.

We haggled a room with a view at the Ridgeway Inn from 1200 rupees down to 700. After a day of barely seeing, we were banking on some morning clarity. And as luck would have it, around 6:30 the next morning, Scott jumped out of bed, peaked through the curtains and with the excitement of a kid at Christmas said, “Snowy peaks! Snowy peaks!” He pulled the curtains wide open and wiped the condensation from the windows. I put on glasses and saw the view – spectacular. We opened the windows to make the view even better, not caring about the chill getting into our already freezing room (there was no heating source), and watched the view change from our bed.

"You look like a Bhutanese"

I wish I could count all the times I heard, “You look Bhutanese,” or, “You look like a Bhutanese.” Over the past year, I heard it all the time – from my students, from officials, from strangers, everyone. Which is why it seemed appropriate when I paid my final bill at the Tandin Hotel in Thimphu that the guy behind the desk said it. It seemed a fitting farewell. Who knew that when I entered India, I’d get the same thing?

We didn’t plan to go to Sikkim but that’s where our ride from Jaigon was going so we went. As Scott and I were getting our permit to enter the northern district of India, the man at the desk asked if I was Bhutanese. When I answered no, he said, “You look like a Bhutanese.”

I doubt the phrase will follow me much further, but it was nice while it lasted.

Baby, Baby, Baby

After showing us a few of Phuentsholing’s hotspots for nightlife, Sonam drove us out of town and up a hill to a lakhang. We brought a few cans of Fosters in the quiet property and sat on a ledge overlooking the city with the temple behind us. Above us were layers of prayer flags and in between the strands, the star-filled sky. Below us was Jaigon, India on New Year’s Eve. Music from separate bars and clubs competed to be heard in the night air. None of it was familiar except a verse of a Justin Beiber remix, “Baby, baby, baby,” a song we heard too much of in our year in Bhutan. If I had to decide right then, I might have chosen to remain in the quiet and peace of Bhutan, in the land of prayer flags and chortens and no worries, but the decision to end our teaching contracts with the Ministry of Education and the Royal University of Bhutan had already been made months ago, the decision to move on. I think it’s been a question in Scott’s mind for the past couple of weeks – did we make the right decision?

*

My Bhutan visa ended on the 31^st of December, but for various reasons I didn’t try to get my exit stamp until the 1^st of January. In a country that costs visitors US $250 a day to be there, I was a bit worried my delayed exit might be a problem, but Scott was sure it wouldn’t be. What assured me more was the fact that we had Sonam Topgyal with us who has connections with every department in the government, including immigration. Well, there was a problem with me trying to exit a day past my visa ending, but luckily we didn’t have to employ Sonam’s connections. The nice man at the counter explained to his boss that I was a volunteer teacher and insisted they waive the Nu. 3,500 fine (the equivalent of US $70). With all that confusion still in my head, I didn’t realize that Sonam had driver the car through the border gate. Without knowing it, Scott and I had left Bhutan. Definitively. It was a weird feeling, to leave a country that had been our home for the past year not knowing when we’d ever return. As I mentioned already, getting into Bhutan isn’t a matter of paying a visa fee; it involves either a lot of money or a lot of paperwork. Hopefully one day, perhaps in several years, the latter will happen and we’ll once again be in Bhutan. Until then, it was by far the saddest and most shocking departure from a country I’ve ever had.