Travel

"India is like a wave. Resist and you'll be knocked over; dive into it and you'll swim out the other side." It's a quote from the movie I watched on the flight over -- it's especially true for India, but it holds for travel more generally.

There is no substitute for travel. To completely immerse yourself in a culture completely unlike your own -- to taste the foods, hear the sounds, sleep in the guesthouses, meet the people, understand their way of life -- when done well, you gain a perspective on your own life that's impossible to achieve otherwise.

My four weeks in India were remarkable. I had little idea of what to expect and seemed to constantly be in a state of amazement, shock, amusement, disappointment, awe, or perplexity. Nepal tomorrow!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Into Thin (but not that thin) Air

Back in Kathmandu after a remarkable two-week trip through Khumbu, the Everest region of Nepal. Hiked to two base camps (Ama Dablam and Everest), two lookouts (Kala Patthar at 18,192 feet and Gokyo Ri at 17,575 feet), and one pass (Cho La). The route is pretty crowded, especially this time of year, but for good reason. The landscape and views are incredible. From Gokyo Ri, in particular, you can see five 8,000m peaks. The weather was perfect, too -- clear, cloudless skies. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy, either. Five- to seven-hour days with a 30-pound bag, all above 10,000 feet. There were definitely some cold and tired older tourists wondering why they were there. It's pretty mind-boggling to imagine the rate of change in lifestyle that's taken place in the last twenty years as more and more people visit Khumbu. Many of the inhabitants (Sherpas) were once yak herders, constantly trading goods between Tibet and the lower-elevation areas of Nepal. Now...
Read more

The Darjeeling Limited. Kind of.

Took the overnight open-air sleeper from Mumbai to Udaipur -- it was $9, and it was nuts. I've never been startled awake so often by such pungent odors or blaring horns. However, barreling through the Indian countryside and pulling into over-crowded train stations in what appeared to be near-desolate towns was pretty incredible. Udaipur, in south Rajasthan, is a beautiful, idyllic (but touristy) city. The buildings are white and the people are colorful. Blue lakes and green hills surround the city. It feels like pure India, stuck in an age before the boom -- as such, a number of movies (and parts of Octopussy and The Darjeeling Limited) have been filmed here. It's also a very sleepy city, especially after Mumbai. The people are all content with a slower pace and proud of "the most beautiful city in India." Spent some time with some of the younger professional set -- the owner of the only Honda motorcycle dealership, the chef/owner of a popular new vegan re...
Read more

Travel Thoughts

I'm not sure if people litter because there are limited municipal trash services, or if there are limited municipal trash services because people litter. Perhaps a consequence of the slowly fading cultural norm of arranged marriages, the general shyness of Indian men toward women is pretty funny. To induce Indian drivers -- primarily men -- to drive more slowly, advisory signs dot the roadsides in the towns and villages. Some are serious ("Better to be Mr. Late than Late Mr."), but others are comical ("I'm curvaceous, go slowly" and "Darling, I like you, but go slow.") In India the vertical "yes" head nod is an odd angular nod. It also has a bunch of other meanings that are tough to pin down. There isn't a "no" nod; it's a shake of the hand. There is a much more vague sense of personal space and ownership of belongings in India. Everything, from food to water to clothing, is shared. When I asked a shop owner...
Read more