Luang Prabang: Almish Paradise

A rite of passage for travellers visiting Laos is waking up at dawn in Luang Prabang to watch a stream of saffron clad monks collect alms from a row of kneeling devotees. The monks accept handouts without discrimination from whomever chooses to participate in the ceremony, be it locals who have been following this Buddhist ritual of obtaining merit for years, or beer guzzling backpackers without the faintest idea of why they had to get up so early and buy some overpriced rice from a street vendor strategically positioned nearby almless alms givers. Some majesty is lost with popularity, but it is still a memorable experience.

I woke up a bit after sunrise and hurried to Luang Prabang's main street to catch the festivities. Everyone awake at that time was heading in the same direction, so I followed them. I waited for several minutes until the tiny specks of orange in the distance became larger and larger. As the first group of monks arrived, many tourists swarmed them like paparazzi. Strict behavioural rules such as the way participants should sit (with feet tucked in and not pointing at anyone), dress (modestly), and position their heads (below that of a monk) are all defined. The groups of monks that followed could collect their alms in greater serenity after the initial photo taking frenzy had concluded.

*****

"A jug fills drop by drop." ~ Buddha

Impenetrable Sea Fortress of Maharashtra

One of my first outings while stationed in Bombay was to Alibag and its surroundings. An office girl from Chennai who accompanied me did all of the talking. Catching a ferry to Mandwa from the Gateway of India is the fastest way to get to Alibag. As the journey began, I narrowly avoided reconfiguration of my handsome face as the ferry collided with a boat anchored right beside it. I had to duck to avoid the protective tire barriers on the side of the boat from hitting me in the head. Forty five minutes later we docked. Most of the  passengers on the ferry immediately ran from the Mandwa pier to a bus that would take them onwards to Alibag. After the bus was suitably overcrowded, it ambled away to its destination. The stragglers, including us, were stuffed onto a shared rickshaw which quickly overtook the bus on its way to Alibag.

We were dropped off in the middle of a roundabout near the town center. A dozen meters away was the ticket counter for the return ferry journey. The lady manning the booth told us the tickets had been sold out a week ago and advised us to hang out at the beach and then take a bus back. We had other plans and told her what we wanted to see, including a mysterious Jewish settlement. She said none of that was interesting, reiterated that we should just hang out at the beach, but then provided us accurate directions to where we wanted to go. Five separate shared rickshaw journeys followed with a variety of co-passengers. On one segment, a mother was teaching her son how to properly throw garbage out of a moving vehicle onto the street. Due to the prevailing direction of the wind, his attempts were only resulting in his empty bag of chips landing back inside the rickshaw whenever he attempted to toss it outside.

We could not find the Jewish settlement anywhere, although all the locals were vaguely aware of knowing someone else who had heard of Jewish people. We were advised to ask for "Europe people" or "Portugal people" if we wanted to see any colonial ruins. Alibag was where the Bene Israel Jews first landed in India over 2000 years ago. Some meandering through ancient forts, beaches, and villages finally led us to some spectacular sites. One of these was Chaul, location of a famous sea battle between the Portuguese and Egyptian fleets in 1508. A rich delinquent had even built his mansion within some ruins, completely disregarding the Indian Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958.

After briefly halting at the palatial residence of the Siddi Nawab we had a delicious fish thali (mixed platter) at a popular beachfront restaurant. Hunger satiated, thirst followed. We had heard about a local concoction called maadi, made from coconut and fermented to perfection. A man overheard us talking about the beverage and took us to a shady clearing nearby. Another man climbed down from a coconut tree, took our empty water bottle and filled it up with some liquid from a petrol canister. It was very tasty. We then walked towards the next settlement in search of another rickshaw. For a while we could not find any, but as soon we got on a rickshaw and were on our way, two lost looking English beauties walked out of a back alley onto the main street. I groaned in disappointment. "Good thing we saw them now, otherwise you would have forgotten about me." murmured my travel companion.

Our final stop before heading back to Bombay was the impenetrable sea fortress of Murud Janjira. From the opposing shore we were hurried on to a barely seaworthy vessel, made even less so by the mass of humanity loaded onto it. As we approached the fort, it looked even more dark and menacing than it had from afar. Nineteen bastions holding cannons and thick walls rising a dozen meters into the sky loomed ahead. Inside it was much brighter, murky green ponds and shrubbery having taken over most of the man made construction. We climbed the staircase to the highest point. The entire fort as well as the bay surrounding it was clearly visible. Any ship approaching the area would have been spotted from kilometers away by the guards once manning this point.

Under the jurisdiction of it's Abyssinian Siddi rulers, Murud Janjira was never captured by Dutch, Portuguese, English, or Maratha forces, a distinction no other fort on India's west coast can claim. The name comes from the Konkani word for island, morod, and its Arabic equivalent, jazeera. If the fort at Murud Janjira was not spectacular enough, another floating citadel loomed out even further out to sea, constructed by Shivaji's son after he failed to conquer it by digging a tunnel into the fort. It is inaccessible to the public. On the way back to the mainland, a grown man started whimpering on the sailboat. "Is he scared?" I asked a man awkwardly crouching beside me and trying not to fall overboard. "I think so." he replied.

It Happens Only In Burhanpur

I rolled into Burhanpur's railway station a couple of hours before my friend Himanshu's wedding. He had sent his roommate to pick me up. As we rode to my hotel on his motorcycle he briefly explained Burhanpur's claim to fame. Mumtaz Mahal, the favourite wife of Emperor Shah Jahan, had expired in the town while delivering her fourteenth child. Burhanpur was to be the site of the Taj Mahal, but due to logistical issues the world's most beautiful building was built in Agra instead.

I was sharing my hotel room with another wedding guest. After introductions, I freshened up and got into my ethnic gear. The hotel was on the main street of Burhanpur, as was the wedding hall, so we strolled there just as the baraat was beginning. The baraat is a procession where the groom sits on a horse while his friends and family members enthusiastically dance along to the music of a marching band. There is also much waving around of rupee notes in the air.

The baraat can take many hours to complete, regardless of the distance traversed. In this particular case it was a hurried affair, as we covered around a hundred meters in little over an hour. I followed at a safe distance, careful to not get caught in the middle of the gyrating crowd. I was still occasionally pulled in for some dance lessons by the revelers. The dancing was so frenetic that a dust storm was kicked up outside the entrance of the wedding hall.

Now it was the time for the actual marriage ceremony. A couple of Himanshu's friends came up to me and inquired "Do you booze?". "A little." I cautiously replied. We headed out and one of them threw me some motorcycle keys. I do not know how to operate a motorcycle, so soon four of us were on another bike headed to the local watering hole. There I was plied with whisky, beedis, and a famous Burhanpur dish made from a mixture of lentils and rice.

The groom called his roommate to summon me back to the wedding hall, as I had not yet met his family. His other friends kept ordering more drinks. "Stop, else he will be completely out." pleaded the roommate, who was limiting his intake. "It does not matter if he has killed one man or many, he is murderer either way." was the supporting argument in favour of getting more drinks for me. The roommate was able to extract me from the bar after a while. "You don't drink much?" I asked. "It is a small town. One has to maintain a good image." he responded.

The marriage functions were winding down now. I met Himanshu's father and cousins, before posing for a photo with the bride and groom. The fellow sharing my hotel room was leaving the same night, so all the friends got on a couple of motorcycles again to drop him off. On the way back, another motorcycle was approaching the one I was sitting on from an acute angle. "What's going on?" I asked the driver of my motorcycle. The man on the other bike took out a bottle of whisky and handed it to me like a baton. "Put it in your pocket." my driver calmly said.

I was back at the wedding, standing rigidly so as not to disclose the concealed bottle of liquid sin. It was time for the newlyweds to say good night. Once the rest of the guests had also departed, the remaining guys gathered around me. I reached under my kurta and slowly revealed the whisky bottle. Everyone roared in approval and we headed to my hotel room for a nightcap. On the way a rather large ass stood in the middle of the street, unperturbed by the bright lights or honks emanating from the two wheeler rapidly approaching it. We swerved around it at the last moment, with the driver remarking "A donkey in the middle of the road. It happens only in Burhanpur.".

Holy Cow

There is a stereotype about India that cows are to be found absolutely everywhere, from the family farm to the middle of a busy intersection in a bustling metropolis. It is true. One day I was inside the ticket reservation center of a train station when I noticed a steaming heap of cow dung on the floor near the ticket counter. 

Me: There was a cow inside here?

Indian guy: Yes, this is India. Not even the prime minister's seat is safe.

Android and the Indian Accent

After my trustworthy Nokia plunged into a toilet bowl and never recovered fully, I finally entered the smartphone fray with the cheapest Android phone available in the marketplace. I had held out for many years, finding the devices too large to be convenient and too complicated to be efficient. For instance, my fingers correspond to more than one letter at a time on the touchscreen keyboard, so it is very difficult to type text messages. I was with a colleague when I discovered it had voice recognition capabilities that could ease my typing burden. Much to my amusement, it could not decipher my coworker's Indian accent.

Me: I am very handsome.
Phone: I am very handsome.
Me: I am testing out voice recognition.
Phone: I am testing out voice recognition.
Indian coworker: I am testing the phone.
Phone: I am dictating the fort.
Indian coworker: I am testing the phone.
Phone: I'm checking the phone.
Indian coworker: I am testing the phone.
Phone: I am digging the phones.
Indian coworker: Let's try something easy. I went to the sea.
Phone: BBC Weather.
Indian coworker: I went to the sea.
Phone: Irish crikey.
Indian coworker: I went to the sea.
Phone: Sex.
Me: It can even read minds.
Indian coworker: How did you read my mind?
Phone: Cheese P Diddy my mind.

A Different Perspective

Chinese girl: Korean girls ugly.
Me: What??? They are very nice looking. A lot of them have even had plastic surgery.
Chinese girl: Yes... because Korean girls ugly.

Sleeper

After a overnight train journey from Mumbai, I arrived in Ahmedabad at around 5 in the ante meredien. I had foolhardily booked the lower bunk in a sleeper compartment of the train. Lower berths are recommended for security reasons. It is easier to notice if someone is purloining your luggage from right beneath your bed than when you are two bunks up, far detached from the happenings below.

The drawback is that you get little to no sleep, as a continuous stream of passengers without beds, seats, tickets, or manners uses your bed as their own. I was forced against the interior wall of my compartment, able to maintain possession of approximately 40% of my allotted sleeping area. The remaining 60% of the property was captured by a rotating set of 22 different individuals of various ethnic backgrounds during the 9 hour journey. Thankfully, the maximum number of people sitting on me at any given time did not exceed 5.

I groggily tumbled out of the train at Ahmedabad Junction and walked into the station's waiting room. The seats all seemed to be occupied. A strange mix of a hospital waiting room and a morgue, I wandered around the piles of bed sheet covered bodies sleeping on the floor and found one man taking up two seats. I grunted and he grudgingly moved his duffel bag as I took a seat. I reached into my backpack and dug out my trusty blue travel pillow. As I inflated it with several deep breaths, the sleepy eyes of the other travellers suddenly shifted towards me as if I was the most peculiar sight in the room. I placed it around my neck and slept soundly until daybreak.

*****

"Man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep." ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Hands On Experience

Indian guy: Are all you foreigners like this?
Me: Yes.
Indian guy: This is weird, yaar.

A conversation about cultural differences between India and the West that had centred around the usage of coconut oil versus gel for hair styling had segwayed into man's favourite topic.

Indian guy: I had heard before that abroad people wipe their a** and don't wash their a** but I never believed it until you confirmed it.
Me: It's true.
Indian guy: This is very unhygienic. You know, after going to the toilet you should wash.
Me: I always wash my hands afterwards.
Indian guy: Not just your hands...
Me: I use toilet paper for that. I wipe and I wipe until the paper is white. That way my hand stays clean for when I eat. No poo stuck in my finger nails.
Indian guy: We don't use the same hand for eating. God gave you two hands for a reason! And what about your underwear? Do you wash that?
Me: Once in 3 months.
Indian guy: Ugggh. What about in airplanes? Are there Indian style toilets there?
Me: Nope. 
Indian guy: Not even on Air India?
Me: No. Maybe you can use the water from the sink and slosh it around.
Indian guy: My god, this is horrible. I am learning new things today that I never imagined before.

After several moments of quiet contemplation, he had the last laugh.

Indian guy: You know all the pretty Indian girls. They also all use their hands.

Arnab's Year in Cities, 2011

The year 2011 began with New Year's celebrations in Seoul with my hostel mates. I soon returned to China, wrapping up my 2.5 year odyssey at the end of May. I came back to Canada in time to attend a friend's wedding, and spent a few months there job hunting and soul searching. After securing a position at Teach For India, I set off on an expedition through Southeast Asia. A couple of months later I was in Mumbai, joining the noble movement to end educational inequity.

All told I stayed overnight in 25 cities in 2011, far fewer than in 2010 or 2009. I atoned for this by reaching double digits in countries visited in a year for the first time:

• Bangkok, Thailand
• Beijing, China
• Daman, India
• Hanoi, Vietnam
• Hoi An, Vietnam
• Hue, Vietnam
• Kolhapur, India
• Kolkata, India
• Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• Luang Prabang, Laos
• Mahabaleshwar, India
• Mumbai, India
• Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Ranchi, India
• Saigon, Vietnam
• Seoul, Korea
• Siem Reap, Cambodia
• Spokane, USA
• Vancouver, Canada
• Vientiane, Laos
• Wenatchee, USA
• Wutaishan, China
• Yan'an, China
• Yinchuan, China
• Zhengzhou, China

*****

A whole new world

Don't you dare close your eyes

A hundred thousand things to see

Hold your breath - it gets better

I'm like a shooting star, I've come so far I can't go back to where I used to be

~ "A Whole New World" from Aladdin ~

A Man And His Dicos

Dicos is the premiere homegrown fast food chain in the People's Republic of China. Whenever I was in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city and spotted a franchise, I would rejoice. At some point during my stay in that town, I would dine at Dicos. In a strange place the hint of the familiar is enough to calm the nerves. Be it at the beginning of the day before I braved the unknown, for a lunchtime break in the midst of adventuring, or to wile away the hours until a midnight train arrived to whisk me back to Beijing, Dicos was always there in my hour of need.

The heavyweight duo of KFC and McDonalds dominated the big cities, so Dicos focused on areas where they had yet to set foot in. Some of my travel partners sulked while I enjoyed each zesty bite of processed goodness, while others refused to enter the outlets altogether. During Ramadan in Kashgar there was barely a restaurant open, yet my fellow traveller Preston steadfastly refused to entertain the thought of obtaining sustenance at Dicos. Fortunately, most readily embraced the joy of Dicos. Friends would send me an instant message from afar, saying they had stumbled upon a Dicos in Inner Mongolia or some such place.

The staff at any Dicos, being Chinese, found me completely incomprehensible. Once I pointed to a combo I wanted to order, but they only gave me the burger. I again pointed to the combo I wanted and they gave me another burger. The manager came out to see what all the fuss was about. He figured out I wanted a combo, so he added it to my increasingly long bill. Other travelers had similar experiences, often accepting the items they received (but had not ordered) with serene expressions on their faces.

Physically a Dicos outlet looks like a cross between a McDonalds and KFC outlet. The format and presentation of the food is similar. It tastes somewhat better, but not in any discernible manner. Perhaps it was the knowledge that my days in Dicos were limited to my time in the far reaches of China that made it so enjoyable. To know that no other foreigner had defiled the premises before I was an uplifting thought. I estimate I visited about 25-30 Dicos in my two and a half year stay in China.

*****

Go: Dinner at Yoshinoya.

Preston: Why? 

Arnab: No Dicos nearby.

Preston: You are shameful.

I'm Daman

Only a few hours north of Bombay are the union territories of Daman and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. They are accessible via Gujarat, where the nearest rail head of Vapi is situated. I grabbed a rickshaw to Daman. The driver asked me which Daman I wanted to go to. I looked at him blankly and told him to take me to the one that had hotels. It turned out the main town is called Moti Daman (Fat Daman) while the secluded beach side resort community is called Nani Daman (Small Daman). I found a hotel fitting my meager budget in Nani Daman, ate lunch by the rocky beach, and negotiated a tour of the surroundings with a rickshaw driver.

We ventured to the two Portuguese forts in the region, one in Moti Daman and one across the Damanganga River in Nani Daman. I climbed to the top of a lighthouse to admire the view, the rickety spiral staircase shaking as violently as the disturbed man who had sat beside me on the train. The four hundred year old Church of Bom Jesus was my next stop, before capping of the day at Jampore Beach. Gujarat is a dry state, so its borders are demarcated by a string of boozeries rather than barbed wire fencing. I imbibed at one of Jampore's many beachfront watering holes with my driver. The next morning, I found myself having breakfast at his home.

After sobering up, the driver had taken me home to meet his wife. The rest of his family would be visiting the next day, so he invited me over for breakfast then. Despite being in his early forties, he was already a grandfather. They fed me chapatis, eggs, and sauce. Post breakfast, I said goodbye to Daman and headed to Silvassa, the capital of Dadra & Nagar Haveli. While Daman is to the east of Vapi, Silvassa is to the west. I walked around the sleepy town for several hours, checking out the tribal museum and local gardens before catching a shared rickshaw back to Vapi. My bus back to Bombay was scheduled to leave after midnight, so I asked to be dropped at a local movie theater where I could pass the time.

Vapi is the fourth most polluted city in the world. The rest of the cities on the list pretty much map to the ones I visited in China. It was fitting that in this dirty city I would watch a movie called Dirty Picture. The film was about a voluptuous siren's rapid rise to fame in the Indian movie industry, and subsequent fall from grace. There were no females in the audience. Every time the lead actress displayed an ounce of flesh, the local men started baying like a pack of hyenas, cheering, whistling, and yelling obscenities that would have offended my delicate sensibilities had I been able to understand them.

*****

"Bootiful?" - Rickshaw driver, after examining the photo he had clicked of me on my camera

Battle of Pratapgad

The man in Maharashtra is Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. The warrior king from the 17th century established a Maratha empire through his courage and guile. Anyone who has had the luxury of growing up in the state has heard about his heroics from childhood. He is so popular in Bombay that it is possible to land at Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, catch a train to Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, and stroll down to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya  museum in the same day.

 
Some of Shivaji's defining moments took place at Pratapgad, a stronghold as impenetrable as the bedroom of a traditional Indian girl who lives with her parents. I visited the fort here, which is located near the hill station of Mahabaleshwar. Set a thousand meters above sea level amidst unforgiving steep terrain on all sides, Pratapgad Fort is a demotivating site for enemies.

The Adilshahi forces of Afzal Khan clashed against the Maratha might of Shivaji at the base of the fort. With his troops outnumbered 3:1, Shivaji still came out on top. He met Afzal Khan in person to discuss a peace treaty. The negotiations came to an amicable end courtesy of an Afzal Khan disembowelment by Shivaji's previously concealed tiger claw. His troops then went on to route the Adilshahi troops, marking Shivaji's first significant victory on the way to establishing a Maratha kingdom.

*****

“Shivaji possessed every quality requisite for success in the disturbed age in which he lived: cautious and wily in council, he was fierce and daring in action; he possessed an endurance that made him remarkable even amongst his hardy subjects, and an energy and decision that would in any age raised him to distinction." ~  Sir E. Sullivan

Mr. Tea

Strolling through the dark alleys of the Fort district of Mumbai towards my flat, I deftly sidestepped a taxi, two scooters, a man balancing a marble slab on his head, and several slow walkers before stopping at a mobile phone stall to top up my prepaid account. Suddenly, I felt a strange splotch on my neck. Not again! I thought, recalling my prior experiences in the turd world.

I took a sample of the ooze slowly tracing itself down my spine with my fingers. I was surprised to find out it was not poo, and a little worried that it might be something even more nefarious than bird droppings. The grime turned out to be the harmless contents of a tea cup that someone had emptied from the window of his or her second or third floor apartment. After my roommate studied the stains, he confirmed my findings and all was well on Modi Street once more.

****

"Tea, though ridiculed by those who are naturally coarse in their nervous sensibilities will always be the favorite beverage of the intellectual." ~ Thomas de Quincey

MTR

Fans of Mass Transit Railways, Marginal Tax Rates, and Methionine Synthase Reductase may be dissapointed, but anyone who enjoys eating food will not be after enjoying a hearty lunch at Mavali Tiffin Room (MTR). My flatmate Shyam and I decided to go to Bangalore's favourite restaurant. The fare was vegeterian but delicious nonetheless. Not too spicy and not too pricy, what the landmark lacked in visual appearance it more than made up for in taste.

The service was extraordinary, not because I could distinguish the waiters from the clientele, but because how quickly empty plates were filled up within moments of the eater licking them clean. After the main course, ice cream was even served. I was encouraged to taste everything by the waiter who once noticed my hesitation at the appearance of some strange looking dishes. With our hunger satiated and our bellies expanded, we left our table satisfied. .0237 seconds later our seats were occupied by the next batch of eager diners.

*****

"Food is our common ground, a universal experience." - James Beard

Nightmare on Modi Street

I have moved into a flat in the Fort area of Mumbai. It is a short walk from Victoria Terminus, the main train station in town. Up three stories of rickety stairs is my claustrophobic domicile. The stairwell is so dark that a flashlight is required even in the daytime to see the steps clearly. There are no windows in some rooms, although there is air conditioning.

Since the cost of the electricity consumed by the AC is included in the rent, which is apparently a rarity in Bombay, the tenants take full advantage of it. The average temperature inside is more akin to Canada than India. While I lay curled up and shivering at night, that is not what keeps me awake. Perhaps it is the bedbugs or perhaps it is the landlord, his brothers, and other lackeys who stay up all night watching TV at maximum volume. Tamil movies and the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" garner the highest ratings.

The apartment has two bathrooms, one of which has a shower and one a sink without a faucet. Unluckily, I share it with 13 other men. There is another sink outside, which is used for washing vegetables and brushing teeth. One guy uses so much Axe body spray that it burns my eyes. Another gripes continuously about a long list of problems that life has thrown at him in a thick accent. His roommates listen on silently, either because they are captivated by the minutiae of his life or because they can sleep with their eyes open. I later realized he was talking on the phone to his girlfriend or fiance, whom he may or may not have met in real life.

So far I have stayed in three rooms. I was shuttled from one room to another, when the guy whose bed I had been sleeping in initially arrived back at the apartment at dawn one day. He had gone back home to visit his family. I was relocated to the bed of another resident who was away on a business trip. Upon his return, I shifted to the room of the only guy who cooks in the apartment. Since there are no tables in the flat, he eats on his bed. He cannot eat out since he is recovering from jaundice.

*****

Me: They also smoke, fart, and ball scratch.

Friend: Looks like you've found your tribe...well done!

Blowing In The Wind

How many roads must a man walk down,

before you call him a man?

My career as a public servant lasted through university. I quickly transitioned to the private sector after graduation, whereupon I allowed notorious companies such as Satyam to profit from my talents. Endowed with responsibility and managerial powers from a young age, I never maximized the amount of rent that I could extract from my employers as long as I enjoyed my work. When the excitement cooled and the learning peaked, it was an automatic trigger to explore new opportunities.

And how many times can a man turn his head,

and pretend that he just doesn't see?

Having spent two and a half unforgettable years in China, it was time to shift gears. After completing a circuit of Southeast Asia, I came to Mumbai. In a country where 58% of children do not complete primary school and only 6% of the population make it to university, I entered the non profit space for the first time. I joined Teach For India, a movement of young leaders intent on ending educational inequity in the nation.

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind,

the answer is blowing in the wind.

- Bob Dylan