Saturday
Bollywood beauties…speed freaks mesmerized by skin…girls coming/going all night…fingers growing from a man’s knuckles…baby beggars in pursuit… pink horses on mirrored green wall…child-mother and child perform a little drone and dance…motorcycle collides with auto-rickshaw to much-displayed damage…woman with grotesque ankles…looking for grass on a shady lane…shiva in caves…beggars, beggars, beggars…sweet-voiced Swiss girl-transvestite…Durga drumming…male hotel receptionist with three-inch long nails…boys walking arm-in-arm…bread=breakfast…boy with foot growing out of wrist… albino Indian shop keeper…
In Mumbai, every street is bordered with sewage, the air is polluted and the sun doesn’t shine as much as heat. I am heading for the Gateway to India and join Patrick (Italian) and Ian (American) to get on a boat bound for Elephante Island. Every street vendor on every street haggles us and it’s incredulous, the number of people who ask for tips for doing things without pre-warning…Elephante Island is a shrine with carvings in caves devoted to Shiva, Parvati and the lingam. We wander all over this monkey-populated island, talking about political issues in the United States and what nationality boasts the most-acclaimed lover…
The next day as I head out to Victoria Station (CSC) to purchase my ticket for Kerala on tomorrow’s train, I am once again asked where are you going, where are you coming from? This friendly Indian introduces himself as Manohar and we proceed in the direction of CSC. He helps me get a ticket to Kozhikode and then we walk to Crawford Market where I take some photos and we go to two establishments where he drinks Blue-Lable gin and I have a couple of beers. Later, he promises to escort me to the other train station in North Eastern Mumbai.
I see Ian in the hostel and he’s getting ready to leave for Hampi so we wish each other luck and good fortune. Later, Patrick shows up and kisses me goodbye on both cheeks. (Too bad I can’t admit that Italian men really are the most attractive to me!)
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Colaba
October 19
This morning I learn that auto-rickshaws are not allowed in the southern sections of Mumbai. I assume this is so because the tremendous traffic jams all over this city of fifteen million people are almost uncontrollable. As I leave the Jewel Hotel, they offer to call a cab, I accept and then an hour-and-a-half later find myself at Churchgate Station. Lugging my suitcase and backpack, I am misdirected four or five times until I finally find the police office in the station where they direct me to the Government Tourist Office across the street. Since this is such a large city, they seem to have more travel literature and are able to inform me of train schedules and hostels and places to see in Mumbai.
I make my way back across the street, find a pay telephone and call the Salvation Army hostel where I’m told that they have an opening in their dormitory. As I look around me, I see a funeral pyre being carried up the street with the body decked out in yellow flowers. An elderly gentleman comes up to me and asks me “where are you going?” and “where are you coming from?” This is the first of many times I will hear this question…I reply from “ Boriuli and am headed to the Salvation Army dormitory.” When I realize that this is not his question, I explain to him that I’m from the U.S. and am heading to see my niece in Mettupalayam. “Oh!” he exclaims, stopping a taxi and making sure the driver knows where to take me. He hops in with me telling me that he is going the same way but will get out before me. I thank him and ride to the hostel.
Later on that day, after having walked around the city taking pictures of the Gateway to India and the Taj Mahal hotel, I return to the hostel and take a cold shower. (Every shower I take in India will be cold.) I find a girl from Sweden with whom I eat in a good, cheap vegetarian restaurant and she shows me Leopold’s (a tourist bar), the main street where there are a million shops spilled out on the streets, and a good shop in which I buy water and some toilet paper…
This morning I learn that auto-rickshaws are not allowed in the southern sections of Mumbai. I assume this is so because the tremendous traffic jams all over this city of fifteen million people are almost uncontrollable. As I leave the Jewel Hotel, they offer to call a cab, I accept and then an hour-and-a-half later find myself at Churchgate Station. Lugging my suitcase and backpack, I am misdirected four or five times until I finally find the police office in the station where they direct me to the Government Tourist Office across the street. Since this is such a large city, they seem to have more travel literature and are able to inform me of train schedules and hostels and places to see in Mumbai.
I make my way back across the street, find a pay telephone and call the Salvation Army hostel where I’m told that they have an opening in their dormitory. As I look around me, I see a funeral pyre being carried up the street with the body decked out in yellow flowers. An elderly gentleman comes up to me and asks me “where are you going?” and “where are you coming from?” This is the first of many times I will hear this question…I reply from “ Boriuli and am headed to the Salvation Army dormitory.” When I realize that this is not his question, I explain to him that I’m from the U.S. and am heading to see my niece in Mettupalayam. “Oh!” he exclaims, stopping a taxi and making sure the driver knows where to take me. He hops in with me telling me that he is going the same way but will get out before me. I thank him and ride to the hostel.
Later on that day, after having walked around the city taking pictures of the Gateway to India and the Taj Mahal hotel, I return to the hostel and take a cold shower. (Every shower I take in India will be cold.) I find a girl from Sweden with whom I eat in a good, cheap vegetarian restaurant and she shows me Leopold’s (a tourist bar), the main street where there are a million shops spilled out on the streets, and a good shop in which I buy water and some toilet paper…
India...Ow!
October 18
Large crows are cawing outside the windows of the hotel. It’s 6:30 a.m. and I haven’t slept all night. I look out and there’s movement on the street; the shops are preparing to open. The chai sellers are coming home and the auto-rickshaw drivers are climbing out of their cabs sleepily. And, I’m getting hungry.
By 8:00 a.m., I’m wandering the crowded streets of Santacruz, noticing what the shops are selling and looking for any outside influences such as tourist shops or guides and the only ones that I locate are for Indian sites other than Mumbai. At 9:30 there’s a huge rush of traffic – auto rickshaws, cars, scooters - it’s the morning rush hour and is over in half-an-hour. In front of a shoe salesman’s shop, I sit on the curb and see no other Caucasian faces and this makes me feel intimidated and unable to shoot with my camera -- If I pull it out of my bag, will my camera and computer be ripped off? I buy some puri, which is great, from a smiling man and his female companion.
Return to the hotel and they call the other hotel to come and pick me up and take me to the Classic Hotel on Swami Vivekananda Way. This room is even crummier than the last and I feel pretty isolated, but I leave for a few hours walking almost all of the way to Juhu and still feel unable to take pictures of the traffic, the faces, the street full of school buses and kids, the crowded street where there’s a market with shops in full swing, and the festival which is getting underway. I find a small place and get dinner – chicken sag, nan bread, raita. Tomorrow, I’m going to investigate hotels near Churchgate in. I guess I’ll go by auto-rickshaw…or taxi.
Large crows are cawing outside the windows of the hotel. It’s 6:30 a.m. and I haven’t slept all night. I look out and there’s movement on the street; the shops are preparing to open. The chai sellers are coming home and the auto-rickshaw drivers are climbing out of their cabs sleepily. And, I’m getting hungry.
By 8:00 a.m., I’m wandering the crowded streets of Santacruz, noticing what the shops are selling and looking for any outside influences such as tourist shops or guides and the only ones that I locate are for Indian sites other than Mumbai. At 9:30 there’s a huge rush of traffic – auto rickshaws, cars, scooters - it’s the morning rush hour and is over in half-an-hour. In front of a shoe salesman’s shop, I sit on the curb and see no other Caucasian faces and this makes me feel intimidated and unable to shoot with my camera -- If I pull it out of my bag, will my camera and computer be ripped off? I buy some puri, which is great, from a smiling man and his female companion.
Return to the hotel and they call the other hotel to come and pick me up and take me to the Classic Hotel on Swami Vivekananda Way. This room is even crummier than the last and I feel pretty isolated, but I leave for a few hours walking almost all of the way to Juhu and still feel unable to take pictures of the traffic, the faces, the street full of school buses and kids, the crowded street where there’s a market with shops in full swing, and the festival which is getting underway. I find a small place and get dinner – chicken sag, nan bread, raita. Tomorrow, I’m going to investigate hotels near Churchgate in. I guess I’ll go by auto-rickshaw…or taxi.
India...Wow!
October 16
Immediately, as I sit in my seat on the Air India flight bound for Mumbai, I introduce myself to the Indian couple sitting next to me, Jude and Myrna, and discover that they are returning to Mumbai and that they’d been in Canada for a month visiting his brother who lives there. Their stay at Frankfurt Airport exceeded mine by about 12 hours!! We talk about our kids, how spent we were in the airport, and where we are going. They are surprised to hear my story of going to Tamil Nadu to see my brother’s child and her 5 kids. The flight is long, something like 8 ½ hours, and towards the end of it, I ask Jude if he would mind talking to the guy in the airport at Mumbai who’d find me a hotel. He says “No problem!” and I express my utmost thanks.
When we arrive at the airport, we’re treated to a half-hour of waiting with the power going on and off while they set up the gate from which we’ll exit, and when we get off we still have to fill out a declaration slip. Since I put no address on mine, the customs duty officer starts to hassle me but Jude tells him I am going with him. Since I’ve only got that heavy little suitcase, I have to wait for all six of their bags to arrive before we can get on the way. Once we find the guy who tells us he only has rooms for places in excess of $150, Jude says, “Come home with us. We’ll help you find a place tomorrow.” Gratefully, I accept. So, I watch him perform the same set of steps he’s told me to do: get a driver (ha! ha! I can’t see myself unflustered in that crowded lot of taxi drivers numbering a least 250 at 1:00 a.m.), bargain for the price, permit the driver to go in and get the paper the price is written on ok’d by the police, and then go off, after getting the piece of paper ok’d again by the police at the exit. To make matters even worse, Jude and Myrna live in I guess what you’d call the suburbs, Boriuli or Kandivalli, at least 45 minutes away; I have to get a map tomorrow. We leave the airport with two bags in the trunk and four on top, and I’m marveling at this feeling of being in Mumbai in the mist of early, early day - looking at the shanties, people sleeping on the street, cows roaming - when we get a flat tire! Myrna and I get out of the car and Jude waits for the driver to remedy the situation: either fix the flat or find us another cab. So, he comes back in ten minutes with another cab and takes us to their apartment in Kandivalli, where we all take showers and fall asleep exhausted, somewhere past three a.m.
When I open my eyes, Myrna is standing in the doorway of the bedroom we’ve shared and I ask her the time. “Two o’clock,” she exclaims. “Oh, no! You’re kidding,” I say. I
get up and say, “Good morning, er – afternoon, Jude.” We excitedly chat about a few things and unsuccessfully try to hook me up on their cable which makes me wonder what and where those tiny ants were and came from that I found crawling in my backpack… I look on Myrna’s laptop at the Internet and find a hotel which won’t cost me over $50 or so and be where I can find a more inexpensive place, and then he suggests we get going to get me some money at the bank, have lunch and get me on an auto-rickshaw to the hotel. We have lunch (fish curry, dal, rice and chapattis) and then their daughter, Sierra, calls via Skype from Dubai, where she’s a stewardess for Qatar Airways. Their daughters are lovely; Madeline, greeted us earlier when we first got in. She’d been staying at their house while they were away, and her husband’s away with the boys in Goa for a few days. Quickly, Jude and I go to the bank and oddly enough I can only get out about 4,600 rupees, roughly 120 dollars’ worth. After showing him pictures of my kids and Jim’s family, I say goodbye to Myrna and we leave, and he arranges a ride in an auto-rickshaw and I proceed through rush-hour traffic to a place called Hotel Classic. I pay the driver 200 rupees and enter the hotel, but they have no space for me. So, he ships me to the Jewel Hotel, and arranges for a ride for me. The driver asks me for a tip, of course…
Upstairs, in the room on the fifth floor, and certainly no way worth the rupees a $50 hotel should rate, I am washing up, and have the t.v. set on, when the lights go out! After a couple of minutes, the lights come back on, but I can’t get the air-conditioner back on, so I call the reception area and am told that it should be working now. I capture the attention of the bus boy and he turns it back on… Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something moving on the ceiling near the drapes. It’s a salamander or a chameleon or a ... gecko?
It is dark now by now. I ask downstairs if they have a map and they say, “Oh, madam, it’s too late now! You should try tomorrow, in the morning.” I go out and procure a pack of Camels for 90 rupees (which I mistakenly hear as “nineteen” rupees!) and buy a bottle of water for 20 rupees when upon opening it, discover that it’s not “mineral” h20… Wonder what that slight feeling of disapproval I felt was as I left the hotel?
Immediately, as I sit in my seat on the Air India flight bound for Mumbai, I introduce myself to the Indian couple sitting next to me, Jude and Myrna, and discover that they are returning to Mumbai and that they’d been in Canada for a month visiting his brother who lives there. Their stay at Frankfurt Airport exceeded mine by about 12 hours!! We talk about our kids, how spent we were in the airport, and where we are going. They are surprised to hear my story of going to Tamil Nadu to see my brother’s child and her 5 kids. The flight is long, something like 8 ½ hours, and towards the end of it, I ask Jude if he would mind talking to the guy in the airport at Mumbai who’d find me a hotel. He says “No problem!” and I express my utmost thanks.
When we arrive at the airport, we’re treated to a half-hour of waiting with the power going on and off while they set up the gate from which we’ll exit, and when we get off we still have to fill out a declaration slip. Since I put no address on mine, the customs duty officer starts to hassle me but Jude tells him I am going with him. Since I’ve only got that heavy little suitcase, I have to wait for all six of their bags to arrive before we can get on the way. Once we find the guy who tells us he only has rooms for places in excess of $150, Jude says, “Come home with us. We’ll help you find a place tomorrow.” Gratefully, I accept. So, I watch him perform the same set of steps he’s told me to do: get a driver (ha! ha! I can’t see myself unflustered in that crowded lot of taxi drivers numbering a least 250 at 1:00 a.m.), bargain for the price, permit the driver to go in and get the paper the price is written on ok’d by the police, and then go off, after getting the piece of paper ok’d again by the police at the exit. To make matters even worse, Jude and Myrna live in I guess what you’d call the suburbs, Boriuli or Kandivalli, at least 45 minutes away; I have to get a map tomorrow. We leave the airport with two bags in the trunk and four on top, and I’m marveling at this feeling of being in Mumbai in the mist of early, early day - looking at the shanties, people sleeping on the street, cows roaming - when we get a flat tire! Myrna and I get out of the car and Jude waits for the driver to remedy the situation: either fix the flat or find us another cab. So, he comes back in ten minutes with another cab and takes us to their apartment in Kandivalli, where we all take showers and fall asleep exhausted, somewhere past three a.m.
When I open my eyes, Myrna is standing in the doorway of the bedroom we’ve shared and I ask her the time. “Two o’clock,” she exclaims. “Oh, no! You’re kidding,” I say. I
get up and say, “Good morning, er – afternoon, Jude.” We excitedly chat about a few things and unsuccessfully try to hook me up on their cable which makes me wonder what and where those tiny ants were and came from that I found crawling in my backpack… I look on Myrna’s laptop at the Internet and find a hotel which won’t cost me over $50 or so and be where I can find a more inexpensive place, and then he suggests we get going to get me some money at the bank, have lunch and get me on an auto-rickshaw to the hotel. We have lunch (fish curry, dal, rice and chapattis) and then their daughter, Sierra, calls via Skype from Dubai, where she’s a stewardess for Qatar Airways. Their daughters are lovely; Madeline, greeted us earlier when we first got in. She’d been staying at their house while they were away, and her husband’s away with the boys in Goa for a few days. Quickly, Jude and I go to the bank and oddly enough I can only get out about 4,600 rupees, roughly 120 dollars’ worth. After showing him pictures of my kids and Jim’s family, I say goodbye to Myrna and we leave, and he arranges a ride in an auto-rickshaw and I proceed through rush-hour traffic to a place called Hotel Classic. I pay the driver 200 rupees and enter the hotel, but they have no space for me. So, he ships me to the Jewel Hotel, and arranges for a ride for me. The driver asks me for a tip, of course…
Upstairs, in the room on the fifth floor, and certainly no way worth the rupees a $50 hotel should rate, I am washing up, and have the t.v. set on, when the lights go out! After a couple of minutes, the lights come back on, but I can’t get the air-conditioner back on, so I call the reception area and am told that it should be working now. I capture the attention of the bus boy and he turns it back on… Out of the corner of my eye, I notice something moving on the ceiling near the drapes. It’s a salamander or a chameleon or a ... gecko?
It is dark now by now. I ask downstairs if they have a map and they say, “Oh, madam, it’s too late now! You should try tomorrow, in the morning.” I go out and procure a pack of Camels for 90 rupees (which I mistakenly hear as “nineteen” rupees!) and buy a bottle of water for 20 rupees when upon opening it, discover that it’s not “mineral” h20… Wonder what that slight feeling of disapproval I felt was as I left the hotel?
Frankfurt-er
October 15
Ride the Trenitalia to Aeroporta Roma (pardon any misspellings) and read through a good portion of Paul Auster’s The Brooklyn Follies, a book I’ve lifted from Casa Celeste’s. The Lufthansa flight attendant is staunchly teutonic and a barrel of Korean tourists are on board. “Cheese?” or “Turkey?” sandwiches are offered by the aisle-wide stewardess as she plows up the aisle. The short hour and forty-five minute flight leaves us stuck at the airport in Frankfurt waiting for our next flights, which are at least twelve hours later. At midnight, a uniformed woman comes upon the scene of all of us lounging in chairs, which are set up for relaxation, and orders us to leave right away!! By this time, I am going on only 2- or 3-hours of sleep, and feel like murdering her but two hours later, returning to the place which I’d left, I found a new passel of people and sat down in a chair with no foot rest. I have discovered that Air India would not be set up to take baggage until 9:00 a.m. When I am able to check-in, I have met a retired couple from NYC, who have been up since at least 36 hours ago and who tell me they are returning from having spent the previous 3 months in their home in the western part of Spain (he’s originally Spanish but is retired from the NYC Fire Department and she’s from Ecuador). Also find a free Samsung internet service where I can read my email… When 11:30 a.m. rolls around, I know I’ll sleep for at least a portion of the trip.
Ride the Trenitalia to Aeroporta Roma (pardon any misspellings) and read through a good portion of Paul Auster’s The Brooklyn Follies, a book I’ve lifted from Casa Celeste’s. The Lufthansa flight attendant is staunchly teutonic and a barrel of Korean tourists are on board. “Cheese?” or “Turkey?” sandwiches are offered by the aisle-wide stewardess as she plows up the aisle. The short hour and forty-five minute flight leaves us stuck at the airport in Frankfurt waiting for our next flights, which are at least twelve hours later. At midnight, a uniformed woman comes upon the scene of all of us lounging in chairs, which are set up for relaxation, and orders us to leave right away!! By this time, I am going on only 2- or 3-hours of sleep, and feel like murdering her but two hours later, returning to the place which I’d left, I found a new passel of people and sat down in a chair with no foot rest. I have discovered that Air India would not be set up to take baggage until 9:00 a.m. When I am able to check-in, I have met a retired couple from NYC, who have been up since at least 36 hours ago and who tell me they are returning from having spent the previous 3 months in their home in the western part of Spain (he’s originally Spanish but is retired from the NYC Fire Department and she’s from Ecuador). Also find a free Samsung internet service where I can read my email… When 11:30 a.m. rolls around, I know I’ll sleep for at least a portion of the trip.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Home in Rome
October 11
As soon as I get to Roma on Thursday, I walk to the Coliseum and the Forums of the 12 Caesars. Later on in the evening, I meet Taliya and her friend, Joseph. She’s from Israel, 23, and into music. She knows the Bad Plus, too! We split a few bottles of wine and fool around with language and the Sardinians: Johnny and Marco, the firemen, and Antonio, who makes pizzas. The next day I am at the Vatican trying to decide whether I should wait to get passage into the Basilica with lines leading all the way around St. Peter’s Square when heavy rain begins teeming and chases away perhaps half the people on line. This reduces the amount of time for the queue and I get to climb all the way up to the top where there are immensely bella 360-degree-views of the city. The next morning, Taliya and I walk to the Piazza de Epagne, where there was a rightist demonstration against the premier calling his actions “communist” concerning immigration reforms and welfare. Heading back to Roma’s Statione Termini, there was a contingent of demonstrators waving black-and-red flags and shouting “anti-fasciste” slogans…
The hostel where I’m staying has a bedroom for one, one with four beds and another with 6 beds. Andy’s Hostel is cheap, too, at 20 Euros a night and it’s like an apartment because it has a kitchen. Meet more great kids there from Australia and New Zealand: Anna, who has run a triathalon in Hamburg, Paul, who’s 19 and interested in mechanics, and Thui. They told me that I seemed to remind them of what they’d heard about the sixties. Yeah, I think, is that why you all took mushrooms for the first time in Amsterdam?
Amazingly feel apprehensive and intimidated Sunday and Monday and a little homesick. I think India’s going to be a mind-rattling experience.
As soon as I get to Roma on Thursday, I walk to the Coliseum and the Forums of the 12 Caesars. Later on in the evening, I meet Taliya and her friend, Joseph. She’s from Israel, 23, and into music. She knows the Bad Plus, too! We split a few bottles of wine and fool around with language and the Sardinians: Johnny and Marco, the firemen, and Antonio, who makes pizzas. The next day I am at the Vatican trying to decide whether I should wait to get passage into the Basilica with lines leading all the way around St. Peter’s Square when heavy rain begins teeming and chases away perhaps half the people on line. This reduces the amount of time for the queue and I get to climb all the way up to the top where there are immensely bella 360-degree-views of the city. The next morning, Taliya and I walk to the Piazza de Epagne, where there was a rightist demonstration against the premier calling his actions “communist” concerning immigration reforms and welfare. Heading back to Roma’s Statione Termini, there was a contingent of demonstrators waving black-and-red flags and shouting “anti-fasciste” slogans…
The hostel where I’m staying has a bedroom for one, one with four beds and another with 6 beds. Andy’s Hostel is cheap, too, at 20 Euros a night and it’s like an apartment because it has a kitchen. Meet more great kids there from Australia and New Zealand: Anna, who has run a triathalon in Hamburg, Paul, who’s 19 and interested in mechanics, and Thui. They told me that I seemed to remind them of what they’d heard about the sixties. Yeah, I think, is that why you all took mushrooms for the first time in Amsterdam?
Amazingly feel apprehensive and intimidated Sunday and Monday and a little homesick. I think India’s going to be a mind-rattling experience.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sorry Sorrento
Lunedi, October 8th, in Sorrento
On my way to Sorrento, I make the trek with my backpack and suitcase, which weigh about 50 lbs. together. It’s really too heavy and I’m thinking I’ll leave some of my clothes at Radha’s… And, the air conditioning leaks on me as I’m sitting in the back of the SITA bus because it’s crowded, with no other seats. From here, I spend a day using the internet from a wi-fi signal that I receive on the roof terrace of the Hotel Nice which helps me begin to understand what’s happened to my bank account and proves that one should never use a credit card in this country. I walk all over the place the day that I get here and shoot a number of pictures, noting in particular how most houses have boot scrapers built near the doorsteps, and walk around the port and back up to the city a few more times and head for the ferry the next morning to Ischia. “Is-kia! Is-kia! Is-kia!” the boat workers shout as we all tumble aboard. Since it is raining that morning, I succumb to the purchase of an umbrella. Climb the Castello di Aragones, consisting of 300 steps, and many areas and rooms. After I stumble upon an exquisite public park with its worker there performing his duties, I find a place where I have a plate of ravioli. Book a bed in a hostel in Roma for four nights and leave for there on Thursday morning.
On my way to Sorrento, I make the trek with my backpack and suitcase, which weigh about 50 lbs. together. It’s really too heavy and I’m thinking I’ll leave some of my clothes at Radha’s… And, the air conditioning leaks on me as I’m sitting in the back of the SITA bus because it’s crowded, with no other seats. From here, I spend a day using the internet from a wi-fi signal that I receive on the roof terrace of the Hotel Nice which helps me begin to understand what’s happened to my bank account and proves that one should never use a credit card in this country. I walk all over the place the day that I get here and shoot a number of pictures, noting in particular how most houses have boot scrapers built near the doorsteps, and walk around the port and back up to the city a few more times and head for the ferry the next morning to Ischia. “Is-kia! Is-kia! Is-kia!” the boat workers shout as we all tumble aboard. Since it is raining that morning, I succumb to the purchase of an umbrella. Climb the Castello di Aragones, consisting of 300 steps, and many areas and rooms. After I stumble upon an exquisite public park with its worker there performing his duties, I find a place where I have a plate of ravioli. Book a bed in a hostel in Roma for four nights and leave for there on Thursday morning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)