In my previous post, I talked about Tamil Nadu and Indian culture. I realized afterwards that I had written mainly negative things. Just like the news tends to focus only on the bad things that happen in the world, I told you only about the downsides of this extremely traditional state. I will try to rectify that in this post.
More than once, in my previous stories, I have written lyrically about the traditional dresses, means of transportation, etc. It is, indeed, very romantic and picturesque to see women in sari, men on bullock carts, and people working in the fields, like they have been doing for centuries. This, however, is but appearance; it has no intrinsic value. Much more essential, with this the old tradition come values that we, in our culture, are slowly forgetting. I don’t want to sound like Sarah Palin, but it’s true that in our society, less and less attention is given to family. Not so in Tamil Nadu. Family is everything; as a man, you will live with your parents, together with your wife and kids, earning money for all of them if you have to, and you will take care for them until they die. A similar thing happens with friendship. In our culture, it’s all about being ‘cool’, and not showing too much affection. Call your friends every day, and you will look like kind of a stalker. In India – because this holds, I think, for the whole country – friendship is much more intense. Sometimes foreigners mistakenly think a lot of Indian boys are gay; holding hands or putting their arms around each other’s shoulders is common for guys here. From the couple of Indian friends I made, I receive messages like “good night”, or “have a good day”, or sometimes poems about friendship which, to me, are very corny and ‘un-cool’ – but in the end, they are just being very nice. One last example I would like to give is the children. The two weeks I taught English weren’t the easiest, but I must say, that was in spite of the children’s character. They listened when I talked, were respectful, always called me ‘sir’, and cooperated well (that is, when they understood what I was saying). They don’t seem to have that arrogance that our kids, spoilt by TV and Internet, get more and more nowadays.
To sum up, most people here are extremely sweet. In Tamil Nadu, a lot of people don’t really know how to behave with foreign people. They stare, giggle, and ask you the same annoying questions every time. But when you need some help, the can be the nicest people you’ll ever meet. In general, I shouldn’t forget to mention that if a considerable part of the people I meet here in India either act strange or try to sell me something, to trick me or to rip me off, many are the ones that help me out in difficult situations. I am often completely helpless, especially when I’m trying to find the way, or looking for a bus or for the right platform in a railway stations. Dozens of people help me throughout my journey, most of them in the kindest way, in spite of the language problems. And oftentimes, in the stress and the chaos of the moment, I probably don’t even thank them in a decent way. So here, once and for all, I say: thank you to all those nice people who help me, because I would be lost without them.
The first thing that struck me about Tamil Nadu is the way people dress. Literally all women wear traditional clothes, as do many men, and you will virtually never see a man who doesn’t sport a thick black mustache. The most commonly worn clothing by women is the sari - for those who don’t know this symbol of Indian culture: it’s a long piece of cloth wrapped around the body. Women also wear a lot of jewelry: golden earrings, necklaces and bangles, silver chains with tinkling bells on both ankles, and toe rings. A lot of them wear flowers in their hair; the first day I asked Bhanu if there was some kind of a celebration, so cheerfully dressed everybody looked. Many men – I estimate around half of them – wear a lungi, a simple piece of cloth they tie around their waste. This forms a skirt that normally covers their entire legs, but often they fold it to make it shorter, so that it reaches just above their knees. The most formal dress for a man is a dhoti, a kind of lungi, usually white –that's what most politicians wear. Not only the clothes have barely altered in many years. Tamil is one of the oldest living languages in the world; the earliest records date from about 200BC. According to some scholars, its ancestor, Proto-Dravidian, is related to the language of the Harappans, the people of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.
Men vs women:
It’s fascinating that people keep century-old traditions in these modern times, but the downsides of tradition seem to be kept alive as well. Even the clothes reflect an inequality between men and women, deeply rooted in their society. While women are wrapped up like candy – I’ve been told that a sari is very uncomfortable and hot, because of the many layers of cloth – men walk around in their short kilts, often proudly parading their fat brown bellies. As for the anklets, although they are my favorite piece of their jewelry, I can’t help but interpret them as “I want to hear wherever my woman goes”, a bit like a cowbell – but that's probably exaggerated. Either way, the relations between men and women are very restricted. Girls and boys are not really allowed to interact until they get married – a marriage that is, in a vast majority of the cases, arranged (official numbers are hard to find; many sources on the internet say 95% in India). Arranged marriages are, as I understand it, a consequence of another well-known source of inequalities in India: the caste system. Three main elements define communities in India: language, religion and caste. Marrying someone from another community, and especially from a lower caste, is regarded as a disgrace. That’s why marriages are arranged, and that’s why contact between boys and girls is restricted: falling in love with the wrong person could ruin their lives. Bhanu, my host in Cuddalore, comes from a Hindu family and married, out of love, a Christian, supposedly from a lower caste. According to what she told me, she seems to live in permanent conflict with most members of her family. I lived and worked on a university campus, where the canteens were separated for boys and girls - as were, of course, the dorms. And – with my legendary sense of observation, it took me a while to notice it – in buses, the front seats, where I usually sat at first, are exclusively occupied by women (yes, it took me a while to notice; and even when I did notice, the first few times I just thought :"wow, I'm surrounded by ladies! It must be my magnetic charm....").
Religion and caste influence more than just relationships between men and women. One day, at the copy shop, I saw someone printing his resume. Apart from mentioning religion – that alone is pretty unusual to us – the personal data included “community”, a two-letter abbreviation. I questioned Bhanu about it, and she told me that it was, in effect, the caste. If someone from a higher caste applies for the same job as you, she said, you will never get it, no matter how qualified you are. On the other hand, there seems to be some positive discrimination, as political actions are being undertaken to improve the situation of people from lower castes. The Indian law contains a controversial quota system for employment and education, referred to as “reservation” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India). I didn’t realize the caste system was official; indeed, it’s Indian government that gives you a “caste certificate” and thus puts you in a fictive category with names like “backward classes”. I must admit the caste system is complex, and I would need to do much more research to fully understand it. Apparently, the use of castes by the government was initiated by the British, who grouped the population into communities, equivalently to their own class system, to facilitate the organization of the country. This grouping was based on existing religious castes and tribes. There was a certain hierarchy in these castes, but the British made it more rigid than it was. So any person in India is a member of some caste, usually associated with the occupation of his ancestors. And this caste is classified in one of the big groups, like “backward classes” or “upper classes”. These big groups are the ones that determine the quota for employment and education. When it comes to marriage, people usually stay inside their specific caste. (I’m sure some of you understand this better than I do; feel free to explain!) Another tradition that is still in use is the payment of a dowry. The family of the bride pays a sum of money (or gives a car, or a TV, ...) to the family of the groom; the higher the caste, the higher the sum. The couple usually moves in with the husband's family; so I guess the dowry can be considered as a payment for the wife's food and accommodation. What people don't really seem to know, is that Indian law prohibits the payment of dowry since 1961. The dowry system unavoidably led (and leads?) to sex selection. That's why prenatal determination of sex is illegal here in India - to prevent sex-selective abortion.
Apart from caste, I have mentioned religion. “What is your religion?” is a very common question in India. I have met many Hindus, Muslims and Christians, and they have one thing in common: all of them are very dedicated to their religion. When I answer, as I always do, “no religion; I’m atheist”, they usually look at me as if I came from another planet. It’s funny, by the way, to go to church and see all these Indian people being more devoted Christians then our grandparents ever were. It makes you realize how little religion has to do with culture, I guess – religion is shaped to fit the local culture, and not the contrary. People who are scared of “the Muslims” or “the Hindus” should come to India: people here are Hindu, or Muslim, or Christian, or Sikh, or Sufi, or whatever, but in the end I find it similarly hard to interact with either one of them, simply because they are Indians, and Indian culture is so different from European culture (and even that last statement, I realize, is probably an unacceptable generalization).
Now, all of this – the religion, the castes, the chasteness – is just the cover, the official truth. Not all the young people actually want an arranged marriage, or to have no contact with the opposite sex until they get married, or to be able to marry only someone from their own caste. But they don’t really have a choice. The way I see it – but I’m just guessing; I wish I was an anthropologist, and a historian, and a theologist – people got stuck in this community-based system. No-one ventures not to be religious, or to marry someone from another community, or to wear jeans, or they will be expelled from their community and become outcasts. This means conflict, struggling to find a job, and not being able to marry their children; so it’s just easier to play along. The risks are just too high; if the truth comes out, and you get a bad reputation, you will have a very hard time getting married – especially if you’re a girl. Sometimes it gets even worse; every couple of weeks, I read things like “girl hacked to death for eloping with lover”, “couple shot dead in honour killing in Punjab”, “yet another ‘honour killing’ in Haryana”. It used to be not so very different in our society (apart maybe from the killings). I know my grandmother’s marriage was kind of arranged, and when they went dancing it was never without the company of chaperons; and I suppose that if she would have fallen in love with a factory worker, she wouldn’t even have to think about marrying him. How did it change, then? The sexual revolution, I guess? The only way to break out of that system of hypocrisy is when some strong personalities, some rebels, say what everybody thinks and do what every wants to do. Many of the heroes of our recent generations are rebels: Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, Serge Gainsbourg, Jim Morrison, Madonna, … That’s the kind of people who push radical changes in society, where everybody gets rid of those self-imposed handcuffs and finally breaks out of that vicious circle of hypocrisy. I asked one of my friends about singers and actors here in Tamil Nadu, and he told me they are just as hypocrite as everybody else, if not more. They try to look like ideal son-in-laws, while they probably take drugs and party more than other people. Their pop stars are (or pretend to be) conformists, who are religious, chaste, and care about their family. What a contrast with the Lady Gagas, Paris Hiltons and Kurt Cobains of our Western culture! I'm not saying that they should have Lady Gagas – I begging them not to – but I think maybe some rebellion wouldn't do harm. There is hope, though. Especially in the cities, things aren’t that extreme anymore - actually, these things I talked about hold mainly for villages. In big cities, people dress however they want, have boyfriends and girlfriends, and even marry out of love sometimes. This is slowly spreading out to the rural areas. Parents of the next generation will probably be much milder to their children, and the old system will slowly disappear. I hope they will keep wearing their traditional clothes every once in a while, though, because it's a pleasure to the eye.
When we got back from the trip to Ooty and Mysore, I still didn’t know what I was going to do for Blessing Kids. Bhanu took me to a village to meet a lady who has a trust that takes care of the physically disabled. She asked me if I could conduct some sort of summer camp for children, where I would teach them English and play games with them. I told Bhanu this wasn’t exactly what I had come to do, and that I wasn’t really qualified to do it. But since there was nothing else to do – because of the summer holidays, her own projects weren’t running – I agreed to give it a try for two weeks. This humble engineer had to convert himself into a merciless English teacher. I was going to have to take care of 15 healthy and 15 disabled children, on my own, starting the next day. With hindsight, I realize this was madness; luckily, it never got to this point.
The next day, without any preparation, I took care of 11 children, only one of which was slightly disabled. I improvised, testing their basic reading, writing and language skills and letting them play their own games. That was on Friday; the next Monday I went back to the same village, better prepared this time. A couple of children had been added to the group, so, flexible as I am, I tested their knowledge too and let them join in. The differences in education were big, ranging from almost illiterate to a good knowledge of basic English vocabulary and spelling. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to play some language games and I started to really get to know the children. You can imagine my frustration when the next morning, an hour before leaving for work, I was told I would go to another village. That’s where I spent the rest of the two weeks. I taught English, literally under a tree, with nothing more than a chair and a tiny blackboard. I had to start remembering names and testing knowledge all over again. The group of children, apart from a couple of faithful followers, changed a lot; almost every day, children would leave or join the group. Again, there were big differences in education level, and also in age – the youngest kid was 7 years old, the oldest one 14.
The biggest problem was that I had no translator. Luckily, the oldest children had a reasonable level of English. They learn it at school, 45 minutes every day, and some of the children had just completed their 5th year. No need to explain them what a cucumber or a helicopter is, or to tell them how to write those words. But the teachers in Tamil Nadu seem to overlook some crucial points. Try to ask these children a question – or anyone Tamil Nadu, for that matter – and you will most likely end up in a mad house. They don’t seem to ever even have heard words like “why”, “where” or “who”. What’s more, some basic verbs, like “to know”, “to mean” or “to understand”, seem to be unknown to them as well. What makes communicating even more difficult, is that people here have a very hard time admitting they don’t understand a single word of what you’re trying to tell them. They usually say “okay”, or “yes”, or just repeat part of what you said. So imagine conversations like:
Me: Who took the ball yesterday? Children: … Me: Who, which person? Don’t you know what “who” means? Children: … Me: Who knows what “who” means? Children: … Me: (slowly) Who knows what “who” means? Children:(in chorus, at the same speed) Oo no what oo min. Me: No no, I’m asking you, question: who knows what “who” means? Children: … Me: Anand, do you know what “who” means? Anand: Okay, sir. Me:(sigh) Do…you, Anand (pointing at Anand)…know (pointing at my head)…what…who, the word who, means? Anand:(staring blankly) Me: The meaning of the word who. Meaning, to mean, don’t you know what “to mean” means? Children: …
Sometimes I did want them to repeat after me, for instance when I was teaching them a song:
Me: Okay, so repeat after me. If you’re happy… Children: … Me: Repeat…after…me, okay? So I say (pointing at myself)… you say (pointing at the children). Children:(enthusiastically, in chorus) I say (pointing at themselves), you say (pointing at me)! Me:(sigh) Okay, let’s try this. If you’re happy… Children: …and you know it… Me: No! Repeat…after…me! Repeat! Don’t you know what “to repeat” means? Etc…
The biggest challenge came when one day, all of a sudden, a severely disabled boy, both physically and mentally, was dropped between the other children – they were all non-disabled (except for one kid, who proudly showed me his 12 fingers and 12 toes). I tried to explain that it would be really hard to manage, but they told me he was only there for one day and that I didn’t have to take care of him, he would just sit there and observe the others. He ended up staying until the last day, being relatively discrete but claiming my attention every once in a while. And just imagine having the type of conversations I described earlier, with in the background a kid that is literally crawling around and uttering incoherent sounds. Unfortunately, I’m still waiting for those nerves of steel I ordered a couple of months ago.
Luckily, the number of children rarely exceeded 15, and I worked only from 10am to 3pm (with lunch break). I still had two challenging weeks, though. It was no doubt the most difficult part of my trip until now; I felt lonely, discouraged by the many problems, and I missed the careless life of a backpacker. But I dealt with it the only way I could: trying to be the best darn English teacher I could. Every day I spent several hours preparing games and exercises; luckily, I had some reference material from someone who did something similar before. When I taught them vocabulary, things usually went well. We had a lot of fun playing games like Memory and Pictionary; it was rewarding to hear them enthusiastically cry out words I had taught them. During the breaks, we played games I remembered from my childhood – the biggest hit was Chinese football. “Sir, sir, Chinese football, sir!”, I can still here them call out every five minutes. So I managed, but I still felt reluctant to go to work, and I was relieved every time that part of the day was over.
(Me with some of the children, under the tree where I taught them English)
In the weekends, I usually went to Pondicherry, where thanks to the Danish girl I knew some other volunteers. Before going to Cuddalore, I had this romantic idea of being completely isolated in some Indian village; but when you have to face big challenges every day in an unfamiliar environment, it’s such a relief to have a beer and talk to people you can actually communicate with, that it’s hard to renounce. On weekdays, my favorite way of escaping reality was my scooter. After that first time I rented a moped in Pondy, I decided the fun it gave me was worth taking the risk of facing Indian traffic – as a compromise, I wore a helmet, contrary to 99.9% of local drivers. It was interesting to become an active part of the crazy traffic I had been observing for several months. It was exhausting at first, but once I got the hang of it – left thumb on the horn, the rest of the fingers on the brake, and following the most important (and only) priority rule: “I always have priority, except if you’re big enough to kill me”– I enjoyed it a lot. It was a way to feel free, and to explore the surroundings. Around Cuddalore like in all of India, I love the roads. I drove among many motorbikes – a lot of them with women sitting sideways –, cars, noisy autorickshaws, rusty bicycles, bullock carts, and unreasonably fast trucks and buses with their loud horns, all overtaking each other from both sides, honking frantically. The dusty roadside is populated by women in their colorful sarees, sometimes carrying things on their heads, men adjusting their lunghis (traditional skirts), kids in their school uniforms, and various animals like cows, goats and dogs, who have the great habit of crossing the road at the most random moments – quite unusual obstacles. Sometimes, when there was not too much traffic around, I would pick up speed and enjoy the green landscape flashing by, feeling free as a bird.
(A couple of random pictures of roads)
After two weeks, as the relative comfort of routine was slowly setting in, my task of English teaching came to an end. I was still wondering what I was going to do next, when one night Bhanu suggested me to go traveling for two weeks and come back in June. Because of the holidays, there was no work for me, and I could take the opportunity to do some tourism before the monsoon came. Even though that sounded like a good plan, and in spite of the tough time I had had, I didn’t feel like leaving; I really started to feel at home in Melpattambakkam, and I would miss cruising around on my scooter and sitting on my terrace, gazing at the fields and palm trees that surrounded me. I would get bored if I stayed, though, so I decided to leave. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the start of a new adventure; I will tell you all about it in my next story.
After 8 days of trekking, away from civilization, I had to get back to the chaos and the heat of the Subcontinent. I had to travel from Yuksom, in the mountains of Sikkim, to Cuddalore, at the coast of Tamil Nadu; a journey of about 2500 km. The trip would take three days: the first day I would take two jeeps to get out of Sikkim; that same day I would take a night bus to Kolkata, from where a plane would fly me to Chennai the next afternoon; I would spend the night in Chennai, and on the third day take two buses to reach Cuddalore. That’s two jeeps, three buses and one plane in three days – a pretty heavy schedule, especially after a cold and almost sleepless week in the mountains.
(me and some of my trekking buddies at the goecha-la pass, a couple of days earlier)
The first jeep brought me to a town called Jorethang, close to the southern border of Sikkim. As soon as I got out of the jeep, I felt like I was back in “real India”. I found myself struggling at a ticket booth, surrounded by pushy Indians who never seemed to have heard of a queue, sweating under the burning sun with my heavy bags. My old frustrations, that I seemed to have abandoned right there on my way to the mountains, came back to me like a tsunami of irritation. But a few moments later, when I ended up on a small, crowded market, seeing all the colors, smelling the spices, feeling the energy, I realized I had a big smile on my face. My love-hate relationship with India was resumed.
After one last bumpy jeep ride and an eventless night in the bus, I got to Kolkata at around 9am. After a couple of minutes I was soaking wet, even the slightest movement causing thick drops of sweat to stream down my face – the heat I had felt in Jorethang was nothing compared to what awaited me down south. When I arrived in Chennai, some 12 hours later, it was even hotter. Chennai has a reputation for being overly hot and crowded. I spent about an hour looking for a hotel at a reasonable price, and when I finally found it, I turned out to be the only guest, all alone in a big, dusty dormitory. I felt tired, lonely and really down, for the first time since I had left Belgium.
The next morning, after a good night’s sleep, I felt much better already. My first stop that day was Pondicherry (officially Puducherry, commonly called Pondy), a former French colonial coastal town. Nowadays, it looks almost completely like any other Indian city, except for the French street names, the policemen who – strangely enough – wear red “képis” and some bakeries and restaurants with so-called French cuisine. Close to the seaside, the streets are more quiet, leading up to the “promenade”, where it’s nice to take a stroll along the water or gaze at the horizon of the Bay of Bengal. I spent a couple of hours in Pondy. I treated myself to a steak with french fries and some bread from the bakery, sunbathed on the beach and drove around on a rented moped. It felt great to cruise along the seaside, the wind in my hair, enjoying the smell of sea and sand and the humbling view of that endless mass of water.
(this is the only, very bad picture I took of the promenade in Pondy)
That night I took a bus to Cuddalore, where I met the Indian family I was going to live with. Bhanu, a 31 year old woman, is the head of the organization “Blessing Kids”, for which I would work as a volunteer. She and her husband picked me up and brought me to their home in Melpattambakkam, a small village 15 km east of Cuddalore. They live in her parents-in-law’s house with their two kids, a 13 year old girl and an 8 year old boy. I felt right at home, petting their dog and fooling around with the little boy. I arrived on a Tuesday; on Friday night we were going to leave on a trip with the family. I was told I would start working after the trip, leaving me a couple of days to settle in Melpattambakkam. I slept in a separate house, in a nice room with a bathroom, a big balcony and even a TV. I would pay a fixed amount per month for the room, the food and the transportation, and work, of course, for free. There is a lot to say about this and about volunteering in general, so I will try to dedicate a separate blog entry to this.
I spent the next few days exploring the surroundings and discovering, little by little, the peculiarities of South India and the state of Tamil Nadu. The setting is very green, dominated by coconut trees, mostly scattered around fields of various crops, sometimes grouped into small woods. The patches without greenery reveal the reddish, ochre colored earth that is characteristic to the region. Melpattambakkam, like many villages, is situated along a crowded road that leads directly to Cuddalore. The commercial centre – hair dressers, copy shops, internet cafés, a myriad of small shops selling food, drinks, fruit, phones, clothes, sweets, etc. – is situated along the side of the main road, while smaller side roads lead to the humble houses where the people live. The side of the road is one continuous string of shops, with virtually no space between different villages. It makes you wonder how so many shops can survive – but then you realize you’re in one of the most highly populated countries in the world. Most of these shops seem to have at least one or two clients at all times. I have been told that owners of the typical small shops – they sell snacks, drinks, cigarettes and all kinds of day-to-day products like tooth paste and mosquito repellent, and you can find everywhere without doing more that a few steps – earn loads of money. Apart from the setting, the food as well is completely different in South India than in North India. Again I had to get used to new and strange names like dosa, idli, parotta, sambar and chutney. With all the palm trees around, it won’t surprise you that they use a lot of coconut in their food here. Coconut happens to be one of the few things I have a very hard time shoving down my throat, but since I don’t really have a choice, I’m slowly starting to like it. One curious detail: while in the North people are totally hooked up to milk tea (chai), in the South they drink more milk coffee. I had never thought I would ever drink so much Nescafe, but with fresh milk and a lot of sugar it can be surprisingly tasty. (I have much more to say about Tamil Nadu and its culture, but I will do so in a separate blog entry. I have had quite a few remarks on my stories being a bit long. Even though I don’t like to give in to commercial pressure, I understand it and I will try my best, not to make them shorter but to cut them into smaller pieces.)
(since I left earlier than foreseen, I didn’t get any chance to take pictures of the surroundings; I did find this nice picture on the internet, taken near Cuddalore)
After three days in Melpattambakkam, we left on a trip to Ooty, a popular hill station, and Mysore, a city in Karnataka famous for its beautiful palace. Bhanu had rented a minibus with a driver to transport her family, a cousin, an old lady who works for Blessing Kids, a Danish girl that worked for her before me, that girl's mother and a friend of hers, and myself. Being with children and elderly people doesn’t usually lead to crazy adventures, so I will save you the details of our trip. May is holiday season in South India, so the places we went were packed with Indian tourists. The few times Indian mass tourism has crossed my path, I have found it to be of the worst kind: everything for the cheesy picture, mass consumption of useless and ridiculous junk, and worst of all, no respect whatsoever for the environment. As a result, we did a lot of endless queuing with nervous and impatient people for silly five-minute boat or elephant rides. A highlight, though, was the horseback riding in the green hills around Ooty; although my beloved buttocks hurt for several days afterwards, I found it a very pleasant experience. Also worth mentioning is the palace in Mysore, positively one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve seen in India; it looks like it’s right out of a fairy tale. A less pleasant moment was when we had an accident with the van. I was alone with the family when it happened– the Danish girls had gone shopping. We were about to overtake an autorickshaw, when all of a sudden it took a sharp turn. We hit him right on the side, and although we weren’t driving fast, we dragged him for a couple of meters, completely wrecking the autorickshaw, before coming to a stop. I was sure that the driver would be, if not killed, at least very badly hurt. After remaining in shock for a couple of seconds, I wanted to rush out of the van behind Bhanu’s husband, but he stopped me. “Don’t show yourself”, Bhanu explained, “or we pay more.” Seeing the crowd that had gathered in the meantime, and although it seemed cynical to worry about money on such a moment, I stayed inside and hid in the back of the van. After negotiating for fifteen minutes, the men came back and we drove away. Luckily, the driver of the autorickshaw had somehow managed to stay unharmed. We had to pay 3000 rupees (50EUR), even though the witnesses confirmed that we were not in fault. Bhanu says that we would have had to pay 10 times more had they seen me. Even so, apparently, it’s best not to call the police, as they would ask for even more money.
(mysore palace by night)
I was happy when we got back from the trip; I would finally get to do something. Only, I still didn’t know what… (how's that for a cliffhanger! Okay, maybe I do give in to commercial pressure...)
And so I left on an 8-day trip with people I had met just the night before. Since I was supposed to be heading south, I had only summer clothes, and I didn’t nearly have enough cash to pay for it (there’s no ATM in the small village I was in); well prepared as always. Luckily, I could rent a good jacket, and my kind Danish friend was prepared to lend me a huge amount of money (especially by Indian standards).
The group was nice and international: I shared a guide with a Hungarian girl, a Frenchman, an Aussie, an Israeli and an Indian girl from Mumbai; a different group (but we would always walk and eat with them) was composed of an elderly German couple and a young German girl; and a third group consisted of two Czech couples, with whom we didn’t interact that much. Except for the couples, everybody was traveling on his own, which gave excellent conditions for good social interaction.
The first day, we had to climb to the village of Tsokha (3000m), at 19km from our starting point Yuksom (1800m). The first few hours of the hike were truly beautiful. The trail led us up and down, alongside the flanks of the green hills, offering superb views with waterfalls from high above between the trees and rivers deep down in the valleys. The last six kilometers were a steep ascent to Tsokha. When we paused in a village at 2700m, we noticed the nice view had completely disappeared. Dark clouds had gathered, and echoes of thunder reached us from the other side of the mountain. We left quickly to reach Tsokha in time, but after a few minutes, the first rain drops started to fall. The rain soon turned into a blistering hail, and the small paths into muddy streamlets. By the time we reached the hut, we were soaked to the bone and shivering from the cold. Bad news awaited us: the yaks, which carried our bags with dry clothes, hadn’t arrived yet and were delayed by the storm. To make it worse, it’s illegal to make a fire in Sikkim. Our only source of heat – as would be the case throughout the rest of the journey – was the cup of tea we gratefully accepted from our guide. For more than one hour, which seemed like an eternity, we waited for those damn yaks, unable to get warm in our wet clothes. On the bright side, it did greatly accelerate the social cohesion. Sitting close together, shivering by candlelight; handing each other warm clothes (I lent someone my jacket and borrowed someone else’s pants) and sharing the only available blanket; trying, with frozen hands, to play some tunes on the guitar we had brought; it was cold as hell, but, as the Germans call it, gemütlich. That night set the tone for the rest of the trek. The thunderstorm that had surprised us that day wasn’t just bad luck; the weather followed the same pattern every day. In the morning, the sky was clear, offering sunshine and stunning views. Then, invariably, around noon, clouds would appear on the horizon. Around 2pm, the fog would kick in, and in the late afternoon we would get rain, hail or even snow. Locals know these are just the symptoms of early monsoon; they just forgot two warn us, just as they didn’t really warn us for the cold (“don’t worry, it’s spring!”, dixit the travel agent). So there I was, absolutely unprepared, with my summer clothes and a sleeping bag with a comfort limit of 11°C, when the temperature on some occasions would drop well below zero at night. Every evening I had to fight to get a blanket, and even so I was cold every single night – and I wasn’t the only one. We slept in huts, always with at least one broken window and/or cracks in the walls, so that didn’t really help.
After our first cold night, we were to go from 3000m to 4000m, to a place called Dzongri. Since my travel advice pamphlet urged me not to ascend more than 500m a day above 3000m and my doctor/father had warned me numerous times about altitude sickness, I was a bit worried, which my companions seemed to find quite amusing. Fortunately, apart from a strange pressure in my head and a short moment of feverishness, I turned out to be fine; the guide did confirm that sometimes people get sick, though. The path, that second day, was pretty steep, but the setting was again superb, with lots of rhododendrons and magnolias in bloom. As always, the hike ended in the fog, so we didn’t get the rewarding view at the end. Dzongri is the place where we would acclimatize; we would spend two nights there, to let our bodies get used to the altitude. This acclimatization, though it might sound a bit boring, turned out to be one of the nicest parts of the whole trekking. An American guy and a German girl (both thirty something) were stranded there, waiting for some permit; with them and the others we spent hours chattering, playing games, sipping tea and eating biscuits. Sehr gemütlich indeed! It wasn’t all resting and playing, though; the second day, we woke up at five to climb up to a ridge and see the sunrise. At last we got a first clear view of the magnificent white peaks of the Himalayas. After that, three brave ones (which included, you’ve guessed it, your faithful narrator) ascended to the Dzongri La pass (4500m) for and even better view. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the clouds had closed on the panorama like big white curtains.
On day four, being fully acclimatized, we walked to Thangsing (3840m), the place from which we would ascend to the pass of Goecha La (4940m), the main objective of the trip, the next day. After walking for some time, we got to a ridge, and my heart leapt up with joy: the white mountains seemed so big and close by! We could finally really see what we were walking to. We arrived in Thangsing in time to admire the extraordinary beauty of the place. It lies at the end of a gigantic plain, formed by a melted glacier. There are hills at both sides of the plain, making it kind of a huge canyon. At the end of this canyon, almost like a fata morgana, emerges a massive mountain with snowy peaks. At the left side of the valley, a turbulent river makes its way through a small gorge of its own. It’s great to sit at the side of the river, shielded from the wind, when the sun shines and the view is splendid…a paradise. But paradise can turn into a kind of hell quickly. After a couple of hours, the nice view and the sun had made room for a dense fog. We were sitting in the hut, trying to ignore the cold by challenging each other with riddles, when all of a sudden we noticed that there was a true blizzard going on outside. Snow poured down from the sky and heavy winds were blowing away the tents, causing their owners to struggle with ropes and rocks. The cold was worse then ever, and we were craving for a source of heat so much that we were even considering making an illegal fire. It wouldn’t have been the first time; some people had plundered the roof of one of the huts for wood. The snow was bad news for us. We were supposed to wake up at 2 that night to ascend to Goecha La, the highlight of the trip. The guide said it might be too dangerous with the snow. It kept snowing and snowing, which further diminished our hope. We decided we would wake up at 2 (we had to leave so early to reach Goecha La before sunrise) and evaluate the situation at that moment, so we went to bed early. When around midnight nature’s call woke me up (that’s what you get with all that tea) and I somehow found the courage to go out in the cold, it was still snowing and the ground was covered with a white layer of 5cm. Having lost all hope of going to Goecha La that night, I went back to bed, expecting the guide wouldn’t even bother to wake us up. So I wasn’t really mentally prepared when, a bit after 2, the American dashed into our hut: “Wake up, the sky is clear, let’s go!”. Although the snow hadn’t disappeared, the guide considered it worth trying, not promising we would actually reach the pass. So off we went, after a tea and two cookies, in the dark, cold, snowy night with our flashlights. The first part of the hike, we walked in the valley, towards the big mountain at the end. The scenery was beautiful and surreal. With the starry sky and the white, mountainous landscape, I felt like we were walking on the moon. The snow we had cursed so much the night before turned out to be a blessing. There’s a lesson in that… I tried to enjoy the view, although I had to concentrate on the path and the many small rivers we had to cross. After some time, as the stars started slowly disappearing, the typical blue glow of the snow allowed us to turn off our flashlights. Unfortunately, we had only one guide (one was ill), so we couldn’t move faster than the slowest person; we were going to miss the sunrise. As we slowly started climbing, we reached Samti Lake (4200m). This small lake was, to me, the most wonderful place of the whole trek. With its sharp outline and perfectly still surface, it forms a big natural mirror, reflecting the surrounding mountains. The lake is the starting point of a steep ascent to Goecha La. With the sun about to rise, we left the guide with the slower ones and started climbing at an excruciating pace. The air was getting really thin now, and more than once I had to stop to catch my breath. Meanwhile, the sun was already caressing the tops of the highest peaks. Not much later, we reached the pass. We had (kind of) made it! Mount Kangchenjunga (8586m), third highest in the world, The Mountain where it’s all about, was already partially covered by clouds, but it didn’t matter; the view was still amazing. After the first moments of euphoria, we slowly got our senses back: cold! Sweaty from the effort, in the freezing wind, we were cooling down rapidly. We waited for the others to arrive, which took almost one hour. In the meantime, between two pictures, we kept warm by singing and dancing. “Incredible”, I thought, ”I was supposed to be in South India by now, and here I am instead, dancing the Macarena in the snow at 5000m altitude!”. Great moments. New feelings of euphoria arose when the others one by one reached the top - we hadn’t thought they were going to make it. After a quick group picture, we started the descent. Having reached our goal, we could finally take it easy and enjoy the view. By the time we got back to the lake, the sun had risen above the mountain tops. We took a beautiful break there, before heading back to Thangsing. The rest of the day, we got some well-deserved rest. When I saw a group of Indian crew (cooks, porters, etc.) playing football on the plain, I joined them. I had to catch my breath after every action, but it was doable. Football at 4000m altitude, check!
The next 3 days, we slowly headed back to Yuksom. I felt like I was returning from a successful mission, satisfied and enjoying the rest of the time. We visited a couple of nice lakes along the way, but the weather had turned even worse. When we got back to Tsokha (where we had spent the first and the last night), Yuskom was visible far away in the valley: civilization! It’s funny how fast one gets estranged. We were glad to get back to bearable temperatures and relative comfort after our short, but intense trek.
And then it was time to say goodbye again; I had to leave to Kolkata the next morning to catch a plane to Chennai. From North to South, from snow to 40ºC, from the mountains to the coast, everything was going to change again!
Right now I have spent three weeks in Tamil Nadu, living with a local family and working for their organization. I have been teaching English to children in a village for two weeks, which was quite challenging; I’ll write about it soon. I was planning to stay a bit longer, but since it’s summer holidays here, there’s not much work to do. So it’s best for me to travel around in South India for two weeks, and return in June, when the projects will start again. It’s a bit of a pity, because I was just starting to feel a bit at home there, but now I’m in backpacker mode again!
Thanks for reading this and for all the positive comments, it’s nice to hear and encourages me to fulfill my resolution of trying to write a good blog. Feedback is always appreciated! As is news from you, of course:-)
It’s been more than 2 months now since I left. April is coming to an end, so I suppose it’s getting warmer and sunnier back home… how I love spring in Belgium. It’s funny, when I’m thinking of Belgium, I still picture it the way I left it, snowed in and with 1000km of traffic jams. By the way, I just got back from an 8 day trek in the mountains, so I was completely isolated from the rest of the world. On my way back I was wondering what had happened in the world during my absence, and then a German tourist told me Europe was covered by ashes from an Icelandic volcano, making air traffic impossible…Mother Nature vs. Europe 2010, 2-0!
I really got into traveling mode now, meaning I miss home less than before. On the other hand, I’m starting to meet more and more family and friends in my dreams. I’m thinking about my past and future in Europe quite a lot. I guess the “zoom out” effect I hoped to achieve wasn’t an illusion; it’s really easier to think about your life when you step out of it for a while. I just realized I’ve been really traveling for almost one month, so I have loads of things to tell.
My last weekend trip with my friends from Delhi was Agra, home of the Taj Mahal.After that, I would make my way east to Kolkata, and then south, to reach Cuddalore, on the southeast coast, by the 15th of April, to work on a project around HIV/AIDS awareness there. It’s a big cliché, but here we go: although I expected to be disappointed by the Taj Mahal –it can’t but be overrated, I thought – I was most certainly not. The minute I stepped in there, I was completely transfixed. How can a building be so perfect? I must have stood there smiling for two full minutes, completely ignoring the I-must-get-the-perfect-picture-with-the-Taj hysteria that was going on around me. I don’t think I was ever so touched by a human made object. After two days in Agra, I said goodbye to my Delhi friends, with a heavy heart. I was going to miss them, and I was all alone now; suddenly I didn’t feel quite ready to face India on my own.
Some people plan their entire trip in advance, day by day. I didn’t. Part of it is laziness; the main reason is probably that I would feel like a prisoner of my own plans. The only thing I had planned was to be in Cuddalore before the end of April. Like many backpackers, I like to follow serendipity (–noun1.an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident. 2.good fortune; luck, according to dictionary.com) instead. As you will see, it has advantages and disadvantages. My first stop after Agra was Khajuraho, which houses famous Jain temples with beautiful erotic sculptures. To go there, I had to take a train to the much less interesting town Jhansi, from where I could take a bus. On the train to Jhansi, I met two Indian guys, a textile engineer and an MBA student. I asked them to teach me the rules of cricket; I would play a couple of songs on my guitar in return (I brought the crappy baby guitar I bought in Delhi with the idea I would get rid of it as soon as it would bother me; I still have it with me). One of the guys convinced me to take a later bus so that he could take me on his motorbike and show me Jhansi fort the next morning. It was a lot of fun, and he brought me to the bus station afterwards. Serendipity vs. planning: 1-0.
Khajuraho was quite nice, the carvings are beautiful, and it’s funny to see big groups of traditionally dressed Indian women, with saris and veils, giggle in front of the erotic, or dare I say frankly pornographic, effigies.
To take the train to Varanasi, my next stop, I had to take yet another bus to a small town called Mahoba. When arrived there, I was pushed in shared autorickshaw to the railway station. An auto is usually meant for one driver in the front and three people in the back. In this case, three men shared the driver’s seat, and I was clamped between a couple with a young boy and a baby of a couple of months on the left, and a young woman with what looked like a newborn baby on the right. The road was so bumpy I was afraid the baby would be thrown out of is mother’s ams; the fumes mustn’t have been all too good for the development of his little lungs; and to make things worse, the driver had huge speakers at the back of his vehicle, through which he found desirable to play ear-blasting Bollywood music, accompanied by the flickering neon lights in the front of his rickshaw. But the most amazing thing of all, to me, was that it took me five minutes to realize how absurd and unusual the situation was. I guess one gets used to everything. I reached the train station at 8pm, and my train was scheduled at 1.30am (in the end, it left at 2.30). I managed to hang around in a small restaurant until 10.30, but then they were closing and I had to leave. Like every railway station in India, this one too was converted in a giant dormitory at night, so I laid out my self-inflatable Decathlon mattress on the platform, and was soon fast asleep… only to be woken up by the police:
-Hello
-…
-Hello
-Hello, how do you do?
-You not sleep here.
-What do you mean? I was sleeping great.
-You not sleep here. Not allowed.
I looked around. I was surrounded by dozens of sleeping Indians.
-Only for me not allowed?
-Dangerous.
-Dangerous? I feel safe, I’m surrounded by people.
-You not sleep here. Dangerous. You go police station.
-(sigh)
-Hello
-Yes, hello. I’m still here.
-You go police station. Not sleep here.
-But why not? Why can they sleep here and I can’t?
-They Indians.
-Oh really? I thought Chinese.
-You foreigner. Not allowed.
…
He brought me to a dark bench in a corner. I told him I really didn’t feel safer than on the platform. In the end, he put me under a bright neon light, next to a fat snoring man, with insects falling from the ceiling. I couldn’t get back to sleep. Thanks a lot, Indian police.
Varanasi was interesting (this is the place where corpses are burnt on the banks of the holy Ganges) but touristic, dirty, and full of cheaters. I was told beforehand that everybody got ill in Varanasi. As a proof, I met two British guys who were there to test new patches against diarrhea. They were sent to Varanasi because statistics show that 90% of Englishmen get “the shits” there. After Varanasi, I would go to Bodhgaya, the place where prince Siddharta Gautama reached enlightenment by meditating under a tree, to become the Buddha. The only problem was getting there. When I finally got to the railway station (after a lot of haggling with the driver), I had spent half an hour looking for the right platform, when someone informed me that the train was canceled. At the tourist information center (thank god for those) I met a French guy who told me he had been trying to take that same train for 3 days, and it got canceled every time. After asking approx. 100 people, we found out that we could catch a train at a smaller railway station, at around 10km from there. We managed to get the train, and the French guy was meeting with a Swiss who was in a great hotel, in the middle of the village side of town. Serendipity vs. planning: 2-0 (to be honest, I must say that I met some people who had gone to Orccha, near Jhansi, and they told me it was beautiful, as says my guidebook, which brings the score to 2-1). Bodhgaya was nice and laidback compared to Varanasi, but the other guys had quite a different pace than me (they had met on a meditation course in Nepal), so I didn’t stay there for too long. I was impatient to go to that big city I had heard so many good things about: Kolkata. In the meantime, many people had told me it wasn’t a good idea to go south, because it was really getting too hot. In general, many of the people I met were on their way back from the south, telling me great things, but at the same time warning me for the upcoming heat. I definitely came the wrong season to go to the beautiful south (2-2!). This is why one of my main objectives for Kolkata was finding people to go north, to Darjeeling. More than one Indian had recommended me to go there. The first day, I met a French girl who was going to Assam, a not too touristic place in the northeast, with a beautiful natural reserve where I wanted to go on an elephant safari. In the meantime, many people had told me Darjeeling was foggy (the main attraction is the beautiful view on the nearby Himalayas), so I thought I might join her instead. However, she was leaving the next day, and I wanted to stick around in Kolkata for a little longer. I decided to wait and see if I could meet people that left later. After a couple of days, not having met anyone else going northeast, met a Danish girl who was going to Sikkim. This is another region in the northeast, a beautiful and hilly area that requires a permit (free and easy to get, but still a good filter for mass tourism). A couple of hours after deciding to go to Sikkim instead of Assam, I read an email from the French girl, kindly informing me that the early monsoon made Assam rainy and unpleasant. Serendipity! Kolkata, by the way, was a very fun experience. It’s hard to explain how and why, but Kolkata is a much more pleasant city than Delhi. Dare I say it’s more “European”? My greatest moment was when we woke up at 5 to go practice yoga by a lake in a park, as many Kolkatans do. Still, inevitably, the nice things are only a façade that hides way less romantic aspects of the city. Many people live on the streets; even on Sudder St., the center of backpackersville, you can see dozens “showering” outside every morning. Right around the corner from my hostel, literally at 10m from the entrance, people sit on the side of the street, injecting drugs. And a few blocks away, the top floors of a building burnt down the day before my arrival. They were still digging up bodies when I left but around 50 people got killed. Even though the fire station is five minutes away, the firemen needed 15 minutes to get there, and nearly an hour before they started putting out the fire, so I’ve been told; apparently, the fire exits were blocked as well. Moreover, according to the newspaper, the two top floors were built illegally, and the actual owner is… the government.
After 5 days of Kolkata, I was on my way to Sikkim, with a stop in Darjeeling for a couple of days first. We had to take a bus to Darjeeling because the trains were full; we left at 6pm and it would take approximately 12 hours. After 13 painful and uncomfortable hours, the bus stopped. A strike, we were told. I couldn’t quite figure out why, though. I walked to the road block, that consisted of a simple wooden bench. On the other side of the road, people were gathered around a big plastic sheet on the ground. After closer inspection, I noticed a human-shaped bulge, and a blue sandal lying next to it. Apparently, someone got killed by a truck, and the villagers were protesting against the traffic that rages by their humble houses. The last piece to Darjeeling, done by shared Jeep, I started noticing the people. The looked so different! Though still with Indian features, people from that area have yellowish skin and Nepalese eyes.
Darjeeling is a nice hill town, favorite destination of West-Bengali tourists. From the moment I arrived in Darjeeling till the moment I left Sikkim, the world seemed to revolve around mountKangchenjunga (still took me more than a week to memorize the name, though). Kangchenjunga is the 3rd biggest mountain in the world, with an elevation of 8586m. When the weather is clear, Darjeeling is dominated by its magnificent white peak. The main attraction is to go up Tiger Hill in Jeep in the early morning to watch the sunrise. Since it’s holiday season in India, Darjeeling was especially packed. The way up to Tiger Hill was a continuous snake of Jeeps. We were brought to a kind of a balcony with dozens, maybe hundreds of Indian tourists struggling to get a good spot. The sun came up in the mist, but when it was finally visible, people rushed to one side of the balcony to take pictures. Not exactly what we were expecting. The only nice moment was when the mountain rose from the clouds, showing its orange colored flanks. Apart from that, we did beautiful walks in the tea plantations, and to the Buddhist monastery on top of a hill, where the strong winds rushed through thousands of Tibetan prayer flags.
After two days of Darjeeling, we were off to Sikkim. This small stub of land is squeezed in between West-Bengal (south), Nepal (west), Tibet (north and east) and Bhutan (southeast), so you can imagine it’s something special. It’s a small paradise, with beautiful green hills, rivers, waterfalls, and white peaks (Kangchenjunga is on the border between Sikkim and Nepal). It’s not easy to get around there; only shared Jeeps can get you from one village to another, and they are quite scarce. Unfortunately, everywhere we went, people were building roads, bridges and tunnels; probably the beginning of the end for the authenticity of the region. Just as in Darjeeling, beautiful views of The Mountain were hidden by fog. We were starting to think the pictures on postcards were made with Photoshop. Luckily, nice monasteries and lakes offered us a relaxing time. From the small village Yuksom (no ATM’s and only one computer with internet) we did a one day trek through the beautiful green landscapes. I was nice and relaxing to be there, without having planned anything in advance; 3-2 for serendipity. On our way back to Yuksom after the trek I was thinking about what to do next, since the Danish girl was leaving to Varanasi the next day. I walked into the hotel, and a guy asks: “Do you guys want to go trekking?” Yuksom is the starting point for treks towards the Himalaya, with breathtaking views on the snowy peaks. Three Israeli guys were about to leave for a 6 day trek and were looking for more people, to get the price down. I had only 10 minutes to decide… Most people leave for 8 days, but my permit was only valid for 7 more days, so a 6 day trip was perfect…I was going to do it. 4-2? We planned to leave the next day at 8.30. We lost some time because one of the guys, who needed a horse because he has ruined one of his knees in the army, was insisting on having a good saddle. When we finally got to the starting point, the horseman told us it was impossible for the horse to go downhill with someone on his back. The organizer had lied, the guy with the bad knee couldn’t go, so the trip got canceled. Completely lost, I followed them to the hotel where they had stayed before, and checked into a dormroom. Some nice people were there, packing their bags to leave on a 8 day trek the next day. By that time I had really gotten caught up with the idea of going trekking. Luckily, I could still join them, and the organizer could extend the permit for me. 4-2!
(I didn’t have the time to write about the trekking yet, so I’ll do that in a later post…but it was awesome! Right now I'm on my way to Cuddalore, where I will work for Blessing Kids.)
