I think Rishikesh was my favorite stop during my three week trip to India in 2013. The city existed on both sides of the Ganges River, and was connected most notably by this pedestrian suspension bridge. And when I say pedestrian bridge, what I really mean is pedestrian/bicycle/motorcycle/monkey/cow bridge. The crush of people in India was always impressive, and this bridge was a microcosm. One day I was drinking tea at a cafe overlooking the bridge and watched as a bull began to charge across. It had been ambling along agreeably and I’m not sure what startled it, but suddenly it was knocking people down and sending others running. A…
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India, Incoherently
I’ve been thinking about India lately. Disparate thoughts. Not terribly coherent. It’s hard to be coherent about a subcontinent; I worry about simplifying or fetishizing. My partner, E, and I moved last month, and since then I’ve eaten dinner at Momo N Curry, a Nepali and Indian restaurant a few blocks away, about once a week. I ate momos (Nepali steamed dumplings) for the first time in McLeod Ganj, a community in the foothills of the Himalayas, and I’m always excited to see them on menus in the US. But what really sold me on this restaurant was the carafe of free chai by the front door because it tastes…
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Underwhelmed by Indian Food
I love to eat. I have a board on pinterest called “The Opposite of a Picky Eater,” because that’s what I am. I will try everything once (or twice) and there is almost nothing I dislike because most everything is agreeable to me. My categories are more or less: 1. this is delicious or 2. this is not delicious, but I will still eat it. Of course, that’s one of the reasons I don’t blog about food very much: I don’t have the most discerning palate. I still manage to be something of a foodie though, because I’m always on the look-out for food experiences that fall into the delicious category.…
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Namaste, Delhi
(This post picks up where the previous one left off.) After we’d walked through and around and past the beggars, my tour group arrived at the Lotus Temple, which is a Bahá’í House of Worship. It’s open to people of any and all faiths and is meant to be a place for praising God without denominational restrictions. While the outside of the Lotus Temple is a beautiful work of architecture, the inside is almost plain — cavernous and filled with wooden pews, but simple. I realize the irony of pushing past people in need in order to visit a place of spirituality, but at the time, I just sat down,…
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This is a post about beggars
Walking down the street from my hotel to the metro, I was treated to the scents of urine, dirt, and exhaust. Incense, spices, and street food frying in oil. My tour group and I were on our first outing together to visit the Lotus Temple in Delhi. We rode the metro there, and when we arrived at our stop (Kalkaji Mandir on the violet line), we paused outside the station beside an orange vendor and his cart. The fruits were green, but we could tell they were oranges because the vendor peeled them theatrically and their smell was unmistakable. We watched as the fruits released sweet mist into the air…
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India: First Impressions
It was midnight when I arrived in Delhi — an hour later than I was meant to — and my first thought was that airports look like airports all over the world. Of course, when I stepped outside and met up with my tour guide, Earl, he told me New Delhi’s airport was only a few years old and the previous one had looked more like a large bus station. My second thought was something along the lines of, “damn, it’s humid. Should it really be this hot at midnight?” The answer was no, it should not have been that hot in Delhi in October (especially not at midnight), but…
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Home From India
3 weeks, 25 cups of chai, and nearly 2,000 photo later, I’m home from India. I stepped off the plane a couple of hours ago, said “hello” to E and the cat, and turned on my laptop to write this post. I spent about 20 hours traveling today, so I hope you don’t mind my keeping it brief. You’re probably wondering how my trip was, but, unsurprisingly, I’m still processing the experience. For now, I’ll tell you what I plan to tell friends and family when they ask, “how was India?” It’s hard to sum up any trip in a few clever sentences or one wild anecdote, but that tends…
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An Opportune Moment is Going to India!
Many of you who know me in real life have already heard about this trip because I’ve been planning it since I was still in Hawai’i. After a few months at home, I’m definitely feeling ready to embark on another international trip. Seriously, though, when I scroll through tumblr and see an inspiring travel photo, lately I’ve been having a physical reaction — my chest tightens, my expression unintentionally turns wistful, my gut says, “get thee to an airport!” It’s like the early stages of falling in love when you can’t stop thinking about them and you hope you’re on their mind too, and it’s blissful and distracting and a…
