Part II Bangkok and Delhi

Part II of Part I - Bangkok
Before we pick up where we left off, we want to quickly update you on our happenings and whereabouts. We are currently staying at Sonapani, a quiet rural resort in the foothills of the Himalaya. It’s located in between Nainital and Almora, two hill-stations in the state of Uttarakhand, India. We are volunteering at the Central Himalaya Rural Action Group (CHIRAG) organization, where I studied two and a half years ago with the University of Washington. Right now we are teaching English to a group of local youth training to enter the hospitality industry. We have been here for a week now and have been enjoying ourselves immensely, it is very peaceful and beautiful here. But, more on all of that later. (Note: Internet availability is minimal at best, so we have to apologize that we won't be able to upload pictures for a while. We will as soon as we have access to a fast, reliable connection again)
Back to our travels first. I think that I left off busily describing all of the food that we had eaten in Bangkok. Well, there’s more to tell there. After we left behind the mega-mall of the future we spent the evening touring two very distinct neighborhoods of the city. First, we went to the "middle east" part of town to delight in delicious hummous, dolmas, and apple-flavored hookah. All the signs were written in Arabic and everywhere north Africans mingled with Arabs and Muslim Thais (and a few of us farang). We dug it. It felt as though we had entered some futuristic city where all cultures blur together under the common banner of mega-metropolis living. Perhaps the future is now.
Continuing our nightly food blitzkrieg, Jeannette and Meaw shuttled us to their favorite late night noodle shop. Bam! Chinatown. It finally hit me: welcome to Asia. No other experience has come close to that noodle-slurping extravaganza in the bright, noisy turmoil of little China. We ate at a rickety street table and ordered noodle soup with everything. While I was munching on pork and fish stomach (with a few lungs tossed in for good measure) the street pulsed and hummed around us. People of all shapes and sizes dodged and weaved through shark-fin soup stalls, Durian fruit carts, garbage and refuse, and of course an unstoppable crush of humanity. We loved it.
The next day we spent with Meaw’s family north of Bangkok in the ancient Siam capitol of Ayuttayah. It was breathtaking. Raised by the Burmese in the 1700’s Ayuttayah never regained its lost glory; like so many ancient ruins, all that remains are the dusty, dilapidated buildings of a time once prosperous but now only half remembered. Meaw’s family showed us the proper way to pay respects to Buddha at the many, still quite active, Wats filled with incense and golden Buddhas.
The last day we toured through Bangkok’s famous bazaar called Jack-to-jack (my phonetic spelling) and stocked up on a variety of gifts and clothes. Our last meal in Thailand that night was appropriately the first we began with five weeks before: savory Rad-na. It was still lingering on our pallets when we woke up at 3 am the next morning to fly to India.
Part II – India
Where to begin? I’m positive this country has been showered with far more poetic prose than what I have written in my journal, so I’ll start with the nitty-gritty.
We arrived into Indira Gandhi International Airport late in the morning on the 23rd. Rashee, our friend from last summer’s program at Green River Community College, met us at the airport with a taxi, sparing us the painful process of finding a legit ride into Delhi. Our first meal? Dare I say? Yes, that’s right, McDonalds. I thought we ought to have been kicked out of the country (especially after boldly going to the ends of the culinary universe just a few nights before). Yet, as many who have traveled to other parts of the world have probably found, Micky-D’s still holds if nothing else the symbolic potency of modernity (think: clean toilets).
Our first night in India was distinctly more "India" than our first meal. Rashee had kindly found us a place to stay in south Delhi at a local dharam-shala called Durgabari. Not really a hotel, the dharam-shala is a "resting place" for Hindus that is connected to a mandir (temple). Interestingly for us, we had arrived on the first day of summer according to Hinduism, which is celebrated by the religious ceremony dedicated to Lord Shiva called Shivatri (my spelling). We were thrilled when at 6 pm the entire dharam-shala came alive with loud chanting, raucous bells banging, burning incense, monks and sari-clad women filling up the courtyard. However, what we first found to be exciting, exotic, and totally strange soon began losing its appeal as first midnight, then 1,2,3, and finally 4 am rolled around without any abatement of noise. Sorry Shiva, summer shouldn’t start until June 21st.
We spent a total of six days in Delhi. Normally, I’d be content with just six hours, but because we had the luxury of friends showing us around, it was actually very fun. The first day we toured around north Delhi, exploring the campus of Delhi university with Rashee’s friends Robert and Vashali. They showed us the site of the first revolt against British rule in 1857. Widely considered to mark the beginning of a several generation rebellion against colonial rule, it wouldn’t be until 1946 that India finally gained its independence.
The next day we headed to Old Delhi with Rashee and her friends. For those of you who have never made it to India, Old Delhi is probably what you think of when you picture India. Long the seat of power, Old Delhi is littered with ancient streets, shops, and mosques. It’s iconic street, Chandni Chowk, perhaps tells the full tale. It is as old as the city gets; straight from the medieval times, Chandni Chowk abounds in filth, noise and people. Everywhere there are people: on the street corners, in the road, behind you, crashing into you, into buildings, out of buildings, driving, climbing on rickshaws, running, hawking, pushing, shoving, staring, pissing, spitting, walking, farting and smiling. Everywhere is humanity. The stimulus is overwhelming. There are savory jalebis and succulent pakoras, gaudy saris and putrid puddles. Fat men, old men, scarred beggars, dirty children, staring perverts, delirious women, busy babus, crying babies. In the middle of all this is you – trying to stay calm in a chaotic ocean of bodies. Impossible. All you can do is look ahead and move. Don’t stop, don’t wait, don’t breathe. Count to 10, glance left and right, move forward, sideways, stop – run! Move, go, don’t wait. An ocean raging.
But that’s just my experience of Old Delhi. There’s also the picturesque Jawa Masjid and the monumental Red Fort. Both relics of Moghal rule, they stand resolutely in that ocean of humanity. We toured these, of course, and found them to be marvelous in their own right. Afterwards, we headed back to Chandni Chowk and feasted on a variety of parathas filled with chilies, potato, tomatoes, fenugreek, onion, and peas. That’s what Indian food is all about.
The rest of our time in Delhi was spent battling with rickshaw drivers, breaking into the U.S. Embassy fortress to fill out paperwork required for the Peace Corps, and marveling at more and more ancient stuff. When it was finally time to leave, we were both satiated and ready to go. Too bad we had to go through Old Delhi train station first…