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Jim, Drew, and I arrived safely in Delhi last Friday and Nakia will be meeting us this afternoon for the first time in over a month since we parted company in rural West Bengal.  The three of us guys have been recovering from the ride in through crazy Indian traffic while negotiating prices.  Tonight, we plan our Next Move.  That move will most likely be flying to Istanbul, Turkey after a swing through Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.  To be confirmed.

Although us guys arrived in Delhi safely, the journey from Nepal to Delhi has certainly taken its toll on me.  For the first time in our 8 month journey, a couple weeks ago I was longing to be home, a feeling I’m not familiar with; homesickness?  It’s not severe, but a steady, gentle pressure.  I’m going through a period of fatigue and dreaming of eating my mother’s famous cherry coffee cake, caramel rolls, and egg bake while I’m stuck with rice, dal, potato curry, and samosas…everyday 3x a day as I have been for 2 months.  Luckily I have a large tolerance for the same mediocre food day after day, perfected in numerous Chinese university cafeterias.
 

The fatigue has come from some difficult experiences dealt to us by India and Nepal, centering around people labeling us as “tourist” and trying to cheat us by charging higher prices, as well as asking us for money straight up.  We’ve met plenty of average local children (not unusually impoverished, in fact one child was in their nice school uniform with white shirt and tie) who rudely (due in part to poor English) asked us for money, “Give me money!  Give me pen!  Give me money,” especially in Nepal when we merged with the Kathamandu-Mount Everest road that sees many foreign tourists (whoapparently give out pens and money to these packs of children).  Meanwhile, at restaurants for weeks we’ve felt we’ve always had to be on guard because several times people would change the price we’d agreed on, sometimes giving some lame excuse for charging us extra, like “Oh, the price I gave you before was for a HALF plate of chow mein,” after we’d eaten it…as if we had asked for half a plate in the beginning.  One teenage daughter of an Indian restaurant in the middle of know where last week said, when we were discussing the prices which at first were 3x what we had paid for lunch 40km away, made a side comment along the lines, “Oh you can afford this price,” so we should just pay the upped price.  Its been quite stressful to have to assume people will try to over-charge us.  We were warned of this though, a couple of our home stay hosts told us that northern India is known for cheaters or clever business men, unlike the south where people are more honest.

We haven’t seen this blatant price-change rip-off strategy since Vietnam.  I’m disrespected each time; disrespected that they don’t look at me as a brother or fellow human being, but instead as a rich white foreigner with money to throw away or worse, a stupid dehumanized thing to be exploited for a little extra cash.  It is racism and prejudice, terrible things but good for me to experience from this perspective outside of my home country.  I know I shouldn’t take it so personally, but sometimes I can’t help it.  I can handle and even enjoy honest bargaining, but it makes me so sad every time people try to cheat us. 

In turn, I’ve found myself approaching people with a negative attitude which only starts things off on a bad foot, my negativity bringing out the worst in them.  Its alarming to see how fast negativity and disrespect spirals out of control.  Its contagious.  

Adding to our fatigue is the general fact that India is the most INTENSE country we’ve cycled through, even more than China .  More people.  More people staring at us, yelling at us without really wanting a response just to practice their 1 English phrase, “What is your name” as they zip by on their motorbike, more people approaching us always having us on guard thinking,  “OK, what does this person want from us?”  Insane and dangerous traffic and terrible horns, always truck, bus, car, and motorcycle horns…ALWAYS honking.  China has a lot of horns, but I’ve nearly been driven insane by Indian horns.  For a country with a reputation of being religious or spiritual, I find their use of horns completely contradictory, selfish, “I’m more important than you so get out of my way,” of course different horn honkings have different meanings.  But it’s nearly always not just a beep.  They LAY on their horns.  The trucks and buses have these crazy air horns made of many notes that change very fast, creating a feeling of extreme urgency & distress, letting you know if you don’t get out of their way, you will die. And they’re so LOUD.

If it weren’t for our positive experiences (also in Nepal and India ), I might be ready to end the trip.  However in the middle of all this, we were graciously hosted two nights in a row by different people just before we arrived in Delhi.  Our hosts were generous and kind, the night before Delhi rescuing us from bathing (as we always do) at a public water hand pump in a satalite town comprised mostly of military camps.  Camping in that area would have likely gotten us detained for questioning upon setting up our tent, as Jim was while looking for a suitable camp site.  But I’ll let Jim tell that story

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 27th, 2008 at 4:15 am and is filed under Pete's Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.