From the Land of the Rising Sun

I think I said just yesterday how thrilled I was to be in Japan where you can drink the water, eat raw vegetables, and there's high speed internet. I would now like to amend that by saying you can drink the water, but something has been added to it, and if someone says its excellent, you could bet that every single person in Japan would suddenly start drinking it. I was writing yesterday about an 8 km walk I took the day before in Arashiyama, a farming/mountain village just outside of Kyoto. It was a very pleasant walk, and like all vaguely pleasant things in Japan, there were a lot of Japanese people doing it as well. During the walk I noticed an unpleasant lingering odor, which at first I thought was my own b.o; but as time went on I realised it was an unpleasant odor I've long associated with hiking: it was bug spray. Those cute pleasant fields were being zapped with DEET.

This odor has come to represent Japan for me in the same way I associate it with hiking: that regrettable unpleasantness that is a part of all beauty. I would even go so far to say that the Japanese have perfected this: the slight imperfection that make things seem more perfect. But perhaps I'm giving the country too much credit. I had at first been thrilled to be in Japan because it seemed so much cleaner and tidier than India. Now I am reminded that Japan may appear clean and tidy, but they have the same ecological nightmares that every other industrialized society does.

None of which is meant to trash the place. Whatever else you can say about Japan, the love of nature is genuine, and the sense of style that developed organically from it, is spectacular. Now if we can just wean them off that plastic artificiality...

India, Part Two

First off, let me admit that it has taken me several weeks to finally post again, but I am doing so from the relative comforts of Nara, Japan. You can drink the water! You can eat raw vegetables and fish! It has high speed internet access! Of course, getting to the high speed internet access requires more knowledge of Japanese than I possess. There are allegedly slews of internet cafes all over the place in Japan, but since they're not in a ground floor storefront, they're tucked away from sight. I've been asking about and looking for one for a week. My hotel in Nara, the Fujita Hotel gave me instructions to one, but they were ever so slightly wrong. Anyone know what a Japanese sign for an internet cafe looks like? Me either. My instructions were to go to a certain corner, and up to the 4th floor. A place called Shalala. Only trouble was, it wasn't on the corner, but two buildings in, a fact which I found out the hard way by riding the elevator in a half dozen buildings. Maybe they meant the other side of the street? Nope. Maybe they meant this building? Nope. Does anyone in Nara speak English? Nope. Maybe they meant two doors down? Yup. Anyway, the place is open 24 hours, and is unspeakably expensive, so I'll hope to post the first half of Japan tomorrow. Oh, and I budgeted an hour and a half to post the remainder of India, but this high speed access is bitchin, so I should be done in 40 minutes.

OK, so I'm thrilled to be in Japan, and it sounds a bit like I'm ragging on India, and, in fact, I am. Don't get me wrong, I thought India was fantastic, but it does wear you down after a while. I think it all started in Varanasi. I had spent a couple of days in Lucknow beforehand, which just doesn't show up on the tourist radar, so I was lulled into a false sense of security. Then Varanasi hit me. It's supposed to be one of the holiest cities on earth, but "holy" is not a synonym for "clean" or even "nice". There's definitely a spiritual side to Varanasi: roaming sadus, riverside cremations, nightly ceremonies, the relative calm of a boat ride on the Ganges; but you have to wade through a lot to get to it. That Ganges, it stinks, and it is full of garbage. Cows, goats, and dogs freely wander the streets shitting everywhere. Men urinate openly in public. And while the concept of a riverside cremation sounds spiritual, we are genetically hard wired to dislike the smell of it. And perhaps worst of all, the townspeople of Varanasi have been swindling tourists for three millenia, so they really have it down to science. To quote Shehnaz's father Erich "Why on earth would you want to go there?"

So by the time I got to Calcutta, I was pretty much spent, and then the heat and humidity hit me. It was unseasonably warm when I got there, and I just couldn't work up enough energy to actually sightsee. I did manage to have a wonderful dinner with Shehnaz's extended family, who are incredibly sweet and not afraid to mince words. (Was Slumdog Millionaire really worth 8 Oscars? I suggested it may have been Hollywood guilt for ignoring India's vast cinematic output for decades.) Unfortunately, I was feeling pretty ill by the time I got to the Dalal residence, so I didn't eat much and I hope they didn't think I hated the food. I also randomly met Bostjan (from Slovenia) and Jacopo (from Turin) on the train, and since they were both separately staying in the same neighborhood, we kept running into each other. So even though I didn't see much in Calcutta, I did meet a lot of new and worthwhile people, so, all in all, it was a pretty positive experience.

India, Part One

Hope you are enjoying reading sideways.
I've been in India for well over two weeks and still haven't managed to post. It has been difficult to find an internet cafe outside of the major cities, and while I was back in Delhi for a day I got horribly sick. I'll be leaving for Japan in a couple of days, so while I'm in Kolkata, I'm going to try to post all of India in two parts: a daunting task because India is really amazing.
I've spent four days on my own in Delhi; one week with the Intrepid Travel tour of the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, Jaipur); and a week again on my own. I've travelled on a half-dozen trains; stayed in hotels ranging from $15 to $60 a night; eaten at serious restaurants and street stalls; spent entire days shopping ; and looked at more Mughal architecture than I care to remember. All of these things are part of what makes India great. It's cheap. The train system (the world's largest) somehow works. The food is indescribably delicious. There are so many monuments from so many different eras and religions, I doubt anyone could feel like they've adequately explored them in a lifetime.
Of course, India has it's dark side. It stinks. It's horribly polluted. Poverty is rampant. The touts in any tourist area are downright aggresive. It's noisy and chaotic. It's 90F by the first of March. It hasn't rained once in two weeks. People spit, piss, shit, and throw their garbage in the middle of the street. There's no such thing as privacy or personal space.
But, I've seen this all before. Everywhere worthwhile that I go, I am forced to confront that ugliness in order to appreciate the beauty. And India is very beautiful. Despite the degradation, the landscape can be arresting, wildlife abundant, and culture so ancient it is overwhelming. Even if this weren't the case, the food alone makes India great. Paneer tikka! Aloo gobi! Garlic naan! Stuffed tomato curry!
Then again there's always this:
Everybody has an image of the Taj Mahal fixed in their mind. We all know what it looks like. It's that big white mausoleum right? Well, it looks white from far away, but as you get closer to it, you realize it is completely covered with inlaid semi-precious stone work: flowers, gemetric patterns, texts from the Koran. So it's this white monolithic thing from far away, and this elaborately colorful building from close up. also, it's rarely white. I sat in front of the Taj Mahal for three hours over sunset, watching it turn from blazing white, to bright gold, to muted pink. You may have an image of it firmly fixed in your mind already, but it is so worth seeing the real thing.