AGRA, India (Sept. 1, 2008) -- Forgive me if this email is a bit rambling, but I think I've lost my ability to think clearly.
Ah, Incredible India. That's the tourism department's slogan for the country and they might be the only honest people in the country.
My slogan would be "Trying India" -- in the sense that this country will test just how much choas you can stand.
The driving comes to mind first of all. I've got some crazy video on my camera that I wish I could include in this email, but it will have to wait since this Internet cafe won't let users upload video. (They asked me for my passport number when I signed in their book. I signed in as James St. Clair and made up a bunch of numbers. I didn't even get into why they would want that. That's what we're dealing with, here people. They invented shady.)
Anyway, the driving is insane. There are no rules. I'm not exagerrating at all. Vehicles of all kinds come speeding at me and my driver. Playing chicken is nothing. Missing people by inches or less is even less than nothing -- it's routine.
But no one is going too fast and so it seems not as dangerous as it should be.
My driver, Kula Ram, speaks no English although he seems to understand me. He's about 60 I'd guess and that's a good sign since he made it to that ripe old age. Or that's at least what I repeat to myself. He doesn't drive to crazily and I even fell asleep in the back of the car today as we drove from Delhi to the town of Agra, where the Taj is located. (It really does live up to the hype, by the way.)
Kula and I became a team after I got scammed into doing half of my tour of Rajasthan with a car and driver with hotels and sightseeing visits included. I woke up at 4 this morning in dread over how much I over paid for this and so I'm a bit frazled from that, combined with the oven-like heat. And no, I haven't been drinking during our drives although I did have to crack my flask of J & B on the drive away from the airport to my Delhi hotel after it became clear that the guy who picked me up at the airport was driving us in a car with no A/C, no radio (stolen from the looks of it) and no windshield wipers.
The monsoon that kindly pointed out this last motorvehicle violation led to the drinking. There's barely any liquor to be had in this town anyway. Unless you venture outside. The waiter at the hotel I'm staying at was nice enough to regale me in broken English while I was enjoying my dinner about kidnappers here in Agra if you go out too late at night. He then walked me to the Internet cafe around the corner and told me not to come right back to the hotel. I think I just saw him outside selling drugs or something.
Delhi, before this charming hamlet, was original. I was staying in the part of town where cows roam the streets and atop piles of trash. The workers at the hotel kept offering me clandestined beers whenever the boss wasn't around. I went out this morning at 6 to find the ATM. I had tried sometime after darkfall last night and got too scared by the choas filling a narrow street jammed with cars, scooters, cows and people all seemingly rushing toward me and so I turned around and went back to the hotel and asked for a beer.
But this morning I got some great pics of the cows, so those will be coming as well at a later date. So I go this morning to try the ATM again and of course an Indian dude comes up to me and asks where I'm going and where I'm from and I tell him and he explains that it's too early and that everything is closed. What do you think I'm out here for, homey? That's the point. The dudes sleeping on the sidewalks were still slumbering away at that hour. So from here it's an early start for Kula and me. He's Hare Krishna, by the way. We leave from here at 6:30 and are heading to destinations farther west into Rajasthan.
I have no doubt that it things will improve as we get further away from the folks who have filled the first couple of days of my time here. We're also heading up into the hills and so the heat may subside and so my brain just might stop cooking in my skull.
From Incredible India...
Take care,
Brett
