Day 11 + Travel Home – Reverse Yaks

Our final day in India was primarily spent in the Delhi marketplace.  We had not intended for a down day like this, but with the travel itinerary we ended with, it was inevitable.  I still had a lot of names on my souvenir list, so I was looking forward to getting the full market experience. 

Yesterday, I talked about longing to get the full India bargaining experience, I thought I did okay buying my knife, but today I one upped it.  I found one store I got very comfortable in, buying souvenirs for my whole family, one at a time, negotiating a bit on each.  With each growing bargain, I eyed the endgame of this budding buyer/seller relationship.  I had my sights set on some of the nice chess sets here on the first venture and today I was ready to negotiate for one. 

When I asked the price, he started much higher than I would even considered paying, we countered a few times, eventually, he came down to my offer that was roughly 40% of the starting price.  I could have taken that deal, but instead I decided to get a combo out of it.  I also had been eying a nice marble vase on the wall, and offered him double the price of the chess set he had offered for both the set and the vase.  He refused, saying he couldn’t make the deal.  I advised I’d be looking elsewhere then.  He shouted different counter offers as I left the store and I ignored him, and headed out. 

I wandered into a few other stores, finding I was not nearly as interested in their sets or prices, and decided I should head back and negotiate a bit more.  On the way back, the man I had been bartering with at that store found me on the streets, advised he was looking for me, and told me my offer had been accepted.  He then led me to an ATM, where I pulled out the needed cash, and completed the transaction, getting both items for $25 less than he originally wanted for the chess set alone.  Now I truly had the India bargaining experience.

Another highlight was the same guy that had driven me crazy as a street vendor 10 days earlier just ignoring me and badgering other people.  It was nice to not say no over and over again this time around.

After lunch, we returned to a restaurant we had eaten the week before for a lunch that was destined to be cursed from the heavens.  The chicken came out looking a bit too tender, which I pointed out to our guides.  He advised it was fine and I, like a fool who forgot that he had already seen guides have phones taken from our leader and tell me midnight home invasions were normal, believed.  I ate a bit of the chicken, less than planned, but clearly too much.

After lunch, we had planned a trip to Baskin Robbins.  We thought.  We were taken to a place one used to be at, then taken somewhere else to try out Indian ice cream.  I’m sure the BR would have offered much better things, but we got was terrible.  It was really just a Popsicle that tasted like honey and cantaloupe.  At the bottom of it, there were anonymous brownish chunks waiting to be devoured.  I decided I had tried enough, and promptly tossed the rest instead of wading through the chunks.

On the way back to the car, we wandered under the street through a Subway tunnel.  As we walked through, we had to step over people just laying there, clearly homeless, hopefully alive, just looking for relief from the heat in the middle of the day.  That was among the hardest moments of the entire trip, literally just walking over poverty, knowing I was helpless to do anything about it.

We also took a visit to the India gate, where we encountered our most aggressive street vendors yet.  One of them grabbed a lady in our group by the hand and started to draw Henna on her arm.  Later, the artist would request payment, which a translator had to reject, as the artwork was never requested in the first place.  The lady was not happy that her forced artwork was not being rewarded.  Not much further ahead, an older lady pinned an Indian flag to my chest that was about a third of the size of a business card to my shirt and asked for the equivalent of $3 for it.  I rejected her request, and later handed her the tiny flag back. 

After seemingly days of drifting through Delhi traffic later, we ended back at the hotel to wind down our trip.  We had to be at the airport at midnight, so sleeping was pointless.  We had some long devotional and sharing time with the entire group.  I did my best to pay attention, but my attention was really being held by the after effects of that tender chicken lunch.  In a beacon of the hell that would be the next eight days of my life, stomach pains and sudden needs to burst to the bathroom in abject terror became the focus of my evening. 

Also worth noting, I pet two more dogs today while several others looked on in shame and disapproval.  The dogs seemed happy, so their feelings on the matter are irrelevant.

At midnight we loaded into a bus and headed to the airport.  Because it was international travel, we had to be there early.  Our flight didn’t leave until 4 AM.  Most of our group crashed on the airport floor for a few hours.  I took about six more trips to the bathroom, and discovered my sudden and explosive bursts of discomfort were shared by others in the group.  I wasn’t even on the plane yet, and this looked to worse than the flight there already. 

The first leg of the flight wasn’t too bad.  I rejected all food, it was only about four hours to Dubai, and since it had been nearly 24 hours since my last sleep, I managed to actually doze off for about two hours. 

And that was it.  The next 24 hours of my life would have no sleep in it.  When we landed in Dubai I again made a mad dash for the bathroom.  There was open stall, and it was something I thought was a chapter closed on my life on the Indian trains, a squatty potty awaited me.  As awful as that experience on the train was, the airport version turned out great.  The forced position it puts you in, really does wonders for making quick work of the bathroom trip.  I don’t want to be too crass, but let’s just say I cleared out fast.  I was hopeful that this had been a thorough trip to the restroom, I had emptied the previous days lunch completely, and would not have a safe and secure flight home. 

I was wrong.  Throughout the remaining two hours of the layover, I had five more visits to that restroom.  There were no other encounters with the squatty potty, only their normal toilets.  The interesting thing about the toilets here is that somehow, when they flush, they bring a waft of humidity in with them. They are automatic flushers, so that happens two or three times every visit.  It’s not a comfortable feeling to suddenly have moisture and heat run across your nether regions for no discernible reason.

I spend stupid amounts of money on the most basic and unimpressive hamburger of my life, because beef, that’s why.  I missed it, and couldn’t wait for home, regardless of my digestive tracks current unhappiness. 

There is truly nothing really to type about the rest of the trip home.  It’s just complaining.  I did not sleep again, I watched two movies, made about 40 more trips to bathrooms, my back hurt, my knees hurt.  After two weeks in one of the sketchiest places on earth, I can safely and confidently say that the airplanes there and back were the hardest things I put up with.  Home’s not much these days, but I’m happy to be here. 

Day 10 – Taylor Brandel and the Very Good, Outstanding, Delightful Day

Day 10 again started quite early, no more than an hour after I finally fell asleep on the train.  We again stood around for thirty minutes or so waiting for the stop and exited the train.  The train station was ridiculously crowded for 2 AM.  I learned later on that there is a reason that the station is so crowded with people at 2 AM.  They are all lying around on the ground, not waiting on a red eye train, but because at night they just turn the station into their homeless shelter. 

We arrived at the hotel for a few hours of “sleep” before our super touristy day in Agra.  For our group of 15 people, we had 3 rooms.  We sent the two married couples to one room, the girls to a second room, and the six remaining men to the third room.  We opened the door to find exactly what we were hoping for: two twin beds, and a marble floor.  Two guys manned up and took the floor immediately.  There were no spare pillows or blankets either, so the beds they made were their backpacks for pillows, the towels from the bathroom for “mattresses” and no blankets.  The other four of us had the task of fitting onto two twin beds. 

The two younger, skinnier guys dove straight onto one bed and slept great.  The remaining two of us stared at the remaining bed, thinking that it didn’t look like a great option for just one of us.  While the other two had comfortably squeezed their skinny selves on the bed opposite spoon position with a tiny gap between them, that option was not on the table for my bed.  We decided to go no spoonsies, but definitely hourglassed with butts bumping in the middle.  The obvious thought is “well this is awkward” but the feelings of awkwardness quickly dissipate when you are instead focused on having the worst night of sleep in your entire life. 

In four hours, I think that I fell asleep twenty separate times, and achieved roughly eight minutes of sleep.  My arm fell asleep three times from the circulation crushing angles I had to lay down at.  Oh, and we had to share a pillow too.  Around 6 AM one of the guys on the floor decided that he was ready to have his back hurt while standing up instead, and left the room.  I proceeded to take his entire pack of towels and roll them up into a single pillow lump, and lay straight on the marble floor in the 18 inch space between our bed and wall and got the best sleep of my night for the next hour. 

After a quick hotel breakfast, we were off to do what most white people in India come to do: See the Taj Mahal.  The building is incredible, although it’s smaller than we expected.  The symmetry between the building and the gate and the surrounding reflective pools are all brilliant as well, all perfectly aligned so that you can see the peak of the Taj perfectly right through the center of the gate, and in all the pools as well.  Inside the grounds I saw a cat that looked to not be starving to death, and that was a really great experience too. 

We learned several amazing details about the construction of the building and man who oversaw its assembly.  I don’t want to write it all out, because you can find that elsewhere, but one fact I loved was that when it was done the man who ordered it built had the main architects hands cut off so he could never make anything better.  That’s one way of saying thank you.

The experience is mostly all on the outside of the building, as the inside is a mausoleum and guards keep traffic moving quickly straight through, and all photography is strictly off limits.  The tour guide of ours really did a great job of not letting pesky rules get in the way of his tour though, halting us all inside the building to explain stuff until guards berated us into moving.  Later, he asked our group leader for his phone, so he could use the flashlight to show the reflections in some gems on the wall.  Our leader complied, and then watched a security guard walk over and take his phone away from the guide and walk away casually.  That led to a sketchy few minutes of asking the question “did we just lose the only phone with all of our in country contacts on it?”  After a few minutes of arguing with the guard, the guide eventually got the phone back, and we proceeded out of the building, presumably so he could find a new way to be bad at his job.

After the Taj, our group was ready for air conditioning.  We went to a factory where they showed us how they make all the marble artwork.  Holy cow, it’s incredible.  Absolutely everything is done by hand, and it is so incredibly detailed.  One young man showed me a flower he had made that was barely visible on his fingertip.  That took an hour to make.  Most of the large tiles or end tables that were on display had carved out areas where different gems are placed inside to create pictures.  Some of them had over a 1000 gems of over a hundred different types.  Several were of the Taj Mahal itself, some were decorated elephants carved out of Indian marble. 

Unfortunately I can’t share pictures of them, no photos were allowed in the gallery.  The prices were out of my range however, although perfectly reasonable.  What cost $500 in that room, would cost five grand at home.  I wish I could have brought several items home.

 

After the marble factory we went to the Agra Fort.  You’ve probably never heard of it, but it’s incredible.  Essentially it’s a giant castle just down the river from the Taj Mahal, where you can actually look out and see the Taj Mahal.  The structure is enormous and took forever to tour.  I’ll post a ton of pictures, as there is no purpose in trying to capture the experience in words.

After that we headed to lunch.  Lunch itself was completely forgettable, but while parking the bus at the restaurant, my eye caught a snake charmer on the street corner, the first I’d seen all trip long.  My interest must have been immediately visible, as the guide asked if we wanted to watch the charmer in action.  I straight up squealed like a schoolgirl, yelled “YES” at a pitch likely much higher and louder than intended and bolted from the back of the bus to the door, rejecting the usual pecking order of waiting my turn form the back. 

Snakes are not popular animals, but I have loved them for as long as I can remember.  Growing up I used rifle through animal books looking for any new fact to absorb about them.  I have always wanted to hold a boa constrictor, and as luck would have it, that is just the snake this man was holding. 

The man welcomed us all to gather around.  A large number of our group was not stoked to see this reptile in action, but eventually we all circled up.  I was bouncing up and down giddy for the show, and the charmer picked up on the excitement, asking me to come sit by him.  I was happy to oblige.  What I did not expect was to have him then drape the boa around my neck.  SCCCCCOOOOOOOORRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

My whole day was pretty much made at this point, but the excitement did not end there.  He then took the hat off of my head and placed something else up on top.  If I had been thinking at all about it, I would have known exactly what was happening, but I wasn’t.  In my mind, he was just placing some item on my head that was ceremonial garb or something, I thought nothing about it.  As it turns out, it was a basket with a king freakin’ cobra in it. 

The boa started to hiss and move its head back towards my hand.  I freaked out a bit at this point.  I knew I could stop the boa before it squeezed me, but those things have giant fangs.  They can’t poison you, but the last thing I wanted was a trip to an Indian hospital for giant gash.  After I got scared, I handed the boa off to the handler, and then it was pointed out to me that it actually had a rope around its mouth, so the bite was never a real threat. 

Then the basket was taken off my head, and I saw the cobra for the first time.  This was another situation where a normal person probably feels fear, but I’m not always normal.  A king cobra is probably my favorite snake of them all.  I have dreamed of seeing one up close, and seeing it within five feet of me created a burst of unreasonable excitement. 

Another minute or so of charming later, and I was off to lunch with a bucket list item destroyed. 

After lunch, we just looked for some light shopping to kill time until we hopped on another train.  We pulled up to an upscale store that sold pretty much everything from idols to tapestries, tea, and clothing.  Spraypainted on the side of the building was wonderful message of “Welcome Obama.”  I’m sure that was from the time he definitely didn’t come here.  The stuff in the store was really expensive, although cool, but I decided to wait for better deals at the matketplace tomorrow and headed back out to the bus.

I got on the bus with two other people and it quickly caught my attention that I was virtually unattended and that several dogs were visible in the street.  This was my chance for victory.  I snuck off the bus and started to wander down the street alone in a fashion that assuredly would have gained me a nice long tongue lashing had all the real adults not been inside bartering for tablecloths. 

The first dog that caught my eye was about a hundred feet down the street.  I slowly approached it and was quickly met with snarling teeth.  Okay, not that one.  I walked backwards, and caught another dog curled up in a ball sleeping in the sun.  About ten feet from it sat a man in a chair, just staring at the street.  I asked the man if the dog was his, I wasn’t interested in petting a tamed dog, I wanted a wild one.  He said he didn’t know the dog, and I chose my target.  I slowly approached and was met with a slow, nervous tail wag.  Challenge accepted.  I closed in and………. I PET THE DOG!  GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!  CUBS WIN, CUBS WINS!  I PET A DOG!!!! TAKE THAT AUTHORITY!!! If the snake didn’t make my day, that sure did.  I pet it for about thirty seconds as it melted in my hand, perhaps experiencing love from a human being for the first time in its life, and snapped a picture for proof. 

I jumped back to the bus and bathed in hand sanitizer and awaited the groups return so I could boast of my accomplishment.  My story was met with eye rolls and concerns about how rabid I may or not currently be.  Those concerns are obviously foolish.  I wasn’t bit, and was barely even thinking about biting everyone else.  Blood does sound good though.

Afterwards, we took one more pit stop at a jewelry store where they make the merchandise in store.  This was clearly on the bottom rung of the tourist attraction ladder, and about half the group stayed on the bus, but I had only a few hours of India left to experience and I was going to absorb every last second I could.  It was a chance to walk the street a bit and maybe catch another pet-thirsty dog.

 

In the store, they showed a bunch of expensive jewels.  I advised I had no need of any jewelry, they asked about ladies in my life.  I again advised no opportunity there, they countered by saying something could be arranged.  That’s a negotiation technique I’m not used to at home, but I held strong and declined still.  Fun note though, they had one ring that costs 35 million rupees, or roughly $500,000 US dollars.  I countered with a $50, they declined.  I tried.

In the next room though, I encountered unexpected temptations in the form of vintage stabby things.  Knifes, and these redonkulously awesome things that fit over your hand and essentially become Wolverine claws.  These I was willing to negotiate for.  I had been hoping to get the real Indian bartering experience on the trip and this was the time. Eventually I bought a curved dagger with an elephant head handle, and case decorated with paintings in actual silver.  I may have gone over budget a bit.

On the other side of the room I saw the most amazing needlework of my lifetime.  I have been amazed by several of these items throughout the trip, but know all of them are out of my budget, so haven’t bothered taking time to stare at most.  On the wall here was a roughly eight foot wide hand embroidered picture of a tiger mauling a zebra in the jungle, and it’s just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.  Among the highlights are a small trail of blood dripping from the zebras freshly snapped neck, and a carefully crafted zebra phallic portion to be anatomically correct. 

I still didn’t ask the price but couldn’t help but stare for a while.

After the store, the group boarded the train to spend a final day in Delhi.  Whilst waiting for the train to take off, I stared out the window trying to distinguish what animal I was seeing.  It was a bit in the distance and I was getting that curved window distortion effect.  I couldn’t tell if it was a dog, two dogs standing close to each other, or a goat.  I verbally processed this, and others got involved in trying to understand what it was.  Eventually, I got bored of the mystery and just went sarcastic with it, declaring it to be an albino tiger.  To my surprise, a group member bought into that, and I got to run with the joke for a few minutes.

It was a goat.

Day 9 - I Don't Have a Clever Title for This One

This day started probably the best way it possibly could: Late.  The day’s agenda had a late start, so an opportunity to sleep was given.  Normally, I’d be against this, I have my whole life to sleep, but only two weeks in this country, however, I’ve had a tough time sleeping most of the trip, and 2-4 hours a night has been pretty standard, getting until 8:30 to have breakfast seemed a monumental break here. 

Then breakfast hit.  In an earlier journal entry, I waxed poetically about the joys of Indian food.  Well somewhere around day 7 or 8, that joy began to fade.  I miss beef, but not as much as I miss a few other things I clearly take for granted.  Chief among them is ice.  Nothing is ever really served cold here.  The drinks come out of a refrigerator often, but they are still pretty close to room temperature, ice is virtually never an option and I haven’t had a cold drink since I left Seattle.  The other thing is fresh food.  It’s not safe to eat anything raw here, so everything is cooked, soft, and warm.  I miss cold and I miss crunchy. 

At breakfast, we were offered sausage.  We had chicken sausage in Delhi, and it was delightful, so I loaded up.  This chicken sausage needs several words to describe, but delightful will not be one of them.  It tasted a little like someone had soaked cardboard in water with just a hint of Tang powder until it was completely mushy, then rolled it in crushed dog food for extra flavor, and placed it in a cooler to harden.  After one bite, I figured I must have been missing out on something and needed a second bite to adjust.  I was a bit headstrong on the second gulp, putting the remainder of the sausage into my mouth in one large bite.  That bite never made it to my stomach.  I tried so hard, but eventually it ended up in my napkin, hoping our hosts would never discover that it was found to be indigestible. 

After breakfast, we had the opportunity to spend some time meeting up with the students from the Bible College here.  We had about three hours to spend with the students, and I was beyond excited for the experience.  These young students are truly something to be admired, before they will even be accepted into the college, they must sign an agreement stating that they are willing to die for the gospel.  One semester of their studies is an internship, wherein they are required to plant a church.  No church plant, no graduation.  That is commitment the likes of which is completely foreign in western education, debatably even in western faith.  I couldn’t wait to see what these men were like on a personal level.

The idea was that the majority of the time would be spent sharing testimonies with each other, but that didn’t work out for our group.  I heard later that for most of the other groups, that is what happened, but for ours, the men felt like blazing through their stories quickly.  We had about three hours, and had ten testimonies knocked out in about forty minutes.  After a short break, we were encouraged to lead a short Bible study, and try to spark a small group discussion. 

Both myself, and the other member of our visiting group gave a short study, and we jumped into a small group discussion.  As could be evidenced by our quick burst through testimonies, we didn’t have the chattiest group of guys in the world.  The actual discussion didn’t last all that long.  What followed though was very cool.

With about an hour and twenty minutes left, one student jumped completely off subject, opting to ignore the discussion and ask me to explain a passage he didn’t understand in 1 John.  At this point, I should point out something about myself that may or may not be common knowledge to my readers.  I am by no means a biblical scholar.  I know my gospels, Acts, Romans, and a handful of Old Testament books pretty well.  I have read the entire Bible and have a good idea of how it all completes and compliments each other, and a confident understanding of the important aspects of my faith, however I do not have the ability to just pop up with answers from Micah, 1 John, or Habakkuk on command.  I need time to study passages, and I don’t tend to absorb things to long term memory quickly.  I have to study things in more depth than I have with much of the Bible to have the ability to recall quickly. 

Yet, surely enough, that’s exactly what the next hour of time was comprised of.  I had Bible College students tossing questions at me left and right about passages I’ve read maybe once or twice in my lifetime, looking for answers on what they mean.  Much to my surprise, I had answers to all of them.  Jumping them back and forth all throughout scripture, often to passages I’m only vaguely familiar with myself, for answers.  From Micah to Job, I referenced scripture all over the place and provided clarity to the students in a way that I know I am not capable of.  The Holy Spirit was guiding me and using me to bless those in that room.  It was an amazing, one of a kind experience that I was not expecting or even slightly prepared for, but it may have been my favorite part of the entire trip.

I made sure to share with all the students those exact feelings.  I let them know that I’m not knowledgeable enough to answer all the questions I had just answered, and we were all able to praise God together for the learning that had occurred.  We spent a few minutes in prayer together and parted ways, with grumpy Taylor well behind me and encouraged by the morning’s events.

Afterwards a lunch with the leadership staff occurred.  This was our final interaction with the leaders before we departed to another city, and I was disappointed to find my white brother in arms was not a part of it.  I never did get an opportunity to reconnect with him, unfortunately.  I’ll try to find a way to connect by email or something when I get home.

I had been excited to visit the gift shop they had on campus that afternoon, knowing that I could pick up souvenirs, A. without bartering and B. with all the money going to support the mission.  That turned out great for the ladies, because the store was about 90% clothing, but for me, it meant buying two things because I would have felt guilty getting all of it elsewhere.  $20 to a good cause I guess.

In the evening, we hopped back onto a train for a trip to Agra and some legit tourism.  Unlike the last train ride, I was not tossed into a train car with only two other people, but rather with a group of several travel companions, most of whom, I really did not know well at all.  Instead of writing or sleeping my way through the majority of the ride, I joined in a long conversation getting to know them all.  One by one, seven of us listened in for an abbreviated life story of the others.  Starting with childhood in some cases (long winded people like me) and others focusing on current life.  In all cases, we got real with each other at the end.  Opening up about the people in our life that need prayer and the challenging we are facing today.

I got to know those folks better in five hours than I know several people I’ve known for years, and it was great.  I’m a very relational person.  I crave depth in my relationships, and this train ride was a great encouragement for me.  I had the chance to open up about some current struggles I am having in my own faith and with my church, and was listened to and encouraged by people who were near strangers when I woke up that morning.  I have learned that train rides are a more conductive environment in virtually all ways compared to air travel.  There is enough room to sit and converse, and not an obligation to watch movies and sleep the whole way.  I wish we could take a train back home.