A Friend In Delhi

Now can you believe it? I was sitting by the pool my first morning here, having a nice cold mineral water… and I look to my right and see a familiar face. I thought, “Oh my gosh… I remember that guy!” The Spa owner. He came rushing out waving to me (no lie) and said, “I remember you!” “You and your husband here two years ago.” For real! So we ended up chatting for probably 2 hours. Pretty cool. I told him I was feeling hot and jet lagged. So he bought me a Sprite and a Club soda and mixed the two together. Said it would make me feel much better. Gave me his number and told me if I needed “anything” at all to call him. He wants me come back Friday evening, so he can take me to dinner and to his father’s resort. He also really wanted me to get in touch with Sean, so much so that he gave me his phone and insisted I call right then.

Then he introduced me to the owner of the Resort.

Who wanted to do the same. Aparently he had been having dinner with people from the Russian Embassy. He gave me his business card and said next time I come back he’ll give me a discount. When I went to check out the man at the desk told me that Friday's rate for me would be about 1000 rupees cheaper.

He wanted to buy me a beer, which I immediately turned down. Beer, 100+ degree weather, and me = terrible combination. Then he wanted me to have some watermelon with him. Ah… ok? So he had some watermelon brought to the table, and he thought he needed to help me take the seeds out. Hilarious. Told me how to do it and all…..um………yes, sir, we do have watermelon in American. Anyway. That watermelon turned out to be a terrible idea....

After being at the Volunteer Home now for a couple nights. I have decided I am definitely going back to Ashok Friday night, if just for some sanity. I feel like I'm losing my mind in this house here. It's so ungodly hot and from chatting with all of the girls, we are all under the agreement this house and man running it is all quite sketchy. I'm irked and not suprised. Of course I'd sign up for something like this. But it could be worse. However, at the same time, I came to India to be part hedonist, and I already feel I've done enough suffering. (Yeah... I'm not much of a camper type in the US - haha).

Photos of the ResortI am going to possibly see if one of the girls would like to come with me, since we are also flying to the Himalayas together on Saturday. If not, I'll just go. Both of them said they'd come get me at the house and I have their numbers. I also just found out that the Volunteer placement here is not providing us a ride back to the airport, so it's not like I'd be missing out on that.

Sketchyness....
Love, Janelle

Catching Up

Back tracking a little here to catch up. I figured out how to use the zip in a different computer. Yipeee... Apologies for this now old news.

Starting with with getting off the plane. We had to fill out health forms and had to stop at a Health Check before Customs, basically inquiring to see who has Swine Flu and should get back on the plane. This was I-N-S-A-N-E! Sean and Matt you guys would be soooo proud of me though. (For those who did not follow the last blog, we learned that in India there basically are no lines. Lines are just one thing we take for granted in America. Here it’s pretty much fight to the death to get to cash registers or check in people. This Health Check was no exception.) So after learning the no – line rule last trip… This time, I knew better! Druschker & Sean, you guys would be so proud of me, I blasted past about 40 people. Feeling pretty proud of myself and like quite the experienced traveler… Only to shortly after have a family of 3 slide right in front of me! The woman nearly knocked me over – no joke – I had to take 2 steps to the side to help myself from falling down. And the man then proclaims, “Line is here.” I thought “OH huh… that’s amazing, I just cut in front of 40 people or so, but for some reason you think the line starts right in front of me… cool.” I laughed to myself in my head though and thought, “Welcome to India.”

After asking several people “where” in the airport could I buy a phone and Sim card… I was told by all of them “No” “No phones, only Sim cards”… Awesome. And I knew this wasn’t true. So I find the Airtel store – which sold phones….shocker……and totally got ripped off buying a phone at a blonde American price. Damn I can’t believe I let that happen now that I think about it. But I cut myself some slack because I’d been on a plane basically the past day. (Matt the card didn’t work. Bummer.) Anyway… the phone works just fine and I was able to call Sean, thank god, because on the way to the resort I totally thought I was going to pass out. It was midnight and 90 degrees here! The jet lag, lack of sleep, heat, being dehydrated fromt he plane, combined with the jarring, chaotic Indian driving bad combination.

Sheena, um, at this point, pink luggage is already beat up.

Anyway this brings me to the Ashok Resort.
Love, Janelle

Sights of This Afternoon

Because this dump closes in a few minutes, this post is just going to be some quick pictures from today. Sigh... I have so many good stories, but no time.... I always get a kick out of this. For the same monument. The price for us = 250 rupees and price for Indian folk = 10 rupees. Hmm... Girl on far left is Quinn - way cool, from California, she is coming to Palampur with me. Girl next to me on left, Melissa, way excellent, recently divorced and is from New York. Girl to the right of me... get ready..., Sara, from Waupaca, WI! She is going to school at UWSP, also going to Palampur with us.And here are the men working away on additions to this mosque. And here are some boys cleaning. Here's us being awesome. (Inside joke).

Lots more to do and see in Delhi. One of them hopefully will include finding an internet cafe that doesn't suck so bad.

Love,
Janelle

Uuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Well this sucks. I am at the "internet cafe" which is a complete joke. I had to give them my passport and was led up a sketchy staircase to an area with a couple computers. I have posts written from my laptop and a ton of pictures waiting, but the computers are ancient and dirty, and have no capacity for my zip drive. So, now I'm really irritated, because I was relying on this blog for my journal. Very irritated. Looks like my photos can be uploaded, but seems to be taking about 5 min per picture.

I had 3 posts waiting to be quickly uploaded, but since that isn't going to happen.

I'll give the shortened version. (And again I'll say....I'm irritated. This India is so different from last India. I realize now how pampered we were and how good we had it... even here. Because we had working internet, nice beds, a shower, a washer and dryer, and all sorts of other things this place doesn't have. Ya, I just got the memo today that laundry is bucket laundry. Cool, that should be fun. )

The place I am staying at........holy shit. It is very, very scary. I have pictures to prove. Ya, totally freaked out and didn't sleep again last night. Thank god my phone works with texting. I had Sean up 'til 5:30 in the morning (time here) keeping me company over text and calming me down. Turns out today, talking with several of the other girls who traveled here alone (like me) we were all going through the same things in our own separate minds last night. What the hell was I thinking? Why did I come here? Can I shorten my stay and leave sooner? And why does this place suck so bad? We paid to stay here? Really? Thank god, I'm not the only one. The girls/women who are here with me are all pretty cool. View from right outside our room (which I am not complaining about).Stairs going up to our room. And lower (with picture above) is entrance to the main living area.

Our room. At first glance, it doesn't seem terrible.

But then as you go to sleep, you will find, the pillow case was brown with hairs on and I pulled the sheets back to find more brown stains, hair and crumbs lying in the bed I'm supposed to be sleeping in. Awesome. Luckily I brought along a pillow case. I'm on the second floor, no air, no window, staying with two other girls (which are lovely) but........that room has to be 100 degrees.

Then, last night we found a fucking gecko in the room, I flipped out.

Today, I find ANOTHER one in the shower. Eiw, eiw, eiw.

Oh, I must mention, the shower... yes... it isn't a shower. (Do not let that shower head fool you, it doesn't work.)

It's a faucet that you can either duck down under, or use this dirty, and I do mean dirty, (as in brown stains and slime inside it) pink little bucket and use to dump over yourself. There is no shower curtain or anything like that, so the whole bathroom floor gets completely soaked. And with three of us using it, this morning was pretty interesting.

Shot of the ceiling directly over our dining room table.

Here's the kitchen with the woman of the house (Pria) and the family's cook (Brimla).

On the way to the homestay, I got to feeling very queasy, nauseous, hot, etc, etc. Combination of jet lag, dehydration, heat, jarring Indian driving, lack of sleep, overstimulated, and whatnot, anyway............threw up in the back seat of this man's car. Yup. Watermelon all over the window and back seat. That was an awesome start to this trip, I must say.

As you can tell I am not in the best mood, probably shouldn't be writing now because I'll give you all a terrible impression of India. But this has been what's been going on so far. Oh yea, and when I arrived, it was midnight and 90 degrees here. Today we just finished up some sightseeing and it was over 100 in the car. I'm right back to being sweaty, sloppy, and dirty. Oh what fond reminders of Fall 2007 - where I was in this permanent stage for 4 months. Take a look at my foot from just walking around a couple hours.

Appreciate your clean beds, houses, shower curtains/doors and airconditioning.

Love, Janelle