Memoirs of a Road Trip - Agra (Taj Mahal)

After Delhi Adi, James and I packed our bags (threw all the shopping in the back of the car to worry about later) and headed to Agra to awe at the infamous Taj Mahal. One hour after leaving the hotel we were STILL in Delhi. Got to love the traffic. As we merrily drove along our driver decided that he needed to go faster even though there was a bicyclist in front of us. And the laws of physics being what they are, with momentum and all that, we ended up running over the poor chap and squishing his bike. And in the eternal fashion of blaming the victim our driver got out and started bitching slapping the poor sod for getting in our way. We thought that the insanity would not end when one of India's less intimidating officers of the law materialized. Granted I've seen moribund sloths move with more energy than he did, but he at least represented some sort of authority figure. That is until our driver saw him, pushed him out of the way, jumped in the car and high-tailed out of there. Now you try doing that in the U.S. and not end up on the 6 o'clock news with the SWAT team at your door. I must admit the rest of the trip was not as exciting. :-) As for the Taj Mahal, I'm sorry to say, I really was not that impressed. Call me jaded, but I was like "Oh, that's it." It was pretty and all and I'm glad I went. But really, it was just "aight."

Almost There!

Taj at First Site

My Princess Diana forlon look

Yes it is very pretty

No that is not a fake back-drop behind us

THE Taj - Like no other

Amazing inlay work - all semiprecious stones

An empty part of India - Does the government now about this!?

We are actually really tired

Ok enough with the Taj pictures - we get it!

How come tourists always look up?

Taj from Far
The back of the front

The front of the front

The only went to the outside of the Agra fort. This is it :-p

Memoirs of a Road Trip - Delhi

Delhi was where we are flew into in order to start our journey. The possee consisted of James and Adi from DC, Andy from Kolkata, and Manu from Delhi (but he only was there at the beginning and the end, he couldn't be bothered for the middle).

I honestly do not like Delhi much, it's urban sprawl gone mad with lots of pollution thrown in. But some of the sites that we saw were cool. And it was so much fun watching James and Adi go crazy with the shopping. I realized that I've been in India too long, when the boys kept saying, "this is SO cheap!" and I would look at the price and think, "Rs. 200 (less than USD5) for hand-made leather sandals!? What a rip-off!!" :-P

The shadows in Humayun's Tomb are amazing

James, Manu and Andy resting our weary feet in Delhi's biggest mosque

Aren't we adorable - Please don't confuse us for tourist

Delhi Street Scene - 1

Humayun's Tomb

Jama Masjid - 1

Holy Marigolds for placing on your shrine

Market Days - 1

The evidence of India's economy being throughly stimulated by the western dollar (and this is at the beginning of the trip! 8 more days and 4 more cities to go!!)

Jama Masjid - 2

Red Fort

Is this food hygenically sealed?

Delhi Street Scene - 2

James driving an autorickshaw - pedestrians be ware (for real he paid the dude to let him!)

Delhi Street Scene - 3

Andy's Lonesome moment (at Humayun's Tomb)

Jame's couldn't look butch if he tried (at Humayun's Tomb)

Gandhi's Final Resting Place

The 3 Queerketeers (at Humayun's Tomb)

2 Whities and a pretend local (at Humayun's Tomb)

India Gate

Yes, I'm Posing! (at Humayun's Tomb)

Random Indian Snack Food-like Item

And the price to cutest couple goes to...

On why I say Puerto Rico is an independent country

On why we are not intimidated by the police

Every day looks like the next

Daily Market

And this is why we are afraid of chicken flu (skinning dead chickens on the side of the road)

Nothing like getting your haircut in front of a crowd to really make you feel pretty

Memoirs of a Road Trip

The itinerary:

18/Feb - Meet in Delhi (Dinner with Manu--South Indian Again!!)

19-21/Feb - Tour Delhi (Tour equals driving by a site and clicking a pic then going shopping. Tues night cameo at Pegs and Pints to gawk at Delhi's Clubbing Homos)

22/Feb - Morning: Drive to Agra. Afternoon: Stroll through the Taj Mahal (be less than impressed, what is all the hype about anyway!?)

23/Feb - Drive to Jaipur, stop at Fatedhpur Sikri on the way (way too much fun at the old palace, but wee missed out on the mosque and tying the lucky string :-p)

24/Feb - Tour Jaipur (which for James and Adi meant shopping, I needed a/c so I went to a movie with friends)

25/Feb - Drive to Rathambore for a safari (spent the morning doing more shopping first)

26/Feb - Wake up at the butt crack of dawn to attempt to see wild animals (Apparently the
people in Delhi did not satisfy that need). Afternoon: Drive to Udaipur

27/Feb - Wake up at the butt crack of dawn to pick up Manu from the airport. Spend the day Gawking at the scenic beauty of Udaipur and its lakeside palaces.

28/Feb - Spend the next 13 hours in a car driving back to Delhi (come up with creative ways to kill myself and avoid the suffering)

1/Mar - Fly to Mumbai. Dinner with Alana and Ryan.

2/Mar - Meet up with Manu (begin acclimating to the being that is Bombay. Go to see Memoirs of a Geisha - Hey it's Asian, it's all the same!)

3/Mar - Catch up with Ameet, hang out with the posse, tour Mumbai (spend hours trying to find a place to stay for when I return at the end of the month for Fashion Week), sumptuous meal at Olive

4/Mar - Early 30th pre-birthday celebration for Ameet: picnic'esque activity at Elephanta, afternoon tea and cake at the Taj, dinner, crashing from exhaustion

5/Mar - Final day in Bombay, have to go back to reality, no more fun with my friends. :-(

Highlights:

First and foremost, spending time, catching up, and generally having a good time with old friends (big kisses to James, Ameet and Alana). Getting to know better and bonding with Manu and Ryan (huge hugs). Meeting and befriending Adi and Mark.

Second, being able to play tourist in India. It is definitely a different experience and perspective from working here. Thanks to James and Adi for making it happen.

Third, Udaipur. It has to be the most picturesque city i have ever been in.

The mystery of the nose worm revealed

As I'm hanging out with my friends Dev and Nil at their sweat shop in Cal preparing for Lakme Fashion Week in Bombay at the end of the month (learning my new trade - Fashion Bitch) I noticed a little tub on their courtyard filled with water. As I stared into this miniature pond I noticed tiny little squigglies swimming around. Upon further inspection, low and behold, what do I see but Frankie the worm's relatives! The same little black-headed red worm that allegedly oozed out of my nose. :-P This leads me to believe that maybe it was in the water after all!! :-D

Yey, I don't have to worry about parasites eating my brain and turning into Mariah Carey. Thanks for all the emotional and medical support that you all provided. MUAH!

Coming soon on this site, "Memoirs of a Road Trip," musings on my recent stint as an imperialist pig tourist through the sites of India. Cheers!

Andy's Johari Window

A model for mapping personality awareness, by describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.

I like it because it gives you an idea of how others perceive you.

Arena (known to self and others) accepting, cheerful, clever, friendly, independent, warm	Blind Spot (known only to others) able, bold, brave, calm, caring, dependable, dignified, energetic, extroverted, giving, happy, ingenious, intelligent, loving, mature, organised, powerful, proud, relaxed, religious, responsive, self-assertive, sentimental, silly, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense, trustworthy, witty
Façade (known only to self)	Unknown (known to nobody) adaptable, complex, confident, helpful, idealistic, introverted, kind, knowledgeable, logical, modest, nervous, observant, patient, quiet, reflective, searching, self-conscious, sensible, shy, wise

Dominant Traits

54% of people think that Pubhandy is loving

All Percentages

able (18%) accepting (18%) adaptable (0%) bold (36%) brave (9%) calm (9%) caring (18%) cheerful (9%) clever (27%) complex (0%) confident (0%) dependable (9%) dignified (18%) energetic (9%) extroverted (18%) friendly (45%) giving (18%) happy (9%) helpful (0%) idealistic (0%) independent (18%) ingenious (9%) intelligent (9%) introverted (0%) kind (0%) knowledgeable (0%) logical (0%) loving (54%) mature (9%) modest (0%) nervous (0%) observant (0%) organised (9%) patient (0%) powerful (9%) proud (9%) quiet (0%) reflective (0%) relaxed (9%) religious (9%) responsive (9%) searching (0%) self-assertive (9%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (0%) sentimental (9%) shy (0%) silly (9%) spontaneous (36%) sympathetic (9%) tense (9%) trustworthy (9%) warm (9%) wise (0%) witty (27%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 8.3.2006, using data from 11 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view Pubhandy's full data.

Many Happy Returns

March celebrates the birth anniversaries of:

Chris Constanza (my relationship with him cannot be described)
Murat Kavlak (darling of a man whom I miss dearly)
Bonnie Kissler (a Chinse firecracker that needs some ritalin)
Ameet Naik (one of the most beautiful people I've ever had the pleasure of getting to know)
Elisa Pujals (funnest, lovelyest PRican chickie poo ever)

Love you all heaps!

A tour of (parts) India

As you all know my friend James and his friend Adi came to India to visit me and for us to play white imperialist tourist through the countrie. I've been unable to comment on the trip since we've been on the road, but James has been pretty good. While I gather my thoughts and get back into the swing of things you can read Jame's version of the story at:

http://dcjay.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Cathc up with y'all soon.

I am greatness personified

I was recently asked why I blog. And I had to pause and think. Because I never really thought about it. It originally started as a way to keep my family and friends up to date on my life. A way of sharing my experiences in India. But to me, now, it has become a whole lot more. It's a way of sharing, venting, and analyzing my existence and its environment. And let's face it, I'm pretty funny and you love to read my ramblings. Now if I could only string together a complete sentence. And maybe use spell check more often this could be THE BEST BLOG IN EXISTENCE!! I could win awards, maybe even get a small kingdom named after me...but I digress.

The whole point of today's ramble is that in my never ending quest to live above my means I will be gone for another 2 weeks. My friend James will be coming to India on his first visit to the subcontinent so I'm meeting up with him and I get to finally play tourist! Yey!! We are doing the whole Delhi, Agra (Taj Mahal), Rajasthan thing. Then I go to Bombay for the weekend to meet up with some friends (Ameet of Hong Kong infamy is the initiator - I at least don't have a real job I don't know how HE does it) for a little social reunion.

So to all my fans. Try not to miss me too much. I will think of you fondly as I meander through the back alleys of Jaipur.

Cheers!

On breeding

So back in December my friend Andy and his crazy enough to marry him wife gave birth to a girl. Congratulations go to them in this totally new chapter in their lives.

I admit that I am a bit jealous (I love babies) and relieved (thank god it wasn't me!). The thought of breeding both fascinates and terrifies me. I don't know if I will ever have children of my own, but my heart goes out to those that do.

The scariest thing about kids is all the unknown (does that make me a control freak!?). If abortion was legal till say their 10th birthday, then you would have something to fall back on if something goes wrong. But no, once birthed you are stuck with them. And what if they are ugly or stupid. And they are SO expensive!! My ex-BF Ricky once said, we could have a kid or we could take a yearly vacation to some part of the world. We never did either, but still he had a point. The amount of money I spend on holidays would be sucked up by the needs of the child.

Still whenever i see a baby or hear a kid laughing my ovaries churn. I want a kid of my own. It doesn't have to be genetically mine (though let's admit it I have good genes and it would be a shame to deprive the world of them), but I want that unconditional love. I want the chance to contribute towards our future. I want someone who will bring me water, mow the lawn and wash the car and good help is so hard to find these days, so might as well just grow your own.

Birthday Shout-Outs!!

To All My Peeps Born in the Month of Love:

Lorenzo Amato (my homeboy in GA)
Dave Gleave (words cannot describe our realitionship)
Melba Melendez (my dear sis)
Harish Murthy (my favorite FOB)

Much love to you and many happy returns.

A visit to God's own country*

* Kerala's Tourism Slogan
(this goes out to my malayalee peeps - Sonia, Ashish, Ratesh)

Kerala is a very beautiful state, truly worthy of all the praise it gets. Granted I was only able to spend a week there and most of it in a crappy down, but I was able to get some sense of what it has to offer. Kottayam is a sleepy little town in-land in the countryside. There is crap to do, save for looking at palm trees and eating many permutations of coconut dishes (who knew coconut oil had so many uses!). Thank god the meeting was good and I had good company or I probably would have spent most of the week drunk.

During the meeting we were able to do the famous back water tours of Kerala. Kerala's back waters are basically small river systems which act like canals through parts of southern Kerala. They really are picturesque and drifting along the calm waters towards sunset does have a slight magical effect. After a couple of hours of being stuck in a small boat my ADD kicked in was ready to get out. Luckily we were treated to a fancy shmantzy dinner at a local resort that more than made up for the dull moments.

After the meeting was over some friends and I headed down to the beach for a couple of days to chill before going back to work. My incident with Frankie the Nose Worm aside the beach was pretty neat. Alapuzha is a crap town. But Kovalam had an amazing beach with white sand and crystal clear water and just the right amount of surf.

On the downside was the sea of old, white, hairy foreigners that tainted the pristine scenery and forced restaurant's to cater to their sensitive taste buds by serving bland food. And the fact that everything closed at 10pm!! Ugh!!

The upside was the relaxed atmosphere, the fabulous sun, and the fact that I got to walk around in a veshti/dhoti for a few days (for the uninitiated - a veshti is similar to a lungi or a sarong, it is a piece of cotton fabric that is wrapped around the waist almost like a skirt. It is traditional to many parts of Indian and very commonly seen in Kerala. On a personal fun, I now know why women wear skirts. They are so freeing, and refreshing, you get a nice breeze, and just a slight naughty feeling.)

Something that I have come to realize is that I love being in new places, but I hate getting there. Can one say the love traveling if the hate the journey? Someday I may bitch about the 3 day train ride down to Kerala or the 12 hour flight back. Honestly. With SO many engineers and physicists that the world produces why can't someone invent teleportation already!? Ugh!!

Final comment:
Kerala is pretty. Malayalee sounds like Oompa-Loompa language (it sounds just like its script all curly-cue and bubbles). And I left my camera in a friends bag so it will be a while before I can post pictures.

One of the most disturbing things to ever happen to me

(I'm still in Kerala, I fly back to Kolkata tomorrow, but this is was so upsetting that I had to find a net cafe to share with y'all now)

So my meeting ended and some of the other Fellows and I decided to head to Alappuzha and then make our way down to Kovalam to chill on the beach for 2 days before heading back to our respective work sites. It all seemed good until yesterday morning.

Before I continue I need to give you some background into my morning bathing habits. I suffer from pretty bad allergies and every morning I wake pretty congested. Sop while I shower I blow my nose and hack up as much mucous as I can to try and clear up some air passages so I don't suffocate.

Back to the story. So Friday morning I'm showering and I blow my nose as usual. After I blew I'm about to wash my hands in the running water when I look down and see something wiggling in my hand. Upon further inspection I see a worm!! A tiny, red, parasitic worm thing!! I scream, wrapped a towel around my waste and ran outside to show the peeps I was sharing a room with. They all agreed that indeed it was a worm, but that I should not worry too much, maybe it came from the water.

IT DID NOT COME FROM THE WATER! I HAD A WORM UP MY NOSE!! :-(

Trying not to cry, they help me put it in something to maybe show a doctor or something later so that I can go finish showering. I decided to wait to see if a second worm came out before going to see anyone. (none have come out yet) But I am convinced that I have a worm colony living in my lower right sinus cavity and that they are going to eat my brain while I sleep. :-(

I've been afraid of blowing my nose since, and everything my nose itches I'm convinced that it is the worms moving offices. :-(

So to all my friends out there (and this question goes out mostly to those of you who are medically inclined - Mother, Prasad!!) please tell me that either a) there are no such things as head worms or b) that head ones live alone and not in groups and since Franky (that's what I decided to call him) fell out I have nothing to worry about.

Why does shit like this happen to me!? I hate worms!! They are SO gross!!

My whirlwind up coming weeks...

FYI - This week I have the pleasure and privilege (sarcasm duly noted I hope) of being in Jharkhand, which is roughly the Alabama of India, for work. From here I take the over-night train back to Kolkata and I have 4 hours to shower, re-pack and get back to the trains station for a 3 day train ride to Kerala. Normally going to Kerala would be exciting, but I am going for a meeting by the foundation that is funding me to be here and the town that they picked to hold it in apparently is total crap. According to Lonely Planet:

Kottayam's town center is a rather ugly mess of concrete buildings and
traffic and there is little reason to come here unless you arrive too
late for onward transport.

I mention all this, to let you know that I will probably only be doing some sporadic blogging until I get back to Cal. I definitely have some stories about Jharkhand already.

Laterz

The Latin/Indian Thing: A follow-up

Catering to India's continued fascination with the spic'ish, Lay's-India has released a new special edition flavor of potatoes chips: Latino Style!

I don't know if the developers have ever visited a Latin American country, if this is just India's interpretation of what Hispanic food tastes like. However, as a born and bred Latino who has sampled the cuisine of various countries I can tell you that those chips did not taste Latino in the least bit.

And on the topic of deceptive Latin things...Amazon, Kolkata's first Latin/Bengali fusion restaurant finally opened and in our quest to explore new restaurants my friend Neela and I venture forth.

And oh how we were disappointed. Let's start with the ambiance. Apparently they were going for some sort of tree trunk look that could have been cute if they had gone all the way, but apparently they ran out of money half way or got bored with it. Second apparently the Amazon was in North America because the walls had carvings of American Indians (the feather kind). The music playing was some sort of 80's elevator music greatest hits compilation. And the menu consisted of North Indian dishes and Indian Chinese selections. We were hard pressed to find a Bengali item on the menu let a lone a Latin one.

So much like my Bangalore Taco experience, I just need to learn that it takes a spic to make real Latin food, and what am I thinking believing that I will be able to get good Hispanic food in Asia.

Happy Belated Birthdays!!

It occured to me today that I completely forgot to do my January Birthday Well Wishes. My deepest apologies to my family and friends for not acknoledging the anniversaries of your births sooner.

Many hugs and kisses go to:

Ashish David
Gabby Harrington
Anuj Jaggi
Michael Matthews
Juan Melendez (my old man! who now is really old!)
Pavel Melendez (my jock bro)
Ricardo Salgado (my granfather, and the only grand parent I have left)

Images of Kolkata - II

Last week I had some friends from the U.S. visit me in Calcutta. They are currently working in Bombay for a bit, and decided to travel across the country. These are some Jeremy's pictures of their visit to Cal.