India.  For those who have been, just the name of the country is going to bring back a flood of memories.  Some are going to be great memories, some terrible, some just downright hilarious.  India is a country like no other that we’ve been to.  Absolute chaos at nearly every turn and punishing on all five senses, sometimes all at once.

We started off by doing a few “easy” things (at least “easy“ as far as traveling in India goes).  Trekking and yoga.  They were both great, and they were a fantastic introduction to this chaotic country.  Before we came to India, everyone we talked to who had been here before agreed on a few things, whether they loved or hated India or felt a little of both (which is most people’s reactions to the country).

“It’s crazy.”

“It’s mad.”

“It’s intense.”

“It’s unlike anywhere you have ever been.”

Crazy?  Check.  Mad?  Uh-huh.  Intense?  Yep.  Unlike anywhere we have ever been?  You betcha.

Flights to India can be expensive, but we found a great deal.  After a few days in Delhi, we quickly left for Rishikesh, where Megan stayed at an ashram, and I took off for a Himalayan trek.  After leaving Rishikesh, we headed back down to Delhi, the capital and probably most upside down crazy place we’ve been in India.  It’s the most intense of all India when taking into account all the wacky things about this country (all of the following wacky things occur in every city we‘ve been in, to varying degrees

It’s really dirty.  Seriously, there’s just trash everywhere, which I frankly just haven’t gotten used to.  There’s lots of cows everywhere.  I’m talking in the middle of major roads in a city of, according to Megan, 375 jillion people (actually it’s about 14 million, but it sure seems like 375 jillion sometimes).  They like their cows here, and I truly believe, no, I don’t just believe, I know, that if a cow and I were walking down  the same street (which happens often), and a car was coming towards us, he or she would most definitely hit me before the cow.  Kinda sucks.  There are some “interesting” smells everywhere (I’m going to let you use your imagination here).  And the people, well, yeah, there’s lots of them.  And they like vying for the attention of western tourists.    All the time.

“Yes!!!  Sir, come look my shop!!”

“Sir, where you from?”

“What you looking for?”

“You need sarong?”

“You need cushions?”

“You need hash?”

“You need bedspread?”

“You need t-shirt?”

“You need water?”

“You need chai?”

“You have good Indian hair.”

I know it sounds kinda bad, and a lot of the times, it can get pretty tiresome, but sometimes it can lead to awesome experiences.  And yes, the last one is absolutely true.  In fact, I have been told, several times, by men, straight Indian men, that I have great hair or that they like my hair, which is well…..kinda weird…..and, well……honestly…..kinda cool?

We didn’t stay in Delhi long, and we headed south to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, one of the coolest man made monuments we have seen, and home to the Red Fort, which was stunning in it’s own right but overshadowed by the Taj.  Unfortunately both are in one of the most wretched and horrible cities we have seen (all of which will be the topic of another post).  After Agra was Rajasthan, a state in India where we initially planned on spending most of the rest of our time.  Rajasthan draws the most tourists in India, both Indian and western.  Which has its upsides and downsides.  While we really liked one of the places (Jodhpur–where one of the coolest experiences we’ve had on the trip occurred–another topic for its own post), we also really disliked one (Jaipur, just ugh, not a good  place), and we were a bit ambivalent towards another (Udaipur–we liked it, it was nice, the people were fine, we took an awesome cooking class there, but it was just kind of “meh”).

Looking back on many of our experiences here can actually be quite funny because it’s just so weird here.  We have both said, on many occasions, that it seems like it’s always “Backwards Day” here in India.  And logic, as we know it, forget about it.  India makes the DMV a worry free, smooth running machine.  Take this encounter at the Jodhpur bus station for example:

Megan and I, going up to the “Enquiries” counter at the bus station:  “Hello, we want tickets to Udaipur.”

Attendant:  “Yes.”

Us:  “We want to go tomorrow.”

Him:  “Yes.”

Us:  “What time do buses go.”

Him:  “5:30”

Us:  “5:30?”

Him:  “Yes.”

Us:  “Any other times?”

Him:  “Yes,  7, and 8, and 9, and 10:30, and 1, and 2, and 3.”

Us:  “Great, can we get tickets for the 8 o’clock bus.”

Him:  “Yes.”

Us:  “Here?”

Him: At this point he points over to a building across the parking lot and says,“Advance booking over there.”

Us:  “Over there, in that building over there”  We point.  He nods.

We walk over there and go to the one window that someone is standing behind.  He’s counting money, with two glasses of chai on his desk in front of him.  We walk up and stand there, and he completely ignores us and continues counting his money.  I walk to a different window and finally Megan gets his attention after saying “Hello” a few times.

Megan:  “Hello, we need tickets to Udaipur at 8 tomorrow morning.”

Him:  “Chai?”

Megan (bewildered):  “No, no, I couldn’t possibly.”

Him:  “Chai?”

Megan (guessing that she wouldn’t get an answer to her question until she accepted his chai, accepts his chai):  “Thank you.  We’re trying to get to Udaipur tomorrow morning at 8.  Can we buy tickets here?”

Him:  “No, over there.”  He points back across the parking lot in the vicinity of three buildings, one of which is the building we came from  “New building.”

Us, to each other:  “None of those three buildings look new.”

Us, to him:  “Thanks”We take the chai and walk back across to the first building we were at.  We go to another window, not the “Enquiries” window.

Us:  “Hello, we’re trying to get to Udaipur tomorrow morning.”

Attendant:  “You need to go to the window down there.”  He points to a window at the other end of the building, right next to the very first window, “Enquiries”.  So we go there.

Us:  “Hello, we’re trying to go to Udaipur tomorrow at 8.”

Attendant:  “You need to go next door, to that window.”  He points at the “Enquiries” window, of course.

We knew that was going to be the case, so we go next door, to the very first guy we talked to.

Us:  “Hello, we want to go to Udaipur tomorrow at 8, and the guy next door said we need to talk to you about purchasing tickets.”

Him (mind you, the first guy we talked to, only about 10 minutes prior to this):  You can only buy advance tickets to the 5:30 bus.  If you want to go on the 8 bus, come here at 7:30 tomorrow morning.  You can buy tickets then.”

Us (shaking our heads in disbelief, muttering):  “Thanks.”

We walk away, me throwing out a few choice words while just shaking my head back and forth, Megan just kind of chuckling.  And that’s the best description of this crazy ass country that I can give.  As I said, it can be quite maddening here.  And while I wasn’t exactly having the time of my life during the above ordeal, I was laughing at it shortly afterwards as we were recounting to each other and then shaking our heads while saying, India.  That one word has been our explanation for many things over the course of this past month.  Or it’s variation, “It’s India.”