From Punjab with love

So, I managed to spend a great deal of time away from a computer. Actually, there were times when I was very much near a computer, but the truth is, the last few weeks were such a whirlwing I wouldn’t have been able to get it down if I had wanted to. Now, as I write this I am lying on my bed in England, and I can’t begin to describe what it feels like. So I’m going to bring you up to speed fith the last few weeks. It’s all I can do to keep my head in one piece.

So Max and I left the Golden Temple of Amritsar. We fought our way across Amritsar in a whole host of rickshaws until we finally found our coach to Chandigarh. As we began to travel across Punjab the heat grew even more (if possible) intense. At one pointn in the journey our bus stopped at this weird sort of service station cum oasis. It was so strange, like a service station but with the floor beautifully tiled and clean, with a luscious buffet under umberellas, curry, fruit and cold drinks in big troughs of ice…there were huge fans stood on stilts that not only blew gusts across the whole thing but sprayed fine mists of water through the breeze, too. The toilets were like stepping into a hotel foyer or something, with mirrors, lights, boxes of tissues….it was…surreal. I still have no idea what the whole story was behind it, because as I sat in the shade and started eating a mango, watching everyone milling around with their thali’s, the next thing I knew the bus was driving off without us and Max was still in the toilet! Unbeknownst to me, someone in there had offered him chai (I told you it was surreal) and he was sat chatting to some Indian men. As the bus drove off I ran after it, but then realized I couldn’t leave without Max anyway, so I had to watch as it went, mango in each hand, open mouthed. What the hell were we going to do now? When Max finally emerged I grabbed him and we ran. Luckily for us the bus had been caught in traffic a little way down the road and we managed to jump back on, now covered in mango juice. A funny incident that could have resulted in disaster. I love India.

It then took about 6 hours to arrive in Chandigarh. We had heard tales about the ridiculously priced hotels and guesthouses here, which seemed to range from 600 to 1500 rupees. So, we had tried to organize a place to stay through couch surfing. At the last minute the offer had fallen through, so we were not well aware we would have to try our hardest to find a place to stay, We didn’t want to get stuck in Chandigarh so our first port of call was to sort out a bed, get some rest and see the rock garden in the morning. I read in a guide book that the bus station had a dormitory for 300rs a night, and that seemed to be as good as it was going to get.

Driving into Chandigarh was very strange. It was an experiment carried out in town planning, and was now known to be ‘the’ place for rich and affluent Indians to live. The whole city was laid out in ‘sectors’, square blocks of housing, and as we begwn to drive through the suburbs it looked as though we were arriving in an American town. It was so surreal. All the houses looked…suburban I suppose is the only word. They all had little yards and gardens and the roads were wide and lined with trees. It was still undeniably Indian and the odd heap of litter or wandering stray dog reminded me of that, but there was also a distinctly western feel. When we pulled up in a huge dusty bus car park, a mob of rickshaw drivers began following us, trying to take our bags as we heaved them towards the bus station. The staring in Punjab is like nothing I've experienced anywhere else in India, and as we staggered into the bustling bus terminal and flopped down on a bit of concrete, ALL eyes were on us. It was so hot, it was pretty unbearable. We sat with the guide, sweat dripping from our hair as we tried to find a guesthouse to call. Max missioned off to find a phone box to try some of the numbers and I sat with our bags trying to avoid the stares of the gathering crowds around me. When he came back, he had had no luck. None of the numbers seemed to work and we considered just turning up at one, but they all seemed to be out of town and even if we managed to find a rickshaw that gave us a fair price, the hotel might not, or it might have no rooms at all.

In desperation, we decided to consider the bus station dormitory, ut I was hesitant. The queue leading up to it was a long que of staring Indian men, and I felt like I had had enough of that for one week. But what other choice did we have? The sun was low in the sky. The bus station seemed to be along a concrete stretch of town where no living thing could possibly find an inhabitable spot, so we were left with our only choice. We asked the Ji if he had a private room, and he explained there was one ‘spare room’, for 600rs. He took us up some terrifying looking concrete stairs to what was literally,(and I mean literally) a polystyrene box, with no windows, no fan,, and a hard bed reaching to every wall. Now we were really desperate. There was still the sign to the ambiguous sounding ‘dorms’, but with all our other otions exhausted, and us exhausted to boot, we just needed somewhere, anywhere to lie down now. With a heavy heart we dragged ourselves up the stairs to see what the dorms had to offer. Incredibly, they weren't all that bad. There was hardly anybody in them and bunks were divided into sort of boxed off areas....the guy who ran the place was a crazy looking toothless teenager who couldn’t speak English and it took us a seriously long time to communicate what we needed from him. Finally, Max and I found a couple of stained and rickety bunks by a fan in the window, and they were sort of surrounded by wooden boards. We barricaded ourselves in and managed to build a little fortress of privacy. This flea bitten, ambiguously stained mdf box, in the middle of a bus terminal, was to be our home for the next few days. But, we really did make the best of it. We ended up having a really good time! Jumping from our top bunk, over the top of the box onto the other top bunks, and basically acting like children at a sleepover for the entire time. In our den! It was such a relief to finally be able to just 'not be seen'...to not be stared at and to be able to just sit still. The fan from the window that pointed a bit of cool air into our den was shared with another bunk on the other side of the box...after a while as the place bean to fill up with more Indians, a small battle commenced between us and our neighbor, pointing the fan back and forth every thirty seconds. After we braved the bus station to have a giggle and eat a curry (washed down with some amazing ‘Appy Fizz’, nonetheless), we spent the entire night playing this game with him.

We woke up early the next morning to get the best out of our day in Chandigarh. We had spent the night discussing the organic farm and had realized that in fact we had a lot to organise. It was so hot. Just ridiculously hot, and the prospect of doing manual farm labour in the heat Delhi was suffering with was starting to make us worry. Would it really be much of an enjoyable experience? We decided to go to an internet cafe to try and organize a farm that would be further north. The journey to the internet cafe however, took us a ridiculously long time. Chandigarh is a seriously weird place. It’s supposedly the millionaires row of India, but it’s just so weird. The shops are all completely westernized and its sort of like walking through a quite crap English city It’s a bit like....Wolverhampton, or something. Anyway, we tried to walk to where we though an internet cafe was but our map seemed to be taking us on a wild goose chase. IT said that the bus station should be in terminal 18, but the more and more we walked to try and find the Internet café that was supposed to be in the next block down, more and more Rickshaw drivers began to follow us. It’s impossible to walk anywhere in this country if you’re white...Anyway, after a while walking in the baking heat we realized we had no idea where we were. We gave in and asked a rickshaw driver for help, and he told us that we weren’t in sector 18 at all. We had got off at the wrong bus stop. The bus stop we needed to be in tomorrow, and all the places we needed to be, were miles away. We were in sector 43.

We got a cycle rickshaw to take us to the right bus terminal, and we felt so sorry for the guy panting away in the heat paid him 50rs for it (the first tip I’ve given in India and it was so nice to see the smile on his face.) When we arrived at the REAL bus station (we had wondered why ours was so wierd and why there had been nowhere to stay nearby) we finally found the internet cafe.

On the WWOOF (that’s the World Wide Organization for Opportunities in Farming) website, we found a farm that was near Rishikesh! We looked at each other and were like, "Shall we...?" It sounded lovely. ‘Vipasanna House and Organic Farms.’ Just outside Haridwar in a place called Dehra Dun. Why not? I had loved Rishikesh so much and I knew Max would love it too. It would be so amazing to get back into the mountains, and our impromptu plans were going well so far…So, we emailed the owner, he e-mailed us back, and after a little correspondence it was organized. We were champions, champions of making impromptu plans.

Finally, after a spot of lunch in a packed café of rich business men and whirring fans, we executed our main plan for actually coming to Chandigarh in the first place. We visited the Rock Garden, or the ROCK (makes rock hand gesture) garden as we liked to call it. And trust me when I say it was incredible.

The story behind it is of a man who wandered the streets of Chandigarh for decades, collecting rubbish and junk. Everybody thought he was mad and left him to it, but little did they realize in an abandoned plot of land he was constructing his very own sculpture garden. The thing now covers 3 acres, and once the government got wind of it began funding him so that he could finish it.

As you enter, you buy a ticket through a tiny low down hole in the wall that you have to kneel at, and then as you enter through a strange stone tunnel, a plaque on the wall informs you that ‘this place is based on a series of recurring dreams I had as a child’. Amazing.

We wondered around in awe for hours. I was expecting a little garden, or numerous gardens, but in fact he had built a whole landscape ou of sandbags and junk, lined it with sculptures and characters made of old bangles and bottles, armies of little sculpted animals stood in rows along the walls, and strange waterfalls and rivers flowed through the huge gorges. It was like a maze, and every corner that you turned, the view that met you was of the most pefect asthetic beauty. Everything had been lined up to frame the next part, and twisting steps and tunnels took you from one part to the next, it was just amazing. What was less amazing was being trapped in there with so many snap-happy Indian boys, who relentlessly followed and taunted me. They would never act like that towards and Indian woman. It was so hot and we had run out of water, all I wanted to do was wonder around looking at all the amazing waterfalls and sculptures, but everywhere we went people were taking pictures or filming me. Finally, I snapped and stormed over to a huge group and shouted at them, telling them to respect my privacy the way I respect theirs, and to please, just leave me alone! I stormed off down a little alleyway and cried. I was tired of Punjab’s staring now.

Max and I had been skeptical about the Rock Garden with the amount of hassel we had had trying to get there. But we both agreed by the end of our visit that it had totally been worth it, it was just amazing. Towards the end, the whole thing had opened out into a huge psychedelic amphitheater, complete with huge mosaics, doves in cages, swings to play on and even a camel wandering around. It was so surreal.

Afterwards, Max and I took a rickshaw to the (correct) bus terminal and excitedly booked our tickets to Rishikesh, finding that there was a bus leaving that evening. In the office we bumped into some people from Manali who were also going there. Then we took a(nother) rickshaw back to our bus terminal box, where we....ehem..dismantled the box, took our bags, and managed to sneak away without the receptionist guy seeing. Took another rickshaw BACK to the real bus terminal, stashed our bags in the locker room and went to get some food before the journey. This was when we discovered what a 'Jal Jeera' is.

DONT EVER ORDER A JAL JEERA. It is a tall, highly indiscreet glass, full of beige water that tastes like brine, with green sediment floating in the bottom that tastes like curry, and popcorn floating on the top. I kid you not, this drink exists! People drink it! And they wouldn't let Max swap it for something else. I couldn’t stop laughing as I sipped my icey cold bottle of coke: that’s what you get for trying local cuisine.

After food, Jal Jeera, and exploring the strangely western shopping areas we headed to get our bus to Rishikesh. I bought some popcorn from a street vendor and we were away! Hanging out the window in the breeze. Finally leaving Punjab behind. Leaving behind the heat, the dust, the staring, the filming, the leering, the ridiculing and the pointing. We were heading back up into the hills and I couldn’t have been happier.

And of course, that meant we would soon be in Rishikesh! I was so excited. Max must have wondered what was wrong with me. But the notion of being back in the ashram, being back in freedom café! Ahh it filled me with glee. My time in Rishikesh was the happiest in all of India. The bus journey was a giggly and happy one and flew by, and before we knew it the wind was whipping through our hair and the stars hung silent in the sky. It was 2 o clock in the morning and we were riding a Vikshram through the jungle again, away from Haridwar, towards the sparkling lights of the Laxmanjhula suspension bridge.

In Rishikesh, we arrived to find the streets silent, but full of sleeping pilgrims. There was hundreds of them, sleeping in doorways, on the floor, all wearing orange. It seemed there was some sort of festival happening. We heaved our bags across the bridge and stood for a moment to take in the Ganga. It was a thundering torrent after the weeks of heavy rainfall preceding, and had swelled to a massive size. As we stood int eh middle of the bridge and felt the breeze the water whipped up the valley, I felt like crying. It was so good to be back.

We checked in to the Shri Sant Sewa Ashram (the place Freya, Theo, Barney, Miles and I had stayed before), and in the morning were woken by the sound of drums, shouting, cheering, horns, and about a few thousand pilgrims going crazy in the river. It turned out that this month was the month of Shiva's birthday, and an endless stream of pilgrims wearing orange were coming from all over the country to take water from the Ganga and offer it to Shiva. It was crazy, all of the pilgrims were men, and the streets were just HEAVING with them. They were all in 'festival mode' , and their behavior was despicable. On that first morning making our way to Freedom café, one man walked straight upto me and Max in the crowd and tried to kiss me! They seemed to think that because they were having a party away from home it was okay to act up, and it just walking down the street was so difficult.

During those first few days in Rishikesh I learned to very much hate 'the orange men' and every traveller we spoke to had the same feeling. The atmosphere had changed so much from the last time we had been there. Now you couldn’t mooch about the streets, men would follow you or take pictures or just leer at you. If Max and I tried to eat in a nice local place, men would just stand around our table taking pictures of me. One day, Max actually had to bang his plate on the table to get them to stop filming me.

Our sanctuary was the ever-welcoming Freedom Café, and I didn’t realize how much I had missed it. We also spent a lot of time in Pyramid Café drinking endless lemon nanna’s (I knew Max would fall in love with them), playing cards with our friends from Chandigarh, learning to juggle, reading, relaxing and generally being at peace with the world. Max and I perfected a juggling double act, and I started to teach him poi. When it rained, we would sit in Freedom eating amazing curry and sharing stories, watching the swollen river rising to within terrifying reach of the restaurant, then receding. When the rain stopped we would walk down to the ashram courtyard to play hackey sack. It was a happy few days, and after we felt rested and recovered from Punjab, we decided to move on the farm.

That’s all I can write at the moment. For now, I don’t have the energy to write any more. I’ve been back in England for 36 hours, and so far all I have done is feel confused and cry. Only a few days ago this was still my world, and now it feels like a surreal sort of dream. Just 3 days ago I was still there. I will post the final installment up soon, but I’m afraid at the moment jetlag and homesickness for India and Max has gotten the better of me.