trip

From 11/10

14 hours 40 min flight from Chicago. The flight is completely full… chaos. There is pushing and a complete lack of personal space… hahahahaaaaa I am going to India!!!!!

The girl who sits next to me is wearing tulasi beads. She looks like a professional Indian young woman and her English is excellent. Neither of us bring up the tulasi at first… mostly the usual India questions. Why are you going to Inida? Are you married? How many years? How many children? No children????????????????????????? She is on her way back to Jaipur after a business trip… something to do with computers. She told me, but it was way over my head. I told her my Gurudeva asked me to come… so I am coming. It is then we stated talking about the tulasi beads. She was raised in Gujarat in ISKCON and at first really couldn’t understand that I was raised in THIS too… she asked questions like, “In the west do you follow eating vegetarian with no eggs??? How do you do this??? Do you use onions and garlic….” When I said that sometimes it is impossible to avoid but I never use at home, she was flabbergasted. The lady across the aisle jumped in and asked if I go to Vrindavan. When I said I had, but I didn’t know if I would this time she was very happy. Turns out she is also from Rajasthan and a Vaisnava who was in America for her brother’s wedding. She said I should visit (I think it was Udaipur) because there was a ‘very merciful’ deity of Sri “Krishan” there. We all talked a long time… they were wondering why and how I was “strict” :-O in my following when so many other “young people” (thanks) were not following in India… I said that I thought it was easier, in a way, for me because I, although raised with this ideal, cannot just call in my parent’s culture. I don’t look to the west for my ideal as so many young people do here… I look to the east… so in that way I am fortunate. They were both shocked and in agreement about this. I told them that Swami Maharaj Prabhupada also said that, that the west would bring religion back to India.

When the meal came and there was basically an onion salad and I didn’t eat it (ewwww)… again they were shocked… funny really…

We all tuned out and slept or watched movies for the rest of the flight.

The flight was an hour early, thank God. I didn’t really sleep on the flight.

Customs were quick and easy. I had to fill out a H1N1 flu card saying if I had come into contact with it or had been to a hospital where it was treated… I chose to tell the truth-yes- thinking that I may get held up, but the health inspectors didn’t even look at it and just stamped my immigration form. LOL

I grabbed my baggage and got in like to change money. There was an Indian guy ahead of me who changed 2 thousand dollars… the stack of rupees was HUGE. I changed 100 J and the stack was still big.

Government police prepaid taxi stand to pahar ganja is 260 rps. The taxi I got was the smallest in Inida and may bag took up the whole back seat. The driver spoke very little English, and I speak tora tora hindi… BUT it turns out he lived in Kolkata for 2 years so our common language turned out to be choto choto bangala. He is from Bihar and his name is Naratoma. He also asked the Indian questions about marriage and family. I told him all the names in the family and he was very happy. I am actually surprised how much Bengali I remembered… and could understand… funny. We got a bit lost as he went to the wrong end of the train station, but it turned out well in the end. I gave him 20 rps tip for being good conversation and making me feel safe at night in India. J

The hotel Ginger (pronounced Gin – gear) is clean and nice. I took a surprise shower as soon as I walked in. My plan was to drop my things and run to the restaurant to get something to eat, but when I walked in the room I stripped and got in the shower without a thought… ended up eating M&Ms and going to sleep instead of getting dressed and going down.

Woke up this morning at 5:30… don’t know why. Ended up watching Fiddler on the Roof on TV.