Udaipur, Rajasthan

Back and Better in India

About a week ago we touched down back in India for our second leg here. Last time we went south and this time are heading north to Rajasthan.

I'm excited to be back! The intervening months in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have changed me, as this trip has changed me. I feel like a more confident person, more centered in who I am. I am living at the front of myself.

We went first to Ahmedabad, and then Jamnagar, to stay with a good friend's sister. We are being well spoiled with cups of chai, tables of food, and good company. My need to take pictures of every cow kindly tolerated.

I am obsessed with these zebu cows! They are amazing, with soft long ears and eyes that look like they are lined in kajal. 

They are everywhere in Jamnagar, and this is just a fraction of the photos I have of them.

There are also camels! Camels working on the streets, pulling carts, pulling loads. Parked next to the motorcycles.

There are lots of other animals too--cats, dogs, goats, buffalo.

If you are lucky enough to be out when school begins or ends, you can also see children of all ages in their little uniforms. 

It's not that being in India makes me feel alive, it's more like it reminds me that I already am. That I've been alive this whole time.

    

Our time is going by and I am trying to stay aware, soak everything in.

In a few days we are heading to Rajasthan. I can't wait to see what happens.

 

Run, baby, run.

Bangladesh

Our time in Bangladesh is the shortest we have spent in any country, at only 7 days. We split that time between Chittagong and Dhaka.

Bangladesh as a country is fairly recent--it only achieved liberation in 1971, although the region has had it's own unique customs and flavors for far longer.

In both cities we went to bicycle rickshaws dominated the scene. Auto-rickshaws are also there, for some reason are completely welded in with cage-like doors instead of the open sides we are used to. It made it difficult to take pictures while driving around, as I had to try to aim the camera between an open square, so many of the photos have a green wire perimeter around them.  

The autos were not decorated too much, but the bicycle rickshaws were elaborately painted and covered with dangly fluttering bits like what my dreams are made of.

There were different little scenes painted on the back wood, often of little lakes with little boats floating in them, small country houses, or beautiful women with large doe eyes.

We spent our time in Chittagong at the cricket stadium where Zimbabwe and Bangladesh were playing. After the test match they had a "media match" where the different journalists and people working for the cricket board played each other in a mini tournament. I was an honorary team member of sorts and cheered from the sidelines, t-shirt and everything.

We traveled between the two cities by overnight fancy bus, which went from 11 pm to 7 am. Travel tip: save on hotel room fees by spending a restless night in transit instead! 

The bus made one stop around 4 am at a bus-only rest stop of some kind, where everyone cleared off for bathrooms and little cups of tea. 

I found our time in Bangladesh mostly overwhelming, which surprised me, as I would have thought our time on the road so far would get me past that. Oddly, the thing that got to me most was the spitting. In the two cities we visited, people were constantly hocking up the contents of their lungs and spitting them out everywhere--street, stadium, and midnight bus stop especially. I've always thought proudly of myself as an anti-germiphobe, who is largely unphased by these things. I've eaten in some shady places, lived in the desert with a constant dust coating, and washed my clothes in a bucket I had previously thrown up in (not on this trip! No worries, kind people who have let us stay with them), but I just couldn't get past it. Once noticed, it was like the tell-tale heart in Poe's story--I heard it everywhere, and it made me go a little crazy.

(you and me both, lady)

In Bangladesh they seem to eat a lot of meat, and we were treated to dinner in Chittagong with chicken, beef, AND fish. I normally take pictures of food everywhere but I ate it too fast, forgetting until there were only scraps on the plate. 

I did get a picture of these little rice cakes we had at one journalist's house, called "bhapa pitha." The ones on the right are savory, eaten with the little spreads in the cup ("bhorta," mustard and mint based) and those on the left are sweet, made with jaggery / molasses and coconut.

There was a lot of poverty in both places, and a lot of people living mostly outdoors. 

 Even within the fact that we stayed here for such a short time, I spent even less time actually outside. As a result, I feel like I have the least handle on it of any of the places we've been to. There were a lot of things recommended to us that we didn't do, and I didn't venture out alone at all the way I have in Mumbai, London, and Colombo. 

Yesterday we flew out of Dhaka to Mumbai. On the flight we had the same flight attendant that we had for our Mumbai to Dubai flight, and she somehow recognized us and slipped us each an extra beer. I can only hope that by the end of our trip all of our flights have such perks.

In a twist I never would have guessed possible, our drive through Mumbai seemed positively relaxing compared to Dhaka traffic. 

Or maybe that was just the beer talking.

Bangladesh Journal

Stream of conscious journal entries, copied as first written, no edits.

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Chittigong, Nov 14

Shacks by the road, young man brushing his teeth, white toothbrush sticking from his mouth. One eye is swollen shut, either permanently or from a recent injury.

A man is laid out on a blanket on his stomach, fully prone, he is naked from at least the waist down. He has some kind of growth on his tail bone, I think. The surprise of his body on the sidewalk took a moment to register and so I missed the details. Money is piling up beside him. I do not know what is wrong--a tumor? I wonder what spina bifida looks like in an adult if it is never corrected. Whatever it is, people on the street seem to be able to tell that it is serious.  

A man welds large tubes of metal. His body and clothes are gray.

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Dhaka, Nov 17

Driving in the auto, here called "cng" for clean natural gas. 

Traveling 10 kilometers took over an hour of bumper to rickshaw wheel traffic, with everyone in the city, their trash, their chickens, their every claustrophobic perfumed wonder clogging the streets. It becomes harder and harder to breath as time passes. You naturally stop taking deep breaths as some automatic protection for your poor lungs, which are now straining to filter oxygen from carbon monoxide and dust. 

At one point another car slammed into the side of our auto, throwing me roughly against the welded metal frame. Both Subash and I swore it had hit our side specifically, but only one of us could have been right.

We finally start to move faster and I try to breath jn the cooler air moving past us.

Our auto driver clears his throat, his entire upper respiratory system really, and spits carefully out the metal grate doors. 

I want to take pictures but the grate makes it difficult. I miss some things and try to take a mental photograph to remember. A bicycle pulling a big circular basket with a woven top, chicken or rooster heads popping up and down from between the weaving as it moves slowly down the street.

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Dhaka, Nov 19

Spent most of the day sleeping. Bad night before. Woke up to my mother saying my name right in my ear. It wasn't panicked or mysterious, it was the way she would say it to wake me up. "Kathleen." Said from very close, just next to my right ear, making my eyelids fly open. I heard it, it was right there. 

Of course I had to check then to make sure everything was okay at home. Luckily she responded quickly on whatsapp that it was. I then grew concerned it might be some kind of warning, something I don't believe in normally but at 4 am in the dark seems plausible, so I checked under the bed and in the bathroom. Just in case.

So slept most of the day and then Subash and I went to Zulqur's parents house. We walked a ways and then took a bicycle rickshaw. We both felt weird about it--exploitation? Human labor?--but it is such a common mode of transport here, and no autos in sight, and a group of young boys were grabbing at my backpack, so we got on.

Tiny narrow seat perched up high. Man on the bicycle with a plaid maroon cloth wrapped around his head, veshti. Had a little bell rang to warn others he was coming by. 

Oddly, it was one of the more soothing experiences we have had in Bangladesh. He went down a side street to avoid traffic and it was so quiet. Dark and silent, just the hiss / whoosh (can't think of right word for it) of the bike tires and the bouncing of the rickety seat. 

We got off what turned out to be not the right place, and spent the next 40 minutes or so searching for the house in the dusty maze of streets. Need Road 14, house G, but this is road 8 house b, on and on. Walked along dusty roads, concrete and dust concrete and dust. Bicycle rickshaws and cars going by close on all sides. Building guards and little shop sellers and men standing around watch you go past.

My mom mentions lord of the flies on the phone and I realize how right that seems, especially with that group of boys asking for money earlier. It is lord of the flies and I am Piggy. Steal my glasses and use them to start a fire. Poke at my soft underbelly.

At one point a small tiny boy is walking towards me, and I think e will put his hand out. When he gets close, though, he juts out his chin and makes a "come at me" aggressive fight gesture, while frowning at me. How to describe it, like a boxer trying to intimidate an opponent, the move you would do if you were pretending you were about to hit someone, but without the fist up. Stepping towards me with his tiny chin and frownig face, and a little "hmmph" noise as we passed each other. He was so small, where did he ever come up with it.

I laughed, saying to Subash "that's a new one," but now thinking back I hope he didn't hear me laughing. It wouldn't be fair not to take him seriously.

At one point we asked in a textile store for directions. They pointed and then advised we take an auto. Not wanting to stand in one place for long, though, and with no autos around, we walked. A little later a guard pointed out the way, and we guessed at why the auto was recommended. A walking path winding along the side of a lake, between the lake and high concrete walls, completely dark, narrow, long. 

It was the perfect place for a robbery or a murder. I planned it out as I walked with my hands ready to fight and every nerve waiting.

 

Wait for a narrow point in the path, where some obstacle--a puddle of diseased water, a random pile of rubble, both plentiful--forces people close together. A quick stab into the ribs, and then a push into the lake, which is just a small downhill slope away. If you choose the right moment no one would be around to see it. Even more ideal would be to have a partner. One to cover the mouth and grab whatever looked expensive, and the other to cut. 

I walked with every bit of me at the ready, fingers bent back and tensed so I could palm quickly and solidly at the nose of any would-be stabbers. My relatively poor eyesight seemed momentarily in tune, picking out the details of the path and the underbrush beside it even in the scant light. 

The path went on and on, and I made readings on people we passed, trying to determine what they were thinking. Luckily they were all just thinking about getting themselves off the path too, and we finally came out to the road, bright and noisy and welcome. 

Finally we found the apartment building, and went up to cold water and Bangladeshi sweets. Molasses.

-

Dhaka, Nov. 20

When we leave to go to the airport we see an 18 wheeler turning onto the small roads. The phone / electric wires hang low across the road every so many feet, and there is a man whose job is to get out and use a stick to hold up the wires while the truck goes under it. The stick is a long rectangular piece of wood with an upside down triangle on the top, giving a small flat length to push the wires with. Will have to draw it. I wonder if they advertise for that job in the newspapers. "Local truck driver seeks reliable wire lifter. Experience preferred. Must supply own triangle pushing pole." 

Bathrooms Abroad - Bangladesh

*Edited to include more examples