i enjoy sneezing---Writings from Southeast Asia & India

The Ho Chi Mihn Mausoleum....marching two by two, surrounded by Vietnamese, we enter the grey marble edifice, not really a building, just a big room encased. Guards stand by to assure that visitors bare no skin, wear no hats, have no cameras. The two near the entrance hold rifles and stand tall and still like Buckingham Palace, except that their eyes dart awkwardly about. The cold air rushes at you as you enter, significantly colder than the chilly Hanoi air. You enter in the middle of the building, then follow the single passageway with the crowd, turning left as the marble dictates, then right, then right again, looping around the viewing room. One more right past the numerous guards places you in HIS room, a side back-angle view of the large glass coffin and, inside it, his body, looking much as he looked in photographs from more than 35 years ago. Could they possibly be the exact same strands of hair?
I notice the guard on each corner of the raised encasing, but in the dim lighting I don't notice much else, not removing my eyes from his face and his body, lying peacefully, arms resting naturally. I am surprised to see him lying down (did I expect him to be standing????). The path U's at 90degree angles around him, giving each person a half a second to stand directly in front of him, not allowing for a pause, but often losing pace with the people ahead. As you exit stage left you exhale, and the sunlight pouring in the building's exit around the next bend reminds you of where you are and what time of day it is. Inside, I imagine, it is always the same.

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SUNSET IN BACH MA

Perched on the rock that poked its neck over the edge and out into the endless expanse of air, balanced on a face, hovering 20 meters below the top of the waterfall, 280 meters above the trees in the vast valley below.
I was first called to go there by the sunlight that was slowly changing shades, white to yellow, which shone on said rock on the other side of the falls. Having a j made me take off my shirt, which in turn made me want to feel the sun on my body. I was driven across the stream. Bounding along I called out to Paige, that she must join me, that I was headed somewhere worthwhile, that she trust me. I bounced down the face and was hit in my eyes by the light reflecting orange off of the water rolling quickly over the 45degrees before falling off the edge 9.8straight down.
She crossed tentatively, carefully, leading me to question my own methods. I slowly lifted my body up onto the boulder, turning methodically to face outwards to the expanse ahead. She joined me and we sat on the rock enjoying a digital camera and its instant gratification. I told her that she must know that she is photogenic, "people say that" she smiled, and wore a face for the camera that would make it seem like she didn't wish to be so.
As the sun dropped I changed my focus, sitting cross-legged facing the light. My mind and body began to change the way they reacted to the scene. I breathed in and my lungs shuttered in an attempt to inhale, drink in, consume all the beauty that was present. The rays were coming in at low angles, pretty unto themselves. And the waterfall itself, any time of day, would be something to marvel. But all that combined with the intensely shattered movement of the reflection off of the rushing water took me over. Still barely conscious, I asked "are you afraid of what it will look like when the sun drops below the ridge?", wishing that she would sincerely respond that Yes, she was afraid.
Sitting perfectly upright my whole self began to feel engulfed by the scene, minutes of silence passing timelessly. I felt my Self as an open object, doors widened to the suns gaze, allowing it to enter me, delve into me. An image passed through my mind: my present circumstances, of travel and travelmindedness, had created in me a vast void, not so much an emptiness as a space. The space existed to be filled, filled by a person, a scene, a feeling. And as everything entered me, it also consumed me, swallowed me whole, because I too was a part of it all. Water splashed on my side and my eyes squinted at the red-orange rays, gliding over the miles of thick forest between me and the distant mountains.
I was overtaken. My breathe became deep, deeper, deeper still, as if building up to a single moment of release an infinite amount of seconds away. I reached for the rock, as much out of passion as out of fear. My fingers sought a handhold and I caressed the rough surface, running my palms over the mossy moistness. My fingers bit down on a small ridge, its teeth digging themselves into my skin. My mind began to flip, mental somersaults, and I thought of the consequences of fainting. I grabbed tight and adjusted my body's positioning. Instead of sitting I found myself stomach-to-rock, my head on its chest, my extremities draped over either side. I held on firmly and my body disappeared, entering into the rock's belly, under the fading red light, hundreds of meters above the forest floor, travelling deep, deeper, deeper still into the earth, through the granite and into the core of the waterfall.


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Riding high after the internet, an inspirational message originally inspired by me, from Kyle, urging me to continue living and writing as I have been.....

Before dinner, the perpetual chorus of "hello"s had begun to annoy me. But now I float freely through the dark streets. Dim streetlights pleasantly bathe the pavement of the streets and tiled first floors of the doorless residences-turned-businesses, shops selling shampoo and warm sodas, foodcarts with noodle soup and dried squid. The residents wander about in their pajamas, a single design head to toe, usually flowers or teddy bears. Simple and comfortable, a thin, soft fabric welcomes in the evening breeze. The adults walk calmly, aimlessly, between the client-less establishments, stopping to chat with a neighbor, take a seat and share the tea. The children run frantically to greet me, the foreign celebrity; or else they run away, pretending to be scared of my height or features; or else they simply leave me, loss of interest, novelty's worn off.

When the sun beats down heavy on the black pavement, the feeling is a noise in my head, unbearably loud. I am saved by a homemade frozen yoghurt tied tight in a small plastic bag by a thin rubber band, sold to me humbly by a seemingly pregnant girl, young, first-term no doubt. She tries to explain to me the price with her fingers, and I can't tell if it's 500 or 5000 dong. She gives me change for 2000 and I buy a second one, 6cents for the two. She grabs me as I walk away, double-fisting, to remind me that she needs to cut the top of off the second one, and I am grateful.
We are hot because we climbed all 260 meters of Sam Mountain, the only lump of land poking through the endless flatness of the Mekong Delta. The view extends past the city of Chau Doc to 360 degrees of green, a deep, rich green despite its light, rice-paddy shade. Green paddies and the canals that separate them; that and a road that continues unturning towards the dock where we came in yesterday on a longboat, weaving through narrow canals where the locals bathed themselves, fully dressed, knee deep in the murky browness, as happy to see foreigners as the city's children, the rural elderly made no more modest by the seemingly personal act of self-cleansing. Two questions enter my head as we coast by: 1) why are these people so happy? 2) why are they so happy to see us? We're passing through, invading their culture with our iPods on our laps and digital cameras in their faces. Their smiles are faked, I assume, their happiness contrived. Just then, we approach a canoe, wood unfinished, and in it two boys, aged 20-ish. One of them struggles to load a block of ice the size of a small child onto the shoulder of the other, and therefore he does not notice our tourist boat creeping up on him. Just as we pass he turns, no more than 10 feet away. The grin hits his face like a freight train, no time to think or make, just "is". And the "is" is a smile so wide and so pure that I not only know how he feels about seeing me, I now feel the same about seeing him.

At an altitude of 260 meters stands a military base. A bucket with the letters PCCC, red and yellow, holds a shovel head fixed on a makeshift handle, a tree branch that fits more perfectly than the manufactured wood the machine once put there, teh one that must have failed at some point in time. The comrades sit inside, watching television. The sign says no pictures, it's a military base after all, but the celebratory atmosphere of the Sunday after Tet tells me that nobody cares.
Atop Sam Mountain we find all the locals we sped past us motos as we stammored uphill. Perhaps 100 of them, spread between the two hills, one a makeshift moto parking lot, on the other the 30 X 10 foot tin shack known as the Military Base. On the road between the two hills they've erected a tarp to block the sun, under which they sell noodle soup with liver and vegetables for 2000 dong and bags of a cherry-esque fruit for 1000. We start off with the fruit, the sun having beat out of us all the interest we once had for steaming noodles. All 100 Vietnamese turn our way as we approach. The moto drivers stop their card game, the soup girl smiles and offers me a bowl, the old lady selling fruit toothlessly grins as she hands us a free sample.
At first it's just smiles, laughter, and the occassional "hello". But once we sit, establish ourselves, a young man with a camera sneakily snaps a photo of me. I catch him doing it and in what I considered to be the only appropriate response, took out my camera and snapped a picture of him. Once he realizes that we don't mind being spectacles, he and his friends gather around, ask us to stand, put their arms around our shoulders and take more photos. A young Vietnamese girl comes over to practice her English, and all of a sudden we are now the official center of attention, no longer the pink elephants. They love it, but we love it even more.

When the sun begins to set the streets become social once more. The children are about and the food stalls are actively empty, undersized chairs placed meticulously around tiny tables, the perfect height for tea time with dolls. The speakers mounted on every other telephone pole belt out speech and song, presumably something "unifying". As I walk, the last speaker becomes comfortably not-loud just as I approach the next one. I wonder what wonderful things about Ho Chi Mihn or the state of the union are said, and I wonder our nation's addresses are much different, even if less frequent.

I walk alone down the dimly-lit street. The teenage boys shout at me to sit with them and have some tea. I know I want something to taste, something sweet, but not tea. As I pass the house with the frozen yoghurt, I consider going in, but I see that there are more people in there with the pregnant girl and I am intimidated. I see her face through the bars on the window and I see that she sees mine, and that she recognizes me. She smiles and waves, and I cross the street to find her inside with what seems to be her mother and grandmother. The older women laugh and smile as I attempt to convey that I would like another yoghurt. They nod and giggle in recognition of my wish, or of the fact that I had been there earlier, as no doubt the pregnant girl had told them as I crossed towards their door. Some older children, age 11 or so, saw me enter the house and have now also crossed the street towards the family's house/shop. Apparently, me buying something sweet is quite the spectacle. They box me in as I try to leave, and once more the pregnant girl stops me as I have forgotten to have the bag cut. Her and I laugh in a moment of recognition as I double back towards her cutting board. She cuts it for me and I smile and bow one last time to the eldest woman. The children chatter and giggle as I exit, all smiles. Perhaps they're talking about how tall I am, perhaps about my facial features, or maybe about how strange it is that I'm eating local frozen yoghurt, not a typical tourist move. The thing about being in this situation is that I never know what sparks the joy, I just have to hear it, enjoy it, ride it as positive, which is easy now, on a full stomach, feeling good about my friends and my life in the other hemisphere.
The commotion around me is carried out into the street, and it has picked up steam. It seems that the whole neighborhood has had its interest peaked by the foreigner with the yoghurt. Everyone smiles and waves, but one woman, one woman in particular, age 60 or so, selling noodle soup across the one-lane street, finds a particular humor in it. She is not giggling, certainly not scoffing. She is laughing, laughing out loud, hysterically and continuously. I smile at her, and at myself for being able to have this kind of effect on this person, for whatever reason. My smile turns into a giggle, and as I suck a large bite of frozen creaminess of the small plastic bag, it all hits me: the woman, the children, the yoghurt, the bag, the pregnant girl, the shouting, the laughter, the.......and somehow, I get it, and we all laugh together.

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As I mentally prepare myself to leave Vietnam, I ponder what my final perception will be of the people. Similar to the dual-sided nature of the tourism of this country, the pros and cons of the Vietnamese are a sharp contrast, though I would say that the parallels between people/tourism are two lines heading in opposite directions.
What I mean is this: travelling here lacks a certain toughness in regards to comfort vs. struggle. If a person wanted to, they could go from Hanoi to Ho Chi Mihn City, seeing all the sights, without doing anything by or for oneself. In this sense, it's comfortable, but not real (I hesitate to use that word...bear with me).
Conversely, the Vietnamese are real. They know exactly what it is they want from the tourist, and they do not hide behind pride or shame, nor do they utilize courtesy to get it. Their goal of obtaining as much money as possible from every passing foreigner is out on the table for all to see. The result is heckling as you walk down the street, constant noise, incessantly being asked to buy fruit, take a moto ride, stay at their hotel, eat at their restaurant. The initial response is courtesy, an endless supply of "No, thank you"s. But by the end of the trip the traveller has no more patience. Weeks of harassment has left him ego- and ethno-centric, the power dynamic enhanced by a person constantly protecting one's own money and sanity. He stares at the ground, avoiding eye contact with the vendor or the product. He learns how to walk in such a way that the moto driver cannot block his path, faking left and walking right.
And in the marketplace it's worse. To some Vietnamese, to whom bargaing is more than a business technique, it's THE business technique, a lowball offer could be such an insult that the saleswoman will snatch the product from your hand, throw it back where it came from, shout something that surely is a curse word, and gesture with her arm that you should leave. Men tend to be more understated in the sense that a reasonable offer will not result in yelling, but instead an exaggerated laugh accompanied by sneering. His fellow moto drivers always join in on the joke too, making the foreign negotiator feel small and stupid. This happens so often that I've subconsciously learned how to predict the laugh-comeback such that I often preempt it with a fake laugh of my own.
Men, however, are the only ones who try to overcharge after the product/service has been provided, ignoring the previously agreed upon price. I, refusing to be taken advantage of, only gave in once. In this instant the child who was pulling the stunt finally gave in and admitted that we had decided on a lower price, at which point I gave him the difference. He declined and I insisted and I think we all felt good about the result.
This happened today: I was telling the shrewd hotel staff of a bad-vibed occurrence in which a moto driver followed me for 15 minutes demanding that I pay him ten times the price that I thought we had agreed upon. To him, the number 5 meant 50.000dong, an obsurd amount for a ten minute moto ride. To me, it meant 5.000dong, standard. I refused to give the guy any more than 5.000, and a crowd gathered and a young woman tried to translate but I knew that I wasn't going to give in. He refused to receive my payment, so eventually I just tossed it into his bike's basket and he finally gave up. Upon hearing the story, the 20-something male hotel guys patted me on the back, "you're Vietnamese at heart," they said. I asked them if Vietnamese acted this way only towards foreigners. "No," they responded, "money makes father fight son, mother fights daughter." "But," I asked, "isn't this a Communist country...communism, sharing...?" The guys smiled, understood my point. "Vietnam is Communist in government, not in people."

Why do they shout at us? travellers ask themselves. For one, they believe that they can rip us off, turn a larger profit, a fact that easily justifies a rude response, or no response. The second reason is simply that we have more money, and we come here to spend it. This I am still not comfortable with, and I don't really understand it in terms of economics, and I certainly can't begin to understand why I deserve to have it.
I curl my arms around my $80 fleece, trying to keep warm in the back of a speeding minibus, first sign of daybreak pushing through the thick clouds. I try not to think about the cold, tune into my iPod and reach in my bag for a snack. I glance out the window and see an 80 year-old woman knee-deep in the freezing slop of a rice paddy. I imagine how the amount of manual labor and physical discomfort that she endures before noon approaches that which I've known in my 25 years of life. She does this for food and warmth, which makes me think about all that I have to show for my life of leisure and luxury, so much that I take time off to live without the comforts of my home. So, as I pass the day eating a 15cent bowl of soup, followed by a 20cent gelatin dish and capped off by a 10cent beer, I really have to ask myself, "who's taking advantage of whom?"

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MOTORCYCLES, MOPEDS & SCOOTERS
and there's this burning like there's always been, i've never been so alone, and i've...never been so alive

this is of you on a motorcycle drive-by, the cigarette ash it flies in your eyes and you dont mind, you smile and say the world it doesnt fit with you, i dont believe you, you're so serene, careening through the universe, your axis on a tilt, youre guiltless and free, i hope you take a piece of me with you. and there's things i would like to do that you dont believe in, i would like to build something, but you'll never see it happen. and there's this burning, like there's always been. i've never been so alone, and i've...never been so ALIVE

my favorite moments, basking in the surreal nature of it, the world screaming by at a fast 50kph, an excess of dust, motos and input on the whole. You open your eyes wide to try to perceive as much as you can, color and light, faces. As you pass a moto that is passing a rickshaw, a sedan honks from behind, repeatedly. He must be angry, impatient, frustrated, you think; so when you look to your left as he finally manages to pass you are surprised to see that the angry face you expect to see two seats over has a smile from ear-to-ear, sits behind the steering wheel on the right side, and has a baby on his lap. The overcrowded streets somehow do not lend themselves to road rage.
The first country I've been in where they drive on the left and it seems half of the cars have the wheel on the right. Similarly, it seems like the motos do just as much driving on the left side of the road, weaving through oncoming traffic as they start their left turn early and assume the other motos will veer slightly as they approach.

At night they go faster, without having to deal with the 10 motos per 10 meters squared ratio that clogs up the main road from sunrise to sunset. We're drunk, and so it's easier to relinquish control as we drop to 45 degrees taking the bend. The cool, black air blows her short, blonde hair out of her face, exposing her face and neck. She tightens as we turn, grabs me. If you cant relinquish control, you cant enjoy it....i say....God will take care of us. and in that moment, and that night, he does.



i enjoy sneezing


MY FIRST DAY IN INDIA
Traffic patterns are waves of energy. To cross the highway a crowd of pedestrians gathers. First it was just me and one guy, and we tried to cross but failed as a taxi accelerated and veered right, closing our only gap, and we stepped back quickly as it flew by with an extended honk. But as time passed without another opportunity presenting itself, our numbers rose and, in numbers, our power, until finally we became so strong that as a group we shifted our feet in anxious anticipation caused by the feeling that we would soon cross despite no apparent traffic lapse forthcoming. Finally, our growth, like boiling water steaming open the lid of a pot, we moved, in one single motion, the combination of all our first steps and shift in body weight well-powerful enough to stop the numerous taxis and buses that only moments ago were the unquestioned rulers of the six-lane road. In control now, we carried on swiftly past the immobilized traffic on our right and, without hesitation, our dominance carried us through the 10-foot gap in the concrete barriers, paralyzing the traffic to our left, and across the final 3 lanes and to the far sidewalk. We dispersed and the cars continued and the rhythmic chaos that is India carries forth.

Other impressions (still day one):
The urinary freedom is unbelievable; it makes me think about what true freedom is. On the streets there are stalls, of sorts. Three tiled concrete slabs, stood on their end, form a U-shaped area in which one can relieve him or herself in semi-privacy. A whole in the base of the middle slab allows the urine to flow smoothly to the gutter, where it finds a fine home next to the street, beside the Chai salesman.

The Chai salesman offers two sizes. He uses plastic cups to show the difference in size, but then pours it into a clay cup. After I have my tea and biscuits I stand to return the cup to the man and thank him. He points to the large clay trash bin and directs me to drop my cup in there. Plastic is too valuable for one-time use yet the clay cups are disposable.

A policeman saw me walking down the street, called me over to him. "Have you had any problems in Kolkata?" he said with a smile. "No," I said, "Kolkata is great." I wanted him to be proud. He asked me where I was from. "Washington, DC, United States of America!" he shouted with glee. "Wonderful, wonderful! Thank you for coming to Kolkata. Thank you! Thank you!" He was being very sincere, and it made me feel welcomed.



I wrote this on the plane last night:

I am looking at blue sky for the first time in months, reminds me of home. The sky and the familiar whir of a jumbo jet, the memories of a lifestyle not long ago in time but ages ago in my head. A plane ride meant time alone, mobile and alone, just like this moment, 30,000 feet up.
Only here do the thick white clouds exist. I wondered whether or not they existed at all on this part of this continent. I thought maybe the haze extended infinitely upwards, or perhaps simply faded into blue. But no, they're here, and I can see the miles of haze below them, and imagine that that same haze buries India, too.
Can I do two more months surrounded by it, engulfed in it, my mind buried under infinite errands and distractions, clouded by harassments? To pretend that I am not scared would be denying something. Perhaps it wouldn't be Truth being denied, maybe just a thought or a feeling. Of course I'm scared, I tell myself.
I attack India like a hungry man attacks a hamburger. Fearlessly, I hope to consume it, first in large mouthfuls, feeling the texture of the ground beef against the insides of my cheeks, then in nibbles where the subtle flavor of Worchestire is noted, then I will pick up the single fallen piece of greasy onion with a touch of ketchup and focus on that.
I can say "fearlessly" because I know that I have no fear, which to me is different than being scared. I am scared of an endless amount of things: that my new plane ticket will outlast my patience, that I will have regrets, that I will deny my true wishes. I have no fear about finding comforts, about finding a guesthouse to stay in tonight, about the night train to Varanasi, about loving India. Still, I picture myself going home and the image of how many mini-dramas stand between me and 6600 runs through my head, makes me weary. But I've come this far and I must push forward, and I know that I will because I let time make my decisions for me, and so I know that all the considering, pondering, thinking in the world will only drive me insane and leave me conclusion-less.

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Today I had this feeling: remember the Simpsons episode where at the very end Milhouse asks Lisa if she likes anyone else (now that her and Nelson are no more). She says yes and the episode ends on a freeze-frame of Milhouse jumping up in the air, dog leash in hand that reaches high as he exclaims "YES!!!!" That image is how I've felt today. "YES! INDIA! INDIA!!!"
If it weren't for the fear, the excitement couldn't be as strong as it is for me. I walk through these city streets, finding my comforts and feeling the thrill of India pulsating through me.



FLYING KITES ON THE ROOFTOPS OF VARANASI:

Our first kite, belonging technically to Omer, was lost when the weak string snapped and the kite plummeted pathetically to rest unreachable on a nearby rooftop.
The second one was mine, and I refused to watch it die by something so simple and careless as low quality auxiliary equipment. We procured fishing line, flourescent orange, from Pappachi, our guesthouse's owner, and struggled with the tying technique, headed up by the virtually English-less but clearly more knowledgable in the ways of kites and in the ways of knots. After much deliberation, Kamo and Tomo settled upon a plan which led to half an hour of failed flying. Occassionally it would rise rise rise in the sharp winds, only to fall in one fell swoop, losing all the height we had worked so hard to put between the kite and the rooftops. Once it fell with such force that upon slamming into a cement roof the kite-paper tore and the balsa-wood frame was left bent, requiring a serious duct tape repairs.
All the stoned and frustrating attention proved worthwhile when, finally, and with the help of Pappachi, we were able to send my black beauty soaring. So high it was, so high that I just smiled my birthday party smile, tugged the string gently as if I were still controlling the kite's actions, turned my head to the group that had gathered, seeking the well-deserved attention.
The extreme height and related increase in wind speed eventually destroyed the kite. The 3-rupee Icharus snapped in a single moment, the forceful air pushing through the thin tissue and tape. It startled, held for a second like you'd imagine a bird would for a split second after being hit by a bullet, a second to recognize what had happened, before succumbing to the wound and falling weightily from the sky.
Our next kite was Pappachi's and he, controlling the elements, sent it high with ease. So high that we quickly ran out of string length, releasing it liberally until we had no choice but to tighten our grip, feeling as though it would surely carry our weight with it upwards. It soared so high that it toward above the rest, dwarfed the hundreds of black specks in the hazy hot sky that only moments ago had seemed admirable. So high did it soar that it drew attention from the whole city of rooftop kite-flyers. And with attention, as usual, came negative attention. Pappachi noted this, as only he perceived the oncoming danger. An assassin had us in its crosshairs and as the hater swept downwards towards the line between me and the kite, Pappachi shouted "Ours is no fight string." We were unprepared. He yelled at me as though I had some control, as if I could change the location of the fabric that flew 200 meters overhead.
He took control and began to reel the string in, perhaps only just to salvage the string, perhaps it was an attempt at retreat; whichever it was, was done in vain, as the tar and glass shards sliced through our string in one solid strike, and our tension was lost in a single moment.
But this kite didn't simply fall. So high was it soaring that the wind current would not simply let it drop. It went sailing, and as it fell it also flew, long and far across the might Ganga and over the heads of the children running down lost kites on the far building-less bank. WE watched it as it shrank into nothingness in the distance, imperceptively far on the endless expanse of sand that the dry season had afforded the land. Perhaps one of the children on the comparatively close far bank's edge made the effort to chase it down. Perhaps somebody came upon it wandering the next day. Perhaps it still lies there motionless, waiting for the heavy monsoon rains to come and sweep it downriver along with the sacred city's sewage, the ashes of those who can afford to be cremated here, and the bodies of the pilgrims who come here to die, to find relief from the cycle of life and death.




INDIA IS CROWDED. Simply "being" in India can be challenging. Sometimes it is a loud, bright noise in your head that simply cannot be turned out or shut off. This is part of the reason why:

Travelling in India is hard. That's what everybody says, everywhere you go. That and that the first month is pure adjustment. But for me it was an easy transition from Southeast Asia, Bangkok to Calcutta. They're different, but not that different. So I've adjusted, I tell myself. That wasn't so hard.
Last night over some charas a friend turns to me and says something to the effect of "I think that India is affecting me more then I lead myself to believe." He went on to talk about how he too found the transition too easy from SEAsia. I said something like:
"You can say to yourself "travelling for me is easy. I don't miss home/family/friends/life at all." and that can be true. and then you can say to yourself, "i miss my home/family/friends/life sooooo much" and that can be equally true, simultaneously. it's just a matter of how you choose to perceive or be conscious of it."

And with India's madness, it is the same. We are smoothly comfortable with the insanity, but at the same time we are in constant turmoil in our attempts to cope.
Sometimes I cope by saying things that occur to me, verbalizing my diabolic thoughts that are not true but are not false. For example:
I am rascist. I am infinitely more likely to respond honestly or as a friend to a Westerner than I am to a local. These people speak kindly to me, sometimes just to be friendly, sometimes seeking something. But even when it's just to be friendly, it is not true kindness, it is the combination of CURIOUSITY and LACK OF SOCIAL BOUNDARIES that manifests itself in an overly friendly way. I hate their mustaches and can't fathom how they could possibly think that they look good.

Personal space does not exist in India. So much so that when, in rare moments, they find themselves with a low person-to-space ratio, they react in such a way as to maintain a sense of crowdedness. On a midday sleeper train, 10 compartments lie empty while 12 people squeeze into the 2 compartments at the end (our compartment being one of them). They are accustomed to the tightness. We find comfort in space, whereas they would prefer to be packed in with total strangers.
They are curious about us. They sit as close to us as they can and they sit there watching our every move. Without asking they start reading my book, what's mine is yours. Personal property doesn't exist either. Crowds gather quickly here, the numerous population is constantly clogging. It is not considered rude to enter yourself into a situation that does not concern you.

Many traveller's use joking racism to deal with all the attention. They stand around staring at us, so we stare back. A child asks a British girl for 5 rupees and she responds, "Sorry, we only give to people with missing limbs."
My friend, referring to how he feels like it is hitting him deeper than he is allowing himself to believe, sees the negativity coming out in his interactions. In me I feel it in the way that I ignore, that sometimes I float through their world without seeing their faces. My mind sees internet signs and thali restaurants and distances itself from the temples, the city, the people. It's sad but it's a defense mechanism and we all have our own.

On a 24-hour train ride, halfway through, just as night is rolling in and we are thinking about converting our compartment into padded sleepers, we find out that we are not in our proper seats. Our coach simply was not added to the train, S3 does not exist, and we are forced into third class, seatless, with not an empty seat in the bright wooden-benched cabin. Stepping over old men with canes balled up on the floor, seeing only each other's white faces in the sea of flourescent darkness, we begin to panic, which releases itself in the form of laughter. I consider myself to be not the most angry, not the most scared, nor the most energetic of our group of 4, and therefore I float mindlessly. I smile at a man in a turban, a Sikh, and he speaks to me in excellent English. He lives in the states, sings at a temple near Sacramento. He recognizes our predicament and his family adjusts itself so that we can sit until things are sorted out. We sit and eat and chat and he smiles when I break out my iPod and speakers. We make the best of it.
At night his adult son sleeps on the floor so that two of us can share the wooden bench under his. We are grateful and he is happy to help. We arrive in Rishikesh the next day in the same way we would have had things not gone to shit. We are more tired, perhaps, but we are there.

And that is India. At the end you are equally alive as you would be had you not put yourself through it. You are more tired, perhaps, and certainly thinner, but being able to ride the challenge, the frustration and discomfort out from atop the wave places you safely on the beach at the end of the trip.