Raquel in India

Al Pacino, The Prince, Mr. Omar, and Trang-n-Trangs in Kashmir

ok, so continuing from where i left off last time. (wait, i just got a permanent failure message from mom's work email -- apparently this ip address is in a spam list, and mom's work email won't accept it from me. would one of you guys please forward these two messages to mom?)

when i got to the airport, i bought my ticket and went to check in. it is important to note, i think, that no one in the airport proper asks for identification. just a ticket and boarding pass. but no proof of id. so i checked in and then went to go through security but was turned back to tag my purse. back again to try a second time, through the special line for women only (behind a curtain to retain our modesty) and sent back because i neglected to put my swiss army knife into my checked baggage. back to have them locate my bag, repack the knife, back again through the line, and finally on my way. a couple of hours later, i arrived in delhi at the domestic terminal. the international terminal, where i was going to meet stephanie, is actually 10km away. ugh.

so, i have to get a taxi (wait in a long line for a prepaid taxi, put up with that woman who unapologetically cuts right in front of me), and trek over to the other part of the airport. it was almost 12:30am, stephanie's flight was due in at close to 11:00pm, we had said if we didn't see each other by 12:30am we would meet at the hotel. i didn't see her flight listed and was concerned that she had arrived early and i had missed her. just as i was about to head to the hotel, i saw a pink backpack on the back of a very tall, light-skinned, extremely beautiful woman. i was so happy to see stephanie.

we got a prepaid taxi to the hotel we stayed at for the first two nights we were in delhi. it was super late by the time we arrived and though we were both really happy to be together, we were also really tired and ready for sleep. we got up the next day and decided to find breakfast and decide over breakfast where to go from there. the previous night when we were checking in, though, the hotel dudes had mentioned that there are a lot of tourist agencies so that if we wanted to know where the government agency was they would show us, it is right around the corner and just let them know. i should have known when, as stephanie and i were on our way out, the guy at the desk said, are you in room [-whatever our room was-]? you want the government tourist office? yes, i will take you now. way too interested in making sure he took us. am i setting the stage for a more developed story? oh, yeah. stephanie and i thought we'd get a map and head out because we were really hungry. but once we passed through those doors of the "government tourist agency" everything changed...

enter "al pacino", a smooth talking, joke-telling, charmer of a man (who first claimed to be named osama bin laden) who would convince us, along with "the prince", and manzur, that we could not miss the himilayas at this time of year. this part, at least, was true, and we do have al pacino to thank for our trip to kashmir, both the good and the bad.

where were we going? we mentioned what we thought our itinerary would be. why did we want to go to kolkata? it is just another big city. why were we not going to the himilayas? this is the best time of year to be there, and how could we come to india and not see the most beautiful mountains God has created? his recommendation: go trekking in the north for five days, return to delhi and from there drive to jaipur then to agra then to varanasi and then return to delhi. he could give us a deal, and it would include all of this stuff, and we would do this really great two week tour. stephanie and i said we wanted to go for breakfast and discuss, and that we would come back after.

now, you all know what my thoughts are about tours. i much prefer to do it on my own. i am skeptical about the value, and i prefer the independence and flexibility of doing it myself. i also value the self-sufficiency aspect of independent travel, which is one of the reasons that traveling alone is so therapeutic for me. but the himilayas sounded like a good idea, and stephanie was inclined to reap the benefits of tour-guided travel, i.e. not having to do it on our own, not having to deal with finding our own taxi, buying our own tickets, getting ourselves to the stations, arranging our own lodging. i said i was willing to do it that way if it was stephanie's preference because i had time on either end to travel the way that i like to travel. we both wanted to go hiking in the mountains, but neither of us had considered it mostly because it is so much farther north it just didn't seem like it could be part of our two week itinerary. once it seemed feasible, we were both really into the idea, and many people both at home and in india and given us this same advice about traveling in the mountains at this time of year. we decided that we would negotiate a lower price for the himilaya part of the trip, and that we would only commit to that portion of the tour and decide after the first half whether to hire them for the second half.

now let me give a quick run-down of the next week, since we are running out of time here at the internet place. i'll fill in with more details when i can. [i just finished the run-down draft and have a couple of minutes left so i will start to fill in a bit...]

they sent a man back to the breakfast place at which we were eating (another indicator?) to escort us back to the office, where al pacino sat waiting for us along with a man we call "the prince." shefir is al pacino's real name, but he really does look a lot like al pacino. the other man i don't even remember his real name. we call him the prince because he looks like he could be royalty from the colonial era -- hair slightly waved, parted in the middle and flat against his head, a well-groomed moustache with the slightest hint of an upward curl at the ends, and very smooth, proper, polite english. between al pacino and the prince we were only able to negotiate down to $15 above our asking price, but then they included hotel and dinner (although now that we are here they are not making good on the dinner part) on our return to delhi, and we accepted the first half of the tour. al pacino described it: today, tour around delhi, you will see the red fort, the lahore gate, humayoun's tomb, and the old city. tomorrow morning , you are picked up at your hotel and driven to the airport for a breathtaking flight into srinigar. someone will be there with a sign that says "saroki" and will take you to your houseboat on nagin lake, where you will stay for four nights, with all meals included, but trekking is extra. [we asked three times how much a trek would cost, and he was, on reflection, very evasive; he gave us a range between $20 and $60 a day depending on what we would do]. after your four nights, you will be taken to the bus stop, you will have a mindblowing bus ride back to delhi, where you will be picked up and returned to the office.

so the rundown version of the next few days: had a "tour" around delhi, were picked up the next morning and taken to the airport where we were through security and on our plane within 15 minutes (once again, no id check). we flew into srinigar, kashmir, where we were greeted by manzur's father and brother-in-law and driven to nagin lake, where we would be sleeping in a house boat for the next several nights. srinigar was a lot like afghanistan-- predominantly muslim, a military presence, women in headscarves and more than a few in full burqa, men in shalwar kameez, mountainous, poor, cattle in the streets. missing were the bombed out buildings, but otherwise, very much a kabul feel.

the first day we didn't do much, just ate with the family and had tea, napped, and then argued and caused a scandal because we refused (and actually expressed how offended we were) to pay the exorbitant price they asked for three days around srinigar. "the manager" (a 15 year old boy, very smart, articulate, excellent english) asked $170 per person (!) for an itinerary that we knew we could d for about $50 each. they tried to intimidate us with safety concerns into accepting their package for a minimum of $90 each, if we paid for our own pony ride and cable cars. we refused, and were not invited to have dinner with the family that night (or breakfast, lunch, or dinner on any of the following days thereafter).

stephanie and i donned our head-scarves (stephanie actually looks very natural in this kind of attire, and were it not for the fact that she is about a foot taller than most women here, she would blend perfectly), and, side-stepping some additional attempts at manipulation, found our way to dal lake by way of auto-rickshaw. from there we went to the tourist office, across from which is a tourist taxi stand which has posted, fixed rates to several popular nearby destinations.

enter mr. omar. the first day we went to gulmarg, a nearby mountain, for a cable car ride up to the top (but not the tippy top because that's a bunch more money), a terrible packed lunch of stale bread and nasty butter and bruised pears (as stephanie so aptly pointed out, passive aggression on the part of our hosts) and a bit of hiking around (we got "bit" by some poisonous plant -- my finger was numb for several days) and enjoying the vista of the entire valley. beautiful. supposedly from the tippy tippy top on a clear day you can see K2, but not from where we were. second day we met mr. omar again and went to sonamarg -- one of the top three most beautiful places i've ever seen. we rode horses guided by a man in a heavy long burlap-like tunic and his young son. it was just breath-taking. it was a cloudy day and we both commented that it looked like it was out of a tolkein book. we had tea, hiked up to this "glacier" -- not really a glacier, since glaciers float in water, but a big chunk of ice in the side of the mountain that has been melting in such a way as to form a sort of cave at the mouth of this soon-to-be mountain stream -- entertained a bit (funny faces, trang and trangs), and headed back. next day, we planned to get up early to go to the floating vegetable market (we had tried but failed the previous day thanks primarily to a torrential downpour right when we were supposed to go) which is only out on the lake at dawn for about two hours. we did get up early, to stephanie vomiting. we decided to sleep in, and soon i realized that i was also really sick. but we wanted to go to mass, so we got up, found a bus that would take us near the church (there are, as you might expect, only a few churches in the area), asked a very very handsome young man where to get off, and made our way to mass in time fort the last half.

then we were to meet mr. omar for a city tour and some shopping, but i was really having a hard time, so stephanie went in and did all the hard bargaining and i stayed in the car and slept. after she had done most of the hard work, i went in and did a bit of my own negotiating to get really great christmas gifts for the women in our family. i think you will like them! then we went to get some chicken soup, but i couldn't sit up so i had to leave the restaurant and lie down in the car. i threw it all up as soon as we got home. i was actually relieved to confirm that i had a fever since i was worried that i was just being a wuss. i had some oral rehydration, pepto, ibuprofen, and went to sleep. i didn't get up until the next day, which was yesterday, but seems like today because all we've done since then basically is sit on a bus and poop in squatters in small towns on the road between kashmir and delhi. 27 hours. oh, yeah. we got back to delhi today, went directly to the hotel (part of the package) and decided not to even return to the tourist office. we took 1.5 hours to get through traffic to lunch, and then came here where we have been doing email for three and a half hours. just enough time to give this run-down but still not enough for all of the details!

tomorrow we are getting an early train to jaipur, and from there we will go to agra, and from there to varanasi. and we'll do it on our own.

posted by Dr.Quel @ 8:42 PM