Working Away the Rain

As you might know by now, I’m in Cherrapunjee (a.k.a. Sohra) in the far away land of North-East India, where butterflies and tribal people roam free all around, and where any good day is a day without 4 hours of continuous rain. Even so, if the rain doesn’t melt the last remaining thread of fabric from your clothes, the humidity – usually orbiting the 80% area – will probably get to you in ways unimaginable to anyone not born here.

When it’s raining, there’s one of two ways of spending time: counting heaps of money or engaging in the deep-rooted art of making children. Since none of the two is available to me right now, I desperately needed to find something else to fill my time. And that could only mean manual labor. I’ll grant you, usually it shouldn’t be the type labor that requires lots of space and/or proper tools to undertake it, but if there’s no other possibility, even that will do.

Confused? Well, let me explain: out here time is mostly spend inside. And if the inside is not big enough, one must find ways of making it bigger. That’s what we started out to do. Heprit, this great guy, who also happens to own the hostel I stay at in Lower Sohra and me decided to change things around here and make the common room/reception bigger.

Imagine a 4x4 meter room with a door and two windows on one side. Now imagine that as soon as you step in, you are confronted with either going to the right and virtually walking into a DVD rental place, or striding to the left and thus landing in the hostel’s reception. These areas are partly divided by a plywood wall right in front of the door, leaving about a meter in front of that for people to decide which way to go. We agreed that the best (and only) way to make a bigger reception where people could also hang out would understandably be to shrink the DVD rental. Also, in order to give the people some intimacy from the inquisitive eyes of the locals, Heprit, who also happens to own the DVD rental place, and me decided that the best place to expand would be behind the DVD rental.

Our planning summed up no more than one full day of steady work. But as my mother taught me, to get to the real amount of time any construction work takes, you’ll have to multiply what you planned by three and then hope for the best. Still, our minds were racing towards the end of this prodigious effort and didn’t even bother to think that it might just possibly take a little longer, considering the fact that we started at 2PM. After taking down all the DVDs displayed on the shelves and the shelves themselves, we intended to move the back plywood wall about halfway towards the front. But for this to happen, we had to first fix the shelves so that the plywood could be secured onto something. Well, by the end of the day, half of the shelves were in place.

On the second morning, we realized that if we put all the shelves up, there’d be no way of getting out from the back of the DVD rental, because we hadn’t cut through the wall towards the common room. So we started on chopping the dividing wall so that we’d have access on all sides.

Fixing the back plywood proved a bit tricky, as we couldn’t see where to nail it to the shelves from the back side so, on a closer look, you might see a small assemblage of tiny holes (and only imagine the thunderous diatribes we uttered every time we hit nothing on the other side). Still, on the third day, all the DVDs were dusted and put back into place.

The back room is still not ready; we came to an abrupt halt because we are not sure how to go on and what exactly to do back there. But in the meantime, friends come and help out with difficult tasks, such as applying the varnish, being fully, professionally equipped:

There are other projects filling my time. For instance, the 3-day disco ball made of old CDs or the new sign from outside the hostel, complying with Heprit’s requests and fashion sense, so I have yet to be bored.

Before

After

If it ever rains and you find yourself with nothing better to do than change the size of your DVD rental place or brake some scissors while trying to cut through old CDs, feel free to give me a shout and I’ll walk you through any of these projects free of charge and with accurate time spending information. After all, you know what they say: ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try a bigger hammer’. Alternatively, 'If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried'.

Cherrapunjee Summer

Lying peacefully in bed, reading a book, and enjoying the peaceful summer night I was startled by some disturbance outside. Decibels got higher as some people started shouting at each other right beneath my window. It wasn’t English; that I knew for sure. But it wasn’t the familiar singsong of the Khasis either, that dialect which although I don’t understand, by now I can at least identify.

By this time the aggravation was almost getting out of hand so I did what any normal local would do: I lit up a cigarette and went outside only to find 4 Indians having an intense argument in what I can only suppose was Hindi.

I got at the scene just in time to see a pissed-off Heprit woken from a good night’s rest stomping bare-chested at high speed in his flip-flops towards the Indians. A quick exchange of loud words ensued and, in a fit of silent wrath, Heprit careened to his house and back again, handing the Indians their money they paid for the room and chasing them away with a definitive attitude. The only word I understood was ‘pulice’, which was enough to paint an entire picture even for the ignorant foreigner that I am: the four drunken Indians, drivers for wealthy businessmen who came to enjoy the holiday with some good quality whiskey, had also been drinking heavily during the evening and got into a dispute, as any drunkards would normally do. But their choice of place to mediate their disagreement was very ill-advised (it appears that some 10-15 years ago the locals would have dealt with this type of problem in a different way, mostly through some well-aimed correctional approaches – read ‘punches’ – to the face; so they should offer praise that it’s not 15 years earlier).

After being harshly shooed, the 4 of them hopped onto their seats in one of their bosses’ car and drove confoundedly away in search of another guesthouse. And just after they drifted drunkenly away, a weary shadow appeared on the stage. A fifth driver slowly made his way towards the hostel, seemingly confused and dumbfounded. He appeared not to be aware of what had happened in spite of the cranked-up volume of the previous dialog and was unsure what to do. Because of the other four, he had also been thrown out and his car was probably parked at his employer’s hotel. We witnessed his cell phone conversation intently (me totally amused by the situation, Heprit still venting his pent-up anger), where he exposed the others and waited for instructions. By this time the others were on their second round through town and again stopped in front of the hostel, sloshing excuses into their phones, defending themselves in front of their bosses, slightly bending the truth. Not only did we hear what they were saying into their cell phones, because they kept their initial intensity of speech; but we also could hear the lady on the other end of the conversation. The part that Heprit translated for me was how they explained that they – the drivers – were still safe and sound (and out of trouble) in the dorm room with nothing to worry about. Little did they know in their warm hazes of alcohol that the fifth driver had already reported all the facts to the bosses.

They left again, music pounding wildly into their speakers, shouting at each other exactly like they did before. The last driver eventually gave up waiting around and sluggishly left towards the posh hotel where his bosses stayed.

Sitting on my top floor bench outside my room, smoking yet another cigarette to calm Heprit down, my only regret in this dramedy was that I didn’t get to hear the end of it.

‘This is how we spend summer in Cherrapunjee’, Heprit said. ‘Sitting outside at night, smoking a cigarette, watching the fog setting lower… and when everything seems so peaceful, you have Indians getting drunk’.

What could be more entertaining?!

The Road to Cherrapunjee

The ex-wettest place on Earth; the ex-rain capital of India; a side of India that not even India knows: Cherrapunjee. And that’s my destination.

But how much time does it take to get there? And how can I escape the hectic, tiring India that I know? And – last but surely not least – where can I smoke in airports?

These are the issues that concern me when I desolately wave my mum goodbye as the train leaves the Cluj railway station. It’s easy, I think to myself, it’s just an overnight train ride to Bucharest and from there on it’s just a bunch of flights to get to India… And, once in India, I’ll find a way…

But as I make myself comfortable in the train compartment, the elderly gentleman solving Sudoku starts talking… and so does the young guy sitting across from me. Their polished political discussion makes me cringe and I pray that they don’t include me. But wouldn’t you know it, they are too polite to leave me out of their animate discourse about communist Romania and I have to chip in, trying to look intellectual and attentive. The elderly ex-teacher remembers the outrages of the communist party and the younger one commiserates and contributes with personal stories (although he couldn’t have been more than 3 at the time of the revolution). I excuse myself and jump on the upper bed feeling confident that my counterattack will silence them. Indeed, they retire to their own beds and stillness settles in. Me – 1, train – 0.

As soon as I wake up, the gentlemen start talking again. I can sense that they have been waiting for me to get up so that they continue their war stories. But I interrupt, wondering why the window is badly cracked, in the form of a beautiful snowflake. They are surprised that I didn’t even budge at the loud strike that happened sometime around 3 AM, when some bored people decided that the best way to spend their time was to throw stones at a passing train. Well, I think, good thing I finally decided to take the advice of the older gentleman and not sleep with my head close to the window! Me – 2, train – 0.

Bucharest doesn’t seem such a bad place on a Sunday morning. Traffic is light and the way to the airport seems pretty straightforward. The next 3 ½ hours will pass somehow, if not by talking on the phone with the early birds, then by reading about the Hell’s Angels. But by the time I board the flight, I’m honestly wondering how I will take another 15 hours until I reach India.

Heathrow Terminal 4. Instructions: get to Terminal 5 and wait 5 ½ hours. No probs, I think. The terminal is just a bus ride away and if I get there soon, I can pass the security check, browse the stores and sip coffees and smoke cigarettes. As I discard all the loose change in the tray that is being x-rayed along with my handbag and laptop, I fiendishly plot the safe arrival of a refugee lighter to the other side. I succeed and for a minute I stop brooding over the plane seat I received (somewhere in the middle, crammed between many other people), which will become my home for the next 9 hours. I chase away the thought and look forward to some coffee and a relaxing cigarette. But the blonde untroubled lass at the information desk cheerfully informs me that Heathrow airport DOES NOT HAVE SMOKING AREAS AFTER SECURITY CHECK. It’s as if I’ve just won a race and now they tell me there isn’t any prize to win. Airport – 1, me – 0.

I can’t believe my ears. This can’t be. All these people sitting here, waiting for delayed flights, patience running out, nerves stretched thin… How is this possible?

‘Oh, but it is’, says a nice airport officer, who can see the pain in my eyes.

‘But… isn’t there a way?’ I ask, a spark of hope blooming timidly in my heart.

‘Well…’, she says.

The next thing I know is that I’m being escorted out of the airport through a labyrinth of corridors stretching for kilometres taking me outside to where the bus left me, a heaven-sent for smokers, with only a promise that I will come back, go through security check again and be in time on the other side to board my plane. My spirits are lifted, my cigarettes are puffed and my coffee is sipped lazily under a smoke-shrouded tree. Nothing could make me happier. Well, nothing except a nice shower or at least a change of clothes. But I take what I get. Airport – 1, me – 1 (ha!).

Back inside again, sheltering the same lighter and a sense of victory over the higher airport forces. I board the plane, preparing for some 9 hours of:

-       polite conversation – forced,

-       kindly asking other people to let me out of my seat to use the toilet,

-       fairly new movies interrupted by the captain’s announcement (English and Hindi),

-       airplane food, distinguished for its lack of taste (but, in my case, vegetarian a.k.a. savoury),

-       swollen ankles.

New Delhi greets me with morning heat and angry co-passengers. As the flight was delayed, our arrival in Delhi meant that people lost their connection flights or were simply late to get somewhere and, let me tell you, patience isn’t one of India’s strong suits. But I wasn’t worried. I had about 4 hours to spend in the airport until my next flight to Guwahati. A quick smoke outside the airport under scrutinizing Indian eyes while declining taxi drivers made me retreat in the comfort of the airport. Coffee? Yes! And how well would that go with another smoke… But what do you know? Once you get inside the airport, you cannot go out and guess what? There is no smoking area before security check. Indian airport – 1, me – 0.

I cannot check my bag in for another hour so I gloomily drink my (very hot) coffee feeling very self-conscious about my appearance (and, probably, my body odour). Finally, the time comes when I can walk past security check and wander through the unknown insides of the airport. No points for me here because sipping coffee while smoking cigarettes isn’t any fun while using cash-less ATMs and guessing PIN codes (a story for another day).

The gig is the same: board flight, take seat (window seat – yay!), get food, sip coffee, sleep restlessly, watch ground getting closer… come 5:30 PM spring to attention next to the conveyor belt, wait for bag, get bag....

Well, folks, I know that there are some methods of covering the last 100 km from Guwahati to Shillong: shared jeeps, busses, shared taxis. But I also know that from Shillong there are still 50 km left to finally reach Cherrapunjee. Which means that the only possibilities are to a) either find a guesthouse in Guwahati and spend a night so that in the morning you can get to Shillong and, eventually, Cherrapunjee; or b) find a shared jeep that takes you to Shillong and start looking for a hotel there so that the next day you will be able to cover what’s left of the distance. There are no public means of transportation during late afternoon and/or night. Don’t be fooled! The remaining 150 km mean a long, winding series of bends meandering up more hills, which translates into a 4 ½ hours’ continuous ride.

Already having this information, I opted for the third option: hire a private taxi from Guwahati airport to Cherrapunjee. And this proved to be the right way to go, as at 10 PM I was already chatting with the great Khasi people in Cherrapunjee. Impossible Indian traffic – 0, me – 1 (ha! again!).

So, to sum up: It’s really not easy to get here, but once you have, you’ll hardly want to leave again. Why, you ask. Well…

Welcome Back!

Is there anything left to say?

Faith in Greek Tourism Restored

Is there really a difference between travellers and tourists? Yes, of course! Right now I’m touristing Greece along with a very special person and I’m savouring every moment of it. And even if you think 'touristing' is not a word, I'm still going to use it. Yes, it’s definitely touristing; with hotel rooms where you can sleep in with no fear of the ceiling falling apart or the rats falling upon you at any minute. You can really fall back on hot showers and travel-sized soap and shampoo bottles. The only anxiety is for some major Ancient Greek monument to fall through the cracks.

Everything falls into touristy place: internet hotel reservations, good meals, nice rental car (with effective braking system no less), GPS and proper maps. No more ‘hellowhereyoufroms’ smiles or potent haggling abilities needed. It’s touristing! It’s easy.

Even when I tried to do it the hard way, getting to a remote little touristy town in the South-eastern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula without a hotel reservation and trying to find some cheap accommodation on the spot, things turned out differently than I expected.

This is Tourist Country and, against all my expectation, everything seemed booked out. So, when we asked at a small guest house whether they had a room available, the lady there with her minute English knowledge told us – with the help of some particularly effective aerobics moves – that her place was full, but she somehow explained that she would check other places on the internet. Not only did she come up with some alternatives (booking.com really comes in handy at times like these), but she gave us a map and encircled the affordable places on it, and gave us her blessing to go look for the best deal. Which we eventually found.

Dear kind, friendly and helpful guest house owner/manager from the guest house in Nafplio which I don’t remember the name of: this is me thanking you in the name of all travellers (and some of the tourists) for your wonderful and astounding gesture (and I don’t mean your funky calisthenics)! Flowers and/or candy coming soon… Touristing is easy!

Rip-Off Sri Lanka

Meditation can wait. Frustration cannot.

Even though I’m supposed to be calm and shanti after the meditation retreat, I decided that this is the place where I can enumerate my frustrations like on an extensive grocery list (better yet, a discarding list). Sri Lanka is the land that can fill up a whole tome of grocery lists of frustrations, frustrations that surface mostly when you’re spotted as being a foreigner, and trust me when I say that being anywhere over 1m50, with a non-dusky skin complexion, and with dreadlocks blending in might be considered somewhat extreme. And they’ll spot you faster than you can blink. When I say ‘they’ I mean everybody. You see, they’re not stupid, I’ll grant them that; they’re actually pretty smart and cunning and have been able to turn any remotely interesting thing on their island into a business opportunity (just like the Lonely Planet, but that will be the subject of a future post), attracting gullible tourists like a light bulb attracts moths. I’m not even going to enter the ‘hellotaximadam?’ on the list, even if it tends to get on my nerves when 10m away from my guesthouse not one, but all the taxi drivers on the road ask me if I want a ride; or that when I’m patiently waiting for the bus at the bus stand, two separate tuk tuk drivers offer their services or just simply say ‘come, I’ll take you’ (and they don’t even know where I want to be taken and probably don’t care)… I hold that it’s good to try your luck and, of course, business is business and there may well be credulous tourists around, so the better your people skills are, the greater the chances to get some work. I can deal with that and usually try the polite approach, amicably refusing their magnanimous offer (at some point I found out that sarcasm or derision have proven to go sky-high above their heads). No, these widespread Asian techniques cut no ice.

The seed of my revolt lies a lot deeper, implanted with the precision of a sharp dart in the bull’s-eye of the shattered tourist paradise that is Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country. Trust me! And it’s a country where tourism is in bloom but not so much for backpackers and ramblers as for the classic tourists; people who leave their daily jobs and lives for 2 or 3 weeks and look forward to a nice relaxing time either visiting historical sites and experiencing cultural aspects, or chilling back on beaches and hilly tea plantations, or both. They’re looking for Services, Wi-Fi and swimming pools and they’re prepared to pay the price; the tourist price; the price that is being asked. The overpriced price. Which means that the rest of us have to struggle to find the backpacking scene, the underground scene, the authentic scene.

Cheap accommodation? It’s either $15 per person in a not really run down place (but usually painted in a baby-pink or Paris green shade), or the shabby, shady dorm room or YMCA, which is hard to find and can use a good sweeping (or, in some cases, a big barrel of petrol and a match). Cheap food is easier but as soon as a place makes it in the Lonely Planet or on TripAdvisor, the prices shoot up like fireworks in a Maltese factory. And that’s only the least bothersome of issues.

The bulk of the problem lies with the attractions and, as luck would have it, everything is considered an attraction. Also, every attraction has a price. An overpriced price.

Anuradhapura is one of three very old, very important historical cities in the cultural triangle of Sri Lanka. And it wasn’t really surprising that the entrance ticket to the ruins and temples of the old city had a price on its head that locals would surely never afford (they don’t have to, as they have their own ‘local’ prices, but still): $25. The other attractions in the triangle range from a measly $10 for a temple in Kandy to an obscene $30 for the Rock Fortress at Sigiriya. And even where there’s no entrance ticket, you’ll have to pay the friendly-looking elderly Sri Lankan who accompanied you for a while to make sure you don’t get lost when trying to get to Ella Rock (as business is better not to maintain a proper pathway and thus let the poor, ignorant Westerners lose their way and squeak for some assistance in mid-trek).

And then there’s the Dowa Temple, a low-key, highly religious site, the actual reason why I started this vicious rant.

Yesterday was marked in the Sri Lankan calendar as Binara Full Moon Puya Day, an official Buddhist holiday, when people go to temples to pray and give offerings to Buddha. The monks chant (through speakers, no less) and pray and there’s a festive atmosphere all around, with parents guiding their barefooted toddlers to and fro the temple grounds, offering flowers, lighting oil candles and sitting in prayer all over the place. I walked through the temple grounds feeling quite peaceful, smiling to amused Sri Lankans and taking photos of the 4m high unfinished Buddha statue carved into the rock face. And as soon as I entered the temple, an elderly caretaker surrounded by pre-teen monks greeted me with ‘’Scuse me, madam, ticket here.’ I was more than willing to offer a small donation for the conservation of the temple and I even had my 20 rupees handy (it’s the usual amount I’ve seen locals donate), but the guy beckoned me to his desk and extracted a bunch of colourful tickets to hand one over to me. His mistake: after saying ‘ticket’ he also said ‘h’ndrd rupees’ so I took a closer look at the alleged ticket and even upside down I managed to read the bold black letters on the paper: DONATION. My 20 rupee’d hand stopped in mid-air and the guy and I locked stares and for a second there didn’t move, like two tomcats preparing to jump at each other’s jugular.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘Donation, no?’

‘H’ndrd rupees…’

But he probably realised his tiny tactical error and stared intently at the ticket stubs lying flawlessly in his hands. He then ignored my 20 rupees and waved me inside so I went in and looked around. Five minutes later when I emerged he suddenly found something else to do and hurriedly left his station, leaving the kid monks to negotiate a donation, which didn’t miraculously increase because of any sudden enlightenment on my part.

Does It Pay to Be German?

Since it’s a lot harder to come face to face with the puzzled confusion of local people when I answer the ‘what country?’ question, I adopted Germany as my native country: Nepali know Budesliga, Indians know ‘wie geht’s?’ and Sri Lankan know Volkswagen, which makes everybody happy, as opposed to the worried countenances people get when faced with the real answer. I think it’s always easier (for me and for my conversational partner) to choose this win-win situation because they beam with the pleasure of knowing something about my Heimat, and I can smoothly avoid the ‘which country is near? Hmm? Ukraine? Ahh, Russia! You speak Russian? No? [disappointed face]’ line of questioning.

But on the other hand, my being German converts people’s faces from happy-to-meet-you to borderline exuberant, as, in their eyes, I suddenly turn from smiling foreign tourist to a walking dollar sign (better yet, euro sign), ensuring my interlocutor good impending fortune somewhere down the line.

It’s never entirely clear when this strategy is best employed. But in Jaffna this answer ensured several conversations with German-speaking Sri Lankans, conversations that left me flabbergasted no matter the language. Who would expect such German fluency from the inhabitants of a small island in the Indian Ocean? So, on more than one occasion my white lie almost came back to bite me in the arse, only I was faster: if they have worked in Hamburg, I came from the Austrian border; if they moved to Switzerland, I came from Berlin and so on, so that my somewhat shady German accent would not give away my true secret identity.

But on one occasion, the Bundesrepublik Deutschland came to my aid in the least expected way: I set out to buy a men’s sarong for my imaginary brother because of the pretty batik patterns I had seen on some of these male skirts flapping around the Sri Lankan male shins, and because it’s always nicer to buy stuff for other people than for yourself (or at least that’s what you are supposed to say to the sellers in order to impress them). All around the Jaffna bazaar the prices ranged from exorbitant to outrageous (that is, if you consider $5 a bit costly for a 2m long piece of fabric turned into a comfy cylinder) and the traders didn’t even think about budging or haggling. They even seemed on the verge of bursting out in a fit of an infectious laughter at the mere thought of settling for a lower price and I got sniggered at from shop doors in front of which I passed twice. Feeling like not getting the great deal I was hoping for, I just walked around aimlessly, letting the alluring invitations to buy saris and skirts with flower patterns bigger than my head pour over me like a jar of spilled honey, contemplating my ever diminishing chances. And, as I responded to another ‘hellowhereyoufrom’ with my mechanical ‘helloGermany’ answer, again I got spoken to in German.

A middle-aged fellow with a sad receding hairline but grinning like there’s no tomorrow fancied a good German speaking practice session and tackled the situation not with the usual ‘aaa, Volkswagen’ but with an effortless conversation about the German football team and the FIFA World Cup and lured me into the normal conversation that comes after the first introductory lines: you came alone? are you married? what is your work? I like your hairstyle…

‘You know, I live in Switzerland' he said. 'My family is still there but I’m on holiday and help my brother with the shop… Come in, look around. Want to buy a sari?’

‘Well, actually I’m looking for a sarong for my brother…’

With a palpable feeling of pride and self-importance, he felt that it was his duty to translate all my German words to his brother and their helper and all the other curious spectators, who by this time started their own parallel conversations with me along the exact same lines, only this time the dialog was in English. I felt like being transposed in a second superimposed universe, the latter being the English dubbed version of the first German one, both having a strange storyteller laid over. And the only main difference between the two was the price of the sarong: the English universe offered me the sarong for 450 rupees, while the first one clearly stated (as I repeatedly checked) that the sarong was dreihundertfünfzig, 350. By this time I was already so confused as to which conversation to square up to in which language that I decided I would entirely ignore the English one and concentrate on the one that promised the better deal. And by this time, the Swiss Sri Lankan and his brother also figured out that they were rear-ending each other and decided to reunite their universes. To make up for the bad business decision of his Swiss brother, the shopkeeper ceremoniously presented his best merchandise: a lovely pair of plastic training trousers, in case the sarong proved too airy and the wearer would prefer a better shielded option. I dismissed the trousers, reverently accepted the sarong and the receipt nicely wrapped in a FIFA World Cup plastic bag, and victoriously, Germanly exited with a ‘Tschüss papa!’

So, does it pay to be German? Sometimes, it pays less.