jodhpur/jaisalmer

Okay, so wandering India solo is actually pretty cool. It's only been like 2 days but they've been a really neat 2 days. I was happy to leave Jaipur - too touristy, which means it's too scammy and you get hassled alot. The guys hassling you are really smart there, too. One guy trapped me into a conversation by asking me why all westerners were so rude and why we ignored people trying to talk to us. So naturally I got all defensive and argued with him. He started to piss me off severely and finally I pulled a "I'm going to meet my husband now, bye" type of thing. Then not even 10 minutes later, I got stopped by a different guy who tried to have the exact same conversation with me... both guys were like "I'm a student, I don't want to sell you anything, I just want to practice my English. Do you want to go for tea?" but in a much more roundabout and clever way. As soon as I realized I was in an identical conversation, I figured out some kind of scam was happening. What the scam was, I don't know, cuz I left, but still... very slick. I met another girl today actually who told me of a similar conversation she got pulled into in Jaipur too. I don't know what their operation is, but it's shady... hmmm. The lesson is, don't talk to men in the street, ever. They're all huge creeps. Tiffany (my sister) suggested I make a t-shirt that says "If I haven't seen you in Bollywood, I'm not interested" and wear it around everywhere. I think I'm gonna have to do it.

Anyway, yesterday I went to Jodhpur. I was worried taking the overnight train alone but actually, it was really good, because apparently there is some massive supercomputer in Delhi that deals with train reservations, and when you make a train reservation here they enter all these details about you in the computer, like age/sex, etc. and when the computer sees a girl travelling alone, it automatically puts you into a spot on the train with other girls. So I've been travelling with other female tourists actually, and no creepy men staring at me while I sleep - what a clever train system. Jodhpur was excellent - being on my own lets me take it easy a lot more. Micah's preferred method of attack is to hit as many temples and monuments in a day as possible, while I like to wander around the markets, try out different ice cream shops, spend excessive amounts of time in used bookstores, and maybe hit up some forts or temples if I get around to it. Yesterday this is what I did. I also visited a big fort overlooking the city (all the buildings are bright blue in Jodhpur, so it's a neat view), had dinner at a Bollywood themed restaurant, and read a book under the stars on the roof of the hotel with a sweet view of the fort. It was a really nice day, and Jodhpur ranks comparatively low on the tourist-hassling scale so it wasn't stressful.

Jaisalmer, on the other hand... ohhhh my god. I took the train this morning, and ended up meeting a girl from Montreal. We got off the train together, and as we walked into the train station... we got SWARMED by men, hotel touts and rickshaw drivers all freaking out for our business. There were like 20 of them surrounding us, all talking at once, shoving brochures in our faces, fighting with each other, refusing to leave us alone. We couldn't even get breathing room. It was unreal. You always get hassled to an extent when you arrive somewhere but this was INSANE. Normally people will back off if you firmly say no, but not here. I didn't know how we'd ever escape, then suddenly 3 police officers barged in waving sticks and everyone scattered. It was hilarious. Later we got swarmed again and the police came back with their sticks and rescued us. They gave us space to figure out where we were going. Audrey (Montreal girl) had a hotel already so I opted to go with her to her hotel until I figured out where I was staying. (Hers was too expensive for me, but it gave me time to put my bags down and call some cheaper places without the station hassle.)

We went for lunch on a rooftop, it was really nice. Except when we were walking back, a shopkeeper said to me that I looked like I'd had too many chapattis. I.e. I look fat. I might blow this off except a guy in Jaipur the other day also told me I looked pregnant. Great. India is making me gain weight. It's not my fault they freaking deep fry everything here and load it up with cheese. Ahhhhhh!!! Oh well, I'll eat healthy when I get home.

I found a hotel this afternoon, did a bit of gift shopping, and am now debating whether or not I should go on a camel safari while out here in the desert. It's the thing to do here, I guess. We'll see... I probably should... I mean, when am I gonna ride a camel again, right? Haha. I also had a really interesting conversation with the guy that runs the hotel tonight - we spent an hour talking about Bollywood and various other things, and he traumatized me slightly by telling me about the goings-on of the industry, the underworld, and other such shady things. Apparently the only way to be a Bollywood actress is to sleep your way to the top. He seems to think I'll have to sleep with someone even to get on set as an extra! What madness. Well, if it gets me in... ;) I jest, of course. That can't possibly be the case, they always need foreign extras, and they can't sleep with all of them.

Random: I bought 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking at the used bookstore and I've read half of it since yesterday. (True to India, I think it's a pirate copy too, it looks photocopied and the pages keep falling out so who knows what I'm actually reading, haha.) Dad, I am marking all the pages where I don't understand things so you can explain them to me when I get home. Quantum mechanics goes right over my head.

Even more random: Just found this news story: Newborn survives fall through train toilet

Apparently a baby fell through an Indian train toilet onto the tracks. Weird. I was having this conversation with Micah a few days ago, about how weird the train toilets are. You can actually watch the ground go by under you while you pee. I wouldn't have expected a baby to fit through though... insane.

jaipur

We are presently in Jaipur, gateway to Rajasthan (or so says the guidebook). That means we're almost in the desert. This seems right, there are lots of camels in the streets here, which makes me laugh like an idiot all the time because I think camels are so funny looking. There are also alot of monkeys. We climbed up a massive hill last night to visit a temple for nice views overlooking the city, and there were about 50 million monkeys. Creepy little things... one of them walked up and hit me. What a jerk. I think he wanted my water bottle. I try to avoid them, when at all possible. If the movie '28 Days Later' taught me anything, it's to keep away from monkeys.

Jaipur is a fun place, not much to do but shop, but this is pretty entertaining for me, despite the fact that I have no money to shop with. Lots of pretty bazaars and stuff though, it's enjoyable. In other news, Micah and I parted ways today. We have different plans for the last 2 weeks of our trip, so we've split up and I am going it alone for the next 2 weeks in India. I expect most of this time will be spent in Mumbai trying to get onto a Bollywood film set, but hey. It may or may not be the last I see of Micah in India... oddly, travelling in India you bump into the same people over and over again, because all backpackers hit most of the same destinations. For example, Micah and I met an Australian couple on the train out of Calcutta. I bumped into them again a few days later in an internet cafe in Varanasi. Then just yesterday, we met them again in the train station in Jaipur. It's so weird. It happens to everyone here. So who knows, maybe I will see Micah again. Or maybe not. In any case, I'll be extra careful on my own and try not to get on the wrong train or get bit by a monkey or whatever else. Train to Jodhpur tonight!

amritsar, pakistan, and how we crashed a punjabi wedding...

We've had such a crazy past 24 hours. But first back to Delhi... we spent our last days there doing fun things like bangle shopping, and visiting sites from Bollywood movies I enjoy. Here is a photo of me under the EXACT same tree that Aamir Khan recites poetry to Kajol under right before the Chand Sifarish song in Fanaa. I am such a nerd.


After Delhi, we took a night train up to Amritsar. (Which was good, except there was a mouse on the train that kept running past my feet and making me jump.) Amritsar is kind of an out-of-the-way place, pretty far north and it seems that not as many foreign tourists venture up this way. Understandably, because there is not much to see here, with the exception being the Golden Temple, which is a very huge Sikh temple and part of my "list of places I must see because it featured in a Bollywood film I liked". We weren't expecting too much from our brief stop here, but it's been so much fun! We went to the temple yesterday (see photo - I am not making a fashion statement, you have to cover your head when you're inside) and while we were wandering around, Micah disappeared. Usually when this happens, it means he has made friends with someone (most likely women) so I wasn't too surprised when I found him 20 minutes later with two girls. We ended up wandering around the temple with the girls, then around Amritsar. They took us to a park/memorial thingy, where one of them tought Micah and I (but mostly Micah) how to bhangra dance, much to the entertainment of the crowd that gathered to point and laugh while Micah made an ass of himself. Hilarious.


After that we were parting ways because Micah and I decided to go visit the Pakistan border, but before we left they told us they were going to a wedding that night and we should come with them, and to call them later... haha, I'll get to that. So anyway, we took a van out to the India/Pakistan border, where they do this really cool closing ceremony every night which involves the guards from both sides yelling and stomping around a lot while enormous crowds cheer them on. There were SO many people there, it was actually really exciting. Here is a photo of the electric barbed wire fence at the border, and a photo of Pakistan behind the gate during the closing ceremony. There were huge crowds on both sides, interestingly the Indian side was so colorful and the Pakistan side everyone was wearing all black and white.

After we got back, we called our new friends (their names were something like Shubnam and Ruby, not sure exactly) and they told us to come over to Shubnam's house. So Micah put on a fancy new suit that he had custom-made in Delhi, and we went over. I had nothing to wear (I have a sari, but I don't own the garment that goes under a sari so I'd have been indecent) so they lent me a salwar kameez type outfit to wear. Then they took us to the wedding... I suppose the fact that we didn't even know who was getting married was irrelevant, nobody seems to care. Anyway, IT WAS SO COOL!!! It was like a proper Punjabi wedding. The bride and groom were sooooo done up, it was incredible. The groom rode in on a white horse behind a marching band and a bunch of people dancing! And it all happened inside this huge banquet hall type place, where there was so much food it was unbelievable. I ate a ton, and it was hands down the best Indian food I have ever had. There was this crazy ice cream too, it was like vanilla but much better, almost like the flavour that's in cookie dough ice cream, but full of actual pieces of fruit and stuff. Amazing. As for the actual wedding part... well, I have no idea when that happened, there was no ceremony as such, you just kind of watch the bride and groom come in and sit on these throne-like things at the front of the hall, and then everyone runs around eating and not paying much attention. Apparently there was an all-night party afterwards, but we left shortly after stuffing our faces.

Afterwards, we went back to Shubnam's house again, and ended up staying the night because it was too late to get a rickshaw back to our hotel. In the morning, Shubnam's mom made us tea and a yummy breakfast that was a potato-onion-pancake type of thing. And then her mom let me keep the outfit I had borrowed as a gift! So nice of her! After all this, Shubnam's brother drove us back to our hotel on his motorcycle. I've never been on a motorcycle in my life... picture Micah and I flying down bumpy roads in a small Indian town on the back of a motorcycle (no helmets either, ahhhh) with Micah in a fancy suit and me in a traditional Indian outfit. It was probably the most random thing ever. Anyway, here is a photo from last night after we got back from the wedding. (Micah has some really amazing wedding photos on his camera but I can't get at them to post.) It's me with Ruby, Shubnam, and Shubnam's mom.


We are now leaving to get on a 20 hour train to Jaipur. I am hoping for no mice.

delhi (picture update!)

Finally we're in Delhi! It feels fantastic to be in a city again. Micah and I have been making the best of it. In the past two days, we went to McDonald's, Subway, Costa Coffee, and Scotiabank, of all places. We've also seen some of Delhi's tourist sites, but who cares about that, eh? ;)

All in all, Delhi is a gorgeous city. I HATE auto-rickshaw drivers with a seething passion, but aside from that all is good, haha. Seriously, they're such douchebags here. They try to charge you at least triple the real price for anywhere you want to go, and then they don't even take you to your destination! You think you're going where you've asked, when instead you end up at a "very nice shop" owned by the driver's brother or friend or someone who is going to give him a fat commission for luring in tourists, where you're told you "no buy, just look, just look!" and if you refuse, get dumped out of the rickshaw in the wrong place. We're getting wise to it now, and demanding from the beginning that we go straight to our destination with no side stops (some drivers won't even take us because of it) and refusing to pay if we don't reach our requested destination. Such a hassle.

Also, continuing on with last post's topic of "Indian men are often sketchy", there are no shortage of creepy pervs in Delhi, oh man... the next guy who says "Hello Madam, please give me a kiss!" is getting a punch to the groin. What is WRONG with people? Holy crap.

Okay, it seems like all I do is complain, haha. I'm not actually that miserable, it's just the stories about things that make me angry are more entertaining than the happy ones where I visit tourist attractions. Now I'll post some pictures instead of bitching. But first, a quick Bollywood discussion, please feel free to skip to pics if Bollywood is not your thing: Last night we saw Jodhaa Akbar, unfortunately 3.5 hours long and without subtitles so I had no sweet clue what was going on. I have to say, it didn't seem very good and I don't think it will live up to all the hype it's been getting. The highlights for me were Hrithik Roshan fighting an elephant, and Hrithik Roshan waving a sword around with his shirt off. Obviously. There was even a sad lack of song and dance numbers in a film of this length. I don't think I'd recommend.

Pictuuuuures!

Sorry, my Calcutta pics were on a different memory card and it takes so long to get my pics in order that I didn't have the patience to do it with 2 different cards, so here are a couple from Varanasi! Us with some Israeli backpackers on the morning boat ride (ignore how greasy I am) and me looking pale and gross, but wearing a pretty sari! I have a nice tikka from the temple earlier too, haha.


And here are a few from Agra... Me with the Taj, me on the Taj with some random girl I don't know who wanted to take a photo with me so I took one with her too, the Taj being all pretty reflected in the water, and me learning Hindi on the roof of the hotel.


And in Delhi! Brief explanations in order, if you care. Random elephant in the street. Inside the Red Fort. Me inside the Red Fort. Bunch of crazy schoolgirls in the Red Fort who attacked me to shake hands (despite there being a million other tourists around to choose from). Jama Masjid (big mosque!) View from the left spire of the Jama Masjid. India Gate! Me in front of the India Gate! Micah eating a whole goat leg... eww.

agra

I SURVIVED VARANASI. Just barely. After I finished that blog post yesterday, I went back to the hotel and we went to the train station. As soon as we got to the train station, I was seized with the overwhelming urge to puke. I didn't even make it to the bathroom - I puked in a garbage can outside the tourist bureau in front of a lot of other backpackers. I then ran for the bathroom, and - this is about to get sort of graphic, skip to next paragraph if you don't want to hear - before I could make if to the toilet, puked all over the sink, bathroom mirror, and everything around it. Then I had to spend 10 minutes cleaning the bathroom, with people knocking on the door outside wondering why I was taking so long. Ughhhh it was gross. Immediately after this I had to board the 15 hour night train to Agra... perhaps not the best place to be with a stomach bug. Once the train started going, I had to run to puke again, this time in the dingy train bathroom with no light, so I was aiming for a hole in the pitch dark. Oh my godddd. But then miraculously, that was it. I thought I was going to be up all night puking but that finished it and I actually got a great sleep on the train and felt a million times better when we got to Agra.

Everyone said the night trains were freezing cold... which is sort of true. I was sleeping on the bottom bunk (there are 3 levels) and I was next to the window which didn't shut properly so a cold breeze blew in all night. But fortunately I had a shawl, a sleeping bag, and a high fever so I was pretty warm. I felt almost back to normal in Agra... seriously, something about Varanasi was just killing me. Micah and I had dinner with a girl tonight in Agra who said the same thing happened to her... she was really sick within 2 hours of getting to Varanasi, described all the same symptoms as me, and she was better as soon as she left. And some people in Varanasi were talking about "the Varanasi sickness" that seems to afflict some travelers, just in Varanasi. WEIRD.

But anyway, Agra! Taj Mahal! Oddly enough we started out seeing the Taj Mahal from the back, not the front. Technically you can't even go around back, there are guards. And a barbed wire fenced, and a shoddy path that if you fell off, you'd fall into the gross river behind it. But Micah and I went back there, and Micah begged the guard to let us go through, which he finally did after protesting that it was "too dangerous". So we walked all the way around the back, behind the barbed wire fence. There were NO tourists. We were the only people back there, seeing the Taj from the rear. Sort of funny. We walked all the way around to the other side. We decided it was too early to go in yet (we wanted to get there later in the day for sunset) so we wandered down a side street, where we were attacked by crazy rickshaw drivers wanting our business.

One of the rickshaw guys was SO CREEPY. He kept hitting on me. In Hindi! Fortunately my 4 months of teaching myself Hindi came in sort of handy here... he said I was a very pretty girl and that he wanted to marry me. AHHHHH. Then he said in English that I have good legs and we should have 10 children. I was so grossed out. Micah was no help either, he was like "Yeah! She's single!" He then asked me if I wanted beer. Or hashish. Then he told Micah he could take him to a special massage parlour with lots of women. What a skeeze.

We escaped them finally and went into the Taj, which honestly is really awesome. It's worth seeing, for sure. My one disappointment though - here in India they have this great TV commercial on all the time with Abhishek Bachchan (hot Indian film star), where he is playing a tour guide at the Taj Mahal. So all I wanted at the Taj was for Abhishek to show up and be my tour guide, but no such luck. Sad. Regardless, it was great, and we spent a good 4 hours in there. We stayed till it closed and they kicked us out... we were the last people to leave! Us and this one Chinese girl, who kept insisting "One more picture! One more picture!" (She was cool - same aforementioned girl we had dinner with tonight.) Micah and the girl were taking a million pictures so I just laid down on a bench for like an hour with a sweet view of the stars, the moon, and the Taj Mahal. Coooool. One weird thing about the day - even though we're not in Bangladesh anymore, and India is overrun with tourists, especially at the Taj Mahal, the random celebrity treatment still happens to us. I got stopped 3 times while wandering around this afternoon by people who wanted to take photos with me. That's so freaking weird, every time. I just want to yell "I'm NOBODY!" Haha. It's sort of fun though. Sometimes it makes me feel cool, other times it makes me feel like a zoo animal. I can't decide.

Tonight we had a nice dinner in a cute restaurant that was playing Casino Royale on a big TV. Or at least it was, until the power went out (which it does fairly often in India, it seems) and we had some impromptu candlelight ambiance. Haha.

Other random observations about India - the women are SO nice here. Every time a woman talks to you, she is either genuinely curious or friendly, or being exceptionally helpful or kind. The men, on the other hand, 9 times out of 10 if a man talks to you, he is trying to sell you something. Or he'll talk to you for 30 seconds and then demand a tip for no reason. The men can be soooo shady! I am figuring out fast that if I need directions or helpful, honest information, I am way better off asking a woman. Which isn't to say that all men here are sketchy, cuz that certainly isn't the case, but seriously it's like 9/10, especially in the touristy places. The women are so cool though... the lady sitting with us on the train shared her homemade dinner with Micah last night, because she said the train food wasn't very good and he shouldn't get it. Sadly I couldn't have any because I was puking. But still, soooo nice of her.

Other random observation - India is jam packed with other backpackers, but they're all hippies! Holy crap! Everyone has dreadlocks and wears baggy striped Aladdin-style pants and looks stoned all the time. I am wearing jeans and makeup every day just to avoid being mistaken for a hippie.

Okay, this internet cafe has just been painted and I am being knocked unconscious by fumes. I'm going to bed. Delhi tomorrow! I can't wait to be in a city! (Note: I know I need to post some photos but these internet cafes I've been in lately haven't been letting me do it. I'll do a big photo post when I get a chance.)

varanasi

Happy Belated Valentine's day from Varanasi, the city of cows and monkeys. Seriously, this place is overrun by cows and monkeys - they're everywhere. I can't walk down the street without stepping in cow poop.

This would be a super interesting place, except I've been nothing short of totally miserable since we got here. I was fine in Calcutta, and I was fine the whole train ride here, but as soon as we got here, I don't know what happened - I am sooo sick. Not throwing up or anything, just a combination of fever/aches/insomnia and major food aversion. My stomach just feels like it's churning, I can't even look at food. As a consequence of no sleep and no food, I have no energy. Micah's pretty much done Varanasi on his own.

Yesterday morning we got up at 5:30am to do the sunrise boat ride on the Ganges... it was a pretty cool experience. Later in the morning, we visited a bunch of Hindu temples, most interesting being the Hanuman (monkey) Temple, which had about a zillion monkeys running around, eating bugs and poo and being creepy, standard monkey behavior. After that I couldn't handle anymore and went to lie down for the rest of the day in my crappy 5$ hotel room which was everything you can imagine a 5$ hotel would be like. This morning I went out again, but only lasted an hour before going back to lie down. I feel like death. On a positive note, according to the Hindus, if I die in Varanasi supposedly that means I am released from the cycle of reincarnation. Or maybe that only works if you're Hindu. On the death topic (sorry to be morbid) there are two places by the river here where they cremate bodies before putting the ashes in the river. Which means you can actually walk down and watch these cremations in progress, which we did. Again, interesting experience, but I couldn't watch for very long because my stomach was still churning and watching a cremation was not making that any better. It's kind of hard to watch, really.

On a better note, I did get a very pretty silk sari, the cheaper variety but it's not like I can tell the difference. The guy at the silk shop showed me how to wear one though, so finally I know how to tie them. At some point I will post a photo of me in a sari looking like Aishwarya Rai (or rather, what Aishwarya Rai would look like if she were ghostly pale and deathly ill).

Overnight train to Agra tonight, Taj Mahal tomorrow. I may or may not survive. I am going to be happy when we get off the tourist loop and get into the city... Varanasi is a cool place but it's very much like Niagara Falls, or Venice... so touristy it's like they're not real cities. I expect Agra will be the same. Looking forward to Delhi. And not being sick. Unghhhh.

calcutta/kolkata

We are in INDIA!!! Finally! Whoever said in the Lonely Planet that India was overwhelming and required a few days of adjustment upon arrival did not spend 3 weeks in Bangladesh first. India is such a cake walk by comparison. We have been here 2 days and I LOVE it. I'm never leaving. But let me backtrack a bit...

We spent our last day in Dhaka hanging out with Zabir. We went to his University first and had a meeting with the Head of the Economics department there, to talk about Grameen Bank. A VERY different perspective from what we were fed at Grameen, that's for sure. He had alot of criticism about the bank. There are so many sides to that whole story, it's crazy. Again, too much to get into in blog form, but I learned alot. After that, we saw the parliament building in Dhaka, visited Zabir's house and had a very lovely dinner, and then did a bit of shopping. A nice, relaxing end to Bangladesh.

We took a bus to Calcutta on Sunday, which was about a 13 hour journey start to finish. Long day. Especially for me, as I came down with a horrible chest cold the night before and spent the whole day on the bus with fever/chills, a runny/stuffy nose, and nasty cough. It was pretty miserable. I am slowly getting better now. I suppose the good thing is that if I had to get sick, it was just a cold and not a stomach flu (knock on wood) because it means I am uncomfortable, but not incapacitated.

Yesterday we spent all day wandering the streets and the market here. Calcutta and Dhaka are like two different worlds. Bangladesh is a tough place to be because there are no tourists so you are a novelty to everyone and get hassled everywhere you go. Tourism in India is massive so we are hardly bothered at all here by comparison. Nobody stares at me anymore! There are other foreigners everywhere! In Bangladesh, even white people stare at other white people because we all think "Whoa... I wonder what they're doing here!" Really, it is kind of a big relief to be in India. Which isn't to say I didn't have a great time in Bangladesh, because I did. It is a very interesting country with amazing potential and some fantastic people. But it is challenging as a traveler. Very, very challenging. I'd definitely go back, I just need a break first! I owe a big thanks to my friend Zabir though, because he helped me soooo much in Dhaka, and having a good friend there made the experience a million times better. So, thank you Zabir! :)

In other news, I am learning how to haggle but I suck at it. I keep paying too much because I look too interested. I need to make quicker decisions, and also pretend to walk away. They will chase after you to make you buy the stuff, I just don't let it get that far... I'll practice! Micah, on the other hand, is hopeless. Yesterday he got lured into a shop, and left with 6000 rupees (150$) worth of stuff, including an entire silk bed set with duvet and cushion covers. He needs to get a new suitcase now to carry all this stuff. Hilarious.

Food here is INCREDIBLE. Sadly, when I had my first Indian meal in India, I couldn't actually taste any of it because my nose was so plugged up, but I'm past that now. This is hands down the best place on earth to be a vegetarian. I will spend the next month eating like I have never eaten in my life. I'll have to buy two seats on the plane home because I will be enormous by then. And it's so cheap. A big plate of yummy Indian food costs like 1.50$. And the movie theatres are SOOOO cheap. Tonight I dragged Micah to see Taare Zameen Par (he's a good sport, watching a 2.5 hour Hindi movie without subtitles, haha) and it cost us 1.25$ each. Those were the expensive seats too, cheap seats are 50 cents. The theatre was huuuuuge. (Note to my Aamir Khan buddies: TZP was better without the subtitles! I liked it even more the second time around! I'l probably go a third time yet, since it's soooo cheap.) I am going to see every single film that is released while I'm in India, haha. On that topic, it's really fun being in a whole country of people who like all the same movies as me... I have had like 50 conversations with random locals about Shah Rukh Khan since I got here. I was talking to a guy in the market about Aamir Khan, and he said, "You know what we call him? We call him 'Lollipop' because he's short and sweet." And then I died laughing. Sorry, that's not funny to 90% of people reading this blog. That was aimed at a few specific people!

Tomorrow is our last day in Calcutta, and then we take a train to Varanasi on the 14th. I am pretty excited, though I kind of wish we had more time in Calcutta. But, only a month to see the entire country, so we can't linger too long anywhere. I changed my flight home, I am coming back to Canada on the 12th now, instead of the 5th. I will definitely need the extra week. I don't think I am going to want to leave though... anyone know how I can get a job and just stay here???

success?

Okay, so... as the above photo indicates, we managed to meet Prof. Yunus. "Meet" is kind of a strong word for it. It happened the way most celebrity encounters go, where you smile, shake hands, take a photo, and that's it. Actually pretty disappointing, since we have been pushing for 5 minutes to sit down and ask him about the film possibilities. Apparently, he couldn't spare 5 minutes, so we got ushered in to a group meet-and-greet session with some of the Grameen interns instead. Micah managed to ask him what the deal was with the film thing, and he basically said that he couldn't give us permission to write a script because he has signed a contract with the Hollywood crew already and doesn't want to get in trouble. This is a fair response... however, it could have been given to us via e-mail, anytime in the past 4 months, or by anyone in the office who we've been in contact with. Grameen has NOT been very forthcoming with certain information. So, long story short, we're pretty much screwed. He did tell us we could get in contact with the other film crew and discuss the possibilities of working with them, so I suppose that's an option. Micah is pretty disappointed by the whole thing (which isn't to say we're beaten, just not decided how to proceed yet) but I feel pretty good. I am just really happy to be finished working with Grameen.

Now that we are done there, I feel a bit more at liberty to say that I am not particularly happy with Grameen. The picture they paint of the organization in Prof. Yunus's book, and the TV documentaries and what-not, is not a 100% accurate picture of the business. While the international opinion of Grameen Bank is very positive, once you get into Bangladesh and start talking to different people, particularly people who are not affiliated with the bank, you hear all kinds of different opinions and criticisms and issues. Unfortunately, Grameen is not particularly open to criticism, and the two weeks we spent there, while still being a fantastic and new experience, largely consisted of Grameen Bank officials leading us around by the hand and showing us what they wanted us to see. Very difficult to get an accurate picture of the situation in Bangladesh if you're working with Grameen. Proper understanding would require alot of independent research. Anyway, I don't want to get too in depth in this blog because it isn't the place, but the past 2 weeks have taught Micah and I alot about how business works in the real world. It's disappointing.

As far as Prof. Yunus himself goes... for the 30 seconds we managed to speak with him, he seemed like a nice enough guy. He's a professional celebrity, he has the meet-and-greet thing perfected, that's for sure. He was warm and charming with everyone, in an impersonal celebrity sort of way. However, the whole thing was frustrating for a number of reasons - I am not upset he couldn't meet with us, but I am upset that nobody could give us a yes/no answer, and made us wait 4 days for a supposed meeting which never materialized. Additionally, I am frustrated because Grameen Bank was charging us alot of money for this adventure - 20$US each per day we were working with them. On days we were meeting with people at the offices, or visiting the villages, this 20$ is a perfectly acceptable administration fee for arranging everything for us. However, yesterday... we were told we'd be charged for the day only if we managed to get a meeting with Prof. Yunus. This did not happen. However, because we attended the meet-and-greet for 30 seconds, they insisted on charging us anyway. So, Micah and I actually paid 20$ each to shake hands and take a photo with Prof. Yunus. THAT'S INSANE. I argued this point with the man who was coordinating us, and he had no response. Which pretty much sums up alot of our experience.

I can't explain all of this properly here. Micah has decided he wants to write an extensive article for Vanity Fair based on our experience. (Don't ask me why he chose Vanity Fair.) It's been a very eye-opening few weeks. And now I am ready to leave it all behind and go to India. No more banking. I want some naan bread and some Bollywood.

prof. yunus? almost...

Okay, so we haven't met the man yet, but we SAW him. Tonight we went to some sort of function at Grameen Bank which was basically a variety show put on by families of Grameen members, or something like that. Lots of singing and dancing. At the end. Prof. Yunus went onstage and did something or other - we don't know what was going on, as it was all in Bengali. After everything was over, we were standing within 10 feet of Prof. Yunus, but we didn't approach him. We COULD have, but the thing is, we have requested a formal meeting with him already so it would have been pre-emptive and somewhat unprofessional for us to pounce on him tonight. Still keeping our fingers crossed for a proper meeting. Tomorrow might be our last chance for that. Prof. Yunus definitely saw us tonight though, and the letter we wrote detailing our intentions reached him directly, so he knows who we are, he knows we're here, and he knows why. We're SO close.

Anyway, I had no intention of posting again so soon, but I HAD to get out of my hotel room, so here I am. It is nearly midnight, but my room is SO NOISY right now. Apparently there is some kind of religious festival or holiday or who knows what going on, and someone has been screaming over a loudspeaker outside for hours now. I am getting used to the loudspeaker business - the morning prayer wakes me up every morning at 5am because it's so loud, but it's not that long. This shouting just won't stop. I don't have an issue with the loudspeaker thing really, I get that it's the culture, but I have an issue with the fact that the hotel walls are paper thin... and actually there is a bathroom vent that leads pretty much outside, so you hear EVERYTHING. Crappy hotel design.

While I am on a rant about the hotel, haha... I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but the hotel staff here are overhelpful to the point of extreme irritation. Like the staff will fall all over themselves to do things for you... which is nice to a point, I guess. But tonight, for example - we went to the hotel restaurant at 10:30pm to see if they had ice cream. They did not. The waiter said he would go out and try to buy us some. We said no, please do not do that, completely unnecessary, we will go out ourselves and have a look. This waiter INSISTS he must get ice cream. We insist that he does not. And then we leave. And go buy ice cream. And he also goes out and buys ice cream. And then we get back to the hotel to discover he's bought us ice cream and now we have to pay for 2 ice creams even though we specifically told him not to do it. (I mean, in theory we don't have to pay, but if we don't pay it then it probably comes out of his pocket and it's only like a dollar to us so who cares, right?) So we're stuck with all this extra ice cream... could he not have just listened when we said no? Arghhhhh.

Also annoying: I don't understand the tipping culture here. Basically I think because we're foreign and therefore assumed to be rich, we're expected to tip everyone for everything all the time. Probably why people are so overhelpful. But like, I ran out of toilet paper tonight and asked at the front desk, and they sent some to my room. And I didn't tip the guy who brought the toilet paper, but he was staring at me expectantly. It just seemed stupid to tip for something that should be essential, like toilet paper. I mean, I tip the rickshaw/taxi drivers, I tip the restaurant staff, I tip housekeeping for bringing my laundry... but toilet paper? Ummmm. Okay, hotel ranting over. It is dumb stuff to complain about, but this stuff happens several times a day here, and it's making me a bit mental. I'd much rather stay in a crowded hostel than a nice hotel, I've decided.

Other fun facts for today about Bangladesh: I don't think they have postcards here. I have yet to see one. I'll have to send all my postcards from India. However, while Bangladesh is lacking in the postcard department, it is doing extremely well in the avian flu department. Bird flu is apparently all over the place now. The travel warnings on Canada's government site warn against visiting any poultry farms, or playing with chicken feces. Good to know.

Despite all the above negativity, I am actually having a great time over here. Bangladesh isn't the best place for a vacation - it is far too challenging to ever be anything close to relaxing - but it's definitely an adventure. I feel so much more comfortable here than I did two weeks ago. I go out by myself now, take the rickshaws alone, pretend people aren't staring at me everywhere... I've adjusted. Though I will say that the past two weeks have given me an amazing appreciation for Canada which I never had before, haha.

Speaking of Canada, today at the grocery store I found some cheese which has a remarkably similar texture and taste to cheese curds. I will attempt to construct some sort of poutine. Photos to come if I am successful.

chittagong/cox's bazar

This past week we took a train down to the city of Chittagong, which is the hometown of Prof. Muhammad Yunus, to see the origins of Grameen Bank. We visited the very first village where Grameen Bank actually began in the 70s. Even more exciting, we actually went to Prof. Yunus's house and had tea with two of his brothers! We got to interview them for an hour and a half, then his youngest brother took us to their father's jewelry shop and gave us a tour, as well as showed us the building upstairs where Prof. Yunus and his family used to live when he was a kid! We have yet to meet Prof. Yunus himself (though allegedly we might, we are waiting to confirm a meeting, everyone please cross your fingers for us) but his brothers were very friendly! Side story: At the jewelry shop, Micah was being super curious and taking photos of everything, and he made Prof. Yunus's brother open up one of the big safes for us to see inside. Afterwards, Micah wanted to lock up the safe himself, so they let him do it... then they said afterwards that actually nobody outside the family has ever done that before. So Micah is the first person outside of the Yunus family to lock up their jewel safe. Random but cool.

We also visited Prof. Yunus's University and primary school. At the primary school, the kids all went nuts over us and like 40 kids jumped all over each other to be able to shake my hand. I got to feel like a celebrity again. One bad thing about the Chittagong trip: sometimes on the roads here they have a ditch in between the road and the sidewalk. I was running in the dark towards the sidewalk at one point and didn't see this ditch and I fell in it (it was about 5 inches deep) and tripped, and bruised my leg up pretty badly, and tore a bunch of skin off my hand hitting the sidewalk. Owwwww. On the plus side, most of the ditches here are disgusting and wet because men pee in them all the time, but this miraculously was a dry ditch so at least I didn't fall in pee water! (Men pee EVERYWHERE here. Outside is like one big urinal, apparently. Our baby-taxi driver last night got out during a stall in traffic and went to pee in the ditch by the sidewalk. Everyone does it here. Except if you're a girl, you're not allowed. Lame.)

After we finished up in Chittagong, we took a break and went to Cox's Bazar for a day, which is in the south of Bangladesh and is actually the longest sea beach in the world. 136km or something? Maybe more? It was like no beach experience I've ever had before. Firstly, nobody wears a bathing suit here, because I guess that would be indecent. Everyone is fully clothed. (Except Micah, who wanted to get as much sun as possible, decency be damned, haha.) Personally, I preferred to be covered up in the interest of attracting less attention, but it didn't make a difference. We stayed away from the crowds, but people found us anyway. At least 10 people wanted photos with us. Several times the crowds of people got so annoying I had to get up from where I was sitting and run 15 feet away for some space. Nobody seemed to get the idea that we wanted to relax privately. Sometimes in this country I feel like a zoo animal under constant observation. Arghhh.

Perhaps the weirdest part of the beach trip was the elephant. We were just sitting in the sand reading, when along came this elephant. This old man rode the elephant right up to us. The elephant continued to approach after I took the photo, until it was standing a foot away from me. It nearly whacked me with its trunk, at which point I got up and ran away because I had no desire to be that close to an elephant on the beach. But then the old man got irritated because he wanted us to give him money, and I had no money to give him. He wouldn't leave until I got someone to explain to him that we didn't have any money. Which was for the best, because I wouldn't want to give money to some old man for forcibly obstructing my sea view with a sad, mistreated beach elephant.

After all that excitement, we came back to Dhaka. We've spent the last few days trying to arrange a meeting with Prof. Yunus. I would really like to spend my last few days here exploring Dhaka, which we haven't had a chance to do properly because we've been so busy, but it's been difficult because we've been waiting for a response from Grameen and have been stuck hanging around the office. We will be heading out to Calcutta on Thursday or Friday, I think. INDIA!!! I am beyond excited. (Here's hoping I have internet in India... I guess some undersea cables got cut and some places there don't have it? They'll have to fix that before I get there.)

Two random stories about Bangladesh: First - in the middle of Dhaka they have this big military cantonment thingy. Which is basically a long road that passes through a military area, and is a shortcut through the middle of the city. Which is great for everyone, except foreigners are not allowed to pass through it! The reason for this is because we could possibly stumble across national secrets and pass the information on to our governments. Ummmm... right. So, many times our taxis have been turned around and forced to go the long way (adding 20-30 minutes to our trip across town, which takes a good 45-60 mins anyway with traffic) because of this silly rule. It's soooooo irritating. Fortunately, at night we can usually get through, because the hawk-eyed guards can't see so well and we can sneak by. It makes me feel like a badass.

Secondly - Lyndsay wrote a post in her Brazil blog about how everyone in Brazil asks her the same questions, and it reminded me of here... everyone we meet, everyone on the street, says EXACTLY the same things to us. It goes like this: "Hello brother/sister! How are you! What is your country!" And then after that, if we've been trapped into conversation, it proceeds with "Are you married? Do you have children? What is your education?" And anytime I pass a shop, regardless of what it is selling (be it baby clothes, bathroom tiles, dried fish, you name it) someone yells at me "Hello sister! How are you! Please come in!" What I would do with bathroom tiles or dried fish, I have no idea. Mostly I don't mind, but if I am walking down the street, all the rickshaw wallahs yell "Hello sister! Rickshaw!" and chase me down the road, which is frustrating because I just want to walk sometimes. But apparently that's crazy here, because nobody actually walks anywhere. Walking to your destinations makes you weird.

Okay, this post is massive. I am hungry and tired and should sleep. Wait, one more story. Tonight we went to A&W for a cola float (they have A&W but no McDonald's over here!) and it was so posh that there were attendants that actually opened the doors for us as we entered. They have doormen at A&W... whoaaa.

A couple other photos - sunset over the beach at Cox's Bazar, and some workers breaking bricks - they sit on these huge piles all day and just hammer bricks for hours on end. Note the child labour in action... surreal but happens everywhere here.