March 14
As I continue to go through my photos, I
remember other stories I forgot to mention. One of them is that on the drive to
Tank, you pass by the Indus River. I was amazed by how wide that river is. It's
so wide, you almost think you're passing by an ocean or at least a big sea.
It's really impressive. The Indus River valley area was the site of the ancient
Harappa civilisation. Many anthropologists consider the area to be the
birthplace of modern civilisation because the Harappans had sewage systems in
their cities and things like that. I was hoping to be able to see some Harappan
ruins while I was there, but unfortunately, the locations of the ruins are
situated in areas that are too dangerous to tourism at the moment. I was pretty
disappointed because I like to see places that I learned about in anthropology.
Maybe one day, I'll still get to see it. At least I hope!
March 13
I
can't believe I forgot to tell the story about the gardeners! They were so
awesome; to welcome me there, they invited me (and Mom and Asif, of course) to
a formal tea. They had felt embarrassed that they couldn't invite me for
supper, but the tea was really nice. In their culture, their concern was that I
would come back to Canada with bad reports about how no one could even offer me
a cup of tea. It was so sweet. So, being gardeners, they picked a bouquet of
fresh flowers growing at the hospital to decorate the table, and we set up shop
outside Mom and Asif's house. They had tea and snacks and sweets. It was really
yummy. About gardeners in general, I don't know what it is about them, but one
can always get along well with gardeners. I think if I had a choice, it would
be one of the loveliest things to do to work in a garden all day. Of course,
that also includes weeding and cutting grass and things like that, but it's not
really that bad, especially when the product is colourful flora and bright
green foliage.
On
a completely unrelated note, it looks like I'm headed back to India in a
month--for work this time! I don't go for 17 years, and suddenly I'm there
twice in the same year!
March 07
Pakistan is definitely a world
away, especially since the Canada-US Olympic gold medal match has gone into
overtime, and I think the whole country is watching the game, pretty much. It's
so nerve-wracking! In any case, it makes the whole South Asia trip seem like it
was a lifetime ago. By this time, it's already the next day in Pakistan, and
everyone should be sleeping at the moment. Well, by the time I finished writing
that last sentence, Canada scored the winning goal. Wow...it's so exciting! And
yet I think back to that part of the world and remember all the beggars, the
people living in tents and straw huts who sleep on dirt and who will never even
know what an ice hockey game is, let alone dream of skating or anything else.
Well, more on those folks a little later.
I left you at the point at which
Joel and Carol left to return home, and I was going to be off on my journey to
Pakistan. I spent that night at my cousin's place as she lives about a
10-minute drive from the airport. I'm very thankful that she has quite a high
position in the police force that the airports in the region use for security
in them, and that means she will arrange police escorts for her family from
airport to airport--and in my case, airport to country border as well. It helps
to get through the crowds a little faster, and you can go into areas that are
usually restricted, even if it means just getting to the toilet before you have
a boarding pass to get you in the airport to begin with. For security reasons,
only passengers with boarding passes are now allowed into the airport
buildings, so unless you have one, you have say goodbye to your family outside
the airport itself.
So my travel path to get to
Pakistan was to fly to the nearest city, Amritsar, to the only border point
where you are allowed to cross into the other country, the Wagha Border (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagah).
If you're wondering why my spelling differs, I'm not sure that there is an
agreed upon spelling, but when you're at the border, you'll see it spelled
Wagha. Anyway, I just have to say that for those of you who like to nitpick if
I actually make a typo or grammatical error! The border is only 28km from the
Amritsar, so it's not a very far drive to go this route, assuming you have
someone in Lahore, which is practically right on the border in Pakistan, to
pick you up. You may be wondering why I didn't just fly to Pakistan. That would
have been my preferred method of commuting, but it isn't easy to fly between India
and Pakistan. Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is the only airline that
flies between the two countries, but they only fly on Saturdays and Wednesdays,
which I didn't even find out until I was trying to fly back to Delhi to catch
my flight back to Canada. Up to that point, I had thought it wasn't even
possible to fly between the two countries at all.
It's not overly difficult to
cross into Pakistan by land as people do cross between the two countries that
way all the time. It's a little easier when you have someone in the police
helping you go through the process, but even without that, it just takes a
little longer. I also was served tea while I was waiting and people were
running all around me with my passport and what not. When that part was finally
over, I made the walk over to Pakistan and saw my mom and Asif waiting there
for me. Of course, I burst into tears because for me at least, it's such an
emotional experience. Mom and Asif also get to come closer to the border than
most people because Asif has a relative who is a major in the military and who
is actually posted at the border, so I definitely recognise the privilege I
have access to on both sides of the border!
Crossing into Pakistan, I didn't
notice much difference except that everything was in Urdu. Punjab is still
Punjab, no matter what country you're in, the fields are green, and area is
generally wealthier than other regions. And the other thing is that you'll see
a lot more mosques rather than gurudwaras (Sikh temples) or mandirs (Hindu
temples). One thing I did notice, though, is that Lahore itself is a lot
cleaner and more organised than almost any other city in India that I've been
to, aside from Chandigarh. I don't know why that is, but it's just somehow more
organised. The traffic is no better, though. You don't see as much variety of
stuff on the road, especially as there aren't cows just roaming the streets.
But there are lots of donkey-drive carts among all the other vehicles.
We spent just a little time in
Lahore. I didn't really do a lot of sightseeing, just a little shopping and
also got to go see Lahore Fort, which adds to the Mughal forts that I've been
able to visit. I have to say that I was a little disappointed with it because
it's in poor condition. There's garbage in a lot of places, and it just hasn't
been maintained at all. Asif says he really frustrates him that Pakistan
doesn't understand how much of a tourist country they could be if they would
only stop to make a few improvements. Lahore Fort is also a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, actually, but you'd expect it to look better. Still, they have
started on restoration, and Mom said that they've done a lot since she had
visited last year as compared the amount of work done since the first time she
went there in 2003. Hopefully Pakistan will become safe enough some day that
people will get to enjoy it. It's kind of the less-populous way to see India
since there are a lot of similarities between the two countries, but it just
isn't as crowded.
After spending just a couple of
days there, we left for Islamabad where we were to spend only one night just to
break up the long drive back to Tank. We didn't do much there other than eat
and sleep, so I can say that I was there, but I didn't really get to see and do
much.
We left early in the morning for
Tank, stopping only for gas and food. The interesting thing is that Mom and
Asif's car runs on both propane and petrol, and of all the things, there was a
shortage on both that day. Apparently the government rations gas from time to
time in order to jack up the price from time to time. That meant we had to stop
at almost all the gas stations along the way, which made the trip longer than
it should have been. Why that's really significant, aside from a person just
getting tired from the trip, is that we actually had to get to Tank by 6pm
because after that, they close off access to the city due to a curfew that's in
place. We actually barely made it, and we figure it's only by the grace of God
that we were still able to get through despite crossing the gate just minutes
after 6pm. If you don't make it in time, you have to spend the night in your
car or go back to the nearest city, DI Khan, and find somewhere there to spend
the night. Thankfully, we didn't have to do that, but it was a little
nerve-wracking until we were safely through. I should mention that going
through smaller towns in Pakistan, you notice a difference from the big cities
at restaurants. In the larger cities, you can walk about with little thought to
covering your head, but in the smaller cities and towns, you need to cover your
head, and they also put up a curtain or divider of some kind so that men don't
look at you while you eat.
One of the fun experiences
driving to Tank, however, is a mountain range you have to pass through. I
wouldn't really describe it as a narrow, windy, mountain road, just a regular
2-lane highway, but even still, it's not difficult for it to get bottlenecked
when giant trucks that are overloaded with cargo try to pass each other on roads
only to find that there is oncoming traffic preventing anyone from going any
further. So these types of things also slow down the trip, as well as the many
trucks carry wide loads of sugar cane that will scratch your vehicle if you get
too close to them when you pass them. It's quite the adventure!
When I arrived at the hospital
compound where my mom and Asif live, the first thing I noticed was the intense
noise from chattering birds. There is quite a population of egrets in the area,
and they do make a lot of noise! Once arriving at the hospital, my stay there
was pretty uneventful for the most part. Mom had wanted me to help her revise a
grant proposal, so I worked on that by morning, and then she took the
afternoons off so we could bake or just enjoy each other's company. I got to
learn about some of the issues facing the hospital, such as the number of
internally displaced persons in the region who are trying to access the
hospital's services but who are turned away at security checkpoints after
curfew. Women in labour have lost their babies this way, and I'm not sure what
other results have transpired, but even still, it's a sad situation. While in
Tank, we did take a day to drive to DI Khan for some shopping. The markets
there are similar to Jalandhar, not quite as narrow, but still smaller roads
with all kinds of shops. That day, we had to have a police escort, which is a
normal situation in that area. One of the officers that's posted at the
hospital came with us. It's kind of funny to have a guy wielding an AK-47
telling people to get out of the way. Well, while we were eating lunch, he had
to go to do his afternoon prayers at the mosque and could hardly bring his gun
with him, so he left it with us, which was a great time for us--namely me--to
be able to take photos while holding it!
Another thing I should also
mention is about the internally displace persons. You'll see some straw huts in
a couple of my photos, and that's where they live. They have come from
Waziristan further south due to the violence from the big push in the region by
the Pakistani military. It just saddens me that, like those tents in India,
kids could potentially be born, raised, live, and die in those places, never
having a chance to go to school or access any of the basic rights that so many
of us enjoy. It makes me really sad.
My stay in Tank was more
relaxing, which was fine because I think if it had been too packed, I would
have come home even more tired than I was. Although I would have been happy to
travel for longer, I didn't feel that I needed a vacation after my vacation,
which is how it should be. My drive back to Lahore for my flight home was less
eventful, although at first, we found out there was a curfew for some unknown
reason that would last from 7am-7pm of the day were were leaving, meaning we'd
have to leave the area before that if we wanted to get out. But when the local
military commander learned it would be Asif on the road, he allowed us to leave
later but with a police escort. That was mildly inconvenient, though, as we had
to wait at the end of the jurisdiction for the first convoy we had for quite
some time, but I actually think it's great that the local military and police
feel the need to protect people working at the hospital like that. And it
certainly could have been worse. They could have said we can't be on the road
at all, and then I would have been toast because that would have caused me to
miss my flight home! The only thing is that with each police vehicle we met, we
had more and more lights on them, so people were really looking at us as we
were driving along, but what can you do. I was able to sneak a few photos of
them here and there, so you can see guys with their AK-47s and flak jackets.
One thing I can say is that these are no pansy pistols the police carry around!
hehehe
Once we arrived in Lahore, we
stayed there for one more day, and then I had to go back to the border. My
cousin wasn't able to arrange anyone to meet me on the India side this time,
but I knew I'd be able to take a taxi. It was a teary goodbye just because I
wasn't sure if I'd see my mom again before her and Asif's planned return home
next summer, but I couldn't allow myself to cry for too long because I had to
pay attention to getting myself across the border again. I found out I'd need
to get a special registration to get back to India. Apparently, even if you
have a multiple entry visa, you're not supposed to re-enter the country sooner
than 2 months after you leave or else you need to get permission to re-enter.
Thankfully I had enough time to go to some immigration office I had to get to
in order to get this registration, but still, I wasn't expecting it. When I got
to that office, the guy filling in my registration asked me if I had a photo,
which of course I didn't have because I didn't even know about this
registration thing, let alone needing a photo for it. I was so thankful they
decided it was ok to use a photocopy of my passport photo, so they guy pasted
that, and then he told me that the FRRO, the person who had to sign the ok for
my re-entry, wanted to see me. I started freaking out with a million thoughts
running through my head, thinking he was going to want to know why I was in
Pakistan and what I did there or who knows what else. I walked into his office
sheepishly, and as soon as I popped my head in, he asked me if I was Harpreet's
sister, and when I confirmed this, he told me he was her classmate at police
school and that he had been expecting me! Apparently my cousin had told me I'd
be coming there. I have no idea how that all transpired, but I was so relieved.
Of course, he signed my papers and had just really wanted to say hi and meet
me!
The rest of my trip was spent in
airports, and of all the things, I actually ran into someone I know at the
Delhi airport! I've tried to convince people that I don't actually know
everyone everywhere I go, but I can't even convince myself now. I thought the
one time was funny when I ran into 2 former students of mine at the airport in
Chicago, but this really takes the cake being on the other side of the world.
It was a lady I used to work with who is also Indian, but really, what are the
chances of being on the same flight out of India?! In any case, I can't say I
was fully happy to be home. I really just need to come into a pile of money
that I can live off the rest of my life so I can continue to travel and do
volunteer work while I travel. It would be so great! Then I could be a nomad
without being a poor, wayfaring stranger!
February 27
Just a quick
note that some of the photos are blurry because they were taken through windows
on bumpy roads. Unfortunately, that tended to be my main location from which to
take photos: from a bus or car window while on the road. Just so you know I'm
not a terrible photographer!
Well, I know you've all been
waiting for it, so here are the pictures. I have so many of them, though, that
I will have to post them in batches, partly because Windows Live Space is
really slow for posting these days. I can only post them 5 at a time, and I
think I have a few hundred to post! So if they're not all there right away, please
be patient with me. It's lucky I even got a few posted--I've let my apartment
stay a mess working all day on going through my photos.
Anyway, my trip to India was
really great. I hadn't been there in 17 years, nor had I seen my family there
or even spoken to them in all that time! So it was a valuable time of
re-connecting.
The weather in Punjab was
somewhat dreadful, at least for the first few days. My flight from Toronto was
even delayed by 4 hours as it was coming from Delhi, and there had been such severe
fog there that many flights and been delayed or cancelled. Considering how
dense the fog was when we finally left the airport--so dense it seemed that the
fog was emanating from the road--that I think I should have been thankful to
arrive at all! My reunion with my family was also an opportunity to reunite
with my friend Joel and meet his sister Carol, who joined me for the India
portion of my trip. All told, we spent a couple of weeks in India staying with
family in various cities, except for the short road trip we took where we
stayed for a couple of nights in hotels.
After recuperating from the long
journey to Delhi for a couple of days, we left for Jalandhar, my dad's home
town. The problem with our ability to get there was that the trains were not
running normally due to the fog. Apparently there had already been 2 severe
train crashes as a result of the fog, so many train rides were being cancelled
as well, and we were forced to take the bus. We were told that the bus ride was
only about an hour longer than the train ride, so we were expecting to be on
the bus for only about 7 hours at the most. And by no means was it a
comfortable bus ride. We weren't able to get a first class or luxury bus for
the time we wanted to leave, so we ended up on the Punbus, which is not quite
the chicken bus, but it was almost as bad. We were squished next to people who
were standing as there wasn't space for them to sit. Luckily for them, they
weren't going the full distance that we were, because I can't imagine standing
on the bus for hours on end! I felt badly for Carol because the man she was
sitting next to kept horking out the window every half hour or so. It's normal
to do that in India; I mean, people spit stuff out the window all the time.
It's not that I have a problem with it; it's just horrifying when you are so
close to the action! The good thing about the Punbus, though, is that at least
the ticket is cheap! It cost the equivalent of about $2 for the fare. Here at
home, it costs me $2.75 for an individual fare on the city bus, so it's quite
the bargain!
When we arrived in Jalandhar, 8.5
hours later, we were quite exhausted. My first task at hand, though, was to
phone my uncle so he could come pick us up. I walked around for a while looking
for a phone booth, but it turns out they don't have phone booths like we have
in Canada. You go into a shop and pay as you go. It took me a while to figure
that out; I had to ask people for help, and still I was lost, and then
eventually I saw a shop that appeared to be selling phones, so I went in and
then saw that there were prices listed on the phones there, depending on
whether it was a local or international phone. I'm thankful that so many people
speak English in India. If there had been a huge language barrier, I would have
been toast! In any case, I called my uncle, who was surprised we got there so
early. Early?? We thought we were so late! Turns out that bus trip is normally
10 hours; we had been led to believe differently, so in the end, I was thankful
that we arrived after only 8.5 hours!
We stayed in Jalandhar for just 2
full days. While we were there, we were quite cold, for one thing. The fog
prevented the sun from warming up the surface. My uncle said he hadn't seen fog
like that in all his 70+ years of life, 23 consecutive days of it. It was
crazy. Still, we managed to drive out to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmandir_Sahib).
For some reason, the hyperlink function isn't working on the blog today, so
I'll have to just include the links by pasting them here instead. I actually
didn't take too many pictures there because I had been there before 2 times,
but I'm waiting for a few of the great photos that Joel took that he's sending
me by snail mail, and then I will post those. We also went to a place nearby,
the name of which escapes me, but it's significant because basically the Brits
opened fired on hundreds of innocent people and killed about 600 of them or so.
It had something to do with Gandhi, too, but I can't remember the whole story
just now. Terrible and shameful that I don't remember, I know, but what can I
do. On the way back from Amritsar, my uncled decided to crash a wedding to show
Joel what weddings were like. That wasn't quite the answer Joel was expecting
when he asked my uncle about how weddings are in India, but it was quite
entertaining. Joel and Carol got their photos taken with the bride and groom,
and the photographer even shooed some lady out of the scene just to have Carol
and Joel be alone with the bride and groom in the photo. It was hilarious. Some
guy there recognised my uncle, despite the fact we were in the middle of
nowhere off the highway, and it turned out that guy was the father of the groom
and invited us to stay for food and everything! We didn't do that, but I can't
imagine the reaction of the new couple when they see their photos. It should be
quite the thing!
The next day, we just relaxed on
the rooftop of my uncle and aunt's house. My uncle ended up having to go to a
funeral, unfortunately, so we couldn't go anywhere, but it was ok because we
just relaxed and enjoyed the first day the sunshine was out. When my uncle got
back we went to the market for a bit of shopping. I like Jalandhar because even
though it's a big city--it even has malls now--it still feels like a
traditional old city with less-commercialised markets and restaurants, meaning
they're also less expensive! Of course, these days, they have McDonalds and
Benetton and Pizza Hut and other American stores and restaurants, but it
doesn't ruin the charm of the city, at least not for me.
The next city we went to was
Chandigarh. We also had to take the Punbus there, but the trip was much
shorter, and we got there early enough to get a good seat where we were
comfortable and could all sit together. That city is the capital of both Punjab
and Haryana, and it's an interesting city because it was designed by a French
architect, and it's really the only city of the few I've been to in India that
actually has controlled traffic and is fairly clean and organised for the most
part. I've always felt quite comfortable here, but that's partly because it's
the closest to a Western city, so it's the closest you can feel to home on the
other side of the world. We didn't end up doing much there as we spent a lot of
time talking with my cousin and visiting with her, but we did manage to get to
the Rock Garden, which is a park that contains sculptures made with stones,
broken ceramics/dishes, and broken plastic bangles. It's a really interesting
site, and there was a new section with large mosaics, so I was happy to see
that since I'd been there twice before as well. Of course, even if there hadn't
been any new sections, it would have been fun to go to anyway since Joel and
Carol hadn't been there, and it's always fun to take someone somewhere when
it's their first time because it makes everything new for you as well. At least
that happens to me. While we were in Chandigarh, we also spent our last night
there booking our road trip so we could go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal and to
Jaipur, where I had wanted to go for a while because I knew that it was a city
of palaces where many maharajas had lived. We were able to book a vehicle with
a driver, so it was nicer than having to take a tour bus, although you do meet
fun people from other countries on those tours. Anyway, our driver was a
Nepalese guy with minimal English but enough to get by, and he knew the
highways, but unfortunately, didn't know enough about the cities we were going
to or the attractions, so we always got lost at first when trying to find our
hotels, and we also ended up getting taken advantage of by people claiming to
be tour guides and giving us false information. Well, sometimes these things
happen. It was on that trip that I definitely wished my dad would have been
there to tell those people to get lost, but what can you do! Furthermore, when
you only speak English, it's hard to really be able to communicate with a lot
of these people, or at least as effectively as when you can tell them off in
Hindi or Punjabi.
I had been to the Taj Mahal the
last time I was in India, and not much has changed, I'm happy to say, although
I did notice that people had etched their names into marble, the "Johnny
loves Sally" kind of stuff. I find it appalling that people would deface
the Taj Mahal. We did learn that in order to protect the the site, though, all
the housing around the area is going to be bulldozed, and they're going to surround
the Taj Mahal with parkland. It will be interesting to go back and see that.
We stopped briefly in Fatehpur
Sikri in order to see the sites there, as there are some interesting mosques
and stuff, but we really didn't like the tour guide that fleeced us there and
just wanted to get away, so we saw one mosque, and that was it.
Next, we were on our way to
Jaipur. We arrived at night so didn't do anything but watch TV and go to sleep.
The next day, though, the driver had arranged for an actual tour guide for us,
so it was a great way to see Jaipur having a local expert who was legitimate.
He took us to Jantar Mantar (http://www.jantarmantar.org/) , which is an
ancient observatory. We saw the City Palace and Amber Fort as well as took and
elephant ride and saw a snake charmer! It was pretty cool. Jaipur is as
beautiful as I had hoped. It's called the Pink City because the older part is
painted this pinkish-terra cotta colour, and all buildings must be painted that
way according to law. We also learned that it's the only other city besides
Chandigarh that was actually a planned city, although in the case of Jaipur, it
was organised according to caste. What that means is that the city was
organised in sections such that your caste determined in what section of the
city you would live. It would have been nice to spend more time in Rajasthan
generally. There is a lot to see and in other cities as well. It's also a state
where you notice camels being used as the primary beast of burden rather than
water buffalo or cattle. Sadly, I didn't get many good quality photos of the
camels, but I think that Joel did, so once I get his photos, I might be able to
post some.
After that day in Jaipur, we had
to make our way back to Delhi for Joel and Carol's flight home a couple of days
later. By that time, Joel and I had got sick from eating the wrong things at a
road-side restaurant (up until that point, we had been eating at them without
consequence), so we were just as happy to spend a couple of nights with my
cousin in Gurgaon, just outside of Delhi, which is a modern area with a lot of
malls and ex-pats. My cousin herself is an ex-pat as she is Malaysian, and she
made Malaysian food for us while we were there, which was an excellent treat. I
was only sad that I couldn't eat more because my stomach wasn't handling food
too well, although I've definitely had worse bouts than what I had at that
time. We basically just relaxed the rest of the time there, and at last, Joel
and Carol had to return home, and I myself was leaving for Pakistan the next
day. But that trip is saved for the next entry!
