New continent, new approach-- Introducing the Rewind

Well, time plods along and I find myself through the Middle East and onto Greece. And yet this blog has stalled. I've been able to get my journaling habits back to speed, but this additional (and more public) offshoot has been dead in the water.

I'm in Europe now, exploring the Greek islands at the outset of the last leg of my trip. More and more I feel overwhelmed about the amount there is to tell all of you while I'm traveling, and these past few weeks that's mean blogging paralysis, to be very honest. So, at the recommendation of a trusted reader, I am introducing another new feature on this blog-- REWIND. I intend to give you the brief highlights of each of the countries I've yet to share with you, and some choice pictures as well. I intend these features as a way to catch readers up and to give what I hope is a tantalizing taste of what will come once I finish my trip and find myself back in the states-- full-length, full-detail entries, great stories, lots of photos. In this way I'll be able to continue in present tense without feeling torn on both ends.

Enjoy!

A quick word from Indira Ghandi International Airport-- Definitely Doing It Again

When my friend Ali got back from India her first trip she told me that she had met other travellers who claimed that "I-N-D-I-A" stands for I'm Never Doing It Again. Well, it hasn't been easy (although of course I never expected that) and in some ways, specifically having to do with time limits, it was disappointing-- these are factors that I will look forward to exploring in future entries. But it was fascinating, too, vibrant and beautiful and utterly different. I participated in a wedding, I saw the Ganga Arati in Haridwar (a ritual for goddess Ganga of the river involving thousands of people), I bathed fully clothed in the Ganges, I took a 22 hour jeep ride through remote Jammu & Kashmir, and I visited a stunningly beautiful lake 2/3 of which is in Tibet. 

I can't wait to tell (and show) all of it to you. And I will definitely be coming back, wiser than I was and for longer than I had this time.

For now I have an hour to kill until my flight to Amman, Jordan. After 4 months I am leaving Asia and moving west to something entirely different. As always, a new adventure awaits.

Meet Appy Fizz (Say What?: India Edition)

Dedicated readers of this blog will remember the entry in which I faithfully recreated the label of a local New Zealand soft drink called Lemon and Paeroa (sadly, given the recent downfalls of this blog, you may still be able to see said entry on the front page, despite my having drunk the L&P almost three months ago.) Here in India I recently came across another interesting soft drink, this one by the name of Appy Fizz (a faux-sparkling apple cider sort of thing.) Although this one isn't quite so packed full of local slang, it's still an interesting look into English-language advertising in India. (To make sure this wasn't an import I scrutinized the bottle until I found a little product stamp that reads "Refresh India" and a blurb below the nutrition facts that states that the drink was manufactured in a small village in Haryana state.)

And I quote:
"The Apple of my I
Hi, I present to you the new + evolved Appy Fizz. Cooler than ever before. And even more good looking in a swanky new branded label. Made with the finest handpicked apples, it's a favourite of the cool. So let's bring out the ice and party on! - Cheers, A.F.

I LIKE Weekends, blind dates, and being a superstar (in front of my mirror).
I DISLIKE Bouncers, teleshopping, and scripted reality shows.
MY FAV ONELINERS Party makes man perfect
MY ADDRESS Your refrigerator
CAUSE, IT'S COOL!
Save Trees: Without trees, there'd be no hammocks, no film stars running around them, no gravity + I wouldn't have been discovered either. So, plant trees, get breeze.
Let's meet at [appy fizz website] and take this further."

I think that last part is the best/oddest.

Food for thought

Here in Manali, in the north of Himachal Pradesh state, India, I have been taking a few days off to enjoy the mountain views and ready myself for a trip into Kashmir-- I leave for a 20-hour jeep ride tonight at 2:30 am. One thing I have been doing to relax is watching episodes of "Long Way Down" on YouTube. It's a series about Ewan MacGregor (the movie star) and his best friend riding their motorcycles from north Scotland to the tip of South Africa. The series is a sequel to "Long Way Around," in which they rode their motorcycles from London to New York City going east through all of north central Asia, a series I watched as part of my mental preparation for this trip.

Anyway, in the episode I am currently enjoying, Ewan is mentally preparing to cross into Africa the next day for the next leg of his trip, and he said something useful to those of us engaged in long-term travel:
"
"I embarked on this journey in complete excitement about Africa and then was scared by several people who we met or encountered through our prep who scared the bejeezus out of us. And then I've realized: if that's the case you shouldn't go. Either you do it, or you don't go. You know? And then you have to give yourself into it, take it as it comes. And if there's scary things that happen, there are scary things that happen. And that's why you're out there in a sense. You're out there for adventure, and it becomes a question of how you deal with the situation you're in. You can't control what's going to happen. And the whole point is that you're out to let what happens happen, that's why youre here. If you knew it was going to be a safe and smooth passage, would there be any point doing it?"

Another travel philosophy to tuck away beside the "killer octopus" theory. Quite useful to those of us who tend toward travel anxieties.

FLASHBACK-- Napier, NZ: What decade is it, anyway?

As I mentioned in a previous entry, the format of this blog is changing. From now on I will be simultaneously writing about what I'm doing in the present (and where I'm doing it), as well as occasionally presenting forays into the missing 3+ months of travel this blog has yet to cover. This is the first of the FLASHBACK entries I promised.

Late February (approximately February 20)--

When we left off in New Zealand, I had just decided to take the riskier option for my travels through the North Island toward Auckland. The relatively remote region of East Cape had caught my attention when the G family, with whom I'd stayed in Nelson, recommended it to me. When I did more research, the appeal only grew: the region boasted rich Maori culture unspoiled by the crass tourism ventures that pop up in larger North Island communities such as Rotorua; it also was one of the most stunning areas on the island, and in New Zealand that's saying something. The cape was large, however, and not well-serviced by tourist busses. I wasn't sure I could make the trip alone.

Enter couchsurfing, my longtime savior. Heikki, a Finnish Kiwi expat who went by the name Henry, posted on a New Zealand message board looking for someone to accompany him on a campervan trip around East Cape. I hemmed and hawed-- although Henry had all positive recommendations on his couchsurfing profile, he was still a strange, older man, and the situation had obvious inherent risks. But after several telephone conversations with Henry, as well as consultations with my parents and friends, I decided to take the plunge. He was waiting in Napier, a city about 6 hours north of Wellington by bus. Leaving the comfort of Moira's home behind, I rode north into a multi-day adventure.

As it turned out, I had very little to worry about. Henry was completely non-threatening, a recovering paraplegic whose enormous inner strength had brought him back to walking with canes when doctors said it was impossible. Really, he only posed a threat when it came to my peace of mind--he was mildly anti-Semitic, mildly homophobic, and generally a little bit of a jerk. But as traveling companions we got on reasonably well, and in the end the places his campervan took me were well worth the effort it took to steer clear of the necessary topics...

I knew little to nothing about Napier when I arrived. I didn't know, for example, that the entire town was leveled in an earthquake in the early 1930s and had therefore been rebuilt completely in that era's current style, art deco. Napier is therefore, among some circles, known as the art deco capital of the world. It might have been useful for me to know this beforehand, but my ignorance made arriving to find the annual Napier Art Deco festival about to begin even more delightful.

For one weekend every year, people from all over New Zealand and beyond--possibly everyone in the southern hemisphere who owns an antique car-- converge on Napier for four days of old-fashioned (in every sense of the phrase) fun. There are big band concerts, barbershop quartet performances, antique car parades, and costume contests. For yes, celebrants get into the spirit by getting out their best flapper dresses and bowler hats, completing the transformation of the town into its last-century self.

I arrived in Napier from rainy Wellington to find the weather clear and a jazz band playing in the old-timey band shell. I spent the night in Henry's camper van (the rest of the nights on our trip he slept outside in his camping hammock) with no incident and the next morning was taken up wandering the town admiring the lovely architecture, coming across such fun surprises as corner girls' choruses, morris dancers, and a restored steam engine, and doing some fantastic people watching.

I think some photos would give you a better idea of the atmosphere than anything else. So without further ado:

An outdoor jazz brunch

These pictures really beg the question: what decade is it, anyway? Switch them to black and white and I don't think you could be sure

Art Deco at its best

Barbershop stylings on the sidewalk

The antique car parade

Waiting to be judged at the costume contest
I think this one might be my favorite

The sun was shining intensely on Hawke's Bay as I finished my morning wander and caught up with Henry in the parking lot where we'd camped for the night. He was ready with maps, and we set out on the first leg of our tour around East Cape, heading for what many consider to be the easternmost city in the world-- Gisborne.

A quick word from Dehra Dun

Only a moment to spare here in Dehra Dun, a largeish city in Uttarakhand state north of Delhi.

I spent all last night at a traditional Indian wedding. It lasted until 4:30 AM-- I lasted until shortly before that. There was a procession through the streets complete with marching band, drums, and pony cart; lots of food; lots of beautiful women in gorgeous saris (both families had backgrounds in Rajasthan, where the clothing is especially elaborate); lots of interesting rituals lasting far into the night. It was nothing short of stunning. Pictures and details to come.

Marigolds and a tricycle: Delhi first impressions

When I arrived in Delhi last night a little before 8 PM the back-of-seat screens in the airplane said the outside air temperature was 37 C, or about 98 F. It is the height of the hot seasons here. The plane was filled with saris, salwar, turbans. I counted three other Caucasians, which was interesting because the "foreign passport holders" line was quite long. We all stumbled off the plane together, through security and an H1N1 check. I waited 45 minutes for my bag, which had been (thoughtfully, I guess) taken off the plane as a "priority" and placed to the side without my knowledge. 

"Trying to confuse you as pleasantly as possible--that's India," said Faith, an old friend I'm staying with here in Delhi. She didn't say this until an hour after I'd landed, though, when we had gotten into a cab that looked like it had been produced around 1968--all rusting navy body and rounded bumpers. I had emerged from the baggage claim to a forest of waving "WELCOME _____" name cards, but there were no blonde curls to be seen. I panicked: Faith and I hadn't set up a meeting plan because the airlines were jerking me around until only an hour before I left for the Hong Kong airport. What's more, I somehow also had neither her phone number nor her address. It was all my fears about arrival in India come to life, but I managed to hold my cool. I got some money; I borrowed a cab driver's cell phone and shamefacedly called the mother of a good friend of mine, who lives in Delhi. But before I had to slink, deeply embarassed, to her house for the night, I saw Faith waving her pale arms out one of the exits. She had sent me an e-mail, too late, telling me that you have to pay to greet guests inside the airport.  

We drove for a half hour through the hot, dusty night to south Delhi, "where all the film stars and politicians keep homes." Faith and her boyfriend, Alim, live there, in a one-room apartment with terrace and open kitchen, simple and small but comfortable. He prepared a late dinner and we drifted off to sleep to the hum of the air cooler, a machine that uses hay, water, and fans to cool the air in a room.

The walk to work this morning, an anti-AIDs/drugs NGO, was a revelation in itself. Everything was new. The women, almost every one in bright saris, taking a morning constitutional or collecting mud in baskets on their heads. The children, playing in the streets-- one particularly bright image a small boy, thin and lithe, on a dustry tricycle with a chain of marigolds around his neck. A cow, as big is our rickshaw, trotting between cars. A pony cart carrying farmers and produce into the city. 

We've spent the morning at the NGO office, drinking chai and trying to plan what has become a distressingly short trip here (what was originally planned between 25-30 days now has to be 18 because of my visa expiration.) For lunch we went upstairs to the rehab, where the patients (all men) greeted Faith genially or slept on their cots in the heat, and ate dahl and rice with our hands. (Okay, they gave me a spoon. One step at a time.) It's only 2 PM, but this morning has already been plenty of education. And this afternoon: Old Delhi.