What am I doing here? In India. At the Taj Mahal Hotel. Drinking a gin and tonic. Like a grown up. This should not be possible. I am from Yakima, Washington. On the other hand in the years I have been writing these little travel logs I have been to lots of far flung places, somey of them not even in Hawaii. This place is by far the most remote and exotic destination however.
My travel stories. It seems like each one starts with me needing to escape from some drama and getting on a plane. We’ll do the same here:
For the first time in two years I was not drinking alcohol at one of our work happy hours and yet I still managed to dump an entire glass of fizzy water into a printer, only to get busted by a certain director in front of 30 people as I was trying to hightail it out of there without getting caught.
Then I dropped a large bottle of olive oil on the floor in the cafeteria just before the height of lunch hour, sending shards of glass and slippery oil all over the floor, salads, soup, my pants, and shoes. Facilities declared their first ever Severity 1 Emergency and cell phone cameras caught all the drama as women in high heeled shoes tumbled to their doom.
Then on the day before leaving I learned my non-English speaking neighbors have Black Death Mold growing on the common wall we share.
Then the night before leaving I lost my passport, creating screaming high drama at work, pulling in the foundation’s security team, only to find it an hour later, stuck in my back hair.
Then the morning before leaving, my newish iMac computer died, leaving me unable to print my boarding passes.
Then just two hours before leaving, my washing machine flooded the floor of my laundry room. This after my new dishwasher quit drying dishes and one of the burners on my new stove quit working.
Then I got to the airport and spilled Balsamic vinaigrette down the front of the white shirt that I would need to wear for the next 24 hours.
Then I left my work phone on the table of the restaurant where I was eating the stupid salad.
Yep, time to leave the country.
.............
In the last several weeks I have been very nervous about British Airways’ proposed route from London to Delhi. Their flight plan indicates that we will fly over all the worst places: the Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I am against this.
I have been corresponding with BA, proposing alternate routes for them to use while I am on their airplane. By corresponding I mean I have been writing them. They do not write back.
As I said, the current flight plan’s direct route flies over all the world’s worst places and takes 9 hours. I boo this choice.
As a thoughtful compromise I proposed a new southern route which would take us down over France and Spain to northern Africa and then over Saudi Arabia and the UAE to India. This takes 18 hours and still flies over some bad places.
My preferred route takes us out over the Atlantic to America, then over the Pacific, with a possible spa break on Maui, then to Asia, wisely skipping Malaysia, and then on to Delhi. It is only 37 hours nonstop, 41 hours with a spa break in Maui. Yes, we would be flying over annoying parts of Canada, but just for a little while.
As I said, BA has not been super responsive to my proposals.
What else? Oh, the shots. I had to go in for a travel medical checkup. They made me get shots for Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Typhoid, a stern lecture about looking both ways before crossing foreign streets, not going outside without proper mosquito spray, what not to eat and drink, and who not to have sex with. I left like I was Catholic again.
They also gave me a prescription for Ambien, “To help with the jet lag.” It was recommended that I try one before I leave so that I can learn if I might have an adverse reaction to the drug. I took one on a Sunday night. Around 3AM I posted on Facebook that I was naked on my iPhone from the middle of I-5. I do not remember writing that post. Nor do I remember driving to work the next morning, nor any of the meetings I was in before 11:00AM. When I left work that day I could not find my car. I am not taking Ambien ever again.
I also had to get an Indian Visa. What a pain that was. I had to get my photo taken (the Jabba The Hutt resemblance is unmistakable), then I had to fill out nine pages of paperwork, only to have it sent back -- by the Indian Government -- because I spelled my own name wrong. I had to start all over, then it came back again because I had signed my name too big and my signature extended outside of the little box it was supposed to fit it into. It took five tries for me to sign my name in that little box.
.........
Now I am in business class on the top floor of a 747 drinking champagne and flying to London. God, it felt so good to type those words just now. I do have to note however that sitting upstairs on this plane means that I do not get to make eye contact with the poor as they make that long, long, long walk of shame to the back of the plane. I miss it, the eye contact, with the poor.
You will recall my albino nut poem from the flight to Rome last year:
Un-roast-ed
Un-salt-ed Un-love-ed
Then stewardess hands me a card saying that as a valued Club World Member I am entitled to following things at terminal 5 in Heathrow:
- Access to the hydrotherapy area
- A freshly prepared breakfast Cabanas – with infinity bathrooms
- Spa treatments
- Suit pressing services
- Unlimited free wi-fi
- Access to the latest news
I do not know what an infinity bathroom is but I know I must experience it.
As America fades away behind me like an olive oil stain, I think about Texan Ebola, Black Death Mold, and the 2015 budget at work. I really do need to get away to some place far, far away. Some place safe and calming. Like the capital of India? Probably not. Plus the pending missile attacks due to our direct flight path from London to Delhi ….
I need more champagne.
.........
We are way, way into Canada now. There is an orange / purple glow in the sky. British Airways has somehow decided that I am a Vegan, so I get to eat chilled asparagus, a chopped cucumber dusted with dill, and some kale splashed with olive oil. I hate olive oil! I would have been upset except for this amazing Pouilly-Fumé. I sip Pouilly and watch Maleficent. Angelina is awesome.
.........
Up in the air over Belgium now. Heathrow was fine. Quick and easy. The BA Business Class lounge was huge and nice. But I saw no evidence of hydrotherapy, infinity bathrooms, or spa treatments. The co-workers would not go to eat at Wagamama or try Oysters at the Russian caviar bar because they are really boring they wanted to eat something healthy like fruit smoothies with pearls of green sea algae mixed in. They ended up eating faux Egg McMuffins with brown sauce in the BA lounge as I drank champagne.
Leaving them to their faux McMuffins I left to buy Rupees at a currency exchange counter. This proper British woman informed me that it is illegal to bring Rupees into India, but she was happy to sell me 8000 of them anyway. I feel like a spy.
We had to take one of those shuttle buses out to our plane. Some horrible jackass American, clearly from Texas, was screaming at the shuttle bus workers for no good reason. I just cringed and tried to look Canadian.
En route to Delhi I discover that the forced Vegan airplane diet food on this leg of my journey is not quite as vile as the first one. Lettuce and dill dusted cucumber of course, but also some roasted eggplant with some nice Indian spices.
I am wondering when our plane will be shot down. Probably not right now as we are over Austria.
I switch to coffee so I can stay vigilant. Soon we are approaching Bucharest, Romania. This makes me think of vampires and I remember that I brought along this ultraviolet light-emitting device that purifies drinking water…and also kills vampires. This will come in handy if we are shot down right now. But no, there are no missiles. Soon we are out over the Black Sea. Black Sea makes me thing of Black Death Mold growing next door to my house and I switch back to wine.
Ever so slowly we fly over Turkistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan. My face is glued to the window so I can be the first to see the coming missiles. I do see a lot of orange flashes in the distance. Missile launchers? Or maybe lightning.....
.............
I have been up for 30 over hours now and I feel very strange. I am thinking that I will vote Republican in next election just to try something new. Girls can’t really be as bad at kissing as I remember, can they? I miss eating red meat.
God. Maybe I will get back to normal after some sleep.
..........
Well, here we are. Un-shot-down. The Delhi airport is nice. It is new, pretty, clean, and easy to get around in. Giant yoga hands on the wall greet you as you go through immigration.
Then you go outside.
There are thousands of drivers holding signs. There is a weird foggy haze. I can’t tell if it is car exhaust, smog, or burning garbage. It does not smell like any of those things…weirdly barnyard sweet. Poo? Poo.
There is a crazy din of honking horns. It feels like I am in Blade Runner.
Our driver grunts and is not happy. He drives like a lunatic. Look, I was in Naples last year, I know what crazy drivers are like. This place is beyond nuts. No one uses lanes, they use their high beams to make people get out of their way, they tailgate, don’t use blinkers. Little tiny green and yellow cabs on the freeway are going slow as big cars zoom past. Lots of little green and yellow cabs are crushed and abandoned on the side of the freeway.
Thirty minutes of abject terror and then we arrive at the hotel, The Taj Mahal at Number One Mansingh Road. It is crazy posh. You have to go through a hand carved mahogany metal detector and have your bags scanned. Kind of hot guys dressed like Mughal warriors greet you and say “Namaste”.
Equally hot guys have desks in the lobby where you sit down so then can check you in. Then they walk you up to your top floor hotel suite to show you the room. My guy, Vivek, is really pretty. I have never seen anyone this attrative so I am all flustered when trying to give him a tip. I just give him all 8000 of my Rupees. Namaste.
It’s now after 2am Delhi time. I have been up for like 40 hours but I cannot sleep. It’s Saturday afternoon back home which means it’s time to listen to Anne Litt streaming live on KCRW. I try to send an email to say “Hi!” from India and ask if she is a bad kisser, but thankfully my email does not go through.
At 3AM I decide to take a bath. After I have thoroughly cleaned the water with my ultraviolet light vampire device, I soak in the giant tub and listen to Anne Litt. This does not suck that much.
Finally around 4am I start to doze off…..
At 8AM I am back up. The view from my top floor hotel suite is hazy. A poo-y haze. After some work and a shower I head downstairs to meet my coworkers for breakfast. In the lobby the employees all say “Hello Mr. Masters. Hee, hee!” “Good morning Mr. Masters. Ha, ha!” Again? This happens to me in Hawaii a lot too. Why do people always think my last name is so fricking funny? I feel like stopping in the giant lobby and screaming “Listen! I did not pick this last name. I know it reminds you of the British colonialist past. But I am not that old, I am not British, I am an American and I am here to tip well. Do not laugh at me.”
Instead I just go get breakfast.
The breakfast buffet is mostly Indian food and quite awesome. Even the coffee is really good.
Then we find driver and head over to Chandri Chowk, a neighborhood in old Delhi that is a crazy mix of shops, rickshaws, cars, blowing horns, and goats. This is crazy intense India. Busy, hot, stinky, dirty, and awesome.
We park at The Red Fort, which is a…red fort. Walking over to the market area we see a lot of wild dogs. My guide books say to avoid the packs of vicious wild dogs, but these seem like regular barky dogs, just skinnier. They ignore the throngs of people and just lay in the sun like...a bunch of dogs.
The market area starts off with books. Thousands of books on the sidewalks. Then weights, as in exercise equipment, on the sidewalks, then a mix of clothing stores and vegetables.
Then we get to the spice market. Stall after stall of spices, nuts, herbs, and tea. And goats.
Driver takes us to one special spice store where everything is already sealed up in plastic so bugs can’t crawl on it. I support this. The owner comes over and says they were recently written up in Saveur Magazine as one of the best places in the world to buy spices. I am in! I buy gobs of vanilla pods, chili (spelled “chilly”), garam masala, saffron, first leaf Darjeeling tea, you name it, I buy it. As I go up to pay, driver eyeballs everything to make sure I am not getting ripped off. $429! Ouch! I was acting like this was all play money, like in Canada. I hand over my Hawaiian Airlines MasterCard. Declined. Of course. Why would it be any differently here than in Hawaii, even though I called a week ago and said I would be charging things in India. Sigh. My BECU debit card works fine though.
Now remember this: I distinctly recall the owner combining my stuff, bagging it up in clear plastic bags, then sealing them, and saying it would help get everything through customs. Remember this.
We ask driver to pick a place for lunch. He is clearly uncomfortable with this as he is afraid about poisoning us. We end up at a chain restaurant that is “well respected”. I boo the choice but we end up having yummy spicy potatoes wrapped in sort of a large waffle that you dip in spicy soup and eat with your hands.
When it’s time to head back to our car we are full from eating and it’s 100 degrees outside. Driver suggests we take rickshaws. Apparently you negotiate the cost in advance with the rickshaw drivers so he is off negotiating the rates as we wander around. Then I show up, the giant fat white guy, and the rickshaw person insists on renegotiating the rates up.
The rickshaw ride itself was awesome. We swerved in and out of traffic, around goats, tourists, scooters, and finally across a very busy intersection with no stop lights. High drama, but great fun.
I head back to the hotel to sleep and get out of the heat while the coworkers go to some temples. On the way I see one of those little green and yellow taxis with a goat as its only passenger.
.............
Dinner this first night is at Varq in the hotel. This is some kind of silly nouvelle India cuisine and the dress code is formal. I had brought a jacket, but it’s just too hot so I wear linen pants and a linen shirt. At 7:00 we are the only ones there, but after a while more and more people in tank tops and shorts show up. So much for formal. The food is good if pretentious – authentic Indian food made to look pretty and in tiny proportions. Gigantic spicy shrimp, variations on a theme in duck, a frosty intermezzo of mango sorbet on dry ice, its goes on and on for a while. I am horrified to watch the coworkers drink mango juice out of cans while I pound this awesome Grüner Veltliner, but it just means more wine for me. Dinner for three with a good tip comes to $240. The coworkers are mortified while I am thinking it’s amateur night. We came in $200 under our per diem for the day.
Jet lag…and perhaps Grüner Veltliner ….hit me hard and it’s time to sleep.
..............
The first day in the Delhi office was fine, except it was really hot there even with the air conditioning on. They keep the room temperatures around 80 apparently. I really started to drag in the afternoon and my eyes rolled up into my head and I snored during some of our interviews. This was frowned upon.
One of the guys from the office offered to take us out to dinner so we could experience some real Indian food. First we went back to the hotel to change because we had been sweating all day. It’s so hot here I am already running out of clothes. I check to see what the hotel’s laundry service costs. It’s like 50 cents to get a shirt done. Awesome.
After another insane car ride we end up at a West India restaurant. I order some white wine from India which is really quite good. Soon food starts to show up. There is a bread made out of rice instead of wheat – it’s kind of like that Ethiopian crepey bread that has bubbles in it. There is fish in spicy hot red sauce, chicken in green sauce, mutton in gravy made of Curry Leaf and black pepper. That last one was so complex and awesome I did actually leave my body and astrally project around for a few minutes. I have not done that in a while, the food induced astral projection. We end the meal with something called Paan -- leaves from Calcutta stuffed with cloves and other mystery spices. You are supposed to cram the whole thing in your mouth in one bite. “It helps with digestion”, allegedly.
We finish across the street with Kulfi, an ice cream made with saffron, pistachio, and cardamom. Not the magic of Italian gelato in Rome at midnight, but pretty damn good.
Back at my top floor hotel suite I am thinking about what an amazing day this has been when I decide to put some clothes out to get cleaned. The paperwork I need to fill out and the bags to put the laundry in are held in this little wooden box attached to the wall in my closet. When I reach for the paperwork the box falls off the wall, breaks into dozens of little pieces, and cuts my foot open. Yes, I am bleeding on the carpet in my top floor hotel suite. I grab some toilet paper to soak up the blood as I spark up my ultraviolet vampire killing device to disinfect my foot.
I leave two notes on the desk for housekeeping along with a bunch of rupees:
“Have broken box. Please help! Thanks!”
“Have bled on carpet. Please help! Thanks!”
……………
The rest of the week it remains 100 degrees outside and 80 degrees in the office. The sky remains a hazy poo color. Traffic remains insane. Cows walking on the freeway, people walking on the freeway.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to stomach the poverty here. Every time we are at a stop light some little kid, frequently naked, knocks on the car window and asks for money. Sometimes they are missing fingers or arms. We offer them fruit or chocolate, but are scolded by our coworkers in the office because “If you open your car window they are just going to throw a baby in the car and run away. Then what are you going to do? What then, huh?”
I thought I would wear my new white linen pants with a nice white linen shirt to work today. When I went down for breakfast some wretched French woman on the elevator suggested that I might have the country wrong, that this was not Africa, and I was not going on safari today, and perhaps I should dress appropriately. I tried to swear at her in French, but apparently what I said was, “Shut your mouth stupid woman with ducks in your belly button!” Great. I did did go back up and change into blue jeans however.
So after another huge spicy lunch today our host suggested we try more Paan from a street vendor. This one was much larger than I had had after our dinners. It appeared to be stuffed with tobacco, fiery chilies, dried insects, and fragrant flowers. About the size of an orange, "You pop the whole thing in your mouth and chew, the juices providing nourishing enzymes to help with digestion”. When he told me to swallow the whole thing I thought he was serious. We all laughed as it went down. Silly me. Silly trusting me.
Gurgle. Pain. Gurgle. Pain.
Within minutes I called the foundation’s emergency evacuation jet to come and get me, but apparently that service is a little overhyped at work. They directed me to a 24 hour Right-Aid around the corner and wished me luck.
When I got back to the hotel I realized I had forgotten to pack the antibiotics that had been prescribed for me at home. I figured if I lived through the night I would just use the ones my coworkers brought.
It was a long night. Much of the time I was in the bathroom singing that Johnny Cash song:
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher And it burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire
The ring of fire
When I was not in the bathroom I tried to sleep, but the hotel was having some kind of interpretive cultural dance festival on the roof all night long, just above my top floor hotel suite.
At 3am I had been sitting on the toilet for several hours, painfully dying, when my cell phone rang. It was my boss, checking to see if I was OK. The sound scared me and I tried to jump off the toilet, but since I had been sitting there for hours my butt had kind of fused to the seat. I went up and the toilet seat came with me. Yes, I ripped it off of the toilet with my butt. Having a toilet seat attached to me scared me more that the phone ringing so I came crashing back down on the toilet and cracked the seat in half.
Please try to picture this. Or try not to. I am mostly naked, I am having violent diarrhea and nausea, my boss is calling me, and I am laying on the floor of my top floor hotel suite surrounded by broken toilet seat parts as the thump of dancing is coming through my ceiling.
I call out to the universe, “I just want to go home!” I think about just staying on the floor and crying, but instead I get up a write a little note for housekeeping.
“Have broken toilet. Please help! Thanks!”
At 5am the interpretive cultural dance festival was over but then they started to dismantle the dance floor they had set up, so I got to listen to the hammers and saws until I had to get up and go to work.
.........
Somehow I make it through work and then it’s time to go out to dinner. There are some British people from the India office who are sick of Indian food and people from the Travel office in Seattle who were also singing that Johnny Cash song earlier this week. We went to Olive Garden. Or maybe it was called Olive. Anyway, there was a big open courtyard with a huge Banyan tree inside. We drink white wine from South Africa and I ate a goat cheese and beet appetizer. Then really good duck. The food was way better than Olive Garden.
One of the women, the British one, pounded three martinis in about 20 minutes without skipping a beat. I’m like, "Wow, a woman with a stronger liver than me? I wonder if she is a bad kisser?"
I think it is time to go home.
.............
Today is the last day. We’re going to hit a couple of markets so I can buy crap so that my house will look even more like a Pier 1 import store. I may also buy some gifts.
We start off at a government run place that sells authentic artwork from all over India and the prices are set – no bargaining – so that the artists get a fair price.
I buy hand stitched pillow covers, silk scarves, and several paintings.
Then we are off to Dilli Haat, a more authentic market where you can bargain. I decide that as an American that I will have none of it and I will pay full price or more. And I do. Brass Buddhas, a “zen bowl”, and lots of elephant carvings.
Driver takes us around the see the national government buildings and a large arch called India Gate. We take lots of pictures but are getting annoyed by people trying to sell us postcards and small models of the little green and yellow taxies. We start to head back to the car when this teenage boy comes running up with a basket. He clearly wants to sell us something. He trips and drops the basket. The lid pops off and a very surprised and angry cobra pops out. We literally run back to the car and driver speeds off like it was a bank robbery.
I need a drink after that. We are going to meet some coworkers for lunch on top of the Oberoi Hotel. This place makes my hotel look like a dump. Same kind of deal however, guys our front dressed up like Mughal warriors, a hand carved metal detector, ultra posh lobby. On the top floor we have a great view of the city.
The girls want Processo to drink, but the waiter condescendingly informs us they do not have “that”. He points to the champagne on the menu. The prices are in Rupees so I have no idea what to do. I ask the table, Moet or Mumms? In unison everyone squeals “Moet!” Moet it is.
As the waiter pours I close my eyes. I bring the glass to my lips and pause. I have no idea what this costs, but it will be by far the most expensive glass of wine I have ever had.
I sniff. I taste. I sigh. I never want to pee this out! I can feel myself start to astrally project, but then…
Gurgle. Pain. Gurgle.
I start to sweat.
I run to the bathroom.
The Moet comes up and goes out, violently. No! No! No!
I’m sitting on the floor in a bathroom again. I really want to go home.
..............
I am checking out of my hotel room at 11PM because my flight home leaves at 2AM. I put my glasses on so I can double check the bill. I am looking for key words like blood stain, broken chair legs, shattered toilet seat. There are no key words, but strangely there is a hand written note at the bottom that says,
“Have wreaked havoc. Please do not return! Thanks!”
Driver dumps us at the airport and then three boys in uniforms come up and grab our bags and put them on carts. Once we are in the terminal and at the British Airways counter the boys tell us we owe them 600 rupees for carrying our bags. Between us we have about 200 left. The boys point at a cash machine. We all try all our cards. Nothing works. The boys are pissed. I explain that they can take the 200 and scram or that I would be happy to call a security guard over. They take the 200.
..............
The flight back to London is fine. Apparently I am no longer a vegan, but I am afraid to drink any good wine so I just have water.
As we wait to get on the plane to go home I see a rather important director from work. She’s in the line for coach, like some kind of farm animal. Then she starts doing a full Yoga routine, in the line. It’s weird. I have to look away.
The flight home is equally un-Vegan and un-eventful. Normally I would be looking forward to getting home and using my en suite bathroom, but I am empty.
What a crazy, delicious, stinky, sad, hot, and exciting place. I am so glad I got to do this. And I do not need to go back soon.
...............
So remember the $429 of spices I bought? The next day I open up all the bags of stuff I bought. My spices are not there. But there are two cheap ass bags of basmati rice that I did not buy. I can’t believe this.
I had packed some stuff for a coworker, so maybe somehow he has my stuff…. But why did he buy two cheap ass bags of basmati rice?
When I get back to work I learn he does not have my spices and he did not buy two bags of cheap ass basmati rice. Someone stole all my spices and replaced them with cheap ass bags of basmati rice! I am so bummed.
A few hours later, deep in depression, I am about to throw out the cheap ass basmati rice when I see some tea leaves through a small clear window in the plastic bag. Can it be? It is! All my spices have been transferred to basmati rice bags and resealed! It’s a miracle! Someone in the Delhi airport must have gone to all this effort to ensure my stuff made it through customs.
This is all so weird. Right then I am hit with images of goats in taxis, bleeding toes, vegan airplane food, broken toilets, and hazy sunshine. I don’t know why I would have expected things to end any other way.
(Photos will be up soon!)
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