I Am Officially Not Dead

But some of you will probably want to kill me.

I went to Srinagar. In Kashmir.

Yes, as in THAT Kashmir.

But before you jump to conclusions (and if you've been watching CNN), don't worry! My plane left the ground just minutes--literally, about four minutes-- before the bomb went off in Srinagar killing five children. When the plane was just pulling out of the (only) gate, I saw the army guys running back into the building but didn't really think much of it. Kashmir has at my best guess a ratio of approximately 3 people to one armed soldier stationed somewhere. It's pretty serious. There were no fewer than three-- wait, was it four?-- security checks at the airport. Meaning x-ray bag, search cabin baggage, frisking. Yep, three times. The first one is before you even get to the airport, you have to get out of the car, they search the car, they x-ray your shit, you get back into the car, go through another security check at the entrance, then another once inside, then another just before boarding the plane. I didn't mind it at the time and now I see why they do that. If you don't know anything about it do a google search.

Upon arriving back in Delhi I was devastated to hear the news of the bombing. I fell absolutely in love with Kashmir and, most importantly, the Kashmiri people. (By the way? They are incredibly good looking people. And by people I mean the men, because there aren't so many women wandering around.) I took a short three days, two nights trek into the Himalayas and spent time in a very interesting Gypsy village. It was at about 10k feet, so the hiking we did during the day tended to make me a little woozy as we were going up above 12k feet. I stayed on Lake Dal in a beautiful houseboat and made some new friends that I cherish and got my face slapped and scratched (happily) by a beautiful little baby boy named Fahim who took an extraordinarily liking to me for whatever reason. I was one of the family. There is a lot more to say about Kashmir but I'll have to go back to that at a later time as right now I'm in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, and waiting to catch a train to Varanasi. I arrived back in Delhi last night from Kashmir and just this morning drove (I wasn't driving, GOD) to Agra to see the Taj, the Agra Fort and the Fatehpur Sikri "ghost city". All three were heartbreakingly beautiful and extremely similar examples of medieval Moghul architecture. The Taj, well, I'm sure you've heard about that... What isn't beautiful, however, are the hustlers trying to be my "guide" or trying to sell junk or get me to take a ride in their horse- or camel-drawn carriage. On one hand I know it's just an honest living but on the other hand I just want to be left the hell alone. And the horses were dead lame so I refused to patronize those guys. I'd rather walk, thanks, even if it means having to yell "NO" about eighty times at the top of my lungs. Today at the Taj I was surrounded by about thirty teenage boys-- I coulnd't understand what the heck they wanted at first and then it dawned on me-- they wanted to take pictures *with* me. Um, okay. I obliged but I'm sure my expression is rather bemused in their photos.

The drive down was fairly uneventful as far as death and dismemberment is concerned. The Indian countryside is extremely interesting... round mud huts in the middle of dry fields, people crapping and/or pissing and/or just generally milling around, women in beautiful bright saris carrying improbable loads on their heads, cows, goats, donkeys, ponies everywhere... I saw a lot of this in the Himalayas too. The driving itself is just as nuts, if not worse but I've pretty much adopted a laissez-faire attitude about it at this point, as it's just one endless game of chicken, really. The good thing is that people rarely get angry and even though it seems like utter lawlessness, it has a cadence of its own, and ultimately-- it works. Oh, and I counted 17 people (many of them children) in an auto-rickshaw today. About four of them were hanging on to the sides. This was going down a dual-carriageway at approximately 30mph, which at my best guess is the top speed of one of those things anyway. And a huge "TATA" truck carrying GASOLINE with four dudes sitting on top. This country is fun.

It's also exhausting. I stink, I left my freaking shampoo in Delhi and haven't had a bloody chance to go buy more, and I have to catch an overnight train to Varanasi in about an hour.

OH-- and public toilets (meaning toilets at monuments like, say, Agra Fort-- not to name any names or anything) are wretchedly, inhumanely foul. They don't *look* so bad, but ohmygodthesmell. My advice if you go to india: roll up your pants so the bottoms don't accidentally drag on the floor. You'll thank me later.

I will write more in-depth about my time in Kashmir when I can, but for now it's rushrushrush to the train station. I've written down a lot and India has its own version of "Engrish" that I adore. More on that later...

Oh, and please put your name at the end of your comments, because a lot of them just show up as "Anonymous". ;)