First Month in India

 The longer that I wait to write on here, the harder it is to write as more and more crazy things happen and I know the post will get longer and loooongerrrr. So here we are! Hoped to write before now but it hasn't happened and there's no time like the present, I suppose. 

Please feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions because I will just give a pretty brief overview of my time thus far! Hopefully I can make writing more of a habit and get a little more in depth with it. 

So I arrived in Delhi on November 3rd after flying from Istanbul, from Chicago, from Seattle, and getting a ride from my dad to the Sea-Tac airport from Scappoose, OR on the morning of November 1st. It was a long haul and I arrived in Delhi the next next day without a bag. As a rule, I never check my bag because I don't like to deal with lost luggage. I was convinced otherwise and decided to check a bag for the first time, and what do you know? It didn't arrive at my destination.

Saying bye to my papa

Getting off the plane into the little hallway I thought to myself, who in the world is allowed to be smoking in here? Turns out nobody was smoking, the air quality is just that bad in Delhi. The estimates vary but most sources say the air quality in Delhi is like smoking 30-50 cigarettes a day. Shocking.

 So I go through customs easily to stand at the baggage carousel until every bag has been removed and my Big Agnes pack is nowhere to be seen. Davis is waiting outside but I have no way to let him know where I am or how I'm doing, so I go through the process, being passed around to different employees with different form for me to fill out and eventually I'm sent out of the airport with a sheet of paper and my little carry-on backpack. 

Davis is easy to spot though with his yellow shirt and beaming smile (he's also at least 6 inches taller than everyone around). My worries melted away when we were able to hug in real life after nearly 3 months. We left the airport, called about my bag several times, and spent the day relaxing, eating and blabbing away. The next couple days we spent exploring Delhi but it's hard to say if I've been to a city that I disliked more than Delhi. It is just so overcrowded which has led to extreme poverty and pretty gross conditions. We wore masks when we were outside, to try to limit the number of cigarettes that we were involuntarily smoking. We ran some errands like getting me a motorcycle helmet and a SIM card (although it would be a few weeks till the SIM worked in my phone). We walked to the river which was an adventure of running across roads and trying not to get hit, only to find a very polluted Yamuna river. But already I was finding that the food was splendid! 

Davis needed to make it back to Srinagar (Uttarakhand) for a conference on environmental aerosols (not a huge connection to his project), so we hustled one morning to get to Meerut to get his motorcycle and then we had ourselves a good ol' 7 hour motorcycle journey to Srinagar. I have to give Davis so much credit here. The driving in India is insane, crazier than anywhere else I've been in the world, and he drives like a pro. He bobs and weaves in traffic, he honks his horn just as much as any other vehicle, and he maneuvers around landslides with ease. We spent about half our drive on city roads and highways and the other half on mountainous roads. There was never a shortage of things to see! Whether it be the scooters with four people on them, the road signs with humorous spelling errors, the beautiful rivers and trees, or the landslides that bring a two lane road down to a half of a lane with traffic attempting to go in both directions. 

Over the next few days in Srinagar, Davis gave a presentation at the aerosols conference, and I was able to do some exploring around town. Five days after I arrived, my bag came! To give Turkish Airlines credit, it came much quicker than I was expecting, especially given the distance from Delhi, and everything was in my bag just as I had packed it!

 Unfortunately, that same day, my stomach started to give me trouble. We thought it might be a case of Delhi belly, but as the days passed, I started to develop a fever. The fever got worse and one day Davis came into our somewhat warm room to find me under the covers of the bed wearing my long sleeve, my down vest, and my puffy, so we headed to the hospital. I had a blood test done in a somewhat dingy room. My thought was maaaybe we're much too clean in the states and this guy wiping his hands on his jeans, not putting on gloves, and having the needle open on the desk for at least a minute before jabbing it in my arm, is totally totally fine. It turned out to be that way. Tests came back negative for the few things they tested for and said I had an infection so they gave me a weeks worth of antibiotics and sent me on my way. 

Headed to the blood lab

The best part is that we had scheduled for me to have a root canal in Meerut in a few days time. The antibiotics started helping pretty quickly and we were able to make the 7 hour journey back to Meerut to have my consultation 5 days after the hospital and my root canal the day after that. The dentist office was a sight to see, about the size of a broom closest with a small waiting area in front and one dentist chair behind a sliding glass door. 

Maybe I was a little nervous but Davis's friend had recommended this dentist so we knew he would be good. And he was! Very kind and competent. I had to go back three days in a row, first for the consultation, then for the procedure itself, and then for the cap fitting. After the fitting, they had to send away for the cap so we had to come back 5 days after that! (Apparently in the US this isn't a thing, and the cap creation process only take a couple hours, but hey, we're in India after all.) It was a heckuva time, but worth it for the price. In the US, you'll pay around $1,000 and I think all in all I paid $140 or so.

Sugarcane!

Yes, we tried paneer and paratha pizza from Domino's

Gettin loaded up

After the three days at the dentist, we went to Dehradun to go to Navdanya, a biodiversity farm started by Dr. Vandana Shiva and her colleagues. On the way, we stopped at a pretty cool waterfall and also the Robber's Cave! It ended up being pretty toustisty but the cave went really far in, so the further you went, the fewer people there were. Did I mention there was ankle to shin deep water throughout most of the cave system? It definitely exceeded our expectations! It was awesome! Although we had to wear flip flops, and as habitual Chacos and Tevas wearers, the flip flop flossing our toes was not the neatest experience, in fact, Davis ended up with a pretty good size cut in between his toes from the flippin' flip flops!

We attended a 3-day course called Gandhi and Globalization at Navdanya. The farm was beautiful and the food was wonderful. The lectures were thought-provoking and a couple of them were given by Vandana Shiva herself. The farm was definitely a peaceful place to spend a few days. 

The day we left the farm was Thanksgiving. We drove from Dehradun up to Mussoorie and Landour, where the school where Davis has Hindi lessons is located. That evening, we watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, which I had never seen, (Davis apparently has never made popcorn that isn't in a microwave and he didn't cover the pot on the stove so naturally, you can imagine what happened next and gave us a great laugh) and we had a Friendsgiving dinner with a couple that had been at Navdanya when we were there. The Green Vegetarian is probably the greatest food in Mussoorie. The mixed veg, mushroom curry and dal makhani are exceptional, all slopped up with some roti make for a very happy Ashley. But it's true that I have been finding that I absolutely love all the Indian food that we've been eating, and the price doesn't hurt either! 

On the 26th, it was back to Meerut for my cap. We drove 9 hours round trip for an appointment that took 20 minutes. By hour 7 we were pretty over the journey but still pushed on to get back up to Landour. My pelvis started to really hurt after being on the bike that long.

Dentist office

But we did it, we made it, and we spent the next day walking alllll over Mussoorie. In the morning we walked to Lal Tibba, which is a great viewpoint where you can see some colossal Himalayan peaks displayed before you. Then we went down the big hill from Landour to Mussoorie, to Mall Road (the main shopping area) and all the way back around on Camel's Back. The views were exceptional, as was the sunny but slightly chilly weather. After the day we'd had previously, our bodies thanked us but were still a bit cramped from the journey but our spirits rivaled that of the sunshine itself. In the evening we walked all the way back up the hill to complete our day! 

Lal Tibba

The sunsets here are pretty outstanding! Have you heard of the winterline? If not, you should take a second to check it out, it's only visible in a few places on earth, and we're at one of them! It's a cool reddish glow that gives the appearance of a horizon far off in the distance and it stays for awhile after the sun has set. It's a beautiful sight to behold! Sometimes we go on evening walks to look at it.

Davis has class at the Landour language school for five hours a day as part of his Fulbright, so during that time I've had the opportunity to explore this beautiful area, as well as continue to get some work done for Beacon Guidebooks.

 I'd have to say this is probably my favorite area that we have spent time at so far. At about 7,500ft of elevation, I feel more at home! It's cooler here, there are fewer people, and more trees! All things that I count as a plus. Several of the trees or garbage cans have fun little sayings on them like "I'd rather wake up in the middle of nowhere than in any city on earth" and "It feels good to be lost in the right direction".

Although I did get a fever again and get to explore yet another hospital, I just took a couple paracetamol and have been totally fine since. So I guess it was a one off?

Yesterday, on December 4, we had ourselves a big day! We hiked to George Everest's house and peak, drove to Cloud's End and hiked to Benog Tibba and after a very late lunch, went to Lambi Dehar mines that are allegedly very haunted. Haunted or not, it is a very eery and sad location where as many as 50,000 people died due to terrible mining conditions in the 1990's. We went at dusk which is supposed to be the creepiest, but the group of teenage boys blasting Hindi rap and laughing loudly, kind of killed that vibe.

 

So far, India has thrown me for a loop with all the sickness and lost bag and such, but those moments pale in comparison to the beautiful smiles and sunsets that can be found here too. 

P.S- I had to include these amazing photos that show just how well Davis's height fits in here in India :D 

Ducks through doorways 

Too tall to stand in the "kitchen"