Truly, I had high hopes of translating my last travel adventures into blog posts before returning home, and thus avoiding the troublesome business of writing about a trip that's already finished and started to seem like a very bizarre dream. But the best laid plans of mice and men often fail to take into account abysmal internet signals and a wandering sense of focus. So in the end I find myself writing these last entries from the surreal comfort of a Grand Rapids living room, where I am already wrapped up in the beginnings of a life that bears very little resemblance to the past months' rambling. I hope you'll excuse any shifts in tone or unconscious revisions...the alterations of hindsight are, after all, part of the game in travel writing.
Our last week in India involved some iconic photo opportunities. Finally we were making our way to the postcard-perfect tomb that marks many tourists' first Indian destination: the Taj Mahal. Though we had already had a healthy dose of forts, palaces, and burial monuments, who couldn't be excited to see the Taj Mahal? So off we went.
Majestic and impressive? Yes. But of all the photos we took, that last one in the series is actually most evocative of our experience. Because one thing we certainly hadn't counted on before visiting one of the world's most popular tourist destinations is that we ourselves, as young white women, would in fact be the most interesting thing to photograph for many of the Indian men in attendance. Yes, despite the presence of a centuries-old mausoleum considered the gem of Mughal architecture, we found ourselves - in all the glory of our travel clothes and sloppy grooming - barraged with requests for photos by groups of men, sometimes having to duck behind pillars or upraised hands to avoid the paparazzi. By the end of the day we were yelling "NO PHOTOS, [insert expletive here]!" like Tourette's patients and sporting truly paranoid facial expressions. And thus, the above photo, in which - halfway through an attempted jump shot - Brianne spotted a man videotaping us and hit the ground already lunging to the defense. You can almost see the "NO PHOTOS!" on her lips. As a white person in India, you're never really unobserved.
Fresh off our somewhat trying visit to the Taj Mahal, Brianne and I made our way to Rishikesh - a destination famous for its yoga and for its location on a relatively unpolluted section of the Ganges. A holy place of pilgrimages and ashrams, it's also a haven for Western hippies and a chance to breathe some fresher air in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Our stay in the north involved two short stints at ashrams and long days of reading and writing. And though the calm of our retreat was periodically interrupted by aggressive monkeys thieving snacks, homicidal motorcycle drivers whizzing across "pedestrian-only" footbridges, and stressful graduate school emails appearing (or not appearing) with unpredictable timing, we did experience some of the peace promised by the holiest river in the world. I had the amazing good fortune to receive my first graduate school acceptance letter. We did bizarre yoga and watched prayer candles float down the river. And over falafel and pizza (curries had finally worn out their welcome), we rehashed our beautiful, frustrating, magical, saddening, inspiring time in India.
As our last two stops demonstrated, every one of our Indian experiences was a mixed cocktail of the amazing and the maddening. In four weeks I saw some of the most gorgeous and most awful scenes I've ever witnessed. Closure is going to be a long time coming, but I can already tell that India leaves a mark. It's impossible to ignore, impossible to sleep through, and impossible to forget.
Our last week in India involved some iconic photo opportunities. Finally we were making our way to the postcard-perfect tomb that marks many tourists' first Indian destination: the Taj Mahal. Though we had already had a healthy dose of forts, palaces, and burial monuments, who couldn't be excited to see the Taj Mahal? So off we went.
Majestic and impressive? Yes. But of all the photos we took, that last one in the series is actually most evocative of our experience. Because one thing we certainly hadn't counted on before visiting one of the world's most popular tourist destinations is that we ourselves, as young white women, would in fact be the most interesting thing to photograph for many of the Indian men in attendance. Yes, despite the presence of a centuries-old mausoleum considered the gem of Mughal architecture, we found ourselves - in all the glory of our travel clothes and sloppy grooming - barraged with requests for photos by groups of men, sometimes having to duck behind pillars or upraised hands to avoid the paparazzi. By the end of the day we were yelling "NO PHOTOS, [insert expletive here]!" like Tourette's patients and sporting truly paranoid facial expressions. And thus, the above photo, in which - halfway through an attempted jump shot - Brianne spotted a man videotaping us and hit the ground already lunging to the defense. You can almost see the "NO PHOTOS!" on her lips. As a white person in India, you're never really unobserved.
Fresh off our somewhat trying visit to the Taj Mahal, Brianne and I made our way to Rishikesh - a destination famous for its yoga and for its location on a relatively unpolluted section of the Ganges. A holy place of pilgrimages and ashrams, it's also a haven for Western hippies and a chance to breathe some fresher air in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Our stay in the north involved two short stints at ashrams and long days of reading and writing. And though the calm of our retreat was periodically interrupted by aggressive monkeys thieving snacks, homicidal motorcycle drivers whizzing across "pedestrian-only" footbridges, and stressful graduate school emails appearing (or not appearing) with unpredictable timing, we did experience some of the peace promised by the holiest river in the world. I had the amazing good fortune to receive my first graduate school acceptance letter. We did bizarre yoga and watched prayer candles float down the river. And over falafel and pizza (curries had finally worn out their welcome), we rehashed our beautiful, frustrating, magical, saddening, inspiring time in India.
As our last two stops demonstrated, every one of our Indian experiences was a mixed cocktail of the amazing and the maddening. In four weeks I saw some of the most gorgeous and most awful scenes I've ever witnessed. Closure is going to be a long time coming, but I can already tell that India leaves a mark. It's impossible to ignore, impossible to sleep through, and impossible to forget.
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