Return to Thailand

Sadly, this is not about a return trip to Thailand. Though, if anyone wants to go, I'm always up for it! Please, for real. It's the greatest place ever. But, in my Thailand post I did forget to include an important life changing experience that happened there. I ate durian. Finally.

Aside from silkworm larvae and the little snail things often sold alongside them from street vendors in Korea, and balut eggs, I'll try nearly anything once. And durian's been on the list of food to try for a long time. Most Asian airport check-in counters have the standard "No guns, no lighter fluid, no fireworks, etc" signs. But they, especially airlines that fly to and from SE Asia, also include a no durian rule.

I'd seen them for sale in many markets. But, I don't travel with a knife. In Hong Kong I found some mangoes too delicious looking to pass up, so I ended up having to peel them with a plastic spoon I'd gotten with some yogurt. It was mostly ineffective, and a huge juicy mess, but so delicious and worth it.  I don't think a spoon would work with durian. Plus, I never wanted a whole one. I just wanted a bite. So this love it or despise it fruit remained a mystery to me.

UNTIL, I was at the airport in Bangkok, walking around, searching for coffee to feed my caffeine addiction, killing time before the flight to Delhi. We came across a kiosk selling weird rice cracker things. There were many different flavors, and samples set out of each flavor. Yes, I realize communal bowls of crackers in the middle of a busy airport are probably not the most sanitary thing. I am sure they were covered in particles of fecal matter, but really, what isn't? No biggie. I think whenever any news source needs to fill up time/space, they do a "the dirtiest objects in your house, you won't believe the number one item, hint-you're using it to scrub your dishes or you're using it to carry your keys and wallet!" type story. If I die because my purse is dirty, then clearly it was my time to go. So regardless of what might be lurking in them, I don't pass up free samples. I looked around part of the kiosk, trying a few flavors. I was just about to continue my walk down the terminal when I glanced at the backside of the kiosk, to see the cracker flavors I was passing up. Then, I saw them-crackers with bits of durian on top. My day had come! No longer would I be overcome with curiosity at the mere mention of durian.

I grabbed a durian cracker and took a bite as we were walking away. For the splittest of seconds, I thought I liked it. I tasted a sweet, nutty flavor. Then it hit me. Have you ever seen a garbage truck empty a dumpster, then noticed that little puddle of mystery trash juice that dribbles out on the pavement as the dumpster is set back down? The taste that filled my mouth is what I imagine that trash liquid tasting like, especially if the dumpster was behind a seafood/produce stand.  I stopped chewing. It tasted rotten, putrid, vile, and there was absolutely no way I could swallow it. I quickly scanned the area for a trash can. Nothing. I dug in my purse for a tissue. Nothing. For a few seconds, I considered spitting it into my hand. Meanwhile the taste was getting stronger. Finally, after what seemed like years, I found a receipt, or gum wrapper, or something to spit it into.

Without a doubt, durian is the worst thing I've ever tried. Whoever decided that's food was clearly a masochist and needed his/her head examined. I'm happy durian is crossed off of my foods to try list. Under no circumstance, no matter the preparation, will it ever receive a spot on that list again. Beurk x 1,000,000. 

And stuff continues to get even more real

As we bid farewell to Raja, he made a weird comment about picking us up the next day. I can't remember it exactly, because it's been nearly 3 months and was rather insignificant. Holy moly, it's been 3 months. It's June! How did this happen? I'm ready to leave again. Who wants to join me? I can't let my credit card balance get too low.
Anyway, as we were leaving, Raja said something about picking us up at 10:30, but maybe he might be late, so 11 is okay, or something along those lines. Of course  hindsight is 20/20. And that night, I didn't think much of Raja's comment. Probably because of the incredible awkwardness we'd just experienced, in comparison his comment seemed normal. But who plans on being late, for a job nonetheless? I consider myself an expert in tardiness, and it's not something I plan. It happens because I spill coffee on myself and have to find something else to wear. Or it happens because the car doors are frozen shut in the winter. Or it happens because I can't find my keys. Or it happens because I get a few minutes down the road, only to see the cat hanging out in the ditch, so I have to stop and drive her home. Whatever the reason is, it happens, but it's not something I plan the night before.
So the next morning, Anya and I waited for Raja in the entrance of the hotel. And we waited. And waited. A little after 11, a guy equally as tiny as Raja came up to us. Rickshaw drivers are relentless in India, and so I just assumed he was going to try get us to hire him for the day. He introduced himself as Sameer, and said he was Raja's friend. He also said Raja was extremely sick, and unable to take us. Anya and I looked at each other, trying to figure out if this guy was legit or not. But since it was after 11, and there was no sign of Raja, we decided Sameer was okay, so we hopped in the back of his rickshaw. Raja had taken us to several of the things on the Jaipur to do list, but many stops still remained. As we were pulling into the parking lot of our first stop, who do we see? None other than Raja, looking dapper as ever, and not sick in the least. He was sheepishly saying hello to us and stumbling through some excuse about being very sick this morning but better now when a girl climbed into the back of his ricksaw. Ouch. Our "good fried" Raja clearly ditched us. No matter, at least we had a different driver so we weren't left high and dry.

All the rickshaws were pretty tricked out. Sameer's rickshaw had the word "stud" in fancy letters stuck on the back window, and this little gem written with a Sharpie written on the inside. 

The first place Sameer took us to was Jantar Mantar. I didn't understand exactly what it was while we were there, and I'm still not entirely sure. It's a bunch of old school astronomy stuff and a well manicured lawn. It was cool, but the sun was brutally hot that day, and this place was lacking in shade.  

After leaving Jantar Mantar, Anya very clearly told Sameer more places she wanted to see-the City Palace, Hawa Mahal, the monkey temple, etc. Sameer told us Hawa Mahal was under construction, and people were not allowed inside. He drove us by, and while the front of it was covered in scaffolding, I'm not sure I believe his story that people were not allowed inside. 

Next, we drove to the Monkey temple, which is actually called something else officially, but I don't remember what. I like Monkey temple better. The temple sits at the top of a mountain. Sameer parked his rickshaw along the side of a street, next to a shop at the bottom of the mountain. As soon as we got out, we could see the area was overrun with monkeys. Yes yes yes. The shop owner immediately came out and tried to sell us peanuts to feed the monkeys. Duh. I didn't travel all the way to India to admire the monkeys from afar. There was a slight miscommunication regarding the number of bags of peanuts we wanted to buy. The guy offered us 5 for a dollar. Great, I thought, five bags of peanuts for our new monkey friends! Then for some reason Sameer thought we didn't want five bags, and that the guy should only sell us one bag, for like 25 cents. The bags were not big, and a dollar is not a lot of money. Give me five bags please. Alas, no, Sameer was convinced we were being tricked into buying 4 bags of peanuts we didn't want. So we set off, up to the top, with one measly bag of peanuts and a whole mountainside full of monkeys. Sameer stayed at the shop and drank chai, while a 16 year old boy accompanied us. His job to guide us as well as "protect" us from the monkeys. 

A short ways on our trek up the mountain we came across a sadhu (or maybe just a homeless person, I don't remember) sitting on a step. He motioned at us, and our 16 year old guide/protector from monkeys took Anya's water bottle and gave it to the sadhu. He splashed some on his face, drank some, then offered it back to Anya. Ummmm, gross. She kindly said he could keep it.  I tightly gripped my water bottle and hoped it would go unnoticed. Perhaps I will get bad karma from that, but at least I stayed hydrated under the hot hot sun.

We continued walking, stopping every so often to give peanuts to the monkeys. I love monkeys. Three weeks in India where we saw monkeys almost daily, and I still could barely contain a squeal when I saw one. And squealing/smiling was the wrong thing to do around a monkey because they see that as a battle face. But come on, look at these guys! SO CUTE! They're like weird creepy hairy people. They even have little fingernails. And they cracked open their peanuts just like people.

Our monkey protector did a pretty good job of swatting the monkeys away if they got too friendly with us. But while he was getting one away from Anya, another one crawled up my leg and sat on my hip, with his arm around my shoulder, like a child. I held him for a few seconds before the monkey protector shooed him away from me. It was the greatest moment of my life. 

The Monkey temple was really cool. A woman who lives there greeted us as we reached the top. She gave us red dots on our foreheads (third eyes?). I walked around and tried to admire the view as best I could, but we had to take our shoes off, and the pavement was oh so hot. 

We walked back down to where Sameer was waiting for us. There were not only monkeys here. There were pigs, cows, dogs, and goats. 

I like this one because the monkey is sitting on the pig. There was also a monkey riding around on a cow, but I was never able to get a good photo of them. 

Typical

Also typical. Actually, this isn't that bad compared to some we saw. Indians cram in those rickshaws like a clown car. 

After leaving the Monkey temple, Sameer asked us where to next. Anya said she'd like to see the City Palace. Sameer's reaction to that request would have led one to think we'd asked him to drive is to Islamabad or something. "No no no no, too far. We were close to it earlier when we were at Hawa Mahal. Now we're too far away. You should have told me before you wanted to see it" Ummmm...call me crazy but I'm pretty sure we did, and it didn't take us THAT long to get from Hawa Mahal to the Monkey temple. But Sameer was adamant. So,  we didn't go see the City Palace of Jaipur. Sad.
All day, Sameer had been telling us about his guru "the most powerful man in Jaipur" or maybe it was Rajastan, or maybe even India. So Anya, being the always open minded lady that she is, agreed to go see Sameer's guru friend. Sameer pulled out his phone and dialed up the guru, then after the phone call he handed the phone to us. He'd been telling us about his friend Heidi from Finland, or Germany, or somewhere in Europe. He showed us text messages from Heidi. I don't know if it was to prove to us that Heidi does in fact exist, or that he's cool with white girls, or what.
So Sameer drove us to the great and powerful guru's shop, which was the same jewelry shop that Raja had taken us to the day before. We found the guru in the backroom of the store, laying on a mattress on the ground while watching cricket on tv. They told us to sit down on the mattress while the guru did whatever it is gurus do before reading an aura. After a few minutes, he ushered us into his office/fine gemstone sales room/aura reading room. He said he knew each of us better than we knew ourselves. He then told us that what he said in there was not to be shared with anyone, before going to work on Anya. I spent most of the time bouncing between three thoughts- 1. Does he really believe in his head that all of this is legit, or is he a scammer? 2. He uses waaaaaaay too much Just For Men. His hair was so dark it looked like a black hole on top of his head. He could be an infomercial salesperson with that hair. 3. He knows me better than I know myself, does he know what I'm thinking about him?
As I wrote in my last post, he said there was one fix and one fix alone for the problems he saw. A change in diet? Nope. New vitamin regimen? Nope. Daily meditation? Nope. The one thing that could give people a balanced and happy life was crystals. Only crystals, which he sold in his gem shop. And that was when he lost me.

Anya politely declined the crystals, and we returned to the rickshaw.  Sameer said he knew a great henna artist (of course he does), and asked if we wanted to get hennaed. It was becoming clear that Sameer wasn't going to take us to anything else on the "things to see in Jaipur" list, I thought "sure, why not?" When in Rome...
We pulled up in front of what was basically an open sided tent, with a woman and several guys sitting around on plastic stools. Obviously Sameer does this a lot, because they all quickly made room for us inside the tent as the lady pulled out her book of designs. I don't think it mattered really which one I picked, because they all kind of looked the same, and they lady seemed to just do whatever she wanted. But it was pretty.

I don't know why this picture is kind of distorted. It makes my hand look like Eugene Victor Tooms' hand. Does anyone besides Aaron get the reference? Probably not. It's hard being so cool sometimes. 

 

It got darker after a few days

So the henna lady told us the henna would last around 20 days. We quickly learned that between the frequent hand washings and use of sanitizer when water/soap were not available, there was no way that henna was lasting 20 days. 

Next, Sameer said he was going to take us to his uncle's/his textile shop. Like the one we visited the day before, Sameer assured us this shop was only to help poor widowers from the villages. Sameer, his uncle, and two younger cousins or nephews, sat us down on a couch and gave us chai, which I awkwardly held with one hand while waiting for the henna to dry on the other. They quickly started pulling out beautiful fabrics and more beautiful fabrics. Unlike the place the day before, this shop allowed us to pick any fabric we wanted, and they'd make it into a scarf while we waited. It was beyond tempting, and the fabrics were so bright and colorful, but I knew I'd filled my quota the day before. There's nothing wrong with looking though, right? 

I'm willing to bet that most people have at least one article of clothing in their closet they bought while on vacation, something you saw, while caught up in the mood of wherever you were, and you knew you had to have it, only to return home and never wear it again. All the shops in whatever destination you're at are filled with them. Some of them, such as a Senor Frogs tshirt are at least slightly more practical, but I have more Wrightsville Beach tshirts than I'll ever know what to do with. Then, there are the ridiculous items of clothing, such as lederhosen in Germany. Every market I went to in Beijing was full of booths trying to convince tourists a chipao (or whatever that Chinese dress is called) is exactly the souvenir they are looking for. No surprise, India falls into the ridiculous category. Sameer, his uncle, and most other Indian shop owners we encountered tried their best to  convince us that a sari was what our wardrobes were missing. I imagined myself slipping on my sari for a quick trip the gas station or grocery store, and laughed a bit. But, my main problem with the sari is all the bare spots it leaves. Indian women's idea of modesty is completely different than my own. Don't get my wrong, I'm not knocking saris.  They are so bright, beautiful, and the opposite of boring. But, unless I'm on a beach, there's no way I'd walk around with my gut and back fat hanging out for the world to see. 

Though not persuaded to buy one, Anya agreed to try on a sari, then posed for a picture with Sameer. 

After we finished shopping, Sameer brought us into his office. His cousin/nephew arrived soon with chana masala (I think, it's been a while, it could have been something else) and bread made by his mother. Trying to avoid Delhi Belly, I'd been uncharacteristically cautious about the food I was eating. But I found myself in a pickle. How do I get out of eating this food? What does Sameer's mom's kitchen look like? When was this food made? I had no answers/excuses, and didn't want to be rude. I threw caution to the wind.  The food was DELICIOUS and I was starving. Sameer quickly sent his cousin/nephew back to his house to get more bread from his mom. Poor lady.
As we ate, Sameer started in on another sales pitch. This time it was for his taxi services to some town outside of Jaipur. He promised us this town was a can't miss spot, if one wanted to experience traditional India. We said we were sure it was great, but we already had train tickets booked for early the next morning. Sameer suggested we cancel the train and stay in Jaipur to go on this all day excursion. He showed us pictures of other happy foreigners who had visited this town. I'm sure Heidi went there at some point.
And then, as if the relentless sales pitch was not enough, he turned to Anya and started saying very similar things as Raja had said the night before. Anya had struck his fancy and he was looking for a foreign girlfriend/wife.
We finally made our escape, and like Raja the day before, Sameer said he wanted to eat dinner with us at his "favorite restaurant" in Jaipur. But this time we were ready. We lied, saying we already had dinner plans with some people from the hotel. Sameer thought we needed to be spending our time with locals, not other tourists. But we stood firm, and had a much needed after the past two days completely not awkward dinner with no men proposing.