TDI: 1-2 What's this?
Bombay – The Haircut
When people visit India, they face many cultural shocks. The first one is probably their mysterious head wiggle… Not sure how to describe it. I’ll give it a try: tilting the head from one side to another. Most of people would assume that means: ”NO!” …Not quite true… After 40 days spent in India, I have noticed there are at least 1000 ways to wiggle. So, the specific wiggling style combined with the specific facial expression and/or body language gives a clear meaning which is impossible to understand unless you are from India.
When I landed in Bombay, I arrived at my hostel around 1 AM. Somebody was sleeping on the front desk (not at the desk, but rather laying down and sleeping on top of it). Interesting multi-purpose of the desk, I thought. Then I saw another person sleeping under the same desk. Since I didn’t feel comfortable waking them up (even if I had the booking reservation), I kept walking around in the complete dark.
Pretty soon I spotted 4 more people sleeping on top of school cantina-style dining tables. I accidentally woke one of them up, and he started vigorously wiggling his head while still laying on his hip side. He was doing it so aggressively, I thought he is angry because I woke him up. I was also convinced he is about to break his neck. When he finished wiggling, he gave me a warm, a few teeth missing smile, and kindly checked me in.
Later during my journey, I learned that in India if one sleeps on the floor, ground, table, under the tree, on the house porch, or anywhere else other than the bed, that doesn’t necessarily mean that person is poor. It means that person is just Indian! If I could comfortably sleep anywhere, like them, my travels would be a lot more convenient.
The next morning I went for a walk while my traveling partners were still sleeping. On the same block, there was a barbershop. I needed a haircut, so I decided to try my luck. Of course, I was nervous and I was wondering what my hair will look like… After a few minutes, I realized the guy knows what he was doing and probably won’t make me look stupid, so I started to relax and not pay attention to every single move he did with his scissors. My mind went elsewhere, when, all of a sudden, I got hit on top of my head! Immediately, my mind came back to the barbershop. When I looked at him in the mirror in front of me, I saw him giving me another hit. The same spot. It wasn’t a painful hit, but definitely powerful, uncomfortable, and very shocking!
The barber had a very neutral facial expression. He didn’t look like he’s gonna kill me. After the 2nd hit, he grabbed my head and twisted it like he was gonna break my neck. That twist actually made me feel less shocked, cause that was a familiar chiropractic move. The initial hit on the head was a completely unfamiliar move though. Never had it before, never seen it on TV, never heard of it… And here it comes again. One hit with his right hand, followed by another one with his left hand. Then he removed the cover from me and turned the seat sideways so I could stand up. I felt relieved but still fucking confused! So, I paid and walked out without checking what my hair looked like. Actually, I was more worried about how my neck and head were doing.
Shocked, I went back to the hostel to see if my friends were awake, so we could make a plan for the day. That was my very first morning in India. I wondered how many crazy experiences I will go through by the end of this trip…
My boys, Tyler and Najib, were already in the lobby drinking coffee. Tyler said:
”You did a haircut! Looks good. Where? I need a haircut as well.”
I decided to be quiet about the surprise I’d just been through and told him: ”The shop is just at the end of this small block… The guy is good, cheap, and fast. It’s not busy now, so you should go get it done!”
I wanted to make sure I give him enough reasons to do a haircut right away. So three of us headed to the barbershop. As soon as Tyler sat on the barber’s chair, I pulled Najib outside of the shop, so I could explain to him what is about to happen to Tyler in a few minutes. Then, we really enjoyed watching Tyler go through the same shocking experience. I will never forget his facial expression while getting those hits … mouth open wide and his eyes looked like they’re gonna fall off his face!
Later that day, as we were passing by a city park, we saw many young couples holding umbrellas while sitting with them tilted. We figured that tilt allowed them to have privacy while kissing. Looks like the government didn’t allow kissing in public.
If you wanna see more interesting photos from India, like this one, I would recommend checking out my photo gallery from Tamil Nadu State.
Goa – No exit
We have been to Goa, the southern state of India, during the off-season. Thus, we didn’t have the opportunity to experience thousands of hippies on the beaches dancing to electronic music. The serenity gave us more opportunities to enjoy nature which is indeed beautiful in this small state.
The beach towns we visited were very exciting for hiking: the beaches were divided by lush hills. So we would walk till the end of the beach, hike the hill in order to reach another beach, then swim, keep walking till the end, hike another hill to the next beach… By ‘’we’’ I mean Tyler, Najib, me, and a few other backpackers that we’ve met in our guesthouse.
One day, we went for a walk, the same style… beach, hill, swim, beach, hill, swim… As we were hiking the hill, we followed the tiny trail, while enjoying the views of the ocean and the palm trees. Then we noticed the trail leading to some sort of gate.
We continued walking towards the gate, wondering if we’ll somehow be able to get to the other side… to the other beach, cause it was about time for another swim. Since that hill was awesome, we wanted to continue walking all the way to the next hill. Turning around and heading back would feel like the game over.
At that moment we heard a bunch of dogs barking. Several dogs were charging through the gate toward us! While feeling uncomfortable, we noticed even more dogs approaching from the lush green background… and even more of them coming over, barking angrily. I have never seen a school of dogs before. Fish: yes, birds: yes, but dogs? Not really. Our feeling of curiosity was overwhelmed with fear… it was so many of them! Right before we decided to back off, and go back, an elderly skinny, some sort of hippie woman showed up at the gate and started calming down the dogs.
The woman seemed very relaxed and pleasant. We ended up chatting with her at the gate for a few minutes. She told us that she lived here with her 27 dogs. We were surprised when she told us she is German, cause she looked a bit dark and exotic. I guess, over the years of living in India, she became so well assimilated into the culture and environment, that, she has physically changed, and now she looked more Indian than European.
She also told us the bad news: we can’t get to the other side anywhere on this hill. So we had to go back. During my stay in Goa, instead of meeting thousands of hippies partying, I have met only one… the old-school one that parties with 27 dogs in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t disappointed we had to go back, cause we got enough experience for the day.
Wanna read more about Goa? Here’s an interesting post about the people you could run across over there from blogger Freeborn Aiden.
Hampi – The Special Powers
Hampi, the historical town with impressive ruins surrounded by beautiful nature has a downside: the heat! There were so many things to explore, it’s just from 10 am to 3 pm we weren’t able to function from the high temperatures. So we came up with the plan to wake up at 6 am, in order to start our day early, explore till 11, then go back to the guesthouse for a nap. Then head back out around 4 pm…
You need to take the shoes off in order to enter the Hindu temple. In one of them, the concrete floor was covered with bat poop. It was quite challenging to navigate around without stepping on it. Since the temple was full of monkeys and there was an elephant as well, we thought there might be some other types of animal crap on the floors of the temple.
In the evening we went to check out the main temple. On the other side of the entrance gate, there was a big open space with a lot of people laying down on their blankets, some of them sleeping, some of them chatting. We discretely sat in the corner, looked around, and tried to figure out what is going on here. These people did not look homeless. Some of them possibly were, but I learned on my first day in this country that if you sleep on the ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are poor. It means you are Indian! We saw more people coming in through the gate… families with luggage, spreading out their blankets, and making themselves comfortable, like camping without a tent. Before we were able to figure out this mystery, we got hungry, so we went out to look for a place to eat.
By the way, the food in India is incredible! None of us had food poisoning or anything like that on our trip. I am not vegetarian, but the food is so tasty and interesting that I did not miss meat at all. This country should be famous for its cuisine just like Italy, France, or Japan. Unfortunately, it is very famous for food poisoning… Not sure where these rumors are coming from… Perhaps from the tourists that have been ruining their digestive systems with pharmacy products from an early age… and then, when something goes wrong, instead of blaming the chemicals, they blame it on this incredibly tasty, exotic, and spiritual cuisine!
While we were sitting in this small restaurant, talking about the masses of people sleeping in the temple, the cow walked in. Let me be more clear: The cow walked into the restaurant… a nice, clean indoor restaurant! The waiter showed up with the bucket of water and started sprinkling the cow. I guess the cows are afraid of water, cause it worked, cause the cow took off.
While eating, delicious food, of course, we met the owner of the restaurant. We asked him about the people sleeping in the temple. He explained to us that it’s a Shiva Temple famous for pilgrimage. People commute from all parts of south India, so they can spend the night in this temple, in order to gain special power. Then, the next morning the ritual is to take a bath in the holy river that passes by behind the temple. We have asked the restaurant owner if we are allowed to spend the night there. Since his answer was ‘’yes’’, as soon as we finished the dinner, we headed back to our guesthouse, grabbed our sleeping bags, and went back to the temple.
Back in the temple, on the other side of the gate, the atmosphere was the same as before, except more of the people were sleeping, and less of them chatting. We found a piece of empty space where the 3 of us spread our sleeping bags. The only downside of this sleeping experience was the brightness: the whole gated yard was lightened like a football field during the evening match. Regardless, I had a good night’s sleep. So did the other two.
That evening, we didn’t get a lot of attention from other temple visitors. That was a surprise, cause there were no other tourists spending the night there. Pilgrimage at Shiva temple in Hampi is not really advertised on TripAdvisor or Lonelyplanet. Yet, we did get plenty of attention in the morning. Of the 3 of us, I woke up first. Next to me Najib was sleeping like a baby, behind him was Tyler, and behind Tyler, there were about 50 people on the stairs steering at us. I felt like I was in a movie!
Since we did the sleeping part, we had to do the river part as well. No, we didn’t go for a holly bath, but we did bring our little stove. So we sat at the bank, boiled our coffee, and enjoyed the show: people taking the holy bath, monkeys jumping everywhere, and the main attraction was some guy washing the elephant that had tribal makeup on.
Click here to access my photo gallery from Hampi
If you find the culture of India interesting, I would recommend checking out this Youtube documentary about the Kumbh festival.