A Whole New Found Respect, For A Country That I Currently Call Home

I am ALIVE! Well really I am back from the best adventure of my life. As all my lovely readers know I was on my South India Backpacking Tour. South India Spice Tour! Was what the t-shirt said (it is pretty sweet, made me fell like I was in a rock band… but instead of rocking out on stage every night we attempted to dance Bangera and Rock Out to Out School Indian Music... much like Party Boy on an old Mtv show… I am sure some of you know who and what I am talking about).

As you all have probably seen my schedule, and wondered if it actually went like that well surprise! Surprise! It did, and it was amazing! Amazing!! AMAZING!!! If you have not gotten it was an AMAZING ADVENTURE, yet I guess you will just have to read my tales!

Our first leg of the trip we were to go to our Rotary Conference and this is where the Rotary skimped out, and thank god it was not an indication of the rest of our trip! We left Pune in the middle of the afternoon in the hottest day I could remember since well since monsoon season! Being stuck at the really hot train station in Pune, which is always like Times Square on New Years Eve, was quite the delight! Also the Rotary surprised us with Guess What! (No No, not first class accommodations, this is Rotary we are guessing about here), they gave us Second Class Seating! Non-AC, Windows Open, DIRTY, seating… Ok Ok, it is really not Second Class, it was Sleeper Class, which big whoop is one step up from Second Class.

Indian Trains are real Indian Experiences.

Apparently there is a new movie about in the US, about riding trains in India, Something like Darjeeling Express…? It has Owen Wilson and one of them Brody (the one with the big nose) characters? Well have not seen it, but if it portrays Indian Trains as shitty well then it is 100% correct! If not, well then there is no point in watching that movie because it is a complete hoax!

Back to the trains, Cars are called Bogies (height on the BO part not to be mistaken with snot). And there are many bogies, and in a bogie there are compartments, there is a few compartments like 11 or 12 per Bogie. In a compartment it is all open and divided by an aisle, there are no curtains or doors or any amenities like such. In the compartments there are three tiers, when you make them. There is a bottom tier that is like a bench, and then the bench back folds up into a second tier and then the third tier is right on top of the bogie about a foot from the ceiling. So there are six “beds” that form like a 3 way bunk bed to sleep on, and then on the other side of the aisle there are two seats which form into a bed and then a bed above the two seats. So all together in each compartment eight people “sleep,” or in my case lie on a really dirty bed hoping I don’t walk off the train with a really weird disease or lice. I carried around Lysol wipes with me and would wipe down the train beds, normally with some weird stares not only from the Indians but from my fellow exchange students too! The strangest part about being on NonAc trains is the very very odd people you meet and see. People will just come and sit down next to you, they wont speak a word of English or the language you are currently speaking in (German and French or the United States Language of Speed English).

I have several personal favorites:

Chai Men: Tea Sellers that make the strangest noises in the entire world! You really cannot help but to try and imitate them! Lauren (from MI, USA) was the worst! One would come by yelling their “CH-HAI! Ch-Ha!” and right after they would be out of the compartment she would start to imitate them! Generally this eccentric skill would backfire and they would turn around and be like “CHAI!? KYA?!” and give you this super creepy smile, but Lauren to avoid this would conk her head out and pretend to be asleep! Essentially trying to blame her imitations on us! Funny, but harsh.

Transvestites: Enough Said

The Ticket Guy: He normally is really confused and likes to ask a bunch of questions, such as why I have a guys name and a women’s ticket? Do I look like a man, I don’t think so! Also he always looks really out of place in like a nice suit and tie, he ask for tickets and like to hassle people, it is not cool.

The Seat Stealers: People like to trade your seats off and not tell you, it is like winning in a poker game, that’s how much luck you need to win at getting to your seat without a hassle!

So the train is an interesting experience, as I mentioned open windows, which is interesting because they make you close your windows, what’s the point right! Well apparently little boys like to throw rocking into the train in attempt to stone people inside the train! Lovely! Our Rotary guy told us it was a national pastime! LOVELY!

A story I really should not share… but I am going to. If you do not believe in rule breaking (I don’t break the rules but sometimes my friends do) then skip this part. So before we left a few of us were making bets about who would get in trouble the soonest and our bet would be two Germans and at the Rotary Conference so in the first 48 hours. Well we were right about the German part, but we seriously under estimated the hours it would take. On the train we were and the Germans smoke and they stepped outside and joined a group of Indian smokers, just for a quick minute. Well those quick minutes ended up getting them arrested, go figure white kid luck and stupidity! They were just standing their and as the story goes they ended up running into the police, who drag them back on the train to demand their arrest (really their bribe). So they are yelling and there are around 7 police in our compartment, yelling at our poor Rotary guy. Well the end of the story and the bottom line is that they payed off the cops and no one got arrested, well this time.

So we got to Hyderabad in one piece, thank god! And headed out to our Rotary Conference, at the Ramoji Film Studio! We reached Hyderabad at around five in the morning. It was odd because the train just stopped and kicked us all out, well we did have a wake up call by our Rotary Guy at around 4, we wanted to kill him, many of you know waking a teenager up at four in the morning is not something you want to do, I give him major points. This was the furthest I had ever been away from my house in India, I was in South India, and really it made all the difference! Just looking at the train station I knew I was not in Pune anymore! The train station itself was a marvelous wonder! It looked straight out of the movie Aladdin and the country Turkey (if you mixed the two together, you would have the station). It had a serious Muslim influence in not only architecture but writing, all the signs were not only in Hindi, English and the local language Telagau, but also Arabic. Very different from the English dominated Pune. You could tell by the train station itself that Hyderabad was a cleaner city, and had less beggars then Pune. It was really different, in a really good way!

We then drove the 45 or so minutes to Ramoji Film Studio. This place is supposed to be like the Indian equalivent to Disney World, it was really not sure what to totally expect though. We arrived at Hotel Sahera, The Econ hotel! Go Figure, The Foreign Kids get the SHAFT! It sucked! Well, ok, ok, the pillows were nice and the showers (though they were communal and you had to walk down an open hallway to get to them) were pretty close to amazing (water pressure! Hot Hot Hot Water! Ahahah!). But they tried to cram 14 of us into a room! It would have been ok if it was just us foreign kids and dance Didi and Auntie (our dance teacher, and Mallory’s Host Mother, who is pretty cool), but no they threw in some mystery Rotary Old Ladies! You know the type old ladies with blue hair, and all had matching sarrees! They all loved to sing the whiney old Hindi and Maharti nasal songs, and laugh about the fact that a rival purple saree wearing women’s husband’s trousers were missing a button and were not properly stitched at the bottom. Ooo dear is all I could say to that, I did voice my complaints, but well it was only for one night, one very interesting night.

After checking into the shack hotel, we went and found our actual rotary conference location! They stuck us all on to busses, and drove us around circle drives with huge fountains (mock ups of famous London and Rome locations, not very good representations, but Hindi Movies generally suck, still cool though!), through large elaborate gardens and past five star hotels (the hotels the Rotary members were staying at, when us foreign kids get the shaft!). It was really awesome! Our actually conference was in Studio Eight, on the back lots. It was cool, being inside a real film studio, reminded me of the airplane hanger that I had my dance recitals in when I was little (I know I am a real military brat).

At the Rotary conference, I have talked about this before, but we had our cultural presentation, which was more or less our dance. We had been practicing this damn dance three or four times a week since December! And we had pretty customs and everything and so that is what we spent the day doing, getting ready for our Dance. It took us around three hours maybe a bit more to get ready (an hour getting ready and then around three hours of waiting around! Because the rotary is late for everything!). Also it was decided that morning that they needed someone to introduce all the Rotary presentations, and so Peekay turned to Johnny and Johnny turned to me, and was like Heather will do it. So I ended up taking an Indian speech and translating it into English and presenting it. The Dragon lady (the dance Nazi, the lady whose house dance practice was at), told me she would torture me in her hospital if I did not speak slowly. I ended up sounding like a NPR speaker on ADD medicine, because I talked so slowly. All in all out dance went over great! We were quite surprised! I did not beam Elli, like in the dress rehearsal. Also in the dress rehearsal I spinned and my glasses ended up flying off my head and hitting some high up Rotary guy in the arm… not good, not good. They also showed a movie, one of the IYE members had made, showing all of our pictures and short clips of what we had done this year so far (most of them were mine! I was like I TOOK THAT PICTURE! And I got no credit for it!). In the end Monga (Googlely Eyes) was told to announce us all, but well he could not, because he refuses to learn our names and he passed the mic over to the Dragon Lady, to announce us all. We were all lined up on stage and Stephanie (Stevie) and I were next to each other and as the Dragon Lady skips over Stevie and me! Which she just spent twenty minutes yelling at me about talking too fast, I knew she knew my name! When Stevie and I stepped up to be announced she skipped both of us! Stevie and I were beyond upset! It was not cool at all! So afterwards Stevie and I decide to do the American Teenager thing, go up to her back stage and for the hundredth time introduce ourselves! So we go up to her and Stevie and I hold out our hands, and introduce ourselves. She just looked at us like we were crazy. But she turned to us and snarled I know who you are, and walked away… As Stevie yelled, but you seamed to have forgotten them on stage we just thought we would remind you. I know we are bad, but really it was the American Teenager thing to do.

That night was the big dinner event, which was held in the courtyards surrounding one of the really big fountains, this one I think was based off of a fountain in Russia, something like that. The area was perfect for a big dinner; it had formal tables in a big real grass field. Being silly exchange students, not having seen real grass for around six months we turned down our table for the grass. It was like we were five again! We kicked off our shoes and ran through the grass playing tag and doing cartwheels. There was an orchestra and a Dj too, so we danced the night away in our little group of exchange kids!

We also ran into a considerable amount of White people! There was a group exchange (young professionals foreign work related exchange) group from the USA, who just arrived in India and they were going to be living in Pune for a month, after the conference. We got to talking to them, and they had already had a true Indian experience! They had already been offended by the Dragon Lady! You cannot come to India and not be offended by the Dragon Lady, it is a true Indian experience! They were all paraded around on stage (just like we were) to announce what they were doing in India. She did not forget there names, well they at least got to announce their own names, but she called them all ugly. What happened is they got up to be greeted by last year’s outbound group exchange group. And she and her husband proudly say into the microphone “WOW! Look at all the people, now at least we can say that the people India sends out are always more beautiful then the people India gets stuck with!” Gotta Love the Dragon Lady!

The dinner went on late into the night, and it got pretty crazy. That is really all I am going to say. I will add in the fact that all Rotary members in India are crazy.

The next day (yes, I am only on day two…) was Republic Day in India! One of the most dangerous days in India, it just so happens that last year in the city we happened to be just outside of 17 people died on republic day because of violence. It was interesting though because there were Indian flags everywhere! So this day was to be spent exploring! We got to go on a tour of the film studios and also go to the Disney part of the place. So for this tour, other then loseing Stevie and Eli (because they wanted ice cream… really I wanted ice cream and found the ice cream place they just followed my little ideas, because I came back with ice cream for breakfast… hehe). So we got to go on this tour, and they made all the Rotary people stand in separate lines, which was normal. So we get on this tour, and our guide starts yapping away (we were not able to understand a word she said! India really does produce some of the worst orators!). But after a few minutes of going around the park at hyper speed, we realized that we were really going too fast. It turned out they were giving the Rotary people the “abstract” (as my father would say) tour. They skipped over everything, did not let us stop, and I ended up taking a bunch o pictures from just outside of the bus, boring! Ok well they did make one stop. We stopped at these mock caves, which were the mock ups of these carved caves in north India. All of us exchange students were winding around these poorly lit caverns, and we see something in all white, well being really really smart, I don’t know who started it but we all were like “WHAT IS THAT!” And we then started touching it, I think I grabbed the top part of it… we could not decide if it was fake or real. All of a sudden the thing starts to yell at us in Hindi, and well scarred the pants off us! It was a person! So the totally non-scary mock caves turned into haunted caves in a matter of two minutes, it was not cool. At the end of the tour, we stopped at the Rotary Backlots! Well that is not where we wanted to be! We wanted to be where the “rides” were! So as good kids, we staged a civil protest! We refused to get off the bus! We stayed put, we did not move, we kicked and screamed when they tried to throw us off the bus, and we in the end prevailed! They took us to the “rides.” It was interesting and different form any amusement park I have ever been to before. Really the rides were created for about five year olds, but never the less we rode them all. Their premier ride is called Ramoji Tower. It looks like the old glass bank building in Grafton (really ugly). But this ride is crazy! You go through this building and get into an “elevator” (can anyone say Tower of Terror?) well it is really a simulator and you simulate and earthquake and well you see a bunch of people die! And it tells you in the end that you survived but your loved ones are dead! It is morbid! And well I was just thinking that something like this would never make it in the US! Amusement parks make you happy! Not everyone you came to the park with today is now dead! What is this!

Well that is all you get for now! I will get to more of the trip soon! I swear just thought you would like a little taste!

I had the time of my life! It was amazing!!!!