ghost writers in the sky

so, I’m in my hotel room at the ‘friendly apollo hotel (habby travels!)’ in Agra, lying on my bed under the blissful wash of the noisy a/c unit, listening to the cackling of the monkeys, and being watched by a large chameleon-looking gecko who is hangin out on the wall. It’s 2.30 in the afternoon, and the heat is crushing, but, surprisingly, not as unbearable as the humidity in Auckland. I arrived at Indira Ghandi international airport in delhi at 2a.m this morning (where the first thing one sees is a row of those clocks that show the time in london, paris, tokyo, etc, except that half of them had been stolen, or were smashed). Following some fairly harrowing adventures in the slums of Delhi, where I was cheerfully ripped off by a thoroughly organised and friendly bunch of standover guys, I procured a car and a brilliant buddhist driver, and set off undaunted, and surprisingly untired, on the three hour drive to agra as the dawn was rising through the smog.
So far India is simultaneously completely nuts, and full of kindness. There are 30 million people in Delhi, and they all seem to be out at 4am wandering around the streets. There are absolutely no road rules here, and cars, trucks, rickshaws, brightly decorated and overladen ramshackle trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, livestock and packs of dogs all weave around each other like bumper cars in a tremendously enjoyable ballet of chaos. The wrecks of various vehicles littering the sides of the roads, however, attest to the relative danger of road travel, although none of the vehicles seem to be able to go terribly fast. We stopped at a railway crossing, where an enterprising market had sprung up to service the halted traffic, and a pair of five-year-old beggars did an amazing acrobatic routine for me, to the beat of a paint-tin lid. Having no change, I gave them cigarettes, and they were stoked.
There are animals everywhere. This is one of the first things you notice, other than the permeating, ubiquitous, and surprisingly, not particularly unpleasant smell of shit. On my first day, I’ve seen wild dogs (the most common), monkeys (my faviourites, obviously, clambering along powerlines, hissing at you from rooftops, baiting the dogs), squirrels (very tame, but probably rabid), bats, cows, rats, mice, goats, camels, donkeys (we swerved around a dead one on the highway), huge crows (everywhere), and , soaring above it all, gigantic eagles. Outside the cities, the countryside is very beautiful, and hugely polluted, full of ramshackle structures, shanties, weird turreted temples, and basically just new crazy stuff to see everywhere you look.
Agra is hot and crowded and stinking, and looks like a completely over-dressed movie set. Just walking along the street attracts an entourage of smiling kids and adults all trying to sell you something. I went to the railway station to book my ticket to mumbai, and id was lively and brilliant. Indians all live squashed so closely together, they seem to have no concept of personal space, and they treat each other like siblings, pushing their neighbors out of the way, squabbling, and laughing at each other.
This place seems so desperately, fiercely alive, and at once, there’s an overload of everything. It makes where I come from seem so uptight and boring. I’m off to go wander around the taj mahal at sunset now. 24 hours on a train tomorrow!! woohoo!!
The culture shock is like tripping constantly.

casio :: May.29.2008 :: 'journalism', india :: 3 Comments »

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