Lundi, 19 février 2007

i've been away for three weeks travelling around India with Gosia...

it's very weird to be back, back at home, back at work, back in the real world... the whole trip feels like an illusion now. it's strange but my mind seems to have achieved a state of complete emptiness, numbness... i don't know... maybe i'm just tired from the journey... i don't know...

although, i'm so glad that I live in such a beautiful fucking country! we started our journey in mumbai, then went on to ahmedabad for a friend's wedding, and then, finally to rajasthan - udaipur, jasailmer, jodhpur and jaipur... on to Agra, i finally saw the Taj Mahal, and then we went up to Delhi to catch a plane to Pune and finally, we ended our journey in Goa (Chand just noticed that I have been to Goa 5 times in the past year, truly my second home... and everytime i go there, it still manages to give me exactly what I need!)

Udaipur left a lasting impression on me with its beauty, its lakes, its gorgeous sunsets, its palaces, its streets...
and the silence and desert color of Jasailmer left me in complete awe! truly beautiful! the other places were mostly typical indian cities with the normal indian craze, chaos, traffic, pollution but with pretty good places to visit.
i'm glad that i was affected by the beauty of the Taj Mahal, I was scared that it wouldn't leave me astounded. but it kind of did...specially its first glimpse.

my three favorite places and moments

- in Udaipur, there's this place bordering the lake, where there was a rasjthani musician, women bathing and washing their saris, a thousand children wanting to be clicked by any camera, cows shitting and relaxing, a view of the lake palace, the city palace and other parts of udaipur... with the sun setting down, it was the perfect moment, perfect music, perfect feeling, perfect magic...

- in the desert, under the starlit sky, around the fire, our guide, our camel caretaker, 2 villagers from the desert, 2 germans having heard that our guides have beer and us... while preparing our meal, the guide, the caretaker, and the villagers were singing songs... singing songs of the desert, love and their lost lands, because, they left Pakistan after the partition... we were offered local sugar cane alcohol and we obliged... and after that, we slept under the open sky surrounded by sand...i kind of tried meditating most of the night... i must have scared Gosia!

- at hotel cosy (thanks Asia!)... we met two french guys... we talked for hours, watched the sunset together over the blue parts of Jodhpur and played carrom board... Roumain and Olivier love india and their life is a little like this: they work for six months in the côte d'azur and then come to india and sri lanka for six months... i got to practice teaching them Hindi... sometimes, it's embarrassing how bad i speak Hindi!

Some other interesting conversations we had during our journey -

we were asked a thousand times by thousand different people the exact same thing. Where are you from? From Holland? England? ahh.. Poland...and you, Indian? really? you're not indian... Indian? where do you live? Pune? Nooo... You speak Hindi? Really?? are you married? Not married? at least boyfriend and girlfriend? Not even? just friends??? really????

but the worst and weirdest thing was in Mumbai, when a guy approached me and asked me to give him a contact no. so that even he could get a foreign girl with him!!! when i told him we were just friends, he even dared asking me to ask Gosia if she didn't mind going with him and for how much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! really, some people in this country are really insane!!! well, we're all a little (ok more than a little) crazy in India, but some really...

so here, we're all a little crazy! i guess i must be, to live in this crazy world, specially in this crazy country... i feel like the energy in me has been sapped... i need to recover it...very soon.. help me... where has my smile gone? mon sourire...c'est que moi qui peut le perdre et le retouvrer...le pouvoir est en moi!