Living on the Surface of the Sun

So for those of you who follow the weather in Oman (and why would you?), you might have noticed that the current temperature is approximately the same as the surface of the sun, yet as humid as a balmy day in Florida. Yesterday had a high of 113F and it's only May, which does not bode well for the next five months or so. Actually, it probably won't really cool off until December, which is just depressing.

 

It also helps explain why we were all so excited that a new mall opened last week. So first, it gives people something to do outside of their homes that's still air conditioned because, let's face it, anything that isn't air conditioned is miserable right now. And then there's the chance that there might actually be something other than coffee shops in the new mall - a clothing store or two, perhaps? Or maybe even a Sephora? Or something that reminds us of home and could simulate an American shopping experience? (Side note: last weekend I was in Doha visiting friends and we went to a new mall that had an Old Navy. It was like the most exciting thing ever and almost brought tears to my eyes. I don't shop at Old Navy when I live in the US, but for some reason everything that feels like home is exciting.)

 

Our hopes were dashed by some online posts that said people who visited the new mall were trapped in 2+ hours of traffic just to get out of the parking garage - from the outside it looks like the parking garage was designed in a planned way (unlike most parking in Oman), yet I guess people will still insist on parking wherever they want, traffic rules and common courtesy be-damned. The other thing is that over here, developers are in such a rush to open new things that they don't even bother to wait until the stores are ready. So last week announcements were coming out that the mall was open, but no stores were open yet. I guess it at least gave people an air conditioned place to walk around...

 

After work yesterday I swung by for a quick walk around the bottom floor and I have to say I'm pretty excited. No Sephora or Banana Republic or Ann Taylor, but at least there's a few Western stores I recognized (all the Brits are super excited about a Boots opening up) and the mall seems to be laid out in a logical fashion. And I only saw 2 coffee shops, which is pretty shocking for an Arab mall. Eventually, when the movie theatre and restaurants (Macaroni Grill!!) and more than a third of the stores open up, it could be a really nice relief from the summer misery. Till then, I pretty much plan on spending my time alternating between my air conditioned living room, my shaded pool and air conditioned movie theaters. (This is also why every expat who can leaves for the summer.)

 

As for travel plans, T-minus 11 days until Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan and then I'm off to Tanzania and Zanzibar for 10 days in July during our Eid holiday. So I can't complain too much about only sitting on my couch this summer...

 

 

An Ode to the 'Stans

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off work to fly to Dubai to hopefully pick up my visa from the Uzbek Consulate for my trip to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in three and a half weeks (!!!). And man, what an ordeal it has been getting visas and letters of invitation for my dad and me for this trip. Given the headaches of getting there and the fact that everyone thinks I'm making a Borat joke when I tell them where I'm going on my next trip, I figured it would be worth sharing why this trip made my traveling bucket list.

 

 

To explain my fascination with Central Asia we're going to have to go all the way back to middle school or thereabouts. I was a nerdy kid who read a lot (and turned into a nerdy adult who still reads a lot) and at some point some wise person (probably my dad) handed me "Brave New World" and "1984" and I instantly became obsessed with the idea of failed utopian societies. By 8th grade, this fascination with dystopias had led me, unsurprisingly, to Ayn Rand, who mostly wrote fiction novels attacking principles of communism and socialism due to her experiences growing up in the Soviet Union. Which obviously then led me to researching the Soviet Union.

 

 

 

 

As a kid who loved dystopian science fiction books, the Soviet Union was like the perfect example of a failed utopia...except it wasn't fiction. The crazy shit that the Soviets did actually happened and millions of people either believed in the utopian vision or just accepted it and didn't fight the system. By the time I was ready to go to college, majoring in Russian History seemed like getting a degree in science fiction ideology (aka my dream major).

 

 Except my university had one Russian history professor and I couldn't stand her. I also visited Russia the summer after my freshman year of college and absolutely hated it, which pretty much sealed my fate that Russian History was not going to be my focus. As luck would have it I also happened to have a fabulous Middle Eastern History teacher, so I switched my focus pretty much on the personality of professors (but I still secretly loved Soviet history more). The summer after my sophomore year I went to summer school at Berkeley and took a class on terrorism from another phenomenal professor - as part of the class we covered the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism in Uzbekistan and it was like a giant light bulb went off in my head. I suck at math, but here's what the formula looked like for me: Muslim countries (Middle East history + minor in Islam) + former Soviet countries (love of all things Soviet) = Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan). It was pretty much the most exciting discovery of my entire university career and launched me into a 2+  year obsession with the region and my current job.

 

I decided to write a senior thesis for fun (see above note about me being nerdy) and spent my entire senior year and the summer between junior/senior year researching and writing my magnum opus on the creation of nationalism and alternate identities in Central Asia. I won't bore you with the specifics (unless you ask nicely and then I'll totally be happy to launch into a long diatribe), but the gist of it is this: prior to the Soviet Union, most of Central Asia was tribal and practiced a moderate form of Islam and didn't really give two shits about nationalism or pride of country since it was pretty much historically just part of other empires and most of the people were nomads anyway (except Uzbekistan, but there the cities were generally each little khanate kingdoms). Once the Soviets rolled in and applied their evil utopian ideology, they basically created fake nations with the goal of consolidating their control by pitting the new countries against each other in a divide and conquer mentality (i.e., pre-communism you were a nomadic goat herder and you and your family moved around a 100 square mile area - if someone asked you where you were from, you might name a tribe or a mountain range; with communism, you were now the proud inhabitant of [Kazakh/Kyrgyz/Uzbeki/Tajiki/Turkmeni]stan, with a fancy new flag, a national anthem, a new alphabet for your language, new words in your language and, oh, ps, you totally hate [insert every other -stan] because they think they're better than you/were stealing your water/were just dicks in general).

 

As a wannabe scholar of all things dystopian, I was fascinated by how the Soviets created nations from scratch and, more importantly, why they did it. And how it totally screwed up an entire region. But the second part of my thesis was what happened after communism fell - turns out the Soviets did such a good job creating fake nations that it stuck, even after there wasn't a Soviet overland cracking the whip. Except now they also had the freedom to explore alternate identities (like radical Islamist or liberal democrat), which made Central Asia a really fascinating place in the 90's and 00's, especially as the new rulers (former KGB henchmen) cracked down on anything they perceived to be against their rule. And some, at least in the case of Turkmenistan's former president Saparmurat Niyazov, were batshit, certifiably insane.

 

As college wrapped up, I was faced with the choice of going to law school or getting a Master's Degree in Central Asian Studies. But also around this time I attended a seminar on oil and gas exploration activities in Central Asia and I marched off to law school with the dream of becoming an oil and gas lawyer working in Central Asia (and considering I am an oil and gas lawyer working in the Middle East, I did pretty well with the first part of the promise, which is probably pretty unusual to mostly live up to the expectations of your 20 year old self).

 

So anyway, you can imagine that most of my college friends' eyes glazed over with boredom the minute I even mentioned my thesis topic and there wasn't a single one of them who wanted to listen to me blather on about some great new idea I had or how to write about some specific topic (in fact, the guy I was dating at the time's main goal in life was to either become a rock star or a porn star - it's fair to say I didn't discuss anything school-related with him). So for better or worse, my parents bore the brunt of my impassioned Central Asia musings - while I don't think either of them was particularly interested in the region or the topics I was studying,  they were happy to listen because (a) I probably sounded really smart, which meant their money wasn't going to waste, (b) I was really passionate about something school-related, and (c) at least I was picking an area where I might be able to earn an income, as opposed to my previous idea of getting a master's degree in folklore (seriously, that was my original plan in college). I also forced them to read my 100 page thesis when it was done, which wasn't exactly light reading.

When my dad and I began planning a trip together, his criteria was that it had to include adventure, it had to be someplace hot and my mom required that we go somewhere she didn't want to go (which limited us to either trips to places without adequate toilets or, more generally, "shithole" countries). After whittling down the list of countries that met the criteria and me generously dropping hints about how Central Asia and the Silk Route met all our criteria and would be awesome, I finally got my dad onboard with a two week trip to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Since then he's been reading my old library of books on the region and I think he's actually pretty excited to see the ancient history of Uzbekistan and the creepy communist futuristic city of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, even if it means camping for a few days in the deserts of Turkmenistan.

So there you have it - my really long and painfully boring explanation of why I'm so excited for this most unusual of trips.

Alley Chicken

So one of the really noticeable things about the developing world is the utter lack of parking in cities. In the US, if you want to build an apartment building or a commercial building, you generally have to provide sufficient parking spaces for the building in order to get municipal approval to build. Whereas here, it's not unusual to find a brand new apartment building with zero parking. Same with commercial buildings, especially since underground parking seems to be really rare here (and even when there is underground parking, it's only one level down). So as a result, people wind up parking in every available place they can find to fit their cars - on curbs and sidewalks, in front of "No Parking" signs, in areas reserved for emergency vehicles and, most frequently, behind an already parked car.

 

To get to work, I drive through an alley on the side of my office building, which is as wide as a normal street. Except, since there's not sufficient parking for the building, people park on either side of the alley, thereby making it a one-way, despite the fact that there are cars moving in both directions. When I first started dealing with the alley in the mornings, I acted like a nice expat - I waited to make sure no other cars were coming in my direction before entering the alley and, if a car happened to enter the alley after I did, I generally backed up to avoid any issues. This usually resulted in the Omani behind me swerving around me to enter the alley at breakneck speed (despite the oncoming car), only to then have a honking session in the middle of the alley until one car gave in and backed up.

 

Starting about a month ago, however, I decided to play what I call "Alley Chicken" (chicken being the name of the game where two cars race towards each other until one swerves, thereby being the "chicken"). Now, if there's no one already heading in my direction, I enter the alley and gun it, hoping to make it past the halfway point of the alley before someone else enters. I figure if I make it past the halfway mark, the other car has to back up, whereas I'll back up if the other car reaches the halfway mark before I do. Last week was my first Alley Chicken match - we both made it to the halfway mark at approximately the same time. And, unlike my earlier days of being the nice expat, I smiled and shook my head, indicating that the other guy should back up. And after a few minutes of hand gestures and honking, he begrudgingly backed up and I walked into the office feeling like I'd just won a really difficult negotiation.

  

I made a diagram. I'm the blue car. And clearly lining up all the parked cars in a row is a joke - in real life they're parked totally haphazardly, half sticking out into traffic. 

So yesterday, I entered the alley and made it about 3/4 of the way through before an Omani woman entered the alley. Despite seeing me coming, she kept right on driving until we were nose to nose. I indicated that she should back up and she sat there and made a phone call (my Omani coworker said she was probably calling her dad, asking for advice). Meanwhile, two other cars pull up behind me and start honking. She hangs up the phone and just stares at me, not budging, and starts to look panicked. It occurs to me that she might not actually know how to reverse her car. The cars behind me start laying on their horns, I'm trying to make hand gestures that she should back up and finally, after about 5 minutes, she very slowly, inch-by-inch, started reversing, all the while looking like she was having a panic attack. About ten feet behind her was an open spot for parallel parking, and a nice Indian man tried to help her maneuver into the spot, but it was also pretty clear that she had no idea how to parallel park. After losing about 10 minutes total, I finally made it out of the alley, grumpy and annoyed.

 

I was annoyed that someone could get a license without apparently knowing how to drive. And furious that there's never any freaking parking anywhere in this city and that we all just have to learn to live with getting trapped in a parking lot because someone parked behind our cars. And mentally I had a whole rant about how this wouldn't happen in the developed world and that, instead of promulgating practically daily new laws on things like banning live music or trying to ban booze, perhaps the government should start regulating zoning and building requirements.

 

And somewhere in the grumpiness that never dissipated throughout the day, I realized I was homesick. Don't get me wrong - I love being an expat and I love the experiences I'm getting from living in another country. But every once in a while the "foreign" part gets to be too much and I start to miss the things that I always took for granted in the US. And I guess I'm going to have to accept that if I stay over here (which still remains to be seen), every once in a while I'm going to get a wave of homesickness from something silly like a shitty parking situation. In the meantime, I'm still undefeated in Alley Chicken!

A Neanderthal's Guide to Hinduism in India

For someone raised in a Judeo/Christian/Muslim (let's just call them the "monotheistic religions" for short) society, Hinduism can seem really foreign and complicated. I think one of the reasons the monotheistic religions spread so quickly is how simple the tenets of the religions are - there's one God and that God, through prophets or angels or messengers, has laid down a set of laws or morals that his followers should obey. To be a good Jew/Muslim/Christian, one must essentially follow the laws (and obviously the interpretation of those laws is pretty much the breakdown of modern monotheistic religions, whether one's Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Reform, Shi'a or Sunni). And sure, there's spiritual and mystical offshoots of each of these religions (Kabbalah, Sufism, gnosticism) and yeah, the holy trinity in Christianity is baffling to many, but overall it doesn't require much mental gymnastics to understand the basics of the monotheistic religions. 

Hinduism, on the other hand, can seem really complicated, especially to a Westerner. There's 300 million gods and goddesses, many of the "main" gods that are worshipped are only avatars or incarnations and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot that one has to specifically do to be a Hindu. Most Westerners can probably sum Hinduism up with the following list: red dots on foreheads, cows are sacred, turbans, lots of colorful gods, yoga, gurus who can do crazy shit like levitate and walk across hot coals...and that's about it. Even as a religion minor in university I still wouldn't have much to add to that list - when we studied the Eastern religions in school we learned some useful concepts and catchphrases (karma, dharma, moksha, etc.) and we sort of learned the tenets of each religion, but we never really learned about what people believe or internalize. Which makes sense if you approach the study of religion from a monotheistic religion's point of view, since the tenets are the whole religion, but that doesn't hold up so well with the far more spiritual religions of the east (except Buddhism - Buddhism always seems easier for a Westerner to understand, probably because it's more of a philosophy and a way of living rather than its more spiritual Eastern counterparts). 

Giant statue of the monkey god Hanuman inside Bandhavgarh National Park

Ok, so for starters, let's start with the basics: there's three "main" gods - Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Shiva (the Destroyer). And they have three female counterparts: Saraswati (goddess of knowledge), Lakshmi (goddess of wealth and prosperity) and Parvati (the Divine Mother). Sometimes the female counterparts are called the wives of the main gods, sometimes they're the female "aspects", which indicates that the gods are really genderless and the names and identities given to them are really just to humanize something godly. And sometimes the god and goddess are combined, especially in the case of Shiva, who often appears totally androgynous. Starting to get confused? Well, to make matters more complicated, some other Hindu gods are really just incarnations of these gods - Krishna and Rama are incarnations of Vishnu, Durga and Kali are incarnations of Parvati (which could sort of be compared to God sending Jesus down to earth). 

Painting of Brahma inside a temple in Tordi Garh - Brahma is typically shown with four heads. Some believe the four heads represent the four Vedas, but another story states that Brahma created a beautiful woman named Shatarupar. She was so beautiful that Brahma gazed at her wherever she went and, as she tried to avoid his attention, he kept sprouting heads so he could always see her and he finally sprouted a fifth head on top, which Lord Shiva chopped off to admonish Brahma for unholy behavior.

Painting of Lord Krishna and his girlfriends inside a temple in Tordi Garh.

Beyond that, my brain starts to hurt. What's more fascinating to me is what people actually believe - do they believe in 300 million different gods, some of whom come to earth and blue-skinned incarnations? Do they really believe that these gods/goddesses are slayers of demons and, if so, what are demons? How do you pick the god/goddess you primarily worship? So I had a lot of questions for my guide in India*. 

So, the easy question - how do you pick which one you worship? Most families have a central deity that they worship (in the region I was in, that was primarily Shiva) or a specific god or goddess that a person identifies with. And, at least the way my guide explained it, the Hindu gods and goddesses aren't really worshipped the way the monotheistic religions worship god - Hinduism is a lot more spiritual and a lot more inward-looking. So while a monotheistic might ask God for help getting a new job, a Hindu wouldn't ask their deities for a favor like that; rather, they would ask for the insight to find the strength within him/herself to obtain the job. And the incarnations? An easier way to understand it is to think of different aspects of our personalities - the incarnations are merely embodiments of the different facets of humanity and just like different personality traits are appropriate for different circumstances (ferocity in battle vs. tenderness with family), different incarnations of the gods are appropriate for different theological needs. 

The more my guide explained it, the more philosophical and spiritual it became, rather than seeming like a traditional religion (at least from a monotheistic religion's point of view). Likewise, there's nothing you specifically have to do or refrain from doing to be a Hindu - while there's basic concepts like karma and enlightenment, there's no set of laws or script to follow, so it can be highly personalized and I suspect even regionalized. 

Ganesh shrine inside Ranthambore Fort - some of the offerings people left made nice snacks for the resident monkeys.

The single most fascinating thing for me, however, was understanding gender roles in Hinduism (or rather, trying to understand them). So, as I mentioned above, it's unclear whether the gods have wives or if the goddesses are just different aspects of the gods. And while you might be prompted to say that the goddesses are the "softer sides/aspects" of the gods, that's totally not true - two of the most badass warriors are the goddesses Durga (demon-slayer with 10 arms, each holding a weapon, and rides a tiger - clearly badass) and Kali (goddess of time and death and more on her badassery below). And there are many statutes of Shiva where half of him is male and half of him is female (or where he's just really androgynous), signifying the male and female aspects of him. Frankly, I have no idea what this means from a "gender studies" perspective, I just think the gender dynamics in Hinduism are cool as shit (and I'm sure plenty of smart people have written about this topic or what these gender roles mean in Hindu society). 

Ancient sculpture of Shiva/Parvati. The left half is a male body and the right half is a female body. The Muslim conquerors chipped away all of the faces of the ancient sculptures, which is such a shame.

Kali was always my favorite Hindu deity. And how, you might ask, does an American girl who can barely understand the basics of Hinduism have a favorite Hindu deity? Well, as I already mentioned, I was a nerdy goth kid who had a wee bit of an obsession with vampires. And as a death goddess who slays demons, has fangs, drinks blood on the battlefield and wears a necklace of severed heads and a skirt of human arms, plenty of sci-fi/fantasy authors included stories about her or her followers in various books or stories I read when I was younger. Plus she just looks evil (which is also confusing, since why would someone worship an evil goddess?).

Ancient sculpture of Kali and her skull-like face.

So clearly I had to ask my guide why people would worship an evil vampire goddess. She's mainly worshipped as a protector, since she slays demons and is fierce in battle. He also told me a well-known Hindu story - once, Kali got so caught up in killing and slaying that she went on a rampage and couldn't be stopped. Shiva, her husband, went to stop her before she destroyed the world and the only way her rage could be calmed was when Shiva lay down before her and, just as she was going to stomp on him, realized it was her beloved husband and calmed down. The stories maintain that only Shiva can tame Kali (and vice versa). Another story of Shiva and Kali that I find really interesting is once Parvati asked Shiva to choose his favorite form among her incarnations - he chose Kali because she is just raw, chaotic energy, which is probably an apt companion for Shiva the Destroyer.

Typical image of Kali - necklace of severed heads, skirt of human arms, holding a severed head and her tongue out between her fangs. This also shows her stepping on a prone Shiva.

I have to say, while some of the spiritual underpinnings might be complicated, the Hindu "Bible stories" are a hell of a lot more entertaining and interesting than Noah's ark or the story of Abraham and Isaac or any of the other comparatively snooze-worthy monotheistic Bible stories. 

*Most of these explanations are from my guide's perspective which, I recognize, may not encompass what every Hindu believes. But it's certainly easier to understand than just reading Wikipedia!

On Indian Culture Shock (or lack thereof)

So, as I mentioned previously, I had some serious concerns about going to India and expected to find it a huge culture shock, despite the fact that I've routinely traveled to the developing world over the last decade or so. I pictured endless slums and people living in abject poverty without proper sanitation or healthcare. I pictured lepers begging for money and dense crowds jostling and molesting you in the streets. Somehow, setting off to India made me feel like I'd never before left the US, much less that I'd been living abroad for a year or that I routinely jetted off to countries much more foreign to the average American than India.

Given my level of trepidation about traveling to India, I figure the only way I can do penance for my previously held erroneous beliefs is to write about India in agonizing detail. Or at least until I get bored and/or finish sorting through my photos. So anyway, I landed in Delhi in the midafternoon and noticed that the impressively modern airport was completely empty. There didn't seem to be anyone waiting at gates to get on or off planes and when I approached the immigration counter my challenge was in finding an immigration officer who was awake since I was the only person at the eVisa counter. As I exited the airport to look for my taxi driver, I expected to be bombarded by hundreds of offers of taxis and drivers and was mentally preparing myself for the onslaught - instead, there were only a handful of people standing outside the airport and not a single one offered me a ride or a tour or anything else.

The drive from the airport to my hotel was utterly terrifying. Lanes and traffic rules are mere suggestions and before we got out of the airport my taxi was almost in a collision with another car as both were trying to share the same lane (although I use the term "lane" loosely - it's probably more accurate that both cars were simultaneously trying to share the same spot in the road and neither was willing to back down). Cars meandered across the roads, including into the oncoming traffic, and it was not unusual to see cars traveling the wrong way down the road. At stoplights cars squeeze in as close together as possible, maneuvering into open spots with mere centimeters to spare on either side of the car. And to add to the chaos, there were also tons of motorbikes, bicycles, horse carts, human carts, pedestrians, tuk-tuks, wild animals, etc. The only saving grace seems to be that no one drives very fast, so at least a collision would likely only result in a fender bender rather than death. I later learned that all one has to do to get a driver's license in India is pay for it (rather than take a driving test), which makes so much sense now.

On the drive in I also noticed that men were peeing everywhere, with seemingly no concern for privacy or sanitation. After about a week in I noticed some of the public urinals, which were basically just open stalls on the streets for men to pee in, but again without any real privacy. I expected the pervasive smell in India to be that of curry-scented BO - instead, urine is the single scent that stands out in my mind from the trip and it's simply because men pee wherever it's convenient. And, all things considered, I'd rather there be rivers of pee than rivers of poo in the streets.

Happy as a pig in shit in the streets of Jaipur

All things considered, however, my culture "shock" was minimal. For starters, I didn't actually see any of the slums that movies have led me to believe exist in every Indian city. I'm sure the slums are awful and depressing, but they didn't pervade the entirety of the cities quite like I expected. In the three cities I visited (Delhi, Jaipur and Agra) and in the handful of train stations I was in, I did see homeless and poverty-stricken people. Poverty and homelessness is always sobering, whether it's in an American city or an Indian train station, but I can honestly say that what I saw in India wasn't any worse than what I've seen in other developing nations or even on Skid Row in Los Angeles. In fact, I've seen more homeless people poop on the streets in the US than in India (I actually only saw one small child poop on the streets in India, though there was a distressingly large pile of poop on the stairs in one of the train stations - I'm still hoping that poop-pile was caused by a very dexterous cow capable of maneuvering up and down train station stairs rather than a human, but I digress). I still think the worst poverty I've ever seen or experienced was in Cambodia and what I saw in India doesn't even begin to compare to that.

Speaking of cows, they're everywhere in India and are not eaten by Hindus. It's not correct to say that Hindus worship cows, but one of the religious reasons that cows have a protected status is because the Lord Shiva rode a bull (the non-religious reasons are pretty practical - live cows can sustain life far longer than cow meat by providing milk and dung, both of which are important in Indian rural life). It's one thing in the villages to see cows freely roaming around, but it's another thing to see free-roaming cows in cities. Especially when those cows choose to lie down in the middle of busy roads or stand around chewing cud at a busy intersection. Cows (and water buffalo and dogs and donkeys and goats) also add tremendously to the utter chaos of driving in India. Some of the cows have homes that they return to at the end of the day for some more substantive food, but other cows have been disowned. Apparently Indian superstition maintains that it's really bad for a cow to die in one's home, so when cows stop producing milk or start to get old, many Indians will just release the cows to wander about freely. These cows are still relatively well fed, since in all Indian homes, when a woman bakes chapatti (Indian bread), the first chapatti of the evening is made for the wandering cows and the last is made for the stray dogs.

A cow, doing what cows do in India. Namely, hanging around and eating stuff.

We watched these cows cross a busy road in Jaipur to then hang out in the street or in the median. Didn't seem at all bothered by the cars rushing past.

Based on the numbers of stray dogs we saw, you'd need a lot of chapatti. But unlike other developing nations where the sight of stray animals is enough to make me want to put all my spare income into animal rescue organizations, strays and animals in general in India didn't seem so bad off, especially compared to some of the homeless humans. Over 80% of Indians practice Hinduism or one of Hinduism's splinter religions (Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism), all of which believe in some form of karma and the concept that mistreating even an animal could affect one's karma or reincarnation (in fact, some devout Jains are so concerned with the sanctity of life that they cover their faces so as to avoid inadvertently swallowing and killing a bug and others carry peacock feathers to dust off places to sit to avoid sitting on an insect and killing it). While a lot of the dogs looked mangy or hungry, none looked beaten or scared of humans and we often saw stray dogs living alongside the "stray" humans on the streets. In fact, the only animals in India that truly tugged at my heartstrings were the elephants, many of which have been forced into terrible working conditions as a result of the tourist industry.

Cows, pigs and dogs happily cohabiting a trash pile together in Ranthambore.

The pink gates of Jaipur, as well as the crush of humanity and pigs, dogs and cows happily munching on trash - totally a standard scene in India.

We also spent a few days in an Indian village, Tordi Garh, which I found fascinating. Village life in India resembled a lot of the village life I've seen in Africa or Southeast Asia, though the Indian homes were surprisingly immaculate. Our guides pointed out that while the streets were dirty with trash or animal dung, the insides of the homes generally had tiled floors that were kept very clean by the women of the families. Most if not all of the houses had running water and electricity; while we saw some men bathing in public water spigots, our guide told us that was likely due to personal preference rather than necessity, since many of the home showers are cramped and hot and can be uncomfortable to bathe in.

A village water pump in Tordi Garh. We saw these all over the place and people used these for washing, drinking and bathing.

A house in Tordi Garh - the paintings on the wall were to advertise a wedding, thereby inviting all the villagers to the wedding or anyone who happened to pass by the house

Even more impressive is the government's promotion of the villages. One thing that's easy to forget is that while many in India live below the poverty line, the economy of India is booming and the government is not necessarily poor. We learned that schooling in the villages is free and children receive a free lunch, which also helps promote attendance in the schools. There are forms of village welfare where poverty-stricken families can receive deep discounts on certain food products and there are specific jobs offered to low income families (i.e., help build a road for 2 hours tomorrow and receive a full day's wage for 2 hours of work), not to mention all the charitable religious organizations. There were free medical clinics and other civil services that sort of put what we have in America to shame.

The streets of Tordi Garh

All of which begged the question of why so many people live on the streets in the cities or in the slums or in the train stations rather than in the villages. Some leave the villages in the hopes of a more exciting life in the city (or, as frequently happens with teens, they want to be Bollywood stars), some move to the cities for jobs and then are too ashamed to return to the villages when things don't work out, some people don't want to be farmers in villages and some people just don't want to work for a living. But you could ask the same question and get many of the same answers if you asked why there are so many homeless people in expensive American cities - I often wondered why the homeless people I saw freezing in Boston winters didn't find some way to head down South and find a nice warm place to squat in Georgia (not to mention the huge savings in the cost of living in the South vs. a northern city).

So, long story short - India was a lot of things, but it wasn't necessarily a culture shock for an experienced traveler. And it wasn't any worse than most other developing nations and even had a lot of governmental and social programs that could be compared with similar programs in the US.

On Deciding to Go to India

Ok, so I have to admit that India was never high on my list of places to visit. I just pictured India as being an utter cacophony for the senses, a chaotic assault on sight, smell, sound and, most importantly, on my stomach. Since Indian food in America made me sick, I figured I would undoubtedly get Delhi Belly and spend the entirety of a trip crouched over some horrid public toilet, bemoaning evil curries and likely contracting something that killed the settlers in my childhood Oregon Trail game.

 

 

And then I moved to Oman. And India is soooo close and I did finally successfully try Indian food and not die. But I still didn't want to go. Most of the expats in Oman are from the Indian subcontinent, so I sort of figured Oman was like a much better smelling, cleaner, richer cousin of India. See, no need to go, especially since over the last few months Western media has been really focused on the rape and, specifically, gang rape issues in India. So, further justification for not going to India and dying of dysentery and/or gang rape. And, finally, even the tour company included a warning for India - it said that even really experienced travelers found India challenging and culturally shocking to travel to, further justification for me avoiding the second most populous country in the world altogether.

 

Except...India has tigers. And the Taj Mahal. And I really enjoyed studying Hinduism in school. And it's such a big and diverse country with so much fascinating history. And it's only three hours away. So, against what I thought was my better judgment and after many hours of agonizing over itineraries and tour companies, I booked a 2 week G Adventures trip to India to see tigers and the Taj Mahal and started stocking up on Immodium and Pepto Bismol and camping toilet paper.

 

 

I justified this trip on the basis that half the trip was spent in national parks stalking tigers, so that in and of itself would limit the amount of time I would be exposed to the crush of humanity that I expected (or slums or dodgy curries or utterly horrid toilets). Plus I convinced my roomie from Borneo to go with me, so at least I wouldn't be violently ill each day in front of a total stranger. And I booked a female taxi driver from the airport to reduce my chances of being raped until I could join up with the tour.

 

A few weeks before the trip my dad told me about a TV special he watched where they discussed sanitation in India (or lack thereof) and that so many people got sick because people working in kitchens still wiped their asses with their hands and then prepared food without properly washing their hands. So I bought enough pre-packaged food to bring with me that I figured I could survive on granola bars alone if necessary. The day before the trip started, one of my coworkers told me to avoid wearing sandals in Indian cities because of the "rivers of poo". My mind was filled with images of slums and human feces free-flowing in the streets, with the stench of a billion people's curry-scented BO and utter lack of sanitation. I might have canceled right then if my friend hadn't already flown to India from Australia...and I'm so glad I didn't.

 

I have so much to say about India it's going to take me multiple blog postings and time to continue sorting through my 2000 pictures. But it truly is an incredible country with unbelievable wildlife, architecture and history. The people were friendly and wonderful and the chaos of sight, sound and smell was invigorating rather than off-putting. While I can't say my stomach was 100% normal, I never got sick, nor did most of the other people on my trip. And though the tiger safaris didn't result in any up-close encounters, we did see two tigers, which just left me wanting more.

 

 

The tall grass didn't help, but at least you can see it's an actual tiger!

 

So while I figure out how to sort through my thoughts and photos of an unbelievable two weeks, I'll leave you with my favorite picture that I took of the Taj Mahal:

 

 

The Unsexy Part of Traveling

So first, a nifty travel map generator I found:

I love maps. I also love coloring in the maps to show where I've been because it gives me a weird sense of accomplishment. Which I guess makes sense if "world traveler" is one of the phrases I would use to define myself, but probably still pretty annoying to everyone around me.

 

But anyway, the last couple of weeks have been full of the unsexy part of traveling - visa applications. I'm off to India in a few weeks for a tiger safari (!!!!), so this past weekend I started my electronic visa application. It wasn't a big deal as far as visa applications go, at least until I got to this question:

 

 

Surely they had to be joking. Figuring this could take longer than expected I started filling it out, but before I even finished 2014 I ran out of space. But, this scary question aside, the Indian visa application system was a breeze and I already have my electronic visa all ready for my trip.

 

In sharp contrast to India are Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, two of the hardest countries in the world to get visas to. I'm traveling with my dad there this summer, so in addition to my own visa, I'm also trying to make sure he can get one as well since there are some concerns about his ability to get a visa due to his age.

 

Turkmenistan you can get a visa on arrival (supposedly), but first you have to get a Letter of Invitation from the government. Our tour company is working on that and I have my fingers and toes crossed that on arrival in Turkmenistan it all actually works (at least my dad and I are flying into Turkmenistan together, so if we get stuck or have problems we'll be together). Apparently someone from our tour company is going to have to meet us at immigration and shepherd us through the process, since the government wants to ensure that no one visits the country without a tour guide.

 

Uzbekistan has turned out to be a way bigger hassle. If you're an American citizen living in America, you just send your passport off to the Uzbek embassy (or hire a visa company to do it for you) and in a few weeks you get your passport back with a shiny new visa, which is what my dad is doing. But if you're not living in America and not willing to send your passport off for a month or so, it means you have to find an Uzbek embassy or consul which, as you can imagine, there are not a lot of. And if you're applying for a visa outside of the US, you need a Letter of Invitation from the government, which makes no sense because I'm still American regardless of where I'm living. And to get a Letter of Invitation you need a letter from your employer stating where you work and that you're only going to Uzbekistan for vacation and not for work and that you plan on returning to work after the vacation, which was a whole other hassle.

 

After a lot of research and phone calls to my tour company, a visa company and the Uzbek embassy/consul, this is my current plan: apply for Letter of Invitation (done); receive Letter of Invitation; fly to Dubai on a Sunday in April (the consul is only open Sunday, Tuesday and Thursdays from 9-12); cross fingers and hope that nothing goes wrong and that I'm able to leave Dubai that same day with a visa. I've also booked our plane tickets (a whole other clusterfuck...you have no idea how difficult it is to find flights out of Uzbekistan), so I'm really really really hoping we don't have visa difficulties.

 

While going through this whole ridiculous process, I kept thinking to myself "Why?!?!?" and "This trip damn well better be worth it." It's not like there's a ton of Americans trying to sneak into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for job opportunities. It's not like their economies couldn't desperately use some additional tourism revenue, not to mention some good publicity with Western tourists. And if I wasn't so determined to see these countries and the Silk Route, I would have given up long ago. So what does deterring travelers and all the additional bureaucracy and paperwork really give these countries? Other than more jokes for Borat...

 

And finally, as a result of all these new visas, I've run out of pages in my 2 year old passport. So yesterday I schlepped on down to the US Embassy here in Muscat for them to do some shoddy arts and crafts on my passport:

 

 

Seriously, they just glued random pages into the beginning and end of my passport. It looks like I did it myself and the damned thing doesn't even close now unless I hold it or stick something heavy on top of it. Here's hoping I can actually get through immigration with it...

 

So yeah, I love traveling. And the thought of going somewhere as wild and unexplored as Central Asia thrills me to the core. But the visa processes can be monstrously time consuming, annoying and, ultimately, expensive. And after all this work and effort, I'm not even positive that we'll be able to get visas, since we think they could be worried that my retired dad is trying to sneak into one of the 'stans for job opportunities (because that's totally logical for a happily retired American to do).