July 7, 2008
¨I know that [this] is quite ordinary. I am not the only [person] to seek [something] far from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.¨
- Jhumpa Lahiri, from ¨The Third and Final Continent,¨ Interpreter of Maladies
April 12, 2008
Three weeks in the shape of a southern Chilean volcano, in the shape of the narrative arc of a poor novel, in the shape of the angry skin of a swollen ankle.
Santiago. Familiar and unwelcoming. Mine was the corner room in the basement, as removed from the rest of the building as it was possible to be. This was fitting. I read. I walked the streets trying to determine how to speak a language that my tongue kept refusing me. I found internet cafes, ate more meat in one week than I had in three months, and found one of Neruda´s houses. I listened to Chilean Spanish wash past me, extending my fingers to pick out a word where I thought there might be one. I found a new camera to replace the one that died in Mexico. I went up the mountain in the park, the one you´re supposed to go up to see the city and the Andes to the east, and as I sat near the top a man hit me on the shoulder to let me know a tarantula was on the ground behind me. I attempted to walk down a steep path but was forced to make my way back to the funicular railway track, which I then had to walk down, to the exasperated dismay of the folks running the park.
As hollowed out as I felt by four days without personal conversations with anyone, the protest made me feel awake and alive again, somehow of the same world as the work of people I love in Seattle, in Paris, in Northampton, and elsewhere.
Lucía. I wouldn´t have expected her to stop her little truck to pick up two over-sized bald men picking blackberries on a little gravel road far from town, but she did. After a career as a film producer, two marriages, and a life with three children, she dropped her city world and moved to a plot of land near the national park outside of Pucón. She built a house, lived for a long time with no electricity or phone, began to raise bees. She taught herself everything and slowly gained the respect of the locals. She looks 20 years younger than she is and seems even younger than that. I´m convinced that her smile actually makes its recipients younger as well.
We rode with her as she ran errands, telling stories the entire time and learning more about her life than I know about some people I consider friends. We decided to meet the next day for coffee. We talked for two hours about how people come into and out of our lives, how to love, how to relate to the people around us, how to conceptualize connection and movement. I gave her one of the small pieces of art Julia gave me to share with people I meet. (Sadly, or not, it´s already one of the last ones; I like people too much.) Then we embraced and each of us thanked the other for changing our lives.
En la calle. After a week of hiking to gorgeous mountain lakes and through nature reserves, mountain biking in the hills and stumbling across gorgeous viewpoints and waterfalls, horseback riding along rivers, watching the sunset, visiting hot springs late at night, staring up at stars that beg for cliches, and all the while making new friends and beginning to understand the ways my feet might move on this continent, I sprained my ankle. My foot went over a wooden edge of a deck-like structure jutting unevenly above a curb. The owner of the place commented later that in the States, where he´s from as well, I could sue him for it. In all my years of playing sports, hiking, biking and generally taking all sorts of risks that I probably shouldn´t have taken, I´ve never had a sprain like this or any other injury that truly kept me immobile. Which is why, I´m sure, I spent the first few days of this–after a trip to the hospital to ensure it wasn´t broken–walking on my ankle too much, going to the country house of the restaurant/bar owner and his girlfriend for two days and walking around town. But then I realized it was just getting worse. I went back to the hospital, insisted on an x-ray, and got the same response: it´s a sprain, take care of it.
And so I´m trapped in a perfectly comfortable little hostel in a perfectly comfortable little pueblo turistico in southern Chile. The weather has accommodated my modest suffering, shifting from a week of perfection into a week of cold rain. All is suspended.
I can still feel the air during my last mornings in Chennai, sitting on the porch watching the palm trees sway, enjoying the few minutes of the day when I could be outside without sweating; I can still hear Yasser saying d’accord, d’accord as he spoke to the people around us in the damp streets of Brussels; I can still smell Hanoi´s Old Quarter in the evenings, a day´s trash swept aside and meat cooking along the sidewalks; I can still hear my nephews laughing on a rooftop in San Miguel. I don´t know where I´ll be in two weeks, where my inability to move will take me, but I don´t want to stop.
March 28, 2008
It was about 15 minutes after the police gassed all of us when the man with the helmet with ¨PRESS¨scrawled across it said to me, ¨This is what democracy looks like in Chile. You see this?¨ A minute later I hid a teenage kid behind me as the police came by again. He couldn´t see and tears were streaming down his cheeks. I knew enough to ask if his eyes were OK and to tell him to wait until they moved on. I didn´t fit the description–18 or 19, dark or dyed hair, dressed in black–of those the police were dragging through the streets, throwing into armored vans and buses. When the tank-like vehicle with the water cannon had gone again, the kid thanked me and ran off. Two others, a couple who looked 16 or so, were not as lucky. Some men in suits from the fancy hotel next to us, which had lowered it´s metal gates when everything started, directed the police to the couple, who were sitting amongst a small group of businessmen and tourists. The businessmen and tourists were not arrested.
My first day in Santiago I stumbled upon a student demonstration against the privitization/neoliberalization of education in Chile. I understood only a bit of the chanting and singing, but it was enough to figure out that they were calling for a large mobilization for today. Then last night I attended a memorial service, of sorts. On the picturesque, cobblestone street where my hostel sits, there´s one building covered with political graffiti. Last night some older activists closed off the street, lit candles, and had a series of speakers and short videos about political struggle in Chile and three activists that were killed by the government. I assumed at first that it was about the Pinochet regime, but it turned out to be about the apparently neoliberal Bachelet administration and her party, which has now had four consecutive leaders in power.
So this morning I arrived to check out the demonstration about 30 minutes after it began. Just as I crossed the city´s main thoroughfare–three lanes of traffic on each side separated by a tree-lined median–to join a crowd of 2000 or so students, they all turned and started running toward me. I couldn´t really do anything but go with them. They covered the entire street, blocking traffic in both directions, chanting and cheering, and then quickly starting scattering. It took me a minute to realize that the police had immediately fired gas canisters at all of us. My eyes started to burn and I covered my face with my bandana. At first people started to gather on the other side of the street but right away teams of police, wearing green riot gear and carrying shields, moved in from all directions. People ran in groups, armoured cars, buses and other vehicles rolled in from both sides of the street, the police fired more gas, and before long kids all around me were being arrested. I was cursing myself the entire time for having no camera–since mine broke two weeks ago and I still haven´t replaced it–but there were independent journalists and activists everywhere taking photos and videos.
It must have all been over within 30 or 40 minutes, but it seemed like much longer. I kept spitting and rubbing my eyes, watching the police try to take over the streets. After the arrests died down, people gathered again at the intersection where the protest started; journalists filmed a few young activists giving short speeches. Eventually I walked down a block and turned onto a side street, since everything seemed to be over. Right after I did a hundred or so kids came running from the same intersection where I had just been. They had returned to the place with the most police, the spot where the police most wanted to demonstrate control, order, security. And they just ran through it, screaming, refusing to let the center of the city return to its faceless commercial happiness. The police with their heavy armour ran around the corner a minute later, bewildered and angry.
But a few blocks away the police weren´t finished. They set up stations on the street corners, and as I approached one I saw them stop a group of eight or so students who were just walking and drinking sodas. They pulled aside one of them because he was wearing a red bandana around his neck and then pushed his friends down the street. As they searched his bag–for what?–one of his friends kept standing close-by, refusing to simply walk away. Suddenly four cops grabbed the two of them, neither more than 130 pounds, and dragged them to another van. Several people were standing there watching, and I yelled ¨Why? Why?¨–the only thing in Spanish I could think to say at the moment–but they were too busy punching the kids in the ribs to answer.
February 16, 2008
Well, I couldn’t say, really, but in this blog’s first and surely last grand achievement, our friends in the sky (and our pockets and all sorts of other places where they’re not welcome) have denied access to my blog. Last night, as I sat on a balcony in Hanoi of all places, a few meters away from the “Hanoi Hilton” and even closer to the lake in which good ol’ John McCain found himself when he was shot down here, I called my father and caught him at work. As we talked, he tried to access my blog and was informed by his computer that the US Air Force would not allow it. He even sent me the official Department of Defense security notice. Perfect.
January 19, 2008
I’m in the center of Bangalore looking for my good friend Thomas Friedman. Hope to post tomorrow.
January 11, 2008
January 7, 2008
Fort Kochi, Kerala, somehow weaves together histories (and presents) of: Syrian Christians who’ve been here for 600+ years and trace their lineage to one of the apostles; a range of Catholics, some of whom have been here since it was a Portuguese trading port (circa 1500) and still more folks from the period of British control (1795-1947); the oldest Jewish population in south Asia, builders of the oldest synagogue, which is still here; various Hindu and Muslim populations; more fisherfolk than you can imagine, all of whom still use nets and techniques inherited from Chinese explorers/traders/fishers as early as 1300. And the Dutch are in there somewhere. And Vasco de Gama died in the house right next to this internet cafe.
I spent yesterday riding around on an old cruiser bike–again–visiting the coast, winding through side-streets, and checking out “Jew Town,” the historic Jewish district. (Josh and Lesley, I will be sending you some great pictures of “Jew Town Road” and other signs that remind me of the one we once saw on the Jersey turnpike.) After being denied entry to the synagogue, I ended up joining a group of kids for a soccer match. For two hours I ran around a rocky, dusty field laughing, sweating and slapping high-fives. The kids were amazing, and they insisted that I switch teams every time one team scored. A bunch of other folks from the neighborhood came to watch (and laugh) and many more kids joined us, or just giggled at me and asked my name. I scored three goals, but I also accidentally kicked the ball over the wall twice, kicked a couple of kids, and fell flat on my face, so I’d say it was a balanced performance. At one point, Amir, one of the funniest of the kids, told me I have “Rooney face,” meaning I look like unattractive, bulldoggish Manchester United star Wayne Rooney. This is the second time someone in India has made this comparison; in fact, I think the first kid who told me that actually thought I was Wayne Rooney. Why no one is comparing me to Christiano Ronaldo, I’m not sure. (In my defense, a tout in Delhi told me I look like an Indian movie star, and another said I have nice muscles. I’m quite sure they were both being honest.)
I’d intended, by now, to post plenty of photos here, or to link them via Flickr or something, but uploading in cafes is taking ages, to put it mildly, so if anyone has any suggestions let me know.
For now, I’m going to figure out how to get a train to Tamil Nadu.
January 1, 2008
Ladies and Gentlemen: How would you like to wake up in Delhi after very little sleep, travel for 13 hours in taxis, auto-rickshaws, trains and planes until you arrive in a quiet little beach resort town in Kerala where you’ve planned to spend New Year’s Eve, only to discover that the hotel you booked weeks ago and re-confirmed with does not have your booking? But, wait, that’s just the beginning. All of the other hotels will be booked, and you’ll end up renting a room from an older local man who wants to convert you to Catholicism and/or sleep with you and/or involve you in a tourism scheme with all of your lucrative contacts in the U.S. (all three, actually) and who knew you were coming before you did because his parrot (which speaks three languages, you’re told) predicted it! Not enough for you? Well, then imagine this: when you finally go out for dinner, you have to cut things short because you need to run back to your hotel to bring in the new year by throwing up all night! That’s right, your standard Jed travel sickness will have set in–right on schedule, same amount of time it took in Bangkok–and all of this can be yours with the “Jed in India” package on offer right now. Don’t delay; email me and it’s yours. For free (plus my plane ticket home).
(I couldn’t make this shit up.)
January 1, 2008
Arrival: I walked out of Indira Gandhi international airport at 2:00 in the morning, after 40 or so hours of travel, bleary-eyed and haggard, into a crowd of bleary-eyed “taxi” drivers, honking at each other and edging their tiny, barely-running minivans through impossible spaces. Some 30 minutes later, my driver–appeared to be half-dead and sounded like it when he coughed–and I searched in dark, decrepit alleyways in an empty area in southwest Delhi for a hotel that is alleged (by the interweb) to exist. After a long and not exactly comfortable search, we found another hotel, three times as expensive as the illusory one I booked, and I finally got some sleep.
The Kaiser’s Ball: I somehow conned my way into the Austrian airlines private lounges in both Chicago and Vienna. It was remarkably easy, and I quickly discovered that they’re exactly what I would expect them to be, except with more free food and drinks. In Chicago, I tried to hide my imposter status by serving myself a snack and pouring myself a scotch from one of the many bottles left out for us elites. An over-dressed woman who looked like her skin had been painted on before it was lathered with makeup engaged me in conversation. When she discovered I was heading to India, she said, “Oh, I don’t envy you. That’s one place I would never want to go.” I replied, “Oh. Well, I’m excited.” Then she told me, proudly, that she and her friend were heading to the Kaiser’s Ball–whatever that is–in Vienna. I said, “Wow,” finished pouring my scotch, put on my headphones, and went back to reading Denis Johnson writing achingly about drugs and knives and bodies flying around cars and people trying to connect with each other.
Readings: Speaking of Denis Johnson, I started and finished Jesus’ Son before I hit Vienna (thank you, Matthew), and I loved it. I’ve moved on to Vijay Prashad’s Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, which I need to hurry up and finish because I don’t have room to carry it (or about five pounds worth of other stuff at this point).
Friends: I’ve made none. But that’s alright. Of course I understand that, particularly in big cities, most of the people I’ll meet and spend time with will be other travelers. But Delhi, happily, at least in the parts I’ve explored, does not have the feel of the backpacker ghettos I’ve encountered from Phenom Penh to Glasgow, so I’m not surrounded by other tourists. Wait, scratch that. Now that I’m in Varkala, on the beach in Kerala (i.e. way down south), I’m surrounded by Europeans.
Money!: I’ve realized very quickly that this trip is going to be far more expensive than anticipated. I had imagined India to be one of the cheaper places I would be traveling, but it has been damn expensive so far. The dollar is worth very little: someone I met in Austin before I came was saying that the exchange rate when he visited India was something like 80 rupees to the dollar; right now it’s quite a bit under 40. I am already rethinking the viability of carrying out the planned itinerary. I may end up shortening my stays here and in Nepal to ensure that I get plenty of time in South America before I run out of money.
Southbound: When I realized that my plans to meet up w/friends was going to fall through, I booked a flight from Delhi to Trivandrum, Kerala, thinking a peaceful socialist state would be a nice introduction to India.
December 30, 2007
My basic itinerary, as of now, is roughly as follows:
28 Dec - 7 Feb — Travel in India; fly to Kerala on 31 Dec and start making my way back north to Delhi
7 Feb — Fly out of Delhi to Kathmandu, Nepal
7 Feb - 10 March — Travel in Nepal, perhaps Bhutan, and then in northeastern India
10 March — Fly out of Kolkata, India to Hanoi, Vietnam
End of March — Fly to Paris for a week w/Yasser
Early April — Fly to Buenos Aires
Early April - ? — Travel in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and perhaps Bolivia, Colombia and elsewhere
In my proposal, I emphasized my desire to make this trip as open to change and misdirection as possible, to leave specific plans loose and malleable in order to allow interests and impulses beyond the usual strict adherence to travel books and set itineraries. So, I may end up changing all of this, visiting places I never planned to go and skipping others.
