"Nice Hair, Ma'am!": Dissecting the Pahar Ganj Experience

Pahar Ganj is Delhi's backpacking district, and like all touristy districts, it can be infamous for a high proportion of people wanting to trick, hassle, and manipulate you into paying them for whatever service, real or imagined, they are providing.

You can view my original rant on it here:

http://balancevishfocus.blogspot.com/2011/11/back-to-delhi.html

One fabulous thing about Pahar Ganj is that it is reasonably close to the metro and a railway station. The closest metro stations are New Delhi, on the orange/red line, and Ramakrishna Ashram Marg (the sky blue line). (The metro map can be found here http://www.delhimetrorail.com/zoom-route-map.aspx and Google Maps is also really helpful.) The railway station is the New Delhi railway station (station code NDLS) as opposed to the Old Delhi railway station, code DLI - check your tickets carefully to avoid going to the wrong one and missing your train!


So if you arrive by train or metro (or airport then metro) you can get off and walk to the area in a reasonable amount of time and look for a hotel on foot instead of hailing a rickshaw that will try to take you to a specific hotel.

There are a million hotels around. It took us 3 or 4 tries to find one that had available rooms for a fair price, but all in all it wasn't too daunting of an outing. We ended up staying in Hotel Satyam, got a 3 person room with a double and a single bed for 1100 rupees I believe. This was definitely not the most budget looking room I have stayed in but it was still pretty cheap and really nice for the price. My favorite thing about the hotel was how accommodating the owner was - he answered a couple of travel questions that we had and got us 500 rupee airport cabs for ridiculous morning hours that were right on time. He just seemed like a nice, helpful person who wasn't trying to trick you or rip you off.

Two doorways to the right of the hotel if you are facing it is a cafe with a phone that is open pretty late. The prices for international calls are far too high, but it's good for a late night local call or international call emergency.

As long as you stay stoic, you can get most of what you need to get done in this area, especially if this is your civilization stop-over before heading off into a more rural area again. Internet cafe, passport photos, local clothing, real coffee! This is not the best location for a gourmet supermarket if you are craving some imported food, however. If you are looking for something more chain-ey (objects or food) and price is not a huge consideration, pop over to Connaught place on the metro.

Just remember, keep your wits about you but do stay friendly and do well to represent whatever nation you are hailing from :)

Happy travels!

INDIA: Arriving at IGI Airport

The Indira Gandhi Delhi International Airport is rated one of the top airports in the world.  I would have to agree - I've had to spend my longest chunks of time waiting for a plane (10 hours) at this airport and it's a great, friendly, calm place to hang out!

Before I went to India for the first time, I had read some horror stories about people being taken to sketchy places in unofficial taxis. It's relatively straightforward to follow the signs to a prepaid taxi stand and go through the procedure to get a taxi to your location. If you have booked a room in advance, some hotels offer airport pickup. It's hard to say if this ends up costing more than just taking a taxi to the hotel.

Note that if you plan on staying in a budget hotel that you have never seen, it's probably a good idea to check it out before committing to a room to make sure it matches the description and fits your standards. You could pick a random hotel in the district where you want to say and have the cab driver take you there, then walk around the area and look for available rooms. With cab drivers, it's good to act like you have a room in a hotel so they don't try to talk (or trick) you into getting an overpriced room in a hotel that gives them part of the profit.

Yes you are taking a bit of a gamble by arriving without having a room reserved, but there are lots of hotels and people coming and going all the time so you should be able to find something. Alternatively you could make a room reservation for one night and then explore the area to choose a place for the remainder of your stay.

Next up, my take on Pahar Ganj, the "backpacker's district"!

Ch-ch-changes!

Now that I am no longer traveling, I have decided to continue writing in this blog, but shift the tone of the findings which I describe. Instead of my philosophical dwellings, which will continue to receive front-page status in my home-base blog:

http://balancedvishfocus.blogspot.com
(Gold medal for creativity, I know.)

I will use this blog to compile my findings in a more systematic and informational fashion. I am hoping that it can serve as a guide to other fellow travelers embarking on an exciting Asian Adventure.
Watch out for it soon! 

The irony, ask me, 'where have you been?'

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know where to begin.

SO Hat Yai

What a fabulous day of a meditative urban run, clean streets, a grocery store experience involving AVOCADOS and STOUT BEER and REESE'S - the things I was most craving for getting back to the States. Man, these mainland days are rough when you try to stock up on all the food that you've been severely deprived of.
Tomorrow is Malaysia, another approximately 12 days on a peaceful island, finishing class, DIVING - which terrifies and fascinates me at the same time. There are so many different worlds all part of one big world, oh man. Still no idea where I fit in and what my role is. The main lesson of traveling - when you think you know anything is when you know the least. About yourself, about humanity, about the world.

Good night!

Time is skin, not a dress

3 am, I am lying in a tent on Adang Island in southern Thailand, listening to the water caress the shore just several feet outside of my tent, inhaling the smell of leaves freshly washed by the evening storm. My tent was one of the few that held out, knock on wood, through the violent wind gusts and moderate downpour that made up our evening entertainment. Oh tent, you've been through so much with me, and you are getting only moderate beat up after three years of faithful service. Everything sounds pretty darn perfect, right? Then why do I find myself dedicating hours to daydreaming about silly things that are America? Cravings for Guinness and avocados aside, I found myself missing commuting the other day-time spent alone in your car. I miss cooking for myself. I miss Windexing the bathroom mirror on Sunday morning. Due to the incredible personalities of everyone on our program, the self-imposed lack of 'me time' has made me nostalgic for the solo activities that keep you from being overwhelmed in a buzzing crowd of people. And I'm realizing that the thing about impermanence is not so much a tangible lack of settling, but more the inability to build layers upon layers of good memories since you know you'll be moving on soon, possibly forever. The draw to familiar places is the rich multitude of happiness you can re-experience and build on every time you revisit the place. For what is reality anyway but a collection of perceptions?

Dear Bay Area Graduate Schools:

(To the tune of O-Town's All or Nothing):

I know that you've been through my files,
Your silence makes me agonize
Compared to Boulder realize,
You're slower, slower.

This waiting life you make me live,
Your answer you have got to give!
Cause sweating in this web cafe gets older, older.

When I applied to you
How could I know you would think for half a year?

I've sent my best to you, I want to invest in you, don't tell me you don't care!

Cause I want it all,
I wanna start this fall,
I'm waiting for your call,
It's now or never.

Am I in, or am I denied?
I need peace of mind.

more to come. ridiculous, I know. I wrote it on Valentine's Day.

In other news: Thailand rocks, except for the bugs and the sweating. Is it making me more patient? Is it character building? Do I feel like I'm living in a universe where the absence of sweating is impossible?

Internet is really expensive here so I will cut it off at that. We are hanging out on Lipe Island for the afternoon, across from Adang, where we are staying for a week total.

Thinking of getting my scuba certification after the program. Who would have guessed?!