Seeking refuge from the cold and fog of Northern India (no sympathy from Chicagoans here, I'm sure), we set sail for Southern India for the last part of our Asian Adventures. Turned out the sails we set were actually interminably long bus and train trips, but the rewards were well worth a few sleepless nights.
Southern India showed us a softer side: warmer, slower, less intense hawkers and a chance to put on a pair of shorts. Mumbai (formery Bombay) surprised us with a city on the coast that was far easier to experience than we feared its 16 million residents would permit. Then on we charged to Om Beach in the state of Karnataka, just South of Goa, for eight days of blessed R&R.
In a strange twist, I (Robert) flew back to San Francisco for two days of training with one of my best clients. The four day trip from Om Beach to the Bay Area was a long one, but it had to be done and allowed me to top off the travel kitty, visit with friends and family and restock our supplies.
OM BEACH
After weeks of cold, we had our sites set on the beaches of Southern India like the street hawkers to our wallets. With nothing more than a suggestion from a crazy Frenchman on a bus, we set off for a small, palm tree-speckled beach reachable only by boat or a hair-raising rickshaw ride. Once we got to Om Beach, we didn't move for 8 days.
A typical day at the beach consisted of:
- Waking up whenever we wanted (sometimes in time to grab a coffee and settle into a hammock to watch the sunrise)
- Reading for hours at a time
- Drinking fruit lassis/smoothies (no Special ones, thank you)
- Eating curries, grilled Kingfish, falafels and sizzling platters of anything
- Sitting on the beach in the shade reading, chasing off the pesky cows with a stick and a charge
- Swimming in the silky Arabian Sea
- Working hard to perfect the diving frisbee catch (in the water)
- Buying pineapples, coconuts and bananas from the roving fruit vendors (baskets on heads)
- Posing for pictures with the underwear-clad Indian men who can never get enough photos of Westerners
- Swinging the cricket bat with Agent Beckey and the Indians
- Trying to improve on our sunset pictures from the previous nights
- Simply reveling in the fact that we have Time
THE TRAVELERS
One of the things that makes travel so entertaining is the travelers that you meet along the way. With so much time to do nothing but experience life each day, you have plenty of opportunities to talk with these strange people and find out their stories.
Take Hans, the German former heroin addict that was traveling with his ex wife, her child and new boyfriend. His father was a Nazi soldier at age 20 and claimed he never knew the extent of what the Germans were doing until the Americans came through and showed them picutes and movies of the attrocities. He also witnessed a holy man in India stand in a burning fire pit wearing a silk robe for half an hour doing a prayer ceremony and walk out unscathed.
Or the South African musician who threw his passport into the Ganges River and declared himself a traveling "saddhu" (ascetic holy man). Claims they continue to let him through immigration, as he has no posessions or nationality anymore.
Then there was John the Brit who stayed in the room next to ours in Varanasi. He would go for a swim every morning across the Ganges and back, dodging the dead cows and other detrimental detritus. We saw him limp away a few days later, his body wracked by the "purity" of the holy river.
POVERTY
With nearly a billion people in a country half the size of the US, India has poverty that is overwhelming and in your face every day. Walking the streets of Mumbai one night, we witnessed the city's homeless bedding down for the night. We're not talking about one person on each corner; this looked more like a dormitory. The sidewalks were literally covered with people. The rickshaw drivers often live on their vehicles.
There are people begging everywhere, particularly in the tourist areas. Outside of a Hindu temple in Delhi, I saw 40 or more crippled and deformed beggars lined up against a wall, suffering from conditions I had never imagined. Missing limbs, burns, gouged out eyes, birth defects, lepers... In some cities, there are people who pimp out the beggars, giving them protection and a place to beg in return for part of their daily income. They are also rumored to do horrible things to their "clients" to make them more pathetic.
While crossing a street in Mumbai, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and saw something truly shocking. A boy of about 13 was running on all fours to ask me for money. By some tragic freak of nature, his legs bent forward instead of back, and he moved kind of like a spider. A fast spider, I found out, as the shock overrided my compassion and I took to my heals to evade the poor child.
The Haggle
Haggling or bargaining is as much a part of travel in India as eating chapatis or riding a rickshaw. While it's often a pain to go through the process, it gives you another opportunity to interact with the locals. And when they throw out a first price that is 4-5 times what they expect to get, only a backpacker with deep pockets would forgo the haggle.
You haggle for everything in India from hotels to food to rickshaw rides to taking someone's pictures. Many of the salespeople will tell you anything to get the sale; the truth seems to take on a different meaning and importance in India. They tell you sob stories of how many children they have at home and how much they earn per year. They point to the quality ("Look at the perfection!") of their product (often dubious), cite the high cost they paid for it and claim they'll lose money if they take your price. One cheeky yak meat salesman was overheard saying, "At that price, our country's economy will crumble!"
Here are the strategies we have taken on to navigate our way through the treacheries of the Indian Haggle:
1. Whatever first price they tell you, show your disbelief and outrage that they would even contemplate something so exhorbitant for a seasoned traveler like yourself ("$1.50 for a hand-stitched, ebroidered 6x6 tablecloth?!?! Are you crazy?!")
2. Ask them for "a real price" - not a tourist price
3. At the next figure they tell you, inhale sharply between clenched teeth and shake your head sadly, showing your grief that you unfortunately won't be able to do business with them
4. Keep a sense of humor about you at all times. I told an art salesman that if I paid the price he was asking, I wouldn't be able to buy dinner for my wife and myself that night. He countered by sticking to his price and inviting us to his house for dinner that night.
5. Keep talking. The longer the haggle, the better price you'll get, and it doesn't necessarily matter what you are saying.
6. Start to walk out of the store, wishing aloud that they would be more reasonable
7. If you feel like you almost have them, put the money in their hand and take the item. If you get this far, they are happy with the price.
8. At the end of the day, remember that chances are you're probably only haggling over a few cents.
THESE ARE THE GOOD OLD DAYS
My father used to say to us, "These are the good old days." One day on this trip, we were sitting on Om Beach in the late afternoon 85 degree heat, letting the waves gently lap over our bodies. It was one of those perfect moments when I realized that this IS it. This is what we have been planning for 4 years and what we have been dreaming about, sitting in our windowless offices back home. It burned into us like the setting sun the fact that for a few short months, we are living our travel dream.
Stay tuned for more adventures from Southern India as well as the next chapter of our journey: The Dark Continent...
