Since my previous post, I’ve travelled past Mumbai, Hyderabad and have now landed in Bangalore.

Some highlights include:

Mumbai traffic is scary. As is their mass public transport system. As I was leaving Mumbai by train from the AIESEC Interns flat towards central, I was caught up in a sea of people, and all I could do was flow with the crowd and hope to get on a train. Thatwas the easier part. As I left the train, I had old men looking at me with buldging eyes and pushy hands shouting go, go GO! I did not understand their urgency until the train came to a stop and the sea became a two way waterfall. Yes, try and imagine that, a sea of people trying to gush out of the train, while another sea tries to gush its way in. Unlucky for them, I have two large bags, one straped in front and one behind, and in a rambo style move, I leap. Yes, LEAP towards the exit of the train to see terrified men trying to scurry out of the way. If freedom ever tasted sweeter, it was after burst forth from this maze that I savoured in it. Now I realize why so much money was spent in Delhi to ensure the same style of mob movements do not occur with their metro. Crazy!I have crazier stories about cab drivers trying to rip me off, but maybe ill save that up and tell ALL of them in one go, since haggling with Cabs and rickshaws seems to become the highlight of all my trips.

Aside from the traffic Chaos, Mumbai was good as usual, aside from the ear infection (i have not had an ear infection since i was 4! yea, got me too.) I got to see the best and worst of the city, dined at Leopolds, ran into Shahid again, ate with the bollywood stars, chatted with some highly articulate beggars, and caught up with great friends. So it was good, but being ill really dragged me down, and it was here that writers block kicked in. The train to Hyderabad seems to have dawned a found energy in me.

I woke up to an AIESEC yelling through the train gates: HEY AIESEC! as the traditional greeting goes world round. The pick up was great, had a blast seeing some of the sites, and getting explained what was what. I was told a saying that they use in Sanskrit, in english the translation is “Guest is God” so i felt like royalty arriving here.

Hyderabad was the PERFECT refueling station, and although I didn’t get to see any environmental projects, I got to catch up with great AIESEC friends, have those deep and meaningful conversations, crazy nights and see some beautiful mughal architecture. That is not the best of it, they had the best tasting Haleem and Biryani I have ever had! Reminded me so much of Karachi, so I got a bit of that homesick feeling while I was there.

Note to self: always book tickets in advance to save yourself from taking overnight buses. Yes sleepless was the word for the 15 hour bus ride to Bangalore, (which should have taken 10-11, are you seeing a pattern?) The minute I arrived, I navigated my way to a meeting which I chaired for the My Choice! Project. It involved experts in the field teamed up with the expat core team making the project happen. I hadn’t even showered, but i got to use the company bathroom, which had a shower. The only problem is that somehow, I ended up getting more petrol on me than water! Im not even joking, as I wish I was, but for 3-4 days afterwards, me, and my clothes smelt like an old gas pump. Not very appealing if you ask me.

Excitement around Bangalore? Let me tell you, here is a place hoping with young people in the IT sector, and crazy kids looking for excitement, and a government that bans dancing, and pubs in general after 11:30pm at night. What do you get? A lot of desperate people, and crazy parties in crazy places. For example: wed night 10pm, we show up at an advertising agency on the main road, climb 4 fleets of stairs and are greeded by drunk employees playing music from a a DJ that look slike the desi-twin of Robin Williams (and who raps about being black) The food is catered, but sausage fest is in abundance. I was disappointed to see none of the party-goers thought it cool to wrap their tie around their head like a bandana. Guess that’s only cool in Canada.

I’ll post some more interesting news bits soon enough, along with some more galleries, so stay tuned! For now, the adventure of Bangalore Continues.

After returning back to Delhi, I heard news of the 5 bomb blasts in Delhi, in places that I had personally walked by only 2 days before. That was a bit of a shocker, and my heart goes out to those affected. Bomb blasts have become a matter of everyday life for people in Pakistan and India, with extremist groups trying to rouse attention, and Media going crazy selling so many papers and making the radicals famous, no matter the tragedy, somebody profits. That’s how people are these days, they want to know everything in an instant.

From Jaipur, I left for Ajmer and again stayed in an AIESECers home, I enjoyed myself as I got to talk to the family (who were Sufi) about Sufism, Reiki and the like. I even got a chance to visited Pushkar while I was there, and got tricked into performing Pooja, for a price you see. Pushkar was beautiful, and well worth the visit, would have spent more time there, but had to return and prepare a presentation about DAMU to a class of 70 boys from Mayo, one of the top secondary schools in India. The presentation was great, and the depth of their question was incredible. I’m looking forward to doing more presentations at schools.

From there, this takes my journey to Baroda, in an overnight train in rainy weather. Needless to say, I woke up feeling a bit sick for the first time on my trip. Baroda is nice though, got to see the movie: Rock On! A Hindi version of a Hollywood film about 4 musicians who meet up after years of breaking up. I also met a cool American guy at the trainee flat I am staying in, yes, I mean it, he’s cool! Jokes aside, we had some great discussion about politics, war, terror, religion, music, hip/hop dance and travels. Was great to share experiences and meet someone well cultured and relaxed as him.

That’s all for now folks, stayed tuned in later as my journey goes into the heart of Mumbai and beyond to southern India.

Since McLeod Ganj, I now find myself amidst the Gujarati riots in the city formally known as Baroda ( I have a hard time pronouncing Varodera, as it seems many people living here do as well). Much has happened on my journey, from visiting holy people in mazars, to saving tigers, dodging bomb blasts, catching up with old friends and seeing some amazing environmental initiatives that are happening in India. I’ll recount some stories now.

We left McLeod Ganj without having seen the Dalai Llama, we did however enjoy the Tibetan food and even took a couple classes in Yoga, damn that gets the energy flowing, never felt so great, I hope to continue classes throughout Asia, or at least on my own in the mornings. The bus to Delhi wasn’t too exciting, we broke down for an hour, but hey, this is India, no worries

Delhi was a real surprise, last time I had come I took a 12 hour bus from Agra, that should have only been 4 hours, the guy told us it was direct and would leave at 6, when in reality it left at 10, and stopped at every shine and mazar on the way leaving me and 2 other girls in some backstreet in Delhi at 6am, scrambling to find a place to stay, then having rickshaw drivers overcharging us. This time however, the story is slightly different, I was stranded with no place to go as my buddy Dhruv here ditched me for some other important matters. However a friend I met from a conference in Jaipur in 2006 helped arrange for me to stay with the Chittwani’s another AIESECer from Delhi University. Staying with him was great, it was easy to get to the metro station (which, by the way, looks just like a metro in Europe or Toronto, other than the large line ups of people always wanting to get on) and his house was gorgeous. Indian Sindhi’s are also very welcoming and accommodating, although I was surprised to hear that most have taken on Hindi as the de facto language, and most new generations don’t speak Sindhi.

Let me describe the Delhi of today as opposed to two years ago. First, smoking is banned in all public places that non-smokers and impressionable youth may go to, and this includes the entire north campus of Delhi University! Second, the metro provides a safe, clean way to move around the city, making it very easy to get anywhere. Next, only CNG rickshaws or cycle rickshaws are allowed on the roads, and emissions standards are the best yet. It’s like entering a brand new city that is cleaner, and livelier than ever. This coupled with the fact that I saw some amazing things while there.

First of all the Indian Habitat Centre is like a shrine to nature, with eco-friendly designed buildings, and lots and lots of green space. Here I was lucky to catch a performance by street children who acted, puppeteered and danced all on themes of social significance! The reaction was just amazing as the amphitheatre was packed. The organisation that put it on is called Kutumb (means like Family). Definitely a best case practice for other cities to consider adopting. At the Habitat Centre, The energy and resource institute (TERI) had their main office, who was kind enough to arrange a visit for me to go to the Teri Gram retreat centre, a totally energy efficient self contained structure providing a role model on integrated design for the future.

I have set out to meet Dr. Pachauri, the Director for TERI and Nobel laureate winner in environmental sustainability. Perhaps I will gain an audience when I return to Delhi to host a screening on the environment.

The time to leave came, and as reluctant and comfortable as I was, I knew that my next destination was Jaipur, where many friends awaited me who attended the same conference in 2006. On the way to Jaipur however I met two very interesting ladies, one was from Australia, a hippy through and through, lived on an organic farm for 4 years and is now traveling the world like a dervish. Her inspiration came from Yoga, and the Marley’s. The other girl I met was from Israel and we talked a lot about politics, religion, books and more. It was great to share some experiences and meet such interesting people on my journey.

When I finally arrived I enjoyed the big reunion with everyone, catching up with them, hearing about their work and lives. The day I arrived I also met a new AIESEC member who told me about a project regarding savings the tigers in Ranthambore, so my interest peaked, and I decided to hop onto a train with him and his dad and go to Ranthambore that very night. When we got to the train station, only last minute tickets were available, this meant that we had to stand the whole way there, that too and right outside the washroom. The comfort came when my friends dad recounted a story of Gandhi as he traveled India by train; “This is real India” he said, this is real India.

A special note to all Indians, being a conductor for a train can be a very profitable business, especially when people jump on the train last minute and offer to bribe them twice as much as the tickets worth, as did three guys that boarded the train last minute. Baksheesh (means bribe), I tell you.

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We then met Weng Lee, or Sitting on a Mountain, Watching the Sea, as is his real Korean name means. He looks like the teacher in the Karate Kid! I’m not joking, short old man long white hair pulled into a pony tail and a slim long white Asian beard only on his chin. He is a master of Tae Kwon Do, Yoga and a teacher of Psychology at Yale campus in Seoul.

So you can imagine our entourage, a burly actor, a skinny young Canadian and an old Korean master rolling into McLeod Ganj at 1:30am. We woke up an incredibly disoriented driver who took us up the hill to a virtually dead city. Everything was closed even the hotels. So for 30 minutes our trio combed the quiet streets of McLeod Ganj. We finally ran into an Irish lady huffing down the street with a very drunk British boyfriend in tow. They invite us to their hotel, which turns out to be locked and 30 minutes or so later trying to wake someone up to get in finally succeeds, but is short availed as the manager apologizes for not being able to give us a room. So the trio gets invited to stay with the couple… cramped on the floor of their tiny apartment room. Weng and Shahid were on the floor and I was on the bed beside the drunken boyfriend. By 6 a.m., the sun comes up and Weng is  already awake, using his magnifying glass to read some book before he takes off into the day. That was about the same time that boyfriend tries to cuddle with ME! So pushing off a drunken man when trying to get some rest proved impossible, so I moved in place of Weng and awoke a few hours later, well rested.

Even with the entire struggle, it was well worth it, McLeod Ganj is a paradise! Wait up for my next post for more details.