Read The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) Online
Authors: Erin Reese
The Adventures of Bindi Girl: (2012) (19 page)
“Shiva, Shiva,” the babas would say every time they wanted more rice or dal, or said thank you to the server. Simply that: “Shiva, Shiva.” “Shiva, Shiva.”
Say the name of The One That is All…formlessness, consciousness, destruction and creation…and all will be well.
After lunch, I meditated with the babas for the better part of an hour. I was amazed at how quickly my mind had quieted, how easily I sat, and how peaceful I’d become.
Maybe, just maybe, I have begun to make real peace with Shiva.
17
th
of February, Tiruvannamalai
I did it!
On the peak of the New Moon of Mahashivaratri, I joined the throngs of pilgrims here in Tiruvannamalai, as we traversed ’round the sacred mountain of Arunachala, representing Shiva himself in the form of fire. At midnight. Fourteen kilometers. In bare feet!
It was so peaceful, even as thousands of devotees, families, priests and sadhus chanted softly or silently to themselves, and we collectively and contemplatively strode through the night. The mood was bright. People were happy, spending time with their families and loved ones. Mothers carried their babies the entire way. Young children made their way alongside their parents, holding their hands. We stopped at dozens of temples all along, receiving blessings and offering prayers. Chai flowed freely, love filled the air. Most of us wore a soft smile on our lips.
The shared walking meditation was powerful. I marveled at how easy it was to keep a clear, calm mind, bringing my attention back to the focus of honoring India’s most revered god, Lord Shiva. It taught me to never underestimate the power of a group in creating a collective consciousness—a force that can be used in so many positive ways.
Today, I’m a little blistered in feet, a lot bolstered in spirit, and up for the next leg of my journey.
Now that I’ve made peace with Shiva in this holy place—
now
I’m ready for the Andamans!
All aboard!
25
th
of February, The Andaman Islands
Whenever one thinks they’ve nailed down hard travel in India, she throws us another loop-de-loop and a hoop to jump through. I have awarded myself an unofficial “Intrepid Traveler” award. After one hell of a three-day journey, I made it. I’m here, in the Andaman Islands.
With no expectations of what would await me in the islands, I set out from Chennai by ship. A little anxious, a little excited for my first experience putting in hard nautical miles, I climbed aboard our valiant ocean liner: the M.V. Akbar, a “retroactively condemned” ship purportedly on its last legs, or final fins as the case may be.
Turns out, long ago in its heyday, the M.V. (“Moving Vessel”) Akbar transported thousands of Muslim pilgrims on a regular basis from Mumbai to Mecca. Now, they keep it alive—just barely—to haul military men and lower-class travelers back and forth from the mainland to the Andamans.
I quite expected the three-day journey to be grueling. I just didn’t expect it to be gruesome. Here’s a little taste of life on the Akbar—affectionately renamed by me as the “Ack-Barf”—in ultra-budget bunk class:
SQUAT, PISS, SHIT, SNARL
Imagine…hundreds of Indian women
pissing
and
shitting
at, near, or on your feet while you’re standing in the sewage collection stinkpot that is the third-class ladies’ toilet. You’re trying to keep things relatively sanitary as you brush your teeth at the sink. You point out that—with every bit of patience in your snarl—the TOILETS in fact are to be used for excretion purposes, and not the washroom floor. The Indian
didi
retorts viciously, with accompanying haughty head wobble, “You don’t eat off the floor, do you?”
Thali for Breakfast, Thali for Lunch, Thali for Dinner
Rice and dal. Dal and rice. Isn’t it nice? You can’t bear to pick up another grain of pasty-white malnutrition rice, laden with watered-down lentil gruel, with your blackened-under-nails-from-ship-filth-dirty fingers! So you essentially lock down into fasting mode, self-starving for three days. (One of the first things Jan says to me upon our reunification in the islands: “You are less fat now, no?” Ah, yes, the Czech has a way with words.)
The Travelers’ Rant
What else are you gonna do on a trans-ocean cesspool, but rant with the wee population of Westerners about how disgusting and horrible the food and the toilets are? Meet three of my favorite fellow foreigners:
Thurston J. Howell III
A British gentleman named Robert, from the south of London, had me in stitches with his lock-jaw drawl, reminiscent of Thurston J. Howell III from
Gilligan’s Island
. This well-educated, good-hearted, middle-aged British bloke was spending his days avoiding a regular job at all costs, instead opting to sail the seven seas and fly the friendly skies amongst the more youthful backpacker circuit. His wit and humor were so dry, you’d miss it if it weren’t for the fact that he was 90% deaf and had to holler every sentence.
The Belgian Bicyclist
Geert, a mohawk-sporting, biscuit-eating, birdwatching bicyclist from Bruges, had cycled solo across the Indian subcontinent—like Jan. I wanted to learn more about what makes these eccentric Euro-cyclists tick—maybe discover a little something about what makes Jan’s own spokes spin, or something like that—so I chatted up the Flemish chap. Geert entertained us all with tales of traversing West Africa on wheels, keeping us filled up with the cases of biscuits he’d brought aboard to avoid starvation, accompanied with chai from his ever-full camping thermos. Thanks, Geert.
The Grumpy German
Ella, 30, from Munich, was NOT a happy camper. She remained prostrate most of the day on the upper bunk of cracked plastic vinyl opposite my own. It was not a comfortable berth, to say the least. We’d stew away for hours day and night—filthy from ship grime, sweat, and stench—consistently kvetching and complaining. Every time Ella returned from eating, drinking, or using the toilet, off we’d start another round of raggin’. Let’s just put it this way: I don’t think the
M.V. Ack-Barf
was Miss Proper’s idea of a proper holiday.
Such was the screenplay and setting for my maiden seafaring voyage. Not quite the Princess Cruise, is it?
Three-days later, we arrived in Port Blair, the capital of The Andaman Islands state. I’ve never cleared customs and hustled my way out of port so fast—a decontamination shower was in order. I swooped through Port Blair just as fast as my rickshaw-negotiating skills would carry me, hurrying my way out of that hellhole to endure one night in a fleabag hotel. Pre-dawn, the morning after the M.V. Akbar’s arrival into Port Blair, I ferried over to holiday-maker’s Havelock, the most touristy island in the Andaman chain.
The Andamans appear to be a little stretch of paradise, a fine place to rest up before I return to the mainland in a month. Today, I’m dirty, exhausted, and worn from “The Good, The Bad, and The Downright Ugly” ship trip—and as a reward, I’m sitting before some of the most vivid, coral-blue seas I’ve ever seen. Within a week, I’ll be heading to another enchanted isle to rough it up, Robinson Crusoe style. But before I get down like Girl Friday, I need a break, including some yummy beach time, sleep-in time, and snorkel action.
27
th
of February, Havelock Island
Upon arriving to Havelock Island, I determined to set out and find the cheapest lodging possible, saving several rupees by taking local buses. Eventually, after walking, walking, walking for several sweaty kilometers—oh, the distance these legs have covered over the last six months!—I found a very happy, affordable option: a honey of a hut in a hippie haven called “Honey Home.”
My honeycomb hovel was costlier than any comparable accommodation I’ve seen on the mainland, but definitely affordable by the islands’ tourist mafia standards. Thanks to a tip from a travelin’ friend who’d been here a few months ago, I knew to expect exorbitant prices. I chatted the manager down from 250 rupees a night to 200 rupees a night after doing the right thing: ask the Israelis hanging about—the best bargainers on the backpacker circuit—what they are paying, then don’t let the boss charge you any more than that.
You get what you bargain for. At this bamboo barrack, there wasn’t even a real door—just a few old saris hung over bamboo slats. Though you could lock one bamboo limb to another, security was pretty slim. That said, the setting was absolutely marvelous. The first morn, I awakened at sunrise to the cock-a-doodle-doo of the village roosters, and strolled down to the sea to watch the magnificent change of colors in a nearby mangrove before breakfast. Jaw-dropping beauty!
Nestled in at Honey Home, I thought I’d have a bit of time to myself to rest, beautify, and freshen up after the M.V. Akbar hell-on-sea journey. Several serene days of guitar strumming and solo girl empowering were definitely in order. I needed some serious R ’n R before Jan was to arrive. He’d be appearing in about a week, according to the email I’d received, traveling over from his own camp on Little Andaman Island.
But my coveted week of respite was not to be.
That first long morning, I savored some long-needed primping and preening, tweezing and plucking perched in my hut. It’d been a brutal haul across the Bay of Bengal and a girl must have her occasional beauty treatments. I looked forward to several hours of writing, napping, and relishing, daydreaming and doodling.
Gazing out to sea through the bamboo slats of my non-existent door, he caught my drowsy eye. I stared agape. I couldn’t believe it, but there was absolutely no mistaking the tall, lean form hustling across the coconut grove. He was moving fast and sweating profusely, hauling God-knows-how-many kilos of cooking pots and camping gear on his back.
“Jan!” I called out, revealing my location through the non-existent doors. My Czech man turned around on a dime, flashed a happy smile, and threw his gear on the sandy ground. There he was again—just like that—with a twinkle in his blue eyes and a bronze, tanned glow to his skin. He’d been in the wild for over a week. Dirty, dusty, and smelling like hell, he sprinted over to my hut.
I embraced him warmly. Kissed him. Kissed him some more. And as he started to cozy up in my tiny little lair, my newly clean and sparkling girly hut, I pulled back and pointed in the direction of the outdoor shower block. With another kiss and a smile, I firmly directed my jungle man: “Go take a shower.”
Of course, we didn’t leave the hut for the rest of the day—too much catching up to catch up on. The next day, even though I was still recovering from the boat trip, we were instantly active as per Jan’s usual standards: biking fourteen kilometers uphill to the other side of the island. Jan had stored his touring bike in Port Blair, so we rented two bikes, which were miserable excuses for transportation. Being the gentleman, Jan took the less comfy ride, and rode the entire day with a seat spring poking him in the ass. I just prayed on the entire return trip—a steep downhill incline—that my brakes wouldn’t give out.
We fell in love with the oh-so-creatively named “Beach Number Seven” on the other side of the island. Jan resolved to return to Beach Number Seven the very next morn and immediately set up camp. He was itching to get back to castaway status lest he lose the Robinson Crusoe groove he’d been in for the past ten days while he’d been waiting for me to show up.
I, on the other hand, had barely hung up my hammock at my little Honey Home goddess boudoir.
Shit!
I fumed.
I gotta haul my ass all the way across the island already? I just got off the damn cargo ship!
Clearly, I wasn’t prepared to rough it again so quickly. Still a wee bit of a cosmopolitan camper, perhaps?
But, I know that life is short, and I would sleep when I was eighty, or something like that. So, in alignment with my usual M.O. during travel days with Jan, I motivated.
1
st
of March, Havelock Island
Two days later, I packed up my hut and slung my guitar over my shoulder to catch the bus over to Beach Number Seven, where Jan was already waiting, having scouted out and set up camp the day before.
At the bus stop, I pulled out my guitar to play for a chai wallah family—just my usual tiny repertoire of three or four plucked-out songs to pass the time. One of the onlookers was a beautiful, twenty-something Indian woman, who was evidently mildly mentally disabled. She sat perched next to me on the little bench while I strummed and hummed my medley of tunes. In between two songs, she looked me dead in the eye, with a silver-gray gaze as faraway and mysterious as the stars in the sky. She pointed at my heart, then my womb, and delivered two words, slowly, matter-of-factly:
“You…mother.”
“I…I’m sorry?” I stammered, pretending I didn’t hear or comprehend. The teenaged boy observing the scene from across the tea stall piped in, “My sister, she is crazy.”
Dazed a bit, I distractedly tuned up my guitar and dove in for another tune, which I offered silently to the mother of music, the goddess Saraswati. Afterward, the “crazy” young woman rose from her perch like a
mummy
rising from the dead. “Thank you,” she muttered, and wandered off into the nearby fields, as if in a trance—as nebulous and non-human as she had arrived.
How incredibly odd
, I thought, noticing that the hair on the back of my neck had prickled.
All of a sudden, my bus appeared! There it was, rumbling down the road towards the tea stall, less than fifty meters away. I hadn’t even finished my cup of chai, let alone packed up my gear. I was sure to miss it, as Indian buses wait for NO ONE, not women, nor children, nor goats, nor cows… (OK, maybe the cow.)
Acting on auto-pilot, I screeched, “CAN YOU HELP ME???” to the teenaged brother working at the chai shop. The boy bolted from behind the counter, swooped into action, and grabbed my stuff. Off we ran to catch the idling, coughing, beat-up bus wailing warped Hindi music out the grimy windows. The driver was already revving up the engine, itching to leave me behind as I tumbled aboard barely in time.
There are moments traveling where you have to surrender, like entrusting a village boy to be your Insta-Porter and handle your bags on a whim. I didn’t even have time to pay the chai wallah ten rupees for my tea, as he waived me away with a head wobble
okay
. I promised him I would find him in a week’s time, and pay him with a tip (as I surely did).
Scrunching myself into the bus, I poured into a sea of smiling faces—dozens upon dozens of pigtailed schoolgirls in starched white uniforms with identical red hair bows tied into coconut-oiled plaits. The children were mixed in with a smattering of beach-going Westerners.
At the very next stop, a glowing ’n gorgeous, blond-haired and blue-eyed couple bounded aboard and squeezed in next to me. I couldn’t quite place their nationality from their conversing—a guessing-game travelers are wont to play subconsciously—so Curious Erin made small talk. I chirped, “You look like you’re ready for a day at the beach!” Smiling, I agreeably wobbled my head at the young woman’s super-cute beach tote with pink snorkel and mask poking out. She was wearing chic Ray-Bans, and carried a plastic bag of ripe, luscious mangos.
“Yes, we are!” she chirped right back. I still couldn’t place the accent.
German? No. Dutch? No. Hmm… guess I better resort to more advanced tactics.
I took the direct route: “Where are you from?” I asked.
