TDI: 1-2 What's this?
Bombay – The Haircut
When people visit India, they face many culture shocks. The first one is probably their mysterious head wiggle… Not sure how to describe it. I’ll do my best: tilting the head from one side to another. Most people would assume that means: ”NO!” … Not quite true… After 40 days spent in India, I have noticed there are at least 1000 ways to wiggle. So, the specific wiggling style, combined with the specific facial expression and/or body language, conveys a clear meaning that is impossible to understand unless you are Indian.
When I landed in Bombay, I arrived at my hostel around 1 AM. Somebody was sleeping on top of the front desk. Interesting multipurpose of a desk, I concluded. Then I saw another person sleeping under the same desk. Since I didn’t feel comfortable waking them up, even if I had the reservation and was gonna check in. So I kept walking around in complete darkness.
Then, I spotted 4 more people sleeping on top of school cantina-style dining tables. I accidentally woke one of them up, and he started vigorously wiggling his head while still lying on his side. He was doing it so aggressively, I thought he was angry because I woke him up. I was also convinced he was about to break his neck. Once he finished wiggling, he gave me a warm, few-teeth-missing smile and kindly checked me in.
Later in my journey, I learned that in India, if one sleeps on the floor, on the ground, on a table, under a tree, on the house porch, or anywhere other than the bed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is poor. It means that the person is just Indian. If I could comfortably sleep anywhere like them, my travel would be much more convenient.
The next morning, I went for a walk while my traveling partners were still sleeping. On the same block, there was a barbershop. I needed a haircut, so I decided to get that done in there. Of course, I was nervous and wondering what my hair would look like, because since last night, I immediately noticed I’m in an unusual country.
After a few minutes, I realized the guy knew what he was doing, so I started to relax and not pay attention to every single move he made with his scissors. My mind went elsewhere when, all of a sudden, I got hit on top of my head! Immediately, my mind came back to the barbershop. When I looked at him in the mirror in front of me, I saw him giving me another hit. The same spot. It wasn’t a painful hit, but definitely powerful, uncomfortable, and indeed shocking!
The barber had a very neutral facial expression. He didn’t look like he was going to kill me. After the 2nd hit, he grabbed my head and twisted it like he was gonna break my neck. That twist actually made me feel less shocked, cause that looked like a familiar chiropractic move. The initial hit on the head was a completely unfamiliar move, though. Never had it before, never seen it on TV, never heard of it… And here it comes again! One hit with his right hand, followed by another one with his left hand. Then he removed the cover from me and turned the seat sideways so I could stand up. Once realized the job was finished, I felt relieved but still shocked. So, I paid and walked out without even checking what my hair looked like. Actually, I was more worried about how my neck and head were doing.
Shocked, I went back to the hostel to see if my friends were awake, so we could start exploring. Although I have already started! That was my very first morning in India. I wondered how many crazy experiences I would go through by the end of this trip…
My buddies, Tyler and Najib, were already in the lobby drinking coffee. Tyler said,” You did a haircut! Looks good. Where? I need a haircut as well.”
I decided to be quiet about the surprise I’d just experienced and told him: ”The shop is just at the end of this small street… The guy is good, cheap, and fast. It’s not busy now, so you should go get it done!”
I wanted to make sure I gave him enough reasons to do a haircut right away. So three of us headed to the barbershop. As soon as Tyler sat in the barber’s chair, I pulled Najib outside the shop so I could explain to him what would happen to Tyler. Then, we really enjoyed watching him go through the same shocking experience. I will never forget his facial expression while getting those hits … his mouth opened wide, and his eyes looked like they were going to fall out of his face. Then I started to wonder what I looked like while experiencing this.
Later that day, as we were passing by a city park, we saw many young couples holding umbrellas tilted sideways. We figured that the tilt gave them privacy while kissing.
For some reason, Indians love honking while driving. They are desperately looking for a reason to honk. In a busy city like Bombay, wherever we went, the honking noise would follow us. It’s not like cars are stuck in traffic; some people get impatient and pissed off, so they sit on their horns. They just constantly honk, for various reasons. It came to the point that it didn’t make any sense to sound a horn. The purpose of honking is to alert other cars, pedestrians, or motorcycles. But that person who’s getting the alert signal hears horns from everywhere at all times.
In the evening, I noticed I got black spots between my eyes and nose. That was clear evidence of pollution. I have visited 3 cities more populated than Bombay: Dhaka, Kinshasa, and Lagos. Even if this city were smaller, it would still feel noisier, more chaotic, and more polluted. For those reasons, we spent 2 very exciting days in Bombay and moved on. Luckily, during a 2.5-hour train ride, we found peace and serenity by visiting temples, forts, and shrines in a unique natural environment.
If you wanna see more interesting photos from India, like this one, I recommend checking out my photo gallery from Tamil Nadu.
Goa – No exit
We have been to Goa during the off-season. So, there weren’t any crowds of hippies dancing to electronic music. The serenity gave us more opportunities to enjoy nature, which is indeed beautiful in this small state.
The beach towns we visited were very exciting for hiking, with beaches divided by lush hills. So we would walk to the end of the beach, hike up a hill to reach another beach, then swim, keep walking to the end, hike another hill to the next beach… By ‘’we’’ I mean Tyler, Najib, me, and a few other backpackers that we’ve met in our guesthouse.
One day, we went for a walk, the same style… beach, hill, swim, beach, hill, swim… As we hiked up the hill, we followed the narrow trail, while enjoying views of the ocean and palm trees. Then we noticed the trail leading to some sort of gate.
We continued walking towards it, wondering if we’d somehow be able to get to the other side… to the other beach, cause it was about time for another swim. Since that hill was awesome, we wanted to continue walking all the way to the next hill. Turning around and heading back would feel like the game was over.
At that moment, we heard a bunch of dogs barking. Several dogs were charging through the gate toward us! While feeling uncomfortable, we noticed even more dogs approaching from the lush green background… and even more of them coming over, barking angrily. I have never seen a school of dogs before. Fish: yes, birds: yes, but dogs? Not really. Our curiosity was overwhelmed by fear… There were so many of them! Right before we decided to back off and go back, an elderly, skinny, some-sort-of-hippie woman showed up at the gate and started calming the dogs.
The woman seemed very relaxed and pleasant. We ended up chatting with her at the gate for a few minutes. She told us that she lived here with her 27 dogs. We were surprised when she told us she is German, cause she looked a bit dark and exotic. I guess, over the years of living in India, she became so well assimilated into the culture and environment that she has physically changed, and now she looks more Indian than European.
She also told us the bad news: we couldn’t get to the other side anywhere on this hill. So we had to go back. During my stay in Goa, instead of meeting thousands of hippies partying, I have met only one… the old-school one that parties with 27 dogs in the middle of nowhere.
While exploring Goa’s coastline, we discovered a residential neighborhood unlike any other. It was spread out about 500 meters from the coast and completely shaded by the trees. All of the houses looked cute and clean. The only way we could tell we were still in India was by the Hindu shrines and statues in the yards of the houses,
Wanna read more about Goa? Here’s an interesting post about the people you could run across over there from blogger Freeborn Aiden.
Hampi – The Special Powers
Hampi, the historical town with impressive ruins surrounded by beautiful nature, has a downside: the heat! There were so many things to explore, but from 10 am to 3 pm we couldn’t function due to the high temperatures. So we came up with a plan to wake up at 6 am, start our day early, explore until 11, then go back to the guesthouse for a nap. Then head back out later in the afternoon.
You need to take your shoes off to enter the Hindu temple. In one of them, the concrete floor was covered with bat poop. It was quite challenging to navigate around without stepping on it. Since the temple was full of monkeys and there was an elephant as well, we thought there might be some other types of animal crap on the temple floors.
In the evening, we went to check out the main temple. On the other side of the entrance gate, there was a large open space with many people lying on their blankets. Some of them were sleeping, others chatting. We discreetly sat in the corner, looked around, and tried to figure out what was going on here. These people did not look homeless. Some of them possibly were, but I learned on my first day in this country that sleeping on the ground doesn’t necessarily mean being poor. Instead, it means being Indian! We saw more people coming in through the gate… families with luggage, spreading out their blankets, and making themselves comfortable, like camping without a tent. Before we figured out the mystery, we went out to find a place to eat.
By the way, the food in India is incredible! None of us had food poisoning or anything like that on our trip. At that time, I wasn’t a vegetarian. However, the food was so tasty and interesting that I did not miss meat at all. This country should be famous for its cuisine just like Italy, France, or Japan. Unfortunately, it is very famous for food poisoning… Not sure where these rumors are coming from… Perhaps from the tourists that have been ruining their digestive systems with pharmacy products from an early age… and then, when something goes wrong, instead of blaming the chemicals, they blame it on this incredibly tasty, exotic, and spiritual cuisine.
While we were sitting in this small restaurant, talking about the masses of people sleeping in the temple, the cow walked in. Let me be more specific: The cow walked into the restaurant… a nice, clean indoor restaurant! The waiter showed up with the bucket of water and sprinkled the cow a bit. We concluded that the cows don’t like that, because that cow walked out of the restaurant.
While eating delicious food, of course, we met the owner of the restaurant. We asked him about the people sleeping in the temple. He explained to us that it’s a Shiva Temple famous for pilgrimage. People from all parts of South India come to spend the night in this temple to gain special powers. Then, the next morning, the ritual is to bathe in the holy river that flows behind the temple. We have asked the restaurant owner if we are allowed to spend the night there. Since his answer was ‘’yes’’, as soon as we finished the dinner, we headed back to our guesthouse, grabbed our sleeping bags for camping, and went back to the temple.
Back in there, the atmosphere was the same as before, except more of the people were sleeping, and fewer of them were chatting. We found a piece of empty space where the 3 of us spread our sleeping bags. The only downside of this sleeping experience was the brightness: the whole gated yard was lit like a football field during the evening match. Regardless, I had a good night’s sleep. So did the other two.
That evening, we didn’t get much attention from other temple visitors. That was a surprise, cause there were no other tourists spending the night there. Perhaps the pilgrimage to the Shiva temple in Hampi wasn’t really advertised on TripAdvisor or Lonely Planet. However, we did get plenty of attention in the morning. Of the 3 of us, I woke up first. Next to me, Najib was sleeping like a baby, behind him was Tyler, and behind Tyler, there were about 50 people on the stairs staring at us. I felt like I was in a movie.
Since we did the sleeping part, we had to do the river part as well. No, we didn’t go for a holly bath, but we did bring our little stove. So we sat at the riverbank, boiled our coffee, and enjoyed the show: people taking the holy bath, monkeys jumping everywhere, and the main attraction was some guy washing an elephant with tribal makeup on.
Click here to access my photo gallery from Hampi
Tamil Temples
I find it ridiculous that India is extremely famous for the Taj Mahal. The country’s main religion and the country’s identity are Hinduism. The Taj Mahal was built during the Mughal Empire’s rule over most of India, which was Muslim. So the biggest pride and symbol of India has nothing to do with Hinduism. So, the Taj Mahal is located in India, but has nothing to do with Indian culture.
On the other hand, the true and unique spirit of India lies in its Hindu temples. My favorites are the Tamil temples from the state of Tamil Nadu. Those are completely filled with small and colorful statues. They are not just unique buildings in this world. They’re even unique for India!
Those temples are built in different sizes. Small towns have small Tamil temples, surrounded by nature, and big ones are in large cities. I’ve been to Madurai. Its main Tamil temple is probably as big as the Taj Mahal. And definitely more spectacular.
Many people have heard of Bollywood, which is the Indian Hollywood. Tamil Nadu is also known for its film industry – Tollywood. It’s the Tamil language-based film industry.
In India, every state has its own language, and the country’s official languages are Hindi and English.
India is also known for its caste system. After years of traveling the world, plus growing up and learning about sociology, I have concluded that caste is not an Indian thing. It is a problem in less developed countries around the world. The less developed the family or society is, the more prevalent the caste system will be. It used to be the same way in all developed countries.
I love India and hate it at the same time. I simply cannot compare it to any other country in the world. India is not in Asia. It’s a different planet! If you haven’t been to India, you haven’t seen the world!
I find this Tamil temple 1,000 times more beautiful and unique than the Taj Mahal
If you find Indian culture interesting, I would recommend checking out this YouTube documentary about the Kumbh festival.