India - Day 3 - Delhi

11/30/14

Indira Gandhi International Airport, India

Reader, unless you understand me, thoroughly understand me, understand the way and the reasons I travel, understand my theories on fulfillment vs. enjoyment value, today’s entry will make no sense to you.  It will make no sense to you why I spent 15 minutes at each of India’s most famous monuments, yet spent three hours in search of a flag pin.  It will make no sense to you why #TheQuestForTheFlagPin could so affect my very mood and appetite.  It will make no sense to you why when with seven hours before my flight I had resigned myself to getting my flag pin, I had no desire for any further sightseeing.  It will make no sense to you why I will never need to return to the capital region of India, though I may in future decades go to Mumbai or Hyderabad or Kolkata.  Reader, unless you understand all of that, you will not understand why this Is the triumphant airport entry.

I closed last night in that magical garden, and the magic only continued after I closed.  Emily had told me that, being in India for only 48 hours, I “better not sleep at all.”  She was being sarcastic, but there was a ring of truth to it.  Emily is one of the smartest and most rationally thinking people I know.  She also has an annoying tendency about being right about almost everything.  It was after 4 AM by the time I went up to my room.  I would only be getting three hours of sleep, but who needs sleep when you can spend the night in that magical garden?  I lit up an Avo and wished that I had another cigar to spend another hour there.

I didn’t set an alarm, but I had no trouble waking up.  This time I opted to have the cigar with breakfast and take the shower afterwards.  I got much the same as I did yesterday, also getting fried eggs and a quarter of a waffle.  I had an Avo, which I brought back up to the room with me to finish.  I was running a little late, but I knew there was no time crunch today, fitting in Parliament, the three WHS, and souvenir shop before dark would be an easy task.  I was right, and I was done with the last WHS around 2 PM.  Thus began the three hours quest for the flag pin, but, first, the three hours of sightseeing.

My driver had almost no English, and he had his own idea of what I should see for today.  That is not a good combination.  I very insistently told him our agenda for the day: Parliament, Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb, Qutb Minar, souvenir shopping, dinner, airport.  In the end, that was almost exactly what we did, though I caved in and stopped at the India Gate after Parliament.  As were heading to Parliament, he stopped by another site.  Didn’t I want to take a picture here?  “No, I just want to take a picture at Parliament,” I almost whined.  Our driver in Jamaica was much more understanding.  “You know Parliament’s not open at this hour.”  “We just want to take a picture in front of the building,” I had answered, using the Royal We, rather than expressing my girlfriend’s view on seeing the Jamaican Parliament.  “He likes taking pictures at Parliament.”  “Okay.”  The driver here in India seemed to be putting up a fight, cutting into his tip in the process.  Once we drove up to Parliament, I felt alive.  Here I was, getting my Official picture in front of Parliament, the day was getting off to a great start.  Best of all, there would be no tour guide prattling on about the history of the monuments.  I would use the UNESCO website for all the information I needed, and we could breeze through at my own, pace, only limited by traffic.

He wanted to take me to the India Gate, which was fine.  It was pretty famous, and we had plenty of time.  As we drove, I asked him where to get souvenirs.  He said that everything was closed for Sunday.  No, that couldn’t be right.  This was a country that was Hindu and Muslim, surely they wouldn’t be closed for the Christian Sabbath.  When I travel to the Caribbean, I always plan for souvenir shops to be closed on Sunday, and I make sure to plan around it.  Here in India, that did not seem to be an issue.  It was, and it wasn’t.  More on that later.  The India Gate was crowded and underwhelming.

I just wanted to get to the Red Fort and light my Partagas, the #CigarOfTheTrip.  He took me there without a fight.  It is ironic that I had to write that sentiment.  He is a hired driver, not a travel companion who should have equal input.  I was paying him to take me around, not to decide my itinerary.  If I wanted someone to decide my itinerary, I would have travelled with a tour group.  When we got to the Red Fort, he left me at the parking lot and said he’d be waiting at the car, which meant that I’d be subjected to the hawkers and the peddlers.  I lit up my Partagas and walked to the main entrance.  Of course, no smoking would be allowed inside the walls, but the pictures were just as good outside.  It had a typical Indian crowd, and I just wanted to get my pictures and get back to the air conditioned car.  It was not the Taj Mahal.  It was just an old fort.

Next was Humayun’s Tomb, the model for the Taj Mahal.  This time taking a picture outside was not an option.  I went inside, took my picture of the tomb, took a picture without the cigar, walked to a secluded area, and lit up my Romeo.  I then took my Official picture and continued to walk towards the tomb.  Someone asked me to take their picture, and I did.  As soon as I did so, a security guard told me to put away the cigar.  Not needing to take any more pictures, I told him that I was leaving, and he followed out to make sure that I did.  We drove from there to Qutb Minar, driving through as bad traffic as I had ever seen.  My driver said that this was light traffic and that there is heavier traffic during the week.  How was that even possible?  It is not just the bad traffic, but the erratic driving that makes it so unsettling.

I still had some cigar left when we got to Qutb Minar, a towering monument that claims to be India’s oldest monument.  I just needed a picture.  Once again, no cigars were allowed past security, but I was able to get a decent enough picture from outside.  That was it.  Time for the souvenirs.  I asked to go to Dilli Haat, but my driver said it was closed.  The website said otherwise.  He said that “mini Dilli Haat” was opened, whatever that meant.  I insisted he take me to Dilli Haat.  He took me somewhere else and lost his tip in the process.  I got the keychain and t-shirt but no flag pin.  I realized that instead of trying to explain what a flag pin was, I could just show them the picture of my flag pin collection on my pushboard at work.  That would do the trick.  No one had it.  They told me to try to Connaught Place.

That’s where we went next.  It turned out that Connaught Place was actually a district with lots of shopping centers and bazaars.  As we drove, I saw a bunch of roadside stands, the kind of places that sell the good souvenirs.  I told me driver to stop.  He said that it wasn’t Connaught Place and kept driving.  I then saw a perfect shop, the kind of place that would, if any place would, have the flag pin.  Again, I told him to stop, saying that I knew that it wasn’t Connaught Place but that I wanted to stop there, anyway.  He kept driving, telling me he would take me to Connaught Place.  Were we really having this argument?  It was like something out of a Seinfeld episode.  Once more, I insisted he stop, and he finally did.  We were at Janpath Market, and I walked all the way down the market, showing each vendor a picture of an Indian flag pin.  They had magnets and keychains and t-shirts and replicas, but no flag pins.  Ugh.

Alright, on to Connaught Place.  There was a place called Palika Bazaar.  No dice.  It was just a regular shopping center.  As I walked through, people kept literally shoving me because I was walking too slow, grabbing my back and using me as leverage to literally propel themselves around me and through the crowd.  I was shocked.  Well, anyway, I had another lead, so I ventured farther off.  I have a great sense of direction and an even better danger sense.  I did not worry about getting lost.  There was just one thing on my mind: the flag pin.  Well, that’s not true.  I have a great deal of trouble telling apart negative emotions and physical discomfort.  I wasn’t sure if I was stressed or depressed or heat-stricken or nauseated or lonely or what.  It is very lonely traveling east.  Everyone back home is asleep when you wake up, and they don’t start waking up until you have finished most of your activities for the day.  A few people were starting to wake up at this point, and the indication of that was the orange 2 or 3 or 4, letting me know that someone had logged into Facebook and Liked a bunch of my photos from the day.  I had no luck at the other place, either.

When I got back to the car, I untucked my shirt, signifying defeat and resigning myself to having to get an unofficial flag pin at the airport.  It’s what I did in Panama City and Port of Spain, but it’s never the same.  My driver was having none of that.  I wanted a flag pin, and he was going to find me one.  What’s this?  Did he suddenly decide to try and earn himself a tip?  For almost the next hour, he walked around with me, asking the different vendors, getting different leads, trying to find out who would have a flag pin.  He was told that a bookstore would be our best bet.  We walked into one.  I showed them the picture.  Eureka!  Wait, no.  Something was off.  There were holes in it.  The backing was wrong.  It was a light-up button, not a flag pin.  We then went to the next shop.  Yes, he had one old flag pin.  Wait, no, so close.  It had a safety pin backing, useless on my display.  Ugh!  He got another lead, and I bought it, anyway, mainly just so that I’d have something to show the different vendors.

We kept walking, and we soon found another bookstore.  He asked in Hindu, and I showed them the flag pin.  From the way the clerk shouted to the guy in the back, I knew he had them.  There they were, three perfect, pristine flag pins.  I bought them all.  My spirits lifted, my imagined depression was gone.  The stresses of my life were, literally, thousands of miles away.  Even the air felt cooler.  However, the one unmistakable sign that all was well was that I suddenly had a raging appetite.  I found a cigar shop, so I told him to take me there, knowing that the mall it was in would also have plenty of places to eat.  My driver informed me that rate only included 8 hours and 80 km.  The additional fees were nominal, but I felt scammed again.  I was told that it was all inclusive.  I had been planning to give him a generous tip, so I decided I would take that fee out of his tip.

I found the cigar shop.  It was overpriced, so I would just be buying a single stick, not a box.  I found a nice Chinese restaurant, and I relished the idea of posting my #ClashOfCultures picture actually using chopsticks at a Chinese restaurant.  I got two beers, honey chicken, and Beijing lamb.  Finding beef in Delhi is like finding bacon in Jerusalem.  It was delicious, and I headed down to the cigar shop.  The food was slow, so I knew that I would not have much time to smoke.  I chose a Trinidad and smoked it for about 15 minutes before heading back to my driver.  I smoked the rest en route to the airport.

When we got there, I gave him all the rupees I had, except for the one of each I intended to keep as souvenirs.  He said that it wasn’t enough.  He was right.  I asked him if he liked dollars and gave him the rest of his tip in dollars.  Even before I went in the airport, I was asked for my passport and ticket.  My ticket?  Don’t I get that inside?  He checked my name against the flight manifest and let me in.  I got my ticket, headed through security, picked up 22 cigars in packs, not seeing a box I liked, and get some much needed liquid sugar, along with a liter of water, and headed to the smoking lounge.

I put my stuff down and went to light my cigar, having lost all three lighters to security.  As soon as I stood up, someone took my seat.  Really?  Well, I lit up the cigar and stared at him and stood right next to him as I smoked it.  He just looked right back at me.  The seat next to him opened up, so I sat there and waited for him to finish his cigarette.  Once he did, I took that seat and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can head to the gate and publish it and upload my photos.

India - Day 2 - Agra

11/29/14

New Delhi, India

When I set out to see the world, I knew that it would not be long before I become jaded, traveling as often as I do, the way I do.  I did not know how long it would take for me to become jaded, but it happened.  That is why it is so remarkable for something to literally take my breath away.  For that to happen 5 times before noon, well, that’s just something special.  It was a year ago that I landed in Iran, almost exactly to the hour.  I will never forget that first night in Shiraz, nor Persepolis, no the Imam Square in Esfahan, nor the crowded streets of Tehran.  Likewise, today will be a day I never forget.

A year from now, the stresses, the exhaustion, the weariness, the sickness will all be forgotten.  The feeling I had when I first saw the Taj Mahal up close will not be forgotten.  What is even more remarkable is how similar these two countries were.  If I were plopped down in the middle of one these two countries, I would have trouble telling them apart at first glance.  For the most part, 95% even, they are the same.  It is the other 5% that provided me with significant cultural shock today, unlike anything I ever experienced before.

I had set an alarm, but it was unnecessary.  I think I woke up before 6 AM, and I could not get back to sleep.  I showered and was then faced with another dilemma.  My car would not be ready until 7:30 AM, so there was no issue of a time crunch.  Breakfast would not start until 6:30 AM.  Having freshly showered, would I change back into my night clothes for breakfast, thereby defeating the purpose of the shower, or would I change into my suit and risk getting my breakfast all over them?  I realized that the main purpose of the shower was to make sure my hair looked neat for my photos, and since the overwhelming stench of curry would permeate the entire country, rewearing my night clothes for an hour hardly seemed an issue.  I would have plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast and to change into my suit after breakfast.

My first mamash moment of the day was when I stepped out into the garden.  I cannot put into words what I felt when I felt the cool air and saw the statue of the goddess head through the smokiness.  The lighting was not good for a proper picture, but it was entirely overwhelming.  At that moment there could be no doubt that I was in India.  They had outdoor tables with ashtrays, and I considered grabbing a cigar for breakfast, but I knew that I would be back tomorrow morning and could do that tomorrow.  Today, I just wanted to enjoy breakfast.  I was glad that I made that decision.

My second mamash moment was when I saw the spread.  It was amazing, and I knew that I would soon be debating if this would make my list of Top 5 breakfast buffets of all time (Spoiler Alert: It did!)  Deciding for one morning not to worry about carbs or calories, also knowing that I would more likely than not be skipping lunch and not eating again until tonight, I let myself indulge.  I started with a fruit and cheese plate, along with some bread and cold chicken.  I asked for a refill on my water bottle and some coffee.  I also asked if I could sit outside.  She said that of course I could but that was quite cold outside.  (It was in the 60s).  I assured her that I would be okay.

The entire meal was excellent, and that was my third mamash moment.  The coffee was perfect.  In fact, it was so good that I had three cups, knowing that would preclude me from taking my nap en route to the Taj Mahal.  I didn’t care.  My next course was the hot food course.  When ranking buffets, I always say the hot food course is like the Final Exam for a semester at college.  If you fail the final, you fail the course.  Even if the final is only 30% of the course, and you did everything else perfect.  If you get a 50 on the final, you don’t get a B for the course, you get an F.  That was why the buffet at the Majestic failed.  It failed the final.  This buffet got a solid A+ on the final.  The hash browns tasted like potato latkes, the eggs were nice and runny, the bacon excellent.  They also had a selection of more traditional Indian breakfast foods, but I was not interested.  Then for the term paper, the desserts.  While it was not quite a solid A, it was at least a B+, maybe an A-.  I treated myself to a whole plate of desserts.  Afterwards, I went back for some more fruit.  In all, the buffet earned a solid A.  Off the top of my head, the only ones I can think of that were better, excluding ones in New York and brunch buffets, were the two in the Black Forest and the Frontenac in Quebec.

My fourth mamash moment came when I got back up to the room and saw the all too familiar huge orange rising sun found in the region of the world, perfectly circularly, not a cloud in the sky, just partially obscured by the smoky skies.  I headed down, and my car was waiting for me.  He did not wait long before telling me what I had planned for the day was impossible, an all too familiar refrain from tour guides.  However, through his broken English, I quickly realized that he was not the tour guide that the company had seemed to imply that I would be getting.  It didn’t matter.  I just needed to take pictures.

Not long after he left, he pulled over, and something seemed off.  It turned out that he was apparently stopping off to pay his income taxes.  I wanted to smoke an Opus, but I didn’t have an ashtray on me.  I knew that he would not object to me smoking in the car, but I needed something to do with the ash.  “You’re smart.  You’ll figure something out,” I told myself.  Sure enough, I did.  I had a first aid kit that was in small plastic clamshell container.  I emptied that out and used the clamshell as the ashtray.  It worked perfectly.  After my cigar, the driver asked if I wanted some coffee or tea.  I said that I was good, but he appeared to be turning off anyway.

I asked if he was going to get a coffee.  He said that he needed to U.  That brought me up with a quandary trying to figure out if a rest stop would be considered Official or a Category III Unofficial U.  The one person whom I could ask for such advice was otherwise occupied for the Sabbath and would not be able to provide advice for about 20 hours.  Instead, I wound up texting him a picture of each Official Uer that I used for the rest of the day, along with the count.  When he turned his phone on at sunset, he would be inundated with half a dozen pictures of Official Uers.  Because we are best friends, because we have shared jokes like these, because we have the same sense of humor, I knew just how funny he would find that.  We then went to get coffee.  This was the most crowded rest stop I had ever seen, and, once again, I was shocked by the lack of any kind of respect for personal space.  I ordered a coffee, which tasted more like a sugary latte, already mixed with milk and sugar.  I hated it, but I drank it anyway, for #TheExperience.

One of the biggest cultural shocks of the day, other than the fact that my driver saw no impropriety in openly belching in the car, was the aggressive and dangerous driving.  It is no wonder that my credit card’s rental car insurance specifically excludes India.  Ironically, the other two countries it excludes are Israel and Jamaica.  It was a three-lane highway, but it was more commonly treated as a two-lane highway, people driving halfway across the lane lines.  Once we got to Agra, we were in as packed a traffic jam as I had ever seen, and the two-lane street was treated as three-lane street, sometimes a fourth lane was created if there were motorcycles.  I was very glad to be in the backseat instead of behind the wheel.

We soon pulled over, and the driver told me that a tour guide would be coming.  Wonderful.  That was the last thing that I needed.  How do you explain to a tour guide that you really don’t care about the history of their national treasure, that you don’t care how many artisans built the monument, that you don’t care how many camels they needed to carry the marble, that you don’t care how tons of camel shit the workers had to clean up.  How do you explain that you just want to take a bunch of pictures to post on Instagram and stare at the pretty monument?  How do you explain concepts of mamash and Official and complete to someone who wants to tell you everything there is to know about their national treasures?

The answer is that you don’t.  You just smile and nod and say the right things at the right moment as you do your best to ignore him.  To make matters worse, he also said that my plan was impossible, that I should just see the two sites in town.  That was an unacceptable answer.  I quickly realized that, due to traffic, the National Park would be a pipe dream, but there was no reason we couldn’t do the third Cultural WHS an hour outside the city.  In the end, he also expected to be paid.  I was told that my driver would come to all the sites with me and that the price was all-inclusive.  Oh well.  It was not a big deal.  I was not allowed to smoke my cigar inside the complex, so that famous picture with my cigar and water bottle in front of the Taj Mahal, the whole purpose of the trip, seemed a lost cause.  Maybe I could see the Taj Mahal from outside the security gate?  No.  Maybe just a glimpse?  No.  I grabbed my Partagas and put my torch in my bag, just bringing my soft flame.  Okay, so what would I do?  I’d wing it and hope for the best, just as I did 6 months ago at the Tokyo Stadium.  When we got to the gate, I saw a glimpse of white.  I asked my guide what that was.  It was the Taj Mahal.  It would be Official, but it wouldn’t be Epic.  Close enough.  I lit up my cigar, and we took some pictures.

We then walked around the gate, and he told me he was taking me somewhere no tourists ever go.  What else was new?  Then, I saw them: monkeys.  Real monkeys roaming the area as they had for time eternal.  I did not expect that.  We walked down the wall and back, and I had finished my Partagas.  He gave my lighter to one of his shopkeeper friends.  We then walked inside.

Once we passed through the gate, I saw it.  It was every bit as magnificent as one would expect.  That was my fifth mamash moment of the day.  We took lots of pictures, and I did my best to tune him out, just wanting to enjoy #TheExperience.  He then said it was time to walk inside the monument.  I really did not feel a need to go inside the tomb, but I figured that I might as well do it.  There was a whole big pile of shoes that people left outside, and I was instantly brought to McCarthy in July, to that picture I took outside of a neat line of shoes.  The tomb was overcrowded, and, once again, there was no concept of personal space.  Between that, my desire to fit everything in, and the overwhelming stench of curry, I started to have a panic attack.  I just wanted to get back out into the open air.  When we finally did, I told him it was time to go, and it was time for the souvenirs.

We first had to go back to the place where my lighter was being kept.  I recognize a hard sell when I see one, and I know how to say no politely yet firmly.  I recognize when I’m being ripped off, but I can also recognize the perfect souvenir or gift.  I got a marble replica for myself.  It was overpriced, but it was the perfect souvenir.  I also got some keychains.  He then asked if I wanted to buy a t-shirt.  I did.  They took me to their textile department.  A pair of pyjamas for yourself?  Something for your lady?  Sure, why not.  It was far more than I had intended to spend on my girlfriend’s gift, but I knew just how much that she would love it, that the smile on her face would be worth far more to me than anything that I could have bought myself for that price.  The total price he quoted was outrageous.  I named a price about half of what he wanted, and he kept lowering his price, but I stood firm at my price.  In the end he agreed.

I then went to the next shop.  They had cheap replicas of the Taj Mahal.  By cheap, I mean the price of a cheap cup of coffee.  I bought 30.  He then asked me if I wanted a keychain.  The price he quoted was beyond outrageous.  He asked the same price for the keychain as he did for all 30 replicas.  I negotiated him down to a more reasonable but still outrageous price for two of them and got a t-shirt.  They had two workers bring my stash to a tuk tuk, which brought us back to our car.  I easily fit everything inside the Barclay Rex shopping bag I had brought with me.

From there, we headed to the Agra Fort.  He said that I had only paid for the two sites in Agra.  Bullshit.  I had told the company each of the four sites I wanted to see, and they said it was all-inclusive.  The tour guide hesitated and then said that I would have to pay the tolls for the road to the third site.  It was a nominal amount, so I agreed.  We were soon at the Agra Fort.  Again, I could not go inside with my cigar, but the Official picture was taken outside, so I was satisfied with walking around the complex.  I lit up my Romeo, and we hired another tuk tuk, and he took us to a place where I could get some nice photos.  I told my guide that I had to U, and he pointed to the nearest bush and told me to make it Official.  I did not hesitate to do so.  After we took our pictures, we headed back, and brought me to my car and asked for his fee.  I did not feel a need to tip him on top of that.

By this point, I was starting to feel sick or depressed or exhausted or heat-stricken.  I can never tell the difference.  I just wanted to get my Official picture at Fatehpur Sikri and head back to my hotel.  The National Park was out of the question.  As we drove, I looked to see who back home was still online, it being 3:30 AM in New York.  A doctor that I once loved was active.  She made a joke about me looking for a guru.  As if!

We were soon there, and the driver pointed me to a tour guide who would take me around.  I did not need to hear about the Mughal Emperor’s three wives and how he couldn’t have any kids and how the holy man blessed his Hindu wife to deliver him a sun.  I just needed to take a fucking picture, and my phone was quickly dying.  To make it worse, his incessant talking was only making me more nauseated.  I lit up my Montecristo, and we walked around.  The rules were more relaxed there, and he dropped me off with his “uncle,” who would show me where to take the Official picture.  He was convinced that this was a picture I found in an old family photo album and was trying to replicate.

I got my picture, posted it on Instagram, and my photo got 12 Likes, which might be close to a record for a picture with just me in it.  Probably a year since a solo photo got that many Likes.  My Travelogue entry from Thanksgiving also got a record number of views, more than 50% more than my previous high.  I must be doing something right this trip.  I then sat down to finish my cigar, and the “uncle” stared at me very confused.  Did this guy really come all the way from New York just to smoke cigars and post pictures on Instagram?  Damn right I did.  We went back, and it was time to get on the bus.  I asked my guide if I could smoke the cigar on the bus.  He said that I was his guest and that I could, so long as I sat in the back of the bus.  The person in front of me asked if I could put it out.  While I do not care about the feelings of strangers, I have a very strong sense of fair play and common decency.  I do not have the right to impose my cigar on him in a crowded and enclosed space.  I held the cigar out the window and puffed out the window.  He was okay with that.  Reader, imagine doing that in New York on an MTA bus or even the top of a double decker tour bus.

The souvenirs offered were lacking, so I paid my guide and headed back to the car.  I had no appetite, so I asked the driver to take me straight back to the hotel.  I wanted to nap, but it was too bumpy and shaky to sleep.  I have inherited a lot of things from my mother in varying degrees.  Her motion sickness is one that I inherited in a lesser degree.  Her worrying and overanalyzing is one that I inherited to a much greater degree.

As we drove, the most harrowing moment of the day came.  We were on a road that was one lane in each direction, two lanes total.  There was a long line of stopped trucks, so my driver tried to pass them.  He got pretty far, but then a truck started coming in the opposite direction.  To make matters worse, there was a blind man walking on the side of the road.  Somehow, it all fit without any accidents, but, as if that was not enough, a motorcycle decided to try and weave its way through.  I was thoroughly frightened, but we survived and were soon on our way.  My driver was lost.  Another interesting aspect of India culture is that all along the road people were stopped off to make it Official, not looking for a bush or a ditch, just doing their business on the side of the road.

I then saw the familiar orange disk setting, along with a tower with a flame on top of it.  I didn’t think it was an Olympic cauldron, so I assumed it had something to do with oil or gas.  I just couldn’t figure it out.  We soon stopped again at a crowded roadside market, and my driver left me alone in the running and unlocked car.  I was not happy.  He came back and quickly found the highway, finally allowing me to take my first nap.

When we got back to the hotel, I immediately changed into my nightclothes and passed out, waking up again at 11 PM to a deluge of Facebook likes, people just starting to wake up in New York as I took my nap.  I wasn’t too hungry, but I knew that if I tried to fall asleep again I risked a) waking up too late to write my Day 2 entry and b) waking up very hungry after the restaurants closed.  I put on my slippers and headed down for dinner, opting for their fusion restaurant.

I sat at the same table I chose for breakfast, ordered an overpriced kabob platter, tandoori roti, and another Kingfisher beer.  I headed back to my room to get a cigar for the meal.  I had to choose between a Cohiba and an Avo.  Certain cigars bring back certain memories.  Would I choose the Cohiba and remind myself of the symposiums of April and May, or would I choose the Avo and remind myself of the Les Miz phase of my life from February and March.  I opted for the Cohiba.  The meal was very good, it was spicy, but the beer, bread, and cigar helped to cut the spice.  I didn’t need dessert, but I ordered some anyway.

I then went back to my room, grabbed my 2006 Christmas Pipe and everything that I needed to properly enjoy #TheExperience.  I lit it up, put on my Idina Manzel album, and proceeded to write this entry.  After the album ran once through, I heard my favorite catchy Christmas tune: Christmas Wrapping.  Wait, that wasn’t on my playlist.  I took off my headphones, and it was blaring from the speakers in the garden.  This is such a lovely courtyard, though it is now 3 AM here, I have no desire to go upstairs.  I could stay here all night.  Hell, I’d sleep out here if they’d let me.  I don’t think they would.  Instead, I will close, publish this, and upload my photos from my Official and Epic Day in Agra.

India - Day 1 - Arrival

11/28/14

New Delhi, India

Here I am, at long last arrived, the furthest I have ever been from home, finally able to Officially mark off India as the 45^th country I have visited, yet, sitting in this hotel room, smoking my cigar and writing this entry, it feels no different from any hotel room anywhere else in the world.  That said, over the past 3-4 hours since I got off the plane, I have been subjected to a thorough culture shock, perhaps one to rival any that I have ever experienced.  Even before I cleared Customs, I knew something was different.  I was prepared for the ubsequious service of the workers, but I was not prepared for the attitudes of the common citizens.  It is land with no concept of personal space, and that is something that, excluding crowded train cars, is something I have not experienced in the previous 44 countries that I visited.

The flight was unadventurous, and it passed quickly enough.  I was unable to sleep when we took off, a combination of having only woken up 11 hours past, a massive headache from the alcohol I had at the Thanksgiving feast, and the stress that is all too familiar to me as I embark on an ambitious trip such as this one.  There are so many things that can go wrong, and, as I took off, I realized one of them.  I hadn’t arranged for a car yet to take me around tomorrow.  My plan was to have the hotel take care of it, but I would not be getting to the hotel until 10 PM, and I would need the car at 7:30 AM the next morning.  Would they be able to arrange that?  Would I just have to hail a taxi and ask him if I could shuttle me around for 12 hours.  It would be the equivalent of hailing a cab on 42^nd Street and asking him if he could take you Boston for the day, and, while he’s at it, take you to Springfield and Vermont.  It was poorly planned, and it did not help my stress levels.

I decided instead to watch a movie.  I watched the original Odd Couple movie, and, once I heard the familiar theme music, all my stresses washed away.  I fell asleep halfway through the movie, sleeping fitfully for the next 10 hours or so.  I knew that I would be facing another dilemma.  When I got to my hotel in Delhi, it would be 10 PM, and, if I had slept the whole plane ride, I would not be able to get to sleep at a decent hour.  I also knew that I would be incredibly bored if I did not sleep.  The other issue was that they were serving breakfast before we landed.  All I had eaten in the past 36 hours had been the Thanksgiving feast.  If the hotel restaurants were closed when I arrived, I would be effed.  My next chance to eat would be breakfast on Saturday.  On the other hand, if I ate the breakfast on the plane, I would risk not being hungry for my first Official meal in India when I got there.  In the end, I chose to both eat and sleep, and I was both hungry and tired when I arrived, so it worked out.  I watched the rest of the movie after I woke up, and we soon landed.

After I cleared Immigration, there was a Duty Free on arrival, and they had cigars.  Jackpot!  I had brought enough cigars with me for each WHS, but I really wanted to have a Cigar of the Trip.  I walked into the shop, and I was immediately accosted by a worker who asked what I wanted.  I told him cigars, and he pointed me to the display that I had earlier seen.  I suppose that is considered helpful service, but, to me, it was overbearing and unnecessary.  I found a nice box of Partagas, even if they were a little small.  The prices there were cheaper even than in Andorra, so I stocked up, but I was informed that I could only purchase 25 per passport.  Okay, the box of Partagas was 25, and that would be the Cigar of the Trip.

I went to check out, and I handed him my passport, boarding pass, and debit card.  Declined.  WTF?  There was enough money in that account to easily buy 20 of those boxes of cigars, and I had called Citibank before I left to tell them I would be in India.  I tried my credit card.  Declined.  That was annoying.  I asked if there was an ATM.  The ATM was on the other side of Customs, which meant that I could not come back to buy the cigars.  I called Citibank, but the reception was very bad.  I could hear the agent perfectly clearly, but they could not hear me.  I walked around until I found a spot where she could hear me clearly.

Eventually, after 15 minutes of verifying transactions and proving that it was indeed me, they removed the block on my account.  What was the point of me calling ahead of time if they were going to do a fraud hold anyway?  It worked, and I bought my box of cigars.  My next stop was the ATM to get enough rupees to last me for the weekend.

I then saw some tour guide stands.  I walked up to one of them and told him my itinerary for the next 48 hours and asked for a quote.  The number he provided was shockingly low, so I gladly accepted.  For the whole weekend, including airport transfers, it was a fifth of the price of my tour guide that took my from Abu Dhabi to Muscat in one day.  It was actually almost exactly the same as I spent on taxis during our time in Jamaica, but the total time and distance travelled would be far greater for this trip.  The weather on my phone said that it was smoky out.

As soon as I stepped outside of the airport, I finally realized that I was in India.  I also instantly knew what they meant by smoky.  The smoke was literally burning my eyes, my nose, even my teeth.  I quickly got in the cab, and he took me to my hotel.  As we drove, I thought to myself that I had never been anywhere like this before, but then I remembered I had been.  A year ago this weekend, I went to Iran, and the pollution and commotion and congestion was just as bad in Tehran as it was here in Delhi.  The driver dropped me off at the hotel and told me someone would pick me up at 7:30 AM the next morning.

Once again, I was greeted by ubsequious staff, and I was shown to my room.  I just wanted to settle in, take my first Official U in India, have my first Official meal in India with chopsticks, and smoke my first Official cigar in India.  I could do all three of them without leaving my hotel, and that was exactly what I did.  The room did have one boon: American-style electrical outlets.  I had only brought one adapter, so this simplified things greatly.

I changed into my pajamas, fitting since pajamas were supposedly invented here, and headed down to the India restaurant, armed with only my cell phone, my room key, and two pairs of chopsticks.  It was a very fancy restaurant, but the waiters did not give my attire so much as a questioning glance.  I ordered chicken tandoori, as close to a national dish of India as exists, a lamb dish, naan, and a Kingfisher beer.

The food took a while to come out, so I overindulged on these chips that they served with some kind of mango jelly.  The beer was great, the chicken amazing, the naan excellent, and the lamb dish too spicy.  The menu had seemed very overpriced, and when he brought the food I realized way.  Everything was portions for two people, and I had ordered two dishes.  The chicken tandoori on its own would have been plenty, and I was unable to eat the spicy lamb dish.  Needless to say, I did not get much use out my chopsticks, instead eating the naan and chicken with my hands.

Reader, there are few times in my life when I need a cigar, plenty of times when I want a cigar.  After that spicy meal, I needed a cigar, so I headed up to the room, put a towel around the smoke detector, lit up my Partagas, and proceeded to write this entry.  I finished the cigar halfway through the entry, due to its small size and decided to light up a second one, figuring that I was on vacation and that this was the Official Cigar of the Trip.  I actually almost done with the second cigar, and I will now close so that I can publish this, upload some photos, and get some sleep before my car picks me up the morning.

India - Day 0 - Thanksgiving

11/27/14 (Thanksgiving)

Newark Liberty International Airport

This Thanksgiving, there can be no doubt that I have lot for which to be thankful.  At the top of that list is a wonderful and loving girlfriend.  Also at the top would be having the means and ability to travel the way I do and enjoy the luxuries in life that I do.  The very fact that I can embark on this trip solely because I want to take a picture in front of the Taj Mahal with my water bottle and cigar is something for which I should be very thankful.  Those are the two big things.  Other things, such as the assortment of four cigars in my breast pocket, the fact that I’m living in the greatest city in the world, and my health are also on the list.

However, just because I am thankful for all of these things does not mean that I am about to give thanks, or even that I agree with the concept of giving thanks.  The original implication was to give thanks to god for the blessings he has bestowed on us.  I do not believe in god, so that is not happening.  I also think it seems patently ridiculous to thank my girlfriend for being my girlfriend, just as it is ridiculous to thank my boss for giving me a job.  A relationship is like a job.  It is formed because both people want it.

I suppose that Day 0 should start at the moment I turned on the parade and truly felt the holiday spirit.  I had no appetite.  Actually, that’s not true.  I was hungry, but I didn’t want to eat.  I had neither the energy to leave my apartment nor the desire to eat food.  I lit up my 2013 Christmas Pipe, thankful that I was completing the cycle on Thanksgiving, just as I believe I did last year as I headed to Iran.  My trip to India this year is far less ambitious.  My trip planned for next Thanksgiving will be even more ambitious than Iran.  I planned my itinerary as I smoked my pipe, my spirits lifting by the minute.

After the pipe and once I was fully packed, I headed to the subway.  I had a bit of a dilemma.  I knew that I would want to smoke a Bolivar before I departed for India, but I was not sure if I would have a chance to smoke it indoors.  That meant that I would have needed my coat, and I did not relish the idea of lugging my coat around India.  In the end, I chose to bring the coat.

I got off the train, and all of the memories of the past 4 months came rushing back.  I remembered the first time I saw her this year, in this exact same neighborhood, when I hugged her goodnight at that exact same street corner and wondered if I wanted something more, and I remembered everything that followed, and I was very thankful how all of the events of the past 4 months played out. 

It was after 1 PM, and I had still not eaten all day.  We would be drinking, and we would not be eating until 5 PM.  I quickly realized my mistake, but there was nothing to be done.   I was able to graze enough before dinner to keep my appetite at bay, and I had a wonderful time with my girlfriend and her family.  We got toasted and laughed and joked and teased each other.  She asked if I had more fun than I would have had at the fancy hotel with my grandfather and my parents.  The answer was obvious.  There was no place in the world I would have rather been than where I was at that very moment, and for that I was thankful.  We had a delightful feast, turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings.

Knowing that it would embarrass her, I did not use my chopsticks to eat my meal, instead opting for the more traditional knife and fork.  That, however, did not stop me from taking a picture for Instagram.  I couldn’t even finish my plate, despite not having eaten all day.  It was then time to go, and I said my goodbyes to her family.  She then walked me downstairs, and we said our goodbyes.  I would be seeing her again in 96 hours, and in the meantime I would travel halfway around the world and back.  It seemed so weird.

The car was downstairs, and, when I got in, I took a shot.  I asked if I could smoke if I opened the windows.  At first he said no, and I resigned myself to smoke my Bolivar at Newark before I checked in.  He then shocked me by opening the window and saying that I could.  I promised myself that I would give him a generous tip, and I enjoyed my cigar as we made our way to Newark.  The cigar took less time than the ride, and I was thankful for being able to have my cigar en route.  When we got there, I asked if I could pay by card, but he said that they were not set up for that, and he would not take a check either, which meant that I had to find an ATM in the airport and then come back to pay him.

That was a minor nuisance, and the line at security was slow.  The agents, rather than being bitter about working on Thanksgiving, were having a grand time, joking around, and having fun.  One of the agents said that we should line up heel to toe, and, as I stepped up to the person in front of me, attempting to put my toes on the back of his heel as requested, I realized that he was joking.  I headed to the gate and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close.

Jamaica, Mahn - Day 2 - Paradise Lost

11/16/14

Norman Manley International Airport, Jamaica

And so our brief time in this little piece of paradise has come to an end.  In 24 hours, I will be at the cigar store, telling my friends about an amazing trip, in stark contrast to my mood of last night.  It is amazing how 8 hours of sleep in a real bed, a cool breeze, and some shade can work as such a panacea.  I will be back to my daily life in New York, probably not leaving the island of Manhattan until Thanksgiving.  Our jovial driver for the day kept telling us all the things to do the next time we came here.  We smiled and nodded along.  There will be no next time, not here, or at least not for quite some time, not the way I travel.  There are too many islands in the Caribbean, the South Pacific, the Mediterranean, and all around the world.  There are too many other wonderful places in the world to visit.  It will be a long time before I return to this particular paradise.

We allowed ourselves to sleep in, not getting down to breakfast until after 10 AM, and we were a little worried that we were too late.  We were not.  After a delicious breakfast consisting of fruit, coffee, eggs, and jerk sausage, we went back to the room to relax, and I smoked my last H. Upman.  We got a taxi to take us to Fort Clarence and got some fried fish and lobster.  Our driver was all too happy to show us around Kingston, including stopping somewhere for me to get some Blue Mountain Coffee.  I lit up my OpusX, and we worked on the rest of the rum as we ate our meal.

After the meal, I finally allowed myself to relax.  It was not too hot, and I had nothing in the world to bother me.  Gone were the stresses of work, the typical stresses of travelling, my worries, everything was gone.  I was in paradise with someone whom I loved very dearly and one of my closest friends.  Nothing else mattered.  As I saw her frolicking in the ocean, I remembered the vision I had of Fiji a few months ago, and, for the first time in six weeks (the night we planned this trip), I was truly happy.  Yes, reader, there have been plenty of things in my life I have been happy about, and I have thoroughly enjoyed almost my entire life, but that is not what I mean.  What I mean is that I was purely happy with not another thought on my mind.  I have a very active mind, and it is so rare that I can shut off the rest of my mind to focus on one emotion like that.  There is always some negative emotion or stress or worry permeating my mind.  At that moment, there was not.  Or I am checking my messages or Facebook or Instagram.  My phone was in my pocket the whole time.  We were in paradise.

I soon came back to reality, realizing we would be leaving in a few hours.  Sure, we would be going to Florida in few a weeks, and there would be plenty of great trips in our future.  After my OpusX, I joined her in the water, getting my feet wet.  That was when she splashed me.  At that moment, I remembered exactly why I wanted to start dating one of my closest friends.  We started splashing each other, and I didn’t care that my clothes or the things in my pockets were getting wet.  I was happy again, nothing else was on my mind, but the water soon started to bother me, so I left.  I moved my towel into the sun to be next to hers.  I lit up a Cohiba, and I dried off.

After the cigar, it was time for us to leave, and our driver took us back to our hotel.  I washed my feet and changed into my suit.  The driver took us to Port Royal, a place I knew very well from Pirates of the Caribbean, and we saw the remnants.  We could have stayed longer, but I was nervous about getting to the airport with enough time to write this entry.  We got some coffee to drink, checked in, went through security with minimal problems.  They made her deflate the soccer ball she bought for her cousin, and they almost took away the bottle of rum that I had filled with sand at the beach.  I got three bottles of rum at duty-free, and then we found some seats.  I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close since our flight is about to board.

Jamaica Mahn - Day 1 - Hot as Hell

11/15/14

Kingston, Jamaica

I suppose that by my typical Travelogue standards, the events of today, when written out, would seem rather boring and underwhelming.  We left the hotel around 10 AM, picked up some souvenirs, did one activity, eating a meal on-site, left at 3:30 PM, got ice cream, went back to the hotel, went out for a casual dinner, and were back at the hotel around 7:30 PM.  Boring day, right?  Wrong.

Day 1 properly began the moment I woke up on the airplane, and we soon landed.  We were the first ones off the plane, being the only people in business class, and we went to immigration.  There was some kind of issue with my passport, and the agent seemed to think it was a glitch from their end.  They wound up asking my multiple times if I was here for business.  That was the only question they had for me, and I told them it was for pure tourism.  It was not a long process, but it was a new experience, and an unexpected one.  This was the land of Bob Marley and “Yah, mahn!”  It seemed odd to be subjected to such scrutiny.  It didn’t matter.  We weren’t on any type of time crunch.

My original plan was for us to head to Parliament, take our pictures, go to the hotel, be unable to check in, change into our beach attire, have breakfast, go to the souvenir shops, get my souvenirs, and be at the beach at 9 AM.  We were able to check in early, which allowed us to catch a much-needed nap.  As exhausting as the day was, without that nap, it surely would have been even more tiring.

However, I was starving, having nigh naught but a cupcake in well over 12 hours, so we got breakfast first.  I got what the waitress called the Jamaican national dish, saltfish and ackee, which was really good and quite a challenge to eat with chopsticks, and a perfect first Official meal in Jamaica.  The coffee I had with breakfast was not conducive to me getting a good nap.  As mentioned in the opening, we left the hotel at 10 AM and got our taxi for the day, which seemed to be overpriced, but it was what it was, even if I was convinced that there was racket going on between the hotel and the taxis.  I got what I needed at the souvenir shops, including presents for Ryan and Emily, unable to find something for Sokol.  The only other person for whom I would have wanted to buy a present was standing right next to me.  She got some souvenirs for her family.  I’m not sure if she got anything for herself.

From there it was time to go to the beach, and I chose Hellshire beach, renowned for their fried fish stands.  We ordered some fried fish, which as delicious as it was difficult to eat with chopsticks, with all the fixings and a pair of Red Stripe beers to go with it.  I lit up my Ramon Allones, the last from the box.  It was fitting that it would be the cigar that it would be my first Official cigar in Jamaica and the cigar that allowed me to say, “Jamaica Complete.”  She gave me a congratulatory high-five, though it was a particularly difficult task, not having to hit any WHS or Olympic Stadiums.  I joked that now that I had said “Jamaica Complete,” we could head home.  We had not yet set foot on the beach.  She did not find the joke funny.

I’m sure my reader knows that I am not a huge fan of the beach.  When I was younger, hell, the last time I went to the beach even (5 months ago), I went for no other reason than to check out the women, being in a very happy relationship with the woman lying next to me, I had no desire to spend an afternoon “checking out women.”  After minimal cajoling, I get my feet wet and sandy.

It was shortly that my world slowly started to turn to hell.  Nine hours later, I was depressed and almost yakked.  Why?  One simple reason.  The heat.  Yes, reader, I was in paradise, but it was as hot as hell.  I do not handle the heat well.  I never have.  I have always preferred the cold to the heat.  It was ten degrees too hot for me.  I have never been able to segregate feelings of hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion from sadness.  It was what happened in Fredericton a month ago, and it was what was happening here today.  I was constantly hungry, eating past the point of satiation only to be hungry 20 minutes later.  No matter how much water I drank, I could not hydrate myself.

By the time we got back to the hotel from dinner, I was sick or sad, and I couldn’t figure out which.  Now, sitting on the balcony with a nice cool breeze, writing this entry, I am neither, though I am still hungry, despite having eaten four big meals today.  Now, I am in familiar territory, recalling the happy memories of St. John’s and Basseterre.  Now, all is well.  Three hours ago, that was not the case.

My vision of paradise is the Canadian Arctic or Greenland or northern Scandinavia in the summer, not escaping the New York winter to go to someplace that is hot as hell.  I caught a nap and went to get some fried lobster, no easy feat to eat with chopsticks.  I bought some more gifts from a vendor there, and our driver was soon there to pick us up.  We went to I Scream (the number 1 rated restaurant in TripAdvisor for Kingston) for some delicious ice scream, and then he dropped us off at the hotel.

She watched a movie while I took a much needed nap.  We (she) decided that we would reenact our little adventure to McDonald’s after the wedding when we were dressed to the nines.  The thing about us is that we both are and would settle for nothing less than “anything but ordinary.”  We got dressed up in our best outfits and headed to get some jerk chicken at a little joint.  It was so good, and I got another red stripe.

At first I thought I was toasted, but then I realized that I was actually starting to feel sick.  I was dehydrated and exhausted and/or sad.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I just wanted to be back in the cool hotel room.  By the time we got back to the hotel, I was hungry again, despite not being able to finish the jerk chicken.  When we did get up to the room, I took another short nap and then lit up my 2008 Christmas Pipe, put on my Idina Menzel Christmas album, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, since I am mamash tired and ready to pass out.