Holy f%^-ing shit! (and happy Thanksgiving)

First, for all of you who have written to me after hearing about the insane situation currently happening in Mumbai, yes, I am fine. Thank you so much for thinking of me. Secondly, holy fucking shit!

I woke up here on Thanksgiving Day on my beautiful Arambol beach (hundreds of kilometers from Mumbai, thank God) to hear some Belgian tourists complaining that all flights to Mumbai had been canceled. I grabbed a newspaper over my veg hakka noodle brunch at the Rice Bowl and I could not believe what I was reading. 30 shot dead in the train station where India and Becca had their staring contest, tourists held hostage at the Taj Hotel where I ogled fancy dresses in glamorous shop windows, a grenade attack at the movie theater where I saw "Hellboy 2", a boatload of explosives at the Gateway to India where I first spied the moon from this country. All told, there have been five bomb blasts so far. There are already 60 dead and 200 injured in the tourist district where I was just trying to book a hotel for my mom's visit to Mumbai in January!

The terrorists are still free in the hotels and the train station. No one is yet sure why this is happening. The army has descended on the city and police are being sent from all areas.

I feel physically safe on the remote beach where I'm staying, but I can't help but wonder what planet I'm on over here. I knew there were bomb blasts and terrorist activity in India, but I had comforted myself in thinking they were all confined to areas of unrest in specific northern states I never planned to visit. Now, the worst one to date, with bombs and guns and grenades and no end in sight yet, has happened in the glorious, modern, enlightened south.

Mumbai is not a political city. It's the city of Bollywood movies and nightlife and romance, a city where West and East mingle on dance floors and in clean, upscale boutiques. Like our own Los Angeles, it is dirty and crowded, but it is the land where dreams are made. This is a strike on India's heart and its imagination and its port of entry for the Western world.

I am so sad for the people of the city, and also for India, whose tourist economy was already declining in the wake of global financial meltdown. My shopkeeper friends in Arambol sat with their heads in their hands this morning, in despair. Business has been almost nothing this year, as the number of tourists in Goa has declined drastically since Europeans and Americans are all tightening their belts and forgoing vacations. My friends here work 14-hour days at their shops, seven days a week, and most days this year have yielded only a few hundred rupees ($20-$30 U.S.). The last few weeks, our conversations on the guesthouse steps have centered on how they are going to pay their rent, and how they can possibly encourage more sales from the few budget-conscious tourists who are still daring to travel these days. I've tried to do my part, buying extra dresses and unnecessary ice cream cones with my increasingly more valuable dollars, but I'm just one girl.

The great hope for financial salvation here in Goa has been the upcoming Christmas season. Tourism peaks in Goa at the end of December and everyone's been crossing their fingers that a pack of rich travelers will descend on the beaches and spend enough in a couple drunken weeks to offset the rest of the season's losses. In Arambol, where I live, there are no direct charter flights. The tourists who come here usually come down from Mumbai. Now, no one is coming to Mumbai.

God will provide, my friends say. This is the comfort they share, ignoring the fact that - as two Muslim jewelers, one Christian ice cream merchant, two Hindu clothiers, and one American tourist religious mutt - we all believe in different Gods. Here in Arambol, as we watch the sea advance and retreat on the guesthouse steps, we instinctively know what the terrorists have yet to understand: that our theological and political differences are infinitely less important than our friendship, our mutual prosperity, and our desire to live together in peace.

May this wisdom spread throughout India - and the world - before another life is lost.

God willing.
Insh'allah.
Om Shanti.

I hope you are all well and happy on this Thanksgiving Day. (I'm sorry for the drastic subject matter.) I am thankful for the love and humor and support each of you brings to my life. Stay safe and warm and kiss your family and eat an extra helping of mashed potatoes for me.

When is a cow sacred?

I'm walking through Arambol village with my new yoga mat under my arm when I see a large cow approach a produce stand. With no hesitation, it plucks an apple from the middle of a huge pyramid of fruit with its fuzzy cow lips. More apples tumble to the ground as the cow noisily crunches down its stolen goods and leans in for more.

Normally, I would try to save the apples, but this is India and I'm not sure about the rules. In some places cows are sacred, and I don't want to go to jail for swatting someone's deity with a yoga mat. Then again, I think, Goa is largely a Christian state, so cows are probably just livestock here. But Jesus would have probably shared his apples with a cow, so...

I am shaken out of this dubious theological debate by the sound of a woman's angry voice. She's sitting in a chair across the street shouting at the cow, who completely ignores her while decimating her streetside display.

Then she turns and fixes me with a stare that can only mean, "You dumb foreigner. Why are you letting that cow eat all my apples? Do something!"

I swing my yoga mat at the cow's yearning lips and it lazily saunters away. I, on the other hand, move away at lightning speed, just in case the Hindu deities are watching.

Sneaky monkeys

My favorite adventure in Hampi was my trek from the Uma Shankar guesthouse

by the river, through villages and fields, to the monkey temple about an hour's walk away. Hampi is the birthplace of the Hindu god Hanuman (the monkey god) and his temple is located at the top of this huge cliff. It's a tiny white building waiting at the end of a long, zig-zaggy staircase cut into the mountainside.



Climbing this staircase was like suddenly finding myself in advanced aerobics, when I'd meant to sign up for the beginners' class. I huffed and puffed and sweated my way to the top, pausing often under the guise of admiring the amazing view. It feels like you can see every temple, banana field and mountain in Karnataka from these stairs. It's an incredible vantage point.



All along the stairs, monkeys watched my progress while chattering and pointing and scrutinizing my bag for possible bananas. (The already challenging steps of the monkey temple are made even more so by the presence of banana peels everywhere. It's slapstick comedy waiting to happen.)



Once at the top, I went inside the tiny cave-like temple and did my best to look like I belonged. I knelt before the altar, covered with marigolds, incense sticks, bowls of sugar, fruit, and prayers scribbled out on scraps of paper. I dropped a few rupees on the altar and mumbled a general prayer of thanksgiving - not least of all for making it to the top of the stairs without passing out.

Then a monk came over and gestured to a tiny brass bowl at our feet. I shrugged, not understanding, and he picked it up and painted a red line down my forehead. I felt included, but still clueless.

When I re-emerged, the sunlight was almost blinding. I blinked to clear my vision, and saw a monkey run past me with a shoe in his mouth.

Everyone has to leave their shoes outside the temple, so there are a pile of them at the top of the steps. This monkey had ignored all the cheap flip-flops and made off with a quality man's loafer. He'd climbed a small hill and was just about to disappear over the cliff face when I shouted at him to stop.




Having lost three pairs of shoes in India already, I know what a drag it is to be without footwear in this country. The owner of the loafers was nowhere in sight, but I felt an obligation to help. The monkey turned and looked at me, chewing meditatively on the heel. Deciding that, as a foreigner and non-Hindu, I had absolutely no authority, he dismissed me and scurried further away.

I heard a shout behind me. An Indian man ran towards me, telling me not to worry, he would help save my shoe. He walked as close as possible to the monkey and softly said, "Give shoe, baba."

The monkey seemed to consider this. The man held out his water bottle. "Take water, give shoe."

The monkey took the shoe out of his mouth and stared at the bottle. "Come on," the man coaxed, "give shoe."

The monkey dropped the shoe and backed away.

I applauded and the man gallantly handed the shoe to me. Then I had to explain, rather anti-climactically, that the shoe wasn't even mine. We both laughed and then dropped it back in the general shoe pile outside the temple door, where the same monkey was already chewing on someone else's sneakers.

We tried to shoo him away (no pun intended) but ultimately had to concede that you can't save everyone's shoes. Sometimes not even your own. This is one of the many lessons of India.

Then the man offered me a ride back to the guesthouse on his tiny motorbike, with his girlfriend. (That's three adults on a vehicle about the size of my moped, with no helmets.) I refused repeatedly, but they insisted. They even followed me down the road on their bike, calling for me to get on. So I climbed onto the very back, hanging onto the tiny metal bar you'd bungee your backpack to, and rode home in true Hampi style.

Shukriya, Hanuman!

The best thing that happened (except for the other best things)

I'm standing alone on a muddy riverbank, studying the boat that will take me across the Tungabhadra River to Hampi Bazaar. What my guidebook optimistically calls a "ferry" is actually a tiny wooden dinghy captained by a teenage boy sporting slickly oiled hair, polyester slacks, and no shoes. His co-worker is an authoritative child who collects the passengers’ fares in a dusty canvas shoulder bag: five rupees for locals, 10 for white people, and 15 for backpacker know-it-alls who insist on haggling.

These boys will not drive across the river to meet me until they deem it worth their while. In other words, not until they’ve gathered enough passengers to effectively sink the boat.

"Scoot down! Scoot down!"

I can hear the child yelling from all the way across the river. Adults four times his age stumble over rotted holes in the boat’s floorboards in their haste to obtain a seat. When the passengers are seated thigh to thigh; when a mound of rucksacks, vegetables, livestock and children fills the middle of the boat; when the creaking craft rides so low in the water that passing fish could hitch a ride; the child signals a man with a motorcycle to ride his hog onto the prow and balance there like Evil Knievel, pre-stunt. Then he yells at his teenage skipper, who yanks the cord on the boat’s aging outboard motor. The whole show inches away from the riverbank in a cloud of two-stroke engine oil.

The river is no wider than a Los Angeles freeway, but the overloaded ferry drags slower than rush hour traffic. I sit down on the bank to wait. I’m hunting in my tote bag for my sunglasses, when a family of Indian women and children surrounds me on all sides like a clutch of paparazzi who’ve forgotten their cameras. They wear bright clothes, gleaming bracelets, and identical crescent-moon grins.



"Hi!" they say in unison.

"Hi!" I say, equally charmed and alarmed. When Indians approach me in tourist areas like this one, it’s often to sell me something or to demand an explanation for George W. Bush’s entire administration. I’ve grown accustomed to disappointing people.

"Hindi?" a teenaged girl asks.

"No, only English," I say.

"Only English," she repeats, visibly disappointed.

We've exhausted our entire common vocabulary. We are silent.

A toddler wobbles forward. She stares down my shyness with bottomless kohl-rimmed eyes, before extending one bangled wrist and saying, "Hi!"

"Hi!" I say again, shaking her hand.

Now everyone wants a handshake.

"Hi!" "Hi! "Hi!"

We are all laughing.

"Hi!" "Hi!" "Hi!"

Young mothers put their infants' hands in mine. "Hiiiiii...." I coo at tiny babies. I shake everyone's hand, more than once. Eventually, it becomes obvious to all of us–even the babies—that we've greeted each other as much as any group of sane people waiting for an impossibly slow ferry ever could. Silence descends again.

We look for the ferry. It's nowhere near the bank. We stare downriver. We stare at our sandals. We stare at each other. The teenaged girl gets an idea.

"Song!" she says, pointing at me.

Faces light up. A chant begins.

"Song! Song! Song!" they say.

"No, no, no," I say.

"Song! Song! Song!" they say.

"Nehi, nehi, nehi," I say in fledgling Hindi, shaking my head with the exaggerated movements of a woman desperate to be understood.

"Song! Song! Song!"

They are relentless. I am Judy Garland on the third encore of the last show of my career. Their cheering attracts more onlookers—rickshaw drivers, chai wallahs, women with baskets on their heads—all of whom quickly take up the chant.

"Song! Song! Song!"

I look frantically toward the river. The ferry is practically moving backwards at this point. Perhaps it will sink, I think, just like my dignity. I have only two options: run and hide in the hills or stand up and sing.

"OK!" I say.

They silence immediately and look at me expectantly. My mind fails. It is as if I have never heard music in my life. Song? What's a song?

"Song!" the toddler says.

"Song! Song! Song!" they say.

I close my eyes. I open my mouth. These words come out:

"Wise men say
only fools rush in,
but I can't help
falling in love with you..."

It's Elvis, ladies and gentleman. Always alive where you least expect him.

When I finish the chorus, there are cheers. The ferry arrives. I am escorted down the bank like royalty and delicately handed into the decaying rowboat. As we slowly sputter towards the opposite shore, children compete to hold my hand and touch my feet.

It is way too much. It is unbearably embarrassing, and it is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me.

May we all be so appreciated for our stumbling endeavors.

A load of bull

Today I hiked to the giant bull statue at the end of Hampi Bazaar. Thus, I offer you:

Monolithic Bull

Monolithic Balls

Mini-lithic Bull

Thank you, America!

I just wanted to thank you all for electing Barack Obama president. I am so thrilled that I am literally crying in this internet cafe in Hampi.

I faxed in my ballot weeks ago from a sandy, old fax machine at the Om Ganesh grocery store in Arambol and I've been crossing my fingers ever since. Yesterday was Tuesday, November 4, but since India is 13 and a half hours ahead, I went to bed uncertain of the results. I just logged into the internet and found out!

I am so happy for our country! I'm also relieved that I won't have to explain to my many new Indian friends why we're still supporting the policies of George Bush when no one seems to like him. This is a question I've gotten repeatedly and I always babble about red states and blue states and fear and patriotism and how money controls politics and how it's hard to know what to do when you're just one person and then I end up shrugging in hopelessness.

So thank you. Really. From me and the entire world.

Shoeless in Hampi

I arrived in Hampi yesterday. It's a World Heritage site in the middle of the Indian state of Karnataka, famous with tourists for its many temples



and awesome bouldering opportunities.



I'm utterly exhausted after a bumpy, wild overnight bus ride on a "luxury sleeper" that was neither luxurious nor sleepable. I spent the whole night clinging to a tiny ledge just big enough for my body, with my knees strategically wedged wherever possible to keep from falling to the floor when the bus turned a corner.

There's a huge three-day festival here now, the annual Hampi Utsav. I've got a guesthouse across the river from the action and I'm laying low. I can hear the bands and see the fireworks from my couch swing, though.



(Yes, my room comes with its own outdoor swing in the garden. Awesome. I've been laying there reading "Shantaram" - which I highly recommend - all day.)

During the festival, there are lights trained on all the temples at night. That takes an ancient structure like the Virupaksha Temple here



and turns it into the aesthetic equivalent of my dear friend Rachel's vintage aluminum Christmas tree.

Now it's purple!

Now it's orange! (And super blurry.)

Now it's purple again!

Last night, I was planning to head out to the Utsav when two British girls burst into the restaurant where I was having dinner and announced the river ferry had capsized because there were so many people crammed on it. No one was hurt, but everyone was wet. That was pretty discouraging, since I needed the ferry to get there. Then I left the restaurant to discover someone had stolen my sandals while I was eating. Clear signs that it was time for bed.

For those of you keeping score on Becca vs. India, this would be the third pair of sandals India has claimed from me in a month - two pairs broken and one pair absconded with. In fact, every single time I change locations, the first thing I have to do is buy shoes again. I guess that's on the agenda for tomorrow, after a barefoot breakfast.