Day 7
Last day of working in Delhi. We woke up around 10 a.m. and picked up by one of the sales guy (also one of the dead drunk night before) to three-scheduled appointment.
The first place was about 20km away from Sunset mart, where our guesthouse is located. The place is Nehru place, one of the business commercial hub in New Delhi.
To cut the story short, we done all the three appointments by 4 pm, all of them are big time company and the person we met are from the senior management level.
I was rushing and searching around Connought place to buy a ticket for my next travelling trip. Somehow someway, I managed to get the ticket. That night, I left the company guest house to be with Gesine, my favourite girl with so much of simplicity of living her life and in appearance and yet, rich in values, principal, attitudes and most importantly, one of the gorgeous girl I met in India. She is so unlike most Germans you will come to meet. And she is definitely not your drama queen girl. She is the only girl I see who live a life changing experience, live life like a Indian, going to the wet market, taking local run-down bus everywhere, will not unnecessary spent her converted Euro money like most trainees do. And she travelling like crazy.
Being a simple girl she always is, we ate our supper at one of the dirty corner street. We ordered a freshly and still hot Dal gravy and few pieces of chapati before we boarded the bus.
Together, we went travelling to upper North India, further up from New Delhi. The place is Dehra Dun, about 700 km from New Delhi. We boarded a night bus and we reached Dehra Dun at around 7 am and needless to say, it was even much colder than Delhi. (The northern you go, the coldest it become).
We bump into this girl from Russia at the Dehra Dun station. She was travelling alone. Gosh…how the hell can this kind of drama queen, clumsy girl travelling alone?. She sticked with us because she didn’t know where to go and was so indecisive. With one big backpack and one huge bag, she came with us on the rickshaw to the bus terminal. (The cheapest rickshaw ride in India I even hop on, about 1km for only Rs 5.)
From the bus terminal, we took a run down bus up to hill station in Mussouri. About this clumsy girl, she reluctantly left us halfway when she suddenly freaking out of the direction our bus took. Thankful that we didn’t meet this girl again.
The hill station of Mussoorie is perched high above the town of Dehra Dun. We took a bus all the way up the hill station. It was about 40 km height. This hill is well known for summer retreat for Delhi residents. When at the top, everything was so cool and serene. It was snow days before. So we saw lots of snowy mountains, flowing down the hill, the greens and the rocks. It was breezing and the windy. The weather was about 5 degree. Being the small person, from a warm tropical country call Malaysia, 5 degree is consider cold for me, not to mention its occasional swinging degree to even lower than 5 degree. And being the person from a small area called Ayer Itam, the snows were my first time. It was my first time touching and shaping the snowball. Never thought of India could be so cold, what more about snowing. And now, I am seeing and touching the snows in India. It is fucking amazing. Lots of new stuff I discover everyday.
For a moment, we felt completely flying at the top, lost in space with nothing below us. We walk about 5 km around the camel back road, passes through lots of trees and a rock formation that looks like camel- hence the name.
At the top of the hill station, there is this hill call the Gun Hill, which is the highest of the highest. We walked up (instead of taking the cable car) to the peak of gun hill, and experiencing with our sight seeing of romantic portraits against a backdrop of Himalayan peaks.
At that moment, everything is super-fantastic, beautiful, full of happy people and couple hanging around and wandering at the serenity of the natures.
After Mussoorie hill station, Gesine and I decided to precede our unforgetful journey to the city of Rishikesh, about 40km from Mussoorie. We took a local bus to Rishkesh and the bus ride took us about one hour.
Rishikesh, the Yoga capital of the world, setting on the banks of the Ganges river (the holy river), surrounded by hills on three side is perfectly for meditation. The Ganges river is completely clear here and in the evening, the winds blows down the valley, setting the temple bells ringing and adding to the contemplative atmosphere.
There is two side of Rishikesh, which a very long bridge connects two of this side across the Ganges river. The river is being used as a passing route between this two side by the two wheelers and the walkers. You can see the fishes swimming in the Ganges River from the bridge.
We immediately checked in at Moon hotel. A very nice room with attached bathroom. After some washing up and changing, we went to a nearby restaurant for a very clam and relaxing dinner. The restaurant name is Hard Rock Café. Instead of Rocks music, they were playing some meditation instrumental songs and there was only one female traveller in the rooftop restaurant, a very beautiful girl from Germany, but working in England. We ordered lots of meals namely the Greek salad, Mexican chowmein, veg. Chuppa and hot mint tea. While waiting for dinner to be served, I decided to change the sound of the instrumental meditating music to my own CD collections of Sting, Buena Vista and Tracy Chapman. I guess the songs help increased the diners since after I played my music; lots of diners suddenly just appeared from nowhere.
After our long and enjoyable dinner, we went to another café, Ananda restaurant to have a sweet Lassi, and also to heat up our body. Then we proceeded to a moment of togetherness (we were always together anyway) by walking alongside the Ganges river.
That night, after a very long day, we went to bed quite early and we woke up fresh day after.
Day 8
We had a breakfast at the nearby German bakery. Perched above the bridge in Lakshman Jhula, it has great views over the 13-storeyed temples. I ordered a cinnamon roll and apple strudels and a cup of mint tea for a breakfast.
As we were walking along the bazaar, we came to tried the sugar cane juice, squeezed with mint leaf and lemon and the result of this mixture, was fucking great.
From the town of Rishikesh, we proceeded to Haridwar, located at the point where the ganges emerges from the Himalaya. Haridwar is one of Hinduism´s most sacred cities in India.
From the station, we took a cycle a rickshaw to hai-ki-pairi (the footstep of God), which is suppose to be the precise spot where the Ganges leaves the mountains and enter the plains. The locals here couldn’t figure out how could one white girl be together with one Chinese or Japanese guy (me), so most of them keep on assuming that we were husband and wife. Then Gesine and I decided to play along as a lovely husband and wife honeymooning in Haridwar. Save all the explanation.
We waited until evening at sunset, and the priest were performing “ganga aarti” (The river worship ceremony), where floating lights are set on the water to drift downstream. I managed to bottle up the Ganges water before I left the place. I also brought some old coins, also can be consider historical artifacts from coin traders from the street. Among the old coins was a 20 grams coin from Mughal empire, an empire that built The Taj Mahal, few pieces of EIC coins (East India Company), Pakistan coin dated 1616, India coins dated 1944 etc.
After the river ceremony, the husband and wife went to a local restaurant and ordered a cheap Thali and few pieces of naan. Our train back to Delhi are suppose to entrain at 11.45 pm but sad to say, we were practically done with this town and the town was practically going dead around 8 something.
We waited at the waiting room and that´s when I introduced a Malay songs to her like Wings greatest hits namely Semalam yang hangat, Suara Kita, Sejati, Biru mata hitamku etc, KRU´s Janji tinggal janji, malam kita, negatif etc, Lefthanded, Sweet Charity, Junction as well as our local English band like John Mistress and Amir Yussof. To her surprise, she was quite shocked by the way our language goes. She was somehow expecting it to be sound something like the Chinese, or the Japanese or the Korean, something king, kong, ting, tong, ma, nien, san, lian etc etc. To her, our Malay language likes the mixture of French and Portuguese (at least to her understanding)
She like it immediately and ripped it when we reached her home. With me, Wings, Search, Amir Yussof and the rest are widely spread among the Germans, the Dutch and others.
The night train to Delhi took about 8 hours and we reached Delhi at about 7.30 a.m. and it took us another 2 public buses and about a 90 minutes to reached her house in southern Delhi.
I was so tired and drain out almost completely that I slept the whole afternoon after Gesine and I had a breakfast. She cooked a tasty tomato soup and simple boiled eggs with toaster bread.
My heart already missing her already now that the second half of this journal is mostly about me and her. Actually the reason why we abandoned our original trip to Jaipur, Rajasthan was because initially we wanted to visit Gokce the Turkish girl but luck was not with us, or rather was not with me because Gokce already went back to Istanbul few days before my visit to Delhi. She told me she is coming back somewhere in February to travel India but somehow I doubted it.
In the evening, after burning some photos and Mtv into CD, Raveesh, the Fashan look-alike cooked us a very simple yet delicious dinner. Raveesh, a guy, from a small village in Rajasthan, where daily power cut, disruption in water supply, pre-arranged married and stuff are widely practise are norm of life to him or to the society around him. He is a small village guy, a very nice guy indeed, at least through the short span of time knowing him somehow managed to left town to university and pursuing a higher degree in IT and now he is a software engineer with TCS, India’s biggest IT company. But like they said, you can take a kids out of the town but you can never take the town out of the kids, Raveesh with still clear value of his yesteryears, cooked us a dinner, a simple dinner with Paneer rice, eat with sauces and pickles. Raveesh, Gesine and I were all seating on the floor and eating with hands.
This kind of dinner kind of remind me of those day when we were really poor, back to the day of 46-D, Ayer Itam. My dad was a teacher and this noble profession never paid sufficiently. My mum back then was a full time housewife and a freelance tailor and when she have time, she will play mahjong in the neighbourhood. Our dinner usually very simple. My mum would cooked us a simple plain rice, some soup without meats, only vegetable and all the kids would seat together and eat the meal of our life. I remembered one time when through my elder sister’s creativity, with only one package of Maggi noodle, she cooked that portion of noodle and all siblings shared the meals. It was not a fancy meal, it was never a fancy meal, but somehow despite the rough neighbourhood, the kids grown up healthily. Whenever I look back at yesteryears, I never forget those happy days, those values gained through the upbringing. I will never forget those crazy kids from around neighbourhood, running and playing police and thief, blind searcher, kali-toi, pai kha poh, fighting, life struggling, cheap meals, peeping my friend’s parent making wild love at our tender age (together with their son), shoplifting, play in the wood and down the wild river etc. All of this experiences somehow shaped the values of life along the way. Like Raveesh, you can take a kid out of Penang but you can never take Penang out from the kid. You got me?
Speaking from the experience, this is the best time of life. I mean, c´mon, we only live ones and being a kids is only ones, never twice. So, let’s the kids go around and discover and experience everything for themselves, don’t restrict them. Eventhough sometime things might harm them, so let be it, that’s part and process of growing up, you cannot stop it. Only when you try to stop it, you will start to harm your kids. Look at all of my friends, regardless whether my childhood friend or high school friends, those where the parents are illiterate and selling foods, those who live around by gangster and crooks, corrupted places, gambling houses, those who live without set of disciplinary rules but somehow managed to grown to be a successful working class man, graduated from the top university, with professional degree. On the other end, I had seen those friends, who was tightly guarded by the parents, forced to study and excel at their tender age, often breakdown at their later age. Why? This is because this poor kids never taste freedom, never have a trust from the parent when growing up, so when they finally a youth and have the freedom to live the life of rebel or doing bad things (which often good and which they deprived when growing up) the bad things became something they like, something to dwell on because it is cool instead of something worth experiencing through your growing up. Lots of my friends ended up a crook, useless and small time crook and wasting lots of family assets.
I thankful to have a liberal parents, believe in freedom and freewill. Eventhough at time, they might seems inadequate and often not around, especially my dad but now I see his way of bringing his children up. He is the kind of dad that never instil any kind of forces into the kids. He will share with us the opinion and let us decide. I remember when he caught me smoking, he came to me calmly and told me about the negativity of smoking and that he can’t stop me (I would smoke anyway if I want to) and leave it up for me to decide.
When he found out I was starting to consume alcoholic drinks, he would come to me and say “Don’t drink and drive”, just have fun!!
When He found out I had a girlfriend at the age of 14, he would remind me of playing safe, indirectly.
When he was informed by our school headmaster that me and few buddies were caught attending a private party, where we were involved in a gang fight and drugs, he would told the headmaster to relax, that these are just youth experiencing life, that we will give up all this and would eventually come to know the negativities when they reach the right age.
I respected the facts that he knows he couldn’t undo things even though it was harmful one (Eventhough he could if he want), the facts that punishment and forces could only do more harm than good to the kids.
I could ramble on and on but although my old man was never consider a model dad, but I think he had his own special way. Speaking of the old devil, now he is 64 and are enjoying quality time with his grand daughter.
I feel good to have a parents that belong to the revolutionary 60s.
Back to the night with Gesine. We went to Nehru place, to a Delhi trainees party. It was a wild party where almost everybody was drunk, throwing out and rooms and bathrooms were locked, for a obvious reasons. Lots of Polish, lots of Germans and Canadians. Funny things were I met this two French guy, who looks like those ass holes from the movie, Trainsporting. They were youthful and funny and knowledgeable but I was shocked when they suddenly talking about their wives and kids. There was also Anna from Brazil, son of African ambassador to India, spoilt brats, rich kids, some assholes aiesecers or at least they looks like one and one nerdy Hongkie girl.
Day 9
Sometime in life you will come to a point when you have to make a important decision, with utmost rationality. Gesine went to Sting concert; live in New Delhi while I stayed in the house. Though I had enough money but I came to my rationality, state of mind where I figured the opportunity cost of going to Sting concert (even though it might be one in a life time opportunity) will be high. Anyway, it was a pain decision for me to made for didn’t attend the great concert.
Raveesh and I cooked a dinner after brought a chicken, fishes, vegetables and all the stuff required. I cooked a fried marinated slices of chicken meats with half fried eggs, and a big portion of chicken soup while Raveesh cooked the fishes, fried, gravy, marinated and Indian rice.
Day 10
It is always hard to say goodbye especially to a person you adore and admire so much. I can feel the sadness and melancholy feeling in the air already when Gesine came back from the Sting concert, wet (It was raining crazy, rain symbolize the end of winter). I was so melancholy that I threw myself around her the moment I saw in the doorstep.
We went to Nizamudin train station where I am suppose to entrain to Mumbai. We reached there 4 hours before the scheduled time. We spent quality and final time together during that short span of 4 hours together, without knowing that it pass us so fast. I invited her to a proper lunch at Comesem. She ordered a chicken momos, a Tibetan food while me, huh…a chicken fried rice and veg. Kebab. She later invited me to a cold creamy coffee and vice versa. We were talking so much about love life friendship relationship travelling family sex and everything else under the sun while the time on the clock tower was ticking faster than usual.
And without realising it, it was already 4.15 p.m. and I need to board the train already. After claiming my luggage and sleeping bag from the cloak room, we hung until the last moment before the train left Nizamuddin. I remember I was down sad the first time I said goodbye to her, and that was two month ago but for the second time, I wouldn’t it was sad. I would say it was kind of melancholy because somehow I was convinced what the alchemist had said, that whatever that happen for the first time, will not happen for a second time BUT whatever that happen for a second time, will surely happen for a third time. With that thought in mind, deep inside me, I know I will somehow see her again in the near future. Everything is unpredictable, my Delhi trip was unexpected so I will leave it the way it is. And when I see her I hope things will be somewhat different. Travelling with her alone was great and unforgetful and definitely a memory to treasure and cherish. She is a great girl, a great companion and this is a confession of a dangerous mind. The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning …..
So we hugged and kisses goodbye, one of the hardest goodbye. At least I was smiling all the way to the train.
That’s all dude, the travelling journal, perhaps a boring one and lots of bullshit to endure (16 ages long). Another 17 hours in the express train. Throughout the train journey, I finished up the rest of Jim Morrison and 3 quarter of John Grisham´s latest, The BROKER.
Jim Morrison is truly one of the legend I ever came to know. He live short but never in vain. Thought he might a ghost somewhere, but he left the world a great lesson to learn from. His death in 1971 in Paris marked the end of Rock music and the end of the revolutionary era of 60s. His death was the last of the sequence of rock star extinction that had begun with Brian Jones (guitarist and founder of the Rolling Stones), Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. His death had made way to the then younger and talented musician to stardom like Aerosmith, Bob Marley, Trex, David Bowie and Bruce Springteen. And by 1975, the rock movement that Jim Morrison helped invented grown into multi billion-dollar recording, touring, and merchandising industry that was nominated by the Led Zeppelin until the end of 70s.
His written poems had finally been recognize by the academia institution as a higher degree of poems and are now is being taught at the reputable university like Duke University, Yale and Stanford university. Jim for sure, was not only a legendary rockstar. He was more than a rock star, he was also a knowledgeable and intellectual person, a poet and a rebel that created the scenery of the 60s.
His former classmate at filmmaking faculty in UCLA, Francis Ford Coppola had made the award winning movie, Apocalypse Now! After being inspired by Jim Morrison. In 1994, Jim was being enrolled into Rock n´Roll hall of fame.
As a closure to this travelling journal, I would like to dedicate this, in remembrance to the great Jim Morrison, which his bio had inspired me to write some of my yesteryears memories into this journal. I would like to include an excerpt of his greatest artistic work in his lifetime, the celebration of the lizard, which was read by his girlfriend/wife at his funeral, Pamela Morrison:
Now night arrives with her purple region
Retire now to your tents and to your dreams
Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth
I want to be ready
-Jim Morrison- (1943-1971)
(True to his own spirit)(A man that never sold out himself for whatever)
You may never understand this, You will need to understand the evolution of Jim Morrison to understand the celebration of the Lizard.
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again
And thou be conscious-calmed-see here it is
I hold it toward you-
-JOHN KEATS-
Loves and regards
Peter
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