How to quit your job and travel around the world

Little Miss Grumpy realized she was having a "badditude" sometime last night when I woke up drenched in sweat in our windowless, AC-less, $10 room in Paharganj (backpacker ghetto, India style) - and so I have decided to really appreciate the fact that even if India, um, politely said, can suck sometimes, it's still India, and at least I am not behind a desk pushing papers around. So today, when for like the one-hundred-millionth time, a lecherous man was like "Nice ass!" or 'accidently' rammed into me on the street, I took it with a smile!

We went over to the Red Fort, the historical citadel, where it was surprisingly calm and pleasant for a look. Then watched traffic slack-jawed for a bit while a cow crossed a five line intersection. Found a Herald Trib and had some ice cream and all was better. OH! And rode around on the amazing subway! The subway system is super nice, super air conditioned and super efficient. Super! (And the heat waned today after rain last night, so it was tolerable outside.)

After we leave Dehli, we're headed to Rajasthan, which is actually one of the most beautiful parts of the country - hopefully I'll come back there when I am not pressed for time and patience.

I am trying to ignore the barfy feeling as I write this as I just came from a restaurant and ate a veggie burger ... ugh. Welcome to Dehli. OUr driver from the airport almost killed several children running around in the street on the way to the hotel and we most definitely almost were killed by free-roaming cows. It's 92 degrees and 11 p.m. ... So our plan is loosely defined as thus: Taj Majal is a hell hole according to every report we've heard, so I am lobbying hard to just forget it and we may jaunt to Jaipur for a few days. Unless we both get waylaid by the aforementioned barfy feeling (mutual right now). But really, this place is so spiritual ... more tomorrow.

Arrived in Goa last night and decided to change our plans, because not only is it monsoon raining - apparently there's a cyclone on the way too. I have never seen it rain so hard, so long ... we had a struggle last night when we arrived in Panjim, the state capital (which is very charming and looks more like Portugal than India) and most budget hotels were full. Oh, and it was 10 p.m. and pissing down rain. We stopped at a place called Comfort House to get a rate - and then looked at some others, which all were full or closed - and then returned to Comfort. Anyway to make a long story short, another guy walked in at the same time as my return and the inn owner gave him the room, though I had been by earlier, and then promptly announced it was the last room and they were full and closed. Then he very rudely asked me to leave teh hotel in the pouring rain and told me it was my problem that everything was booked. I have never been treated so badly and so rudely ever - the owner was quite possibly the biggest asshole I've ever come across. I started to get irritated (nothing like a 12-hour train ride into a late arrival in a monsoon to make you cranky) with the owner - but the new guest was luckily extremely nice and told us he had seen one last free room at another place that we had not checked out. So we got that room - the last one in the town it seems. But situations like that are classic here and so exhausting. Today is a downpour (and predicted to continue for 5 more days) so we are flying to Dehli tomorrow - I am not really that thrilled about it to be honest (they say South India is so much easier than the North, and already I am feeling tired -- and it's topping out at 107 degrees with rolling blackouts there) but it's the plan for now. See the Taj Majal. It's that or cyclone. Then from there, fly to Mumbai before starting the journey home.

There are moments in your life where you feel utterly alien. Today I had one of those moments.

Something happens in holy places that I cannot explain - part of the "something" is atmosphere: thick, oily incense; inner and acient sanctums presided over by sadhus with coal skin and white beards and their bowlegs; palm grease from millions of pilgrims for hundreds and hundreds of years have moisturized the rough hewn stone walls, colored powders glow on faces. And the other part is something intangible to me but I understand it as utterly unknowable and utterly masculine. I decided to walk up to a hill top temple, Hanuman Temple, and Juliette didn't want to go so I went on alone. Six hundred steep stairs in the burning noon sun wound up the boulder strewn hill - as I neared the top, massive foot-long millipedes were scattered on the stairs. I was beyond shouting distance, feeling parched though I had water, when I came round a corner to two boys resting under a boulder. Children are sort of mixed blessing to come across in India because sometimes the begging is so intense and clausterphobic that a girl alone is no match for them. However, they were cool and sent me on my way to the top. The temple itself was a small stucco unit, painted white at the top of the hill. A small courtyard on the flat part of rock. No one appeared when I reached the top and I was feeling a little nervous as I was so alone - out of sight and sound. A sadhu with a red doti emerged and another in white materialized in the distance who seemed to have some face deformity. The boys from the path came up and told me to go inside the temple. "No problem madam!" So I went in - the ceiling was low, and it was dark inside, there were some mats strewn around the floor, religious images, a small dark stairwell leading to the temple altar. As my eyes adjusted in front of me was western man - maybe 50 - dreadlocked and bearded with tatoos and dressed and raggedy white clothes. He grunted at me I walked in and was rocking himself ever so slightly. Done, gone, blasted. Whoever that man is or was in his former life, before India, has been wiped off the map. The disconnectedness you have in people that are way gone on drugs, was what this man projected. It felt so strange and unstable. The sadhus were preparing their tiffins, barely taking notice of me. I felt so distinctly uncomfortable - not in danger or anything, just purely uncomfortable with where ever that western man and these sadhus were in their heads. I scurried back out of the temple and trotted down the hill.

Anyway, India seems to do that to you - everything that should be normal can turn bizarrely alien in a matter of seconds. It's just life in all it's permutations (literally, like the man who walks like a four legged animal - spina bifida? - who comes out in the evening or the man who cradled a long dead monkey in the street today and waved me over to give alms for the monkey). India is not for the squeamish or the easily spooked...

We are leaving Hampi early and heading, at last, to Goa Tuesday.

Family on platform at Mysore train station.

On the train leaving Mysore.

Typical "thali" lunch for 30 rupees. Sadhus at a temple near Mysore.

Carving in a temple in Hampi.

Ancient ruins in Hampi.

We arrived in Hampi in Karantaka yesterday morning after the night train, which went well - the transfer in Banglalore was really how I imagined India in some ways: monsoon rain, riots of people, beggars sprawled out sleeping everywhere, hairless dogs, piss smell, young professionals reading the latest crime novels in English and tea and milk stands. We slept almost immediatly once on the train and arrived in the surreal ancient city - heyday circa 1500. The city is popular with pilgrims and other travelers alike - it's been a little jarring to be back among backpackers after two weeks seeing none (and it seems to attract the especially annoying ones who were dotis themselves with their Tevas).

The ruins are quite spectacular (though Angkow Wat ruins (!) you for anything else.) One of the best things I like here is the holy cows roaming everywhere freely - placid and pretty. No alcohol and no meat here (it's been a week for meat eating and two weeks since I had a drink - I had no idea that India would basically be a mini detox among other things). Unfortnuately because it's a tourist town all the trappings that go along are here: children beggars who won't give up, hard selling sales people, rickshaw drivers who follow you or drive right at you as their sales pitch, etc...and all of that tends to make one extremely cranky. However, the scenery is spectacular. When I was a kid I remember looking at an illustrated bible and this place looks like one of the baby Moses illos - palm trees, big ancient rock forms, red dirt, a slow moving river, women washing in the river, babies floatnig downstream on banana leaves. Ok, maybe not that - but you have the point. It's very hot and the monsoon - which reportedly officially landed in Kerala last Friday - is coming this week. Good I think?