Disneyfication

January 29, 2008

It's crazy how you have to travel SO far away to RE-learn things that you already know about in life but just forget all the time cuz you're so damned busy running around .

Yesterday we left Jalgaon (Jalgaon, take me away!) and took a bus to the Ajanta caves. Man, I tell you, we are just pooped out from all this bus travelling, not knowing where we are going or how to get there and who to believe. Although everyone is REALLY friendly now that we have left Mumbai, and the initial reaction from Indians of making fun of us (or me, really) has turned into awe and wonder. I can handle that. But everyone has a different story, of where to catch the bus and the quickest way to a city, etc. It's a trip, this whole traveling business. We tried to get onto what we thought was the right bus, when everyone just swarmed around us and were pushing to get through the door and placing their children in-between people for leverage. When we got on the bus we had to stand the whole way, squished like sardines, over very very bumpy roads. I wasn't sure if Tonya was going to make it or not, and to tell the truth I couldn't wait to get off the bus, yet we had no idea where or when to get off. It's not like riding the T when a computerized voice tells you what stop it is. So when we figured it out, we walked down to the entrance, and the people selling their goods gave us the news, that the caves were closed because of Holiday. Who new that Monday was a holiday in India? Especially not someone who works in a Museum. So we just laughed.

But we could still go in, for a small fee of course, and walk around the outside. We walked down the gorge, over to a trash ridden park, and we found two benches under a tree..... and we sat. And we closed our eyes. And we listened to the parrots around us (which make a great sound recording, might I add). And it was really a beautiful moment, no auto-rickshaws beeping, no one trying to sell me something aggressively, no confusion as to where to go or where our luggage was or any of that stuff. Just silence, one with nature. And I had a revelation . As a tourist, I am running to all these hot tourist spots that I am reading about in the lonely planet bible, thinking that this is why I am in India, the "events" and "attractions". Which of course is the Disneyfication of all of these religions and peoples and cultures that are much older than any of my cultures. And it's only when I really open my eyes to everything that is around me, that is when I can truly see.

And on our way back, we met this absolutely amazing man, a local farmer who I had an hour conversation with on the bus, and who invited us back to his farm to meet his mother. Unfortunately we had paid for a hotel room back in the city and all of our shit wasn't packed, and we couldn't meet him at his farm because no one speaks English in his village, so as he put it if we went to meet him it would be a big mess. So we didn't go to his farm, which I am still kicking myself about. O well, lost opportunity, maybe next time.

And today we went back to the caves. I know, I know, I went on about the Disneyfication of Holy places, blah blah, but hey, what can I say, old habits die hard. I mean shit, we're here, right, might as well check it out.

Yea,
Shawn