Bogged Down in Bodhgaya

SUSAN:

And the madness resumes.

As we descended the mountain to Siliguri, slowly but surely, the heat inched up on us like an ominous sickly, sticky, beastly...beast. From which there is no escape. Air con? "Haha. I have invented power cuts to foil all your plans", it grunts.

So, eventually, our mountain escapades over, we realized with some dismay that we were back in the "real" India. Where you are hassled 24/7 for daring to be white. Add to this the fact that we had entered Bihar, one of the poorest provinces in India, and the hassles take on a special, ugly, undignified urgency, because, well, the people just seem to have nothing to lose. Hello! Hello! Sir! Madam! You want rickshaw? You want change money? You want hotel? You want sari? You want biscuit? Good biscuit. No? Feed children? Feed monkey? Hashish? Full power! Hello!

[Five days of this pass, during which various scam artists in the holy city of Bodhgaya, where Buddha was enlightened, try to scam us in various elaborate ways, which we deftly, often narrowly avoid. It starts the second you leave your hotel, and ends when you re-enter it and lock the door.]

We are on the train. Chai chai chai coffee chai. (Poking my leg) Speacial chai. "No." (Squeezing my leg) Speeeeacial Chai Madam!. "Don't fucking touch me!!". I finally lost it. This was it. The behavior that I had found so revolting in other tourists had finally become my own. I had reached the 6-week limit.

But, ironically, I discovered that this kind of attitude has it's advantages. Instead of saying "No, thank you," and smiling at the person following us, and dealing with his hassle for another two or three minutes, I say "NO!" and put my hand in his face, and he leaves us alone immediately. If they say something costs ten rupees, then then keep the entire 20 rupee note, I yell at them until they give me the change. Call me culturally insensitive. I don't know. If they can hassle me, I can hassle them, damn it. I'll show them a good hassle. We'll see who hassles who.

P.S. I still love India.

Random shoutout: Ganges, your 1 million fecal bacteria per mL may have finally toppled Dave's herculean intestinal immunity, but he is still my hero.