Indians don't believe in starving

Hey there everybody!
As i am sitting in this internet cafe there is the 6 year old son of the owner next to me on a computer listening to an English learning program on his headphones and repeating English phrases that are cracking me up like: "I am from Mexico. I like to travel. I am an engineer. I would like a beer please". Hilarious.
I realized that in all the chaos and movement of the past couple days, I completely forgot to tell you about my trip from Rishikesh, my quiet little holy town in the foothills, to the lakeside resort of Pokhara, Nepal, where I am now settled.
The morning I came from Delhi to Kathmandu I saw camels... a whole fleet of them. This was one of the most exciting things. I had just arrived by the night train from Rishikeash and actually was fuming (something I hardly ever do) in the back of an autorickshaw, the driver of which had pulled a fast one on me at the New Delhi train station and was now whisking me off to Indira Ghandi International as I grumbled in the back seat, replaying the whole scammy scenario in my mind.
The camels, there must have been at least 50 of them, were ridden 2 abreast on the side of the highway by some kind of uniformed force. They looked like an army but as I was too busy holding a grudge and giving my driver the silent treatment, I couldn't ask.
I took a video and will try to post it on youtube as soon as i get back to India, the land of cheap internet.
The night train from Rishikesh to Delhi was cozy. Full of sleeping and softly snoring Indians.. No one even looked at me twice and I felt very safe. It is the single woman traveller's nightmare to be on the receiving end of errant, wandering hands in the night. Even the feeling of having to constantly be on the alert and watching your own back is enough to ruin an entire nights sleep. And nights have the potential of being very long indeed, alone, on a night train in India.
But by some beautiful miracle, the experience was entirely positive, even in ways that i didn't expect it to be. I look forward to repeating it in the near future.
It felt strangely.... maternal and womblike in the train. The collective conscious of so many peaceful sleeping people seemed to soak into you and make you feel like you were asleep as a babe in mother's lap. Is this why they call her Mother India?
The gentle rocking of the car bacak and forth on the track as it slowly made it's way south must lull even the worst insomniac to sleep. Not like Italian trains at all, speeding and lurching with that horrible clacking sounds of the tracks and the feeling of dread that arises everytime the train stops to pick up new passengers in the middle of the night. Passengers who might slide open you door and demand to share your compartment or rob you, depending on their temperment. This being worse than the clacking.
No, this train ride was nothing like that. I was warm and comfortable in a sleeper. The train was quiet and for some reason I had a 4 bed compartment all to my self with two Indian ladies in berths on the other side of the curtain. It was the best of both worlds. Safety and privacy. We arrived in Delhi at 8am without incident.
Once in the capital I had to take care of some things. First, the Indian Airlines office to request a change of return date. They happily obliged and at no charge either. Then to someplace where I could purchase my return train ticket to Rishikesh. It felt like I was all over New and Old Delhi by rickshaw before this second objective was accomplished but all was made right by my discovery of the "foreigners only office" at the New Delhi station..... A bookings and reservations office set up explicitly for the poor confounded foreigners, lost in the Indian train system. That would be me alright. Big cities are always a hassle when you are travelling, but big INDIAN cities are even worse.
It was time to head for the airport. I never made it to the official prepaid taxi stand to find out how much the offical cost of the trip would be. Amateur mistake, I allowed myself to get intercepted on the way by enterprising young taxi go getters. I must have gotten soft from all my time in the ashram.
To their credit, they are just trying to scratch out a living. Its a matter of like 50 cents or a dollar difference to the traveller and if you are stupid enough to fall prey... then you deserve it. I know this is how the law of the Delhi jungle works, but my indignance over being swindled makes me fume about it later. Its the principle, not the money, of course.
Anyhow, i'm not really ready to talk about it yet. The details will have to be told later.
And so.... several camels and one shady driver later, I'm at the airport. Being in the international airport is like already being outside India. Everything is so shiney and new and appealing. Just like a so-called "developed" country. When I saw the Subway sandwich outlet, I couldn't resist. I haven't seen a chain restaurant since I left Chennai and had a Pizza Hut flyer shoved under my door. The price of a Subway sandwich, I will tell you, costs more than my room in Rishikesh by 25%, and that is for one of the cheap sandwiches. I decide on the Paneer Tikka, which is a decidedly Indian thing, sandwiched between a brown roll with all the fixins', olives and hot peppers, a real cornucopia of international flavours. I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore when the mayonnaise he offered me turned out to be like an herbed aoili. Something you only encounter in Canada in the finest of restaurants. Even in Subways in Canada we don't have herbed aoili.
I know. I'm sorry to go on about food but the culture shock coming back to the city and "civilization" was pretty extreme. I might as well have stepped out of a Himalayan cave and into Indira International for the total disorientation, chill and thrill I was feeling. Rishikesh is a little like living in the Biblical land, in Biblical times, but with internet access. Coming to the .airport was like taking a time capsule trip into the future
Security was TIGHT in Delhi. I guess those terrorist attacks in Mumbai didn't help any. Can you believe we live in a world now where words like "terrorist attacks" just roll off the tongue and are a regular part of our every day conversation? I can't.
My customs official had what appeared to be multiple personality disorder. One minute he is shouting at me very abusively for not signing my departure card (while I try to show the proper amount of remorse and innocence) and the next minute he is loudly singing my praises for being a yoga teacher (while I try to keep my head from spinning off and into his lap from the complete about-face he just did). With his superior officer standing just over his left shoulder, I decide the best expression to have on my face is none at all. I think he is trying to trick me or test me somehow with his bizarre behaviour but he lets me through without any further hassles

Security checks make a big show but are ultimately not that efficient nor effective. I go through three of them but I notice a few holes and glitches that leave me with the inescapable feeling that they are just going through the motions, for appearances sake. hmm
Boarding the aircraft I am still high from all the glitz and glamour of international airtravel... so unaccustomed I have grown to what is considered the normal consumerism and capitalism in the rest of the world. The perfumes and liquors on display in duty free, the exotic languages and well-heeled people pulling their designer luggage to and fro. Of course, in India, it is only the very wealthy who can afford to fly internationally. Not like in Canada where any blue collar worker can give up a few cases of beer and a golf game to afford to hop on a plane for a week somewhere. k
Its always been a favourite pastime of mine in airports to watch people, trying to guess where they come from, where they are going and imagine their lives. Its the family from Dubai coming to visit family in India, the wealthy Turkish businessman with his bejewelled and dyed trophy wife , his third marriage., money just drips off of them everywhere. There is the disheveled but honest and clear-eyed, dreadlocked hippy returning home to Europe somewhere after living in India for the past 10 months on about 1200Euro. The mishmash of people. It is so interesting, the airport. Any airport..

, The only thing noteable on the hour and a half plane ride is the food, which is incredibly good..
especially for airline food. In that hour and half we are served both a snack AND a full vegetarian meal while on American and Canadian airlines you are lucky to get a free peanut and a thimble full of water on an 8 hour flight. Indians don't believe in starving. ,.