Moving to Land of the Tiger in the Year of the Tiger

 

We have arrived in India. After a long and convoluted process, taking months to finalize, we have started our adventure in the land of the tiger in the year of the tiger. On my initial wish list of things to explore is the national park where tigers roam freely. Seeing one in the wild would be amazing. It may take several attempts, even several trips, before we get lucky.

It's been a long time since we have traveled on a plane. More than four years. And though in the past I have looked forward to our travels, this time I was dreading the flights. I had a kind of hope that expecting the worst would work to my advantage. There was the possibility that it wouldn’t be as bad as I feared and then I would be pleasantly surprised.

We started out in Portland cheerful and optimistic. 

Even still in Atlanta we were in relatively good spirits as we began our flight to Amsterdam. 

Alas, the long flights were cramped and hot. And the final leg, (which we thought we had paid to be more comfortable) was the worst. Three flights in economy class, in which two of the legs were 8 hours long, are pretty miserable no matter how you slice it. I’m just glad it’s over now.

After we finally disembarked from the last wretched plane, remarkably things went incredibly smooth. My expectations for this part of the journey were that we could well find many hurdles and not make it to a soft cool bed in the hotel for many hours. As it turned out, getting through customs and immigration was quick and without event, all our luggage arrived unscathed, a reasonably priced taxi van was easy to arrange and hire, and the drive to the hotel was short. Our driver even drove very slowly and traffic was light and calm. Continuing in this positive vein, the hotel staff greeted us at the door and handled our seven pieces of 50lb luggage. The front desk staff were friendly and efficient and we were in our room shortly after being dropped off by our taxi. Incidentally, it was 5am but there was a loud concert going on in the event venue. I asked the concierge what was going on. (We could hardly hear over the music.) He promised to tell me, but then forgot. I think perhaps it was a wedding party.

In our room, connecting to WiFi was a breeze and I was able to send quick messages to friends and family telling them we had arrived safely. After 32 hours from door to door, in cars, on planes and in airports, we needed showers. Again, it was as a pleasure to find plenty of hot water and lots of pressure. Traveling abroad has shown us simple pleasures like a good shower are not guaranteed. We then fell into the soft king bed, with nine pillows to choose from, and promptly conked out.

Breakfast is included with our room and we made it downstairs with 30 minutes to spare before it was closed down. We felt the service of Asia immediately. Not just in the paid staff but fellow guests. I asked the man in front of us if he was waiting to be seated. He smiled pleasantly and said yes. Then he went further and told us we needed to give our room number AND pointed out the man to which we needed to give that number. It was a small gesture, but for foreigners fresh off the plane, it was an act of kindness. Then in the breakfast room at the coffee bar I asked for two coffees. The barista asked, “cappuccinos or black”. I appreciated the options as I didn’t know what coffee choices there were, if any. South and East Asia have a culture of quality service that I always find amazing. It stands out so starkly to me, I think, because the west has a different definition of what service comprises. Not only that, but the west places a different value on service than the east does. I always feel this whenever I’m in Asia and it’s salve for my soul.

I must admit I’m hoping that India will soothe my soul and heal my body. Asia has been healing for me in the past. Long time readers of this blog will know I have had various symptoms from my autoimmune diseases. My hope is that India will calm the symptoms I’ve been experiencing lately. After all, it is the birth place of yoga!

Needless to say, I am very very pleased Stephen has accepted a job here. And what a job it is. The WHO! Many of his colleagues at the FDA were deeply impressed and a bit jealous too. All were congratulatory and some expressed their respect and admiration for the quality work Stephen did over the past 2 ½ years, during a global pandemic. This job has promise to fulfill dreams we’ve long held but began to doubt would ever be realized. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. It would serve us both well to hold our expectations loosely. And really try to embrace what this adventure has to offer, in whatever way that is, in whatever time. But there’s no denying…the potential is there. It’s almost as if this position was created just for Stephen. It combines Stephen’s unique and unusual skill set that he acquired through an unconventional career path with divergent trajectories. During the interview, Stephen said to his prospective supervisor that the job seemed like several in one. With a chuckle the interviewing supervisor admitted that the job was a kind of wish list. It’s a brand new position that no one else has done before.  A bit like a start-up, which lands squarely in Stephen’s wheelhouse. Nothing motivates him as much as taking on a new project and building it from the ground up. You see, my husband is a smarty-pants. He’s worked on rockets, and artificial hearts, designed his own devices, started companies and been awarded patents. His sincere desire is to use all of that---all the knowledge, experience, intelligence---for the public good. And this job might just allow him to do that very thing. If he could have designed the job he wanted most, this would have been it.

It's only been a few days but we are learning about the country we will call home for a while. People have been very friendly and responsive. When I say good morning to fellow guests, many of whom are Indian, they enthusiastically reply in kind. Little girls find me very interesting and stare quite openly. I enjoy the gracious gestures that people here use when engaging with others. Several people have use the Thai wai, like a prayer posture with hands pressed together. It’s used as a greeting and a thank you. I greeted the parents of my students that way when I taught preschool in Cambodia. It’s therefore a familiar gesture to me and I’m happy to see it used here. There’s also the delightful Indian head wobble. There are various meanings in its use. Mostly, I think, it's used to show understanding. I just find it fun. Seeing someone gesture this way, just lifts my spirits.

English is widely spoken and understood but I’m studying Hindi for even better communication. After three lessons with the app DuoLingo, I see that the sounds in Hindi are as nuanced as they are for Khmer, the language of Cambodia. At this moment in time, there are several letter pairs that I cannot hear the difference between!

In every Asian country we’ve been to, tuk-tuk drivers are assertive and persistent. Stephen went out first so he gave me some tips for how to handle the situation. Even so, when I went out, I was not prepared for the sheer volume of words each tuk-tuk driver could utter in a short amount of time! I tried to be both polite but firm. They were hardly dissuaded and it actually made me feel a little hysterical. This one tuk-tuk driver wanted to take me “anywhere you want to go. For FREE!!” He called me “sister” to create a point of connection. I just kept walking and say, “No thank you, it’s okay. It’s just a short walk to the hotel.” I had wanted to walk to a coffee shop but decided instead to just turn around and go back inside. The driver kept driving his tuk-tuk up closer and following along. I started to laugh, a little uncontrollably, as my frustration started to build. I tried to squelch the laugh because I understand the tuk-tuk driver’s plight. It’s a tough row to hoe. But still really jet lagged, my brain just wasn’t at its tip-top to deal with the hard sell just then. Another day.

We have some books about India that we are reading and in the introduction of one, the author says that India embraces things from other cultures and countries, but then transforms it into something uniquely Indian. We already experience this first hand. There is McDonald’s near the hotel so we decide to get that for a meal one night. What we discovered is that Indian McDonald’s have no hamburgers. This was not entirely unexpected: to Hindus the cow is sacred. But it was still disappointing. Stephen bought us three different chicken sandwiches to try. None of them tasted like anything at a McDonald’s in the states. Indian food is amazing. I love it. But Indian recipes for McDonald’s food does not make for a good combination! We found something similar with KFC. I’m not sure I even want to try Taco Bell. 😉

Yes, India is very different. But oh so interesting. We saw monkeys this morning before breakfast. The hotel staff was chasing them away. I think I saw almost a dozen of them. They are probably viewed as a nuisance but for Stephen and me this morning they were a delight.