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NORTHERN INDIA and KASHMIR

FEBRUARY 2008

The Golden Temple in Amritsar is the main shrine of the Sikh religion.

Let me cut to the chase. I'd like to congratulate India for duping countless tourists into believing that visiting here is an experience that should not be missed. While I find all places I've been to interesting and educational on some level, I struggled to understand the endless fascination with this country. I marveled at the blissful gaze on the faces of foreigners -- and I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the hash they were smoking. So, I cornered a couple of chilled-out Americans who were spending an eternity here, and asked them to help me understand the hoopla, because it was completely lost on me. Here's what I found out...

Why people flock here:

It's dirt cheap! Even with the drop of the dollar, you can still get 40 rupees for a buck and they still go a long way. You can often find a basic, stinky place to crash for a few hundred of them. Transit is cheap, food is cheap, even toilet paper is cheap -- a good thing cause you'll be using a lot of it. Maybe you'll even be as lucky as I was and have a mouse race through your hair while you're sleeping.

They speak English! Hooray!! And even when you can't understand them, they'll always know how to harass and overcharge you. The harassment in Delhi is particularly disdainful. The steaming hot breath on your neck from touts would make Mother Teresa herself entertain the thought of murder.

It's a democracy! That's right! What could possibly be more enlightening than visiting a country with the same type of government as yours?

It's safe! Except for the rash of rapes against female tourists, the tap water, the street food, etc. One drop of tap water could possibly be more poisonous than arsenic.

It's exotic! Where else can you play constant hopscotch over feces, urine, saliva, and other assorted, unidentifiable fluids and waste products?

It's huge! You can take a couple thousand dollars, get on a plane for India, and never be heard from again. In fact, I recommend that anybody who has a missing friend or relative to head for Delhi's Main Bazaar. That's where you'll find them.

How to avoid getting sick in India: Don't go at all. I still have a nagging cough from the air pollution and the color of my mucus is finally returning to normal. Fortunately, I did not get "Delhi belly," because (I confess) I ate at a lot of quality restaurants and stayed away from the hepatitis-kebabs.

What I liked about India: Despite all my ranting, India was an extremely interesting experience, there were some amazing things to see, and it gave me an unparalleled appreciation for not living in India.

Outsource This! Indian embassies and consulates in the United States do not process visas. They have outsourced this annoyance to an American company. Guess who is paying for all of this? You are, of course, in the form of a US$13 surcharge. Who's laughing now?

Why Pakistan is better: It's cheaper, there are no other tourists, there are no touts, the people are nicer, the women and men are more attractive, should I go on?

So, here are a some of the memorable moments I had in India:

Within five minutes of my arrival in Delhi, I walked past a woman peeing in the street. Judging by the color of her stream, she must have been dehydrated. Poor thing.

In the shared jeep from Srinagar to Jammu, we ran into a snowstorm and the tunnel ahead was closed. The driver stopped in the nearest town and got out of the jeep. For two hours nobody could find him, and it wasn't a very big place. I pointed to a phone number on the visor, and one of the passengers called it. It turned out to be his boss. The driver wandered back, but the passenger who called his boss (and happened to be a doctor), started yelling and slapping the driver. The driver was so stunned, he didn't even defend himself. I was sitting next to him and braced myself for a throwdown, but it never developed.

As mentioned earlier, I stayed in a cheap hotel in Delhi, where a mouse ran through my hair in the middle of the night as a way of telling me to open the bathroom door so he could scurry down the drain. Terrence Q. Cheesebit was a nice little mouse, eating anything he could and crapping anywhere he wanted, but he fell out of favor when he chewed up my friend's panties.

In Kashmir, the manager of my houseboat would not allow me to walk around the city of Srinagar alone. There is a palpable fear of any harm coming to the few tourists who make their way up there, because if a tourist were murdered, the struggling tourism industry would grind to a halt. Until recently, Kashmir was a war zone and is still considered a potential flash point for a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan. Things are peaceful now, and war-weary Kashmiris are hoping it stays that way.

Yes, there are other attractions besides the Taj Mahal, but how do they compare? I visited the The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets and conducted some exhaustive research. Here are the results:

The Toilet Museum vs. the Taj Mahal: Who will emerge the victor?

TOILET MUSEUM LOCATION: Delhi outskirts beyond the international airport. Good luck finding anybody who knows where it is.
TAJ MAHAL LOCATION: The tout-filled city of Agra, a few hours south of Delhi by train. Good luck fending off all the goons at the train station who want to take you there "for good price."

TOILET MUSEUM PRICE: Free. You can wander in and out as you please.
TAJ MAHAL PRICE: 750 Rupees (about US$19). You can enter only once, you can't bring anything onto the grounds except your camera, valuables, and a small bottle of water they provide.

TOILET MUSEUM EATS: They convert human waste into water, but I wouldn't recommend it for drinking.
TAJ MAHAL EATS: The grass looked rather tasty.

TOILET MUSEUM HIGHLIGHT: The fact that there is actually a toilet museum is a highlight, but the young female guide discussing "excreta" and "constipation" in her Apu-esque accent made the entire trip to India worthwhile.
TAJ MAHAL HIGHLIGHT: The free shoecovers for walking around inside the buliding.

TOILET MUSEUM CONTROVERSY: The sign that says, "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be sweet and wipe the seat." Not to mention the poorly written explanation about farting.
TAJ MAHAL CONTROVERSY: Pollution is turning it yellow; the drop in the dollar has resulted in tickets now only being sold in rupees. Disney World, in retaliation, now refuses to accept rupees for admission.

TOILET MUSEUM TOILET: Free, but disappointingly ordinary. Toilet paper was unavailable. Seriously.
TAJ MAHAL TOILET: It wasn't free, and it was equally disappointingly ordinary.

NUMBER OF VISITORS TO THE TOILET MUSEUM: There were two others while I was there.
NUMBER OF VISITORS TO THE TAJ MAHAL: Do I really need to answer that?

SOUVENIRS AT THE TOILET MUSEUM: They sell a nice variety of Third World toilets at a reasonable price, but how would you get one in your carry-on?
SOUVENIRS AT THE TAJ MAHAL: A worldwide attraction without a gift shop? Are they on crack?

The Winner: Why, The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets, of course. Rather appropriate for a country that most residents treat as one gigantic urinal.

Paharganj and the Main Bazaar is the tourist ghetto of Delhi.