The Anderson Nose

I've just spent possibly one of the most painful and frustrating hours of my life in a hotel bathroom in Delhi.

I'll let you just digest that for a second, simply for the drama of it.

And yes, I know you're all shocked, but it wasn't spent expelling the contents of my stomach. 'Delhi Belly' has yet to strike, and I'm hoping it stays that way.

Let me explain, in a round-about way.

I can be a little vain, I admit it. I have a tendency to coordinate, almost to the point of excess, and as many of you know, and I tire of my hair colour rapidly. Surviving on the miniscule wardrobe that could squeeze into my backpack has been more than slightly traumatic. Packing for tropical heat in December in Canada didn't really go that well in hindsight, so I've been abandonning articles of clothing across Asia and supplementing the wardrobe with cheap, brightly coloured and more importantly lightweight clothing.

My hair, now completely pony-tailable, is driving me crazy. I haven't seen a hair-dryer in at least a month, and not blessed with natural volume, there's not a lot it does well other than lay limply around my face. And the grey hairs that are regularly banished from my head by the very talented Mr. Tom, are sadly, out in large number, saying hello to the world.

I find I'm tired of looking the same, shallow though that may be. I've surrendered to clashing half the time, and am resigned to it, most of the time. But I've started to look for other options for ornamentaion, simply to shake things up a bit. I've acquired some headscarves to hide the grey hair, which sort of work, though I do question whether my cranium is really ideally shaped to accomodate head-accessories - everything just seems to slip right off. I splurged on some new earrings yesterday, as the only pair I brought broke about a 6 weeks ago. And 3 days ago in a beauty salon in Varkala, a beachside resort in the south of India, I had my nose pierced.

With the number of tattooed and pierced backpackers wandering around I do feel like a bit of cliche, but I've been toying with getting my nose pierced for a couple years. I balked on my 32nd birthday in a piercing studio on Queen Street, as my friend Frankee can attest (she was there to hold my hand.) The reason for the reluctance? Completely shallow of course. They wanted me to keep the ginormous stud in my nose for 6 weeks and I was simply too vain to have something that enormous on my face for so long. I'd always sort of envisioned a very delicate, barely-there sparkly something or other, not the massive piece they were suggesting.

I've been told on several occasions, (yes, by friends who were being supportive) that I have the right kind of nose for a piercing. But what I discovered this morning in my hotel room, is while my nose might be ideal to host a delicate stud, it is not the ideal nose for actual removal of the large stud that was shot into my nostril a few days ago. Because yes, I ended up with the same ginormous stud I'd been trying to avoid. They did it so quickly I didn't really even have time to protest. The only positive news is I only had to sport the monstrosity for 3 days. And I didn't cry, so that was good. I had a vague sort of headache for the first couple of days, but the more annoying thing was actually trying to breath with a large earring back in my left nostril - not really good times, I have to admit.

I've never really spent a great deal of time thinking about the size of my nostrils - other than being appreciative of having not inherited the Anderson nose. On my father, the Anderson nose is well, large, but full of character. While I can't quite imagine him without it, I've always been very happy that it wasn't a feature we shared in common. My non-descript but smaller nose comes from the Moloy side of the family, apparently along with my fat fingers. Let me piece it together for you without getting too graphic. Large earring back in my small left nostril. Fat fingers that spent an hour trying to jam into my nostril and get a good grip to remove the backing. Nostril swollen somewhat from being pierced, and filthy with Indian pollution. (Blowing my nose in the last few days has been a pain I haven't been willing to endure.) I haven't spent this much time with a finger up my nose since I was probably 4 years old. Throughout it all I cursed my tiny nostril and for the first time in 33 years, wished I'd inherited the Anderson nose. After about 45 minutes of struggling I finally dislodged the backing. The whole time I'd worried that I might inhale the backing in all the excitement, but thankfully that was avoided.

I then moved on to step two - inserting the delicate nose ring I'd purchased. What made it tricky however and equally frustrating is that nose rings aren't like earrings with a post and a backing - the decorative bit is on the end of a curled wire that you somehow magically wind into your nostril through the now exposed hole. The problem of course is the the wire is curved in a way that won't actually go easily through the straight hole the post has left. So after numerous painful attempts I straigtened the end of the wire to get it in the hole. The problem then became the fact that I had to keep winding the wire through the hole further to get the decorative bit in position. The straigtened wire was soon scraping the insides of my miniscule Moloy nostril, and I had visions of tunnelling accidentally into my brain, and having a slow drip of brain matter mar the effect I was going for. After struggling for about a half hour the tiny crystal was correctly positioned. My nostril at this point was so swollen I could no longer judge whether the wire on the inside was properly positioned. So I liberally coated all nostril surfaces with Polysporin and collapsed back onto my bed in relief. And it actually does look pretty good on the Moloy nose, if slightly red. (Though not infected Mom, no worries!)

I'll tunnel back in for a re-examination later this afternoon, but I need to space the fun out, you know.

Not-So-Good Times at the Mumbai Airport

Cosmically, it's possible that the universe has been sending me a few signs over the last couple months that India might be slightly stress-inducing for Heather. I spent a week in early December not-so-quietly freaking out when I had to send my passport away to the Consulate General of India to get a visa. Saying good-bye to your passport 3 weeks before you're leaving the country isn't a warm-fuzzy feeling. I believe I may have kissed it when it was returned to me. Booking my flight from Bangkok to Mumbai was obnoxious as well - I couldn't book from home on the internet because I didn't have a Thai address to mail the ticket to (idiotic rationale that I won't bore you with) and then when I did buy the ticket from a travel agent in Bangkok in early January I couldn't actually get the paper ticket before I flew out to Cambodia later that day, so the ticket had to sit in Bangkok for 3 weeks before I could pick it up. I have a habit of envisioning the worst possible outcomes, so I stressed for 3 hours straight about whether it would actually be there when I returned. An excellent lesson in learning to just relax and trust the universe though, because the ticket was waiting for me just where it should be when I went to pick it up 2 days before I flew to India.

But all that was easy-peesy compared to my actual arrival in the country. Our plan seemed reasonable. I was scheduled to arrive in Mumbai at 10:30 in the evening. My friend Farah's flight from Toronto was due in at 1 am. Rather than making my way into the city on my own late at night, we decided that I would wait at the arrivals lounge and meet Farah's flight. I was armed with Farah's Mom's cell number and the name of the place we were staying, in case of complications. And this all would have worked out fine, if it weren't for one tiny detail that we managed to cock up. Farah's flight arrived as scheduled on Feb 8th at 1am. My flight also arrived as scheduled on Feb 8th at 10:30pm. I think sometimes life is hard just to teach me a lesson. So lesson #1 - pay attention to details, space cadet, because booking your flight to arrive on the wrong day, especially when arriving in a country like India, is not good times. Tragically if there is a Hindu god of communication, he was not pulling any strings for us, because through a comedy of errors, all attempts at contacting eachother failed, and the stress level escalated to disturbing proportions.

I'll attempt a quick run-down of the next 24 hours:

1:00am-3:00am, Mumbai time, Feb 8th: Farah arrives as scheduled. Expecting me to be hanging about, she spends the next hour waiting for her luggage, then scouring every toilet stall at Gate 2A, looking for me. After 2 hours, Farah and her cousin Zarik, who had come to pick us up, head to the Cricket Club of India, where we were staying, in hopes that I'd made my own way there. Meanwhile, I'm tucked up in my bed in Bangkok, ignorant of the stress I am causing.

4:00-6:00am, Mumbai time, Feb 8th: Farah and her family are concerned that my body may be floating in the Bay of Bengal, and contact friends in Toronto to see whether anyone has heard from me. Armed with a calculator and the latest email she's had from me, my friend Merjane and a few other Harlequinites deduce that based on my ramblings in the email and the time difference, I'm probably not arriving till the evening of the Feb 8th. The Mullicks attempt to sleep without a great deal of success.

9:00am Bangkok time (7:30am in Mumbai), Feb 8th: Heather logs off the computer in an internet cafe, never to check her email again for the rest of the day. (Another collosal mistake).

10:00 Mumbai time, Feb 8th: Farah emails me asking me where the hell I am, but I'm on a tour of a silk magnate's teak mansion in Bangkok, buying silk.

Random moment in the afternoon, Feb 8th: Farah and her parents decide that if I haven't arrived by the morning of Feb 9th they will contact my mother and the Canadian High Commission. (Thank God Nancy didn't get that call, can you imagine?)

10:30 pm Mumbai time, Feb 8th: I arrive at Gate 2C in the Mumbai airport, and proceed to kill the next 2 hours propped up against a cement wall, trying to avoid the illegal taxi drivers. Ignorantly I had assumed I'd be able to park my backside somewhere, but no such luck, so I stand out on the sidewalk, and try and keep busy looking like I know what I'm doing. I chat with an Australian Indian girl for 45 minutes as she waits for her ride. As she leaves she offers to call Farah's parents for me, but I decline, assuming I've still got an hour or so before they'll be picking us up. I have this well-engrained but really stupid habit of not wanting to impose on people that I really need to kick. Because calling Farah's Mom at this point in the evening would have made the next few hours immensely different. So lesson #2 - accept help from safe strangers when it is offered, idiot.

12:30-1:30am, Feb 9th: I realize that I should have written down the specifics of Farah's flight - knowing it will arrive roughly a couple hours after my flight no longer feels like enough information.

1:15-1:30am, Feb 9th: Given there are no arrivals boards at the gate, I attempt to chat with the security guards to find out whether the flight has landed. The first two attempts prove unsuccessful, and both sides give up in frustration. On attempt #3 I am informed that I'm at the wrong gate for British Airway flights. I curse loudly and run 5 minutes with my luggage to gate 2A.

1:30-2:45am, Feb 9th: This gate is much less dodgy than the other gate. I'm stressed to learn from the arrival board that the flight landed a half hour earlier, and instantly start to worry that I've missed Farah. I try and call Farah's Mom's cell number, but realize that my mobile phone is dead. Lesson #3, don't leave your phone uncharged for 5 weeks and then magically expect it to work, cause it just ain't going to. I start scanning the crowd for a couple that looks like they could have reproduced Farah, as she's emailed me a few days earlier saying that her parent's would be picking us up at the airport. No such luck. It is 2:45 - I am exhausted and no longer thinking rationally. I stumble out to the payphone, but realize I have no change. (Random rambling from Heather: I hate international pay phones. Yes, they do provide directions but its like some part of my brain shuts down and I get stumped at step #2. And don't get me started on the frustrations associated with differing standards of digits from country to country. It's enough to make me commit violence. But I digress.) I next stumble over to the prepaid taxi counter and order a car. I am alarmed at the fact that the attendant seems skeptical when I announce I'm heading to the Cricket Club at 2am, but just sort of go with it anyway.

3:00am-3:45am: I ride through the deserted streets of Mumbai, in the backseat of a cab that is constructed primarily of rust. It suddenly occurs to me that arriving at a Cricket Club at 3am with no one expecting me isn't going to be a smooth check-in. Its not like there will be a hotel reception desk at a private club. As we drive through Mumbai I realize that the taxi driver and I are not quite as alone as I'd thought. There are people sleeping on the streets, with a few men huddled around open fires in the gutters. I begin to envision my own death. The driver will find the CCI closed, drop me on a random street corner, the fire men will not be welcoming, and then the details get hazy but I'm convinced I'm going to die. I almost vommit, but manage to hold it together. (And the stupid thing is the taxi driver seemed quite nice, I was just totally freaking out at this point.) I beg the taxi driver to try calling Farah's Mom. He dials incorrectly and we establish that the man on the other end of the line is not looking for a random Canadian lady. We arrive at the CCI to find it locked up nice and tight. Having passed a Hotel Intercontinental 2 minutes earlier, I ask my driver to take me back to the hotel. Instead we settle on another expensive hotel, right on the corner. I wander into the lobby of the Marin Plaza hotel looking dazed and desperate. I then meet the nicest hotel receptionists I've ever come across. The fact that it was almost 4am and I was clearly a tourist on the verge of collapse may have affected how they treated me. But they were lovely. While prepared to pay handsomely for my life, I think my eyes bugged out of my head when he converted the price for me. So we negotiate a bit and they drop the price from $450 US to $295 US. I agree and we start the paperwork when it occurs to me that perhaps we should try calling the Mullick's again. Attempt #1 remains unanswered (at this very moment Mrs. Mullick has been awoken and can't locate her mobile in the dark before I hang up.) But 2 seconds later the hotel's desk phone rings and it is a voice I am incredibly happy to hear - Mr. Mullick is coming to rescue me, and I'm going to live. Ten minutes later I am in my room in the CCI, hugging Farah, and collapsing on my bed.

11:am Feb 9th - 2am Feb 10th: To say things improved immensely is an understatement. We breakfasted with Farah's Mom poolside at the club. We meet a friend from Toronto, Andrew, and are chaffeured around the city by his driver. We meet Farah's cousin at a music store and I buy a Bollywood movie soundtrack. (I now have a minor crush on India's #1 movie star.) We go to an open-air jazz concert in the suburbs with Andrew, then meet Zarik and his friends for dinner at a club. We drive for 45 minutes to get to the only club still open, and stand in line waiting to get in, but give up, as apparently minor Bollywood starlets are inside sipping martinis. What a difference 24 hours can make!

Anyway, I've now become super-anal retentive about confirming all details related to travel in India, and am just sort of crossing my fingers. But if some of you at home want to cross some for me as well, that would be fantastic. Clearly I need all the help I can get!

A Day in the Life of Swami (Not) Heather

(Composed while I was without internet access, in deepest, darkest, India - so this is outdated. Ramblings from day 1 & 2 at the ashram)
So I'm currently at an ashram in India. Ending up here was an inspired bit of spontaneity that may have been just plain crazy, but the jury is still out. Let me explain how it transpired. It was late at night about a week before Christmas and Heather was stressing over trip planning. How messed up is that? Very, I know. Anyway, I’d decided that I had to do a hike in the Himalayas, but wanted to delay it a bit till slightly warmer temperatures were possible. So I needed to find a way to kill time in India. I mean, right Heather, you need to just waste a couple of weeks in India, how ridiculous does that sound? So I’m flipping through my Lonely Planet guide reading about things to do in India and yoga is mentioned. And I think, ooh, yoga and India, they go together quite logically, don’t they? So no, people, I’m not at an ashram because I’ve been practicing yoga for years and will finally be blessed with the opportunity to meet my own personal guru. I’m here for 2 weeks partially so I won’t freeze my ass off in the Himalayas. I could have hidden this from you all and pretended that this was more of a spiritual journey, but I believe in honesty. I’m the girl who gets frustrated in an hour-long yoga class at the gym because I’m not ‘accomplishing something’. I’ve bought a couple books on meditation over the years and stretched out on my bed and attempted to clear my mind. But you know what? It’s a pretty cluttered cranium, and invariably about a minute and a half in, I start stressing about something. Despite this history, and my fear of being kicked out of the ‘yoga vacation program’ as soon as they realized how clueless I am, I still came.



It is beautiful here. And peaceful. And painful, actually. In this morning's satsang Swami X (I've yet to catch his name, it's long and complicated) read a passage of advice for spiritual seekers. Apparently we should 'be prepared for any amount of pain'. The Swami's not kidding. Every day we rise at 6am for satsang (meditation and chanting) and spend an hour and a half seated cross-legged on a cement floor. I think it's possible that if I was busy reaching a higher plane, I might not notice the ache in my hips, ankles and back. But no such luck. At the most basic level, to stop yourself from day-dreaming you're supposed to concentrate on your breathing. I find if I concentrate too hard, I forget to breath, which sort of defeats the purpose. I can sit still for about 2 minutes, then have to start adjusting my limbs which are starting to go numb. Good times indeed.

At 7:30 I have karma yoga, which is essentailly a work assignment to keep things running smoothly at the ashram, though they spin it as 'serving the God in eachother'. I got a sweet deal - tea service duty. It only takes 15 minutes and other than the fact the crowds can be a bit riotous if we don't arrive on time, its pretty easy. And really, it's quite a positive experience when I reflect on it - people are usually starving by the time the tea arrives, so we end up being quite popular.

At 8:00am we have our first asana class, or yoga class, for 2 hours. Its excellent because the temperature is still pleasant and I'm still feeling relatively energized. My back doesn't really love it though. The nagging lower back pain I've had for 2 months is not enjoying all this twisting and manipulation and protests through most of the postures.

At 10:00am we have our first of 2 meals of the day. We eat seated crossed legged on the floor, eating from a large silver plate. Servers (a more demanding karma yoga assignment than tea duty) ladle food from large pails. The diet is completely vegeatarian, and quite good. I would kill for caffeine right about then, though. The most interesting aspect of the meal is we don't use utensils - so you're basically eating vegetarian stew and rice with your fingers. I lasted 2 and a half days and then broke down and bought a spoon a the shop.

There's actually quite a bit of free time mid-day to lay about the ashram and vegetate, or reflect on the spiritual journey you may or may not be having. We have a lecture every day at 2:00 but they're pretty torturous to sit through, so I started skipping them recently.

At 4:00 I go to another yoga class, and so far I've been opting for the gentle yoga class. Its still painful, but slightly less hard-core than the regular class, and more importantly, its shorter, only an hour. Yesterday the instructor said to 'roll up into a comfortable seated position' which I thought was hilarious, as at this point, there is no such thing as far as my back is concerned.

At 6:00 we have our second meal of the day. So far the quality of the dinner meals has been slightly inferior to the breakfast - no rice, just miscelaneous vegetable curry and bread made from cornmeal. So there's always a big line-up at the Health Hut after dinner, with people supplementing their meal.

At 8:00 we have evening satsang for an hour and a half. Similar to the morning but much more horrific as you're tired and the temperature hasn't cooled yet. We're supposed to be silent after satsang and lights are officially out at 10:30, but I'm usually unconscious before then.

So that's 4 hours a day meditating/chanting or in lecture - seated cross-legged. Another hour a day is seated for meals, once again, cross-legged. We spent 3 hours a day in yoga class, contorting our bodies into pretzel-like positions. My hope is that sometime next week I will achieve the bliss state that we chant about. But it isn't the same bliss the Swami speaks of. My goals are not lofty - apparently meditation is hard, and I have a low attention span. My bliss? Not having to be wheeled out of the ashram in a wheelchair.

Anyone for a Singha?

What I'd like more than anything right now is a pint of my Strongbow Cider. An awful craving has come upon me, and I really don't have high hopes of satisfying it for quite some time.

It seems international travel has the ability to force me to acclimatize to alcoholic beverages that previously have been repulsive to me. Living in England, I finally grew to appreciate wine. Up until that point I would suffer through a couple sips and then give up. Now of course you would have thought England would have taught me to appreciate beer, but no dice. I did cement my affection for cider there, however. But beer and Peru - you see the connection, yes? After 3 days on the Inca Trail a couple years ago, I hiked into camp and drank 3 beers in about a half hour. Similar story - I think up until that point I'd managed to possibly finish a couple beers in my entire life. Sort of sad, I know, but my tongue just couldn't get past the juvenile response of comparing it to cat piss. Or what my overactive imagination assumes cat piss would taste like, obviously. Now in Peru my awful thirst may have had something to do with the fact that I'd deliberately kept myself dehydrated for 3 days of somewhat strenuous hiking, simply to avoid the bliss that is peeing on the side of a mountain. Not being a beer drinking, I have no idea if they were any good, but man, they went down easy. But it was a blip - I had my 3 Peruvian beers and then my tongue came to its sense and I haven't touched one since.

The awful tragedy though is cider seems to be non-existent here and wine is hard to come by as well. Shockingly a Shiraz and Strongbow drinker doesn't quite jive with the typical backpacker target market that most places attempt to attract. It's not like I'm without options, however. There are pletty of fruity frozen drinks to be had, but while my mother will be disappointed in me, I have to admit they get a bit tiresome. Banana colada people though, should be experienced by all.

So I'm making a concerted effort to drink beer. I have always thought that at some point in my life this was just something I had to do, you know? My personal mountain to climb. There seem to be two main brews here - Chang and Singha. You have to be careful though - Singha comes in small and big bottles and I swear to God, the large one has got to be approaching 750ml. Way too large for this novice. So every couple days I go out and order myself a small Singha. Wild times, I know. I drink it quickly, because once it goes lukewarm I get like, totally sicked out. But the automatic gag reflex that used to be typical is receding, so I think I'm making some real progress here. Patting myself on the back, as I'm sure you can imagine.

January 31st

I can be quite lazy when it comes to learning useful bits of information that can make life easier. Case in point - I've had a sports watch whose alarm has been going off at 5 pm every day for the last 3 years - I'm rarely home to hear it, so no biggie. It came with an instruction manual so tiny it could have been inscribed on the heard of a pin with room to spare, so I've cut myself some slack. My friend Kathy gave me a lesson in how to set the alarm though before she left Thailand, and I must say, it's a whole new world.

Anyway, you know that rhyme most people learn by the age of 7 - the tricky one about the number of days in a month? Yeah, that one. I've never committed it to memory - sheer laziness, really. Why put stuff in my cranium that doesn't absolutely need to be there? But because it turns out January has 31 days in it and not the 30 I'd assumed, I find myself with an unexpected extra day in Krabi, Thailand. I have a bungalow booked on a hilltop on Phi Phi Island starting tomorrow, not today, as I had thought. It turns out though that I'm very happy about the largesse that is January. I went on a fantastic day trip yesterday - snorkelling, sunshine, stunning scenery. I spent a couple hours chatting to a German girl about the beauty of chucking the contents of your apartment for extended world travel. Then we were fed lunch. It was really good, but when the guide warned us that the curry was spicy, I really should have recognized his comment for what it was - flashing lights, alarm-sounding really stinking obvious warning to back away from the curry. On an island, no idea when I'll see the next toilet, and yes, that's right, I go for spoonful #2. Let's just say that by the time I did find some facilities, 2 hours and a couple islands later, I almost kissed the toilet seat in happiness.

So, 24 hours later, Heather's still feeling a touch delicate and therefore quite happy to be doing nothing in Krabi. Krabi Town itself doesn't have a lot to boast about other than being a handy starting point for other, more picturesque destinations on the Andaman coast. Every second store is a travel agent of some description thats selling a plethora of day trips or tickets to get yourself somewhere else. During the day a lot of tourists clear out of town for cliff climbing or a nearby beach, so it's actually relatively quiet. I discovered this morning that you can't walk too close to the riverfront without being stopped frequently by salesmen trying to take you on a 'beautiful boat tour'. I walked past a small department store and was lured inside by the Boots Pharmacy. Pathetic though it is, I spent a lovely 5 minutes wandering the aisles even though I wasn't shopping for anything - simply enjoying the unexpected bliss of looking at facial cleansers and shampoos in magical air conditioning. I splashed out big time on some basic art supplies - chosen for their compact nature and cheap prices. I spent an hour lying on my bed after my big shopping excursion, feeling delicate. I wandered across the street from my guest house to the post office to drop off some postcards and ran into my German friend Gina from yesterday, so spent an hour chatting with her friend while Gina posted stuff home. I've managed to consume some soda crackers and a diet coke, and my stomach is at peace for the moment, thank God.

Feeling crappy in Krabi - I think I could be a lot worse off. And I've already been tipped off that it's a leap year, so I've got February sorted!