One of those weeks...

It’s been one of those days. Correction, it’s been one of those weeks. This morning I woke up early as usual, after not being able to sleep properly for the third night in a row since arriving in Hampi on Tuesday. Tired and groggy, with a sore throat that seemed to me to be the early stages of tonsillitis or strep, I wandered down to the river hoping to find the man selling dosa (a South Indian pancake-style food made of rice) on the side of the road. I imagined myself sitting on the boulders on the banks of the river eating dosa for breakfast, and watching the activity on the ghats on the other side of the river. Of course it was too early for the dosa guy to be there, and the fresh fruit juice guy was only just getting started, so my time at the side of the river was brief, and I made my way back to my guesthouse with a gnawing ache of hunger in my stomach.

After breakfast, which was followed by a second breakfast with Noga and Noa, I was eating a piece of peanut crunch and managed to chip the front tooth that that had been apparently not fixed so professionally while I was in Delhi only two weeks ago. Instead of getting upset about it, my new philosophy for today has become the following: “It’s a crappy day, so it makes sense that crappy things will happen”. I’m hoping not to apply the philosophy again for the rest of the day, and hopefully not again for a good while longer.

What has made this week “one of those weeks”? Funnily enough it’s actually been a pretty good week. Besides the two days I spent in bed with a virus in Goa, the lack of sleep for the last three nights in Hampi, the crack in my tablet-laptop screen that appeared mysteriously and has turned my tablet-laptop into merely a laptop (had to disable the touch screen), and of course the chipped front tooth, there’s really been nothing to complain about. Goa was amazing. The bungalow I stayed in was cute, the people were fun, it was relaxing, and the Indian hawkers weren’t too annoying (at least not for me).

Hampi has also been great. The place is incredible to see and to walk though. A geological wonder, I understand now why people have such a hard time describing Hampi. Even photos don’t do it justice. The best I can do is to describe it as a tropical landscape full of coconut palms and lush greenery, mixed with large boulders and boulder formations, archaeological relics and temples interspersed between the rows of banana bushes, with a lake and various ponds running through the verdant landscape. The six hundred or so stairs we climbed to reach the Monkey temple at the site where Hanuman was born, and the Ganesha temple, with a massive statue of the elephant god carved out of one piece of granite, were two of the highlights of my stay in Hampi, as was the bizarre encounter at the underground Shiva temple where an Indian woman practically dragged us through knee-deep water into the submerged, and very dark, inner chamber to see the Shiva lingam.

We arrived in Hampi just in time to celebrate the first few days of Chanukah at Lev Yehudi (“the Jewish heart”), a Jewish-Israeli hangout which is down the road from Hampi’s Chabad house, and is currently being run by an incredible family from Tekoah, Avital and Yonatan, and their three children, who have been volunteering there for the past few months. After getting off the sleeper bus early Tuesday morning, we crossed the lake and made our way straight to Lev Yehudi where we were made welcome by the couple and their kids and ate the best shakshuka I’ve had since leaving Israel. After breakfast we went searching for a guesthouse and ended up taking one literally next door, which was incredibly convenient for candle lightings in the evenings.

One thing that I was unprepared for in Hampi was the overwhelming presence of Israelis on our side of the river. I had been told that it was the “Israeli” side, but I did not expect mini-Israel. I suppose that after Arambol I should have been prepared. In Arambol “Om Star” was the Israeli hangout and you couldn’t move a meter without bumping into a Hebrew speaker. The difference in Arambol was that we weren’t actually staying in the “Israeli” guesthouses, we were in a more quiet area, and we were hanging around with quite a specific group of people, instead of the main “Israeliada”. Here it’s a bit different. Our guesthouse is populated with Israelis, the music is loud, the chatter is louder, and it feels a bit like one big summer camp.

Tuesday night was the first night of Chanukah and we all gathered at Lev Yehudi for candle lighting. The place was packed, and I heard that Chabad, just down the road, was equally packed. Sitting there singing Chanukah songs I had tears in my eyes. Only two weeks ago I had been preparing myself for Chanukah spent in Rajasthan with the Argentinian boys. I had requested to be in Pushkar for at least one night during the week of Chanukah so I could get to Chabad for candle lighting, but otherwise I had envisaged myself lighting candles alone each night, and singing “maoz tsur” to myself, not the most exciting of scenarios. Chanukah has always been a special time of year for me, with many wonderful family memories, and some difficult ones created only last year when my dad was sitting shiva for his sister during Chanukah. Last year I lit candles every night with my family, and this year I was prepared for a difficult eight days without my family. Finding myself in Hampi, surrounded by people who were all gathered together for the same experience, was both unreal and unexpected.

One thing I have noticed that has become a theme during the past almost-two months of traveling has been my need every once in a while to connect with Israelis. No matter how much I am enjoying my time with other people, there is something so freeing in those random encounters with Israelis along the way, those few minutes of speaking Hebrew, and that automatic connection between Israelis that is so hard to explain. When the boys and I decided to separate, the first thing I did was organize to meet up with Noga, who was one of the first Israelis I’d met on my trip. I needed that connection, that part of home that I was missing so much, and I found it both in Goa and in Hampi.

There has been a difference between now and the other encounters though, and that’s what has been troubling me and has been the underlying source of my disquiet for the last few days. I’ve become used to the freedom of traveling alone, or with one or two people. I’ve become used to arriving at a place and having to go straight from the bus/train in search of accommodation, even if I have no clue where I’m supposed to be going or where the best places to stay are. Funnily enough I enjoy the uncertainty, the challenge. Here there are no surprises. In the easy world of the Israeli backpacker, the destination is already known. Maybe not the guesthouse, but where to go and where to start looking. At a place with a Chabad house or Lev Yehudi, most people will stop there first to get there bearings, and from there, everything is easy. It feels strange to travel that way, almost too comfortable.

In Hampi, surrounded by Israelis, I feel suffocated. Not only am I a lot older than the average Israeli backpacker, I’m also not a native Israeli, although all the Indians in Hampi treat me as such. My accent and my mentality are both different to those of a native Israeli and I’m fine with that. I’m also happy with sitting by myself for breakfast and writing my blog, or going for a walk alone, or just taking a break. The problem I that here, especially in the evenings when we gather for candle lighting, I feel the pressure to be sociable, the pressure to fit in with the rest of the “Israeliada”, which makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I also find it hard to meet people from other countries while I’m in this environment. One thing I know is that I didn’t come to India to be part of mini-Israel, or to try to fit in. I came here for the opposite reasons, to branch out, and to open my mind to things and people outside of my comfort zone. The last week has made me realize that while I will continue to crave that Israeli connection every once in a while, that the connection is better found in smaller doses and for shorter periods of time.

It’s for that reason that I’m glad I’m leaving this evening. While I’m having pangs of conscience about leaving here on Friday night instead of staying for another day and taking advantage of the vibrant Shabbat atmosphere, I’m happy to have the chance to be on my own for a couple of days to regroup before heading to Sri Lanka on Sunday. Sri Lanka promises to be awesome, but also to be quite hectic, as we’ve had to plan everything in advance because we’re there over the holiday season. One thing I do know is that when I get back to India after Sri Lanka I’m going to need a break. I yearn to be able to put my backpack down and know that I don’t necessarily need to pick it up again until I decide that I am ready to. Until now, besides Vipassana, back in early November, the longest I’ve slept in one place has been five nights, arriving late the first night and leaving early the last morning. Most of my time in India until now has been planned in advance, whether due to time constraints of my fellow travellers, or of my own. I look forward to coming back and being in control of my own time, moving at my own pace, and experiencing what I chose, when I choose.

For now though I’m off to light Chanukah candles at Lev Yehudi and then I'm heading off to catch the bus to Bangalore, third largest city in India, high tech capital and apparently the most western of all India’s cities. I'm looking forward to a couple of days of jeans, and chain stores, and to hopefully finding a decent sushi restaurant. “Western” civilization, here I come!