Marjorie in Qatar

Expats frequently complain about driving in Doha, but ever since we visited India I've struggled to articulate how very much worse the Qatari roads could be. It's hard to explain how much being in traffic in Delhi or Varanasi was like one long near-death experience. It's really quite breathtaking, actually: traffic flows remarkably smoothly (and distressingly quickly), given that there are almost no traffic lights, vehicles do not always obey the drive-on-the-left rule, and the roads are being shared by vastly different forms of transportation (trucks, cars, rickshaws, bicycles, pedestrians, many many many feral animals).

But thanks to Boingboing, I now have this visual demonstration to help explain it to people.

I don't know where this video was taken, but compared to where we traveled I think this road is actually less chaotic than average, and remarkably free of wandering water buffalo.

This is it, folks! Our last full day in India was spent exploring Delhi. After visiting some of the holiest sites of Buddhism (Bodh Gaya and Sarnath) and Hinduism (Varnasi), we decided to concentrate on Delhi's Muslim heritage. As on day 8, Justin didn't write a journal entry, so this is reconstructed from my notes and city guide. Also as on day 8, we didn't take our camera with us, so most of the photos below are stolen. Click them to find their original homes.

( January 27-28 )
The End!

[Back to Day 8: Varanasi]
[To India trip index]

Day 7 of our India trip: day trip to Sarnath, evening in Varanasi

( January 25 )

[On to Day 8: Varanasi]
[Back to Day 6: Bodh Gaya]

Here's the next entry from Justin's journal in India, supplemented by pictures. As always, my comments and additions are in square brackets, and pictures I stole from other people's websites are themselves links to the websites I stole them from. Take that, MLA.

A little background on day 5: we decided to go through with the Gaya/Bodh Gaya leg of our trip, despite the fact that there had been some violence lately and CMU's security advisor advised us not to go. Gaya and Bodh Gaya are in Bihar, one of the poorest states of India, which has recently had some violence from Naxilite (Maoist) rebels. There has also been some question of banditry on the road between the two towns. I think our nervousness about the situation made us much more edgy there than elsewhere, but we knew we didn't want to visit India and leave out Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.

( Day 5 in India (January 23) )

[On to Day 6: Bodh Gaya]
[Back to Day 4: Varanasi]

Shortly after I returned from India, I started writing a reflection on our trip there and the thoughts it brought up for me about suffering and theodicy. I've worked on it off & on since then, and I've never quite been happy with it. I'm still not, but I think it's time to let go of my inner perfectionist.

As always: I am no expert in the religions I discuss below and welcome critiques.

( The Four Sights & The Problem of Pain )

The India webpage project is officially taking longer than expected... sorry folks, but my thumbs are acting up, and I've been busy with other projects.

But since I realized while talking to my parents that we hadn't already mentioned this fact here, WE SAW THE DALAI LAMA! WOOT!

There.

While you're waiting for me to get my act together, why don't you try this puzzle? Justin, my boss and I are all stuck at level 5. (Warning: So far I've run across one level that I don't imagine can be completed without image manipulation. You can always download the GIMP if you don't have PhotoShop.)

I just took my first thoroughly hot shower in a week and a half, and BOY did it feel good!

We're uploading our pictures now and hope to put together some sort of travelogue webpage in the not-too-distant-future, but it will take us a while. For now, suffice it to say that I'm glad we went, and I'm also glad to be home. It was a good experience and we saw some amazing things, but it was also a difficult journey and one we're still struggling to process. The poverty, squalor and pollution were beyond my wildest imaginings of what human life could endure -- but the cultural richness and sheer beauty were also beyond my wildest dreams. That the two coexist in one country is a lot to wrap one's mind around.

It does feel good to be back in our own home. If I learned nothing else on this trip, I learned that in my most culture-shocked, homesick moments, this -- Doha -- was where I longed to be. As we begin a new year here in Qatar, that is a good thing to discover.

First thing in the morning, anyway.

So adieu for two weeks! If I get any internet access in India I'll post here rather than e-mailing folks, for maximum efficiency. :-) But realistically, don't expect to hear anything.

People on my friends list, don't forget that you can find my itinerary here in case of emergency. (Actually, my itinerary is there even when there isn't an emergency, but you know what I mean.) We'll also have our cell phones with us, and I hear they will probably work there. I don't know anything about cell phone ranges and such.

I just had a less satisfactory experience with the American Hospital.

( Moved behind a cut because, in retrospect, it just isn't that interesting )

Update: If anyone cares, I did badger another doctor into prescribing doxycycline, although she also told me it's not as good as mefloquine. Oh well. I feel pretty confident going with CDC recommendations.

I think I'm already in culture shock, and we won't get to India for a week. We went to the embassy this morning to apply for our visas, and I was seriously panicking. It reminded me of what our business professor said about high-context and low-context cultures: in the U.S. (a low-context culture) we try to design systems so that they can be figured out by newcomers with little context, e.g. by having signs pointing you to the desk where you get tourist visa forms, whereas in India (a high-context culture) information is communicated more subtly. Which is to say, everyone but us seemed to know exactly where they should be, and I was completely panicking about doing things wrong.

It doesn't help that I slept really badly last night. It was my first NyQuil-less night in a week, so getting to sleep was hard. Then there were strange noises outside our apartment all night (I later learned it was the wind knocking the construction across the street) and I kept panicking that terrorists would break into our apartment and I would forget that I'd taken the emergency flashlight out of the emergency bag in our closet. I'm honestly not sure if I was awake or asleep at that point. When I finally got to sleep, I kept having these dreams about being trapped in a frat house and trying to tunnel my way out. What's the heck is that about?

The embassy trip turned out fine -- everyone was very helpful and we should have our visas by this afternoon -- but I'm still feeling very anxious. I think the anxiety goes right back to what I was talking about in my last post: the desire to maintain the illusion of control in our lives. In my life. I fundamentally don't trust that things will turn out alright unless I worry about them. I don't trust the world to be a reasonably ordered place, and I don't trust myself to navigate it competently. (Boy, if my clinical supervisor from last year is reading this, this ought to sound familiar!) The illusion I try to maintain is that if I plan for every possible exigency, if I rehearse every possible conversation before it happens, if I prepare a response for everything that might happen to me, then it's just possible I might be OK.

And if I'm not in total control, then what? I've led a reasonably orderly and happy life; it's not like I have lots of experience with the world falling apart because I didn't plan everything correctly. In fact, looking back on previous experiences with international travel, it's been the unplanned moments that have been the most enjoyable: exploring Warsaw with my friends because the tour guide didn't show up, going to a random political protest in Sofia, too many serendipitous moments to recall or tell them all. How did I come up with this idea that the world is going to end if I don't have a plan?

I remind myself of my little rescue dog, who at the first sound of thunder has a panic attack and hides under the bed, rigid and wide-eyed with fear, for hours. For the first year after I found him, I thought that eventually he would figure out that, in fact, nothing bad ever happens to him when it thunders, and that this would alleviate the panic. Eventually it hit me that, in fact, something bad DOES happen to him every time it thunders, namely, a panic attack.

As I was walking the last block to work this morning it struck me how infrequently I (like Merlin) stop to notice that nothing bad is happening to me. I get so wrapped up in my worries about the future, I forget to notice that, in fact, it is a beautiful breezy day; birds are chirping; I have a husband I love and who loves me; I'm living in an exciting place and get to travel to other exciting places when I choose; despite the sniffles my body is healthy and happy; I'm going to eat three meals today... Instead I worry about things that probably won't happen next week. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" -- but when today isn't evil at all, I guess I feel I need to start working on tomorrow's evils instead.

foobart says it's a good thing I love travel enough that I do it even when I'm scared, and I think he's right. I have a lot of fears in my life, and I don't want my life to be limited by them. I'm getting better at trying out new things even when I'm scared (like roller coasters last summer), but there's nothing like international travel to propel me into situations that scare me silly. Thank God I love travelling enough to allow myself, for once, to be so propelled.