Our clichéless Venice

Day 40 - Venezia - the blue green waters reflected the overcast skies to paint pretty postcard pictures just for us. We threw aside our maps, escaped the tourist traps and walked on the rain-washed streets. Our umbrellas didn't survive, our feet were soaking wet and the wind almost pushed us off our feet, but the city's canals joined forces with the fall colours to make us fall in love. Sigh.
Octorber 25, Monday

Venice

They told you Venice is gorgeous. They sold you perfectly packaged postcard pictures of this “romantic city.” It’s all there in your head already — montages of fluttering hearts,  the summer sun dancing on the sparkling canals, honeymooners holding hands in gondola rides by the moonlight, gushing seranaders, blushing serenadees. All this set to syrupy-sweet, cloying violin tunes that makes everything seem more whimsical than it could have been.

This was the show-reel of Venice in my head too as we sat on the Eurail, a one hour journey from Milano to Venezia. All too excited to spot these all-too-familiar clichés.

 But nothing prepared us for rain-soaked Venezia. That one day, the drenched city decided  to take the whole list of carefully-established-over-centuries clichés, make a neat little paper boat of it and set it to sail in the The Canal Grande. Just for us.

As we walked out of the station, following the sound of heavy rain pouring on cobbled streets, Venezia greeted us, not with those comforting postcard pictures we have in our minds, but with cold, unforgiving rain, coupled with the kind of wind that slaps you on your face. Yes, it was undoubtedly beautiful. But one can hardly expect two, tired and always-hungry backpackers to find the idea of trudging along in bad weather romantic. Plus unprepared travellers that we were, we had only one umbrella between us. So, after buying a violently orange umbrella for two euros, after haggling it down from five, from the omnipresent Bangladeshi hawker , we stepped out to brave this not-of-our-dreams Venice.

Deeply, darkly beautiful...

We walked. From the Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia to everywhere. We were not honeymooners blinded by the novelty of the 100-euros-a-ride, gondolas. So we walked  all over the same city that other rich, vacation-happy and love-struck couples usually sail through. Wet and shabby, we may have been, among a sea of dressed-up honeymooners, but with no pair of eyes to gaze into, we were definitely more adventurous.

We walked till we discovered a new Venezia. Our very own clichéless version, the one no one told you about. We lazily walked past the tourists traps selling Venetian dreams made of glass and porcelain. Down the cobbled streets, across quaint glass blowers’ stores, past those mysterious Venetian masks that bring with visions of ancient carnivals and magical masquerade balls. We followed the old yellow boards on the many, winding alleys, that kept promising us that Piazza San Marco was right around the corner, only to turn into more twisting alleys with more yellow boards. Stopping only to admire some exquisite trinkets through glass window displays or to click pictures of pretty window sills with potted plants.

A window-shaped poem

Our candy-coloured saviour

We measured the breadth of the tiny, tiny alleys with our outstretched hands. We laughed and posed for pictures by the blue-green waters. And all the while it rained. It poured so hard that the chill seeped into our shoes, socks and bones. But we didn’t care. The wind turned our poor umbrellas upside down, but we walked on. We lost ourselves in those little alleys only to find ourselves again. Rain-washed, bright orange blossoms begged to be the background of our pictures, the obscurest of streets led us to the prettiest of churches with  imposing bell towers that looked more ominous against the overcast skies.

Rainwashed perspectives

We ogled at handsome Italian gondoliers, lusted after the sounds of their throaty, sexy language. It was hours of walking for us, before we stopped to sit, only to pull out our shoes and see our wet feet that looked like prunes had turned blue. The wind was unforgiving and threatened to push us off our feet. We watched a gondola battle that wind, as it bobbed around in a small canal which lay under the Bridge of Sighs. The gloomy overcast skies we were seeing must have been the same skies that 17th century prisoners must have looked at wistfully, as they walked on the bridge. For the last times in their lives. Leaving behind nothing but sighs before their execution. Their last sighs still seem to be echoing all over Venice, especially on rainy days, mindless of any tourist cacophony or packaged prettiness.

Feeling strange pangs of sorrow-struck happiness in this city of love, we trudged along, braving the harsh winds to find a cosy, warm Italian café and two mugs of hot chocolate. We sat there, watching the Venetian sunset — the sky turned the Prussian Blue of paintings, reflecting itself on the blue waters, lined up with blue boats. It was this mood-altering blue that forced us out of that warmth, back into the rain. We had a train to catch to Rome. So, we decided to take a ‘bus’ back to the station. A bus that runs on water of course, like everything else in Venezia.

The blue of dreams...

The blue of melancholy...

Cold, wet and yet feeling a strange sort of love for this damp city, we stood on the deck of our bus on the way to the station, looking out at the gloomy blue waters, noticing something that enamoured tourists and pampered honeymooners refuse to see — the arched bridges, the ancient paths and the fading, crumbly-looking old buildings were so weather beaten by the unforgiving canals, that they were dying a slow, painless death. Venice is sinking. Little by little. Every year. And there’s a strange, macabre beauty to this fact. Like the unexplainable beauty of a tragedy. Like the beauty of unrequited love.

-- P

Tipsy on life :)

Day 3 - A very merry Munich! :) Oktoberfest!! Awesomeness... all u beer guzzlers, come see what guzzling actually means.

September 18, Saturday

Munich

Oktober Fest! The million pictures we saw, the many travel stories we read, all the amazing tales we heard, nothing could ever match up to the real thing. We lived Oktober Fest! And how!

Catching the fest on its first day was perhaps, the best thing we decided to do. It seemed like the whole world was headed there -- girls dressed like pretty, medieval maids of the meadows in cleavage popping dirndl dresses and guys goofing around looking awful in their lederhosen -- suede breeches. Munich looked like a page out of some fairy tale.

Pretty maidens...

Goofy men...

A 30 euro Bayan Pass took us to the Munich Hauptbahnoff. And once there, all we had to do was follow the crowd. Young men already high on beer, ladies all dolled up and merry, kissing couples, giggling teenyboppers, everyone just moved like one large, happy creature, towards the site of the Oktober fest.

Our welcome to Munich by a quirky Hindi-speaking Reisezenturm officer, who called us ‘Haseena’ was totally something else. In true European fashion, he flirted with us chivalrously, told us what to do in Munich and to our delight, could even place Hyderabad on the map. Reminding us of the spicy khana back home he said “hume India se mohabbat” hain… He was talking of the same India we didn’t even want to think of right now. Perspective.

Hunger pangs can’t be ignored even if you are on the tightest backpacking budget. So, food was first on our minds. After hunting for budget-friendly lunch in at least seven different bistros and cafes, we found the perfect little Turkish diner. The place was packed, but we managed to catch the eyes of the man att the counter. He spoke zero English. We of course, spoke zero German. We said “vegetarian”; he said “aurbegine”. We said “with what”; he said, “Rice”. We said, “how much”, he said “5 euros”. We said “bring it on baby!” J

Just what we needed!

What he finally brought us on a large serving tray filled our eyes, and tummies. There was a decent serving of piping hot, buttered rice, served with a yummy, almost desi-like, tasty, brinjal and potato curry and a basket of soft, freshly-baked Turkish bread. Hallelujah! We shared one meal together ‘cos we wanted to save up for the lil’ treats at the Oktober fest beer tents.

Refueled, and rejuvenated, we slipped into the crowd and resumed the walk again. A good half-a-kilometre before the actual venue, we heard the buzz of the happy Oktober Fest people. It was a nice, heady hum and we were just drawn into it.

Merry in love :)

The world inside the Oktober Fest tent was golden-hued, merry and high on beer, which came in 2000 different kinds. Hours of people watching, photo clicking and miles of walking through the milling crowds later we took a break for our first treat. And no, it wasn’t a brewed variety. Our eyes caught snow white candy floss, sold by an impossibly pretty meadow-maiden looking lady. We got a small one; 2 euros. Next temptation came in the form of a glossy, glazed, red candied apple… 

Not as yummy as it looks...

We yielded. It cost us  2 euros and took us 2 whole minutes to realize we just couldn’t bite into its rock hard sugar glazing. Tragic. There had to be a happy end to this. So allowed ourselves one more little treat for another 2 euros --  white chocolate coated blueberries and raspberries. Bliss.

All this while we were looking for a tent where we could buy our share of Oktoberfest beer, for cheap. And after walking in circles ogling at all that German tamasha, for hours, we found a bustling lil’ tent sold cola, Russian and regular local beer for 5 euors a glass. We asked for the smallest glass, and the lightest beer. “We have only big, BIG, glasses,” the lady behind the counter beamed, pouring out a tall glass of Russian lime-favoured beer. “The lightest,” she vouched, with a wink.

Two teetotalers sipping on a tall glass for hours together... 

As we sat on the cool green grass sipping our lemony beer all we could feel was the happy high around us. A certain hellishness we left behind seemed so far, far away. And so, so intolerable. No, it was not the beer. Hell, no! When a whole nation steps out  and gathers in one place to say cheers to life, love and whatever they are, you know something’s definitely right. And whatever that is, I wanted to take back with me.

As Munich danced and sang and made merry while downing gallons of beer under the bright September sky, we put our Happy Feet up, took a long, hard sip from our shared beer and said cheers to life.

--C

Love in Paris

 Day 26- Feel good Paris, full of surprises.The only city in the world where u can pay tribute to Jim Morrison at his grave, kiss Oscar Wild's tomb stone; attend a Mass in Latin; get serenaded by a flute playing clown, eat authentic Malabar 'parota', get roses sent to ur table just cos u r pretty, be called 'magnificient' by strangers who click ur picture... I know now why some people get married to Paris!


Soft golden light slipped in through Shilpa's French window, making pretty pattens on our sofa-cum-bed, waking me up ever so gently. The morning was warm and the street below had a happy buzz punctuated with muffled clicks of well-heeled Parisians, nibbling on baguettes and going about life with a definite purpose. I woke up to the fact that it was a Monday morning and for the first time in a long, long time, I wasn't fretting about waking up and heading to work. I was Paris and I was in love -- with the city, its sights and sounds and smells.

I loved this feeling of waking up and living a dream every single morning. But sometimes this heady hedonism scared me. What if happiness becomes a habit, I kept asking myself. Staying content, being at peace with whatever you have and whatever you do, was so easy doing what I was doing right then. And if it could be achieved back home, in the midst of our chaotic lives, then I hadn't paid attention. But I promised myself that I had to master this art of being happy, every single day. That's one lesson Europe taught me.

Another one is about love. And romance.

When India loves, it opens its heart out, asks no questions, sees no logic, seeks no answers. It just gives, till it hurts. And then just to love a little more, it gives some more. Till it hurts again. This is love for us. Be it mother-child, husband-wife, parents-children, lovers, friends... I don't know where we learnt this noble form of love from, but we are masters of it. I don't know if anyone else loves as much as we do.

India has a lot of love, that's what makes us work. Romance however, is another thing altogether. It's a pity. We have no romance in our lives, in our homes, in our relationships, in our thoughts, in our souls. If only all that unending love we have was peppered with a little bit of romance, we could create Utopia. But then I guess that explains it. It's Utopia.

Staring at the world passing by, together...

Europe, on the other hand, is full of romance. Couples here have a body language of their own. You'll see their fingers intertwined, eyes locked, their arms around each other in a half embrace as they go about doing mundane things in life. In metros, at supermarkets, on the road, in parks, churches, airports, on beaches -- they are everywhere, doing the same things, just lost in each other endlessly. Sometimes they stop in their tracks, in the middle of busy road to kiss each other tenderly. Then they open their eyes and continue walking to their destination. At other times you see them sitting in crowded metro stations or trains, eyes closed, heads buried in each other. As though they are breathing together. They hold on to their togetherness so passionately as if letting go of each other even for a moment will hurt. It's not just teenagers or 20 somethings. Married folks, young parents, gay couples, elderly couples, high school couples -- they all have the same body language. Something that's distinctly different from what you see in couples from other continents..

Everyone else disappears...

Romance here is serious business. And then again, romance is not restricted to couples alone. At least not in Paris. It took more than a week and a 100 little instances to convince myself that Paris is indeed the city of romance. It's not a tourism cliche. It's a way of life. If you need proof, you'll find plenty of it. But not if you are a tourist herded around in a group by a tour leader; not under the Eiffel tower. You have to live Paris and feel Paris like the Parisians do. And then you will see.

There's romance in the way a waiter serves you coffee at a cafe, there's romance when a passerby stops to ask if you have a lighter, there's romance when a stranger greets you for the first time and says he's 'enchanted' to meet you. Men open doors, pull chairs, lift bags and ooze chivalry in the most natural fashion. Women whisper and laugh, smile and pout, flirt and blush in response. Everyday. Everywhere.

Romance by the river

The French, like most others in the world these days, are too busy loving themselves to really love someone else selflessly. But they are masters at romance, just like we are masters at love. They even have a name for someone who loves you, or whom you love, but isn't your husband/wife/partner. L'amore -- they say. My love or my lover.

I met a pretty girl who said she has two such lovers. Both are not her boyfriends. My lovers, she said. She has no clue whether they have other women in their lives, nor do they know about the men in hers. But she is convinced they love her in the most true, pure way possible whenever they are around her. She is their Muse, they tell her. She believes.

And soon, I came across such lovers and love stories pretty much everywhere.

What will become of their love stories no one knows. But they believe what matters is the story itself. Not how it ends.

Can a life time full of beautiful, sparkling romances match up to a lifelong love that may be listless, spark-less? I don't know...

...I guess all that matters is that we don't forget to love.

--C

The old Bookkeeper

Day 25 - Haunts of bygone poets and authors still bustle with life, jazz clubs invite you in for free, medevial churches host chopin concerts every evening, ancient love stories hang in the air of every rue and boulevarde, owner of an antiquarian bookstore calls himself Don Quixote, colleges with no exams exist for the love of education.... they don't call Paris 'romantic' for nothing! Sigh!

Stuck in a time warp

Tucked away in a romantic corner of rue de la Bûcherie in Paris’ Left Bank is a tiny, antique book store and reading library. A yellow board announces proudly ­­­­– Shakespeare and Company, Antiquarian Books. Look closer and a plague with Shakespeare’s portrait solemnly greets you with an inspiring “Thou art alive still, while thy book doth live. And we have wits to read, and praise to give.”

And the Bard spoke...

It was a bright sunny October noon when we decided to go on a walking tour of Paris’ Left Bank. A few steps along the archaic Quartier Latin and we were suddenly in a time warp, transported to a simpler, more beautiful time. It’s an old, old district with much charm, character and hidden stories in every street.

We stop at this independent book store, the oldest English one in Paris. If in 1919, the likes of Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemmingway and James Joyce sat amidst these yellowing books to talk and write about life and revolution in the nineteenth century, today, young, bright writers meet there to discuss current maladies like modern love and other such indoor sports.


Tumbleweeds. That’s what they call these young writers, in a way only Parisians can romanticise anything. A perfect word to describe these present-day nomads, who tumble around in worlds of their own making. An enchanting universe of words, where they will be vagabonds forever. They roll in and out of Shakespeare and Company, living on the generous bedding offered for free for months together sometimes, while they write.  All in exchange of a few hours of work everyday and a promise to read a book a day. Two days, I read somewhere, only if it’s Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

One day, I hope to be that tumbleweed.

What touched me most about the bookstore was a quaint chalk-on-blackboard newsletter scribbled by George Whitman, who has been running this place since 1951. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve read, bringing  a smile on my face and tears to my eyes, at the same time.

The words, the simple honesty of them, reaffirmed my love for magic. Magic, not in the grandiose, miraculous sense. But the magic of ideas, words, everyday life. The old-world magic that is hard to find in a cynicism-ridden today. It’s the magic hidden in the little things that matter. Like spotting The God of Small Things.

These are those words.

If words were ever magical...

"Some people call me the Don Quixote of The Latin Quarter because my head is so far up in the clouds that I can imagine all of us are angels in Paradise. And instead of being a bonafide bookseller I am more like a frustrated Novelist. Store has rooms like chapters in a novel. And the fact is Tolstoy and Doestoyevski are more real to me than my nex door neighboors, and even stranger is the fact that even before I was born Doestoyevski wrote the story of my life in a book called ‘The Idiot’ and ever since reading it I have been searching for the heroine, a girl called Nastasia Filipovna. One hundred years ago my bookstore was a wine shop hidden from the Seine by an annex of the Hotel de Dieu hospital which has since been demolished & replaced by a garden. And further back in the year 1600, our whole building was a monastery called La Maison du Mustier. In medioeval time each monastery had a frere lamper whose duty was to light the lamps at nightfall. I have been doing this for fifty years, now it's my daughter’s turn.”                                                                                                                                                 - G.W.


-- P

How we got our Europe...

12 October 2010, Paris.

If you want something with all your heart, there’s nothing in this world that can stop you from getting it, they always said. And there’s nothing that I have wanted more than Europe.

The Europe of Hansel and Gretel; Snow White and Little Women; of Cinema Paradiso, DDLJ and a dozen other Yash Raj films. The Europe from a hundred different books and movies; songs and stories. I’ve breathed its clean mountain air, walked along its cobbled streets, heard its folk tales and felt its charms long before I came here. And each time I woke up from a Europe dream, I brushed it aside as just that. Yet another unachievable dream. But then dreams work. And just like that Europe did.

Autumn in Paris, at Jardin du Luxembourg

It took a lot of saving, a lot of convincing—first myself and then others --  and a lot of planning. But once that first step was taken, everything else fell into place. Like pieces of a puzzle that were just waiting to fit in. The first step… often, that’s the only distance between us and our dreams.

50 days, 5 countries sounded too grand a plan initially. But a little faith, a lot of goodwill and endless paperwork later, it didn’t seem like a distant reality anymore. On September 15,2010 we set out from home, to discover Europe, and in turn discover ourselves. At the lounge in the Dubai airport where we waited for a connecting flight to Zurich “Happy Feet” was born. Armed with new walking shoes, all set to live an adventure that we were too scared to even dream of just weeks ago.

It’s been 25 magical days, and we’ve reached the first half of the trip. But the magic still goes on. And on and on and on.

--C

Someone's watching our back...

Europe – 50 days – 5 countries. The biggest adventure of our lives was scheduled to begin in 6 days and we still didn’t have a visa. So did we have the heart to plan for the mammoth trip that might be ahead of us? Obviously not! A dream is still a dream until you can really see, taste, smell, hear and feel it. And a week before the trip, it was still an over-ambitious dream lodged in the back of our whimsical minds, one that we didn’t even want to think of. We were cocksure that it will never ever happen. Never ever. Then all of a sudden, the visa came, almost like a slap in the face, bringing us back to reality. A reality where a dream can be real. For real. In fact, we later even admitted to each other that we almost wished the visa never came, because we were scared. What now? Who what when where why? So many things to do and just five days before we land in Europe. But before we even found the answers, we were flying out. Unprepared and nervous. No itinerary, no hostel bookings, no plan. The only thing we were sure about was that this was going to be life changing. And that faith in our dream eventually gave us cynics from India something that was more valuable than anything else in the universe – faith in humanity.

Providence followed us backpackers as we travelIed from one country to another. It watched our backs as we sat on trains for hours. It let us know we made the right choice even as we slept on a cold, hard airport floor instead of venturing out in the middle of the night into a new city. It patted our backs when we crossed boundaries. Smiled as we ate one-odd hot meal after a hard day of bread, bread and more bread and lulled us to sleep after a long day of walking. And this providence came in many many avatars:

• .      Madhu, the wife of Christina’s ex-colleague. A techie who lives alone in Baar, a small town near Zurich. Never met her or spoke to her until a few days before our flight out of Hyderabad. Yet, after a long day at work, she went out of the way to travel to another city by train, wait outside the airport at night, take us, two strangers, to her house and give us refuge on our first ever day in Europe. Next morning she asked us to help ourselves to whatever’s in her fridge, explained to us the way to get to Germany, our first destination, left her house keys with us and rushed to work.  

•       Shalini, sister of Preeti, Christina’s old friend, and her husband Parag. Never met them either. They live in Nürnberg, the prettiest little old German city that was our first look at Europe. They hosted us, picked us up from the station, put us up in our own little room, cooked us one yummy Indian meal after another, helped us plan the itinerary for the next few days and made us feel like home even we were miles away. 

Our room at Shalini and Parag's in Nürnberg

•      Ranju and his mom. A friend of a friend. They live in Berlin. Complete strangers. Even as we were looking for hostels to stay in, they opened up the doors of their friends’ vacant house as they were on a vacation to India. Gave us the keys to the neat lil’ apartment, stocked it up with milk, butter, bread and jam and warm quilts. Ranju’s mom even cooked a yummy Mallu dinner for two random backpackers whom she’d never met before and treated us like family. 

Ranju leading the way in Berlin

•       Teresa Gonsalves, a beautiful, intelligent and warm Spanish girl who lives in Madrid. Within one week of knowing her at a programme, she invited us to her house, gave us a warm bed to sleep on and showed us around her beautiful, beautiful city. 

Happy Feet lives, laughs and loves with Teresa, Chnar and Rudy in Madrid 

•       Rudy and Chnar Ayala. The cutest couple in the world. Left their home in the US behind and set out on an epic, year-long globetrotting adventure. They are living our dream. A chance encounter in Spain had us travelling together in the gorgeous city of Barcelona. After sharing a lot of laughter, food and worldly conversations, we graduated from travelling buddies to friends for life. Wooohooo  ;) 

•       Shilpa Vaidya, friend from college. More Parisian than Indian, more real than anyone we know. Helped us do 10 days in Paris, one of the most expensive cities in the world, in a record-breaking 100 Euros each. She made us her roommates for 10 days, cooked amazing French and Italian food for us, listened to our mad wanderlust stories with utmost interest, watched Bollywood movies with us, made us laugh a lot and showed us the Paris of the Parisians, not of the tourists. She made us fall in love with the city that she fell in love with three years ago. 

Happy Feet finds a Parisian friend in Shilpa

•       Mohammed, Fatima and princess baby Raina Dastagir. My friends from Hyderabad who are one big, warm, happy bundle of joy and love. They live in Basel, Switzerland and have made us part of their lovely home. This couple made us fall in love with their adorable ways, their beautiful daughter, who is officially the cutest baby in the whole universe, the yummylicious food  they cook, their simple, Swiss life and their warmth.

Mexican night at the Dastagirs' in Basel

32 days up and we know the list will only get longer as we head to more destinations. We know that this adventure of ours would not be complete if not for each one of them. We know that every time we set foot on a new land, it will only reconfirm our faith in love, friendship and life. And I guess that’s what travelling is all about.

-- P

The beginning...

October  17, 2010, Basel

This advertisement we saw at the Dubai airport on Day 0 seemed to reflect our state of mind not just at that moment, but generally in life. We are born wanderers. We always escaped to worlds that were inaccessible to us through books and travel magazines, TV shows, through blogs of other travelers, through movies, the internet, through everything that could even give us a glimpse of ‘anywhere but here.’ But here it was… the ad… on the beginning of a journey that was real for once. Made real by the forces of nature, all the powers of the universe that conspired against all odds, to make the most magical dream of ours come true.

And this is the first picture of us from the trip (5-odd GBs later we would become expert posers, with smiles so happy that we still can’t believe we have them), but here we’re just the old us, before Europe happened. Nervous. Excited. Unsure. It’s an old story now. Today, 31 days later, we are different people. You’ll soon see why and how.