Rabbi Moti Garmach, Kyoto, Japan - Part 5

00:20 Speaker 1 You’re saying you started your shlichus in India as a bochur.

00:29 Speaker 2 We started going to Delhi when I was a bochur.

00:34 Speaker 1 Going to Delhi.

00:34 Speaker 2 …

00:36 Speaker 1 And there, you said you traveled inside a wardrobe?

00:43 Speaker 2 We arrived, yes. We got to these narrow streets where you can’t tell where they begin or end. Everything looks—

00:53 Speaker 1 You can’t tell where the next street begins and this one ends. Is that what you mean?

00:58 Speaker 2 Yes. Everything—the dirt, everything—blends together.

01:01 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:02 Speaker 2 I was just reading about when Gilad Shalit, the soldier, was kidnapped—

01:11 Speaker 1 Yes.

01:11 Speaker 2 A young woman from his town had just come into the Chabad House. So we gathered a minyan to say Tehillim. I still have a photo of it, taken at the time: a Tehillim minyan with all sorts of people from all sorts of places. There’s a fellow named Shai Choresh. He’s from that town—I don’t remember its name, but it’s somewhere up north, in the Galilee, I think the Lower Galilee. Anyway, it’s written in...

01:44 Speaker 1 What, did he become observant?

01:47 Speaker 2 Yes, he became observant. I think he was in Tzfas. So his sister, who I don’t think had become observant—at least not then, if I remember correctly—came into the Chabad House and told us about the kidnapping, and that he was more or less Gilad’s age. Gilad.

02:05 Speaker 1 Yes.

02:06 Speaker 2 So, the Choresh family.

02:10 Speaker 1 So you gathered a minyan to say Tehillim in his merit, as they say.

02:14 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. There were all sorts of episodes involving minyanim in India. Usually, when you put a minyan together, it’s made up of Jews for whom a lot of this might be a first. I remember one fellow being called up to the Torah. They handed him the Torah’s belt, too—the belt you use to fasten the Torah scroll—so he could kiss it. This was on a weekday. So he takes the belt and asks, “What do I do with this?” Then he puts it around his neck like a scarf before saying the bracha. He didn’t understand what they wanted him to do with it.

02:58 Speaker 1 He understood it was part of the procedure; he just didn’t understand exactly what to do.

03:01 Speaker 2 Right. How it worked, which way it went. I remember one minyan when we opened the Chabad House in Hampi, and...

03:10 Speaker 1 When did you open it?

03:11 Speaker 2 Yes, I was on my own. It was in... two thousand and...

03:21 Speaker 1 Two thousand and...

03:21 Speaker 2 Two thousand and nine. Yes, I think it was 2009, toward the end of the year. Anyway, when you open a Chabad House, you don’t bring many sefarim. So there was Igros Kodesh, one [unclear], two books—just a few books. You get there and you laugh at what you’ve brought. We came and said to ourselves, “We’re opening a Chabad House for the first time.”

03:47 Speaker 1 A Chabad House. What’s the process, really? What happens? First you need some kind of place.

03:52 Speaker 2 Never mind.

03:53 Speaker 1 You need some way to operate.

03:58 Speaker 2 Let’s start by giving the background. We got married and, as we said, went to open a Chabad House in India. But you remember from last time: I was worried about raising money. Opening a new place felt beyond me. We thought we’d go somewhere already established. So we spent half a year with Dror Shaul in Dharamsala, and...

04:18 Speaker 1 Remind me—is that also in southern India?

04:22 Speaker 2 It’s in northern India.

04:23 Speaker 1 So Dharamsala is—

04:24 Speaker 2 It’s up north, in the forests, in the Himalayas. Yes, in the Himalayan mountains.

04:27 Speaker 1 In the Himalayas. Yes, yes, yes. Okay.

04:30 Speaker 2 After half a year there, during which my wife taught the children and gave classes for the women travelers, while I was more responsible for the Chabad House and for getting the funding—I’d travel and come back—anyway, by then it was clear to us that we were staying in India. So we asked travelers, “Where did you go that needed a Chabad House?” Everyone had names of places they’d been where there wasn’t one. Then you narrow it down to where one is really needed. The place we settled on was Hampi, in southern India.

05:11 Speaker 1 What is Hampi? A village, a city, a town, a district?

05:15 Speaker 2 Hampi is less than a village. Actually, Hampi itself is an ancient city, a thousand years old, with ancient Indian temples. Whenever there’s a central destination, the Israelis don’t stay in the center; they go to a little village nearby. In Dharamsala, for example, no Israelis actually stay in Dharamsala. They stay in Dharamkot and Bhagsu, which are nearby villages. And they don’t stay in Rishikesh; they stay in a nearby village, and so on. Usually they’re not right where the main attraction is.

05:50 Speaker 1 Why don’t Israelis stay in the central area?

05:55 Speaker 2 The center is usually more crowded and more expensive, with a different atmosphere. You go a little to the side, and then you create the atmosphere yourself. It’s more relaxed and quiet, and of course the prices are much, much lower. They’re not expecting tourists there. A lot of these places really developed because Israelis came and brought their friends. Israelis move as a herd. So in Hampi, too, the village where everyone stayed was Virupapur Gaddi, across the river.

06:37 Speaker 1 Across what?

06:40 Speaker 2 A village across the river. It’s sort of the—

06:41 Speaker 1 What river is there?

06:44 Speaker 2 There’s a river running by Hampi that actually separates two districts. Why does it matter that it separates two districts? To cross the river, there’s a boat going back and forth. Because they’re two districts, the boat owner has to pay taxes—or bakshish, or whatever you want to call it—to the police on whichever side the boat leaves from. So there were all sorts of rules: one price going over, another coming back, and so on. It was the same boat and the same owner making both trips, but the two sides of the river had different rules.

07:21 Speaker 1 And how wide is the river? How big is it?

07:27 Speaker 2 It depends when. After the rains, it can be fifty meters wide—very wide. When there’s no rain, the water drops and drops, and in some places you can sometimes cross on foot. So the rise and fall is dramatic, depending on the season. Anyway, there’s also a sacred elephant kept at one of Hampi’s temples. She goes down to immerse in that river every day, twice a day. When she comes out of the water purified, she blesses people with her trunk. You give her money, she passes it to the priest, and you receive a blessing.

08:11 Speaker 1 Oh, there’s a—

08:12 Speaker 2 And the Indians line up.

08:13 Speaker 1 There’s an elephant they keep inside a temple.

08:18 Speaker 2 Yes.

08:19 Speaker 1 And twice a day they send her to the river to immerse.

08:23 Speaker 2 Yes. To cool her off and so on. But that’s the ritual. Anyway, all we knew was that this place existed. Now we had to raise money. How do you start? We traveled from India to Cincinnati. We arrived in the middle of Tishrei, during Sukkos, and said, “We’ll raise money, go door to door, and head over with whatever we have. When it runs out, we’ll close.” That was the idea...

08:59 Speaker 1 In other words, that was—

08:59 Speaker 2 There’s always that worry: how?

09:01 Speaker 1 You’d live on however much money you collected, and then close.

09:07 Speaker 2 Yes, at least for the first time. You want to see what it’s like, get a feel for it. You don’t know what will happen. You arrive and see. We kept telling ourselves: twenty-, twenty-two-year-old travelers manage on their own, right? Some just have a backpack. We’d need kosher food too, so we’d pay a little more for a kitchen. We’d manage. That was the worst-case scenario, and things could only get better from there.

09:35 Speaker 1 Let me stop you. For that fundraising trip[?], did you leave from Hampi[?] or from Dharamsala?

09:40 Speaker 2 No, no, no. From Dharamsala. Actually, from Dharamsala we went to Pune, where we filled in for the Kupchik family while they went to Israel for a month—or a month or two, something like that. And from there, to Cincinnati. I remember we bought a flight from India to New York with a stopover in Israel. It was a round-trip ticket, on El Al, I think. In other words, with El Al you could buy a ticket from India to New York with a stopover in Israel.

10:17 Speaker 1 And how long was the stopover in Israel?

10:21 Speaker 2 One day on the way there, two or three days on the way back, something like that. To see the family and say hello.

10:25 Speaker 1 And travel around Israel a little on the way back.

10:28 Speaker 2 Yes, just a quick visit, to recharge a little. Also before heading out on shlichus, before going to a new place. It was really...

10:37 Speaker 1 A chance to stretch out.

10:37 Speaker 2 We were...

10:39 Speaker 1 Where in Israel are you from?

10:40 Speaker 2 Bat Yam.

10:41 Speaker 1 Bat Yam.

10:41 Speaker 2 Bat Yam. Yes. There was also hashgachah pratis: it worked out with a mikvah there at exactly the right time. It was as though everything had been planned through hashgachah pratis. Anyway, we arrived in Cincinnati, and how do you start raising money? We were a young, innocent couple. My wife and I started going door to door. This was still within the year after the murder, after the attack in Mumbai, so people’s hearts were much more open. Another Chabad House in India was another... it was like... But still, you know, when you show up at someone’s door, it’s a different kind of donation. What were we? We weren’t people they knew. We were a couple going door to door. Yes, husband and wife. I remember we came to one house. We used to set ourselves a target of reaching at least $1,800 each day—something to aim for. And there was one day when it wasn’t working. Nothing was working. Then we came to... Today I know it was Moishe Driz[?], but back then we didn’t know him. It was just somebody’s door. And it was so moving at the time. We were $700 short of that day’s $1,800. Anyway, little miracles where you see how the Rebbe—

12:05 Speaker 1 Explain what happened. You’re dropping hints, and the listener—

12:09 Speaker 2 We’d set ourselves a target, I think. On Sundays everyone was home, so on a Sunday you could reach a target of $1,800. That’s how we started: we managed it once, and it gave us the drive for the next times. You go to one house and then another. Twenty dollars, ten dollars. You’re waiting for something... And then, through hashgachah pratis, we came to someone we didn’t expect. You don’t know him; you’re starting from scratch. We arrive—

12:40 Speaker 1 What did you say? What were your exact words?

12:43 Speaker 2 That we were going to open a new Chabad House in India, and we wanted to give him the opportunity to be a partner in it—

12:48 Speaker 1 Wonderful. What did he say?

12:53 Speaker 2 He was in the middle of talking to someone, so he wanted a moment. He started to close the door on us. These are little things you really don’t... He said, “One moment, I’ll go get a check.” Then he came back with the check, and that was it. We thanked him, said, “Yasher koach,” and went on our way.

13:09 Speaker 1 You didn’t look at the check?

13:12 Speaker 2 No. That’s just not something you do. Afterward, you see that the amount was exactly what we’d been missing to reach $1,800 that Sunday.

13:22 Speaker 1 So you passed up the chance to see a hundred-dollar check.

13:26 Speaker 2 Yes, maybe it was $770. I remember telling him about it afterward. Sometimes you don’t know what’s behind a donation. But what encouragement it gives you at a moment when you need it, when you feel like you’re fighting against the wind. Where do you even start with something like this?

13:48 Speaker 1 Moti, explain something to me. Tell me in a bit more detail what it feels like. There were two of you, but what does it feel like to go and knock on a door, ask for money, then go to another door? What does it feel like? Tell us about—

14:04 Speaker 2 At first it’s very—

14:05 Speaker 1 For the laypeople who don’t do this. What does it feel like?

14:08 Speaker 2 At first it’s very hard, because you really feel like a beggar, or something like that. You have to work on yourself a lot to realize that you’re not—you’re doing them a favor. We’re going out there, we’re doing something—

14:21 Speaker 1 No, I’m asking how it feels. Whether you’re doing them a favor isn’t the point.

14:24 Speaker 2 Right. I’m saying that it doesn’t feel easy at first, but as you get into it, you work on yourself.

14:31 Speaker 1 What’s hard about it? What happens? It’s like asking your mother. What’s the problem?

14:37 Speaker 2 What? You don’t know who’s standing in front of you or what’s really going on with them, and a lot of people come to their doors. Someone might even give you an amount that seems tiny compared with what you need, with the goal you’re trying to reach. At first, that can feel very uncomfortable. But you sit down with yourself again and say: I’m not doing this for myself. I’m doing this because I’m building another Chabad House for the Rebbe, and this is the way I have to do it right now. There’s no school for this. Then you change your approach: I’m not coming to ask for money. I’m coming to offer someone something; I’m here for him. You still have feelings about it, of course, and there are all kinds of issues—how other people react, for example. But most people are genuinely happy and want to give. And you see all sorts of people. In fact, the less impressive houses usually give more significant amounts...

15:45 Speaker 1 More meaningful amounts.

15:47 Speaker 2 Yes. But sometimes, again, a person who has much more money won’t give you much because he doesn’t know the whole background. He may feel he’s giving out of obligation, while someone else gives the most he can—the most he feels he can give at that moment. Sometimes that can be more. Anyway, I don’t remember how much we raised. We didn’t count the money as we went to see what we’d end up with. Whatever we had, that was what we’d have. We stopped at a certain point. I think we got to about $13,000. Flights alone were already $2,000, and there was rent. We said, “Whatever this is enough for, that’s what we’ll do.”

16:38 Speaker 3 How much does it cost to rent a building suitable for a Chabad House there in Hampi?

16:44 Speaker 2 Well, when we’re talking about... Calling something in Hampi a “building” is already [unclear].

16:49 Speaker 3 There’s no building. Is there a hole, a ruin, a pit? What is there?

16:55 Speaker 2 The whole village is made up of huts like that—houses with straw roofs. Actually, that’s because the place isn’t legal. Nobody got permission. It’s agricultural land, and everyone built rooms on it. So if you didn’t build a solid roof, it was still considered a temporary structure. But that created this pastoral village, where everything has a natural feel. Sometimes the beds are actually made of stone—blocks attached to the wall.

17:25 Speaker 3 With mattresses or without mattresses?

17:28 Speaker 2 Well, mattresses that you couldn’t always... You had to feel them, imagine they were there.

17:37 Speaker 3 Straw that you cover with a sack or something?

17:41 Speaker 2 Yes. You never knew. Again, when we arrived, the rooms were really awful. Today they can be better. Over time, they upgraded them. As there was more competition and more tourism, each guesthouse tried to attract more people, so they started adding things. But it’s still at a certain level, because it’s a village.

17:58 Speaker 3 Meaning—

17:59 Speaker 2 A village with electricity.

18:00 Speaker 3 So you actually slept on mattresses made of straw and covered with various fabrics.

18:08 Speaker 2 Maybe. They weren’t made of straw, but they weren’t mattresses you’d... Let’s start a little earlier. We were still in Cincinnati, packing whatever we could and getting food and whatever else we’d need. You don’t really know what you’ll need. My wife went online to find out what this place was like. From what she read, it was a place with almost no electricity, no toilet paper, and hardly any internet. And you don’t know how old that information is. We’re not talking about today; we’re talking about 2009. There really wasn’t much information.

18:54 Speaker 3 Running water, though?

18:57 Speaker 2 Not even that, according to what was written online. We’ll get to what we found when we arrived. But that’s why we had to stock up. With that picture in mind, you think there’s nothing there and you won’t be able to get anything. So we landed in Mumbai and traveled four hours from there to Pune, to Kopchik’s[?] Chabad House.

19:15 Speaker 3 He came before he’d gotten into all this.

19:19 Speaker 2 Mumbai is still relatively central. Let’s call it the northern end of the south. Then you go four hours down to Pune, and from Pune to us it’s between eleven and fourteen hours.

19:33 Speaker 3 Traveling by what?

19:36 Speaker 2 By bus.

19:37 Speaker 3 They have something called a bus there?

19:39 Speaker 2 A bus, yes. It’s a sleeper bus. It has beds.

19:47 Speaker 3 Ah.

19:47 Speaker 2 There’s a semi-sleeper, which is a seat that reclines, a bit like a dentist’s chair. If you pay a little more, you get a bed. There are single beds on one side and double beds on the other, in two levels along the length of the bus. No seats, just beds.

20:04 Speaker 3 Really? How many beds like that are there on a bus?

20:09 Speaker 2 Let’s see. On one side, say five singles, times two levels makes ten. On the other side, the same number of doubles, so twenty or thirty or forty—I don’t know. Thirty or forty beds, maybe thirty-five.

20:26 Speaker 3 Really.

20:28 Speaker 2 Yes, they pack everyone in. Narrow beds.

20:33 Speaker 3 Isn’t that frightening?

20:34 Speaker 2 It’s—

20:34 Speaker 3 Isn’t it frightening to travel on those buses?

20:37 Speaker 2 In the south it’s a little less so, because the south is flatter than the north, where it’s all uphill and downhill. But you drive and drive, and you feel every pothole in the road. We learned this in [unclear], too. If you sit in the back, you’re saying Shema Yisroel the whole way, with every bounce of the suspension. So you take a seat as far forward as possible. Then you learn that there’s a bus with air-conditioning that costs much more, but the air-conditioned bus also has a different sort of passengers, people at a somewhat higher standard. These are things you learn about how life works there over time. Anyway, we got to Pune, and we still didn’t know what we would have at the place we were heading to, in Hampi. So we started buying supplies: forks, cutlery, pots, a stove, toilet paper, as we said—anything we might need. We had a Sefer Torah with us, too. In short, we ended up with so much equipment that there was no way to take it all unless we hired a taxi, a car. Now, the driver had never been to that place. India is divided into states—

22:01 Speaker 3 States.

22:03 Speaker 2 States. Pune and Bombay are in Maharashtra, where they speak a different language. Now we were going to Karnataka, and I think we passed through another state on the way, right? No—anyway, these drivers had never made that trip. So you check on Google how many kilometers it is, and he calculates a price per kilometer. I saw it today; I read it somewhere—I don’t remember exactly—thirty-something, thirty-eight, say half a dollar per kilometer or something like that. And you pay for the round trip and all the tolls. In short, it costs about as much as a flight. But we had all the equipment. Yes, we paid for the round trip. Anyway, we loaded up the equipment, filling every possible space until there was really no room left. It was a big Toyota, meant for six people, or—

23:02 Speaker 3 A pickup truck, a pickup with a double cab.

23:04 Speaker 2 Yes, yes. You load it from every direction, with the Sefer Torah, a chair, and so on. At one point I was sitting next to the driver, and I’d pushed the seat so far forward that I was sitting right on the seat springs. Everything was packed—tins, anything you can think of, disposable supplies. You’re going to open a place, and you don’t know what you’ll find there, what’s available, or what’s nearby. And that’s how we set off. I kept checking that the driver wasn’t falling asleep. Anyway, the fellow starts driving and... Oh, I wrote it down here, sorry: twelve rupees per kilometer.

23:51 Speaker 3 Which means what? How many rupees to the dollar?

23:57 Speaker 2 No, today—I have no idea what it is today. Back then I think it was sixty rupees to the dollar. So that’s very cheap, but the distance was... I don’t know, I could check now. Never mind. It cost about as much as a flight; it was really expensive. Anyway, we set off into the unknown. We drove and drove, and already from Pune you could feel the strain on the car’s wheels. From the start of the trip, with all that weight on the roof... Oh, immersing the utensils. We immersed the utensils in Pune. We have a picture with the policemen. There were policemen at the entrance to the Chabad House, and they helped us peel all the stickers off the utensils.

24:41 Speaker 4 Maybe this is a chance to put some pictures up, too. We’ll share the screen and show a few pictures people haven’t seen.

24:48 Speaker 2 Uh, wait, let’s see. I wasn’t prepared to find them, but...

24:54 Speaker 4 Next time, next time. No, no, that’s fine. Next time.

25:00 Speaker 2 Uh, wait, maybe I can. They actually are organized. Where are we? Um, anyway, here, I can...

25:26 Speaker 4 Try requesting screen sharing. Wait, I’ll help you. I’m trying.

25:29 Speaker 2 No, you need to approve it for me.

25:32 Speaker 4 Request screen sharing.

25:36 Speaker 2 No. I’m clicking and it says “host.” How do I request it, though?

25:46 Speaker 4 Wait. Here, I’m giving you access. Just a second.

25:55 Speaker 2 Those are the utensils back then. The utensils in Pune. We’re sitting on the floor peeling off stickers.

26:04 Speaker 4 There are children there, too.

26:05 Speaker 2 Kupchik’s children.

26:07 Speaker 4 Oh, those are Kupchik’s children.

26:07 Speaker 2 Kupchik’s children.

26:10 Speaker 4 Yes, I see.

26:11 Speaker 2 The one on the left is getting married now. He was in Hampi last year.

26:17 Speaker 4 What’s his name?

26:17 Speaker 2 In the pictures with the policemen—that’s Betzalel Kupchik.

26:21 Speaker 4 That’s Betzalel. I see him.

26:22 Speaker 2 Betzalel.

26:23 Speaker 4 What’s the child’s name?

26:24 Speaker 2 Uh, the children—Yigal, Yigal Kupchik. Here, you can see him better. So we took all those utensils with us. Here are the policemen. To peel off a sticker, you hold a candle underneath, and the heat melts the glue. Because the stickers on things in India are so cheap, they just fall apart. So those are the policemen at the entrance to the Chabad House.

26:44 Speaker 4 Oh, you heat it from underneath with a candle.

26:48 Speaker 2 Yes.

26:48 Speaker 4 And then it peels off.

26:50 Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. Look, we took all those utensils with us.

26:54 Speaker 4 Oh, wow. Not simple.

26:57 Speaker 2 Yes. We have the utensils.

27:01 Speaker 4 Your wife traveled in [unclear], I understand.

27:04 Speaker 2 Where? Yes. Here.

27:06 Speaker 4 Oh, she worked hard. What—explain what we’re seeing. What is this?

27:13 Speaker 2 It’s a shul. It’s a shul in Bombay, the Magen David Synagogue. Do you see it?

27:21 Speaker 4 The one in front of us?

27:24 Speaker 2 Yes.

27:24 Speaker 4 This one here?

27:25 Speaker 2 You can see it up there: “Magen David Synagogue.”

27:28 Speaker 4 Oh, okay.

27:31 Speaker 2 It’s a Jewish shul belonging to the Baghdadi community in Bombay. There’s no minyan there. Today there isn’t one in Bombay.

27:39 Speaker 4 It’s very interesting how the Baghdadi Jews got there.

27:43 Speaker 2 The Baghdadi Jews arrived three hundred years ago. There was a very wealthy man named Sassoon who came and did a lot of business throughout the region. Iraqi Jews also reached Singapore and other places. In Bombay there are a lot of things connected with him. Behind this shul there’s a Jewish school where ninety-five percent—well, ninety percent or more—of the students are Muslim. And there’s a hospital he built. In short, he did many, many things...

28:18 Speaker 4 Who are the Indians walking around in the courtyard?

28:23 Speaker 2 I have no idea. The guard, uh...

28:26 Speaker 4 Oh, so they aren’t Jewish.

28:29 Speaker 2 No, no, they aren’t Jewish. I think this is right before the trip, with all the equipment. We’re waiting for the taxi.

28:37 Speaker 4 I see.

28:38 Speaker 2 This is the taxi we’re getting into.

28:40 Speaker 4 Okay.

28:41 Speaker 2 We’re loading the equipment right up to the roof. You can see it’s on the roof now, too.

28:46 Speaker 4 Where?

28:46 Speaker 2 That’s the Toyota I was talking about.

28:47 Speaker 4 Wait, wait, we can’t see it.

28:48 Speaker 2 You can see it in the background.

28:50 Speaker 4 We can’t see it.

28:52 Speaker 2 You can’t see it at all?

28:53 Speaker 4 We can only see the shul.

28:56 Speaker 2 Sorry, sorry, I’m not... How do I do this? My children are much better at this. Oh, here. So that’s all the equipment, and now we’re loading it into the car. The Ambassador car.

29:18 Speaker 4 That’s the load.

29:19 Speaker 2 Yes.

29:21 Speaker 4 Listen, that’s—

29:22 Speaker 2 Now you can see it better.

29:24 Speaker 4 You’re lucky that—

29:25 Speaker 2 That’s the car.

29:26 Speaker 4 It is a station wagon, after all.

29:30 Speaker 2 Yes, and everything is packed. Suitcases on the roof. That’s the driver.

29:38 Speaker 4 That driver could barely handle the whole journey.

29:43 Speaker 2 That’s the Sefer Torah. There weren’t many options. That’s what was left; that was the space left.

29:50 Speaker 4 Oh.

29:51 Speaker 2 That’s how you travel in India. You see, with all the... Now you can see the front, you can see the driver opening a siddur. And this was a sixteen-hour drive.

30:06 Speaker 4 Straight through?

30:09 Speaker 2 Straight through.

30:11 Speaker 4 The driver held up.

30:12 Speaker 2 He had trouble concentrating... He fell asleep twice.

30:19 Speaker 4 What do you mean, fell asleep twice? While he was driving?

30:20 Speaker 2 Here’s the rest. While he was driving, I suddenly sensed him starting to drift. I told him, “Stop.” He said, “No, no, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Anyway, after that I didn’t sleep at all during the trip. I stayed alert, watching him the whole time. But here we’re arriving in Hampi, after fourteen hours on the road.

30:38 Speaker 4 What we’re seeing here—is this Hampi?

30:41 Speaker 2 Yes, yes, that’s the village. You can see some of the ruins in the background.

30:43 Speaker 4 What are those enormous rocks?

30:46 Speaker 2 That’s what makes the place special. That’s the landscape throughout the area: rocks of unbelievable sizes, mountains of boulders that you can’t understand how they’re standing there or where they came from. That’s the beauty of the place. Let me show you some more pictures, because really, [unclear]. It’s a landscape unlike anything else. Something special, unique.

31:10 Speaker 4 It really is.

31:10 Speaker 2 Anyway, we got here after—what? Yes.

31:14 Speaker 4 It really is.

31:14 Speaker 2 We got here after fourteen hours. Yes, after fourteen hours of driving, and now—where are all the Israelis? We’ve arrived in Hampi. As we said, we didn’t know where anything was or where we were there.

31:28 Speaker 4 Before you find all the Israelis, where are you going to settle in?

31:34 Speaker 2 Right. You find out where the Israelis are, and then you find a place to settle in. But let’s see what happened, and whether we’d even arrived at the right address.