Clouds With Rocks In Them

PHOTO ALBUM - Trekking Jiri-Gokyo-Lukla-Jiri

For our final trek in Nepal we planned a 19-day trek in the Everest region, which, due to a bit of logistical challenges, turned into a 25-day endurance marathon. We encountered rain, sleet, snow, hail, fog, sunshine;  beautiful mountain vistas and idyllic farmland in rural Nepal; cancelled airline flights and one hell of a long walk.  It was amazing, breathtaking, and jaw-dropping gorgeous.  We are now many pounds lighter, thoroughly exhausted, and glad to be back in Kathmandu.

Our trek in the Solo and Khumbu Regions of Nepal started with a bus ride to Shivalaya.  Most people on shorter timeframes fly directly into the Khumbu region to Lukla to start their trek to Everest Base Camp, Gokyo, or wherever their trekking or climbing plans are to take them.  However, we heard that the six additional days from Shivalaya to Lukla were very nice and a good experience with the real rural Nepal.  Since we had the time and it makes a great altitude acclimatization trek – and since there can be hassles associated with flights to/from Lukla often due to weather (a point we would later painfully learn the hard way when we tried to get a flight out of there) – we decided to include this in our itinerary.

Until relatively recently, the trek to the Everest region started in a village called Jiri but now the road goes all the way to Shivalaya cutting about 3 hours of walking off.  Here is what the guidebook says:  “Now that buses run directly to Shivalaya, most trekkers skip Jiri.”  So we booked a bus to Shivalaya.  Here is what the guidebook should say:  “The road now goes all the way to Shivalaya and you can book a bus directly there.  However, do this at your own risk because the rickety Nepali bus has no business driving on the poor quality road that is not fit for most 4WD vehicles.  You will find yourself on an overloaded bus, top heavy because it is overloaded on top with too much stuff and people, precariously wobbling over boulders and streams and leaning way too far off the side of several cliffs while you hold on white-knuckled while peering over the edge to a river many feet below.  Besides, it takes a minimum of 2-hours for the Jiri to Shivalaya portion of the journey (it took us 3 because we had to wait for another broken down bus) and you can walk the trail in 3 hours.  Walking is better and safer.”   Needless to say this bus ride was a brutal 11-hour ride.  The bus itself wasn’t the worse we have experienced in our travels but even the paved road from Kathmandu to Jiri was so bumpy that Elise couldn’t even read a book (and she can read in the most reading-unfriendly conditions).

The trail from Jiri/Shivalaya to Lukla heads generally east at first.  Since the Himalayas are formed because the Indian subcontinent is pushing up the Tibetan Plateau, the river valleys generally run from north to south.  So that means that to go east, we had to go up over passes and down to numerous river valleys on this first part of the trek.  It turns out that we climbed and descended over 6000m/20,000 ft. by the time we finished the first six days over about five mountain passes arriving in Cheplung (near the airport in Lukla).  It was exhausting but well worth it.  The first six days did not provide the snow-capped, icy Himalayan views, but rather beautiful rural Nepal with terraced farm lands and nice villages.  In fact, it felt like there were more locals on the trail in this part of Nepal than foreign tourists.  In one guesthouse we stayed at we were the only foreign tenants – there was a Nepali family and several other Nepalis who were staying there as well while on their way somewhere.

After Lukla things change.  Since this is the Mount Everest region, and Mount Everest seems to attract every yahoo on the planet to its vicinity, the trail here (easily accessible by the Lukla airport flying in up to 700 people per day) is now full of mule and yak trains hauling gear, food,  and supplies up the mountain and package tourists in large tour groups – most of the “mid-to-late-life-crisis-must-check-this-off-my-bucket-list” variety.   We were very surprised how many white-haired people there were trekking now and we felt well below the average age of trekkers which had to be between 50 and 60 years old.  More power to them and glad to see them doing something like this, but the size of the tour groups is out of control.  Sometimes up to 20 people seem to be hiking nuts-to-butts very slowly up the mountain – along with all of the yak and mule trains jam-packing this car-less highway in the sky.  If the large slow group was a group of older Europeans (which most were) they also were likely very grumpy and did not like to let anyone pass.  After tailgating for a while grunting, humming, or otherwise making sure they knew you were there wanting to pass, it seemed like we were forced to move over into the “median” (off of the trail) and gun the engines to get by while also receiving a look that meant those who were being passed felt rather inconvenienced.    Just a minor observation of our experience…

Everyone eventually arrives in Namche Bazaar (elev 11,220 ft) for a rest and acclimatization day.  Historically, Namche was the center of trade with Tibet via the 19,000-foot Nangba pass a four day walk north.  Namche is now a bustling tourist center for the region packed with hotels and guesthouses as well as all of the modern conveniences such as internet, bakeries, coffee houses, and bars.  We enjoyed the pizza and chocolate cake.  It still has a Saturday market where goods from India or China are hauled in (all by foot) and traded.  We were there on a Saturday so we were able to tour the market.  It is amazing that everything in this metropolis in the sky – from building materials to food and drink to everything sold at the market – must be hauled in by foot from at least the airport located a day or two walk away. 

We were trekking during high season and had heard horror stories about Everest Base Camp such as crowded trails, booked guest houses, higher prices, etc.  So we decided we were going to visit Gokyo which has a similar and at least equally impressive view of the mountain, but is a little less crowded given most of the large trekking groups are attracted to Mount Everest like moths to a flame.  So when we veered off up above Namche towards Gokyo instead of Everest Base Camp, things took a turn for the better.  At least we were doing a little less inconveniencing the grumpy middle-aged Europeans.    We also heard stories of independent trekkers being turned away or served behind the large trekking-agency provided groups, which we didn’t experience on the Gokyo side.

Gokyo was spectacular.  Period.  Probably the most beautiful place Elise or I have ever seen and would boldly state that it has to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  It is surrounded by some of the highest mountains on the planet next to a picturesque turquoise lake set aside one of the longest glaciers in Nepal.  We acclimatized very well travelling slowly to Gokyo and felt surprisingly well.  We stayed two nights (in hindsight we should have stayed three, but the only drawback with the place is that at 15,584 feet above sea level, it is rather cold…especially for Elise).  Our layover day was spent hiking up to the view point – Gokyo peak at 17,585 ft for an incredible view of Mt. Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and Cho Oyo – the 1^st, 4^th, 5^th and 6^th highest on the planet.  After Gokyo Ri, we wandered farther up the glacier to view the fourth sacred lake, Thonak Tsho against the dramatic back-drop of Cho Oyo.  This was the only time we felt the effects of the altitude (minor headaches) so we turned back to rest the remainder of the day in the warm sun-room of the Cho Oyo View Lodge.  The headaches went away and we slept very well that second night in Gokyo even despite the fact that it was so cold that our water bottles froze inside of our room and our 20 degree Fahrenheit sleeping bags while wearing long underwear were not warm enough – we needed the extra blanket our guesthouse provided.      

  

We decided to then head west over the Renjo La, a 17,503 ft pass that leads down another valley connecting with the village of Lungden and Thame, and eventually looping back to Namche.  We thought Gokyo Ri was nice, but the Renjo La then trumped it.  As icing on the cake, the scenery down the valley towards Lungden and Thame provided for the most amazing walk we have ever taken as we passed yak herding pastures and Sherpa villages perched beneath dramatic snow and sun-drenched arid mountains basically on the Tibetan plateau.  It was in Lungden that we encountered our first and only full guesthouses.  This was more because this valley is not as developed for trekking and does not yet have enough lodges for the people coming the opposite directly towards the Renjo La.  However, we were still frustrated with the large tour groups because they book the guesthouses in advance which of course we, as independent trekkers, have no way of doing.  At least the groups on this side tended to be less of the cranky old Euro type. 

From Lungden we took our time getting back to Lukla as our filght out was scheduled for November 2^nd.  We spent another night in Namche (with a stop at the Everest Bakery and Pizza Hut for pizza and cake of course) and woke up in the morning to find clouds in the sky.  With the exception of only one other morning all of our mornings were crystal clear and beautiful to this point in our trek.  The typical weather pattern this time of year is morning sunshine followed by afternoon clouds.  But this cloudy morning we had a feeling something was up with the weather and our flight out of Lukla was heavily dependent on it. 

We arrived in Lukla on November 1^st to find that flights had not gone out on the 31^st and would not likely the rest of that day.  So there was already a backlog of people “stranded” (though we’ll define “stranded” later).   The weather forecast was dismal:  rain, snow, fog for the entire upcoming week.  These planes are small bush-pilot type airplanes that really need to be able to see the runway while flying in up a valley with mountains higher than their flight altitude, so fog is not a good thing.  The saying goes that in Nepal you don’t fly in the clouds because the clouds have rocks in them.  We showed up at the airport for our flight (as we were asked to do even though we could see it was likely not going to go) to find the airport deserted.  They just shut the place down and had no one there stationed to explain to people what the next step would be.  It was odd.  But the process was that it was now time to wait.  So we just hung around at a restaurant overlooking the runway with all of the other “stranded” passengers hoping for a break in the weather.   Rumor had it was that helicopter flights out from the village of Serke (an hour away) were going for $500 the day before but were now up to $700.  But it also sounded like the fog was bad enough that the helicopters were having trouble too.

After our flight was cancelled (or we assume it was because really there was no one at the airport to tell us that, but as far as we could tell it was cancelled since the place was deserted) we made plans and got ourselves mentally ready to hoof it out back to the nearest bus stop in Jiri.  Last year about this time, the weather went bad for 10 days and Lukla became overcrowded and ran out of lodging and food.  The forecast was for clouds and precipitation for the next 5-6 days, it looked possible that this situation could be repeated.  A stop at the airline office that afternoon provided a receipt to get a full refund in the cost of the airfare so that was nice.  Though this turned our 19-day trek into 25-days, walking out was the best decision we made as many of you have already heard about the “rescues” on international news. 

Let’s now address the “stranded” people and the “rescues” that the news media is talking about because it sounds so dramatic:   First, no one was stranded, they had the option to walk just like we did or pay for an expensive helicopter flight.  The teahouses and lodges were plentiful and the service and food on the way out was much better than in the heavily touristy Everest region anyway.  Yes, it takes 4 to 6 days and is hard, but isn’t that what all of the people are there for:  to walk in the mountains?  Second, these “rescues” were the helicopter flights for which people are bidding up the price so they don’t have to walk.  People were paying $1000 per seat for the helicopter ride to Kathmandu.  It was hilarious because every local on the trail instantly became a commission-based helicopter salesman who “knew a guy.” 

Needless to say, we were not too excited either about retracing our steps while climbing and descending five mountain passes for over 20,000 vertical feet up and down, this time in the rain, fog, snow, sleet, and hail.  It also made us have to miss doing a wildlife safari in Royal Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal.  But – and though it was not without its misery - it actually turned out to be entertaining.  There were many people who did decide to walk like us.  The entertaining part was how many days they thought they could do it in.  Many were scrambling to get their international flight out of Kathmandu so they were trying to do it in 3 or 4 days.  Three days is practically impossible unless you are not carrying your own weight, run some of it, and travel at night.  Four is possible for fit people though it would likely require some walking at night.  But it would be miserable for us, especially since we are carrying our stuff.   So we targeted five days and were still exhausted.  There were numerous people who had lofty goals only to be humbled by this part of the trail and probably fail to get out in the time they want.  What is the rush anyway…to get back to work?  We’d find people who were trying to do in one day what we had planned for two in the same lodge as us for lunch, clearly not going to make it.  An Australian father and son in desperate straits 2.5 days walk/bus from Kathmandu ended up negotiating a motorbike ride on a crude road from Bhandar that ended up driving through a cold rainstorm to catch their flight less than 24-hours away.  We hope they made it!  It was fun commiserating with our fellow trekkers who were travelling at a reasonable speed and people-watching the trekkers scrambling to make some crazy deadline.  We also got to experience the diversity of climate in the Himalayas.  One day we were snowed, rained, sleeted, and hailed on, followed by a little morning sunshine the next morning when we were eating fresh oranges picked right off of the tree. 

The main problem for us was that we didn’t have clean clothes.  Of course we could have washed them, but due to the damp weather, they would have never dried.  So all of our clothes were of a nasty filthy stench that I never want to smell again. It was getting to the point where clothes that were previously deemed too dirty to wear were promoted to wearable when our other clothes were even more dirty or too wet from rain or sweat to put back on. We dropped them off at a Laundromat in Kathmandu this morning and take pity on the poor soul that has to handle them. 

We arrived in Jiri, booked a bus to Kathmandu the following morning, and finally arrived the afternoon of November 8^th.  After 25 straight days on the trail in the Everest Region (38 total days trekking in Nepal if you count the Annapurna Sanctuary also), all of that time eating huge portions of vegetarian dahl bat, rice, noodles, and potatoes, I looked at myself in the mirror without a shirt on.  Holy crap!  I look like I am one of the professional bike riders who just got finished with Le Tour de France.  Though our legs feel heavy on our first day of rest in Kathmandu we feel incredibly well and are primed to return to the USA in prime shape for the holidays. 

We are enjoying a few days of doing absolutely nothing in Kathmandu except enjoying good food and drink, and reading.  November 11^th we fly to Bangkok since we now need a week on the beach. And then to Texas on November 18^th.  It is bitter sweet to suddenly realize this ride is almost over.                            

Stairway(s) to Heaven…if Heaven is cold, wet, and serves dal baht

PHOTO ALBUM - Annapurna Sanctuary Trek

The last time Brian and I had seen anyone we know was back in April, when Brian’s brother made a stop through in Vietnam to visit us on his way back home from India.  As you can imagine, we were looking forward to seeing Brian’s dad, Ashley, and his wife, Peggy, who were flying to Kathmandu to join us for a "teahouse" trek through the Annapurna Sanctuary to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) at 4130m (13,546 ft). Teahouse trekking is a very cushy form of backpacking – every hour or two while hiking, there are simple lodges that serve tea, food, and provide a shower and bed to sleep on. All we have to carry on our backs is water, clothes, sleeping bags, and toiletries.  Admittedly, this adds up to being much heavier than it sounds. When we did the Annapurna Circuit trek a couple years ago, we managed to see the mountains named Annapurna II, III, and IV, but not the biggie of the Annapurna massif - Annapurna I.  At 8091m, it’s the 10^th tallest mountain in the world,  but is also the most dangerous of the 8000m+ peaks  - it has three times the death rate of Everest, and a summit success rate of half.  Since we were trekking with self-proclaimed “old people” who want to live a few more years, we stayed safely on the non-dangerous trail, our destination being the base camp where the real mountaineers start their expeditions to the summit. We  enjoyed the incredible views far from the danger of avalanches.  (If you are one of our mothers, do not read this paragraph any further.  By “non-dangerous” trail to base camp, I really meant some of the time there isn’t any avalanche danger – which there wasn’t while we were trekking, just in case the moms kept reading despite my warning. )

 We decided to start our trek in the last week of September, with the intent of staying slightly ahead of the crowds that flood the trail during the high trekking season of October and November. Of course, the reason that is the high trekking season is because the monsoon has ended, the days are sunny and bright, and the temperatures not too cold yet. We took the gamble a couple years ago that the monsoon would pretty much be over by that last week of September  and it paid off for us. This time, the monsoon season was clearly hanging on – at least on our side of the Annapurna massif, which is the wet side of the mountain.  It rained almost every day we were on the trail, which in and of itself wasn’t that bad since we were only caught hiking in the rain shower a couple times. However, it also meant we were in clouds much of the day, we were stepping on wet rocks slick with moss, and not only was it chilly at night, it was that special kind of damp and chilly that chills you to the bone. We also discovered it means that the sweat on your clothes never really dries out overnight before you put them on again in the morning, and drying anything after completing laundry is nearly impossible.  In general, we learned the Annapurna Sanctuary is a much wetter climate than the rain-sheltered Circuit on the other side of the mountain, and it reminded us very much of hiking in the Pacific Northwest.  Judging from Ashley’s dinner-time attire of shorts every evening, I don’t think he was too bothered by the cold, but the rest of us, Brian included, were pretty bundled up every evening. 

Something else we did not quite expect on this trek was the amount of climbing up stairs, then climbing down stairs, then climbing up stairs, then climbing down stairs, then climbing up stairs…you get the picture.  There is nothing more heartbreaking than spending a couple hours gaining 2000-3000 feet in elevation, only to lose most of it in the next couple hours of hiking.  We also discovered that Lonely Planet trekking itinerary we were trying to follow has rather unrealistic expectations as to how far one should be able to go in one day when carrying a full backpack (and being above the age of 50).  We ended up splitting the first two days planned into three days, and were still pretty exhausted and sore.  Although we stayed on the recommended itinerary after that point, there were still some decently long days heading up to the base camp.   

On the plus side, almost every village we stayed in had propane-heated piping hot showers, which was appreciated more than you can imagine. We can appreciate it even more given that some porter carried that huge bottle of propane up the mountain on his back, so we could have the luxury of a hot shower on the trail. Admittedly, the food on the Annapurna Sanctuary trail was better than I remember it being on the Annapurna Circuit trail. Although by the end of the trek I was getting  tired of seeing the same menu in front of me (Dal baht, pizza, or fried rice/noodle/spaghetti/macaroni), most of the time all these options were prepared pretty well.  When we stayed in Chhomrong village on the way back from ABC, we found a guesthouse – Chhomrong Cottage - that had phenomenal  pizza, veg curry, dal baht, and - best of all - chocolate cake.  We stayed two nights.  The woman who was running the guesthouse was among the sweetest and most personable of all the Nepalis we met on the trail, which is saying a lot since almost every guesthouse we stayed in were run by friendly, conversational local men and women.

I’ve talked about some of the downsides to the trek, and some of the upsides. The big question is: was it all worth it? The answer? Without a doubt!  For all our bad luck with the weather, the day we headed up to Annapurna Base Camp was beautiful and sunny, and we had excellent view of Annapurna South, Machhapuchhare, and Annapurna I through the scattered clouds. The morning we woke up to leave ABC was even better. The sunrise cleared all the clouds, and we had a 360-degree panorama of all the mountains around base camp.  Brian and Ashley were in photography heaven. It stayed sunny and beautiful as we headed down from ABC, so we had constant mountain views for a few hours of hiking.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it. Not to be too overdramatic about it, but we worked pretty hard and the tough trek pretty much chewed up, spit out, then body-slammed certain members of our group a few times, and as a result we were rewarded with a mountain panorama that relatively few people will ever see outside of a picture.  Wow.

Annapurna 1 (Elev. 8091m)

We took about five days to get back from ABC to the trailhead in Naya Pul, including a much needed rest day in Chhomrong, home to the amazing chocolate cake.  The most excitement we had on the way back was an unexpected encounter with leeches close to the village of Ghandruk. On the way up to ABC,  our trekking book had warned of certain areas where leeches could still be a problem this time of year. Sure enough, on our very first day on the trail, Brian and Ashley both picked up a couple leeches on their feet that made themselves fat and happy from the looks of the blood spots on their socks.  However, we never had any issues with them the rest of the trip, and by the time we were getting close to Ghandruk, were in a much drier area of the mountain and had completely forgotten about the possibility of leeches.  As we were nearing the village, Peggy and I both decided to make a bathroom stop along the side of the trail – there was a little side trail that headed up and out of view, which seemed to be the perfect place to relieve ourselves. However, after doing my business and heading back down the trail, I noticed a leech on my arm. I flicked it off, then noticed one on my leg, and flicked that one off, too.  When I got back to the main trail, we started doing a leech search and found about four more on my shoes, trying to make their way to my feet.  I got those off, then suddenly remembered that I had just had my pants down while doing my business in leech invested bushes.  Sure enough, there was a leech that had started sucking on my butt.  According to the guys, the scene was very comical with my freaking out with my pants half down as Peggy was trying to flick it off of me, right before she discovered another leech on her back and proceeded to freak out herself. How did I not feel this right away? Leeches have an ingenious little system of a) injecting a bit of a novocaine-type substance when the bite, so you don’t feel it, and b) also injecting a bit of anti-coagulant, so that the blood really flows out of that little bite they made.  All was well again after a little antibiotic cream and a band-aid…and I will not be making any more pit stops off the trail.

We are now happily back in Pokhara resting and recovering, and enjoying good (at least, different) food and happy hour beverages.  Ashley and Peggy head back to Texas in a couple more days, and Brian and I will head out on another 19 day trek in the Everest region of Nepal. Believe it or not, between our trip in 2009 and the almost 3 weeks we’ve been in Nepal this year, we’ve never seen Mt. Everest.  We have had a great time with Ashley and Peggy these three weeks, and give huge props to the self-proclaimed “old people” for successfully completing this journey.  They live in Texas, where there isn’t the access to hiking and backpacking in the mountains that Brian and I have in Washington, they carried their own packs on their back (most people we passed on the trail were using porters to carry their stuff for them), and Peggy dealt with not just one, but two minor illnesses on this trip. It’s pretty awesome that they persevered and can say they’ve been to Annapurna Base Camp and back.  We will miss their company on the next trek – the evenings were quite enjoyable with conversation between four people and the many games of Euchre and Monopoly Deal.  

I’m looking forward to this next trek, and a bit nervous, as well. Nineteen days is a long time in the mountains, although we have a couple of large villages on the way (Lukla and Namche Bazaar) that should give us a few more comforts.  Wish us good luck and good weather for our next journey!

A Thank You Letter To India

PHOTO ALBUM - Agra, Khajuraho, Varanasi

Built over 17 years the 1600’s as a mausoleum for Shah Jahan’s favorite wife after she died giving birth to their 14^th child, the Taj Majal is a strikingly beautiful building that pretty much everyone in the world knows and has viewed in pictures.  Of course, we knew our India experience would not be complete without a visit, but were very surprised how well worth the visit in person to the Taj Mahal would be.  We arrived for sunrise and wandered the peaceful grounds taking photographs and viewing the spectacular white marble building with intricate detailed carvings and artwork up close.  Another tour during our one day in Agra was to visit the Agra Fort which was built by the Moguls in the 1500’s.  I’d say that it was almost equally impressive.  The pictures speak for themselves.

Embarrassingly we couldn’t resist the temptation to make a stop in Khajuraho in the Indian state of Madya Pradesh to check out a group of Hindu temples with Kama Sutra carvings that date back in the 10^th and 11^th centuries.  These temples are all immaculately carved with figurines, many in very – some of which I really mean “very” – erotic poses.  These temples were immaculately preserved and the detail of carvings was probably the best we have seen yet.  And for the record, I am not just saying that because they were erotic sculptures.  Yes, just like the magazines and videos of today, the women were all very busty and perky with the perfect curves, the men very well-endowed, and there was quite the variety of scenes and orgys with a multitude of interesting positions.  But we look past all that and appreciate the details and fine artistic nature of the temples and their historical significance.  Who am I kidding…it was fun looking at the ancient porn.  One detail we found interesting and humorous was that the most erotic scenes even had carved figurines of others nearby with their hands covering their eyes so as not to see the scandalous action going on right next to them.   In this case the pictures speak for themselves too…but some actually are so erotic that we’re keeping our photo album rated “R” and only publishing a few select poses.  If you are the type who is interested in viewing photographs of more of what the Kama Sutra carvings had to offer, just ask when we return home and we’ll show you the rated “X” stuff…including the one with a man and his horse.

Our final quick stop was to Varanasi, one of the holiest cities in India and located in the state of Uttar Pradesh.   Hindu pilgrims come to the ghats along the Ganges river to wash away their sins and there are ghats along the side of the river where cremation ceremonies for dead bodies take place in public.  Our visit was short.  We arrived late morning off an overnight train from Khajuraho and needed to leave early the next morning to start our two-day train-bus-border crossing-long-bone-jarring bus journey to Kathmandu.  So our main activity was to take a boat ride down the river near sunset to see the ghats, the city, and do some people watching from the water.  The cremation ceremonies were interesting.  There was one fire burning and one body being prepped.  Let’s just say that it didn’t smell like a normal campfire.      

That’s it for India.  We have moved on to Nepal and are looking forward to some incredible trekking and finally an escape from the lowland heat into the cool, dry, high mountain air of the Himalayas for most of our final two months on this trip before we return to the states.

The following is a thank-you letter to the country of India:   

Dear India –

Thank you very much for having us.  You are a unique, challenging, somewhat frustrating, and at times, uncomfortable adventure.  We are both fascinated with your country:  your people -  who are both friendly but who also at times can be evil, your beautiful geography, and colorful history.  It is amazing to me how over one billion people from a huge range of social classes, ethnic backgrounds, and educations can all live together in what on the surface appears to be utter chaos, but somehow works anyway.  We have a few minor recommendations as follows:

-          Foreign tourists are not walking ATM’s full of money, school pens, or chocolate.  Please teach your children that because right now most of them are really annoying.

-          You might want to do something about your litter problem.  Your country looks like a giant landfill.  The state of Texas was fairly successful with their “Don’t Mess With Texas” campaign.  From our observations feeding off your national pride, a “Don’t Mess With Hindustan!” campaign might be a good start cleaning up the place.

-          Your vendors and shop owners might want to adapt a less aggressive sales technique.  They were the worst we experienced in Asia.  We don’t enjoy that heavy pressure to buy and did less shopping and bought fewer souvenirs than we might otherwise have because of it.

-          Please fire whoever is in charge of maintaining the computer systems for train reservations.  They don’t work most of the time.  There was not one train ticket booking that was not a headache where we did not receive a message such as “System Behaving Badly.  Try again later.”  The silliest headache was the online kiosks at the Delhi train station to check booking status.  After painfully entering all the information on a touch screen that barely worked, it wouldn’t let us hit the enter button.  Not just one, but all three kiosks had the same problem with the software.  There were lines of people beating their heads against the wall because of this and no one doing anything about it.  Certainly your IT gurus (who we in western countries had actually been concerned about taking our IT jobs overseas) can do better than that.

-          The Indian head-bobble is endearing and we love it.  Please keep that one as is.

-          Indian men’s infatuation with blond-haired women is understandable.  Blond hair can be beautiful and it is not in the Indian gene pool.  However, you’re going to have to figure out how to stop the weird staring if you’re ever going to get a blond-haired woman to feel comfortable around you.

-          When you choose to install a western-style toilet, please post some signs like we saw in Vietnam and Indonesia instructing people how to use it properly.  The steamy turd on the floor right in front of the toilet is gross.

That’s it and thanks again for the experience.  While, for us, your hassles were not always worth the rewards, we will have some great memories  and enjoyed our visit.

Sincerely,

Brian and Elise

Cow Attacks and Camel Treks

PHOTO ALBUM - Manali, New Delhi, Jaisalmer

As part of our plan for taking a break from the India monsoon heat, we spent a week in Manali, a pleasant tourist town in the Kullu valley in the “foothills” of the Himalayas.  At 2000m elevation, we enjoyed comfortable days and cool nights, which was perfect for hikes during the day, reading on the porch of our guesthouse with fine views, and a good night’s sleep afterwards. We hiked almost every day we were there, but sometimes never got to our destination, the elusive Solang Nullah. Supposedly this ski resort town (yes, you can actually snow-ski in India) is 11 km from Old Manali, an easy 2 hour walk according to the guide book.  However, in three separate attempts to walk there, we either ended up on trails to village houses, cow trails to the meadows for grazing, or in our final and most successful attempt, in some other nice village two hours walk from Manali.  We blame our inability to find our destination to a lack of maps, a complete absence of signs on the tangled network of foot and cattle trails, and because asking someone is only dependable until you hit the next crossroads (or in the case of one group of women, not dependable at all since they all motioned in multiple directions).  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the scenery and exercise. The most interesting thing that happened in our week in Manali was the cow incident on the trail from Vashisht, a village on the other side of the river from Old Manali.  We were walking along and came across a woman herding her goat and cow along the narrow path. To give the livestock some room I moved over to my right, which unfortunately, was the side of a six foot drop off beside the path. The cow, with a maliciousness I never knew a cow was capable of, proceeded to use his head and horns to push me off the side.  It was definitely intentional; he did the same thing to Brian before me, except Brian was smart enough to have moved toward the wall-side of the trail. Luckily, my backpack strap got caught on a tree branch keeping me hanging upright and from falling farther down the hill, and all I suffered was a scraped up elbow. However, I haven’t been able to look at a cow without suspicion since – and there are many in the narrow alleyways, streets, and trails in India.



Our next destination was Jaisalmer in western Rajasthan. This involved a day in Delhi between the bus from Manali and train to Jaisalmer, and unfortunately, Delhi was just as hot and muggy as it was the first time we were there.  We spent part of the morning at the Jama Masjid, a beautiful 17^th century mosque that holds up to 25,000 people and offers some great views of the city from one of the minarets.  We probably stayed for only an hour or so, mostly because I was suffocating in the heat under all the clothes I was wearing  - I had on an ankle length skirt and loose-fitting ¾ length sleeve top, but they also felt it necessary to give me a robe to wear on top of that, which turned out to be not because I was inappropriately dressed for the mosque, but so they could make an easy 50 rupees off me for the ‘cleaning fee’, which I was told about when I turned in the robe. Seeing as only tourists were given the robes, even though there were actually less conservatively dressed Indian women there, as well, I’m convinced it was a scam. However, I would totally feel like a jerk trying call someone out on it in a mosque…which they probably know and are taking advantage of.

After leaving the mosque, we were desperately looking for an air-conditioned place to get into to cool off, and found that these aren’t too prevalent in Old Delhi. We ended up in a Mc…wait for it….Donald’s.  Although the Maharaja Mac (veg, of course) and McSpicy Paneer were tempting, we settled for a couple ice cream cones to cool us off.  We were able to find a couple other air-conditioned restaurants throughout the day, and only managed to feel a little disgusting by the time we got on the train. Our day in Old Delhi reminded me again of how many people there are in this country - walking down the sidewalks of Old Delhi was almost enough to make a person claustrophobic!

Then it was on to Jaisalmer. I’ve been really excited about this part of the trip because Jaisalmer is a popular place to go on a camel safari. We’d ride camels through the desert during the day, cook dinner over the fire at night, and sleep on the sand dunes under the stars. How romantic does that sound??  And believe me, it started out pretty nice – Brian and I were set up with another American, Zach, and headed out on a jeep for an hour into what really felt like the middle of the desert.  They hooked us up with some turbans for sun protection (Brian can pass for an Arab, now, and we probably could have snuck him over the nearby border of Pakistan), and introduced us to our camels – Rocket for Brian, Tiger for me, and Lelu for Zach. Chewbacca might have been a more appropriate name for Zach’s camel because  that is how he sounded…or Pigpen from Charlie Brown because of the swarms of flies and mosquitoes harvesting in his filth.  Really Lelu just looked old and arthritic, like he could keel over and die any time.  So Brian and I were happy with our camel assignments.  I hopped up on the saddle, and got quite a thrill when the camel got up - they lift their back legs, hang out for a few seconds, then lift their front legs. Getting down is the opposite and the camels just seem to fold right up on the ground so you can easily step right off.  It’s that few seconds between when they’re up on back legs and down on the front legs that’s a bit freaky, because you’re off the ground at a funky angle looking down…it took me a few times to get used to it, and I still always had to brace myself before getting up and down each time.

We set out into the desert and after about an hour took a break when we reached a village. At this point, the excitement of camel riding was beginning to wear off,  as my inner thighs were on fire. We got off the camels and hobbled, bow-legged, around the village as kids swarmed us asking for school pens, chocolates, and rupees (this was commonplace at every village we went to…some kids even start asking for us to give them our rings, watches, and hats…eventually we opted out of stopping at villages to avoid this). After the village we rode another half hour or so and stopped for lunch (again, we were all more than ready to take a break from the camel).  We set up some blankets in the shade and our camel drivers, Piru and Mr. Dinglee, unloaded the camels and set them out to graze. They brewed us up some excellent chai tea, and cooked up a delicious lunch of spicy vegetable curry and thick chapattis. We took a long rest so we wouldn’t ride in the heat of the day, and set out around 4 pm for another hour and half of riding (which is about the most camel riding I could take at one time).  We arrived in the dunes of the Thar Desert, the “real desert”, according to our drivers, which is where we were going to camp for the night. Lo and behold, about three minutes after we arrived, a man appears out of nowhere with a bag of ice-cold sodas and beer for sale.  After drinking hot water (“ice-hot” water as our guide Piru says) for most of the day, this was a most welcome site…our camel drivers said that we were quite lucky he came by, but we were pretty sure a cell-phone call was made in advance. Yes, there was unlimited cell phone reception in the desert. We’ve observed everywhere we’ve been in Asia that the cell phone coverage is everywhere, from the poorest villages to up in the mountains, unlike back home where calls are dropped routinely.

Contrary to our expectations, the desert is not immune to the monsoon. We heard from locals that Jaisalmer had more rain this year than it had seen in the last four years, and the amount of green scrub scattered through the desert and humidity in the air certainly reflected that. In fact, we even got to experience a desert rain squall a little our first night. Right after dinner, it started sprinkling, then sprinkling a little harder…it only lasted 15-20 minutes, but it was enough to get us damp, get our sleeping blankets wet, and bring out the dreaded mosquitoes. It ended up being the worst night of sleep that both of us have had on this trip. Imagine laying on wet blankets in humid, breezeless air, with mosquitoes buzzing in your ear all night long. By the time the sun came up, we barely noticed the nice sunrise and were all lamenting that we should have opted for the 2 day, 1 night safari instead of the 3 day, 2 night safari.  It was what it was, though, so we just laughed it off, hoped for better weather for day two, and started our day with a hearty breakfast of chai, porridge, toast, papaya, and eggs that had been sitting in the sun the entire first day (coincidentally, Brian and I have since experienced our first “Delhi-belly” issues since we’ve been in India). Day two was similar to day one; we rode on camels to Piru’s village and had lunch at his house. We met his sisters, who kindly brought us some fresh goat milk for the chai tea (Piru had been using powdered milk).  Although it made for some really delicious chai, we think it may have contributed to the aforementioned stomach issues.  We had one awkward moment where his sister asked to see my wedding band that I bought in Thailand when we first arrived. I took it off to let her see it, not expecting that the next thing she would say was “Me?”, indicating I would give it to her. It’s a very cheap ring, but it is my wedding band, so I was fumbling through trying to explain through Piru why I didn’t want to give it away. She understood and it was fine, but then later there were village kids actually trying to pull the ring off of my finger, making me wonder when it became acceptable in India to ask for (or demand) that tourists give away their possessions?

The second night of sleep was better than the first, although I think it was only because we were more prepared for the mosquitoes and we were so tired from lack of sleep the previous night.  Brian “invented” the technique of tying the turban around his eyes and ears to act as a mosquito net which, according to him, was a brilliant act of ingenuity of using the limited resources we had out in the desert.  After waking to another beautiful sunrise, day three was a short day –after breakfast (which included the eggs that have now been well above room temperature for 2 days now), we had about 2 hours of riding, lunch, then a jeep would take us back to Jaisalmer.  We hadn’t seen any other tourists at our first camp site, but the second night there were quite a few other safaris camping in the same area, although everyone was spread out enough we still felt pretty isolated.  However, all the safaris were headed toward the same lunch area and jeep pick-up point, and Piru and Mr. Dengly, being the great camel drivers they were, were determined to get us there the earliest so we’d have our pick of the few shady spots.  This involved a lot of running on the camels, resulting in further butt-soreness from the constant bounce-bounce-bounce on the saddle.  We did get what looked like the best lunch spot, though, so I can’t complain too much.  The arrival of the jeep after lunch was a welcome site – it meant we were out of the sun, no longer smelling camel farts, and quickly to a much needed shower.

So camel trekking was not quite as great as I had built it up to be in my mind, but without a doubt it’s an experience I will always remember.  I have a feeling that it would’ve been much more comfortable in about a month from now, as India starts entering its fall/winter season with the desert drier and cooler.  I would definitely recommend to anyone if you get an opportunity to ride a camel, try it out – just maybe don’t do it for three days in September in India after the wettest monsoon in four years.

There’s more to Jaisalmer than camel trekking; we also were able to spend time in its impressive and beautiful fort. Originally built in 1156, the sandstone walls now house temples, a palace, and a variety of restaurants, hotels, and shops. People even still live within the fort today.  It has a labyrinth of streets that usually lead to a viewpoint of Jaisalmer from high on the fort walls, but it’s small enough that you can’t really get lost. We enjoyed touring around the fort in the days before and after our trek.

We are now on our final stretch in India, and it’s going to be a busy one. We’re hitting the Taj Mahal, Khajuraho, and Varanasi in our final week before crossing the border to Nepal. We should see some incredible sites in this last week, but I have a feeling that between the heat, the touts, and the children demanding rupees for pictures (all of which we’ve been fairly warned about and are supposedly the worst in India at these sites), we’ll be quite ready to cross that border. 

Hindustan Zindabad!! (Long Live India!)

PHOTO ALBUM - Udaipur, Amritsar, McLoed Ganj

Udaipur is a very nice romantic city with castles and temples and a picturesque lake that was also the setting for the movie James Bond Octopussy.   Unfortunately, our time spent in Udaipur was mostly in bed sick.  It was not the digestive/stomach sickness that we expected we would get in India but rather a bad cold and fever (knock-on-wood…but, our stomachs seem to be finely tuned to the food in this part of the world by now so we haven’t had to put up with the “Delhi-belly”).  Elise fared pretty well and remained functional enough that she still claims she hasn’t truly been sick on this trip, but I was in bed with a fever and developed a brutal cough.  Though we spent way too much time in our hotel room sick, we did get to enjoy some meals from the rooftop restaurants with nice views of the surrounding area, attended a festival celebrating Krishna’s  - the Hindu god’s - birthday, and an Indian cooking class.  We are now armed with some good recipes to try at home, most importantly Masala Tea, various types of chapati and naan, and any type of curry dish we desire.

Our next stop as we made our way north was Amritsar in the state of Punjab.  This time our overnight train from Udaipur was in the much more pleasant 3AC class so we had an ok night of sleep.    After the overnight train we had to spend half a day on a layover in the suffocating heat of New Delhi and then catch an afternoon train to Amritsar.  While there would be some interesting sites there, we don’t have plans to spend much time in Delhi. This time of year, the lowland of India has almost been unbearable.  The heat and humidity is like nothing else I have ever felt even growing up in the heat and humidity of Texas.  Just standing in it results in our clothes clinging to our bodies while we drip in sweat, breathing what feels more like dirty steam than air.  Add trying to get over a cold and the chaos and crowds of India and we’ve had a few moments where we’re wondering what in the world we are even doing here.  I pretty much lost my temper when we had to wait for over an hour in the stagnant humid morning to submit our bags at the bag-check counter at the Delhi train station because the workers with hunt-and-peck typing skills were required to input everyone’s name and address into a computer to print out a computer receipt (it is completely unnecessary to computerize any of this in my opinion, especially by people who can’t type).  They made everyone wait in line while six people stared at a computer and then had the nerve to close the place for their morning half-hour tea break and make the long line wait longer.  That was one of those “what are we doing in this hell-hole” moments…     

Amritsar was not much better in the weather and chaos factor, but it has a very nice Sikh temple –The Golden Temple – which, as the Sikh’s holiest site, attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims a day.  Punjab state is primarily a Sikh state, which is a religion with roots in this part of India.  Our visit to the Golden Temple also included attending the community lunch.  Everyone is invited to eat and a dahl, chapati, and rice pudding lunch is offered for free (donation appreciated).  What was impressive about the lunch is that they apparently feed up to 60,000 people per day.  The idea is that people from all walks of life and religion are welcomed to sit on the floor and share a free meal together.  We found ourselves in a waiting area and then herded like cattle (a common feeling in India) into a large room to sit in neat rows on the floor.  Then volunteers came by and filled our plates.  Seconds and thirds were available until everyone had enough.  When we were finished, we were to take our plates out of the room and hand them to a massive assembly line of dishwashers.  As soon as the eating room cleared, workers would come by and squeegee up the floors and send the next mass of people in the waiting queue into the room to eat.    When we handed our plates to the dishwashers we could also see the massive vats of dahl being cooked, and chapati-making assembly lines.  It was quite a process.  I am amazed by how in India some things are completely inefficient and unnecessarily complicated (visa process, online train reservations, the Delhi bag-check, for example), and others – especially relating to spiritual things like the Golden Temple lunch – can be amazingly organized and efficient.  The Golden Temple was beautiful and it was fascinating to see those bathing in the holy waters, and how excited everyone is about this holy site and the fact that we also are visiting it.            

Visiting Amritsar also gave us a chance to make a personal visit to check in on the current India-Pakistan relations at a border closing ceremony.  India and Pakistan – who have nuclear weapons pointed at each other and have been fighting over the border-disputed areas in Kashmir  – have a land border crossing about 30km from Amritsar.  The draw to this border is a daily border-closing ceremony where Indians and Pakistanis gather on their respective sides of the border and participate in a comical display of national bravado in a gate-closing and flag lowering ceremony. 

The thought had previously crossed my mind that being in India is somewhat like being back in high-school (i.e. unnecessary pushing and shoving, worrying more than normal about things getting stolen from you)  and this border ceremony added to that analogy.  It was exactly like attending high-school pep rally where the students gather in the gym and  are pumped up for the next football game against their arch-rival.  After being humiliatingly herded like cattle through the security checks, we scurried to our seats in the VIP section for foreign tourists just in time for the show.  Thank God for the VIP section because there were so many Indians attending that the grandstands were overflowing.  Thousands of Indians and a handful of tourists turned up for the event to wave flags and cheer, "Hindustan Zindabad!" with a big show of national pride to the Pakistanis doing the same thing on the other side of the border.  Silly costumes are worn by the military border guards and there was even a tall, good-looking guy in a white jumpsuit (embroidered with Indian flag and B.S.F. which stands for Border Security Force) whose job it was to pump up the crowd to loud energizing music.  The only thing missing were the cheerleaders (Indian and Pakistan aren’t quite that liberal with their females yet – though Pakistani cheerleaders in head-scarves, and Indian ones in their saris would have been awesome).  The border guards in silly costumes do a macho show of marching, stomping, and kicking, their kicks so high that they basically kick themselves in the head.  There is a long drawn out flag-lowering ceremony where both the Indian and Pakistani flag are lowered at the same time with border guards from both countries pumping up their chests and having staring contests.  At the end, the captains of both sides shake hands and the gates to the border are slammed shut and the border is closed for the night.  It was hilarious and incredibly entertaining!

So, we successfully travelled the Indian subcontinent almost all the way from south to north by train in under two weeks which is quite a feat.  We were warned beforehand about India being a one-of-a-kind and “in-your-face” travel experience and now know exactly what that means.  Travelling the rest of southeast Asia is simple and super-comfortable compared to India.  Though we have definitely had our moments and struggled to get through an illness, and India is definitely a place that will challenge a foreign traveler, we are still enjoying it.  We just needed to get out of the heat so our next stop was in the Himalayan foothills – Dharamsala and McLoed Ganj:  home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

Our timing could not have been more perfect.  The Dalai Lama, was scheduled to give three days worth of teachings at the Tsuglagkhang Temple Complex.  Amazingly, attending the teachings was basically free (10 rupies, or 13 cents, and two passport photos was the cost of a security pass).  Although the Dalai Lama speaks fairly good English, his teachings are in Tibetan.  But with an FM radio, we had direct English translation.  We attended only one 2-hour session and sat on the floor with many monks and pilgrims from all over the world to hear the talk in a very intimate setting.  Though we had only a partial peek-a-boo view from our seat of the Dalai Lama (about 20 meters away), we did get to see him very up close while entering the temple with his entourage only a few meters from where we were sitting.  The atmosphere was very energized and, though we personally are not very educated in the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, we could tell we lucked out and got to experience something special.  This was the equivalent to a Catholic attending a teaching in an intimate setting by the Pope.  The gist of the particular teaching that we attended was that we need to end corruption in the world, focus more to achieve good heart and mind – less on achieving material things, and help and build the wealth of those less fortunate than us.  I will admit that I did find my mind wandering as the teaching went into detail on a particular Buddhist text, much like I find my mind wandering during a Christian church sermon when we start analyzing Bible verses.  Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama is a very friendly guy who displays an air of wisdom and promotes peaceful resolution to tough issues in the world.  He has a great sense of humor and a deep jovial laugh that reminds me of a Tibetan version of James Earl Jones.  He made several jokes during the teaching that got everyone who could understand Tibetan to laugh very hard.  We’d find ourselves anxiously waiting for the English translation to come through the radio only to find the translator guy didn’t translate the punch-line and left us hanging.  Oh well.  But it was very entertaining for us to hear His Holiness, the 14^th Dalai Lama, chuckle at himself as he cracked himself up at his own jokes.

With it being the home of the Dalai Lama, McLoed Ganj attracts an interesting variety of people.  Monks and pilgrims from all over the world come to study Buddhist philosophy and learn from the Dalai Lama. There are many volunteers teaching Tibetan exiles English, as well.  It seems every Western tourist who wasn’t there to teach English has come to study Buddhism or take meditation or yoga classes. To our amusement, most western travelers who were present, in my opinion, seemed to be the hippy/space-cadet type who outwardly revered the Dalai Lama maybe a little too much.  It was nice to spend some time at the Tibetan Museum and watching a documentary that helped us understand a little better the history and tension between Tibet and China.  It is a tough political issue, and while a Tibet independent from China is not likely ever going to happen at this point in time, I think we understand the history a and sensitive issues a little better now.  

After the crazy trans-subcontinent journey, it was nice to spend a while relaxing in McLoed Ganj.  The weather this time of year is very rainy – heavy rain showers once a day – and the air is still heavily damp because of the monsoon.  But the temperature is pleasant and it reminds us of the rainy spring in the Pacific Northwest.  We hiked around the countryside, read a lot, enjoyed good Tibetan and Indian food, and took another cooking course for Tibetan momos.  We are very excited about the chocolate momos we learned to cook.  They are technically not Tibetan as chocolate is not a common delicacy in Asia, but are fantastic. 

We have since moved farther into the mountains to the outdoor and ski resort town of Manali for some more outdoor activities and enjoying the cool mountain air.

An Introduction to India

PHOTO ALBUM - Chennai, Hampi, Mumbai

Our introduction to India was in Chennai, on the southeast coast of the subcontinent. Chennai really fulfilled all the stereotypes associated with India – it was overcrowded, there was trash (and feces from many species, included the human one) on the streets, livestock in places you don’t expect to see livestock, and an uncomfortable number of beggars and people sleeping in the streets. However,  as Brian said in the last blog post,  it was also a vibrant, colorful, friendly place. A highlight of our short time in Chennai was a walk to Marina Beach. Our route was lined with book stalls, ice cream stores, tea stands, and some great people (and livestock) watching. Once arriving at the beach, we were reminded that this was a country of a billion people. The shoreline, as far as we could see, was lined with a mass of people just enjoying some time by the water, as well as plenty of fully dressed Indians playing in the waves crashing into shore. The beach area itself was huge – probably 300 meters from the road to the shore. It was covered with food vendors, tight-rope walkers, knick-knack sellers, and my favorite, a stand where you could have your photo taken with a life-size cut-out of a selection of Bollywood stars. I admit, I was tempted.

On August 15^th – India’s Independence Day - We took a day trip to Mamallapuram, a beach town a couple hours south of Chennai. Given the heat and humidity, we ended up spending most of the day trying to avoid the sun.  Most of the afternoon was spent people and cow-watching from a restaurant overlooking the beach while we started planning our time in India with our newly acquired guidebook. We were able to score an India Lonely Planet guidebook for a dollar at a bookshop in Mamallapuram, which made the entire trip there worth it. We realized that we had somehow accumulated far more books than any backpacker in their right mind would carry around. So we traded five books (plus $1) for the guidebook…I’m sure the seller thought he was making out with a steal, and we were equally happy to get rid of the books and get a guidebook for cheap…everyone’s a winner.  We took in a couple temples after the sun got a little lower before hopping on a bus back to Chennai to catch our first night train (more about the trains later) for the journey to Hampi.

The trip to Hampi took a lot longer than expected. The train reservation office booked us through to Guntakal, and said it would be easy to book a train from there to Hospet, which is only a 12 km autorickshaw ride from Hampi. It was quite easy to book the train to Hospet, but unfortunately, the lady we made our reservation with didn’t mention that the train didn’t leave until 2 pm (and we had arrived in Guntakal at 9 am).  During our (long) day at the train station, we had our first experience with the staring phenomenon here in India. From what we have read and been told by other travelers, completely unabashed staring at foreigners is not socially unacceptable here.  I don’t think it’s meant be rude, it’s probably just a reaction to us looking so different (especially me, the tall blonde beacon). They don’t just glance at us as they walk by, they fixate on us for an uncomfortable amount of time.  Groups of people will stare at us while we’re just sitting reading a book. Or one man just chose to sit down next to me and watch me read the book.  As I was making the walk down the platform to the bathroom, I actually saw a man entirely shift his position so he could continue watching me walk. At one point a young graduate of a foreign language school came over to talk to us for awhile. In the course of a 5 minute conversation, a group of about 10 people had gathered in a semi-circle right in front of us and just watched us.   I’m really not sure how this social faux pas elsewhere in the world didn’t become a faux pas in India, but this is definitely going to take a bit of getting used to while we are here.

Since the journey took longer than expected, we ended up with only one quick day in Hampi. It’s kind of like a smaller Angkor Wat (Cambodia) or Bagan (Burma) – it used to be a major royal city centuries ago, and there are temples and ruins leftover from that time period all over Hampi. It’s a very interesting landscape, as well – the area is full of boulder fields and banana plantations. We spent the day walking dirt trails and roads all over the city and exploring the temples as we came across them.  We spent time practicing English and taking pictures with local teenagers and younger adults.  We figured out that people have no problem asking complete strangers for water, and since we usually carry water bottles, we give it to them. I’ve watched all the locals here, and they all have a talent of drinking out of bottles and communal pitchers without the container touching their mouth. I’ve been attempting this myself, and usually end up with a wet shirt. We met a guy from Hospet who probably knew more about Hollywood movies than we did, and thought Brian looked like Steven Spielburg. We can add this to the list of other people Brian has been told he looks like:the mafia, Osama Bin Laden, an Argentinean, an Italian, a Spaniard, the Taliban, a maharaja (defined as a great king or princely ruler)…there’s clearly a stereotype associated with a beard. 

After Hampi, we moved on to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay.  Unfortunately, Brian came down with a pretty bad head/chest cold on our way into Mumbai and so we didn’t as much of the city as we wanted to. We enjoyed what we saw, though – we stayed in the Colaba area, which is full of the old colonial architecture from the days when Britain occupied India. It makes for scenic walking, and that area of Mumbai is pretty clean, especially compared to what we saw in Hampi and Chennai. It’s not all like this - on our way to the train station as we were leaving, we did get a glimpse of the slums of Mumbai, and it’s about as depressing to look at as you might imagine.  While in Mumbai we took a boat trip out to Elephanta Island to see the caves with impressive carvings of the stories of the Hindu gods.

We are now in Udaipur, in Rajahstan state, where we plan to relax for 4 days before heading out again. This is our last stop before we make it up into the very north of India, where we hope to concentrate the rest of our time in India. This is the first place we’re planning to spend more than 2 nights – we’ve been on a 2 nights in a hotel/1 night on a train pattern since we’ve arrived in India, mostly due to the fact that we flew into the very south of India and wanted to spend our time in the very north, and need to get moving!  If you check a map, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground in the last 10 days. We’ve enjoyed the destinations we’ve been so far, but getting to them by train has been half the experience.  We’ve taken 3 night trains so far, all sleeper class since the air-conditioned cars have booked up so fast. Sleeper class is a 6-beds-to a berth, bring your own bedding, and you’re cooled with fans and open windows (except when it’s raining, or if you have a bunkmate who is paranoid about it raining in the middle of the night, even though he’s on the top bunk and wouldn’t even feel it).  Everything is open so there’s no privacy, which is okay except  there’s not much courtesy practiced in terms of the noise level…people talk loudly into all hours of the night. Food vendors roam up and down the aisles, calling out the name of what they’re selling, which of course we can’t understand but so far haven’t gone wrong with whatever we’ve tried. The tea sellers are the most ubiquitous, and you constantly here the droning “Chai…chai…garam chai”, which is welcome sound since they’ll pour you a tiny cup of the tasty drink for only 5 rupees (about 11 cents). There are beggars who walk the aisles,also -  mostly the disabled -  but interestingly, we’ve also seen the Indianlady-boys also walking down the aisles, clapping their hands and then demanding  money.  We’ve shared berths with people who have kind of pretended we weren’t there, and we’ve also shared berths with some really friendly people.   On our journey to Mumbai we shared our space with a very nice (if not a bit loud) family who managed to fit about 6 or 7 people onto 3 beds (and the floor). We had little ability to communicate with them, but they were eager to share their snacks and get us to try all the snacks the vendors were selling (we ate a lot on that train), and even passed the baby around to us, who was quite receptive to being held by what must have looked like some very strange people to her.

The trains without reserved seats are an entirely different story.  It’s a mad rush to get onto the train and find a seat, and our big backpacks that we carry around do not make getting into that rush any easier. Personal space is not an issue here; if there’s an iota of seat showing, someone will make you shove over to make room for them. It makes for some cramped journeys, but after the rush is over, everyone’s pretty polite. When a rather large woman literally fell asleep using me as her support, a man on the bench across from me just started laughing and kindly gave up his seat for me. Then the woman I was sitting next to gave me lessons on how to ‘establish my space’, or I assume that’s what she was doing when she kept tugging on my leg so I was sitting in a nice wide, open-legged stance.

Nothing could prepare me for the local trains we took in Mumbai to get from train station to train station within the city, though. On the day we left for Udaipur, we went to the Old Victoria terminus to make some train reservations for future trips (and were able to score beds on an air-conditioned sleeper car, bedding included, for our next journey, which we are most excited about). Our train to Udaipur was out of Mumbai’s Bandra station, which we could reach through the local trains from the Old Victoria terminus. The first train was fine – we established some space when we got on the train, and were able to hold onto it as the train got more and more crowded with each stop. It’s hard to describe just how crowded the train got. Just imagine a solid mass of people packed into a car and spilling out the doorways…it’s not for the claustrophobic. By the time the train stopped at the Dadar station, where we were to change for another train, we were caught in the middle of a mass of people leaving the train fighting a mass of people getting on the train. The stops are short, so we were actually not sure if we could make it off the train, but we did get off in Dadar. Then we had to get on a train to Bandra station, which was as full as the train we had just gotten off. The first train that came through, we didn’t even attempt to get on while watching the mass of people fight each other to pack into that train. The second train that came through, we did attempt to get on, but after some intense elbowing and position-jockying I found I was no match for the mob of men pushing and shoving their way onto the train fighting the mob of men trying to get off the train. The huge packs on our back did not help the situation.  We failed and missed that train. For train number three, we decided our chances of both of us getting on would be best if I tried to get on the ladies-only car. Not that the ladies are any less vicious in getting on and off the train, but at least I thought I could hold my own against them as opposed to the men.  I managed to push my way onto the third train with the rest of the female mob, and barely managed to push my way off the train against the strong current of aggressive women boarding it when it stopped at Bandra station.  Since we were briefly separated, Brian and I were not exactly sure what we would have done had one of us made the train and the other not.  It may have been very difficult to find each other again in the chaos that is a Mumbai train station.  Luckily the third time was the charm.  While this is an experience that I won’t forget, and even laugh at the absurdity of today (though not so much at the time), we have decided that public trains in chaotic Indian cities is not our thing, and when in need we’re just going to take a  taxi instead.  This type of aggressiveness is not something we understand.  While at a short train stop, Brian also had to fight his way through a group of people trying to buy something to eat at a snack stand, rather than stand in line in an organized fashion.  But then again, maybe it’s just “everyone for themselves” in this country of over a billion people…

Overall, our first week and half in India has been a good experience, with the exception of a very bad encounter with a Mumbai taxi driver at 6 am. We don’t want to go into it, but will just say that we were not too sharp at 6 am coming off a night train and the taxi driver was a very bad man and a talented scam-artist.  No major harm done - just some extra money that went into a pair of corrupt hands.  But we are not very proud of our performance that morning as "seasoned" travellers.  Other than that, we’ve seen some incredible sites, stayed at nice, clean hotels, eaten absolutely delicious food and drank lots of chai teas and lassis, and just enjoyed the craziness and chaos that is India. We’re looking forward to what there is to come this next month!