New Site

Hello Readers... if there are any of you out there anymore... As you can tell, I've stopped updating this blog... a while ago. The last post with the smashed computer picture gave you my reasons why.

Anyway, I have returned from India and have started Medical School in Dallas, TX. I have taken copious notes from my travel and hope to consolidate them in some form or fashion sooner than later.

I will no longer update this site. My current website can be found at http://arpitdave.com. If you wish to contact me, you can do so by emailing me at the address found on the Contact page of my website.

Thank you for reading and following my sojourn through India. It changed my life and I'm so glad I did it. Take care.

Laborious Updates!

Well I'm finally completed my section on Rajasthan. And I've put up new pictures! I know I had grand plans at the beginning to post regularly, but as it turns out, internet access in India is worse than I thought. And I can't stand slow computers anymore. So I don't update as often as I should.

It seems everyone has "broadband" but that means anywhere from "shotgun" dual-56K modems to basic (read: cheap and slow) ADSL. I find that India's patchwork system of everything applies even to internet, but I'm going to bore everyone if I start talking about how much I now hate PPPOE. Of course, that's BEFORE we get to the representation of India's failure to reach the last mile in their computers.

Seems that the major manufacturers have convinced India that all you need is a fast processor. So, as shown here, you can buy computers in India with fast P4's and a measly 128 MB RAM. In the US (and to anybody that really knows computers) that's an atrocity of the highest degree. Then these cafes load up every possible messenger software, antivirus program (not updated, of course), and audio/video player - and they all load on startup. So by the time you hit the desktop (5 minutes for a P4 I used recently!) you're already a few hundred megs in the hole. And then of course, you try to load IE, since most haven't found Firefox, and it's the slowest, most unresponsive computer ever. So even if there's good internet, the computers are so damn slow it feels like dial-up.

That means to update my blog and upload pictures (I shrink them first), is a chore that takes at least 2-3 hours. During most of which I twiddle my thumbs.

The worst ever? That would have to be an internet cafe in Jaisalmer. There were 12 identical computers. Pentium III 400 MHz, 64 MB RAM, onboard video, Windows XP. Jaisalmer has no broadband - all 12 were networked to one 33.6Kbps modem. Indeed, a new low.

By the way, the window said "We have Photoshop!"

So, new pictures are up. Late. Sorry. But you should know what a royal pain it is to make it happen. So thanks avid readers for sticking with me. You have NO idea how ready I am for my computer at home.

The Lonely Lord Brahma

You would think that Lord Brahma would be pretty well respected around the Hindu world, being that he was singlehandedly responsible for creating the universe and all.

It is quite unfortunate, then, that our next stop, Pushkar, happens to be one of the few places in the world, if not the only place, where Brahma has a temple dedicated to him. I suppose there is some solace in the fact that Pushkar, surprisingly, turned out to be 2007 hippie central. I had heard that Varanasi didn't have many left, and my visits in the past to Rishikesh only turned up a handful, so I wondered where they all went. Right. Found them. At least Brahma has company.

As it turns out, Brahma was supposed to get married in Pushkar to Saavitri. As the story goes, Saavitri took too long to get ready (she's marrying the creator of the universe, do you blame her? I'd wanna look good too!). But since the auspicious time for marriage was passing, Brahma, in a hurry, picked another woman, Gaayatri, to marry. Saavitri shows up to find out that Brahma has gone and married another woman. Angry at this injustice (she went through all that trouble getting ready, for... um... Brahma's sake!), she curses Brahma that he will never be worshipped anywhere but Pushkar.

It seems that her curse came true - the most number of people I ever saw in that temple at a time was about thirty. But that made darshan and puja of Lord Brahma quite enjoyable. No pandas, no pressure, just prayer.

Kumbalgarh and Ranakpur

As is Meherangarh in Jodhpur and the Dilwara Temples of Mt. Abu weren't enough, on the way out of Udaipur, Kim and I stopped by another lovely fort, Kumbalgarh, and the spectacular Jain temple complex of Ranakpur.

Though admittedly not as fascinating (as a fort) as Meherangarh, Kumbalgarh's views were second to none. I can only imagine one day how nice it will be to find my own remote hill somewhere in the world and build myself a fort retreat to enjoy as a "get-away-from-it-all" sort of holiday. Yeah.

Ranakpur, on the other hand, simply blew me away. Its forest of columns made getting lost quite simple, and the entire structure's carved detail, which rivalled that of Dilwara, kept my gaze fixed until my eyes hurt. (I might not have blinked for an hour and a half... and I'm sure my dumb-mouth-agape-stares resulted in me drooling all over myself). Every ceiling, every pillar, every shrine, every last possible surface, was beautifully hewn from a creamy white marble that also looked, in parts, good enough to eat. In the hour and a half we spent there, I managed to complete only one round of the temple - I honestly didn't want to move any faster lest I miss some intricately carved piece that would take what breath I already didn't have away again.

Laid Back in Udaipur

Our chilled out time in Mt. Abu was, unexpectedly, followed by a number of quality days of relaxing in Udaipur, Rajasthan's very romantic city-on-a-lake.

Kim and I spent a few good days just wandering in and around the city, perfectly content to walk till we were horribly lost and then take a rickshaw back to wherever we figured we might have been headed when we first left.

That took us first to more endlessly fascinating vegetable markets, where I took the opportunity to join in the haggling over some grapes. Selling at Rs. 30/- a kilo, I asked for a quarter kilo. The woman says, it's only Rs. 15/- for half a kilo, why don't you take half a kilo instead? Now I understand that "only Rs. 15/-" really isn't that much (about 30 cents), but this time, I wasn't really concerned with the number of rupees, I was worried about the number of grapes! Voicing that, she said, "Okay okay, you give me Rs. 10/-." So in all ironies of ironies, when I would have paid Rs. 15/- for a quarter kilo (probably would have paid 30/-, I just wanted some grapes!) and I ended up with half a kilo of grapes for Rs. 10/-. So I ended up sharing grapes with anyone who looked my way. Angur chaiyye? When we decided it was time to catch a rickshaw (we decided we wanted to go back to the lakeside), we got the first (and maybe only) rickshaw driver to give us an honest fare without making me haggle. For his honesty (and my grape plight) he ended up with a quarter kilo of grapes and a Rs. 10/- tip, too. I asked him why he gave us a decent fare even when we were obviously tourists (sorry, Kim, you don't exactly blend in...). Responding with some of the most amazing logic ever, he says,

"If you're greedy like most rickshaw drivers, you haggle yourself to a headache and end up taking Rs. 30/- anyway because you need the money and the frustrated tourist begrudgingly gives you 30/-. I just say 30/-, please the tourist that he got the 'local fare', and invariably get a Rs. 10/- tip."

And as I look back, it's scary how true that is. I invariably tip the rickshaw-wallahs that give me a good fare at the start. And I never tip the rickshaw drivers I have to bargain with. Seems like a lot of these rickshaw guys need to get their heads in the game.

The next evening, Kim and I caught a made-for-tourists folk dance show. Backdropped by one of Udaipur's lovely havelis, it was a treat to see some (surprisingly) good traditional dance. While the crowd's favorite was the women dancing with 10 matkas (pots) balanced on their heads, mine was a performance of terataali where every time one of the manjeeras (bells) clinked, I flashbacked to when I was 8 years old and taking part in BAPS' Cultural Festival of India and doing the same dance three times a day in front of the crowds in Edison, NJ. Oh so many memories. But it was a great show, and for sure, being able to dance on broken glass with 10 matkas is really a feat, but, hey, to each his own.

Kim and I also spent the better part of one day fighting with the Hutch people again because (just like mine did so many times) her phone stopped working again. For anyone that reads this or stumbles across this - HUTCH SUCKS! AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE! But by all means, invest in their stock - they're making a killing on new connections and fees, and since everyone in India wants a cellphone, they just keep signing up, and don't care whether the phones really work - it's all prepaid anyway!

Well, on one of my long walks, I came across a nice man sitting on his steps. He asked where I was from (typical...) and then asked if I wanted some tea. I was about to say no (I've fallen for that one and been asked to pay Rs. 40/- for a kulladi of tea), but then something struck me... There wasn't a shop, piece of clothing, or trinket anywhere in sight. So I said, what the hell, I don't have Rs. 40/- on me anyway...

That encounter turned into a few new friends (including a very nice, but jaded, french woman) and a dinner invitation (which we found out was to be cooked by the Maharani's personal chef!). My fascination with India's tourism industry and perception of westerners steered our conversation into two very interesting points made by our new friends. He argued that to be more tourist friendly, India had to do two things. First, separate business and friends. He found it just as annoying as me that every shop owner tries to strike up conversation and just when you think you made a new friend he tries to sell you something. Second, "Keep God in your business, but don't make business your God." I am all for keeping a murti in the place of business as a reminder to be honest, open, and trustworthy in business. I am all against keeping an image of Laxmi (and only Her) and praying daily that She bring more customers. Now I agree that economically, price discrimination is a fact of life, but that doesn't mean I like it. Just because I'm a tourist doesn't mean that I WANT to pay twice as much as everyone else does. Grrr.

Anyway. Our last full day in Udaipur was spent just chilling by the lake, enjoying the view of the Maharaja's Palace, and the lovely Lake Palace Hotel which, thanks to recent rains, looked like it was floating serenely in the middle.

Temple Carving Madness in Mount Abu

Yet another too-early-in-the-morning bus arrival from Jodhpur brought us to the small, friendly hill-station of Mount Abu. After passing out for a few hours, Kim and I spent the day exploring the small towns wide avenues and (surprisingly narrow) market alleys.
I love busy Indian markets. They're so much fun to just wander through. It's a really great place to see the true art of haggling taking place. For us tourists, we come to a point where we realize the value of our dollar and realize that, while for us Rs. 10/- (~20 cents) is not a big deal, it may make a serious difference to the seller. But watching haggling in these markets, where each person has a similar value for those Rs. 10/-, is a real treat. I've seen all sorts of deals struck, from an extra twig of grapes to a chicken plus-a-promise-to-buy-another-tomorrow.

After our fill of Abu's markets, we began walking around the lake that is enclosed by the hill's undulations. The path took us to a lovely viewpoint over the open agricultural plains of Rajasthan and Gujarat below. The surprising part was how far up we actually were. Since the town is built up around the lakeside, it's surrounded by the upper parts of the hill on all sides. So you lose perception that you're actually high up in the hills. It becomes very clear very quickly how high up the town actually is when you get to the edge, and the hill literally drops away for over half a mile down to the plains below. Stunning.

So we decided that we'd join one of our guesthouses' treks through the hills to scope out some better views. We were supposed to have a plain-jane sort of walk, but a split second decision to investigate a new trail possibility gave most of our group more than it bargained for. Our descent took us halfway down the side of the hill and halfway around the entire mountain. We ended up joining a family taking part in a Shivaratri pilgrimage to the small shivalings peppered around the side of the hill. In all honesty, the trek was quite difficult - steep inclines and slopes, narrow ledges, loose gravel, and low underbrush. And that the grandmother of the pilgrims was leaving all of us in the dust with her ability to navigate the terrain was, for lack of a better word, embarassing. While we were out of breath, she would restrain herself from tapping her foot impatiently waiting for us to move on...

But eventually, we emerged on the other side of the mountain near the town of Dilwara, famous for its Jain Temples. These temples are something else entirely. They are by far the most intricately carved that I have ever seen. So intricate, in fact, that I think that the artisans must have been a bit foolish to spend so much time carving out details that no one sees unless he looks really close. The Luna Vasahi and Vimal Vasahi temples were just extraordinary. The most amazing part was that the carvings were so close... I just wanted to reach out and touch them, and I COULD, but I felt guilty immediately after I did because the pieces looked like they'd break off if I touched it again. Each of the figures were so real, each of the leaves so delicate. They were totally mind-boggling.

Colored City #2: Jodhpur

As fascinating as Jaisalmer's homogeneous sandstone hue was, the fact that Jodhpur was, in sections, almost entirely blue was even cooler. Lore has it that brahmins houses were painted blue (sweet, I can have a blue house!) but nowadays, people paint their houses blue because... well... everyone else's house is blue, too. The entire blue mass of a city sits at the foot of a large hill ontop of which the old Maharaja of Jodhpur built the gigantic, romantic, and idyllic Meherangarh Fort.

Our quaint Sarvar Guesthouse sat right near the foot of the hill and gave the most spectacular view of the fort from its rooftop restaurant. Of course, if you've read this blog, you know my opinion of forts in India. Well, let me be the first to say that Meherangarh Fort would have been like any other fort if it were not for Narrowcasters' excellent guided tour implemented by the Meherangarh Museum Trust. The current Maharaja (who by the way lives in his own half of the famous Umaid Bhawan Palace) set up the MMT because he believed that Meherangarh should not die even if the Maharajas did. So the palace is under constant restoration, the guided tour tells about what life as a Maharaja or courtier was like, and even has a person paid to sit and smoke hookah while the audioguide teaches about the opium culture of the olden days of Rajasthan. Listening to that tour, I could imagine what it was like to be a Maharani, required to stay behind the purdah ('veil' - meaning, out of sight of the public), moving through backside corridors and watching over the courtyards through the intricately carved jalis (windows).

Admittedly, there were only two things to do in Jodhpur, one was visit the fort and see the blue city, and the other was to eat all the mava kachori and mirchi vada and drink all the makhaniya lassis that we could handle. So we asked around for the best places to get each of them, and Kim and I visited each one - in fact, we walked 30 minutes to get to Chaudhry Namkeen for "Jodhpur's Best Mava Kachori." And we did just that. The place to get lassis was so famous for them that the owner came in every morning to make the day's batch in secret, then, instead of giving out glasses of water, the waiters would dole out a lassi instead! In fact, EVERYONE I ever saw walk into that restaurant had a makhaniya lassi. I think to walk out without having had one would have been tantamount to sacrilege. Which of course, wasn't a problem for us.

So after our fill of forts and food (it took a good three days to do it!) we bailed and headed for the hills... well, the hill, since Mt. Abu is Rajasthan's only hill station (and from the looks of it, the only hill period).

Rajasthan: Sandcastle City and Camel Safaris

When Kim and I decided to travel together, we agreed on Rajasthan and figured we'd start far west and work our way back toward Delhi over the course of about three weeks. So a 19-hour train ride later, we ended up in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan's sandstone city that looks like one giant sandcastle - crowned with the Jaisalmer Fort city which is a bustling town that grew up within the walls of Jaisalmer's fort. Kim and I, along with a few new Australian buddies, found ourselves a place to stay at the (rather shoddy but cheap) Hotel Rajdhani.

After a long walk around the city and through the fort, past many of Jaisalmer's famous (and gorgeously) sculpted havelis (former residences of rich merchants), I realized why people loved this town. It is small, sleepy, and exists now almost entirely to service the fast-growing tourist industry that centers around the 3-5 day camel safaris that every tourist (including us) takes part in.

We departed on a camel safari arranged by our hotel owner (they're all in the business of selling safaris, too) for 3 days. That was about two days too many. After having seen endless sanddunes that really do stretch as far as the eyes can see, Rajasthan's Thar Desert dunes were, well, uninspiring. The clear nights did make for beautiful views of the sky filled with millions of stars, but the most memorable experience of our safari was the freak powerful rainstorm in the middle of a desert during Rajasthan's dry season. Who would have guessed?

Needless to say, our camel safari guides were utterly worthless - taking the waterproof rain coverings and synthetic wraps for themselves and leaving us with the stack of wool blankets that were soaked in 5 minutes. So the 3 Aussies and Kim and I put our brains together, used the camel saddles for windbreaks, and buried ourselves in the sand behind them in our sleeping bags with the wool blankets piled thick on top of us. We stayed warm and dry for the most part and had a good laugh about it the next day. We must have done a good job because our camel safari guides were coughing up a storm the next morning and we were just fine. We were miffed though and did not want to pay the full amount for our safari since our guides were, well, worthless. That and another guy with us (an Argentinian) paid a lot less, too.

We decided to head over to Jodhpur the next day, but not before some shenanigans with our hotel owner who was furious that we didn't want to pay up, insisting that he was in no fault whatsoever. This was despite the fact that he insisted that we pay only 50% up front and not pay the rest if we were in anyway dissatisfied. Our attempt to pay Rs. 500/- per night (about 85%) was met with angry yelling and the owner slamming the hotel door shut and attempting to lock us in. It didn't help that he had been drinking too much. So we gave him an extra Rs. 100/- a night ($10 total for a lot of peace of mind is a good deal in my opinion) and left.

Sigh... why is it that India is so great, then in a split second can absolutely ruin itself? Well, we were in for a pleasant surprise with the next two weeks, staying at lovely, great-value guesthouses that were, well, ridiculously cheap, too. More later.

Buddy/Swap and Delhi's Contrasts

Much to my disappointment, Mary had to leave for her study abroad program in Nepal after a nights stay back in Delhi. But all was not lost.

As it turned out, while in Gujarat, I received an email from my previous travel buddy JM (see all the TNB posts from December/January) saying that there was another Rice Alum coming to India, a girl named Kim Swanson, and he wanted to know if I could be in Delhi to pick her up at the airport to smooth her transition into the country.

I might have already mentioned elsewhere in this blog that I think Delhi is perhaps the worst city in which to introduce a first-time visitor to India. And I want everyone to fall in love with this country as I have over the past 6 months. I think there is a lot to love and learn in and about India, but since there are no second impressions, just stepping out of Delhi's airport can be one HUGE strike.

I emailed back saying I was currently traveling with Mary, but if I was going to be in Delhi when she arrived, I would most definitely pick her up. Lo and behold, she says she's arriving on January 30, at 10:30 AM (on the same flight that Mary came on a few weeks earlier). Mary was leaving for Nepal on January 30th at 1:00 PM. Not only was I going to be in Delhi, I was going to be at the airport already, too! Some things are meant to happen, and I'm convinced I was meant to pick up Kim Swanson at the airport.

So out went Mary and in came Kim. Our first stop was the backpacker stop - Paharganj. After stepping out of our taxi, we were immediately accosted by a flurry of touts. Amid their pitches for hotels, one dropped the words, "brand new hotel." So I said, let's check it out. And for the first time, a tout actually got me a really good deal. The Star Villas DX (deluxe - and they weren't lying) Hotel was brand new and Kim expertly haggled her way to a room for Rs. 400/- a night - by far the best value room I had ever seen in India. All the hot water you could want, a comfy foam mattress, new-and-working satellite television, and a wool blanket. Thinking over to my uncle's house and its mattresses and odors, I actually contemplated getting a room there too.

But what surprised me most was that Kim just dropped her bags off in the room and said, okay, let's explore the city. I was blown away by how much energy she had. After flying in from who-knows-where-developing-country-in-Africa, she spent a full day in and around the city. We hung out in Paharganj, went to Lajpat Nagar (where Kim got henna on her hands), got her a SIM card in Ansal Plaza and stopped in Connaught Place for dinner and some drinks. It's the most active day I have probably ever had in Delhi, and she was doing it fresh off an overnight international plane flight!

The few days that she and I spent hanging out together in New Delhi were full of the contrasts that I think embody India so well. I would meet her in the dusty, dirty, packed, and tout-infested Paharganj where she spent Rs. 400/- on a hotel and we would head over to Connaught Place or a market somewhere and find a restaurant (had to have dosas for Kim) and pay $1 for a stuff-yourself-silly-thali. We'd then talk, people watch, and haggle over Rs. 20/- trinkets for most of the afternoon, and then when we were pooped would head to nice restaurant for dinner - and then we'd leave India for a while by entering DV8 or QB'A, both really posh bars (QB'A has 3 levels with a VIP island in the middle and fiber optic lighting in the ceiling) and drop Rs. 1500/- on some dumplings and a few mocktails (the alcoholic drinks sounded really bad). And then we'd emerge again and she'd head back to her hotel in the narrow, dank, wet (and now dark) alleys of Paharganj, and I'd fight tooth-and-nail with a rickshaw driver to take me back home for Rs. 50/-.

India's newfound wealth has made Delhi a pretty amazing city. In a 5 square kilometer area, it houses the poorest of the poor and the richest of the rich - and caters to all of them. And even the burgeoning middle class is catered for too. Did you know that McDonalds India delivers?

How amazing is that?

The Alleppey Beach Resort

The beginning of our stay at the Alleppey Beach "Resort" made me reconsider medicine and think about taking up engineering.

Our hot water shower wasn't working because the management had installed one of India's new-fangled propane instant water heaters to provide "unlimited hot water." Unfortunately, as is with many things in India, the heater was installed haphazardly (the propane tank, which was connected to the heater unit by an old rubber tube that had sat out in the sun too long, sat on top of 3 bricks stacked on an old 50-gallon drum that used to be filled with tar), and no one knew how to use it or how to get it to work. The manager was a nice guy, but utterly incompetent. After promising to "call the plumber" he simply went away. But that still left me without a shower.

So I trooped out behind our little cottage and a set about figuring out how one of these little heaters worked. And I figured it out, and so we got hot water. I asked the manager if the plumber was coming. "Tomorrow he coming," and no explanation of why he wasn't coming 'today,' or better yet, 'right away.' Good thing I knew could figure out how to fix water heaters.

But other than a nice long stroll down the beach and a whole bunch more games of Ziggity, I am proud to say Mary and I successfully did absolutely nothing at the beach other than sitting and enjoy. We ventured into Alleppey a few times to walk around, but enjoyed more being able to do nothing.

Overnight on a Private Houseboat

One of the highlights of the vacation through Kerala was a night we spent journeying from Kumarakom to Alleppey on our very own houseboat. These houseboats are designed like the Keralan rice barges on steroids - they come with anywhere from one double room to more or less a floating palace of 8-10 rooms. They have anywhere from basic facilities to satellite television.

I'd like to say that houseboat experience is a unique one, but with over 500 houseboats operating out of Alleppey and another 200 from Kumarakom (and all 700 go back and forth between the two), they are by FAR the most common transport form on the famed backwaters of Kerala. In fact, they're so common, that they are often seen pulling along the local hollowed-out-trunk canoes as a sort of free waterway taxi service.

Just lazing around the backwaters for the afternoon and docking to watch the sunset over the palm-fringed banks was a very relaxing way to start slowing down after a fairly fast-paced tour of Kerala. Besides the fact that our houseboat actually had an upper-deck (a neat little place to sit with a bit of privacy, there wasn't much else to write home about. I would write more here if there were more to say, but frankly, Mary and I really just enjoyed doing nothing - we played Ziggity (an amazing card game, let me tell you), and Phase 10 (another good card game), read our books, ate, and just had a good time doing nothing.

Bamboo Rafting in the Reserve

The next day had us engaging in an activity pitched as "Bamboo Rafting." Now when I think of rafting, I think of rivers and whitewater and physical activity. It ended up being a lazy wildlife watching day-cruise on scrap bamboo trunks roped together into small flotillas. But without the wildlife (seriously, the only animals we saw were humans digging for clams on the banks). We were escorted again by an armed escort and the guides/raftsmen.

It was on a lake made by the downstream damming of the Periyar River and so the lake was punctuated with gnarled, dead, half-submerged tree trunks. Had the weather been foul, dark, and stormy, it would have been the perfect setting for a horror movie. But in broad daylight it looked sort of silly. Kind of like, "Well, we have this lake now, what do we do? I know! Let's float tourists around on it!"

But that we spent like 6 hours on these boats and didn't see a single animal made it more or less ridiculous. Eventually, we parked our boats and began walking again. Our armed escort had left us when we boarded the rafts (water keeps us safe from the tigers?) but when we disembarked in a different spot, he was no longer with us. Now in all seriousness, walking along the known tourist trails has got to be pretty safe even without a guard - the tigers hardly frequent those places anyway. But because we saw NO wildlife whatsoever, our guides were going to try to give us some value-adds. They led us deeper into the sanctuary and into a tall-grass savannah-type plain. With grass taller than Mary and all around us, another member of our group made the astute observation that THIS is really where we need the armed guard. As the wind blew over the tops of the grasses making them undulate, it was altogether too easy to imagine being stalked by a tiger. It could have been 2 feet away in the grass and we never would have known. I felt like I was in the Jurassic Park scene where the scientists and badguys are running through the field and they're getting pulled down by velociraptors that you can't see. His observation was met with nervous laughs. Those laughs turned into anxious silence when it became clear that our "guides" had lost their way. Eventually they led us out to a vast open plain across which we could see elephants! In broken english they told us not to tell anyone what we were about to do, and we marched across the open plain to where the elephants were. About a 150m away, they got whiff of our arrival and started slowly lumbering away. We got a few snaps in before they disappeared around a bend.

We then hiked back to our starting point, had a snack, and our day ended as the sun began to set.

New Blog Features

After some inspiration to edit my blog (read: frustration at how boring it looked) I decided to add some new features. With my pictures finally ahead of my blog writing, I decided to start accompaying blog posts with pictures - as you can tell from the recent posts of my time in Kerala. You might also notice on the right hand side, there is now an embedded YouTube video. This video is the trailer to the hit international large-screen format film Mystic India.

I plan on making my posts more interactive, and now, with the new Blogger up and running well, I will upload some of the videos that I have taken for your enjoyment as well. Enjoy the blog!

Night Treks in Tiger Territory: Periyar Sanctuary

Our departure from the tea fields of Munnar did not rob us of gorgeous scenery. Quite the opposite in fact. After rounding a bend, the tea fields all but disappeared and we were treated to the rolling Western Ghats fading off into the distance, covered in dense forest that looked more like the Appalachian Mountains than anything else. Kerala's landscapes again did not disappoint.

We descended out of the Ghats to the small town of Kumily, in the region of Thekkady, right at the border of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. As a consequence, the place was known interchangeably as Kumily, Thekkady, and Periyar... even to the locals. We were put up by The Blue Yonder at some "eco-lodges" run by the KTDC. These bamboo huts were supposed to be "eco-friendly." But the only thing eco-friendly about them was that they were biodegradeable (they're made of bamboo!). Other than that, they were powered by city electricity, they disposed waste into the city sewer system, and trash was disposed of the way it is everywhere else in India - behind the kitchen. In their defense, there was one hut that had its water heated using solar power, but the panels were broken and so the hut didn't have hot water. Not exactly my idea of environmentally friendly. Now I understand that some environmentally conscious people are willing to pay a premium for being green-savvy, but these places were a joke. And their going rate was Rs. 2000/- a night. Not exactly my idea of wallet friendly.

The night we arrived there, we went on a night-trek through the tiger sanctuary. Accompanied by an armed escort and a guide, we ventured through the different landscapes of the sanctuary in total darkness. The flashlights provided by the park were, well, on the dimmer side of mediocre. Which made Mary's collection of LED flashlights a total godsend. We walked for a half hour before getting far enough away from roads to not have the auditory experience ruined by India's unregulated diesel and petrol engines. But once the silence settled around us, and all lights faded but our flashlights lighting our footpaths, I was amazed by how different the sensory experience was. Robbed of vision, my ears began to look for signs of life in the bushes. I could hear field mice scurrying, birds rustling their nests, frogs croaking and then plopping into nearby puddles. The occassional deer crashed through the undergrowth in the distance. And as we emerged into a clearing, our eyes received a real treat. The blackness in front of us was penetrated by hundreds of flowing, slowly-blinking lights. Walking through the unchoreographed elegance of their soft and rhythmic bioluminescence, backdropped by total darkness made me think, this is what God sees walking through the universe. Thousands of stars, miniscule in comparison to Him, blink in and out of existence as He watches over the course of eternity.

Keralan Landscapes and Tea Fields: Munnar

The Keralan landscape is by far the most diverse and most green I have seen in India. Our four hour journey from Kochi to Munnar treated us to palm trees, plains, rice paddies, hills, cardamom fields, mountains, deciduous forests, and deep river valleys. But nothing prepared us for the sight of Munnar's famed endless tea fields that vanish off into the distance in every direction. Everywhere we turned, our sights were filled with the lush green carpet of Assam tea growing on the slopes of the Western Ghats. The intense green gave a pleasant contrast to the clean, clear blue skies above.

I resisted the urge to stop every thirty seconds to take a picture... Yet I still ended up with 50 pictures of tea fields at the end of our day... We honestly didn't do a lot in Munnar except ogle at the amazing teafield scenery and walk amongst them. The plants live for a 125 years and between 10-15 leaves are harvested from each bush every month. And with as much tea as Indian's drink, at that rate, you have to have a lot of bushes! But really, the most fascinating part was the story of the business underlying these fields.

While there are a number of companies operating on the Western Ghats, the largest by far is the multinational, multi-faceted Indian giant, the Tata Group. Their Tata Tea fields made up for 75% of the tea growing in and around Munnar. Tata is a real behemoth. In a developing country like India, startups have a difficult time raising capital, so it's the established companies that are able to enter a variety of markets to reap a profit by transferring capital from one industry to another. The Tata Group is a shining example of this. They operate in SEVEN business sectors. They do everything from building cars to offering satellite TV, from selling power to managing five-star hotels, and from providing life insurance to producing copious quantities of tea. They are, for lack of a better phrase, all over the place. They employ many people in Munnar in their production of the famed Tata Tea that so many millions of Indians drink on a daily basis. Their harvesters work all day in the field harvesting tea from the tops of the shrubs. The constant preening flattens the tops of the bushes and gives Munnar its famed green-carpet look. Let's marvel at how well-paid these harvesters are (not!). They are paid by the kilo of tea they harvest. All of 50 paisa per kilo. Now if this were marble, it'd be a different story. But think about how much freakin' tea you have to pick to get even ONE kilo! And for that someone pays you ONE CENT. Oh wait, no, the field managers (overseer) pad their own salaries by not issuing payment for every 10th kilo that is harvested.

I thought I wasn't getting paid enough for my "hard work" for Kaplan. Damn.

Kochi... Cochin? Kochin?

Our stay in Cochin (or however you spell it) was to be brief, lasting only a full day. But the first thirty minutes were enough for me to realize that I really liked the part in which we were staying. The Portuguese, though most prevalent in Goa, were allowed to build, in Magellan's time, a fort - what is now known as the heritage town of Fort Cochin. It, alongside it's sister citysprawl across the bay, known as Ernakulam, makes up the town of Cochin... or Kochi... or...

A significant portion of the day was spent (okay more like 20 minutes) asking how what the town's name actually was. Seems like the residents have different opinions. Some call it Kochi, others Cochin, and the occasional, "No, no, it's spelled K-O-C-H-I-N." Bah. It seems that whereas Mumbai has caught on as an alternative to Bombay, and Kolkata has become the accepted nomenclature of Calcutta, the change of the British Raj name of Cochin to (the more Indian?) Kochi seems to not have caught on. In fact, outside of Kerala, (as when I was booking our plane tickets) some people (including travel agents) seem to think they are actually two different cities...

Well, whether we were in Kochi or Cochin, the heritage town was really great. Much like Pondicherry, there were, mercifully, plenty of street signs which made navigating fairly easy. Our morning walk led us up toward the Chinese fishing nets, these giant contraptions that lower a large net into the water and catch fish (though this proves ineffectual at low tide). I would think that fishing all day every day for the past 20 years would have fished that place clean, but seems that the fish in the waters off the city aren't that bright... Though the fisherman are geniuses. Knowing that tourists come to check out their nets, one member of the five-man teams recruits a tourist (like myself) and encourages him to take a picture taking part in the fishing activity. The recruiter hands the rope to the tourist and sits down to watch. The four men + tourist team then hoists (using considerable effort) the net out of the water and reels in the catch. The fish are sorted, the tourist gets his picture, and leaves a small tip... Wait... What? Talk about brilliant business. Yes, in one of the my less brighter moves, I paid a fisherman to let me do his job for him...

As we continued along, the street signs began to disappear and we were lost. A friendly rickshaw driver (they're all friendly, aren't they?) offers us a sightseeing excursion for only Rs. 50/- an hour. And so we take it, despite the fact that we do have a driver at our hotel who knows the city just as well... Anyway, we stop at the St. Francis Cathedral first. I still find the religious mixing of Hindu and Christian norms fascinating. The large pile of shoes at the entrance, bowing at the threshold of the church door... A lady asks us to take a picture of her daughter, a cute little girl in a pretty dress. I oblige and show her the result on my Nikon's tiny little 1.25" display. She's very happy and gives me a quick Indian head-wiggle and a giant smile.

And as I walked away I realized, this small interaction wasn't the same as all the obnoxious Indian men that want their photo taken. They want three or four, and I delete all of them later, most of the time. The look in this woman's eyes and her exuberant happiness conveyed a very different message. She could have cared less that she was in the picture. She was just gleeful with the simple knowledge that somewhere in the world, a record existed of how beautiful her daughter looked on the day she was baptized. She would never see me again. She would never see that picture again. She would have no record but her memory. And for some reason, that made that picture very important to me.

Our rickshaw-wallah is curious about Mary and me - "Coming from India?" he asks to me, giving me an inquisitive head waggle that is so prominent in the south. "I am Indian, a Gujarati," I respond. "Oh! Very good. Visiting Jain Temples?" Puzzled as to the relationship of me being Gujarati to Fort Cochin's Jain Temples I say, "Sure, we will visit the Jain Temples." It becomes clear when my entry into the Temple complex is a departure from Kerala and a re-entry into Gujarat. In fact, for the next 30 minutes, I hear no Malayalam at all, only Gujarati.

Let me take this moment to point out how great being a Gujarati can be. Speaking to one of the temple administrators sitting in the main office, my simple, "Kem chho?" is rewarded with huge smiles, offers for tea, and as the conversation continues, with contact numbers for other Gujarati families in Kerala in case anything goes wrong and we need help and a list of the Gujarati shop keepers in Fort Cochin, where I can shop at the non-tourist rate. I'm blown away sometimes by how tightly knit the Gujarati communities can be.

As we re-emerged into Kerala, we headed into the narrower streets of the "Jew Town" of Fort Cochin. Though it was called "Jew Town" (a horrible name, it seems), there wasn't too much Jewish about it anymore. In fact, the synagogue there was the only thing that had anything remotely Jewish about it. The most interesting part, though, wasn't the town itself. The irony in the fact that we walked south of the Jewish town right into the Muslim district was not lost on me. Seems that even in the Land of the Hindus, a quarter of the way around the world, Judaism and Islam can still find a way to butt right up against each other. Figures.

Next came Mary's lesson in bargaining. As we entered a shop that looked interesting, Mary got interested in some shawls. We saw the full price range, from cheap synthetic scarves, to mid-range pashmina scarves, to extraordinarily soft (and expensive "fahtoosh" (?) (I thought that was a Lebanese salad...) scarves. Mary settled on a couple of pashmina ones that she liked. "Rs. 1800 for both" the shop-keeper says. She turns to me and asks how much she should pay for them. "You have to do the bargaining, Mary, they're your shawls!" And so the lesson begins. And the shopkeeper, seeing that I'm giving a lesson on bargaining joins in on helping out, obligingly lowering his "final price" as we raise our starting price.

And at the end of a textbook bargaining session, Mary walks away with two Pashmina shawls for Rs. 1000/-. "Good job, Mary! Saved Rs. 800/-! Wanna buy me dinner?" She punches me.

And after buying me dinner, she and I headed over to a small bamboo hut where we had tickets for an evening Kathakali performance. Our trip to the Kalamandalam in Cheruthuruthy was incomplete - Mary had seen the students, but never the final product. So were we in for a shortened-for-tourists-version of Kathakali that included the elaborate makeup session. The story on show was from the Mahabharata - that of Kichaka, the general of the King Virata's army who makes improper advances on Draupadi (in disguise as a handmaiden because of the Pandava's exile requirements). Draupadi runs to her mighty husband Bhima crying. Bhima vows to kill Kichaka. Bhima kills Kichaka. And that's basically the story. It just takes a good hour and a half to perform in Kathakali. It's little wonder that they make a "made-for-tourists" version. Can you imagine how long the whole Mahabharata would take? Yeesh.

After the show, we called it a night and headed back to our hotel to catch some shuteye before heading to the tea-plantation land of Munnar, in the Western Ghats of Kerala.

My Latest Pictures

Finally, I've gotten a chance to slow down long enough to get some new pictures up on the net. This installment is from Mary and my 19-day trip through Delhi, Gujarat, and Kerala. In Kerala we used a tour company called The Blue Yonder which is a specialist in what is called Responsible Tourism. There were a few hitches along the way, but they're definitely a company that can provide an interesting experience of a non-widely-visited region of Kerala. Gujarat was fun and Kerala was, for lack of a better word, stunning. I'll write more about it later. In the meantime, enjoy!

Nag-Rangolis and Hindu-Muslim Violence.

On Mary and my last day in Kuttipuram we witnessed the creation of a Rangoli. The creators were worshippers of a Nag (snake) deity. Their creation of the intricate Rangoli was a propitiation of the deity to ward off illness and bad omens.

Now many Indians are familiar with the idea of a Rangoli. For most festivals, especially Diwali, Indian families welcome Laxmi with ornate patterns on their doorsteps made of flower petals or colour flour. But these Rangoli's were something else entirely. They were made of colored lime powder and the one made for us was 2 meters wide and 2 meters long, of SOLID color... Four snakes intertwined their bodies to create rich and intricate braids of reds, yellows and whites. The colors were created by mixing natural pigments with white lime, then remixing the colored lime to form secondary colors. For celebrations and festivals, these rangolis can be 5m x 5m and take all night to prepare!

Their Rangoli was followed up by a musical performance of local village instrumentation accompanying very traditional (and colloquial) songs worshipping the snake deity.

Shorty after, Mary and I readied ourselves for departure for the rest of our Kerala adventure - beginning with two nights in Cochin.

Except that we couldn't leave Kuttipuram. Turns out that recent elections in Kerala caused some violence among members of the Muslim community. It turned ugly and a Hindu was killed. That made it a Hindu-Muslim problem, and a general strike was called. So we had to wait... And we waited... until 3 PM actually, before we were able to leave for Cochin again. We arrived in Cochin at night at the Rossitta Wood Castle Heritage hotel and promptly passed out.

Martial Arts Madness and Serene Boat Rides

The next day brought even more amazing surprises and wonderful experiences. We were joined by a few of the new staff members of The Blue Yonder who were also learning about the "interactivities" that TBY offered. Our first stop was a Kalari. We knew that Kalari Payattu was the traditional, ancient martial art form of Kerala, but we didn't realize how incredible it really was... the first kids (couldn't have been older than 15) came out to give us a demonstration of a... sword fight.

We knew that if clashing swords and shields were the START, it could only get better. And it did get better. From blindfolded knife-fights to flaming fighting staffs, the boys and girls of this Kalari demonstrated without a doubt they were going to be martial arts masters. I found the setup of the place very interesting. The Kalari is actually a pit in the ground - about 10 meters wide and 20 meters long. In one corners is a small altar dedicated to Agastya Rishi, the father of Kalari Payattu, and all the students and even the guruji (an old man and one-time master of the art) would bow down to Agastya Rishi before each small demonstration. The gurukul system (teacher/student) of India was definitely still in practice at the Kalari. The guruji would instruct and the students would follow and without fail, they would touch the feet of the guruji before beginning and after finishing as a sign of deference and respect.

The greatest part was the contrast between the calm serenity, respect, and reverence of the students and the teachers before beginning their practice and the incredible energy, vitality, movement, and downright violence of the combats. There were times that the students would be so engaged and in a zone, they came really close to us - we found ourselves at the end fo the visit backed into one of the corners of the Kalari. We were breathless when we left - at a loss for words at the amazing variety, dexterity, and ferocity of Kalari Payattu. It's amazing to think it may be the oldest martial art in the world.

All that intensity made the boat cruise on the Tirur River all that much more relaxing and peaceful. Lets just say The Blue Yonder's boat cruise on the Tirur River is what tourists going to Alleppey and Kumarakom WISH they were getting. We were the only boat on this river besides the local fishermen in their hollow-wooden-log fishing rafts. The boat itself had an interesting story. As it turns out, the sand and silt at the bottom of Kerala's rivers are particularly good for use in the preparation of cement for construction. So the government has licenced sand miners to mine a few boatloads of sand on a regular basis to sell for this construction. However, thanks to India's corruption and baksheesh (somewhere between a tip and a bribe) systems, these miners exploit the river beds and a destroying the rivers by over mining them for sand. It's a very lucrative and well-paying business, so the TBY, to preserve the river, pays these boat miners to not mine sand and instead take tourists on boat cruises on the river. It was the most amazingly beautiful boat ride I probably have even been on. The pictures speak for themselves. We stopped at a coir (fibrous husk of a mature coconut) factory and watched many hundreds of brown coconuts being stripped for every useful part - except the water inside was being thrown away! So I plucked up the courage to ask one of the women hunched over breaking coconuts in her hand with a machete to give me one half and fill it with water. She did so obligingly. And I got tasty coconut water!

Of course, as the boat cruise continued and the sun began to set, we were treated to young coconuts - the large green ones that you get lots of water from by hacking off just the top. DELICIOUS. I definitely drank more coconut water than real water that day. We reached the mouth of the Tirur at the ocean and enjoyed the sunset before heading back to the resort for the evening.

Onward to Kerala!

Gujarat was fun, but I was really excited about the next part of the trip - 11 days in Kerala. Kerala is India's coconut palm tree paradise. But in reality, it is a small state with an INCREDIBLY diverse range of landscapes.

Mary and I ended up in Kochin in the evening and were met at the airport by a representative of the vehicle company that would be driving us around during our time there. Our transfer to the small town of Kuttipuram near the Bharatpuzha River (Nila River) took on the order of three hours, and we arrived at the Riverside Retreat "Resort" around midnight. We were greeted by a large cottage type accomodation which was neat. But neater were the FROGS that had taken up residence on our shower curtain! Brilliant!

We slept well, because we were just really tired. Our first morning excursion after breakfast was to the Kerala Kalamandalam - a school where youths from all over Kerala were taught classical Indian music, instrumentation and dance. I really enjoyed the visit to the school because it put into perspective the way that the traditions of India are built. How masters are made, in a sense. The only thing that it lacked was a summary - it showed all the pieces of how Indian musical art is made, but it never put them all together. It would have really been cool to see students of dance and those of music joining together for a short performance at the end of the visit to demonstrate to visitors what the finished product looks and sounds like.

After lunch, though, we were treated to a live lesson and performance on the growth, development, and advancement of Keralan percussion. Centered around an old village temple, the master, Aravindakshi, demonstrated along with other students and members of his family and village the various types of percussion and wind instruments that pervade the music of Kerala. One by one, each instrument's design was explained and played for a short period. We were then explained how the instrument progressed to it's next form, and so on and so forth until we reached the janda, a large two-faced instrument that is the percussion of choice in Kerala's many dances such as Kathakali. Then after the progression explanation was complete, the artists put together the various instruments simultaneously for one VERY cool percussion jam session.

But the best part of the "Musical Trail" was not the actual music. It was the people themselves. Members of a lower caste, they are not allowed to perform at "more important" temples because they are not brahmins, despite the fact that they ARE masters of their respective instruments. So they host these private performances to supplement their income from other jobs (Aravindakshi was a bus conductor) and to share a bit about the musical history of Kerala. It definitely was far from the Made-For-Tourists version that I'm sure most people run into.

We thought day one was pretty good, but we had no idea how cool the next days were going to be.