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FYI - there is a new post here. Since I started writing it a few days ago, it posted with an old date.

Goa Rundown

Disclaimer - The opinions expressed are based on our visit to Goa in late September. Obviously if you visit Goa at a different time your results may vary.

Story:

We planned to spend a while in Goa as Nisha has an aunt as well as two cousins who live here that we wanted to visit. Also, this is known as India's most famous beach resort, and is universally recommended by Indians as one of the best places to visit in the country. It gets similar raves from the Lonely Planet and most other things you read. One thing I will say however is that we met some brits trekking in Leh who were here in August, at the height of monsoon, and they said it rained the whole time and almost everything was closed. This information tempered our expectations, but since we would be here at the end of monsoon we thought it would be OK.

We arrived on an overnight train and got picked up by Nisha's cousin, who has a very nice car, which is a rare luxury in India. They were having some water issues at the flat where her and Nisha's aunt live, so she put us up in a hotel for the time we would be with them, which was obviously very nice. They live in a city called Mapusa, which is the biggest town in North Goa, but is 10km from the shore, so it is not visited much by westerners, except as a place to get transport to the beach. The hotel, called Satyaheera, was one of the best values in accommodation on our trip. We had to get a triple room, because the doubles were full, but for 700 rupees (18 dollars) you got a big clean room with AC and a nice bathroom. The only catch was the Indian style toilet, but we are pretty used to those by now.

We spent the next couple of days seeing the sights in Goa, including the main town Panaji as well as the old Cathedrals and some quick stops at beaches. Nisha's aunt also cooked us 3 great home cooked meals at their flat, which were a nice change from restaurant fare. Also, the last night in Mapusa both cousins took us out to a nice dinner at our hotel. The one issue when we left Mapusa was that we had not found a beach we really wanted to stay at yet. Two of the beaches we went to were pretty crowded with people stopping on tour buses, and the other was completely closed down, with not even a place to get a beer, and just the occasional bead hawker.

On the morning we checked out of the hotel in Mapusa, we got a cab to a beach called Anjuna, which is supposed to be a quiet, but not too quiet, and really nice beach. The cab drops us off at the hotel we had planned on staying at, and all that is there are a couple of open bars and a rocky embankment to the ocean, as well as some confused looking westerners. I got a Diet Coke in the bar with the bags and Nisha walked in the direction of the beach, only to walk 1km to find a 1m wide strip of dirty sand. This was kind of a low point, as we had 2 nights left, and all we wanted to do was find a beach where we could go swimming and perhaps get some beers near the beach.

So, we made a last ditch attempt and took a cab to Baga, which is the supposedly quieter end of the Calangute and Baga beach that Lonely Planet describes as being too busy with package tourists. When we got there we finally found what we were looking for, a big beach with plenty of bars well stocked with beach chairs. We also got a room, actually a free standing little house, near the pool at a nice resort called Cavala. The room cost 2000 rupees (50 dollars), but was the nicest place we stayed all trip. The hut was really cute and had a beautiful shower and bathroom, which is really key in India.

The rest of that day we spent trying to find the famous market at Anjuna and drinking beer on the beach. The next day it actually rained for most of the day, but it was great anyway. We got some running in as well as a great lunch and played catch with a bunch of kids on the beach. We also rented a Honda scooter for only 200 rupees (5 dollars) a day, which makes it easy to get around.

Summary:

My opinion of Goa is far more nuanced then most. It is a pretty nice place, and a good place to chill for a while. But the people who say that it is nothing like the rest of India are wrong. It might be a little more western friendly, but it is still very much India. Its not like they stop all hawkers, cows or noisy autorikshaws at the border. Also, it is a pretty good beach resort for the price, but in terms of refinement and luxury it really does not hold a candle to the beach places that Americans are used to going to in the Caribbean, Florida or Hawaii. It is really not in the same league, but try getting 1 dollar beers there, that is the equalizer, if you care about the money.

Quick Reviews:

Anjuna - Big thumbs down. This place is bacially just a cow flop infested one horse town on a substandard beach with a couple of bars. Maybe if you need 100 rupee accommodation it makes sense, but to me it was a dump.

Anjuna Market - Big thumbs down. Someone must have paid off the Lonely Planet to write this up. Same trinkets as in any Indian tourist trap, just harder to get to.

Baga - Thumbs up. Nice beach, lots of places to get a drink. Probably gets crowded later, but was very nice now. A reasonable level of hawkers.

Calangute - Is OK. A little crowded, but an OK beach with a lot of stuff for sale and many hawkers.

Candolim - Thumbs down. This beach may be OK in high season when everything is open, but currently it is very shut down. Also, the end near the Taj is a pretty bad beach, surprising since it is such a high end resort.

Cavala Resort - Thumbs up. Really nice place to stay, the service, restaurant and room were great.

We're number 3!! We're number 3!!

I do not read business management books, but I do remember a few tidbits that I am told by people who do. One of these Keith told me a long time ago is that Jack Welch when he was with GE thought that if they could not be either #1 or #2 in an industry, they should leave that industry completely. To some degree this philosophy shows up in America in that all companies like to either announce that they are the number 1, or the best, or the fastest growing, etc. If your business is none of these things, then you just don't say anything about where it stacks up.

In India very few businesses want to say that they are the best, and even if they do, they like to add all sorts of qualifiers, presumably so that no one can accuse them of being dishonest about their claim.

Examples (real slogans from Indian posters and signs):

- Bagpiper Whisky - India's number 1, now world number 3.

- Jet Airways - Possibly the youngest fleet in the sky.

- Savage Garden Restaurant in Udaipur (the best meal we had there) - Possibly the best of Udaipur's smaller restaurants.

- Hide and Seek Cookies - The world's best moulded chocolate chip cookie. At least they say they are the best, but I have not seen any other moulded cookies for sale.

There are many other examples of this as well, but I just cannot think of them off the top of my head.

Is it this happiness with "pretty good" that also manifests itself in the lack of industry consolidation in India? In most businesses here there are many little independent shops that all seem to copy each other in the products that they sell or the services that they provide. I have to wonder if this is because no person comes along with the idea that they are going to run the unquestionably best general store, Internet cafe, drug store or whatever, and then takes over the industry in that area or even in the whole country. Really the only consumer driven industry that is consolidated here is the petrol stations, and that is because of the government.

I may be going too far with this, but this may be an issue that India will need to rectify if they ever want to truly reach the status as a nation that they are striving for. One of biggest national issues here to me is the lack of quality, not effort, in many business endeavors. When you are looking for a hotel here there are always plenty of options where the owners and the workers will try very hard to make your stay as good as possible. However, in about half of the showers in said hotels the shower is hooked up in reverse (hot to cold and vice versa) or the floor is sloped so that water pools, etc. This is just an example, and I hate to criticize, because Indian people work as hard as anyone, but really the last step they need to make is to raise the standards of quality that are expected. When you work hard and work smart at the same time, then you have no need to say you might be number 1.

Update - 10/4/2007

Since I wrote this we visited the Thread Garden in Ooty. These guys certainly did not mince words when declaring themselves the best. The sign in the picture is one of many.

Quick Update - Pictures!!

We can finally upload pictures again, so altough it is still troublesome, there is and will be some new stuff up there.

Will do a big write up on Goa when we leave, because I would love to set the record streight for anyone searching the internet in the future about Goa. Until then, let it be known that we are staying in a buitiful bungalow in a very nice little resort. We are near a nice beach and there are many shacks there open all day and night where you can grab a comfortable beach chair and 1 dollar beers. We also had a very nice Italian meal last night, so things are good.

Lonely Planet, you have failed me...

I have been a faithful reader and user of Lonely Planet travel guides since my tour of Europe 10 years ago. These concise and thorough books are the bible of the thinking person traveling abroad (you can use Rough Guide, but everyone knows those are for frat guys). These ubiquitous guides, often referred to as "the book" or LP, are often on tables in cafes, in hands of those walking around cities, and most cherished among the few possessions of the backpacker traveler. They are loved for their no-nonsense, straight talking summation of the world's best places. Want to go spelunking in Budapest? Lonely Planet will point you there. Want pizza in Jaipur? Lonely Planet will tell you where to go. Need to get from Calcutta to the Sundarbuns park? LP will guide you on every train, boat, rickshaw, and donkey cart you need to get there.

After having LP guide me for 4 months around Europe, 2 weeks in Japan, and a total 8 weeks in India (split over 2 trips), I am a totally devoted fan and know how to read between lines to find the really good places it has to offer. I thought I did...

Goa, on the west coast of India, is a former Portuguese colony for a total of 450 years. Most people spoke Portuguese up until a few years ago. This area of the coast about the size of Rhode Island, was liberated from Portugal in the 1960's by the Indian Army and annexed into India. Not everyone here saw it as a liberation. Nevertheless, it is a peaceful, tropical, cosmopolitan place full of Portuguese colonial charm in the buildings, food, drink, and interesting mix of people.

The Indian army wasn't the only group to invade this beautiful area of coast in the 60's, the hippies did as well. They helped to develop many of the beaches into the international party scenes they are known for today. 747s full of Europeans, Brits, and Israelis land everyday at the Goan airport at high season all looking for a good beach party. Around Christmas and New Years, they descend on the place like locusts during a hatch, sleeping on the beach and aside the road. The most famed beach that we could discern from LP and other travelers is Anjuna beach. Many people for the last month have all said "oh, have you been to Goa?? It's so wonderful, you must go to Anjuna, there is no place like it!!" We met a nice German man on the train who claimed that Anjuna was the best beach in India. Diu could not compare, according to him (please see the Flickr site for Diu pictures and decide for yourself once all the pics are up). LP described it as a "place to see and be seen" and spoke of many beach-side accommodations, restaurants, and general beach related merriment.

So after 3 wonderful days of spending time with my cousins and aunt a few kilometers away from Anjuna, we were very excited to come and see it today. The rickshaw brought us to "Anjuna beach". There was no beach there, only red rocky cliffs. Leaving Ian with the bags, I walked about 1/2 mile down the shore road to find "the best beach in India." I did not find this, but I found a brown-black beach studded with rock outcroppings (ie not a swimming beach), sewer run-off, and trash. The shore was only dry about 10 feet deep before tired looking restaurants shot up from the beach, mostly boarded up with blue tarp and dried palm leaves for the season. There were some other confused tourists looking for this "amazing" beach. The whole place felt like Bourbon street at 10am on a Tuesday in the summer.

Never have I felt so misled by my beloved LP. Maybe the scene is fun at the beach bars in high season, but the beach was worse than the one in Revere. Having seen too much of Bourbon street at 10am in college, we moved on to the very lovely Baga beach, described by LP as "overdeveloped." If in LP language, "overdeveloped" really means "a long, wide, clean, sandy beach where a guy sets up beach chairs to serve me beer", I am IN.

- Nisha

No Skin Please, we are Indians...

One of the most striking things about modern India is the vast difference between the way the the country views itself on TV as opposed to the reality of what the life of the vast majority of Indians actually is. Obviously things are a lot cleaner and better kept then in reality, but you could say that about US commercials as well, since every car is always driving threw the Hamptons or the Pacific Coast Highway. The gap is greater here, but still comparable.

However, the place where this manifests itself more then anywhere else is in women's clothing. If you only watched Indian TV commercials, you would be under the impression that most Indian women, especially young women, wear more or less western cloths. Perhaps a little more conservative then US teeny-boppers, but stylish and tight fitting. If you saw a commercial for a beach resort you would think that most Indians wear bathing suits and go swimming similar to westerners.

In fact only the tiniest percentage of upper class Indian women wear western cloths. Indian clothing is still the norm for almost every woman in India. Basically, the only places I have ever seen Indian women in western cloths was in nice areas of Mumbai and at resorts such as Goa. As far as bathing suits go, I have never seen an Indian woman in a bathing suit, except for on TV. Most Indian women, and most men for that matter, do not swim. If men swim they do wear a standard bathing suit. If women swim they usually go in the water in full Indian dress. Today in Goa we did see a couple of well to do young Indian women go in the water wearing stylish western cloths, but that is about as riske as it gets.

The other annoying side effect of this is that when we go to the beach, it is often uncomfortable for Nisha to wear a bathing suit because so many Indian men, who rarely see such things stare very obnoxiously. This is much improved in Goa, where western tourists are a lot more common, but it is definitely one of the major drags of going to an Indian beach.

Chak De India

Last night India won the first Twenty20 world cup. They beat arch-rival Pakistan in the final, in a close game that went down to the last over. It would have been really cool to be in Mumbai to watch the game and see the crowds in the street, but we were in a very small city in Goa called Mapusa. In Mapusa the celebration was limited to some fireworks and the occasional band of drunken yahoos driving scooters around town with a big Indian flag.

This was the first time that India won a major international competition in something like 30 years, so I would imagine that it must be great to finally taste success in a sport people love so much.

Side story. The title of this post is from the movie Chak De India, which I believe means "Lets Go India". It is the top movie in India right now, and stars Indian mega star Shah Rukh Khan. It is about an India team of underdogs winning a field hockey tournament. The thing is that CNN-India stole the name of the movie for its coverage of the win last night. Watching the coverage was pretty funny, because, similar to how the Boston stations cover the super bowl wins, they basically have a 3 hour fluff program of various talking heads, including the king Shah Rukh Khan himself, talking about how great the game was. You realize that these programs are pretty boring to those who are not that into the team in question.

Another funny thing is that they were announcing on the show all of the money that was already given to the players from the chief ministers of the states where they live. I guess that is normal here, but can you imagine, if the Patriots win the super bowl, Deval Patrick just handing over 10 grand to Tom Brady. I don't think we would think of that as an appropriate use of government funds.

Photo Problems

In case anyone is wondering, we have had a bad string of luck with internet cafes and getting our photo upload to work. At some point I am sure we will get everything uploaded, but that is the cause for the delay.

Stop Having Too Much Fun

Cricket is India's number 1 sport. If there is a number 2 sport, I have not figured out what it is, that is how big cricket is.

For those unfamiliar with cricket it is a little like baseball, but the real main difference is that batters can basically tap off pitches with their big flat bats forever. If the batters focus is only to not get out, or play very safely, then they can take hundreds of pitches to get out. In traditional, or "Test Cricket", each team goes threw its batting order twice, until each player is out, with each player being able to take an unlimited number of balls. Thus test cricket matches normally take around 4 days to conclude.

Some time ago, in 1971, a new form of match was invented that was guaranteed to finish in one day. This allowed there to be tournaments such as the world cup that would take way to long to play if they were done as test matches. This form is called the "One Day International" or ODI. Basically the game is the same, but each side only runs threw the batting order once. Also, and most important, each side is limited to batting 50 overs, an over consisting of 6 balls. Now that there is a limit to how many balls can be taken, there is a motivation for the batting side to take more chances, even if it results in more outs.

Both kinds of cricket are still played, but the ODI became very popular since there is more action and the game only lasts around 8 hours. The thing is however, that it is still imperative for the team not to get out before they have used most of the 50 overs at their disposal. For this reason, especially early in the game, there is still a lot of safe batting, with batters hitting 1s and 2s, which are like singles in baseball.

Enter the Twenty20 match, which is being played at the international level for the first time right now, in a new world cup event. This is basically similar to ODI, but now there are only 20 overs a side. Also, bowlers (aka pitchers) must work faster and players sit on the field in a dugout, as opposed to way up in the box, for less delays when someone gets out. Now games are down to 3 hours, and batters really have to make the most of the balls they see. This means lots of outs, or wickets, and lots of 6s, which is when the ball is hit out of the stadium, like a home run.

For this American viewer, this is finally a type of cricket that I can get into, kind of like watching a baseball game. Based on the number of people watching the games, especially since a surprising India team has made the simi-finals, the general public seems to agree with me.

The funny thing about this is the fierce debates that are raging in the sport columns about weather this is a huge advance towards making cricket more accessible, or the death of this proud game. One one side are the people who feel, as I do, that Twenty20 is much more compatible with the amount of time that people can invest in a sports match, and that since there is more action the game is much more fun to watch. Predictably the other side consists of purists who think that all the risk taking and action ruin the beauty of the game.

One of the best articles by the purists was in the Times of India where the author bemoaned that cricket was supposed to be a "marathon that is to be endured". The fact that a stadium full of fans was cheering and on its feet for a lot of the match was a huge problem, since to paraphrase, cricket was not supposed to be fun. Obviously this guy has not spent too much time watching American sports and has not realized that fans are the reason for the game, and a sport with no fans is not going to last very long.

Anyway, I am quite disappointed I will not be able to watch India's simi-final match tonight because we will be on the train to Goa. But, if they can pull off and upset against mighty Australia, I am very excited for the final on Monday.

Ganesh Chaturthi

We lucked out again on the festival scene. Many of you know that one of my life's dreams is to travel around the world and hit every major festival. This dream is somewhere beneath having a horse and above owing my own private island on the list.

Ganesh Chaturthi is the same festival that was ongoing in Diu as here. The basic festival is the same, but the Mumbai festival is about 1 lakh times larger (in India, 1 lakh = 100,000). I won't begin to understand the intricacies of the symbolism of the festival, but basically it is one celebrating the good luck Ganesh brings to the people of Mumbai. In both places, families obtain a Ganesh statue which they decorate and worship for anywhere between 1 - 13 days. One can buy the statue from many roadside stores. Seeing five 8-foot tall Ganesh figures sitting on the side of the road is a surreal sight.

The statues and pandals (the statue in a scene) of larger families and groups often have themes. Ahmedabad (a large city in the state of Gujarat and Nisha Bhatt's ancestral town) was the promotion of female children and their education. In Mumbai, it is the farmer suicide to highlight the poverty of rural India's farmers. A person my visit many pandals around the city, causing a line to form in one today up to 2.5km long. Some of the pandals are engaged in a fierce judging by the Times of India-picked celebrity staff. Often people will present gifts to Ganesh in hope for or in thanks of good luck (ie a child, or prosperity in business). One Mumbai couple presented a Ganesh idol a 9 lakh (900,000 Rs) gold sash in thanks of their new pregnancy after trying 11 years.

After the puja has been preformed twice daily, the family then parades the idol down the street. The men dance to the drums and keyboard of a hired band, the truck with the idol follows, with the women trailing in the back. I only saw women dancing in 2 of the 50 or so processions that night. Covered with and throwing pink, purple, and yellow powdered tempra paint, the men and boys dance themselves into a sweaty frenzy. The destination of this parade is the beautifully arched, nearly 10 km long Chowpatty Beach. After the musicians are abandoned, the procession has a solemn puja on the beach. Finally, the men of the families (and a few women) carry out the Ganesh idol into the Chowpatty bay for immersion in the night water. This sounds easier than it looks. The water is only about 2 feet deep for nearly 100 feet out. The larger idols need to be brought about 200 feet offshore before they can be immersed. Every year a few people drown.

I tried to capture this scene with pictures, but being the night, and trying to be respectful, I really could not. The black beach was covered with people chanting, trucks backing up, giant balloon sellers, and head massage guys. There was rain drainage and small waves lapping over disfigured idols washed ashore. In the water were hundreds of people for as far out as you cous see accompanied by the sound of drumming from all around the bay.

We watched this scene and then stood for a few hours around the parade route. Many people wanted to take a picture with us causing the cop to come and move the crowd along. Ian danced Punjabi-style with a few of the processions.

I'll try to load the pictures up, so far unsuccessful in Mumbai.

A great festival. Strangely, we were the only Western tourists!

- Nisha

Chinatown

One really nice thing about being in a big Indian city are the Chinese restaurants. Chinese food here is generally a much more high end affair then in the US. A lot of restaurants say they they serve Chinese as well as Indian, but usually that just means 10 or so dishes of noodles cooked with Chinese spices.

A real Chinese restaurant here is actually incredibly similar to Chinatown restaurants in the US, in terms of food and atmosphere. The thing is that while a restaurant of that quality in the US is middle range, here it is very high end. The places themselves look very much the same, kind of gaudy with a lot of brass and aquariums or coy ponds.

The food is also similar, but really hits the spot after being away so long. Last night at a place called Ling's Pavilion we had for an appetizer a dim sum platter, complete with pork (yes pork) steamed buns, that were as good as any in Boston. For dinner we had a beef and wonton over noodle dish (yes beef) as well as a pork dish. They were both excellent and the beef and pork were so great to have after so long. All this for 625 rupees, which is around 15 dollars.

The kicker is that Ling's also had the best bathroom in all of India, one that even a good US restaurant would be proud of.

Unfortunately it will probably be until Kolkata before we have real Chinese again, but I am already excited.

Mumbai Classic Cars

In a previous post I noted the almost complete disappearance of the venerable Hindustan Ambassador from the Indian streets. Although the fumes they spout
are horribly vile, they do have a certain charm and I was secretly hoping that there were still a few in Kolkata, just for old times sake.

Thankfully Mumbai has its own reminder of the charms of pre-economic liberalization India roaming its streets, the Premier taxi cab. Every normal cab in Mumbai is one of these rusty little guys, now running on CNG.

The look of a street full of them, with the English buildings makes you think you are in Austin Powers II.

Bright Lights, Big City

When you are Mumbai you almost have to remind yourself that you are
still in India. Mumbai is still obviously a big city in the
developing world, but the economy, organization and civil order is so
far ahead of other Indian cities that I have seen that I would almost
say that Mumbai is more like an Indian New York or London then a rich
Dehli.

It actually feels a lot more like home to me. Certainly there are a
lot of slightly crumbling old buildings, but there are also a lot of
things that are either new or well taken care of. The stuff that
makes you feel more at home is subtle but everywhere. They actually
have sidewalks here that are not allowed to turn into a shanty town or
parking lot. Since autorickshaws are not allowed in the city center,
most of the vehicles on the road are actually cars and they more or
less follow the traffic rules. I have not seen a cow or other large
animal since I got here, meaning you can actually look up when you
walk rather then watching for cow patties. No one lives in the public
parks, and there is a very nice promenade along the waterfront.

The richer economy here means that there are a lot more smart and
flashy new restaurants, cafes and bars. These places cater to a much
larger group of well to do Indians then I have seen elsewhere. They
also have a lot more food variety then just the usual Indian
standards.

Tomorrow we go to Goa, which should be fun as well, but for someplace
that we ended up for a few days in transit, I have thoroughly enjoyed
myself. The blend here, which I think does a good job capturing the
energy of India with the order of the west makes it a great city to
visit.

No Giant Balloons, Shawls, or Drums PLEASE!

Nisha writing: I also agree with Ian's assessment of Mumbai. Beautiful, clean, and it works. Lest you think that it is a different country from India, below is my experience from yesterday:

When we first arrived to India, we encountered some very ugly Western tourists. Unfortunately, I crossed into this group yesterday.

If you have never been to India or other places where street hawkers are common, you cannot imagine the effect this has. Naturally, your attention is diverted to a person calling out to you. These hawkers are selling useful items like water, lime soda, and taxi rides. They also sell anything from beautiful handicrafts, counterfeit items, and bus tickets. Often the hawkers will call out things you feel compelled as a polite Western tourist to answer like "you like India?", "where are you from?", "what is your name?" Sometimes they will try to help you with directions and actually be trying to sell you a watch. The hawkers will yell at you constantly while you are walking down some streets, often 2 or 3 at a time. Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur were the worst. There the hawkers seemed very unscrupulous, whether they were or not. Occasionally they will follow you for blocks holding items you wouldn't want even if it were free. After a few days of this, you get used to it and start to completely ignore the hoards of people vying for my attention (and therefore money). It is really hard when it is a child. Never would I want to be rude to a child who is innocently curious about the large white Westerner and wants to practice English. These kids are a delight to talk with. However, kids are also employed by hawkers and will use their cuteness to get your attention as well (by the way, I read in the paper that India would finally become more strict enforcing the child labor laws that were put on the books in the 1980s, finally!).

After trying to find some shoes from sellers on the street in the rain, I had been asked for the 1000th time that day if I wanted to buy a drum or pashmina shawl (there is not real pashmina sold on the street). The sad thing is, I actually like the drums and shawls and would buy both if my backpack weren't already nearly 25 pounds. There is also no way to express my true sentiment - I truly like their products and respect their right to sell me goods on the street since this is their livelihood, but I am not interested in their goods presently. Instead they follow you, yelling incessantly, and will keep dropping the price you until you have to say something like "even if it were free I don't want a drum/puppet/electric shaver (I kid you not)." The hawkers are the worst in Jaipur where I was accosted while getting into a rickshaw with a man screeching, "look, these puppets! heads wooden! 100 for 2, 50 for 2...." He threw the puppets on my lap and started banging the head together to prove they were wooden. Even if I had any inkling of wanting a puppet before this incident, I certainly don't want one with a face of chipped paint. While we drove off he yelled, "OK, 20 rupees for 2!!!" (50 cents for 2 beautiful handmade puppets).

Then yesterday, this guy asked me if I want a giant balloon. These are nothing like balloons you have ever seen. Fully inflated, they are about 12 feet long. Did I look like I needed a giant balloon in the rain? My patience for ridiculous Indian street salesman wore thin and I yelled to him "No, I don't want a giant balloon, shawl, or a drum!!" Immediately I felt remorse for this. However, later in the night he saw me again and before starting in his speech said instead "oh yes, no giant balloon, shawl, or drum." At last...

- Nisha

Flying High

Now that we have flown on them 3 times (Delhi-Leh and Diu-Mumbai on this trip and Kolkata-Darjeeling 4 years ago) we need to give a shout out to Jet Airways, India's largest private airline.

Jet Airways is just a really well run airline, that frankly puts the level of service that we have grown accustom to in the US to shame. First of all, their employees are actually very helpful and professional, and actually seem happy to be working there. Their planes all seem to be almost brand new, either new Boeing 737s, or in the case of out flight to tiny Diu, a new ATR turboprop. In fact my one criticism of Jet is that it is blatant false advertising that they fly a propeller plane, but what are you going to do.

The real reason why Jet is the best is the food. They serve a meal on every flight, even all the ones we have taken that are only an hour long. I was not even aware that they could serve food on a small turboprop, but just after take off, the food cart appears. First when you get on they give you water and a bottle of this fresh lime drink. Then the meal is usually either Vegetarian or non-Vegetarian, we have always gone veg, as that is usually the best choice for average indian food. The food has always been excellent, the last meal was the best, it had a folded dosa with a really good curry to dip in as well as corn salad and chocolate cake (which is crazy rare in India). Then they do tea and coffee, all once again on an hour long flight. The topper is that the flight attendants are actually, both male and female, young, smartly dressed and attractive. Not like the grizzled old union types in the US.

So in conclusion, Jet Airways, highly recommended. In fact I would be tempted to take their new flights from Toronto or New York next time I am headed to India, to see what they do with 20 hours of time to kill. I could eat 20 of those dosas from the last flight easy.

Australian for Beer

We are in Mumbai (sometimes still known as Bombay) now, so a couple of updates to my list from yesterday:

- I forgot that they actually brew Foster's under licence in India now, so the beer situation is a little better then described. Since it is technically a "domestic" beer the price is the same as Kingfisher, where available.

- Will write more on this, but Mumbai rocks, and they do have cafes here that are more or less like a normal bar. Nisha and I had a couple of the previously mentioned Fosters and watched the end of a big India-England Cricket match on a big screen in a packed house last night.

- One of the afore mentioned bars also has beef burgers and Chinese food with beef. The funny thing is that even though one of the objects of my affection is right in front of me, I don't think I am going to pull the trigger. I have no idea where they get beef from in India, but I don't really want to know. The possibility that it is one of those cows that hang out eating piles of garbage on the street is too much to take.

Capitol Grill in My Dreams

Disclaimer - Nisha and I are having a great time, but that does not make anything below any less true.

I miss:

- Beef
- Pork
- Wine
- Good Beer (try a Kingfisher next time you eat Indian, repeat 100 times, you get the idea)
- All cuisines besides Indian and Chinese
- Real Pizza
- Decent Plumbing
- My Bikes
- Crisp Fall Days
- Lake Winnipesaukee, the Jamaica Pond and the Charles River
- Pubs
- Watching the Red Sox and Patriots on TV

And finally, more then anything else, all my friends and family back home....

That is all.

Less Wheels the Better

Last time I was in India, almost 4 years ago in Kolkata, the mix of vehicles on the road was as follows:

- About 50% of the cars were taxis or hired cars, most of which were Hindustan Motors Ambassadors. These generally burned diesel fuel with very little emissions controls.

- The other half of cars were private and usually small gasoline cars made by Tata with a few diesel Ambassadors as well.

- There were many public buses, which were giant wooden and sheet metal monsters which spouted massive amounts of diesel exhaust.

- A fair number of private scooters and motorcycles, usually small Japanese models made under agreement locally.

- A sprinkling of Autorikshaws.

Needless to say, the smog was terrible and the traffic was not much better.

Fast forward to now, and in different parts of India and this is the mix.

- Almost no Ambassadors.

- A fair number of modern small private cars, often a Tata Indica or similar.

- Public buses, but at least in Delhi they all now burn CNG. Elsewhere they seem to be either CNG or at least clean burning diesel.

- A ton of scooters and motorcycles. Similar local Japanese brands, often made by Hero Honda. I looked up on wikipedia last night and somewhere it said that 70% of all registered vehicles in India are two wheelers.

- Millions of autorikshaws. This seems currently to be the dominant form of taxi cab all over India. In Delhi these all ran on CNG, and in smaller cities they at least are pretty new and run on gas.

The difference in smog with this new mix of cars, especially in a big city such as Delhi is shocking. It is almost hard to believe that it is the same country as Kolkata 4 years ago from an air quality prospective. Also, traffic in a big city like Delhi is still really bad, but the nice thing about the high percentage of two wheelers and autorikshaws is that they take very little space up on the road, and people drive such that every inch of the road is used.

I am sure safety is a problem, especially because a whole family of 4 will often ride one motorcycle, with the wife riding on the back both legs on one side, holding an infant. However, it is nice to see that India seems to have stumbled into a mix of vehicles that suit the roads and the population density of the country. There is no way that India could function in everyone had a regular car, but since the explosion of vehicles that is sure to follow the current economic prosperity has been focused on two wheels, it does seem sustainable.

We will see what it looks like when we make it to Kolkata in a month, but hopefully a similar change has happened there.

Recycling in India

I know Ian has already written a bit in trash in India, but I wanted to add a bit. The practices of many Indians (not all) are very peculiar to an American. I have yet to see any sort of municipal garbage collection in India. There are a few trash cans and I will put on Flickr shortly, but often there is more trash around the can rather than in it. I once saw a large truck full of garbage, but I do not believe there there is any sort of organized pick up except in large apartment complexes.

There is a sort of recycling here. In the Diu town square, there is a vegetable market every morning. After the women selling the pineapples, bananas, okra, herbs, potatoes, and other vegetables leave, there is a huge pile of waste left. A person comes with a straw broom with no handle (a standard broom) to move this into a large pile. Next the cows and dogs make their way to the pile and pick it over. Then in the afternoon someone sets the pile on fire to burn the remaining waste off. This is not limited to the city vegetable market or Diu. I have seen this hundreds of times around India. It works well for "wet" waste, but not for plastic rubbish.

Another way to dispose of waste is to just dump it in the bay. On my first day in Diu, I was sitting on the picturesque town boardwalk watching the fishing boats. A woman in a slightly tattered sari comes to the side of the boardwalk holding a large purse. She proceeds to dump the contents of the purse, which was all vegetable, paper and plastic waste, into the bay. This would be akin to someone in Wolfeboro dumping a tote full of garbage into the water at the town dock. I was shocked. At least let the cows and dogs have their fill of it first.

Currently the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi is going on. Everywhere in Diu and Mumbai, communities acquire a large Ganesh statue and decorate it lavishly. They have processions with drummers and their Ganesh through the streets every afternoon. On September 25, the tenth day, all the relievers will parade to the seashore and drop the Ganesh statue in the water.

It is one thing for one woman to drop a purse full of garbage into the water, but thousands of 10 foot tall decorated Ganeshes? I was relieved when I read in the paper that there are some concerned actors in Mumbai who formed an NGO to publicize this environmental folly and propose alternatives. These idols are made of plaster of paris and painted beautifully with lead paints. They actors proposed using clay idols and natural paints. I hope for India's environmental future, this is not falling to deaf ears.

Postcard from Diu

I am so glad that we came to Diu.

Knowing India and knowing how to read the Lonely Planet, I knew exactly what to expect and am totally happy with what we found.

Diu does not have the best beaches in the world, but they are pretty nice.

Diu does not have the cutest town, but it is charming in its own way.

Diu does not have the best food, but things are pretty good and cheap.

Take all these things that are not great, but pretty nice, and combine it with few people, not a lot of tourist activity, very little horn honking traffic and what may be the world's cheapest beer and you have the best place in India to recharge you batteries and your soul before heading back into the teeming masses.

Basically Diu is a 11km long island about 3km wide and about .5km off the coast. At one end is the main town where we are staying, that has a few hotels and some basic shops and restaurants. Along the south coast are a string of beaches, none of them spectacular, but most pretty deserted. The one exception to this is a beach called Negoa near the other end of the island that has a couple of hotels and bars, as well as a decent crowd of Indian beach goers. Incidentally, Indian woman go in the water fully clothed, so no girls in bikinis in these parts.

Because Diu was a Portugese colony until the '60s Diu is something called a Union Territory, which means that it is not part of any state of India. The state next door is dry, but here beer is not subject to state taxes. So the going rate for a 650ml Kingfisher is 45 rupees (about 1 dollar) in a restaurant, and I assume even lower in a store.

So, 2 more blissful days of riding our rental scooter (13 dollars for 4 days) to the beach and drinking cheap beer await. I am certainly in no rush to leave.

Tragedy on Girnar Hill

The main activity we has planned for our stop in Junagadh on the way to Diu was to climb the holy Girnar Hill. This hill was advertised in the Lonely planet as a set of 10,000 steps that lead to some interesting temples and was normally pretty busy with Indian tourists and Hindu pilgrims. This was not supposed to be one of India's most fabulous or spectacular sights, but after seeing many of those it seemed like a good idea to check out a lesser attraction that would be a little more "real".

Sadly, Girnar Hill did not disappoint.

As a side, Nisha and I were arguing, in a friendly way, about weather there could really be 10,000 steps. The hill is 600m (around 2000 feet) high, so I said that if there were 10,000 6 inch steps, that would be 5000 feet, way more then the height of the hill. She said that there must be 10,000 steps, or why would they call it that. We never came to an agreement.

We had a ride to Diu set up at 1PM, so we shoved off at 6AM to climb the hill, thankfully before the heat of the day. The autorickshaw ride was only about 15 minutes, so we got off to a quick start. The climb at first was pretty much how I pictured it, a set of wide stairs, going up the misty forest with many Indians of all ages climbing, many of them older and waring saris for the women and dotis for the men. There were also the usual amount of tea and drink vendors along the side selling their wares. Not another westerner in sight.

In the early morning people were pretty focused on the climb and we did not talk to many people. We made quick time and got to the bottom of the section of the hill with an imposing area of steep rock faces. These probably went up for around 200m of elevation, looking very mysterious in the early morning mist.

The stairs continued as before, traversing the rock face, when we saw a group of people gawking over the concrete rail at something on the rocks below. When we get up there to see what is going on someone tells us that there is a dead man down below. When we look down, sure enough there is a man, lying back down with his feet up in almost a sitting position, in an area of tall grass between two sections of rock face, around 20 feet from the wall that surrounds the stairs. The rock face is not that steep in this area, but a foot or two below the man it drops around 50 feet.

The man is not moving at all, and most Indians seem to just look for a few minutes over the wall and then press on up the hill. Being Americans however, we both feel the need to figure out what is going on, so we find a man who says that he is the dead man's friend. He says that they came from Bombay, and that the man 10 minutes ago sat down on the railing of the stairs and fell over backwards and that he thought that he had a heart attack. He also said that someone climbed down there a little while before and said that he was dead, but that he would do not more, so they should just wait for the cops to show up and take away the body.

I now felt that someone had to do something, especially since the rock face in this area was not anything steeper then on any New Hampshire mountain. So, Nisha told me how to see if someone was dead, and I jumped the wall and headed down the rocks. I got about half way down, and found out that even though the rocks were not all that steep, they were wet and very slimy. At this point I knew that I could make it down to the man, but it was not as low risk as I thought before, and I was not confident that I could do anything to get him back up, as I thought I could if I had some grip on the rocks. Also, the Indians present were not going to be of any help, besides imploring me from the stairs to not go any further and come back up to where they were. So, I chickened out and easily climbed back up. Once we go there, it was pretty clear that we could do nothing.

So we pressed on up the hill, in a much more somber mood then before.

It was hard to stay in a somber mood however, because now that it was a little later in the day, groups of Indians were being very friendly and wanting to talk and take their pictures with us. You never want to seem like some kind of rude westerner, especially around people who seem to see so few of us, so we did put on a happy face and mingled with the locals. The picture thing is really funny too, but as long as the people seem nice I usually have no problem being a prop for them to take their picture with. I also talked for a long time on the way down with some engineering students about the US as they were going to try to get visas next year. I always try to describe the US to these impressionable kids, but I know that when they step off the plane the differences are going to blow their minds. Talking with people like this is one of the biggest joys of going off the tourist track in India, so I never get tired of it.

The temples themselves were pleasant but nothing special. There was a big complex of seemingly abandoned Jain temples about 3/4 of the way to the top and a busy little Hindu temple on top. As far as how many steps there are, they are numbered, so as we found out the top of the mountain is at around 5500. However, as it turns out the pilgrimage goes along a ridge for a while and up two other peaks on the ridge, so there are 10,000 steps, both going up and going down, until the end. We turned around at the top however, as we needed to get back to catch our ride to Diu.

When we reached the place with the dead man the police must have already gotten there and left, because all that was left was an area of matted down grass.

I know this may sound weird, but I had a feeling we would probably see some human disaster on this trip (not to us of course, otherwise I would have stayed at home), as India is so big and so many people get run over by cars and buses and such. Climbing a serene mountain was not where I expected it would happen.

The main thing I was surprised about was the level of apathy towards the whole situation shown by the people going up the mountain. Since I have never been around a similar scene in the US I will never know how a bunch of Americans would have reacted, but I guess I always thought that a bunch of young strong guys would have figured out some way to get a man like that back up to the path so he could be looked at by someone in the crowd with medical training. The rocks were really not that steep and it definitely could have been done.

The thing is I have never seen this kind of thing in the US, so I will never know for sure what the reaction would be. Maybe Indians are just more used to seeing bad things happen and since it was pretty obvious from the stiffness of his body that he was dead, no one thought there was any use in expending the effort. I would have liked to been able to get him though, just so Nisha could have taken a look and declared that he was actually dead, but unfortunately I was the only one there with that opinion.

Nisha's note: Ian wasn't the only one wanting to get to the fallen man. I also wanted to confirm that he was dead ot help him in some way. Even though Ian thought that he could reach the man, I felt that there as a good chance he would fall off the wet ledge, which dropped vertically about 75 feet onto the next set of stairs. The man had had rigor mortis set in before he fell from the wall since he was in an unnatural sitting position laying on his back. Therefore I was confidant he was dead from our vantage point. Hopefully his family will gain some solace in knowing that he died while on a pilgrammage.

New Stuff

Nisha just wanted to say that there are new pictures uploaded and the map has been updated as well.

That is all.

On the Open Road

Note: This was mostly written on 9/14/07

As I had anticipated before we got here, travel from place to place in India is alwase a challange.

Before last night our modes of long distance transport had been either flying (from Leh and back), chair car on a high cost Shabati Express train (Delhi to Agra and back) and the so called "2 tier AC Car" on an overnight train. Flying is obviously the best, with Jet Airways and Indian Airways both serving full meals on a two hour flight, but the cost is obviously also high. It cost 150 each to fly to Leh and 100 back. The Shabati Express was a pretty standard train set up with big 2x2 seating. These are also the fastest trains available in India, as far as I know, so it took us only 2 hours to cover the 200km from Delhi to Agra. Obviously the Shinkansen in Japan can go 300km/hr max, but that is in a different league. The problem here is that these trains are only available between major cities that can be reached in a day trip and the cost was 10 bucks for a 2 hour ride, which is a king's ransom for Indian transportation.

As far as the 2 tier AC for overnight, this is actually supprisingly good. The car itself is reasonably clean, with good strong AC. You get a sort of bunk arragement either in a group of 2 along one wall or 4 along the other wall of the car, with 2 fairly wide bunk beds. The beds can fold so the upper one is stowed and the bottom serves as a couch size seat for both people in the bunks, although for a night train pretty much everyone stays in the bunk. The groups are seperated by curtains and they supply bedding of hospital type sheets. We locked our bags underneath the beds with a bike lock.

The sleeping on these is actully really good because the gentle rocking of the train at night puts you right to sleep. In the morning you arrive unshowered, but otherwise very refreshed. The downside is that it is pretty slow, as it took 10 hours to get from Jaipur to Udaipur, which is probabaly only about 500km. Also the cost is not peanuts, around 20 bucks each, but you are getting a place to sleep for the night, so no big deal.

So last night we try the next step down on the ladder, the sleeper bus. Our reason for this is just a matter of timing. Indian Railways seems competive between major cities, but we were going for Udaipur to Junagadh in Gujarat. You can do this on the train, but you need to take a 10 hour overnight to Ahmedabad then wait 2 hours and take a 8 hour day train to Junagadh. The sleeper bus is only 9 hours and was advertised to take us to a place 1 hour away by bus, Rajkot. Also, the sleeper bus 10 bucks each.

So, we get our ticket with Nisha getting an assurance that there is a reasonable bathroom and we are off. These are not run by the government, so you basically go to where they tell you to get the bus, which was a main traffic circle in Udaipur with several little shops that orginize these things. When we get to the place there are quite a few other western backpacker types, but most leave for other destinations, leaving us with a handful of us left.

The sleeper bus is a stange arrangment. There are one person sleeping cublicles on one side of the bus, one floor level and one up high, and the other side has two seats next to each other at floor level and a two person sleeping cubible above. We had one of these two person sleeping cublicles. The bus also had no AC, so we needed to leave the big window in our cublicle open by varying amounts during the night. Also, the place is pretty much a mess, with little kids and even a western backpacker sleeping on the floor of the hallway during the night, making you step over them to go anywhere.

The night got off to a bad start because as it turned out there was no bathroom on the bus. Nisha found this out and ran off, but came back in a panic because in the public bathroom outside the bus, which was bad even by Indian standards, it was dark and she steped in a pile of human poop. Thus she was in a discusted panic when she got back to the bus and stuck her shoe in the best plastic bag we had. I did not get a change to go to teh bathroom and had to shove off at 10:00 needing to go and with nothing to do.

While we were on the road we did get some sleep, but the starting and stopping of a bus on Indian roads does not make it easy. Fortunately we did eventaully end up on a interstate highway of sorts, so this was pretty nice. We also stopped twice at roadside dahba (truck stop) type places and this was a lifesaver as it gave me the chance to go to the bathroom (which was nicer then the one at the start), buy snacks and clean off Nisha's shoe, which was not a pretty job.

The other catch with these buses is that lateness seems to be pretty much normal. Our bus to Rajkot was 1 hour behind, then the next similar bus to Junagadh took 2 and a half hours rather then 1.

Anyway, needless to say we will be taking the train in the future when it is at all practical. But, if the bus is really the only practical way to get somewhere then it is surviveable. As a side note, we ended up springing for a car to take us to Diu a day later.

Indian Cleanliness

One paradox about India that has puzzled me for the longest time is the situation here with cleanliness. One one hand most streets have a gutter of disgusting water, littered with garbage running down the side of the road. But in the morning you will see shopkeepers out meticulously sweeping their shops and making sure that everything is perfectly clean. Piles of trash are common on the streets, but the marble floor of our 15 dollar a night hotel is hand mopped by a guy on his knees with a rag several times a day.

This may be incorrect, but my observation has been that Indians seem to have a very distinct separation between the places that are their responsibility and should be clean and places that they are not responsible for and therefore they don't care about. I would suspect this is why the shopkeeper is so careful to keep the little concrete step in front of his shop clean, even if there is a smoldering pile of trash one meter away.

There are even places within rooms that are on various sides of this clean separation. In the room I am in right now the marble floor is perfectly clean, as is the desk the computer is on. However, the little windows that let the only sunlight in the room have not been cleaned in forever.

The one impotent thing to take from this as a westerner in India I think is that you often cannot judge a book by its cover. The outside walls of most buildings fall into the not cared for category because they face public areas and therefore are OK to be filthy. But, the inside can be very well cared for, and that does not seem to be an odd contradiction to the average Indian.

Travel Plans

Today we shove off from Udaipur in the evening and head south to Gujarat. We are going to spend a few days in Gujarat before heading further south to a place called Diu. Diu is a small island just off the coast, which similar to Goa, was a Portuguese colony until it was given back to India after independence.

Unlike Goa, it is supposedly pretty untouched by western tourists and probably a lot more of a backwater. However, after doing sights for a while here in northern India we thought it might be nice to get off the beaten track for a little while and relax a bit before flying from Diu to Bombay to start on southern India.

Also, we are a little interested to see Gujarat. For those not familiar with India, Gujarat is one of the wealthier states in India where there is supposedly a lot of industrial activity. Also, Gujarat has an inordinate number of people living in the US. I read somewhere that 40% of all Indians living in the NYC area are from Gujarat. So a lot of that states culture is what we think of as Indian culture in the US. However, not many tourists go there, so hopefully it will be a little bit of a respite from the usual thirst for the western tourist dollar.

Luck finally runs out, cowboy...

Today was our second day in Udaipur, a fairly quiet city, by Indian standards in Rajasthan. The city is best known for large parts of the Bond film Octopussy being set here.

For today's activity we set up a 4 hour horseback ride at a ranch on the outskirts of town, leaving the hotel at 8:00. All well and good except that last night my luck with GI issues finally runs out, and by the time I am going to bed I am running a little bit of a fever and feeling pretty bad. To compound this I am in one of those half dream states where you know you should get up and try to improve your situation, but you continue to try to go to sleep. So, I don't do anything until 5AM, when I finally drink some water and make myself more comfortable and get to sleep.

The funny thing about this is that I have been pushing the envelope lately with what I eat (getting ice cream and frozen drinks at reputable places), but yesterday I did not even eat anything risky at all.

So, we head out there will me feeling like crap at 8:00. The unfortunate thing is that the horse ride was actually the best one I have ever been on. We basically head out into Rajasthani farm country, riding across a lot of open plains and being greeted by many friendly locals. We saw tones of sheep being headed as well as a lot of cows and water buffalo, which we determined must be the laziest creatures on earth. Also, things are made even more photogenic because the local women here, even working in fields, etc., wear these intricate bight colored saris.

We ended up shortening the ride to 3 hours, because my sickness was making me feel very beat up, and I almost fell asleep on the horse. But it was totally worth it anyway. When we got back I ended up laid up for the rest of the day, but now I think I am on the up and up. Which I better be since we scheduled a car out to some far villages tomorrow, and I have no idea what the bathroom situation will be.

Impressions of Jaipur

Jaipur has been a good couple of days. A couple of things:

- India is getting cleaner all the time. It is still India mind you, but they seem to have instituted emissions controls in most of the cities. Delhi has all CNG buses, cabs and auto rickshaws and Agra and Jaipur seem to at least have banished diesel for gasoline the effect on smog is incredible. Also, touts and beggars are at a pretty reasonable level, especially for a place with quite a few western tourists. I am not sure if this is because Nisha and I are OK at handling them (I think), or if there are less, but either way, not too bad.

- One thing that has occurred to me as you see all of these intricate palaces with their detailed marble work and painting is that the power of a society may be inversely proportional to the amount of grand structures and items that it produces. The amount of resources that the Moguls (who ruled this area of the world before the English) must have spent on palaces and art must have been incredible. They were building palaces that put the things in Europe to shame and their whole kingdom was just part of India. The English seem to be pretty conservative builders, for the size of their empire, and they flourished. Also, if you look today, the US churns out very few impressive structures for its size, but that may actually be indicative of our success.

- We went to a place south of Jaipur yesterday which is basically a sort of fake Rajasthani village that is a very popular tourist attraction for middle class Indian families. You pay 6 bucks for admission as well as a quite nice dinner of traditional Rajasthani food served in these big dining hall kind of setups. The fake village itself has many stages with dancers, contortionists, puppets and various other performers as well as Elephant and Camel rides. When you are in a country with domestic tourism, it can kind of be a tourist attraction in itself to go to a domestic tourist attraction. You kind of see what a society think of as an idealized version of itself, much like how a quaint seaside town is an idealized version of New England. It seems like this kind of quaint rural lifestyle was an attraction to Indians as well, but I would surmise that since and real Indian town would be beset by the problems that we solve with zoning in the US, building a fake village is really the only way to attain it.

- I went running for around 6km this morning along a main road in Jaipur. Never got so many "what is this crazy white man doing" looks in my life. Two guys just driving to work on motorcycles pulled over to give me a lift, but I declined.

- Have had some really incredible food here and am staying in a really nice hotel with a pool. We are probably running right about on daily budget right now, which is good because what you can get here in the 35 dollar a night hotel and 10 dollar dinner range is really very nice.

In Jaipur

We arrived in Jaipur yserday after a wonderful train ride frm Delhi. Jaipur is a city built around old city walls, similar to Florence. The appeal of the city is that everything is pink. Not pepto-bismal pink, but a more attractive pink-orange color.

Ian is posting some new pictures from India as I am typing and I am putting up a new link with a map of our travels.

Formatting Issues

Sorry about how some of the posts end up with weird line breaks, it is
because sometimes I post from my EMail account. I will probably try
to log into blogger more from now on.

Indian Newspapers

One really nice thing about India is that English language TV and
newspapers are quite common for a country where English is not the
main language.

The highlight of this is the Indian English language newspapers that
are very common, at least in Delhi. Several observations:

- A lot of the news in them is very sad, and makes you realize how
many people there are here, and how many bad things happen. For
instance, in Delhi at least 2 or 3 people get run over by bus a day.
When you see the state of the roads this makes a lot of sense, but you
know that in a western country it would be considered totally
unacceptable, here it is a fact of life.

- They also have a lot of really bizarre news stories that are
absolutely hilarious. Yesterday we were reading about a female circus
elephant who fell in love with a wild male elephant, and has become an
attraction for villagers as her and her mate frolic in the ponds
around the village. The story became quite dramatic when they talk
about how she no longer responds to her mahout (elephant driver), who
nurtured her like a father since birth.

- Reading a lot of the opinion pieces, etc., India seems to feel that
it is on the cusp of finally becoming a first class world power.
There seems to be a lot of nationalism and pride about the military
and India's increasing role in the world. In a lot of ways it is more
like the US then a lot of other places, because so much attention is
focused on the role of the country internationally, as a player and
not an observer.

- The trash celebrity culture has really taken off here similar to in
the US. There are many pages every day in the paper of just celebrity
gossip and pictures. They even have their own version of the Paris
Hilton jail story which involves the brother of a famous actor named
Sanjay Dutt, who is evidently in the slammer for illegal hunting of
all things.

- Despite the fact that India is a stable democracy, a lot of stuff is
settled by angry mobs. When they cover a incident of someone getting
hit by a bus, it seems that usually the driver heads for the hills, as
his bus if often taken over by an angry mob. Also there has been a
running story about a teacher who was accused in a TV expose for
pushing a student into prostitution. This resulted quickly in the
local police station being sacked by an angry mob. However, it has
come out in later days that although he was involved in prostitution,
it is not likely that his students were involved. No apology from the
angry mob has been forthcoming.

Women in the papers

We took the train to Agra today to see the Taj Mahal for the day. I have been here before 12 years ago, but this is a place that you can visit 1,000 times and never tire of its stunning beauty. For those unfamiliar with the story, it was built by Shah Jahan in the 1600's as a tomb for his wife who died in childbirth (her 14th!).

It is lamentable that in a country that can produce such a moving memorial to a women, men commit hideous atrocities against women everyday On the 15th page of the paper yesterday, I read of a story that curdled my blood. In a village in UP (east of Delhi), a man caught his teenage daughter and a village boy in a "compromising position" in the fields. While the rest of the village tried to decide what punishment should befall these two teenagers, the father, tied the two kids to a bed by their wrists then beheaded first the boy then the girl. The article went so far as to mention that the boy's body was claimed and cremated by his family. There was no one to claim the girl's. There also was no mention of criminal charges against the "father."

There are also many articles, mainly by women, about how Delhi generally unsafe for women. When a woman defended herself with karate against two would-be-assailants on a crowded street (while hundreds stood around and watched while she called for help), it made the paper. Thankfully, I have only been the victim of vulgar looks from men, mainly in Delhi. These filthy, vile creatures lurk around the tourist areas and won't hesitate to crane their necks, point, and gawk at westerners, even modestly dressed ones. I never experienced such things when I lived in Calcutta for a month or anywhere else in India for that matter. I can't wait to be out of Delhi for good.

There are a few positives that I have noticed as a change from my previous visits to India. There is more mention of domestic violence as a crime in the papers. There are large billboards with help numbers for women. Also, there are a few articles in the paper about military men being disciplined for abuses against females in the military. These are steps ahead in a constant battle for women's equality.

Leh Lowdown

We are departing tomorrow from Leh and heading back down into what I will call Normal India. Some quick thoughts on Leh:

FUN/INTERESTING EXPERIENCES - not including trekking

- Visiting Buddhist monasteries is always an interesting thing to do when you are in a mountain area such as this. They always kind of have this feeling of time standing still because you can never tell what is new and what is old, and often they have a lot of statues and paintings that are hundreds of years old just sitting in the inner rooms. That and the monks doing their chanting and drumming is pretty cool.

- Polo matches at the Leh polo ground are a really cool sports event. It is the yearly Ladakh Festival right now, so there is a Polo match just about every day. They take place at the polo ground, which is basically a giant sandlot with stone walls around about half of it and giant concrete steps around the other half that are used as bleachers. The goals are around 20 yards away from the end of the ground and there is an out of bounds area behind the goals, but other then that everything else is in play. This makes for interesting action because there are garbage cans, porta potties, a water truck, parked cars, scooters and a lot of the spectators on the playing field. So when the ball goes near the side walls there are usually people running for their lives, and then several horses gallop in to try to dig the ball out from under a parked car or whatever.

The first match that Nisha and I went to we were some of the people standing on the field, near the bathrooms, so for a while our plan was to run into the 3 foot wide space behind the bathroom every time the ball came near us. This plan fell apart when we ran back there to see the ball sitting at our feet. We proceeded to run like hell as a Ladakhi on a horse charged in behind the bathroom swinging a polo mallet. Needless to say next match we sat up on the concrete bleachers to watch the chaos from a safe distance.

The crowd is actually pretty big (about 1000 people I would say) and mostly locals, including quite a few monks in full dress. In the second match we saw, in addition to a close 4-3 game, an old monk and a dog nearly get trampled as they tried to cross the field, as well as numerous crowds of people running from a gang of horsemen. Quite entertaining.

- Today I rented one of the beater mountain bikes and decided to ride up the valley out of town. I looked at the map and saw that there was a high pass road back there, so just figured I would go uphill for as long as I could and then coast on back.

Little did I know that I had actually started riding up the worlds highest moterable road. I rode up this pristine ribbon of pavement for about one and a half hours, up to an elevation of 4300m and then coasted back in around 20 minutes. The road was a steady 5% grade (approx.), so the biking was not actually that difficult, but the views were incredible and there were only about 10 cars on it the whole time I was back there.

I was a little disappointed to have to turn around, but I was out of time and out of water. However, when I got back I found out that the pass is at 5600m, so I was only about half way there. Also, in a few KM up the road I would have had to show my inner line permit, since the pass is close to China, so I would have had to turn around anyway.

HIGHLIGHTS

- The landscape here is really incredible. The place is naturally a barren desert. But, in every valley a glacier fed stream runs, and these have been diverted to make the towns in the valleys appear like Tuscany. The towns have cute little fields with barley and livestock as well as tall skinny trees and well kept houses. Then at the edge of town, back to desert. The effect is stunning.

- This is one of the least congested and best kept parts of India. It is still India, but the problems of dirt, overcrowding and petty crime are as under control here as they will ever be.

- Food here has been quite good. Although every restaurant tries to serve at least 5 cuisines, from a list of Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Italian, Continental and Israeli. They have been pretty good, but a little specialization would be in order. A lot of restaurants have rooftop terraces as well.

LOWLIGHTS

- It is pretty touristy. The center of Leh is crawling with tourists, mostly of the weird European variety. There is real stuff for the real people here, but in the center of town you would think that only stores are ones that sell pashminas and trinkets for tourists.

- This is a difficult place to see for a few days because of the altitude. Nisha and I are really only starting to feel normal up here, and we have been here a week. This is probably not that big a deal for people who slowly come up the road, but it is an issue when you fly in.

- It is a pain to get here. We were planning on taking buses and trains out, but it takes around 4 days of travel, not including stopping in the towns on the way to get back to Delhi. So in the end we ended up flying both ways, which was more then we wanted to spend.

So, overall I would recommend this as a place to go, for those with the time and the money. But it is really more on an adventure sport playground then the real India, for whatever that is worth.

Tourist Rage

Just wanted to recount some incidents of bad behavior by western tourists in the first week we have been in India.

- Some piss drunk Austrailian was in a bar in Delhi with his wife and kid. For some reason he wanted to buy a whole bottle of whisky from the bar, which I am sure is very illegal in India. The guys at the bar actually said that they would do it for him, but they insisted on pouring it into a plastic container. He went nuts and spent 30 minutes arguing with them and bascially being a total jerk, making eveyone else in the bar very uncomfortable.

- English girl in Leh is buying a plane ticket from one of the mom and pop internet cafe and travel agent palces. There is some minor fee (like 5 bucks) that the places charges for booking the ticket which is not on the invoice from the airline. She argues in a really abusive way with the poor guy who runs the place for 30 minutes, really making the environment uncomfortable for those of us on the internet.

- Dutch people in resturant in Leh get two pots of tea rather then one from the very nice and hard working waiter. They get all mean at him even though a pot of tea is probabaly less then a dollar.

I sort of understand why some westerners get very defensive in India because it can feel like there are a lot of people trying to overcharge you or otherwise rip you off. However, not everyone is trying to rip you off, and often if you are getting overcharged it is for less then a dollar.

Westerners here often seem to totally lose prospective of what a Rupee is worth, because they will get so pissed of if they overpay 10 or 20 rupees for something when they are perfectly happy paying 5 dollars, aka 200 rupees for a beer back home.

Basically this is just kind of a rant because I hate to see the reputation of westerners ruined by a buch of jerks with no prospective. But, if I was an Indian who was trying to run an honest business, with some of these people here, I might start tying to screw the westerners as well, because some certainly deserve it.

I'm a flatlander!

As Ian stated in his last entry, we left for a 5 day trek on August 30th with 2 other Americans we met. We felt like we had acclimatized well enough by taking it easy for 2 days in Leh (3500m) when we first got here. I wasn't out of breath any more when I walked up the flight of stairs to the hotel. No dizziness, no headache, no nausea, no signs of altitude sickness. So we set off early in the morning. See Ian's account of the first 2 days. The views were stunning, the locals were welcoming, trekking wasn't too difficult the first day, and the campsite comfy, but rustic.

However, sometime during the first day, I began to suffer from a cold - the kind requiring vigorous nose-blowing every 5 minutes or disastrous sneezes. This didn't really become a problem until the second day of trekking when we trekked from 3400m to 4300m (14,100ft). Around the 3800 mark, I felt like I was breathing with a pillow over my face. I slowed down to moving one foot with every 3 breaths, breathing about about 25-30 times per minute, like running at full speed at sea level. Walking was miserable since I was dizzy with blurred vision. Drinking and eating were exceedingly difficult since I couldn't breath during those activities. Ian was right there though, making sure I did. We did eventually get to the campsite, this one more barren and cold than the first since the smaller river could not support vegetation here.

After a long and cold night, the night temperature here being around -5 C, Ian and I decided that it would be best for me to go back to town on day 3. I was loathe to do this, because it would mean admitting defeat. However, it was evident that I could not go over the pass at 5000m since I could not walk up a 10m hill. So I conceded and agreed to the guide walking with me back down to the first campsite then catch a car to town. Ian was to continue on with the group.

The morning of day 3, I left with our guide, one bottle of water, and a lunch box down the valley. Our plan was to walk to the campsite of the first night where there is generally a car that may take one to Leh. Walking down the valley was tough, but it was morning and we went at a slow pace. I wanted a car to be there sooooo badly I began praying the only prayer I know, the Lords Prayer. I must have said a hundred times while walking. Please God let there be a car, please God let there be a car, Our Father who art in Heaven..... We get to the first campsite after walking for 3 hours, and lo and behold, there is a car! Showers, toilets, and tissues, oh my!! To my ultimate dismay though, there was no driver. So I figured I have to start praying for a car and driver, not realizing before that God was so sarcastic and literal. Please God let there be a car and driver, please God let there be a car and driver. Our Father who art in Heaven, Our Father who art in Heaven.... At the next campsite, there is another car!! Showers, toilets, and tissues, oh my!! This time there is also a driver. However, there was no gas!!!! That's it, I realized again why I was finished with the Catholic church years ago.

I'm now getting very tired as the sun is high. Any indecision I had about coming down the mountain is gone now as I know that if I had pressed on over the pass, I would have to be unceremoniously carried down. I'm dizzy again and feeling like I will fall to my knees with every step. This doesn't improve when the guide tells me that we have to walk the 3.5 hours in the blazing desert sun to Spituk for the next car. It takes a supreme amount of energy to just get one foot in front of the other. I can't breathe, I can't see, I'm thirsty with no water.

Another hour or two go by like this. I can only keep walking by tricking myself that there is some dire emergency I have to make it to Spituk for. In my delirium, I begin going though people in my life who would warrant such an effort, conveniently I don't remember the particulars. I am about to tell that guide that I cannot go on until dusk when a car rounds the corner. The car driver says that he will make a drop off then come back to pick us up in two hours. So we wait in the sun. Fast-forward 3 hours, and I am back in our hotel, though still unable to breathe. A 12 hour sleep, some azithromycin, and lots of water later I feel much better.

What happened? I though of this many times while walking down. The combination of small lungs and rushed acclimatization already put me back. However, the bronchitis really snatched the last of my pulmonary reserve away. Also when you are up there, you start thinking of all the other things it could be - could I have the dreaded high altitude pulmonary edema? Now it's easy to say no now, since it's rapidly fatal. But up there, when you are panting while laying on your back in the tent, days away from the nearest large hospital and slightly delirious, it's hard not to worry.

It wasn't all bad. Again, the views were stunning and we will post pictures at the next place with a better internet. The people amazingly hospitable (the trekking coordinator came to check on me this morning). The camping was fun for all the reasons Ian outlined. My belt grew longer by a few inches over the last few days. I learned that I must listen to my body more and give altitude the respect it deserves. I also realized - I am a flatlander, sea level at that.

Example of a Mini Disaster in India

Day 1:

Go into the one ATM in Leh to get some money. Notice a sign on the wall that someone left their card in the ATM and a number to call to get it back. Think how stupid it is to leave your card in the ATM. Then notice that this particualar ATM waits litterally 30 seconds to give your card back to you after you take your money and reciept. Figure out why someone might leave their card.

Day 2:

Get money at the ATM in a rush.

Day 3 of Trek:

Go into your wallet to give Nisha ATM card when splitting up and realize that it is not there. Giving yourself one more thing to worry about besides splitting up with your wife miles up in the Himilayas.

Conclusion:

Hold put on card.

No money missing.

Still trying to figure out how to get a new card to India.

Trek Adventures and Misadventures

Editor's Note: Maps here and everything else are in metric, when writing this post I don't feel like using a converter every 5 seconds, so I will use metric. Don't worry when I get back to the US I will go back to normal.

You may notice that I am writing about the trek one day early, read more to find out why... (don't worry everyone and everything is fine)

Day 1:

Leave the hotel that orginized the trek at around 9 AM with a pickup truck full of supplies and our two compainions on the trek. Our compainions are two Stanford students who are here for the summer, and as it turned out were a lot of fun. Drive around 15 minutes to the start (4200m) and when we are arrive there are 6 pack horses ready and waiting. After fooling around for a few minutes, we head off with the guide up the trail letting the cook and horse driver pack everything up and catch up later. The guide is a pretty nice guy, a little quiet, but pleasent. The first day we hike for around 5 hours, on a mostly gentle jeep track. The scenery is as spectacular as would be expected, as we were mainly hiking across and open desert plain then up a deep gordge.

During lunch the guide takes and nap for about half and hour and the horse caravan passes us. As we would figure out, this after lunch nap is a pretty regular thing for this guide, but everyone but me also passed out, so it was no problem at all.

Eventually we reach the campsite, which is at around 3400m (lower then our hotel in Leh, which is 3500m). This was the nicest campsite as it was a little manger in the riverbed, with the river at one side and a diverted irrigation stream at the other. The orginization of the trek was pretty top notch, so by the time we arrived camp was more or less set up and we were served tea pretty much right away. The food was quite good as well. We would alwase get at least 4 fresh dishes and a canned fruit dessert. Incedentily, we figured out that we were served tea 5 times a day on this trip, wake up tea, breakfast tea, arrive at camp tea, dinner tea and post dinner tea.

Also, we got some entertainment during dinner from our compainones. One of them brought his Ukelale with him and was pretty good at playing sing along songs with it. Make fun if you want, but his renditions of the Betles and Paul Simon were pretty damb good. The other funny thing about this was that our cook, a nice guy named Ram, had to carry the thing by hand all day long since they were afraid to strap it to the horse, making for a pretty funny scene when they walked by.

So the first day was pretty good except for that Nisha was working pretty hard even at this low elevation and was developing a cold that was not helping matters either.

Day 2:

Woke up and was served tea and a very nice breakfast and got moving on the hike, once again leaving the horses and the cook behind to finish packing. Hiked for around 2 hours up the gordge, having to get my shoes wet a few times crossing the river. No big deal however as things dry up here faster then I have ever seen. We reach a really cute village at around 3900m where I pick up a coke and a few others get tea. The village is an hour hike past the end of the road, but was really pretty, with fields of barley and grazing livestock all in this very deep valley. Stop for lunch next to a donkey pasture and once again take the half hour nap break.

One thing about the weather here is that the sun is really brutel. Even though you may leave camp in the morning wearing a fleese and a hat, by the middle of the day it is really hot, and just sucks the energy right out of you. Nisha got cought bad by this in the afternoon as we hiked up the valley to the campsite at 4300m. She really ran out of gas and the last 1km or so to the campsite was a real death march, with several stops to dip towels in the cold river and some really slow hiking.

That night we all got headahes for the altitude, but Nisha had it the worst. She also was getting a cold and this campsite was very exposed, with a bitter wind coming up the valley after dark. We ended up hanging out with a young british couple that was camping in the same site, and hit the bed around 9.

Day 3:

Was already thinking during the night that if Nisha did not have any improvement in her physical condition, there was now way that she was going to make it over the 4900m pass that was on the docket for today. When we got up in the morning, I had her try climbing up the 10m high ridge next to the camp and it just was not happening.

My initial plan was to head back down with her to the top of the road, and see if we could get her a ride back to Leh. Then I would get a ride to the town at the bottom of the next vally and do the 3 hour hike back up to where they were going to camp, bypassing the pass. After talking this over with the guide, he said that he would take Nisha down and get her back to Leh, and then meet back up with us either that night or the following morning, which was basically my plan. But since he is Nepelese (altitude no problem) and knows the area it did seem like he would be a better choice then me, so we aggreed to this plan.

So we split and the two college kids and myself go flying up the pass and make it to the top in around one hour and a half. Did not have any big problems making it up, but it was pretty steep and the air at 16,000 feet is pretty thin. We proceed to spend around 2 hours up at the top, climbing up to the nearest high point on the ridge that just reached 5000m. It was also pretty cool watching the horse teams go over the pass, I have never seen horses breathing so hard or climbing such a steep slope.

I spent a little too long up there however, because as I started to eat lunch I got a pretty bad headache that I would attribute to the altitude. I then decended pretty quickly to our next campsite at 4300m, and was just completely wiped out by the sun and the altitude. I napped for 2 hours right after I got there, which is definately a rarity for me.

Luckly the nap fixed my headache and we had another nice dinner spread and hung out with the brits around the campsite again, going to bed at around 9 PM. I was sleeping great until around 2 AM when I woke up with a terrible headache and thirst. I am pretty sure that it was mainly dehydration, but the problem was that I did not have any drinking water left, and would not get any more until morning, making for a pretty crappy night of sleep.

Day 4:

I woke up in a pretty bad mood, but willed myself to drink two liters of water and felt a little better. The problem was that we packed up and left to climb the next pass and there was still no sign of the guide who was supposed to bring Nisha back to Leh. I was not feeling so hot already, and the prospect of the guide never reappearing ment that the following night and day were not going to be very much fun, since I was mainly just going to worry about weather Nisha was alright. So, I decided to forgo another day of high pass climbing and headed down the valley to the town at the base. It was a pretty easy 3 hour hike to the pretty little town at the bottom, and I was lucky enough to get a cab to drive me the 40 minutes back to Leh for only 2 dollars.

There I found Nisha checked back into the hotel, with her own story to tell.

So I did miss one day, but I did accompish what I wanted to do, which was hike over one of these 5000m passes. My biggest lesson is certainly that altitude is not to be messed with and can humble anyone. I thought I was immune until my issues on the high pass. I was glad to do the trip, certainly the landscape, the scenery and the alitidue are something that you will experience in very few places in the world and I am glad I made it.