Indian Train Guide

Before we left for India we knew that we would need to take the train as one of our major forms of transportation. However, despite reading up on the way the system works in the Lonely Planet and on the Internet, I found that I still had to figure out a lot of how to work the system on the way. With that in mind I offer my guide to how to take the train in India. I obviously do not guarantee any information to be current or correct, but if you are planning on going to India I think that this post will be very useful. Also, this guide that already exists is the best one available, so I would recommend reading it as well.

INTRODUCTION

If you are travelling in India you really owe it to yourself to take the train at least once. It is crowded, the trains are often late and it is very confusing, but it is also the quintessential Indian travel experience. It is how most Indians get around the country, and is a good way to experience everyday life. It is also vastly superior to any form of road transportation, bus or even private car. A car may be slightly more comfortable, but the bumps, curves and hair raising driving conditions make the ride a lot less relaxing. A flight is better, but taking the overnight trains is a great way to save money on hotel rooms and quite a bit cheaper.

CLASSES

There is really only 4 classes that you need to be concerned with on Indian Railways.

AC Chair Car - This exists only Shatabi Express day trains. It is the standard recline chair setup that you are used to on Amtrak or any European train. This is the only class where free food is served.

2AC or 2 Tier Air Con - This is the one that most people should take. It has air conditioned cars (sometimes a little too air conditioned), and is relatively clean (keep in mind this is India however). The car is separated into 6 bunk sections, 2 of the beds are on one side of the train, one above the other, lying parallel to the direction of the train. Then there is the hallway, then there is an area with 4 bunks, one on top of the other, on opposite walls, lying perpendicular to the train. At night curtains separate the 2 beds on the side from the hallway and the 4 beds from the hallway. During the day the bottom beds are used as seats for the 2 people in the bunks on that wall. Linens are provided, but you make the beds. Your cabin mates will be middle class Indian businessman types and some western travellers, depending on what the route is. We travelled this class on all overnight trains and we always got a very good nights sleep. The prime berths are the bottom bunks not on the side. The side bunks may also be good if you are travelling solo, as you have complete privacy when the curtains are drawn, rather then sharing the area behind the curtain with the other 3 people on the wider side.

3AC or 3 Tier Air Con - Same as 2AC but with 6 beds where there are 4 on the wide side. The beds are 3 layer bunks rather then two. We never travelled in this class, because it was not that much cheaper then 2AC, but it seemed like it would be fine as well.

Sleeper - Same setup as 3AC but with no AC. Dirtier cars as well. This has the open barred windows that you have probably seen in classic Indian train photos. We took this a lot during the day, as it was never crowded during the day and the fresh air can be quite pleasant. It is also much cheaper, so why not save money during the day.

SCHEDULES AND AVAILABILITY

One of the hardest things to do in the Indian train system is figure out what train to take. There is no Internet application that figures out the most efficient route, including transfers, from one place to another. Rather, the Indian Railways site will only tell you if a train exists from one distinct station to another. This is really not as big a deal as you would think, since it would be very difficult to ever pull off an Indian railways journey with transfers. For most people there will always be a train that goes from any common origin to the next logical destination. If it is a place where there is no train, then you might need to take a bus. Another good way of figuring out where you might need to route your trip through is to look at a map, like in Lonely Planet, that has the railway routes on it. By looking at where the railways go you can figure out where you would probably have to connect.

The most impotent resource for finding your train is the Indian Railways website, it is very poorly designed, but does have a lot of useful info on it. There are two primary sections of interest both accessible from clicking on the top, "Trains between imp. stations", which has drop down boxes of all major stations (FYI. there is no station for Goa it is called Madgoan), and "Train/Fare Accommodation", which can look up any station in the Indian Railways network. On this page first you type in part of the station name, and then you will get drop down boxes of stations that match what you put in. The resulting information is the same, it is just easier to use the first if you are going to be using major stations. Please note that some cities have many major stations, so if there is no train between two places that obviously should have one, look for another station in the same city. Such as, if you put in New Delhi and Agra City you will get no trains, that is because the main station in Agra is called Agra Cantonment (AGRA CANTT). Sometimes you may have to refer to the Lonely Planet, since that is the only place you are going to find out things like that the main train station in Kolkata is called Howrah.

Once you have found your two stations, you pick your class and day and hit the button. The class is not totally impotent, I usually pick 2AC for a night train and sleeper for a day train. They show you a lot of the other classes too, so you do not necessarily have to pick the class you want. The next page shows the trains that run on the day you want to go. In order to find out how many seats are on any given train, click the radio button next to it and hit the "Get Availability" button. The screen you get show the availability in the class you selected earlier (as well as one class down) for the 6 days starting on the day you picked.

Now we get to the tricky subject of the different types of availability. In my experience there were 3 different statuses that a train would be in:

AVAILABLE - Obviously this is the best, it means there are seats still available. If you go to an advance ticket window they should be able to give you a ticket with a seat number on it.

RAC - Reservations Against Cancellations - I was never completely clear about this, but my understanding it that it means that they cannot give you an actual seat at this time, but you will have a seat on the train.

WL - Waitlist - This means that there are not enough seats right now, and you are buying a seat betting that others will cancel. This sounds really bad, but for some reason, there are always a lot of cancellations on an Indian train. I was told by several locals and family members that a number less then 10 in 2AC means that you are pretty much certain to get a seat. I would assume that number would be quite a bit higher in a class like sleeper, since there are a lot more cars and seats in sleeper then in 2 or 3 AC. We never had a WL ticket not work out, but according to the sign on the wall in the station you should be able to return your WL ticket, if a seat did not open up, and get your money back.

Little sidebar here...

If you do buy a RAC or Waitlist ticket there are two ways that you can find out what seat you are assigned to, or if you have a seat at all. The first is to go to the Indian Railways website and click on the link at the top that says "Passenger/PNR Status". On the resulting screen enter in the PNR number that is printed on the top of your ticket. The website will show you the current status of your ticket and your seat, if you have moved up on the list enough to get one. The second method is more basic. When you go to the train station there will be big dot matrix passenger manifests for every train tacked to a big board, usually around track 1. Look on these sheet for your train and class and you should find your name, and the name of everyone else on the train with a seat. This is the final authority on where you are sitting. They also sometimes stick these sheets to the side of the actual rail car and the conductor will always have a copy, which is what he uses to figure out what seats are empty.

Sidebar over, back to the website.

One additional important thing to use in this section of the website. Please note on the screen where you pick your train there is a box that says "General Quota". When you search under the General Quota you are looking at the seats that anyone can buy, you should run your search this way first. Luckily for non-Indians there is also a "Foreign Tourist Quota". These are seats that are only sold to people who have a foreign passport and are on a tourist visa (although probably any westerner will have no problem getting a ticket). In order to search for these change that box to "Foreign Tourist Quota" before you click "Get Availability".

I know these tickets sound great, but as with all things Indian, there is a catch. First of all, there are not foreign tourist tickets on all trains, only ones between major tourist destinations. Second, as near as I could tell, you can only buy these tickets at the special places for foreign tourists to buy tickets that exist at major (like Delhi, Mumbai, etc.) stations. The lonely planet can help you out if you want to find out if there is a special foreign ticket area in the city you are in. Basically, don't expect to just stroll up to a window at any one horse town along the line and be able to purchase a foreign tourist ticket. Also, the foreign tourist windows sell regular tickets as well, so even if there are only regular tickets and not foreign tourist tickets you can still go to the foreign tourist area.

One other scam to note here, which I saw only in Delhi, was that we were trying to walk into the train station to get to the foreign tourist ticket area and a man stuck his arm in front of me and asked for my ticket. He then tried to convince me that I needed a ticket to get in the station, and to go with him to an office (certainly his friends) to buy one. This is just a scam, there is no area of an Indian train station that you need a ticket to access, and most tickets are sold inside. The only place that anyone legitimate will ask to see you ticket is on the train.

BUYING A TICKET

Now that you have figured out what trains you are interested in, and if there are seats remaining (or a reasonable number on the waitlist) it is time to buy your ticket. For clarity sake I will separate this in to two sections, advance and day of tickets, as they are two very different systems.

Advance Tickets:

The line is a little uncertain to me, but supposedly as long as your are 24 hours before the train leaves you can buy an advance ticket. If you are in a big tourist destination, then your best move is to go to the foreign tourist area to buy tickets. The Lonely Planet can tell you where this is. I went to two of these, the one at New Delhi station is upstairs in a large office. In Mumbai CST (formerly Victora) it is a special window in the upstairs ticket window area. They have some system in Mumbai where an unruly mob of people get numbers for the windows upstairs in a chaotic pen downstairs, but if you are a tourist, just go upstairs, you just queue up at the window. These are the best places to buy tickets because the people who work there speak English and they sell foreign tourist tickets (if available).

If you are in a city, or major population center, that does not have a special foreign tourist area, then they will at least usually have a designated advance ticket area that is used by the locals as well. Once again, Lonely Planet can tell you where this is. Also, for those in Goa, there is one of these offices in the main bus terminal in Panjim, which is convenient since the train does not run by the coast. From my experience these windows usually have a system where you get a number and then they call you to a window, so it is not a total madhouse from a queueing prospective. These are OK, they just might now speak as good English, and as far as I know they cannot sell foreign tourist tickets.

I never had to do this, but if you are in a out of the way place, that does not have any of the above mentioned offices, then I am pretty sure that you just head up to the regular ticket window. There has to be some system to buy advance tickets in these places, so I assume this is it. Every time I bought tickets from the regular window it was on the day of the train, which is a different deal.

Another, quite reasonable, option is to pay someone else to do the leg work for you. Most backpacker type hotels and travel offices should be able to get a train ticket for you, probably for a 50 or so rupee surcharge. One catch is they will not be able to get you foreign tourist tickets. We did this once and it worked out fine. One caveat I would add is that it might be a better idea to do once you know what a real Indian train ticket looks like, so you might want to think about buying your own first. If you have not already seen one, they are printed on a dot-matrix printer on thin 1980's line feed computer paper forms and are about 8 inches by 3 inches. I would look at anything else with suspicion.

Day of Train Tickets:

If you cannot get tickets ahead of time for the train, you can get tickets at the regular window the day of the train. The thing about this is that you cannot get a seat reservation the day of the train.

The reason for this seemed to be that while the train is still more then a day in the future, the seat reservations are managed by the computer system and thus can be given out to people who want tickets. On the day that the train is leaving they print up these big passenger manifests that have the names of everyone on the train, as well as assigning all the people in RAC and Waitlist statuses to a seat, if they have one. Once these lists are printed up they are posted at all the train stations, as well as one that the train conductor maintains as a master copy, where he can move around people or put people in different classes as he sees fit. Thus, after these manifests are printed there are no more seat reservations.

We had two different experiences buying day of train tickets. Several times we took trains for a fairly short (less then 5 hour) ride in the middle of the day. When doing this I just went to the regular window and asked for a sleeper ticket to my destination (I was told I could not buy a ticket for any class higher at that time). They handed me a little printed chit that had the two station names on it, but no specific train or seat. So, when the train arrived we just hopped on and took a seat in a sleeper car. The thing is that the sleeper cars in the middle of the day were always nearly empty, I assume because most Indians do not want to pay for the relative luxury of sleeper during the day when they could travel in a lower class. So, we just gabbed an empty seat, the conductor came to take our ticket and everything was fine. Also, sleeper is perfectly comfortable in the middle of the day, all the windows are open so there is plenty of air.

One other time we had to take a night train from Varkala to Chennai without reservations. Before we went to the station I checked the loads on the Internet and found that there were two trains, one left 2 hours earlier, but had tones of extra space in 2AC. The later train was full. With this information, we decided to take the earlier train, and attempt to upgrade on the train. This time at the station I was told that I could only by unreserved 2nd class tickets (the lowest class). I think the reason I was not able to by sleeper at the window like before was probably due to it being an overnight train. So, we just got on the train and sat in 2 empty seats in 2AC. When the conductor came by we asked if there was room in 2AC, which there was, so he just took the difference in the fares (it cost 1000 rupees more a piece to go from 2nd class to 2AC, but believe me it is worth it) and assigned us seats in 2AC. So, the moral of the story is that it is possible to upgrade on the train, but you are probably best off making sure that there are plenty of extra seats, unless you are happy squeezed in the lowest possible class on an Indian train.

Also, keep in mind that if you do buy day of tickets you will have to deal with an Indian ticket queue. These things are a full contact sport, so don't go in without the right attitude. People will press up against you in ways that are pretty uncomfortable for a foreigner, you just need to get used to the fact that being in constant physical contact with other, often sweaty, people in a queue is the norm in India. Also, when you get up to the window people will try to reach around you with their money and hand it to the agent. Use your large western body and elbows to shield the area in front of the window, and have enough rupees in your hand so you can quickly shove them in front of the person who sells the tickets.

GOING TO THE STATION AND GETTING ON THE TRAIN

So now comes the big day and you are ready to get on the train. An Indian train station is an experience like few others. They are dirty, chaotic, confusing and often full of people who want your money (especially in big tourist areas). The layout is usually the same everywhere. There is a building with a central lobby where they sell tickets, and sometimes have some food vendors. Then there will be between 2 and 15 tracks (depending on if you are in a big city or a small town). There will be island platforms off in the middle of the tracks that are connected to the main building via a tunnel, or usually a footbridge (which only about half the locals use, the others just run across the tracks).

When you arrive the first thing you will see in a main station is usually hundreds to thousands of people sleeping on the floor of the lobby and sometimes out in the street in front of the station. These people are changing trains and have to kill many hours at the station, no big deal, there is always a pathway through them to the tracks.

In big stations they will usually have digital boards in some degree where you can look to find out on what track your train arrives. If these are available, try to find out what track you need to go to. The thing is that often the boards are broken, or if it is a small station they do not exist. If it is a small station then it is no big deal, usually there will just be one track running in either direction. In this case just ask around as to which side the train is going to show up, or if your train is in the near future and there is a big crowd on only one side, that is probably the side you want to be on.

When the boards are not working at a big station things are a little more complicated. They do generally have announcements in English on the speakers when the train is pulling in to the station, so that is one way of figuring it out. This may sound crazy, but if all else fails you can just pick a platform and wait on it, then carefully look at the placards that are on the side of the train as each one pulls into the station. What happens if the train pulls into a different platform then you are on, you might ask. Well, keep in mind that an Indian train pulls into and out of a station like a ship pulls into a dock. It is not like Japan where the train pulls up, the doors automatically open and you have 1 minute to get on. First of all, in India the doors are open on the train the entire time, even when it is moving. Also, trains usually stop for at least 5 minutes, sometimes much longer, up to 20 minutes. So, if you see your train at a different platform just hustle over there using the bridge or tunnel and you should be fine. Also, even when the digital board has the track number on it, you really should keep your head up and watch where the crowds are in the station and what trains are pulling in. It certainly would not be out of the ordinary for a sign in India to be wrong. If you ever find yourself waiting alone on a platform for an overnight train at a major station, you are probably in the wrong place, and should try to figure out where to go.

If there are digital signs you also might be able to see when the train is expected to arrive. Trains are almost always late, sometimes by as much as several hours. If there are no digital signs then there may be a chalkboard or some other means of telling you when the trains are expected to arrive.

So, now that you have found your platform the only thing left to do is wait. Now is usually also a good time to stock up on snacks and water bottles from the vendors in the station. You especially may want to get some water as it can sometimes be hard to come by on the train. Another thing is that you may get bothered by occasional beggars in the station. This is one of the few times that I recommend just giving them 5-10 rupees or whatever you think it will take to get them to leave. Unlike most situations where you can just keep on walking, you have to wait in the train station, and since they know this they will be very persistent.

One other note is regarding ticket scams. We never had any big problem with this, but just to reiterate from above. The only person who you need to show your ticket to is the uniformed Indian Railways conductor on the train. I would be very, very suspicious of anyone who asks to see your ticket in the station, as this is not something that is done, as far as I know. Also, all Indian Railways personnel wear a uniform, so do not show your ticket to anyone who does not. If for some reason you feel compelled to show your ticket to someone, I would not hand it to them, just hold on to in yourself and show it to them.

ON THE TRAIN

This part is pretty simple. You just sit in your seat, or go to bed, and watch the world go by. Often your fellow travelers will be pretty friendly, and talking to them is a great way to meet some everyday people. As far as security, the good classes of trains seem very safe, although most people chain their bag to something when they go to sleep. We used a bike cable lock for this and never had any problems.

As far as food goes, sometimes there is way too much of it offered, sometimes not enough. Guys basically just walk down the ailes and sell stuff, which can get annoying when there are too many of them, but that is part of the charm. Tea and coffee guys are always around, and there will be an occasional guy with water bottles. Usually around meal times they do come around with some small food items, aloo paratha and such. Occasionally, especially when we got on a train that originated before dinner a person would come around and ask if you wanted dinner, then return with some food later.

The thing about the food and the water is that it pays to make sure you have enough food and water to go the entire trip if you really need to. We learned this lesson when we got on a train midway down the line at around 9 PM at night. Basically all the food guys were done for the night, so we did not get anything, and had to eat glucose biscuits for dinner. Also, we never had any problem with food sickness from the train food or the platform food, but it is generally prepared with the same level of cleanliness as most Indian fast food, so you may want to be careful if you just arrived.

One other approach for getting food and drinks, which I have done many times but cannot wholeheartedly recommend is running off the train during a stop. As I said before, Indian trains generally stop of quite a while at the station, so there is theoretically enough time to run off and grab drinks or pre-made food. You can generally figure out when the train is leaving the station because they blow the whistle right before the leave, and you can watch the conductors, who usually hang out on the platform during the stop. When the conductors start moving back to the train, you need too as well. Since the doors are always open on Indian trains you probably could get on the train, wild west style, after it starts moving, but I never waited that long.

The open doors are also nice for another reason. On a long trip, when you want to stand and get some fresh air, it can be pretty nice to hang out by the open door and watch the world go by. You can even hang out the side a bit and see where you are going, but just look carefully and stick your head out a bit at a time to make sure you don't get hit by a pole or anything.

GETTING OFF

This can be more challenging then you think. Often when you arrive at a stop there is no sign saying what stop it is right out the window. Obviously one thing to do is to stop out of the train and look down the platform, then you can usually see a sign. Another thing is to ask other people, but be sure if you do this you ask "what stop is this?". If you ask "is this .....?" people will almost always say yes, even if they do not understand you. Another good thing to do is write down or print out the schedule for the train that you can get from the website. That way you will have an idea of what the stops are leading up to yours.

So, there you have it, my brain-dump of how to ride the Indian train, and as the say on the top of the tickets, Happy Journey!

One of a Kind

I have been reading this book The Glass Palace the last week. As a historical fiction fan I have found it quite fascinating because of the different prospective that it offers. It is written by a Bengali author, in English, and is about the British empire from the late 1800s to WWII from the prospective of an extended Indian/Burmese family. It is a nice change to read something, in its original language, about the colonial era from the prospective of those being colonized, rather then the British colonialists.

The reason I am writing about this is that a part in the book, as well as being in these countries torn apart by violent revolutions, makes me finally "get" Gandhi. As I wrote earlier, I read an autobiography of Gandhi awhile ago and this gave me a much more full picture of his life then I had before. I now know him as more then just a peaceful, Dohti wearing guy, but I still thought before today that he was too much of an idealist.

The thing about Gandhi is that even though he wanted India to be free, he wanted even more to solve India's social ills. In fact, he said that he did not want the British to go until India was ready to rule itself in a just way. Even at the point of independence, he still thought India was not really ready to rule itself. Also, he never wanted there to be a violent revolution. Despite the fact that it took 40 years for India to gain its freedom, he fought ferociously against the elements that wanted to go to war with the British.

When I first read this, I thought it was very admirable, but I did think that it was a little weak. Granted his strategy did work, but it took an incredible amount of time, and only worked because the British got tired of ruling a country that did not want them there. I did think that perhaps if the Indians has taken a more active course they may have still had independence, but just a lot sooner.

The thing that I did not take in to account is that, in general, even if your violent revolution is a success, you end up with a country ruled by violent revolutionaries. The problem is that the kind of people that are effective at fighting a war are also terrible, ruthless leaders after the war is over. A large part of the reason why a chaotic country like India became a stable democracy is that its political revolution resulted in politicians, not generals, becoming its first leaders. I am not an expert on Nehru, nor do I agree with all his ideas, but at least he was a secular politician who believed in democracy. The chances of a violent revolution producing a leader who fits that description are slight at best. The problem is that there is only one Gandhi, so violent revolutions will exist for as long as there are people who do not like their government.

Incidentally, I do realize that the American revolution is the one example I can think of where a violent revolution did not result in an early government with totalitarian tendencies. I am not sure yet why I think this happened the way that it did. One thing I can think of is that it was a different era, and it was English colonists fighting against the English crown, not another race or culture of people. It also, however, makes one think about how unique the early Americans were to take power for England but then give all that power to a democratic government. Perhaps they were one of a kind in their own way as well.

Government Matters

In the US these days, most talk about government or politics focuses on the high level philosophical stuff, Foreign Policy, Abortion, Church and State, etc. Not to say that this not impotent stuff, but this trip has highlighted for me that there is another dimension to government that is rarely talked about, overall competence.

By overall competence I mean the ability of the government to build roads, run schools, keep basic law and order. Basically its ability to provide a stable environment for people to live and work. As I have seen on this trip, the ability of governments to do these things is not necessarily related to how they are selected or what high level positions they believe in. At the highest level we have been in countries that range from stable, multi-party democracies like Japan and India, to Vietnam and Thailand, which are both currently run by unelected governments. All are basically capitalist countries, with somewhat of a socialist bent (Vietnam is officially communist, but that is not very true in practice).

In terms of overall competence I would have to obviously rank Japan as first. The infrastructure is top notch all over the country, the trains are amazing and crime is non-existent. Thailand I would also give high marks to, because it does a lot for how much money it has. Most things there seem to run at more or less a US level of quality, but I assume that they spend a lot less money to get there. India and Vietnam are similar in a lot of ways, because things seem to run OK, but you still run into some substandard roads and bad trash collection. Also, while some people in these two countries are doing very well, others are left behind in substantial poverty. Cambodia's one-party democratic government is basically a failed state. No one has any confidence in the government to do anything, and almost every road and school in the country has a sign out front thanking the country or NGO that built it for them, usually Japan.

The interesting thing about all these countries, as well as the US, is that a good number of people in all of them think the government is run by a bunch of crooks. Most of the time these thoughts are backed up by evidence. The accusations very from the money just disappearing, like in Cambodia, to the usual shady government contract deals that exist pretty much everywhere there are politicians with money to spend. Pork barrel stuff also shows up pretty much everywhere, like Shinkansens (bullet trains) to nowhere in Japan. However, even if crooks run the show everywhere, their output quality varies immensely.

The aggravating thing about this is that although the competence of government matters so much, I am not sure how one controls it. Why should India and Vietnam have similar public services despite the fact that one government is elected, and the other is authoritarian? As a voter in the US it is annoying that this never even really comes up as an issue. We know politicians positions on almost every philosophical issue, but not if they can build a decent airport.

My last thought is as to how the US fits within the ranking of countries above. Overall our government is fairly competent at basic service. We have very good roads, there are a reasonable number of cops and garbage does not stack up in the streets. However, we also pay a lot of money to achieve this decent level of service. I think our biggest problem is that our expectations for the final product of the things our government builds is so low. I am sure in Japan, Japan Railways (JR) is a giant pit of patronage and wasted money. I am sure there were all sorts of shady dealing with building the new airport in Bangkok. But, at least in these places they get an incredible train system and a really nice looking new airport. The most upsetting thing is that we get ripped off, as every country does, but often do not even get a world class product.

I guess my conclusion is that Americans should raise their expectations of government and not buy that things cannot be done, or cannot be done well. If the semi-authoritarian government in Thailand can build a nice new subway line, why can't we do so in New York or Boston? We might get ripped off, but it is better to at least get something for your money then nothing at all.

Potty Humor

Seeing as this part of our trip will be a major topic of conversation with the Basu family at Christmas, I will get a head start on the ups and downs of the traveling toilet situation.

The highlight of this part of the trip was in Japan. The Japanese have applied the technology we reserve for $2000 dishwashers to their the porcelain thrones, with splashing results. I had heard rumors of the wonders of Japanese toilets - they have mechanical hands that wipe the nether regions, the seats are made of solid gold, they play music, etc, etc. Some of this was true, though not the mechanical hand. There is a famous 24 karat solid gold toilet in Tokyo. If you have a golden toilet, then why not golden poop as well?

The typical Japanese toilet, the one you find in the homes, hostels, and malls, consist of a toilet bowl, seat, and toilet tank. In the high-tech ones, there is a control panel of sorts next to the bowl. This panel is studded with many buttons in Japanese with small incomprehensible pictures for those less literate. I never really deciphered all the functions, but here are some Ian, Andrew, and I figured out. With this panel, it is possible to receive squirts of water from inside the bowl to one's business areas. These jets vary in intensity, duration, and aim. During my first use, I nearly leaped to the ceiling because I didn't know the previous patron had turned the jet on high. As I became soaked, I found out that it would not cease until I found the off button. These robo-toilets also also would spray a jet of air to finish the job you did with the water and toilet paper. For the discrete Japanese ladies, there was a "fake flush" button that when pressed, would make a flushing sound during which you could tinkle or make whatever other noise you wanted without the whole bathroom hearing. One had headphone hook-up. I never found out what was playing.

Almost more important to me than the actual toilet apparatus, is the ability to clean my hands. This need is inversely proportional to cleanliness of the bathroom. In Japan, there was always automatic soap and water basins. However, I quickly found out that everyone carried handkerchiefs to dry their hands. This lesson is one that I will keep with me in the US. Why use a paper towel when you can carry your own?

Which brings me to my next country. I had the most trepidation about India in this regard. During my 3 prior visits, I had had some horrific experiences with splintered wooden planks as a toilet seat over a vat of mosquitoes and filth. Also, since everyones toilet use increases in India for obvious reasons, I tried to be prepared by always carrying toilet paper and a hanky to dry my hands.

Reflecting the diverse economic strata in the country, India has a wide spread between completely horrific bathrooms and sparklingly clean ones with attendants. Fancy hotels and restaurants have normal easy to understand Western toilets with paper, a flushing mechanism, a clean dry floor, and a sink with water, soap, and towels. All things taken for granted in the American bathroom experience. When there is a squat toilet in India, it generally had a flusher and a bucket of water to use instead of toilet paper (though I never figured out how to do this without soaking myself in the process). We had a squat toilet for 3 days in our stay in Mapsua, Goa. It really wasn't that bad. When it is your own, you can strip down so as not to wet all your clothes in the process. I can't stay I achieved the Zen of backpacking in India, which is to balance yourself on a squat toilet while reading the newspaper. Only the free public toilets will cause night terrors, as happened with me before our overnight bus ride from Udiapur.

Also, though this may not be evident on a quick vacation to India as your experience will likely be colored by the worst bathroom experiences of your life, Indians do care about washing their hands. This may not always happen in the vicinity of the toilet, but in every restaurant, no matter if it has a dirt floor and is made of blue tarp (the developing world's replacement for the tar paper shack), there will be a sink with soap to wash with before dining. Once you realize this, and have brought your own hanky to dry your hands, your war against the colon twisting germs in India gets a tad easier.

I do feel that I owe India somewhat of an apology about ragging so much on their plumbing in my first blog about our accommodation. I didn't think that the toilet situation could get worse once we left the land of the squat toilet. But again, I was wrong. Thailand has the worst plumbing I have ever seen coupled with a questionable system of personal hygiene as well (from what I can deduce from the facilities offered).

Here in Thailand, virtually everywhere has either a squat or Western bowl. Not really a problem - India trained us well. However, no where are these toilet bowls equipped to flush toilet paper as the exiting pipe is a narrow as a sink drain. There is generally a large bucket of water with a huge bowl or a high-pressure dish sprayer to replace the toilet paper. All bathrooms here have a generally poorly worded sign that tried to communicate to you to throw the paper in the trash. One of these signs read "some napkins go in the bucket." Not fully understaidng this, I thought to myself, where are these napkins, and why do only some need to go in the bucket, as I tossed my tissue in the toilet.

The second enormous problem with Thai plumbing and why it ranks below that of India, is that there are many places that don't have a flushing mechanism on the toilet. That's right, there is a toilet bowl with no tank. You think it's a normal toilet until you go to flush and stupidly pull at the air. Every morning, one has to try in vain to dispose of your handiwork with a bowl full of water that is kept in a bucket next to the toilet. Once hotel toilet was so terrible, that Ian and I had to use the bowl of water, the high-pressure butt sprayer, and the hand-held shower hose to get the toilet to flush. The large downside of this country wide practice is that: 1. you guessed it, your bathroom stinks at all times with the used tissues in the trash can, 2. since there is always a large bucket full of water, the bathrooms are mosquito pits, 3. you never want to flush the toilet since it's such an ordeal, and 4. your bathroom is soaked at all times.

So after a victory with flushing the Thai toilet, all I want to do is wash my hands. Therein lies the 3rd problem. Most public toilets in respectable places - restaurants, shops, etc, either have no place to wash or if they do, have no soap. Maybe I just haven't figured out how Thais wash their hands yet. In India it took me a while to figure out that it was expected that everyone wash their hands before eating in a restaurant. This really is the most maddening thing here in Thailand. From what I can tell, most Thais clean their privates, Indian-style, without the ability to wash hands. Baffling!

I know some of you are thinking, what should I expect traveling to Asia? Maybe avoiding toilet paper is more environmentally correct, I should have more respect for the local customs... I thought you might want the straight story without the social correctness sugar-coating.

Now on to Cambodia. I'm sure the situation can't get any worse. But I said that about India as well.

Shout-Out to my Shout-Out

I finished day 3 of the 4 day SCUBA certification course today. There is some really amazing diving off this little island of Koh Tao. We both have been having a great time just soaking up the sun and scenery. We joke that India was the "work" part of or trip and this is the "vacation" part. After we head to our 5th beach, one of us will write a blog detailing them all for the sake of anyone preparing for a trip to Thailand.

Since October 3rd, there has been a steady stream of hits from another blog to my post about women in the Delhi papers. If you would like to know more about the status of women in Delhi, check out this interesting blog. It's written by a woman, about whom I can't glean much information from the blog, who is interested in many of the social issues that Ian and I observed in India as well. I believe she may be a fellow Bengali since she wrote a nostalgic post about Durga Puja intertwined artfully with larger social commentary.

- Nisha

India

It has taken a while, but I finally wanted to say a few things about India now that I have been gone for a few weeks.

First of all, what you would probably expect is true. India is usually dirty, smelly, ugly, hot, crowded and often very aggravating. When you are hot and dusty and getting ripped off by an auto-wallah you can easily hate the place, and swear that you will never return. However, at the end of nine weeks there is kind of felt like home. In fact, sitting at a touristy bar in Chiang Mai, eating the BBQ that we craved for so long, Nisha and I spent an hour commiserating about how much we missed India and how we should have spent more time there.

The thing I miss most about India is the energy. Everything in India is going at 100 miles per hour, 24 hours a day. It reminds me of how you think of the US in the first half of the 20th century. The power of the masses in incredible. If there is money to be made, someone is busy trying to make it. If there is vacant land, someone is building something on it. A middle class is developing, and many people are getting their first cell phones, modern appliances, cars and refrigerators. A country and a people who have been considered second rate and easily oppressed are finally rising to their rightful place in the world, and relishing in the new found respect that they now command.

In the mist of this is a culture which has not completely reconciled its present and future with its past. The fingerprints of the ancient religion are everywhere. Your driver may be driving a brand new car and chatting on his brand new cell phone, but there is probably still a Ganesh idol glued to the dashboard. English is the language of India's former oppressors, but in a lot of ways has become the language which binds the country together, and is the tongue that will lead to its future prosperity. Even when cheap DVD players are all the rage in Delhi, they still might be carried on a bullock cart to their destination.

There are still challenges to be overcome. First of all, how to manage the relations between the Hindu majority and the 13% of the country which is Muslim will continue to be a challenge. I have no idea how they will spread the prosperity of the white collar workers in Bangalore, who have no problem renting a Keralan houseboat for the weekend with a big screen TV and a cooler of beer, with the peasant rice farmers that they cruise so casually by. The thing that I find most important is do deal with is the national inferiority complex. Often people seem content with a substandard product or experience when it is created in India. At some point people need to expect that Indians can make as good a car, program a computer as efficiently or make a shower floor that drains just as well as everyone else in the world.

From seeing what I have seen, I do believe that they will be successful. I think a momentum that has been started cannot be stopped. The force of 1.2 billion people in a global economy is too great not to make progress.

The other thing I miss is the adventure. Even the most touristy area of India is not half as developed as the average place in Thailand. Once you get off the Delhi-Agra-Jaipur circuit, plus the Euro havens of Goa and Leh, you really are immersed in India. It is not that there are not the occasional western person around, but no place in India can exist just to entertain the westerners passing through. India is just too big and the number of tourists is just too small. It is probably similar to being a tourist in the US. A city like New York may have a fair number of tourists, but the city does not exist for them alone.

In addition, although the popularity of the English language may make you suspect differently, India is a culture that has not been westernized as much as most would think. Bollywood music is still pretty much all there is in India, their own movies are all anyone really watches and the only sport is Cricket. Their religion is unique to the subcontinent and is so different from the monotheistic faiths that we are used to. It even goes down to little things. Indians do not smile for pictures and do not think that reading over someones shoulder in the Internet cafe is the slightest bit rude.

In all this movement and chaos, I did start to really feel at home. They had a Hindi channel in the Renaissance Ko Samui and Nisha and I spent 2 hours watching Bollywood dancing during an awards show. It just seemed so much more normal and entertaining then the Thai stuff that they usually have on TV. The friendliness of the normal people, not the touts or the beggars or the auto-wallahs, is really what you miss however. The amount that Indians will sacrifice to make you feel welcome and at home is more then anyone else in the world. That, and their excitement for the future, is what I will take with me from our time there. I thank them, and their amazing country, for the great time that it was.

Bobby Jindal and Mistaken Pride

Note - I have wanted to write about this for a long time, but was held up by other things. Anyway, I know I am a little behind the current events, but I still wanted to write it.

Early on when we were in India we were astonished by the amount of news coverage given to the visit of US astronaut Sunita Williams to Gujarat. We did not think that there was anything particularly wrong with celebrating the achievements of Ms. Williams, but the level of attention seemed a little excessive for the visit of a half Indian American who had spent her entire life in the US. This was our introduction to this strange Indian need to celebrate people who achieved things in other parts of the world and have even the slightest ties to India. As I would later read, Norah Jones was also followed very closely when she was at the top of the US music world.

Fast forward to the election of Bobby Jindal as governor of Louisiana. As we had expected, the election of this 2nd generation Indian was a topic of news coverage, conversation and even a celebration in his ancestral town in Punjab. All this was despite the fact that most Indians had no idea who he is or what he stands for. In fact, people were extremely surprised when we would tell them that he is in the same political party as George Bush, who is not exactly a popular figure in India.

People had heard only a little at most of his story. For those unaware, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the son of parents who immigrated to Baton Rouge in the 70s. His real Indian name is very rarely heard and he has never visited the place where his family is from. He converted to Catholicism when he was 14 (although I have on good authority that this conversion was unknown at least one member of the Baton Rouge Indian community at the time, leading me to question the real timing, as such a thing as a little Indian boy going to church alone would seem to be a topic of conversation). In his later achievements and political career his background has been de-emphasized. Rumor has it he even asks his Indian supporters in Louisiana not to wear traditional Indian dress to his fund raisers, as pictures of him with people in traditional dress may appear in the media. When we were watching his acceptance speech on TV we could barley contain our laughter at his now strong southern accent, which is not a common trait among Ivy League educated 2nd generation Indian kids. In short his Indian heritage seems to be something for him to run away from, not a source of any pride.

None the less, I am not actually here to rip Bobby Jindal for doing what he had to do to advance his career. It is certainly everyone right to assimilate to the US culture as much as they want, after all I do not know any Eastern European languages or dances, I have an English name and am not Eastern Orthodox. I do find the ferocity that he has rejected Indian culture a little drastic however, if I was running for office and someone wanted to bring Perogies to a fund raiser I would not stop them.

The thing I actually find more disturbing is that Indians will waste time trying to love and admire someone who rejects his connection to them. On the day we left several writers from the Times of India were finally getting around to addressing this. I share their opinion, that India needs to reserve its energy for supporting its own heroes, not lionising people for whom blood is their only lasting connection.

Last of the Indian Food

Check out the new post here.

Must Have Food in India Part III

Alright, this is the last of the 3 posts about food you must try when visiting India. The first post covered our travels in the north, through Rajastan, Mumbai, Gujarat and Goa. The second post was dedacated to that amazing city of Kochi and focused on the resturant, Dal Roti. I have been assured by the owner Ramesh that the recipes I promised in that post would be up on his blog soon.

Below are my greatest hits from Chennai and Calcutta. Forgive me if I ramble on since I am Thailand now and am suffering from major Indian food withdrawl.

Mutton Kola Curry - I ate this curry for three straigt days in Chennai. It consisted of succlent tender minced lamb meat balls either served dry or in a curry gravy. The fiery gravy was thick with tomato and ground onion, as are most Indian gravies. The major differendce here was an even more libreal use of aromatics in the form of multiple eidble fresh curry leaves, cinnamon, cloves, and many other spices I could not identify. This is the best recipe I could find, but I am not sure if it will produce what we had. If anyone knows of a better one, please let me know! We washed the curry down with frech pineapple shakes and sopped it up with buttery parathas. Ponnusamay Hotel, Chennai

Ayurvedic Vegatarian Meal - This venerated Chennai establishment is also an ayurvedic center. They are a pure veg resturant (no eggs, meat, but dairy OK) that offer a special 26 course lunch. Each dish is to be eaten in a specific order. It started with 5 juices - date nut, beet, buttermilk, branwater, and I think banana. Next was the 4 raw vegatable salads, then 4 partially cooked salads, followed by 4 fully cooked dishes. This was all followed by 2 types of rice, 3 types of sambar (a falvorful lentil gravy ubiqutuois in South Indian meals), fianlyl a dessert of honey and payasam, a sweet. The most memorable vegatables was the banana flower salad. Only after this meal is finished is one to deink water, as this is thought to impair digestion. Not only did I not miss meat during meal, I felt better than ever. Of course, our dinner was Mutton Kola Curry. Sanjeevanam Vegatarian Health Restaurant, Chennai

Bengali Sweets - So Ian has already wrote a bit on the city-wide addiction of Bengalis to sweets in his previous blog. It is all true. There were times this Durga Puja season that we would eat Rasgullas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not entirely by choice of course. How can you resist my Aunt Mya chasing you around with a clay pot full of them? Ian could not.

Most foodies are familiar with the Gulab Jamun, which is a deep fried, sugar water soaked ball of flour and milk solids. This is just the beginning. The king of all Indian sweets, the rassogolla or rusgulla, is a made from milk solids as well. It is not fried, but rather soaked in a warm rose water and sugar mixture. The sweet is usualy served cold or room temperature. These can be modified to include a small cane sugar ball in the core to increase the sweetness. I have seen them as large as a baseball, but normally they are 1 - 1.5 inches in diameter. The perfect rassogolla has a soft texture, a delicate rose taste, and should not be overpoweringly sweet. Once in Udaipur, I starving for them as I passed a sweet shop. I asked the owner for a rassogolla and was brought a small bowl from the back. While all the patrons watched me eat this sweet, I had to feign enjoyment while chewing this sqeaky ball of metallic tasting sweet cheese. He gave me a canned one and thought I couldn't tell!

I could go on and on about the staggering variety of Bengali sweets. What they can do with milk and sugar baffles me. But I would only mention one more - the ras malai. This is similar to a rassogolla but it is flat and soaked in saffron and cardomen flavored milk. Heavenly! If in Calcutta - try Haldirams or KC Das. Don't try the canned version!

Fish Fry - I'm not sure how this famous Calcutta first escaped me on my prior visits. Serving fish fry is as common as serving fried chicken in the south. It's much tastier though. Bengali fish fry consists of a very thin piece of fish smeared with some sort of spice paste, then breaded and deep fried. Sounds simple, and it's divine. Even Ian, that hater off all things fish, ate is fish fry and liked it.

Strangest food we had: Fermented millet alcohol in Sikkim. Steming water is poured over fermented millet in a large bamboo stein. I wasn't particulary strong, but tasted like the last bottle from our carboy of homemade wine - very yeasty. Only my dad and Ian were able to finish it.

That's all for now. Some of the best food we had was at relatives' and friends' houses, too many to mention. Indian hospitality is second to none. As it was explaned to us by a friend in Calcutta, a visitor in a house is treated like he or she is sent by God, and should be fed as such. And we were. I can't wait to go back to India.

- Nisha

Gleaming Calcutta

After Chennai, Ian and I flew to Calcutta for the Durga Puja festivities. I was anxious to get back there since both my knowledge of India and the Indian economy had grown immensely since I was there last in 2000. Calcutta has always been a magical city to me, possibly because I read one too many British-era historical fiction novels. Anyway, the place is teeming with polite Calcuttans, exudes charm of the British Raj, and boasts the best food and most beautiful women in all of India.

I was interested to see how this was viewed on the traveler's circuit, since I know I am biased. Lonely Planet seemed to give the least visited large city in India due respect - it's own chapter and a very positive write-up. Indians I met all over India seem to agree about the manners, food, and the peculiar concentration of female beauty in Calcutta. It is known for it's gigantic and spooky Kali Temple, the Victoria Memorial (though not a tomb, it's seems like the British answer to the Taj Mahal), the tourist friendly enclosed New Market, and the close proximity to the large Tibetan population in the Darjeeling and Sikkim areas so popular with the Buddhist-loving-hippie backpacker.

This time Calcutta again did not disappoint. I was ecstatic to see that the main areas of town had been drastically scrubbed. For example, the last 3 times I visited Calcutta, I took a picture of a famous Raj-era building. It was remarkable for the numerous trees growing from the walls and the hanging drying laundry of the squatters. Now it is newly white-washed and gleaming. I almost didn't belive it was the same building. Notice also the people walking across the street on the cross-walk in front of stopped traffic. Unheard of last time I was there. Everywhere I went, I saw the signs of economic and social progress. New skyscrapers, multi-story AC malls, grocery stores, the absence of beggars and touts. Granted, one does have to wonder, where did all the beggars go? I am told that they and the evicted squatters have been given government housing outside the city. However, he city's 4 year old push to abolish the cruel human-powered rickshaw and install CNG taxis still hasn't come to fruition. There is still much work to be done.

And the rest of it? The people were actually the most polite in India. There was very little of the full-body-contact queuing and general rude staring than I have seen anywhere else. The food was actually the most tasty (for fish eaters of course). Bengali sweets are world-renowned. Ian talked about the state's addiction to them in his own blog and I'll go into more details soon. The women? You can ask Ian's opinion of that. However, if you just judge from among my cousins, the Bengali women win it hands-down.

Given the above, you would think it would be on everyone's travel list, right? Wrong. Not only are there less Western tourists in all of Calcutta than anywhere else in India, most have a very negative opinion of it. One Polish girl I met in Chennai was traveling India for three months. When asked if she was going to Calcutta, she replied "I have absolutely no desire." Good, the subtle wonders and historical marvels Calcutta would be lost on her anyway.

~ Nisha

Lord of the Manor

After wrapping up Durga Puja in Kolkata, our next planned more was an excursion to north West Bengal with Dave and Susan as well as their friends Sarah and Rakesh. We had met Sarah and Rakesh before because they are the ones who put up Nisha for a month in their nice flat when she was here for a month after the wedding 4 years ago.

A little background. Rakesh works for in the office of a tea company in Kolkata. However, his previous position in the company was the manager of one of the tea estates in Assam. Before then he had been manager or assistant manager at any number of the company's eight estates in North Bengal and Assam. Last time we were in Kolkata he had captivated us with stories of capturing tigers and the enormity of the estates as well as inviting all of us up to an estate if we ever had the time. So, our itinerary on this trip was to fly up, spend some time at an estate, then swing up to Sikkim for a few days and head back.

So, we have an uneventful flight to Bagdogra, the airport of Siliguri, which is the dusty transportation junction of north West Bengal. From there we head out in a couple of SUVs for the 3 hour drive out to the estate. By the time we arrive it is after dark, so all we see are tea plants in the dark as we drive the 2km from the gate to the Bungalow where we will be staying. When we arrive at the Bungalow, Rakesh swings open the rusty gate and we enter into the driveway of this massive two story concrete and tin roof building. The paint is stained on the outside, but by the massive verandas and screened porches you can tell that this is a grand house.

We are met by the three man staff of the house and led inside. Like many leftovers from the British era in India this house mixed mostly 1950's (and earlier) fixtures and furniture with the care and cleanliness of a full time staff being dedicated to it. Our bedroom and bathroom on the second floor was as big as most Indian houses, with a 3m wide veranda out front. There was even an old ping-pong table set up in front of our door. Fitting with this colonial environment we were served tea and a dinner of nice continental food, along with a few sips of country rice wine before heading to sleep. Despite the five air-raid sirens that go off between 5AM and 6AM to wake the workers, we sleep in the cool quiet air until nine.

The next day we headed out in the SUVs to take a tour of the estate. The scale of this operation is incredible. The estate is separated into 46 sections and totals 1,400 hectares (3,500 acres). 6,621 people (the current manager knew the exact count instantly) live on the estate, with over 1,800 of them being permanent employees. The estate has its own school, hospital and multiple churches. We drive 1km and are still in the sections right near our bungalow.

As a crop, tea is basically like a giant hedge. It is a bush, which they plant in rows covering the entire section. The bushes are all spread out with a trimmed flat top around 75cm off the ground, the reason they all have this flat "table" as they call it, is because of how tea is harvested. When the tea bush has grown shoots about 6cm high from the table an army of pickers comes and picks the shoot off the top with their fingers. They remove the part of the stem with the top three leaves on it and discard any stem below. This results when they are done with the table being re-established. So when you look around the table of the tea bushes goes on for miles over the rolling hills. The interesting thing about tea as a crop is that it is harvest time 9 months out of the year. During this time the bushes need to be plucked once a week, thus the army of workers.

When we arrive at the area where the picking is going on we arrive just in time for the "weighment". The pickers all work by carrying a small bag with them as they pick and then depositing the tea in the small bag in a larger sack as the day goes on. Both of these bags are carried on the back by a strap over the forehead, traditional Indian style. Once around lunch and once at the end of the day each pickers bag is emptied into a large truck which is taken to the factory. When the truck pulls up an army of pickers scurries out of the garden, all laden with huge sacks of tea. As each bag is emptied it is weighed on a scale and the "Sadar", or supervisor, makes out a slip of paper that is handed to the picker. The pickers are required to pick 25kg of leaves in order to make their daily wage, then are compensated per kilogram above that. Considering after half a day the bags were all weighing about 30kgs, and one strapping young guy had a 54kg bag, it seemed to be a good day for the pickers.

Also when we were in this area we saw the trap that they had set up for the leopard that was thought to be living in the area. Evidently female leopards will often hide in the garden to have cubs since in the jungle they are likely to be eaten by the males. The problem is that the pickers cannot see the leopard as the pick, so there had been some incidents of mauling in the area. The trap was a cage type, with a smaller cage attached to put a goat into as bait. There was no goat in it at the time as it is only loaded at night. This is the best that they can do right now as it is against the law to shoot a leopard.

After this we went to the tea factory where the raw leaves are turned into the final product. This has to be done quickly as the longer the tea leaves sit around unprocessed the lower the quality of the tea. First the tea leaves are unloaded from the truck and loaded into a 50cm deep layer in the drying machine. The machine is like a big wind tunnel with a mesh floor that the tea sits on. Twelve hours or so later it has lost 30% of its weight and is unloaded. The tea is then ground into little balls in a series of knife rollers (leaf tea is made in a different process) then spread in a thin layer on the floor. This is called the fermentation, and during the one hour or so the tea is on the floor it changes color from bright green to the grey we are familiar with. Next the tea is dried to completion in large furnaces. The tea is then filtered and sorted into various grades of fineness, from course to dust. The tea is tasted, much like wine, every hour by the manager for quality control. Waste is also filtered out that is sold as fertilizer or to industrial caffeine manufactures.

The factory itself looked like another British era creation with lots of exposed belts and even a coal fired furnace for the drier. The thing that was impressive here was that all the leaves need to be processed immediately after they are picked. Now was a prime growing season so this factory was working 24/7 and has processed 48,000kg of tea leaves the day before we arrived.

That evening we were invited to have dinner with the current manager of the estate at his bungalow. The manager is a Anglo-Indian man who Rakesh had known for a long time and everyone called Timmy. His bungalow was smaller then the massive estate that we were staying on, but still extremely large and surrounded by an impeccable garden. It also had a large staff that was quick with the tea and drinks when we arrived. Also at the dinner was Timmy's wife, named Yasmin, and their very western daughters who were home from boarding school, as well as the Sikh assistant manager and his family.

For a while we were just hearing some stories of what goes into running the estate. The job certainly has some appeal in its luxurious perks and colonial English feel. The downsides are also there, with having to get up in the middle of the night to fix things at the factory high on the list. The thing that was most impressive was the amount of responsibility that the manager has. Despite the fact that the laws of the country still apply, the manager in many ways serves as the lord of this manor. In fact, there is a time set aside every week where he arbitrates domestic disputes and makes ruling for which there is no appeal process. The skills required are more diverse then any job that we previously thought existed. Where else can someone be an agricultural manager, magistrate, factory manager, wild animal chaser, etc.

We would see some of this constant excitement soon as a few servants scuffled in and told us that there were wild elephants in the garden right near the fence of the bungalow. As soon as Timmy offered to drive us out to take a look, Dave, Susan, Nisha and I all put down our beers and cocktails and piled into the managers SUV. The assistant manager also piled in the back and was told to keep watch for any elephants approaching from the back of the car.

The night was misty, but with a full moon, and we stained to see out into the dark, not aided by the smoke of Timmy's often present cigarette. As we pulled onto the first jeep track I spotted a silhouette of an elephant in the distance. We stopped quickly and I shined the flashlight on him, but only Nisha was able to see him before he bounded away. At this point I thought the excitement was over, but soon we saw the behinds of numerous elephants emerging from the garden to walk down the jeep track in front of us, directly in the headlights. We stayed at least 100m away and followed this heard for a little while. The herd consisted, but our count, of three adult females and five adolescent and baby elephants.

We lost them over a little rise in the road and when we topped the rise they were no longer visible. Then, the assistant manager spoke quickly and we realized that the heard was now sick of us following them and was 100m away in the garden, heading in the opposite direction, doubling back on us. We got a good look at the train of elepahants as they strode by, doing a fair amount trumpeting and breaking a lot of branches underneath their feet. Timmy made the call that observation time was over and stepped on it before we angered the heard any further. The fog obscured the road on the direct way home, making it unsafe with all the elephants about, so we returned by navigating the maze of jeep tracks that traverse the garden, which Timmy and the assistant manager all knew like the back of their hands. We also encountered a truck and three men who Timmy told us were the "Elephant Patrol", we stopped to tell them where the elephants were and they headed off to try to disperse them with their loud firecrackers and drums.

Dinner was rather sedate after all the excitement, but the food was good and we certainly headed back to our bungalow thinking that this was a pretty exciting night. Not everywhere can elephant chasing be part of the dinner party entertainment.

The next day we headed off early in the morning to go to Gangtok, in Sikkim, for the night and then returned the day after. We were only on the estate for a quiet night before heading to the airport, but we did hear an interesting and sad thing. In the day that we were gone a female picker had been mauled by the leopard in the area where we saw the trap a few days before. She was in the hospital and expected to recover. They were looking into getting the leopard declared a "Maneater" so that the forest department could shoot it, but it would probably have to kill someone before that declaration could be made. The multiple maulings in the last several months did not suffice, certainly highlighting the unintended effects of wildlife conservation laws.

As you can tell by the length of this tale it was certainly a memorable experience, a window into a world that most Americans probably think disappeared many years ago. Sarah, Rakesh, Timmy and his wife were all great hosts and we thank them for letting us see this unique, beautiful, relaxing and sometimes tragic place.

Durga, the Mother Goddess

So sorry we have been so out of touch. We have had very little access to the Internet, but have been able to upload pictures. Now for the stories behind them...

After we left Chennai, we went to Calcutta to celebrate Durga Puja with my dad's extensive family. Durga puja is the largest puja celebrated in West Bengal. Community organizations prepare huge and colorful pandals which is a themed house. These temporary foam and cloth structures inside hold the elaborately decorated pratimas, or idols, and outside play host to a small carnival. The streets are lighted all around the pandal to guide the public. The thing to do during the main four days of the festival is to walk around touring pandals with your friends or family all night long (literally, our driver did not come back in the morning after pandal hopping all night). Like Mardi Gras where the question of the day is "which parades have you seen?", in Calcutta during Durga puja, it's "how many pandals have you visited?"
As with the Ganesh pratimas in Gujarat, the pandals for the Durga puja are all involved in fierce competition for prizes given away by the newspaper organizations and the city. Some even have political messages - one had a figure of Bush holding a missile while nearly being attacked by a lion. Durga was standing on the earth to symbolize peace. I believe this was in reference to the now-stalled US-India nuclear pact which the government of West Bengal, the Communist party, oppose out of solidarity with China. Anyway, all were great fun.

There are religious ceremonies that take place daily by the pandit (priest). on the 4th day, called Asthami, devotees assemble for a complex ceremony that occurs at a time prescribed by the astrologers. This year, it was 8:27 PM on Thursday the 18th. During the 45 minutes after 8:27, Durga will appear for a split second in the form of the pratima. Anyone seeing her at this time will have their prayers answered. It was actually an electrifying experience being among so many people who believed that they would see their beloved goddess come alive before their eyes in the form of the decorated Durga pratima. There is nothing I have witness in Christianity that could compare to the excitement of this part of the puja.

After this most holy period, then anyone can touch the pratima, not just the pandit. On the 5th day of the puja, the pratima is loaded on a truck and brought to be immersed in the Ganges, with great fanfare and sorrow. I am sure that even Bush is holding his missile at the bottom of this muddy river.

More to come soon. Please leave some comments!

-Nisha

Sweets.... Bengali Beer

Sweets are an obsession in Bengali culture. Especially at Puja time, where they are served anywhere and everywhere. The most popular ones in Kolkata are the Rasgulla and the Gulab Jamun. Others are popular as well, but these are the ones you see the most.

I finally have this obsession figured out, it is basically exactly the same as American's obsession with beer. Drinking is quite taboo in most parts of India, so a substitute is needed, and has been found.

To demonstrate, try switching out the word "beer" for "sweet" in any of these observations and see if it is not true for Americans.

- At any celebration or family gathering, sweets will be served.

- A common topic of conversation at said gatherings is the quality of the sweets, and where the best sweets are made.

- People at celebrations attempt to get you to consume more sweets then you are prepared for or comfortable consuming.

- People also commonly discuss how many sweets they have consumed in the past at other celebrations or how many were consumed by the attendees of a celebration.

- At a large party it is common to have a large barrel of sweets (actually a giant clay jar).

- It is considered more festive to consume sweets in one gulp, rather then consuming then consuming them bit by bit.

- If you go over to someones house to consume sweets, it is essential that you bring some with you. These also must be more sweets around then anyone could reasonably consume.

- You can never have too many sweets at a party.

Funny sidelight to this:

We were watching the Bengali news channel on TV and they had a reporter out at a Pandel announcing that the club had been given some award for the design of their Pandel. First everyone was just standing around staring at the camera, as Indians do. Then when he announced the award everyone started dancing around like mad and a man walked into the crowd with a giant jar of sweets on his head. A second later, someone reaches in from off camera and stuffs a giant Rasgulla into the reporters mouth, silencing him at his obvious embarrassment.

Dandiya of my Dreams

Saturday we went to a Dandyia party hosted by the Gujarati community in Chennai. Dandyia is a dance done during the celebration of the Navratri, a holiday celebrated all around India in the beginning of October. My first experience with dandiya was in high-school. The large Baton Rouge Gujarati community hosted these at the LSU ball room several times during Navratri. Women and men would get dolled up in their finest saris, lengha cholis, and kurta pajamas. The dancing would begin with an intricate and energetic 6-beat dance around the dance floor to drum heavy music. The main event was the dandiya dance. Danced by all, the dance was preformed with wooden sticks in each hand. Dancers tap other dancer's sticks to the music to symbolize the fight between the goddess Durga and a mighty demon king. It is similar to a contra or square dance where two lines of dancers move an opposite direction from each other.

We arrived too early dressed in our best at 9, and met Arvin, the only other person there at the time. Turns out that he just moved back to Chennai after 15 years in the US, mostly in Porter Square, Cambridge. After killing some time getting coffee with him and his friends, we returned at 10:30 and the party really got started. Hundreds of people were pouring from chauffeured cars dressed in the most spectacular costumes. The female children, teenagers, and young women were dressed in elaborate lengha cholis dripping with jewels in their hair, ears, necks, hips, hands, wrists, ankles, and feet. Even the babies were lavishly decorated! The male children, teens, and young men were decked out in what looked like a short baby doll dress with matching dhoti. Now I see why the guys in my high school did not come dressed in traditional garb. Despite looking like they were wearing their younger sister’s dress, this unusual male outfit actually looked very dashing while twirling around the floor later in the night.

The music set up included 4 full drum sets, a keyboard, and a few singers. The first dance is the garba which is a high energy dance around the perimeter of the dance floor. I know two of this type and did dance for a while. However, just like in high school, once I got the hang of it again, the girls I danced behind switched to one I did not know leaving me there wondering what was going on. (I found out later that they take classes the month prior to the Navratri season.) Around 12:30, there was a dandiya for the teenagers and children. I suspect this was separate because the older teens and young adults get overly enthusiastic with the dandyia sticks. I'll bet that dancing with the kids caused many a gossipy mother to whisper next to her and say “can you imaging that grown woman, dancing with the children!” in scorn. Of all our time traveling, this was the first night I had to go to bed early since I was scheduled to deliver a lecture in the morning.

I had a fabulous time dancing with the kids and teenagers and ended up chatting with many. No one could talk for long though. They had to dance their best. There was a white-haired man in an all white kutra wandering among the dancers with a clipboard. In the center of a dancing hurricane, he looked like a bored judge at a dog show. I found out from them that he was the judge for the prize of king, queen, prince and princess of the festival. They are also judged on their costumes and dancing. Prizes range from a TV or DVD player to a 17,000 Rs ($450).

A nice woman we met emailed me some pictures I just posted on Flickr. We have not seen anything like this in India – where the men, women, and children are all free to enjoy themselves at the same time. In this nearly dry town, it was also the most memorable night out we have had without booze in awhile.

- Nisha

Indian Economics

One thing that has interested me in India is trying to figure out the amount of money that people make and spend compared to the US. I find this to be a topic of some interest, since in the software business companies are constantly trying to leverage India. However, I do not feel like many people actually have an idea of what the savings actually are. The following is all information that I have gleaned from different conversations since I have arrived. It is therefore probably not accurate, but may at least be interesting.

If we look at it first from a purely statistical standpoint, the GDP per capita of the US is 43,444 dollars per person and for India it is 3,737 dollars per person. So by this reference the average US person should make about 11 times more then the average Indian. For the purposes of this article I am going to think of it as around 10.

In terms of how much money people make, my impression is as follows (everyone talks in terms of per month here, so I will go along). I think a service worker, like a guy who works in a mid range hotel cleaning and serving etc. makes around 4000 rupees a month, or 100 dollars. This figure I got from a rural area, so it may very well be higher in a city. I have also been told that 20,000 - 40,000 rupees a month (500 - 1000 dollars) is what someone with a good white collar job makes. Supposedly this is enough to get you a decent place to live and a cheap car or motorbike in Chennai. I have also been told that making 1 lakh per month, aka 100,000 rupees (2,500 dollars) is what it takes to be making a lot of money. I would assume this means that you have a nice house or flat in a new development and a nice car. I would assume most likely a servant as well. These numbers do make sense more or less. Someone who makes 25,000 dollars a month in the US is very upper middle class/upper class. The 40,000 seems a little high since that would be 10,000 dollars a month in the US. That is definitely a little more like upper middle class. As for the hotel worker, that would only be 1,000 dollars a month in the US, which is low since I am pretty sure people in that strata make around 20,000 a year. This is not surprising though since there are a large supply of such workers in India and limited demand.

I also looked up recently the price of transport. A Tata Indica econobox costs around 3-4 lakhs here (7,500 to 10,000 dollars) and an Ambassador is around 5 lakhs (12,500 dollars). An imported car mid-range car like a Honda Accord, which seems incredibly sleek and luxurious in India, runs a whopping 15 lakhs (37,500 dollars). Pretty steep by US standards. I am pretty sure this has to do with import duties. On the other hand a common motorbike here, the Hero Honda Splendor, only runs you a mere 40,000 rupees (1,000 dollars). Seeing how cheap these motorbikes are compared to the cars, which are not very discounted to the US, you can see why the motorbike is dominant as the transportation of the common man.

As for consumer goods, a bottle of coke runs you 15 rupees (38 cents). It is 25 rupees (63 cents) for diet, which is particularly infuriating to me. A one liter water is 10 rupees (25 cents) and a bag of grapes costs about 20 rupees (50 cents). We pay around 120 (3 dollars) for a box of cereal and 80 (2 dollars) for a 1 liter box of irradiated milk.

If you want to eat out, a all you can eat lunch at a working man's restaurant costs around 50 rupees (1.25 dollars). Dinner at more of a mid-range kind of place usually runs around 140 a person (4 bucks) while Pizza Hut or another clean corporate kind of place is 250 (6.25 dollars). A top end 5 star hotel kind of deal will run you 750 a person (around 19 dollars).

The thing that I notice about this is that while it is true that the average Indian makes around 10 times less then in the US, the stuff that they need to buy is not that much cheaper. 1.25 for a good meal sounds cheap, but that is more then 11 dollars for lunch (by the 10 times multiplier, which would be a lot to spend in the US, even for a Indian buffet in Cambridge. The Coke is 38 cents, but if Coke was $3.80 in the US, people would certainly not drink nearly as much. Cars are especially bad because they do not cost that much less at all.

I am sure that this seems rather obvious, that the standard of living is less. I thought however that it would be nice to be a little more specific. I find it especially surprising how much less purchasing power even a professional person has, especially in the transport and mid to high end restaurant arena (60 dollars for Pizza Hut?). At these prices I can see the motorbike and homemade daal ruling India for quite some time.

Auto-Wallah 2007 - New from EA Sports

After using autorickshaws for much of my transportation the last 6 weeks, I have developed a decidedly love-hate relationship with them. My main complaint is that you need to haggle for every ride. I honestly would not mind paying more if I could just get in one, have them use the meter, and pay what it costs when I get out. But I digress, today I am here to give props to the India and its Auto-Wallahs, so here is goes.

If there were more Playstations in India, or more Americans had been here, there would definitely be a video game out by now celebrating the fearlessness and skill of the Indian Auto-Wallah. The thing about these guys is that they can navigate city traffic must faster then a car, due to their amazing maneuverability, so besides being the cheapest form of transportation, it is also the fastest. The common tricks of the Auto-Wallah would all fit well into a video game. They cut through secret gaps in medians to reverse direction, as well as secret cuts through construction zones to get ahead at a light. You can never stop at an intersection, unless there is a cop standing right in front of you. Driving the wrong way down the street, or the wrong way around a rotary (especially fun), no problem. The sidewalk, totally fair game. The lanes on the road mean nothing, and they are happy to mix it up with the bikes and bullock carts in the gutter if that is what it takes to get around a city bus, the arch-nemesis of any good Auto-Wallah.

In addition to the driving, the game could have fun with the diverse loads that you will be asked to carry (all these examples are real). Obviously foreign tourists are the best fare, especially when you can coax them to a rug shop or hotel that pays commission. But, you can also make good money getting a recurring contract to take 10 Catholic girls to school every morning. Other less glamorous cargoes can include a man with 6 live goats or a stack of rice bags. You could even have the game so when you pull over to pick up a load you need to negotiate the price. You would have to be able to spot the white faces quick and know to quadruple the price. Unless the sahibs look like they have been here for a while, in which case you just double it. If you charge to much however, your juicey fare could walk to the next guy.

To be realistic, however, the game need to capture that you can never run into anything. Even if you make a bad move and try to head down a bazaar street at 8PM, you need to never touch the pedestrians, old men on bikes, motorbikes with 3 guys on them or cows. Actually if you hit a cow that should probably end the game immediately, since your soul will be ruined for many reincarnations. Actually, a cow might actually be preferable to hitting a scooter with a couple and two kids on it, because then you are libel to get lynched by the locals.

Anyway, tell me this game would not be fun. Crazy Taxi made a lot of money in the US, but there the crazy driving all has to be fake. Here you can drive the same way, but it is for real.

Back to Work

If you have been wondering why the blog output is a little off lately, except for catching up on things that happened a week ago, it is just because we have not been doing much except for sampling the Indian working stiff life in Chennai. Basically we have just been getting up in the morning, at which point I usually go for a run by the big downtown beach. Then we get to the office at 10AM (normal start time here), have lunch at the amazing Indian restaurant down the street and then leave at around 6:30 - 7:30. Then a trip for dinner (Chinese, Mexican and Pizza Hut the last 3 nights) and back to the hotel.

For the first time on this trip you are probably not jealous of what we are up to, besides maybe the leaches. Basically I am doing the same thing you probably are, except the office is non-AC, in Chennai mind you, and my office chair is a plastic patio chair, no Aerons here.

We are doing some good work however and that is really the point anyway.

First Impressions of Chennai

A few things on the city that will be our home for the next week:

- Chennai is not the most inspiring Indian city. It is fairly sprawling and spread out, and I do not think the sites here really stack up against the other big Indian cities. I can see why from a pure tourist standpoint is it written up in the Book as more of just a place to arrive or depart from. It is not well set up like Mumbai either, just the basic Indian chaos.

- That being said, the modern stuff here seems better then anyplace else. Near the AID INDIA office are 3 nice modern grocery stores. The only other one I have ever seen was in Kolkata, and that was just one. We went to a massive mall here tonight that was like a real mall. We ate Chinese at a great restaurant court that also had Pizza Hut (more high end in India then in US) and South Indian. I know this may not seem like a big deal for those at home, and against the idea of being in India, but after so long away from these things you start to appreciate them more.

- The only things that separate Chennai autorickshaw men from pirates is that they don't have a parrot on their shoulder and they don't say "Arrrrrr". They all don't use the meter and no matter how much haggling you do and you end up paying 2 to 3 times the km cost of anywhere else in India. This includes Mumbai where you at least get to ride in a real car. I would have a much easier time forking over 80 rupees to go 3 km if at least I had a parrot to talk to.

- We are staying in a pretty nice place called the Hotel Himalaya. Room is 1100 rupees and we have a new AC unit and a fridge in our big clean room. Also 24 hour Internet cafe. The only drawback is that the neighborhood is the least appealing I have seen in Chennai, it is a real dump out there. We will also be lulled to sleep by the symphony of 1000 car horns. I kind of wish the AC unit was old and rattled more.

- The work at AID INDIA seems pretty good so far. Nisha is working on some materials for health education and I am working on computerizing their files of students they sponsor. The people are nice and the office is in a nice pleasant area of town.

- South Indian food rocks. The little fast food places usually have very nice dosas (thin lentil pancake) and other great light snacks. They have great fruit juice as well.

- We took our longest (15 hours) and last ride on the Indian rails last night. Great sleep as always, 2AC class rocks, especially when you get the big 4 berth area to yourself. Also Nisha and I are big into Backgammon and Rummy 500 these days, really helps pass the time, thanks Ern.

Quick Update

- We did the Kerala houseboat thing (which I am writing up separately) and are now in the beach resort of Varkala, also in Kerala. This place is really nice, good beach and nice walkway along the top of the bluffs. All the restaurants and stuff are along the walkway, which is nice because you don't have to deal with walking on Indian roads. We can also see the ocean from our hotel room. The name of the hotel is Krishnatheeram for these searching on the internet. The hotel is pretty good, and the location is the best in town.

- Unfortunately we are only here for one night (last night) because tonight we are taking an overnight train to Chennai (aka Madras). Once there we are signed up to volunteer for a week with AID INDIA. This only got set up a few days ago, so we are not totally sure of the nature of the work. It may be in Chennai proper or somewhere close by. If we are not on the Internet for a week then it is probably safe to assume that we got shipped off to some small village somewhere.

- The next big plan is to fly to Kolkata on the 16th and meet up with Dave and Susan.

- I just signed up for the Boston Marathon next year. I have been running enough over here that I am not totally out of shape. However, I do anticipate some hard work when I get back in order to break 3 hours this year. I am already looking forward to it (the hard work and the marathon itself). Hopefully the weather will be better this year, so far I am 2 for 2 when it comes to running marathons in less then ideal weather conditions. A nice 50 degree day with a good tailwind would help a lot.

- PBielagus is confirmed for the last 11 days of our trip, Vietnam and Hong Kong. We will try our best to keep him alive and out of trouble.

- Sox sweeping into the ALCS and the Pats a dominating 5-0. I picked a hell of a year to miss the fall sports nirvana in Boston. I loved hearing about the Yanks collapse in Cleveland because of a swarm of bugs. Maybe they did make a deal with the devil to get all those titles in the late 90s. Very biblical form of bad luck to get them down 2-0. I had also missed all the Joba Chamberlain buzz since he was called up after I left, but it does not seem like a very auspicious way for him to start his playoff career.

Must Have Food in India, Part II

Anything at Dal Roti

Kochi was a wonderland of great food - both Indian and non. There were serene art cafes straight from uptown New Orleans, U-pick-we-cook seafood stands, and posh Kochi restaurants celebrating the Arabic, Syrian, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and Jewish influences of this strange town.

With all these wonderful cuisines represented in one town, I did not think we would find some of the best Indian food we have had on this trip here. Next to our charming guesthouse, we wondered into a small unassuming restaurant called Dal Roti for lunch. As soon as I saw that the menu had wraps on it, I know this was no tourist-North-Indian-and-American-Chop-Suey place. This was a menu designed by a fellow foodie. Not only did this place have wraps, they also had stuffed parathas, biranyni only made a few days of the week, succulent chicken curry... I get ahead of myself.

Soon after we realized we were in no usual Indian restaurant, the owner, Ramesh came over to introduce himself. Tall and stately, he reminded us of Naresh Sharma (Amisha's father). He revealed that this restaurant is his labor of love while he continues to work in the international shipping industry. Capturing the authentic and lost food of Bihar is his objective. Yes, Bihar. The avid ianandnisha blog reader will recognize this as the lawless backwards state in the north that is more known for lynching of innocent people than food. Nevertheless, Ramesh hired some native Bihari cooks to turn his idea into magic. Quick to laugh and a fascinating conversationalist, we spent many hours over the next two days in his restaurant. You can even check out his blog that includes recipes.

Apparently, Bihar does have some tasty long lost recipes. I ordered the Chicken stuffed Mughali Paratha. Succulent marinated chicken was wrapped in a paratha that could rival the best Greek phyllo dough. Ian ordered the Chicken Curry, whose plain name betrayed the work of art set before him. He did receive chicken curry, but also bowls filled with a variety of succulent vegetables. The highlight was the flaky, ghee filled paratha to sop it all up with. Desert was a small chilled bowl of a carrot pudding laced with cashews and cardamon.

Finding Indian food heaven, we came early the second day for a cooking lesson and more lunch. Look out all future Iron Chef contestants. Ian and I now know how to make the king of all Indian breads - the flaky paratha. We received our lesson from the cooks while they prepared our lunch of Chicken Kati Rolls. This was marinated chicken pieces topped with sauteed and fresh red onions and cilantro wrapped in the flaky paratha. In this land of enterprising restaurateurs and scrumptious food, why are there no convenient hand lunches? With the exception of the Frankie, I have never seen a wrap in India and worse, no Indian-American restaurateur has had the creativity to do it either.

Following this second fabulous meal, Ian and I lamented with Ramesh about the dearth of creativity in Indian food in the US. It's all North Indian food operated mainly prepared by non-Indians - Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, or Nepalis. There is no Goan, Rajasthani, Gujarati, Keralan, or Bengali food. There is surely no Bihari food. Why O why do Indian-Americans deprive the American public of some of the best food in their home country, or even their own house?

For the next few days, Ian and I seriously discussed starting a lunch kati roll restaurant in Boston. Ramesh in on board. Anyone else?

- Nisha