Adventures in India

The trip (May 15 – June 11, 2005)

I flew from London to Chennai (Madras), and then directly to Bangalore. From there, on to the state of Kerala, and then up to Rajasthan where I visited Udaipur, Jodphur, Jaisalmer, and Jaipur.

Then through Agra, Varanasi and Delhi, after which I went to Ladakh/Kashmir, followed by a last day in Delhi.

The path is outlined on the map to the left.

If you're curious about India, you can find lots of information at the CIA World Factbook Entry.

I kept an email "journal" while there . . . here's what I wrote:

It turns out that everyone who warned me how hot India would be was absolutely right. It's hot. Really hot. I'm writing this from Jaisalmer, an old trading town in the Thar desert near the Pakistan border . . . you know it's bad when the "cold" water faucet in the shower is hotter than you normally tune you shower at home. And another fun surprise, we've been waking up every morning for sunrise . . . the colors and people are at their best then (and it's much cooler outside).

Anyway, after arriving I went straight to Bangalore to visit Sheila and Sean . . . it was great to see them, and they have a great setup . . . we did yoga one night, had some great food, hit the Bangaore club scene . . . excellent way to gently ease into India.
BTW, it's true - there are lots of cows in the road, and driving (or even just being near the road as a pedestrian) is probably the most hazardous thing you can do. Rules of physics are different here: first rule of Indian driving seems to be that two objects can indeed occupy the same space at the same time. We all flew to Kerala for the weekend where we hung out in the backwaters on a houseboat, cruising up and down the lake and canals watching people go through their daily routine.

Steve Carver flew in and we met him at a dock, and after dropping Sean and Sheila off that night continued our backwater exploration. We spent the next night and day in Kochi, capital of Kerala, an old Portugese, Dutch and British port, and one of the main centers of Indian spice trading. We wandered around the city, visiting the old "Jew Street" (that's what it's called) and synagogue built in the 1500s (only 14 Jews remain; the rest migrated to Israel) and purposefully got lost heading back into town. The people, smells and activity in the back alleys and slums is mesmerizing. An interesting note is that when traveling and taking pictures, you're always on guard and skeptical of people who want you to take their picture because they're often asking for money, but these people genuinely liked having their picture taken, particularly the [mostly] cute and friendly kids . . . We caught an evening Kaathakali performance, an old Keralan martial-arts based theater similar to Japanese Kobuki. We continued to explore the next day, and then went to the airport to head to Rajasthan . . .

First stop was Udaipur, in Southern Rajasthan. Their claim to fame is the "romantic capital" of India, with their palace facades, including several in the middle of the lake . . . but a drought has dried out the lake and it's not quite as nice now. We also explored the narrow, winding streets and bazaars of spices, foods, metalworking, fabric & silks, etc. The night bus to Jodhpur was . . . uniquely Indian. We were the only whities on the bus. I booked us "sleeper" seats, which basically meant Steve and I were in the overhead luggage rack on the bus . . . together. You think I'm kidding, but it's not that far off. No AC, and the driver was crazy . . . I didn't think buses could take turns like that. We also had a passenger below us dry heaving all night, babies crying . . . the whole thing wasn't very conducive to sleeping. But we made it to the "blue city" of Jodhpur. Very cool city, and in Rajasthan (heavily touristed by non-Indians), the kids and people in general are much "savvier" and are constantly hounding you for money, pens, photos, etc. We've actually been collecting a few addresses from nice people and families whose pictures we take and plan on mailing them copies.

And now we're in Jaisalmer. Great city, and very beautiful in the morning and evening as the sun hits the sandstone palaces, forts, and buildings . . . but a little too touristy and VERY hot. Had a camel ride in the desert last night to watch the sunset over sand dunes and dine with the camel drivers. We are heading out this evening via train (luckily no more buses) to Jaipur, then on to Agra (taj mahal), Varanasi (City of Shiva), and then Delhi before moving on to Ladakh in the Himalayas for a relaxing weekend (and Sean and Sheila will be meeting up again! And Steve departs.) before my 4day trek in the mountains.

One thing to note, for those of you thinking about traveling in India . . . eating is kinda like gambling at the craps table. Most rolls are OK, some leave you feeling a little queasy, and one particular role . . . not so good. Luckily I've only crapped out once (sorry for the pun), but my companion Steve had it much worse. Whatever we ate had us both in bed missing a day in Varanasi. And Varanasi might be the most interesting part of the trip. Anyway . . .

We took a night train from Jaisalmer to Jaipur. The train was a bit late, but otherwise not too eventful. Jaipur is the "pink city" and capital of Rajasthan, and we explored the old forts, palaces, winding streets and bazaars . . . we went to the "monkey temple" where the family that lived there had the best time of their lives playing with my digital camera. They ran around taking pictures of each other, and we promised to send prints to them. The sunrise and sunset were nice. We also had the best lassi I've ever had and a delicious Indian/Rajasthani lunch, complete with Western style dessert -- brownie a la mode! Made me very happy.

From Jaipur we took the night train to Agra. We were waitlisted, and IndiaRail in their effort to "accomodate" us put both of us in the last remaining sleeper bunk, and wouldn't refund the other ticket. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep sitting up on the train on top of our luggage with screaming kids all around us.

In Agra we rented a driver&van for the day and headed straight for sunrise at the Taj Mahal. Amazing. The funny thing is, the Taj had been so built up into this myth that reality couldn't quite live up . . . not that it was at all unimpressive, but expectations were high. We then went to Fatephur Sikri, an abandoned capital/palace complex with a mosque identical to that in Mecca. We had our most expensive meal in India at the new "7 star" hotel in Agra (didn't know they went up to 7) and then took a nap until sunset at the Taj . . . another fun thing about India is that there's a dual price system. Everything has a [high] price for foreigners and a [low] price for Indians. The best expample is the Taj: 750 rupees (~$18) vs 20 rupees (~$0.50). Our ticket only gave us one entry, so we took advantage of our driver's local knowledge and saw the sunset from across the river for free. :)

Next up was Varanasi, but getting there was trouble. Our train arrive over 3 hrs late (at about 12:45AM). We arrived in Varanasi about 7 hours late (~4:30PM) so we missed most of the day. Very sad. Varanasi is perhaps the craziest place I've been in India . . . and perhaps anywhere. That night we walked from our hotel at the south end of the ghats on the Ganges. As one of, if not the, holiest cities in Hinduism, pilgrims and priests and mourners come to Varanasi to bathe in the holy ganges, pray, wait to die, or mourn and send off their dead. The water is among the most polluted on earth. Creamation is the way to go, and there are several "burning ghats" (no photography allowed) where they literally burn bodies on wooden pyres, carefully weighing the wood to charge the family by the kilo. There were ceremonies, tons of commotion, lots of incense, colors . . . a very frenetic and strange place. And it's no surprise that's where we got sick. :) But I won't go into details. We left the next day after resting to head to Delhi.

After dropping Steve off at the airport for his day visit to Leh, I went to meet Sheila at her hotel, and Sean met us later. I used the morning to rest and take a real shower for the first time in a while. I had to buy some more film, and I took advantage of the cheap tailoring to get some suits and shirts made that I'll pick up when I return. We had dinner that night with Sheila's relatives in Delhi. They were very hospitable, cooked a delicious meal, and it was great to visit an Indian home and learn more about the current culture as opposed to history.

The next morning we took an early flight to Leh, capital of Ladakh in the Jammu-Kashmir region sandwiched in between China/Tibet, Afghanistan and Pakistan on India's Northwestern border in the Himalaya range. It's one of the higher airports in the world at 11,000+ ft. It was so nice to be in cool, clean air! The scenery here is amazing. Leh is actually a mountainous desert, so we're surrounded by a combination of sand, barren mountains, and snow capped peaks. Our first day we mostly relaxed and acclimatized to the altitude. Yesterday we took a day trip out to visit some incredible monasteries, some of which are very rare and date back to the 1100's! We chatted with some monks, explored a bit, followed the Indus river and returned. Today we woke up early to see the sunrise puja prayers at the Thikse monastery and then went up to the Khardang La pass, the highest road in the world. It's the highest I've ever been on land at about 18,300 ft, and involved a very scary journey on a one land sometimes dirt/snowy road. Rest of the day we relaxed and tomorrow Sean and Sheila depart and I leave for 4 days of solo trekking high up in the mountains!

Monday AM I departed Leh at about 8AM for my trek through the Shang Valley. The hike was a nice one . . . one-way, most of the vertical in gradual chunks, and some nice villages and monasteries along the way. Doing the trek alone, my goals were to challenge my mind/body; read, think, and brainstorm; and see some beautiful country. We started by visiting some monasteries, then set off from near Hemis (~3500m; 11,500k ft) towards our first camp. The first day was relatively easy, and aside from a bit of rain, we had mostly nice weather. The rest of the crew (the cook, the helper, and the “horse man” and his 4 ponies) had gone on before us to set up camp. We got there around 12:30P after only a bit over two hours walking, and I spent the rest of the day sitting on a chair reading and staring at the gigantic snow-capped mountains around me (remember, Leh is a high-altitude desert, so the landscape was beautiful in the sense of colors from the minerals in the dirt, the mountains and the snow, but not exactly lush greens like in Seattle).

The next day we awoke around 7AM for tea, packed up camp, and left. We had a brief visit with a small and secluded monastery and followed a few little kids in school uniforms with backpacks bigger than they were towards the next “town” (a collection of maybe five huts). And that’s when the trouble began . . . the weather started getting rough. First ominous clouds, then hail. And it got cold. This didn’t stop for the next 3 days. :) We did have occasional sun breaks, and at night there would be some clearings for some amazing stars, but generally, the weather sucked. Really badly.

Anyway, despite the driving hail, we made it to our camp at 4360m (about 14,400ft, or the height of Mt. Rainier). The altitude definitely started getting to me, making even standing up or walking on flat ground difficult. (After a night at that altitude, it got a little better, and after climbing the pass, and another night, I felt pretty good coming down the last day :) ).

On Day 3 we made the big climb over the Shang La pass at 4970m (16,400ft), by a solid 2,000ft the highest I’ve ever hiked. The weather actually got OK (cloudy as opposed to precipitating) for the pass. After the pass, we encountered waste deep snow which was trouble for the poor horses. They had to unload everything and create sleds to get past the steep snowfield then lead the horses down one by one. I just got wet. And then the snow started again . . . but this time really hard. We sought shelter in a rock yak hut/barn, so I ate lunch in the smelly darkness (no yaks, but their “remnants” were all around). It was kinda funny. OK, it was really funny, except that I was wet and cold. We finally made it to camp (4350m) and I spent the rest of the day in my sleeping bag reading.

And then today, Day 4, we came back down to the village of Matho and met our car to bring us back to Leh. For those Atlanta folks reading this, there’s a guy in Matho walking around with a red Georgia Bulldawgs hat. I took a picture.

Amazing trip, despite the weather . . . all of my other goals were accomplished. I can’t remember the last time I had 4 days in beautiful solitude to think. Unfortunately the weather interfered with my picture taking, but I managed to get a few.