Stuck in India

On Saturday the 6th, we were supposed to depart the country, with a 4:40pm hop from Gaggal (an hour from Mcleod Ganj) to Delhi, and then a red-eye shortly after midnight to Singapore. We spent the morning getting packed up, buying a few last minute things, and having a final couple Tibetan meals, before taking a taxi to the airport because we hadn't given ourselves quite enough time to take the bus. We got there, and found that our flight had been canceled for reasons unspecified. Guess we should have checked on that before going to the airport. Everyone (especially our taxi driver, but also the security guards at the airport) seemed to think we should just continue by taxi to Delhi to catch our connecting flight, since that only takes 10 hours, and didn't seem to understand when we explained to that we didn't have 10 hours remaining before our next flight.

Unfortunately, Gaggal airport only has one flight per day to Delhi (maybe only one flight period), and the folks working there, while happy to refund us our money (well, to refund it to the online company we booked through), had no interest in helping us make our other flight. I don't know if that's because it was on another airline (no single airline goes to Gaggal and Singapore), or if they just don't have that responsibility to you at all in India. Apparently, the online company we booked through also has no such responsibility here in India, even though we booked the flights as a pair--something we certainly would not have done if we'd known the financial responsibility would be on us if the first flight failed to get us to the second one. The online company proceeded to be completely useless, not even able to tell us what the cancellation charges would be on the second half of the trip. Oh, yeah, and while we were there, another group was trying to get their refund for a flight they'd been supposed to take 3 weeks earlier, but had been similarly canceled. It'll be interesting to see how much of the $800 for those tickets we see credited back to our credit card.

On the bright side, there was wifi in the airport, which we used to try to figure out what to book to move on with our trip instead. We stayed there looking at flights until the airport closed, then sat outside for another 3 hours trying to book it. See, in addition to the airline website taxing our little mobile device to the limit, our credit card kept getting rejected. We kept calling the company over Skype, and they kept explaining that the charge had looked suspicious, so our card had been deactivated, but now that they knew it was us and that we were overseas (since apparently they weren't listening when we told them before we left), it wouldn't happen again. We had this conversation with them 2 times before being kicked off the airport grounds, with a credit card which had been at that point locked for a 3rd time. On the bright side, I'm confident that if that card were stolen, no fraudulent charges would be placed on it.

We proceeded to take the bus back to Dharamsala (the town just down the hill from Mcleod Ganj with decent bus access to Delhi), and managed to book ourselves a flight to Bangkok using our 3rd and final credit card from an Internet cafe. We discovered on the bus ride to Dharamsala that not all Tibetan bread is created equal, and the stuff we'd bought that morning was way better than the stuff we'd tried our first day in town. Would have been nice to know before. They were like giant English muffins, and we found ourselves wishing for a toaster and a fried egg, but enjoyed them very much anyway. If we ever move to Dharamsala, I'm totally going to open a cafe and sell McleodMuffins made of Tibetan bread with a masala omelet in the middle.

The bus ride to Delhi the next day was long and miserable, but it got the job done. And thanks to the miracle that is the Diva cup, Mary was able to manage it in spite of having scheduled herself to have her period in Singapore. We managed to catch another bus to the airport and arrived just about exactly the right amount early for our 1am flight to Bangkok, having expected to have like 3-4 hours extra.

India has been an experience, that's for sure. I'm a little sad to say it, but it's kind of a relief to be leaving. As I sit here writing from our flight to Bangkok, I can't decide which of the following I most hope is different about Thailand: I hope it isn't so dirty, smelly, and polluted; I hope the people have more respect of personal space (the Indian man next to me on the airplane is seriously leaned over 6 inches or more into my seat and against my shoulder and is taking no hints at all to give me some more space--not cool--and this is so typical of men in India); I hope the people are less pushy about selling stuff.

Mcleod Ganj - Triund Hike

In spite of our disappointing hike to Dal Lake, on our last full day in Mcleod Ganj, we decided to do the 9-km hike up to Triund. We got kind of a late start, not leaving until a little after 11am, and the first thing we did, just a bit uphill of our hotel, was to stop and watch a gaggle of monkeys. They were quite entertaining, fighting or playing with one another. At one point there was a bit of fighting over a potato chip wrapper that made us think of "The Gods Must Be Crazy" and we even noticed one monkey sitting off by himself chewing gum and playing with it. Mary wished she had some chewing gum for herself, so she could demonstrate bubble blowing to the monkey.

From 102_PANA

For the first few kilometers, we were on a road that got rougher and rougher until at some point we noticed that it was really more of a path and not going to be navigable by vehicles anymore. The path wound its way up the mountain (a total of 1300 m elevation over 9 kms) through a rhododendron forest. Josh found what appeared to be a gold wedding ring and all the way up the trail asked everyone we met if they had lost a ring. We got lots of commanding views of the valley and Mcleod Ganj getting smaller and smaller below us. After a while were following far above a steep dry riverbed, which must, during the wet season, be the multi tiered waterfall that Lonely Planet referred to (way to fail to warn us again that it's only a seasonal waterfall).

From Drop Box

At some point in here we met a couple British women who had been living in Udaipur for the past several months while putting on a production of MacBeth. They were hiking in flip-flops and fairly pathetic looking little canvas shoes, but they were also making slightly better time than we were (at least than Mary's pace), and left us behind.

A little after 1pm, we were so exhausted that we stopped for a nap for a while.

From Drop Box

Around about 2pm we were passing a little hut and starting to think about turning back, as we had no clue how much further we had left and were getting pretty tired, when we met a couple on the way down stopped for chai who assured us it was only another hour and a half, that there was food available, and that it was totally worth it. They pointed out to us a building on the ridge and told us it was our destination. It looked a good deal closer than Mcleod Ganj, so we continued up the mountain. We started getting to small patches of snow, which was at first really cool, but as they got to be larger snowfields they became annoying and a bit challenging to cross.

From Drop Box

We took a lot of breaks because the trail was so steep and were wondering if the 1 and a half hours estimate was how long it took to hike the remaining distance, or if it included breaks. Evidently it included breaks as we just beat the time estimate. Here is Josh pointing at our destination from the hut 1.5 hours away.

From Drop Box

When we got to the top of the ridge we found the two British women, who said they'd been there only 10 minutes and been over to the hut we'd been assuming was the guesthouse described in Lonely Planet, only to find it all locked up. We were impressed that they'd made it at all with their lack of shoes. The guy in the tarp hut they were sitting next to was selling omelets, toast, and chai, and not even for outrageous prices. We enjoyed the view and the company over omelets. We also found out from them that there was a "theater" back in Mcleod Ganj that would be showing "Where the Wild Things Are" at 6pm and then "Sherlock Homes" at 8:30pm. We figured we would have no trouble making it back for either of these. And the idea of a movie from home sounded really good.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

After snapping some photos and lamenting that the better part of the mountains were in the clouds today, we started back down with the British women around 4pm.

From 102_PANA

Going down was much faster and after not too long we were having a nice long rest outside the shelter where we'd met the couple having chai. When we got up from our rest, Mary discovered that she had a big blister on her 4th toe on the right side. We applied a bandaid from the first aid kit (mole skin is less useful without a pocket knife), and it was okay. We continued to hike down with the British women and followed them down a wrong turn quite a long way, until we got to a rest point where they decided to sit to watch the sunset. We were still hoping to get home by dark and decided not to wait around for sunset. However, the trail didn't look that familiar to us. A little way down we met an Indian man who had passed us coming down and asked if this path went to the town we were trying to reach. He said it was a short cut, but a difficult one. We decided to turn around and go back the way we came to save our ankles. When we got up to the others, they assured us they'd come up this way and it wasn't so bad. So we went back down and met the Indian guy coming back up saying he'd decided this path was too steep and advising that we turn around too. So we did. He stopped and argued with the British women for a while about their route and we didn't see him again. Shortly after we got back on the right path, we saw a rather dramatic sunset, then the lights in the villages down below start to come on. We reached a road just as it was getting dark and asked directions at a guesthouse and got out our headlamp. Since the directions at the guesthouse hadn't been that clear, we asked some people a little further along, and they said the road we were on would work, but on foot in the dark we'd be better off taking that trail over there, and that it would pass through another village where we could get further directions.

From Drop Box

The trail was not at all familiar, but we took it. Eventually we stopped at a house for directions, where we met a guy who said he had just walked up from Mcleod Ganj where he works, and gave us directions again. Soon we were back on a road, and Josh started walking backwards with Mary trying to lead him in a modified ballroom hold to save his knees. We stopped a few time and turned off the light to admire the stars. We got back to our hotel in time to change our clothes before rushing down to the Japanese restaurant for some great vegetarian sushi before rushing to the theater just as "Sherlock Homes" was starting. The theater was less nice than our setup at home, but it was fun anyway. What a great last day in India!

Mcleod Ganj - Dal Lake Hike

We decided to see how hiking at this altitude was by taking the short 4-km hike up to Dal Lake. We followed the signs out of Mcleod Ganj and found ourselves headed down hill. After a bit, we came upon something that looked distinctly like a Christian cemetery, and soon arrived at the Raj (British occupation era) Church of St. John in the Wilderness, which was locked when we were there, but the sign indicated that they still hold regular services in English and in Hindi. The feeling on the grounds, in the woods and at the high cool elevation, of having stumbled into England was intense and rather welcome.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Further along, we enjoyed some nice views of the valley that probably would have been spectacular on a clear day. There were also tons of rhododendrons, and a few other flowers. After a while, the road turned steeply uphill, and we were happy to take a break and stop at a Tibetan handy crafts showroom from a company recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a nice little fixed price shop with the lowest fixed prices we'd seen, so we decided to try to catch up on our souvenir shopping with bunches of brocade bags.

From 102_PANA

Just after the handy crafts showroom, we got to a fork in the road where the sign pointed to Mcleod Ganj to the right. Turns out that was the recommended route, which was level and more attractive overall, though lacked the English church and shopping opportunity. We took this route back, after returning from Dal Lake.

Anyhow, just a bit further up the hill was the Sacred Dal Lake, which probably would have been lovely if it had contained water. However, it was completely drained and there were a couple bulldozers on the lakebed digging it out. Basically, it was closed for renovations. We declined to do the additional walk up to the next town for views of the lake. The stream leading away from the lake still had some water in it (presumably diverted straight there from the lake input), and would perhaps have been aesthetically pleasing had it not been full of garbage. I think India is not the place to come for natural beauty. Have I mentioned their garbage problem? Oh, yeah, and even up here with the relatively low population, there is still a pretty significant raw sewage problem...

From Drop Box

Overall, it was a pretty disappointing outing that kind of turned us off the notion of hiking from Mcleod Ganj.

Mcleod Ganj - Home of the Dalai Lama

McLeod Ganj has been our vacating from our vacation. The air up here is clear and cool, and there isn't a lot to do, so we're going to relax and eat good food, with excellent Western choices.

It's clear that this is a tourist town, far more so than any other place we've been, but the touts, aren't nearly as bad. The population is extensively Tibetan, or at least more Asian than Indian in appearance, though there are plenty of Indians also. The ratio of Americans to non-American Westerners is also off. There are a ton of American tourists here, where as we have hardly seen other Americans in the rest of India. Finally, there are women working jobs that involve interacting with tourists, which we mostly haven’t seen elsewhere in India.

Our first day, Mary wasn't feeling so well, and Josh did a little poking around the Tibetan complex by himself. The next day, we went back together and saw the Dalai Lama's home, the Tibet Museum, and the temples. The temples were interesting, though we weren't allowed to take photographs inside. Mostly they looked like Hindu shrines (though of course there were images of Buddha), except there were a whole bunch of modern offerings, like Chips Ahoy, Oreos, etc. There were great stacks of them in their packaging, often under glass as part of the whole display. It was... weird. I guess it just demonstrates that this is truly a living religion. There were prayer mats everywhere in the complex, and the Dalai Lama was in attendance, so there where many maroon-robed monks about. Unfortunately for us, the Dalai Lama's teachings this week were part of a series we would have had to have started years ago to attend, so we didn't actually get to see him. The Tibetans are big on religion, as you can see in the photos below.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From 102_PANA

From 102_PANA

From 102_PANA

On our 3rd day, we took a hike up to Dal Lake, but that's another entry.

On our 4th day, it rained. So we stayed in our hotel room, eating leftover Tibetan bread from a previous day's breakfast along with peanut butter, nutella, and chai from our hotel's restaurant. Most of the day we spent reading, both fiction (Mary: Around the World in 80 Days, Josh: 40 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) and planning for Southeast Asia, including out of our new-to-us copy of Lonely Planet's Southeast Asia on a Shoestring, which has been recommended to us by other travelers we talked to, but is not available for the Kindle currently. However, there was a copy of it at our hotel left behind by a previous traveler, which our host gave to us. It would have cost more new at the bookstore (amazingly there actually was a bookstore in town that carried it) than our room for 5 nights. In the late afternoon, we ventured out to the supposedly authentic Japanese restaurant, where the menu indicated that they knew how to make safe-to-eat salads. We enjoyed some amazing Miso soup, tempura, salad, and strange fried potato dumpling-like things, but Josh ate way too much. After, the rain stopped and there was an incredible rainbow over the snow-capped peaks. And, of course, this was the one time we'd left both cameras in the hotel room.

For our last full day we went on a long day hike, which will also be another post.

Amritsar - Golden Temple and Holi

We didn't wake up as early as intended (slept until almost 9am--wow!), and first thing took a cycle-rickshaw down to the Golden Temple, with virtually nothing with us so we could get in faster. Anyway, photos are not allowed in the Temple itself (see yesterday for a representative inlay from elsewhere).

There were already lots of people there, and we waited almost an hour to get out to the Temple, but it was worth it. The inlay work was incredible. It put the Taj Mahal to shame. The Taj has only semi-precious stones. The Baby Taj had only less valuable materials, which have actually quite a bit more depth. Other sites have all had either the one set or the other. The Golden Temple combined both to great effect, along with other materials, including mother of pearl and some we didn't recognize or remember seeing before. Additionally, rather than just flowers, these inlays included animals, people, and fruit. And they were virtually all different from one another. The Taj had a bunch of the same inlays.

This was also where the music from yesterday was coming from. It was more beautiful up close and not through the PA system. There were also some of the biggest most beautiful crystal chandeliers I've ever seen, lit with many small compact fluorescents. Love it. (We rarely see any other kind of bulb here.)

After, we took a cycle-rickshaw back to our hotel and along the way were hit with a goodly number of color-filled water balloons for Holi. We didn't think they did that until the second day of Holi, so we weren't dressed for it. Oh well. We had a quick breakfast back at our hotel, packed up, and headed for our noon-ish bus to Dharamsala and then Mcleod Ganj. Our bus didn't come and we ended up taking 3 buses to get to Mcleod Ganj and had a long wait at the bus station for the first one. Mary had an unhappy ride with lots of motion sickness, but eventually figured out that she had some audio books with her and started listening to "The Highest Tide". Josh was able to read almost the whole way. Lucky duck. The scenery was amazing (post some next time), until it got dark.

Amritsar - Golden Temple, Mata Temple, Silver Temple

Had a glorious sleep-in morning, our first night on a good bed in 4 nights. We are so going to get ourselves a foam bed when we get home. OMG, loving them so much! Then had a leisurely breakfast at our hotel. This is something we need to do more of, both at home and traveling: long leisurely breakfasts. It never seems like there is time, but it makes the day so much better. It reminds me of something at the end of "The Seven Habits" about somebody (Martin Luther?) being quoted saying, "I have so much to accomplish today, I must spend another 2 hours on my knees."

After breakfast, we wandered down to the Golden Temple. We started with visiting the Sikh Museum, which unfortunately left us fully as uninformed about Sikhism as we'd been before. (However, we have since learned on Wikipedia that Sikhism is the 5th largest religion in the world, so we should probably learn about it.) It basically just had a lot of photos, paintings, and information about a lot of Sikh martyrs. Next we took a leisurely walk around the pond surrounding the temple, watching people go for their holy dips in the water, listening to the sacred Sikh texts being quietly sung, along with instrumentals, over the PA system, and as always posing for endless photographs with Indians. We decided to skip, for the time being, going out to the temple itself, as there was a very long line to do that. Silly us, not paying attention to the day of the week and showing up at such a big site on a Saturday afternoon! What were we thinking?

From Drop Box

We went through the Sikh Parliament building, which was incredibly beautiful. Amazing carved wooden doors, chandeliers, and ceilings. The inlays were probably the best we've seen in India (along with those inside the Golden Temple). Here's an example in an area where we were actually allowed to take photos. Note especially the array of materials--most places only use around 3-4 inlay materials (either the more valuable set or the less valuable set), and we've not seen the mother of pearl anywhere else. This is on the floor!

From Drop Box

Also stepped into another little shrine, which was very busy, and spent some time resting in the shade of a 500+-year-old holy tree.

From Drop Box

Then we made our way to the community kitchen for a late lunch.

From Drop Box

This has got to be the most efficient feeding operation on the face of the Earth. This free meal is fed to between 60,000 and 100,000 people per day, depending on your source. They moved us in and out pretty fast, so we didn't get a lot of photos. We saw some of the food being prepared in giant vats, probably 4 feet across. The cook had a ladle the size of half a basketball. Sikh volunteers brought the food out in buckets and large baskets. There were two kinds of dal (bean curry), which were pretty good, and roti. Unlimited seconds seemed to be available. We had intended to help clean up, but after looking at the fast paced hand washing operation, we decided we'd probably just slow them down and decided to stick with giving money. Note the plate in mid air.

From Drop Box

After the Golden Temple we walked back to our hotel. On the way, we ran across a shop that did passport photos and dropped in and paid 100 rupees ($2) for 32 passport photos of each of us. We'll need a bunch of them in Southeast Asia supposedly. We relaxed at our hotel for a bit, then walked in the other direction up to the Mata Temple, which was described as a "cave temple" in Lonely Planet. We thought a temple in a cave sounded pretty cool. The cave part was totally fake and not even underground. However, it was still a good stop. It's a modern temple (dedicated to a 20th century saint), with some incredible mosaics made of some very modern mirrored materials. For those of you who have been to Epic's campus or seen my pictures, it really looked like it belonged there. Someone needs to tell Judy that Epic needs an India themed building. And then they need to send someone to this temple to see what that looks like. There were also some young (maybe middle-school) girls who decided that Mary was their new best friend.

From Drop Box

Next we tried to go to dinner at a restaurant with some highly recommended tandoori, but got there much too early for Indian food and decided to move on to the Sri Durgiana Temple, which is also known as the Silver Temple for its silver doors and similar design (temple out on an artificial lake of holy water) to the Golden Temple. There was a Hindu ceremony going on when we got there, and not another tourist to be seen. The ceremony seemed to have some similarities to the one in Varanasi, in the sense that there was a priest doing something with candles or lamps. However, there was also beautiful singing coming from the entire congregation. It felt like a real religious ceremony, and a beautiful one, even though we didn't really understand what was going on. We got pushed forward from where we were standing at the back, just in time to be splashed with holy water. It was great. We think the decorations here are for Holi, which is tomorrow.

From Drop Box

Had we made it out to the Golden Temple itself, today would have been a perfect day. We'll try to do that early tomorrow for less crowds.

Amritsar - Jallianwala Bagh and Pakistan Border Ceremony

We arrived in Amritsar. As usual, we decided to walk to our desired Lonely Planet hotel, and took a couple wrong turns along the way, making for a very long 1.5-km walk. Though we can blame the difficulty finding the place on the construction that we tried to go around instead of walking through. Silly us, we must have forgotten that we were in India. And then when we got there, there didn't seem to be any other hotels nearby to price compare with (in hindsight this was only because of our direction of approach), but we managed to get a decent price anyway. Up until we met that Asian-American couple in Udaipur who explained hotels to us, we thought there had just been a decent bit of price inflation (like 50%-100%), but now that we know how it works we can generally get the Lonely Planet rate, or sometimes, like today, do better.

From Drop Box

After checking in, we walked to the Old City for lunch. We saw paneer tikka masala on the menu for the first time and decided to try it (very spicy) and also decided on some good old palak paneer, which we haven't ordered since Bharatpur. The palak paneer was basically just like back home... which seems to be a source of disappointment at this point, at least to Mary.

After lunch we booked a shared taxi for the Pakistan border ceremony. With a little time to kill, we wandered into the Jallianwala Bagh, a park commemorating the Indians killed by the British military here in 1919. It's a beautiful park now, but you can see the bullet holes in the walls in several places. For those who've seen the Ghandi movie, it's *that* massacre. It was a moving place to visit.

From Drop Box

In the afternoon, we grabbed a shared taxi out to the Pakistan border to see the elaborate ceremony and pre-ceremony. Josh in real time: India has really packed the stands and they are playing music and running flags. The music picks up and now women are dancing in the road. Instant dance party at the border. There are probably 50 women and girls dancing now. I can't tell what Pakistan is doing, but there are fewer people and I can hear music, but the crowd is less animated. Overall the feel is more that of a sports game than anything else. As the guidebook says, it's like a page out of the Ministry of Silly Walks.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Pizza for dinner, and apparently Josh can't count to 4, and thus secured the greater 'half' of the pizza for himself. So Mary needed dessert. Bed is comfy, which is more than can be said for the train. Night all.

Train Day

It's been a somewhat boring day on the train today. We're on a 24+-hour train from Varanasi to Amritsar. Mary got some fabric the night before and spent some time making little interior pockets for our small daypack. Josh read pretty much the whole HindustanTimes paper. Also spent some time reading on Kindles, Josh is reading “Frankenstein,” Mary is reading “Around the World in 80 Days.” We've had a couple different Indian traveling companions at different times. The first was a banker, from whom we learned that the Indian trains are all electric, getting their power from overhead like the light rail in Portland. The second is a Jain businessman who runs 4 clothing showrooms in Lucknow and wanted to know all about how much we are spending on our round-the-world trip (for anyone curious State-side, the target budget is $20K, with a drop dead return home early limit of $30K), how much we made back home, what things cost in America, and so forth. He also wanted to play with each electronic gadget we got out, and know how much each costs. We also saw pictures of all his family members, and learned about how Jains are not allowed to eat any meat, not even eggs, and how they are not allowed to eat anything except fruit and milk after sunset, but that that's healthier anyway.

Anyway, we are in 2A accommodations, which is a pretty high class of sleeper. It's very nice, aside from the occasional mini roach. It’s odd seeing them in the higher class and not in the lower class. I wonder if it's all the tourists eating crumbly bread and crackers, compared with the containers of Indian curries brought by Indians on the trains, which probably leave a lot less roach food behind.

Also, the bathroom, while nice and clean, has minimalist plumbing. You can see the tracks going by at the bottom of the toilet bowl. No wonder there is a sign outside saying not to use the toilet at the station!

Note the Sunlight from Drop Box

That was the excitement for the day, and I've been getting a little motion sick (hope it's motion sickness!) if I try to read much, so it's been mostly pretty dull. But dull isn't so bad every now and again.

Varanasi - Local Culture, Aarti, Stuffed Pancake Recipe

We were somewhat skeptical about Varanasi after our bad experience in Mathura, and indeed the day started off poorly when our tuk-tuk driver, after agreeing to take us to the Golden Temple for 20 rupees and driving us away from the train station, told us that he could not take us to the Golden Temple and wanted to know what hotel to take us to (tuk-tuk drivers generally extract "referral" commissions from hotels, even if you were planning to stay there anyway, and this translates to a higher room rate--they do it everywhere in India, but especially badly in Varanasi according to Lonely Planet). After arguing with him for a while, we got out and managed to find a cycle-rickshaw pretty quickly, which was a relief since we had no clue where we were. I am starting to hate tuk-tuk drivers with a passion.

Along the Ganges from Drop Box

We wondered along the Ganges for a little while trying to find the backpacker part of town. We dropped in at one hotel with rates posted in US dollars, for $125/night. Wow. We declined to actually look at the room as our packs were heavy and Mary needed to pee (having declined to do so on the night train or at the station). Also looked at a couple places that seemed of questionable value. One was 400 Rs with shared squat bathroom, and another with so much shit in the entryway we didn't ask to see rooms. By this time we were starting to see signs for the Brown Bread German Bakery, which we knew from Lonely Planet to be a branch of a Western charity, which also has a guest house with basic cheap rooms (proceeds benefit local schools). We dropped in for a few minutes and got directions to the guesthouse, which we were told was probably full, and set off. The guesthouse was indeed full, so we tried next door at Shankeri Tourist Lodge, where we talked the owner down from 300 Rs to 120 Rs on a very basic room with no screens and a shared Indian bathroom. We are increasingly finding the squat toilets to be okay. Actually, a dirty squatty is vastly superior to a dirty Western toilet, as the only part of you that touches it is the bottoms of your shoes.

Entrance to Our Hotel from Drop Box

We had breakfast there, deposited our laundry, and heard a lot from the owner about Holi, Varanasi, his friend's silk shop, and various things to do in the city that he could arrange for us for a fee. He was a little pushier than we would have liked, but the fees he was suggesting sounded reasonable, and I do appreciate hearing the available options... once. Mary really liked the stuffed "pancakes" (actually parantha). We also talked about family planning--we keep getting asked if we are on our honeymoon, and then how long we have been married. It seems to be absolutely mild boggling to people here that we have been married going on 5 years and don't have any children yet. He told us that in India you must have a baby within 1-2 years, but after that it is socially acceptable to use contraceptives, and have as many or as few additional children as you want, and wait as long or as short as you like to have them.

After breakfast we departed along the Ganges taking in the sights. It was really hot. And there was little to no shade. We stopped for a break near what turned out to be one of the burning ghats, where we saw a small funeral procession and the preparation of a funeral pyre that didn't look big enough (no photos allowed of the funerals). We decided to move on before they lit it. We moved away from the river and into the city for more shade. Josh also bought some sunglasses, having lost the ones he brought from home. We proceeded southward with the intention of going to a museum at the university before lunch, then one with an extensive weapons collection across the river after lunch. We ended up only doing the first museum because we were so tired, and after some difficulty caught a tuk-tuk back to our hotel area, where we purchased a few silk ("silk"?) scarves and a cheap basic daypack (having decided we were sorry we didn't bring one).

Mini Painting at the Museum from Drop Box

We had a very late lunch (3-4pm) at the Brown Bread German Bakery. It was pretty expensive and rich, but also very good. We had fondue and a very cheesy spinach lasagna. The restaurant was, as I said above, part of a Western charity, and it was also a total hippie joint, full of white hippies and supposedly all organic fair trade food. We enjoyed relaxing, stretched out on pillows on the floor at low tables. It's also the first place we've been in India where Lonely Planet suggests that you can get your water bottle refilled with safe-to-drink water, which we did.

After, we went to our hotel room to relax for a while, then went out to see the Aarti ceremony at sunset. It turns out that the lighting and placing of candles on the river is only the smallest part of this ceremony, and there were not that many candles put afloat. The rest for the ceremony, until we got bored, there was a lot of singing, dancing, and drumming by the priests, and a lot of mosquito slapping by the tourists. The whole thing didn't sit quite right with us, I think largely due to being in entirely the wrong mood, having arrived early and spent like a half hour with people trying to sell us candles and boat rides. Can you imagine showing up for Evensong at Salisbury Cathedral and spending the first half hour having the alter boys try to sell you votive candles or a pew with a better view?

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

When we got back to our hotel, we chatted with a couple other tourists, a student from Australia and another from Seattle. For dessert (we weren't really hungry again after that lunch), Josh got lassi and Mary got more of the fantastic "pancakes" which the woman of the house allowed her to help make. She used the same parantha dough that we saw in Delhi, ~2 parts wholewheat flour to 1 part water (she just keeps some made up all the time in a closed container). A golf-ball-sized amount was then flattened to about 3 inches across. She stuffed this with broken up Indian Sweet* and sugar (around 1/2 tablespoon each), folded the dough around it, dipped in whole wheat flour and flattened to parantha-size (5 or 6 inches across) and fried in a little bit on oil on a flat pan. Mary didn't use enough oil on hers and they kept trying to inflate like chipati! *Indian Sweet, at least as used here, is made of condensed milk (think Carnation canned stuff), which has been further condensed until it forms a candy which had be readily smashed into a soft powder. Meanwhile, Josh was learning about making curd from fresh raw milk.

Our bed that night was kind of funky, only cots with two thick blankets, sheeted as if we were supposed to just sleep on top of both of them and bring our own blanket to keep warm. Josh found it warm enough to sleep in just his silk travel sack all night, while Mary moved between the blankets in the middle of the night, and found the bed more comfortable that way, the bottom blanket being less lumpy than the top. We also used our bug net, but thanks to being on the 3rd floor, it didn't seem to be needed even without screens in the windows. In spite of the funkiness of the room, I would recommend the establishment on account of liking our hosts so much. Varanasi itself didn't do much for us, but between the bakery, the friendly folk at our hotel, and the stuffed "pancake" recipe it was a good day.

Travel from Khajuraho

Our last morning in Khajuraho we decided we were tired of our peanut butter, nutella, banana breakfasts in our room and returned to Ganesh Restaurant for breakfast. When we don't get up too early, it's nice to sit at a table together eating breakfast, drinking chai, talking, and reading. Earlier we were doing that everyday, but then we got out of the habit as the pace of our sightseeing picked up. (Also places tend not to open for breakfast until 8am, which is often not early enough for us lately.) Over breakfast we enjoyed watching a baby goat through the window and talking about the feasibility of having one ourselves (a goat that is, not a baby--don't get too excited, Mom).

Josh wasn't feeling so hot, so he went back to the hotel to relax while Mary continued on to the little Archeology Museum alone. Lonely Planet said it would be 5 rupees admission, but when Mary got there, they told her it was the same ticket as the Western Group of temples (a 250 rupee ticket!), and it was only valid for the same day admission. No big deal if we'd known this up front, but really annoying since we didn't. Skipped the museum since it didn't sound like it was worth anywhere near $5 to see.

We went to a south Indian restaurant for lunch (yay dosa!) and then got on a bus for Satna, where we plan to catch the night train to Varanasi. We are currently on the wait list, but pretty high on it so we should be fine.

Later - we are at the train station and have confirmed seats. Something a little strange happened on the bus as we were coming into Satna. They tried to get all the tourists to get off somewhere unknown (not the bus station), and made us get all our baggage that had been on top of the bus up to that time. They said this was where we should get off to go to the train station, but we also heard someone say that we were only 10 km from the train station when the bus station is 3 km from the train station. So we thought maybe they were trying to get us to take an expensive tuk-tuk ride to the station. There are so many scams like that in this country, a tourist learns not to stray from her planned course of action or take an alternate destination for stuff like this. Or maybe it really was the right place and the 10 km we heard was for something else. At any rate, we and all the other tourists insisted on staying on until the bus station.

After the tuk-tuk ride to the train station we got our seat assignments, then we went outside and got some popular street food and bananas. I think dinner was 28 rupees outside plus 23 rupees for a soda in the station. We are in class AC3 tonight, which should have the same arrangement as Sleeper Class, plus AC (not that we'll need it), blankets, pillows, reading lights, and wealthier travelers. We're counting on the blankets!

Khajuraho - Raneh Falls

There's not a ton to do in Khajuraho, but we decided to stay a few days because it's cheap and we needed a rest day or two.

In the morning we spent some time on the internet, calling Mary's parents (it was already too late to call Josh's), buying an "Adventure Guide" to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos for the Kindle (which sadly looks like it will turn out to be of limited usefulness... not looking to stay in 4 and 5 star hotels even if they are half the price they would be in the US!), and booking our flight from Mcloed Ganj to Singapore.

For lunch we went back to the pizza place we went to on the first day for dinner (Bella Italia), and while it was amazing for dinner, it ended up being rather disappointing for lunch... like they didn't have the wood-burning pizza stove up to full temperature or something at lunch.

After lunch we took a tuk-tuk to the park 18 km away that was supposed to have a nice waterfall, then took a very hot 3-km walk from the entrance to the falls. We'd imagined the walk would be shady, but it wasn't. Lonely Planet had given me the impression that the water flowed year round, and indeed it seemed to, but there was only a trickle of the waterfall you could see from the observation platform. There seemed to be another channel we could hardly see with the rest of the water in it. The gorge was impressive though.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

We spent the afternoon reading. Josh finished “Emma,” and we were both disappointed in our new Southeast Asia guide.

For dinner we went out to Ganesh Restaurant, which was cheap but not terribly inspired. And our food came "tourist mild" instead of "Indian mild," which we can hardly hold against a place, but is always disappointing. Mary had a yummy samosa afterward from a street vendor we'd scoped out the night before.

Khajuraho - Erotic Temple Central

Our second day in Khajuraho we got up early and made ourselves peanut butter, Nutella, and banana sandwiches on oat bread, then made our way to the big temples (West Group) right around opening time. It's great being up early in India because most people (especially the touts) are still sleeping and everything is still closed. Well, it's great if you have supplies for breakfast in your room anyway.

The carvings on the temples were incredible, as promised. Khajuraho was built around the 10th and 11th century AD, and then shortly after the area fell into disuse and most of the people moved away, leaving it with a low profile that allowed it to fly under the radar of the Muslim iconoclasts. It was “rediscovered” for the wider world when local guides took an Englishman to it in the 1800s.

The carvings, in addition to being wonderfully crafted and full of life, are also erotic. Now that's really something else. Several big 1000-year-old temples covered in carvings of people engaged in just about every sexual act/position you can imagine, and some that go somewhat beyond imaginable... though if anyone knows how to do the deed sitting cross-legged atop a partner who is standing on his head with his legs similarly folded, we'd be quite interested to know how it's done.

See for yourself…











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After a few hours, we dropped in at the gift shop on our way out and were pleased to discover that it was a fixed price government store, where we purchased a handle for Mary's sister (she asked for handles from India). Then at one of the stands outside, Mary was emboldened by knowing the gift shop price to offer a street vendor 1/6 his asking price on another handle. The vendor followed us for about two blocks trying to get her to offer him more, so that must not have been too low of a starting offer. At another shop further along she offered the same price on a somewhat less elaborate handle and got it, even after much insistence on the part of the shopkeeper that it was not possible at that price. Can't quite believe the markups and bartering process here.

Next we spent some time enjoying the cool of our hotel room and doing laundry before venturing out to try some street food for lunch. At 2pm the street food options weren't too bad, but we kept seeing them preparing stuff for the locals differently than they prepared it for us when we tried to order it. Maybe we were ordering wrong, but we got the feeling they were trying to cut corners like we wouldn't know the difference.

After lunch we attempted to use the internet at the cheapest place we'd found so far, which turned out to have a slow connection, only USB 1 and Pentium3s running XP. After half an hour, we gave up and tried one of the more expensive places and it was much better.

Toward the end of the day, Josh negotiated us a really cheap bike rental and we went through the quaint old village and visited the Eastern Group of temples, which really didn't old a candle to the ones we'd seen in the morning.

Had chicken and paneer tikka (yum!) for dinner, and then got on the internet again.

Khajuraho or 'Mary Has a Bad Day'

You know it's going to be a bad day when a tuk-tuk driver tries to push you for a fare before you've even left the room you woke up in. But apparently that's how it is in Sleeper Class (actually the 4th class of sleeper cars), and more people are pointing in the window at you in a way that makes you think they want to sell you something. I think I'm starting to understand what it means to be treated differently because of your race, and I think traveling in India would be a lot more fun with darker skin. I know this makes me a bad person, but I want to ride in a higher class not for the amenities, but for the people who are priced out. In the USA, I can pass for a regular person, between my skin color, older car, modest home and jewelry, etc. But here, it seems that all most people can see is dollar signs. I'd like to promise myself that I will not spend any money at any business that sends a tout out after me, but I fear that doing so would result in going to bed hungry on the street.

Anyhow, back to the day... we started with a tuk-tuk ride to Khajuraho from the train station, and toured a whole bunch of hotel rooms. We eventually ended up at the hotel we'd originally wanted from the guidebook, but managed to get a better price than originally quoted us, since I'm sure they could see our confidence in our ability to go elsewhere. In fact, we actually got the very bottom of the price range listed in Lonely Planet for the first time all trip. Tonight's hotel room is only 150 rupees or about $3, and it's decent sized with 24 hour hot water on a quiet street.

After checking in and using the bathroom for the first time since Tibet House, we hit the town... which has some of the most annoying touts we've seen (okay, they were the same as everywhere, but they are the worst everywhere). Josh wanted to get street food for lunch, so we went out looking for a popular seller. Didn't find one, because we were too early. We got some food from a seller with 3 other customers right then. It was good, but not that cheap. Hopefully it won’t make us sick. Then we dropped into a South Indian restaurant for some dosa and chatted with a college student from Australia who is here on summer break.

After lunch we dropped into a shop where we found some nice looking (and very Indian-looking) brass handles, which is something Mary's sister kind of asked us to bring back for her. But he wanted around $15 for one, which seems too high. And Mary doesn't like to haggle any way other than turning around and walking out, which didn't work in this case.

Then we walked over to bus station where we wanted to exchange our ticket from here to Delhi for one from here to Varanasi, which theoretically is allowed. The guy gave us a hard time though, because the ticket wasn't in great shape. Then he demanded that we come up with change for him for the refund. Then when we went to buy the new ticket he apparently didn't anymore have the small bills I'd just given him, and demanded exact change from us, which we no longer had. And he was pretty rude about it. Actually, he was pretty rude to us from the get go.

After that fiasco, we finally went to the Jain temple complex, our sightseeing for the day. By now it is miserable hot with not a cloud in the sky. The temples were nice, though not that exciting. They are not the main attraction in this town, and the touts getting there had been really annoying.

After, Mary wanted to stop and get a soda. The first place we stopped, we asked if they had the kind she wanted and they said yes and sent one of the people working there running across the street toward the other stand that had a sign up saying cold drinks. We asked, "How much?" They responded, "Have a seat." We clarified that we wanted to know the price and again they responded, "Have a seat." I would really like to know if this is a cultural thing, or a trying to rip you off thing, the way the rickshaw drivers respond "don't worry about it" when you ask the price of the ride. I think much of the problem here is that we are honestly not as rich as they think we are. Yes, some Americans will spend $3 on a soda and not think anything of it or wish they'd checked the price first, but if we were people to "not worry about it", we never would have been able to afford to come to India. And if we don't worry about it on the trip we will have to go home early. Anyway, we moved on from that establishment and after a while came across another stand where we purchased a soda and he opened it for us and then said we had to pay him another 5 rupees if we wanted to walk away with it rather than drink it there and return the bottle. In his one chair. In the full direct sun. We were really pissed, and he didn't want to give us a refund (obviously), so we just walked away. I feel a little bad, since maybe he honestly thought it went without saying that we would stand there and drink it. But mostly it just made me angry because it seems like people here are always playing these little mind games with you after services are rendered. Did he really not understand? Or is he just taking me for a ride trying to extract some more money? I certainly don't want to cheat anyone, especially not anyone so much poorer than myself, not even by accident. But at the same time I very strongly don't want to give a red cent to a person who tries to take advantage, and very much regret giving them my business. And then I don't know if I am being horribly rude when I blow off the person who responds with "have a seat" or "don't worry" (maybe it's a cultural thing and many people don't understand that some bad apples have made it impossible for white people to respond politely?), or if they really were working a con and I'm just telling them I'm not that dumb.

So yeah, it was a bad day. Now it's time to go out for dinner and turn in early for bed. Maybe it will be better with a good night's sleep.

Back in Delhi - Cooking Class

Early in the morning we took the one flight per day from Udaipur to Delhi, so we could catch one of the 3 trains per week from Delhi to Khajuraho in the evening. We decided to occupy ourselves by taking a cooking class in Delhi. The other two students were a pair of German women working on an article for a German food magazine. So there was a certain amount of time taken up with staging things just so for taking good photos. It really added to the odd feeling that we were in a cooking show.

We made dal (lentils) in a pressure cooker, surprisingly quick and easy. We made an eggplant dish that started by cooking the eggplant naked on the gas burner until the skin got black and crinkly (said we could do this in the oven on high heat, like 200-250 C, if we don't have gas--turn every 10 minutes). The eggplant was then pealed and somewhat mashed before being added to a simple stir-fry of oil, onion, garlic, ginger, Indian spices, and fresh tomato. We have more detailed recipes of both of these.

From Drop Box

We also made deep fried okra by slicing the okra lengthwise and mixing it with chickpea (gram) flour and salt and chili. Then deep-frying for surprisingly long.

Finally, we made parantha and roti. Both start with dough made from only whole-wheat flour and water, in approximately 2:1 proportions such that you get dough with a nice consistency. For the parantha, we took a golf-ball-sided chunk and made a round circle maybe a 1/8" thick, then added some oil, garlic, and spices on top, spread evenly-ish over the surface. Then make a single cut from the center to the edge and fold it in a circle of little triangles (about 6). Then put what was the middle of the circle on the table and open/flatten it like a rose. Dip in flour so it's not sticky and roll it out again to about 1/8" thick. Then cook on a flat cast iron pan. I think she cooked it for a bit on each side without oil (dough should be dry enough that this isn't a problem), then added some oil and cooked a bit more on each side. When it was done she crinkled it up a bit in her hands to open the layers.

The roti involved taking the same amount of dough rolled to the same size then cooked on both sides on the cast iron pan without oil. Then place it naked on the gas flame such that it fills with air and becomes a ball. Then remove and eat. I imagine it takes some practice to get the amount of cooking on each side just right to form that perfect pocket shape. It's the cooking on both sides that forms the pocket, not anything to do with how you roll it out. I look forward to practicing this, and making all this food again, when we get home. Or maybe before that in the youth hostels in Europe.

The Germans gave us their business card and invited us to email them our contact info so they can send us a copy of the article. And told us that we simply must come to Berlin when we are in Europe next summer, and to contact them when we do so they can show us around. I think our Europe itinerary could end up being 6 weeks of visiting a bunch of the Europeans we meet in Asia. Probably a great way to make Europe more affordable... and more fun!

After, we went to Tibet House because it was close by. We'd planned to go to the museum, but it was closed that day, and instead spent some time reading in the library.

In the evening, we got on our night train for Khajuraho.

From Drop Box

Udaipur

Upon arrival on the night train to Udaipur, we took a tuk-tuk to a hotel recommended in Lonely Planet and checked into about the cutest little room ever. We were told it was over 200 years old, and we believed it, given the way it compared with all the old buildings from that era we'd been in. It had nice paintings on the wall, a cute window seat, and one room for the toilet/sink and another for the shower, making in the first place we've stayed so far where you could shower without getting the toilet wet. Pretty sweet. It was only 500 rupees, so we happily took it, took showers, and had breakfast (including Nutella toast) at the rooftop restaurant.

Our first site of the day was the City Palace Museum, which at first was very busy, but oddly the crowds petered out over time even though it seemed to be a one-way museum with no options even for an early exit. The first portion of the museum was about local history, with some mediocre art to illustrate important events that we didn't have the historical background to appreciate. Nothing like coming to a place like India to illustrate how Euro-centric our educations were. However, the second half of the museum had nice art, furniture, views, and well-restored mosaics that made us wish we'd paid the 200-rupee camera fee. Oh well.

The museum took us a few hours, so the next stop was lunch at the Lonely Planet recommended restaurant Maxim's Cafe. Service was incredibly slow but we had a good time chatting with a pair of women from Australia and an Asian-American couple. The Asian-American couple are nearing the end of a 6-month tour and had lots of tips to share. They said that as soon as a hotel makes it into Lonely Planet, they double their prices (something we were staring to suspect), and that if you go across the street you can generally find very similar rooms and amenities for half the price. They said that sometimes they leave her with the bags in the lobby of one hotel while he makes an excuse to go out and checks out other hotels in the area. They also said they've had good luck hanging out in the lobbies of the fancy hotels and using their internet. And that the street food is amazing, and around 5 rupees, and that they've been fine eating it at any popular establishment regardless of seeing the food cooked or not. All four spoke highly of Varanasi, so I think we will try to stop there.

From Drop Box

After lunch we went to a cultural museum in an old Palace with its rooms restored and decorated to be representative of life there back when it was new. It was a small but nice museum. After that we wondered the streets for a while, finding a nice little general store with a very helpful owner who helped us find a lens cloth for our camera (something the camera shops didn't have!) at a sunglasses shop. We also purchased a little bottle of hand sanitizer from him (since you can't really trust the tap water for that), something we've been seeking for quite a while with no success. Later in our wanderings we stopped by a used watch shop and Josh picked up a Sandoz automatic (self-winding) watch for 1000 rupies. He is very happy with it.

We returned to the touristy area in time to grab a few bananas before returning to the cultural museum for an evening performance of traditional dances from Rajasthan. We didn't bring our camera as we figured it would be too dark. Big mistake. The dances were really cool. There was one depicting a sword battle between two guys, one riding on a tiger. In another a couple women did an energetic dance with flaming pots on their heads. Another was by puppets, the most amazing marionettes, one with a sexy dance with jiggling boobs and hips, another with a magician who took his head off and did a variety of things with it. Finally, there was a dance by a woman who kept adding pots to her head until she had a stack taller than she was on top of her head!

After the show we stopped to put our shoes on and who should we meet coming out after us but Resy, the Dutch nurse we spent the day with in Fetepur Sikri 10 days previously! We went to dinner together and heard about her trip out to Jaisalmer where she did an overnight camel trip. We'd decided against that before, but she made it sound really nice, and made us wish we'd left time for it and didn't have a flight already booked back to Delhi 36 hours later! We arranged to spend the following afternoon sightseeing with her via tuk-tuk.

In the morning we tried to take the boat ride out to one of the islands on the lake, but arrived too early. When we were walking back to our hotel, another hotelkeeper called out to us to try his rooms. We said we had a hotel already and he said he had rooms for 300 rupees. Remembering what the Asian-American couple had said the day before, we went up and had a look. It was larger, but less cute than the room we already had. He also claimed to have 24-hour hot water, though we didn't check. Josh offered him 250 for it and he took it. So we checked out checked out of our other hotel and moved across the street for a similar room a half the price, just like they said. Of course we're only talking about a $5 savings, but out of a $40-$60/day target budget, that's not bad, and it'll add up.

The boat ride ended up being kind of disappointing: a nice view of the city from the water, but then a little boring. The island had looked cool from the mainland, but when we got there the hotel that owned it would only let us walk around a small boring courtyard and go to their overpriced restaurant, which we declined to do. We wondered around the City Palace grounds for a bit after, until it was time to meet Resy.

Outside Lame Courtyard

Lame Courtyard

Lake Palace Hotel, featured in Octopussy.

City Palace

We found Resy outside our old hotel lobby, excitedly waiting for Nutella toast. We joined her for a tuk-tuk tour of a variety of gardens in the vicinity, including one we took a paddleboat out to. We picnicked on bananas and American Style potato chips and talked about how much better it would be if we also had peanut butter or Nutella. Later, it occurred to me that the guy who was so helpful with the lens cloth and hand sanitizer might know where we could buy such things. Resy agreed to go on such an expedition with us, and when we found him it turned out he actually carried Nutella. We bought his last two containers. He was all out of peanut butter, but said he was getting more the next day. We ended up finding another shop with peanut butter later.












We took a break and got on the internet for a while to print out our boarding passes and try to post to the blog, but had difficulty uploading photos.

We went to dinner at Queen Cafe, which was highly recommended in her guidebook and had the most amazing pumpkin curry. Except we didn't really believe it was pumpkin, it seemed like apples. Either way, it was really good.

When we were almost done, we were joined by a young man from London who was taking a year off between high school and college to teach English. He was taking 2 weeks off from that for some sightseeing. The most incredible thing though was that he was drinking the tap water. The restaurant owner obviously thought he was nuts, just like we did, but he said he'd gotten a cholera vaccine back home that also protects against Delhi Belly. Said he's been drinking the tap water for months with no trouble. I want that vaccine!

Resy gave us her contact info and some details on the cheap European airline that goes to Holland, so that we can visit her when we are in Europe. Sweet.