Adventure and Disillusionment in Karnataka

The bus ride over the mountains into the neighboring state - Karnataka - was spectacularly beautiful and unbearably painful. The simple novelties of Indian transportation are beginning to lose their romantic appeal: buses without doors, shocks, and as far as I can tell - brakes, the continuous blast of horns on every road (apparently car horn replacement is included in routine maintenance - can you imagine ever having to replace a horn??), the unpaved and once-paved roads that now appear about as smooth as the surface of the moon, the hawkers that storm stopped vehicles screaming at you for not buying samosas and masala cucumbers, and the overwhelming chaos of Indian roads. I'm beginning to feel nostalgic about Chinese drivers - and that says a LOT.

After spending an exhausting morning crossing the mountains, we were let off the bus at a small junction/town called Kabbinakad, where we met up with a jeep that took us to a remote coffee estate guest house called Honey Valley. The four km ride up a bumpy dirt road through a lively jungle and coffee-covered hills was a good reminder of how far we were from civilization. The climate was much cooler here, and the colors of the flowering plants surrounding the cozy cluster of red buildings nestled in the crook of the valley was a refreshing relief from the array of burnt browns and mute greens of the lowlands. We were shown to our rooms by the owners, who might be the kindest and most peaceful souls in India, and guided down the hill through vine covered trellises and beds of drying coffee cherries (which smell fantastic). After settling in and relaxing in front of our cottage room with a view of the jungle and valley, we enjoyed a fresh vegetarian dinner made from plants and herbs grown in the house garden (we've been eating vegetarian food for most of the trip - the hearty meat dishes that we are used to in Indian restaurants back home are characteristic of northern Mughali/Punjabi cuisine - the south is mostly veg.) And to add to the tranquility of this already ideal location, the stars that night were the most spectacular that I have seen since western Xinjiang in China, which has almost no atmosphere to distort the starts anyway (not a fair comparison).

The next day, we went on a seven hour trek (the only thing to do in these mountains) through miles of coffee plantations, virgin jungle, local villages, and cool mountain streams up to an enormous ridge of cliffs and peaks overlooking both states - Karnataka to the east and Kerala to the west. We hiked through a mountain pass used by traders between the two regions, following the ancient Salt Road. After climbing to the peak of one of the hills on the ridge, we stopped at a particularly scenic outcropping of stones over the cliff to eat lunch (which our hosts had thoughtfully packed for us). Yet even in this remote location, tens of miles from anything you could call civilization, a gang of young Indian guys came out of nowhere and decided to eat their lunch right next to us and blast American rap music, ruining any chance for us to enjoy the solitude of our peaceful spot. -- Typical, India. Typical...

After lunch, we ran back down the hill to the mountain pass. Invigorated and energized from the cool mountain air and the strong, high-altitude sun, we decided that it would be a great idea to climb to the peak of the nearest mountain. (The one conveniently in front of us with the steep, dusty cliffs looked just perfect...) We raced about half way to the peak before slowing the pace down a bit to navigate the tangles of low shrubbery and hitchhiker-nettles. We paused briefly to decide the best route to the peak, trying to determine the least steep route. We continued on for another 25 minutes before I had a change of heart. Cameron had climbed up ahead of me, and a small stone that he had nudged loose with his foot began to slide down the hill, gaining momentum with every bounce. It sailed by my head, and I turned to watch it plummet all the way down to the base of the mountain. It hadn't occurred to me until now how steep the incline was below us, and that it would be nearly impossible to get back down from the top. We were probably only 20 meters from the peak, a good 90% of the way there, but I couldn't continue. My better judgment kicked in, and I saw that the climb ahead of us was only getting steeper. I could easily have made it to the top, but the thought of shimmying back down the slippery hillside with nothing to keep us from sliding all the way down and meeting the same end as that rock persuaded me to give up the climb. Humbled and discouraged, we climbed back down to the base. (Cameron would like me to point out that I had to drag him down the mountain kicking and screaming.)

The hike back through the woods and coffee plantations was leisurely compared to the mountain climbing. Sunburnt and exhausted, we found our way back to the stream, where we hiked up to a swimming hole at the base of a small waterfall. We dove into the ice-cold pool and let the stream wash away the day's accumulation of dirt and grime.

Back at Honey Valley, we had another great dinner, met some Israelis, and enjoyed our first hot showers in over two weeks (of course by shower I mean a bucket of boiled water that you pour over your head). The stars were once again breathtaking, and the sounds of the jungle made a soothing soundtrack for a solid night of sleep.

We had planned on staying another day to trek to the top of another mountain, but we were WAY too sore and exhausted, and my sunburn was killing me. (Never use Banana Boat sunscreen!!) We said goodbye, with promises to return, and we got on another series of buses to Mysore - a popular city with backpackers who go to enjoy the grand palaces and pleasant atmosphere. But when we arrived in Mysore, it was getting late, and we had already seen the main palace from the bus window, so we decided to continue our voyage. We got on a train to Bangalore, where we planned to immediately buy onward train tickets to Hampi - another famous site for tourists in India. However, when we got to Bangalore, we had missed our connection to Hampi, so we found a hotel and spent the next day enjoying some great food and wandering leisurely around the parks and grand buildings of the state capital, known as the Silicon Valley of India. (This is where all of those American tech jobs are getting outsourced to.)

However, as we fought our way out of the Bangalore train station - tired and grumpy - I finally reached my breaking point when it comes to the frustrations of travel in India. I shall list my grievances:

1. Ruthless rickshaw drivers hawking and harassing ignorant travelers. They congregate outside of bus stands and train stations waiting for European faces. They all pounce simultaneously and demand that you get in their rickshaw, asking where you want to go. The all-too-common line is "first time in India?" which, translated into English, means "How much can I rip you off?" If you answer that this is your first time visiting, they will bump up the usual rate to double or triple the standard price. Rickshaws all have meters to ensure that you don't get ripped off, but finding a driver who will turn the meter on is impossible. Negotiating a fare becomes even more difficult because the drivers form a cartel, and all agree to support each other's prices. Therefore, the "okay, then I will just find another driver who will give me a better price" ploy is completely ineffective. Once you get in the rickshaw, you have to be vigiliant in guiding the driver to the hotel you want to go to because if you lose focus for just one minute, they will take you to a hotel that will charge you extra to pay the rickshaw driver a "comission" for giving them business. Often, once you arrive at your destination, the driver will double his fee claiming that the 50 rupees you agreed to originally was actually 50 rupees per person and per bag. Needless to say, I have come very close on numerous occasions to forcefully removing vital organs from satanical rickshaw drivers.

2. Hawkers and beggars in general. Any location that can be considered a tourist site will attract hundreds of hawkers trying to sell drums, coconuts, hotels, taxi rides, flutes, chillums, marijuana, necklaces, rocks, pieces of string, air, and even conversation. These people are just as relentless as the rickshaw drivers and will do anything to guilt/shame you into giving them money. At a beach, two young girls did a cartwheel in front of a group of sunbathers and then went from person to person sobbing and begging for money, claiming that "you watched, you pay". At temples, locals will come up to you to tell you an interesting fact about something you are looking at. Apparently this entitles them to use you as an ATM, because that little tidbit will be followed promptly by a demand for "twenty rupees, you give me." It is truly a shame. It ruins any chance of casual dialogue between travelers and locals. It destroys all trust, and it leaves many travelers with a severely negative impression of the country and its people.

3. Pollution and lack of sanitation. At times, it seems that littering is mandatory in India. The streets are covered in garbage, and it stays there indefinitely until someone gets tired of the smell or animals that it attracts, and they burn the pile of paper, old food scraps, and toxic plastics. (The air in the big cities seems worse than Chinese air sometimes - the burning of garbage doesn't help.) I was sitting at a restaurant once, and my napkin blew away. I went to reach for it and was immediately scolded. "It's garbage! Don't pick it up!" The country also seems to lack any organized system of trash disposal. Public garbage cans are almost nonexistent, and when you do find one, it is overflowing with uncollected trash. Garbage cans in restaurants and private shops seem to be emptied onto the streets anyway, so there is no real way to avoid littering. It is frustratingly common on buses, trains, and ferries to see people throwing bottles, food, newspapers, and anything they don't want out the window onto the street, tracks, or water. It amazes me that the country isn't plagued with rampant disease more than it already is.

4. Public urination. Just to make the filth situation even more appealing, there are almost no public restrooms in India. Men are expected to alleviate themselves along the side of the road, or basically where ever the urge may arise. Women must find a toilet - not soo easy. In effect, the smell on the streets of human urine and feces transcends everything else. Don't expect to go to a fruit market to enjoy the wonderful fragrances of ripe mangoes.. It will - without a doubt - smell like piss.

I don't want it to seems like I am just an arrogant American casting my cultural judgments on a very different society. I normally have a very high tolerance for uncomfortable cultural situations, but the overwhelming nature of daily life in India goes beyond anything I have ever experienced.

-

Done venting - back to Bangalore -- As we were walking around the colonial district, a man approached me and told me about his life as a farmer. He lived in the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu, and had left his wife and children to seek work during the severe drought that is going on. (I knew that he would eventually ask me for money, but I was curious about his story.) His father wouldn't let him get an education because he felt that farming was more important. Seeing the fault in this logic as he grew older, he has made sure that all of his children take their education very seriously. Taking the advice of his neighbors, he learned English from his children and came to Bangalore to seek out work in the Tech Boom City. Whenever he would meet a potential employer, he would engage in a nice conversation until he mentioned that he wanted a job -- the employer would look at his sorry physical state and dirty, unwashed clothes, and pretend that they couldn't speak English in order to make him leave. He had been searching for work for weeks, sleeping in train stations and on park benches, without any luck. Now he was completely out of money, and had given up. He was about to begin his journey back to his hometown --- by foot --- over 300 miles. When he asked us if we had anything he could eat, we gave him a bag of train mix and a little money for food and coffee -- this was the first person I had encountered who I actually felt justified in helping out. He didn't beg or plead or demand or yell or tell me that he was entitled to my wallet, he told me a story of sincere ambition and need, and when he did ask for help, he asked for food - not money. Normally, giving charity in India puts the traveler in a very difficult position - there is a constant stream of beggars trying to get you to help them out, all in different stages of death and suffering. The dilemma - how do you choose whom to help??? My decision was to help those who needed it truly, didn't try to scam me, and treated me with respect. I do not give money to children who beg for their parents benefit because this is a corrupt institution which I refuse to support. I do not give to people who demand my money because I do not wish to support the sentiment of entitlement. Morally, this visit has tested the limits of my capacity for charity and empathy. Do not come to India unless you are willing to undergo some serious self-evaluation.

That night, we boarded a train to Hospet - the transportation junction for Hampi. When we arrived in the morning, we were told that the city of Hampi was closed. At first we thought it was some lie by the rickshaw drivers who all wanted us to stay in their hotels, but as it turns out, the president was visiting and it really was closed! No one was allowed in or out! We waited around all day for the buses to start running, and we got to the city in time for dinner.

The next morning, we set out to explore the ancient city nestled in an arid landscape, very similar to what I described in Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, but more dramatic -- expanses of scrubby desert plains with mounds of enormous boulders piled on top of each other. We wandered through banana plantations, temple compounds (got blessed by a temple elephant who smacked me in the head with his slobbery trunk), local villages celebrating with religious parades, mobs of kids wanting their pictures taken, swarms of rickshaw mafia gangsters, and world heritage sites in various stages of disrepair. The atmosphere of the old city and historic bazaar was far more relaxed than our past week, so it was a nice change of pace. We ate a few tasty meals along the boulder strewn river, and followed the stream up toward another group of remote temples. We strayed from the tourist trail and climbed up one of the boulder mountains where we found an abandoned temple - a perfect place to spend the afternoon relaxing, reading, and enjoying the blissful serenity of the lunar landscape.

Just before dinner time, we hopped on a bus back to Hospet to catch a sleeper coach to Goa. Until recently, these sleeper buses left directly from Hampi, but thanks (no surprise here) to the rickshaw mafia, the bus companies have been banned from Hampi so that the rickshaw drivers can overcharge tourists to take them to Hospet to catch their bus. (I hate them....) The bus had beds, which seemed very appealing. But when you put a bed on wheels and then drive it down Indian roads, there is NO possibility of sleeping.

Overall, Karnataka was beautiful and well worth the detour from our original route. And despite having an India meltdown, I'm still loving this place.

The Pace is Slower in Kerala

Kerala is pretty unique among the Indian states. It is isolated from the rest of the country by a huge mountain range, which has allowed it to develop its own language, culture, cuisine, etc... With the port city of Cochin, it has had a good deal of regular contact with the outside world. Its jungles are home to about 60% of India's spices, making trade a huge industry historically (this is the Malabar coast). The beaches are pretty great too.

We arrived in the capital city of Tiruvananthapuram (or Trivandrum for short....) A Chinese business man I had met while waiting in line for my Indian visa in Beijing told me that this town was one of his favorite in the country, and that I HAD to visit. He told me the name in Chinese, not English (which wasn't very helpful), so when I was in Hong Kong I found a map of India in the public library with Chinese characters I figured out which city he was actually talking about. Normally I would be extremely skeptical of this suggestion because in my experience Chinese people are terrible tourists and have no grasp of the reality of what they are seeing. A good city for a Chinese tourist is often one that has been completely destroyed and exploited but probably has a few nice photo-ops and a good place to buy a tacky souvenir. However, another Chinese girl in line overheard our conversation and agreed, insisting that I visit this great city.... As it turns out, there is nothing interesting about Trivandrum. We had a few tasty meals and visited a beautiful zoo where we saw our first elephants (it kills me that this is where we have to see our Indian elephants) We also enjoyed the unique Keralan architecture, and a decent temple.

The next morning before getting on a train to leave the city, Cameron and I woke up early to visit a Kalarippayattu school where Kerala's 5,000 year old martial art is still taught and practiced. It was only a training session, but it brought back a flood of nostalgia of when I used to be active in martial arts. Seeing the strength, flexibility, and agility of the practitioners made me pretty disappointed in how lazy I have gotten. The art form is a combination of fighting techniques, traditional weaponry, dance, and Hindu ritual - pretty fascinating. I left the school motivated to seek out a new discipline for myself, and being in India, it seemed yoga would be a perfect start if I could find a place to study it.

After almost three weeks of exhausting, non-stop travel, we decided that our next destination should be a relaxing one. We went to a town called Varkala, a very laid back beach village perched atop a huge cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea. My first impression made me think of Thailand, but Varkala seemed less destroyed by the hordes of tourists that descend upon the poor Thai beaches. We walked along the path which follows the edge of the cliff to find a place to stay, and we ended up talking to a few Indians who wanted to practice their English/sell us things - there is no way to tell until they get to the point - "so..... do you want me to organize a trip to the backwaters for you???" I could talk for hours about how terrible the Indian touts and hawkers are, but I think I've vented enough about them in other posts.

We spent the next four days following this demanding schedule:

- Wake up
- Eat
- Go to the beach
- Eat
- Go to the beach again
- Eat
- Sleep

Pretty awful...

The landscape is pretty volcanic - black sand beaches and bright red porous stones and cliffs - which makes for an especially beautiful sunset. The shore is lines with tall palms, from which machete-wielding vendors gather coconuts to sell to beach-goers. Being a seafront village, there is an abundant supply of cheap, fresh seafood. We spent our entire stay gorging ourselves on tuna steaks, lemon and garlic grilled red snapper, and tandoori barbecued butterfish, barracuda, and pomfret. (One of the best ways I've eaten fish by the way..) A whole fish, including rice and naan would cost a little less than 5 bucks..

The town is also a site for Hindu pilgrims, and it seems some local yoga practitioners have found a tourist niche. All along the cliff the hotels use their roofs for yoga lessons. Although this wasn't the ideal ashram in the jungle mountains that we had hoped for, the relaxed environment and peaceful surroundings made it a good enough place for us to take a few lessons. Our instructor was a short Indian man who had a high pitched, accented voice which reminded me a lot of the Maharishi's. We completed an hour and a half session involving meditation, breathing exercises, and some mercilessly painful yoga asanas. After the quite humbling experience, we ran down to the beach at the bottom of the cliff and dove into the beautifully cool sea, where some serious European shantis were enjoying the sunset while meditating, doing yoga, having group consciousness circles, and smoking their way to enlightenment.

After being sufficiently reinvigorated, we decided that we were ready to return to the insanity of 'actual' India. We took a train to a small and terrible town called Kollam, where we hopped on a boat that took us through the Kerala backwaters to another town called Alleppey. The trip was very pleasant, although not as mind blowing as people say it is. We were expecting "the most incredible place in India" as all of the guidebooks promise, but in reality it was just an enjoyable cruise past rural farmland, plantations, and river villages. I think if you have enough money to rent a rice boat for a few days you can experience the true glory of the backwaters, but we didn't have that luxury (everyone we saw on rice boats seemed to be 60-year-old wealthy English people).

From Allepey, we took a bus to Kochi (formerly Cochin) - a main Indian port of the spice trade throughout history. I would actually describe the city as charming - a very rare adjective to use for India. I explored the colorful streets with hints of the European architecture of the city's former inhabitants and walked down to the area of the city called "Jew Town". One of Asia's few Jewish populations is still holding on here in a community that has existed continuously since the 15th century. Jewish names are displayed outside local shops, and the people themselves look like any typical European-Israelis, except for the fact that they speak the local language Malayalam and have completely adopted Indian mannerisms. Very peculiar.

We took advantage of the Western influence and had some Italian food before taking a ferry to the mainland to catch a train. We stopped in at a bookstore and gluttonously stocked up on about six books each. (Too cheap to resist, and China doesn't have English books --- anywhere..)

Our next destination was a place called Kannur, which is known for its elaborate theyyam performances. Local Hindu temples in the area have extended celebrations that honor a specific deity or hero - the entire community gathers at the temple, and someone is designated to play the role of the deity. This individual engages in a ritual fast and purification period leading up to the day of the offering, when he is put into a trance and is dressed in an unbelievably elaborate costume and intricately detailed makeup. The ceremony usually begins around midnight and lasts around 12 hours. The entranced performer is possessed by the spirit of the deity and engages in a series of dances and blessings, which are accompanied by the rhythmic drumming of a group of young men who follow him around the temple courtyard.

We found out were one of these performances was going to take place, and we took a bus to the village - about 20 minutes away from Kannur. We asked around in the village for directions to the temple, but when we arrived there was nothing going on. A few men who were working there gave us directions in Malayalam to another nearby temple that was having a theyyam, but since we had no clue what they were saying to us, we just walked back to the road and found someone who spoke English. We took a rickshaw to another temple in the next town over, and as we drove up we could hear the drumming in the distance and a stream of locals walking from the direction of the sound. We pulled up to the temple, and there were hundreds of people gathered around the courtyard. There were one or two other tourists - at most - in a crowd of probably 600 Indians, so we knew that this was the real deal. And it was more incredible than I could have ever imagined it. Very authentic and very moving. The energy in the air as we walked around the temple barefoot, swaying with the movement of the crowd, was intense - the beat of the drums almost pulls you into the theyyam trance of the deity spirit.

After a thoroughly enjoyable time in Kerala, we hopped on another bus over the dramatic Western Ghats mountain range into the neighboring state of Karnataka.

A Spiritual Quest

Cameron and I were thinking of renting motorcycles and taking a day trip to a nearby town called Ginjee that has some incredible ancient hilltop forts before heading south to another temple city. However, we were advised not to make the trip because it was the last day of Pongal - their harvest festival. (Aka - everyone would be driving around wasted on local liquor and beer... not too safe..) We changed our plans and decided to catch a bus past Ginjee to another town called Tiruvannamalai, which is known as one of the holiest cities in India - a site of some serious pilgrimage, and also a magnet for a very interesting group of Westerners who have immersed themselves in Indian-Shanti culture.

Luckily on this bus ride I was feeling much better, and it only took us about 15 minutes to snag seats. About half way to Tiruvannamalai the landscape started to change. Instead of low coastal farms and jungle with pollution, chaos, garbage, and everything else that comes with overpopulated urban India, we began to drive past pleasant rice paddies and the strangest hills I have ever seen. Rather than rolling mounds of earth, these hills were piles of smooth granite boulders. They looked completely impossible. It is as though one of the Hindu gods gathered armfuls of stones and sprinkled them into mountainous piles across an otherwise flat landscape. As we passed through Ginjee we saw the fort perched high above the road on one of these granite mountains - definitely worth the trip that we didn't take.

Eventually we approached Tiruvannamalai - the holy city nestled as the base of an enormous inactive volcano (probably the ancient cause of all the granite piles - although I prefer the image of Vishnu haphazardly scattering mounds of giant pebbles). The town itself was hot, stuffy, and crowded (recurring theme..) But we decided to walk toward the southern side of the volcano/mountain in search of a famous ashram where we would inquire into studying a little yoga or meditation.

While we were in Mammalapuram we decided to look into ashram life. Cameron had had very little experience with Indian spirituality or anything to do with hippies, and I (being a product of hippie parents) had learned some meditation techniques from my mom and tried out yoga for a summer, so we figured it would be exciting to spend a week or two at an ashram - 5am to 10pm schedules of yoga, meditation, vegetarianism, and abandonment of all sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Crunchy, I know, but we wanted the challenge. (Or maybe I was just jealous that my mom had a guru..)

As we meandered down the road away from the main part of the city, we entered a much crunchier, much hippier, and much Birkenstock-ier part of Tiruvannamalai. We passed some psychedelically painted holy cows and Westerners dressed in Indian style cotton clothes and saris. We found our way through a village with brilliantly colored local huts mixed in with Ayurvedic spas, tourist tchotchkes, Hindu temples, and German restaurants. Eventually we found the ashram - the residence and former school of a widely followed guru who spent 20 years meditating in a cave on the mountain before founding this very peaceful school and community. Thousands of pilgrims visit this ashram and this mountain yearly to pay their respects. Unfortunately for our purposes, the ashram is mostly closed to students and only true devotees are allowed to stay. We walked around the campus which seemed to be run and protected by peacocks, and we looked in on a very lively chanting and meditation session. We decided to search around for an ashram that would let us study, and it seemed promising as there were apparently dozens in the town.

For dinner, we stopped in at a relaxed rooftop cafe with lounge pillows, incense, tabla music, and Italian food, where we got our first real taste of the Westerners who decide to make pilgrimages to India -- a VERY curious breed of people.. In the US they would mistakenly be labeled hippies, but that doesn't come close to capturing the essence of this group. We tried to figure them out as we sat there surrounded by them and as we wandered through the town, which was full of them, but it was still hard to form an opinion. They have a unique set of social rituals which seem to stem from spiritual Indian culture, but are definitely adapted by and for Europeans. They speak with a very calm, focused disposition and they touch and embrace each other for longer than would be socially acceptable in the States. It's like they have abandoned normal customs, and adopted this alternative lifestyle of peacefulness, simplicity, and serious hallucinogenic drugs. I feel like I'm doing a Discovery Channel documentary. Anyway - very interesting people. We met some German members of this species, and they told us about the town and all of the gurus that come to give enlightened lectures. We concluded, however, that we probably wouldn't find the yoga and meditation classes. On our way back into the city we passed masses of pilgrims hopping back on buses to head home and we witnessed another very real aspect of India, even today - a group of homeless men and women lying on the side of the road outside the western temple gate watching as a man severely beat his wife with a bamboo rod as she wailed for mercy at his feet. "Disturbing" doesn't capture it..

The next day I went exploring, and I visited the city's enormous Hindu temple - apparently one of the biggest in India. Afterward, I found a trail leading up the mountain through a neighborhood of small hillside shanties. The people were friendlier on the way up the hill, and I passed a few Hindu shrines where locals invited me to see their deities and caves. After noticing that the rest of the hikers passing me were shoeless, I decided to do the same. I happened upon the cave where the famous guru had spent 20 years meditating, and I walked inside - completely dark, cool, and quiet, except for a lone candle on an altar. When my eyes adjusted, I realized that there were about seven other people around the perimeter of the cave meditating silently. I took off my backpack and felt my way up onto a ledge where I bumped into a pillow. I sat down and spent about an hour meditating in the complete silence of this very holy spot.

Emerging refreshed, I continued my hike up the mountain - passing a small, hillside ashram and lots of monkeys. There was an old woman selling bananas for 4 cents each, so I bought two and climbed to the top of a boulder where I had my snack and enjoyed the stunning view of the city and its colossal temple. My hike ended at the ashram where I was the day before - very peaceful afternoon.

I met up with Cameron, and we got on a bus to a town called Madurai - another famous temple city where we spent a day before continuing on to the next state - Kerala. We never found our ashram in Tamil Nadu, but we hadn't ruled out the possibility of finding one down the road.

Rock Carvings and Baguettes in Tamil Nadu

45 hours on an Indian train is pushing it a little... Chinese trains are far more comfortable than these, and that says a lot. In the morning we arrived in Chennai (formerly Madras), which is the capital of the southernmost state, Tamil Nadu, and India's fourth largest city. This state is the home of Dravidian culture, which is one of the oldest surviving major world civilizations. Some sources say it stemmed from the original Indus civilizations as far back as 1500 BC.. pretty old. Aside from economic development and a little globalization, not much has changed for these people. This is one of the most devoutly Hindu states in the country, and religious fervor is obvious in every aspect of Tamil life. Religion is life and life is religion. Every temple we visited was teeming with pilgrims and energetic worship. Very cool to experience.

Anyway - we got to Chennai just in time to hop on a bus to leave. The city was hot, humid, and polluted - we had not desire to stay. Instead, we traveled about two hours south to a town called Mamallapuram, which is famous for its ancient rock sculptures and for the expertise of its stone carvers, a skill sought after internationally to this day. Not only does the city have some fascinating carvings and temples, it is also a pleasant, laid-back backpacker hub due to its beaches, seafood, and proximity to Chennai. Lunch was an adventure - very different from the northern thalis we ate in Mumbai. You are given a large banana leaf as a plate, on top of which is slopped a pile of rice with four or five different cups of curry, dal, and curd - along with the obligatory lemon pickle paste and raita. Everything is poured on top of the rice and sloshed around with your right hand. After everything is sufficiently sloppy, you scoop it up and shovel it into your mouth, trying not to drop the watery mass all over your lap. When you are running low on anything, the waiter comes around and ladles you another serving. All you can eat lunch for a whopping 50 U.S. cents.. criminal......

We spent the afternoon climbing over carving-strewn boulders and watching monkeys harass the hill-climbing goats and Tamil families picnicking on the hilltops. We snacked on some local delicacies: cucumber with salt masala and fresh coconut milk. For dinner we headed down to the beach and tried a few decent seafood curries at a seaside restaurant before relaxing on the sand beside hundreds of brightly painted fishing boats guarded by the city's lazy sacred cow population.

The next morning I thoroughly paid the price for being too culinarily adventurous. Blazing fever and you know what.... My stomach was really pissed at me. My first thought was malaria because the mosquitoes were large and ferocious, and I had just started my malarone pills the day before. But it was just a friendly case of food poisoning (I would prefer this to malaria any day). My day was shot, but I wanted to continue making southward progress, so we caught a local bus to a town called Pondicherry. NOT FUN WITH FOOD POISONING! We waited at a main highway just outside the town to catch any passing south-bound bus. When the first one stopped, all the locals ran at the bus and jammed their way ahead of us, leaving us no room. The next bus passed ten minutes later, too full to stop. A local offered us a ride, but we didn't feel comfortable taking him up on the offer. A third bus finally came, and we pushed all the Indians out of the way to jump on - we weren't going to wait any longer, and we had learned our lesson with this vital survival-of-the-fittest strategy. The bus barely came to a stop - it slowed long enough for one or two people to hop off and for us to grab the rail by the entrance and pull ourselves in as the bus sped off down the road. The buses have no doors, and we were at the mercy of our biceps to keep us from flying out of the sardine-packed rocket that barreled down the highway. Our driver had a few very close calls before running a pair of motorcyclists off the road and into a road sign - they got back up - the driver never noticed... After a few more stops, we were carried by the mass of people into the middle section of the bus, where we held on to the ceiling rails to maintain balance - feet barely touching the ground. Still suffering with my fever, I kept my eyes closed and hoped desperately for a quick arrival. An angel of an old woman secured two seats for us, and our suffering was put to a rest.

Pondicherry -- a former French colonial city 4 hours south of Chennai. It was returned to India about 50 years ago, and aside from a few French buildings and restaurants, has re-India-tized. The name might sound familiar as the hometown of Pi - the main character in The Life of Pi. This was a perfect place for me to get a fix of some good Western food and let my stomach calm down before reintroducing the overload of Indian spices. We wandered around, the quaint French streets and spent some time people watching on the long seafront promenade - Indian men walking hand in hand, sari clad women sitting with their children on seaside boulders as huge waves crash down on top of them, children flying kites and eating ice cream. We walked through the botanical gardens (the one's from the book really do exist) and gorged ourselves on French food.

After we had satiated out Western craving, we continued on to our next destination: Tiruvannamalai, one of the holiest cities in southern India.

Two Days in Northern India

Original plan:

- 14 hour train ride to Agra to see the Taj Mahal
- Spend 6 hours in Agra
- Hop on another train to Delhi
- Catch a connecting train to Chennai (45 hours)
- Arrive in Tamil Nadu in time for the Pongol celebration

Hectic schedule, but do-able.

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What actually happened:

- Train was 10 hours late to Agra, so we missed all of our other connections. The Taj is closed on Fridays (when we got there because of the delay), so we ended up staying for two days more than we had planned to catch a train on Sunday morning to Chennai. Frustrating, but we ended up getting to see far more, and we enjoyed the extra leisure time.

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This little change in plans allowed us time to explore a small city near Agra called Fatehpur Sikri. The Mughal emperor Akbar the Great built the city as his perfect capital - a place to rule his vast domain in luxury. Unfortunately for him, after the incredible palaces and infrastructure were completed, the new inhabitants immediately realized one great flaw -- no source of water. Fortunately for us, Akbar abandoned his city and left it completely intact for us to visit 500 years later.

Not really knowing what to expect when we arrived, we were blown away by the majesty of the Islamic architecture displayed by the grand forts and mosques of the city. Walking around the inside of the most enormous mosque complex I have ever seen, I felt like I was in Saudi Arabia. (We later found out that the main sanctuary was modelled after the mosque in Mecca... so not too far off..) We wandered around for a while, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and cooler northern weather, doing our best to avoid over-friendly tour guides and people who "just worked there but wanted to show us around.. for free!" by pretending to not understand English.. they didn't buy it..

The main palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there was an entrance fee: 50 cents for Indians, $7 for foreigners. We decided not to waste the money, and we walked around the back to see what else we could find for free. We stumbled upon a series of mosques, village buildings, attempted water collection systems, and palace ruins overlooking a vast network of rice paddies and traditional settlements that were just as fascinating as whatever lay inside the ticketed area. We climbed up inside an empty mosque where we could watch from a ledge as village children played cricket in the courtyard of an ancient ruin with a tall, spiked lookout tower. Bright green parrots played at the tops of minarets and flew past the red sandstone walls which glowed as the sun sank toward the horizon, making a stunning contrast of colors. We got back to town just in time to catch the last bus to Agra.

The next morning we slept through sunrise at the Taj Mahal and wandered around the old city where bakers hawk their goods, children play in mud and cow shit in the narrow streets, and monkeys jump from ledge to ledge overhead trying to steal biscuits from the bakers who beat them with grass brooms. We ate some humus and shakshukah for lunch at a restaurant that caters to the many Israeli tourists who think of India as a second home (something like 5% of the Israeli population is in India at any given time.) When the Taj Mahal's gates opened again after some kind of lunch break, we bought our tickets and waited in our gender-segregated line, which moved MUCH faster than the line for women. Only as we were going through security did it occur to us -- we were going to see the TAJ MAHAL.... a place that's probably on more I-need-to-see-that-before-I-die lists than any other building on Earth.

And it was just as incredible as I ever could have imagined it to be. The grandeur, perfect symmetry, delicate appearance, structural soundness, vibrant color, frustratingly intricate detail, and humbling size are awe inspiring, and in my opinion, unmatchable. If this place is on your I-need-to-see-that-before-I-die list... buy your ass a ticket to India and see it before you die.

Not too shabby.

Then we hopped on our 48 hour train to Chennai.

India: Arriving in Mumbai

Excuse my Hindi, but India is ****ing incredible!!

After a hectic 15 hour plane ride from Hong Kong, I finally arrived in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) -- the capital of the Maharashtra State and India's economic powerhouse. This city's film industry produces more movies per year than anywhere else on Earth (Bombay + Hollywood = Bollywood), which accounts for around 40% of India's total GDP. And it is also known as the most Western city in the country (.. and it's not Western at all, which says a lot...) It's dirty, it's SMELLY, it's real, and it might just be the first city in the most incredible country I have ever visited.

After my flight landed at 3AM, I went through customs at the crowded and poorly organized international airport before hopping in a decrepit 1950s fiat-style taxi for the hour long ride into the Colaba district where I was supposed to meet Cameron. A little after 5AM, I found his hotel and snuck in to avoid paying for two people (the room was already ridiculously expensive by Indian standards, but Mumbai is a hard city to find a decent place to stay.) After sleeping till noon, we got up and set out to find a cheaper, more centrally located hotel. I had no idea what to expect because there was little to see from the taxi at night, but what I saw in daylight that morning blew my mind. It was more like "India" than I could have ever imagined it to be.

I think that before traveling, most people have romantic preconceptions of the exotic places on the other side of the globe - images inspired by movies, books, or fantastical stories of jungles, tigers, monkeys, painted faces, fragrant markets, rhythmic dances, barbaric rituals, and singsong languages. Most of the time after actually visiting these places, the romantic notions are brought back to reality and seen in the light of a fairly normal overall context. --- The postcard-perfect beaches of Thailand suffer from serious pollution and are covered in fat Europeans, watching an "authentic" martial arts performance at China's Shaolin Temple (the birthplace of Kung Fu) involves waiting in a long line and entering a theater to watch a staged tourist show, the famous Masada mountain fortress on the edge of the Dead Sea has a cable car to get to the top, and the actors performing the ancient Dragon Dance for Chinese New Year in Hong Kong pull out their $300 cell phone after the performance to call their girlfriends to meet them for a movie. Culture is a relative thing, and more often than not what we imagine about those far off exotic lands exists only in pockets for tourist enjoyment. In this globalized and modernizing world, it is very rare that a traveler comes across a true cultural gem that has authentic roots and plays an actual role in the lives of modern people - an elaborate wedding ceremony in a Mongolian yurt, a tribal fertility ritual in an Indonesian jungle, or a devout Uighur in a western Chinese desert town responding faithfully to the muezzin's call to prayer.

In India, despite an undeniable tourist presence, these cultural gems are abundant. I have never experienced such profound cultural richness before -- in the smells, the smiles, and the colors of the saris - the air, the food, and the music from the continuous celebration. With such a diverse conglomerate of religions, languages, and rituals - India has been able to maintain a unique culture that expresses itself in everything from cuisine to cinema to clothing fashion.

The first thing I did in Mumbai was order some chicken tikka masala, saag paneer, a sweet lassi, fresh sweetened lime juice, and tons of chapati bread at some whole-in-the-wall restaurant near the hotel. After lighting incense and offering a prayer to Ganesh at the alter above the cash register, the waiter filled our table with the most delicious Indian food I have ever tasted. I practiced eating "Indian style" for the first time -- all hands, no utensils. Best of all, the entire meal came to about $1 per person. Incredible! (Forget what I said about China being cheap... India wins..)

We continued our walk to find a new place to stay, and along the route we passed a fascinating cross section of India: Raj style architecture - legacy of the British Empire, holy cows and unmilked goats napping in the middle of busy intersections, kids of all ages playing cricket in the street, snack wallahs, fresh juice wallahs, book wallahs, belt wallahs, and people selling everything else you can imagine, beggars, and trident-carrying face-painted ascetics, women of all ages wearing the most colorful and intricately decorated saris imaginable, clean cut men in business suits, and abandoned naked infants crying at the feet of hordes of pedestrians. We passed ornate Hindu temples, smoky Jain pagodas, towering minarettes, and Mesopotamian-style Zoroastrian Parsi centers.

After dropping off our bags in a cheaper hotel, we continued the next few days of our exploration wandering through a few street bazaars where we got to do some people-watching and culture-absorbing. We strolled down aisles of stacked pineapples, toiletries, puppies, parakeets, saffron, peppers, and masala mixes. We explored the city's hanging gardens on a seaside hilltop and joined Mumbai's masses for a crowded sunset picnic at the mosquito and hawker covered Chowpatty beach. We observed the complex laundry system of the dobi ghats where the entire city sends its soiled clothing to be pounded and pummeled in a series of cement tanks and eventually sent back clean and crisply ironed. We went on a lion and tiger safari north of the city in Indias only national nature reserve within an urban postal code. We rode urban trains around the city and hung out of the doorless cars with all of the locals to feel the wind whip past our faces. And we attended a series of never-ending and hilariously overdone Bollywood flicks (only in Hindi, but the entertainment transcended language barriers).

After one of the best introductions to a country I could have imagined, we hopped on an overnight train to Agra to see India's great world wonder: the Taj Mahal.

Hong Kong: New Year - Macau: Why not?

It was very nice to get back to ultramodern Hong Kong after the Philippines. I spent a few days exploring the city on my own before meeting up with Cameron for New Year (who studied in Beijing with me this past semester). We found a decent spot for fireworks at the southern end of Kowloon, which borders Victoria Harbor and has a fantastic view of Hong Kong Island. The prime locations were too crowded to even consider pushing our way into, so we ended up at a ferry dock behind a mall, surrounded by hundreds of patiently waiting Hong Kongers. We soon realized how stereotypically Chinese this New Year celebration would be. There was no countdown, and the fireworks started 13 minutes before the midnight came around. The fireworks were beautiful and incredibly well planned, but they weren't as excitingly chaotic as American fireworks displays usually are. Each spray of lights emitted from the Bank of China building was accompanied by a synchronized "waaaa" from the Chinese audience. When the fireworks were over, everyone left immediately and went back home to study/sleep. --- TIC.. (This is China.....) Either way, we found some other Westerners to enjoy some champagne with (only the Westerners were drinking), and we wandered the lively city until the wee hours of the morning.

After retracing some of my steps over the course of the next few days to explore the most interesting parts of the city with Cameron , we decided to hop on a ferry to the small island/ex-independent country/former Portuguese colony/now Chinese Special Administrative Region - Macau. We only spent a few days here, but it was definitely a great side-trip, and it offered a much-needed dose of Western food and architecture after an exhaustingly long immersion in Asian everything.

Despite being 80-something-% Chinese, all signs and announcements are still made in Portuguese, as the co-official language with Cantonese. The old city architecture is undoubtedly Portuguese, and makes for a beautiful atmosphere. And best of all, the Portuguese culinary influence is still thriving in Macanese cuisine. I can't express how much I appreciated two days of delicious chorizo, Portuguese baked chicken, and stewed pork. The food is amazing.

After this short detour, I hopped on a ferry, which brought me directly to the Hong Kong airport, where I am now waiting to board my flight to Mumbai, India (via Bangkok and Sri Lanka).. Pretty exciting!