New Photos Up

Roxy and I have been diligently working at uploading the huge backlog of photos on our computer (mostly because it is yet another way to put off writing our final papers). So we now have about 250 new photos up on our Flickr account.





Keep checking it because we have about 250 more photos that will be getting uploaded over the next two or three days.

India Rewind: Varanasi(Benares)

Roxy and I have been finally getting around to uploading our huge backlog of pictures and so now feel obliged to tell you about the adventures those pictures correspond to.

This India Rewind takes us back to September 24-27th while Roxy was at her meditation retreat and I was living over at my friends place. We made a spur of the moment decision to go to Varanasi which is also known as Benares.

We got in Friday night after a crazy adventure on the trains. We had wait-listed tickets for a comfy, sleeper car on evening Thursday, we were pretty low on the list and so weren't too worried about not getting on. When we got to the train station we asked at the information window whether we had seats or not, the guy said "yes" and so we got on the train. As the train was pulling out of the station the ticket agent checked our tickets and informed us that we, in fact, did not have seats.

So got off the train at the next stop and decided, what the hell, let's keep trying for Varanasi. In that spirit we got the only tickets that we could, general seating for Varanasi. After waiting at the station for about three hours our train came. We forced ourselves in; I say "in" but what I really mean is "hanging out of." I spent the first three hours of the ride hanging out the door of a completely packed car. Ever chair had three people in it, every four person bench had 10-12 people crammed on.

I wish you could get more of a feel for how crowded it was from this picture. Every person you see here was standing and that fellow sitting above everyone was perched on the top of the open door and braced against the opposite wall. He had no headroom and he stayed in that position for at least three hours.

After a few hours we hit a station and enough people moved around for me to get a spot sitting cross legged on the floor, which I did for two hours, after which I got a third of a chair for another two hours. My break came when a few people got off the train and I was able to move around some luggage enough to fit on the overhead storage rack and get a few hours of sleep.

When I woke up we had been on the train for about 10 hours and I was informed by Bree that we were on the wrong train. Damn. (We found out later that our ticket was not to a particular train but a pass on any train to our destination and the ticket agent only told us the first train that we would have to ride) but we met some people who were going to Varanasi and so we got off the train with them.

After two more hours in the terminal where I almost got in a fight with a cripple, we set off once again on a new, less crowded train. As you can see were were able to get some much needed sleep. We had at that point been traveling for about 18 hours, but this train was only supposed to be a three hour one, so our spirits were lifted by the nearness of our arrival. Eight hours later we arrived in Varanasi.

Varanasi was an amazing city. We got in late, crashed and then the next morning went out to explore. We wandered down to the burning Ghat where a guy took us around and explained what was going on, who was being burned, what the rules and traditions for burning were. He then took us to see the sacred fire, a flame that has been burning for thousands of years and is tended to by its own order of priests. After that we took a boat ride out on the Ganges.
This is the best photo of the burning ghat I have as photos were not allowed on the ghat itself.


After dinner we met up with another group of Americans and wound up going out with some of them to the huge festival called the "Durga Puja" that was just hitting its climax the days that we were there. Durga is the goddess of female power, is a protective warrior and is the patron goddess of India and "Puja" loosely translates to respect. We were led around by a street kid for, like, four hours.
This is one of the many tableaux of Mata Ji (Durga) slaying the shape-shifting buffalo demon that was contracted for the festival. These are dancers at one of the many ceremonies.

The next day we came wandered a bit more and explored the city and watched people bathing in the Ganges. Fun Fact: Indians believe that water from the Ganges has healing properties, and if you swim in or drink it you will be healed. This is especially true in the holy city of Benares, which is why over 60,000 people take a dip at the ghats there every day. In actuality the Ganges at Varanasi is likely to make you ill. According to the Lonely Planet India guide, the Ganges at Varanasi is septic and has 3000 times the safe amount of feces in it than is safe for bathing. I've had two friends get hives just from from dipping their arms in the Varanasi water.

Then it was back to Delhi in comfort, the day after that Roxy came back home and the next day Caleb got into India.

pictures and retrospectives

Let me start off by saying, "ha, I got pictures up before either Jordan or Roxy!"
Here's some of my favorite pictures that i took:A Building in Srinagar, Kashmir.


A mosque in Srinigar, Kashmir. The inside has been made from painted paper-mache.
A busy street in Old Delhi.
More busy streets in Old Delhi.
A not-quite-as-busy intersection in New Delhi.
A waterfall at a Mughal Garden outide Srinagar, Kashmir. I ventured out by myself and took these while Jordan was sick.
Another picture of a Mughal Garden.
Overlooking the town of Leh from inside an ancient Tibetan Fortress.
Leh and the Himalayas. See the storm clouds?
The Tibetan Fortress in Leh.
A boy in Kashmir. His family self-identifies as "mountain-people", not Indian or Kashmiri.
Jordan and I in front of the Taj Mahal.
Jordan and Roxy sitting in a window at the Agra Fort looking across the country-side at the Taj Mahal.
Jordan and I in front of the Golden Temple.
A tree covered hill in the Himalayan foothills of Kashmir Valley. Taken during our horse trek.
A creek in the Kashmir valley foothills. Taken during our horse trek.
The Kashmir Valley foothills. Taken during our horse trek.
A view of the mountain glaciers from Leh.
The Golden Temple at night.
A very artistic photo that I took while looking out a bathroom window in Leh.
Dal Lake.
Dal Lake in the morning.
Me picking up the Taj Mahal.
Me, looking majestically over Leh at the Himalayan glacier caps.
Part of the outside wall of Agra Fort.
Marble inlay work at Agra Fort.

India was amazing. There's a whole world out there that does things so very differently that us (in the US). I could try to write a literary montage of things that Indians do differently, but that would be very long, and ultimately, lose impact. The over-arching theme is that the government, and media, is trying really hard to bring India (especially Delhi) up to modern-world standards. The government has established building codes, outlawed dowries and caste discrimination, established police and emergency response, and created traffic laws. Now, whether any of this is followed is another story. Bribes bypass all laws, and tradition and social norms are hard to change. Why pay somebody to take my garbage to a land-fill if its cheaper, easier, and faster to throw it out the window? Then there is the media who is trying really hard to sell the western culture out there (fashion, dating, skin-whitening creme). Interestingly the advertisements are more risque in India than they are here. This is really strange when you consider the super-conservative tradition they have. This leads to a very unique new/old-fusion that encompasses everything.

Honestly, I was glad to return home to the safety of normality. In India I was always aware of how my safety was completely entrusted in people that I did not trust. This was especially true when I went anywhere by myself. It was always on the back of my mind that the rickshaw driver might not be taking me to where I asked him to take me, but instead to some back alley. That the driver who was supposed to pick us up at the end of the horse trek, might not be there. That the houseboat owner might not let us leave the boat (the only way off was if he called for a water-taxi). Luckily, my fears were ill-founded.

So, I had a great time in India. I saw a country successfully operating by standards and values completely foreign to what I was used to. I was forced to let go of being in control of anything. Nothing happens on-time, and worrying about how much longer till..., or when will... won't fix anything. I saw beautiful countryside and decapitated buildings. Smelled some of the worst smells ever. Experienced dental work at non-health-insurance-escalated-prices. Road a horse. Ate a leg of goat. got eaten by bugs. didn't poop for a week. Drove in a jeep with 6 other people for 17 hours straight. Learned to haggle and barter. And much, much more.

Bad times

We spent our last full day in Kashmir going on an amazing horseback trek through the mountains, guided by two men from a local village of self-identified "mountain people," who have a distinct language and culture from the rest of India. Afterwards, we enjoyed some delicious Kashmiri tea with them before heading back to the city. We have tons of pictures, which we will hopefully post someday, but we have an enormous backlog of photos now that need to be sorted through, resized and uploaded. And it doesn't help that Caleb managed to take 1800 pictures during his trip here.

Unfortunately, our trip to Kashmir ended on kind of a sour note. Our houseboat host, who appeared at first to be extremely kind and hospitable, turned out to be kind of ripping us off. He offered us dinner the first night we were there, and when we asked him if he would charge us for it, he said, "No, no, no problem," so we accepted and had dinner there. He also offered us tea on our first day, which I accepted and Jordan and Caleb declined, but he brought all 3 of us tea and biscuits anyway. We thought this was just hospitality, especially considering that offering tea is extremely common if you go into anyone's house or place of business for more than 5 minutes, but it turned out that he was adding all of this to our bill without telling us. And for an unfair price, to boot. We ended up getting into a big fight with him and the owner, which resulted in us paying for the tea (at 20 rupees per person, when a fair price for tea is 10 rupees at the absolute most) but not paying for the meal, because we explicitly asked about the price and were told there was no charge. Our host's explanation that "I was telling you that it was no problem to make dinner for you" did not hold up as far as we were concerned, since it was in direct response to our question about how much dinner would cost. The owner's argument that he could have charged us more didn't really help, either.

Even though we ended up getting minimally ripped off, it still was a really unpleasant way to end what was a otherwise very peaceful and pleasant trip. Except for the day when Jordan got wicked food poisoning or something and was throwing up. But yeah, except for that, it was nice.

Our experience at the airport tacked more stress on to the residual stress we were already feeling from our argument with the houseboat proprietors. Upon check in, we were told that we must check our bags, and were told by the lady checking us in that we needed to hand them over immediately. As soon as she told us that we would need to check our bags, I started writing luggage tags for us, but as I was doing so she kept insisting that we hand over our bags right away, even telling me directly to "please do that faster." When I finished scribbling our information on the tags as fast as I could and handed over the bags, she handed us our boarding passes and told us to hurry. This was totally uncalled for, since we were quite early for our flight and ended up waiting at the gate for an hour and a half before we could board.

When we unexpectedly had to check our bags at the Srinagar airport, we were too rushed and disoriented to think about our valuables. The unfortunate result of this was that when we got to Delhi, we found that our iPod and our camera battery charger had both been stolen out of Jordan's bag.

So we spent a while dealing with security at the airport, who told us they had frisked all of the baggage handlers at both airports and didn't find our stuff, so they had us file a complaint (just so we could feel like we had some degree of control over the situation, I'm sure). That took a while, and then we got stuck in traffic on the way home, so by the time we got home, we had just enough time to pack for Amritsar and head to the train station.

We ended up being 5 minutes late, but the train was delayed by an hour and a half, so it was okay. Our trip to Amritsar pretty much consisted of seeing two sights: the Golden Temple, and the border closing ceremony. Both of those were very cool, but I think I'm going to leave the telling about those for later, since I'm really worn out after the last couple of days and want to rest.

By the way: the lack of a battery charger does mean we won't be able to take pictures, but Corey told us tonight that he'd be sending us a new one in the care package he was planning to send out today anyway. So never fear, we will soon be able to document our trip again, although you may not be able to see the photos for quite a while, since we now have a backlog of literally thousands of photos.

mountians...lots, and lots of mountains

So here we are in Kashmir city of Srinagar, staying in a beautiful houseboat in Dal Lake overlooked by the Himalaya Mountains.

Let me back up a bit.

Last I left off, I mentioned going to the Taj Mahal. Well we went, and it is incredible. So ornate, so majestic. It almost loses some of is grandeur up close. There's not a whole lot I can say about it that does it justice. It's sad how even the Taj Mahal cannot escape the work of graffitiers. Carved in the white marble side of the building is a couple names. Damn kids.

On Thursday, we boarded a Kingfisher airways plane (yes, the same Kingfisher that makes beer!) and flew to Leh. Leh, is this awesome Himalayan town that is full of Tibetan refugees. The view of the mountains is breathtaking. The Himalayas are huge. I knew they were big, but I didn't expect them to be this big. So tall, So steep, so white. We had planned on renting motorcycles then on Friday, but it started snowing, and we figured driving motorcycles in the mountains while its snowing was going to be dangerous, so we didn't. Instead we visited this awesome Tibetan Palace overlooking the town. The problem is the Leh is 11,483 ft above sea level, so hiking was a bit more work than it should have been. We managed though.

Friday at 5:00pm we boarded a shared jeep (7 people total) and started the very long, kind of scary, drive to the Kashmir city of Srinagar where we are now. To give you an understanding of how long the drive was, we didn't get in until 11:00am the next morning. The drive is only 480km (280 miles), but the road is so rough, tight, windy, and steep that it took a long time. We drove on the worlds second highest highway (18,000ft) through the worlds second coldest inhabited place (Drass), and over the worlds most dangerous mountain pass (driving down single-lane switchbacks with no shoulder over a mile above the valley floor below.) We made it though, and wow!, Srinagar is a sight. Blue skies, mirror blue lake, green trees, mountains rising miles above in all directions.

We will be back in Delhi on Tuesday for a few hours before catching a train to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple.
www.goo

So, I was just got back from my first solo venture across town. It was HECTIC. I had to get from Mukherjee Nagar, where we live, to East of Kailash, where I had an appointment. The mode of travel goes like this: auto-rickshaw from home to the subway, subway to a certain station, and then auto-rickshaw to the appointment, and repeat backwards home. If all goes well, the trip should take about an hour each way. Well, I got to my appointment okay, but the auto-rickshaw driver that was taking me from the subway to my destination got lost and tried to get me to pay for his extra driving around. You see, here in Delhi, there isn't really any set structure for building addresses. You have neighborhoods (Mukherjee Nagar), and addresses numbers; There aren't really any street names. So, in order to get to where you need to go, you have to know exactly where in a neighborhood a particular address number is. My appointment was in East of Kailash, which makes things more confusing, because it is not a neighborhood, it is east of a neighborhood. Long story short, the driver got lost for like 15 minutes and wanted me to pay extra. The trick in those situations is to give him the pre-agreed upon sum of money and walk away.

Things really got tricky on the way home though. First, I had difficulty getting a good price on a rickshaw back to the subway, they all wanted rs. 100 ($2) for a 6km ride. Ridiculous! Finally, I got one for rs. 60, still a bit pricey, but not a rip-off. The subway was uneventful, but the auto-rickshaw ride back from the subway station home was crazy.

So, I get off the subway and walk outside to find that there are no auto-rickshaws in sight. I manage to flag one down and ask him "camp" which I understood to be a pre-determined rs. 5 ride to a pre-determined place. he looks at me like he has no idea what I'm saying. The subway is only about a mile from home, so I decided to walk. Mind you I was a bit turned around and started walking down the wrong street. So I walk for about a half hour before realizing that I'm not where I should be. I know that sounds like a long time to not know where you are going but this part of Delhi all looks the same. It's all the same crazy dilapidated buildings, busy intersections and markets packed with people everywhere. I cannot tell one area from another. Needless to say, I figure out that I am not where I should be and walk back to the subway station. Did I mention that the power went out during my walk. Add pitch black to the crazy traffic and it gets a bit scary.

I figure the best thing to do is take a rickshaw to Mukherjee Nagar at full cost, rs. 15, its a bit more expensive, but at least I'll be home. I jump in the rickshaw and about 1/4 mile later his bike breaks. The pedal snaps off. The driver jumps off the bike, holds up the broken pedal and starts waving it at me as if its my fault his bike broke. I try to offer him rs. 5 for the portion of the trip he took me but he keeps angrily talking at me. I don't understand a word he says, and he doesn't understand a word I say. I turn and walk away and he follows. Finally, I turn, offer him rs. 7 which I forcefully put in his hand and walk away. I guess it worked because he stopped following me. I walked the rest of the 3/4 miles home. Good to be home. Its a crazy city out there.

Well its off to Agra tomorrow to see the Taj Mahal.

wowzers

This is Caleb. I know it says who wrote the post at the bottom, but then you would have to read all the way through thinking "this doesn't sound like Jordan or Roxy" before finding out the truth...it's not.

So, I got into Delhi last Thursday, a few minutes after midnight. The first thing I thought when I walked out of the plane was, "Man, It's hot in Delhi." The second thing, after getting in the taxi to Jordan's was "Holy crap, drivers and traffic here are crazy." Sadly I was mistaken on both accounts. 1st, It was 1am, so it was actually about as cool as it gets, and 2nd, it was 1am so traffic was light and the drivers comparitivly sane.

Since then, I have found that traffic in Delhi is scary. Lane markings are merly suggestions, traffic lights, non existent, and police, bystanders. In order to get anywhere you have to take your place. Drivers here cut people off, drive on the sidewalk, drive within inches of pedestrians and bicycles, and even against traffic.

Well, since I got in, we have gone to a bunch of market places, but haven't really done any shopping. Its been so interesting to see the culture, people and stores, its almost nothing like America. the class discrepant between areas is huge. It is such a culturally diverse population. Depending on what part of town you are in, you can get a good plate of the same food for 50/rs ($1) or 450/rs ($9), the population could be in traditional attire, western-Indian fusion attire, or name-brand western attire. You see ads for jobs with benefits and vacation pay, and then see rickshaw drivers sleeping on the sidewalk. Everybody communicates to each other in Hindi, but business is conducted in English. Yesterday we visited Khan market, the most upscale market in Delhi, it is an eclectic mess of signs, hanging power lines, and various levels of decay on the outside, but indistinguishable from an American store (even the price-tags) on the inside.

Everybody here dresses to impress. They want to look good. Even the laborers digging sewer trenches wear new, un-faded, un-torn jeans and a nice, bright button-down, long-sleeved shirt. In America, all the teens aspire to be rock stars (grungy, long hair, torn up jeans), here they aspire to be professional (clean, new, slick)

All the buildings are in crazy states of collapse. Packs of dogs roams the streets, exposed trenches serve as swer lines, and piles of garbage are plentiful. Shops and merchants are packed into every open space, you cannot 5 feet without somebody trying to sell you something, and man, shopkeepers are tenacious. It's a huge chaotic mess, and somehow beautiful at the same time. Strange thing is, the Subway system is spotless: big, open, clean and well-maintained...weird.

Okay, so enough about culture shock. We just bought all our tickets to go site-seeing. On Tuesday we are taking a train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Then on Thursday we are taking a plane to Kashmir (Leh, and Srinagar where we are going to rent motorcycles and tour around the Himalayas, then rent a houseboat on the lake. We then fly back to Delhi next Tuesday and board an overnight train Amritsar to see the Golden Temple and Pakistan/India border closing ceremonies on Wednesday. We will then take an early morning train back to Delhi on Thursday, and then back to the airport to fly home. Busy two weeks.

Mom/Dad, don't worry, I'm taking LOTS of pictures, I just don't want to go through the work of posting them right now.

I don't know how to close this, so I won't.