On October 20, 2007 Michael and Susan depart for a month of travel in India. Here is our report.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
The Previously Unmentioned Mis-Adventure
I have posted the entire story on a separate blog you can view here: www.intrepidhell.blogspot.com.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Wrap it up to go, please
Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hi from Delhi
Monday, November 19, 2007
Pushkar Ketchup
We are on our last tour day in India, in Pushkar where the camel festival reigns. The fragrance of dust, diesel, incense, patchouli, and dung. The sounds of Indian pop music, finger cymbals, motorbikes, horns, drums, and touts selling every kind of ware not needed by anyone in their proper senses. Paisley, henna tattoos, tie die t-shirts, sandals, batik, and even bell bottom jeans. Pushkar is northern India hippie paradise. Almost the entire route around the lake, about 2 miles, is packed with sights, sounds, and scents of the Haight Ashbury of old in a very third world manifestation.
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Pushkar
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Monday, November 12, 2007
not much
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Sunday, November 11, 2007
out of Delhi - hooray!
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hello from Jaipur
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Thick brown stew
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Delhi
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Monday, November 5, 2007
Full circle
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Thekkady
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hello from Thekkady
The Train
On the train from near Pondicherry (Puducherry), en route to Madurai.
The train:
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Puducherry experience
On the train from near Pondicherry (Puducherry), en route to Madurai.
Ponicherry:
Sizzling, seething humanity. Hot, wet, stinking. Colored lights flashing, gleaming. Beggars at every step. Dirty forms sleeping amongst piles of trash and garbage, inches from open sewers. Flash of fire below grills covered with round flat breads, eggs frying, piles of steaming meats. Tiny storefronts, a counter on the sidewalk stuffed with goods - candies, drink bottles, cookies, nuts - bags of chips hanging from above framing a smiling brown face. Behind more goods to choose. Hurry! A queue is waiting and pushing for service. Street sides lined with bicycles, motorbikes, trash, broken pavement. Micro merchants touting sunglasses, mini chess games, flutes, flowers, postcards. A pull on the elbow. A pitiful beggar woman carrying a small child in swaddling. Her hand out. Her eyes brimming with tears. The stink of food, sweat, spice, shit, rotten garbage, incense, flowers, black clouds of diesel exhaust. A group of police in odd French uniforms carry wooden sticks used to hold off traffic to allows others to cross. A failed effort shrugged off. Rickshaws with drivers ringing bells and shouting for a customer. Others filled with riders, too full, the thin driver's muscle strings straining mightily, for a few cents. Hot and thirsty. A cold Sprite, a sweating bottle, supremely delicious. Quickly pressing my bladder for long sought relief. There are no toilets. The side of a building in a dark alley is fine as citizens pass uncaring a whit. How far is the hotel? I think I know. The vendor looks at my sweaty damp map, wobbles his head in the inscrutable Indian way and points across the street. Where? There? Women in shop laugh. Crazy tourists! Shopkeeper locates on the map. Six blocks to the hotel. Recording a video as we walk and navigate the melee. Fantastic! Impossible to experience this second hand. Every step is dangerous. Bicycles and buses ring-a-ling and trumpet tremendous blasts. All in motion. In every direction at once. A miracle every second as no one is killed, and rarely even bumped. All senses on full alert. Girls in school uniforms with white blouses and purple scarves folded and carefully draped navigate bicycles with calm demeanor. Little boys with book bags on their backs cycle on, waving goodbye to their friends as tuk-tuks skitter about them. Do their parents worry? Susan is seriously distressed. I am in a state of hyper alertness. I wish she could share my exhilaration. Excitement and madness are close kin here. Return to the hotel soon. A loud band is playing drums and nadaswaram (Indian oboe). Friendly fellows wave us in for a listen. Just 4 guys playing. Rehearsing. Have to return to the hotel. Can't stay. The hotel room brings relief. I head back out for more. Need to find new sunglasses. How? Where? An Indian supermarket packed with citizens. No sunglasses. Ha! The optical shop has $5 (200 rupee) nice ones. Another cold drink. Delicious. A cook at a grill on the sidewalk quickly pills out batter into a crepe, a doisa, tops it with an egg and spice. Mmm. 10 rupees and it is mine, along with a bag of curry gravy. Susan opens the door. She feels much better now. My street food is eaten over the bathroom sink. Delicious. A shit and the stink tell me my gut has adjusted. It smells like India.
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Auroville and Puducherry
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hello from South India.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Mamallapuram
Tonight we are having a relaxed evening of doing not much of anything more important than swatting the pervasive mosquitoes. I am doused in DEET, but a few of them don't care and land for dinner anyway.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Time travelling
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hi again from Mysore, again.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Mysore
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hi from Mysore
Friday, October 26, 2007
Ooty
We left Kochin on a train. We rode in a mid grade car. It was substantially better than riding a cattle car. I think, as I have not ridden in a cattle car, but feel confident in saying so. It traveled in a tropical area of forests, rice paddys, banana farms, and many more gritty towns. We transferred to a van in a town I don't recall. From there we headed for the hills. The sky was cloudy and obscured the tops of some fantastically rugged mountains. The ride was harrowing. Indians are literally all over the road. Flashing lights and blaring horns seem to make it all ok. Many times we were on the wrong side (the right) passing every kind of vehicle from ox cart to bicycle to motorbike to trucks to busses. At one point I looked up to see a large bus heading straight at us and no where for it to pull over. It flashed its lights and honked, but we had no where to go either. Neither driver was willing to concede an inch. Everyone in our van was gasping "Oh my god!" At the last second the bus careened back into its own lane. It listed and toppled over right onto us. We all died instantly. Actually, it listed, but did not fall over. Fooled you, didn't I? Ha Ha Ha. I am getting an Indian sense of humor.
That was not the end of it. There were 2 1/2 more hours of this to go and it got better. The road narrowed and started to climb a serious grade. It was very narrow, often with room for only one lane. That did not slow anyone down much. With enough blaring of the horn you can do anything. It was very hard to believe any place could have so much traffic - busses, cars, trucks - endless streams of them going up and down the narrow hairpin turns. Adding to the interest was a rather constant rain and frequent pea soup fogs. The mountainsides were covered in dense cloud forest. Monkeys sat along the roadside watching traffic go by. At last we arrived at our hotel about an hour past dark.
Our hotel is the Ratan Tata Officers Resort, or something like that. It is an old British officer's retreat. It is a prize antique building that does not look like it has had many improvements, or maintenance since the Brits left in 1949. There is no heat and it is cold here. When we arrived it was raining and we were rather fed up with the road so did not leave for dinner. Instead we washed out dirty clothing in buckets in the bathroom. That was rewarding because the clothing was crusted from the train ride and splashing through most forms of stinky road debris that are common in India.
This morning we arose to a partly cloudy blue sky. Nice! We walked around the grounds of the hotel and admired the view which included a large pile of rubbish left by decades of cleaning up after hotel guests. I read that this town used to be very charming. That most certainly could be true.
We then headed to the train station for the scenic hour long ride along scenic hillsides above farms and villages to where we would visit a tea farm and factory. It was very nice in how it was described. We missed most, or maybe all of the views due to very thick fog and rain. There were some nice breaths of fresh mountain air when the black diesel smoke went away from the train.
The tea farm was interesting. We saw how Indian tea is grown and prepared for sale. We found out how guests are given small samples of the tea as it goes through the many processes and how after sticking your tongue into it for a taste you must not waste the surplus and so toss it back into the bin you took it from. Now you know why tea is boiled before use. It just tastes better that way.
The van took us all back to Ooty proper. It was still raining off and on. The weather was very much like a Portland spring with cool temperature, fog, and rain. It was a lot like home. The English women thought so, too.
This afternoon we had a very good lunch of Indian food which is one of the local specialties. 7 of us shared a table. We had about 10 people serving us. This may have been due to the Brits with us, or the great expense we were undertaking with about $4 per person on the bill.
After lunch Susan and I took off looking for an Indian tunic for her. She had found one she liked in Kochin, but wanted another one. We could not find a ready made to fit so one shop sold her the fabric to have two custom tailored for her. The silk fabric was about $10 and the tailoring about $2. The whole job will be done in about 1 1/2 hours. I have never had a tailor made anything. It must be nice.
Now we are both writing email to you from one of the fairly rare internet shops. We tried to do so earlier, but every one of them had lost their net connection. The computer I am using is difficult. It is obviously very virus infested and their effects are intrusive every minute or so.
Tomorrow we head out of Ooty. The destination is Masinaguti
National Park where we will have a day safari. I doubt there will be any internet there so the next contact will be a day or two later from Mysore, a city near Bangalore.
Some of you may be questioning our sanity taking a vacation like this. It is a reasonable question I have asked myself, too. No matter, it is not boring. That is for sure.
Namaste.
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Hello from Ooty.
Ahh, it feels good to sit down, and get away from the chaos that is India. Seems like any where we are there are billions of people. I know that is a bit of an exaggeration, as India's pop. is "only" about 1.2-6 billion. Way too many people.
We have to wait in down town Ooty until about five. I am having a couple of tops made (cotton) for the grand total of about 11$. I found some material I liked, and then went ahead with the measurements. It is hard to find anything ready made for me here. (Unless I go into a dept. store). The Indian women are pretty small. We are looking for a coffee shop, actually a tea shop. We have both fallen in love with Masala Chai. It is Indian tea with a number of spices thrown in, milk, water, and sugar if you want, all boiled. It is soo... good. We went to a tea plantation this morning, and tasted the tea they made there. It is a very different process then how they do it in China. I think I am rambling a bit, oh well, blame it on the weather. It is wet, and cold here, just like Oregon. Though tomorrow we head back to the low lands where it is sure to be warmer. We are at a "Hill Station." Supposed to be where they founded snookers. It is around seven thousand feet. It has been raining off and on, and is quite chilly. Luckily we came prepared, we both have fleece, and gortex. We took the "toy train" a little ways this morning. It is supposed to offer beautiful scenery, but the fog was so thick we could see absolutely nothing. The reason it is called a toy train, you must refer to Mike's post. I am sure he will explain it.
then we came back to town here, and had a good lunch, and then our guide left us, and we are walking around. We tried to do Internet earlier, but there was no power in town. This seems to be a common occurrence. So far it has not remained off for very long. The lights just flickered.
To get here we took about a six-seven hour train ride. Oh boy was that grimy. The train was relatively clean by Indian standards, I guess, but it was pretty bad. I tried not to use the toilet, but I had to give in. And to my pleasant surprise it was not bad. The railway stations are just like I have read about. Tons of people, going every which way, goats, cows, music blaring, and lots of people staring at you, and a few coming up to talk to you. Always men. I am not looking forward to the two overnight train rides we have coming up. One down here inS. India, and then another up north. I guess we just get sleeper class, which is bare minimum. I am glad we brought along our silk liners that Larry brought to us from Vietnam. The over night ones, are "only" eleven hours, so hopefully it will not be too bad.
After the train ride, we had quite an exciting three hour van ride up to Ooty, this hill station. It was damn scary, but after a while l sort of got used to it, and st oped gasping, and closing my eyes, at every hairpin turn, on the wrong side of the road, with a big bus heading for us. At one point, the whole bus gasped in unison. After that, one of the Spanish ladies asked our guide, Provin, to say something so that we would feel safe. He did say something, but I am not sure any of us felt any safer. This is crazy driving, worse then Peru, worse then Spain, or anywhere else. Our guide said that this kind of driving had relatively low mortality rates, because everyone was going slow, and being careful, whereas they do the same kind of driving, on the freeway, at higher speeds. I can't wait (yes I can) to see that.
Our hotel room is quite rustic. We have a queen sized bed, very, very hard, and lots of wool blankets. The bathroom is huge. There is a shower head, and you just stand under it, and turn on the water. No enclosure of any kind. But it does have a flush toilet, and toilet paper. We stay there one more night, and then we are off again to a jungle retreat in Masinagudi. Hopefully, we will see some elephants, and birds.
So far India is pretty much what I expected. Chaotic to the max. Thus far, I feel the need to escape street life pretty quickly. After walking around for an hour or so, I am more than frazzled.And we have not even reached a big city yet. It is nice to be able to step inside an Internet cafe, or coffee house. I am sure Delhi will be over the top, but maybe I will be more used to it by then. I hope so. I am glad I read what I did, and I read a lot, so that I was not so totally shocked.
Not sure how much of a "retreat" we are going to. Not even sure how we are getting there, but I can tell you, that I am not looking forward to the trip down this "hill."
Hope everyone is well...
Susan
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Susan Kuhn
Trip email: susanindia2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Fort Kochi
After an excellent night's sleep it seemed we have finally adjusted. I feel just about as I should for this time of day. Susan's cold seems to be 90% better, too. So far we have no trace of food borne illness. I have even tempted fate by using tap water to brush my teeth. I did run it through our very nifty portable water sterilizer first.
Right now I am writing you from an island just off the coast of Kochi. It is called Fort Kochi, but we have not seen what may have been a fort. It is MUCH nicer than the city insanity in Kochi proper. (Kochi? or Cochi? It is spelled either way.) We have been here most of the day wandering around old churches, temples, and ancient streets. We saw the grave of Vasco de Gama, who died here. Our guide kept saying it was Marco Polo and was a bit embarrassed to be wrong. It is very much like Zanzibar here. There is little traffic, the coast is right along the town. There are fishers working the water, but not catching much. Many touts try to sell us their wares, but thankfully they are not terribly persistent and leave if ignored. I just had a firey hot chicken stew on naan bread. It was wonderful. Susan had a sandwich that she said was good. We ate with two of the women from England - one is 18 and the other is late 20's, I guess. They are a bit shy, but did share some of their stories from the visit to the north of India, where we will be going in a couple weeks. They said it is even more intense there, and almost like an entirely different country.
It is a bit difficult to get pictures online here, but I will get a few here: http://picasaweb.google.com/indiaadventure2007/SingaporeAndArrivalInIndia
I don't think that the link will work for you. This is a very slow connection and I cannot wait for it to finish collecting pictures.
This evening we are going to attend a traditional regional dance performance. Tomorrow we are on the road. I am not sure when or where we are headed so there may not be any reports for a while.
I forgot to mention the incredibly smart cockroaches. We were walking down the sidewalk along the water. You could not see the bugs as you walked, but as soon as your foot came down they miraculously skittered away from you. They also have tiny little skitter bugs on everything. They don't seem to bother anything and when you put your finger near them they all run away in a frenzy like little animated specks of pepper.
Namaste!
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Here I am, somewhere in S. India. Mike has all the names ofl the places we have gone today. This island, (where Jew Town is) is very pleasant. It is very hot, and very humid. I want a shower and an air conditioned room. We just ate lunch, with two of our new friends, both from Leeds, England. One is 18, and the other is about 22. They are very nice young women. They are on their way back to Jew Town to buy some tunics, which I have to do too.
This here is a very, very old settlement. there are a few Jews left in Jew town, but when Israel opened, most of them went back there. Our guide said there are one or two families left.
I had a chicken sandwhich for lunch. I am trying to be very careful what I eat. However right before that, Mike and I both had a coconut opened for us, and I used a straw to drink from. We shall see.
We took a ferry ride to get here, The one we rode on was not very crowded, but they are the kind you hear about sinking, and all aboard lost to see. Not a pleasant thought!
Our group is nice. Two from England that I mentioned. Four women from Spain, Barcelona and Madrid. One of them speaks a little English, the others not. Manuela is trying to translate for them, but our guide does not give her much time. We are wondering why they booked an English speaking tour. I am assisting when I can, and I have actually managed to help out a bit. Then there is a young man from Australia. I forgot, a third woman from England, forgot where, she is a lawyer and in between jobs. That rounds out our S. India group.
We will soon be getting a ferry to go back to the "mainland." We have a tradition Kerela dance to go to tonight.
Stay well, all, until next time.
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Susan Kuhn
Trip email: susanindia2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
hot cha cha
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Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com