Thick brown stew

The air in Delhi is terrible. Incredibly terrible. It smells like diesel and smoke. It is a thick brown haze that obscures light a block away. Buildings 5-6 blocks away disappear entirely. Terrible.

 

This insanity of humanity is beyond understanding how it could be this bad. How much further it can go? It feels like the edge of destruction, the border of hell on earth.

--
Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com

Delhi

What a time the past day and a half has been. Mind boggling in every way. Impossible to express. Like an Indiana Jones adventure, but 100% real.

 

Our flight to Delhi yesterday was uneventful. Arrival was complicated by our hotel transport not showing up at the airport. A taxi was used instead. Delhi is an immense city. As big as Los Angeles, maybe more. Like LA, but like LA timewarped back 200 or more years.

 

We arrived just before meeting up with our tour group. We were stunned by being told we needed to pay $400 more than we had agreed and planned. They said our travel agent was notified 2 months ago. I told them I was not going to pay it. Period. It was not in the amount we contracted to pay for the tour and their last minute ajustments for unforseen costs are not our problem. Today it was finally agreed with the tour company that we could continue without paying now and we could settle the issue with our travel agency in Portland when we return.

 

The hotel put us into a tiny miserble room with a telephone booth bathroom. I found the door lock damaged from previous break ins. The manager argued with me about it until I pulled out a credit card and jimmied it open in seconds. We got a better room with a working lock.

 

This morning we rode a crowded city bus. Packed with sweaty and fragrant human mass. Every surface varnished with dirt shined by human oils. What we do for "adventure travel!" A stop at India's largest mosque. Built in the 1600's. A living antique, but not terribly interesting. From there we walked into a couple hour's of urban time travel. Back, way back. Streets packed wall to wall with surging bodies busy doing the tasks life in India. Vegetable sellers. Nuts. Perfumes. Hardware. Brought in and out on huge wooden carts, on human backs or balanced on heads. Buildings that were most grand 200 years ago, now decrepit, but still very much in use. Shacks built of debris on rooftops. The vast scope of the experiece a most fantastic vivid dreamscape, a science fiction apocolypse, and so real. A ride on rickshaw. This is not a tourist's ride.This is the way of life here, still. The cycle coolie straining with every turn of the pedals to pull us along. Never complaining. A final walk with a turn into a modern building, past guards and full body scanners, a look through every package for... a bomb? "No photos!" Another world yet again! 21st century. Delhi's Metro subway system is below the city 100 meters, down many cascades escalators to the tunnels below. A train fresh and clean of all traces of Indian grime swishes in with a beep. This is the India that graduates 250,000 IT trainees a year (or so I am told). Packed. Push to all pack in for a short ride.

 

Shopping commences in Conought (?) Circle. This is Delhi's modern downtown. Still gritty, but newer and less crowded. Growling stomachs drive us toward lunch. A search past the tourist eats (McDonalds!!!) and a brimming full Indian restaurant beacons with all brown faces. $5 each buys the most fantastic Indian meal - thali. A feast of colors and spice, rich and strong, sweet, salty, sour, hot. Served with rice and chappati (think tortilla) and eaten with hands. Appetites appeased we seek a music shop from the Lonely Planet guide. My India obsession is to buy a set of tabla, the traditional Indian hand drums commonly heard playing with sitar and harmonium. One shop has moved far away. One shop is near and it is found. A very professional shop. No tourist pressure or haggling. It is best to buy before we leave, at the last minute, and carry them home as luggage. Tempting.

 

Tomorry we take the train to Agra, the city near the Taj Mahal. The most beautiful building in the world, perhaps.

 

Good night from India.

--
Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com

Full circle

We left Thekkady in two cars. A fine ride down twisting mountain roads. Pitted hairpin turns and wasted pavement. Beautiful scenery. Jungle, bananas, tea, rice. A stop for tea a biscuits at a cliff hanging shop. The front at street level, the rear a hundred feet above the jungle below. A pair of beautiful birds, one orange and one yellow just out of camera range. Down, down, down, winding and twisting. Passing on the right, passing on the left. Never fast enough.

 

A few hours later we arrive at the bottom. The very bottom, of the sub-continent of India, and 6 feet below sea level in the backwaters of the state of Karela. The bus stops at the riverside of a rural village. We transfer luggage to large canoes to ferry us across the river. The river is about 100 yards across and still. The canoe is 2 feet wide, 30 feet long, and like all canoes it feels remarkably unstable and unsafe. I don't swim. I have no life jacket. I am wearing a backpack. Two thoughts fight for dominance: I am going to drown. The camera will be ruined. Will it be possible to hold the camera out of water as I sink so that someone can see what is inside?

 

Our night's stay is in the home of a local farmer's sister who now lives in England. He and his family welcome us as wonderfully as if meeting long lost cousins. We are served a welcome mango juice and listen to our host's quiet voice introduce his home and family. There are no cars, no motorbikes, no horns. An occasional motorboat cruises by. The river is just outside the home, just across the foot path. We find rooms we like and settle into various quiet activities - reading, cards, chatting. I take a walk down the foot path along the river with the water on my left and small tropical homes on the right. The path is shaded by coconut palms and many beautiful flowers. Children walk along. Hello! Where you from? Many smiling brown faces. More smiles than seen anywhere else. Bright white teeth with perfect orthodontia, and many have never seen a dentist. A beautiful Catholic church glows in the sunset with soft natural colors. Paradise.

 

Dinner is adequate. Family style rice and curry. Chapati, or what we would call tortillas to sop the gravy. In darkness we board canoes for a night ride. I insist on a life vest, but why on earth did I bring the camera. It will certainly be destroyed when we capsize. Instead of terror, it is blissful. The canoe is gently paddled by our host and brother. Fireflies twinkle in the palm trees with early Christmas sparkle. Meetup with another canoe from another house. The silent paddling is broken with song as our hosts sing several choruses of ancient peasant songs, punctuated with rhythmic drumming on the bottom of the canoes. One song is begun with an amazing long note sung without end, almost impossible. What a wonderful thing, to live along this river and hear this song from your riverside home.

 

This mornng was up early for a group walkabout. We walked for almost 3 hours. A stop for tea. The shop a primitive wooden bench of boards and branches supporting a burner and a few ingredients. The glasses washed by hand, only a rinse with river water. Sweet, hot, flavorful. The path circles around and by many small houses of farmers, mud diggers, doti tappers, mussel fishers, carpenters. Rice farmers work 6 months of the year and rest the other 6. Doti tappers climb coconut palms twice a day to collect sap drained from wounded palm flowers. They beat the flowers with a bone with a wonderful music to encourage them. Mud diggers dive in the river bringing up buckets of mud used to maintain the dikes. Life is similar to how it has been for a long time. There is not much to change in this tropical paradise. Or is there?

 

Too many mosquitoes. Too many ants. Too many strange flying and crawling beast in close cohabitation inside and out. The monsoons bring floods to this lowland every 2 or 3 years. The water in the house rises to knee deep. Our host tells that as a child he used to fish in the kitchen while sitting on the table. His mother would then fry up the catch.

 

The backwaters of Kerala are home to some of the oldest continuous human settlements on the planet. Some of the words pre-date human language. The greeting is "awk." I notice it is exactly the same word crows here and home use to greet each other. A monkey like whoop calls over a passing boat when a ride is needed to the other shore.

 

It is hot. Tropical steam. A morning nap under a spinning fan. Very calm and restful. And too soon time to leave. A motor boat picks us up and transports us through river, canals, and lakes to a small town. The bus awaits us to carry us back to where we started - Kochin. The bus is an Indian intercity bus driven by a man who craves a Nascar competition. The bus is oversold and we are the last to board. Some sit. Some stand amongst piles of hastily stowed luggage. The bus careens and screeches and roars and beeps for a very long 1 1/2 hours. A quick tuk-tuk ride finishes the journey to the hotel where we started.

 

Kochin did not change. Or did it? It is not quite as hostile and grimy as it was 2 weeks ago. Crossing the street is an easy game of dodge-em. A beep of the horn does not mean "watch out!" but "Don't worry, I see you."

 

Tomorrow the second adventure begins with a morning flight to Delhi.

 

Namaste!

Thekkady

Writing you all is very difficult! The last two transcribed journal entries took 3 or 4 trips to the internet shop. The power is very unreliable here and fails perhaps 30 minutes of every couple hours. The first time it happened I gasped in annoyance with my lost efforts. No one else uttered a sound. Now I have learned to save frequently and go with the flow.

 

Yesterday half of our group opted out of taking the public bus from Madurai to Thekkady. It was just too hot and I did not feel like competing with baskets of live chickens for a place to stow my duffel. It was a nice comfortable ride of about 4 hours with air conditioning and frequent stops for photos, quick field trips to view local industries, and an interesting lunch. We arrived in Thekkady to find it a pleasant mountain plateau city with relatively clean streets and the best hotel we have stayed in. (It even featured about 5 minutes of hot water in the shower before turning cold!)

 

We had time to look about town on foot and buy a few snacks for an early trekking breakfast. A very bumpy tuk-tuk ride took us to a local family home for dinner. We first toured around the garden and were introduced to the myriad of spices grown in the region - clove, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, pepper, vanilla, coriander, mace, nutmeg... I can't recall more. The garden was lovely, but we arrived just before sunset and half of our viewing was by flashlight. The garden was filmed by the BBC recently and will be one of it's Around The World In 80 Gardens series, appearing this coming March. Dinner was a fine halal, Muslim Indian feast. We ate in the local style. Food was served family style onto banana leaves and eaten with the right hand. (The left hand is not proper at all, but it was a faux paux overlooked by our host.)

 

This morning we woke early, too early, after a night made restless by the vivid dreaming brought on by the anti-malarial medicine Malarone. We left the hotel at 6 and rode tuk-tuk to the Periyar National Park to hunt for tigers. The trek of 3 hours or so in the rain soaked tropical forest did not reveal any tigers. We did see a couple wild pigs. The tropical rain forest is remarkably similar to our Oregon temperate rain forest! The plants and animals are different, but the overall look and feel is similar. One important difference is we don't have leeches in Oregon, or at least not like they do here. All of us wore protective socks covered with tobacco dust, but it was not quite enough. The leeches sized from 1/2 an inch to 3 inches long inch-wormed with amazing speed to our feet. Standing still for a minute would bring many of the disgusting beasts creeping all over our shoes trying to find a way to flesh. We only suffered a few bites amongst us. I had one on my chest from one that managed to creep up that far. It had its dinner without causing me any sensation, leaving only a small bleeding wound.

 

This afternoon Susan and I each had amazing Aruvedek (?) massages. The massage was not like any I have had before. It was a bit like having music played on my skin from head to toe with great waves, and subtle nudges, all soaked in herb scented oil. The massage was followed by a steam bath in an old fashioned steam box where your head pokes out the top.

 

Tomorrow we are heading into the Keralan backwaters where we will be staying in a villager's home for the night. There will be no internet. There may be no electricity or plumbing, too.

 

Namaste! (BTW - someone asked what does that mean. Namaste is the Hindi word used for hello or goodbye. It literally translates to "the divine in me recognizes the divine in you." That is a nice alternative to "S'up homes.")

--
Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com

Hello from Thekkady

named after thekku, teak trees. There are a lot of them around, and of course more of them have been cut down.

Today has been a lovely day, as our young Brit women would say. After a good nights sleep, we got up at five thirty, and headed for the Periyar Tiger Reserve, for about a three hour walk through the rain forest. It was very pretty, but I think we are spoiled by living in Oregon. We did not ooooo and ahhh... except over the lovely leeches, that were squirming all over out boots, and legs. What ugly little things. We had to wear special "socks" so they would not get into our shoes. They are very fast. The socks looked like gators. We had to make sure our shirts were tucked in, and there were no flapping parts. As it was, Mike did get bitten, once, on the stomach. I seemed to not get bitten. The spread tobacco power over them to kill them. The walk was pleasant, when I could ignore those ugly worms. I had my keens on which have absolutely no traction, and it was extremely wet and muddy. (The monsoon is still going on). I had one very good slip, right down this hill. My main concern was that I was leech free. We came home, had a warm shower, did our laundry, which is still drying in our room, and had breakfast, around 11am. After that we set out to do e mail. Got and bit done and the power failed. So we decided to go get our Ayurvedic messages. Oh ... were they nice. For 90 minutes, it was pure bliss. For about 15 dollars, or less. It was so nice, I could do it again, but probably won't. Then we came down for e mail again, as the power came back on, we sat down did it for about half and hour, and then wham.. the power is off. Left, went and had some lovely Masala tea, and chocolate, and read a bit. Now that the power is back on, we are back here. Hopefully we can finish now.

 

Last night we went to a spice plantation. It was almost dark, but what we saw and heard was very interesting. The guy that owns it, is going to be on a BBC special sometime soon. We then went into his home and had a delicious Kerala (South Indian State, where we are) dinner. There was not silverware, and it was fun eating with our hands, as is the custom here. They have a sink right in the dining room. Very handy.

we will meet the group for dinner around seven. We have one more night of the tour, after this one. In some ways, I am sorry to see this part of the tour end, in other ways, I am anxious to move on to Northern India. It won't be so hot or so rainy there, I hope.

 

We had another long train ride the day before yesterday. About seven and a half hours. This time I noticed tons of roaches crawling everywhere! I tried to ignore them, but no matter where I moved, they moved along with me. Yuck. We were on our way to  Madurai, spelling is probably wrong. It was another big dirty smelly noisy city. The second largest temple in India is there, that is why we st oped there. We went in the evening, and observed many people "praying" to various incarnations of Shiva. Interesting, but way to confusing to remember any of it. My feet are getting this brown grime, that I can't seem to get rid of. To much walking barefoot through temples. (You can not wear your shoes inside). That evening we had a very nice dinner, on a roof top restaurant, there was a cool breeze, good food, and I even managed to get a beer. It was a nice evening too, except for the long train ride to get us there.

 

To get here, Thekkady, the four Spanish women, the Australian, Mike and I hired a private jeep. It was less then 15$ each. We decided to do this because we did not want to hassle with the public transport, the others took. All of our luggage would of had to stay with us, and the buses are more often then not very crowded, so we went the easy way. It was just fine.

 

So, this brings us up to date, more or less. I do know that tomorrow night we will be staying with a family on one of the islands in the "backwaters." Exactly how we get there, I don't know. I am not sure how far it is, though I do know that we are at least a few hours away from the coast. the trains are quick, and pretty clean, and more room then our little mini bus we usually get,but i don't like the roaches. I don't want to bring any home either!

 

After tomorrow night, which will be Sunday, as I write this on Saturday, I know we get back to our starting place, on Monday afternoon. We have that evening in Cochin, and then we have a 10 o'clock flight out of Cochin to Delhi. It is about a five or six hour trip. Then we meet up with our next tour group on Tuesday, and start all over again......

Till next time..

Susan


 

The Train

Written 11-2-07 4:45 PM

On the train from near Pondicherry (Puducherry), en route to Madurai.

The train:

 

Hard blue seats. Windows with bars. No glass. Two minute stops for a quick walk outside. The train rolls out with only a second's warning on the horn, or in silence. Pravin, Andrew, Gemma, and Cloie play games and laugh. The young English women are enchanted wtih the Aussie and the Indian guide. Susan and I are invisible to Cloie. Chai. Chai. Tea. Tea. The vendor pours a hot paper cup full for 5 rupees. Sweet, hot, milky tea. Briyani. Chicken. Chilis. Bananas. Piles of orange, battered, greasy fried food sered up with dirty hands. The chilis are good, cheesy, like chili rellanos. Coffee. Coffee. Do all these people train to produce their deeply resonant chants calling appetites to their wares? Drink. Pee. The toilet is horrid and I am adjusting. Just go and leave. A quick rinse of hands in questionable water. No soap. No towel. Cockroach eating a crumb of dropped croissant. Another crawls up the window frame towards our luggage stowed above. Don't take this rascal home! Open doors. Very dangerous on a speeding train. Nice view and wind. Sitting or standing in the door is splendid. Trash from soda and snacks and no trash bin. A fast dash to the bin at the station. Back to the train. Climb aboard just as it moves out. Vendors all dressing red and blue plaid. Marching the train end to end. Bananas! Fried bananas! Susan is out of her seat and a vendor is resting there, watching me write. Greasy fingers are wiped on pants. No problem. A filthy beggar boy, an urchin about 10 crawls down the aisle on hands and knees. He stops by feet and swabs the floor with a filthy wet rag. He is begging for money. We arrive in Madurai.

--
Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com

Puducherry experience

Written 11-2-07 4:45 PM

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.

--
Michael & Susan Kuhn
Trip email: indiaadventure2007@gmail.com
Trip blog: www.indiaadventure2007.blogspot.com