Finding internet joints in India is not difficult. It's no double-axel-triple-lutz, no Mormon whorehouse. It's finding a reliable connection in a land of unexplained power cuts that has proven to be the challenge. Here's to blogging from the developing world.That being understood, I've an acre or two of ground to cover to get myself to this present day, and presently the sun's sinking slowly Stateside. So with an economy heretofore unknown in these pages, I will endeavor to play catch-up with the last three weeks of perpetual motion. Here goes:
From Diu and horrible illness to Ahmedabad for the Uttarayan Kite Festival. Met up with D's girl R, who's here with IndiCorps for a year working with a community center in one of the city's thekro (slums). D showed a remarkable facility with kites, cutting the strings of two competitors flying their paper birds from the surrounding corrugated rooftops. I needed help floating anything but swear words, which flowed freely each time my kite sank sewerward.
Took the train from Ahmedabad to Jodhpur, in Rajasthan. The old city's all pastel-blue block houses under the massive, imposing Mehrangarh Fort. Saw a great drumline parade on an amble back from the fort through the narrow lanes of the city before downing a makhania lassi, a local specialty that made me reconsider my disbelief of any god who'd lead a people to put saffron, butter, and yogurt in the same glass. The bomb.
From Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, about which the less said the better. Before we'd even arrived there were touts boarding the bus to extol the virtues of their "brother's" guesthouse in town. We'd heard horror stories about folks taking rooms at dirt cheap rates only to be kicked out in the wee hours for not booking a camel safari (the main racket in town) through their place of lodging. Our eventual home for 100 roops a night, The Peacock, was an oasis from the monkeyshit going down everywhere else. The fort was less impressive than Jodhpur's, but it had the dubious distinction of being the only centuries-old sandstone fortification I've walked through to have private bus schedules painted on its aged rock walls. Such was the tacky, tacky scene.
Six hours by bus to Bikaner, where we caught the local camel festival (above left). Rajasthani guys with the aforementioned bitchin' 'staches rode their mounts in from the dunes to compete in pageants showing off their camel-shaving and -festooning abilities. Some truly amazing work on both counts. Our last morning there we made the short bounce out to the Karni Mata Temple in Deshnok, where thousands of sacred rats have the run of the joint. We brought disposable socks for our circumambulations. It's considered auspicious to have a rat scurry over your feet (check check check in the first five minutes) or to spot the lone albino of the bunch, which is seriously good luck we won't be having. Alack.
Skipped Jaipur, Pushkar, Amber and Udaipur for the hassles said to await us there. We'd had it with Rajasthan, which is a cesspool of harrassment and extortion you have to spend your way above.
So Bikaner to Delhi, where we caught a train to Amritsar in Punjab. Home to the Golden Temple, ground zero of the Sikh religion, Amritsar was a pungasm waiting to happen. To wit: D got Sikh our first day there behind a questionable Punjabi thali. Might be the last time she can ever enjoy daal makhani. After a day of convalescence and bland Western food, we caught the Indo-Pak border closing ceremony at Attari-Wagah. Serious high-stepping pomp and circumstance on both sides, with cheering and dancing and absurdly tall soldiers in fan-topped turbans and this one old lady sitting next to us who kept repeating "I am proud Indian, proud Indian." We rode out with three Aussies who had just arrived in India, two dudes and a chick. Chick got Sikh from the bleachers during the ceremony, walked past us dollargreen and visibly unwell. Then her brother got Sikh on the ride back to Amritsar, had to have our Tata Sumo pull over so's he could scoot off into a field to rock the Technicolor yawn. Soon as he's back in the ride and apologizing for the delay, something stinks. Up go the windows and the stench should have gone with the breeze, but it turns out dude stepped in a big sloshy cow puddle on his way back from the yack and all eleven of us were about to get Sikh from the smell. I laughed so hard I snorted, and the Kashmiri women sitting in front of me turned around to make sure I wasn't going to be Sikh all over them. Good times with Indian food and water. We laugh because we know the feeling.Amritsar to Chandigarh, a planned city and easily the strangest, least Indian place in India. Le Corbusier laid out perfectly rectangular Sectors with sidewalks (!) and clean parkland ribboning through them, a modernist capital complex, and did it all with enough concrete to pave seven inches over Texas. It took one of the new city's code inspectors, though, to put it on the map. Nek Chand (no relation to the city's root) took a bunch of really vivid childhood dreams and truckloads of disused pottery shards, electrical housings, and stray bangles and built himself a fantasyland he dubbed his Rock Garden. They say it's the second-most-visited site in India, but who's counting? Even if they're fudging the numbers, walking around his Xanadu was some of the most fun we've had for ten rupees.
Back through Delhi to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. It's enormous, it's magnificent, it's a wonder of the world and the headliner of every tourist brochure India prints. But here's something you gotta visit to find out: The whole place smells like foot. You can take that to the bank, put it in your pipe and smoke it, amaze and amuse the next time you're stuck for conversation at a boring dinner party. The Taj Mahal smells like gym class in junior high. Discuss.A short jump from Agra took us yesterday to the ghost town of Fatehpur Sikri. It's a red sandstone city built by the Mughal emperor Akbar on a site without a water supply. In India. Where it gets, like, hot. Akbar had a 3000-woman harem, something that would tell even the virginal observer he might need a source of hydration late of an evening. Eventually the whole site was abandoned for more hospitable surrounds. The harem went with.
[Whew.]
So now we're in Gwalior. It's dark out. We're seeing another big fort tomorrow, then on to Orchha and the Kama Sutra carvings on the temples of Khajuraho. Moving fast, kids, and now we're working with a deadline. Last week in Delhi we booked an April 1 departure from the capital, arriving in Istanbul for the next leg of this Asian Experiment. Between now and then we've got the Indian Himalayas (east, then west) to catch, with a two-week jaunt through Nepal to link the two sides. It's the lightning round, where the scores can really change. Try to keep up, and I'll do the same.
Oh, and a Call For Submissions:
Given my penchant for rambling digression, you might be left after reading this entry and others with one or more unanswered questions. Plot points hang in the breeze, main characters disappear abruptly and without further mention, "India" might occasionally seem shot through a lens slathered with Vaseline--sorta like reading Shantaram, but without the prison bits.
So I'm interested in what you might want to know. It'll be an exercise in clarification for me, a chance to expound upon the whys and wherefores of our excursion. Ask me (or D) anything, whether you're wondering how long you can wear one pair of boxer-briefs, what's the meter conversion for rickshaws in Pune, or just what the shit a "dhaba-wallah" might be.* Fire away. My email's on the profile page linkable at left. Everything's fair game, and if I don't know the answer I'll make one up. Every question gets a response, and the fun ones I'll compile for a future blog. Until then, cheers. Peace.
*: Three months sixteen days, but they'll change funny colors; meter times six plus two; the wallah who runs the dhaba. Respectively.
