It's been some time since last we caught wind of our heroes' mis/adventures as they cruise the Subcontinent. Wending their way through paddy and grove, town and village, hypermetropolis and whistlestop, they went from verdant Kerala into the alternating bustle and rustle of Karnataka. Returning to a state they loved and vowing to see more of it, they found themselves rolling from Kannur to Mangalore to Madikeri, deep in the heart of Kodagu, a region of hills and mountains and earthy bumps of various sizes in between. Kodagu is coffee country, tea country, and Madikeri is its capital. The market smells of fresh ground joe and sings with the alarms of a thousand knockoff Timexes. And this is where our symphony begins, as Bob and Jane disembark their state bus and leave their watch behind in
MOVEMENT I: The Land That Forgot Time (or, The Agony of Da Feet)
We didn't realize we'd forgotten the watch until we'd checked into a room and wondered what time folks might start serving the regional pork specialties. By then it was too late, our watch and its carabiner still holding back the curtain on a semi-deluxe KSRTC bus bound for Mysore. I miss the carabiner. We bought another watch for eighty rupees in one of the score of stalls in the main bazaar and carried it with us, strapped to the outside of our daypack, on the two-day trek we arranged. The first day was brilliant, a long walk along ridges and switchbacks through coffee, tea and spice plantations with S, our guide. S pointed out every different plant and nut and spore along the way while he shared with us his life story and plans for opening his own guide outfit in Kodagu. He was a wonderful storyteller and a very funny cat, openly curious about life in our United States and ready to laugh at a white boy who thinks every hissing irrigation line might be a king cobra. We stopped around two for lunch with a local Tulu-speaking family, four generations under the same roof, where grandma plied us with home cooking (daal and fresh greens with rice and chai) and great-granny ground betel nuts for paan and great-granddaughter showed us her gimme-a-cavity cute litter of puppies. After seventeen long clicks through the misty green mountains we found ourselves at our campsite near the bottom of the valley outside Madikeri. A small assembly of huts collected around a cave shower and a campfire ring, we roughed it in a mudblock structure equipped with one thirty-foot bed of stretched thatch and bamboo. Our meal that night was served in a tiny home down the dirt road from the hut compound, a simple meal of rice and cabbagey daal with hot chapatis eaten by the light of a flask candle. Returning, I lit a hard-won campfire from scavenged paper scraps and half-dry wood and we warmed ourselves before retiring to our cot for the night.
That first day of the trek was the first time we had worn shoes in almost two months, as sandals are the order of every day here. Consequently, I wore holes in both of my heels that I feared might have revealed bone. Also, while ducking to pass beneath one of many fallen trees, I lost the watch that I'd fastened to a strap on our backpack. So we awakened the second morning with pained feet and no idea of the time. Reporting for breakfast down the road, we found that our internal clocks were roughly accurate. Our new guide, however, had no such guiding sense of punctuality. He was more than an hour late, time we killed playing cricket with our hostess' son among the cow pies and strutting chickens on their tiny acreage. Between our wounded soles and our late start and the distance we had to cover to summit Tadayindemol, the tallest peak in Kodagu, the day was shaping up to be a bear. The trail began easily enough on a paved path with paddy on the downhill, coffee on the up. Where the asphalt ended, though, the going got tough. Steep and rocky where it wasn't steep and knotted with tangling roots, the trail wore on our already tender feet, which in turn took its toll on our knees as we adjusted our stride to compensate for four barking dogs. Over the first seven kilometers up the mountain, we smiled through the pain as every turn brought us more sweeping, verdant vistas of the region. With less than a click to go, though, and all of it in one fifty-degree scramble through the swirl and swell of every gust for 100 miles, D and I had hit our limits. It didn't help that our guide, younger and less experienced than S, spent the climb alternately lagging to SMS his peeps and bounding ahead of us, able to provide no guidance or reassurance or even a reasonable, steady pace. Yesterday's monkeys were weighing heavily on our backs, and my feet felt like two fluffy kittens being devoured by scorpions. Looking up into the sun and realizing we'd had it, we abandoned our quest for the summit, gazing wistfully, defeatedly up at what looked for all the world like fucking Everest.MOVEMENT II: Don't Just Stand There, Bus A Move!
Our trekking finished (for better or worse), we began a series of bus rides that would bring us to Karnataka's far northeast, to the tiny town of Bidar. Getting there from Madikeri, in the southwesternmost corner of the state, would prove to be a challenge. I've written before about the roads in Karnataka, how their peaks and craters rival anything we climbed in Kodagu, but this leg of our sojourn deserves mention. As the crow flies, Madikeri to Bidar is less than 600 kilometers. It's Boston to NYC. This being India, however, we had to break that trip into four legs, the last being the only day shorter than 10 hours. From Madikeri we rode to Shimoga and stayed the night by the bus stand, leaving for Hospet the next morning. We broke up the journey in Hampi (left), a quaint little burg we loved in October, staying two nights before moving as far as Gulbarga, a twelve-hour gauntlet that put us four hours from Bidar--a joyride by comparison. By the time we arrived we had spent nearly 48 hours on buses as we passed through innumerable villages and bus stands big and small.And that was why we looked at the trip like a blessing, rather than a curse. For a number of reasons, D and I have felt more at home in the sticks than in the cities. And we've enjoyed daytime bus trips more than the marginally faster trains. You can see more of life as it's lived when it's rolling past your open, rattling window at 25 kilometers an hour than you can when it's whizzing by the barred portals of a rail-prison. You have time to spot the elephants in the forest outside Madikeri, lumbering through the undergrowth twenty meters off the road. Getting down from the bus to Gulbarga and badly needing a piss, you can be followed to the open urinals by a pack of boys asking questions of you, perhaps the only white man to pass through those parts in years, as stage fright blocks your impending flow and you answer, stammering with effort, "America...I am fine...my name is Bob...I gotta piss, how are you?" Those are the moments that make the state buses worth the trouble. They're amazingly cheap (and you get what you pay for), but the slice-of-life value is worth its weight in funky gold noserings.
MOVEMENT III: "Nobody Goes To Bidar..."
--"and it's not clear why." This line is our Lonely Planet's introduction to the marvels of that town. It points out the abundance of Muslim architecture in the area and the ruined fort (left) that encircles empty hills and fields of kids playing cricket. But our guidebook is two years old, and when we arrived in Bidar it looked like a rogue, inland tsunami had washed the fronts off of every building in the old town. The front few meters of stores and offices and family homes had been shorn from the back of the structures, so that walking down the street was like looking in the back of a dollhouse. A dollhouse fronted, mind you, by open sewers bridged by planks that led into open rooms still sporting paintings and calendars on their truncated walls. They're widening the streets in Bidar, kids. And not widening them one-by-one, but all at once. And, this being India, all the work is being done by hand. If you pass through Bidar in ten years, they might still be at it. We came to Bidar for the local damascene metalwork, bidri. The artisan casts silver into a shape, be it a vase or an elephant or a paan box, then covers it with a flat black amalgam of metals and chisels at it to release the glowing metal beneath. It's really neat stuff, and the best work winds up in museums and palaces across India and the world. The street in Bidar that had been the bidri bazaar, though, was in the heart of the widening venture. As a result of the ongoing improvements only a handful of shops were still tapping away, and the selection and prices were limited and high due to the short supply. Amazed by our effort to come all the way to the heart of the venture, so to speak, several locals pointed us in the direction of the working shops and advised us to haggle, and haggle hard. Keeping their words in mind as we strode purposefully down the street and up to the first and largest shop, I got turned around by a couple of girls asking D her name and nation. So did D, apparently, as with her next step she came down hard on my newly-scabbed right heel with the sole of her Teva. I shouted and spun in pain, scaring two poor children senseless as I clenched my fists and felt my face redden in a snarl, adrenaline rushing to the end of every hair on my body. It hurt so bad it gave me goosebumps. Horrified, D tried to console me and I shrugged her off, figuring we'd just get in the shop and get out again so I could sanitize and cover my wound as quickly as possible. Stepping over the shitmoat and into the workshop to climb the stairs to the newly open-air showroom on the first floor, the men assembled before their pieces started yelling and pointing at my foot, which was bleeding into a pool in the back of my sandals. The helpful salesman (the head artist's son) walked across the street with us to find a bandage as I hobbled and dabbed at the running wound with my bandanna.
That unpleasantness behind us, we were in no position to bargain. When it comes to buying items at fluid prices, you have to start negotiations from a point of strength. Never walk in weak, or with blood puddling around your heels. Picking several pieces from the trove upstairs, we named our price and our boy shot it down, suggesting that maybe we take an item or two out to make the order fit our budget. Standing firm as we could, we thanked them for their time and walked out down the rubblestrewn street to talk over our options. Along the way we passed a small store, open in front like every other building in town but still moving crisps and paan and rupee sweets. A young man called to us in English from the storefront and we stopped to chat, as we weren't really going anywhere anyway. R was home visiting Bidar over the holidays on a break from his work with an avionics firm in Little Rock, Arkansas. His mother, the shopmistress, brought us plates of namkeen and sweet chapatis as we sat in the back of the store and made introductions. R told us how strange it was to see foreigners in Bidar, his words echoing our LP verbatim. We talked about our travels and about life in Little Rock, parting as R's friends rolled up to take him for dinner.
The sun was heading towards a set and we would be rolling the following day (25 Dec 2007) for Aurangabad (500 km, 14 hours), so we cruised back by the bidri shop, where our items were still arranged on a low table upstairs. Our boy smiled his paan-stained smile when I took out two of the pieces and asked him for a new total, which we paid without protest as one of his colleagues polished the silver filigree and wrapped our order in newspaper, tied it in twine, handed it over with both hands.
MOVEMENT IV: A'bad, Xmas, Ellora, Et cetera...
So Christmas was spent on a long, long, long bus ride out of Karnataka and back into Maharashtra. We arrived early for the 9 AM bus, and the folks at the station were extra helpful with our functional illiteracy. Our conductor was the closest thing we had to Santa Claus this year; as we were the only kids riding the whole stretch from Bidar on Christmas and the only blanquitos for miles, he was all smiles every time he passed down the aisle to collect fares. He asked us the usual questions, polishing his limited English, and dragged me by the hand off the bus at a roadside dhaba early in the evening to make D and I try the poha the dhaba-wallah was whipping up. I guess he was worried that the gora (foreigners) might starve to death before the bus pulled in, and he showed a joking brand of concern as he ordered for us and showed us two seats off to the side of the stand where we could sip our chai in peace.
Finally arriving in Aurangabad with an hour of Christmas left on the clock, we checked into our overpriced ('tis the season...) hotel and bounced upstairs for some much-needed grub and a cold mug of cheer. Our turkey was butter chicken; our stuffing, paneer kofta. And as we settled our brains for a short winter's snooze, visions of cave temples danced behind our eyes, whirling us through the snows to the top of Mount Kailasa.
I remember seeing photos of the caves at Ellora in a National Geographic when I was a wee tyke. Don't remember how old or anything, but they were the first site I wanted to visit upon our arrival four months ago. We were warned off by the tail-end of the monsoon and the culture shock and headed south from Mumbai to Goa instead of north onto the Deccan plateau, and my expectations for the caves had grown ever greater in the interim. So when our bus arrived at the gates to the caves, set into a ridge a couple of clicks long and housing 32 different Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples, and the Kailasa temple loomed ahead of us like something from a dream, I dropped my shades and my jaw and barged straight ahead.
Pictures are great for a lot of things. Blackmail snaps from the office party, naked babies at bathtime, Uncle Walter and his "disappearing teeth" trick--all well and good inside a 3-inch by 5-inch frame. But even the whizkids at NG couldn't get the wonder of the Kailasa temple at Ellora onto their glossy pages. It just wouldn't fit. Seems it took 150 years for like 10,000 laborers to cut this behemoth from solid rock, a monolithic structure that staggers from every angle. We wandered the grounds with our eyes up, jaws down. Every surface of the main temple is covered by carved elephants, lions, and dancing figures from the great Hindu epics. Stairways and hand-hewn passages allow for circumambulations on three different tiers around the temple proper, and paths lead up the hill behind the site for aerial views that show the attention paid every detail on the top of the buildings, every budding lotus, every crouching lion. I can say, secure in my masculinity, that I got a little misty walking around the joint. It was one of those holy-shit-INDIA! moments that we have every once in a while, something to shake us from the complacency of ass-numbing bus rides and the same petty hassles and haggles we encounter almost everywhere. Ellora was an eyeful and a bag of chips.
So when we got to Ajanta the next day, a longer ride out from A'bad, we were a little awed by the difference. Ellora is renowned for the mastery of its sculpture and remarkable for the fact that three religious traditions added temples at different times over the course of a millenium. The caves at Ajanta are all Buddhist, and were forgotten to history after Indian Buddhism moved north to the Himalaya. Astoundingly plain in their architecture, their fame derives from the incredibly well-preserved original murals (not really frescoes, but close) decking the walls. The paintings were cool, the site was dramatic (a horseshoe ravine with temples about midway between a dry riverbed and the crest of 200-meter cliffs), but the approach was a little too Disney. You arrive at the Ajanta T-junction, 4 clicks from the ravine, where the bus lets you down and you pay a 7-rupee "amenities charge." Then you walk through a gamut of hawkers, vendors, shit shops and chai stalls to get to the buses that roll to the caves (another 7 rupees per head). Then it's up the hill from the bus stand through the outstretched arms of postcard and picturebook salesmen and around the dholi-wallahs who carry the feeble, old, and lazy wealthy around the site on sedan chairs. Finally seeing the curve of the ravine before you, it's then a stop at the ticket counter where you pay your Archaeological Survey of India tiered admission charge (25 rupees for Indians, 250 rupees or US$5 for foreign nationals). Then and only then can you pass through the main gate (and nonfunctioning metal detector) and wait in line at cave after cave to be allowed inside in groups not exceeding 40 people for a time not exceeding 15 minutes. I was half expecting "It's A Small World" to be piped in through speakers once inside the temples, a little animatronic Siddhartha om-ing in time to the rhythm under a smiling, tinselstrewn bodhi tree.MOVEMENT V: The Five-Star Treatment
From Aurangabad we went back to Pune, where A's folks were kind enough to receive us again. We picked up a care package (mosquito repellent, US coins, wetnaps and two fresh pairs of Ex Officio skivvies--more on them another time) from Florida and had a couple of bomb home-cooked meals before rolling into the big city, big ballers in a pimped-out rickshaw, checking into the Taj Blue Diamond for New Year's Eve. The night before we'd spent picking up some fresh threads at the local department store (cover band knocking off Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" on the ground floor, housewares on 3), so we were looking oh-so-very after some room service and a hot bath (!). Stylin' and profilin' and such, we cruised up to the library lounge overlooking Koregaon Road for some complimentary cocktails (always comp the whales, daddy, and give 'em the Rain Man Suite) before slinking back to the room, where our fine Indian (Sula, baby, nothing but the best) sparkling wine was chilling in a proper bucket, flutes alongside. The digs were plush (and we couldn't get reservations for any of the real parties in town) so we stayed in and watched the festivities kicking off 2K8 across India on our 42-inch plasma TV while waiting for room service to deliver our pizza (another perk of membership, boss, and if you don't get it then I won't explain, dig?).The first morning of the year, heads splitting, we headed downstairs for our (comped, natch) killer breakfast buffet, gorged on fresh fruit and cheese and pastries and other such goodies as one won't find everyday here, before booking the massages that are yet another privilege afforded high-rollers such as ourselves. Kneaded and steamed and showered clean, we luxuriated for the rest of the day and night in the sort of accomodation we find (read: "can afford") only once in the bluest of Indian moons. And when we paid the bill (AmEx, yo, for the mad miles) the softest landing we've had in India set us back a little over two bills a night. Not bad for a couple of kids who spend at least an hour a week dickering over ten rupees with sheisty rickshaw-wallahs.
MOVEMENT VI: Conquering The Summit (or, Here Comes The Hotsteppah)
A long day on trains got us from Pune to Mumbai to Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, the first leg of our foray into the north. Finished with the south ("Catch you next time, Orissa! Later on, Andhra Pradesh!") and ready for a different flavor, we spent the night in Ahmedabad (we'd return later, in another installment) before catching a bus to Palitana, little more than a busy, dusty road leading from the bus stand to a hill, Shatrunjaya, topped by 900 Jain temples. We set off for the hilltop after a hearty breakfast around the corner from our hotel, steeling ourselves for the trek ahead.Among the preparations necessary for such an adventure: Jains revere animals more than most, so no leather. Off with the belt and shoes, thanks. And that wallet, too, mister. Don't make me ask twice. Also, as part of climbing 3572 steps over four clicks of rocky hill is that it's done as a test of austerity, why'n'cha leave that bottled water in the room. We'll sell you cups of water at stops along the two-hour climb. There. So no food in the bag, no water, no leather...no problem, right?
Did I mention the matter of 3572 steps? All the way up the hill we passed ashen Indians raccooned with exhaustion, looking very much the worse for wear. Dholi-wallahs with buns of steel waited along the route to help the fallen, but we shrugged off their advances, determined to master this climb after the shuddering defeat of Tadayindemol. And master it we did. The path wound over foothills, switchbacking and levelling off at times before revealing the templed summit of Shatrunjaya beyond the haze blanketing the Saurashtran plains. I've seen Neuschwanstein, Crazy Ludwig's architectural fairytale in Bavaria that served as the model for the Magic Kingdom's castle. I played back that reveal, coming around the mountain trail and glimpsing it through the Black Forest, as we came upon Shatrunjaya. I'm not sure which was more impressive, but I was dehydrating rapidly by that point and the white marble temples might have seemed more glittery than they really are. We spent a couple of hours scouting the best vistas among the temple complexes and the narrow alleyways separating them, bribing the occasional security guard to let us up the ladders topping many of the twisting, ornately carved spires. Some of the temples are still active sites of worship, and there was a congregation of white-clad Jains wrapping around one of the main temples, waiting for their turn at the inner sanctum. We could only get as far as the marble gate inside, but hearing the chants and seeing the strain of devotion writing lines on the faces of those assembled was something to behold.CODA: In Which Our Heroes Reprise Past Episodes Of Intestinal Distress
So D fell ill again in Bidar, something I neglected to mention in that passage of this symphony. A little stomach bug, some crampage, a day in bed and all was well. I don't know what felled me in Palitana, but I awoke in the night after Shatrunjaya and before a long bus to Diu with my stomach knotting like two Rajput warriors, their moustaches tied together, trying to lead camel charges in opposite directions.* Eight hours on the bus, sans facilities, only made the situation more desperate. I spent the next five days more or less in bed with the revenge of whatever grabbed me in Cochin, watching bad TV and shitting water until my lips chapped.** It's still following me (thankfully from a slight remove) as I write these words, some three weeks later. D says I should see a doctor, but I'm holding out for the symptoms to fade further or until we hit Delhi, whichever comes first. Whatever happens I'll keep smilin' through the pain, though the strains of my straining might well be the theme music playing behind the rest of our time in India. Until next time, then. Gotta run...
*: It's a stretch, but we're in Rajasthan and these guys have seriously great moustaches and I just thought I'd work that in. The camels are funny, too.
**: You're welcome.
