On the road again

After my camel safari, I checked out the huge sandstone fort in Jaisalmer. It was impressive to see there in the middle of the desert, but you could also see that the increased population within the fort's walls, along with the introduction of piped in water, were eating away at the fort and some of the walls were deteriorating.
My last night I was in Jaisalmer, someone suggested going to see a "Puppet Show" that was put on at the city's cultural center. Since I had no plans, I figured why not. I was expecting to see a children's hand puppet show but instead found out that it was actually a marionette show. I must say that I was blown away. It was great! Along with the marionettes, which they had doing some pretty cool things, there were three men playing traditional instruments there on stage while one of the men sang traditional desert folklore songs. The marionettes were acting out the traditional folklore stories. After the show, the man who founded the cultural center and puppet show greeted the crowd of about 8 (yes, sad but true, there were less than 10 people who came to see the show) and showed us around his small museum. It was a great experience.
That night, I decided to sit down and calculate out the time needed to travel to all the places remaining on my list of things to see in India. Between riding trains and seeing sights, I calculated I had about 55 days of travel left. Unfortunately, when I looked at the calendar, it told me I only had 21. Uh-oh. Time to do some editing. It was painful, but I had to cut a lot of stuff out. I also didn't want to keep up the schedule of traveling one day, sightsee for two, then traveling for a full day again. It was too exhausting and I felt like I didn't get enough time to see each place. So with about three weeks left and the entire southern part of the country to go, I decided to do two things. One was to pick 4 places to see, and the other was to switch from taking 15 to 20+ hour train rides to taking plane flights instead.
The next morning I caught a flight out of the Jaisalmer airport. The airport had been taken over by the military years before and had restricted traffic in and out. Mainly because of the conflicts with Pakistan because Jaisalmer is not that far from the border.
We were driven to the plane in a small bus under heavy military guard and then loaded on. We had to wait for take off while and unmanned aircraft, one of those surveillance drones, took off. It was kind of surrealistic, with all the fighter jets lined up along the runway.
From Jaisalmer I would have to take 4 planes to get to where I wanted to go, passing through the major city of Mumbai. I thought to myself, there's no way I'm making all these flights. As we were about to land in Mumbai, we were a bit behind schedule but I would just make my last flight. Until of course the pilot told us that due to air traffic we would have to wait to land. This he said would be about 45 minutes. Yes, for 45 minutes we flew in a circle around Mumbai. I got a good look at the city from above if nothing else. By the time I went and got my luggage and rechecked in (remember, you have to go and get your luggage and recheck in after each leg of your journey, because the airlines are worried you might actually relax for a minute) I had 10 minutes until the plane took off and I hadn't gone through security yet. In the US they would have told me I missed my flight, but the woman at the counter got on her walkie talkie and called someone. Then she said, "Hurry, grab your bag and follow me!" and instead of checking my backpack I grabbed it and started chasing the woman in the high heel shoes and a walkie talkie. She got me through security and right up to the plane in about 9 minutes and the plane waited. I was shocked. They took my bag and strapped it down in the flight attendants closet and off we went.
Another thing I must mention about flying in India is that there are two types of planes. The private ones, like Jet, Kingfisher Air and Deccan that are brand new planes and serve good meals even on short, hour long flights. Then there is the government run Indian Airlines (the domestic partner of India Air) with seats that are falling apart and being held together with duct tape. I'm not kidding, on one Indian Air flight, I looked down the aisle and about 1/3 of all the seat arm rests were being held together with duct tape and different color duct tape at that. Some of it was packing tape too. The tray tables are held up by paper clips and when the landing gear comes down the whole plane shakes. I don't want to think about what's going on inside the engine. The problem is that Indian Air flies everywhere, so eventually you get stuck with it as the only choice.
I landed in Aurangabad, a city about half way down the sub continent. I came to that area to see the religious caves that had been cut into the cliffs at Ellora and Ajunta. Both were very impressive. Ajunta is mainly known for the paintings that have survived almost 2000 years on the walls of the caves as well as the carvings in the caves, which are more like temple rooms than caves. Ellora's caves are spectacular. One in particular is an enormous temple cut from one piece of rock. Essentially, they cut a giant temple from the rock and then drilled inside of it to make it look like a temple inside. When you first see it you think it's just an amazing temple that's been constructed, then you realize, inside and out, it's one piece of rock.
While traveling to these two sets of caves I ended up hooking up with 3 different groups of American travelers and the whole group spent the day together at Ellora caves. This doesn't sound that noteworthy, but what made it so, is that, I hardly see any Americans here in India. The second reason is that the personalities of the people were so different that anywhere else, these people wouldn't think of even talking to each other. There was a young couple (22) who was from Seattle, he was a computer guy, she in med school. The second couple (mid early and mid twenties) were both economists, she for a professor, he for a pharmaceutical company. Then there was this solo woman traveler (40) who was and artist, Gathering goer (burning man, rainbow), gypsy, if you will, and I think she would know that I meant that as a compliment to her. Her life and lifestyle was really, really interesting. Add me to the mix and stick us in a cave. Not to mention we shared a taxi the size of a Geo Metro.
After the Ellora/Ajunta caves, I flew further south to see the archaeological ruins around the town of Hampi. The flight was followed by a death defying 4 1/2 hour bus ride, it's the one I mention in "Rules of the Road".
Hampi is an arid area with giant boulders everywhere, leaning and balancing on each other in precarious positions. Amongst the boulders are the ruins of many temples. Though the carvings on the temples aren't as impressive as Ellora's, the scenery around Hampi is really neat, not to mention laid back. There's a big backpacker's scene in Hampi with plenty of restaurants to hang out in and look at the boulders or stare off across the rice paddies or sugar cane fields.
As with many "backpacker hang out" places, there always seems to be a reggae theme going on, which I find interesting. Now don't get me wrong, I like reggae but it makes me wonder if any of the people who are partying away to it realized the oppression and struggle that the lyrics are talking about. Another interesting thing too is that these places that play "reggae" are really only playing Bob Marley's Greatest Hits and UB40. Now if I'm not mistaken, UB40 is a bunch of white British guys. OK, I'll get off of it. Though I would like to point out that last year Willie Nelson put out a reggae album.
In Hampi, it was hot. About 95F. I rented a bike to get around to see the ruins. I had to cross a river to get to this one last temple I wanted to see, which was way up on a hill. To cross the river, you paid a guy in a small boat to take you. Now when I say boat I'm stretching it. This was a big, woven bamboo basket, probably about 8 feet in diameter. Then a tarp is stretched under the big basket and secured. Then it's put in the water and it floats. And surprisingly it can carry alot of people. When I crossed, it carried me and my bike, 6 or 7 ladies, a man and his motorcycle (seriously) and then the two guys who paddle. It's slow going but you make it there. When we reached the other shore, I noticed a little leak that had sprung and a tiny stream of water. I pointed it out to the boat guy who shrugged, grabbed a piece of grass and stuffed it in the leak. It stopped.
At the temple, I hiked up in the heat and then once I got back down I bought a soda from a kid running a snack stand. He told me that his family owns it but they work the banana farm they own a 10 kilometers away. He said he sleeps there at the stand.
He asked me if I was married (he's about 10-11).
I said "no".
He said, "Why not?"
I said, "I'm too young."
He said, "How old?"
I said, "41."
He laughed and said, "You're not too young, you're an old man, you should be married. Remember, No wife, no life."
He had me laughing my whole bike ride back.
That night, I ran into Mad Dog, the guy from Mother Teresa's in Kolkata. He had been traveling clockwise around India, I had been going counter clockwise and by chance we ran into each other in Hampi. We had lunch and then off he went.
I was planning on leaving tomorrow morning. But that night, I looked at my airplane e-ticket and noticed that I had book the wrong dates and my flight was already gone. I had trouble with the computer dial up disconnecting when I was trying to book it and must have reset the dates wrong. I had to buy a whole new ticket.
The next day I took an overnight train down to Bangalore. The sleeper benches were filthy so I pulled some of the old dirty laundry I had out and changed back into filthy clothes. They were covered in dirt by morning.
Once in Bangalore, I walked out of the train station to catch an auto rickshaw to the airport to catch a flight. The autorickshaw driver told me all flights are now leaving from the new airport which is 1 1/2 hours away, which of course would be an expensive ride. This set off a red flag, I knew there was a new airport being built there but thought it was international. I asked another rickshaw driver and he said he didn't know which one airlines were using. The first guy; kept saying, "Come on, come on, let's go." I went back into the train station and called the airline, they told me that the new airport was not even finished yet and that it might open later this year. They said I need to go to the old, domestic one. When I walked back out of the train station I looked around for the rickshaw driver. Had I listened, I would have not only missed my flight but owed a ton of rupees. Fortunately, the driver was gone so I couldn't slap anyone.
I took the city bus to the airport and caught a flight to the city of Kochi on the far southwestern coast. On the flight I had a really rude woman who jammed her massive suitcase under the seat in front of her and then sat in my seat and wouldn't move when I arrived so I being the wuss I am sat with my feet on her luggage. Karma will get her I kept thinking.
Once in Kochi, which is in the state of Kerala, the rain, thunder and lightning were coming down like it was monsoon season. The people there told me it was very unusual for that time of year and that it had been raining for 7 days straight. I pull my rain shell out of my bag and headed out into the maelstrom to find a taxi.