Homeward

From Kanyakumari, it would be a 3 hour train ride north to the city of Trivandrum. From Trivandrum I would catch a flight to Kolkata, where my travels have begun three months before. I arrived in Kolkata at about 8:00pm and had a 6:00am flight the next morning so there wasn't much time to do anything. I checked into my room in Kolkata and sorted through the things in my backpack. I made a pile that consisted of all of my clothes, (except the ones I was wearing) my towel, travel sheet and heavy jacket. These were things I no longer needed.I put these items in a garbage bag and went out into the night. I could have just given them to one of the many street families I saw outside my hotel but for some reason I felt compelled to return to the railway station that I did my volunteer medical work at back in January. I arrived at the station and quickly found a family living under one of the platforms. I approached them with my hefty bag of clothes and handed the clothes out to the woman who appeared to be the mother of the family. This time I didn't think about what the people who I gave the clothes to would do with them because I knew I had no control over that. And I didn't think about how many more people there were that needed clothes or how bad their lives were. I didn't think about the food they didn't have to eat or the wounds they had that needed bandaging. I didn't think about the people lined up outside the door at Mother Teresa's each morning when we would show up and I definitely didn't think about those kids. Or the little girl and her sister. In a few hours I would step onto a plane that would take me from their world to mine and across much more than just an ocean along the way.I knew it would take much more than the 24 hours of flying I had ahead of me to process all of the things I had obtained and lost while in India. The exposure to a new culture, the confrontation with extreme poverty, the weight loss of 25 pounds and the realization that maybe there aren't answers to every question.As I handed out the last of the clothing to the mother of the street family, I took a quick look at the tag on one of my shirts so I could remember the size of it for when I bought a new one back home. And there, right below the "XL" were the words, "Made In India". I guess that Karma thing is right, what goes around does come around.

Tidbittwo

Here are a few more things I found along the way:
There are no mops here, people use a rag and a bucket and squat down.
There are no brooms here, people use these short bound bundles of straw and lean over to brush the ground.
The purpose of eating with your hands is so that you taste the food and not the metal utensil.
While the dot on a person's forehead has become fashionable, it has its roots in the religious belief that we all have a 3rd eye between our existing two.
Throwing garbage on the street or ground is the norm. Needless to say, it's everywhere.
India is the world's largest democracy.
India's TV news consists of not only Indian World News channels in Hindi and English, but the BBC and Al Jazeera. (Al Jazeera is an Arabic News and Current Affairs news magazine and channel).
The reporters on Al Jazeera are all white North Americans or Europeans and the coverage offers far less biased news coverage, as does BBC, than any of the US news channels could hope for.
For travel, add at least an hour to any body's time estimates.
There is no answer that will satisfy an Indian's question to why you are not married yet.

It Always Rains on Good Friday

At the airport in Kochi, I stood in the doorway of the exit and watched as shafts of lightning struck the ground and thunder shook the air. I hadn't seen a thunder storm like that in a while. I hopped in a taxi and off we went. The driver was an Indian man who grew up in that area and his name was Peter, which I found interesting. Many Indians will have a westernized name that they use with tourists or foreigners, but this man was named Peter at birth. A while later I noticed a rosary wrapped around the rear view mirror. OK, so that kind of explains it.
When I finally got to my guesthouse in the village of Allappey, the rain had let up a bit. The small town was pretty sedate with not that many people milling around. I'm sure the rain had something to do with that. I checked into my guesthouse and went to see the manager about where I could go to rent a canoe. Around Allappey there are a series of lakes and canals that are known for being beautiful and serene. Many people come there and rent house boats to cruise the canals and spend the night out on the water. These houseboats are more like what we are use to. They do move around by a boat motor and have bedrooms and kitchens on them, but these are huge, bamboo and wood carved things that can fit up to 20 people and they come with a cook, captain and staff. Most of the people going on them are families or honeymooners. I, of course, was opting for the cheap, two seater canoe again.
Once in the manager's office, I told him I would like to find a canoe ride for tomorrow. When I say this, I notice a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall over his desk. He said that it might be difficult to find any boats for tomorrow. When I asked why, he said, because it's Good Friday. I asked him why that would matter here and he replied, "Because everyone in this part of Kerala is Christian."
I found it interesting that there was this pocket of Christianity here in the southern state of Kerala. Come to find out, it's because in the year 52 AD, St. Thomas came here and spread the word. The new Christians referred to themselves then and now as Syrian Christians due to the Syrian liturgy that is used in their services. This would be a pocket of Christianity that received its teachings from someone who was directly taught by Jesus without the hierarchy of a church in the way. You could say that these people here received a "purer" version of Jesus' teachings. No wonder that in the 1500s and 1600s the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal wanted to put an end to that. The Portuguese succeeded in converting many people here to Roman Catholicism though a few of the Syrian Christians remain.
Fortunately, I was able to get a boat. Like in Kashmir it was me and a paddler. The boat paddler didn't want me to paddle on this one either. So I sat under the canopy as the rain poured down. At one point I looked back at my paddler and noticed that he had on one of those umbrella hats to keep off the rain. It was one of the rainbow colored ones like you see people wearing at sporting events. We paddled around the canals for a couple of hours before encountering a massive amount of African Moss.
African Moss is a non native species of water plant that is taking over the waterways here. At times it gets so thick that you can't paddle through it. As was the case now. I turned and asked the boat guy if I could paddle and he desperately said yes. We thrashed in the water trying to get through this stuff with no luck, so we pulled over to the side and walked for a while along the canal walls. On the way back the African Moss got so thick again that we had to wait for a motor boat to go by and then quickly paddle in its wake before the moss closed in on us again. All the while, the rain poured down.
Along the waterways you see people just living their lives, washing clothes, dishes, swimming, cooking, harvesting rice. It's a really peaceful way to see this rural way of life. And though it rained all day it was a fun outing.
The little side road my guesthouse is on has a Hindu temple, a Mosque and a Christian church. In the morning at about 5AM you can have all three of them competing to see who will wake you up first with their loud speakers, chanting and bells.
The next day I took the public ferry to a town called Kottayam. It was another chance to see the local people using their only mode of transportation in and out of their remote villages. Many of the people use the ferry to move their harvested rice out and their supplies in. Also there are plenty of people out on fishing boats net fishing. Many of the boats have names. One that I saw was called the "Infant Jesus". That would be the Indian version of "8 pound 6 ounce Baby Jesus."
When I arrived in Kottayam I realized that it was just a big city, not a small village as I thought. I decided to just have lunch and then make my way back to Alleppey. But as I was having lunch, I noticed a procession of elephants in full regalia go by. I asked the waiter what it was about and he said that today was one of the last days of the Thirunakkara Utsavam Festival. He told me that the festival was to honor the birthday of the Hindu God Shiva and would be taking place that afternoon in the temple up the street with 22 elephants. That's right. Go Shiva! It's your Birthday! It's your birthday! You're the god of destruction, cuz it's your Birthday!
The large football field sized yard in front of the temple was filled with thousands of people. On the temple side of the field was a line of 10 elephants, all done up in full regalia with colorful clothes and golden decorations hanging down between their eyes and over their backs. These were the Shiva Temple's elephants. Across the field facing the temple's elephants was a line of 11 elephants, the largest one in the middle with a statue of Krishna on it. These elephants were from the Krishna temple down the street. I wondered why the Shiva temple elephants only had 10 elephants until I heard horns and bells and turned around to see a giant tusked male elephant, all done up, walking out the front door of the temple and down the stairs to the field. The elephant driver had to duck backwards to fit out of the 2 story high door. The giant elephant had an idol of Shiva on it, held by the driver and it lumbered its way down to the field and took its place in the center. Even though this elephant was huge and all done up and was obviously an older male, it still had that baby face that elephants have.
Once down in the field, the competition began, which consisted of the drivers of the elephants on each side displaying beautiful multi-colored umbrellas over head to the cheering of the crowd. The idea is that whichever side has the most beautiful umbrellas gets the loudest cheers and wins. All the while it poured. I mean monsoon poured. People's personal umbrellas where giving way and the porch areas of the temple were packed with people trying to stay out of the rain. My Goretex raincoat had succumbed to the rain about an hour into the festival and I was soaked to the bone. The only ones truly enjoying the rain were the elephants who finally got to cool down.
As the sun set, the festival continued into the dark. I decided to start making my way back to Allappey, which turned out to be a good choice because the buses were getting fewer and farther between. The ferry ride there would take almost 3 hours, so I was told the bus ride back would be 1-1.5 hours. Not a chance. It took me well over 3 hours to get back.
The next morning I woke and felt in really rough shape both cold wise and gastrointestinally. But I bit the bullet and hopped on another ferry that would move me further south to my next destination. I had lost all my appetite again and didn't eat all day. I passed out on the ferry for 8 hours. This was followed by a dizzying 1.5 hour bus ride. By the time I got to my next destination, the village of Varkala, I was in a daze. I checked into my guesthouse and went to sleep. About an hour later there was a knock on the back door. I woke and got up to answer it. When I opened the door I was greeted with a, "Hey handsome, how've you been?" And there she was. I knew I wasn't making it out of India without seeing her again, my old mistress, the Ghangida.
It would be about 2 and a half days before I could go out and about. The village I was in, Varkala, is a small beach town located right on the water. I decided that since I had lost almost 3 days to that wretched woman that I would stay another few days in Varkala just to recoup and soak up the sun. It was nice. My next three days were spent doing absolutely nothing. I woke up each morning and had breakfast beach side. This was followed by a leisurely walk on the beach and a dip in the bath-warm ocean. During the morning hours you could watch the fishermen go out in their little canoes and net fish. An hour or two later they'd paddle back in and sort the fish on the beach. That night you could have your guesthouse grill up what they caught.
From Varkala, I had time for one more place to visit. I decided on Kanyakumari, the far southern tip of India. It's where the three waters of the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet. I hopped a train and headed south.
The train works its way through pineapple farms and some really neat steep sided mountains before the landscape opens up to flat lands that lead to the ocean. There's not much there in Kanyakumari except a couple of temples and the sea. There are quite a few hotels though and a good amount of domestic Indian tourist. Not many foreigners here. It's hot, India hot. I dipped my feet in the water at the tip of the sub continent and looked out over the sea. Tomorrow I would have to turn around and begin a 3 day journey back to the US, but for now, I just soaked my feet.

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.

Lawrence of India

I went to Jaisalmer, in the far western desert of India for the purpose of going on a camel safari out into the desert. It has become an extremely popular touristy thing to do, but the thought of sleeping out in the desert on a sand dune under a blanket of stars sounded to good to pass up.
I also wanted to travel through the desert to see what the people who lived out there were like. Jaisalmer, which is right on the edge of the Great Thar Desert, used to be a major trading hub between India and points east and the city was built on the fortunes made by traders, travelers and bandits who used to spend their lives crossing the desert in camel caravans. Along with these caravans were the gypsies who were nomadic people who traveled the desert, going from village to village, camp to camp, playing music and dancing for their keep, sometimes performing for that day's meal. I wondered whether any of those nomadic, Bedouin people still existed out there in the sand.
I joined up with a group of French travelers who were staying at my guesthouse and the next day we were transported by jeep 40 kilometers out into the desert where we met up with our camels and their guides. The camels were loaded up with all our supplies: food, cooking utensils, blankets and backpacks. There were 9 of us on the trip with 5 guides. There were 12 camels all together. It was like going on a white water rafting trip across the desert. Each of us had our own camel and the guides, who initially walked and lead our camels by reigns, would eventually ride double on a camel or take turns walking.
Now if you've never ridden a camel before, it's fun for about half a day. We would be out for three. Camels don't really ride like horses, they rock back and forth a lot more and most importantly there are no stirrups. By the end of the first day, my butt was so sore. And not just sore, it was raw. I'm not kidding. Everyone was complaining about how much it hurt. I ran into people in Jaisalmer who set out on a 3 day trip and bailed after the first day. I was determined to make it all the way through.
Another thing about camels is that they are really ornery and like to fight and bite at each other. They're also stubborn and if they want to eat a bush, you can yank on their reigns all you want and it won't help, they'll go off and eat. Camels are also really, really smelly animals. They are constantly belching and farting. You kind of travel in a cloud of farts as you go and at night, in camp, if there's no wind you are in a big cloud of farts. Sometimes, when the camel would be in the middle of a 10 minute long belching fit (seriously), this thing would come out of its mouth. Initially I thought it was their tongue, but it's not, it almost looks like some sort of bladder or gland. The camel guides would call it a tongue if you called it a tongue or a stomach if you said the word stomach, so I don't know what it's really called, nor do I have any desire to look it up, it was pretty gross.
To me, camels are these prehistoric things that remind me of a Salvador Dali painting. Giant hump backed ships floating on spindly thin legs, sailing across a sea of sand.
While riding along that first day, the sun beat down on us but it wasn't that bad. It was so dry that your sweat evaporated and every so often there was a nice breeze. The desert wasn't the shifting sand type of desert you usually think of, it was a dirt and scrub brush desert, similar to that in southern California. There were big fingers of sand dunes here and there way out in the desert and we were heading towards one of those dunes to set up camp for the night.
In the Thar Desert is the Sam Sand Dunes, which are a big area of dunes but because they are so close to Jaisalmer and you can easily drive to them, they have become developed at their edges with all sorts of gift shops and are covered in garbage. It's a popular place for people to go and party and then leave their trash and empty beer bottles.
We passed through a couple of villages during the trip, mainly to water the camels. Each village looked relatively the same. Concrete or mud cubical homes with a big circular well in the middle. The well was a pool that was about two feet deep and 10 yards across. The women of the village would wash their clothes along the side of the well and some people were hauling away jugs. The villages didn't seem that isolated, they had a road passing through them and a line of telephone poles that carried electricity to the village. The people of the village mostly did their own thing though it was hard to tell how they made their living there, there was no agriculture. They definitely didn't look like the Bedouin, nomadic type. Once in a while a public bus would pass through. Occasionally the kids would beg for chocolates or "school pens". I asked our lead guide, Mohan, how deep they had to dig to get water for their well and he told me that they didn't. All the villages were supplied water by the water pipeline that comes out of Jaisalmer.
We left the village and continued to the sand dune where we would camp for the night. While riding along, I asked Mohan, where he was from. He said he grew up in a village not too far away. He said his main job is guiding camel treks. He spoke English very well and said he learned it from the tourists he guided, picking up a little each time. He could also speak a tiny French and Spanish and knew a couple words in Japanese. All of the guides dressed in the usual Indian fashion for city men. They had long sleeved button up shirts on with the sleeves rolled up and were wearing dress slacks. All wore sandals and all spoke, quite regularly, on their mobile cell phones as we rode along. In comparison to other working Indians, they earned good pay plus tips. They definitely weren't the nomadic Bedouins I was thinking of.
Once at camp for the night, the guides would hobble the camels by putting a short rope around their legs to keep them from running away in the night. Then they would make dinner which was the same as lunch: vegetable mush with rice. We did get plenty of chai tea, which was nice. The camp area was right at the edge of the dunes which was pretty neat to walk around on or roll around on. The different patterns the wind made in the sand was really cool. You could tell that they come to this same spot to camp each night, which is probably good to reduce impact. That being said, there was still a bit of garbage strewn about. Nowhere near what you would see in town, but still a bunch on the outskirts of camp and here and there across the desert.
There also seemed to be a couple of vagrants hanging around the camp in the form of two medium to small sized stray dogs. They were there when we got there, no doubt hanging out waiting on a few scraps.
Before dinner, Mohan asked us if we wanted beer or to have some gypsies come and perform for us. Everyone said yes and Mohan got on his cell and made a call. I didn't realize that you could make a phone call and have gypsies and beer delivered to your desert camp but apparently you can. Shortly after dinner, Mohan's guys started a big raging bonfire and two men and two women, dressed in traditional garb showed up and performed. One man played a two sided drum while the other played a flute type instrument. The two women sang in a very high pitched melodic voice. Once in a while the women would dance. Along with the beer, the gypsies brought "desert wine" that they had made themselves, it was in reused 2 liter plastic water bottles. I wasn't drinking any beer for fear it would re invoke the Ghangida and I certainly wasn't doing the desert wine. The rest of my group drank the beer and a few had the wine. The guy next to me let me sniff his wine. It smelled like really bad, cheap Mexican tequila. And it was hot. None for me thanks, I'm driving a camel. Needless to say, those that drank the desert wine that night, woke with horrible headaches in the morning. Towards the end of the night, the gypsy ladies kept making everyone dance with them and no one wanted to. Occasionally, during their performance, you would hear a strange ringing and one of the gypsies would stop and answer their cell phone. They would talk for a minute while the other three kept playing and singing. This happened three or four times. I also came to realize that for the last hour, they played the same song over and over. This wasn't just me being unfamiliar with gypsy melodies, everyone noticed it. It got to the point where we were all willing to pay them to stop. Finally they did, we paid them and off they went to their next gig. Not the nomadic, Bedouins I was thinking about either.
For sleeping arrangements, we all just laid down in the desert. Packed in on the camels were these thick blankets that we laid on the sand and used as our beds and then we had blankets to put over us. One, maybe two blankets was enough when it got a bit chilly in the night, but when you first laid down you didn't need anything. On the other hand, the French people all had new Northface 3 season bags that they were zipped up tight in, I'm not sure why, they must have been sweating away.
That night, the stars were bright and I laid there for a while watching the constellations and shooting stars before drifting off to sleep. In the middle of the night it got a bit chilly so I pulled the blanket up on me. A couple minutes later I was stirred by something at my legs. It was one of the stray dogs trying to snuggle up at the back of my knees. I looked at him and said, "Shoo", which he put his ears back and his tail between his legs and slinked away. I felt sorry for the little guy but didn't really want the little flea bag in bed with me.
Between sunset and going to bed, we saw a bunch of black beetles come out and start running around on the sand dunes. They would keep trying to come to you and hide under you or your blanket for warmth. No matter which way you flicked them or turned them around, they would keep coming. Even if you built big sand trenches with your hands in the soft sand they would try and come back, sometimes getting stuck in the sand at the bottom of the little valley. As you can tell, we entertained ourselves with these beetles. A few of the French people were worried that a beetle might climb on them in the night, that might explain the sleeping bags. When morning came we looked around at the sand and it was completely covered in the little tracks of beetles. They had been over every inch during the night. No doubt a few had danced on us!
As the sun came up, the sky turned pink and the wind picked up. I woke and pulled my blanket off. The others were still sleeping so I lay there looking at the sky enjoying the cool breeze. Eventually Mohan's crew stirred and made breakfast. After that we packed and mounted up and off we went. Though my butt was still really sore, riding on my back was the little bird of good fortune, so I felt positive that today would be different. I had an idea. I would take my daypack, which is all I brought with me on this trip, and hang it off the horn of the camel's saddle. I would let out the shoulder straps all the way so they hung as low as possible and slip my feet into them to serve as stirrups. This worked a little bit better but not all that well. Actually what I think it did was shift my body weight onto a different part of my butt so that by the time we stopped for lunch I had two huge raw spots instead of one.
After riding for a while that morning, I noticed that one of the stray dogs was following us. It was the guy who tried snuggling up with me last night. It was funny to watch him from up on the camel, way down there on the ground. He kept up with us the whole day, either walking right in line between the camels or off to the side in the random scrub. He was a white, male mutt who was maybe 30-40 pounds and had scars on his face from past battles. One of which was a big slash scar across his left eye and had lost that eye.
When we did stop for lunch, "One Eye" would stop too and sit under the shade of a bush. After lunch I determined that I didn't want to ride anymore and asked Mohan if I could walk. I told him I could walk my camel so it wasn't something else he had to worry about. He told me walking was not a problem and that because there were more people than camels, one of his men would just ride it.
So off we went, the caravan of camels and me on foot. I was surprised that the walking pace of the camels was the same as a human so it was easy to keep up with them. The only place I had trouble was when we hit spots of soft, dune sand, especially on a slope. There, I would be scrambling and the camel's big flat feet would show why they were so good in the desert, it didn't phase them in the least. I did notice though, that if I walked in the middle of the caravan it was really dense with farts. And I noticed that if I walked at the back of the caravan line that the camels actually kicked up about 6-7 feet of dust that you don't notice way up in the saddle but do when walking, so I paralleled them by about 100 yards off to the side.
It was good to walk. Between all the travel on planes and trains and now camel back I realized that I had been sitting for days. It was a nice and very needed chance to stretch out a bit. And before I knew it, One Eye was walking along with me. As I tried to cut a relatively straight path across the desert, One Eye would run ahead of me and find a shade bush to pause under. He would wait until I passed before taking off again and passing me to find another shady spot, all the while playing hide and seek with the sun.
As I walked, I saw lizards zipping across my path and birds flying around the bushes. In the sand were the nocturnal footprints of beetles, mice and snakes. That day I would walk for about 3 hours across the desert. It was really nice and I actually wish I had walked more than I did. I don't think I covered any great distance but I did go through a couple liters of water. It was hot. About 95 Degrees F.
That night we would reach another small dune and set up camp. This time there would be no dancing gypsies and no desert wine. The bonfire would not last as long, which was fine with me, I was happier watching the stars.
The next morning we had breakfast and packed up again. I decided to ride the last bit since we would be back at the road by late morning. One Eye, of course, headed out with us.
Whenever we would pass a shepherd and his flock of goats or sheep, the shepherd's dog would bark and chase One Eye. One Eye would run ahead and after a while we would come across him, standing there, panting under a thorn bush. When we would stop in a village to water the camels, One Eye would wait on the outskirts of town, knowing that if he tried to enter, the village dogs would run him off. At night he would sit at the edge of camp as if keeping a watch for bandits. He would bark at any person or other dog who appeared to be coming near camp. One Eye lives off the scraps of our food and the occasional handful of water. One Eye is the true Bedouin, living and moving out alone in the desert.
There on the last day, the camel trail left the desert and poured us onto a dirt road that skirted a farmer's irrigated field. It was a big field of tall grass that swayed in the wind. One Eye spotted something off in the field. At first I thought it was a person, but quickly realized that it was a scarecrow. One Eye's ears perked up and his tail wagged. Off he went into the coolness of the lush green field to hide until the next caravan came along to lure him across the desert again.

Show me da money

India's currency is called the Rupee. When I arrived in India, the exchange rate was 40 Rupees to 1 US dollar. At the same time, it was 60 to the Euro and 80 to the British Pound. In the time that I've been here, the US Dollar has dropped as low as 38.
The money itself comes in a similar breakdown to what we have. Coins of .50, 1, 2 and 5 rupees. Paper bills of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1000. You almost never see a 1 rupee paper note.
A couple interesting differences from US dollar bills is that, first, the bills here are color coded, as in, 1s are white, 5s green, 10s tan, 20s red, 50s purple and 100s blue. It actually makes it easier when you are pulling it out of your pocket, you can identify it right away. Unfortunately, so can touts.
The second thing is that the bills are different sizes, with the smaller denominations being tiny up to larger bills for the bigger bills. This, to me, is really inconvenient because they don't stack that well and always end up in a jumbled mess in your pocket. The 1 rupee bill, is literally the same size as a Monopoly board game bill. A 50 is about the size of a US Dollar and the rest get incrementally larger.
Some of the art work on the bills is really nice. There appears to be a recent printing of many of the bills and Gandhi was added to each one. Mostly just a head portrait, though one bill shows him leading his march to the sea on the back. The bill I like the best is the 10 rupee, it has a beautifully drawn picture of a rhino, tiger and elephant on it.
There are a couple of 'games' that the touts and vendors play throughout India in regards to the exchange of money. First off, many of the bills are down right filthy and have probably been in circulation since independence. If your bill is too dirty or has the slightest rip in it, the vendors won't take it. They'll look at it and say it's no good. You end up having to give them a newer, clean one. However, once you pay them, they will give you the nastiest ripped bills they've got. You'll see them look at their stack of money and pick out the worst one. You of course, find yourself falling into the 'game' and doing the same thing.
My watch died here and I was buying a really cheap one from a street vendor. I got him down to 50 rupees for the watch and gave him a 50 bill that was clean, but had a 2 millimeter sized rip at the fold. He wouldn't take it and said to give him another bill. I said I didn't have another bill and showed him that I only had a couple of 10s in my pocket. He then said, OK, give me 60 and I'll take it. I told him no, that if the bill was good enough to take with an additional 10 rupees, it was good enough to take as it was. It's either good or it's not. After a short stand off, he gave in and I got the watch. Now, a little over a month later, the watched died, so I'm not sure who really won that battle.
Another "game' that is played is that no one, I mean no one, has change. You can be standing in a line and watch the 30 people in front of you pay with 10 rupee bills, but when you get up there and give the guy a 20 rupee bill, he'll say he doesn't have change. People who are traveling hoard their 10 rupee bills, they're like gold, especially for dealing with rickshaw touts who are trying to rip you off. If the agreed fare was 60 and he decides he know wants 80, you can't give him a 100 and expect him to give you the right change back, it won't happen and it doesn't. Even if there's no argument, like you owe 90 and give him a 100, he'll pocket the whole thing and say thanks for the tip. Golden 10s.
To make matters worse, ATMs spit out 500s and 1000s. When you take out $300 US Dollars from the ATM, you get 12,000rupees. Nothing is worse that getting the machine that gives you twelve 1000 rupee bills. Try and break that thing.
Other interesting money facts here are that at any tourist attraction, Indians pay one price and foreigners pay a higher price. For instance, most palaces cost 10 rupees to get into as an Indian. They cost 250 rupees to get into as a foreigner. No at first this sounded outrageous to me, but the more I thought about it the less I minded. India is just starting to have domestic tourism. The middle class is just starting to get out and see the cultural gems that are around their country. And Indians have a lot less money to spend. I have no problem with the price difference. At times, you'll even see the guard letting locals in for free. I have no problem with this either, except for the fact that alot of times the locals getting in for free are touts or gangs of teenage boys who come around and harass you while you are trying to see the sights. The touts will follow you and badger you to buy crap and the boys will find solo travelers and harass them. I've been harassed by the teenage boys once or twice, one time I had to run after them pretending I was going to beat them up. I actually wasn't angry but was just tired of being harassed. Basically, there will be a group of about 6 boys aged 13 to 18 and they will find a solo foreigner and circle around them. They will then start asking the usual questions that most other people ask like "Which country are you from." "What is your name." Except that as you are trying to be nice and answer them, the leader who is asking these questions is also making rude jokes to his friends and all are laughing. Usually they start harassing you for money, even though they are from wealthier families. At times I find myself lowering myself to their level and making rude comments to them about their bad fashion or gelled hair. Joke about them having a smaller testicular capacity usually catches them off guard since culturally they are not accostomed to talking about those things. They are just a bunch of teenagers out screwing with people, it happens in the US too. And I can bad mouth the teenage boys because I use to be one!

Planes, Trains and Autorickshaws

After leaving Kashmir, I flew into New Delhi with the hopes of catching a connecting flight out to the far western desert of India and a city called Jaisalmer. I was not able to make the connecting flight, so I went to the train station and got on a 19 hour train to Jaisalmer. Getting the train ticket was the usual Indian pain in the ass. I told my taxi driver to take me from the airport to the train station. He asked if I had a ticket. I wasn’t thinking and said that that was why I had to get to the train station, so I could buy my ticket. He of course, brings me to some friend of his travel agency. I wouldn’t even get out of the car to play his game and yelled at him to get going. As he bullshitted me his friend comes out and tries to give me the sell. I said to him nicely I wasn’t interested, but thank you. The travel agency guy said something rude and walked away. I didn’t let it get to me, because I had a whole lot of Kashmiri patience built up. The taxi guy finally got going and dropped me at the train station. The reason I didn't want to deal with the travel agent was, first, he would charge me 25% on top of the ticket fee for doing the same thing I could do by walking up to the counter and because at the train station is a Foreign Tourist Advance Booking Office which allows you to buy tickets that are put aside for foreign tourists even after the train is sold out. The travel agent doesn't have that ability. I would be leaving from a different train station but had to go to this one because that is where the office is to buy the tourist ticket. When I got to the foreign ticket office they wouldn’t sell me the train ticket because it had to be more than 4 hours in advance of the trains departure. It was now 3hours and 45 minutes before. I was 15 minutes past the cut off, because of the taxi driver and his games. I now had to go to the train station I was departing from and stand in a massive line. I'm not going to let it bother me and thought of Dal Lake. I then had to get an auto rickshaw to go between train stations but none of the drivers wanted to take me because it’s such a short distance. It should cost 50 rupees and most wanted 150. I waited them out until I got one to take me. Patience, I thought. I got to the train station and as I was looking at the ticket windows a younger guy came up and said where are you going? I said Jaisalmer. He said, oh, you need to go to this counter and pointed to a long line. I waited for about a half an hour in that line only to find out it was the wrong line. When I was walking to the right line I saw the younger guy looking at me and laughing, I walked up to him and poked him in the chest with my finger and called him a liar. He ran off. OK, Dal Lake was now boiling and I could snap at any minute. Must get ticket quickly and drink a cold Sprite, is what I was now thinking. I waited in the other line for about 45 minutes. As I waited, people were constantly coming up to the front and cutting in, but no one in the line seemed to care. Crisp, clean and caffeine free I kept thinking as I imagined holding cold the bottle up to my head. As I got about three people from the counter a guy went to cut in at the counter. I stepped forward and put my arm out and said No and gestured to the back of the line. He said, "Oh, it's OK and cut in again." I grabbed him and I'll say, "Positively guided him in the direction of the back of the line. I didn't see him again. Finally I got my ticket. When it came time to buy the ticket, I decide to buy one of the nicer 2nd Class Sleeper train spots rather than the usual General Sleeper, mainly because there would be less people and touts and I was afraid I might kill someone if they woke me in the night to sell me something.

On the train, I went to bed at 10:30pm. The other 3 bunks were empty. At 1:00am three Indian men would come in and sit down and turn the light on. I’m on the top bunk, they are sitting on the bottom ones. The talked really loudly for about a half an hour before I had had enough. I had to compose myself first because I initially was going to jump down and start slitting throats. Not quickly slitting them, just nice and methodical. I plainly asked them to stop talking and turn the light off and explained that it was 1:30am. They said OK but it would be about another 30 minutes before they actually stopped talking and went to bed.

When I got to Jaisalmer, a driver from my hotel was suppose to meet me. I waited and was bombarded by other taxi drivers. I said no and told them all I was waiting for my hotel driver to come. One guy said, “no you’re hotel is full you need to come to mine.” Another told me that my hotel sent him to get me but when I asked, he didn’t know the name of my hotel. After a while a guy came up to me and said he drove for my hotel and said the name (I had said the name to some of the drivers earlier so I think that's how he knew) I told the guy that I recognized him as a driver from a different hotel. He said he drove for both and he would give me a free ride. I figured a free ride's a free ride. The whole way he badgered me to come to his hotel instead. Finally when he realized I wasn’t giving in he said, OK, your hotel is right up that street and dropped me at the corner. I could see the large fort in the city way off in the distance and knew my hotel was near it and told him we weren’t near it. He said we were and quickly drove off. When I asked a shop owner how far I was from the hotel, he said 2k. Another Tout. I had a nice walk in the desert heat. Once at my hotel I found out that the train had gotten in 45 minutes early then scheduled and the driver from my hotel hadn't gotten there yet. I dropped off my bag in my room, walked up to the roof top restaurant and sipped my crisp cold Sprite.

Kashmir

Kashmir is a region in the far northwestern part of India, and for many people, Kashmir means different things. The two most common things the region is known for is its beautiful, soft, wool that is exported worldwide in the form of scarves, sweaters and various other articles of clothing. The other, more notorious thing the region is known for throughout the world is that it has been the battleground, and one of the main reasons for, the three wars that have taken place between India and Pakistan.
When you look at the U.S. State Department's Travelers Advisory web page it warns against going anywhere near Kashmir. It speaks of the potential of violence to break out at any minute and the threat from terrorists in the area. I figured with that kind of publicity, there probably wouldn't be any lines to wait in and availability at every hotel. I headed up there right after visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
I will try to explain the recent political history of Kashmir as best I can but rest assured this is nowhere near everything involved. It is a subject that, if you're interested in, is worth looking further into and encompasses not just India and Pakistan but has ties to the US, Britain and China. Not to mention the middle east. Influences from World War II helped mold a mindset of self defense here in India and this has had a big impact on the way India deals with the rest of the world. With India emerging as a world economic power, the tensions between it and Pakistan are not going to go away and have the potential to affect us all.
India's two major religions are Hinduism and Muslim. They haven't always gotten along here. After independence from England, Gandhi tried to hold the people of India together as one nation but the tensions were too much and the country was divided in two, well, actually three.
The new area that came out of this division was Pakistan and it was what used to be the far western part of India and the far eastern part of India. The concept was to divide the country along religious lines thereby separating Hindu India from Muslim Pakistan. The new country of Pakistan now had two parts, separated by the entire country of India. And while this division was based on religion, there were many, many mixed communities all over the country who had been living together for generations. Once the line was drawn there were millions of people who instantly became refugees fleeing to get to their "appropriate" country. Horribly, in the mass migration that followed, hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered on both sides because of their religious differences.
It is important to remember, too, that when the British colonized India, India was a collection of many small nations each led by it's own Maharajah or leader. The British used these Maharajahs against each other, promising certain leaders regional power if they helped bring other Maharajahs down. During the British Raj or colonial time here, much of India's regional governing was done by these Maharajahs and the Maharajahs in return answered to the Crown of England. The British only dealt with the overall governance. Things ran this way right up until independence and when the country was divided, these Maharajahs were still in power.
Now way up north, where the dividing line between Western Pakistan meets the beautiful Himalayan mountains, there were a handful of local rulers that were allowed to decide which side they wanted to be on. For the most part, this came easily. The areas that were mainly Hindu and Buddhist went with India and the areas that were Muslim went with the newly formed Pakistan. Except Kashmir. The local ruler of Kashmir didn't want to be associated with either side and wanted complete autonomy, he wanted Kashmir to become it's own country. Both sides let him know that this was not going to be allowed to happen. The ruler then said he needed time to decide, so everyone waited, but they were pretty sure that Kashmir would go with Pakistan because almost everyone there was Muslim. But Kashmir didn't come back with an answer quickly enough for Pakistan and Pakistan sent troops in to forcefully take Kashmir. The ruler of Kashmir played his hand and decided to side with India because of Pakistan's invasion and asked India to defend it. Thus started that first of three wars between India and Pakistan.
In the first Indo-Pakistani War, India regained control of Kashmir but it took the United Nations to bring the two countries to an unresolved stalemate. In 1965 war broke out again mainly over the issue of who owned Kashmir and when China threatened to intervene (which who knows what that would mean), the U.N., led by the US and Britain stepped in to bring another unresolved stalemate. In 1971 Eastern Pakistan and Western Pakistan deteriorated into a civil war. Once again, refugees in East Pakistan, in the amount of 10 million, were on the run to India and with that Pakistan attacked Indian territory. India and Pakistan entered their third war in just over twenty years. Eastern Pakistan declared its independence as Bangladesh, India beat Pakistan back and once again the U.N. stepped in to arrange a cease fire.
Since the mid 1980's, violence has been a part of life in Kashmir, mainly Muslim militants attacking Indian army outposts in the area and exploding bombs throughout the region. It was not uncommon for gunfire to be breaking out in the center of Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir. The primary request of the militants has been the removal of the Indian Army from Kashmir and the handing over of Kashmir to Pakistan. For about the last 20 years, this violence has gone on while the people of Kashmir, the people who actually live there, not the militants and not the soldiers, lived in fear everyday for their lives and lost many loved ones to a conflict they didn't want, between two countries that they don't want to be a part of.
In recent years the violence has subsided and tourism has returned to Kashmir. Indian tourism that is. North American and European tourism has only come as a trickle in the last 2 years. I wanted to be part of that trickle. Now you might ask yourself why, with a history like that of Kashmir, would anyone want to go visit it, but one look at its beautiful snow peaked mountains being reflected in pristine alpine lakes and you'll understand why.
This time of year (Early March), the one road that approaches Kashmir from the south was on again, off again, closed due to snow. Even if it was open, it would be about a 24 hour drive from Amritsar. The road from the north would be closed until probably May. So I flew. The airport had a heavy military presence at it and there were more forms than normal to fill out. It was unusual to have to go through security to leave the airport.
All along the road from the airport to the city of Srinagar, there were soldiers in full gear, with rifles standing post along the roadside. I noticed that about halfway between the airport and the town there appeared to be quite a few new homes being built. And not just small concrete cubes like elsewhere in India, there were very nice, two story houses made of wood and brick. Who they were for, I don't know, maybe the military, maybe tourist rentals, maybe locals.
The city of Srinagar also has a heavy military presence in it, with soldiers on every corner and various hotels being taken over and now used as barracks for the soldiers. You constantly see soldiers either standing post or walking along the roads. Here and there were sand bag bunkers filled with men and machine guns, but the strange thing is, it all seemed so peaceful. The people in the city went about their lives and no one seemed to notice the soldiers. One of the first things my cab driver told me was to never take a photo of any soldiers or any military buildings.
One of the first things that I noticed was that there wasn't as much garbage here. And not as many people.
The newer part of Srinagar is set on a big body of water called Dal Lake. Behind Dal Lake is a nice mountain ridge that still had snow on it. The snow in Srinagar itself had all melted off, probably a couple weeks ago. Lined up in the water of Dal Lake were hundreds of these old wooden house boats. The houseboats used to be the homes of the British who for some reason weren't allowed to own land, so instead they built these ornately detailed "houses" on top of rectangular barges and made them their summer vacation spots. Since the British left, these house boats have been turned into cheap tourist accommodations. Now, while some of them are still very nice, more than half are in pretty bad condition, some rotting into the water. These house boats are not like the self propelled house boats we have in the US that you drive around the lake in while bikini clad girls dance to Motley Crue (sorry, had a little day dream there). Think trailer park on the water. Think double wide. In the area of the lake where boats are all anchored there's quite a bit of trash in the water and the sewage from the boats drop straight to the water. For the most part, they're an environmental nightmare and should be pulled out. Fortunately they are restricted to one part of the lake. Once away from that area, the lake is calm and beautiful. I took a 'guided' paddle out on it in a small little wooden canoe. They wouldn't let me just rent the thing and take it out by myself, they made me have a paddler, who paddles it while I sat there. Something about relaxing and enjoying myself. Ha. The guy who does the paddling doesn't really speak English but he's the "guided" part of your rental, since, he is the one who's deciding which direction you go in. Normally, couples rent these larger, twenty something foot long boats, called "Shikaras", with big cushions and a canopy over them and the paddler takes them around the lake. Very romantic. Since it was just me and I'm cheap, I didn't want to rent the 20+ foot thing, so I asked him to rent me this smaller, no frills, plain wooden canoe with no seats, no pads and no canopy. Just a wooden cross beam to sit on in the middle while the guy paddled from the back. This smaller canoe is usually only used to carry tourists from the shore to their houseboats maybe 100 yards away, so the guy who ran the rental place looked at me like I was nuts. I got it for half the price of the regular one, how's that for romantic? It was nice to be drifting out on the water with the fresh air and snow covered mountains above. It was a nice change from the garbage strewn, smog choked cities of northern India.
That night, I checked into a guesthouse call the Swiss Hotel. The hotel is located in the newer part of town, right near the lake. The manager is this guy named Rouf and he and his whole family really take you in. Other than me, there was one Indian businessman from Jammu (south of Srinagar) staying there and a young British couple who came to ski (India's premier ski resort, Gulmarg is up the road).
The day I arrived, they were having a birthday party for Rouf's 2 year old daughter. I ate pastries and sweets until I was sick. That night, when the party was over, Rouf's cousin had to drive some of the family to the Old City and asked if I wanted to come along. You bet I did. After we dropped the family off, he had to find somewhere to buy medicine for the birthday girl and juice for tomorrow. We zig zagged across the Old City, where most of the urban fighting had taken place, and the cousin told me what it was like to spend the last 18 years "unsure if you were going to make it home that day." He said you became numb to the gunfire and went about your life and work but always worried if you were going to get home. And when you did make it home, worried if the rest of the family would make it too.
The cousin showed me the big, brick two story building that his grandfather had built and his family lived in until the military moved in after independence. The military commandeered it and it's been used as soldier's quarters ever since. He showed me the High Court Building and the main government center called the Secretariat Building which has the city's only elevated highway bridge passing right in front of it. That night Rouf and his cousin and I sat and spoke about a whole range of issues over chai. Rouf would get all excited and pontificate. It was an incredible learning opportunity.
Rouf told me how he and many others are trying to get the house boats out of Dal Lake. He said that the hundreds that I see there now are half of what use to be there. He said he wished Lonely Planet (the guide book company) would tell people not to use them. (Lonely Planet does have a paragraph about how polluting the houseboats are but on the same page promotes them as their number on pick on where to stay. Go figure?) Rouf told me that there use to be thousands of trees in the shallows of the lake (it's a big lake), but politician decided that the best way to clean and promote healthy lake water was to cut all the trees down. And they did, with no scientific research or basis. I saw no trees on the lake, even at the edges.
We spoke about the violence and the potential for things to flare up again. The cousin, who was probably in his early thirties, didn't seem too worried. He said that things were stable now and getting better. After the cousin headed home, Rouf, who was probably in his forties told me not to be out after dark. He said that things could change quickly, that while, yes, there are concerns anywhere you travel in the world nowadays and that things could change in a matter of days in any country, he warned that things in Kashmir can change in minutes. He said he'd seen it. He was angry about the fighting because most people in Kashmir don't support either side and yet they are the ones who suffer the most. "Without peace there can be no prosperity". He spoke of how the fighting hurt the area financially as well. Every day I was there, as I walked out the door to go sightseeing, Rouf would say, "Be home by dark." In a way it was funny and made me feel like a little kid who's heading out to play. Only I knew Rouf wasn't playing around.
The next day I walked up to a mosque that sat way up on a hill. Rouf said that walking around during the day was fine, but that there was a celebration going on up there and that it would be packed with people and if I wanted to avoid being squished in with a crowd I could just walk the lake. I headed to the mosque. Come to find out the celebration was for the Prophet Muhammed's birthday. There were a lot of people up there but you could still walk around. Mostly it was families sitting around the mosque grounds eating lunch. Initially, I thought, that if it was Muhammad's birthday it should be much lively celebration, but it was pretty sedate. I think I remember from what I've read, Muslim celebration are quite reserved. Especially in comparison to Hindu festivals that are all noise, color and chaos. I was also really surprised that no one was staring at me, no one was checking me out, like they do in the rest of India. The just passed me by like they didn't notice or care. I would find out why in shortly.
After leaving the mosque, I walked up to a look out point where you could see the whole city, with lake and mountains framing it all in. There were a handful of people up there and eventually, these two young men who were about 22 walked up to me and started talking. Their English was perfect (I would find out why on that later, too). Initially, just as in the Golden Temple, I had my guard up, but within a couple minutes I realized they just wanted to chat. And that they were both very genuine and nice. They were both born and raised right there in Srinagar and they both had recently graduated from the University there with business degrees. They said that they were anxious to get out of Srinagar, not because they didn't like it but because the education and job opportunities were limiting. The said that they wanted to go to grad school in the US and when I pressed them about the reality of that happening, they confessed that it wasn't that hard. They said many of their friends were already there getting their MBAs. They said due to the political climate in Kashmir, there was now very high levels of unemployment because no one wanted to keep a business there. I asked them if they studied English in High School or college and told them that they spoke it well. They looked at me curiously and said, "We are schooled in English from Kindergarten on, it's the primary language here in Srinagar." They told me that they speak Kashmiri (which I heard them speak as well) but that they learn that in their homes from their parents and grandparents. While we were talking, and elderly man came up to the two guys and asked a question in Kashmiri. I heard them answer something back in Kashmiri that included "Alaska". (I had told them where I was from). They then turned back to me and said that the old man asked where I was from. They told him where and he became very surprised. He told the two guys that he thought I was a Kashmiri man. I asked why. The two guys told me, "Because you have Kashmiri features." Then it hit me. I looked at the two guys I was talking to, then looked at everyone at the area. I did looked like them, or they looked like me. Everyone had brown hair, not Indian black. Everyone had eyes that were green, hassle or light brown. Everyone had very light skin and, most of all, they had long, thin, narrow noses. No wonder no one at the mosque looked at me as out of place. (Oh, also, I guess I should mention that by this point I have a full beard and I'm dressed in bland brown pants with a bland winter jacket I bought in Northern India.) I looked at the kid who was doing most of the talking and realized that though he and I had similar features, he looked just like my friend James Walton in Denali. The only difference is that he had my long nose! And he was in his early 20s. He looked like what one of those computer morph things would do to show what my and James' love child would look like. It was funny and spooky at the same time.
So after a while, they took off because they said they had to visit several other mosques today since it was the special day. We said our good byes and I walked down from the hill into the Old City where I had been last night with Rouf's cousin.
Now I should clarify that there are people that have the "traditional" I'll call it, Indian look in Kashmir, and there's some people that look Himalayan. Like elsewhere their is a mix of people.
Walking down into the Old City that day was pretty neat. The sky was overcast and it added to the atmosphere of the old brick buildings, some of which were medieval looking. The old, slouching brick was accented by carved wooden balconies and window shutters. As I walked around I had several people come up to me and just want to talk. I had two older men invite me for tea and everyone I met was so, so nice that the touts seemed a world away.
I walked around the Old City for most of the day and the scenery was only interrupted by the presence of soldiers that seemed to be on every street corner. Bunkers were made in front of hotels that they had moved into and other government buildings. At one point, while walking past a bunker, I heard a soldier ask from behind the caging and sandbags, "Hello, where are you from?" I spoke to him for a few seconds. He was from central India and had been posted there for the last 3 years. His wife and children were still down in central India. I told him "good luck", he said "thank you", and I quickly moved on. I became very conscious of the government and military buildings and avoided them. I figured if anything was going to get hit it was them. But then maybe I was letting Rouf make me too paranoid.
Most of the men of Kashmir wear a pancho type cover called a Pheran. It's a traditional piece of clothing made out of wool and it hangs down to your knees. The wool is usually earthy tones like brown or green. Rouf wore one most of the nights and I would realize that he, as did most men, carried a small wicker basket full of burning coal under the pheran to keep warm while walking around at night. He let me hang onto the basket a couple of times and it was quite toasty.
At the end of the day I went to see the Jama Masid, the largest mosque in the city. It was impressive with the ability to hold 33,000 people. There I ran into the two guys from the other mosque. (the mosque was just about empty so it wasn't like we found each other in a crowd of 30,000). While there I asked them to tell me about religion in their family. They told me that they usually don't go to mosque everyday for prayers, they just pray where ever they are when the time occurs (5 times a day) and usually go on Friday afternoon for the big weekly call to prayers. They spoke about how they fasted at Ramadan and then ate at the celebration of Eid ul-Fitr, the holiday that ends Ramadan. They told me that they rarely come to this big mosque and just go to smaller ones near their homes. Finally, in a bit of a rush, they looked at the time and said they had to go catch a bus home because it was getting dark and off they went again.
Getting dark? Oh boy, I hurried home but it was about an hour after dark by the time I got there. Rouf gave me a look when I walked through the door but then laughed and said he was only joking.
That night he told me that it was true that the children of Srinagar are taught in English all the way through school. He told me that they also chose whether they want to learn Hindu or Urdu (the language of Pakistan, which is very similar to Hindu) to accompany their English. He said they don't study their native language of Kashmiri at all, that has to come from their family. Rouf said that he agreed with me when I told him that it worried me that in a few generations that Kashmiri would die as a language. He did tell me though that this was only in Srinagar and that in the surrounding towns and villages of Kashmir they still learned in their native language, or in the remote areas, they didn't go to school and learned Kashmiri at home. Rouf added that in Srinagar children were encouraged to follow whatever studies interested them. Then he leaned back in his chair and nostalgicly added that he studied Cricket and that he never made it out of High School.
Rouf also told me that the reason some people in Kashmir had light skin, light eyes and slender noses was because they were the "Decendents of Alexander." Refering to Alexander the Great. Kashmir was about the furthest that Alexander was able to make it into India before an army mounted on elephants turned him back. That loss was the end of the road for Alexander and he turned his troops around. While heading back towards the middle east, Alexander would die, but many of his soldiers would stay. I'm assuming when they say, "Desendents of Alexander" they're refering to the offspring of the European soldiers who stayed behind and not all from Alexander, but then again, they did call him "Great".
At night the tempatures would drop and it would get cold not only outside but in the hotel as well, since there was no central heating. You'd be hard pressed to find central heating anywhere in India) Each night as I would say good night and head up to my room, Rouf's cousin would run into the back house where Rouf and his wife and baby lived and give me a freshly made hot water bottle. I'd put that thing down in the foot of my covers and wrap my toes around it. It surprisingly kept me warm all night and in the morning still had a little heat left in it.
The next day I hired a taxi to take me to Gulmarg, the ski resort. The public transportation in Srinagar is an interesting thing. In the rest of India you have all sorts of people who you have to haggle with, bargain with and fight with just to get a ride. Endless touts will try to rip you off and you really have to know what the going rate is or you could end up paying three times the amount. Not to mention the condition and quality of the vehicle your being transported in is usually pretty crappy. There in Srinagar, they've unionized all of the public transportation and there are set rates for all the taxis and set rates on all the places you could possibly go. Even the Shikara boats are regulated. Initially when I saw the prices I thought, Wow! what a monopoly. But after I calculated what the distance and time was to the places I wanted to go and compared it to the other taxis I had rented, it pretty much worked out to be about the same. In comparision, sometimes it was more expesive and in others, like the death ride to the border ceremony in Amritsar, it was quite a bit cheaper and made me realize that that driver made off like a bandit. And the thing about it is, all the taxis are nice, new and clean. Also, the driver was very professional, safe and get this, followed the driving rules! At no point did I feel like I was going to die in his , and in India, that's a big thing. It made me think that since all of these drivers earn the same rate to bring you somewhere, the only way they can attract your business is to provide you with better service than the other guy. This leads to a much higher quality of service there in Srinagar. In the rest of India, since drivers are competing against each other, and you, to make as much profit as possible, they will stretch that profit margin by reducing service by skimping on things like vehicle upkeep, sanitary conditions and other important things like brakes. I'd take a ride with a Kashmiri driver any day over the rest of the cabbies I've driven with in India.
So off we headed to Gulmarg. It was a couple hours drive and we eventually wound our way high up into the mountains, well above snow level. When we got to the top, the taxi driver parked and said, "Take your time, I'll be here at the car when you get back." This from a man making a flat rate. Elsewhere in India the driver would have said anything over 'X' amount of time is going to cost you more.
At the ski resort, there were a bunch of people on the bunny slope, but the snow was starting to get sticky with the spring thaw. I saw a new type of monkey sitting on the roof of a building. There were only two of them and they were in between the size of the macaque and the langur. Also they were really furry, which I'm sure helps up there in the snow. I don't know what they were called. I watched them for a while hoping to figure out what their disposition was but they were so engrossed with grooming each other that I couldn't tell.
I walked up to the lodge and bought a ticket for the gondola. The lodge itself was nothing spectacular and reminded me of some smaller Connecticut ski lodges back in the 70s. I wasn't planning on skiing but wanted to ride the gondola up to the top to see the views. It claimed to be the highest chairlift in the world at 13,500 feet. Once up at the top, the views were spectacular and because of the tempature drop, the snow was perfect for skiing. I stood at the edge of the double black diamond run and watched the skiers and snowboarders go down. Up top there's no one running the gondola, you get off and on, on your own and there didn't appear to be any ski patrol either. I hung around up there taking pictures and looking at the peaks and then when my toes were frozen I headed back down. (I was wearing sneakers, why do you ask?)
As I walked back to the car I noticed that many Indian families, who weren't there to ski either, would pay men to pull them around on small wooden sleds. It was strange, because they weren't sledding down and of the slopes or little hills on these sleds they were just being pulled around on the flat ground.
I found my driver and off we went back to Srinagar.
That night, as every night, I ate at this restaurant down the street called Lhasa. It was run by a family of Tibetian refugees and was easily some of the best food I've had in India. Not to mention how nice the family was. The owner would make me lunches of giant vegetable spring rolls to take with me on my daily outings. After dinner, Rouf, the cousin (sorry I don't remember his name) and I talked for a while in the front office/lobby area of the hotel. Later, I got on line using the hotel's computer (which was free!!). After a little while Rouf said, "Hey, are you going to be here online for a bit?" I said yes. He said, "Can you watch the front desk for me while my cousin and I go eat dinner?" "No problem," I replied. "If anyone comes in just tell them to have a seat and I'll be back in a short while." Rouf would return an hour later. Fortunately no one came in to rent a room. In the five days that I spent in Kashmir, Rouf had me watch the front desk four or five times. Each time he was gone for about 45 minutes to an hour. Sometimes people would come in looking for him and then leave. Sometimes people would come in and say something in Kashmiri and I would shrug and they would smile and leave. Rouf was such a trusting guy at times it was amazing. When I was checking out I told him I wanted to pay my bill. He said, "OK, but if you don't have the money on you just send it to me later." What??? I've never travelled anywhere else in the world and had that be an option.
The next day I would get the same taxi driver and off we would go to a village called Pahalgm. It was about 4 hours away, tucked away in a steep canyon at the edge of the Himalayas.
To get there, we went through a handful of villages and long stretches of agricultural land. Kashmir, I came to realize on the flight in, was a large valley with a mountain ranges on both sides. Now, driving across the farmland, I realized just how fertile that area was. We passed fields of saffron, rice and mulberries. And then orchards of almonds, apples and walnuts. There appeared to be a fair amount of logging at the edge of the valley too, and plenty of small "factories" that made cricket bats. At times, poplar trees lined the road and once in a while I'd see people out in the fields but not often since it wasn't planting or harvest time. The saffron fields were empty but we did stop to see a shop that sold it right at the edge of the fields. The old guy in the shop explained how they harvested it and then showed me a bag of it. He showed me one of its purple flowers, too. He asked if I wanted to buy any. I said no thanks, that I wasn't able to cook while traveling. He said, I could put it in my tea. I said I'd take a bag of almonds instead and me and the driver snacked on them for the rest of the ride. When I got back to Delhi I went and looked up the price of saffron in a market there. A good price in the city was 250 rupees($6.25) per gram. Right now Pure Kashmiri saffron goes for $12.00/gram in the US. The old man in Kashmir was asking 150 rupees ($3.75). I should have bought.
A definite thing you notice in Kashmir is that the roads are a mess! Potholed, broken up obstacle courses in dire need of repair. It took us 4 hours to go a little over 60 miles. At one point we came to a spot where the road had been ripped up from construction and then left that way. I asked the driver how long it had been that way. "Six years," he said. When I asked why, he replied, "Because all our taxes go to Delhi and Delhi has a nice new Metro." He's right. Delhi does have a nice, new, and I'm sure very expensive Metro. If I lived in Kashmir and knew that all my taxes went to the central government and none came back to fix my local infrastructure even though my area brought in a fair amount of taxes compared to the rest of the country, I'd want autonomy too.
As we got closer to Pahalgm, the road began to follow a pretty rushing river called the Lidder. The landscape changed from farmland to forest and the road took us right down the middle of a steep sided canyon with granite mountain ridges on both sides. The driver parked and off I went to try and find a particular hiking trail in the area. Problem was that no one spoke English and everyone pointed in different directions. When I finally figured out where it started, I realized that the trail itself was going to be covered in snow. I gave up on following it and just made my way up the ridgeside zig zagging between patches of ground that didn't have snow on them. The higher I went, the more snow and before I knew it I was postholing up to my knees. Good thing again that I was wearing sneakers. I worked my way up to a big meadow about 5 miles above the road and found a spot to sit and look at the jaggedy snow covered mountains. I pulled out my little care package of spring rolls and had lunch. It was georgeous. Below was a forest of pine and above were peaks of deep snow. The green and white under a blue sky was beautiful. The sun was bright and warm and I felt like a ton of stress just lifted off of me. Stress from travel, pollution and poverty. I soaked it up for about an hour and a half and then darker clouds started moving in. I packed up and headed down hill, at times practically skiing in my sneakers as I slid further and further towards the road.
When I arrived back in Pahalgm I found my driver. It was getting late and we headed home, but before we took off, we stopped one more time by the river and took a look at the swift moving water. I had the driver stand next to his car and I took a photo of him and his taxi. He was probably around 60 years old and stood up straight and proud next to his car.
I had one more night at Rouf's and as usual, he and his cousin and I spoke for a while before retiring. Also as usual, when I woke in the morning, Rouf had made me chai and roti (flat round bread). Shortly after my tea and bread I said my good byes to Rouf and off I went with the same taxi driver to the airport. Once at the airport, we had to go through several different check points before we could even enter the place. Once inside, I grabbed my bag and shook my driver's hand. Since the driver and Rouf knew each other, I told the driver that I would email Rouf the picture of him standing next to his taxi and that he could look at it on Rouf's computer. A big smile broke out across his face and he gave me a hug. It caught me a bit off guard. But there's a good chance he's never had a photo of himself, let alone him and his taxi.
On March 6th, as I flew out of Srinigar, I looked back to the north and was amazed to see the enormous peaks jutting up through the clouds. I will definitely miss this place and I will truly miss the Kashmiri people. They were some of the nicest, friendliest people I have met in all my travels, and not just India. I will hopefully get to see it again.
On the morning of March 19th, while traveling in the southern Indian city of Hampi, I was stunned to read in the Delhi newspaper that militants had blown up the highway bridge that passes in front of Srinagar's Secretariat building. Unrest had returned. I could hear Rouf's voice in my head, "No peace, no prosperity", and prayed that he and his family were alright.