The Parents Have Landed

After a one day delay due to fog in Newark (but who doesn't love 24 hours in the loveliest part of the Garden State?!), Sharon and Frugal Bernie - a.k.a. my parents - arrived in Delhi.

They survived day one of sightseeing and Delhi markets. We're heading to Agra tomorrow to see the Taj Mahal so we'll update from there.

And stay tuned for some possible guest blogging...........

Busy, Busy, Busy

Lots of you have inquired "so what exactly do you do all day?"

Well, here in Varanasi we have been super busy. Not just avoiding cow poop either...we've got a schedule.

We've been getting up every day to watch the sun rise a bit before 6am. It's the best time of day to wander around, watch all the crazy stuff happening on the river and drink chai. This morning we took a boat ride and saw both a cow and pig carcass. (gross) There is also great light here, beautiful old buildings, tons of cool colors, sights and sounds. There are temples everywhere and people doing pujas (prayers and offerings) with flowers, fire and tons of music. Hindus believe that if you die in Varanasi you won't be reborn again, so lots of people come here to die and be liberated from reincarnation.

Here's the kind of cool stuff you see on the river....fascinating. Note...he's wearing a little man thong, so you don't have to shield your eyes.

At 9am we had our first cooking class of the day. Dan and I have been taking cooking classes from 2 different women here in their homes. Now, I'm not saying that I'm now a fabulous chef or anything, but we're having fun. So far, we've learned to make samosas, palak paneer, alu gobi, alu subsie, vegetable curry, parathas, rice pudding and several chutneys.

Here is the lunch we made today -- pretty good huh?!?!??!



Noon- 3pm -- Cooking class number 2.

4pm- 6pm -- On a far too full stomach, roll into our yoga class. We found this hilarious teacher here named Sunil Kumar and we've been taking private lessons. The dude is on crack. He's into laughing yoga. I mean look at him...he's nuts!



Yesterday, there was a mosquito biting me during class. I was trying to kill it while holding my yoga pose. Sunil came over to help and said:

"Some Buddists believe that it is wrong to kill any living creature. I don't. Plus, if it is killed here in Varanasi it will be liberated from the cycle of life." Followed by hysterical laughter.

7pm - Random astrological reading done by a guy named Guru-ji. Not much on the mark.
He said:

• I have stomach problems -- nope
• I'm a writer -- nope
• 10 years ago I had a major problem -- nope
• When I'm 38 years old I'll be really fast -- cool
  
  
  Dan was going to get a reading too. After hearing mine, he faked a stomach illness and we left.
  
  We leave tomorrow evening on the train to Delhi to meet up with my mom and dad -- so stay tuned for tales of Sharon and Frugal Bernie in India!

Varanasi

First off, I just posted some photos and comments from Mamallapuram -- they're dated 10/3/07 and you'll find them below the post about Mukti. (Sorry, I'm having some blogger technical difficulties today.)


We're in Varanasi. Here's a photo of sunrise over the Ganges:


We arrived here after a 6-hour jeep ride and a 19-hour train ride out of the Himalayas. We're now back in "real" India (after spending about 2 weeks in a place that was a fascinating mix of Nepal and Tibet).


Anyway, here are some new experiences we've had here in Varanasi. This is from today alone, and it's only 1:30 p.m.:

1. A dog urinated on Dan's leg.


2. We watched a public cremation.


3. As the fire from a previous cremation was being extinguished nearby, ashes flew all over us. Meaning that we were covered with a dead person's ashes.


4. We learned to cook stuffed paratha (a pan-cooked bread stuffed with potatoes) and a kind of fried dough filled with potatoes.


5. We watched an old sadhu (a holy man who wanders around in orange robes) defecating on the sidewalk.

Varanasi is really great, but incredibly filthy. I mean really, really, really dirty. You know I have low standards for cleanliness, but this place is nasty. All manner of cow, goat, monkey, dog, and human excrement lines the streets (along with all kinds of garbage).

Then there's the Ganges. It's so heavily polluted that the water is septic. This if from our guidebook: "Samples from the river show the water has 1.5 million fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water. In water that is safe for bathing this figure should be less than 500." We're not even talking about drinking here -- we're just talking about water that's safe to dip your toe in.

The river is holy, though, so people are diving right in, splashing around, dunking themselves under, and, yes, drinking it.

We, on the other hand, are glad to have brought along our wide array of antibacterial products.

Mukti Rules!

Sorry for being out of touch for a few days, but after searching for a week, we've finally found a place with both internet access and electricity at the same time. Unfortunately, the computer we're using was built in 1845, so I apologize if this post doesn't have all the fancy web links and photos that you, our loyal readers, have come to expect.

We're in Sikkim -- http://encarta.msn.com/map_701516543/Sikkim.html -- a tiny nubbin of India wedged between Nepal, China (Tibet), and Bhutan. We're in the Himalayas, and we look out every morning to the third-highest mountain in the world (a mere 800 feet shy of Everest).

We came here from the south -- we flew from Chennai to Kolkatta (Calcutta), then on to Bagdogra, followed by a 3-hour jeep ride to the town of Darjeeling (land o' tea). Oh, and the 3-hour jeep ride? It was a total of about 50 miles. For those of you on O'ahu, it was just like the road up Tantalus (winding, steep, and with uncleared landslides). But only one lane. For three hours.

Darjeeling was a wonderful change from the south, since in Darjeeling it's very cool (highs of around 75 degrees, lows around 50). Our first stop? "The Buzz," a restaurant/bar where we saw the legendary rock band "Mukti" from Gangtok. They opened with "Take it Easy" by The Eagles and closed with -- wait for it -- "Sweet Child Of Mine" by GnR. Best cover band in the Himalayas -- ever.

After four days of relishing in the cool mountain air and drinking tea by the gallon, we traveled another 6 hours by jeep (down the mountain, up the mountain, down the mountain, up the mountain) to Pelling, Sikkim. We had to get a special permit to come up here, and we had to promise not to try to sneak into China or Nepal. You can get millet beer in a wooden barrel (tastes like sake) and whiskey in a bottle shaped like a dagger.

After a few days of lounging around our fancy hotel ($10/night), ordering room service and watching cable TV (too bad we missed the ending of "John Tucker Must Die"), we headed north with two other Mukti fans (these German girls we met at the concert in Darjeeling a few days before). The first day we hiked for almost 8 hours to a small town by a lake, and the second day we hiked another 6 hours to a small town by another lake. Each hike involved several hours of steep downhill followed by several hours back up. We've met a bunch of people doing 9-day hikes up to 5,000 meters -- we've made it through 2 days and we want to cut off our legs. Tomorrow, we may return to Pelling -- depends on whether the landslide over the road has been cleared -- since all of our clean clothes are there. Or we may continue to sit around here and smell like yaks.

But there is a reason for us to move on: Mukti. They're from Gangtok, about 90 km from here. We wanted to know when they might be playing, and we were trying to figure out how to get this information. At our hotel last night there was a guy from Gangtok who was getting ready to lead a group of Israelis on a 4-day trek. We said, "Hey, have you ever heard of a band called Mukti?" And of course, he said, "Yes, my friend is the guitarist." He called his friend -- apparently, they'll play whenever they have an audience. So Deb, the Germans, and I are planning to go to Gangtok in a day or two (just as soon as we get our t-shirts -- saying "Mukti 4ever" -- finished).

We'll post our beautiful photos soon. In the meantime, for anyone who cares, our cell phone number is as follows (sorry, meant to post this ages ago): 00919846947753.

Carvings and Culture

Continuing with our catch up from the South. Here are a few shots from Mamallapuram. This town has crazy stone carvings. There are whole temples carved out of one rock. It's also where Dan got scratched by the monkey (a tiny scratch that is totally healed I might add).

This is a "Shiva Lingum" (a representation of the god Shiva's penis).

Some carvings:

A full-scale carving of an elephant (carved out of one rock):


This is me pushing "Krishna's Butter Ball" up the hill. I've been working out a lot on this trip. Also, please note my tres cool lime green pants.


I also want to add a few interesting Indian cultural phenomenon that we've noticed.

1) Hangin' out with whitey

For some odd reason, Indian tourists like to take our picture. Most of the time they want to be in the photo with us. Now these are not people that we have gotten to know in some way....just random tourists who come up and say "photo please." One theory is that they get to go home and say to their friends "look how cool it was where we were! there were even white people." But we've also been told that Indians like to talk to foreigners to prove that they're able to speak English well.

That doesn't mean, however, that it's not really weird for us. This girl was so excited about having her picture taken with me that, immediately before Dan snapped the photo, she kissed me on the cheek (that's why I'm laughing so hard).

This dude ... shit if I know.


2) Man Love

Here in India, it is completely taboo for men and women to touch in public. No holding hands and definitely no PDA. And I have to admit, I'm clearly used to the American male culture of homophobia -- the empty seat between men at the movies, confusing urinal ettiquette and clearly, CLEARLY, no touching aside from a hearty handshake or perhaps a slap on the back.

Indian men....they are all over one another! Walking hand in hand, with arms draped around one another, frolicking in the sea, laying and sitting in each other's laps -- it's some serious man-on-man action.

Homosexuality, however, is illegal.

3) Spitting, urinating, and snot rockets.

It's considered very rude here to blow your nose into a handkerchief. Launching all manner of mucus out your nose onto the ground, however, is perfectly appropriate, as is any kind of hacking, spitting, and ground-shaking throat cleansing needed to loosen up your phlegm.

Public urination (for men only) is also totally appropriate. Anywhere. At any time.

Here in Varanasi, male public defecation is also totally legit.

Full Moon Walk

Dan and I have now left South India, but I want to finish up a few hanging blog posts. I thought I'd fill you in on our "Full Moon Temple Walk" even though it was more than a week ago (sorry, we've been too busy having fun to blog).

So....a few hours from Aruroville is a mountain, where legend has it, Shiva appeared as fire (or something like that.) Each month, on the full moon, thousands of Hindu pilgrams show up from all over the place to walk 14k around the mountain and do pujas (offerings) at tons of tiny temples along the way. Most of the temples have Shiva Lingams...basically translated as "Shiva's Penis." You can picture the whole phalic nature of things. Each temple has huge fires burning in front.

The walk was fabulous! We did it in about 5 and a half hours and Dan and I were the only people wearing shoes. It was like a huge parade with music, fried food, weird and wonderful swamis and fortune tellers.

Here's a few of the swamis. These three were playing music and singing Hare Krishna mantras.


It's kind of dark, but you can see the number of people and one of the fires. Note, that I'm the only white person around.



This was one of many "Robot Fortune Teller" machines....Sadly, we couldn't find one in English.
Here's another weird swami. He was my favorite...he'd hold people's hands, chant and his eyes would rolll back in his head.

Towards the end of the walk, people were literally laying on the street taking naps. At the full moon in December they take a 100 foot wick, soak it in butter, hang it at the top of the mountain and light the thing on fire....we're thinking of going back just to see that! I met a guy who travels about 4 hours (each way) by bus every month to do the walk....crazy!

In case you weren't already jealous....

Have we written yet about the food in southern India?

Well, as Joy Kobayashi would say: Delicious.

Most "Indian food" we eat in the U.S. is northern Indian food (things like Aloo Palak, naan bread, samosas, etc.). I'm a big fan, and I look forward to chowing down when we head up north.
(I should pause to note that I'm generally wrong about most things, so I fully anticipate that I have irked someone out there by referring to naan as northern Indian food, or by saying that most Indian joints in the U.S. serve northern Indian food. In case I haven't done this already on this blog, I am hereby issuing a generic apology and mea culpa for virtually everything espoused on this site. But since I'm on vacation, I'll leave it to y'all to Wikipedia it yourself if you don't like my sweeping pronouncements.)

Okay, so southern India food. Delicious. Usually we eat "set meals" for lunch consisting of rice and several different kinds of curries, yogurts, and other culinary concoctions. They're all-you-can-eat. They're most often vegetarian (and I love the fact that they refer to things as "veg" and "non-veg," like vegetarianism is the standard and a meat-based diet is deviant).

Here is one version:

Version 2 served on a banana leaf

They're also super-cheap. Yesterday, Deb and I had an absolutely incredible all-we-could-eat lunch for 55 cents each. Throw in a Pepsi each and the whole meal for both of us was $1.70.

Then there are dosas -- the standard version, eaten for breakfast (or dinner), is a pancake-like thing made out of lentil flour, filled with mashed potatoes and onions (and some other veggies) and served with a few side sauces (like coconut chutney and a spicy tomato sauce). You might not think that mashed potatoes inside a fried pancake sounds tasty for breakfast, but you'd be wrong. They're incredible.

Then there are the sweets:

The only thing really lacking is good ice cream (we can only get it in the big cities). That, and the fact that "milkshake" means "milk with flavoring."

Unfortunately, we're leaving the south tomorrow morning, flying way up north to Darjeeling (land of tea and British toy trains). Ta-ta!