On the lam

It was on our flight to Dubai that we encountered the most disconcerting characteristic of flying in the Middle East – middle of the night flights.  We left Kathmandu at 4:35pm and arrived in Bahrain at 8pm.  Bahrain was remarkably westernized, we even grabbed some McDonald’s chicken McNuggets at 11pm and watched The Incredibles on the in-restaurant plasma screen.  The airport was so modern looking and it had so many modern stores it could have been anywhere in America, except for the women walking around looking like ghostly figures in flowing black robes.  The effect was all the more spooky from the late hours – our plane to Dubai didn’t leave until 1:50am, on-time.

I was a little nervous about landing in Dubai at 3am and taking a cab, but thankfully, wonderfully, Aubrey’s uncle picked us up despite the crazy hour.  We slept for several hours when we reached the condominium, and when we woke up the world was a strange place.  Outside Aubrey’s uncle’s window we counted nineteen cranes.  Apparently two-thirds of the world’s cranes are in Dubai.  Even more bizarre, there was barely a spec of green to be seen.   In Dubai, the concrete jungle meets the desert sands.  Sand and structure stretched as far as the eye could see.  Aubrey’s uncle was feeling energetic and so despite the very early morning for all of us we drove that day to the Liwa oasis, about a four drive from Dubai city (Dubai is both an “Emirate” in the United Arab Emirates and a city).  We had fun getting “lost” in the desert with a blacktop road as the last marker of civilization amongst the rolling sand dunes. 

Although we had fun rollicking in the desert on our first day in Dubai, “the desert” is hardly what the place is famous for.  Dubai is a crossroads of traditional Muslim culture and modern capitalist ideals.  The Sheikh of Dubai, upon realizing that the Emirate would run out of oil within the next ten years, decided to build an urban metropolis in the middle of the desert… believing in that famous prediction from Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.”   In hopes to bring businesses, residents, and tourists alike to Dubai the Emirate is bigging the biggest and best of everything.  If you have watched extreme engineering shows with any regularity you have doubtless seen something on Dubai.  From Aubrey’s uncle’s residency area we could see the world’s tallest building, the Burj Dubai.  This towering structure is not yet completed and already over 300 ft. taller than the Sears tower in Chicago.  When it is finished they estimate it will stand at 2500ft tall, nearly doubling the height of the Sears Tower and hundreds of feet taller than it’s next closest competitor.  The World’s tallest (and perhaps most beautifully architected) hotel is also in Dubai, the Burj Al Arab.  The hotel looks like the sail of a giant ship in full wind.  Estimated to be finished in Dubai by the end of the year is the world’s largest mall. 

Dubai already has no shortage of malls.  Inside the “Mall of the Emirates” is an indoor ski slope where visitors can take ski lessons, buy ski gear, and swoosh down slopes in 30 degrees Fahrenheit inside while it’s well over 30 degrees Celsius outside.  One interesting thing happened while Aubrey and I were making the rounds in the Ibn Battuta mall (the décor is based on the travels of Ibn Battuta a famous Arabic adventurer).  The call to prayer came on over the loudspeaker in the mall and everywhere young retail workers abandoned their posts to go to prayer.  It is a testament to the safety and security they feel in both their culture and in their city that they did not lock their stores, but simply left them empty.

I mentioned earlier that Dubai is a crossroads of traditional Muslim culture and modern capitalist ideas and at no time is that more apparent than during the holy month of Ramadan.  The holiday period started two days after Aubrey and I arrived in Dubai and we were amazed that despite the city’s very large non-Muslim expatriate community (there are NO taxes in Dubai so it’s a very popular place for Aussies and South Africans to work – there are several hundred thousand Australians working in Dubai and over sixty thousand South Africans and a smattering of other nationalities; Britain, US, Canada, etc.) all the food stores and coffee shops in the malls were closed.  Aubrey and I went to see a movie at 2pm in the afternoon and the concession stand was closed.  The ghost town during the day turns into a party at night as stores and restaurants that would traditionally close early are open until midnight or the wee hours of the morning.  As another hallmark of this crossroads between Arabia and the West, some women wear western style clothing, but women decked out in full phantom garb were still very common.  Women are allowed to drive in Dubai, but for those who are without a car Dubai even offers a “pink taxi” service.  The drivers are women and the windows are often tinted. 

The Emirate of Dubai is bordered on one side by the Arabian Gulf, Aubrey’s uncle took us for a swim after work one day.  The water was amazingly warm and calm, like taking a bath.  One would think, with the temperature in Dubai often topping 110 Fahrenheit the water would feel cool and refreshing, but as the sun set behind the desert haze the water felt significantly warmer than the air.  We were within swimming distance from one of the outer islands of “The World.”  Several “fun-shaped” man-made islands reside off the coast of Dubai.  They have no less than three palm shaped islands where the ultra-rich can by real estate!  And, of course there is “The World” with hundreds of small country shaped islands for purchase and “The Universe” has now been added on and is under construction.  While swimming we watched a giant ship blowing out it’s megatons of sand to create one of the islands.  Unfortunately it seems that Dubai’s island-building days are numbered, however, since they have used up all their offshore sand.

It was a wonderful respite to stay with Aubrey’s Aunt and Uncle for a few days – especially after the moody monsoon in Nepal.  The time flew by an before we knew it we were boarding another overnight flight for Cairo to start our Egypt and Jordan tour.

PICTURES HERE

Excerpt from GORP (an outdoor adventure website) about the Bhote Kosi:

“Wild, steep, and relentless are the best words to describe the short run down the Bhote Kosi. On this river, only a few hours’ drive northeast of Kathmandu, nonstop Class IV and V rapids keep adrenaline junkies screaming for more. The big waves and big rocks add up to big fun if you’re an experienced rafter. However, despite what rafting companies in Kathmandu might say, you really don’t want to make this your first-ever rafting experience… Rating: Hardcore, When to go: Fall, Winter, Spring”

The Lonely Planet review was much scarier (note the above review suggests rafting in Fall, Winter, and Spring. The Lonely Planet basically says this river is unraftable during monsoon season – Summer, which is – of course – when we were there). I intended to put a quote from it here, but we have already ditched our LP Nepal so I can’t

2 days prior

We found ourselves at Kilroy’s – a Western style bar in Kathmandu – discussing our upcoming rafting trip with several members of our India / Nepal tour group. After reading the description of the river in the lonely planet guide, Aubrey and I were a little apprehensive (read: scared out of our minds) about rafting the Bhote Kosi during monsoon season. Aubrey and I had taken a quick jaunt to the rafting office earlier in the day to try to talk with someone about the trip. Equator Expeditions’ office is located in Thamel, Kathmandu which is a haven of street stall type shops with open-air fronts facing the street. We climbed a flight of unadorned cement steps in a nondescript and run-down corned building. About the same floor area as a moderately sized bedroom, the office was chock full of furniture; a couch, two desks, and numerous chairs randomly filled the space, and it was empty. My eyes fell on a large whiteboard listing upcoming mountaineering and rafting trips. On approach, I found the line for “Bhote Kosi.” Written next to it in dry erase marker was “Aug 26 – 27, PAX: 2.” Pax Two. From my experience with “Pax” that meant two people were rafting those days; Aubrey and I. My nerves kicked up a slight notch at that point thinking that we were the only two people crazy enough to be doing this and thus Aubrey and I sought advice from our group members later that night at Kilroy’s. One of our group members, Paul, said he didn’t think we should raft if it was only the two of us. He then proceeded to relate a blood-wreaked white water rafting tale from his time on the Zambezi (which, of course, is also on our schedule to raft in late October). Another group member, Barbara, reassured us that it might be better if only the two of us were going as the company would probably fill the rest of the places with guides or staff with experience rafting. Her point was well taken and did make us feel slightly better. Other group members weighed in and at the end of the night we decided to go to our briefing meeting for the rafting trip to see how we felt.

The night before departure

Aubrey and I showed up promptly at six pm for our departure meeting, assuming we’d meet any other members of the group (if any had signed up) and learn what we should expect and what we needed to bring with us. The briefing meeting started with us filling out our important information (passports, insurance, etc.), paying, and signing something that said if we cancelled less than 24 hours in advance we would be forfeit all of our money. No other rafters were present. Feeling a little nervous at the time, I politely but firmly requested our briefing before signing our money away. The saleswoman must have sensed my apprehension, as both she and the company’s owner assured Aubrey and I that four other people had signed up. They reiterated that the company had a 100% perfect safety record and that I had nothing to be worried about. Mildly mollified and wanting to avoid “a scene,” I signed the paper and Aubrey followed suit. Before the ink dried we were shuffled to the other desk in the room for our “briefing.” The owner handed us a triple-fold color brochure and told us the first day we’d be rafting class III rapids and the second day would be more class IV and IV+ rapids. He then told Aubrey he should buy some “Teva sandals” and concluded our briefing. Surprised at the brevity of our “pep talk,” I asked if there was anything special we should bring or know? The owner told us they had a great camp for us to overnight in by the side of the river and that we didn’t need to worry as everything would be taken care of.

Morning of the first day

It was raining. Of course it was raining. Aubrey and I packed a quick overnight bag and left our luggage in the room at Kathmandu Guest House (we rented the room an extra night for $25.00 so we could leave the luggage there) and off we went. The constant drum of rain droplets reminded us that it was monsoon season. Not only would the water already be high, but every drop that fell added to it. I couldn’t help remembering a group member’s comment the day before – he said, “I wonder how many times you have to go whitewater rafting before you have a bad experience.” The words had rung a little ominously in my heart at the time, and they whispered in my ear on this drizzly morning as we boarded the bus. It turned out that our co-rafters were three Czech journalists (George, Alfie, and one who introduced himself as “Bruce Willis”) taking a brief vacation in Nepal after reporting on the Olympics in Beijing. The thought flew through my mind that it might be a disadvantage to have such a mixed group of language speakers in the boat (the guide spoke Newari and a little English, Aubrey and I speak English, and the Czech guys spoke Czech with a little English), but they seemed nice enough and had prior rafting experience. Mostly, I was greatly relieved Aubrey and I were not the only tourists on the trip.

The bus ride was two and a half hours, but that does not say nearly enough. Our vehicle had clearly seen better days; the entire back window was broken and replaced with blue tarp and duck tape (see picture album). Fifteen seats were crowded with a combination of Czech’s, Americans, and Nepalis. The ceiling leaked little drops of frigid water on us constantly. In addition, we entered the bus to find a live duck settled onto a pile of miscellaneous rafting equipment. She was cute, but unfortunately proceeded to quack loudly and repetitively for the entire trip. I can understand her discomfort, the mountain roads were horrible and unpaved in some parts, but I still wished we could have a few minutes of peace. As we rode through the mountainous terrain, we looked through water-distorted windows at a drop-off of over a thousand feet. That is… until the fog set in and we couldn’t see anything at all – including the road in front of us! I found myself forgetting my fear of the river and just praying that we would make it to our put-in point. At least wondering whether the duck was dinner and the dilemna of trying to decide if I was okay with that or not (the quacking was very annoying) passed the time.

On the way, we stopped briefly in a small Newari village for water – which the Czech guys took to mean “beer stop.” One of the Czech guys hopped off the bus and returned with three GIANT beers (bottles the size of two regular beers) for him and his comrades. Fabulous! Our other rafters in the boat on the river that was technically too dangerous to be rafted during this season would be drinking before we even got in the boat. I bit my tongue, but only barely. Later at camp Aubrey and I found out that the Czechs were not only drinking beer, but also some other nearly 100% alcohol “Czech” concoction from an unmarked thermos before the trip.

We did finally make it to our put-in point and after practically throwing the raft over a cliff (and then hiking down the steep side ourselves) to get it in the water we were off rafting on the Bhote Kosi. Kosi in Nepali means “River” and Bhote is the word for “Tibetan” so the name literally means “Tibetan River.” Although the first day was supposed to be mostly a training day with easy rapids we did hit some exciting whitewater, reminiscent of our Iceland trip, very early on. When we asked Sam what level the rapids were he said III/ maybe III+ which seemed a little of a low grade to me compared to IIIs on some of the other rivers Aubrey and I have rafted, but no matter. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol or just their attitudes, but the Czech guys never seemed to listen to directions (especially the two in front). They always seemed to be paddling when we weren’t supposed to be paddling or not paddling in the right direction, or doing other crazy things. At one small rapid they paddled upstream, dragging us back into the rapid to get us stuck on a rock… luckily we didn’t flip, but I did think the guide took us down the ultra-safe side of the rapids from then on… and I thought it might have had to do with their uncertain behavior. If the first day was to test how we worked together as a team – I think we failed. Even though this was supposed to be the “mild,” training day, the water was very, very high and the current swept us swiftly along. Further down the river, some rapids were simply drowned beneath the high water level so despite our raft’s breakneck pace we didn’t have much paddling to do to avoid rocks. In the absence of technical rafting instructions the conversation turned to where we would be rafting the next day. Sam expressed doubt that we would start further upstream below the dam. “Last time we rafted in high water like this, higher up on the river, there was a lot of crying. People drinking a lot of water and very scary, so we may not raft up river tomorrow. We will see.” he said

That afternoon we pulled into camp. The beautiful riverside lodges promised in our Lonely Planet book turned out to be tents on blocks of cement with thatched roofs and khaki canvas sides. No big deal, they were clean and made us feel more adventurous. There was no electricity in the tents though and with Aubrey and I without a flashlight (naturally it wasn’t on the non-existent list of what to bring with us) and the river roaring only a few trips away from our tent we could already see that late night bathroom trips would be a nightmare. Also unfortunately, since Aubrey and I had only brought small day packs with us I had only brought minimal clothes changes and not nearly enough gear to keep me warm (it had been hot lately where we were so I figured I would just air-dry). I ended up donning one of Aubrey’s shirts and a pair of his shorts to get out of my wet clothes. The gathering place for dinner (although there weren’t that many of us to gather) was a large open-air picnic spot, much like you would see in a Forest Preserve in the US. There was a large roof (thankfully) and an assortment of eating tables and a pool table underneath. Dinner was curried potatoes and rice with pita bread laid out buffet style; we grabbed and munched gratefully.

Afterwards, Sam approached us, “Tomorrow we will be rafting below the dam.” He did not look thrilled. “Is it safe?” I ventured. He didn’t directly answer the question, but reassured me that they would send four safety kayakers with us instead of the three we had earlier in the day. Aubrey spoke up, trying to reassure me, “We have big strong men in our boat, we’ll be fine!” Sam snorted in amusement, “The river is strong, you are not strong, you are small and weak compared to the river.” Remembering his earlier comments about the water level I asked, “Sam, will the water be lower tomorrow?” He cocked his head to one side, “We will see, it is no problem, no problem.”

That night, I awoke in darkness, pain and pressure in my chest forcing me out of slumber. Aubrey, stirred by my movement, tried to help. At first I thought I was having a heart attack (perhaps induced by a blood clot from all our traveling?) because of the degree of pain and it hurt to breathe. We tried to decide whether to wake someone and try to take me to the hospital when we were at least two hours from anywhere civilized. After a few minutes of trying to isolate where exactly the pain was and what type of pain (and whether there were any other symptoms – arm pain, back pain, etc.), Aubrey told me my heart was racing “a mile a minute.” Once I heard that, I knew it must be nerves and after several minutes taking deep breaths some of the pain and pressure reduced. Although I was relieved to think my pain was probably due to nerves, there was no question I was dreading the day ahead.

Day II

The next morning we ate an early breakfast and started on our way. It had been raining overnight and during breakfast (so I couldn’t imagine the water had gotten any lower), but thankfully as we boarded the bus the precipitation settled down to a gentle misting. After about twenty minutes of driving, the bus stopped and several Nepalis – our guide and safety kayakers – ran out to scope one of the rapids. It took them a good ten minutes of looking and chattering before they seemed satisfied. Some driving time later, the bus ambled off the road and we piled out to look at our put-in point. The ruins of an old metal suspension bridge stretched across the river, dipping dangerously into the water. Sam told us that the bridge had been damaged in a mudslide four years earlier. The dutch girl looked out at the river, eyes wide. “But it’s high today, Sam.” she said with some wonder. Sam studied the river, pensively, not responding. I turned to her and said, “Is this higher than you’ve ever seen it?” She nodded, pointing, “Just look at the bridge (see picture album),” she exclaimed, “Normally you can raft under the bridge easily, no problem, but now the water is touching the bridge, you can’t raft under that.” When she walked off to put a life jacket on, I regarded Sam’s troubled face. Considering the half blown up raft and the safety equipment littering the ground it was clearly too late to repeat my question about it being safe to raft. Instead I asked, “Have you ever seen the river this high before, Sam?” He gave me a direct look, and without trace of a smile simply said, “No.”

Taking deep breaths and steeling myself for the trip, I put on my gear and grabbed my portion of the raft to help bring it down to the river. When we put-in the whirlpool created by the swift moving current whipped the raft back around to the destroyed bridge. Both Sam and Aubrey had to hold onto the metal and concrete skeleton, pushing us off into the main current when everyone was ready. The river was wild and unruly; we gnashed our way through the early rapids. During some particularly violent waves I was thrown well across the boat, landing ungracefully in the dutch girl’s lap. Aubrey laughed in surprise, “I’ve never seen you get thrown like that Beth.” Normally I brace myself pretty well, but the Czech guys had talked so much about flipping rafts the previous day that I was nervous of the raft flipping and my feet being caught braced beneath the seats. As a result I was clearly not braced as well as usual and thus more prone to flopping about in the boat in the heavy waves we were hitting.

After several wild rapids which I think were sold fours, but Sam said were III+ / IV- rapids, Sam signaled for us to beach at the side of the river so that he and the safety kayakers could scout the next rapid. Apparently, the same earthquake and ensuing landslide that had destroyed the bridge at our put in point four years prior had thrown giant boulders into the Bhote Kosi and created a “New rapid.” A few of us stayed back with the raft hugging it to the shore against the gripping current. My nerves began acting up a little when the guides had not returned after ten minutes. This was, after all, the same rapid they had piled out of the bus to scout for ten minutes earlier. The Dutch girl came back to the raft. “So what’s taking so long?” I asked – remembering a rafting trip in Iceland where we had walked a rapid because the guides had felt it was too dangerous to raft. She shrugged, “They’re trying to decide the best way to take the rapid – I think the disagreement is mostly among the safety kayakers.” Ten minutes later, Sam and the kayakers returned and we set off.

Immediately after we entered the rapid I could barely hear from the roaring of the river. I found myself looking backward to verify Sam’s directions only to see his feet flying over his head as he was flung from the raft into the raging river. I, who am not known to swear, heard myself saying, “Holy Shit! We lost Sam!” several times in swift succession as I scanned the whirling rapids at the back of the boat for any trace of him. Only gnashing white-water met my gaze, Sam had been swallowed by the river. I turned to face front in our guide-less boat and a ten foot wall of water loomed in front of us. We all paddled forward frantically, as Sam had once told us that our best chance of not flipping in a rapid was to keep the boat facing forward. We crested the ten foot water wall and the front of our raft got stuck on the rock. Waves pounded over us mercilessly and the river tugged viciously at the bottom half of the boat which dangled dangerously at a 45 degree angle behind me. I could only pray that everyone, including Aubrey, stayed in the boat as every cell in my body focused on paddling forward to help get us over this rock. Another wave pounded the boat and I thought we were done for, yet by some miracle we were suddenly free and swiftly sweeping into the next giant water wave. I only had a moment to verify that Aubrey and everyone else was still in the boat before the river required my intense focus. It was at this point Bruce Willis began shouting commands in a crazed frenzy. The other two Czechs paddled furiously and Aubrey and I followed suit. We managed to safely navigate another two large waves without flipping. The Dutch girl began paddling backwards against the rest of us and Bruce Willis whacked her with his paddle a couple times until she submitted. I cast a look of feminine sympathy in her direction, but I had no idea what we were doing. So far we hadn’t flipped under Bruce’s command so I was happy to surrender allegiance to him. We continued to flail our way through the rapid, every moment spent at some level of terror when I chanced a look up and saw Sam riding through the rapid hanging on to one of the safety kayaks. A huge relief coursed through me at the sight of him drenched and sputtering, but otherwise unharmed. He was shouting and motioning commands at us, but I couldn’t make them out. It appeared others were also having trouble as everyone began calling out random directions in an effort to read his lips or interpret his hand signals. In the space of five seconds I heard, “All forward” “No, Left forward, Right back” “No, Right back, Left forward” and so Bruce Willis stayed in command for the moment. We rode through a few more waves successfully and reached a break in the rapid where the river current was extremely swift, but more subdued. The safety kayaker was able to paddle Sam close to our boat. Aubrey grabbed Sam’s shoulders in the water as we had been schooled to do, Sam tried to count to three but Aubrey hauled him into the boat on “one.” We had barely enough time to congratulate him on still being alive and express relief that he had managed to get back into the raft before we faced the rapids again. The treacherous New Rapid and the ensuing excitement continued. After weathering the first test, we all felt a little more confident as a team.

Sam pulled us off to the side to wait for the safety kayakers to make it out of the rapid when we saw a bright red kayak bouncing vertically down the rapid, its narrow, sloping front pointing toward the sky. We couldn’t tell whether the kayaker was still in there, but I certainly hoped not; the watercraft knocked around in the current as if no one were controlling. On the next bounce upward, we saw that the kayak was empty and that a swimmer was heading towards the raft. The burly Czechs in front pulled him in and he rode with us for the rest of morning. We had mostly reached our put in point from the prior day so the rapids that had seemed quite treacherous the day before now seemed only mildly pulse pounding. We beached the raft at camp and had tea / coffee. I thought we were finished – and after our morning I was a bit ready to be done – but Sam said we still had more rafting to do.

After our brief respite we started out onto the river again – we were down one rafter (Bruce Willis decided to take a turn in a whitewater kayak instead of the raft). He said, “kayak is more safer because it is just you, raft is dangerous because you have to rely on other people.” These rapids were same ones we rafted the day before so they should have been a breeze. Mid-way through the third rapid, however, the right side of the raft rode up on a rock tilting the raft about 75 degrees from the river surface. All of us were knocked to one side and around me people began the flush out of the boat. My feet slipped out from under me and I had just enough time to hold my nose before I dumped into the current.

Everything around me was black, deep deep black such as I have not known before. I do not know how long I was under, but I do remember telling myself not to panic in the darkness. I remember that I tried to come up at one point and couldn’t (I may have been under the raft) and then I was under again and suddenly out into the sunlight. My paddle was gone. I looked back for the raft that I thought would be only a few feet away and was surprised (and a little terrified) to find that it was now nearly fifty feet away. I saw that the boat was empty of everyone but the guide (hmmm…) and looked around frantically for Aubrey. Happily I spotted him soon, he was above water and cognizant. Sigh of relief. Now I could focus on my own situation. From previous whitewater rafting experiences I knew that the appropriate position when you fall out of a boat is to basically sit on your back, legs and feet facing downstream to push off of rocks or debris in your path as the current sweeps you through a rapid. Behind me I heard Sam yelling to “Swim left” which I tried to do while still facing my legs mostly downstream, but my efforts seemed menial against the iron vise of the current. I was just beginning to feel a little concerned about an upcoming rapid when suddenly the raft was over my left shoulder and Sam pulled me in. No one else had been rescued yet and together we tried to paddle the raft to where the other rafters were. I have to admit I was pretty useless at pulling people in who were twice my weight so Sam did most of the rescuing while I just paddled according to his directions.

I still saw Aubrey’s head bobbing around in the current and he still appeared to be concious and doing okay. When we finally pulled him into the boat, though, he looked terrified and disoriented. Aubrey relayed that he had been swept into a whirlpool with one of the Czech guys and the two had been getting sucked under and then spit out over and over again while they duked it out in the water each feeling that the other was keeping him from breaking free. Eyes wide with genuine fear, Aubrey told me that he didn’t know what would have happened if the whirlpool hadn’t spit him out when it did because he didn’t have any strength left to fight the current.

We rescued the other rafters and beached to take stock off equipment, etc. We were down my paddle and Sam’s paddle from earlier, but Aubrey and a few others had held on to theirs. I was pretty much done with rafting for the day, but we had about ten more minutes to go according to Sam. One half of me wanted to call it quits and head for the van, the other half knew (with some encouragement from Aubrey) that I had to get back in the raft immediately or I risked being afraid of rafting ever again.

So, we rafted and we lived. By the skill of our team, the mercy of the river, and the grace of God, we lived and Equator Expeditions gets to keep their “100% perfect safety record.” Forty-eight hours more experienced now, I wonder how many other rafters marvel at the depth and breadth of rafting trips at all levels of terror and delight hiding behind those words. In the end I feel they fail to express our trip down the Bhote Kosi.

Picture Album for this post can be found HERE

Pictures for this post can be found HERE

picking up where we left off in Nepal…

After Chitwan we headed to Pokhara a small backpacker town that is a jumping off point for many of the treks and mountain climbing expeditions in the area. Pokhara was beautiful even when we were there, but the highest peaks were shy and stayed shrouded in stubborn puffy white clouds. The hallmark of the area is a beautiful lake that reflects the Annapurna range (pictures are amazing). Even without the classic Pokhara postcard picture the area was lovely. Also very significantly for Aubrey and I the town had some amenities – like small grocery stores and internet cafes which we had been without for several days now. Since Nepal is much cleaner than India (despite being poorer) we enjoyed walking around and shopping at the little shops. Our bargaining skills seemed to be getting better (and also it was the tourist low season) so we picked up several souvenirs. In one of the shops we were asked if we liked President Bush, to which we answered an emphatic “no.” We then asked the shopkeeper about the current situation in Nepal (having just become a Republic a few short months prior). This launched him into a half hour diatribe about politics in Nepal. We were amazed at his English skills, but still he was somewhat hard to understand. At first he seemed a Maoist sympathizer, but then later came out to criticize them. Apparently, the current debate has something to do with the Maoist armies versus the Democrat / other faction’s armies. One side wanted to unite the armies under the government and the other faction did not. It brought home to Aubrey and I how little this world has actually progressed from a somewhat feudal society existence – whoever controls the armies has the power. After 20 minutes of listening to the impassioned shopkeeper (we bought some bags from him and had been trapped at the cash register listening to him ever since) Aubrey and I were both wracking our brains trying to think of a way to politely end the conversation. I think he finally ran out of breath a little bit and we said something conciliatory about the situation, then a quick “Thanks for the bags,” and ducked out on speedy legs.

We took a rowboat out on the lake, deciding to go the cheap route and row ourselves rather than having a rower come with the boat. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot harder work than we thought because the boat was so wide we were still able to take some nice pictures of the town and the lake, even without the classic mountain peak view. The next morning we had a sunrise drive up to Sarangkot – where hikers enjoy beautiful views of the early dawn colors reflecting off the snow on mountains in the Annapurna range. Unfortunately, the mountains hadn’t woken up yet and were still wearing their flowing white pajama-clouds so we couldn’t see them at all. Sunrise views of the valley below were a nice compensation though. We drove up, but hiked down and it was fairly treacherous… Numerous group members fell including Aubrey who slipped twice, landing pretty hard on his wrist at one point. Happily, the views from above the clouds through to the valley below were well worth the slippery slopes so no one complained much about the trail.

After Sarangkot we headed to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Numerous days in small towns and villages across Nepal left us quite unprepared for the bustling, noisy city. There is a gas shortage in Nepal so outside one gas station in Kathmandu we saw a line of about 200 people sitting on tanks waiting to fill up at the market. (Naturally, this drove taxi prices up considerably for Aubrey and I.) You would think it would have reduced traffic on the road, but it still seemed to take an hour to move about a mile.

One characteristic of the Kathmandu valley is the intricately carved wooden windows and doors. They are both beautiful and ubiquitous. In the Kathmandu Durbar Square (Durbar means “Royal” so I’m not sure if they will be called that for long) the living goddess, Kumari, resides in an old brick building with beautifully carved windows. The legend is that the ancient goddess Taleju used to play dice games with the king of Nepal and advise him on how to run his country until the jealous queen barged in and angered the goddess with her meddling. Despite many pleas and offerings on behalf of the king, she would not reappear. She did eventually concede that if the king were to choose a young virgin girl from the Shakya class that met certain criteria, she would give advice to the king via the girl. The tradition has continued to this day and a living goddess / Kumari serves from about age six to age twelve. Apparently the Kumari will come to the window to say hello to foreign tourists, but you are not allowed to photograph her. A tourist was taking unwelcome photographs on the day that we came to visit so she refused to come see us. There is a very informative book, “From goddess to mortal” about one of the Kumari’s from the 90s after her term was done and readjusting to life as a normal girl at age twelve. The writing is mediocre, but it’s a very short read and interesting enough that the writing doesn’t really detract.

While we were still with our India / Nepal group in Kathmandu we had the opportunity to take an Everest mountain flight. The Nepalis call Everest “Sagarmatha” which means mother of the sky. For some reason I was a little nervous about going up in a tiny little propeller plane, but my worrying was for naught as the “Buddha Air” planes are very modern and looked well taken care of. The flight was lovely and smooth and we saw Everest and several other mountain peaks towering above the clouds.

The Kathmandu valley area is home to several small villages and towns and in addition to lolling around Thamel (backpacker haven in Kathmandu), Aubrey and I visited some of the surrounding sights. We spent a night in the small city of Bhaktapur. Our corner room was as basic as it gets, but with beautiful views of the Bhaktapur Durbar square. It was in Bhaktapur that we had a few encounters with sly children trying to scam us out of money. To them we must look like walking wallets. While we were snapping photos at the top of one temple, one small boy told Aubrey he wanted money to buy a book. Aubrey, trying to be savvy, told the boy he wanted to see the book. After we finished taking pictures of sights in the Durbar square he followed two boys down a street so we could see the book they wanted so badly. At one point Aubrey was quite a bit ahead of me and a young girl who was walking with her mother and sister pulled me aside. Although she hadn’t heard any of our conversation (which had happened earlier), she knew exactly what was going on. “There is no book” she told me “They just want money to buy candy.” With my newly found knowledge I hurried after Aubrey who had rounded the corner with the boys to a small grocery store. There were no books in the store whatsoever. The two boys spoke excitedly to the grizzled old man who appeared to run the tiny shop. In my head I was thinking that if it was $2.00 or $3.00 (about 60 to 90 Nepali rupees) we would just go along with it in the spirit of it being such an elaborate and clever scam and not all that much money. The store owner pulled out an ancient looking, palm size, green dictionary. “Here is the book, the boy’s told us, jumping up and down, they then proceeded to choose words in the dictionary and read the definitions. Although Aubrey and I both knew by now this was a scam, we asked the store owner the price on the outside chance that the boys would really get the book. Our jaws dropped when he said “500 rupees” – the book wouldn’t have fetched higher than $2.00 US in a used book store yet he quoted us a price over $15.00. We emphatically turned him down and walked away even though the price dropped immediately to 200 rupees.

Later that evening in Bhaktapur we chanced upon some sort of coming of age ceremony as the streets were lined with young girls and boys single file and dressed identically. In their left hands they each carried a small golden lamp lit on the end by a single flame and decorated with an engraving of one of the gods. Hundreds of children marched through the streets followed by a group of elderly gentleman; some carrying a statue of the god and some playing drums and singing. Crowds of locals sat on the street curbs to watch the petite parade go by. We followed the procession, along with a couple of other tourists also trying to look inconspicuous, but after awhile it didn’t feel particularly appropriate and we decided to go back to the square area and see other things. There was a group of teenage boys dressed in what appeared to be dancing costumes and monkey suits outside of one of the temples in the square. Aubrey and I sat on a few stones on a small hill to wait for the show to start. Two small boys found Aubrey as he was looking through his pictures for the day. I watched in amusement as Aubrey took a photo of one of the boys and then showed the boy the picture, zooming in on the display so that the boy’s eye filled the whole screen. It was a very cute moment with the boy smiling in astonishment and Aubrey smiling at him… and then, in true Nepali fashion, the boy looks up at Aubrey and says, “Photo rupees” holding his hand out. Laughing at his pluck, Aubrey gave the boy a few rupees. The exchange had attracted the attention of other boys playing in the square and soon Aubrey was surrounded. When it became evident no dancing was going to happen by the costumed boys for quite some time we meandered back to our hotel.

The next morning we were awoken by a deafening chorus of Nepali chanters performing some sort of morning devotional in one of the temple squares. Although it sounded as if they were just outside our window, I peeked in the square and saw no crowd. I looked at Aubrey, we were both tired from all the sightseeing we’d been doing, “should we get up?” I asked. Half of me wanted to rush out with my camera to experience and capture this local cultural activity and the other half of me wanted to roll over in bed with a pillow over my ears. The pillow won for both Aubrey and I, but we did find some amusement in the situation.

After Bhaktapur, Aubrey and I went rafting on the Bhote Kosi which will be it’s own post.  On our last couple days in Kathmandu Aubrey and I visited one of the best museums in Asia in Patan. Although it was a smaller museum, the exhibition of the collection was cleverly and informatively done making the experience one of our favorites in Nepal. Also, the clean and quiet interior was a nice change from the busy hassles of the Patan Durbar square. We also walked with the monks and local people around one of the largest stupas in the world at Bodnath – only about twenty minutes from Kathmandu proper. Although we greatly enjoyed our visit to both Nepal and Asia in general (including the Indian subcontinent as part of Asia) we were pretty much done with squat toilets and chopsticks at this point and were thankful when our Gulf Air flight whisked us off to Dubai.

We have not had a lot of internet connection availability and have not been able to stay up on news, but I did see some information on Hurricane Ike a few days ago.  I would just like to say that our thoughts and prayers go out to all of you in Texas… I hope that you and all your loved ones are safe.

We are in Egypt and have not had a lot of access to internet the last couple of days.  More picture albums have been posted and the Amber fort picture link is fixed.   Aubrey and I were both sick the last few days… but still managed to visit Valley of the Kings and climb Mt. Sinai (and go snorkeling in the Red Sea today!).  We are feeling much better now.  Have to go eat dinner… Aubrey is ready to keel over from hunger.  Check the last few posts for picture albums.

Finally – we have been able to get some pictures uploaded!!  Check the India posts for links to the albums.  Aubrey and I are safely in Egypt.  Yesterday we saw the Pyramids / Sphinx and today we are in Aswan.  We took an overnight train – the nicest by far of ALL of our trips.  We had our own cabin with just two beds and our own sink.  Dinner was very edible as well!!  I don’t have a lot of time as we have a tour starting soon to the Temple of Isis, will try to write more later.

Picture Album for First few days in Nepal 

Once we crossed into Nepal we visited Lumbini, birthplace of the Buddha. I don’t consider myself a Buddhist, although I can certainly appreciate some of the precepts of the religion, but I always find it remarkable that many of these famous pilgrimage sites fail to stir my soul the way nature can.  I feel more moved at a beautiful mountain scene or at the foot of a waterfall like Skogafoss (Iceland) then I did at Notre Dame or Chartres Cathedral or Lumbini.  (Although I did feel moved at the Taj Mahal, but that is not really a religious pilgrimage site). I’m glad we went to Lumbini, but honestly I found it somewhat boring.

The next day we traveled to (Royal) Chitwan National Park, home of the Indian Elephant, One-Horned White Rhino, and Bengal Tiger.  Nepal became a republic, overthrowing their monarchy, a few short months before our visit.  As you can imagine there hasn’t been enough time to change signage yet so at the border and other places the word “Kingdom” in Kingdom of Nepal has been scratched out and “Republic” spray painted in it’s place. Thus, I put the “Royal” in front of Royal Chitwan National Park in parentheses as I have no idea what it will be called soon.  In any case, the lodging we had on this stop was my favorite of the India / Nepal tour. We stayed in safari type lodging in the midst of sweeping rice paddies. A sign of the monsoon season, colorful umbrellas were arranged haphazardly in the field. The bright pinks and blues of the umbrellas created a vivid contrast with the lush green rice fields. A short distance away from the umbrellas local villagers tended to their rice. Our itinerary at Chitwan consisted in a trip to the Elephant breeding village, a morning jungle walk, and an elephant ride through the park in the afternoon. We were able to get quite close to the Elephants in the breeding village, even able to touch and feed cookies to one of the baby elephants. When Aubrey and another of our group members, Paul, started taking pictures of one of the elephants a large neighboring pachyderm trumpeted and headed straight for them. Thank goodness the elephants were chained to posts as that is the only thing that held the elephant back – only ten feet from where Aubrey and Paul were standing! In addition to the chains were fences consisting of three large metal poles. In some places the fences were noticeably in disrepair with several poles down. When we asked about this a staff member told us that the fences were trampled by male elephants “storming the gates” to get to the female elephants chained inside. By the number of young elephants around I gathered this happened quite often. Hmm… a bunch of female elephants chained up together within easy reach of the wild male elephant popluation? I think “breeding center” is a bit of a euphemism.

After reading our lonely planet guide which mentioned a “small but significant risk” to tourists going on Jungle Walks, I was a bit nervous for the walk in the morning. Apparently about 35 people a year die from animal attacks in Chitwan. I and most of the group thought this was a pretty high number. Aubrey countered that in the African National Parks you are not even supposed to get out of the car; when tourists get out of their car in Kruger National Park, for example, it often results in their death. (In the interest of complete disclosure there are jungle walks in the African Parks as well – however, the walk descriptions stipulate that you must be able to climb trees and run very fast. In addition, the African park rangers carry guns which are not allowed in Nepal.) Our guides told us that the walks were very safe, however, and that the rangers carried big sticks to “beat the animals away.” Aubrey and I (along with another group member, Paul) added a mokoro canoe ride to our Jungle Walk to increase our chances of seeing wildlife- from a relatively safe distance. The mokoros are extremely narrow so that you feel if you lean even a little to one side the whole boat will tip. It’s a marvel that our boat driver could stand at the back so steadily and gracefully guiding us down the river with a long bamboo pole. We saw both kinds of crocodiles that morning from the boat. One sighting was just the beady eyes and the rough form of a snout peaking up above the water. The other crocodile was also mostly submerged with his eyes, snout, and all the angular “scales” on its back sticking out of the water.

After disembarking from the boat, we scaled a short mud bank and headed directly into the Jungle. Silly me – I thought there would be a path, but that is very American thinking perhaps. Just as we were setting out into the jungle, the guide turned and gave us our “safety speech.” He told us that the most common form of attack was a rhino charging. He said this happens relatively often and that if he said “run” we should run (seems obvious enough). Additionally, he told us not to worry as he and his assistant would use their long poles to beat on the rhino’s side to scare it away. When asked, he told us that the tiger is “not a very dangerous animal” and that we shouldn’t worry about the tiger, most dangerous was the rhino. As the guy turned to lead us Aubrey leaned in and whispered, “I’m not sure how effective those bamboo walking sticks are going to be against a charging rhino.” The situation managed to be both humorous and mildly nerve wracking at the same time. So we set out on our jungle walk and instead of a path we followed the guide directly in a recent rhino’s footprints as we tracked the ‘most dangerous animal’ in the park on foot. Anti-climatically, our worst attack came from the leeches. Aubrey and I both were victims of leeches (Aubrey more so than me). We came across an Australian hiker who looked as if she’d been gored, the whole right hand pocket of her pants was red with blood, but it was also just a leech.

We had better luck, despite some obstacles, on the elephant walk in the afternoon. Four of us were uncomfortably piled into a large crate on the elephant’s back. The crate would sway violently as the large animal lumbered through the jungle. One of the elephants had a baby which accompanied it throughout the trip. At one point, the baby became unprotected, and the elephant trumpeted loudly several times lifting up a bit on its hind legs (glad we weren’t in that crate). This unsettled the other elephants as well and for a few moments it looked like we might not need to see any wild animals to experience thrilling animal encounters in the park, but the elephant guides disciplined the animals (won’t go into that too much), moved the baby back into a protective position, and things quieted down shortly. After much tracking through grass that was nearly as high as the elephants we understood why monsoon season was not considered the time of year to see animals. Luckily one of the other elephant groups on safari spotted a rhino and called our group over. Funnily enough, from the back of an elephant the rhinos appeared very small (I’m sure we would have felt differently if we had encountered one on our jungle walk earlier). After being warned how temperamental the rhinos could be we all marveled that the creature seemed not at all disturbed at being surrounded by a plethora of elephants. I expected the animal to bolt immediately at sight of us, but it just continued to happily munch vegetation. The grass was high enough that its possible the rhino didn’t see us (if it didn’t look up), but from the situation and the noise we were making that seemed unlikely. The Lonely Planet (when describing the elephant safaris) indicated that the back of an elephant was one of the best ways to do a safari as the jungle creatures felt much more comfortable around elephants than around safari jeeps or humans.

We didn’t see any tigers, although at one point I thought we might. Towards the end of our elephant safari, our driver disembarked from the large pachyderm to relieve himself in the underbrush. Not only did we feel a bit abandoned – the four of us on the back of an elephant ambling around a bit out of control, but as I watched him walk into the brush I had visions of a tiger pouncing on easy prey and leaving us permanently driverless. No such thing happened, however, and about ten minutes later (it took him awhile to get the elephant to behave enough so he could get on) he mounted and led us to the end of our experience in Chitwan.

Aubrey and I are sitting in the Dubai airport after spending a few days here with his uncle. Dubai is great – quite possibly the city of the future if all goes well for them, but I will leave that for another post Aubrey is writing. Additionally, I have a half-written post about our rafting trip on the Bhote Kosi that should be coming soon provided we fly safely into Doha and Cairo today. Lastly, good news on the picture front. Aubrey has managed to find a solution to our picture uploading problem so I have now uploaded a number of our India pictures to Flickr with more to come tonight (I hope). I just need to sort through them and post the links. I would be doing it now, but Flickr is apparently blocked by the UAE in the airport (it can’t be totally blocked in the country because we were able to upload from his uncle’s house).

Love to everyone and to whoever is reading this I hope that things are going well where you are.

PICTURES of VARANASI 

One of the most fascinating aspects of our travels through Asia (and especially the subcontinent) is the incredibly overt role religion plays in everyday life. The signs of devotion are literally everywhere. While it is difficult to escape the iconography of Christianity in both South Africa and the USA, the incredible vividness and presence of religion in India and Nepal far exceed anything we have ever encountered. For example, yesterday we travelled to Swayambhunath – a massive Buddhist-Hindu complex rising above the hills outside Kathmandu – in a a Toyota van with a dashboard specifically constructed to accomodate a small image of the driver’s chosen deity: just below the radio, to the left of the AC controls, in an unobtrusive receptacle, reclined a golden statue of Vishnu playing a flute. What I find incredible here is not that we had a religious driver but that a major industrial product - manufactured and sold in a fairly homogenous manner throughout the world –  was designed specifically to house small statues of household gods! I have trouble imagining a commercially viable Audi or Chevy with a crucifix-shaped dash receptacle or a special mount for a miniature manora.

While the seamless blend of religion and daily life seems somewhat exotic and alien to us (a major local airline is named Buddha Air; imagine the strangeness a Christ Air would occasion), the Indians and Nepalis have a completely different reaction. Nowhere was this basic difference between our two conceptions of the proper place of religion more evident than in Varanasi and Swayambhunath (on the occasion of Krishna’s birthday) in Nepal.

Varanasi (alternately known to the West as Benares) is one of the oldest human settlements continually inhabited since it’s founding. While historians lustily debate its age, among those who swear fealty to Vishnu, Shiva, or Rama, there is no place more holy or more central in Hinduism’s religious topography than this city located on the thrice-sacred Ganges. Ironically, in a city that prides itself on its age, the most salient aspect of its being is death. Nowhere in India did we come closer to death in all its guises: funeral processions snake through its labyrinthine streets, widows march to the sati to the beat of doleful dirges, rows and rows of cordwood stand stacked in alleys, the smoke of funeral pyres curl through the gray sky, and the tiny corpses of children too young for cremation float grotesquely down the Ganges (horrifyingly, on our sunset Ganges boat trip, the partially decomposed body of a young child nearly collided with our boat). While Varanassi certainly has no monopoly on death (I have never seen so many dead and dieing within such a small period of time as I did traveling across India – and this was before we arrived in Varanasi), it is unique in that Indians go there expressly to breathe their last. When it becomes impossible to ignore the tugs of age and infirmity on one’s mortal coil, any Hindu with the means to do so makes plans to retire to Varanassi. Hindus believe that death in this holy place ensures moksha – blessed release from the endless cycle of death and re-birth. As a testament to its holiness, the city teems with ascetics, monks, and mendicants of all types; each walks barefoot though the filthy streets (a truly incredible renunciation of the external self when you see – and smell – the endless piles of human, dog, and cow faesces), wrapped in brightly colored cloth, and carrying their loti or water-pots. Most have orange-streaked hair (the dye used for henna is often rubbed into the scalp to calm the mind during the sweltering monsoon months) and sport elaborately painted foreheads.

As we neared the banks of the river on our dawn walking tour of the westerly ghats (the broad, steep staircases built on the riverbanks from the street-level all the way down to the water-level at its lowest ebb), we could hear the bustle of the morning river bathers and the chanting of the groups of men performing their ritual ablutions (this involves rinsing the mouth with river water – a terrifying thought given the massive quantities of heavy metals, industrial pollutants, sewage, and decomposing bodies present in the water). At regular intervals along the riverbank are interspersed holy men sitting under colorful umbrellas and dispensing short benedictions to the faithful masses come to worship at the river’s edge. Fighting through the throngs of street urchins selling bamboo baskets adorned with flowers and candles, we finally came to the edge of the river. It is easier to understand the centrality of religion in Indian life from this vantage point. After all, Varanasi, a city for the dead peopled by those ministering to the dieing, is a metaphor for life. As all life leads to slow decay and death, so too the shallow, still water at the topmost stairs gives way to the fierce pull of the raging deep. We revel, bathe, and pray in the shallow water while never forgetting that the deeper waters bide their time.

If Varanasi reminds us that religion at its core is but a stratagem for comprehending the inevitability of death, Swayambhunath on the anniversary of Krishna’s birth is a celebration of life in all its silliness and color. More commonly known as the ‘Monkey Temple’ after the troops of monkeys inhabiting the hill, Swayambhunath is a massive stuppa dedicated to the Buddha. At first the sight of celebrations at one of the most recognizably Buddhist sites in Nepal on a holy date in the Hindu religious calendar seems preposterous. However, as with most religions competing for adherents in the same geographic area (see the Christianization of Christmas, Easter, and a host of other pagan holidays), Buddhism and Hinduism share a great many like feast days and festivals. Furthermore, since Hindus believe that both Krishna and the Buddha are incarnations of Vishnu, the eighth and the ninth respectively, it is a bit of six of the one and a half-dozen of the other when it comes to festival days dedicated to either Buddha or Krishna.

On this day the temple was a riot of color and activity: bands of musicians marched clock-wise around the mandalas circumnavigating the central stuppa, women sat in endless rows tending elaborately decorated plates of food, candles, flowers, and rice, while worshippers ritually prostrated themselves in front of a giant golden representation of Indra’s thunderbolt. Especially striking was the degree to which one could touch, mark, fondle, paint, and just generally manhandle every sculptural and architectural adornment on the temple site: people casually smeared wax and dye over priceless statuettes; piping hot butter (used as wax) dripped on everything and left the beautiful iron mandalas slippery with fat; monkeys, dogs, and doves climbed, slept, and roosted wherever convenient. Contrast this with the religious proceedings inside a church or cathedral. From experience I know that one is not allowed to climb onto Michelangelo’s David, Christ nailed to the rood is not to be painted with orange dye, and a sincere effort is made to keep animals outside and out of the way of the clergy. Instead of austerity, Swayambhunath exudes exuberance; instead of cultivating and enforcing a distance between the worshipper and the worshipped, it encourages interaction. Furthermore, there is no one present to mediate the encounter between mortal and divine; each person is on his or her own. The closest approximation to religious authority I could spy was a small boy, maybe six years old, sitting inside one of the four large Buddha statue receptacles inside the stuppa located at the four cardinal spots (except for the one where the boy sat, all of the receptacles had wooden screens with massive padlocks barring entry). He acted as a sort of ‘helper’ to the Buddha. When worshippers presented a bowl of food at the window, he would touch each item individually, mutter an inaudible phrase, and then deposit the contents singly in the appropriate bucket. Sometimes he would hand out rice and other times – more rarely – lift the Buddha’s skirt to reveal a smaller Buddha underneath. In short, it so typifies the general approach to religion in the subcontinent – that is to say, an immediacy that is hard to exaggerate – one is hard pressed to find a better example with which to end a post on this topic.

PICTURES of Orccha

After Agra (where the Taj Mahal was) we travelled to Orccha, a small town to the south with several old Hindu temples and palaces.  Orccha, being small, was not as dirty as previous cities in India.  There were more cows and goats in the streets than trash.  The children were friendly, if mercenary, and the old temples guarded imposingly from on-high.  The palaces and temples we visited, although built in the 16th century, looked much older due to lack of conservation and maintenance.  One of the palaces in Orccha was built for the visit of a monarch and gifted to him on his arrival in hopes that he would again return to the city.  The monarch and his entourage stayed one night and then left the city only to be killed enroute to their next destination.  Because of the Indian belief that once something is given it can never be taken back again, the palace has sat empty and unused for hundreds of year.  I suppose when they gifted the palace they didn’t gift everything inside since there was no furniture, sculpture, or any other adornments to be found.  The building felt like a giant elegant shell; beautiful and brittle.  We were lucky enough to witness a Hindu ceremony at the local temple one of the evenings.  Many people sat crosslegged in front of a large wooden door.  The worshippers played foreign instruments and sang in high pitched voices for a time and suddenly the door opened, but no one went inside.  The priests showed the face of the god to the people and they chanted before it in Sanskrit, Hindi, and the local tongue.  A couple members of our group were disappointed there wasn’t more dancing and one member commented that he thought the singing would be better.  I told him I thought it sounded a lot like the singing at my church (although to be fair it was closer to the choir at St. Florians than your average church going crowd).  Thinking about his comment, however, I want to note that popular female Indian singing (for those who have not heard it) is quite different from what you would hear from a Western vocalist.  Chinese singing is also different (and the two are different from each other).  I don’t know if this is natural due to their voices and how they are trained to sing from a young age or if it is an effect they themselves add.  (In other words, I don’t know if someone trained to sing in India or China could easily sing like a Westerner or if it would be as hard for them as it is for me to try to sing like an Indian female.)  At Orccha we stayed at a budget resort (if there is such a thing) with a highly anticipated swimming pool.  At every hotel we stayed at in India the floors were marble or stone of some sort.  It’s nice to look at, but cold and dry on your feet in the morning; like walking across a chalkboard.  The resort was no different, everything from our bedframe to creepy red bedside lights were made out of marble.  Reading by red table lamps was a bit to weird for us at night so we ended up just going to bed.  After Orccha, we headed to Varanasi.

 Before I post about Varanasi, I want to do a quick flashback here and talk about our Bollywood Theatre experience.  That’s right, I wrote Bollywood not ”Hollywood.”  Bollywood is India’s booming film industry that specializes in movie/musicals.  Aubrey and I had a little experience with Bollywood from seeing Lagaan a movie musical about the genesis of Cricket in India (Cricket is huge in India, they have several Cricket channels including – no joke- ESPN Cricket and apparently ESPN Cricket Classics).   Bollywood theatres in India are much more ornate and stylish than your average movie house in the US.  This one was done up in turquoise walls with pink shell decorations where the lights were.  Above our “economy” section were box seats and two levels of balcony; even in our area the seats reclined.  This is a good thing because your average Bollywood movie is four hours (at least you get an intermission).  The movie we were there for was “Singh is King” and is all the rage in India right now.  Although we knew nothing about the movie we were a little excited because we had heard it was controversial as it showed the main character dressed as a Sikh dancing with “near naked” women.  The near naked women that caused the heated debate were either Vegas Showgirls or girls in tank tops, I’m not sure which but it was very tame by Western standards.  The movie, by the way, was in Hindi with no English subtitles so we pretty much had to make it up as we went along.  Our guide provided a rough summary at the intermission.  Luckily, it was a comedy with a fair amount of showy singing / dance numbers and slapstick moves so it was easy to stay engaged.  More fun than the actual movie was sitting with an Indian crowd.  The show was sold out.  I have never before been to a movie where the entire audience erupted in cheers when the main character came on the screen.  Equally entertaining was the chorus of wolf whistles from the guys when the main female character showed up (she was attractive, but Aubrey and I managed to restrain ourselves   ).  The plot was a typical switcheroo between a famous wealthy tycoon and the local village idiot when the tycoon fell desperately ill, but with all the other factors adding to our enjoyment we had no qualms with it being unoriginal.  At one point I told Aubrey I was actually very glad it was a corny comedy because I didn’t think i could sit through a four hour thought provoking Indian drama without having any idea what was going on.  Aubrey and I have seen some weird movies, but we’ve always at least been able to understand the language (or read subtitles).

 I’ve been here an hour and have to sign off since we have a group meeting soon.  We are actually in Pokhara, Nepal (For those of you looking at maps) right now so our writing is a bit behind.  This is a nice internet cafe so I’ll try to write more tomorrow and catch up a little – hopefully with a few pictures for you.

PICTURES - of JAIPUR, TAJ MAHAL, AMBER FORT

Before I go any further with this post, you can check out some pictures from the China trip HERE Please note that these are NOT our pictures, but pictures from other members of the group, but we are in some of them and you get a general feel of the trip.  We have not yet been able to upload our pictures to this site because of the aforementioned internet difficulties.  We are working on it, promise.

The post I am writing now is drastically different from the post on India I would have written a few days ago.  Although I had been looking forward to visiting India for a long time, I somehow lost her on the streets.  I was sick of sweating all the time and dealing with pressure from tuk tuk drivers to shop at jewlery shops where they make comission, but mostly I was sick of walking through streets fighting the urge to vomit at the garbage and human feces, urine, and spit everywhere.  Compared to that the cow, goat, and dog poo everywhere was quaint.  The garbage-eating cows themselves, representing a road hazard I’ve never encountered before, were less quaint.  The smell was bad enough that at one point Aubrey and I were breathing through our dirty laundry bag while we were walking (we had just dropped off laundry) to avoid direct contact with the air.  During a walk home from a restaurant, in a monsoon, I found myself walking in flip-flops, up to my knees in dark brown street water.  I don’t even want to know what was in there and I still cringe when I think about it. We walked from the train station through streets piled with garbage on either side after arriving in Agra on the third day.  The experience was bad enough that even Aubrey, who had been using the euphamisms “colorful”, “busy”, and “different” to describe his impression of India and had a bit of a meltdown and neither one of us wanted to venture outside for a full four hours until the group met again that afternoon.  At that point, staying in our mildly stained, undecorated, and grimy room reading was more appealing than exploring our new location. 

My attitude changed when we entered the Amber Fort (this is not the Red Fort which is located in Delhi, but a large “amber” fort in Agra).  Once inside the open-air structure, the ground conditions were pristine and allowed us to enjoy the towering red stone walls and marble architecture inside.  Slowly, things began to look up.  I found myself wondering at the beauty of the place and laughing at the monkey families that were scampering about and bickering at tree level.  The local guide walked us through the fort, sharing interesting tidbits of history; we began to appreciate the exotic splendor of India.  Elegant, marble arches led into lush landscaped grounds.  Fragant, leafy bushes bloomed to bursting with tiny white flowers; the verdant courtyard made for an eye-catching contrast to ancient walls the color of blood.  We meandered through the palace part of the fort, up winding staircases and into exquisite halls tiled with mirror mosaics.  Our guide led us to intricately carved windows, the stone cut out to look like lace, through which we could peer at the Taj Mahal.  My breath caught, outside slime and grime forgotten, and India’s henna-covered hand beckoned, bewitching me once again.  

After having such a great experience at the Amber fort, I expected the Taj Mahal to be a disappointment.  It is, after all, one of the most famous buildings on earth… and after seeing the Alamo, I wasn’t sure the Taj Mahal would live up to it’s hype.  The popular story behind the Taj Mahal’s construction is that it is a monument to love.  New evidence suggests, however, that the spiritual masters provided the king with what they believed to be a model of heaven and he built the Taj Mahal according to that model.  When we passed the gates into sight of the Taj, my heart was sure that it could very well be a model of heaven.  The Taj Mahal is one of those places where you take pictures every two steps because you somehow want to capture the experience of being there.  We were initially disappointed that the bright blue sky we had hoped for was an ominous, swirling mass of clouds.  Shortly after we arrived we were fleeing from the rain.  We were able to shelter under the soaring entryway of the Taj and suddenly, being caught in a monsoon in India seemed romantic.  After a half hour, the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started and we realized the weather couldn’t have been better for pictures.  Colorful sarees of Indian women reflected in glassy pools left behind from the rain.  The Taj itself and it’s towers shone in the sunlight winking through the clouds.  Walking around, enjoying the scenery, taking pictures, I realized there was no better place to be in that moment.  I may have lost India on the streets, but I found her again at the Taj Mahal.