Mike and Michele’s Global Wanderings

Michele here….Mike is next to me working on creating maps of the places we have been in each country.

We are in Pushkar, India right now and have been here for 3 days. The journey here was another interesting ride in India. This picture illustrates one obvious difference between the roads here and in the U.S.
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Today is December 15th and it’s 5:20pm here (and 6:50am U.S. east coast time). I would guess that many people in the U.S. are probably gearing up for the holidays. In India, Christmas is celebrated by very few people since most Indians are Hindu so we actually never think about the fact that it’s approaching.

Here in India, the weather has been perfect. No rain, 65 degrees during the day and cool at night.

The last blog mentioned our one day in Agra. We left Agra the next morning on Sunday, December 11th and drove on a hair raising road for 5 hours. The driving in India is absolutely crazy and driving on this 2 lane road (one lane each way) was the most insane car ride we’ve ever experienced. People routinely pass when they shouldn’t because traffic is oncoming. Oncoming traffic, as we now understand, is not a reason not to pass. This means there were many times we had to pull off the road into the dirt because a big bus or truck was coming head on towards us. On the one hand, it was exciting and fun but on the other hand, it was down right scary. I decided I just wouldn’t look out the window. Mike decided to take a nap.

We got into Jaipur in the evening and ate at our very nice hotel. Our friend, also traveling around the world, recommended it to us. It was a step up from the places we’ve been staying but it was sort of on the outskirts of town. After our dinner, we went to the hotel garden area and saw that there was a puppet show that was about to begin. Rajastan, the state in India that we are currently in, is well-known for its puppetry. We enjoyed a short but cute show with different types of puppets and of course baksheeshed (tipped) the puppet master at the end.

Since we only had one full day in Jaipur, the capital of Rajastan, we met our driver at 9:00am the next day. We went to a wide variety of places – all of them were excellent. I have posted too many pictures below as it is, and I didn’t even include everything we saw. At night we stepped out of our hotel and were immediately approached by a young bicycle rickshaw man. We talked to him about where we might go to dinner. He said that for 25 rupees (50 cents), he would bicycle us around to 3 places and we could choose which place we wanted to go. The night ride on the bicycle rickshaw was another little adventure. The streets are filled with cars and most of them don’t use their headlights. There are also obstacles in the road that need to be avoided such as the cows, which are all sacred. We were told that if you are Hindi and you kill a cow (regardless of how it happened) you have to go to your house and call a priest to come over. Together, the two of you will engage in a series of prayers over the course of several days where you must ask the Gods for forgiveness. Anyway, we had a nice exciting ride on the bicycle rickshaw and he came back and picked us up after dinner. He was very excited when we gave him double his usual fare (= $1) for the ride home.

Below are a few pictures from our non-stop sight seeing journey in and around Jaipur:
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Michele here….we are currently in Pushkar, India at an Internet cafe but are behind on the blogging (so you’ll read about Pushkar later). Mike is working on the mapping feature we have on our blog site. (To see our country maps, you have to look at the bottom of the one inch bar that you see on the right hand side when you first log into our site.)

Since the last blog….We left Varanasi at night, heading for the train station. We would take an overnight train again. This time we were in a 3-tier sleeping car. This means that where we were sleeping, there are actually 3 “beds” on each side of the little area. So there were supposed to be six of us crammed together (it turned out there were 7 people because a mom and child shared a bed). We had been dreading this overnight train ride since our last one was such a disaster (see post #68). We initially had trouble finding which car we were in and we were really getting stressed out because we didn’t have much time to figure it out. Once again, the train station was a complete zoo-like atmosphere with people pushing and shoving and also trying to find which train they are on. We found our names on the pieces of paper they tape to the side of the trains and got on. We were pleasantly surprised to find that two other people in our little area where from Switzerland. What a relief! This made the train ride go so much faster and they went to sleep early and slept through the night. The only real interruption was at about 1:45am when “pillow man” turned on the light and physically touched everyone’s pillow to make sure we each only had one. Overall, the overnight train ride from Varanasi to Agra, India went much better than expected.

We were met by our driver, Negi, at the train station. We had arranged a driver to drive us, starting at the Agra train station (on December 10th), throughout India, and then to the Delhi airport on December 16th. Since we had only one day in Agra we quickly went to our hotel. The hotel room, where we stayed in Agra is our cheapest to date – $7.78. It wasn’t the best but it certainly wasn’t the worst and it had a bathroom and hot water (although not much hot water).

In Agra our main focus was the Taj Mahal of course, but first we went to see the Agra Fort and the Itimad-ud-Daulah. The Itimad-ud-Daulah is the marble tomb of a Persion man whose daughter married the emperor in the 1600s. (I guess if you are married to the emperor, you can built a big tomb made out of marble for your dad.)
Here’s a picture:
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Today is Tuesday, December 13, 2005…Michele here. We have been trying to cram in a lot here in India in the 2 weeks we have so we have had little time for blogging. Plus, power outages are frequent here in India so at least once we had planned to go to the Internet to post something but there was a city-wide black out. Since we last blogged….

We left on an overnight train from Delhi to Varanasi, India on Tuesday, December 6th. Before leaving we had a driver for the afternoon who showed us some sights we had not seen yet in Delhi. It was a great afternoon and we saw some cool things. The story behind us getting a driver is a long and ugly one and you should read Mike’s blog (Post #67) to get the full story about our unethical travel agent and all his tricks. (I actually don’t even like thinking about this guy and whenever I do, I try to put him out of my mind immediately.)

So, we got our train ticket about 15 minutes before we were leaving. (This should have been a red flag – again, read Post #67). We got dropped off at the train station in Delhi and it was a total zoo. I mean, hundreds of people all crammed together on the platform – some were homeless people living there, others were trying to find which train they were supposed to be on, others were selling things, and everyone was pushing and shoving. We were all crammed on the platform like sardines. Mike and I had no idea which car of the train we were supposed to get on and among this huge mass of people there were no train station employees so we watched what other people were doing. Hmmm…ok…they seemed to be looking on pieces of paper taped to the individual cars of the train. We had our seat numbers so we started doing the same thing. The problem was that the trains were very long (as many as 20 or more cars) so it took some time to look at all these pieces of paper. And remember we are pushing our way through crowds of people and are jammed in with 20 other people trying to look at the same piece of paper we are. Finally! We see our names and get on the train. My first impression was, “Oh, my God, there is no way this is first class.” Well, it turned out I thought we had agreed with our travel agent that we would be traveling first class but clearly, I was wrong. I couldn’t believe, this was going to be our overnight train. It was incredibly dilapidated and dirty and there were mice running around on the floor.

We found our bunks and it turned out we would be sharing our area with an obese man and his wife and child. This overnight train ride now ranks as our #1 worst accomodation to date. The man, who probably weighed 30o+ pounds, was snoring, grunting, coughing, and spitting up into a towel all night. When he wasn’t doing these things he was yelling in his sleep, slapping himself, or waving his arms in the air. Whenever he started yelling, his wife, on the lower bunk, would yell at him to stop yelling. Needless to say, Mike and I were both awake almost the entire night. We were dog tired when we arrived in Varanasi, India.

We had arranged a pickup and immediately saw the guy. We went to the hotel and got the bed room they had ($20/night). The room was very nice. It had a bathroom, it was clean, and there was a balcony with a view of the Ganges river. Now, when I say it had a view of the river, I mean it had a view of the river plus a view of huge piles of garbage that pigs, water buffalo, cows, and dogs were constantly eating out of. By the river there were also two small temples where people came to pray. The roofs were pointy, the temples were yellow, orange, and pink, and they had small flags all around them. It all made for a very interesting view.

Varanasi, is a very special place in India. It is where people go to die because it is considered one of India’s most sacred places. The Ganges, or “Mother Ganga”, India’s holiest river, flows through Varanasi. For a Hindu to die in Varanasi , and to be cremated here on the banks of the Ganga, is to be absolved of karma, freed from the wheel of reincarnation and absorbed into the Infinite. The Ganga river is also polluted by raw sewage and charred human and animal remains. Cows and certain individuals (such as pregnant women and small children) who die are not cremated but instead are simply tied to a stone and their bodies are dumped into the river. Despite how dirty and polluted the Ganga is, there are hundreds of people who drink the water, brush their teeth with it, and bath in it every day.

We arrange a sunrise boat ride on the Ganga the following morning and observe people bathing, practing yoga, and performing rituals and prayers at the base of the ghats. The ghats are wide stone steps that people walk down to get to the river. Here is a picture of one of the ghats.
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Mike tells the story of the most miserable business deal he and Michele have ever been involved in…

When we arrived in Delhi at 6 a.m. on December 3rd, we didn’t want to waste much time before getting our train tickets around the country booked since we have read and been told that the trains fill up fast and bookings are possible up to 2 months in advance.

So, after an overnight flight from Cairo, we checked into our hotel and took a 3 hour nap. Still quite tired, we ventured out into the streets to walk to the Foreign Tourist Rail Booking Center at the Delhi train station. Michele has given most of this preliminary information.

So, after being sent via autorickshaw by what seemed to be a kind man, we got dropped off at a tourism offic, located in the N-block of Connaught place, which had Government written all over the windows. We were very skeptical however because the rail bookings office we were looking for was supposed to be in the train station. For whatever reason we believed this “kind” man when he said “It has moved.” This is actually the oldest trick in the book to get people to go to a shop where the “helper” makes a commission.

Anyway, we walked in the door and looked around. It didn’t seem quite right. One of the employees said, “Don’t worry you are in a government place…”
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Hello from India! (Michele here….) It is 7:00am East Coast time in the U.S. and 5:30pm Delhi, India time. AND it is Mike’s 30th birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!

We left Cairo on Friday, Dec. 2nd at 1:25p and after going through Amman (our stopover city) we arrived in Delhi at 5:00am. The problem was that although it was 5:00am Delhi time (and thus the beginning of the day), it was only 1:30am Cairo time so we essentially didn’t have a night of sleep. We had arranged for someone from the hotel to pick us up so we quickly got to the hotel and checked in at 7:00am then crashed until noon. We are staying in our usual type of area – the budget hotel area – and by most standards the place is a bit seedy. However, we sort of like to stay in these parts of town because you get to see and experience the real culture. When you stay in the nicer parts of town you only see tourists (plus the hotels are more expensive). So, the part of India we are in would send someone into extreme culture shock if they came from the U.S. but since we have been in countries in North and East Africa, India isn’t so shocking. Still, it is an extremely crowded place with the craziest driving we have ever seen. The bicycles, bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, larger taxis, cars, buses, and sacred cows all complete for space on the narrow roads. In fact, when we have been in the rickshaws we have run right into people riding bicycles but because the streets are so incredibly crowded no one is really driving very fast (so little damage is done).

One of the most interesting sites is the very large cows walking down the middle of the roads. The cows are sacred and cannot be killed. People feed them and they just wander, eat garbage, or lay around the streets. (See the photo of Mike and cow below). Another interesting site (if you can call it that) are the many people urinating. Now, this only happens closer to where we are staying (and not in the nicer parts of town) but it appears that people just use the streets as a toilet and when you are walking around there is the ever-present smell of urine.

So anyway (back to the story of our arrival)…. when we woke up after crashing at the hotel in the morning, our intention was to go to the train station to buy train tickets and inquire at the tourist office about transport between a few of the cities we planeed to travel between. However, we got somewhat lost (thanks to me listening to someone who pointed us in the wrong direction) and we ended up in the back of the train station. The events that occured next are somewhat of a blur since a) we were both incredibly tired, b) I had a massive headache, and c) it all happened so fast.

We couldn’t find where to go once we were in the back of the train station and we asked a man. He said the building was under construction where the tourist information and reservation office was (and yes, we saw a building under construction) and that we should go by auto rickshaw to the tourist information center in another part of Delhi. We had our guidebook with us and he showed us where we should go (yes, there was a legitimate Govt. run tourist office there). O.k., so he goes with us to the auto rickshaws and gets us a good price for us (33 US cents) and we speed off. We arrive at a place called the Tourist Information Center and it has an internet cafe next door to it, just like it says it should in the guidebook. We go in and talk to a guy there about arranging transportation between all the cities we want to visit in India. The guy pushes hard to sell us hotels in addition to his quote for our transportation (part train, part private driver). Mike insists that the costs for the hotels is too much and we are only interested in the transportation. Meanwhile, I have such a headache that I can’t even think about the costs or what the guy is proposing. We think this tourist office is closed on Sunday so we feel somewhat pressured to get all our transportation set up on Saturday. The cost seems a bit high but even if we went with the guy’s proposal we would still be under budget for India. So, we agree and pay for all our transportation while we are in India.

Later, we realize that this whole experience was probably a scam. First, we had read in the guidebook that people will try to tell you that the tourist office in the train station (where you can book train tickets) is closed or no longer in operation. We knew this but were so tired it didn’t even register when the guy showed us the building construction and said it was the building where the tourist information office used to be. (Sadly, today we saw the building and the sign for the tourist information office at the train station.) Second, after we paid, we look at the receipts closely and saw that the name of the office is the Tourist Information Office and today we walked by the GOVERNMENT Tourist Information Office on the next block. The names were almost identical and there is also an internet cafe next to the REAL Government Tourist Information Office. The strange thing is that somehow, the office we booked our travel with is loaded with travelers. We think the auto rickshaw drivers take people to the place we booked our transportation instead of the govt. office on the next block because this place pays them a high commission. In the end we will never know how much extra we paid but we know we paid more than we should have. That being said, in India when you pay more than you should have, you are not paying that much more. For example, we took an auto rickshaw for 15 rupees or 33 cents (the real price) but we have heard of people paying as much as 50 or 60 rupees (about $1.20-$1.40). We also went to a restaurant where the waiter served us salads and tea we didn’t order. These extra items came to a total of 25 cents. Like I said, in the end, we will still be under budget for India (assuming all the transportation works out as we were told it would). We’ll let you know if it doesn’t.
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Hey – It’s December – although it feels like summer here in Egypt. Michele here…Mike is sitting next to me and we are back in Cairo after spending 3 days in the Bahariya Oasis in the Western desert of Egypt.

So, last time I blogged I mentioned that we were about to take a night train from Luxor to Cairo. One of the most unbelievable things Mike and I have seen on this trip is the Luxor train station. First, there were so many people at this small train station, it was a total zoo. We would have never figured out where to go if we weren’t with a guy who was to show us which car to get on (remember everything is in Arabic). We followed the mob of people through a run down building to the train platform that was nothing but dirt and garbage. There were also old appliances laying in the dirt, and large broken down cabinets (like old, rotting, china cabinets) and a few refrigerators. We watched the (non-backpacking) tourists with wheeled luggage wheeling their luggage through the dirt, only to continually get stuck because there was some piece of food or garbage caught under their luggage wheel.

Anyway, we got all cozy in our bunk beds in our private sleeper car after we boarded the train but for whatever reason, the train made very abrupt stops about every hour or two. I mean, the stops were so sudden that I was thrown against the railing on my upper bunk. The train guy knocked on our door for our wake up call at 5:00am. We got up and waited for our breakfast, which was supposed to be served at 5:45. We waited and we waited…finally, the train guy comes around the says the train is 1.5 hours late. Sigh. We could have really used those precious hours of sleep especially because there were no morning stops. Oh well.

After spending one night back at our hostel in Cairo, we left the next morning at 7:00am to get on the public bus to the Bahariya Oasis. This 5.5 hour bus ride would take us to the Western desert of Egypt. More specifically, we were going to stay in an “oasis hotel” (hmmm…should be interesting) outside a small village called Bawiti. Several thousand people live in Bawiti and the population is 100% Muslim. The women wear black from head to toe, including black gloves, and a black veil over their eyes so that no part of their skin is showing. We got a pick up at the village bus station and in about 10 minutes we arrived at our “oasis hotel” – see the photo below.

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Hi friends!

Michele here…we have been on a whirl-wind tour of Egypt since we got here on November 17th and most recently, we have been traveling along the Nile River.

The last blog I mentioned that we were going to take an overnight trail from Cairo to Aswan. Aswan is a small city in southern Egypt and it sits right on the Nile River. Although the train compartment we were in was somewhat dirty and looked like it was from the 1950s, it was very functional and the sheets were soft and clean. We had a private sleeper car that had two single beds (one on top of another) that unfolded from the walls. Our 5 foot by 3 foot compartment also had a small sink, mirror, and we were served dinner and breakfast. (The meals were like airline meals but they were FREE – and we like free things). In Aswan that afternoon, we went to the Temple of Philae. The Temple of Philae was dedicated to Isis, who found the heart of her slain brother, Osiris on the now submerged Philae Island. Philae Island is where this temple used to be. An interesting thing about this temple is that when it was rebuilt, someone messed up and didn’t align the temple’s main entrance way with the rest of the temple. As this was the first temple we saw, we were amazed at the abundance of hieroglyphics. It’s incredible to think that these well preserved writings and pictures on the temple walls are thousands of years old. Here is an example:

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Hello from Cairo, Egypt!

This is Michele typing…Mike is next to me here in an Internet Cafe in downtown Cairo. After a lot of traveling (35 hours!) we arrived in Cairo at 12:45am on Friday, November 18th. We doubted our free pickup person would be waiting for us since our flight was delayed almost 7 hours. However, he was there and had been waiting for almost 7 hours as well! We arrived at our hostel at about 1:30am and were warmly greeted by the night guy. We got up late and the only thing we really did on Friday was visit the Egyptian Museum, which contains more than 120,000 statues, artworks, and sarcophagi including the treasures found in King Tutankhamen’s (King Tut’s) tomb. We saw his 25 pound gold mask that he was buried in and his 250 pound gold sarcophagus. We spent hours in this museum looking at hundreds of possessions owned by King Tut – many of them made out of sold gold. Mike also paid for a ticket to see the royal mummies. These mummies, whose bodies date back to between 1552 and 1069 B.C., are incredibly well preserved (they still have their hair!) They are once again on display after Islamic disapproval of exhibiting the dead kept them from the public eye for the past 15 years.

The next day (Nov. 19th) , we hired a driver for the day to take us to the Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx and then on to Saqqara, a necropolis in the desert filled with pyramids, temples, and tombs. Our guidebook says that evidence shows the pyraminds were built by tens of thousands of highly skilled people (not slaves) and the two largest pyraminds are said to have been standing for 46 centuries. Here are two pictures (note that Mike is at the bottom of the pyramid in the 2nd picture):
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Hi everyone,

Michele here….I am typing this from the Dubai, United Arab Emirates airport in the Middle East. We are now on our way to Egypt. In the last blog I said I would write something about our last little adventure (no, not the Kilimanjaro trek). This adventure involved trying to find a guest house we had booked in Dar Es Salaam, one of the largest cities (several million people) in Tanzania. You see, on November 11, we boarded a bus that took us from Arusha to Dar Es Salaam – that part went o.k. However, when we got to “Dar” (as it is called) we got a taxi driver who seemed totally confused by the name of the guest house and the area of the city it was in. We saw him showing the piece of paper with the directions (written in English) to the other taxi drivers and talking in Swahili to several of them. Once we got in the car, he told us he didn’t speak English. This worried us slightly but what could go wrong?
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