SELL YOUR CLEVERNESS

Holidays, houseboats, springtime, apple juice, down pillows, Sunday brunch ... the best of the last two weeks

East and West
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

First off, we’re back! David and I landed at the San Francisco International Airport at noon on Tuesday, after 24 hours of travel. We went directly to the little garden apartment we’re subletting for a month and crashed hard. I’ll be captioning photos and posting a trip recap soon, but in the meantime, I thought I’d fill in the gaps on the last two weeks of the trip.

On Friday, April 14, we took a bus from Rishikesh up into the mountains to Mussoorie, a hill station established in 1823 that was once a summer getaway for the Brits. Like Darjeeling, Mussoorie is full of Raj relics—Victorian and Edwardian cottages, imposing stone churches, ornate iron lamp posts and gazebos. After the heat of Rishikesh, the cool mountain air was an absolute delight, and unlike our experience in Darjeeling, the weather was blue skies and sunshine.

We stayed in the Hotel Broadway, built in the 1880s but apparently updated in the late 1960s, so that gabled windows and gingerbread trim sit next to mod striped-wood paneling and funky-colored linoleum. I loved it. Our room had green mountain views on three sides and we enjoyed some nice Shabbat downtime reading and relaxing in the room. We also took some scenic walks around town; it was all very low-key.

Mussoorie appears to be a hugely popular weekend destination for middle- to upper-class Indian families. We saw loads of license plates from Delhi and Punjab state, and the streets were packed with out-of-towners, providing a lively venue for evening walks and people-watching. Throughout our trip, we were fascinated by domestic tourism and discovering the places where our interests intersected. Mussoorie also offered us meat—and lots of it—after our spell in ultra-veg Rishikesh. (We couldn’t even get eggs there!) We became regulars at a fantastic tandoori kebab restaurant.

Our main reason for going to Mussoorie, however, was to attend Easter Sunday services at the Union Church (one of many Christian churches in town), which holds services in English. It was a sweet, if slightly odd, experience. There were about 50 people in attendance in the spacious church, built in 1872, and the service started out with what I’d call an Easter pageant: various children and adults came up to the dais and sang songs, read verses or did some other sort of performance. The highlight was when a woman from Los Angeles currently living in Mussoorie, dressed in what looked like a Victorian nightgown, popped an R&B gospel CD into a boom box and performed along with the song in sign language. (If you’ve seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, think Happy Hands Club. Seriously.)

Afterwards, the minister took over and led a familiar worship service, with songs, prayers, Bible verse readings and a sermon. I got a bit of a shock when the minister selected the first verse and said “Let’s see ... I think I’ll ask one of our guests to read ... How about you?” I stared at his pointing finger, mouthing “Me??” He nodded affirmatively and asked me to please stand so everyone could hear. So I stood up and read a chapter from the Book of Matthew, thinking how strange it was that in India of all places I’d find myself participating in an Easter service!

After the service was over, there was a tea fellowship where we met the minister (he apologized for putting me on the spot!), members and guests, including a brother and sister from Illinois who are working in the area. The four of us went to lunch together; I had to settle for Indian food, even though I was craving ham, sweet potatoes and Mom’s famous orange rolls.

I really love that we were able to find places to celebrate Passover and Easter in India. The experiences were different from what we know at home, but in retrospect, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. At the Passover Seder, as our little group of English speakers scanned the crowd of pot-smoking Israelis, we talked about how all of us—even those who aren’t religious—are drawn to events like this because of the power of memories and family traditions, and the desire to recognize and share them. There’s something special about affirming the familiar in an unfamiliar setting.

We left Mussoorie on Monday, took a train to Delhi and then a plane the next morning to Kashmir, where we spent four days. David described the highlights in his last post. Despite being sick for the first day and a half (yes, I had to squeeze in one last stomach episode), I had an amazing time. As David said, this part of the trip was “less about the details and more about the awe.” There was so much life playing out on the lake—little boats full of vegetables or flowers or schoolkids or pashmina shawls; rows of houseboats, both palatial and crumbling; floating vegetable gardens; kingfishers, hawks and songbirds; and gorgeous light reflecting on the water at all times of day. Spring had just begun to spring, too, so in the surrounding valley, apple trees were blooming pink and fields of mustard blazed gold. (We sampled some Kashmiri apple juice too: fantastic!) And surrounding all this life were the snowy peaks of the Himalaya and the Pir Panjal, making the place feel remote, serene and mysterious. I was glad for the little taste we had, small as it was.

I also have to note that Kashmir was the place we finally started snapping photos of the Indians who were asking to snap photos of us ... and even some who weren’t asking us. We had a ball with it, as proved by the abundance of people pics we’ve uploaded to flickr.

Our last two days in Delhi were pretty surreal. After a morning of whirlwind sightseeing—to the Red Fort, built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the early 1600s when he moved his capital from Agra to Delhi, and to the Jama Masjid, also built by Shah Jahan, one of the largest and best known mosques in India—we checked into The Oberoi, a luxury five-star hotel. Much fine dining (including a Sunday champagne brunch buffet), pool splashing, and HBO-watching in a fluffy down bed ensued. We reckoned we spent as much money there in a day and a half as we had in an average two-and-a-half-week period during the rest of our travels!

Stay tuned for the recap...

Rishikesh Unexpected

Throwin' Rocks an' Skippin' Stones
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

(We’ve been away from Internet access, or the time to access it, for a while, so I’ve got some catching up to do!)

After leaving the Andaman Islands, on April 9, David and I undertook the long trek up to Rishikesh for Passover. We’d originally planned to go to Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama, for the holiday, but a woman we met in the Andamans recommended we go to Rishikesh, “Yoga Capital of the World” instead. It was one of the best places she’d been in her seven months in India, and she assured us there’d be a big Passover gathering there. Thus, David and I hauled ourselves across the subcontinent with high expectations.

What we found fell short of what we’d envisioned. Nearing the end of the dry season, the green-forested hills our friend had described had turned dull and the rushing Ganges, on which she’d white-water rafted back in October, had slowed to a near crawl. The weather was hot and dry, and it was no fun to be outside for most of the afternoon. And this holy Ganges city, where the river prepares to meet the plains after its journey down through the Himalayas, couldn’t hold a candle to Varanasi. There were loads of pilgrims, holy men and river ceremonies, but we didn’t feel the magic we experienced in Varanasi.

In addition to Hindus, Rishikesh attracts spiritual seekers of all stripes who come to stay in ashrams and learn yoga, meditation and other paths to enlightenment. The result, as David and I experienced it, is a concentration of healy-feelies types. (As California residents, we’re well familiar with these folk.) One morning at breakfast, we sat and listened to the conversations at the tables around us: a woman talked about awakening her kundalini while one guy described how his yoga was inducing lucid dreams and yet another guy spoke of pursuing a path of discovery through sexual exploration. It was an eye-rolling morning for us.

On top of it all, the Passover Seder, held outside the Chabad House, was a bit of a letdown: three Chabadniks, as David called them, in their black hats and suits, blazing through the Haggadah at breakneck speed and not quite in unison while hundreds of staring Israeli hippies passed joints around. Fortunately, we were able to home in on the four other English speakers in the crowd—two Americans, an Australian and a South African—and we had a fun time visiting and sharing stories.

On the following day, a Thursday, David and I decided to head up to Mussorie, a hill station about three hours away, on Friday rather than sticking around Rishikesh any longer. That evening we went to one of the temples on the river to watch the Ganga Aarti, the evening prayer service, which was something we really loved in Varanasi; it was always such a peaceful time and always a great opportunity for people watching. We took a seat on the ghats as the sun began to set and the puja ceremony began, and were having fun discretely snapping photos of people.

I’d just taken a series of three cute kids—two little boys and what was clearly a bossy big sister (I know the type)—tossing stones into the river in the beautiful dusk light, when a woman stepped in front of us. A familiar face…but not quite right. After a moment of spinning, my brain cranked out a name: Jo. Yes, of course! Jo, of Jack and Jo, the American couple we hung out with in Sikkim and who celebrated David’s birthday with us. Jo, the field biologist who’s about my age. “But wait a sec,” my braid said. “Is Jo going to a Halloween party? She dressed like a mummy.” Indeed, she had a white bandage wrapped around her head and another across her chin. He eyes were ringed with makeup-perfect black-and-purple bruises. As the costume thought entered my mind, another one, right on its heels, said, “That’s ridiculous. She’s clearly been in an accident. Maybe she rented a moped and wrecked?”

David and I both sputtered, “What happened?” and her answer was more shocking than her appearance. While hiking in the forested hills above the city, an Indian man who befriended her along the way—who spoke good English and seemed very kind and respectable—assaulted her with a “walking stick” that he’d picked up along the way. He beat her repeatedly in the head and face until she fell unconscious. When she awoke, she was lying in a stream where she fell, her face covered in blood. Her daypack was gone, but her purse, which held her money and passport, was still strapped around her. She hid in some bushes for several hours, afraid that the man was still around and might attack her again. Finally, some women passed by collecting fodder, and Jo stopped them for help. She was taken to the public state hospital, where they did a rough and sloppy job stitching wounds in her forehead. They didn’t even clean the blood off her face before sending her off!

Fortunately, a doctor who was staying at the same ashram as Jo cleaned her up, added a few more stitches to her forehead and also stitched up a wound on her lip and chin. She received reiki and lymphatic massage from other people at the ashram too. (“I’ve been too hard on the healy-feelies,” I thought.) Two days later—after much bureaucratic rigmarole—she obtained an X-ray; she had a deviated septum and a blot clot, but nothing was broken. Jack had been spending some time in the eastern part of the country, near Sikkim, and was on his way to Rishikesh; Jo expected him the next day.

As Jo told us her story, I tried to push aside my shock and offer her some sort of comfort and support, but it was hard. How could this have happened? How could someone do something like this—what appeared to be a violent act for the sake of violence, an act of one man’s anger, aggression, insanity against one very kind woman? I was shocked, too, on a bigger scale: this event had shattered my image of India as an essentially gentle, even innocent, place. Pick pocketing, lies, cheating, swindling—this I was familiar with, this I could deal with, this didn’t involve a weapon. But what happened to Jo went far beyond what I ever expected to see happen to a tourist in this country.

We spent the evening with Jo, went to dinner at a quiet little place near her ashram, and then made plans to meet her for breakfast the next morning. We didn’t want to leave Rishikesh till Jack arrived, so we agreed to postpone our departure to Mussorie if necessary. I began thinking about the way things work out. How we’d come to Rishikesh, a place we’d had no intention of visiting, because someone we liked had recommended it. Before we left on this trip, David and I agreed that we’d allow our itinerary to be loose enough that if someone recommended a really cool place, we’d deviate from our plans and check it out. I think we’d expected to be rewarded for our spontaneity and ability to detach from plans and shift gears. I think we’d expected Rishikesh to really wow us, and for the Seder to be an amazing experience. Expectations blown. We’d both been chewing on those thoughts the evening we ran into Jo, and after dinner we began to wonder if Jo was the reason were set in the direction of Rishikesh. Sometimes the unexpected is too unexpected to be a random occurrence. I don’t know if our presence in Rishikesh was a comfort or support to Jo, but I’d like to think it was. Jo certainly made me feel like I belonged there.

Jack arrived early the next morning, and when we came to the ashram to meet Jo for breakfast, he was on the phone with the insurance company, getting the names of hospitals where Jo could get a CAT scan to be sure she hadn’t suffered greater damage. The four of us had breakfast together, and knowing that Jack was there and Jo would be receiving good care, we decided to head up to Mussorie. I just received an email from Jo—who, I should note, is one tough lady—and she’s doing much better. Tests revealed no internal damage, and she’s meeting with a plastic surgeon to find out about minimizing the scarring on her face.

An elephant on the beach! How great is that?!!

Beached...elephant?
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

Beach No. 7, on the west side of Havelock Island, is stunning. Really. Like, our first glimpse of it stunned us into silence for a while. OK, maybe a few whispered "Wow"s got out.

I hate to mention mathematics when I'm talking about paradise on earth, but I read an article about a German guy who came up with a formula for quantifying and ranking the best beaches in the world. Factors such as the whiteness of the sand, the water temperature, the slope of the beach, the color of the water, etc., were given numeric ranks and then used to calculate a value. This beach was on the top of his list.

It's a long, wide, slightly curving beach bordered by jungle and tall coconut palms, providing just the right amount of shade and plenty of prime hammock-hanging spots. The sand is clean and golden-white and dotted with pretty shells--many inhabited by hermit crabs. The sea is turquoise and incredibly clear and feels like bathwater. The waves are gentle. And sometimes elephants go strolling by!

We spent a week on this fantasy island. We stayed at the Pristine Beach Resort, on the east side of the island, in a cute bamboo hut with an ocean view that cost us about $6 a night. (There's no lodging right at Beach No. 7 because it's a protected area.) We swam, napped in hammocks, read, snorkeled in Finding Nemo land, and ate fish every day. (Don't worry, we didn't eat Nemo.) I even got to fulfill a childhood fantasy: a ride on an elephant. I'd been given the opportunity once before, at about age 4, at the Ringling Bros. Circus, but I backed out when I discovered a clown would be involved. I still hate clowns...

The Andaman Islands are relatively undiscovered, as far as tourism goes. Only a handful are inhabited, and even fewer have services for tourists. Accommodations, with a few exceptions, are simple. And the result is unspoiled beaches, an abundance of snorkeling and diving opportunities, low prices, and a gentle atmosphere. However, this may be changing soon. There are plans to introduce the first international flight to the islands, from Bangkok, Thailand, which will create a booming source of new visitors. On the ferry to Havelock Island, from Port Blair, where the airport is located, David and I met a pair of Indian businessmen who have plans to open an ultra-exclusive resort on one of the islands. They wanted to attract "the Brad Pitts and Jennifer Anistons of the world" and hope to charge $600 to $800 a night!

David and I are in Delhi now, and the noise, dust and air pollution have been a major shock to my system. I would've been happy to spend our remaining weeks swimming, hammock swinging and eating mangoes at No. 7. I hope we can make it back again before all the Brad Pitts and Jennifer Anistons get there.

If only we had more time!

They LOOK cute...
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

Throughout this trip David and I have strived to strike a balance between making advance plans for our next stop or two (ie, booking rail tickets since trains fill up fast) and allowing room for spontaneity. I think we've been doing pretty well: we stayed an extra week in Rajasthan to visit the beautiful desert cities of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur; we fell in love with Varanasi and stayed three extra days there; and now we're squeezing in an on-the-fly trip to the Andaman Islands.

But alas, we still have an unchangeable departure date from India, April 25, and we're running out of time to prolong our stays in the places we visit. Thus our trip to Sikkim, from March 26 to 30, had to end before we wanted to leave. We spent three blissful days surrounded by the lush mountain scenery of this tiny Himalayan state. We'd indended to go on a three-day trek and visit three little Buddhist monastery villages, but we got to the first place and loved it so much that we stayed put! And in the process of getting there, we became minor celebrities on the Buddhist lama circuit ...

We set out from the town of Pelling on Monday morning for a five-hour hike to Lake Khecheopalri, a sacred lake according to Buddhist belief. The first leg was a steep trail running straight down a mountain, through evergreens to bamboo to banana palms, until it reached a river in the valley basin. By the time we got to the bottom, after about two hours, I'd injured my ankle and developed a migraine and David realized that the sole of one of his boots was about to fall off. We knew we potentially had 10 kilometers or more to go -- and back up another mountain! -- so we decided to try to hitch a ride up to the lake.

After many minutes of watching loads of jeeps headed in the opposite direction, a convoy of maybe five jeeps heading toward the lake began to pass. Each jeep had a small flag waving from its front bumper, and one of them stopped for us. "Khecheopalri?" I asked the monk behind the wheel. He and the nun in the passenger seat nodded; David and I scrambled in and the convoy headed on. Perhaps a kilometer before we reached the lake, the jeeps stopped. All the monks and nuns jumped out and rushed to help an old lama out of the jeep in front of us. They guided him over to the side of the road, where a table and chairs were set with tea and bowls of food. A great deal of ceremonial nodding and blessing of tea and food ensued. Then the man stood up and was escorted back to the jeep, and we continued on.

It began to occur to David and I that we were traveling with no ordinary group of monks. Our suspicions were confirmed when we passed through the gates to Khecheopalri Lake: the road was lined with crimson- and saffron-clad monks; we heard drums, gongs and Tibetan horns playing; and a large crowd of people had gathered. "OK, Khecheopalri," our smiling monk driver told us; he refused our offer of gas money. We got out of the jeep, approached a group of Western travelers and learned that the man in the jeep in front of us who'd been met with such fanfare was the head lama from Ladakh, who's supposedly a big cheese in the lama hierarchy. The group told us they'd been waiting for four hours for the lama to come!

They'd been told there would be a huge celebration, but it turned out to not amount to much. This was in part because just before the convoy arrived, a pair of fighting dogs had knocked over the ceremonial table set with flowers, tea and other things, and because a tourist jeep had somehow got in front of the lama's convoy, so when the line of jeeps rolled in, all the waiting monks began rushing to the first jeep, which they assumed carried the lama. They were called to retreat, but the drama of the lama's arrival had been ruined. No one seemed to mind, though. The lama eventually disembarked, and the big entourage -- monks, musicians and the lama, shaded by a colorful canopy -- proceeded to the monastery. Meanwhile, David and I spent the afternoon impressing all the Westerners we met with our hitchiking story.

Some of the folks we talked to were staying in a little monastery village 20 minutes up the hill above the lake, so David and I hiked up to check it out and fell in love with the place. The community of 16 families sits atop a ridge with mountain views in all directions. The monk, a crusty old guy named Pala who used to be the Dalai Lama's chef, runs a "guesthouse" that's really a collection of rooms in various family members' houses. About 15 travelers -- from England, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and the U.S. -- were staying up there, and their days usually consisted of taking walks, reading, playing with the pack of feral children who roamed the village when they weren't in school, and hanging out around the outdoor community dining table. David and I scrapped our trekking plans the moment we sat down and never regretted the change of plans.

It was so incredibly tranquil up there, and it was great to hang out and swap stories with a friendly group of fellow travelers. We enjoyed some yummy Sikkimese food, including a stir-fry with fiddlehead ferns and yak cheese, and the national beverage, dongba, which is a sake-like drink made from fermented millet with boiling water poured over it. More about the feral children: one visitor said of them, "Nowhere have I met a group of kids so violent and so loveable at the same time!" Precious, smiling, spitting, singing, rock-throwing, hugging, dancing, skinned-knee kids they were. I really loved them. The first night we were there, the kids built a fire for us. A guy from Boston commented, "The thing we've forgotten about child labor is that it's so darn cute!"

We left our little hilltop paradise on the morning of David's birthday and took a jeep back to Pelling with two other couples. We had a fun little birthday celebration that night, which I'm guessing David will describe in his next post. We then left the next morning, taking a four-hour jeep ride south to a city where we caught an overnight train to Calcutta. If we didn't already have our ticket for the Andamans booked (we leave April 1), we would've stayed longer. I definitely would have enjoyed more trekking and the chance to see more of the rhododendron trees (yes, they're TREE SIZED in Sikkim!), which were just starting to bloom, wild orchids, birds and other flora and fauna. We also missed out on some beautiful Buddhist monasteries.

We're now in Calcutta for a day, and discovered almost immediately that it's a great city! The architecture here is very different from other cities we've seen -- British colonial architecture, some restored, some crumbling, all very appealing -- and there's a cosmopolitan feel that we haven't experience elsewhere. We even had an Illy espresso today. (Those little familiar things go a long way when you're away from home.) We're going to do some sightseeing this afternoon, mostly to see the Raj-era relics. Calcutta was the capital of British India from the 1600s till the early 20th century. Interesting trivia sidenote: Until the mid 1800s, India was controlled by a corporation, the British East India Company, rather than a country. After the first Indian war for independence in 1857 (the British called it the "Indian Uprising"), Great Britain stepped in and took over control from the company.

In any case, David and I looked at our calendar and tried to figure out if there was any way to squeeze out another day or two to see more of Calcutta, but no dice. Our return trip from the Andamans to Calcutta is on April 9; we take a train to Delhi that night; and the next day we take a bus up to Dharmasala, where the Tibetan Government in Exile is based and where we need to be by the 12th, in time for Passover. (There's supposed to be a big Passover celebration there.) We've agreed that our next trip to India -- and there will be a next trip -- will include a good span of time in Calcutta and another trip to Sikkim.

A different face of India

The latest tea picker
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

A week ago we took an overnight train from Varanasi to a very different India. Evergreen hills, cool breezes and Central Asian faces. Our first stop was Kurseong, a sweet tea-growing town at about 5,000 feet, where we stayed at a cozy, wood-paneled government tourist lodge that reminded us of a 1960s-kitschy ski chalet. We spent a fantastic day visiting an organic, biodynamic tea estate and the government tea research institute, which you can read about in David's latest post. I even got to pick a bit of tea myself, as you can see! We had a wonderful time wandering without the guidance of Lonely Planet -- Kurseong only gets a quarter-page in the guidebook, enough to say how to get there and info on two accommodation options. (It's amazing how hard it is to put down the book and strike out on our own when we know there's information to be had, so it was a welcome change to not have the info!)

From Kurseong, we took the toy train of the Darjeeling Himalyan Railway, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This little train slowly winds and loops its way up the hills to Darjeeling on two-foot-wide track; the views were beautiful, and the tiny towns and stations that we passed had me squirming with the cuteness of it all. We rolled into Darjeeling (30 kilometers and four hours later!) to find clouds and fog obscuring the mountain views that are one of the main attractions. It was one of my first big disappointments of this trip, knowing that if the skies were clear I'd see a see a snowy Himalayan range, including Mt. Everest.

Nevertheless, I've really enjoyed the past few days, soaking in the British Raj-era ambiance of this hilltop town, known as the Queen of the Hill Stations. From the late 1800s till Indian independence in 1946, this town was a popular retreat for Brits in Calcutta seeking to escape the heat of the plains, and that legacy is seen in the Victorian architecture: grand stone buildings, peaked tin roofs and gingerbreading everywhere... David and I took high tea -- complete with cucumber sandwiches, jam cake and shortbread -- in the coal fire-warmed sitting room of one the swanky hotels. Very sweet! We've also splurged on our hotel: we're paying $27 a night at the Darjeeling Belleview Hotel for a gorgeous suite, complete with sitting room and wood-burning stove. (We typically pay $10 or less for a night!)

Today, Darjeeling is a popular getaway for middle-class Indian families. After spending time in rural areas and in cities where we've been around poorer folks, it's been interesting to see this segment of the population. Moms and dads strolling and socializing, kids running and screaming, teenagers cruising. They stand out like sore thumbs, as most of them are wearing brightly colored ski caps that say "DARJEELING," which are sold by streetside vendors for all the visitors who come here unprepared for the 40-degree nights. It reminds me of the tourists who come to San Francisco in July, not knowing that it's one of our chilliest months, and must buy baggy sweatshirts emblazoned with "SAN FRANCISCO"!

And then the local population is so different from what we've seen in the plains. Many people are of Nepali and Tibetan origin, and their traditional styles of dress are different from the Hindus to the south. And the younger kids are really hip dressers; I get the impression they watch a lot of MTV. This is a big contrast to the kids in Varanasi, for example, who we mainly saw wearing garishly patterned disco shirts and pants hiked up to their waists.

I also noticed more religious diversity here. One day I walked up to the top of Observatory Hill, where there's a joint Hindu-Buddhist temple. As I watched monkeys swinging from the multitude of colorful Buddhist prayer flags fluttering above the Shiva temple, I heard a distant loudspeaker from the town mosque announcing the Muslim call to prayer. When I came back down the hill, I found a big crowd in the town square gathered a round a troupe of funkily dressed 20-something youths who turned out to be a Norwegian Christian mission group performing the parable of the prodigal son! There are quite a few Christian churches, ranging from Catholic to Full Gospel; I'm actually hearing Christian pop music right now, as the owners of this Internet cafe are Christian. No synagogues that I'm aware of, but David did some representin' yesterday as we strolled around town on our Shabbat morning walk.

We're leaving today for a three-day trek in Sikkim, and after that we diverge from our previously scheduled plans and head to the Andaman Islands, which are a two-hour flight from Calcutta, for a week! I've heard they're still in need of an economic boost since the tsunami in December 2004, and we're happy to oblige.

Varanasi

View from Ganga Temple
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

Varanasi is what I imagined India to be like: Life bursting at the seams. As I sit here considering what to write about this amazing city, I'm overwhelmed by the images flashing through my mind--it's almost too much to describe. I could devote an entire page just to the multitude of colors, fabrics, designs and wrap styles of the sarees I've seen here.

We've spent an amazing week walking along the ghats on the Ganges and getting lost in the narrow, winding alleys of the old city, just soaking it all in: lame beggars on wheeled carts, beautiful women in shimmering silk, men socializing at chai stalls, kids playing cricket in the tiniest of open spaces, fat cows (everywhere!) ... the smells of roses, spices, sandalwood, cow dung (everywhere!) ... the sounds of bells ringing, temple keepers chanting, boatmen offering rides down the river with their ubiquitous call, "Hul-lo! Bo-aht?!"

We were in town for the annual Holi festival, a springtime celebration of rebirth and new life (sound familiar?). The defining activity of the festival is the throwing of colored dyes, first in wet form via waterballons and super-soakers, then in dry, powdered form. We'd stayed in our hotel during the peak of the color frenzy; most families celebrate within their homes, and we were warned that the streets are packed with rowdy young men, many of whom are drunk. But we did venture out in the afternoon and got a good powdering; one kid dumped half his bag of pink powder on my head! (David took this photo of me after I'd shaken the worst of it off.)

I loved wandering the alleys, which were usually only about six feet wide and twisted and turned so that I felt as if I was in a maze. Between squeezing past people and cows, stepping over cow patties and dodging motorcycles, it was always an adventure. And there was so much happening there--shops selling fabrics, cookware, perfumes, firewood; food stalls offering sweets, samosas, pakoras; people milking cows, pumping water and sweeping up trash; tiny temples the size of child's playhouse tucked into corners.

Some of the sweetest times were when we sat on the steps of the main ghat, watching the sunset and the beautiful evening riverside ceremony of the Ganga Temple. The heat of the day had worn off, a soft breeze blew off the river, and people of all ages and castes gathered to worship, socialize or just people-watch. The sky would fill with birds and scores of little tissue-paper kites. Men wandered the crowd selling chai from big copper kettles with kerosene burners strapped underneath, which they served in little terracotta cups that you simply smash on the ground when you're finished (the original recyclable). Grubby kids speaking excellent English sold little banana-leaf bowls with marigold-ringed butter candles to float in the river. Saffron-wrapped sadhus served dinner to the city's most needy. As the sky darkened, bamboo umbrellas above the crowd lit up with twinkling colored lights.

In this city--perhaps the oldest living city on earth and the holiest place for a Hindu to die--we saw bodies on the pyres of the burning ghats and wrapped in cloth, floating in the Ganges (children and pregnant women, among others, are not burned as they are already considered to be pure). We saw the bloated bodies of cows and dogs in the river as well, along with a great deal of garbage. The Ganges is horribly polluted; nevertheless, Hindus view her as absolutely pure and regard a daily bath in the river as one of the best things they can do for their soul. And this contrast defines Varanasi. There's a lot of ugliness and dirtiness in this city, but the beauty is absolute, undeniable, unforgettable.

p.s. If you want to learn more about pollution in the Ganges and efforts to curb it, check out this article I wrote for the Sacred Land Film Project. While we were in Varanasi, I tried to visit the research center I described in the article, but it was closed for the holiday.

Feed me!

A few years ago my dear friends Charles and Peter and I took a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico for the Dia de los Muertos holiday. I'm not sure if I looked malnourished, but it seemed that everywhere we went, people gave me food: an old lady on the bus shared her tamales with me, a man at a sandwich stand let me have a bit of his sandwich, etc. Peter still teases me about it to this day, and he asked us to keep track of the handouts I got here in India.

Well, Peter, the feedings haven't occurred as profusely as in Mexico, but here's the rundown. I've had quite a few glasses of chai handed to me, but those most often happened when I was in someone's shop and they wanted me to stay a bit longer. Last Wednesday, while David and I sat at a roadside stand in Ajmer (Rajasthan), in the middle of a duststorm, awaiting our long-overdue sleeper bus to Agra, some men sat down at our table with a pile of namkin on a sheet of newspaper and offered us some.  (Namkin is a salty, spicy snack made up of little bits of stuff like puffed rice, peanuts, and what looks like the crunchy Chinese noodles that come in a can in the States; it can be bought prepackaged, or fresh from a roadside vendor, who may also add diced onion and tomato and a little lime juice.) On a side note, we discovered that night that "sleeper bus" does not equal "sleeper train" -- what a bumpy, grimy experience!

But on the food front, the highlight so far was last night. We were at the Jhansi train station, awaiting our train to  Varanasi. We'd just spent a few lovely days in a peaceful riverside town called Orchaa. David went off to get a bite to eat and to bring me back a little rice (my stomach's a bit off--again!), and a girl slipped into his empty seat and told me she would like to speak English with me. She was so adorable: a very smart, grown-up sounding 11-year-old with plans of working for the Foreign Office when she grows up. She was on her way to Pune with her parents to visit her older brother. She told me, "We saw you, and we were talking about how you had a kind face, and perhaps you wouldn't mind speaking with me." We discussed the places I'd visited and she told me about her favorite places in India. It was such a sweet experience.

When David returned, she scurried off to her seat. David dropped off my rice, packaged in a blue plastic bag, and went off again to check on the status of our train. I was really hungry. I reached in the bag, scooped a handful of rice into my mouth, and nearly spit it out because it had magically taken on the plastic flavor of the bag. Then I noticed a fat bug in the rice, and decided to pitch the whole thing. As I sat there comtemplating my options (maybe I had a Luna bar in my bag?), the girl reappeared bearing a silver plate filled with namkin and little fried dumplings! It was delish. Unfortunately, just as I started to dig in, she told me her train had arrived and she needed to go. "And please, if it's not too much trouble, may I have my plate back?" I emptied the plate into a spare baggie, handed the plate back to her, and in the blink of an eye she was out the door, pulling her little rolling suitcase behind her. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye, and I don't remember her name!

Henna Hijackings, Krishna Concerts and Delhi Belly

I’m writing from Pushkar, where we’ve been since Friday afternoon. We enjoyed four days in sandy Jaisalmer. I was taken in by the romance of the camel safari and the temples, palace and crazy maze of streets inside the medieval fort city. If I imagined away (OK, not an easy task) the tourists and the multitude of vendors selling all the things that tourists want to buy, the city was probably much the same as it’s been for centuries. On Wednesday, we had a one-day whirlwind stop in Jodhpur, renown for its blue-painted houses and the massive fort—no longer inhabited—which looms over the city. The fort is now a national heritage place/museum and featured a really impressive audio tour.

After the blur of Jodhpur, we were really glad to get to Pushkar and plant ourselves for a few days. As you may have read in David’s latest post, the town encircles a small lake and is a Hindu pilgrimage place. It’s a very mellow spot, and it attracts a lot of travelers looking for a rest (it also seems like a bit of a party scene for the younger folks.) We’re staying in a beautiful place called Inn Seventh Heaven.

On Saturday morning (our first morning here), we decided to take a stroll around the lake. As in all the places we’ve been so far, the streets were lined with stalls of vendors selling clothing, crafts and various traveler necessities. Since we were observing Shabbat, and thus not using money (and ideally, not even thinking about money, commerce or work), it was little disconcerting to be bombarded by calls of “See my bracelets!” “Come into my store!” and “Buy water here!”

A woman with mesmerizing purple lipstick and a matching purple mark on her forehead, who introduced herself as Anita, invited me to look at her necklaces, spread out on a blanket. After I explained that I couldn’t buy anything that day, she took my right hand, turned it palm up (me thinking she was preparing to tell my fortune), pulled a tube of henna paste out of who-knows-where and proceeded to squirt a flower pattern in the center of my palm. “OK,” I thought, “She’s giving me a little sample of her design work.” But no: The woman kept going, squeezing thick lines of henna around my palm, up and down my fingers, and even onto my wrist! My interjections of “Thanks, um, that’s really pretty, but I think that’s enough…” failed to deter her in her mission to temporarily tattoo my hand. I was the victim of a henna hijacking.

At last, Anita leaned back, smiled at her artistry (although “artistry” isn’t the best word to describe the mess on my hand), and announced, “Six hundred rupees. But for you, a friend, three hundred.” Three hundred rupees is about $7. I stared down at my gloopy hand; already I’d bent my wrist and turned what might have been a leaf design into a fat brown smear. I reminded her that I didn’t have any money and couldn’t spend any today. “OK. Tomorrow. Three hundred rupees,” she said. David pointed out that we couldn’t even discuss money. “OK. Tomorrow. Three hundred rupees,” she repeated. She reached out and linked her pinky finger with mine. “Promise,” she said. Yes, on top of it all, she forced me into a pinky promise!

David and I continued on our walk around the lake. A little girl noticed my hand and said, “Gypsy!” (as in the woman who did this to me was a gypsy) and a few teenage boys pointed at my hand and snickered. Since Saturday, I’ve avoided Anita’s street. I don’t intend to pay her for staining my hand, and I also don’t want a gypsy curse brought down on me. Yesterday David and I dined with a woman who I noticed also had one palm covered in a messy henna design. She too had met Anita.

That night David and I went to a crazy concert in the town square. Astroturf was laid out for the audience to sit on, and twine threaded with marigolds was strung down the center, separating the women to the left and men to the right. I took my place among moms, kids and other travelers. After much prelude, the band started up—a guy with a synthesizer, one with a drum machine, one with a bongo and one with tablas, all seated on the stage. The musicians were great, and after a few songs, two singers joined in too. Out of the Hindi I noticed a few familiar words: Krishna, Shiva, Surya. I guess it’s a no-brainer that a pilgrimage city would feature religious concerts. At the end of each song, the crowd would shout a loud “Ho!” and lift their arms in a “raise the roof” motion, which I really loved.

At one point, a young man and woman, costumed in gold crowns and regal clothes—I think it was Krishna and one of his wives—paraded down the aisle and took seats on the stage. Then came boys with boxes full of rose petals, showering the crowd, and others spraying water (from the lake?). I and a four-year-old boy next to me collected piles of petals and threw them in each other’s faces. It was all very fun. The highlight for me was when a man who looked like an Indian Urkel took to the front of the stage and started busting a move in exactly the way you might imagine and Indian Urkel would dance.

That night, in the wee hours, I was overtaken by a pretty severe case of Delhi belly. Maybe Anita had laid a curse on me after all, or perhaps I’d ingested a bit of that lake-water aerosol.

Mama's got a squeezebox

Lady with a squeezebox
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

Pictures are up! This is one of my many many favorites from the havelis of Shekhawati. It already seems like a distant memory -- for the past week, we've been living in a sort of Arabian Nights fantasy, with turbaned men, veiled women, camels, and magical sandcastles rising from the desert. Check David's blog for a bit about our camel safari!

A little bit country

Just wound up three blissful days in a rural area called the Shekhawati region, north of Jaipur. We stayed in an "eco-resort," called Apani Dhani, with solar lights and hot water, an organic garden supplying most of the ingredients for the amazing meals, compostable everything, and bungalows with traditional grass-thatched roofs and mud bricks, which keep things cool during the hot desert days. The owner, Ramesh Jangid, has invested decades of work promoting social, economic and environmental sustainability programs in the region, and five percent of Apani Dhani's profits go to this work.

Many of the villages in Shekhawati have big old houses, called havelis, built in the 1800s and early 1900s for the families of a wealthy merchant class, but abandoned decades ago. Their outer walls and inner courtyards are covered with amazing frescoes with subjects ranging from Hindu mythology to portraits of maharajas to "modern inventions" like automobiles and airplanes--often done by an artist who'd been told of such things but had never seen them himself. Today many are being restored, in part with support from Apani Dhani.

One day we went on a tour of havelis in a few of the surrounding villages. Our guide, Ramesh's son, is very passionate about this artistic heritage and its preservation. The second day we rented bicycles and got slightly lost riding around the narrow streets of Nawalgarh, the town we were staying in. Fun, but very tricky to navigate, manage the INSANE Indian road rules (see David's recent post), and take in a bit of the streetside scenery. I nearly collided with an oncoming motorcycle when I turned my head to gawk at a man in a gorilla suit (with fangs!) in a candy store. Still wondering what that was about ...

Today we took a cooking class at Apani Dhani--the food here is the best we've had anywhere in India so far--and i got some great recipes. We had a hard time leaving today, as we were really getting into the peacefulness: the sounds of birds, goats and people instead of buses, trucks and autorickshaws; rooftop sunrises; and quiet afternoons reading in the bougainville-covered gazebo in the courtyard of Apani Dhani.

Tonight we catch a midnight train to Jaisalmer, an ancient fort city in the middle of desert (a 12-hour train ride away).

p.s. Photos of Shekhawati will have to wait till next time--we're currently in an Internet cafe with dial-up and Windows 98!