SELL YOUR CLEVERNESS

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!