Sub-Continental Drift
Hello!
I write to you today from a lovely little town called Chamba, set in a beautiful green valley in the foothills of the Himalaya, in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Which means I'm way far north in India these days-- I'm in the middle of the little knob sticking out north of Delhi (that is, on a map of India). In fact it looks as though this will be my northernmost point within India unless I return in warmer months to explore some mountain areas currently inaccessible by road. I did not expect to be here right now, and I must confess that I'm still a bit surprised to find myself here-- I was in the far south just a few weeks ago. But if there are two things I love it's mountains and changes of plan, so perhaps it's not so surprising afterall. Now to tell the tale of how it is I came to be here . . .
In my last entry I left off in Kannur, at New Years. As I mentioned, Christoph and I were there longer than expected because we couldn't get a train reservation. As it turned out, we never were able to get a train reservation-- the first available was over a week away. The problem was a combination of holiday travel and the fact that our destination was a 26 hour train ride away, which means that it's hard to find a single spot that isn't booked at some point along the way. After several unsuccessful attempts to get reservations through the waiting list, we got desperate. Kannur was nice, but not that nice. So we did what few Westerners ever do-- we bought a ticket for a long distance train journey in the infamous "general compartment".
The last car on most Indian trains, the general compartment does not require reservations. Thus our ability to get on-- and thus the reputation. Not surprisingly, it's also the cheapest option for train travel, if not travel in general, in India. I'm going to try to avoid going into too much detail, which means I'll be quite brief, for to describe the experience adequately would require a description of the interior that I would make too technical to keep anyones interest. For now I'll just say that the car was rather crowded. After a while we got seats, and as the crowd thinned a bit as the night grew later, we had seats that would pass for as much outside of India. The evening's big surprise came later still, when people started laying out blankets on the floor of the train-- before long the entire floor was covered in sleeping bodies, even underneath the train's bench-style seats.
I found myself quite unable to sleep, being the sort of person who has trouble sleeping sitting up. After a spell I got up to go to the bathroom and wander about a bit, which also allowed Christoph to lie down partially. Getting to the bathroom without stepping on people took every bit of foot-placement finesse I've developed from climbing-- in fact I found that I had to take my shoes off, shoes being far too cumbersome for the task. The wandering didn't happen so much because, wisely I suppose, it turned out the general compartment wasn't connected to the rest of the train (whereas you can move between cars in other parts of the train). So I contented myself with standing in the car's doorway, watching the stars and what I could see of the landscape passing by in the night-- something that has become one of my very favorite things to do in India. But before long the people crouched nearby asked me to close the door, as it was making them cold. I did so, but not yet ready to return to the dismal seat, I continued to stand.
It was then, looking about, that I had my moment of inspiration as my eyes fell on the Indian train equivalent to the overhead luggage compartment of a plane-- more or less a footwide board running along the length of the car maybe seven feet above the floor, tilted slightly towards the wall to keep bags from shifting off. I noticed that, if I shifted some of the bags about, that just maybe there would be room enough for me to lie down if I could get myself up there. So this was where I spent the night, thankful for the tilt but willing myself not to move too much in my sleep nonetheless. I got a decent night's sleep except for a few stops in the night at more major stations where battles to board the train were waged.
Indians don't seem to heed the basic maxim of letting people off/out before you get on/in, which creates substantial problems when there's a lot of people trying to do both. And, as with most things here, there's often a lot people involved. I guess it's the sort of situation where if you're the only one not trying to push your way onto the bus or train then you maybe don't get a seat-- if there are any at all to be had-- but taken as a whole it seems to me really an absurd waste of energy. People are ruthless, too-- pushing, swearing, etc. This was taken to a whole new level in the general compartment. I was woken from my sleep by all kinds of violent shouting. During one busy stop the subsequent day I saw people get really aggressive with each other-- one woman trying to get off got her head smashed into the corner a wall (inadvertently) as a wave of young men shoved their way in. The funny thing is that once on board, Indians are exceptionally friendly with one another. It's often very difficult for me to discern which people are together because oftentimes everyone in a given row of seats will be conversing together like old friends, even if they've just met an hour ago.
Anyhow, so that's how my first night of the new year was spent. The day passed smoothly enough. Perhaps the most remarkable point in the train ride was when in the morning, seeing my spot vacated, two fellows about my age proceeded to occupy the spot that I had thought to small for me. But enough about the train ride . . . I have three weeks to cover. I hope you're all comfortable . . .
We were on our way to visit the famous rock cut cave-temples of Ajanta and Ellora, in that order. Both were pretty great, though with both I enjoyed the settings as much as the caves themselves. The caves at Ajanta are carved into a sheer cliff face in a beautiful gorge; those at Ellora into what was a less sheer rock face at the end of broad plains. At both the landscape was dramatically different from what I had seen during the previous seven weeks or so drifting in
circles about the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Instead of lush forests all over was grassland with scattered trees, not so different from much of California. I enjoyed Ellora especially, as it's Kailasa temple was absolutely spectacular. I think it's said to be the largest monolithic structure in the world. Basically it's a HUGE temple with lots of elaborate sculpture work created entirely in relief, such that no scaffolding was required-- they started from the top of the rock-slope hillside and carved their way downwards. I couldn't get a good picture of it because there was a bunch of scaffolding, but if you want to see it go to: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/people/students/branner/jeannieaquilino/01itinerary/02swindia/02swindia-Images/18.jpg. If you do make sure to take note of the people in the picture, to get a sense of the scale. We also wandered a bit in the hillside behind the main caves, and found some mostly abandoned ones that were pretty fun to explore. It was nice to see some that were seldom visited and unrestored, even if much smaller. The picture I've included is of the outside of one such cave.
From there it was a set of marathon transport-- overnight bus, day train, overnight train after a few hours in the city of Ahmedabad-- further northward to the famous desert state of Rajastan. Our stop in Ahmedabad was lovely-- it's my favorite big city so far, with lots of narrow back alleys, a wonderful mosque, and just generally a great vibrance to the place.
Our first stop in Rajastan was Udaipur. Though said to be the "most romantic" city in India (whatever that means) by the Lonely Planet and apparently some sort of general consensus, I
wasn't blown away by the place. It had some character, but it was overrun with Western tourists. It's set on a pretty lake, however, on which is set the Lake Palace Hotel, built on the whole of a little island such that it looks like it's floating on the lake's surface. It's nice to look at, and apparently quite a nice place to stay ("one of the best hotels in the world"). One of my favorite bits of our stay there was a Rajastani dance performance, mostly because the lighting on the brightly colored clothing of the performers was great fun to photograph. The bright, beautiful clothes of the Rajastani people is one the great aspects of visiting Rajastan. The people themselves tend to be quite beautiful as well, especially their eyes-- think that famous National Geographic cover of the woman in the shawl, covering her mouth. A completely different look from that of the much darker people of the south . . .
After about two days there we headed a short while further north (indeed, this tended to be the direction of my travel) to a Jain temple at a place called Ranakpur (or maybe that's the name of the temple?). This is the single "sight" that most impressed me so far in India, with Kailasa a reasonably close second. But Kailasa for me was more about "Wow, it's unbelievable that they
were able to do that"; Ranakpur is my favorite for its phenomenal aesthetic beauty, as well as being an incredible feat of construction. Made entirely of marble, it looks pretty impressive from the outside (see pic), but when we walked in I was overcome with a really happy, serene feeling. It's full of intricately carved columns and domes; as it is open air, there is lots of really nice light and views of the beautiful valley that surrounds. I can't do it justice in description-- it's a really great place. I don't have any pictures from the inside because they charged a fair bit to do so; anyhow I'm glad they did as I enjoyed being in there more for just observing without trying to get pictures of it.
The next day Christoph began his journey back to Mumbai to catch his return flight to Germany. I, once again, moved northward to yet another lakeside tourist town called Pushkar. I liked it a bit more as it was a smaller town than Udaipur, and I had more interesting experiences there. First was chatting with a really nice Japanese fellow named Hiro who had been in India something like a year and three or four months. And not only that, but he had only been in the north. There could hard be be a more stark contrast to my whirlwind two month tour of the south: he said he never stayed anywhere less than a month, whereas to date my longest stay
anywhere has been about five days (though I've done this several times now). The other part I really liked was a dinner I had with a low caste family from an adjacent village. I was a bit wary at first, as the offer was not one of genuine hospitality-- the deal was that I bought dinner for the whole family as well as myself (seven in all). In theory, I knew that food for seven of us made from scratch would probably cost less than dinner for just me at most restaurants. But also knowing how things are in tourist areas-- everyone seeking new and clever ways to get the tourists' money-- I also figured that they would take me for all they could. In the end I decided that I didn't mind, that as long as what they bought with my money would legitimately help the family it was okay; there are times when it's good to remember the dollar value of the rupee. But it was hard to come to this, as I've gotten so used to making sure to avoid all scams. Anyhow, I'm glad I did, as the family was great-- very friendly, even a bit apologetic for taking my money-- and the food was fantastic. It was also just nice to get another chance to see how I imagine so much of India lives. Their house was one largish room, with just beds (that is, mats and blankets on the floor), a TV, and a few odds and ends. They invited me to stay with them a while, and I wanted to very much, but I was on my way to meet up in Delhi with friends from my work as a rafting guide and so told them I would try to come back later on. Which I still hope to do.
The next morning I traveled to the city of Jaipur, Rajastan's largest. My stay was brief, as that night I caught an overnight train to Delhi. But I had the afternoon to explore a bit, and had a
good time of it. The highlight was a walk up a path overlooking the city during sunset. There were loads of kids on this path, all demanding that I take their picture. This is common place, except for the sheer numbers of them here, and the intensity of their desire to have their picture taken. Granted a number of them tried to claim that I owed them for it afterwards . . . The kids in
the picture were some of the nicer, cuter ones. I had taken their picture earlier, and when they saw me take out my camera again from a distance they came running up for more. The other memorable part from this walk were the thousands of kites visible when looking out over the city. Jaipur has several million inhabitants, and it looked as though every child in the city who wasn't begging to have their photo taken (and even some who were) was busy flying a kite!
Okay, I'm going to have to break this entry up, and this makes a logical stopping point. I'll continue at some point soon(ish)!
--Josh
I write to you today from a lovely little town called Chamba, set in a beautiful green valley in the foothills of the Himalaya, in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Which means I'm way far north in India these days-- I'm in the middle of the little knob sticking out north of Delhi (that is, on a map of India). In fact it looks as though this will be my northernmost point within India unless I return in warmer months to explore some mountain areas currently inaccessible by road. I did not expect to be here right now, and I must confess that I'm still a bit surprised to find myself here-- I was in the far south just a few weeks ago. But if there are two things I love it's mountains and changes of plan, so perhaps it's not so surprising afterall. Now to tell the tale of how it is I came to be here . . .
In my last entry I left off in Kannur, at New Years. As I mentioned, Christoph and I were there longer than expected because we couldn't get a train reservation. As it turned out, we never were able to get a train reservation-- the first available was over a week away. The problem was a combination of holiday travel and the fact that our destination was a 26 hour train ride away, which means that it's hard to find a single spot that isn't booked at some point along the way. After several unsuccessful attempts to get reservations through the waiting list, we got desperate. Kannur was nice, but not that nice. So we did what few Westerners ever do-- we bought a ticket for a long distance train journey in the infamous "general compartment".
The last car on most Indian trains, the general compartment does not require reservations. Thus our ability to get on-- and thus the reputation. Not surprisingly, it's also the cheapest option for train travel, if not travel in general, in India. I'm going to try to avoid going into too much detail, which means I'll be quite brief, for to describe the experience adequately would require a description of the interior that I would make too technical to keep anyones interest. For now I'll just say that the car was rather crowded. After a while we got seats, and as the crowd thinned a bit as the night grew later, we had seats that would pass for as much outside of India. The evening's big surprise came later still, when people started laying out blankets on the floor of the train-- before long the entire floor was covered in sleeping bodies, even underneath the train's bench-style seats.
I found myself quite unable to sleep, being the sort of person who has trouble sleeping sitting up. After a spell I got up to go to the bathroom and wander about a bit, which also allowed Christoph to lie down partially. Getting to the bathroom without stepping on people took every bit of foot-placement finesse I've developed from climbing-- in fact I found that I had to take my shoes off, shoes being far too cumbersome for the task. The wandering didn't happen so much because, wisely I suppose, it turned out the general compartment wasn't connected to the rest of the train (whereas you can move between cars in other parts of the train). So I contented myself with standing in the car's doorway, watching the stars and what I could see of the landscape passing by in the night-- something that has become one of my very favorite things to do in India. But before long the people crouched nearby asked me to close the door, as it was making them cold. I did so, but not yet ready to return to the dismal seat, I continued to stand.
It was then, looking about, that I had my moment of inspiration as my eyes fell on the Indian train equivalent to the overhead luggage compartment of a plane-- more or less a footwide board running along the length of the car maybe seven feet above the floor, tilted slightly towards the wall to keep bags from shifting off. I noticed that, if I shifted some of the bags about, that just maybe there would be room enough for me to lie down if I could get myself up there. So this was where I spent the night, thankful for the tilt but willing myself not to move too much in my sleep nonetheless. I got a decent night's sleep except for a few stops in the night at more major stations where battles to board the train were waged.
Indians don't seem to heed the basic maxim of letting people off/out before you get on/in, which creates substantial problems when there's a lot of people trying to do both. And, as with most things here, there's often a lot people involved. I guess it's the sort of situation where if you're the only one not trying to push your way onto the bus or train then you maybe don't get a seat-- if there are any at all to be had-- but taken as a whole it seems to me really an absurd waste of energy. People are ruthless, too-- pushing, swearing, etc. This was taken to a whole new level in the general compartment. I was woken from my sleep by all kinds of violent shouting. During one busy stop the subsequent day I saw people get really aggressive with each other-- one woman trying to get off got her head smashed into the corner a wall (inadvertently) as a wave of young men shoved their way in. The funny thing is that once on board, Indians are exceptionally friendly with one another. It's often very difficult for me to discern which people are together because oftentimes everyone in a given row of seats will be conversing together like old friends, even if they've just met an hour ago.
Anyhow, so that's how my first night of the new year was spent. The day passed smoothly enough. Perhaps the most remarkable point in the train ride was when in the morning, seeing my spot vacated, two fellows about my age proceeded to occupy the spot that I had thought to small for me. But enough about the train ride . . . I have three weeks to cover. I hope you're all comfortable . . .
We were on our way to visit the famous rock cut cave-temples of Ajanta and Ellora, in that order. Both were pretty great, though with both I enjoyed the settings as much as the caves themselves. The caves at Ajanta are carved into a sheer cliff face in a beautiful gorge; those at Ellora into what was a less sheer rock face at the end of broad plains. At both the landscape was dramatically different from what I had seen during the previous seven weeks or so drifting in
circles about the southern states of Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Instead of lush forests all over was grassland with scattered trees, not so different from much of California. I enjoyed Ellora especially, as it's Kailasa temple was absolutely spectacular. I think it's said to be the largest monolithic structure in the world. Basically it's a HUGE temple with lots of elaborate sculpture work created entirely in relief, such that no scaffolding was required-- they started from the top of the rock-slope hillside and carved their way downwards. I couldn't get a good picture of it because there was a bunch of scaffolding, but if you want to see it go to: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/people/students/branner/jeannieaquilino/01itinerary/02swindia/02swindia-Images/18.jpg. If you do make sure to take note of the people in the picture, to get a sense of the scale. We also wandered a bit in the hillside behind the main caves, and found some mostly abandoned ones that were pretty fun to explore. It was nice to see some that were seldom visited and unrestored, even if much smaller. The picture I've included is of the outside of one such cave.From there it was a set of marathon transport-- overnight bus, day train, overnight train after a few hours in the city of Ahmedabad-- further northward to the famous desert state of Rajastan. Our stop in Ahmedabad was lovely-- it's my favorite big city so far, with lots of narrow back alleys, a wonderful mosque, and just generally a great vibrance to the place.
Our first stop in Rajastan was Udaipur. Though said to be the "most romantic" city in India (whatever that means) by the Lonely Planet and apparently some sort of general consensus, I
wasn't blown away by the place. It had some character, but it was overrun with Western tourists. It's set on a pretty lake, however, on which is set the Lake Palace Hotel, built on the whole of a little island such that it looks like it's floating on the lake's surface. It's nice to look at, and apparently quite a nice place to stay ("one of the best hotels in the world"). One of my favorite bits of our stay there was a Rajastani dance performance, mostly because the lighting on the brightly colored clothing of the performers was great fun to photograph. The bright, beautiful clothes of the Rajastani people is one the great aspects of visiting Rajastan. The people themselves tend to be quite beautiful as well, especially their eyes-- think that famous National Geographic cover of the woman in the shawl, covering her mouth. A completely different look from that of the much darker people of the south . . .After about two days there we headed a short while further north (indeed, this tended to be the direction of my travel) to a Jain temple at a place called Ranakpur (or maybe that's the name of the temple?). This is the single "sight" that most impressed me so far in India, with Kailasa a reasonably close second. But Kailasa for me was more about "Wow, it's unbelievable that they
were able to do that"; Ranakpur is my favorite for its phenomenal aesthetic beauty, as well as being an incredible feat of construction. Made entirely of marble, it looks pretty impressive from the outside (see pic), but when we walked in I was overcome with a really happy, serene feeling. It's full of intricately carved columns and domes; as it is open air, there is lots of really nice light and views of the beautiful valley that surrounds. I can't do it justice in description-- it's a really great place. I don't have any pictures from the inside because they charged a fair bit to do so; anyhow I'm glad they did as I enjoyed being in there more for just observing without trying to get pictures of it.The next day Christoph began his journey back to Mumbai to catch his return flight to Germany. I, once again, moved northward to yet another lakeside tourist town called Pushkar. I liked it a bit more as it was a smaller town than Udaipur, and I had more interesting experiences there. First was chatting with a really nice Japanese fellow named Hiro who had been in India something like a year and three or four months. And not only that, but he had only been in the north. There could hard be be a more stark contrast to my whirlwind two month tour of the south: he said he never stayed anywhere less than a month, whereas to date my longest stay
anywhere has been about five days (though I've done this several times now). The other part I really liked was a dinner I had with a low caste family from an adjacent village. I was a bit wary at first, as the offer was not one of genuine hospitality-- the deal was that I bought dinner for the whole family as well as myself (seven in all). In theory, I knew that food for seven of us made from scratch would probably cost less than dinner for just me at most restaurants. But also knowing how things are in tourist areas-- everyone seeking new and clever ways to get the tourists' money-- I also figured that they would take me for all they could. In the end I decided that I didn't mind, that as long as what they bought with my money would legitimately help the family it was okay; there are times when it's good to remember the dollar value of the rupee. But it was hard to come to this, as I've gotten so used to making sure to avoid all scams. Anyhow, I'm glad I did, as the family was great-- very friendly, even a bit apologetic for taking my money-- and the food was fantastic. It was also just nice to get another chance to see how I imagine so much of India lives. Their house was one largish room, with just beds (that is, mats and blankets on the floor), a TV, and a few odds and ends. They invited me to stay with them a while, and I wanted to very much, but I was on my way to meet up in Delhi with friends from my work as a rafting guide and so told them I would try to come back later on. Which I still hope to do.The next morning I traveled to the city of Jaipur, Rajastan's largest. My stay was brief, as that night I caught an overnight train to Delhi. But I had the afternoon to explore a bit, and had a
good time of it. The highlight was a walk up a path overlooking the city during sunset. There were loads of kids on this path, all demanding that I take their picture. This is common place, except for the sheer numbers of them here, and the intensity of their desire to have their picture taken. Granted a number of them tried to claim that I owed them for it afterwards . . . The kids in
the picture were some of the nicer, cuter ones. I had taken their picture earlier, and when they saw me take out my camera again from a distance they came running up for more. The other memorable part from this walk were the thousands of kites visible when looking out over the city. Jaipur has several million inhabitants, and it looked as though every child in the city who wasn't begging to have their photo taken (and even some who were) was busy flying a kite!Okay, I'm going to have to break this entry up, and this makes a logical stopping point. I'll continue at some point soon(ish)!
--Josh
posted by Josh at 11:01 PM
1 Comments:
i want your body so hard. and i miss your musk.
love,
lief
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