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A word of warning…this is long and somewhat of a rant. I wrote it while still in India, but my anger and frustration haven’t diminished since my departure.

India has taken hold of me and she won’t let go. My head is swimming, my heart is broken, and I can’t figure out how I feel about this crazy, filthy country. During our weeks volunteering in Chennai, we breathed in India slowly, taking in only as much as we felt we could bear, processing a little at a time. Even with the help of our new friends, we couldn’t make sense of a land rife with contradiction, steeped in millenia of mystery. We were confused by rules regarding modesty, the inability to say no, and the complete disregard for public sanitation. Some things were amusing, like the trademark head bobble, a uniquely Indian gesture that can mean yes, no, maybe, or I don’t know and is the usual response to any inquiry. Others were shocking like the ubiquitous piles of refuse, the random roaming livestock, and the people defecating and urinating on streetcorners, in fields, and along roadsides. Still others were downright confusing, like hundreds of millions of people using a single name, e.g, Madonna or Kumar, and counting by 10,000s (lakhs) and 10,000,000s (crores).

While living with the RSO staff, I picked their brains on issues such as arranged marriage, the caste system, bride burnings, political corruption, and Westernization, but it turns out I only scratched the surface. After leaving the comfort of our southern Indian cocoon, I realized my questions were naive musings about a culture I could not even begin to fathom. Thousands of years, dozens of religions, and countless complex rules governing behavior have created a nation that is inscrutable to foreigners yet completely natural to Indians. The country’s English language periodical, India Today, claims its mission to be “Making Sense of India,” but this seems an impossible task.

Quite simply, this place is crazy. There is a semblance of order, but chaos lurks beneath the surface. The India I imagined was Gandhi’s India, a peaceful, nonviolent nation working to rebuild itself after the ravages of colonialism. Gandhi wanted to eradicate social injustices such as poverty, untouchability, and religious discrimination. While the Mahatma was instrumental in forging independent India, the nation he envisioned was not to be. Assassinated only a year after its inception, he nor his ideas could survive in a nation fraught with tension and distrust.

India is the world’s largest democracy yet struggles to elect worthy representatives. A great number of the country’s politicians are former movie stars or criminals, many of whom are elected from behind bars. The level of corruption is staggering. Thugs and common criminals rule, get rich, and kill those who stand in their way. During our visit a ring of officials in Kashmir was arrested for a series of murders, some of which were politically motivated, one which resulted from a disaffected constituent demanding his bribe back when the official couldn’t deliver on his promise to get him a better job. Though few societies are immune to violence, the level and nature of the beast here is baffling. Children are routinely beaten at school and home. One girl in Chennai was actually beaten to death by her school principal for failing to pay her fees. He is on trial now because murder is illegal; corporal punishment and abuse are not. Three people in a small town were just arrested for working together to kill dozens of women and children. The newspapers claimed the criminals’ motives were “sadism” and the simple fact that they had ready access to weak victims. In the US we’re accustomed to single serial killers, but a coed group of murderers is new. Violence is also seen as an official form of protest and little regard is given to potential victims. Members of one political group were furious when one of their members was convicted of corruption and set a university school bus on fire in protest. That students were aboard didn’t seem to matter and three perished in the fire. Six years later, during our time in India, the perpetrators were sentenced to execution.

Most Indians adhere to strict rules regarding social propriety and modesty. Men and women are not allowed to touch or display affection in public (though male friends are and do much to the chagrin of my sons). Women wear traditional dress that covers everything except their arms and sometimes their bellies. Revealing legs is unheard of and form fitting shirts are viewed as an invitation to male attention. Indian men demand these standards from their women, yet police have to post half page ads begging the same men not to participate in “Eve teasing,” or public groping and harrassment of women on busses, trains, and street corners. A recent India Today issue cited staggering figures that almost 3/4 of Indian women are sexually molested or abused in their lifetimes. Another source claims India has the highest child abuse rate in the world and between 50-75% of all children are molested. The same India Today issue which asked on the cover, “Is your child safe?” explained that children of all social strata are routinely kidnapped for ransom, for sex, for marriage, for sacrifice and a select few to be sent to Saudi Arabia as camel jockeys. Like so much in India, this doesn’t sound real. It’s as if the country is an alternative universe that defies understanding. One now famous Australian writer compared her time living in India to Alice’s time in Wonderland.

Poverty is another kicker. It’s in your face, everywhere. There is not a single place we have gone where someone has not begged for something from us. Everywhere are shanties and lean tos protected from the elements by some combination of blue tarps, corrugated metal, or cardboard. Often they are just meters from the palaces of the rich. Some of the wealthiest people in the country are the gurus, whose maniacal countenances gaze out from posters and billboards. Viewed as incarnations of the Hindu gods, people shower them with cash and gifts hoping for karmic blessings in return. In a country with much established wealth, a burgeoning middle class, rapid GDP growth, and increasing international power, it seems wrong that foreign charities and NGOs should have to step in to help the destitute when the country has the resources to help its own. Where all the money goes is a mystery. Infrastructure is a mess. Electricity and water are in short supply, roads are deplorable, and millions upon millions are illiterate. The rich sidestep these shortcomings by buying generators, establishing private water supplies, and sending their kids to private schools, thus working around the system rather than helping to improve it. I can’t say I blame them. The obstacles to widescale change seem insurmountable.

Much of the economic disparity in India stems from faith. I thought I knew Hinduism, the religion of more than 80% of Indians, but I was wrong. The caste system is alive and well..and ugly. Warring religious groups and castes periodically stage riots and murder one another. Emboldened by legal rights and protections, untouchables don’t always feel it necessary to remove their shoes or bow their heads in the presence of Brahmins. Like newly liberated slaves, some unleash millenia of bottled rage against their oppressors. Likewise some Brahmins who support the caste system are openly hostile to untouchables whom they feel are overstepping their spiritual and social bounds. In a post-Gandhian affirmative action measure, the government instituted quotas in each state regarding jobs for Dalits or untouchables. When the practice started, young Brahmins, members of the highest caste, set themselves on fire in protest. Replacing religious law which dictates that untouchables are being punished for karmic misdeeds with secular law which grants them privileges they have not earned in previous lives is a travesty in their eyes.

This same religious law dictates the importance of marriage, and in some areas, girls are married off as early as age 1. In many areas where parents can’t afford dowries, female infanticide is commonplace. For every 1000 Indian males, there are only 933 Indian females, a telling statistic given that in the US and other developed nations women outnumber men by about 1045 to 1000. In one Indian state, the number of females is as low as 800 for every 1000 males. What is happening to all the girls? Though officially illegal and punishable with imprisonment, bride burning is still a regular occurrence. Women whose dowries are insufficient, who don’t produce sons, or who don’t perform to the expectations of their husbands or in-laws are driven to remote areas and set on fire. Sometimes “accidents” occur in the kitchen providing a plausible defense for guilty families. Of those females who reach adulthood and survive marriage almost half are illiterate while only 25% of their husbands cannot read or write. This society it seems is not doing right by its women.

Everywhere marriages are arranged, and again caste is a critical factor. There are four primary castes but over 3000 subcastes. Members of all castes worship some of the more than 300 MILLION and growing deities in the Hindu pantheon. Faith is rampant and at the heart of much conflict. The 1947 partition into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan and East Pakistan (later to become Bangladesh) was cataclysmic as 500,000 to 1,000,000 people were killed in the rush for Muslims to flee to Pakistan and Hindus to enter India. Every year there are murders committed in the name of religious intolerance. In 1992, thousands, yes THOUSANDS were slaughtered in cities around India after Hindu extremists razed a Muslim temple at the urging of their political leaders. The ruling party is currently a Hindu extremist group which advocates the formation of Hindustan, a purely Hindu state. With over 120 million Muslims, 23,000,000 Christians, 20,000,000 Sikhs and a handful of Buddhists, Jains, and Bahai, this would entail some serious population displacement. As we sat on the train from Jodhpur to Mumbai a few weeks ago, another train traveling to Pakistan from Delhi (the “Peace Train”) was bombed in an effort to derail Indo-Pakistani peace talks. 66 people, mostly Pakistani, died in the blast. Our train ride was calm by comparison. We were awakened at 4:00 am by the shouting of four or five men. We couldn’t understand what was happening, but as they passed our berths, we made out the English words “police station” and “police” in their arguing. The next morning our cabin mates informed us the altercation was over someone being mistakenly awakened and was really nothing, but at home, this would have been a full-fledged incident requiring police intervention, questioning of witnesses, and disciplinary action for the men.

The chaos that bubbles beneath the surface percolates daily resulting in a constant string of stories that seem unfathomable to the non-Indian. Sitting in a hotel lobby we read a local newspaper that described a spate of suicides by struggling farmers and a garment workers’ collective that decided as a group to sell their kidneys. The day we left four young men drank poison while attending a speech by the prime minister because he hadn’t delivered on a promise to provide jobs for their student group. The police got them to the hospital in time and they survived. Our guidebooks encouraged us to flee if we were involved in a road accident when either a cow or a person was killed because angry bystanders would likely set the car on fire and/or attack the passengers regardless of fault. The day before we arrived in Kerala, 15 children and 2 teachers died on a school field trip when their raft capsized in a lake. It was unlicensed and would have been rated for for 5-10 people instead of the 40 or so that were on board had it been legal. When we were in Mumbai, the top story in the day’s news related to a development in the national cricket team’s World Cup schedule rather than the bombing that had just occurred on the Peace Train.

There is so much that is shocking in India and simply does not make sense to the foreign mind. Add to it the constant, intense stares, the whining and grabbing of professional beggars, the pervasive foul odors, the crumbling roads, dirty water, and intermittent electricity, and it seems there is little to like about the place. But every time I get frustrated or disgusted I think of those smiling faces in Chennai and I realize they are India too. Granted they are untouchable India, the refuse that might have been swept aside had not someone intervened, but India nonetheless.

My hope is that they can be part of the change, part of the movement that will allow untouchables to prosper and girls to live. Maybe they’ll pick up their trash, poop in private, and hug their children. Maybe they’ll vote for hardworking, openminded citizens rather than common criminals. Maybe they’ll learn not just to look past those in need but to find a way to help them rise above their poverty. Maybe one day they’ll help me understand their complex, baffling country. Until then, I’ll scratch my head (not from the lice) and hope for an epiphany.

(Post script: I do not mean to imply that India is all bad. We met many caring, wonderful people, some of whom are working to right the country’s wrongs in their own way. Nor do I mean to argue that my own country is devoid of criminals, corruption, or violence. India simply blows away anything we’ve experienced to date in sheer scale and variety of its problems and is by far the most “foreign” place we’ve visited.)

Technorati Tags: Chennai, Family travel, India, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Some of us in America (well at least my family) like to disparage different groups of drivers. I have fond memories from my childhood of my grandfather ranting about “women drivers” or “old people drivers” after some poor woman or senior citizen performed a maneuver improperly or at least annoyingly. Anne and I also had a habit early in our marriage of commenting on “Asian drivers,” not because Asian American drivers are any worse or better than average but because our first housemate was Asian and drove with a reckless abandon which was all the more funny since she was 4′10″ and could barely be seen over her steering wheel. She also went about 55,000 miles without changing her oil and officially killed her engine, but that is a different story. I also remember people from Utah commenting on “California drivers.” I am not exactly sure if that meant they were too careful, too reckless, or just had a disregard for the rules of the road. A “Utah driver,” friends from California would tell me, does not get out of the fast lane when a faster car is tailgating them and/or flashing their lights. I am sure there are hundreds of variations of so called bad driving groups all over the United States, but from what I have seen they all are more fiction than fact. If you really want to see some bad driving, come to Asia and especially India. … mmm?

Early in the trip I might have joked about the crazy Chinese drivers who think they are on a race track, the Cambodians who pile 20 people in and on top of a Toyota Camry, or the Vietnamese who have figured out how to get 6 or 7 people on one motorbike. These countries were mere preparation, however, for the road anarchy that is India. I will never claim any other group to be bad drivers at home, because the drivers in India would win the Bad Driving Academy awards in almost every category. Unfortunately they don’t get rewards; they get in accidents, lots of them. In our short two months, I saw more roadside carnage than I would see in a decade in the US. We saw two truck accidents, multiple car on car accidents, one truck on person aftermath (not a happy site), and one horrific truck on bus accident. As horrible as these accidents were, given the habits of the drivers, it truly was amazing that we didn’t see many, many more.

There is a general sense of lawlessness on the roads. People drive where they need to when they need to. This might include a quick trip down the wrong side of a divided highway. Of course people are courteous about it and they do honk in warning. In fact, they honk at everything. They honk when they are breaking the law, when they pass, when someone is standing on the side of the road, when a cow is standing nearby, whenever they darn well please. They honk and they honk and they honk. Honking at this frequency only heightens the sense of chaos. At one point I was walking on the side of a 2-lane road. Coming toward me was an auto-rickshaw in the far shoulder, a bus in the far lane, one car in the near lane, and another car in the shoulder I was walking. All 4 of them were barreling straight toward me and of course honking. The one in the shoulder left a large trail of dust which covered me as I jumped into a field to avoid being smashed. Other than the fact that they were four wide, this didn’t surprise me. One of the Indian rules of the road is “Pass as soon possible. Do not wait until it is lawful or safe to do so.” Taxis are the worst. They must all attend the same Grand Prix training school. As the pilot or copilot in all our car travel, I had the unenviable position of being the first to see trouble as it hurled towards us. I would increase my grip on the handle above my head and close one eye. In every instance our car or the car coming at us would veer to the side in a strange game of chicken; I would release my grip on the handle and mutter something under my breath. It would be one thing if everyone always made it safely through these close calls. However, in India they may do not make it. Every day three people die on a single road in Chennai. One autorickshaw crashed with 17 people in it (the maximum occupancy is officially 4). Busses go off overpasses and pedestrians are run over like armadillos in Texas. All you can do is buckle up and pray. Well, as none of our cars had seat belts, all you can do is pray.

Given this situation, I figured I would do what every father would do. I let Dax drive. He is 14 after all. Don’t worry, Grandmas. It wasn’t on a busy road, and with the exception of pedestrians on the street, there wasn’t anything too dangerous he could hit. He was shocked when I let him get into the driver’s seat. He was worried when I explained to him how to drive a manual transmission, but he was thrilled when the car took off. He quickly jumped from first to second gear and then I shut him down. We got out of the car and switched places both with very big grins on our faces. I explained to Dax that I wanted him to be able to say the first time he drove a car was in India. He looked pleased and we headed back to the home to meet up with the rest of the family. I was proud of myself for creating an opportunity for him. However, a couple of days later he came to me and confessed, “India wasn’t the first place I drove a car.” “Oh,” I replied a bit surprised. “Yes..,” Dax continued, “Uncle Scott… or maybe it was Grandpa, I can’t remember which, let me drive…well, pull out of the driveway.” I told him that didn’t count, even though it probably does. At least he can say that he drove in India and survived. Unfortunately, in this tragic land there are too many people who cannot say the same.

Technorati Tags: bad drivers, Driving, India, Round-the-world, RTW, Safety

After making the 24 hour pass through Mumbai and fortunately averting any bombings on our train, we boarded a plane back south to the beautiful state of Kerala, fondly known to its inhabitants by the spiritually elitist nickname of “God’s Own Country” (after all, how are all of us from other places supposed to feel about that one?) Kerala is an oddity in this crazed, anarchic country. Its people are almost uniformly literate, educated, and well fed. They routinely vote for left leaning candidates and were the first people in the world to usher in a communist government through election rather than revolution.

Not wanting to give us a day without multiple hours in an oh so comfy Toyota Qualis, our agent booked us for 2 nights in the mountain town of Munnar, 1 night in another hilltop locale, Thekkady, and a final night performing the quintessential Keralan rite of passage and one of National Geographic’s 50 Experiences of a Lifetime, a backwater cruise on a houseboat in Aleppy. Our driver met us at the airport, or should I say his breath met us. It preceded him by a good 20 feet. Once again we strapped our bags on top of the Qualis (an older model with even less space) and headed off for the obligatory 4 hour ride. This one took us up winding mountain roads, which were mysteriously lacking in cows. “The people are keeping the cows in the houses here,” the driver explained. Tom, once again sharing the front seat with our chauffeur, winced at the odor and chuckled as he drove right past a billboard proclaiming the breath freshening powers of cardamom, one of the many spices grown in Kerala.

As we all struggled to keep our lunches down during the hairraising ascent, we noticed the humidity lifting and the temperature dropping. The landscape changed dramatically as we climbed into the mountains and entered tea country. I don’t drink tea, but that wouldn’t stop me from living on a tea plantation. I might even grow it just to look at it. Acre after acre of carefully trimmed bushes blanket the undulating earth. Winding pathways cleave the hedges into striking and varied patterns so that when viewed from a distance, the plants form geometric tapestries that blanket the landscape. The valuable vermillion leaves are nurtured by the sparkling mountain sunshine only to be plucked by the seasoned hands of chatty Keralan women. We stopped by the roadside and I stood transfixed imagining myself one of these women, breathing the clean, cool mountain air, soaking up the warmth of the sun’s rays, and laughing with my friends, all the while meandering through some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever encountered. It didn’t look like such a bad life, except maybe during the monsoon months of June and July.

Our hotel was a rip–highly priced, tastelessly decorated, but incredibly comfortable. It had an internet booth on the main floor and most importantly an inexpensive restaurant called Doof on the roof. We spent the next day “sightseeing,” i.e., following the firmly established route followed by throngs of giddy Indian newlyweds. It included visits to a few dams, a lake, and long lines of souvenir stalls. At one of the dams, we took a spin in some pedal boats and learned that Kieran and Asher are completely devoid of any steering ability. Sitting in the middle of the boats with the rudders between their legs, they effectively directed us in circles for the entire 30 minutes we were on the lake. Despite our lack of progress, we managed to upset the guard who stood on the bridge and whistled furiously at anybody who got within 100 feet of the dam. Apparently he and the man who rents the boats don’t communicate, because we had been instructed to go precisely where he didn’t want us since “the current was too strong” in the other direction.

The next day we got an early start for the….you guessed it…4 hour ride to Thekkady. The driver had warned us that 28 kilometers of the route would be “very bad” and take over an hour to negotiate. That’s more than 60 minutes to go 17 miles. We knew we were in trouble when he passed out vomit bags. Dax, McKane, and I quickly downed some Dramamine and hoped for the best. Tom, Asher, and Kieran tried to sleep, as did Heather, our travel companion. An hour passed and I didn’t think I was going to survive. Then all of a sudden, as I clutched the handle above and bowed my head to avoid seeing the road, I slipped into a state of drug-induced diffidence. I wasn’t nauseated any more, or was I? I wasn’t awake any more, or was I? Wow, look at those pretty tea plantations! Why is my head in my lap? Are we there yet?
After a brief visit with a loquacious Christian preacher who is going to send us one of his books even though we won’t be home for another five months and is looking forward to some sort of proselyting tour of Michigan, we arrived in Thekkady, the town that neighbors yet another wildlife preserve. Tom and the kids planned to take a boat ride to view the wildlife while Heather and I opted for an Ayurvedic massage, an oily, yet strangely satisfying ordeal. The boats were all booked for the afternoon so the kids chilled in the rooms. Glad the travel agent gave us a whole 18 hours here!

The 5 hour ride back down the mountain the next morning was less traumatic but still exhausting. Our new driver’s skill level proved inferior to our Rajasthani driver’s and he attempted to put at least three of us through the windshield on multiple occasions (seatbelts do not exist here). We laughed as we approached the houseboat town of Alleppy that given our luck with the camel safari, the houseboat would probably just stay docked during our brief stay. Unfortunately, our joke was not far from reality. After boarding, we joined a fleet of other crafts on the “houseboat highway,” cruised for a generous 15 minutes, and stopped at the riverside for the crew to buy something they apparently couldn’t get before the paying guests arrived. We then went another 30 minutes or so before they stopped the boat to take their lunch break. A final hour of cruising followed before we docked alongside a rice field for the night.

Tom and I immediately noticed a bright white Christian church in the distance and decided to investigate. With Asher in tow we headed down the path that led to the church. We passed through a group of houses where women and children were doing the usual women and children type things. Tom began taking pictures of the kids and showing them their faces on the LCD. The women were delighted as well and laughed as the kids made funny faces and worked on their karate poses. We continued on to the church, where by now neon lights were shining and music was stirring. We were tickled to learn it was family meeting night and began chatting with the locals who were dressed in their Sunday best. The children from the path arrived in clean clothes followed by their mothers toting scriptures and wearing the same smiles we had left them with. We stayed for about 30 minutes but had to leave when a swarm of flies started biting Tom and burrowing into each and every of his facial orifices.

We were so smitten with the spunky little church that we decided to stop along the distant riverside to capture it on film. Tom found a good spot and kneeled in the darkness to position the camera on an earthen berm. Only when he pushed the shutter, did he realize a large cow stood only a few feet in front of him. He moved a few yards south and again sunk to his knees and elbows. “Uuuuggghhh!” Apparently the cow had been in that precise location only a few moments before, because Tom’s left elbow was now covered in warm cow dung. Trying hard not to vomit or have a panic attack (even after four kids he is still feces-phobic), he quickly took the shots, passed me the camera, and ran to wash his arm in the river.

The church seemed a little less quaint now but still presented a heartwarming view from the deck of our houseboat. We ate a dinner of chicken bones and mushy rice by the light of a single, dim yellow bulb and decided to settle in to enjoy a movie. We chose The DaVinci Code since we would be in Paris only 48 hours later and wanted the kids to get a sneak peak at The Louvre. This proved a frustrating endeavor as all night long music of a curious sort had been emanating from the church, and it had only grown in intensity as the night wore on. It is almost impossible to describe, but imagine a portable organ issuing a bossanova background beat with 80’s hand-clapping overtones masked by a poorly played Indianesque melody, then drowned out by a chorus of atonal, whining voices. Tinny loudspeakers much like those used in China and Vietnam to blast daily propaganda were rigged to strategically located palm trees and amplified the din. We could not hear a movie much less each other. “They told me the meeting would end at 9:30,” Tom assured us. At 11:00 we were still waiting for someone to put the choir out of its misery. Only around midnight did the wailing cease, but even then there would be no peace for the weary Americans as equally loud Indian pop tunes replaced the pseudo hymns.

So much for the peaceful backwater. And so much for letting travel agents make our arrangements. We left the boat the next morning exhausted and eager to get to Bangalore, the last stop in our Indian adventure. We adored Kerala’s rich landscapes but think if it was really “God’s own country,” he would have endowed the Keralans with a little more musical ability.

Technorati Tags: backwaters, India, Kerala, western ghats, puppy, Round-the-world, RTW, Spice plantation, tea pickers, tea pickers, tea plantation

We started our adventures with trains a while back in China and have had many experiences with them since then. We’ve taken trains across China, Vietnam and Thailand, some of which were lacking in the cleanliness department. When I heard we would be taking a train in India from Jodhpur to Mumbai I expected the worst. So far everything else in the country was as dirty as I had ever seen, so I expected the train to be no different. When we arrived at the station I had no change of heart; it was just as dirty as the rest. At the station my dad went in line to get tickets and my mom, the little kids, and I stayed by the bags. A group of at least fifty men and beggar children swarmed us like a swarm of locusts. They started grabbing us and our bags. I was about to start swinging fists when my dad finally arrived back on the scene and we managed to get our bags on our backs and everyone out of the horde. We walked a short distance to the train and I held my breath as we went inside. I must say I was very surprised. This train may very well have been the cleanest train we have ridden so far. We encountered a few problems with our seating arrangements though. The majority of our seats were in separate cabins so we had to find people willing to switch places with us. It wasn’t all that hard and we soon had all of our seats in one cabin. Now it was time to sit back and relax. We opened up some sodas, got out the Italian playing cards and played a couple games of Briscola (like hearts but instead of losing points you attempt to gain them). We played late into the night, 10:30, well late by Indian standards… At about 9 the entire train went to sleep. We stayed up a little later reading but were tired enough from our day of driving and running that we soon fell asleep. It was a good refreshing sleep, but as one learns about India, there is no predictability. So at 3:30 in the morning we were awakened by the sound of men yelling. We peered out of our berths and saw two groups of men yelling at each other. This continued for another hour and a half until one of the men was dragged away yelling, “Police Station! Police Station!” It wasn’t until the next morning we found out what all the yelling was about. Another passenger told us one of the men had gotten up to use the toilet. When he returned he thought a man was sleeping in his bed so he shook him and woke him up. The other man, whose seat it actually was, started yelling at his waker. This went on for an hour and a half. Only in India! Later that morning while still on the train we found out about the bombs that had exploded on the “Peace Train” from Delhi to Pakistan while we slept. This distressed us a little but soon our train experience was over. We pulled into Mumbai a little tired from our interrupted sleep but alive. Given a choice we will always pick snakes (i.e., ill-tempered men) on trains over bombs.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, India, Train travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

Of all the regions in India, I chose Rajasthan as a top destination for us based on its rich and romantic history. The state that constitutes the country’s far west is brimming with rugged Mughal forts and refined Maharajas’ palaces. Here at the crossroads of India and the Middle East, countless battles were waged, won, and lost as Hindu warrior princes fought to preserve their land, their faith, and their privilege.

Our Rajasthani tour actually began in another state, Uttar Pradesh, home of one India’s most corrupt and just ousted politicians, and the famed Taj Mahal. Despite periodic bursts of cold, hard rain, our “sunrise” tour of the legendary mausoleum was more moving than we ever expected. The Taj is quite simply spectactular…in any light, in any weather, through any lens, from any direction. From pictures, we had always assumed it to be vast, imposing, and teeming with tourists, but it was none of these. Instead, it was small, intimate, and quiet. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still big by residential standards (though a few places in Buckhead and Bel Air could rival it) but much smaller than you might expect from a world wonder. Its magnificence stems from its delicate, inspired, and perfectly symmetrical design rather than its monumental stature. I am a huge fan of Andrea Palladio, a champion and pioneer of architectural symmetry, and once made a special trip to Vicenza, Italy to visit the Villa Rotunda, but the Taj eclipses anything I’ve seen to date.

In Uttar Pradesh, we also flashed through the ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri before moving on to the southeast corner of Rajasthan. In Ranthambhore we fruitlessly searched for tigers before exploring the third vertex of the Golden Triangle, Japiur. Here we explored the Amber Fort, which is undergoing what in my opinion is an ill conceived restoration/renovation. The crumbling sandstone walls are being resurfaced with a fresh coat of mud that effectively buries fading grandeur under modern sterility. The kids enjoyed wandering through the mazelike corridors of the women’s (harem’s) quarters and as usual in Asia were the objects of much interest from the locals.

Even more engaging than the fort was Jantar Mantar, an 18th century observatory built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh Ji II. We hired a guide who explained the fascinating form and function of all the structures—giant sundials, astrological markers, and classical global positioning devices.

From Jaipur we raced to Pushkar, a pit stop we could have done without. The town of only 18,000 is a tourist hotspot during the infamous Camel Fair in November, but the rest of the year is devoid of much activity other than wedding celebrations and locals trying to extract “donations” from foreigners for priestly blessings. After dinner in a dirty restaurant and a walk through some grotty, (one of my new favorite words) deserted streets, we were ready for Udaipur.

It seemed fitting that we would spend the nexus of Tom’s birthday and Valentine’s Day in Rajasthan’s most romantic city. Our hotel–The Tiger–was beautiful and just a stone’s throw from the captivating, sparkling waters of Lake Pichola and its picturesque floating palaces. Rich in amenities for foreigners, Udaipur is also the setting for the James Bond classic Octopussy, which each and every rooftop cafe airs nightly. Dax and Tom caught the ending while having a late night snack. They might have seen the whole thing had we not attended an impressive traditional dance program in which one woman balanced a dozen terra cotta pots on her head while stomping on a mound of broken glass, Of all the cities in India we’ve visited, we found Udaipur the most comfortable and could easily have spent a week or more soaking up its flavors and rhythms.

We took a spin on the lake, blazed through the City Palace grounds, paused for a moment to try to figure out why there’s schmutz in Tom’s fancy camera (still don’t have an answer on that one), and hit the road for a place no one had ever hear of–Jojowar. We had planned on hitting the Jain temples in Ranakpur along the way, but due to communication glitches between us and our primarily Hindi speaking driver and travel agent, we ended up missing it, which was sad but ok since Jojowar proved a fascinating diversion. We stayed in a remote, renovated palace still owned by the descendants of the region’s last raja, a noble who collected taxes from the local villagers to send back to the Maharaja in Jodhpur. After a wild walk through the small town in the evening and a “safari” in a jeep driven by the aristocratic proprietor, we were off again the next morning for Jodhpur.

The city of the Brahmins was beautiful when viewed from the palace above, but a little skanky from the ground. We enjoyed a fascinating audio tour of the building, ogled at the rows upon rows of blue houses, painted that color by their occupants to indicate their membership in Hinduism’s highest caste. After a restful night in a hotel that seemed frozen in 1957 (another royal family legacy), we motored on to Jaisalmer, the westernmost city in the state, a mere 50 kilometers from Pakistan and only 500 kilometers from Kabul.

We watched a spectacular sunset from a rooftop in the Jaisalmer

Fort, wandered some Jain temples, got our laundry done (finally) and caught our breath for about 10 seconds before racing out the Sam Sand Dunes where we thought we would board our camels for a 2-day safari. The result of yet another misunderstanding with our travel agent, we learned that the safari was actually a group of tents where we’d be staying for the next 48 hours. We’d get one camel ride and a free dinner. Oh no. The Andruses and even their companion Heather refused to get out of the car until our travel agent and the manager agreed to include three extended camel trips and all our meals. While negotiations went on, eight men stood at the ready vying for the right to remove our bags from the roof. Once Tom had gotten someone to sign a paper confirming the deal, we dropped our bags in our tents and headed out to the dunes on five camels. I’ll let one of the boys describe our camel days, which though not epic, will be a fond memory I’m sure.
A final 5 hour drive back to Jodhpur and we boarded a train for Mumbai from where we take a plane to Cochi in the southern state of Kerala.

The bottom line: This kind of travel is nuts. Though we see fantastic sights, it’s too much too fast and not very much fun as a result. We’ve vowed to never use a travel agent again (sorry Sister Workman, nothing personal) and leave making itinerary mistakes to ourselves. This one was all my fault. It’s just so hard to resist the urge to see it all.

India is a very hard place to travel for many reasons, and I will only name a few. First, communication errors: things always turn out to be much different than what we think they are going to be. Second, indians will say anything to make you happy. We got real angry because of this one. And third, the roads: getting a driver to drive you around is easier than most things, but the roads are horrible, so you’re very likely to get sick. All three of these things mix into the beginning of this post. After a short but bumpy ride to our ‘camel safari,’ we all felt pretty sick and tired, so when we saw what the ‘camel safari’ really was, we were extremely disappointed. We were expecting a 2-day camel trek, but it turned out that it was just a huge camp, with like 100 huge tents. So we asked the manager what the ‘camel safari’ was, and he told us that the 2 night stay includes a 1 hour camel ride only for the first day, and nothing for the second day. We had already payed for it, so we couldn’t leave. We just stayed in the car and after about 1 hour of dad talking to the hotel workers and the travel agent on the phone, we established a deal: free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and three 2 hour camel rides (not including stopping at the sand dunes).

We had about an hour to get ready and relax before the first camel ride. When the camels arrived, we all got to pick which one we would ride. Dax and I got to ride our own camels, while Kieran rode with Mom and Asher rode with Dad. I chose a camel named Babalu. I rode him each time we went because I liked him so much. It was really fun getting up and down, like an amusement park ride. Unfortunately, we only got to ride, not steer. Instead, a man was carrying a rope so he could steer us to the right place. We rode for about 30 minutes to the dunes where we stopped for two hours to play and watch the sunset. We all stopped at the biggest dune we could find, so we could roll, jump, sumersault, and run down. It was really fun. Dax and I had long jumping competitions, while Kieran and Asher would jump and roll. Mom even tried rolling in her churidar. It was pretty funny. Every once in a while you would roll over these huge dung beetles. Kieran and Asher dug holes for them and started treating them like pets. I also liked to dig really big tunnels in the sand, then walk on them and have one of my legs go two feet under the sand. I even got stuck once.

When the sun was about one hour from going down, Dad had this idea of spinning me and Dax around in circles and then throwing us down the sand dune. It sounded like fun so I tried it. PLOP, big mistake. I landed flat on my back and totally got the wind knocked out of me. So I just laid there, gasping for air. I could hardly breathe for a while, so my dad bought me a 20 rupee 200 mil. bottle of Sprite, from a man walking the dunes selling soda. It felt like I tweaked my back, because every time I took a step it hurt. So I had to take a few steps, lay down, take a few steps, and lay down to get back to Babalu and the rest of the camels from where we would watch the sunset. It was amazing. The sun went down so fast. You saw it one second, it was gone the next. After the sunset, we all got back on our camels and headed back before it got too dark to see. When we got back, we went to the place where we would eat dinner. It was an open roofed, concrete walled room, with a empty space in the middle where singers and dancers were performing. It was lined with like 100 chairs, even though there were only 12 people staying there. The food was so so as well as the performance. After dinner we went to the tents and talked with our travel companion, Heather. Dax and I also had a rock throwing competition and then went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning feeling a lot better, but not ready for yet another breakfast of eggs, bread, butter, and jam. I was so sick of this breakfast, because every hotel in India serves it and only it. After we our usual bland meal, we went on our second camel ride. Everybody had the same camels they had had the day before except mom and dad, who switched with each other so Asher could be with mom, and Kieran could be with dad. But this time we went to a town that was 45 minutes away. We thought that it was going to be a very cultural town but it turned out to be a tourist adapted town. All the children would come up to you saying “100, 100, please, 100″, so probably one tourist actually gave one 100 rupees, which made them think that all tourists would. So we decided to leave the town ASAP, and go back to a place where we could have fun, the sand dunes! We had less time to play this time though, because we didn’t want to get stuck in the hot part of the day. Dax, Kieran, Asher, and I all did some more jumping and rolling and had a sand fight. I got demolished by Dax, because he had Kieran and I was alone. Soon enough dad called us back to the camels so we could go back to the camp and have lunch. Lunch was the same thing as dinner the day before, so once again it was so so.

I wanted to finish as fast as I could because Kieran, Dad and I were going on a rock hunt. We only had to go 50 meters away from camp to find rocks, but we found nothing. We tried another site, and found loads of fossils. We only got to keep one big rock, so we chose one that was packed with fossils. We came back in time for the next camel ride, but mom was feeling sick and we were all tired, so only Heather went. She liked it a lot because they let her gallop and steer. Those of us who stayed home just laid back until dinner. Mom slept, Dax read, Dad worked on the computer, I wrote my tiger post, and Kieran and Asher played with ants. Dinner was ready, and can you guess what is was? Correct! The same thing we had for lunch and dinner the day before! Luckily, we skipped the dancing by staying in, because they dance before dinner and during dinner. But at parts the dancing was ok because they made all the tourists dance with them. Other than that it was pretty lame. The next day we had the same breakfast and set off to travel around some more of India.

McKane and His camel friend, Babalu, are finished with you! This post is done son!

Technorati Tags: Camel riding, Family travel, India, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

In our short time in Jojawar we were able to peel another layer off the onion which is India. Most of the people we have spent time with here have been from the lower castes and working hard to rise from the depths of the feudal system. (Padma is the one exception.) In Jojawar we were able to spend some time with one of the old elite. Before I get into our brush with small town nobility, let me lay out the situation a little more. Jojawar is a small town most Indians have never heard of, our driver being one. In order to get there we had to venture off the mediocre, mostly 2-lane roads to a bad 1-lane road) and drive over a small set of mountains. We passed a few villages on the way and then pulled into one of the thousands of small towns in India–the difference between a village and small town being there is an intersection in a small town going in all 4 directions. This town was like many others we had seen. The same dogs were sleeping in the road, the same cows were munching on garbage, and people wearing technicolor turbans and saris stopped what they were doing and watched us pass. The town was just like many others we passed until we pulled up to a wonderful palace. As we crossed the cattle guard that separated it from the road (you’ve got to work hard to keep the cows out here), we entered another world free from the filth and intensity which has become so familiar in our subcontinental travels. The separation was reinforced by the two staff members who banged on large drums to announce our arrival. There to greet us was a delightful gentleman of about 60. After a few pleasantries, he explained that the palace was once his family’s home and he had converted it into a hotel only 5 years earlier. We chatted breifly and he jumped into a jeep to guide some other tourists around the different villages in the area.

We settled into our rooms and I wandered off to search the town for internet (failed) and some interesting pictures of rural Indian life. I was surprised at the reaction I recieved. In some of the larger cities, people shun the camera, but here people in shops called me over to take their pictures. I would do so and then show them the result on the LCD screen. They loved it and asked me to take more. By doing so I got some great shots of a tailor, a barber, a card game, and a cricket game. It was a perfect way to meet some of the local people. For the most part they were a poor but happy group. When I had walked all four streets, I headed back to the hotel to show Anne some of the pictures and the whole family decided to go on a walk through the town. This ended up causing quite a commotion. About 20 of the local kids started following us everywhere. Asher was like a rag doll getting grabbed from all angles, so we loaded her up on shoulders and headed through the town. Some of my new photo buddies waved and called us over to join them in their various activities. We lingered for a few minutes, but it was getting late and we had dinner waiting back at the palace.

Before our walk, the hotel/palace people had asked us if we wanted to eat inside or outside. We opted for outside, not knowing that there was no outside portion of the restaraunt. Instead they set up a table in the middle of the courtyard and let us eat under the stars. It was a nice meal. The stars were bright and the Aquafina was pouring freely. After dinner we discussed our plans for the morning. Four of us decided to go on a jeep safari out to some of the local villages where people bred goats and camels. The other two decided to get an extra couple hours of sleep.

In the morning it was chilly and a light haze blanketed the desert. We walked down to the circa 1940’s jeep and met our tour guide for the morning, the owner. Anne, Kieran and McKane jumped in the back. The boys quickly fell asleep while Anne bundled up and tried to fight off the cold. I jumped in the passenger seat and we left the cozy shelter of the palace. After a few minutes, we pulled up next to a young man standing on one the dirty streets. Our host barked some orders at him, and he came over and turned the windshield down. To our suprise he then jumped into the back of the jeep with Anne and the kids. We strarted to drive through fields of wheat, coriander, and mustard. As we drove, I grilled the owner with questions. He gave me a number of interesting facts about the crops and the area around Jojawar, but primarily he gave me insight into something I just can’t understand. Traditional feudalism ceased to be a part of our society long ago, but to this man it had only ceased in name in the 70’s and in practice was not yet dead. He told me about a Muslim man in the village who had 24 kids by one wife.18 are still living. When I asked if the kids were able to get some schooling and attain a better job than their father, he explained that they hadn’t, that the man was some form of laborer, and that the kids had all followed him. He explained that the women we passed covered their faces out of deference for him and his family and their imperial role in the region. His family was responsible for gathering the “taxes” for the surrounding 100+ villages (over 10,000 people) which they would then submit to the Maharaja in Jodhpur. His family and the other Maharajas had originally moved to Rajasthan when the Mogul emperors ruled Delhi.

A little bored with the history, I pressed him more about the people. What was their schooling like, what was their ability to move up in profession? The picture he painted was a mixed bag. The people in the area are poor but there are a number of schools for the children to attend. The children’s parents lead their goats or camels 700 miles away every year into central India, but the children stay behind with their grandparents, allowing them to stay in school. When I pressed about their ability to move up the social ladder, he explained how “satisfied” they are and wondered why they would want to move up. “How could we say people still are in poverty if they all have color TV’s?” he mused. “They may look poor, but many of them are rich. (Yes, he actually said ‘rich.’) They have cell phones. These people are very happy, very satisfied.” All the while I couldn’t help wondering if they wouldn’t mind a little more comfort than their one-room, thatched-roofed houses, shabby clothing, communal wells, and lack of electricity provide. I stopped grilling him and we pulled into the camel village. Unfortunately the few camels that were not away on migration were taken to graze in the mountains at 4 am. We did meet with one of the camel drivers, and at the request of the palace owner, he let us tour his one room house. It was about 12′ by 5′ and surprisingly tidy. The camel driver had the only camel left in town in the front yard. His wife was grinding seeds and was properly veiled, out of respect. Inside his home, he had two pictures of his daughter who is now married and living with her husband’s family, and a very nice calendar from 2004 on the wall. No TV, no cell phone. He smiled while we looked around at this house and then bobbled his head at us as we left.

We continued on to a goat farming village. The goat village had a few more people in it and a lot of goats. Kieran and McKane enjoyed watching them, even though they were all cooped up in one big pen. Outside the pen there were a couple of women and one man who all spent time talking with our tour guide. After a short visit we piled back in the jeep and headed off to the mountains to feed some monkeys. Unfortunately the monkeys were not in their usual place and we needed to head back to the palace. As the jeep started picking up speed, it became clear that the windsheild was going to have to come up. Our driver yelled out something and the man got out of the back of the jeep and raised the windsheild. He nodded at the Maharaja, I mean owner, and hopped back into the rear.
As we drove home there wasn’t much left to talk about. I sat and enjoyed the mustard fields and pondered how satisfied all the people in the villages and the man in the back looked. To be fair to our driver, they did look content. Their demeanor was subdued, their bodies skinny and sun dried, but in general they seemed satisfied. Perhaps a general milieu of contentment is all an aristocrat could ever see or hope for from his vassals. And if the vassals don’t know any better, they probably can’t expect much more for themselves or their children. What century is this again?

Technorati Tags: Aristocracy, Jojowar, Kings, Rajas, Rising Star Outreach, Safari

This is a post for all of you who keep asking, “Is it really going that well out there?” and accuse us of painting too rosy a picture of our life on the road…

If ever you want to travel the western Indian state of Rajasthan, each and every guide book and travel agent will tell you hiring a driver is the way to go. In a country where death lurks around every bend in the road, trains are painfully slow, and busses are downright disgusting, this is sage advice.

Our agent in Delhi arranged for a driver for our 10-day excursion into the land of the Rajputs and even found us a travel companion. 20-year-old Heather, whose family has just moved to Delhi, is visiting them from Utah for a few months and was eager to go on a whirlwind tour of her own. Since travel can be treacherous here for single women, the agent asked if we’d be willing to let her accompany us. Sure, we thought. The more the merrier and someone to shoot our pyramid photos at the Taj, where tripods are forbidden!

So after our Delhi drive-by and delousing, we boarded our Rajasthani cruise ship, a not so luxurious Toyota Qualis captained by our driver, let’s call him Kevin. After our unnerving taxi rides in Chennai, we were concerned when we noticed Kevin’s belt buckle proclaimed him “Hell on Wheels,” but we soon learned his manner and thankfully his driving are anything but rowdy. A paragon of professionalism, he doesn’t speak unless spoken to and always gets us to our destination in one piece without breaking any posted traffic regulations or rules of basic survival.

Even so, I have become a hostage to the Toyota. With the exception of the road between Jaipur and Pushkar, the roads have been rough (potholes, triple speedbumps…let’s call them speedstops, unsealed surfaces, and “diversions”) and the drives painfully long. Three of our numbers suffer from periodic bouts of motion sickness and must be given priority in the seating hierarchy. Four of our members share common parents and find it important when in confined spaces to argue incessantly with each other and make those parents temporarily regret conceiving them. One, whose gender I share, needs to make hourly toilet stops and often refuses to go once a stop is made. All under the age of 15 require my attention, my lap, and/or the limits of my sanity at some point during each trip.

After five days of Tom sitting alone in the front seat where his legs mostly fit and his stomach mostly settles, far far away from the nonstop action in the back two rows, I demanded he allow his fair-haired daughter to share his hallowed space. If not, I pronounced, I would have to leave her at the nearest village or fly home. My wishes were respected and things have quieted down a bit, but the roads remain too bumpy to read or write and the sun too hot to sleep. The scenery is fascinating, but hard to appreciate when bouncing violently…have I mentioned the roads are bumpy?

If we were controlling our own itinerary, we’d put on the brakes for a few days and chill out in a marvelous little town like Udaipur (BEAUTIFUL!), but the agent in Delhi, a train to Mumbai and a flight to South Africa on the 27th pull us ever onward through the Rajasthani desert.

Today I escape my sport utility prison and trade it for a vehicle that has only one seat—a large hairy hump. Let’s hope my ride through the sand dunes is a little quieter and a tad smoother. After all, camels are known for their gentle nature and graceful gait…right?