Happy Birthday India!

Happy Birthday India! 60 years old for the largest democracy in the world. Impressive. Stay strong.

Here are some final pictures of Delhi; I ran out of steam towards the end of my trip, but here are some final scenes from the capital of India.

The Taj

Yes, the Taj Mahal is as spectacular as everybody says it is.

No, it is not overrated.

Yes, it should be one of the wonders of the world.

And it is.

A man built the Taj for his lover.

Lucky woman.

Too bad she was dead.

At least we can enjoy it.

Homesick

This place finally broke me down. I leave Nicole, and I immediately become the typical American-stressed-out tourist.

I get excited when I see McDonald's and I crave it all day. I go there for dinner.

A manual rickshaa driver comes up to me and says, "Rickshaa? Rickshaa?" I say no. NO. He pipes in, "Where are you going? Where are you going?" I snap back annoyed, "I just told you NO. Its none of your business where I am going."

They ask everything twice here to be doubly irritating.

Immediately, another rickshaa driver hollers, "Hello? Hello?" I call back, "Goodbye."

Yesterday I jumped out of a rickshaa at a brief stop because he had no clue where I was going, even though he did the head nod when I asked him. He continued to ask three other people. He still had no clue. We happened to be two blocks away.

I chewed a driver out for trying to charge me 300 rupees for a 20 rupee ride. Nicole would be proud of me. I still had to pay 40.

As I walked into McDonald's, a semi-urban 20 something in a torquoise "flaming nylon" shirt stopped me, "Excuse me, excuse me, what country? Where you from?" With a clear answer of defeat, I respond, "America."

"I have a friend in America. What's it like?" I tell him coldly, "Just like this (as I point around McDonald's) except without being hassled. He didn't get the point and followed me in. He sat with me throughout the whole time I ate my Chicken McMaharaja Big Mac, with fries of course. He even had a friend that joined us. He had an uncle who had visited New York once.

Good for him.

Even the food is starting to smell like hospital food.

So I have escaped the chaos outside and sit in this basement restaurant drinking crappy Nescafe, eating stale and burnt toast, and writing my complaints on a fucking napkin (because my journal got drenched by the monsoon). And a baby mouse just came up to my toes. I'm dead serious. Classic.

All I want is a dark, rich espresso, toilet paper, hot shower, and a fork.

Home sweet home.

Khajuraho Magnificence

The most incredible temples I have ever seen: Enormous, intricate, erotic.

How can you beat that?

Asexual India?

“You, very beautiful. Very beautiful face,” one of the five girls tells me, as she excitedly giggles along with her friends. 13 or 14 year old girls on the train back from school in Kerala had asked me to come sit next to them. Of course, I obliged.

I asked them their names, and they nervously responded, adding a few more words in English to try and impress me. The girls laughed, all trying to capture my attention.

Like 13 or 14 year old girls do. Seemed normal to me. Endearing.

But it seemed very unusual to me in India. Girls approaching men and flirting. Sure nothing was going to happen between us, but you could sense the anxious sexuality of the situation.

Rarely in India did I notice public displays of affection—the way us Westerners define the phrase. Kissing, hugging, petting, holding hands; amongst lovers. But even the subtle flirtations are rare—at least in the way of smiles and eye contact. The flirtatiousness of a big smile is almost nonexistent.

But sex clearly runs rampant. The population tells it all—more than 1 billion people. That’s a lot of sex.

Muketu Sehtu in his book Maximum City calls Bombay “a city in heat.” He describes a sexual culture, albeit underground, which is dominated by sex—the money, power, and excitement that both drives and accompanies it. Sexual pleasure runs rampant.

But to the visual eye, India feels like the awkward middle school boy who wants to make out with his crush behind the baseball bleachers, but doesn’t know how to drag her out there. The sexual desire is there, but he is still uncomfortable with displaying these desires publicly.

I once joked with a friend of mine in college that the Indian girls in our class were “asexual porn.” Beautiful to look at, but for a white, college boy like me, nothing more. She slapped me. But there was some truth to the statement: in India, the subject of sex didn’t even cross into this public discussion, and I wouldn’t even know how to approach the subject. Asexual porn.

The girls on the train displayed the sexual innocence that seemed so lacking in the rest of my experience there. Perhaps it was their age: too young to have to worry about the prospects of marriage (and definitely too young to already feel the burden of it), but old enough to have gone through puberty and feel real sexual desires. They could display these emotions by flirting with me.

Perhaps not so asexual after all.

The Foreverness of Tea

"My family has been here for more than 36 years working at Happy Valley. My husband works in the factory and the rest of us have all done our fair share in the fields," our tea Dadi (Grandma) Kusum explained to us of her time living on this Darjeeling tea plantation. "I was born in Nepal but came over and have lived here ever since."

Farms, and this plantation was no exception, have always seemed to me to be the greatest source of family tradition. It is a culture, economy and livelihood which directly sprouts from the ground, and will always be a part of a farmer's life. Their world.

The vastness of the tea plantations is immediately felt, and it engulfs you in its still tranquility. All of a sudden, you begin speaking more quietly, thinking that everybody in the whole valley can hear you. Women busily pick away at the crops, and gather in groups with huge bundles of tea on their heads.

You can already taste the flavor of the tea.

Darjeeling Rain

Three hours up into the hills of West Bengal, sits the peaceful and beautiful hill station of Darjeeling. Known for its high quality tea, Darjeeling was a much needed rest from the rest of India. It has a heavy Tibetan and Nepali population, and has a strong Buddhist influence. Although it was raining the whole time we were there, and unfortunately could not see the Himalayas, it was a welcomed escape from the bustle of Kolkata. We visited a Tibetan refugee center, several Buddhist monasteries, and Happy Valley Tea Estate. After three days of non-stop rain, we were ready to leave.

A Personal Reflection

A lot of people go to India to “find themselves.” Nicole returned to her parent’s homeland to reclaim her Indian roots (or perhaps claim them for the first time). A friend of hers may come to the country after a recent divorce to “get back on track.” Another friend of mine wanted to “feel closer to her natural side” after a few years of monotonous office work. A couple I met earlier this year in Jamaica started their world travels in India after saving up all of their savings—they spent 6 months here, and thus began their new life.

Today at the New Vishnuanthi Temple, dozens of Hindus said their prayers. Students rang the prayer bell, women in their ornate saris and stoic faces placed flowers on the altars. A woman lit a candle in the corner and chanted “Om, Ram…” Over and over. Lost in prayer. But found.

I always feel a special silence in temples. A soothing relaxation that calms the humidity. Shoeless and worry-free.

But that is all. Even at my Jewish temples and synagogues. A relaxing still, but not much else. Pure appreciation of others, and the historical spirituality, but nothing within myself.

I flash back to the times I’ve been moved. At the Women’s Day Celebration in South Africa, honoring the freedom and rights that women have gained. But also celebrating ten years of democracy in the country. The Anti-Globalization march in Chile, filled with rowdy youth and passionate anger. A togetherness that was extremely powerful. And the Anti-War march in Washington D.C., seeking to get our voices heard in resistance to the Iraq War. These events are where I have teared up. Felt alive. Been moved.

I suppose it’s fitting that I will be pursuing my PhD in political science. To me, politics can be powerful, both ideologically but also personally. Almost like a faith. I’ve been giddy all day after receiving my assignment to be a Teacher’s Assistant for my first semester of grad school. Politics in a Multicultural Society. It just feels good.

I sit in one of the holiest cities in India, and struggle to feel the holiness. Not surprisingly, because I’m not Hindu. And not very religious. But it makes me think of what I’m supposed to find here in India. Myself? I feel the overwhelmingness and the frustration of the poverty. The sadness. But also the joy of the people. But perhaps not the political joy that has touched me in the past. That is my challenge. And perhaps I just need to look inside to recalibrate my own expectations first.

I am doing yoga tomorrow.

Holy Varanasi

I’m not quite sure if Varanasi is a city of life or death. Maybe that’s the point.

I sat on the long steps overlooking the Ganges River. The chai guys are out, alive and well. “Chai? Chai?” a man comes over and asks me. This chai even had fresh lemons that the man would squeeze into the cup. He sat down a few feet away on the holy steps and poured himself some tea. A few minutes later a young boy came up to me and asked me if I wanted some of his chai. I declined. The boy then sat next to the older man—the elder chai guy—and sold him a biscuit. He even poured him some of his chai.

Like father and son. It was their livelihood. They sat drinking their chais together overlooking the Ganges. You know an Indian city is alive and well when the chai guys are out.

In front of all of us, little children ran around in scant clothes. Some children were even naked. Two young boys were teasing a goat, as the animal stuck out its tongue and snarled. Everybody laughed. Tourists walked by and nervously snapped photos. Beggars immediately swarmed them. A group of younger kids, not yet ten, took turns carrying a little baby, and passing her around like a hot potato. Her butt was showing. She pretended to smile. Nicole asked a little friend we met who the baby was. “That’s the beggar baby,” he responded without hesitating.

They had the routine down.

The city was surely alive. Breathing at least.

Earlier in the day, we passed a cremation taking place along the “burning ghats.” The family of one of the bodies watched nearby, playing drums, and chaotically waiting. There were three bodies burning at once.

The bodies burned visibly to all, placed in the middle of what looked like a campfire. Except that the feet were slightly hanging off the side. Men dripping with sweat controlled the fire as they would a bonfire at a block party. I sat on the steps overlooking the scene with Nicole, wondering if those were really bodies burning.

One of the men tended to the fire. All of a sudden he flipped the body, and I could see the whole thing, half burning but still their. His skull. And torso.

Burning.

I recently saw the movie Saw 3 and had a flashback. It felt like a horror movie. Maybe I didn’t want to be cremated after all.

The man rearranged the wood so it was back burning normally. Like nothing had happened. Because nothing did. Nothing out of the ordinary.

It was a holy cremation, the way it’s done. The way it’s been done for centuries.

The city bustled around. The family was still praying, and the market was hopping a few meters away.

Completely alive.

An ascetic with dreadlocks and a biblical beard calmly rocked back and forth with his staff on a nearby step. Men digging ashes dumped them into the Ganges, as if they worked on a production line. The cows poked their heads into a pile of garbage for their afternoon snack.

“Why is it that cities this holy have this much poverty?” Nicole asked confused. It reminded me of Jerusalem where the beggars line up in front of each temple, waiting for an answer. Or food. Or the Vatican, where the ornate architecture and gold drown out the nearby poverty. My mom once complained after visiting the Vatican, “With all of these millions of dollars spent on these buildings, we could feed the world.” Perhaps she was right.

I’m not quite sure where Varanasi, one of the holiest cities in Hinduism, fits into this debate. Except that it breathed a deathly liveliness. Or a lively death.

Nicole said it best, “This place is full of either holiness or holy-shitness.”

And the stench. Burned bodies, sweaty bodies, feces, urine, holiness, garbage, pollution, all filling the humid air. A lively smell that could put you to death.

As we sat on the steps, a severely deformed man came up to me and asked me for money. His torso extended out of his back, and he was hunched over so he barely reached 4 feet tall. “Please, please. To eat.” He sat down next to me and told me the story of how ten years ago he had an accident with a bull. He used to be a businessman and was proud of his travels around India. He kept telling me about visiting Goa. We talked for more than ten minutes and I asked him what he thought of Varanasi. He responded, “It is so holy. It is home.”

Yesterday, a boat capsized in the Ganges. A few tourists I met told us the story, and we were mortified. 10 people died, including women and children. They asked a local about the accident.

The local man shrugged and responded, “Karma.”

Such is life.

Or death.

Pride of the Rickshaa

The woman sat above the city. Unmoved.

She breathed an air of calm and tranquility that strangely made its way through the surroundings. In a way that was noticed, but not acted upon by the driver, and all the others bustling about. But it was felt.

She was the charm of the rickshaa, the one who was being driven, the portrait of her city. Her clothes radiated and blinded all the passersby, like a laser in their windshield. Her smooth, soft face was the movie amidst a swerving reality.

The driver peddled intensely.

Cars swerved and honked madly.

A group of cows relieved themselves in the middle of the street, and continued eating the pile of garbage when they were done.

The Indian stench perfumed the air.

Screams. And more screams. And even more screams.

Thousands of people crossing the street.

People walking. And arguing. And being.

India.

But it was all a stilled landscape to the woman, who warmed the city with her untouchable smile.

A Favorite City?

“How can you like a place with that much poverty?” Nicole asked me clearly annoyed.

Hands down, Calcutta is my favorite city in India. From the moment I stepped foot in the city, there was a chaotic charm that engulfed me, as the rain poured outside and the city continued to buzz. It was dark, I was tired, I had no clue where the taxi driver was taking us, and I still stared out the window with that feeling of excitement that a youngster shows when his parents take him to Mount Rushmore for the first time. Welcome to Calcutta, which in new India is now called Kolkata.

But Nicole’s question kept nagging at me, as I felt guilty for liking this city. It was easy for me to appreciate only the good that the city offered: I could take up and leave anytime that I wanted to. I could escape to our homey flat and have Madan, the caretaker at where we stayed cook us up a feast. I could compartmentalize the real Kolkata as a mere “sight to see” or “city to experience,” without being forced to confront the life that millions of Bengalis suffer through each day.

But in many ways, that is what travel—especially to developing countries—is all about. Trying to find the gem amongst the rubble, as a guilty western conscience gnaws at me. Being confused, asking questions, seeing and uncomfortably feeling a different way that people live. And guiltily enjoying it.

I love Kolkata because it’s a city in motion. People are always on the move. And working. While other Indian cities to me revealed a sort of stagnant chaos—movement everywhere that seemed to keep everything standing still—Kolkata was constantly on the move, and getting somewhere (although I admit I have no clue where). Men buzzed around with huge sacks on their head, corner chefs fed the masses, rickshaa drivers busily pedaled, walked and drove, children danced through the streets, and the city embodied each movement. It is definitely not a static city.

The transportation represents all of these different types of movement. It is the only place left in the world with manual rickshaas (definitely seems feudal to me). Cycle and auto rickshaas complete the trio. There is an above ground tram, a subway Metro, plenty of busses, taxis, bikes, ferries, house boats, fishing boats, you name it. I saw individuals in makeshift wheelchairs, and I even saw a beggar with no legs slide across the street with a tiny board on wheels. Anything so as to not stay still.

And the architecture. Sure, it is run-down British colonial, once again making me feel guilty for liking something with such a European influence. But it still had the diversity of colors that will always be India to me. It looked like a city lost in time, kind of like Havana, Cuba, where buildings slowly grew weary and decrepit, but maintained the architectural allure that it always had. The buildings and neighborhoods were a not-so-distant escape from the hustle of the city, and the narrow back streets represented this serenity. There was some quiet in this city after all.

Finally, as a traveler, so much of your experience in a city is defined by where you stay and who you meet. There is no good way to get around this. Kolkata brought us Madan, the caretaker at where we stayed who would end up for me representing the prototypical Bengali: my symbol of Kolkata. I stayed at a friend’s late grandparents’ flat in an intellectual section of the city, tucked away just off of the lively action of Kolkata. It was the perfect refuge: thousands of aging books decorated the dining room, curtains blew in the air to the beat of the ceiling fan, and a canopy bed waited in which to fall asleep.

Madan has lived in this house for 40 years. He came here when he was twenty years old. The late owner was a lawyer, one of the best in Calcutta, Madan told us. He clearly took pride in his old boss, and his face displayed a subtle display of nostalgia. I noticed when he walked around the house the place just didn’t feel quite right without them. Madan loved to cook: he made us sautéed fish, chicken and vegetable curry and a beautiful roasted chicken. He made the best roti. He served the food with the charming Bengali arrogance: he knew it was good. For me, Kolkata would not be the same without him.

In two days, Kolkata entered my list of favorite cities. Along with Havana, La Paz, Santiago (Chile), and Rome. It intrigued me, confused me, saddened me, and moved me. I wondered if I could live there, and I tried to convince myself that I could. But the arrogance of traveling took shape and we had to leave.

And perhaps that is the real reason I could fall in love with the city after all: I could leave Kolkata after only two days.

A Sacred Cartoon

"Soooooooooo glad you made it to Hampi. How magical??? It's like some sort of Indiana Jones theme park that's been abandoned and gradually people have moved in or something. Yeah, sacred cartoon man! Ha ha ha!!!" my friend who had visited Hampi a few months ago recently wrote me.

Hampi is a sacred cartoon. Straight out of the Flintstones. Centuries old temples amidst enormous boulder fields. Ruins everywhere, with a new world trying to build itself around them. Take the bus station: an open parking lot that happens to have a 14th century wall around it. Crazy. People bathing in the river, and hanging their clothes to dry on a sunken temple. Women busily tending to the rice paddies that are growing in between random old ruins.

And monkeys everywhere.

Embarrassment

“It was the best purchase I have ever made in my entire life,” I told Nicole after I bought the young beggar a samosa at the New Jalipiguri train station. 3 rupees. Not even 10 cents.

“So you can feel good about yourself for having fed a hungry eight year old?” she answered questioningly.

It was worse than that. Really, I was happy because this little boy, who had come up to me at least five times would no longer bother me.

I bought off the bother, the annoyance.

Trickle Down Bangalore

Please don’t tell me the trickle down theory works. Just go to India.

Case in point: Bangalore.

More to come later...

India as a Train Station

The train stations of India act as a microcosm for the entire country. “Chai chai” lanky men hum as they carry around their pot of boiling tea. Women clothed in brightly colored saris struggle with their luggage, some carrying it on their heads, while others drag it along on the ground. Couples seem to be arguing with one another, endearingly showing their strength of love. Clearly, the love is strong in this country.

And the beggars. A teenage girl in rags carrying a sleeping body. Or a dead one. Boys in grey tatters, as if they are straight from a 1930s Depression photo stumble up to you, point to their stomach, and hold out their hand. They don’t say a word.

A family lies on the floor in the corner. In fact, many families. Babies, kids, teenagers, all lying, with transparent smiles. Joking with one another as flies buzz on their faces. They do not flinch. A baby boy in nothing but underwear climbs all over his mother, who is lying down soothing her other child. They must do this everyday.

All of a sudden a cow strolls onto the middle of the platform, casually walking and sniffing the ground. Only Vishnu knows how it got there.

In the corner a man twitches on a bench, clearly fucked up on brown sugar (the heroin version of crack cocaine that is popular in India). A cop walks over to him and yells at him to move; its past eight o’clock and he must move on. He doesn’t go anywhere, and the cop walks away.

Nicole walks over to make a phone call. A man with no eyes tells her that it is 2 rupees. He then watches her the whole time she is on the phone. Eyeless.

A young boy drags his mother through the station, as she continually falls over on him. A six year old keeping his mother up as she is fucked up on something. Perhaps she’s a prostitute. Perhaps mentally ill. She flashes her cell phone. As her six year old son begs for her. She laughs when she grabs a cracker from his hands and eats it. Is she stealing food from her son? Or life?

A middle class family enters the station with shopping bags and lots of luggage. Old school suitcases, the heavy ones that don’t have the easy-to-drag luxuries that are the standards back home. The three kids in their Western dress, jeans and a Quiksilver t-shirt, the mother in her beautifully bright sari and radiant shawl, and the father carrying a briefcase and a look of sureness. He is in a silent state of control.

“What are you staring at,” hisses Nicole to a group of twenty-something men, clearly bored of their surroundings. A beautiful Indian, American, or both walking with an American male with a backpack is clearly strange to them. They get the message after Nicole’s sneer.

The post office worker wheels out the mail, which is bundled together in label-less sacks. No uniform nor labels. Can barely tell its official mail. Maybe its not.

And the stench. The flavor of Indian food and spices mixed with the aroma of thousands of sweaty bodies, bodies that have been rolling around dirty floors, hustling through the overly polluted cities, and have rested little in recent memory.

It is go time. Time to move on to the next location, the next adventure, the next place. But moving on to the next sameness.

To another train station; but the same India.

A Backwater Adventure

When travelling, you often meet a person in a particular place who ends up defining that place for you. That person often is cemented in your mind as the symbol of that city, town, state, or country. Abu Babu became our Kerala.

Abu Babu took us on a Gilligan's Island-type escapade through the backwaters of Kerala. Known as the Venice of the East, the Kerala backwaters are a mix of large and small canals mixed with vast rice paddies and villages. Common mode of transportation? Canoes.

Abu Babu was barely five feet tall, and he moved around his boat like a chipmunk. Barefoot, and constantly crouching over, Abu Babu was a living Keralan compass: he knew the backwaters as though it were his livelihood. In fact, it was.

Although he didn't speak a word of English, Abu Babu communicated with us by pointing, laughing, and simply taking us where we needed to go. And by holding Nicole's hand--he seemed to enjoy this.

He navigated our boat through the backwaters--narrow lagoons and wide, river-like canals. He brought us to a restaurant for chai, in the middle of the canals and only accessible by boat, where an entire family immediately converged at the sight of foreigners and practiced the two words of English they knew. We awkwardly sat together drinking our chai and watched the Indian love story that was playing on the TV.

We stopped off where a man was up in a tree plucking fruit that is used for the village alcohol. Abu Babu showed us the rice paddies, and kept pointing about something; a nice lost-in-translation moment. We explored a little slab of land that was full of palm trees with bats' nests.

Because it was during the monsoon, the backwaters were flooded and houses were literally halfway underwater. But people didn't seemed to mind; they just made sure that they were in shorts when they exited their house. They were immediately bathing in water.

We passed churches and cemetaries, restaurants and billboards, all amidst this matrix of canals.

After our day-long boat ride, it was a little sad to say goodbye to "our little guy" Abu Babu. He was our backwater experience, and we decided to give him a significant tip to show our appreciation.

We left feeling good, and chatting about how we would always remember Abu Babu.

An hour later, we went to get lunch at a nearby restaurant. Abu Babu was there eating, so we went and sat at his table. After a minute of watching him messily eat his food and trying to comprehend his slurring speech, it was obvious: he was wasted.

So much for our generous tip and our innocent view of Abu Babu and Kerala.

Kerala by Train

Welcome to Kerala.

After flying into Mumbai, we immediately took a 27 hour train ride to the southwestern-most state in India. Kerala is known for its high literacy rate, which hovers around 91%; this is the highest rate of any state in India. According to Wikipedia, "Social reforms enacted in the late 19th century by Cochin and Travancore were expanded upon by post-Independence governments, making Kerala among the Third World's longest-lived, healthiest, most gender-equitable, and most literate regions. However, Kerala's suicide, alcoholism, and unemployment rates rank among India's highest. A survey conducted in 2005 by Transparency International ranked Kerala as the least corrupt state in the country."

I spent most of the train ride sleeping and recovering from jet lag. But I spent a few hours staring out the door of the train, hardly believing I was finally here in India.

Here are a few snaps from the train.

A Love-Hate Relationship

It would be unfair and pretentious of me to say I know India, but in the past month I have felt it. To me, India is the head nod. Yes. No. Maybe. Hell no. For sure. What? India is the chai guy. Always there, on time. Always 4 rupees. Just like India, always on time, always the same price. Yeah right!! I love what I hate about this place and I hate what I love about it.

India is a country of unbelievable colors: stunning sari clothed women all in their traditional style, bright flowers decorating the shrines in the temple, and a collage of different fruit feeding the streets. But it is also a country of grays: the soot-colored faces of the beggar children, the ragged clothes of the rickshaw drivers, and the layer of pollution in all the cities.

It is a country that makes me want to say, "I wanna come back." Even though I can't give you a good reason why. It's just so...intriguing. And perhaps...confusing.

It is a country that leaves me angry: Why are so many people living in abject poverty when the economy is growing 10% each year? Why does it seem that people don't respect the public spaces? Are there any functional systems? Why does it have to be like this?

But the chaos warms the place, and adds the not-so-subtle charm that made me want to come here in the first place. The charm that inspires me to travel, learn, experience, live, and hope.

The charm that makes me love India.

Welcome to India: My Trip-Shtick

Welcome to India.

I spent the past month traveling through India, a country that proved to outdo my bipolarity a million fold. Before my trip, I thought I knew what I was into: I had traveled many times before, and had been to South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. I have been to rich countries and extremely poor countries. I thought I had this "travel thing" down. Until India. The country redefined all that I thought I knew, until I was left not being able to define anything at all. It is a country beyond confusion, and left me throwing up my hands in frustration.

This is my travel journal, an attempt to make sense of--or at least reflect on--my experience in India. It is a mix of a simple travel log, strange anecdotes, raw emotions, imaginary stories, reflection essays, photos, and other confused babble.

I spent the month with my friend Nicole, who had been working in India for the past year. Thank you Nicole for being such a great companion. For one month, we covered a lot of ground, and spent countless hours sleeping on trains and busses.

We started our travels in Mumbai, and immediately made our way down to the state of Kerala (see Kovalam), in the southwestern part of the country. In Kerala, we explored the strange city of Fort Cochin, explored the Kerala backwaters, took a safari and enjoyed the serenity of the tea plantations in Wayanad. We then headed North to Bangalore, where we explored the City Market and the lavish nightlife that the Bangalorean elite look forward to each weekend. Off to Hampi, the sacred Flinstones-esque town filled with ancient temples amidst enormous boulders. We then flew out of Hyderabad on our way East to Calcutta (now called Kolkata) where we witnessed the hustle and bustle of the cultural capital of India. There, our friend Madan took care of us and offered much needed refuge in this chaotic city. Then, we took off into the hills of Darjeeling and attempted to see the Himalayas, but it was raining for the entire three days and we were left settling for the incredible Happy Valley Tea Estate instead. As to ditch the rain, we headed back downland to Varanasi, one of the holiest cities in India. We then escaped to the incredibly preserved and beautiful 10th century temples of Khajuraho, where we added a third travel partner to our duo, an American named Ed. After escaping to Delhi, I finally got sick for the first time and struggled to enjoy the hectic charm of Old Delhi. Enter Rajastan, where I explored the palaces of the bountiful Maharajas. Finally, I made sure not to miss the Taj Mahal, which was as spectacular as it is made out to be. I made a quick return to Delhi, where I did away with my caveman beard and explored the train station with a former "street child." After an exhausting month, back to the U.S. Home sweet home.

So enjoy the commentaries, and as I slowly make more and more sense of my whole experience, or am inspired to jot down all that remains nonsensical, I will continue to add to my trip-schtik. But as for now, here is a start...