Well, we're back in San Francisco! Amberly has posted some of the missing pieces from the last few weeks, so give it a whirl, since I probably won't be retreading that ground. We are planning on putting up an after-the-fact itinerary with a map you can orient yourselves with, but we need to get used to this strange country we're in first. It's so empty! We're going through a bit of reverse culture shock, alongside a wicked time change of 11.5 (or 12.5, depending on which one of us you ask) hours. They combine into a bit of a weird waking dream.
On top of it all, I've had a mean case of the runs, developed on the plane ride back from Delhi. I've decided to call the bug Shiva, the destroyer. We’re getting on alright here, Amberly, Shiva and I. Shiva is still dictating the solidity of things, but at least I’ve wrested the clock from his grasp. The antibiotics are helping.
That's all for now. School's out, and the kids are taking over the cafe... Oh, yeah--I put up a few photos of our last sightseeing in Delhi, as well as some lovely flowers around the neighborhood of our temporary sublet.
April 28, 2006
April 22, 2006
Dreaming of Kashmir
(Sorry for the long absence. We’ve been trying to cram as much as we can into our last ten days, and haven’t stopped for a breather in a bit!)
Photos of our last leg are up, but they’re not exactly representative of the experiences. There are times when I wished I had a really powerful zoom to capture some wildlife, a far-off detail or an interesting character. There are other times when the scenery was so overwhelming, a picture couldn’t capture it adequately. In these moments, more often than not, we put the camera away…
Ahh…Kashmir, we hardly knew ya! A week ago, we looked at the calendar and saw that it was now or never. One of the “must see” places on our India itinerary had always been Kashmir. We had heard so many stories of this “Heaven on Earth” to pass up the opportunity to go, yet the clock was ticking. We could no longer afford the luxury (if a 24-hour bus ride can be called such) of getting there overland so we decided to bite bullet once again and fly to Srinigar, summer capital of the Indian state Bill Clinton once called “the most dangerous place on Earth.”
The extra time that flight bought us was worth the trip, to be sure, but offered only a tease of what this splendid valley has to offer. Today, upon returning, we chanced upon a Srinigar native who runs a shop outside our hotel. “Once you have been to Kashmir,” he said, “there is life before Kashmir and life after.” His words ring true, even if we weren’t able to experience the full measure of that truth. We stayed on a houseboat in the middle of Srinigar’s picturesque Daal Lake. The city itself is in the middle of the valley of Kashmir, nestled in between the Himalayas to the east and north and the Pir Panjal Range to the south and west, and it really is a little slice of heaven.
We took a day trip to the Gulmarg valley, which is just getting on the radar for the adventure skiing/snowboarding types. The top of the ridge we looked up at has views of Pakistan on the other side. The valley was overrun with Indian families on summer break (it’s stinking hot in most of the country right now) and is meant to have a beautiful array of wildflowers blooming in a few weeks’ time.
But this was a trip that was less about the details and more about the awe. We didn’t see a tenth of it, but I know it holds limitless possibilities. Sigh. Next time.
With that, our journey comes to a close. We are in Delhi yet again, making last minute purchases and giving ourselves some luxuries long-denied, such as a fancy hotel room tomorrow night and a splash meal our last evening. The days have grown contemplative even as I race to finish my last “vacation book” before going home. There is much to write on that subject, but it’s still percolating. Perhaps I’ll post again before our late flight on Monday night, but I’ll put out this thought in case I don’t.
In the end, I travel to meet myself. It’s always me at the end of the journey, waiting to plop onto a comfy bed, kick off my shoes and take a deep breath. The pictures and small details will fade, but it’s still me.
I am glad and deeply thankful for all the people and experiences along the way. Because we are all one, they help me take a better look at myself, and by extension, the world around me. And this is the crux of the matter! The preceding paragraph is not an egotistical or narcissistic statement. Quite the opposite. If we are all part of one great existence, one amazing, awe-inspiring world, then getting to know oneself is an act of getting to know the other, both as means to the end and the end itself. I know that’s a big one to think on. I’ll leave you with it and look forward to your responses when I return.
Photos of our last leg are up, but they’re not exactly representative of the experiences. There are times when I wished I had a really powerful zoom to capture some wildlife, a far-off detail or an interesting character. There are other times when the scenery was so overwhelming, a picture couldn’t capture it adequately. In these moments, more often than not, we put the camera away…
But this was a trip that was less about the details and more about the awe. We didn’t see a tenth of it, but I know it holds limitless possibilities. Sigh. Next time.
With that, our journey comes to a close. We are in Delhi yet again, making last minute purchases and giving ourselves some luxuries long-denied, such as a fancy hotel room tomorrow night and a splash meal our last evening. The days have grown contemplative even as I race to finish my last “vacation book” before going home. There is much to write on that subject, but it’s still percolating. Perhaps I’ll post again before our late flight on Monday night, but I’ll put out this thought in case I don’t.
In the end, I travel to meet myself. It’s always me at the end of the journey, waiting to plop onto a comfy bed, kick off my shoes and take a deep breath. The pictures and small details will fade, but it’s still me.
I am glad and deeply thankful for all the people and experiences along the way. Because we are all one, they help me take a better look at myself, and by extension, the world around me. And this is the crux of the matter! The preceding paragraph is not an egotistical or narcissistic statement. Quite the opposite. If we are all part of one great existence, one amazing, awe-inspiring world, then getting to know oneself is an act of getting to know the other, both as means to the end and the end itself. I know that’s a big one to think on. I’ll leave you with it and look forward to your responses when I return.
April 12, 2006
Why We Travel, part 2
We travel to tell harrowing stories about transit that we find hard to believe ourselves. Like the night bus from Pushkar to Agra, with sleeping berths so grotty, the headrest was slick with hair grease. Bouncing and swerving so badly, we spent a fair amount of time airborne, backs pounded as if by an overzealous nanny burping a newborn.
Or multi-leg journeys that stretch hours and days beyond their intended length. Like our recent cross-country journey from the Andaman Islands to Rishikesh, just in time for Passover. It started with an easy-enough afternoon ferry ride to Port Blair, where we stayed overnight in order to catch our morning flight. A 7:45am pick-up kicked off the second leg of the journey, onto a plane to Calcutta and, after time out for an authentic Bengali lunch feast, to the train station for an 18-hour overnight ride to New Delhi. The original plan was to arrive in the late morning on Monday, and take a bus to Rishikesh straight away.
I suppose it was a good thing that the Naxalites decided to bomb the track at Gaya, because it forced our train to take a detour that added nearly four hours to our ride. The delay forced us to stay a night in Delhi, heads still swaying with the rythym of the train as we walked the streets. The good night's sleep wasn't quite enough to brace us for the next day, which we thought might be the easy part.
After negotiating the mammoth Delhi bus terminal and searching in vain for a comfy bus directly to Rishikesh, we ended up on a private "deluxe" bus to Haridwar, the closest serviceable town. The promised five hours streched past the six that the guidebook suggests to over seven, seldom reaching the bus' 30 mph top speed. When we were done winding through Delhi's interminable suburbs, we got stuck behind a caravan of tractor-pulled sugarcane carts, and so on.
When we reached Haridwar, a taciturn bicycle rickshaw wallah deposited us at the bus stand, where we found out it would be at least another 30 minute wait for the Rs. 15 (~$0.40) bus. It was 6:30pm on our fourth day of transit.
We all have our breaking points - times or days when the world is too much and we can't deal with it anymore. In transit, this usually means forsaking the cheapest solution, which invariably involves a test of patience, for the easiest one, which is inevitably more expensive. Amberly was having one of those days. Not taking these moments personally or out on each other has been the key to our successful travel together. So, knowing better than to put up even the faintest of arguments, I marched behind her over to the taxi stand and gladly forked over the Rs. 460 (~$11) for a smooth and quick ride to our end, at last.
With time, these memories fade into stories fondly told with friends and designed to get a reaction. The lessons are less the "shoulda coulda woulda" kind, and more what we learn about ourselves, our limits, and our coping skills at these times. This is also why we travel.
Or multi-leg journeys that stretch hours and days beyond their intended length. Like our recent cross-country journey from the Andaman Islands to Rishikesh, just in time for Passover. It started with an easy-enough afternoon ferry ride to Port Blair, where we stayed overnight in order to catch our morning flight. A 7:45am pick-up kicked off the second leg of the journey, onto a plane to Calcutta and, after time out for an authentic Bengali lunch feast, to the train station for an 18-hour overnight ride to New Delhi. The original plan was to arrive in the late morning on Monday, and take a bus to Rishikesh straight away.
I suppose it was a good thing that the Naxalites decided to bomb the track at Gaya, because it forced our train to take a detour that added nearly four hours to our ride. The delay forced us to stay a night in Delhi, heads still swaying with the rythym of the train as we walked the streets. The good night's sleep wasn't quite enough to brace us for the next day, which we thought might be the easy part.
After negotiating the mammoth Delhi bus terminal and searching in vain for a comfy bus directly to Rishikesh, we ended up on a private "deluxe" bus to Haridwar, the closest serviceable town. The promised five hours streched past the six that the guidebook suggests to over seven, seldom reaching the bus' 30 mph top speed. When we were done winding through Delhi's interminable suburbs, we got stuck behind a caravan of tractor-pulled sugarcane carts, and so on.
When we reached Haridwar, a taciturn bicycle rickshaw wallah deposited us at the bus stand, where we found out it would be at least another 30 minute wait for the Rs. 15 (~$0.40) bus. It was 6:30pm on our fourth day of transit.
We all have our breaking points - times or days when the world is too much and we can't deal with it anymore. In transit, this usually means forsaking the cheapest solution, which invariably involves a test of patience, for the easiest one, which is inevitably more expensive. Amberly was having one of those days. Not taking these moments personally or out on each other has been the key to our successful travel together. So, knowing better than to put up even the faintest of arguments, I marched behind her over to the taxi stand and gladly forked over the Rs. 460 (~$11) for a smooth and quick ride to our end, at last.
With time, these memories fade into stories fondly told with friends and designed to get a reaction. The lessons are less the "shoulda coulda woulda" kind, and more what we learn about ourselves, our limits, and our coping skills at these times. This is also why we travel.
April 10, 2006
A vacation within a vacation
Sometimes you need a break. As previously promised, we've been idling on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. After cold mountains, smoggy cities and too much transit, we finally found some respite on a hammock by a beach, with a coconut in one hand and a book in the other.
If you spin your globe a few degrees east of the Indian coastline, you might spot the Andamans as specks out there, not far from the epicenter of the tsunami of a couple years back. Most of the chain was relatively unharmed by the tidal waves - our guest house saw a beer cooler and an oven float away - but the crash in tourism really hurt the local economy. So we went on a relief mission to prop it up. This was the humanitarian portion of our trip, really.
Havelock Island is one of the most accessible and visited of the chain. While it is the most touristed, it is still a backwater with frequent shortages of just about anything except fish. As you might imagine, we ate a lot of fish. And laid around in hammocks. The island is relatively sheltered from the open sea by surrounding islands, so the surf was negligible, the water cristaline and the temperature bath-like. It was like the island was surrounded by a giant heated pool. We went snorkeling in a 'Finding Nemo'-like environment one day. The going was difficult.
Seriously, though, the downtime proved a great time to do a little bit of meditating, both of the quiet-sitting and mulling-over-your-life type. A kind of peace has settled over me and I got a glimpse of what I would like my life to be. In some ways, this was no profound insight. The elements have been there before - socially conscious concerns, including sustainable agriculture, a degree of income independence, and a strong desire to father a family - but the path to unifying them became a little clearer last week.
I'm writing this from Delhi, where we are taking a brief break from our three-day sojourn to Rishikesh to celebrate Passover. As we've descended into the thick of India's cities (Calcutta for a few hours and Delhi overnight), a broad smile has come over my face. I love this place! Both of us were sort of dreading leaving the quiet easiness of island life, but as we sped by, and later walked through, the city streets teeming with life, my blood starting pumping again. It's hard to believe it's been nearly two months and harder yet to grasp the reality of returning in about two weeks. I've absorbed so much, but it's only a scratch on the surface of this amazing country. So it goes.
If you spin your globe a few degrees east of the Indian coastline, you might spot the Andamans as specks out there, not far from the epicenter of the tsunami of a couple years back. Most of the chain was relatively unharmed by the tidal waves - our guest house saw a beer cooler and an oven float away - but the crash in tourism really hurt the local economy. So we went on a relief mission to prop it up. This was the humanitarian portion of our trip, really.
Havelock Island is one of the most accessible and visited of the chain. While it is the most touristed, it is still a backwater with frequent shortages of just about anything except fish. As you might imagine, we ate a lot of fish. And laid around in hammocks. The island is relatively sheltered from the open sea by surrounding islands, so the surf was negligible, the water cristaline and the temperature bath-like. It was like the island was surrounded by a giant heated pool. We went snorkeling in a 'Finding Nemo'-like environment one day. The going was difficult.
Seriously, though, the downtime proved a great time to do a little bit of meditating, both of the quiet-sitting and mulling-over-your-life type. A kind of peace has settled over me and I got a glimpse of what I would like my life to be. In some ways, this was no profound insight. The elements have been there before - socially conscious concerns, including sustainable agriculture, a degree of income independence, and a strong desire to father a family - but the path to unifying them became a little clearer last week.
I'm writing this from Delhi, where we are taking a brief break from our three-day sojourn to Rishikesh to celebrate Passover. As we've descended into the thick of India's cities (Calcutta for a few hours and Delhi overnight), a broad smile has come over my face. I love this place! Both of us were sort of dreading leaving the quiet easiness of island life, but as we sped by, and later walked through, the city streets teeming with life, my blood starting pumping again. It's hard to believe it's been nearly two months and harder yet to grasp the reality of returning in about two weeks. I've absorbed so much, but it's only a scratch on the surface of this amazing country. So it goes.
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