An Update From India

No, this won't be a post on Dravidian or Indo-European linguistics. I'll keep it sweet and to the point.

I think I've mentioned a few times in posts that I am having the time of my life here in India. And that is true. But I don't want to confuse you or mislead you into thinking I am having 'fun.' Far from it.

Traveling in India is hard work. Every day. Nothing is ever easy here. Everything takes immense patience, patience I didn't know I had. It also takes an iron-gut and the ability to walk through one's fears.

I don't know how many of you have ever dealt with an Indian railway station but I can tell you it is one of the most daunting challenges any traveler will ever face.

Same with a bus station.

Same with Indian cities in general.

It just boils down to four words: nothing is ever easy.

Today's photos can be found here.

Take food for another example. I had no idea what 'gopi' is. I know what 'aloo' is, thank the gods. And I know what 'paneer' is. So, the other day I was really craving a parotha and some aloo masala. Of course, all they had on the menu was gopi-aloo-paneer masala. What am I to do? I ask if I can have just "aloo masala." Not a chance. I was either all in, or all out. How was I supposed to know that 'gopi' was cauliflower? Not to mention that the dish wasn't very good. I think it had been sitting all day and was just warmed up for me. So, that's what food is like here. You just never know what you are going to get. And then there is the fact that you can only get 'naan' in the evenings and there is no such thing, not even in the guesthouses or hotels, as a Western Breakfast. You know, eggs, a smattering of bacon and some toast. Curry for breakfast? Are you high? Been chewing too much betel-nut?

And then there is water. I'll order a meal and it will cost 30 rupees. That's less than a buck. But, add in bottled water and that's another 30 rupees. I'd love to just drink the local water, but I never know if they have a filtering system or not. So, I defer to bottled water.

The point of all this is not to complain. As I said before, I am having the time of my life, but the stresses are cumulative. They build up. It's just not easy traveling here and will only get worse the further north I go, as the beggars will proliferate and so will the poverty.

Alas, like today, my patience always seems to be rewarded. I had an amazing spicy fried fish with green bean masala that was divine.

Like I said, time of my life, but still, hard work.

And on that note I have to add: writing is hard in India. There is so much stimulus going on at any given time that it's hard to start the thread of a post or narrative and finish is some kind of meaningful linear fashion. India lends itself, more than anything I have ever encountered, to stream of consciousness type writing. I've begun several posts only to ditch them because they are just weird and discombobulated. If anything they reflect my mental state at any given moment. The amount of 'stuff' going on around me is often times overwhelming and I have to remind myself to pay attention while crossing the street. And let me tell you, that can be an adventure in itself.

But all in all, I am having a great time. It's just so different. India really is a unique place, a unique country and nation. How it functions is beyond my limited comprehension. But it does. And you know what? That's cool!

In all my years of travel I have never had a mosquito experience quite like the one I had last night. Seriously, I've been caught in swarms of mosquitoes before, but this was an altogether new and decidedly unpleasant experience. These were nastiest, most aggressive mosquitoes I have ever encountered. They were also smart and hard as hell to kill.

Now, a bit of context is important. It's February and far from the hottest part of the year and yet in the daytime temperatures of 100 degrees are not unusual in Trivandrum, already. The nights are suitably cool, but you have to keep the windows open to enjoy the breeze. Hence, the single-minded hordes of mosquitoes! If I close the windows, well, I don't have A/C in my room (no hot water for that matter) and it can get a bit warm. But a little sweat is better than fighting mosquitoes all night, right? (Thank God malaria isn't an issue here or I'd be really screwed.)

Well, hell! Closing the windows didn't even help. Somehow they managed to infiltrate what I had hoped was an hermetically sealed room. Fat chance. And so, I tossed and turned all night, wore a long sleeve shirt and covered all of my face except my nose at one point to fight them off. I've never had mosquitoes bite me on the face before. I looked like a pimply-faced teen this morning. The sheets of my bed looked like a bloodbath, literally, in places where I managed to end one of the nasty buggers lives. And in the morning, when I finally woke up--I only managed to sleep when completely exhausted about 3AM--some of the mosquitoes were so engorged with my blood they couldn't fly. There were half a dozen sitting on the bed besides me when I woke up. They all met a swift end.

What's the lesson here? Well, there are two: insect repellent and mozzy nets. I've already bought the repellent and will go out in search of a net later this afternoon when the sun sets. Have I mentioned how brutal the south Indian sun is? What, with all the dust and the sun beating down on me and the beggars, and dodging insane rickshaw drivers and taxis it's a wonder I didn't collapse when I got back to my room last night.

All that being said, Trivandrum is a neat town. It's the capital of the Indian state of Kerala, with a population right around one million people. It's a reasonably prosperous city, relatively clean and the people, well, they're all gems. Helpful, kind and just curious enough to be pleasant without coming across as nosy. I like it here. I'd stay longer but I want to see some of the Kerala backwaters before I head up to Calicut to meet an Agonist reader. That'll make three Agonist readers on this trip so far. I just wish I'd had the time to meet Celsius123 in Thailand but my visa was running out and it just didn't happen. So, next trip, Celsius. And you can bet there will be another one! There always is.

When I stepped out this afternoon I didn't expect to find an internet cafe that would oblige me and allow me to hook up my laptop, so I left my post on my zipdrive in the hotel room but brought the laptop. How much sense does that make? And no, I deleted the word doc from my laptop. I tell you, I'm really undergoing a massive brain freeze or something.

Anyhow, here are a whole bunch of photos, almost 80 I believe, of the road to Cape Comorin, the southernmost point in India.

I'm now in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala. I'll be here for a few days and then I'll be off to see a fellow Agonist in Calicut!

My suggestion would be to start with this photo and move forward, as there are a few 'scenes' in here you'll want to see in the order I took the photos. Especially of the 'Mad Sadhu.' Wow, he was a character.

My favorite photos are follow:

The boys pointing at me.

This crazy old wanderer.

And this morning shot, sailing on the Indian Ocean.

More soon. Well, maybe. Nothing is ever easy in India.

So, take a look at the map. At the very southernmost tip of India you will see a town called Kanyakamuri. That's where I am now. Of course, the wireless modem I got isn't working and I'll have to wait until I get to Trivandrum in a few days to sort it out, so once again, I'm pretty much unplugged at this point. Which is kind of nice, I confess. More time to write and reflect. Saw some most excellent birds on the way down here yesterday. Shared a ride with a wonderful couple from rural Massachusetts. We saw Red-capped Ibis', egrets of every kind, more Hoopoes, Kingfishers, herons, a handful of moor-hens, Bee Eaters, Honey Buzzards, a crane and a stork--not to metion the parakeets from the Tamil Temple, which were very cool! The wind farm just north of Kanyakamuri was amazing. Hundreds of huge turbines turning in the wind, making this constant swooshing noise.

More soon.

It's got to be the strangest scaffolding I have ever seen. Just weird. Effective, but weird. Looks like a cross between a wasp's nest and a mummy with bamboo scaffolds everywhere.

Anyhow, new photos up from the temple area today--with a few pretty good people photos. They wouldn't let me in as I am not a Hindu and today was a sacred cow day--I'm not kidding--for pilgrims only.

Here are some local boys.

And here's a 'tour guide.' As you can imagine, there are lots of those.

And some ladies walking with parasols. It does get hot in the middle of the day. Lookout! And the dust: good heavens. India must be the place where all that Gobi dust settles!

Other than the above we're left with the outside shots. But if you look closely you can see how colorful and delightful the temples must look when their once in every twelve years makeover is complete.

Good lord India is intense. And I've had so many people tell me the south is less intense than the north. I've been to the Northwest, Rajastan, Haryana, Mumbai, Gujurat and Delhi and they all pretty much seem the same to me.

I've not been posting regularly lately for one reason in particular: internet access. It's almost impossible to find a place to hook up my laptop. India has some really weird internet access regulations/policies in place so no one is willing to take the risk of opening their network to me, for lack of a better way of explaining it. Thankfully there is always a workaround. I figured since I am going to be in India the better part of three months I might as well buy a wireless modem and two months of unlimited usage. Easier said than done.

First, I had to explain myself over and over a hundred times in a hundred different mobile phone shops exactly what I wanted. Then, when someone finally understood me, most often they said they didn't have one in stock, but they could sell me the plan! So, uh, what good would the plan do me without the modem?

Second, once I finally found a place that had one in stock--actually they didn't and had it cycled over from across town--it took almost three hours to activate it. See, I'm a Mac snob now, I guess, and you can only activate a wireless modem via Windows, but you can use one with a Mac. So, Raj, the guy who sold it to me, drove me across town to his buddies place who had a laptop and we struggled for a couple of hours to get it setup. But, in the end, mind you, I've not eaten all day at this point, well, only two chappattis this morning before I got on the bus, we got it done. Raj was extremely kind and helpful. I am grateful. And so now, I have access, albeit quite slow, where ever I go now. And that makes me happy.

It was almost as if he understood me. He then set about sitting down on the table like a proper monkey should and for the following few minutes ate what remained of my fruit, staring at me the whole time, daring me to do something. And when he finished the fruit he jumped back up the thatch roof covering my table and then on to the roof and disappeared.

What is it with monkeys and me?