2005 Log

Toward the End

This is a condensed version of the past few daze. There is, as always, so much more I want to say, and then I wonder why. I mean there's enough trouble getting it from my addled brain to my hand, then to the computer, then to the web, and, whatever, I think sometimes I should just drink a big cup of shut the fuck up, and shut up. Soon. This will be more of a dream than it already is soon, very soon.

We are here in Ankor for another day and well. More photos will come, though they still are quite a problem to post from the field.

Thanks for listening...

30 July - Bangkok to Siam Reap
Early enough for anyone going anywhere. We take breakfast in the remains of the night, people still cleaning up, the cops on the street adjusting their masks readying for the onslaught of diesel fumes and incense, the reverent bringing pusha to the alter at the corner. We cross town on the fast toll road and are at the AirPort with plenty of time we think to board the small plane for the hour flight to Siam Reap. We do. We fly at 10 thousand feet, just above the jungle and clouds, a short flight and land in the middle of pretty much nothing. The tuk-tuk ride to the guest house is short and pleasant. The air is very clean and empty. A half-hour and we check into the house full of European and American travelers. I sign the register and have to put my age and realize Leslie and I are twice as old as almost of the registered guests. Maybe no one's telling the truth. Whatever. The rooms are sweet, there's a restaurant veranda upstairs where we take drinks and eat some. We rest then walk through the rain until 5, when Ankor is open and free and we find 2 drivers who'll not only take us today, but tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, and that, if we're here.

Downstairs the local tuk-tuk drivers play cards and gamble the money they make from folks like us. On the main floor there's a long hall with small sweet rooms on either side, and upstairs is the restaurant. And rain everywhere. Hard but pleasant, it falls then stops and almost immediately is reabsorbed into the atmospheric mix.

Tomorrow I'll look for what I've been hoping to see all my life. And it's here, right here.

28 July Delhi - Thailand
All night to Thailand, on a plane full of Sieks. Must be some kind of convention. The flight is only four hours really, but the last four (or first four) hours of the day make the morning climb through Bangkok rush hour traffic a long slog. We are meeting Allison here, somewhere, have the name of a hotel near the AirPort where she'll meet up after noon. And the hotel is full, so we find something in the middle of town, Silom Village - this hotel in the middle of a Thai theme park type place, lots of restaurants and shops and happy tourists and our rooms are quiet and swell. We've left word for Allison, and she finds us for drinks and food. Leslie and I take a boat ride through the canals of Bangkok, in the evening, watch people doing whatever they do on the water,wait for the big rain, that never really comes.

In the morning we take another boat trip, the 4 of us, around the city and get dropped at Wat Po, one of the big temple-school-tourist attraction Buddhist places that houses the 120 foot reclining Buddha, and the 108 auspicious bowls in a row we drop 108 auspicious coins into, trying to say a unique prayer for each coin, and I fall behind and am bumped along because I'm not praying fast enough. We are in a slack-tide of heaven, wander the grounds in golden calm and then find a rickshaw to the next temple, the standing Buddha, the 'lucky' one, and if we go to the third sitting buddha, we will be blessed. We do, and we are, until the rickshaw driver convinces us to go to the 'exposition' just to look long enough for him to get his gas coupon. We do. A gem emporium, miraculously buy nothing and are going home except for one more stop at the clothing exposition, where he'll get another coupon, and we go, but it doesn't seem to matter, because he runs out of gas dead square in the thick of stopped-dead Bangkok traffic. He wants no money, but really doesn't have a clue to help us find our way home. We walk awhile in the direction we think we need to travel, then hire another rickshaw who knows no more than we do. After an hour going no place we get out and sort of smell our way home, the luck of the buddhas I guess, and rest for an early flight to Siam Reap.

We weren't here very long, but even if we were I don't know that Bangkok would have been any less of the blur it was. Phoebe and Allison return here for another 3 weeks, though they'll not be in Bangkok, and are looking forward to traveling through the county. Me? I'm happy to have been here, happy to be going on, very happy to be going to Cambodia. And I'm looking at going home after Cambodia, which I'm pretty much getting ready for. This has been a long, strange trip.

Last Day in India
The Shiva temple across the very narrow street starts breathing by 6, the priest pumping what sounds like Hindi show tunes extremely loud, into the neighborhood waking us. Strangely we are so much more used to the smells, and the aural affronts we laze awhile, lounge really, knowing we don't leave until midnight. We settle things, and decide to go back to Sarajini Nagar, because it felt right, and then find the same Rajasthani woman to henna Leslie's hands and feet. But no one want to take us to the market, they want us going where they'll get commission on things we don't even want. After bickering in the back of the autorickshaw for awhile, we agree the driver will take us first to the Emporium ("4 floors of AC shopping madam, everything you want...") and then to the market we want to go to. And it takes an hour or more, but we're finally there, in the market, the only white people, but no one could care less. We are completely left alone, poking through the heat of noon looking, just looking. We find silk and medicine, money and food. We are really happy here, doing nothing but kicking around. We find the Rajasthani woman at Delli Haat, another market Raj showed us, where again we're left alone and are completely comfortable for a couple of hours. By evening we find another rickshaw driver to get us home, where we take the last of the Indian tea we'll take, find a car to take us to the AirPort. Bye Bye India, and the road is dark and choked, and punctuated with thousands of pilgrims en-route from Rishikesh carrying water for their gods. Roadside sleep stations set up all over the place, and music and lights and it's a sight, now in the rear view mirror, as we get to and into Indira Ghandi International AirPort for the last few hours of India

26 July
From Mandawa

The road goes south, not physically, but from here to Delhi the road is a dream of ruts and overflowing drains on very narrow streets through very narrow towns, spread between rice fields and fields growing other stuff Raj can't really explain. We travel through Gonoah, the site of the Hero Honda and Indian Motorbike factories we find sported bloody rebellion yesterday. Though things are calm now, there are protesters missing and more in hospital. We have a new Delhi plan - to not stay at Ajanta, but find a place we can patch our bones, heal my feet, ready ourselves to shut down this Indian experience. Raj races through the outskirts of Delhi, I'm sure smelling the food he's missed these 2 weeks in the desert with white folk, who, try as they might, just can't eat the stuff he wants to eat. And he's thinking after fulfilling his promises he can drop us and go, then we throw this curve at him and he's clearly not all for it. But into Delhi, and onto our street, into the hotel, minimal complaining lands us a suite on the top floor for the same price, and a little extra peace. So we stay on this crazy street, seeing the same folk we thought we'd never see. And we have a whole day tomorrow to repack, soak, see what we think we may have missed in Delhi. Raj does fulfill his promise, drives us through the thick of Delhi looking for a big bag and henna. We find them at Sarajini Nagar, just a local market somewhere off Compton Square. The closer we get to saying goodbye to Raj the warmer he becomes, and actually displays some affection when we exchange addresses, and say we'd try to come tis wedding next year in Hill Station if he invited us. After the last stop at the bottle shop, he drops us, we exchange gifts and are on our own

Siem Reap

We did make it to Thailand, blurred our way through the Budahs of Bangkok and feel very, very lucky to be here, comfortable and stable. We are in the perfect place to come down, and I'l try and solve some of the tehnical problems I've been having managing to post the past few entries to this mess.

There are more photos I'll try and post - Bikaner, Mandawa, Delhi, Bangkok and here, and more stories to tell, but I have been running into problems, as usaul  (and this all may have something to do with no longer being able to use my computer, and having to rely on others...).

Thanks for trying to read this diary-like diatribe, and I'll try and clean it up someday and make it readable.

Know we are safe and hear your thoughts and prayers.

Leaving Delhi

So our desert travels over, we got here yesterday and spent a quiet night in Delhi. We leave for Thailand @ midnight, have plans of getting the Leslie's hands hennaed, looking through the delhi haze and wrapping up an Indian experience.

There are still Indian birds in these Indian skies. And we're happy to have been here, happy to be leaving.

Photos posted to: Delhi Agra, Jodhpur and Pushkar. Hope you enjoy them.

Namaste,

~Clifford

Bikaner

Last day in Jaisalmer... the dust has settled a little and it's just as hot, We get the stuff, say good bye to the guy in white, who of course wants to make our trail of rupies longer, and deeper. After, "No," and, "No!," again, a little more forcefully, we leave for Bikaner, 240 kilometers east, and a little north, if anyone really cares. Halfway there, Raj finally hears me calling for tea, and stops. Turns out, as always, he heard me, but was waiting for his favorite dhabia, a roadside restaurant he knows that serves the best chai and panik - some fried kind of bread and vegetable thing that's sweet against the tea. This young guy comes out of the shadows and shade of this bus stop restaurant we share with Indian travelers waiting on the bus to Jaisalmer, and asks Raj to ask me if I want heroin. "Not today Raj, tell him not today." Everyone laughs, the guy disappears, then the bus comes, the women leave, we finish up and leave as well, without the heroin, sadly, but leave happily half way to Bikaner.

24 July

The road was really good to Bikaner, pretty much. The winds stopped after we left Jaisalmer and sand no longer builds up on the side of the road. That means less chance of having to play chicken with oncoming vehicles over who is going to move to the sand, or stop and wait. Raj does neither pretty much, and though there's less sand in the road, it seems our side of the highway is a little too cracked up, so Raj has taken to driving in the other lane for as long as he deems necessary. And that's often way too long for me. I've worn a divot in the floorboard of the passenger seat putting on my imaginary brake for the ten-thousandth time.Bikaner is higher, a little greener, and out of the wind. That all makes it hotter, and it is just hot, really hot.

We get there at the usual time - the heat of the day, and find the hotel unprepared and have to make our own arrangements, get put in the strangest room I've seen - a couple of rooms separated by stairs and curtains, the bathroom a large hall with a toilet and small, non-working bath. and no windows. This is a beautifully elegant, old hotel, clearly out of season and in neglect - and we're here. wrestle through the 'no-other-white-folk' thing and take drinks and eat in the huge dining room. There's a field between us and the road, peopled by gypsies and wagons, in the heat of the day. 105° we're told, more than that if your translating celsius. But we manage through the disdain of the manager, the 5-star grace of the waiter, and Raj, who wonders why we'll stay here an extra day. And our room is really OK, if you can figure out which switch does what, or which combination of switches you have to switch to get the desired effect. It seems Indian establishments have an obsession with switches and install these huge - I mean 10 to 20 switches per plate - switches in these rooms. It's what I'm calling 'Indian roulette,' because switching the wrong one brings the whole house down.We convince Raj we want to go to Bhandasan temple, the Jain temple in Bikaner that lays claim to being the oldest, and the only one built with a foundation made of concrete and ghee - no water. Raj doesn't believe us, of course, and we drive around Bikaner, my nonexistent Hindi even picking up him asking, "Where's the Jain temple made with ghee?" And remarkably, we get directions, he follows them, and we find it. It's is spectacular (and I am loosing descriptive words by now -), this subtle structure in the middle of the throng of a 2.4 million people city. Shoes off, we go inside, meet the youth and the elder, are allowed to take pictures and wander with impunity. the pusha we bought is no good here - we bought sweets and marigolds, the temple only wants roses. But this painted temple, the 'only painted Jain temple in the world,' is everything. Views of the Bikaner spice market. Views of mosques. Views of the cake-frosted Hindi temples everywhere. Views of these icons without someone wanting to tell me what I'm seeing. And it's hot enough the ghee spreads over some of the tiles. Hot, hot, hot, we find Raj, go home, sleep in the funny room until tomorrow. In the morning we're told we'll change rooms, and I'm showed this beautifully appointed Maharaja-style room with countless air-conditioners and very clean floors.

So I report back that things will be better, and we leave, pass through the road where the gypsies are fighting, and move out 30 km out of town to Karni Mat temple, the rat temple that Bikaner is famous for. Legend has it that Karni Mata, an incarnation of Durga, asked Yama, the god of death, to restore life to a grieving storyteller. When Yama refused, Karni Mata reincarnated all the dead story tellers as rats, so Yama could not have any human souls. And the temple is full of them. thousands of rats. We have to take our shoes off to walk through and half pray the rats will walk over our feet for good luck and pray very loudly they don't. And while I'm taking pictures I subconsciously brush what I think is a fly from my foot and find a rat attached to the dry skin on my foot. I say other prayers, dance a little and collect us to leave, which we do. Pass through Bikaner again, visit the fort then eat lunch at the only dark whiskey bar we've seen in India. It's cool, and dark, so none of the men can really lear. We go back looking for our new room, find nothing's really been worked out and sleep in an even more exaggerated version of the room we had last night. whatever. It's just hot. and the power keeps going out so the 'desert-coolers' die, everything dies and we squirm and fidget until morning, then settle unsettled affairs and leave. To Mondawa. On to Mondawa.

Jaisalmer

5 hours across the Thar desert, leaving Jodhpur a little prematurely I guess, and missing Udihpur all together, we watch the higher desert turn to the real deal. Nothing but sand and wind, a few, very few, people, huts, and animals for a hundred kilometers. We pass some camels owned by someone we presume, and the walls of sand just get bigger and bigger. Raj plays chicken with the big rigs, who's going to give in and move, and I have to believe that without Leslie and Phoebe and I all sucking in our breath, we'd have been dust on the road within minutes. Raj really is batman, and we cross the desert with aplomb, stopping at the most beautiful mid-way, a hotel spread and desert camp, replete with air-conditioned tents and a giftshop. We have yet another cup of delicious chai and move on into Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer just sort of appears, comes up out of the desert like a dream, this fort-city built out of yellow sandstone, so different from the other red sandstone cities we've seen in Rajishtan. And it does come up. All of the sudden the desert is the town, not big, but imposing, and very hot. We do the usual thing - find the hotel, rest, take drinks, then wake the driver to schlep us around. And we want to find Artist Hotel, the place we've promised Pepé we'd drop the copy of his movie. We sort of have an address, and crawl through small alleys and drains, smelling the same Indian smell, this time flavored more with dust than damp. We troll, asking who we think we can ask, then we find it, perched on the hill overlooking the fort (isn't there always a fort in these Rajashtani towns?), and meet Roj-a the half-owner musician clan guy who is in partnership with Helmut, the Austrian who isn't here but who put up the money to build this hotel in the musician's quarter, to sponsor learning and play. And we sit, take tea, exchange gifts and meet people, young Indian/Pakistani people, Kawali singers and travelers. We hear music and dance, listen to old songs sung in Urdu and watch a full moon rise over the city. Through the dust there's a golden hue, and the wind is strong up here so everything sways, including the power cords strung from roof top to roof top, so the power periodically goes out. But the moon is solid and bright, and means something special to us, and to these friends we're making.Roj-a asks us back tomorrow to watch the movie and meet the rest of his family and share mutton and whatever else he cooks. It is a restaurant after all, and we hear he is a very good cook.

The drive back to the hotel, around the fort and through town is a little haunting, but very beautiful, punctuated with the usual clatter of pans, and pots, and car horns, and the Muslim call to prayer we haven't heard much of.We sleep in the heat of an old hotel, never really resting, but drifting through the tales we've been hearing. Get up to take chai and toast and Indian potatoes on the crabgrass lawn someone is pulling by hand. We find Raj and the car and the uniformed man who must have come with the place, who salutes (a real, heart-felt, stiff right hand snapped to the brim of the hat salute) every time we go in or out. He salutes, we go out into the dust of the market to shop for whatever we find - the smiles on youth, the curious stares of the old folk, the smell of the open drains, the dogs, the cows, lunch, textiles, silver, silk.

We shop and get stuff, see stuff, tour the fort and the first Jain temple I've ever seen. Since I was young I wondered about Jainism (maybe because it sounded so plebeian for the name of a religion), and find it to be this remarkable mix of Hindi and Buddhist regalia, lore and practice. And the Jains add their own flavor - no leather in the temples, no thought of business, family, or sex in the temple, and they don't eat anything that grows in the ground, or anything after dark, lest something should die, because they are devout in their attempt to kill nothing. And the temples are sculpted like butter, every surface has a million facets, and it's all carved out of this stone. Someone tells me later that the craftsmen that carved these temples were paid in gold for the weight of the chips they carved out of these sculptures. Everywhere you look there's something. And the 'prophets,' 27 of them, all look strikingly like Buddha, except these images are open eyed and their hands are all palm-up in their laps. There are no hand mudrahs, and no beatific faces.We wander the temples and the fort with Singh, a young 'family' Jain who can touch people, and can obviously think with a business mind, because after telling us he loves the WWF, asks for rs 600 for his efforts. OK, OK.

Then we've convinced Raj to let us loose in the markets, to find what Leslie hasn't found yet and leave more rupies in our trail. We buy tiles, and leather, and an old silk sari for Leslie the guys at Rajashtani Arts will have sewn into a suit. We buy old textile wall hangings and then take lunch in a common café, common because it all working folk, (men, all men) and it's clearly a working man's place. Raj helps up order and the food is superb. After lunch Raj takes us to a jewelry manufacturer, a house of a family caste of jewelers who make amazing gold and silver things. We take the obligatory chai, though it's hot enough to boil it without a stove, and sit for 2 hours watching as he pulls silver finery out of boxes and bags, and with the help of his sons, show us kilo after kilo of necklaces and bracelets and goblets and statues, all of silver and precious stones. Our eyes finally glaze over and we price a few things, buy what we can and then haul the loot home to rest and get ready for the night.

We get to the Artist hotel at 7:30 and Roj-a is still out looking for a television and VCR to show the movie. We've brought water and beer and fruit and pens for the children, and sit with Martin, the New Zealander traveling in India for a year. We talk and wait, and Phoebe and Leslie wander across the street to another family house to deliver pens to the kids. They cheer and draw all over and then Roj-a arrives on his Royal Enfield Bullet with the TV strapped on the back. He start cooking and then Mina, the other New Zealander, arrived in the autorikshaw with the VCR. She had to try 10 shops she says before she found one. By 9 we are eating and drinking and telling more tales. Some of Rog-a's family shows up and though there's no music, the movie plays through intermittent power outages, and at one point I turn around and there are 25 people on the balcony watching what we're watching and watching us. Young folk, old folk, people in the movie, people who know people in the moves, people just watching.. It's crazy up here and the wind is still blowing through the full moon and around the fort.

We stay way to late, take forever saying goodbye and making promises.

People evidently only stay 2 nights in Jaisalmere, so even the captain is surprised to see us the next day, and snaps his salute and we go off, more stuff to see, stuff to buy, chores to accomplish even in this sand desert town inches from the Pakistani boarder. I'm told about a certain brigadier Singh who was brought in some years ago to clean up the Pakistanis over-running-the-boarder, and he asked his command if he could do anything in his power. He was told yes, and did, and since there hasn't been a problem. I didn't ask what it was he did, and it wasn't offered either. At night Phoebe and Raj and I slip back into town to pick up the last of the tailoring, to find an old tailor still working in the near dark of low watt bulbs with a treadle sewing machine. He'll be done in awhile we're told, take drinks on the roof of the shop with the owners we've met, and the smarmy one dressed in white we haven't. All is pleasant enough, the beer is cold, the chai and whiskey are strong, but our conversations drift suspiciously into politics and religion, and finally, the white one and I agree the union Hindi, bad-Budhist, Agnostic, and whatever I say I am is, "No matter where you go, there your are, but you better bring with you everything you have." We agree to pick up the rest of the stuff in the morning on the way to Bikaner, and take wagers on how long we'll have to wait.

July 18 Pushkar

Today we walked to town in late morning, rented motorbikes, a small one for Phoebe and a larger one for Leslie and I. We taught Phoebe to ride while we navigated the narrow busy market streets, and by the time we made it through, Phoebe had a good feel for it and we looked at a couple of miles of empty road, out of town, toward a temple mountain. Phoebe's grimace turned to smiles, and the morning was cool and dry and empty, except for the occasional tractor and farm house or temple. We came back and rested with a young priest who talked in broken English about love and god and selling stuff. Then we had to go meet Ramu, for what we thought again was going to be an hour ride, this time on a camel cart. We meet, by the barber shop, park the bikes, and mount the cart, "An hour to my grandfather's village," he says, "We have to return the bikes by 5," we say, "No problem." No problem. We can't go to his grandfather's village, it's too far, so OK, OK, we'll only go for an hour and see the baby camel at his friend's house, in a village. So, OK, we're in the cart for an hour and a half, in the sweltering heat, looking at the most beautiful country, knowing a Rajishtani hour is a good four white-folk hour, and we say so. "Just up here," Ramu says, and we get there, a bevy of homes around a well, lots of children running around, some adults, and an old man washing his turban and drawers - 'pound-pound, push; pound-pound, push; pound-pound, push; while we visit, make friends, eat things they deliver, we give away what we can. Leslie finds some glasses that don't work for her any more, we find some sweets we bought as pushå for the temple we never left, some pens, some money. In return we get a turban wrapping lesson, some fruit, lots of smiles and a look at the psychedelic mushroom they 'caught' just outside the garden walls.

We stay and cool off, curious about our hosts and a curiosity to them. Ramu has promised the taste of 'camel mother milk' and one of the men jumps up to fetch some. We know we have to go and urge Ramu, who gets us back in the cart and drives around the hill through a small village on another beer run. Then we come to a house where the young man stands with the camel milk, and we get out of the cart and are ushered into a courtyard and fed, fresh chilies and chapoti bread, and fat soft olives in chili oil that taste sweet, and chai and sweet rice, then mint tea and pushå all around, giggles from the women and a lot of sweat. I'm handed a big tuft of Rajishtani marijuana, we all say goodbye and this time we really leave, crawl back across the desert to a different backside of Pushkar, find the bikes at the barber shop and say so long to Ramu. We finally ask and find out Ramu knows Pepé, our friend who made the movie about Rajishtan. Figures. Tonight we'll rest and ready the Ambassador for the drive to Jodhpur

July 19 Pushkar to Jodhpur

We're a little sad to leave Pushkar and our new friends, but once we leave and climb over the narrow steep hills we drop into Anjer and pretty much the open desert. It looks sort of like Palm Desert, except the men don't wear turbans and the women don't wear saris in Palm Desert. Now it's just flat and pretty easy to see around the blind turns and we're flying through the desert, horns blazing again, and I keep throwing on the imaginary brake to avoid stray cows and camels, cars, and kids. And all these big Indian Tata rigs, I can't tell if it's the front of a truck or the back of a bus. Whatever, I leave the driving to Batman, as we've taken to calling Raj, because he gets there however he can, but quickly.

Have you noticed the way she holds her staff, and twirls it when she scolds the errant sheep back into the fold?

We get to Jodhpur in the heat of the day, of course, a big spread out city with a fort, a clock tower, and very narrow market streets. We try walking through the market, having left Raj at one of the gates of the old city. After the longest half hour walking through where we obviously don't really belong, we find Raj and try and convince him to take us to a 'fancy' hotel for a drink. He hems, then haws, doesn't get it, and doesn't really know Jodhpur, so we buy drinks at a bottle shop instead and go home to change our plans. We'll leave Jodhpur tomorrow and stay an extra day in Bikaner. There's nothing for us here. It is all about preparing for the unexpected.

We pack up, take breakfast and settle our affairs, and find the road for Jaisalmer by nine for what Raj says will be a six and a half hour ride. High desert roads threaded between small oasises and sandstone quarries.

149 kilometers to somewhere in Hindi.

I heard jets taking off all night lastnight in Jodhpur, and knew there were people on those planes who'd never seen Rajishtan from the air. We've never seen it from the ground.Now we're just rearranging our schedules. You will know us by our trail of rupies.

17 July Pushkar

(So we are finally back from Rajasthan and have some access to the Internet. I will post what I've tried to keep up. Hope you enjoy. I will also try and get pictures posted soon.)

In the morning we get on the road to Pushkar, 120 kilometers of mostly 4 lane tole road, in slight rain, past the big marble quarries in Kishangarh, and the endless truck stops for the big Tata rigs pulling cargo on this highway that goes to Jaisalmer. When we turn off on a small old paved road, we snake around ranges of very green hills, up some rises into Pushkar. Nestled between two peaks, each with a temple for Brahmin's wives, Savitri and Giatri, Pushkar is a small town that surrounds the lake bordered by temple ghats. Brahmin made the lake by throwing a lotus into it... and after we find our hotel we walk through narrow muddy streets into town to circle the lake and to find a public ghat. We do, meet a friendly enough brahman-wanna' be who blesses us for money: prayers, hand holding, some chanting, some looking around, salts, sugars, petals, and powders. All of it very sweet and dear, in front of Brahmin's lake. When the praying is over (and I've been gently scolded for the tenth time to use my right hand) we take the whole concoction in the metal plate to the lake and throw it toward the center. We say our own prayers in silence, then hear the countless bells, and drums, and chants. We put our shoes back on and walk across the wall at the end of the lake (after taking our shoes off again...) All these rules in this holy place - take your shoes off within 50 feet of the lake, no public display of affection, no meat, no eggs, no onions, no smoking, no drinking, no talking except for kirtan response, and be sure to let go of your rupies, - be holy, behave. We try.

It's been a long hot season without rain or tourists, and now with the rain comes the tourists, and everyone's happy. We're happy. We're trying to behave.Walking home we pass a yoga studio and meet Yogish, the teacher. And Ramu, the camel man. Leslie and Phoebe arrange for class and we all arrange for a camel ride. This morning we meet up with Yogish before practice and take tea. The walk to town was quiet and dry, and now the clouds are threatening. Yogish asks if we met Ramu and when we tell him yes, and that we planned to take a camel ride tomorrow, he asks if we want to hear a joke... "So a few years ago, a brahman from here met up with a young French girl, his student. They fell in love he said, and he wanted to marry the girl and go with her to France. When his wife did not agree to the divorce, he slit her throat, and hired Ramu to help him bury her body in the desert. They put her on a camel and took her body to the desert. If it hadn't been for the brahman's daughter seeing them, they would have never found the body or known. They were arrested and sent to jail. The pregnant French girl said she would wait for the brahman forever, but when he was sentenced to 20 years, she left. It was all over national TV. Ramu was convicted of only helping, so he was let out of jail after a few months. When he came back he took up his usual habit of walking down streets greeting everyone, 'Good morning, Ram Ram.' And one morning, my wife and I were sitting on the steps and Ramu came by, 'Good morning, Ram Ram, would you like anything?' and I asked my wife, 'What size camel would you like?' But he is a good man." He is a fine man

This morning we walk through Pushkar waking up, people stretching and sweeping up from the day before. It's dry and cool and very pleasant, we find the yoga studio, take tea with Yogish. Phoebe and Leslie stay for practice and I drift back to the lake then try to find my way home as it starts to rain. I make a few wrong turns and then realize it is raining harder, and then the whole day turns into a blanket of water. The rain is so hard you can't discern individual drops. It's like being inside a bowl of water. I find shelter under an empty awning and wait it out. A solid hour of the hardest rain I've ever seen, and people are whooping and cheering and showering (with soap and shampoo) in the street. Even the cows and dogs and pigs wait it out with me under the awning. When it lets up to a slight downpour I start back on my way, and 10 steps into it am knee deep in the river that was a street. OK, This is OK, and then a tractor with two young men comes by,they ask if I want a ride. Not laughing at me at all, just laughing and happy it's raining as hard as it is, they point out their fields, filling with water. Happy day!

Phoebe and Leslie come back from practice, we wait out the rain, then float our way back to town to meet Ramu for what we think will be an hour on camels. It turns into a 4 hour safari, out of town, around the back side of the Savitri temple mountain, out into the Rajashtani desert. It's silent, and scented and beautiful. 3 camels, three boys, us, and Ramu, walking behind, calling out the occasional instruction the boys in training miss. We rest a few times, sit and tell stories, marvel at the expanse of desert that starts here. Ramu takes long treks to Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, 10 days, 2 weeks, 'tents and food and fire' he tells us. "Once a Japanese man bought a camel to take to Jaisalmer alone. He only bought food for himself, some bananas, some oranges. No grass for the camel. On the third night he was sleeping and the camel was standing, and when he woke up, he said, 'Nice day. But where is my camel my bananas?' All that was left was his mineral water and toilet paper. He walked back to Pushkar and asked me where is my camel? I helped him find it and he didn't want to take it to Jaisalmere anymore. Wanted to sell it back. We bought it back for 9,000 rupies. He paid 12. Some Japanese people are clever, some are not. He picked up some goat shit and thought it was hashish. Rolled it into a cigarette but couldn't get it lit. He was not so clever."

Our safari ends with a beer run on our way back to town. No alcohol sold in Pushkar, so Ramu asks if I wanted a beer. I've had some experiences on this trip tracking down beer, but none top this; we're parked with the camels while Rumu sends the boys to the Government store, and we wait with gipsy children and shepherds, sheep, more camels and the wayward motorbikes getting ready for Sunday night, the holy night. No rain, no wind, we wind our way through the back streets of Pushkar, three white folk astride Ramu's camels. Everyone knows Ramu (he's famous after all) and calls after him. The backside of Pushkar is stunning, and we're eye-level with the squat 2 story buildings, looking straight into the home lives of these Pushkaris. No one seems to care. We are striding home, to the barber shop where I hope to have a shave. To the children calling after Ramu, and the bench where we finally dismount, pay the man and move on. To the rest of the world, still praying and burning incense for the fragrance, and tourists for their rupies. Life is good. We walk home avoiding the receding lakes that look more and more like streets, even in the dark. We'll catch our breath, sleep, meet up with Ramu tomorrow.

Agra, Jaipur

June 14 (photos in "Jaipur")

Left the hotel at nine for the 240 kilometer drive to Jaipur. Crawled out of the Agra traffic to the 'highway,' a slightly wider road that sometimes had a line in the middle ostensibly to separate the directions of traffic, though is ever a line is blurred, it was that one. The rain had stopped in the night and the air was cooler and we were able to keep the windows down except when it became impossible to keep begging children's hand from wandering around inside the car. Raj made it pretty clear he didn't like it, so being good car-citizens, we listened. 'Fer Merleng' Agra ('OK, bye-bye, see you later'). Once out of Agra we saw the land spread forever behind rows of eucalyptus. Rice and wheat and some small factories out of town.  The rain starts up again, and the road turns to mud and ruts and it get tough to make out shapes - a man with an umbrella, a dog, some cows, a dead buffalo on a donkey cart, army trucks, two bear standing on their hind legs. Some open space, then another little village a half a mile down the road.

At 10:30 we leave Uttar Pradesh and enter Rajashtan. While Raj pays the taxes we are lulled into buying a hand cut garnet necklace from a man repeating 'Morning time, morning time' through the window. We are his first customers... Raj drives with two horns. Blowing one means something, blowing the other means something else, and blowing both at once means something altogether different. And he get a lot of practice. There are very rare moments on the road when we're alone, no other cars in sight, just trees lining the side of the road, huts and houses and the remnants of some temple or another, nothing to pass or honk at, and Raj honks, just to make sure the horn's still working.

Barreling over flooded road in this torrential rain, everyone speeds up, overtakes each other more blindly, thinking I guess the faster you go the quicker you get through it. And at one point everyone stops to allow one way traffic control over a hugely flooded part of the road. Water up to the floorboards, when our turn comes Rag manages to move the Ambassador through the river of a road. Then spend the next half an hour throwing on the brakes suddenly at fairly high speeds, 'Trying to dry them out,' he tells us. After hours, and hours, not stopping for tea, or lunch, or cigarettes, we enter Jaipur from the old part of town, buildings empty and falling down, and the road narrowing, and becoming more familiar as an Indian city street. Then we're in the thick of it, in and out of the Pink City gates looking for the hotel, which Raj has never been to. We circle another hour, asking jitney drivers and finding it on the map (like that helps...). But we find it, an old Jaipur home being lovingly restored, complete with religious paintings in all the alcoves, and the most beautiful wall and ceiling paintings. Stained glass doors that lock with old pad locks, some grounds, a small pool and charming young men is Sheik outfits.

We take some tea and fruit, wash up a little, then wake Raj to take us to City Palace, the walled part of town around which sprawl countless shops and temples and an endless stream of people and cows and cars and carts and motorbikes and bicycles. We wander for a couple of hours, find Raj, some beer and wine and go home. Tomorrow we wander more in Jaipur, and then leave for Pushkar. We've decided Udiapur is too long in the back seat of the Classic Ambassador, bouncing over Indian highways as if we are late for a very important mission, just to turn around and circle the wagon back. Instead we'll stay an extra day in Pushkar and Jaisalmer.

The next day we do some tourist things, walk through City Palace again, then along the lake because we need to. We've not been doing that much walking, not nearly as much as we're used to, so walking the kilometer along the lake in the rain, even though Raj didn't really want us to was the thing we wanted. Past the elephant stands and the gypsy camps, we meet up with Raj and climb to the Amber Fort, another Mogul monolithic castle thing nestled in the verdant hills. This one though was built to stymie anyone who made it past the moat and the acid and the various other deterrents. There are interior mazes that end in dead ends and we walked without a guide,  got lost a number of time in the heat and humidity. When we left we paused before walking through some garden gates. A young Indian woman was laughing at Phoebe for being hesitant to walk past a Doberman sized monkey, perched there like a lot of Indians, waiting on a tip. So the woman grabs the arm of her young man and sashays by past, only to have the monkey grab after the box she was carrying - grab after it and here, catching his fingers in her sari and she screams and jumps up and down and someone comes to the rescue and shoes the monkey, whose teeth were barred and shining ling polished steel. "That's hubris," I tell Phoebe, still a little shaken. We ride home, take dinner out with Raj and then ready to leave for Pushkar.

Dehli, Agra

July 13

I thought I got it, driving in India, after making it from the AirPort to Arkashan Street, and our bullet-dodging (read child, cow, dog, car, jitney, bus, car, people, people, people-dodging) adventures through Delhi, we thought we understood the risks... Then we met our driver, Raj, short for something he told me I wouldn't be able to pronounce. He's 40, maybe, stoic, tight-lipped and looks perpetually unshaven. But smiles when we meet, and I joke a little - can he stand the hours we'll be together in the car, stuff like that We all agree we'll behave, then we leave, about 8, and then all bets are off. Not about Raj, but about our thinking we understood driving in India. Rush, real rush hour, throngs leaving and coming, navigating the streetless streets, honking, and swerving, and speeding up mostly, rarely slowing down. And all of it, the white-knuckle, lip-biting, sphincter-tightening tension without a breath of malice or anger from any of the participants. Every driver, of every vehicle - donkey-cart, motorbike, three-wheeler, auto, truck, big truck, bus, big bus, none of them display anger at the horns being honked, or the advantage being taken. It is the spiritual puzzle of the street, and the players are at the mercy of their god.

For 4 hours we weave through almost constant traffic on questionable surfaces, punctuated by relatively open spaces with fewer vehicles, where our hero, Raj, manages to get an extra 10 more kilometers per hour out of our ageless but immaculate white diesel Ambassador Classic.

We land in Agra. Another busy city (did the city ever end?), but this one with air a little different than Delhi. In Delhi diesel busses are forbidden; all the city vehicles use C gas. Here there are diesel things, except in a 4 kilometer radius around the Taj Mahal. Sometime ago people realized the acid from the diesel and gas was ruining the Taj, and outlawed diesel in the city and all gas burning vehicles in the 4 km radius.  Anyway we get to the hotel - this largish, beautifully marbled palace full of tourists in buses and lawns and pools on a pretty busy street.

We rest awhile, have drinks and then meet up with Raj, who introduces us to Nam, a guide we didn't really bargain for, but are with. And for the next few hours we're rushed though the Agra fort and the Government craft shops where we're served drink after drink and told thing after thing about the rugs and the gems and marble inlay because when the government realized the precious Taj was being destroyed by the pollutants of the industries in Agra and shut them all down, it subsequently subsidized these craft industries. The rugs and the gems and the marble inlay are sold without tax (but the prices are jacked up to compensate, blah, blah, blah). Nam says the guides are on strike and he can't go into the Taj with us - I realize later he's not really a guide at all, but a friend of Raj who is in training. And we never really wanted a guide anyway. But we pay him too and get to the the Taj Mahal alone, at dusk on a cloudy evening, through the east gate, and are struck and dumfounded. All that love and gift and history shines like it should after three days of hard rain. Too much to talk about, too much to try to explain, and what could I say that poets have tried to describe for centuries. We were charmed, transported, inspired, and delivered at closing to the west gate. And when I went to pick up the lighter, cigarettes, and iPod we had to check, I'm told we're at the wrong gate, the palace closed, and we'll have to find our way around the fort to pick up our stuff and meet Raj in the electric jitney. At night. Without a clue. And it's a pity we were so absorbed in our need, because we passed through the details of this place I've read about.

We ate at the hotel, quietly and a little too observed - then I went searching for Internet access and found Adil, the most lovely rug maker in Agra. A Muslim young man, who while trying to connect me to a cable connection drowned in the downpours today, talked about nothing but God, and how doing things with the world's best intention is the only way to know love - love of yourself, then love of those around you, then finally the love of your God. I am trying.

Getting to India

(his is all backfill, I apologize...)

July 12

Left Beirut on time, with papers. Daruuze drove us in his friend's 72 Dodge something or other. The biggest car we've been in in Beirut, and pretty shaky. But so sweet of him to drive us, after bringing us fruits, and flowers, and making coffee for us. He wants an American wife... thinks we can help (any takers? photo enclosed...)

We flew Eremites Airways and changed planes in Dubai, landing at 1 and leaving at dawn. A wicked busy airport all night, trying to find some place out of the glare of the gold and other duty-free. Dubai is a duty-free theme park. We have seen lots of covered Muslim women the past few weeks, but nothing compares to the robes some of these women wore. Embroidered and very subtly patterned. And as they floated away in the swoosh the gowns made you could make out the high heeled shoes, and the black net stockings, sort of. And I sat there while night turned light, and Leslie and Phoebe slept a little, listening to the most remote names being call out over the PA - Mali, Azerbaijan, Bagdad, Beirut, Colombo, Islamabad, Istanbul. It all peppered the half sleep I drifted into until we boarded the plane.

Three hours later we landed in pouring rain and sweltering heat, and needed to navigate with our shiny new visas through Immigration, and did, and were met by Pardip, the Nepalese driver from the hotel who throws the weight of his little car through early morning monsoon Delhi traffic jams. Leslie said she's glad we acclimated some in Beirut; to the heat and the traffic, the bang and clatter, otherwise this would have all been even more stunning than it was. But it was, through the density and smell of Delhi to the smallest street, crammed with jitneys and cabs and carts and bicycles, into a small and comfortable hotel 2 stories above Arkashan Street, full of other hotels, dogs and horns and whistles. The people are helpful and sweet, and keep the shades drawn for the most part to keep the business of the street out of their small business I suspect. And to make someone like me feel I can catch my breath in the lobby, before being aurally pegged . There's a small restaurant attached and we ate supper there after another whirlwind tour through Delhi with Pardip. To the ministries, some temples, some tombs, all of which are wrapped in the wet blanket of this heat and humidity, mud and scent. And everyone is completely engaged in whatever it is they're doing, unlike Beirut, where though it was a little less crowded, people seemed to take a little more notice of what their fellows were up to. Maybe because there were more guns there than here, and they have to, whereas here, anything that's going on seems just fine, and very unlikely to disrupt whatever anyone else might be trying to do.

We rest awhile then meet with some people, talk about plans and understand our hopes of traveling in the north are dashed by the heavy water falling all over that, and floods, and the potential for slides and washes, so we change our plans. Will travel west, leave tomorrow for 14 days through Rajasthan. We'll spend tomorrow and tomorrow night in Agra visiting monuments and government shops, then we'll go to Jaipur, Pushkar, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikner, Mandawa, and then back to Delhi. A couple of days in most places, and a lot of driving across country. But we're happy and excited to be here and happy to be going on the trip we're taking. These are places we've dreamed of seeing, but didn't think we would this trip. Things change. More reason to plan for the unexpected I guess. We'll meet our diver tomorrow. Hopefully he'll enjoy our company as much as we hope to enjoy his.