Shenanigans

Since you've all been hounding me for updates - here's something to munch on! Sorry for the sideways pictures, I'm just trying to get that crick out of your collective necks. Or create one.

Soon after Jeremy gave up his wife for Lent, and declared Shenanigans on his marriage, he took up my open invitation to all of my close friends and family to visit me on my Watson year. Here, in a nutshell, are our experiences.

We flew into Mumbai from Amsterdam where our obviously gay flight attendant had taken a liking to me. He had moved us to a more spacious seating arrangement in coach, given the chicken meal even after telling other passengers it was gone, thrown candy bars and obscenely large bottles of water at us the entire flight, and at the end even bequeathed upon me a bottle of real French champagne from first class. All for free, of course. Upon landing, we rushed to the front of the plane (to run away from him) and practically ran to immigration to avoid the "Q." I knew from past experiences how horrid Indian immigration can be, and I didn't need to repeat the experience.

From there we went to Bangalore to rendezvous with the Francophone head of the Facebook Empire and one of my best friends from Weed College, Nandini Jayarajan. As many of you may suspect, she isn't white! Nandini (pronounced Nun-the-nee, quickly), hails from the great south Indian state of Karnataka, where the cows are plentiful, the trash heaps mountainous, and the roads decrepit. While born in the palatial city of Mysore, she grew up in Seattle, Washington where her dad (the holder of two masters and a PhD) is an engineer for Boeing and her mom a psychologist (just one PhD). As pictured below, Nandini (brown and therefore a terror suspect) and I try to read a map. The question is: why didn't Reed teach us how to do this? The answer: it is too practical.

For accommodation, we shacked up with Nandini's family at her grandfather's place. We had our own restroom, and a very large bed to call our own. Nandini's thata (grandfather) also had been carting around a 75+ yr old woman for the last 35 yrs who cooked for him. This may seem a bit strange to most Western people, but having a cook, a driver, and a maid that all live with you is quite common and affordable for any middle class family. It also creates a number of jobs for people who, otherwise, would probably be unemployable. Furthermore, keeping the kitchen clean, procuring high quality food, and driving from point A to B would be extremely stressful and time consuming if not for servants - if I lived it India it couldn't be any other way. In any case, the cook would try to stuff us with insane amounts of food. She even pointed to Jeremy once, made an arm-flapping gesture (the international sign for chicken), and slopped more food on his plate. At the risk of Jeremy becoming the Sumo Northern Kentucky (or me the younger) version of him (my) self again, we developed two strategies to deal with the situation.

Me - as a tourist in India. Nandini - as an Indian in India!

The first, I believe Jeremy's idea, was to eat faster than she could cook and then flee the table. She had a head start, and seemed to catch on to our plan. It failed horribly. The second was to move our plates to the living room where, hopefully, she would not follow. When in the living room for breakfast one morning, she cautiously walked over..spoon full of some insanely rich Indian concoction, and Nandini (basically yelling in an Indian language "no!"), seemed to curb her slightly. Instead of one giant slop of food, she gave me about 20 small slops, laughed maniacally, and ran away. Old indian women always win.

Nandini's family arranged a few days of touring around Karnataka of old Hindu, Muslim, Jain, and Christian places of worship. We also went to the old Maharaja's Palace in Nandini's birth city, which was quite impressive.

Nandini and Jeremy in front of th world's largest statue carved from one stone. Jeremy (5'8") is about the size of his penis, for scale purposes only.


Hindu Temple. No no Nandini, don't drink my blood! :)

Cool Hindu demon.

Burial place for a Muslim ruler.

From the look of these boobs, dad will be converting to Hinduism forthwith.

Without much delay, we flew to my old standby of Goa, a former portuguese colony on the Arabian sea with a reputation for 18 hour beach dance parties, cheap drugs, and easy women. Jeremy nor I took part in these Shenanigans despite the previous declaration of Shenanigans - much to my mother's relief. Goa was pretty, but it was the end of the season and everything was closing up shop. From Goa, we picked up my motorcycle and were en route to the eastern Indian coast. Here are a few pictures of Goa, although I've already put up a few on yon Facebook.

Near sunset in Goa. Mmm.

Our little spot of beach, where I spent my days.
Cows at the beach - they act like people in India, and usually watch the sunset.

Motorcycling on my 350cc 18horse power with a total combined weight of almost 900lbs wasn't as easy as planned. Indian roads are quite unpredictable, with huge potholes, unmarked speed bumps, wild dogs, meandering cows, and far more traffic than they can handle. Our max cruising speed with perfect conditions was between 45-50mph - we had roughly 750 miles to go in 3 days. Sounds easy, right?

We awoke at 5am to pack my bike and leave Goa. We had breakfast at a wonderful 24hr place called Munches and proceeded to get into traffic jams. Not 10km from where we started, we found our first wreck. A huge truck had overturned and dumped its load of rocks all over the highway - no police or ambulance (haha) in sight. We continued throughout the day relatively uneventful and even found a wonderful little business resort on the ocean to eat lunch at. The staff were extremely friendly and efficient despite their little english, and when my bike wouldn't start in the seering 100 degree+ heat, one of them noticed that my "kill switch" (doesn't allow the bike to run, used in cases of emergency like wrecks) was on. I felt pretty stupid.

At one point we saw a sign for Bangalore on a state highway..it was a different way then we were supposed to go, but looked pretty official. A shorcut, I thought. Oh Jeff, so stupid. I quickly became too stubborn to admit I was wrong (what? in our family..never!) Our max speed was maybe 30mph and VERY bumpy at that, my suspension was already bottomed out due to the weight, we were low on gas, and I was worried about how rural the surroundings had become. But we pushed on.

Soon we started climbing huge mountains, but the road kept getting worse and worse. All I could think about was the situation that we ended up in some little mountain village without gas, hotel, or a road that went to another city. Soon we happened upon a road crew who was fixing the horrible asphalt that had been laid down sometime during the cold war. The manager, a young 20-something Indian, spoke fairly good english. He told us that if we continued, the road would be good, and there would be a town with a hotel and gas. Perfect! The road did become great, and the view was breathtaking. We were so behind schedule, we didn't stop or take any pictures. But the Western Ghats (a mountain range) were pristine and untouched. We finally reached civilisation hours later, just as the rack on my bike snapped.

Fortunately it happened about 10minutes from a mechanic, and it was quickly welded and all lost parts replaced. It was getting dark and despite the fact we had made horrible time that day due to my long short-cut, we needed a place to stay. Driving in India is pretty crazy in the day and at night no one uses headlights & there are hardly ever streetlights, so I wasn't on that program. The manager of the shop sent one of his guys on a cycle with us to find a hotel. We went to one place, which apparently didn't have a tourist's license and refused us entry. The second place had the same story. The third place looked very promising as it had Hotel written in English. The exterior wasn't great, but we figured it was something. Two guys came out and shouted something to the guy in Kannada, the guys grimaced. Then they took up positions on each side of the gate held up two large poles the shape of an "X," to effectively block our entrance. At this point, we were both incensed and I shouted something like "Are you FUCKING kidding me?!" Of course, they didn't understand so I might have well been shouting expletives at a wall.

We got some advice on a tourist destination some 20km away and decided it was our best bet. The road wasn't too horrible, so I tried to book it wherever possible as light was fading fast. Just as it got dark the road ended and we were at a junction, some people told us to turn left and we listened to them. About 3km later, we ran out of gas. It was dark, on a relatively quiet road, but apparently directly next to the highest waterfall in India (said tourist attraction) and directly on the highway we needed to take the next day.

All hope was not lost, there were some signs in English and my trusty traveller's bible (the Lonely Planet for India) instructed me that we were near a nice place called the British Bungalows which we believed was less than a 1km away. I managed to start the bike back up and we headed for the road to the bungalows we thought we had seen.

We arrived at the bungalows which looked VERY well to do for 2.5 dollars a night and attempted to find the manager to check in. Soon we had a large group of wealthy looking Indians around us, just staring. The manager's english wasn't very good, but we found out that this was an Indian Government *only* hotel and we wouldn't be allowed to stay there. Already frustrated and incensed, I wasn't standing for it. We had no place to sleep, no food to eat, and no gas to go anywhere else (much less any idea of WHERE to go). I informed the manager he had two options. The first was to give us a room, which we would of course pay for. The second was that we would sleep in the lobby in my 2 man tent, we wouldn't pay a cent, and would probably eat the free buffet breakfast which we also wouldn't pay for. After what seemed like an hour of broken english debate, it seemed as though he had caved in and was going off to get the registration book.

However, we found out that we still weren't going to be able to stay there and I became even more furious. Indians understand, and usually respond to, extreme anger - so I was hoping this would get me somewhere. Out of no where, a guy interjected and told us there was a foreigners guest house 3km away and he would drive us there. A workable solution, I thought. If he hadn't stepped in, I would have set up my tent in their lobby and enjoyed my free nights accommodation. What really pissed me off about the situation was the unavoidable fact that the Indian Government was allowing tourists to go without any place to sleep or even food! They were offering no solutions whatsoever, it took one of their driver's to come up with something to do about it!

We jumped in his Chevy something or other and he took us to a hotel that had to be from the set of the Shining. The guy came out in his little indian kilt (a white cloth wrapped like shorts), and helped us in. The cost for one night was about twelve dollars, but the room was massive. If I had to guess, our ceilings were at least 15 feet high. And we had TWO rooms, one with a couch, table, and some chairs and our bedroom. And even some hot water! No air conditioning, and legions of bugs. We both showered, had some food, watched an episode or two of That 70's Show, and slept.

Jeremy awoke me at 5am and I could tell he hadn't slept all night, which I later found out was b/c of the bugs. Now began another test of our patience. We walked down stairs to find no one in the "lobby," and the room which contained the dining room and a desk (the "front" desk) to be locked. The front door also seemed mysteriously jammed. There was a rear door, and while I went around shouting and turning every light on in the hotel (to no avail) Jeremy went around to discover the door was padlocked from the outside! So where was the sudden blizzard and man with an axe? He never appeared but eventually the manager heard us making a commotion and appeared in his little Indian kilt. We asked for a Taxi and he went off somewhere, presumably to call one.

An hour passed...

I continued to ask him where our taxi was, but his english was too limited to express anything. Finally our little rickshaw arrived. We stuffed our things in and whizzed off to the gas station, at about 5mph. At some point in the ride, I was very relieved to have finally started moving - we had a lot of ground to cover that day. At the gas station, the attendant didn't have anything to put the gas in. Great! So we emptied a 2L water bottle and threw it in there - it looked like watered down cherry Koolaid, interesting, no? On the way back in the rickshaw, it continually died. Just kept stopping inexplicably, wonderful..wonderful. Jeremy casually mentioned our experiences for the past 24hrs were a comedy of errors, something I agreed with.

Our driver called his mechanic and claimed he would be there in 5minutes. A little lesson for my readers, when an Indian tells you a time frame multiply by 5-10 to get a 95% confidence interval. I had no patience, and decided to hitchhike the two or so miles to the bike with the koolaid gas in hand. There I was, trying to show some money ($1.25) and leg on the side of a deserted Indian highway at 7:30am in the morning. I got lucky, the milkman picked me up! After many failed attempts, a guy on a motorcycle with 20 gallons of milk hanging off the two sides let me ride.

We got to my bike, put the gas in, went to the gas station and filled up. We were on our way and out of the Western Ghats! The road was smooth, deserted, and fairly clean..for the first 150km or so. Then we began regularly hitting Indian trash cities. One street, hot, and dirty as city built from a landfill. Probably the worst places I've ever been were that day. Truly disgusting and utterly unliveable by my relatively low Western standards. We got within 15km of our stopping point (one of Indian's biggest cities), and the traffic began. It took us well over 3 hours to arrive at our hotel the traffic was so horrible.

Much relieved, we got a room with cable, air conditioning, and hot running water. After I finished showering, I noticed the water to have a sheen on it much like an oil slick. That's how dirty the air had been that day. I had been covered in a mixture of soot & sweat! Dirty, dirty places in that state. The local government should be ashamed.

Jeremy on a giant swing, or Jeremy being small.

The next day we jumped on a National Highway and floored it to Chennai at almost 50 mph! Chennai, Chennai, Chennai...a port city in SE India, it is also known as Hell by Jere and I. Basically, it's an extremely conservative city and is well known for being extremely religious (be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or other). As a result, very few foreigners find their way here and the hotels aren't exactly prepared to accommodate people. Jere and I pulled up to the Hotel Himalaya (strangely named, we're thousands of miles away!) and got a room. Our room was fairly nice, but the desk woman began with a scam. She wanted to change money at an unacceptably bad rate - I was already angry at the hotel. We asked for prices on a taxi and she quoted almost twice the price I knew it was, strike two. Then the bellboy offered to get us water and beer, again for a hefty surcharge *and* had the nerve to ASK for a tip. Finally later that night, after I had arranged to leave my bike with the hotel for the duration of Jere's trip for a nominal fee (which was unusual for India, parking is usually free), the night front desk man had no knowledge of this agreement.

He said it was "not possible" for me to store my bike at the hotel. NOT POSSIBLE? I informed him that I would either leave the bike at the hotel and pay the stupid fee, or leave it at the hotel and not pay a damn cent. He said it was not possible, much like one of those horrible toy parrots you can buy at Cracker Barrel. It went on like this for about 35minutes. In the end, he told me to take my bike with me to which I responded "How the FUCK do I take my bike to some goddamn forsaken islands owned by India over 1000km away? pontoons? you idiot!" Yeah, I was pissed. We were both shouting at each other and obviously getting no where fast. He suggested that I write a note, he would keep it as proof of the previous agreement. Instead, I wrote a contract which stated I wasn't going to pay anything, any damages to my bike were liable to the hotel, and I could leave it as long as I like. I know it wouldn't hold up in US court, but I figured it might in India. We both signed, dated, and I had a passport #, Indian visa #, model of my bike, and the license plates. I left my bike there and hoped it would be there when I got back in 2 weeks time. That night, we left for the Andamans.


The Andaman and Nicobar islands are in pacific ocean where and were the closest land to the epicenter of the 9.0 earthquake that triggerred the mega-Tsunami a few years back. The islands themselves had little damage, and as you will soon see - were gorgeous.

Our time on the Andaman Islands was very relaxing and in all we spent roughly 6 days there. We landed, got our special "Andaman Island" permits, found a room for the night. We were both exhausted as our flight departed Chennai at 4am and we landed at 6:30. Neither of us had slept very much and after finding our little hotel, we both crashed (at about 9am!) and slept until 12. We managed to find out ferry tickets to the island we wanted to go to were only purchasable on the day-of. So we proceeded to see some sights, such as the Cellular Jail (as pictured below).

I'm worried about my cellular, can't you tell?

We were caught :(

The jail was used to imprison politically active Indians for centuries by the British government - basically any Indian that believed that they should have their own country. Silly Indians, sovereignty is for white people. It was an interesting place, but we made a mockery of it. When the above picture was taken, an Indian ran by and said "Can I take photo?" I didn't mind. He laughed and said "Past times, we in jail. Now, you in jail!" Hmm, well, sure..but I'm not British, nor did the current British imprison you. Ah well, he wouldn't get it anyway. Here's Jeremy declaring Shenanigans on the Cellular Jail.

Shenanigantastic.


The jail had five or six of these 3 story spokes, all for Indians.

This sign was right outside the jail at a hospital. Lucky for Jeremy and I we saw it. Right after we read this sign, we were almost hit by some wayward AIDS running down the street. Phew.

Goats on a roof.

The next day, we had some breakfast and headed for the local Port Authority to buy our ferry tickets. Our boat didn't depart until 2PM, but we were told to arrive at 9 to get our tickets. So, we arrived at about 9:05 and entered the building. What we saw was horrifying. If I had to guess, there were 8 lines with about 60 people in each. One for handicapped, and one for women (as is custom), but none for tourists (which is also custom). I left Jeremy at the waiting benches with our bags and took a book with me to the back of one of the lines. And I waited. And I waited. The line did not move for 1 hour. The reason? Well, Indians are tricky buggers. It is common custom to have one person stand in line for..well..as many people as you want. So Indians would just pop up out of no where and go to the front of the line! I was *pissed.* I also surmised that most of these people weren't getting tickets, they were shipping things to the island we were going to! I couldn't believe that commercial and passenger service lines were mixed..but they were. Eventually we moved a little, and then a British guy joined the line next to me. It was nearing noon, and I knew from past experiences that everything government closes from 12-2 in India for lunch. Yes yes, I know they could hire part time workers - but why not just screw everyone over? The Brit and I worked out an agreement, whoever got to the front of the line first would do all of our tickets. Around the same time, a Swiss French guy had joined the rear of my line..we included him on the deal.

I was third in line and oh-so-ready to be done with this experience. The guy behind the large glass window uttered something and all of a sudden everyone heaved forward and began to shout at him. So I did too. I wasn't sure what he said, but I guessed he was leaving for lunch. I shoved people out of the way and asked for 3 tickets to Havelock on the 2PM ferry and put our passports, money, and Andaman permits through. He told me he was out of tickets and to go to another window. In the words of Kyle's mom "Wha wha WHAT?!" He could just grab some from the guy next to him! But of course, he wouldn't. He was going to eat lunch and make his already Buddha sized belly more girthy.

My last hope? The British guy who was near the front of the line next to me. He finally got to the front of the line and both of us realized we had not filled out some ticket request paperwork (which no one at the information desk even told us about!). Lucky for us, the Swiss guy had so we just scribbled on his. The tickets were ours! And it only took 3 college educated Westerners to do it. The trials were not over, Jere and I still needed our plane tickets to leave the islands in a few days. The Swiss French guy needed his as well, so he and I went to a travel agent to get some. Another ordeal.

She was a sweet woman in what looked like to be a fairly nice, but small, Vodacom (cell phone carrier) store. It seemed odd she was a travel agent, but basically if you have an Indian bank account you can book the tickets online and just charge everyone some little service fee. That's what we figured she was too. After about an hour of waiting on the first ticket of three, the Swiss French guy realized that she didn't know how to use a web browser. Yes, we were her first customers! We did it for her, all of it. Then she charged both of us about 5 dollars commission per ticket, and we were off. That only took 2 hrs. We went back to the docks to rendezvous with Jeremy, two english girls he had met (Kate & Katie), and stupid american guy named Justone. Yes, really. We all got on the boat, and proceeded to Havelock Island.

Our first sighting of the island we would soon land on!

Well, after landing on Havelock we were bum rushed by a pack of wild Indian rickshaw drivers trying to pawn off their hotels on us. Simone (swiss-french guy) had previously been on Havelock and had some suggestions about where we should stay. We prompty rented some bikes, hoisted our stuff on our backs, and proceeded to look at a number of cheapie places on the beach. After we had found the place, it was already getting dark. Jere, Simone, Kates, and I just had some dinner and called it a night. The next day we were beach & snorkel bums. Just bought some snorkels and went out to see what the waters of the Andaman Sea had to offer us. It was quite breathtaking, but we heard the real snorkelling was good at a beach only accessible via swamp or boat rental. Being to cheap and lazy to rent a boat, we opted for the swamp route. Simone, again our tour guide, had done this before and offered to show us the way. A picture of Jeremy and Simone below entering the jungle-y rain forest we have to trek through before we get to the swamp, to get to the beach.

The forest walk was quite nice, and the path pretty clear. Only later did we find out about the large number of poisonous snakes the island is home to. More on this later.
Below, a picture of Jeremy with all our valuables in our backpack entering the marshes.
Me in the swamp. Not too bad, clear water during this part.

Finally, the spoils. Me + coconut + fishing boat and a great tree. Great snorkelling here, not as nice as it was in Thailand but still quite nice.Me and little Andamanian indian boys. The locals like snorkelling too, who wouldn't here? Yeah, that innertube, is made for kids but it's absolutely perfect for keeping you floating while snorkelling and ONLY for 3 dollars! Jere and I were both a bit red from the previous day's snorkelling the beach near our guest house, so we wore shirts for the day. The water was probably 20-25 feet deep the furthest we would go out, and basically clear all the way to the bottom. Not an amazing variety of fish, but it was still neat to see so many things happening under your feet that you would never know were there otherwise. We enjoyed our time there until it started raining, and then we decided to head back to our beach huts. We began our little trek back through the woods, only to find it a bit..muddy and confusing.

The path had been well marked before, but now we noticed that it was actually many paths converging into one. Rutro. Our fearless leader, Simone, lead us on. We eventually got out but I wager it took about an hour and a half, not the 45mins it took to get there in the first place. What complicated the situation was that we had come to the beach at high tide, the the tidal estuary was, of course, at it's highest We left at low tide, and it looked QUITE different. Just finding the jungle was a bit of an endeavour.

When we finally reached our bikes, our shoes were caked in mud. It felt like I was the victim of some mob boss and I was gunna "swim with da fishes." By the time we got our bikes up the little mud hill to the road, the rain had stopped and it looked as though it was but a short shower on that part of the island. When we got back to our beach, it was totally clear. Jere and I decided to snorkel for the rest of the afternoon at our little beach. By the time the sun began to set, we were both absolutely exhausted. The next day, we rode what has been hailed as the best beach in Asia. And as far as I've seen, I'd have to agree. Below is the beginning of the beach. Jungle on one side, blue water on the next. See anyone else? We didn't either, just a few scattered here and there.



A hermit crab, a very big one. Not a great picture, but it's the thing on top of the rock.

Jere, Simone, and I spent most of the day there. Under a tree, sitting in the shallows just enjoying the surroundings. Apparently, I didn't get a picture of our view (for shame), but take my word it was one of the most idyllic settings I've ever seen. But as we found out later, paradise always comes at a cost. We had heard through the idiot american, JustOne, that there was an Italian restaurant on the beach not far from where we'd parked our bikes. Apparently, it was run by real Italians and the food was amazing. We had no choice but to go! That night, we headed there with six people on three bikes.


When we arrived it was perhaps 7:30PM, but pitch black already. We took our shoes off and entered the octagonal structure, went up the stairs, to find an open air seating area. Places on the floor with cushions added to the bohemian nature and the ambiance was unlike any other place I'd been in India. JustOne, our self-appointed money spender, proceeded to order all sorts of jumbo/king/tiger/other animal or size prawns. Muy expensivo. Some of the guests bailed out on these group offers, but Jere and I stayed in. Thanks dad!

When the food finally came, it was pretty much perfect. We were all starving, which considerably helped matters. We then decided to get dessert. The menu was cryptic, with no descriptions. The owner had been taking our orders and when he came over I asked "What is this 'Chocolate Salami?' Is it really piece of salami with chocolate?" He laughed, and told me that I'd have to order it to find out. I wasn't on that program, so I persisted. He said if I didn't like it, I wouldn't pay for it. Good enough for me! I never turned down anything free.

It was great. And I mean great. I think it was some sort of truffle with cookie pieces, which made it look like salami. It had a lot of butter, cocoa, and a bit of sugar..but not too sweet. All of our desserts were as good as the main courses. The owner then came over to tell us a bit about the island and his place.

He and his wife moved there quite recently as the place had only been open for 3 months. Already, he had people coming from all over India just to eat there! Tourists, of course, but it was still remarkable how travellers influence each other's decision. He claimed that someone had come all the way from London just for the Chocolate Salami. Wealthy, or crazy, people.

What we weren't expecting were cobra stories. Apparently they had already had numerous poisonous snake incidents in their kitchen, after only 3 months! The idyllic spot we were at on the beach all day? Not far from a resident cobra - a 25 foot King Cobra, no less. A dog had been around us on and off most of the day, and it seemed as though it was following us around. He informed us that on one occasion it followed a tourist all the way to this cobra's den, and barked to alert him. Man's best friend for sure! His wife appeared (the cook) with their dinner, and we decided to go. On the way back to our bikes we found quite a variety of wildlife including: a giant crab, a kitten (annoying the crab), a few large toads, and something else that escapes me - Jere? They were all within 10 feet of another, and one of us remarked that it was as if we were on a Steve Irwin wildlife special. We got back to our place, rather uneventfully. The next day Jere and I left Havelock back to the main island, where we caught our flight to Kolkata - our first jaunt into north Indian culture.

Kolkata (or Calcutta by it's old spelling), is home to a large number of lepers - from neighbouring Bangladesh, Nepal, and the state of West Bengal itself. It is the city where Mother Theresa made her existence on helping the poor, as well. We didn't see much of the city, as our intention was to just catch a train to another city. However, we did spend most of our evening before the train left in an interesting mall.

It looked like a mini, and totally vertical, version of an American mall. It was airconditioned, had a JC Penny-like department store, and was quite clean. It was almost round, and had at most 7 or 8 small shops on a level. We were both starved and I could smell the food court long before we found it. Jere and I continually took escalators up as the wafts of food-smell became stronger - we knew we were going the right way. When we finally reached the 4th or 5th floor, we had arrived. Lots of little privately owned Indian food stores with all sorts of cusine, including mexican and chinese. But those didn't catch our eyes. We saw...Pizza Hut.

After many days of sketchy Indian places and when we could find it, western imitation food...wheat based breads (as opposed to rice) was LONG overdue. We got some special whereby it was about $2.50 each for some garlic bread, a pepsi, and a personal pan chicken pizza. God Bless Yum! brands.

After finishing the best american Pizza we'd ever had, we headed down to a sports bar. Yes, a sports bar in the mall. It was a very strange place, playing old American music and showing horrible cricket matches on a large flatscreen TV while the staff (and a patron or two) played foosball or pool. It was exceedingly expensive. Imported beers were TEN DOLLARS. That's right, TEN! That's about 400 rupees and well paid indians i.e., those that work for Dell call centers, make 4000-8000 per month. If it were the US, that'd be equivalent to a beer costing 400 dollars...assuming a good job pays 50grand a year. We had one and ate all the free bar-food before heading to the arcade, directly across from it.

We played a few games..it was full of old old games systems from when Jere and I were younger. It was like taking a step back in time. After that, we headed for the train station. By the time we got there, it was time to board. We more or less made a B-line for our train and as it was both of our first times using the train system, we had a bit of learning to do.

Earlier that day we had gotten our tickets for the train, and didn't manage to get first class tickets - but we got pretty close, 2nd. Indian trains have *many* classes. 1 AC (air conditioning), 2 AC, 3 AC, sleeper, and...hell. 1st if course the most expensive, and for our 12 hour train it would have been about 40 dollars for one of those tickets. We paid around 25 for our second class tickets. First, apparently, has two or four beds in each compartment and has a door that locks. Second class, what ours was, had four beds on one side of the train and two in front of ours. It was sort of T-shaped, if you get my drift. No doors, just a curtain with Velcro we could close. The A/C was quite good, and the people very friendly about telling us how to operate the beds...it wasn't as self explanatory as I had expected. We accidently went into 3rd AC at first and boy was it packed. It had the same design as ours, except it was 3 beds on each side (so 9 per compartment) as opposed to our six. I'm not sure what "sleeper" would havebeen like, but I'm guessing it would be 12? And the cheapest class is seats with everyone standing on top of each other - no thanks.

We left right on time and as it was 11PM, both Jere and I went to bed pretty quickly. The beds were quite comfortable and clean. Our train arrived around 9am the next day and boy were we in for a treat trying to get a taxi!

We got outside the train station almost immediately were swarmed by people trying to get us into their taxi. The Lonely Planet had told us about how bad it would be here, but I felt confident in my Indian bargaining abilities. Only my patience would be tested..I figured. We went from taxi to taxi, trying to find one for our price. It was hot - I'd say already 90 by 9:30 or 10am. Sweating profusely, we finally got someone who said they'd do it for our price. We loaded our stuff in his taxi and he began to pull off. Success!

Not.

Before leaving the parking lot he said something to the effect of "I am night driver, I want to go home." Um, excuse me? It's 10am, the sun has been up for awhile. I was sure he was just reneging on our deal because he was too lazy to drive the 10 miles to our hotel. We had been arguing for over an hour to get our reasonable price, and now he was trying to kick us out?

He said he was going home, and for us to get out. I told him we weren't getting out and if he was going home - we were too! "What's your wife like? Because I'll meet her soon. Do you have any kids?" He seemed indifferent to my threats - little did he know how serious I was.

We were at a stalemate and he seemed as stubborn as me. I told him "Ok, go find another taxi that will drive us there for the price we agreed on and bring it right nere, next to us." He got out of the cab and a few minutes later came back with another guy in his taxi. We got out, took our bags out, and just as I was about to put my bag in the taxi the guy closed his trunk! Again, I was incensed. I started yelling at both of the guys. Our first taxi driver was walking over to his driver's side door..thinking he was victorious.

I went to the back of his taxi, opened it, and jumped in the trunk. "So when do I meet your wife?" At that time, I attracted the attention of some sort of parking attendant and I quickly had a crowd of Indians around me. The parking attendant wasn't very helpful, but Jeremy took advantage of the situation. While I was arguing with a number of people, he had gone to the second taxi driver's car and taken his keys! He walked back over to me in the trunk and showed them to me..I laughed. Immediately, the taxi driver's knew what was up. We had had enough of them, and the first driver pleaded with us to return his friend's keys. Yeah, right, asshole.

These taxi drivers, in this city, are known in India are notorious for being unfair businessmen - so I, or Jere, didn't feel bad at all about the little trickery he had played on them. The first driver managed to find a very nice air conditioned Tourist Vehicle that would drive us to our hotel..the only stipulation was that we had to wait an hour for someone else to come. No problem. In the mean time we chatted with the third driver, whose english was very good, and held onto the 2nd driver's keys. He would come back periodically to our windows, make a sort of praying/bowing motion, to which we would laugh. The lesson? Screw with tourists enough, and we screw you back. When we finally left, Jere through the keys out the window as the car was moving.

As it turns out, the guy we were waiting for was a local travel agent with very good english. He gave us a driving tour of the city en route to our hotel. We learned a bit about the history of the city, and what goes on today. When we got close to our guest house, he informed us the streets (or alleys) leading to our guest house were too narrow for cars..and we'd have to take a human powered rickshaw to get there. That's right, some scrawny 60+ yr old Indian guy was gunna peddle his damnedest for the rest of the way to our guest house, with all our stuff, too. We had to take two as we had too many things to stuff into one - which was for the best anyway as my guy had a time with his single geared contraption just getting up the tiniest upward slant in the road. In the end, we paid both of them about 50 cents and marched on the rest of the way to our guest house. By this time, it was almost noon and hot. I was drenched in sweat carrying my 50lb bag up and down stairs to get to our little hotel. By the time we arrived, we were both starved as we hadn't eaten breakfast that morning. We got a room and headed for the hotel's rooftop restaurant.

In hindsight, I knew it was incredibly hot but wasn't aware of just HOW hot it was. Apparnetly,it was 1-2-0 degrees that day. I guess I should have realized as neither Jere or I were speaking loud enough, or with enough clarity, to hear each other. It was too hot to talk.

This restaurant had a great and varied menu, but the service was unbelievably bad. If I had to guess, it probably took 1.5 hrs to get our food to our table after ordering. There weren't very many other people there, and it was past lunch time - so most had already eaten. There were a number of different tourists there - a few dutch, an israeli, german, and a french couple. All sitting, and baking.

After the meal Jere and I went back to our room, cleaned up, and passed out until dinner It wasn't too hot to sleep with our ancient air conditioner working it's ass off to keep my brain from frying like an egg in my head.

We woke up around 6 and headed back to the rooftop to eat again. It had cooled off considerably and was probably in the mid-80s. While Jere used the adjoining internet cafe, I had a cold beer and played around on my computer when something odd caught the corner of my eye. A macaque! A type of monkey I had seen previously in Thailand, and a big male at that. He was on the railing of the restaurant, I was probably ten feet away. I remember how horrible these things could be from my time at a primate rehabilitation center in Thailand I had worked at a few years back. One time a macaque, very similar to the one that was near me, managed to steal a meat clever we had been using to cut some very large fruit with. He seemed to understand it could do damage, and proceeded to terrorize us and any other primate species he happened to come across - for about an hour.

Oh yeah, they've got big teeth and sharp nails too. Fortunately, the staff seemed calm and he moseyed on his way up the roof. Every now and again one of the troop of monkeys would come down, look around, and go back. With food all over the place, I'm shocked they weren't more aggressive.

We had some dinner, and soon it was 10PM (due to slow service). We were planning to get up at 4:30 to see the only thing there is to do in Varanasi (Benares) - the Ganga river.

The Ganga (Ganges in colonial-speak) is an extremely holy place, probably one of the holiest, for Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists - that's about 1.5 billion people all put together. As India has one of the oldest continual civilizations in the world, at around 4000 years, Varanasi is one of the oldest inhabited cities at around 3000 Mark Twain wrote, "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."

Hindus believe that bathing in Ganga washes away the sins of the dying and that if someone dies there, they will no longer be reincarnated. Pilgrims also travel from all over India to immerse the ashes of their loved ones in the Ganga or even the bodies to be cremated there! Which, of course, is done out in the open and anyone can watch. I've also heard that drinking from the Ganga on the last breath will take the soul to heaven. Over a million people flock to this city every year for these purposes - no telling how many come deceased to be cremated! Also, it's over 1,500 miles long and 600 million people (2x the population of the US) in India and Bangladesh depend on it for drinking water or agriculture. In Varanasi alone, 60,000 people bathe in in daily. Some Western tourists come to Varanasi for various spiritual reasons or to bathe/drink for themselves, but most come to see people washing their sins away in the Ganga. Watch people bath in river water? but why? Cant we see that in Appalachia? Well, you can..but...not *this* water.

First, the river is so polluted that it is septic - it has no dissolved oxygen. This means no fish. Why doesn't it have any dissolved oxygen you may ask? Oh, well, that'd be all the sewage that's flowing into it. Some 300 million gallons of waste go into the Ganga each day, and the effects are stunning: recent water samples collected in Varanasi revealed fecal- coliform counts of about 50,000 bacteria per 100 milliliters of water, 10,000% higher than the INDIAN government standard for safe river bathing. That's also thousands of times higher than is safe even for agriculture. Upon learning this, I figured that the Hindu proverb about having a drink from the Ganga as your last act as a get-into-heaven free card was a mistranslation from the Sanskrit. I think what they meant was, if you drink from the Ganga it will be your last act, and because it's so holy, you will go to heaven. I've gotta say, a lot easier than Muslims or Christians have it! So, Jere and I hopped on an overloaded boat at 5:30am for a little river tour of this shit-bathing/drinking fest.
Our *extremely* overloaded boat, I think we had almost 20 people. I'm shocked we didn't sink.

A view of Varanasi from the northernmost point, right next to the bathing spot where most people are cremated before their ashes are emptied into the Ganga.

A view of one of the most heavily used, and therefore holy, bathing spots.

I understand why so many Indians bathe in the Ganga, or even use it for drinking water or agriculture - they probably don't know, and even if they do..they are too poor to move or get water from somewhere else. Understandable, and the government needs to do something to fix this obvious problem. That doesn't explain this picture.

That's right, they are what I've come to call "Stupid Fucking White People." There are lots of them in India, they come to flee all the oppressions of the West hoping that Eastern culture will save them from their wicked wicked upbringings. Please read that with extreme sarcasm. Every traveller knows about the Ganga at Varanasi and how polluted it is - what in the HELL were these people thinking? More or less, they were bathing in raw sewage. I would love to see their laundry list of diseases when they get back to whatever country they were from. Alas, it won't be possible so I'll have to just imagine all the fun things they caught from their sheer idiocy. Also, it looks as though they are mother and daughter. Thanks for the Cholera, Hep C, and typhoid, Mom! I'll never forget that time we bathed in the Ganga and I had projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhoea for a week. Can ya tell I despise irresponsible parents too?

We didn't see much crazy stuff outside of that..but many other travellers had seen whole cows, children, pregnant women, human intestines, or dogs floating down the river on these little morning tours. We weren't that lucky. It probably isn't because these things fell in and instantly died..which of course would be a bad thing, not something for tourists to enjoy. Hindus don't cremate cows (holy to them), children under 10, or pregnant women who die. So they just get thrown into the Ganga around Varanasi. We did see something that resembled most of a cow float by, but nothing we could really substantiate. In any case, dealing with your deceased in India seems to be a lot easier than in the US.

Our tour was over by 7am, and our flight was at 1PM so Jere and I just had some food, packed our bags, and headed to the airport for our flight to Mumbai. Jere was leaving the next day, and there were some cool things to see in Mumbai.

We arrived in Mumbai, a city I have been to probably 10 times in the last 3 months, and got a room without much hassle. It was already quite late by the time we got through all the traffic (about 3 hrs worth for 10miles), and we decided to go to a bar and call it an early-ish night. Instead, we were up till 2 am drinking and talking about our trip. Jere is a cheap drunk, but I'm not, so it was quite fun for me. The next day we hopped on a boat to go to a small island near Mumbai called Elephanta, named so by the Portuguese settlers who "discovered" it in the 16th century because of an Elephant sculpture they "found."

In reality, Elephanta island has been inhabited for a very long time, at least since the 4th century A.D., when a group of Hindu monks moved there to carve great sculptures our of solid rock. It was quite neat, but we didn't get most of it due to the fact that were were no signs, and tour guides are such a rip off. We looked at the pretty sculptures, and Jeremy tried to attain enlightenment.
He failed after farting.

I tried nothing of the sort, instead here's a picture of me front of a fusing of two promiment Hindu deities - Shiva and Vishnu. Notice the one boob? She didn't have breast cancer, I promise.

Here's a picture of Jeremy looking midget-like. He's small, but actually those columns are just really big.

And here's one of Jeremy with a tiny monkey - yeah, they've got a bunch of monkey troops on the island. Once again, up to no good. It was fun to see a big male monkey chase off some Indian teenagers who were seated under a pagoda like structure. It wasn't funny when the same monkey appeared outside the restroom while Jeremy was pissing, at least not for him.

That's all for this little entry. You made it! In case you were wondering, it's about 30 pages double spaced. Thank the Reed History Department, my B.A. is actually in Pompous Windbaggery.