India Blog!

Preparations have begun for my business visit abroad. I am trying to pack light, but have already discarded my standard red travel suitcase for a larger model - realizing that I'll actually need to bring a few items of clothing in addition to all the prescription and over the counter drugs, power adapters, bug repellents, art supplies, and travel books I feel that I need.

Except for college, I realize that I have never had to pack for such a long journey, and I now see that I'm not so good at it! My mom has already had me try on about seventeen shirts - none of which belong to me - and I still haven't picked one to bring. Nevertheless, I have the basics and the important things: ear plugs, Pepto Bismol, and Red Monkey. I will be fine.

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I had a few hours during my layover in Frankfurt to check out the facilities. I was impressed by the sanitary seat cleaning systems that the Germans have put in place here. Once the flush button is pushed, the arm in the center extends to cover the width of the seat and the whole toilet seat spins 360 degrees to make sure every part gets cleaned. If there was anyone in the bathroom, they must have found it freakish to see a flash going off in the stall, but no stone (or toilet seat) unturned, right?

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On Valentine's Day, I joined some of my Thomson colleagues - who crossed over with me in Chennai for their group vendor visits - on a trip down to Pondicherry. We stopped about 45 minutes into the trip along the shore at a beach resort that seemed to cater to Westerners. The currents were impressive, and apparently while some risk swimming out here, the riptides can be pretty dangerous. I didn't see any surfers or boaters out on the water, despite the 80+ degree weather. We broke our trip here with a drink and then drove further south. We had to get out and change cars in before Pondicherry, however, since it's technically a separate state from Chennai and we didn't have the right permit on the hotel's car.

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We then stopped in Mamallapuram, which is a town half way between Chennai and Pondicherry, also on the coast. It's a temple beach town, whose highlights include the carvings of Arjuna's Penance, and an enormous rock boulder seemingly precariously balanced on a short cliff face. According to our guide a herd of elephants was enlisted to try and tip the rock but were not able. The tsunami even took a shot a few years ago, but didn't quite make it across the street to the temples and the balanced boulder.

According to our host, the Bay of Bengal has swallowed up quite a few temples over the years, and during the tsunami, as the water was receding from the coast to form the enormous wave, spectators could see the roofs of a few of the underwater marvels suddenly revealed, but just for a moment.

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While touring Mamallapuram, we noticed goats were roaming freely everywhere! Here is a shot of outside the public restrooms, where one goat is taking a nap. They seem relatively domesticated and unafraid of people. Interestingly, the oxen that you see pulling heavy loads along the narrow city streets also make close brushes with cars and auto rickshaws at all times, and hardly seem phased by it. Animals have the need to be awfully hardy here.

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This entry is a little out of order, but I'm finally getting a chance to jot some of the early impressions down. After a long day and a half of flying, I finally reached Chennai. The airport was impressively quick to move through, perhaps because no one seemed to be manning the scanner as we pushed our hand luggage through the conveyor. I quickly found my driver, who was holding up a sign with my name in a throng of other drivers awaiting passengers from the crowded flight.

We got into the car and my driver was very solicitous – making sure I had a comfortable trip and then launching into stories of all the amazing things there are to buy in India and how he would be happy to take me on a tour of them. He said, “you are now my very special guest,” but not in a creepy way. What was creepy was the ATM we stopped at on the way to the hotel. Surprisingly, there is no ATM in the plush ITC Park Sheraton, so we stopped beside a ramshackle looking building (the only one lit on its block) and I asked the driver if he would come in with me to get cash. This was apparently a branch of a well-known international bank, but the only thing remotely safe looking about the machine was that it was manned by a guard in uniform, squatting on a stool in the booth. I quickly pulled out 200 rupees, much too little to get by on, I quickly realized, but enough to cover tips for a few days. The exchange is 44 rupees to a dollar. Along our trip, the relative poverty to the States was paramount – free-roaming cows were feeding on garbage off the street; everything appeared to be covered with a type of dust or dirt (which you could also smell quite acutely from the cab) and all was dark except for the aggressively bright neon lights that advertised all manner of things along the thoroughfare.

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From the windows of cars and rickshaws, you can get great candids of life passing by. Here are three school girls, in uniform, walking through the streets of Chennai. Uniforms are big for all ages of students here, and occasionally you can spot a school yard nested behind buildings, usually with filled in lots or pavement instead of grass.

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I was lucky to meet up with some friends this evening who happened to be passing through Chennai on my last night here! We checked out the Chennai beach called Marina Beach since it is one of the big tourist attractions of the city. It is apparently the world's second largest beach, after Rio's. We didn't attempt to walk the length, and found the sand to be pretty dirty, but the activity was wonderful. Some men and children were braving the waves, while women in beautiful saris looked on and beach vendors sold chai teas, samosas, and other wares.

This picture, although a couple of days late, is in honor of Valentine's Day! The couple pictured looked to be enjoying a moment of contentment amid the hubub.

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We stopped down in southern Chennai on the way back to see the Universal Temple. When you walk through the gates here, it feels like a quiet sanctuary away from the bustle of downtown. Very peaceful and a beautiful spot to boot!

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My view from inside the autorickshaw on the way home when the driver got out and disappeared, leaving me in the cab. When he returned back a minute later, I realized he'd gone to get better directions from another driver. I figured it would be okay. If he left me there, well, I'd have a rickshaw to call my own.

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I am learning a thing or two about bargaining here in in India. This has never been my forte, and at first I found it pretty annoying, but then my associate here told me that the locals actually bargain more for the fun of it than anything else. Sure, there is some gouging going on, he says, but some folks actually take it as an insult if you don't try and work down the price. It's a social interaction, particularly for small businesses and rickshaw drivers, and it's all part of the game. He also told me that you know you are doing a good job and that you are going to get your goal price if the vendor offers you tea or coffee twenty minutes into the negotiation. Can you imagine?? Americans would never make time for this!!

But things are getting a little more western in that sense in the cities here as well. Wal-Mart has already begun construction all over India. They are breaking into the market here to survive essentially. Apparently over 50% of the country's population is under the age of 20. The commercial pressures to survive against similar style businesses in Asia are overwhelming. Stores like this (and even many clothing and grocery stores) are now fixed price stores, where bargaining is not acceptable. I tried my hand at bargaining at one of these places the other day, to which I was rebuffed with "No, fixed price. This is nice store."

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I felt so lucky to chance upon an elephant trotting down the street during my first few minutes in downtown Pondicherry! He was accompanied by a young man with a switch, although it was unclear who was doing the leading. I was taken aback by how quickly the elephant moved. I was in the process of removing my shoes to go into the Ashram - a famous commune within Pondicherry - when I saw him pass. I hurried to get my camera, but missed him the first time, only getting a relatively distant shot of his rear. Luckily, I found him again a few blocks off, after the Ashram. He was very tame and let me pet him, and also well-trained, as you'll see from the next shot.

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Here is a shot of the elephant's interaction with the locals. They bring him an offering of some kind of straw, which he takes, eats, and then thanks them by petting them on the head, like so. I watched this happen several times and loved it! I am very surprised to have seen an elephant so early in the trip. I didn't actually expect I'd come across any elephants or camels in the cities...but India has been nothing but surprises so far!

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I took a wander into Pondicherry yesterday morning. I had the day off and wanted to see some of the city, since I'll be working the rest of the days this week. I had been advised to take a tour, but it was easier said than done from my hotel - unfortunately I didn't learn any helpful words in Tamil, and I'm having some difficulty getting everything understood with English here. People definitely still speak it, but words like "tour" and "Internet" are harder.

The downtown area of Pondicherry is extremely busy, chaotic, and... well, downright dangerous if you don't look seventeen ways before crossing the street, but the town is reputed for its lovely beach, so I made my way down to the shore. It actually reminded me a bit of Bar Harbor (plus about fifty degrees Fahrenheit) with built-up rocky shores overlooking the water. There was a monument between the rock beach and the sand beach, but I couldn't figure out what it was all about. Instead, I watched this little boy lead his pet monkey around on a leash. This is the first monkey I've seen so far as well, and I was somewhat relieved to find he was attached to someone!

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This saying has never been more true. I haven't seen it yet, but have heard that the street dogs can be pretty ferocious, particularly when they move around in packs - as they can do when they don't belong to anyone in particular. I've generally tried to side-step them when possible. For the most part, though, they just look hot and tired to me. You see them just about everywhere that's shady, and they are sometimes the only calm bodies in the city.

The dogs are generally lean, like the cats and the cows. I think the cows are somehow the saddest, because they are so enormous and most are scavenging off garbage on the streets. But apparently dogs and cats are not kept as pets here. In fact, cats are never kept, but some families are moving to keeping dogs at home.

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This picture was actually taken in Chennai, but I've seen the behavior in Pondicherry as well and it cracks me up. Edwin's girlfriend Julie pointed it out to me when we were headed from the beach, but I'd seen men on bikes, paused at a stop light or even in motion on a busy street with their arms around each other's shoulders, like this - like there was no traffic for miles! Julie noted that even when one is on bicycle and the other speeding on a moped or scooter this happens.

Men are generally much more openly affectionate with one another here. Hand-holding is a common gesture of friendship as is tandem steering, apparently.

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Another shot from Chennai. Check out this trash can's obvious cry-for-help behavior. It's the anti-valentine heart candy, but these little guys are all over the city, collecting refuse with a smile on their face. You can't help but adore their unbroken spirit.

In fact, sort of ironic to see these at the threshold to the beach, when just a few minutes later, we saw someone hauling a bag of trash right into the water and dumping it out directly into the ocean. Go with the flow, I say.

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Truth be told, the Annamalai hotel is not that bad. The bed was reasonably comfortable and you can access a few channels that play American movies, which kept me entertained. It is also the hotel where I've had my first full night of sleep, so I have to be thankful for that!

But then there is the lobby! The features of the lobby totally crack me up. The walls are painted in every color of the rainbow - enormous murals that depict storefronts. Faux balconies dangle from the painted-on windows, filled with mannequins in reverent postures. The hotel is constantly filled with droves of tourists, starting out or ending a day in Pondicherry, and the complimentary breakfast often features a lecture itself - which can be a good distraction from the cold rubbery toast!

I would have been content to stay here a few more days, but my host has suggested that I move to a hotel closer to the beach. After finding a cockroach on my bedside table this morning, I am happy to comply.

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The breakfast at my new hotel, the Kailash, bore resemblance to my previous breakfasts... but was oh so much better. This is probably the best cup of coffee I've had in India yet. Didn't hurt that I was eating it out in the sunshine, with the gentle shade of palm trees and the warm breezes of the coast. My host wanted me to check out this spot, and as I had originally imposed on him to help me find a hotel, he found me this fantastic spot that is a nice compromise between the lush likes of the Park Sheraton and what India is to many people: a more down-to-earth, basic, blend-in-with-nature existence.

During breakfast, I discovered that the crows here are enormous (and loud!). They have very large beaks, and like all the rest of the animals I've seen so far, are completely un-timid. They sang around me as I ate, making it much less lonely to dine alone.

Another thing making it less lonely is not dining alone! Today I met another guest here at the hotel, Bernard, from Paris. He is here for a business venture with his friend Michel and they are good friends with the owner, who I'm curious to meet. The owner is also a publisher, specializing in nicely bound books on Asia.

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Here's the door looking out from the bathroom of my room this morning. Seemed a particularly beautiful light, and scene, so I thought I should take a picture. The bathroom is all tile with a simple porcelain sink and toilet and the showerhead streams directly down onto the floor and the water filters out through a drain in the corner of the room. It seemed primitive at first, but is really quite utilitarian. Strangely entertaining to be able to use the sink while you are showering!

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This is the beautiful centerpiece featured in the lobby area of my hotel. Instead of a closed lobby, this hotel has a nice veranda-style open air enclosure, surrounded by several of the guest bedrooms. The soft, relaxed feeling of this image does justice to the overall ambiance of the Kailash hotel. Everything is simple, fresh, and fragrant. It seems far too romantic a place for me to be visiting on my own! Now I only wish I had the days free to enjoy it!

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It's a hard life out here, all over, it seems. But the locals certainly know how to celebrate. This week, I have come at an auspicious time, my driver tells me. It is the Villianur Temple Car Festival and the folks in the village that surrounds my hotel have been partying for seven days - all day long! The painting of the cow's horns is often done in honor of local festivals, and the colors mean something, although I couldn't make out what. I was also having trouble interpreting the Car Festival, but I think it has something to do with a chariot and having the heads-of-state pull it as a tradition (and a gag!).

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Here's a typical aerial view of Pondicherry (well, from the top of a hotel building). The homes are generally pretty ramshackle. Actually, I was chatting with the front desk operator at my hotel this morning and he was familiar with the composition house we're working with, and he gave a low whistle referring to them as "fancy." There are very few modern looking buildings dotting the landscape in Pondicherry (and Chennai, for that matter). Those that are built up are mainly dealerships, hotels, and banks from what I can tell. Our vendor has a beautiful building, and I wonder what it must be like for the employees (particularly the men) to go out in the morning dressed for business when everyone around them is more modestly clad. Even the less wealthy women wear beautiful clothing here, though. The saris are quite amazing.

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You can walk out to the beach from the Kailash hotel, although I have been cautioned many times over not to try swimming here. This is where the tsunami hit a few years ago, but it is pretty hard to tell there was any lasting damage to this particular site. Tamil Nadu had longer to evacuate than those in Indonesia and Sri Lanka and the hotel received warning from the Italian Embassy that it was coming and to evacuate the building. Not all communities were as lucky, with most of the death toll falling upon the lower classes that live in slums by the beach. The giant wave never hit the Kailash hotel, but came up to the gates. Now, the water is a little choppy, but not really dangerous. It's more the debris and pollution that keeps people away.

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Well, I made it two weeks and finally succumbed to pre-Delly Belly! I say this because I was not slated to arrive in Delhi for another three days, but nausea knows no calendar, I guess, and I was up half the night, well, you know. I am really hoping that I don't need to go through this again anytime soon. The upside was that i saw this little guy slither through the crack in the door to my room and I didn't even care. Call it pain or perspective... The bug had me bed & bath-ridden for most of the morning, but I managed to hobble around for the rest of the day and even enjoy a little sunshine, toast, and Coca-Cola - all I could keep down. Oh, and I managed to take this photo, so at least my trigger finger was working.

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Feeling better, the next day (thankfully, a Saturday) I made it out to Auroville with a few more of our hosts. Some friends I have made at the hotel joke that this is where you find people wandering around seeking "divine truth." The concept of Auroville is that it is a township that was started to promote global human unity. "The Mother," as the foundress is called, is also responsible for the Ashram community, which I believe has a similar divine purpose. You can read about Auroville on their website: www.auroville.org. "The Mother" became such due to her many "inner experiences," a phrasing on the site which even made me crack a smile.

Oh, but now the relevance of this picture! This shot is of a tree root that cascaded down from the branch of this Banyan tree toward the ground and embedded itself in the soil. The shot is upside-down, if that helps decipher the picture. The temple was closed to visitors today, so we could only see the outside. I got a shot of the golden globe (how timely!) but since it on just about every postcard of the place, I found the Banyan roots a little more interesting for the blog.

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I wish I had a picture for my most hilarious and unplanned experience of the trip so far, but I don't, so instead, here's a shot of my hilarious driving companion Morhan, who often picked me up in the mornings for work. He is actually from the Poornankuppam Village, where my hotel is situated, and delights in telling me about the local festivals and his family. He was even more delighted to have the weekend off!

After dinner alone on Saturday, I got to talking with Dara, a friend and colleague of the hotel owner. About three minutes after I'd mentioned my regret for not having had a chance to meet Raj, I was in a car on my way to the dinner!

When I look back, I can't believe I jumped so willingly into the car, but it seemed an opportunity not to be missed! And it ended up being so much fun talking publishing with this wild-haired, vivacious and entertaining new friend, and I learned a lot about his businesses and entrepreneurial efforts. As an added bonus, he happened to be dining with my new friends Bernard and Michel from the hotel, so it turned out to be somewhat of a reunion! What a place!

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Tough and gritty much of the time, but organic, beautiful, and alive as well (here's a shot of a trademark vibrant truck green in the town). The goal of the Kailash hotel folks is to bring out more of the positive qualities, which seems an admirable mission. Raj, the owner, is working to institute a better garbage clean-up program for the village, an educational resource to provide stability for school children, and (with his two friends from Paris who became my regular breakfast companions) to broaden the domain of his hotel to include more real housing and modern living conditions for the community. India is changing so rapidly, everywhere. I think I will probably miss this place. I hope I can come back someday to see how it has changed.

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Here's a shot I'd been trying to get for a week! I spotted this grove of lanky palms on my way out to Pondicherry last week, but missed it while pausing to get my camera untangled from its bag. The light was just perfect and caught the same mood that had attracted me in the first place.

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A very first look at Delhi! And low and behold I have cell phone reception! You can see the smog settling over the city (does smog settle?) as the sun sets. I've now hit the quarter mark of my trip, but I don't think I can say already, because it's been a long and full few weeks so far!

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Here is a shot of the view outside the office where I'm currently installed for half of each week. The office is in Sector 62 of developing Noida, a southern suburb of Delhi. Noida is filled with technology companies and malls in particular - one of which is almost attached to my hotel. I haven't been in yet, but it looks collossal from the outside. And they are putting another one up right across the street!

Apparently, when this company started up and the building was built, the land back here was all a flat, open expanse, but in the last five years, all the apartment buildings and technology companies that flank this construction zone have sprung up thanks to the industry need. It seems that many people live in apartment buildings that are actually housing complexes - enclosed areas where it is possible to have community interaction despite being in a city zone like this.

If you wach out the window during the day, you can see men in hard hats and women in full saris walking around on top of this unfinished building doing the construction work.

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The last day of February is a big budget decision day in Delhi. Apparently, not even the ministers know what the allocations are going to be until the reports are handed out the morning of the announcements. There's a lot of secrecy at the polictical level, but unlike these decisions in the U.S., they directly affect a good majority of citizens, since many companies are still owned or run by the government. Only recently, for example, did the Indira Gandhi airport here become privately run! The airport has been a disaster for years, according to my new colleagues here, and only now are they building a new terminal, cleaning up administrative issues, and driving change in poor practices.

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On the way to see the second vendor I'll be working with here in Delhi, I stopped at the Lotus Temple to kill some time before my appointment. The temple is right across the street from the Industrial Park where the company is situated, but that doesn't prevent it from being a 20 minute drive from one side to the other!

This magnificent concrete flower has nine structural petals (or, rather, 27) because every element is repeated nine times. It was a Thursday afternoon, and already the garden seemed to be getting crowded, but I read that the real busy day is Sunday. You of course have to take your shoes off before entering, and you hand them down for a ticket to a service of men housed in an underground cabin before the temple - well concealed so as not to interfere with the temple architecture.

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It was sort of a gloomy morning - very unusual for this season in Delhi, as far as I can tell. But the reflection pools surrounding the Lotus Temple were still very interesting. Not only are they aesthetically positioned, but they also serve to ventilate the building along with the cold marble benches inside. You see a lot of new age Westerners meditating (among the mass of locals and tourists) inside this temple - taking advantage of the quiet and cool haven of the building.

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Mmm, Tom Yum Basil for starters and then this exciting coconut milk, spicy ginger noodle dish called Khow (Khao) Suey. I met up with one of Nitasha's friends, Asha, in Delhi tonight. Her husband works for the U.S. Embassy here, and they brought with them anothre friend from the Embassy. It was really nice to be going out entirely unrelated to work for once, and I had my first (literally) taste of downtown Delhi tonight at Khan Market (a mainly Thai restaurant called The Kitchen). I also discovered a great little bookstore called Genius Books and Games while waiting to meet them. Asha, Reggie, and Tejal are fantastic! I hope to see much more of them during my stay in Delhi.

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Here's another shot from the car, crossing over the Yamuna River from Delhi to Noida. They call this toll road the DND (Delhi-Noida-Delhi). It's the road that most quickly connects my location in the suburb of Noida to the main city area, and once you get into New Delhi there are lots of roundabouts (rotaries for Americans), legacy of U.K. rule. New Delhi was mainly built up by the British, but Old Delhi is supposed to have retained its traditional Islamic Indian influence. I'm looking forward to seeing for myself what that means, exactly.

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This photo has no purpose or "truth," divine or otherwise. I just thought it was beautiful!  I'm not sure what these flowers are, but they sit atop very long, straight stalks, and I found them at the garden surrounding the Lotus Temple yesterday. Perhaps these are even some kind of Lotus flower, although I think I remember that Lotus flowers usually reside on lily-like pads in the water.

Ah! Madhu has solved the mystery of this one! They are called Double Dahlias. Thanks Madhu!

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I saw someone eating one of these the other day, and ever since I've been eager, if a little tentative, to try one! When I saw them up for grabs at breakfast this morning, I pounced. The greatest thing about these little guys (they're about the size of a walnut) is that you crack the outer crust to get to the round, pear-textured fruit inside and then there's still another pit within - like a little prize! Okay, maybe I'm making too big a deal of a pit, but it came as such a surprise it made me laugh. Perhaps you can now start to imagine how I entertain myself when I sit solo at the table!

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This is not a very representative view of traffic in Delhi. Imagine five cars pressed into these three lanes every ten feet forward, and you'll get a much better picture. But I selected this shot to showcase because you can see the amazing glow of the sun as it's setting on the city horizon. Actually, the picture does not do it justice. The sun tonight looked a giant peach filling up the sky as it dropped beneath the overpasses. Even traffic here can be romantic.

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While I'm scared to death of them, I am finally getting used to the motorcycles that flood every corner and avenue of this enormous city! In Chennai, I saw more full families riding a single bik around - most remarkably with little two year-olds clinging to the backs of their fathers, or women in full beautiful saris riding side-saddle, holding their husbands passively with their right hand and cradling baby with their left. Usually the babies were wrapped tightly and entirely to protect them from the sand and dirt spitting up from the concrete, but sometimes you'd see a little bangled arm poking out which was pretty cute - however dangerous that they're on these things in the first place! They move so fast and navigate such tight spaces!

Here in Delhi, I've noticed fewer babies on wheels, although it is still relatively common to see families or couples sharing a bike. There are certainly fewer women riding alone, at least in the New Delhi area. I also discovered today that blue license plates identify embassy officials, while yellow means cab driver/rental car, and white represents everybody else.

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I had my first home-cooked meal in Delhi tonight and it was spectacular! This paneer dish was out of this world! Nitasha, who has hooked me up with so many great friends already, has led me to yet another jewel of a friend, Piya (a fellow photographer!!) - who tonight shared with me her new home, her clairvoyant and beatiful Nani, and a long and fantastic night of conversation. Here is just one of the many dishes served up by the lovely and talented Sunita, live-in confidante and chef extraordinaire, as we discussed the universal passions of food, love, and travel.

I am fascinated by how such incredible food is prepared in such a short period of time! Perhaps next time I will ask for a lesson! Paneer has become a particular weakness of mine here in India. It's called "cottage cheese" but is nothing like the American style cottage cheese. The consistency is more like soft tofu, and it's melt-in-your-mouth. I fear I will return home made of it.

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The local beer of choice here seems to be Kingfisher. It is the main, and far preferable, alternative to Budweiser. I had one of these for the first time back in Pondicherry when eating at the seafood restaurant atop the roof of the Promenade Hotel. In fact, at the time I had wondered if it was maybe culturally incorrect (or at least indiscrete) for a woman to order such an enormous bottle of beer at the dinner table... Nobody said anything though!

I then discovered that the head of Kingfisher beer, Dr. Vijay Mallya, has not stopped his dominion with this highly popular brewery. He now owns an airline (Kingfisher Airlines) that is remarkably well-established for a new airline in the domestic flights market. It features "flying models" rather than air hostesses, stewardesses, flight attendants, or however you refer to them. He is also a member of the Indian Parliament. From the sound of it, he's India's very own Richard Branson.

I had my second Kingfisher (although you could count it as my third and fourth, since they come in such large bottles) when I met two consultants, Andrew and Andy, from the U.K. at the hotel bar the other night. They invited me to join them for dinner at the hotel's Indian restaurant next door, and we shared a fantastic meal of "snacks," which ended up being very filling, even split among the three of us.

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Today is the peak day of the Holi celebration, although excitement for the holiday has been building up all week! The custom is that people buy these dyed powders on the days leading up to Holi and then they put the colors on each other (either as a greeting or an attack, depending on how you celebrate). I had been warned to avoid walking around on the streets (OK in a car though) on the weekend because of the risk of getting pelted with paints, many of which contain chemicals you would not want on your skin.

However, on Sunday I went to celebrate with my work associate Madhu and her family at their home in Noida and we played it a bit safer, although it was still a wild time! Children and adults alike frolicked and floundered in the common pool in the middle of their housing complex, and friends, family, and neighbors greeted each other by rubbing (or, in some case, dousing) "color" on each others' faces. I had several handfuls of powder poured down my shirt, wet colored mud smeared and streaked across my face, and silly-string-like paint squired all over my back - and I haven't had this much fun in ages! Madhu's two kids, Himangi (Honey), and Ishita, were very gracious in initiating me to the festival and making sure I got good and dirty! Ishita even gave me my first much-needed lesson in how Indian women wrap their saris. I am hoping to buy one when I'm out here if I can get it to work!

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Here's an older gent of the community where we played Holi. He is 97 years old this year and was such a kind person (and remarkably fit). Everyone in the neighborhood came over at some point to say hello to him, and he really seemed to be enjoying himself. Holi is a celebration for young and old, and seems to be a real family-oriented occasion. Families get together and play during the day, then relax together in the evenings in their homes. There is virtually no one in the streets or on the road for the rest of the afternoon.

It took me about nine separate scrubbings toget all the pink, purple, and red paint off my face. It's still under my fingernails today! I can only imagine how difficult it was to get the dyes out of his white beard!

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These girls really know how to celebrate Holi! I learned many etiquette lessons from these two today. Ishita managed to get her paint removed by using laundry detergent, but after her eigth layer of pink paint, Honey had a harder time. She is a dentist at a local clinic, so I would love to be a fly on the wall with her patients today as they see the pink professional approaching!

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Here are some kids playing in the pool outside Madhu's place. The water turned completely red and needed to be drained toward the end of the day. Several adults were also thrown in over the course of the afternoon! Over the past few weeks, I couldn't figure out why water guns, in particular, are sold at every street market here in India... now I know.

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Some delicious snacks that Madhu made the morning that I came to visit! Unfortunately I missed the preparation phase, but I hope I'll get to see her cook at some point during the trip because I hear she is very good. Now I have proof! These are pockets, similar to samosas, but filled with nuts and honey, I think. They tasted delicious.

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I promise - I made no modifications to this photograph! This is the actual color of the Tandoor Gobi (cauliflower cooked in the tandoor oven) that I ordered at lunch yesterday. My companions from work, Ruchika and Sachin, looked surprised that I wanted this as a main course, and now I understand why. There is a difference between curries and "dry" food here - usually kebabs - and people hardly ever order a dry dish as a meal. Dry dishes are meant to accompany other foods and it's something of a no-no to order a dry dish and a naan, say. When locals look at me funny after I order, I just laugh at myself and shrug my shoulders. I'm still learning! Ahh... did anyone have any doubt that this would eventually turn into a food blog?

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Sachin kindly let me take this photo of him cleaning his fingers after lunch at the Dawat Khana restuarant near Okhla. Many restaurants provide a bowl of warm water with a lemon at the end of the meal and you rinse your fingers, since eating at an Indian restaurant usually requires using your right hand as a utensil. Back in Pondicherry Michel had launched into an anecdote, in French, which I was happy to understand! He told the story of how at a royal dinner, one of Queen Victoria's guests had once picked up the finger bowl when it was presented, and sipped from it. Everyone laughed at the fellow but was silenced when, so as not to dishonor her gues, the Queen followed suit and drank from hers as well.

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Sachin's car made me miss my '89 Corolla. He tells me that this Maruti Suzuki model is one of the best cars to own in Delhi because it's one of the smallest. They are made mainly in India, I believe, and Suzuki is by far the most popular car make (aside from the rickshaws) that you see on the road. Down in the south of the country I noticed a lot of regal looking white cars (with enormous interiors) called Ambassadors. They are typically used as cabs now. We barrelled through traffic in this guy and Sachin told me that his left leg often aches when he gets home from his hour commute because he's had to work the clutch so much in traffic!

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Here's a shot of the front of the office where I'm spending half of each week. The term "industrial park" is used quite loosely in the States, it seems - often referring to a cement park or a few rolling lawns separating on IT establishment from the next. Does everyone remember Innitech? Maybe it's just the climate, but the company blocks here in South Delhi actually seem to have trees!

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I overshot the time estimate to get from the office to dinner at the Delhi Golf Club with Piya's family, so we stopped at India Gate, which is close by to walk around beforehand. I was glad to have come here at night - there is a lot of activity: families meeting out on the lawns, kids selling helium balloons, ice cream vendors all in a row in idle evening chat, and little neon slingshot parachutes tumbling down from the sky (also being peddled by dozens of wandering vendors). The monument's shape resembles the Arc de Triomphe, but up close is quite different. The glow of India Gate is visible from through the trees as you drive toward it by car, and names of 90,000 Indian soldiers who died in WWI and the Afghan Wars are inscribed on its body of bricks.

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Here's a full view of the gate. My driver Santosh was telling me that people are no longer allowed to walk through the gate, underneath its arch because of the likelihood of terrorist acts being targeted here. There is high security around the monument, but you can get close enough to feel the magnitude of its structure above you.

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Due to heavy traffic, Piya was not yet at the club when I arrived, and I felt sheepish hanging out at the members-only bar and restaurant, so I wandered around the premises. Actually, to be honest, at first I thought this might be the hotel, but I should have known better. This type of lavish display could only signal a wedding ceremony. Indians pay top-rupee for weddings, often going into debt to pay for a single event. Recently, I heard about a wedding between two families - three daughters of one family marrying three sons of another at once in order to consolidate the costs of such an affair. Two and a half thousand people were in attendance. Thousand! Today I heard that the percentage of arranged marriages was 90, as opposed to the 80 I'd initially heard.

At any rate, I nosily took a few shots of the beautiful red and gold tents, the candled front gate, and the red carpeted walkway. Red is thought to be an auspicious color in India, which is why brides traditionally wear it at their weddings.

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I initially heard about the beauty of the Indian state of Rajasthan through Edwin and Julie when I met up with them in Chennai. Julie told me she had fallen in love with Jodhpur ("The Blue City") during her visit and would love to travel back there someday. So when Mona mentioned she'd been wanting to take a trip to Jaipur (also in Rajasthan), I jumped at the chance!

Here, several painters are slapping a thick paste on the outer walls of the City Palace that is tinted to match the rest of the building. Apparently, this method is also used every few years in many Indian homes to refresh the look and quality of the walls (which are all 22 feet tall and 10 feet deep by the way in the inner city!). Should a tint be required, like this, it is mixed right into the plaster paste.

Now, these renovation mixes are quite common. Initially, though, the city was turned from yellow to pink by mandate of the Maharaja Ram Singh, who ordered the town painted in 1876 in order to give off a more welcoming vibe.

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We made it to Jaipur flying Jet Airways once again. The flight was an easy 45 minutes but they still fed us Fresh Lime and a croissant for breakfast. (Mona tells me many Indians take Fresh Lime in the mornings to lose weight because it flushes the body of excess acids in the stomach that cling to fats.) We were up at 3:30, so it was still dark, and breakfast on the plane came early, so at our first stop in Jaipur - Rambagh Palace: an old palace that had been transformed into a Taj hotel - Mona and I finished up the visit with a cup of green tea and a plate of fruit at the hotel restaurant.

The day started out drizzly, but soon the mist and darkness burned off and it was all of a sudden about 85 degrees. The palace was beautiful - you really got a sense of how the maharajas lived, with luxurious well-designed gardens in extensive courtyards, beautiful cool marble-paneled corridors, and lavish architectural elements like cupolas, sandstone embellishments, and jalis (which is the word for the window latticework you'll see in later photos). The tea wasn't bad either.

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It was actually very cool to be up and already at our destination before the sun rose yesterday. We had the opportunity to watch the light come up over one of the most beautiful palaces in Jaipur, and we savored the tranquility of being out in another bustling city before many people were awake. We even beat all the hotel guests out into the garden and had the whole vista to ourselves.

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At last I've seen my first street musicians in India! This very merry group was playing quite a few instruments I didn't recognize, and charming snakes to boot! I was so distracted by their bright colors that I almost didn't see the snakes at first! You don't see a lot of street musicians here, perhaps because of the state of the streets, but hearing music live is definitely one of the things I'm missing here in India.

Mona organized a tour guide to show us the major sights of the city. He had a tendency to keep reminding me of the hierarchical importance of each place as we toured, grabbing his fingers sequentially: "Amber Fort - number One; City Palace - number Two; Jantar Mantar. Observatory - number Three best." We packed a lot into the morning, but I was so glad to have seen it all.

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We met our tour guide at the road leading up to the Amber Fort and here is where we decided to try an elephant ride up to the palace. It's not very expensive for two and sounded like something one must do when in India, however touristy. The Amber fort is off to the left and not visible in this shot, but longer and a dark sandstone color in contrast to the lighter palace.

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Our elephant driver gave me a scare when he started up the side of the mountain with my camera still in the hands of our tour guide (who was getting a shot of us on the elephant). Thankfully, Mona was with me and managed to communicate to him in Hindi that he should stop by the edge of the wall, where we somehow reclaimed the camera. While I'm sure it would have ultimately arrived safely at the top of the hill, I would have missed all the great shots on the way up! Not that it was easy to take a picture - elephant rides are bumpy!

The "drivers" were a cheery bunch, singing songs to no one in particular and shouting salutations as they passed each other coming back in the opposite direction. In fact, being on an elephant is not so unlike Delhi traffic in a rickshaw... except that there weren't as many near collisions. This guy kept telling the passengers to shift around and distribute the weight in their rectangular bamboo saddles - we saw one couple leaning so far forward that the whole elephant was nearly atilt and they dropped their camera bag! The elephanteers were very deft in using their many implements to grab it off the ground (even the elephant helped!) and return it to the couple.

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The elephants (and the bulls in town) seem to get whipped a lot, which is hard to watch if you care much for animals. I'm sure elephants are probably even tougher than they look and that the business of taming them is tricky, but I noticed that the drivers carry a large utensil that looks like a fire iron which they keep pressed to the top of the elephants' heads. They also have a bamboo rod they use to stir the elephants to action when they aren't moving fast enough (or at all).

I asked Mona if elephants ever got loose in the city (especially those work elephants that sleep in stables by the river in Delhi), and she said that it's very rare. With the traffic, crowds, and some of the loosely built structures, the cities really can't afford to have elephants get loose. I am remembering bits and pieces of the George Orwell story "Shooting an Elephant," which now, suddenly, I want to read again, having seen these magnificent animals in daily life.

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While hot on our heads, the sun also provided such a nice light as it got around to noon. We were touring through the Old Palace (Amber Palace) when this flock of birds swooped overhead. I'm not even sure what type of bird they were, but was excited to capture this shot.

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There seemed to be some rebuilding or upkeep work going on at the palace and its grounds today, and these Jaipur women were carrying construction materials up and down the stairs. The view out from these windows shows the two main gardens of the palace, each named after one of its two prominent architects.

The lobby area shown here is part of the Hall of Public Audience, where the maharajas' conferences would be held, and here is where the ministers would sit. Here's a cool shot showing (sort of) how women manage to balance these baskets on their heads without completely toppling over.

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The Hall of Mirrors was the facet of the Amber Palace that most impressed me, I think. The architecture of the palace is so eleborate and detailed already, but then this section of the palace that features shards of glass so beautifully arranged in mosaics on the ceilings and walls was so breathtaking in its detail that it completed the picture of ancient luxury.

You could not go in to see the King and Queen's winter bedroom, but apparently, the room features much of the same glass work. The thousands of miniature mirrors served as means of heating and lighting the room in the winter months because light from the windows during the day or from candles at night would bounce off the tiny surfaces many times over.

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Another interesting feature of many of the palaces here is this latticework around some of the windows (usually off upper landings and hallways). The windows provide a very small space from which to look out but the latticework serves to create hundreds of smaller windows of a kind as well. These vantage stations were taken by ladies who were not allowed to show their faces in public. So in order to be able to watch life around them, since they could rarely go out, they would watch from these lookouts, largely unobserved.

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We went to Jaipur's renowned Observatory around mid-day, which was perfect for that unprotected sunlight that makes all the instruments work and makes you sweat like mad! Thankfully, Mona had talked me into buying a two dollar hat for our elephant ride, so I had some protection as we walked around admiring the various styles of sundial. Here was a particularly large one that was all in the sunlight. by mid-March at the equinox, the other side will start to get sunlight, but for now it's entirely in shade. Others told time of day or month of the year - some were based on the celestial bodies and astrology. We climbed a few long staircases whose stuctures were enormous, curved rulers, measuring placement and shadows from the sun. Extraordinary!

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Okay, last entry about Jaipur - I promise! But the place was so filled with amazing photographic opportunities, that I had trouble deciding what to post! At the end of our day in Jaipur, we wanted to do a little shopping - this place is home to many types of handicrafts, namely blue pottery and silver crafts. The town also specializes in fabric printing called block printing, and at this government sponsored emporium we got a live demonstration of how it is done. The colors are all made out of natural vegetables and patterns are stamped and then reverse stamped onto special fabric treated with minerals, and finally the whole thing is soaked in turmeric water to solidify the dyes.

So far, I've found that handicrafts are a big trade in India, but Jaipur seems in particular to be a place that supports the arts - even the City Palace, where the current maharaja lives, boasts its very own painting school that trains and sells the work of artist who do incredible detailed fine-tip paintings in natural colors and gold leaf.

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My new friend Jake at the hotel is also out here for a prolonged business visit. He has a weakness for this store called The Chocolate Box and buys a box of these whenever possible. He joined me in rambling around Delhi on Sunday on a visit of parks and markets, and brought these ornate chocolates for the road.

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First we visited the President's House - Mougal Gardens. These flower gardens are only open once a year for one or two months in late February and March, so I wanted to make sure to see them before I left! All types of herb patches sprouted from the lawns in precise, well-coiffed, completely impractical arrangements. There's a lovely little rose garden here with all kinds of named roses including the Queen Elizabeth, the Pasadena and the Okla Homa. You can see a Cork tree, a Fig tree, and even a Euphoria plant. The garden also featured some more of those Double Dahlias on tall stalks with blooms the size of a child's head.

The gardens are all on the other side of this estate, but there are no cameras, cell phones, water bottles, etc. allowed in the garden. I suppose this is for security purposes given the two body searches we had to go through to get in!

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A bottle of soda at Dilli Haat. I had heard that this place was both kitschy and fabulous, so I felt I ought to check it out! I mostly just liked that the bottle is for LEHAR PEPSI. Lehar apparently means "wave" in Hindi, which makes sense with the Pepsi label. The straw was paper thin, but still worked, although I think I got more air than soda!

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These scarves cost about five hundred bucks apiece! That is, about eleven American bucks. The term "bucks" is also used here to refer to Rupees, and the word "grand" for thousand is used as well. A hundred thousand is a lak. I didn't buy anything at this stall - just looked - but no matter what your level of interest, you are always offered a seat and every garment in the store will be systematically pulled out of its package if you don't stop the salesmen. You have to give them credit - they can be pretty persuasive. This guy even tried on a few scarves for us, tossing silken purples and pinks whimsically over his shoulder until somebody caved.

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Two lovebirds huddle in the window of the Bara-Gumbad Mosque in the middle of Lodi Park in Delhi. Public displays of affection are pretty rare here, except as friendly gestures among men or by the evidently western couples. However, the retreat and privacy provided by the park seemed to encourage romance - every so often I'd spot lovers cuddling behind a tree or in a windowsill like this. And there I'd be, lurking with my camera... No, but seriously, I try to be discrete. For example, in this shot, the darkness of the room, the oblivousness of the couple, and the ruse of traveling companion Jake about to jump into the frame made my intent less obvious - I hope.

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This one's for you, Piya! I just put this in because Piya thinks he's cute and worthy of a blog post. He is, isn't he? He was totally hamming it up for the cameras - but in this shot he looks like he could care less. I'm just trying to figure out how he stays balanced on this bannister!

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Well, it's definitely not monsoon season here in Delhi, but the other day we got a little bit of a preview. It got extremely dark and the rain was pouring down in sheets for much of the day. The long strips of fabric advertisements were billowing off the sides of the mall next door from me before I even got outside to the car in the morning. And by night, it was gone. What it did bring was the mosquitos and now I see them buzzing around me just about every day. Santosh laughs as I swat at them in the morning, catching them with tissues against the car window. I'm getting good, though!

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Here's a scene from the morning commute. Whoever said a rolling stone gathers no moss? A city bus, during rush hour, collects more interest than a blonde in Delhi. It's amazing the resolve of this crowd of guys to catch this bus. I hear the busses all over the city are pretty regular, but there are just so many people trying to get to work at the same time that they can't possibly hold everyone. I will never feel crowded as I sqeeze onto the T again! Sometimes you see so many people hanging onto the doorways of the busses that the whole bus is tilted at a precarious angle. On this bus, the guys at the back were actually hanging on through broken glass in the back window!

On the positive side, busses in Delhi have all become more environmentally sound. The busses and the auto rickshaws are all now required to use a certain type of fuel, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). It apparently reduces the amount of exhaust let out into the atmosphere and is generally more sustainable right now. That's one problem taken care of... now what to do with the fleet of horns that sound like a million simultaneous Taboo buzzers?

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Well, I'm not sure exactly what the Tourist Police do, but I'm glad I got away with snapping this picture. I clicked this (that's how they say it here in India) when I was driving around Connaught Place yesterday during lunch. I went out to do some souvenir shopping, only to find that my destination stores from the guide book had since been shut down. Instead, Santosh asked me if I would go to another emporium (he gets a Dewali tip from the owners), so I reluctantly agreed. Nowhere do you feel more like a tourist than in these emporiums, where the salesmen follow you closely around the store, giving you the hard sell on every item you touch or even glance at. The prices also seem to be relatively high., even though the crafts they sell are local.

I heard yesterday that name brand clothes are almost twice the price here. Because they sell less of the product to locals, they have to charge more to meet the necessary profit margins, so they get away with it thanks to the upper class in India who desire and can easily pay for the product.

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There are little fruit stands like this everywhere. This was taken as evening approached right before we left Delhi to head back into Noida yesterday. It's one of the things I love most about this place - no matter how stark and simple an area is, there is always a pocket of color somewhere, whether in the form of a stack of fruit, a bevy of beautiful saris, or a brightly painted wall.

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It's cricket season here in India and everyone is celebrating. The World Cup started up this week. It's on at all the bars and television stations around town. Even the hotel is celebrating, with decorations of these heavy, leather-stitched cricket balls and signed reproduction bats in the restaurants and lobbies.

Since I wrote this entry, there have been wild developments on the cricket scene here. India lost unexpectedly to a bottom-seeded team, Bangledesh, in their first game, disappointing millions. Then, came back to break the World Cup record for points in a single game in their second match against the Bahamas! (I learned that most cricket players for the national team in the Bahamas have second jobs, however, since the cricket can't sustain them financially - there's no money in product deals or advertising in the same way as some of the bigger teams.) I actually watched this game, and even not knowing that much about the sport, I was pretty excited for India.

Then, last night around 3 am, India lost its third match, ending its presence in the competition. To add to all of this madness, there has also been a progressing story in the news about the Pakistan coach's sudden death immediately following their loss to Ireland last week. The autopsy reports are now saying he was probably murdered! What a weird week.

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Indian Chinese food is a whole different ball game from the stuff you get in the States. It's much spicier for one thing, and a lot of people prefer it. Here's a plate of spicy chili noodles, crispy spinach, and almond vegetables. I went vegetarian tonight because I couldn't handle much more of the heavy food I've had here.

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You requested more women in beautiful saris, so here goes! I am learning that women in India wear a lot of hats - almost all the women I've met spend all their time balancing work, family, and these garments! The careful, elaborate assembly required to keep a sari together, particularly while carrying a wriggling child, is impressive to say the least.

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Many women act as managers of their households, which can include doing whatever manual labor is necessary to get the day's work done. Here is another beautifully dressed woman working in the field.

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This beautiful statue was displayed in the village next door to a farm I went to today. A business associate and his wife invited me down to their farm just a couple of hours outside of Delhi, and when I got there, we took a walk down to the village and toured the house of the Indian equivalent of a landlord (who used to manage all of the farmers of the village). There are currently no lord-serf relationships as such anymore, but the owner of this historical building rents it out like a hotel to travelers touring through the area. He also rents it to the producers of Hindi music videos and modeling photo shoots, because it provides a nice "ancient India" backdrop.

The house is really something. Apparently, it's been cleaned up quite a bit, although many of the features of the house are still original, and the format is much the same as it ever was, with a courtyard being the focus and hub of the whole house, and long, corridor-like rooms serving as the main living areas and bedrooms. It must be kind of a magical experience to stay there, with all of its creaking doors, old oil lamps, and elaborately chiseled old bed frames.

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This region grows a lot of wheat, and by the gold color that has sprung up in the wheat over the past few weeks, you can apparently tell it's close to being due for harvesting. There were acres and acres of this in view from the house, but we got really close on our walk back from the village.

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Here is our walk back from the village, where we saw a multitude of mud huts where the villagers live and the common spigot where they all go to get their water. There are also storage huts, often stacked with bricks of cow dung that are used as fuel for cooking, for warding off the blue cows (deer) from the crops at night, and for lighting the hookah. We also saw several stone and ironwork contraptions for doing manual work like grinding the wheat into flour and generating mulched cow feed from spinach. The town is almost entirely self-sufficient, according to my hosts, with the villagers only really bringing in a few necessities like salt from the outside.

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This woman is part of the village's primary family, and the baby about three months old. My host was horrified to learn that the baby dislocated her collarbone the previous night and it took nearly a day for someone to attend to it while the baby was crying the whole time. When asked why it took so long, the woman replied that there was work to be done and the mother had to attend to the cows. She loves her child, but the cow gives her milk. The baby does not yet have a name, so my host was asked to suggest one and they accepted it!

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This woman is only about sixty years old, but has spent a lifetime working out in the sun and smoking a hookah. We watched her light up as we sat to chat (well, as my hostess chatted and I listened intently to see if I could make out anything). It is most surprising how jovial the villagers here are, even though they have close to nothing by our standards. She wore these two sets of green bracelets on her arms, which might have something to do with a marriage custom. I've seen a similar thing with red bracelets that the bride is supposed to keep on a year after the wedding.

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At last, here is the property of my hosts at sunset. This photo was taken from a long path that stretches around the entire inner perimeter of the property, about six acres, alongside a great big wall with barbed wire fencing at the top to keep out the deer. The deer come down from the mountains when it gets dark and will chew through the crops at night. It's getting dark, but you can just make out the edge of the house on the left and the slightly raised step of wheat stretching from the right of the house all the way to the right-hand wall. I spent a beautiful afternoon here.

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Here is an example of street living in Delhi. These tents are erected all over town and provide shade and shelter for folks without actual homes. I've heard that many construction workers, etc. who come in to Delhi from outside of town to find work will live in these tents, but you also see handicraft makers inside on wicker cots, using the tents as both sleep space and shop window.

At first I was shocked at how public and ubiquitous this type of lifestyle seemed to be in Delhi, but now as we drive by it every day, the sight of it is somehow more normal. It's terrifying how you can eventually get used to seeing people living like this though.

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On Sunday, my friend Madhu - who you'll remember from Holi acclaim - invited me over to her place in Noida to learn how to cook some authentic Indian food! Gloriously decorated by the "masalchi" (sous chef) and daughter, Ishita, this is a curd-soaked dish that tastes like a piece of heaven with little pan-friend lentil clouds. Madhu has the most amazing collection of lentils and spices that I have ever seen. I aspire to be such a good cook!

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Ok, I'll try and stop with the silly pun titles - temporarily. But speaking of pan-fried, Madhu made all kinds of incredible Indian breads - all essentially with the same basic dough. She rolls it out on a circular marble slab and folds in whatever stuffing it needs. Then she throws it into this shallow, cast-iron wok. Cooked with ghee, a clarified butter. The more folds, the more layers (kind of like me after eating one). Filling, fattening - but totally worth it. 

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These peppers are so hot they'll burn the skin off your hands! Or at least that's the impression Madhu and Ishita gave me - they wouldn't actually let me touch them. Not even to arrange this shot! Madhu uses these to create her own red chilli flakes. She processes them every once in a while and the dried flakes last her a long time. They're very beautiful in their natural form though. Beautiful and pernicious!

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Stepping back, here's another shot from the village estate we visited at Nishith's farm. I felt it was worthy of a post since it gives me a fantastic old India feeling that is hard to express outside a picture. This was my favorite room of all that we saw... beautiful sunlight, lovely cool tile floors, a cushioned bench swing, floor chairs, and a simple, pillowed bed snuggled away in this little arcade at the end of a long, airy corridor. I could have hung out here all day. And it makes me feel like I need to redecorate when I get home.

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We've been having odd weather the last couple of days - brief bouts of rain that quickly soak the sidewalks and then disappear, leaving mirrors all over the streets, and an optimistic light all around. You cannot despair at the monotonous honking of the multitudes when you see how this afternoon light graces everything in its path. Although this woman's sari would have stood out no matter what, I think. I notice the women hardly ever wear helmets on the back of these bikes, but - touch wood - I haven't seen one tumble yet!

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Here's the market outside one of the offices where I'm working here in Delhi. At this first passage back into the city, there are always curtains of golden trinkets shimmering down from the street awnings. Cyclists seem to fend for themselves pretty well in the traffic, and sometimes I think they even get to their destinations faster, because, unlike the wider vehicles, they actually typically succeed in their attempt to squeeze through any gap left on the road.

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Here's the view from my rented car as the rain started to pour down one day. It's getting a lot hazier outside, but mostly because of the climbing temperatures and the accumulating smog. Spring appears to be over as of the last five or six days and there is a sharp distinction in climate. The humidity combined with the heat has brought the mosquitos out from hiding, and there are typically at least one or two in the car every time I get in in the morning. Nimble little guys. Santosh chuckles at me as I swat away at them with a hankerchief, but I tell him I'm getting better. I usually nab them in a few swipes these days and I'm honing my mosquito radar daily.

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Tonight, Asha and Reggie and their mysterious well-traveled friend Bart showed us an Italian restaurant in a market area called Sundarnagar. The restaurant is called Boci, and I brought Jake from the hotel along to meet the crowd. Here's a stack of rupees, which looks like a lot of money, but only made a dent in the total bill. Indian currency is quite beautiful in its range of colors, I think, and I like how even small denominations are in the form of notes instead of coins for the most part. For example, ten rupees is approximately the equivalent of a U.S. quarter, but is still in paper form.

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We were early to the restaurant, and I noticed an antique store that looked open next door. A little apprehensive about the word "Handicrafts" in the store title, I put aside my wariness of aggressive sales clerks, decided it was worth the risk, and dragged Jake in to take a look. Here I got brainwashed on the holistic importance and healing powers of "Singing Bowls," these mixed metal vibration vessels that are supposed to bring your om to its natural chi or something. But seriously, you circle the rim of the bowl with this leather covered mallet to generate a deep base sound and vibration that starts at your head and cascades down your spine. Because the body is 60 percent water, it's supposed to stir up all of this motion in your body and release tension. You can tell it's working if you're swaying from your feet. I was apparently swaying from the solar plexus, whether a measure of blocked chakra or seasickness... I'm still trying to sort it all out, but I'm sold!

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1. You automatically start the morning humming Celine Dion's 'The Power of Love,' courtesy of the hotel's ethereal and ubiquitous elevator music.
2. You can't wake up unless reception calls you on the bedside phone.
3. Every breakfast conversation you have over curry and muffins is essentially a briefing of your job description and resume.
4. You have become hotel gossip. People at the hotel start calling you by name and noticing when you wear a new outfit.
5. The bowl of fruit on your desk is starting to rot.
6. You stop collecting those cute little soaps.
7. You have some sort of plug or adapter fixed in every socket in the room.
8. Even when you have the morning to sleep in, you dutifully wake up in time to make it to the complementary breakfast. (Or is that just a sign that you're cheap?)
9. You routinely snuggle into bed for your nine p.m. conference calls.
10. You begin referring to the hotel as 'home.'

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Today I went to get a few chocolates from a place called The Chocolate Box, which has supplied me with a few good housewarming gifts and at least one other blog picture! I happened to go in at a time where they were preparing white and milk chocolate rolls as decoration for the tops of their many desserts, and the chef was kind enough to let me watch and photograph. I could have stared at this process for hours, particularly when he layered the two chocolates and made striped rolls. The tricky part appears to be getting the consistency of the chocolate right so it stays liquid in the bowl, but solidifies within seconds once a light layer is flattened on the marble surface.

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So here we are, at last, at the Taj Mahal! I feel like this has been a grand pilgrimage, not only because it took four hours to drive here this morning, but also because already I've been in India over a month and have only just managed to meet this important benchmark of Indian tourism! While not seen during sunrise, sunset, moonlight, or any of the other times I was told I had to see this monument, I was still stunned by its godly glow and universal tractor beam. It's true what they say that it's almost worth it just to see people's reactions as they walk through that first gate and get their first glimpse.

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Before you see the Taj, you go through a grand front gate. This takes you out of the courtyard, where inlay artisans used to sit at built-in kiosks embedding semiprecious stones into marble to create the effect seen all over the Taj Mahal on day-to-day items like table-tops, coasters, vases, etc. However, these folks can no longer work their trade in the Taj courtyard, since the Supreme Court here ruled that they'd need to move in order to prevent pollution from their craft from gradually destroying the property and face of the monument itself. Apparently the dust, fumes, garbage, and other byproducts of production here were starting to encroach upon the inner structures, making them harder to clean and maintain.

This picture shows one of the columns of text that is part of the Koran - the Promise of Allah - which wraps all the way around the enormous doorway. The same text can be found inside the tomb walls of the Taj Mahal.

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Here's the first breathless moment you walk in through the gate. It seems deliberate that you are required to enter from a dark, cave-like enclosure... it only enhances the bright, gleaming white marble of the Taj Mahal.

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There are two kinds of decorative work done with the marble on the Taj Mahal. One is the relief look, shown in the middle, which is done by cutting away the marble around the intended image to create these beautiful flowers. The second is Agra's famed inlay work, which is done by chiseling out space for the semi-precious stones with a diamond-pointed apparatus, covering the marble with a temporary orange-brown dust to allow the artist to see the image he's cutting, and securing the carefully cut stones into the spaces with a "secret ingredient" glue. The glue is some combination of natural gum, marble dust, and a few other materials that make it impossible to wear down and release the stone. That said, rumor has it that the Taj apparently used to be filled with precious stones that were stolen from the monument... I wonder if they were held in with the same impressive glue!

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Honey and Ishita accompanied me to the Taj today, which made the trip so much more fun than it would have been alone. They added comic relief, like this, to the ordeal of walking around in 100 degree weather on hot marble stone in direct sunlight! Despite the aggressive temperatures, Agra was not nearly as bad in terms of crowds and pickpockets as I had anticipated. In fact, while I at times wished that we were alone here to get those great, clean shots of the mausoleum without people in the way, I thought the crowds in their beautiful saris enhanced the whole mood of the place against the glowing white stone. There were also lots of tourists, of course, and Ishita and Honey commented when we entered that we could easily be in America! While, as I'm a foreigner, my entry fee was a good 50 times more expensive than my companions, we laughed that I got to ride the battery-operated short bus for free from the parking lot, while the girls owed 4 rupees apiece.

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So, here's a (slightly lobsided) version of the picture you've seen in every Taj coffee table book, every other poster of India, and every Web page on the subject! It was so crowded there that we had some trouble getting the shots we wanted, but I have to plead heat-stroke or something on this one because I completely missed the central line, which shows how perfectly symmetrical this monument is. Interestingly, it was not always so. When Shahjahan built this mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, he only had one of the towers (front-left) erected to call people to prayer all around the memorial. At that time, only the Muhgal royal court was allowed entry through its gates, until it was eventually opened to the public hundreds of years later. Over the years, the additional three towers were built to complete the symmetry of the structure.

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This was a funny picture because we were trying to pull off the same optical illusion that the professionals do whenever they do the canned shot of Taj Mahal. It is supposed to look like you're holding up the entire place with a single pinch. The place was so busy though, that we got this one instead - which is even better in my view, because it gives perspective to our silly attempt!

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My dad wanted me to put this shot in, and because he's such a frequent commenter on the site, I figured I'd grant him this! This picture illustrates the process I mentioned earlier about how they actually carve and embed the stones. You can see from this picture the scale to which some of the work is done. The amount of man-hours that must go into one of these table tops is astounding.

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On the way out of town, we stopped at a sweet shop that makes the candies Agra is famous for. I can't remember the name of these (Honey? Ishita?) but they are gelatinous and chewable and covered in sugar and are some of the sweetest sweets I've ever tasted. They look like they're different flavors, but they're not. Just different colors. Santosh bought several boxes to bring home when we stopped. I was glad that we got to do something that was fun for him, because the air conditioning broke down on the way out in the morning, and the poor guy was in full uniform in that hot car! We left the windows open for the trip, and this caused the unfortunate incident of a box of tissues blowing off the back windshield ledge and covering the car with tissue - thank goodness they only clung to the back of our heads and not the front, or Santosh's vision might have been compromised! Ishita and I were in hysterics, which probably made the trip even more unbearable! Thank goodness for sugar.

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We stopped at a roadside restaurant about an hour out of Agra in a town called Mathura. I thought the food was pretty good, but Ishita and Honey informed me that it was pretty standard street food. I am still having some trouble distinguishing between decent Indian and excellent Indian food, particularly when it comes to vegetarian dishes (which I usually prefer) but the price was right at 160 rupees (almost four dollars) for the three of us! All I know is that home-cooked food is always several steps above anything else I've tried!

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Some little kids riding on a truck full of hay and other assorted vegetation. Lots of people ride atop their cargo here, and I'm always suprised to see what's pulling the enormous load - usually a guy on a bicycle or a little donkey-sized horse, or a camel! There's a job with built-in strength training.

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Here's a lady at the Taj Mahal dressed in a traditional ladies' suit, otherwise called a salwar kameez. The Taj was a wonderland of beautiful fabrics and it was very easy to inconspicuously take pictures because this is the one place I've been where everyone is holding a camera!

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My mother won't let me come home without a sari, so Madhu kindly took me out to her local market yesterday to help me get fitted. I was actually excited about the process, as I've never really been fitted for anything before, nor have I ever had the luxury of custom designing my own neckline! I didn't think I really needed to come home with a sari, but now that I've seen them in action, I am pretty excited. They are complex to put together, but just gorgeous. Now whether I'll ever be able to pull this off in real life is the question...

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I love this picture, because Madhu looks so enchanting talking about lentils. She'll kill me for putting this in, but I think it illustrates how much she cares about good food! After getting fitted for the sari, we went into her local food store, where I found a few bits and pieces to make a semi-authentic Indian meal when I get back to the States. Of course, my lentil collection will never match Madhu's, but everyone should have a goal.

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Upon hopping off Madhu's scooter for the second time, we came upon this street vendor outside the market who was selling something called Panpuri (I think!). Madhu asked me if I'd like to try one to which I responded no thanks. She then said, "I wouldn't recommend it." I wonder what she would have done if I'd said yes! But seriously, I'm starting to think I probably would have been fine. I may jinx myself for saying this, but I think my stomach is finally starting to harden to all the spicy food. We'll see... 17 days left to find out.

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Daily, the smog is worsening over the city. You see motorcyclists with heavy bandanas wrapped around their faces underneath their helmets to keep out the polluted air and the sky has gone from bright and clear (February) to a dull blue gray on most days. However, the DND crossing over the Yanuma River is still beautiful. Last Sunday I saw crowds of people in colorful garb collected by the banks of the river in the early morning, perhaps as a ritual, perhaps just bathing at the most peaceful time of the day. But the air is getting heavier and hotter, and walking around outside is becoming more obviously tiring. Everyone tells me I'll have left India before it gets really bad though.

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Not only is this dessert tasty, but it just sounds cute, doesn't it? I've heard Gulab Jamun described as "milkballs in a sweet syrup," and that seems like a pretty fair analysis to me. They really are sickly sweet, but even though I don't usually go for that kind of thing, I really enjoy these. They're kind of like soaked doughnut holes and they're probably packed full of calories, but believe me, I'm not counting here. They also have a suspiciously similar texture to paneer...

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Today, I went off with H & I to the Sarogini Market, or Sarogini Nagar. The market is situated on a large block, and weaves around a bit like a maze, so it's tricky to get out without something catching your eye (and wallet). Here, anything from vegetables to men's suits are sold, some in walk-in stores, but most at outdoor stalls, or off wall displays in walkways, like this. Walking around in the direct sunshine was hot - it must have been 90 degrees at least - and we were there at the hottest part of the day. There was so much to look at that it was hard to see anything in particular, but we somehow left laden with a shopping bags!

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I like this shot because not only does it show off the delicous-looking fruits and vegetables in the market, but it also illustrates the famous red carrot - one of the peculiar differences I noticed immediately in India. The primary carrot variety here is red as opposed to the orange I am used to! I did a little research and found out that the mass cultivation of orange carrots (the world standard) only really started about 400 years ago. Prior to that, purple and yellow versions of carrots were the more popular varieties. These red ones that contain lycopene (good in preventing heart disease), are widely preferred by Indians and are therefore the primary type grown here.

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Known here as Juttis, these slippers decorate the feet of women all over the city. The variety shown here are highly sequined, but there are many different varieties you can find. Relying on Honey's keen bargaining skills, I picked up a pair myself. She tells me they are a little uncomfortable the first few times you wear them, but the leather softens over time and they become much better. I've heard they're almost as comfortable as walking barefoot, so I'm looking forward to that!

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Or, you put the lime in the cabinet, as they do here at this juice stand at Sarojini. Lime juice is very big here in India as I think I remember mentioning in an earlier entry. I've now heard rumors that it's good for weight loss, as a spice antidote, and as a revival aid - all I can say is it's a little salty for my palate! They do have a good alternative, though, which is more like a soda - called Limca. But I'm pretty sure it has no medicinal value to it except being a cure for the sweet tooth.

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Here are some of the beautiful fabrics that the girls were deciding between for the new suits they want to have made. Trying to help, I pointed out a few for consideration. Let me just say that I am so grateful to these girls for teaching me some necessary personal lessons. First of all, that I use the expressions, "that's interesting..." and "wow" enough to send them into cascades of giggles every time I open my mouth. The second is a lesson in choosing fabrics at the market. The two fabrics I suggested were immediately blocked by the following comments: 1. "Hah! You'll die in that - that's a synthetic fabric. In the summer, you should only buy cotton." and 2. "No!! That looks like something out of the hippy-dippy sixties." Okay, so these are loosely quoted, but you get the picture. I am fabulously un-cool in India.

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Here's one for the boys. The vendor on the left is selling mostly motivational posters, but one reads: WARNING: Due to Industrial Action, this toilet will be closed tomorrow - so do as much as you can Today. To his right, there are some more of those Lehar Pepsi bottles and a stack of paper thin straws that leap right out of the bottle if you let them out of your sight. Vegetables for sale and clothing being pulled, posed, and measured in the background - this is Sarojini Market.

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And now one for the girls. My sari is ready! Very good because I leave Delhi on Thursday! Mona helped me choose it (in Jaipur), Madhu helped me get all the ingredients (the petticoat and fitted blouse), Ishita taught me how to wrap it, and Honey helped stuff me into it; overall a team effort! However, I think I'm on my own figuring out how to wear it! Once I pin it down a bit, I think it'll be easier to walk without the sari slipping off my shoulder. Ishita, the budding photographer, took this shot. And Honey, here, is sporting a shirt that features Chikan embroidery (famously from the Indian city, Lucknow). I have never had so much fabric on the brain in my life!

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This naan landed like a UFO at our table the other night at Bukhara. We came out here to get a taste of the "fourteenth best restaurant in the world..." and we got that and an alien experience. The naan was enormous - great fun for the whole family - and the only disadvantage was that it cooled off quickly so you had to eat fast. But that wasn't much of a problem since the food was absolutely delicious. From creamy dal makhani to an incredible spiced lamb dish and chicken kebab with a mint chutney, the overall effect was outstanding. And gulab jamun for dessert... I almost fell off my cushioned footstool. I loved the atmosphere - copper cups and low lighting that made you feel you were in a medieval banquet hall. The posh restaurant definitely took me out of my element and into another dimension. Which is impossible because their promotion line is: "Arguably the finest Indian cuisine on Planet Earth." Check out the website just for the music: www.bukhara.com.

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Here's a stack of ladders. 'Nuff said.

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Back into the busy throng of Pondicherry! I laugh at how I thought when first coming here that this would be a quaint little beach town. Beach, yes. Little, no! Pondicherry has something like 500,000 people, I think, and it felt like a good chunk of them were hanging out on this street as Piya and I drove through on Saturday. The morning was hot and overwhelming, but from our bicycle rickshaw on the way to the International Coffee House, we caught a brief break. Unlike the biker who had to haul our sorry selves around! He was strangely cheerful though, so we gave him a good tip, despite having so carefully negotiated our fare!

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I have never seen such movie star worship. You see the same three actors advertising all the most popular sodas on TV, plastered all over busses and walls, even hosting spin-off shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire or Indian Idol. The hotel where I'm now staying in Chennai has old movie posters everywhere and modern paintings of the current celebs Andy Warhol-style all over the lobby. It's so modern you can't find the entrance, but you can always know who's hot in Bollywood and the Chennai film industry. I, for one, am relieved.

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Backtracking a bit, here's a shot from our eventful trip down to Pondy from Chennai! Our tire burst about an hour into the journey, but our driver was very resourceful and had the thing repaired before the A/C had a chance to seep out of the car into the hot atmosphere.

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And back to the Kailash I go. This whole trip happened pretty spur of the moment, actually. I found out I needed to go back to Chennai for business and Piya had never seen Pondicherry. It seemed like the logical thing to take Raj up on his offer to show us around town and stay at the most beautiful hotel I've found in India. A stroke of luck too, because it was an opportunity to get to know new friends. Piya fell in love with the place too and even got a few articles out of the trip, I think. I got the couple of connection-free precious relaxation days I've been needing after the non-stop business hours of being abroad! Raj had us over for dinner one night at his airy house in the town, and Dara saw us off in the early morning with a pot of coffee and warm croissants. It was like being home.

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The Dupleix, where Piya conducted an interview for a story on modern bathrooms, was a much different approach to hotels. This is a modern heritage hotel, which is exactly how it sounds. Teak ceiling moldings from the home of Dupleix, governor general of the French Indian establishments back in the mid-1700s, are here paired with brushed glass walls and highly contemporary fixtures in the small, townhouse space. It's a new definition of luxury from a place like Kailash, and I was happy we were staying where we were - but the owner was very interesting, and I thought his objective of luxury fusion was pretty impressive. My favorite part of the hotel was an enormous mango tree that had not been moved during the building, which now springs up through the courtyard and into the view of all the hotel's interior-facing rooms. Apparently, the walls are so thick that in order to provide Internet connectivity, the wires have to be lashed to the grand tree itself!

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I am amazed by the doors in Pondicherry. As you drive down from Chennai, there are so many roadside stores selling doors by the dozen - old, majestic, beautiful doors that you'd love to put up in your home but couldn't fathomably transport anywhere easily! There are also a lot of pretty, antique doors and gates on the faces of otherwise very simple houses, particularly in the villages. This one was entirely broken, but still very beautiful, serving as the makeshift opening to a wicker carport in the town area near the beach.

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Unless it's a beautiful weathered old statue. This stallion stood outside the entrance to a carving stall on the streets of Pondicherry. We passed by it maybe twice as we circled the French quarter, trying to find a restaurant called Rendez-Vous. We got so lost that rickshaw drivers we'd asked for directions re-discovered us on the next block and gave us repeat directions. We must have asked about twelve people and I swear they were all doing the Tweedle-Dum/Tweedle-Dee and pointing in opposite directions. Finally we found it, almost by accident. Maybe we should have asked the horse.

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I was trying to figure out what was going on here on the ride between Chennai and Pondy. I think it has something to do with dredging natural salt from the landscape, as these enormous white pyramids were piled high as far as the eye could see. I got lucky to catch this lone figure with his rake. The drive was beautiful and really made us feel like we were on holiday.

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I've never had coconut juice right from the shell of the coconut. But Piya had bargained for two before I could blink and all of a sudden we were sipping the fruity water out of a straw, like those Tropicana commercials. The taste was much more bitter and salty than I remembered, and I thought it might just be the variety of coconut. However, I found out tonight that these ones are green because they are younger and not as ripe as the drak brown fuzzy variety, and that the ones in Pondy are likely saltier because they are grown in proximity to the ocean. Makes sense!

I also learned (surprise!) about the nutritional value of coconut over dinner. My collague told me that drinking coconut juice immediately after a meal actually speeds up your metabolism and drinking a glass is the equivalent to doing about 30-40 minutes of exercise. I don't know where he gets his optimism, but I want what he's taking.

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There are little temples sprouting out from between buildings all over the city. When you walk inside the narrow, ornate gate and past all the bicycles, you'll see something that looks like this. The picture doesn't do the brightness of the colors justice, but we were quickly shooed away anyway, told the temple wasn't yet open for visitors for the day.

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Sugar water for my fresh lime soda. You can order these like a margarita - sweet or salty. I opted for sweet and got this little vial of watery sweetness. Although I am getting used to the bitter lime jice and kind of enjoy it now. I also loved the reflection of the beautiful blue menu at twilight in the liquid.

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We went out to the beach near the hotel at sunset and took a walk down along the shore line to check out the fishing boats. This local family wanted to take a few pictures with us, so Piya and I took turns posing with the crowd. After chatting with Raj and Dara back at the hotel, it occurred to me that this land on the south side of the hotel probably belongs to the fishing village families, and we were impressed to see how many languages the young girls knew. They seemed to know Tamil, Hindi, and English all!

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Well the vacation has faded away now, Kailash miles behind me, and I miss it dearly. I am also homesick for Piya. It's a strange thing to be homesick for someone in a country where you're the foreigner, but it's also a rare thing to meet those people you somehow know are going to be great friends. When I met her, back in February, I remember leaving dinner with her and Nani thinking I couldn't believe how much we had in common and how welcoming they both were to a new face in town. And we had such fun gossiping and larking around Pondicherry, both needing a break from the frantic pace of Delhi and the busy work life. Piya the brave, queen of the lovestory, and believer in the goodness of all people - I'll miss you!

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Here's a woman standing in a doorway in Pondicherry, watching life go by in the sweltering heat. I waved to see if I could take her picture, and she was quite happy to let me. Women look so tall and statuesque in these beautiful saris, even when standing within enormous doorways like this.

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You see a lot of these cars in Pondicherry and Chennai, mainly as taxi cabs. In Delhi, they are prevalent too, but are mostly black with a yellow roof. They are called Ambassadors, and look very classic, I think, with cavernous patent leather interiors and tunnel-molded headlights. They seem right in place in the classic French quarter of Pondy.

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Here's the guy whose job it is to guard the gates to the beach every night. This long path takes you from the village all the way down to the water, which you can see just ahead. The path is adorned with these flowering trees, which Raj keeps under tight surveillance. He charges 100 rupees if anyone picks the flowers off the trees, but they are allowed to take anything that has fallen. Sad to think we are leaving this paradise again after such a short stay.

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Dara invited us over to his place for breakfast before we left for Chennai early Monday morning. It was such a treat to have a personal farewell like this, with fresh coffee and a croissant with marmalade no less. It just hit the spot. Dara has been such great company this weekend, and we've chatted with him often, since he's pretty much always working at the hotel.  

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On the way to the office in Chennai, I'd pass along the edge of this main beach. The poorer communities live alongside the shoreline, possibly because it's not a very coveted tourist location due to the dirtiness of the beach. The weather, sky, and look of the water was beautiful, though, and a joy just to drive through - even though we were mainly doing it to avoid traffic!

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I met Himanshu, a graphic designer, on the plane from Chennai back to Delhi who told me about the common tradition of having your fortune told by ladies who can tell you details down to the date you'll get married just by taking your name. If they detect a personal liability for you over the coming years, they'll supply you with a ring like this that serves as a talisman against bad luck, for example. He said he'd been skeptical but had since been won over by the surprising accuracy of those predictions that he'd heard. Here's a picture of his. I thought it was a nice story, and he was kind enough to humor me by posing his ring for the blog.

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Easter has passed, which went completely unnoticed in India, but here in Germany at my layover pit stop, there was a beautiful bowl of dyed hard-boiled eggs in celebration at one of the food counters. After having been fed promptly every three hours on the plane, I wasn't too hungry for eggs, but I took a picture anyway, much to the alarm of other passengers who surely wondered at my fascination.

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The Bloody Marys (with and without the liquor) got me through my trip home.  I'm sure I got triple my daily required sodium intake, but I think it's the best drink for flying - a little fruity, a little flighty. Perfect!

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Touchdown! I'm back to Boston and thankfully there's no snow on the ground. Fingers crossed I've successfully missed the worst of the winter and now there's only blue skies to come. That said, I hear it's supposed to pour for Marathon Monday next week... But I can handle a little rain. Already, India is starting to feel like a happy dream.

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One of my favorite phrases heard while we were asking directions in Pondicherry was, "Sorry, I'm a new face here." I loved this way of saying, "Sorry, can't help you, mate" because it summed up much of the way I felt while muddling through as a foreigner, observer, documenter, taste-tester, and ultimate afficionado of this place.

As promised, here's my final blog post for IndiaBlog 2007, courtesy of Ishita. Ishita says this picture brings out my true character (in other words, my most common pose in India). Thanks to everyone who stayed tuned over the last two months - it's been like writing letters home for me, and I've appreciated all your e-mails and shared stories more than you know. This is goodbye for this blog, but for future happenings and fascinations, check out www.pippalehar.com/photoblog. Namaste.

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