Wanderlust

Merangarh glowers down at the Blue City from its 400-foot perch…

People just don’t build fortresses like they used to. These days, our forts are digital, comprised of firewalls and DMZs, encryptions and layers of invisible security. Impressive, sure, but also invisible. Back in 1459, less than 40 years before Columbus misnavigated his way to the New World, an Indian king named Rao Jodha lay the groundwork for what would eventually become the imposing, red-stoned architectural marvel that defines the city of Jodhpur. He was the 15th king of Marwar, the mythical Land of Death, located in western Rajhastan. His empire lay nestled in a barren, dusty plain on the vital trade route between Delhi and Mujarat. It was a dry, fly-ridden town where merchants led camels through narrow alleyways, priests performed puja (blessings) nightly, and the scent of chanting and incense filled the air.

A fine kingdom, indeed, but terribly prone to attacks by the neighboring tribes at its old location. Jodha needed to protect his empire, so he turned his eyes to the heavens, where a 400-foot cliff loomed over the nascent town of Jodhpur. It was a logical place to build one of India’s most impenetrable and renowned fortresses. He rode up the hill with a few of his best men to lay out plans for the fort. An old scraggly hermit named Cheeria Nathji, the lord of the birds, was the only inhabitant there. When Jodha forced him off his roost, the hermit cursed the fortress with a chronic drought, a prophecy that remains true in Jodhpur to this day. Jodha tried to appease the hermit by building him a house and temple and, when that didn’t work, burying a man alive in the fort’s foundations.

Thus it was that the great fort of Mehrangarh was founded. Complete with elephant defense spikes, ornate cannons, a pleasure room, an armory, and quarters for queens, mothers, and concubines, Mehrangarh stands as one of India’s proudest and best-preserved fortresses. The cramped, endless city of Jodhpur murmurs below the fort’s towering hulk, a maze of blocky blue houses and flooding sewers that hasn’t changed much since Jodha’s time.

The fort saw his successors to the early 20th century, when it finally lost its primary purpose as a protective citadel. Men with bejeweled shields valiantly fought enemy troops by horse, foot, and elephant. The latter could fling man and horse casually aside with its powerful trunk, with which it also often wielded weapons. Society was equally dramatic: Queens flung themselves on funeral pyres, musicians and dancers kept the royals entertained in special pleasure rooms, and Jodhpur bustled with traveling merchants and spice traders.

We took an audio tour of Jodhpur’s imposing giant today, exploring the intricacies of the flashy and expansive Rathore empire. The kings seemed to be just as devoted to the glitzier elements of warfare as they were to their effectiveness as warriors. Portraits show them as bejeweled, glaring lords surrounded by rose-scented wives. Their swords had lion-headed hilts and blades cast with jasmine vines. Even the cannons were gilded. So much prettier than the spare northern European ruins I saw as a kid. I wonder what would happen if you put the Rathores head-to-head with, say, the Huns. One group would be perfumed, plaited, and shiny; the other coarse, smelly, and rough. It would be like a fistfight between Elton John and Jack Black. I mean, who would win? Impossible to tell, but highly entertaining in the process.

We finished off the day with dinner at the fort’s restaurant. Phenomenal view, but the overpriced food left much to be desired. Think lamb with shards of gristle, chewy chapati, and badly cooked rice. You know that when the rice is off, something’s wrong. Still, it was a nice, touristy day, and perfect introduction to the great forts of Rajasthan, Land of Kings.

If you’re traveling and get a head cold, you have two options: stay in bed, bored and sick, or tour around like it’s nothing and try to ignore the ever-growing wad of soppy Kleenex in your pants pocket. After three days of hanging out in bed and ordering room service, we felt decent—and brave—enough to start checking out the town in more detail. We rented a motorcycle—err, ok, it was a 30 CC moped with barely enough torque to beat a hungry goat in a dead heat. Correction: We asked for a motorcycle, but the one our hotel owners had was so fast, powerful, and immaculate that we decided it would be better to get something tame. Turns out this steed was just half a step above a bicycle.

So we took it off-roading. There was a rutted dirt road outside of town rumored to contain authentic Indian villages, with authentic-looking villagers, camels, and a smattering of mysterious Shiva temples. Village kids would stick out their hands to high-five us as we whizzed by at a high-pitched 9 miles per hour. Some of their little palms hurt pretty good. I’m sure they felt the same.

We explored a Shiva temple nestled inside of a rocky canyon about four miles into the dirt road. A narrow path led past small, boxy stucco buildings with a scummy set of pools running through the middle. Beautiful fig and bodhi trees grew artfully out of the mountain flank to one side; the inside of the temple, with its silent, dark shrine, contained a powerful, soothing sense of utter peace. Another India contrast: beautiful trees, peaceful temple, pond scum, trash. We passed a herd of billy goats on the way back, swerved around camels pulling loaded camel carts, their necklaces jingling in the sun. We also got stuck in the sand and had a near-miss with a tractor as a result. The moped, which had barely started as we headed out, died in town. The hotel people tried to charge Seth extra for a new spark plug. Sigh.

Another important Pushkar highlight involved flying kites off of Pushkar’s uneven rooftops. Flying kites is hard on every level: getting them up in the air, keeping them from nosediving into a tree, and reeling them back in one piece. Remember how the kids in Kite Runner would fly kites until it was too dark to see? Pushkar was like that, the sky flitting with geometric squares made of tissue paper, kids and adults alike delighting in their nightly ritual.

We also visited a lovely nonprofit called Fior de Loto. They run a school for girls, taking in poor girls from surrounding villages and giving them education, housing, and a chance at a good career. Finally, we discovered the perfect culinary complement to Pushkar’s peaceful and colorful valence. The Rainbow Café serves delectable recipes from around the world with a 360-degree rooftop view of Pushkar. He even serves eggs, which aren’t allowed in the rest of town for religious reasons. We spend many a satisfied hour cultivating our love handles at this sweet locale.

Delhi is a giant human anthill. It must have taken at least two hours to get out of Delhi’s traffic-infested urban sprawl and onto the highway to the Taj. The road to Agra is flat and nondescript, a superhighway with fields on either side and a pollution-white sky. Agra kind of resembles its name: guttural, industrial, dirty, with hints of agriculture. It’s so polluted here that visibility is less than half a mile.

We spent a freezing cold night at a budget hotel and headed for the Taj early the next morning. The Taj was built by Mughal Emporer Shah Jahan in the mid-1600s as a tomb for his second wife, Mumtaz. Jahan was said to be so grief-stricken after her death–she perished while birthing their 14th child–that his hair went gray overnight. Around 20,000 people constructed the Taj, giving rise to the city of Agra. The Taj is constructed on a platform, so that the sky is its only backdrop. It’s touted as an edifice of purity and beauty; a wonder of the world, one of life’s must-sees.
Understandably, it’s also a tourist megahub. You pass through a line of aggressive peddlers to buy a ticket, check all your bags and food in a locker, and stand in line for a scan inside a metal detector. After you’re cleared, you join a throng of international tourists to the tomb itself. Indians mingle with Europeans, Japanese tour groups, Americans, and one-offs from all over the globe. It’s overrun, but you hope it’s worth it.

It is. Even with a hundred heads in view, even with the dense pollution, the gleaming white edifice of the Taj stops your heart for a split second. It’s an exact match to the Taj you picture in your imagination. On  glance, time itself stops until you blink and remember where you are. From a distance, it’s all gleaming purity; as you venture closer, you glimpse elaborate designs that appear inlaid with unmatched tenderness. The monument looms in its aching perfection, an immaculate testament to a fallen love and, later, a Mughal kingdom turned to ash. You want to walk up to it, but feel hesitant to touch it, because its architecture is fine enough to be just out of reach. It’s a building that you can enter, but can never truly access. The place has captured a soul and held it tenderly, like a child holds a butterfly. It’s even more exquisite with the contrast blocky, dry, blaring Agra surrounding it.

We took pictures for a while, then took a secret detour to the Taj’s mystical backside. The Taj is perfectly symmetrical from all four sides. Most people only see it from within the confines of its four official walls. However, if you walk north past the storage lockers on the east side of the grounds, past stone cutters and herds of goats, you access the wide and stagnant river that delineates the Taj’s rear perimeter. We hired a boat to take us across the river, then found a small boy with a camel to capture the Taj from a new angle. Seth worked his magic while the kid, who couldn’t have been older than nine, hustled us like the best of them. He grinned, posed, and flashed his pearly whites like a Bollywood stud. When it came time to pay, he gave us the professional lowdown on his profit distribution (care and maintenance of camel, food for self, board for camel, money for friend), and ended up making out pretty well.

After that, we loaded up on chai, pancakes, and porridge–the quintessential Indian tourist breakfast–and headed back to Delhi. Just a couple more days in Delhi before we leave for the great deserts of Rajasthan.

After the 20+-hour hike from The Coldest City on Earth (err, Denver) to Delhi, I’m happy to say that I’m hanging out with Seth and Sandy at the wonderfully named Hotel Cottage Yes Please. It is not warm in Delhi. In fact, our room, which resembles a garishly styled mausoleum, turns into a bit of a fridge at night. Down jackets during the day. This is the first time I’ve been in a 3rd-world city that is less than 90 degrees.

Delhi is vast. It smells acrid, sounds like car horns, motors, rapid-fire Hindi conversations, and barking dogs, and feels like a messy connect-the-dots picture. Here, a shanty town; there, a sprawling ambassador’s mansion; power lines hanging like spider webs atop alleys littered with cow pies, music, food, foreigners, locals, tinsel, Hanuman…everything is everywhere here. Picture 22 million people and enough urban sprawl to make Los Angeles shudder.

We’re not so much touristing here–though there are fantastic old colonial buildings and museums to be seen–as we are taking care of business, like buying alarm clocks and getting Sandy’s flight sorted out. We’re hiring a car and driver to make the 3 1/2-hour trip to Agra tomorrow. Today will be all about massages, haircuts, and food…

Thiruvanamalai Saddhu at Shiva Temple

Sorry friends, this post is back dated. Clearly it has taken me quite a while to put this blog post together. **FYI – Blog posts will be more frequent as soon as my travel writer extraordinaire (Andrea) is on the scene**

There are far too many “must see” temples and villages to experience for one mere mortal. Anticipating its immensity, I intentionally reserved large blocks of the calendar to India. Yet I still have the undeniable feeling that I’m merely surveying the tip of a vast iceberg. BUT, I’m not finished yet!

I experienced my first sleeper car on the overnight train from Goa back down to Bangalore. I shared my compartment with two young Indian couples. They were nice, but when they learned I was American, their courteous small talk turned into a relentless barrage of prying questions. It seemed impossible to quench their thirst for knowledge.

Making friends on the train.

To them, any question was fair game. From the itemized purchase prices of my camera equipment, to the intimate details of my romantic life. I didn’t divulge all my secrets, but it was admittedly amusing to see their eyes bulge out of their skulls while learning about anything American. The Q&A inquisition went on into the night, until alas I had to raise my white flag of surrender and retreat to the overhead bunk.

I ended up spending Christmas day traveling – by train and by bus. It hardly seemed like Christmas at all in Hindu land. The scant evidence of the holiday amounted to a 5-foot inflatable St. Nick in the hotel lobby, and something resembling a Christmas tree at the Catholic church across the street. But thankfully, by the miracle of Skype, I was able to call and talk to some loved ones back home. That in itself was the best gift I could have gotten.

Thiruvanamalai and Mt. Arunachula.

So I have criss-crossed back through Bangalore and over to the southeast state of Tamil Nadu. I have been drawn to the small, unpretentious, yet spiritually potent town of Thiruvanamalai (Tiru for short). It’s known as something of a hidden gem in small circles of travelers and pilgrims. I found Tiru to be especially beguiling. So much so, that I decidedly extended my stay (ahh the beauty of planning itineraries on the fly).

Chanting of sacred scriptures rise up and fill the air above the local ashram. Mysterious sadhus clad in orange garb rove the area seeking alms. The town is also home to one of the largest temples in India. All is overshadowed by the venerated Mt. Arunachula, where it’s an auspicious act to circumambulate the base and visit all 9 of the temples along the way.

Arunachula temple map

Scrambling up the blessed mountain requires that you remove your shoes (a compulsory sign of respect), and if you comply you can visit a cave where a great swami (Ramana Maharshi) lived and meditated for 19 years. I must admit however, that one of my favorite rituals was visiting the Manna Cafe each day for breakfast and dinner… the best food I’ve had so far in all of India!

Beyond Tiru, I bussed over to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The Lonely Planet, aka travel bible, spoke very highly of an artists’ enclave by the name of Mamallapuram.

Thiruvanamalai locals

Although it’s on the coast, it’s not a beach destination. It’s more renown for it’s rock carvings. It seemed nearly each and every native had a hammer and was chipping away at a small piece of soapstone or a monumental piece of granite. They were extremely skilled in the art, which no doubt was handed down to each subsequent generation within their families. Also, a fortunate stroke of serendipity landed me in Mamallapuram during a traditional Indian dance festival.

I scored a front row seat where I gaped at the mesmerizing

Thiruvanamalai jeweler

display of dance moves and goddess-like costumes.

From there I hired a car to get to the Madras airport and said goodbye to South India.

The plan was to rendezvous in Delhi with my new traveling companion… Andrea: my luminous albeit jet-lagged girlfriend.

**Note – as I write this, an enormous camel with jingle bells and colorful regalia just cruised by (quite swiftly I might add) the door of my internet cafe. Wow, this is definitely not Colorado.**

Shiva Temple elephant blessing

Back alley of Thiruvanamalai.

Traditional Indian dance fest.

One of Goa's hidden gems

After some deliberation, I decided to head for the beaches of Goa for a few days of sun and surf. I took a bucking bronco bus ride through six hours of winding mountain roads littered with potholes. Bruised and battered, I eventually arrived in the coastal city of Mangalore (not be be confused with Bangalore) and caught a train up the west coast on the Arabian Sea. I was stunned when I finally rolled into the quaint beach town of Agonda at the southern tip Goa. The beach was so pristine and yet so unpopulated. It was a sweeeeeet reward for the past day and half of traveling. I checked into a basic beach side hut and spent the next two days exploring the beach and the village area.

Dubare elephant + mahout

I took a short hiatus from traveling and checked into an authentic, ayurvedic retreat center for a few days. It was just outside of Mysore, surrounded by palm trees and sugar cane fields. Sort of off the grid, but extremely beautiful and peaceful. A welcomed experience after all of the recent hustle and bustle. For those of you who haven’t heard of ayurveda, it is the ancient complex science of indian herbal medicine and healing. It originated in India thousands of years ago. Traditional ayurvedic practitioners can work some serious holistic wonders. A 10,000 mile tune-up was just what the body needed.
Afterwards, the plan was to visit a wildlife national park, but the peak tourist season choked off all travel opportunities to that region. So I had to settle for something else. But I was at least able to see some elephants, and I didn’t have to go to a zoo to do it.
From there I paid a visit to one of India’s Tibetan refugee colonies – Bylakuppe. In the matter of a couple kilometers, the familiar Indian countryside dissolved into a haven of maroon and yellow robed monks. Bylakuppe’s crown jewel is the Namdroling Monastary which features a golden temple with none other than a 55-foot, gold-plated Buddha sitting inside. I spent the afternoon ducking under awnings and into temples trying avoid the persistent deluge of rainfall. There was plenty to see and do, but without a pre-arranged permit, foreigners aren’t allowed to stay overnight, which meant I couldn’t linger too long. There will be more opportunities to visit some Tibetan villages next month in the north, so I wasn’t too terribly disappointed.

Sravanabelagola pilgrims

A wise person once told me that 6 months of traveling is like 10 years of living. I’m truly coming to appreciate the validity of that statement. It seems that so many rich, new experiences are happening by the moment in this foreign land. Only a week has transpired on the conventional calendar since my last blog post, but it seems like I’ve had a month’s worth of experiences. Not the least of which was the dreaded Kali’s revenge, aka traveller’s sickness. I somehow managed to get it just 7 days out of the gate. Not sure what or where I ate/drank, but whatever it was reared its ugly head and knocked flat on my a$#!. It made the traveling experience all the more authentic I suppose. On the up side, I managed to bounce back in under 48 hours, without having to take any harsh antibiotic recourse.

I ditched the nauseating tumult of the big city (Bangalore) about 4 days ago. The all pervasive diesel fumes and traffic horns got old pretty quickly. Some traveling friends and I (did I mention that my mother has joined me for a portion of the journey?) all hired a car and driver to take us about 70 miles southwest to Mysore.

Sravanabelagola village

Home of the regal Mysore Palace, among other redeeming qualities. Driving on the highway here is more gut wrenching than driving in the city, due to the speed factor. Imagine weaving through bicyclists, tractors, oxen and oncoming traffic on your local 2 lane road… while going 60 mph. It’s a thrill, to say the least.

There is a lot to see and do here in the surrounding area. We ventured 2 hours outside of Mysore through some wonderful rural/farmland to the little village of Sravanabelagola. There is a free standing 70 ft. Jain sculpture carved out of one piece of granite (looks like a standing Buddha) perched high upon the village hilltop. It’s purportedly very sacred and definitely worth seeing. My favorite part, however, was on the way back to Mysore. We stopped off at a roadside temple run by a beautiful little rural family. After observing the short worship, we socialized and naturally I shot a few photos. They were as thrilled to see the images (on my LCD screen) as I was. Each of their faces carried a bright, joyful quality that is rare to see back in the states. We all had a lot of fun. I got their address so that I could mail them a few printed photos from the post office in Mysore.

Roadside temple family

We saw another highly revered, rock carving; a giant, black, cow… glistening in the late day sun, smothered in ghee (clarified butter). All hail the exalted “Nandi Bull.” I’m starting to get a little peeved at the **aggressive** soliciting directed at foreigners. Sooner or later, one begins to ask, is this truly a holy place? Or just a ruse to attract tourism dollars? Perhaps I’ve grown just a little jaded. I suppose we all participate in some form of capitalism or another. This particular form just happens to be extremely irritating.

All hail the exhalted Nandi Bull!

Roadside temple family

Roadside temple family