Wanderlust

A woman surprised me on my plane ride to Cairo. After the bird (the Dubai shopping express, apparently) landed, she turned to me, smiled, and said “Welcome to Egypt.” It was a genuine, friendly gesture, one that we would see time and again during our travels through this incredible country.

Besides the pervasive human warmth, several things set Cairo apart:

-Safety. You can walk anywhere in the entire city, at any hour of the day, and be safe. This city of 20 million people has no dangerous neighborhoods (although petty theft is common). Can you name a single city in the United States with that kind of record?

-Trash. Many buildings here are old and dirty. It’s a national habit to chuck trash down any chute that will take it. The trash generally lands on the roofs of other old buildings. It’s not unusual to see old chairs, wire fencing, cardboard boxes, and any number of other non-recyclable items heaped up in piles that must have started when the buildings were first put up. (A group of Coptic Christians picks up all the recyclables and sort them in their town in another part of the city.)

-Cats. Cat-haters might call it an infestation. I like cats, which is a good thing, because there may be as many cats as people here. They beg for food, stare at your from elevator shafts, slink around corners looking for scraps. Calicos, tuxedos, tabbys, tortoiseshells–every variety of housecat you’ve ever met lives ferally in Cairo. Cat rescue aficionados would be eaten alive here.

-Stunning ancient neighborhoods. To list a couple:

The City of the Dead, where people inhabit ancient tombs
Mosque-lined Islamic Cairo, which hasn’t changed much since medieval times
Coptic Cairo, where you can visit the church where Mary and the child Jesus hid from King Herod’s lackeys

The other treasure here is the Egyptian Museum, which contains a mind-boggling number of mummies, stone pharoahs, tombs, obelisks, tomb accessories, papyrus paintings, trinkets, and other precious finds. The precision, care, and artistry with which ancient Egyptians constructed their edifices in unreal. It’s as though they had slide rules and laser etchers…but they didn’t.

The Pyramids
These are the real deal, the actual Pyramids of Giza. It is breathtaking to see them in real life. Although they are located on the outskirts of the city, they retain a sense of distant mystique. We explored the three pyramids and the nearby Sphinx (whose nose is in France, and beard in England) on the backs of camels.

According to our guide, in the old days, each pyramid was covered in smooth stone, so there was one red pyramid, one green pyramid, and one white pyramid. Imagine the splendor!

The combination of ancient and modern in Cairo, as well as its tolerant confluence of monotheistic religions (Muslim, Christian, and Jewish) make the city tintillating. It would be easy to spend two weeks here and never get bored. Strong lungs and willingness to play Frogger in traffic–a necessity here–help.

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…

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.

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