Kathakali Show

 According to the ticket stub, Kathakali is the classical dance form of Kerala, dating from  the early 17th century.  Two guys play drums and one guy plays very loud cymbals which, for good measure, have a microphone right in front of them.  The dancers themselves are two men, and while we're talking about the Dupont Circle High Heel Races, as you can see, they have a bit of makeup on.  The ticket goes on to say that "the actors do not speak or sing but enact the story through graceful movements and facial expressions."  The facial expressions were the best part.  The guy playing the girl - he's the one who doesn't look like a frog - did a warm-up act to illustrate the type of facial expressions they do.  It involves a lot of intricate eye-rolling, come hither looks, don't come hither looks, wait a minute maybe you should come hither after all looks, maybe I should go thither looks, holy crap what's that smell over thither looks, etc.  Anyway, after about 30 minutes of absolutely deafening drums and cymbals, the frog guy, who's actually some sort of heavenly prince, kills the guy in drag, who's actually the evil daughter of some infernal demon.  I guess you had to be there.  Anyway, the tickets cost four bucks, so it was worth it.

Monkee See, Monkey Doo

I had heard stories before about monkeys being mean, throwing their feces at people and doing other things people I know rarely do without having a few beers first.  We had only one prior substantive experience with monkeys, not counting our wilder college days, which I don't believe should be fair game for security background checks anyway.  Long ago in Bali, we went to the Monkey Forest.  We had a lovely time; the monkeys were funny, and our younger daughter, maybe six at the time, enjoyed holding out bananas to the monkeys, who took them and sent her thank you cards within two days.  Jody did not enjoy the experience - perhaps because she happened to be the one wearing the backpack stuffed with bananas, the monkeys got wind of it, and two of them climbed up her back and helped themselves.  Well, these monkeys in the nature preserve were jerks.  I'm sure there's some fancy scientific name for this particular species, but we were told they were - I don't have a delicate way of putting this - "blue-balled monkeys."  And in fact, not that I was staring or anything, they were.  Well, they were also aggressive little shits.  The one in the photo sitting on top of the fence, as we were standing in line to buy tickets for the lake boat ride, suddenly rushed right at me, bared its fangs and hissed.  The Indians in line parted like the Red Sea, so the bugger had a clear shot at me.  This was before I took the photo, mind you; I had done nothing to provoke the little bastard.  So even though later we saw several dozen baby monkeys swinging on vines, just like Boy in the Tarzan movies, and that was cute, monkeys still left a bad taste in my mouth.  Luckily, feces were not involved, so I am speaking metaphorically, but still.

Size Matters

Tortoises seem to be a bit bigger in India.  This one is from the tiger and elephant preserve near Thekkady.

Meanwhile Back in Kabul

Another minor earthquake yesterday morning around 8:30, said to have been 5.7 on the Richter scale.  I was at work and didn't feel it, but someone else in the office said he did.
In what was undoubtedly a complete coincidence, I think the annual DuPont Circle High Heel Halloween Race may be been happening at about that time.

http://www.google.com/images?q=dupont%20circle%20high%20heel%20race%20photos&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1253&bih=575

For some reason, these types of races don't take place here.

Views from the Elephant

 Trudging around the tropical plants, when there wasn't the drama of suspiciously loud thuds dropping behind us, we examined the plants with a higher vantage point than from the ground.  The first two are banana trees, and what struck me was, bananas don't hang down - they point up.  You might have to click on the photo to enlarge to see it well, but trust me, they do.  I don't remember that in the Jungle Book movie.
The third photo is more coffee beans - nothing very different from photos already posted.

Elephant Heads

 They are shaped weird.  If you happen to sit on an elephant's back, this is what you would see, at least if you were facing forward. The two hemispheres are separated by a much bigger crevice than I expected.  They also have this sparse, fuzzy hair sticking straight up.  It's on their backs, too, though not as long.  Admittedly, I don't know if it always sticks up - maybe it gave him goose bumps to have us sitting on his back.  Maybe he was cold.  I don't know if their ears are always mottled, like this one's; maybe Indian elephants are different that way from African ones.  I'm no elephant expert, though I thought the main difference was the tusks.  But I did think the head shape was curious.

Goats are Cute

Sure, they eat trash and poop wherever they like and probably are disease-infested.  But that description applies to a large percentage of my friends, co-workers and immediate family members, too.  The fundamental difference is: goats rising up on their hind legs to eat leaves and bonk their heads against trees are just damn cute, especially seen from a distance.

Duck, Duck, Duck Ad Infinitum

 Our houseboat went plowing through a large flock of ducks swimming and diving and eating drifting plants.  The ducks just barely got out of the way, not very disturbed, and then re-formed in our wake.

Views from the Houseboat

 Our houseboat had only one bedroom, which was fine, since that's all we needed.  But lots of the other houseboats floating around had 3 bedrooms, including an upstairs loft.  And occasionally we passed enormous houseboats like the one in the fourth photo below with up to 8 rooms.  We don't have that many friends, and we certainly don't want to be on a boat with that many strangers.

What Happened on the Houseboat

Briefly put, I got lei'd.  We both did.  I don't believe that's happened to me in over a decade.  I remember it happened in Hawaii in '91, and I'm pretty sure it also happened in Phuket and/or Boracay, though still, that's 15 years ago.  It was quite unexpected, but the photographic evidence is incontrovertible - we got lei'd in India.

By the way, the drinks were non-alcoholic.

Houseboats

 After Thekkady and the nature preserve, we spent the next day and night on a houseboat.  In retrospect, I think it was wise decision to upgrade from the basic model shown in the first photo.  We cruised up and down the bay and estuary for about six hours before it got dark and we had to dock for the night.  The houseboat had a crew of two, one pilot and one cook.  We had all our meals on the houseboat, even breakfast at 4:30 am so that we could sail to where the car was waiting to take us to the airport for Goa.

Oops, There Goes Another

 Rubber tree plants along the road driving from Munnar to Thekkady, and thus coming down significantly in altitude from the tea lands.  They are thin, and their leaves are relatively small.  Most of the trees were cut in four grooved rings, and frequently they had a tap like the kind used to collect maple syrup sap.  The plastic lining in the grooves presumably helps keep the latex sap from congealing.  At any rate, these trees were everywhere.

Flowers in Thekkady

 These are flowers growing outside the hotel in Thekkady, near the Elephant and Tiger Preserve. 

Indian Newspaper Headlines of Interest

OK, the first one is just an unfortunate name.  But the second ...  Somehow, with the second one, even though the story itself is tragic, you think that the copy editor fully knew how this was going to sound to the reader, and wanted to see if he could get away with writing about probing sodomy angles.

Goa Beach

 Here are views of and near the beach in Goa.  The Hindu temple is a block from the beach. 

Notes from Delhi Airport

There is a bizarre system for taking a taxi at the airport in New Delhi in the unlikely event your driver does not show up, which of course happened to us.  Once you've read and re-read all the name plaques looking for yours and given up all hope that the driver is there, you wander over to the fixed rate cab booth.  You pay whatever the rate is for your destination - in our case, about $5, which probably included about a 300% profit margin - and, once they get the printer working, they give you two copies of a receipt that includes the license plate number of your cab.  Theoretically, the radio taxi dispatcher has already called your driver and told him you're waiting.  You go to the streetside waiting area, show your receipt to yet another dispatcher, who squawks something into his walkie talkie, presumably telling your driver to pull right on up.  Unfortunately, in the one lane allotted to the cabs, at any given moment ten or more cabs are jockeying for position, and the line behind them stretches back farther than you can see, so even if your cab driver has received the message that you are there, paid up and ready to roll, he could be miles away in the parking lot.  Plus, patience is not a virtue people of any nationality waiting for a cab at the airport show, and so regardless of receipt license plate numbers, people are piling into whichever free cab they can find.  I'm sure that when the system was designed, it all made perfect sense.

We had the by now customary several minutes delay at immigration as everyone paused to wonder how Jody could have thought she could get away with forging a visa with an expired exit date that predates the issuance date, and then, once everybody realizes not even malicious foreigners could be that stupid and that the error probably did indeed lie with the issuing consulate, we are on our way through the thoroughly modern Delhi airport.  Lots of good shops, especially a great chocolate shop.  We decide to get a coffee with our last remaining rupees - we have enough for one cappuccino, leaving us with 15 rupees (30 cents) left over in cash.  The coffee shop has a book for customer comments.  Most people have written things like "very good coffee" and "tres aimables" and "muy bueno" and scribblings in languages I don't read, but the last comment catches our eye.  Someone has written, "They threw hot water on my baby and told me she was ugly." 

Goa Beach

We spent three days in Goa, mainly at the beach and walking in the beachside towns.  We walk the length from Baga Beach to Calangute Beach and then toward a cargo ship at the bend in the coastline - about 10 km each way.  All told we walk about 25 km each day, which is pretty good - that's Camino de Santiago distances, on an average day. In an effort to avoid the vendors selling necklaces, massages, fruit, sarongs, etc, Jody perfects a technique that involves her crying out "Dive!," then plunging into the surf, where the vendors don't want to go because their goods will get wet.  I just wave them off with my hand and ignore them; being a spokesman for ten years gives you pretty thick skin.

For breakfast we are eating mainly Malabar paratha, which are heavenly thin buttery flaky breads, tomato and coconut chutneys and sambar, a type of stew.  The hotel also offers cinnamon rolls, but I scoff at these pathetic mockeries of Cinnabons, barely bigger than an Eisenhower dollar and with no frosting whatsoever.  This country will never become a superpower as long as its pastries weigh under a pound each and provide fewer than 4000 calories a pop.

Nearly all the buses and taxis in Goa have hoods decorated with bright orange flower leis.  At one point we passed several parked taxis festooned with the flowers, and there was a goat eating the flowers right off one of the cars.  People were playing cricket on the beach, and it's no more comprehensible a sport up close than it is from a distance.  A couple of oxen make it onto the beach, but the water buffaloes stay in the rice paddies.  Except for the young men, it seems like Indians just wear normal clothes (ie, saris) to the beach, not bathing suits, and then they just go right into the water in long pants, full-length saris, etc.  And the ubiquitous crows were all over the beach, pecking at fish that had washed up and scavenging for scraps.

We Go For a Ride

Since it was already raining, we decided not to pay the extra 300 rupees for the "Elephant Shower" option.  The elephant tramped around a circuit lined with palm and banana trees and various spice plants.  Getting up onto the elephant was an adventure - you could either grab the tail and hoist yourself up, or let him swing you up with his trunk.



OK, not really.  You stand on a bamboo platform and wait for the elephant to come shuffling up, sidle next to the platform, and hope he doesn't move away while you're clambering on.  But getting swung up by the trunk just sounds cooler, plus that's what happens in the Jungle Book, so that's what I'm going to tell everyone happened.



About twenty minutes into the bouncy ride for us, a short constitutional for the elephant, we heard an extraordinarily loud thud behind us, as if someone had dropped a 50 pound suitcase on the airport floor as you're waiting at the baggage carousel.  Well, we turned around to see.  It looked like it might have weighed 50 pounds, but it was most definitely not a suitcase.  I envision the elephant smiling at this point as three more heavy thuds dropped behind him, nearly landing on the elephant minder's feet.  The elephant moved a bit more jauntily afterwards.

English

They speak English, sort of, in India, mixed in with Hindi and other languages.  Spoken Hindi, if that's what we were hearing, is incredibly fast.  It was entertaining to watch TV at the two hotels where we stayed that actually had TVs.  We watched an Indian version of Hell's Kitchen where successful chefs received a "Master Chef" apron and frequently blatantly manipulated the judges by crying and getting the sympathy vote.  Other than that, we had no clue what the conversation was.  We watched part of one drama where some dorky guy was trying to build an office building, but was approached by some evil rival.  They argue incomprehensibly for a bit, then the evil guy hands the hero a document entitled "Stop Work Notice," and the hero says, quite clearly, "Holy shit."

Trying to resolve the various travel mix-ups with the tour company by telephone was practically impossible; we usually had absolutely no idea what they were saying.  Our driver's cell phone had a ring tone that played a song that sounded for all the world like "Hallelujah, hallelujah, your love makes me sane." Given his driving, we thought any measure of sanity was worth listening to it ring every five minutes, though after about the twentieth time, just barely.  Finally, we decided that it was actually saying "your love makes me sing," which, while more logical, isn't nearly as much fun.

During a tea plantation walk, the guide turned to me and said, "Sir, another bagel."  I paused, thinking, first, I haven't had even one bagel yet, and second, should I really have a second one so close to dinner?  He insisted, telling me, "Sir, a bagel is coming."  I was still debating whether I should wait for it, and if it would still be warm by the time it arrived, when I heard the car coming, and it turns out that the Malabar pronunciation of "vehicle" sounds a hell of a lot like "bagel."

Driving in India

We had a car and driver for the first six days to take us around southern India, up to the time we left for Goa.  The driver was a very nice man named John.  He was very courteous and helpful.  He also drove like an insane man with delusions of being Richard Petty who had bet his very soul on his willingness to play chicken with absolutely every vehicle, pedestrian, animal and natural obstacle such as a landslide that we encountered.  I believe the word "careening" must have been invented to describe Indian traffic patterns, since every time we dared open our eyes we saw trucks and cars zooming right at us.  The center dividing line in the roads is merely a waste of paint here.  Coming from Afghanistan, we thought the condition of the roads was actually pretty good - there were parts that were paved - though heavy rains and frequent mudslides had taken a toll, and there were many places in the winding mountain roads where the path narrowed precipitously and the potholes threatened to take the axle.  In the tea hills, the lone road crossed over a stream and was encouragingly marked, "Danger: Weak Bridge."  Since there were no other road options, I'm not sure what we were supposed to do with that information.  And nearly all the trucks had slogans or names emblazoned on the front, with the most frequent being "My God," "My Lord," "Allah," etc, presumably the last words of the drivers in the cars they were aiming straight at.

We drove past monkeys climbing the banana trees, rubber trees with cuts to extract the latex, the Eastern Curry Powder Company factory down in one valley, and thousands of election campaign posters.  The most prevalent sign we saw was for the Communist Party, though often the hammer in the hammer and sickle would be replaced by stalks of corn.

Tourism in India

 This Delhi-based travel agency was not the one that arranged our trip, though I'm pretty sure they were involved somehow, maybe as a a sub-contractor.

Roadside Views

 Still in Munnar, this time near a nature preserve that is the home to some sort of very fast wild goat.  There are no wild goats fast or slow in these photos.  But there are wild honey bee hives.  We stopped just after we saw a man selling bottles of honey on the side of the road.  There were two trees there, at least 60' high, probably more - if you click on the bottom photos to enlarge them, you can clearly see all of the bee hives in their branches.  The roadside peddler, and apparently others like him, somehow climb up these trees, smoke the bees, grab the honey and get back down the tree.