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.