Allen Riddell's blog-a-roo

Delhi day 3 part 2 Red Fort

2010-10-05T13:13:00.000-04:00

Walking to the metro from the zoo seemed like an exhausting undertaking after walking for 3 hours at the zoo. It felt as if we had been walking for days due to the tropical heat, and well... the walking. We decided to take a tuk-tuk from the zoo back to the station, and decided to take the metro up the yellow line to the chandni chowk station. We figured we would check out the shopping in chandni chowk and then go over to the red fort, which is where the emperors of India ruled many, many years ago.
Chandi chowk wasn't what I expected. As soon as we stepped off the metro we were surrounded on all sides by beggars. Nearby was a giant pile of trash, I suppose it was a dump... although, most dumps aren't in the middle of shopping areas. The shopping honestly was a little overwhelming to me because there was so much going on. I couldn't really focus on one stand because there were so many. We ended up not shopping at all, and instead just sort of glazy eyed stumbling around and looking dumb.
We found the red fort by looking for a mosque that we never found. We basically just picked one direction and kept walking until the red fort was just sort of in front of us. The entrance price was 5-10 times as much for us (as usual) but this time the security guard let us take both of our bags in, even though one was too big. The red fort is ENORMOUS! There are multiple parts inside to go and look at, and right outside the front gate is a mob of touts and tourists. Most of the white people we saw in Delhi were at the red fort.
The pictures we took of the front of the red fort don't really do it justice. Its something you really have to see to realize how massive it is.

The walls around the red fort seem to sprawl forever, but inside is where the beauty is. Its easy to see from the outside why they call it the red fort. After passing through security, you come to the main gate.

Inside of this gate is a row of souvenir shops that were woefully over priced. We were even warned by the tuk-tuk driver that took us to the metro not to shop inside of there.

After passing through the shops you empty out to the inner gate...

After passing through the inner gate, there are some statues of guys holding guns, without guns. I still scratch my head at this one. I took two pictures, but one is blurry. The blurry guy is holding a rifle, which maybe is invisible? This guy is holding a handgun, which I guess is invisible.

The center of the red fort houses a place where the emporer would make statements and hold court. It had beautiful arches, and a pretty awesome marble thrown.

The pillars of the center of the red fort are very awesome, even with the obligatory heavily armed security guard milling about (they are EVERYWHERE in the red fort).

The main thing you do at the thrown apparently is to stunt like a boss. Or in other words, to act super tough in front of the thrown. Mandy and I stood and watched as young Indian man after young Indian man filed up and made essentially the same pose while his friends took pictures. It was actually so crowded with people stunting hard that we didn't bother to get our picture taken in front of it.

As you can see there is also some sort of bird netting around the marble thrown, which Mandy asked, "What do you think that is there for?" and I said, "To keep birds out." and she then pointed out to me, "But there are birds in the net." and we had a laugh as she said, "I guess its to keep those birds in?"
One of the emperors build himself a private mosque on the grounds which was locked up. I couldn't read the plaque that had the specifics on it because it was weather worn. Here is the private mosque though...

Near the mosque was a beautiful palace like area called the Khas Mahal, with a sign explaining how the emperor would have elephant and lion fights.

Elephant and Lion fights? Its good to be the king!
Anyways, here are some pictures of the beautiful and incredible marble of this palace...

And of course, the obligatory heavily armed guards...

While I'm clicking away like a camera happy idiot (pics related), a guard approaches us and flags me down. Do remember these are heavily armed guards, each holding some sort of semi-automatic machine gun. The guard calls me closer, "Sir..." and Mandy and I look over at this serious guard with a very serious gun. I meekly reply, "Yes?" He asks me, "What country are you from?" which is a very common question, as I'm sure you'd have guessed by now. I reply, "USA" The guard smiles at me, give me a thumbs up and says, "Looking good."
We walk away smiling, after giving the guard a thumbs up back, and head over to an area where people were sitting. The red fort had a sort of water fountain design laid into its foundation to feed water to various places around the grounds. Even though it was raining quite a lot around the time we were in India, all of these water drains were empty.

As we follow this duct, all the Muslims sitting in the background of the picture get up and walk away. This leaves plenty of seating, and as we have been walking for about three years at this point (it feels like at least) we take it upon ourselves to take their place and have a break. Shortly after sitting down an Indian man comes up and sits next to us and strikes up a conversation. If you can call it a conversation that is, because the man speaks little English. I of course speak no Hindi, which doesn't help things. There is nothing quite like that awkward feeling when two people try to talk who don't know any of each others language. At some point in the conversation you inevitably just end up blurting out the words you do know, just to say something. "Toilet restaurant." he would say, or something similar. Mandy and I would smile, "Toilet restaurant indeed." The man would smile back.
Eventually he had some friends join him that spoke English, and we all talked about where we were from, and who he was, and why he was practicing English and so on. We spent some time with his friends, and eventually they asked us to pose for a picture with them for their camera, and we of course agreed. I tell you we are in more Indian pictures than you can even imagine.
The ducts of the water trails all lead towards this building, which is supposed to be surrounded by water, but is dry.

That is basically most of what we saw in the red fort, or at least the pictures I thought would be worth sharing. We walked out with the Indian guys we were hanging out with, I didn't write down their names so I don't remember any of their names. I also didn't take their picture. At this point in the trip, I was still focused on places, not so much people. Later some of the people we met I got their names and took pictures, but only when they would let me.
After getting outside the red fort, we decided we didn't want to hassle with the rush hour metro squash, so we took a tuk-tuk. I decided to video tape this ride, and when I find a reasonable way to get video on here, I'll upload it. It will probably a post by itself, and I'll probably just create a youtube account and embed it on here (if I can figure that out).
This was our last full day in New Delhi, and we had to get an early night sleep because we had a train to catch at 8 A.M. in the morning to Agra. So the next update (unless its a tuk-tuk ride) we will be in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. I hope those of you interested in this journey are enjoying this. I'm updating as I can, and will continue to do so. Do take a second and realize the depth of this trip... if you have read all of these updates, realize you have read the first city, in the first country of a 4 country almost one month trip. I promise the other countries won't be as long because they were not so action packed...
Thanks for reading.
Peace and Love,
Allen

Delhi day 3 part 1 the zoo

2010-10-04T11:54:00.000-04:00

I awoke bright and early at 5 A.M. Indian time on the 3rd day in Delhi and decided to use the early start to use the internet and update day 1 and upload some picture to flickr. Some Aussie girl came down and booted me off around 7:30, no worries though. Mandy wanted to sleep some more, so I ventured off on my own for a while to take some pictures. While walking and clicking a young Indian in his 20s named Raj joined me.
Seeing as we are practically the only white people in all of India, many young Indians have approached us to practice English. Raj told me as he approached that he only wanted to practice English, as i am sure he knows we have been harassed by touts to no end. Raj and I take a leisurely stroll and talk about Delhi and Kentucky, then when we reach the metro he waves, thanks me, and goes about his day. Even though I took several pictures on that walk, I neglected to take one of Raj.
I head back to woodcastle to find Mandy awake, after a bit of discussion we decide to give the zoo another go. We head out to the metro and back to the same station as the day before. For some odd reason we decide to walk from the metro to the zoo, I think partly because we were tired of haggling with tuk-tuk drivers, and also because we thought it wouldn't be that far. Well it was far, and we also didn't actually know where we were going, so of course we got lost.
Poor advice from some random cop got us turned around. It seemed as though almost every adult we asked had no idea what "zoo" meant. We asked the cop "Is the zoo down this street?" and he nodded his head and said "Yes." but we later found out, he spoke no English. We wandered down the street he sent us down until a tuk-tuk driver pulled over to hassle us for a ride. We took the opportunity to try and get our bearings asking, "Do you know where the zoo is?" and he replied, "Zoo?" We then said, "Yes zoo." and he replied, "Zoo?" So then, thinking that he needed more, we say, "Zoological park?" He mumbles, "Zooso...." At that point we get out our map and point out the zoo to him.
"Ah..." The tuk-tuk driver pronounced, and Mandy and I smiled. Then he motions past us, which confused us both very much. We look over to where he motions to find a young girl standing with a young man looking at a giant map. The driver calls out in Hindi and the girl comes over saying "What?" in English. We ask her "Do you know where the zoo is?" which she interprets as meaning we are trying to get the tuk-tuk driver to take us to the zoo. Of course, this is not the case. We are just trying to find out where the zoo is. The girl looks at the driver and says "Zoological park?" as she takes our map and points at the zoo. Mandy and I have a quick laugh, then more Hindi between the girl and the driver, while we begin to realize the tuk-tuk driver has no clue what, or where the zoo is.
After a bit of back and forth the girl turns to us as says, "I think you go up this street..." motioning back the way we just walked from the cop "take a left..." which is the direction we were walking before we asked for directions "then it should be on your left." In other words, we were going in the right direction BEFORE asking for directions. We smile and nod at the girl, and she smiles and nods back, then we part ways leaving a very confused tuk-tuk driver in our dust.
We continue our adventure, and it leads us directly by the grounds for the commonwealth games, which is surrounded by controversy and accusations of corruption. However, it seems the hype leading up to the games maybe unfounded, as recent reports show the games going off without a problem. Most of the heavy construction we saw while in New Delhi was commonwealth game related, which makes me wonder what the city is like without such a high profile event happening. Guess I'll have to find out another time.
After walking for what felt like forever we discovered a giant building that we quickly discovered bordered the zoo.

As it turned out, this is the old fort in New Delhi, or Purana Qila. I didn't take many pictures of this fort because we were tired of walking and just desperately wanting to find the zoo. There is a little lake in front of it that I got a picture of, mainly to show the juxtaposition of old world fort with new world paddle boats. It just kind of made me laugh.

I don't have any pictures from inside the fort because when we tried to go in after the zoo, we decided it was too much money. In India everything has two prices, one for Indians, and one for foreigners. The zoo for example was 50 rupees for foreigners and 10 rupees for Indians. The Purana Qila costs foreigners 250 rupees to get in, and Indians 20 rupees, which we thought was garbage, so we didn't go in at all. BTW, could you imagine the law suits if we tried to do that in America?
The zoo had its own issues as well as Purana Qila. It was cheap, however there were no bags allowed. We had all our cameras and everything in 2 different bags, only one of which was considered small enough to take in. So we had to jam all of our money, passports, and important papers into whatever pockets we could find and check our big bag for another 10 rupees. THEN we had 2 cameras, one of which was a camcorder and they charged us an additional 50 rupees to use it. Granted, all told it was still around 3 dollars US for the two of us to go into the zoo and take pictures and video. It still stings a little to me that we had to pay so much more for EVERYTHING though.
The New Delhi zoo is unlike any zoo I have ever been in. Its very large and has a very large selection of animals. The grounds are not well kept, and half the zoo was actually flooded while we were there. Indians also behave quite differently than Americans do while enjoying the zoo. Our first encounter at the zoo was with some beautiful storks and water foul...

Since I had to pay for my video camera, you can be damn sure I took video in the zoo, and right after this video ends a young Indian boy throws a half bottle of pepsi in at the birds, splashing the water, and generally disturbing the scene. They boy then went over to a trashcan and began to tip it over, but then Mandy and I gave him the ol' stink eye, and he decided not to tip any trash over. Here is the scene JUST before the carnage. (The horrible bottle throwing carnage...)

From my experiences so far, Indians don't give a crap about trash. They throw it where ever they want. There are not trash cans to be found anywhere. I didn't see one recycling bin during our entire time in India. The zoo wasn't trashy, they had people going around and cleaning up. The zoo also had trash cans. The cities we visited though were all piled high with trash, both natural (think cow poop) and man made. When I say that India stinks, I don't mean only pleasant smells.
After the birds we saw some lion monkeys, which hid in the grass while we first were there...I got a video, but this other video is taking forever to upload, so I don't know if I'm gonna include it... I'll check how it looks, and may upload more videos later.

After the monkeys we found some rinos and wild roaming peacocks...

After those wild peacocks we found a caged all white (albino?) peacock. It put on quite a show for us, shaking its tail feathers and hooting it up. I have a video of it, but... apparently this thing hates videos. I'll have to do some experimenting to figure it out. Until then... still photos...

The most remarkable thing to me about the New Delhi zoo was how close we could get to the hippos. I've never been this close to a live hippo before. We stood about 3 feet from a hippo, which was exciting, and a little frightening. There was a stone barrier to keep us separate, but I get the feeling that if the hippo really wanted to, it could just jump right over that wall in a heartbeat.

We even got to see some baby hippos, which Mandy and I both thought looked like overgrown pigs.

After the hippos we kind of wandered around the zoo for a while. We got stuck at one point as the road/walkway we were following was totally flooded. We turned and tried to find another way, finding this alternate route totally flooded too. Some other zoo goers were wading through the water, but we decided not to soak ourselves and find another route. Eventually we backtracked our path far enough to find a dry path, and it led us directly to the howler monkeys.

What would a trip to the zoo in India be without seeing some tigers? We had a hard time finding the tigers, due to blocked paths caused by flooding, and a map that wasn't very clear and not to scale. It even said on the map, "Map not to scale" which I thought was very strange. Basically the map says on it, "Map not accurate, good luck." We were determined to see tigers though, and after much searching... we found one.

This Indian zoo was very different than American zoos I have been to. For one, that was the only white bengal tiger we could find. It seems like the last time I went to the Cincinnati zoo, they had like 5 bengal tigers, and that zoo is in Ohio... not India. The zoo was giant, and had lots of animals, but it was flooded and in bad shape. There was overgrown grasses and weeds everywhere. The animals seemed in good condition, and well taken care of, so that is very good. The way the zoo goers treated the animals wasn't always the best though.
There were clearly marked signs everywhere saying not to taunt the animals, some with a graphic of a person in a cage with animals taunting the person to try to force people to empathize with the animals. These signs didn't work. At every large cat, groups of Indians would stand around and hiss and yell at the cage trying to get a response. At the howler monkeys this taunting took on a comical call and response with the monkeys shouting back at the people. Although I felt bad for the monkeys, I couldn't help but laugh.
We spent close to 3 hours walking around the zoo and enjoying the animals and the people. Children are children no mater what culture or language, and its always a treat to watch children discover how incredible animals are. We shared many laughs, and many smiles with all sorts of people. The joy of interacting with animals transcends language, and I thought we were pretty lucky to be sharing this moment with these people.

New Delhi day 2 part 3

2010-09-30T22:18:00.000-04:00

After we enjoyed our lunch at the Lodi Garden restaurant, we debated on whether to go to the zoo (which may be closed) or heading to the India Gate and heading back to woodcastle afterwords. In the end India Gate won, and we headed out to argue with another tuk-tuk driver over the price of our ride. Whatever a tuk-tuk driver says first is always too much. Its your job to act offended and upset that he would insult you with such a price. You have to talk them down as much as possible, and even after talking them down to a fair price, we usually ended up with a much higher price than if it were metered. I call this the "white tax".
Our driver drops us off directly in front of the tourist police, who are on hand to try in vein to dispel some of the touts in the area. "Tout" is the term westerners (Europeans) use to describe the hawkers and panhandlers that offer a service. A step above bums, because they offer to take your picture, or sell you some useless crap for a price. Any tourist area is filled with touts in India. They weep down on us like vultures to a rotting corpse, and even when the tout directly in front of the line selling the same exact item as everyone else behind him gets a negative response, the rest still pile up to ask if you want to buy theirs.
The main "service" at the India gate is to take your picture. Its very similar to walking into an amusement park like Kings Island. You walk in, and suddenly some caring worker comes up and offers a free picture that won't take but a second. Of course, a few minutes later someone has a print for you, then they hassle the shit out of you to buy the print. When we say no to one, another one comes up right behind asking, "Take your picture for free?"
Now I would like to take a second to explain "we." When I say "we" in reference to touts, tuk-tuks, ordering food, etc. understand that I mean me. Women are not given the same standing in India as men, so everything... EVERYTHING... goes through me. It reminds me of the episode of futurama when they go back in time to the Roswell New Mexico ufo crash. Leela and the Professor try to go and buy a microwave from a store (before microwaves were available for sale) and the salesman says to the professor "Sir, your wife is hysterical. So I will direct this to you."
So I spend a good half of the day saying "No." or my new mantra "No thank you." saying both while using negative body language, meanwhile Mandy follows behind smiling as if floating on a cloud. I think during the entire time in India, she was only hassled three times. I was hassled constantly.
After passing through the line of touts, we make it to the India gate.

Its very impressive. Its size is pretty hard to determine, so I paid someone 10 rupees to climb up some scaffolding to show its size.

Just kidding, he did that for free. I'm not entirely sure what work they were doing, but they were doing some sort of work on the India Gate while we were there. Probably in anticipation of the Commonwealth games. We took several pictures of the gate, so enjoy.

Here one of two fountains that flanked the gate, and as we took these pictures, people were taking pictures of us.

This was a smaller building behind the gate...

It wasn't tourist season in India while we were there, so we kept a running count of the other white people we saw, and the final count for New Delhi was approximately 12. That's 12 other white people in a city with a population around 18 million. Yeah, we stood out. We were almost celebrity status, especially with Mandy's piercing and my long hair and goat-tee. Strangers would take our pictures constantly, and would also ask if they could pose with us in pictures. We would gladly strike a pose, and they would walk away with a huge smile. It has been fun! I wonder how many Indian scrap books we will end up in!
The India gate is impressive, but it is just a gate. After a few minutes there, you have pretty much done all you can there, so we left pretty quickly. We passed by the same touts who hassled us on the way in, and they hassled us again on the way out. A teacher asked us for money for books, which wouldn't be the first in India we would later find out. Men pulled back on rubber band helicopters and would let them fly and point them out as they drifted down to catch them, and then try to sell them to us. This wouldn't be the last time we would see that either.
One direction of the gate points towards the presidents house, which we wanted to see, but were far too tired to walk to. As you can see, it isn't close...

Its the one in the middle off in the distance. The other direction from the presidents house, and practically in the shadow of the India Gate (one of the main tourist attractions to New Delhi) was a tent city.

Tent cities are incredibly common, as well as shanty towns and housing built from the most basic of supplies. There are far too many makeshift housing for it all to be made up of untouchables, and they are all over the city in good and bad areas. All the construction sites I saw had shanty/tent housing surrounding the developments. The workers live on the job site, work on the job site, and eat on the job site. I can only imagine that when they are done, they just move to another job site and build another temporary house.
We pass by the tent city and walk back to the metro. Its only a hop, skip, and jump back to our station. Then our short walk back to woodcastle to rest in safety and solitude. The internet? Taken, again.

Delhi day 2 part 2 (here comes pictures)

2010-09-26T14:06:00.000-04:00

The Lodi Garden is a beautiful sprawling park nestled comfy into New Delhi's south side. We arived there after a 2 hour detour thanks to a dishonest tuk-tuk driver. We left him outside next to a police officer who was leaning up against the wall next to the gates we passed through. After the gates, we immediately pass over a bridge that leads us into the park. Somehow neither Mandy or myself bothered to look over the bridge, which we would discover later went over a pond that we spent a good portion of the afternoon looking for.
Mandy wanted to go see the Lodi garden because of the enormous lily pads, so large in fact that they can support the weight of a human. Ok, well maybe a small child human. Like a one or two year old or something, certainly under 30 pounds. We came to find those enormous lily pads, and so after crossing over the bridge (and not looking over the side of it) we began criss-crossing the park searching for them.
The first thing worth noting that we came across was some sort of brown building that workers were working on.

Now before I stick my foot in my mouth (in other words sit back and get comfortable while I go ahead and stick my foot in my mouth) let me clearly state that I do not understand the subtleties of the Indian caste system. Any observations or statements I make about it are from an uneducated outsider looking in at a culture that I am sure is more complicated than its easily accessible veneer. Ok then, on with it. There were "untouchables", or lower caste, working on this brown building as you can see in the photo. These untouchables, like most others I saw on work sites had bedding to sleep on at the job site. I'm just making a note on this now, I may talk more about it later in length.
The brown building was next to a rose garden of sorts that was nice, but not nearly as built up as the rose garden in the arboretum in Lexington, so I didn't take a picture of it. There were 3 beautiful hawks in the garden, huge things, the size of vultures... could have been eagles I suppose; they flew away before I could get my camera ready. There are lots of exotic beautiful birds in India, most of them far faster than me and my camera.
We left the roses and to our great surprise there was a towering building just over the hill, tucked in behind some trees.

As we approached to take a clearer picture of it,

we noticed just to the left of this beautiful building was an even larger building!

These buildings date back to the 15th-16th century, and you can read all about them here:

I found lots of things interesting about these buildings, like the intricacy of the carvings on the arches.

And of course, the buildings themselves are quite impressive!

These buildings were the first few we found, but while searching for our giant lily pads, we would find other sights in this wonderful garden. We would walk down beautiful tree shaded paths...

We would even find giant cement "lily pads" (its what Mandy called them anyways)...

As we continued to explore the garden we kept noticing something quite unusual. Well, unusual for India, not for us. The park was filled with couples cuddling! In India public displays of affection are frowned upon, as they are sometimes interpreted as overtly sexual in nature. We discovered that the Lodi garden is a sort of "make out point" for young Indian couples. No necking mind you, just gently caressing and boy girl and holding. We would later have a tuk-tuk driver explain, "USA has secrets, they keep them in open. India secrets, they hush hush." It seems that we accidentally found the hush hush make out park, and somehow we felt right at home.
We continued our exploration, and passed an awe struck Indian girl mouth agape at the seen that was unfolding. Couples caressing! My word! We found it rather cute. We discovered another strange little building, I'm still not sure what its for, but it looks old!

On the other side of this weird little building we found a path that led to a bonsai exhibit. I liked the little jagged brick path to it, so I took a picture.

This little path led to the bonsai display, which was a very nice touch to a huge sprawling park.

After walking one relatively straight line through the park with no sign of water (hello, bridge?) we made a loop back to find yet another huge building.

This building had a giant wall around it that we followed.

We followed the wall around to the front, but the gate was locked so we couldn't go inside of this massive fort like building. When we looked away from the locked gate though we found water!

Precious water! The nectar of life! There also was a very nice stone bridge over it, just large enough for two people to wander over somehow miraculously oblivious to any water below!
Now that we have found the water, we follow it to find the man sized lily pads. After searching and searching we find lily pads, sure, but not fit for a grown man. Hell these lily pads are barely fit for a newborn.

It certainly is a pretty scene, what with the ducks, and the lily pads floating all around, but not the giant lily pads we were promised by some guidebook. Stupid guidebook. Oh btw, here is the view from the bridge we walked over on our search for the pond...

After the crushing defeat of small lily pads, we decided to go and get some food at a nearby restaurant we found while inspecting the bonsai garden. The restaurant was called "The Lodi garden restaurant" and sat right next to one of the gates to get into the Lodi garden. The closer we got to the Lodi garden restaurant, the more the sky began turning dark. By the time we reached the gate, a light sprinkle had started, and we could hear thunder in the distance.
The Lodi garden restaurant is less than 20 feet from the gate, which was pretty fortunate. At the reservation station outside the restaurant a man greeted us as a gentle rain began to fall down all around us. By the time we said "Two please." a torrential downpour began, not unlike the daily downpours in Floriday that creep out of no where. Quite perfect timing on our part.
We ran to the restaurant and got seated quickly. The food was western, which was kind of a disappointment, and it was also more expensive than we would have hoped. They had the first (and only) wifi I found in India, and I took full advantage of the opportunity and updated the Amsterdam post (see below) that I had made on my iphone earlier.
I took a picture to show how 2-3 inches of rain fell while we sat and ate, but the picture didn't turn out very good, so I'm not going to share it. The restaurant was a great halfway point for our day, and respite from the rain. The restaurant was not a respite for everyone however. A worker stood out in the downpour squeegeeing the porch in an empty pursuit of dryness. We watched him squeegee and felt kind of bad for him, but soon enough the rain slowed down. After the rain stopped, we made our way out to the road again, after taking a picture of our dry rest stop.

At this halfway point, I'm stopping. I'll continue again tomorrow!

Peace and Love,
Allen

New Delhi day 2 (Whenever internet be found) part 1 (all text)

2010-09-25T19:05:00.000-04:00

We were not sure what to do on our second day in Delhi. We were full of ideas, but most of them involved sights in opposite directions. We narrowed it down to either going north to Red Fort and Chandni Chowk (A massive fort and shopping area respectively) or to go south to the Lodi gardens, Hanuman's tomb, and the zoo. After a bit of back and forth debate, we decided to head south to the zoo, and then to the Lodi gardens. If we felt up to it, we would then go to Hanuman's tomb.
As we headed down our alley we were greeted by a tuk-tuk driver at the end of our road, where our road and Mickey mouse road meet. The tuk-tuk driver was very polite, but very insistent that we ride with him. He asked us where we were going, and I replied "To the station, we will walk." he laughed and asked, "Well where after the station?" I smiled and told him, "To the zoo." He smiled back and told us that he would take us there straight away for only 100 rupees. I told him no, because the walk to the station is free, and the ride on the metro would be something like 40 rupees for the both of us.
The driver followed us down the road and continued trying to convince us. He said, "What I tell you is a fair price. I will take you straight there to the zoo. If it is the price you are unhappy with, I cannot help you. You should take a ride from me though." We continued our walk and smiled at him and told him my new found mantra of "No thanks."
By the time we hit Pusa road he was still with us and and then he informs us that "The zoo is closed on Friday. I can take you somewhere else though." This stunk of bullshit to me. First off, why would he be fighting so hard to take us to the zoo for 2 blocks if it was closed? Second, this is a well known con in India. The con goes like this, a driver approaches you and asks you where you are going and you say "I'm going to hotel X" and the driver says, "Oh hotel X? Too bad, it closed. Just last week. I can't take you there because it doesn't exist any more." But don't fret dear friend, because GUESS WHAT? HE knows a better place that his cousin owns that is cheaper and nicer, and he can take you there straight away! (and pocket a hearty commission)
I figure that is this drivers aim, and feel quite proud of myself for being one step ahead of his game. After all, why would the zoo be closed on a Friday? We smile at the driver again and tell him, "No thank you. We will walk." and eventually he shrugs us off and we part ways. It would only be when we would get to the zoo that I would figure out what a deal that driver was offering me. I would soon regret telling the driver "No thanks."
We walk down to the metro station at Karol Bagh and ride our little blue line to the Pragati Maiden station. This ride passes through the Rajiv Chowk station, which is where the blue and yellow lines meet, which makes the train SUPER crowded. Rajiv Chowk is an exercise in human flexibility and patience. Imagine trying to push 100 people into a train car that fits 75. Now imagine that they all ate curry the night before, and that its 27 billion degrees outside. Yeah, its like that.
During this sweaty stinky tug-a-war, I feel a hand in my pocket! My god, I'm being pick pocketed! I scan left and right to see who just picked my pocket, but there are far too many people to have any clue. This is the first time in my life I have ever been pick pocketed. I guess its a good think this isn't the first time I've been to a big city. This isn't my first time at the rodeo folks! So Mr. pick pocket gets a fist full of ass. Who puts wallets in the back pockets in big cities? I mean, really? What did he expect to find in there? Gold doublooms? No such luck! Pick pockets 0, Allen 1.
We arrive safely at the Pragati Maiden station and I inform Mandy of the pick pocket attempt, we both have a chuckle and continue on our way. We file into the street with everyone leaving the train, not unlike cattle being led to slaughter. We wander around trying to find our bearings, sticking with the crowd into a line of tuk-tuk drivers. I think about what the other tuk-tuk driver said about the zoo being closed, and I get it in my head that we should do the zoo last, just on the off chance he was telling the truth. A tuk-tuk driver approaches us and I ask, "How much to the Lodi garden?" and he says "Meter." I say again, "How much to the Lodi garden?" and he says, "Meter, meter." Then, for some silly reason I say, "Ok."
This is one of the oldest cons in the book of tourist cons. Meters in India are most definitely for suckers, and I should know better. Mandy shoots me a look as if saying, "What the hell are you doing?" and I just kind of nod back "I got this." Meters are for suckers because the meter is either rigged, or the driver will at some point "get lost" on the ride, running up the meter.
Our tuk-tuk driver proceeds to run up his meter for the next hour and a half. We confirm this about 5 minutes in, as we were somewhat familiar with the city from doing research online before we came. Mandy makes a note on our map, "Don't pay him more than 50 rupees." I nod back at her. Our driver, unaware that his con has now turned into our con, continues giving us a free tour of Delhi. He takes us by shanty towns, shops, beautiful buildings, through good and bad neighbourhoods, he took us everywhere he could think to drive... running up the meter the whole time.
In a rather sleazy part of town we got into a traffic jam and we were quickly surrounded by children beggars. In the entire time I was in India, I have not seen a child that looked starving. All the kids seem well fed, even the dirt poor ones. The children that I have had beg often are wearing nice clothes, and they beg with a smirk on their face. In other words, they are doing it for a goof. A goof that may just pay off if they find a dumb enough white person. Well, that isn't us.
These children circle in on our tuk-tuk, begging and smiling as we continue saying "No. No. No." They are wearing nice clothing, and they are speaking to us in English which screams out to me that they have money. To learn English would mean the children would have to go to school, which means their parents would have to have enough money to pay for school, which in turn means they don't need to beg.
Our driver tries to shoo the children away, uncomfortably looking back at us. I felt like he was worried somehow their con would mess up his. This one boy focuses in on me, he is probably about 8 or 9 years old. He raises his open palm acting out that he will smack me if I don't give him any money. I raise my hand and bring it down swiftly pretending that I will smack him back very hard if he does. We smile at each other, and I continue to tell these kids "No. No. No." All at once the traffic clears, and all the kids start to make back to the side walk so they aren't standing in the traffic, all but the kid focused on me. He keeps smiling at me until our tuk-tuk starts to pull off. All at once he reaches in and taps me softly on my cheek. It was all a game to him. He won. lol
We realise our driver has now driven us back almost to our neighbourhood we started from earlier, and we decided we have had about enough of our free tour. I would like to point out that he drove us in the complete and opposite direction we asked to go for almost an hour. We are in a completely different part of town than we were just in, and a totally different part of town than where we were supposed to be. At this point, I'm kinda worried that he will just boot us out where we are, and we will be stuck in the middle of nowhere.
I confront the driver with the map after passing under a metro station, showing him where the station is on the map, and where the Lodi garden is on the map. I then say, "Lodi garden? Take us to Lodi garden?" He pulls over. He looks at our map, then he looks back at us sheepishly and starts laughing. He then says, "LODI garden. I think you say 'Rory garden'." He tries to laugh it off, but we push on to confront him. "Ok, show us Rory garden. Where is Rory garden?" (Rory garden doesn't exist) He laughs some more, then says "Very mistake!" and smacks his head in shock. Shock!
Our unscrupulous driver makes an about face and proceeds to go turn for turn down the way he drove us, all the way until we were about a 5 minute drive away from where we started. Then he makes a right instead of a left. From there its a short 5 more minutes to the entrance to the Lodi garden. So, a two hour drive for what should have taken 10 minutes. Thanks driver.
To be fair, we knew what was going on the whole time... but that doesn't mean I had any intention of paying him for it. For all he knew we were some dumb white tourists who had no clue where we were, and who knows when he would have stopped had we not stopped him. He showed no signs of turning on his own. The meter read 180 rupees, which included a 40 rupee charge for time sitting. The correct ride should have cost around 20 rupees or so Indian prices. Mandy wanted me to pay him 50 rupees, I settled on 60.
As we step out of the tuk-tuk our driver innocently expresses again, "Very mistake, only 160 rupees." and points at the meter. Wow, a 20 rupee discount, what a steal. I give him 60 rupees and say, "No, 60." and he smiles and says, "No 100 rupees minimum for gas." and I say "No, 60." and close my wallet. He continues a one sided argument for a while as I just stare at him. Eventually I just say, "Then just call the cops, I'll wait." As I say that, we both look over and see a cop leaning up against a wall by the gate to the Lodi garden. I motion over to the cop as if I am presenting him as a gift to the driver. I look at the driver and he just shrugs. I didn't think so. With our adventure over, and a con reversed, we turn and walk into the Lodi garden.
I don't feel bad because I still paid quite a bit more than what the original fare should have been. My real hope is that I will serve as a lesson to that driver, and he will think twice before running some tourists the complete wrong way. This wasn't the only driver that we ended up paying what we thought was fair (not what they thought was fair) and then just walking off, he was just the most egregious. We even agreed on an unfair price a few times just for the ride, and then stiffed the driver, again telling them to call the police if they felt that wronged by us. Even when we "ripped off" the drivers, we were still paying far more than what Indians would have paid for the same fare. I suppose it all evens out somewhere. Even though we are paying more than Indian prices, and sometimes less than they want, it still ends up only costing us no more than 2 dollars on average. Sometimes its just fun to haggle, and sometimes its better to pay what you think is fair and just walk away after services rendered.

Tomorrow's update will start inside the Lodi garden, and it will have lots of pictures to make up for none today!

Peace and Love,
Allen

Woodcastle (home sweet home)

2010-09-24T12:23:00.001-04:00

Woodcastle served as our home base in New Delhi, and it is the nicest place we stayed in all of India without question. I can say that because I am writing this on the paper I purchased in Varanasi last night, while sitting on the bed of the last hotel we are staying in while in India.
The staff of woodcastle made us feel at home in a land so foreign and alien, it felt as if we were on another planet, certainly not Earth. Woodcastle was a home base to a city so huge and so busy that if you stop to think, you may get knocked down. Inside its walls we found our peace, comfort, and solitude.
Outside is where our adventures take place...
Let us take a moment to explore our room in woodcastle before venturing out into the city. We had a nice king size bed that consisted of two firm twins pushed tightly together, covered with a wool blanket, with two pillows. The bed and pillows were firmer than I was used to, because we have two layers of memory foam on our bed at home and two pillows as soft as warm butter. The bed was certainly comfortable enough to sleep soundly once I got adjusted to the time.

The bathroom was a very nice introduction to Indian bathrooms, as it had a western toilet, and a shower with its own water heater. Some of the bathrooms I would see later would have been quite a rude awakening, so I'm glad I was introduced to Indian bathrooms at woodcastle.
There were three buckets in the bathroom, two make for a bath tub; one 5 gallon bucket acts as the "tub" while the other pitcher inside it is used to pour water on yourself. The other bucket is for Indian wiping, because they don't use toilet paper in India (which is why you never shake left hands). Luckily, woodcastle supplied toilet paper, so I didn't have to learn how to wipe Indian style. Or at least, not at woodcastle.
The floor of the bathroom is the bottom of the shower. There is no entrance to the shower, the entire bathroom is basically a shower. There are three drains for the water to go into, one for the shower, one for the Indian wiping bucket, and one under the sink for any spill over.

That's basically the room, a place to sleep and a nice bathroom. We had a TV too, which had a refrigerator under it. The most important thing the room had was a very nice air conditioner and very strong fan. The electricity was constant in New Delhi, which means that we were nice and comfortable all day and night in woodcastle. At night we would watch our TV and try to guess what the hell the bollywood clips were supposed to be about. We never really figured it out though. One of the obvious ones that was my personal favourite was called "bullshit" which is obviously about politics. Mandy and I both loved the promo for Dabang (we called that video the "pants dance song")which we debated on watching in the theatre, but we decided to wait until its released with subtitles so that we can figure what is going on. lol!
Breakfast is free at woodcastle, with a choice of American, continental, or Indian breakfasts. We enjoyed the Indian breakfast several times... which we would eat in our room on the bed (Indian breakfast in bed, hooray!)

That is the safe and secure world of woodcastle, which is not why you are reading this though. You want to see the dirt, the grime, and the sublime India, right? Then lets venture outside, shall we?
When you leave woodcastle, you leave through 2 very nice wooden doors..

Those two doors are without question the nicest thing in the Alley. The alley we stayed on was a typical alley for the area. We had a mix of all types of people, from middle class to workers living in shacks in the alley. There was even our own pack of dogs...

The alley, like everything else in New Delhi and greater India was in a constant state of construction while we were staying there. Quite a lot of activity for such a compact little alley, but the noises never bothered us in our room. The only sound we really noticed in there was a man calling out selling something when he would walk by in the mornings. Here is a view down our Alley from the bigger road that we connected too..

What you can note in that picture is the stacks of bricks to the left, for building a house or something in the pit on the right. What I found interesting was how everyone who owned the cars on our alley would come out and clean them in the morning. They took pride in their cars, and didn't want the dust and dirt from construction to get on them.
There were a couple spots where workers were living in shacks in and around our alley, and they had children living with them. These children were so nice. They always smiled at us and waved and said "hi". Everyone in our alley was so nice and always smiling and nodding at us. Although it may look a bit shady, I never felt the slightest bit uncomfortable or at risk in this alley. Everyone was very nice.
At the end of our alley is where you meet with the first bout of tuk-tuk drivers and maybe a few rickshaw drivers. I must make two points here. One is that a "tuk-tuk" is an auto rickshaw, something Mandy thought some people may not know. Two is that every time Mandy says "rickshaw" she says "rick-a-shaw" even though she knows its wrong. She insists that "It sounds better". Cracks me up.
After avoiding the tuk-tuk drivers hassling us for a ride, we continue up our little road towards Pusa road, the closest major road to our little area of New Delhi. Here is the view of the road that leads to our alley, which we affectionately called "Mickey mouse road".

The reason we called that road "Mickey mouse road" was because of the landmark we used to find it on Pusa road.

Make sense now?
This is all leading away from woodcastle and towards the Karol Bagh metro station, which served as a starting point to most of our journeys. Here is a picture of Pusa road and the metro line, it was taken pretty early in the morning, so its not very busy yet.

The green and yellow vehicle on the left hand side is a tuk-tuk. They are all over the place in New Delhi.
This was the walk we would take everyday in Delhi, whether we were going north to the Red Fort, or south to the Lodi gardens. We would get east and west by taking the metro from our station, the Karol Bagh station on the blue line. Here is the station on Pusa road...

These are some of the people and places in our neighbourhood. Not a whole lot of story here, just the place we were when we weren't out exploring the sites of New Delhi. I'm going to put up a few more pictures just to show some of the things in the neighbourhood.
This is a view from the top of the station looking at some shops and things...

There was a market about halfway between our hotel and the metro. Unfortunately when I was out taking pictures in Karol Bagh, it was early in the morning and the market wasn't open. I had planed on getting pictures of it when we came back through India to return home, but that didn't work out.

As you can see, on the right side of this picture are closed shutters. Each of those represent a shop that would be open if it was later in the day. If you follow them down, they go as far as you can see. We never shopped there, as it was always super crowded. Now this part is important. You see the kid on the left obviously on his way to school, and you see how he is running? For that kid, and me, I need you to picture him in your mind doing a super cool double peace sign, and smiling HUGE like this :D ok? Because, as you can see, he is a little blurry in this picture, and that is because he saw my camera and was running to get in frame to strike a pose with two peace signs and a HUGE smile. He was not happy when he realised he didn't make it in time. I realised what he was trying to do and put the camera back up for him, but his mom grabbed him and made him stop being so goofy. SO please take a second and in your minds eye picture that kid with two awesome peace signs, and a totally rad smile! Thanks!

Ok, thats all for the update today. Tomorrow we will be going to the Lodi garden. Hope you are ready.

Peace and Love,
Allen

Home again home again jiggity jig

2010-09-24T10:21:00.001-04:00

Well, I slept in my own bed last night. Mandy and I were on planes for ~17 hours yesterday. I didn't sleep for almost 48 hours. I stayed up once we got home to try to get back on schedule with the eastern time zone, I made it all the way till 9 o'clock last night. Have to watch the new office today I suppose!
Just doing some rough estimates, we spent about 52 hours on planes on this trip. We spent about 26 hours on trains. We spent about 31 hours waiting on planes and trains. That puts the major transport at 109 hours, or 4 days either waiting for or riding on planes and trains. I'm not going to guess how much time we spent in tuk-tucks, taxis, or scooters because it would be way too hard to guess. We took zero rickshaw rides, and walked what seemed like almost all of our waking time. We walked up and down thousands of stairs, in rain and shine.
Using www.webflyer.com to estimate, I figure that we flew around 47,224 miles. With the circumference of the Earth being 24,901 miles, that means we flew enough to fly around the world almost two times (in a little over 2 days, far less than 80). Using http://www.tsiindia.com/dindex.html to estimate, I figure that we rode the rail in India for about 935 miles. I have no idea how many miles we walked or how much we rode in tuk-tuk, taxi, or on scooter... but it has to be in the hundreds somewhere.
In all those travels we spent large amounts of time in 4 different time zones. We were both north and south of the equator. We were in and out of monsoon season. We were surrounded by people who spoke at least 6 different native languages, and countless other languages of tourists and non-official languages. We communicated quite well with everyone though, with most language difficulties arising from myself.
It seems the American southern dialect doesn't travel often, or at least to the places we went. I would confuse people by saying things such as, "Where abouts is the..." and "sure". Most of the people I spoke with didn't understand "sure" as being a positive response to something. Saying "sure" almost always brought any conversation to a grinding halt. As long as we spoke proper English, and did our best to leave out the "y'all"s and the "yonder"s, most conversations went very well.

Now that I am back home from this journey with my own computer and reliable internet connection, I'm going to do my best to update everyday. I say that because, I'm going to try to make these posts digestible and content rich. Digestible in keeping them simpler and shorter than my natural tendency to write long drawn out multiple page long updates. Content rich by sharing with you all some of the sites and sounds we saw while exploring south east Asia. I have so much to share, and so many experiences to write about. I do hope people enjoy this.
So, without further interruptions ... Here comes those blogs I've been promising and talking about for 3 weeks now.

Back in India

2010-09-21T11:42:00.000-04:00

Well we are safe and sound back at Wood Castle in New Delhi. I've basically given up on updating until I get home, were like 48 hours away from being back state side with our incredibly fast internet and my own personal laptop to use. I'm very glad I didn't bring my laptop on this trip, it would have been a headache to deal with, and I would have been constantly worried about it.
So, one more day here in India, and then we fly out to Amsterdam tomorrow. I'll try to touch base on here if I can in Amsterdam, just so everyone knows the flight went well (but don't count on it). So far, everything has gone according to plan, all the way from New Delhi to Thailand and back. I am not making this up, I have taken over a thousand pictures... so DO keep checking once we get back after the 23/24th. Things should go much smoother on my own computer! :)
Hope everything is relatively the same back in America! Supposed to be 93 degrees when we get back, which should be a nice cool breeze after being on the equator for two weeks!
Look forward to seeing everyone!

Peace and Love,
Allen

When it rains, it pours...

2010-09-21T03:04:00.000-04:00

I know this is going to come as a total and complete shock to you all BUT.... the internet is messed up. HAHAHAHAHAHA! We are at the bar I found that has internet for 10 MALAYSIAN ringets (Mandy pointed out I said they were Indonesian, which they are Malaysian, since Kuala Lumpur is IN Malaysia... dur) When I walk up to the bar the bartender says, "The internet is slow today. You may not want to pay for it." Great, right? So, its ok for text and what not, but uploading pictures will be pointless.
I'm going to try to hunker down on the computer in Wood castle tonight and slam one out. Wish me luck.
Oh, we are safely in Kuala Lumpur and awaiting our flight to New Delhi. Should be boarding in about a half hour!
Hope everyone is doing well...
Peace and Love,
Allen

Last day in Thailand

2010-09-19T23:57:00.001-04:00

Today is our last day in Thailand, and the beginning of the end of our trip. We leave for Kuala Lumpur at about 6:30 in the morning tomorrow, (6:30 pm Monday Eastern time) and have a lengthy 6 hour layover there. Which is good news for anyone reading this and hoping for one of my delayed full updates. I made it a point to find the internet the last time we were in the KL airport, as I knew we would be spending a very long time there the next time through. I found a place that has the internet for 10 Indonesian ringets (a little over 3 dollars US) for 50 minutes. SO that means sometime Monday night (definitely up by Tuesday morning) you should have New Delhi day 2. HOORAAYYY
I've been sitting on all the good pictures, and there are tons. I've been updating them to my flickr, and I'm not sure if thats the best way to do this. I'm new to blogging, and not sure what is the best way to get info to people. Today I'm going to try to just upload the pictures here, and see how that works.
There are stories behind these pictures... but I'll get to them later. For now just brief descriptions so you know what you are looking at.
Picture number one.. Mandy likes FISH!!!!

Picture number two... I like temples! (In Bali you have to wear sarongs in temples)

Pictures number three... A Buddhist temple in Bali

Picture number four... A wild pineapple in Bali

Picture number five... A golden statue of a Buddhist monk in the Monkey temple in Phuket Thailand

Picture number six... A picture from an (as of yet) undisclosed location in Thailand

Picture number seven... Mandy is not always enjoying fish... Sometimes she is quite serious.

Ok, thats all for now. Trust me, I have incredible pictures to share when I get time. Someone is behind me now wanting to use the computer for skype, so I got to go. Be sure to check coming up because one of the big ones is coming.
Also do give feedback as to which is better, pictures embedded or links...
Thanks!

Peace and love!
Allen

Thailand brief update

2010-09-17T09:06:00.000-04:00

This is just getting silly at this point. I just copied all the files off of the offending compact flash and onto a flash drive, and upon rebooting into this windows machine and plugging in the flash drive I immediately picked up a new virus on the flash drive. The pictures are fine, all it did was create a .exe that translates to "adult movie" in Vietnamese and changed all the extensions on my folders to ".exe". Har D har har. I just feel bad for any travelers that don't know as much as me about computers, and are stuck with drives that won't be recognized by windows, and thus, have to be formatted...with all their travel pictures included. Just awful really.
Anyways, here are a few pictures to pass the time...
Sunrise in Amsterdam... Almost a lifetime ago...
Sunset in Patong beach Phuket, Thailand about an hour and a half ago...
Mandy enjoying a tasty beverage at sunset....
Me enjoying a tasty beverage at sunset...

Now I'm going to fix my flash card... I'll update more pics tomorrow...

Peace and love,
Allen

Another in-between

2010-09-16T07:47:00.000-04:00

So, we are in Kuala Lumpur again awaiting a plane to Thailand. We have some downtime, so I uploaded some pictures. I'm crazy behind on India, but still writing about it in my paper journal. The compact flash is still basically F*ed up at this point, and all I can do is copy the files off using puppy linux when I get the time (and a free computer). So India updates are gonna have to wait....
But for being so patient, here are some more recent happenings...
NUMBER 1... Monkeys like coke!
NUMBER 2... Bali is beautiful when you are off in the middle of nowhere scooting around on a scooter. (more later)
NUMBER 3... Kuala Lumpur is a modern large city. (here is the street our hostel was on)
NUMBER 4... Monkeys are not always enjoying coke. Sometimes they are quite serious.

I know that's not a lot... but I really feel like I am cheating if I update without an adequate explanation of our adventures... so you just have to wait.

Allen
Peace and Love.

Another Interlude...

2010-09-11T03:14:00.000-04:00

Although we have internet in our hostel in Kuala Lumpur, we lack time. I've tried to get a post going, but the pictures take on average 1-2 minutes each to upload. If you want to cheat and look at them without any explanation, they are being updated to my flickr account, under "madatr".
We are set to head out of Kuala Lumpur here in a few minutes and catch our flight to Bali. Our hotel in Bali has internet, and we will be there for 5 nights, so I'll have plenty of time to get some of these posts up.
I'm still not done writing India yet, so I'm playing catch up... I do most of my writing on the planes.
Now, on to our technical difficulties... My home button has stopped working on my iphone for some unknown reason. If my phone wasn't jailbroken, it would essentially be useless now. To exit out of any application I have to use the short cut at the top of the screen, and then kill the process. Fun times. Also, the compact flash we took all of our pictures on up to Kuala Lumpur got a virus (I think) copied onto it from the computer in our hostel. The computer here (vista...bleh) won't recognize it now, nor will the camera. I'm pretty sure its a simple fix, if I can get into Linux. OH, also, I forgot my usb stick, so I can't get into Linux. HORRAY!!!!
So, we bought a NEW 8 gig compact flash, and a new usb stick. I have put puppy linux on it, but I can't figure out the screen size of these monitors, so I can't get xwindows to draw on the screen. BUT, All should be well and fixed in Bali.
One of the things I wanted to share with people who are reading this are some of the songs going through my head... (and on my ipod) while traveling around all these places. Even though fall is setting in back home, we are still chasing summer over here (its actually going to be winter in Bali though, at a chilly ~80 degrees) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1MS6ZZ3PjY
Also, whenever I'm being pestered by the panhandlers and street folks, this song is in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7fkSF6d7U
Of course, whenever I try to talk to people this goes in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O69L2mO9y-4

And more... but we got to catch a plane!
Peace and Love,
Allen

Brief update before update...

2010-09-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

We are safe and in Kuala Lumpur now. Its 1:47 A.M. September the 10th here, which means its still Thursday 1:47 P.M. in my home town. We are in the Reggae Guest House number 2, and it has free dependable internet, so YAY! Now I'm going to update the things I wrote on paper... wish me luck. Oh and pictures...

Allen

SHOCK OF ALL SHOCKS!!! NOT GOOD INTERNET!

2010-09-06T06:35:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'm sure you all are as tired of reading it as I am of writing it, but... we don't have internet that leads to the type of long updates I tend to ramble on with. What I have decided to do is pick up some paper and a pen and go old school with it until I actually find a place with time to update.
We are in Varanasi now, and the sleeper train went much better than expected. We both slept rather well, despite us sleeping basically on the backs of train chairs. Why I don't have the ability to post a "good" update now is a problem with time, not internet. We discovered that for some reason we booked our leaving train for 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday, which means we have very little time here in Varanasi. To make matters worse, that leaves us with almost 2 full days in Gaya, which has very little to see. HORRAY! We needed one more day here, but we don't have it... We just looked into booking another train, but its all booked up. (suprise surprise)
So, we are here, and we need to go. There is so much to see and so little time!
We are off to find paper!
More later...

Oh BOY INTERNET... well, maybe not. (brief update)

2010-09-05T09:27:00.000-04:00

This is just to let people know we are safe, and doing well. We are in Agra at the moment, you know... the place with the Taj Mahal. Well I am writing just to let people know we have made it safely to Agra, and we are leaving in a few hours for a 13 hour overnight train to Varanasi.
We found an internet cafe, but... they won't let me use USB. In fact, they didn't know what USB was. Then when I told them I would use it to upload pictures they said, "Burn to CD?" and I said, "No, on to internet" and they said, "No." So now here I sit with the internet but no way to upload my photos. (which we are running out of space because we are taking crazy high resolution... and I can't back them up without the internet! GRRRR!)
Just so you know what updates I owe you are day 2-3 in Delhi, and today in Agra. I honestly don't have enough words to describe everything that is going on and has happened, but here are some quick fun spoilers/cliff hangers for you faithful readers. (Hi mom!) lol. I have had my pockets picked twice! A cab driver drove us to the other side of town than what we asked! We have been held hostage by a cabbie who drove us around an unfamiliar area and forced us to go in shop after shop! We found the Black Taj Mahal! MONKEYS! People have given us the worst directions ever! We've seen more people squat and take a dump (out in the open mind you) than all the rest of our lives combined! We have learned that children beggars who speak fluent English have parents with enough money to pay for their schooling, which means they shouldn't be begging! HORRAY FAKE BEGGING KIDS!!!! Two mosquito bites! The worst dengue fever in 10 years! (are you on the edge of your seat yet?)

More to come! (whenever we find reliable internet)
P.S. We are doing great! Everything is going splendid!

Impatient

2010-09-04T00:35:00.000-04:00

For those of you who just can't wait to see the pictures... here are a few with no explanations. They will be linked to in context when I have time at a computer to do so. Shesh, its hard to do anything here!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/madatr
Mostly those are at the Lodi gardens and India gate!
More later...

Delhi part 2 Day 1

2010-09-03T21:59:00.000-04:00

We awoke, although I can't remember when. The first day is quite blurry for me. My right eye was bloodshot to the point where it looked like it could start crying blood at any moment. We quickly realize that in all our planning, all we did was just kind of pick places we want to see... we never actually sat down and tried to piece together how we should go about seeing them. We had a few hours in the first morning just kind of scratching our heads going, "So, what should we do first?". We decided, probably shopping.
I remembered wanting to go to Connaught place to go shopping, so we decided that would be a great place to start. Our hotel offers free breakfast, but we decided to eat out instead. So we drag ourselves up and out of bed, into some clothes, and then head out into the city for the first time.
Wow, our back street does not look the same during the day as it did at night. There is construction everywhere on the tight little road. Its basically dirt, with maybe rock ground in... I'm not sure. A huge incense smell smacks me in the face when we start walking... it was delicious. There are some shanty/shacks next to our building with about 4 kids in them who always smile and wave at us. Quite a few dogs call our back alley home as well. By the time we get to a connecting street, we are already being hassled. This it to be indicitive of a much larger pattern.
A rather insistent Indian man tries to coax us into his tuk-tuk. No matter where we are going, he will take us there, and for cheap. We insist we are walking up to the metro (around 4 blocks) and we are fine. He continues to follow us, "Metro, no problem, 10 rupees." (around 4 cents) we insist "No we are walking" and so it goes for an entire block. At the end of the block, another guy comes up and starts on us again. And so the pattern is born, and from hence forth, it shall be expected.
Everyday this walk consists of telling 10 or so people, "No we are walking". They plead with us, they quote us outlandish prices that they won't keep, and they just generally follow and pester us. I've gotten to the point now where we either just keep walking and pretend we don't hear them (which takes at least a block for them to give up) or grabbing them by the shoulders, looking them firmly in the eyes and telling them, "We will not be traveling with you today, maybe another time. Thank you." We try our best to be polite, but it is very irritating.
So, we walk to the metro, and we have no clue what we are doing. It seems they use these plastic blue coins, kind of like the pieces to connect 4, and they have an rfid chip in them. They program in the money on them, you go through the turn style, and then when you reach your destination, you put them in a slot, and they let you out. Never seen anything like that before.
We go to the counter to get our chips, and we ask the woman how to get to connaught place. She tells us, and we are off. The metro is nice. Its clean, its air conditioned, and its busy. Busy to the point where we have been in a crowd pushing and forcing our way on, just shoving everyone in whether they fit or not.
India, not surprisingly, is full of Indians. We aren't in tourist season, so, we have seen maybe 9-10 other white people while we have been here. On the metro, we are a spectacle. People stare, people talk about us, and people take our pictures. Well, mostly Mandy. They talk about us, and then they point to their chins, obviously talking about Mandy's piercing. Its all pretty funny, and neither of us are used to the attention. People don't do double takes, as much as they will unabashedly stare at us for an entire 20-30 minute commute. At times it feels like we are the very first white people they have seen. Which, who knows...maybe we are.
The station for Connaught place is where two lines of the metro meet, so it is a very busy station. We have no idea which way to exit, and there are 2 to choose from. We choose one at random and end up popping out right in the center circle. If you looked at the wiki link to connaught place, you will see pictures that look absolutely NOTHING like what it looks like. This is where we started to get a feel for what Delhi is like. The entire city is under construction. It is the messiest, grittiest, grimiest city I have ever been to. It makes Detroit look like Epcot center.
As of now we have no pictures of connaught place because we were scared we would get our camera stolen. We thought we were in a bad area. We didn't realize at the time, that is just what this city looks like. We wander around, as beggars beg, and hawkers hawk. No, I don't want aviator sunglasses, and thank you, I'm already wearing a leather belt. No we don't need a map of India, and GOD NO you cannot clean my ears "for free".
After wandering around for a while some young Indian offered us some hash. We said no, then he decided to follow us. At this point, he started telling us where to go. This was fun (for me) as we really had no direction anyways. I figured his directions were as good as our wanderings. We were looking for food, and I figured eventually we would see something and stop following this guys directions. Mandy didn't enjoy this game as much as I did. She was like, "Why are we listening to him?" and I was like, "Lets just see what he is up to." Well of course it was a con. One I had read about, so we were quite prepared. We pop out on the outside of the circle and he tries to direct us to a "Government Tourist" center. They are not sponsored by the government, they don't offer any real deals, they hassle the shit out of you...and the best part is, this guy gets paid if he gets us just to walk in the door.
Once we figure out the game, we stop and look at our map. He continues talking to us as we discuss where would be the best place to find food. He says he knows where all the food is, etc. etc. We make up our mind and start walking. He follows us a bit more, then we turn a corner and there are some cops. We look back, and he is gone. LOL. I believe the correct term here is "Zoinks".
We settle on a coffee shop. Had some strange moments with a deaf Indian, who was all smiles. He was very happy we were American. Everyone is actually. Once we say America, everyone is like, "Thats GREAT!" Its weird.
After we eat, we wander around some more until we happen upon the palika bazaar, which is an underground bazaar. The lights are dim/off. Its hot as can be. People are harassing you from all sides. People come out and grab you to try to get you to come to their shop. We are especially targeted as we are the only white people in the place. My feeling about the ambiance of this place is that it would be the perfect spot for a good old time raping. Its dark, gritty, hot, and labyrinthine. This is also where we were introduced to the idea of security everywhere. Security on the metro seems like a no-brainer, so we didn't think twice about going through a metal detector and being frisked with a wand and patted down (every time btw). We were surprised to have the same inspection to get into palika bazaar. However, we have grown used to it. To go just about anywhere, even parks, you have to go through a security check.
Palika bazaar made us both a bit uncomfortable, so after one full loop we decided to go back out to the street. The only thing notable in there (in my mind) was an mp5 player that I almost bought on principle. I think an mp5 player would make a great gift. I may go back, so someone may get a mp5 player when I get back. LOL.
At this point, I'm done with connaught place, so we decide to go somewhere else. However, we have no idea where to go next. We go back to the metro, and we see a station on our line is called "Botanical Garden" so we figure, "That seems like a good idea." We hop on and off we go.
Well the botanical garden is far out of Delhi. Really far. But it gets better. We get off the metro to a sea of tuk-tuk drivers, all set to rip us off, and there are no signs for the botanical garden. We have no clue where we are. So we ask some of the drivers which way it is. "20 rupees, I'll show you." they reply, "No we are walking, which way?" it takes a while until someone finally points us in the direction. We walk down to it, and it is basically a field. We go into the field and see some people living in tents, and go past them until the gate which says "India botanical garden". There were two police there, and they told us it was closed.
We kind of laughed and then headed back to the metro, but then the police stopped us. They motioned for us to shoo away, and so we said, "Ok." because we were already leaving. Then they called out to us again and motioned for us to shoo away. Thats when I remembered that the shoo away motion means "Come here" in India. So, we go over to them, and then one of them motions to follow him. I guess he felt sorry for us, so he gave us a tour of the "botanical garden" which was basically a crappy green house and some herbs. He walked with us the whole way, and would point at a flower or something and be like, "Ah." He spoke no english. It was really funny.
So, we left there, rode the metro back to the hotel, and then came back to try to get more sleep than the night before. I figure I'm gonna crash hard. So my second night in India? 5 hours sleep.
That brings us up to day 2, which will have to be updated later, because someone is here to use the computer now. Man, this has a simple solution, a 30 dollar wireless router. Hell, I'd buy it for them.

Thats all for the time being. I have pictures and stuff to update, but clearly won't get a chance too.
Sorry so wordy.

Delhi part 1 Getting In

2010-09-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

Our flight arrived in New Delhi at 10:50 P.M. India time. The flight was considerably nicer than the flight to Amsterdam. Again there was a toddler behind us, however his Indian mother kept him in line for most of the flight, which was pretty impressive. Occasionally he would look between the seats and wave at us, and very rarely he kicked Mandy's seat. I sat next to a Indian man with a turban and a rather thick beard, which was wrapped back under the turban. He was going to some small town I've never heard of, but when we told him about our trip, he said he lived in Varanasi for 3 years, and that we should expect to enjoy it. The flight was relatively uneventful, however, long.
We get into the airport and file down what seems like unending empty hallways. There are walking escalators (whatever those are called) and bathrooms every now and then. It was a drab lifeless airport other than the people coming off our flight. Customs was a breeze, as we already took care of all our visa information, so we proceeded to the baggage claim. It took about an hour for our baggage, so that was a bunch of sitting around. After we got our luggage we exchanged some money, and headed out to see India for the first time.
A line of more than 100 people with signs stood outside of the exit, all lined up to give people rides. They are building a airport to New Delhi metro line, but it won't be completed until sometime later this month, which means everyone has to find their own way to the city. The airport is a bit away from the city, and 18 kilometers from our hotel. Mandy was excited to see her name on one of those airport signs for the first time, just like something out of the movies. So we meet up with our driver which we arranged beforehand with our hotel, and he leads us out of the airport and we step over the threshold into India.
The smells wash over me like ocean waves. The smells were pummeling me almost rhythmically with stronger and stronger smells. New Delhi stinks. Not always in a bad way, but smells so potent, its almost intoxicating. Take any smell you have experienced in a Indian restaurant, and I'm talking random smells not the food, and multiply it by 100. Now, just imagine that smell overwhelming you on a breeze. Its incredible. Its like the air is incense, thick and sticky. Keep in mind, this is at the airport, a good way from the city, the city is just olfactory overload.
Our taxi driver cuts around people racing towards the parking garage, almost running. After ~25 hours of travel we are having a hard time keeping up. Especially myself, as I decided (apparently forgetting my age) that I should stay awake the entire trip so I could easily fall asleep and automatically re-adjust to Indian time. (HA) So, we dash and scramble behind this skinny Indian man who occasionally looks back to make sure we are still with him until we end up in the parking garage and his vehicle which is about the equivalant of a Toyota Echo, but some Indian version. The good news? It has air conditioning.
There are no driving laws that I am aware of as a casual observer in India. I cannot stress that enough. None. The whole town drives around as if they have just recently discovered their horn. Imagine a child driving, and his glee when he accidentally pushes on the horn and it makes that great "beep" sound. Now imagine how much that excited kid would press the horn at first, and how happy it would make him. Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep. Now realize, its like that but worse. They don't so much honk to warn, as they honk to entertain themselves. I mean, they honk when nothing is going on. They honk when there is traffic. They honk when they are about to wreck. They just honk honk honk honk honk.
Our driver did an excellent job of getting us to the hotel. He went on curbs, he drove on the shoulder of the highway, he rode right in the middle of the lines separating the lanes, he cut off dump trucks, he would force other cars out of his way, he drove through road construction close enough to where I could have reached out and grabbed some tar, he basically drove like a complete maniac. The roads have this sort of contained insanity and he was very competent in his version of insanity.
An important point to make here is that, its now almost 12 at night, and the traffic is pretty low. It was still insane, and an eye opening introduction to the worlds 3rd largest city. During the day it is much much worse. I have seen only one crash, and that is amazing to me. I mean, people walk in the busy highways, they push carts of food in with cars and garage trucks... its insane. Mandy saw an elephant walking on the road, but I missed it. The roads here are laughably busy, with the oddest things on them you could imagine. Bikes, cars, scooters, motorcycles, cows, carts, kids, people of all shape and size (but mostly one color), tractors, elephants, dogs, tuk-tuks, rickshaws, and on and on. Millions of them. LOL. With no real traffic rules except maybe, "try not to hit anyone".
So, we brave the crazy 18 kilometer ride, and we make it to our hotel. It was in a back alley that I will have to update later, because I haven't taken pictures of it. We are not in a bad part of town, and we are close to a metro station which is great. The hotel itself is very nice. A king sized bed (two twins pushed together) and a bathroom, most importantly though, air conditioning and a very strong ceiling fan.
The staff was more than polite, they have us sit and chat for a while, offer us beer (we decline) and then we are off to our room. Our room is 100, right by the front door, which can get a little annoying with the in and out of other guests... but its cozy enough. So we settle in, and I'm ready to sleep, since I haven't slept in well over 30 hours at this point... we crawl into bed and snuggle down into the blankets.
Wide awake.
I mean, like meth awake.
Like skin itching for no reason, can't possibly get comfortable, holy shit will I ever sleep again... wide awake.
My first night in India, I get about 2 hours sleep.
Mandy sleeps much better, probably closer to 5 hours.
But, we made it. We are in India.
India!
:D

Clarification

2010-09-03T20:20:00.000-04:00

Some of you got an email explaining I was in India before the Amsterdam blog went up. Well, there is a reason for that faithful readers. The internet is not quite what I expected it to be. The hotel we are staying in said they had internet, which they do... however, I assumed that meant that they had wifi, which they don't. There is one computer hooked up to one ethernet connection. There are also 13 rooms here, and they are all full. That means somewhere between 13-26 people are all sharing the same one computer to communicate from here back home. Needless to say, its not very easy to get a turn. I've only had one opportunity so far, and there were around 8 people sitting around watching me type... so I didn't feel inclined to write.
I am writing this at 5:47 A.M. Some of the staff is sleeping behind me on the couches in the community room (pictures later, I haven't taken any of the hotel yet). I am pretty sure I am the only guest up. I am confusing the staff to no end, because they don't understand why I am up, or why I wanted to use the computer. However, there is no line, and no one bugging me to get off. So, I can write my wordy updates.
The Amsterdam post was written on my iphone in the Amsterdam airport. I wasn't able to post it until I found wifi, which took 2 days to find. That will be in another update though. Anyways, thought I would explain the overlap.
;)

Amsterdam

2010-09-03T05:22:00.001-04:00

Well, our first long flight was one of "those" flights. It began with a toddler shitting itself in the row behind us during takeoff. Excellent. The family was Dutch, and if there is such a social class as "white trash" to the Dutch I'm pretty sure these guys would be it! Not to fault the toddler for poor timing, after all, that probably wasn't his master plan. So it was a stinky take off for me, and the only one more annoyed was the guy sitting across the row from me right in front of the kid. I felt very connected to this guy as he cringed while the toddler screamed what I only can imagine was the Dutch word "clean" over and over again until the seat belt restriction was lifted.
Oh but it gets better.
Once the seat belt restriction is lifted, the mother stands in the aisle, and proceeds to clean and re-diaper her child there in his seat. Fantastic.
Mandy later defends this act by saying, "have you been in an airplane bathroom? There isn't enough room to change a child." Which may be the case, however this doesn't help alleviate the stench of toddler poo in such close quarters.
Incidentally, Mandy's sinuses are so clogged she lacks the sense of smell right now. Ya rly.
But, the poop wasn't that big of a deal, even the second diaper change was excusable... But who let's their kids babble "la la la la la" at the top of their lungs for 3 hours on a international flight? To the point where a flight attendant has to say something? I mean, really? Really?
The other bit of fun was the guy behind us leaving his shade open for the whole flight. It was a flight at times like something out of a movie. Literally the only guy with his shade open, while the entire rest of the plane was trying to watch movies or sleep, was sitting behind us. The one lone beam of sunlight shining directly in our light sensitive LCD screens, making our screens practically black, while an astounding "la la la la la" Dutch babble roars on behind us. Good times.
Here is where I would like to point out that Americans are supposed to be the inconsiderate, rude travelers. Neither of these heinous offenders were American mind you! Lol!
So, I sit and type this on my iPhone in Amsterdam waiting for our flight to Delhi. I'm on my iPhone because it's 3 euro for 15 minutes of Internet. I'll not send this till India because the free airport Internet mysteriously doesn't work on my phone. I could say it's my iPhones fault, but I'm not sure, I have a sneaky suspicion if I had a password to one of the pay services, they would work.
My only thoughts about Amsterdam are that whatever language they speak here sounds made up. I believe they are speaking real words, they just all sound like things I would say to make fun of their language. But, it's really what they sound like! I mean no disrespect by that, I'm sure our language sounds ridiculous to them. Take the word bubblegum. Sound it out. You gotta admit, that sounds ridiculous.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

FIRST!! (do be prepared, I'm quite wordy)

2010-08-30T13:08:00.000-04:00

Hello world.
My name is Allen Riddell, and this is my blog. The main purpose of this blog is to communicate with friends and family when travelling abroad. I will do my best to keep this updated, interesting, relevant, and entertaining. I apologise now for any spelling or grammar errors.
The impetus of this blog at this point, and not some time in the past, is an upcoming trip to India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. I will be travelling with my lovely girlfriend Mandy, and we will be out of the country for a little over three weeks. Our trip begins in our hometown of Lexington Kentucky, and then continues as follows: Detroit, Amsterdam, New Delhi, Agra, Varanasi, Gaya, Bodhgaya, Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Denpasar, Sanur, Kuta, Ubud, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, Ko Phi Phi, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Amsterdam, Detroit, Lexington Kentucky.
The last time I traveled out of the country was to visit my girlfriend in Australia when she was studying abroad. My communications then were in email form, quite long, and only sent directly to my family. When I got home, I found that these emails were forwarded and circulated to other people who were interested in knowing what was going on with me, and who also found the emails to be entertaining and enjoyable. So now I will be writing my long stories here, where people can share the link as they see fit. ;)
Today is the day before we leave, and I'm doing my best to stay calm. I'm sure anyone can understand my apprehension, as I am more comfortable on my couch than just about anywhere else. Which luckily for me, my couch is where I sit and write these very words right now. I'm trying to enjoy my couch as much as I can in the time leading up to my grand exit from this grand country, and dare I say, I'm doing quite a good job.
Its important to enjoy the small comforts you have in life on a daily basis. (tip of the day... first one is free)
We have most of our stuff packed, our planes booked, taxis from the airports arranged, hostels/hotels booked, and rail set up from city to city. Still with everything essentially in "go" mode, one can't help but wonder, "What am I forgetting? What the hell am I forgetting?" I can't for the life of me remember what I am forgetting, or how important that unknown item may be. I'm sure it will hit me the second our plane touches down in New Delhi, half a world away.

Why India?
I don't know how many times people have asked that. There are so many reasons for why India, but lets start at the beginning.
My parents are wimps.
There I said it. Sorry Mom, sorry Dad. Wimps.

Our original plans of travel involved much more Thailand, and India was more of a consideration because we were already in the general area, so why not pop over and check it out. Now, that isn't really being fair to India, as India has always been a country that has intrigued and fascinated me. It is home to some of the oldest living cities in the world. Its history and culture go back far beyond Rome and Greece. Their deities predate Jesus by thousands and thousands of years. Their people continue customs and practices that pre-date written word. So, yeah, it seems like a neat place to go. ;)
BUT Thailand was our first choice. We envisioned ourselves trekking through deep jungle, and lounging on pristine beaches. Stuffing ourselves in Thai food and partying in the party capital of South East Asia.
Then came the red shirts. No, not the ones from Star Trek, the other ones. Yeah, those ones, the protester ones. Which goes back to my wimpy parents. "You will get blown up." and "You will die." they said. (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the point) To which I replied, "You can't die unless you are out living!" (In my mind I said that... in reality...we are going to India)
So, my parents (I'm looking at you Dad) freaked out and said "Don't go to Bangkok because the protests there will kill you." Which I said, "The protests will probably be over by the time we go in September." But did my parents listen? No. "Blown to smithereens." was often bandied about, and to calm my parents down, we decided to go into Thailand from the south, not through Bangkok. (which by the way... protests? over.)
So, we had to re-think our whole trip. We decided to do India first, and then end in Thailand. So, we sat down and started talking about what we wanted to see in India, and as we go to these places and I update pictures and tell our tales, you will see why we chose the cities and places we chose.
The first thing I said about India is, "We have to go to Goa." As many of you know (and a few are finding out) I was a DJ for many years in the rave scene here in Kentucky and Indiana. I played drum and bass (or jungle if you prefer) and went to many parties as both DJ and raver. I was introduced to Goa through Goa trance. Goa was (and still is) a mecca for electronic music. It has a rich and interesting history with American and English hippy expatriates migrating there in the 60s and taking up roots. Many of the old hippies are still there, and as time progressed their scene progressed. Goa trance was a melding of old and new, as dance and music were (and still are) integral parts of some Hindu worship. Lord Shiva acts as lord of the dance (not unlike Michael Flatley) where he literally dances the universe into creation, sustainment, and ultimately destruction.
So in Goa the worlds of music, technology, hippy culture, and ancient Indian beliefs and archetypes melded to create Goa trance, and a pretty amazing club and dance scene.
On that note, we are not going to Goa. LOL!
Our plan was to go to India, then Malaysia, then Indonesia, then Thailand, and finally BACK to India through Mumbai (hello Bollywood!) and then take rail down to Goa, and ultimately fly from Goa back to New Delhi to catch our flight home. This however would have left us with no more than 3 days in any particular place, which seemed like a waste. Also it added yet another flight, and our resources are certainly nowhere near limitless. In fact, the only reason we are able to go to so many places is because our US dollar goes so far in South East Asia.
So, Goa is out. Instead we are sticking to northern India. We will be travelling basically from the north middle of the country towards the eastern shore. We will be stopping in many different cities that I will explain more about when we get there. For now, I'm here in Lexington, and I just went to get some Mcdonalds while I still can. The next 12 days will probably be red meat free.
I'm still going to do my best to stay calm and cool. We fly out tomorrow though, and I'll update as I can. Feel free to share this with people if you feel like it. Isn't that what blogs are supposed to be about?
Peace and love to everyone....