Day 1: Varanasi

1.This trip would take us to two of the holiest spots in India. The city of Varnasi is the location of the holiest spot of the most sacred river in the Hindu world. Pilgrims come from across the country to bathe in its waters, and it is believed that being buried there assures a favorable rebirth. Especially fortunate is the individual whose corpse is burned in one of the several spots along the river where such events occur.
Followers of the Buddha journey to Bodhgaya not to be burned but for the not entirely unrelated goal of becoming enlightened, or at least to gain some ground on the path by visiting the spot where the founder of their religion himself achieved this ultimate spiritual state. In order to understand the significance, the closest comparison is St. Peter's Church in Rome. There is of course a contradiction here, namely, that a physical place/location should be of such importance to an essentially spiritual tradition. But given that we are undeniably in part human, it is understandable that our spiritual path will contain a material element

2.I never check luggage unless I absolutely have to, that is, unless they will physically bar me from taking my seat with what I have in hand. And as usually happens when I violate my deeply held beliefs, I paid a price. The conveyor belt transporting the luggage (including the one I had checked) broke down, and we were compelled to wait about twenty minutes while manual repairs were carried out. Lesson hopefully learned.

The ride we had reserved for the hotel was waiting when we arrived, and given what turned out to be the relatively hidden location of the hotel we had booked, the taxi turned out to be a good idea. However since we had arrived a day early and even though we were staying an extra day the hotel still decided to charge us for the taxi which was supposed to be included in the price of our stay. For my review of the hotel, see below.


3.We should really have taken the hotel's offer to have someone accompany us on our trip into town. It was probably the only reasonable suggestion to come out of the mouth of the hotel management--the equivalent of a stopped clock being right twice a day. Instead, we headed out with nothing more than an inadequate Lonely Plant map and the name of a restaurant I had hoped to find for dinner. This, it turned out, meant we were as ill-prepared for the chaos that is Varanasi as someone dropped into the middle of the Amazon jungle with a Swiss Army knife.

The tuk-tuk drive (may he rot in hell) claimed to know the restaurant we were trying to find, and to be able both to get us reasonably close and then to point us in the right direction to walk the rest of the way. Both claims turned out to be false, as I am sure was everything else he uttered during the ride. Fortunately we could not understand anything he said due to the blare of horns that were deafening and pervasive enough to be considered a form of torture under the Geneva convention.

After thirty harrowing minutes, he stopped the vehicle, said this is as far as he could go and that we could just keep walking and go left and we would find the place. We stepped out of the vehicle and were

Immediately engulfed in a swarm of humanity which was more overwhelming than I have ever encountered: cars, auto-rickshaws, bicycle taxis, pedestrians, cattle, goats—all crammed elbow-to-elbow. I am sure the chaos during the Haj in Mecca is worse, but I think that first night in Varanasi would be good preparation for anyone attempting that epic trip, just like running a half-marathon gets you ready for the full length race.

4. I had no idea where we were going, and no one seemed to understand English. It wasn’t as lost as I have ever been, but it was close. In traveling there are times when your faith in humanity is destroyed and then there are times when it is restored.  If the former ever begin to outnumber the latter, it is time to hang it up, I think. In any case, what happened next was an instance of the latter. A random vendor on the side of the road actually knew the restaurant name and took time to write out a detailed map on a sheet of paper and explain in detail how to get there. It wasn’t the clearest map, and his directions were punctuated by such vague terms as “turn where you will see a lot of policemen” and “you will see a water pump.” But the combination of picture and words managed to get us where we needed to: The Brown Bread Bakery.

5. This should have been the end of the story: a nice meal at a reasonably relaxing restaurant after a harrowing introduction to Varanasi. Lonely Planet restaurants recommendations usually have a very Western feel to them, comfortable, clean places with reliably tasty cuisine. This place had absolutely none of these characteristics. It felt creepy: the Bates Hotel of restaurants. The fact that we were the only ones in the place should have been a tipoff, as should the general squalor of the place. Indeed, I should have listened to my gut and left. Instead we sat down and ordered.

I was concerned enough, however, that I went back and reread the restaurant recommendation. The last few lines contained a warning that there was a fake “Brown Bread Bakery” that should be avoided. If there is not a rooftop, it emphatically declared, then you are not in the real Brown Bread Bakery.  I double checked: there was no rooftop here. What I thought might be a passageway to a rooftop was in fact a closet with a guy sleeping (at least I hope he was sleeping).

At that point I definitely should have paid the bill and walked out. But I decided to stick around in part because we hadn’t ordered anything that I thought would kill us. Pasta with olive oil or vegetable sauce. It came; it was disgusting.

It is simply not true that what does not kill you makes you stronger. What does not kill you can still give you diarrhea. And although the diarrhea that came a day later may have had another source; in fact, I am pretty certain it had another source. But it will always remind me of the fake Brown Bread Bakery

Food in India, Part 2

Jane is much more adventurous with Indian food then I am, including sampling India street food.  One treat is called Pani Puri and  sold in several stalls in the nearby market is a sort of round, golf ball shaped piece of fried dough are filled with various fillings. Twenty rupees or about thirty cents will get you a group of six balls filled each filled with a different filling. Most people eat them one at a time and ask for different fillings after each taste. Some are sweet, some are sour, and some are indescribable. I sampled a few; needless to say, I won't be going back, but Jane seemed to enjoy them.

Valentine's Day in Delhi

Ideally, I would have liked to take Jane somewhere nice for dinner on Valentine's Day. But it's not really a good idea to be out too later around here. More than anything, getting a cab at night is no easy task. So since we always enjoy afternoon tea, I started searching for places that offered a special afternoon tea. There were quite a few of these, since afternoon tea is a bit British tea and England held control of India for quite sometime.  There are a couple of really elegant (and expensive) teas at a couple of the five star hotels. However, the recent strike by Uber meant it is almost impossible to get a cab. Fortunately, I found out about a place relatively nearby--close enough that we could take one of "auto-rickshaws" which are only capable of going relatively short distances. The place was Elma's Bakery, and though we had difficulty finding it, it was worth the trouble. The afternoon "high tea" as it is called consisted of finger sandwiches, muffins and dessert. We made the mistake of ordering two when one was obviously enough to share. So it ended up being an early dinner with still enough to take home for dessert tomorrow

Jaipur

We packed in quite a bit in 3 days in Jaipur , which is probably why so few details remain. Our first domestic flight in India went off without a hitch. Yes, the traffic going to the airport was horrendous, but we got there in a half hour and our flight departed right on time. There are several low cost carriers in India, and we chose An airline called Indigo air primarily because it took my credit card. Using an America credit card online is relatively difficult in India. A lot of sites don't take them, the rail ticket site, the phone company , or the online food store we order from. And so far, Indigo is the only airline that has accepted my card without problem. I asked the hotel to have to pick us up at the airport, which was not only unnecessary but expensive since not only was there q prepaid taxi stand. It Uber worked as well. So I spent to $22 going from the airport to the hotel and only $2 for the hotel to the airport.

Once we arrived we had to make a decision about our itinerary . We arrived Friday noon and would leave Sunday morning, so there was no time to spare. We decided we would hire a car to drive us to th sites outside of town, which consisted of q couple of forts, and then spend Saturday exploring the city on our own. A car four four hours would run us about $25, which is about time the going rate, but if you get it through the hotel there is a level of security that you don't have if you just go out on your own and hire someone.

Amber Fort is supposedly on the must see list for anyone going to Jaipur,  and so as not to miss anything But first there is the matter of getting the on overage so please we have no idea how much it costs. Given with the landlord and said I'm figuring it's about a 40 but the first couple folks asked for 80 to 100 and then Yong finally chimes and "50 all the time 50."And the guy agrees we took the driver up on his suggestion to hire a guide, which turns out to be a mistake. It onl cost around $3, but the guy was short on information and seems interested only in getting us through the fort as quickly as possible and getting us to go to his village to look at handicrafts. About halfway thrum the tour we paid him and told him e wanted to explore the fort on our own.. In truth, they did not seem all that much to see. The best part about visiting the various forts is that it takes y outside and above the city And certainly the highlight for me was the restaurant atop the third and final fort we went to, from which e watched the sunset and I had a beer, which are remarkably hard to come by in India (though not as difficult to obtain as a cheeseburger--unless y want q literal cheese burger,that is, a burger made of cheese, which I made the mistake of ordering once).

The second and only full day in Jaipur saw us out on the street by 9 am. Jane was not too keen on going to the museum, but developed an interest in the pottery on display. My memories armor the carvings that illustrated the stories of the Hindu gods. From there the next major site is know. As the City Palace, which is where the royal head of Jaipur still resides, although he has no political power.The most famous building in the complex is known as the welcoming hall that wa used by the rulers of Jaipur to greet other dignitaries.it was constructed in the early 20th century and was voted at one point the most beautiful 20th century building, though I have a hard time seeing it.

Jantar Mantqr, an enclosed area about the size of a football filed which contains about a dozen or so gigantic astronomical instruments Serving as sundials and to mark the locations of various objects in the sky.

Finally we found our way to what is known as the Tower of the Winds, which is a 5 story structure do that those looking out cannot be seen by those on the outside. It was built so that the wives of the rulers (and the early rulers had multiple wives) cloud view the city while retaining their modesty.

The sites put us smack in the middle of the pink part of the pink city. The traffic in and around the central part of town is as intense as anything in Delhi. We wound up callin an Uber  by one of the three entrance gates -- traffic pouring by on all sides-- and having to ask a kiosk full of Indian policemen to help us explain our location to the Uber driver.

But the day ends peacefully as the cab dropped us at the Hotel Pearl Palace and its rooftop restaurant which I had read about in my guide. The Lonely Planet guide continues to deliver excellent recommendations, and this rooftop oasis in the midst of a chaotic city was no exception . The only drawback was that the clay oven would not start operating until six thirty and so we were deprived of sampling its signature dishes .

The weather was beautiful for our entire trip. February and March are the best time for visiting this part of India, known as Rajastqn,which sits I the desert and gets blazing hot starting in April.

Jane's Paintings

Jane has continued painting here, using the back room as her studio. At least someone is doing something constructive here! It seems to me one can perceive the longing for open spaces unencumbered by buildings, cars, or even people.

Buddha Park

We continued our habit of playing tourist one day a week. We are particularly interested in finding green spaces in Delhi--anything that promises to provide a respite from the noise, traffic and concrete of this city. Looking at a city map, we saw a rather green area labelled "Buddha Park." After a little research on the internet it seemed like a promising place to go and so we plugged the address into the Uber and headed out. Our first hour or so was spent looking for the elusive Buddha statue that supposedly sat in the park. After trying to follow the confusing signs we gave up and started asking people. Even then it took about four or five tries until we were finally able to track it down. We spent another hour or so sitting in the sunshine, enjoying the relative peace, tranquility and greenery

Earthquake, sort of

So we were sitting watching television, one of the many food shows that we seemed to have started following lately that center on some foreigner going to a far flung land and sampling the cuisine. There's La Dulce India about an Italian guy in India, and Serve it Like Sarah, about an Australian woman in Goa, etc etc. Anyway the coffee table in front of us started shaking and Jane looked at me. She thought I was shaking the table with my foot and was about to tell me to stop it when she looked and realize it wasn't me. We had both been through earthquakes and so immediately knew what was going on. Thankfully it subsided pretty quickly. I would have guessed it for about a 4.0 but it turns out it was a 5.8. The center was about 100 miles away and I guess there people were running out into the street, and the India news was hyping it like it was the Apocolypse, but we turned off the TV and went to bed.

Kung Fu Yoga

We paid our first visit to an Indian movie theater this Sunday to see a film titled "Kung Fu Yoga,
a joint Indian-Chinese collaboration that was thankfully dubbed in English. The movie could best be described as Indiana Jones meets Bruce Lee, and involved Chinese film star Jackie Chan as the greatest archaeologist in China (or at least one of them) attempting to find a two thousand year old lost Indian treasure and along the way running into a variety of Indian bad guys who want to thwart. The plot had too many absurd plot twists to enumerate. On the bright side, there were no trailers for other movies; however, these were replaced by a half-hour of public service announcements culminating in the playing of the Indian national anthem during which everyone had to rise. There was also an intermission halfway through. All in all, a nice break from the Delhi noise

India Art Fair

There are a lot of downsides to being in Delhi: noise, traffic, pollution. But this is also the cultural capital of India, and on any given day there are dozens of activities that allow you to engage in India culture:  music, film premiers, dance. You name it.This weekend we made our way to the India Art Fair, a world renowned one weekend exhibition of art galleries from around the world. The student who was our guide when we first came to Delhi, Rhea, happened to be working at the Fair, and so got us free VIP passes. There were well over a hundred galleries with works on display, tucked away into separate cubicles. In the back was the VIP lounge with a wine bar, and outside a couple of tents serving snacks, desserts and coffee. It was a very elegant affair, and as Jane said, it felt like we were not in Delhi. It was a great day. Making our way home was another story

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The school where I work

Below are a few shots of the campus that I am associated with: Ambedkar University. The campus itself is a rather odd assortment of makeshift buildings, and looks like nothing so much as a collection of storage sheds melded together. The "offices" are windowless rooms in a cinderblock buildings with thick padlocks on the outside that remind one more of prisons cells. It has to be said, it is not an inviting place, and no one seems to linger here longer than they have to. There is a small commons area focused around a cafeteria that serves incredibly cheap Indian food.But if the physical location is not inviting the people have been incredibly friendly and willing to help out in any way they can. Like in China (and unlike in America) professors are treated with the utmost respect. Education is honored and professors have attained the highest achievement in education.

 It is a relatively new university, only about 7 or 8 years old, and is named after Dr. Bhimrao Namji Ambedkar (1891-1956), who was a jurist, politician and social reformer who fought against discrimination against the lowest class ("untouchables"), and on the whole seems to have a rather left-leaning orientation. I am currently co-teaching a class called "Deconstructing Normalcy,"a class that exploring the connection between psychology and politics. I will start co-teaching a second class in March.

Indian cooking class

Last night, we took an Indian cooking class. Jane has gotten enough of a taste of Indian cooking that she decided she would like to learn how to prepare a few dishes. And so after searching on line for a while, I found a one night cooking class that was very highly rated and we signed up. With the help of the teacher, we would do all the cooking and then get to eat what we had prepared. Jane is especially fond of the Indian bread known as nan and so asked that this be included as well. In addition was asked if we could have lamb, which we both love. The evening began with an introduction to the various Indian spices. Then we started on the lamb, which had been previously marinated, and would be browned and then cooked in a tomato sauce. Next we did an potato dish and an Indian vegetable rice known as briyani. This was followed by a classic Indian dish, paneer, which is essentially Indian cottage cheese that can be mixed with a variety of vegetables. The final step involved the breads.We first prepared the basic Indian bread which is known as roti and which just involves wheat flour and water and is cooked atop the stove. Nan it turns out, is much more difficult, not only involving yogurt, yeast, and sugar, among other ingredients. It also turns out home ovens and pans cannot get hot enough to make good pan, so you have to actually turn the pan over on the heat to even begin to get a decent nan. The bottom line is not to make nan at home. At last we were ready to eat!

If you are really interested, here is a link to a short youtube videa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAJ_6HcjQ7c