Baths in the Ganges, Cows in the Galis, and a Good Place to Die

May 22, 2008

Pondicherry to Chennai 

(Matt)

We woke up in Pondicherry in a nice hotel in the heart of the colonial French area. The rooms were tiny, but no employees were under our bed when we got back from dinner.

(Amber)

The hotel was beautifully decorated and freshly painted with bright white paint. To get into our room, we had to climb a ladder, and we were then sort of perched on top of the old hotel. It was lovely with nice touches including carved figurines, nice smelling shampoo, and towels...all things that you never think about until you haven't seen them in ages. Although too expensive, about $50, we needed a respite after our crazy day. Neither of us slept well. We just couldn't stop going over what had happened at the first hotel.

(Matt)

We had breakfast in a beautifully restored courtyard at the hotel and jumped in a rickshaw to catch a bus to Chennai. [Amber: A side note...the fruit juice here is nothing compared to what we were getting on the coast. They tend to water it down.]

(Amber)

The rickshaw driver, in broken English, told us about his attempt to get to Alaska to clean parts at an oil refinery. If what he was telling us was true, and we honestly couldn't tell, he said an agent stole a lot of money from him and his passport and never reappeared. Who knows? He then asked if he could give us his new passport for us to get him a U.S. visa. Matt tried to explain to him that we really couldn't do that and told him he should hold onto his passport. He then wistfully talked about being free and making money in America. I sat in the back of the rickshaw watching the dusty busy streets go by (Matt was in the front seat with him) and thought about how many sad stories we've seen and heard since we left home. We declined a visit to his house to get his passport, got to the bus stand, but Matt gave him about a 300% tip, shook his hand and wished him luck. And then we hopped on a yellow-dog type bus headed for what we hoped was Chennai. The destination was in Sanskrit, so we weren't sure.

(Matt)

The bus to Chennai was extremely hot and dirtier than most. A thick layer of brown dust covered everything, as if a midget car race had occurred inside the bus with the windows up. On the way, we passed a heavily populated and arid landscape, coming within view of the Bengal Sea from time to time. Of interest was a salt flat where locals maintained tiny individual salt farms in 6 feet by 6 feet squares, like a white quilt on the landscape. As the water evaporated and left only the salt, it was bagged up and hauled away to be sold.

(Amber)

We arrived in Chennai and jumped off the bus in the middle of a crazily busy street, not being sure of what part of the city we were in. We quickly got in a rickshaw and headed toward Hotel Mars. I had done some research and figured out that this was a good budget choice near the airport, where we needed to be for an early morning flight. We've found that here, a little planning goes a long way, and it was nice to at least know where to head when we were dropped in the middle of a busy street at sunset.

At this point, we had been up until 3am the night before talking about our day, hadn't eaten since breakfast, had been on a bus for several hours, and we were exhausted.

The drive started on a huge and modern highway and ended on dirt roads in the heart of slums. Just outside of our hotel, in the middle of this huge city, it looked like we were in a rural village. Dirt roads, thatched huts, and fat pigs eating litter were outside the front door of our basic but relatively modern hotel near the airport. One thing is true - we never know what's around the corner. And that's part of the fun and mystery of the place.

(Matt)

We ate at the small hotel restaurant and prepared to be up at 3:30am to catch a 6:00am flight to Delhi. At dinner, Amber didn't really eat her food, and the waiter called her out. This is a very common and funny thing that's happened to us throughout India...if you order something and don't eat or drink all of whatever you ordered, the waiter will always call you out and ask why you didn't finish it.

(Amber)

I was called out for leaving my food (veggie noodles that were fine - veggies, carrots, green peppers, and ginger - I just wasn't that hungry, or I was, but couldn't really eat) and lime soda (common drink here made with lime juice, sugar, and some crazy masala spices). The guy wasn't rude. He was just either trying to teach me manners or trying to decide if I didn't like his food.

(Matt)

After dinner we started to really feel our lack of oral hygiene. Because the guy was alone with our things in Hotel Surguru in Pondicherry, we immediately threw away our toothbrushes. We were concerned that the-guy-under-the-bed may have touched them in an inappropriate way while creeping around our room. That may sound weird, but so was that dude under our bed. Anyway, after abandoning the toothbrushes, we couldn't find others. So at this point we actually hadn't brushed our teeth for about 2 days.

(Amber)

That's a record for us and not one we're proud of. While we've been plenty dirty on this trip, our teeth have stayed squeaky clean. Until now!

May 23, 2008

Chennai to Delhi to Varanasi 

(Matt)

As always, 3:30am came very early at Mars Hotel. When we got up and flipped on the lights, Amber quickly noticed the tell-tale sign of bed bugs....bloody streaks all over the sheets that were clean just a few hours before.

We looked closer and found numerous red bed bugs of different sizes walking around where we had just been laying. Since it was the middle of the night, we caught them in the act of feeding on us. About 24 hours later, we figured out that Amber was bitten during this night more than 50 times. She has a nasty rash now. For some reason, I did not have a bad reaction to them this time. Bed bugs have been with us throughout India.

Hotel Mars, while it may be infested with bed bugs, did have its own shuttle service to the airport, which was really convenient at 4am. Once dropped off, we purchased onward tickets from Delhi to Varanasi for later that afternoon on Spice Jet.

We finally boarded the 2.5 hour flight to Delhi and picked up a local newspaper in English. On the plane, Amber read me the day's cases of women being burned under mysterious circumstances, a daily ritual. In this paper, one woman burned to death in a "cooking accident," the most common burning death, and another burned to death when a "lamp fell" on her, a new one for us. These are likely dowry burnings, and they appear in the newspapers here almost everyday in every state that we've visited.

(Amber)

Literally every single day in the newspapers here, it is reported that women have burned to death cooking dinner. It is reported as if it is an undisputed fact and nothing that should raise an eyebrow. A lamp falling on a woman at home burned her to death? If I had a dime for all of the "burned to death cooking dinner" stories I've read . . . .

Women also frequently "walk out on" their husbands and babies never to be seen again....also without any question about possible foul play. This walking out theory, and I know this because I watch enough Dateline NBC at home, happens everywhere. But in some places, it's at least investigated. And unfortunately, there's often evidence of domestic foul play of some sort. Here, these stories appear to often be taken at face value, and these women join the ranks of others who combusted while cooking dinner or just walked out on their babies never to return.

(Matt)

After landing in Delhi, we changed terminals and waited a few hours for the next flight to Varanasi. While waiting in line to send our luggage through the X-ray machine at the sole security screening, we noted that the man whose job was to actually look at the images of the X-rayed luggage and to alert on suspicious bags was refusing to look at the screen. He was looking anywhere but the monitor, talking to people and even text messaging on his mobile phone while bags sped through his machine. That didn't make us feel too secure, especially in light of the recent Jaipur bombings.

We were unable to find toothbrushes at the Chennai or the Delhi airports, and we were going on 3 days without brushing. It felt disgusting.

Once we were on the Spice Jet flight, Amber won a drawing and got a free plane ticket. We figured out that it would come into effect only after we were in Egypt, so Amber gave it to a Muslim man behind us who had been really upset when he hadn't won.

(Amber)

When this drawing started, I just knew I would win. I'm not a psychic, but I'm telling you....I knew I was going to have to walk up while people cheered and leered. I knew it. It was a packed plane, and I wanted to be totally incognito. So I was in no way surprised when they called my seat number, and I had to walk to the front toward some ticket-giving ceremony in front of the whole plane. It would have been great if we could have used it, but it was also nice to make someone's day by handing it over to him. Like Matt said, he desperately wanted to win, and he was happy as a clam when I handed him the ticket.

May 23-27, 2008

Varanasi 

(Matt)

Finally, we arrived in Varanasi and got dropped off by a taxi near the ghats on the Ganges River, which are the steps leading down to the river. We had to walk several blocks to get to the ghats through insane streets crowded with yelling pedestrians, bell-ringing bicycle rickshaws and horn-honking motorcycles and motor rickshaws, produce vendors, silk salesmen, chai and lassie makers, cows, goats, and sickly dogs.....all while being swarmed by the most predatory touts that we have seen in all of India. And that is quite a distinction.

After we clumsily found our way to the river, properly determining which touts were trying to purposefully mislead us to send us to their hotels, we found Rashmi Guesthouse. Amber did some research ahead of time, and I must say she did a great job picking this one.

Rashmi Guesthouse is the best location in town for seeing the sights. It's right next to the main ghat, and we have a nice room with A/C and a TV with several stations in English. Plus, there is a pretty good rooftop restaurant here with a nice and peaceful view of the action. We've eaten almost every meal there because most of the other restaurants in Varanasi have a bunch of little mice running around them.

All of this is critical in Varanasi because the harassment of foreigners is on a scale that is kind of shocking, even for those of us who are accustomed to being harassed. I had forgotten how bad it is here. I stayed in Varanasi for a week back in 2001, and I remembered it being intense. But I didn't remember the tenacity of the touts, beggars, and salesmen of northern India. It's brutal because they will not leave you alone...you must ultimately flee. So you need a good place to escape from time to time.

(Amber)

Varanasi is like nothing we've seen. So many people, so much traffic, so many hawkers, so many cows, cows' poop, flies, monkeys, bicycle rickshaws....Varanasi is India on speed. It's on full throttle and so alive and beautiful in so many ways. And while wandering and people-watching here could be a fun full time job, it's not fun. For foreigners at least, Varanasi is infinitely fascinating but not pleasant.

We literally get chased and yelled at from the minute we step out of our room until the minute we step back in. We have started to take bets on how many times we'll be solicited and chased....or on how long we can sit peacefully outside before being run off by a forming swarm. The bets aren't fun though because we both choose huge numbers, so there's not much of a contest.

(Matt)

Varanasi, previously called Benares and Kashi, is one of India's holiest cities, where Hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganges River (the Ganga) and wash away their sins. The Ganges, while a holy and critically important river in India, is also one of the most polluted rivers in the world, having many tons of human and industrial waste dumped directly into it every day. There are 30 large sewers continuously discharging into the Ganges in Varanasi alone. But that doesn't stop locals and pilgrims alike from swimming and washing in it. In our pictures you can see the garbage next to bathers and those in the swim club...yes, there is a good-sized swim club.

Varanasi has been a cultural and religious center for over 2000 years. The city is an important place to die because, according to Hindu tradition, dying here automatically avoids reincarnation, and your soul achieves liberation, or moksha, which is the ultimate goal in the Hindu religion. Because of this, Varanasi draws many sadhus, which are ascetics and/or yogis that dedicate their lives to achieving moksha. They often wear ochre-colored clothing, and we got a few pictures of them along the ghats.

The Ganges River, with the impressive ghats standing tall along its western bank, is a living breathing, religious entity. From before dawn until well into the night, there are many colorful religious ceremonies occurring at and on the river, including the Ganga blessing ceremony that kicks off at 7:20pm every evening with drums, chimes and bells playing in hypnotic poly-rhythm. Some pilgrims travel to the sandy eastern bank to perform their rituals, but most ceremonial activities happen along the steps down to the Ganga.

Varanasi is the city of the Hindu god Shiva. So there are many lingas and shrines to Shiva here, but the ancient rituals honor many other gods too. And you can see various shrines over most doorways, in most trees trunks, and around literally every corner of the old city.

The ghats, temples and other buildings along the river are connected by a labyrinth of narrow alleyways called galis. Foot traffic is the principal way to travel through most of these galis because they are so narrow, but every minute or so a honking motorcycle comes flying through almost killing everyone in its way. Bicycles also cruise down the galis ringing their little bells, making the peds scatter. I love wandering around the galis checking out the strange happenings, which are many, but if you are really trying to get somewhere they are very disorienting and will usually dump you out some place unfamiliar.

We have walked along the ghats quite a bit, and we got up at 4:30am on our second day to hire a small boat to travel along the river to watch the morning bathers, clothes washers, yogis, and worshippers as the sun came up over Varanasi. Along the ghats throughout the day, children play cricket, sadhus sit cross-legged in their ochre robs, monkeys scream, play and fight, cows eat trash, people sell, chew and spit paan (betel nut and leaves) through red stained teeth, merchants sell religious paraphernalia, flowers, fruit and Ayurvedic massages, and haircuts, while buffaloes get washed in the Ganges. It is a fascinating show all day, everyday. That's why I got stuck here and missed the TajMahal in 2001.

One day, I left Amber in the room and strolled randomly through the galis. The smell of cow manure and the buzzing of flies feeding on it can be overwhelming sometimes. This was one of those times. So I decided to duck into a barber shop.

I was a good ways off of the galis most likely to see tourist--the goods sold there were ultensils for cooking, such as pots, spoons, and propane--and when I walked into his little shop, the barber did a little jig, even though he was in the process of shaving a customer with a straight razor. Once he found out that I was American, he announced this fact loudly to everyone within earshot of his shop entrance. He had a little son that patiently watched the whole haircut, which amazingly took about 1.5 hours. My haircuts usually take 5-10 minutes.

The barber did not have electric clippers, nor did he have non-electric clippers. He had to try to mimic the look of clippers with rapid, fluttering clipper-like snips. I was worried that he might get tendonitis or carpal tunnel as he frantically worked and worked at getting every little hair just right.

During the haircut, a shady looking man walked in. Without a word from either party, the barber stopped immediately and walked over and started giving this guy money, as he looked on in an intimidating fashion. I could tell that the guy was a mobster or something. I thought that he was probably shaking my barber down for some "protection" money. After the guy left, my barber bought chai for for the both of us, and he explained that he had two jobs...he was a barber and a bookie. After the haircut, I got a picture of the guy with his shop. It was the most thorough haircut of my life, and it was good.

(Amber)

Another thing you see along with river is the burning corpses. In the Hindu religion, burning of the body is an important ceremony. They massage the corpse with honey, oils, and spices...wrap it in cloth (white for men and red for women)...make a mark with orange powder on the cloth around the head as a blessing...and then burn it on a pyre alongside the river. Often, the head of the corpse is then split by a member of the family during the ceremony. We have visited two burning ghats (each a few minutes from our hotel) and have now seen many bodies burning on pyres. Photos aren't allowed while bodies are burning, but you can see a few of the burning ghats.

I would have liked to watch an entire ceremony, but each time we've gone to a burning ghat, we have been immediately surrounded and chased off by people trying to see what they could shake us down for.

We did get to see quite a bit of one ceremony though, and it's really interesting to watch the body burning ritual and traditions. Men carry the bodies through town on a cot-type thing slung over their shoulders. The body is wrapped in intricately-adorned red velvet, and members of the family follow the procession burning incense, singing, and throwing flower petals. They walk quickly through the insane traffic, dodging in and out, and go toward the burning ghat, where the body is then prepared for burning.

Men carry the body, follow it, and accompany it to the pyre. Women in general do not join the ceremony because there's a fear that they may cry, and tears are thought to be impure. So any time we've been at the burning ghat, I have been the only woman around.

Body burning, because it's part of the religious tradition practiced by the majority of Indians, is done all over India, but it occurs with huge frequency here, since Varanasi is such an auspicious place to die. We have seen three processions and at least four bodies burning. It goes on all day every day here.

For the most part, burning bodies is a trade practiced by India's lowest caste, The Untouchables, because it's considered to be dirty work. The Untouchables, India's poorest and most historically disenfranchised group, also do work like clean out clogged sewers and work with leather....anything that is considered to be dirty or impure work. When they burn the bodies, they are allowed to sift through the ashes and keep any bits of gold that might remain from jewelry or the teeth of the corpse. They are incredibly poor. Slums surround the burning ghats (photo of one in the slideshow) where the people who run the operation live.

An aside....The caste system is something that many have fought to end and that some will argue, though I'm not sure how, no longer holds sway. But the truth is that it's thousands of years old and well-ingrained in most of the populace (especially rural, which account for most Indians). We see it in practice all over India (marriage services by caste for example are advertised everywhere, political fights are in the papers everyday regarding the treatment of X caste,...), although I hope that the people who say its losing influence are right. I know there are programs to ensure that X number of Untouchables get to go to school, etc....though even those have been met with resistance and some violence. A book that I loved and would recommend to anyone interested is called A Fine Balance by RohintonMistry. It's a novel, but I think it gives a great insight into this complex and biased system that leaves some, as a birthright, destitute and stricken.

Back to body burning....At first glance, it might seem a bit gory to the foreign palate to publicly burn bodies. But it's a religious tradition that is honestly in no way gorier than the embalming and burying that most Christians do....or than the Parsi tradition of laying bodies out for the buzzards. I think the tradition is pretty beautiful.

Varanasi as a whole is really, really interesting. You won't see more Indian India anywhere in India! I cannot emphasize how many people, temples, prayers, shrines, ceremonies, cows, goats, fish, stalls, bells, henna, powders, stands, buckets, marigolds, flags, boats, launderers, beggars, sadhus, body burners, pilgrims, families, gods....there are here. It is truly incredible. Literally all night long we hear loud singing and bell-ringing processions. And around every corner, there's incense being lit in a shrine.....sometimes by elderly men and sometimes by tiny little girls. And just as you start to breathe that smell and look at what they're doing, you hear the familiar sound of "SIRRRRRRRRR....WHERE are you FRRRROOOOMMMM?" And you dart down another alley to escape. Occasionally, if you get deap enough into the alleyways, you can escape the chase and be greeted with slightly perplexed stares instead. That's a welcome retreat and one that, after a full week here, we've found quite a bit. The further away we get from the water, the more peaceful perplexed stares we get to enjoy in relative solitude.

The alleys are buzzing with activity. People are cooking on small stoves over coals, making yogurt lassies in something that looks like a mortar and pestle, drinking chair from small terracotta cups that you then just throw in the alley and break, sitting on their haunches eating kofta and tomatoes in yogurt sauce, cutting hair at tiny little stands, selling incense and spices....Whatever it is, if you need it, you can find someone selling it in the alleys. The alleys are tiny, relatively dark, and are chock full of mangy dogs, cows, monkeys, and flies. The smells of the food, the chai, the exhaust, the fragrant flowers, the aromatic oils, the cooking grease, the beedi smoke, the incense, the human urine, and the animal poop assault your senses all at once and all day long and add to the overall experience. You will not get a breath of scentless air in Varanasi.

Varanasi is beautiful and colorful and more steeped in religion than anyplace I've ever seen or even imagined. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I think if you don't see this holy, ancient town and its people and rituals, you've missed India. That being said....

In keeping with the "land of contrasts" theme...There's a flipside to the beauty, history, color, and religion in Varanasi.

It is filthy here. This is a problem in too much of India....the level of filth here is renowned to be the highest in the world, and I have thought and thought and can't imagine how they can ever get control of it. Air and water quality is low, and litter levels are shockingly high. My asthma has been really difficult to control here, and I can't imagine how asthmatic Indians can breathe without access to steroids and rescue inhalers available to me in the States. My guess is that it's really, really hard for many people.

When you walk along the river, you're walking through a good deal of raw sewage and trash. A reported 1 million liters of raw sewage is poured into the river each day from Varanasi alone. Water quality isn't just a problem here in Varanasi. More than 700,000 Indians have no access to clean water to drink, and people die from drinking dirty water everyday. In fact, the papers in Varanasi since we've arrived have reported people who are deathly ill from local ice. And because of pollution, the Ganges, which has sustained life in India for thousands of years, is one of the world's top ten most endangered waterways. Cows and goats nosh on piles and piles of trash along the river bank. Monkeys are on virtually every rooftop here, and they also survive on trash. Little mice are in heaven in the alleyways. At a computer place, one ran over my machine, and the owner casually thumped it like it was a fly. The next day, another ran by Matt's foot, and the guy behind the counter just said..."Mouse. Good boy mouse." And I've seen at least three people pooping in the streets and along the river. Don't get me wrong, there's so much more to Varanasi than the filth, but there's so much filth in Varanasi that it's impossible to ignore.

After traveling so much, we're used to litter, and...beyond wishing that structures could be put in place to address it...it usually doesn't bother us. In fact, I hate it when people go to Europe and can only come home and talk about the litter and graffiti. I can almost always see through that to the beauty and resilience and history of a place. But here the filth is on a scale that affects the health and well-being of all Indians and affects the overall health of the planet.

The other clear downside here is that it's so full of touts and shady characters who stick to us like flies on a cloth. Five minutes is the longest we've been able to sit near the Ganges without a new "friend." We almost beat our record, but when we got to about four minutes of quietly looking at this holy river and rituals and pondering....a probably 18 year old male bather took a liking to me, stood about 10 feet in front of us, and made an animated display of flexing his abs while tying his loin cloth and flashing him"self" at me as many times as possible. Matt was so enjoying the four minutes of peace, he told me just not to look. Finally though, I told him we had to move on. So much for breaking the record. Last night we went on a walk and were literally surrounded several times. And it's created a weird relationship between the locals and the tourists. The locals who pay attention to us, chase us, lie to us, and yell at us. We, in turn, are rude and abrupt almost exclusively. It's not a pleasant give and take, but it is what it is.

(Matt)

A quote from the Lonely Planet is in order at this point..."The predatory touts and rickshaw-wallahs here pounce on visitors like starving tigers pouncing on a defenceless deer. . . ." In truth, each journey out into the city is a bludgeoning. We have to gear up for it each time, and we have become very harsh compared to what we have been in the rest of India or anywhere else that we've been.

You have to be tough here, or you are in serious trouble. They will sense your weakness and take you down....or at least they will take you to a silk shop.

(Amber)

Our days of baby kissing, autograph signing, and photo posing are over...at least in Varanasi.

Not that the south wasn't tough in some ways. Because of the size, the systems, the number of people, and the bone-crushing poverty...all of India is a tough place to travel as a backpacker. Some people come here and are shuttled from posh hotel to ashram to yoga retreat by a driver and have an easier time of it, although no one can be entirely insulated from the scenes of mass poverty, litter, traffic, etc...But being on your own out walking in the streets, taking local buses and trains, eating at literal holes in the wall, and staying in budget places makes India a more difficult place to travel, though it makes it vastly rewarding at the same time.

But in much of where we visited before Varanasi, it was tough travel but with a really tender and endearing side that could melt your irritated, exhausted heart in an instant and teach you something about the human spirit. It could make you feel like part of a small family of humans in the world. And any hassle seemed worth it because of those sweet and totally genuine moments. We got that all the time, and my love for India will be based more on that than even the world-class temples we've seen.

It's a different vibe here for sure. We have to be on our toes, and we can't let sentimentality or the sincere wish that we were still getting those warm-and-fuzzy moments make us the low hanging fruit.

We enjoy traveling in the developing world, to poorer regions. We feel like we learn more about the world and ourselves by this type of travel than we ever could in easy or more affluent circumstances. As a result, we've dealt with countless scams, touts, new "friends," and "hello sir!! where you frommmmmm????????"s. We're not new to any of it. Show us a scam we don't know, and I'll give you $5. There's one in Delhi for example called the "shotgun shit on the shoe" scam where someone squirts poop on your show, dives to clean it, and then a group surrounds you to demand payment for the service. Nothing surprises us. But it's more intense here than anywhere I've been. And it's wearing me out. I am...officially...worn out.

Even in our tough cookie mode, we do have a total week spot for children and people who are disabled. So, as much as I hate that these children being forced to beg by their families and their circumstances...and as much as I hate that the only way for the disabled here to survive (unless they're the slim minority who come from a wealthy family) is to beg....we do tend to give a lot to them. I look at the countless kids pounding the pavement for a few cents a day, if they're lucky, and envision my nephews in the same situation. So never in my life, no matter where I go or what I see, will that fail to break my heart. And I hate it...every aspect of all of it....but we give and will continue to.

But if you don't fall into the above categories, and you're going to tail us around Varanasi, hound us, and surround us.....you might as well be trying to bleed a turnip. We won't budge.

Random thoughts.....

We have eaten a diet existing almost exclusively of Ghar Ki Dal here. It is yellow lentils and mustard oil, garlic, and chilis. It's always different but usually really tasty. Sometimes it's really soupy, and other times it's thick like Texas chili. I prefer the thick. Matt doesn't care as long as it's spicy.

Naan is different here. It seems breadier.

I've also had a lot of veggie (carrot, green pepper, garlic, ginger, and cabbage) noodles.

Drinks are coffee, chai (which is great here and includes hints of rose water and nutmeg in addition to the milk, ginger, tea, and cinnamon), Coke, and carbonated water, called soda water here.

Breakfast is toast, coffee, canned juice, cornflakes, and a tough-ish egg, but it does the trick.

Fruit quality here isn't what it was in the tropical paradise of Kerala, although there are fruit stands everywhere. New to the scene are tons of lychee and olives. The vendors, sitting in the sun on the streets and hawking them, have to wet them down all day to keep them from drying out.

The rooftops of the buildings in Varanasi are covered in monkeys. In the mornings and evenings, our entertainment from the rooftop restaurant is to watch them play and wreak havoc on the rooftops. One even tried to bust into our window and bared its teeth at me when I walked over to make sure the window was locked. They are adorable, and there are literally hundreds in the old town. We have seen more monkeys in India than anywhere else we've been combined I think, though we saw hundreds and hundreds in Tanzania.

Kite flying is a huge hobby here. On Sunday, the entire sky was full of kites. And every evening, the sky is dotted with them.

With the new lack of good fruit, I'm craving something sweet. Chai here is great and tends to do the trick, and we also found some tiny Kit Kats at a stall in the gali near our room that were nice treats.

Power cuts on and off all the time, so when you're out after dark, it makes sense to take a flashlight. The galis, when the electricity is out, are black. You can't see your hand in front of your face. One night, we had to duck into a stall and buy a candle just to get home. Walking in the black night, when you could so easily step on a cow or dog or human, isn't too fun.

Because of all of the cows, dogs, monkeys, and goats in the streets and galis, the number of flies in the winding alleyways is astonishing.

We are, and have been, basically a head taller that everyone around us.

(Matt)

Random thing: I just finished reading The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, which was really good. I picked up Gulliver's Travels at the hotel book exchange, and so I'm reading that now.

For photos, click here: http://share.shutterfly.com /action/welcome?sid=8AatmbZk0Zt FHr8