monsoon season? YEP

Spent the day in the rain. It rained ALL day. It went from a light rain to a very heavy rain and back again, but never not raining.

The day went very fast, I saw temples, zoos, parks, and museums.

I met and had a conversation with maybe 10 folks or so. Almost all of them asked me at some point in the conversation something along the lines of “Which is better India or America?” When I was here in 2003 the most common question was more like “Is there something you like about India?”

I think there is a real sense of things getting better here.

My answer was always something like: something better about US, something better here. I think Americans could learn a lot about how to enjoy life. The folks with the worst life in US have it way better than most in India, yet they seem to enjoy things more here. Most places I saw the folks seemed “more happy” than what I see at a similar place in US. It’s not a huge gap, but I see a definite gap. 2 examples.

1) The spill way: It was just a smallish water fall yet the folks seemed to enjoy it more than we would in US. There was more laughter, more excited talk (this might just be the language), more teenagers playing.
2) At another stop. It was on top of the hill where the stream started that folks were palying below. It was raining so hard that you really couldn’t seen anything, so a group of teens played music from their car and started dancing in the rain. It was just a big party waiting for the rain to stop enough to see something.

By the way: still not sick from the soda on day 1 so maybe I got lucky.  MAYBE!!!!

Drive to Pune

I wake up just in time to get to the breakfast. Indian breakfast? I forgot the ??? impact ??? Indian food has on me

The driver picks me up at about 12 and we had down the highway.

It has always been dark when I made this drive so it’s nice to see everything as it goes by. We stop off at a local McDonald’s. I forgot how hard it is to pick the safe stuff. I can’t have anything that is washed but not cooked. Also can’t have ice or anything that has had any water in it. So I order a pizza wrap kind of thingy, fries, and a soda (no ice) I get about half way through my meal and realize THE SODA FOUNTAIN ADDS WATER TO THE SYRUP!!!! This is not good. I hope the acid in the syrup is enough to kill any of the nasty bugs.

So we get back on the road. On the way we make a few stops to see a few things on the way. The most interesting was a spillway for a dam. There were lots of people all around climbing up the spill way, playing in the water, and generally mulling around like a small festival. I hang out here for a bit, meet several people (seems not many white folks get to this part of the world).

At about 6pm we get to the new hotel, I check in, eat dinner, and prop my eyes open until about 10pm.

Off to India

The day of my trip started off nice.  Didn’t have to be a the airport until about 2pm.   Had to do some shopping before I left so ran around to a few stores.  Added bonus: I found a cool travel Ipod thingy.  It’a a travel alarm that has a dock for my ipod, has a sleep function, and lets me hook it up to a TV so I can watch the movies on a TV instead of the itty bitty screen on the ipod.

Got to the airport a little early, got to the self checkin screen and it tells me there is a problem please see someone at the counter.  Went to the counter the screen told me to and they said “OH!!  you need to go down that that line way down there.  Now I’m getting a little nervous.  When I get to the frount of the line the lady says “your plan has been delayed, not sure you can make your connecting flight.”    Then she says “there is an earlier flight we may be able to get you on.”  I was already booked in business class on my flight but will have to go on the waiting list on the new flight.   Well, turns out I do get on the earlier flight and do get business class, so everything turned out good.

The next flight turns out to be delayed for 15 mins.  No big deal.  We board and I’m in a row that is full, shoulder to shoulder.  So I look around and find an empty row so I move to that row and sit in the middle.  Turns out  there are about 30 folks that are running late from another flight so we all wait for about 30 mins just sitting in the plain.

Turns out my empty row get’s full from the people running late, so I look and find another empty row so I sit in the middle of that row.  Well, we pull away from the gate and I still have the row to my self!  WOOOO  HOOO.

The plan pulls back about 20 ft and then stops.  The someone announces there is a traffic jam behind the plane so we will have to wait for a bit.  About 40 mins later  the plane starts  moving again.  About 10 mins later there is another announcements “there is another traffic jam”  About 1 hr later we finally take off.

Considering it was a 16 hr flight that took actually took more like 20 hrs, this was a nice flight.  I got to lay down across the sits and slept.  Not at all comfortable, but a heck of a lot better than having to sit in the chairs.  Watched 4 movies that I had not seen yet and the last movie finished within 5 mins of landing.

The flight was due in at 10pm,  It was more like 2:00am. I got out of the airport at about 2:30am.  The driver took me to my hotel, and arranged to pick me up the next morning to take me to Pune and left.

I got up to the front desk and it turned out I’m at the wrong hotel.  (by now it’s just funny).  So I get a taxi to take me to the correct hotel, check in and head to bed.

LONG DAY!!!!

2 Days in Mumbai

Had 2 days in Mumbai to get as much sight seeing in as possable. Most of the the day when by in a blur as I went from place to place. To be honest I didn’t really see much different from New Dehli. I did get to see some interesting buildings.

Mars at it’s closest

This was me at the top of my hotel. I tryed to take a picture on the night Mars was the nearest to Earth it was going to get in my lifetime.

The Pink City

I spent 1.5 days exploring Jaipur. I think I like Jaipur even more than Agra. The architecture and the layout of the city was just amazing. I even got to see a movie being filmed. Most of Jaipur was build by the first king to unit all of north India. Some of the things I’ve seen as a very old Indian game that most Americans would recognize as Ladder & Slides. It seems Indians have be playing that game for a very very long time before America even existed. I also got to see the a royal palace built in the middle of a lake. I did 2 things. 1) kept the royals cool in the heat, and 2) keeps them safe from someone sneaking up on them. On the way down from the upper palace I saw a wild peacock. I had to track it for about a 100 yards into the woods just to get a half way decent picture.

New Delhi

The thing I remember the most about Delhi is the towers. An ancient king build a massive tower to intimidate all the neighbor kings. It seems in the old days a kings power was measured by how rich the king was. After all I rich king can afford a bigger army than a poor king. As a king, you would not want anyone to know how big your army. But you would want to know how big your neighboring kings army is, and they want to know how big yours is. If they had know idea how big your army is they would have to attack just to measure. So the idea is to show how rich and powerful you are so they can guess you have a big army. So to that end a king build this huge tower. The king’s son, not to be outdone, started to build his own tower. Well it turns out he was not so hot as a king. His tower was never finished.

The oddest thing I’ve ever seen

Today was mostly driving back to Delhi. I think one of the most odd things I’ve ever seen was on the road. I saw an ox cart hauling what looked to be red dirt. The guy driving the cart was in traditional robe type clothing. The sight looked exactly like it must have looked over 1000 years ago. There was nothing I could see that would tell you which century they were from except for one thing. The guy was talking on a cell phone.

Taj Mahal

What can I say. This place is amazing. It was an overcast day so I didn’t need my sunglasses except while I was at the Taj. There was so much white marble that the glare was blinding and my eyes watered. The level of detail in the stone work was also just beyond belief. All the color you see in the pictures is different colored stone inlayer into the marble. Every line every color is all inlayer stone work.

Coolest day in India

One of the guys at work invited me to spend the day with his family. We drove through the country side around a set of lakes and water falls. Nothing in particuar happened but was nice seeing India with a local family on vacation. A simple but exceptional day.