The End

Flight from Mumbai was diverted to Chicago because of storm that closed all NYC airports. After six hours waiting for a new flight assignment, gave up and went to Syl’s apt (she was in Pasadena) and took a SW flight home the next morning. Tiring but …..

Long walk

Long walk along the waterfront. A lovely boulevard about 2 miles long with a wide promenade facing the sea. Then a little lunch and, as I write this we are awaiting our flight out of the Goa airport. It is running late and we are a bit anxious that we might miss our connection in Mumbai to our flight home.

Panvajin, Goa

Last minute shopping for a few gifts. Then walking again on the promenade. Surprised to find the place mobbed by mostly Indian holiday crowds. Felt very festive, but not clear whether they were mostly Christian or not. Visited a small commercial art gallery near our hotel. A single artist was being displayed. Skillful but strange subjects – part dream like, part surreal, lots of faces some peering through jungle foliage ala Rousseau.

Caught a sleeper train that evening and woke up in Goa – actually a 45 minute taxi ride from the station. Also learned that Goa is the name of the state; the city is named Panvajin.

We were there a total of 25 hours but we had a very pleasant stay. Went for a boat ride In the harbor – there were a dozen or more large party boats that made several one or two hour trips each evening. On our boat there were about 500 people- all Indian except us - sitting on chairs facing the stage. There was a disc jockey and a heavy amplifier playing heavy beat popular dance music and groups of about 50 were invited to dance – first children, then couples then men, finally women. Between each group, four very amateurish dancers entertained the crowd. Everyone ignored the sunset and other sights, but seemed to have a great time.

We then went to a gorgeous restaurant at Hotel Crown, which we had noticed on a hill overlooking the harbor. We sat at a poolside table with a full view of the harbor It was a about 7:30 when we got there and we were the only customers. We were assured that it would fill up by 8 or 9. The food was among the best we’ve had and only a bit pricier – when we left at about 9, there were still no other customers. Strange.

Xmas eve

Today we are mostly hanging out along the waterfront. Very little sea traffic this Xmas eve, but lots of visitors, Indian and foreign. Today two 12th graders anxious to use their English approached us. They asked a lot of questions and told us about their families. They want to be email pals. Very sweet

We modified our itinerary to fit this city in – causing much difficulty in getting the replacement tickets. Half of the day was spent trying to get tickets to our next stop – Kochi. We haven’t yet got this problem resolved, but have hopes for tomorrow.

This morning we tried to locate a travel agent mentioned in Lonely Planet, but the taxi driver couldn’t find the address. As he was floundering around, we noticed the most famous temples were nearby, so we redirected him to take us to these fabulous monuments and another one we could pick out as we were driving around. So the mission got changed, but the day turned out quite productive.

Tonight’s dinner in the hotel was something special. The hotel put on a fabulous buffet with 20 dishes plus a dessert selection and a salad bar (forbidden for travelers), it was great and the staff was very proud of what they put before us.

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2 star travel has its issues - and opportunities. To meet people and experience aspects of life that might otherwise have been unobserved.

Tom and I have witnessed lots of poverty; it seems to divide into three categories:

The slum dwellers, which seem the largest group by far –- living in makeshift shacks built of a range of materials, from concrete, to thatch to bricks. They are everywhere –- cities and countryside. They are usually clustered in communities with narrow, often dirt streets and little if any sanitation or running water. There is a range of income apparent in these communities; some houses are reasonably nice with marble flooring and well maintained buildings. A lot have courtyards where cooking and other family activities take place. Residents struggle to keep these hovels clean, an uphill battle at best with the kids running in and out on the dusty streets and water often having to be hand carried into the homes.

There are also squatter communities that exist only by sufferance of the municipalities. Frederick tells of one in Chandigarh that was summarily bulldozed, causing the slum communities that his program serves to increase hugely in population and overburdening an area that was already overcrowded.

The second category is families and other groups who live on city streets – probably landless migrants from the countryside, looking for work, we are told, on a day-to-day basis. They live in hopes of finding enough work to afford to rent space in the communities described above.

The 3rd category is single individuals who beg or lie motionless on the sidewalks or any odd space that they can find where they won’t be hassled. Many appear nearly lifeless and are probably dying a slow death from disease and starvation.

Promenade

We went walking along a promenade that was built on top of a seawall constructed after a tsunami that occurred a few years ago. The promenade includes frequent benches to sit on and, unique to the entire city as far as we could see, trash containers that were in the shape of various animals and signed: USE ME. We returned to the promenade to watch the sunset. While there a local began a conversation –we weren’t sure whether he was gay or lonely or both. He’s a bachelor, works in Verona, speaks Italian, and is trying to make a living guiding Italian tourists.

That evening we bought a small freshly caught tuna, planned to take it to a stand that had offered to cook it for us. But we were intercepted by a relative of the owner of the fish restaurant we had eaten at a couple of nights earlier. He grabbed the fish and walked it back to his restaurant. We should have protested, but were a bit in awe at his presumption. It would have been ok if they hadn’t charged what seemed an exorbitant amount to cook the fish.

Chanai Beach and Masala

We took a mini-taxi to Chanai beach, which we had been told was pristine and beautiful. If we had known that it was a harrowing 45-minute drive each way, we probably wouldn’t have gone. But it was a true tropical beach bordered by coconut palms with mild waves of the Arabian Sea lapping the shore. It was relatively deserted. There were a couple of resort developments with thatched roof bungalows, and we drove through several fishermen villages. Behind the beach was a large lagoon -- lovely and picturesque. The water was amazingly warm – went in a couple of times to cool off.

Last night we attended a cooking class in a home kitchen nearby. The woman also rents rooms. She speaks very good English and has been doing this for 30 years. Others in attendance were a Finnish couple, two women from Tunisia, and a woman from Canada, all in the 40ish age range. It was a demonstration lesson rather than hands on – but it was interesting, informative and delicious. Best meal we’ve had this trip.

I learned that curry is a leaf from a bush or tree, and the dominant flavor of “curry” dishes. Masala is a variable mélange of spices used in various vegetable dishes. I expect to be able to find most of the ingredients from the lesson, except fresh curry leaves, in Berkeley. (Subsequently, I found curry leaves in my breakfast masala – so I remain confused on this subject.)

Dance and old synagogue

I was disappointed in the dance, although Tom liked it a lot. It was the simplest of stories –- a king tries to rape the beautiful wife of a demigod, who then conspires with the wife to murder the king. It was performed by 3 actors in meticulously applied face paint and weird colorful costumes. 4 drummers and a singer provided the narrative and the rhythm. The actors mostly conveyed their emotions with facial expressions and intricate hand and finger symbols. Foot action was mostly stomping. It was hard for me to imagine these dancers performing in a temple in the moonlight.

This morning, after a restless night due to the humid heat, I asked for a room with better ventilation and got a much larger room with air for a modest increase in the room rate.

We visited the old synagogue, which is reasonably well preserved. I asked the 35ish-year-old woman collecting entry fees if she was Jewish, and she said that she was. When I asked how many Jews there are in Kochi, she said there are only ten; minyans are achieved with the help of Jewish tourists. I won't be one of them since we depart Friday evening. Very sad. Perhaps she meant just in Fort Kochi, since it’s hard to believe that in a city of 1.2 million there are so few.

We then went to the Dutch Palace that has been turned into a museum with a few artifacts illustrating the history of Ft Kochi as a western enclave and passing thru the hands first of the Portuguese, then Dutch, then British beginning in the 15th century. There have been Jewish traders here since the 16th century.

This afternoon I got an auto rickshaw driver to take me to a liquor store –- a cage-like affair where the store staff takes orders and hands out beer and distilled spirits through heavy wire mesh. Most restaurants don’t serve any liquor because of the prohibitively expensive liquor license that is required. However, we went to dinner at a fish restaurant on the waterfront where we were served beer on the sly in teacups. Reminded me of movies about life during prohibition days.

The restaurant overlooked a ferry terminal where ferryboats came every few minutes to carry passengers and vehicles to the island across the sea channel, maybe 1/2 mile away. Very active – boats come and go every 10-15 minutes until about 9 pm. In the background, we could see fishing boats and large tanker vessels sliding silently into the nearby harbor.

Before dinner, we walked along the waterfront where fishermen were selling the day’s catch. During our meal, the proprietor (whom we had met the previous day when he had beckoned us to come in and admire his restaurant – pretty scroungey actually) said he had noticed us passing by the place where he was buying the fish that we were ordering for our dinner. Can’t get much fresher than that!

Spencer Home Stay

Arrived in Cochin/Kochi at break of dawn after an all-night train ride. We were so relieved to be on that train, that we slept very soundly – a 10 hour ride seemed to go very fast. The ticket agent had put us on tenterhooks by not confirming our seat reservations until a couple of hours before departure time. We had visions of needing to take a long uncomfortable bus ride to get us out of Kochi.

A taxi took us to Spencer Home Stay, a very sweet little B&B a very tiny place, maybe 10 rooms, well located and the manager has pretty good English. The rooms open onto a small courtyard shaded by palms and other plants. The only problem is that it is hot and muggy here. If the ceiling fan doesn’t cool us off sufficiently tonight, we may have to find a place with a/c.

The city is on several islands and peninsulas, connected by bridges and ferries. We are on an island called Fort Cochin, which is the location of Dutch and Portuguese trading posts and of a 400-year-old synagogue. The waterfront is a couple of blocks away. More western tourists here than we have seen during the entire trip.

On the water’s edge, we saw 8 or 10 huge fishing nets rigged to a contraption that lowered the nets into the water using a primitive counterbalance system of rock counterweights and long poles and requiring the efforts of several men to operate. We hope to have fresh fish for dinner tonight.

Looking past the fishermen, one sees a very active sea-lane with container ships, tugs and barges, tourist sightseeing boats, ferries . . . and 2 kayakers.

This evening we have tickets for a kathakali dance performance. I am sorry that we won’t be able to have the kind of experience that Suzanne described, having seen a dance troupe perform in a remote temple by moonlight.

While scrounging around in my suitcase this morning, I found an unmarked plastic bottle of shampoo that I had mislaid. This afternoon I took a shower and poured some of the “shampoo” on my head – only to discover – by smell, not taste - that it was whiskey that I had got by the security folks – but then had forgotten all about it. I still don’t know what happened to the shampoo I had so carefully decanted into a very similar plastic bottle.

Temple complexes

Started today at the r.r. station – we think we’re ok in regard to train tickets to Kochi tomorrow night, but won’t know for sure until we see our names on the train manifest an hour before train time.

This afternoon we went to two temple complexes that Suzanne raved about.

20 temples in the complex, ranging in height from 25-250 ft, some carved out of white marble, others with garishly painted gods in various positions covering the entire temple from top to bottom. Lots of people -– this week is a special festival to Lord Vishnu, during which there are parts of the temples that are open only at this time each year. We were not allowed in the inner sanctum, so could avoid the long lines of worshippers. A guide took us in tow and showed us around the maze of temples inside the very large temple compound. Otherwise, we would still be roaming around the complex. It was beautiful and impressive.

Varanasi and Trichy

These cities magnify and confuse the possibility of understanding Hinduism. The enormous pantheon of gods is more than just bewildering. However, those natives we’ve talked to, mostly guides and a book or two on this topic, are unfazed by the plethora of gods, magical tales, etc. I found most surprising the claims that Hinduism is in reality a monotheistic religion, and accusations of paganism are totally unfounded. The multiplicity of gods is comparable to the multiplicity of Christian saints – they are not gods themselves, but various reincarnations and avatars of the one god who can be reached only through the sons/daughters of the supreme being. Muslims reach god through Mohammed, Buddhists through the reincarnations of the Buddha. Jews have prophets, but we don’t pray to them (or do we?).

But when one sees/hears about people seeking to make Varanasi the place of their death so that they can break the never-ending cycle of reincarnation, and others who debase themselves and crawl toward images of Vishnu or Shiva -- it all seems so primitive – but then, I feel the same about other religions. I guess we atheists rationalize any fondness we may have for the beliefs of our parents as valuable to the survival of community and perpetuation of ethics rather than punishment and salvation.

Trichy

Traveled to Trichy (known on the maps as Tiruchirapalli) in a crowded 3rd-class r.r. car – an uncomfortable 3 hours, but an interesting crowd and everyone cheerful and helpful to us patriarch-looking men. Muggy but not hot night, and all the windows of the car were wide open. The car was equipped with dozens of ceiling fans, which weren’t operating, but I could imagine what it is probably like on a really hot tropical day.

The hotel we found thru Lonely Planet is fine and convenient. We have a nice size room on the 5th floor with a pleasant view overlooking a grove of trees, and the street noise is light. Shower works, beds comfortable – what more can one ask?

Pondicherri

After a 2-hour train ride and a 1-hr taxi ride, we arrived in Pondicherri. There is an Ecole Française (pardon my French) and restaurants with French names. It appears that the eastern 5 blocks of the town were the original French trading town, and are laid out in a simple grid and occupied by mostly attractive and some original buildings, and we are fortunate to be housed in one. This part of the city is a seaside resort with a French history and conceit. Our tiny delightful hotel looks like it a transplanted upper-class home from the New Orleans French quarter.

There is not much to do here except take walks along the seaside promenade, eat and sleep – which is a welcome respite from the previous few days. It’s also a relief to be mostly free of noisy traffic and be able to walk and not to have homeless people and encampments a constant reminder of the extent of poverty in this country.

The promenade is nicely paved and maintained and vehicular traffic is prohibited in the late afternoons when tourists and locals alike enjoy walks to the sound of surf crashing against the seawall and the sea breezes – refreshing in this tropical climate.

We’ve changed our itinerary to include a couple of days in Trichy, a city highly recommended by Suzanne [Ziegler] (and the guidebooks) so we will stay here two instead of the four days originally planned – Thence to Kochi.

Kolkata-Chennai

Finally arrived Kolkata [Calcutta] 2 hours late. Long taxi ride to airport where we hung out until plane time. Arrived Chennai 1/2 hour early. Long taxi ride to hotel. We were exhausted from being en-route for more than 24 hours.

From our taxi window, we could tell that this is a much richer city than any we’ve been in. The hotel is the best so far, well maintained, restaurant plus bar plus helpful staff. Too bad we’re only here for one night.

Fort Rammagar and Varanasi

We checked the guidebook and decided to go to nearby Fort Rammagar - not ancient and not a fort, more a 19th century barracks probably built by the Brits for a regiment of Indian troops. It was very rundown and contained a museum that had interesting objects - early 20th century cars and all kinds of sedan chairs from the 17th to 19th centuries and an extensive display of early guns and swords. All poorly displayed, full of dust, and badly lighted.

As we approached the fort in this suburb of Varanasi, we passed through a very active local farmers market. After visiting the fort, we went walking thru the market and I got a lot of pictures - we’ll see how they look when I download them.

This evening we went back to the ghats to view the crematorium and a performance in a separate section of the ghats, all from the same boat from which we had seen the sunrise a couple of days ago. The crematorium was much more dramatic at night with 10 or more fires burning in the night and crowds of family & relatives participating in the funeral scene. (no photos allowed)). The performance was hokey - on a stage at water’s edge, with maybe 100 performers, one chanting, perhaps 90 beating drums and ringing bells and 5 or 6 doing a simple dance and holding an Xmas tree-shaped candleholder with maybe 50 small candles and waving them around. There were a couple of hundred in the audience behind the performers and a like number in boats crowding around in front of the performance. We left after about a half hour of the droning voice and overly-simple music and dance.

Approaching the performance site was a very different experience than that of our first early morning experience. For about a quarter mile of the site, the bazaar was open and there were tens of thousands of people shopping in the shops and filling the street. We were told that this is a very important bazaar and as busy every night of the week. Cars were prohibited during this time of day, but there were lots of bicycles, motorcycles, rickshaws, and auto-rickshaws. Colorful, noisy, and daunting to pedestrians - at least to us foreigners.

Another surprise is how few foreign tourists there are in this city - and those who are here are mostly Japanese tour groups. We were told that Dec. is typically a slow tourist month, but that this year is even slower than usual.

We are 1/2 way thru the trip. Time to evaluate the experience? Maybe I’m too close to it to do that.

I’m now sitting in a VERY SLOW moving train. My back aches. I’d like to be in a more comfortable situation. It’s hard to evaluate the experiences we’ve had. Now it feels like a schedule we’ve committed to and we’ve got to play it out. We’re both hoping that the South will be less hectic, more tourist manageable, a more livable scale and pace. I shouldn’t complain. The weather has been perfect, the guides and drivers, for the most part very accommodating. The “mid range” hotels, on average 2 stars, adequate but drab. The cities unmanageable without the help we have paid for and received. I do think that our goal of experiencing the society - to have windows into what life is like in this society - is being achieved. It’s an extreme version of our society, the rich living and working as if the 75% of the population that are poor don’t exist. The energy of the bigger cities is palpable -everyone is on the move - except perhaps the homeless who live in shanty towns (slums) or squat along roadways and other places where they won’t be hassled, and who seem to be living without hope or expectation.

Except for the Taj Mahal and a few other enclosed and protected and self financed places, there is little effort or ability to manage the cities and provide basic services that we in the west take for granted. Perhaps it’s like life in the US during our fast growth era of the 1890’s? There are clearly efforts to improve, if not maintain, the infrastructure. But the local governments are so far behind the growth curve, it seems that there is no way they can catch up.

This is the 2nd sleeper train we’ve been on - two more to go. We are traveling 2nd class, with bunk beds and no privacy. First class has 4-person compartments with a door to a hallway. No doors in 2nd class. But the beds are reasonably comfortable and I sleep ok- with a little help from Ambien. Our fellow bunkmates appear to be middle class, reasonably well dressed, and many speak English - and there are very few children. We appear to be the only tourists - at least in this car. There were some backpackers on the previous sleeper. Clean sheets, a pillow and blanket and an inexpensive meal are provided, but the cars themselves are worn to a frazzle - the level of wear, tear and maintenance a notch below the 2-star hotels we’ve been staying in. Squat toilets are another delightful feature of this train.

Chandigarh

Our plane from New Delhi was met in Chandigarh by Roberta and Frederick Shaw, with whom I had made contact through Sally Williams. Frederick (who admits to being 80 years old) is a bright, witty and charming man. Roberta is warm and very talkative - frequently interrupting Frederick, who takes it with good humor.

The day was clear and warm and we went directly to their home and got to experience the planned town, built in the 1950s. It is laid out in a big grid with wide and well shaded boulevards flanking about 50 neighborhoods all of single family homes, each with park areas and a small shopping area. Many of he houses are of flat-top 50s vintage, some are quite good examples of the era.

After a convivial tea and conversation on their veranda, we were taken to our quite pleasant hotel in the main shopping district. We returned to their house at 7 for a dinner party where we met 4 Indian couples, all except one with understandable English. One man was an entrepreneur - manufactures pharmaceuticals. There were two female and one male doctors, a retired teacher. Very pleasant.

The next a.m. we went out to the “slums” where Frederick for the past 5 years has been establishing a social program among the very poor - a one-man anti-poverty program. The program has several aspects.

Preschool for 4-6 year olds to prepare for exams that will get them into high quality public schools, which by law must enroll at least 15% of their students from the poor.

Health education supplied by Health Promoters, young women who are trained in basic hygiene and nutrition. The women work in the slum neighborhoods -- some live in the neighborhoods they serve -- and over time have built up the trust of many if not most households. They make regular house calls to determine if children are undernourished and identify sickness in the homes, including making sure TB patients take their meds every day. They teach parents how to select and prepare nutritious and affordable foods. They carry around a scale and charts to measure conditions and progress in underweight children and ill children and adults.

The Health Promoters are similar to the Visiting Nurses that I recall in the U.S. Tom calls them “intermediaries” between the poor and the services they need.

The area that they serve is just beyond Chandigarh’s border and contains about 15,000 people. The slum is made up of tiny handmade brick and concrete homes that line the streets that may be 10-12 feet wide, most families living in one or two rooms, many with small courtyards where kitchens and vehicle storage are located. Streets are paved poorly or not at all, with open sewers and water that must be stored in tanks. Many people have low wage jobs that pay the equivalent of $100 per month, plus or minus. They work hard at keeping their little places and the fronting street clean -- a daunting task with the dust and dirt and lack of garbage collection.

On the way to Varanasi we had an 8-hour layover in Delhi. We hired a car/driver and did some sightseeing. When we got to the RR station, we were accosted by a flurry of porters. We ended up hiring one and showed him our ticket. He put our 2 cases on his head, motioned for us to follow him, and took off like a rocket. There were thousands of people in the station, and by the time I got off the escalator leading to the open corridor that fed the 15 or so platforms, I had lost sight of both Tom & the porter. Not remembering which platform our train was located on , I looked around for them for a few minutes to no avail. I then went back to the main hall, found my platform on the giant electronic arrivals/departure board and went to our train. With some difficulty I found the right car and - a few minutes later our luggage . . . but still no Tom. I sat down to wait for him, and sure enough he showed up a few minutes later. He had gone back looking for me (bad move!) and was relieved to find me. Since I had our tickets in my pocket, I was less anxious. Fortunately we had got to the station early enough so that we had time for all these shenanigans.

Varanasi (Benares)

We arrived in Varanasi (Benares) on an overnight sleeper car train - pretty slow but uneventful. The train was 90 minutes late but a car was waiting to take us to our hotel. It was an OK place with a quite good restaurant. We asked for a change of rooms when we found ours to be on an airshaft. It took a day to make the change, but the replacement was much better - a room with a view.

Next morning at 6 a.m., we went to the ghats - the Ganga (Ganges) river front area that is so famous, colorful and photogenic. Two days before our arrival a terrorist bomb had exploded at one the ghats - not a very powerful one, but a child had been killed and a number of people injured. Made all the papers, perhaps in US? In the India Times as background to the bomb story, Mark Twain is quoted, “Benares is older than history, older than tradition, even older than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”

A boatman was waiting to take us out on the water to view the sunrise and the dramatic ancient building fronts. Many people were bathing or swimming in this holiest of places in the Hindu world. The boat (a large and well-worn row boat) also took us by the place where cremations are performed 24 hrs a day -- an expensive affair but from this spot, the deceased goes directly to heaven (or so we were told). We were also told that certain kinds of people are not eligible for cremation in Varanasi - children , pregnant women, priests, and other categories.

It was beautiful, but also garish. The buildings are covered with the most ugly signage imaginable - huge billboard advertisements -- and one has to walk through run-down shop areas filled with garbage and shit to get to the steps, also filled with garbage and shit and I had to squint to begin to look past the clutter and see the inherent beauty of the place.

Back in Delhi

The hotel was a small businessman’s hotel -- clean, functional and pleasant, except for the dining room. It was located in a very active but low scale business district which was difficult to walk around. Across from our hotel was a small homeless encampment where we observed evening and morning cooking fires. The members of this encampment disappeared during the day, presumably to menial very low paying jobs.

A small encounter -- breaking through the language barrier: Walking back from a bakery to our hotel, I stopped to buy a few bananas from a vendor cart. Knowing the vendor wouldn’t be able to speak English, I held up three fingers. He cut three bananas from their stalk, put them in a bag and handed them to me. I gave him the smallest bill, 10 Rp (worth 25 cents) and started to walk away. A passerby called out and pointed to the vendor who was cutting me another three bananas to give me my money’s worth.

Agra

We arrived in Agra mid a.m. after a 2 hr train ride -- breakfast provided. Our driver was there to greet us -- he had left Delhi at 4 a.m. to get there before us. We went to the hotel where our travel agent had booked us. It was in a scruffy commercial district. Apparently a new building but built up to the edge of its lot and flanked by buildings on either side so that there was little light through the inoperable window in each room. We were then shifted to a room on the other side of the hall, the window of which was about 2 feet from the adjacent building -- admitted more light but was inoperable. We made do and took a much needed rest, having arisen at 4 a.m.

We then visited the Taj Mahal -- accompanied by a professional guide friend of the driver -- at no cost to us, we were assured.

The Taj was everything and more than we had anticipated. Gorgeous beyond belief. Its white marble sheathing glowed in the sunlight. The Taj is a mausoleum with no other function and is set in a large walled park on the river’s edge complemented by other smaller buildings. The interior of the Taj is decorated with semi-precious stones inlaid in marble -- otherwise not very interesting.

We were then taken to the obligatory shop -- apparently the guide’s payment. Tom spent $20.

The next day we drove to Jaipur, the third city of the golden triangle. The drive took about 5 hours but offered lots of entertainment. Many people were living next to or near the road and there were a number of local markets there as well. In one instance a wedding procession held up traffic for about 10 minutes, Farm carts drawn by camels were quite common plus herds of sheep and goats.

Our hotel was in a walkable neighborhood and designed to mimic the style of one of the Sikh temples - bright yellow exterior, with crenelations, concrete, but decorated to mimic wood. The rooms were large and colorful and the bath worked. We used the rooftop restaurant for our 2-day stay, from where we got clear views of the city.

The streets in Jaipur were in the worst repair than any large city I’ve been in -- except perhaps Tver in Russia some 15 years ago. The air pollution was as palpable as that of Delhi and the traffic also comparable.

The next day we went to the Pink City, a walled-in area of maybe 100+ acres. It was built in the 18th & 19th centuries by a Maharaja who apparently tolerated his use of treasure for a showy self aggrandizing city. Tom had found a walking tour outline in the Lonely Planet guidebook, and we immediately got lost looking for the beginning. We climbed into a bicycle powered rickshaw thinking that certainly the driver would know the landmark that marked the beginning of the walking tour. He spoke no English and either he didn’t know or it didn’t exist, so he started us off on the 10 Rp tours he offers all tourists. When we realized this, we asked him to stop, and paid him his money, but he was very upset that we wouldn’t allow him to finish the tour. We gave up on finding the walking tour and were able to identify the key sights, which included a large bazaar, a world heritage site of Matar ______, a park like setting full of 17th solar observation instruments -- and were able to enjoy the rest of the morning.

While walking through a bazaar in the Pink City, we struck up a conversation with a businessman who said he owned a jewelry company. He told us of a women’s co-op made up of widows living in the countryside. Social norms prevented them from working outside their homes, so they produced goods in their homes that were marketed in a store in Agra. Later that day, we asked our driver to take us to this place. We were taken to a place a couple of miles from the center of town that identified itself as a coop. This place produced hand-blocked print fabrics; the young man, who spoke excellent English, said that the factory was indeed a co-op of 450 rural families -- not widows -- that his father had organized about 30 years earlier. As has been our experience in India (and in China), the handicraft shops follow a standard sales routine -- showing off the factory where workers make the product, then the sales room, then the bargaining. It ended up with both of us making modest purchases.`

That night , the rooftop restaurant provided entertainment in the form of 2 “musicians" who played a drum and a squeeze box and sang loudly and off key - Ravi Shankar they weren’t.

The next morning our driver picked us up and we headed back to New Delhi. This turned out to be an experience I would gladly pay a lot to avoid ever doing again. In contrast to the drive from Agra, this was tiring and boring. The highway was being expanded and under construction the entire trip that lasted about 5 hours. The highway was crowded with heavy trucks -- literally thousands of them -- crowding the roads, polluting the air, and causing slow downs and backups the entire trip. Ugh.