I enjoy finding unusual spellings and translations when on the road, but don't always know how to work them into a post. For example, when checking into the Harsha Mahal in Hassan, I received a deposit receipt with the following notes:

1. The right of admission is reserved.
2. Room Rent will be applicable for every 24 hours or part there of.
3. Lodgers should inform the management if more persons want to occupy the room than the mentioned in the register and obtain the permission and they will be charged extra.
4. The managent is not responsible for any loss of the goods or valuables in the room.
5. In case of loose of key the cost of lock will be charged.
6. Please do not entrust cash to the room-boy or cleaner, in case if you are paid, the Management is not responsible for the same.
7. The management is at liberty to open the door if the lodgers absent themselves without intimation and the management is not responsible for their luggages.
8. If the lodgers cause any damage beloging to the hotel the same will be charged to their account.
9. Room should not be used for illegal activities.
10. Hot water will be supplied to the lodgers only between 6a.m. to 9a.m.
11. Food service will be to the lodgers between 6-30a.m. to 10-00p.m.

Or, this sign:

When I find a way to work them into a post, I'll let you know.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've spent the last two weeks being variously mopey, depressed, lethargic and cranky. I'm just no fun when I'm sick. Having waded through the body aches and fever, I now just have a nasty cough, but it's starting to get better, too.

What's marginally more interesting is how I've been dealing with it. I spent some time not liking India and wanting to go home. But I can't quite figure out why, which just makes me more depressed. And wow, is that a problem. So I've been trying to figure out why, when enjoying a year-long trip around the world, I have any excuse to be depressed, but I can't come up with anything definite. Certainly, it's no fun to be sick on the road: sometimes I would just love to be home, lolling in bed reading.

Or it could be that I'm travel weary. While we love traveling, six months is a really long time to be out. And we have six more to go. Then there's the fact that we don't have a home: we are officially homeless! Which is fine, most of the time, but the constant movement associated with travel, even when traveling as slowly as we do, is wearisome. Every day is a series of decisions about where, when and what to eat, but even if we really like the food, it's not as though we can just go "home" and make whatever we want: we're at the mercy of the local eating establishments and that's not always fun.

Along the lines of not being able to cook are the lifestyle changes that we're forced into while traveling. I haven't done yoga in months (I'm picky about my practice space); we haven't been running since Italy (believe me, India is not set up for runners--it's too dirty and polluted), and while I'm a big fan of Indian food, most of it is deep-fried, bad for my health and much worse for David's.

And then there's India itself. People are pretty nice here, something I thought was of paramount importance after China, but it turns out the physical environment is really important to me, too. Did you know India has over 1 billion people? Yeah, 1,000,000,000 people. So most of India is urban, even in the rural areas. There's not a lot of green around and who knew, but that has a serious effect on my mental well-being. Plus, there's the pollution, both on the ground and in the air.

At any rate, whether it's one of those things, or some combination, I have not been happy, lately. Which I realize sounds silly, but there you go. In an effort to make things better, we're changing how we're traveling: we're heading off to an ashram to force us to do yoga; Uma told us about idly, a rice-based breakfast that isn't deep-fried; and I feel almost all better. Now I just have to stop myself from being mopey.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

Breakfasting on idly, fermented rice cakes...

Strolling the market to buy snack food...

Busing from Hassan to Belur...

Continue reading "picture a day: hassan & belur, india" »

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

For 5 days I did nothing that I normally do on vacation. I didn't write in my journal, read, take pictures, explore the city by foot, visit museums nor do any other tourist things. Instead, I focused on taking a vacation from the stresses found nearly 6 months into a year long vacation. I took a vacation within a vacation, if you will. It was an ideal setting: a friend's, Uma's, comfortable Bangalore apartment. And, Uma made the time even better, which included driving us around the city, showing us where to shop and acquainting us with great restaurants.

So, what did I do? I took hot showers (turns out: what I thought was a sandal tan washed away!), watched satellite TV; took a spinning class at a nearby Gold's Gym; ate American-styled pizza; went to the mall; sat in a coffee shop; and watched a fun movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, which I would have named The Bourne Penultimatum. As you may already know, I changed the website, and finished changes to two new Picasa albums:

Kerala

Dasara Festival

Also, since I'm sure you have extra time at work, check out the changes to the maps page. I even added a bonus chart at no extra charge to you. (No matter what I do, I'll always be an engineer.)

After all that I left Bangalore Friday morning feeling restored, if somewhat stunned to be back on the road.

Posted by David | Permalink

Leah and David have been bugging me to start posting about films for a little while now. I haven't until now in part because I am excellent at procrastinating and also because there's been a lull in interesting films being released. I would like to state clearly that these posts will consist primarily of my babbling about films. Terribly exciting I know, but at least it will be a break from Leah and David's monotonous posts on what fun they're having on various other continents.

This past weekend I saw The Darjeeling Limited, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Gone Baby Gone. Yes, all in one day. Overall, they were...fine. Ideally, I think I would have switched the order in which I saw them and save The Darjeeling Limited for last. Since the last two were somewhat heavy in overall tone, saving the quirky Darjeeling might have improved the overall viewing experience. However, I do not set show times. I merely attend them.

Continue reading "A Trip to India, 16th century England and Boston" »

Posted by Irene | Permalink

One of the things we learned at our cooking lesson with Leena was how to make chai (tea), the Indian way. We wrote it down diligently, both thinking it would be fun to make for ourselves, and a fun recipe to share. Then we went to Dal Roti were we had some, and it was different. Asking Ramesh, the chatty owner, about it, he told us how he makes it. So here are both recipes, though I have to admit that we have yet to make either. But we will!

Leena's chai:
(Good for 2 cups, use the teacup/mug you'll be serving the chai in as the measuring cup)

1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 heaping teaspoons sugar
2 small teaspoons powdered (instant) tea
1/2 t crushed cardamon

Boil everything together in pan. After tea comes to a boil let it simmer for a minute (or so).
Mix together by pouring back and forth from pan to large glass.
Strain.
Serve.

Ramesh's chai:
(I'm guessing on amounts for 2 cups because he said how he did it, not how much)

2 cups milk
2 heaping teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons instant tea
1 t crushed cardamon
1/2 t cinnamon
1 knob ginger

Bring milk to boil. Turn down flame, add all ingredients. Turn up flame, allow to boil twice more, bringing down the flame inbetween boiling sessions.
Mix thoroughly by pouring back and forth between pan and large glass.
Strain.
Serve.

We're going to try them out as soon as we have access to a kitchen and we'll let you know how it goes!

Posted by Leah | Permalink

Smack, bang in the middle of Mysore is a majestic old palace. It's the main tourist attraction in the city, and so it was for us today. But not before clearing some, almost endearingly classic, travel hurdles. We scrambled through traffic with some frantic head spinning and animated speed-walking. And then, walked around three sides of the palace complex before locating where visitors enter, dodged some jewelry and postcard touts with some side-stepping moves and paid the special foreigner entrance fee. And, yes, I felt special.

Inside, no cameras are allowed and, unusually, must be dropped off at the purpose built shack, where an expressionless man tosses them in a conical pile that must be his clever sort of filing system. Out of curiosity, I asked about camera phones and found out that these can be taken in, if switched off. (About a month ago, an Italian friend showed me a phone, which takes high-quality pictures at a resolution similar to a full sized camera, the thought of which made me smirk. Policies will never catch up with technology.)

Then we parted with our shoes--dropping them off at an open air rack--thus ensuring that the thousands of people walking through the palace every day keep the Public Health Department busy and ever expanding. Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand wanting to keep inside spaces clean, but the floor inside the palace was filthy. And, at one point, the tourist route leads outside the palace and into a temple. The connecting road is shared with cars, elephants and camels. (The animals were for children to take "Joy Rides!") Painfully, the road was littered with stones and other things not unexpected, like the things that usually drop from camels. We hobbled along with all the rest.

All in all, I'm glad to have gone to the palace; it had many beautiful things. Emerald colored glass plates with elaborate patterns formed a couple of the ceilings. A golden throne, statues, pillars and the carved doors were amazing. Inside the temples were various deities caged in nooks and a friendly holy man, who blessed each of us by turning a silver bowl upside down over our heads and sayings a few words. Outside there were gardens, towers, temples and more picturesque views.

But, as soon as we left, don't you know we made a bee-line for the hotel to wash and soak our feet.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, we spent the evening with Leena Sham learning to make masala dosas. Dosas are a very traditional south Indian food, though Uma told us they're from Tamil Nadu, another southern state in India, not Kerala, where we've been filling our bellies with them. But they're really good, wherever they're from, and David decided he just had to learn to make them. And guess what: it turns out we're missing a pressure cooker! Seriously, owning one would ease the way to making Indian food successfully. So we're going to buy one, though obviously not for the next six months or so. Another reason we had to learn to make them is because most Indian food in the US is Punjabi. Southern Indian food is much harder to get, so we'll just have to make it for ourselves.

In addition to learning to make dosas, which are the flat crepe like wraps, we also learned to make the masala, the spicy potato mix that is put in the middle of the dosas. Plus, we learned to make sambar, a sort-of-but-not-really-soup, coconut chutney, both of which are served with dosas, and banana lassis and Indian chai. These last two were sort of bonuses; they don't have to come with the meal, but they often do.

The lesson was lovely, especially since we got to eat the results, and we're hoping to be able to practice our new recipes at Uma's, when we descend on her in under a week. But we had another tasty food encounter in Kochi. We went to Dal Roti, a wonderful northern Indian restaurant (though not Punjabi), where the owner, a people person if ever there was one, has a website with recipes. The food there is amazing, Ramesh has an open kitchen for people to watch the prep work that goes on before lunch, and if you don't find the recipe you want on his website, he'll email it to you. You should really check it out. But you might want to get a pressure cooker if you plan on making any of the dishes..

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

Up and out of the room by six while other tourists sleep...

stopping to smile at a hotel reminder on the way out...

in the cool air, walking around the morning fish auction...

Continue reading "picture a day: kochi, india" »

Posted by David | Permalink

Uma, a lovely friend from grad school and just the person you want to know when traveling in India, has called us twice so far, and chatted on-line the same number of times, just to check in and make sure we're doing okay. She's so sweet! Although it's funny to have someone so worried about us after traipsing around for so long. But there's nothing to be blase about while traveling in India.

We're both a little surprised it's been so "simple" adjusting to India. Mumbai, the largest city in India at close to 17 million people, is not exactly an easy place to come into. And with a population of just over 1 billion, set to take over China as the world's largest population in 2035, India can seem really intimidating. We've heard a lot of stories from people who find that while they want to love it, it's just too overwhelming and they end up somewhat scared. Or scarred.

And yet, we're fine. We love it! Admittedly the traffic and noise associated with it are not my favorite (why, by the way, do places where most people are pedestrians always have the worst support for them? There are no sidewalks here and with auto-rickshaws whizzing by every second, it's a little disconcerting.), but people are really nice and the food, as David pointed out, is delicious! I think part of the reason other people have a harder time adjusting when they come here is because they haven't visited other "poorer" countries. For many Westerners, India is the embodiment of the exotic and mysterious, but also a place where they expect to feel immediately at home, and the only non-Western country they may visit. But with so many different languages and cultures in one place, all competing, rather noisily for your attention, feeling at home is not going to be the first reaction.

(As a digression, I have to say it's really hard to call India poor, because while there are some very poor people here, and lots of them, the service level is also as high as in Western countries. It's like calling China or Turkey poor. Sure, they are compared to Europe, but not when compared to Malawi. Economists love to call them "emerging economies" and while I find that term faintly absurd, emerging from what?, an egg?, it does acknowledge a difference between the West, India and truly poor countries like Malawi. I think I prefer the term middle-income countries, though it's not really much better. But anyway.)

Since we didn't expect to feel at home, though, we do love India, and it's been very good to us, so far. All of which was summed up for us when we were at a painting exhibition and sale in Trivandrum, Kerala's capital. A very nice man, one of the painters, came up and started explaining the painting we were looking at. Then he asked where we were from and what we thought of India. When we told him we loved it, he looked surprised, which surprised me. And then he summed it up with a classic Hindu outlook, saying that we enjoyed it because we met people with love in our hearts, so that's what we get back. Karma, or is it dharma, at it's best.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

You know how there are some things about the people who are special to you that you don't necessarily understand, but are so a part of their personality as to be quintessential? Well, David has many such qualities, and one of my favorites is his terminal geekiness. He showed a new sign of it yesterday by voluntarily browsing through, and then purchasing, a copy of Mathematics Today. That's right, he does calculus and trigonometry for fun. Isn't he cute?! And when I told him I was going to write about it, he tried to defend himself by pointing to the subtitle of the magazine and saying, "It's India's #1 Mathematics monthly." Now, seriously, how adorable is that?

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (3)

Basic but clean hotel: 330 rupees. Visit to the zoo and a couple of museums: 85 rupees. Ordering something randomly from a dinner menu that makes everybody in a crowded restaurant crane their necks around to watch you: priceless.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (4)

In the last couple weeks we haven't had a whole day to relax or even slow down. Italy was wonderful, but sped by us: there was just too much to do. And I defy anyone to actually relax on a plane, especially an overnight flight, so I don't count those either. And then in Mumbai, what with Leah becoming a Bollywood star and all, we didn't have much to slow us down there, either. Oddly, the break we did get came at an unlikely time--while on the train down the west coast of India from Mumbai to Trivandrum, Kerala's regional capitol.

To cover the roughly 1,200 kilometers it was scheduled to be 31 hours on the train. (For planning I was thinking of this as 5 meals.) At the last moment we made the decision to buy the least expensive tickets: 3 tier sleepers without air conditioning. I was concerned that the AC car would be sealed up. And, we both know how to sweat, so that's not a problem. Occasionally, we both suffer from motion sickness and fresh air helps measurably. The open windows allowed a cool air to blow in and some fans mounted above circulated it. Basically, our car was quite comfortable, or at least more comfortable than our Mumbai hotel room, which also had no AC. But, it was more than just the breeze.

There was space--space to move or sit or walk around or stretch out and sleep. Everyone had there own bunk upholstered with thick vinyl. When we weren't sleeping, the middle-tier bunk folded down to form a back rest for the bottom bunk, which was a bench seat. And somehow, there seemed to be more seats than people even though the train was full.

The train was dirty, but still cared for. The floor was swept and the bathroom was cleaned periodically and a couple of times smelled lightly of flowery detergent. The next car back was a "pantry car" and there was a frequent flow of uniformed food servers with meals (flat bread and curry, dosas and rice with vegetables), snacks (like spicy, unsweetened donuts with yogurt) and drinks (Indian tea, coffee, water and sodas). And here is the surprising thing: the food was okay, tasty even, all things considered. (Of course, this is true only if you like Indian food. I do. In just under a week I've had so many good meals, my mouth starts to water when I smell Indian food.)

The other travellers in our car were friendly. Some asked where we were from or going. One expressed surprised that we were eating the Indian food on the train. We chatted for longer with a few, and others read quietly. The man in the upper bunk was reading, among other things, "Foreign Jobs Times" and, when I noticed this, I recalled reading about how many skilled workers from Kerala work internationally (often in the Middle East) and send money home. The man on the bottom bunk, Joseph, was going back home before leaving to work as a civil drafter in Bahrain at the end of the month.

As the trip progressed I notice the train was also home to a small community of wildlife. My favorite was the tiniest mouse I've ever see that occupied the floor and acted like a Wimbledon ball boy. If a small piece of food was dropped, say a peanut, and was considered "out of play", the mouse would dart across the floor, grab the food and clear to the nearest side. It was adorable, though possibly not fantastically hygenic.

It was in this atmosphere that I did finally relax, watched the green countryside slide past, read, wrote, chatted, slept and napped. In the end, the train was 7 hours late, but since that just meant more time to relax, it wasn't a problem. I might not really recommend such a long train ride as a way to relax, but it certainly served its purposes for us.

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (2)

In addition to the glamour of being made up and wearing an Indian outfit from the 1960s for the video shoot, we also had quite a nice time chatting with the other tourists, who are all on long trips, too. Gaby is from Australia (Melbourne) and Alex and Catia are from Germany, but just spent the year working/traveling in New Zealand. So we got lots of good tips on what to do and where to go in both countries.

Now we're thinking of working in New Zealand for awhile, which you can do really easily because they always need people to work on the farms. It's a program called wwoofing, in which you work for food and board, but there's no time limit, so you can do it just for a week or two and then travel some more. And, if we actually wanted to earn money, instead of just not spend any, we could pick fruit, for which they pay some amount per cubic meter of apples, which works out to about 200 NZ dollars per day. And last year, they were short 16,000 fruit pickers, so the government changed the laws so you can work, even on just a tourist visa. But fruit picking sounds like while it might be fun for the first half hour, it would just be tough after that. But maybe for a day or two? At any rate, if we wwoof we might stay longer in NZ, which would help finance the tacking on to the end of the trip, the addition of going to Wales and the sailing course in Italy. Though naturally this is all subject to our (very varying) whim.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

We're in Mumbai, and other than the fact that it's hideously humid, and also hot, it's quite nice. But who cares about the weather when the exciting news is that I got to be part of a music video shoot, yesterday.

They, being Bollywood in general, need Westerners every once in a while for some of the 900 movies produced in Mumbai every year, so they contact the cheap hotels and ask if anyone is interested. We actually thought we would be in a movie, not that it matters, but we expected to just be extras and only in a crowd scene for about three seconds. We actually talked about what we should wear. Can you believe it? We opted to wear our cleaner clothes, because they look a little nicer, especially now that the chocolate gelato I dropped on my yellow shirt has set in, but we needn't have worried. The other three women and I were the "backup" girls, which doesn't actually mean anything, except we were in a lot more of the scenes. And that they put make-up on us and put us in Indian outfits from the 1960s. Yup, the 1960s, because the "scene" we were in is set in "pre-time." Hee!

David and the male partners of the other women were supposed to be in it, too, but the whole thing ended less than perfectly because of a rather major time conflict. We'd all been told we'd be finished at 10 and some people had transport to catch dependent on that, so when 10 came we had to leave, but they weren't actually done with the shoot. I feel badly about that, but I'm sure they'll figure a way to work around it. David thinks they'll actually use the footage of us, since they were done with our scene anyway, but I have no idea. Not that it matters much, since I'm not really sure how we'd go about finding the video. MTV India, maybe? At any rate, the whole experience was quite entertaining and David got lots of pictures and some video.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (2)

We're off today, to India. We were originally supposed to stop in Doha, Qatar, but then we found out that: 1) it's hideously expensive!, and 2) the visas are really complicated to get. So we decided to forgo the week we were going to spend there and add a couple days on to Italy, while still leaving early for India.

Italy has been lovely. Naturally. Although as always, I'm surprised at how much harder it can be to find internet places. I don't know if it's because everyone in wealthier countries has their own connection at home, or if the internet cafes are just really well hidden. The one we're using currently doubles (triples?) as an international phone center and barber shop. A fascinating combination! Actually, it's rather apropos: the center is owned/managed by ex-pats from the Indian sub-continent (Sri Lanka, I think, although I wouldn't swear to it), so we're getting an early taste of music and handbills.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

David had the brilliant idea that we should have a post of pictures from an entire day, and then since I'm never one to let something go, I suggested we do a series of them. So, assuming we manage to occassionally find an internet connection fast enough to upload photos, there should be lots of pictures every few weeks. So far we've got one picture-filled post for Assisi from last week (well, okay, a little before) and another one from Salerno, where we spent last Saturday. Oh, and, David's been busy with the pictures on Picasa, so you can take a look at those, too, if you feel so inclined.

Italia

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some things are supposed to be simple--like sending postcards. A little handwritten message on the back of a picture taken in the 60's can be flung around the world with just a fistful of stamps in just six short weeks. Can it be called anything other than stunning? However, I just learned, to my shock, that the post office places a long white sticker with a barcode or something along the bottom edge of postcards, presumably in the name of automation. It is troubling to think about how long it would take without this automation. Sadly, of course, this is also the place on the card where I usually end with an pithy, idiomatic--read, boring--salutation and a handsome signature. Now I find out that for some time all the postcards I've sent seem to end in mid-thought. So, if you've received one of these postcards, this post is to emphasize that underneath that tape I'm closing the message, rather than just writing a short note and not

Posted by David | Permalink | Comments (3)

• public pools in every town
• women teetering over ancient cobblestone streets in high heels
• exactly how good the food is
• trains that are almost always late
• high usage of public transport
• cute Smart cars
• how much I love the name "Twingo"
• loud Italians
• picturesque views at every point
• laundry hanging out to dry from every window
• colorful apartment buildings
• street names like: Michelangelo; Dante Alighieri; Leonardo da Vinci
• church bells chiming all day Sunday
• long, thin plastic bags given out at stores for wet umbrellas
• how social Italians are
• wine with every dinner
• frizzante water
• ugly industrial complexes
• the smell of green everywhere
• how exquisite really good gelato is
• shops closing for 2 (or 3) hours at lunch
• long dinners and late nights
• going up to pay at the end of a meal
• close villages
• sweet digestivos
• the variety of colors for men's pants
• fresh parmesan accompanying pasta dishes
• aloof looking cypress trees
• red-tile roofs covering every house and apartment building
• forest-green shutters sprouting from every window

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)