The End

I'm home.

I made it back after three long flights, and even arrived a little earlier. Everything went very smoothly. Well, everything except when I opened my bag at home and discovered my hiking shoes had been stolen and replaced with the very worn sandals of an Indian airport worker. Baggage handlers at the New Delhi airport can't be trusted.

I've been back for almost a week and my body still isn't quite back to the Pacific time zone. I've been waking up every morning at 6am and I'm exhausted by the early evening. That thirteen and a half hour time change is pretty rough.

Thanksgiving was great, but I am getting a little of the reverse culture shock. Everything is just so nice here. The roads are smooth, the sidewalks free of trash, the hot water is actually hot, the electricity stays on all the time, I don't get electrocuted when I flip a switch (okay, that only happened once in India, but still), and everything is very clean. I have to say it feels very sterile. Going to India the sights and smells are overwhelming, so coming back the sights and smells are underwhelming, just a faint whiff of this or that.

I've been asked if I would go back, or if I would recommend the places I've been. The short answer: I plan to go back, and you should meet me there. If India seems too intense (for many it really is too intense) go to Nepal. Nepal is now one of my favorite countries in the world. The people, the scenery, the culture, the outdoor activities and the general attitude and feel of the place make it a very special place. With all the tourist centers it's not scary at all (at least compared to India).

As has often been said, India takes a little getting used to, but once you're used to it, it really is fantastic. I'll miss walking down the street, smelling fresh oranges and pomegranates, chai stands on every corner, samosas frying, cows lazily wandering, looking for the next stunning sight to see. I'll miss meeting people from all over the world every day, chatting about traveling, trading stories and comparing beards. I'll miss waking up every morning to a brand new adventure. I don't know why I'm saying I will miss it; I already do.

On the other hand, there are plenty of things I won't miss. I've mentioned some of the things here we take for granted, but really we just take our lifestyles for granted. When we think we have problems here, they're mostly minor things. The reality is that Indians, as well as most of the world, dream of coming to America, and for good reason. They just don't have the opportunity and chances there. Success for many in India is making it to tomorrow, which obviously is a very different mindset to have.

I've uploaded some of the pictures I've taken (I've uploaded less than 400 of my 2800+ photos), so please check them out:

India Part 1

Nepal

India Part 2

87 days of John

If anyone would like any tips for a trip of their own, please just ask, I feel like I have all this India and Nepal travel knowledge that will just go to waste if I don't share it.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate all the comments (on the blog and elsewhere), I hope you all enjoyed it. I certainly enjoyed writing it (I enjoyed living it even more). So with that, this blog is officially finished.

Namaste!

-John

The Last Day

Today is my last day in India. I've been shopping, eating as much as possible, and trying to pass my India knowledge to as many people as possible. Most tourists here are either just arriving or leaving, so I've met a few just arriving and given them some tips.

My flight leaves tonight just before midnight; until then I'll be wandering around, breathing dirty air. The weather is legitimately good, warm in the day, cool at night, so that's been okay.

I'm also excited to shave this crazy beard off. There is a large Muslim population here and I've been asked 3 or 4 times if I'm a Muslim because of my beard. That's definitely a first for me. I also know it's out of hand because I can see it in my shadow, people that I've just met don't recognize me in pictures without it, and my mustache is always getting in my mouth. It needs to end.

I'm sad to leave, but excited to come home. When I get back I'll do one more blog entry with links to lots of photos, so you have that to look forward to.

Well, for now, namaste from India, I will see many of you soon.

Back to Delhi

I arrived in Delhi today after an almost exactly 24 hour train ride. It wasn't too bad except for the part where I had to share a bed with some Indian guy for a while.

I booked this train a couple of weeks ago, but it's a popular train. I eventually got off the wait list and was booked as "RAC" or reservation against cancelation. It means you're guaranteed a seat, but you may have to share if not enough people cancel. Well, not enough people cancelled. There were other open beds until 2am and starting at 3am, but for that hour or so, we sat across from each other trying to sleep. Anyway, I didn't sleep to well but I did meet and talk to three Canadian people that grew up in India, so that was good.

Delhi is about what I now expected. The pollution is worse than I remember, but the weather is better. The craziness seems less crazy now, but it's still crazier than most places I've been. The pollution really is terrible though. You can practically taste it (although I really can taste the cologne coming off the guy next to me, he must have just dumped the whole bottle on himself).

Anyway, now I go figure out what to do.

Aurangabad Day 2 - Ajanta

Yesterday I went over to the Ajanta Caves, over 100km from Aurangabad. Unlike the Ellora Cave tour, which included several other destinations, the Ajanta tour involves driving there, seeing the caves for three hours, eating and driving back. The caves are all Buddhist, and are known for their paintings, as well as the setting. They are set in a crescent shaped ravine, carved into the sheer face of one side, more than 30 in all.

The Ajanta Caves are impressive without even going in. I could spend a couple of hours just wandering around the ravine, admiring the waterfall nearby and the sights in general, but add in ancient paintings, whose various degrees of decay only seem to add to that ancient feeling. The caves themselves are not as impressive as Ellora, but they're still pretty amazing. Three hours there was not optimal, I could have spent a couple more, but it was better than the two hours at Ellora the day before, which was about a third of what I wanted. The timing isn't ideal, but I do need to get to Delhi.

The timing was ideal, however, in that I showed up for World Heritage Week, and got in for free at the Ajanta Caves. That's right, they could have charged tourists the standard 250 rupees (about $5), but they didn't. I couldn't believe it, but I was appreciative.

I should also mention a super random and weird thing they have at the caves. There is a fairly large hill you have to walk up to get to the level of the caves from where the buses drop you off and they have services to help. You can hire a porter (100 rupees, $2), to carry your stuff to the top. The other option, for 400 rupees ($8), is they will carry you in a chair to the top, like an ancient king. I saw a couple of people do this; I'm not sure if they had trouble walking or if they were just rich, but it was crazy. I couldn't believe my eyes at first.

Well now I'm off to catch my train to Delhi. It's about 22 hours, so that'll be fun.

Vikarabad, Aurangabad, Ellora, Ajanta

Vikarabad

This may end up being the longest blog entry I've written to this point, so sit back, relax, and get ready to scroll down the page at your leisure.

Your protagonist left you last in Vikarabad, the anti-tourist trap, about to go to his first Indian movie (okay, I'm done with the third person now). I walked over to the cinema and took a seat on the wall to the street. There were a whole bunch of Indian guys (and a handful of women) that were waiting outside to buy tickets to the movie. They stared, and stared (of course), then the bravest one came over to ask where I was from and my name. By the time I replied there was a semi-circle four people thick all around me (approximate radius of 2 meters; yeah, I went there). I noticed they were now selling tickets (30 rupees, about 60 cents), so I walked that
way (with the semi-circle parting for me with no problems) and got my ticket.

I made my way inside and they asked to check my bag. Well I had all my stuff with me since I didn't have a hotel, so they began with my "satchel", with many, many, onlookers, then started with my backpack. It pretty much overwhelmed them and they gave up within a couple of minutes, but first about 30 people got a decent look at all my possessions.

The movie started late (because it's India), and it turned out to be the Indian movie, not 2012. It was entirely in Telugu, the most common language there, although it was pretty easy to follow the plot: boy meets girl, gets motorcycle to impress her, gets girl, becomes entangled with local mob, then beats them up repeatedly despite the fact that he's tiny, works as a repo guy for the bank and as far as I can tell has no martial arts training. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm usually a bit of a movie snob, but being in the theater made it too much fun not to like. When the girl first appeared on screen a bunch of guys whistled and yelled. Then when she would give the hero a little look or something they would all repeat. When they finally kissed the place went crazy with whistling and cheering. It was a good time.

After the movie I was the star of a little photo shoot in the lobby. One guy asked to take a picture with me, then all the sudden there were about ten guys taking pictures of each other with me, rotating in out and snapping away with their phones. They asked if I spoke Telugu. I said no. They asked how I could understand the movie, and I said I couldn't. I thought they were looking at me funny before, but after that I may as well have had a third eye.

I got some food (delicious bhaji puri, or fried bread with a rich curry, and a couple of samosas), attempted to book a hotel online in Delhi (maybe a success, I'm not yet sure), and headed to the train station. After a couple of hours I had talked to a few sets of people and my train arrived.

Aurangabad

I arrived in Aurangabad at about 6am. Unfortunately the train was scheduled for a 4:30am arrival, so I was up at 4:15, and looking for the station for nearly two hours. Anyway, I went looking for hotels, only to find the first several I found already full. I eventually made it to one a little thats a little pricier than I hoped, but nice.

From Aurangabad several companies run tours to the Ellora caves, the attractions around Aurangabad, and the Ajanta caves. The guide book recommends taking extra time to see them because the tours are rushed, but I don't have that luxury, so I took the tours.

First day: Fort/Ellora caves/Mini-Taj/Silk emporium/Water mill

The tour left at 9:30am bound for the local fort. It was a very cool fort, one of the oldest in India at about 1200 years old. They carved most of it straight out of the mountain, using the rock to make buildings and a wall around the bottom of the hill. We did the standard tour thing until we got past the moat to the labyrinth. Basically it's a dark set of hallways designed to confused intruders. That's where it got really interesting. The guy working there had a traditional torch, just a large stick soaked in oil. He lit it up and we followed him in through the labyrinth. It was dark, smelled terrible and was absolutely covered with bats. The bat cave in Nepal has nothing on this. They were flying all over, making all sorts of crazy noises, and stinking up the joint. It was fantastic.

From there I grabbed some sugar cane juice (tasty and not as sweet as you might think) and we headed to the Ellora caves. The caves were carved starting in the 7th century or so, Buddhist at first, then Hindu, then Jain. They carved massive caves, some taking as many as 150 years, straight into the rock, starting at the front or in some cases the top and working their way down. They were absolutely stunning.

First we went to the Buddhist ones, which were very cool, and one had some great acoustics, which the guide sang Buddhist chants in, which was great. Next we went to a Hindu one. It's the largest monolithic stone structure on Earth (bigger than Petra and any Mayan ones as well as any others). It's unreal, just a huge temple carved into the mountain, complete with statues covering many of the walls.

The last of the caves we visited was a Jain cave. It was more detailed, carved later than the others, and was pretty impressive, although after the Hindu one it wasn't as crazy. There are over 30 caves but we only had time for four of them (two Buddhist, one of each of the other two), which was a little disappointing, but they showed us the best ones. After a lunch in which I was the only tourist eating Indian style (with their hand, not utensils), we went to Ellora town.

The town of Ellora is as old as the caves and has a very sacred temple. We went inside and came to the sanctum. There was a sign of what to do and the first thing was for men to remove their upper clothes. I reread it a couple times, took off my shirt and went it. Many of the other tourists were more hesitant than I. It was an interesting and memorable couple of minutes, standing there shirtless with a couple of Indian men while they made their offerings.

After that we went to what they call the "Mini-Taj Mahal". Basically the Taj guy's grandson built it to honor his mother as her tomb. The problem is it's modeled after the Taj, but smaller and after one ring of marble on the bottom, made of stone with plaster. One of the amazing parts about the real thing when you're there is the way the light hits the pure white, almost translucent marble, but this one doesn't have that. This led me to coin it the "Ghetto Mahal". It's really not even worth seeing unless you're already in Aurangabad.

We also stopped at a silk emporium to try to sell us stuff (typical tour trick), but it was uneventful.

The last stop was an old water mill, which ran using underground ancient pipes coming into the city. It was only slightly better than the silk emporium.

For dinner I went down the street and ate with an English girl I met on the tour. We were soon joined by a couple of Indian men. One was clearly drunk. It turned out it was his birthday, but he was also a local politician. I should have known! We ended up having only tea with them, then saying we were going for a walk and meeting them later. They really wanted to come, but we walked away eventually. We went to a restaurant and asked what they had available. The manager told us to come over to him and then recommended we go somewhere else. I'm not sure why they didn't want to serve us, but it was a first for me (that I can remember) being turned away like that for no reason.

We eventually came back and ate (after another encounter with the drunk politician), including dessert of falooda (or faludha, depending on where you look on the menu). It was a combination of a milkshake and a scoop of ice cream, which topping including syrups, nuts, dried fruit, and noodles. Yes, noodles. It wasn't bad, but it was a little odd.

Well by the end of all that I was exhausted, and went to bed in order to get up early to catch the 8:30am tour to the Ajanta caves. The Ellora caves were a highlight, not just of the day, but of the whole trip. To think people carved them with chisel and hammer over a thousand years ago, and they are still there like the day they were carved is just incredible. Also the bats and torch in the fort was pretty cool.

Today I visited the Ajanta caves, but I'll write about it tomorrow before I leave for Delhi.

Hampi/Vikarabad

I saw a lot of ruins yesterday. I also saw a lot of boulders. That's pretty much what Hampi is all about, so it was a successful day. In the morning I took a little boat across the river and hiked to the "Monkey Temple", which they claimed had 200 monkeys and looked out over the ruins and the current city. At least the part about the view was right. I saw maybe five or ten monkeys, and the temple itself was pathetic. I grabbed some lunch back in town with an Aussie I met at the temple, then headed out for more ruins.

The areas around the ruins are generally fields, where locals grow bananas, beans, rice, and graze their animals. More than once I tried to take a little shortcut through a field, and now my legs have some cuts on them from the spiked plants the locals use as fences. I did see plenty of temples and old buildings, including the old royal elephant stables, where I hid out during an afternoon rain.

I headed out of town, sad to see it go so quickly, and without seeing everything. Hampi is an amazing place. In addition to the actual sights it's nice because despite the influx of tourists, the ruins are so spread out that everywhere you go the most people you see at any one sight is less than a dozen or so. This leads to a very peaceful place.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was my dinner that night. I went to a place where there were a bunch of Indians, figuring it must be good. Well it turned out they were all about to go to a festival. I asked for the thali (a full meal), they said they didn't have that, so I asked what they did have. Their answer: just thali. So I had the thali, served on a banana leaf. The woman brought it out and said it was free, because it was their festival thali. It had some sort of sweets as well as some good lemon saffron rice (and the standard vegetarian curry, plain rice, and sambar). Anyway, it was delicious and my cheapest meal yet (and ever).

Last night I caught the bus to Hospet, and then the train from there to Gutakal, where I changed trains and came to my current location of Vikarabad. There is nothing to see in Vikarabad. It's not on any tourist maps, in any books, and there are no sights as far as I can tell. Why did I come? To catch a train to Aurangabad in order to see some caves. So I have from 9am this morning to 6pm this evening (it's now about 10:30am here) in this random Indian city. I wandered around for an hour to find this internet cafe, and I found a cinema so I'm going to the movies next. I'm not sure what's playing, either 2012 or some random Indian movie (fingers crossed), but it'll kill some time.

Being in a town that apparently never sees any tourists is interesting. I don't get hassled at all by rickshaw drivers, shopkeepers or hotel owners, but everyone stares. In tourist towns I get plenty of stares, but here it seems to be pretty much everyone. It's actually kind of nice to see just a regular town, I don't feel like I'm wasting a day (like I thought I would).

Hampi

Today I find myself in one of my new Favorite Places in the World (yes, of course it deserves to be capitalized), Hampi (Vijayanagara, as it used to be known). Basically Hampi is the modern city built within the ruins of Vijayanagara, the capital of the ruined empire of the same name.

I should mention how I got here I suppose. Last night I discovered there was a train scheduled (online at least) to come to Palolem at 6:30pm, so I went to catch it. When I got there (at 5pm to buy tickets) they said it was at 7:45, so I killed the next couple hours only for the bus to arrive during a thunderstorm at about 8:30pm, with my section at the very front. This was unfortunate because it stopped probably 100-200 meters from where I was and it was only scheduled for a 1 minute stop. Of course I can run that far in that amount of time easily, it just makes it more difficult when there are large groups of people in the way and a backpack on my back (in addition to a "satchel" at my side). I did, however, make it, with a few seconds to spare.

I spent the night at Margao train station (in a "retiring room", not on the ground), and caught the 8am train here this morning, arriving in Hampi after a bus ride at about 4pm.

Anyhow, as I was saying before, the ruins and setting are spectacular. The combination of plentiful, well preserved ruins scattered around the city and massive, imposing boulders all around them makes for an amazing sight. Unfortunately I'm here only until tomorrow night, but this afternoon I covered most of the place already. In the Rough Guide, they have a list of 41 "must see" things in India, and this is #1. Now I understand why (and I wouldn't argue with it).

Plus it has monkeys, which is always popular.