A Bit More from Mumbai

Matheran

A while back, Karen and I took a last minute weekend trip to a place called Matheran (maw-tay-rahn), which is supposed to be the most beautiful "Hill Station" in Maharashtra (the state we live in). I think the term Hill Station is a remnant from the times of British rule when foreigners would take short vacations just out of the city in the mountainous areas, which led to certain places developing essentially as mountain resort towns. Matheran is one of these, and is located about three hours' drive from Mumbai. It is a village on top of a high plateau where motorized vehicles are not allowed. To get there, you drive up to a parking lot and then you have to walk or take a horse up the rest of the way (about an hour's walk). It turned out to be a pretty nice place; the town itself was a little cheesey (felt like a very strange and dusty carnival), but the surrounding trails and scenery were good. The town is essentially full of animals, about 5,000 locals desperate to make some money, and Indian tourists. Horses are the primary mode of transport - both for people and goods (other than walking). In addition to horses, there was an abundance of cows and goats ambling about the town, but also an incredible number of opportunistic monkeys running around the streets and buildings. The monkeys are wild, but are unfortunately very bold because of the touristic nature of the place. One tried to take Karen's purse (or at least get into it) while Karen and I were playing ping pong at a table outside. She had left the bag on a bench next to the ping pong table, that was coincidentally next to the trunk of a big tree. I tried to scare it by slapping the paddle on the table and shouting, but it just hissed and lunged at me - shocking and scaring me - and then went about trying to open the bag. Fortunately, the hotel staff noticed and engaged the monkey patrol (two guys with sling shots) and the punk monkey ran up the tree empty handed. I'd do better next time...damn monkey. Then later, one ran through our door (that I carelesslely left ajar) and across our patio and stole the breakfast off our neighbors' table (it was a glass enclosed, shared front porch). It was pretty funny, but our neighbors didn't seem to think so. The same monkey came back and tried to pry the door open, but the monkey patrol came back with a bamboo rod and scared it away. Pretty intense. Look at the crazy mommy monkey's face in the last picture (that is a baby one hanging below). Regardless of the monkey encounters, Matheran made for a decent retreat from the city and a good chance to wander through the woods away from motor vehicles.

Our Life Here

Once before, I put some pictures of the inside of our apartment on the blog, but that probably didn't give a good sense for what it is really like here. So I thought some pictures and a video might be intersting. The first picture (the building) is of Satguru Sharan, the building that we live in. Our place is on the "first" (really the second) floor, which puts us unpleasantly close to the street. It is only a local street, but it is incredibly loud - most noticibly at night. There are a couple restaurants around, a coffee shop and two schools. So at certain times, there are hundreds of kids in uniforms going to or coming from the schools. In addition, there are trucks, cars, motorcycles, auto rickshaws (the black and yellow tricycle vehicles in the picture), and people advertising their products or services by shouting in the streets. Karen and I often mimick them, although we have no idea what they are saying or selling - another one of our odd forms of entertainment here. One other item of note is that I have obtained both a legal Indian driving license and a moped to go with it. This picture is of the Singleton fleet here in Mumbai in the parking garage in our building. Of course, there is our Toyota Innova minivan/SUV, but you can also see our always stationary bicycles (haven't been ridden since Denver...three cities ago!) and the moped. Scooters, being a primary mode of transportation in a relatively poor city, are very cheap here. So, we now own a 2008 Honda Aviator - dark metallic grey, equipped with a 'sari-step'...a standard feature on all two-wheelers in India where most women ride on the back side-saddle, stupidly without helmets. The sari-step is the silver thing behind Karen's left calf in the picture; she doesn't use it. She does, however, regularly request joyrides around town to run errands and entertain ourselves...there is not that much to do here and riding around now, when it is not the monsoon season, is pretty nice. It seems locals here think we are a pretty funny sight - a couple foreigners, on a shiny new scooter, with matching shiny helmets, rolling through the chaos and filth of Mumbai. I also went around and shot some footage in the streets and markets near our apartment. The video at the bottom provides a pretty realistic look at our neighborhood - where we buy fruits and vegetables, the places we eat and the type of people we see wandering around.

Although it is usually sunny and about 90 degrees F during the day (75 at night) and there are palm trees outside our windows, we are slowly working ourselves into some kind of Christmas spirit. It's a bit difficult here, but we have a few decorations out. Karen is posing here with our "Deli Cake" Christmas tree from the fakes market in China. We're definitely looking forward to getting out of India for a few weeks. We'll be in Europe and then in the States in less than a week, where we'll get to see friends and relatives and take a break from the chaos here. Happy Holidays!

Our First Visitors: The Makis

We Are Fine

First, let me reassure anyone reading this that despite the recent headlines of scary events in Mumbai, we are fine here. Fortunately, we were home that evening, which was where we remained for about 36 hours...uneasily watching the news. It so happened that we already had a trip to Goa scheduled for that weekend. It made for a great retreat from a city in distress and from repetitive and gloomy news coverage - more on that later. The city has more or less returned to "normal".

Portland to Mumbai - An Unlikely Itinerary

Our first brave visitors have now come and gone. Tom and Sarah flew from Portland to Atlanta (about 5 hours), and then onto Mumbai (16 more hours on a plane) - an itinerary I would guess has been booked just a few times this year. We were a bit afraid how they would feel after such a journey, arriving in a place as overwhelming as Mumbai, but they handled it well and we had a great visit. Despite an interruption from Pakistani terrorists, we completed all travel plans and got to experience some of what India has to offer together with them in the 2.5 weeks they were here. Although much of our time together was spent in Mumbai, where we live, most of this post is dedicated to the weekend trips we took, as they were more fun and offered the best pictures. To give a little flavor for Mumbai, I have included one photo of the Bombay Laundry (the Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat). This is a 136-year-old area public washing area (Mumbai's oldest and largest) where hundreds of people wash, beat and hang their clothes each day. It is an interesting photo and concept, which hopefully gives a better sense for the variety of new sights Tom and Sarah encountered on their trip.

A simple map is provided to highlight their trip and the locations where the events and pictures in this post took place. First, Mumbai is in central-West India along the coast [green box on map]. Our first weekend rendezvous was to "NCR" (Northern Capital Region), where we zipped between the cities in the "Golden Triangle" of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur [red box on map]. The following weekend, we headed for the beach state of Goa [blue box on map].

Cruising NCR
In order to hit the top tourist places around Delhi, we rented a car (and driver...Ramesh). We flew to Delhi, drove to Agra and then Jaipur, and flew home from Jaipur to Mumbai. It worked well and we were able to see a lot over just a long weekend. Delhi feels more or less like Mumbai, but it is cleaner and more organized. While Mumbai is the commercial capital, Delhi is the seat of the government and has more history. It was a nice couple days - Red Fort, the zoo, and various markets. The driver Ramesh was nice enough to take us into a Sikh (the people of the religion that wear the tight turbans) temple and show us what to do. While we were at the zoo, this sign seemed a little strange. However, as the trip progressed, we had more and more exposure to monkeys. Essentially, monkeys are in most places and are considered a nuisance. As the cities here grow and natural habitat is destroyed, they adapt and learn how to live with and off of humans. There is another picture here of a family of monkeys running around on a building on the side of the road. To be honest, the monkeys are scary (they actually have big teeth) and are pretty aggressive. We've seen them in several places now; no one here seems very fond of them. One tried to steal our breakfast on a rooftop deck at our hotel in Jaipur.

Agra (home of the Taj Mahal)
Probably the main reason we headed north for the first excursion out of Mumbai was the draw of the Taj Mahal. It is in a city called Agra, which didn't seem to have much to offer other than the Taj and a few other tourist highlights. Karen and I have been to many architectural wonders and I must say that the Taj Mahal really is spectacular. We went in at sunrise, which was really great. The skies were blue and there was a morning haze that made the place look that much better. It is huge. If you don't know, the Taj Mahal was built in about 1650 as a mausoleum by one of the Mughal Emperors as a memorial for his second wife (although there seems to be some controversy over that). Of course, it is a very picturesque campus and we came away from there with tons of pictures, but my favorites are here. Tom did a great job with the obligatory reflection picture, which is actually difficult to do given the droves of people all trying to get into position for that perfect shot without reflection obstructions. You may be able to get some scale from the first picture as there is a crowd just past the pond and before the building itself. By the way, in the group photo that black thing on my neck is a T-shirt (makeshift scarf) with the dorky tag sticking out. It was chilly that morning. The last two are more for impact and entertainment. The one with the Taj Mahal in the distance and trees in the foreground is noteworthy only in that it was the view from our hotel room (actually even from the toilet inside the hotel room). The other picture makes it entirely clear how large this structure really is. There is a red circle with two people in it - Sarah and Karen waving (blown up at top left for convenience). The last photo is from a chamber inside the Agra Fort that we happened upon and were able to get some half-cheesey, half-cool pictures with the light beam.

Jaipur
We had high hopes from reading the guidebooks for fascinating bazaars (markets) in Jaipur, but were quite disappointed on that front. However, it was a good part of the trip as we crossed into yet another state (Rajastan) where the landscape and culture starts to change. Local people wear brightly colored loosly piled turbans and light white garments. It was about a six hour drive from Agra to Jaipur, which seemed an awful prospect, but which turned out to be a nice experience. The scenery was pretty and there was plenty to look at. Also, Ramesh's cross-country driving style - FAST - added something to the day as we bounded across the country side with various parts of the highway closed (meaning we drove down the wrong side of the highway...along with everyone else), blocked with people, carts, animals, etc. Traffic here has an amazing flow, which would never work in the US or many other places. It is accomplished with a lot of blind faith that others think the way you do and no one will overreact to any situation. You get used to it. Nonetheless, we made it safely after having seen camel caravans galore. See the picture above. Camels are widely used (on the highway) to pull HUGE loads long distances. The other picture is from the fort-palace outside of Jaipur and shows what local women (who were the construction laborers in this place) wear. You see a lot of stuff carried on heads in India. In this case, it would have been pans full of dirt that was being moved.

In addition to camels, Jaipur is also home to lots of semi-domesticated elephants. They are used for tourist activities, which is kind of sad, but at the same time, elephants (and camels for that matter) are somehow mesmerizing. I think it is that they are so foreign to anything we'd see at home, and they are just a part of life and history here. Check out the elephant strolling through town with the 'owner' sleeping in the basket up top. Our plan was to ride elephants up the hill to get to the fort-palace, but Ramesh - listening to my frustrated words - took us all the way up to the entrance itself. I made it clear he was to use his local knowledge to help us have an easy trip, not line his pockets on the side (a pretty typical enterprise for drivers), after which he whizzed us by the tourist bottleneck with the elephants and up to the top. So we found some elephant guys walking down the side of the road, stopped and paid them ($2 per elephant) to hang out with the elephants for a few minutes. The elephant on the left actually took the money from my hand with its trunk and handed it up to the owner. In Rajastan, they paint the elephants and camels decoratively. The elephants were: huge, hairy, rough, warm and cute. I suppose we already could have guessed those things, but it was pretty neat to stand right next to them and touch them. I think this was the highlight of Karen's trip.

Goa - The Hippy Beach Town

Everyone's second choice destination (after NCR) was to go to Goa. When you live here, other expats talk about Goa like it is some kind of haven. And after going there, we can understand why. It is not that it is overly nice, clean or organized - just that it isn't busy, there is water that looks somewhat clean, and you can just go and relax. It has a more diverse feel. We saw lots of hippies from all over the world, local people, Russians, and who knows who else. I think it is a place you would go to hide away in anonymity if you were a criminal on the run in a developed country. As you can see in the beach picture, cows don't have it too bad there either. This picture is of the sunset from the hill our hotel sat on (nice shot Tom). The other nice thing about going to Goa was that it pulled us out of Mumbai during the second half of the terror attack period. We were a little weary of going out and getting on a plane, but it turned out to be a great retreat from the uncomfortable situation back in Mumbai. We splurged for a nicer hotel, rented mopeds and had a few relaxed days. After probably 5 years off the horse, Tom jumped on and re-learned how to ride a scooter (with a passenger who had never been on a two-wheeled motorized vehicle before) on the wrong side of the road with terrible street conditions and animals wandering about. Good job...no crashes!

On Sunday night, we headed back to Mumbai for their final few days in India. The terror attacks changed the mood for sure. It was too bad it happened during their visit, but we came out fine and having seen (not even first hand) what kind of bad things are out there in the world. Being in India really makes you think. We have it great in the US for so many reasons. Our system works, our government is basically fair, we have opportunities (and food) and we can essentially do what we want. Tom and Sarah's last few days (before their marathon 36-hour journey back to Oregon), were spent hanging out, eating a few more cheese naan, and playing Nintendo Wii (check out our Matrix moves during a hot Wii Sports boxing match). Plus, it was Tom's birthday! We're glad we could have you guys here and that the trip was a success. We'll see you and/or talk to you soon. Thanks for visiting!!!