A Day Without Giules

Friday Sept. 29 - Delhi.

This was not to be Giules’s day. Today was the day that the great Indian food laid her low. Rather than go out and shoot photos today, she stayed at the hotel, skipping lunch, ending up by the pool reading and having a hot stone massage. Not a single photo today.

I on the other hand shot 874 images over five hours in Old Delhi.

Our guide and I started out in the train station, through which 1.1 million people a day pass. I was getting some good images until security came along and said, no more photos – the result of the terrorist bombings in India. We tried an appeal to the stationmaster, but to no avail.

However, the teeming streets of Old Delhi again beckoned. We head out through the streets near the train station, which are pandemonium with train users, freight on hand carts and being towed by bicycles, as well as small taxis, rickshaws, cattle pulling wagons - you name it.

There were many great photo opportunities on the street and then we headed to the spice market—shop after shop after shop of spices. Many colors, textures, people, but when we went upstairs in one of the blocks to the wholesalers, we met out match – so many spices in the air that we began to cough a bit. Some chai tea helped but the breathing problems did not go away until we went back to the crowded streets.

I never thought I’d be over spiced without putting it on my food. Today was such a day.

Massages at the hotel, catching up on photo editing and writing, dinner at the hotel and then off to sleep.

Off by car on Saturday to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal.

Photo postings from the day are at Jerry's flickr page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfon24/sets/72157627657291275/.

BYO Head scarf

Thursday, 9/29. Our first full day in Delhi.

Breakfast in the hotel was a feast of Indian goodies - - we had the option of eating from the Japanese buffet, the British buffet, the Chinese buffet or the Indian buffet - and guess where we went? We had a choice of southern and northern dishes and enjoyed them both - - different and delicious. By the end of the meal we were ready for a nap, but our guide was ready to take us out for our first day on the town!

Delhi is full of sights, sounds, people, crowds, colors, and amazing food. We set out with our guide to walk throughout the streets of Old Delhi. Every alley, no mater how small, was teeming with people, cars, rickshaws, tuk tuks, motor bikes, bicycles and vendors and shops of all kinds. And each street had a theme. We wandered streets of vendors of wedding products, car parts, coins, silver and jewelry, and, of course, food of all kinds. With the help of our guide, Sanjeev, who chose wisely, we even sampled a few tidbits! Of course, the people are the most interesting part of the street life - school children mug for our cameras and the men work constantly in the stores or transporting things. There are even men who will clean your ears on the street, for a small price. They almost had me going for the clean white q-tips, but then I thought better of it. There are very few women out and about - our guide says they are at home or at work, but not this kind of work. We saw a few other tourists being toted about in rickshaws but how can they take pictures?? On foot, Jerry and I found this area to be a photographer's paradise!

Our morning included a visit to a Sikh temple. We had to fight our way through a thicket of enthusiastic folks in yellow hats championing Cardiac Health and Awareness Day and getting people to sign up for free cardiac screenings. Passing on that opportunity, we found ourselves in a small lobby of the temple along with the doctors who were doing the screenings. We left our shoes, donned our head scarves and walked outside (oh yes) in bare feet (ugh) to enter the temple through a stream of holy water. We walked through the holy water, still out on the street, where others were kneeling. Some were touching the water to their heads, others were taking sips (more ugh, but perhaps one builds up immunities?).
The inside of the temple was fascinating, with a prayer area and a huge cooking complex and dormitory for visitors, pilgrims or anyone who needs a place to stay. It is an interesting religion about which I knew very little except that they don't cut their hair and wear turbans... We know a great deal more now - they seek (pun intended) to devote themselves to caring for, feeding and housing all in need - but if you come to eat or stay, you must also take part in the work and wash your own dish. It was all very egalitarian, including the fact that women are considered equal to men. Pretty impressive for an ancient religion, but despite the best efforts of our guide, I decided not to convert. Jerry did not even consider it as he refuses to let his hair grow long enough to fill the mandatory turban.

We lunched at a local restaurant. I cannot do justice to the amazing food we have had here. The flavors are varied and intense, the spices are fragrant and every meal brings a new surprise (even the offerings we ate as we left the Sikh temple). By surprise, I mean GOOD surprises - delicate deserts, interesting vegetables we have never seen before. After lunch we visited Gandhi's house and place of assassination - a museum of tranquility amidst the crowded streets. Lots of info there. You already know a lot of it - no need to give a history lesson here. Our guide was a true Gandhi fan and tried tirelessly to get us to visit more Gandhi sites, but this was plenty.

We had dinner with Abhi, our guide for the photo trip we will be begin on Monday, and his lovely girlfriend, Sikha. They took us to a modern and upscale Indian restaurant after inquiring whether we wanted Japanese, Italian or some other cuisine. We are here but for a few days, so when in India... you get the picture (and it's a delicious picture).

Travel to India

Who would have thought that traveling in a full coach cabin with 270 of your nearest and dearest most recent friends, surrounded by children under four for 14 hours could be such fun. Well, it wasn’t, in part because the children cried (moaned might be a better way to put it) for much of the trip. However, with the help of ear plugs it was fine. The children were just reacting to being jammed into a small space the same way everyone else was.

There were several families consisting of a young mother, three young children and grandmother, all trying to keep it together. The older children must have been in school because it was only the little ones on the flight – and lots.

Continental has you shut the shades after take off (8:30 p.m.) so that as you over Northern Europe four hours after take off you can continue to sleep or at least relax. It works well and keeps everyone a little more calm. Great on demand movie selection and the Kindle made the time pass reasonably rapidly.

We arrived about 45 minutes early into Delhi and its new airport. This one is a modern, top quality airport, which contrasts sharply with the old airport that was every developing world and inadequate.

Whatever the issues about flying over, we cannot be heard to complain. We each got 4-5 hours of sleep and traveled 7500 miles in just a few hours.

Our hotel is fully adequate for our purposes, a business hotel run by a Dubai company with great Indian cuisine. We enjoy the Indian cuisine any chance we get, skipping over the English, Continental and Chinese offerings. We are very popular with the Indian chefs who oversee the breakfast buffet because we inquire about the Indian foods. They are happy to help us make choices amongst the delicious Indian options.

A few of Jerry’s first day photos are up at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jfon24/sets/72157627657291275/.

Giules’s photos can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/33339594@N06/sets/72157627660248443/

The good news is that we are posting a smaller number of photos each than we did on the last trip.

Getting Ready for the Next Adventure!

India and Bhutan, here we come! Stay tuned for details and photos!

-Jerry and Giules

Eat, Pray, Love! Reprise

EAT – Oh boy did we eat! I look back at the pictures from our post on March 8^th (Lord of the Dance) and figure that I’ve gained about 4-7 lbs. And you know what? It was worth every calorie and carb! Thai food was our favorite, with Indonesian running up a close second. Cambodian food was neck and neck with Indonesian and all three far outweigh the stale bagel I am currently gnawing here at the LA airport. Suffice it to say that the culinary aspect of this trip did not disappoint.

That brings me to the final Gala dinner. This event, held under the stars at the Mandarin Oriental was, as Jerry put it, an extravaganza. Exotic dishes to taste, dancers performing, more votive candles set out on the green than any US Fire Marshall would ever allow, and the sky lit up with the paper balloons we released (emerging nations have not caught on to modern environmental practices). It was a lovely, elegant and perfect way to end the trip. Weigh-in takes place tomorrow at o-dark hundred.

PRAY – Bali, Cambodia and Thailand are very spiritual places – especially Bali. There are temples everywhere and flower offerings at virtually every doorstep and street corner. Buddhism is the predominant religion in the area and the people seem imbued with a deep sense of peace and happiness. Hmmm.

Another form of praying took place the night of the earthquake . . . . While Jerry and a few hearty Californians went back to the rooms and slept, the rest of us hunkered down in the parking lot to ride out the aftershocks in relative safety - but no need to revisit the one terrifying moment in an otherwise wonderful vacation. Again.

LOVE – These last 3+ weeks have been some of the most fun and interesting we’ve ever had. Our last day in Hawaii marked the launch of what was, in effect, a honeymoon of sorts (see blog post March 13, I (still) do). In addition to enjoying the travels and the adventures, we met some lovely people along the way – people with whom we dined, laughed, climbed ancient ruins, ate and drank exotic foods, and yes, slept in the parking lot. I am sure we will remain friends and travel together in the years to come.

PHOTOGRAPH – ahhh yes! Of this we did a great deal. Although this was not a photography trip, per se, we both brought along our cameras and made the most of being in the far east. While others were packed on a bus, we were exploring markets and back streets, meeting people and having a blast with our cameras. The wonder of digital photography never ceases to amaze me. We take pictures and the next moment we are sharing them with you on our Flickr pages! Although relatively new to the digital world, I must finally acknowledge that my film days are behind me, and all my darkroom equipment will, sadly, continue to live quietly in the garage.

Epilogue: We arrive home on a beautiful, crisp, early spring day. Jerry’s bag arrives, too. Mine is, apparently, still in LA. That’s OK – I won't need summer clothes again for at least another few months!

Post epilogue (is there such a thing?): I get on the scale no less than 5 times this morning (mostly to see if it's broken. . . . It's not): I have not gained a single pound!

Jerry's Ruminations

As we prepare to leave Thailand after our visits to Thailand, Cambodia and Bali (Indonesia), a few odd ruminations (would you expect less).

Thailand is beautiful, the food is great, prices are reasonable and Thais are a warm and wonderful people. The cities, and the countryside are clean for the most part. Thailand clearly has a solid middle class and is country moving up rapidly from being a developing nation.

Bali is wonderful in all respects, but not quite as clean and with less of an established middle class.

Cambodia is a little hard to read. We saw only one place, Siem Reap, where Angkor Wat is located. This is a developing nation with plenty of poverty and cleanup work to be done. Siem Reap is booming with man large hotels under construction due to the presence of Angkor Wat.

Three million people visit Angkor Wat a year now. The government is putting in a new international airport to accommodate flights from outside Asia (we flew in and out of the existing regional airport from Thailand).

So who controls access to Angkor Wat? Two private companies. If you look on the back of your entry pass (which contains your photo, taken as they issue the ticket), you see a passing reference to the companies. I asked our guide about it and he confirmed my theory. The Government lacks the money, so they have an arrangement with the two foreign companies to in effect operate Angkor Wat as a tourist attraction. The same is true of the existing airport and the planned new airport.

We talked with one of our guides in Cambodia about where he learned English. No, not in school (although that is a common way to learn it) and not by travel abroad. He learned to speak English through YouTube. There apparently are many language lessons on YouTube. New one on us.

The guide already speaks Japanese. He is working to learn Italian and Spanish to make himself more marketable as a tour guide. He is part of the up and coming Cambodian middle class.

Back to Thailand. It’s a mystery to me why, for no apparent engineering or construction reason, there are so many small (2”) step ups that will trip you up. The same is true of stairs, where the rise varies between steps, making stairs and the little step ups genuine hazards.

We used the SkyTrain in Bangkok, a relatively new above ground rail system. I wondered why the overhead straps for those standing were hitting me in the head. Simple. Thais are short people, and, as it should be, the system was designed for them, not for taller westerners (and as we all know, I’m not all that tall).

Group travel is a mixed blessing and an interesting experience. There were roughly 50 of us in Bali and 102 of us in Thailand and Cambodia.

With a group, you have to allow more time for everything, so we arrived at all airports an hour earlier than we would normally need to arrive. However, we were for the most part whisked through visa lines, immigration and check in. In Bangkok, the travel agency even paid the airline to have two check in lines just for us.

There is the matter of the tours. Some of the tours took us to great sites and permitted us to bypass lines. However, some of the tours were for the purpose of creating shopping opportunities that we would have passed on—and when we could, we did.

On two evening in Thailand, part of the evening’s events included releasing large paper balloons, as they call them, which really are specially designed paper bags with a light metal frame and a flaming burner (which burns itself out after the fuel is exhausted). When lit, the heat causes the bag/balloon to rise. Simple physics. As a group, we launched 50 of them one night and 20 another. They are spectacular in the sky. In theory they should burn out and fall harmlessly to earth without causing a fire on the ground. However, they are an obvious environmental hazard in general, but also, you can be sure that some of them hit the ground lit, lighting something on fire. Beautiful, but not a great idea.

Then there are the departure parties we referenced in earlier positing (except for last night’s, which Giules will reference in her last posting), one each from Bali, Cambodia and Thailand. Think hotel luaus in Hawaii, but put it on a world class ancient temple ruin (Cambodia) or a Hindu temple with 250 villagers turning out to perform (Bali), dancers, food, music. Extravaganza is the term that comes to mind.

Jerry from Chiang Mai

It’s an hour bus ride from Chaing Rai, to our final Thailand destination, Chaing Mai, Thailand’s second largest city and the center of activity in Northern Thailand. Good roads through scenic countryside, but still four hours.

The Mandarin Oriental Dhari Dhevi (I put in its full name to make it sound important) is an over the top resort. We have a suite (suits and villas are all they have) that has literally almost as many square feet as our entire condominium. We don’t need this much space, including two bathrooms, but it gives you some idea of the place.

We arrive Saturday night and skip the Mandarin Oriental’s five restaurants in favor of going into town to a Thai restaurant. We were not disappointed. Great tastes and flavors, and about $100 a couple, including wine.

On Sunday morning Giules is not feeling well (head cold), so she stays behind while I go off temple-viewing with the group. Good temples with lots of people watching and photographs to take.

In the afternoon we have a luxurious couples massage for two hours. This is Thailand, so the rates are reasonable and the Lanna massage (this area was the Lanna Kingdom at one time) consists of a warm oil massage, tapping of the body with a special tool made from the bark of the tamarind tree and then hot compresses. After that, all we want to do is relax.

We had another dinner out with friends in Chaing Mai on Sunday evening at a Thai restaurant Giules found. More wonderful Thai food, inexpensive Australian wine, and then . . . on to the night market. This is a local equivalent market, i.e., not designed for the tourists. It’s full of clothing, jewelry, shoes, and food for consumption on the spot. These markets are always fun and colorful and this one is no different.

There are six of us. So how do we get back to the hotel? The type of cab that took us downtown is no where to be seen. One option it to use tuk tuks, the three wheeled sort of carts that are ubiquitous. However, we instead use the Chaing Mai version of a bus, in effect chartering our own, a small pick up truck with roof over the back and benches on both sides. We pile in and back to the hotel we go. It’s not very comfortable (or in the least bit safe), but it works.

On Monday, our last full day in Thailand, we skip the group trip to the hillside tribes with the women who have many rings around their long necks and instead go in to find the local market. We wonder amongst the shops and stalls for about two hours—being about the only westerners to be seen. It’s a street photographer’s paradise and we take in every minute of it.