Visit to India - Part 2

I just can’t get over how life here seems to be the TOTAL opposite of things in Switzerland... at least for little things like "rules" (!) It's so weird to go from a country where you HAVE to walk between the lines or else you get fined right away, to one where there seem to be no lines at all. Literally or figuratively!

On Tuesday we did the day trip from Delhi to see the Taj Mahal – a very impressive sight...

It was beautiful. Not as huge as we all expected, but the intricateness of the jewels in the marble was very impressive. And as with Delhi it was just interesting to just drive around and see how people live, and the contrast between rich and poor...

Every minute there was something new and different to see and experience. Just the final trip to get to and from the Taj Mahal was an adventure, riding in a rickshaw...

and then having to push through the local street vendors (who always seem to surround us the moment we’re in sight).

On Wednesday we had to get up very early for our flight to Chennai. The Kingfisher Airlines is one of the best I have ever flown - such wonderful service both at the airport and on the plane, it was incredible. When we arrived in Chennai the Abrahams and Chris and Manisha were all waiting and waving for us at the airport -- Definitely a much nicer reception than when we arrived in Delhi!! It was wonderful seeing them again, and having the family connection in such a faraway place.

Our hotel was very nice and we just hung out there for a while to rest. Eventually our car arrived (late) to take us to the Abrahams' for a late dinner. (Everything runs at least an hour late in India – Yet another sharp contrast to the Swiss and their timeliness!) It took almost an hour to go the short distance, because of the traffic here -- It is the worst traffic I have ever seen. We travelled with their cousins who are also staying in a nearby hotel - one is from Australia and one from Malaysia.

We had drinks and dinner at the family’s apartment... The dinner was supposedly "without any spice" but it still seemed spicy, even to me! It was nice to have the family all together on this adventure...On Thursday the Abrahams took us shopping at a nearby "mall" area... and I bought a local outfit to wear to the wedding reception. I wanted to get a saree, but that takes many days to prepare the correct size, so instead I tried on “salwar kameez”’s, which are like a dress with pants underneath, and very decorative.

Since shopping always makes one hungry, we took a break for lunch (a late one, of course). I wanted to try more local cuisine, so my new sister-in-law ordered for me a sort of sampler plate. Lots and lots of different things – and all for the equivalent of just a couple dollars! I don’t know what all was on it, but I just dug in without asking questions. You scoop up the food with the bread and eat it all with your fingers, including the rice. (Washing hands right before and after is a definite.) Needless to say it’s a messy affair, but delicious!

The next day we just enjoyed the warm weather by hanging out at the pool – Nice to get a chance to work on the tan in December! The big event – the wedding reception – was this evening, so we wanted to be rested up. While I laid soaking in the warm sunshine and enjoying the cool breeze, I felt very appreciative again... as I looked around at how nice our surroundings were at the hotel, you could hear all the horns blowing on the other side of the fence from the horrible traffic and know that people are having a much harder life just living day to day.

The wedding reception was really nice – There were over 500 guests, and we felt like sort of guests of honor being the groom’s family from “so far away”. Here's me and the happy couple...

Everyone was dressed to the hilt in all the different beautiful colors of sarees...

and the food was incredibly delicious. It will make going to an “Indian” restaurant anywhere else in the world pale by comparison!

The next day our new “in-laws” took us to a beach area outside Chennai, as well as to visit a temple and a crocodile farm. I can’t emphasize enough how nice it was to have their support there to show us around and help us with everything. I had to leave to fly back home the following night and was sad to have to go. I was genuinely appreciative to have had the opportunity to experience so much in such a short trip. It is definitely a life-altering event to visit a third world country, so if you ever have the opportunity I would suggest taking it.

ChekolaChekola (that's Cheers, at least according to one of our Indian drivers!),
Becky

Visit to India - Part 1

Hello and Greetings from Delhi!!

All I can say is - Whew. And wow! It is all overwhelming. This experience brings back a LOT of memories from Africa. Plus a bit more, since we don't have a tour company taking care of everything we do here. It's just me and my parents, figuring it out as we go!

My brain feels like total mush after travelling all yesterday and everything we’ve experienced today. The trip started out with my flight from Zurich almost not happening. They announced that it was delayed and may be cancelled, but at the last minute they got whatever problem fixed and we were able to take off. The delay meant I had a very tight connection in Paris, where I was to meet my parents on the plane to fly to India together. If I missed the flight I would have to wait until the next day to get another flight, and my parents wouldn’t know where I was or what to do when they got to Delhi. So, I really needed to catch that flight!

I ran thru the Paris airport and made it on the India-bound plane just in time!... Just in time to sit there for an extra hour before we could finally take off. I could have just taken my time after all! Oh well, the 8-hour flight went smoothly and I had a nice time catching up with my parents with some wine, reading and napping...and before we knew it we were in India! Here we just got off the plane...

When we arrived in Delhi it was almost midnight, and we were welcomed by a mile-long line for passport check. Since we were almost at the end of the line already, we decided to let it shorten a bit while we went to the restroom - only to discover when we returned that two more flights had arrived and made the line even longer - Doh! Ah, the joys and “glamour” of travel. Who would have expected so many people there at 1am?
After surviving the looooong wait and having our passports approved, we went to pick up our baggage - only to find that it still hadn't arrived yet -- and we had disembarked the plane over an hour and a half earlier!! We waited still another half hour watching the baggage belt go verrrrrry sloooooooowly by. There was dust all in the air in the airport, seemingly from some construction they had been doing.

When we finally collected our belongings we looked for our driver who would take us to our hotel. Unfortunately among the throngs and throngs of people welcoming the arriving passengers, no sign had my name on it like it was supposed to. I used a phone to call our hotel and they said that the driver had given up on us since our flight was late and the wait was so long. Well isn't that nice, especially since it was pre-paid!! So we ended up taking a taxi. That experience was a separate adventure in itself - too much to put into words, so just remind me to tell you next time I see you in person. Let's just say we were really glad to finally see the hotel and to arrive with all our bags and all our people together and in one piece!!

The hotel was bare-bones basic, but relatively clean. The windows would not close fully, which was worrisome with mosquitoes and their accompanying malaria risk. There was no tub or shower - just a water faucet on a side of the bathroom.

The noise outside on the streets was never-ending -- horns honking constantly, Indian music playing, bells ringing from rickshaws, people yelling, more horns honking on and on and on... But we were so tired we finally fell asleep and slept thru it all! (of course earplugs are definitely a travelers' best friend).

In the morning we decided that a change of hotels was in order. We got connected with a local tour agency who helped us find a better place and also set up a car and driver for us to get around the next three days. So we moved to the new hotel, which was a very welcome haven after all the hecticness. This one even has a tub AND a shower!

We spent the rest of the day touring Delhi. It is hard to put into words what a moving experience it is to see a place like this in person. There seem to be no rules for driving - the lane lines are ignored, and horns are constantly blared while cars push ahead into spaces you didn't think previously existed, along with rickshaws, bikes, motorbikes, people, ox-carts, camels...

lots of cattle crossings...

everything vies for position to get ahead...

There are people sleeping on the sidewalks and children sitting by fires on the corner of the road...

people selling anything you can think of, and people eating right next to people relieving themselves... I really don't know how to describe it, there was so much to see at once and so many emotions that it created. There are a lot more pics in the picture album here.

For lunch we ate at a wonderful restaurant and it was my parents' very first experience having Indian cuisine. They can't take spicy things, so I knew it might make for quite a challenge here... But they loved it!

And I did too -- so much flavor, what's not to love. Our driver dined with us and helped us pick out things from the menu. He is a great guy and I would recommend him to anyone travelling to the Delhi area.

Well after all this we are exhausted so time to rest before dinner... It was a big day filled with seeing many many different things, and witnessing first-hand how there are lots of people in this world that have hard lives where every day it is a challenge to obtain food and a clean place to rest their head. It especially hits home when I was reading some of my emails just now, and there was one from a company selling things for Christmas which said something about how "the holidays are so exhausting and overwhelming". Of course it is true, in our world it can be a "stressful" time if we let ourselves get bogged down with all the expectations we put on ourselves. But hopefully we can remember just how GOOD we all have it in life - so comfortable, so convenient. We have it downright easy compared to so many other people in this world!!

More later...

Ride the train, berijd de trein.

As a prelude to our upcoming Dutch Mountains posting, I wanted to chat with you about train travel. Of course, as Americans, our prior experience with trains was little more than hearing freight trains in the distance on summer nights while playing kick-the-can as 7-year olds, waiting at the occasional train crossing when our handy short-cut was thwarted by loads of coal, chickens, and hobos headed for somewhere else , and watching toy trains chug through miniature landscapes ... past the depot, through the tunnel, oops the caboose just fell off and the dog just stepped on all the miniature people at the Depot. Yep, that and some flashbacks of old Western movies and of course, Blazing Saddles, represented our whole paradigm on trains until we moved to Europe.

To reach our favorite cycling destination in the Netherlands, we've been spending lots of time on trains and thus immersing ourselves in a very different transportation culture. This is quite a change from our "toss all the gear in the car and gas 'er up" mindset that we honed in the land of plenty (except for public transportation options, that is)! It requires a different preparation mindset and different expectations, but the rewards are outstanding and we get a double-bonus by being in a country with such a great cycling infrastructure. That is, we can count on never having a worry on getting to or from train stations purely by bike wherever we go in the Netherlands. There are special provisions for bikes everywhere -- on the trains, at the train stations, even on roadways fairly remote from major villages or cities.

These train trips start out as we navigate our road bikes through the streets of Amsterdam with a weekend's worth of belongings in backpacks. It's at this point that we really appreciate how well-oriented our city bikes are to uneven, cobbled road surfaces and heavy loads -- it's tough on the road bikes and we're always a bit nervous on our tiny-tired bikes as we weave our way along the canals and past the hoards of tourists to the train station! Twenty minutes later though, we're on a train with our bikes gliding through the flat countryside. It gives you a great feeling of self-reliance -- it's really liberating not to have to rely on a car and to achieve your travel objectives solely by bike and train.


We learned quickly that 1) you have to buy a separate ticket for your bike and 2) you have to board on one of the special cars with a bike sticker above the door. Now, the downside to #2 is that most people carting bikes on trains aren't carting around their fancy racing bike -- instead, they are carting around their daily driver ... their 1983 pickup truck of bikes ... their beater bike. And this is the part that makes me the most nervous and serves as fodder for the rest of this story. It always goes like this: the train pulls up. You spot the special bike sticker and as the train slows, you start walking toward it. The train keeps on moving though, so you walk and then start to run because now the special door is 100 yards away. You realize that the best bet would have been to stand still and wait for the next sticker. You finally make it to the door, carry the bikes up the steps into the train car, and place them oh, so carefully along the wall (in a special bike area). You line up the bikes for you and your traveling companions, brace them so they won't move an inch, triple-check to ensure that the cranks and skewers are aligned in such a way that no contact will be made .... no scratches on the carbon fiber surfaces, no scratches on the components, no inappropriate bike-to-bike contact. Then, you lock the bikes together just to make sure that should bandits storm the train with guns a blazin, bandanas covering their faces, and horses awaiting their getaway ... that they would have to take all the bikes together and not just one.

Seconds before the train pulls away, it always happens that someone shows up with the beater bike. You can see him coming ... it's happening in slow motion. You want to jump out of your seat and hit the button to close the door. You beg to hear the conductor's whistle signaling imminent departure, but alas, beater bike guy makes it on. You know it won't be pretty. You know that beater bike guy has no clue that instead of owning a car, you invested a car's worth of savings into a high-end bicycle. You stand up, to make your presence known and to make an awkward attempt to head-off the inappropriate bike-to-bike contact that's sure to happen. It's all happening in super slow motion, but you just can't seem to move quickly enough. You've ceased to breath because of the anxiety. Beater bike guy's basket nicks your saddle -- then, out comes the kick-stand. His jeans are making contact with your wheel -- what if something on his shoes snags my rear dérailleur and rips it off the bike?!!! Then, with the kickstand extended, you clue in on the impending lean. Mathematical calculations are whizzing trough your brain! Will it touch?!! Will it touch?!! What if the train lurches forward suddenly?

Beater bike guy leaves the bike in mid-lean and starts his walk into the main train cabin. His bike is in free-fall. The kickstand has yet to make contact with the ground. The handlebars are turning -- the basket is in full motion. The rear panniers are making their move toward your aero wheels. Your bladed spokes are cowering in fear. You try to reach for the beater bike, but you're not fast enough. It's all a blur -- not just a scratch, but a full disintegration of your carbon fiber frame flashes before your eyes. You envision spikes, blades, and big fangs extending from the beater bike and ravaging your beautiful frame -- your recreational art -- your prized steed that allows you to escape to a world of bliss. You envision millions of carbon fiber particles filling the air as your bike meets its end. Oh, the humanity, you think.

The train eases from the station as beater bike comes to rest. A stillness fills the air. Tears well up in your eyes -- just preparing themselves for escape should your frame have been damaged. You survey the situation -- taking it all in. No contact. No contact. Thank you, thank you, thank you ... no contact! Sweet, glorious music fills your mind.

For the next two hours though, you watch the bikes like a hawk. Every time the tracks shift, the bikes move and sway. You hope that the kickstand doesn't fail and allow 50 pounds of steel, rubber, and plastic to violate your prized ride. Finally, it's beater bike guy's stop. One last contact with his jeans -- one last bump of the saddle by his basket and it's over. Serenity -- sweet serenity. The bikes are alone as we complete the journey. They arrive damage-free and apart from the now expected and somewhat humorous anxiety, the trip is pleasant and just plain easy.


We exit the destination train station, toss on our backpacks, and mount our bikes. We experience our typical feeling of disorientation, find a map of the town (usually on a big sign that also shows the bike routes), and ease into a bike lane headed for our hotel or camp site. Sometimes it goes super-smoothly and sometimes our journeys are filled with multiple beater bike experiences and track repair work requiring multiple train changes and just a lot of hassle. I'd still much rather worry about a scratch on my bike and some hassles than deal with rush hour traffic and road rage!

Cheers,
Jeff