gorgeous Goa

We're staying at The Leela Palace, which is a beautiful resort on the Arabian Sea in southwestern India. This is the view from inside our room, looking over the lagoon:

The pathway to our little cottage:

The grounds are really lovely:

The lagoon at night:

The beach is wonderful -- sand firm enough to walk on, gentle breeze, tiny shells scattered all over the beach, sand-colored crabs scuttling here and there. I love to walk at the edge of the surf and let it cover my feet, which we did last night at twilight, and again very early this morning.



So yesterday we relaxed, walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner, after walking on the beach, and hit the sack early. It had been a long day starting in Delhi, waiting around the airport, flying to Mumbai and worrying that we wouldn't make the connection (but we did), flying to Goa only to find out that we had to wait around for a short while for the car to take us to Goa, and then riding 45 minutes to the hotel. The countryside is really beautiful, and you can really see the Portugese heritage, both in the Christian rather than Hindu references everywhere, and in the architecture. The churches are enormous and very Portugese in aesthetic.

A funny thing we noticed is that the little homes typically are named by their owners. We saw:

* Pete's Abode
* Tony's Paradise
* Conny's Lovely Residency

Also, a business called Melissa's Motors. Notice that all the names are Anglo? We also saw a sign for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, which fits because there are so many bars here, and the restaurants all serve alcohol. This was certainly not the case in Hindu Delhi.

This morning we had a beautiful breakfast at the hotel, including this great masala dosa with ginger and tomato chutneys with a coconut base:

We also had fruit and fresh papaya juice, and a cherry lassi.

After breakfast we took a cab to Margao, which is about 20 minutes from our hotel and is the commercial city for this area -- the main thing to do there, as far as we can tell, is shopping. You can really see the Portugese heritage in this area, both in terms of the Christian rather than Hindu iconography, and also in the architecture, such as this church:

Downtown Margao is busy:

And people line up to have someone type for them -- it's an old typewriter, the kind you have to throw the carriage to change lines:


When we came back from Margao, we relaxed and swam for awhile and soon we'll find a new place for dinner. Tomorrow's plans include going to Old Goa, which is really rich in Portugese stuff (buildings mainly, I guess) and then we're also going to a spice plantation.

And I'm having so much fun, such a honeymooney trip.

following the gods

Today was temple day -- we hired a driver to take us around today, which worked perfectly. Dalat took us where we asked to go, and he answered our questions along the way but didn't intrude. A requisite shot of the requisite cows, near the temple. Lots of holy cows just lying about in some parts of Delhi.

We started early, when it was still cool, and we were among the first visitors at Qutab Minar:

It's a World Heritage Monument, and I see why:

The minaret, it's 239ft tall.

The sections of the minaret are demarcated by this architectural ridge.
I think people used to be able to stand on these,
I think they're balconies around the column.

Standing on the ground near the column, looking up. It's tall.

Ruins on the enormous grounds. People have been building
religious structures on this site for centuries.

And some cool wildlife -- green birds and chiprats, and a show-off hawk
who kept circling and circling, as if he were posing for the camera.

And some guy's tomb -- I don't mean any disrespect,
I just have no idea whose tomb it is.

Finally, just before we left Qutab Minar for the next temple, I saw this woman in a beautiful orange sari, working with three men to maintain the lawn. They were mowing the grass, so she had the scarf around her head. The orange was so beautiful and striking against the grass.

Next we went to a Hindu temple -- Chatterpur Temple. Pictures are ok, but you'd have to be there to get the real feeling of it. There was loud clanging of bells and what sounded like banging on pots, and men chanting nonstop, and hordes of people who didn't seem to be too serious, for the most part. Lots of giggling kids, and Marc and I were the objects of lots of staring.

Marc stood nearby so it seemed I was taking a picture of him, but
we really wanted to get the staring. This was relatively mild;
nearly everyone we passed along the way turned their heads and
stared, children ran up to us and pointed. I was very aware of it.

The architectural style is called Punjabi Baroque, but I don't
think they mean it as a compliment when they say it.
It is elaborate.

Goddess

The 92-foot monkey statue -- the reason we came

A little something for everyone: OM

A six-pointed star (although Dalat says it means good luck)

And a broken cross, AKA swastika

It was really kind of overwhelming, with all the noise and incense and staring, but it was also very cool. Such a different experience of reality, having that cosmology and aesthetic and life. It's one of the best reasons to travel to a new place, because it reminds me that there's more than one way to spend days and live a life.

After that we went to the ISCON Temple, which is the world headquarters of the Hare Krishnas. As we approached the temple, a man forced these two ropes of flowers into my hand. I didn't know and was afraid to do something wrong so I took them -- and then he said 50 rupees. So we paid, and walked in with them and had no idea what we were supposed to do with them. But they were beautiful and fresh:


The architecture here was also elaborate, although they weren't as fond of gold as the Hindus. Inside there was chanting and singing, and you walk around the temple in a clockwise direction because it's the appropriate way to relate to the gods. Around the perimeter were these little stages on which people were standing and acting out scenes (I think). There was a cluster of men in the middle with drums and microphones, and they were singing and chanting, and some men were dancing in an increasingly ecstatic way.


We left without ever knowing what to do with the flowers, so we draped them on a column base and left. Dalat made his one effort to take us shopping to a place we didn't want to go, then he dropped us off.

Going to breakfast, will catch up afterwards. Thanks for following this with us -- it's nice to know you're enjoying it too!

thali dinner

$1.50 per person -- need we say more?


oh, one more thing: Sagar's was fantastic. Also, not shown here is the bowl of basmati rice and the plate of papadam, included in the $1.50 price.

get out of my face

We'd love to do some shopping. We've tried to do some shopping. We'd love to engage with the Indians we encounter -- we've tried that. But here in Delhi, and perhaps it's just that we're doing what most foreigners want to do, we're having quite a difficult time. Our autorickshaw driver this morning wouldn't take us where we wanted to go, because he was doing us so many favors, taking us here to go shopping instead of there, insisting that he's just trying to help (and we discovered we're not alone) in this frustration. We walked into a couple of bazaars and were followed and incessantly being sold -- look ma'am at this brocade, let me put this sari on you ma'am, come this way ma'am look at my pashmina, shall I put this aside for you ma'am, since you are the first customer of the day we will not charge you tax ma'am and we'll sell it to you for less. There is no space, no 'just looking,' no lingering. I feel assaulted.

Marc and I have different approaches to these social encounters. I feel sucked in, unable to ignore, drawn into listening to the explanations (the paisley, ma'am, comes from the emperor's stamp, from the side of his curled palm, it means good fortune) and watching and ooh-ing as they pull out item after item after item. Marc can do his own thing more easily and not engage with them. At the end of this morning's efforts to go to a particular part of New Delhi (Connaught Place) and to do a little shopping, I feel nauseous and intruded upon and kind of awful. I just want to buy something beautiful, and go where I ask to go.

End of day 1 in Delhi

There is one thing I forgot to mention, but we keep seeing it so we're reminded, nearly every time we go out. Indian men are every bit as involved with their children as are the women. They hold them as much, carry them as much, laugh and touch them as much, smile at them as much. They open their arms and embrace their children with smiles, and tell them they love them. It's really wonderful to see.

So our afternoon mission, after resting and recovering from the morning, was to walk to the India Gate. It's a war memorial honoring Indian soldiers killed in World War I. On the map it seemed relatively straightforward, so we set out on foot. Immediately, of course, we were accosted by a rickshawalla who smiled broadly and really insisted that he take us where we're going. I said no thank you and kept walking, he persisted, I said no again, he persisted, and we said no. He said "maybe next time" and I said sure, maybe next time. Marc and I walked away and I started laughing -- what a preposterous notion, "next time," in a city of this size, with this many people walking on this many roads and this many rickshawallas hustling fares.

Turns out "next time" meant "in the next block." He pulled away from the curb and rode a half a block and then stopped by the curb. As we approached he started trying to get us to ride with him again. After a few nos, he pulled away from the curb and drove half a block. This leapfrogging happened for blocks (and it seemed we kept seeing him for our entire walk). A man walking past shooed him away from us -- saving us, right? No. He fell in step alongside us and seemed so friendly, warned us not to talk to people, asking how long have we been here, do we like it, where are we from, etc etc. Friendly, just walking, what could he want from us? He wanted us to skip the India Gate because the Singaporean ambassador is in town and the police have closed off that area, so why don't we instead go to the emporium near by? They have everything we could want. He's not going with us, he's going that way, but we should just turn left here (he's turning right) and we should go to the emporium.

So we continued on our way to the India Gate. And we're walking down the sidewalk, holding hands and noticing how ridiculous the last story was (wait....wouldn't the ambassador from Singapore live here already?) when a man walking behind us fell in step alongside us, very friendly, how long have we been here, do we like it, where are we from, etc etc. Friendly, just walking, what could he want from us? He wanted us to skip the India Gate because the Singaporean ambassador is in town and the police have closed off that area, so why don't we instead go to the emporium near by? They have everything we could want. He's not going with us, he's going that way, but we should just turn left here (he's turning right) and we should go to the emporium.

Amazing. I guess "the Singaporean ambassador is in town" is today's story. So we continued on our way to the India Gate, where the Singaporean ambassador wasn't.

The India Gate is in the middle of an enormous park, with huge lawns, a small lake with paddleboats, and vendors. Lots and lots of vendors. Soldiers holding a wreath of flowers were rehearsing their steps, again and again, as another man wailed.


We wandered around for awhile, got lost a time or two, and then went back to the room to get ready for dinner at Punjabi by Nature, reported to be an incredible restaurant.

Since the restaurant was pretty far away on the map, and we had only an address to give, we thought it best to hire a taxi through the hotel. Surely the hotel people could clearly communicate with the cab driver and we'd get to the restaurant without trouble. Surely. So off we went, and our Sikh driver was quiet as Marc and I talked in the back seat. Suddenly there was a clattering sound outside the cab window and the driver stopped and got out of the cab. The hubcap had come off, so he got out to retrieve it and left the car in gear. Without headlights on, and it was dark. So the cab is rolling backwards, the driver's door is open while he's getting farther away, chasing the hubcap, and Marc and I are sitting there in disbelief. Rolling backwards. He got the hubcap and came back, jumped in the rolling car, and off we went as if nothing happened. He couldn't find the restaurant, and it took us a long time and several mistaken routes, but we got to the right place, finally.

The food was really wonderful; they specialize in tandoori so we got gigantic tandoori prawns, and the Punjabi by Nature chef's meat special. The waiter emphasized quite strongly that the meat special was very spicy, are we ok? Well, the prawns were really incredible, and the meat special was spicy but not bad at all (in terms of spicy, it was so yummy, and the sauce was great for dipping naan). This picture of the prawn faces is kind of dark because the restaurant was dimly lit and I didn't want to use my flash.

We have another couple of days here in Delhi, one of which might be spent driving to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Of course everyone has told us you have to see the Taj Mahal, but neither Marc nor I are just burning to see it. It's a 4-hour drive each way (at least, says the desk clerk), and while we'll see the countryside which would be nice, seeing it twice in one day, driving 8 hours (at least) to spend a relatively small amount of time at the Taj -- which neither of us is burning to see -- seems like a bit of foolishness. Who knows what we'll do.

Delhi, Day 1

So much on our first morning in Delhi. Our room has a small terrace, but a very large terrace immediately outside the door to our room. These are the balconies off the rooms:


and this is the large terrace:


This building is right next door and overlooks the hotel grounds. Maybe it's part of the hotel, we don't know.


These green birds are everywhere -- really beautiful, but maybe they're just like pigeons to people here.

Some of the trees are really interesting, with these spiral, circular-shaped branches.


After we walked around the terrace, we had breakfast at the hotel.


Starting at the watermelon, going clockwise, watermelon and pineapple, two kinds of fried bread (the one at the top was best, full of onion and spices), something with potatoes that had cumin seeds and was very spicey and absolutely delicious, I had seconds, an "egg nut" which seemed to be a deep-fried whole egg. and in the middle, a savory donut thing.


Watermelon juice, very light and refreshing, and sweet lime juice that was like a limey orange juice. And the coffee was Nescafe, I think, and even with a lot of milk (which I never use) and one packet of dark brown sugar and two packets of white sugar (which I never use), it still had almost no flavor. I don't know how that worked.

Marc's second go-round included sweet lime juice, a muffin and some other pastry, some incredibly wonderful potatoes, a couple of kinds of unusual fruit and a papaya. He had already eaten some of the same things I had, although he was smarter than me and didn't get the egg nut.


We took a private cab (black and yellow) to Old Delhi, with three destinations in mind: the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, and Chandni Chowk. Since the Red Fort seemed easiest to communicate to our cab driver, we started there.

The Red Fort (Lal Qila) is incredibly beautiful, red sandstone. The walls extend for 2km and vary in height from 18m on the river side to 33m on the city side. Shah Jahan started building it in 1638 and finished it in 1648. He never moved his capital from Agra because his son deposed him and put him in prison, at the Agra Fort. The Red Fort was built at the very height of the Mughal period. Click the photos to see them better -- the sense of scale is lost in these small thumbnails. See the people standing at the lower righthand side of this picture just to get a feeling for the size of the walls.


The price for tourists is 100Rs each, which is different than the price for Indians -- don't know what it costs them. One of the most notable things was the security, and the armed guards everywhere (although the guns looked plastic). We were pretty closely frisked, Marc by a male and me by a female, and I mean really closely frisked. We walked through metal detectors, we were frisked, and our bags went through xray. Strange.

Lahore always makes me giggle in my immaturity. So this is the Lahore Gate, because it faces Lahore which is now obviously part of Pakistan.

Inside the gate was a kind of circular space -- this is looking up:


And there was a market, Chatta Chowk, that used to stock things for the Emperor but now stocks bangles and beaded purses.


And this is the Hall of Public Audiences where the emperor would sit to hear complaints or disputes from his subjects. There used to be marble paneling set with precious stones, but they were looted after the 1857 Uprising.

This is a beautiful, beautiful space. I took dozens of pictures.


There are dozens of buildings on the grounds, and since the architecture is Mughal there are no images, just designs like the filigree in this door:


The detail is incredible -- see this marblework:

Armed guards were standing around here and there:

Occasionally we'd see trees like this:


As we were leaving the Red Fort, a guy was trying to sell me postcards when he excitedly pointed into an enclosed space, shouting "Cobra! Cobra!" I wasn't sure, so I asked him again, "Is there a cobra in there?" People, Indians mostly, were running into the space to see it -- I guess even they get excited by seeing such a big snake. And it was a huge snake, crawling up or down a tree. I didn't get a picture, too bad. But I laughed when one man walked toward the tree to see the snake, and another man made a little shout and pointed, causing the first man to jump and duck his head. It was a joke played by the other man. Everyone laughed....it's the same old joke around the world I guess.

After the Red Fort, we went to Chandni Chowk, which is the bazaar. Crazy crowded, pedestrians, cycle rickshaws, autorickshaws, cabs, cars, everyone honking, noon and hot, children clutching, people staring, Jains honoring the life around them, incense, color everywhere, intense.

We hired a cycle rickshaw for 40Rs to take us from Chandni Chowk to the Jama Masjid. He was working so hard, standing up and pushing hard on the pedals, it was hard to just ride on his hard work. Then there was the crashing together of several issues -- when we got to the Jama Masjid, he suddenly doubled the price and said it was 40Rs each (note: we paid 40Rs for the air conditioned cab to take us considerably farther this morning). Doubling the cost to 80Rs made the fare ~$2, which is very little money for his hard work. There's the part about feeling terrible for riding on his back, the part about $2 not being very much money for us, and the part about the scam, doubling the price at the end after agreeing up front. So far there have been a lot of dilemmas like this. Learning how not to look at people, how to ignore children, how to move through crowds of obviously poor people while carrying these cameras, and being able to travel halfway around the world.

Anyway. We got out at the Jama Masjid, which is the largest mosque in India and the last architectural extravaganza of Shah Jahan. He started building it in 1644 and finished it in 1658. When you climb the stairs, you take your shoes off at the top and pay the shoe minding kid 5Rs. We were set to go in, when we were confronted by a white-bearded man who demanded 200Rs for taking in a camera. I did want to go in, and I did want to take photos, but he saw the small camera and wanted 200Rs for it too, even though I had no intention of using it. I decided not to go in, but instead to sit on the cool steps and rest in the shade for awhile. The heat and intense stimulation were swamping me.

Here are pictures of the outside of the Jama Masjid. Those are birds wheeling around above the mosque -- you can click the pictures for a bigger view of them:


By this time I was truly overwhelmed and needed to go back to the hotel for a bit. We hired a motor rickshaw to take us, and passed a couple of noteworthy details. First was a very small building, just a room really, with a big sign that said "Delhi Milk Scheme." Maybe it just didn't translate well. Scheme? And then, just before we got to the hotel, I saw a man crouching in the grass on the side of the road with a wide band around his head with 4 small branches of leaves sticking up out of the head band, a colorful shawl around his shoulder, and a wild-eyed expression on his face as he picked frantically at the grass.

Finally, the motor rickshaw stopped at the edge of the hotel driveway, maybe he wasn't allowed to drive in, we don't know. As we got out to pay him, a young boy came up and was clutching our arms, begging, and he would not let go. Clutching, grasping, we finally had to forcibly pull our arms away from him. We stepped onto the magical driveway and the boy didn't follow. We crossed some kind of line from Out There to In Here, with marble floors and pillars and air conditioning, and birds of paradise, and bowing, turbaned men. We walked on the lush carpet to our beautiful room and we could still feel the boy's grasp on our arms.