Lal and Dick strategize about finding our way into the center of Delhi
My cyclo driver in Jaipur treats me to his favorite samosa
Passing the endless mustard fields We flew to India---Boston-Newark-Delhi---on Continental Airlines, which was good preparation for getting around Jaipur by cyclo-rickshaw. There's no need to dwell on the dismal state of U.S. airline service---you know the drill. But I will say that Newark Airport's changing its name after 9/11 to Newark Liberty International Airport---a big knuckle sandwich for Osama bin Laden!---could also be interpreted to mean, "If you don't like it here, you're free to leave at any time." Unless, of course, you're already strapped into an aircraft inert on the tarmac. "Folks, we're number 20 in the queue, so I suggest you sit back, relax...."
The overnight train trip to Bhadohi was both more scenic and more comfortable than traveling on Continental, and the railway's rice biriyani far superior to the airline glop. But the Varanasi-Khajuraho-Agra-Jaipur-Delhi sojourn was too complex to do by train and too expensive to do by air. So we hired a car and driver. (It was $90 a day, breaking the bank. Though our other expenses have been a bit lower than anticipated: good-enough hotels outside Delhi for $25-$40; superb meals from $5 on down to 25 cents. We'll have a hotel and food report one of these days.)
Salil, the owner of Tiwari Tours and Travel in Varanasi, arranged for our car. This agency is up a narrow flight of stairs next to a cheap hotel above Assi Ghat. You leave your shoes in the corridor and sit cross-legged on a cream-colored mat. While we waited for Salil, we eavesdropped on a German tour-group leader explaining to Salil's brother that she needed six adjoining bulkhead seats on a Lufthansa flight.
"Six? Oh, my God!"
"Yes, yes, these people must sit together comfortably! Can you do eet?"
"But what if those seats are taken?"
"Then I weel have to speak to Lufthansa!"
"Oh, my God!"
The brother gets on the horn to Lufthansa and is promptly put on hold. We can hear the perky on-hold ditties from where we are sitting. Indians love to deal with people but not machines posing as people, and Salil's brother is being driven up the wall. "Always, always, it is like this! It hurts me in here! It hurts my mentality!"
Meanwhile, the chai wallah arrives---milky, sweet tea is always served, a lovely ritual---and then Salil himself. He is a trim, bespectacled man in crisp slacks and diamond rings on two fingers. His melancholy is evident right away; he sniffs at the six-bulkhead-seats ongoing drama. As he explains convincingly that a car and driver are best for us and then makes some calls, Salil tells us that he is from bucolic Sikkim and hates Varanasi. He works all the time because if he ever left the office his employees would screw up and they would steal from him. There's a brief moment of relief when Lufthansa comes up with the six bulkhead seats. Everyone is astonished except the German tour leader, who shouts, "I knew you could do eet!"
Salil has a driver he wants us to meet who is now on the way. We ask him how much to tip the driver at the end of the trip. "Whatever you like," he tells us, and then adds, looking glum, "And what do you have for me?"
"What would you like?" I ask.
Gazing off into the middle distance, Salil murmurs, "Do you have love?"
We are puzzled by this and let it go.
We pay by MasterCard, and two days later the driver appears at our hotel (the dump above Salil's) on schedule at 7 a.m. Salil himself is there to see us off in our little Tata sedan. The driver, Lal, is a gap-toothed, cheerfully wily little man with mustard oil in his hair. His English is serviceable, and his driving turns out to be aggressive in the Indian manner but only borderline suicidal. Over eight days, he takes us where we want to go, getting badly lost only once in turbulent Gwalior, and faltering only when we end the trip in Delhi and we learn that Lal is terrified of the corrupt local cops who extort money from commerical drivers.
Along the way, we see the aftermath of some road accidents---several trucks overturned; a Tata like ours that has rolled over so many times it has assumed roughly the size, shape and overall design of a soccer ball. India's roads are mostly dreadful. A network of expressways is being built. But the ones we saw were chockablock with bicycles, pedestrians, sacred cows, herds of goats, and bullock and camel carts. We rented cars and drove ourselves in Zimbabwe and Turkey but wouldn't dream of doing it here.
The road trip with Lal (we're back in Delhi) was the way to go. We had good food at roadside joints---the tastiest aloo chat we ever ate, for under a buck, and delectable samosas. (Bottled water is available everywhere, so safe hydration in not a problem.) The countryside was green with wheat fields under hazy blue skies, and there were miles and miles of mustard fields with their buttercup-yellow flowers. (Mustard oild here is used both for cooking and as a body and hair lotion.) The roads were lined and the fields dotted with eucalyptus, locust and mango trees. We chatted with friendly locals at tea shops. In one village, two farm kids snapped the lids off baskets they were toting and up popped two cobras. Parked by the roadside for some picture-taking, we watched as a naked sadu (holy man) strolled by with his retainer. The aide told Lal he had no cell-phone reception and asked Lal if he could use his, but the sadu sniffed at us, fittingly, and instructed his companion to get moving.
Another good form of transport we've used in towns and cities is cyclo-rickshaws. We did this a lot in Jaiur. That's the capital of Rajasthan, the rocky western state that was ruled by 22 maharajahs until Indira Gandhi shut off their power and their allowances in the 1970s. There's plenty to see in Jaipur: the "pink city" old section of town; turbaned farmers and craftspeole gotten up handsomely in more shades of orange than we could count; camels and elephants traipsing around the city; Arabesque sandstone and marble palaces and forts. Our hotel, the Madhuban, was part of an exquisitely restored princely mansion. It was only $37 a night but still qualified as "our first grown-up hotel," as Joe put it.
In Jaipur, Joe befriended a cyclo driver named Granpat. This skinny guy in a red headband had followed us up the street one day while we were exploring the city on foot. When we grew tired, he was there. He knew. Joe then hired him for some photography excursions. He sent five days in his village, he said, and five in Jaipur. We think he slept in his cyclo. At the end, as Joe tipped Granpat about 700 percent, his face was wet with tears. I photographed Joe and Granpat together, and a well-dressed Indian man walked over and berated us for being seen with a rickshaw driver. Joe explained, "He is my friend." That wasn't true---Joe is not delusional---but it put this pompous buttinsky in his place.
(The most obnoxious Indians we have observed are the very poor and the very rich. Some of the beggars and street kids are ferocious. But the rich snapping and snarling at the lower orders are the worst. During lunch in a tourist-trap restaurant at the Rajput fort at Orccha, we watched a Hogarthian Indian family make the waitstaff jump through flaming hoops. The patriarch used his tongue like a circus trainer's whip. Fittingly, this was at a place called the Hotel Sheesh.)
Near Jaipur is the 16th century Rajasthani capital of Amber, a pink marble and sandstone fort and palace atop a bare mountain. You can hike up or ride in a Jeep, but we chose to climb the half-mile steep slope on elephants. This is one of those tourist experiences often rightly described as "unforgettable," but it is also vaguely unpleasant. The elephants are dolled up in paint and bright satin. A Friend of the Elephants organization looks after their welfare, but elephants in captivity always seem listless and unfortunate.
The mahout sat on the elephant's head, and we were perched on the howdah (seat), Joe's legs dangling down one side, mine the other side, for balance. Off to the left was a stone wall high enough to keep elephants from plunging down the mountainside to the rocks below, but not high enough to contain any rider an elephant might suddenly decide to flip into oblivion. About halfway up, Joe said, unhelpfully, "Oh, look. I see a pile of broken tourists down there."
The overnight train trip to Bhadohi was both more scenic and more comfortable than traveling on Continental, and the railway's rice biriyani far superior to the airline glop. But the Varanasi-Khajuraho-Agra-Jaipur-Delhi sojourn was too complex to do by train and too expensive to do by air. So we hired a car and driver. (It was $90 a day, breaking the bank. Though our other expenses have been a bit lower than anticipated: good-enough hotels outside Delhi for $25-$40; superb meals from $5 on down to 25 cents. We'll have a hotel and food report one of these days.)
Salil, the owner of Tiwari Tours and Travel in Varanasi, arranged for our car. This agency is up a narrow flight of stairs next to a cheap hotel above Assi Ghat. You leave your shoes in the corridor and sit cross-legged on a cream-colored mat. While we waited for Salil, we eavesdropped on a German tour-group leader explaining to Salil's brother that she needed six adjoining bulkhead seats on a Lufthansa flight.
"Six? Oh, my God!"
"Yes, yes, these people must sit together comfortably! Can you do eet?"
"But what if those seats are taken?"
"Then I weel have to speak to Lufthansa!"
"Oh, my God!"
The brother gets on the horn to Lufthansa and is promptly put on hold. We can hear the perky on-hold ditties from where we are sitting. Indians love to deal with people but not machines posing as people, and Salil's brother is being driven up the wall. "Always, always, it is like this! It hurts me in here! It hurts my mentality!"
Meanwhile, the chai wallah arrives---milky, sweet tea is always served, a lovely ritual---and then Salil himself. He is a trim, bespectacled man in crisp slacks and diamond rings on two fingers. His melancholy is evident right away; he sniffs at the six-bulkhead-seats ongoing drama. As he explains convincingly that a car and driver are best for us and then makes some calls, Salil tells us that he is from bucolic Sikkim and hates Varanasi. He works all the time because if he ever left the office his employees would screw up and they would steal from him. There's a brief moment of relief when Lufthansa comes up with the six bulkhead seats. Everyone is astonished except the German tour leader, who shouts, "I knew you could do eet!"
Salil has a driver he wants us to meet who is now on the way. We ask him how much to tip the driver at the end of the trip. "Whatever you like," he tells us, and then adds, looking glum, "And what do you have for me?"
"What would you like?" I ask.
Gazing off into the middle distance, Salil murmurs, "Do you have love?"
We are puzzled by this and let it go.
We pay by MasterCard, and two days later the driver appears at our hotel (the dump above Salil's) on schedule at 7 a.m. Salil himself is there to see us off in our little Tata sedan. The driver, Lal, is a gap-toothed, cheerfully wily little man with mustard oil in his hair. His English is serviceable, and his driving turns out to be aggressive in the Indian manner but only borderline suicidal. Over eight days, he takes us where we want to go, getting badly lost only once in turbulent Gwalior, and faltering only when we end the trip in Delhi and we learn that Lal is terrified of the corrupt local cops who extort money from commerical drivers.
Along the way, we see the aftermath of some road accidents---several trucks overturned; a Tata like ours that has rolled over so many times it has assumed roughly the size, shape and overall design of a soccer ball. India's roads are mostly dreadful. A network of expressways is being built. But the ones we saw were chockablock with bicycles, pedestrians, sacred cows, herds of goats, and bullock and camel carts. We rented cars and drove ourselves in Zimbabwe and Turkey but wouldn't dream of doing it here.
The road trip with Lal (we're back in Delhi) was the way to go. We had good food at roadside joints---the tastiest aloo chat we ever ate, for under a buck, and delectable samosas. (Bottled water is available everywhere, so safe hydration in not a problem.) The countryside was green with wheat fields under hazy blue skies, and there were miles and miles of mustard fields with their buttercup-yellow flowers. (Mustard oild here is used both for cooking and as a body and hair lotion.) The roads were lined and the fields dotted with eucalyptus, locust and mango trees. We chatted with friendly locals at tea shops. In one village, two farm kids snapped the lids off baskets they were toting and up popped two cobras. Parked by the roadside for some picture-taking, we watched as a naked sadu (holy man) strolled by with his retainer. The aide told Lal he had no cell-phone reception and asked Lal if he could use his, but the sadu sniffed at us, fittingly, and instructed his companion to get moving.
Another good form of transport we've used in towns and cities is cyclo-rickshaws. We did this a lot in Jaiur. That's the capital of Rajasthan, the rocky western state that was ruled by 22 maharajahs until Indira Gandhi shut off their power and their allowances in the 1970s. There's plenty to see in Jaipur: the "pink city" old section of town; turbaned farmers and craftspeole gotten up handsomely in more shades of orange than we could count; camels and elephants traipsing around the city; Arabesque sandstone and marble palaces and forts. Our hotel, the Madhuban, was part of an exquisitely restored princely mansion. It was only $37 a night but still qualified as "our first grown-up hotel," as Joe put it.
In Jaipur, Joe befriended a cyclo driver named Granpat. This skinny guy in a red headband had followed us up the street one day while we were exploring the city on foot. When we grew tired, he was there. He knew. Joe then hired him for some photography excursions. He sent five days in his village, he said, and five in Jaipur. We think he slept in his cyclo. At the end, as Joe tipped Granpat about 700 percent, his face was wet with tears. I photographed Joe and Granpat together, and a well-dressed Indian man walked over and berated us for being seen with a rickshaw driver. Joe explained, "He is my friend." That wasn't true---Joe is not delusional---but it put this pompous buttinsky in his place.
(The most obnoxious Indians we have observed are the very poor and the very rich. Some of the beggars and street kids are ferocious. But the rich snapping and snarling at the lower orders are the worst. During lunch in a tourist-trap restaurant at the Rajput fort at Orccha, we watched a Hogarthian Indian family make the waitstaff jump through flaming hoops. The patriarch used his tongue like a circus trainer's whip. Fittingly, this was at a place called the Hotel Sheesh.)
Near Jaipur is the 16th century Rajasthani capital of Amber, a pink marble and sandstone fort and palace atop a bare mountain. You can hike up or ride in a Jeep, but we chose to climb the half-mile steep slope on elephants. This is one of those tourist experiences often rightly described as "unforgettable," but it is also vaguely unpleasant. The elephants are dolled up in paint and bright satin. A Friend of the Elephants organization looks after their welfare, but elephants in captivity always seem listless and unfortunate.
The mahout sat on the elephant's head, and we were perched on the howdah (seat), Joe's legs dangling down one side, mine the other side, for balance. Off to the left was a stone wall high enough to keep elephants from plunging down the mountainside to the rocks below, but not high enough to contain any rider an elephant might suddenly decide to flip into oblivion. About halfway up, Joe said, unhelpfully, "Oh, look. I see a pile of broken tourists down there."
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