As I sit in front of the computer today, I have to admit that I am somewhat overwhelmed at the task ahead of us: somehow doing descriptive justice to India. I've really thought about how to approach this first update from India (we'll be here three months, so we decided to break up our updates...) because I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. You see, India is both the MOST amazing place, and the darkest, deepest depths of disgustingness. We want you to come away from the next few updates thinking great thoughts about India, but I feel the impending need to begin with the crap. Here goes...

The official odor of India is urine. What else can I say? Wherever you go, whatever you're doing, you are usually overwhelmed by the acrid and overpowering stench of urine. And for good reason too. In the big cities, all the men have the convenience of "public conveniences" - lines of urinals right on the streets, FACING the streets with nothing to shelter or obscure the view. But most men seem to feel that anything even slightly resembling a "wall" is peeable terrain, and let it rip...wherever. I guess the Indian officials who financed the men's "public conveniences" didn't realize that women have to pee too. We are still puzzled about this one; we constantly see men exposing themselves to pee, but absolutely no women. On bus rides, the driver will stop wherever, and every single man on board will hop off the bus, take one step away and let loose. The women all sit tight on board - they must have bladders of steel. At the railway stations people line up at the lip of the ledge down into the tracks to relieve themselves in front of everyone else. In every station you pull into, you are forced to attempt to hold your breath for record times... For the first week in India, I would ask a local shop-owner or policeman where the nearest "toilet or bathroom" is, and they would say, "Yes, it's right over there..." ...We quickly realized that they were actually pointing to the nearest wall. We had to start conditioning our question with "...and NOT a wall." I truly apologize for having to convey this basist of human necessities, but it's all part of the experience. Let's quickly move on...

Let's now move on to everyone's favorite: phlegm. And not just good ole plain phlegm, but endless, loud, hacking, hocking and extricating of phlegm. This is the national pasttime. (Yes, even more popular than Cricket...by the way, is Cricket really a sport? C'mon, no kidding around...really?) Nearly every single Indian spends a huge portion of their day hacking and hocking so loud, it honestly sounds like they are dying a painful death. I can't tell you how many times we have been awakened in our hotel rooms by some guy starting bright and early at 4:30am with his 30 minutes of phlegm hacking. I almost wish I could include a sound bite just so you could have an inkling of an idea how loud and horrifying this really is. And it's not just confined to men either. Women of all ages hack, hock and spit away. We have even tested a theory: if you try to specifically listen for someone hacking phlegm wherever you are - BOTH in public AND in private - it will be there for you. Every single time. Sometimes it's a large chorus of hacking. And where there's a hack, you can be sure there will be a flying spat loogie soon to follow. We both love India, truly we do, at this point it is undoubtedly our favorite country we've been to, but for the phlegm reason alone we have decided that we could never live here. OK, can we get past this now? Why don't you highlight the above two paragraphs, delete them, and pretend you never even read that...

I'm just going to do a "quick" play-by-play of our first three weeks here in India, and Paige will do the color commentary. Delhi was a feast for all five senses, and even additional senses we didn't even know we had. "Traffic" is massive and consists of the following: cars, taxis, motorcycles, mopeds, cows, motor-rickshaws, cycle-rickshaws, goats, beggars, bicycles, more cows, urine (oops, sorry...), pedestrians, buses, horse-drawn carriages, elephants, and more cows. That sentence exhausts me. We were fascinated. We immediately found out how amazingly nice and friendly Indians are - they consistently go out of their way to talk and smile at you. We immediately felt welcome. The next thing we found out was that India is the most inexpensive place we could have ever imagined. Our hotel cost 100 rupees ($2.50), and full more-than-you-could-eat meals for the two of us with drinks cost even less. Transportation is cheap, books are cheap, supplies are cheap...we are easily getting by on $20-25 total combined in the large cities and even less in the smaller ones.

We spent three days in Delhi running errands and starting to set our itinerary. Some scenes that stick out in my mind: the Gandhi museum including such weird and macabre items such as an earwax pick and one of the bullets that killed him, red blotches of spat betul nut over all surfaces and walls (betul nut is a "drug" that is a mixture of spices, betul nut, honey, leaves, bark, rocks, etc. that can be addictive, leads to permanantly stained blook-red teeth and is perfectly legal), and a weathered man causually walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the pandemonium of the steets, barefoot and carrying the decapitated corpse of a cat stiff with rigamortis - its neck charred and blackened, it's body wet and muddy, and swinging it like he was on his way to a tea party. Where was he going...and more importantly, what was he going to DO with that thing? Some things are better left unsaid. I'm sensing that you're regretting getting involved in our updates now...

From Delhi we took the train to Agra, home of the Taj Majal. As you may know, India has the most extensive train systems in the world - they are efficient, go almost anywhere, and serve great chai. A train ride is in itself an experience because you are constantly bombarded with hawkers trying to sell chai, samosas, kid's noisemakers and warm soft drinks, beggars standing in front of you shaking their handful of small change at you, and dirty barefoot kids sweeping the floors under your feet in the hopes that you will toss them a rupee before they leave. We quickly learned that you simply can't get upset at anything - if we wanted to simply get from point A to point B, we should fly. Otherwise, getting there is half the experience. This has helped somewhat, but snoring, smoking, belching, hacking, spitting fat men who put their feet up on your legs and won't hesitate to sit ON you if they think you're in their way do tend to test one's limits.

Agra, like Delhi, is really polluted. It can be so smoggy that you can't even see the huge white domes of the Taj from 1/2 a km away. But guess what - we still loved it anyway. We spent a day walking around the huge Agra Fort - astonishing in its size and history overlooking the river and the Taj, then were absolutely awestruck by the Taj Majal itself. This alone is worth a trip or detour to Agra. The only problem was that after avoiding the most touristy, white-bread restaurant in Agra for three days, we finally relented and ate there only to find that I got food poisoning that night. I woke up vomiting, and it was so violent that my throat felt like I had torn something. The next morning we decided to play it safe and go to a local "doctor..." We walked into this old lady's apartment - she's dressed in a bright sari and surrounded by a poorly lit, very dirty "examining room." I explain, "I vomited last night from a mild case of food poisoning, but now I'm not sick anymore - it's just that I think I might have torn or ruptured my esophagus..." She eyed us over her desk, contemplating the dilemma and allowing a full 60 seconds to pass in baited anticipation. Finally, in a theatrical climax, she stood up, definitively raised her finger in the air and yelled in full Indian-accented English, "YOUR PROBLEM IS VOMITING!!!" That was the most entertaining 100 rupees we've ever spent.

From Agra we spent a few days in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and by this time we were getting a little tired of the noise, chaos and pollution of big cities. Granted, they have the best restaurants (the Indian food is truly phenominal), but after wandering through the huge bazaars and crazy streets we were ready to relax a little.

We spent the next three days in a small, very religiously significant (Hindu) town called Pushkar. This is where the Hindu faithful come to clense their bodies and sould in the holy waters of the small lake which is the center of the town. The lake is surrounded by "ghats" (steps leading down to the water) and is a very serene and peaceful place. We really enjoyed this town, especially the hikes we took. Pushkar sits in a huge valley in NW India and has two small mountains rising up from nowhere on either side of the town. They have built Hindu temples on the top of each mountain, and they make for great hikes and amazing views over the town and the whole valley. We enjoyed sunsets from here every night.

Next we travelled to Udaipur (also in Rajesthan) - another medium-sized city that sits on a lake. We fell in love with Udaipur; the hotels sit right on the water and all have rooftop restaurants that overlook the beauty of the lake. Every day you hear a constant pounding that sounds like a high school gym class bouncing basketballs, but is instead the locals washing and pounding their clothes down at the water's edge. We had the most amazing Indian meals on gorgeous terraces and restaurants right on the water, and we felt we could easily spend a couple weeks there.

From Udaipur we were heading to Mumbai (Bombay), but decided to stop halfway to break up the long trip, and landed in Vadadora (Baroda). Many of India's cities are experiencing name changes (from their British names to their "Indian" ones) - so you will see the two names from time to time. It can be very confusing. Anyway, we stopped in Vadadora because we heard it was a nice small town with a great park...we instead found out that it was an industrial/banking town filled with businessmen and of very little interest to the traveller. We didn't even get to the park because Paige wasn't feeling too well. We did, however, decide to "splurge" on accomodations, spending $15 instead of $2, and getting a hotel very similar to the Hilton or Marriott. In fact, we even had a TV with ESPN and had the total unexpected pleasure of waking up at 4:30am on January 31 to watch a simulcast of the Super Bowl. A real treat. The other aspect of Vadadora that made it all worthwhile was a restaurant we lucked out on called - of all enticing names - "Kansaar." They serve only Thali (tali) which is kind of like an all-you-can-eat sauce/dal/dipping/spicy/sweet/tasty meal served in constantly refilled little bowls that you scoop out with chapatis and puris. Every 5 seconds someone comes by to refill and reload your plate until you have to be helped out of there...all for under a dollar.

We finally made it to Mumbai where we had the absolute pleasure of staying with friends of Paige's grandparents (Mamalou & Don) who live there - one of their son's lives in California and that's where the connection happened. We were absolutely spoiled by the hospitality of the Gonsalvezes - they treated us to three ridiculously huge and amazing home-cooked Indian meals each day, and made sure we had full cold beers at every opportunity. (Side note, you may be wondering about their name because I was. The Portuguese influence has remained and the Gonsalvezes are very Indian.) We had joked on the 11-hour hellacious train ride on the way in, "We're going to get there and they're going to have a fluffy bed, warm meal and cold beers waiting for us..." and were shocked to see our dreams come to fruition. It was after 9 p.m. when they met us at the station and we were so exhausted - we had been passing the time by beaning huge fat rats with garbage. I'm telling you, this is WAY more fun than Cricket... If you go to Mumbai, you HAVE to go to the Gonsalvezes. The rest of Mumbai can't compare to their hospitality. Bombay probably does have nice sites, we just didn't want to leave their house.

Paige here now. Impressions from an amazing place that jams your senses. Because we stayed in the cheap hotel section of Delhi, along a main bazaar street, our first impression of India was over-stimulation at its best. We arrived as most travellers do in the wee early morning hours, lacking sleep and negotiating (more like teeter-tottering with our backpacks) through thousands of family and friends greeting their loved ones at the airport, squeezed in between aggressive rickshaw drivers competing to get new customers. Our taxi driver dumped us at the beginning of the Bazaar and we had to walk about a kilometer to get to our selected lodging. This was the full sum of India: shops selling everything like silk cloth, incense, pharmaceuticals, bindis (those little dots married women wear which are now quite a fashion statement in various designs not just red), Hindi music blaring out warped music from stereo systems made in the 70's probably, turbaned Sikh men and other gurus wearing nothing but a loose orange cloth wrapped under their legs like diapers carrying a walking stick and metal bucket (for their special spiritual powers and guidance that they offer for a fee), the smell of cow (or human?) shit and urine co-mingling with delicious spicy foods being cooked in open vats, all mixing in your nostrils to be nauseating and intoxicating at the same time. Incredibly deformed or burned beggars pulling themselves on small wheeled-carts next to beautiful sari-clad women. The saris of India are of every imaginable color of the rainbow and then some. Dread-locked Western travelers that looked like they have lived in India since the 60's and smelled like they hadn't bathed since then either! Men playing bongos with monkeys on leashes doing back-flips. Child beggars doing the same tricks to compete with the monkeys. Pollution gives the city a black-veiled haze and makes your nose and eyes constantly tear. When the man at the reception desk of the hotel greeted us in a furry, pink sweater with purple-painted finger nails, I knew we had arrived in the Sub Continent!

We were surprised to realize that we hit our 6-month mark on February 2! We love travelling together more and more and have created a nice rhythm of who makes the next train reservation, or haggles with the next rickshaw driver, or who picks the next hotel/lodging. We both like to eat the same food - fortunately -even though I'm more of a spice wimp. We can't believe how much we've done in the last 6 months and are so glad we have another 6 or more to go. Each place is new and exciting and completely different from what we expect. Of course, now that we are in a developing country, we don't have to be so stressed about money. As you have probably read, we give average costs of things because it does cross our mind in just about every situation. We love being on the road and want to do everything we can in each place, so money is always a forefront issue. But every now and then, we splurge or go on an expensive trek or side-trip. We get Delhi Belly every once in a while and we don't miss a beat. We just hope that we have some lead time and can find a toilet (or some version of one) close by. When one of us is down or tired, the other one rallies to be encouraging or cheerful. Appreciating each moment is what this trip is all about and smelling the roses, not just planning the next destination. We sometimes get caught up in it and then remind the other one to appreciate life's milkshakes. Those unknown surprises waiting behind the next cow in the pot-holed road.

We hope you still enjoy our updates - they maintain our sanity and allow us to feel connected with each of you and we can't tell you how important that is!

Love,

Paige & Chris
chrisandpaige@hotmail.com