As I sit here in this Nepalese cybercafe in Kathmandu attempting to determine the tone and course of this final Indian update, I am again overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because, like our first Indian update, we definitely want to convey the amazement and awe of a unique country that we have experienced for three months. Overwhelmed, because they have been just that: three LONG months. We have come to the conclusion that for the purposes of this particular trip, maybe we should have cut back our stay in India by a month...we feel burned out and have found ourselves losing our patience and wonder at the "uniqueness" of India. Maybe you'll see what I mean...

When we last left you, we were in Chennai (Madras) preparing and hoping to have the opportunity to purchase tickets out to the Andaman Islands. After wading deeply through the muck of Indian bureaucracy, we finally found out that we needed to be at the Director of Shipping Services four days prior to departure with various copies, photos, permits, rupees, kickboxing moves and an infintesimal amount of patience (which we had already begun noticing was fast deteriorating). Cabin tickets are few and go quick; the only other option is "bunk class," but we had decided we'd rather spend eternity on the great African Chicken Bus in the sky than go three horrifying days in bunks with about 1100 other passengers underneath the deck.

We got there an hour before the lines opened up (one of the first there) and were quickly corralled by a fanatic "guard" swinging and smashing a cane around, forcing us into a corner where other foreigners soon joined us. Meanwhile, Indians began lining up under the sign, "boat tickets queue here," but when we pleaded to the "guard," he said something incomprehensible. Of course, the second the window opened, we immediately found out we were in the wrong place and there were now 200 people ahead of us. Eight of us (all foreigners) made our way forcibly up to the front and, loudly explaining how we had been there first, found ourselves in a full on pushing/shoving/hitting/kicking/biting melee to be helped first. It was really ugly. Of course the "guard," although standing right there, doesn't care enough to do anything except watch in interested amusement. Luckily, one of our "gang" was a 6'6" huge buzz-cut German guy with tatoos and big black glasses named "Ziggy" and with his strength and anger we were all able to get tickets. The minute we left, they ran out of cabin tickets...(We later got to know Ziggy - he has lived in India for 3 years teaching yoga and is one of the gentlest and nicest people we've ever met...it made us feel justified in getting so frustrated so frequently in this country...)

After all that, we still had four days until we left, so we took a quick side-trip down to Mamallapuram (say that ten times quickly! - Heck, say it ONCE), a very holy ancient Hindu city on the coast. We actually got there during the festival dedicated to the God Shiva, and watched an endless procession of men, women and children shave their heads (for religious enlightenment and donations) and get clensed in the ocean waves. We enjoyed the Indian carnival simultaneously occurring, observing the snake charmers, Indian freak shows and weird souveneirs for sale (like the diseased vermin-covered stuffed squirrels with tails stuck straight up in the air and beady fire red eyes - a steal at only 25 rupees), but it was the absolute filth that began to wear on us. Mosquitos so thick you can barely see across the street, garbage (burning or fermenting) absolutely everywhere, and what our guidebook aptly named "turd beach" because all the locals move their bowels down near the water, making a sandy stroll a test in avoiding toxic landmines. But with the promise of The Andaman Islands and the perfect tropical paradise looming ahead, it was all OK...

Back in Chennai, we stocked up on water, mosquito repellant, snacks and toilet paper for the trip, and got ourselves out to the docks an hour before time in the hopes of beating the crowd. Boy have we got a lot to learn. Sixteen hundred passengers, each with rickshaw-wallahs carrying their cargo, luggage, boxes, motorcycles, stoves, refrigerators, sacks...and they had all apparantly been there overnight, waiting. The Indian bureaucracy in full force, we watched as they simply opened the first gate sending over 3,000 people shoving to get there first, then pile up at the next gate for an hour before finally opening that gate at which point all 3,000 people crammed together to get to the next gate which stayed shut for 2 hours at which point they opened up the gangplank wide enough for only two people, and of course 3,000 people and their cargo went for it at the same time. All I could think about was the "Who" concert in Cincinnati in the late '70's where all those people died - crushed in the stampede when the doors wouldn't open...it was really disturbing. We tried to wait for the pack to thin, but even then we were nearly impaled by the rails on the gangplank, and were lucky to get out alive with only a few football-sized bruises. Furious and tired, we sought out a crew member and asked him why they don't put up ropes and make people line up. He told us, "Because they won't line up and it's too much work," then went back to watching the chaos in amusement.

Three days on a boat gave us both some pretty vivid cabin-fever, and we were ecstatic to finally arrive in Port Blair amidst the phenominal deep blue of the Andaman Sea and the Coconut Tree-covered islands in the distance within every direction. The Andaman Islands are over 300 in number, about 700 miles from India - actually fairly close the the western coast of Malaysia. They are sparsley populated by indigenous tribes, one of which still has never had any contact whatsoever with the rest of the world, (every time someone used to try, the tribe would kill them with poisoned arrows...), but India has been populating many of the non-tribe islands with Bengali settlers. India seriously limits the foreigners' ability to see and enjoy these phenominal islands (30 day permit, no extensions, minimum of islands you're allowed to visit), but Indian nationals can get cheap air flights and are not limited to certain areas. Let me just say that India officially says they want foreigners to build tourism in the Andaman Islands, but from first hand experience, it's obvious they would be MUCH happier if we all simply stopped coming altogether.

Outside of Port Blair (the only town of any size), there is little or no accomodation whatsoever for the foreign tourist. Indians have additional options. If you want to stay overnight on a "permitted" island, you either have to camp (which most people do - the best solution by far), or make prior reservations for government-run "lodging" (and when I say, "government run," I hope I don't have to elaborate any further...) at the Tourist Office in Port Blair. We went into this whole thing happy, excited, ecstatic about being in this remote corner of the world, but quickly found out that it would be a constant battle to get any information, to make any reservations, to relax and enjoy ourselves at all. But where there's a will there's a way...

Our first week was the best. We took a 3 hour ferry out to Neil Island, a small island 44 km from Port Blair and "settled" by nearly 1,000 Bengalis. We stayed in the sole lodge on the island, rented bikes and had a fantastic time. Perfectly beautiful white sand beaches - totally private and isolated - under coconut trees and with 5 shades of aqua blue water and coral as far as the eye can see. We had hammocks made up and spent our afernoons lounging in the shade - literally the ONLY people on the entire beach (whichever one we chose) - eating whole branches of fresh bananas and alternating between napping and snorkeling. It made all the challenges worth it. At night, we'd walk into the main square area, sit at the only place serving food (a shanty-town shack restaurant...a "shackstraunt"), and eat wonderful fresh fish curry and hot parathas (a kind of chapati that are infinitely better) for a whopping 25 rupees (60 cents).

One day as we were walking to get our bikes, I was wearing a baseball hat and heard someone say, "Oh my God, is that a San Francisco Giants cap?" It was another couple - Paul and Kate - from the Marin area, in the Andamans for a month and then off to Southeast Asia just like us. It was so great to be able to relax and talk with people from home; it made our time on Neil Island comfortable, friendly and fun (sharing many dinners and sunset walks on the pier)...and we got some great recommendations on Indonesia and Bali!

After Neil Island, however, things started to crash and burn. There had been problems with our reservations because in India, a reservation means, "rock solid...unless we give your reservation to an Indian 'V.I.P.' or 'Freedom Fighter...'" and this happens frequently. Back in Port Blair we found ourselves back at the Tourist Office to make reservations for Havelock Island, ran into this problem again (they tried to make us leave on Neil Island - Paul and Kate too...it was ridiculous), and stupidly decided to have a calm, friendly word with the Head of Tourism. Without sounding too negative, let's just say that we should have known better to think a Director of Tourism would want to talk to tourists. Ralph Nadar and David Horowitz wouldn't last a day here.

We sat in this guy's office (Dr. Bannerjee - a doctor of tourism? saying how much we loved the Andamans, how beautiful they were, we loved it so much...but we were having problems making reservations and having them stick. This guy lost it - he became livid at us, telling us 'how dare we waste his precious time...' and that we endlessly repeat ourselves, and then basically kicked us out of his office. We looked at each other in stunned amazement, but did have enough energy left to tell him, "WE'RE tourists, YOU'RE the head of the Dept of Tourism..." and unsuccessfully attempted to show him the obvious connection. We tried to explain that of the 100 people visiting the remote islands at any time, 95 of them camp because of these reservation problems. His reply? "WE DON'T WANT THOSE PEOPLE TO COME HERE!" Ladies and gentlemen: The Head of the Indian Andaman Islands Tourism Department...

Trying to shake the whole ugly episode off, we scheduled an overnight scuba trip. The day before we left we were visiting Ross Island - this truly amazing small island that the British had made into their luxurious headquarters, then deserted 50 years ago only to be completely overgrown with tropical trees and flowers...a phenominal ghost town - walking around, all alone exploring the ruins. Making our way through some heavy brush, we nearly walked into a spider web the size of Fantasy Island and a spider the exact size of my face. We turned tail and got out of there quick, when right at that moment Paige felt something on her hand and screamed...with face-sized spider fresh in her mind, she thought the worst, but thankfully (?) it was only a bee. Unfortunately, it stung the hell out of her finger. Nothing happened all day, then at two in the morning her finger swelled up to twice its size around her ring...she was in some serious pain.

We're on a remote Indian island in the middle of nowhere needing desperately to see a doctor at 2 in the morning. No taxis either. With only one thing to do, we walked 5 km into town to the hospital and luckily got some help. Unfortunately they had nothing to cut the ring off with, and instructed her to see a goldsmith the next morning when they opened up then return to the hospital for additional treatment. That meant the dive trip was off for Paige, a big disappointment. But seeing that she was going to be alright, we agreed that I would go on without her and try to enjoy it.

Diving in the Andamans is difficult. The diving is great, but the experience I had was wild. Ridiculous dangerous currents, two anchors ripped off the line in the same day, horrible conditions...but the one time we actually got down the fish life was unequalled to anything I've ever imagined. Whole huge schools of giant barracuda, tuna, sharks, sweet lips, and on and on and on. We camped overnight on a remote restricted island (take THAT Indian bureaucracy!) sleeping on the sand. "About an hour until dinner," we were told as the campfire roared, but noticed that two of our helpers were climbing into a dugout boat. Asking where they were going, we were told, "to get your dinner..." They harpooned two absolutely huge fish, were back in 15 minutes and cooked up the most amazing fried fish and fish curry, dahl, rice and raita. The next day we had more relaxed dives; my dive partner was a professor of Marine Biology from Cornell here to film the dives for his classes. What more could you ask for?! We all gathered around a TV later the next night to watch our dives and get a fantastic first-hand explanation of all the fish.

Our final week in the Andamans were spent out on Havelock Island: 56 km from Port Blair, again partially settled by Indian Bengalis. We enjoyed relaxing in our hammocks again, riding around the lush green road-like corridors of the island on our rented moped, and eating extraordinary food at a shackstraunt we found where we were adopted by the family owners. Throughout India we have gone "vegetarian" (except for fish now and then) due to the poor sanitary conditions universal to the country. And when you're travelling, I can't tell you how much a relief it is when you DO get sick to know that it's not some freaky tropical disease carried in the intestines of some third world beast. Also, the veg food in India is fantastic and so diverse - you really never get tired of it (lil note here from Paige, you do get tired of it after 3 months). Paige and I are far from vegetarians, but it wasn't too difficult here, and at this shackstraunt on Havelock, we'd pile up our banana leaf (no plates, only banana leaves) with rice, dahl, cabbage, spinich, and a bunch of other amazing fully-spiced dishes I could never begin to pronounce.

Finally it was time to leave, and we were ready to go. I'm wondering if you have sensed our frustration level yet in what I've written...probably not, I've smoothed over and omitted the majority of our problems in the Andamans. If you're a traveller accessing this on our site and want to know more of our perceptions/recommendations about the Andamans, write us and prepare for a book-like response. Not wanting to even THINK about taking the boat back, we splurged on plane tickets. Originally Indian Airlines told us, "If you're 30 and under you get a 25% discount." Great! ...we thought, and purchased our tickets (we were both 30 at the time). Then, just as the guy was handing us our tickets, he looks one last time and says, "Wait a minute, you're both over 30!" "No, we ARE 30" we answered. "But you have to be 30 and under to get the discount," he says. "Yeah," we agree, confused and now worried for a reason we don't understand at all. He finally explains, "You have to be 29 years, 11 months and 29 days or LESS to get the discount..." "OH!," I reply, "I thought '30 and under' meant '30 AND UNDER!!!' How stupid of us!" So we paid the full senior citizen rate and blew the joint.

Calcutta. Before this trip when I thought of Calcutta I pictured poverty, beggars, lepers, more poverty, shanty towns, filth, more poverty and Mother Theresa. Believe it or not, Calcutta is a beautiful city. We liked it better than Delhi, Bombay, Jaipur and Chennai - it's actually somewhat clean, the chaos is somewhat organized, it's modern, fun and interesting, and shanty towns don't line every square inch of available space like seemingly everywhere else in India. We walked all over town, had a couple of great meals and thoroughly enjoyed our reintegration back into the mainland life.

From Calcutta we were off to Gaya because we really wanted to see Bodhgaya: 13 km to the south. Bodhgaya is one of the four holiest Buddhist sites in the world; it's where Buddha became enlightened under the Bodhi tree. It was also the first exposure to Buddhism of any significance to both Paige and I, and we loved it. We hired a guide for 50 cents, and he gave us the $100 tour around the temple site. The Dalai Lama spends each December in Bodhgaya, during which time over 2,000,000 faithful Buddhist pilgrims come to join in the scene. It's difficult to imagine, because Bodhgaya is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere with very little of anything around...and it's very difficult to get to and from (unless you are a rich tourist on a package tour). There is, however, a lot of modern infastructure because Tibet, China, Burma, Japan, etc. (all the big "Buddhist" countries) have heavily invested in Bodhgaya building monostaries and helping develop the excellent temple area. We really liked our day in Bodhgaya.

Finally we took our last Indian train ride to Varanasi: the holiest Hindu city in the world. With mixed feelings we tackled our last Indian city in 3 months: we were ready to leave, but we didn't want to leave thinking bad thoughts about India. Previously, we had never spent more than 1-3 weeks in ANY country on this entire trip so far...until we got to India. When we travel like that, we find that the difficult and frustrating cultural aspects of a country easily roll over us because we have the attitude, "Oh well, we'll be outta here by next week." But in India, we were literally forced to deal with both the good AND the bad. For awhile, we just wallowed infrustration and anger. But then we realized how much we did love about India (the people, the food, the beauty, the history, the diverseness, the colors...) and we got a new attitude. We realized we couldn't really know and love a place unless we had both the good and bad. Everyone knows you complain more about your own country than anywhere else...now we had felt like we had paid our dues and were justified in complaining about India. Previously we had left each country by taking a little piece of it in our hearts...now maybe we're leaving India both by taking a little piece of it, and leaving a little piece of ourselves. ...maybe even literally :)

Anyway, Varanasi is the Hindu city built on the holy Ganges River. They say if you die in Varanasi your soul automatically ends the endless cycle of rebirths and is released into heaven. This outlook on death means there are a constant stream of dead bodies roaming through the streets of Varanasi on their way down to the ghats to be burned in a huge funeral pyre near the water. It's fascinating to watch, but quite disturbing to see feet and heads sticking out of each end of the pyre, then to see Indians who have just bathed in the river holding up their towels to dry at the funeral fire. And they all bathe in the river - it's apparantly spiritually clensing. But it is beyond me how anything is clensing in the Ganges...they all urinate, defecate, spit, toss their garbage and burn their dead in the water...and it is definitely apparent. To see the thousands upon thousands of people constantly bathing and DRINKING this slime is quite a site. The streets are similar to Lamu (see our Kenya update) in that they are only wide enough for a person and a cow to pass, lined with shops and vendors, sewage, loud/smelly/dirty...very interesting.

Maybe that's why here at our final city in 3 months in India we got our worst case of food poisoning yet - laying us both out in the same night and not permitting us to eat a single thing for over 2 days. Not exactly the best note to go out on...

However, we redeemed our Varanasi experience by hiring a big rowboat and a rower one morning before sunrise and calmly and silently rowning up and down the huge, monstrous and endless ghats watching the bathers, cricketeers, hawkers, gawkers, cows, goats, beggers, pyres, and foreigners...it was a blast. More than anything India has to offer, the single most fascinating sight we saw were the mulitude of huge boatloads of first world (Western) senior citizen tourists who came to India to sample Varanasi...it is an amazing contrast to the city itself.

I'm going to pass this off to Paige now and end my references to all this filth. The filth had finally overwhelmed us. Maybe you think it's unnecessary to talk about the public defecation/urination and constant phlegm-in-motion, but in India it's literally in your face at all times. It's the fact of life. It's filthy, dirty and you cannot escape it. Being from a first world country, maybe it's more noticeable to us and more offensive to our senses, but I can't help the way I feel and the way we're affected by it all. India is maybe the most amazing place to visit and experience on the planet...it has been for us, but too much is too much. On to Nepal!

No, go back to India because I have a short blurb to add. My birthday was fantastic and my wonderful husband surprised me with a delicious chocolate cake with "Happy Birthday" written in Hindi frosting. He also gave me some beautiful silver anklets and a toe ring (no!, not a nose ring. Haven't gone that native yet). Not only that, on the very day, we were sitting in perhaps the most beautiful tropical paradise on earth. Then a week later when we were back in Port Blair, we had another birthday dinner, feasting on lobster and garlic butter. These babies were bigger than our plates and each person is served 2 full-sized lobsters (at $3.50 per lobster)! And then to cap off the month, when we got to Calcutta and picked up our emails, I had so many nice b-day wishes from around the world. I wish I could write to each and every one of you who sent me a note -- it really touched me and reminded me that there are people out there that actually miss us! Your words of encouragement really warmed our hearts. (Also, for the "little bird" who spilled the beans to everyone on the list about my birthday - Thank You! ...or as they say here in Nepal: namaste, dhabhata!)

Final thoughts on India. Better to talk to us when we get back and our intestines are in better shape. We almost lasted 2 months and 3 weeks in great shape and thought we were going to escape Delhi Belly (except for the "Your problem is vomiting" episode) but Varanasi let us know who was in control.

Thanks for listening,

Love - The REAL Paige & Chris

P.S. ...One final Indian sign: on Ross Island where there are a small pack of indigenous wild spotted deer...

"PLEASE DO NOT FEED DEER ANY COOKED SPICY FOOD AS THE SAME IS HARMFUL TO THEM" (Does that mean we can feed them uncooked bland food?...)