At long last...India

GETTING THERE - APRIL 11-12

The journey of a thousand steps begins with a four hour delay! Yes, we had 2 hours of sleep, sped out of the house and sat at the Omaha airport for 7 hours due to weather delays in Newark. We passed the time chatting with a couple from Belgium, she was from England, he was from Northern India. Got more travel tips from them, which almost made it worse for us as we sat there delayed and thinking we might not make our connecting flight. As we were sitting there, forging plans if we couldn't make it out of Newark or to Newark, there was a page for "Mr. Shiva." Um. Ok, things are probably going to be ok. ;-)

When we FINALLY got to Newark, it was a mad, mad dash from the A concourse to the C concourse via 2 disorganized and very slow shuttles. We were supposed to have a 4 hour layover and as it was, barely had time to stop at the bathroom before we boarded.

The flight over was long, over 15.5 hours, but we passed time watching movies and catching up on a couple of HBO sitcoms we alway seem to miss. It was a miracle that we didn't have a 3rd person in our row, so we got to spread out as much as one can in an airplane seat. There wasn't much sleep going on though!

The Mumbai airport wasn't at all what we expected. I guess it's the Delhi airport that's the busy/chaotic airport, perhaps. As it was, it was pretty quiet and organized, though it was 8:30pm or so. Customs/immigration was really organized and easy to manage. We landed early and breezed through customs, but our driver was there with our names on a sign. Signage was all in English and easy to follow. Over all, it was way more organized than our experience at the Prague airport!

Getting to the car, we did feel that we were definitely in a different climate. Very humid and definitely hot, even at night. However, it wasn't significantly different than walking outside at the Orlando airport and smelled about the same. Car exhaust and humidity. Actually less cigarette smoke than I'd expected. After about 25 hours of travel, it was much less of an assault of the senses than either of us had thought. We were wondering if we've become jaded somehow, that an exotic port like Mumbai should seem not so exotic to us.

IN MUMBAI - APRIL 13
We were very grateful that we'd thought to spend the night in Mumbai before traveling to Pune. We tried to set up our phones for India and had trouble doing it, but thankfully, Dan can email from his Blackberry and was able to get a message to Mom that we'd arrived. The Hotel Pretam Midtown, where we spent the night, was very nice. There's much granite and marble everywhere, as some is mined here. Makes things very elegant. Our laugh for the morning was watching Indian infomercials and filling in English equivalents for the dialogue. We had a lovely breakfast buffet at the hotel -- sambar (spicy and watery lentil soup), lentil doughnuts (vada), sweet curd (yogurt) with potato-pea paratha (who knew!?), more sweet curd which we mixed with papaya-watermelon jam. This was a flavor I don't know that I'd have purchased if I'd seen it in the store, but which we both found pretty entrancing! I wonder if one could find it in Omaha, because it'd be swell in trifle! Anyway, the staff was great, very pleasant and helpful. We'd recommend it and would stay there again.

Our driver, Balaji, from the previous night, picked us up this morning for a quick tour of some Mumbai highlights. Driving in morning traffic (actually, just normal traffic), was interesting. Many motorcycles with entire families on them - dad drives with helmet, mom sits side-saddle in sari, kid #1 is in front of dad and kid #2 is between mom and dad. Many children sitting in the front seat with chins on the dash board. No seatbelts, no car seats. Actually, I haven't seen a stroller with pedestrians either.

Smaller cars are everywhere. Three-wheeled trucks whip between cars, highly decorated trucks with all kinds of cargo from water to bundles unknown have paintings on the back that proclaim "honk please!" and "honking OK!" We're assuming that they have large blind spots. Mumbai outlawed elephants as transport several years ago, but we did see some cows in the side lanes, so it wasn't a huge disappointment. ;-)

In India, when you're passing someone, coming up beside them, just want to let you know that you're there or you see them, you give a couple of short horn blasts. (We were on a fairly busy street at the Hotel Pretam, so heard quite a bit of the horn honking over night. We were tired enough that we crashed, but others might want ear plugs.) While pedestrians weave between vehicles, often tapping a car as it's about to move to tell them to stay put and let them cross, motorcycles drift between larger vehicles, making their own lanes. For the most part though, for a very large city, the traffic was very organized. Certainly less frantic than other driving situations we'd encountered in Cairo and say, Rome.

SIDDHIVINAYAK TEMPLE
First stop this morning, was at the big Ganesh temple, previously mentioned http://www.siddhivinayak.org/. This was a fascinating experience. People at the hotel seemed to be surprised that we even knew about it. We saw only Indians there, so drew a bit of attention. We were immediately semi-accosted by some pretty clean beggar kids. You can't give them money though, or even more show up and are more persistant. If you truly want to help the cause, find a place to give charity to hospitals, orphanages or schools. There are donation boxes in many businesses we saw in the few stops we had in Mumbai.

At Hindu temples, one removes shoes as a sign of respect. After reading a friend of a friend's blog where her shoes were stolen at a temple (by monkeys, but still), we bought cheapo flipflops to do the temple experience. You walk down a row of vendors all with beautiful flower necklaces (malas), jasmine bud bracelets, bouquets, little sweets, small coconuts (representing ego - the toughest nut to crack) and things like that, all on a tray to be offered to the temple's deity along with your prayers. One leaves their shoes with the person whom you purchase the offerings from. You pay for your offering when you return the basket and then pick up your shoes.

The offerings are all touched to the altar and to the murti (the enlivened statue, which is considered to be a living being), then given back to the person who brought it. (We didn't know that last part, though at a high volume temple like this one, if they didn't return things, they'd be buried in flowers in about 15 minutes flat!

As we got closer to security, we were approached by a couple of priests who wrapped bracelets (dyed string blessed with prayers and dipped in herbs and sandalwood paste, called chandan) around our wrists and chanted blessings over us. They were very sweet and seemed to hone in on us among the crowd. The priest who tied my bracelet looked very much like Swami Krishna Bal Yati, whom we had met in Malmo years ago. The prayers are in Sanskrit, which is a vibrational language, meaning that the words are very precisely chanted so that they are both heard and felt. This is the closest description that I can come to at the moment. This man felt as though he were speaking directly to my soul and I felt a little choked up at the sweetness of his demeanor and chanting. I heard "Ganapataye" in his words, so knew that these were prayers and blessings to Ganesh.

Now security was another deal. We know there are no cameras allowed inside, but the guard had seen me taking photos, so even though the camera was in my purse, he wouldn't let me pass through. We were on our way back to Balaji, to give him my purse, when he came through the crowd and said, "I figured you were taking photos, but then couldn't get past security. I'll wait here with your bag." One obstacle removed already!!

We proceeded through men's and women's separate security lines. I had a pat down and security wand as well. Our offerings went through the xray conveyor. After that, the lines converge into about 8 different paths, from what I could tell. This is a very rich temple, the entire inner sanctum is covered in highly decorated gold, so security everywhere is pretty understandable. As you approach the actual building, there's a tree that you pass that everyone touched. It's draped with the strings that the priests tied around our wrists. I'm still trying to find out what the tree is about. As you get to the inner sanctum, the traffic is stopped on one path, as another continues. There are steps down to the altar and murti, and once you make your way to the front, you pass your offering to a priest, who touches it to the murti. Our little jasmine bracelets went onto Ganeshes crown and stayed there. I had written a tiny post-it note with all our friends who had asked for prayers to be offered and believe that it stuck to one of them or fell on the altar somewhere, because I didn't see it again. I hope the prayers are all heard and answered. You back out, up more stairs in a show of respect and then the path out leads to the gift shop!! Of course, we had to get a few Ganeshes from there! They were very inexpensive and if we'd have been able to get our card to work in an ATM, we'd have had more cash with us to purchase more! (So far, setting up phone, internet and debit cards have been the most difficult part of the trip.)

GATEWAY OF INDIA

Next, we went to the Gateway of India. It was a nice drive along the bay on Marine Drive to reach the Gateway. It was built to commemorate the visit of George V to Bombay. True to form for me, it was in scaffolding. (For those who don't know, everytime I visit a major monument, it's in scaffolding: the Sphinx, Colossi of Memnon, the US Capitol, The Raphael room at the Vatican, part of St. Peter's, etc., etc.)

As we were approaching the Gateway, a guy filmed us. We wondered if we should have asked him for a tip, as lots of people had asked us if we wanted to take their picture for money. (Not so much. lol)

ON TO PUNE

Then it was on to Pune. The maps show that there are hills here, but you really do some climbing to get to Pune. It's a lot drier here, but still hot. Easier to take than Mumbai's humidity, but still more humid than one would expect. So much of the countryside looked like Arizona, complete with mesas and rock formations. And then you realize you're not in Arizona when the monkeys run across the road!!

Something that has struck us both is that no matter where you are, there are people walking. You can seem to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere and there's one or two people walking. Also striking: road crews doing landscaping in the median including women in saris with safety orange vests. While they seemed to be completely unphased by the 6 meters of fabric wrapped around them, I know that I can barely garden in a t-shirt and pants without becoming a tangled mess.

Also, we've been struck with the huge amount of city sized construction that's going up between Mumbai and Pune (on a very nice toll road). There are billboards that talk about recession, but people were working fast and furious on these huge developments. It's pretty impressive. Our hotel is actually on the outskirts of Pune in one of the construction zones.

But I digress... We stopped at a little food mall and had a quick lunch with Balaji before heading about 90 min. from Pune. We didn't even know we were hungry, to be honest! We had rice, dal, aloo paratha (tandoor grilled bread stuffed with onions, peas, spiced pototoes), some saag. We bought lunch for Balaji, who had a masala dosa (large, thin pancake with spicey veggies inside) and for all of us with drinks it was about $4 US. Oddly, the digestive upsets we're having are the same we've had at home with spicy food. It's just on the verge of too hot for me, but curd helps calm it down a lot. As does Tums! ;-)

Our hotel in Pune is luxurious! Our room is a small suite with a living room with couch, chairs, tv, wardrobe, fridge and microwave on one side with a glass art wall separating it from the bed and bathroom area, which also has a tv.

As Dan is working nights here (which is daytime in the US), the 24 hour room service is FABULOUS! Dan will be sorry to have missed the lovely dal makani (lentils and kidney beans in spiced gravy), jeera rice (basmati with ghee, cumin seeds and cilantro), a beautiful naan and chicken kabob marinated in some sort of paneer (homemade cheese) that I'm nibbling on as I type.

We checked in and had a nap. I was still sleeping while Dan figured out the computer hook up and some phone settings. The guys from work called and though he was really pretty exhausted, they were too excited for him to come in to work, so he did. I was pretty sleepy when he left and we didn't quite realize that when one takes the room key out of the special slot, it also turns off all the power and a/c in the room. I awoke, hot, sweaty and pretty cranky and in the dark! Luckily, Dan must have gotten my psychic message to come right away. I wasn't awake enough to have thought to ring the front desk for another key. Mostly I was trying to text or call Dan. Neither of which worked.

Dan, meanwhile, was meeting with guys from work, discussing ideas and setting things up. They were also trying to help him get rupees, as the bills go very quickly! No avail. As it turns out, when we logged into the system from India, they put a hold on our account. Now, we'd called to tell them we were traveling to India and wonder now why that meant nothing.

As Dan hadn't eaten, and hadn't planned to go in on our first night here, they took him to dinner. We were told that they made awesome gin and tonics here, a remnant of the Raj. This place didn't really know what that was, but had a lemon tonic and some gin and Dan gave a remdial bartending lesson. He said the result was quite good.

So, he returned to the room and we got everything figured out with regard to computer and phones so that we can call each other and I have internet access.

TODAY - APRIL 14

Which brings me to today. We slept. We slept a lot. We slept all day. We got up, ate a very very spicy pizza, which was by far the hottest thing we've eaten and the only thing available at 4pm. The chef isn't in until 7pm for room service. Good to know. lol I'm not really sure that the sleep we're snagging is from jet lag, or the past month or so of no sleep... maybe some of both.

Hoping tomorrow to have someone show us around the town. We're hoping to find Laughing Yoga, the Naadi Astrologer, a place to have clothes made for me, fabric places, musical instrument stores...more adventure awaits!

We still don't know what schedule we're on. It seemed that we might just stay up all night here and sleep all day, which would be about right for the time back home. We're not sure whether that's going to work or not since we want to see things and shop, etc. We'll likely have to mix it up. I know that coming home is going to be harder than coming here, time zone-wise. It always is!