Goa: Tropical Kicking Back

Panaji, the largest city in Goa.

We were in Goa for five nights at the end of our trip. It is a small state on the west coast of India that had been a Portuguese colony for 450 years. Only until it was freed from Portugal in 1961 by Nehru and the Goan freedom fighters did it become a part of India.  Because of the Catholic Portuguese, there was more prevalent and available alcohol, churches and Portuguese architecture in Goa. I think there was actually a Church of the Inquisition. Goa is more laid back culturally (thank goodness that nasty Inquisition is over).

Portugese architecture evident in this Indian colored house

We stayed in our favorite place on the trip, Heaven Goa, for $17 a night in this small town in southern Goa. The owners, Sunil (from the southern state of Kerala) and Kirin (from Sweden) took good care of the guest house and garden. The owners were friendly and helpful without being in your face. (We are not B&B people.) The dog was well loved, if flea bitten and unspayed. The two cats liked to sleep around human traffic. Five puppies graced the outdoor eating area-- a mosaic tiled platform surrounded by hardy grass. It was protective with a palm mat roof, open on the sides and next to the kitchen building.

Our room was Zen plain, with white walls, a big canopy bed with requisite hippie color blocked elephant pattern bed spread and a mosquito net. We had a terrace with cane chairs overlooking the lily pond. The lilies bloomed white in the early part of the day and closed in the afternoon. Clean and peaceful. Most of the time.

We had a 10 minute walk down a rural road past rice fields each day to the warm Arabian Sea where we waded and watched the sunset. On most nights, including Thanksgiving, we ate at a beach restaurant with candle light on the table. In one place, little crabs the color of sand scurried sideways by the tables. We loved having the warm sea breeze and the sound of the waves reminding us that we were most definitely not in Oregon. This is true--if you are in a place like that and you think about how cold and dark and dreary it is at home, it is even better being in a tropical place. Our daughter sent an email saying it was 20 degrees one day and they had and ice storm.

The sand at our beach went on for 12 miles in a slight arc. The difference in the water line between when the tide went in and when it went out was not that great compared with Oregon beaches. The sand was a fine, soft, golden white color with lots of small and tiny shells. MT liked crunching on them with his shod feet. Different shells--smooth tan clams, crab shells, tiny black scallops, light red, violet streaked shiny bi-valves, and miniature unicorn horns of different caramel colors decorated the sand.

Palm trees stereotypically and beautifully lined the beach. It was not the peaceful type of beach that you find in Oregon. In Oregon, people do not try to sell you a sarong or jewelry  or a parachute ride or a boat ride or something to eat. But they were not terribly persistent compared to the people of the northern cities. People put up little buildings and lean-tos and shacks to sell stuff and even live in.

The mangy dogs liked to gather on the beach and lay in the sand. Sometimes they would invite themselves to be by people. Rabies was what I thought about. India has these dogs that are a mix of the lowest common denominators of dogs.  We thought of them as Generic Dogs. Toss out all the little frail dogs that just won't make it. Toss out the huge dogs that eat too much. Let the rest of the dogs breed together to wipe out most distinguishing characteristics of different breeds. The Generic Dogs are short- haired, brown or black, some patches, rarely white, slightly floppy ears. Pointy noses, average eyes. They are good at scrounging. Lots of them roam around and I suspect they have an impact on the rodent population.

One dark moonless night we were walking along the beach from the restaurant to our place and Mark had the good fortune to shine his flash light around (or torch if you are reading this with a British accent). We found a small herd of black water buffalo that had decided to gather. Buffalo are not a hazard I usually think about having to avoid at the beach. I was smart though. The following day I remembered where they were and I remembered to wear sandals in that area, rather than bare feet.

Even the water buffalo must be decorated.

In Goa MT loved laying in the sun, working on a tan and not having to deal with to getting places. I loved how beautiful it was, staring at nature, watching creatures, and being in the relaxed atmosphere. We both liked listening to the critters at night as we sat on the verandah. The jungle and the lily pond were full of fantastic sounds at night, things we had not heard in Thailand and Bali's jungles. We think the rich and varied sounds at night were frogs, birds, crickets, geckos, and other creatures. It was louder than I have ever heard from a jungle. A sound we think was frogs was this sort of watery, high chuckle mixed with damp fingers skidding across a latex balloon. There were high, medium and low cricket choruses. I took a video and I hope the sound comes out the way I heard it. There were splashes in the water. I would have liked to have been able to see what critters made the different sounds. All that eating, swimming, escaping, courting and playing going on! And as we were in reveries enjoying the sounds of the jungle and pond, our chain smoking neighbor, let's call her Aqua Lung, would come up to the shared verandah and smoke in the fresh night air. I went in my room and cranked the ceiling fan until she was done. And Aqua Lung was not a quiet neighbor. I really do try to see the things in life that come up as being opportunities to practice to learn something. Having a chain smoker with messed up breathing on the shared verandah when I just want to be immersed in nature sounds and night air--there must be some sort of metaphor here, I would think. Perhaps a reminder that things are not perfect.

I like the ice cream here. It is really flavorful, which is not what I expected. And there was a Baskin Robbins that we went to because the Cream Bell was never open. They had unusual flavors like custard apple.  The BR had a kerosene generator in the shop that was available at a moment's notice if the power went out and the generator could go for three days.

The creatures--eagles, birds that looked like turkey vultures but had normal heads, egrets, herons, king fishers, wood peckers, little bright green canaries, a bird that crashes loudly when it flies through the foliage. Pig family members of all ages running back and forth swinging their tails. I watched them slide themselves in the mud by the by the pond.

India and Home: Compare and Contrast

Remember writing those Compare and Contrast essays in high school English class? This is the theme that pops up for me when thinking of India and our US life. This is FF writing.

Women need more advancement in India, not that the US has reached parity yet. We had multiple experiences with this. People almost always addressed my husband and not me when they talked to us. "Sir, are you ready to order now?" in restaurants or at hotel reception desks. "Sir, how is the food?"  "Is she your wife?" when I am right there. That is because as MT's wife, I "belonged" to him and they did not want to cross a boundary. Also, some men will make lewd faces, brush against women and say things to women that were derrogatory in either English or Hindi. There are strict social rules that men and women never touch in public. They euphamistically call this "Eve teasing."  Men do this to Indian women and to tourists.  There was a sign in the train bathroom that instructed that harassing women was illegal and went into quite a bit of detail about what constituted harassment and the possible penalties, so the laws have been updated (2008) to address the issue. Enforcement is something else. Women and girls have lower literacy rates than men and boys. Jobs were very dominated by men, even the people who cleaned our hotel rooms were always men. We rarely saw women in non-traditional jobs.

The driving in India is so scary. They did not always stay in lanes, stop when they should have, keep safe driving distances (understatement), have head lights on after sunset, take corners slowly, or most things that we do to make driving safe. And in most of the cars that we were in the seat belts did not work. The only good thing is that they did not usually reach high speeds becaues of all the holes, bumps, brick piles, cars, animals and people in the road. Multiple times I kept thinking about how my car pool buddies would not like certain things that I was in the midst of--Jay would hate these cows. Catherine would not like that they are not keeping enough space between the cars. Carrie would be disturbed by all the broken headlights and tail lights and dents. Ted would miss the ability to have a sub-woffer in the back of the rickshaw. They don't pull over for ambulances with their sirens on. In a main road in Jaipur, multiple lanes of busy traffic converged into one lane because someone had built a little temple in the road. The pedestrian does not have the right of way and vehicles come quite close to people, even children. I had to close my eyes more than half the time, I could not stand it. Perhaps our drivers thought I had some sort of neurological disorder, with all of my rapid inhaling, eye shutting and gasping at close calls. There were oodles of close calls. A few times the car or rickshaw that we were in got tapped by or did the tapping to another vehicle. Once our car hit a cow with the side mirror. That was awful. Fortunately, cows are big and sturdy creatures.

Being a pedestrian is even more scary than the driving. There are no cross walks, even in major metro areas with multiple lanes of busy traffic. You find a good place that is likely to give  you good visability, you wait for other people to gather around as well, you keep looking at each other to see if you are ready to go as a group--which would cause more damage to a vehicle and would incur lots of bad karma if hit-- then all at once the whole group weaves and runs through the cars, rickshaws, bikes, trucks, people and dogs. Sometimes you have to hop onto a skinny concrete divider to cross one direction of traffic and then do it over again for the traffic going in the opposite direction. And the drivers of various vehicles have uncomfortably small margins of space between themselves and peds. They are fine with coming within an inch of you. I am not exaggerating. And they honk and honk at you because they see you as being in their way and want you to move. I saw them honk and advance upon old, frail people who had a hard time walking, even people with canes. Once at night we had to cross a busy multi lane street to catch our bus and we had our luggage and my stuff went the wrong way and trucks were coming and I really wanted to not have to be hospitalized or cremated in India and I jumped onto the concrete divider while twisting my wrist and yelled, "I hate India!" But the traffic was so loud that fortunately no one in the host country heard my rude comment. What I really meant was that I hate some things about that place. The country's population's quality and quantity of life would increase immensely if they all agreed to have and enforce basic traffic and pedestrian rules. Think of the revenue in fines that they would collect if they  gave people tickets when they did not follow the traffic laws! Maybe all this running keeps them fit. It is really mystifying because there is an underlying value in being polite and respectful in the culture. Even though people drove like crazy, we never saw road rage types of behaviors.

This is really gross,  you can skip this paragraph if you are a higher minded person. One thing that really grossed me out was the public nose picking. No kidding. It is apparently o.k. to just pick your nose while you are in public and when you are an official or a travel agent or hotel receptionist handling my passport and then giving it back to me like there was no disgusting major social infraction that you just did to another person who is creeped out by germs anyway (but not to the extent of that mousey school counselor in Glee.) Steve S, I know you did not skip this paragraph--see, I came up with a really yucky thing about our trip. Yucky, not icky.

Corn flakes. We eat them in the US with cold milk, but Indians serve them with hot milk. Weird, but we ate it because breakfast was included and the first time it happened on the train, we did not realize what was going on our cereal.

Every third guy looks like a movie star. What bone structure and eye lashes!

One thing that we learned early in the trip was that the change during a sales transaction was always accurate. Unlike Italy or Greece. They might exaggerate the virtues and substance of a particular product, but once you landed on the price, they always gave the right change.

MTV in India actually plays music videos. It was a stark contrast to the lack of music videos on US MTV. I saw good videos that make me want to buy the song. Here's a link to the most popular song right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcKtDXUb6C
 (Dear Mayor of C--I think this should be your theme song.)

Akbar's kitchen building for the women of his harem--these are earrings carved on the outside.

Taj Mahal inlay 

You can touch all sorts of ancient and precious things that would be roped off in the US or Europe. You can touch the inlay of the Taj Mahal, carvings of Akbar the Great's palace, mosaics hundreds of years old, the Buddhas in caves 1500 years old.

This is a generalization, of course. Indian people are interested in people they don't know and will start conversations with strangers more readily than Americans do. They start asking questions right off the bat about your age, marital status, job (if you are male), how many children you have, where you are going, where you are staying, and other questions that might seem forward to an American who just met someone on a train or in line. We knew about his ahead of time and also experienced it in Thailand and Bali, so we took it as friendly connection making and curiosity. As a result, we got email addresses, invitations, and people taking photos with us, plus some good travel advice and insight about the culture.

Buddhist statues in caves carved out of canyon side, 1500 years-old.

People in both countries love to talk about their kids.

That is the end of compare and contrast. I am doing at least one more blog on Goa and maybe a few more that focus on photos.

One thing for sure, being in India is way better than looking at something in a coffee table book!

Hindu temple 

P.S. People keep asking us if we got sick while on our trip. The poor sleep alone would have made us succeptable to bugs. I (FF) will answer for myself. I stayed healthy. This is the first long trip I have taken (the number of long trips is not huge) that I have not gotten some sort of cold. And, of course, people are curious about the common illness that bothers travelers to developing countries. But no, I did not have digestive issues. I think this is because of two factors: 1) luck and 2) being very conscientious. I only ate vegetarian food in a country that has frequent power outages, had daily yogurt for friendly bacteria, ate only fruits that had been peeled or that I had personally washed with purified water, avoided any veggies or herbs that were raw, did not eat sauces made with water, did not eat things that looked questionable, only drank treated or boiled water, brushed teeth with same, wiped off any residual water in glasses or on plates before using them, shunned ice (the hot weather made that a challenge), had no fresh juice (preserved was o.k.), took daily multi-vitamins and vitamin D, washed my hands before I ate (when possible), used hand sanitizer fanatically, and accepted that I probably would get sick even with my precautions. MT was more adventureous in his eating habits. I am glad I was adventureous when eating virtually anything on the menu that fit my criteria above, but I would not go the adventurous route as to possible encounters with microbes.  I am fortunate that I stayed well.

Last day in india

the key sticks on the keyboard, which is why I don't always have capitals.  we are going to our last dinner tonight in india after a day walking around the beach --cough, cough with pollution--and in a posh area.  we saw yet another wedding procession.  FF is very sad to leave india. MT is ready to go. mumbai is not as crazy as we expected--delhi was much more intense with terrible scary traffic.

there is this snack food in mumbai that we would love to try, but it is made with things that might harbor germs. we'll have to find a place in portland that has it. it is called behl puri and it is made with raw veggies and puffed rice and fried things and lemon juice and is sold on the street from little carts.

there are goats living right in mumbai.

i have to get the taxi now. more blogging when i get back. maybe i will even figure out how to post photos.

peace. ff

Goa and Gratitude--the Day Before Thanksgiving

Our dear friend Steve S, who loves everything and thinks that everything in the world is the best, sent us an email after reading the blog. He noted that it seemed that we are having a great time. I told him it was true, but that there are also parts to this trip that were sucky and that I would blog about that. But not today, as today is Thanksgiving Eve in the tropical and lush state of Goa. Today it is more fitting to write about gratitude than to grumble.

Things we have been grateful for on this trip:

Incredibly kind people. Indian people are curious, want to talk, want to help, want you to get what  you need. There are a few exceptions, but that is true anywhere. I believe that we get much kinder treatment here than a tourist couple from India wandering around in the US.

Mosaic from palace in Rajasthan

Our senses of humor. MT cracks me up.

Food food food. Every place we eat is wonderful. Even scary places that don't adhere to the germ theory. Today we went to this fancier place in a hotel restaurant for lunch--thali style-- little amounts of lots of things. It was less than $10 for the whole bill. They were like Jewish grandmothers and kept trying to give us more food even though we could barely breathe (like after Thanksgiving dinner).

Bosses who let me take this trip. Not having to read drafts of policy.  : )

Amazing ancient stuff to see everywhere. There are ruins and temples everywhere. Now we are kind of picky about  what we will go see, as it is overwhelming.

And of course, our family and friends who are back home. 

We hope you all have good Thanksgivings in the cold weather.

--FF

Udaipur

We are now in lovely Udaipur. Udai-pour is more descriptive--it rained like a monsoon today for several hours, which is unheard of in November. It should be dry and in the 80's. We have this fantastic hotel room that is right on the lake which is in the center of the small city. Our room has this sweet little terrace that over looks the lake. We can see a beautiful white palace built on an island. MT went to get an Ayurvecdic massage and I sat on the terrace and stared at the sunset last night.Our room has three walls with window views. I was woken at 5:30 AM by women and children jumping in the lake for their baths. This was from a bathing ghat that was at the base of two Hindu shrines. It sounded like any group of kids jumping into cold water--shrieks, then laughing and splashing and moms scolding their kids to not splash their siblings.

At that same ghat the night before, during my sunset viewing, big bats--bigger than crows--flapped and glided  from the tree next to the hotel. The tree shelters bats as well as the Hindu temples below.  Through the tree, I could see women doing their rituals with candles at the shrines. A little later, men practiced their ritual of drumming and chanting. Incense smoke rose through the tree and the flying bats to my terrace perch. Across the water the castle lights and the lights of the hotels and mansions came on. MT came back from his massage like a noodle. He said that it was completely different than any massage he had had before and it included an herb in the oil that warmed his skin. His brain was noodle-like, too, for a while.

We had delicious dinner on the rooftop cafe and then went for a little stroll. The town is laid out like the tiny medieval towns of  Italy on the sea--rambling streets, some streets too small for cars, steep walkways, arches, and bits of ruined buildings.

The power went out and came on again--caused by the rain according to the internet cafe guy. I lost a bit of the draft. Mental note to save drafts.  I even read about the need to save drafts for this very reason.

Anyway, last night we heard overly amplified, obnoxious and distorted loud music. We sought it out, thinking it was some sort of live music venue. It was a groom being led in a procession--think Monsoon Wedding or any Indian wedding scene in a movie with a scene with a red-turbaned groom sitting on a decorated horse. The first part of the procession was a small car with musicians going very slowly while other musicians
walked along side the car. Next came women (female relatives of the groom) in red and pink saris, then the groom on the horse, looking a bit self-conscious, then more relatives, then a small truck with a portable diesel generator. Around this whole scene approximately 10 boys and men held light fixtures made of several bulbs to light the scene. The lights and music were powered by the generator.  The group went to different intersections where the women danced and the groom looked more self-conscious.

Done for tonight. 

Pushkar Camel Fair

Pushkar Camel Mela

We are on our third day in Pushkar, which is a very small town around a holy lake. It has 52 bathing ghats (wide stone steps for dipping into the holy water) and 400 temples and shrines. It is holy to the Hindus because Brahma created it by dropping flower petals from his hand. The petals turned into a lovely lake in a parched area. We got what are called Pushkar passports--red threads put around our wrists by priests with petals to toss into the lake. World peace and happiness for you all!  If we have the threads, the priests leave us alone. But left alone we are not by the pushy touts and sadhus--wandering holy men in orange, who are gathering here for the major holy day coming up. They are very persistent with their indications that they want donations, including blocking our way and shaking their tins at us.

Pushkar at night with oil lamps for Hindu ceremony 

People are gathering for the Pushkar Camel Fair, which officially started today with a really long introduction  in a stadium similar to one in a county fair ground.  The fair itself is like the Oregon Country Fair, but with 200,000 camel and horse traders and their animals in a setting from 200 years ago. Yesterday we wandered around the area where the livestock are kept, fields of camels and horses staked to the ground. I (FF) loved looking at the Merwar horses, which are the sturdy, lively, beautiful horses of the Rajasthan. Some of them were obviously well kept and fine.  They have endearing ears set high on their heads. The points of the ears curl and are even more curled on the foals. Many of the horses are from the royal families of Rajasthan. And the camels were already decked in colorful halters and saddles and anklets. One could ride a camel for "a very special price."

Last night we had the sort of funny travel experience that one does not plan. We went to a music store that blasted good Indian music. We asked the store guy, Ravi, with a pony tail and a red line on his forehead and a cool as a cucumber look, for music recommendations. He is also a social worker and local music promoter. He played various CDs for us and we had a little pile to buy when a huge downpour began. Our eyes got big, even for Oregon, that was mega rain. And then our eyes got bigger--the streets began to flood.  You cannot imagine all of the gross things that are in the sewers and in the street-- just to give a hint, dogs and cows wander freely. We watched the water rise rapidly to knee level in the narrow lane as merchants pulled displays from the lower levels of their shops away from the rising water. We listened to more CDs, Ravi added a Pushkar album to our stack with a little wink. We were grateful that the electricity stayed on and that we were stuck in the best shop possible. He said that this is the first time in his life that it has rained during camel fair. People climbed up the steps of the shops that rise above the street and waited, but the waters did not go down. Ravi served tea. People got tired of waiting, so crowds came by, men with their pants rolled up and women holding their saris above their knees. They were smiling and laughing (not thinking of cholera and typhoid like I was). People in the shops and people in the streets waved and laughed at each other. Sometimes motorcycles went through, as well as people on bikes and rickshaws and even some guys posing as surfers on a cart. It was a joie-de-vive mood. I think Ravi did good business with the people stranded in his shop. We waited quite some time, but the water only went down an inch or two. The rickshaws were doing good business, so we hailed one and went to our hotel that had better drainage, fortunately. We were not hideous and exploitative, as we paid the driver well.

Today in the stadium we watched camel races (!) and a traditional dance by hundreds of school girls in red, pink, burgundy and orange saris and pounds of jewelry and bling. India does bling better than anywhere.

Walking in the streets is a challenge, given the crowds, but there is a happy vibe, the sun is shining again and people have money to spend because the harvests are in. We stimulated the economy again, as this is a good place for silver jewelry. Items to buy are shoved in our faces every 15 seconds--I do not exaggerate.  I (FF) do not feel very skilled at bargaining and think they are always getting the best of me.

Food. Drugs, eggs, alcohol and meat are forbidden in this city because it is sacred to Brahma. Everything we've eaten has been delicious--we order things we've never heard of, exotic sounding dishes, or food that sounds simple, but because of the utter mastery of using spices, everything is fantastic. Pushkar has many rooftop cafes, so we have views of the temples and ghats as we drink sweet and hot masala tea (black tea with milk/cream, spices and ginger) and remind ourselves that we go on vacation to relax and not just to do stuff. We are so American with this drive to feel like we should be doing something or planning to do something and we have to remind ourselves that it is OK to just be here now.

(MT here). Cliche no doubt, but seeing the standard of living here really puts things into perspective. Walk past a small 10 X 10 foot encampment, makeshift lean-to over a single mattress and tiny low table, small open fire with iron cookpot boiling, family of mother and three young children hanging out....all this located two feet away from heavy traffic on highway off-ramp, kids playing in dirt literally two feet away from truck wheels constantly going by. Hard for me to bargain with much energy to get price of shirt reduced from $3 to $2.50 (that's 135 rupees down to110). Remarkably happy or "up" vibe, though, almost everywhere. Extremely nice people overall, a culture of hospitality. But that's in Rajasthan state. We've been warned repeatedly that in Utter Pradesh state (where Taj Mahal is) it's not safe to go out at night. (We already have moved on from there.)

It smells like masala almost everywhere all the time, nice spicy aroma. Driving style is unbelievably insane, scary until you realize they're going about 25 mph max. Sightseeing sounds easy in the guidebook, "lovely temple only 7 kilometers from Agra," which turns out to be a two hour drive at 7 kilometers per hour including massive traffic jam because there are zero driving rules, at intersections (even major highway crossings) it's everybody pushing ahead from every direction into the intersection, total chaos/gridlock. But still seeming mostly not unhappy while sitting two inches behind diesel truck exhaust for 45 minutes not moving. I see why "acceptance of things as they are" became a big deal here.

Jaipur, Obama and Economic Stimulus by Americans

We took the 5:20 AM train from Agra, site of the Taj Mahal to Jaipur in the NW state of Rajasthan. We saw stars from India for the first time tonight. Before, the pollution was so terrible in Agra and Delhi that we could not see stars.

We have not seen many westerners in Jaipur. People are genuinely interested in where we are from and when we tell them, they almost always say something about Obama's visit to India this same week. One guy told us many details about the secruity measures and the cost. A mega billionaire is hosting him in his prime hotel. I do hope that the distribution of the income to India is beneficial to those of the lower socio-economic layers and does not stay in the upper reaches as often seems to be the case here. I read a very interesting newspaper article about money routinely being siphoned off that was for education, roads and other important needs that benefit people.

Anyway, Jaipur is a major shopping area in Asia. When in Rome...... So we bought a few things and stimulated the economy. Mary told me of Rajathali, a huge place that features the different crafts of Rajasthan. We went and it had irresistable treasures. Then the Americans stimulated the economy in the bazaars within the old walls of the Pink City.

We visually stick out and attract attention. We (ha ha) are tall and pale and dress differently. Most women wear vibrant saris or tunics with tight pants. We keep encountering children and even adults who want to say hello and ask us where we are from and our names. We get into little discussions with them. And we have to not reinforce the children who are begging. Inside my head I repeat, "Remember Slumdog--they don't get to keep the money." In case you need a refresher or have not seen Slumdog Millionaire, it accurately depicts the sad fact that the kids who beg are put on the streets by adults who benefit from the children's efforts.  We have caved a few times and given candy.

Rajasthan is packed with forts and palaces. This is the outside of one palace and for complex. It is from their foyer--an official welcoming area.

The next photo is the same complex over looking the pleasure garden for the ladies who only see the emperor, eunuchs and other women. There was a display of chairs that the women rode in for ceremonies because they couldn't walk due to the weight of their heavily adorned clothes. After that we have a photo of the summer palace on the lake so they could be cooler surrounded by water.

While we've been out and about, this vacation is different than what we usually do. Normally, either in a city or in a rural area, we walk lots. But here, the walking is not something that you do easily and get exercise. It takes some work--don't step in this, don't fall in the sewer, don't go too close to the dog laying in the sidewalk, don't trip over stuff, walk around the cow, don't get run over buy multiple types of vehicles, don't lose each other, don't go by those people who will be obnoxious (touts), don't run into people, don't respond to the zillion people who want you to buy something, and don't get ripped off. So far, no nice strolls or pep walks except in a little deer park at a mausoleum for the emperor, Akbar the Great.

We are staying in a beautiful Heritage House (government supported) called Madhuban that is in an old wooden mansion. The price is surprisingly low for what you get. It has a lovely walled garden where we had tea when we arrived. I love tea as an important part of life.Our room has a little terrace for hanging out. I am glad that we are here for four days. The Gateway in Agra was really grand, but this is  more to our comfort level.

The food has been delicious at every single meal. Fortunately, we both love spicy and exotic food. We don't always know what we are ordering, but the suprise is always yummy and we've had things that are entirely new. I think they put a stick of butter or a cup of cream in every dish, though.

Yesterday, we went to Vrindahvin (sp?), birth place of Krishna. He was raised by foster parents, just like Superman. We thought it was going to be a drive up the National Highway, something like 1 1/2 hours, but noooo, there was an accident and it became really long. But it was still worth it because we say this huge step well and the temple complex for Krishna, the blue god of love. He is blue because he was bit by a snake. We were thoroughly searched (gents in one line, ladies in another). Out came the camera, battery, ipod shuffle, alarm, flashlight, and cell phones which were baby sat by our good natured driver who did not want to come in. The temple complex was an amazing scene filled with Indian pilgrims and we were the only non-Indians. One woman asked me if I was happy. I grinned and said I was very happy.There were different temples and shrines and a life-sized kodachrome diarama of Krishna. No camera made us be here now.

You may recall your earlier introduction to step wells, which are huge stone lined wells built primarily in the 14th through 16th centuries that fill with monsoon rains. As the water level decreases, the steps take people deeper into the big wells, through Escher-like stair cases. They were for washing, drinking, worship, cooling off, and social gathering places. (There will not be a quiz.) The effort and architecture are astounding. It was a treat to unexpectedly come upon this one in the very funky village on the way to the Krishna temple. It is still being used.  On the far steps of the last photo you can see saris laid out to dry.