India Travelogue #1

Namaste! Namaskar!  Hello!  Hi!  We’ve taken the Josh and Phil  Show back on the road.  This dispatch comes to you from Jodphur, India.  We’ve been traveling for exactly one week, and we have so much to share.

After narrowly escaping the blizzard in New York, we arrived in Delhi at 1 a.m. last Saturday  and were immediately subjected to one of the city’s best-loved scams– well, kind of a botched version. After the overwhelming experience we had on our first day in Bamako two years ago, our new philosophy is to get out of the big city as fast as possible upon arriving  in a new country.  Because our plane landed in Delhi three hours late, we decided to  go directly to the train station to wait for our early morning train.  Our taxi driver, however, insisted that the train station was closed and, in spite of our protestations, refused to take us to the entrance.  Normally at this point in the scam, the driver is supposed to take you somewhere where he gets paid a commission, but our driver had only lived in Delhi for 6 weeks and didn’t seem to have the routine down.  He floundered and didn’t really know what to do with us.  After much hassling and a pointless trip to a travel agent who assured us that all trains were delayed for 5 hours due to “fog,” we finally got him to take us to our original hotel where we dozed on the couch for a few hours and then walked to the train station, which is, of course, open 24-7.  At the train station, we were treated to Delhi’s second most popular scam where a nicely dressed man tried to insist that we needed to pay $96 to get a special stamp on our tickets.  Off to a great start!

Our first stop was Agra– best known for the Taj Mahal.  After a 5 hour bus ride, 15 hour flight, and 3 hour train ride, we were really excited to walk around town.  But a very old bicyle rickshaw driver had other ideas.   We tried to put him off as we walked to the Fort (home of the Maharajah and his 5,000 concubines), but the rickshaw driver would not be dissuaded.  He had a charming smile  and succeeded in getting us to agree to let him take us to the Taj.   We gamely boarded his vehicle but our American physiques proved to be too much for his scrawny Indian one.  Watching him strain to go down the hill, we considered offering to pedal.  Eventually our driver got off and pushed for a while before giving up and asking us to walk next to him.

December is prime Indian vacation time and the Taj sees about 40,000 visitors a day.  The lines were impressively long and slow moving, but many Indians seem to have an almost comical disregard for waiting their turn.  Even with fiercely whistling mustachioed police officers attempting to maintain order, hordes of people kept leap frogging their way into line as soon as their backs were turned.   In spite of the chaos, we somehow managed to find our old friend and frequent travelling companion Steve B in the crowd.

While the Taj was unbelievably impressive, we were tickled to realize that we were just as much of an attraction as the monument.  Teenage boys especially wanted to have their pictures taken with Phil, and an entire soccer team screamed with delight when we consented to join their photo.  We were also struck by the number of elderly gentlemen with shockingly orange henna-ed hair– apparently a popular way to cover your gray.  In the opposite age bracket, we’ve been intrigued by the babies sporting eye liner.

Joining forces with Steve and his affable driver Krish, we drove through many bustling villages and luminously yellow mustard fields on our way to Ranthambore and Bundi.  Driving in India is very reminiscent of a video game.   Beginner level obstacles include slow-moving cows and “diversion” signs.  Intermediate obstacles can be motorcycle rickshaws or camel drawn carts piled high with goods, while advanced obstacles include motorcycles driving the wrong way through traffic or small children leaping into the road.  The best strategy, it appears, is to drive down the center of the road so that you are well-positioned to dodge in any direction.  Good horning is also essential.  Trucks even have signs painted on the back requesting you to “honk please” and drivers honk before passing, honk to get another vehicle or animal to move out of the way, or honk just to say “hi”.  People even have custom honks– kind of like custom cell phone rings. Today we heard a car honking “Jingle Bells.”  Pretty weird in a country with so few Christians around.

As usual, we’ve been enjoying being somewhat of a spectacle and have made many friends along the way.   In Udaipur, we happened upon a band practicing in the bazaar.  After learning that Josh is a musician, they produced a guitar and we improvised a cross-cultural rendition of the bollywood classic “Dum Maro Dum.”   We also met an incredibly knowledgeable samosa-wallah who introduced us to the pleasures of  the Kachori– kind of a like a samosa stuffed with falafel instead of potatoes– and showed us pictures of hot bollywood babes on his cell phone while expressing his love of Arnold Schwarzenegger.    In Bundi, we  stayed with a delightful family and enjoyed playing with their kids as well as their home cooked meal.  After whispering to us to pay her directly and NOT her mother-in-law, the mom of the family thrust her baby son onto Josh’s lap as we were driving away, leaving us wondering if we were unwitting foster parents or just a better car seat than the baby’s daddy who climbed in up front a few minutes later.

Over the past few days, we’ve also visited many interesting places.  In Bundi, we spent the afternoon exploring the labyrinthine passageways of a ruined palace built into the side of a mountain while avoiding the bands of cranky monkeys who were pissed to have so many tourists invading their home.  Our access was amazingly unrestricted, and we climbed over ramparts, through towers, and into countless secret passageways.  We also admired murals with hundreds of miniature figures whose arched eyebrows and pointy beards  made them all look a little like Josh.  In Udaipur we visited the crystal gallery.  In the Victorian era, the reigning  Maharajah was fascinated with cut crystal glass and placed a massive order for hundreds of pieces including a bed, several couches, dozens of fly-swatters, and lots and lots of dishware.  Unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to enjoy his shipment, which remained unpacked in boxes until the current Maharajah unearthed it.

After this palatial opulence our fortune took a turn for the worse when we took our first “sleeper” bus last night.  Imagine a Greyhound bus where the luggage racks have been lowered and replaced by tiny berths just big enough for two.  Now imagine no blankets, cold air streaming in through windows that won’t stay shut, and bone-rattling roads.   Needless to say, we did not get much sleep and were overjoyed to check into our guesthouse this morning.  This  slightly dusty but very funky 500 year old house is run by a delightful family, and we have enjoyed chatting with them, and playing cars and ring around the rosy with their 3-year old son.  We are the only guests at the moment and are staying in the same room that Adrien Brody slept in while trying to escape the paparazzi at his 5-star hotel when he was in town filming Darjeeling Limited.

We hope all is well with you and that you have enjoyed your Christmas/Chanukah/Solstice celebrations.  We’d love to hear from you, so please post us a comment or shoot us an e-mail to say hey!

xoxoxo -Phil and Josh