To view our favorite pictures from Uttar Pradesh, click here.

First, we can confirm the rumors about the Taj Mahal: this is a pretty impressive monument, one that is still capable of eclipsing the myriad impressions that we’re all exposed to on a regular basis. I’m pretty certain that, without any serious contention, it’s the most astounding building in existence. The only other sight that can match its grandeur and beauty–at least, anything that I’ve witnessed–is the Grand Canyon.

The interesting thing about the Taj is that its surroundings (the city of Agra, specifically) are pretty abysmal. Moreover, the people in Agra and its mother state, Uttar Pradesh, have developed quite an unsavory reputation. We have heeded warnings from Indians all over the country to watch out for those swindlers and hustlers in UP, who if given the opportunity will steal the shirts off our backs, and the guidebooks more or less corroborate this impression.

The root of that isn’t due to something in Uttar Pradesh’s water supply (although it tastes pretty damn foul, even when filtered). I think it has more to do with the fact that UP is India’s most populous state, yet also one of its poorest and least developed. When you have a lot of people in an area with a scarcity of resources, plus one world famous monument and one of the most heavily traveled cities in the country (Varanasi), it’s inevitably going to breed a certain level of opportunism in those areas. People need to eat, after all, and if the choices are between starving and taking advantage of a large influx of comparatively wealthy visitors who have little context for their surroundings, it’s not hard to see how these conditions developed.

But our interactions with the people here have not been nearly as unpleasant as foretold. Folks certainly tend to be more aggressive when offering retail items, boat rides, and other tourist amenities than they have been in other states, but they don’t have the same bitter and spiteful edge that clouded every conversation in Khajuraho or Jaisalmer.

Megan has declared Varanasi her favorite place in India, and is certainly ranks among my top five. It’s the holiest city in Hinduism, partially due to its proximity to the river Ganges, which plays a prominent role in Hindu folklore. If you die here, or have your remains deposited in the river, you’re automatically freed from the cycle of suffering according to their belief system, so it’s an auspicious place for the religious. It also offers great promise for people watching, and you can learn quite a bit about the religion and India in general after spending a couple of days strolling along its colorful ghats (steps along the Ganges bank that lead to its waters).

We arrived in the city at four in the morning, which our guidebook suggests avoiding at all costs (there’s a lot of organized crime in Varanasi, apparently, and it operates primarily in the bus and train stations). After warily making our way through the narrow winding streets of the old city–the presence of guards armed with AK-47s made us feel a little bit safer–we deposited our things at the hotel and decided to take an early morning boat ride. As the sun rose over the Ganges, we saw the faithful descending down the Ghats to begin their morning pujas. Flames rose from the burning ghats, which burn without cessation, as families said goodbye to their loved ones. Sadhus (holy men who have divested themselves of all material possessions) and brahmin priests lined the shores, lighting incense and chanting Shiva’s name.

Every evening, the locals host an organized prayer session, where appointed holy men face the river with flaming gold-casted cobras and wave them in a circular motion. Vedas (Hindu prayers) echo from loudspeakers, and a huge crowd assembles to chant along. Afterwards, they deposit flaming offerings (essentially, a flower and a candle housed within a leaf) that float in great numbers down the river. It’s quite a sight when the sun goes down.

At the beginning of the month, we spent Holi in a small village in Uttar Pradesh. Sam Singh, the congenial founder of Pardada Pardadi, acted as our gracious and generous host while we doused each other with paint and water balloons. It was a messy affair, but plenty of fun!

To view all of our favorite pictures from Madhya Pradesh, click here.

Madhya Pradesh is an interesting state–one that we knew very little about before we got here.  Actually, the only thing we really knew about MP was the Union Carbide disaster in its capital city, Bhopal, which killed like 100,000 people.  That’s not exactly an enticing reason to visit the place, but there are actually quite a few popular tourist destinations that fly somewhat below the radar.

Don't kill me!!!!!

Our first stop was in Gwalior, where we saw stuffed tigers and gravity-defying chandeliers at the Jai Vilas Palace, along with some lesser examples of conspicuous consumption like ebony furniture, and a dining room miniature train that ferries around brandy and cigars to guests.  Jai Vilas belongs to the Scindias, who are an erstwhile Rajput clan that made their fortune before the modern state borders were drawn (Gwalior is within spitting distance of the Rajasthani border).

After that, we headed up to the Gwalior Fort, which looms over the entire town atop a very steep and imposing cliff side.  There’s not much left besides the ramparts, though, and a very creepy underground lair called the Man Singh Palace, which is stuffed to the brim with squeaky rabid bats.  As the sun set, we took a romantic stroll down the roadway leading into the fort, and discovered a series of ancient Jain figures carved into the rock face.

The next day, we traveled south to Orccha, where we explored the 17th century ruins of the Bundela empire, who were “rivals” of the Mughals (though it’s hard to have a rivalry if one side never wins anything).

Orccha

The former Bundela palaces contained some unbelievably exquisite murals, which would have been even more impressive if someone had invested the time and energy into restoring them.  Even so, the decayed look wasn’t so bad.  We hiked down to a temple complex along the banks of a river at the end of the day, where vultures glided on the tops of spires and stalked their prey below.

By this time, we started to notice that people in MP are excessively friendly, even by Indian standards.  While we were waiting for a train, a couple of guys approached us and started chatting, and before we knew it we had an audience of 30-40 Indian men who were eagerly crowded around us.  It was sweet, and they meant well, but it was incredibly intense all the same.  We’ve also noticed that people in MP will frequently expect us to speak Hindi, and are occasionally a little surprised and sometimes even slightly offended that we don’t understand the words coming out of their mouths.

A stupa at Sanchi

Our next stop was Sanchi, which is one of King Ashoka’s greatest legacies.  Ashoka was a pre-Christian king who conducted some brutal military campaigns against people in the eastern part of the subcontinent, and afterwards developed a guilty conscience.  So, to atone for his misdeeds, he converted to Buddhism and built a series of stupas (kind of like domed pyramids) with gateways that depict different stages of the Buddha’s life.  They’re in pretty good shape for 2200 year old structures, and the surrounding area is absolutely breathtaking in its stillness and tranquility.  It’s not hard to imagine achieving enlightenment amidst its rolling green fields and vibrant Bouganvillea bushes.

The last place we visited in Madhya Pradesh were the ancient erotic temples at Khajuraho, which unfortunately was one of the more unpleasant experiences we’ve had in India.  It’s not that we were scandalized by the depictions of orgies and beastiality on the stone facades–that, of course, was great fun!  Unfortunately, though, the world famous monuments have bred an extremely hostile and unpleasant atmosphere in the town itself.

We were first exposed to this upon the arrival at our hotel, when our complimentary cup of tea turned into two forced massages, and a barrage of offers to book train tickets, bus tickets, and guided tours.  You are of course signing yourself up for this kind of thing to a certain extent whenever you enter a tourist center in India or any other country, but in general you don’t expect that hassle to follow you into the place where you’re staying.  It’s so pervasive here that even the children will follow you around on bicycles and act as your “guide”.

It’s a tough situation because tourists provided a much needed stream of revenue into places like Khajuraho.  I of course recognize that we are bringing in an elevated level of wealth and privilege into an area that has a short supply of both, which will inevitably cause a little bit of friction and resentment with the local population. We’re hardly getting the short end of the deal, but on the other hand, we’ve been to a lot of places in India that have managed to treat visitors with more respect and dignity, and not as walking wads of cash.  It’s a shame that Khajuraho couldn’t have been more like Orccha and Sanchi.

My parents came to visit India (and us!) in January. We traveled around the desert state of Rajasthan via jeeps, rickshaws and camels. We visited abandoned forts, ate lavishly and slept in the desert. We had a fantastic time. Big mistake. A big mistake because it went so well that I was left a big teary mess when they drove off to the airport. When they flew back to clean streets and cappuccinos and home, and left me here. Expecting that piece of home that I’d gotten so used to having around would be at the breakfast table every morning. Leaving a home-shaped-hole-in-my-heart.

Then, a week later, my best friend from high school had a baby. Turns out your parents can turn into friends and your friends can turn into parents. And they can all get together and drink cappuccinos in Connecticut while I’m 7,000 miles away. With a 7,000-mile-wide-hole-in-my-heart.

And then, perhaps just as a test of our resilience, to see how serious we are about this whole “India thing,” the universe played a terribly glorious trick on us: the New Orleans Saints won the SUPER BOWL! And despite what commentators tell you, it is not this team’s miserable record historically that defines this win, nor is it that storm they called Katrina. It is what the city means to the people of the city. New Orleans gouges its hooks in you like no place I’ve ever been, and when you’re a New Orleanian, nowhere else on Earth could ever be home. Just ask the little boy who grew up on the corner of Calhoun & St. Charles, who, at 4:30am on February 7th, sat cross-legged on the edge of a Delhi couch to go with his team to the Super Bowl. From 7,000 miles away he won with them. The whole city won together. And then the live footage of the post-game French Quarter started to roll, and he was left sitting on that couch in Delhi, a Mardi-Gras-float-fashioned-after-the-Lombardi-Trophy-shaped-hole-in-his-heart.

We’ve slept in 33 rooms since we left the States. 33 rooms, 33 beds, 33 taps with water we can’t drink. And as we’ve traveled, life at home has gone on without us. In fact, the very idea of “home” has never been more poignant, more desirable. And it was at the climax of our longing for home that we received the following news: Brendan has been accepted to the University of California, Berkeley for graduate school. This August we will make ourselves a home in California. We can already see our future environs on a Google map. We can count on one hand the months before we sleep with our kitties again. We can actually picture ourselves drinking a glass of water from the tap.

But I’m suddenly sad. Sad that our new Bay Area neighborhood won’t come with cows in the road and men asleep in rickshaws and Gurdwaras. Since we’ve (if only virtually) located our future, I’ve started noticing our present all over again. Noticing the electric colors and iridescent embroidery on the saris. Noticing babies with kohl around their eyes and old men with neon orange hair, made punk rock by henna. Today I noticed that I no longer register the smell of piss or incense or vats of jalebi-frying oil when I walk down the street. I don’t think anyone’s frying jalebis on the street in Berkeley. I don’t think anyone in Berkeley will call me “missy” or “my friend,” or tell me that they’re giving me a good price or that my purchase is a blessing on us both. No one will sit on top of the public bus. No one will chew paan or smoke bidis. None of the public monuments will date back to the 16th century, or the 11th century or 200 BC. Trains and food will go back to being expensive and conversation will be reserved for those I already know.

The admission here is that I’ve been gouged with the hooks of the subcontinent. I’m happier than I’ve been in years and I don’t want to leave. When I think about this coming Fall, me sipping cappuccinos with my kitties in my oh-so-chic California apartment, I realize that I’m going to have a massive, gaping India-shaped-hole-in-my-heart.

(Megan)

The absence of something valuable leaving a something-valuable-shaped-hole in the universe is an idea I lifted from one of my India reads, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. To read an interview with her done by the Huffington Post, click here.

Happy Holi, everyone!

Hey Everybody!

We’ve been working hard over the last couple of weeks to add a photo section to Curry Caravan–so hard, in fact, that it may have contributed to a directory failure on our external hard drive.  But, it was worth it (and all of the data was recovered, so we still have all the originals!)

You can check out the pictures via this link:

http://www.currycaravan.com/photo

These were pared down from approximately 5,000 images, and they represent our favorites so far.  The project itself is still in its test phase, but we hope you enjoy them nonetheless!

Sincerely,

Brendan & Megan