New York City

Lower Manhattan

Andy and I waited to get a few paychecks and watch our bank account recover a little before heading into New York City for the first time. We woke up early in the morning and drove into Poughkeepsie where we got onto a Metro-North train headed for the City. Two hours later we were disembarking from our train in Grand Central Terminal and taking our first steps into a city that we’d both heard so much about and have always wanted to see.

After admiring the Grand Central building inside and out we

Avenue of the Americas

walked over to the Empire State building and waited in line for tickets to the 86^th floor Observatory. Luckily for us this was the fifth of July and due to the small number of tourists in town we were able to make our way through the three separate lines fairly quickly. The whole experience was pretty cheesy until we finally got to the top and could look out across all the other skyscrapers. The view was amazing and we soon got really excited to start walking and exploring.

We walked by Rockefeller Center, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Radio City Music Hall, and then down the Avenue of the Americas which was closed off to traffic for the

Times Square

holiday weekend and filled with pedestrians and food and clothing vendors. As we looked around us we kept on thinking that the City was so clean, and not polluted at all. Some of our co-workers had warned us that it was a dirty and busy place, but compared to the cities in India we felt completely comfortable walking around and not at all overwhelmed. I mean, NYC has sidewalks where you can walk without being worried about being hit my speeding motorcycles. We ate some great pad thai and chicken satays then headed over to the Museum of Modern Art. After spending a few hours wandering the museum and seeing Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night we refueled with coffee in the MOMA cafe and got onto the subway to the southern tip of Manhattan.

The subway station we got off at was right next to the Staten Island Ferry and we hurried into the terminal to catch the next ferry. The ride is free and the concessions stand sells beer so we had it made on the twenty minute ride to Staten Island where we disembarked and got onto another ferry back to Manhattan. It was fun to see a close up view of the Statue of Liberty and the skyscrapers off in the distance.

Grand Central and the Chrysler Building

Next we walked up through the financial area by Wall Street, the Stock Exchange, and the Twin Tower memorial. We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and back, past City Hall, and up through Chinatown where we stopped at a really neat park which is where the old Five Points neighborhood used to be in the early 1800s. Eventually we made our way back up to Times Square where the lights were so bright it was almost like the sun was still in the sky. We drank a few beers at an Irish pub while we rested our feet and finally walked back to Grand Central and took the train home exhausted

Sunnyside and Union Church

Washington Irving's Sunnyside

On one of our first days off Andy and I decided to drive down the Hudson Valley and explore our new temporary home state. Our destination was Washinton Irving’s Sunnyside, the house of the American author Washington Irving who wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. We had a guide dressed in period costume show us through the house which Irving had designed himself to include the best elements of architecture that he had observed throughout Europe during his time as an ambassador for the U.S. He had copper pipes and a water heating system installed, which was very advanced for his time, and a shack out back with a deep well-like hole in it to store ice during the summer. The porch was also really nice with a beautiful view over the widest part of the Hudson River.

Our next stop was the Union Church of Pocantico Hills to see a

Sleepy Hollow

stained glass window by Henri Matisse and nine windows by Marc Chagall. The windows were commissioned by the Rockefellers who used to attend services here and it is still a working church today. The intricacy of the Chagall windows are amazing and the artwork glowed with the natural light coming in from outside.

On the way home we stopped in the town of Sleepy Hollow to see the graveyard that that inspired Washington Irving to write The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Although we didn’t see the headless horseman we did see some very old grave sites and the final resting place of Irving himself.

Inside Sunnyside

Mohonk Mountain House

Here’s some pictures of where we are living for the summer. Andy and I are both working as servers in the dining room at Mohonk Mountain House near the town of New Paltz, New York. Some money gets deducted from our weekly paychecks to pay for our nice size two bedroom dorm room and three meals a day and we get full use of the hiking trails as well as the lake to swim in. So far we’ve been enjoying our time on the east coast and have been trying to take advantage of any opportunities that we have to explore the area.

This is a view from the lake of the Mountain House. This is where the guests stay, the dorm Andy and I live in is on the other side of this building.

Behind Andy's head you can see Sky Top Tower up on the ridge, it used to be used as a fire tower and you can see some nice views from up there.

These little huts are everywhere lining the trails so that people who come from the city and are afraid of the outdoors can still feel like they're in civilization. They are also fun to relax in.

Mohonk has a lot of gardens and this is the victorian maze made out of arborvitae.

Oregon to New York

DAY 1

It actually all fit!

Every time Andy and I leave for a trip we procrastinate packing until the last possible minute and, in keeping with tradition, we were finally able to start driving at eight thirty at night. Andy drove for about five hours dodging deer until we decided to pull over near Burns and sleep in the car.

DAY 2

Nature's Cooler

Our second day was pretty uneventful, driving across Idaho where we hit higher speed limits and drank extreme amounts of diet Pepsi until we reached the Teton Scenic Byway near the border of Wyoming. We pulled into a deserted campground called Pine Creek, found a little patch of snow to cool our beers and we set up camp.

DAY 3

We woke up early, broke camp, turned the radio to The Range where they play ‘just plain good western music’, and started working our way up over Teton Pass to Jackson Hole, WY. We went out for a great breakfast in Jackson and started driving north by the Teton Range towards Yellowstone Park where there were literally tumble weeds blowing by the side of the road.

The Teton Range

Andy had never been to Yellowstone before and this was different experience for me as well. I had been to the park before in the summer time but now in third week of May there was still snow on the ground and some of the roads were

Riverside Geyser

closed, not to mention that there weren’t too many people in the park which was a plus for Andy and I. We started off by going to Old Faithful and walking around the many other geysers and pools along the surrounding trails. We were lucky enough to be passing by Riverside Geyser when it erupted and it was amazing to see the huge bison just minding its own business eating grass nearby. Another spot that we enjoyed was called Artist’s Paint Pots where the different pools were different colors and one was so thick it looked like bubbling plaster. We saw so many bison throughout the park and there were a lot of little baby bison with their lighter color fur. We also saw elk but sadly no bears or moose. It was too early in the season for any but one of the campgrounds to be open and it was full, so we drove out of the north entrance into Montana and slept in the car after cooking dinner in a picnic area.

DAY 4

We drove back into Yellowstone through the north entrance and spent the

Trees in the calcite pool

morning around Mammoth looking at some really neat trees in the middle of a calcite pool and the Petrified Tree. In the early afternoon we exited the park through the northeast entrance, after getting through a bison traffic jam, where we drove along the Chief Joseph Scenic Highway over Dead Indian Pass into Cody, WY. Once in Cody we passed by Buffalo Bill’s daughter

Bison traffic jam

Irma’s Hotel where Calamity Jane, Annie Oakley, and Ulysses S. Grant all stayed back in the days of the Wild West. More exciting to Andy and I was the Sierra Trading Post that was having a huge sale! I left with a Gore-Tex Pac Lite rain jacket for only a hundred dollars and Andy scored a Windstopper jacket to replace the one that was stolen with our car a while back. We slowly made our way closer to the border, trying to coax our sweet turquoise Escort wagon over the Bighorn Mountains without overheating. When we got to the top of the pass we were able to look down upon rolling hills and the far off horizon line. We drove into the night and ended up sleeping outside the Blackhills National Forest.

DAY 5

We crossed the border into South Dakota making a quick stop in Sturgis for coffee. It was funny to drive through Sturgis and see bars called ‘Sidehack Saloon’, and the ‘Knuckle Saloon’. The ‘Ye Olde Worlde Bookery and Café’ seemed a little out of place. Sadly we saw no bikers (the closest we got was a lady on a scooter) so we drove on to Deadwood. It’s a cute tourist trap with streets lined by Old West style buildings and casinos with signs marking where Wild Bill Hicock was shot and killed and where his assassin was captured.

Crazy Horse Memorial

We drove onward to the Crazy Horse Memorial. When the sculpture is finally finished it will be the largest in the world, but right now the only fully completed part is his face; the rest of the years of work seem to have been dedicated to blocking out the general shape from the mountain side. The most amazing thing about the Crazy Horse Memorial is that it will be a complete 360-degree sculpture; you will be able to look at one side of Crazy Horse’s face on one side of the mountain and the other side of his face on the other side of the mountain. After enjoying a buffalo burger and free coffee we traveled the short distance to the Mount Rushmore Memorial.

Mount Rushmore made a more striking first impression on Andy

Mount Rushmore Memorial

and I than Crazy Horse did because you can really get up close to the faces. We also liked how the faces blended into the mountainside more. I’ve seen photos of Mount Rushmore before but never realized until I saw it in person that it is an unfinished work. When WWII broke out the funds for Rushmore dried up and it was just left as is. That’s also one of the main reasons why Korczak, the sculptor of Crazy Horse, decided to fund his project solely on donations, a tradition which his family carries on to this day. When it started to sprinkle on us we decided to head to the car and start driving across South Dakota.

Badlands

We took a slight detour off the freeway to drive through Badlands National Park. It is so beautiful that we were sad to not have more time and really hope to make it back again some day. We saw a lot of prairie dogs and a lot of signs telling us to avoid the prairie dogs because of the plaque they carry. We pulled over at a picnic area in the park and made some chicken and rice on our camp stove to carry out to a bench at an amazing viewpoint. We sat there and watched the red stripes hills change color with the sunset to a plain whitish gray color that matched the sky perfectly with the clouds rolling in. After the sunset we started driving again and tried unsuccessfully twice to find a spot to sleep. Finally we pulled over at the first rest stop in Minnesota and slept in the car.

Badlands

DAY 6

We woke up to find out that the rest area we slept in was a very nice one with an informational center and friendly staff. There were even fresh lilacs in the women’s bathroom! Five days without a shower was started to get to me and I decided that I needed to wash my hair in the sink. The need for clean hair outweighed what the mid-western road trippers might think of me and I left the ladies room a new woman.

Andy loves Legos!

We drove north to Minneapolis to the Mall of America, the largest mall in the United States. This place is so big that it has an indoor amusement park! Andy’s not much of a mall person but when we went by the Lego Store and he saw the life size sculptures made out of Legos of huge dinosaurs, space shuttles, an earth complete with accurate continents, and a moon complete with accurate craters he started acting like an excited ten year old. After Andy finally got his fill of building things at the Lego Store we stopped in a tropical themed restaurant and got a few beers before walking around getting lost among the stores for a while. Next we drove through farmland until we reached the Mississippi River, stopping only to eat some deep fried cheese curds and admire the many lilacs along the way. We slept along the Apple Blossom Scenic Drive just this side of Wisconsin.

DAY 7

We entered Wisconsin through the town of La Crosse where a large statue of Native Americans playing lacrosse greeted

Frank Lloyd Wright's convention center

us. We stopped only long enough to see the ‘world’s largest six pack’ (which is actually six of the City Brewery’s water towers painted to look like beer cans) and to drink coffee at a park overlooking the Mississippi. We continued on to Madison, the state’s capitol, where we walked around a convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and saw the state’s capitol building which was designed to be similar to the capitol building in Washington D.C.

We spent the night an hour outside of Chicago in a town called Rockford in Andy’s grandparent’s luxurious fifth wheel. Andy had called Bill and Sallie the day before to check in and surprisingly they were staying close to where we were going. We knew they were somewhere in between South Carolina and Oregon, but to be so close to where we were was an amazing coincidence. They treated us to a comfortable pull out sofa bed, taco salad, and warm brownies, those two sure know how to travel in style!

DAY 8

You can see Andy and I in the very middle, we are the distant looking couple.

We woke up, said goodbye to Bill and Sallie and drove on the toll way straight into Chicago where we made a quick stop at Wrigley Field to score tickets for later that night. Our hotel was nice enough to give us an early check in, so after unloading our car full of stuff we spent the entire day walking around town. We walked the ‘Magnificent Mile’ full of retail stores, saw the old fire tower that survived the great Chicago fire, ate hotdogs covered in chilies, mustard, dill pickle, and bright neon green sweet relish, and explored Millennium Park with its awesome sculptures until it started to rain so hard we were forced to duck into a Caribou Coffee shop.

When the rain let up we got on the red line El train to Wrigley

Wrigley field

field where we were happy to find that our obstructed view seats weren’t even really obstructed at all. In honor of Memorial Day, while the last few bars of the national anthem were being sung a trained bald eagle soared in from the outfield, circled the field a few times and landed on his trainer’s arm. After the eagle was walked off the field Mr. T entered in all his American flag parachute panted glory to throw the first pitch. As if that wasn’t enough during the seventh inning stretch he lead the crowd in singing ‘take me out to the ball game’. We had a great time at the ball game eating deep-dish pizza, hot dogs, and beer and watching the Cubs fans throwing back onto the field any ball caught from the opposing team’s home runs. The stadium had a nice small feel to it and the surrounding buildings had put bleachers onto their roofs to accommodate more seating, which they sold tickets to through various websites.

After the game we packed into the El train and worked our way back to our hotel near Grant Park.

DAY 9

The Chicago River

Each day in Chicago a different museum has a free day and since Tuesday is the day for free admission to the Museum of Contemporary Art we went straight there after our morning cup of coffee. The main exhibit was about Buckminster Fuller and the various architectural and engineering feats he accomplished throughout his lifetime. It was interesting and Andy especially enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the smaller exhibit by Olafur Eliasson called ‘Take Your Time’. In one piece we walked into a room filled with yellow light and after a few moments we realized that everything that we saw was in black and yellow. The monochromatic bulbs he used have such a narrow frequency that they affect how a person sees color. Another piece that was incredible was one where a spotlight shone through a fine mist and wherever we stood we could see different colors in the mist.

We worked up quite an appetite walking around the museum and the only

View from Lake Michigan

thing we could think about was going to Frontera Grill. Back at home one of our favorite cooking shows to watch is hosted by Rick Bayless on PBS and so many times after we’d drooled over the delicious Mexican food he’d cooked or after he’d taught us how tequila was made Andy and I would look at each other and talk about how cool it would be to go to his restaurant and eat his food. I never thought that we’d actually go to Chicago and eat at his restaurant, but it did not disappoint. He has two locations next to each other and we decided to go to the less formal one called Frontera Grill. Andy and I each ordered margaritas, mine with tamarind in it. Andy also ordered the tacos al carbon, which came with two different salsa while I got the chicken enchilada special smothered in a perfectly balanced tangy sauce and topped with a jicama cucumber salad. To try and work off our Mexican lunch we walked along the Chicago River to Lake Michigan until the rain started up again and we were forced to pack up the car and leave Chicago.

We drove straight through Indiana and into Ohio where we saw some intense lightning storms on either side of the turnpike and slept in the car at a rest area.

DAY 10

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

We drove into Cleveland where we spent five hours in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame looking at Madonna’s bustier, John Lennon’s Sgt. Pepper suit, Michael Jackson’s glove, and other famous memorabilia. Then we drove across Pennsylvania and entered New York on a small highway passing through quaint towns and by little vineyards and wineries until we reached northeastern New York. We cooked dinner at a picnic area next to the Niagara River and slept in a casino parking lot.

DAY 11

As soon as we woke up we drove straight to Niagara Falls. All three falls were

Niagara Falls

incredible and the sheer volume of moving water was quite a sight to see. We had always heard that the view is best from the Canadian side so we left the car in the state park parking lot and walked through the turnstiles into Canada. We stayed only long enough to take in the view and decided to head back to the States since neither of us had our passports with us. When we came back through U.S. customs the border patrol lady rolled her eyes at us and told us that we non-compliant without a passport or birth certificate. Thankfully the following Monday was when the newer stricter border rules were going into effect and we were let back into the States after a short grilling about our lives to make sure that we weren’t attempting to become illegal aliens. We spent a few hours gazing at the falls and decided it was time to move closer to our new home.

Niagara Falls

We drove through rolling hills of hard woods on our way east and stopped in Elmira to see Mark Twains grave. Eventually we made it into New Paltz where we ate a Chinese food dinner and slept on the side of a deserted highway.

DAY 12

We woke up, got coffee, and drove to our new home- a dorm room at Mohonk Mountain House.

3865 miles driven

102 gallons of gas used

$250 spent on gas

38 miles per gallon in our 1994 Ford Escort Wagon

Mumbai

Victoria Terminus

We entered Mumbai early in the morning through the Gothic architectural masterpiece that is the busiest train station in India, the Victoria Terminus. To understand the sheer size of the building try to imagine two million commuters filtering through each day. That’s half of the population of Oregon. Even though we were a little tired from the train ride we were exhilarated to finally be in Mumbai. It was a city that both of us had been excited to see since the beginning of our journey and we eventually found our way outside where we celebrated with a quick cup of chai.

We hailed a cab to the Colaba area of town and wandered

The Taj Hotel

around for quite a while searching for a budget hotel; a difficult task in one of India’s most expensive cities. Finally we stumbled upon a nondescript and somewhat strange but reasonably priced hotel called the Al-Hijaz. We would have been happy with any moderately clean room as long as we had a working ceiling fan- it was pretty hot. After a quick rest and a shower we walked through the throngs of people packed into the sidewalks of the Colaba Causeway. Every step we took there were new sights to see. Tourists and locals slowly weaving past one another in between store fronts and booths filled with wares from all over India. Not to mention the touts constantly offering us paid extra roles in Bollywood movies.

Gateway of India

We spent time at the Gateway of India, which in true Indian fashion was partially covered with scaffolding, and tried to avoid having our photo taken by people who would later try and sell us the photos. We could see huge ships off in the distance and the sea breeze was a nice respite from the heat and humidity. Even with the breeze we soon found ourselves ducking into Leopold’s Cafe for a couple of iced coffees. Sitting at the tables we were able to look around and see multiple bullet holes in the walls from the terrorist attacks that had happened five months previously on November 26^th, 2008. At least 173 people were killed when organized gunmen started shooting at people in southern Mumbai and setting off timed bombs then taking hostages in the prestigious Taj Hotel. It was especially strange for us to visit the Taj Hotel. Months ago we had watched news broadcasts showing the hotel on fire while people were held hostage inside for four days after a long closure the hotel was open when we were there and there was no sign of what had happened except for a nicely done memorial dedicated to all those who passed away on November 26^th.

We walked up past Oval Maidan, the University of Mumbai, into the Modern Art Museum, and past a lot of old British buildings. The streets in this part of town were different from those we had seen everywhere else in India, they were wide with large sidewalks under tall leafy trees. It was possible to actually walk down the sidewalks without being bumped or surrounded by people. Despite the grandeur of the buildings and the obvious wealth that flows through Mumbai there were still signs of the poverty that exists in India on every street corner. Mumbai is a city where the world’s fifth richest man Mukesh Ambani is building the world’s most expensive home; a twenty-seven story skyscraper complete with three heli-pads, a “cool room” with man made snow, 168 parking spaces, and will employ 600 servants when finished. Mumbai is also a city where the workers who are building Ambani’s skyscraper most likely live in one of the slums, where seven million other Mumabi residents live, and the average income is about $2 US per person.

Washing ghat

We got a chance to see behind the glitz of Mumabi when we went to the Dhobi ghat where most of the linens for Mumbai’s hotels are washed and beaten by hand, starched, and hung up to air dry before being delivered clean back to the hotel. It’s an impressively large operation and incredibly hard work for the wage these laundry men make.

One of the more amazing experiences we had while in

Haji Ali walkway

Mumbai was when we stopped by the Haji Ali mosque. The mosque was built in 1431 on an island and is reached by a five hundred yard walkway which gets covered up by the high tide and becomes walkable in the low tide. We went at low tide and it was fun to walk on the damp concrete past vendors with hundreds of Islamic worshipers. We weaved past people who were crippled and calling out prayers while worshipers gave them coins and made our way to the actual mosque. We were happily greeted and after watching people chanting and drumming for a while we made our way back to the mainland.

Chowpatty Beach

One evening we took a taxi to Chowpatty Beach which is far too polluted to swim at but has a really fun carnival atmosphere at night. One entrepreneur had a pink “power wheels” type vehicle that no longer worked but he had put a small boom box in the back and pushed around children for a few rupees. Every now and then he would turn off the radio and take a cigarette break. We sat in the sand and attracted a very large crowd of interested male youth who had a bunch of questions for us. After we started feeling a little claustrophobic we wandered over to the food vendors and I had my last- and possibly best- pista kulfi ( a delicious pistachio gelato-like thing). There were small Ferris wheels which are spun by having two or three carnival workers climb to the top one at a time and, holding onto the bars, used their body weight and gravity to keep the wheel spinning. We watched the sunset and headed back to Colaba.

The hustle and bustle of the Crawford Market was fun. There were stacks of all kinds of fruits and meat

Crawford Market

butchering areas, and Andy and I stocked up on spices and metal ware to take with us back to the States. Our time in India was coming to a close and we spent every spare moment walking up and down random streets and filling up on thalis, fresh ginger sodas, and delicious chicken tikka rolls.

Delicious chicken tikka rolls

There was a heavy Muslim presence in Mumbai which resulted in many wonderful meat dishes to sample- some of the best street food we had anywhere in India. Every morning when we’d stumble out of our hotel we’d grab a couple of juices from the stand on the street, and contemplate the fact that we were about to leave the country. The heat, the constant crowds and sensory overload, the colors, the food… all the things that had come to define India for us, that we’d grown accustomed to and fond of, all soon to be over with. Of course we weren’t going to miss everything; the hassles of India are plentiful, and we were definitely looking forward to returning to a place where we could blend into a crowd and not be constantly stared at and approached. All our time in Mumbai was filtered through this kind of bittersweet lens; swinging us from feelings of sadness to excitement depending on whether we were having a good or bad time at the moment, and taking the good with the bad is probably the single most definitive aspect of a trip to India.

Mumbai is one of the world’s largest cities with a population of around 19 million people in its metro area, so

Thalis and fresh ginger sodas

driving from Colaba in the south to the airport in the north of the city took a few hours. Our driver tried to overcharge us when we parted ways; a fitting farewell to India that made us smile. A fairly easy fifteen hour flight then took us to Newark, NJ, where our connecting flight was delayed several hours, causing us to miss our next connection in Atlanta. Eventually we landed in Portland, a tiring 48 hours after we’d stepped into the cab in Mumbai. We’d crossed more time zones than we were capable of remembering, so Andy purposefully kept his watch on Mumbai time so we’d know what time our bodies thought it was. Somewhere over Texas a seatmate had asked him what time it was; I watched him look at his watch, pause and consider some math and an explanation, and then just shook his head and say he didn’t know.

Goodbye India

Patnem

The far south of Goa’s coast has a reputation of being more laid back and undeveloped than the rest of the state’s beaches. It sounded good to us, so we caught a bus south from Panaji, headed for a place we’d been hearing about called Patnem beach. The minute we stepped off the bus something seemed different. Three different local shopkeepers saw us, smiled and said “welcome to Patnem!” Consider that the normal Indian shopkeeper’s sales pitch feels something like a body slam and you’ll know why we felt a little taken aback, and we suspected that an unusually smart chamber of commerce type thing was going on here. As we made our way down the short main street and walked onto the sand and looked around, we began to think that coming there had been a very good idea.

This was just outside our door

Patnem is a fairly small and curving stretch of beach, hemmed in on either side by headlands and forming a small exposed bay. Beach huts and restaurants sit back in the palm trees on shore completing the tropical paradise look, and I have to say the place is very nice. The water was perfect for swimming, the beach was just right for lazing, and in general conditions were perfect for complete relaxation. We found enough cheap and tasty restaurants to keep things interesting with both Indian and western food, and we ended up staying in a homey and clean plywood hut with it’s own bathroom, right off the beach for about $10 USD a night. There were a couple internet cafes and a barber up the street, and that’s about all we needed.

Patnem was…. perfect. That restless and bored feeling that occasionally overtook us in Arambol just never manifested in Patnem, and we were there for an entire month! During our stay the place was never crowded, ranging from moderately busy to just shy of eerily quiet. There was no techno music, and no weird hippy groupie scene. There were almost no roving trinket sellers on the beach to bug us, and even the shopkeepers stayed pretty mellow. For the way we were feeling at the time, the beach had that elusive balance between quiet, natural beauty and having plenty of places to get a good meal, and enough book exchanges to keep up our one or two book a day habit we soon found ourselves in.

Home sweet home

Our hut was painted light blue inside and out and had great light, and the place came complete with two huge and beautiful German Shepherds that hung out with us a lot. We positioned our little table and chairs outside the hut so that they weren’t directly under the coconuts that would occasionally fall with a scary sounding thud, and we learned to hug the eaves as we went in and out of our door to stay out of their trajectory.

A typical day went something like this: Wake up around 9 or 10am, and wander out to the ocean to take a little morning swim. Dry off in the shade with some coffee and oatmeal or fruit for breakfast (maybe $3 for both of us) at our hut hotel’s restaurant, while we read or play cards and discuss plans for today’s strenuous activities. Go for a walk/swim along the beach, maybe climbing over the headland to the adjacent beach where a five star hotel is set back in the palms, it’s guests paying hundreds of dollars a day. Suckers. It’s starting to heat up so maybe go read in the shade for a while at our hut, or hide in the AC for an hour at the internet cafe ($.75/hour) while we catch up on Google news and emails. Try to remember to wear sandals when we walk to our favorite lunch destination up the beach, the sand gets hot this time of day! Order that delicious hummus plate and salad, maybe a couple kingfisher beers (for a total of about $5), and read and relax for two or three hours in the cushioned floor seating area, running out for a few quick swims whenever we get hot. Take our books back to our hut and then go for another swim, doing some body-surfing if the waves are big enough. Play with Cookie and Cashew (the German Shepherds) for a while. Play some more cards. The sun is setting so it’s time to head to Papaya’s restaurant for their King’s beer (a good pilsner) happy hour, an incredible 12 rupees (less than a quarter) a beer between 4pm and 9pm, and either eat there or at one of our other favorite restaurants while we look for that elusive green flash sunset, never spending more than $10 and usually a lot less. Enjoy dinner and the cool nighttime temperatures with our toes in the sand, listening to the surf and watching the candles flickering up and down the beach. Go for another walk, then head back to the hut to read and a restful nights sleep under our mosquito net. Big plans for tomorrow, we need our rest.

Anyway, we averaged about $30 a day here in paradise, and man did the time ever fly by. We almost never left our little beach; one day we walked over the nearby and better-known Palolem beach, which was larger and much more crowded with tourists, and we immediately found ourselves wishing we were back at Patnem. We took a rickshaw a couple times to a nearby town to use the ATM, but never really had the impulse to explore; we were pretty spoiled in our little beach cocoon. Our most active days were when we rented the tandem kayak ($1/hour) from up the beach and paddled out through the surf to look for dolphins, which we always found. They would arc up past the surface of the water with a surprisingly loud puff of air, gracefully wowing us as they swam around. It was so cool to be out in the totally quiet kayak, rather than the stinky motorboats that took tourists out on expensive “dolphin cruises,” and we paddled a long ways up and down the coast on several occasions.

Before we knew it our time in Patnem, and Goa, was up. We were flying out of Mumbai in a week, and we had to get there to make sure we had enough time in that great city. I vividly remember walking toward the road and the bus stop as we left, and then deciding to have one more wade into the water. Standing there in that warm water with my backpack on, I wondered how we could actually leave our little paradise. I’m still wondering that as I write this now…

Panaji and Old Goa

We've since seen a travel show where the host sat exactly in this spot

Panaji is Goa’s capital. The town is small by Indian standards, with around 60,000 people, and it’s Portuguese heritage is evident from all the great European and Latin looking architecture as you wander around. The place is very walkable and atmospheric, there are tons of excellent restaurants, and it made for a nice place to spend a few days. With all its food and entertainment options we’d probably have stayed longer, if only it was on the beach! There’s a beach a few miles away, but being in a place like Goa but not right on the water, especially in the heat of March, was just too difficult for us.

Actually we were in Panaji with a purpose. Maybe you’ve heard of the rise in “medical tourism” over the last few years? Denae and I wanted to jump on that bandwagon. After not having been to the dentist in quite a while, we found a recommendation on an Indian travel forum online for a local dentist in Panaji and made an appointment.

First, though, I wanted to find a doctor to check out a minor but persistent lower left quadrant abdominal pain I’d been ignoring for the last few weeks. Our guidebook mentioned a public hospital just outside of town, so we took a cab there and proceeded to waste a couple hours wandering around trying to figure out where to check in. It was incredibly confusing, and keep in mind that India is at least a partially English speaking

cheap dentistry

country so it wasn’t just a language barrier issue. There were no signs, everything was maze-like, and I guess the people we kept asking for directions were just unusually bad at it. When we finally found the right place we were charged about 50 cents for some documents with my name and date of birth typed on them, and directed up to a crowded lobby. There were hundreds of people milling around waiting to see a doctor, and we were feeling pretty discouraged- this could easily be an eight hour wait. But after only a few minutes some officials hustled us to the front of the line and into the next room. In here were four doctors sitting at a long narrow table, and they would talk a few minutes to patients and then send them on their way. We figured this was some kind of initial check to see where to send patients next, but when it was my turn we found out differently. The doctor asked a few cursory questions, I briefly described my symptoms, and he wrote out a description for a couple medications and sent me on my way. That was it. He didn’t ask if I had any allergies, he didn’t examine me in any way, he barely even talked to me. When I said, wait, is it possible to get an ultrasound or something, he sighed and scribbled something out. Show this to the people downstairs, he said. They’ll probably fit you in in two or three weeks.

Wow. We bought the drugs from the pharmacy for about $1.50 before we left, but I decided not to take them. As we left we reflected on the fact that by comparison to the locals, who’d faced an eight hour wait for the same non-treatment, we’d just been treated like royalty. So if you’re planning on doing a little medical tourism of your own in India, plan on paying the still amazingly inexpensive (compared to the US) rates for a private hospital. The Indians who have to depend on the public hospitals for care have a difficult road to follow.

The next day we went to the dentist. Thankfully it seemed clean and modern, the dentist seemed competent although

Pepper

maybe a bit cursory, and we had a good experience. He gave us a cleaning and a clean bill of dental health, for about $10 each. He also gave us a recommendation for a local doctor, who I made an appointment with for the next day. I’ll spare you all the details, but over a couple days I ended up seeing a good doctor, getting an ultrasound and blood/urine/stool analysis all for about $30. Each test was in a different area of town and the logistics were more than a minor inconvenience, but everything seemed to be done well and it was cheap. The result? I had giardia and E. coli, both of which tend to produce much worse symptoms than the minor stomach pain I experienced. The treatment? Pretty much the same pills prescribed to me by the public hospital doctor. Draw your own conclusions.

While we were in Panaji we also took a day trip out to a nearby “spice plantation” called the Tropical Spice Farm, near the town of Ponda. There are several of these spice farms in the area, and they’re popular tourist attractions. We paid an entrance fee and took a guided tour around the grounds, where they had an impressive selection of spices growing, including pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, vanilla, ginger, beetle nut, and others. They also grew cashew nuts and fruits, which were pretty good and the source of Goa’s famous (and delicious!) cashew feni liquor. The tour was definitely a touristy experience, but fun, and it was cool to see all those spices in their original form. Included in our admission fee was a buffet style thali meal, and it was one of the best meals of our trip.

The Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa

On the way back to Panaji we stopped in Old Goa, a former capital of Portuguese Goa. Now it mostly consists of some interesting old buildings and churches, and a couple so-so museums. The most famous building here is the Basilica of the Bom Jesus, a large ornate church built in the 1600’s. It houses the remains of St. Francis Xavier, who died back in the 1500’s. He was buried for two years before being exhumed to be moved back to his preferred resting place of Goa, when it was supposedly discovered that his body had not decayed in any way. It was/is considered a miracle, and to this day many people are attracted to this place because of him. His remains are displayed every ten years.

Arambol

Arambol's beach

After visiting the Ellora caves we didn’t stay long in Aurangabad. There was more we could have seen, but we were anxious to head to our long awaited next destination: the beaches of Goa! We’d been waiting a long time to get some beach time in, so we were pretty excited. Goa is a small state in India, unique in many ways compared to the rest of the country. It was actually a Portuguese colony until 1961, and it’s primarily Christian rather than Hindu or Muslim. Back in the 60’s and 70’s it was a major destination on the hippie trail, and over time much of the state’s coastline has developed into quite a mainstream tourist destination. Many of the various towns draw in a crowd of package tourists and travelers looking for the techno raves that the area is known for, although authorities have apparently been cracking down and the party scene is dying. Even though many (most?) Americans have never heard of the place, Goa is a well-known hotspot for Europeans, sort of like Cancun is for Americans. If you’ve seen the movie The Bourne Supremacy, Goa is also where Jason Bourne’s girlfriend was killed.

Anyway, we weren’t interested in going to any packaged tourism spots or techno parties, so we headed to Arambol in the far north of Goa, which are guidebook said was a laid-back place with an enduring hippie vibe. It sounded good, so from Aurangabad we caught a night sleeper bus to Mapusa, Goa, and from there took an absurdly crowded local bus on to Arambol. That local bus reminded us of a contradiction of physics that often occurs in India, in which spaces are filled to capacity- and then far beyond. We were standing in the aisle with so many other people that it seemed impossible to pick up anyone else, yet the bus kept stopping and people just kept shoving their way in, until nobody could move at all. It’s no exaggeration to say that without seeing it him or herself, anyone in the US would not believe how many people can crowd onto an Indian bus.

We never did see a green flash, but we kept looking for one every evening

Looking out the windows we kept seeing white skinned tourists zipping around on motorcycles and scooters, and tourists walking along the road. A lot of them were pretty skimpily clothed, and it felt strange to see all this fair skin and be back in a place that was touristy enough for women to walk around in a bikini top and not be mobbed by local men. Eventually the bus driver yelled that we’d reached our destination, and we elbowed our way off the bus. We asked directions toward the beach, and after a short walk down another road we found ourselves on the main street of Arambol. It was a fairly long road packed on both sides with restaurants and shops, most of them selling clothing. Lots of tourists were walking around, and there were a lot of dreadlocks and people dressed in hippy backpacker clothes. We still hadn’t made it to the beach, and all of the motorcycles and crowds were starting to get to us, so as soon as we could we took a turn off and walked straight down to the ocean.

Standing ankle deep in the warm water, with our backpacks still on, we both breathed a sigh of relief. We’d made it. After almost six months of sometimes chaotic and stressful traveling around India and Nepal, we felt that we’d earned some lazy beach time. It doesn’t tend to be too culturally meaningful, but doing nothing on a beautiful warm beach for a while can be absolutely wonderful. We’d given ourselves over a month in Goa to soak in the sun and relaxation, and give ourselves a break from long journeys and hard traveling. First, though, we had to find a place to stay. We checked out a variety of charming looking thatch huts at the edge of the beach, but they all seemed a little too expensive (most of you reading this would probably still consider them dirt cheap; it’s all relative) so after a while we went inland a bit and found a decent and inexpensive hotel room. On the beach it’s also nice to have a concrete structure with barred windows and a secure door, because we wouldn’t be carrying our passports and money belts with us while we were swimming.

Not a bad place to be a cow

Arambol’s beach was wide and long enough that when we hiked south for an hour and a half one day we turned around because the sun was frying our skin, not because we’d reached the end. There were lots of beach hut restaurants where we could grab a meal and a kingfisher, and at the north end of the beach was a headland with lots of permanent buildings containing hotels and some excellent and cheap eateries. We ate really well in Arambol, and there was a good mix of Indian, western and other Asian fare to choose from, so we were never bored with our options. There was even one restaurant that served good Mexican food (tex-mex really, but we like that too), the only decent Mexican food we found on this trip in fact. Lots of tourists were around but it usually didn’t feel overly crowded, and we could always find some relative solitude if we looked for it.

We spent our time swimming in the nice warm water, strolling or laying on the beach, reading, and hanging out in restaurants. Most evenings we’d catch a movie being shown for free with our dinner. We kept saying maybe the next day we’d rent a scooter and go explore the area, but just never got around to it. After a few days we moved to a beach hut accommodation that was better located near the sand and restaurants we liked. In general it was really nice to kick back and unwind. That might sound funny to some readers, who are probably thinking about the fact that we hadn’t had a job for six months at this point, but this was a vacation, and while budget backpacking is almost always fun in some way or another, it definitely doesn’t always feel like a vacation.

So in general we liked Arambol and had fun there, but not everything about the place was endearing to us. For one thing there was a lot of techno music, and we’re not fans. I mentioned earlier that Goa is kind of known for techno, but we’d expected more of a laid back Bob Marley type soundtrack at a place known as a hippy hangout. At night there would usually be a loud techno rave-type party somewhere on the beach with a hundred or so travelers dancing druggily to the beat. Not our scene. And the whole “hippy vibe” thing ended up being a bit of a turn off for us, because it mostly seemed to consist of a bunch of travelers wearing variations of the same pirate clothing that was for sale at every shop along the road. It felt contrived to me.  And it was pretty crowded at times.  In general the place didn’t quite suit us perfectly, and in the middle of most days while we were there we’d find ourselves feeling kind of antsy and bored, but only for an hour or so. Anyway, after eight days we decided to move on.

If you happen to be a Chaco sandal rep, yes we will sell you this photo

Ajanta and Ellora caves

Ajanta

From Ahmedabad we took an eight hour or so night train headed east to the hub town of Jalgaon, and upon arrival immediately made our way to the bus station to catch a ride to the famous Ajanta caves about two hours away. The bus drivers know where to drop you- basically a wide spot on the highway- and from there you just walk through the parking area into a kind of tourist mall filled with vendors and food shacks. There weren’t many tourists around when we were there so all the vendors were pretty desperate for business and we felt like we were running some kind of gauntlet making our way through. We bought our tickets for the transport bus that takes visitors the few miles further to the cave area entrance, checked our backpacks, and suddenly found ourselves walking up the long flight of stairs to the Ajanta Caves.

A typical interior

Beautiful carvings

We were pretty exited, as we’d been hearing rave reviews from other travelers about these caves for months, and we weren’t disappointed. Ajanta is a complex of 29 separate caves cut into the cliffs of a curving river gorge. Walking up and seeing the first dramatic views of the area was an incredible experience, which only got better as we explored inside the various caves. The oldest ones date from the second century BC, and are primarily of Buddhist origin. Some of the caves have beautiful original artwork and murals that are still in remarkable condition, and almost all of the caves are filled with amazing sculpture and architecture. There was restoration and preservation work happening in various places, and many of the caves had surprisingly good low level unobtrusive lighting that allowed us to see just well enough inside the otherwise dark interiors. All in all an amazing place that is well worth seeing.

After several hours of exploring we headed back to the entrance, grabbed our backpacks, and made it back to the highway where we flagged down a bus to take us the few hours further down the road to Aurangabad. Our guidebook had a list of what sounded like semi-interesting historical sights for us to visit here, but the only one we had the energy to visit was the Bibi Ka Maqbara, more often referred to as the “poor man’s Taj Mahal.” As you can see from the picture, the nickname describes it rather well.

The poor man's Taj, a little run down but still pretty cool

Inside the Kailash temple complex

We’d come to Aurangabad to use it as a base to visit the Ellora Caves, about 20 miles outside of town. They were built between the fifth and tenth century, and in our opinion these caves were even more incredible than Ajanta. Ellora is a group of 34 caves and excavated structures, the highlight of which was Kailasanatha Temple- for us this astounding temple ranks right up there with the Taj Mahal. It’s a huge, multi-story building designed to resemble Mount Kailash, intricately designed and executed. It’s twice the size of the Parthenon in Greece, but its most amazing aspect is that this structure was actually carved out of a single piece of rock. That’s right, this is the largest monolithic structure in the world; the builders removed 200,000 tons of rock from the sloping cliff face over a period of 100 years, leaving a freestanding temple surrounded by a large courtyard and intricate caves. We wandered around here for hours, feeling absolutely awestruck.

Kailash temple from the front

Kailash Temple from above

I just can't stop uploading photos of that darn Kailash temple...

The rest of Ellora was almost equally as amazing. There are Buddhist, Hindu and Jain sections all built in different eras,

and the scale and craftsmanship of some of the structures is mind-boggling. In general, Ajanta and especially Ellora were true highlights of our time in India. They’re a little out of the way and hard to get to, but anyone in India who has the time should make sure and see them.

Hey, what's making that squeaking sound?

good times...

Ahmedabad

After a few days in Udaipur we parted ways with Mark and Allison, who caught a flight to Mumbai and then out of India. We stuck around for a while and then boarded a train for Ahmedabad. It’s a very large city, pretty far off the tourist trail, with a high percentage of Muslim residents that lends it a different feeling compared to most other places we’ve been in India. We only spent a couple days here, but enjoyed spending time in a place where tourism doesn’t feel like a major factor. The food was great, the wandering interesting, and we especially liked our visit to Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram.

Our train arrived in Ahmedabad at about 4am, so we knew finding a hotel was going to be a bit of an issue. Our auto-rickshaw driver made it even more challenging when he proved to be determined to try and “help” us find a hotel so he could get a commission for taking us there; a commission that we would pay in the form of higher room rates. We asked him to drop us off at a theater as a neutral starting point, and had to repeatedly yell at him to not take us to the hotel he had in mind. Then when we got out the driver parked and tried to follow us on foot to whatever hotel we’d end up finding. He was persistent, even sticking around outside when we sat in a restaurant for an hour to kill time. In the end I had to really confront the guy to get him to leave us alone. That kind of thing happens all the time in India though, and by now we were used to it. Eventually we found an open hotel with a reasonably priced room (after waking up four guys sleeping in another hotel’s lobby, and then leaving them pretty irritated when the room was too expensive and we walked out) and had ourselves a nice nap.

Walking around the city was fun and exhausting. It was hot and very busy with tons of traffic and people walking

Gandhi's simple ashram

everywhere, and there were lots of interesting shops and restaurants to check out. We ate some good street food from some of the many carts around town, and found an Afghani restaurant that had curries and paneer so delicious that we went back twice. The portions were big and we wrapped up our leftovers and gave them to a man begging on the street; his extreme gratitude was humbling. So many experiences in India make us realize how lucky we are to be from a place and situation where we can save up enough money in several months to be so wealthy compared to so many people here. Even in they don’t realize it, Americans and folks from other first world nations are incredibly privileged. Later that evening we went to a night market where there were lots of neat textiles and clothing for sale, and we ate some more great street food. We also enjoyed some kulfi, one of our favorite Indian desserts. It’s a frozen milk treat similar to ice cream, but denser, and it comes in flavors like pistachio and cardamom that are not often seen in the US.

The highlight of our stay in Ahmedabad was Sabarmati Ashram, which was founded by Gandhi in 1917. Many of the tourists who come to Ahmedabad are drawn almost solely by this place, where Gandhi lived for many years and worked towards Indian independence. Now the place is a museum commemorating this amazing man, and it was a powerful experience to see exhibits and artifacts from his life.