Back home again in the Mussoorie aerie

Quick note: we arrived safe and sound back to a clean cold house -- it's sunny, but the temperature is 15 degrees in the sun(60f) , dropping rapidly at sunset!
More later. Also note that I will add more photos to past postings, as well.

Barb's Day in Delhi

Barb's Day in Delhi
Back in Delhi, we are staying in the comfortable upstairs guest suite of the parents of Woodstock colleague Shikha Mehta -- the newest French teacher. As Coleman was under the weather with tummy troubles again, Jeff stayed with him and I ventured out to see some sights with Chris. We were driven in Shihka's car by a friend of the family who knew the city well. First on our list of "must-sees" was the Sacred Heart Cathredral near the YWCA where we stayed last time we were in Delhi. We lucked into arriving just in time for the 11:30 mass in English - the church was packed so we stood in the back. Both of us marveled at our ease in participating in this Catholic service in the heart of India - the Apostle's Creed, Lord's Prayer, responses, passing of the peace, the call to Communion, the praise hymns - all comfortingly familar.

We then moved on to the nearby Free Church, a Church of North India congregation. The sign outside announced that we had just missed the English service, but we wondered how they heard the service while a BJP (political party) protester blasted out his amplified message across the street. Imagine our surprise when we entered the Free Church grounds to join the congregation already enjoying coffee hour to find that they were silent - all signing to each other! Guess this hearing impaired congregation didn't mind the protester!

Next, we drove to the other end of Dehi to the ISKCON Temple, a modern temple complex built by the Hare Krishnas. What a lively group we met in the worship hall, with chanting and dancing, giving offerings to the gold and jeweled deities in each of several gold shuttered windows. We declined an invitation to join chanters in the outdoor labyrinth area, but went straight to the temple restaurant, with the reputation of one of the best vegetarian meals in Delhi. Alas, it was closed due to a private wedding function, so we settled for a quick veg puff and pizza slice from the canteen. I was curious about the religion that spawned such a place as this, so I dragged Chris to the sound and light show - our driver who had joined in the singing and dancing in the worship hall came willingly. Billed as the "Bhagavad-Gita Experience," it promised to "revolutionize your understanding of life, the universe, and yourself." It was a half hour of indoctrination, but rather well done - not Disney's animatronics, but interesting enough. We came away understanding the Hare Krishnas a little more, and appreciating our religion a litte better. I did receive one gift of insight from the experience - part of the Hare Krishna religion that is similar to Christianity is the understanding that the body is temporal, the soul eternal. I recently received news about the accidental death of the oldest son of dear friends in Ossining - the reminder that the spirit of this young man will live eternally was comforting.

The Lotus Temple was a short drive away - the Baha'i house of worship. Built in the the shape of a lotus blossom, it was surrounded by nine pools and beautiful gardens. The interior was moving in its simplicity. There was no program, only those who came to meditate and pray or observe. Plans for the ample acreage include schools, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the poor and aged. Though based on teachings of the Bab ("Gate") and his followers, the faith promotes itself as an institution "inviting peoples of all religions and races to worship the Creator of the Universe and to express the love between God and man." We left there feeling at peace, having enjoyed the beauty of the surroundings and the calm of the guides (some of whom spoke in recognizable American English and very good Hindi!)

Our last stop of the day was Qutb Minar. At the ticket counter, I showed my passport and working papers to pay the ticket price for locals, not the inflated rate for foreign tourists (guess I have finally arrived!) The tower of the Minar, typically used to call the faithful to prayer, stands an amazing 73 meters tall in a complex of Islamic ruins dating back to the 1100's. Chris and I wandered the grounds as the sunset light cast long shadows through the mosques and tombs - the perfect ending to the perfect day. India has done a commendable job at preserving its architectural and historical treasures.

Last Full Day in Goa

Last Full Day in Goa
Yes, it is our last day here in footloose fancy-free paradise, where every day is sunny and hot, but the beach is clean, the water is warm, and the breezes are cooling. We have been recharged here, relaxing and refreshing with our Woodstock colleagues...we are almost ready to return "home" to our softer beds and hot-water showers and quieter streets (the tourist paradise comes with taxis and buses and horns honking and vendors insistently calling), and the routine of school, and faster free internet connections. (My nifty Dell laptop's power tap failed in December, so I have been without a computer for this many weeks!)

We have also frankly been feeling the cost, now tapping into old savings to fund this part of the vacation. We moved a few days ago into a smaller place at Tansy's Guest House, to save money...it's still eighty bucks a night (at my Woodstock rate of exchange... for an American salary, that would only be 20 USdollars).

Yesterday we rented a motor scooter for the day, at a total cost of 40 bucks (again, only 10 USdollars). It was a surprisingly new Honda Activa, maximum speed about 60kph. This was mostly for Christopher's benefit, as his good friend Ben (also here in Goa) got to ride a scooter for his 15th birthday this week. I drove Barb and Cole to the beach, then took Chris for a ride -- then let him drive on a deserted beach road, and also practice in an empty parking lot. He was thrilled, and did reasonably well. But he was sorely disappointed when, in preparing for taking his reluctant mother for a ride, he miscalculated a slow turn in the parking lot, and ran over a large rock that caused him to tip over. Curses! So, Mom walked back to the beach, and Dad took the reins for a little while. And yet, And yet, he did get to drive a scooter!
We then went out to eat with Ben and family, as it's their last likely time in Goa -- after 7 years in Mussoorie, they plan to return to Tennessee this summer. We will all miss them.

Today, I had originally planned to take a public bus up to old Goa. But that would be counter to our trend here: relax and recharge with friends on the beach. So we resolved to spend the day recharging for the semester to come.

Sunday in Goa

Where has the time gone? Another week in paradise, it seems, where one sunny day leads to another. Yesterday we held a short family meeting to review our Goa Goals -- they mostly involve resting on the beach, though the boys would like to snorkel, or rent bikes, and Chris is especially anxious to rent a motor scooter! J hopes to visit some old Portuguese churches as well, before our return on the 20th.

This morning we took an auto-rickshaw (three-wheeled motorcycle taxi, often abbreviated "auto") to a suburb of the main town, Madgaon (or Margao, in Portuguese), to the Gogol Christian Centre where the Bartons are leaders of this freeform evangelical church. About 70 worshipers attended, mostly locals, along with several Woodstock folks like us. The service was mostly in English, led by a revolving committee of 5 men, including James Barton, who preached today. They started with a Very Long sequence of praise hymns interspersed with public prayer. Dr.Barton's sermon showed his training as a teacher, with a careful and logical development of his themes.
After the 2-hour service, he introduced us to a few people, then drove us to the nearby "auto" stand.
... we waited 10 minutes in the very hot sun, to no avail. Then a kind elderly gentleman picked us up -- a retired Goan entomologist with experience in California and Argentina and Portugal, chatted as he drove us into town. We ate a desultory sandwich at Longuinhos, the surviving colonial restaurant, and wondered what life was like in 1960, as a real Portuguese town. Then we took an "auto" back to our guest-house, and headed for the beach to cool off.

Coleman joins a birthday party in New York

After several confirming replying emails, we got to a cyber-cafe, and started up Yahoo Messenger at 9:30 this morning so that Coleman could IM his buddies at Alex's birthday party on Friday night. They enjoyed messaging back and forth for 30 minutes -- we could only imagine the excitement on the other end, as a group of other now-12-year-olds competed to type on the keyboard to their buddy in India. Coleman certainly misses his friends, but this helped keep up the connection.

Goa warmth continues

This morning we visited James and Willi Barton's house, here in the beach town -- Benaulim -- where most Woodstock staff stay in Goa. The Bartons have lived in India off and on since 1969, when they taught in Bombay along with our dear friend Susheel's mother. In 1977 they moved to Woodstock for a dozen years; they are thus our first Woodstock connection. And they have obviously touched many lives, both during their time in Bombay, and in Woodstock, and now here in Goa. The group photo shows many of our colleagues and friends from Mussoorie, with the Bartons on the bottom step.

On The Beach, at last

We finally arrive in Goa, after a pleasant but lengthy train ride through beautiful terrain, as the weather grew notable warmer. We've spent 2 nights so far at Tansy's Guest House -- actually an apartment with 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen with refrigerator and gas burners and sink. No hot water, but it's not really needed. The place is a bit big for us and our budget, so we'll likely downsize and hopefully move a bit closer to the beach soon. But, we'll host a birthday party tonight for Christopher's classmate Ben Henderson -- we'll all go out to the Lucky Star restaurant for real beefsteak first!

Goa retains only a little of the Portuguese flavor, at least publicly, as most of the streetside vendors are migrants from surrounding states, and little old construction remains in the beach towns -- there's lots of new construction evident, for retirees and wealthier beach bums.

We delight in meeting Woodstock friends at every corner, here in Benaulim, a relatively peaceful beach town that apparently caters mostly to expatriates of various stripes.
Sunday morning, several of us Woodstockers gathered at a beach place for an informal worship service.

the Mumbai Darshan

January 6th :
We sought out a standard local tour, the Mumbai Darshan. After a taxi ride and long wait, some helpful doormen at the Sachin Tendulkar restaurant found our guide, and we joined the tour, in progress. We rode in front, in the driver's compartment -- the guide would tell us quickly about the sites in English, then turn to his microphone to inform the rest of the bus in Hindi. We went to the waterfront, for a brief but pleasant boat ride into the bay; then to the rather decrepit Toreporewa Aquarium, and a quick lunch at the nearby Canteen. And a nice stop at the Hanging Gardens and Nehru Park overlooking the city. Chris and Cole got their picture taken with the snake charmer there. And our last stop was at Mahalaxmi Temple, walking through back alleys to a crowded shrine to the main Hindu goddess of wealth -- a very important place in Bombay! The rubbish and dirt all around is unimportant -- just bring offerings to Lakshmi. [In the Muslim and Sikh shrines we've visited, taking off shoes seems appropriate -- the shrine is kept immaculate, to contrast with the outside world. But Hindu temples are not necessarily cleaner than their surroundings.]
After leaving the temple, we also left the tour bus, and got a taxi to Dr. Misra's clinic in north Bombay. Shivamkar Misra is a good friend and classmate of Coleman's. They welcomed us to their apartment atop the clinic, for snacks and chat. Then Dr.Misra drove us (with Shivamkar) to the nearby suburban movie theater, to see "Bluffmaster". Barb had long wanted to see a Bollywood movie in Bombay. This expensive tale of fraud and plot twists was especially fun, because most of the scenes were in Bombay, right where we had toured earlier that day!
After the movie, Shivamkar directed us to the nearby McDonald's, where we enjoyed the airconditioned sanitary surroundings along with much of Bombay's upper-middle class families (again, we were the only non-Indian faces evident). We took a taxi back, dropping Shivamkar off at his house.
January 7th: The next morning, a 4:30 taxi to Dadar Station -- the rattletrap taxi got a flat tire within sight of the station! No problem. The driver quickly switched tires, got us right there in plenty of time. We managed without any porters.

It's Morning in Mumbai!

January 5th,
In Bombay's Victoria Terminus (now called Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) we again ran the gauntlet of porters and taxi-wallahs, though this time I was not prepared -- still we paid a couple of porters a hundred rupees to carry some bags a hundred yards to their friend the taxi guy, who then haggled through a long negotiation about our destination (about which I, it turned out, was mistaken) and the price. But we got a tour of Bombay out of it, and finally arrived at the Methodist Center -- the headquarters for the Methodist Church in India, where the top two floors are reserved for guest rooms: Spartan, clean, safe, methodist. The Bishop of Hyderabad was staying there as well, in town for some meetings. He reminisced about Woodstock and property transfers (the Presbyterian and Methodist churches used to own most of the houses around Woodstock School, but recently transferred all title to the Church of North India Woodstock Trust). The Methodist Center is located near the YMCA, and near Mumbai Central Station. Also, by the way, it's warm. In this city, anything below 20 degrees (68fahrenheit) is Cold. We were hot and sweaty for the first time in several months!
After learning the proper price for a taxi, we negotiated a ride to the Gateway Of India for 70 rupees, and battled the horde of persistent vendors and touts and tourguides to escape into town to seek a nice lunch -- Christopher got a real steak sandwich! Jeff got a real draft beer, at Cafe Mondegar! We walked a bit more, but all were tired, so we went back to Victoria Terminus to see the outrageous colonial architecture, and caught a cab back to the guest house. We walked that evening to a nearby "family vegetarian" restaurant (Christopher: "But I'm not a vegetarian, so I can't eat here!"), for South-Indian forms of pizza and spaghetti and curry. This area is not a standard tourist area, so we were the only non-Indian faces evident. This was surprising -- it felt like we got more stares (and even hisses, Barb reports) in Bombay than anywhere else.

Wongdhen House in Delhi

January 4th:
...surprisingly quiet and cool, except for the occasional cry of the various vendors who passed through the lanes. The Tibetan Colony is a collection of concrete apartment blocks built on the banks of the Yamuna River by the government about 40 years ago to help resettle refugees -- many opened guest houses and restaurants there. We enjoyed the view of the river -- quite low during this dry season, but with crops grown in the floodplain area.
Jeff enjoyed chatting with a French family, just arrived for the start of their 8-month journey through Asia, with three boys. We then hired 2 pedicabs for a ride to the metro station (the new subway system in Delhi is marvelous), and thence to Connaught Place and a special lunch at Subway's! Tuna or Turkey sub sandwiches were quite a treat.
We walked on down Parliament Street toward the YWCA, right into the path of a big parade in honor of Sikh Guru Nanak's birthday! [photo TK]
Then we picked up two bags left in storage at the Y, and walked back to the metro, this time encountering Big Crowds at the ticket booths. Security in the metro is heavy -- every traveler passes through a metal detector and a bag-search by gun-toting soldiers -- but all moved efficiently, and the crowds are merely self-centered, not vicious. It stands to reason that this densely-populated country would have a much narrower sense of personal space than in Europe or America. Brushing against other people is not cause for apology, nor is squeezing up together in a queue -- but it's not, strictly speaking, pushy or violent, nor particularly competitive. I think of this attitude as: "me first; but if you get there before me, then I'll be content with second, it's our karma". There are plenty of road accidents, but no apparent "road rage" or action directed at beating another. Thus, in queues like the metro ticket booth, we have learned to simply press forward into any available space, and accept the press of the queue.
We returned to Wongdhen House, asked the very hospitable owner to arrange for a taxi to Nizamuddin Station. Because we knew that station is a mess, and we now had 10 bags to carry, we arranged for a porter to carry 6 of them onto our reserved train, for an expensive (unbargained) 120rupees. We settled easily into the 8-person compartment, and the boys claimed the top bunks immediately. Only one of our traveling companions was at all talkative -- a Revlon sales rep from Bombay. The other single gentleman said almost nothing the entire trip; another mother-daughter couple got on later, but also remained quiet. The train car was "A/C", thus climate-controlled, with a nice constant temperature throughout. The only bother was a loud precocious 2-year-old in the neighboring compartment! Attendants came along regularly with goodies, like bottled water, our linens and blankets, appetizer tray, dinner tray, yogurt, ice cream, breakfast ("veg? or non-veg?" is the only choice in meals). The scheduled 18-hour trip took 20 hours, but we were in no hurry...all went uneventfully.

Departure from Agra

January 3rd,
we departed from Agra as scheduled, after resting all afternoon at the hotel, then taxi to the train station for our uneventful trainride back to Delhi.
I felt more self-assured this time to run the gauntlet of the taxi-wallahs, as the Wongdhen House owner had told me it should cost 180 to 200 rupees for the cab ride.
When the first guy who latched on to us offered 300 rupees, I just said no, that's too expensive, they told me it should be 180 rupees. He complained about night-time charges, and queue charges, and other charges. I just kept walking toward the head of the taxi queue. "250 rupees!" I just kept walking to the head of the taxi queue. "o.k., o.k., 200 rupees." I turned around, he pointed me to his "colleague" who drove us north to the Tibetan Colony near the famous Sikh shrine of Majnu-ka-Tilla. The driver was the wildest we've had, but he nicely asked around to find the place -- at the last point, one young guy that he asked simply hopped in the front seat and rode with us through some narrow alleys, and pointed us right to Wongdhen House. By now it's midnight, but I had phoned earlier in the day to confirm our arrival, so the doorkeeper let us in, gave us keys, and pointed us to our rooms upstairs. Plain, simple, and the mattresses were (typically) hard, but all was quite clean.

More New Year Reports from Agra

The new year continues in Agra, after making the obligatory rounds of the carpet and marble-inlay handicraft workshops, and drinking the obligatory round of tea and discussing relative merits of single- or double-knotted carpets. We disappointed a few salesmen. But our well-connected auto-rickshaw driver helped us find just the right rugs -- simple, hand-woven dhurries. These and a tiny marble elephant will remind us of our time in Agra, in addition to the wonderful memories of the Taj Mahal.

Agra has evidently been designated by the government as a tourist/handicraft zone, since regular more-polluting industry was banned from the area ten years ago in an attempt to reduce pollution damage to the monuments. Those efforts are apparent, in that Agra is notably less polluted than Delhi. There is also a lower sales tax, as well as tax incentives for handicraft workshops.

Barb made the final trip to the rug exporters today, and bid farewell to Nasher, our helpful auto-rickshaw driver. We now restfully await our evening train back to Delhi, en route to Wongdhen Tibetan Guest House for the night.

The family seems to be back in healthy shape now, due in part to healthy food and the relaxing days we spent here in Agra.

Happy New Year in Agra

Happy New Year from Agra. The stomach bug kept Coleman from enjoying the sumptuous buffet -- they even offered beef sausages! We took a few items up to the room, but even on New Year's Day he was still feeling badly, so we called for the hotel doctor -- he confirmed the stomach-bug diagnosis, but prescribed a few extra medications.
At midnight, New Year's Eve, we watched the local news channel NDTV ineptly showing several parties in Delhi and Calcutta and Bombay, and saw a few fireworks in the hotel courtyard. Then, the next morning we enjoyed watching CNN showing the ball drop in TimesSquare!
Yesterday we visited the "baby Taj" (built earlier, a likely model for the Taj), and went to the riverbank across from the Taj Mahal to view it at sunset -- rather eerie, with occaional bonfires flaring at the cremation site just upriver from the Taj, and the very low level of the river Yamuna increasing the pollution stench. Barb and Coleman were befriended by a young camel driver and an earnest college student selling souvenir books. Our auto-rickshaw driver drove us to "Zorba the Buddha" restaurant for a healthy vegetarian dinner, then to the hotel to rest.
We awoke at 6 in order to get to the Taj Mahal proper before sunrise -- a beautiful site then, because there are so few tourists and "guides" around.

Chris and Cole were actually quite impressed, both with the sight itself and with the knowledge that "this is one of the Wonders of the World" -- but both were impatient to leave, get breakfast... so we took them back to the hotel, and I went off to try (in vain) to change some train tickets to more reasonable times and to update this weblog. Consider it done. Hope all are well!