Ranthambhore

Ranthambhore

Sawai Madhopur is the town about five miles from a national wildlife preserve called Ranthambhore.  That became our next destination, so that in lieu of more temples and forts, we could possibly see some of the few tigers in the wild.  The park boasts 53 of them. Or 40 of them, depending on which of our two guides you ask.  Both are quite assured in their answers.

The train to Sawai Madhopur was at a great hour in terms of the lighting.  It was just a two hour jaunt, but even for a short distance it underlined the need for second or first class seating only.  Anything less is quite rough.  The only other thing of note was the sighting of an odd animal.  Belinda saw one on her side of the train about the same time I saw one out my window.  It kind of took me aback.  Walking along the tracks was an animal that looked like a horse head had been placed on a shallow-bodied cow.   Turns out it was a nilgai, a large antelope.  Yet another animal I can add to my list of new sights.  Odd looking critter.  A brief internet search led to a description of them on the King Ranch in south Texas, where you can even go hunt them.  Brilliant.  Judging by what I saw, it would be a lot like hunting cattle, a real reach.

The city can’t be described as a one-horse town, since there are a few of them.  In terms of camels, it is much bigger.  The population is apparently several thousand, but little seems to go on, except the market area.  Arriving there at night, we seemed privileged to be on the edge of town in sturdy structures.  In fact within there was a respectable courtyard with a swimming pool in the center of the four buildings.  Timing was also good, as there was a wedding reception going on across the street.  The ceremony had reportedly been in the morning, but from about 8 to 11 p.m., there were fireworks, a well-lit field, cars coming and going.  The field was well groomed (intended), and lights were strung throughout the fenceline and walls, as well as on the adjacent buildings. Photo flashes were sporadic, nice television-quality video cameras were roaming.  It was an all-out affair.

The next morning I went for a 10k run, out and back on the road out of town, taking me toward the northwest corner of the wildlife sanctuary.  The folks weren’t as cheerful and vocal and smiling as they had been in Udaipur, but a few guys called out.  Some smiled.  A couple, including the guy on the camel-pulled cart, were taken aback by a namaste.  But for the most part, after the first kilometer, it was semi-rural, with occasional driveways into other hotels, a little neighborhood, or a trail into an empty field.  Traffic was much less consistent than on the edge of Udaipur.  The roadside was lined with paths blazed by those without other means than ambulation, as well as by the javelinas and cattle.  It was actually ideal for running, as it paralleled the road but was more interesting, with weaving and undulations.  I was happy, as I had brought my recently purchased trail running shoes (tip of the hat to David Hsu).  The running went more slowly.  All the same, I am thinking that I have Strava’s the King of the Mountain for those segments nailed.

The thoughts that come to mind when the single task of running is present:

• ·         Just how tall is the fencing along this sanctuary that is known to harbor tigers?
• ·         What are these hogs like away from masses of people?  Reckon they hold any resentment for their treatment?
• ·         Numerous monkeys sitting along the wall.  Any chance a runner sparks their interest enough to harass me?  All the same I stayed on the side of the road opposite them.  Turns out they couldn’t have cared less.  Of course, I didn’t have any gastronomic temptations with me either.

There were no problems to report in the end, and a good time was had by all participants.

The same afternoon and the following morning were spent in vehicles bumping along the unpaved, frequently cobblestoned double-track of the Ranthambhore National Park.  The holy grail is the tiger, of course, but to spoil the ending, I will tell you that it was not attained.  Reportedly one was seen the morning of my run by one jeep.  It was still worthwhile, though I enjoyed the jeep that seats six kibitzers in addition to the driver and the guide over the canter, an open-topped vehicle on a van or pickup chassis, which seats about 22, depending on how tightly you pack everyone.  I can assure you, it would take one dense tiger to come within eyesight of the canter as it squeaks over every rock, a sound left to compete with the chatterings of the classic guys who continuously throw out one-liners and negative remarks.  On our trip it was a Brit: “We might as well give up looking for tigers and start looking for dragons.”  It was a line that I think tickled him greatly, as it was reiterated to various audiences.

After two trips, the pattern was clear, that the guests should be driven around for about an hour and a half, then several vehicles could meet up in a clearing where everyone could stretch their legs and entertain themselves with conversation and the gregarious birds for a half hour, followed by another hour of attempts at sightings along similar routes.  The result was sightings of various interesting animals, bolstered by a flurry of sightings on the way out of the park.  Zamba and spotted deer, a sawscale viper (a wee one), a crocodile, a couple of brown owls, parrots, and plenty of blackfooted monkeys.  Several types of birds were pointed out, having names I can’t recall.  But the great coup was after we had left the park, as the sun was dropping, the air cooling, the light more golden.  On the road back to town, we crested a hill to see several jeeps stopped below.  Rather than ease up on the gas, our driver of the canter gassed it to reach them.  They gestured to a hilltop a couple hundred yards away, where a hollow building frame was present.  Atop it was a mass.  With binoculars or a good camera, as Belinda had, it could be discerned as a regally posed leopard.  Points scored by the guy that noticed that one.  We were all excited by it.

Doubling down on our bet, we decided on a second tour, requesting a jeep.  It was even nicer, with the early morning crisp air, the tour of a different zone of the park, the smaller group, and some different animals.  While no big cat was to be found, we did see chinkara and numerous nilgai, both antelope that apparently didn’t frequent the more densely wooded ravine we had seen the day before, preferring the hills and thicker grass. 

The guide of the second trip was some entertainment.  His English was rather poor, unfortunate for a guide, so after a few early attempts to explain things, he became more silent.  A couple of times we posed questions to him, but the answers were tremendously skewed, without any pertinence to the questions.

“The park has nine zones: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine zones.”

“When was this park started?”
“The deer eats things off the ground.  The tiger eats meat of deer.”

We are now en route to the last stop, Agra.  The train is rumbling along in midafternoon, though you would not know it by the number of people stretched out and napping. 

An added note, as we learned from the tour of hotels when picking up and letting off passengers from the canter: there are actually several very nice hotels hidden behind treelines and walls between town and the park. 

Industry of the day: installation of rear windows in tuk-tuks.  As Belinda pointed out, most passengers are tourists and while the driver may have no interest in anything behind his front axle, the passengers would like to see sights and take photos.  You get the feeling you are being transported in a little two-stroke box.

Jaipur

Jaipur, the Pink City

Having trouble getting the photos sorted, but I want to at least get the verbage out there. Modifications to follow.

We arrived in Jaipur, a city of more than three million and the capital city of Rajasthan, on Monday night after the full day of travel, interrupted by the visit to the historic fort Chittogarh.  It is the largest of the forts in India, some 13 kilometers around the road that lines the interior.  Our hired driver took us around, dropping us off at various temples.  I found it great that multiple religions were protected within the fort so many centuries ago, a testament to the religious tolerance in their history.

Some photos from Chittorgarh:

 
 

A chance to see the open road in India was an eye-opener.  There were incessant photo opportunities.


  

                        

All of the photos were taken not on some country road, but on the expressway.  It could never be the autobahn because you have to be ready to come to a complete stop at a moment’s notice.

Well, the big city just doesn’t strike the same chord, in India as elsewhere.  Once we got to Jaipur, the traffic congestion, noise, and smog were back. But dinner was another of the neat surprises. It was a restaurant in the back of the Jaipur Inn, which has a very modest appearance-- both inside and out.  Add the walk to the back to the jewelry store/cafe, the menu selection on the laminated and folded single piece of paper, and you have the spellings of a disappointment.  The place was also empty, rapidly explained by the hotel manager as being due to the large travel group that went out to eat.  Sure enough the cafe owner spent the time between order and presentation to promote his jewelry.  I was resolved to tolerate what we got.

         

As there was no waitstaff, just a couple of boys working the kitchen, we carried our own trays of food the the tiny elevator, and as recommended, went to eat on the rooftop.  There the decor was actually upscale, the views good, and the food very appetizing.  Once again the book could not be judged by the cover.

 The next day was all the hustle and bustle.  Breakfast in the hotel, then out to the Amber Fort.  We missed any opportunity to scale the hill on the back of elephants to enter the fort, so the taxi did the job.  In short, the takeaway was that the first of the three kings had the palace designed with twelve bedrooms, linked with a narrow passage in the periphery so that he could go to and from rooms in secret.  The fact that he needed to suggests that jealousy may have played a role among the wives. 

The second king created another palace, linked to the first, but more practical, as though the wives had him on a tighter reign.  No secret passages, prettier designs with reflective pieces by the hundreds on the roof to reflect the flames of torches and candles.  The palace was designed in winter and summer halves, each with developments to moderate the elements.  I can almost hear this king in the voice of Will Ferrell: “Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we're going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.”

After the traditional attempt to dump you at a store where they are likely to get a commission, it was on to the Palace of the Winds, named for the vanes on the rooftop, a spot where the royal wives could look out at the goings-on of the city below without being seen.  More secrecy.  The most beautiful part is the façade—or it would be if not under remodeling.  A network of bamboo and rope laced the front.  Once inside we noted that the outer network was secured with individual bamboo beams laid horizontally inside the window, linked to the outside with rope.  The point of greatest concern was the six inches of laxity between some of the inner beams and the wall.  How do you say OSHA in Hindi?

Afterward, the rest of the afternoon was spent witnessing the hardcore salesmanship along the stores within the Pink City.  Many stores were of the practical sort, this one for wiring, that one for fans.  Others were for the tourists, plenty for shirts, dresses, sarees, etc.  At one point a pleasant boy came up and struck up conversation.  This led to a second, a teenager, joining in.  Eventually he older got to his point that he worked with a group that ran a cooperative to help rural and undereducated women and lepers to sell goods in the city to support themselves.  Sounded good-hearted enough.  Additionally their products were cheaper.  Unfortunately none of the guidebooks discussed the store since they were off the breaten path, just around a corner and down this sidestreet.  At this point it began to sound less altruistic, so we passed.  He continued to follow and lecture us on how we were only going to help the rich get richer if we bought elsewhere, which struck home, but safety before learning more.

Later, when out of the heart of the tourist trap, I was looking at spices, then in front of a Hindu temple a pot of deep red powder.  The man working the front gate of the temple explained that it was for the “third eye”.  We chatted a bit more and eventually started talking about rural women, when they started wearing sarees, and the function of the cooperatives.  In the end, it seems that the boys a couple of blocks down may have been on the up and up.  Without prompting, he told us that there was a workplace for setting jewelry about where the boys had said.  They also do tailoring, suit design, etc.  Had I had more time, I would have gotten a couple of shirts made, but alas the next day, it was on to Ranthambore.

The following day, as Belinda fought a case of Delhi belly, I was all too happy to make it a day equally educational but without the adventures.  We prolonged breakfast, where the wifi signal was better, then hung out in the courtyard, then took a late lunch before the afternoon train to little Sawai Madhopur.  But the time spent lounging was well utilized.  I got to catch up on blogging, texting Ana via Facebook though (The kids had already gone to bed.), and reading more about India.  Belinda had a slew of photos that needed review, cataloging, uploading, and saving.  So it was time well spent. 

Sidenote: the business opportunity of the day

Straw manufacturer.  The competition is really slack. Most are very narrow, have holes in the sides, and are fifty percent longer than  you need even for a longneck coke bottle.

Udaipur

Udaipur

Now in Jaipur, relaxing in an otherwise seemingly abandoned but nice midrange hotel, I can reflect on the couple of days spent in Udaipur.  A great relief from the smog and congestion-- both of sinus and road spaces-- of New Delhi, a city of 12 million, Udaipur was hilly with views of hilltops and from hilltops; of shops and people in beautiful colors.  A couple of things were quite helpful in making it a better experience, namely a surprise win in hotel selection and the celebration of Shiva that took place while we were there. 

In regards to the first, the hotel was across the water from the main tourist area and the city palace.  That actually turned to be a good thing, as "the water" was an inlet of the lake, only a hundred yards or so.  That made to honking traffic well separated from our area, but the footbridge was just below.  The nicest restaurant was just down the street, much closer than across the street.  And ours was the hotel other guests were coming to, mainly for the pool.  Add to it the great views, and I would suggest that it was better than a lot of the other hotels recommended in travel guides in that town, and yet it was a last minute reservation. Some places were booked up, but not this gem.

As for the Shiva festival, it was a dawn-to-dusk music playing, drum beating, temple decorating festival capped in the evening by the women dressing in their nicest sareees and all the hindus going to the temples, where lassis and candy and fruits and nuts were given out, mainly to those leaving temple after giving an offering.  It was also the time that music was cranked up a good bit louder, especially down by Lal Ghat, the biggest of the steps in the city.  It was quite a scene all over town.  Best of all, it was a very inclusive event.  Out-of-towners, non-Hindus, whities, it didn't matter.  We were all welcome to visit, chat as best able, dance with them.  I was offered a pepper lassi by a gentleman after pausing for just about 30 seconds as I watched some of the people at the temple.  It wasn't my favorite flavor of lassi, nor was it likely in the best interest of my gastrointestinal tract to accept the offer, but he was quite proud to offer it.  With his persistence, I took a couple of sips of the half-filled cup then handed it back. He seemed content.  So far my gut has held up.

As I posted in Facebook, if you want to make a Rajasthani wide-eyed, go for a run in his neighborhood.

If you want to completely disarm them, smile at them. You are essentially guaranteed to get one back.  These things I learned going for a run out toward the solar observatory on the north end of town.  It took me off the beaten path of tourists.  But even before I had gotten that far, the commuters-- most on motorcycle, some in cars or walking-- tended to look at me as if an alien had landed.  Clearly they don't see white runners on a regular basis.  But a 99% of them, the exceptions being little old ladies, would smile if you smiled at them.  Young men would hollar something in their rapidly mustered English.  Oddly, a couple of times it was a reference to Michael Jordan, you know, that tall black guy who now plays a lot of golf.  But all the same, there was zero sense of a threat to either party and all was very enjoyable.  Even the greater concern of the traffic was overblown in my head.  In the more central areas and on narrower streets, the speeds were slow enough that I was a burden to no one.  In fact a couple of times I was pacing off of commuters on bicycles.  Mind you they were not training, and the single-speed gearing choice is way off, but if drivers are that aware of cyclists then I was no bother to them either. And out further from town, the cars are relatively fewer.  As astutely as they are of their surroundings-- dodging other vehicles, dogs, cattle-- there was almost no chance they were going to hit me.  In fact, once I realized this it became clear that I was probably safer there than in the states, most certainly safer than in any place in the U.S. where the population and traffic are that dense.  The only remaining problem, and it was a big one, was the smog, particularly passing trucks and buses, but also from the frequent burning of trash curbside.

The driving here is quite different.  After being out in it as a passenger of cars, tuc-tucs, and as a pedestrian, I  have decided it is not impossible, and the methods to the madness are not numerous nor complex, but heavily coated the moxy. Basically it is the same as wading your way through the hallways of your high school between classes. Anticipate everything, go at a speed that you could come to a complete stop in a hurry before colliding with whatever lies just out of your vision.  As with the hallways, it is quite congested, in general people try to flow in one direction on one side of the hall, but there are always people bucking the trend for their convenience and people coming straight across.  There are the bullies and the self-agrandizers that push their way through, some that yell (honk) louder than others.  And the pace of the movement is always such that injuries are rare, and those are of little significance.  I have seen four collisions while here, usually bike-to-bike.  No one has fallen, reprimands have lasted literally seconds, and everyone has gone on their way. For the minimal space given-- and it is paper thin-- you would be amazed how few of the cars have dents.  Dusty, smaller, free of frills, but intact. And testimony to the safety is the number of elderly with seeming loads of courage who cross the streets at whatever point.  They are still around to do it again tomorrow and seem undisturbed by the process, knowing that others are looking out for them. 

I have decided that if I were start a business in India, the first might be horn repair.  No driver here could go thirty seconds without honking. The second thing would be to be a bandit by night, robbing some of these vehicles of their squealing, high-pitched horns.  But back to my first job, I would only sell deeper-sounding horns of moderated volume.  The whole neighborhood doesn't need to hear him, just the people right in front of him.  As for jobs that would likely go bust, I would think that a manufacturer of street signs would go bust. They don't put much importance in them, so I think they have just resigned (Oops.  Not finding a better word, I'll leave that one.) themselves to minimalism, and if they break or lose a segment, as long as a decipherable gist is there, there is no need for repair. Secondly, a maker of mirrors. A strong half of motorcycles and scooter don't even have them, and there is no point since all that matters is what is in front of you when making your decisions.  The guy who has a wheel in front takes priority.  That which is behind you is going to honk and is assuredly ready for you to surprise them.  Most have blinkers if they feel their move is radical enough that even the most prepared might not anticipate it. 

Most astounding is the patience and lack of ire.  You can see offenses to the degree that would cause an LA driver to cap another occurring every 15 seconds here.  If you got upset like that here, you could never drive because you would constantly be using one hand to raise a finger or brandish a weapon, and since one hand MUST be used for the horn in order to go anywhere, how would you steer?  Temperments are very mild all over. Don't expect people to queue up at the slightest indication, but then you won't see anyone getting upset about it either.

There could be other upsides to the driving in India.  Take electric vehicles, for example.  One of the problems they have with them is that they don't make enough noise to warn cyclist and pedestrians.  A result of the rules-free driving is that there is honking every time you might think that someone doesn't see you or give you enough space.   That tendency is exactly what would be needed for the walkers and riders.  Problem solved.

Belinda's sidepoint: for a nation known to induce diarrhea, they produce quite small rolls of toilet paper. They are about 1/3 of US rolls, not counting our biggie rolls. They are of reasonable quality however, for which I am thankful.

India

On a warm summer’s eve…

Well all true except the summer part.  It is now day six—technically day 7 due to the hour—of the trip through northern India.   The first day was simply the 19-hour pair of flights here.  The last 5 days revolved around the conference.  I have plenty of notes and remarks regarding those, none of which would bolster this blog.  It was an educational conference, and it has been nice to witness my own development, as I have a lot more attending experience under my belt.  The last conference of the International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the hand (IFSSH) was in South Korea three years ago.  My comfort with procedures, and enough of them done to develop preferences in technique and workup, have allowed me to learn weighing the lectures against what I have experienced, as opposed to accepting what was said as gospel because I didn’t know any better.

Currently I am on a train bound for Udaipur, having left New Delhi at 7 pm last night.  The trip is a little over 12 hours.  It’s actually a nice experience. The sleeper cars are open, the trip is almost entirely at night, and the seats are ardent pseudorock, but the people are pleasant here in our compartment, as they have been throughout the trip.   Our four-bed compartment is shared with a civil engineer who is on his way to Chattagarh to give a lecture in the morning; and with a South Korean who has spoken quite little.  Actually I think three of us were more inclined to sleep as soon as we got rolling, so there wasn’t a whole lot of conversation, just about half an hour revolving around Belinda’s and my travels to Udaipur.  Afterward, it quickly became an uneventful trip, and despite general dinginess and unclean smelling linens, rest came quickly. I am quite sure that we were all four asleep before nine.

Accordingly, I was pretty much awake by four, well before our civil engineer acquaintance’s alarm on his cell phone alarmed from the bunk over Belinda to allow him to step off the train a couple of hours before our stop. His agility did not match up to his cordial nature, but he managed to get himself down from above.  As I have been up and writing, he sat on the end of my bench/bed awaiting his stop.  Before leaving he informed me that we were running a good 15 minutes behind.  How a train could fall that far behind on an uneventful night I am uncertain. 

All the same we should be in Udaipur about 7:30.  With my lack of preparation for this part of the trip, I have run out of food stashed in my pack, so I look forward to getting there. I intend to have very few boxes to tick on daily activities.  Good meals, coffee (which has been a notch above consistently in this country), reading, conversation, photos.  Both Belinda and I seem to be of the same mind, to let the adventures come to us.  In general, the plan is to spend a couple of days in Udaipur, Jaipur, Pushkar; then a single night in Agra to be one of the first at Taj Mahal on the day we have to get back to the airport.

The first of the adventures struck just minutes before this leg of the trip began.  I lost my iPhone. As I have continued to use it for everything, it couldn’t have been amiss more than 5 minutes before I realized it.  Yet the trail had already gone cold.  Katleen Libberecht, a friend from fellowship at Kleinert and Kutz who hails from Belgium, had kindly allowed me to stash my luggage in her room so that I could change clothes before catching the taxi to see a couple of sites in the city along the way to Delhi Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station.  When I arrived to her room she was frantically throwing her belongings into her bags, checking out at that moment in a sudden change of plans, deciding to add in a shopping tour of the city before going to the airport late that night.  Just a few moments after she left, I decided that one of the things that I should do during the hour lapse until my taxi arrived was to charge my camera and phone, both of which I had used a great deal at lectures that morning. That was when I realized my phone was no longer with me.  I thought that I had had it in hand when I spoke to the hotel manager at the front desk when I returned from the India Expo Center, but now I am not so sure.  There was a fiasco for the next hour, as I spent the first half tearing through all my bags, returning to the front desk, looking under furniture, then trying to get Katleen’s contact information, as I had deduced that, in her rush she had mistakenly grabbed the phone.  I had her email address from before, and I had just gotten her phone number the night before—and saved it on my phone.

Three p.m. arrived without a phone sighting.  The housekeeper, and later a European couple in the lobby checking out, called the phone, but no response.  I fear that I left it on silence from the conference.   But on schedule, I left the hotel for us to pick up Belinda, who was staying at the five-star hotel down the road.  There the IFSSH staff—who were located at each hotel—were able to reach the bus driver on the trip Katleen was taking. The call was of course dropped seconds later, but a second attempt was successful at conveying the problem.  Later that evening, Belinda got a text from Katleen saying that the search through her luggage had been unsuccessful.

So I am left with this computer and emails as my communication means home.  It may be less of a handicap than I initially felt in my panic, as I had turned off the cellular function on the phone anyway. I was getting by on wifi for Facebook messaging and Skype.  The loss is in text messaging and the convenience of receiving texts with a device I carried in my pocket.  I also had a lot of information from the conference on the phone.

I have now decided that the evidence points more to the phone having fallen from my pocket on the bus back to the hotel from the conference.  I had noticed that morning, as I bounced along in a tuc-tuc on the way from the hotel to the conference, that the slacks I was wearing were allowing the phone to work its way out.  Perhaps the same happened on the bus.  Belinda sent a text to her friend, who was the logistics coordinator in New Delhi, to try to locate the phone.  I now have my doubts about its return.  Not due to the ethics of the people, who have been quite nice and, as far as I can tell, honest.  But logistics haven’t been the strong suit of most here. So I doubt that my phone could make it to the right hands for safe return due more to shortcomings in effort.

On the bright side, there is an opportunity for a new phone. The greater loss is the information that was on it.

My impressions of New Delhi

I can start by saying that I am glad that the taxi driver took us through some newer parts of the city yesterday while showing us the India Gate and the Lotus Temple. Our conference was not actually held in the city, rather in a distant suburb, distant being more in terms of time than distance, from the city conveniences, such as sights, mass transportation, a variety of restaurants, etc.  There were three hotels, not enough for all attendees, and one of the hotels was quite nice, a five-star resort with guards and high walls protecting the contents from the grimey surroundings and from less desirable people.  Having visited there for dinner, I can say that this rivaled or topped higly touted hotels in the states or anywhere else.  But they charged a fee even beyond the quality, in my mind, so I stayed at one of the other two hotels, just a kilometer or so away, and closer to the expo center. 

This leads me to a correction to what I stated above.  While the loss of a phone was the first mishap of this leg of the trip, the first proper one for me in India was the arrival at the hotel.  Standing at the front desk at 3 am, I was told there was no record of my online reservation, which I had made about a month earlier. After whipping out the computer and hooking up to the hotel’s wifi, I showed them my receipt. Only then was it clear that there were three Savoy Suites in the city, and that the one I had chosen was a good 30 km away!  Furthermore, the Tournier rep from France, Laurent, with whom I had been chatting from the airport to the hotel, had met a snafu, as his reservation was not until the next night. As a result, he took the last available room in the hotel.  Luckily Belinda lent me the couch in her suite.  Magically, the next morning, before 9 am, the front desk did indeed have a room available, already cleaned, well before the housekeeping arrived.  Interesting.

So by this method I began to learn a bit about India.  In general, there is a lack of thoroughness.  Structures are put in place, but the execution falls short.  The conference is awarded to New Delhi, but then it turns out to be poorly coordinated.  There are metal detectors abound—in train stations, at the conference, at the nicer Jaypee Greens hotel, at temples—but at none of them, and I should add the airport as well, was there any thoroughness.  Pat-downs were minimal.  I set off every metal detector due to the phone and camera in my pocket, but that was either met with nonchalance or a metal wand.  The wand would sound, then they would send me on my way regardless.  The most thorough was the guy that asked me to remove the culprit metal from my pockets.  When I showed him the camera, he was satisfied, not checking to see if there was more in the pocket.  Nice people, but the security did not add much to my, well, security.

There is also a lot of smog in the big city.  In fact, I have never been to a more polluted city.  Perhaps the population density should be taken into account, but there is no clean smell except soaps and perfumes.   The smog is incessant, the cars unclean, windows covered with a film.

This is not to say that there isn’t any charm.  On the contrary, there are wonderful places, but they are here and there, behind facades.  The couple that I found reminded me of Latin America, where wonderful homes could be hidden behind adobe fronts. Spain was similar though with less contrast.  Jaypee Greens Hotel and Resort was the most stark example, but it was also seen in restaurants, and in the home—the haveli-- of the tour guide that took Belinda and me through Old Delhi.

Sidebar

The sun is now coming up in the Rajasthan countryside. Before pulling into the station, it is difficult to discern between here and west Texas.  Not much in the way of hills, savannah-like vegetation.  Single-track footpaths are a maze alongside the railroad.  The plants are hardy, some appearing to be cactus.  Waist-high stone or cement walls are common around yards and some small fields.

But if there were any confusion, the vehicles at the road crossings, and certainly the train stations, will set you right.  The clothing of the men is universally a button-down shirt and coarse slack, typically topped off with flip-flops, perhaps a sweater vest.  Sikh headwear relatively rare, but not enough to be eye-catching.  For the women the variety spanned from western-world, though never liberal, to burkas. 

It should also be noted that there are very few women on this train.  There are apparently women-only cars, but the few women I have seen are mothers with their families, a couple of anglo girls traveling together, and Belinda.