Never-Never Land

We set off to our final destination, the Himalayas. Himachal Pradesh is the state, and McLeod Ganj is our destination. It's near Dharmasala, which is where the Dali Lami and many Tibetans hang out. Dharmasala is the capital in exile of Tibet. Isn't the Wikipedia cool? You learn all kinds of interesting things. The Dali Lami's full name is actually Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso. How do you like that?

There is, of course, a bit of space in between us and Dharmasala. We're two states away, in Rajasthan. And we have 10 days left, in our trip, or so, before giant steel birds swoop onto Delhi and fly with us back to California.

How far is Dharmasala from Jaipur, where our camel trek ended? How far do we have to go? Far. It's almost two full days of travel. Whatever! We're hard core. First, we travel by bus from Jaipur back to Jodhpur, which takes up almost a day with travel. Again we meet everyone, and I find people can be disarmingly sweet, warm, direct and open. I talk to a young Indian muslim guy, who I found to be incredibly open hearted. We are all brothers, he tells me. We talk about all kinds of things.

We arrive back in Jodhpur, in the evening, and have a few hours to kill before we board our 24+ hour train from Jodhpur to Patankot, from which we'll take a bus to McLeod Ganj. We decide to go out to a posh Indian restaurant. People often ask me if the Indian food in India is better than in the United States. This is an interesting question. If you eat at someone's home, or have homemade food in India, it's going to be, almost always, better than any Indian food you can find anywhere else, in India or in the US. I confirmed for Shalin, after traveling around India, for example, that his family has the best chai in the world. It just doesn't get better. The truth about restaurants, though, is that there's a huge range in food quality, and the best Indian places I'm familiar with (Vik's and Udupi in Berkeley) are pretty much near the top of the food scale anywhere we've been. It is possible to find higher quality food in India. I've had dosas, idli, and other items whose quality was so high, that I will be lucky to have such a thing again in my life. But it's really easy to find a lot of worse food. On this train we're about to board we have cold daal and chapati to prevent starvation. And, of course, the main thing we are missing in the US is the incredible variety of cuisines one finds in India. Kerala's food was quite different, and impressed us with its awesome coconut flavors. The diversity is more than just geographic. If you go to the street, where one is more likely to get sick, there's an incredible variety of non-fancy foods that are pretty unbeatable. And then there are the wacky fusion foods, the Indian-ified version of Chinese food. North America has its version of Chinese food. The Indians' version of Chinese food is pretty awesome. And pretty spicy. Imagine, Schechuan Kofta. While some of the best food I've had is cheapest, one's odds can improve, at times, by throwing a lot of money at the problem in a posh place.

So, back to our epic journey. The train is, naturally, super late and we board late at night. We meet, on the platform, some nice German college students on their way to McLeod Ganj. On this 24+ hour train ride, a wide cast of characters is met. I drink with a bunch of Indian MBA students on some kind of trip. We hang out with a super intelligent and gentle army officer, who borrows Difficult Conversations from Alex, reads it for quite a while, and exclaims what we already know, that it's an incredible book. We become friends with Hannah, the German backpacker on her way to McLeod Ganj. Ladies try to sell us socks. We pass through Punjab, which is gold and sunny.



Finally, we arrive in Patankot, where Hannah is reunited with her Nepalese boyfriend, Rohan, whom she met on her last trip to McLeod Ganj. It's become night again, and since we're so late, our 3 hour bus ride to Dharmasala might not be so convenient, and nobody wants to stay here. We eat a real meal, finally, and make our way to the bus station. Luckily we have Hannah, whose done this before, and Rohan, who speaks the language, to tag a long with. Of course, the buses we want have left already. So, we buy tickets for a bus in a few hours, and cool our heals. When the bus comes, we board, only to find that everyone else has assigned seats and we don't. I return to the counter and ask the seller/conductor what's going on. He looks down at a scrap of paper, which I recognize as a seating chart with all the seats taken, and back up at me. We both realize he's made a mistake. Sorry, he says. He gets on the bus and starts making some changes. Eventually, we all end up with some kind of seats, albeit bad ones. I don't know if there are good seats. Rohan, Hannah, and I end up squeezed in to the back row with four other people. Sitting not quite in my lap, on my right, is a well dressed middle aged Indian man who is totally plastered. He smells like so much booze, and doesn't look totally OK. I feel a little like a guy trapped in a small room with no exit, a raging bonfire beside me. If this man can't keep everything done properly, then things won't be pretty. And it's a 3 hour bumpy, Himalaya mountain climbing bus ride on Indian mountain roads. Awesome. In front of us are a metric ton more people with all kinds of luggage. We are absolutely crushed. In front of us is a plump Indian woman who really wants a seat. Eventually, she negotiates and gains a small purchase on the seat (with 6 people on it already), and somehow manages to squeeze in with us. A good time is had by all, except Rohan, who now also looks sick. He wants to climb onto the bus, to ride on the roof, where he thinks he'll be less car sick. Lots of people were up there earlier. The conductor tells him it's a bad idea, since we'll be going under lots of hard to see low hanging power lines. I keep asking the drunk man "Ti-ke?," (ok?) and he keeps tellling me not to worry about it. I love how everyone is so good natured and kind despite the discomfort. It is how it is.

Shalin calls the Himalayas, where we're going, the rooftop of the world. We go up and up, towards what must be heaven's floor. Knock knock knocking. Finally, we arrive in our last stop, at around midnight, and hire a car to take us up the mountain to McLeod Ganj. Rohan calls his friends from my cell phone and finds us food to eat and a place to stay. It's slightly after midnight.

We have spaghetti plates at Carpe Diem, which is one of the best restaurants I've ever eaten at. The spaghetti is unbelievable. They make the pasta, sauces, everything from scratch on the premises. Olive oil is imported from out of India. And the food is unbelievable. The restaurant is manned by a bunch of teenage and twenty something Nepalese guys. It's late, the place is closing, and everyone is just hanging out, watching tv, drinking, eating, and cleaning up. It has a kind of permanent, relaxed, college student party vibe. I feel like we've wandered into Never-Never Land, a fairy tale place where boys don't ever have to grow up.



The next day we return to Carpe Diem for breakfast. We return there often. The food and folks are really good. Above, a peek into the kitchen. There's a pizza oven on the roof. They do awesome breakfasts, Thai food, and Indian food. All kinds of food. Muesli is made on the premises.



From the restaurant rooftop, which is the proper place to have breakfast, we hear the sounds of chanting and protest from below. People explain that all the Tibetan shops are closed, on strike, and the Tibetans are protesting China's treatment of Tibetans in Tibet. This means no momo for you or me. The sound of the protest is very interesting. Huge parts of the march are monks, all dressed in saffron robes. They have a sing song chant that sounds quite nice. As you listen, and the people pass by, the pitch and timbre of the song transforms into something more ephemeral, but equally strong, and one realizes it is now a bunch of nuns, similarly dressed, also with shaved heads, singing in higher, feminine voices. And there are many ordinary Tibetans and people protesting, too, as you can see above.

There are many Nepalese people here, working, running shops, and so on. On the whole, they are some of the sweetest, and most gentle people we've met on the trip. It's quite easy to tell the Indians, Tibetans, foreigners, and Nepalese apart, and this gives McLeod Ganj an interesting feeling. A feeling of embedding, of people who are simultanously out of place, in different worlds, and worlds within worlds, but in exactly the right place. This is India, and yet somehow the Indians feel as if they are in the minority, guests of some other place. It's a bit unclear.

We take a tour around our new hood. It's kind of a rambling, built up touristy sort of place in the middle of some marvelous scenery. The built up of it all was surprising, and not surprising.



We walk around, and converge on some Tibetan temples and protests.



Free Tibet Man. Possibly the world's first Tibetan superhero. I'm not an expert, so I can't say for sure.



Monks participate in a chain hunger strike.



Near the monastery, an array of carved, painted stones.



Back in the center of McLeod Ganj is a lovely Tibetan temple.



Tibetans are into prayer wheels. Prayers are inscribed on the wheels, and their rotation is somehow isomorphic to saying the prayer. I love the idea of mechanical religious devices. Technology used to assist and amplify prayers and blessings. Rationality and mysticism belief wrapped up into one tidy package. The wikipedia lists water, electric, wind, and heat powered prayer heels. The wikipedia claims that animated gif prayer wheels, also apparently count, but they don't have a citation for it.



Inside the temple, a woman turns a really big prayer wheel.



McLeod is a bit of a tourist zoo. Not quite the mountain wonderland you might have had in mind. But nothing in India ever matches expectations. Many shops have loads of Kashmeri stuff. Why is this? The Kashmeris seem to have some of the most impressive handicrafts in the world. One explanation for this is that they still practice crafts from the height of the Persian empire. In the top left of the picture above you can see a Tibet flag. Some people have Tibet '08 olympic exercise sweat suits, not pictured.



This photo and the next are not mine. You can see how built up this place is, and this photo is of a pretty neat looking part of the city and mountain. Architectural chaos.



At night, I think McLeod is much more beautiful. You don't see the harsh city on mountain contrast. Instead, many candle lights seem to tumble down the landscape, an organic cascade of city lights. It is as if the city is one single complicated, rambling building which traces out the contours of the mountain. Something like howl's moving castle. I've never seen anything like it. It's hard to get this feeling from the photo, though. You just have to go there, I guess.



We set out for Bhagsu, a nearby village. We've been tipped off to the presence of a cool guest house there. Also, there's a hike to a waterfall we want to do. On the path to Bhagsu, a typical tea shop, one of many in the area.



The path winds along the mountain, giving nice views of the area.



These are some of the Tibetan prayer flags, perhaps the wind powered cousins of the prayer wheels.



Finally, we arrive in the village of Bhagsu.



One of the many terrifying animals we meet, tame, and live to tell about. This wild monster had been terrifying the local population until we got the situation under control.



Bhagsu seems to be a bit more our speed. Certain parts of it still feel very village like, and a bit more serene than McLeod. One also wonders... is this still India? It feels so different than what we've seen in the rest of the trip.

This is definitely the kind of place you can spend serious time in. I think my next trip to India will focus on the north and Nepal. There's still so much to see. Tourists live here for extended periods of time. Really good food abounds, and international food, and goods like Toblerone are easy to come by. One of the best parts about backpacking is meeting other travellers, the rest of the international middle class. Folks from Trinidad with awesome accents, people from england, Israel, Europe, and from a relatively broad range of backgrounds. There are so many stories to hear.



One of the neighbors of Bhola guest house. We were told it was located by the Chabad house, but it seems the Chabadniks have moved to Dharmakot, another nearby village.



One of a handful of handmade signs around Bhola house. This one says, "The Jewish heart / close close... Bhola :)"



This is the view down the front of the house. We decide to move here the next day. Today we are hiking to Bhagsu's waterfall. Certain risks must be taken.




There it is, the falls from below. Some people might think we are foolish for attempting such a simple day hike, but we are nothing but. We are seriously committed to our adventuring and playfulness.



Here is some photographic documentation of our fair travelers, sitting in some kind of niche on the path.



The view of the setting sun from the top is really nice.



Here is Alex, perched on some rocks.



We walk back along the cobble stone path back to Bhagsu, and Alex shows off his incredible muscles, whose exact size are hard to discern at this distance, in this light.



On the road back from Bhagsu to McLeod we sit and chat with a monk. It's cold, but we all hang out, as it's really interesting, and the sunset is nice. If I remember right, he's originally from Inner Mongolia, and now lives in South India, in Mangalore (I think), where there are Buddhist monasteries and a big Tibetan Buddhist community. He's visiting McLeod Ganj to study Buddhism in one of the monasteries/schools here. What I remember best about him, though, was how playful and friendly he was.



The next day Alex and I move to Bhola House in Bhagsu. Bhola house is tended by a mother, who doesn't seem to speak English, and three incredibly sweet sisters. Samu, Phuja, and Joti.



Here is Joti, the youngest, working on her high school chemistry.



Alex chills out on the upstairs balcony, right outside our room. It's a simple guest house (outside bathroom -- brr!), but it's so peaceful and warm. It also feels like something is missing, like one gear is out of place. And who is Bhola? Strangely, we're the only ones there, since it's early in the season. They ask if we're Israeli, since most of their guests usually are. When we sign into the guest book, we see we're the first people to stay this season, and indeed, most past guests are from Israel.



Bhagsu has more Israelis than McLeod Ganj, it seems. We eat at a popular Israeli guest house in Bhagsu called Sky Pie. They have Hello to the Queen on the menu, also known as Shalom la Malkah on many menus. This is a life changing food, and a turning point in my trip. I first encountered this mythical dessert in Hampi, when some French ladies were eating some, and shared a bite with me. That bite altered my brain chemistry in some kind of a
fundamental way. The next day, my last night in Hampi, I ordered the dessert, which cost more than my meal, since I wanted a bit more if it. I was totally full, but wanted just a few spoonfuls, since even that was worth it. There was, of course, nobody around to share it with. The French women had moved on. Normally, I'm very good at controlling how much I eat, since the discomfort of being too full really bothers me. When food, however, reaches a certain quality threshold, I am tipped, and my appetite knows no bounds. Despite stopping multiple times, and realizing I shouldn't eat more, my cybernetic food consumption governing circuits were overloaded, evidently fried the night before, and I finished the whole thing. And I've never been happier. I am a changed man. Where have you been all my life?

So, Alex and Yotam arrive in Goa, and I try to tell them about this magical food. I extol its virtues to them, wave my arms, but words are not enough. We find a place in Goa with the item, but it is nothing but a pale approximation, prepared incorrectly, an insult to the very idea of hellos, queens, and hellos to the queens. Research indicates that the dessert travels mostly where Israeli backpackers travel, and it isn't an Israeli dish, but rather some kind of munchie satisfying fusion cuisine. Finally we find it on the menu, here, after months of searching, and Alex begins to understand.

What, exactly, is in a Hello to the Queen? You take Parle-G cookies, and crumble them into a crust at the bottom of a big bowl. The bowl must be large. Then, you add a serious quantity of vanilla ice cream, and embed some banana chunks inside. Finally, you bury the whole confection in a molten lake of chocolate fudge. Money back guarantee.

But we are here for than just food. We are here to hike, to go where we have not gone before. To Triund, for example, at almost three kilometers elevation. While the waterfall hike was a half day trip, Triund is a full day hike. Not super hard, but not easy, either.



Holi, the Hindu color festival, is coming up. People will get each other really colorful. Oh wait, it's today.



Above, happy Holi casualties.



We go up and up and up. And up. This is an empty house. Take note -- this theme will recur in a later post.



Halfway to the top we encounter a fully stocked shop. Just about everything you could want, right now, is here.



Above the shop, some pack animals carry people's stuff. They obviously aren't as strong as us. Or maybe they are going on a longer trip. The people, I mean, not the animals.



Somewhere on the way up we saw views like this. We started somewhere below. We aren't at the top yet.



We continue to go up... and find things big and small.



There are no wild ponies. But it is getting colder, and there is snow to be found and snowball fights to be had.



Finally, we reach the pass, and have arrived at Triund, tired and happy.



We understood that people would have food and chai for us at the top, so we didn't bring food. We're hungry, and order lunch from this guy. He's totally nice, and makes some mean daal.



He's got a cute dog, who must be the happiest puppy ever.



I have some chai with some monks who are also out on a day hike. The monks are everywhere. I think they are something like really wise college students. They are here to study, learn, and enjoy life, but probably don't get into all the trouble that most college students do.



The monks are from Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and elsewhere, and live in various parts of India. In McLeod, you're likely to be sitting next to monks in internet cafes. That's the kind of place this is.



As you can see from this picture and its background, you can go up, but you can always go higher.



Alex chats with some Indian students.



One of them tells a funny story. An Englishman visits India, an atheist writer, presumably after the British have left. When he returns, he says that he didn't believe in God, but now he does, as there's no other explanation for how India could possibly function.



Here we are, standing on the roof of the world. Tibetan prayer flags overlook the world, promoting peace and wisdom. The wind, by blowing through the flags, will spread purification and blessings to everybody.



Here is a high altitude shiva temple. You can't see them in the pictures, but the entire mountainside is covered in little yellow butterflies. Although exhausted, we're floating away from earth, carried by fluttering yellow wings. We're tired, it's getting late, and the sun is starting to set. We have a couple hours of down hiking to do, and we decide to start moving back so we don't have to hike back down the mountain at night.



On the way back we take a slightly different, easier, way that we failed to find going up. We come back through Dharmakot, the other small village near McLeod Ganj. Dharmakot stands at the top of the valley that Bhagsu lies at the bottom of. We have to hike down this valley back to our guest house.



We pass through some cute village houses on the way back down.



A little girl sits on the steps of a building.



This is some kind of olympic goat milk competition. They come in 100, 500, and 1000 meter events.



The next day we hike up to Dharmakot, to explore some more. Dharmakot is where the Chabad house is, the Israelis hang, and is definitely the most chill area around McLeod Ganj. Bhagsu, it turns out, is quite the Punjabi party town. Our place is generally quiet, though.



We find a guest house to have lunch in, and I locate a place to take cooking places from. Purim is coming up, and we locate the Chabad house, where the party at. We will return.



Alex and I stomp around and find more Tibetan prayer flags...



...and a nice sunset.



Here I am, or rather, my momo is, being cooked in my one on one cooking class. My teacher is Rina, and has really good kitchen Hebrew. She's taught enough Israelis how to cook that it's easier for her to teach me kitchen stuff in Hebrew than in English. So, I end up taking a cooking and Hebrew class from an Indian woman. Awesome.



Here she is, demonstrating how to roll out momo pastry shells. She claims she can make momos better than the Tibetans. I won't be able to find out, will I?



Here I am, threatening the photographer with a knife. Stand back, I say! Over two days, we make dosas, momos, jeera rice, carrot halva, and sambar. Rina finds out I'm American and tries to get me to buy into some real estate project. I politely decline. Multiple times.



This is the guest house kitchen, and the family is all around. Here is a kid looking up the staircase into the kitchen.



We return to Dharmakot for Purim. To explain a bit of what you're seeing, you need to know that people dress up, Halloween style, especially Israelis, for Purim. Above, two of the Rabbi's daughters.



That's the Rabbi reading with a carrot as a reading pointer. Check out his mad style.



It's a huge house, and everybody sits on cushions all over the floor.



So, this guy shows up at our guest house from Israel. He's basically the second set of guests for the season, and he's definitely been here before. He knows the family, and they're super happy to see him. He says he got a ride from Bhola to the house. Again, Bhola... What is Bhola? Who is Bhola?

Of course, we introduce ourselves to one another. His name is Uri. Then he says to me "Chaim, I have a funny story for you. I know your family." He looks at me, and I look at him, thinking. He continues, "when I was 10, I stayed with your family in West Virginia." Sounds plausible, since I'm from West Virginia, and there aren't many Israelis there. "Your father's name is Aryeh." Ok, that's kind of weird. He tells me his father's name, and it's all clear. My dad and his dad know each other from the Technion, an Israeli university.

What's also funny, and he doesn't remember, is that five years earlier we stayed with him and his family in Israel, and Uri had just returned from India. He gave us information about where to go and what to do. That trip didn't go so well. And here we are, completing our trip, and running into him here. Small world.

Ever wonder why people travel in India so long? You meet many long term travelers. Little known fact, but it's the speed of food service. It's slow. Once we ate at a restaurant and the lady told us it would be slow, is that ok? Of course it is, I told her, we've been traveling in India for months, and waiting 10 minutes to order, and 45 minutes for food is par for the course. We're used to it. Then we waited. And waited. Waited some more. Dishes came from the kitchen -- individual plates -- an appetizer, a soup, a salad -- once every twenty minutes. And there were probably 15 outstanding plates to be prepared for all the guests in the dining room. We ordered four things, and there were other tables of really unhappy looking people around. It took us probably two hours start to finish. The moral of the story is that if an Indian restaurant owner tells you it's going to be slow, it's going to be incomprehensibly slow.

Thanks for tuning in this week to Phases Crossed. We hope to see you in one of our two remaining editions. Grand adventures are still to be had. Beverages consumed. Buses taken. Books read. Elephants hunted. Snarks realized. Stay tuned!

Chal-oh Chal-oh Pak-i-stan!

Welcome back to Phases Crossed. Your faith, in returning to this website, hoping that our adventure might continue documenting itself, is appreciated. If only it would document itself. That would be nice. But we need to do things. We need to continue our search for Bin Laden. And we think, just maybe, the answer is camels. We think this is true because of messages from you, our expertly opinionated audience.



We have received many emails from our readers requesting us to include camels in our trip. Every blog, it seems, comes to a decisive moment where it desperately needs camels to maintain ratings, and our readers have been both sensitive and proactive on this front, beseeching us to locate the camels, and ride them hither and yon across epic desert landscapes. Worry not, fellow travelers. We have not only done this, selflessly sacrificing our delicate buttocks for our readers ecruitious desires, but we have documentation to prove our escapades. Worry not! We have no photographs of our sore anatomies. No. We still hold out for a PG-13 rating, maybe even an academy award. Is that too much to hope for? India Travel Blog Movie? It's possible.

The first step you need to take, in order to participate in a camel trek through the desert, is to acquire some camels. Where does one get camels? Good question. There are people, people who arrange treks in the desert. Much money is in play, so they all want to be your friend. First, we talk to Mr. Desert, recommended by the Lonely Planet. He is in the midst of dying his awesome facial and skull hair black, so no pictures just now, thank you. Then we talk to Ganesh travels, also suggested by the LP, who we decide to go with. In theory, Ganesh travels is a co-op, and it does seem to treat the camel drivers & guides really well, but I don't think it's actually a co-op in the sense that the workers actually own part of the company. Everyone offers "non-touristic" camel treks. After finishing the whole thing, nobody is quite sure what that means, exactly.

We book a day and a half trip. The next morning we get up early, eat a huge breakfast at the town's German Bakery (which has the best cheese omelet and apple pie eva), and pack into a jeep with our fellow adventurers. We've assembled a multinational team to find Osama. In attendence: an Italian man, two nice English ladies, a Dutch woman, and an Israeli couple. It's always a slight dilemma, and game, when we are in the company of Israelis. This is because I can understand most of what they are saying to one another, but I am usually going about everything in English. One must choose when to bust out the Hebrew and "I understand" cues. At some point a joke is made and I just laugh out loud, get some funny looks, and explain what's going on. We ride for about 30 minutes out into the desert, where we are deposited at the trip start location. There are camels and guides here, so we've probably come to the right place.



These are the camel houses, where the camels are kept. The long cylindrical forms are ideal for the extreme temperatures of the desert, and maintain a constant, mild, airflow throughout the space that makes it comfortable for pupal and gestating camel forms. The houses are multifaceted. They can also be turned on their sides and made into giant fans that help keep the desert cool.



Actually, they are windmills. I understand the windmills generate power used by the tiny villages we'll visit later. They enhance and complement the beauty of the desert, in my opinion, much like the Golden Gate Bridge enhances the beauty of the Golden Gate.



Woo! Camels! Here I am, sitting atop Michael Jackson. Yeah! That's his name. Why? We'll find out later, or at least we'll find out about my theories.

The blurred out finger smudge is absolutely ominous looking. Like a large fleshy comet is about to smash into me, obliterating us all. I think my camera should have some intense ridging or tactile feedback near the lens so people know it's there. The camera is so small, it's easy to cover the lens. Maybe some electrical shock feedback would do the trick.



Here are some camels. There are, as many people know, flocks of birds, schools of fish, and so on. Different animal types have their own special words for what a group of them is. I'm not sure why, exactly. Is English special? Not very polymorphic, right? So what is the corresponding word for flock, when talking about camels? Did you know that one speaks of a hump of camels? You can also say a spit of camels, though our camels definitely fart more than they spit, but they are not nearly as flatulent as we were made to expect. Actually, none of this is true. Except the part about the farting. And the part about "here are some camels."



Here is Sarah, one of our travel buddies, enjoying camel time. It's camel time all the time when you hang out with our guides, accomplished graduates of Thar's finest camel college. At right is Alex. I really wish his Burning Man cowboy hat hadn't been destroyed and discarded already. It would be perfect. Just perfect. Right now.

Riding a camel isn't as easy as you think. Your inner thigh muscles are exposed to a constant, large and active stretch, and their gait is funky, making balancing tricky, and requiring much core strength. Camels need to be goaded onwards, constantly, too, and steered in the proper direction. When we start drifting into the wrong direction we are goaded by our guides: "Where are you going, my friend? That way is Pak-i-stan!" "Challo, Challo, Pak-istan!" Challo, sounds like Yalla, which also means let's go, or onward, in Arabic and Hebrew. I love let's go phrases. A-yo (Indonesian). Yalla (Hebrew/Arabic). Challo (Hindi). Oniva & Vaz-e (French). Ayenu po (Hebrew: we were here), Alachnu (Hebrew: we've left), Zaznu (Hebrew: we've moved). Let's go. Onward. Ya. Many of these have a similar music to them, tone, melody, and rhythm.



I have to admit that the photographs in this trek are absolutely not in any kind of exact temporal order. They roughly follow a kind of temporal logic that maps to real life in certain kinds of ways, but not others. Our editor thought it best to do this. He's new here, and I don't know him that well. Certain similar events have been conflated, and others picked apart. Dramatic compression, or something like that.

The desert is actually mostly hard earth, rocks, and so on, which is surprising to some people. I was cleansed of this misapprehension many years ago, when I first trekked around the Negev in Israel. The picturesque sand dunes are just the camp site we trek out to, and watch the sunset from. Did someone say sunsets? Indeed. Read on.



We stop at a couple very small villages populated by, who I understand to be, of the Dalit (a.k.a. Untouchable) cast. These houses are awesome. Unlike the hill tribe people of Thailand, these folks haven't had the decades of experience necessary to make the exploitation happening here a full two way street. We are offered expensive sodas, sometimes, but they are rarely cold.

When we book the trip, Ganesh (the company owner, not the God) gives us plastic baggies, and tells us to please help keep his desert clean. That's cool. When we leave a spot, I pick up a bunch of trash, but I can't comprehend how clean the desert is. It's so clean when we get somewhere, especially given how many little bits of trash are discarded by us during an hours rest, and how meticulous our guides aren't. Truly a mystery. Later, our guides tell us that Ganesh hires the villagers to help clean the desert. Makes sense, I guess, and explains the mystery of the clean desert.



Children always make for winning pictures, even if they aren't smiling. This picture has already won numerous awards, but that's not the topic of this blog, so I won't bore you with the details.

On our second village visit, on the way back to Jaisalmer, the dutch Sarah shares her camel with a sick girl who needs a ride towards the hospital. The girl's younger brother is terrified to see her go. Her father walks alongside, but doesn't want to ride. We're like the regularly scheduled bus. Yeah. Of course, this doesn't stop the girl from asking Sarah for money.



People certainly know how to dress around here. Our western worlds are so dull and lifeless by comparison. This creates a certain hazard in buying clothes in India which we'll discuss in a future posting.



Camels are mammals. They are pregnant longer than humans, about 13 months. They are carrying all our water, blankets, bags, and food.



The desert is hot, and the sun will burn you. Sunscreen and shade are crucial, and resting in the shade around noon is essential. The longer the rest the better. We sit and eat on these desert tables. If the wind blows wrong, your food gets covered in sand. Not to worry, one of the guides assures me, it's desert sugar. Delicious.

Sometimes there are goats hanging out with us when we rest. They can behave like really aggressive pests at times, going after our bags and food. The upside is that if we want Chai, the milk can be really fresh. A guide grabs a goat, steers her over to the kitchen setup, and milks it. When he's done, he slaps her, and she runs off. It's a fair trade, I guess, for the food and leftovers they get from us.



This is the parking lot.



Above, some Israelites, taking a break from their desert wandering. I take this long break as an opportunity to buff up my Hebrew. Some Israelis would rather talk to me in English, but these two are quite patient, and happy to talk to me in Hebrew. Overall, India is a great place to practice your Hebrew.

The guides know a fair bit of Hebrew. They even sing some Israeli children's songs. It's pretty remarkable. The whole trip I keep hearing "Ma, baya, ma?" from one of the guides. And the Israeli dude keeps saying "baya," too. "Ma" means what in Hebrew. "Baya" means problem. We're always talking about problems. Most of our pidgin conversations involve some kind of problem. Finally, I have to ask, and it turns out that "baya," in Hindi, means brother, informally, like bro. It all fits together. The Israeli guy also keeps asking to be taken to meet Bin Laden. "Is that possible?," he keeps asking.

There is a certain irony is all this. I'm tickled that one of our guides, for example, a young Muslim man from a desert village of maybe 40 people near the border of India and Pakistan, is something of an international culture and language expert. He speaks bits of many different languages, and can impersonate Japanese people better than anyone I've met. It's strange, and very funny. He cooks shakshouka for breakfast. Apparently, it's not exactly right, but it is a nice try, and delicious on its own terms.

He tells us a story about one guest who got his food, which they work very hard to make, but isn't terribly fancy, and said "What is this? I want mango lassi. I want Nan. I want blah blah blah," and threw his food into the desert. What can you do, he says. You have to laugh. And it is funny.

And there is the story of someone who kept asking for "peepee," a word they didn't know. Or they thought they did, as peepee can mean something else that isn't in the desert, though I don't remember what it is. "There is no peepee here, my friend, this is the desert." He was told. After many hours of this the dude just did it on the camel.



Camels need to rest, too.



Camels, like all photosynthesizing life forms, needs lots of water. They have a special kind of brown chlorophyl. Weird, huh? Biology and science are stranger than fiction. I learned this on a PBS documentary that may or may not be real.



I've never seen so many flies in my life, concentrated in one place. Incroyable. Maybe we saw a ton of them around the Taj Mahal, which is part of what makes the Taj one of the wonders of the world, but this is a whole new level of insect life. It's like all the airborne insects in the entire desert between Pakistan and India have converged right here, at water time. Why not?



We wander around in the desert some more, which I can't imagine doing for forty years, with or without camels. Above is the English Sarah, the other one being Dutch.

Camels can walk. They can sit. They can stand. They can carry you. Camels can also run. A running camel is an interesting thing. You bounce around. They have funny, long, oddly jointed legs that create weird gaits. When they run, it's exciting, like an amusement park ride. And then, it begins to hurt. You have to take the basic camel riding hurt, the one which bows your bones away from your hip sockets, and stretches and kneads your inner thigh muscles out without end, and turn it up to 11. Now all this is happening in a much more intense way, and all your assets are being pounded into chapati. This goes on for a while. We have places to go. The camel drivers even have a song, a ancient little funny sounding song they sing to the camels, that causes them to ride and ride and ride. I try singing the song, which kind of works. It's like a camel trance. The pain. The pain is intense. I think I know now why the camel named Michael Jackson, my camel, is named Michael Jackson. Each camel footstep is like a small, bumpy, death. We enter a kind of camel purgatory for hours. I assume contrived postures on my camel, postures designed to protect some valuable assets from harm's way. Postures I would only assume given the pain I am in, and the balancing skills acquired from rock climbing. The drivers may not understand exactly how hard this is for us. It is.



Food time is fun time. Using only basic technologies, elaborate 12 course meals are prepared for us. Servants spring forth from nowhere. Mango lassis magically materialize. We eat from jewel encrusted plates. The desert is a marvelous place. All one needs is a magic lantern.



Here are our mighty steeds enjoying a well deserved meal. Camels have the craziest looking tongues you've ever seen in your entire life. It looks like they are vomiting out a bunch of internal organs, but, in fact, they are licking their lips, or something. No visual documentation here, thanks. My camera might crack in half. Michael Jackson, my camel of choice, has some kind of eating disorder. He often stops to snack when we're in transit. I feel bad, robbing him of some choice desert greenery, but I goad him on, when we're in transit, reluctantly.



Finally, we rest. It's tiring to be carried all day by a large mammal in the sun.



Here we are, resting after a hard day of camel driving and dune climbing, enjoying a sunset we have come halfway around the world to see. We leave our camp and climb the highest dune we can find, which is not as easy as it sounds, given the state of our bodies. It's a great time, but nobody is smiling, since we're so tired. Ugh. You also want to see? Oh, sure. Just look down.



Don't worry. That's a not a nuclear bomb going off on the horizon, it's just the sun. I guess it's still nuclear. Like a submarine, but without the submersability. My word processor doesn't think that's a real word, but I do.



If you climb dune after done, you get as many sunsets as your legs can keep up with.

We return to Jaisalmer, and plan for the next stage of our journey. All over India I've been wearing my funny turban, dhoti, and funky hippie India shirt. It's all very functional. And I am made fun of. Kids in the city say I look like a farmer. Nobody dresses like this, see. It's all about the modern western shirt, which you can then wear with whatever you want. I finally put it all together. The nice white button down shirt, and the white dhoti, which looks like a skirt for men, and the nicely colored turban.

I am complemented upon now, by everyone. At the guest house, I am taught new words, like teek (ok), and am given the Indian name Ramu, which I am proud of. Ramu is a God's name. A powerful name. For the rest of the trip I introduce myself as such, and people think it's the funniest thing. That's right. Later, back in Berkeley, Shalin tells me that Ramu is always the servant's name in Hindi films. That's why it's so funny.

But what is this? We have an important phone call. Calls of international importance. The Dali Lama has just sent word that he needs us up north, near Dharmasala. What can we do? We make all the necessary arrangements, and set off to the Himalayas. Besides, it's hot here, and we need some AC au natural.

Edible Fortresses

The staff here at Phases Crossed is thankful to our readers' kind patience, knowing full well that patience is one of our world's few non-renewable resources. We will spare no expense in bringing you editions of Phases Crossed on time, however, no matter how remarkable the technologies required. We have gotten our hands on so called "time travel" technology, and are able to retroactively backdate issues, as you see here, with as much ease as a publicly owned company can backdate stock options. While your present day selves have patiently been waiting for the next installment for quite some time, your past selves are already satisfied. You can think of it as a little like the retro-active amnesia drugs you may have had for your wisdom teeth removal, but operating in reverse. in reverse. in reverse. in reverse. Never mind. The risks inherent in distorting the fabric of internet space-time -- think big black holes capable of sucking down our entire galaxy -- are small, when compared with the satisfaction we can bring to our many readers, or at least their temporally past selves.

Indian adventurers know that an important part of any trip to India is riding the buses, which are important sites of physical and mathematical research. In ancient times, Indian philosophers discovered & developed the concept of Zero. In modern times, armed with one of the world's largest populations, Indian mathematicians are pursuing advanced studies in large numbers. India is so big, and so overwhelming, that they have entirely new kinds of numbers to describe the magnitudes at play here, like lakh (100,000) and crore (100 lakh). The buses are practical experiments with notions of compactification and infinity.

An Indian bus, you see, can never be full. You can always put more people on a bus. For an Indian bus to be full is a practical and theoretical impossibility, as highly reproducible experiments all over India have shown, time and time again. People can go on the roof of the bus, on other people, or in the null space between two people. Just when you think -- "wow, this bus is ridiculously full, nobody else could possible get on and fit anywhere" -- 1 crore more people board the bus.

But this is where the fun starts. The excitement really takes off when you take this bus, and ride it at night, when all the nocturnal goods transport trucks come out, each with a driver specially trained in the Indian arts of highway navigation. The only rule on an Indian highway is to get there first, and pass whenever you can, or, if that fails, pass whenever you can't. You can pass someone on the shoulder's highway, which isn't paved, but open land. You can pass in the oncoming traffic lane, even if it has someone coming right at you. The trick, as a passenger, is to not look, because every few seconds your bus is heading directly into the face of an oncoming truck. With only inches to spare, and your life passing before your eyes, your bus narrowly passes back into its lane, and you narrowly escape death -- at least for another five seconds, when it's time to pass again. It's a good time.



One of the first things I notice as we get close to Jodhpur is how all the rickshaws here are like stretch limo versions of rickshaws in the rest of India. Maybe it's for all the royalty who live in the castles here.

Jodhpur

The work of angels, fairies and giants... built by Titans and coloured by the morning sun... he who walks through it loses sense of being among buildings. It is as though he walked through mountain gorges... -Rudyard Kipling

We arrive late at night in Jodhpur, and catch a rickshaw to Yogi's Guest House. I immediately like Yogi after I first talk to him over the phone to make the reservation. He calls me "brother", and tells me how to handle the rickshaw drivers, suggesting we take a rickshaw to a nearby commission paying guest house, which will get us a bargain on the ride, and then walk over to him, where he can "deal with the bastard." Although I'd like to help dish out some righteous revenge to a scheming rickshaw driver, it's almost midnight, and I'd rather just go to bed. It's a nice guest house, with a great view of the fort towering overhead, Mehrangarh. Yogi is super sweet, and has lived in San Francisco for a few years, so his soul is partially Californian, and Yogi, the man, is immediately likable. The rooftop restaurant has terrific views of the fort, which we get a feeling for, even in the dark.



Here is Alex, at peace, in the guest house. We are treated to two days of overcast weather, and even a bit of rain, making our trip is this desert empire a little easier on the eyes, skin, and suntan lotion.



Floating above us is a boy's dream, built by angels and giants, the desert fortress Mehrangarh. We go to sleep, knowing that tomorrow we will wake up and unwrap this most awesome present. Two things must be remembered: It's dark when we first see it, so it's lit only by moonlight. Also, it's huge. It's so much huger than it seems in this picture. This will be made clear later when we have better scale referents. This photo is from the guest house rooftop.



Alex didn't sleep that well, and is understandably slow, but I'm super excited to go out and explore. I keep saying: "I hear there's a giant awesome fortress out there!"



As we get closer, we start to realize how hard it's going to be to follow our original plan of sneaking in, scaling the walls, or a frontal attack. We decide to switch to Plan B: enter through the front gate, and buy a ticket. The accompanying audio guide is highly awesome. Alcatraz is hard to get out of. Mehrangarh is hard to get into. But both have excellent audio tours.

On the way in, we see a power generator with Om written on it. It's not making Ohms, but spiritual power, of some sort. Perhaps this is the secret to the Rajput's success in fending off the Muslim Mughal empire from this part of India. There's a whole Om/Ohm life cycle at play in India. Later in our trip, we find a hydropower plant with a Shiva temple inside, presumably using Om to generate Ohm.



This is part of the approach to the front door. Notice how it winds around and around, like an intestine maximizing surface area to the digestive walls of the castle. This should be an obviously optimal strategy to players of Tower Defense. Apparently it's smart to put doors with short approaches to them, so elephants can't build up too much speed and knock them down.



All the canons in the fort are whimsically decorated like this. I mean fiercely. Fiercely whimsical. Um, or, whimsically fierce. That's it. On the ramparts are a collection of international canons the Rajputs took from various parts of the world as war booty while helping the British.



This place makes me super happy.



This is a view down the man made canyon of the fort's front approach.



Those with good eyes will notice the dominance of the color blue. The fortress is surrounded by a city that is painted mostly blue. It's very pretty.



If you can build a fort like this, you can build rooms like this for your royal party to party in.



And if you're going to ride elephants, you need to do it in style.



We finally scale the walls, walk around the battlements, and find that our princess is another castle. If you look closely, you can see how older crenelation (the teeth on top of castle walls) has been built over, to make even taller walls and towers. Standing on top of the battlements does remarkable things to your hearing. It's as if you can hear whispers from any part of the city below. If you ever wanted to know what Superman feels, or hears like, come to Jodhpur.



We find a nice temple. So do some birds.



And the Indiana Jones-es are off to rescue more princesses, from more castles, much like Mario. Mario Jones. Or something. We have a late night train, so we wait along with lots of other people in the lobby of the train station. Many Indians like to sleep on the floor when they wait for night trains.



Jaisalmer

We set out for Jaisalmer and more delicious eyeball treats (mmm), and apple pie. We hear they have really good apple pie. The only train, unfortunately, leaves at midnight or so, and gets there at 5 am. This is a small sleep bummer.

This is the first part of India where we start to see lots of army folks around, probably because we are getting close to Pakistan. On the train we meet some nice officers, who are extremely friendly and well educated. Officers get to ride AC, but enlisted men must go normal sleeper class.

Ahead of time, I've booked a room in a mid range place called Shahi Palace, on a tip that you can get a budget priced room from them. They pick us up at 5am from the train station, which is super convenient, and give us a room to nap in, which is super sweet. Of course, everyone has an angle. They put us in a nice room later, at a good price (350Rs), and try to sell us a camel trek, no doubt on a nice commission. When we plan our camel trek, they promise us the same room, same rate, when we return. Surprise! When we return, later, the room has been taken by someone else -- a 1% chance, we were promised; a minor miracle, I point out to the owner -- and only a more expensive room is available. Alas. We are told by the hotel's unctuous owner that we should not tell anyone who we booked our trek through, since it's bad for his own business. We'll tell you in an upcoming edition... The small guest house empire the owner operates has really nicely designed rooftop restaurants, with great views of the fort. The food is terrible, the Lonely Planet warns us. We figure -- how badly can someone mess up breakfast, fried eggs and such? Incredible India never stops amazing us. It's a great guest house, except for the lousy food, and the jerk owner. But, if you know what you're getting involved with, it's a convenient and cheap way to enter Jaisalmer.

Oh yeah, so what is Jaisalmer? Why do people come all the way to the edge of India, the edge of the desert's border with Pakistan? What's here? Two things, mostly: an awesome fort that the Lonely Planet describes as delicious, made of gingerbread, or something like that, and camel treks. Really, I think it's made of sandstone, and it looks golden. From the blue city to the gold one. The fort, besides tasting great, is also a functioning city, albeit a mostly tourist oriented city. The LP doesn't list guest houses in the fort anymore, since there's some kind of sewage load management problem, and the fort's bastions are collapsing. The water is eating away the sandstone foundations.



The fort is large, and it's hard for me to give you a good visual picture of it. It is surrounded by these round towers and walls, and rises up out of the surrounding landscape. If you look closely, or click through, you can see the government authorized bhang shop in the photo above. Also nearby the fort's entrance is a German bakery with mind numbingly good food. We have the best apple pie on planet earth here. It's in all the space alien's travel books. Lonely Galaxy is one of the most popular. We return later for more, but the tourist season is coming to a close, as the temperatures are heating up, so no more pie is in the works. It is a bittersweet realization that we had but one slice of the final, and most delicious, apple pie of the season.



Above is one of the gates you pass through to enter the fortress city.



Here is a large picture which helps me emphasize how the fort is large. But not too large. You can learn to get around the place in a few hours. This photo is taken from one of the towers. Don't you want to put on some frosting and eat it all up? I do.



Inside is mostly shops and restaurants, and people's houses. Ever since the Lonely Planet gave guest houses in the fort the thumbs down, by not listing them, rates have dropped on rooms, since business is down. Above, a shop lined street. Next to it -- Alex and I chill out in a quiet temple's courtyard, and he demonstrates that he still likes to draw, 1.5 months into the trip.



And a courtyard inside the fort.



A fifteen minute walk from the fort is this lovely lake. It's quite natural, actually, to have a large, elegantly decorated lake, in the middle of the desert. Jaisalmer was once a very important trading city, so I imagine that all the wealth and interest in beautiful things motivated people to beautify their city with a lake. Like a big garden. Why not?



No lake is complete without hippo themed paddle boats, which I think are a more modern addition. We go for a short cruise, and terrorize some Japanese girls in a swan boat. Why not?



On our way back from the lake, we run into a 6 year old girl, no more than two feet tall, who uses the blocking maneuvers of a an eight foot tall basketball player to obstruct our passage. Alex and I are terrified by her determined face, disarmed by her cuteness, and find it utterly impossible to move past her. Realizing that our trip could very well end here, in the streets of Jaisalmer, I think fast. Children all over India are always asking for school pens, chocolate, and money. It's a good idea to fabricate some pens made of chocolate before you leave home, to hand out, precisely for situations such as this. You can put 1 Rupee coins inside as prizes. Realizing that we have no chocolate school pens, I break into a cold sweat. I remember that I have a pen in my pocket that I've been carrying around, meaning to give away, since it's starting to run low on ink. I look into her determined eyes, and ask her, in a kind of pleading, offering, voice: "School pen?". She cocks her head. I think she's interested. There's an understanding that we're bargaining for nothing less than our safe passage home. The question mark in my voice asks: Is this enough? She thinks for a moment, interested, but not satisfied. I hold out the pen, and ask again: "School pen?" She starts nodding, reaching for the pen, giving a nonverbal gesture that the battle is over, and grabs it in her small hands, looking totally satisfied. Success and escape.



Here is the cutest deaf & mute child shoe repairman in all of India, maybe the world, working on my sandals. For one dollar, he sewed the small remaining scrap of my Choco soles back on. All over India, street shoe repairmen have tirelessly hounded me about this, and I refused -- since the sandals were clearly ready to go on the cart. But this boy's silent pitch was irresistible. At the original rate asked (skin tax already included), the number of foreign tourists in this city, and his expertise in up selling, he might also be the wealthiest deaf & mute child shoe repairman in India, and possibly the whole world. Child labor isn't a simple thing. I had a delicious breakfast prepared by a 14 year old Nepalese boy in Varanasi. As long as kids have a chance to go to school and play, I see nothing wrong with it, and some positive value, as well, and not just to our cheap consumer goods.



Jaisalmer has some lovely, exceptionally well preserved, old buildings and housings made of delicately decorated and carved sandstone. This place is so pretty, we don't go inside, since our whole world might reveal itself to us in only black and white from here on out. It's a fate we don't want to tempt.



We find this treasure in the city outside of the fort. If you, or anyone you know, can translate and explain this poster, don't delay -- write in now! Our curiosity hangs in the balance.



We go for dinner one night inside the fort. Where to eat? We ask some shopkeepers their expert opinion. What kind of food do we want? Indian, of course. Italian food abounds here, for some reason. Maybe tomatoes grow really well in the desert. Our shopkeeper friends suggest we walk a bit, turn the corner, walk some more, and look for a place called "Meals Service." Five minutes later we are standing, blinking, in front of a staircase that seems to go up into a residential building, with a hand written sign on the outside proclaiming "Meals Service." Before we can follow our second thoughts to their logical conclusion, some children come bouncing down the stairs, and happily greet us.

I venture in, to check the place out. It's the inside of an Indian family's apartment. Where will we sit, I ask? The kids excitedly point to a seat built into a window nook. Nice. I ask the kids -- do you have a rooftop we can eat on? Yes -- with a lovely view of the entire fort from above! My skepticism is leaving me now, but I have to see the menu. What are we in for? Some really nice sounding and nicely priced Thalis. I've heard of restaurants run by blind people where all eating is done in the dark, but eating at a place run by children? And who will cook the food, I ask the kids? "Grandma!" I report back to Alex that we have to eat here -- someone's grandma will make us dinner, and we can sit on the roof of the fortress, look out, and eat our Thalis. It's a done deal. The food takes a while, which we're used to by now, but it's awesome possum. And it's veg! Above is the cook in her kitchen.

The time has come for us to undergo the trial by sand and mammal. It had to come to this. Stay tuned, same web site, future time, for the further adventures of Chaim & Alex. Find out what really happens in Thar, and where Spice really comes from. All this and more in our next issue.