Tamils, Tigers, & Tailors

The time has come to discuss backpacks. These bits of luggage hold our things, our important things, objects & devices thought important for the future. Sometimes we spend lots of money on them. They must squish into all kinds of tight spaces, on buses, and between people (lots of people!). We carry them on our backs, ride on the shoulders of people going places, or standing around. We love them, like our bicycles. They are our inanimate intimates.



Exhibit A, above: my dearly beloved Gregory Z-22 backpack, with a structural problem. This clever bit of wire that is the frame has popped out the back -- the bit of loop poking out the bottom. Our physical posessions, like the material envelopes of our bodies, are temporary things. They pass into and out of the universe, and our grasp on any of them is tenuous, at best. But then there is REI, with its guarantees and return policies. Not, unfortunately, in the middle of Tamil Nadu, India.

I have to rave a little about this pack. It was love at first sight. I saw this pack at REI around last labor day, and seeing that my old pack was over 10 years old, with a nonfunctioning zipper -- decided it was time to commit to a new one. It is tandoori red, a perfect color to take to India. It has a really clever design with a single piece of looped wire creating this spring loaded dynamic tension that gives the pack its shape. We went for a walk around the store together, and together, decided there was no way we could part.

How cool is this pack? I walked across the street to Wildnerness Exchange, and the gearheads kids working there said something along the lines of: "Whoah, cool! Is that the new Z-22? Awesome. I didn't even know it was out yet!" Yes. That's how cool this pack is. Was.

The clever engineers, however, didn't see a problem with having the endpoints of this wire, where it seems the greatest pressure is, rubbing into the seam of two pieces of fabric, totally unreinforced. So, after less than a year of totally modest use, this happens to me, in the middle of India. One of my key pieces of travel technology, busted. I was sad. No REI for me to take this to. What to do?

But we are in Madurai, and Alex happily tells me that there are many tailors in this town who can knock out cheap copies of any shirt you have in no time, and at almost no cost. Hmm. Perhaps these tailors, with their man-powered sewing machines can outwit the smarty pants engineers at Gregory?



After carefully considering my design proposal, and rejecting it, this clever tailor explored, inverted, stretched, and played with the pack for a good ten minutes. Finally, after having reverse engineered it's clever wire construction, he spent all of two minutes applying a clever patch to the backpack that the engineers at Gregory would be wise to emulate. Basically, he figured out how to pull the wire frame out, and resew the broken seams from the inside of the pack, and reinsert the wire. So far it's holding up fine. And if anything goes wrong again -- I know how to direct anothor Indian tailor to the hack.

Cost of pack: $100. Tailor's fee: $1. Tip: $1. Having a working backpack while traveling through India: Priceless.

I'm not sure how I'll explain all this to REI, or what I'll do with the pack when I return. Surely it's a design flaw in the Z-22. Perhaps they've fixed it. Maybe we are in posession of the sole next-gen prototype. I have pictures. And stories. If anyone at Gregory wants the solution, lets have our people talk to one another. And this tailor totally gets royalties.



But we are not here solely to break and repair luggage. Far from the purpose of our travels. We are here, to boldly go where no bar goer has gone before. To the stylish bar in our hotel's basement, designed to feel like the interior of a space ship. The effect works. Lightyears go by as we eat delicious masala bar snacks and consume various kinds of overpriced alcohol.

But to boldy drink where no man has gone before isn't really our game, is it? I have something to tell you. I'm not left handed either! You guessed it! We're here to see temples. Some of the finest, if not the finest, Hindu temples in South India.



Above, but a simple model of the temple complex we've come so far to see.



Above, some Hindu pilgrims. Beside them, Alex and Chaim, aspiring Hindudes, sporting the sufficient but not necessary temple garb -- Dhotis. The goggles are not required whatsoever, but they can help with the sun. Little girls gawk when they see us wearing this traditional Indian clothing. People love it. We love it. Together, we're awesome. We would wear it directly upon our boxers, but we can't figure out where our money goes. That must be after the introductory how to wear a dhoti course, and we are but simple noobs.



Above, an icon at one of the gates, illustrating what happens if you are groped for multiple centuries. Things get shiny, anatomical details are weathered away, and things shrink. It also provides a hypothesis for why Tezuka drew the Indian women in Buddha the way he did. Reference material.



The temple complex is really nice. It's just really nice. It's a kind of swirling, quiet, chaos of people going places, doing things, eating, talking, touring (like us). But mostly, it's not a museum. It's a real live functioning place of worship and life. We are, as foreign tourists, but specks in a buzzing hive of activity.



Above, one of the temple towers. This photo just doesn't do it justice. It's covered in colorful painted stonework. It's big. It's nice.



Internally, the compound feels like a kind of a maze. It has an internal bazaar of sorts, and is filled with meditation spaces, and many moody spaces. The above left picture is from the daytime, while the one at right is not.



Oh yeah. Like Hampi, they have elephants on site that exchange blessings for loose change. Just insert coin into slimy trunk. Elephants here have cooler makeup artists than in Hampi. I swear I saw some camels go by, too, but I didn't get any pictures.



So... we're having trouble with the trains. Like getting compartments on sleepers. There is unreserved second sitting, a tactile, metaphorical taste of India's multitudes -- an experience in itself, but we'll get to that later. So it looks like buses from the bottom of India to the top. Joy. Buses come with all kinds of interesting add ons, like entertainment. And people. Lots of people. I can tell you what 1 billion people feel like. But more later. The entertainment on the bus isn't exactly defeaning, but it isn't good for your ear drums, either. Like towels, earplugs are a key component in every traveler's bag. Yotam was surprised when I asked him to bring a set for himself. Maybe you want a vegetable peeler, too, he suggested. Now we know.



The buses are cultural awakenings, of sorts, for us, to Indian pop culture, movies, and music videos. Our brains, as well as our ear drums, are exploded just a little bit more, by each bus ride we take. Indian heroes have the kung fu prowess of Matrix heroes, and films in their entirety are often hyper stylized and edited like one normal minute of an MTV music video. And then the music videos. I've grabbed a random one off of youtube above for your enjoyment above, but you can surely surf for more...

We're basically at the bottom of India, and our tour finishes in the north, in Delhi. We want to go to to Rajastan before it gets to hot, and see Varanasi, the Taj Mahal, and so on before we wrap things up. So, we're basically on the wrong side of the country. Our plan is to go to Pondicherry, the old French colony, and then make our way north towards, for the Rajastan-Agra-Varanasi-Mountain portion of our trip. India is big, and this is far. And there's no direct route. So, stay tuned for awesome updates displaying just how hard core and dedicated we are to crossing India.