11/13/06 Mysore, Karnataka, India

This adventure begins as many do, at a time ripe for change and growth, and Eric and I agreed that a year of travel in Southeast Asia and Europe would be just the thing.

Our home is now rented to my grown kids, who are keeping up the love with our three cats, and at midnight on 11/7 we took off for Bangalore, India.

From the Mandate *This* department ~
The week we left the US, the Democrats took over both the House of Representatives and the Senate, Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld resigned/was sacked, and India renamed "Bangalore" "Bengaluru." We have yet to actually see signs that say Bengaluru, but I'm sure they will happen at some point; our taxi driver was very happy and proud about the change. Way to take it back! in the US and India.

In recent years, Eric and I have joked about putting maple leaves on our backpacks; standing in front of us on our flight from Singapore to India was one couple who did just that. Brand spanking new ones square on the back pockets; the guy also had a red bag with maple leaves around his neck. I had seen him earlier on the 14-hour flight to Singapore, leaning against a wall in the walkway with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, looking about ready to crawl out of his skin. To me he seemed more like Sawyer from the TV show Lost, only a little older and more grizzled, with even more attitude than the few Canadians I know, certainly not like the stereotype Michael Moore talks about. In any event, I don't think they were fooling anyone and in line Eric saw they had American passports. Kind of funny, kind of sad; hopefully changes in our government will in time curtail the need for such.

During our 7-hour stopover in Singapore, we tramped through pouring rain through their colorful Chinatown and into Maxwell Food Court, a covered bevy of 100+ food stalls, and quenched Eric’s jonesing for chicken rice. On the way back to the airport we stopped for a few minutes to watch Chinese opera.

In Bangalore/Bengaluru, we stayed at the Jayamahal Palace Hotel, a colonial mansion across the street from the palace. http://www.jayamahalpalacehotel.com

Upon arrival at the reception desk, we were brought glasses of mango nectar, and the gracious manager visited with us as we sat for a spell and enjoyed what tasted like the nectar of the gods after about 28 hours of travel.

At breakfast, we had our first cuppa chai in India, which I dedicated to Serafine, who just loves a good cuppa chai. My lunch dessert of galub jamoon, filled with cheese and pistachios and flambed with brandy, I dedicated to Steve K., who loves galub jamoon.

We took a taxi to FabIndia sari boutique, where I bought a salwar (roomy pants) and four kurtas (long tunic-type shirts in cotton or silk) in gorgeous colors and prints,
well-made, for 25 US dollars. This clothing is lovely and comfortable, just like wearing jammies. I think the women here are so beautiful in their saris; even the teenage girls in the mall seem elegant and assured.

We then walked over to The Forum mall, in search of sandals and local SIM cards for our phones. Note to selves, which we've heard before: everything takes longer in India. As we are foreigners, Airtel wouldn't sell us SIM card until we went to the police station and came back with a letter of permission from the police commissioner. At another store, to get Spice SIM cards, we had to provide our passports and separate photos. So we had to go to the Kodak store and get our pictures taken, wait 45 minutes for them to develop, and go back to get the cards. Eric's quote of the day: "So like we came, like, to India, and like we went to the mall and sat in this booth and like got our pictures taken and stuff?"

The same type of challenges were true buying bus tickets to Mysore and in getting an appointment for a travel agent to book a train for Darjeeling. It's all been good practice in equanimity. It’s also a lot easier knowing you’ve got all the time in the world.

The street in India is as we've heard it would be ~ noisy, polluted, full of a fireworks display of color, and exuding exuberance and pathos.

Any marked lanes are filled with three or more vehicles abreast (cars, taxis, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, bikes, not to mention cows, dogs, donkeys, horse-drawn carriages, and vegetable carts), all honking away, driving within feet or inches of each other, weaving in and out, daring oncoming traffic, and honking constantly. Even in cases of narrow misses, though, there may be shouting but no one seems angry. The rules are real and unspoken. As a passenger, I've pretty much passed on controlling the situation, so sitting back and enjoying the flow of the ride is fun, kind of like bumper cars.

Begging is more evident here in Mysore than it was in Bangalore/Bengaluru: grannies, children, mothers holding babes, all walking alongside you, some trying to hold your arm. Eric had one mother and baby step in front of him again and again as he kept stepping to the side, in a sad dance. It felt heartrending stepping out of the street and into a shop to fill our bellies with talis, but that's how it goes here.

Our talis were served on banana leaves: banana leaf first, then rice, then ghee on the rice, then dal (lentils), korma, and another dish alongside the rice, then little pots of raita, yogurt, and other dipping sauces are placed on the side. Using your right hand, you form a rice ball, then dip it in one of the sauces and pop it into your mouth. Afterwards we were served a small tray that looked like a Zen garden, full of candied fennel and toothpicks.

Most of the people here have been very kind and gracious. At the sari boutique, the security guard who checked my daypack then gave it back to me came running over when I placed it on the ground to fill it with the package of clothing I had just bought. He picked the bag up off the ground and held it open while I inserted the clothing, then zipped it up and handed it back to me. At lunch, in search of the washroom, I walked into a dining room lined with mirrors and couldn’t figure out which mirrored door was the way to the washroom. I opened one to find the kitchen, another to find a broom closet. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Then across the room, a frosted glass door opened, and the doorman and maitre’d, smiling and gentle, shooed me in and directed me to the washroom. Later that day, as we were trying to direct our taxi driver to us, we had problems understanding him on the phone and a man sitting next to us kindly took the phone and directed the taxi driver.