Still India

[00:00:02] Welcome to Chicago Musician. [00:00:06] I'm your host, Shawn Stengel. I'm still in India. I mean, not really, but storytelling wise, I am from last episode. As I said in that episode, India is a lot of a lot and a lot of, a lot more on top of a lot. So let's get a little bit more of a lot more of my Indian adventure. [00:00:36] So we made it through the GoldenTriangle in Episode 1. So I'm just gonna jump in and keep going. We've been in India for about four days now, so the fifth day was another free day in New Delhi itself. And Mister Sam had offered to show us some of the highlights of Delhi, and we were all into it. Now, this was a really hot day, as most days in Delhi were. We had anywhere from 96 degrees to 101 degrees every day we were in Delhi. It was a dry heat, which wasn't much consolation because it was 98. So this was the day I came close to overheating, because we did three pretty big sites, and all of them were just outside, with a little bit of an exception at the Lotus temple, but. . . So let's keep going. We went to the south part of Delhi to a site called Qutab Minar. And if you have any sort of visual reference in your head about New Delhi, this Qutab Minar might be it. It's a very tall. [00:01:52] Its signature building is a very tall brick building that sort of looks like a chimney, but is much larger than that. It's often featured in a silhouette of the skyline of New Delhi. In any case, it's an interesting place. I'd read, I think, it was Hindu and then Muslim. They took over, and they cut off or chopped off all of the figures because they can't depict humans or animals in muslim art. It has to be script or geometric. So anyhow, it's been there a long time. I think they started building it in the twelve hundreds, and it seems like an earthquake or two knocked down some or part of it, but it's still kind of this elaborate complex of ruins and buildings. Some of it is a Jain temple. J-a-i-n. It's a sect religion, I think it actually is an offshoot of Sikhism. And at one point, Jains were, like, just nude, and they never cut their hair. And that's what I know about it. I mean, India is so confusing about the religions. Even though I've been there now, I know less about Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, and anyone else than I did before I went. The Hindus have something like 350 million different gods, so take that for what it is. But I found this funny. I was reading a guidebook about Qutab Minar and the tower, and I was trying to figure out, how old is it, this version of it, and part of it got knocked down and rebuilt in the 18 hundreds. But this guidebook says, let me read it. It's funny. [00:03:35] "The tower is currently closed to visitors and has been for some years after an incident during a school trip which led to a number of deaths." [00:03:48] I mean, that's not funny, but it's intriguing. That's all it says. That's the end of the excerpt. So, Qutab Minar. So as I said, ruins. This huge tower, really cool. But there's side buildings that are more or less intact. There's a tomb on one end of the grounds and a pillar, a famous pillar, Ashook pillar? [00:04:16] The Jain temple is cool. I think that's maybe the oldest part of the ruins. [00:04:23] And then there's another partially intact tomb that has fantastic carvings. [00:04:29] It's mostly red sandstone, but fantastic carvings in the sandstone. And I got a lot of cool pictures there that are just what you think of when you think of India, or at least for me. So we spent a couple hours there. Oh, I remember. That iron column that's there is somehow from like the fourth century, and they don't know how it got there or who brought it there. There's some theories, but they're not sure. But they can carbon date it or something back to the fourth century. And part of it's buried underground, but the part that's above ground, I would say it's probably 25ft tall. That part of it is only slightly rusted after 1600 years. [00:05:18] I don't know. Who knows? How interesting India, where everything is possible. So that was in the far south side of Delhi, Qutab Minor. A short ride over to our east, I think, we went to the Baha'i temple, or some call it the Lotus temple. A much newer site, but often you see pictures of this when people are showing you a tour book of Delhi as well. It's this modern, I think, built in the 80s. The temple looks like a lotus flower. [00:05:55] Think of the Sydney Opera house, but more symmetrical with those sort of petals going up. It's set in a large, lovely garden. [00:06:04] And so you walk through these gardens, down a long path and to get in line to go inside the temple, where no speaking or any sound is allowed. You're just supposed to sit there in silence and contemplate your own faith or mortality. Unfortunately for me, like most of these places, you can't wear shoes in these temples, so you have to chuck your shoes at the shoe check and socks, too, and then walk. Well, it was blisteringly hot, so they have these burlap kind of rugs for you to walk on. And if you're not a barefoot walker, which I'm not. I hate walking barefoot. You know, I always wear flip flops or something, even inside. [00:06:52] Thank you. Too much information. But walking on these burlap rugs was just painful. But the stone was bright white and blisteringly hot. So anyhow, I'm doing a scene from Dudley Moore in "10", you know, when he was walking on the hot beach and putting a towel. . . anyhow, look it up. [00:07:12] So you have to wait in line to get inside that temple. It is lovely, it's peaceful, it's cool inside, and, you know, nothing that decorative, but a peaceful space in the middle of. . . This is one of the surprises of Delhi. You think of this jam packed city, which it is in some ways, and then here's this massive plot of land with just this temple in the middle of some beautiful gardens. I don't know, it's a big place. So spent a little bit of time there. Got my shoes back, thank you, and headed back, hooked up with Mister Sam. And then we went on to the third site of our day, which was Humayun's Tomb. This is one of the more famous tombs from the era. This one is, again, it's a direct predecessor to the Taj Mahal. I don't know if it's the same architect, but somehow it's related and of that same era. You can see elements of it, the shape of it, the dome of it. Again, it isn't white. It's basically a red sandstone base for this. But you can see the Taj Mahal coming. It's coming! They're working on it. [00:08:33] So we went there. There was a beautiful side temple (or tomb?) even before you get to the main site. The Khan Tomb (k-h-a-n) that I really liked. [00:08:46] You know, a lot of photo ops, and again, not that full of people. Super hot. We're drinking a lot of water. But I'm, you know, it's 98 degrees and I'm getting pretty overheated here, I think, you know, as a person with not a lot of hair on my head and whatnot, I was getting pretty red. So that was a pretty full day of just seeing some of the big sights of Delhi. And at the end of that, we got to go back to the embassy, and guess what? There's a pool there! And everyone's on vacation, the teachers. So Gisele and I had our pool to ourselves. Us and the peacocks in the trees overhead. So that was the end of our fifth day in India. And we had to turn in early because the next day started even earlier than I'd planned. I'd booked a flight to fly to Amritsar, which is northwest of Delhi in Punjab. And it's very close to the Pakistani border. In fact, it's about equidistant from the border, on the other side is Lahore, Pakistan. This used to be one of the main trade routes in the area before Pakistan and India were separated. But we started very early because the flight I booked on Indigo Airlines, I got an email or a text saying, 'oh, we've changed the time'. So instead of a 09:00 flight, I had a 5:55am flight or something. It was terrible. Anyhow, the lovely Mr. Sam took us to the airport about 03:00 a.m. [00:10:28] And off we flew to Punjab. [00:10:32] Punjab is one of the states that was divided in half, or about, when India was partitioned in the late forties, 1947. [00:10:43] And Amritsar is its capital or its main city now on the indian side. And it is also home to the Golden Temple of the Sikhs, the holiest city site of the Sikh religion. I'm sure you've seen pictures of it on television or, I mean, there's been stuff there lately. There was a terrorist attack not that long ago, and blah, blah, blah, like most of India. [00:11:13] But it is an unbelievably beautiful place that I'd seen on YouTube, and I'm like, oh, that seems like a different part of India to go to. So that's why or part of why I wanted to go there. And the other reason I wanted to go there (again, thank you, YouTube!)was I'd seen videos of this thing called the Wagah BorderCrossing. It's at the border of Pakistan and India. [00:11:43] And as I'm watching, I'm figuring out that every evening at this border crossing, they do a flag lowering ceremony for India and Pakistan. [00:11:55] But it's like a competitive, chest pounding, nationalistic, you know, everyone whipped into a fervor kind of football game of a flag lowering ceremony. I mean, it looks so bizarre. I'm like, "I must go!" So Gisele and I flew off early to Amritsar. I'd booked ahead on booking.com, my hotel, and my taxi from the airport. And thank you, Google Translate, because the taxi driver met us. They hold up a sign with your name on it, thank God. [00:12:36] We walked to his car and I was asking him, 'Can I sit in the front seat with you?' Blank look. Get out Google Translate and say in English and translate to Hindi, 'Can I sit in the front seat with you?' Press translate. 'Oh, yeah, no problem.' And that was about the extent of his 'English', but a nice guy. Pretty long ride into Amritsar, but definitely a different feel than where we'd been in the north center of India. [00:13:11] The buildings were slightly different. It had a. . . I don't know how to explain it, but a little bit more closer to the Himalayas feel. And the architecture was slightly different. And also because we had such an early flight, it was 07:00 a.m.! So driving into town, the sunlight was lovely and it wasn't busy yet. The shops weren't open. So probably half an hour ride into the city and had to do a little winding around to get to our hotel, which was a turn down this alley that looked like, okay, I would never drive down that and feel safe. And that's where our hotel was. Now, I'm not going to say that it was a bad hotel, but it was the least good of our whole trip. It was sort of like a badly run Motel 6. But the location: golden! Hello, Golden Temple. We were maybe 500 yards from the Golden Temple, but, you know, my air conditioning didn't work. We didn't have hot water at night, whatever. Location, location, location. So I had messaged ahead and said, we're going to be there early. Will our rooms be ready? Well, fortunately, one of ours was ready, so we were able to dump our luggage in the room and then go on a little stroll over to the Golden Temple. And it was already busy. 7 a.m. . . 7:30. [00:14:40] Lots of people around. And in a Sikh temple, as I learned, not only do women have to cover their head, but everybody's head has to be covered. And I knew this (thank you, YouTube!) going in. Everyone's trying to sell you a little headscarf, an orange headscarf on your way towards the Golden Temple. And I'm like, no, no, no. I knew that somewhere right by the entrance, there was this basket full of discarded headscarfs that you could just pick up and use while you were there. So I did that. Maybe it's gross, probably gross. But, you know, I wasn't going to waste rs20 on a new scarf when I could just. . . which is about twelve cents. I could have just bought one. So I put on my beautiful orange headscarf. And again, you have to check your shoes and walk barefoot around this whole complex. But then we made our way into the Golden Temple of the Sikhs. And it's a big place. [00:15:44] The temple sits in a man-made pool of water, and that is surrounded by a series of buildings, a complex of buildings in a big square. Some of it is side shrines or temples, and it includes a huge community kitchen. Fascinating. Part of the belief of the Sikhs is volunteerism and also in generosity. So they have a huge kitchen there where you can actually volunteer to cut up onions or whatever. Anyone is welcome. And they serve free meals every day, something insane, like 50,000 or 75,000 free meals every day in this kitchen! And that's part of the Sikh belief: everyone is welcome without discrimination, and everybody is also welcome to contribute by volunteering or, of course, giving money. So from what I understand, this whole complex was built late 15 hundreds into about 1600s. So it's, you know, newer than some, older than others, but a beautiful place. The golden part is the part. . . there's a pier that sort of leads you out into the water, and then the Golden Temple sits in the middle of this pond, or nearly the middle. And there's a huge line to go in. So we didn't wait to go in. It was hours and hours of waiting. And it was packed with people just crammed in these switchbacks, like Space Mountain, only without the distractions of the Disney geniuses. [00:17:31] So we didn't go in. But apparently what is sacred in there is the book of Sikh beliefs. That is what is in the Golden Temple. And you go in there and it's not a deity or a figurine of a God or something, it's The Book. [00:17:48] And every night I think they take it out of there and bring it to a different part of the complex to put it away at night. And again, like I said, I understand less about these religions than I did before I went. [00:18:00] I'll pretend like I know something, I learned something. . . but it's breathtaking. And occasionally people chant or start singing as you're walking around this temple complex. And one of the things people do, believers, Sikhs do, is bathe in this water as a sort of purification process. [00:18:27] And so not everywhere, but on one end especially, there's an area where basically the guys just shed their clothes. Most of them tend to wear boxer shorts or something to go in the water, not completely butt naked. And then for the women. . . they can also do this, but they have their own tent or building built out over one section of the water. And there's a separate entryway for women where they can apparently go and bathe also. But, you know, modesty demands that they not be seen by the men and vice versa. I don't know. There's a lot of that in India. That's kind of disturbing. Still, the women always have a separate entrance. Like I said, Gisele had to go on a separate entrance into the subway. So if she had to get frisked, it was by a woman. And so this is a little bit different flavor of that same women and men being separate in India. It's still very much a thing. Anyhow, we spent some time there, walked around the whole square, and then we popped out a different side entrance and found ourselves right by what we thought was an entrance to a place called Jalianwala Bagh. It's a famous site that one must see in Amritsar, a park, but a place that had a notorious happening about 100 some years ago, when there was a protest there and tension with the British. And somehow the British opened fire on these unarmed civilians and killed many of them. And many of them jumped into a well to save themselves and then got killed anyhow. A sight of a horrific military exercise by the British that still resonates. Now there's a museum there and a park and a monument, of course. And it was fascinating and pretty disturbing. [00:20:34] So we had to find our way back around almost to our hotel to find the very poorly marked entrance to the place, which takes you down an entryway where they now have statues of the people or likenesses of the people, like that would have been there. And this narrow entrance is part of why this was such a massacre, because there was only one way in and one way out of this park, more or less. And so the people were in there, hundreds and hundreds of them. And somehow the British. . . I don't remember, again the machinations of this, but some commanders said open fire, and they just slaughtered. . . well, it's up for debate how many, but it was a massacre, and it's still part of the infamous Indian history with the British. [00:21:25] A pretty solemn, sacred place. Jalianwala Bagh. I think bagh:. b-a-g-h, means garden. So Jalianwala is the name of the place. Bagh. [00:21:40] Interesting, somber place, beautifully manicured gardens and an interesting museum. And then it was time to get a refreshment. So we found the Starbucks in Amritsar. We did, actually, which had free Wi Fi and was air conditioned, and we needed some at that point. And after that, we were able to get into our hotel, get checked in, and then we had to put in process the thing I wanted to do, which was to go to this crazy Wagah Border Ceremony. So we had to figure out how to get there. It's about 25 km west of Amritsar to the border with Pakistan. And there are a number of ways to get there. There's a public bus that costs nothing. There's tour buses that cost a little bit more. And then what we ended up with was hiring a driver. And we got lucky, as most of our trip, we got lucky with who we ended up. With this guy who was a local, but he'd gone to college at the big university there, which has this gorgeous building that apparently they use in a lot of Bollywood films because it's such interesting architecture. And it's a huge campus. But he gave us a lot of info as we drove out there. [00:22:56] But better than that, he knew the ins and outs of this border thing. There are a lot of people there. So he knew where to park, how to get us into the foreigners only line that's a lot shorter than the other line, and told us which side to go to, where if you're white, with 'white privilege' and a us passport, you're automatically a VIP. And they shuttle you into the stadium, and you go to the best seats right close to the border. It's kind of disturbing. But, you know, again, we paid 7times. . . 17 times what they pay to get in. Oh, wait, we didn't pay at all. It's free! But anyhow, white privilege. So we go there (you've got to get there a couple hours early to get good seats) and sit there. And in the meantime, there's the soldiers marching around, there's one soldier in particular sort of whipping the crowd into a frenzy. And this is all before the ceremony starts. And across the border. . . it's just an open fence gate. . . you can see on the other side. There's also a stadium on the Pakistan side, which is about one 14th the size. This night I think there were 40,000 of us on the Indian side and about 150 on the Pakistan side. And then about 5 or 06:00, they actually start a ceremony that's a little bit more organized. And the Indian soldiers in their fancy peacocky headdresses come strutting out, and then they try to kick as high as they can. And then you can see on the other side of the border, the Pakistan guards in their black garb with red hats. [00:24:43] It's a kind of an inexplicably insane scene that had to be experienced to be believed. And even now, I don't even know if I believe it. But it was wacky, it was fun. It was chest pounding and sort of almost like "Death to Pakistan!", without saying, Death to Pakistan. But then, (and these countries do not like each other. That is a given.) that said, it was sort of a genial, two sides of the border performance. And at the end, they slowly opened the gate and lowered their flags. And I don't think they shook hands, but it's done peacefully at least. And then our driver said, 'if you can duck out right when they start lowering the flags and get out of the stadium a little earlier, we'll get out of here in ten minutes instead of 2 hours.' So we did that. On the way out there I said, 'you know, I want to get some Indian flags. [00:25:43] You know, I wanted to join the "Indian team" when we were going to be there for our competition. I'd seen there were vendors all the way along. There at the toll booths on the highway, you could buy an Indian flag. So he pulled over, we bought some Indian flags. And then I saw people with face paint, you know, and he says 'Oh, okay.' So we get into the parking lot and he signals a guy to come over. And the guy gets green and white and orange and a blue dot on our cheeks and rs200 ready, Team India!! So we joined in the celebration and I guess we chose our sides this time. Anyhow, it was a wild experience. We ducked out early, got on the road, and got back to Amritsar in time for a lovely evening in the heat. [00:26:34] Now, one of the things I had definitely wanted to do in Amritsar was to also see the Golden Temple at night, all lit up and just gorgeous. But this has been a long, hot day of travel and we'd already been to the Golden Temple. So Gisele and I found, using Yelp or other reviews. . .we're like, 'where do we eat? What do we eat?' So we found a place sort of somewhat localish and ordered local Punjabi favorites and had a pretty interesting meal. There's always some sort of dal, like a lentil soup and much more. Anyhow, had a decent meal and decided not to go to the temple that night. But we were going to be in Amristar for two days, so we would do it the next day. So turned in a little bit early. I found out that my air conditioning didn't work, so the fan was my friend that evening. And it wasn't too bad. Got up the next day, we had breakfast included, so they made us omelets. [00:27:43] Literally, it was just a vending machine room, I think. There weren't a lot of rooms in this hotel. . . although I forgot!! The night before, there was a family. Must have been a family with several rooms, on our hallway and a kid who'd gotten some toy gun or laser shooter toy during the day, who was out in that hallway till really late, going. . . [laser sounds] [00:28:13] And no one told him to shut up. And I was just about to go out and be the 'ugly American' and tell him to shut up when finally they closed the door for the night. But that was kind of annoying. Ugh, my life!! Anyhow, so cute little breakfast in our custom made 'omelets'. Over there 'omelets' are usually just some sort of fried egg. In this case, it was just like a basically fried egg. We had some toast with some butter and jam and some chai, and it was lovely. [00:28:44] Or at least 'lovely enough'. [00:28:48] Anyhow, so it's day two in Amritsar, and the thing I wanted to do on this day was to go to the Partition Museum. [00:28:56] When the British left in 1947 after their 150 year rule of India, part of the negotiation that allowed them to leave or was in place because they left, was that India was divided up into Pakistan and India and actually into West Pakistan, East Pakistan and India. East Pakistan is now what we know as Bangladesh. There was another war later on about that. So anyhow, there's a museum in Amritsar called the Partition Museum. Apparently the only museum in India dedicated to this event, they say. But that didn't open till 10. So Gisele and I decided to go for a little hike, and we picked as a destination, this Lahore Gate that said it had a shopping area. I don't know, sort of random choice. We just started walking, looked at our Google Maps and chose a path, and off we went. But this took us through some 'really interesting' parts of Amritsar, really off the beaten path and, in fact, almost no path. And in the midst of these tiny little alleyways, often no gps either. But we just kept going. And I loved it because you're seeing real life. There's nothing varnished about this at all. And a lot of it's quite run down or filthy or. . . [00:30:28] Anyhow, it's just you're seeing real India is what I feel, from the shops that people actually have to the little. . . what we would call a bodega, where people are just selling snacks and drinks and stuff. And there's people doing all sorts of regular day everyday stuff from the guys literally cleaning out the sewage, open sewage gutters, with their hand and to, you know, people opening up their shops for the day. And one alley seemed to be the furniture alley and the next one was where you get your saris. [00:31:09] But we never really did find a shopping area where we were headed to. We did a pretty long walk, about an hour, and it was pretty hot already. But a fascinating peek at 'real life India.' Gisele and I only almost got killed twice, I think, by trying to cross streets with tuk tuks and bikes and motorbikes and cows and everything. [00:31:35] If you look the wrong way at the wrong time, it can be precarious. But we lived, we're still alive! But didn't find the shopping area. Or we found it, but that also was not open till ten or eleven. [00:31:51] I said, well, let's go see that other temple. I'd read that there was, in addition to the Golden Temple, there's a Silver Temple. [00:32:00] And this is a. . . well, I don't think it's Sikh. I think it's still a Hindu temple. Sri Durjiana is its real name. The Silver Temple. [00:32:16] It was hot, so we took a tuk tuk, or I guess they weren't tuk tuks there. They were more like motorized rickshaws or something. We took a short ride up to this temple. [00:32:31] And this place was bizarre. It was sort of like an amusement park from the 60s version of a Hindu temple meets like Six Flags Over Amritsar. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but it's definitely not on anywhere near the level of holiness and of finish of the Golden Temple. But nonetheless it was there. So we went in, paid our admission fee and dumped our shoes and walked on hot stones and burlap paths. And yeah, it was just a strange sort of place with shrines to the monkey gods and some fountains in the unrealistically blue dyed water. And then you get out to the Silver Temple in the pond and they were having some sort of service in there. [00:33:32] It was hard to explain and just kind of more bizarre than anything. [00:33:40] So we sampled that for a little bit before we made our way back into the more city center part of Amritsar. And then we went to the Partition Museum. [00:33:51] No photos were allowed in there, and rightfully so. A lot of it's quite gruesome. And the history of the partition is really something. I do again recommend the book 'Freedom at Midnight' if you have any interest in this. [00:34:08] A book written by an American and a French guy in the 70s that's apparently still considered the gold standard about the history of this division of power in the history of India. [00:34:24] So I read that before I went. By the way, the worst edition of a book I've ever read! It was obviously bought and printed by Chinese bots who don't know English. So there was, in this edition, there was punctuation and misuse of words, more than I've ever seen in any book. And yet somehow I still got through it. But it was comical. And, in fact, on the back page of this book, it says "Here at All- Star Printing, we're proud of our books. If you have any suggestions for us, please email. . . blah, blah, blah, blah." And I thought, what a joke. [00:35:04] I have edits from every paragraph of every page of this 400 page book for them. But why would I waste my energy? So how's that for a sidebar? So, the Partition Museum. . . a very interesting place. After that, we had the afternoon free before we were going to go to the Golden Temple again in the evening. So we made our way, did some shopping in some of the side streets and bargained hard. [00:35:39] Not really. We're not very good at bargaining, as you know. At least I'm not as a polite Minnesotan. I go, 'oh, 800? Okay, what about 792? No? Okay, 800 then.' [00:35:55] That's about how effective I was. [00:35:58] Nonetheless, it wasn't that expensive. Bought some spices and some tchotchkes. Gisele bought some bracelets that were cute as gifts and stuff. And we also were like, well, what are we going to eat now? So there was a McDonald's not far from the Golden Temple, and we sort of wanted something familiar and neutral, so we went to McDonald's. [00:36:21] Interestingly, in India, I hadn't thought about it, but, you know, where cows are sacred and the majority of people are vegetarian, McDonald's is, as you would imagine, quite different. And there is no beef patty option of any sort. If you order a burger, it's going to be either a chicken patty or ground chicken. Or your other options are like a vegetarian patty sort of thing. But they did have small chocolate sundaes and pop that you would recognize. And french fries! The french fries were exactly the same. So what's wrong with that? So we had our little McDonald's dinner. [00:37:08] I talked to a woman, an indian woman who was living in Austria. And so we spoke in German, which seemed really out of place in the middle of the Punjab in India. But, you know, "World Traveler Shawn". There I was. [00:37:25] So we went to the temple that night. Really magical at night. I used magical a few too many times in my last podcast, so I won't say magical again. But the atmosphere, the singing, the music that's constant in this walk around the pond. And the Golden Temple shimmers even more beautifully at night and the white building surrounding it with some colorful lights was just aesthetically mind blowing. And again, so many people. It was busy day and night. So we walked, I think, the whole loop one more time because how often are you going to go back to Amritsar? [00:38:12] And that was our Amritsar adventure. And we turned in again fairly early because the next day we're taking off and heading up to Kashmir. To Srinagar or Srina'gur'? I never say it right. You can. It's s-r-i-n-a-g-a-r. Srinagar. Or Srinagur. [00:38:35] Anyhow, it's in a state that's now called Jammu and Kashmir. But it's part of what I knew, just as, you know, a pedestrian in America with no history of India, as a troubled part of India, where there's been conflict for years over the border, conflicts with Pakistan and China and, or terrorists or something. I don't know. Wasn't even sure if it was a safe place to go, but I checked up and read on it. And actually, cousin Joan had recommended going there and staying on a houseboat in Srinagar. So that was our next adventure coming up the next day. [00:39:34] So we got our same taxi driver and drove back to the airport. We had an early morning flight out of Amritsar, heading to Srinagar on IndiGo airlines. "Fly indiGo!" Sponsors? Anyone? No? All right. Namaste. So we flew off to Srinagar not knowing what to expect and had the most beautiful flight. [00:40:04] Srinagar, in Jammu and Kashmir, sits at the base of the foothills of the Himalayas. It's not really that high up in the air yet, but you're surrounded by ginormous mountains. We had a beautiful, clear morning, and for the one time in my life that I ever was hoping we would be in a holding pattern in a plane, we were. We circled around this valley after we'd gone over these snow capped mountains, and all the fields are yellow. The mustard flowers or plants were all in bloom. So there's all these yellow fields and blue skies and snow capped Himalaya mountains. [00:40:44] We're a long ways west, so we weren't by Everest, but I think we saw K2, the second largest mountain on earth, and the third largest is in Pakistan. I'm not sure which one it was, but they were very impressive. So we circled around at least twice and I got a good view of every direction before we landed. When we did land in Srinagar, surprise, surprise, we had no phone signal. [00:41:16] Now, my AT&T phone was working elsewhere in India, but apparently not in Kashmir. And Joan. . . Joan! I mean Gisele had bought a new SIM card for her iPhone2, or maybe it was iPhone6? But some old iPhone that had been also working in the other parts of India. But here, zero bars, zero signal. Thankfully, I had arranged with our hotel for them to pick us up at the airport. So we go out front. Usually, we're looking for the guys with our name on a sign. And there's no one. No one with our name on it, at least. And I'm like, okay, so no phone. We can't call them. We don't know what. . . [00:42:05] Somehow, (again, luck of our trip!) some guy came up to said, 'are you waiting for a driver? Do you have their number? We can call them.' Just a random guy with other taxis. Fortunately I had the number of where we were staying and he was able to call. And the driver's like, 'yeah, yeah, I'm five minutes away.' So whew!! I don't know what we would have done. We'd still be standing there, I think, if that hadn't happened. So our driver shows up. Oh, this made me laugh. . . [00:42:40] He's parked like 20 yards away. He comes over. Okay, great. We've got small bags on wheels and we're wheeling them over there. Well, two guys come and "help us" with our luggage, get to the car and load them in the car. And then, even though in India there's 'no tipping', if you're an American, they expect us to tip. So I gave the guy like rs20 and the other guy rs20. And he said 'That's nothing!' [00:43:07] Nothing! He threw it down like it was no money. But also, I hadn't asked them to help us and they did nearly nothing except wheel our cart for 10ft, our luggage. So this kind of made me laugh. I ended up giving them rs100 each. Again, it's no money to us, but. . . It's funny, trying to understand what's appropriate and what they expect and what you're supposed to do. [00:43:34] And I don't know. I usually tip like a fag, as they say. Yes, I can say that. Meaning over tipping because most gay guys have been waiters. I think that's where 'tip like a fag' came from? Anyhow, I did it the whole journey, tipped like a fag. [00:43:55] But somehow we got to our taxi and then had a pretty adventuresome long ride again in through Srinagar, which definitely had a different feel from the rest of India. The buildings are wood now and they're more like you see in pictures of Tibet and Nepal than you see in New Delhi. So I was fascinated by the change in architecture. And also Kashmir is the only primarily muslim state in India. [00:44:30] And that is also why there's so much conflict there with Pakistan and with the state of India. It really is occupied now by the indian army and it feels like it's oppressive. There's military with Uzis and Ar-15s everywhere. Everywhere! And I have no interest or vested interest in this place. And I felt oppressed. [00:44:59] The Kashmiris, from my observation, who think of themselves as Kashmiris rather than Indians, very much feel oppressed by this occupation. And the Modi government says it's for the safety and to put down terrorism. And the Kashmiris, they're like, what? Terrorism? And a little bit of indian politics thrown in there. It's really confusing. But, boy, it did feel weirdly, psychologically oppressive to see all these guys with guns amongst the vegetable stands and. . . I don't know. It made no sense anyhow. So in Srinagar (back to our tour), Joan had suggested we stay on a houseboat. [00:45:46] Apparently, when the British ruled India, there was a law in Kashmir that the British could not own land. So they built boats, houses on boats. And that's where they lived instead. And those still exist and they're sort of like. . . how to describe them? Not houseboats like we think of them, but they're sort of about the length of three big pontoons, end to end to end. And then these houses built on them. Anyhow, Joan had suggested one called the Lily of Nageen. Na-geen, I guess Lake Nageen. The main lake of Srinagar is called Dal Lake. . . D-A-L Lake, and that's where most of the houseboats are. But Joan had stayed at the Lily of Nageen before and said it's better. It's on the quiet lake to the side of Dal Lake where the boats aren't all stacked on top of each other. It's safer, it's quieter. She recommended it. And, boy, what a find this was! [00:46:52] Just such a change from what we've done so far in India. We're in Kashmir. It's like 67-70 degrees. The air is clean, it's cool. And now we arrive and we're at this houseboat. And our host, Tariq. . . There's only two rooms on this houseboat, and we were supposed to have both of them, and then somehow we only had the family room. I don't know. Long story there. But anyhow, it's not high occupancy. It's you and another person or two on this boat. We get there and our host, Tariq, welcomed us with some chai tea and cookies. And then he had called and arranged. . . [00:47:38] Well, we go out onto the 'back porch', and there's our shikara. A shikara is a local boat that is sort of like a gondola with a roof over it or a tent on it, and it's like a big chaise lounge. And Tariq says "Here, just go, relax. This guy's gonna paddle you around the lake for three or 4 hours, so just unwind." So we immediately get on this boat, and it's just aguy with a paddle. It's not motorized or anything. And it happens to be just a perfectly calm day. The whole lake is like glass, and the air is warm, and the sun is out and the blue sky and the mountain peaks overhead. It was just a perfect decompression for the middle of our trip in India. So we were on this boat for over 3 hours. I think my butt actually got a little sore because I'm not used to lounging. You know, I'm a worker. I'm a worker. I'm a physically active worker. I'm not used to just sitting there. [00:48:47] Okay. I made up most of that last part, but anyhow, it was beautiful and a much needed couple of hours of peace and quiet in India. [00:49:09] Remember how when Mr. Sam said, 'You know, in India, everything is possible'? [00:49:16] Well, it is. Everything in India is possible, but also, you have no idea what it is that's possible. [00:49:25] So I had done my research about Kashmir. Should I go and staying on a houseboat and all this sort of stuff, but I really had no idea what this "Srinagar" was going to be like. Or what Kashmir was like. And again, we just had such good fortune on this trip. [00:49:43] The owner or host of the Lily of Nageen houseboat, where we were staying, was named Tariq. I had communicated, in the brilliance of our modern century, through WhatsApp and through booking.com. I could message these places and that sort of stuff, but you really don't know who you're dealing with until you're there. So we got so lucky with the Lily of Nageen houseboat, that Tariq was our host, and he just took us under his wing and showed us the place. We were there for two days. We were staying for two nights. And aside from the little snafu that wasn't even a snafu about our room. . . I had booked the family room because booking.com (Sponsorship?!!) didn't allow me to book two single rooms. Anyhow, I contacted him, he said 'no problem'. No problem. Well, when I got there, well, there was a problem. 'The woman in the other room is staying longer. So you have the family room.' It was plenty big. It was fine. But he basically became our tour guide. So after our three to four hour shikara relaxation tour of Lake Nageen, I guess we were on Lake Nageen, but it directly connects to Dal Lake. And we went through the series of open water and then canalways. We had to go under a bridge that was, well, the 'oarsman' had to actually lift off the roof of our shikara and lower it for us to get underneath this one small bridge. And he cursed something about the 'water level was too high'. Apparently!!! Because I'm said to Gisele, 'How are we getting under this bridge?' We bumped into it, and then he came to the front of the boat and lowered our roof and took the pegs out. We went under the bridge, and then he put them back in and we kept going. [00:51:45] Just one of the many quirks of this ride. So after we'd done this boat tour and we got back to the real boat, I had read about there being a tulip festival, "The Biggest Tulip Festival in Kashmir!" I don't know if it's much of a competition in that category, but there was a tulip festival on the other side of the lake that I'd wanted to go to. So Tariq loaded us up into the SUV and we drove around the north side of Dal Lake over to what [00:52:18] I thought it was Indira Gandhi Park, but I got there and the park said, "Nehru Park". I don't know, maybe she's out of favor now. But there was a big tulip festival and, luck of the draw, it was now The Golden Hour. (Late afternoon sunlight) The sunlight was just fantastic. And we paid our foreigner admission fee, I think it was 400 or rs500, and went in this beautiful park with all sorts of tulips and other kind of flowers mixed in and some flowering trees and a series of fountains and. . . Just gorgeous! [00:52:59] The mountains and the snow caps were still visible in the distance. We had a beautiful stroll around the park. Just Gisele and Tariq and I. He turned out to be quite a character. Has lived abroad for years. . . in Holland and all over the place. And so he spoke wonderful English and had a sense of humor that I enjoyed. Anyhow, so did the tulip fest. And then I had expressed an interest in some of the crafts that Kashmir was known for. I knew they were famous for their walnut carvings and also for papier mache. Not 'papier mache' like we think about it from third grade, but beautiful plates. . . they look like lacquered plates or ornaments or Christmas-like ornaments and bulbs that are made of papier mache, then lacquered and then hand painted. So Tariq took us to a shop of a guy who had been his father's best friend or something. You know, everybody knows a guy who knows a guy, and you're never quite sure whether you're getting railroaded or not, if they get a commission or not. But I wanted to see one of these craft places. So we went to a fantastic shop. I do not remember the name of the guy, but the place was just crammed full of beautiful carved walnut pieces. Like ginormous! (I use that term too much as well.) [00:54:30] Carvings of elephants inlaid with precious stones and stuff, and entire swing sets carved out of walnut. I mean, just rooms and rooms and rooms of this stuff. And then also a section where they have the papier mache crafts and stuff like that. Again, we were welcomed with some chai and a couple of sweets. And then we start looking around the place. I knew I wanted to buy something, but suddenly you're overwhelmed. It's like being thrown into the Louvre and saying "Oh, what painting should I pick out?" [00:55:08] But I knew I wanted something papier mache, so I found a plate. And of course, the plate I found was the most expensive one that you could find. But then by then, I loved it and had to have it. So I paid too much money for a beautiful plate. And Gisele and I got these really simple little walnut carvings of the shikara boats. There were painted versions and elaborate versions, but we found these simple, unpainted carvings that we both really liked. So we got those and I loaded up on Christmas ornaments. They're Muslim, so I guess it's not really "Christmas", but ornaments that are appropriate for Christmas, perhaps? A lot of them for gifts and stuff like that. And then we went back to the boat where our 'boat boy', I mean, that's sort of what he was. . . [00:56:02] Miraj. Mirajdine. His job was to tend us while we were on the boat. He made dinner for us each night. We had our own dinner and our own breakfast the next morning, just for Gisele and I, in the dining room in the middle of the boat. And in the evening it was always some sort of stewed mutton and just rice and different kinds of pickled potatoes or vegetables, combinations of stuff, but very tasty and made just for us. So we sat in the peace and quiet of our own little dining room and had dinner. Another memorable thing of the evening on the boat was around sundown. [00:56:51] You start hearing the chanting from the mosques (and there's a lot of mosques!) around this lake. And it was Ramadan. So as the sun went down, there was this series of chanting, and it all starts to waft across the lake towards you and mesh and mishmash into each other. It was the strangest sound. [00:57:16] I can't even explain what it was, but. . . you're hearing it from a distance, but it's very present. And actually, it's quite loud eventually because there's so many different mosques where there's someone chanting and it comes across the water on the lake. And if it wasn't so peaceful, it would have actually sounded a little bit ominous and creepy. But it was really cool. It was less pleasant at about 04:30 a.m. when they start chanting for the morning prayers. And again, kind of loud! And it goes on for a while!! But a memorable sort of atmosphere and feeling on this houseboat. And it's so weird to me. . . I look on the map and I'm like, wow, I'm just east of Islamabad and actually just southeast of Kabul, not that far from Afghanistan and right next to Pakistan. . . and that just sort of blows my mind. So that was the end of our first day in Srinagar. And the next day, Tariq had said, I'm gonna take you up into the mountains and do a little hiking. And I'm like, okay, just take us away! So the next morning, we loaded up into the SUV and with a Swiss guy who had been staying on the boat before us. An interesting guy, sort of a 'wanderer guy' looking for his life, I guess. He'd stayed on in Srinagar, and I think Tariq had taken him under his wing. And anyhow, they asked if we would mind if this guy came along. We're like, no, no, the more the merrier. So we started driving out through all of the military checkpoints and actually went to the next state, I think it was named Ganderbal or something. We did a couple hour, almost two hour, drive through windy roads and crazy driving up to a place called Naranag, which is a temple, I think an ancient temple to Shiva, quite a ways up in the hills in the next state. Beautiful. Again, beautiful, fascinating ride through little villages and people walking with bundles of sticks on their head and herding the cows and just simple, simple life. A life so foreign to what I know. And so all of it seems sort of exotic and again, colorful dress. So we get up to this kind of end of the road and get out and we do a little bit of hiking. There's a temple or stones from part of a pretty good extant temple at the beginning. And then you can wander down these paths and down this valley. You can see this big, huge snow capped mountain at the end of the line. We were never going that far! But we walked these paths through the villages and every now and again a whole line of women carrying sticks and I don't know what on their heads would wander by. And there were guys with some goats or the cows down in the valley. [01:00:32] And yeah, it was a beautiful fresh mountain air, blue sky kind of day just to experience. Not what I would think of as India in my mind's eye, but well worth doing. We stopped for a little chai at a roadside stand on the way back and then made our way, eventually, after a few hours, back into town. And then Tariq took us into Srinagar. He wanted to take us into the old city. And I'm so grateful for this. Srinagar is not really ready for tourism in a lot of ways. And where we were staying on this houseboat, it would have been really tricky if maybe not impossible for Gisele and I to find our way into town on our own. But he had offered. He wanted to show us the main mosque and a couple other places. Unfortunately, it was the day before Eid. All the way up into the mountains and on the way back, in every village, there was a line outside what we learned was the butchershop, because everybody was buying their lamb for Eid, the next day, when they could break their fast of Ramadan. And it was going to be a huge party. But that also meant that Srinagar itself was really busy and there were a lot of people downtown. So fortunately, Tariq and his brothers or his family have a series of cars and some drivers. So he was able to call a guy who we picked up and he took over driving so that he could drive us into town and drop us because there's nowhere to park, just like the rest of the world, right? No parking in Srinagar. He was able to drop us off in the old part of town. And then we went to a pretty big sized mosque there. And again, Gisele had to go to her own entrance. She actually was never allowed to come into the main courtyard of the mosque. The women's curtained off area. . . well, she had to stay inside there. I was able to go in the courtyard because, you know, I'm a man. . . But kind of fascinating hallways and prayer areas. And then a beautiful interior fountain with a courtyard and some blooming lilacs and stuff. . . it was intoxicating. Then we started walking through other parts of the old city, and we would have. . . I mean, it was really confusing. The streets were very crowded. Some of them were under construction and they were putting in new cobblestones. And, I don't know, it was a very confusing place. The architecture is, again, it's wood and wild, but very narrow alleys. I don't know how we arrived, where we arrived. I guess I wasn't in charge, so I didn't need to. But we went to another much smaller mosque, but much more ornate. And inside it had chandeliers and was painted to within an inch of its life and fascinating. Anyhow, had a great personalized tour of downtown old city Srinagar, and then made it back to our houseboat in time for a beautiful sunset Shikara ride on Lake Nageen. Just on Lake Nageen this time just around, where our houseboat was. Spent about an hour out on the water and lasted out there and just until the sun sets behind the mountain where the fort sits, right across from our houseboat. Again, we had our same driver, "oarer" I guess, this interesting old guy who just. . . it's so peaceful. There's no motor. We saw a few motorized shikaras, and that was mostly for the tourists who were arriving or who wanted to arrive by boat with their luggage, which wouldn't have really fit on our shikara. So we did that till sunset, and then we went back onto the boat and had our customized meal of mutton and a variety of things. And more chanting! [01:04:58] The next morning, we had to get up and head back to Delhi. [01:05:05] So that's Part 2 of Shawn and Gisele's eExcellent India Adventure, and I think I'll call it there. Next time we can focus on our excursion to Bombay/Mumbai at the end of our tour. [01:05:22] Thanks so much for listening to Chicago Musician. I'm your host, Shawn Stengel. If you want to keep hearing about India, come back for Part 3 in. . . who knows, in a few days, whenever I get around to it. Thanks for listening, and see you in Mumbai.