Week 11: Kerala

We made our way to the south last Tuesday and spent an entire week in Kerala. We flew from Ahmedabad to Trivandrum and landed on a runway that was in the middle of a palm tree forest. Trivandrum, located on the western coast almost on the southern tip of the sub-continent is the colonial name and the capital city of Kerala. It’s Indian name is Thiruvananthapuram, which I cant even begin to pronounce but means “holy snake city”. Snakes are sacred in India (at least I’m under that impression), so much that if you get bitten by a snake you are considered purified and don’t have to be burned in a ghat when you die like we had seen in Varanasi. The weather in Trivandrum was hot and humid, much different from the arid north. I wasn’t convinced I was even still in India until I saw our taxi cab, the same Ambassador model from the 1950’s that picked us up in Kolkata. With that said, the south still seemed like a different world: The men wear skirts (really it’s just a big sheet they tie around their waist), the tuk tuks actually have room for luggage (bonus!) and the people are just about the friendliest we have encountered on the entire trip.

While in Trivandrum, Chels and I did some architourist stuff by finding the works of Laurie Baker, a “Ghandian” architect who did socially responsible, low income, green work. He died two years ago, but his office, Costford continues to operate with the same principles. We saw a coffee house he designed for a coffee bean co-op which is a 4 storey continuous spiral. Inside was a timewarp, it looked like a ramped 50’s diner, with booth seating on the perimeter and the kitchen and bathrooms in the center. The walls and seats were pink and turquoise. The ramped interior definitely did not meet ADA standards, but considering that I don’t think I’ve seen an egress/exit sign in this country yet, I’m sure it is of no concern. We also saw a campus he designed and low income housing under construction in one of the city slums. His brickwork is his signature, and reminiscent of when Alvar Aalto went through his red brick phase (muraatsalo summer house for all you AS2k5 peeps out there) with many different experimentations of pattern, scale, and arrangement. His low income housing also has clay tiles embedded into the underside of the concrete slabs, reducing the amount of steel in the slabs by 25% according to the project architect.

Our last night in Trivandrum we went to this huge old movie house that I can only compare to the Uptown in Cleveland Park only it was a little larger and not as grand. We saw 2012 for a whopping 35 rupees (75 cents!) which was cool to see because it takes place in DC, Tibet and India. They stopped the film mid-way and had an intermission which was strange. The audience was a bit chatty and talked on their cell phones during the show as well.

We left Trivandrum for Kollam on the best train ride of the whole trip. It was only an hour long but it was in the lowest class where we sat in a train car with no glass in the windows (only bars!) and looked out at the towns and countryside of southern Kerala. The doors were non existent and people would jump off of the train as it slowed down before we got to the station.

In Kollam we did a canoe trip through the backwaters, tiny canals that branch off of the river that runs parallel the coast in a similar way the Intracoastal Waterway runs up the gulf coast of Florida. We saw people building canoes, a tapioca farm, and a couple fish farms. I spent a good part of the time laying across my bench looking up at the palm fronds that arched over the waterway. It was very calm and peaceful. The next day we took an 8 hour boat ride up one of the larger waterways to a town called Alleppy. We were on a boat that sat maybe 40 people, but was only half full. We made friends with a couple from Austin who have been traveling since July and have no definite ending date. We swapped travel stories, talked about food we miss the most (we both more or less agreed on Guacamole). It made me feel good that they’ve also had “fat kid camp days” (their words) where they gorge themselves at McDonalds or other western fast food that they see every now and again because it is familiar and although maybe not eaten a lot at home, very tasty on this side of the world. We tried to outdo each other with “craziest bus ride” stories. They knew a guy whose friend Andy was traveling in Boliva on a bus when it got pulled over by a guy with a machine gun. The bus full of people was very nervous but after the machine gun guy stopped talking to the driver, the driver turned around and joyfully said in Spanish “don’t worry, they’re only robbing this guy!” pointing to the only foreigner on the bus, Andy. They took him off the bus with all of his stuff and when he returned he had only the boxers he was wearing. Thankfully, that beats anything we’ve had to encounter!!

When we arrived in Alleppy we went to our hotel which was a resort type place on one of the backwater canals. We stayed in a hut clad in palm leaves with a hammock and what seemed like the first piece of grass I’ve stepped on in months. It was perfect and we were happy to have a change of pace as we wind down the last 11 weeks of being on the move.

Our last week is going to be a fast one, we’re off to the beaches in Goa for 2 days, then Mumbai with a quick side trip to the Ellora Caves which Ted Wolner apparently talked up quite a bit in Arch History (chels remembers hearing about them, I don’t). I’m back in DC on Wednesday!

Pictures:

Laurie Baker Indian Coffee House, Trivandrum

We decided against this restaurant, Trivandrum

Center for Development Studies, Campus designed by Laurie Baker, outside Trivandrum

Center for Development Studies, outside Trivandrum

Boatmaking, Backwaters near Kollam

Backwater boat ride from Kollam to Alleppy

Backwater boat ride from Kollam to Alleppy

Backwater boat ride from Kollam to Alleppy

Backwater boat ride from Kollam to Alleppy

Backwater boat ride from Kollam to Alleppy

Backwater boat ride from Kollam to Alleppy

Dusk on the boat from Kollam to Alleppy

Week 10: Jaipur, Udaipur and Ahmedabad

It was inevitable and I knew it would happen: Travelers sickness finally caught up with me and I was in bed for 3 days as a result. I think something in Agra got me sick which forced me to stay in bed in Jaipur, missing the city while Chels went and toured the fort, palace, etc. The city is known as the Pink City, because when Prince Albert of England came to visit, the shah or King or whoever was in charge had the entire city painted Pink in his honor, though I’m not sure why pink was chosen. After only 1.5 days in Jaipur we flew to Udaipur because there were no trains available. I thought I had recovered so I stupidly stopped taking my meds which actually made whatever was wrong with me come back even stronger and I spent two of the three days in Udaipur in bed. When Thursday rolled around, I still wasn’t taking to food, so my thanksgiving feast consisted of 3 or 4 ritz crackers, water, and Cipro. I was able to listen to about 10 episodes of “This American Life” on my Ipod which was nice and the ceiling of our hotel in Udaipur was beautifully painted in bright blue stenciling with peach colored flowers which I stared at for the majority of the day.

Udaipur is known as the White City and has a huge lake with a palace in the middle of it (now a very expensive hotel). The city is also well known because it is where they filmed James Bond’s “Octopussy”. Our last day there when I was probably about 70% recovered I was walking to pick up a pair of pants I had made (if I’ve had one indulgence on this trip, it has definitely been tailor-made clothing) and about 30 seconds after walking in the shop, I turned around and who was there but Johanna, the girl who sits directly behind me at SmithGroup! We knew we were both going to be in India in November, but after an email a couple weeks ago, we didn’t think we were going to be anywhere at the same time so we made no plans to meet up. I had no idea she was going to be in Udaipur and there she was! We hung out for the rest of the day, saw a wedding ceremony (the groom was on a horse, a marching band played, fireworks were shot off, very different from any wedding I’ve ever seen) starting and then watched Octopussy while we ate dinner at a hotel restaurant. What a crazy small world!

From Udaipur we took a bus to Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is one of the largest cities in India in a wealthy state called Gujarat. Chels studied there when she did CAP Asia in 2005 and one of our professors and a classmate of Chelsea’s were both there doing a Fulbright. I was unsure if I was going to like Ahmedabad but ended up really enjoying it. For one thing, it isn’t really touristy. Its’ claim to fame is that Ghandi lived there after he returned from South Africa in a commune of sorts. There were many perks to being in a city that didn’t have tourists. For one, the tuk tuk drivers don’t rip you off. We were shocked at how cheap it actually is to use them and how much more we were paying elsewhere. Of course it is all relative, but a tuk tuk that would cost 100 rupees ($2) in any of the previous places we had been was only about 25 rupees (50 cents) here. They use meters and you don’t have to barter for the price. It was such a relief.

Ahmedabad had some great modern architectural landmarks as well which was refreshing after having toured about a million temples/religious structures since September. IIM, the India Institute of Management’s (premiere business school, modeled after Harvard) original campus was designed by Louis Kahn. The dorms, faculty ofices, instruction space and library are all in the same vein as the Philips Exeter Library with huge geometric circles cut in to brick facades. Kahn’s mastery of scale and organization of the various programmatic components created a beautiful campus that seemed like an inspiring place to learn and live. I think the most exciting component of his design is his integration of light and shadow with his response to the hot-arid climate. The buildings are laid out like fingers, keeping them small and open to allow for daylight and air. They are connected with long arcades/corridors with rhythmic punched openings that produce beautiful clean, geometric bursts of light on the brick facades while providing a cool space to walk and keeping the buildings out of direct sun. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get very many good photos, because security made me put my camera away.

Another notable building was LeCorbusier’s City Museum. Standing in the courtyward on the ground level you know you’re in a Corbu building because 3 of his 5 ‘ideal principles’ are all present: Pilotis with open ground floor and raised first floor, ribbon windows, and a ramp. It was an institutional brick version of Villa Savoye in a way. The inside left something to be desired though. The circulation of exhibit space was poor (I think due to modifications of exhibit spaces and not Corbu’s intended design) but his stair details were nice and the concrete was beautiful. Sorry to geek out on the architecture descriptions but my exposure to modern architecture had been lacking until now.

From Ahmedabad we fly to Trivandrum which is almost at the southern tip of India. It is in a state called Kerala which is a socialist state and has a higher literacy rate than the US despite being one of the poorest states in India. It should be exciting!

Pictures: Apologies, I have none from Udaipur and Jaipur..

Kahn’s IIM main quad. Library in back, Faculty Office buildings on the left, classroom buildings on the right, Ahmedabad






New IIM dorms recently completed, inspired by Kahn’s original design, Ahmedabad

Old IIM dorms designed by Kahn, Ahmedabad

Kevin's dorm room at IIM, although I didnt get to meet him...

This was a menu item at a restaurant called "Uncle Sams". It was kind of a mix between Friendlys and Chuckee Cheese. Which is why we were shocked to see this on the menu, but it was hilarious! Ahmedabad

This was a Stepwell, an temple that goes 5 stories below ground. Adalaj, outside Ahmedabad

Jama Masjid (Main Mosque), Ahmedabad

I was supossed to be looking at this: Swaminarayan Temple, Ahmedabad



But was more intrigued by this behind me:

Week 9: Kolkata, Varanasi, and Agra

WEEK 9: Kolkata, Varanasi and Agra

Our first week in India has been amazing. The experience has been eye opening to say the least. We left Kolkata early in the morning from a chaotic train station aboard a very calm train arriving at night to Varanasi which was an even more chaotic train station: Touts tried to get our business before we were even off of the train, cows were walking on the platform (we have no idea how they got there), and the main hall in front of the ticketing counter looked like a church lock-in, with what seemed to be a hundred of people asleep on the ground as they waited for their trains.

We awoke the next morning at 5am to take a sunrise boat trip on the Ganges. The Ganges River is holy to Hindus and is very important to the daily life of those who live in Varanasi. With that said, the water is very polluted and yet we saw people bathing in it, drinking it, doing laundry in it, and worshipping in it. Lining the Ganges is a series of Ghats, or steps to the river. Many Ghats have temples at the top of them, some have public plazas, and two of them are known as “burning ghats”. These are where people bring their loved ones after they’ve passed away to be cremated and then have their ashes spread in the river. There are several fire pits with wood stacked high and the fires can be seen burning at all hours of night and day. When the ceremony is performed, the body is first marched to the burning ghat, then placed in the river to cleanse it and then put on the wood pile to burn with family and friends watching. After the body has burned, the ashes are spread in the river and those attending the ceremony bathe in the river to cleanse themselves. We didn’t see the entire process, but parts of each step I believe.

Walking through the streets of Varanasi was just as interesting. The market area was overrun with crowds of people and shop owners begging for you to come in and look at their stuff “looking is free! Very cheap!”. Our hotel was connected to the main area of Varanasi by a 10 minute walk through a very poor neighborhood. On the walk, we had to every now and again look behind us to make sure bulls weren’t charging towards us. There were goats wandering the streets and dogs sound asleep in the middle of the road. There was an area that just had trash all over the ground that we called the “bull market” because bulls were perusing the area, looking for food, the same way people do in real markets. One night walking back on that road the power went off in the entire city. We watched the lights shut off in about 50 yard increments along the water front and soon the entire city was in darkness, the only light from hotels with generators and the glowing fires of the burning ghats. Walking down this street in the dark was fun. People went on with their daily lives with candles lit, but extra caution was made to avoid animals walking in the street so as not to spook them.

That evening around 8 PM a hindu temple one building over from our hotel started a religious service. At first Chels and I thought it was a mosque doing the “call to prayer” because the top of the building had a green light flashing as minarets sometimes do and we could’ve sworn we heard the name “Allah”. After about 10 minutes we realized it was not the call to prayer, but something much longer. The chanting over the PA was so loud we had to raise our voices to hear one another as we ate dinner outside on the Hotel’s terrace. The service went on from 8 AM until around 8 the next morning, stopping only a couple times when the power went out for anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. Sleeping through it was miserable, it was so loud you would think they were chanting in the room we were sleeping on. That night we used the last two things we had packed but not used yet: a flashlight and ear plugs. The next morning the hotel staff informed us that once a year every temple in the city has a worship service that involves broadcasting over a PA system the reciting of some religious writing. Each temple in the city does it on one night a year, and the one next to us just happened to be one of the nights we were sleeping there. It was miserable but interesting to hear. Although we had heard many things about Varanasi, it has been one of my favorite stops on the trip so far and it will be hard to top as we finish out the trip.

We left Varanasi for Agra to see the Taj Mahal. Although the landscaped pools and walkway to the mausoleum were shorter than I had imagned, the building was as beautiful as. The structure was built as a final resting place for a Shah’s second wife who died during the birth of their 14^th child. The Shah was so upset over it, his hair was said to have gone gray overnight and construction on the building started within the year. It took 8 years to complete the Taj, 15 or so more to complete the grounds and structures surrounding it. A couple of years after the completion of the entire site, the Shah was overthrown by his son and for the last 8 years of his life could only see the Taj through a window in his bedroom at the fort he was being held prisoner in. Walking to the Taj is not what I had expected. You are in an old part of town with small cramped roads that suddenly stop at the huge red sandstone wall of the outer boundary of the site. With a building of such national importance and monumentality, I guess I had expected something more of a grand road with the wall as the terminus.

We left Agra on a bus to Jaipur which was about a 5 to 6 hour ride. Chels and I got the last two seats on the bus and were excited to have the back row where the seat was an apholstered bench and not individual seats, which seemed more comfortable. It was comfortable for about 2 minutes until they brought in the other people to sit with us. In a space that was designed for 4 people we had 7 crammed in, 5 adults and 2 children. It was tight, the man next to me could have been friendlier, but then again we were getting quite a bit of attention, being the only non-indian people on the bus. We arrived in Jaipur, Rajasthan and will be here for the next week before we head to Ahmedabad and then to the south!

Pictures:

Sunrise over the Ganges, Varanasi

Worshipper, Varanasi

Flowers and garlands in the Ganges, Varanasi

Bathers/Worshippers, Varanasi

Meditation, Varanasi

Our boat guide, Varanasi

Boat ID, Varanasi

Laundry, Varanasi

Eating a flower garland floating in the Ganges, Varanasi

A Ghat, Varanasi

Bathing, Varanasi

Auto Rickshaw, Agra

We saw a lot of this, attempted visual illusions, Taj Mahal Agra

Courtesan and Penniless Sitar Player, Taj Mahal, Agra

Stone detail, Taj Mahal, Agra

Agra Fort, where the Shah was imprisoned, Agra

Week 8: Siem Reap to Bangkok to Kolkata

We made our way at the start of last week from Cambodia to Thailand. We had heard a lot of horror stories about crossing the Cambodian-Thai border, but we encountered no problems. Well, we had one. There was a tourist on our bus who got stuck with a seat in the back row. Above her were all of the backpacks for the entire bus and she was very upset because her head was resting on bags and not the backrest. While this would be annoying to anyone, the other 4 people sitting in her row did not seem to have a problem, in fact, they were all asleep until she started yelling “EXCUSE ME I NEED ANOTHER SEAT”. There were no seats available. The driver sort of ignored her, which prompted her to climb over all of the bags with her $2000 canon super SLR camera around her neck, stepping on additional travelpacks that were laying in the aisle from the back of the bus to the front. There was truly nothing that her complaining could do, the bus was already over capacity. One guy had to sit in a plastic chair placed in the aisle because there was no seat for him. After about 10 minutes of her complaining, (including a bit where the driver tried to throw her off the bus) a brave dutch girl shouted “SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP, THIS ISN’T A PALACE, IT’S CAMBODIA”. She was right after all, we were on a 10 hour bus that only cost $15 where there were plenty of other options that would have been much more comfortable. I may or may not have started to applaud which then caught on and others cheered and clapped as the woman swallowed her pride and sat down. She didn’t cause any problems after that.

Thailand was a much more developed country than I had been expecting. It definitely had a mixture of rich and poor, but Bangkok was much more modern that I had expected. For my birthday Chels and I made our way to a Karaoke Bar that Lonely Planet had said was always packed. We arrived and made our way up to the second floor where the karaoke was to find tumbleweeds and crickets chirping. Only the bartender was there, which was the best way to ring in 28 because I got to sing for just under 2 hours! My second song was “All by myself” and did so because I was singing in a room (other than chels and the bartender) all by myself. I was only interrupted twice by a guy who sang “hero” by Mariah Carey and “my heart will go on” from Titanic. He was hilarious and said his name was Rabbit and we became friends for the rest of the time at the bar.

We spent a day at Ayutthaya, an ancient city north of Bangkok. Located there are a series of religious temple ruins, buddhas and the Summer Palace of the royal family is not far off either. On the bus there I happened to sit next to a woman who lives in Hamburg-Altona, the same neighborhood as Elisabeth and Chris, my German hostparents from when I was an exchange student way back when. How small the world can be. We talked about Altona and in broken german I gave her some recommendations for hotels in Cambodia as that was where she was headed next.

I wish we had allowed more time in Thailand to have traveled outside of Bangkok, but there’s always next time to come back. We left for Kolkata on Monday. The contrast between Bangkok and Kolkata (new spelling for Calcutta) was on par with the contrast of their airports. Bangkok has just built a new airport that after passing through security is like walking down 5^th Ave in NYC with every high end shop you could imagine that you cannot afford. We landed in Kolkata, got off the plane and took a bus from the tarmac to the terminal. The health screening was more or less just a table where you handed your health card. The building was not kept up well, there were water stains on the ceiling, plaster and paint peeling, etc. There was no ATM in the international terminal, which wasn’t really a terminal but more of a small building of a few rooms with 3 baggage carousels in it. We walked out to the taxi queue to find only 3 old cabs with equally old grumpy drivers. Traffic was pretty bad and the persistent honking was a bit odd. The cars were old as were the horns, so it sounded more like the opening scene of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan” than a present day traffic jam. Bright blue buses would pass by crammed full of people seen through window bars (no glass, just bars). The buses, though old, looked beautiful, bright colored flowers and Sanskrit painted on the sides. It was also raining, making the experience even more chaotic, seeing cars drive through what was at some points deep water. After taking what seemed to be a long and circuitous drive, we had arrived.

The next day we walked around the city, which is a strange contrast between the remainders of the British Empire and the poverty that surrounds it. The Victoria Monument to Queen Victoria which was described by Lonely Planet as a mix between the US Capitol and the Taj Mahal is quite large and grand structure sitting in the middle of a fairly well maintained park. Just across the road however, is a much larger park called “The Maidan” which is a less than cared after park with horses and cows roaming looking for grass to eat. Walking through the city to the big market we passed men pulling rickshaws, goats tied to buildings, men typing letters on typewriters outside of the post office for people, people sleeping in the middle of the sidewalks, etc. It was truly a place like no other that I’ve experienced. With that said, the city seemed relatively hassle free for us, there was hardly any begging and generally people did not approach us. It was definitely an eye-opening good start for our month in India as we make our way to Varanasi, a Hindu pilgrimage city that has been described by friends and things I’ve read as “a city that takes no prisoners”, “hell on earth”, “magnificent”, “mystical”, and “real India”.

01 Reclining Buddha, Wat Phrom, Bangkok

02 Monks chanting, Bangkok

03 Dog and cone, Ayutthaya

04 Buddha offering, Ayutthaya

05 Reclining Buddha (500 years older than the one above), Ayutthaya

06 Buddha in a Tree, Ayutthaya

07 Plant elephants, Summer Palace, Bang Pa-In