first class, Bombay!

As our night train pulled into Mumbai, we witnessed local train travel via "first class" on train after train passing alongside ours.

Regular cars are literally spilling over with men, some clinging on from the outside to windows, perched on some narrow ledge. And occasionally a few have made it on top. Without variation, men shout anything imaginable at us, upon seeing a couple of western girls looking out the window.

Certain cars are designated "Ladies only for all the 24 hours." These pass by silently like colorful butterflies, rainbow colored sarees fluttering in the wind...

baby princess

We traveled "third-class, no-AC" on a sleeper from Jaipur to Mumbai and emerged with dust and sweat caked all over us, wading through trash and dirt which lined the floor before we even got on the train. To our horror and our neighbors' amusement, a mouse ran past our feet and between our bags sometime late evening.

But it wasn't so uncivilized that a proper family couldn't bring their baby on board in full costume (including eye makeup, two anklets of bells, paired with semi-formal babywear). The young mother claimed half of a bench to lay out a blanket for Princess Baby to sleep on and insisted we close the windows (thus block off the breeze too) against the sunlight! (in India "fair is beautiful"...). Baby's uncle (in photo) was very friendly though, and chivalrous.

Until 10 pm and resuming at 6am, men paced the aisles past our beds/benches every one or two minutes calling "Chai! Chai!" in a throaty, comedic voice, as they sell tea to passengers. I upgraded my ticket for my next leg, but am proud of myself for weathering it out on this one.

aries

Jantar Mantra in Jaipur houses the world's biggest sundial. (not this, but abt 20 meters to the left). Here I am posing on an instrument made specifically for telling the horoscope of Aries kids. I believe the aries instrument wins the award out of the 12 for "most tall-and-pointy". I'm proud of this.

camelz

our idea of a "two-day camel trek" morphed into a more manageable 3-hour sunrise camel ride, punctuated with a mid-trip roll in the sand. This camel was given the lofty name "Krishna." He had some sass and liked to wander off in random directions. luckily we had a couple of Indian guides to help us out.

view off the other balcony

hill view hotel

this is the view off of one of our two balconies, on the top story of a hotel on the outskirts of Pushkar in Rajasthan. Amazingly cheap and charming, it has a pool, amazing food, and runs us about $3 a night.

A side note: Anita and I apparently both have "Indian name!!!!", making introductions easy. Germany will be easy too for the same reason... And. There's a classic Indian tune called Monika which I've been sung about a dozen times.

funhouse sleeper

this "super deluxe" bus was equipped with loads of legroom, (broken) fans, and a level of beds above the seats... Busing through the desert and mountains, Jaipur to Pushkar, on this mostly-empty bus was one of my favorite transport situations.

another bad translation

I'm not sure if this picture shows the words on this menu accurately, but here's item #1: "A yellow lentil deficacy cooked in butter." I just got a kick out of that one, and wonder if anyone ever orders this... Also in this menu, a category entitled "Important Pasta".
Good reading...

Lodi Gardens

Yesterday at around sunset, we unwound at New Delhi's Lodi Gardens. Here, I'm on the roof of a mosque from the 1400's.

I head out now. Allah only knows how good internet is in the desert. Updates may be more scarce...

Anita and I, Islam style.
On my birthday we visited a Sufi shrine to listen to Qawwali chants (aka the genre of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan). We'd met a friendly Islamic man who insisted we borrow his long-sleeved shirts and cover our hair before our visit.
We took a cyclo-rickshaw to the shrine, accessible only through a maze of vendors making narrow alleys of flowers and incense.
A man with a huge green tapestry fanned the small, sweltering evening crowd as men chanted to the sounds of drums and accordion.

autorickshaw

One makes friends from the confines of an autorickshaw at a stoplight! Drivers and passengers are quick to start a drive-by conversation, or at least a brief exchange of merriment...

Anita and I trying on traditional Punjabi wear, our style, on the suggestion of a new acquaintance...

berl-INDIA!

Thus begins the "India" part of the "berlindia" trip. The name of my blog evolved when I was trying to decide whether to take up my former employer on his offer to have me work for him in Delhi... or pursue my own route in Deutschland. Berlin versus India. The answer? Berlindia. Vacation here, work there.
I arrived on Wednesday and have been innundated with heavenly smells and putrefaction, autorickshaws and cows, Islam and Hinduism. This afternoon Anita and I take a train to Jaipur where we'll seek out a guided desert camel trek taking us for a night under the starriest skies I'll probably ever see.

Angkor Wat.

Huge expanses of open grass and water, and then ridiculously steep stairs. Everything in extremes.
Monkeys, horses, and baby monks roamed the premises at sunset.

Mission

These guys are on a mission, with Jesus alongside. I saw this painting at the Adventist Mission Hospital, getting my third post-exposure rabies shot.

Petrol

Gasoline in Cambodia is often sold in old beer and liquor bottles. The whole country has a Godforsaken, but astoundingly beautiful, feel to it.

Transliteration

There's much fun to be had in looking closely at signs, here in Bangkok and across Indochina. There are endless possiblities when the currency is called Dong for instance. And then the name "Bangkok" itself.

just one more still from the Hanoi fairy tale... Phu took this one after the theater.

Harigato, Hanoi

In short, here's how my fortuitous time in Hanoi wrapped up:
-I drunkenly offer to play my violin for Minh and Phu (Owner and Opera director) to repay their kindness.
-Minh provides me a violin the following day and interupts the band to have me play on stage (not part of my initial plan... I'm a bit rusty)
-A TV camera crew (who happened to be doing a piece on Minh's Jazz Bar that night, of all things) tapes me and interviews me afterwards for a TV broadcast the following day.
-Phu, who'd previously had no idea as to my skill level, invites me to play with the Hanoi Philharmonic "when I come back to Vietnam..."
-More bottles of Absolute with men dressed in suits.

It's a good thing I flew out the next day... It was almost too much! It felt like a genie granted about 18 million of my wishes.

1911 - opera house

this is where i dined before the theater, under the auditorium. it wasn't too bad.

i thought i was ordering eggs... but these had fetal quail inside of them. And tasted AMAZING with this spicy-salty-sweet sauce these ladies made for me on the spot.

currently...

this computer's copying my latest pictures first, so I'll start from this morning:

TINY BUNNIES in the Chatuchak weekend market. some being sold in tiny pink wire cube cages, each dressed up in a different outfit.

My Life, by the way, is a baby bunny right now. I love it.

Cheo Hanoi Theatre

Box seats, for sure.

At front center, the "VIP" section, pronounced "veep" in Phu's tongue.

I arrived an hour early as planned not knowing what to expect. Chilly outside and I was a little late. I'm still very confused as to why I'm getting such royal treatment, and am far from taking this all for granted. I was met by the opera director outside his office, and led through a small labrynth of 100-year old brick walls into the opera's 5-star restaurant, somewhere under the auditorium... where I was to order "anything on the menu". He told the waiter to bring two of whatever drink I chose. Red wine.

then a soup so fine it pretty much diffuses into my whole body all at once. I felt stupid cause i had no idea how to tactfully open a shrimp whose head and tail were still attached. and stupid for pairing red wine with seafood. i'm not in the habit of thinking of these things... but he fixes the shrimp for me.
all the time I don't really have to talk much because we have so little common ground in language.
his cell phone rings a few times to the tune of 'my heart will go on.' i really don't get it. for someone so cultured...

i worried a little that he was getting some kind of romantic ideas. but not too much, because my instincts told me he didn't have any alterior motives, and i was just too busy enjoying it all.

he shows me the lounge on the mezzanine, with ceilings probably 30 feet high... I'd seen it before, but just let him give me the tour. then he plays me a song or two on the piano, again one of which is a rendition of My Way... glancing out the window, i notice christmas lights I'd seen a couple weeks ago, a complete coincidence, they spelled "MY WAY" across the top of a building opposite the opera house. I'd forgotten about them and am now overwhelmed by the phenomenon of it all.

The whole thing was pretty much paradise.

We make our way into the "VIP" box, and a beautiful man in makeup and colorful silk robes begins the performance, singing to classical instrumentation. Where voice leaves off, a voice-like instrument picks up seamlessly.
This is by far the most beautiful music I've heard in my time in southeast Asia.

it would have been perfect except that halfway through the 2.5-hour-no-intermission play, Phu begins trying to explain everything to me, as all of it's sung/spoken in Vietnamese. What he's saying makes Absolutely No Sense to me. I pick up on the words he's saying but not how they run together. And he keeps repeating himself even after I lie: 'i understand, ok, yes'. it's exhausting me after he begins repeating things 8-10 times. cause I just want to watch the performance. i don't know what kind of answer he wants... i excuse myself and go to the restroom.
i make it back just before the final scene.

and it turns out my instincts are correct: he offers to drive me home or help me get a taxi.
and offers me dinner again tomorrow (now today...) which I decline as his company is becoming tedious, and I'm not sure how I feel about this infinite generousity.

I felt like the lucky number drawn in the lottery and didn't want the novelty to wear off. I may see him again tonight at the same jazz club instead...
My hunch is that in Vietnam you are offered things beyond belief until you return with a firm No.