Hampi Pt. 2

The 15 foot tall monolithic Kadalekalu Ganesha statue, in a shrine behind Hemakuta Hill. Carved out of a single granite boulder, this is one of the largest representations of Ganesha in the region. The word Kadalekalu means "Gram" in  the local language, which the statue's belly is thought to resemble. In his hand, Ganesha is holding a rice cake, which he's eating with his trunk. I was surprised that this photo turned out as well as it did, given how little light there was in the shrine.    

The great thing about Hampi is that it offers an almost limitless amount of places to explore. While there are a number of "must see" sites like the Lotus Mahal and the Vittala Temple, there are also a huge number of ruins and natural features in the area which see relatively little traffic.  This post is going to focus on the less visited parts of the ancient capital, along with a few of the major sites that I missed on my first day exploring the ruins of Vijayanagara. As you might expect, here's much more to Hampi than what I've posted here. I think you could spend your whole life studying the area and still not see absolutely everything.

Anegondi

Coracle crossing the Tungabhadra River, late in the afternoon. Coracles have been a means of conveyance in the Hampi area since prehistoric times, and even in the present they seem to have certain advantages over traditional boats. They're cheap, and so lightweight that they can be carried balanced on a person's head like a great big hat. Yet, with such low displacement combined with such a large amount of surface area in contact with the water, they can carry surprisingly heavy loads. The craft in this picture is holding three motorcycles and four people...what must be well over a thousand pounds in a vessel that looked like it weighed less than thirty. Coracles are used quite extensively in the Hampi region, sometimes just for tourist boat rides, but also because, at the moment, there's no bridge that connects Hampi with the settlements just on the other side of the Tungabhadra, such as Anegondi and Virupapur Gaddi. Note the dragonfly flying through the upper righthand corner of the picture.    

The little, sleepy, laid back village of Anegondi (Anegondi meaning something like "elephant enclosure") is situated across the Tungabhadra river from the remains of the city of Vijayanagara. Though the ruins in Anegondi are less spectacular, the village has a longer history than the much more well known and frequented historical site on the opposite side of the river. It is also on the other side of the Tungabhadra that the rocky, central Karnataka boulderlands rise to their most spectacular heights.

Hampi Pt. 1

A beautiful maiden with a creeper, on one of the door jams in Vijayanagara's ruined Krishna Temple. 

Combining an entire city's worth of incredible South Indian architectural marvels with one of the subcontinent's grandest landscapes, Hampi is unequivocally one of India's most magnificent historical sites.

Feroz Shah Kotla

In a chamber under the Feroz Shah Kotla Mosque. 

The ruins of Firozabad, the fifth city of Delhi, stand tucked away next to a giant cricket stadium, just south of the former line of the walls of Old Delhi. It's not on most visitors itineraries, and even people I've know who have been living in Delhi for quite some time haven't gone there. The reason for this is, I think, relatively simple: Firozabad, otherwise known as Firoz Shah Kotla, is not pretty. Rather, it's scary, immensely atmospheric, and is generally considered one of Delhi's primary centers of supernatural activity....It's not for the faint of heart. Visiting the ruins on a Thursday afternoon, when people come from the surrounding area to petition disembodied spirits for favours and forgiveness in dark, dungeon-like chambers in the sad remnants of a once grand, but now almost totally destroyed, 700 year old city, is one of the most intense experiences that Delhi, a city that is nothing if not replete with intense experiences, has to offer. 

A Day Out From Badami

Nataraja, in the Ravana Phadi cave temple in Aihole, flanked by Ganesh. Nataraja is the form of Shiva whose dance of cosmic destruction will obliterate the old universe in preparation for the new. The Ravana Phadi Cave, dating back to the 6th century, is one of the very earliest Chalukyan monuments, predating the cave temples at Badami. Though Chalukyan architecture would develop a great deal between the this period and the 8th century, their skill at sculpting appears to have peaked rather earlier. For my money at least, the very greatest Chalukyan carvings, which certainly include this Nataraja, are in Aihole...Aihole is actually pronounced "Aye-oh-lei," and frankly I wish that whoever decided to render the name into English had gone a more phonetic route...talking about it actually presents exactly the same problem as bringing up the name of the planet Uranus...oh well....

My second day in the Badami area was one of the very best purely travel days I've ever had in India. In the twelve hours I spent on my feet, I wound up visiting roughly three quarters of the core of the ancient Chalukyan Empire (something which I can't say I do every day.) 

Badami

Frieze of Varaha, the boar-headed incarnation of Vishnu, holding his consort Bhudevi in one of the cave temples of Badami. The story behind this carving is that the demon Hiranyaksha, the beheaded corpse of whom Varaha is standing on in this depiction, kidnapped the Earth, as personified in Bhudevi, and took her to the bottom of a cosmic ocean, whereupon Vishnu sent his boar incarnation to slay the demon and take her back.

So, this is back in Karnataka, during the trip I took in October of 2012.

For me, visiting Badami was a trip into Terra Incognita: Whereas most of the historical sites that I visited in Karnataka were from a period that I was at least nominally familiar with, the great cave temples and temple architecture of Badami were mostly from a much earlier time, before the advent of Islam in South India. What's more, though I had been to a number of old Hindu sites before, most were in Assam, a place extremely culturally different from Karnataka. 

Mehrauli Archaeological Park

The sixteenth century Rajon ki Baoli, or Well of the Masons. Built in the final years of the Delhi Sultanate, it's  Delhi's most ornate step-well, and one of the main attractions at the Mehrauli Archaeological Park.

The Mehrauli Archaeological Park is perhaps Delhi's best kept secret. Containing ruins which, if one counts the foundation of the Hindu Rajput fort which underlies the whole area, date anywhere from the 8th to the 19th century, and encompass virtually the whole history of Islamic Delhi and then some, the park is among the very most fascinating places in the whole city. What's more, it's practically unknown.

Exploring the Abode in the Clouds

My brother crosses the Nongthymmai Living Root Bridge, the longest of all (known) living root bridges, and arguably the most spectacular, in the monsoon season of 2011. Believe it or not, the whole span is made up of nothing but rubber tree roots that were trained across that stream over the course of a few decades by the local Khasi villagers. It is perhaps the world's most amazing example of biological architecture. During this trip that I'm putting together, we'll be staying in a village guesthouse about half an hour away from here, in a little visited corner of northeast India that is simply abounding in fantastic things to see.

Khirki Masjid

Arches and Pillars in Khirki Masjid, one of the most unusual and atmospheric buildings in Delhi. Constructed during the reign of Firoze Shah Tughlaq, perhaps the Delhi Sultanate's greatest builder, in the 14th century, the building combines design elements from traditional mosques,  Islamic military architecture, and Hindu temples. The result is a mosque like no other.

The Khirki Masjid is bizarre in a number of ways. First off, the vast majority of the world's Mosques are either open air (such the Delhi Jama Masjid), or have huge spacious chambers, so that large congregations can gather. But in the Khirki Masjid, the congregation space is enclosed, with the interior of the building being divided by rows of pillars into a series of narrow arcades, rather after the fashion of many Hindu temples. The Masjid was in fact designed by a recent convert to Islam from Hinduism, which may to certain extent explain it's unorthodox layout. The Masjid is also unusual for its embattled, fortress-like appearance. It certainly does not look like a mosque from the outside, and if I had just stumbled upon it, I would not have guessed that that was the function the building served. Its harsh, rather functional and militaristic style makes the building look more like it was meant to keep people out than to allow them in. 

Sultan Ghari

The Sultan Ghari, Delhi's first Islamic tomb, and one of it's most obscure monuments. It was built in 1231 for one of the sons of Iltutmish, the third ruler of the Mumluk, or Slave, dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. The tomb was constructed before most of the trends that are now associated with Indian Islamic funerary architectural came into their own, the result of which being that the design of the tomb is unique among Delhi's monuments.The domed structure in the foreground is a much restored cenotaph for one of Iltutmish's other sons. There were apparently once two cenotaphs on either side of the monument, though the other one no longer exists. 

So, after quite a long while, here's another blogette:

Adilabad

The evil countenance of Adilabad Qila, as far as I can tell Delhi's least visited fort.

Tughlaqabad, the former stronghold of the third dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate  is a truly vast complex of ruins, most of which are rarely visited. Even the area's primary attraction, the citadel of Tughlaqabad Fort, is far from being at the top of the average tourist itinerary. I think that the main reason for this is simply that most ruins from the Tughluq period are much more functional than they are beautiful. They have a harsh, forbidding, and rather unlovable aspect to them, which is of course what makes them so interesting, but also means that they don't draw people in the same way that the grander Moghul constructions do. That being said, the Tughluqs have nonetheless left behind quite an extensive architectural legacy (along with spinning off a number of  other important Islamic dynasties in India, such as the Bahmanids in the Deccan, who would go on to create a huge array of architectural works of their own.)

The Northern Ridge

Flowers in the jungle of the Northern Ridge

Hiya Folks...and now for my next bloglett...

Agrasen Ki Baoli

Inside Agrasen Ki Baoli, a medieval step-well right in the middle of Delhi. Baoli is the usual word for step-well.

Howdy Folks

So, I'm in Delhi for some time, and I've got my computer with me, so I thought I would do a series of short blogs (A.K.A "Blogletts"), on some of the lesser known things to see in Delhi. The fact is, even after 5 years at this point (I was first in Delhi, and India, all the way back in 2009), there are still plenty of interesting sights that I haven't seen in Delhi. They just tend to be sights that don't get much attention.

Bijapur

The prayer niche, or Mihrab, of Bijapur's Jama Masjid. Dating from the first half of the sixteenth century, the Jama Masjid was built by one of the earlier rulers of the Adil Shahi dynasty, which, after the precipitous decline of the Bahmanids and the violent destruction of the Vijayanagar Empire, briefly rose to become the primary power in the Deccan. Inscribed in Persian and painted in gold, the Mihrab of the Bijapur Jama Masjid is, thankfully, in nearly perfect condition, and is but one highlight among many in a city that is simply awash in wonders of Islamic art and architecture.

Bidar

A window in the tomb of Mahmud Shah Bahmani, in the necropolis of the Bahmani sultans. This is in the village of Ashtur, a few kilometers outside of Bidar.

For a city that is largely unknown to tourists, at least of the foreign backpacking variety, Bidar has an embarrassment of fantastic things to see. From the early 15th century, until the early 16th, under the name Muhammadabad, the city was the capitol of the Bahmani Sultanate, the first Islamic rulers of southern India, who's sway extended over much of the Deccan.The Bahmanis, who were Shiites originally from present day Iran, built a number of truly magnificent monuments in the city, including Bidar's massive fort, and the huge necropolis in Ashtur. After the fall of the Bahmanis, the city was ruled by the Barid Shahi kings of the Bidar Sultanate, who produced a number of smaller, though certainly still beautiful, tombs.

Across the Khasi Hills: Sunday / Getting Back to Assam

A tree, the canyon wall, and jungle, in hazy sunlight. This was taken on my way back up the endless stairs.

The next day I woke up to the sound of falling rain, and seeing as how I had just completed a huge hike the day before, in which I walked for around ten hours straight up and down never-ending ancient staircases, I decided to take it easy. This was my last full day down in the canyon, and it too was an adventure, though of a different sort.

Across the Khasi Hills Day 5: Into the Green Unknown

Nohkalikai Falls, one of Meghalaya's most famous sights, along with six subsidiary falls...I didn't know I would be seeing this that day...

Now I began my fifth and perhaps most adventurous day in the Khasi Hills. My goal was simple: To take the trail beyond the final wire-suspension bridge over the Umkynsan, and see where it led. I had absolutely no expectations, other than a suspicion that the trail would probably peter out in the jungle somewhere way up the side of the canyon wall. 

Across the Khasi Hills Day 4: Exploring the canyon floor

Abandoned Root Bridge over the Simtung River. This was one of the highlights of my trip into the Khasi Hills. Despite its derelict appearance, this bridge actually felt safer than the other, functioning, root-bridges elsewhere in the area. There are two living root bridges that span the Simtung. This one leads from the eastern bank of the river onto a rocky, rubber tree covered  island, while another leads from the island to the western bank. Unfortunately, the further bridge has largely fallen apart, and is now little more than a big root across the river. But the first bridge, now useless from a functional perspective since it only leads as far as the island, continues to grow and strengthen, it's roots now stronger and more stable than those of either the Double-Decker bridge or the Nongthymmai bridge. 

Across the Khasi Hills Day 3: Down to Nongriat

The famous Umshiang Double Decker Root Bridge in Nongriat Village. The only root bridge with two spans (I suppose to allow for two-way traffic). Living Root bridges are made by taking the roots of Indian rubber trees and placing them in hollowed out betel nut tree trunks that have been cut in half lengthwise. The halves of the betel nut trunks are lain across the stream that needs to be crossed, while the rubber tree roots grow through them. When the roots reach the opposite side of the stream, they anchor themselves in the soil. Usually a full bridge is composed of a number of such roots, sometime from two different trees that have had roots trained in opposite directions. Smaller roots are used to provide additional stability, while flat stones and bamboo poles are used to produce a surface to walk on. It apparently takes about 15 years for a bridge to become operational. Once the construction of the bridge is complete, the roots continue to grow, meaning that the bridges are in effect self-reinforcing: The older the bridge is, the more structurally sound it is. They can evidently last for many hundreds of years. Though the British knew about the bridges as far back as the late 19th century, as of the turn of the 21st the bridges were largely forgotten. Not long ago, the villagers in the area were contemplating tearing some of the bridges down in favor of less exotic wire suspension bridges. Thankfully, the owner of the Cherrapunji Holiday Resort in Laikynsew convinced them to keep the bridges around as a tourist draw.

Still moving right along......

Across the Khasi Hills Day 2: Soggy Preparations

My umbrella, at the entrance to a small, almost certainly illegal, coal mine. On the way to the Nohkalikai Falls view point, about 5kms outside of Sohra.

So, moving right along........

Across the Khasi Hills Day 1: Getting to Cherrapunji

The Objective: The Nongthymmai living root bridge, at somewhere in the vicinity of 110 feet in length,  the longest (known) living root bridge in the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya. Taking around 15 years to grow strong enough to become usable,  the Khasi Living Root bridges are some of the only examples of architecture that are grown rather than constructed...more on these later.

Utah 3: The Needles District

A particularly surreal patch of the American Southwest: One of the many caves in the vicinity of the Joint Trail, in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park. Nope, it's got nothing to do with getting high. Sorry.

So, this is the last part of my write-up on the nine days me and my family spent in Utah in July. For the last two days of our trip, we stayed at Squaw Flat campground, which is in a separate unit of Canyonlands National Park called the Needles District. Despite being, as the crow flies, only a few miles from the Island in the sky District, the Needles area is completely unlike anything in Northern Canyonlands or in Arches National Park. Both the rock formations and the colors they come in are completely different, creating a place that is, at least as far as I can tell, absolutely unique on the face of the planet.    

Utah 2: Dead Horse Point and the White Rim Road

A view looking northeast, from one of the first viewpoints along the White Rim Road in Utah's Canyonlands National Park. The river in this picture is the Colorado.

This post is going to cover the the most ambitious park of the trip my family and I took out to Utah last month, namely, the long drive along the White Rim Road, a four wheel drive path that I think ranks up there as maybe the most adventurous thing the Rogers Family has done as a complete unit. Actually, I would say that the drive turned out to be rather more of an adventure than we had been led to expect. Perhaps if one has lived for much of one's life in Utah, and is used to driving four wheel drive roads on a regular basis, the White Rim Road wouldn't seem like all that much of a challenge. However, we're all from Delaware, which, needless to say, is known for its chickens and banks, and not as four-wheel drive destination.  Also, we didn't have the right kind of vehicle (we needed something with a higher wheel base) and it was the wrong time of year to be doing what we were doing. In truth, we didn't know it at the time, but driving the road in mid to late July was probably not a good idea at all, even for an experienced four wheel driver, the reason being that, in the southwest you have a monsoon season that usually begins in late June or early July. Though by "Monsoon Season" its only meant that each day there's an increased likelihood of late afternoon thunderstorms (Assam it's not), the area still seems to get a fairly heavy downpour every few days. Due to the fact that there's little ground cover, these thunderstorms can easily create heavy flash floods. During such conditions, travel along the White-Rim Road would be impossible, as the route passes by the mouths of a number of large canyons, out of which, whenever there's any significant rainfall at all, comes hundreds of thousands of gallons of raging, silty, debris-filled water.

Utah 1: Big Rocks Around Moab

The Corona Arch, west of Moab, along the Potash Road, which for a few miles is paved and runs along the north bank of the Colorado River. This picture has been cropped by about a third so that you can see the little people (in the original photo they just looked like tiny dots). Note the climber on top, and the two people below. When this picture was taken, the man walking across the span was about to fix a rope on top of the arch and then descend off of it.  

This is, I think, the soonest after the fact that I've ever started working on a blog post. The picture above was only taken about a week ago. I've just come back from Utah, where me and my family (along with my brother's friend D.J.) visited the Red Rock Country around the surreal little adventure-nut-mecca of Moab. With only a limited amount of time, being rather at the end of our tether and out of our element, I think we did a hell of a job exploring the region. 

California 2: Death Valley

The view from Zabriskie Point, one of the iconic vistas of Death Valley National Park, just after dawn.

So, this is going to be about Death Valley National Park, which stretches over about 5,300 miles of the Mohave Desert in far eastern California (and a small patch western Nevada). The park encompasses not only Death Valley itself, but also a vast expanse of the Panimint and Last Chance ranges. The terrain is immensely varied, from Telescope Peak in the Panimints, which rises to 11'049 feet, to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the U.S., and second lowest in the Western Hemisphere, which is 282 feet below sea level. The series of ranges and valleys within the park are part of the Basin and Range Provence, where, as with the Inyo Mountains to the west, whole blocks of the earth's have either been pushed up or caused to sink due to tectonic forces. One of the results of these processes are valleys, such as Death Valley itself, that are actually below sea level, and are apparently still sinking. Instead of seeking out a path to the ocean, the water courses in this region flow down into the middle of the sinks created by the extremely low lying valleys and empty into huge salt flats, such as Badwater Basin.  

California 1: Lone Pine

The classic Lone Pine view, from the appropriately named Movie Road. Looking due west, over the Alabama Hills, directly towards Lone Pine Peak (about 13,000 ft). Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48 at 14,505 feet, is the prominent triangular peak to the right of this picture. This area is one the all time great Hollywood shooting locations (right up there with the Vasquez Rocks further south). In perhaps the most famous film ever filmed there, Gunga Din, it stands in for what was then the North West Frontier Province of British India (The Sierras are playing the Himalayas). It also featured in an old Humphrey Bogart movie called High Sierra, and stood in for Afghanistan in the film Kings of the Kyber Rifles, along with serving as any part of the old west from Missouri to Oregon in (almost) literally billions of  western films and T.V. shows, including How the West Was Won. More recently, the area had short cameo in Gladiator (in a few of the shots where Russel Crow is tired on his horse, while improbably riding from the Danube to Spain in what seems to be two or three days), and in Iron Man where it is, again, a stand in for Afghanistan. I have been seeing this area all my life, most notably in the Kevin Bacon subterranean monster film Tremors , which makes excellent use of the picturesque, rounded granite boulders the area is famous for. Yes, I can now say I've hopped on the same boulders as Kevin Bacon.

Attempt at Rajasthan pt. 2

View over Amber from Jaigarh Fort

Hey there. So, I was looking over some of my posts from the past, and I saw that I had this one here about a third of the way done. All of the photos were uploaded, and some of the captions were written, but I had never finished it. Well, that's what I'm going to do now. Some of the details are going to be a little bit fuzzy, the space of time I'm covering being, as of now, more than a year ago, though it feels like even longer. Bear with me if it's a bit disjointed in places....

Nagaland Odyssey Pt. 2: Ao Country

Figurehead at the front of an old (19th century) Ao Naga log drum in the village of Ungma, the Ao tribe's largest settlement. Log drums are whole trees that have been cut down and then hollowed out. They served a variety of functions, including inter-village communication, warning a village in case of attack, and ceremonial purposes. Apparently, back in the day, when a warrior would take heads he would first ceremonially drape them on the village's log drum, before hanging them on the villages special head-hanging tree. Log drums were mostly used by the more northerly Naga tribes, such as the Ao's and the Konyaks. Tribes such as the Anagami's and the Tangkuls didn't have them. However, various adjacent non-Naga cultures in Arunachal Pradesh, Burma, and South-central China did. The styles of log drums from tribe to tribe vary considerably.

Nagaland Odyssey Pt. 1: Angami Country

The cross over hazy Nagaland. On the peak of Mt. Japfu (10000 ft), the second highest in Nagaland, after Mt. Saramati in Tuensang district.

Hi. So, this is going to be a series of three posts covering my whole trip to Nagaland. I'll be going over some of the same ground as before, though in much more detail this time around. 

Anyway, Nagaland is a state about as far east in India as you can go. I first heard about the Nagas (after whom the state is named) way back in middle school. I remember reading a book called Stillwell and the American Experience in China. A passing reference is made to the Nagas when the author is discussing the flight of General Stilwell (who was serving as Chaing Kai Shek's cheif of staff at the time) over the Patkai range in 1942, as the Japanese were overrunning Burma. But I have long wondered what this region of the world was like, and it was back then that I first remember taking any particular interest in India.

Sikkim: Dzongri to Thangshing to Yuksom

Postcard shot of Mt. Kanchenjunga (8586 m, 28,169 ft), the world's third tallest mountain, at about six in the morning. In the picture the peak doesn't look that far away, but that's an illusion. From where I took this, the peak is still roughly 15,000 feet higher. You just don't have vertical relief like that in the lower 48.

Hi there. So, I'm experimenting with putting the pics in a wider format. Please tell me if it looks weird!

Sikkim: Yuksom to Dzongri

My small blue home in the high Alpine meadow of Dzongri, with about 45 minutes to go before bad weather moved in. This was taken on a bright, warm, and sunny morning, before a dark, cold, and snowy afternoon.

First of all, allow me to thank the mysterious and illusive Mr. Leo Cloppenburg from Germany, without whom my trek to the base of Mount Kanchenjunga, the world's 3rd tallest mountain, would not have been possible. I haven't a clue who you are, but I am deeply in your debt.

Mokokcheung Madness

OK, so, again, I really don't have much time, so, I'm just going to try and provide a list of the highlights of the last few days.

I've definitely been having plenty of brightly colored experiences out here on the eastern fringes of India, and I don't feel like I've been wasting my time. On the other hand, it's become apparent that traveling out here in Nagaland is very different from going to a place like Ladakh, the Garwahl Himalayas, or the Andaman Islands..tourism is only just starting out here, and what there is certianly is'nt geared towards poor backpackers like myself. In order to explore this place properly, I would need vastly more time, money, and resources....however, all that means is that, now that I know what the region is like, I want to come back again, better prepared.

Valentine's Day in Nagaland

So, happy Valentine's Day.

I'm in Nagaland.

Hence:

Valentine's Day in Nagaland.

Where I am, the city of Khohima, was where the Japanese were stopped, in a prolonged battle with British and commonwealth troops, when they invaded India in 1944. That being said, I have'nt done much since I've got here...I'm supposed to meet my former professor's cousin's sister's Nagamese friend later today, and he said she'd help me out...my thought is to try and visit a place called the Dzoukou Valley just south of Kohima, probably visiting some villages along the way...but things are pretty up in the air right now.

Majuli Missing Masala

Hi folks.

Right now I'm in the town Kamalabari, on Majuli Island, in the middle the river Brahmaputra, in upper Assam. I've been here for two days, and I fear I have to leave tomorrow, though, like so many places in India, I barely feel like I've scratched the surface of the surface of this place. Certainly, I've never been to place that felt so close to my mental image of what "Assam" really is.

On the edge of the Unkown

Hey everybody.

So, right now I happen to be in the city of Jorhat in the Eastern part of the Indian state of Assam. Tomorrow I'm taking a ferry out onto the Brahmaputra to visit the world's largest river Island, and one of the great the centers of traditional Assamese culture. It's called Majuli, which I believe in Assamese means something like "Great Neck of Land." From what I understand, it was formed in the 1th century when a great flood cut off the base of what was once a huge peninsula. It's now cut off from the world but for a few ferries that come twice a day. But in 24 hours that's where I'll be.

Attempt at Rajasthan pt.1

Gateway, located in one of the courtyards of the Jaipur city Palace. It's called the Green Gate, and is meant to represent the season of Spring. The courtyard contains three other gates, each of them symbolizing a separate season. If you've ever seen the movie "The Fall," the Indian character is introduced in front of this door.

Hi folks. So, it's been a while...would have posted sooner but I've been having terrible internet luck. I'm going to divide this up into two parts....hopefully I'll be able to get the second half of the post done before I head out to Uttarkashi, but no promises. As Clausewitz said: No campaign plan survives contact with India.

SNAFU

Namaste everybody.

So, right now I'm using a computer at an internet cafe in Pahar Ganj, can't really post pictures. I was supposed to leave to Jodhpur today, though that isn't happening: there's been a railway strike that side, so my plans to travel via rail in Rajasthan are khallas (low brow Mumbai slang for "finished, dead")....not sure what I'm going to do now...no matter what I've already lost a day on a scheduled that was already pretty tight (not to mention a total loss of rs. 750 for my ticket today).

The Jungle, The Rabies, and the Toad Soup

Rainbow, looking east from Flag Hill

Namaste everybody. So this is the sixth week of my studies at the Landour Language school. I only have three more from this point on, and, frankly, I'm still a damn long way from being able to speak truly good hindi...but, oh well. Anyway, from this point on, I'm thinking I'll make a sort of last ditch effort to get down what is maybe the most important thing when it comes to speaking the language, namely, verb tenses. There's so much that will still take years and years to internalize, like genders (why the hell is the chair male?) and intensifiers (don't expect an explanation: intensifiers are an untranslatable concept for English speakers, beyond the fact that they add.....intensity), but I think if I get the verb tenses down, then I'll know at least enough for my Hindi to be useful on the street....

Very Cold and Delhi

Typical weather conditions over Mussoorie

Namaste all. So, I would'nt say there's been any really big news here. Hindi continues at it's usual slow pace. I think I have gotten a whole lot better, but right now my mind is still just a big soup of tenses and constructions and genders (which sounds rather nasty, but oh well). However I do think that I can understand vastly more of what people are saying than last year, though constructing my own sentences remains a slow laborious process.

Starting Hindi

Dawn view from Landour

Hi folks. So, right now I'm back in Delhi (in crusty old Pahar Ganj, in fact, the ultimate Hippy Hideout). But I'll post about that later. Basically, the main thing that's happened in my life is that I've started Hindi classes. And, well, it's a bit like space exploration: every question you answer just leads to ten thousand more, and the further you venture from the Earth, the more complex and confusing things become. So, it's going slowly. I think it's sill going to be some time before I'm really good at this. If I had the money, I would just stay here for a year and get 4 lessons a day, but, unfortunately that would bankrupt me.