Monkeys. Oh yeah.
We left Delhi around 3pm yesterday. The discount airlines have sprung up recently across India. JetAir becomes JetLite. Kingfisher is still Kingfisher, but the girls aren't as cute. Now, the six hour car ride becomes the two hour flight. The 4 hour train becomes the one our flight. The delays add up, but still keep it a bargain. This ties India together like TV does the US. Nothing is out of reach.
I'm pretty sure I saw a bollywood girl waiting across the gate. Her sparkly blue luggage tipped me off. None in my group recognized here though, so she was but a tree fallen in the woods. She did not make a sound.
We landed in Chandighar a bit late, but the team waited. It's a cute city. Where Delhi was an endless maze of turn outs and round abouts, Chadighar is strip malls and markets. Delhi is business; Chandighar is commerce. Oh. and the hotel is fantastic. I didn't count the showers, but I'm pretty sure my room has at least three.
And today was full. The morning was productive. We got through the agenda just after lunch, leaving us free to explore. So up into the Himalayas we went. Now highways in India are a bit different than the US. To make them highways at all, they had to widen the road to three lanes. That's one going each direction, with a third straddling the middle: the direction changing whimsically to route around tractor or cow. But to make three lanes out of just one or two, sacrifices must be made. In many cases, on the roads of Chandighar, this comes in the form of the first few feet of many storefronts. Now left with jagged brick walls and wide open displays, these shops stand undaunted by their exposure to the elements. What in America would be a war-torn facade, in India serves as a flowing entrance to a world of low cost knickknacks and unprescribed medications.
An hour up the mountain side, we take a cable car a few hundred meters over an open ravine. The range-top resort offers local rum, and fantastic fare. The sudden storm, blanketing us in fog, left us reeling at the possibility of having been mid-cable when it hit. I'm not quite sure we would have made it. But at 6000 feet, with 4 fingers of 'old monk' rum, it all seemed charming. I've seen mountains before. I've been on cable cars before. I've watched the filth of cities been washed away by the waters of distance. Yet the mountains of India still cast a spell over the surrounding terrain for me. I am just one man.
The long, winding, and intensely chaotic road back to Chandighar was peppered with little temples and shops we finally felt loose enough at which to stop. Dioramas here take on lurid appeal, never approached in any of MY book reports. Whether it's Kali holding a smiling, severed head, or Ganesh smoking Sherlock Holmes pipe, the gods of India know how to make a scene. That's all I'm saying. You know who else know how to make a scense? Monkeys. And you know where there are Monkeys? Chandighar. They walk the shoulder. They peep out from behind the guardrail. They remind us we were once like them, and soon they might be like us.
And I'm not saying I'm bringing back anything illegal into the US. But if you see me relaxed, asleep or erect, say a little prayer to the assoication of indian chemists (pharmacists) for me.
Early tomorrow I fly out for a night in London, and then it's on to Los Angeles. My time here on the subcontinent has been special; memorable. But I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss my country. You cannot escape your tribe. You cannot abandon your people. Your adoption of another timezone can only be temporary.
We left Delhi around 3pm yesterday. The discount airlines have sprung up recently across India. JetAir becomes JetLite. Kingfisher is still Kingfisher, but the girls aren't as cute. Now, the six hour car ride becomes the two hour flight. The 4 hour train becomes the one our flight. The delays add up, but still keep it a bargain. This ties India together like TV does the US. Nothing is out of reach.
I'm pretty sure I saw a bollywood girl waiting across the gate. Her sparkly blue luggage tipped me off. None in my group recognized here though, so she was but a tree fallen in the woods. She did not make a sound.
We landed in Chandighar a bit late, but the team waited. It's a cute city. Where Delhi was an endless maze of turn outs and round abouts, Chadighar is strip malls and markets. Delhi is business; Chandighar is commerce. Oh. and the hotel is fantastic. I didn't count the showers, but I'm pretty sure my room has at least three.
And today was full. The morning was productive. We got through the agenda just after lunch, leaving us free to explore. So up into the Himalayas we went. Now highways in India are a bit different than the US. To make them highways at all, they had to widen the road to three lanes. That's one going each direction, with a third straddling the middle: the direction changing whimsically to route around tractor or cow. But to make three lanes out of just one or two, sacrifices must be made. In many cases, on the roads of Chandighar, this comes in the form of the first few feet of many storefronts. Now left with jagged brick walls and wide open displays, these shops stand undaunted by their exposure to the elements. What in America would be a war-torn facade, in India serves as a flowing entrance to a world of low cost knickknacks and unprescribed medications.
An hour up the mountain side, we take a cable car a few hundred meters over an open ravine. The range-top resort offers local rum, and fantastic fare. The sudden storm, blanketing us in fog, left us reeling at the possibility of having been mid-cable when it hit. I'm not quite sure we would have made it. But at 6000 feet, with 4 fingers of 'old monk' rum, it all seemed charming. I've seen mountains before. I've been on cable cars before. I've watched the filth of cities been washed away by the waters of distance. Yet the mountains of India still cast a spell over the surrounding terrain for me. I am just one man.
The long, winding, and intensely chaotic road back to Chandighar was peppered with little temples and shops we finally felt loose enough at which to stop. Dioramas here take on lurid appeal, never approached in any of MY book reports. Whether it's Kali holding a smiling, severed head, or Ganesh smoking Sherlock Holmes pipe, the gods of India know how to make a scene. That's all I'm saying. You know who else know how to make a scense? Monkeys. And you know where there are Monkeys? Chandighar. They walk the shoulder. They peep out from behind the guardrail. They remind us we were once like them, and soon they might be like us.
And I'm not saying I'm bringing back anything illegal into the US. But if you see me relaxed, asleep or erect, say a little prayer to the assoication of indian chemists (pharmacists) for me.
Early tomorrow I fly out for a night in London, and then it's on to Los Angeles. My time here on the subcontinent has been special; memorable. But I miss my friends. I miss my family. I miss my country. You cannot escape your tribe. You cannot abandon your people. Your adoption of another timezone can only be temporary.