On The Road

When I met up with Shormistha earlier this month, we expounded for a bit on hotels while traveling. We came up with the following:

There are two kinds of hotels in developing countries.

The first is the 'country hotel'. Though you can sometimes find these in cities (we stayed in one in Bangalore) they are usually found in towns of moderate-to-middling size, with maybe one or two spots of interest to visitors, and even those are the B-list celebrities of the tourism world. Curious or off-the-beaten-path travelers pass through but rarely; most visitors are there for weddings or funerals.

When you walk into these hotels, you can expect to see a room. It will be painted pastel green, pink or possibly both and have a ratty brown chair, at least 30 years old, in one corner. There will be grime on the walls and it will smell of incense and goats.

This room may or may not have a reception desk and there may or may not be anyone manning it. If someone is there, he is likely to be sleeping. Possibly in a chair, and possibly with a cricket match on the television in front of him.

One thing this room almost always has is a photograph (black and white or cheap technicolor) of a long-dead relative of the proprietor, hung high on the wall. In India, this photograph will be decorated with incense, sandalwood paste and marigolds.

When you finally wake up the sleeping person, you will find that he isn't actually the concierge. He may be a watchman or errand-boy, a friend of the concierge, a relative of the owner or just some guy who wandered in and took a nap.
"I want a room," you ask - in the local language if you're savvy like that.
"Room?" he will reply.
"Yes, room!"
He will putter around and finally leave, coming back ten minutes later (if you're lucky) with another guy.
"Room?" you ask.
"Room?" the other guy replies. The two guys look at each other as if silently asking - "do we have rooms here?"

When you finally establish that they do indeed have rooms, a third guy comes in and takes out a Tome. This Tome is about 2,000 pages long and almost as many years old, and is disintegrating at the edges. He'll blow the dust off it and open it up - if you look back to the first page you can expect to see Mary and Joseph, who tried to get a room here when the place first opened.

The tome is approximately the size and weight of a Gutenberg Bible.

In this Tome, you painstakingly enter your full name, age, date of birth, father's name, passport number, visa number, duration of stay, nationality, father's nationality, three phone numbers, address, permanent address, email address, port of embarkation, port of disembarkation, previous destination, next destination, purpose of visit, flight number, exact time of check-in, number of children, number of children traveling with you, a local reference (if you have one), occupation, salary, marital status, name and age of spouse, number of bags, type of room requested and type of room granted. Each space given for this information is approximately 2 cemtimeters wide.

The second kind of hotel is the 'city hotel' - this one has about ten people in the lobby, all with specific jobs and all requiring baksheesh to do them. There are three to five clocks on the wall - one says "London", one "New York", one is for the capital of the country you are in, and any others are for completely random destinations (in Mumbai our hotel had clocks for Delhi, London, New York, Kandahar and Anchorage, Alaska). None of them tell the correct time in any of those destinations.

When you arrive, people are running around and screaming. The computer system is either down, was recently down, or is working but not running properly. A child is crying in the corner while her mother fights with the elevator boy, and at least one guy who should be working is standing around and smoking. All the couches and chairs are occupied, and you are pretty sure that none of the occupants are employees or guests.

"I have a booking," you say.
"Just a moment," says the officious brillantined man behind the counter, before he checks his coiffure in the mirrored wall behind you. He calls another guy, who calls a boy of about 8, who runs outside and returns five minutes later with a piece of paper that proves, apparently, that you do have a booking.
"Here is your key, and we provide a coupon for breakfast," says Mr. Brillantine.
"Thanks. When can I get my coupon, then?"
"I will give it to you now."
"Great."

Ten minutes later, he's run away to deal with some of the screaming people, and you are standing there waiting for your breakfast coupon.

"Breakfast coupon?"
"You want breakfast now?"
"No, we were told we would get the coupon for tomorrow."
"Oh yes."

Then that guy runs away and comes back five minutes later, having done nothing.
"OK now?" he asks.
"Well, actually no, we still need our breakfast coupon."
"Oh that! We will send it to your room with the boy."

The boy never comes, you go to breakfast the next day and nobody asks you for any coupon, nor did they seem to think that such a coupon ever existed.

The boy, meanwhile, stops by your room with your laundry, hoping for more baksheesh.

Medieval Cairo and Aswan

Kids in Aswan

Dried hibiscus for karkadeh - a local cool drink

Backstreets of Aswan

The Nile at Aswan

Nubian guy selling baskets in Aswan.

...I'll have to adjust that one so it's not skewed. Felucca boat on the Nile at sunset.

...but in this one, the building is skewed, not the photo.

Local woman shopping in the Khan el-Khalili


Skyline of Islamic Cairo

In An Antique Land

A few miscellaneous notes on Egypt:

I never realized there were so many ways to wear hijab (Muslim women's attire including a headscarf). Although many women in Cairo dress Western-style, the vast majority still cover their hair, and burqas are not uncommon, among young women and old.

However, there is a distinct undercurrent of Muslim women's fashion of which Westerners are mostly unaware. Rastafarian headscarves, denim mermaid-flare skirts, curve-hugging black rib turtlenecks and intricate embroidery are just some of the options available to traditional-minded women in Egypt. Some other ensembles I've seen include:

- purple heather tunic with patchwork purple, blue and white hippie skirt, complementary patterned headscarf and lots of chunky turquoise necklaces and low-slung belts
- gray pencil skirt with black leather boots to cover legs, black ribbed top and headscarf with black sunglasses
- tailored black pants with white blouse and headscarf, red lipstick and black-and-white houndstooth scarf - very Chanel!
- tiger-print French-cut pants with black tunic and gold coin belt with zebra-print scarf
- long denim skirt with rose colored top and white cotton scarf tied up African-style

All in all, Cairene women really know how to dress, and still keep with the tenets of their religion. Nevermind that I don't agree with their religion; it's great that they can incorporate their beliefs into the modern world.

I am also continuously amazed by what people will say to convince you to buy their goods or services. At the pillared hall in Saqqara, a would-be guide chased after us and when we declined to use his services, he shouted down the hall - "But I am not a guide; I am a tribal chief!" Riiight.

Another man "swore to his God in heaven" that the fair price for some cheap bellydancing armband that I bought as a small gift for someone was US $40 (about 180 Egyptian pounds) - pointing to the "fine handwork" and "high-quality gold plate". Nevermind the "Made in China" stamp, eh?

A tout in the Khan el-Khalili (huge tourist bazaar but also frequented by locals) came up to us and said "Hey, I am not sketchy dude. I just want to be BFF with my American friends. You want to come my papyrus shop?" Impressed with the colloquial English as we were...no thanks.

We also enjoyed the various signs around tourist sites. As you drive up to the Pyramids, you'll pass King Tut House of Perfumes, Cleopatra Nefertiti Restaurant, Sphinx Papyrus Institute (not to be confused with Sphinx School of Papyrus - both of which are souvenir shops) and a few others that we passed around Dahshur and later, in Aswan:


...just in case you wanted to buy something from Che Guevara while in Egypt.


...a simple spelling error, but still. Louts flower?


...not the best name for a camel safari business.

And of course, product differentiation is alive and well in Egypt. It's always important to make your product stand out with a unique name, logo and market niche. Copycats never survive, because they don't have a distinct image to set them apart. Hence:

Another thing I love about Egypt is the prevalence of cats. I am not sure why; Brendan remembers reading somewhere that Mohammed thought dogs were unclean but he liked cats, so cats are generally liked in Islamic cultures. I read as a kid that cats were sacred in ancient Egypt. Neither of us are sure how true these things are, but it can't be denied that Cairo is teeming with well-fed, tame and generally clean street cats. Being a cat lovers (we like dogs too!), this is wonderful, especially compared to the sad and often hungry cats of Taiwan.

The Most Famous Tourist Site On Earth

I really don't see the need to blog much commentary about this - I think the images are pretty darned self-explanatory.

One comment I will make, however, is that we weren't so much awed by the beauty or awe of the Pyramids, or even so much by their history (though when you think about that, it is quite moving - more time has elapsed between the building of the Pyramids and the reign of Cleopatra than has passed between Cleopatra's time and the present day). We were instead awed by being at - actually touching - the most famous monuments in the world. Among the most well-known and photographed things on Earth.

Oh, and even the people who will ostensibly drive you to the Pyramids are in on the "ride a horse" racket. Our guy didn't take us to the main entrance. That said, we had wanted to take horses anyway so it wasn't a big deal. It's merely important to remember to haggle them down to a reasonable price (80 Egyptian pounds per hour not including admission is fair. We paid a bit more but I was too tired to chop it down a few more pounds).

Breakfast on the Nile

Some photos and notes to start out, and a loooooong arsed post coming up in a few days.

Cairo does not deserve one of its two reputations.

I'm not speaking of the first - of being a city of history and invasion, of decay and rebuilding, as the 'Mother of the World'. It certainly does deserve that reputation, and I say this after having seen only two sections of it.

But there is another, parallel Cairo, one that's famous for hassles and touts, pollution and scams, sexism and terror. This reputation was never earned, it was merely bestowed with staggering naivete.

We drifted around Bombay's international airport - all spiffy and new and utterly unappreciated by us - in a fog at midnight, one, two. After a tousled sleep on the airplane, I awoke to pre-dawn Cairo glittering below me. By the time a 'rosy fingered dawn' (to be Homeric about it) was creasing the horizon, we were in a ramshackle taxi, speeding towards downtown Cairo. The taxi smelt of gasoline, which worried me, and the driver wanted to smoke, which worried me more. We dissuaded him and he assured us the oil smell was from spilling it on his clothes earlier.

Why he wanted to smoke in that state...you know, I prefer not to think about it.

At the airport, five guys took our one luggage trolley to the curb and then all of them demanded baksheesh. They didn't get any and I considered myself thoroughly introduced to Cairo. I don't want to know why these five guys were hanging out in the airport parking lot at 5am to begin with.

Our hotel, which seemed to advertise itself so flamboyantly as being in its own building, is actually on the 7th floor of a generic building. The hotel itself, however, is fine, complete with five or six chain-smoking men who watch cricket and wait until some work comes there way, a charming Art Deco lobby, a good enough restaurant and a thoroughly sketchy bar (four stools, a bookcase with maybe five bottles of liquor on it, three of which are whiskey, a mini-fridge, a dusty old guy, enough smoke to rip a new hole in the ozone...and some ceramic puppy figurines - I kid you not. It's called "The Polo Lounge").

After a heavenly breakfast of eggs, bread (naan meets pita, they fall in love and have a baby, which we ate), wonderful coffee, orange juice, fig jam and spready cheese, we explored downtown Cairo a bit, taking in lots of Belle Epoque architecture along the way. I'm pretty sure "Belle Epoque" is French for "19th century buildings put up by imperialist bastards".

We then took the Metro to Coptic Cairo, an enclosed area that is/was the stronghold of Cairo's indigenous Christians. We chose this over the museum, mosques and Pyramids because, being jetlagged, we just didn't want to deal with the tourist hassle of the other places. It was a good choice; only one person asked us for baksheesh and everyone else was very friendly. At the Hanging Church, a free church guide explained a lot for us (we donated to the charity box afterwards), the tourism police were helpful, and domestic tourists enjoyed chatting with us. The expensive Coptic Museum was also, frankly, amazing. I'm happy I took in something more digestible than the Big Mama Museum today.

The most amazing part about Coptic Cairo - beyond the mashrabiyya windows and ornately carved ceilings, was seeing the fusion of Pagan beliefs and Christian ones in their art and mythos. Sure, most of their stone and textilework looked strictly Byzantine, but then you'd come across Dionysus holding a cross, or Aphrodite with an ankh, inset with a "Jesus Fish" - proof that old beliefs don't die immediately in the face of change. They're syncretized, maybe they become a part of folklore, maybe they die slowly, but they never fall under the sword. Cultures blend into one another, they change; they may rise by force but they rarely disappear the same way.

All in all, I like Cairo. I like it a lot. Sure, it's polluted but it's fairly safe and friendly and so far, low-hassle. I also had the most amazing babaghanouj since my great grandma used to make it, and that is truly a priceless thing.

Pictures of Backwaters

I'll actually write more about Kerala later...frankly this part of the trip was extremely pleasant but too 'comfortable'; it was too easy to sit back and be tourists and not really engage or interact with our surroundings as much. Being one of a horde of tourists (The Golden Haired Horde I suppose) means that you're almost categorized into those niches before you get off the boat - it also means that you get lazy. It's so easy to read the paper together or talk to each other that we sometimes forget to actively seek out experiences around us.

So while I could write a lovely trip report all about Kerala, it would put you to sleep. I'll attempt a few notes on it later, though.

At the moment we're in Cairo and frankly, all my mental energy is here. It's hard to think about India when there's so much to think of right under my nose.

My God, My India

I apologize for the lower-than-usual quality of these photos - with no editing software to rotate the vertical ones or clean up the lighting, contrasts and colors, they're not as good as they could be. Oh well.

I believe I last left off in Udupi, birthplace of the mighty masala dosa and location of a famous Krishna temple. We enjoyed a car festival on our second-to-last night there; it wasn't so much a car festival as a car-pushing at the behest of a heavy donator. People were taking blessings (bringing the smoke to their foreheads through cupped hands) from used fireworks and from people with fire, but I have to admit I didn't feel much in the way of spiritual purity.

The next day, however, was a different story. After a simple-but-delicious breakfast of masala dosa (what else?) we headed for Mangalore. We were dumped into a pile of fish; I tumbled off the bus and found myself face-to-face with a fishwife and ankle-deep in the water dripping off her wares.

Our first stop was the Manjunatha temple; a temple northeast of the city built in the Keralan style; after circumambulating (walking around the shrines before approaching directly) we sat next to one of the temple's benefactors and chatted for awhile as the noontime mahapuja (grand prayer ceremony) got underway. This temple does a fire puja twice a day, meaning lots of priests with lots of torches accompanied by drumming and cymballing. It was very, um, cymballic of a country so intent on its faith.

Manjunatha Temple is home to the Trilokshetra, one of the finest bronzes in India. It is a three-faced deity (a seated Shiva I believe) and considered the finest outside Tamil Nadu (they are quite proud of this; they have a little sign in several languages announcing it). I couldn't take a photo but I was awed at the nuanced beauty of the piece, which was so detailed that it seemed to be embroidered rather than cast.

Our next stop after the Milagres Church (nice, but not overwhelmingly impressive) was St. Aloysius College Chapel, which reminded me that great works of devotional art are not limited to India and Greater China:

St. Aloysius Chapel is covered on the inside - and I do mean covered - with frescoes. Fairly new frescoes, but fine nonetheless. I could nitpick that a few of the people depicted look a little stiff, but hey. The painted columns could be the envy of marble, and the friezes illustrating the life of Jesus were beautifully matched in color, tone and composition. The colors - mauve, rose, teak, cinnabar, cerulean, sunburst, all the colors you only see in catalogues - were magnificently matched and almost hummed, as though they were in tune somehow, in a fine aesthetic harmony.

It was the closest I've ever come in a Christian religious space to having a spiritual moment, and I am avowedly non-spiritual.

We left Mangalore the next day for Kannur, a small town in northern Kerala. There are really only two things to do there (besides visit a weaving cooperative) - go to the beach and see Theyyam. We stayed at Costa Malabari (very nice - it's a small hotel in a 120-year old traditional house) and first, went to the beach:

...a lovely semi-private and peaceful cove. The sand wasn't as white and the water not as blue as in the Philippines or Indonesia, but it was still quite lovely. The next morning, we rose at 4am and sleepily piled off in a rickshaw to head 20 miles out to see Theyyam:

Theyyam is a north Keralan temple ''dance" - not so much a dance as a form of devotion. Related in form to Kathakali (next post), devotees wear large, unnatural costumes and terrifying makeup and allow themselves to become possessed by the gods of the temple. It's similar in a way to the dangki tradition of Taiwan, except they don't hurt themselves. They just dance a lot, issue proclamations and sayings from the gods, and generally run about. We saw two dancers, one in a very tall mask and one in a wide skirt, in which flaming torches were set, as well as a flaming headdress. Sorry that the picture is not so good, but it was hard to take photos in the pre-dawn darkness and I felt a flash would be intrusive.

The torch-bearer would run up to the audience - separated by gender - who would joyfully take blessings from the smoke. It's the only time I really feel I can use the word worshipful and mean it. I didn't expect this and Brendan and I were the only foreigners there, so of course he had to run up to me first (the gods apparrently like me) - which was utterly terrifying.

The women around me thought it was hilarious, of course.

After Kannur, we headed up into the hills to the Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary. We stayed at Varnam Homestay (highly recommended - I can't speak highly enough of them). Not knowing the distance involved, we hired a Jeep to take us from Mananthavady, the town where the bus let us off. It should have been Rs. 200 - we paid 600 (about $12 US; not a big deal). Turns out the proprietor of the homestay is a police officer who lodged a complaint about the Jeep driver...sweet, sweet revenge.

The next day, we took a Jeep safari through Tholpetty, seeing Hanuman monkeys (langurs), a wild bison and not one but three wild elephants:

Varnam is also near a tribal area, dotted with villages and paddies. You can usually tell tribal women because unlike the other local Hindus, they cover their hair, and unlike the local Muslims, they use kerchiefs, not shawls or hijab.

It was lovely, being welcomed in villages that aren't reliant on the tourist trade or saturated with souvenir shops, and to just get out and meet some friendly people. As monkeys played in the bamboo at the edge of the clearing, we watched the village children run home across the dry rice paddies - almost all of them stopped to us to first gape, then chat. At least one of them had a cell phone; let this be a lesson to American parents who think it's spoiling to give such devices to children.

Our meals at Varnam were excellent, served by candlelight and flashlight as the power went out every night at 8pm sharp for exactly 30 minutes. Amidst the dim glow we enjoyed savory chicken curry, daal of various flavors, some traditional Keralan foods from the mountains including freshwater fish and a delicious green vegetable with potato, cooked with lots of fenugreek leaf and mustard seed, and "magic balls" - rice flour balls filled with spiced coconut gratings and jaggery - raw sugar. Laying in the hammock or relaxing in the traditional-style house, I felt quiet, so at peace as to be sleepy while Beena (mistress of the house) led the cows in or Don (their son) raked the drying coffee .

A lover of coffee since I was about 3 years old, it was utter bliss to fall asleep rocking in the hammock listening to those coffee beans roll back and forth under the noontime sky with a gentle scritch-scratch.

Our next stop was Calicut; unfortunately most of my photos from this stop are vertical so I'll have to post them later. We had only a half day in Calicut and spent it shopping (approximately 110% of the city's income comes from the UAE and overseas Indians working there, so shopping options are plentiful) and visiting ancient wooden Moppila mosques - the mosques built 700-1100 years ago before the Portuguese came through and defaced them all. Fortunately most are still around and still active today.

Unfortunately, thanks to the Gulf influences, they are rather orthodox mosques so I, as a woman, was not allowed to enter. Brendan, bless his progressive heart, wouldn't go in without me. When invited by some students he said "Sorry - either we both go or neither of us do." (For the record I would have let him enter if he'd really wanted to).

The next morning we bundled into a train bound for Cochin - the stuff of spice and dreams.

A few photos of Cochin before my next post:

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