Only in Sri Lanka

Sometimes reading the newspaper here is almost like reading the National Enquirer at home. Today would be a good example. I still can’t believe it.
Postal Department warns of severe stamp shortage
(I will paraphrase to make is easier for you and me)
Most post offices in the country have run out of stocks.
The stamp department has not ordered any new stocks
from the Government Press. The government press has
exhausted the paper that is used for printing stamps. In
addition, the printing machines used to print the stamps
were being used to print various books that have been
ordered by powerful in the government.

ALL I CAN SAY IS OY! One of the things I have observed is there seems to be little thinking about consequences and not much in the way of accountability. I however have a stash of stamps! HA!

The war continues in the north and east. An aide worker was shot this week. Now NGOs are threatening to pull their people out of the area. This will be a HUGE loss as the north and east were the worst hit by the tsunami. It is compounded by the 14 years of war that was mostly fought in the north and east. There are many NGOs in the region to address all those problems. Today’s article mentioned 2000 volunteers leaving as a result of the hostilities. This is very serious but I doubt that the LTTE or the government will bat an eye.

You know you are getting old when…today I had Mr. Kularathna take me to the bakery because we are having guests for dinner (yes I managed to cook again). I was getting some bread and dessert. They didn’t have the dessert breads ready yet so I got the dinner bread and ran back out and hopped into the trishaw, telling Mr. K about having to come back later. The driver said something and I looked up and about died with embarrassment because I had gotten into someone else’s trishaw. Then I just laughed my hinny off at my mistake.

We had a lovely first experience tonight. We took our outdoor furniture (we always have it inside since it isn’t weatherproof and rain can come up so quickly) onto the rooftop garden and served drinks and appetizers. There was a lovely cool breeze up there. It was a real treat.

Sunday
Today we got a culture fix. First we went to the National Art Gallery where there was an exhibit of children’s art. There must have been over 500 pieces exhibited. But what a treat. The works were all the same size, probably 18 X 18 inches and the colors and compositions were delightful. Many of the works had a village theme, showing families going about their daily functions: harvesting grain, washing clothes, and carrying water. From there we went to the National Museum and viewed lots of Buddha statues made from carved stone or cast bronze, household items, manuscripts, masks, clothing, etc. It is amazing that we have been here this long and are just now getting around to doing this but when Ron travels we always leave on Sunday and sometimes come home on Saturday so there isn’t a lot for time for such activities. I told Ron I can now leave SL and not feel guilty.

Needless to say we are very excited to be leaving for the US next Sunday. We will first visit Ron’s mom and Bob in Marina del Rey for four days, then head to Texas where Ron has his ICMA conference in San Antonio. We will be there for seven days and head to Washington DC and Centreville VA to meet our new grandson who was due yesterday. Ron also has a meeting with ICMA and we will see Mrs. Bakshi who is in Chevy Chase Maryland and bring back clothes she has had made for her two granddaughters who are here in Colombo. It will work out perfectly as we are bringing two huge suitcases filled with clothes we never wore here and gifts. We will mail everything from southern California to a friend in Vancouver and have two empty suitcases for Mrs. Baski’s 100 pounds of clothes. We will have another suitcase for our traveling needs. This way we won’t be over our limit when we return home in December since we have bought a lot of light weight clothes since being here.

Tonight we are taking Veena out to dinner with our friend Peter Leth. Veena wants to learn more about NGO’s and employment opportunities. Peter works for UNICEF. Last Sunday UNICEF sent Peter to Trincomalee in the northeast of the island. Recently the US Embassy sent out a warning that no Americans should travel to Trincomalee. Oddly enough UNICEF has a rule that their employees cannot travel at night due to increased danger. How strange they would send him to Trinco after the embassy warning. Fact is stranger than fiction…

That’s it from paradise five degree above the equator.

The Monsoons have landed

We came back to Colombo after a week of traveling and the weather has changed. I do believe the monsoons have arrived. Apparently it rained every day while we were gone. Not so in the south where we were. But now everyday there are torrential downpours. It is amazing. I haven’t had to water the gardens since I got back and that gives me an extra hour each day!

Today’s rain has just started, as I was ready to leave for my career development class at Shilpa so I am waiting to see if it will abate in order to spare myself getting soaked. Sure enough it is letting up a bit. I only use an umbrella here as it is too hot even with rain for a rain coat but when the rain comes it often is accompanied by wind and it is easy to get soaked.

Ron left for work at 5:30 a.m. and traveled five hours south to give a presentation. He returned at 8:30 p.m. We had supper and headed for bed. Yesterday’s headlines read “Government not waging war”. What a joke. There has been continuous fighting for 11 days now in the northeast with the Air Force bombing the heck out of the LTTE controlled areas. Talk about denial! Today’s headlines were about eight suspects being arrested in the US for offering huge bribes to get the LTTE ban lifted. The group also conspired to buy surface to air missiles! Yikes! I have grown cynical about Sri Lanka in regards to the cease-fire/civil war. There has been killings reported everyday in the paper, I think since I have been here: ten months. The government talks about making things better for the Tamils but has done nothing to improve their lives. Now almost 47,000 people are internally displaced. Yesterday a ship loaded with food left Colombo headed for the Jaffna peninsula because the conflict has made it impossible to get food into the area. Roads are closed and crops were ruined when the LTTE cut off a major water canal for three weeks. There was a huge fight over that and now both sides claim they opened the canal. It is shameless to say the least.

We still feel safe in Colombo and where we travel in the country, work to avoid any conflict areas. The Program is following recommendations of the US Embassy and not traveling to the North, or areas in Trinco and Batticaloa (the northern part of the east coast). We’ve heard lots of concern from friends and family and we want to assure them that we are not fool hardy. If things heat up and we are unsafe, we will come home.

We’re looking forward to visiting the US for three weeks in September. We’ll be in LA seeing Ron’s Mom; then to Texas to the ICMA conference, and finally to Washington DC to help Mark and Rachel with their first child, due to arrive in a matter of days. Ron is buried with work trying to get ready for the trip. He wants to get some things completed before he leaves. He says he has three weeks of work to do in the next 10 days. That’s about all from what could be paradise just 5 degrees north of the equator.
PS – pictures from the trip to Yala, described yesterday will be posted soon- probably this weekend.

We Spied ‘em

After a very long day on Friday (two assessment interviews in two towns, visit to a Hindu temple and a Buddhist temple) we arrived at Yala Village, an eco friendly accommodation at 8:00 p.m. On the way into the resort, we spied a leopard that was crossing the road. What a thrill! He didn’t run away but took his time getting to where he was going. We checked in, ate dinner and headed to our cabins for a shower and a quick sleep as our safari started at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday.

We had a Land Rover driver, Suba, who thought he was Mario Andretti but the truth was he was trying to get to the leopard spying area first, ahead of the other visitors to the park. Sure enough, we saw a leopard right off the road in the bush. We stopped and watched and he also took his own sweet time and crossed the road at his own pace, allowing the three cameras to click away. Bill has an excellent digital camera with a telephoto lens allowing him to get some great shots. Ron and Wes have digital cameras but don’t have the big lens. We couldn’t have been happier. There are about 50 leopards in Yala National Park, the largest concentration in the world. Yala is located in the southeastern corner of the island. Unlike the wet zone with its lush vegetation, this area is a dry region with lots of scrub land with enormous rocky outcrops. It is hot and arid here. You are not allowed out of the vehicle once you are in the park.

We kept exploring various areas of the park. In a space of three hours, we saw a bear, an elephant quite close to the road, a jackal, many water buffalo, countless peacocks, 10 or so wild boars, lots of spotted deer, an eagle, a brown wood owl, painted storks, grey heron, black headed ibis, and green bee eaters. We were grateful to have seen such a variety with the crowning moment of seeing the leopard.

We came back to the resort that is located within two kilometers of the park entrance, ate a huge breakfast and showered, as it is quite dusty riding in an open-air vehicle in an arid area. We rested, read and managed to mosey on over for lunch. We head back out at 3:30 for more viewing, having requested Mario (Suba) again since we had had such good fortune with him this morning.

Our resort is called Yala Village. Once it is dark you are not to leave your cabin or go to your cabin without being accompanied by a resort staff person because of the animals that come into the area at night. The accommodations are cabins built on piers a few feet off the ground. The floors are wood and the interior walls are plaster, exterior are stucco. There are lots of windows with hand painted curtains. The furniture is rustic, made of wood. We were issued a cloth bag on arrival and requested to take any trash we generate home with us. What a great way to make us aware of how much trash we generate. We are to take home any bottles or cans, cellophane wrappers, paper, disposable razors, boxes from toothpaste tubes, etc. We have a fan and air conditioner in the room as well as a mini bar and TV. We are asked to conserve water and given the opportunity to use our bath and bed linens more than a day, reducing the amount of water and detergent used. This is the first place I have seen in SL where I was given this option. Environmental issues are not in the consciousness of Sri Lankans yet.

On Friday Ron and his team were doing an assessment in Hambantota. The Asia Foundation had given the local authority of Hambantota a grant and part of that grant had been given to children who had lost one or both parents in the tsunami. On Friday the local authority was presenting each recipient a saving book and the money is to be used for educational and medical expenses. The chairman of the local authority asked Ron to say a few words on the behalf of the Asia Foundation. This was unexpected and I wasn’t there but Bill and Wes who have been doing the assessments told me about it and said they were quite touched by Ron’s words. I asked Ron what he had said. He said “I am honored on behalf of the Asia Foundation to present this award to you. Like others in the international community we were heartbroken when we heard about the effects of the tsunami but it was nothing compared to what you are feeling. The money in this bank account can never replace your lost family but you have an opportunity to use it and make them proud of you.” I am in tears as I write this and oh so proud of my dear, sweet husband.

It’s time to head out for safari part two!

It was one dusty afternoon on the safari trail. We saw two mongooses, three elephants: a mama, a juvenile and a baby. We saw more peacocks, a huge painted stork and some huge crocodiles. No leopards but we can hardly complain since we saw two within 12 hours. We saw lots of deer and then a small herd of elephants. All in all it has been a very rewarding trip to Yala.

Tomorrow we head for home, a minimum of six hours on the road. We get dropped off in Colombo, Wes and Bill will head up to Chilaw with Veena our neighbor who will serve as their interpreter. They will have an additional two hours on the road but will stay at Club Palm Bay, one of my favorites: right on a lagoon facing the beach.

Monday
We arrived yesterday exactly six hours after departing from Yala. We were welcomed with lots of rain. I did a load of wash just in time for the sky to unzip. This morning I hand washed six blouses/shirts and hung them out to drip dry. As I was getting into the shower I heard the rains again. I was told by the cab driver this morning that it will now rain for a few months. I think doing laundry will become a real trick and I will experience a new level of mildew and mold…

That’s it from paradise five degrees above the equator.

PS
I came home from running some errands and was eating my lunch. I noticed something on the dining chair next to me. Upon closer inspection I noticed there were little white specks all over the chair. It has started: the season of mildew and mold. Yikes!

Stranded in Hikkaduwa

All photos of India and World’s End have been posted at www.rtsla.blogspot.com

Did I mention that last night while we were dining at the hotel there were three musicians singing gospel music with a calypso beat? Fact is stranger than fiction…

Today we checked out of the hotel and were waiting for our driver and van when we got a call saying there was a ‘small technical problem’. HA! I don’t know about you but a small technical problem can mean you aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Ten minutes later I suggested the team take the staff member’s car and head out. I would wait for the van to be repaired and bring the luggage. They squeezed into Kumar’s car and took off. I got a call regarding the car repair, saying they would need to go to a town about 40 minutes away for a part so I headed to town to get a plastic container for some tea I had bought for a friend. This is very special and very expensive tea and I wanted to protect it so it wouldn’t get crushed. I would end up with tea dust instead of whole leaf tea. As life would have it I managed to pick up a local who ‘wanted to help’. He took me to a store with plastic containers and after we got out of the store he asked if I could help him. He is a fisherman and the weather has prevented him from fishing for days (rain), his wife has Dengue and cannot nurse the baby so he wanted milk, not money. I bought him two containers of baby milk formula. I rarely give money away here but am willing to help in a situation where he wasn’t asking for money.

Next I headed for the Internet café to check email. As for the bombing in Colombo yesterday, they were targeting the Pakistani High Commissioner. Apparently the LTTE is angry because Pakistan has offered to help SL combat terrorism. The commissioner is unharmed but nine people are dead and 15 are injured. The LTTE planted claymore mines in a parked trishaw and set them off with remote control. Since this happened near where Mr. Kularathna, the trishaw driver I use, is stationed I sent him a text message on my cell phone, inquiring if he was okay. He called a bit later, astounded that I had expressed concern. Frankly I often think of him as my younger brother without knowing his age. He was safe as he had gone home early due to the rain. He lives about 15 kilometers out of Colombo.

Hambantota

I never got a chance to post the above blog. It is now Thursday and we are in Hambantota on the southern tip of SL. Tuesday we stayed in Welagama and our hotel room overlooked the bay that had numerous fishing boats anchored there in a colorful display. Taprobane is a tiny island off the coast here and there is a villa on it that you can rent for $1200 a night, complete with servants to address your every need. We didn’t stay there. Duh! I am going to finish this later as someone else needs the computer and I want to post what I have so far. Yesterday I saw an iguana that was three feet and a land monitor that was two and a half feet. Oy! They are so prehistoric looking!

To be continued….

I’m back. We left Welagama at 8:00 am and drove two hours. While the team was performing their assessment, I walked around town, found an Internet café and answered email. We drove another 1.5 hours (it was now about 1:30) and I sat in the van while they did a second assessment in a tiny town. As I was nodding off while reading (it was hot and I hadn’t slept well) I was invited in for hot, sweet milk tea, two cookies and a small banana. We left around 4:00 and walked across the street to a family run rice and curry shop and had, you guessed it, rice and curry lunch.

Two of the hotels we stayed in have had serious design flaws in the showers. I may have already written about this. Both had shower heads that point straight down onto a shelf that runs the width of the tub, causing the water to hit directly onto the shelf and consequently run all over the counter or floor. In both cases, it made bathing difficult because you couldn’t get directly under the water flow. What were those folks thinking when they installed those puppies???

Today is Thursday and I got up at 5:40 in order to leave the hotel at 6:00 and go to Bundala Bird Sanctuary. I was in heaven, having never gone to a bird sanctuary before. My driver was working on being a Bob Marley look alike. He was pretty darn cute in his attempt and wanted to make sure I knew what he was attempting to do. Once we got to Bundala we picked up a park guide who accompanied us throughout the park. In addition to seeing 23 birds I haven’t seen before, I saw four huge crocodiles, over 50 peahens and peacocks, oodles of monkeys (two kinds), two deer and two land monitors. There was lots of elephant dung but it is the end of the dry season so they have gone out of the park to find water. We also went to the edge of the park on the Indian Ocean and I saw five or six boats that fishermen use to catch lobster and the shacks they live in while fishing. As we were driving away I was wondering how they got their lobsters to market when two fishermen passed us on the motorcycles with a box mounted on the back to carry the lobsters.

The rest of my day has been spent in leisure: a morning nap, slow lunch, reading John Adams biography and now on the Internet at the hotel. One of the team consultants has the stomach flu and is out of commission for the day. We will end the day with another walk on the beautiful beach that is here. What a joy!

That’s it from paradise five degrees above the equator.

Photos of India and World’s End have been posted www.rtsla.photofreeway.com

Today is August14th and I just go a text message from the US Embassy that another bomb went off in Colombo killing 7, injuring 15. I can’t help but believe we will be leaving before December. The war continues to escalate and the cease fire is a joke!

We are in Hikkaduwa, probably 100 kilometers from Colombo so we are safe. Please remember that we have had our horoscope done recently (third time in recent years) and consistently we have been told that we will not die by accident and that we will live until our 80’s/90’s. You just have to trust some things in life! We are trusting that we aren’t done yet so we will be fine.

So here’s my blog for today. Some people wonder what the heck I do all day long when traveling with Ron while he is working so today was pretty typical. After breakfast I sat out on the porch of the hotel and read today’s newspaper, depressing to say the least as the war seems to get worse each day. We are enjoying cooler weather with a cloud cover and light ocean breezes. Our hotel sits right on the ocean (yes it was hit by the tsunami but the damaged part has been completely redone) overlooking a coral reef. After finishing the paper, I went to the Internet café and answered email that took about an hour.

Then I browsed shops along the highway looking at batiks, a challenge given that there is no shoulder and buses whiz by at breakneck speed. Pedestrian beware! Sri Lanka has a number of needy people so any time you are out walking they will approach you and want to take you to “their” shops. So today I was approached twice. I managed to dump one of them but the second one I couldn’t resist as he wanted to take me off the main drag where all the tourist (higher priced goods) shops are. So we are walking along a residential road and I dawns on me how trusting I am being, Am I getting ready to be mugged, I ask myself? Then I come to my senses and realize I am in a residential area and one loud scream will bring many running to my rescue. I am loud! Instead of being mugged, he took me to probably the best batik shop I have even been to. I came away with a lovely tablecloth for home; beautiful blues and white that will look swell with my dishes and is a lovely reminder of Sri Lanka. Then I went back to the hotel and had a leisurely lunch on the veranda, overlooking the ocean and listening to waves crash on the shore. I never go to the ocean that I don’t think of my dear old departed mom.

At 2:00 I was on the lawn under a tree facing the ocean and reading my novel (Thank you Susan Hathaway Marxer). I watched as one of the gardening staff climbed the coconut trees with no rope and no shoes, sort of like a monkey and went clear to the top to pull off dead branches with one hand while holding on for dear life with the other. The lawn has a stick fence enclosing it. Outside the fence there were five men hoping a hotel guest would come near the fence so they could persuade them to take their glass bottom boat out to the coral reef for viewing. I refuse to go as the reef is threatened by all the viewing activity.

I read until 3:30. Now I am back at the Internet café posting this blog. By the time I get back Ron will probably be home from working with his team of consultants and staff interviewing members of the local authority to assess how his program is working. Hikkaduwa is the fist city they are assessing and there will be four more I think after today. We will be on the road this entire week, returning to Colombo on Sunday evening. So it seems after today’s message our timing for leaving Colombo is a good thing!

DON’T Worry. We are hunky dory in paradise five degrees north of the equator.

Today is Saturday, August 12th. We will go exploring for the last of the furniture for the Thai house. We have found a china hutch, a small dressing table with mirror (both antiques) and a daybed that matches the couch only it is deeper, perfect for napping! We have seen a desk and will probably get it because it not only matches the other furniture it is small and will fit nicely into the master bedroom. We have seen an armoire but it is expensive so we will continue to look and today we want to look at antique trunks or chests for storage and go to a town noted for its wood working to consider having a headboard commissioned. That will just about do it.

Tonight we are entertaining two consultants who are doing an assessment of Ron’s program (so far so good) and Veena who Ron just hired to work as their interpreter for week after next. I broke down and cooked again! I’ve averaging once every six weeks and have managed to prepare three or four different dishes in 10 months! HA! Life will never be the same after Sri Lanka. It rained off and on all day yesterday and we just had a tremendous downpour that woke me up. It’s 5:00 a.m. That means it is cool and I am LOVING it! I only took one shower yesterday. That’s only happened one other time in 10 months.

Tomorrow we leave for eight days. We will be traveling with the two consultants down the southern coast of SL. This is part of the assessment that is taking place during the month of August. Our first stop will be Hikkaduwa and probably the only place with an Internet café as it is a small tourist town, a place that surfers come to and never leave. Two days there and we move on to Weligama for a day. Next we go to Hambantota and on Thursday we will be in Tissamaharama (I say Tissa for short because this is way too many syllables for a southerner to say). Friday and Saturday we will be at Yala National Park where the largest concentration of leopards reside, about 30 of them. Wish us luck in spying some spotted cats, what a thrill that would be. We will have a very long day on Sunday, August 20th getting back to Colombo.

I am assuming some of you like following us on a map so that is why I was specific as to where we are going. We should be out of harm’s way in these towns as they are far way from the north and east where most of SL’s problems are. Things have escalated in the northeast over a water canal the LTTE cut off from villagers and farmers. Many Muslims have been displaced over the fighting and a large number of military, LTTE and civilians have been killed or injured. There is no way you can call this a cease-fire and it is a farce for both sides to claim it is still in place. The LTTE has demanded that members of the ceasefire-monitoring mission who are from the EU countries cease to be members of the mission in September. This is because the EU has named the LTTE a terrorist organization and has frozen assets in the EU. The majority of the members are from EU countries. The exceptions are some of the Scandinavian countries-Norway for one. It will be interesting to see what happens. The EU members have agreed to leave in September.

This week the LTTE set off a bomb trying to kill a Tamil politician who has been critical of the LTTE. The LTTE kills anyone who is critical of them. Instead they killed a 3-year-old child who was walking home with her mother. This was in a residential neighborhood in Colombo. The killing is senseless and nothing is ever solved this way. I have become even more of a pacifist being here and have to tell you I am just as disgusted with the government as I am with the LTTE. Both have acted in reprehensive and irresponsible ways with thousands of people being displaced and many civilians being injured or killed. It is a sad, sad state of affairs here with no real leadership. The president says great things but nothing has been done to improve the life of Tamils. Until that happens the fighting will continue. The LTTE is so adamant about being a separate state that negotiations to resolve the conflict are impossible with the government who is just as adamant to retain the unity of the country. Meanwhile, the people of the country suffer. The problems of lack of infrastructure, environmental degradation and economic development go unaddressed keeping the country in a backward state.

That’s about all from paradise just five degrees above the equator.

Ron has started to post photos of our India trip at www.rtsla.photofreeway.com

A bomb went off inColombo today. It was thought to be targeting a Tamil polotician who opposes the Tamil TIgers. We are out of harm's way. No details as of yet.

Some people have asked if I got Dengue fever after Ron had it. Dengue fever can only be contracted via a mosquito. It doesn’t pass person to person. But let me tell you, I now tend to react when I see a mosquito around my body!

Ron had some work in Nuwara Eliya (NE) last week so I went up on Friday to join him and on Saturday six of us, two consultants and Ron and I plus our two drivers hiked into World’s End, a 10 kilometer hike. It’s a beautiful hike higher than NE (Nuwara Eliya not north east!) that stands at 6,000 ft. You look out over an escarpment that is over 1,000-meter drop into a beautiful valley with mountains, a village and lakes in your viewing range. Absolutely lovely. We had left the hotel at 6:00 a.m. because a cloud cover often rolls in and spoils the view. We wanted to see it before than happened. We got back to the hotel a little after noon. It took almost two hours each way to drive to and from the park.

The two consultants showered and left for their next assignment. We showered, ate lunch and read then took a long nap. What a luxury! We got up and walked into town and bought some fresh strawberries and other fruit. Seeing World’s End was one of the two things we wanted to do before leaving SL. I loved being cool for three days. You get to wear jeans in NE as it is in the mountains and considerably cooler than Colombo. You also forgo the sandals and wear warmer shoes. Both nights we went to St. Andrews Hotel for dinner. It is a lovely setting in a century old building with a beautiful dining room and excellent food. We got up at 6:00 on Sunday, took a long walk, showered, ate and headed for home arriving about 1:30. Ron spent the afternoon working on reports and I did what we affectionately call domesticities-laundry, etc.

The monsoons were short lived here. I think they were here for three weeks about a month ago. I miss them as they helped cool things off.

Yesterday we went to the bank after Ron finished his reports to see if his ATM/debit card was working as it was rejected at our hotel in NE. I’m not sure if I mentioned it but I am now without an ATM card from WAMU. The PIN number finally arrived on Friday but we are unable to activate the card. Great! So we were lucky as Ron’s card worked. To celebrate he invited me to Odel’s, our one department store to have an ice cream. They have a great ice cream shop with multiple flavors and I had mentioned that some day I’d like an ice cream date. Yum! Only problem was I had coffee and chocolate and then couldn’t get to sleep last night. Read until about 1:30. Oy, I’m too old for this kind of nonsense!!! It was fun to do something so spontaneous.

Our hearts and heads are turning to what’s next for us. SL gets to both of us some days. I am so tired of ants and other bugs and now am slightly paranoid with mosquitoes. So we are planning our trip to the US in September. We will go to Los Angeles on September 3rd and visit with Sonia, Ron’s mom. From there we head to San Antonio where Ron has his annual ICMA conference and we end up in Centreville VA near DC to see our newest grandson who is due August 26th! We also plan to see Mrs. Baksi who lives with her other daughter in Chevy Chase, Maryland. We return to SL on September 20th. I need to sort through clothes we want to bring with us and mail from Marina del Rey where we will be visiting Ron’s mom. I am trying to make room for the clothes we have bought here. I also have some gifts for family and friends I’d like to bring back in September if there is room, again to make sure we have room for everything when we leave in December. Our lease is up mid November so we will probably see if we can rent until the first of December. Then we will move into a hotel and ship our things to Thailand and the US. We will need to go to Thailand when our household goods arrive to receive them and set up the house in Phetchaburi. I am so looking forward to that although I am a little worried about how the timing will work on all this. I sure would like to be back home for the holidays. I am working closely with the shipping agent to see how we can nail this down. Wish me luck. I have resigned myself to missing Christmas in the US if needed. I also am back in the shopping mode (have I ever gotten out of it?) as we need some additional items for the Thai house: an armoire, a vanity, a daybed and most importantly a hutch or breakfront to store dishes and linens. The kitchen in the Thai house is tiny with very little storage. Veena and I are going on Thursday to the place where Ron and I bought most of our furniture. Today I was able to find a lovely light fixture for the dining room so I am glad to check one thing off our list. I bought many cheap sheets to cover furniture when no one is staying at the house. The place where I bought the sheets sells them by the kilo so I got 14 king size sheets for around $55.

Tonight we will work on our India photos, identifying what the heck each one is and starting to post them. This will take several days as Ron took a lot of photos in India. So many memories! What a gift this year has been for us in so many ways. We are indeed grateful, ants and all!

Part Three-The End
Tourists on Speed

Photos to be posted around 8/6 or later

We spent Thursday night and all of Friday in Delhi. We were traveling from Delhi to Agra to Jaipur and back to Delhi from Saturday through Monday. These three cities form a perfect triangle and a very good trip through northern India. We also found ourselves in three different states: Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

In this area of India I saw more donkeys, goats, cows, camels and mules than anywhere we have been. There are few cars here. Camels are big in Rajasthan where they have camel auctions. The men here wear large turbans, often a gorgeous deep red color. The women’s saris are almost neon with hot pink and saffron being the most popular colors. As we travel through the three states going from Delhi to Agra to Jaipur, we observed what I call abject poverty. People living with nothing more than a thatch roof over their heads, some had a simple cot for a bed and that was about it. We frequently saw small children 3-5 years old (I would guess) with only a shirt on: no trousers, no underpants, nothing. We saw children seven years old up working as vendors or delivering goods. We saw women and children and occasionally men trying to pull wood off tree stumps for their cooking fires. There were so many people carrying huge loads on their heads: animal feed (grasses), water in beautiful terra cotta vessels, and foraged wood. One of my favorite sights was a poor farmer with a lovely tall cow that had silver ornaments sewn onto cloth and hanging on the cows face. We saw people herding goats, cows, sheep.

The landscape at times was very brown but highlighted with women in brilliantly colored saris, a sight we never got tired of. The road from Agra to Jaipur was a nightmare with potholes the size of the car. We, along with many others traveling this highway, had a flat. But our driver had six years experience and changed the tire within a few minutes. An hour later we stooped to get the tire repaired since the spare was ‘not much of a tire’ according to Ron. A tire repair shop is a thatch roof with three or four guys hanging out. One man repaired the tire by first removing the inner tube using no power equipment. Imagine that sports fans. And when was the last time you had a tire with an inner tube? He roughed up the surface with a rasp, hand sewed on a patch and then used a piece of hot metal and a vice to meld the patch to the tire. He had a gas-powered motor for the air compressor. There were no tires to buy so if your tire was badly damaged and you had no spare you’d be up a creek. I couldn’t take my eyes off this process. The cost for this service is normally 15 rupees (30 cents) but we had a difficult patch so it was 30 rupees (60 cents). Once again India reminds me of how different our worlds are. I think of the women pulling pieces of wood off a stump so they can then walk back to their ‘homes’ and cook dinner. It’s just not like going into the kitchen and turning a knob.

There were people all along the road, squatting by the edge of the road, waiting, I assume for a bus or the other major form of transportation: a small vehicle such as a trishaw or van that rides down the highway picking up riders as they go. They get dropped off at the next town or wherever they are traveling to on that highway. There were buses with 5-20 men on top with luggage holding on. When you saw how many were inside the bus, you envied those on top although they were getting fried by the sun. Due to the heat, people will take advantage of any shade they can find so it is not unusual to see a man lying under a truck or people sitting under a sign that casts a shadow and provides shade. We also saw brickyards, where brick were made and fired. When you passed through the villages there was frequently a barrier of six inch deep black mud between the road and the shops. It was pretty gross as the mud had all manner of debris and litter in it. Almost the entire trip we saw villages with one class: the very poor. There were no pretty homes, no middle class, no sewers and access to water at best was a hand pump that you walked to, filled your vessels that you then carried home.

We saw a mother carrying two children, one on each hip. I don’t believe I have ever seen a stroller of any type in India and rarely in SL. It is always a Westerner who has such an expensive piece of equipment.

On the way to Jaipur, we visited an ancient site, Fatephur Sikri. This city was the capital of the Mughal Empire from 1570 until 1585 during the reign of Akbar. It is thought the city was abandoned due to a shortage of water but it is a city that is perfectly preserved from the height of the Mughal Empire. Akbar was a Muslim but was intrigued by religions and developed a new religion that attempted to synthesize the elements of all the major religions. Good luck! We had no fewer than four men approach us, start to tell us facts about the ruins and when we said we didn’t want a guide, each one said ‘I’m not a guide’ but then proceeded to tell us they could show us the place for a small fee. Huh? Once we made it perfectly clear we wanted to be left alone and had no intention of giving them a single rupee, they got the picture and left us alone.

On the road we saw numerous small processions of men carrying a pole across one shoulder with gifts tied at each end. They were wearing saffron colored clothes and proceeding to the temple to offer gifts to the gods.

Jaipur is surround on three sides by mountains and is quite picturesque. Once we got to Jaipur we checked into our heritage hotel. It was built in 1893 for a prince and about six years ago it was converted into a boutique hotel. Boy did we luck out! It was lovely with a huge bedroom, and a two-room bath. I took photos for you to see. The shower is a classic. We ate a quick lunch at 3:00 and headed out for a tour with a guide that was provided through our booking agent. First we went to an observatory that was built in 1728 by Jai Singh who had a passion for astronomy. He sent scholars abroad to study foreign observatories and then constructed this one in Jaipur, the largest of five he built. It was fascinating! There is a sundial that can tell time within 2 seconds of accuracy! This observatory looks like a series of sculptures but in reality each of the structures serves a specific purpose such as calculating eclipses, or measuring the positions of the stars. Next we went to the city palace. Within the palace were several museums. We visited the art and textiles museums. The textiles were amazing. Emperor’s wore dresses with 60 meters of fabric! Instead of saris, women wore shirts with meters and meters of fabric. Today you still see women wearing brightly colored, very full, ankle length skirts with metallic threads more often than saris. By this time I had a roaring headache and asked to cut the tour short. I was in bed by 5:00 and never made it to dinner. My dear husband put cold cloths on my forehead and rubbed my head and shoulders. I was unable to rise to the occasion so we skipped dinner that night. I was all better in the morning so we headed out for Delhi after breakfast.

The drive to Delhi was gorgeous. The landscape was very green between Jaipur and Delhi. We were quite surprised at the number of large trees, shrubs, green grasses by the road edge and the green fields, often planted with rice or food for animals. The poverty wasn’t as severe here and we saw some middle or upper class homes along the way. It is common to see men wearing villagers pants: dhoti. They are made by wrapping a length of white muslin around the waist and then pulling an end between the legs and tucking it into the waistband. Old fashion scales are still used here in the fresh markets as in SL. Indians love their horns. We were stopped at a tollbooth and the driver of the car behind us kept beeping his horn. It is amazing since we can’t go anywhere until the car in front of you passes through the barrier. We find this in SL also. You will be stopped at a red light and someone will beep his or her horn as though that will make the light change. DUH!

The road to Delhi was far superior to the road from Agra to Jaipur so we made better time and weren’t exhausted at the end of the trip. There is no such thing as a by pass here. The highway always goes through the village, slowing you down considerably. When you visit or live in a developing country you realize how few people have access to or the means to access dental care. Many people are missing teeth or need corrective work done. I saw a camel pulling a cement mixer, pretty funny when you think about it. Trucks have a sign on the back that usually reads ‘Use Horn Please’ meaning beep your horn and they will get out of your way. We saw a number that read ‘Use Dipper at Night’. We assume this means your brights/dimmer headlights. My favorite was ‘Use Deeper at Night’, something lost in translation. When you stop to use a restroom in this part of the world, there are usually attendants at the nicer restaurants, all of whom expect a tip, particularly from Westerners. On this day there was a child asleep on the floor. When I came out of the stall, a woman was there and let me know it was her son. Oy! One of our last experiences on the road was passing three large flocks of sheep and a herd of cows that were taking up one lane of the road, being tended by men wearing dhotis and large red turbans. What a great sight! I hope I captured it in film.

We saw so many photo worthy sights with no time to stop and click the picture. Remember we were tourists on speed. We got to Delhi in time to have lunch, do a little more shopping and head for the airport. We arrived home at midnight, weary but content to have had such a wonderful trip to incredible India!

Part Two
Tourists on Speed

It will be the weekend before Ron can post the wonderful photos he took of this trip. He leaves today from Nuwara Eliya and will return Sunday.

We got up early on Saturday and left at 8:00 to avoid traffic. I failed to mention how impressed we were that in a city of about 14 million there still is a lot of green spaces in Delhi, probably mostly in New Delhi although I believe the Raj Ghat is in OD and it was a lovely park. The trip to Agra where the Taj Mahal is located is a five-hour ride. The roads are far superior to SL roads but at times rough. We saw lots of camels pulling carts loaded with all manner of goods, and men on bikes carrying what looked like sugar cane but turned out to be animal feed that hung out four feet from each side of the bike. Moving goods in India takes many forms: hand pulled carts where you see men straining their guts out under the weight of their load, rickshaws which are a bicycle with a small platform for a load or a small bench seat for passengers, motorcycles, trishaws, donkeys, mules, camels, tractors and trucks of every description but all overloaded way beyond their capacity as mentioned before.

The little ‘mud’ huts with thatch roofs fascinated us. They looked like loaves of bread houses and we learned these were storage units for dung that is used as fuel for cooking in India. These storage sheds were probably four to five feet high and often had what looked like inscribed decorations in the outside wall. I am not sure if these huts were made of mud or dung. In addition there were round ‘straw houses’ again with a thatch roof. These were storage for animal feed. Hopefully some photos of these will be posted later.

Throughout the ride, we marveled at out how many people could cram into a trishaw. The trishaws in India are slightly bigger than in SL and they are constructed with ‘extras’ to hold more people. They have a small bumper so you can stand on the bumper and hold on for dear life. We counted and discovered one trishaw have eleven people riding in it. Later we saw many that had more, probably 15 people total but we were driving too fast to get an accurate count. But you could tell there were considerably more than the one with eleven by the number of those hanging out the sides. Truly amazing, particularly when you consider the weather: hot and humid. People are staked two and three deep sitting on top of one another. Oy.

We checked into our hotel, a lovely accommodation in the town center for a whopping $40 and ate lunch and headed for what is called the Red Fort, made of red sandstone. Originally constructed as a military fort by Emperor Akbar in 1565, by Shah Jahan’s time it had become partially a palace. The walls around the fort stretch for 2.5 km, surrounded by a moat over 10 meters wide. The fort is on the banks of the Yamuna River. You can see the Taj Mahal from this site. When his son imprisoned Shah Jahan who built the Taj as a monument of love to his deceased wife, he could look out his window in the fort and see the Taj. He was imprisoned for eight years until his death. The fort is a city within a city. We were quite struck with the beautiful architecture here, as it looked a lot more like a palace than a fort. There were still remnants in the ceilings and walls of inlaid semi precious stones such as onyx, carnelian and malachite. We saw halls of public and private audiences. The fort was built of red sandstone with some parts of the palace built in white marble. When I first saw the Taj Mahal from this site looking down the river, it brought tears to my eyes. What an incredible setting and sight!

From the Red Fort we went to Taj Mahal. You cannot drive onto the grounds as air pollution has started to do damage to the building. So you park about a km away and a vehicle with an electric motor takes to the rest of the way. We hired a guide who showed us things we may have missed otherwise. As background, the Taj was constructed by Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, Chosen of the Palace. It has been described as the most extravagant monument ever built for love. The emperor was heartbroken when Mumtaz to whom he had been married for 17 years, died in childbirth in 1631 after producing 14 children.

Construction of the Taj began in the same year and was not completed until 1653. Workers were recruited from all over India and Asia and in total 20,000 people worked on the building. Experts were brought from as far away as Europe. The main architect came from Iran. The Shah intended to build a second one, across the river in black marble as his tomb. He wanted it black ‘to be in her shadow’. Before he could embark on this second masterpiece he was deposed by his son and imprisoned in the palace where he could view her tomb.

The Taj is constructed of white marble and inlaid with semiprecious stones. The workmanship is exquisite. The building is almost 400 years old yet remarkably well preserved. Inlaid also into the marble is calligraphy from the Koran. Onyx was used for the calligraphy. The Shan is buried with his wife in the basement, out of public view. However there are two ‘false’ tombs, again in white marble with inlaid stone, in the main chamber of the mausoleum. Apparently this was a common practice in mausoleums of this type. There are beautiful carved marble screens that let in light. Symmetry is the dominant feature of this monument. Everything is balanced and in symmetry: the gates to the grounds, the reflecting pools, the walkways, Mutaz’s tomb, etc. The Taj overlooks the Yumana River. Everyone says you should go to the Taj at different times of the day to see how the light plays on the marble. We actually saw this as the sun was low in the sky and if you walked around the building, the marble was a slightly different color, depending on how much sunlight there was. We felt totally satisfied with the experience and didn’t feel the need to return at sunrise.

At each site, the Red Fort and the Taj we encountered the most aggressive vendors I have ever encountered. They were so aggressive at the Red Fort when we went in, I put up my umbrella coming out to shield my face, denying them eye contact. One vendor grabbed my umbrella and pulled it up so he could shove his wares in my face. Bad mistake! I snarled ferociously ‘stop it!’ and he quickly backed away. As a friend of mine used to say “Mess with the bull, you get the horn”. Only he didn’t use the word ‘mess’. In an effort to not offend any readers, let’s just say it rhymes with truck! The Taj receives 4,000-5,000 visitors a day. Indians pay 20 Indian rupees (40 cents) and foreigners pay 750 rupees, about $15. This is the low season and our guide is lucky to get one-two tours a week. In the high season he gets one to two a day. He asked for 475 Indian rupees for the guiding service, just about $10.

As we are traveling through three states in northern India, I am reading a funny book called Holy Cow by a woman who lived in Delhi for two years and wrote the book about her experiences. She points out how men pee whenever and wherever they wish in India. I noticed. Other things I noticed here, different from other parts of India I had seen: women are more apt to cover their faces, either partially or completely, using the end of their sari. It is a more casual practice than you see with Muslim women. Several times I saw women biting the sari in order to cover part of the face, more often I saw women pull the sari end over their heads looking through the gauzy material to find their way. I asked a guide in Jaipur if the Muslim rule for two hundred years had been the birth of this tradition. He said that purdah (the seclusion of women from the public) started as a result of Muslim men carrying off the beautiful Indian women. They covered their faces so the men could not see their beauty. I never know fact from fiction with guides…at any rate it also influenced the architecture as there are small windows with screens usually on the second floor that allow the women to look at the daily life on the street while remaining protected in the home/palace. One building we viewed in Jaipur was built at an 85-degree angle so it made it almost impossible to see inside.

This is getting a wee bit long so I’ll cut it off for now and continue with the next posting: part three.

Part One
Tourists on Speed in Incredible India

This trip to India will take several days to write so I will break it up into several parts.

Many of you know this about us but some of you may not. Years ago Ron classified vacations into three categories: vacations of obligation (you visit family), tourists on speed (you try to see and do everything because you may not come this way again in this lifetime) and PMB-Park My Butt (you sleep in, eat, read a novel under a palm tree on the beach, eat, take a nap, well you get it). So this trip to India was our last while in SL. Our Indian visas expire this week. We pretty much were tourists on speed.

We flew to New Delhi (three and a half hours) on Thursday arriving around 6:00 p.m. We had arranged for a car and driver for the entire trip to take the stress out of being in a large city and planning a three-day road trip. It took close to an hour to get to our conveniently located hotel in New Delhi. We ate a very mediocre meal there as it was late and we didn’t know the neighborhood. The next morning we were driven to Old Delhi (OD). New Delhi (ND) was planned and built by the British so the streets are quite wide and much less crowded than OD. It is also much greener in ND. It was relatively cool as it had rained and was overcast. In 1996 the city changed all buses and trishaws to Compressed Natural Gas to reduce the pollution, as Delhi had become the most polluted city on the planet. We drove past the massive Red Fort and visited the Jami Masjid, the oldest mosque in India and the final architecture extravagance of Shan Jahan (most well known for building the Taj Mahal). The mosque was completed in 1658. It is built from red sandstone and white marble, I think. The courtyard of the mosque holds 25,000 people. From there we took a rickshaw ride (a bicycle operated vehicle generally holding one or two passengers but remember we are in India now). One hallmark of India is overloading whatever vehicle you had. We saw bicycles stacked four and five feet high with loads of flattened cardboard, donkeys overloaded with bricks, every truck size imaginable and every one of them overloaded with whatever they were carrying. Consequently you see frequent breakdowns from tire irons breaking, springs are completely flattened, and tires gone flat. This is due to overloading, using a tire way beyond its lifetime and really bad roads in some areas.

Sorry I digressed. We took a tour of Chandni Chowk, the heart of OD where shopping by the locals occurs. The streets were jammed, just like in the movies. There were Indians in rickshaws, motorbikes, on foot, in cars (not many) and trucks. I’ve never been in a more congested area nor had so much fun. I felt I truly was having ‘the Indian experience’. We left the main drag and went into the rabbit warren area of tiny alleyways filled with every kind of merchandise. One street had ribbons-that’s right, the entire street had only ribbons and the beads that are sewn onto saris. Another street was dedicated to wedding saris. We stopped to inquire about Hindi devil masks and lo and behold the merchant had one of his staff take us across the street into a warehouse up three flights of stairs. We hopped over piles of beads in plastic bags and watched as the young man climbed up the shelving that was about 10 feet up and started to hand down various masks until we found one we liked. It was $8.00.

From this experience we went to Humayun’s Tomb built in 1530. We were shocked and astounded to see the classic six-sided Jewish Star of David on the monument. This is a classic example of Mughal architecture and this building is a precursor to the Taj Mahal. We learned from reading that the six-sided star was considered a cosmic symbol at the time. The Mughal Empire ushered in the golden age of building, arts and literature in India. Their rise to power was rapid but their decline was equally quick. They ruled from 1527-1707. They originally came from Kabul in Afghanistan and were Muslim. Now you see why the six-sided star that we saw on many of the Mughal buildings we visited astounded us.

Next we visited the Raj Ghat where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated. I always tear up at memorials to Gandhi. It is in a lovely park setting and is a simple block of black marble. From here we went by the India gate, the Secretariat buildings and the president’s home. This building was completed in 1929 when the Brits were still ruling India and it is a blend of Mughal and Western architecture styles. Prior to Independence it was Mountbatten’s residence, the last viceroy of India. The number of servants needed to maintain the 340 rooms and its extensive gardens was enormous. There were 418 gardeners alone, 50 of them boys whose sole job was to chase away birds! I don’t have current stats on the number employed to maintain the residence.

Throughout the day we saw lots of tour buses carrying Indian tourists. They would be parked along the road and many of the tourists would be taking a rest. They would put down a mat or piece of cloth (or not) on the sidewalk and sleep or visit with others in their group. Some were preparing food. At first I thought they were homeless but our driver explained that they were tourists. Life is so different here in so many ways. It is such a privilege to travel to this part of the world.

We ended the day with a little clothes shopping at FabIndia and crafts shopping at the largest crafts store I have seen outside of Japan: five or six floors of crafts from all over India. It was beautiful and overwhelming. We rested then went a to revolving restaurant atop at 24-story tower in New Delhi for dinner. Delicious. More tomorrow.