India

Hey everyone, I am sorry you haven't heard from me in a while, I had a lot of school work all due at once again and I had to make sure I got all of it done before I did this.
India is an incredible place, honestly everyone should go and spend at least a few weeks there.  It was probably one of the most transformational places I have visited because it is so different.  All the other cities had western influences, the food, clothing, movies and music were all westernized.  India however was much different.  Bollywood, Indian music, Indian food and dress were everywhere.  It was fun and interesting to be in place so very different, especially at a time when one of the major things we were realizing is that a lot of the world is similar.  We docked in southern India in the port city of Kochi.  Here the backwaters are a major attraction.  Small canals and streams that connect lakes and estuaries along the south west coast of India.  Fishing was at one time the biggest business here, chinese dip nets and specialized boats were all over the place, but now very few people actually make a living fishing.  Now tourism is the major industry.  The area has been majorly effected by environmental degradation as well as overfishing.  They say that at one point the nets were used to make money, but now people coming to see the nets is what makes money.  I went on a river boat cruise down the slow canals of the "Venice of the east" and I didn't see a single fisherman, but I saw plenty of tourist boats.
I went on a big trip with SAS while in India.  I flew from the south all the way to the north to visit Delhi, Agra and Varanasi.  Delhi is a big city, it is the capitol and actually very similar to Washington D.C. in fact our guide had spent 6 months backpacking the U.S. and knew all about our major sites and related it all back to what we were seeing.  There actually is a lot of things that look identical to Washington.  the capitol and that white house, the washington monument complete with reflecting pool were all there, with different symbolic meaning and made out of red sandstone.  New and old Delhi are the same place and there is no real difference, it is just a way of explaining the city to tourists.  The old Delhi is the area that is within the ancient city walls, and new delhi is built around the wall, also the new one has a lot to do with the British.
We took a train from Delhi to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is.  The train was awesome,  We sat with a lady who happened to teach english in a university and knew all about storytelling and folklore, everything I was interested in.  Also the bathrooms on the train were labeled, Indian style and Western style.  The western style is the throne we are all used to, the Indian style toilet, which was very popular in every public place was a hole in the ground, it was a modern hole, that flushed, but it was in the ground and you squatted over it to use it.  Apparently this is healthier for your bowls and creates less pressure than the western style.  Another interesting bathroom feature was similar to a european style bidet, but it was just a hose next to the toilet.  I know many of you are thinking it, but no I did not use either of these bathroom features.
In Agra we visited several sites that were incredible.  We saw Fatehpur Sikri.  THis was a marvelously built palace constructed by Akbar (his grandson would build the Taj Mahal), the palace however was abandoned after several years of use and no one really know why, several reasons may be possible, for starters the water was not drinkable, and it was crazy hot.  All we know is that once Akbar left, he never returned.   We also swung by the Agra fort, a place that I would have sworn was impenetrable, until I was told that it had been taken over 6 times by various groups the last of which was the British with muskets and canons, I would call that cheating, but I guess imperialism doesn't play by the rules.  A fun fact about it, from one of the rooms you have a beautiful view of the Taj Mahal.  The man who built the Taj Mahal was over thrown by his son, and his son was not happy with all the resources his father put into building the Taj, so he had his father imprisoned in the fort (in extreme comfort) in the room that had a marvelous view of the Taj.  This kid had some daddy issues.
Our next stop in Agra was the Taj Mahal.  The Taj is a mausoleum for the wife of one of the rulers of India.  THe pictures of the place do not do it justice.  The size is immense, when we first walked in through the gates and saw it, I was taken aback by its beauty, but not by its size, until I realized that we were still really far away from it and I could only see dots that were people on its steps.  It is a massive structure, and at the same time it is so graceful that you do not feel threatened by it.  Inside the ornamentation is incredible.  There is not much inside, just the tomb of the builders wife, and he himself was laid there after his death.  The art work is incredible, millions of semi precious stones are laid into the marble.  We visited a workshop where they do work identically as how it was done in the Taj and the process is painstakingly difficult.  pieces of stone a tenth the size of your pinky nail being filed and shaped to be laid into the marble as part of a flower, it was really incredible.
The Taj was beautiful, but my favorite place by far was Varanasi.  Varanasi is the holy city of Shiva, the destroyer.  It is a city where thousands of pilgrims travel to each day.  We went to the Ganges early in the morning to witness the ritual bathing in the Ganges.  We lit candles and Placed them into the warm Ganges river as the sun began to rise.  people lined ever ghat, or staircase going into the river.  People meditating, washing, praying.  It was so interesting to see religion displayed so proudly and openly, especially coming from the U.S. where most people do not publicly display their beliefs.  In Varanasi however people paraded down the streets singing and beating drums to worship their god.  We also went to the most holy of the ghats and watched a ritual in which 7 brahmans pay homage to Shiva, it was a beautiful ceremony that happens every night, and 4,000 Hindu pilgrims traveled to see it as well.
Varanasi was very crowded.  People everywhere.  It seemed like you could do anything on the streets, get a hair cut, a shave, cook, eat, buy and sell, urinate or sleep.  It was as if you took Time Square and filled not just the sidewalks but the streets, and alleyways with people.  We took a rickshaw ride to the ghats the first night we were there and it was chaos.  The rules of the road are drive on the left...most times.  Some cars but an endless supply of motorcycles and bikes, rickshaws and people.  The horns never stop sounding and when you want someone to move you just grab their bike and move it.  Our rickshaw was hit by a motorcycle, smashed between two other rickshaws and nearly ran over a small child.  I'm just saying that I'm glade I wasn't driving.
Another shocking thing about Varanasi is that dogs are everywhere, hundreds of dogs everywhere, they are not seen as pets and they roam the streets, with plenty of food from garbage heaps.  Another animal reigns supreme in the area however, the cow is sacred.  No one eats beef.  The cows literally walk anywhere, they are allowed anywhere.  They walk down the streets, down sidewalks.  There was a cow in a store, a cow nearly ran me over  on the ghats, and we had to divert our route back to the rickshaws because cows were in the alleys.  It was insane to see so many cows just doing whatever they wanted, and no one thought twice about the cow in the store.  Over all India was amazing.  I'm sure there is more but I'm out of time.  Tomorrow I will be in Vietnam, so I still have to tell you all about Singapore which was awesome and really clean.  Take care.