ASWAN, EGYPT

Today's itinerary began with a quick trip to the renowned Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970, which (for better and worse) prevents the annual flooding of the river Nile and provides hydroelectric power to the region. We drove right across the top of the dam, stopping in the middle so I could hop out of the car and take a few photos. I have to admit I was a little disappointed, as I was expecting to see a really dramatic high wall of concrete like the Hoover Dam or the Gordon Dam I visited this March in Tasmania. But it's not like that at all--just a very wide, low embankment on both sides of the road; not much to look at at all. Still, it's considered a marvel of modern engineering, and was built using 17 times as much material as the Great Pyramid, which I suppose is pretty impressive in itself.

Our next stop was Philae Temple, another temple from the Ptolomaic period which was one of the victims of the dam's success: It originally stood on Philae island in the Nile (now Lake Nasser), but had to be moved to higher ground when the dam flooded its first location. They did a very good job of relocating the temple, though, and landscaped the new island just like the old one. To get to the island, Hossam and I had to be ferried by small boat across the lake, which was kind of a neat way to approach an ancient temple. Like all of the temples I've seen, this one had some interesting columns, carvings, and statues, although I'm afraid I can't single out one to comment on! I guess the temple's location, isolated on a small rocky island, was the most notable thing about it.

Unfortunately, then it was time to visit another tourist trap (IMHO), a perfume factory where some teenage "expert" tried unsuccessfully to convince me of the wondrous medical powers of various exotic extracts and scents. Blah blah blah. Oh, and they can exactly duplicate cK1 too, if you like the way that smells. I decided to pass.

Once that ordeal was over, Hossam took me down to the river for a ride on a honest-to-gosh felucca, one of those Nile sailboats with the tilted shark-fin shaped sails (apparently this is a must-do when you're in Egypt). Piloting our boat was a fat old guy at the rudder and a chain-smoking twelve-year-old working the sails. Neither was very good at getting the boat to move, though, as there was basically no wind. So we more or less drifted aimlessly in the river for 45 minutes or so without going anywhere, which I guess was supposed to be relaxing, but in reality was really irritating. FINALLY we made it to our destination, an island in the middle of the river that's home to the Aswan Botanical Gardens, a haphazard collection of tropical plants and trees (mostly tall palms) that makes for a pleasant enough rest stop. After about an hour there, I had to endure another eternity in the felucca before we finally made it to shore.

ASWAN, EGYPT

As I didn't need Hossam's services yesterday, he chose to stay home with his wife in Luxor rather than cruise the Nile with me (the slacker!). Then last night he drove from Luxor to Edfu and boarded the boat, and met up with me this morning for some more sightseeing.

Immediately upon disembarking, we were picked up by a horse-drawn carriage which took us through town to our first stop, Edfu Temple. This seemed to me like a completely unnecessary extravagance, and the ride was probably less than ten minutes, but whatever. I guess the clip-clopping and the sleighbells did add a certain ambience to the journey, although really it just made me think of Christmas.

At any rate, the temple was interesting. It's known for being the best-preserved one in Egypt, as it was completely buried under the sand until the late 1800s. That in itself is pretty remarkable, considering how tall it is--must have been quite a dig! It's also notable for being built not by Egyptians per se but by the Greeks(!) in the 1st Century BC, during the Ptolomaic dynasty. The temple is dedicated to Horus, the falcon god, so there were some cool falcon statues about, as well as lots of scenes carved into the walls featuring Horus, Ptolemy, and Horus' arch-enemy Seth, who for some reason here takes the form of a tiny hippo. There were also lots of interior chambers, a hypostyle hall, and a marble enclosure meant to house a golden statue of Horus, which unfortunately is now missing.

Then it was back to the boat, and we continued on up the Nile. Around 4:30 (right after teatime) we came to a hill at a bend in the river and the temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to Horus (again) and Sobek, the crocodile god. This was the smallest temple I've seen so far, but it had some great columns and carvings, including some of the legend herself, Cleopatra. Believe it or not, she really did look a bit like Elizabeth Taylor! I am so serious.

Other interesting features of the temple: a number of mummified crocs (in honor of Sobek), and carvings that demonstrate the Egyptians' great skill in medicine, depicting a whole range of modern-looking surgical instruments including scalpels, suction cups, scissors, sponges, and even a bone saw! Next to this are some hieroglyphs listing the ingredients needed to make a type of medicine--this is apparently often referred to as "the first prescription in history."

As I walked around the temple admiring the carvings, the sun went down over the Nile in a beautiful orange sunset and a bright half-moon appeared in the sky. As the sky got darker, scores of bats flew out and around the temple before heading off to wherever it is that bats go at night, and lights came on illuminating the temple ruins. Quite a dramatic scene, and very cool to see.

EDFU, EGYPT

I guess I haven't adjusted yet to the time change from India, because I've still been waking up before dawn. This morning I went up on the sun deck to watch the sunrise, and at 7 am the boat left Luxor and started moving upriver towards Edfu.

Today was a travel day--no sightseeing per se, just cruising up the Nile and taking in the sights along its banks: Palm trees everywhere, mountains in the distance, minarets of mosques, and lush greenery on the riverbank. I also passed fishermen with seine nets, dogs, sheep, and the occasional camel on the shore. The most noteworthy event was traveling through the lock at Esna, where our boat had to squeeze through a narrow passage and be lifted up to the level of the river on the other side. We finally arrived at Edfu in the evening, but didn't go ashore.

The weather here, by the way, has been great--it's cool in evenings, and quite comfortable during the day, despite being the desert and all. It's a welcome change from the oppressive humidity of India, that's for sure!

LUXOR, EGYPT

Last night at 8 pm I boarded an overnight sleeper train to Luxor, which actually turned out to be pretty comfortable. There are two bunks to a cabin, and I shared mine with a friendly young French guy named Raphael ("Everyone knows my name now thanks to the Ninja Turtle"). He lives in New York City where he works as a photographer's assistant, but right now he's on a three-week holiday with his family, who still live in France. They just finished a trek through Egypt's White Desert, which sounded really interesting.

After waking up early for breakfast and watching the sun rise over passing farmland, stands of date palms and mud brick villages, we arrived in the town of Luxor around 6:30 am, and I was met at the station by my new guide, Hossam, who will be showing me stuff in Luxor and Aswan. He then took me to check in at the five-star Nile cruise boat where I'll be staying for the next three days. There are dozens of these big square boats parked side-by-side along the riverbank, so I actually had to walk through the lobbies of five or six boats to get to mine, the Miss World. All of the vessels are pretty posh, with lots of brass railings, marble floors and grand staircases. When I checked in they offered me a welcome drink of hibiscus tea, which tasted suspiciously like cranberry juice.

Then we were off to our first sightseeing destination, the Valley of the Kings, where many of the great Pharaohs were buried. It looked exactly like it does in the pictures, a barren limestone gorge with a series of excavated tunnels leading to underground tombs. From the parking lot we had to take an electric tram to the tombs, presumably to cut down on damage from air pollution. There are dozens of tombs there, but only a handful are open to the public, and for some reason, each ticket only allows access to three tombs. Not knowing which were the best to visit, I sort of chose at random, which perhaps wasn't the best way to go. Still, the ones I went in (the tomb of Ramses IX was one I remember) were pretty cool, with elaborate painted scenes on the walls, long sloping tunnels, and multiple interior chambers. I decided to pay extra to go inside Tutankhamen's tomb--it's the smallest one there, and there's not much to see, but of course it's the most famous, and significant for being one of the only undisturbed ancient tombs ever discovered. All of the loot from the tomb is now in the Egyptian Museum, but they've left his mummy in the tomb, which was exciting to see.

We then drove to the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, a three-tiered columned structure sticking out of the side of a mountain. Legend has it that the temple was severely damaged by her stepson (who resented her rule), and it is pretty beat-up. But the main design of the temple, with dozens of columns along its front, is still very dramatic, and there are some other interesting sculptures and paintings still visible in the ruins.

That temple was small change, though, compared to the next one we drove to: the temple of Karnak, which is supposedly the largest ancient religious site in the world. It's a massive temple complex built over a 1300-year period, and I have to say it's the most impressive thing I've seen yet in Egypt. There's way too much there to describe, but some of the most impressive sights were a couple of towering obelisks, some great statues of kings and queens, and an amazing Hypostyle Hall of giant columns, considered to be one of the world's great architectural masterpieces. All of the columns are absolutely massive, with scenes and hieroglyphics carved into them all the way to the top. I just wandered through the hall, staring up at them for ages.

After Karnak, any other temple would seem rather insignificant, and that's too bad, because we then visited the nearby temple of Luxor, which is pretty magnificent in its own right, although smaller than Karnak. It's right smack in the middle of the city of Luxor, which was kind of strange to see. Interestingly, part of the temple had been converted into a Coptic church, so there were Christian crosses everywhere as well as the familiar Egyptian gods and goddesses. And at one time, an avenue of sphinxes connected the temple with the temple of Karnak--I kept thinking how amazing it would have been to see them both back in the day.

Conveniently, my cruise boat was parked right across the street from the temple, so after tramping around for a while, I then walked over, hopped aboard and got settled in. It feels a little strange to be the only person on the boat traveling solo, and it looks like I'm the only native English-speaker as well--I'm sharing my cruise with about 50 French tourists and some Eastern Europeans, I think. Like I said, it's a nice boat, and it turns out I have an entire two-room suite, complete with big bed, TV, fridge, bathroom, sleeper sofa, and a great floor-to-ceiling window with a railing, so it functions almost as a balcony--I can watch all the scenery on the Nile pass by while sitting on the couch. Very cool. And there's a sun deck on the roof with a swimming pool, which is pretty sweet, too.

CAIRO, EGYPT

I spent most of the morning touring the sights of Old Cairo, again with my guide Ragab. We started at the Saladin Citadel, a hill at the center of the city that was fortified in the 12th Century by the famous Islamic leader Saladin (who I have to admit I only knew about because of that Ridley Scott movie). Anyway, the view over Cairo from the top of the citadel was pretty impressive, and so was the most famous building there, the gargantuan Mohamed Ali Mosque ("Not named for the boxer," Ragab helpfully pointed out). Compared to the citadel itself, the mosque is very recent (1800s), and it's constructed of white alabaster, so it's sometimes referred to as the "Alabaster Mosque." It's really a beautiful building, with multiple domes, towering minarets, and a huge chandelier in the main hall. Of course we had to take our shoes off inside the mosque, but Ragab warned me to keep an eye on them, because he had his shoes stolen here once! Not sure who would want my battered old sneakers, but I carried mine around with me anyway while I took photos.

We then headed to the Coptic section of Cairo, which is sort of a walled cluster of very early Christian churches, and also includes the oldest synagogue in Egypt. Interestingly enough, the mosques, churches, and synagogues here all look very similar, with the same basic style of architecture and decoration. One church there, known as Abu Serga, is famous for having a basement floor where the Holy Family (Mary, Jesus and Joseph) supposedly lived for a time, so lots of religious pilgrims come to see it. As if that wasn't reason enough, this is also the spot where lil' baby Moses was supposedly found floating in the river Nile. Another famous church we visited right next door is the "Hanging Church," named because its nave was built suspended above the southern tower gate of the ancient Bablylon Fort. And there may have been another church or two we saw--this surely must have been the largest number of religious buildings I've been in in one day!

Having had enough of that ol' time religion, we then headed to the Egyptian Museum, which of course houses the majority of Egypt's ancient treasures. It's a gigantic place, a little old and musty, and frankly, quite overwhelming in its scope, as there are literally thousands and thousands of sculptures, artifacts and other priceless objects there. Ragab walked me to what he considers to be the dozen or so "must-see" items and explained them, although being an archaeologist, he sometimes got carried away with his descriptions, and by the end of our visit my head was swimming with way too much information about pharonic dynasties, religious rituals, mummification processes, and the like.

Of course, the most famous pieces at the museum are the treasures from King Tutankhamun's tomb, and rightly so: It's a huge collection of priceless stuff, and all of it is fascinating. And considering the size of the exhibit of Tut's treasures that I saw last Christmas in Ft. Lauderdale, the fact that there's so much here is even more amazing. The most stunning pieces are the solid gold inner coffin and the famous golden mask, both of which are on display behind glass in a special room. Up close, the workmanship is incredible, as it's really intricate and precise. And man, all that gold....

After the museum, Ragab and Tamer took me to lunch at a floating restaurant on the Nile, which was a pretty decent all-you-can-eat buffet. Then, since my day's guided tour was over and I had already checked out of my hotel (I'm taking the night train to Luxor tonight), I had them drop me off downtown, as I still had the entire afternoon to kill.

And believe it or not, I decided to walk back to the Egyptian Museum for another overdose of Egyptiana. This time I found an almost-hidden side room in the back with a display of all kinds of animal mummies, including dogs, cats, hawks, shrews, sheep, crocodiles, and even a giant Nile perch! Crazy, but very cool to see. I also checked out a display of Egyptian jewelry, much of which looks identical to designs you'd see today--and of course I had to get another look at the Tut stuff before heading off to the train station.

CAIRO, EGYPT

Okay, so that was just a layover in Kuwait. Nothing much worth stopping for, from what I could see.

Anyway, after that little side-trip, here I am in the land of the Pharoahs, accompanied by my trusty Egyptologist guide Ragab and my hookah-smoking driver Tamer. They picked me up from my hotel early this morning and after a quick Turkish coffee we headed to see the last remaining Wonder of the Ancient World.

I'm talking pyramids, people, and there they were, large as life (and that's big!), only ten minutes or so away in Giza. We started with the most famous, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, which Ragab explained a little about, then I climbed around on it for a few minutes before we walked around to the other big pyramids and some surrounding smaller tombs. One of them you could go inside, which involved climbing backward down a ladder through a narrow shaft at about a 45-degree angle. It was really awkward and kind of claustrophobic in there, but once I made it to the bottom it was cool to see the inside of a real Egyptian tomb. This was one of the few that was found with stuff inside, although like most of the treasures unearthed around here it's all in the Egyptian Museum now for safekeeping, so all I got to see was an empty room.

We then drove a few minutes away to see that other famous icon of Egypt, the Sphinx, which sits beside a small temple with the pyramids behind it. A few pictures there, then another short drive to an overlook with the pyramids in the distance. It would have been a really great picture-taking spot, except for the half-dismantled opera stage for a recent production of Aida that was in the way and kind of ruined the view. I guess there's always PhotoShop....

Our next stop was the ancient capital of Memphis, which like the pyramids was a lot closer to downtown Cairo than I thought it would be. Interestingly, there are houses built right on top of the old city, so it hasn't ever been properly excavated, much to the frustration of archaeologists like Ragab. Some of the finds that have been uncovered, though, are displayed in the Memphis Museum, which we stopped at for a short time. It's a small place with a scattering of weathered statues and sarcophagi outside, but the most impressive pieces are a huge incomplete statue of Ramses II that was found in a nearby lake, and the Alabaster Sphinx, much smaller than the famous one, but more delicately rendered and beautiful.

Our next stop was Sakkara, home of the Step Pyramid of Zoser, built way back in 2700 BC and the precursor to the more famous triangular pyramids. Ragab explained that "Sakkara is my playground," as most of his time as an archaeologist has been spent doing digs here. Consequently, he was able to give me a lot of information about finds in the area, and showed me a nearby tomb with some interesting pictures and inscriptions inside.

Actually, I feel very fortunate to have Ragab for a guide--not only is he a bona fide archaeologist/Egyptologist who really knows his stuff, but he's also apparently well-known by all the guards, museum directors, and site managers, who give him a rock-star welcome wherever we go. On several occasions I think it's gotten us special treatment, as we've gone in some areas that appear to be off-limits to the general public. Hey, I'm not complaining....

On the downside, like my tours in China and India this one also included a couple of obligatory stops at government-run souvenir shops. This time it was a papyrus-art workshop and a carpet-making factory, which I guess were mildly interesting to watch, but of course I wasn't interested in buying anything so it still felt like a waste of everyone's time. I made sure to take advantage of the complimentary beverages, though.

After all that we stopped for lunch at the Sakkara Restaurant, where I had a really awesome meal: A mixed grill of chicken and lamb kebabs, homemade pita bread, roasted eggplant, hummus, and various sauces and pickles. Really tasty. Then it was back to my hotel. Despite all the sights, today's itinerary only went until about 2:30 pm, which left me the rest of the day to hang out and rest up.

KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT

Wait, what the hell am I doing in Kuwait?

INDIA RECAP

Favorite Things About India:

• The Taj Mahal.
• Fatehpur Sikri.
• Old Goa.

Least Favorite Thing About India:

• The appalling poverty.

MUMBAI, INDIA

On the recommendation of the two Semester-at-Sea students I met last week in Anjuna (thanks, guys!), I took a trip today to visit Elephanta Island, which features some really cool ancient Hindu cave temples and statues. To get there, I caught a boat from the nearby Gateway of India which took about an hour to cross Mumbai Harbour and reach the island.

When we arrived at Elephanta, I disembarked and walked down the long concrete jetty to the island--bizarrely, you can also pay to ride a miniature choo-choo train down the length of the jetty, but that just seemed stupid to me; plus I got there faster than the train did! Once on the island, there's a long stone staircase you walk up to the top of the hill where the caves are, lined with souvenir stalls on either side--slogging up the steps, I had flashbacks to Tai Shan, as that's exactly the way it was there. Unlike Tai Shan, though, this stairway was patrolled by evil red-faced monkeys. One actually tried to grab my water bottle, and I had to resort to flashing my "mean monkey" face to scare it off. There were signs posted warning tourists "DO NOT BECOME FRIENDLY WITH THE MONKEYS"--believe me, I wasn't trying to!

Once at the top, there were a number of caves/temples to explore dating from between 450 AD and 750 AD. It was really interesting to see how the natural caverns were adapted into man-made structures, with huge stone columns supporting what appear to be the natural cave ceilings. The largest temple contains a number of large sculpted scenes featuring the god Shiva in some of his many roles, including Destroyer, Creator, Protector, and, uh... Dancer? Or something like that. It also contains several smaller rooms with linga altars inside, guarded by tall statues. The most impressive sculpture by far, though, is in the center of the temple: It's a huge bust of a three-headed Shiva, with his eyes closed in serene contemplation. It really is a beautiful work of art.

Some of the other caves were little more than, well, caves, with a few man-made columns, doorways, and sculptural fragments. It's hard to say if they were always a lot more plain than the main temple, or if they've suffered more from weathering, looting, and the like. Still, they were interesting to poke around in.

After visiting the caves, I followed some signs to "Cannon Hill" and hiked up to the top of the island, where sure enough, there was a large artillery gun on a hill that looked like it was from the WWII era. I never got the explanation for why it was there, though.

Oh, I forgot: It's called "Elephanta" Island because originally there were big statues of an elephant and a horse here--the elephant statue collapsed in the 1800s and was later rebuilt on the mainland. (Not sure what happened to the horse, but I guess "Horsa Island" wasn't nearly as good a name, anyway.)

MUMBAI, INDIA

I sort of made up my own walking tour of Bombay today. Actually I started by taking a bus north for about 45 minutes, hopped out to take a look, and ended up walking all the way back to Colaba. And man, it was hot!

I started at Chowpatty Beach, which is where a lot of Mumbaikars like to meet, eat, and hang out during the early evening. But as I was there in the middle of the day, it was virtually deserted--probably because unlike most beaches, the water is so filthy that not even the locals dare to go swimming there! It's a shame, because it's in a good location with some good skyline views of the city in both directions.

From there I walked south along the seaside down Marine Drive, then headed inland to get a view of some of Mumbai's old Victorian buildings: The High Court, the University of Mumbai, and the totally over-the-top Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), a train station known until recently as Victoria Terminus. It's a mess of 19th Century Gothic architecture with stained glass, stone lions, and lots of crazy gargoyles and waterspouts including lions, monkeys, and crocodiles.

I then made my way south through the areas of Churchgate, Fort, Khala Goda, and finally, Colaba. By the time I made it back to my hotel, I was completely knackered, as the British say.

NP: "Bombay" by Bel Canto

MUMBAI, INDIA

It's been more than a month now, and I have to say that I've really been enjoying traveling on my own. At first I wasn't sure I would, but it's turned out to be a much more rewarding and relaxing experience than I expected--even in China and India, which I figured would be the most difficult countries to get around in. Seeing what I want to see at my own pace has been great, and when you're traveling solo it seems like it's much easier to both a) meet new people, and b) disappear into the background. Both can be useful, of course, depending on what you feel like at the time....

MUMBAI, INDIA

This morning I walked five minutes from my hotel to the Gateway of India, a huge stone arch facing out to Mumbai Harbour that was built by the British in 1924 and has since become the symbol of the city. The area around the arch has a real carnival atmosphere, as it's really crowded with tourists and hawkers selling everything from giant balloons to peanuts to cotton candy (or "candy floss" or "fairy floss" or whatever they call it here). There are also gilded horse-drawn carriages you can hire to take you around the area. Not being a fan of the crowds, I didn't stay too long; just long enough to take a few photos of the arch and the ornate Taj Mahal Palace hotel next to it, built in 1903.

A little later on I decided to experience an honest-to-goodness Bollywood movie on the big screen; after all, I'm IN Bollywood, right? So I walked down to the Regal Cinema, one of Mumbai's famous old Art Deco movie palaces, and caught a sold-out showing of Don, the hottest Bollywood blockbuster out now. It's apparently a remake of a famous Indian film from the '70s, a real action-thriller about a ruthless gangster, the lookalike sent by the police to impersonate him, and all kinds of vicious double-crossing and spy stuff.

At least, I think that's what it's about--I have to admit I couldn't follow everything, since the dialogue was all in Hindi without any English subtitles. Actually, what was really frustrating was that the characters would occasionally lapse into English, just long enough to confuse me. (Police Detective: "Gentlemen, I'll get right down to business...[Talks in Hindi]... So you can see our problem.")

The movie was pretty interesting--very slick and stylish, and filmed in a number of locations, including Paris, Mumbai, and Kuala Lumpur. But from my biased Western perspective, it's still strange to see a movie that follows all the conventions of a typical "serious" Hollywood action-thriller (complete with lots of violence and bloodshed) that's also a frickin' musical! Sometimes it was a little too much like Scarface-meets-Grease for me, but I guess that's the beauty of Bollywood! Like a lot of other Bollywood movies, it's also really long--almost three hours, including an intermission. Anyway, it was certainly an experience.

MUMBAI, INDIA

Happy Diwali, Y'all!!

I have to admit, at first I was crushed to find out that all the celebratory fireworks were not in fact to honor my arrival in Mumbai, as I had first thought. As it turns out, I've been fortunate enough to arrive in Bombay on the first day of the happiest of Hindu holidays, Diwali, the five-day "festival of lights." Err...wait, or is that Hanukkah? :-) Anyway, I'm not sure of all the holiday specifics, but I found out today that a big part of the festivities involves setting off as many REALLY LOUD FIRECRACKERS in the streets as you can. Which on the one hand is pretty fun to be around, but can also be a little unnerving when you're wandering the dark streets of an unfamiliar city. And Mumbai has had its share of recent terrorist bombings, which apparently puts even some of the locals on edge--this year there's been a campaign to do away with all the loud explosions, which evidently has been roundly ignored by the pyrotechnic-loving public.

Besides "bursting crackers," as they put it, Diwali also involves exchanging presents, lighting small lamps, and the usual being-at-home-with-the-family stuff. It's really interesting to see all the parallels with Christmas in the U.S., including the barrage of advertisements for holiday sales mentioning "this festive time of year," lots of "Season's Greetings" signs everywhere, and even articles in the paper about how to avoid gaining those extra five pounds every year at Diwali. Pretty funny.

After arriving today, I attempted to check out Bombay's nightlife by heading to a recommended bar called the Voodoo Pub just down the street from where I'm staying. It was supposed to be rockin' on Saturday nights, but tonight it was totally dead, most likely due to the holiday. I think there were five people there, including myself! But I ended up talking to a local guy there named Jack who was friendly enough, and when the bar closed early we both decided to find somewhere a little more happenin'. Being a local, he knew a couple of possibilities, so we walked first to a trendy club called Red Light where we were both refused entry (snobs!), then to a bar with a live band called Jazz by the Bay, which we decided looked too boring to pay the cover charge for. We ended up at an English pub on Marine Drive where we had a couple of beers and talked for an hour or so. Actually, things were more interesting out on the streets, as the roads were bumper-to-bumper with revelers, even at midnight, and people were setting off all kinds of fireworks by the bay--it was just like New Years' Eve.

CALANGUTE, GOA, INDIA

Continuing my trip down the coast, I've been staying in Calangute for the past two days. It's a lot more developed than either Anjuna or Vagator--well, I guess "developed" is relative, because it's no metropolis, but there is more of a town here, or at least more of a mess of souvenir shops and restaurants--a little like a post-apocalyptic Daytona Beach, haha. There seem to be a lot of middle-aged Australians here, for some reason, and a good number of Indian vacationers as well. Despite the crowds, there's not really too much to do in Calangute except eat and spend time on the sand...so that's what I've been doing. Today I went to a recommended restaurant on the beach and tried another Goan culinary specialty, beef xacuti, which is sort of a curried beef stew. Not bad, although I should have ordered some rice to pour it over.

Tragically, when I went for a swim this afternoon, I discovered a new definition for "helplessness": Wading out past the breakers and looking back at your T-shirt and shoes on the sand, then watching a big dog walk over to them, sniff them, and then slowly lift his leg....

ANJUNA, GOA, INDIA

Rather than staying in one place for the next few days, I figured I'd work my way down the coast to experience as many of Goa's towns as possible. So yesterday I took a bus five kilometers south to the town of Anjuna, which has a longer sandy beach than Vagator, but isn't quite as ruggedly scenic. It's a small town that's known for its Wednesday flea market, which I dutifully visited this afternoon. Every week vendors from all regions of India set up stalls under the coconut palms, selling everything from spices to Kashmiri textiles and wooden elephant carvings. It's all really colorful and busy, and even though I didn't buy anything, it was a good place to wander around and people-watch for an hour or so. When I got tired of the hawkers, I walked down to the beach and watched the sunset, which was nice, no doubt due to smog.

Also today I met two American college students on the "Semester at Sea" program, a guy from Alaska and a girl from California, and we traded travel stories. I think they're the first Americans I've seen here, actually.

Later at night I walked down to check out Paradiso, supposedly one of Goa's best dance clubs. It was a pretty interesting place--it's on the side of a hill, right by the beach, and you enter by walking onto the roof, which is the "chill out" area. It's covered with straw mats, and about a dozen locals were sitting there with kerosene lamps selling cigarettes, coffee, and tea, and some had little cooking setups to make fried egg sandwiches for all the ravers. Very bizarre, but kind of neat. The dance floor is downstairs, and it's made to look like a psychedelic spider's cave, painted in fluorescent colors and illuminated with UV lights. The DJ was actually really good (he played techno and trance, as you might expect), although the crowd, which I'd say was about an equal mixture of Indians and Europeans, fell just short of reaching critical party mass. It's apparently the very beginning of the season, so I guess things are still a little quiet. Plus it's a Wednesday. So I had a couple of King's beers, danced a little, and walked back to my guesthouse for some sleep.

VAGATOR, GOA, INDIA

Traveling up the coast yesterday, I hopped a bus to the town of Mapusa, where I transferred to another bus that brought me to the little beach hamlet of Vagator. It's supposed to be one of the nicest stretches of coastline in Goa, and I would have to agree that it is fairly dramatic, with high bluffs overlooking rocky points and yellow sand beaches, and lots of tall palm trees towering over everything.

Vagator is also supposed to be the center of Goa's party scene, but you wouldn't know it! It must be the off-season, because apart from the locals, there's hardly anyone here. It's a very sleepy little village with just a handful of Israeli and European slacker-types wandering about, some with their kids--seems there are more dogs, goats and pigs in the street than people! I think all the big rave action happens during the Christmas holidays, as that's when the room rates go sky-high.

Speaking of rooms, I'm staying at a little family-run guesthouse down a dirt road, with a nice tropical garden in back. It's a great place to sit and eat my morning French toast while I watch all the crazy butterflies and birds flap around. I wish I knew what some of them were--there are some really unique-looking little green birds, and some larger dark ones with crests that I haven't seen before. There are also a lot of run-of-the-mill crows, which are always making a racket.

As soon as I got here yesterday, I made my way down to the beach and took a dip in the Arabian Sea. It felt good to be in the water again, as I haven't been swimming since Vietnam. In the surf I met two really friendly Indian teens, Bhagwant (aka "Pinto") and Amit, who were eager to talk to me about job opportunities in the U. S. I'm afraid I didn't know a lot about that, but we had a great conversation about India and America nonetheless, and hung out for a couple of hours at the beach.

Later on I decided to do some exploring, as there's a ruined 500-year-old Portuguese fort on a hill overlooking the town, which I scrambled up to just at sunset. There's not much there except the crumbling fort walls and a few doorways, but it was a great place to sit for awhile and take in some amazing views of the ocean and miles of Goan coastline in either direction.

OLD GOA, GOA, INDIA

Today I took a local bus ten kilometers east of Panaji to the former capital of the state, the Portuguese city of Old Goa. Incredibly, four hundred years ago it was a metropolis of over 200,000 people, said to rival Lisbon. Times have changed, though--the city was abandoned several hundred years ago following plagues and political problems, and the capital moved down the road to Panaji. Now all that's left are a handful of historic churches and cathedrals, but at least they're interesting ones. The whole town has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Like Panaji, Old Goa is surrounded by tropical vegetation, and most of the churches are scattered around a city square with wide lawns and gardens. It's a really attractive setting, and a nice place to walk around. As far as churches go, I have to admit I don't really know my Dominican from my Franciscan from my Jesuit, but I think saw 'em all today! There was the huge Se Cathedral (1562), the largest church in the city and the seat of the Archbishop of Goa, the smaller Church of St. Francis of Assisi (1661) next door, and down the street, the Church and Convent of St. Monica (1627), the largest nunnery in India. Inside the convent is a two-story Museum of Christian Art, which was full of artifacts and sculptures of saints and such collected from various Goan churches. I thought it was interesting to see that many of the Christian figures were carved by local Hindu artists.

My two favorite churches of Old Goa, though, were the Church of St. Augustine (1602) and the Basilica of Bom Jesus (1627). Actually, St. Augustine is nothing more than ruins, as it was abandoned in 1835, and the vault collapsed soon after. All that's left now are half of the bell tower and some other remnants of the original structure, but it was cool to climb over the moss-covered ruins and see some of the remaining features, including marble inscriptions carved into the floor and walls. I was the only one there, too, so I had the whole place to explore by myself.

The Basilica of Bom Jesus was intriguing, too, but for a different reason--it's famous throughout the Roman Catholic world for containing the remains of St. Francis Xavier, Goa's patron saint, who in the mid-16th Century went on legendary missionary voyages throughout Asia. When he died (or so the story goes), inexplicably his body didn't decompose, despite being doused with quicklime. The church later declared his "incorruptible" body to be a miracle, and put it on display here at the Basilica in a silver casket with glass windows. Over the centuries various parts of his body were lopped off and scattered throughout Asia as holy relics, but most of his corpse is still here on display. Apparently every ten years they take him out and parade him around, but the last time was in 2004, so today I had to be content with viewing him through his glass case. I have to say after all these years he looks a little...er...dry, but all in all not in too bad shape if indeed he truly wasn't embalmed. Kind of freaky, though. Adding to the strangeness, there's a modern art gallery upstairs in the church featuring large paintings depicting St. Francis' missionary work. The paintings get more and more surreal, though, and by the end of the exhibit, they're bizarre Dali-esque works with all kinds of grotesque distortions. Very trippy!

Later I couldn't resist returning to A Ferradura for some more Portuguese-influenced Goan cuisine--tonight I tried the feijoada, a spicy stew made with pork and beans, which was really good.

PANAJI, GOA, INDIA

Greetings from Goa!

For those of you unfamiliar with the place, it's not a city but rather an entire region of India's west coast, known to Europeans as a chill-out beach destination and also a haven for hippies and ravers. But from what I've seen so far, it's actually pretty mellow--in 2000 the Indian government banned all loud music past 10 pm, so the dance scene may not be what it once was. (Although I hear it still gets pretty crazy around Christmas and New Years', when the authorities apparently turn a blind eye to such goings-on.)

Truthfully, I'm not really here to get my rave on, but rather to relax and soak up some of the Goan culture, which is very different from the rest of India. You see, Goa is a former Portuguese colony, which means that instead of Hindu temples and mosques there are Catholic churches and European architectural touches everywhere. The Portuguese influence also extends to the local cuisine, which features all kinds of seafood as well as a lot of spicy pork and beef (yes!). The scenery is a radical change from what I saw in Delhi, as well--it's just as hot, but it's a much more tropical climate, and as the monsoon just ended here, everything is incredibly lush, green and jungle-y. Also unlike Delhi, it's not crowded here, and there's no traffic--in short, it's a lot less stressful! Ahh....

For my first couple of days, I've decided to stay in the capital of Goa, Panaji (also known as Panjim), which is supposed to be one of India's nicest capital cities. And it really is kind of charming, in a run-down, moss-covered, laid-back kind of way. Unlike most tourist destinations in Goa, it's not on the beach, but sits inland along the Mandovi River.

This afternoon I decided to take Lonely Planet's self-guided walking tour of town, which brought me through Panaji's winding narrow streets past three major religious sites:

• The first was Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, the main church that sits in the center of town. Built in 1541, this bright white church surrounded by palm trees was the first place Portuguese sailors would visit on their arrival to India, where they'd give thanks for a successful voyage before continuing inland to the former capital of Old Goa.
• I then visited Maruti Temple, which sits on a high hill (up a lot of steps!) overlooking the city. It's a Hindu temple dedicated to Hanuman, the monkey god, and from its front terrace I had a great view down on the buildings of Panjim and the river in the distance.
• A little further down the road, I walked past Panaji's third important religious structure, the Bishop's Palace, a huge white mansion where the Archbishop of Goa lives. Nice digs!

After my walk, I had dinner at a really good Goan restaurant called A Ferradura, where I had fried chicken marinated in piri piri (I still have no idea what that is) with a fiery-hot green sauce (thankfully served on the side).

DELHI, INDIA

The last stop on our three-day Golden Triangle tour was the City Palace Museum of Jaipur, which we visited this morning just as it opened. In addition to being a public museum, it's also the private residence of the Maharajah of Jaipur and his family. I was a little disappointed that unlike my friend Kirk, who somehow actually got to meet the Maharajah on his tour of India, I had to settle for looking at his collection of royal stuff.

Still, it was a pretty interesting collection. We walked through galleries of textiles and clothing once worn by the royal family and their ancestors, and large armoury featuring more guns, knives, swords, daggers, maces, and slicing implements than I think I've ever seen in one place. Oddly, this collection also featured an array of back scratchers--you know, the kind that looks like a hand on a stick--only these were fancy ones made of silver and precious stones. I'm not sure why these were included with the deadly weapons, although I suppose you could cause some damage if you lobbed one at an enemy. There was also an interesting art gallery that included more miniature paintings, some huge Oriental rugs, and a collection of photographs taken by a previous Maharajah around the turn of the 20th Century whose hobby was photography. We also saw a collection of ancient royal carriages and automobiles, and two huge silver urns in the museum courtyard which are supposedly the largest silver objects in the world.

Most of the rest of the day was taken up by the long ride back to Delhi, about 300 kilometers to the east. Thankfully, the road between Jaipur and Delhi is in much better condition than the one we took yesterday.

JAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, INDIA

The reason for our choice of hotel became apparent this morning, when we found out that it's only two minutes from Fatehpur Sikri, the first destination on today's agenda. It's the remains of the Mughal capital built by emperor Akbar between 1571 and 1585. Again, it's a combination palace/fort, with numerous halls, tombs, courtyards, fountains, and mosques, set high above the surrounding town. Shortly after the emperor's death it was abandoned due to water shortages, as Akbar unwisely built his city in a desertlike area far from any lakes or rivers. It's still a beautiful place to wander around, though, and since we arrived a little after 7 am, it was still cool and quiet, as there weren't any other tourists there yet. Adding to the exotic atmosphere were lots of bright green parrots which were roosting on the stone walls.

We then piled in the SUV for the drive through the arid state of Rajasthan to the city of Jaipur, another 200 kilometers to the west. This wasn't too enjoyable because the road is bad in places, and our driver (like everyone else in India) drives like a maniac, constantly slamming on the brakes and accelerator and swerving into oncoming traffic to pass big trucks and buses. Plus it was really hot (the car has A/C, but the sun was so brutal it didn't help much), so I felt pretty carsick most of the way. In addition to motor vehicles, we passed an increasing number of camel carts, which were cool to see. One sight I would have rather missed, though, was an overloaded cart collapsing on top of a camel and pinning it underneath--we were right behind it when it happened. The beast looked like it was in some real pain, and just lay there with its mouth open. I wish we would have stopped to try to do something about it, but we just drove past.

Finally we came to Jaipur, and drove through the old section of the city, known as the "pink city" because all the buildings are painted alike. (Actually, it's more of a terracotta color, but it does look pinkish from a distance.) The traffic in the narrow streets was absolutely insane--our car got scratched at least twice by other vehicles--and adding to the road hazards were all kinds of animals in the streets--goats, cows, and for once, a number of elephants(!), most painted with colorful designs and carrying various items with their trunks.

We then visited Jantar Mantar--virtually identical to the observatory of the same name in Delhi, and built by the same guy back in 1728. It features the world's largest sundial, accurate to within two minutes, as well as various sextants and structures for determining star positions and horoscopes. As the sun was out, the sundial was working quite well, but it also made it beastly hot, so I just ran from the shade of one astronomical instrument to the next.

Poor Benoit was having a minor crisis during our visit: The police department called him from Switzerland to tell him they were towing his car--before leaving for India, he parked it on the street, and now they're doing construction or something. "This will cost more than my entire trip to India!" he told me, although I hope he was exaggerating.

Our trip to the observatory was followed by lunch at a local restaurant; after which we drove to Jaipur's most impressive relic, Amber (pronounced Amer) Fort. Yes, it's another red sandstone fort/palace, but to me it seems like they keep getting better. It was built in 1592, and contains all sorts of interesting buildings and courtyards, and a spectacular view down on the valley below and across to other forts on the surrounding hills. The fort is currently undergoing some restoration work, which was interesting to see, too--men were fixing sections of the fort's walls and turrets by hand with trowels, and women carried baskets of plaster and cement to them balanced on their heads! A number of monkeys have taken up residence here as well, and were running around the top of the walls and the construction scaffolding. At times it looked like they were sentries on watch, looking out over the countryside from the fort's high walls.

On the way back from Amber, we stopped to take some pictures of Jaipur's "water palace" on the lake. Then Benoit decided he wanted to ride an elephant, and convinced me to join him for a brief jaunt down the highway on a pachyderm. Then Tatsuya decided to join us as well. Wow, I had forgotten how bouncy it is up there! They were offering camel rides, too, but after ten minutes atop jerky Jumbo, we had been tossed around enough for one day, so we passed on that.

At this point we were all hot and tired, but our driver and guide insisted on taking us to a couple of "handicraft centres," which of course were really nothing more than souvenir shops. Although these were government-run and fairly inexpensive, I was not in the mood to be sold anything, and refused to go in the second one at all--I sat outside and bought an ice cream instead.

This time we stayed at a hotel in town. Benoit and I had dinner in the restaurant there, then I went back to my room and watched The Grudge on cable TV. Man, I have never seen a more un-scary "scary" movie. It's awful.

AGRA, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA

Today I started a three-day tour of the "Golden Triangle," the area between the northern Indian cities of Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. I'm traveling in an SUV with four other folks (plus our driver): A nice retired Indian couple from Chennai, a Japanese kid named Tatsuya from Tokyo, and a 36-year-old IT project manager from France named Benoit. All of 'em nice people, and Benoit and I hit it off pretty well, so we've been hanging out for a lot of the trip.

This morning we drove south from Delhi on the dusty road to Agra, some 200 kilometers away, stopping briefly on the way at a rest area of sorts while our driver had some paperwork taken care of. There we got to see some uniquely Indian entertainment: Two snake charmers with real live cobras in baskets(!), who ran right up to the car and began their act. It was really cool to see the snakes "sitting up" with their hoods flared inches in front of these guys, just like in the movies--of course, they weren't reacting to the flute playing, just following the side-to-side movement of the flute. Benoit was a little disappointed that they weren't "dancing," but I was just impressed at the fact that there were deadly snakes about! At one point one of the cobras actually struck out at the snake charmer, biting his robe just inches from his leg, but the guy was completely unfazed. I don't get it--I would be totally freaking out. The snake charmers also occasionally tapped the cobras on the heads to make them rear up, which is also something I don't think I'd attempt. Anyway, it was pretty interesting. Oh, and there was also a guy there with a couple of trained monkeys--well, they were trained to jump on our SUV and screech, at least.

After about three hours of driving we stopped outside of Agra at Sikandra, where we visited Akbar's Tomb. Who's Akbar, you ask? Well apparently he was the greatest of the Mughal emperors, and built a lot of stuff in his day (the 16th Century, I think). His tomb is an unusual and beautiful combination of Hindu, Muslim, and Persian architecture, built of sandstone and marble, and it sits in the middle of four symmetrical gardens filled with grazing deer or ibexes or something like that, which I thought added to its exotic-ness.

It was impressive, but not a patch on our next stop, the world-famous Taj Mahal. You all know about this one--"the world's greatest monument to love," "a teardrop on the face of eternity" and all that, built by the emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his third wife Mumtaz Mahal. Between 1631 and 1653 over 20,000 people worked on the tomb, and amazingly enough, their descendants are still the ones who do repairs and maintenance on the place. And yes, it really is as beautiful as in the pictures. The white marble reflecting the harsh Indian sun makes the building really glow, and its perfect symmetry (it looks the same from all four sides) is simply stunning. We walked around the gardens, took the obligitory pictures in front of the tomb, and then walked inside, where under the main dome are "decoy" marble caskets of the emperor and his wife (for some reason, their actual coffins are under the floor, directly below the fake ones. Up close, I could see that there are huge Quran verses decorating the sides of the Taj, as well as delicate floral patterns all made of colorful inlaid stones (blue lapis lazuli, red coral, etc.).

Our last stop of the day was the Agra Fort, built by emperor Akbar in 1565 and continued by Shah Jahan. It's similar to Delhi's Red Fort in that it's a combined military structure and royal palace built of red sandstone, although I would have to say that this one is even more architecturally interesting and well-preserved. There are various imperial halls inside as well as a mosque, and part of the fort overlooks the Taj Mahal. In fact, Shah Jahan himself was imprisoned here for eight years by his own son--but at least his quarters overlooked his late wife's tomb. Man, what a view!

After an hour or so of poking around the fort, it was back to the car, where we drove a good 40 minutes outside Agra to our hotel, the Gulistan Tourist Complex. It's a fairly large courtyard-style hotel--not bad, really, but it seemed a little strange that it was in the middle of nowhere and we were apparently the only ones staying there! Making things a little more Twilight-Zone, the electricity kept cutting off, including while I was at dinner (and the only one in the restaurant). Everything went pitch black, and I had to just sit there in the dark with my vegetable biryani until they brought me a candle.

DELHI, INDIA

Books I've read in the past month:

A Magick Life: A Biography of Aleister Crowley by Martin Booth: A very matter-of-fact biography of a very off-the-wall person. I only knew a little about Crowley before reading this, so it was a shock to find out that most of what I "knew" was wrong! Crowley was an odd duck, for sure, but apparently he wasn't ever a Satanist or a devil-worshipper. Who knew? And I didn't realize he was an accomplished mountain-climber, either. Mostly he was an incredibly charismatic showman with a huge ego and a wicked sense of humor, marred by some unfortunate likeability issues and a difficult personality. He was also a sad victim of some awful tabloid slanders--many years before that sort of thing became commonplace. Fascinating stuff.

East of the Mountains by David Guterson: This is the second novel from the author of Snow Falling on Cedars, and it's very good as well. It's a little depressing, as it's about a man who's dying of cancer, but the journey he takes through the countryside of the Pacific Northwest is a healing and redeeming one, so it has a real bittersweet feeling.

The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin: A slightly more "serious" novel from the author of the Tales of the City series and the excellent Maybe the Moon. Maupin's a great storyteller, and it's interesting how all his books seem to combine fiction and truth--it's hard to know in this story how much is autobiographical, and how much is made-up, and in fact he really plays with that idea throughout the story. Sometimes Maupin's perspective is a little too middle-aged-gay-man-in-San-Francisco for my tastes, but it's still a good read.

DELHI, INDIA

Since Delhi is pretty spread-out and autorickshaw drivers are a pain to deal with, I decided to take the easy way out and go on a cheap all-day guided tour of the city in an air-conditioned bus. The tour was divided into a morning session where we saw the sights of New Delhi, and an afternoon tour of Old Delhi.

The other tourists on the bus seemed to be equally divided between Westerners and vacationing Indians, and during the course of the day I met a number of them, including an Israeli guy who's taking a six-week training course in Delhi, a kid from York, England on a two-week holiday, a backpacking gal from London, and two friendly young Indian guys from Chennai and Mumbai, in town on business. Our guide for the day was a nice guy, too, but he spoke so quickly and with such a strong accent that I had absolutely no idea what he was saying about 90 percent of the time.

We saw a lot of stuff today, so forgive me if I just give a quick sketch of each.

In the morning we toured:

• The Lakshmi Naryan Temple. This is a rather garish-looking large red-and-yellow Hindu temple built in 1938 and open to people of all faiths. Around the temple are a number of quotations from religious texts in Hindi and English, some illustrated with paintings. The most interesting features of this temple to me, though, were the swastikas that adorn the building; they're everywhere! Of course the swastika is an ancient religious symbol of great significance to a number of religions, but it's still a little hard for me to get beyond the Nazi connotation.
• Jantar Mantar. This is an astronomical observatory built in 1724 by Maharaja Jai Singh II, the mathematician and astronomer king of Jaipur. It's actually a park filled with strange round and angular concrete structures which act as giant sextants and other instruments to show the movements of the sun, moon, and stars. The Maharaja apparently built several more of these in other Indian cities, including Jaipur. It kind of looks like a big modern-art playground.
• Qutb Minar. This is a really dramatic victory tower over 70 meters high built in the final years of the 12th Century by Qutb-ud-din, and completed by his successors. It's considered one of the finest examples of early Afghan architecture in India, and it really is unique-looking. The "victory" it celebrates is the coming of Islam to India (and the defeat of the last Hindu kingdom in Delhi), and right beside it stands the mostly-ruined Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid, the oldest mosque in India, built from the ruins of 27 "idolatrous" Hindu temples. Also in the complex are the remains of even larger column that was to be twice as high(!) as the Qutb Minar, but was abandoned almost immediately after construction began.
• The Bahai "Lotus" Temple. Unlike the previous sights, this is a much more recent religious structure, completed in 1986, and shaped like a giant lotus flower, faced in white marble and surrounded by nine symmetrical pools of water. The architecture is really striking--with its curved white "petals," it reminds me a little of Sydney's famous opera house. The Bahai faith emphasizes the equality of all religions, so everyone is allowed to use the main sanctuary for silent meditation. It is a very calming environment--"the opposite of Delhi," as my Israeli friend noted.

After our morning tour, the bus brought us back to where the tour started, and we were herded into the cafeteria-like restaurant adjoining the tourism bureau for a quick lunch (I had an awesome masala dosa for less than a dollar).

Most of us then got back in the bus and hit the following sights of Old Delhi:

• The Red Fort (Lal Qila). This walled fort (and yep, it's red sandstone), was built from 1638 to 1648 by Shah Jahan, the builder of Taj Mahal. Within the high walls of the fort are gardens and a number of buildings, including an arcade of shops that once served the royal household, Diwan-i-Am, the Hall of Public Audiences, where the emperor would hear petitions of his subjects, Diwan-i-Khas, the Hall of Private Audiences, the Hammans, or Royal Baths, and the Moti Masjid, or the Pearl Mosque, which was solely for the emperor's private use. The buildings here, while spacious, didn't really look too palatial to me. This may be due to the fact that various conquerors over the centuries have looted the place and stripped away the precious stones, gold and jewels that once encrusted the buildings. A real shame.
• Rajghat. This is the simple black marble platform where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated in 1948. There's an eternal flame next to the platform, and it's all set within a nice sunken courtyard. A number of Indians and foreigners were there solemnly paying their respects; some burned incense or left yellow flowers on top of the ghat.
• Humayun's Tomb. This Mughal tomb was built by Humayun's widow Queen Haji Begum in the 16th Century, and is considered the prototype for Taj Mahal. It certainly looks similar, apart from its color (it's mostly red, instead of white). As our tour was running late we arrived there just at sunset--bad for picture-taking, but good for viewing, as the last rays of the setting sun on the marble of the tomb gave everything a beautiful orange glow. After climbing the stairs to the main terrace, we could look out over the four symmetrical gardens surrounding the tomb, where peacocks strutted and raucous green parrots filled the trees--it was like something out of Kipling.

That provided a nice end to the day's sightseeing. After being dropped off by the bus, I then walked to nearby Connaught Place, one of the major retail districts of Delhi, where I had dinner at a Chinese fusion restaurant called Zen. It didn't occur to me until later that eating at a Chinese restaurant in India only a week after leaving China might seem a little strange. But heck, the food was good.

DELHI, INDIA

Today I braved the streets and paid a visit to Delhi's National Museum, which has a fairly large collection of interesting old items, including wood, bronze and stone sculptures, musical instruments, tribal costumes, coins, and assorted archeological finds. The museum itself is a little shabby and run-down--not too surprising, considering the state of most of the city--but the stuff on display is fascinating. My favorite exhibits were the amazing array of armor and weapons from throughout India's history (including a full set of elephant armor), and the world's largest collection of Indian miniature paintings. I actually hadn't heard of this type of artwork before, but it's really cool. The paintings are mostly religious scenes painted on paper or palm leaf, but in unbelievably microscopic detail. Different regions of India had their own painting style, but they all show some really impressive technique. I have no idea how they managed to get the detail so sharp at such a tiny scale, but they did it. Most of the paintings were several hundred years old.

After the museum, I walked several blocks through central Delhi to the Rajpath, a broad street surrounded by a green belt of parkway running East to West through the center of the city. At one end is the Rashtrapati Bhavan (the President's House), while at the other is India Gate, a 42-meter-high arch erected as a memorial to the Indian soldiers who died in World War I and the Afghan conflict of 1919. It was way too long a distance (and too hellishly hot!) to walk from one end to the other, so I just took a few pictures of the Gate and then sat for awhile on the grass under a nearby tree, which provided a peaceful break from the craziness of the city streets.

DELHI, INDIA

Hello, Delhi!

(Wait a minute, I already used a variation of that joke when I arrived in Bali. Sorry!)

Anyway, here I am in India, lucky country #13. And after being here for a few days, all I can say is: I'm glad I've already visited Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, because those countries were good preparation for what I'm experiencing here.

When I've talked to other travelers about their impressions of India, the word "shock" comes up often, and now I see why. India assaults your senses from the get-go: It's ridiculously hot (especially after nice autumn weather in China), noisy, dirty, smelly, colorful, and crowded beyond belief with the entire spectrum of humanity--everything from well-dressed businessmen and ladies of leisure to ragged beggars living in filth on the street. It's overwhelming, really, and it's only now, after a few days of taking it all in, that I'm beginning to appreciate some of the nicer aspects of the city.

You've probably heard of New Delhi and Old Delhi--they're really just parts of the same city, so referring to them separately is a little pointless. I'm staying in the Paharganj area, which is sandwiched between the two, and is about as chaotic place as you can imagine. Just when you think it can't get any crazier, it does. Some typical sights: I'm walking down the street today, it's 92 degrees in the blistering sun, and people are frying up piping-hot doughnuts on the street. A motorcyclist weaves through a heavy crowd going at least 40 mph, blaring his horn constantly, but never slowing down--miraculously, no one is killed. A whole bevy of ice-cream salesmen are sleeping curled up on top of their carts. A guy asks me if I want a shoeshine, even though I'm wearing sneakers. And a cow decides to take a nap in the middle of the street, causing a traffic jam. You really have to laugh at stuff like this, or it would quickly drive you completely 'round the bend.

To make things even more confusing, it's really hard to know who to trust, as there seem to be as many scam artists here as there are genuinely helpful people. The guys who run my hotel are pretty nice, but the autorickshaw and taxi drivers have all been a little shady, and all too willing to "take you for a ride," so to speak. It's too bad, as it tends to make you a little paranoid about everyone else.

Apart from soaking up the (cough) atmosphere, I've mainly been taking care of travel arrangements and going through the ordeal of buying a new digital camera, as my old one stopped working in Beijing. I finally succeeded in finding one a little cheaper, smaller, and better than my old one, although I don't think I got as good a price as I could have back home. Sigh...

CHINA RECAP

Favorite Things About China:

• The Great Wall. On a perfect October day, with no tourists to spoil the gorgeous view.
• Climbing Tai Shan. They're right; the view really is better from the top.
• The food. Duck's blood excepted.

Least Favorite Thing About China:

• The spitting. What you've heard is true. And not only do the Chinese love to spit, they're constantly hawking up enormous loogies with that awful cchhhhhhhhhggrrrrr! sound and depositing them right at your feet: on the sidewalk, at the bus station, in a 12th-Century temple courtyard, everywhere! And it's not like they all have pneumonia or anything; I think they just enjoy doing it. Call me "culturally insensitive" if you want, but it's disgusting.

BEIJING, CHINA

Not feeling too ambitious, I didn't do a whole lot today until late in the afternoon, when I ventured out for a bit to see if I could navigate Beijing's subway system by myself. I immediately found out that my Mandarin pronunciation is pretty awful, as the ticket seller had no idea which station I was trying to get to. I kept saying "Yong He Gong," but I guess it's pronounced completely different to the way it looks. Repeating myself louder didn't help, either. Where's an automated ticket machine when you need one? Ah well.

But somehow I eventually got on the right track, so to speak, and found my way to Yong He Gong, or the Lama Temple--yes, that's right, yet another temple. This one was a little different, though, because it's a Tibetan Buddhist temple complex of ornate halls and courtyards, with big prayer wheels you can spin and lots of large statues of various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The last hall features an absolutely gigantic (18-meter-high) statue of the Maitreya Buddha, carved out of a single trunk of white sandalwood. It's in the Guiness Book of World Records, although I'm not exactly sure what for--largest statue of a Maitreya Buddha carved out of a single trunk of white sandalwood, I guess.

Out of all the temples I've visited recently, this one seemed to get the most actual use, as there were dozens of worshippers there kneeling and praying at the altars, while monks in bright robes rushed around doing their duties. The air throughout the place was thick with incense smoke, which added to the atmosphere. Literally.

In the evening, Jin took us to another stop on his culinary tour of Beijing. This time it was a famous wonton restaurant--can't remember any of the names of these places, sorry--that indeed had some tasty soup, as well as individual dumplings with pork and vegetables. Nice.

We then walked past Beijing's Drum and Bell Towers and down one of the city's famous hutongs, or alleyways, to the Houhai district, a busy cluster of shops, restaurants and bars alongside a small lake. We drank mojitos at a bar called No Name while watching people paddling around the lake in small boats and setting off fireworks. It was a really cool vibe. Afterward, we visited a bar called Bed (doesn't every city have one of these?) that had been converted from an ancient hutong courtyard dwelling. Interesting.

On our way back to Jin's place, he announced he was still hungry, so we pulled over on the side of the road where some street vendors were cooking food over a small charcoal fire, right on the sidewalk! They gave us tiny plastic stools to sit on while they roasted the food he ordered on skewers. This included two frightening items: lamb ligament, which was as chewy and tasteless as a rubber band, and caterpillars--or more accurately, chrysalises with pupae inside, waiting to hatch into butterflies. I was further horrified to see that these were skewered ALIVE, and wriggled mightily as they roasted. Surprisingly, Karine really liked them (she ate seven!), and said they tasted like "peanuts and cheese." So I tried one. I guess it was "a little nutty," as Austin Powers would say, but the main thing I remember was the squish. One was more than enough for me. Happily, the roadside roasters also featured some mighty fine lamb kebabs, and some really tasty skewered chives, that made up for the nasties. It was definitely a unique experience--sitting on the sidewalk with the locals really made me feel like a genuine Beijingren.

BEIJING, CHINA

Another day of sightseeing. Karine and I caught a bus this morning to the Temple of Heaven, which is really a large park with several temple buildings onsite. As it's National Day, there were a good number of tourists there besides ourselves, some carrying little Chinese flags, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it might be.

The largest and most interesting temple structure there was the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, built in 1420. It's a tall round wooden pagoda elaborately painted in blue, red, green, and gold designs, supposedly built without the use of nails. A couple of surrounding buildings featured exhibits explaining the complicated rituals emperors would conduct to ensure a good harvest for the coming year. We then walked along a long stone causeway to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, a temple with astrological significance that sits within a round wall known as Echo Wall for its strange acoustics. A little further on we came to the Round Altar, built in 1530. It's composed of three concentric tiers of white marble, each consisting of blocks in multiples of nine (according to Chinese tradition, odd numbers are the most favorable, and nine is the best of all, since it's the largest single-digit odd number). We then wandered through some of the park's gardens. Oddly enough, I didn't see a single bloom in the Garden of 1000 Flowers, but the rose garden was magnificent.

After returning to Jin's neighborhood, Karine and I decided to go to the supermarket and buy food for dinner rather than going out. She ambitiously bought a bunch of vegetables to make a salad, while somehow I ended up with just a baguette and some yogurt, so I supplemented that with a turkey sub from Subway (hey, it was buy one, get one free). Jin stayed the night at Christian's, leaving his two guests to fend for themselves, but that was fine. We stayed in and watched a pirated DVD of The Devil Wears Prada (don't bother).