Taj Mahal

On Wednesday, my last full day in Asia, Matt and I woke up really early and took the Shatabdi Express train from Delhi to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal. The giant mausoleum is visited by nearly 4 million people each year and is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

I hated Agra. Outside of the historic buildings, the city is the epitome of all of the awful aspects of India. Merciless rickshaw drivers follow you around for blocks asking if you want a ride somewhere. Hawkers jump in front of you on the sidewalks to try to get you to enter one of their shops. Beggars roam outside the entrances of every tourist attraction. The place is the definition of a "tourist trap": for example, the price of admission to the Taj is 20 rupees for an Indian but 750 rupees for a foreigner. The same goes for all of the important places around the city. And to top it all off, it was monsooning in the morning, and then 110 degrees and humid in the afternoon.

But in spite of all of this, seeing the Taj still makes Agra worth the day trip. The mausoleum is impressive when viewed from rooftops in the Taj Ganj area south of the complex, but from up close it is just enormous. Walking through the archway and looking out over the reflecting pool to catch my first glimpse was pretty stunning.

We spent a couple of hours hanging out at the Taj and then went to Agra Fort. This ancient walled city looks a lot like the Red Fort in Delhi, which was also used as the set for the Bollywood episode I acted in, so it felt like I had already been there.

Over the course of the day, we probably posed for about twenty photos each. Just a rough estimate. This is what I will miss the most about Asia: feeling like a celebrity every time I go to a public place.

An entire page in my Lonely Planet was devoted to arguments about where the best Taj sunset views in Agra are. We settled for a Taj Ganj rooftop. Not bad. Our express train back to Delhi was delayed, so we didn't get back until nearly midnight, then quickly packed and passed out for a few hours before heading to the airport at 5:30 AM. I slept for most of the flight, but vaguely remember being served a GFML with a roll. British Airways needs a lesson in glutenology: your bread is not gluten-free; do not serve it with gluten-free meals. Thanks.

Anyway, I made it to London, parted ways with Matt, and found my friend Naomi patiently waiting for me outside of customs. We made the two hour journey across the city to her apartment, where her brother David joined us and I savored my first gluten-free beer in nearly eight months: a Belgian brand named Green's. It was like drinking my first beer all over again. Mmmm. Naomi also bought me a loaf of gluten-free bread...such a nice welcome back into Westernized society. I'm going to miss Asia, but having beer and bread back in my life will surely fill that void.

McLeod Ganj to Manali

After returning to civilization, on Thursday Matt and I met up with our new Indian friends and visited the Dalai Lama Temple at the top of the hill in McLeod Ganj. Thousands of monks and Tibetan refugees were here chilling out in the shady courtyard or upstairs reading prayers.

The Dalai Lama's residence is next door to the temple. He wasn't home: he's currently touring Australia giving a series of talks this week. The Lama has been in exile from Tibet since 1959 and has lived McLeod Ganj for the last 51 years. He turns 76 next week. It's pretty incredible that he still can tour the world speaking at peace conferences. I hope I can at least still play golf at that age.

We all hung out on the balcony at our guesthouse for a while and then went to dinner. Our friends gave us each a scroll with 'om mani padme hum' written in Hindi script. We thanked them, said goodbye, made plans to meet up again in Delhi and boarded our ten hour night bus to Manali.

Manali is another mountain town in Himachal Pradesh, located on the Beas River north of the Kullu valley. It is the unofficial adventure tourism capital of India; here you can ski, trek, raft, mountain climb, paraglide, fish, kayak...even zorb. In case you ever want to roll down a mountain in a giant plastic ball.

The town has a very similar feel to other winter resorts. The streets of Old Manali are lined with ski shops, clothing stores, backpacker cafes and small guesthouses. We spent a lot of time hanging out at Pao, a glorified flophouse that had cool artwork on the walls, amazing food and a ton of pillows.

We relaxed around town for a day. On Friday, my friend Guy, one of my co-extras from back in my Bollywood days, joined us in Manali. We attempted to hike to Solang Nullah, a valley 11 kilometers north of Old Manali. We never made it...somehow we wound up on the wrong side of the mountain in another valley entirely. But after crossing some sketchy terrain we finally came to a huge waterfall high in the mountains that we had spotted from our guesthouse balcony. Sometimes getting lost is the best thing that can happen to you.

Later that night, I innocently snapped a photo of a ram that was walking in the street. An old lady walking next to the ram immediately demanded that I pay her 20 rupees for the photo. Guy speaks Hindi, so he was able to discern that walking the ram is her "business" and that she regularly charges 20 rupees for a photo, citing that the ram is "magical" because it has four horns. After a few seconds she grabbed a firm grasp of my shirt and looked as if she was going to cane me. I guess you could say the lady was a bit crazy. She was getting pretty angry and violence seemed eminent, so Guy made a distraction and we ran down the street as she threw rocks at us. I wish I were making this up. All for a photo of a four-horned ram.

On Sunday morning, we took a taxi toward Kullu and then rafted the rapids of the Beas River. There had been some heavy rainfall the night before, and high water levels meant for more intense rapids. We even took a small jeep a bit further down river to avoid some grade five rapids that had formed along the normal rout. But in spite of this precaution, about ten minutes into the trip, we hit a rapid and suddenly the raft was completely submerged in the water. For a few minutes we were desperately shifting from one side of the raft to the other to avoid flipping. I'm still a bit shocked that we didn't capsize. After a long battle with the rapid we finally broke loose, losing one man and two paddles overboard in the struggle. We ultimately survived the rapids, and then took what turned out to be the longest bus ride of my life: 17 hours from Manali to Delhi. The battery died an hour into the trip and sometime during the night we got a flat tire. We were in the backseat, the only ones on the bus that do not recline...not the most pleasant 17 hours of my life.

But we made it to Delhi, and today we spent the day chilling with Saahil, Deepanshi, Poonam, and Rohan, a few of the friends we made in McLeod Ganj. Most of the day was spent avoiding the heat...I remember why I went to the mountains now. In the afternoon, we saw the new X-Men movie in theaters, which like all other movies in India included a ten minute intermission at the film's halfway point. I also had my introduction to the Delhi metro which is one of the more crowded I've been inside of but thankfully air-conditioned. That's all for now, here's to enjoying my last few days in Asia...

Himalayan Trekking

I arrived in Delhi on Saturday morning and spent half the day trying to book a train to Agra for the next day to see the Taj Mahal. I failed, because I needed to have Matt's passport in order to buy him a ticket. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Matt missed his connecting flight in London, and the next flight was delayed, so he arrived Sunday morning rather than Saturday night. So instead of meeting Matt at the airport, on Saturday night, I had some drinks with my friend Mansoor who works in Delhi. When Matt arrived Sunday morning he was in rough shape. He had been pretty sick during his layover at Heathrow and on the plane, so we laid low for a few hours before taking a night bus north to McLeod Ganj, a mountain town in Himachal Pradesh.

McLeod Ganj is the residence of the Dalai Lama in exile from Tibet. Perched at the foot of the Himalayan range, it is also home to many Tibetan refugees. Many foreigners come to find spiritual healing through yoga or meditation and the place is popular with backpackers as you can chill out in town or trek through the surrounding mountains. We arrived in town after a slow and shaky 12 hour bus ride and met up with a guy named Chris from Montreal who was also looking for a guesthouse. We ended up finding a cheap room for the three of us and set out on a hike to Bhagsu, a small waterfall a few kilometers from town. The waterfall itself wasn't too impressive but we found a nice place to hang out at Shiva Cafe on the hill just past the falls. It began to rain heavily so we waited out the storm before heading back to town and crashing for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, we walked to Dharamkot, a small town next to McLeod Ganj, and began trekking up Dhauladhar. Our destination was Triund, a small camping ground 2800 meters above sea level and 9 kilometers from Dharamkot. When we were about halfway up, a teashop owner told us that from Triund it would only take one hour or so to reach a cafe at the snow line where we could rent tents and sleeping bags.
The hike up took us a few hours and we stopped a lot, so by the time we reached Triund it was already the late afternoon. We decided we'd done enough hiking for one day. Triund has a guesthouse and a few basic huts that rent out camping gear, sell supplies, and cook hot meals.

But the lone guesthouse was booked to capacity with a local high school group, and all of the tents had already been rented out to other campers. We were able to rent three sleeping bags and some blankets...and we were given the advice to hike up a bit further to find a nice cave to sleep in. No joke.

So we set up camp in the "cave", which was more like a small clearing on the side of the mountain protected by a giant overhanging rock. The place was fine for shelter and it seemed as if others had slept there before so we set down our things. When we returned to Triund to get some dinner, we heard that a woman had been mauled by a giant brown bear the morning before and was now in the hospital. Very encouraging to hear this when you're sleeping in a cave. But anyway, dinner consisted of rice and dal, which is gluten-free and kind of like a lentil curry, and was pretty good considering the size and location of the kitchen it was cooked in. We met a group of university students from Delhi who were also spending the night at Triund but had been fortunate enough to rent some tents. We got along really well, so we all chilled around a fire listening to music.

The whole sky was flashing with lightning for a while. All of a sudden, it started to downpour rain and everyone kind of scrambled back to their tents. We ran up the side of the mountain, flashing our torches up into the trees and trying to find our cave, a task that was not so easy in the pitch black of night. All of the trees and rocks suddenly looked the same...

Thankfully, the smartest dog ever came to our rescue and somehow led us all the way back to our cave. The dog had not seen us there before or really even been around us at all. I don't know how the dog knew where we were headed...but he knew. He even stuck around until we got a fire going. What a great dog.

Today, we woke up with the sun and packed up our things to take back down to Triund. I had some oat porridge with honey for breakfast...it was surprisingly simple staying gluten-free on the mountain. Together with all of our new friends we set out to hike to the snow line and glaciers at Ilaqua Got, which is about 3300 meters above sea level and four kilometers past Triund.

After nearly two hours we reached the snow line and glaciers. We were hanging out there and sliding in the snow when some ominous clouds moved in and forced us to scramble back toward Triund. This involved us taking a few wrong turns and nearly heading further up the Indrahar Pass, a trek that none of us were prepared for. We didn't even have any more water. Thankfully, heavy rain never came and we found our way back to the right trail and to Triund. We had some lunch and descended the mountain all the way back to McLeod Ganj. In total, we probably hiked about 30 kilometers in the past two days and I am pretty exhausted. But I'm a caveman now. Definitely worth it.

Udaipur

On Wednesday morning I arrived in Udaipur, a quiet little city in southern Rajasthan. The city boasts several large palaces and beautiful lakes and is surrounded by mountains in nearly every direction. After checking into the Udai Niwas hotel I walked around the city for a while to get acquainted. In addition to cows dominating the narrow roads, nearly every guy in the streets approached me trying to sell me something: tuk-tuk rides, hashish, custom-made suits, etc. It's almost like being back in Southeast Asia. It may be a bit annoying now, but I know I'm going to miss it in two weeks.

I made my way to the City Palace at Lake Pichola, which at 30 meters high and with walls 244 meters long is the largest palace in Rajasthan. A 25 rupee (50 cents) entry ticket is valid until 11 PM, so I came back at night when the entire palace was glowing radiantly.

From the City Palace I took a ferry out onto Lake Pichola to Jagmandir Island, which features another large palace and some nice surrounding gardens. The island is flanked by giant stone elephants which seem to be everywhere in Udaipur. Also, it's said that the architecture of the palace was one of the influencing factors for emperor Shah Jahan when he made plans to build the Taj Mahal.

After a long day out in the sun I had dinner at the Lake View, one of many rooftop restaurants in Udaipur City. The sunset view of the Lake Palace was nice, but once the sun had set I found myself eating my food in complete darkness. A simple suggestion: a few light fixtures on the roof would go a long way. I think my new life goal is to become a consultant in Common Sense and travel the world solving the easiest problems.

Yesterday, I had breakfast at the Shyam Cafe Natural Roof Top Restaurant. The owner, Blacky P., recommended that I try a bhang lassi. Bhang is legal in Rajasthan and is widely used as a panacea in ayurvedic medicine, and specifically used to cure many stomach ailments. I was feeling okay, not great, before I drank one, but felt pretty wonderful after. Potential treatment for Celiac Disease? I think so. Anyway, I got to talking with Blacky for a while and after breakfast he drove me to some sights around Udaipur on his motorbike. First, we visited Saheliyon-ki-Bari, a series of small gardens with fountains and a giant lotus pool in the center.

Next we drove to Badi ka Talab, or Tiger Lake, which is another artificial lake five kilometers outside of Udaipur. We chilled in the shade for a couple of hours to escape the heat and watched as droves of Indians went swimming in the not-so-pristine water. Blacky told me about his plans to expand his business and I offered him as much advice as I could.

Finally, we visited Sajjan Garh, or the Monsoon Palace, which is perched atop a mountain eight kilometers west of Udaipur. After paying an entrance fee to a wildlife sanctuary, we drove 4 kilometers up steep and winding roads to the palace.

When we returned back to Udaipur at night, I took Blacky to an internet cafe. I helped him to set up an e-mail address and showed him how to log in to check his e-mail. He hopes to become familiar enough with a computer to set up a website for his restaurant, which I told him will help in his ultimate goal of being featured in the Lonely Planet guidebook. His biggest issue: locating the correct letters on the keyboard. Who knew that teaching five-year-old Koreans how to type in English would come in handy a few months later? Not me.

My favorite fact about Udaipur? Many scenes from the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy were filmed here. I hadn't seen it before, but nearly every bar in town has free showings of the film nightly. Roger Moore isn't the greatest Bond, but the film was shot at the Lake Palace, the Monsoon Palace, and the Shiv Niwas Palace, so it was nice to unwind back at Blacky's restaurant and watch it after having visited two of the palaces.
After some much-needed rest, I spent most of the morning hanging out on the roof top with Blacky and his brother Kailash. They're such chill guys, and they really do make nice food...listen up Lonely Planet.

I've enjoyed everything about Udaipur, despite visiting at the hottest time of the year. I really wish I had more time to explore Rajasthan, but I'll be back when it's not 110 degrees and humid. For now, I'm taking a 12-hour night train to Delhi to meet my buddy Matt who's flying in from Boston tomorrow night. Today's the start of my last two weeks in Asia. Delhi tomorrow, Agra Sunday, Himalayas Monday.....and.....wait for it.....gluten-free everyday.