Beer for Breakfast and other misadventures

May 1st-May 8th, 2009--Mumbai and Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India

My second visitor in India arrived on May 1^st. Randy is a friend from Denver, married to my very good friend Annie, and they are foster parents to my blue Ford Focus while I am away. Seeing he had work in Malaysia, he decided to pop over to India for a week.

Randy's visit started with some drama even before I fetched him from the airport, as I took a Rik there, and despite the fact Sunitha told the driver in Hindi I wanted to go to the International airport, I was dropped at the Domestic terminal, and before I noticed, I had paid, and my driver was gone. I hailed another ride, and a few minutes into the ride, he said he wanted 500 rupees (for what should be a 30 or so rupee ride). So I get out, angrily, with my pack with me because I had not checked into the hotel yet. Soon another driver offered to take me to the International Airport for 300 rupees, than 200, than 100, until finally a young driver named Sanil agreed to take me there with the meter running, and laughing, practiced his English on me by saying “I am sexy, NO?!?!” and despite the fact I told him three times my name was Leah, he was sure my name was Priya, and that Sanil and Priya are a perfect Bollywood match, and he not-so-debonairly tried to get me to give him a kiss before I left the Rik. Unfortunately, he failed in his quest, but he did succeed in temporarily improving my mood from the sour state it was in 10 minutes prior and I gave him a low-five for his efforts.

I found Randy, and we made our way to Sea View Hotel on Juhu Beach, my home away from home, away from home when I have guests in Mumbai. We started out the next morning with beer for breakfast, which is never a bad choice, and made our way up north to the National Park in town, where we saw some lions and tigers on a short bus safari, but being that it was so hot, we soon headed back for pizza and beer, a bit of shopping, and then a short tour through the Hare Krishna temple. Randy had bought some Johnny Walker Red earlier, and the security person was concerned he was bringing in water. When Randy explained it was “whiskey, not water” suddenly it was OK and he could bring it in. That's my kind of temple.

The next day we did the slum tour of Dharvi like I did when Jessie came, and Randy enjoyed it quite a bit as he was familiar with some of the work that was being done there. To get out of the heat, we headed downtown to lunch at the famed Leopold's and hit up both the National Gallery of Art and the Jehinger Gallery which had a sculpture exhibit, featuring a herd of hippopotami! Obviously, I loved it.

That night we departed Mumbai and headed to a bus station to catch an overnight bus to the city of Aurangabad. The ride was one of the few times I have been cold in India as the AC was pumping, and I neglected to bring long sleeves. After about 8 hours, we arrived.

I had wanted to visit Aurangabad because of the famed Ellora and Ajanta caves, full of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain carvings and sculptures. We headed to the Ellora Caves (about30 kilometers from town) and also to Fort Daulatabad another young tourist named Lim from South Korea.

To the top of Fort Daulatabad turned out to be a good, short hike and though it was hot, it was not a bad precursor for trekking in Nepal I would be doing in a few weeks.

View from Fort Daulatabad

The Ellora caves were very impressive, and being that it was so hot, we saw most of the 34 caves, but skipped a few of the Buddhist caves at the end. The most striking part of the Ellora caves was the Kailasa Temple, which is dedicated to the Lord Shiva and carved from the rock over 150 years by over 7,000 workers—an interesting fact from Lonely Planet is that the Kailasa covers twice the are of the Parthenon in Athens and is 1 ½ times as high.

Lim Stretches as I unknowingly to him take a snap

Kaisala Temple Views

Following the caves we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest, and that night ran into Lim again and headed off to have thali (link here) at a veg restaurant and some drinks, which later lead to consumption of most of the Johnny Walker Red. Being that it was so hot, we decided to skip traveling to the Ajanta Caves the next day, and instead sorted out our train tickets for the night and visited a weaving center in Aurangabad known for its detailed workmanship; a saree can take a year to make, many other items weeks and months.

Our trip back to Mumbai dropped us off downtown in the Colaba area the next day, and we soldiered on through the heat, checking into our hotel and then making our way over to the Thieves Bazaar (known for antiques) but also into a huge bazaar with lots of food and a butcher area—warning for those who may have weak stomachs—but we not only saw an alley full of garlic (one of my favorite spots ever, as many know, you can never have enough garlic) we also came across some severed goat's heads (aka mutton).

Gross, I know

We next made it over to the Haji Ali Mosque, which at high tide is inaccessible, whether you are coming or going. A small mosque, with many less fortunate lined along its path with various physical deformities, it is a powerful place regardless of your impression. Also, there are vendors selling ice cream bars for 5 rupees (roughly 10 cents U.S.). We were tempted to buy the entire box.

View at Haji Ali (note Randy wiping the sweat off his brow in the bottom left corner)

After a bit more shopping and bargaining and one last beer, we navigated from downtown up north to get Randy to the airport. Like so many times in Mumbai, it was an eventful excursion as our cabbie had said he knew how to get to Juhu but we got annoyingly lost for quite some time. As I was tired and hot, I was rather unhappy (to put it mildly) with our driver and it was as we finally got a Rik on the last stretch before reaching the airport that Randy said to me that I would know when I got back from Nepal if I would return to India past July. As much as I love being here most of the time, I had to admit that the trials and tribulations of just getting around—not to mention the heat, humidity, traffic and pollution—were wearing on my nerves, and I was not feeling like myself. It was time to get out of Dodge. Luckily, I would have that opportunity in less than a week.

Wrapping April in Mumbai

April 15-30th, 2009, Bombay, Maharashtra India

Following a month of travel, I spent most of the last two weeks of April volunteering again at the Khar Danda school at One! International. It was great to see the kids again and to meet some of the volunteers who had arrived while I was gone, including Amy from Canada, Shawn from North Carolina, and Norman from Australia, who were all lots of fun. Those two weeks I also found time to read several books and enjoy being back in Bombay—in one place--for some time, all the while I continued to plan upcoming travel for when my friend Randy came and my brother Bryan in May.

A few days after I returned, we took about a dozen of the younger kids at the school to do a program with some other young students at The American School in Bombay, which is the school that all the children of various diplomats from around the world who are working in Bombay attend. The facilities at the school were impressive, surpassing many schools I have seen in the U.S., and the kids had a lot of fun going there, even though some of them were cold because of the high levels of A.C. that were pumping out in the building. The kids danced to Jai Ho! A song from Slumdog Millionaire, and really did a great job.

Practicing for Jai Ho!

I spent a lot of my time at school tutoring Sunil, our oldest student and also the first from One! International to take the 10th grade exam, which in India you must pass to go onto college. We were studying computers—a book on Windows 95, to be exact (I kid you not) but he was a very diligent scholar, and despite the fact that he insisted that over and over again “Didi, sooooo many cards!” (I made him a lot of flash cards) his hard work was paying off. Plus when he did well, he was able to play some songs off of my computer, favorites being the “Na Na Na” song by Akon and various Bollywood numbers. Also around the same time, one of the older girls at the school who is around 16 named Dilshad had been watching my habit of buying a samosa from my favorite Samosa Men after school each day; concerned, she told me “Didi, very bad for the health to eat a samosa everyday. I did and I got sick. Very bad. Every few days, but not every day.” Turning red, I knew she was right—and I loved that she called me out on it. I cut back on the samosas after that (but not completely).

So you know that I wasn't just being studious and diligent during this time, I also joined in some dance parties with the other volunteers from One! We found that the Boat Club in Bandra, seemingly has theme nights, or at least sometimes they change the posters on the wall—my favorite being when we showed up and there were framed rap/hip hop stars everywhere—nothing like seeing Snoop and Fifty Cent adorning the walls in India. Regardless of the music played that night though, it seemed that a fog machine was often involved. We danced there right before Amy went back to Canada, and again before Shawn went back to the U.S.





Though being back in Bombay was nice for a sense of stability, my body wasn't used to riding in the Riks again with all the pollution, and I got what I think was my fourth or fifth bad cold. That, however, didn't stop me from traveling to the Hill Station of Matheran with some friends from the Hash running club the last Saturday in April. Matheran is about 3 hours south of Bombay, and up a very windy road—the catch is though, motorized vehicles are prohibited after a certain point, so the last 45 minutes you have to either walk, or ride a horse. We chose to walk, and met about 10 other Hashers and stayed in a bungalow for the night before the run. Being sick, I spent much of the afternoon resting, but did rally to meet a few American Hashers who were traveling through and joined our group. What I thought was going to be a quiet night quickly turned when my friend Elizabeth's friend Mary Lou revealed she had brought karaoke. The TV was wheeled out onto the patio and the monkeys all around us settled in for a concert, as the night air soon filled with raspy renditions of the familiar words of Bryan Adams (Summer of 69), Cher, Britney Spears, Journey, and the list went on and on (for about three hours, I think). It was good fun, and the run did not disappoint the next day either, as the route took us to one particularly breathtaking panoramic view of the surrounding landscape of hills and valleys.

Though the red clay dirt (a trademark of Matheran) stained my shoes beyond recovery, and the ice was late so our beer was a bit warm, I fought off my cold and busted out the wigs for the first time in India, where they were very well received. We also turned the blocks of ice into a literally very cool slip n slide.


The 30th of April was voting day in Bombay, and elections in India are run with a surprising efficiency that lacks in so many other areas of the country. I walked down with Sunitha and her family in the morning to the polling place a few minutes from their house, and their fingers were promptly stamped with ink as to prevent voter fraud. Results are not revealed for a few weeks after the elections, however, but voter turnout here is actually very high, with lots of the poor coming out in droves to cast their ballots. A few photos below showcasing a bit of the action.

Elephant waterfalls and the Holiday Inn

Thursday April 9th - Tuesday April 14th. Mysore, Karnataka India; Jungle Retreat, Tamil Nadu; Ooty, Tamil Nadu; Cochin, Kerala

The night train from Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu brought our group to Mysore, Karnataka known as the “City of Palaces” and as the name suggests, we took a tour of the Maharajah’s Palace upon arrival. Built in 1912, it was very elaborate, and the Maharajah still lives in part of it. As you can see from the expanse, it is on quite the large lot.

From the palace we visited the Devaraja fruit and vegetable market, where one can find everything from jasmine, roses, incense, and the colors used in the Holi celebration mixed in with the logical finds of fruits, veggies, mini bananas, garlic, and peppers.

In the spirit of Bon Jovi, Senor asked me to lay him down on a Bed of Roses.

One of the most packed days on the tour with scheduled activities, we continued on to a Muslim family’s house for lunch which was absolutely delicious. Almost as soon as we finished, we again hopped in the tour van for a very bumpy ride to the Kesava or Somnathpur Temple an hour or so out of town. This temple is on a raised platform in the shape of a star and was completed in 1268 under the Hoysala Dynasty. The outside is adorned by intricate sculptures of gods and goddesses, one of my favorites being Saraswati, Goddess of Wisdom and I also like to think, Goddess I Turn to Before I Make Bad Choices.

After dashing from shadow to shadow at the temple (no shoes allowed, and did I mention April in India is summer? Very hot hot hot on the feet) we then drove to a small silkworm factory--Mysore is known for silk--and were able to visit with the men and women who go through the silkworms, near the start of the process of making silk. I initially thought we were going to see weaving at the factory, but found looking at the worms and seeing the process at this stage far more interesting.

Returning to the hotel, we knew we were too late to go swimming, a main goal of mine throughout the trip. However, Vinit, our tour leader, was able to pull some strings so we were indeed able to go for a swim--which was also when I was asked my favorite question of the entire trip:

“Excuse me, but would you like the waterfall on?”

Of course, the obvious answer to that question was yes, and immediately the elephant adorning the walls around the pool started spouting water from their trunks. A rooftop pool with waterfall elephants; it made up for the fact the water was only about 4 feet deep.
Tired but happy from a great touristy day, most of our group had dinner that night in a wrap around booth.


Before bidding Mysore farewell, Friday morning we headed up Chaumundi Hill, where the Shri Chamundeshwari Temple is for the Goddess Durga; a few of us got a puja from an old man and we saw lots of cows, but mainly, it was too crowded. On the way down, though, is a Nandi Bull (the bull is the God Shiva’s vehicle) which at over 13 feet tall is the largest Nandi in India.

This is also where Anne from Ireland and I were surrounded by many interested Indians (mostly men) snapping photos of us until we were whisked away from the impromptu Paparazzi in our tour van.

Paparazzi--Iona on the left was my roommate on the trip

Mysore was one of my favorite spots on our southern tour; perhaps because of the pool, perhaps because of the nicer hotel; perhaps the beautiful Mysore palace we toured. Regardless, I enjoyed this stop a lot, and enjoyed our next stop, Jungle Retreat, even more.

Jungle Retreat is as it’s name suggests--we had dorm style living here, but it was just one night and surprisingly, no loud snorers in the mix! There was a fabulous pool here, where we had a very enthusiastic cannonball contest reminiscent of my Rajasthan trip, but this time with more participants and a deep desire to make huge splashes. After a rousing few hours of this, we cleaned up and headed off for a safari, where we were lucky enough to see many cows, as well as a wild elephant and its baby!


Though the tigers again evaded us, we were able to see some leaping Langore monkeys (can you spy the one in the photo below?)

The food at the Jungle Retreat was top notch, but even better was the foosball competition Roland, Lia and I engaged in with some adolescent boys from France; it was international Foos at its finest.

The next morning, we roused early and Catherine, Iona and I joined with a large group of around 40 to do a morning hike. We saw some wild buffalo, and though we missed out on the threatened elephant charge the rest of our group experienced, we did take in some beautiful sites along the way.

Soon enough, we were headed off again to our final new city of the tour, Ooty. At 2,286 meters, Ooty is a prime vacation spot for many Indians as it is much cooler due to the high altitude. We found that for the first time in nearly two weeks we were, indeed, chilled. My friend Sunitha had also spent some of her childhood in Ooty, so I was intrigued to see it. Though it does boost more greenery and a cooler climate than many places in India, it left many in our group under whelmed overall. However, some of my friends from the Hash running club in Mumbai were in town for the Southeast Asia InterHash, so Ed, Anne, Catherine and I piled in to a Tuk Tuk that trudged mightily up a hill to the Holiday Inn (I don’t think that Tuk Tuk will ever be the same) and met my friend Harsh and some other Bombay Hashers at the Holiday Inn there, where we were able to crash a very fun dance party.

Rising early after bringing down the roof at the Holiday Inn, we tried to get on a toy train tour, but since it was Easter Weekend, we were denied on our first attempt and instead headed to the High Field Tea Plantation, where I bought some chocolate tea, and also snapped a photo with a die hard Britney Spears fan.

We eventually made it on the toy train, as well, which was a nice little trip, but more of a challenge to get off as lots of people rushed to get on as we were exiting. Still, a let the wind go through my hair while on it, and made a few new friends as well.

Rounding out the afternoon, we first headed to the Ooty Botanic Gardens and then headed to the Ooty Lake where Anne and I paddled Ed and Catherine all around and where we dutifully posed for photos for passerby boaters. We also took a harrowing ride on a Viking Ship, which was quite the highlight.

Ooty wrapped up with a dinner at the palace next to the servant’s quarters we were staying in, and our next day came early with a leaving time of 4 a.m. By noon we were bussed back to Cochin, and after trying to get into a Tamil language movie that was sold out, we whiled away the afternoon in the hotel bar and were met with the arrival of an early monsoon rain in the late afternoon; it made the dream I had of rain 14 days earlier in the same hotel seem that it had come full circle. After our last group dinner and some last goodbyes, some of us found ourselves back in the hotel bar for one last South Indian Hurrah before the next day would take us back on our separate paths.

Holla for Southern India!