A Winter in India

Pam and I have traveled to the Indian State of Kerala, almost to the southern tip of the Indian sub-continent. In fact, we landed at the city of Kochin at latitude 10° North, the Panama Canal is at 11° North latitude. I did not know that North America was discovered because Columbus was looking for a short-cut to Kerala, which in his day was called Malabar. I guess we’ll let the East Indies and Kerala fight that one out. The two images posted above show the pepper creeper vine and the clove tree. These two plants were major shapers of world history. Historians, Biblical scholars and archeologists tell us that the spices and wood from Malabar have been transported to Egypt, Palestine and the rest of the Middle East since 3000 BC. Spices to make perfume for the Pharoah’s sweethearts and spices to mummify the old boy himself. Moses used cinnamon and cardamom in Jerusalem for the rituals of the Tabernacle in 1490 BC. Malabar teak wood has been found in building ruins in Assyria which pre-dated Babylonia!!!

We were able to find a local guide (Joshi) who took us on a nice trek right from our hotel up to a high mountain lake. Here is the sign we passed at the beginning, and despite these words of welcome, we proceeded up the mountain.

Didn’t see any leeches or elephants, but there was plenty of very fresh evidence of the elephants, some of it in very large piles right on the trail. Just the night before three adult and one baby elephant had come down this very trail, into the village, to eat in the vegetable patch. Not much was tall enough for them to eat yet, so not much damage was done, and at dawn they went back up the mountain. We were probably 4 hours behind them.

Most of the open country in Eravikulum National Park was closed to hiking as of last year. There are so many medicinal plants in these high range meadows, and people were picking them clean. So now there is just this one section you can walk in, and they want you to stay right on the road, as the sign says. The second part of the sign is in Malayalam, the local language here in the state Kerala.

As you can see in the second photo, even the birds obey the signs! Not sure if it read the sign in English or Malayalam. (Although it looks like a small meadowlark, the bird is a Nilgiri pipit, a species found only around here).

We flew last Friday from Delhi south to Cochin. Then we were transported by car from the coast up into the mountains called the Western Ghats. We spent three nights way out in the country near an old British Hill Station called Munnar. We were at 6500 feet, surrounded by tea and cardamom plantations. Up above those are open grasslands and we saw some great animals and birds. This first photo is a Nilgiri Thar, a type of Ibex. There are only 2000 of these left in the world and more than 1000 of those are here in Eravikulum National Park. Although severely endangered, they are not the least bit afraid of humans, and came right up close.

The photo is us plus Kate and her cousin Rob at the restaurant at the Intercontinental Hotel on New Year's Eve. Not exactly a wild party, but we did have a good time. Kate and Rob left at 1 AM on Jan. 3 and made it home to Brockton, Mass (Rob) and to Maine (Kate). Its lonely here without them!

Those of you who do math in your heads may have read the title of this entry and said, "Wait a minute. Leap Year?? 2006 is not divisible by 4." And you are correct. This is NOT a leap year anywhere but India. If the time zone here can be 30 minutes off from any other time zone (we are 10.5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time), why not have a leap year all your own? Well, it isn't really that. Its a Leap Year created by economists, not by astronomers.

Here is a photo that Kate took of our neighbor across the street on his exercise bike. He is out there faithfully every morning around 7 AM.

And the woman who is sweeping the street at the bottom of the photo is out there faithfully every morning before 6 AM. She is a Delhi employee, so she is well-off compared to many people because she has a steady job. But she won't ever need to use an exercise bike.

We found out today what happens to our garbage. Our two cleaning people take the garbage from our apartment and sort it some (cardboard, empty plastic bottles, food scraps) and put it out in the back patio. Today I watched as our cleaning person opened the gate in the high back wall of the patio and a rag-picker came in and removed the trash. I have seen this rag-picker woman sitting on the ground in the alley, sorting trash. Next to her was a full-sized garbage truck like you would see in the U.S. But very little of what we throw out actually makes it into the garbage truck. She takes every useable shred and sells each to diffrent buyers.

This is Rob Baker, complete with Bates hat, at Fatephur Sikri, near Agra. This enormous complex was built between 1571 and 1585 by the Mughal Emperor Akbar to honor a Sufi mystic. Akbar had no male heirs. Two of his wives prayed to this mystic and their offspring were boys. The four layered structure in the background was built so Akbar could sit on the top layer and watch the activities in the courtyard below. There is a separate, screened area where the wives could watch from.

We four are about to go off to the Intercontinental Hotel to celebrate New Year's Eve. For us 2005 has been an amazing year! And even more special to have Kate and Rob here to ring in the new year.

Here are a couple of photos from Itimad-ud-Daulah in Agra. This is a tomb built for the Emperor Jehangir's Chief Minister by the minister's daughter who just happened to be married to the Emperor. It predates the Taj Mahal but the stonework is very impressive as you can see from the photos at the bottom, including a real close-up of the stone itself. This tomb is on the opposite side of the Yamuna River from the Taj, so the previous photo of the washer wallahs was taken as we were crossing the river to get to this tomb. The lower photo is Dave looking out at the riverbed, where they are pl

This is along the banks of the Yamuna (Jamuna) River in Agra.

Dave got this photo. The juxtaposition of the carts and camel with the petrol station and its glitzy billboard says it all.