Walking with Ghosts

Posted from Delhi, India

One story we haven't told yet is from over a month ago. When we were in Vietnam, we stopped in Hue for a few days. Although we had passed through the DMZ during the night, there wasn't much to see. Mostly because it was pitch black. Oh, and we were asleep. So while we were in Hue, we took a tour of the DMZ, and you know what? There's not a whole to see. Just rice paddies and farmers and lots of green. Pretty much what I imagined it looked like almost 40 years ago. In fact, I swear I could almost see American Marines in olive drab fatigues slogging through the rice paddies. But that may just be the ghosts playing tricks on my eyes. To say that there are ghosts roaming the paddy fields is an understatement. I believe in ghosts, and I have ever since I saw the irrefutable evidence in Ghostbusters. But there really are ghosts in those soggy fields. How can there not be? So many people died in such a small piece of land. Forty years after the fact, the scars are still there: our tour guide stated that farmers use the bomb craters to collect rain water for their cattle.



Speaking of bombs and their effects, did you know that after 40 years a bomb crater is still a giant hole in the ground? Sure, flowers now grow at the bottom of it and water buffalo chew on the tall grass around its rim, but the hole is still there. And did you know that even after 40 years you can tell the difference between a 500-lb bomb crater and a 2000-lb bomb crater? The crater from the bigger bomb is, well, bigger, but somehow it seems a little more than four times bigger.


In my short life, I've visited many battlefields. Most in the U.S., but those are hundreds of years old. The scars have healed, and nature has taken its course. Some in Europe, but even those are approaching their Medicare years, and many of them have been sanitized for our use. Moreover, the axes that were ground have been put away in their sheds. But to see these battlefields surrounded by farms and jungle, it is clear that nature is moving on, but it's taking its time; these scars are faded but by no means healed. And it makes me wonder about the battlefields I've had a hand in creating. What are they going to look like in 40 years?

Fittingly the weather on our day in the DMZ was cold, misty, and overcast. It matched our sadness; it was the only appropriate weather for our day with ghosts.

Ground Control to Major Tata**

Written from the Cochin Airport, Kerala, India
Posted from Delhi, India

We're sitting in yet another airport terminal right now, waiting to board our flight to Delhi (via Cochin and Mumbai). We got here right on time, no hassle with the 30 km taxi ride to the airport (though it took an hour and involved much honking). We checked our bags, took the battery out of our alarm clock as instructed by the ubiquitous mean security lady (wha? I don't get it either) and set out to find some tea. And then the power went out. Yes, in an airport. Yes, in a place where, just beyond that security door over there, they fly planes. All is well, however, because there is a generator. Or at least, I'm assuming there's a generator, because we were still able to get our hot tea, complete with warmed milk. Woe to the traveler who can't get their tea before boarding a plane that may or may not be able to take off because of a power failure at ground control! That is just SO India!

** For those of you not familiar with TATA, they're the ubiquitous and enormous private sector group in India. You see their logo everywhere -- on cars, buses, trucks, telecom, utilities, construction equipment, etc. You get the feeling that they are big brother and they are watching you because they seriously own everything. Their newest acquisition? Jaguar and Land Rover. Right.

Packing Protection

Posted from India

Lizzi and I aren't the only ones getting sick on this trip. Unfortunately, our laptop gets a nasty bug every once in a while too. It's really our own fault. Wireless internet has been available in some of the guesthouses we've stayed in but not many. All of our photos and blog posts are composed on the laptop and then transferred to a flash drive, which we connect to a computer in an internet cafe. This is the computer equivalent of shaking the hand of someone who has just sneezed and then licking it. Sometimes you're going to get sick. So far, the flash drive has contracted at least one virus and a couple of gnarly bits of adware. As best as I can figure, the adware is from Thailand (looks to be something Google Toolbar coughed up), and the virus came from a dirty machine in Goa.

Viruses and adware are just a few of the bugs for which there is no vaccine. If you're going to take a laptop, which I recommend, be sure to turn on the antivirus software, download and run Ad-Aware regularly, and just be smart about what you connect to your machine, even indirectly. Just like people, your computer has a history. If you plug your flash drive (this goes for cameras too) into a different computer and then stick it in yours, your computer will be infected with everything the other computer has. The old adage holds true: wrap it before you tap it.

A Few Thoughts on India, So Far

Written from Cochin, Kerala, India
Posted from Delhi, India

We've been in India for over two weeks now, and I haven't really written anything substantive on our actual travels here. Sure, I've written about other backpackers, and Matt told you about our seaside and bus experiences, but I haven't written anything about what it's like to actually BE here in this place. And I'm not sure why I haven't written about it, because it's not like I'm not thinking about it. On the contrary, I'm thinking about it all the time. It's practically all I can think about. The very word "India" just rolls around in my head, over and over and over again. It's often coupled with images I expected to see here, images that collide with things that I am actually seeing here. And there are bits and pieces of stories that I've stolen from friends who have either visited India or still call India home. Those roll around in my head too. So although I'm sure that it won't be even a little bit eloquent, I want to try to get some of these thoughts down for you, just in case you're still bumbling along on this journey with us and you want to know.

From the stories I'd heard about Goa, I expected to land smack in the middle of an enormous beach rave. I expected something a la Phi Phi Island, Thailand, complete with hippie-like tourists and buckets filled to the brim with vodka and red bull. But because we stayed off the beaten track in a non-backpacker area, there were no buckets, no hippies to speak of, and certainly no raves. In the end, even though we thought we were looking for some way to inebriate ourselves in our early days in the subcontinent, it ended up being a good thing that Colva Beach wasn't the party mecca we were looking for. In its own quiet, ocean-observing way, Colva gave us the opportunity to settle in to India.

And as quickly as we could settle in to Goa, we were off for our whirlwind tour of Kerala. I expected things to be quiet here, quiet like the people who urged us to visit their home, who aren't really quiet at all, so I'm not sure why I thought that. I figured that the pace of Kerala would suit us, that we would move effortlessly from place to place and see what we could see. But I am now convinced that there is no such thing as effortless movement in India. Instead, we were bumped and hurried and hustled from place to place, over windy, vomit-inducing roads, and through dusty towns. We ate good food and we ate bad food. At first it seemed like everyone wanted to sell us something, something that looked a lot like something we didn't even think about wanting, but in the end it turned out that everyone just wanted us to love Kerala, to love this place, the way that they do.

And what a place it is. Goa, Kerala, India. It is an incredible, amazing place. Amazing in that it causes constant amazement, and amazes us, constantly. Before we came to India people told us that we would either love it or hate it. And we knew people who fell into both camps. Heather loves it. Her fiance Andrew (yay, Heather got engaged!) hates it. Jane loved it. Megan hated it. Nitin and Uma call it home, and tell us stories about India with the love of someone whose dreams still bring them back here. But then there were those kids from our first go-round at CMU who would ask us WHY we'd want to be a tourist in a place like India. But I've always wanted to visit India, always, for as long as I can remember, even way back in my youngest years on Copper Beech Drive when I'd spend my summer days playing hide-and-go-seek with Zarine and Kekki, and I'd walk into their house for lemonade and smell that unfamiliar and mezmorizing smell. (Incidentally, it's a smell I can now correctly identify as cooked basmati rice, ginger, and cardamom.)

So here we are now, day by day, moment by moment, trying to figure out which camp we fall into. Love it or hate it? And for some reason, I'm having a hard time coming up with a visceral reaction. I can't collect my thoughts around what I spend my day seeing, and certainly not in a way that's cogent enough to come to any conclusions. So I will give you things that I see, instead, so that you may draw your own: I see a truck full of cows, crammed head to head, riding on the windy roads of Perriyar; I see tea plantations as far as I could look, greener than any green I've ever seen; I see women washing clothes by beating them against washing stones; I see little children with kohl on their eyes like eyeliner; I see sarees and sarees and sarees; I see men fidgeting with the ends of their lungis, which basically look like a skirt; I see beautiful fruit and vegetable stands, the likes of which we don't have at home in the US; I see trash burning on the side of the road, on the side of the river, on the side of someone's house; I see tea stalls and tea stalls and tea stalls; I see brightly-colored fried desserts that make my eyes scrunch, they're so sweet; I see women and children who are hungry and begging. I see all of these things, and I don't have the slightest clue how I absorb them all, soak them into my mind and my skin so that they're part of me, part of what I'm doing in this place, after all.

We're ending our time in South India tomorrow and heading to Delhi. We'll be there for about three weeks before we head off again, this time to Nepal. And there isn't time, there just isn't enough time, to love or hate this place. So for now I will work on experiencing it and taking pictures with my camera and with my mind's eye, so that when I am home, and someone says the word "India" to me, I can see where my inner eye takes me and where my stomach pulls me and where my heart lies.

This Time Last Year

Written in Kerala, India
Posted from Delhi, India

Geoff, Julie, Katy, Matt and I sit in a bar and order a drink called "Scooby Snacks." It's bright green and has milk in it, and I think it's delicious but it makes Julie kind of dry heave. We're all exhausted, it being 6am on the east coast, but we're happy to be together and we're yammering on about I don't even know what. Katy is wearing these really cute red shoes and her hair is very very long. Geoff's phone rings, "it's Jason!" and we learn that the birthday boy, the reason we were all in Vegas and drinking at 6am east coast time, is at the airport, is at that very moment being told to hang up his phone so he can go through security and get on a plane.

It is one year later. Katy's hair is short again, instead of being together we're scattered to the four corners of the earth, Adam has a new dog, J and Cris have a new baby. But today is still Jason's birthday! Some good things have a way of coming back, year after year. And thank god for that, because Jason is a person to celebrate.

Many of you out there reading this blog know Jason. Rather, you think you know him. But to know the real J is to know that there are, believe it or not, a few people in the world that Jason actively dislikes. And to know the real J is to have many an incriminating photograph of him on your hard drive, just waiting for the day when you need to blackmail him. Except, of course, to know the real J is to also know that you'll never need to blackmail him, because he is the kind of friend who eats all of your food and actually wants to know how you made it, the kind of friend who asks you questions about your law degree when no one else even pretends to be curious, the kind of friend who picks you up at the airport when you could have taken the T, the kind of friend who comes to school with you for a day and gets along so well with everyone he meets that you wish you could have gone to grad school with him and not just college.

Jason was one of the first people I actually trusted at Carnegie Mellon, all those long years ago when I was still trying to decide whether I loved or hated the place. Jason is one of the reasons that I stayed. And I'm so glad that I did, not only because of all of the things that might not have happened if I'd left CMU, but also because of the fact that over the course of all of these long years, J and I have grown up, just a little bit more, together.

So J, on your birthday, I'm sorry that we're all scattered to the four corners, but I can honestly tell you that I can't wait to see what your 40th brings, even if it's still another 9 years away.

<<The authors are sad to report that they didn't get this post up on or before Jason's actual birthday. But they are happy to be the first to share that in his honor, they found a Pizza Hut right in the middle of Cochin (where you can get pizza topped with such items as chicken tikka or paneer). We know that Jason is smiling somewhere, knowing that on his birthday, even though there was nary a sausage in sight, we ate some greasy pizza.>>

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Posted from New Delhi, India

Over the course of the past two months, we've developed something of a love-hate relationship with our guidebooks. Right up front, the book tells you that it is a) not all-inclusive and b) things may have changed. We get that, and honestly, we would expect no less. The guidebook even proved exceptionally helpful in navigating our first scoop flush toilets, although I have to tell you that the mechanics of going No. 2 on a squat toilet are still way beyond me.

However, one critical daily task that the guidebook conveniently overlooks is bathing. Just as there are myriad permutations of toilets (sit-down flush, sit-down scoop, sit-down flush but no paper, squat, etc...), there are just as many variations of bathing arrangements. In Thailand and Laos, hot showers meant a tiny external water heater bolted behind the showerhead. Although the heater appears to work in an intuitive manner, actually getting hot water to come out is something of a black art. Before running to the management, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel (I kid you not, we saw it happen), here's the trick: don't turn the water on full blast. If you do open the faucet all the way, the water won't circulate through the heater enough to actually heat up, resulting in a measly change in water temperature from polar to the "luke"-side of lukewarm.

Another variation of the hot shower is the bucket hot shower, which we encountered in India. Bucket hot showers can be readily identified by the presence of a large bucket with a smaller pail and a pair of water faucets: one hot and one cold. So far, we've found them in conjunction with a showerhead connected to a single knob. Don't use this knob! You will be drenched in icy water. A bucket shower is a lot like drawing a bath. Except without the place to sit and actually bathe. Instead, you stand and bathe. Simply place the large bucket under the twin faucets and open them both to fill the bucket. Use the small bucket to DOUSE yourself. Figure out that you cannot, actually, hold the soap and pour the small bucket over yourself. Watch for the water you'll get in your ears. Marvel at the fact that you actually prefer a bucket shower to a "French" shower. Then lather, rinse, repeat.

One other important tidbit about showering is that you're probably not going to find hot water showers everywhere in southern India, especially along the coast. So here's the final variation: the bucket cold shower. Don't freak to the management and demand a hot shower -- it's not worth it. This type of shower works the same as the bucket hot shower, but there's only one water temperature. The best thing to do is wait until the end of the day when you're all hot and sweaty, then fill the bucket and rinse the day away. After a steamy day of sight-seeing, you'll be surprised how refreshing a cold bucket shower can be. And since the cold bucket showers often occur in the hottest cities, you'll find that the steam from your body heats up the bathroom quite nicely.

Whatever you do, where bucket showers are concerned, do NOT let the small bucket actually touch your skin. It's likely that it has touched the skin of others who have bathed before you. Do not think about this as you grab for the handle, otherwise, you'll find yourself trying to bathe in Purell.

Another Pisces Heard From

Today is Julie's 29th birthday. Hi Jules! Happy Birthday! I'm sad that we can't be there to celebrate with you. But we're eating all of your favorite foods over here, I promise. If I could get my hands on a bowl of cheerios to eat in your honor, I SO would.

Julie's birthday post is and isn't the hardest birthday post to write. See, it's hard to cram into a few paragraphs just exactly why I'm so glad that this woman was born. But at the same time, I could regale you with countless instances of times when my life would have just sucked a lot more without her in it. There's a balance to be struck here, people, and I'm the girl to do it. Even if that means I will be verbose. Oh, don't act so surprised. When am I NOT verbose?

A long, long time ago, back when Julie and I were newly becoming friends, I found out that this guy I'd liked for a long time liked me back (incidentally NOT the guy I married), and that he liked me so much that he wanted to make out with me in my dorm room, which we quickly got down to doing. I hadn't told anyone about it because the relationship was the kind that was (a) doomed from the start, and (b) not even off the ground yet, but I'd casually mentioned it to Julie because she was a new friend, and therefore a safe person with whom to share this most important piece of information. That, and I was so happy about it that I wanted to rent an airplane and fly a banner from the sky, so I HAD to tell SOMEONE.

I was home from school on Christmas break, and I was sitting at our wee little Macintosh computer, trying to interest myself in something other than starting yet another fight with my dad (I was 19, remember?). When all of a sudden, bling! went my Inbox (remember those old AOL noises?) and there was a message from Julie. We were friends, sure, and I had told her about my little hook-up, but up until that moment, I hadn't realized we were EMAIL friends, the kind of friends who emailed each other in that 4 weeks we weren't at school. But, as it happened, we were. So I opened up my email from her and right there, in the very first line, was a statement that went something like this: "You sound so excited! I'm so HAPPY for you!" And that was it. I mean, there was more to the email -- I'm sure she talked about the state of her life (which, at that time, was unreasonably hard and incredibly unfair, and I mean that) -- but it was those two little opening lines that opened the window onto what I knew was going to be a huge, groundbreaking, life-altering friendship. See, in that briefest little moment, sent across wires and cables and all the way from the midwest, I got a glimpse of the person that Julie is. And she's the type of person who, when her life is really especially shitty, still manages to get excited about another person's excitement. Especially if that person is me. Which basically makes me the luckiest woman ever.

See, a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, our friendship existed in a different space and time. We were sisters, friends, fellow-gatherers, whatever. But there's not a doubt in my mind that over history and through the ages, Julie and I have seen a LOT. And importantly, we've seen that lot together, and together we've made things easier for each other, gentler, better. Most people don't understand our friendship. And that's mainly because most people don't have a friend like the one that we have in each other. But for those out there who do understand our friendship, especially for those women out there who helped to show me how to be especially grateful for what I have in Julie, you know that being several continents and oceans away on her birthday is kind of sad, the kind of thing that makes you homesick and longing for that time when you'd share a pint of Phishfood Frozen Yogurt together on your couch. On the other hand, you also know that with a friendship like ours, oceans and continents really don't get in the way of sending her heartfelt birthday wishes, full of things like good karma and certainty of all the happy things that will come her way this year, and that when she wakes up on the morning of her birthday, I'll know it all the way over here, and I'll silently send a little prayer in the direction of her parents, for having the good sense to bring her into this world and into my life.

Happy Birthday, Julabelle. My life wouldn't be as good as it is if you weren't a part of it.