Final Thoughts on our Asian Trip

Our trip through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and India was a great experience. With taking a "Gap Year" common in the UK, Richard felt like he had passed up every opportunity, and with American vacation standards, I never thought longer term travel would be possible. It is such a backpacker cliche to say any amount of time is not long enough, but it's true. Even in 10 weeks (5x what most Americans get per year), we still only caught glimpses. But they were beautiful and humbling and amazing and interesting and...

Here are the flotsam and jetsam thoughts:

Everyday Exotic Creatures

- In Siem Reap, it was great to glance out of your tuk-tuk and see a troop of monkeys in the forest bordering the road. A family also hung out around the roof of our hotel in Agra, and Rich only just missed getting the perfect shot of a monkey framed by the Taj Mahal.

- Even after a week at Elephant Nature Park, one never got tired of the occasional realization of "hey, that's an elephant standing right there" as you go about the more banal activities of life, say, waiting in line for breakfast.

- Throughout our trip, Pepper-like dogs hounded us - sorry, cheap pun. It would not be an exaggeration to say we saw at least one of her twins everyday in India! We decided either a) our girl was sending out her doppelgangers to check up on us or b) the more mongrel the population, the more common are brown dogs with white markings.

The Obligatory Toilet Commentary

I was surprised and very grateful for the prevalence of Western-style commodes in the places we visited. With proper prior planning, squatter use was kept to a minimum. Sometimes, you could even find the perfect trifecta of toilets: Western-style, toilet paper, and soap! If not, arming yourself with a bathroom bag (basic model: toilet paper + hand sanitizer, or the deluxe model: + immodium + cipro) is essential for peace of mind.

Rugrats, i.e. Traveling with Young Children in Developing Countries

Yes, it is true that most Asians, with our love of family, may enjoy meeting and playing with your child. This aspect of the cultures does not grant you freedom to indulge your flaky parenting style and get some free babysitting out of unsuspecting, probably underpaid and overworked hotel employees. A particularly heinous example of this we observed in an Aussie couple with their 4-year-old daughter in our homestay in Vietnam. While Mum was off on a trek, Dad decided to wander off to do some photography, calling over his shoulder, "Dakota, just hang out with them for a while. I'll be back later!" We looked around and to our horror, "them" was the four of us backpackers who were just finishing breakfast. Now, being decent human beings instead of, say, the secret axe-murderers and child molesters we could have been, we had just been thrust into babysitting a tot we only met the night before... instead of also being allowed to enjoy our own vacations. Dakota's precocious Shirley Temple charm already was wearing thin with her habits of sucking on a dirty comb and sticking her snotty fingers in the communal serving dishes. With parents like those, I suppose consideration of others was pretty low on her list of lessons to learn.

Photography (Other People's)

Sometimes photography can be an antisocial behavior like smoking. At the Nehru Trophy Boat Race, we were jostled constantly by amateurs who felt a giant lens attachment on their SLR camera entitled them to front and center seating. Nevermind that we all had arrived 4 hours before the event to get those seats! One woman even had the gall to cast dirty looks at anyone who jostled her tripod in the crammed standing room only section.

Expenses for Curious Minds Who Want to Know

The whole thing cost us about 12000 USD. Almost half of that were flights, many bought not far in advance of the departure. Hopefully, some of you can see this number and be inspired to go on your own great adventure.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our families for being supportive and not freaking out too much. May I suggest less Andrew Zimmerman for next time? Special thanks to Mom and Dad for watching Pepper and my sister for watching - and not touching- the bank (just kidding, Ate!). Special thanks to Mum and Michael for the great shower, sleep, and steak and kidney pie (!) layover and Dad for bringing us back to Heathrow by dawn.

Final Thoughts on India

Ah, India! We knew going into the country that most people seem to love it or hate it. Despite having already been on the road for weeks by the time we arrived, Delhi was so frickin' hard. The way we remembered where our roach motel (with good reviews - thanks for nothing, tripadvisor) was located was because the alley always had a line of men waiting for the open urinal. Continuing around the Golden Triangle was not much better with the viciousness of touts and autorickshaw drivers. In all honesty, in that first week, we both separately considered getting a flight out to somewhere - anywhere else! - and just coming back to India in time to catch the one home. Grimly we stuck it out, and in our optimism, we could say it was, at least, always interesting. Things got better and better the further we got away from the tourist trail and the giant cities, and we really got to love our time in southern India. It was so redeeming that we half-started a list of places we would like to visit if we come back to India someday... even if we are washing our hands of Delhi, Agra, and Rajasthan (still, the Taj Mahal is worth visiting).

Below are some of other odds and ends on India.

The ubiquitous Indian head wobble is contagious. In practice, the gesture can range from slight to brain-shakingly vigorous, and its meaning seems to also vary from "yes," "no," "maybe," and "you must be crazy." Despite our diligent studying, we never managed to master the movement itself or, for that matter, the exact meaning in each situation.

Granite seems to be common in India. Slabs that your average homeowner would dream of putting in for kitchen counters casually rest in big piles by the side of the road in the Delhi construction. A greasy spoon restaurant in Munnar sported granite tables paired incongruously with their plastic chairs.

Moustaches are alive and celebrated in India! In Rajasthan in particular, we saw some magnificent specimens of the luxurious, bushy handlebar-style reddened by henna. We suspect it is an unwritten requirement for doormen of posh hotels.

India was the fattest country we have been to in this trip. Individuals with more to love were a frequent sight, probably in relation to their relative affluence [For instance, we saw no one in Vietnam with an extra ounce]. We also concluded that Muk is still skinny, even by Indian standards.

These were some of our favorite drinks in India:

- Masala chai (spiced tea with milk): Richard was frequently distracted by the cry of the chai-wallahs, "chai chai garam [hot] chai garam chai." Ten cents at the train station can buy you a tiny dixie cup.

- Lassi (yogurt drink) comes in sweet, salty, and fruit flavors. At times, it could be essential for calming the fire of chillies in your mouth.

- Smokey masala chas was prepared tableside at the Rajasthani thali place. A waiter dropped spices on a burning coal, covered it for a moment with a stainless steel cup, and finally poured a buttermilk concoction into the cup. The result was a sour drink with surprisingly intense smokey flavor.

- Limca soda is like Sprite but heavier on the lime and lighter on sugar. There is also a variation where it is prepared with fresh lime juice at streetside stalls.

-Pepsi gets an honorable mention just because India was the only country we visited where it made significant inroads into Coca-Cola's world dominance. Later I learned this was possibly due to some pro-Indian business policies 20 or so years ago, which weakened Coke's strangle hold in the region.

Agra and Fatephur Sikri (India)

Our usual commentator is currently out of commission with a cold (don't worry, Mom!) brought on by wildly fluctuating environmental temperatures and general exhaustion (according to our guidebook, this happens to 25% of visitors to India) so Richard is making a guest writing appearance for today. I apologize in advance for the obvious lack of quality.

Following our rude awakening in Delhi (I met someone today that was also shocked by how hard that city was), we were glad to finally catch the slow train to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Most tourists catch the early train that takes about an hour and a half to get there, but it was fully booked so we caught the evening train the night before and opted for an extra night in Agra. The train ended up arriving in Agra three hours late, which is pretty impressive given that it was scheduled to take only four. It seemed like the Delhi construction had followed us there because we were put up in a room that still smelled of paint on the first night. For the second night, we moved into an older room with "Indian air-conditioning" - a fan that blows air over trickling water - personally, I think I preferred having no AC at all. Power glitches (not uncommon in Asia, but a daily occurrence in India) through the night kept us awake with the fan fluctuating between jet engine speeds and nothing at all.

On our first day in Agra, we decided that we were too good for the Taj Mahal, and took some local transport out to Fatehpur Sikri, an ancient Mughal fortified city about 40 km outside Agra. It sounded interesting, but we weren't prepared for the incredible beauty of the huge red sandstone structures. I think I was expecting "a series of small walls" (as Eddie Izzard claims Time Team always composes), not full structures around well-manicured gardens. Most of what we saw was the palace buildings, including the homes of the dude's (Emperor Akbar) three favourite wives - Muslim, Hindu, and Christian. He was apparently very religiously tolerant. The fort was well-preserved and big enough that you could have some peace from the tour guide touts. The way back to Agra was a bit of an adventure. When the bus finally turned up, the driver got out and (I assume from the shouting and gestures) announced that he couldn't be bothered to drive back for the scheduled return! A pretty big shouting match erupted between him and the trailing Indian passengers, and we (the foreigners) were used as leverage to get him to run his assigned route. He got his revenge by beeping his horn for 80% of the hour-long journey, so trying to have a conversation sounded like a Quentin Tarantino script playing on daytime TV.

The second day in Agra was spent chilling out before our train. No, sillies, we got up at 5:30am to watch the sunrise at the Taj Mahal! Monsoon season is probably not the best time to see sunrises, and we were actually a little late, so we watched the early morning rain at the Taj Mahal instead. Most tourists don't show up until 9 am or so, so it was relatively quiet. Again, we managed to find a few quiet spots to sit and take in the Taj without being bugged by touts. It's funny that it actually looks fake from a distance. Part of that was probably the flat morning light, but one sees so many pictures of the "reflection pool" view that it's a little surreal to see it in person. Once you get up close though, no pictures can do it justice. You have to be there to appreciate its majesty (and consummate vees, for you Homestar Runner fans). The Taj Mahal, commissioned by Shah Jahan at the death of his beloved wife, is built out of semi-transparent white marble and is famous for changing colour with the lighting conditions. We were treated to a short example of this when the sun peaked out for a few seconds to light the building up beautifully. There is a lot of hype around the Taj Mahal, and it's worth every bit of it. I have a question, though: why is everyone obsessed with taking pictures of themselves jumping in front of it?

It looks like no blog post is complete without some mention of food, so here's my take. The food in Agra is god awful! We tried several Lonely Planet-recommended places and thought you could get better Indian food out of a jar. The place with a "great thali for 90 Rs" has the worst thali we've tried so far. Let this be a lesson to guide book readers: don't believe everything you read in that book! We mostly have been finding our own eateries by going to the crowded places. Maybe most travellers don't want Indian food? I have to admit that most people I've seen are eating omelettes and cheese sandwiches. To get around the poor tourist food, we finished off Agra by taking an auto-rickshaw out to one of the bazaars and getting food on the street. Julie got a fairly unimpressive mutton biryani (rice dish with a two pieces of actual lamb), and I had a delicious tandoori paratha (bread) with spicy kebabs and spicier minty dipping sauce. Surprisingly enough, eating meat off the street didn't appear to cause stomach problems... yet.

[Submitted with only minor editting and interjections by Julie. Thanks and good job, Richard!]