Taj-ma-freakin'-Hal

Just got some downtime and decent Internet, so check out the latest photos from this very morning! Taj-a-Ru!

Hard to encapsualte in a photo.

As always, crowds.

Indians know how to relax

The latticework was really impressive.

Smile

Drew hanging out with some cool guys, plus an ultra cool Sikh. Snazzy!

The big mother

I'm on the Night Train...

To Chennai - tonight we take long distance train No.2 for a 8-9ish hour ride across mountains and valleys, through the darkness of nighttime India to the Eastern Coastal city of Chennai. From there, we have precious few hours to kill overnight in the Chennai airport before a drastically early flight to Port Blair in the Andamans.

I (Eliot) really look forward to the methods of travel, sometimes more so than the destination. Riding on trains, planes, buses, trucks, rickshaws, bikes, cars, elephants, it's all just a way of getting from one place to another, but I often enjoy it more than staying in one destination for several days. Maybe it's the inherent multi-tasking involved (getting from A to B and seeing stuff along the way), or maybe it's just the romance of alighting from your home to some place new. I don't know, but it really tickles my travel glands. Wherever those are located.

More photos and stories to come - now, time for Rock n Roll choo-choo!

maharastra by bus

yesterday we awoke on the beach, packed up and made tracks to Srivrahndan.  after breakfast and water refill, we found out that we could on, in fact, take a ferry accross the creek to continue south but had to catch a mus to mahad and from there get a bus to Diapoli.

a quick note: the guide books don't mention Srivrahdan, but it is one of the cleanest, most organized and friendliest littles towns we're visited. eager help from the locals, great chai, cheap eats and a pristine hidden beach just 1 km from the roundabout at the big tree.  we got the impression that tourist very extremely rare.  we were treated with exceptional care, but the gem is the town itself: clean streest, wide ravines running infront of each well kept house.  idyllic.  if you happen to be in the area, check it out. the beach would be perfect for camping and i'm sure the locals would oblige.  highly recommended.

we bused to mahad and waited for two hours for the next bus which too us to Ratnigir in four hours.  we opted to use bus travel as both a day of rest from the four previous days of 6-9 hours biking, and a good way to cover difficult terrain quickly.  in all we made it 100km down the coast.

the nightbus was terrifying and exciting.  no lights, inside the bus or on the road it seemed. occasionally the headlights of an oncoming cargo truck, a snap swerve to avoid the collision, skirting a cliff gave and then back to total darkness. eliot and i opted to listen to music through earphones to keep ourselves distracted.

we got off the bus in Ratnigiri with no idea of where to stay or go.  in the dim mercury-lamp glow of the bus station parking lot we loaded up the bikes, stray dogs and znoozing beggars watching. we were hopeful - if our time here in india has taught us anything, it's that when you hit bottom, india will provide something for you.  you must have faith that thigns will be okay, and then they will be. so, with trepedation we put our feet to the pedals.  rats scattered. dogs and cows featsted together on waste and trash in the streets, as we headed into the Ratnigiri night.


... only to hear a familiar voice calling "Hello, my friends!" we looked over to find Daniel, our Alsacian friend from the previous morning standing before a hotel not 30 yards from the bus station, lazily pulling on a cigarette with two friends. he tells us that he's staying in the hotel there, very cheap and clean, convenient and safe.  we pull in, pay a scant 416Rs and head around the corner and up some stairs into a shady, blown out bar where we pick up a couple bottles of beer. back in Daniel's room, we sit on the balcony over looking the closed shops and the streets full of grabage and smelling of human and animal waste. we spend the rest of the evening there, talking politics, film and wine over kingfisher beer and beedies. the whole time we shake our heads and think "what are the odds?"

india is magic.

Panvil to Alibad

i'm lying in a bed with a warm breeze blowing through the windows. the above is me is wobbly but provides a nice breeze as well. incense is burning to keep away mosquitos. my belly is full of water and eggs - full in a word, maybe for the first time sense arriving here. my head is warm and soft from rum. my skin is clean from a hot shower, my memory overflowing from the day. thinking it over ...



we finally cleared the city today about 10am when a worker from the hotel last night guided us to the road to goa. he asked for a tip so eliot gave him rs20. we had gathered some fruit from the hotel in our bags so we stopped to eat not long after that. on the way we braved traffic and heat. the weather really took it's toll on eliot. personally, i felt great - the hot weather, the biking the fuit - it felt just like my childhood in san antonio. i was in high spirits but eliot was having rough go.



we made it to a fruit stand 15km from pen and 40km from alibad. eliot lay down by the side of the road and i visited some of the stalls. i bought a pineapple and ate the whole thing as my lunch. we biked to a nearby hotel. eliot had some soup and i drank water and read the paper. with eliot on the verge of heatstroke, we opted to take a bus from nearby pen to alibad.



we were told that for ten rupees we could store the bikes above the bus ... but that we had less than ten minutes to unpack and get them up there. this turned out to be more like 5 minutes. i hauled my bike up single-handedly with much screaming and grunting. eliot handed his up and i hauled it up and began strapping themdown. the locals started yelling "time to go" before i had the first bungy on. hastily wrapping them, i jumped down and ran into the bus, panting and bleeding. i cannot stress how hard it was to haul the bikes up in a rush nor how satisfying to be working so hard. the experience of having one thing to do that must be done right now is clarifying, simple and good. biking 45km in 95 degree heat qualifies too.



on the bus i napped with trepedation given the amount of jostling that occured. in alibad we saw townsfolk preparing for holi, the end of winter and festival of colors. because of the holiday there were no rooms in town. we asked around for a place to camp. at one stall there were a couple men a few women and a retarded girl. the puzzled over our hindi-english translation picture book then walked accorss the street into a darkened shop. an old woman came out of the shadows. she took a brief look at the book and, in perfectly clear english asked us if we wanted to camp, then kim beach up the road was the best place. we thanked her and she smiled waving us in the direction of the beach, then slid back into her shop. when she spoke all the men stopped and listened. she is perhaps the only person we've met who looked first and only at us and not our bikes. if there are goddesses, this is what they look like.



so there we are, on the road to some beach at sundown with the vague hope that we can camp somewhere ... maybe find a meal ... dead tired too. no food in me except some fruit, running low on water. starving, dehydrated, dirty and tired, we had no clue where we would sleep, what we could eat or where we were going.



and then we met Kunal ...

The Road to Hafeet

We're driving through the desert on our way to Al Ain. Allow me to emphasize "desert." This is not a hot dry place with scrub brush. This is orange dunes, camels and a searing sun that bleaches everything. Trees and even grass along the roadside is imported, cultivated,maintained. Only the hardiest of plants grows wild here.

We stop at a road stop. The men are dark, their eyes are blood shot, pupils mere pinpricks. The toilet is a hole in the ground, the tile is stained and flies are everywhere. It's cool in the restroom, but there is humidity and stench. The comfortable life of Dubai city seems further away than the actual distance, a mere 100km.

Large walled communities and summer homes greet us off the highway, with big palms and bright flowers everywhere. I wonder how much work and water goes into keeping petunias blooming in this heat.


There are mosques everywhere along the road and at each wide spot on the highway. Some are open rooms with scant more than four walls. Others boast tall minarets, elaborate molding and expensive construction materials. I've wondered how many Muslims really keep their vow to pray five times daily. I'm beginning to believe that it's far more than I imagined. Just because religion takes a back seat in my country doesn't mean that true here. More evidence: even in the desert heat, the women and men are covered up. A group of guys walks a roundabout near one of the walled comminitites - dress shirts buttoned up, leather shoes and jeans. (we later pass the mosque at Abu Dhabi at sundown. My crumby image is below - google it to be impressed)





A barb wire fence seperates us from Oman. I know that perhaps 70 miles to the south, the border with Saudi Arabia looms. A short jaunt accross the sea brings one to Iraq or Iran. Civilization, it seems, is a fancy word for "fences."



On top of hafeet mountain, the tallest peak in the emirates, the sun is pouring down white, blinding light. To the north, there's a palace or hotel or something up here but no ones home it seems. I wish I could say it's silent or austere or meditative up here, but it isn't. There's a market selling snacks And soda, the ground is littered with bottle caps and ketchup packets, and the sounds of construction and traffic come up from the sprawl below from the highway on the mountainside. A few flies alighting on my moustache and a pair of sand colored birds are the only indications of nature.


The wing blows a welcome breeze. The heat is oppressive. So much so that I stand in the shade of a lampost to write some notes. A few cars drive up. Everyone on the mountaintop is silent.



To the west, a welcome view: the desert. A few rocky outcroppings frame dunes and the ironically water-rippled sandscape. "Arakis" comes to mind. There is a steady breeze coming from this quarter, a clear view and a sense of wilderness. With the taxis and truckstop to the east behind me, I almost feel like I'm in nature. The expanse is so vast that it merges seemlessly with the sky. Earth and wind, sky and sun are all the same. Only water is missing. And how it's missing ... This is true heat, true dryness. Lips cracked, ears tingling warm, I walk back towards what appears to be a broken gate.


It's the path to the top, a trail of dirt and scree. I shed a layer, tie on the lucky red bandana and start climbing. With every turn in the trail, a new desert vista. Haze blankets the ground below, obscuring the houses and date farms below. The parkong lot shrinks away everytime i glance west over my shoulder. Images of deserts flash through my memory - that scene from Bogus Journey / Star Trek, the exodus of the Jews, the aforementioned Dune, Lawrence of Arabia. The discomfort, the scale and scope is not communicable.





I find Eliot already at the top. Eliot puts "higher love" on the iPod and we rock out. The top of the highest peak in the emirates is littered with quartzite, pourous stone and shells that look and feel like concrete. I collect a few and we begin to head back down, to the fenced in balcony, the car ... and civilization.

countdown : 6

another big day at ghost runners HQ - e-man was coming back up from pleasanton, tx so i once again had the house to myself. me and the cat spent the morning sleeping and packing.  while ricochet the cat lived up to species' particular brand of napping, i made buckwheat pancakes, boxed up some more of my life,  and headed over to the storage facility.

it's my life ... in a box

goodbye money - i never loved you anyway. ugh ... so much stress and joy in these final days, all piled on top of each other like some kind of anxious caprese. man, i'm hungry. regardless, storage facility is a go and, like the phone and (soon) my water and power bills everything is being auto-debited. you know, i may hate money, but paradoxically i wish i had more of it. then i could do this trip in truly, truly, truly outrageous style instead of poor-dumb-schloob-style. man, even my sentences make less sense these days. 

bought some bells and string to make a late-night bike thief deterrent / low-tech snake / tiger / bear repellent. the idea is to have a string of bells we put over or around the bikes at night so if someone tried to gank 'em, the bells would ring and the dude will be all "Oh No! Bells!" and jet. also tigers and snakes hate humans (i assume) and everything we stand for, especially joy, ergo christmas. hence, silver bells = evil animal repellent. to a grouch, christmas is a bummer.  LOGIC'D!

all in all, me and eliot have reach a high level of excitement. there is still some stress - a few little gaps in the plan that need filling in before we take off. and i'm going to miss the people here TONS. last night me and the gents went to the bar and had a jolly old time. if i die in india, it'll be okay. but i think i'd miss being able to hang out with those guys. unless after you die you get to go to some tavern-in-the-sky with a bunch of famous old dudes and kathy ireland from 1984. Hands off of the jukebox, Mark Twain -  Rythym is a Daaaaaancer! wooooOOOOOOOoooooo KEEP IT GOING, former president William Howard Taft! Man that 'stache can groove. 

Mini-Ride down Salado Creek, plus history lesson

Eliot here, reporting on a neato-bandito solo ride I did yesterday through San Antonio's beautiful Salado Creek. This section of East SAT features a creek walk that snakes along a nice part of the creek, which I'm sure would be mighty pretty in the summer. However, when I rolled through, It was like a tsunami had mashed it's way down the corridor, as trash in the trees and plowed up undergrowth led me to believe a gullywasher blew through here not too long ago.

No matter, the birds were chirping and everybody waved on the way by. I had to stop and pump some air into my tires, but nothing much else to report. San Antonio is a very "liveable" city, and I'm going to miss my time here for just such reasons as this.

On the way, I passed a tiny Texas point of Historic Interest monolith on the side of the road - The Battle of the Salado. A rather significant moment in Texan history, this is the spot where the Mexican army, on their way out but still occupying San Antonio, was knocked back by Col. Matthew Caldwell and Capt. John C. Hays, preventing them from taking Austin, the capital of the then Republic of Texas. And today, it is peaceful and quiet. Amazing. Long live Texas.

IT BEGAN IN INDIA_A_A_A_A_A_A_A

HUGE news today, kids! visas were approved by travisa outsourcing meaning we are all-lights green for entry into the glorious country of India! beautiful landscape, friendly people and world's most amazing culture, here we come!

RWWAAARRGHHH! 

in celebration i invite you to visit this little site i put together. mute the video on the right, please.