India Round-the-World/John 6 of 7
India Round-the-World, July 2 - November 8, 1971
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. [6:30PM 9/30] For my latest miracle I woke up the FIRST time during the night at 5:15, with a rousing hard-on after a vaguely-remembered dream of John using his hand on same. Hope John will wake up before 6, but he doesn't and I get up at 6:10 and shave with the VERY dull blade, and we're in to breakfast at 6:45, to the awful news that we'll both get only boiled eggs and potatoes and bread for lunch because they had no chicken at the market. John says then he'll have no lunch. Out at 7:15 and across for a taxi to Shalimar after Gulam runs about a kilometer to get one and we're to Shalimar at 8. It has two well-constructed pavilions in the midst of the fountains and loads of lavish flowers, but it seemed the step-design of Nishat was more successful. And I get absolutely hung up on the beautiful flower colors in the morning sunlight. The essence of Love seems to me to be the essence of GIVING, and I see flowers, suddenly, as GIVING their perfume and colors and shapes PROFLIGATELY to the air, just FLINGING out their gifts to the world at large, freely and fully, and it seems that FLOWERS are the essence (perfume) of love; complete giving. But then I draw myself back and see them TAKING: sunlight from the air, moisture from the sky, minerals and nutrients from the ground, and I figure if there's nothing RECEIVED, there can be nothing to GIVE in turn. But I think of the sun: it RECEIVES nothing from the planets (but of course it RECEIVED its mass, which it converts to ENERGY and gives), but it furnishes them with well-nigh LIMITLESS energy. I think of myself as an absorber again, sucking in sights and sounds and smells and tastes and experiences, and giving out nothing but WORDS from one end and SHIT from the other, never MIND any possible equivalences. But who knows, I may GIVE to the plants my appreciation (as the planters and gardeners gave THEIR efforts to putting the plants where they are), and THAT may be even MORE, since I can measure neither, than I GET from them. But this leads into duality again, and I'm looking forward to starting the Watts book. Out at 9 to Chushi Mant, or something, and it's on a high slope with a great view, but the plants are nothing much. It's now 10:20, I guy a Kashmir book, and we go to the tourist office to make sure we get back the 90-60=30 rupees difference between single and double occupancy of Buckingham Palace. I check bus station, no one there, then inquire and find bus DOESN'T go to Pathankot in one day, only to JAMMU, then onward the NEXT AM. Oh? Seems to be TRUE. JOHN, on his end, finds that there IS room on the plane for Chandigahr tomorrow, and I check to find there IS public transport to Gulmarg and we get back to the boat and John's lying on his bed wiping his eyes. I cuddle him and ask what's wrong and he's disappointed with himself for shouting at the airlines agent who in fact was trying to help him. He says he's very tired and KNOWS that the untrustworthiness of the Moslems in GENERAL sets him off, but he still sobs and feels awful. "Shall I leave you alone?" "No," he says with a choked voice, so I lie beside him and try to comfort him. Up to the roof then to the hot sun for two hours until noon, and I finally finish "Kadeth" after 11 days, another new record and immediately start on the Watts book. Then lunch is served upstairs and it's FOUR mutton chops and salty overdone cauliflower and potatoes, so it's a success. [7:25AM, 10/1] Then he says "Sure, he can get a shikara for seven bridges, for 20 rupees! I say 14, he says "I'm not interested, you can contract yourself." So we go and get one for 13, going through Dalgate, watching springtails flip themselves into the water, and pass people, bathers, stripped, chamber pot rinsing, dead sheep and birds, fishermen and drinkers, seven bridges, temples, rugs being washed, bolts of cloth, back at 4:30 (I forgot to mention the marriage launch, pointed out by people clustered on some of the bridges as the boat passed under, with instrumentalists playing for the dancing of a skirt-clad man with bright eyes who enjoyed our watching him so much that he came over to us, dancing and shaking his chest in my face, as he demanded money, which I first offered to him to be spurned, and then offered again to be taken, and the bright eyes followed us down the stream, in sharp contrast to the dull unsmiling face of the groom, going to meet his wife), starved, buy fudge and cookies and beer, back to Palace for ANOTHER hassle with shower, first doesn't run, second finally runs hot from COLD faucet, we have dinner of good but bony fish and get to bed at 9:15. (Also forgot to write about the passing of military convoys through the night, streaming north by the dozens, though no one seemed free to talk about them in any detail when we inquired about WHY and WHERE they were going.)
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1. Back to old habits, wake at 2, again at 4, and up finally to piss at 5, AGAIN very horny and determine to DO something about it. Move in next to John and cuddle five minutes warming us up, then reach down and he's hard. He moves my hand away three times but I insist and finally he comes fairly nicely, then turns over again. I play with myself behind him, still determined, and finally work myself up, saving "John, take it?" and he goes down to stroke lightly and it seems I come and come in an almost spasmless stream, very draining and satisfying. Then it's 5:50 and I'm up to brush teeth with my OWN toothbrush and packs things away and put out cookies, book and pad and pen, binoculars, sunglasses, wallet and ticket, toilet paper, aspirin and lip salve, each in a separate pocket, hoping I have everything. Breakfast is late, of course, at 6:15 and I grab toasts as they come off the fire and finish by 6:25. Kiss John goodbye and get out to their boat, and he shouts out "Have a nice day at the office," and I'm off. Manager gives one last word to give his boat's name to friends, and we wave goodbye without eyes meeting. Cab is 1.10 and driver "has no change," in furious anger DOES offer me one back, but I give two. The scene in the courtyard is a grand hassle at 6:35, and I debate pushing in front but get back in long line. For the next hour I have AMPLE opportunity to make the resolve NEVER to go to a Moslem country AGAIN. As the sun struggles to come up into rosy clouds behind the high Sankaracharya hill, and the slopes are tranquil in the early morning hazes, the tiny square echoes with shouts and curses from petty men, each thinking that HE should be first, deserves special attention, must be heard NOW. There are stacks of people standing on ledges and scales around the window, and every so often the SINGLE agent assigning seats clambers out and tries physically and logically to get the people into line. They don't go, but argue, plead, explain, smile, thrust tickets into his face, and want his undivided attention. I stand and watch in dazed amazement. Finally he calls two Tourist Police (nice name) shivering and snuffling in their khaki uniforms with short sleeves, and THEY begin ordering people off---except for the girl from the left side, except for the old woman who clasps her hands in supplication, gets the assignment, then jumps off the ledge and hands the ticket to her strapping son, except for the "friend" that he waves on. Then there are MORE pushing in, and I get angry with a fierce-eyed fellow who seems to have the agent's ear for random tickets until I find he's in charge of excess baggage and must JUDGE extra charges for overages because the crowd's press prevents use of the scale. WHY isn't the building open at ALL? Its wondrous desks and halls and offices unused? WHY does the fellow rap, pound, tap, thump, click, beat on a further door for over half an hour with no response? I shout at fellow who seems to be pushing in ahead, and he explains he's only taking his friend's place. Others try to push in in front and get shouted at. People with duplicate seat numbers have their time. There's a poor balding blond who comes up and says he MUST get to Pathankot, can I take his ticket? I say no, later explain and he DOES get on and says he understands. People trying to get extra seats crowd around much as we did for Yusmarg. Two (one tall, young and appealing, other short, fat and awful) try to plow ahead and we push them back, but they keep trying and will probably succeed. Then, at last, at 7:35, just ONE hour afterwards, I get to window, say "Front, if possible, please," and get, MARVELS, seat 2, on bus 495. Look at the 10 busses sitting and there IS no 495. Oh, well, at least I have a FRONT seat. Sit down and begin to write as busses begin loading luggage on the top and blowing horns to get everyone aboard. Then I look again and THERE'S 495, and I get on, giving a ridiculous rupee to the porter who lugged my bag to the top, and sit next to a little girl. Guy I'd gotten angry with before comes on and I apologize and he says he understands, and then he sits down NEXT to me. Glad we're now amicable. Others load and there's another case of duplicate seats, caused from one of the FIRST adjustments, and it's relatively quiet except for horns, kids chattering and smacking their lips, crows, and the thumps and jostles for the luggage-loaders overhead. I take the extra time to write THIS, and the bus is STILL waiting, waiting to go out, at 8:10, along with two OTHER busses. For the two tour busses to Yusmarg and Pahalgam we were on the LAST bus to leave the tourist center. Tour busses will leave later, of course, but I'm now on one of the THREE busses that will be the last to leave for JAMMU today. Stop in Qazigung 10:15-10:30 for tea and I look at apple stalls and other tiny shops along the only street. Then to Varinag at 11 for some sort of security stop, and at 11:15 stop outside the tunnel, and the kids talk louder and a radio comes on. The fellow sitting next to me says there's a two-year drought that's caused the dust and lack of greenery. There's one rice crop from March to September, generally snow falls in the hills by now (but not this year, yet), and by November the plains will be covered with snow until March. The BEST time to visit, he said, would be to come on April 1. As we go southward, the hills get greener, and then toward the tunnel there are bright masses of green, yellow-green, bright green, red and gray hazes where some of the trees are nude of leaves already. He speaks Kashmiri, the language of the state; Hindi, the language of the country; and Urdu, which was a regional language in Jammu and Kashmir and in Uttar Pradesh around Lucknow until the Moslems came 300 years ago and tried to wipe it out, but now it's coming back slightly. The language in the Haryana University that his son's beginning his first year in electronics is still English, but they WANT it to be Hindi as soon as possible. 10:25 into the tunnel. The road down is excellent, and the whole next valley is quite a bit clearer, less dusty, even less cloudy than Srinigar. Then we begin running into herds of combined sheep and goats, sometimes having to stop for two or three minutes for a herd of hundreds to cross a bridge or get through a narrow spot in the road. Stop in Banihal at noon for toll tax on the road, then stop behind what looks like every single bus to Pathankot (which we now seem to be going TO in order to permit many to catch the 11:30PM train to Delhi) at 12:15 for a "Diversion Ahead." As with the long wait to GO, I take out Watts to help pass the time. Go quickly and stop AGAIN just past Ramsu at 12:43, and this promises to be somewhat longer (and I'm getting hungry). Move again at 1:15, and we proceed down a series of cliffs and gorges, with associated forests and waterfalls and landslides and memorials to people killed building the road, and start and stop and pass people at the CRAZIEST places, and careen around corners and get into Rambam at 2, given 1/2 hour for lunch and the horn starts tooting now at 2:25. Possibly the WORST (bony, gristly) mutton curry (and hot to boot) over rice and two chapattis and tea (with MILK) for 3.20, and he only give me 1.50 change for 5. Then a tepid Coke for a rupee and back to the bus, sweating in my undershirt and boots (and pants) and write this before we jounce off at 2:30, lips only somewhat soothed by the application of an EXTREMELY slick-from-the-heat Ski and Sea (or VV) [vice versa, not Village Voice]. 5:30, and the ride goes on and on. Forgot about the Sikh taking off his turban, combing his hair, making a knot on top, twisting the rest into a coil which he wrapped around the knot and pinned into place. We reach a maximum height of 2030 meters, about 6100 feet, and the valley is at its best: each hairpin turn taking in a widescreen panorama of the whole scene: but there's only one or two snow- peaks in the far distance. Then we cross over into a smokier valley quite like Srinagar, loop down a whole hillside, and it begins to look like we WON'T be getting the train people to Pathankot in time. He stops to check on a car broken down, stops to pick up various papers, and now at 5:35 we're 65 km from Jammu, so that's 8PM into Jammu at the very best, and with the 3 1/2 hour Jammu-Pathankot we could JUST make it if we never stopped, but with everyone being sick (one sad family has the babe-in-arms upchuck, then the silent four-year-old wipes vomit from her face, then the mother resignedly spits into her silver cup. The sun's gone behind the hills many times, but now we seem to be coming down to the plain that Pathankot's on, so I'll probably see sunset "on the level." We're now at 2100 feet and still going down. Soon the river-source plain appears. [10:15AM, 10/2] darker and darker, and at 40 km to go it's 7:30, so I figure if he gets into Jammu at 8:30, he has a chance of making it. But then he miraculously speeds up, on a good stretch of trafficless straight road, and even though there are border checks going from Kashmir to Jammu, we pull up in front of the theater at 8! They begin taking down the luggage for Jammu and I go across to the Premier Hotel to order 1/2 roast chicken, frown at 16 rupees, and get out to the bus at 8:20 to find a WHOLE chicken, lots of peas and 4-5 potatoes. Eat a breast and peas and spuds while waiting for two last passengers to re-embark, and we're off at 8:30 for a REAL mad dash through the level darkness under the moon. See a car that plowed into a jeep, but still the driver tears on, making the 3 1/2 hour drive in 2 1/2 hours! I'm off and over to the tourist office and am also pestered by boys with cards for hotels. See that there's a tourist bungalow and the "officer" in the "office" says OK, and I fuss but figure I have to agree to the four rupees for the 2 km uphill ride to the lodge. But it's about 1/2 km uphill only a bit, and they have NO rooms left. I stand appalled and say they should have told the office and that they should have SOMETHING. He says I can only have a space on the floor, and a tranquil blond says, "Man, you can crash on the floor," but I insist I can't sleep with the lights on (and the help playing cards). Out to find the rest of my chicken "fallen" (?) off the seat and onto the ground and on the step, so very fastidiously clear off the step, and all that lovely chicken lies on the ground, while the boy sort of looks at it. I stand and wait for THEM to decide what I should do, after they ask ME what I'm to do next and I say I simply don't KNOW. They suggest the Airlines Hotel, so we're down there and an oily fellow sneers and says they have ONLY a room with three beds, but if I can afford it---. I can NOT. AGAIN stand and they talk and I let them call the deal, and it's to the EMBASSY Hotel. Room on GROUND floor is utter squalor, next to noisy motors, second floor is almost as bad, but at least ONE rope pallet has SOME sort of sheeting, and he's about to show me THIRD floor when I leave and demand "the station." Past the Tourist Hotel but it's full, too. Slam down four rupees and sit in a funk in the station. Decide to sleep in the office but the BOY is sleeping there. To the bus stand and one resourceful guy decides I can have the Railway Retiring Room, or at least the lounge. OK. Over and they say I must buy CHEAPEST first-class ticket (not returnable, they add), and we're ABOUT to do that and guy says, "Wanna sleep ina BUS?" SURE. Over and he swipes at back seat with hand, shows me how I light and lock it, and I shuck shoes, put wallet under jacket, and stretch out at EXACTLY midnight.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2. But don't sleep. Lay and listen to loudspeaker music and arguing voices, screams of babies, coughs and sneezes and snores and wheezes, and finally the high whine of mosquito-bite machines. Toss and toss to 12:30, 12:45, 1, 1:15, and doze off somewhat until 3. Absolutely horridly miserable, up till 4, and doze till 4:45. Up and boots on in time to be told ticket office is open, and I buy 18.10 ticket to Manali, being told it gets in at 9PM. Ohmigod. Cart suitcase to top MYSELF and stow it, then inside and find MY seat is empty next to a sikh. Then out for two Cold Spots for 1.10, and wait for the john in which I have a small but satisfying shit, happy for my pocketed toilet paper, and then dump two rupees tip on the protesting body of the guy who was the ONLY one to help me. Back on the bus watching the incense burn, rubbing my sore eyes, and at 5:45 we finally take off, stopping three times IN town picking up more people. Then out and the sun already turns the sky gray and blue and gold. Soon all the right seats are three deep, all the left 2, there are three sitting on the box at my left, and three or four standing in the aisles. Get into the hills as the sun comes up and it looks as if there's a small dusting of snow on the slopes. Stop in very small spots and in Bokynath and Jogennagen, and finally in Mandi to change people around, but I hold fast to my place. It feels so ABSOLUTELY silly sitting here writing with flies buzzing around my black-lined fingernails, women in itchy saris with kids taking over the box and leaning warm and very heavily against me, and all the people twisting around in their seats, jostling my arm, talking to the people sitting behind them. Had two Fantas to break the thirst at 5:15, then a few cookies when it looked as if we'd NEVER stop for more than two minutes. Then buy three good sweet bananas and feel better, then buy a Fanta and then two hard-boiled eggs before I try telephoning Manali for reservations, then three more bananas in Mandi, after getting gently nudged by a bus, having the same cow chew up my three banana peels, have the salesman demand ANOTHER "INDIA" half-rupee BUT the one with King George on it, and I throw it back at him. Get begged and begged at by an arm-plucking woman for a donation for her "altar," and finally threatening to put my banana peel on it sent her grumbling away. Up and down the street and not a SIGN of a cold soda, and the Cold Beer place so appealing from a distance turns out closed, as is the Tourist Office, and the bus area seems carefully VERY far from it. Into Mandi over a very narrow suspension bridge and look at many of the "temples" in the town, most of which are just the VERY plain peaks. Pleasure to be past Punjab with its totally swathed Sikhs, and into Himachel where the men again wear short shorts under "nude-look" shirts, and women again have saris rather than those shapeless Kashmiri overblouses. Now 2:35 and we haven't move YET, but all people are on bus but driver, who did NOT say how long we'd be staying here, DAMN. It STARTED with 100 km in two hours, making the whole trip seem like six hours. But then the stops, delays, slow roads came and the SECOND 100 km took 7 hours, so if the THIRD hundred takes 7 hours, we'll get into Manali at 9:45! [9:15AM, 1/6] On and on, the scenery is really fantastic, sighting the snow- peaks beyond a narrow corridor as we enter Kulu Valley, and then turn to left and whole valley floor opens out in fabulous 3-D. Debate and debate whether to stay in Kulo or go on to Manali, wondering how long it will take John to catch up with me, and into Kulu at 6PM just as it's getting dark, both sides of the road lined with the tents and washing and cattle of dozens of families who have come to Kulu for Dusshera, and the Sikh sitting next to me says we have twenty minutes. We passed the Tourist Bungalow way far back, so I settle for the Tourist Information Office, who says the State Guest House is fully booked to the 18th, and he calls Bungalow and the only thing THEY have is one day's space on the 4th. Reserve it and leave a note for John that I'm going to Manali and get back to find Sikh on a DIFFERENT bus, and I have to pay porter to transfer my bag across, and some fat slobby family has gotten all the good front seats and I have to sit on a box on the aisle. Fuss with fat father getting in and loud son wanting to rest against me, and it fills up incredibly at 7 as we go up dark roads with tooth-like white stanchions on either side, and a fabulous silk-throw river spread rippling under the moonlight. Terribly crowded to start, knees squeezed and people hanging over my head, but it clears out and I sit in a seat and we're into Manali at 8, again in a flurry of people and horns, though this place is smaller. See sign for tourist bungalow, office is closed, and I spot four Europeans eating off the back of a truck at the PWD Rest House and ask if there's room there. No, but they're staying with two Americans at the Youth Hostel across the bridge to the left. Walk across with heavy suitcase, panting and sweating, and see fabulous range of dream-peaks at end of a valley in moonlight, and fall in love with Manali. Talk to Gretchen and Jerry about beauty of people and valley, and back out for dinner, meeting Roz and Ann and inviting them to talk and coffee, and I have an omelet and two lovely beers to quench my thirst and they tell about 2 1/2 years of travel and work, India and propositions in Srinigar, Ceylon and trouble with Moslems, and they hear about our trip and we're back at Hostel at 10, where I fall onto the hard wooden bed, only taking shoes off, putting only an undershirt for pillow, having only washed my face and brushed my teeth in the cold shower beforehand, luckily drunk.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3. Wake at 2, freezing, and put on long underwear and debate putting on a THIRD pair of socks, and wear gloves and scarf and coat and get back to bed. Wake again at 5:30 and creep out with binoculars to watch beautiful peaks come into the sun at dawn, in to lend socks to Ann whose feet are frozen, and wander into town. Into Tibet restaurant and avoid two staring Europeans to sit down, watchful and strangely tranquil: whatever would happen would be OK. Finally order some poori and the associated sheeting of chokra beans, and three Tibet-dressed Parisians join me, earrings and shirts and all. They smile enigmatically and tell me all about legendary red honey from ganja flowers they stole from Dusshera display in Kulu, and we talk just a bit and it's 9, so I go to tourist office and see five Calcutta University students who are renting a jeep to Rohtang Pass. Fine! Jeep comes and I can't find a soda, so we're on, me in choice corner in front, and we wind through the lovely valley, passing the fascinatingly Tibet-featured people and gasping as each new summit swings into view. Up and up and the road is pretty bad, and we swing close to edges with the cliffs falling away to nothing. Woodsmen carry their loads; cattle are driven to and fro. Stop at a couple of waterfalls and grand vistas of wooded cliffs, hanging valleys, and glaciers groaning off the peaks. Higher and higher and pass the tree line at about 12,000 feet, and across the level roads past the almost volcanically-barren land, see the concrete memorial to the start of the River Beas, and stop at some low tents for tea. Beautiful Tibetan-Indians serve marvelous salted apples and crusty dough and more and more tea. Then up to the sign at the pass and the view is spectacular: at least a dozen series of magnificent peaks, all with snow billowing over their tops, crevassed down to glaciers that flow and merge and come out in valleys even BELOW us. They go higher and higher to hit snow, and I lose breath and sit looking at view, then climb to a local snowpile to eat clean pellety snow and make a miniature glacier and pick up white marble and steely granite and flowers, then after two hours back to the car for more tea and eggs. Lurch down for two hours and I'm feeling quite dizzy and weak after a long talk session about hippies, sex, conventionality, the war in Vietnam and Pakistan, money and working and living in the US vs. India, places to visit, and I sit quietly while they look at the hot springs for about 45 minutes, feeling COMPLETELY drained of energy. They're back and we get down to town and fellow says that John appeared about 1:30, insisted on the 70-rupees place, and I can take a jeep for 7 rupees to get there. Get an address from one of students (picked up suitcase, after SIGNING for it and paying 1.25 fee for the room last night) and said goodbye and talked to other tourists and go off for the Lodge, which is FAR down to the right, and John gets up from a wide cosmo-flowered lawn from white lawn chair dressed ALL in white, and I get a dazzling view of his foreignness here, his handsomeness, his cleanness and restedness in comparison to my dirt and fatigue. Into room and get rid of junk, then out to the lawn to enjoy tea and sunset and told each other what happened---John AGAIN feeling lonely and sorry for himself and jealous at all the things he supposed I was doing better than he. Laugh and talk and then he puts me in hot tub and washes my hair and my whole body while I FEEL EXTREMELY luxurious and pampered in contrast with the fatigues of the last two days. Rest and talk and shave to get out to dinner, hot soup and rice with onions and dal and a small amount of mutton curry and good saffron vegetables (oh, we had SHOOTING sex after my bath, John MOANING about DECADENCE of our actions), and then out on the lawn and see fabulous moonlight on peaks, and I very gratefully get to bed under BLANKET at 10PM, GREAT.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4. [10:15AM, 10/6. As I could have GUARANTEED, those four awful Indians AGAIN tried to say they were first getting tickets for the bus to Rohtang, but I simply said "You were NOT first, WE were first," and they said "OK" in an attempt to show how "generous" they were. HA!] Wake at 5:30 and have quite a lot of sex again, and watch the sun creep down the walls of the western hills, then breakfast and get our packed lunch. Walk into town to check for the bus to Naggar, and it leaves from the square at 7AM from some company OTHER than the Mandi-Kulu Road Transport Co., who has the booking office, and we force the guy to put our names down for the NEXT day's bus to Rohtang Pass, though he's not "allowed" to take reservations before 10AM of the previous day. Then buy a canvas knapsack to hold the lunch in a splitting bag (to replace the knapsack that John, as near as possible, thinks was taken from the room in the Hotel Ranjit in Delhi) and the two bottles of beer, and we walk up the road to the apple stand where we have lovely glasses of just-squeezed apple juice from the whiny Molinex blender for a rupee for two glasses. It's just noon. Up the road past all the flowers and trees and past the guest house and up the slopes, following whatever path looked like the most trodden, and very quickly find the old-looking pagoda-temple in the pine and deodar woods. Look at the red-smeared black Vishnu inside, and sit on the porch for about an hour in blissful happiness, looking at the sun filtering through the pines, seeing and hearing the steady rain of pine needles and catkins from the branches, enchanted by the sense of RIGHTNESS [7:45AM, 10/6] in the close-cropped grass, the scattered low bushes, the huge moss-covered rocks, the enormous trees with their pattern of light and shade (like sitting in an ENORMOUS well-planned terrarium). Then decide to move on up the hill, climbing into a deep valley toward snow peaks at the far end, and at 2 we stop under a tree and have our lunch of egg and tomato sandwiches, apples we can't eat because we can't peel them (though the peels go INTO the blended stuff we drink, but I think of that only as I type now), hard-boiled eggs, one of which eludes me by rolling down into a creviced hole in the rock at the side of the path (and I wonder who finally ate it?) and we have the first of our beers, throwing the bottle far down the slope, toward the sounding river below. Continue up and up, getting warm in the sun and cool in the shade, and decide we really won't get ANYWHERE, so we stop and look at the hanging meadows on the hills across the way, listen to the crows and the sounds of the melodious bells on the mules that have come up again for another load of wood, and look at the clouds coming over the hills. On the way down get stung by a plant while trying to investigate a smoldering stump, see lizards and butterflies and snakes, and look at the bathing vats in the place John took his bath before, and marvel at all the falls on the opposite wall. Down to try to find the pine forest again, but wander on and off path to get to the road down just as the clouds gather for a rattling of rain, and put raincoats on and get down for another pair of glasses of apple juice and down for two MORE beers for dinner and cookies for tea, and back to hotel to find it raining quite hard JUST as we get in, so coffee is brought to our room and I sit on the window ledge and look out at the variable clouds and sun on the snow peaks through the rain (and the screams of the damned kids next door), and drink cup after cup of tea, feeling quite nice. John's in for his bath and then I'm in for mine, and the lights go on and off two or three times. Take a little nap and then get ready for dinner and have the same sad mutton curry. This time even a little bit LESS of it. After dinner the rain's stopped so we have coffee out on the lawn, watching the perfectly full moon slowly rise from the hills, and the clouds clear enough away so the moonlight lights the valley and we sit and talk quietly about how very ideal the place is, despite the fact that the bungalow is one of the stingiest we've been in, and that it's a bit of a pain making the arrangements for tours just the way we want them. But we feel relaxed and pleased from the beer, and when it gets cold we're inside and between the coves for another early night at 9:30PM!
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5. We'd decided to wake at 5:45, but I come awake with a jolt just two minutes before 6. We wash and dress quickly and get out to breakfast at 6:30, and they barely finish serving the cereal and omelets by 6:30, and we grab the packed lunches in a plastic refrigerator box this time, and get off walking into town for the theoretical 7AM bus. Everyone's leaving for Kulu on busses and we ask and ask but there's nothing for Naggar. A bunch of kids from Delhi who trekked from Simla in three days chats with us and takes down our address for some stamps, and their bus comes at 7:30 just as OUR bus does, and there's hardly anyone on it when we start at 7:40, but we pick up group after group, person after person, until all the seats are filled, the aisle and doorways are jammed, and we pass about twenty men and there's the thumping above to tell us they're getting on the roof. The road is awful and we go very slowly, picking up still MORE people, and the STYLE of the women with laugh-wrinkled faces, kohl-darkened eyes wide with curiosity, excitement and vitality, ears rimmed with rings, dressed in their sheerest nets, costliest silks, minutest embroidery, intricate hand-loomed woolen scarves and dresses, bangles and nose- ornaments and headbands and gold and silver fringes and tassels on their vibrant clothing, they chatter and look about and talk and wave and laugh with an elan and LIFE that's hard to encompass. Then there's a tap outside our window: "Naggar." Out through the crush onto the dusty road and bus goes off and we decide to follow the path up along the stream, and find that the town is to the right and up. Continue, marveling at where we're going, watching lizards and cows and the stream and see an old carved temple with a pink clothed black plaque inside, then up the hill to the PWD Rest House, which was Naggar Castle, and inside for tea and meet the Pandes, who serve us coffee and chat about Kijras, the "castrated" males who entice to shows), ganja and pot, Bangladesh, touring, IBM vs ICL computers, and we TALK VERY nicely until 11, when we all decide to go up the hill. [7:30AM 10/7: waiting for bus to leave for Rohtang Pass] to the Roerich Museum. Chat and look at the lovely view, then a charming smiling-faced woman unlocks the gallery for us and I'm sad to see they only have about a dozen or so 10x12 watercolors on the walls of the dimly-lit rooms, and the rest of the hours, as originally furnished that we can glimpse through windows, is closed to us. The son lives in Bangalore and stays here in April-June, the house was built by a Maharaja 100 years ago and sold to Roerich in the 30s, and he died there in 1947 and was cremated nearby. Look at roses and yellow gourd flowers and deodar trees and the picture window view, and they take three photos of us and we exchange addresses (Later they say the photos didn't turn out well, sadly.). Leave at 1, take a disastrous shortcut that takes us across fringes of rice paddies, regain road and go along old road to river, passing fields and fields of marijuana! Guy trekking up told us NOT to follow the new road, since it was four miles long, and the other much shorter and "more interesting." ALL over the place, even cut and drying on the rock walls! We sit and have lunch at 3, and I eat about ten handfuls of green stuff, strong and minty tasting, after tweaking off a few wormy looking brown leaves, but there's not any effect. Down to river and look at swirling waters and feel quite shitty mud, and across bridge and rush to catch a bus leaving for Manali. Drive up in an hour, get to hotel and John showers as I smoke a whole pipe of dry stuff and get out to the lawn to watch the hills (reminded myself of the VERY phallic FEELING of snake's muscles tensing in its somewhat loose skin at Benares) (and think of a gay movie of Christ, saying "Take---my---body" as he comes over faces of EACH of the gathered apostles, and scratch himself with masochistic glee for "Take my blood.") and have fantasies about pretty girl across way, and tea comes and rains come and we go inside to have sex AGAIN in the afternoon and nap an hour before the SAME dinner, this time with three AWFUL voiced teachers who talk boring shop very loudly. Outside again to cloudy moonlit night, then cold and inside for a last toothbrushing and get to bed about 10, aching to sleep.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6. [7:50AM, 10/7: STILL waiting for FULL bus to leave for Rohtang AFTER the second bus has LEFT already]. Wake casually at 7:30, greatly refreshed except I have a sore neck from the swaybacked "bandage-strip" bed, and we cuddle together but don't have sex, up for breakfast with everyone else, then down at 9 to wait on line for the Rohtang Pass tickets, getting there JUST before a group of four. Sit and write [take off in bus at 7:55, and get to LOWER tea stall at 11,050 feet at 9:45, taking tea and staying until 10:10, then get to top at 11, go off to ridge and see snow MUCH lower than before, eat lunch, come back down around to Beas Kund, with "all religions lead to one" and cross for Christians, star and crescent moon for Moslems, a sword and moon inside a circle for Sikhs, and a swastika for MAYBE Hindus, and another sign for MAYBE Hindus in the Himachel lettering. TOLD to be back at 12:30, but we don't leave till 1:30, waiting for two STUPID long walkers] p. 338-342 from 9 to 10, when I INSIST that we were first. Then inquire for the bus to Kulu and there's one leaving at 10:20, and we get hung up in traffic and have to pull back to allow about six busses to pass, and get in about noon, after passing through the Akhora Bazaar on the lower street and getting to the tent area for the bus stop. Wander up and down some of the stalls, but they seem mostly for factory-made goods and used clothing. Around to a circus that lasts for 2-4 for only 2 1/2 rupees, but audience NEVER applauds and performers looked disgusted and dead. Paid 25 pice to see a chopped-up boy, alive on a plate, a floating boy on a stick, and a girl-headed snake done with good mirrors. Then to shawl alley where John buys one for 270 rupees! Then hear drums and go back to amphitheater where the trophy-holding dance group goes into their routine, in pairs and a circle, moving slowly, waving arms and hands and handkerchiefs, slapping and stepping to the steady neat drumbeat and the occasional wail of the six-foot horns. It goes on and on in the hot sun, circle of observers forming and in the distance another group of orange-garbed sword dancers flash their weapons in the sun. Feel totally in an exotically foreign country with lavishly jeweled and garbed women, and silver masks of gods on velvet and silver palanquins being moved back and forth. Sit for two bottles of apple juice and it's almost 4 and we decide we've had it. Try to get on a few busses, but all to Manali are crushed to overflowing. John goes to Tourist Office and hears of a car that MAY have room. I demur, he goes alone, I follow, buying the souvenir program for a rupee and passing up the set of two awful and a good Manali card for 1 1/2 rupees. At 4:30 we hear there's only one seat, and we're back to the busses to pass a hawker for a Manali bus that's surprisingly not jammed yet, so I sit next to a mental case who chews and smokes beedies and fusty lawyer who reads a big brief on police raids on illegal rice merchants. And there were gunshots that half the people ran away from and half ran toward to see what was happening, and later we heard that someone was killed in the blast, but no one knew what had happened. We fill up almost completely and get down into the lower town to pass a continuous stream of colorfully dressed humanity, and the driver is particularly exasperating because the driver uses the horn to ridiculous excess, there's a damn kid with a whistle who echoes every horn-blow, and innumerable delays as we have the MOUSIEST driver in the world who yields to EVERYONE. The clouds turn a brilliant orange and red at sunset, and we continue the tortuous ride in the darkening day until 6:45, when the road is almost too dark to follow, and we get to the hotel to take long hot showers from the terribly dusty day. John reads and I write a bit, and then we're in to dinner at 8, to the same old meal, but this time John asks for more mutton and GETS it. Good fried apple rings for dessert, we order breakfast, and are sad that clouds completely cover the sky. Smoke our old stuff to get high, put my mattress on the floor, and go right to sleep at 9:30.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7. Wake at 5:30 and be VERY much aware that there are 32 days to go, only 1/4 of our trip left, and that one month from today we'll be seeing lovely exciting New York City again. Shit and crawl in with John, and his Everready cock is ready, so I go down on him very gently and he comes nicely and we're up at 6:15 and in to breakfast at 6:30, which isn't served until 6:45, to our anger with this shoddy lodge. Leave at 7 with our lunch and warm clothes for the trip, and bus isn't there even at 7:30, but only at 7:55. [Stop at 2:30 at the same stupid tea place, so I get this out AGAIN.] Even turns out there are two busses. There was not one single cloud in the sky when we woke up, and the snowpeaks in the first sunlight were almost unbelievable. But as we got into town there were a few tiny clouds, and the day is clearer than before, and there's more snow, and I see lots of things that I MISSED the first time: the signs for the Sherpa Training School and the Avalanche Study Center, I AGAIN remind myself of Bang, the town here, and the Sukmawati in Thailand for Marty's Rukmini's birthplace, and the Sukabag we hit between Mandi and Manali, and I notice far more the LAST part of the trip, which I must have been chattering during my first time, since there are kilometer stones for every one up to 48, and it probably even stretches to 50. We're both again fascinated by the peaks, though the new snow makes the distinction between RECENT and OLD snowfalls harder to find. Talk to another guy from Calcutta about the Kijras, and he says they are TRUE HERMAPHRODITES, and they check EVERY birth to find them and "recruit" them. The FEMALES you don't notice, since they DRESS as females, so only the MALE-slanted ones stand out. He assures me they have NO sex organs. Stop at 2:10 and I start writing on the bus, but everyone gets out apples and candy and begins chomping and chewing away, so I leave and sit outside and write, and John says we should change seats, because he's actually feeling DIZZY from sitting in the front, though all the curves and twists in the road. We still figure we might stop at the baths, but we'll both wait to see how we feel when we get there. So NOW it's 2:25 and we're STILL not back in the bus, and I'm caught up to date AGAIN. So the MOST I can possibly fall behind is one month. Not bad. So there are 34 pages left here, so I have room in here for at MOST the 24th of October, which would leave me with 14 days to catch up with. So I suppose eventually I'll have to buy one more notebook, even if it's only a 50-sheet one. So I'll get to page 415 anyway. Ugh, now 2:30, I just DON'T feel like writing anymore, so now I'll QUIT. I take the front seat in the bus and out of sheer boredom I take this out again. What ELSE have I forgotten? The high concern with Shoot-Shooter. And the sudden remembrance of one of the FIRST things I must have memorized: the round pictures I'm sure were hanging in my FIRST grade room with the Days of Creation: black and white for light, blue and clouds for sky; a globe for the earth, crimson globe and crescent for sun and moon and stars, jungle for land, animals and WHATEVER it was for the seventh day. Then on the road up I think of a FABULOUS project: (A) Making a TAPE of the best climaxes on records, from Bald Mountain, to Mahler's Second, to Swan Lake to Les Preludes to Bolero to Wagner. (B) Buying a music generator and PRODUCING THE SOUND that went with my LSD trip, and project to the PERFECT LSD trip with chorus and organ and lightning and thunder and cannon and explosives and celestial choirs. Then I REVILE these trucks and busses with their AWFUL smoke in the people's faces and stores and homes. How AWFUL the noise and horn-blowing and forcing of shepherds off the road---the road took over THEIR path, where ELSE can they walk? How frustrating it must be for the walker, and even WORSE for the driver. A nettling, IMPOSSIBLE situation in developing countries that DON'T want to spend the money to build a completely DIFFERENT auto road, or even better, a REASONABLE MASS TRANSIT, CARGO AND TOURIST SYSTEM, with rolling roads, shuttles, monorails, etc. [7AM, 10/8] Get to the shortcut up to Vashisht Baths at 4 and feel VERY tired walking up the steep rock-stepped paths. Get to the same place John went to before and contract for a large room for three rupees (with 40 pice for soap). Shower in hot sulfur-stench water and pop into blue-tiled tub 6x10 that's not as hot as the shower, though the water literally thunders out of the faucet as partly STEAM. Float and soak until unpleasantly hot, then dry on the one tiny towel we brought, put on bathing trunks and go outside to sit and relax in hazy sun setting into the valley. Leave at 5 to walk to town, buy two beers, check that there's no car, only 6:30AM Punjab Roadways bus to Chandigahr. Back to TRAVELER'S LODGE (THAT'S WHAT IT IS) and have tea outside on three chairs, and as we ask for a second pot the lights go out. People come outside and chat, and we sit and look at darkening sky, stars, Mars, Venus, and coming clouds over the valley, then get too cold and damp at 7 and go inside. Lights still out. Light candle and read about Jaipur and Udaipur and lay on beds listening to hideous howling of child panic-struck by darkness. I explode at family in the hall for their thoughtless racket to John's embarrassment, and finally out to eat in lantern-lit dining room at 9, closest to lanterns with a HUGE second of mutton and our second beer. Borrow weak flashlight and pack painstakingly until 12:20, when they take it to "put new batteries in" and we pay bill of 352 and find there's not a chance of a taxi at 5:45AM. Apologize to John and he says next time tell HIM and let HIM handle it, but I say anger is only good if YOU let it out. High and shove in earplugs in the still-dark night at 10:20PM.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8. Wake at what I THINK is 4, then again at 1:30, again at 3, then 4, then 5. Take out earplugs and damnable kid is howling his accursed ululations again, and I get up at 5:15 and go outside to find EVERYONE'S awake and getting served coffee, so I order coffee and commandeer a lantern for a quick shit and wash and check of packed stuff. Have coffee and leave at 5:45, convinced we'll never see a porter and I lug my suitcase about 1/4 way, John about 2/3 way, and I up hill to find there's NO bus to Chandigarh. Wait and fume to 6:30 and hear that the bus didn't show up YESTERDAY, so they don't expect it TODAY, and that we have to go to Mandi on the Simla bus transfer. I load my suitcase on top, buy tickets for 13.10 for both, and find bus is to leave at 7, luckily getting seat #1. Sit and start writing, and at 7:07AM, with a great roar from the motor, we leave, get just to the edge of town, and the conductor explains something lengthily to the driver and he turns around and goes BACK. They explain that some people have booked seats and not shown up, so we sit and wait again, and I write all THIS to come up to date AGAIN. By sheer lack of planning I packed my dop kit before putting my earplugs in it, and am very grateful that I can WEAR them through the roar of the motor. John went down to buy hard-boiled eggs and cookies at the Tibetan Restaurant, and we continued to sit and wait until 7:21. Off again! The [right here, at 7:50, was the truck accident I'll get to later] birds have ALSO been incredible, black-bodied birds with the brightest red tails that fan and flick continuously, large birds with even larger tails that fan to a four-inch width when they fly, and a flock of GREEN birds like small macaws takes wing this morning, flashing the sun off their emerald wings. Other glimpses of blue and green birds, red and black birds, white and black birds, all quite different and storybook like. Another point about all the herds: as people increase in number AND wealth, the herds get bigger and bigger, thus making an ever LARGER problem! Autumn seems to be coming VERY slowly; it's the 8th, Dusshera is over, and still most of the trees are green. Only a few golden leaves show on the hills. India's "Abbreviation by adding last letter" gets a lot of double t's like Cantt, Deptt, and Suptt, but ALSO gets nice COY. Driver took hands off wheel and made a deep obeisance as ANOTHER of the "Kulu deities" passed on the road down from Manali. Dust-covered beggars stood waiting for money at fair, and later we saw others prodding in the gutters for goodies. Tree-lined roads VERY nice along many north Indian roads, but they're a pain to widen, should just build ANOTHER, one-way, BESIDE it. Driver seems to use horn constantly, for NO reason at all that I can see even sitting FARTHER forward in seat ONE than the DRIVER. The decorative strings of flag, bleached dirtywhite by the sun, look like nothing more than endless strips of dirty diapers, drying in the sun. Still amazing are the BEAUTIFUL saris and silks and gold threads on the women in the DUSTY villages and shitting in the RIVERS for conveniences. The dust IS everywhere, put up by horses and trucks and goatherds and running kids and working women lugging Herculean loads of cornstalks 5 feet high and about 12 feet wide. And following TRUCKS gets dusty, too. Long stands of five-foot prickly pear cactus completely SWATHED in spider webs, and then 10-foot high colonies near Naggar wouldn't hold a man UPRIGHT, but would surely be uncomfortable. These could be called "Haiku written at short stops on long bus ride." John asks "How much does this bus weigh?" quietly as the 50-passenger bus with half a ton of luggage on top goes over the 4-ton load- limit bridge. White-painted rock-edges for driver visibility at night look like huge buried-giants' TOENAILS sticking out of the cliffs. Remember to look up the tall, blue-eyed, handsome Coorgs, in Andra Pradesh. Many Indians sport some of the most flamboyant and beautiful long thick mustaches. Debate the value of the jewelry the women use, but it's the SAME quality as the bangles, so it's LOOKS, not value, that seems to count. John likes the way "Scheme" is coming to replace "Project" and "Plan" in Indian signs. Trees made into HAYSTACKS by loading with corn and rice husks. This sort of writing could go on FOREVER. Blackish leaves glitter in the sun so BRIGHTLY, and NEEDLES each have a LOVELY glint that it would be hopeless to try to paint. Driver picks up people seemingly at random, though NEVER the white-robed patient old men who BEG for rides. Lizards bask on EVERY rock and scamper across the road. The sensation of seat one is PRECISELY that of a seat enjoying a Cinerama amusement-park ride. There are actually wide gray sand BEACHES on the Beas River between Aut and Pandah. John points out the "The bus disinfected on 5-5-71" sign. "Conditions of passage on back," says the bus ticket explicitly. On the other side is a mess of Hindi fine print. There's a cow who looks like she's wearing an awful bleached, slicked-back TOUPEE. I'm sure MANY plants DIE from an overload of stifling dust at roadsides. Pass LOVELY shiny red roadster outside Mandi, where we stop at 11:45. That bus has to be "repaired," so I trundle suitcase across to NEXT bus, that takes us to the middle of Mandi. Then ask, and lo: MKRTC has a bus ONLY at 8:30, Himachel Government Transport has a bus at 2 for Rupar ONLY, and leaves for Chandigahr the NEXT morning, and good old Punjab Roadways is supposed to have a bus (it doesn't) at 1:30, but it's FULL. Make a "Chandigarh" sign on toilet paper, THEN John says I should try Tourist Office for a car, and they say it would be 350 rupees (75 pice per km, going and coming, for 200 km) for a car from Mandi, but we should catch 2PM bus to Rupar and take a cab from THERE, only 25 miles, or 60 rupees. Amazing what LEG deformities there are: girl watching accident with BENT spine, and guy at Mandi with ONE short leg. Really ALL there. Find beer place is UPSTAIRS (after four Fantas and three bananas) and have two beers while John buys tickets and we start ROASTING on bus at 1:45PM. [Salar Jung Museum: writing desk and dressing mirror of Marie Antoinette, paintings rivaling Tata's in awfulness, but LOVELY jewel-inlaid (knew not they could do it) Sevres porcelain! Fabulous mosaic paintings and pictures done with PERFECT facial shadings in only a dozen pieces. Great porcelains, and funny ones of little angels in pince nez. And in a corner, awful, "Mona Lisa (Copy)." Junk (train sets, Japanese dolls, terra cotta statues of soldiers and bands) mixed with marble carvings and gold cloisonne. Prudish Indians have Snow Write legend: "When he tried to lift her up the poisoned apple held in her mouth fell down, she came to her senses, the prince married her." European toy furniture, some with Mickey Mouse decals on white-wood children's-room pieces. THOUSANDS of tin soldiers in cases, horsemen illustrating graphically the domino effect (they counted to 7915, in fact, and there are thousands MORE below). And two-foot "Statue of Liberty, USA, (Copy)." "Mercury, copy of Ly Sippas." "Egyptian Priestess, Egypt, 19th Century." LOVELY Mephistopheles-Marguerite German wood conceit. CENSORED illustration from 19th-century Ramayana. Enormous paintings by Diziani, Martini, Blaas, Aldine, Oliva, Gurdi, and OTHER monstrous nonentities. W.E. Gladstone Solomon painted VERY sexy Theseus in 1905. He DOES have a Landseer and a Canaletto (reputedly). French ivory beggars are incredible, to MARBLE eyes. A lovely phallic ivory THERMOMETER in a case of crucifixes and Madonnas! IVORY inset with jewels! WOVEN ivory fan, with TINY strips handled like rattan. INCREDIBLE ivory pieces mixed with $5.98 chess sets. FOURTEEN ivory CHAIRS (frame and real rattan seats). Lot of Tajs. And an ivory elephant like the one I almost bought for 150 rupees. A 3'x6' ivory MAT! FABULOUS miniatures in gold and color on ivory. INCREDIBLY detailed paintings on rice grains, from Red Fort to M.K. Gandhi. Copy of Tut's throne looks merely like painted WOOD. Some FABULOUS flowered carpets. Jade room not THAT nice, lots of swords. There are 655 SILVER objects, thanks to list on wall, all but one or two BADLY tarnished. IVORY coach and SILVER howdah BOTH by the Maharajah of Bharatpur. Silver filigree jewelry box with what must be MILES of threads and ACRES of surface area. Palm trees look GREAT in silver. Room 30 is Blackamoor room, from servants to Uncle Toms. Armory: pistols, swords, daggers, lances, shields, rifles, spears---how many WEAPONS there are. FABULOUS Shahjehan on ivory in Kashmir Room. Chinese "Messenger Announcing the Result of an Imperial University," embroidery on silk, late Ming Period, shows sage holding a scroll with four characters. Reminds me of MY "Ultimate Mandate." Beautifully spiky Chinese junk carved-wood screen. Great Chinese chair backs that are carved MEN, one holding BABY. Japanese DOUBLE-glass painting, background MOVES against foreground painted on BACK of first glass, about 1/2 inch apart. Fantastically minute framed CORK paintings, 1/4 inch thick. Odd painting of DEER, silently gathered under the stars in a park, each with a hovering FLAME before their heads! Great "Falls in Autumn in Foliage" embroidery and POLAR bear!] [Talk about DICHOTOMY: the moment you TELL Death: OK, you win, TAKE me, death LOSES and you ARE freed from the bounds of future life AND death]. [Phone book lovely "entry":
NIZAM OF HYDERABAD HIS EXALTED HIGHNESS, THE
Residence: Chirran Nubilee Hills, HD. 34
Secretary Peshi: Mubarak Abdul Qaiya 33069
Private Secretary: Rashid Ali Kahn 35407
PALACES
Chowmohalla, HD-2 44032
Falaknuma, Suyalt: syed Bahuddin 44050
Haveli Khadum, Purani Havali, HD-2 42184
Zeba Bagh, Asif Negr., HD-1 31560
Fern Villa, Red Hills, HD-4 34962
Plus others. THEN, Rama Moorthi, Rama Moorthy, Ramamurthi, Ramamurthy, Rama Murthy, Ramamurti, Ramamurty, and Ram Murthy and all alphabetized together, as is Ramadas, Ramadoss, Ramdas, Ram Dass, and Ramdass.] [10/17: x041 KM on odometer at start to trip to Tirupati. We pass through the "Longest name for Indian railway stations, VENKATANARASIMHARAJUVARIPETA, 13 syllables for something about three gods.) Accident: [7:25AM, 10/18] Get to narrow section and bus can't pass truck. Truck begins slowly backing down the hill and I pull out notebook to jot down some thoughts, and, even through the earplugs, I hear gasps and shouts behind me. Look AROUND and they're looking forward. Spin forward and the truck seems to jostle like it's going over a big bump, but it's gotten to the edge of the road and has either gone OVER or THROUGH (John says it fell also) the concrete teeth at the edge of the road, and it slowly scrapes bottom and then lurches over to the side, and I think it's caught by the trees, but then it falls out of sight into the moving trees. Shouts and screams from the bus and woman urges me out. I fear for the driver in an explosion and fire, and get to the side of the road to see the wheels spinning furiously and MANY shouts and cries coming from the BACK of the truck, and I look around and the ground is covered with about a dozen fatigue-clad bodies groaning in pain. John said their heads were visible over the back of the cab before it went over. People jump down and begin to pull people out of the back, and there are bloody heads and what look like stiff and swollen broken arms and legs, and one fellow grimacing and groaning and clutching his sore ribs. People shouting instructions and I feel quite helpless: if someone shouted "Hold my head up" how would I KNOW what he was asking? Get all wounded finally into bus, drive past a private hospital, another that seems closed, and finally lug the bodies out at an army camp, where they finally bring up beds for those who can't walk. On our way, still shaken, an hour later, and the trip through the sheer gorges is made more fearful because we KNOW how easily and simply even a MAIN accident can happen. Into Mandi at noon-thirty and hassle for bus, even writing out "Chandigarh" on toilet paper. Onto bus for Rupar and it goes and goes and twists and gives great views of town's diamond-twinkle below, stopping again and again, and down at 10PM to find NO bus into Chandigahr. Ask for cabs but drivers aren't interested, even without MENTIONING price. Finally one seems to say OK and we pass another car, I think---taxi, and we can go in THAT. Find it's Mr. Puri's private car and he tells us about his aunty and his diesel water-pumping business and his fiancee in Bombay and his trips around the country and his passport troubles in getting to New York, and we drive around lots of very comfortable houses in Chandigarh trying to find the hotel, and the Oberoi Mount View is VERY comfortable with night lights of Simla and tasty Indian room service and showers and get very tired to bed just before midnight: good.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9. Wake just before we have to leave, pay bill to English-Irish American-looking Indian, and catch a tiny tricar to the Indian Airlines office at 7:15. It's deserted and we mope around waiting for the bus, and I'm shaky because it's the first plane after over a week of abstinence. Curse myself. To airport for breakfast and onto the plane, [5PM 10/26: Everything seems to flow toward some kind of SYSTEM. I get the idea to AMALGAMATE all the "extra-sensory" type things---like auras and the ability to see them, ESP and the ability to use it, second sight and dream-travel connected by the silver cord and powers of mind over matter like levitating, and memorizing and slowing the heart and metabolism, etc, etc. I tend to think of this as a "larger" man surrounding the body and its facilities like a larger aura. Then I think of my souvenirs and stamps and books and records and furniture, and it seems that I CONSTRUCT a larger system of THINGS around me, and then it strikes me VERY hard that the body ITSELF is the "soul" constructing something around IT, and of course THIS is the whole idea of reincarnation: the soul WANTS to be reborn, WANTS to construct another body, CHOOSES to do so, and it's only when it chooses NOT to do so that it CEASES being born. Some may call this Enlightenment and Nirvana, others may call it extinction. Maybe the "two hands of God" are the same HERE, TOO. Then I think of the argument that it's GOOD for the body to die, as it gets older it's more set in its ways, more stable, less likely to change and produce something new, so it's GOOD that the cluttered blackboard is ERASED and WASHED so that a whole new set of equations---another system---another body---can spring from its COMPONENTS. As a person's POSSESSIONS. If Baron Ferrara lived FOREVER, NO ONE could own the British Guiana 1ยข Magenta EXCEPT him, but at his death his BODY was dissolved and his COLLECTION (SAME THING) was dissolved and spread around for OTHERS to enjoy. So MY books and rugs and records and stamps and writings will be REDISTRIBUTED (much of it to be burned and destroyed, sadly, but that's the end of EVERYTHING---unless it's to be FROZEN into the immobility of absolute entropy) as the carbon and hydrogen and oxygen atoms of my BODY will be redistributed for someone ELSE to breathe, or a tree to form into its wood.] [THIS IS THE END OF ALL THAT I'D WRITTEN IN BOOK FOUR, AND THE BEGINNING OF MY PRESENT RECONSTRUCTION OF THE LAST THIRTY DAYS OF THE TRIP LAST YEAR.] [except for this address on page 384: (one of the five Indians from jeep ride to Rohtang Pass, one with glasses: Mr. Atunu Kumar Bhanja; 4/4, Kasundia 2nd bye Lane; Howrah-4, West Bengal, India.] [and a parcel "never sent"] We fly over parts of the town, so that I get the same idea of orderly blocks spread out over a huge area for the city as John got when he flew in, though I don't see any sign of the built-up center that he talked about. There are mountains off in the distance for a bit, but then a bright haze closes in and again I'm clutching the seat and demanding myself to be calm as we begin bucking through the air in getting to Delhi. The entire city is laid out below the plane as it lowers and slows for landing, and we see the central Grand Mall and the river with the Red Fort, and then continue flying south, dipping and bobbing, but the view is stupendous in the now-clear morning. Then there are the ruins of Tughlaqabad below us, and the outer perimeter is much clearer from the air than the ground, again the Qtub Minar, and we're finally down to the ground. Ask at the information desk, and they say tickets for "Sound and Light" can be gotten only at the Red Fort. Grab a cab for the long ride into town, John stops the car so that we can change money, then we're to the other end of town for the Fort, and tickets are only on sale in the EVENING, we'll have to go to Janpath for them now! Curse and back to the Tourist Office, also getting the location of the Railway office, and back there for an INCREDIBLE series of forms to fill out, lines to wait in, officials to talk with when they don't have AC class, and finally get first-class reserved spaces. By then we're starving and we decide to get to the Oberoi Continental for dinner in the Mogul Room, and I have the "Sumptuous Kashmiri Feast of Seekh Kebab, Kashmiri Roast Chicken, Rishtha (minced mutton balls), Maithi Maz, Bhindi, and the Kawah Kashmiri Green Tea" for 12 rupees. John feels tired ALREADY, and we debate getting a room for sleeping, but it's too expensive. I go out to the pool for a fruit punch, looking over the international beauty crowd again, this with only a few lookers and lots of squalling kids, and back up to find John somewhat recovered, and go to the Tribal Museum, a real hard place to find, with the cabdriver asking directions, and it's a laugh of a dusty, dust-encrusted place with the sub-director showing us around, trying to sell us a book that's merely tables of figures and expenditures for the department, and we try as much as possible to smile with them, but it begins to hurt after awhile. Again a feeling of how a visiting dignitary must feel ALL the time, with terribly inferior displays which you have to feign interest over. Finally tear ourselves away after writing glowing comments in their log book, with the last entry about six months ago, and try to find a driver who knows where the Talkatora Gardens are, and we get to the CENTRAL fairgrounds near the Ranjit, and again a spate of asking directions, and finally we're there about 5:30, telling them to wait, and with out bags in the trunk, we begin to fear we'll come out and they won't be there. There are lovely candles all along streams and on trees, nicely-played music piped over loudspeakers, and loads of people nicely dressed roaming around. As the evening draws on and the lanterns and candles are lit, the grounds are quite beautiful with illuminated series of fountains, and we go in for the puppet show, and then again for the dancers, though they're not very good, and around to the booths, taking time out for four cheap Fantas, and look at the candles and mirror-coats and toys and foods and fruit being sold, and entertainers are everywhere: tumblers and storytellers and hawkers, and we're around the side to the elephant rides, which later look quite spectacular in front of the ground displays of fireworks, thudding the children around on the four-passenger howdah on its back, and we try it for a lively ride, but the pushiness of the parents is worse than the clamor of the kids. Great stalls on corners of steps under colorful umbrellas are very picturesque, and we're out about 8 when the festivities are really getting going: singers and dancers and tumblers all about. Out to the waiting cab and through the narrow crowded streets for what seems like the hundredth time to the Red Fort, and we're about first in line, and everyone files in, most of them late, particularly the spike-heeled, unsure-footed foreign ladies and their older escorts, and they look like strange artificially-living creatures in our Indianized eyes. There are only about five areas to be lit, though the fountain is nice and wispy, and each time an army or a parade or an elephant herd crosses in front of us, it takes EVERY step of the way from first on the right to last on the left EACH time, for great periods of boredom. The Indian complications of history are too much for us, and we really don't care about all the capitals around Delhi, and John's irritated and very tired. Finally out at 10 and we dash for the cab, getting to the station in good enough time, and decide to carry our OWN bags to the train, and it's almost the last track, and we find the first-class cars small and dirty-looking, and though the C class would have been acceptable, John refused to take the train, and I'm tired and stymied, so I agree and we lug the hideous suitcases back to a cab and get to the Hotel Ranjit, whose rates have gone up since we've been gone, and we get down to what should be the bar, but it isn't there, and ask them for room service, but it's terrible, and we eat what we can, and when I hit the bed and feel how tired I am, I'm glad we DIDN'T take the train, where we undoubtedly wouldn't have slept at all!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10. Up very early, at 5:30, to catch the 7:05 plane to Jaipur, having a fairly good breakfast in the room, though it's too late to be eaten in comfort (and we search for the knapsack, but can't find it---no, that was the FIRST time leaving Delhi), and we get a cab to leave, and I clonk my forehead on the edge of the trunk when putting the suitcases in. Down the long road to the airport, looking at the people getting to work along the road, and we're in to hear announcements of flight, then they're shouting at us, and it turns out we're supposed to catch the 6:30 flight, which is already a bit late, so we smash through the ticket line, exasperated by the Indian slowness, and dash out to the 737 for the half-hour flight to Jaipur. See nothing much flying in, and we stop at the information booth for maps and a list of things to see, and find that a car rental for the day is very cheap, particularly when we get to talking with Al Kopf, or someone, who's from many places in the states, and we talk about our travels and he want to join us for the day on the town. Get left off at the Rambagh Palace Hotel, but the car can't wait for us, so it takes off while we check into what must be the hugest room in the place, looking in amazement at the 20-foot ceiling, the two enormous beds lost in the vastness, and the genteel molder sitting very lightly on everything. Out and hire a car, driving to the tourist office, and we hear Ed's shout from a pedicab, and we're together looking for a breakfast place, but Niro's is closed and we end at Kwality, I seem to recall. (Unless we had enough to eat---NO, we ate at the hotel---I don't recall). Drive to the city palace, but it's closed until about 10, so drive on to Amber past the Jal Mahal, which is the water palace, and it's quite wet and deep, so it's just after the rainy season here. See the walls of the fortress and palace from a large distance, quite impressive, and stop at the gardens below to wait for the next elephant, and walk along the pools to see the frantic frogs stone-skipping away from us across the surface. Onto the rocking elephant's back for the trip to the top, and the view is quite superb, and John is overjoyed to have Al take his picture as sketched, though he never DOES get it back! [But he does, much later.] Get a guide for the palace, and the overwhelming impression is of numbers of sloping ramps and spiraling stairways without steps for the royalty's pallet-bearers, and this is the first encounter with the lovely mirrors of India, where I stand absolutely entranced in an alcove, looking at the alcove THROUGH the convex mirrors, and each facet seems to contain the entire alcove in miniature in it, giving an impression of great depth and delicacy in what is essentially a simple-minded construction. John isn't impressed, but I stand and gape with an almost psychedelic delight. Look over the stucco-plain back areas, and then into a lovely snack bar for a number of beers, and we attract a guide who wants to take us to the rest of the city, saying we'd have to get a guide there anyway, and we bring him along. Beers on the breezy terrace are a dream, sitting in the shade as escape from the bright sun, and then we're down to the Kali temple below, where we have to take off shoes AND belts, and there are lots of people worshipping, and even glass-covered paintings of the goddess have foodstuffs smeared over the mouth, as if she were being force-fed. Out and down again on the elephant, drive back to the city with stops for Al's photographs, decide we're not interested in the observatory, having seen a good enough one in Benares, and Al had been through the one in Delhi, and I'd see Jantar Mantar before, too. Buy the tickets for the Maharaja's palace and museum, and the costumes section is clumsy because everyone ELSE wants to listen to our guide's explanation, but the art gallery is a sumptuous delight, with THE best collection, as was hoped, of Jaipur miniatures under the sun, and we stand in amazement looking at a number of them, vying with each other to point out the most glorious. Around to all the various chambers down up more or less in regal style, with one mirrored plush room the epitome of Hollywood luxuriance. Fountains and gardens and elephant walks and carpets and marble carvings abound, and reluctantly we're out to the Palace of the Winds. It's quite elegant from the street, but see people in the windows, and we ask to be taken up, but of course the guide says it's [Well, it's only been FOUR and a half months since typing the LAST page!] impossible to do so. I balk and see a group of students looking and pointing to the place and talking, then heading for an entryway on the street, and I drag John and the guide after them, and get into some dark cruddy alley in back and through another courtyard, and there are stairs going up to the very windows we were told we couldn't enter! Another case of lousy Indian gamesmanship! Stairs are a labyrinthine delight, going up to cupolas and terraces, and I sit in the windows and stare at the other tourists staring at me, and to the top to the tiny windows, and it's like the back of a stage-setting. See our fill and then to the museum in a baroque white palace where I buy "Rita" ice cream just for the package, but make the guide eat the contents because I don't want to risk illness. Inside are lousy mosaics and terrible paintings and very nationalistic statements, and we quickly tire of this and demand to be taken back to the Maharaja's palace, and get told we're positively not allowed re-admittance, but we shout and refuse to be ushered out, and when they threaten to call the guard, we just wave to them and go back to look at the incomparable miniatures, and we're never bothered again. Oh, yes, the guide said the place was CLOSING, but we were there for about another hour and saw all we wanted and it STILL didn't close. Then out to look at some painting shop that John found, but nothing was terribly good, so we got back into the car, with a driver complaining about how he hadn't eaten, and get back to the hotel to argue about the rates, which we refused to tip him for. Candles and oil lamps have been set up all around the place in preparation, they say, for an Indian Tourist Agency film being made here this evening, and we start nosing into odd corners of the Rambagh, getting a valet to take us into the suites, and they look like the most sumptuous 20's movie, with marble bathtubs, large useless entrance foyers with regal uncomfortable divans, and a stuffy museum-feel to the whole thing, but the bathrooms were the greatest, with separate closets for the wicker-seat toilets and tiled showers with huge chrome fixtures. Up back stairways and see them putting up lights behind plaster screens, onto roofs to get views over terraces and clamber out to the very edge of the roof to watch the preparations below, and we feel like children exploring the inside of a wedding cake. Down to shower and dress for dinner, and we're alone in the echoing ballroom, with blank spaces on the walls where paintings were, and ever-so-slightly fading napery and bulky silver added to bygone elegance. The food was not bad, hardly the grand cuisine we'd been led to expect, sadly. Then out onto the lawn for a table watching them setting up the lights and cameras, lighting the candles (one of the candle-setters had died during the afternoon), and loud rock music blared across the elegant grounds. Somehow, also, during the busy day we managed to get down to the swimming pool, looking at all the rusting equipment and dusty soda fountain, swinging on the ropes and looking at the body of the other guy who seemed quite sexy, though a father, and we enjoyed watching the reflections of the sunlight on the ceiling from the rippling surfaces of the water. Some enormous Italian woman came up to John and asked if she could take a picture of his shirt, and they so quickly started talking, John and Marguerite Duras, that I finished my third or fourth drink and went waltzing out across the cool dew-soaked lawn to enjoy the perspectives and lights on the palace, turning in time with the music, feeling utterly happy and "at home" in the palatial grounds, sorry with John that we didn't foresee the beauty of engaging a suite here, where it would have been most luxurious. They seem never to film, John and she have finished talking, I'd gotten all I could out of the extraordinary candles, so we finally went to bed, pulling mattresses down onto the floor because I was convinced the bed was too soft, and we went to sleep in our enormously high-ceilinged room in one of the most charming hotels in India.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11. Wake early for the 8:25 flight and try to scare up some breakfast, but everything's closed, or slow, and no one's willing to take care of our demands, so finally we pack and get into the waiting station wagon for the airport, Marguerite sure she's missing something, and we get to the airport for the accustomed wait, and we have breakfast there, and get onto the plane after the normal search, and we all have windows, and the ground is quite flat until we get to some hills just as we're about to land. I try looking for Udaipur, but don't see anything but arid plains, and landing is a great disappointment since I haven't seen anything of the town from the air. The airport tourist service is better than ever, with even a list of things to be seen. The drive in is very long, through a pass in the mountains, past the outskirts, and into the bustling town. Everyone assails us for wanting to stay in the Lake Palace, and the taxi fares seem to us exorbitant, so we wait around until a horse-cart comes by which quotes us a reasonable price, and we load up, almost tipping over the well-balanced affair with our heavy suitcases, and trot off through the streets, which are not at all romantic. Go for such a distance we fear we're being taken for a ride, but finally there are signs for the Palace, but we stop at the bottom of a gentle slope: the horse won't go any further. So we have to get out and lug our own luggage up the slope to the top of the stairs, and then down the stairs to the boat landing. They telephone across for a boat, and it's quite a bit before one comes, but then we're coasting across the lake, rather saddened to see some sections of the Lake Palace Hotel being rebuilt, it turns out that it's only been open for a couple of weeks this season, and most of it's still under reconstruction. We ask for a suite but are told they have none, yet after a long consultation we're gold we can look at a suite. After being given the wrong room key, causing the boy to back off when someone's obviously sleeping in the room, and get to another room which is only one room, hardly a suite, and it's cramped and almost windowless, and we say, no, we'd rather see a regular room. There's even MORE conversation at the desk, and when we see a "regular" room, it's obvious what the problem was: THIS room is almost like a suite, with an entranceway, a dining room, a corner chamber with windows all along two sides, a dressing room outside the bathroom, and a large bedroom. We say we'll take it, and are charmed by the freshly-painted surfaces of everything and the accents of color in the simple but deluxe furniture. Unpack and settle in, feeling the breezes across the lake, and look out at the views on all sides, and then back to hear we're being paged from the shore, and Marguerite is being refused even to LOOK at the place because she's not staying there, but when we get back over, she's gone. Refuse offers for guided tours and only get a taxi around to the City Palace, and again brush off all the guides and wander from level to level: into the museum, past sketchy sculptural and turban and weapons exhibits, then to the roof to delightful panes of colored glass, which gives each view of the city a ruby, emerald, saffron, turquoise, sapphire look, like the most exotic sunglasses, and we go from marble cupola to robing rooms, looking at the paintings, the inlaid mirrors, avoiding crowds of screaming children, marveling at the inlaid peacocks which glitter their mirrors in the brilliant sun, and the blinding gold suns with headdresses of tinsel and tinkle. Convinced we've seen everything and out to the adjoining Jagdish temple, but it's steep to climb and very cruddy, and we see some good sculptures, but the whole affair is rather dispiriting with its impacted black surfaces everywhere. Horrible beggars slouch after us down the stairs, but we give nothing. Then he drives us around the lake, but John doesn't want to go to the top of the hill to see the Pratap Memorial, and we drive around to Sahalion-ki-Bari, the gardens, where we pay the rupee to have the water turned on, then all the tourists cluster around to watch the twirling nymphs, the spouting elephants, and the twittering birds in the waters, but the side gardens with their windblown sprays were almost more appealing with their humid tropicality. Wander through the rose gardens and get a ride through the zoo, seeing the tigers and bird houses, and then we still have time so we ask to see the mysterious Bhartiya Lok Kal Mandal, and we drive past the square with the fountain to get to a modern pink building built on a curve and a ramp, and they sell little papier mache temples, and we're upstairs to see a handicrafts exhibit, and get a small showing of their puppets, of whom they're very proud, since they'd won many prizes for their showings in Indonesia and Yugoslavia and other places. Look at the elaborate costumes, some rather moth-eaten animal displays, some costume displays, and out to the taxi to get back to the hotel, to see what we can see there. Back and wander about, up unfinished stairways and into worker's areas, and onto the roof to see that the suites occupy corner cupolas on the roof, and think to enter one, but an Indian woman looks around from her sofa and we excuse ourselves in dismay. Down to a large group of chattering tourists from Rochester, New York, and find they're about to take a boat out to Jag Mandir. We'd asked earlier if there were tours around the lake, but were told there weren't, and now we asked if we could go along, and they said it was impossible. By now we'd learned how to handle this, so we went out to the boat and asked the tour leader, and he said to ask the tour guide, and the tour guide insisted there wasn't room, but by this time the last few ladies were getting into the boat and there was obviously room for a few more, so I shouted out to the ladies: "Do you mind if we come along?" They of course said we could, and we dodged the dirty looks from those in authority and blithely hopped into the boat. Across the lake chatting with the cynical old man who seemed to hate us for our very freedom, and out onto the elephant-strewn gates to get away from the group and prowl about on our own: seeing an old wooden water-carrier from the lake, living quarters for peasants, nicely-carved old boat landings, and heard enough of the talk to know that they wanted to set this up as a branch of the hotel, except there weren't many places for rooms. Up into the old temple, and the upper chamber was quite intricately carved, and around the pool, and look over the lake and who's coming toward us, standing in the bow like Washington with her flowing red robes, but Marguerite with a charming female friend, and we chatted and got frowned at by the more sedate of the tourists, and then back into the boat to the hotel, where we had drinks in a lovely alcove, joined later by an English crew shooting films around, and we chatted with them about India in general, and the talk and drinks flew, so that we were invited to eat at their table even though we were told it wasn't possible, and our loud talking and laughing made most of the make-shift dining room glance unpleasantly at us. They talked among other things about the fantastic cult-group in a place called Hoshiarpur or Hoshiapur, near Ludhiana, in the direction of Chandigahr north of Delhi, and the Maharishi Bhrigu had something called the "Brigu Sanhita" (I actually GOT this information from the great service counter at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, since all the people knew was that it was something like Trigu or Bhrigu) who could find everything about your past and future life, telling about one fellow who was told that he'd kill someone, and he said "Ridiculous" until one day he killed someone! The food was pleasant, drinks even more so, and for the evening we heard some kinds of drums from our room when we were looking out over the sunset on the lake, and went to the central court to find a narrator, a woman and her daughter chanting, and a delightful puppet show with such difficult things as heads flopping from one person to another, a man falling off a horse, a man catching a ball on his head, then on both hands, and even though we talked to the puppet-master afterwards, praising his work, he showed us the trick UP CLOSE and we STILL couldn't see how it was done, but only smiled and gasped and said "Thank you so much." We'd bought postcards earlier, but had no time this evening to fill them up with words about fantastic India. But the Lake Palace is NOT one of our favorite places, in the least.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12. Wanted to have breakfast in our room, but it didn't quite work out, and they even wanted to charge us for it, but we refused to pay it. Across the lake and to a rambling Air-India bus, which we feared wouldn't be waiting for us, and stop along a dusty street to pick up Marguerite, who's stopping in Bombay, and we get the 10AM flight to Bombay, and though I stare off wistfully in the direction of Mount Abu, I don't see anything. Some great swami is landing in Ahmedabad and his followers are clustered around the gates. We look at the books but see nothing to buy, I'm reading still, and we're back on the plane to get into clouds as we get closer to Bombay, and the plane bounces around and I'm glued to the window trying to see something outside, and we fly low over green hills and what look like cemeteries, and fly over alternating land and water and land, and finally come to earth about 20 miles north of Bombay proper, about 1PM. The airport is enormous, and our luggage gets lost and we have to walk long spaces to get to the Air India bus, and Marguerite is there, as I remember, flustered as usual, but managing to keep up. The ride in took over an hour, past crowded busses and unattractive streets filled with people. We'd telephoned to find that the Taj Mahal Hotel was full, and so we decided to stay in the next best, the Bombay International, so the bus took us right there and it was pleasantly modern, and right on the bay on a curved beach which could have looked like Copacabana, but the highway cut off access of the rocky beach, and most of the buildings were unimpressive. Into the hotel and decided to eat in the restaurant downstairs, where we were amazed to find a complete menu of almost anything, John ordering lobster which he loved, and I had some kind of pork dish which was very good. This state was one of the few dry ones, and when we wanted beer for lunch the waiter bent close to us and said he'd bring out a teapot which would contain our beer, and we drank it daintily out of cups. We talked about our itinerary for a long period of time and decided we wouldn't go to Ajanta and Ellora in order to spend more time in the south of the country, and so we spent the afternoon trundling back and forth between the hotel and tourist agencies and Air India, and John had some things to do, maybe mail things from the post office, and I went back to the room and worked on postcards for a long time, sending out the last 7 I'd do for the trip, listening to the beggar outside fiddling away, possibly hoping to get money through his sheer powers of irritation. We went to the Taj Mahal Hotel to look at the incredible place, even climbing up all the stairs and going down a hallway and climbing an unlocked spiral staircase into one of the towers, which gave a great view over the fairly uninteresting city. The hotel was truly deluxe, with skylighted halls giving an air of lightness and coolness. I'd broken my sunglasses a few days before, and attempted repairs with bandaids didn't work, so I sought out an optician and bought a new pair of clip-ons, and---how about that ---ran AGAIN into John from Bali, talking with an unpleasantly thin character, and he tells me he's staying at a certain hotel that I check later and he's NOT there, and the thin character later asks me for "a loan," but I refuse him, saying I haven't anything with me. Don't feel like doing too much, all tired out, and John wants to eat in some "found" restaurant, so we "find" a Chinese place that's crowded, rather than a plusher place that's empty, and the food is good and the crowd is active, and we're out to look at the dockside for cruising for a bit, but nothing seems to be going on, so we're into a cab and back to the hotel, and I'm feeling too pooped to do much of anything more. John had walked around the town in the afternoon and reported that there weren't ANY cows to be seen on the streets, and there was a bustle and a fashion in the dress that was very much like any big city. How sad THAT is!
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13. Wake and have breakfast, then taxi to the wharves and get onto a boat going out to Elephanta at 9AM. Pass the nuclear power plant, watch the Gateway of India dwindle to insignificance next to the enormous Taj Mahal Hotel and the Taj Intercontinental being built next to it, and they're tearing the old one apart to make what USED to be the entrance into a swimming pool, and there were plastic partitions and lots of noises of construction when we looked it over, though the terraced suites on the roof looked terribly luxurious. The trip takes about an hour and then we're off at very low tide, climbing the many stairs and chatting with our fellow tourists, and the guide takes us around, and the triple-headed Mahesamurti is serenely monumental in its deepest recess in the cave. Other details are interesting, too: the side caves with the pools filled with water, the partly-finished caves along the gravely walk clockwise around the central hill, and I clamber up a steep flight of stairs to see an overall view of the harbor with Bombay in the distance, and many other islands dotting this particular section of the bay. Then we take off for the refreshment booth, having beers brought up to us by a charming boy in a slender-fitting skirt, and we linger so long that when we finally dash down to the ship, it's actually pulling away from the pier, and we have to jump aboard when it veers to come back toward us. We chat with two American couples about mysticism on the way back, and it may have been the woman who wrote the name "Doris Weiner, 5th Avenue" on a slip of paper from the Hotel Bombay International. Wherever it came from, I have it. They're staying in the Taj Mahal, and they tell us about their special brunch, so we're off the boat, I nose into one of their spacious rooms, ending in the unique dormer windows that front the hotel, up on a dais, and then down to the enormous dining room with the trio playing EVER so slowly on the stage, and John laughs about it for the whole time he's eating the endless array of meats and cheeses and vegetables and curries and cold cuts and fruit from the buffet table. He doesn't want to go to the museum, so I stroll over, looking at the many maps that I got of the city, though there was never anything of great importance to SEE form them, and bought a guidebook on which I wrote the following notes: "Karnal, Blowing instrument, Nepal, 18th century, of an evocative shape. Fairly poor (good nudes) stuff, AWFUL miniatures, not even worth reproducing, except that the price is so cheap I can hardly resist, but the Indian ivory and woodworking of the Ratan Tata collection is incredible. Absolutely tops. They spell hookah: HUQQA. Earliest bronze (nude dancing girl) from Mohenjodara, datable to 2300 BC! Three Gandhara bronzes, second century AD (Attati, Parswantha, and Cornucopia). But Tata had a HIDEOUS art collection (third floor is just AWFUL), the MOST awful ever SEEN (but for a sexy Dosso Dossi), but the Western ivories are as awful as the paintings. Huge collection of DREADFUL Chinese plates at the absolute BOTTOM of collection. He EVEN managed to collect the WORST Wedgwood, though he had one or TWO nice Lalique vases. They also had pieces from the Old Stone Age: Two hand axes from 550,000 BC in Madras, 2 cult pieces from the NEW stone age, 5000 BC, Amaravati, and five iron shards, from South India in 2000 BC. On plate 8 I noted that the lighting for the photograph is too harsh, that the actual is even MORE tranquil and peaceful. As for plate 21, the image from Sravanabelagola, the head is much too small, not noticeable in the picture, which was taken from above. We met back in the hotel, and since the only flight that we could get with any assurance was the 7:10 from Bombay to Hyderabad, and since the trip out was over an hour, we woke at 5:30, so we merely ate in the hotel, for which we had to wait since there was some kind of meeting in the place, and they closed the curtains and put the lights down low and entertained us with a jazz band, so we left as soon as possible and went to sleep fast.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14. [See from the airlines schedule that I'd copied down possible flights out of Bombay on this day: Bombay to (1) Hyderabad at 710, (2) Madras at 1115, (3) Madras at 1230, (4) Bangalore at 1320, with a follow-up Bangalore-Madras 2015-2110, and I recall now an awful thing about numbers on a waiting line: getting 4-5 day before yesterday, but that reservation getting lost, and getting something like 15-16 yesterday, but we decide we'll get ON the plane if it's GOING there at all.] Wake in the dark and shower for the last time in the frustrating trickle from the showerhead, and down in the dark for a taxi to the airport, cruising past the trees looking strangely yellow-green in the night street-lighting, and there are lots of people visible wandering aimlessly, or sleeping alongside the streets, and most of the desks at the airport are closed, and this is probably another time when the taxi left us off at ONE end and we of course had to lug our baggage to the OTHER end of the long narrow station. See that the flight is at least still scheduled, and there is an increasing crush around the desk, and we just push our way in, don't get pushed back out, and present our tickets as if they were perfectly OK, and they check us onto the plane in seats together at a window in the left rear, and we prance away from the counter delighted that we've managed to get on the flight which is three times full. Upstairs in the cavernous dining room, with the drapes on the windows not stopping the sounds of the engines, and have breakfast with the slippered white-robed Indians gliding past looking at us, and down to get on the flight and lift off into the cloudy air and past the morning mists to a bright clear day, where we can look down and see the deserted hilly areas over which we're flying. Breakfast on the plane, too, and get into Hyderabad after the scheduled arrival time of 8:30. Get to a rather tiny tourist agency in a back courtyard in a pedicab, and the town is enormous, laid out along lakes, and I'm not understanding the relationship between Hyderabad and Secunderabad, which seem to dovetail like a jigsaw puzzle piece. Get recommended to Hotel Nagarjuna, since John doesn't want to stay at the older Ritz, and the Rock Castle Hotel doesn't seem to be there anymore, and find out where the Salarjung Museum is, since that's why we're here. A regular taxi to the hotel, recovering our luggage from the tourist office where we'd left it, and it's new and modern and overlooks a slum area which John falls in love with. Down to have some light lunch in the cool dining room, the only guests there, and then grab a cab to the museum (see notes on 2414-5) and it's ludicrously poor, with only a few eye-catching pieces like the Mephisto-Marguerita statue, and the sexy Alexander. Some of the jeweled daggers and some of the woodcarving section is again marvelous, but some of the jade and much of the crystal is in dusty non-elegance, and the rooms are jammed, areas of clutter sited in barren concrete halls, with a mother-of-pearl sedan chair in under the marble stairway. John's not feeling well, so he leaves while I see the rest of the museum, getting drawn to the courtyard for the chiming of the clock along with everyone else, and leave onto the hot street near the river about 4, really having seen it all. John's called on a doctor, who's pleasant and prescribes some medicine for him, and we watch the village life outside: people going to the well, old women drawing designs in white dust at their doorways, old people stopping to talk, children playing at the open sewers and canals that lace the streets, and we sit four flights up in our air-conditioned room, looking down at them from our corner window. I want to get out to the Char Minar, passing the Masjid Mosque with its thin towers, and many of the typical movie posters with, as John describes it, "the pained Mother, the pained wife, or the pained sister, with the beach scene in the one corner and the robbery in the other corner." No, we passed ANOTHER temple, and went past the Char Minar to the Masjid Mosque, and got a guide for nothing who showed us the tombs in the courtyard with the stones carved in knots, and I recall paying something to have a screen pulled aside for some golden door or something, but I DON'T recall what exactly it was. Find that the towers of the Char Minar are closed, and we wander down the Lad Bazaar, which the guidebook said was a must, and it was a bust: only shops for bangles and materials side by side for a whole length of street, and we walked back a distance before we got tired, and on the taxi ride back saw the Government Handicraft and Cottage Industries Emporium on Gunfoundry Road, and we went inside to find very inexpensive prices, and John went upstairs and flipped over the fabrics for only $3-6 for double bedspreads, and I found some great wooden panels, except that the cost was too great to insure for mailing, and I had to settle for a smaller one, and then saw some carved dolls which would be perfect for small gifts to friends, and ordered them, and John saw another set with instruments, so he bought those, and we happily paid for the "more than cost" postage charges and left bristling with receipts and happiness (and as of the date of typing this, these were the last packages STILL not arrived)[But they DID arrive, finally]. Back to the hotel for a shower in the bathroom that had just a showerhead from the wall, a plastic shower curtain, and a drain: no tub, no trough on the floor, no railing, just that. Up to the roof restaurant for some good drinks, and look out over the lights of the city from what seems to be the highest point, and have a very tasty dinner, and end up delighted with our hotel. Also, during the afternoon, there was the chat I had with the Nizam of Hyderabad, but when we called the next morning, we were told again that we couldn't see the Nizam's private jewelry collection.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15. Up to breakfast downstairs, and have some confusion with luggage and moving to a new room, since we're not leaving Hyderabad until 4:55PM for Madras, and then wonder what to do with our whole day here. John finally consents to a taxi which will take us to the Qutb Shahi Tombs and the Golconda Fort, since there's nothing else to do (no, in the morning we wandered over to the Public Gardens, hearing about some reproductions of the Ajanta frescoes in some building, but with the language problem, we couldn't make anyone really understand what we wanted, and we popped past the Health Museum, which was closed today, but when we expressed interest he let us in, put on the light, and showed us the lovely exhibits of photographs of diseased persons, preserved riddled organs, and the symptoms of every dread disease known to Indians. Gardens were pleasant, but again we had no way of spending much time). Out what seems to be the long way, and there are dozens of isolated tombs standing in the scrubby deserted outskirts of the town, and we again play by going up the side-stairways onto the roofs and looking around, sometimes investigating the onion-areas under the roofs, and there are underground entrances into cool pillared cellars with dripping water and view-holes into the upper temple areas, and we go from one to another with no real interest: it's very hot, we're felling tired, and there aren't any carvings or even, in fact, much left of the tombs except for their associations with the past. Then try to find a shortcut to the Fort, but get onto impassable roads with ruts worn in them by rains, gates too torn up to pass through, and finally win through to the tourist entrance, and into the massive gates with the other tourists, look at the plan and miniature of the original structures, but find they have no guidebooks at all, so we have to listen for the whisper from the highest point, climb endless monumental stairways past side-cellars with lines of pillars, parapets with views out over the rocky landscape and the neighboring castle-fort on a rock-side, mossy lakes which contained their water supplies (and the fort fell when they were drained), and towers and turrets with a Moorish feeling. Higher and higher, past small temples with modern-day offerings of feathers and flowers, onto the central terrace, into the main building, up onto the roof, and up onto the smallest roof of all, to look out over miles and miles of surrounding territory, all yellow and gray-green under the sun, and sweat with the thought of walking back down all those stairs. We simply can't seem to muster enthusiasm about the center of the country: we're tired and John's sick and doesn't want to walk very much, and we've been getting touchy about small things, like getting very angry about getting a taxi with the luggage at the Air India office, and we're looking forward to Madras as an area of culture where we can stay a bit and relax some. We're glad we took out Ajanta and Ellora, we might have been too tired to enjoy them. Back to the hotel to check out, and miss the regular bus to the airport, so we have to take a taxi, and fly out on time, this time in a place with lots of room, except that I sit in the front seat on the right, just behind a large open space behind the pilot's cabin, and for some reason that position and open space I don't care for. Flying before sunset is fine, since we're over mountains and the clouds are piled in the sky for spectacular colors and beams of light from the dying sun, but when it gets dark I don't care for it at all, and some old Baba is sitting, also nervous, with his eyes closed in the aisle seat next to mine. We start dipping low over Madras and I sit next to John to look at the lights of the city next to the ocean, and we get lower and lower and it looks spread-out and wealthy and enormous, and the airport is a distance from the city again. Out to the still violet sky at 5:55, and there's a tremendous crush for the luggage station, a press of taxis, and runners everywhere for their own hotels, and again we're not to go to the Connemara because it's so expensive. Finally haggle into a taxi with our luggage, and ride the long distance into town, after seeing that the rates for the ride are posted on boards. Through the dark streets, but there's a clarity to the air which we like, and we draw up before the tree-enclosed Connemara Hotel just off some main drag, and we're into the spacious lobby to a series of open corridors around an inner courtyard, and into a large white room with two huge beds and a rumbling air conditioner, with an entryway and the bathroom separating us from the public hallway. Very nice. Shower and change and get up to dinner, to find a table in the corner with candlelight and a combo and a female singer going away full blast, and the choice is between Indian and English food, and we have both, quite well prepared, and we like this almost as much as Clark's in Benares. Back to the room possibly to smoke and have sex, since sex was quite successful through the trip, but it's impossible to remember exact times after a space of six months passes.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16. After waking and sex and breakfast, we spend lots of time making plans for the rest of the trip, and I have a sheet from the Connemara Hotel where I decided "Sat - Madras; Sun - Mahabalipuram; Mon - Tirupati; Tues - 7:30AM - 12:15 Bangalore City; Wed - Srv., Bel., Halebid; Thu - Bangalore-Trivandrum 9:25-10:20 (flt 189); Fri - Triv - Periyar bus, 160 miles, 6 hrs.; Sat - Periyar-Madurai Bus 1536-1930 [will THESE turn into laughable times!]; Sun - Madurai-Tiruchi 1625-2040; Mon - Tiruchi-Colombo 13:55-15:20 (flt 212)." Get all our tickets, and even get information for a dance performance this evening "Sri Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha, Venkatrangam Pillai St. Triplicane, Bharatanatyam." Back and forth a couple of times to the India Tourist Development Corp office just around the corner form the hotel, and finally we meet for the buffet lunch and John says he just wants to shop, but I want to take the afternoon of the City Sight-Seeing Tour, so I sign up for it, but the bus is filled, and finally we get charged a bit more and five of us pile into a taxi to follow the bus around. These are the notes that I took in terribly poor handwriting on the route folder. Madras Fort: 3:10-3:35, only the fort museum in 1681, filled with weapons, uniforms, flags, stamps and coins, porcelain, medals, models of the fort. There are Chinese helmets, Trophies of the First China War in 1842 (All Indians on tour but US, and WE four in a regal cab). The GERMANS wore armor in 1914! "An Hindoo temple." Tacky, tacky, tacky portraits on second floor "Susan Marchioness of Tweedsdale" by Sir Francis Grane Pira. "Baron Willingdon of Ratton," even Victoria: lavishly regal GCSI, GCIE, GBE prints and documents (whatever that means). Past the Moslem-Victorian Moore Market. To the Madras Museum and Arts Gallery from 4:06-4:30: Hurry up, please; move along, please. They have a Gauguin, a Dufy REPRODUCTION, and others reproduced, and AWFUL Indian stuff.---the gallery was only from 3:55-4:06, but we spent too much time in it. Some LOVELY statues, some awfully clunky, pointy noses. Another man-woman front-back figure. THEN Zoology: Lovely Rajput miniatures, again fabulous carved ivory and sandalwood (Ganesh and box); Tanjore sculpture from the 11th century is MAGNIFICENTLY simple. We PASSED the Gandhi Mantapam and Children's park, large concrete white memorial with four different temple tops at 4:55 and also deer park. [To continue with the museum: 4 horned antelopes with 2 horns, Amaravati VERY Greek, fabulous stuff; lovely crystal reliquaries of Buddha! Fabulous old stuff 200 BC - 200 AD! Snakes and lingam looking like LEGS and cock! Hoards of great stuff; SUET (SATI) Stones are HERO stones! [Oh, yes, also this morning we went to the bank, which was actually closed, but Monday was a holiday, and this was the last time we had a chance, and we filled out applications to get a refund on our Traveler's Checks, but they had to forward everything to their bank in Colombo, the next place we knew where we were going to be.] Had to hold up the group by stopping in the shop and getting SOME cards of their treasures, anyway, though the reproductions were just dreadful. Then to the Mylapore Kapaleshwar Temple: 5:08-5:26, modeled and painted MOST realistically, PARTICULARLY pleasantly muscled males. Balconies on one side, VERY green trees on other side. Lovely dancing Nataraj, men, smooth. Cacophony of ringing bells, drums and horns, crowds of people and incense and firecrackers and people PROSTRATING themselves and getting forehead marks and bowing and praying and THOUSANDS of candles going in and in and in; old images are smoothest in cloth and silver and garlands and flowers and daubed in paint. FABULOUSLY realistic, and the flutter of pigeons makes you think the statues are moving. Six double rows and one top row for 13 in all. For proportion, 2 lower rows are two men, then just one. Lastly Madras Beach 5:40-5:55, no one swims, only at shore, it's too deep, swim only at Mahabalipuram. Shoes off my 5 np. LOVELY sunset clouds absolutely DWARF the University of Madras buildings. Their aim in 1967: NO huts in Madras city limits. Past "Hotel Runs." Glad it's over BEFORE their stated end at 6:30, and get to theater after MUCH agony of driving back and forth, at 6:23, and John's not there YET. It's a big barn-like place for the showings of Kalavahini, formed just recently on 29 September 1971 as the Cultural Wing of Telugu Mahajana Samajam, and it gives a dance performance by Kumari Chandrakala, and they say in the PROGRAM that they dance Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam. Notes from program: Effect: hands move so fast they APPEAR to be MANY. First BN is the same as before: affecting, coy eye movements, offering dance. Second BN is a boy-girl dialogue, she shy, he dashing and riding a horse, Interpolated prayer sequences of lovely adagio slowness. Male/female alternate, superfluously pointed up by red/yellow lighting. Two hands of God, again. She even speaks and sings in this. Effect: hands exploding into a flower---fast and slow. Third BN: Mother, maybe female servants, and child who steals honey, dresses in mother's jewelry, splashes in water, and mother comes back and she puts everything away. At end there's a cute "Twist-footed" sailor's hornpipe- type step, then a "glued foot" passage, then she steps into a plate and proceeds to propel herself around the stage, forward, back, sideways, turns, finally a chivvying forward, all the while unconcernedly going through elaborate hand- motions and a cute "it's nothing" smile on her whitened face. Fourth is merely the whole Ramayana---but not NEARLY so interesting---the "Swan Lake" of BN. How INDIA, that ONE person does ALL the parts. Fifth, Child Vishnu, rather like #4, but not as amusing. John's exhausted, talking about his day of shopping and his lunch in the department store, and we're back to the hotel through dark streets and a late dinner in the still-orchestrated ballroom, and bed in the quiet night.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17. What with the first scheduling of the car to Tirupati for Monday, then finding that the tour to Mahabalipuram was full for Sunday but would take place on Monday, a holiday, we switched the car to Sunday, and were frankly surprised and gratified to find the car WAITING for us at 7AM, after the coffee had been brought to our room, and I take the notebook along to do lots of writing, but the only thing I record all day (see page 2415) is the mileage and the longest place name in India. There are many other cars roaring along, and we meet up with them at various places when we're all stopped for railroad crossings, of which there are many. The bluffs bordering the road are quite spectacular for distances away, and the clouded blue sky is warm and beautiful. Through many small villages, in each of which we have to blast on the horn to get the kids and cows out of the way, and some of the older folks stare at us in disgust, and we rather hate our driver, too. Urinate just off the curb as well as anyone, and finally get into Tirumali at the base of the hill about 11, and go to get the taxi permit for the road at 11:30 for 7 rupees. And get some Fantas for refreshment. Then we're out onto the desert-like scrubland for the winding road up the side of the hill, stopping to look up and down the stone stairways that some pilgrims negotiate on their knees, and look out over the level plains below. Over the lip and across a bridge over a narrow valley between the town and the temple, and see many pilgrims making their slow way up or down the hill. Pass dozens of hostels, some expensive, some free, put up by the TTD of Tirupati, one of the richest temples in India with an income of $5-6 million DOLLARS per year. It's where people come to PAY to have their heads shaved, and then the hair is sold for wigs. So the pilgrims coming down are distinguished by their male and female bald pates, making the black eye makeup of the women look even stranger, and more hawklike. Into the immense parking area and are told we have to walk the rest of the way, and our driver comes along so we don't need guides. Into the first gate and buy books about the place, and onto a staired terrace where we can look over the walls and see the tops of the gateways and temples, some of them of solid gold, in the enclosure, and see the enormous lines of people stretching out of sight around the corner of the building waiting to get in. Lists of prices are everywhere, up to and including a marriage ceremony between the chief god and goddess. We get some kind of sweet nut bread to eat, I use my binoculars to see as much as I can, which isn't much, and there's a feeling of being cheated because we can't go in. Around the temple yards to pools and side worshipping halls, and streets of shops and eateries and temporary barracks for the festivals. We don't want to see the waterfall, but ask the driver to take us off for a place to eat, and we get to an overlook down where the elephants walk up from the valley, and we look around that area but feel we've seen everything, since there isn't much we're ALLOWED to see, so we're back to the taxi and start winding our way down the hill. I sort of want to see Kalahasti, but the driver said the road is very bad. Pass another place on a hill, but John wants to get back, and for most of the trip he dozes on my lap, except where we stop in the evening to look at two entire trees full of chittering flying foxes, with their dog-like faces and stretchable-membranous wings. Back to the hotel just about at dark, and into the dining room to the same singer and the very same style of songs, and we sit around downstairs for cruising, but it doesn't work, and we have nothing left to do but go to bed and have sex.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18. Up for breakfast and to the tourist office for departure at 7:50, and we sit about halfway back on the bus, driving through uninteresting countryside except that we see working elephants and horses, beggars, and TWO parading shrines. Get to Kancheepuram at 9;10, and the Ekambareshwar Temple has a mango tree that's 3000 years old. The temple is from 1000 AD, has a HUGE interior, and the innermost towers decayed and crumbled; the middle towers are VERY elaborate and beady; the next middle more architectural and structural, and the outermost the newest and gaudiest. Climb inside one, up many stairways, and creep out onto a narrow balcony with no railings whatsoever, waving down to John, chatting with the boys who are climbing with me, and we leave at 9:50, much too fast, and I get very angry when we end up at a RESTAURANT from 10-10:40, and I stalk out to walk up and down city streets just to see how people live, and it's hot and dusty, the tanks are low and smelly, and the people aren't terribly colorful, so I'm back to the bus and write the following note in the book I bought on Kanchi: "Just pissed, pissed, PISSED at this tour, for making me feel so UGLY. Stop for 40 minutes at Ekambeshwar and then to a RESTAURANT that miraculously manages to be AWAY from any OTHER temple. Then to THIS and back in bus at 11:10 and no one's THERE. Hindu asks to use my binoculars and I feel like saying "Oh, it's for non-Hindus ONLY." Just feel so UGLY about it, but it's not the tour I resent and I can't tell myself it IS. Felt GOOD getting up this morning, but sure not NOW. I scowl at everyone who smiles at me, and the beggars clap and grunt and mumble at me, and I simply COMPLETELY ignore them, which of course leads them to repeat and repeat MADDENINGLY until finally they get bored and go away. Even those who are SINCERELY friendly are put off by my sternness, and maybe they won't be so nice to other tourists in the FUTURE. But each "friend" really turns into a "touch" for a rupee or a shop or a tour. Guy points out LOVELY three bodies with four arms and legs and I look at him in anger, expecting a touch. IS it me or IS sit them -- I HATE the kid singing happily away behind me. I HATE the shopkeepers trying to sell their goods to the most likely prospect: an American tourist. I HATE the local kids, proud of their English, wanting to know where I'm from. I HATE the tour, and even John for not hating all this as much as I do. And I feel ugly, ugly, looked at with contempt by the hippies, co-tourists who shrug and go along with whatever's thrown at them. While I fuss and knit my brows and knot my stomach and HATE. WISHING it could be different, but KNOWING that it isn't. HOPING that writing will exorcise the spleen, but STILL my teeth are clenched, my breath is short, my stomach is tight, and I HATE the tour for not being back in the bus at 11:15, obviously they're seeing something INSIDE the temple that we're not allowed to see." Then to the Varajarada temple from 10:50-11:20, and we pass by the base of Thirukalikundram Temple, saying we missed the the birds, and drive straight on to Mahabalipuram. Of course we stop at the Rest House and everyone wants to have lunch, and we stomp off to the Shore Temple, disgusted again at the ridiculousness of the tour. It's much smaller than it seems from the pictures, about the smallest thing we've seen so far, and the bay-side is very heavily eroded from the salt waves, and we enjoy watching the waves come in, and can feel the spray as we walk around the building. The stone wall helps, but the air itself is abrasive. It's very hot, but finally the group comes down from the Rest House and we troop around the place, and then walk all the way over to the five rathas, which are very simple structures all carved out of individual boulders, and the imagination to see a rock and make a temple out of it is staggering. Then walk around to the tops of other hills, getting all the carvings inside the caves pointed out to us, as well as the huge stone wall of Arjuna's penance, and maybe there's a feeling that no physical structures could summarize our expectations for Mahabalipuram, but again the heat, the fatigue, and the tourists and our disgust with the tour made everything seem not QUITE worth the effort to see, not REALLY worth the trouble to come back to see, not EXACTLY the thing we'd remember most or tell people not to miss. There was a closed gate over which I could see a sculpture garden, and a little old lady beckoned me in, so I went in and looked at all the fragments, and thought this was pleasant because I was alone in it. Stopped in shops for cold drinks, wandered along some of the touristed streets, and then back to the bus for the long road back, much of it along the beach, but watching the labor of lugging water to the meticulously planted trees tired me out, and I dozed through the end of the trip. Back to the hotel with relief and lay for a bit in the room before going to dinner, and we didn't even know of any other place to eat in town beside the hotel, so that's where we ate, again and again.