The Dutch East Indies. The very name conjures up the exotic with spices and unexplored jungles and cultures. A place with volcanoes, former headhunters, real life dragons, and orangutans. The islands were also home to our ancestors like Java Man and the Hobbits of Flores. And of course the famous coffee beans from Java and Sumatra. Having explored Russia in October, our next adventure was as dissimilar as a place could be to the cold and inhospitable climate of the former Soviet Union. Unlike our trip to Russia in almost every way imaginable, our travels were just as rich and fascinating.
Known as Indonesia since 1949, the country consists of over 250 million people living on about 14,000 islands. Home to hundreds of distinct languages, the archipelago has been a crossroads of Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim cultures. Straddling the Equator, the country has the world's second largest biodiversity, behind only Brazil.
To get there from Madison, we would have to travel for more than 24 hours. We were flying from Madison to Denver, then on to Tokyo, and finally from Japan to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital and second largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million people.
Looking fabulous before her 8:35 am Flight UA72, non-stop to Denver. Becky has her fashionable Costco raincoat as preparation for the Indonesian Monsoon Season.
Spurning the traditional omelette in the Mile High City, Becky enjoys her last American meal for two weeks with a salad at the airport.
After Super Bowl XXXII, an abomination to Packer fans passing through the Denver airport.
Still looking fresh as we are about to board Flight UA139, a 12 hour flight across the Pacific from Denver to Tokyo.
I was particularly excited about our flight to Tokyo as it would be our first time on Boeing's newest airplane, the 787, billed as the Dreamliner. With claims that the plane has better air pressure and air quality, larger windows, quieter engines, and most importantly - larger bathrooms, we were hoping that our experience of super-dry air, ear-crushing descents, and cramped transoceanic flights would no longer be the stuff of nightmares. The Dreamliner did not disappoint.
From the moment we boarded, we knew this would be a different kind of flight. The aisles seemed larger. The space between seats was definitely larger, even in economy. My six foot four inch frame fit comfortably in my seat, with plenty of room between the seat in front of me and my knees. If the person in front of me chose to be rude and move her seat back, I wouldn't feel like a sardine flying through a metal container at 567 mph.
Each seat also had an electrical outlet beneath it, so we could keep all of our iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, and portable microwaves (to make popcorn, in case we got hungry) fully charged during our Pacific Ocean crossing. The Dreamliner was also equipped with wifi, which I considered purchasing because I wanted to watch the Wisconsin Badgers take on the Iowa Hawkeyes, something that Amelia Earhart could only have dreamed of doing when she attempted to cross the ocean in 1937. However, after seeing the steep $16.99 price tag and caveat that the wifi could not be used to stream video, I decided to stick with my tried and tested form of entertainment while flying, the paperback book.
What's the point of Wi-Fi if you can't stream a basketball game?
So much leg room in economy that you couldn't even see my legs while sitting down.
Man in next aisle obviously wishing he'd brought a portable microwave for popcorn too.
Our 12 hour flight across the Pacific was uneventful, although I think calling it a flight across the ocean was misleading. I always pictured a flight across the Pacific as going straight thru the center of the ocean, passing the Hawaiian Islands closely (hopefully close enough that one could shout "Book Em Danno" while flying overhead). In reality, the flight only skirted the Pacific Ocean since it went along the North American coast up to Alaska and then down the Russian coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula (made famous by the game of Risk as a classic route of invasion into Alaska) until reaching the islands of Japan.
Once we deplaned, I immediately connected to Narita-Tokyo Airport's free wifi and learned that Wisconsin had upset Iowa on the road, causing me to let out a little shout-out of joy and startling the local Japanese around me. After going through security again, we set out for the legendary Japanese toilets, with all of their electronic gadgets.
Not only did the toilets have a built in bidet, but there were all sorts of buttons you could press that did things like make fake flushing noises while warming up the seat for a cold bottom.
The Japanese Toilet, with a panel of buttons that would have made Captain Kirk jealous.
The Toilet was so complicated it even came with instructions in English and Japanese.
With two hours to kill before our flight to Jakarta, we did what all good travelers do and checked out the gift shop scene at the airport. It was quite busy at the large shop in the middle of the terminal. Although we were not going to buy anything on our way to Indonesia, my daughter, Nastssaja, had asked that we bring back green tea Kit Kat candy bars that she had seen on Dan and Phil. Most of the goods were food gift boxes labeled only in Japanese so it was a risky venture to purchase most items. On our way back, we did purchase several of these "surprise" gift boxes. Upon opening two of them when we returned to the States, we discovered we had purchased boxes full of strangely textured and tasting dough balls. Luckily, we also found the green tea Kit Kats.
The pictures on the outside of the boxes may have looked appetizing, but what was inside was very foreign to my bland American palate.
Gold for Nastassja
After perusing the gift shop, we walked past a bizarre room in which travelers with strange and foreign pestilence were to be quarantined.
Unclear whether you are prohibited from sleeping, having an upset stomach, or playing bad music on the toilet
Apparently, camels are verboten at Narita-Tokyo Airport
We spent our remaining time at the airport surfing the internet on our phones thru the free airport wifi and filling up with water, though I was not as parched as I usually am after a transoceanic flight. I chalked that up to the Dreamliner, which can maintain a much higher level of humidity due to being built out of synthetic materials (humidity corrodes normal planes built out of metal).
Waiting to board United Airlines Flight 7915 to Jakarta
Our last flight of the day was operated by All Nippon Airways (ANA) and was again aboard a Dreamliner. This time we didn't have as much leg room in economy (perhaps because the Japanese are shorter?) but because it was a mostly empty flight, we had a whole aisle to ourselves in which to stretch out and sleep. The almost eight hour flight was uneventful, though I got pretty excited about crossing the Equator for the first time. Historically, sailors that "crossed the line" for the first time were treated to a brutal ceremony that involved beating them with boards and often dragging them behind the ship. Thankfully, the crew of our Dreamliner did not engage in any such shenanigans when we crossed the line other than serve us a very unappetizing breakfast before landing.
According to Wikipedia, the Equator is an imaginary line - but there it was, clear as day on the in-flight map.
After 26 hours of travel we landed in Jakarta in the middle of a thunderstorm, welcoming us to the Indonesian Monsoon Season. It was just after Midnight, local time. After collecting our luggage and finding our hotel shuttle, we had an interesting conversation with a man from Montana that was traveling to Irian Jaya (the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea) as a Christian missionary. He also hoped to find some pet Guinea pigs to take home to his children. I didn't have the heart to tell him that Guinea pigs were not from Guinea, nor New Guinea, but the Andes, so he was thousands of miles off in his search for these friendly pets.
Although Indonesia has some of the most crowded spots on Earth, there was still space available for us westerners.
Finally, we checked into our hotel, the FM7 Resort Hotel, a few kilometers from the airport, exhausted but happy to have made it to the East Indies. We would now rest for a few hours before getting up early to catch an 8:50 am flight to the island of Lombok.
Nothing screams the FM7 Resort Hotel more than a bunny with hearts for eyes
On a winter day in 1967, a young man from West Allis showed up at Chadbourne Hall to pick up a pretty brown haired woman from Kenosha for a first date. Their destination was a University of Wisconsin basketball game. To the young woman's chagrin, the young man brought his roommate with him. Luckily for me, she saw the charm in the man and a little over year later the couple became my parents.
Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, my parents took my sisters and me to countless Badger basketball games at the old Field House. Because the Badgers weren't very good - a 500 record in the Big Ten would have been a remarkable achievement back then - tickets were always plentiful and cheap. The seats were always high up in the rafters and often times there was a beam that partially obstructed the view - but it was great fun. And we got to see the likes of Magic Johnson and Bobby Knight come and square up against our Badgers.
In 1989, Wisconsin finally made a tournament - it was only the NIT, but after all the years of basketball futility, being at the Field House for a post-season game was exciting. Of course, they lost that game (to Saint Louis). In the 1990s, Wisconsin began to make the real tournament with consistency - but playing past the first round was still a dream.
Badger basketball continued to be part of me, my first date in 1994 with Peggy Hurley was delayed a couple of hours so I could watch Wisconsin play Ohio State. Then on the day I brought my son home from the hospital after being born, the Badgers made the Final Four on that dream run in 2000. Years later, in 2007 I delayed my first date with Rebecca Eberhardt for a few hours so I could watch Wisconsin beat Michigan State.
Obviously, Wisconsin basketball is in my blood and because it was the catalyst for my parents' first date, it's in the very fabric of my existence. But in all my years of watching them play, I never once realistically thought they would play for a National Championship. It makes tomorrow's game truly remarkable for me. On Wisconsin.
Gandhi. The very name evokes a man of great wisdom and peace. It also conjures up a man who had few possessions and believed in living a life of simplicity. Thus, when we arrived at the house where he spent the last 144 days of his life in 1948, we expected a hut or perhaps a one room bungalow. Instead, we found a grand and beautiful home.
The tale of how Gandhi ended spending the last days of his life and ultimately being assassinated at this beautiful and peaceful place involves the end of the British empire and independence of India. In 1947, Great Britain gave up its long and ill-intended fight to keep the Indian Subcontinent. At that time, the northern parts of the Subcontinent were predominantly Muslim while the southern parts were mostly Hindu. Although Gandhi wanted a united India with equal rights between Muslims and Hindus, British India was divided along religious lines into modern day Pakistan and India (with Bangladesh eventually being carved out of Pakistan).
Historically people of Muslim and Hindu backgrounds (not to mention India's large populations of Sikhs and Christians) did not live in neatly drawn separate communities but lived side-by-side in communities together. Thus at the time of partition, it impossible to draw a neat border between Pakistan and India in which on one side only Muslims lived and on the other side only Hindus lived. Horrible violence between neighbors and the deaths of thousands of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and other people erupted. Millions of people fled their homes as Muslims moved north to Pakistan and Hindus moved south to India in the greatest mass migration in human history.
During this religious strife, Gandhi worked to stop the violence in Calcutta by refusing to eat until the rioting stopped there in 1947. With much of the violence in Calcutta quelled, Gandhi travelled to Delhi to continue his work for peace. In Delhi, Gandhi slept at the huge mansion we had just reached, which was the home of his close friend G.D. Birla.
While walking to a prayer meeting on January 30, 1948, Gandhi was gunned down in the garden of Birla's home by a Hindu nationalist who believed Gandhi was too accommodating to Muslims. Gandhi's last words were reputed to be "Hey Ram" - meaning "Oh God" in Hindi.
Today the home and gardens are known as the Gandhi Smriti, or Gandhi Remembrance. The home is a large colonial bungalow surrounded by large well kept grounds lined with palms and smaller manicured trees.
As we walked into the entrance of the grounds, we found an empty ticket booth. Instead a small sign was posted in the window that was titled "INSTRUCTIONS TO THE VISITORS" which told us that the museum was absolutely free. Obviously, this was an untapped opportunity for a good capitalist to make a nice profit off the death of one of the 20th Century's great symbols of non-consumerism.
However, the Litter of Wanted Items is Allowed
Once inside, we were able to admire the handsome house up close. Built for one of the great Indian industrialists of the 20th Century, G.D. Birla, the home was later sold to the Indian government in 1966 by Birla's son. Either wishing to make a handsome profit off of Gandhi's last residence or perhaps just not wanting to part with his family home, Birla's son drove a hard bargain in selling the property. Although the story may be apocryphal, Birla's son was said to have held out until the government agreed to reimburse him for the trees and saplings on the property that grew fruit.
Jim Morrison Would not Have Found this to be a Typical Bollywood Bungalow
The room that Gandhi slept in has been perfectly preserved with a simple bed and his few worldly possessions on display. Included were his famous round spectacles, which were under heavy guard to keep aficionados of John Lennon and Harry Potter from stealing them.
Gandhi's Bedroom, Worthy of a Greek Spartan
In front of the bungalow, we came across the World Peace Gong, a gong so famous that it even has its own website. Originating in Indonesia, the gong symbolizes world peace by containing the flags of the members of the United Nations. It also contains the symbols of the major religions of the world. Ironically, the gong contains a swastika which was used by Hindus, Buddhist, and Jains as a symbol of well being for thousands of years before Hitler co-opted it as a symbol of fascism. We would see that symbol throughout our travels in India.
Almost as Famous as the Gong Show
Having visualized world peace, or at least the whirled peas we expected to have for dinner, we continued walking around the bungalow until we reached a statue that suspiciously resembled Sir Ben Kingsley. Undoubtedly, the famous actor's performances in movies such as Species and What Planet Are You From had endeared him into the hearts of Indians everywhere. He was so beloved on the Subcontinent that they had erected a statue that bore remarkable resemblance to his character in a 1982 Academy Award winning movie which I forget the name of.
A Beautiful Tribute to Ben Kingsley and Two of His Children
After contemplating Ben Kingsley's brilliant voice rendition of Freddie the Frog in the animated Freddie as F.R.O.7, we moved on towards the garden at the back of the house. To our left, we spotted a small garage containing a car that looked like something out of the 1950s. It was an Ambassador, India's most iconic car.
Built by the Birla family's Hindustan Motors, it was modeled after a car manufactured in England for a few years in the 1950s, Known as the King of Indian Roads or Amby, the Ambassador was not discontinued until 2014. Although the Amby no longer dominated the roadways, we did see a smattering of them throughout India and we were lucky enough to ride in one in Jaipur.
Once Known as the King of Indian Roads, the Amby has been Relegated to the Queen of Abandoned Garages
At the rear of the house was a large sign that marked the beginning of Gandhi's last worldly journey. The path contained his footprints that continued to a small gazebo marking the spot of his assassination. I felt sad as we followed the footprints along the path and contemplated the death of the consummate man of peace.
The Path of Gandhi's Last Walk
The last part of our Gandhi Smriti's tour was more like visiting Salvador Dali's museum than one dedicated to a man of simple of living. The second floor of the bungalow contained the longwinded named "Eternal Gandhi Multimedia Museum." Although the exhibit began innocuously enough with a traditional mural of Gandhi praying, it soon moved onto wild projected images and sculptures of Gandhi with eerily glowing eyes. We felt like we were back in Dali's museum in Figueres, Spain or at least inside Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbitvideo.
On the evening of August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail west from a small port in southwestern Spain with plans to reach the East Indies and gain entry into the spice trade. Five weeks later, instead of reaching Asia, Columbus landed in the Bahamas and the rest is history. Hoping to avoid Columbus's mistake, we had traveled east instead of west via the old Silk Road route through Constantinople (which incidentally by falling to the the Turks in 1453 had triggered a search by Europeans for an alternative, westward route to India).
We had several advantages over Columbus. Constantinople was no longer closed to travelers heading west. We were pretty sure the world was round. And we were able to travel by this modern invention called the plane. With those advantages in hand and a little luck, we accomplished something Columbus failed to do in four tries, and landed in India around 5:30 am after only 26 hours of travel.
I suggested we fire a lombard (a type of cannon used to alert Columbus that land was spotted on his first voyage to the New World) upon landing, but Becky didn't think it would go over well with the airport authorities.
As we departed the plane, our first impression of India was not the sweet smell of spices but an acrid smoke smell. As we walked out into the cavernous and modern Indira Gandhi International Airport a cloud of smog hung over everything inside the terminal. I've been to smoggy cities - Athens in 1991 and Cairo in 2011 come to mind, but I'd never seen smog inside a building before.
Twenty-six Hours of Travel Does Nothing to Her Beauty
After making our way through immigration and collecting our luggage, we armed ourselves with a fistful of rupees - 10,000 - from an airport ATM. With the exchange rate of just over 60 Rupees to the dollar, you can quickly have a false sense of wealth by carrying around thousands of Rupees - though not quite like the million Dong I had in my wallet in Vietnam the year before.
Having read that many of the taxi drivers refuse to use the meter for foreigners, we decided to go with the pre-paid taxi booths to get to our hotel in the center of New Delhi. Walking up to the first booth, the man quoted us 400 Rupees for a taxi and then eyeballing us, changed that to 800 Rupees because he said it was 400 each. Having done a little research ahead of time on the internet (a world traveler's greatest tool), I knew this was an exorbitant price for a ride downtown. As we prepared to walk to the next booth, the man quickly lowered his price back to 400 Rupees. Welcome to India, where everything is negotiable.
We walked out of the airport and matched our voucher to the appropriate taxi and settled in for the 20 minute ride to our hotel. As the driver reached for his seat belt, we attempted to find ours. But as with most taxis in the developing world, no seat belts were to be found for the passengers. We would just have to place our trust in our good driver.
As we rode downtown, the city was dark with a steady rain falling. A chill was in the air. Not how I had imagined India. There were few street lamps and the ones that existed threw off a weak light so you couldn't make out the buildings by the side of the road. Although it was 6 am and still dark, there was lots of activity, with people walking in the road and huddling around small fires.
We were staying at Bloomrooms@New Delhi Railway Station, near the New Delhi Train Station. Located in the Paharganj neighborhood, the area is a haven for low-budget hotels. Fresh off her role in Titanic, Kate Winslet starred in Holy Smoke!, a movie that was took place in Paharganj and depicted an Indian train that hit an elephant and then sank slowly into the morass of the chaotic neighborhood. Unfortunately, the film was not a big of a hit as Titanic, mainly because Winslet's co-star, Harvey Keitel, wasn't as dashing and handsome as Leonardo Di Caprio.
Although many travelers had reported the neighborhood to be dirty, seedy, and somewhat scary, we decided to stay here because we hoped to catch a whiff of Ms. Winslet's left over magic. That and the hotel was right next to train station at which we had to catch a 6 am train the next morning.
As we neared our hotel, our taxi driver began humming Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. The breaking dawn allowed us to size up our neighborhood. Although we were very close to the train station, not a lot of people were out and about. Through the rain we could see two and three story structures in various states of disrepair. Some of them were completely gutted as if someone had decided to remove all of the windows and doors to the building. However, the Bloomrooms hotel was in a sleek, modern looking building.
To our relief we were allowed to check-in to our hotel room immediately. There is nothing like arriving in foreign land early in the morning after crossing the ocean and then having to wait until late afternoon to freshen up. In fact, in his best selling memoirs, Christopher Columbus commented on how much in was looking forward to checking into his hotel room when he first arrived in what he thought was the East Indies.
Up three flights of stairs (or a extremely tight and cramped elevator ride), the door to our room faced a nice looking inner courtyard. Inside was an extremely modern and spacious room with a lightning fast wifi connection. We found the small outside balcony facing a completely gutted building to be very romantic. The most interesting feature of the room was the shower.
The shower had a floor to ceiling window that separated it from the main hotel room. You would think that the person showering would have control over whether the window shade was up or down to protect her privacy. Intriguingly, the shade was on the main hotel room side of the shower. Thus, a person could be innocently whistling to herself in the shower (perhaps something catchy like the theme song to the movie Titanic) while another person in the hotel room could suddenly yank the window up and see all. It made no sense to us Americans with our good puritanical backgrounds.
Doing her best Kate Winslet impression
After exploring the room, we FaceTimed the kids and my parents to inform them we had one-upped Christopher Columbus. FaceTime is another marvel of modern international travel. In years past, we would have to first find a street kiosk that sold an international telephone card, then you would have to find a telephone booth that made international calls, which wasn't always as easy as it sounds. I remember once in Barcelona, Becky and I probably went to a dozen telephone booths all over the city before we found one that we could call home on. Now you just whip out your iPhone, connect to the hotel's wifi, and within seconds you can see your kids. I could even switch the iPhone's camera to the rear facing one and give the kids a tour of the room and show them our view from the balcony while FaceTiming them. Fantastic.
Showering and changing into clothing that we hadn't been wearing for 26 hours made us feel like new people. In the corridor, we discovered fresh tea to help us combat our jet lag. Tea is one of the joys of India.
Although local tribes had long drank tea in northeast India, it did not become a huge industry until the British introduced it to India in an attempt to break the Chinese monopoly on tea. And Indians did not begin drinking it en masse until the 1950s. Today, it's is everywhere - grown in the north and south and found on the streets and train stations. And a hotel room without a tea kettle would be a major scandal. Tea is so beloved on the subcontinent that Indians consume 30% of all the tea grown on the entire planet.
The tea in India is usually served with the hot milk and sugar already added. The sweet mixture was so good that we went cold turkey on our usual coffee and almost exclusively drank tea during our entire trip.
Fortified with caffeine, we decided to venture out and find some breakfast. According to our copy of The Rough Guide to India, Connaught Place is the commercial heart of New Delhi and has lots of good food options. A quick search on Google Maps showed it to be less than 2 kilometers away (about a mile for those still on the Imperial Units system). Because a light rain was still falling, we obtained a ride from the hotel's complimentary's minibus.
Delhi has probably been continuously inhabited for more than two thousand years. From the mid-16th Century to the mid-19th Century, large parts of India were ruled by the Mughals, a Muslim dynasty that claimed to be direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Our hotel was right on the edge of Old Delhi (though confusingly not the oldest part of Delhi), which was the capital of the Mughal Dynasty. By the 19th Century, the British, through the East India Company, controlled large parts of India and finally deposed of the last of Mughals in 1857. A year later they established the British Raj - the term used for the British rule of India.
The British established their first capital in Calcutta in the eastern area of India known as Bengal. Having a strong hatred of all things associated both with the Cincinnati Bengals and Mother Teresa, King George V declared in 1911 that the capital of the Raj would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. To carry out this move, the British built an entirely new city south of Old Delhi, known today as New Delhi. Connaught Place was developed to be the showplace of the new British capital and sits on the northern edge of New Delhi.
At the center of Connaught Place is a circular central park (the Inner Circle). Surrounding the central park are two circular rows of terraced buildings which create a the Middle Circle and the Outer Circle. Seven road radiate from the central park. The buildings house restaurants, shops, hotels, and businesses.
Our minibus driver explained that the shops around Connaught Place did not open until 11 am. Because it was only 9:30 am, we asked him to drop us near an establishment that served breakfast. Wandering out of the minibus, we noticed that there were almost no people around - which we thought odd considering we in the heart of a city of 15 million people. The restaurant our driver highly recommended was empty and obviously closed. We headed for the middle circle and began to be approached by men at regular intervals.
The script with every man was essentially the same.
"Hello, where are you from?"
"America"
"Ah Welcome - Obama is coming. Obama is good." [Sometimes they would ask us from what part of America we came from and after we told them near Chicago, they would tell us they had a cousin that lived there].
"Yes, we like Obama - it is exciting that he is coming to India in a few weeks."
They would then tell us what street we were on and proceed to ask:
"What are you looking for?"
"Oh - we are just walking around - enjoying New Delhi."
"I work for the tourist board. The tourist office is close by. Let me take you there."
"No thank you - maybe later."
The persistent ones would then proceed to tell us that the area was dangerous for pickpockets and proceed to pull out an official looking "Tourist Bureau" ID card and again urged us to come with them. One man even told us the direction we were headed in - south - was dangerous, which was preposterous considering the area south of Connaught Place contained the important government buildings such as the parliament and prime minister's palace.
Luckily, I had read our copy of The Rough Guide to India ahead of time which warned:
On Cannanught Place and along Janpath steer clear of phone "tourist information offices" (which touts may try to divert you to - a typical CP tout chat-up line is to inform you which block you are on, so be suspicious of anyone who comes up and tells you that unasked) and never do business with any travel agency that tries to disguise itself as a tourist information office.
Wikitravel.com also warned:
Many first time travellers to India find themselves falling victim to scams and touts, and unfortunately Delhi has a lot of both. Be on guard for anybody trying to help you by giving you unsolicited directions or travel advice.
Fortunately, a few polite no thank yous and "maybe later"s caused the touts to leave us alone.
Fending off the various touts, we walked around the Middle Circle trying to find an open eating establishment. Even the Indian megachain, Cafe Coffee Day was closed. With over 1,600 locations, the Starbucks of India was named the "most popular hangout joint amongst youth" on the Subcontinent. Just not in the morning apparently.
Giving up on the Middle Circle, we headed to the Outer Circle of Connaught Place. We spied the Hotel Saravan Bhavan which appeared to have people eating in it. Although we didn't know it at the time, the restaurant is one of the largest vegetarian chain restaurants in the world. Founded by restauranteur, P. Rajagopalin, in Chennai [the largest city in south India], there are over 30 locations in India and another 47 world wide, including in Europe and the United States.
Rajapopalin pays his employees well and gives them fantastic benefits. The food Rajapopalin created for his restaurants is delicious southern Indian fare at very reasonable prices. Sounds like a great founder and owner? There was only one problem, Rajapopalin is also a convicted murderer.
The whole sordid tale was laid out in a 2014 profile in the New York Times Magazine. Rajapopalin was convicted of murdering the husband of a woman he wanted to marry. The tale involves astrology, multiple wives, and an attempt to tie the victim on a railroad track so a train could run over him. What better place to begin our introduction to authentic Indian food.
Our breakfast consisted of several puris, idlis, and a dosa. Puri is a deep fried Indian bread on which we placed a spicy potato mixture and sambar [a spicy lentil stew]. An idli is a small cake made from rice flour. Ours were served floating in sambar. Idlis are the staple breakfast food in southern India. And a dosa is a crepe made from rice and lentils - also a regular southern Indian breakfast food. Dosa's can be as large as a table. We ordered the Masala Dosa, masala meaning a spice mix, which came filled with spicy potatoes.
I also ordered a sweet lassi, which is a drink made of yogurt, water, and sometimes spices and fruit. Becky had a masala chai [a spiced tea drink]. The breakfast was murderously good and all for under $10 for the two of us.
Killer Puri
A Criminally Good Serving of Sambar Idli & Lassi Drink
A Masala Chai that was so Tasty, it was Almost Lethal
As we ate breakfast, we studied the map of New Delhi that our hotel had given us. The map showed the Gandhi Smriti museum to be only a short walk south of Connaught Place. Gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life and was assassinated in 1948 at the location. It was a must see for us.
We stepped back out into the street and headed south on Janpath, one of main boulevards in New Delhi. The light mist had stopped falling and many more people were out and about, though not as many as you would imagine when you think of India, a country approaching 1.3 billion people. Later in the day, we would experience that India with teeming masses near our hotel.
On our way to the Gandhi Smriti, we stopped to walk around the Jantar Mantar, a giant observatory built in 1724 by the founder of the city of Jaipur, Jai Singh II. Consisting of several huge instruments, it was used to predict the movements of the sun, moon, and planets. Apparently, the Mughal emperor at the time depended upon the location of astronomical objects to decide when to begin a journey. Though with today's incredible smog and haze in which we couldn't even spot the sun, it is hard to imagine ever being able to spot any celestial objects from Delhi.
The most spectacular of the instruments is the Samrat Yantra, a giant sundial in the shape of a triangle that points towards the North Pole. Because it showed him the way north, explorer Robert Peary first attempted to reach the top of the world by setting out from the Jantar Mantar in 1908. He abandoned his attempt at the foothills of the Himalayas when he realized dog sleds were not the best means of transport over those mountains. He then sensibly set out from New York City on his next attempt to reach the North Pole in 1909,
Robert Peary Setting Out from the Jantar Mantar in 1908
Heart Shaped Astronomical Instrument used to Find the Planet Venus
Samrat Yantra Points North - Explorer Peary's Dogs would Slide Down for Fun
Replica of the Colosseum used for Gladiator Fights when the Emperor was not Consulting the Stars. It's also a Favorite of Russell Crowe.
We attempted to use the giant astronomical instruments to determine our way to the Gandhi museum we were trying to find. But with the heavy smog continuing to hang over the city, we were unable even to spot the sun and had to rely upon our hotel map which showed the museum to be only two blocks south on the Janpath boulevard. After a few blocks of walking and no sign of the Gandhi Smriti in sight, it began to dawn on us that our hotel map was a crude one and probably not drawn to scale. However, there were regular signs for the Gandhi Smriti that continued to point south and so we ventured on.
We passed several high end hotel establishments with pretentious names such as The Meridian, Shangri-La Eros, and the creative The Imperial. Eventually, we crossed New Delhi's most famous boulevard, the Rajpath. A wide boulevard lined on both sides by parks and trees, it is India's Champs-Élysées, which starts at the Rashtrapati Bhavan (the President's palace) and continues for approximately one and a half miles to the giant India Gate - an arch similar to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The famous opening scene in the movie Gandhi, with over 300,000 extras for the great leader's funeral, took place on the Rajpath.
The view from the presidential palace to India Gate is supposed to be a spectacular one. But from where we were standing (the intersection of the Janpath with the Rajpath), we could not make out the presidential palace less than a mile away because of the heavy smog. We could barely make out the India Gate less than a half mile away. I know I continue to go on and on about the smog, but we had never seen anything like it. It was atrocious.
Crossing the Rajpath, our journey south continued on Janpath road. On both sides of the street, buildings became less frequent as trees and fields dominated the city scape in this part of New Delhi. And then we saw monkeys - real live monkeys - dozens of them running on railings, jumping from trees, and searching through garbage for tasty leftover morsels of human food.
Delhi's relationship with the monkeys is a complicated one. Around 30,000 red-faced rhesus monkeys live in the city and can be a menace to the human population. Many of them carry diseases like rabies and tuberculosis. They can be aggressive towards people, sometimes attacking them. In 2007, the deputy mayor was killed when he fell from his balcony while fending off a monkey attack.
The monkeys also steal food and wreak havoc on buildings they enter. They even invaded a local hospital after learning how to use the automatic doors. And the monkeys particularly like to steal whiskey and get drunk. As they say, monkey see, monkey do.
They were even seen as a potential threat to President Obama when he visited in 2010 and 2015.
However, the monkeys are revered in Hindu society as an incarnation of the monkey god, Hanuman. Every Tuesday, Hindus worship the monkeys by feeding them. In addition, thousands of temples are devoted to Hanuman throughout India. Therefore, attempting to rid New Delhi of the monkey menace by using violent means is unthinkable.
Over the years, the city has attempted to manage the menace by deploying larger langur monkeys on tethers to scare the smaller rhesus monkeys off. But this practice was recently banned as cruel to the langur monkeys. Nowadays, Delhi has employed specialized "ape-men" who attempt to frighten the rhesus monkeys by mimicking the call of the langur monkeys. From what we could see, these attempt had not been very successful. Perhaps if Davy Jones were still alive, he could have terrorized the monkeys by singing some particularly bad old Monkees tunes.
Monkey Believing in his Daydreams
Monkeys having a Pleasant Valley Friday
He's in hurry to Catch the Last Train to Clarksville
Having walked for about an hour since breakfast, we reached the end of the Janpath boulevard at another traffic circle Although we were very suspicious of our hotel map because a two block walk had turned into almost two miles, it clearly showed the Gandhi Smriti being located before the Janpath ended. So we did what one does in every country when lost, we walked up to a auto rickshaw driver and asked directions.
Auto rickshaws, also called Tuk Tuks, are the motorized version of the traditional hand pulled or cycle rickshaw used as a means of public transportation. Consisting of a open cabin built around a three wheeled vehicle, they are a cheap way to get around India for short distances. The ones in India are usually bright green and yellow.
The driver we approached indicated we had walked too far and that our elusive museum was back a block or two. He offered to take us there for free, but wary of a catch - such as being taken around to various "markets" with high mark-ups afterwards, we negotiated the fare. We agreed upon 50 Rupees, which was an absurdly steep price for a two block ride. However, with the average income in India for many workers being the equivalent of only a few American dollars a day, I realized early on in India that it was silly to bargain over 10 or 20 Rupees as that amounted to 20 or 30 cents to me but was a significant amount to the people we encountered in the service industry.
A one minute Tuk Tuk drive later, our driver deposited on in front of the Gandhi Smriti.
Bored with usual Klimowicz - Eberhardt New Years Eve scene of watching Ryan Seacrest blabber in Times Square on the telly, we decided to ring in 2015 by taking the Midnight Express aboard Turkish Airline Flight 6 from Chicago to Istanbul. After a short layover, we planned to test Christopher Columbus' theory that the world is round by traveling on to New Delhi.
Our 26 hour journey began with a flight from Madison to O'Hare. Upon boarding the tiny plane, I wondered out loud what the in-flight movie would be. Since our final destination was India, I was hoping for Gandhi. Unfortunately, United Airlines was unable to condense the 191 minute movie into the 25 minute flight to O'Hare.
As the sun set on Madison for the final time in 2014, Becky was excited about spending 17 of the next 26 hours inside several cramped flying buses.
Upon arrival in Chicago, we had approximately three hours to kill. After finding the International terminal and going through security again, we spent our last meal of 2014 on the usual uninspired and outrageously expensive airport food. I started a theme that would serve me well on this trip and went vegetarian with the falafel dinner - which was actually not bad.
Palatable Airport Food - Perhaps There Is Hope for Humanity
I also got mint lemonade - a drink I had never seen before. Lemonade blended up with fresh mint leaves. It was so good that I tried to order it every time I saw it again - including on board the flights to Istanbul and Delhi. The menus aboard both Turkish Airlines flights advertised the delicious drink. But when we requested a tall cool mint lemonade, the flight attendants mumbled something about making the drink later. Although the flight attendants had 18 hours between the two flights to mixed up a tall cool one for us, the drinks were never forthcoming.
After dinner, we walked the length of the terminal, gazing at the beautiful giant photos of all 50 states. Wisconsin's photo choose a rural setting in the Driftless area in the southwest corner of the state. It was so fantastically beautiful that we could hardly believe it was Wisconsin.
Unlike most other countries, one doesn't go through passport control before leaving the United States. However, I have noticed in the past few years, that people must walk the line of beefy TSA agents right before boarding an international flight. I'm assuming they will stop and do further checks on you if you look suspicious.
Not looking suspicious - or perhaps because it was New Years Eve and the TSA agents wanted to hurry home to catch Ryan Seacrest in Times Square, we boarded the plane without incident. However, as soon as we were aboard, we became slightly alarmed when the captain introduced himself as Captain Oveur and asked "Jason, have you ever been in a . . . in a Turkish prison?"
To our immense delight, the flight attendants began handing out lokum - or better known in the West as Turkish Delight. A confection made from gel of starch and sugar, I have been curious about the dessert ever since reading the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in elementary school. The White Witch seduces poor Edmund by giving him Turkish Delight. I always wondered how a candy could be so good that a person would betray his siblings over it. I didn't have my first taste of the dessert until traveling to Istanbul in 2011 (oddly, I didn't try it when I was Istanbul in 1991). It's pretty good - in fact, it always delights me when I have some.
One side-note. According to Wikipedia, Turkish Delight was alternatively known in English as Lumps of Delight. I don't think the name ever caught on though, because in my mind, that would conjure up eating something like a cancerous tumor.
Becky Doing Her Best Imitation of the White Witch
Our 10 hour flight to Istanbul was uneventful. Flying Turkish Airlines was a nice experience. The food was pretty good - they even had actual menus - something that I had not seen on a transatlantic flight since the 1990s. To Becky's delight, there were personal screens on the backs of every seat with a wide variety of movies. And the flight attendants were friendly and helpful. Oddly, the midnight hour was not marked by any pomp or ceremony. Perhaps because the New Year had already begun in Turkey hours earlier. In any event, I looked at the clock on my phone at Midnight and expressly gave Becky a New Year's kiss. And that is how 2015 began for us.
An Actual Menu, a Throwback to Another Era of Flying
We landed in Istanbul shortly before 4 pm local time. Our flight to Delhi didn't leave until 8 pm. Just enough time to see one of my favorite squares in the all the world - the center of Sultanahmet - the beautiful space between two of the world's great buildings, the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia.
Having limited time, we had to move fast and we were a little nervous about squeezing the quick trip downtown in - for if something went wrong, we could miss our flight to New Delhi. But hey, as Robin Williams once said, carpe diem.
Once we cleared customs, we immediately got some cash out of an ATM at the airport. Having spent much time waiting in line at the local American Express office to change travelers cheques into local currency while traveling in the 80s and 90s, it always amazes me that you can walk off an airplane in a foreign land, head to the nearest ATM, and have money taken out of your bank account and given to you in foreign currency in less than the time it take to say "Istanbul, not Constantinople."
Armed with our Turkish Lira, we jumped in a taxi and told our driver to take us to the Hagia Sophia.
Dusk was arriving fast and a light mist was falling on the city founded as Byzantium more than 2,500 years ago. Later made the capital of the eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire, it was renamed Constantinople after the Roman Emperor, Constantine. In 1453, the city famously fell to the Turks and became the center of the Ottoman Empire (which incidentally reinvented the footstool as a talking piece of furniture among Colonial Americans, allowing Thomas Jefferson to famously use the term Ottoman in the English language for the first time in 1789).
Today, the city sprawls between two continents with the Bosporus waterway separating the European and Asian sides. Originally, it was to be the setting of the 1981 movie Continental Divide starring John Belushi. However, the movie was filmed in Colorado when Belushi was denied a Turkish entry visa after he appeared in a Saturday Night Live Skit as Elizabeth Taylor eating a turkey leg.
With a population of almost 15 million people, the city proper is the sixth largest in the world. When Becky and I flew out of Sabiha Gokcen, the airport on Istanbul's Asian side, to Beirut in 2013, we couldn't believe how far out the city went with row after row of high rise apartments going on for miles and miles.
As the mist continued to the fall, we approached the old city with the Sea of Marmara on our right. Dozens and dozens of freighters and other large ships were floating a little ways off the shore. Passing the ancient land walls of Constantinople, built in the 5th Century AD, I was reminded of the first time I saw them in 1991 as my friend Joe and I drove through them in a little Renault 5 that we had bought in Paris. Upon spotting the walls back then, I knew that I had a arrived at a city that was older and more exotic than anything I had seen before. Even today, I got excited at seeing the land walls.
Shortly after we were beyond the walls, our taxi driver deposited Becky and I at the bottom of the hill from the Blue Mosque. And like a caricature of Istanbul, a Turkish carpet dealer greeted us immediately as we stepped out of the cab. He asked us where we from and invited us to have a look in his carpet shop. The first of many touts that we would experience on our trip.
As we walked by the Blue Mosque and took in its beauty, the evening call to prayer resonated out from the towering minarets.
On the other end of the square, we spotted the Hagia Sophia and continued a debate that began between us in 2011 about whether the Blue Mosque or Hagia Sophia was the better building. Becky prefers the Blue Mosque, believing it to be more perfect and pleasing to the eye. I prefer the Hagia Sophia as it is a thousand years older and is one of the wonders of the ancient world. Whatever one's preference, they both are fantastic monuments.
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque - As Blue as the Moon
The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, popularly known as the Blue Mosque, was built between 1609 and 1616. This immense mosque immediately stirred controversy with its six minarets because they equaled the number of minarets at the mosque of the Ka'aba in the Muslim holy city of Mecca. Being the sultan, he solved that crisis by adding a seventh minaret to the mosque in Mecca.
Opposite the Blue Mosque, stands the Hagia Sophia (Greek for Holy Wisdom), perhaps the greatest wonder of the Medieval and Byzantine world. Constructed in the 6th Century AD, it was a Greek Orthodox basilica for its first 800 years, then a Mosque for almost five hundred more years, and now a museum. The building has weathered earthquakes, fires, and maurading Christian crusaders and Muslim Turks. Interestingly, both Orthodox Greeks and conservative Turks have started campaigns to restore the building to become a functioning church or mosque. Whatever its future use, the Hagia Sophia is one of the most glorious structures I have ever seen.
Incomprehensible Byzantine Wisdom
With our time in Istanbul running short, we ambled down the hill in the direction of the Golden Horn, knowing that the Viva Hotel had a cafe we had visited before that had good Turkish Delight and more importantly, a strong wifi signal. During our 15 minute stroll down the street, we passed many things that make Istanbul, Istanbul, such as roasting chestnuts and beautiful vegetable carts.
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
Her Favorite Earring Kiosk in All of Constantinople
Get Your Fresh Fruits and Veggies
Preparing Fresh Flatbread at Restaurant
What a Delight!
Arriving at the cafe, the waiter told us he would have a taxi waiting to take us back to the airport at 5:30 pm. With the waiter's reassurance, we sipped our tea, ate our delight, and sent texts back and forth to my mother and Becky's sister. At 5:30, the waiter took us to the office next door where two men sat at a desk in what appeared to be a travel agency. Apparently, the waiter had misunderstood us because he had brought us to a service that takes people to the airport in a minibus at set times during the day for a flat fee. When I told the man we needed a ride to the airport immediately, he was taken aback and everyone laughed, including the two men at the desk, Becky and I, and the waiter. He then told us that he didn't have anything right now.
The Viva Hotel - not Just in Las Vegas Anymore
All was well though because the Sirkeci train station was right around the corner and we could hail a taxi there. Besides, Sirkeci was the terminus for the famous 80 hour Orient Express from Paris. The train was a setting for everything from Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express to the James Bond film From Russia with Love and perhaps we would catch a glimpse of Hercule Poirot or a Spectre secret agent coming out of the station.
Instead, upon reaching the station, the only Murder on the Orient Express we experienced was the exorbitant taxi fare quoted to us. The non-James Bond looking taxi driver offered to take us to the airport for 70 Lira. It was the usual tourist scam in which a taxi driver charges a highly inflated flat fee instead of using the meter. Since the ride from the airport had only cost 50 Lira, we insisted the driver use his meter. And of course the ride back to the airport was only 46 Lira.
A Taxi Ride to Ataturk Airport is Almost as Romantic
Arriving back at the airport, we went through Passport Control for the second time in two hours. The immigration agent didn't seem overly concerned with making sure my papers were in order as he was busy following a soccer match on his phone, while photos of scantily clad women regularly popped up on his phone screen. The nonchalant passport control experience reminded me of the first time I crossed into Turkey in 1991.
Back then, Joe and I entered Turkey at Kipi–İpsala, a city on the Greece - Turkish border. After the immigration agent gave me my Visa and stamped my passport, he proceeded to open a drawer and pull out a rack of ties, and wondered whether I wished to buy some.
Once we were through immigration, Becky and I had just enough time to spend our remaining liras at the souvenir shops before we headed to our gate. Upon boarding Turkish Airlines Flight 716 to New Delhi, we were delighted to find that our seats were next to the emergency exit. The extra leg room was a huge bonus for our eight hour flight.
With the Extra Leg Room, it was Almost Like First Class
As we lifted off the ground and headed towards the Indian Subcontinent, I looked down at Istanbul fading away from us and saw a giant neon Payless Shoes sign. Perhaps, the integration of modern commerce throughout the world isn't such a good thing.
NEXT UP: Christopher Columbus ain't got nothing on us.
