The daily grind, Maldives style

My alarm goes off at 6:45am, although Anna has already been up for 20 minutes in the room the volunteers share. Kevin is next up, and I’m the last to groan, stretch, brush my teeth, and pack up my bag for the day. Our room is non-nondescript, but clean and spacious enough, with a nice patio and the all-important air conditioning. Once we’re all ready go, around 7:00am, it’s off to the canteen for breakfast before the ferry leaves to go to the Conrad Hotel. Our lodgings are on Mandhoo Island, a local Maldive island about 40 minutes boat ride from the Conrad resort’s island, called Rangali. The Maldives are broken up into “resort” islands and “local” islands, which creates a lot of interesting social dynamics since the Maldives is a fairly conservative Muslim country, and the resorts are populated with foreign tourists heavily motivated by drinking alcohol, wearing skimpy clothing on the beach, and occasionally eating a ham sandwich. As an outsider, it’s a pretty sharp demarcation between the islands, and I can only imagine that the local staff who work at the Conrad must feel like they’re living between two worlds.

Staff members recording a whale shark's length using a tape measure

Just keeping up with a moving shark in the current can be tough

Breakfast at the Mandhoo canteen is pretty consistent (or repetitive, depending on how many days you've had it), offering cereal, rice or noodles, spicy or mild curry, toast and jam, and hard-boiled eggs. After mumbled “good mornings” and a quick bite to eat with the MWSRP staff, we’re off to Rangali on the ferry. Depending on the weather, the ferry is a good opportunity to wake up, talk about the upcoming day, chat with the local staff, get a quick nap in the early morning sunshine, or catch up on your reading. It struck me this morning how similar morning commutes are, no mater where in the world or what mode of transportation. The only noticeable difference between the Rangali ferry and the DC metro is the fact that the captain is trolling for tuna on the way. Once we’re on Rangali, some staff might peel off to get ready to lead a guest whale shark tour, but most days, it’s time for second breakfast at the Conrad staff canteen, which serves a much better selection of food.

It's amazing wide the sharks can open their mouths. This isn't even the widest I've seen!

Weather in the Maldives is highly unpredictable, but always impressive

I’m not going to lie, I’m eating a lot of food on a daily basis here. My only excuse is that I’m burning a lot more calories by standing on a rocking boat, moving gear around, and chasing after whale sharks. Also, they serve a lot of food around here, and it’s really hard to say no to free food when it’s pretty good. Both the Mandhoo and Conrad canteens serve breakfast, lunch, “short eats” or tea time, and dinner for the staff, and since the morning ferry leaves so early, it’s possible to add another meal in there too, second breakfast. It’s like a tropical beach version of a Hobbit’s meal plan. It’s not fancy food or particularly diverse (almost everything contains tuna and hot peppers), but there are always four or five different options at every meal and you can make some interesting combinations (the spicy noodles and scrambled eggs wrapped in flatbread makes a pretty tasty breakfast burrito, with or without tuna). So we all eat a lot, and then burn it off in the sun just as quickly.

A friendly blacktip reef shark. Well, not that friendly really, but that's probably because we were chasing him around the reef 

Every day we go snorkeling on our lunch breaks, which means we see a lot more than just whale sharks

Like this Moorish Idol, as seen in "Finding Nemo"

Before getting onto the boat for the day, we all split up to fetch the day’s provisions: towels, water, ice, and sandwiches for lunch (tuna, of course). After loading up the boat, we’re off to the reef for a day’s spotting and swimming after sharks. Cruising along the edge of a Maldivian atoll is like being in every postcard, tourism advertisement, and inspirational poster you've ever seen, all wrapped up in one. At any one time, there are likely to be three or fours bands of brilliant turquoise, cerulian, azure, and cobalt water surrounding white sands, palm trees, and coral reefs as far as you can see in either direction. The less pleasant side of that coin is as a volunteer for the MWSRP, I’m looking at that spectacular view from the unshaded roof of a boat, which happens to be painted white, so I’m being irradiated from all directions at once. With my skin, this results in a type of escalating arms races between me and the sun.

• Day 1 morning: I’m putting on SPF 35 non-waterproof sunscreen every 1.5 hours, alternating between shirt and no shirt.
• Day 1 afternoon: I’m getting pink, wearing short-sleeved shirt and hat.Day 2 morning: I’m pink, wearing short-sleeved shirt and hat constantly.
• Day 2 afternoon: Legs and face are red. Applying water-resistant SPF 60 hourly, wrapping a towel around my legs.
• Day 3 morning: Tops of feet and arms are pink, legs and face are brick red. Draping towel over the tops of my feet, wrapping towel around legs, hat pulled down low, added long-sleeved short over t-shirt.
• Day 3 afternoon: Applying sunscreen under clothing or towels. Nose peeling. Periodically hiding below decks.
• Day 4: Office day, avoiding sunshine as much as possible.
• Day 5: Tan! But raining, so no further exposure.
• Day 6: Tan fading. Repeat cycle.

It's not really much of a contest. Thanks to that white boat roof, for the first time in my life, I know what it feels like to have my lower lip sunburned, the tips of my toes burned, and the back of my earlobes burned. I’m not in agony or blistering, and it is starting to mellow into a tan, but I can say that I've never been subjected to so much sustained solar energy. As one of the staff said “I laugh when volunteers say they want to try to get a good tan during their time. You don’t try to tan here, it just happens, despite all the sunblock you’re putting on.”

One of the MWSRP staff getting up close to check on a shark

The sharks are really beautiful and graceful, in a huge way

One of my favorite things to do is visit the local islands, where we can get good local food, meet friendly people, and participate in fun activities like this drum/singing/dance concert

We're typically out on the boat, cruising the Marine Protection Area for about seven to eight hours a day, with a break for snorkeling on one of the reefs around midday. Data gathering is one of the main components of the day's work on the reef, so we record the vessels we see in the MPA, as well as dolphins, turtles, or other large marine life. The really exciting moments come when one of us spots a whale shark near the surface and we all grab our gear and get in the water to try to photograph the shark for identification and record any details on its behavior and direction. Some day's it's long hours of standing on the roof between sightings, and some days we hardly get out of the water before the next shark is spotted. Occasionally, we even run into a second shark while swimming with the first!

Since we spend so much time together every day, it's wonderful that the staff and other volunteers that I'm working with are all such great people. The staff are friendly and passionate about what they're doing, with fantastic stories from past trips and what they do when they're not in the Maldives, and my fellow volunteers are taking a six-month trip around the world as well, but in the opposite direction I'm going, so we're sharing a lot of tips and recommendations. It always creates a little anxiety to drop a bunch of people together and put them in such close and constant association, but I feel like we all mesh pretty well and are happy to hang out in the staff bar after a day on the boat and just relax.

Sunset on Mandhoo

As the afternoon winds down, we head back to the Conrad dock to return gear and clean up the boat. After that, we can either take the 6pm or 9pm ferry back to Mandhoo, depending on how much internet-accessible time we need, or if the Conrad canteen is serving something special that night. Once we're back on Mandhoo, it's not long before everyone is showered and ready for lights out after a long day before starting up the routine again. One thing about this daily schedule is all the days begin to blur together very quickly, and the weeks begin to disappear shortly after.

Friday afternoons and Saturdays are free time, when we can catch up on emails and watch downloaded movies, or if we haven't had enough ocean time, go for a snorkel or SCUBA. We also have trips to some of the local islands where we can spice up our food selections at a cafe and listen to a little local music and dance. The local islands are really interesting and great places to visit. They're quiet, the people are very friendly, and they have that great "island feel" that just makes your whole body relax and look for a place to sit with a fan, ocean view, and a fruit juice (not a cocktail - Muslim country, remember?). The Conrad is a beautiful resort, but in a lot of ways I prefer the local islands for their authenticity, so taken together it's a very memorable and enjoyable mix of experiences. Unfortunately, it's going by very fast, and my four weeks here are dwindling. I'll try to post at least one more entry on the Maldives before I leave on November 2, but after that it's Southeast Asia, starting with Thailand!

My first week in the Maldives

“Shark! Shark! Shark! Stop the boat! Everyone go!” A routine chaos begins.

Feet stomping on the roof to signal the captain. Stumble down the ladder to the deck of the boat, get fins and mask, grab a camera or a measuring tape. Jump off the edge of the deck, take one more look to see which direction the spotter is pointing, and then swim as fast as possible in that direction.

For a few seconds, there’s nothing but breathing and empty water and the coral below, but then, out of the dark blue and waving bands of sunlight, the outline begins to resolve. Either the tail languidly drifting back and forth or, better yet, a cavernous mouth yawning open as if trying to drink the ocean dry; the first whale shark of the day. Or the second, or the fifth, or if it’s a really good day, the ninth. And for just a moment, everything in the world freezes as the brain tries to make sense of the scene: floating in the equatorial water above a fish that’s 20 feet long while it eats food much smaller than the ants in the cafeteria sugar bowl. Then the moment is over, and it’s time to get to work.

Sucking down that yummy yummy plankton

The Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme seems to have a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak, but for eights hours a day, five days a week, the major activity is standing on the roof of a boat as it cruises up and down the edge of the reef, looking into the water for a dark brown shape. Not just any dark brown shape of course, because the coral heads are lumpy brown shapes, and the rays are diamond brown shapes, and the turtles are small round brown shapes, but the right kind of sinuous narrow triangular brown shape that means there’s a whale shark swimming by. Once everyone is in the water near the shark, identification photos are taken, the sex is established, the length is measured with lasers and tapes, and any scars or distinguishing features are noted. If the shark is still around and not annoyed by the sudden attentions of an ungainly cluster of mammals, we get to swim with it and simply enjoy the encounter for as long as the shark wants. After that, it’s back on the boat, endorphins buzzing a little, and back on the roof to repeat the cycle. For the first three days I've been on the water, I did this routine an average of seven times a day, and every time, it’s incredible to find myself face-to-face (or face-to-tail) with an animal that I've thought of for most of my life as so rare and exotic as to be almost mythical. I don’t think that’s likely to get old in the 4 weeks I’m here.

Flying from the capital island, Male, to Rangali

Male island, with one of the highest population densities in the world

As I told many of my friends before leaving, I wanted to take advantage of some volunteer opportunities while traveling for several reasons. It will give me a chance to settle in one place for a while and connect with people, it seems like a good way to see exotic locations more economically than being a tourist, and I can have some great animal encounters while helping out organizations trying to protect and learn more about those animals. MWSRP seems to be a winner in all categories. It’s a small organization, with about six to eight staff in the Maldives during the research season, and for the time I’m here there are two other volunteers (from Western Australia), so we all are getting a chance to get to know one another well, and everyone is very friendly and passionate about what they do. The organization is associated with the Conrad Hotel, which helps provide office space at the resort, staff lodging on the nearby local island, and the use of some hotel staff areas, like the canteens. The food and lodging is a step up from a lot of the places I've been in the last couple of months, and we can use some of the resort’s facilities during our down time, so all in all, I’m feeling fairly spoiled here. The cost to participate in the program is still pretty significant, but it’s only a small fraction of what I would have paid if I had tried to stay in the Maldives as a tourist for a month. And then there are all of those whale shark encounters…

We don't just see whale sharks on the spotting trips

Heading back to port

When we’re not standing in the Maldivian sun for hours at time, there are more than enough tasks to keep the volunteers busy for the rest of the work week (Sunday - Friday morning), and keep the staff busy seven days a week. Any good research generates mountains of data, and the MWSRP tracks the whale shark encounters and sharks’ identities, as well as vessels in the Marine Protected Area, and other aquatic animals seen on the daily trips, all of which has to be entered into databases. Then there are community and school outreach programs, Conrad guest trips to see whale sharks led by MWSRP staff, social media and sponsorship upkeep, connecting with other Maldivian resorts and whale shark research programs, and all the side projects and new ideas that come up on a daily basis. Ocean conservation, whale shark habits and biology, and emerging technologies make up about 75% of the conversation topics, and many statements begin with the phrase “I wish there was a way we could…” On my off days, the options include SCUBA diving, reading and snoozing in a hammock, exploring the local island, sorting through my photos for the week, volleyball, catching up on emails and news, snorkeling, or just staying in bed, watching movies and regularly applying aloe after-sun lotion. In short, keeping myself occupied will not be a problem and I’m pretty sure I will be packing up and wishing for another four weeks here before I know it.

Once we see a shark, it's everyone in the water for a close up identification

MWSRP staff in action

Checking for injuries, scars and other features 

Taking ID and measurement photos

Final thoughts on India (for now)

Now that I’m on my way out of India, there are still a few more experiences I wanted to share, but it’s less a post and more a collection of events and thoughts I had while I was there. Some of them might not make sense, but they all made an impression on me. 

From the beach in south Goa. I wasn't sure if the cows were official members of the lifeguard crew or not, but one thing is for sure: with cows on the beach, you have to be careful where you put your blanket down

My “Top Ten” list of things I liked about India:

1. The street food (coconuts, chai, panipuri, samosas)
2. The restaurant food
3. Confirmation of my beliefs about the need for strong sanitation and environmental enforcement
4. Not getting sick
5. Traveling via almost every form of motorized transport in just a couple of weeks (airplane, train, bus, car, tukuk, boat)
6. The colors of the fashions, religious sites, and food
7. The incredible overlapping mashup of cultures that somehow works together
8. Indian music videos - seriously, just the most over-the-top, goofy, fun energetic thing ever
9. The people
10. The beautiful tropical scene of the southern coast

Another day at the beach in Kochi, complete with kites, people wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts, and an oil refinery flaring in the background

I was in India for almost 3 weeks, and I’m debating coming back after the Maldives to see more. As I've said before, it’s not exactly a relaxing place, but it is fascinating. I’m a guy that typically takes all of one day to begin to feel acclimated in a new country and get my feet under me in a new culture. India took me four days before I began to feel less stressed and off-balance, which might not sound like that much, but it’s a big deal when you’re trying to find your way around on your own. By the way, I think taking the train and the public bus system helped a lot with feeling more at ease, although they were tough in their own way because I stuck out like crazy, but they really gave me more of a feel of daily life and how everyone relates to each other here. So, after my short few weeks in India, here is my advice if you ever want to come: sight see in the North, but vacation in the South.

Sunset in south Goa

North and Central India seem to have most of the big name attractions that visitors want to see, but they are more crowded, more dirty, more expensive, and more stressful. The further south along the western coast I went, on the other hand, the most relaxed, friendly, and pleasant the journey got for me. Kerala, the state at the southwestern tip of India, for example, has the one of the highest standards of living and  literacy and education rates in India, and I found it to be cleaner and much more laid back than anywhere else. But Kerala doesn't have the same big ticket attractions, although they still have many worth seeing, just nothing like the Taj or Rajasthan. Since flying in India is dirt-cheap (most of my one-way tickets between cities ran about $100-120), it’s easy to quickly get around from place to place, so I think it’s best to head for the major attractions, sight see and gawk at North India in it’s frenetic frenzy, and then take off for the South to recharge, meet some really nice people, and chill out on some beautiful tropical beach. I think I would have enjoyed my time here far less if I had only stayed in Mumbai, Delhi, and the other tourist areas, but having this more relaxed time in Goa and Kerala also made me appreciate the whole of what I saw more, so don’t just limit yourself to one state. It’s a huge country and I feel like I just barely scratched the surface, but on the whole I enjoyed what I uncovered.

From the train going from Goa to Kerala. I think I discovered about 5 new shades of green that day

The streets in India, to my eyes, seem particularly good at producing eye-catching, random, sometimes unexplainable scenes that cause my head to whip around as I try to make sense of what’s going on. I’ve been keeping a running list of the best things that really caught my eye and made me chuckle or left me puzzled or just brought home how different India can really be from the US. For example:

• All the trucks have painted signs on the back that say "Horn OK please", because they either don't have rear view mirrors or can't see anything that is 6 inches behind them, which is how close everyone drives.
• Dressed up families of 4 riding on a scooter.
• Impromptu welding on a tuktuk by the side of the road.
• Businessmen in suits walking hand-in-hand down the street. Men hold hands with each other, and women hold hands with each other, but it's very rare to see men and women holding hands. 
• Cows lying in a garbage pile by the side of the road, chewing on garbage.
• A literal river of tras.
• A conversation I had with my driver one Saturday:
• "Do children go to school today?" 
• (Puzzled) "Yes, it is not a holiday. Saturday is school day."
• "Oh. American students only go Monday through Friday."
• "Only 5 days of school in a week?" His tone told me exactly how easy he thought American students have it.
• 2 men riding scooter, at night, holding a full-sized folding ladder upright between the two of them.
• "The Royal Lush Family Restaurant and Bar" -seems like a good place to get a drink
• Indian cities at night are somewhat akin to a cross between Blade Runner or Dante's Inferno: humid, smoky, dusty, smelly, full of strange loud machines that bear down on you out of the darkness. Not really the place to indulge my love of walking around.
• Speaking of walking, nothing causes the same level of consternation in the locals of some countries (India included), like voluntarily walking from point A to point B. Aside from the constant offers for a taxi, I also got many good Samaritans stopping to ask if I was alright or if I needed help or a lift. It almost causes more trouble than it's worth just to amble around the town. 
• Scaring little kids with the panda factor; I'd smile at them, and they would hide, or occasionally cry.
• Indian boys going to school in sharp gray suits and maroon ties as their uniforms, making the school look like a backdrop for the latest Justin Timberlake video. 

From the bus going to Kumily, near the Periyar Tiger Reserve. The landscape there is beautiful mountain terrain, with tea plantations scattered around. A great place to escape to when the coast gets too hot

Camping with Elephants, or why I'm missing my SLR camera

One of the big events that I wanted to do in India from the beginning of my planning was the “Tiger Trail” in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, which is a one or two night guided hiking/camping trip inside the reserve. It came highly recommended from a couple of travel books I had read, and it definitely lived up to the reviews for me. I decided that if I was going to endure a 6 hour bus ride to and from the reserve, I should go ahead and do the 2 night trek, and since no one else booked for those two days, I had to pay a little extra; about $200 for 2 nights camping, 2 days guided hiking, all the gear I’d need, 3 huge meals a day, plus coffee and tea and 4 guides constantly checking to make sure I was having a good time. Outrageously expensive, right? Well, joking aside, it was a much more expensive couple of days than the $15 a night hotels and $3 meals I've been enjoying, but I feel like I got my money’s worth.

Step 1 for the trip was to get my "leech proof socks", which I didn't know existed before I got them. While useful, they still didn't stop one very determined leech who made it up to my arm.

That thing that looks like a discarded log is the transportation to the campsite.

A water-eye's view of the ride to the campsite. If you expand the photo, you can see the campsite straight ahead in the distance.

The Tiger Trail is this great program the state government has been running for over 15 years where reformed tiger and elephant poachers are paid to lead tourists on hikes and give us the benefit of their “insider” expertise on the forest, instead of killing the things the reserve is trying to save, something I’m all in favor of. My four guides took me out beyond the walking trails that the day visitors get to go, into the nearby forest areas, but not into the core areas of the preserve where the really rough terrain and dangerous animals are. The Tiger Trail campsite is on the edge of “Lake” Periyar, a reservoir created by the British over 120 years ago, and from that base camp we did 2-3 hikes a day for two days, with long breaks in between for rest and meals.

Here is the view from one side of the campsite.

And the view from the other. This mother and calf were a constant presence around the campsite, especially anytime something was being cooked.

Speaking of the meals, this group of guys whipped up some of the best meals I've had in India, cooking out of a little field kitchen in the woods. They used fresh veggies, lots of spices, and fish caught by the tribal locals from Lake Periyar to make these enormous meals of curries and rice, bread and fruits, that had me stuffed for days. This brings me to a broader point about the food I had in India, namely that I did not have a bad meal the entire time I was here. I almost feel the same way as I did about the food in Greece; using fresh ingredients and simple recipes it’s hard to make the meals either terrible or amazing, it’s just all good. I didn't eat at any fancy 4-star places, but the street stands, roadside diners, and nicer sit-down restaurants all served delicious local versions of curries, seafood, breads, and rice dishes. And I like any country where if the waiter asks you “Spicy or not spicy?” and I say “Spicy”, he smiles as if to say that’s the only correct answer. Of course, he may actually be smiling because he’s thinking “You want the spicy? You can’t handle the spicy.” I’m also happy to report that I never had any intestinal issues or got sick, even though I was only really taking the most basic common sense steps to prevent it (not drinking unfiltered water, eating mostly vegetarian meals, etc.). I would really like to credit my superhuman immune system and constitution for this, but I also realized about halfway through the trip that the anti-malarial medication I’m taking daily is in fact a mild dose of antibiotics. That may have had something to do with not having any problems, but I’m still choosing to believe I have a superhuman immune system.

Having a pair of elephants as neighbors was pretty cool, and led to a lot of scenes like this one, with both groups staring at one another.

This is literally the view from inside my tent. Pretty memorable.

<<There is a break here in my writing of this post because I’m still on the Tiger Trail, morning 2, and they brought me breakfast, which was 4 small puri (fried bread), potato and onion curry, and about a pound of fried spiced fish. With second helpings of everything. I would need to hike about 24 hours a day just to work off the calories from the meals they serve at the campsite.>>

So anyway, back to the Tiger Trail itself. I got to hike in a beautiful forest (which I love), camp without having to carry any gear (which I love even more), and see some incredible animals, many of which I’d never seen in the wild before, including

• Bison 
• Sambar deer 
• Barking deer 
• Elephants 
• Porcupine 
• Wild dogs 
• Wild boar 
• Green parrots 
• Kingfishers 
• Monkeys (2 species)
• Eagles 
• Mongoose 
• Sloth Bear 

This list basically encompasses all the large animals in the reserve, with the exception of tigers and leopards, but I wasn't honestly expecting to see either of them. The tigers only show up on tourist hikes once every few months and they are extremely shy, plus the park only has about 50 tigers scatters over hundreds of square miles. It’s still a very impressive couple of days, and the guides kept telling me how lucky I was to see so much. In fact, everywhere I've been in India, locals have been telling me how lucky I am because of the weather, because there aren't many other tourists this time of year, or because certain attractions either just opened or will close soon. Apparently, everyone in India just thinks I’m a lucky guy, and I’m inclined to agree.

While I didn't see any tigers, the camp did have a resident mother and calf elephant team who hung around the campsite every time the mother could smell something was cooking. This was very cool for the first hour or so, and then became increasingly less fun after that, because you had to sneak across the protective trench around the campsite every time you wanted to leave, because she would quite literally kill someone if she thought they were a danger to her calf. Also, if we were watching her for too long and got within range, she would occasionally throw dirt and rocks at us, but I have to say it was a pretty cool experience to wake up in a tent in the middle of the night and hear this noise and think “What’s that? Oh, that’s the sound of a elephant eating grass a few feet away.” On the other side of an 8 foot trench, mind you. Most of the time, though, she just stood and stared at us, as if to say “Hey guys, what’s up? Is that vegetable curry I smell?”

I told you, she liked to throws things

A tiger print, easily as large as my hand

All in all, it was a great couple of days, I felt good about supporting a great program, saw some amazing animals (the Sloth bear encounter was particularly exciting), and enjoyed some R&R in a beautiful natural area. Now I just need to figure out a way to come back and see some tigers so I can say I've done everything I wanted to do in India.

A sloth bear, trying to figure out what we were doing in his territory.

One of the local tribal fishermen checking his nets in the morning.

Me with my four guides at the end of a great couple of days.

On the road in Central India

It's been a while since I posted anything, because it's been a busy couple of weeks with about 4 cities, train rides, bus rides, camping trips, and beach bumming all jammed in there. Although I'm heading to the Maldives tomorrow, I've got a couple of posts saved up, so you'll probably be seeing them after I've actually left the country (after I've had a chance to go through the many, many photos I've taken), but most of this post comes from the middle of my time in India. I'm happy to say I finally started to feel a lot more comfortable and at home here around the time I was writing this, and the reminder of my time has generally been very pleasant, if a little hectic. I decided it's probably a good time for me to settle down for a while when I was taking a taxi from the bus station to my last hotel and the driver asked me "Where are you coming from?", and I drew a complete blank for about 3 seconds. So 4 weeks in the Maldives should be just the ticket to recharge my drive to explore the next batch of countries.

One recommendation - if you want a much better description of Mumbai life than I could ever give, plus a really good Godfather-style story of prison, crime syndicates, and love affairs, read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It was great reading it while I was here because it helped me understand some of the culture, while confirming other things I had seen.
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India has been an interesting experience, and I’m glad I made it part of my trip. It’s tough for me to recommend it as a traditional vacation spot, because for me “vacation” usually implies some level of relaxation, while India has been more challenging and thought-provoking. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s a little tiring at times. So if you ever decide to go, just be prepared to work a little harder than the usual vacation and I think you’ll be rewarded for your efforts, but you’ll also probably want to take a couple of days off afterward as a post-vacation vacation. This advice and the following observations, by the way, are coming from someone who’s been mostly traveling to the more developed and laid-back areas of India.

Daulatabad Fort, near Aurangabad. It is the remains of a massive fort last held during the Mughal Dynasty by Aurangzeb, who gave the town it's name, and was also apparently a bit paranoid about defenses

Elephant sculpture from the caves at Ellora. The Ellora sculptures are beautiful, thousands of years old, and contain temples from three major religions; Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism

First off, you can’t drive anywhere in India. And when I say “you can’t”, I mean legally tourists are forbidden to drive, due to the quality of the roads, lack of signage, and local driving customs. So that leaves you with the options of packaged tours, getting yourself a driver, or renting a car, which comes with a local driver. You can also just flag taxis or tuktuks (auto-rickshaws) for trips to a restaurant or the train station, but after more than a couple of a times in a city, you’re better off just getting a driver for the duration. If you find yourself a good driver, they can give you recommendations on food and shopping, they know the city, and since you’re hiring them for a couple of days, they’re more invested in making you happy. Plus, if they know enough English and you get along, you can learn a lot about the local scene. Good drivers, I think like most of the working population in India, will go to ridiculous lengths to keep/please a good customer. For example, my driver in Aurangabad offered to drive me to Goa (about 500 miles away, one way) when I told him that was my next destination, and he told me that in November he was taking a couple to Calcutta, which is literally on the other other side of the country.

Some of the Jain carvings from Ellora

The Ellora caves are cut into a valley side, over a kilometer of carved areas, and the whole thing has a serious Indiana Jones vibe to it

This is one of the Buddhist caves, and while I was there, this family came in and started chanting. The whole scene was incredibly beautiful and peaceful

Don’t get me wrong though, having a good driver does not mean the driving will be any less scary, it just means that eventually you’ll figure out that he knows what he’s doing and tune it out. The actual act of driving the roads in India is accomplished through a complex code of beeps, honks, headlight flashes, and turn signal semaphore. Somehow, all of this is translated by motorists, cyclists (both motor and pedal), tuktuk drivers, pedestrians, teamsters, cows, and dogs into a communications system that allows everyone to know where everyone else intends to go in an accident-free manner. Usually. And yes, I’m aware that India has one of the highest motor vehicle accident rates in the world, but after driving around for a couple of days and watching the dance of vehicles, I can’t help but be impressed that the rate isn't ten times higher. I certainly never got irate that I couldn't drive myself around. However, drivers in India use their horns more than any other country I've been in; it almost seems to be a sort of echo-location that they constantly engage in to have a complete sense of their surroundings. They beep to let people know that they are behind them, they honk to respond that they've heard someone else's beep, they blow their horns to tell others to get out of the way, and I've even heard drivers tooting away on an empty street, apparently just out of habit. The result of all of this is I think I've incurred a slight permanent hearing loss from being constantly surrounded by a symphony of horns.

The Ajanta caves, also near Aurangabad. These contain only Buddhist monasteries and temples, but also thousands of years old. In some of the caves, there are paintings still visible that are 500+ years old

One difficult facet of visiting India for me was that there is no such thing as a set price, with the exception of restaurants and supermarkets. I’m horrible at negotiating and I hate to haggle, so every purchase gets a little stressful. I know I’m going to get gouged, it’s just a question of by how much, and I very quickly had to get over worrying that one taxi ride cost this much here, but double there (or triple, or quadruple). In Mumbai, for example, prices are almost American equivalent for a lot of stuff, which means dinner there might cost as a much as a decent hotel room for the night in the countryside. But a taxi ride negotiated by a friendly hotel staffer in Mumbai might only be half as much as one I flag down myself from the train station in the countryside. So I've been practicing my “walk away” bargaining technique after hearing a quote, and hoping I can bargain down to only twice as much as a good haggler would pay. It also doesn't hurt to remember once in a while that I’m usually arguing over the equivalent of 50 cents or a dollar, which always feels faintly ridiculous.

Sunset in Goa

The Archaeological Museum in Old Goa, housed in the old Church of St. Francis of Assisi and built by the Portuguese in the 16th century 

Here are some example costs I've paid in the last couple of weeks, to give you an example of the wide ranges in prices:

• 1 hour public bus ride = 50 rupees ($.80)
• 6 hour public bus ride = 140 rupees ($2.30)
• 14 hour train ride (sleeper class, no AC) = 365 rupees ($6)
• 15 minute taxi ride = 35 - 250 rupees ($.65 - $4)
• 1 liter of bottled water = 20 rupees ($.35)
• Average dinner (veg curry, bread, rice, lassi drink) = 250 rupees ($4)
• Dinner at a pizza place in Mumbai = 1500 rupees ($25)
• Driver for an 8 hour touring day = 1500 - 2500 rupees ($25 - $40)
• One way, 2 hour flight in country = 8000 rupees ($120)
• One night in a hostel = 600 - 1000 rupees ($10 - $16)
• One night in a budget hotel = 1000 - 1500 rupees ($16 - $24)
• One night in a western hotel chain = 8000 - 12000 rupees ($120 - $180)
• A glass of chai tea = 10 rupees ($.15)
• A cappuccino = 120 rupees ($2)
• A fresh coconut from a stand, cut for drinking the juice and eating the meat = 25 rupees ($.40)
• A public ferry ride = 4 - 30 rupees ($0.07 - $0.60)

You can see that for most daily expenses, this is a pretty cheap country to visit. In fact, I've had several discussions with the locals on how bad the rupee is right now versus the dollar or Euro, which is great for tourists (and tourism), but bad for the country as a whole. The economy is still generally chugging along, but it seems that the more the Western nations pull themselves out of the recession, the worse India's economy seems to get. For a tourist on the other hand, the biggest problem is that the ATM usually gives out 500 rupee notes, which isn't much use for buying a chai or a bottle of water.

The inside of the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa

Shrine to Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary who traveled through much of Asia in the 16th century

Prices are a good example of the general schizophrenic vibe of the country. From my first impression, India seems less like a nation than an outgoing explosion of cultures, languages, and motion. Imagine if every American state had it’s own language and traditions, and somehow there was still an idea of what it meant to be American holding it together, and that’s not a bad comparison for India. There are times where two natives of India can only communicate with each other in English, a language imposed by an outside colonial nation, because only one, or neither, of them speak the Hindi, the other official national language of India (the individual states can set official state languages too). On top of all those different histories and regional differences, it feels as though India is trying so hard to urbanize and increase the standard of living (but at an individual level, mostly through making more money) so fast that the entire broader nation appears to be danger of giving way at the seams. The inequities between social strata, urban and rural areas, and gender are enormous, but even within these categories there are tensions between those trying to hold on to more traditional elements of daily life, and those pushing the boundaries of acceptability.

Xavier's mausoleum, which contains most of his remains (one of his toes was bitten off by an overly enthusiastic relic-seeker). Gaudy, no? The body is brought down to ground level for a huge festival every 10 years

The analogy I keep coming back to over and over again is New York City just before the turn of the 20th century, except on a continental scale. It’s a mix of cultures and classes with little organization or common direction, except to build something better for their families and communities. Sometimes canceling each other’s work out, sometimes at odds, but always creating a fierce dynamic energy. Everything seems to be building up and tearing down at the same breakneck speed, so you have new office buildings surrounded by piles of rubble, and 4 star hotels next door to slums, and all it containing points of four thousand years of history. Taking the analogy of NYC forward, it will be very interesting to see what happens in India in the next 20 or 30 years. So much of the science fiction I read growing up had China and India battling it out for global dominance during the last half of the 21st century, and I think that's a pretty likely scenario after seeing bits of both counties in the last year. There is a phenomenal drive here that really brings to mind what I've read about Manhattan, and to some extent the rest of the US, at the end of the 19th century. It's not often pretty, but it is energetic in a way I don't think you see in the States anymore.