Head Wobbles, Nice Nuts and a Flashing Jesus

One of the slightly disconcerting things about India, at least when you first get here, is the Indian Head Wobble.  This is the unique head movement here; a sideways motion of the head that usually means 'yes', but can also mean 'no', 'maybe', and 'I have no idea'.  At first I thought a great majority of Indians had Tourette's Syndrome.   But then I realized that it was an affirmation, much like our nod.  I'm slowly getting used to it and have found that it almost always means yes or for some Indians is just something they constantly do while you are talking to them.

We are now in the city of Mysore for the big Dusara festival.  We haven't been to a computer in several days because we have just been too busy and are having way to much fun.  We spent two lovely days in the green forests of Wayanad, staying at a coffee plantation run by a lovely older couple, Seetha and Raju.  The plantation, Entee Veedu, has been in Raju's family for years and a few years ago they decided to make a homestay out of it.  Getting there was a real trip.  A nice 5 hour train ride from Allephy to Callicut on a first class express train.  Never worry about going hungry on an Indian train, as there is a constant stream of food wallahs going up and down the train, yelling "coofffeeeee!!!!", "maaaasssaaaallllaaaa!", "cuutttlleeeetssss", "chhhaaiiiii".  From one wallah we bought a package of cashews with the unbelievable brand name of "Nice Nuts".

From Callicut it was an crazy, fast, wild bus ride up the side of a 7,000 foot cliff with hairpin turns, drivers passing whenever they wanted to, horns blowing, and Amy and I crowded in to three seats with another lady that was hardly big enough for two.  As we were heading out on this dangerous and crazy ride I was please do see, right above the first row of seats, a flashing Jesus, red and green lights blinking away.  It looked like something you would see on any Mexican bus, but here in India it was a little strange.

It's really nice to have a respit from the crazy, hot, fast, loud, wild India.  And that is what these middle two stops have been , both in Kerela.  Wayanad was so beautiful  Our homestay looked out on a plantation of ginger, coffee, beetlenut trees, and more.  The highlight of the two days there was when Raju, the owner, took us on a two hour walk.  He took us through his plantation, showing us his different crops.  Then up on the main road we came upon an amazing site.  A couple of wallahs were driving an elephant, who was pulling some large tree trunks down a muddy path to the road.  It was really great seeing how the wallahs drove the elephant, one on his back, the other with a big stick who would touch the elephant and give her directions.  Just down the road from this was a 1300 year old Jain temple, still standing, with beautiful carvings all over it.  Just incredible.

It was here at Entee Veedu that Amy and I finally caught the Indian crud.   We were bound to get it at least once, and I'm glad it happened in such a nice spot where we could just lie in bed and read.  Withing 24 hours we were well again and arrived in Mysore on Friday.

The busy town of Mysore is most famous for its Majaraja Palace plus the annual Dasara festival.  This is a huge thing here and is at the end of Navaratri, which started 9 days ago.   People come from all over South India to see musical events and a big procession.  We bought a special ticket, the Gold Card, that would let is in to these events and give us some pretty good seats.

Mysore is much bigger then any other city we've been in in India and now we are seeing the true crowded, wild, crazy, fast India we've all heard about.  Just walking across the street you take your life in your hands, as no driver really gives a shit about pedestrians.  But after awhile you just kind of figure out how to cross streets (mostly you just follow locals across) and it really isn't all that bad, except during this weekend Mysore's population has practically doubled due to Dasara.  Friday and Satruday night we went to some concerts at the Majaraja Palace.  Friday there was some lovely old Moghul type music, very old, very melodic and beautiful.  An older man sang with a backup of a couple of drums and some kind of keyboard instrument.  The drummers also did a lot on their own and they were really something.  The next performer were Veena players.  The Veena looks like a guitar, is played with a steel, but sounds like a sitar and has that rather strange Indian beat and tone that is hard to get used to for the western ear.  At least my western ear.

The highlight was today, the big procession from the palace.  They built huge grandstands that must have sat 50,000 people, but probably more like 100,000.  The procession was really an Indian version of the Rose Bowl Parade, with floats, marching bands lots of strange percussion groups, and best of all...ELEPHANTS!!!!  The elephants were all painted up and had there gorgeous saddles and head jewelry on.

Mysore is much different then what we have seen in the far south.  For one thing, there are many more muslims here and a lot of the women in black burquas with only a little slit for the eyes.  I've noticed that most of them, along with most other folks here, tend to stare at Amy and me a lot.  There aren't a lot of Europeans here, so we kind of stick out.  In fact, in all of South India we've seen very few Europeans. 

The streets here in Mysore are a kick to walk in, especially when you get off the beaten path and walk down some back streets.  Amy and I went off the main road and went down a market street (again the only white folk in site).   People would stare and mostly smile at us. Kids would look at us with there large, black eyes and when I'd smile at them they would all smile in return.  Cows are everywhere, of course, mostly eating garbage on the streets.  It's always a strange, but very Indian, site to see cows walking down the main boulevard.  Of course cars go out of their way to miss them, as opposed to practically running over any human being they come across.   One of the streets we walked down was the metal ware street and every shop had large copper pots, pans, plates, etc.  One shop had some workers outside banging away at some beautiful large copper pots.

In an Indian city like Mysore, there is no such thing as silence.  I can't figure out why everyone here isn't deaf.  The constant honking of horns, music turned up to maximum volume, people yelling at each other, sometimes because they're mad and sometimes just to say hi.  The calling of prayer 4 or 5 times a day.  And I thought Mexico was loud.  India is Mexico on steroids. 

India is crazy, wild, hot, crowded, fast, colorful, noisy, smelly (good and bad smells...combinations of incense, flowers, exaust, piss and shit), historic...all in all great, wonderful, exotic.  After a week I'd say we are getting used to it and are really, really liking it.  India sure isn't for everyone, especially doing it independantly like Amy and I are doing it.  But it really has a lot of what I like to call "Toto" moments, as in "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore".