Random Observations

Oh The People We’ll Meet

The kids have been in social withdrawal since we’ve arrived in India as there haven’t been any children in the hotels where we have stayed.  Luckily our beach resort is stocked full of kids for Nicholas and Nora to play with.  So they have been able to meet Indian children from such exotic locations as Summit, New Jersey; San Francisco, California and Portland, Oregon. 

 

The Official Language of India

Contrary to popular belief the official language isn’t Hindi or even one of the twelve or so other languages commonly spoken.  The official language of India by all appearances is what Nicholas calls Hinglish which is a mix of Hindi and English where sentences are made up of both Hindu and English phrases ie   xxxxxx  xxxxx I told her xxxxxx xxxxx   and then she xxxx xxxx xxxx.  (Obviously the Xs represent Hindi word).  We’ve heard Hinglish spoken on the TV, in the airport and while walking around town.  I have no idea how a Hinglish speaker chooses which phrases should be in English and which should be in Hindi or whether the same sentence repeated twice would be composed the same way each time but its clear to me that Hinglish is the predominant language spoken in India. 

 

Cows walking in the streets. 

Much like the fact that everyone knows that Jews don’t eat pork, the treatment of cows in India is famous.  But I wasn’t expecting the ubiquity of cows walking through the street.  I haven’t been on a single road or highway that doesn’t have traffic being diverted around a cow.  I have even seen a calf sleeping in the middle of a busy road.  Even in the poshest neighborhoods, cows wander around unimpeded. 

 

Indian’s fascination with my children.

Wherever we go, Indians are fascinated by my blond children.  Even in a big city like Delhi, people fee comfortable asking Nick & Nora for photos and it isn’t uncommon for a woman to pinch Nora’s cheeks.  The kids have taken to ignoring everyone around them so that they aren’t constantly distracted.  One would think that having grown up in New York they would already have the ability turn on their tunnel vision but it really has taken this trip for them to develop this defense mechanism.

 

Education in India

While we have seen plenty of street children along side the roadways, I’ve been terribly impressed with the focus on education here.  One out of four signs is advertising some school from nursery schools through graduate degrees.  Even in a town that we happened upon in Rajastan where the residents were literally living in mud huts, there was a school for the local children.  Walking though a larger town, you will see innumerable kids in school uniforms reminiscent of British schools.   English is widely spoken and there is the clear belief that education is the best route to upward mobility.  

Where in The Word Are We

At the impossibly beautiful beach resort in Goa.  Here is the view for the patio in front of our villa.

Nora's Birthday

Tomorrow, December 4th, is Nora's birthday. I know she would love a birthday greeting which can be emailed to her via david@timmelmarkus.com

Quote of the Day

Nora “When I get home, I am doing EVERYTHING AMERICAN .... Like go out for Chinese food.”

Tracking the Wild Tigers of Corbett

Our wake-up call or rather I should say wake up knock came at 4:30 am and we headed out in the cold morning air to get our permit. This being India, once we got to the ranger station, it turns out that they didn’t open until 6:15 am. So we sat around for an hour and complained of boredom and the cold. Once we got our permit, we drove for 30 minutes to get to the right gate which certainly was a bracing trip in an open-air jeep.

There are a range of animals in the park including three types of deer, monkeys, elephants and innumerable birds. However the primary goal is to see a tiger. The guides love to show off pictures and videos of tigers walking along the roads and there was plenty of evidence that tigers were around. We saw fresh tiger tracks in the dirt and trees where tigers had scratched the bark in order to mark their territory. Early on we heard the barking deer sound their warning call but no one in the dozen or so jeeps that were waiting around was able to see anything. So we drove around spotting monkeys playing around in the trees and other wildlife but nothing resembling a tiger.

Mid-morning we stopped for some eggs and cookies as a makeshift breakfast. By that point most of the jeeps had finished their safari and we continued on. We saw elephant prints and fresh elephant poop but apparently wild elephants are surprisingly stealthy. I’m not sure how a fifteen foot tall, two ton animal can be so sneaky but they are. Our driver took us off-piste and we climbed up a rusty, shaky observation tower. We saw a jackal but not much else. Then as we drove on we ran across another jeep that had stopped. They had heard a deer’s warning cry and we could hear the monkeys in the nearby trees screeching. A big male sambar deer came bounding out of the forest and three females followed him shortly thereafter. Then we heard the tiger strike. The deer gave a blood curdling cry, birds flew out of the trees, the monkeys screamed even louder and we heard the tiger’s deep roar. It was like something out of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Only the tiger remained safely hiding in the forest. We sat around for about half an hour waiting for a tiger to amble out of the forest but to no avail.

We drove back and forth to a nearby creek hoping that the tiger would go down for an after-meal drink but he was clearly smarter than that. When we drove back, we saw that the other jeep had driven off the road to within 10 feet of the edge of the forest. So we bounced along the grasslands until we were next to them. Then there was a flurry of activity as our guide saw the tiger deep in the trees. Lisa and Nora were able to catch a glimpse but I didn’t see anything. We continued to wait but the tiger had moved on and there was nothing to see. Oh well, I had a great time and enjoyed the scenery so I couldn’t get hung up on my lack of a tiger sighting.

Later that afternoon we were headed out for an elephant ride through the forest by our hotel. With the four of us and his driver on his back, the elephant walked up the road for fifteen minutes before turning into a break in the woods The forest was beautiful in the late afternoon sun and we saw some deer and monkeys. Then as we were heading up a creek bed, we heard the warning bark of the deer and our elephant driver quickly turned the elephant around. At first, I wasn’t sure what he was doing but I quickly realized that he was heading toward the tiger and not away from it. The elephant continued through the underbrush and we heard the tiger’s roar filling the air. I quickly turned to the hill where it came from and there not half a mile from my hotel room, I saw the tiger stealthily creeping through the underbrush. So while it only lasted a second or so, I did get my glimpse of a wild tiger. We continued to try to track him but didn’t see or hear any evidence of the tiger. Once the sun started to set and we lost of daylight, we turned around and headed home, tired, happy to have seen a tiger and not thinking about the fact that the tiger was prowling not very far from where we were staying.

Where We Are Now

Up in the mountain town of Darjeeling for a few days before we start our southern half of the vacation.

For those of you following our itinerary, we've elected to skip going to Mumbai and instead are having a relaxing stay at a posh hotel on the beach of Goa. But read Lisa's post for a more detailed and articulate explanation

Tourism in the age of terrorism

I don’t suppose I should admit this, but I was aware that terrorist attacks in India were becoming more frequent. I read about the September 13th bombings in Delhi and, realizing at least one of the bombsites was about 10 km from our hotel, I quickly recycled the newspaper so that David wouldn’t see it. The tickets were bought; there was no sense in worrying about it. So, I wasn’t surprised to hear that Mumbai had been attacked. However, I was unprepared for the apparent change in tactics. You can rationalize away a bomb in a market pretty easily, after all it’s a big city and—no lie—many of these bombs are attached to bikes. And, heck, we’d just been in Israel, where a market we visited was attacked a week later. But a small bomb at a discreet place is a world away from young men driving around shooting people indiscriminately; a hostage situation is a different order of magnitude. An adjustment is in order.

But how do we integrate this into our experience here? We’re due in Mumbai in six days. Should we skip it? By the time we get there a week from now, things will be on their way to being cleaned up. Security will be tighter or at least showier in the classic horse/barn door way that governments (including our own) have of reacting to these kinds of situations. As a New Yorker, I remember the sense of abandonment after 9/11 and I want to stand in solidarity with the people of Mumbai, but I also remember the deep shock and mourning and how much I resented tourists braying about their visit to ground zero on the subway. Historically, right after an attack is the safest time to go anywhere but would it be too ghoulish to attempt to have fun? What right do I have to put my children in the middle of Pakistan’s war by proxy on India, any more than I already have? Will we end up sitting around our hotel room being too afraid or depressed to go out?

Meanwhile, our Indian travel agent and our guide are insisting that this happens all the time in India and that there’s nothing to be concerned about. This is a combination of protecting their profit margin and genuine cross-cultural miscommunication. The Indians we’ve spoken to in Delhi have all shrugged it off with the exception of the concierge here at The Imperial. The Imperial, of course, is an Oberoi hotel largely patronized by westerners. They began searching all the cars before entering the driveway and installed a metal detector over the weekend. The truth is that this attack is not like all the others, and our agent’s attitude is going over very badly with David. (Now, watching people talk down to the usually very affable David Markus is one of my favorite spectator sports because they have no idea how swiftly and forcefully they are going to get their asses handed to them.) This makes us a little bit inclined to change plans just because when someone flat out lies to you, it’s hard to trust their assessment of the situation.

So after three days of agonizing we’re blowing off Mumbai and going to the beach in Goa. The cities are hard on the kids without the added tension of going on the heels of a major attack. I’m sad to miss it and I feel a little bit like a coward. I was looking forward to the restaurants, the shopping and the urban vibe. But in the end, it’s really hard to ignore the advice of your embassy and the metal detector marring the entrance to one of the most beautiful hotels you’ve ever stayed in.