We had a big meeting on Thursday with a client and then took Friday off to see some sites.  First, we went to Bannerghatta National Park.  We arrived early, so we passed the time wandering through the local zoo.

Then we boarded a bus to take into the wildlife preserve in the hopes of spotting elephants, tigers, lions, or cheetahs.  The bus was a rickety old thing that looked like it would topple at the slightest hint of a curve or bump, but that didn’t stop our driver from careening around a bumpy and rutted road that had all the passengers hoping for a quick death.  On more than one occasion it occurred to me that should the bus roll over, it was not in a condition to protect us from the elephants, tigers, lions, or cheetahs which we were so hopefully to see.

We did manage to survive and we did manage to see lions and tigers, including some white tigers which were, not surprisingly,  white.  Tigers look surprisingly cuddly, but my recommendations to my colleagues to go pet one went unheeded.

The next day we jumped in the car and headed out to the Dodda Aalada Mara, or Big Banyan Tree.  This is the fourth-largest tree in India, and covers over three acres.  The tree is inhabited by wild monkeys who are alarmingly comfortable with human presence and are perfectly willing to let you get close enough to take photos of them.  There were babies who were trying to escape their mothers, youngsters picking fights with elders and everything else that would demonstrate we did, in fact, evolve from these smelly, furry little honkers.

We started the week by cutting out of work early and watching two movies at the Seattle International Film Festival: The Fall and Before the Rains, both which took place (at least primarily) in India.  (Correction: the imagination sequences of The Fall mostly took place in India; the movie itself took place in LA.)  The former took place in North India where we didn’t travel, but the latter took place in Kerala, which is where we vacationed.  While The Fall was a much better movie, it was great to see Kerala again in Before the Rains, especially since it was filmed in one of the regions we visited.  We closed out the day with a nice dinner at How to Cook a Wolf in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle.

Saturday morning we woke up to a stunning day and enjoyed a nice espresso and a stroopwafel on the porch before heading off to the farmer’s market to pick up a bone-in pork shoulder from Woolie Pigs.  We had Jim and Jess over to enjoy some roasted pig and some St. Joseph that we brought over from France last time we visited.  It was the first time we saw them since we’d left for India, so it was great to catch up and swap stories.  Add to that a delightful cheese platter, a fresh, light soup, a delicious hunk of pork, fresh lemon gnocci, and a few great bottles of wine and you’ve got yourself one hell of an evening.  Provided that “one hell of an evening” for you doesn’t mean “going out drinking with friends and waking up in prison with a  I LOVE FORMALDEHYDE tattoo on your left shoulder”.  I’ll be honest with you: that just doesnt’t sound very relaxing to me.

Jim also brought over his home-brew which we had started before I left; it was awesome.  In fact, I proposed we start making two batches of it staggered so that we always have some beer of that particular recipe on hand.  It would require that I buy a supply of beer-making equipment.  Jim said it would be cheap if you do it ghetto-style like he does.  I said, “I can do it ghetto-style” to which Jess remarked, “You don’t do anything ghetto-style.”  Besides being spectacularly unfair, her statement is also annoyingly accurate.

Sunday, we woke up to another spectacular morning and spent the day lazily reading the New York Times.  One of life’s greatest indulgences is to spend Sunday on a sunny porch with a great cup of espresso while spending hours pouring over the paper.  We finished the day off by sipping Mojitos and grilling bratwurst, chickenbreast, and corn.  Beat that.

Memorial Day dawned with overcast skies.  At least I’m guessing it dawned that way, because by the time Michelle and I got up, it was overcast.  We started our day with our favorite breakfast: a fried egg on a sourdough muffin with ham, arugula, vinegarette, tomato and Beechers Flagship cheese.  We even managed to squeeze in some Bollywood and a dinner of fresh pasta.

After a month of relentless sunshine, it’s funny how refreshing a nice cloudy day can be.

I didn’t notice much difference, that is, until I was walking to my airplane on the last day. As I walked across the tarmac, I noticed that my plane was a rickettey old prop plane which looked like it was held together by masking tape and chewing gum. Wanting to take a picture of the contraption which would surely lead me to my death, I snapped a photo of it. Within seconds, three police officers with machine guns grabbed me and threw me up against a wall. Two of the officers held me at gunpoint while the third took my camera and sifted through my photos and deleted everything he felt was inappropriate for me to have photographed.

Kerala was amazing. The drive to Thekkadi was stunning. We drove through mountains in the jungle, through tea and spice plantations, and through rubber tree farms. We saw people commuting by elephant.

Our hotel in Thekkadi was on an island which we could only get to by boat in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary which was originally the hunting grounds of the Maharajah of Travancore – and the hotel we stayed in was the palace where the Maharajah stayed while hunting. I can understand why he choose this place: the area was crawling with wildlife: wild boars, deer, buffalo, elephants, tigers, monkeys, eagles, vultures, birds, you name it. We saw no cobras, but we did spot a small water snake. It was quite far away, so it could have been a stick or a weed, but I’m pretty sure it was a snake. Probably poisonous.

We went on a long hike through the jungle where we were followed by monkeys who were trying to get some insider tips on how to be more human. It turns out I am not very good at keeping secrets. By the end of our hike, two of the monkeys had laptops.

Michelle and I rode an elephant called Akbar who I fell completely in love with. I am quite certain he fell in love with me, too. Michelle and I got to feed him after riding him, and he stared at me and leaned his giant head into my face while I pet his trunk. Michelle wouldn’t let me take him home.

We also made friends with an English couple who were on the hike with us. I am frustrated that I don’t have an English accent; I don’t sound anywhere near as clever as they do.

Then it was on to Alleppey where we spent a day and night on a houseboat. The crew cooked us three amazing meals including the largest tiger prawns I have ever seen and fish which were caught by the crew only minutes before being cooked. The crew laid anchor for us along a canal where Michelle and I were able to enjoy one of the most stunning sunsets in the history of the universe.

Then it was on to the Kumarakom lake resort where we spent the last days of our vacation getting spoiled rotten by the staff. The resort was a two hundred year old palace and the woodwork was stunning. Our cottage was on a meandering pool where we read books in the sun and relaxed until we became tense. I wore a dhoti which delighted the staff. Despite looking like a dress, a dhoti is a manly garb.

On the last day, we spent a few hours in Cochin, which used to be Dutch-controlled port. We visisted a Dutch-built cathedral, cemetery, and the old Dutch port. One of my ancestors lived in Cochin when it was controld by the Dutch; it was an amazing oportunity to see the old colonial buildings and imagine how strange it must have felt to arrive there without any idea what to expect and try to start a life.

As delicious as the food in India is, first thing Michelle and I did when we got back to Seattle was get hamburgers and microbrew at Quinn’s Pub on Capital Hill. It was awesome.

Ironically, our first weekend home, the New York Times travel guide featured a section on Kerala and happened to specifically mention the houseboat and lake resort we stayed at: Liquid Assets: A Perfumer Noses Around Kerala.

More NYT travel information on South India:

South India in Two Weeks

In the Land of Four-Star Asceticism

India Travel Guide

I feel like that’s great progress and I’m actually rather pleased that it happened so quickly.  The downside, however, is that at the end of a long day at work, when I’m tired and cranky, I’m feeling comfortable enough to show my frustration and get annoyed by the little things – just like I do when I’m home.  I suppose that means the honeymoon is over, but it doesn’t mean I love India any less.  It just means I got crabby at the housekeeping guy for making me fill out three forms because he couldn’t take my laundry without having all the right paperwork that goes along with it.  (In India, even laundry has a paper trail.)

Despite my comfort, some things don’t appear to be changing.  For example, my success rate of ordering room service is steady at about 67%.  I will place my order and the guy on the other end accepts it; only to have someone else call me a few minutes later to clarify the order.

I am routinely called a “Wine Weennie”. I prefer Old World wines; reds from the Rhone Valley in France, or a nice oaky Rioja.  Anything with a Grenache grape is aces in my book.  Indian wines don’t appear to fall into that narrow zone, so I don’t like to order wine at the hotel.  For beer, the Kingfisher lager has a nice, fresh taste, but lagers aren’t my thing (I’ll have a nice hoppy IPA, thankyouverymuch.)  With no other options (that I’m willing to try), I order gin and tonics with my dinners.

Room Service and I follow a rigorous process which is not deviated from:

I spent the weekend in Chennai with Michelle, kicking around her ‘hood.  Michelle has spent 3 of the last 6 months in Chennai, so she almost feels as though it is her second home.  She knows all her favorite restaurants and shops, the best markets, where to get the best poori and dosa, places to avoid, and places to go.  I have heard so much about Chennai from Michelle while she’s been here; it was utterly amazing to have the opportunity to spend time with her there and see it all first-hand.

We checked into the RainTree – one of the nicer hotels in Chennai – for the weekend.  We enjoyed dinner and drinks on the rooftop bar, passed the midday heat on Saturday lounging by the pool and swimming, and spent the less hot hours shopping and going to markets.  We did the same things on Sunday, except that we also visited a beautiful temple in Chennai, located at one of the original city centers (Chennai grew from two villages which became the two city centers.)

Chennai is a beautiful city with a completely different character from Bangalore; while it’s grittier, it’s also more real and has an intangible sense of life which, in an odd manner, reminds me of Toulouse.

The bottom line is: I love Chennai, miss it already, and can’t wait to go back.

I flew from Bangalore to Chennai on Friday evening and we drove down to Pondicherry, about a three-hours drive. Along the drive, we have various surprising experiences. The first was seeing a motorcycle driving on the highway with a passenger who was holding a 4×8 sheet of plywood in his hands. He was holding it straight up and perpendicular to the direction of travel, like one of the sails on the Black Pearl. We were half-tempted to hang behind them and wait for the guy to inevitably sail off the back of the bike. But we didn’t.

Then, once we turned off the main road onto the smaller road that leads to Pondicherry, we struck up a conversation with our driver, Sethu, who had lived in Italy for two years. It turns out he was on the roadside of the Giro d’Italia when Marco Pantani won in 1998. The cashew trees were in bloom, so here we are in the middle of South India, chatting about Marco Pantani with Sethu while smelling the fresh scent of cashew blossoms. In India, you just never know what is going to happen next.

Well, we actually did know what would happen next: we spent the following day in Pondicherry, a French colonial town on the Bay of Bengal. Needless to say, it’s a beautiful town and – since we’re in South India – it was crowded and stiflingly hot.

The next day, we drove up the coast to the ancient temple town of Mahabalipuram. These amazing temples were carved straight out of a solid hunk of granite. ALL OF THEM. ONE HUNK OF GRANITE. Holy buckets. Unfortunately, most of the temples were never completed due to wars and people dying, etc, but it is a truly amazing site.

Read more about Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry.

I walked down the main road where my hotel is, and turned left onto a larger road and was amazed at how calm the traffic was at 8 in the morning; I only heard about a 7 honks per second, whereas normal traffic hovers around 35. I went about a block and turned down a side street and headed back towards the hotel.

India is amazing. To a Westerner, there is a lot of noise and commotion, and things seem disorganized and messy. But, if you look closely, there is beauty everywhere: people take care of everything they have; sweeping and cleaning, putting on their best clothes, and making sure their belongings are as tidy as possible. A valuable lesson for anyone.

I had heard countless times about the traffic and activity on Indian streets, but nothing can prepare you for what it is like. I’m in Bangalore on business, and I have been working with people from India for most of my professional career. In my experience, they have been intelligent and hard-working, but most notably, they have been very process-oriented. With this in mind, the complete chaos of Indian traffic is a paradox beyond comprehension. The only rules of traffic that I’ve been able to identify are (a) there is no incident small enough not merit the honking of a horn, (b) traffic signs and lights are for sissies, and (c) although the idea is that the flow of traffic is roughly split between left and right and, in general, one drives on the left-hand side of the road; lanes are meaningless. Even this last one seems to be more of a “guideline” than a rule, and there have been more than a few occasions where I was in the sole car going the wrong way through oncoming traffic because it was slightly more convenient for the driver.

As a pedestrian, the experience shifts from being nerve-wracking to utterly terrifying. I wouldn’t say that traffic tries to hit pedestrians; it’s more that it doesn’t really try to avoid hitting pedestrians. While it appears to be frowned upon, it doesn’t seem to be a major concern. My strategy is to shield myself in a crowd that I estimate is bigger than any driver is willing to hit. Twenty to thirty appears to be the magic number.

With the goal of having me survive my visit to India, my company has assigned me a driver, Murali, who drives me everywhere I want to go – day and night, 7 days a week – and who waits for me while I shop, or eat, or try to hopscotch my way across a street (and he probably also laughs at my ignorance, but he doesn’t get paid for that part). Murali’s charter includes showing me around Bangalore and the surrounding area, taking me to any kind of restaurant I like, and keeping me alive.

On my first weekend here in Bangalore, Michelle came across from Chennai by train. She arrived around 1:00pm, and after some minor confusion on how to meet each other, we met halfway around the world from where we’d last seen each other.

My driver took us around Bangalore, showing us some important government buildings and taking us shopping. Afterwards, he took us to a restaurant where we were going to have some drinks and dinner.

We arrived at the restaurant around 5:00pm, and were told that they won’t serve dinner until 7:00 because they had to fuck first, but we were welcome to have drinks while we waited. Michelle and I stood in stunned silence for a few very long moments while we tried to understand what the hostess could possibly mean. Finally we realized that they were planning to fumigate (fog, not fuck, apparently) the terrace to clear out the various flying nuisances that are common in the area. Relieved, we accepted and settled into a table and ordered some drinks. A few minutes later, we found ourselves in a suffocating cloud of DDT or whatever they fumigated with. Ever since, my elbow has felt funny, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m growing a second head there. Stupid DDT.

The next day, Murali took us to the city of Mysore, about three hours – 100 kilometers – southwest of Bangalore. On the way, we stopped at a Muslim temple where orphans were attending Karan school, we went to a Hindi temple where I was blessed by a holy man, and to a bird sanctuary where Murali arranged for a private, covered boat to take us around a lake where we saw a stunning array of birds and were much closer to crocodiles than I would care to ever be again. Oh, and we saw monkeys.

To recap: traffic is crazy, if you’re not honking, you’re doing something wrong, DDT makes my elbows feel funny, and monkeys and crocodiles are cool.

A geeky bonus joke:

I mentioned to one of my team members the paradox of how process oriented the team is, yet how chaotic the traffic is. He laughed and said, “Yes, we are very process oriented only in the office. In traffic, we follow the Agile method.”

Anyone who has spent time with Mack knows that Semi Awesomeness (SA) is the baine of his existence. In any given situation, he is giving 110% to find a way to make it rule more. This usually results in him pissing someone off and Semi Awesomeness quickly becoming No Awesomeness, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying. At long last, Total Awesomeness has been found. It was established when Jim and I took Mack and Bromley backcountry skiing last weekend. Bromley was already well established in the backcountry ways, but this was a new one for Mack. While he had been snowshoeing with us in Minnesota, it lacked a certain element of speed. Backcountry allowed him to chase us at full tilt while jumping off cliffs into snowbanks.

The top two maneuvers that established TA were the following:

1. The End-O. There was a reasonably firm top layer of snow on some of the slopes we were skiing. Just firm enough for a dog to stay on top of, but not firm enough to hold the skiers. Jim and I figured out pretty quickly that the best way to manage the dogs (read: keep them from running into the path of a skier and taking a metal ski edge to the jugular) was to have Jim ski in front with the dogs chasing him, and have me ski behind, keeping the dogs between us. Mack was chasing Jim at full tilt, staying on the surface of the snow. Suddenly, he post-holed both front legs up to his chest and did a complete flip. He didn’t miss a beat and just kept on chasing.
2. The Huckleberry Dill. Jim witnessed more of this than I did, but I think I can convey the incident with some degree of accuracy. Mack was blasting through the woods and came to a small ledge maybe 8 feet high. Naturally, he hucked off the top of it, tucking his paws up under his chest for maximum aerodynamics. After a few moments, he stretched out his paws to ready for a graceful, feather-light landing into the snowbank below. The only unexpected element was that the snowbank was seemingly bottomless and Mack disappeared into to a puff of snow. Poof.

Michelle and I were in California for the weekend, and if you ever have a chance to make it down to Palm Springs, make sure you stop by Joshua Tree National Park. We drove to the north end of the park and hiked the 49 Palms Oasis trail before driving from the north end of the park down to the south end. It’s an amazing place, with crazy wildlife. We were lucky enough to see some lizards and the guy from the Geiko commercials. He offered us pie and chips. For free.

The 49 Palms Oasis hike was crazy and led to an actual real-life oasis. You hike through the desert in stifling heat for a few miles and suddenly – out of nowhere – are all these palm trees, standing in pools of water. It’s absurd.

It was a beautiful day; we didn’t let it slip away.