The Road Poet

Since we have been in India, we have now experienced the driving styles of seven different drivers between Delhi, Agra and Hyderabad. But none of them can compare with our first driver. We did not learn his real name, but as he drove us to Agra and back and gave us the driving tour of Delhi, we found that he needed no name. To us, he became:

The Road Poet

David became enamoured with the Poet's skills in commanding the road and parting the sea of vehicles and people alike. Sitting in the front seat of the van, David took in an experience that has since become known to us as "The iMax Experience". The waves of humanity that washed accross the bow of our van were beautiful to behold, and the Poet was our captain and our guide. His silent demeanor and his undeniable power over the road seemed at times to be at odds. But, we recognized that these were truly the hallmarks of his mastery.

We will miss the Poet, and his ways. There may never be another as masterful.


(below: The Poet vaulted himself to the top of the van to masterfully secure our bags before heading out for the airport. The day before he had wrestled [on our behalf] with the beast that was the road to Agra).



(A picture of David Barkol with his new hero: The Road Poet)

Also, please check out the message that the Poet left for David a couple days later:

http://blabberize.com/creation/playBlabber/10310


We will miss you Poet!!!

Coming soon...

For anyone who's been reading my blog, I want to appologize for the dry-spell of the last few days. My work schedule has been unbelievable. This weekend, I'll spend some time on the blog, posting stories of our adventures in Delhi, Agra and Hyderabad, as well as many photos and video clips. I'm learning how to edit video (beginner skills only).

For the time being, here are a few pictures to hold you over.


(In front of the Taj Mahal, from left to right: Phil, David, Sanjay, Mark, Jim and Ashish)


















(My big head blocking the view of the Taj)


















(To the right and left of the Taj Mahal are identical buildings that are now mosques [for worship]).

















(A visit to Sanjay's parents house, where they fed us like royalty, and both David and Jim learned that at some point you must say "no" to more biryani rice.)

Some pictures really quick

Jim Gaston uploaded a bunch of pictures from our Agra/Taj Mahal trip to Flickr. I'll upload pictures and videos later.

For now, please check out the following site for some pictures to tide you over:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gastonfamily/sets/72157603839446187/

-Phil

A few videos before the Taj

Here are a few videos which I was unable to upload earlier.

The long road to Agra

Since my last entry, I have travelled for nearly three days. We flew from Orange County, CA (8:00 AM) to Chicago, IL on Thursday, then flew out of Chicago (10:00 PM) to Delhi, India (11:30 PM Friday).


Below: Fueling up all of our devices on juice in Chicago before the long flight to Delhi.





Sleep


On the flight to Delhi, I slept about 2-3 hours. The nice ting was, since so many flights were cancelled or delayed in Chicago, our plane was fairly empty. So, we ended up with 3-5 seats each (in coach). I was able to splay out accross 3 seats to nap. Once in Delhi, we waited in a 2 hour line in a crowded room to get through immigration. After arranging cars and luggage, we arrived at our hotel (10 minutes from the airport) around 3 AM. Ashish, Sanjay and I stayed up in the hotel's cafe, sipped masala tea, ate curry and fried bread and talked business. Since our car was coming in a couple hours, we stayed up through the night. I showered and got ready for the 4 hour drive to Agra. On the way back, I slept for a couple of more hours. Now, on day 3 of the trip, I'm still very awake and wondering when I'll feel tired. Hopefully tonight I'll sleep nicely.

(Immigration line in Delhi. Notice the smoke. That was not from cigarettes. From the moment we walked off the plane, we could smell wood fire smoke. The Delhi airport is coated in it.)
















David Barkol pulling his shirt up to mask some of the pollution while waiting for our car in the lot of the Delhi airport.




















After the long immigration lines and arriving at our hotel, it was nice to have midnigt breakfast with Sanjay and Ashish (3AM - 5:30 AM)



















Meeting up with Mark, David, Jim, Ashish and Sanjay in the hotel lobby at 6AM to get on the road to Agra.

The Road to Agra


Agra is home to more than 1 million people. It felt like we saw about 200,000 of them along the drive. Although, as my friend David pointed out, we rarely saw any girls or women. Mostly the men and boys were on the streets, selling wares, staying warm by small fires they lit on the ground, or riding/driving one of the many forms of transport on the road. For most of the way, the road was two lanes on our side of the road. However, it was used like 3-4 lanes, driving at about 30-50 Mph. Car horns are in prevelant use, and work better than turn signals. Since the road is shared by ox, horse and camel-drawn carts, as well as motorcycles, bicycles, cycle-rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, heavy trucks and all forms of cars and trucks, the varied speeds of the drivers requires you to constantly let everyone else on the road know where you are and broadcast your intentions. It is very strange at first, but after a while we became quite fond of the honking. It was like a friendly way of letting others know "I'm coming up on your right... okay now I intend to pass you, so nudge over a bit, theres' a kind fellow..." As effective as it was, I quite think that the denizens of Los Angeles could learn a thing or two from the Indian drivers on friendly horn communication while aggressively driving through chaos.





Along the way, we stopped to stretch our legs at a rest-stop / restaurant / souvenir shop. Here is where David informed us that our office-mates back in Mission Viejo had a pool going to bet on which of us gets sick from the water or food first. Apparently, they're holding out low odds on me, as somehow I have a reputation for an iron stomach (due to the level of spice handling). So, the guys were reticent to partake of the local fare. David had a stash of protien bars that he was hoping to survive upon for as long as possible. I ordered something that sounded like "bread with stuff in it, and pepper pickle". It was very tasty, and Sanjay had to warn me to slow down on the pepper pickle. The guys broke down and tried some of my stuffed bread. It was some kind of mashed and seasoned potato cooked into a fried flat bread (aloo pirani?).





The poverty (and the simplicity) of the people along the way were eye opening to me. We saw people washing their hair under a manual water pump in the street, drawing water into buckets to carry home, and even a practice of shaping cow dung into perfect round disks and piling them up to make the walls of huts. Some were for burning as fuel for warmth, and apparently others were for free building materials.





Well, I'm getting a bit tired, so I'll have to blog more on the Taj Mahal in my next entry. For now, I'll simply upload some photos and videos I've accumulated.





Here's to a good night sleep.





-Phil