India sweet India

We’re here. we made it. all the planning, all the dreams, all the years since the last time, and we are amazingly, amusingly, blissfully, blessfully, undeniably, here. Thanks to Hashem, the Fates, our friends and family, all who got us here. Thanks to my wonderful wife for coming, for suggesting it, for assuring me it would all work out. She’s napping while i write this next to her in our room; then we’ll plug in somewhere to upload. She’s one amazingly beautiful human being for making this happen.
It’s been but a day and we’ve already seen so much of the chaos and beauty the country has to offer. cows and crowds, dogs and dirt, businessmen and lepers, friendly strangers and relentless touts. Delhi is hard, no doubt about it, and knowing that we’re only staying here a couple days before moving on to Varanasi, and the eclipse in the early morning hours of my birthday, we’re close to the railway station in a neighborhood called Pahar Ganj, which is not the most scenic or natural place. to put it mildly. It’s crowded, dirty, and by any reasonable standards, quite nasty indeed. of course i still love it, and Heather, my gopi, is amazed by it. but i do look forward to what’s coming next.
We arranged our travel for the next 3 weeks. Generally, we’re going to wing it, travel on our own, but for a number of reasons we decided to start the trip in a slightly more structured way. We’re going to Varanasi on the 4:45 Poorva Express train (a 13 hour overnight trip), staying there through the eclipse (with a side trip to Sarnath, the site of Buddha’s first public talk and a Buddhist pilgrimage spot), and then taking a train to Agra and the Taj Mahal. From there we visit Mathura/Vrindavin, the birthplace of Krishna, and then we head into the desert.
The deserts of Rajasthan are beautiful, desolate and romantic, and we’re going deeper into it than I’ve ever been. Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer. The pink city, the blue city, the white city, beautiful cities in the desert rise like oases. In Jaipur I will deliver to my sweet gopi her first elephant; we’ll ride one up to Amber Fort above the pink city of Jaipur, and deeper into the desert we will spend one night on a camel safari, eating and sleeping under the stars in the desert.
We’re treating these next 3 weeks as honeymoon, the places we’ll be staying in will be a little nicer than usual, our time more planned than usual. But the “golden triangle” of Delhi, Agra and Varanasi can be difficult to travel through, with touts and salesmen everywhere, with rooms difficult to book without paying the commission for one of these touts, with more hassles than in the rest of the country. So we pre-arranged everything and won’t have to worry about that stuff. After, we’ll travel on the cheap again, but for a while we are going to treat ourselves.

Tennessee

sunset on one side...









and full moonrise on the other:











-- posted from the bhaktiPhone

p'zonee!!

so I got hungry, and we're room zoom zoomin' down the road, so I pulled out the ole bhaktiPhone, opened Maps, and searched for a pizza hut up the road a stretch, found one about 15 miles away, called them, and some 'za was a-waitin' for me when we got to williamsburg, kentucky. woo woo!!!


-- posted from the bhaktiPhone

miles of smiles

we are flying through kentucky, past horse farms and country music museums, rolling over green hills, always on the lookout for speed traps and bourbon distilleries.
we went through Cincinnati, it was the first time I have been there since that EPIC grateful dead show in April of 1989. I was on a road trip with ann and nancie and chris newt; our car broke down there and we got towed to Louisville, riding in the jacked-up car all the way. dropped the car off at a garage near Freedom Hall, saw another awesome dead show, picked up the car, and headed back to UF and classes the next day.
(as I write this, Freedom by George Michael is playing. freedom, freedom, hold on to my freedom)
next stop, Tennessee, Tennessee, ain't no place I'd rather be.



-- posted from the bhaktiPhone

some video of our wedding

This video was filmed and edited by our good friend Jenny Gago. Thanks, Jenny!!

riverboats in iowa, rain in michigan

we visited LeClaire, Iowa this morning, a sweet little town on the mississippi river where the riverboat history echoes like a steam whistle. we saw the buffalo bill museum, as colonel cody was born there, and climbed aboard what's left of the last working steam paddleboat. we drank coffee at a soda fountain while the mark twainy-looking 3rd generation proprietor regaled us with tales of the town's triumphs and turpitude and warned us about various tourist scams worldwide, including the one where someone gives you a baby to hold while her partner picks your pockets. we'll have to look out for that one.
then we broke bread with a FOH who lives in davenport. we showed her some video of the wedding and told the story of the running of the bulls. like all FsOH she was totally great.
now we're driving, getting close to our destination. it's raining a bit; first rain we've seen all trip. we'll stay in michigan a few days, and then head out for Florida. we leave for India in a fortnight.

I'm posting from my bhaktiPhone, sitting in the passenger seat of my car.

wednesday on the mississippi

woke up today in davenport iowa, on the illinois border, next to the mighty mississip. we've done almost 2000 miles in 2 days, which was a lot easier than it sounds, with 2 drivers. we're not stopping much. one detour to zion national park, otherwise we've eschewed such wonders as the world's largest frying pan and ball of twine. we're having lunch with a friend of heather (FOH), and before that we're going to find that river! it shouldn't be too hard, right? being so mighty and all...