Travelogue
"Good Driver = Good Horn, Good Brakes, Good Luck"
Krishna, our driver in Agra
Horns (car, truck, motorcycle, motorscooter) is India, well, the part that first and
continually impinges on ones ears. It is the way drivers communicate between each other and
to pedestians and cyclists. After a few weeks of observing, it starts to make sense. Actually
driving is another matter, not one that I would seriously contemplate.
 Trishaw and Passengers Ref: 2006_2781 |
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 Colour Ref: 2006_2802 |
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Colour and smell are also India. Smell doesn't work in photographs yet, but everything
from incense, to rancid urinal walls, to wonderful food, to cow poop assault ones nose,
often all at once.
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Despite my preconceptions, I enjoyed the cities and the people of India. The cities we
visited are not threatening. The people are friendly. Even the very persistent vendors are
friendly, if at times tiring. It took me some time to relax enough to really enjoy interactions
with people. Lisa learned earlier and is better at talking with people.
One huge advantage to us is that English is an official language of India. Many people speak
it. Most people speak a little bit. This makes it possible to converse beyond the simple "I want
X", "Thank you", "Where is the Y?" type "conversations" I have in non-English speaking
countries.
 Kids Begging Ref: 2006_2738 |
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There are some very heart wrenching aspects of the cities, namely, crippled beggars and
abject poverty particularly of children. Here are a
references to a few good
charities. The
rural areas
have poverty too, but it seems less devastating, although many of the poor that we saw
sleeping in the streets were not city-poor, but farmers whose crops had failed so badly
that their only choice was to come to the cities. The monsoon has failed for the last 3
years in parts of India, which has left subsistence farmers in a terrible state.
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Ignoring the time spent at the conference and internal traveling, we spent more than half
of our time in lodges near or in national parks. (Perhaps, this is why the cities didn't
wear on me too much?)
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One attraction of the parks are the birds. India has more 1300 species of
birds. It's geographic location and varied environments (Himalayas to desert to lowland
jungle) means that it gets African, Eurasian, and Southeast Asian birds either as
migrants or as residents. (By the way, "jungle" is just the Hindi word for "forest".)
It was interesting to see the same species that I had seen in South Africa and Botswana
and a few that I see out our front door! As well, the old world families, such as,
babblers, bulbuls, hornbills, and rollers that we have encountered in Southeast Asia and
Africa were exciting to see and get my jizz recognizer tuned up again. (No Eric, "jizz" doesn't mean what you thought it meant in high school.)
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Another attraction of the parks are the mammals. Like Africa, India has megafauna. Not
as many large mammals, but still impressive, especially for a country with the population
pressures that face India. Like Africa, rhinocerous only exists in very protected
areas.
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I've organized the travelogue part of this by the areas visited, more or less in
chronological order, except for New Delhi, which we visited at the start and end of our
trip.
 Areas we visited Ref: mapOfIndia |
 Areas near New Delhi Visited Ref: mapOfDelhi |
 Areas in Assam Visited Ref: mapOfAssam |
Maps are thanks to MapMyIndia, a Google
Maps like service for India.
We visited:
 Chai Cart Ref: 2006_2782 |
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New Delhi
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 Taj Mahal Ref: 2006_2844 |
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Agra
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Keoladeo Ghana Park, which is near Bharatpur
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Jaipur
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Indian Institute of Technology, Guhawati. This is where the conference Lisa attended was
held.
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Wild Mahseer and Nameri Park, which is north of Tezpur
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Guwahati
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Manas National Park
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You can, of course, ignore the travelogue part and just look at the pictures. I've added bits
of "travelogue" to the picture descriptions so you won't escape completely.
None of the pictures are large enough to make good 4x6 prints. If you want to print any of
these, please send
me the reference numbers (reference numbers at lower right of pictures or lower middle of
toenails) are of the pictures and I can send you (or put on the web) big enough ones for
printing.
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