In order to avoid the larger job of a travelogue at the end of this trip, I will do little ones along the way, and you can join us with only a brief lag in time.

We are now in Puna, holed up for three days in the Samrat Hotel, in order to reconstitute our sense of humor, our strength, and lost sleep. We left McLeod on New Years Day, at 6:30 pm for an overnight bus ride to Delhi, 500 km distant to the southeast. Unlike our last bus ride, the one that brought us here and to the brink of the jim jams, this one went pretty well. We had mostly Tibetans for company, and being in their company I was reminded of their fondness for a bit of home, which for them means 50 knot gales of 40 below air blowing through open windows, all around us, all night long. I have a shawl, a gift from Sharon, at Nagar on the way back from her trip to Spiti-Lahaul, which wrapped around my head kept me alive, until the Tibetans went to sleep, happy as yaks in a snow bank, then I could shut their windows, and catch some shut eye.

We rolled into Delhi about 7am, and caught a taxi for Lajpat Nagar Part 2, where the Likir House, a guesthouse run by a monastery of the same name in Ledakh, had a room for us. We checked in, but did not have to check out until 9pm the next day, a concession made to the peculiarities of western travel habits. We showered, had breakfast and made our way on foot to the shop where we had purchased a guitar for Will on the return leg of our journey to Nepal, inn order to repair the nut, which had become damaged during his marathon practice sessions This was thankfully done on the spot, then back we went to the guest house for a lunch consisting of items purchased on the street, and went to bed for four hours to get some sleep. We ate out that night in Lajpat, came home, played a few hands of cards, and went back to bed.

Next day found us in a hired car, making the rounds of Delhi, in a determined effort to get to know and like this city, a task, which remained unaccomplished to this point. We did make it to the train station in an unsuccessful attempt to change a ticket (see Wills photo # 1 of a queue line, or what is here a wedge or a funnel), a state emporium where the government has set up a central location for the display of crafts from all over India, and another place to which we were taken by our driver as a result of a misunderstanding arising from differences in languages. The day ended better than it began, with a quick look at the Parana Qila, and a leisurely visit of Humayuns tomb (# 2-8), the first distinctly mature example of Moghal architecture in India.

I never know what you might like to hear, but I find the Moghal Empire and the characters associated with it always fascinating. First came Timur and his Mongol hordes out of Samarkand, south through the Khyber Pass, and into Hindustan, and in their six month sojourn here, had plundered so much, his army on its return could make only 4 km per day so burdened were they with booty. Cultured life at court was integral to the Timurid ideal, which conjoined with war a love of books, poetry, architecture, and the landscaping of pleasure gardens. I am aware that I have a simple juvenile mind, yet to it the juxtaposition of murder and rapine with poetry and the other gentler arts seems highly uneasy, and at base contradictory. Babur, the next of this line to enter India, and secure in the tradition of skillful warfare, took advantage of the squabbles among the Afghan rulers of northern India, and came so swiftly down through these Northern passes, that he was among them before they became fully aware of his presence. On the fields of Panipat, with only 20,000 foot soldiers, Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, the Sultan of Delhi who had on his side 100,000 men and a thousand elephants, a lopsided victory, which was due to Baburs innovative use of artillery, which rained destruction and confusion into the midst of Lodis forces.

Babur was the first of the Moghal emperors, and ruled for three years until his nitwit son Humayan, took over in 1530. Partying was Humayuns forte, and never bothering to consolidate a victory, spent months celebrating with wine, opium, and poetry. Perhaps distracted by such pleasures he found himself replaying Ibrahim Lodis role, when out of central Afghanistan, Sher Shah, as astute as Humayun was lame, pounced upon him, driving him after the rout, across the Ganges on a leather bladder loaned to him by a passing peasant. Pity in a way that Humayan came back to power twenty five years later, something he certainly would not have been able to do had Sher Shah not been killed earlier by a freak accident, in which a rocket fired at a fort he was besieging ricocheted back into his camp, fatally wounding him.

During Sher Shaws tenure he had established an administrative system so efficient it was later copied by the Moghals themselves, supplanting first Humayans chaotic system, which had been based on astrology and the elements of earth, air, fire and water, and later by the British, who ended the Mughols reign in typical bloody fashion, first capturing the last ruler, and three princes hiding out in the Parana Qila, then executing them for the crime of being the last in a line of rulers which had been in charge for more than three hundred years before the Brits arrived.

During Humayuns absence however, Sher Shah had completed many magnificent structures, the fort and palace of Parana Qila among them. After many a twist and turn, though the story for us has a happy ending, for Humayuns widow had a mausoleum built to commemorate her late husbands greatness. Though the term greatness was misapplied to Humayan, it is most apt in reference to his tomb, the first true Moghal architectural feat in India, a form brought to perfection by Humayuns great grandson, Shah Jihan, with the construction the Taj Mahal, an expression of his grief at the passing of his beloved wife Mumtaz. (# 2-8: #2 is a mausoleum on the grounds housing the remains of one of his ministers, while #3 and #8 are photos of the entranceway from opposite sides, #4 is the a shot of the tomb, #6 is a close-up of the main entrance, # 7 his sarcophagus, and #5 a Sikh temple just off the northwest boundary of the tomb grounds). We ran out of time with our delighted stroll through this beautiful place, which created a firm basis for our liking of Delhi, and we began at this time to look forward to returning and exploring other sites within the city.

From Delhi we boarded the train at 9pm, on a second-class sleeper coach, which we have become convinced by bitter experience is the only way to travel in India. Our next stop was Bhopal, site of the Union Carbide travesty committed on the poor of that city, a crime it has never fully repaid, the closed down and abandoned factory still spilling toxins into their neighborhoods. It is the twentieth anniversary of this catastrophe, in which 12,000 were poisoned in their sleep when 40 tones of methylicocyanide gas was released as a result of shoddy safety standards resulting from cost cutting measures. The death toll has been cumulative, and now stands at 28,000 and counting. We did not come to celebrate this anniversary, but rather to see the UNESCO World Heritage site at Sanchi 40 km north of Bhopal.

We boarded a local train for Sanchi from the Bhopal train platform, our ticket was never checked, a process one regular passenger on that run told us was unnecessary, as a conductor had been on that run once already a month ago, a tongue in cheek comment more in reference to the efficiency of Indian bureaucracy, than to the honor system in use in the countryside. Amazing people got on and off this train, and we had to fight our way off, to the angry cries of the old crones who stuffed the escape routes nearly shut with illegally poached firewood, and who clearly did not give a shit if we were able to get out as long as we did not disturb them or their fire wood. We loved this ride and shared stories of it and of our escape from opposite sides as the train began to roll away from the station, reuniting on the tracks after the train left Sanchi. The national newspapers carry articles every day of people being run over by trains somewhere in India, and the mode of our disorganized exit directly onto adjacent rails made this easy to understand.

In the third century BC, King Ashoka, the greatest Buddhist convert, built this site and its primary stupas, thereby initiating a major center of Buddhist study and meditation, persisting until the twelfth century AD, when it decayed and was forgotten. It was rediscovered in 1818 by a British army officer, and after many steps forward and back was finally restored to its present condition in 1919. (Enjoy # 9-17, # 14 shows a four lion capitol on one of the columns Ashoka was famous for erecting, now a symbol on every Indian rupee bank note). We spent two nights here and absorbed the spiritual energy of the place. While there, walking from one excavated site to another we became aware of three peacocks in an intervening thicket, surrounded them, and were able to observe these wonderful creatures in their wild state.

Photo #18 is a shot from the roof of our little hotel, of bullocks and their cart, whose owner, an old guy who always pulled his cart off the road there at the end of the day, put out some fodder upon which the animals munched while he had a tea and talked with his friends. Pray note their horn decorations and the horns of all subsequent bullocks appearing in later photographs. When we left in the a.m. of the third day for the return to Bhopal, it was by local bus, veritable exploration vehicles of village India and its wonderful people. The pleasure of this experience was not to be repeated soon, as the patient reader will learn by sticking with this narrative.

Back in Bhopal we again boarded the train, this time bound for Manmad, a place located nowhere and consequently completely inconvenient, but it was the only ticket we could get, as we planned the journey not only late, but in ignorance of how many flee to southern India at this time of year, a migration which clogs the rail system to capacity. Rule one is never take buses if it can be helped, and rule two is never give up confirmed rail tickets. Brainy old Sharon got us out of this one by looking at the map and discovering that our next destination, the caves of Ajanta, and Ellora, would be more accessible from Jalgaon, than from either Manmad or Aurangabad, and after questioning the conductor found that the train did make a five minute stop there, and would be happy to notify us of our arrival. So we disembarked there, found good accommodations for the night, and early the next morning with very little sleep, boarded a local bus (having no alternative, we remained in conformance with rule one) for Fardapur, just north of Ajanta. We met there a very helpful auto rickshaw driver who found us the last available room in the area, oh happy times for us as we were prepared to sleep in the hall of another hotel, provided others checked out of the hall in time for us to take over.

Ajanta is a series of purely Buddhist monastic caves, begun in the second century BC, and going into decline after nine or ten centuries, lost to the jungle for a thousand years, then rediscovered by yet another British army officer who, standing on a nearby hilltop, saw a tiger go into a cave clearly man-made in outline. In this instance also, there followed a period of indecision, before the caves were restored in the early days of the twentieth century. These caves and those at Ellora, which we saw the next day, are both UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Ajanta consists of 30 caves, placed essentially side by side on a steep horseshoe shaped cliff face bordering a ravine 250 feet deep, and is very compact in extent (# 19, #31 note the cave entrance at the far right, and# 32, will give some idea of the setting). The caves are of two types: viharas, or monasteries consisting of a central meeting area facing a vast niche in the deepest recess of the cave, in which a large scale Buddha image is carved, the whole surrounded by cells for individual monks, and chaityas, or temples for worship which lack quarters for monks. Sixteen of these caves contain mural paintings and despite their antiquity, many remain in a remarkable state of preservation, and represent some of the finest pictorial art ever executed at any time or place in the planets history. (# 26-7. We could not do a very good job of photographing the paintings, as the use of flash is prohibited). The sculptures in many of the caves are also world class in beauty and sensitivity of expression (# 21 and 26 are stupas, # 22, 23, 24, 25, and 29 are carvings in the caves). Finally, the architectural value of the entrances to some of these caves is also virtually unsurpassed. (# 20, 23, 27,30).

Ellora is different in most respects, save that of quality. The caves at Ellora were begun when Ajanta was going into decline, yet interestingly the oldest caves at Ellora are also Buddhist, and date to 500-700 AD, while the site in its entirety is the product of three religious traditions, and is home to some of the finest Hindu and Jain art anywhere in India. The Ellora caves are spread out over a much wider area, over two kilometers in length on a more gently sloping hillside, and are best seen by car, whereas Ajanta was very approachable on foot. Ellora was never abandoned and hence its existence has been continuously known. There are no paintings here, the fame of the place relying entirely on the perfection of the sculptures. The most remarkable structure at this site by far is Kaliasha temple, the largest monolithic structure in the world, and combines immensity with grace, energy and superb genius. Its conception and planning are matched by jewel-like execution. It was constructed by order of King Krishna 1 in 760 AD, and required 150 years to complete, consumed seven generations of artisans, and entailed the quarrying of 3,000,000 cubic feet of rock. Work began at the cliff top where a rectangular trench was cut into the rocks depths, measuring 107 feet deep, 276 feet long and 154 feet wide, leaving an enormous block at its center, which was then chiseled into a Shiva temple, double storied and as complete and detailed as their brick and mortar counterparts (# 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44. Sharon says the last of these is to illustrate the residual paint on the structure, but in reality it is for the parrot, which lives here with its mate).

The Buddhist caves are situated together in a row on the right hand side, and comprise the eastern segment (# 45,46,47), the Hindu structures are centrally placed and the far west is the site of the four Jain temples (# 48,49). All these caves were areas of living practice and study, and for the most part were contemporaneous, functioning side by side in a spirit of religious toleration and peace. There are additional miscellaneous photos, and for completeness I should explain that # 28 was taken of us at Ajanta by a doctor whose family accompanied us during our tour of both Ajanta, and Ellora, # 33 near sunset behind our little hotel at Fardapur, #34, and 35 were taken at an immense cotton depot in the countryside between Ajanta and Ellora.

By the time we had seen Ellora we were tired, and having made the decision during the day to proceed on to Puna that night, we hurried on into Aurangabad in our hired car, and were dropped off to find bus transport from there to Puna. We bought tickets for a bus, which departed without us, and were the first to board another bus, which we were told was to depart at any moment, but in reality had to wait for two more hours, while the booking office filled every seat before it was allowed to leave for Puna. As I am wont to do from time to time when dicked over, I became angry at being lied to and manipulated and in the midst of the patient and polite Indians for whom such bullshit is a daily occurrence, I lost it and became an embarrassment to my family and an irritant to everyone else, without any impacting the situation one jot. I truly felt that not only myself, but the unfortunate conductor and driver, whom I harried and hassled within an inch of their breaking point were, like Mongo in Blazing Saddles, only pawns in game of life, while sat an asshole who was responsible for this shameful state of affairs, no doubt in an air conditioned office, getting off Scott free without a scratch, with a pocketful of money earned off our sweating asses.

The shit did not stop here however, for the driver who of necessity had to be an ornery cuss if he could tolerate working for such an outfit, no doubt feeling fed up and without a stake in what transpired, drove that 50 ton bus on the narrow and shabby Indian highways with a reckless abandon that took the breathe away. I was sure we were going to die. And it went on for five hours like this, shocks bottoming out, violent side to side movement as he jerked the bus within inches from the path of oncoming good carriers bigger than we were passing into our lane form the opposite direction, headlights in our windshield so close you could reach out and touch them fractions of a second before impact, the Doppler effect of the blaring horns creating valleys and mountain tops of sound all the way to Puna. During the stops to let people on and off this non-stop trip, a foul, swaggering, mean tempered son-of-bitch bouncer came out of the front compartment to manhandle little people who came on at these times to sell little goodies for the relief of the terrorized captive population of this hell bound abortion of an enterprise. I was so mad I was chewing on the metal framework of the seat in front of me, somewhat akin to the wolf, who chews off its own leg to escape the trap, rage added to the terror of being caught in a contrivance it neither understands nor respects. Next to me calmly sat a man who felt all was explained by the fact that India is a country with few resources, and a vast demand always exceeding the supply, enabling those who control the supply to do anything they like and get away with it, so that we must remain philosophical and patient.

Arriving in Puna just before midnight, we crashed into a cheap triple, and lay there, our jangled nerves twitching as they radiated off their store of fear and stress, like a motorcycle exhaust ticking itself cool after a hard ride. The next morning in the sunlight, we looked around and found ourselves in an un-restored old mansion, now run by the BaHai, which must have been great in its day, within a stones toss of the rail station, and soon shifted into the much better Samrat Hotel from which I began this tale.

It was a great relief to us, and an extravagance to be so comfortable, but here in our eagerness to be on the road early to Kerala, we violated rule number two, or more precisely the aftermath of our experience here led to the formulation of rule number two. In spite of continuous alarm bells going off in my head, about the mealy travel agent the hotel staff invited in to help us make the change necessary to an earlier departure, we cancelled confirmed seats on the Puna to Trivandrum run for seats on the Puna to Kochin run one day early. Big mistake.

The travel agent, artfully delaying meeting us until we were on the platform at the very brink of departure, finally arrived, and refunding the agreed upon amount for the cancelled ticket, said he would join us on the train to ensure we got the right seats, then excused himself saying he would be right back. We boarded the designated coach, and entering into appalling conditions, found our seats, which were immediately challenged by hostile folk who had valid tickets for those seats. The train began to roll with no travel agent in sight, and we then knew without equivocation we had been had. We had tickets for nonexistent seats, and soon learned, contrary to the travel agents information, that we were to be on the train for nearly two, not one day without interruption. Sharon came very close to losing it, Will was for the first time on this entire adventure on the brink of doing so, and I was required at that time to do something. My first solution was to jump off the train, as it was leaving the station slowly, make my way back to the hotel and give the travel agent the beating he so deserved. How many really good ideas are similarly lost in this way I have no idea, but Sharon nixed this brilliant and noble flash of insight as unacceptable. Only the ac conductor, we were told by one passenger, somewhere to the rear of this very long train had the authority to make adjustments. I set out in search of this person, and acutely aware that I had made the decision to turn in the valid confirmed ticket for the bogus one, in so doing landing my family in this predicament, formulated a prayer for redemption as I proceeded down the line of overcrowded railway cars.