It was bound to happen. Eventually I’d have to learn cricket. It’s not only the national sport in India, it’s the ONLY sport in India. Seriously. They don’t play anything else. And right now India’s hosting the Cricket World Cup, AND they’re favored to win it. So this place has cricket fever, and unlike polio, I did not get any booster shots against that. So I’m starting to come down with it. Kinda.
At its heart, cricket is very similar to baseball, and not just in the bat + ball department. It’s a sport anybody can play, it’s steeped in history, and it bridges blue and white collars. It is, however, even more repetitive than baseball, it lacks the complex managerial strategies of baseball, and each match takes about 7 hours. 7. Freaking. Hours. Seriously. And for the World Cup they use a shortened version of the game. The real deal takes up to 5 days, and is often played in a best-of-five series to boot.
I’ll write a brief post later about the one good cricket match I saw (the rest have sucked), but for now, I’ve had so many requests to explain cricket that I’m going to give it a go here.
Concept: Cricket is best compared to a home run derby, rather than a real baseball game. You get a whole bunch of at-bats, and you try to rack up as many points as you can. One team takes its whole turn at bat, sets a score, and then the other team goes and "chases" that score.
Batting Flow: You have 10 people in your lineup. The lead-off guy starts and takes pitches until he gets out, then the next guy takes pitches until he’s out. This continues until either all ten people get out or you go through 300 pitches, whichever comes first. Batters can last hundreds of pitches (this takes hours) if they’re consistent and strong, or they can get out immediately if they suck. I’ve seen both.
Scoring: After you hit the ball, you run back and forth between home plate and the single base. If you get to the base, you score one run. If you get there and back, it’s two, and so forth. If the ball makes it all the way to the outfield wall, it’s worth four runs, and if it’s a home run, it’s worth six. You can choose not to run at all (see getting out, below). To do that, you just stay at home plate after you hit, and you score zero for that pitch.
Getting Out: There are two easy basebally ways of getting out. First is the pop-out. Any time you touch the ball with the bat and it’s caught before it hits the ground, you’re out. The second is the force-out. If you’re caught between bases when the ball gets back, you’re out. There’s no such thing as a strike-out. If you whiff, you just score a zero on that at-bat. However, if you whiff AND the ball hits the stumps, you’re out. When you’re batting, you’re basically protecting the stumps, and the pitcher is trying to hit them. If he hits them, you’re done. These stumps are actually the home plate equivalent. To get forced out, a fielder has to touch the ball to the stumps before you cross the safe line. This can be done by throwing the ball straight into the stumps or manually touching the ball to the stumps. Note, then, that you aren't really running to a base--you're running a shuttle between two lines, and you're safe once you pass the line, even if you overrun it. The final meaningful way of getting out is called "leg before wickets." This is basically where you use your legs to protect the stumps, rather than your bat (because you whiffed and it hit your legs). If the umpire determines that the ball would have hit the stumps had it not hit your legs first, you can be called out. They have a really neat review system for this called "Hawkeye" that’s very similar to tennis–it predicts where the ball would have gone based on its trajectory when it hit you.
A Nuance to Batting: To throw a wrench in things, there are actually two batters on the field at a time. One starts at first base, running the shuttle between bases opposite the batter. You only score when both players reach their base, and you can register the out by getting either runner out. These two batters form a "partnership" and actually trade off their at-bats. Every time the batter scores an odd number of runs, the other partner takes his place at bat. To illustrate: I hit a single and run to first while you run home. Now you’re the one at home plate, and you start batting again. I’m still in the game, not out, and will bat again as soon as you hit a single (or a triple). If my partner gets out, I stay in the game with the new guy and we form a new partnership. One consequence of this is that you try to have a right and left-handed batter in at the same time, forcing the pitcher to mix things up whenever the two switch places. Another consequence is that there are actually 11 people in your lineup (I lied earlier... sorry) because you have to have an extra guy to form the last partnership, otherwise you’d have only one guy on the field after 9 outs. That 11th guy usually REALLY sucks at batting.
A Nuance to Game Flow: Like I said, you bat until 10 outs or 300 pitches, whichever comes first. In fact, the game is divided into 50 "overs" of 6 pitches each, rather than just 300 pitches. After each over there’s a very short break and the fielding team is allowed to change pitchers/bowlers. "Runs per over" is the key statistic during a match. 6 is good (300 runs per game). 7 is very good (350). 5 is weakish. 4 or below is very weak.
Pitching/Bowling: The first thing you’d notice watching a game is that the pitches bounce before they reach the plate, meaning that spin becomes huge, and resulting in a wide variety of pitch types. Each bowler is allowed to pitch 10 overs, and they can only be switched between overs (you finish the over you start). The team captain picks who’s going to bowl each over, and there winds up being a lot of strategy in this, as every bowler is different.
Fielding: Everyone fields. All 11 of your guys are in the field at once. There’re like 100 different positions that fielders can assume, and you do a lot of shifting based on the batter. When you switch bowlers, you bring someone in from the field, and the old bowler goes back to his position, and people swap positions more to accommodate the switch. People, therefore, can typically play more than one position.
Lineup Composition: We’re getting more technical here. I think you could watch a match without really knowing this. You’ve got 11 guys in your lineup and in the field. Each bowler can only bowl 10 overs, so you need a minimum 5 who can bowl, and really you want six. So you wind up with 5 people who just bat, plus a couple who can bat and bowl, plus a few who’re bowling specialists but also have to bat. The major consequence here is that outs are really important, even if you don’t go all-out and don’t get to use up all 50 overs. In the first games I saw, I’d thought "Who cares that this guy’s out? He’ll get replaced by someone fresh, and there’s no chance of ending things because of the 10 outs–you’re pitching all 50 overs anyway." Outs are important because you want to get past the great batters at the top of the order. If you can spend your last 10 overs pitching to the schlub bowling specialists at the bottom of the order, you’re likely to give up far fewer runs, even if they don’t get out. The game may be about runs, not outs, but getting the right people out leads to less run production ability. Also, though, you do tend to mow these batters down. That is, once you get to the part of the lineup of mostly bowlers, they can start dropping like flies, and you can bring the game to a rapid conclusion.
I really think that if you read this and watch 15 minutes of cricket, you’ll have it down. I can’t say I particularly LIKE the sport, as it has severe limitations when it’s 7 hours long. It’s also, like I mentioned earlier, repetitive over those 7 hours and doesn't have baseball's managerial complexity. Further, while outs are important, they tend to come out of nowhere. All of a sudden, someone's out. Like a goal in soccer, but without the gradual buildup of tension before it. But while I’m here, cricket’s all I’ve got. Plus, the Indians have a really good chance of winning this thing. With the way the Illini are playing, I think this is my only hope.
Epilogue/HuffPo Dish: Are you wondering "how to watch cricket?" It's a common search query, as are "cricket how to," "cricket rules," "cricket for dummies," and "what are the rules of cricket?" It's easily answered, too: my blog post answers all of these queries.
This is Search Enginge Optimization, something that Content Farms like the Huffington Post do to attract people to their mass-produced, extremely low-grade writing. My writing, though, is impeccable :)
Monday, February 28, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Agra: The Hatred is Probably Mutual
Agra is a total shithole. Don’t get me wrong: the Taj Mahal is magnificent, but God Damn the town ain’t. Agra’s well aware that every tourist will come to it regardless of what they charge, how dirty the place is, or how big of assholes they can be.
The Taj was Rs.750 each for tourists (about $17-18) with no free re-entry. Beyond that, though, you are not allowed to bring in ANY food. They frisk you and dig through your bags. Ostensibly, this is to keep the grounds clean, but the real reason is that they know all guidebooks tell you to see it during daylight and at sunset, and that without food, they know no one will last that long. And that every foreign tourist will grudgingly pay the extra $17 rather than take a moral stand. Note that fees for Indians were something like Rs. 25. Some nominal fee. They only screw the foreigners.
So that didn’t get us and Agra off to a good start. But the knowledge that this is a tourist trap pervades everything in town. You can’t drive straight up to the Taj. Rather, you get dropped off at the end of a long street leading up to it. This street happens to be lined with extremely aggressive shops selling absolute crap. I inspected a few things, and they were all of abysmal quality. I wanted some postcards, but even those were terrible.
There is no reliable food near the Taj, so you wind up having to just do the chips n’ biscuits lunch. Of course, all shopkeepers have smudged out the "maximum retail price" marking on all products and sell it for whatever they feel a foreigner will pay. In India, everything’s marked with an MRP, and while stores are allowed to sell for less than this (occasionally they do, but only by a little bit), they cannot charge more. In practice, this isn’t really enforced, and Agra seemed not to care a bit. Again, they know no one will visit India without visiting Agra, so they have absolutely no incentive to cater to tourists.
Enough bitching about Agra. The Taj itself was great. Apparently everybody says "oh, it’s so small," but neither Pete nor I found that to be true. It’s not some sprawling complex, to be sure. It’s just a mausoleum for a guy’s favorite wife (think about that one). So the inside is only a few rooms. The draw is that it’s a giant building entirely in white marble. The sun does amazing things with that, especially at sunset.
After begrudgingly forking over for our evening session (going in, we didn’t think we’d have to re-pay, and the guidebooks did not lead us to believe we would), we really were not in the mood for any more Agra. We just wanted some sunset Taj. This wasn’t meant to be, though, as we were instantly accosted by the hordes of "guides" inside the main gate. I don’t quite know how that racket works, but my guess is these guys pay the nominal Indians’ fee to enter, then charge a few hundred rupees to spout nonsense to foreigners as you walk around. We passed, but not just because this was a scam. The first guy who came up to us barely got two words out of his mouth before doing that ever-so-Indian custom of coughing out a gigantic heap of phlegm. It went something like this: "Excuse me.... acchhhh, HACK, HACKHACK, nchhhhh, THWOOP!" Why yes, sir, I would LOVE to walk around here with a tuberculitic pensioner. JUST how I want to experience the Taj! Next, as we sat at a bench inside, a guy came up behind us to ask for our photo. Pete and I simultaneously mistook him for a guide and rebuffed him. He was at a perfect height for both of us to just elbow him in the balls, and I must say, the temptation was there. Once we realized what was going on, though, we obliged. A few minutes later, a bizarrely sweet family came up to us just to say hi. The young son (10?) asked me "where are you from?" When Pete and I answered, the girl (sameish age) said "Welcome to India!" and the rest of the family then welcomed us. Then they left. I really was waiting for somebody to ask for change, but it never happened.
Not the family that approached us:
On our way out, we were quickly pounced on by a 14-15 year old boy who said, while barely looking up from his cell phone "Hey! I waited for you! I really did! Come check out my shop!" We had not seen this kid before, but this was his schtick to drag people to a particular shop, where he’d get a commission of some sort. Something about his ridiculous line, but equally ridiculous sincerity, convinced me to give this kid the commission on my purchase (some kid was going to get credit--might as well be him). Unfortunately, yeah, the post cards sucked, and without any more Taj to see, Pete and I knew it was time to bail. We just decided to wait out the evening at the train station, which actually had a decent restaurant. So chalk that up for Agra. Their train station doesn’t suck. That’s something.
Up next: that’s all for the cities. I’ll write a bit about train travel, and another post about general India-traveling tips
Jumping photos at the Taj:
Sadly, I didn’t get to use this as I’d hoped. Someday.
The Taj was Rs.750 each for tourists (about $17-18) with no free re-entry. Beyond that, though, you are not allowed to bring in ANY food. They frisk you and dig through your bags. Ostensibly, this is to keep the grounds clean, but the real reason is that they know all guidebooks tell you to see it during daylight and at sunset, and that without food, they know no one will last that long. And that every foreign tourist will grudgingly pay the extra $17 rather than take a moral stand. Note that fees for Indians were something like Rs. 25. Some nominal fee. They only screw the foreigners.
So that didn’t get us and Agra off to a good start. But the knowledge that this is a tourist trap pervades everything in town. You can’t drive straight up to the Taj. Rather, you get dropped off at the end of a long street leading up to it. This street happens to be lined with extremely aggressive shops selling absolute crap. I inspected a few things, and they were all of abysmal quality. I wanted some postcards, but even those were terrible.
There is no reliable food near the Taj, so you wind up having to just do the chips n’ biscuits lunch. Of course, all shopkeepers have smudged out the "maximum retail price" marking on all products and sell it for whatever they feel a foreigner will pay. In India, everything’s marked with an MRP, and while stores are allowed to sell for less than this (occasionally they do, but only by a little bit), they cannot charge more. In practice, this isn’t really enforced, and Agra seemed not to care a bit. Again, they know no one will visit India without visiting Agra, so they have absolutely no incentive to cater to tourists.
Enough bitching about Agra. The Taj itself was great. Apparently everybody says "oh, it’s so small," but neither Pete nor I found that to be true. It’s not some sprawling complex, to be sure. It’s just a mausoleum for a guy’s favorite wife (think about that one). So the inside is only a few rooms. The draw is that it’s a giant building entirely in white marble. The sun does amazing things with that, especially at sunset.
After begrudgingly forking over for our evening session (going in, we didn’t think we’d have to re-pay, and the guidebooks did not lead us to believe we would), we really were not in the mood for any more Agra. We just wanted some sunset Taj. This wasn’t meant to be, though, as we were instantly accosted by the hordes of "guides" inside the main gate. I don’t quite know how that racket works, but my guess is these guys pay the nominal Indians’ fee to enter, then charge a few hundred rupees to spout nonsense to foreigners as you walk around. We passed, but not just because this was a scam. The first guy who came up to us barely got two words out of his mouth before doing that ever-so-Indian custom of coughing out a gigantic heap of phlegm. It went something like this: "Excuse me.... acchhhh, HACK, HACKHACK, nchhhhh, THWOOP!" Why yes, sir, I would LOVE to walk around here with a tuberculitic pensioner. JUST how I want to experience the Taj! Next, as we sat at a bench inside, a guy came up behind us to ask for our photo. Pete and I simultaneously mistook him for a guide and rebuffed him. He was at a perfect height for both of us to just elbow him in the balls, and I must say, the temptation was there. Once we realized what was going on, though, we obliged. A few minutes later, a bizarrely sweet family came up to us just to say hi. The young son (10?) asked me "where are you from?" When Pete and I answered, the girl (sameish age) said "Welcome to India!" and the rest of the family then welcomed us. Then they left. I really was waiting for somebody to ask for change, but it never happened.
Not the family that approached us:
On our way out, we were quickly pounced on by a 14-15 year old boy who said, while barely looking up from his cell phone "Hey! I waited for you! I really did! Come check out my shop!" We had not seen this kid before, but this was his schtick to drag people to a particular shop, where he’d get a commission of some sort. Something about his ridiculous line, but equally ridiculous sincerity, convinced me to give this kid the commission on my purchase (some kid was going to get credit--might as well be him). Unfortunately, yeah, the post cards sucked, and without any more Taj to see, Pete and I knew it was time to bail. We just decided to wait out the evening at the train station, which actually had a decent restaurant. So chalk that up for Agra. Their train station doesn’t suck. That’s something.
Up next: that’s all for the cities. I’ll write a bit about train travel, and another post about general India-traveling tips
Jumping photos at the Taj:
Sadly, I didn’t get to use this as I’d hoped. Someday.
Amritsar: Down with the Sikhness
There’s this phenomenon called "Delhi Belly." Basically the Indian equivalent of Montezuma’s Revenge. I’d throw out Maharaja’s Revenge if you pick up the bug outside of Delhi, but as it turns out, Delhi Belly is actually distinct to Delhi. As in, Pete got sick in Amritsar, brought on by our first night in Delhi. I didn’t get sick until the day after we got back to Delhi. Tulsi recently visited Delhi and even she got sick. So travel tip number 1 would be, when in Delhi: Don’t. Touch. Anything.
But we didn’t hit either Sickness or Sikhness until the evening of our arrival in Amritsar. First we stopped off at the border with Pakistan (about a half hour from Amritsar) for their daily border-closing ceremony. The border’s open during the day and closed at night. The closing draws huge crowds of Indians on one side, and not so much from the Pakistanis on the other side (quite surprising considering that the nearby Pakistani city, Lahore, is much larger than Amritsar). As the soldiers did their marching around, a dude in a white track suit led the crowd in cheers, and none were lacking in enthusiasm. At several stops on this trip, Pete and I were stopped to have someone take their photo with us. I suspect this is mostly because of Pete’s long blondish hair (he said in Korea a guy did the same thing and said "you look like movie star!"), but here it was because we were the white dudes at this super anti-Pakistani event. Of course each group of people had to take TWO photos with us, too, so they could swap the photographer. We happily obliged at first, but this became pretty tiresome after the 6th photoshoot.
There were some other white guys:
Nationalist hoopla finished, we got back to the train station to find that our driver didn’t want to drive us into town, and the only ricks available were cycle shaws. No motor. With old dudes at the helm. Younger shawsters have a sense of shame, I suppose. This meant we were passed by regular shaws (one of whom matched our speed for a while and laughed at us) and that we had to get out and walk when we had to go over the overpass. At least it was cheap, and I guess I felt like we did a good turn. The cycle shawers really looked like they could use the business. Haggard comes to mind.
The main draw here is the Sikh Golden Temple, which I guess I could compare to the Golden Mosque, if not for the incredible animosity between the two religions. Also the fact that the Golden Temple is totally open to all, nearly 24 hours. We stopped by at 10:00pm for a ceremony where they move a holy book into storage for the night. We came back in the morning and got to see the place in a completely different light. Anyway, it’s a big square with a moat in the middle, and a bridge leading to an island. On that island is the temple itself, totally decked out in gold. A great site, and very welcoming. They also had the world’s most gruesome museum, with paintings of all of the horrible things Muslims had done to Sikhs over the years. This included: sawing people in two down the center, encaging children alive in bricks, and pouring burning hot sand over people. They also had like 100 death photos of martyrs dead bodies. Think when we put Uday and Qusay on display so clerics could verify their deaths. That sorta stuff. Sadly, no photos of the museum.
In Amritsar there are a bunch of places advertising "dry fruit." Sadly this is just the Indian term for nuts. And there weren’t even any good ones. I really had my heart set on some CostCo-style giant bags of mixed dried fruits, but it wasn’t meant to be. Instead we countered Pete’s Delhi Belly with Pizza Hut. Partly because we ordered interesting drinks and I downed some cheesecake for dessert, this actually became the single most expensive meal of our trip. Pizza Hut, in addition to being just as delicious in India as it is in the States, is a fairly classy joint. Clean, nice bathrooms, attentive staff, diverse menu.
Finally, the Temple provides accommodation for all travelers, Sikh or not. These are provided at a nominal fee, provided they aren’t full of course. And of course we showed up on some bizarre holiday called Lohri, which we deduced was a North Indian bonfire holiday judging from the smoke in the air. The next day, everything had cleared up, showing that it wasn’t pollution in the air. But yeah, we couldn’t sleep with the pilgrims and had to settle for a dive hotel. :(
Next: I covered both ends of Delhi on the last trip, so a brief post on our Agra excursion. After that, I’ve got a post in the works just about the trains, and I’ll do a compendium of travel tips after that. Then, I swear, no more travel blogging.
But we didn’t hit either Sickness or Sikhness until the evening of our arrival in Amritsar. First we stopped off at the border with Pakistan (about a half hour from Amritsar) for their daily border-closing ceremony. The border’s open during the day and closed at night. The closing draws huge crowds of Indians on one side, and not so much from the Pakistanis on the other side (quite surprising considering that the nearby Pakistani city, Lahore, is much larger than Amritsar). As the soldiers did their marching around, a dude in a white track suit led the crowd in cheers, and none were lacking in enthusiasm. At several stops on this trip, Pete and I were stopped to have someone take their photo with us. I suspect this is mostly because of Pete’s long blondish hair (he said in Korea a guy did the same thing and said "you look like movie star!"), but here it was because we were the white dudes at this super anti-Pakistani event. Of course each group of people had to take TWO photos with us, too, so they could swap the photographer. We happily obliged at first, but this became pretty tiresome after the 6th photoshoot.
There were some other white guys:
Nationalist hoopla finished, we got back to the train station to find that our driver didn’t want to drive us into town, and the only ricks available were cycle shaws. No motor. With old dudes at the helm. Younger shawsters have a sense of shame, I suppose. This meant we were passed by regular shaws (one of whom matched our speed for a while and laughed at us) and that we had to get out and walk when we had to go over the overpass. At least it was cheap, and I guess I felt like we did a good turn. The cycle shawers really looked like they could use the business. Haggard comes to mind.
The main draw here is the Sikh Golden Temple, which I guess I could compare to the Golden Mosque, if not for the incredible animosity between the two religions. Also the fact that the Golden Temple is totally open to all, nearly 24 hours. We stopped by at 10:00pm for a ceremony where they move a holy book into storage for the night. We came back in the morning and got to see the place in a completely different light. Anyway, it’s a big square with a moat in the middle, and a bridge leading to an island. On that island is the temple itself, totally decked out in gold. A great site, and very welcoming. They also had the world’s most gruesome museum, with paintings of all of the horrible things Muslims had done to Sikhs over the years. This included: sawing people in two down the center, encaging children alive in bricks, and pouring burning hot sand over people. They also had like 100 death photos of martyrs dead bodies. Think when we put Uday and Qusay on display so clerics could verify their deaths. That sorta stuff. Sadly, no photos of the museum.
In Amritsar there are a bunch of places advertising "dry fruit." Sadly this is just the Indian term for nuts. And there weren’t even any good ones. I really had my heart set on some CostCo-style giant bags of mixed dried fruits, but it wasn’t meant to be. Instead we countered Pete’s Delhi Belly with Pizza Hut. Partly because we ordered interesting drinks and I downed some cheesecake for dessert, this actually became the single most expensive meal of our trip. Pizza Hut, in addition to being just as delicious in India as it is in the States, is a fairly classy joint. Clean, nice bathrooms, attentive staff, diverse menu.
Finally, the Temple provides accommodation for all travelers, Sikh or not. These are provided at a nominal fee, provided they aren’t full of course. And of course we showed up on some bizarre holiday called Lohri, which we deduced was a North Indian bonfire holiday judging from the smoke in the air. The next day, everything had cleared up, showing that it wasn’t pollution in the air. But yeah, we couldn’t sleep with the pilgrims and had to settle for a dive hotel. :(
Next: I covered both ends of Delhi on the last trip, so a brief post on our Agra excursion. After that, I’ve got a post in the works just about the trains, and I’ll do a compendium of travel tips after that. Then, I swear, no more travel blogging.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Delhi: Rickrolling the Rodeo
We didn’t really hit Delhi too hard. Mostly, this was a city for regrouping and absorbing. I guess I have some regrets on this, because Delhi definitely has some stuff to see, but at the same time, we’d already seen our share of forts, and taking this time to regroup definitely improved the quality of the trip as a whole.
Our first day in Delhi was just a day to crash. We arrived at about noon on the overnighter from Jodhpur, showed up at our hotel, and just slept until around dinner time. A week of walking around every day, sleeping every other night on the train, and then closing things with an all-day adventure in Jodhpur had taken its toll. It was at this point that I noticed my hair was falling out and my snot was gray, and Pete noticed that he had soot in his earwax. Perhaps a week in Rajasthan is approaching maximum western tolerance.
For dinner, we headed to a sort of fancy strip mall called Connaught Place. There, we gravitated to the KFC for food, then followed things up with a bar called "Rodeo," recommended by Fodor’s as trying way too hard to be American western-themed. The payoff was immense. Where to begin with this place? The employees were all in ridiculous cowboy costumes. The bar stools were saddles. Their tap wasn’t properly calibrated, resulting in mostly head on the beer. Their solution to that was to devote a bartender to pouring and spooning out head. This reminded me of the U of C’s dive, the Falcon Inn, where the bartender was perpetually drunk and, rather than give you a decent pour, would just give you two glasses of half head. Rodeo eventually had two Koreans singing karaoke (they were really good, actually), but when we arrived, they were playing the most spectacular 80s mix ever. Safety Dance, Just an Illusion, 867-5309, the works. And Never Gonna Give You Up.
For those unfamiliar, the music video to Never Gonna Give You Up is basically the worst major music video ever. Rick Astley can sing, but his dancing is just awful and the video is completely derivative. A solid internet meme is to trick someone into watching that music video. This is called "rickrolling." As in "I just rickrolled Phil. Pwnd." At its heart this consists of just sending someone a Youtube link and saying "you’ve gotta watch this!" but usually you try for something more elaborate than that. You can create a video that starts legitimately, then transitions to Rick Astley, for example. Or you can be like the Cartoon Network and rickroll the Macy’s Day Parade. The next time you’re at a juke box, scroll to Rick Astley and see if they’ve got it. Anyway, the beauty here was Rodeo had rickrolled itself.
When we got back to Delhi, we really only checked out two things. First, the Indian Rail museum, which we found fitting considering how much time we’d just spent on trains. After that, though, we went to Delhi’s Baha’i Temple. Baha’i is a religion that more or less combines all religions into one set of beliefs. They had a brief reading of scriptures while we were there, for example, and read from Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic texts. They are monotheistic, at least, so I don’t know how Hinduism would jive with that (or how any of these religions would jive with each other, really), but the upshot is that they’re just a really peaceful religion. Ultimately, they’re probably about as weird as Scientology, but the difference is that the Baha’is aren’t suing or fleecing anyone. Rather, they just build really awesome temples and invite anyone to come. And their celebrity corps is more two-bit, including Dwight Schrute, a shortstop for the Rangers, and a guy who played a recurring terrorist on 24.
The Baha’i have a temple on each continent, broadly speaking. The one in North America is actually in Wilmette, north of Chicago. Since it’s easily accessible off the Purple Line, I spent a few evenings during the Chicago Years hanging out there. It’s really well-maintained and just super peaceful. The inside features incredible acoustics, and is also very calming. The Delhi Temple may not be as calm, as it was actually quite crowded, but the building itself is just stunning. It’s shaped like a giant lotus flower in a pond, with enormous grounds around it. This was the only thing we saw in Delhi with that much open space. Everything else was wall-to-wall. And the interior, with silence, no photography, and restricted entry, kept the Indians from ruining it, too (note: whenever a tourist trap turned into a shitshow, it was always due to Indian tourists. Westerners have respect for their surroundings). If you’re ever in Delhi, do not miss this.
The skull of an elephant that got hit by an English train in 1894. The engineer got to keep one tusk, while the other went to the queen:
Our first day in Delhi was just a day to crash. We arrived at about noon on the overnighter from Jodhpur, showed up at our hotel, and just slept until around dinner time. A week of walking around every day, sleeping every other night on the train, and then closing things with an all-day adventure in Jodhpur had taken its toll. It was at this point that I noticed my hair was falling out and my snot was gray, and Pete noticed that he had soot in his earwax. Perhaps a week in Rajasthan is approaching maximum western tolerance.
For dinner, we headed to a sort of fancy strip mall called Connaught Place. There, we gravitated to the KFC for food, then followed things up with a bar called "Rodeo," recommended by Fodor’s as trying way too hard to be American western-themed. The payoff was immense. Where to begin with this place? The employees were all in ridiculous cowboy costumes. The bar stools were saddles. Their tap wasn’t properly calibrated, resulting in mostly head on the beer. Their solution to that was to devote a bartender to pouring and spooning out head. This reminded me of the U of C’s dive, the Falcon Inn, where the bartender was perpetually drunk and, rather than give you a decent pour, would just give you two glasses of half head. Rodeo eventually had two Koreans singing karaoke (they were really good, actually), but when we arrived, they were playing the most spectacular 80s mix ever. Safety Dance, Just an Illusion, 867-5309, the works. And Never Gonna Give You Up.
For those unfamiliar, the music video to Never Gonna Give You Up is basically the worst major music video ever. Rick Astley can sing, but his dancing is just awful and the video is completely derivative. A solid internet meme is to trick someone into watching that music video. This is called "rickrolling." As in "I just rickrolled Phil. Pwnd." At its heart this consists of just sending someone a Youtube link and saying "you’ve gotta watch this!" but usually you try for something more elaborate than that. You can create a video that starts legitimately, then transitions to Rick Astley, for example. Or you can be like the Cartoon Network and rickroll the Macy’s Day Parade. The next time you’re at a juke box, scroll to Rick Astley and see if they’ve got it. Anyway, the beauty here was Rodeo had rickrolled itself.
When we got back to Delhi, we really only checked out two things. First, the Indian Rail museum, which we found fitting considering how much time we’d just spent on trains. After that, though, we went to Delhi’s Baha’i Temple. Baha’i is a religion that more or less combines all religions into one set of beliefs. They had a brief reading of scriptures while we were there, for example, and read from Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic texts. They are monotheistic, at least, so I don’t know how Hinduism would jive with that (or how any of these religions would jive with each other, really), but the upshot is that they’re just a really peaceful religion. Ultimately, they’re probably about as weird as Scientology, but the difference is that the Baha’is aren’t suing or fleecing anyone. Rather, they just build really awesome temples and invite anyone to come. And their celebrity corps is more two-bit, including Dwight Schrute, a shortstop for the Rangers, and a guy who played a recurring terrorist on 24.
The Baha’i have a temple on each continent, broadly speaking. The one in North America is actually in Wilmette, north of Chicago. Since it’s easily accessible off the Purple Line, I spent a few evenings during the Chicago Years hanging out there. It’s really well-maintained and just super peaceful. The inside features incredible acoustics, and is also very calming. The Delhi Temple may not be as calm, as it was actually quite crowded, but the building itself is just stunning. It’s shaped like a giant lotus flower in a pond, with enormous grounds around it. This was the only thing we saw in Delhi with that much open space. Everything else was wall-to-wall. And the interior, with silence, no photography, and restricted entry, kept the Indians from ruining it, too (note: whenever a tourist trap turned into a shitshow, it was always due to Indian tourists. Westerners have respect for their surroundings). If you’re ever in Delhi, do not miss this.
The skull of an elephant that got hit by an English train in 1894. The engineer got to keep one tusk, while the other went to the queen:
Jodhpur: Head to Higher Ground
Jodhpur is one of the more recognizable locales in Rajasthan. It was one of Pete’s special requests, and the only one of these cities that I could picture before doing any travel research. In terms of size, it slots below Jaipur, but above the Jaisalmer and Udaipur.
Many of the houses in Jodhpur are painted a light blue color, giving the city a light blue look and earning it the nickname "The Blue City." We learned that this is because they used indigo, which kept the houses cool in the summer and also warded off mosquitos. The look is cool both from afar and up close.
Although Jodhpur’s a decently sized city, there wasn’t a whole lot to do here, other than the fort (there’s gotta be a fort) and absorbing the blue. So we only spent a day here. Took the midnight train to Jodhpur, arrived in the morning, and left that night for Delhi.
Our first stop was the fort, on a hill with a beautiful view of the city, and awesome in the early morning light. This fort was also home to the first wifi we’d had since a brief spat in Jaipur. We arrived on a Tuesday morning still oblivious to that week’s football games. So imagine our shock when, at Mehrangarh Fort, we discover that the Seahawks had whupped the Saints in the Wild Card round. Pete pulled the scores up on his iPhone, then pulled a youtube clip of Marshawn Lynch’s incredible, tackle-breaking run. The 60ish (I’m poor with age estimates, especially when you have to factor in a lifetime of malnourishment) barista at the museum coffee shop came over to check out the iPhone. They do have iPhones here, but fancy phones aren’t nearly as common, and I think it’s quite possible this guy had barely ever seen the internet, let alone streaming video on something the size of an order pad. Pete then tried to explain what was going on to the guy, which was futile on so many levels. Seriously, nobody knows much about football here, and I’m sure this 60-year-old dude had no idea what was happening, even if he could understand the words Pete was saying. Anyway, once we’d had our fill of celebrating the Bears’ impending Seahawks matchup, we checked out the awesome fort and its views, then headed into town.
Pete wanted to bring back some tea, and we found a cool tea shop while exploring old town. A young guy named Deepak sat us down and chatted us up for a while. The whole time I was expecting him to segue to "so... I’ve got these diamonds I need to get to Delhi," but he never did. I can’t say we talked about anything meaningful, but he seemed to enjoy it, and if he had an ulterior motive, he never showed it.
Tea in hand, we headed back to the town center to kill the rest of the day, which was fading fast. Around 6:00, as the sun was about down, we started to notice all of the Asians (tons of Asian tourists all over Rajasthan) were putting on their surgical masks. Stupid Americans, visiting Rajasthan without surgical masks. Air quality rapidly deteriorated during the evening rush, to the point where we made an executive decision to ride the day out at any rooftop restaurant we could find. The only alternative would’ve been to run back the fort, but fortunately getting 4 stories up was enough to make things breathable. Like Jaipur, Jodhpur’s in a big, smog-trapping valley, and when that combines with poor emissions standards and a whole ton of people, things can get ugly in a hurry.
Traveler’s tip: I think one day was enough in Jodhpur. It was a long-ass day with the very early arrival, no hotel room, and late train out, but that’s Rajasthan. None of these towns deserved more than a couple of days, so the trip really has to involve a lot of town-hopping. We smooth-talked a nice hotel into letting us drop our bags there for the day, and we also took a couple of outside naps. That, with a leisurely lunch and dinner, made the day work great. So give Jodhpur one slow, leisurely day.
Next up: Delhi for a day, then turban time in Amritsar.
Many of the houses in Jodhpur are painted a light blue color, giving the city a light blue look and earning it the nickname "The Blue City." We learned that this is because they used indigo, which kept the houses cool in the summer and also warded off mosquitos. The look is cool both from afar and up close.
Although Jodhpur’s a decently sized city, there wasn’t a whole lot to do here, other than the fort (there’s gotta be a fort) and absorbing the blue. So we only spent a day here. Took the midnight train to Jodhpur, arrived in the morning, and left that night for Delhi.
Our first stop was the fort, on a hill with a beautiful view of the city, and awesome in the early morning light. This fort was also home to the first wifi we’d had since a brief spat in Jaipur. We arrived on a Tuesday morning still oblivious to that week’s football games. So imagine our shock when, at Mehrangarh Fort, we discover that the Seahawks had whupped the Saints in the Wild Card round. Pete pulled the scores up on his iPhone, then pulled a youtube clip of Marshawn Lynch’s incredible, tackle-breaking run. The 60ish (I’m poor with age estimates, especially when you have to factor in a lifetime of malnourishment) barista at the museum coffee shop came over to check out the iPhone. They do have iPhones here, but fancy phones aren’t nearly as common, and I think it’s quite possible this guy had barely ever seen the internet, let alone streaming video on something the size of an order pad. Pete then tried to explain what was going on to the guy, which was futile on so many levels. Seriously, nobody knows much about football here, and I’m sure this 60-year-old dude had no idea what was happening, even if he could understand the words Pete was saying. Anyway, once we’d had our fill of celebrating the Bears’ impending Seahawks matchup, we checked out the awesome fort and its views, then headed into town.
Pete wanted to bring back some tea, and we found a cool tea shop while exploring old town. A young guy named Deepak sat us down and chatted us up for a while. The whole time I was expecting him to segue to "so... I’ve got these diamonds I need to get to Delhi," but he never did. I can’t say we talked about anything meaningful, but he seemed to enjoy it, and if he had an ulterior motive, he never showed it.
Tea in hand, we headed back to the town center to kill the rest of the day, which was fading fast. Around 6:00, as the sun was about down, we started to notice all of the Asians (tons of Asian tourists all over Rajasthan) were putting on their surgical masks. Stupid Americans, visiting Rajasthan without surgical masks. Air quality rapidly deteriorated during the evening rush, to the point where we made an executive decision to ride the day out at any rooftop restaurant we could find. The only alternative would’ve been to run back the fort, but fortunately getting 4 stories up was enough to make things breathable. Like Jaipur, Jodhpur’s in a big, smog-trapping valley, and when that combines with poor emissions standards and a whole ton of people, things can get ugly in a hurry.
Traveler’s tip: I think one day was enough in Jodhpur. It was a long-ass day with the very early arrival, no hotel room, and late train out, but that’s Rajasthan. None of these towns deserved more than a couple of days, so the trip really has to involve a lot of town-hopping. We smooth-talked a nice hotel into letting us drop our bags there for the day, and we also took a couple of outside naps. That, with a leisurely lunch and dinner, made the day work great. So give Jodhpur one slow, leisurely day.
Next up: Delhi for a day, then turban time in Amritsar.
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