Sweet Kerela, Good Times Never Seemed So Good

For more pictures, see the album.

To get to Kerela, Kim, Rachael, Catherine and I grabbed the overnight train that left Madagoan station at 1pm. We chose the 1pm train instead of the later one because we were told that the scenery down the coast of Goa would be fantastic and we wanted daylight to see it. Booking a train ticket was a challenge that I had to go through a couple of months ago. There are a number of obstacles. Tickets go quickly so the sleeper trains need to be booked way in advance. Figuring out what ticket to get is also a little tricky because the locations can be listed under different names (e.g. Cochin = Kochin). The IRCTC website for booking is also an exercise in frustration. It shuts down for a few hours around noon and midnight everyday for no apparent reason. To get an account, you need an Indian mobile number in order to get an SMS message. It's possible to get around that by sending support an e-mail saying that you can't receive the SMS and then asking for your code. Finally, paying with an American credit card isn't simple. You have a choice of 20+ payment processors to run the charge through but many of them won't work for an American card, so it will fail. Then you need to start the booking process again from square 1. I finally got it to work using an American Express processor after failing to use the Mastercard a number of times.

Nutmeg and Mace

Though we had tickets in 2nd class A/C sleeper, our assigned seats were all over the car. The internet said that we could try and adjust our seats while at the terminal (it's impossible online), but the info desk told me to deal with it on the train. So, upon boarding, we just grabbed and empty four person cabin. When the ticket guy came around, we asked if we could just stay there. No problem as long as we gave him a pen to change the roster. Ownership is 9/10ths of the law.

The ride itself was lovely. We got to see the Indian countryside and had ample opportunity to catch up. All through the trip, people came buy trying to sell us snacks, drinks, chai and eventually dinner. The dinner was pretty terrible but that's what you expect for train food. It was relaxing and fun; just like most long distance train travel.

Our train arrived in Kochin around 4:30 am, which was a little early, but our homestay had already told us that the rooms would be ready for us then. I can't give a more glowing review to Joseph and Elizabeth at Aroma Homestay. They woke up at that ungodly hour, let us use our rooms a day early for a nap and even gave us breakfast for free on the first day. Then, throughout our stay, they were supremely helpful, made great food and made us feel right at home. They went well beyond the call of duty.

After our nap and breakfast on the first day, we went for a boat ride in the backwaters (which Joseph as able to arrange at the last minute for us). The backwaters are a gorgeous section of Kerela with many waterways and islands. During the monsoon season, the water is fresh, while during the drier times, it becomes brackish. It creates a very distinctive ecosystem. For instance, many people mine clams. Yes, they call it "mining". They use nets on poles to rake the seafloor for the clams. The resulting clams are so small, they wouldn't be legal to harvest in North America, but in Kerela, they just pull up tons of them. They are then opened for their meat and the shells are processed to extract the lime for use in chalk and other purposes.

The boat ride was on a more traditional style boat where two guys used very large bamboo poles to push the boat along. There is also a large industry of houseboats which you can rent to putt around the tropical paradise. The houseboats are very big, have a grass roof and a motor to get around with.

During the tour, we stopped at two places. The first was a coconut processing "factory" where they process the fruit from the ubiquitous coconut palms of the area. First, the outer shell is removed and either soaked in water for months to extract the fibers or added to the fire starter pile. Then, the nut is cracked and the water is emptied from the coconut for turning into local hooch. The two halves of the coconut are then dried either in the sun (during the dry season) or over a low fire (during the monsoon season). This makes the flesh pull away from the shell so it can be easily scooped out to turn into coconut oil. The empty shell is then used for spoons, crafts, or just firewood. The fibers from the outer shell are spun into a very strong twine, which is used for all manner of things.

The second stop was at a small spice plantation for lunch where we had a very filling meal served on a banana leaf. Like many meals in India, this was one that we rolled out of.

After the boat ride, we made our way back to Fort Kochin and got ready for our Ayurvedic massages. The massages are a form of therapy in the area done using aromatic coconut oil. We each had a sample relaxation massage that took an hour and did the whole body, front and back. It was very soothing. To properly receive the massage as a medical treatment actually takes at least 7 days and up to 21. During that time, you have a daily massage and you are put on a strict diet so that your body can be purged of all its toxins. Obviously, that's too much of a commitment for our trip, but there are many people who visit Kerela just for such a treatment.

After the massage we walked across the street to Pancakes and Dosa, where we enjoyed an excellent meal where the chef is experimenting with new twists on the cuisine. For instance, we had a crab dosa which was stuffed with a spicy crab filling. Traditionally Dosas in the area only come in plain, masala and 3 other varieties. Along with the dosa, we had a super puffy idli with a similar crab stuffing, a sweetish veg stew that was made with coconut milk and cardamom and finally, a chicken masala. It was great food and highly recommended.

The next day, Kim and Rachael only had a half day because they were leaving for Mumbai around noon. Rachael had an early start to the day and did some yoga where she ended up having a full two hour one-on-one session with a local yogi. After breakfast/yoga, we went to Jew Town where there are a number of markets. There is also a very old synagogue to service the 60-70 jews of Kochin that were originally in town as traders. We spent the rest of the morning go through the shops buying spices, jewelry boxes and other mementos. I was a little put off by the spice markets because the spices were all sold in small packages and seemed relatively expensive. Later in the day, my instinct was proven right when Catherine and I walked along Bazaar road back to Fort Cochin and we found some spice wholesalers. These guys just had bags of spices sitting out and you bought by weight. For comparison, I got 400g of cinnamon for 150 rupees ($2.50) from the wholesaler, while the touristy jew town shop cost 180 rupees for a little package that was maybe 50g.

After Kim and Rachael left, Catherine and I went into the Dutch palace. It has some fantastic murals depicting the stories from local mythology. It also has an extensive history of the Kerelan royal family and explains how their matrilineal system works. It was well curated and interested.

In the evening, we went to a "cultural show", which, though touristy, was well worth it. The first hour of "makeup" can largely be skipped. It's just one guy putting on his makeup for the show. It's fantastic makeup, but a whole hour is quite literally watching paint dry. The show consisted of a sample demonstration of traditional Kerelan art forms. We saw Kathakali, which tells stories using specific hand gestures, amazing costumes and facial expressions, Kalarippayat, which is an early martial art form, and Theyyam, which is a dance with heavy drums and wild costumes.

After the show, Catherine and I had dinner at 8th Bastion. It's inside a hotel and turned out to be a fantastic, more modern style meal. The staff was also incredibly accommodating. Catherine was super hangry and when we sat down, they were willing to give us some quick dosa pancakes to take the edge off. For the main dinner, we had a seafood platter that was perfectly cooked shrimp, calamari and fish rubbed in spices and grilled. It was by far the best example of the local seafood we'd had on the trip so far. We also had a rich goat stew made with earthy spices and very deep flavors. For desert, we had three ice creams. One was ginger, one was guava and one was chocki (a kind of local fruit). The ginger ice cream was by far the best because it was filled with fresh and candied ginger pieces.

After our meal, we headed back to the homestay for a nice relaxing night before our long drive up to Wayanand.

Goan to a Wedding

For more pictures, see the album.

We arrived in Goa during the wee hours of Christmas morning. Unfortunately, it was too late to catch a midnight mass, so we just enjoyed the christmas lights on the way to the hotel. In the morning, we started by touring the basilica, church and cathedral that the Portugese left in Old Goa. The basilica, is famous for its English mass, but on X-mas day, it was just a very busy tourist destination with a very weird nativity scene that included light up dolls. Also, Indians hang their stars the other way than we do. They put two points at the top insted of one. Though the churches are famous for India, they don't compare to the spectacular cathedrals of Europe, so, though it was interesting, we moved on quickly.

After Old Goa, we went to a spice plantation. They had their tourist schtick down to a tea, but it was still fun. We got a short walk through the plantation where we could see how many spices grow including beetle nut, nutmeg, vanilla, black pepper, coconut, cardamon, pineapple, banana, turmeric, ginger and coffee. For the trivia nuts, we found out what pineapple, banana and bamboo all have in common. They are all grasses that grow, flower and fruit once and then die.  After the walk, we had lunch where we could sample an excellent selection of Goan dishes.

On the way back to the hotel, we made a quick stop at a Buddhist temple where we went in and the priests were gracious enough to explain the ritual to us. So we partook even though we didn't quite understand the explanation.

Upon arriving at the hotel, Kim, Amy and Kevin were just checking in. So, we told stories over cocktails and made our way to Upper House in downtown Panjim for dinner. It makes excellent Goan food. We tried a number of dishes including crab xec xec, a pineapple curry and a fish curry.

The next couple of days were full of hanging out with friends and going to the wedding. The first night was the actual ceremony, while the second night was the reception. The girls had fun with the cumulation of their sari adventure where they left the draping to the professionals over at a beauty parlor. They looked fantastic and had many comments from other guests about how well they carried their saris.

The ceremony itself was from Aranya's family. We talked to Utsav's dad and he told us that the ceremony was just as interesting for him because it was completely different. Apparently each Hindi subculture has a very different ceremony. Though we weren't able to follow it all, there was an overall narrative. It included Utsav swearing to be a bachelor forever and running away from Aranya only to become completely smitten and deciding to marry. The actual marriage token the woman wears is a necklace instead of a ring like we do. At the end, they give 7 ritual promises together for the 7 lives that they will spend together.

After the sunset ceremony, we went down to the beach and had a blast releasing Chineese lanterns towards the ocean and then had dinner. The food both nights was fantastic. The first night was all veg, while the second night had some meat. In both cases, there was a gigantic buffet of dishes starting with 3 kinds of rice and moving through a dozen different dishes, plus pickles, plus dessert. I'd say that the favorite veg dish in our group was a sprouted bean dal, followed closely by a coconut thai curry. Although the latter might have been because there was no chiles, which is a rarity around here. For the non-veg dishes, we probably enjoyed some shrimp stir fried in a vaguely Chinese style. On a side note, "Chinese food" in India is its own distinct cuisine unlike anything else in the world the same way that chop suey is uniquely American. For desert, there was ice cream, gulab jamen, cakes and other goodies. Suffice it to say, that we left each night rolling out the door.

Awestruck in Aurangabad

For more pictures, see the album.

We spent 2 and a half days in Aurangabad. The main attraction is a series of rock cut temples at two different sites. For our entire time, we just decided to bite the bullet and hire a car and driver for each day. That gave us the flexibility to go where and when we wanted to and the price averaged out to 1600 rupees per day plus time, so about $25. It totally cut down on the stress that built up in Mumbai, although the driving in general is a little nuts. On a two lane highway (one each way), there is actually five lanes of which a motorcycle or bicycle takes one and cars, tuktuks, trucks and bullock carts all take two. At any given location, those lanes could be taken by traffic going in either direction, although more often the left hand lanes are going the same direction as you and the righter ones are coming at you. Since all these vehicles go significantly different speeds, you can imagine that there is a lot darting in and out, or in short, organized chaos. It makes me glad that I wasn't driving.

On the first day, we visited Ajanta, which is about 100km from Aurangabad and took about 3 hours to get there. The site is composed of a number of Buddhist caves that date from 200BC to 600AD. The caves were lost to the vegetation at one point, so a large number of the paintings are still relatively intact. The site was only rediscovered by an English hunter in the 1819. The paintings depict stories from Buddhist mythology and even include techniques like perspective that were lost to medieval european church artists. Along with the paintings, there are a number of sculptures beautifully rendered in the stone. Originally, they would have been painted too, but most of the paint is gone. It's really quite jaw dropping that these works are 10 times older than my country. I could describe the site more, but pictures are really the best way without actually making the trek.

Our timing visiting the sites was somewhat challenging. Kids in India were on their x-mass vacation from school, so many had trips to view the Ajanta and Ellora caves. This meant that the sites were packed. Also, we couldn't just wander around by ourselves too easily. Many of these kids had never seen a foreigner before so we instantly became one of the main attractions. As a result, we were asked many times for pictures with large groups of people and everybody wanted to practice their English on us and shake our hands. Though this can be charming from a group of young children, it becomes overwhelming when the groups include teenage boys and saying "yes" results in a flood of requests that will take a good 15 min to get through.

On our second day, we visited the larger site of Ellora. This site is newer (600-1000AD), it is much larger. It is actually composed of three different types of temples: Buddhist, Hindu and Jain. The temples were continuously used either for shelter or prayer until they were turned into a museum, so the original paintings were all lost. However, the sculptures are amazing. The most fantastic of which is the Kailasa Temple that took 150 years to build and was carved down into the slope of the escarpment. It is about 7 meters high and making it involved removing over 200,000 tons of rock. It's hard to think of people making it by hand with no margin for error. Here's some pictures that try to capture the majesty of the place. Really though, you just need to go at some point.

On the way back from Ellora, we stopped at a textiles shop. The famous textiles of Aurangabad are called Himroo. It's a cotton and silk blend hand woven with silver threads in a way that cannot be replicated on machine. We saw a quick demonstration of how the Himroo is done and then Catherine had fun finding some shawls and haggling the store keeper down. Unfortunately, the silver thread in the Himroo means that it doesn't drape well for a shawl and so after the great demonstration, we ended up buying ones made by punch card.

On our final day, we had an evening flight, so we started by visiting Fort Daulatabad, which is definitely worth the time if you can swing it. It was built in the 12th century AD and is famous because in 1328, the sultan of Delhi decided to move the entire population of Delhi to the site in order to withstand attacks from the Mongols. Unfortunately, they had a water supply issue and were forced to go back to Delhi shortly thereafter.

The fort itself was built by a sneaky bastard. It was never attacked, probably because its defenses were so ridiculous. In the outer wall, the main gate has three levels. At each point, once you break down a door, you enter a courtyard with two more doors. While you decide which way to go, the defenders are shooting at you from above. If you pick wrong, the path either dead ends or dumps the army into a crocodile pond.

Once you get through the outer wall, you still need to assault the keep. The sides of the mountain were chiseled shear so that the only way in is across the crocodile infested moat and through a pitch black maze. The maze includes fake exits that dump you into the moat, ceiling holes to pour in burning oil and kill boxes. Great fun!

After the fort, we had linner, including french fries for Catherine since she had been craving them, and then we went to the airport for our first flight to Mumbai. Then, in Mumbai, we had a 4 hour layover until the flight to Goa. Unfortunately, while in the Mumbai airport, at the (terrible) bar, we received the sad news that Catherine's Poppop had passed away. It was a poetic end to the ordeal; when her grandparents found out that Catherine was born, they were in Bahrain and proceeded spend the evening at the hotel bar. Thank you for the memories Poppop, we'll miss you.

Marching Through Mumbai

For more pictures, see the album.

In our second day in Mumbai, we started with a visit to Victoria terminal, which is a beautiful old railway station. Following that we walked up to the bazaars just up the street. We started in the food bazaar, where, upon entering we were accosted by a guide who pointed to a sign saying that visitors needed to use a guide to see the market. It was in stone, so we were stuck. Our guide was nice and took us to a number of stalls and showed us the pet section where you could get budgies, rabbits and other animals. Not for eating though, even though it was right beside the chickens.

We bought some delicious green mangos and a number of spices from a merchant to had great quality samples. The cinnamon in particular was spectacular and he had a black salt from the himalayas that was very sulfurous. It should work well with eggs. 

Then, we were guided through the textile sections of the market, where you can get custom tailored suits, shirts, saris and more. We ended up going to a wholesaler where Catherine bought a number of scarves and pashminas. 

After that, we had lunch at Revival, which does a vegetarian thali lunch. Thali is the indian equivalent of a small plate meal where small quantities of many different things are places in a large plate. Then you're given a selection of rice and breads to eat it with. They were so efficient and fast with their service that we couldn't keep up mentally with what we were eating. Very tasty though, oh and they had gulab jamen with saffron in the middle, which was delicious and different.

After lunch, tried to hire a cab to go visit a private museum at the Victoria gardens. The cabbie didn't know where it was but eventually we got there. It was a completely ridiculous museum. It's primarily a collection of Indian goods and clay figurines of Indian people that a British colonialist collected. The figurines were made to document the different cultures in India and they were annotated by a book of that time in a completely ridiculous, paternalistic way. For example: "… the women have been taking advantage of new educational opportunities in painting, weaving and other arts."

After the museum, we went to Chowpatty beach to watch sunset and walk in the direction of dinner. For dinner, we ate at Kyber, which specializes in northern Indian roasted meat dishes. We had some chicken, eggplant and mutton and it was good, but we've had better tandoor in other places.

The next day before our flight was dedicated to Elephanta Island. To get there, you take a 1 hour ferry ride from the Gate of India. Hint: the ticket offices are before you go through security; it took us a while to find it. The ferry ride was relaxing. At Elephanta Island, you get off on a jetty and you can take a mini train maybe 200m to the shore if you're really lazy. Then, you walk up some stairs which are flanked on either side by hawkers of cheap crap. Once you run the gauntlet, you get into the Unesco World Heritage Site that is composed of a number of rock cut temples with Buddhist carvings and shrines made around 750 AD. The workmanship is incredible and totally worth the visit if you come to Mumbai.

After getting back to the city, we went for a late lunch at a charming restaurant called Britannia that serves North Indian/Iranian food. It's been open since the 30's and looks like it hasn't been repainted since. The guy who owned the place is of the same era and is particularly charming. He's a charming talker that takes a great interest in the people who visit his restaurant. He also guides his guests through the menu to the best dishes, which included mutton dhansak and a palau made with berries specially imported from Iran.

After lunch, we hopped back to the hotel to grab our bags and headed out to the hotel near the airport so that we could relax for the night and get up nice and early (4am) for our flight to Aurangabad. 

Sari Shopping in Mumbai

Cricketers playing in central Mumbai

More pictures from our trip are available in the album.

Our first day in Mumbai started out fairly late since after a long baggage wait, we didn't get to our hotel until 3am. So, we started with a late breakfast at a South Indian place recommended by our hotel called Cafe Madras. There, we were able to sample a large selection of South Indian breakfast fare. We were introduced to a number of new dishes like:

Idly - small rice pancakes

Neet dosa - a fluffier dosa served with fresh butter on top 

Uppuma - a gritty wheat porridge sprinkled with coriander and other spices

Uttapam - a rice based pancake with onions mixed in 

After a very filling breakfast, we tried to find sari blouses for Catherine. We started in one area recommended by the hotel, but they only sold full saris there and Catherine just needed matching blouses for the saris she had borrowed. Though they didn't sell the blouses, they pointed us to a matching center, which we discovered is a shop that specializes in exactly the problem Catherine had. They just had racks and racks of pre-made blouses and they just find one that can match the sari. The specimen for the first sari was a green and gold one although when Catherine tried it on, it was way too small; she looked like a woman stuffed into a little girl's outfit. The guys running the store were adamant that the blouses were supposed to be tight and that it was right as is. Yeah right.  Fortunately, a nice lady who was also shopping (and spoke English) helped us get them to open up the stitches a bit so that it fit better.

After finding the sari blouses, we decided to head downtown. We were right near a train stop, so we decided to take the commuter train. We were warned by the guide book not to take the train during rush hour because it's packed and can be tricky for foreigners but since it was noon, we thought it would be ok. Well it was ok in the end, but it was a challenge. The trains were quite full although that's partly illusory because whether the train is stuffed or not, some men will be hanging out of every door. They also have special compartments that are for women only. Outside of those compartments, we only saw a couple of women and they were basically being protected by their boyfriends. So on the first train, we got in a split car where Catherine went to the women's section and I was in the men's. On the second train, we followed another couple into a mixed area and Catherine and the other lady were in a corner guarded by me and her boyfriend. We were also the only white people anywhere near those trains, which made us automatically the center of attention for a captive audience. All told, it was a little bit of an uncomfortable experience, so we decided to stick to the $2 taxis to get everywhere.

Noontime at the train station

Once downtown, we toured the older, touristy sights of Mumbai. Mostly, this was looking at the architecture of the buildings built by the British, but we also went into the Price of Wales museum, which houses some excellent carvings and paintings from around India. We saw some great art and had a nice little intro into the Buddhist pantheon. 

After the museum, we checked out the gateway of India, which was swarmed with Indian tourists and photo takers offering to take your picture in from of the gateway for a fee. The gateway was built in the 1920's to commemorate a visit by King George. It's also where the last British regiment in India paraded. Frankly, it's kind of crazy that a monument built in the 20's is such a draw in a country with such a rich history that's thousands of years old. It kind of felt like the Indian equivalent of Niagara Falls.

It was getting on in the day, but it wasn't quite dinner time yet, so we popped across the street into the famous Taj Hotel. It's like super fancy hotels all over the world, although maybe with more security than average because of the terror attacks a few years ago. We decided to relax for a bit in one of the bars and had a cocktail each. They were decent cocktails. Well balanced but nothing that pops. However, keep in mind that at this point, we're spoiled living in San Francisco.

For dinner we made our way to Trishna, a seafood restaurant near the university. It was a little bit of a challenge to find it in the maze of streets, but eventually, we sat down to a fantastic dinner. We had a butter and garlic crab, which was swimming in garlicky goodness. That was accompanied by Hyderabad tandoori pomfret, which is roasted fish coating in a flavorful rub made mostly of black pepper. Finally, we had some braised eggplant and tomatoes to add a little bit of veg to the meal. To drink, we shared a glass of local sauvignon blanc, which was surprisingly good. The wine was from Nashik, which is not too far from Mumbai. In the last 15-20 years, they have started to make higher quality, international style wines. Their sauvignon blanc was simple, crisp and well executed. In short, perfect for a seafood meal and much cheaper than the imported wines.

Hanging Out in Hong Kong

More pictures for our trip are available in the album.

We arrived in Hong Kong at after 14 hours in the air. As an unfortunate quirk, we accidentally skipped my sister's birthday. We left San Francisco at 11pm on Dec 16 and arrived in Hong Kong at 6am on Dec 18. The 17th just went poof. Sorry Jill. 

The flight itself was ok and we got a decent amount of sleep. That's the nice thing about a long flight; it's possible to sleep enough hours. So, arriving in Hong Kong, the jet lag was manageable, but it was breakfast time. We decided to take the airport express train to Hong Kong Central and at the other end, right in the terminal complex, there is a Dim Sum place called Tim Ho Wan that's supposed to be the cheapest Michelin star restaurant in the world. We arrived before it opened, so we decided to wander for a bit and promptly got semi-lost. Navigating in that part of Hong Kong is 3 dimensional because there really isn't a good place to walk at street level, so the walking thoroughfares consists of sky bridges, escalators, and other indoor passages that snake their way through the lower levels of the local skyscrapers. Plus, the whole complex is really an extended mall for high end luxury goods. I've never seen a mini complex of Armani stores before.

After that quick introduction to the city, we managed to make our way back to the Dim Sum restaurant and managed to score the 3rd last table on the initial seating. We had a nice variety of dishes, a surprisingly large number of which Catherine could eat. I'd say that the best is the baked BBQ pork buns because the dough was flaky and sweat. It reminded me of the Saltenas we had in Sucre in Bolivia. We also tried the turnip cake (surprisingly complex), some rice steamed in a lotus leaf, and some rice wrapped dumplings. A great way to start the day.

After breakfast, we decided to walk off the food and headed for the peak. Being a little lazy, we took the tram up, which dumps you in a ridiculous tourist building full of cheap plastic crap and some restaurants. There's also an observation tower at the top, which you can pay extra for. To entice you to pay, they also make it impossible to get a clear view of the city anywhere else in the building even though there are windows. Those windows are usually just covered in ads though. Sneaky bastards. 

We wanted to walk down from the peak but first we had to figure out how to get out of the building. This is non-trivial. After wandering around for a while, we finally found an exit past the bathrooms, and through a few concrete hallways. The whole complex is designed to whisk you up the ridge, squeeze as much money out of you as possible, and then whisk you back down. Kind of silly.

Though the building at the top was ridiculous, once we finally got out, the walk down was fantastic. We had a great view of the city to start and then we quickly descended through a very steep, verdant, forest trail. It reminded me of the area around Machu Picchu, with its very sharp cliffs and copious amounts of vegetation clinging to the side. 

As we got lower, we tapped into the top of the midlevel escalators. It's the longest escalator chain in the world but when we were there, it wasn't going in our direction, so we just used the steps. We then spent some time exploring the area around Hollywood Rd., which has many antique shops and an interesting temple.

After exploring the markets, we hopped on the train out to the Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden. It is a buddhist complex consisting of an immaculately sculpted garden and a very large, ornate temple. It's a striking counterpoint to the forest of sky scrappers that is Hong Kong.

For an early dinner, we stopped by a roast meat and noodle shop that is very well regarded. There, we had roast goose and pig, which Catherine enjoyed on some rice and I enjoyed in a small bowl of noodle soup. The goose in particular was different, well, because it's goose and we don't normally eat that animal, but they brown the skin with a torch so it's very crispy and then hack it up with a cleaver. The resulting pieces of meat are fatty, crispy and flavorful, although you do need to watch out for the occasional bone fragment.

After dinner, we jumped back on the airport express train to get back to the airport and hoped on our 6 hour flight to Mumbai.

Lima Lima Lima

Archbishop's Palace

Lima Lima Lima. The rapid fire calls you hear in the bus station of vendors trying to get you to buy a ticket on their bus to Lima. This entry is about the places we went in Lima. I'm going to leave the food for a separate entry because the food scene in Lima is absolute spectacular and deserves its own commentary. More pictures are in the Peru album.

On our first day in Lima, we had a very relaxed start since we needed to recover from the long bus ride the day before. We were staying in Miraflores, a neighbourhood a little ways outside of downtown. If you come to Lima, it's very important to stay in that area because there isn't much in the way of good transit and all the good restaurants and nightlife are in Miraflores. In particular, beyond taxis there are three approaches to getting around. First, there is a single rapid bus transit line that runs from Barranco through Miraflores, through downtown and out the other side. It's efficient, it works fantastically, but it only runs until 10pm. So it's great to get downtown to the sights from Miraflores, but wouldn't work well to get back to your hotel after a late dinner. The second transit option is a single light rail train line. It doesn't go to anywhere that tourists would want to go. Your last option is to take one of the gazillion local buses that prowl the streets. They're run by tons of different companies. Some are closer to normal municiple buses we'd see in North America, while others are glorified diesel spewing vans. They are are difficult to use if you don't know the city. On the side of the bus is the name of all the streets it is supposed to be traveling on along its route, but sometimes, they swap buses around, so you have to ask the conductor. You also need to carry a lot of change because each time you get on a bus, you have to pay again. Transfers are non-existent.

Her head was supposed to be topped
with a flame or "llama". Instead it's
the furry type of llama.

So, on our first day, we too the rapid transit bus downtown to see the historical sights. We roughly followed the walking tour from the Lonely Planet, which started us off at the plaza San Martin. There's a monument in the middle of the square to Jose San Martin. On one side is a statue of a woman and when it was built, the instructions from Spain said to place a flame on her head. Unfortunately, the word "flame" in Spanish is llama, so, when the Peruvian workers received the instructions, they dutifully sculpted a miniature camelid to sit on her head.

From the Plaza San Martin, we walked along the Jiron de la Union towards the Plaza del Armas. The road is a pedestrian road and used to be the place for promenading, but now, it's just full of discount stores in some very nice old buildings. In the Plaza del Armas, we took a tour of the Cathedral, which was interesting, but not as good as the one in Cuzco.

San Francisco Monestary

From there, we made our way to the San Francisco Monastery where a wedding was taking place. Of course, tours do not stop for measly weddings, so we took a tour. Our guide was frankly terrible. She only presented the minimum amount of information and couldn't answer any questions. That being said, the convent is actually quite interesting. I liked the ceilings, which are largely decorated in intricate carvings made of Nicaraguan cedar. The pieces of the carvings aren't fasted together with any nails, only pressed and hold together due to the friction. Though the ceilings were fantastic, the real highlight of the monastery is the catacombs which feature piles and piles of bones all sorted by types. Our guide claimed that the archaeologists are the ones who sorted the bones and arranged them to make a better display, but that's frankly very hard to believe. No serious archaeologists would significantly change the site. They gain a lot of information about know exactly how various objects are placed relative to each other in graves. It's more likely that the bones were sorted as the catacombs filled up with burials and they needed a more efficient packing system.

Part of the storage room in the
Larco museum

On our second day in Lima, we went to the Larco Museum, which was a challenge. It wasn't on the rapid bus route, so we tried to take the local buses using the advice from the guide book, which said take a bus that says "todo Bolivar". At this point, we hadn't figured out that the writing on the side of the bus says where it's going, so we were looking for something in the window. We tried one bus who was holding a sign that said "Cuba Boliva", but when we asked if they were going by the museum, they said no. So we got off and Catherine found a girl waiting for the bus that was able to guide us a little. She was heading roughly in the same direction and said that we could take the same bus as her and then at one point, she'd get us on another bus that would take us to the museum. So, we got a tour of the town. We ended up going almost all the way over the airport and the bus rides took an hour and a half, when they really could have been done in half that time, but oh well, it was an adventure.

The museum itself is absolute fantastic. It's a private museum, so it's a little more expensive, but it's worth it. The displays have good English signage and do a great job taking the user through many different ancient Peruvian cultures and their art/religious pieces. Their collection is immense, which means that in the main display, there are excellent examples of pieces. They even opened up their storage room for the public to see and it's filled with shelf after shelf of pottery and other pieces all grouped into similar works. There are easily thousands of pieces. They also have a unique exhibit on erotic pieces. They are mostly clay and portray everything from just naked people, all the way to fellatio and sex with the dead.

Near the bridge of sighs in Barranco

On our third day, and Catherine's last day, we started by going to the national museum. This one is a little out of the way, in the ministry of culture building. Given our challenges using the bus the day before, we took a taxi this time. Most of the museum is very similar to what we've previously seen in Peru (namely pre-Hispanic stuff) and didn't add much new information. However, there is an intriguing photo exhibit about the Shining Path conflict in Peru from 1980-2000. This was the first museum we had seen in Peru that talked about any Peruvian history that wasn't either Incan, pre-Incan, or the church converting the Incans to Catholocism. I hadn't even heard of the Shining Path, or the conflict before. It appears that in the late 70's a military dictatorship was on its way out in Peru and there was some democratic reforms, but during the first election, there was accusations of corruption and vote rigging. One of the losing parties, the Shining Path, which was close to a Communist Party, decided that armed revolution was called for. So, they waged a guerrilla/terrorist war to try and take power in order to create a communist state. There was ginormous income inequality too, which was a large source of discontent. Anyway, over the next 20 years the Shining Path and their allies waged a war against the state, but unfortunately, they hid in the civilian population so many civilians were caught in the middle. Both sides committed atrocities. For example, the state would arrest people in the dead of night and they would disappear  or execute most of a town where they thought the terrorists were hiding.  The Shining Path on the other hand, enslaved or executed some tribes if they did support the rebellion. It was basically just a big, tragic mess.

The cliffs of Miraflores over the beach.

After the museum, we had a late lunch and headed down to the beach around sunset. It's gorgeous there. The city is on the top of gigantic cliffs, which paragliders take advantage of. Down below, we could see collections of surfers trying to catch the evening waves. From the beach, we went to the Cocoa museum, where we had a fun chocolate making workshop. During the workshop, we started by roasting cocoa beans, shelling them and then grinding them in order to make 3 different drinks: cocoa tea (with the shells), mexican hot chocolate (with water), and normal hot chocolate (with milk). You can't grind the beans fine enough to make good chocolate  so then, we used some melted chocolate that they had made in order to mold a number small bonbons.

Classical fountain at the water fountain park.

Our last stop of the day was the water fountain show. Lima is the second driest capital city in the world behind Cairo and yet, they have a gigantic water fountain park complete with light and laser show set to a varied musical score that includes Ode to Joy and some traditional altiplano songs. Beyond the light show, they also have a series of smaller, lit up fountains, like a water tunnel a 50ft classical fountain, and more. I really don't have a good adjective to describe how over the top this setup is.

After the late night watching the water show, we went back to the hotel and we packed. In the morning, Catherine went to the airport to head back to the US, while I had to wait another day for my flight to Canada. So, I transferred to a cheaper hostel a few blocks away. It's amazing what a few blocks will do. It was a much more working class area and there was a large market nearby.

Water fountain light show

We had missed some sights downtown which I wanted to see, so I hoped on the bus rapid transit. A few stops in, we're jammed like sardines and I'm standing in front of some seats. The lady in the seat gets up to head out and quickly, this big guy elbows his way towards the seat and pushed me back into the poor lady, who is now perfectly pinned. He gestures to a good looking girl to take the seat and she looks at him askance. Then, we hit a small bump and I feel a hand in my pocket and my cellphone slip out. The big guy was a distraction. Once I had check and realized that yes, I was pickpocketed, I turned to the guy beside me (because that's where the hand that had taken the phone had come from) and started angrily asking him in pidgen spanish/english to give me my phone back (e.g. "my telephono. Give me my fucking telephono back"). The poor guy was innocent of course and after some gestures,  I see a hand poking out of the crowd with my phone in it. I was making enough of a stink that the pickpocket wanted to give it back without making it obvious who he was so that he wouldn't be turned in. I turned around and sat down in the empty seat that had started all this. Then, a guy comes and tries to talk to me in English to find out what happened. I'm pretty sure this was the pickpocket and he was making sure that I didn't know who he was and/or wouldn't turn him in. It took me a few hours to calm down after that episode.

Fluorescent Minerals at the Museo Andes del Castillo

Downtown, I started with the Museo Andes del Castillo, which has a great selection of minerals pulled out of the Andes. For example, they have a perfect cube of Iron Pyrite the size of your fist. After that, I tried to find the museum that's part of the central reserve. It turns out it's not in the same building as the central reserve, but I managed to stumbled upon it. It's mostly an art collection and does have a small display showing how the painting styles in Peru had evolved from the early 19th century until today. After that museum, I went to the museum of the Inquisition. It's in the building that was designed explicitly for the Inquisition. There are some gruesome wax figures being tortured, but I found the story around the Inquisition the most interesting. In Peru, the inquisition came 50 years after it was started in Spain. Now, the Inquisition was primarily charged with finding those who committed heresy, which could be an issue in a country that's trying to convert a large native population to Catholicism. However, the Inquisition only had durisdiction over true blood Spaniards. Natives or Mestizos (mixed race) couldn't be prosecuted. Also, if you were charged by the Inquisition and you repented, they would let you go. It was only those who refused to repent that were killed. One amazing stat from the museum is that in Peru, about 3,000 people were charged with heresy over the time of the Inquisition. The Spanish population in the colony at the time: 15,000.

Streets of Lima

After the Inquisition museum, I headed back to the bus, but I stumbled across a split museum dedicated to Pisco and Bernardo O'Higgins. O'Higgins was the first president of Chile, but he built a navy and used it to free the Peruvian colony from the Spanish crown. So, he is very well regarded in Peru. It seems like the guys who led rebellions in South America were involved all over the continent.

After that museum, I headed back to Miraflores, and after dinner etc.. turned in early for the night. In the morning, it was time to wave goodbye to South America. It was an incredibly memorable trip.