Ridin' the rails

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I've gotten pretty good at navigating India by train. Currently I'm aboard the Howray Mail train bound for Bhubaneswar, Orissa. I left Chennai last night around 11:30pm and will arrive in Bhubaneswar at about 10pm tonight...yes, that's almost a 24hr train ride!! It's ok though, this time I sprung for an A/C sleeper, so it's not bad at all. I actually really like train travel, it's feels more rustic (in a good way) and you get to see the countryside as you go along. Also (and maybe more importantly) it's dirt cheap. I paid 35 USD to go about the equivalent of Atlanta to New York. A one way flight was 244 USD!

Chennai was awesome. I expected it to be one of my least favorite places based on what everyone else told me about it, however I found it a really well-kept and green city, with friendlier people. The streets are all narrow and winding along tree lined streets connecting a mess of different neighborhoods together. Chennai was also a major colonial center, so the architecture has a lot of character. It's one of the largest cities in India but feels more like a smaller town in most places. The pace is also slower and people are not nearly as pushy as I have seen elsewhere. It's also on the coast which is always a plus...I'm still a FL boy at heart and seeing the ocean is the best thing for me! Chennai has one of the longest beaches in India, extending 13K. It's also VERY wide and people gather at dusk to watch the sunset and buy from vendors set up on the beach. I had some fried plantains from a small stall near the water. Also, in Chennai I went to this creepy museum....it was actually the government museum and had several sections to it. The creepy one was the animal exhibits. All the displays were taxidermied animals, skeletons, animals preserved in some fluid in glass tubes, etc. Also the building is a really old colonial relic, and inside it is dimly lit stone walls, mazes of hallways and small passage ways....it felt more like I was in some mad scientists laboratory, circa 1900, than a public museum.

Probably the best part about Chennai though was my accomodations. It's good to know people abroad....Zobair hooked me up with two of his friends living in Chennai who took me in while I was there. They are a maried couple working for the CDC and posted in India, and they were incredibly great to me. I had my own room and bathroom with hot water!, A/C!, and a pillow top mattress on the bed! You don't even know how much of a respite it was from staying in the dingy budget accomodations I have gotten used to. It was really relaxing.

Alright, well, now I've been through 6 states, and 3 languages (not including Hindi and English of course). 2 more states to go and I will head back to Delhi. Also, good news: Daisy from Australia has decided to come and meet up with me the last few weeks I am here. I'm planning for us to spend some time north in the Indian Himalayas and also in Nepal. I have been told by other travelers that you can hang-glide through the mountains in Kathmandu!! Anyone who knows me will know I can't pass that up. We'll also take a day or two to visit the Taj Mahal near Delhi.....it's just a rite of passage in India (along with getting deathly ill once or twice).

The project is going well so far as well, I should begin writing my report in the next couple of weeks. I am finishing some data collection first in Orissa and then West Bengal. Purely by accident, it turns out I will be in Orissa near the holy city of Puri this weekend. The biggest Hindu festival of the year, Rath Yatra, will be held in Puri this weekend as well. It should be an interesting experience, so stay tuned.

Hope all is well stateside. Oh yeah, some other good news....Crystal, who is watching my house while I am gone, saw a condo two doors down from mine listed for rent. Turns out she will be moving in August 1, just before I come back! We'll be living right next door to each other....crazy. Au revior!

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Photos

Fried Plantains
This was the guy who cookin on the beach

Shiva's dance
Statue in the museum...Shiva is one of the three main hindu gods. The pose reflects his dance, which is ment to keep the universe in sync (or something like that)

Creepy museum critter
Check out its teeth....all of the exhibits were like this.

Snakes (this one's for you Kev)
The museum had a massive snake collection, all preserved in these tubes for display. They had vipers, cobras, pythons, rattlesnakes, sea snakes...everything. Up above the case is the skin of a rock snake that is 16 feet long. The one below is a king cobra skin.

Rindin' the rails
hangin out of the train just before this post

Comments

[parrish]

life on the run....
Man! Sounds like a crazy trip... the pics are awesome. I love getting to see some of what your seeing.... be safe, your Sib.

[anonymous]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggernaut A juggernaut (American pronunciation (help·info)) is a term used to describe a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path.The word is derived from the Sanskrit Jagann
tha[1] (meaning "Lord of the universe") which is one of the many names of Krishna from the ancient Vedic scriptures of India. One of the most famous of Indian temples is the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa, which has the Ratha Yatra (chariot procession), an annual procession of chariots carrying the murtis/statues of Jagannâth (Krishna), Subhadra and Baladeva (Krishna's elder brother). During the British colonial era, Christian missionaries promulgated a fallacy that Hindu devotees of Krishna were lunatic fanatics who threw themselves under the wheels of these chariots in order to attain salvation. Such a description can also be found in the popular fourteenth-century work "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville." In rare instances in the festival's past, people had been crushed accidentally as the massive 45 foot tall, multi-ton chariot slipped out of control, with others suffering injury in the resulting stampedes. This sight led the Britons of the time to contrive the word "Juggernaut" to refer to examples of unstoppable, crushing forces.