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07.31.2005 -- Agra, Shimla and Manali - INDIA --
India: Taj Mahal, Trash, Human Waste, and Last Resorts...
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India - We've been in India for almost a week now and
it is a sure bet Maggie has managed to get a fun little bacteria that has her a bit inside out. There are some rather interesting practices in hygiene here... rather "lack of" hygiene is a better way of putting it. Of course, this does not apply to everyone, but there is a large enough population that uses the railroad tracks or a street corner or where-ever for a crapper. We are concerned that Maggie's little bug is connected with the hygienic practices here. Imagine seeing over 500 people taking their morning dumper on a 3 hour train ride from Delhi to Agra.
By the way, Agra is where the Taj Mahal is. The Taj is worthy of its distinction in the realm of "wonders of the world". It was a memorial to the wife of one of the Shahs. Boy was he head over heels for her. The level of workmanship that went into the building is the most impressive part. In the pictures, we all see the great white building, but you don't see the colorful inlaid stonework. Wow!
India is a beautiful country with so much to see. However, the social issues here are so great that sometimes the good stuff is overshadowed. For example, the air pollution is so bad that the shoulders of Todd's shirt were black with emissions soot. The people with polio and other preventable or curable diseases begging in the train stations are rampant. Tent cities/villages are everywhere on the way from one city to another and some of them are literally on top of trash heaps with no plumbing or electricity. The life of a person and what they are able to achieve is decided based on their sir name due to their caste system.
At the same time, we read that government officials want to make the outside world see India as a world class country by beautifying their flyover zones where airplanes take off and land. UNBELIEVABLE... maybe they should start by implementing trash pickup, better plumbing and better emission controls - not to mention hygiene education including what to do with your household waste... Maggie saw a shop owner dump his trash in a drainage "ditch" in front of his shop. Trash is everywhere... it is amazing.
On the bright side... we are currently in Manali and it is beautiful. The people have been great. After Delhi, we went to Shimla on a narrow gage train they call the Viceroy's Toy Train. It passed through over 20 tunnels and crossed over 100 bridges. The views were fantastic.
When we boarded the train, we had a bit of a scuffle regarding our seats. We have been told that you might have to kick people out of your seats and we nearly did. We stood our ground after they told us the seats were theirs. It turns out they were a large group and simply wanted to sit together. So we swapped seats to accommodate them. It was crazy how a little thing became much more.
On a good note, we ended up sitting with a family of Sikhs that were actually from England. They are the guys that wear Turbans. We had a great conversation with them and we regret not getting their contact information. We really enjoyed them. They still have family here in India and travel here frequently. They provided a bit of information regarding the Sikh culture and religion and how it came to be as well as some comparisons/contrasts with Hindu and Islam. The Sikh's don't believe in the caste system and to accommodate this they had to change their names. The men all have a sir name that means lion (we believe it was Singh) and the women all have a sir name that means princess. This has changed a little in recent times, but overall it was to get away from the caste system. We thought this was interesting enough to share anyway.
Shimla and Manali are nice mountain resort towns - by India standards... it ain't Aspen, CO. Our next stop is Leh closer to the Himalayas and we are really looking forward to it. Also a resort town, but it is going to take a while to get there (28 hours by bus - ouch - our butts already hurt). We hope that Maggie's belly will be better by morning.
-- Todd & Maggie
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