Lonavala, Part 3

The morning weather was beautiful. We got up and slowly set about getting ready for check out. There was no rush to make our appointed rendezvous with Saresh at the front entry. He showed up 15 minutes late, which is basically on par, and off we went. Back across the breadth of Lonavala and off to the East to check out the nearby Karla Caves.

The previous day, Saresh had been trying to talk us into going to the caves instead of waiting. I hadn't been able to decipher his reasoning. We were tired and a little footsore at the time, so it seemed logical to wait and tackle it on Sunday before we headed back to Mumbai.

On the expressway we got a good taste of the fallout from the standing chaos of Indian roadways. To wit, Saresh had to slam on the brakes when a tour bus ahead decided that they'd just go ahead and stop across two lanes of traffic instead of finishing the turn that they had started into a hotel turnout. So he he hit the brakes hard. The car behind attempted to do so as well. They did not succeed. Instead, I felt the solid yank of the chassis as we got rear-ended. Cool cool cool.

So there we sat, almost on the shoulder of the road. Indians don't really pull off in such a circumstance, they just kind of.... don't. Our driver got into an exceedingly heated discussion with the rearender. I quietly undid my seatbelt with some vague notion that maybe adding Grumpy White Dude to the equation might act as a stabilizer. However, after a bit the air cleared and we eventually went on our way. True, the bumper was now hanging off a bit and kicking up some extra road noise. Oh well.

Not that much further down the road we got to our turn to the caves. However, it wasn't just our turn. There were hundreds of cars and thousands of people on foot moving along the same byway. Oops - maybe that was the impetus was for going the day previous. I eventually figured out that during the rains, there are a series of festivities that take place at and near the caves. It became so dense that Saresh just eventually parked off to one side and pointed us in the direction of the caves. A little extra walk, no biggie.

Hoo boy. So we started the trudge. It was muddy and crowded; periodically there were small groups of people banging drums and singing and dancing about. We worked out way down, and after a kilometer or two found the actual access road up to Karla Caves. Little did we know that we'd accomplished about 10% of the trek.

So we climbed that access road. This was about 3 km, with pretty decent vertical component. That got us to the Staircase. The road up to the Staircase had been a little packed with cars and foot traffic and tuk-tuks. These little beauties are kind of omnipresent in India; the only times you won't see one is when you desperately need a ride. Anyhow, the route thus far had done almost nothing to prepare us for the rest of the hike up.

The Staircase was a steep, slippery, loud, and powerfully scented tent bazaar that ascended the last kilometer to the Caves. As is customary, the vendor stalls are crammed shoulder to shoulder all the way up. The wares in the stalls are piled in so densely that the seller stands outside, in the way of foot traffic, taking up space and basically impeding progress and being a jackass. The air was thick with the humidity generated by thousands of soggy people exerting themselves to climb thousands of grimy stairs. It was also thick with teeming smoke from incense burning everywhere. It was a jostling, sweaty, and somewhat unpleasant climb. As we approached the top, we could hear the drums again.

We finally broke free of the Staircase into an open natural courtyard at the brow of the great ridge. Except that Sunday the courtyard was anything but open. There were thousands or tens of thousands of people banging on drums, shouting, and dancing. Without meaning to, we'd shown up at a key location during a festival that I can't even name. We couldn't quite figure out what it was, but it was something! The flood of humanity swept us in, but before we'd gone too far a perceptive guard pulled us back.

Noticing that we were not local festival goers, the gentleman assumed that we'd want to actually access the caves. It seems everyone else was just there to party in the general vicinity; he guided us through the throng back to the ticket counter where I paid gora prices for two tickets. He then drug us back through the masses to the ticketed entry point to the main cave itself. There was a solid wall of humanity that he pushed, wheedled, bullied, and cajoled aside to get us to the gate. The noise was incredible. We gave our tickets to the gate men and were pulled through while they slammed the gates behind us with alacrity to keep out all the unticketed locals who figured they'd just go ahead and pour in behind us.

On the other side of the gate, the world shifted. There was still the cacophonous chaos outside, but the press of the crowd disappeared. The massive stonework of Karla Caves stood forbiddingly scowling down at us. The ceiling at the entry chamber soared 15 meters, punctuated by little beehives clinging up at the top. The entirety of the space was filled with relief carvings large and small. Stalwart men and scandalously curvaceous women, gods and godlings, and every animal of the subcontinent. They were truly breathtaking.

As with the Bhaja Caves, the main chaitya and stupa of the place were by far the most impressive aspects. Karla Cave almost made Bhaja look like a practice run to make something truly incredible.  There were relatively few people inside, and we all wandered the area in a quiet awe that formed a stark contrast to the revelry out front. The scale and spirit of the place put me in mind of the medieval cathedrals of Spain.

We were asked a few more times for some pictures with people that probably don't run into Americans as a general rule of life. It's kind of fun to get movie star treatment, even if it is for no reason of one's own making!

After we got in a good bit of walking around with our eyes bugging out, we decided that we'd better undertake the hours-long ordeal of getting the hell out of there before things really got crazy. There was no shadow of a doubt that the afternoon would see a multiplier of revelers, and therefore a multiplier of the overall craziness. We stepped from the sacred space, strapped our Chaco's back on, and took a deep breath. Then we stepped back out into the crowd.

The hike down was only easier than the hike up in that it was downhill. The crowd was swelling by the minute, and it took us a couple of hours to reach Saresh and the van. It was not an overly pleasant walk, but it was not an overly unpleasant walk, either.

All in all, a very eventful day sprung out of what was supposed to be a mellow little sightseeing tour. It was time to head back to the city.

Lonavala, Part 2

After taking in the majesty of inner Maharastra from the pinnacle that is Lohagad Fort, it was time to move on to other points of interest. On the way down from the heights, I pondered when to call my driver and decided that I'd do it about 10 minutes before we got to the bottom so that he wouldn't be waiting around in the way for us at the load / unload zone.

This was a faulty approach. I hadn't noticed that up though my service had been a good sturdy three  bars of 4G at the top, it degraded very quickly on the way down. When I decided it was time to get the meeting set, I pulled out my phone and was roundly disappointed by the dreaded E. Emergency calls only. Super.

Being a free-spirited couple, we decided that it didn't much matter; we'd just walk down the road to what seemed to be the unofficial parking area for the fort attraction. So we did. No car, no driver. But from certain corners of the ersatz parking lot I found that my phone could, in fact, get a signal and make a call. Huzzah! So I called our man, and the phone rang. And it rang. And it kept ringing. And it didn't stop ringing.

As I have noted elsewhere, voicemail is not a thing that people do in India. More on that in the Pages, specifically the one named "All the Complaining."

Cool, so here we were, sweaty in the great wild countryside. No driver. We eventually determined to walk back to the drop-off area, sacrificing cell signal for an opportunity to look around for clues. So we did. I forgot to mention before that we'd walked a kilometer or so since making it back to the bottom of the mountain. That meant that we'd climbed up ~500 meters, walked around for a couple km's, then climbed down ~500m, then started the pedestrian search for Mr. Driver. Oh well.

So we got back to the base, and started checking the cars parked in random nooks and crannies about the area. We were approached by a pair of young fellows with a sunny disposition and guided over to one of these crannies that contained our empty car. The driver apparently had gone off to schmooze around, but at least left instructions with the neighborhood youngsters to keep an eye out for annoyed white people. There aren't a lot of white people wandering around the interior of Maharastra in monsoon season, so this worked out for us. We hung out by the van while they scampered away in search of our man.

After 20 or so minutes, he came sauntering over out of the general chaos that the fort area had become by mid day. Everyone was now awake and about in typical Indian style, which is to say the style of maximum chaos. He arrived smiling with nervous apprehension and apologizing, clearly able to detect that we were irritated. Why wouldn't he just take flight and leave his goddamned phone in the car? Cool cool cool.

Oh well, there was nothing to do for it now but to get on with the rest of the day. This little episode did, however, drive a certain dynamic in our communications henceforth; namely, I would ask him over and over where he was to be and when, and excoriate him to keep his phone on him.

Moving on, with a certain amount of miming, pointing, and map-showing we conveyed that we would now like to go check out the nearby Bhaja Caves. These are the lesser of the two famous sets of Buddhist caves in the locale, containing some pretty fantastic ancient relief carving. We made our was down the short but winding road, passing perhaps dozens, perhaps hundreds of Indians on foot walking the back roads. It had bloomed into a beautiful, sunny Saturday and everyone was out making the most of it. The many small waterfalls that lined the sides of the narrow road were filled with exuberant people splashing, lounging, and playing.

We found plenty of people at Bhaja, but it was not actually crowded. The caves were charming in areas and boldly impressive in others. The 'main' cave contained a soaring ceiling of maybe eight to nine meters. There are a number of wooden ribs or horseshoes that arc up into the vault of the ceiling. These are called chaitya, and are apparently a ancient feature of some renown. They are certainly impressive as one stares up at them from the stone floor in the center of the largest chamber. The other most prominent feature of the area in the number of huge stone stupas. There is a 4-meter-tall stupa in the main chamber, and seven smaller ones on the path to the waterfall. Some of them are very simple, but some of them have complex carvings that have faded to shadow.

Aside from the 2,000 year old caves, there was something else we found interesting. Occasionally someone would want to take a picture with us. Sometimes it was individually, and sometimes it was as a family. Sometimes it would just be me or it would just be my wife. We got plenty of looks, with degrees of discretion varying from a covert gaze to out-right slack-jawed staring. Random white people are not common in the area. I had read about it being kind of a thing in India to take pictures of blonde kids and things of that sort, but it was a little odd to experience first-hand. Kel and I looked at each other with a smile and a shrug after these encounters and said, "Ah, India!"

This has come to be a little catch-all between us for when things are unusual and new, for when they are challenging or annoying, or for when we simply don't know what else to say.

Ah, India!

On the way to meet back up with Saresh the driver, we stopped at a little roadside stand to get some grilled corn. This is, as the name suggests, corn which has been grilled. This is done by stripping off the husk and placing the ear or corn directly into a pot of merry red-hot coals. Once it gets nice and hot with a good bit of char, it is rubbed with a little butter and seasoned aggressively, as most things are here.

It was delicious. This may have been a partial consequence of having used the seven or eight hours since breakfast to hike up and down a mountain and partake of other adventures. We polished off our snack, found Saresh and the van at the appointed place, and set off for the hotel. Lagoona Resort, here we come.

As we got back into Lonavala itself, the resort town traffic was doing its thing. Still not a shadow of a shadow of back in Mumbai. We wound our way through town then out to our hotel, Lagoona Resort. I hadn't had the foresight to get a reservation in the books until about a week and a half before our little escape, so options were a little limited. This is not the nicest place in town, but it's still pretty nice.

The courtyard hold a pretty cool fountain, and the facade has a nice Italian air about it. Once through the doors, the lobby is airy and open, with graceful staircases and, for some reason, a koi pond. Whatever. We made our way over to check in and were greeted with a nice refreshing lime soda to replenish us. We got signed in and escorted up to the room, then promptly moved to another slightly nicer room. We did get a little downgrade in the view, seeing as we got to look out upon a construction dump from the balcony.. Ah, India!

Since we'd had plenty of time on our feet, we elected to go grab a drink and a snack at the restaurant, to be followed by a dip at the pool. This is where we got some comedy.

The restaurant had only a few select offerings for the afternoon lull in service. We were guided to something that would have been forgetable if it hadn't been both weird and bad. Kind of steamed vegetables in a weird white sauce with no flavor. Gora food! White people hate things that have "tastes" and "flavors" - everyone knows this. Also, white people drink beer and only beer. This is the only way I could guess at causes for what happened next. Kel ordered a gin & tonic. The Hindi word for gin is "gin," and the Hindi word for tonic is "tonic." After ascertaining these facts, it became clear that they simply had no idea what a gin & tonic was. They brought over a gin with some soda and lime. After going a few rounds of attempted explanation, I had a brilliant idea; I'd go down to the poolside bar and just buy a tonic. So I tried. The bartender down there was more sympathetic and understood relatively quickly. He apologized and informed me that there simply wasn't any tonic to be had. Okey dokey, gin & soda it would be. Ah, India!

Oh well, first world problems. So we went up to the room and solidified our dinner plans out at Parsi Dhaba, a highly rated Parsi food place that was actually located out in the Della complex. This is kind of an all-inclusive high-end joint out on the Western end of Lonavala. We went there in a torrential downpour and were treated to some absolutely magnificent Parsi cuisine. The kheema in particular captured a place in my heart. The staff was on point, and the decor was lovely.

Then back to Lagoona for a restful slumber before heading out the next day to our highlight for sightseeing - Karla Caves.

Lonavala, Part 1

As you go East out of Mumbai, the land rises up into some truly lovely and majestic hills. The buildings thin out rapidly, the traffic tapers down to sane levels, and vibrant greenery replaces the concrete jungle. Most roads are toll roads around here, so it costs you a little change to get away, but it is certainly worth it.

The hills climb and climb. We were travelling in early July, as the monsoon was really gathering steam. This meant that the multitudinous verdant buttes each cast sparkling waterfalls down into the densely forested valleys. Absolutely gorgeous, and a breath of literal fresh air.

The highway traffic going East in Maharastra is still full of Indianisms, but slowly people begin to do unusual things like drive in a defined lane for an extended length of time. This is a breath of fresh air of an entirely different species, but no less refreshing.

Along the roads are rice paddies and various small crops. People work placidly but diligently in the wet earth and do their part to feed the gigantic Indian population. Also alongside the road are a handful of large resort-type properties. More prevalent than these, however, is the inordinate number of what looks like empty foundations. Our driver didn't know anything about these, and therefore I don't know anything about these. They lend the landscape what almost amounts to the feel of a successful post-apocalypse in places. Many of these empty foundations contain diverse produce gardens.

The climbing highway carried us higher until the hills became ghats, and thence among the hill stations. There were also a couple of Indian-style truck stops. I call them that as a catch all for a spot along the highway with stores and restaurants that are there strictly to serve the travelling populace. They have all the charm that the term "truck stop" implies.

About two and a half hours after pulling off the curb at home we entered the proximity of Lonavala. This place has become a well-known get away for the upper-middle class of Mumbai and the surrounding areas. It is a pretty busy place during the rainy season. We had decided to hit the spots we were interested in on the outskirts and then work our way to the hotel. So stop number one was
To be the iconic Kune Falls. Here I should note that we did not have our usual driver.. Instead we had a fellow organized for us by our usual driver. Unfortunately, this otherwise delightful fellow spoke almost zero English. My Hindi was (is) still very lame, but I thought I was at least comprehending what he was telling me.

As we sped past the exit to the waterfall, I came to understand that this was not the case.

Anyway, the design of the expressway made it difficult to just loop back around to go to the falls, so we just moved on the number two in the itinerary with plans to shuffle Kune Falls back in later. This took us down the winding road to Lohagad Fort. This place is awesome.

As is our tactic we arrived pretty early by the local standards. At 10:30ish AM, we stepped out of the van and into the cool mist of the Western Ghats. And we began the climb. This climb is not insignificant. The ancient stone steps are tall and wide, and in the rainy season they are just a tad slippery. Over the course of a dozen switchbacks one is elevated a couple hundred meters and begins to enter the fort proper. This early in the day there were mostly young and adventurous people to share the mountain-fortress with. We even saw some Swiss (I think) people.

The fort crouches on top of a bedrock finger that juts out and points accusingly at the lush valley below. To get to the actual fort one first traverses a highly defensible path the winds its way up to the walls. To enter said walls, we walked through an imposing gate that looked like something from a Tolkien novel. The framework over the gates was imposing enough, but the 5" spikes coming out of the faces of the open gates really fixed a menacing impression. We turned a corner through the gate into a low keep that contained some rusty old cannons, no longer on their carriages anymore. They just kind of lay on a stone benchwork looking old and angry. In the courtyard we saw the first of the ever-present Tourist Macaques. These are the obnoxious little bastard-monkeys that inhabit most any aged place that tourists might like to visit. They stare and groom each other and wait impatiently to spot someone eating something so that they can accost them and steal the item they are eating. They are such a delight.

I digress. This fortress is incredibly well-preserved with access to almost all the stairways and from them to the defense ramparts and battlements. These structures contain arrow slots at regular intervals, and cannonade windows at less regular intervals. There are also the occasional opening that I imagine were for doing more exotic things like dumping hot oil or throwing stones. When we looked down through these hateful windows, it became disturbingly clear that coming up the winding stair to assault the front gates would have been a horrifying experience.

We climbed up through two more similar structures, all held closely to the ribs of the soaring cliffs. One of the broad and winding stairways that connect the structures happened to double as a kind of lazy waterfall, cascading down worn steps. We passed through two more gates, each a little less threatening than the last. At last we crested out into an open air at the very top of the ghat. The views by this point had emerged from being merely stunning into being transcendent. Even with the low ceiling of the monsoon season we could see for 20 miles in any direction.

We lazily wandered around the open mountaintop, watching clouds gently crash into neighboring mountaintops, elegantly slide over and around them, and go on about their way. Occasionally a cloud would engage this dance with our own mountaintop, swaddling it in a cool mist that dropped visibility to a few dozen meters.

As we walked along the crest of the ghat we came to a low pass where the wind was intense. We soon noticed the odd sensation of being rained on from below. We had come to the famous reverse waterfall of Lohagad Fort. A small stream spilled over the edge only to be grabbed by the pounding gale and hurled back up to where it had come from. There were a number of people along the cliff edge taking a sort of shower in the inverted waterfall. Very cool.

From the top of the fort we headed out to the most dramatic vantage point, the tip of the long, pointing finger I mentioned earlier. The traverse to the point was trickier than anticipated. Time had robbed the stonework of things like functional steps in many places. At one point there was a single file line that formed to allow for some light-duty mountaineering that was required to climb down the broken boulders. Perhaps that was the reason for the old sign that said no to go out there...

A few hundred meters stroll and there we were, the furthest-flung outpost of Lohagad Fort. A stained glass pane of paddies and fields spread below us, way down there on the valley floor. They were hemmed in by the snarls of temperate jungle that guarded the flanks of the ghats. After we had done our best to exhaust the exhilaration of grandeur, we turned for the trek back.

Next on the agenda was to begin our exploration of the Buddhist caves of Lonavala. But first we'd have to find our driver.

Seeing the Sights of Mumbai

Mumbai may not really be a gold star tourist destination, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some amazing things to see around here. When I look a lot of travel blogs and guides, Maharastra kind of gets overlooked.

The first weekend here, Kel and I were feeling a primal urge to explore our surroundings and familiarize ourselves with the city. Naturally, we had made it our business to acquire a copy of the comprehensive guidebook INDIA, from Lonely Planet. Not a bad place to start trying to sort it all out.

We'd broken down our explorations into a few loose categories (or at least I had in my head). Ancient history, colonial history, markets, food, and shopping. We are both very keen on ancient history, so that seemed a prime place to start.

With that in mind, we headed out on a Saturday morning. May in Maharastra is blazing not, and this was no exception. We hadn't found sunscreen to buy yet, but surely there would be some in one of the shops around the touristy areas of South Mumbai. We grabbed our Chaco's and met up with our driver Amol.

The drive from Malad East to South Mumbai only took about an hour and a half in the early morning. As stated elsewhere, Bombay is not city comprised of early risers. Anybody that calls this place a city that never sleeps has clearly never been out and about in the hour or two before dawn. This sometimes redounds to my benefit.

We soon found ourselves off the flyover (the local name for a highway) and winding past the grand Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus on our way to the Gate of India. The Gate is a mammoth structure of big basaltic blocks that was built over a hundred years ago to commemorate a visit of the benevolentish oppressors from the British Isles. It is a very impressive arch. It is at the seaward edge of a paved courtyard that must be about 40 acres. At the southern edge stands the even more impressive Taj Mahal Hotel. At the northern edge the impressive colonial architecture stands in full and varied display for kilometers.

The courtyard at 10AM is India's version of tame and relaxed. The multitudes have not yet arrived and the crowd density is still less than one person per square meter. However, the touts and hawkers in South Mumbai are earlier risers than most; the low total head count simply means that that one is likely to be accosted by these chipper folks about dozen times on the walk from the taxi loop to the India Gate itself. They offer services like express boat rides to the near islands and taking low-quality Polaroids for an exorbitant rate. Some of them are just offering the appearance of a service as a lead-in to a beggar's pitch.

After strolling around the Gate for a while and taking the requisite selfies, we figured out that the guys selling legitimate tickets for the legitimate ferry were the ones wearing fluorescent green vests and carrying clipboards. We figured this out by observation; people were going up to them and buying tickets - they were not chasing people down around the square to foist tickets upon them.

We made our 400INR ticket purchase and had the good fortune to time it perfectly so that we simply walked over to a gangway and boarded 5 minutes after purchase. The ferry was very old, but in good repair. It had fresh paint and an engine that did not sound distressed. The same could not be said of all the boats in the harbor. We boarded by making a short jump from the concrete gangway into the gently rolling ferry. No pansy safety rules here! We paid the extra 10INR each to sit on the upper deck. And just like that, we were ready for our first sightseeing trip in India: Elephanta Island.

The ferry ride across the bay takes around an hour. You can take in an unusual perspective on Mumbai, see the cranes for unloading deep-water vessels to ferries, and look at some shallow-water oil drilling platforms. There are also various fishing boats and crabbers cruising around. You'll see what looks like some random detritus floating around that is actually markers for crab pots. You'll also see some random detritus floating around that is actual garbage, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. That certainly didn't stop a well-dressed young fellow of about 8 from polishing off his soft drink and chucking the bottle directly over the side. Sigh.

Anyway, upon landing one finds a small pier that takes them ashore. Alighting upon the pier, you can expect to be greeted by numerous young men with slicked back hair in polo shirts. They are there to tell you that you will need a guide to fully take in the splendor of the area. Did you know this is a UNESCO Heritage Site? Etc, etc. There are guide pamphlets at the ticket counter, so unless you want extra local flavor or a more comprehensive experience you can probably keep walking.

On shore there are, as one comes to expect, the line of tourist stalls. The prices here weren't gougy, which was nice. After you pass the first line of tourist stalls, you begin the kilometer trek up the hill. This is where the real tourist gauntlet begins. To shelter from the sun, the stall keepers have stretched tarps over the walkway. Given to local humidity, this has the undesirable effect of turning the the uphill march into kind of a loud steam bath. Being short on sunscreen, the humidity trap was probably preferable to the direct rays, but a breeze would have been welcome nonetheless.

The ticketing line went quickly, and we paid our 600INR each (foreigners have an up-charge at attractions in India). As we came through the gates, the caves sat under the brow of a low mountain on our right and the sea rolled away into the foggy reaches on our left. Closer at hand, some macaque monkeys were busily depriving tourists of anything that looked edible. Note: do not bring food and drink around the macaques unless you'd like to try your hand at monkey-wrestling.

I was not prepared for just how impressive the caves were. The ceilings in the main chambers are about 4-5 meters high. Mammoth pillars support the structure, spaced about 6 meters apart. The carvings of Shiva get the most prominence, but there are many other representations as well. Most of the carvings are in large wall reliefs with very particularly Indian styling. They are beautiful. For a Westerner like me they also hold a kind of mystery in their mysticism.

There are 3 main caves that are accessible to the public. There are others further down the mountain, but those haven't been opened as of summer 2019. Here's a good video giving the overview from UNESCO.

It took us about 2.5 hours to explore the caves to our satisfaction. Add in the trek up and down the hill and the ferry ride, and that gave us about 5 hours invested, plus a little over 2000 INR (or just shy of $30 US). Not too shabby at all! True, we skipped the souvenirs - even though there were some pretty good-looking ones - and we didn't ride the weird little train from the ferry to the base of the hill, but I think we still got a pretty well-rounded Elephanta Island experience!

Word to the wise, though - bring sunscreen and plenty of water.

The Indian Hospital Experience, Part 2

The Indian Hospital Experience, Part 2

My first experience with Indian medicine was unpalatable at best. I followed it up by looking up recommended hospitals and physicians thru the U.S. Embassy listings and going from there. This led me to P. D. Hinduja Hospital. Where the previous day's hospital had been somewhat placid for the most part, this place was a medical mosh pit. People were thick, sick, and moving quick. The refined Indian art forms of the Uncovered Cough and Shared Sneeze were prominently on display.

The reception process was marginally less efficient than it had been over at Hiranandani Hospital, but certainly no worse than the American equivalent. The set me up with a general practitioner and got me in in no time. The doctor met all the expectations I was used to holding for professionalism and thoroughness. I was terribly relieved. He went over symptoms, helped to set my mind at ease about the likelihood that I was going to die. Rest, fluids, and as much bland food as I could hold down were his recommendations. He also gave me stuff for my fever in addition to what I had previously been prescribed.

The reason that I was receptive to a new prescription was because I had done some research. The other doctor had written me a script for medicines that were specifically to be avoided in the case of giardia or hepatitis, both of which I was concerned about. Getting rid of a fever is good; doing it at the price of liver damage is undesirable.

The overall experience confirmed my suspicion that my first physician had been, in fact, a douchebag and not a standard Indian professional. This gave me some relief.

A pronounced upside to this episode in its entirety was the cost. I am American, and in America around half a million people go bankrupt from doctor bills every single year (that's 2/3 of all American bankruptcies). All billing is incomprehensible. If you thoughtlessly go to the emergency room, you had better go ahead and cancel Christmas.

My visits to the doctors cost just about 1000 INR each. This is around $14. No insurance. My prescriptions cost about $18 total. All my stuff was done in facilities that seem to be as good as any public hospital in the States. I now have a powerful understanding of why ‘medical tourism’ is a thing. In the U.S. a person can expect to pay some unknowable number between $70,000 and $200,000 for heart bypass surgery. Here, it would cost you less than $10,000 plus a plane ticket.

Anyway, with that consideration in mind I have determined to undertake the removal of two pilar cysts from my scalp while we’re here. I’ll post about that, too, so that anyone considering medical tourism can have a window into actually going under the knife in Bombay.

The Indian Hospital Experience

The Indian Hospital Experience

While Kelly and I were chilling in staff housing in Mumbai, I eventually committed the cardinal digestive sin on India; I drank tap water. I have been blessed to live my entire life in circumstances that made this a normal activity for me. This is not a normal activity in Mumbai.

The first few days were very unpleasant. Stomach cramps, fever, chills, headache, and of course dehydration. This dehydration occurs because the digestive tract responds to any attempt at hydration by simply engaging in warp speed processing. This meant that any time I ate or drank anything, I would be parked on the toilet 20 minutes later.

No big deal. Food poisoning and bad water are so prevalent in India that there is a localized name for the phenomenon – Delhi Belly. If you spend significant time here, you are guaranteed to get some stomach irritation and diarrhea.

Locals have adopted the view that this is because Westerners have a delicate palate that cannot handle ‘spicy’ Indian cuisine. As a guy that puts habaneros in my curry at home, this is laughable. The problem is that sanitation isn’t really a thing that is done in many places, at least not by the standards that outsiders may be used to.

Anyway, when the symptoms persisted past the 10 day mark, I thought it would be wise to seek out medical advice. After consulting the knowledge base of my wife’s co-workers, I headed over to the fancy-schmancy hospital in Powai. This was Hiranandani Hospital. I didn’t research it on my own, just took their word for it. This would become a valuable object lesson.

I got to the hospital, got through security, and went up to the first floor (more on security in India in Pages). I was checked in with more swiftness and efficiency than I had dared to hope for. I was escorted to an exam room and left to wait for the doctor. And wait I did. Then I waited some more. After that, I waited some more.

At this point I was beginning to figure that there was a misunderstanding or that the doctor had left for the day. I went to inquire at the reception desk, and they just smiled meekly and said that the doctor would be seeing me shortly, and please to wait. So I went back and waited.

With an hour and a half of waiting completed, the doctor found his way to me with a young assistant in tow. He kind of greeted me without bothering to look at me. He glanced at my chart and said that I was sick to my stomach. As I began to explain that I also had a fever and other symptoms, I noticed that he was already writing on what looked like a prescription pad… So I attempted to make sure we were on the same page.

“Doctor? Yes, I have a fever, headache, and very, very severe diarrhea for well over a week now.”

“Mmm. Hmm.” This without looking up. 

Up to now there had been no examination, no discussion of cause(s), and nothing that I was familiar with in the way of a visit to the doctor in any form. I looked to the young assistant, trying to gauge the normalcy of the scene. It was then that I realized that the young woman was not an assistant. She was another patient. As I opened my mouth to ask what the hell was going on, the doctor looked up from his pad.

“Ok, sir, the pharmacy is just off the lobby downstairs. They can take care of you there. Drink water consistently.”

He thrust 6 lines worth of prescription into my hand. And got up from his desk. At this point I was deeply conflicted. Was my condition so obvious and common that there simply wasn’t a need for any firsthand knowledge beyond whatever was on my intake paperwork? Was it just the cultural norm to see patients sort of in tandem?

Without any context to go from, and with a splitting headache and an intense fever, I was baffled and adrift. I mumbled an ok, and left the exam room. I made my way to the pharmacy and attempted to stand in line. This is a futile method of doing anything in India. There aren’t really lines, you just kind of push your way into the amorphous blob of humanity that congregates anywhere a product or service is provided.

I made it to the counter and got my prescription filled. I bumbled my way back outside, summoning an Uber as I did. I got home, took a handful of pills and fell back into my fever dreams.

More on medicine in India in Part 2

Into India

When we left North Dakota, spring was just getting genuinely under way. Day time highs of 55F/13C, nightly lows around 32F/0C. A crisp and delightful menu of seasonable spring weather. Stepping off our Lufthansa flight into the Indian night, I was instantly swaddled in a sultry humidity so dense I could taste it. Being a couple days out of a shower as I was, this did not provide for a pleasant sensation. However, since I didn't have another plane to catch it was not enough to prevent me from smiling. We made our way off the jet with the exhausted masses. The baggage claim was blessedly near by. For the first time in my life I grabbed one of those carts for people with too much luggage because we had way too much luggage. Our largest bags were among the very first that came out on the conveyor. Yay! Then we waited for our other check bags while I took in the glitz and splendor of the Mumbai airport.Twenty minutes later I was getting a little anxious when our two smallest check bags came out very last onto the conveyor. All is well that ends well. Now the dreaded ordeal of customs.

Except it wasn't. My wife explained to me that when Mumbai is your final destination all your check bags are checked by customs before you get them. Instead of going through what i expected of customs, we just went to an express line, ran our carry-ons thru a scanner, and explained to one of the agents that we would not be running our cats thru the scanner. He looked at us blankly, looked at the cats blankly, shrugged, and waved us through. By now it was about 2AM local time, so his giveadamn may have run its course for the day.

I had my messenger bag and my cat cross slung like suburbanite bandoliers. I had my baggage cart loaded five feet high. We were both sweaty and disgusting. We had arrived.

...

INTO INDIA

If you've read this far you you are probably tired of hearing about traveling with cats. In fact, if you're reading someone's expat blog you probably want to know what the destination is like. That commences... now.

That first day in Mumbai I was sans wife, sans Hindi, and sans cell phone.

My wife was at work. My attempts at Hindi had been directed through the app world via Duolingo and Drops. Duolingo is obsessed with teaching the Devanagari alphabet. I would roughly approximate this to a native Arabic speaker trying to learn English by sitting down with an English dictionary. It can be done, but would necessarily make one hate their adopted language. Drops is obsessed with teaching you how to say "spoon" and "wind" and other terms equally useless for hailing a taxi or buying a mango. My cellphone situation is a can of worms whose explanation can wait. I was, in short, freewheeling like 1992.

My only serious task for the day was to register the cats with the local branch of the Animal Quarantine and Certification Center. I know I said no more cat stuff - I'll keep it to a bare minimum. Other than that I had few pressing issues of the sort that I could actually address. We sprang out of bed at 7ishAM with all the zeal of people that had completed a transcontinental transplant about 3.5 hours earlier. I assume we ate something, Kelly called our driver, and off we went to drop her off.

Having a driver sounds pretty cool, right? Presidents and diplomats have drivers. Wal-Mart heirs have drivers. When I say we have a driver, that ain't what I'm talking about, at all.

It's difficult to imagine what traffic looks like in Mumbai unless you were the type of kid that ever pried the top off an ant hill. The roads have lines on them, it's true. These serve precisely the same purpose as as painted toenails and fancy neckties - strictly decorative. Traffic to the Western eye is the unbridled chaos of 10,000 people trying to go down a thoroughfare designed for 200. People pop in and out of "lanes" and weave and cut each other off all within literal inches of one another. And they honk as though the sound of the horn is the fuel source that makes it all go. Somehow, by seeming divine intervention, it all works with very few accidents and better flow than L.A. could pull off on its best day.

All of this is simply to say that having a driver is not some swanky luxury for the filthy rich. It is a basic requirement to get from point A to point B in one piece. Learning to drive here, to my eyes at least, is a full degree of magnitude more difficult than learning the language. Besides, one thing that is abundantly clear in India is that labor is so cheap it's practically free. Whatever The Job is paying for our driver, I know it isn't much.

It is true that our drivers probably cost a bit more than average in Mumbai. This is because they speak English. You may have read from various sources that English is the official language of India, or that "most people speak some English." This is a grand prank perpetuated on us by our forerunners abroad; a sort of hazing ritual for new tourists and expats. Many people do speak a language that bears enough similarity to English to possibly be classified as an English dialect, but even that is decidedly generous. In their defense, the locals here probably do think they speak English. But it will take you exactly three exchanges with a native Mumbaikar to understand what I mean.

The challenges are manifold. First, Indian English has British roots. Being an American, I frequently struggle to converse with the folk of Great Britain simply due to idiom and phrasing. On top of that you get various Indian formalisms. It's similar to the way the Japanese have a gradient of formalisms for referring to elders and authority figures. Third, there is sometimes seemingly bizarre word selection. Fourth, in Hindi questions are defined by the specific words and grammar used. This means that Indians often do not understand the use of inflection in English that signals that a question is being asked. Everything just sounds like a statement. And of course last is the notorious Indian accent. Even when everything else lines up properly, the totality of the mangling applied by the Indian accent can make literally anything incomprehensible. And I suppose I should include the sidenote that Indians will fully refuse to recognize a request to speak more slowly or clearly. Consider the following illustration from an encounter with an agent of the Indian government, with a four year degree and ostensibly some years of intensive English study:

Me: Hello, my name is Fulton Fortner. I'm here to drop off the paperwork for my cats. (Offers folder full of documents.)

Government Agent: Myplisask yogur nimsar.

Me: I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch what you said.

GA: Myplisask yogur nimsar.

Me: I Am Sorry, I Speak Very Little Hindi. Kya aap angríze bólti hai(n)? (This is the latinized representation of the Hindi question, "Do you speak English?" )

GA (angrily): Ya ya! Myplisask yogur nimsar!

Me: ... ... ...I'm sorry, could you say that more slowly, please?

GA (rolls eyes): Myplisask yogur nimsar!

At this point a timid young assistant sidled over from where he'd been working a few meters away. Blessedly, he had half the accent of his boss.

Assistant: Aikskoos me suhr, she is askink, "May I Please Ask Your Good Name Sir."

He delivered this quotation with such effort at good pronunciation that a gossamer sheen of perspiration materialized upon his brow. His superior rolled her eyes superciliously again, saying, "Yesyesyes." Never mind that I had answered this question before it was ask-stated. This interaction proceeded along these lines for another 45 minutes. It was a true delight.

This is essentially the degree of proficiency I'm talking about when I say our drivers speak better English than most. So far the only people I've met with full and comprehensible command of English fall into two categories. These are my wife's co-workers at The Job and the beggars and scammers in all tourist areas. More on those little stinkers later.

I had decided to engage an instructor and learn Hindi months before we arrived. With what I know now, I feel the same motivation to learn the language that the starving jackal feels to attempt an attack on dangerously large and powerful prey.

I quickly found that this is a long way from the norm for expats here, regardless of their origin. When I tell a fellow expat that I'm learning Hindi they look at me as though they don't quite get the joke I am making. When I respond to Indian taxi drivers, retail workers, servers or bartenders in Hindi they literally gape at me wide eyed for a full second and half giggle before they compose themselves to respond. This entire dynamic is baffling to me. Why in the blessed name of Lord Ganesha would anyone want to isolate themselves by living for years in a place where they cannot understand what the holy hell anyone is saying??

That's not for me. Especially considering that many Indians that do speak intelligible English suddenly can't quite understand you when you are asking for something they don't quite feel like doing. I like very much to know what the hell is going on.