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