Smokies Trip

Holy mackerel, has it really been 4 months since I posted something?!?

We finally took Fran and Jack on their long overdue first East Coast road trip, a nice long weekend up in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park followed by a mini-reunion with Aunt Candy, Uncle David, Cousin Erin and the grandfolks in Franklin for a couple of days.

Here's a link to some pictures from the trip.

On the way up to the park, we stopped for lunch in Gatlinburg (AKA the Myrtle Beach of the Smokies, and that's not a compliment). We were pleasantly surprised by the Smoky Mountain Brewery's above-average brews, tasty pizza and affordable prices. 5-ounce samples for a buck each? Sure, why not?

I grew up with the Smokies literally in my backyard, but there's nothing like driving an underpowered crackerbox at 40mph up a steep, slow climb to make you appreciate just how high you are. The view's worth it, though.

The 2 pics above are up at Clingmans Dome, the highest point in the Smokies and along the Appalachian Trail.

The next few are from Cades Cove.

The 11-mile Cades Cove loop (and really the whole park) are tailor made for driving the bus. No rush, take it all in.

The captain and the first mate.

We had a nice mix of scheduled sightseeing and hiking with spontaneous R&R. For instance, on the way up a gravel road to a hiking trail, we found a perfect flat picnic spot by the river and ended up skipping the hike and spending and entire afternoon catching up on some napping/reading/swimming instead.

On the way over to Franklin, we swung through Bryson City to hit the Nantahala Brewing Company, housed in an old Tennessee Valley Authority warehouse. Very open and relaxed atmosphere (since no food is served, Jack got to come inside). It kind of reminds me of certain spots in Portland, and in fact one of the brewers was anxious to talk to us about his semi-annual trips to Portland for inspiration. Very nice selection of brews here, and fine folks working there as well. This won't be our last visit.

Back at the ranch, the tomatoes exploded on us while we were gone. To provide a sense of scale, that fence on the left is about 5 and a half feet tall. Somewhere in the background are okra and cosmos, but my tomatoes are going bonkers. Looks like it's gonna be a summer of tomato sandwiches, salsa and Caprese salad.

All these ripened on us. Now I'm picking several of the bite-sized ones daily, plus at least one or two of the bigger fruits.

Hmm, what else has been going on? Well, the azaleas we planted last spring grew and bloomed nicely.

The row of hydrangeas we planted last year doubled in size.

We turned this...

into this...

(azaleas and rhododendrons, hopefully more impressive this time next year)

We brought down a few tiger lillies from Franklin. I'm learing how to cultivate them, so hopefully we'll have a lot more next summer.

Some of you may recognize this dusty, dirty old cabinet from Papaw Liner's back porch.

Rhonda has rescued and repurposed it for use as a garden tool cabinet. "Shabby chic", I think you call this kind of project.

More updates on the way soon. We're heading back to Portland as tourists the last week of July, so we're sure to have some stories then.

India- Tourist week

Here’s a link to some pics from our Golden Triangle (Delhi/Agra/Jaipur) tour.

Our tourist week started off with one final breakfast at our little hotel in Anand, a meal that seemed unremarkable at the time, but would dramatically alter my vacation for the next day or so.

A bit of background. In big tourist hotels, food and beverages are prepared with bottled and/or purified water and safe to drink. In small, non-touristy places like where we stayed the first week, this is not the case. The guy who ran the restaurant knew limited English, but “very tasty” was high on his list of favorite phrases: “You try this, it’s very tasty!” Before long, we started referring to him as Very Tasty among ourselves. Being appreciative of both fine food and fine women, Very Tasty was quite fond of Rhonda, and was obviously crestfallen when we told him it was our last day. And then he poisoned me. Or perhaps my overactive appetite got the best of me. In any event, I was the only one at the table who ate a certain mysterious (and apparently water-based) green sauce…

Fast forward to half midnight on 1/9, when I awoke in a cold sweat and with an alarming set of feelings in my guts. A pattern of remarkable consistency emerged: puke 3 times every 2 hours. By the time I finished that part of the fun around 6:30 AM, my ribs were so sore I felt like I’d been beaten with a bag of oranges. Lessons learned:
1. Puking in a fancy hotel is no more fun than doing it at home.
2. Don’t screw with Very Tasty.

Ignoring common sense and against Rhonda’s better judgement, I gave the tourism thing a shot. I did manage to make it through a tour of the largest mosque in India and, but a bone-rattling rickshaw ride sent me whimpering back to bed at lunchtime. The girls had a busy afternoon, seeing an assortment of ruins, temples and India Gate, the national monument of India. It was a couple of days before I was back to normal, but I was able to recover enough by the next day to be a normal tourist again.

Our last 2 full days were spent in the cities of Agra and Jaipur. The highlight of the week was seeing the Taj Mahal. It was, quite simply, incredible. I’m afraid my pictures don’t do it justice. The Taj was completed around 1653 AD after 21 years of construction. It’s considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines Persian, Islamic and Indian elements.

See the pictures link at the top for more detailed views.

While not as spectacular as the Taj (what is?), nearby Agra fort was quite impressive. These old forts are really more like heavily fortified enclosed cities. The original fort was all red sandstone but Shah Jahan (the same emperor who built the Taj) had some of the structures destroyed, replacing them with more elaborately decorated white marble buildings.

Each monument, fort or temple we visited was special in its own way. I was continually amazed at how well preserved all of the decorative and architectural details are after several hundred years. A few snapshots:

There were a couple of minor annoyances (ask us about "India Standard Time"), but overall the trip was extremely enjoyable and rewarding. We got the best of both worlds with the family and tourist experiences.

A few thoughts on driving in India

You could make one helluva adrenalin-rushin’ game based on driving in India. The guidebooks said it would be hectic, but nothing quite prepares you for an experience that at times resembles a human-sized version of what happens when you bust open a big anthill. It took us some time to learn there’s a method to the madness. Here are some of the basic driving rules we learned.

* The number of seats in a given vehicle is in no way indicative of the actual passenger capacity of said vehicle. The ubiquitous autorickshaw (kind of an enclosed scooter with a couple of benches, left of the motorcycles above) is designed to hold 4 or 5 passengers as far as I could tell, but we routinely saw 10, 12 or more people wedged into and onto them.
* Those lines painted on the road are chiefly decorative.
* Stop signs or lights at intersections are nice, but not at all necessary.
* Watch out for pedestrians and other vehicles, but also dogs, cows, donkeys and camels, some of which will be with people, some just wandering around.

* Pedestrians have the right… to get the heck out of the way.
* If you see some space, get in it before someone else does.
* The horn is an essential tool for driving, almost as important as the steering wheel or tires. If you forget, there are constant reminders on the back of trucks.

* For motorcyclists, bicyclists and "scooterists" (what the heck do you call them?), nerves of steel are mandatory; helmets are not.
* A seemingly major highway can turn abruptly into a traffic choked small town street, and then abruptly into a highway again.
* There’s no such thing as a ‘payload limit’, even for a bicycle.

This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive guide, but should give you some impression of how things are (it goes without saying that we hired native drivers).

The Hindu wedding experience (quite an experience indeed)

This is the bride and groom immediately after the marriage was official. Certainly these are smiles of happiness, but there’s also probably a bit of relief involved, especially for the bride, Jeetal. Hindu weddings are a long, ritualistic affair with hours of various religious and cultural proceedings before and after the actual wedding ceremony, and that’s just on the wedding day itself. There were actually several days of festivities leading up to the wedding day, and then a huge party (apparently the only kind of party Indians have) the next night.

The night of our arrival, jetlagged but ready to rumble, we attended the Raas Garba, a traditional cultural and dance celebration. Soon we were undertaking what would become our routine for the: eat entirely too much Indian food, make lots of new friends (struggling at every turn to remember all the names), stay up too late and make fools of ourselves on the dance floor. Well, the overeating and terrible dancing can mainly be pinned on me, Rhonda being both more refined and graceful than I.

Here are Jeetal and the groom, Amit, performing one of the ceremonies that night. For all the women in the family, especially Jeetal, the saris (dresses) got progressively more beautiful and intricately adorned by the day.

Here’s Rhonda and Nancy, another friend of Jeetal’s from Oregon. For a few days, I was convinced we were the only 3 white people to be found in all of Gujarat (the state in Western India where the families are from). Americans coming to India mainly head straight for bigger cities and tourist attractions, so we attracted quite a bit of attention this week. While Rhonda and Jeetal spent one afternoon at the spa, Nancy and I actually had a small group of schoolgirls stop us and ask if they could take pictures of us and them together with their cellphones. Undoubtedly we are on their Facebook pages now…

For what wouldn’t be the last time of the week, we marveled at the partying stamina of our hosts and turned in at a decent hour.

The next evening’s activities centered around the Mehndi celebration (although plenty of dancing, drinking, and staying out past bedtimes went on as well). This event is more fun than ceremonial, and involves the bride and her female family and friends getting elaborate mehndi (henna tattoos that can last several weeks if properly cared for). Rhonda had looked forward to this for weeks before the trip.

Here’s the start of the mehndi on one of Rhonda’s arms. The henna is a thick paste that you leave in place until it dries/flakes off on its own.

Jeetal’s mehndi was extremely elaborate. The poor thing had to sit there for what seemed like forever letting it dry while everyone came up to admire it.

The mehndi dyes white skin a bright orange (on the Indians’ skin, it was more of a burt amber shade).

After a relatively calm day (this is when Rhonda and Jeetal went to the spa) came the day that Jeetal warned us about: “Guys, this is gonna be a really long day.” Loads of ceremonial stuff happening, during which the folks not directly involved were allowed to either watch or just relax and wait to be told something was about to happen.

The most important event of this day was the Vidhi ceremony, in which the bride’s family prays to various gods to keep evil spirits away. This one’s from the Vidhi ceremony.

Here we are during a break in the action. Rhonda got lots of compliments on her traditional attire all week.

That evening, Rhonda and Nancy got to participate in a ceremony that was quite the spectacle. It started out as a slow march down the streets to a house maybe 1/8 of a mile away, accompanied by the soothing sounds of our very own marching band. Traffic in our lane was pretty much forced to stop and wait, which we were assured was quite normal. The point of the ceremony (the name of which I never caught) is for the ladies in the families to go retrieve a set of pots, put them on their heads, and return back home with them. If I recall correctly, the ceremony symbolizes a pooling of resources from the 2 families. A dropped pot is bad luck, so try not to let the marching band, flashing cameras, fireworks (!) and your tired arms distract you.

Luckily Rhonda and Nancy got to carry ‘training size’ pots.

The guys stopped the procession several times to tease the women and dance (these folks really enjoy music and dance: traditional, spontaneous, and sometimes both at once). The big bus isn't part of the show; just squeezing by, and I do mean squeezing.

Another long night of partying followed. I remain impressed with the stamina of these folks. With family members not just in India, but in the US, Canada, London and Africa, these weddings are also something akin to a weeklong family reunion, and are celebrated accordingly. This certainly was an exciting change of pace from the type of wedding we’re accustomed to.

Next came the actual wedding day, which as I mentioned had a variety of ceremonies. When refreshments and a full buffet is served during the wedding, you know you’re in for another long day.

The ladies just before heading to the wedding venue (check out the bling on Jeetal).

Almost married at this point.

Instead of just showing up to the scheduled events, we were pretty much adopted family members for the week, hanging out at Jeetal’s family house for meals and whatnot. Very nice, warm folks who never grew tired of answering endless questions, making sure we were enjoying ourselves, helping the ladies shop for clothes, etc. It was truly special to experience a Hindu wedding week this way.

Here are some more pictures from the wedding week. (Click View Album, then in the next screen click Play Slideshow.)