So far in India

Greetings. Sorry to send a generic letter but this is my first chance to connect. Sorry to be out of touch with some since it took all I had to get out of town so close after the holidays.

I am living a day ahead of you in India, and living in tomorrowland is wonderful. Tho I came to time-travel BACK. I have had 3 days in Delhi and now a day in Rishikesh, a bit chilled but loving the smokey beauty. Delhi was also smokey, hazy--everyone lighting fires as they squat around them on the center dividers of the roadways... Still the classic scene of teaming, swarming masses of humanity crawling over each other. Pedestrians seem like easy roadkill but somehow everyone survives--mostly. I thought I was prepared for it but it's still more poverty than I've ever seen anywhere.
Hard to get the pulse of Rishikesh--it's Ashram headquarters and it breathes a yoga and calmness as the wide Ganges twists through its steep cliffs, even as they all keep hitting on us for one thing or another. I keep trying to have something for everyone but it's imposssible... Lots of macaque monkies hanging out on the vast footbridge that spans the Ganges. The ashrams are a bit tacky looking, almost Disney or even old Las Vegas, but the natural setting is so gorgeous and the haziness softens the edges and covers up the trash among the river boulders.

I've been lucky not suffering too much 14 hour jetlag. Did take a nap in an old tea house but can't complain. Trying not to get annoyed by all the double talk and incompetence and just focus on the humor of being a stranger in a strange land.
Saw a brand new temple that looks like it might match the Taj Mahal in majesty... the first new Hindu temple built in 800 yrs, Ashkardam, a huge complex with a huge multi-domed temple of pale pink standstone, sitting on a dais of a hundred 10' high carved elephants doing all sorts of funny things. Then inside is a forest of intricately carved white marble pillars and domes, (wherever I'd stand I'd see about 36); built in 5 yrs by 2005, all for a boy saint Swami Narana (1791-1849) who I'd never heard of. We skipped the many videos, and went on their Disneylike ride--REALLY well done, that spanned 4,000 yrs of Indian history. More impressive than I'd realized--atomic theory, geometry way before Pythagoras, as in very field--chess, healing, whatever. Too bad they have little paper cut-outs on this keyboard for the hindi letters that are really annoying mmm...
Since my travel partner is an anthropology teacher/sexologist, she gets us into the oddest conversations with drivers or guides--and this is the first trip where we've needed some guiding, but now no more--they're just not informed enough for what we want. But the arranged marriages, pro and con, and varying appetites of males and females, all according to the males... has been very enlightening. And is all changing as well.
Yesterday got to see what's left of the ancient Mohenjo-Daro/Harappan civilization( 2500-1500). They were so efficient and consistent for 1000 years-- vast grid cities, toilets and plumbing 1000 years before Rome had it. Not much art but they make cute toys and games. Then they dissolved and became the lowest caste slaves to the newly arrived warrior Vedic Aryans who invented chariots and took over the world.

After a great 18 hour flight where we had our choice of 5 seated rows since there was no one in the whole section, we had a day in Kuala Lumpur where the airline put us up in an exotic resort FAR from the airport. Gave us a tour of the town and started to give us the standard tour with a WWII Peace memorial. Too hot and uninteresting for me to climb up to it. Even tho' humans reached there 65000 years ago there was nothing remaining older than 100 yrs, actually only with the British..., so I guess he didn't have a lot to show us.
Luckily he casually pointed out the museum so we wheeled him around to take us there. Great dioramas of the various ethnic groups, and interiors, featuring the marriage customs and fancy beds--it took 3 nights and two houses. Then he then points out the Islamic Art museum. Wheel around again. I LOVE Islamic art, and the Islamic wing at the Met in NY has been closed for security reasons 3 out of the 4 times I've visited since 9/11, so this was a real treat.
Then we saw their enormous twin towers, kind of a cross between Gaudi and Flash Gordon--really great; with the fanciest sparkling new 5 storey mall underneath, but did he really think we wanted to spend the day THERE? I'd visited K Lumpur a long time ago and remembered it as being quite exotic in a British colonial kind of way, but now it's modern with veiled women shopping for I don't know what.

Well, this is enough--it's cold. Hour's up as the donkeys mosey by.
Back Feb 5th.
K