How Can I Write about India?

How can I, Dianne, write about India? Our “Tips for Travelers” called India “a land of contrasts.” Our professor from India said that we would find it a place of “great contradictions” One book proclaimed that “whatever you said about India, the reverse was also true.” And yet, none of these words prepared us. India did indeed both fascinate and repel. Tom does not want to return. I haven’t yet decided.

First are all the people—people on foot, people on bicycles, people on motorized trishaws, people jammed into buses; people in donkey carts, people in wagons pulled by giant white bulls or water buffalo, people sleeping or dying on the sidewalks or streets. All moving. And then there the are the people who also occupy spaces who are still. Deformed beggars inching legless bodies over the piles of garbage and litter and dirt and broken pieces of concrete and stone that exist next to tall buildings sparkling white and spotless and modern amenities and proclaiming their names of new hi-tech and wealthy companies. Below naked children play in the mud with several mange-ridden dogs as a (sacred) cow ambles across the road, stopping traffic, until it reaches their side and searches through the garbage for something to eat. Next door, a shack is filled with men sitting on plastic stools eating soup or rice and the flies buzz around and cover small plates set out on the rickety tables. And the noise—too many people loudly trying to hustle gum and fruit and taxi rides and tea and plastic bags and small cheap painted Hindu gods. The cranes and big machinery continue to roar and the horns of all the vehicles honk and bong and blow in deafening sound. And the smell…India in most places smells—and is—an open sewer. Men and children openly urinate and defecate and pigs and cows and dogs run free to do the same. And the air, at least in Chennai and Delhi, burns the eyes.

And yet, there are places of extreme beauty as well. The red sandstone abandoned cities that stand on hills and have done so for over a thousand years, like Fatehpur which stands empty now but which once was larger and more populated and civilized than London of the same time.. The marble peacock arches of the Agra Fort, the fort that has never been attacked, the fort that has courtyard after beautiful courtyard with small and large fountains and a marble pool with carved seats so the concubines could coolly amuse themselves, the quarters all decorated with patterned designs, painted, and carved and inlaid sunflowers and geometric designs. And dawn on the Ganges with a huge red sun rising over the water while hundreds bathe on the shores by the temples and burn their dead in huge bonfires and set prayer candles and thousands of flower wreathes to float on the holy water. And the chanting that carries over the sounds of the hucksters that follow the tourists even onto the river.
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And the Taj Mahal… the memorial of an ancient love story, built by Shah Jahun for his beloved dead wife to fulfill her request that world would always remember her. It is a “wonder of the world” perhaps “the most architecturally perfect” building ever to be completed. The Taj floats creamy white in the late afternoon sky, its massive size disguised by its delicate carving and perfect symmetry, four minarets at each corner slant imperceptibly in case an earthquake should hit—and they will fall away from the building itself. The Taj…like a white fairy-tale castle out of some exotic myth. Looking at it from the beginning of its long stone walkway and reflecting pool, it could almost be an illusion, a miniature, embroidered and carved and inlaid and glowing perfection.

And the people of India, poor and rich, handsome and glowing, the women in beautiful colors refusing to adopt the pallid hues of tan and beiges or the grays and blacks of, the Western world. At the Taj alone women strolled dressed in colorful saris: turquoise and pink; neon green and orange: royal navy and maroon edged in gold; mustard yellow decorated with gold flowers; lavender and peach; saffron over maroon with maroon flowers;; deep teal over saffron yellow: apple green with smudges of sky blue: then three women walking abreast—one in peach, one in deeper orange, one in deep, deep rust; then three more—one all in lemon , one in peach, one in black raspberry—all luscious colors.

Enjoy Tom’s photos—but as wonderful as they are, they can’t begin to capture either the nightmare or the beauty of India.
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Burmese Days...in Myanmar

We’re headed south, away from Yangon, Myranmar, down a long channel, before we turn west toward India. The sunset just a few minutes ago was spectacular, even though Dianne is sleeping and I’m staying in our cabin, not venturing out to the seventh floor forward deck where most of us station ourselves with cameras for port comings and goings. Our five days in Burma (the name of the country before the military dictatorship changed it to Myanmar in 1964) were punishing in many ways, not the least of which was the heat and high humidity. More stressful were constant sights of poverty in a country that is suffering from nearly world-wide economic and political sanctions. But the people forge on, usually staring us down as 700 of us descended on their country, for many of them had never seen a Westerner.

A love hate relationship is how Dianne sees it, loving the people, hating the government and the repression forced on the people. That makes daily interactions with the people, of which we had many, like walking on egg shells, careful to ask good questions, but not to push the people into dangerous territory. The story, told again and again in such modern profiles of Burma as Karaoke Fascism and Finding George Orwell in Burma, not to mention Orwell’s earlier Burmese Days, reminds us that engaging the people in a discussion of Suu Kyi, Nobel Laureate and currently under house arrest in her home on University Avenue, could get them killed. We’re constantly reminded that in 1989, when elections overwhelmingly demanded that the military withdraw from government, they refused.

Our five days were filled. Compared to Vietnam, Burma is three or more decades behind in development. Most of the infrastructure, streets, houses, hospitals, schools, even monasteries, is under terrible disrepair. The compulsory Buddhist education for all young in the country further isolates the people and makes them vulnerable to the whims of the government, which likely makes decisions based as much on astrology as on a will to power.

Our schedule was: day one, city tour. This included an introduction to the history and culture of this 5 million person city (with almost 60 million in the country), by an excellent guide. We stopped at the Colonial Building, Sule Pagoda, a local tea shop, the National Museum, the Bogyoke Aung San Market, the Chauk Htat Gyi Reclining Buddha, and finally, the spectacular Shwedagon Pagoda, towering 326 feet above Yangon. Day two, we spend with 1000 Buddhist novices, an amazing encounter between fifteen of us from the ship and a selection of young girls and boys in robes. Dianne and I sat on the floor of a large room, each with about 20 novices, engaging them in song, conversation and laughter for almost three hours. My group is one of the pictures I’ve included. Then we had a tug of war, mostly tugged by the children, then a cane ball toss, snacks and then sad goodbyes.

Day three, we traveled 35 minutes from our port to Thanlyin Village to sample “local life.” Originally a Portugese outpost for adventurer Philip De Brito, this town of 40000 has a local market and very friendly people. We talked to as many people as we could through the able services of our guide, who learned his excellent English from a mission school. He is a Chin, one of the seven ethnic minorities, who lead much of the opposition to the current government.

Day four was a free day. We took an early shuttle from the ship to town and walked all day. We met a wonderful couple who own a shop in the large city market; Dianne bought some native tapestries from them. On the final day, today, we took a five hour tour of handicraft factories, including Naga Glass Hand Blowing Factory, the Green Elephant Rattan Factory, a tea shop stop, and a woodworking block where the artisans were making elephants and buddhas. Burma is a country, really like all the others, that we fell in love with.

Saigon, Hanoi and DaLong Bay

For most of us, Vietnam has been an emotional leap into the past and its troubled present. Everywhere signs of struggle stare us in the face, especially omnipresent vendors' urgency to sell goods on the streets and in the several markets we visited, as well as the visits to war remembrance/remnants museums and the Ho Chi Minh masoleum. I think we still loved our five days in Vietnam because we were rooting for the country, coming out of 1000 years of war and foreign rule. Now, under Communism, the country has a new vibrancy, a vigor we saw in China thirty years ago, and a pace that wore us out. After a long sail down the Saigon River, we ported not far from Saigon city center. With a city tour our first day, we arose at 3:30 am for a 5 am flight to Hanoi on our second. I'll add some jpegs that give a flavor of the excitement.

Vietnam is a Communist country. That said, the culture is still very open and free. Open and organized criticism of the gov, of the widespread corruption, is forbidden and dangerous. But the net is mostly uncensored, the media very open to talking about various forms of urgan and rural decay (poor or non existent health care, densest housing in Asia, practically no sewage control, etc) and corruption.

The US consulate’s American Citizen Service Chief visited the ship before we embarked and said that Saigon is a “hustle and bustle city,” with at least an 8% economic growth annually over the past 15 years. Robert Templar’s stunning profile of Vietnam, Shadows and Wind, reinforces that picture while still examining the high human costs of the “American War” (which is what most Vietnamese call it), the French and Chinese occupations. I’d urge anyone interested in Vietnam to read it. In 1986 market reforms were instituted based on the China model; this turned around a long recession. Now Vietnam is a growing economic force, with 80 million people and the world’s second largest rice exports.

(This is Dianne's part) Our city tour guide, Sa, told us about the city of Saigon. He said workers were paid more than others in Viet Nam but that was still only about $3000 and even small houses cost about $300,000. So most houses had shops on the first floor and the families lived above—extended families of grandparents, their children and wives/husbands and all the grandchildren as well. Everywhere in Viet Nam, the guides emphasized how old people were respected—(of course, the life expectancy is only 64). And the people here are brutally honest—when one of the female faculty members went to a tailor to get a traditional Vietnamese dress made( a sleeveless long dress with slits up both sides worn over pants), the women in the shop told her not to get one—that she was an old lady (of 45 perhaps!) and that her butt was too big—that the dress wouldn’t look good on her. Sa also explained why there is always the wild traffic, a stream of motorbikes that seem always without end—there are over 4, 000,000 motorbikes in the city since few people can afford cars. The pollution is pretty bad as you can imagine. Sa whose father fought for the South Vietnamese said he was “happy with the current system because democracy without education is suicide.”

I/Tom had a rather quick ten minute exchange in Saigon near the tail end of our city tour on our first day in port. I was moving toward the bus when a man about my age stopped me in the street to talk. He told me his father had been killed in the war, that he didn’t hold it against us, that in fact he loved Americans. He was in marketing and gave me his business card, urging me to email him. This was a most pleasant exchange for me, and typical of many we heard about, in contrast to the many on the street and in markets where Westerners learn not to look at the pleading merchants, often small and unwashed children, who touch us on the shoulders and arms, beckoning us to buy.

US diplomatic relations were reestablished in 1995 under Clinton, and we currently support Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Association. Big topic of conversation here: Bush’s visit in November to Hanoi, for the Asia Pacific Economic Conference. Another big issue for us: agent orange compensation. This was emotionally brought home when Dianne and I visited a textile factory outside Hanoi where at least 200 Vietnamese of all ages and handicapped in various forms were stitching embroidered art works, on sale, some $30, others $200-300. Dianne and I bought two. How could we not?

(Dianne says) We enjoyed the city of Hanoi, flying there from Saigon took about two hours (and we almost didn’t get flight back to the ship because of another typhoon which we heard was a disaster in the Phillipines and also in the central section of Viet Nam), We enjoyed the bus ride into the country and seeing the “thousand colors of green” of the Viet rice paddies and the land worked by water buffaloes—many wandering loose in the fields and even across the roads to “fertilize” the rice fields. The picture of women in conical hats in the fields and carrying heavy loads balanced in two baskets handing from a yoke on their shoulders is a true one of the countryside.

The architecture in the north was charming—If one doesn't note the entire lack of city planning and the absence of open spaces, functioning sewer systems, etc) It is influenced by the French—the narrow houses looked almost like very small, narrow Italian villas—about 3-4 stories high, with island shutters and yellow or pink or green or turquoise stucco fronts while the sides were left a gray cement hue. Our very good guide, Kien, joked that there were only four good things that Vietnam got from the French: architecture, the railroad, French bread, and the pepper and rubber and coffee trees they introduced when they colonized the country. (More to come)