Also, I've taken a lot of pictures. Once home I will try and post a few links to the various entries to try and give some color. I'll also try and find some links for the sites I saw.

People who know me well probably are surprised that food hasn’t been a bigger topic in my blog. I’d actually been waiting until the end to post anything as to not jinx myself. The food here has been fantastic! Every meal has been wonderful and interesting. The meat is so tender; the vegetables so fresh, I even ate beet root and things raw. The spices are also very good, and nothing was as hot as I was expecting. The Naan is also much better than you get in the states, not exactly sure why. I’m also happy to say I did not get ill even once. In fact, I only got one upset stomach the whole time.

This weekend I took a trip to the ‘nearby’ (300km) city of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. This was my first time outside a city in India, and it certainly gave me a very different perspective of the country.

First, let me say something about driving in India. The cities I’ve already described, but that is highly organized compared to the intercity roads. The country is currently developing a network of expressways between the major cities, but at this point the roads were only halfway constructed. The expressway will be a 4 lane divided highway (two in each way), but for now everyone shares a road. I learned that two lane roads actually have a third lane, because we commonly passed someone forcing the driver in the other direction to go off the road into an imaginary third lane. The driving outside the cities is something like a rugby match, each side forming flying wedges to control the road. Horns are also used all the time. I learned there are four times using a horn is appropriate:
1 – When letting a person in front know you want to pass
2 – When you are passing a person in front
3 – When the person in front is going to slow
4 – All other times
I mean, I would say 10% of the trip the horn was on. They even have an upgraded horn that sounds like a siren.

The roads are also not limited to any speed or transportation type. You have cars trying to go 80 km/hr, trucks at 40, small cars at 30, horse drawn carts, bicycles, and people walking; plus the occasional herd of goats being led across the road. The end result is you are constantly speeding up or slowing down. I don’t think we maintained constant speed for more than two minutes.

I’m also proud to say, I now saw a modern Indian music video. The van had a DVD player and we had some of them. I have to say they are just as provocative and skin bearing as anything in the US; Perhaps even more so. I have no idea what the words to the songs were, but I’m pretty sure I could figure out the ‘story’. Some of the costumes and moves were directly copies from stuff in the US (school girl outfit waving the arms). I was glad to see US culture going abroad.

I grew up thinking India was a desert, but the whole road was surrounded by farm with the lushest green I’ve ever seen. All sorts of crops are grown there. You saw shepherds tending their flock, just like you’d imagine it. It really was very quaint, except you realize it’s not for show. We stopped at a few roadside restaurants (it’s about 8 hours each way) and the food was really good. Also the vegetables and fruit were fantastic. I was told you cannot get fresher fruit than from a roadside in India.

There are Animals everywhere, in the farms and the cities: cows, bulls, goats, pigs, horses, donkeeys, and dogs. It’s like someone decided to make a country-sized petting zoo. Sitting outside a store, a goat will walk up and start eating some leaves around you. It seems so odd, yet so normal at the same time.

There are these giant beehive looking things everywhere. These are in fact cow dung patties piled up. They are dried and used as heating fuel. Cows are sacred in India (there is no such thing as beef), they provide milk and fuel (such that it is) and are the symbol of the Hindu religion.

On our way to Agra, we also crossed a railroad track with the gates down. There was a train coming so we took a break to walk around. I watched the gatekeeper use a manual wheel to raise and lower the gate and a bar switch to turn the lights on. It was really then that it hit me the effect of labor cost. There is no reason the government couldn’t have put electronic signaling in. It is not a cause of lack of understanding (they have more engineers than the US I’m sure) or a lack of money (now the third largest economy in the world), but rather the fact that it makes no economic sense. In the US, because of our high labor cost it’s traditional to use technology to substitute for labor. But when labor is cheap, there is no need to make such choices.

After a long trip, we reached Agra and went to see the Taj. I’m not going to go into a big description of it, you can read about it a million places, and any words I give would not to it justice. It was the first place I saw non-Indian tourists, and there were a lot of them. You saw lots of Australians, Brits, French, and Asians; Almost like Disney. The one thing that I thought was the most amazing is how they made color in the Taj. Since it was made purely from white marble, there was no paint. All the color in the Tag is actually made from precious gems and semi-precious gems. The green is from cut jade, the red citrine, etc…. The marble then causes them to glow from light. The monument was also designed with very advanced engineering, even by todays standards. The pillers are all angled outwards slightly so if a quake hit, they would fall away from the monument. The foundation is built such that, even along the river, it does not sink (despite being very heavy). Also, the metal links used to build the top actually all interconnect and act as a lightning rod, protecting the monument itelf. We also saw a couple forts nearby. They were very nice, and I’ll try and dig up some links to them.

Stray dogs really are everywhere. I asked if there were any health concerns (rabies, etc...) but I was told the person had never heard of one of these days biting a person. In fact, they are not completely stray; neighborhoods tend to adopt dog packs, leaving food for them. He even said that it is considered good will to make extra food while cooking and leave it out for the neighborhood dogs.

Metals and stones here are a big part of society. Each stone has a certain attribute they are supposed to help with (health, luck, etc...) Silver for instance is supposed to be very healthy for you, so upperscale food will have a very thing sheet of this silver metal on it (think goldschlager). You will see it on candy, Galub Gamon, Meat, etc.... It has no taste, and you don't even notice it's there other than looks. I actually thought it was tin foil at first and tried to remove it. It makes things look very elegent.

If I had to pick the two biggest differences between the US and India it would be the Rich/Poor gap and Infrastructure.

Like a lot of developing countries there is a (relatively) small group of wealthy that live very well (servants, drivers, nice houses, etc...) and really have all the modern conveniences American's are used to (even DSL in their home). However, the poor live in extreme poverty. This is very challenging for the government, as they have to make policy to support both these groups. Schooling is really the big thing they push to try and get the rural areas more educated. There is an emerging middle-class, but it is really an upper-upper middle class, not what we consider middle-class. It’s a bit weird to see such wealth and poverty so close together. A picture down the main street will see crippled people begging for money, a farmer selling fruit, cars driving, a cow chewing its cud, and a cell-phone company store all in one scene.

Infrastructure is really the other thing. Power goes out regularly; people don’t even really pay attention to it. Happened to be in an elevator once, which was a bit disconcerting. In fact, it least to the only time I’ve heard sarcasm here, an elder Indian said ‘Oh, Wonderful!’ Water is available, but it not safe to drink in general. Phone service seems to be semi-reliable, but cell-phones are quickly replacing them it seems. By American standards the infrastructure here would just seem cluttered. Streets are disorganized and unclean; you’ll se exposed wires attaching a phone to a line, etc….