| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper and Evelyn C. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 07 February 2005 |
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Let's just
say I not only want adventure in alien lands, but I also like being the
person who has the adventures. And particularly in India and Southeast Asia
the price is surprisingly economical. Why India? Not in spite of but
because it is a barely understood alien world. And I mean *really* alien.
I want to go from understanding 1% of India to perhaps 5%. I frankly don't
understand why there aren't a lot of people doing what I am doing. And
Hinduism is to me a genuine enigma. It is a modern religion with the
complexity of a modern religion. But it is the only modern religion that
has visual imagery like a god, Ganesha (a.k.a. Binayak) with an elephant
head. (I really don't mean that as an insult even if it came out that way.)
But visual imagery like that is the mark of an older religion and very
rarely of a religion still living. After all, you certainly see imagery
like that in ancient Egyptian religion.
Hinduism also gave rise to the cult of the Thugee, which modern
Indians treat as an embarrassment. In fact, the Thugs (from which we get
our word 'thug') are perhaps one of the most intriguing chapters in the
history of religion. They are a real challenge to anybody's notion of
religious tolerance. Clearly this was a sect that deserved to be stamped
out as much as any religious sect of relatively modern times. We are
talking about a serious threat to non-believers.
It was the belief of the Thugs that Kali demanded her believers to
murder. The name 'Thugee' really means 'Deceiver.' They would find a party
of merchants on the road and say that the roads were unsafe and beg the
protection of the caravan. They would then ingratiate themselves with their
hosts and be rather charming, all the while watching for special signs in
nature that they would take as good or bad omens for the upcoming event.
When the time was right, they would whip out rumals (like scarves in which
they would knot coins in one end so that with a quick whipping they could
wrap it around their victims' necks). In seconds and silently every non-
Thug would be strangled or attacked with a ceremonial pick-axe. When all
were dead, they would be buried and the proceeds of the caravan would be
split up. There might also be ceremonies in which sugar called 'gur' would
be ritually eaten. The victims were almost never foreigners. I have heard
it said that while the British were exploiting India--as they themselves
freely admit they did--they did do two positive things for India. They
build the railroads and they suppressed the Thugee. The British were
distressed at the amount of crime on the roads but assumed it was random.
If I remember correctly, the fact that there was a strangler cult was told
as a single complaint by an Indian to a British missionary. The missionary
was incredulous but was able to confirm that there was something to the
story, and he passed the word on to Major General William Sleeman. He
started his own investigation and found out not only was it true, but it was
a genuine holocaust. Estimates are that millions had already been killed
without anybody guessing it was a single conspiracy.
Modern Indians tend to downplay the importance of a cult that murdered
millions of their own numbers. Why is enigmatic. First of all, most of the
Thugs were Muslims, not even true believers in Kali. Secondly, the Indians
were the victims. It may be because it was the British who did the most to
suppress the cult.
Anyway, back to the present. Finally 4 PM came and we were off to the
airport, getting a ride from Jo Paltin. Newark Airport had a nice little
display of Newark air memorabilia. Lufthansa had a long table of newspapers
for boarding passengers to choose from. That was a nice touch. Besides
leaving from Newark instead of JFK, Lufthansa also gives us frequent flyer
credit on United for the United States-Germany legs of the trip.
The plane is an A340 Airbus, our first experience with them and with
Lufthansa. We really like it. There are a lot of clever touches. Rather
than one screen for the video program there are four on a single bulkhead.
The probability that people in the aisle would block all four is remote.
There is more room in the seats (though Evelyn still found sleeping
uncomfortable) and in the storage. The earphones are real earphones driven
by wires rather than columns of air. That means they can be more
comfortable. Each person just puts on new earpads. Of course, it's tough
to get those babies on correctly. One of Mark's fell off at one point.
Evelyn was done with her earphones and gave them to him. We are told that
sharing earphones is one way to spread hearing AIDS.
When the video monitors are not showing a movie, they have a
computerized map that shows you your progress. It flashes on the bottom
what city you are flying over (e.g., Runnymeade). (Bet they wouldn't tell
you if you were flying over Lockerbie, Scotland!) The food was fairly
decent and they came by several times with beverages. Evelyn's meal is
special: Asian vegetarian. Mark ordered a Hindu meal. They were identical.
Dinner was vegetables on rice in a nice sauce. Really not too bad.
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We left Newark at 7 PM (well, 7:30 PM actually--there
was a long queue to take off) and arrived in Frankfurt about 8:30 AM. Mark
had asked Evelyn if Frankfurt was in East or West Germany before the re-
unification. It was West, of course, or they would not already have a fancy
tourist airport. There were a lot of East German tourists, of course, when
the wall opened but they were only East German for a short time.
Well, at this instant we are about 43% done with the travel from work
to our hotel in Delhi.
The plane landed at Frankfurt. Since our departing flight wasn't until
1:35 PM, we decided to see some of Frankfurt instead of staying at the
airport. We changed US$50 to DM67.60; the reason the rate was so bad was
that there was a DM10 commission. Well, that's what happens when you change
a small amount.
We checked our bags in Left Luggage (which wasn't easy to find, even
after locating it on the airport map), then got train tickets from the
machines for the S-bahn into town (DM2 each to the railway station, the
Hauptbahnhof). The train takes about ten minutes to get there, and from it
you can see garden plots outside the city that people in the city own,
similar to what we saw in Denmark.
This was not exactly prime time for seeing Frankfurt. We were there
from something like 8 AM to 11 AM. Nothing much was open so we were mostly
walking around to get a feel for the architecture and the atmosphere of the
city. From the railway station, we walked down Kaiserstrasse toward the
Rohmerberg, or old town square, which is the center of the historic
district. On the way we passed Goethe's House, and apparently got somewhat
turned around because we ended up at Katerinkurche. From there we found our
way though (we had a copy of the map from LET'S GO) and found the
Rohmerberg. Some of the buildings had Gothic architecture. One had a big
walkway over the street--what we'd call a skyway--but there would be stone
giants holding the skyway up with their backs. There were a lot of carved
figures in the Gothic style on walls.
The Rohmerberg is very historic looking, with the old town hall, lots
of timbered buildings, and the very simple Nikolaskurche. This latter is in
contrast to the Dom, a Gothic cathedral that is the main attraction in the
area. It is very elaborate and since we wanted to visit it, it was closed
for renovations. (This will not surprise long-time readers of our logs, but
newcomers may not yet be acquainted with Luck of Leeper.) We have seen a
lot of churches and cathedrals on our various trips, a lot more than there
are really differences. Every guided tour in the Americas and Europe
assumes that you have an unquenchable curiosity for seeing churches and
cathedrals. Mark admits that he is not really sensitive to nuances of
difference of these buildings. Not for him.
We wouldn't have had very long for a visit anyway, as it was getting
close to time to return. Other than the Gothic architecture, somehow this
did not strike us as a very interesting city. Of course, two hours is
hardly a fair test, but it seemed like most modern cities. It had a fancy
shopping area and an area near the railway station that was starting to get
run down a little. In fact, we saw a street fight break out in front of us
while store owners looked on to make sure the fighters stayed away from
their stores.
The trip to Delhi was much more of a hassle. Mark suspects that there
is a different standard of service for a run to the Indian capital. We went
to the gate listed for our flight, but then they changed the gate to another
one quite a distance away. There was a long line just to get into the
waiting area. They kept us waiting for about a half an hour before we could
sit down, checking every passport and visa in detail. We met a pediatrician
from Galveston in line who was going back to India to visit his family.
Then it turned out they changed planes on us. And before getting on
the plane you had to point out all your luggage. It was a real mess. Then
when we got on the plane they kept juggling us around because this plane had
different seating. We were asked to move several times. Mark ended up
sitting next to two young children and their mother. The flight was about
forty minutes late taking off. The meal was fairly good Indian food, at
least as close as we can judge it. It was spicier than we expected. Our
friends who think Mark is crazy to like food as spicy as he does will no
doubt realize that he means it as a compliment. The dessert was a sweet
paste, perhaps ras malai. The main course was okra and rice. There was
raita. Not too bad, for a plane. This was the Hindu meal, of course. The
other passengers got lamb and what looked like brie.
We wanted to ask about how to declare what we brought in so Evelyn
found our pediatrician from before the flight. He was sitting next to
another AT&T person who works in Holmdel. Evelyn told him her name and it
turned out he was a friend of Mark's brother David. Ran Bose had met David
at conferences. We were able to ask a lot of foolish questions about India
and have our minds set somewhat at ease. He recommended Bisleri water as
being safe. You have to be careful buying water. Sometimes you get tap
water. Or worse. In a lot of ways you have to be constantly on your guard.
A little paranoia is a good idea for the American traveler.
The plane was something like a hundred minutes late landing and we got
into the airport at about 2:40 AM Saturday morning.
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We are told that most international flights to Delhi
get in at weird hours of the early morning. In any case, it was really a
flood of activity at the airport. In retrospect it may have been only from
the one 747 that came in. The line at immigration was very slow. One
German woman little more than a teenager in front of us seemed to be
negotiating something the authorities were not happy about. In any case we
finally got through the line and went to change money.
Indian money is a trip all by itself. |
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