Not long before we fled Beijing’s harsh winter, we took a stroll up the street from our apartment to visit the 798 Art Zone, an artist’ haven in the Chaoyang District of the city.

The above photo is my favorite from the day. The crazy thing about this space is that artwork is just everywhere. Wherever it can be placed, people put their work. This statue was up against a building where cars were parked all around it, as you can sort of see from this image. The statues ranged from stately to grotesque, with at least one statue  being insanely racist. I didn’t get a picture of that one, sadly. I was sort of in shock and sort of in baby wrangling mode at the time.

We were able to get Cole clothed for this – not an easy task putting a toddler who wants to be naked into several layers of clothes. As has been our experience throughout Asia, Cole gets the rock star treatment. China has been somewhat less receptive to Cole than we have experienced in South East Asia, but something about the free artistic spirit running through this neighborhood got everyone VERY excited about seeing a Laowei toddler running around.

Eventually Cole helped fend off some wolves.

Cole, wondering what the hell these ladies are looking at up there.

Do the math: about $15 x 200 = $3000. This is over a few years, and does not take into account all the $20 DVDs I purchased.

As an older, more *ahem* responsible adult, I’ve grown wiser. This has probably less to do with time + knowledge, and more to do with the fact that our lifestyle now means I carry everything we own from place to place. I simply do not have the physical stamina or strength to schlep non-essential crap from one place to another.

In my last post, I talked about Cole’s discovery of amazing things. One such amazing things which I forgot to mention was the MP3 playing cell phone. I first noticed it used by the waiters at our favorite Goan beach shack, who would babysit Cole throughout our meals there. I would hear some tinny sounding music coming from somewhere behind me, and turn to find Cole on the snooker table, cell phone in hand, grooving out to Rihanna, or whatever pop song was currently blaring from every shack that week.

It was a great way to keep him happy, but it meant he now expected to be able to pick up my iPhone and have tunes playing for him while he whirled around shaking it in his little sausage link fingered hand.

Did I mention that when he gets bored he tends to let whatever he’s holding drop on the floor?

Something needed to be done. I couldn’t have him dropping this phone on a whim. Queue the Rishikesh shop where I added money to my pre-paid phone. I noticed a cheap looking MP3 player in the shopkeeper’s glass counter.

“is that an MP3 player? How much?”

“Uh, 700 Rupee.” about $15US

I got cold feet and walked away, not buying the fairly reasonably priced device. When my son dropped my iPhone off the bed again that night, I immediately regretted it, and vowed to go back the next day and make it right.

The next day, the shop was closed. And the next. And the next day. I was in a panic. I had utterly blown my one chance at having something for Cole to throw around while listening to rockin’ tunes.

One our second to last day in Rishikesh, I went back one more time, not expecting anything, but he was there!

“How much for the MP3 player?” I asked again as if I hadn’t already played this out with him. a week before.

“Uh, 600 rupee.”

Woah, okay. $13 bucks is better than $15, as long as it works. He was eyeing it up glumly though, like he knew it wasn’t going to work. I was scared. I took it back to our room in the Ashram we were staying, and after some frightening false starts, I got it to work!

And as it stands right now, this is the best money I have ever spent. No more stress about the phone, a nice long battery life, and Cole loooooves it. Don’t believe me though, watch him loving it right here.

PS: I am incredibly proud to also announce that I made an ebook that takes all of what I wrote about here on the blog from my time going around India by train. Not only is all the material from the blog (cleaned up nicely) but a lot of tips for how to create your own train adventure in India, what to expect when you get here, how to navigate the toilets (hello essential information!) and a wrap up of how the gear held up and my thoughts on India and the trip, in a way I never got to do on the blog.

Surviving the Indian Railway also has tons, and tons of photos I never got to show on the blog, all laid out really nicely. I am really proud of how great it looks, so much so that there is a ten page preview available on the book’s page. Please give it a look, and you know where to find me to tell me what you think! Thanks guys!

“Hey Adam! You have to come with me RIGHT NOW there’s this amazing tube with water running through it that is SO FREAKING FUN COME ON ALREADY!”

“Uh, okay?”

“Yeah, and we’re going to have to get something to cover your bits up.”

“What? Why?”

“Because there’s a dress code! Come on!”

And from then on, it was all waterslides and sibling rivalry. They could not go back from knowing all that amazing water slidey fun was out there to be had.

Cole is at an amazing age that fills us with incredible joy. It seems like every few days he levels up, gains some new awareness or ability or skill. He’s not going to Xavier’s School for Gifted Children or anything (Geek humor anyone? Hollaaa!), but the world is clearly amazing to him, and it’s wonderful to see him becoming aware of seemingly everything going on around him. Being with him all the time at this stage of his life, where he shows he understands what is happening around him more every day, I am like, 95% incredibly appreciative for.

The other 5% is a pain in the ass. Or back, depending on what is going on. The pain started when he discovered stairs. He loves them. So, so much. In Rishikesh, where we were up until a couple of days ago, this meant going up and down rooftop restaurant stairs endlessly. I am a good dad, I help accommodate this sense of wonder by holding his hands as he walks up, and he walks down, avoiding the ever constant attention from the locals who want photos or to pinch his cheeks. My back doesn’t feel awesome after much time spent doing this.

I decide after the fifth dinner walking up and down stairs that we must must must eat at the Ganga Freedom Cafe, where we usually ate breakfast, and where there are no more than two stairs to be had. When we arrive, I am surprised to be greeted at the entryway by a small blonde kid riding a small toy scooter. Cole is surprised by this as well, but more importantly, he is IN LOVE. And not with the small blonde kid.

It seems the owner of the Cafe brought it in to entertain his daughter. Awesome. For our final days in Rishikesh, I had the choice of going up and down stairs, or pushing Cole around on this thing for as long as it took for our food to be brought out, and then a little more. I had hoped it might be gone, or at least out of sight in subsequent visits, but no dice. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, Cole can never un-know this existed, this amazing daddy-push-me-around-machine.

He ate from the tree of knowledge, and sampled that forbidden righteous waterslide.

Being possessed of a certain curmudgeonly, uptight demeanor (a good friend and college roommate of mine summed me up this way: “Drew is the most pessimistic optimist I know.” Thanks Tim.), while I do ultimately believe that everything will work out for the best (yay!) I do it while complaining or generally being not-particularly-fun to be around (boo!).

It’s been a problem, and something I have had to fight to change for years. I’m not clinical, you won’t see me taking meds for being a grump (though if you hear of any, you know who to call). Still, I needed to figure out how to hit the reset button once stress built up and had nowhere to go but at friends and family. I created The Attitude Adjustment.

The Attitude Adjustment entailed first, taking a long, hot bath. Once I decided I was well and cooked, I turned on a very cold shower and let the water in the bath drain, making sure I am submerged in the hot water when it starts. As the hot water lowers, I become more exposed to the cold water until I decide to stand up and embrace the cold shower. It was fantastico.

Ten gallon head, two gallon hat.

As I’ve grown older, my coping mechanisms have developed more, which is great, because the places that we have been traveling to these last few years now, they don’t really have bathtubs. Still, raising a kid has upped the stress considerably, especially when you consider he just started walking and effing loves going up and down stairs, man. SHEEEIT.

We came to Rishikesh over a week ago, and were supposed to have left by now, but we are fairly smitten with the place, so we have extended our trip here a bit. Even though this is an incredibly spiritual town, full of western hippies coming to get their yoga and ayurvedic massage-on, we’ve used this time to work our asses off. Those first several days, I did not do a good job at all handling the stress of getting used to a new place, having a child who’s fifth tooth was on it’s way out, and working until 1:30 in the morning.

Something needed to be done. I knew I was being a pain in the ass. Which is to say, I am pretty sure I would have known I was a pain in the ass even if Christine hadn’t pointed it out to me. A few times… Thankfully, Rishikesh comes equipped with it’s own reset button, it’s own baptism, a place millions, if not billions have washed away a lifetime of sin throughout history:

The Ganges.

When I envisioned getting to see Mother Ganga, I figured it would be in Varanasi, a place where the Ganges is known for it’s filth as much as for it’s beauty, and where I would never dare bathe. I am already full-on equipped with major paranoia about India’s water, so I wasn’t expecting what I found in Rishikesh – that the water coming down from the Himalayas seemed relatively clean and bracingly cold. I knew I had to do it, but even then, it took watching the wife go through it that I finally mustered the nerve.

c-c-c-C-C-C-C-COLLD-D-d!

The day after Christine went in, I excused myself during one of Cole’s naps and made my way for the beach. I could have walked ten meters to go in where the ghats allowed people to step in gingerly, but felt that since this wasn’t a “spiritual” sort of experience for me, I should leave the ghats for those who find them more holy than I do.

Fully clothed in shorts and t-shirt, I walked in. I did not stop until I was neck deep in, and I immediately flashed back to the Tough Guy race, the main difference being I knew when I stepped out of the water, the weather would be warm. IT WAS SO EFFING COLD. I was distantly aware of laughter coming from an Indian swimming a little further out from where I was. I looked over, trying desperately to stop gasping for air and looking foolish, at this kid who was swimming freestyle around me. Taunting me I immediately thought.

“It’s cold!” He says. Genius.

“Yea-ah-yeah!” I replied with the best casual smile I could muster, not being able to get a single word out smoothly.

I dunked my head under three times, as I had seen others doing. I needed to make it “official”. FFFFFFFffff crap, so cold. Then like the stubborn showoff I am, I decide to float around for a minute just to show I could keep my sh*t together. I wasn’t pulling it off. I went in a fourth time just to make sure I was good to go, and headed back up to shore.  I came out sopping from head-to-toe, my entire body tingling from the cold, now exposed to warm air.

I felt alive. I felt fantastic. I went back upstairs, took a shower, shaved my head and face and went back to work.

Happily.

This is high praise, I promise. I have the attention span of a pigeon.

Coming back from lunch today, we ran into a man with a small box and cotton behind his ears. The box read EAR CLEANER and he offered to clean our ears out. I remembered reading about something like this from Wes, and knew I had to do it. I knew I couldn’t blog about it – that any account I might have of the experience had already been done better than I could do. Still, Wes had made it sound… if not fun, than at least worthwhile. We agreed to 50 rupees (about $1 US) for the cleaning.

The horrible aftermath.

The experience was about what I remember reading from Wes, the guy kept saying “oh my god” and pulling out disgusting things from my ear-hole, then hard selling me on how I need “medicine” to get out a very big, dry piece that is too lodged in to be removed by normal means. I expected this, and agreed to pay 150 rupee total (a little more than $3US) for the medicine and the cleaning. He went to town once more and extracted more disgusting things from my ear.

Then he got me good when he moved to the other ear. He made the same pitch for “medicine” with the next ear, and said it would be more money for the second ear.

Now, I could have taken a stand, gone about my business after the cleaning and not gone for the extra for more “medicine”, but part of me wanted to see it through, and more importantly to me, I felt this was my “idiot tax” for not making it clear when we first negotiated that the service was all inclusive, rather than per-ear. Additionally, there is the added stress of negotiating with a man who is using very sharp objects near your body cavities.

Well played, Ear Cleaner. Well played.

The total came to 220 rupee, nearly $5 US, for an experience I would have with me forever, something I could tell at a party instead of talking about the time I jumped off of a bridge to get away from angry dogs with giant orange bows on their backs.

I am so effing sick of that story. So is my wife. You can ask her.

I went back to the room, eager to compare my experience with Wes’ story. I should have paid better attention when reading that post the first time.

IT WAS THE SAME DAMN GUY. No, really. From Wes’ blog:

So there it is. I am a copycat. The world is small, and there is one Ear Cleaner in Rishikesh and HE IS EVERYWHERE. I hadn’t recalled Wes’ story was also from Rishikesh, and had I remembered what he ended up paying for his service, I probably wouldn’t be crying as I type this.

100 rupees total, both ears. With “medicine”.

Ah well. Like I said before, lesson learned. In deference to a superior storyteller who got to this very accomplished ear cleaner first, I am making every image in this post link to his site. Go read some of his stories and enjoy them.

I will be waiting here for your “thank you Drew”s.

Safety first, kids!

Since becoming a dad myself, I’ve been on high alert for smug parents. I watch new parents I meet hawkishly, waiting for them to show their smug hand, bragging about how their child could do sign language at two months, walking at four, high fiving at seven. You know the type.

I am constantly disappointed, and a little concerned. Where are these parents? Did Hollywood invent them? Am I just lucky to run into really great, cool parents all the time? Does the fact that I never run into these people mean that… *gulp* I am the smug parent? Aw crap.

I am a smug parent, sadly. At least with regards to Cole being really really ridiculously good looking. As for development milestones though, not so much. Not that he’s behind the curve, he seems to be pretty much on target with everything that we’ve read. Watching him get the concept of putting things into other things was particularly amazing to watch, and one of those parental moments that is absolutely impossible to explain to people who don’t have children of their own.

“Hey Drew, how’s it going?”

“I’m awesome! I was just watching Cole put toys into a box and then pull them back out again. He just kept doing it over and over. My mind is officially blown.”

“Oh… that does sound… awesome.”

So with the walking, we were in no rush. Early on we even dreamed up joking scenarios that involved pushing him down and screaming at him to scare him if he decided to start walking too early. (That… sounds a lot funnier when you hear us actually talking it out. As I reads here, it sounds more like child services needs to be called.)

Well, a couple of days ago, he walked. It was not too early, so we did not shove him down and/or scream at him OKAY SEE? WE AREN’T THAT TERRIBLE AT THE PARENTING. HAPPY ENDING!

Walking might be a strong word. He “took steps” (three, specifically) which were quickly followed by “more stepping” (five) soon after, and now he stays up later in the night because he doesn’t want to miss out on practicing his… walking (Ten. TEN. Crap that is SO walking).

Thus begins the phase of my new parenting life I was looking forward to the least: Having a kid so covered in bruises that we’ll get looks from every single person we run into.

I had held off on making the decision to get off in Goa, rather than eight hours later in Panvel, until the last possible moment. I am a stubborn guy, and seeing this through to the end was something I wanted to do, out of pride. Ultimately, I had to convince myself that while I wouldn’t be going up close to our starting point in Mumbai, Troy and I had actually started the first leg of our train journey the day before everyone else when we went sleeper class from Thivim to Mumbai. We had actually made it the whole way, just not on everyone else’s schedule. If I continued, all I would really have is bragging rights to having gone further than everyone else, and that wasn’t a good enough reason to miss Cole’s first birthday. I had already missed my wife’s birthday during this trip, and had assumed for sure that I would miss Cole’s as well, until I realized we pull through the area that day.

I could not pass it up.

We arrived in Madgaon station around 10:30AM. The train stopped long enough for somewhat appropriate goodbyes. The group was scattered over 5 cars for our final ride, which made connecting with the group one last time a headache, but we did get a group shot that I hope Troy has somewhere. The Globetrooper team of Todd & Lauren joined us, and JP, our recent Canadian member, also departed here, off to retrieve his motorcycle to continue his adventure in another way.

I would like to thank Mark for organizing this trip, something that I will remember for the rest of my life. It wasn’t all easy by any means, but with the exception of one train, I always felt the most comfortable and at ease when I was riding the rails. India is as diverse and interesting a country as you will find, and I am thrilled that I got to see so much of it in such a short time. I met some great people on this trip who I hoe to be able to keep up with for years to come.

There were even joking mutterings of getting back together to do the Trans/Siberian railway next year. To homever takes up the mantle of planning that event: I am in.

Having said all that, I will admit that there is nothing quite so exquisite as a warm family bed and my family to come home to.

We woke up at 4AM. To my surprise, I was not at all hung over, and managed the waking up better than many, by the looks of it. We were there for a morning sunrise pilgrimage, something completely lost on me as we loaded into prepaid taxis to the southernmost land tip of India. The cab driver stopped at what looked like no point in particular, given that it was still completely dark out, and made a gesture for us to continue on foot. Without any real idea where to proceed, I declared that I was going to “follow this group of guys who look like they know where they are going” and we headed down to the shoreline.

We were early enough to secure a spot wherever we wanted, so we chose a bench and ordered some chai. Checking my iPhone’s trusty compass, I thought I might find a better spot closer to the water, so I headed out to find a spot. Others joined me a bit later, and we talked while we waited for the sun to rise. While my iPhone camera does not do it justice, and the actual “sunrise” was marred by clouds on the horizon, I really felt happy that we had made our way there. There were thousands of people there, as there probably were every morning, overlooking Thiruvalluvar Statue (thank you wikipedia), bathing in the sea, and generally there for reasons more purposeful than our little stopover on our way through India.

Back we went to the station, we took a local train to Trivandrum, which featured some of the most striking landscapes i have seen in a country full of beautiful things to see:

Then on to Kovalam, which highlighted a different sort of beach town than Calangute, where my wife and son were waiting for me to return. It was smaller, quieter, more picturesque, and based on the prices being floated about from shop owners peddling their goods, there was a great deal more money thrown around here than you will find in northern Goa. Kovalam was where I decided once and for all, SOUTHERN INDIA IS TOO DAMN HOT DAMMIT. Troy and I thought we might get away from the usual act of securing a room to stash our bags and/or take a shower, but it was too hot not to shower, so we caved and went in with the rest of the group.

I tried to drink more, maybe continue the drunken good times from the day before, but the first beer just made me extremely sleepy, and I didn’t want to wake up in a beach chair with someone from the group yelling at me to jump in a Rickshaw, so I just stuck to window shopping and charging my dwindling phone battery.

It was a nice place to spend our last full day. We headed back out to Trivandrum and to the remarkable spiraling Indian Coffee House where we had the cheapest snacks one could possibly imagine. Then it was one last mad dash to our final train, another Rajdhani Express, which made me very happy.

Next: The final day, and the decision not to proceed to Panvel.

Thing in Chennai worth noting: We picked up two extras to the group in Chennai, and I feel bad not mentioning them before. JP is a retired Canadian now living in India permanently, who is clearly extremely knowledgable about all things India and the railway. Jeg is an Indian Sikh, born and raised in Chennai who is extremely friendly and easy to talk with. Both are great additions to our merry band.

Rameswaram was quite a ride. At this point, everyone is sort of beyond the general fatigue of the trip and into a state of giggly delirium. We hit the South Eastern coast of India impressively, going over the Pambam Bridge (Thank you Steve for the name), a location so compelling Troy insisted that he would be coming back here to take more photos.

There was never any real hand-holding throughout this trip with regards to where to go or how to get there, which at times was a breath of fresh air for me, and at times was frustrating, but by this point, the group has become such a well oiled machine that all we require is three or maybe four people to know the name of what our next location will be and we break up into the appropriate number of groups to facilitate getting there. This has made for some exciting excursions for those of us who didn’t catch the name of a hotel, restaurant or town, and none more exciting than our departure here. We see Mark and Jason squeezing themselves quite badly into the smallest horse carriage I have ever seen.

“What do you think, man?” Troy asks.

“Think about what?” I look further down the street and notice a line of carriages, enough for pretty much all of us, two at a time.

Crap.

Neither of us knew where we were headed, but we hopped on anyway. Our driver (who told us his name was “Money” and when asked what the parade-float looking thing was ahead of us replied “Tourist.”) acted as if he was out to win a race to… wow, I hope he knows where we are going. Did someone tell him? Because he is beating all the other drivers…

He deposits us in front of a hotel that looks like it is being renovated. There are no people nearby. This might be the least populated spot in the whole city. I waited anxiously for another 30 seconds before I see another buggy coming. Some of us turn tail when we see the hotel to look for better digs, but those of us more adventurous (or perhaps lazy) stick around to see what we can negotiate. As it turns out, they had a nice little room for us to throw our bags in for the day.

We headed out to a large Hindu temple we saw on our way through. If it is not the centerpiece of the entire town, I would be shocked. Inside were a lot of hallways to walk through, one strip dedicated to hawker stalls, and two elephants.

I’m a little unsure of what to feel at this point. On one hand, I understand that the treatment of these animals is 88% likely to be well below what I would call nice, ethical, fair treatment. On the other hand, the spectacle of watching these amazing creatures being given a bath was not something I could ignore. I felt really lucky to have randomly caught this happening.

Outside the temple, Steve discovered his sandals were gone, and resolved to go buy some new ones. Troy decided to take Todd and I on a long walk in search of a bar. We found a liquor store instead, where we bought some “MGM” brand vodka. Tired after the walk, we ran into a newly sandaled Steve, and headed back to the hotel to lick our wounds. At the hotel we found what had to have been the only bar in town. It was in our crappy hotel. When we got there, we discovered the ladies had already started, so we bought a few beers and tucked in. Slowly, most of the group made their way to this bar, even the ones who turned their nose up at the hotel in the first place, reaffirming my suspicion that this was the town’s only bar.

Anyway, we got drunk. Not sloshed, hammered, sh*t faced. We didn’t even drink our crappy new bottles of vodka, we just got good old fashioned more-than-we-should-have-drank sort of drunk. It was necessary. Tensions felt released, we knew our days were numbered, and the group was loosening up. There wasn’t much drinking to speak of before this, or at least not as a group. It felt like the right thing to do, until you consider we had to be up at 4AM the next morning.

I got a shower in, we headed back to the station, thankfully not by buggy, and we headed off to Kanyakumari to get some beach time in hot-as-hell south India.

The reason I know Chennai was a bust? I have taken 1300+ pictures and videos on this trip, and the entirety of my Chennai content? Mostly me making silly faces for the camera out of boredom. Below are the sum total of my Chennai photos:

Next up: Elephants in the Hindu temple in Rameswaram, and we get drunk. In that order.