Dear Friends and Relatives,

I pray that all of you are doing well and are in good health. My whirlwind trip of Western and Southern India is done, and I am back in Delhi. In two more days, I will be going back to Leh and minus 30 degree temperatures at night time. Quite a change from the tropics and the beaches, coconut trees, and bananas I've had for the last month! Back in Leh, I will acclimatize for two days, and then head off on my winter "Chaddar" ice trek on the frozen Zanskar River. My next letter (part 7) will tell about that that trek, which should be interesting. If you are one of my friends living in Europe or Asia, please let me know if you wish me to visit on my return trip to America next August. I will need to book my ticket by April, and if someone wants to visit, I'd like to try and see 2 or 3 friends. And, don't forget that I am still trying to find people interested in doing that trek in Ladakh this July. I have 4 people considering it right now, and if you (or someone you know) is interested please get in touch with me. Finally, if you are someone who ordered a souvenir or something for me to bring back, please let me know details (if you haven't yet) regarding size, color, etc. I'll be sending individual emails or letters if I have questions sometime this spring.

Now for my highlights of my trip. I'll put this into a day by day format with a few details. If you want more detailed descriptions, go to the latest Backpacker.com "storytelling" forum, which I will post after sending out these emails. It will be called "Southern India Trip." And, I already have posted one called "West India and a CONTEST." That one has details of the first half of this trip, again with many more details than I can give here.

DECEMBER 27 - I left Leh a day early, due to fog at the Delhi airport, and unpredictable flights. "Fly, while the flying is good" strategy. Upon getting here, I had a good time visiting with my principal who came along, as well as a friend of his from the Church of North India. That evening, 2 nieces of his and their families, Elijah, and myself went to dinner. DECEMBER 28 - This was a day to get things done. I went to the foreign post office to trace a package I had sent to Colorado, got postcard stamps, did a bunch of internet stuff, visited a shop owner from Leh who has a 2nd shop in Delhi, and other small such things.

DECEMBER 29 - My "must-do" things being done, I met with Mr. Farooq, a Kashmiri friend from Leh who winters here. One of the few shop owners I truly trust. After a tea and visit, I met a military man who is a keyboard student of mine in Leh. He is on leave, and had me over to his house for a late lunch with his family, which also live in Delhi. The rest of the day was spent on internet finishing the last of these letters.

DECEMBER 30 - I didn't do much on this day. After checking out of my hotel, I ran a few errands, such as a chain and a padlock for my luggage, as I was riding on trains and wanted to sleep without worrying. The train left at 6:00 in the afternoon. I HATE those train platforms. Nothing is ever posted as far as which train leaves from where, they are crowded, they are noisy, and the train platforms are total mayhem.

DECEMBER 31 - But, trains are my favorite way to travel in India. Quick, efficient, and beautiful landscape views for a cheap price. An overnight train sleeper class is only $6 or so. I arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) mid-day and found a reasonable taxi (they don't have a good reputation in that city) to take me to the Colaba part of the city. I stayed at the Prosser's Hotel next to the 5-star Taj Hotel. New Years Eve was spent in a crowd of 10,000 people outside the Taj on the waterfront. That was interesting! Loud firecrackers, sporadic fireworks, and many countdowns to the new year depending on whose watch got there at which time.

JANUARY 1 - I took the boat ride over to Elephanta Island, which is an hour offshore. Here, there are caves with Hindu sculptures and gods carved into the rock. The term "cave" in India actually refers mainly to excavated rooms with flat ceilings and floors, and pillars evenly spaced. On the walls are images of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma and others. Overall, I wasn't impressed. And, the entire way from the boat dock to the cave entry gate was lined with vendors that don't understand the pronunciation or meaning of the word "no." I did buy some pretty wall hangings. In the evening, I got on the night bus to Aurangabad on my way to the Ajanta Caves.

JANUARY 2 - The guy from the travel agency who was supposed to meet me in Aurangabad never materialized.  I was left stranded in an unfamiliar city without a tour. So, I went to an agency there and paid for a tour extra. The Ajanta Caves are world-famous, and have Buddhist sculptures, unlike yesterday's Hindu ones. Much better sculptures, and also wall paintings. In all, there are 28 caves, of which our tour group saw the larger and/or better ones. Worth the trip. Got back to Aurangabad and caught the night bus back to Mumbai.

JANUARY 3 - Got back to Mumbai and waited for 2 hours to get my luggage. I then checked back in to the hotel and hurried off for a city tour I had booked. On this tour, we saw the Prince of Wales museum (excellent), the Marine Lines waterfront (okay), the Chowpatty Beach (fair), the Hanging Gardens (good), the Kamela Nehru Park (fair), the Mahalaxmi Temple (crowded-in use, and good), the Nehru Science Museum (excellent), the "mini-Kashmir" garden and movie set, homes of the Bollywood stars from India, and the Hare Krishna Temple. The Hare Krishna's are as strange here, as they are in America. It is just a glorified version of the Hindu religion. The older generation was Indian, and the younger mostly Western. I don't think most of those in their 20's and 30's are there because they believe those teachings, but sensed them to be there as a sense of belonging.

JANUARY 4 - Went to that travel agent, told him I had been to the police and got a refund for that non-existant tour. Hired a driver and returned to the Nehru Science Center for a longer look. I also went to the zoo there. The highlight were two hippos fighting! I then saw the Jain Temple and the Ghandi House. Before leaving on the night train to Goa, I had dinner with some friends I had met in Leh. They were there on a vacation last summer and invited me to call if I ever got to Bombay.

JANUARY 5 - There was beautiful scenery from the train, as it approached Goa. I was well into the tropics by this time, and the banana and coconut trees looked inviting. As the Margao train station was further south, I went to South Goa first. I found Masood, a Muslim shop-owner friend of mine, and he got me a nice place to stay for 350 rupees ($7). It was amazing, but I ran into more than a dozen Kashmiris who also have summer shops in Leh. It took me 3 hours of visiting and having tea before I got to the Mobar/Cavelossim Beach in time for sunset and wading in the water. I had seafood dinner with Masood and Farooq.

JANUARY 6 - I took 2 buses, which got me to Vasco de Gama city, named after the discoverer of Goa.  There, I bought my train ticket to Bangalore, went online briefly, and went to an ATM. I then got a motorcycle taxi to Majorda Beach. The rest of the day, I walked/waded/swam about 7 miles of beach all the way back to Cavelossim! Great day, and a great sunset. Shark steak for dinner.

JANUARY 7 - I rented a bicycle and rode the entire length of that beach on the hard sand just above the waterline. It is one continuous beach for about 10 miles, but as you head up the beach the names change.  They include Mobar, Cavelossim, Varca, Benaulim, Colva, Betalbatim, Majorda and Vescao. On my return trip, I rode inland on pavement through villages with the same names and found 18 Kashmiri shops that have duplicates in Leh! At each, I took a photograph of the owners in front of their shop, and promised a copy when they show up in Leh in May or June. Kingfish for dinner.

JANUARY 8 - Waves were better today than previous days, and I swam this morning for 3 hours and body-surfed. I also got fresh pineapple and papaya. After lunch, I got a driver to take me to North Goa.  There, I met Surya, who worked in Leh last summer. He was working at a fancy hotel, and found me a cheap ($3) cottage 50 feet from Baga Beach. Swam 2 more hours up there before dark. Bought some pretty table coverings.

JANUARY 9 - Did the same thing as I did in South Goa. I found 9 Kashmiri shops with duplicates in Leh. Also Tashi Namgyal, who is a Tibetan that had a shop in a Tibetan Refugee Market. Again, I took photos and promised copies this summer. I walked the road from Baga to Calangute and Candolim. After visiting the last shop, I had lunch at 6PM, and walked those three beaches back home. I had dinner at 10PM with Tashi.  Tashi Namgyal paid for my dinner in return for my help with details for a trek he is organizing for some clients up Stok Kangri peak, which I did last August.

JANUARY 10 - Walked from Baga Beach north to Arjuna and Vagitore Beaches to Chapora Beach, fort and village. These are more remote beaches, and the swimming suits were much more skimpy. I walked this stretch with Tony Hurley, a British friend who I climbed the Stok Kangri Peak (mentioned just above) with last summer. He spends every winter in Chapora. Had a great dinner of mussels at the Alcove Restaurant on the cliffs above Little Vagator Beach. I then had a second dinner with my Kashmiri friend Din at his shop in Candolim.

JANUARY 11 - My last day in Goa, I went swimming one last time. In mid-day, I hired a driver to take me to Old Goa where the cathedral that houses the bones of St. Francis Xavier lies. Rich Catholic tradition in this part of India. From there, I went to the train station, where I had a spectacular train ride to Londa, which is east of Goa. Pretty waterfalls and vegetation as the train climbed up and up. From Londa, I caught the night train to Bangalore.

JANUARY 12 - Totally wasted day! I should have spent another at the beach in Goa. My friend Shiva didn't meet me at the train station. It turns out that he was partying with friends, was drunk, and mistook my arrival time. He was at a place without phone, and by the time we finished playing "email tag" the day was gone. I checked into a hotel as per his last email.

JANUARY 13 - Shiva and a friend picked me up at the hotel and took me out to the place they were staying in the country. Pretty area with guava, coconuts, bananas, mustard, and many other plants. Also 9 cats, 16 dogs, and about 10 chickens/roosters. Boring day, though, as they all were into partying. Conversation was so repetitive.

JANUARY 14 - Shiva and I moved out and started our trip. The states of India are separated by major languages, and Shiva speaks the languages for Karanatika, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh!  Fluently. Well enough to get good prices, and to tell off someone who uses the "wrong tone of voice." I had offered to pay transportation and lodging for him, and he in return showed me great areas, often times places and food that I wouldn't have found otherwise. This day was spent in Bangalore in the morning taking care of business in the camera store and fruit market (we ordered a large crate of mangoes to be shipped to Leh in May). After lunch, we caught a bus to Mysore and checked into a hotel there.

JANUARY 15 - Mysore is a great place! We started by going 1000 feet up a hill just outside of town to a Hindu temple up there. We returned walking down steps back to town that went by a large bull statue.  Visited with a teacher from Guam on this descent! Once at the bottom, we went to the royal palace in Mysore. Without question, this is the best palace in India! Every square foot of that place was intricately carved, often with inlays of marble, ivory, silver or gold. Huge murals of spectacles like elephant processions or army or villages were on the walls. So elaborate, that this impressed me much more than the Taj Mahal, which is just a huge building.  More detail here, and built in only 15 years. After lunch, we went to the zoo which was, considering this is a much smaller city, several times better than the Bombay zoo. Caught the night bus to Khozekudi (Calicut) in Kerala. Passed through a wildlife sanctuary on the way. At the border, not only did the language change, but the sanskrit script changed!

JANUARY 16 - Arrived in Kozekhudi at 3AM and checked into a hotel. Morning time, there was nothing to see, so we caught a bus and moved on to Thrissur. Saw the small zoo there, as well as an art gallery.  Not much else. Elite International was a good hotel with good food.

JANUARY 17 - Took a bus down to Ernakulum (Kochi), where we checked into Maple Tourist Home. Then we took the ferry over to Fort Cochin. The Chinese fishing nets there were amazing! It takes 4 men to lower them and raise them, all for 4 or 5 fish. But, I think they raise/lower them more frequently then normal for the sake of the tourists. We bought a kilo of crabs, and a half kilo of prawns, and then paid another place to cook them for lunch. Got some silk paintings here. Later, we saw the basillica, the synagogue, 2 Kashmiri showrooms (no, I didn't know these guys) and the spice market. Cochin is the spice capital of India, and I bought a variety of spices.  In the evening, we went to an excellent Kalithalli dance program. Walking home, we saw a temple celebration, and a park concert of Hindi music, which was like fancy jazz. The singer would improvise a pattern and the orchestra (flute, 4 violins, 3 guitars, and 2 tablas) would play it back. And, those patterns kept getting more and more difficult, as if he were trying to stump the instrumentalists. They stayed with him, though.

JANUARY 18 - Took a day for a backwater cruise on a houseboat, and then a flat pole-boat on the backwater estuaries of the Arabin Sea. Saw people fishing, shelling clams, dredging by hand and other things.  Stopped at a place where there was a rubber plantation, and all kinds of spice trees. The guide made us guess what each smell was. Shiva, knowing the language, was telling the rest of us as much as the "official" guide and asking questions of the locals.  Lunch on the houseboat was Kerala style fish. Our afternoon stop was at a place where an old lady was spinning rope from coconut fibre using just her hands. They also had a spinning machine, so we could see the modern method. After the tour, we caught the night bus to Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) and checked into a hotel.

JANUARY 19 - In the morning, we saw the Horse Palace, which was good, but not as good as Mysore's.  And, we saw a museum featuring the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma. He was a world-class painter that was featured at the Columbian Exhibition in America around the turn of the century near 1900. He was also a Maharajah. After lunch, we shifted 20 kilometers south to Kovalim Beach, and rented paddle boards for 3 hours. Better waves there than in Goa. Dinner was a seafood platter.

JANUARY 20 - Spent too long at the beach (yes, a slight sunburn). After lunch, we took a ride back to Thiruvananthapuram, and were lucky enough to find a driver desperate for a return fare to Kanniyakumari (our next destination). We got there at sunset, and checked into the Seaview Lodge.

JANUARY 21 - Had a great sunrise view from our hotel balcony. Kanniyakumari is at the very southern tip of India, and is the one place that one can see a sunset and moonrise at the same time during full moon. Later, we went to two offshore islands to see the temple, and a 150 foot statue of Swarmi Vivekananda, a famous philosopher. Shiva had me get some literature of his to read. We also saw the temple here. In the evening, we caught the night bus to Rameswaram, on the penninsula leading to Sri Lanka, and didn't sleep much.

JANUARY 22 - Saw sunrise from a village near Rameswaram. Then, we saw the huge temple there.  South Indian temples are something out of Indiana Jones movies. Huge, and all with some gimmick. The one here had 22 water tanks, each filled with holy water from different areas. Pilgrims go to each station with a bucket tied to a rope. They fill the bucket, pour it over their head, and then move to the next station. After the temple, I crashed on the beach. Later, we caught the train to Madurai.

JANUARY 23 - We saw the Madurai Temple, which was even larger than the one yesterday. And, like most temples in Tamil Nadu, non-Hindus are not allowed in the inner sanctum areas. In the afternoon, we were cheated when the travel agent gave us public buses instead of the padded luxury bus with window seats that we had been promised. We waited 2 hours to get what we could have gotten immediately for a third the cost. The bus we took to Kodaikanal, a hill station 7,000 feet above sea level. There, we checked into a hotel and had dinner of chicken and fish curries.

JANUARY 24 - We took a tour of the village and surrounding areas. Kodaikanal is a peaceful area with a lot of things to do. Shiva wants to come back for a couple of weeks next winter. He said the same thing about Kovalim Beach. He will, too, go to both of these areas. We saw viewpoints of the valley below, the village, the lake, monkeys, rock  outcroppings, as well as parks, forest and a museum. Late in the afternoon, we got the bus back to Madurai, where we were unable to get that travel agent to give me a refund. I told him I'm giving him until 15 Feb to refund, or else I'm going to post on the internet for people to avoid his agency. I told him to expect to lose 7-9 customers. Night bus from here to Pondicherry.

JANUARY 25 - Got to Pondicherry in time for sunrise, and to check in to a hotel. Never slept there, though. Just a place to relax and keep luggage. The train station with its "left luggage" area was locked up. Visited the ashram in Pondicherry, as well as the museum, an art gallery, the church, and a couple other landmarks. In the afternoon, we caught a bus to Mamallapuram, a beach resort between Pondicherry and Chennai (Madras). Went swimming. Waves were very strong, but didn't last as long as Kovalim. Good seafood platter for dinner.

JANUARY 26 - Swam all morning again (with sunscreen this time). Found a place that rented paddle boards.  After lunch, we checked out, left our luggage and took a walking tour of two temples and numerous stone carvings that were phenominal. They were like the caves mentioned earlier, but on rock faces making for better photos. In the evening, we caught 2 buses that took us to Kanchipuram. I checked into a hotel, and Shiva went to his sister's place where he spent the night.

JANUARY 27 - Kanchipuram is a city with 5 main temples, and a score of smaller ones. Temples everywhere. During the course of the day, we saw 6 of them (I won't even try to spell those names here). We also saw the cotton and silk looms and factories where they make women's sarees. Beautiful sarees with gold (real) plated threads for the embroidery. We caught the night bus back to Bangalore after visiting Shiva's sister and being stuffed with great, spicy south-Indian food.

JANUARY 28 - Woke up early back in Bangalore and checked into a hotel at 5:30AM. We slept until 9:00, and then took care of business. I picked up my stuff at the camera store, bought the British versions of Monopoly and Clue to take back to Leh, bought some books at a bookstore, got money at an ATM, had a Chinese Lunch, and did a few other errands. We then went back to Shiva's friends' place in the country.  After visiting for a few hours, I headed back to my hotel after dark. One good thing about hotels in India is that most are 24 hours from check-in to check-out. So, I got to sleep in that room twice for one price! With our schedules and night buses, etc. we were checking into and out of hotels at all hours of the day and night.

JANUARY 29 - Today. I checked out of the hotel at 5:30 AM, and got a ride to the airport. My flight took me back to Delhi here. I visited the Gergan's, who are also in town. Then I checked into this hotel that has internet. Then I did errands like camera store, batteries for my digital camera, inflatable pillow, dinner and other things.

Keith