The Warning Quote for Visitors

It's been over a year since my first and only post. I figured it was time to see if my editor would allow another addition. John finally relented.

India is ‘an assault on your senses’ and accurately describes initial reactions to the country. No amount of preparation can do it justice which is one more reason that we feel so fortunate that many family and friends have (or are planning) to venture here and experience this little adventure with us.

As we prepared for another round of visitors in June, Anne, John’s sister, and her husband were first up. While we knew they were excited to come, we also knew this was going to be quite the new experience for them.

With just over a week to see India, there isn’t a lot of time for ‘easing’ someone in and they were game. Their first day was some light shopping and sightseeing before we jumped all-in on day two with old Delhi in the peak of summer’s heat and humidity. Old Delhi is an amazing, jarring set of sights. We started our six hour day with Red Fort, a bicycle rickshaw ride, headed to Jama Masjid, then old small winding lanes full of crowds, Karim’s for ‘authentic’ Indian fare, more bicycle rickshaws, the Spice Market, and finally one last bicycle rickshaw ride.

This is when I wondered if India was more than they bargained for and the quote of the trip (and probably our whole experience) was born.

Going to the bathroom can become difficult and you have to be strategic. After a fantastic lunch at Karim’s where Anne’s face said it all as she looked at the food soaking in oil and only got better when she made the required bathroom break. I went first and found things to be just fine: basically a teeny tiny room (maybe four foot by three) with just enough room for the porcelain hole in the ground. There wasn’t even space for a sink; it was outside and commonly shared with the boys. It was clean so I didn’t even think anything of it. Anne went in after me and quickly returned; a little too quickly.

I probed “You didn’t go, did you?” Her response? “There isn’t any toilet paper!” My response? “It’s India…bitch” while stifling a giggle on the final word. She sheepishly looked at me and went back, knowing this was her best and cleanest chance for the day.
And so it became the quote of their trip. Once the quote was shared on the trek, it became the quote of that trip (even used by our guide Sanjeev). It was shared with a co-worker who was over from the states who spent time touring with her husband. Legend has it that it became the quote of that trip.

It’s now the first and standard response by either of us when we deal with some trivial adversity or something otherwise frustrating. Future visitors, get ready. It’s India, bitch.

Calm Before the Storm Before the Calm

Tonight, I'm taking it easy. Tomorrow, more of the same. Why? Visitor season, which has been closed since March, opens again on Thursday night.

My sister Anne and brother-in-law John (yes, at my parents home I'm now known as "Brother John" and he is known as "Husband John") arrive at the tame hour 5:45pm IST (it's almost like American Airlines is trying to take away the fun of arriving in Delhi well after midnight, completely discombobulated, with no idea what exactly just happened. We then have two full and active days with them in Delhi.

Saturday night, our trekking friends Judith and Glenn fly in from Canada. Sunday, we're planning a day of rest. And brunch. What, you thought we'd have visitors and not not let them experience a Delhi brunch? It would be completely un-expat of us. Inexcusable.

Monday, John and Husband Anne venture off on their own for the requisite visit to the Taj Mahal. That same morning Judith and Glenn depart for a nine-day Indian adventure. Tuesday, Lindsay flies to Chennai for work for two nights and Anne and Husband John depart for a five-day Ladakh trip. Saturday, they return. We quickly turnaround and drive to Neemrana Fort Palace, our favorite one-night destination to introduce them to Rajasthani hospitality. Sunday, we head back to Delhi and either give them another brunch experience or do any last minute shopping or forgotten activities in Delhi. They fly home late that night.

That part was most of the storm. And if having your sister visit is considered "most of the storm", it's not really a storm (it's actually quite the opposite) but if I didn't call it that, the title of this post would make no sense.

The next day, if I haven't totally lost you, is Monday the 27th. By this time, work gets busy. Not only is my American boss in town for the week but I'm also responsible for hosting two other visitors the entire week. Not necessarily difficult work, but you want to make sure everything goes to plan. Wednesday night Judith and Glenn return from their nine-day northern India adventure, hopefully well hydrated as they brave the heat. Friday evening my work hosting responsibilities officially end.

That was the rest of the storm.

Saturday (July 2nd) we leave with Judith and Glenn for our own two-week trek in Ladakh. To give you some idea as to how early the flight is, we arrive in Leh at 7:45am.

From that point, I go completely unplugged. No laptop, no Blackberry, not even a Kindle. Just the four of us, our guide (and probably 14 porters), and a notebook to scribble random observations.

This part is the calm. This part lasts 14 days.

There's something to be said about describing 6+ hours or hiking per day for two weeks as "calm". I've only done one long trek in my life (click here for a 9,000 word account) so I'm in no way the expert on these types of trips (though they're a blast, I'd HIGHLY recommend it); however, I will say (in fewer than 9,000 words) that last year's trek was the greatest travel experience of my life.

A Fast 28 Days

When my parents first started talking about how long they'd like to come to India, I must admit, I was a little worried. Twenty eight days is a long time. However, after dropping them off at the airport one last time (which my Dad was proud to say was the sixth time he had been there in the past month), it's amazing how quickly those twenty eight days went by.

Sunrise camel ride at Manvar

From all accounts (or at least from what I could tell), they truly enjoyed and appreciated their India experience. India is an odd place; it either endears itself to visitors or chews them up and spits them out. Thankfully, my parents fit into the former category.

It certainly helped that in twenty eight days, they experienced exactly zero travel issues. No delayed flights, no drivers that didn't show, no hotels that had no idea they were coming. The closest thing they came to a travel issue was when I realized that my trusty driver Kailash was visiting his family in Khujaraho and not set to get back on his train until 4:30am when he was supposed to leave at 6:00am to take my parents to Agra. Ashok, Lindsay's driver, without us knowing helped save the day as he picked up Kailash from the train station and got him to our apartment in time. Even Kailash's train was on time. That never happens.

Jain temple at Jaisalmer Fort

In some respects, it will be nice to get back to a "normal" schedule (if such a thing exists here); however, I'm going to admit, I missed it a little this morning when I walked out of my bedroom and they weren't sitting in the living room reading the paper and drinking coffee (I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they went the full time without actually making a pot of coffee; let's just say they seemed to settle in with the Indian expat level of domestic help without much trouble).

Train platform at Jaipur, yes I wore that blue shirt a lot

On my drive to work this morning, Kailash, who gets more talkative when there are fewer people in the car, lead in with his usual, "Excuse me, sir..." (which is how he gets my attention when he wants to talk). What followed pretty much sums up my parents. "Your mother said she was going to get me some books with English lessons." If you know my Mom, this act wouldn't surprise you. He then said, "And your Dad. He's very much like you. His face looks like you. And he smiles a lot like you too." I'm not so sure I smile THAT much, but months like the last one sure help a person realize how lucky they are to have so much to smile about.

Enough of the sentimental stuff, I'm pretty sure Kailash just liked my Dad, a life-long employee of John Deere, because somehow they had a very in depth and highly developed 90 minute conversation about tractors on the way back from the Taj Mahal. "In depth" as in, Kailash was letting my Dad know what manufacturers were most popular in certain regions of India. Suffice to say, Dad was a little surprised by Kailash's knowledge of farm implements.

It's green and yellow but might not run like a Deere.

The Other Mr. and Mrs. Luth Go to India

We're nearing the halfway mark of my parents near March-long visit to India. While we're not spending the entire time with them, the wife definitely deserves consideration for some sort of "daughter-in-law of the year" award for agreeing to a 28 day on-again-off-again visit. When all is said and done, they'll get a nice cross section of the country, including trips to Kerala, Agra, and Varanasi on their own and a quick tour through Rajasthan with Lindsay and myself that starts in the morning (Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Jaisalmer). In addition to the travel, we're also attempting to initiate them to our slightly ridiculous lives in Gurgaon.

Our cook Yashoda surprised them with a traditional 5-star hotel welcome.

My biggest worry about their visit was how quickly they might adapt and that they'd feel comfortable moving about Delhi and Gurgaon on their own. That worry has entirely subsided. Not only are they moving freely about the sites and markets of Delhi (with, of course, the assistance of my trusty driver Kailash, whom my mother has yet to pronounce his name the same way twice), but quotes (or slight paraphrases) I've heard include:

• "I could get pretty used to this driver thing."
• "This weather is just like San Diego!"
• "What do you mean we're not planning to go to brunch this Sunday?"
• "The driver helped bargain for fresh flowers!"
• "Thanks for the lunch recommendation but there were just too many tourists at the restaurant." (followed by them relocating on their own accord to the Imperial Hotel)
• "John, you guys are such great hosts, do you think Lindsay would mind if we extended two or three weeks?"
• "This bag of Dorito's cost ten dollars?!?"

Yep, they seem to have adapted to the expat lifestyle in India just fine.

The "good" Sunday (brunch at Set'z).

Visitor Season Opens

Visitor season officially kicked off an hour ago when Lindsay's Mom departed Chicago on her flight bound for Delhi. With the snowstorm that dumped nearly two feet on Chicago earlier in the week, she ended up getting delayed by a day and a quarter. The extra quarter day is because she wasn't given the direct on American in the rebooking process and now has to go through London and ends up arriving at 3:30am rather than 9:00pm. I won't even complain about the arrival time because I'm guessing it's a lot worse for her than for us.

While late, the important part is that she's on her way. We've instructed her to sleep as much as humanly possible, especially on her second leg, and that we'd just make a very early day of Saturday. I hope that strategy works, but we'll wait and see. The body does strange things when you move 11.5 time zones. The extra half hour is so that even time zones can be confusing here.

The good news is that she visited us in India for Christmas 2004 so there aren't a lot of must-see items on her list. She's seen the primary sights of Delhi and northern India (including the Taj). The objective of her trip is to spend time with us and see how we live.

Easy enough.

Khan Market? Why not. Brunch? Absolutely. Hauz Khas? Wouldn't miss it. Gurgaon Connection Bash? Yes, please. Brunch again? You betcha.

The one bit of travel we have planned is back to Neemrana for one night at the fort palace. It gives a great introduction to Rajasthani forts and culture, is close to Delhi, and is a peaceful place to spend a day. Plus, there's a zipline, so if the serenity gets to me too much, I can always hurl myself across a wire for an hour or two.

Selfishly, one of the things I'm looking forward to the most about her trip is that Lindsay is taking her to Sharma Farms on Monday. For those of you who don't know what Sharma Farms is (which I'm going to presume is most of you), it's been described as a big furniture graveyard where expats and others go to pick out old junk furniture and have it refurbished to look like it's simply old furniture. I say "it's been described" because Lindsay has never been. Yet at least once per weekend she makes reference about how excited she is to go there. We've been here for approximately 56 weekends. Suffice to say that I've heard about the glory of Sharma Farms well more than 56 times (mind you, this "glory" is entirely based on second-hand accounts; I worry it will be the biggest let down since new Coke). If Sharma Farms even comes close to meetings expectations, I'm pretty sure the wife will be making her second guest blogger appearance.

Regardless, it's one more day of work, hopefully a little sleep, and then a quick trip to the airport to welcome our first family visitor to share this (relatively speaking) crazy life of our's.

Is Sarah Immel Ferris Bueller?

We've seen a number of familiar faces from home during our ten months here; however, last night marked the end of the first visit by a familiar face that came to India for no other reason than to visit us.

It wouldn't be a trip to India without an autorickshaw photo op

A good friend of Lindsay's from school, Sarah Fielding (aka, "Immel", her maiden name), successfully landed back at home in Chicago this morning. I haven't heard all the details, but apparently she was involved in a minor traffic incident at the Gurgaon toll plaza on the way to the airport. But worry not, she's home safe and sound.

Traffic incident notwithstanding, by quantitative measure, the trip was a success. That quantitative measure being checked pieces of luggage. Or in a dorkier, more mathematical notation:

Checked Bags Entering India < Checked Bags Leaving India

Always nice to see the impact of a Lindsay Luth-hosted trip.

A maiden trip to India would be incomplete without a trip to Agra to view a certain white landmark. As our first guest, Lindsay was more than happy to tag along even though she's been before and it makes for a long day (i.e., if you come visit us, don't be surprised or insulted if we hire you a driver and send you on your way). For those counting, that's Lindsay's fourth lifetime trip to the Taj Mahal, which by my unscientific poll is more times than 99.999% of Indians.

Lindsay and Immel in front of some white building

More important than crossing any site off a bucket list or any amount of shopping was the fact that the trip even happened at all. After planning the trip, Immel decided to move into a new house, and she actually delayed moving (not just herself, but her husband and three children) by a week in order to make this trip on schedule. On our end, I ended up in the states longer than planned for work and literally arrived on the same flight as her last Thursday night after being away for four weeks and starting a new role at work here this week.

Without getting too sentimental, what I guess I'm saying is that Immel's little trip may have proven what a wise man named Ferris Bueller once said: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

The Relapse of an Indian Tailor Addict

After years of hearing about the glories of his wares, listening to stories of his famous clientele, and reaping the benefits of others' visits, I finally stepped foot in Grover Cloth and Tailoring House in Khan Market on Saturday afternoon.

For those unfamiliar with my previous stint in India from October 2004 to April 2005, I had made a near weekly trip to a tailor, Kumar Brothers, located in South Extension in Delhi. So infamous were these trips that my fellow expat work colleagues at the time joked that Lindsay and I had singlehandedly paid for the installation of air conditioning in their small shop. I'm honestly not sure if they were joking and couldn't argue the validity of their claim. The final tally of garments from Kumar was staggering: 30+ shirts, 10 dress pants, 5 suits, and 2 sport coats.

Saturday's visit to Grover was my first step inside a tailor in nearly six years. I quickly felt like a recovering alcoholic abruptly thrust off the wagon. As a recovering tailor addict, you can't imagine the urge to simply pull bolts of fabric from the shelves and bark orders about wanting a dress shirt with French cuffs in this fabric and a shirt with the collar and cuffs set on a diagonal in another fabric. Thankfully, we had a visiting friend, Paul, along whose sole purpose was to restock his wardrobe so I didn't feel quite the need to purchase (as much).

While Paul certainly gained preferred customer status, I stayed conservative selecting just a few shirts and couple pairs of pants. You know you're an addict when you consider yourself conservative by selecting six shirts and two pairs of pants while constantly scanning the bolts lining the wall for a fabric you may have missed.

Paul displays the unbridled joy of his maiden tailor visit

When filling out the order form and still scanning for more shirts, I wasn't ready for the sticker shock of Grover's prices. My price baseline was formulated from the 2005 experience as well Naresh, the tailor we've found that makes house calls (I never said I had quit the whole tailor thing cold-turkey; just said I hadn't stepped foot inside a tailor). Apparently, when you can boast of having Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as clients (quick aside, they don't actually boast of this, it was a rumor we had heard that I verified in a Delhi commerce promotional book published in preparation for the Commonwealth Games that features Grover), you can extract a pricing premium. That, and their fabric is basically the same stuff that the Italian designers use.

However, the price of a linen shirt I had selected (Rs. 4200!) was borderline insulting considering my man Naresh stitches together a linen shirt for around Rs. 700. Granted, the fabrics were nicer, but six times nicer? I took a pass on that shirt but not before semi-playfully trying to bargain down the prices on the other items. After seeing the price of the pants (apparently, I had selected his nicest fabric), I decided to take a pass (temporarily, at least) there as well. Apparently, Lindsay thought my bargaining was bordering on insulting and she pulled me away from the counter so as to not upset them too much as Paul still hadn't begun the process and had far more at stake.

Even with the pricing surprise, I had forgotten the joy of visiting the tailor. Thankfully, the shop is a good 35 - 40 minute drive from the apartment so it's not an every weekend kind of place (though we did find time to go back before brunch today for a quick fitting). Unfortunately, clothes here take a beating in the laundry so I may need to wait until we near the conclusion of our assignment before getting too much more made; however, the expectations surrounding Grover were exceeded and the myths confirmed. The man cuts a good shirt.

Indian Poker

While on our "looksie" trip in November, the wife and I were playing an innocent game of gin rummy in the Crowne Plaza lobby and were quickly told to put the cards away as it was basically considered gambling. As a result, I had no intention of finding a poker game while here and didn't even bringing a set of chips with me from home. So you can imagine my surprise when I received an email at 10:09pm on Friday night from a friend from home, Paul Williams, who's randomly here in Gurgaon for a two-week work trip. The email read simply:

This is going to sound strange but I found a local poker game with some co-workers tonight - interested?

Um, interested? Even with the inferiority complex of having been in India for over seven months with not so much as hearing the word "poker" while Paul had been here for all of six days, of course I was interested. However, I knew the wife had had a very long week and figured I'd better be served playing the part of supportive husband. When she arrived home a few minutes later, I mentioned in passing what Paul had offered and she looked at me crazy and said, "Yeah, of course you've got to go." To emphasize her point, she called the driver and said, "Ashok, sorry, but can you come back? Sir needs to go someplace." Who was I to complain? She's pretty awesome. A few minutes later Ashok was back at the apartment and I was handing a slip of paper with a random address to find my first poker game.

After getting close enough in the car, I walked around a locked gate and found my way to the correct house, which ended up being a guest house owned by a friend of one of Paul's co-workers. It felt a little like a cross between a safe house and a sparsely furnished bachelor pad. Pretty much the perfect place for a card game.

If there had been college football playing in the background, it could have just as easily have been a game in my basement in Lake Zurich. Well, except at the games in Lake Zurich there aren't houseboys scurrying around to bring plates of fried appetizers. In no way was I surprised when they starting bringing out chafing dishes at midnight to prepare the buffet table. From here on, I'm just going to assume that if I'm invited to a social gathering of any kind that is hosted by an Indian that I can pretty much count on a full meal served after midnight. I'm pretty sure that's just the way it is.

The game itself was enjoyable; as in most casual games, there was a variety of characters; including the guy that just looks at the game as means for social interaction that cares little about the money, the guy who's sort of part of the group but is obviously a much better player than the rest and knows he's going home with money in his pocket, and the first-timer that doesn't understand the game, likes it a little too much, and keeps throwing money out of wallet to try and learn the game. Plus, at this game there were two random Americans keenly observing the entire scene and situation.

That scene lasted until around 2:30am when I determined it was probably best to make an exit and minimize the silent disapproval I'd receive from the driver when getting picked up. In all honesty, if someone had pulled on me what I had pulled on him, I'd be a little upset. Basically, he thought he was being released from duty 90 minutes early, was called back shortly after being released, and then had to finish out his shift and work 3 or 4 hours of overtime. If this had happened in America, I would have received a big "EF YOU" right around the time the phone call was made to request him to return to duty.

While I felt guilty and bad for Ashok, I must admit it was nice to just act like a retarded dude for the first time in nearly eight months.

Our First House Guest

Twelve hours after our arrival from Turkey we welcomed our first house guest, a good friend from childhood, Luke Gerdes. Luke is two-thirds through a two-month trip to complete research for his doctoral dissertation, passing through Delhi for six nights. I'm not sure whether he actually got what he needed while here academically, but I can say we enjoyed our time together. In all honestly, it almost seemed like he was more in need of seeing and talking with familiar faces than we were, which can probably be expected as he had been traveling the previous six weeks, spending no more than four of five nights in any given country.

Luke's and my family are close friends (in fact, his parents are considering an India/Nepal loop with my parents early next year), and Luke and I had grown up together but the frequency of our meetings had basically dwindled to a beer or two the day of Christmas Eve as my Dad and I make the rounds to family friends (actually one of my favorite traditions, though the Gerdes house is the only stop that guarantees a frosty beverage).

The other thing to know about the Gerdes family is that while growing up, and still to this day, my family refers to Luke's mom, Sue, as the "Domestic Goddess." In fact, Martha Stewart may very well be the "Sue Gerdes of Connecticut." Thankfully, he learned something from his mother and volunteered to fix what was easily the best freshly prepared Mexican meal made from scratch in India last week, which would have been the case even if likely not the only entry in that category. What made this feat all the more impressive was that he successfully navigated four grocery stores alone in Gurgaon finding fresh avocados for guacamole. Needless to say, he set a high bar for future guests to follow.

Since he had done quite a bit of travel in the developing world and had spent a few days in Mumbai, he was more immune to the shock value that greets many visitors to Delhi. As a result, we were able to do fun things like eat at Karim's and get lost in alleys in Chadni Chowk. Getting lost in alleys might seem dangerous, and we were careful to keep Lindsay between us at all times, but in hindsight, it was a fairly safe place to be. In one instance, some local men stopped us because some rupees had fallen out of Luke's pocket and they wanted to make sure we found. Not five minutes later, a young boy who had self-appointed himself our guide to a main street tried to refuse a tip from Luke. Luke tried to hand the kid Rs. 50, which I can only guess is a LOT of money for this kid, and it took Luke's continual insistence for the kid to actually accept the money. Sometimes, India can pleasantly surprise you.

Later on Saturday night, we had planned to relax at our favorite rooftop establishment in a mall, Vapour, but received a phone call from a friend's landlord who we've met socially. He invited us to a housewarming party some of his friends were having, which isn't the type of invitation you'd want to turn down if you were interested in experiencing new things. The party didn't disappoint. The topic of conversation quickly turned to politics and had quite the diverse cast of characters, including an imbibing Muslim, a Hindu businessman that held American citizenship and sold quite a few pairs of jeans to a certain retailer based in Arkansas, a clean-shaven Sikh, our friend the landlord, and the host, a gentleman that appeared in an Apple computer print ad in the mid-80's. Needless to say, the addition of a couple of Americans that were a few cocktails in, and it was a spirited conversation. They remembered our names by saying, "Luke and John? Like the Bible?" Well, sort of, I guess. Luke ultimately earned extra points and the respect of the other guests since he was apparently the first person to verbally disagree with the blue jean baron in some time. I literally sat there and laughed for two hours. Not surprisingly, as we were getting ready to leave around 12:30am, dinner was served. An hour and many worthwhile and tasty calories later, we finally said our good byes.

I'd have to say it was a successful first house guest. Surprisingly, by the sixth night we weren't ready to kick him out and I don't think he was entirely sick of us either. It was a great chance to share a little of our adopted home, share new Indian experiences, and get to know one of my oldest friends better (if that makes sense). And if he thinks his invitation to us to spend some time at his family's fishing cabin in Canada upon our return was simply a courtesy invite; well, then he doesn't know the wife and I quite well enough.

Finding Karim's

A good friend from childhood, Luke, has been visiting the past few days as he passes through Delhi on a research trip. Knowing that Luke, a former college football player, is not averse to the consumption of meat, it seemed like the perfect time to find Karim's, Delhi's oldest and probably most famous restaurant.

After a short visit to Jama Masjid, which seemed to make sense because the location of Karim's is described in most dining guides as "near Jama Masjid", we walked out Gate 1 simply because Lindsay said, "it just feels like it's going to be in that direction." We still had no idea exactly where it was but took advantage of a bicycle rickshaw driver offering his services for a tour of Old Delhi and asked directions. Once he confirmed Lindsay's original thoughts, we disappeared into a side street. Not fifty yards in, I looked up, saw a sign that said, "Karim's, Inside Street" with an arrow pointing to the left. Apparently, the search was a lot easier than anticipated.

If you find this view of Jama Masjid's Gate 1, you've basically found Karim's

After being seated at a table that we were asked to share with a group of French tourists, we were all a little cranky and a lot crowded. Thankfully, another table in the section shortly opened up, our French table guests moved (they seemed just as happy to have their own table as we were), and order was restored in the world.

I had heard that lamb or mutton was the way to go at Karim's but still couldn't help myself from ordering butter chicken, which I've determined is the litmus test of any Indian restaurant. The food, as expected, was excellent, and we ordered way too much for the three of us. The taste of the butter chicken was excellent though they lose a couple points because the chicken was still on the bone. Probably the way it's intended to be prepared, but considering the "national dish" of India (or so I'm calling it) was invented in the past 50 or 60 years, I feel there's no reason it should have bones. Other than the butter chicken, Lindsay enjoyed the naan, which was thicker and chewier than any other I've had but had the basic consistency (and taste, to be honest) of an unsalted soft pretzel. The mutton dishes, both the burra and the curry, were tasty though by the end of the meal there was a good quarter inch of oil on the top of the curry, again another Karim's staple.

The spread at Karim's

It's definitely not the most healthy of foods but for those looking to hit an authentic Indian restaurant in an authentic atmosphere, I think it might be tough to top. Based on the location, it's the kind of place that can easily both scare and capture the imagination of a new visitor to India, but then again, that's kind of the point.