How Did You Spend Your Saturday?

We spent ours at the Maha Kumbh Mela, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbh_Mela) a once every twelve year mass Hindu pilgrimage where devotees descend on the city of Allahabad to bathe in the Ganges at its confluence with the Yamuna River and the mythical Saraswati River.  Billed as the largest mass human gathering on Earth, with estimates as high as 70 to 80 million participants, this is truly an exceptional sight. 

The event itself lasts about six weeks.  The most auspicious, and therefore most crowded, bathing day is on February 10^th.  This year an estimated 30 million people were in attendance on that day.  We met our friend Dallas, recently arrived from Australia via Kathmandu, in nearby Varanasi 125km away from the main event on the 14^th.  The second most auspicious day for bathing was February 15^th.  Having decided as a group that discretion was the better part of valour we entered the fray as the bulk of the crowds were leaving it, on the 16^th.    

Having to house so many pilgrims every twelve years, with smaller but still massive crowds arriving, annually, tri-annually, and every six years, Allahabad has become quite adept at creating a massive temporary sister-city for itself during the Kumbh.  This nameless city resembles a sprawling festive refugee camp, connected by pontoon bridges and dotted with seemingly inflatable Hindu temples poking their tops a storey or two above the tents below.  The place is populated by a mixture of Sadhus (ascetic Hindu monks), families, support staff, police, healthcare workers, and even a few tourists, mostly resembling hippies. 

It is a marvel that so many people crammed so tightly and so acutely into such a small area doesn’t lead to a cholera outbreak.  Historically, it has in the past.  On the most auspicious bathing days, the sheer volume of people has also led to hundreds of deaths from trampling and crowd surges.  Thousands of people are reported missing on average each day (Lost and Found at the Kumbh Mela).  The most difficult to reconnect with their families are the toddlers, not able to communicate but but very capable of wandering on their own.  We were told by a few of our hosts in India that there is a whole genre of Bollywood films dedicated to stories about young twins separated at the Kumbh meeting later in life.  This year only a reported 36 died during a stampede at the railway station on February 10^th, the biggest day of the festival.  As for the cholera, careful planning, including a mass of very basic but very functional latrines and piped water seem to do the trick.  We can only imagine the water comes from far away, as though the Ganges is as ritually as pure as water gets, physically speaking after being filled with 70 million bathers, it's brown and scary. 

We drove three hours there and three and a half back through a multitude of crowds to visit this sight for a mere hour in the pouring rain.  It was well worth it.  Submitted for your entertainment and to fulfill the same psychological need for strange extremes usually filled by The Guinness Book of World Records or Ripley’s Believe it or Not, below are some images from our visit to the Maha Kumbh Mela.

 

 Approaching the Maha Khumb Mela

 Pilgrims on a Temporary Steel Plank Road

 Tent House and Temporary Pontoon Bridge

Temporary Mandir (Hindu Temple)

A Lone Sandal Abandoned in front of a Pontoon Bridge

Plumbing for the Khumbh

Aislinn and Dallas Admire a Midden Heap in front of one of the many Gent's Latrines

Not Pretty but Keeps the Cholera at Bay

Other News

With a tip of the hat to our friend, Josh, who signed off his most recent e-mail with, “Update the blog already!”, we have decided to reformat the blog in a way that makes it easier to post on a regular basis.  We’ll be updating one to two countries at a time every week for the next three or four weeks.  Check again next week for Switzerland and Austria, followed by Turkey, then the Middle East and even Africa, and South Asia.  Also with a tip of the hat to Douglas Adams, “We apologise for the inconvenience.”

Scotland is known for many things, but for those of you who are gastronomically inclined, think of Scotland by their three famous dishes: Haggis, Black Pudding, and Scotch. Scotch may not be considered a 'dish', but given the relatively unappealing nature of the former dishes, we think it important to include something that casts Scotland in a better light.

Adam and Aislinn after enjoying some scotch at the Balvenie Distillery.

For those of you who do not know what Black Pudding is: Picture Jello made with blood.  Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons provides the best summary for Haggis, "Get yer Haggis!!  Ground up sheep's stomach and lungs served in intestine!!  Tastes as good as it so-ounds!!"  Clearly whoever came up with this recipe had a sense of humour.  As for Scotch, Adam has been known to enjoy a glass or two of Scotch from time-to-time.  The Scots have  been known to have one or two bottles from time time-to-time.  In Adam's case, it's to take the edge off a hard day.  In the Scots' case it's to black out from a hard day.  Given the Scottish weather's alternating states of cold and sleety or gray and overcast, hard days are common.  Together these three dishes, Black Pudding, Haggis, and Scotch, illustrate the three major themes of all things Scottish: , Blood, Humour, and Forgetting.

Starting in Edinburgh we began our orientation to all things Scottish with a free tour.  As in Dublin, working only for tips, the tour guide was once again a consummate entertainer full of stories.

One of our favourite anecdotes explained medieval punishment prior to the prison system.  For minor crimes, such as stealing, you were punished by having your ear nailed to a door.  The door was under the town crier's platform  in the middle of town.  This made it easier for local folk to come and entertain themselves by shouting obscenities at you and pelting you with  rotting produce, there being no television in those days.  If you could withstand this  torture for 24 hours, the authorities would remove the nail from your ear, which would heal in time.  If the kids pelting you with spoiled celery proved to be too much, however, there was an alternative.  You could simply leave, ripping away from the door with all your might and leaving part of your ear behind.  The downside was that the ensuing scar would tell others that you were a criminal preventing you from ever getting employment again.  This made crime you're only viable career path afterwards.  It may not have been particularly logical but in many ways it was no worse than our modern correctional system and much simpler and more direct too.  

The ear door.

Another bloody good local story took  place in Grey friar's cemetery:  During the 18th and 19th century, Edinburgh was known for having one of the greatest medical schools in Europe.  As the school's popularity increased, the need for school supplies increased, including the need for cadavers for anatomy classes.  Given the indignity suffered by the body in medical dissection, legally only executed criminals could be used for this purpose.  With growing demand far outstripping available supply, and limited embalming technology making 'freshness' a necessity, the newly dead were a hot ticket item.   Grave robbing became an industry.  

Greyfriar's Cemetery.  Thought to be the source of many characters' names in the Harry Potter Series.

 

 

Aware of the instances of grave robbery, families had to create precautions to prevent their loved ones from  suffering  such indignities.  Richer families, who could afford it,  installed iron cages around each grave.  Poorer families, who couldn't afford the cages, could instead hire someone to watch the grave overnight for the two weeks until the body was guaranteed to be too putrid for study.  Hence the expression, "The graveyard shift." Still, some families could not afford either precaution and relied on hope that their loved ones would be okay, coffee not being widely available at the time.

Grave robbery prevention devices, or possibly Zombie cages.

To avoid the body being connected to a grave robbery, after stealing a corpse, the robbers would remove all identifying features, including clothing and jewellery.  In some cases the bodies swelled after death and it was difficult to remove the rings on people's fingers.  In  these  cases  the fingers were cut off to retrieve the rings.

In one exceptional case, two grave robbers tried to remove several fingers at once.  They realised something was  amiss when their corpse started to scream.  The act of removing her fingers had woken her from a coma.  

Strangely, being buried alive while in a coma was not entirely uncommon in those times.  The origin of holding a "Wake" for the deceased was a genuine attempt to make absolutely certain they were  dead by doing everything possible to wake them before the burial .  

Ilana, Adam's sister, would be happy to know that our tour guide mentioned her favourite Victorian invention, an above-ground bell attached to the wrists of the deceased. Anyone who was in fact alive, could simply ring his or her bell to notify the grave-keeper of this unfortunate medical misunderstanding.  This may be the origin of the sayings, "saved by the bell" and "dead ringer."  

After their arrest, the robbers' defence at trial  argued that if not for their interference, this woman would have been buried alive.  The judge disagreed.  They were both executed and their bodies were sent one last time to the medical school.  

On that lighthearted note, we move to our second theme: humour.  It's probably there to compensate for all the morbid bits anyway...  

Take for instance the origin of the English word 'loo' for toilet.  Given the water in Edinburgh in historical times was unsafe to drink, the populace relied instead on a steady supply of beer.  Also, given the lack of indoor plumbing, people generally emptied their chamber pots out the window into the open gutters below.  To avoid disgusting passers-by, the city passed an ordinance requiring that chamber pots only be emptied near dawn and dusk.  

After a long day's work, the city's labourers would head to the pub to quench their thirst.  Stumbling home, ladies in the towering houses above would shout, "Guardee loo!", a derivation of the French, "Guardez-vous," before hurling poop onto the street below.  Those who were sober stepped aside.  Those who were drunk looked up.  Your imagination can tell you the rest.    Clearly someone in city planning had a sense of humour though. 

Edinburgh has since installed a fancy new plumbing system.

Scotland is so speckled with castles and churches that at any spot in the county, you can pick a stone, throw it, and hit one (Note:  This is not as much factual as it is speculative, but we think it is likely factual too.)  Of the many churches we saw in Scotland, the most exceptional may be St Gile's Cathedral in Edinburgh.  

Gothic arches and stained glass windows at St. Gile's Cathedral.

Why of all churches this one?  Aside from the stained glass windows, the Gothic arches, and the mosaic floors -- all to be expected in any cathedral worth its name -- St Gile's boasts a statue of an angel playing the bagpipes.  Although the original intention may have been solemn, staring up at an intricately carved stone ceiling featuring a celestial choir of angels playing harps and lyres, with one lone cherub squeezing a set of bagpipes, you can't help but giggle.

Bag-pipe playing angel.

After Edinburgh we rented a car and headed up to the Orkney Islands, a five hour drive  north on some very windy roads followed by an hour and a half long ferry.  Most visitors would not venture this far afield but our adventurous friends Shelly and John had recommended it highly to us.  Convincing Adam to take this long journey was made much easier by the fact that the Highland Park Distillery, makers of the award-winning "Best Spirit in the World" for two years running is there.  

There are many similarities between the Scottish and Irish countrysides.  One in particular  is unmissable: in both countries the people are outnumbered by the sheep.  These are not just any sheep though; they're Punk-rocker sheep.  

Friendly Scottish sheep.  The punk rocker sheep were too aloof to capture.

To identify ownership, the shepherds in Scotland and Ireland spray-paint a patch of the sheep's coat with a particular fluorescent colour.  They spray their rumps and their sides, and better still between their ears, making them look like teenage sheep with fluorescent mohawks.  Like other sheep, they come up to you and baa, but these ones look like they should have piercings and maybe a cigarette dangling from their bottom lip.  

Arriving at the Highland Park distillery in the Orkney Islands,  we met a lovely gift shop cashier who had lived in the north of Scotland all of her life. She embarked on some typical friendly conversation. Where we were from? Where else were we travelling?  We told her that we were travelling around the world.  Speaking slowly so as not to hide her incredulity she tried to double-check her ears:

"You're travelling all around the world did you say?"  

"Yup!" we proudly replied.

She burst into laughter.  "Of all places on your round the world trip, why on earth would you pick here?!  Did you just open a map, close your eyes, point, and say, 'I think we'll go there?'"  

With tears in her eyes, she summoned her friend and said, "Listen to this Deirdre, these two are travelling around the whole world.  So naturally they decided to come HERE to the ORKNEYS!"  Within seconds, the two of them were barrelled over, patting each other's backs, giggling and pointing.  We stood there slack-jawed not knowing whether to be embarrassed or join them. 

The gift shop included displays of some very unique scotches.  This brings us to the third theme of our trip: Memory Loss.  Some of these scotches were very impressive...and very expensive.  There was a 50 year old scotch that was aged in Japan.  It cost 940 pounds per bottle.  Another bottle was 60 years old, priced at 10,000 pounds.  

As impressive as this is, the story behind these two bottles was ridiculous.  Since Japan has a passion for Scotch -- Apparently Lost in Translation was right --  they decided to send some barrels over to a Japanese distillery to allow them to age for 15 years and then sell them to the Japanese market.  Highland Park then forgot about them.  Maybe they were drinking too much of their own product.  50 years later, the Japanese distillery rather courteously called Highland Park and asked them if they had a plan for these barrels.  They now sell is in Scotland for ten times the price they had planned for Japan thirty-five years earlier.  

The 10,000 pound bottle was also the result of some inaccurate record keeping.  These 'misplaced' casks were found entirely by accident when rearranging their storage room.  Benign neglect as an investment strategy seems to work in Scotland.  

Forgotten antiquities.

Adam and I have a little rule that we follow to help us when we meet someone on the street and we can't remember the person's name.  If we haven't introduced the person within the first two minutes, the other will introduce themselves in an effort to find out their name:  

Me:  "I'm sorry, I don't think we've met.  I'm Aislinn."  

Them:  "Oh, nice to meet you, I'm Tom. Adam and I go way back."  

Adam:  "Oh, I'm so sorry, how rude of me, I forgot to introduce you two," with a wink to Aislinn.

The Scots have developed an ingenious society-wide solution for this very problem. When you meet someone on the street, instead of saying, "Hello so-and-so! How are you?"  You instead say, "Ay, it's you!"  It's as simple as that. With those three words, you avoid all the discomfort and embarrassment of forgetting someone's name.  Clearly you know who they are.  You just said so.  In fact, in Scotland by using this technique you may never need to know someone's name.  

We then wondered, how did this originate?  We suspect it could be the result of many generations of scotch drinkers suffering from hangovers and memory loss.  (Note:  Sorry to those who experience either the Adam and Aislinn technique, or the Scotland "Ay it's you!" technique, we're both really bad with names as are the Scots.)

Happy Holidays and New Years!

Happy Holidays from Jordan! 

This year, instead of sending holiday cards, we wanted to do something different. Given our nomadic lifestyle change, we decided to film ourselves while traveling so you could get a glimpse into our day-to-day happenings.  Below you will see a link showcasing our camel ride during our stay in a Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum, Jordan.  In case you're wondering, the sunset was stunning.

Camel Ride in Wadi Rum, Jordan

New Year's Resolutions:

It's December 25th, we've been traveling for just over 2 months and we've only posted a few entries.  When we first started traveling, we thought we would have tons of time for reading, writing, meditating, yoga, etc.  Think idyllic Eat, Pray, Love.  Turns out things are busier than we thought they were going to be. 

When you plan a 2-3 week vacation you book everything in advance through hours of research and planning.  This can't be done on a multi-month trip.  The research and planning happens as you go and you need to consider things like:  budget, cheapest flight routes, political stability or lack thereof, visas, transport, meeting two people's interests, timing (e.g. annual migration of animals on safari), scheduling, and safety.  On top of that you need to keep up with touring:  navigating, checking in and out, packing and unpacking bags, doing laundry, banking, groceries or restaurants, and downloading and backing up photos. 

Needless to say, the blog often took a backseat to sleeping.  This is not a complaint so much as an important life-lesson and perhaps a bit of an apology to friends and family for our lack of postings. 

What can we learn from this?  Take a page out of Simon and Garfunkel's The 59th Street Bridge Song:  Slow down you move to fast, you got to make the morning last.  Our resolution for the new year:  slow down the travel and you'll be able to enjoy the journey, not just the destination. 

That's our New Year's Resolution.  Of course, as typical Type A-ers, this will be extremely difficult, but we'll try. We might even post our blog entries a little more frequently to help with the adjustment. 

A Wee Bit of the Emerald Isle

How cool is this?  We are writing to you from The Elephant House in Edinburgh, the place where J.K. Rowling wrote the first two Harry Potter books.  (Editor’s Note – We were writing from there. Because Adam is slow, it’s now a month later.  We will try to be better in future.) 

By writing from a Scottish location about somewhere else entirely, we have placed ourselves in good company.  Consider J.K. Rowling.  Though she has never publicly acknowledged the fact, she wrote most of the first two Harry Potter books from this very cafe.  They keep a photo on the wall to prove it.  It improves business. 

The bathrooms are full of graffiti: letters addressed “Dear Ms. Rowling,” magical spells, fan mail to Harry, fan mail to Snape, and even a prayer in Spanish from a struggling author begging for that one big break.  Blasphemously but charmingly, the prayer is addressed to J.K. Rowling. 

Of course despite all the hype in Scotland about Harry’s Scottish origins, J.K. Rowling set the whole series in England.  Alas, poor Scotland!  Always a bridesmaid… 

Clearly however, we have digressed.  Harry Potter has nothing to do with Ireland.  He has very little even to do with Scotland.  He is, however, a great hook for gaining a reader’s attention. 

So, about Ireland:

What a green place!  The beautiful irony of travel is discovering how often stereotypes hold true.  For instance, Irish grass is green enough to be a bit unsettling.  Irish bushes and trees compete for a still more vivid shade of green.  Embarrassed at their lack of green-ness, even the gray stone walls blush green moss.  The green is so inescapable that one wonders if the Irish have a dozen words for it like the Inuit supposedly have for snow; or if they have none, like fish do for water. 

We tried asking the fish but all of them were too beer-battered and fried, not to mention delicious, to answer.  See above about how stereotypes are often true. 

Killarney Park Waterfall (note the greenery trying to overtake the waterfall)

Speaking of fish and chips, between the potatoes, beer, and deep-fried everything, burning calories in Ireland is a must.  Luckily, this was easy for us thanks to Irish roads’ incessant triggering of Aislinn’s fight-or-flight response, and Adam’s please-stop-gasping-already-it-makes-an-accident-way-more-likely-and-my-nerves-are-already-shot response. 

The pictures below should hopefully speak for themselves.  Needless to say the views were spectacular:  the Cliffs of Moher, better known as the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride, neolithic citadels, traffic jams composed entirely of sheep, and winding beaches bordered by grassy fields.  The routes we took in our rental car usually consisted of two lane highways narrower than most Toronto alleyways.  Every new sight was hidden behind the next hill, a hill that also obscured any oncoming traffic or indeed the fact that the road wasn’t about to end in a sudden cliff.  The practical upshot was just enough terror to make the whole experience really memorable.   

The Cliffs of Moher

 “Hey, this is really quaint.”

“Yeah, and that’s despite the fact that I currently fear for my life.  How long before we can pull over?”

“I don’t know.  I’m not even sure if this road has one or two lanes and there’s no end in sight.  You know what this is?”

“An opportunity to realise this was a bad idea?”

“No, it’s Squaint.  Scary but quaint.”

“Squaint!  We may both love a good portmanteau but this is no time for jokes.  Also, that is far too cute for what this is.  I’d go with Terrifeautiful instead.”

Irish Traffic Jam

Speaking of segues, Ireland’s history may be less beautiful than its roadways but it compensates by being more terrifying.  Arriving in Dublin on the first day of our round-the-world trip, bleary-eyed after an overnight flight, we decided a walking tour would be a great way to keep ourselves awake.  As an added bonus, the tour was free. 

Our guide looked like an Irish Seth Rogen.  He called himself “Fluffy.”  On a free tour, you get your money’s worth.  

First impressions aside, having to live entirely on tips meant that “Fluffy” was a consummate professional, capable of compacting one thousand years of Irish history into a three hour tour.  Compacting it still further into one protracted sentence, the narrative is heartbreaking: centuries of oppression, then famine caused by oppression, military uprisings, massacres, terrorist uprisings, and finally a civil war between those who were willing to accept an oath to the English monarch as a condition of otherwise near-total independence and those who simply couldn’t stomach any hint of England on Irish soil no matter what the cost.  This was followed at long last by independence.

This all assumes that you ignore Northern Ireland entirely.  If you don’t, things get really complicated – as Adam discovered four hours into his battle to conquer Wikipedia’s articles on the subject.  There are more factions, historical minutiae, and plot twists to absorb than an Umberto Eco novel.  To simplify matters, people today refer to anything involving Northern Ireland after the partition as “The Troubles.” This conveys the basic premise that Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants were not fond of each other and expressed this sentiment through sporadic explosions and gunfire.  It’s euphemistic, sounds smart, and saves tourists like us the bother of understanding.

Or, as Aislinn pointed out at 2am as Adam was conceding defeat, “Turn off the light and stop already!  Haven’t you learned anything from your brother Dave?  You don’t need to read things when there’s already a movie!”  Adam still has no idea if she meant Michael Collins, In the Name of the Father, or something else entirely, but he has since admitted she was probably right.     

In addition to Irish history, Fluffy made some excellent recommendations on local pubs.  In a nutshell, these are the two great themes of Irish tourism: an endless stream of sights relating to tragedies and deaths, and an endless stream of pubs in which to drink because of them. 

See again the comment about stereotypes above. 

The modern Irish state was born from the Easter Uprising of 1916.  The Irish lost.  There was tragedy.   There were deaths.  There may also have been much drinking in pubs afterwards.  The latter isn’t well-documented.  What is well-documented is the timing and manner in which most of the leaders of the uprising were incarcerated and executed over the next several days in Dublin’s Kilmainham Gaol (Jail), sparking public sympathy and a huge surge in popular support for Irish independence, also a string of movies three quarters of a century later.  Both Michael Collins and In the Name of the Father were filmed there. 

To pay tribute to these two great themes in Irish tourism, we ended a visit to the Kilmainham Gaol with a trip to the Guinness Brewery.  Halfway there, Adam realised his wallet was missing.  He ran back to the jail to ask if they’d found it.  Aislinn scoured the streets.  It remained stubbornly lost.  Great luck!  We now had a reason to drink. 

The tour was phenomenal.  The pint of Guinness included with the tour was perfectly poured, exact in temperature, and delightful in flavour.  Adam left unsatisfied, neither because of the tour nor the recent loss of his wallet.  He had forgotten to ask a question that would trouble him afterwards. 

Aislinn and Adam Enjoying a Pint at the Guinness Tour

The tour featured Arthur Guinness’ original lease for the land on which the brewery stands.  It provides for a 9000 year term at 45 pounds per year.  This begs the question: Who still collects that 45 pounds each year? Does the family still collect it?  Do they use it to buy a few rounds at the local pub?  Or do they curse their ancestors’ poor financial sense, awaiting a distant day in which their descendants can finally reclaim the land and get some real cash for it?  There must be a good idea for a novel in this somewhere. 

We may not have mentioned the bit about the Irish and literature, but see the part above about stereotypes.  For those who are really interested, consider reading some Jonathan Swift, or George Bernard Shaw.  Don’t bother with Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot is the literary equivalent of a Woody Allen movie, tons of anticipation and never quite satisfying.  (Editor’s Note – Sorry to the Woody Allen fans out there.)

So, after drinking away our sorrows, we reported the lost wallet to the police.  We then had another pint, this time at The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin.  No drunk has incinerated this one in nearly 1000 years.  Just think, in only 8000 years more, the original owner’s descendants might even be able to re-negotiate the lease. 

They had Wi-Fi – being old doesn’t always mean you’re technologically out of touch.  Net result: Adam checked his e-mail, learning not only that he’d passed his Emergency Medicine exam in Toronto but also that they’d found his lost wallet at the Kilmainham Gaol after all.  Adam bought two more rounds.  It seemed appropriate.  Pardon the redundancy, but see the part about stereotypes above.