Driving out to the Indus West Side hospital took quite some time, working our way from the center to the outskirts on Bangalore’s smokey and crowded streets. At we drove, we noticed a roadside stand advertising a big red cross, and a hand-painted image of a fellow wearing an exaggerated frown, arm in a sling. “What’s that?” I asked our India Bureau Chief, Nikhil. “That’s a bone setter,” he explained, “many people in India do not have the money to pay or the time to wait for a doctor to set their bones, so they might visit a non-licensed bone setter who will set the bone and splint it for about a dollar.”

Amazing, I thought to myself. Once again we find in India emergent solutions to problems traditionally tackled by the government. To be sure, Bangalore bears many examples of the extremes of experience, and as I pondered this, we pulled up to a gleaming brand new glass and metal structure on the outskirts of town. This was the Indus Westside Hospital, a new operation, established with the goal of bringing western medicine at a price that could be affordable to more than just the rich. We made our way inside to where we were welcomed into the office of Dr. Shankar Bijapur, who was more than kind to us, offering us tea and biscuits, and sharing with us the story of this hospital.

He began by outlining for us the basic design of the Indian state-run hospital system. Depending on the size of one’s city, the hospital will have a certain level of equipment and expertise. Because of this, many people are forced to settle for medical care from under-trained or under-equipped providers. But things are changing. Now India sports a number of world class medical institutes. However, these are, for the most part, used only by the rich because of price tags that are orders of magnitude greater than at an Indian government-run facilities. Dr. Shankar Bijapur has some ideas about how to fill the gap between Indian state-run practices, and those for only the hyper rich, providing international standards of medicine, with a significantly diminished price tag. But how? The short answer is by clever capitalization on the mission of the hospital.

Circular, I know… so let me explain: The first part of the answer is funding.

The Indus Westside is funded in part by an international team of doctors, roughly three quarters of whom have also pledged to add their professional expertise into the project at a future time. Funding also comes from philanthropists who have adopted some interesting conditions. For instance some donors have agreed to pay for operations for the poor and needy, allowing the hospital to count on revenue even when the customer is of dubious financial means. The project takes on no debt from banks or private equity, leaving it more freedom to run the project on its own schedule, as it pleases. As the organization gets off the ground, the managers will also take a heavy cut in pay. The other part is in the facility: The land on which the hospital was built was also negotiated at a very cheap rate. The city of Bangalore wants a hospital of this caliber to be built, and Dr. Bijapur was able to use that fact to negotiate unheard of rates on his 100-year lease.

The equipment in the hospital is of the best quality, but purchased at a cut rate due to the humanitarian mission of the organization. Also, building materials and labor in India are very inexpensive. At this point in the interview, we paused to let another doctor enter the office. He was a foreigner, and working on a premature birth. “We need to wait for a decrease in pressure before de-intubation.” “Understood. But how is the family?” Dr. Bijapur later explained to us that the family, having worked with Dr. Bijapur before, had come from across India and at great expense to receive treatment at this brand new hospital. We continued the interview as he took us for a tour of the facilities.

One focus of the hospital is the care of mother and child, but it is also geared toward treating the many victims of traffic accidents that are expected to visit from the nearby highway. Consequently, it features a state-of-the-art burn unit, and is equipped to treat with trauma victims and provide emergency surgery. The hospital has 200 standard beds plus 50 intensive care beds. A normal room has three beds, with one dedicated nurse. Intensive care rooms contain more equipment per bed, and are more heavily staffed.

Patients at the Indus Westside are also treated to a more holistic approach to healing, with in-house massage, steam baths, and use of traditional remedies in congress with western allopathic approaches to healing.

Climbing back into our taxi cab, I found myself thinking about our own medical system in America. Any way you look at it, health care is going to be expensive, and the approach being taken by the Indus Westside gave me some hope that we just might be able to keep ourselves healthy without having to part with an arm and a leg.

In Bangalore we were to spend the next two days meeting with individuals and institutions that embodied innovation and entrepreneurship.  The meetings began in the garden patio of the Bangalore Leela Palace, where we wagered the coffee would be strong.  Nikhil, our India Bureau Chief, had arranged for us to sit down with Indus Khaitan and discuss how technology is engendering change in communication, information access, banking, and education in India.

Indus has made a life for himself as a serial entrepreneur and early-stage investor.  In May 2009, Indus joined The Morpheus as a partner.  The Morpheus is an early stage investment firm that works with startups in the first 12 to 18 months of business, a period known as the “valley of death.“  As a firm, they act as a “limited-cofounder,” in a hands-on capacity to assist founders by offering their wide breadth of experience, making critical introductions, and providing a nominal amount of capital.  The firm refers to this combination of support as its “Business Acceleration Program.”

The comparison that most people make with a project like Indus’ is Y-combinator, an early stage startup incubator created by Paul Graham, active in Silicon Valley and Cambridge, Massachusetts.  However, Indus is quick to point out that one can’t so quickly draw direct parallels between the Silicon Valley startup world and that of Bangalore.  This rings true both in the business models of the startups themselves, as well as the role institutional investors play in startup growth.  The Morpheus’ portfolio companies not only include web startups, but also real estate firms, retail businesses, and professional service providers.  The Indian markets pose challenges for startups in all sectors, and The Morpheus is able to provide support across many industries.   As Indus says, “India has a lot of unsolved problems.”  This allows The Morpheus to branch out from the traditional technology-focused institutional angel investment model, while retaining the possibility for exponential growth across a broad base of portfolio companies.

Indus introduced himself in a reserved, yet youthful manner.  After dispensing with the small talk about his time in Northern California, as well as the experiment of AsiaWheeling, we began discussing the sea change occurring in the Indian consumer market.

Negative Interest Rates?

We began the conversation with an uncommon financial phenomenon seen rarely outside the dark offices of Swiss Banks: negative interest.  The story began with a team of Indian railway laborers maintaining track in the country’s north, and earning heightened wages as a result of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, legislated in 2005.  Not accustomed to earning such wages, and because of the cost and difficulty of remitting it to the village in which their families  resided, the laborers would squander the cash on vices.  Beginning to regret the errors of their ways, the workers began requesting their supervisor to physically retain their wages in the worker’s custody.  For this custody, the supervisor charged a fee, essentially creating a deposit account for the workers with negative interest.

Why didn’t the workers simply open a real bank account?  The fact Indus shared, is that 81% of India is unbanked.  Because of the personal identification required, poor rural branch proximity, illiteracy, and a host of other issues ranging from trust to regulation, most Indians do not have bank accounts.  This opportunity, in particular, is one that has been rediscovered by technology firms.  With the emergent developments such as sente and airtime banking in Africa, the players positioned most obviously are the mobile phone providers.  With excellent rural penetration and customer trust, these mobile providers could potentially turn every basic phone into a device for sending, receiving, and depositing cash.

However, Indus explains, the mobile providers like Airtel and Vodafone aren’t licensed to engage in such activities;  regulation prevents it.  In their place comes a recently formed consortium of firms: Nokia, Obopay, and Yes Bank.  Nokia, the hardware firm that dominates the handset market in India invested $70M in Obopay, the mobile software startup. Together, they have partnered India’s Yes Bank to capitalize on this opportunity, which represents the first step to providing scalable options for the now unbanked.  Game on.

Learning from the Liquor Business

Conversing about this opportunity allowed us to analyze one of the truly massive oligopolies of India: the mobile phone market.  India has over 700 million mobile phone subscribers, with anywhere from 400M to 500M active at any given time.  Indus specifies that 95% of the connections are prepaid, offering ease to the consumer in budgeting and activation, as well as ease to the provider in reducing credit risk.

Moreover, Indus mentioned that many of the lowest-income users of these phones do not know how to save or recall a number in the phone book, using the phone purely to receive calls (which is free), or simply call the last number dialed in the phone.  AsiaWheeling and Indus brainstormed for a while on how one might design a phone to suggest common numbers for saving, which could be driven by an interactive voice interface.  While such innovations would increase the cost of each phone in both hardware and an initial phase of software development, the decreasing cost of manufacturing and huge scale of the consumer base may soon warrant a similar technology. No doubt, firms like Nokia are undertaking such research across the global south.

While India looks strikingly modernized sitting in the garden patio of the Leela Palace, the reality is that 70% of Indians reside in rural areas, subsisting on farming and fishing.  One of the major challenges faced by both Indus’ portfolio companies as well as giants like Airtel is reaching this vast, disparate, and relatively unconnected population.  In fact, Indus exclaims, these rural areas command 60% of the marketing budget for such larger firms.

How does one market in a village?  Many of the villages these companies seek to market to are not even on the books of the local government, and require a re-discovery by the private sector, a theme we saw repeatedly in India.  Almost quaintly, firms like Airtel will send mascots dressed as mobile phones to villages to strut around as loudspeakers play music and corporate slogans.  Radio, one of the most pervasive and low-cost mediums of mass communication, is used in conjunction with such physical appearances, alerting the populous of an event or giveaway in the village.

Outdoor marketing is commonly strategically placed on temples and shrines, which welcome the income and serve as a fantastic replacement to the billboards that are non-existent in the vast majority of villages.  Where did they learn these marketing techniques for the fragmented rural market?  Who taught companies like Airtel how to sell to the common man?  Indus elucidates for us in a hushed tone: they learned from liquor companies.  While we were initially surprised, it became clear that the liquor industry’s marketing has been some of the most original and effective. As AsiaWheeling was told in later interactions, the liquor store is the easiest shop to find in India, as it’s the only business with a queue.

Extremely Lucrative Schools

Ask Indus what he’s looking for in terms of talent to staff the startups in his portfolio, and he’ll tell you that specialists are the most desirable.  Whether it’s in marketing, software architecture, or engineering, a specialist proves a critical asset to the firm.  This comes as no surprise, given the value of experience in any labor market. Particularly, Indus looks for those who have a proven knack for marketing, which, he quips, is so sorely lacking in many Indian firms.

This brought us to learning about the phenomenon of for-profit educational institutions that have been on the rise to cater to the many new entrants to the “knowledge labor” pool looking to ingratiate themselves to potential employers.  Many of these schools are tiny, ad-hoc institutions using space in an office building, peddling meaningless degrees.  However,  operating such an institution proves to be “extremely lucrative.”  Because of regulatory and bureaucratic obstacles which would otherwise let new entrants in easily and drive down profitability, 90% of such schools are started by former politicians.

Interestingly, he notes that in funding and hiring new grads he puts no stigma on not having graduated from an IIT or IIM, which are the de facto top schools in India for engineering and management, respectively.  Indus claims that the drive of those graduating from second-tier schools is often heightened because they have more to prove, and their level of intelligence and training proxies that of a tier-one grad.  However at any level, he reiterates, the soft skills of persuasive communication, interpersonal coordination, and branding are in demand.

Exacting in conversation, with a swift recollection of figures and percentages, Indus proved to be a fantastic introduction to AsiaWheeling’s time in Bangalore.  The broad, yet interconnected nature of India’s evolving consumer-facing industries provided a firm foundation for the remainder of our investigation of innovation in India through the lens of this city.

Our overnight train to Bangalore appeared to be late by two hours. So we threw down our packs on the filthy concrete platform, and began to give our backs, sopping wet from wheeling from Cochin to the Ernakulam train station, a fighting chance at drying.  A crowd soon formed around us, interested in learning more about the Speed TRs.  We were happily chatting about AsiaWheeling with everyone from one-eyed Indian Railway employees to students commuting from Ernakulam to Bangalore, when the train quite unexpectedly arrived very nearly on its original schedule. So we packed up our belongings, bidding fond goodbyes to our new friends, one of whom insisted on sprinting to the other end of the platform to confirm our bogie (the Indian term for train car), as we chased behind him on our cycles, fully loaded, and ringing our bells to part the massive, hurrying crowds.  Once again profusely dripping with sweat, we hustled into the 2nd Class A/C car. It was much like our previous (3rd Class A/C) car, with the welcome addition of curtains, allowing one to seclude one’s self, more or less, in his or her bunk. One marked difference here, however, was that it appeared I did not have a seat. Scott’s name showed quite clearly on the grubby, dot matrix printed roster that  had been scotch taped to the side of the train, but mine was nowhere to be seen.

To give a little background on the situation, the Indian railways are tragically over utilized (or the rail ticket market undeserved, depending on whom you ask). Booking tickets and gaining a spot in a preferred compartment require booking to be made not just a few days, but a few weeks, or in some cases a few months, in advance. And unfortunately, our dearest comrades at the India Bureau had swung into action too late in the game, which meant that for the rest of our time in India, the lead-up to each train ride would be a bit of a nail-biter, as we monitored our spots on the wait list, and began to lay the preliminary contingency plans.  Our confirmation on this train, for instance, had only come through that day. And had we not gotten word of it, we would have been scrambling to find a bus or shelling out serious cash for a chartered cab.

But confirmation had come, and we were accordingly somewhat puzzled at the absence of my name on the roster. We piled the cycles in one of the cramped spaces in between cars, and I waited while Scott went in search of the ticketeer, hoping that upon consulting the bloke, we would find that I did indeed have a seat. In the meantime, as the train left the station, I tried to steady the Speed TRs whilst defending against the heavy metal doors of the train, which swung open and slammed shut with the rhythm of the rails. Our fellow passengers struggled to file by me as I made sheepish apologies. Countless food and beverage sales people gave me their very best pitch as to why, with my pack still on, one hand on the cycles and another struggling to catch the giant swinging steel door which threatened to bash into the cycles and at times my person, I might also be interested in buying a few Cokes and a veg biryani.

Finally Scott emerged, happy to report that I did indeed have a seat. We even managed to stow the cycles reasonably elegantly in the under-the-seat storage zone. In fact, the ticketeer had signed off on the storage spot until the mechanic, smelling a fat tip, came out to sternly instruct us that we must store the cycles with him in the same way we had on the train to Cochin. We happily indulged him, since the fat tip he was looking for was really something more like 75 cents, and settled into the ride. Glad to be free of our baggage, we ordered the aforementioned veg biryani, which turned out to be quite tasty albeit somewhat polluted with sand. And when a family full of screaming children moved right next to my bunk, Scott and I decided it was time to insert some earplugs and call it a night.

We awoke the next morning, as bright yellow sunlight streamed into our train car and cool, dry air blew in through the open doors. Bangalore was refreshing, with a climate many compare to that of northern California.

I brushed my teeth in the train sink, and spent the rest of the ride into Bangalore, hanging out the train door, watching the scenery go by, growing steadily more and more urban, until we were pulling into the Bangalore central station.

At the station, we quickly bypassed the crowds of touts offering us cab rides into town, and located the man Nikhil had sent for us. The car was quite nice, and with some maneuvering, easily fit both cycles and all our stuff. We were also quite prepared to forgive the fact that it was significantly more expensive than the asking price of the touts. We made initial radio contact with Nikhil who assured us that breakfast was being prepared for us at the Diamond District serviced apartments, the accommodation that he had arranged for us. When we arrived, we unloaded our belongings, paid the driver, and were introduced to what would turn out to be one of some 10 different people who proclaimed to be our main point of contact at that strange hotel.

Perhaps to call it a hotel is misleading. The Diamond District Serviced Apartments is one of the most popular and posh housing developments in Bangalore. Once a failed project, dubiously financed, it was sold off at fire-sale prices and redone to be the newest, most elegant and urbane compound in the metropolis.

We had given the India Bureau only one directive regarding our Bangalore accommodation: we would like wireless Internet in the rooms. So it seemed, as we learned more about this place, that we would be treated to a little more luxury than we had asked for. Fine by us. Scott and I were ready to blow the budget a little on some Indian TLC, so we followed the two men who had been dispatched to lead us up to our room.

“Is this okay?” they asked. Our room was quite clean, much more like a sprawling flat, with a living room and a kitchen, a balcony with a washing machine, two bathrooms, and, for what might be the only time on the entire trip, separate bedrooms for Scott and me. “This is more than okay,” we replied.

We were quite unaccustomed to such luxury, and had only begun to explore the space, and search among what seemed like thousands of ambient wireless networks for the correct one, when a team of three men knocked on our door. Two of them went immediately to work in the kitchen, whipping up a dozen pieces of toast, two very spicy pepper omelets, two thimble-sized cups of coffee.

In the meantime, the third man produced a credit card terminal from his voluminous blue pants and began to demand a truly alarming amount of money from us. When we dug more deeply into the nature of the bill, we found a bizarre system of charges had been tacked on since we were leaving in the evening of the next day and presumed therefore to be pro-actively in violation of checkout policy. We proceeded to address this, but the bill negotiation proved unsettlingly similar to pulling teeth, not because the fellow spoke only a few words of English (AsiaWheeling deals with this predicament all the time), but because the man was completely unwilling to listen to anything other than verbal communication. By the time we had struggled our way through the bill and reduced the price to a merely budget-busting and no longer nausea-inducing amount, we were quite exhausted. I laid in with the credit card, a hitherto underutilized part of the AsiaWheeling toolkit, and Scott laid in with valiant attempts to communicate our interest in access to wireless Internet. Meanwhile the fellows in the kitchen had finished cooking and come into the living room to loom uncomfortably, averting eye contact and grinning sheepishly, giggling from time to time at our vast expenditures and struggles to communicate.

After a truly taxing battle for communication, we finally ascertained that there was no wireless in this room, and that  for the time being, we would need to either buddy breathe from an Ethernet cable or pay another few thousand rupees to AirTel, the local giant wireless company for we’ll never be sure quite what. Fair enough. Buddy breathing it is. With that done, we quite exasperatedly shook hands with the credit-card-reader-wielding chap, and turned to the other two, who proved to be even more unwilling to invest in communicating with us. Thankfully, the main pieces of communication were simply “yes please” and “let’s eat.” Our attempt at “May we please have another two cups of coffee,” however, was quite difficult, but finally a message of one kind or another seemed to go through, because both chaps promptly started looking really nervous, glancing all around the room avoiding eye contact, then shuffling apologetically away.

What was it? Was there some vast cultural divide here in Bangalore? We had hitherto experienced absolutely no problem communicating with our hotels in India, and in general, the amount of effort seemed to vary inversely with the nightly rate, with the experience usually landing on the scale ranging from “exciting challenge” to “piece of cake.” Here we were well within the realm of “debilitating struggle.” Were the staff all kept sedated with some sort of strange gas? Were they all lotus eaters? Or was it Scott and I? We had no idea.

Our first waypoint for that day was to be a meeting with a local angel investor and serial entrepreneur. Thank goodness Nikhil was an hour late in meeting us, because we were just getting ready to head straight to the meeting spot, when our two coffees arrived.

In was a bright sunny morning in the city of Cochin and we had been summoned downstairs by the owner of Vasco Homestay, Santosh himself, asking that we kindly pay our bill. However, once we were in his office, the true purpose of the meeting made itself apparent: the man had read some of our correspondence online and was interested in learning more about AsiaWheeling, a request that we happily indulged. Furthermore, it seems he had a recommendation for the day’s wheel. Oh, and one last thing, we had to change our room over to the only other room at the Homestay.

This one proved equally sprawling with two giant living-room-sized chambers. One you might call a bedchamber, and the other an antechamber, which sported a gigantic six-foot by six-foot wooden door with a number of giant brass locks (only made slightly less impressive by the presence of a secondary entrance by which we could share our water sources with the maid), a makeshift (but quite comfortable) cubicle-bathroom erected from some seven-foot high pieces of faux wood plastic sheeting. At the end of this great endeavor, the bill still remained unpaid, but our relationship with Santhosh was solid. So we left his office thrilled at our good fortune, and itching for another visit to the spectacular dosa joint we had enjoyed the morning before.

This we did, and following Santhosh’s instructions, we dutifully wheeled to a new ferry terminal where we purchased tickets for about 20 cents each toward the northern island of Vypin.

We took our place among the other vehicles which were lining up and spilling out into the busy street prepared to board the boat.  When it arrived, we did our best to stake a place for ourselves in the mad dash that followed. Successful in that endeavor, we waited in choking anticipation for the vehicles around us to deactivate their engines, and then for the blue smoke to clear. Once the ferry was underway, it was quite enjoyable, and proved a very short ride. Aboard we ran into a fellow by the name of Sam, a Canadian who was on a vast journey of his own. We bid him farewell at the arrival terminal (really just a bit of concrete, a ticket taker, and a pile of garbage), and wheeled out onto the island. This place certainly had a different feel to it, compared with Ernakulam and Cochin. All the buildings were one story, and most of the shops and businesses seemed to be in constant battle with thick jungle foliage that struggled for supremacy. Perhaps not so strange in a community that, no doubt, relied on fishing for the majority of it’ earnings, half the businesses seemed to be ice factories, cranking out large chunks of the stuff to be used in the preservation of fish.

The roads were also very tough to ride on. The Speed TR is a trooper, but it has no shock absorbers, and we were getting incessantly rattled around by the pockmarked roadway. About half way across the island, we pulled a licht into an even more rural road, which as it turned out was actually less bumpy due to a large amount of sand, dirt, and rubbish that had blown in to fill the potholes. On this new road we made our way north until we finally came to our first waypoint. It was a giant container and tanker dock, still partially under construction and aimed at providing crude oil unloading and storage for the port of Cochin.

There was a large newly paved road that ran the length of the project, and we road it first one way until it petered out into construction, and then the other, all the while gawking at the pure immensity of what we were beholding. There we signs alerting us to strict rules against photography in the area, so any photos that you may see may be considered “found,” author-less photography.

At one point a fellow approached me on a cycle of his own. I can only assume he was one of the thousands of workers required for a project of this scale.  He challenged me to a race.  As Scott would be the first to point out, accepting challenges to race on AsiaWheeling is generally poor form, inviting dangerous competitive behavior. However, I figured the empty and brand new blacktop invited a little action, so off we went.

Cycling onward, we meandered into a Catholic church, observing what seemed to be one of the day’s many incredible sights. After thoroughly exploring Vypin island, we made our way across the bridge to yet another island with yet another, even more giant port construction project underway.

As Santosh had explained, it was a joint venture between the Indian government and Dubai Ports World, and it was not surprising that security was much higher. We stopped to get a look at it, and were shortly thereafter accosted by armed guards suggesting that we get on our way. Santosh had explained to us that this project would require a significant dredging of the surrounding bay that would, of course, cause untold levels of devastation to the aquatic ecosystem and those that relied on it.

The level of security at the site suggested that the builders also understood that what they were doing was controversial and would prefer not to have Adventure Capitalists and ReExplorers nosing around. Well, here at AsiaWheeling, the last thing we want to do is to stir up muck. So off we went.

Before we left that island, we made our way first north then south exploring the local neighborhoods, stopping to check out the smaller ferry terminals. It seems there are quite a few ferries in the greater Cochin area, many of them little more than over-sized rowboats with an outboard motor. At one point we found ourselves in need of another cup of coffee, and as though answering our prayers, a strange kind of golf club appeared on the horizon.

We made our way inside and drank two very sweet coffees at a rather post apocalyptic crumbling snack stand that obviously once served many foods, but had slowly declined to offering just coffee and some kind of microwaved shape which seemed very popular among the surprising number of people that had gathered to not golf in the surrounding area.

Refreshed and reinvigorated, we hit the road once more, bouncing and rattling our way over the cracked pavement onto yet another bridge bringing us back onto the mainland and into the city of Ernakulam.

We struck out into a new and even more boiling crowded part of the city. This one was filled with hyper-specialized shops focusing on everything from pipe fittings, to hydraulic fluids. We were forced to spend significantly more time waiting behind long lines of traffic. So densely packed was the traffic that even a cycle could not fit in between. But soon enough we had made it back onto manageable roads and were wheeling again down a new street when the allure of a place simply marked “coffee shop” drew us in.

Now, dear reader, AsiaWheeling considers itself a connoisseur of the Indian Thali, having had plenty of them, all over this fine country and even quite a few in the U.S., but let me tell you, this was the finest, most succulent thali in the entire history of AsiaWheeling.

The rice was a strange and wondrous new variety, with giant grains and some bits of the brown exterior still clinging to each morsel; the poppadoms were crispy, salty and warm to the touch; and each of the many little cups promised new and untold depths of flavor.

We were truly knocked off our feet. Reader, if you are ever in Ernakulam, please, please, get in touch with us and take the time to eat lunch at this place. You will most certainly not be disappointed.

Then we were back on the cycles, once again unable to stop singing “She’s a lady…” at the top of our lungs and wheeling through the stop and go, impossibly dense Ernakulam traffic. There was room enough that we could mostly noodle our way around the cars and auto rickshaws that were stuck idling in the heat, and the fact that we were a couple of crazy foreigners in Panama hats, singing Tom Jones tunes at the top of our lungs and ringing our bells in time had a kind of parting of the red seas effect. Before we knew it, we were wheeling back by the giant uncut lumber yard that we had seen the previous day, indicating that Cochin and our dear Vasco Homestay was near.

It was a quick ride across the bridge, and then we were back in the city of Cochin. Out last waypoint took us by the local fisher-people’s operations, where we found them using a hitherto unheard of system of giant cantilevered nets.

Perhaps I had better let the images speak for themselves on this one. Tired and in great spirits, we wheeled back to relax in the sprawling cheeky luxury of our room at the Vasco Homestay.

Our train to Cochin had been scheduled to arrive at 7:30 am. But in what seemed to us a completely uncharacteristic maneuver for the Indian Railway, it arrived nearly 45 minutes ahead of time, meaning that we were quietly snoozing in our bunks when the rest of the passengers detrained and wandered into the misty morning. It was the mechanic who finally came to wake us up, no doubt curious what had become of us (and his tip), what with the train completely empty and the bikes still locked near the rear lavatories.

We did our best to rouse ourselves and unload our luggage with all haste. I tipped the mechanic, and with all our worldly possessions thrown in one great pile on paan, spotted the hissing railway platform at Ernakulam, We began to take stock and form our strategy. It was just before sunrise, and the train station was a ghost town. As you no doubt already know, dear reader, Cochin is an island-like peninsula, whose sister city, Ernakulam, is separated from Cochin by a thin body of water, which we needed to traverse in order to arrive at our hotel.

The hotel, was a place by the name of Vasco Homestay, which Scott had booked last night on the train, named thus for the principle reason that it happens to cohabit the house in which the famous barbarian and Portuguese colonial explorer, Vasco de Gama, died.

It was for this very reason that we were attracted to the place, and, if you might indulge me dear reader, I would like to briefly diverge to the story of Vasco da Gama and how he came to die in Cochin.

Vasco was originally the son of a knight and governor back in Portugal and as such was trained to be a mariner. This was during a time of much speculation as to the existence of a oceanic trade routes around the tip of Africa and over to the Indian ocean. Vasco proved himself to be a ruthlessly effective commander, fighting with French privateers off the African gold coast, and when his father was given the task of proving or disproving the rumored trade route, Vasco lobbied for the job.

As luck would have it, he got it, and set off in 1497 with four ships and 170 men. They set forth working their way down the coast of Africa, seeking a wind pattern known as the South African westerlies, and when he finally caught them he was able to make his way around the southern Horn of Africa into waters which had hitherto been unexplored by Europeans. On his way through, since it was around Christmas, he named the coast of south Africa “Natal” which means Nativity. The name stuck, more or less, as that part of south Africa is currently called KwaZulu-Natal. Nice one Vasco.

In hopes of building good favor among the people of the Arab-controlled east coast of Africa, Vasco assembled a party of men, put them in costume, and face paint designed to impersonate that of Muslim traders, and in this getup, managed to book an audience with the Sultan of Mozambique. Unfortunately, the Sultan was unimpressed with Vasco’s unglamorous gifts, and the locals proved none too fond of black-face, eventually sending Vasco and his men running for their ship, pursued by a hostile mob. Vasco fled the port, firing his cannons into the city in frustration.

With the failure in Mozambique, poor morale began to reign on board. Vasco addressed this by beginning a policy of attacking and looting unarmed Arab trading ships. This improved morale significantly, while continuing to erode his reputation with the Arab traders, who denied him entry to the port of Mombasa. This proved to his advantage, however, when he arrived a little later at a port called Malindi, in modern day Kenya, a city that was in conflict with traders from Mombosa. The fellows in Malindi provided Vasco an expert pilot, whose knowledge of sailing in monsoon winds allowed him to cross the rest of the way to India in only 28 days.

Vasco landed first in a largish city called Calicut, Kerela, where things refused to go his way. The local authorities had close ties with Arab traders, who in turn were not fans of Mr. da Gama. Likely through a combination of assault and battery, Vasco was able to get an ambiguous letter referring to reservation of trading rights, but when the locals requested that he leave some goods behind as collateral, he became frustrated and left without any goodbyes, leaving a detachment of men behind, but taking all his trade goods with him. The men were told to build a trading post. Tough assignment.

Vasco set sail back to Portugal in August 1498, this time sailing against the monsoon winds. Consequently, the journey back across the Indian Ocean took about five times longer than first trip. So long, in fact, that half the crew died on this leg, and the rest were extra-scurvy by the time they reached Malindi. All in all, only one of the four ships and less than a third of the men made it back to Portugal. Vasco also brought no trade goods back with him. Sounds like a total failure, right?

Wrong.  Vasco was met back in Portugal with a hero’s welcome, and showered with riches. He was given the title, “Admiral of the Indian Seas,” and awarded a lordship, giving noble status to him and all his offspring forever more. So at the beginning of 1502, Vasco came to the royal family in Portugal to pitch a return mission, this time with a request for 20 warships, and all the fiery rhetoric of a good revenge flick. The king gave the mission his blessing, and Vasco was off. With all that fire-power, the urge to pillage and privateer was too great, and plenty occurred along the way. When he finally reached India, Vasco found that the detachment of men he had tasked with establishing a trading post in Calicut had been put to death shortly after his departure. Ouch. So he bombarded Calicut quite savagely, leveling much of the city, and split for the more southerly city of Cochin, a smaller place, more of a fishing village really, where word had spread of his destruction of Calicut, ensuring that he receive a warm welcome.

He traded a mixture of European goods (assault and battery) for some gold, spices and silk, and headed back to Portugal, leaving more men to begin to build a more intense Portuguese settlement in Cochin. On the way back he took a detour to hunt ships traveling to and from Mecca, laden with goods, and a fair number of famous and well-to-do Arab merchants. He would capture these ships, steal all they had, then lock all aboard below decks and order the ship burned. This kind of behavior proved quite effective in lubricating a treaty with the greater government of Kerala, ensuring the success of his trading colony.

As he sailed back, he engaged in plenty and even more heinous profiteering against Arab trading ships and demanding tribute from cities along the way, demanding signed letters from local leaders, agreeing to favorable trading relationships with cities along the coast of Africa. It is no surprise that he returned home to an even more intense hero’s welcome. He was showered with more riches, made an earl, and carried with him now a quite fearsome and Mr. Wolf-esque reputation as a “fixer.”

He returned back to India once and for all to take up his position as Viceroy over all local Portuguese possessions in the region. When he arrived he promptly died of malaria in his house in Cochin. And we had every intention of arriving at that very same place.

Meanwhile, in 2010, Scott and I were pedaling the Speed TRs, fully loaded down with baggage through the gray and still sleeping streets of Ernakulam, toward the ferry terminal. We found our way there quite easily, and finding that the tickets were approximately four cents per person, plus another two cents per cycle, decided to board the rickety craft. We were, by this point, profusely sweating, badly in need of coffee, and nearing the edge of madness.  Luckily, scurvy had not yet set in.

Once we had unloaded our bikes from the boat, we were able to seek counsel  from some local fishermen, who were erecting their stalls in the local market place, as to the location of the Vasco Homestay.

And, thanks be to God, we soon we found ourselves wheeling up to the now quite humble and charmingly crumbling ex-residence of Mr. da Gama himself.

The owner, a charming and quite helpful fellow by the name of Santosh, showed us to our chambers. They were gigantic, and packed to the gills with curios and old furniture. We could just imagine the savage barbarian himself, stupendously fat, covered in a cold sweat and very near death, propped up with pillows in one of these very beds, in the act of dictating his final wishes, the joints of his hands cracking too painfully with gout to write himself, pausing for some time between each word, calling out weakly for water, and forcing himself out of the swimming delirium of fever to do this one last task. The extremes of experience indeed.

We threw down our baggage and attempted to breakfast at the restaurant connected with the Vasco Homestay, but found that the richness of the place seemingly ended before the coffee pot, so we unfolded the speed TRs and headed out into the city. We were stopped shortly into the ride by a fisherman who explained to us that he had a terrible disease,  the only cure for which was a ride, just a short one, around the square on the Speed TR. We indulged him, and he thanked us with the recommendation of good breakfast place.

The place proved so delicious that we would end up eating there for the majority of our remaining 12 meals in Cochin. It was a very unassuming South Indian coffee shop, run by a tall smiling man in a lungi with the voice of James Earl Jones, and a way with dosas, vadas, and coconut chutney that would make a grown man weep. He also expertly whipped up South Indian coffee served in the traditional two containers, one tall and thin and one short and fat. The coffee could them be poured between the two to attain the desired temperature and surface area to volume ratio. Brilliant.

Much refreshed, we climbed back on the cycles and wheeled into what they call Jew Town. A Jewish part of the city, one of the very few places in India where you might see Hebrew, directed at other than Israeli tourists. To be frank, the presence of a Jewish community at all was quite odd for India.

Christianity, though still a minority, has quite a presence in Cochin due to  the Portuguese influence. Cochin was certainly the most Christian town we had visited since we left the American Southwest.  In fact, we saw quite a few people sporting a cross on their heads, drawn between the eyes with bright colored powder, in much the same way we have seen Hindu Indians wearing a colored dot between the eyes. A fascinated meld of religious practices.

We then wheeled south and found ourselves on the busy main road, which took us across a bridge and into Ernakulam. At the entrance to Ernakulam we found a giant repository of cut wood, each piece bearing unique markings.

Any speculation as to the details of this system is welcome in the comments.

Ernakulam proved busy and boisterous, jam packed with all manner of motorized vehicles, all honking and revving their way around one another. By this point in the trip, though, we were becoming quite at home amidst the chaos. We were learning the vocabulary and the rhetoric of the road, giving way and taking way, signaling our intent, and ringing our bells relentlessly.

We called a waypoint at a Vodaphone shop, where I was to get a SIM card. We locked the bikes and I went inside while Scott was to take a stroll. The Vodaphone people we extremely friendly, and a fellow there by the name of Vinil helped me to gain and activate my SIM despite some complicated rules that would otherwise have necessitated a stay in Cochin of at minimum one week.

We were just getting to the final steps of the deal-making process when a security guard came in breathless, and informing me that our cycles were locked in an illegal spot. I came outside to find that Scott, lacking the key to unlock the cycles, had undone the latches and begun to actually fold the Speed TRs in such a way as to allow entry to the parking space that we had blocked, effectively wrapping the bikes around a railing, still leaving the rear wheels locked to a nearby pole.

This acrobatic, of course, attracted a large crowd, and he was now handling inquiries from a diversity of personnel — from passers by, to Vodaphone security, to the Vodaphone manager who had just managed to squeeze his car into its spot. All was made well, and a fair bit of head wobbling later, we were back on the road.

We ate lunch at a kind of point-and-eat restaurant that served food on large square trays, something like what one might find in a middle school cafeteria.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wheeling our way up and around Ernakulam, past the port and a sprawling but perpetually closed city park.

Back in Cochin, we retired to our chambers at the Vasco Homestay, giving our best regards to the owner, and settling in for a bit of well deserved relaxing.

Flipping through the newspaper and finding a particularly curious listing of commodity rates, we marveled at how trade had tamed since the days of the gruesome Vasco da Gama.  Settling down for the evening, we slumbered under the very roof in which he shuffled off this mortal coil.

We discovered a new and quite welcome philosophy prevailed at the Hotel Femina with regard to check out times. Here, the rule was that checkout occurred exactly 24 hours after check in. This worked perfectly for us, since we had an overnight train to Cochin that evening, but would be free to leave our things in the hotel room, and use it to clean up after the day’s wheel.

We breakfasted at a south Indian coffee shop, which we quickly found was a local institution. Its interior was well lit by skylights, and it was crowded with many, many people ripping into vadas, idilis, and dosas.

And well staffed by uniformed and quickly moving servers. The manager of the shop quickly noticed and greeted us, showing us to a table that had been vacated just seconds before. Our server, perhaps the only one in all of our travels in India who was a female, wiped our table down with water and an open hand.

We ordered a couple of idli and vada, a few dosas, and cup after cup of scrumptious South Indian coffee. Feeling refreshed, and quite content to be once again in a land of large portions, we hit the streets.

We wheeled north into the city, bouncing our way over crumbling concrete streets, which dissolved from time to time into gravel, dirt and sand. Our first waypoint would be a temple complex in the north of the city, but we were unsure of the exact route.

We knew that once we got close, we would be able to see the thing looming in the distance and chart from there, but first we needed to traverse the five or so kilometers of city, which lay in a tangled patchwork of poorly maintained streets between us and the northern outskirts.

We called a waypoint to consult a local street coffee vendor and sample his wares. Before we could even order coffee, we had a attracted a large crowd, all of whom were men dressed in a kind of man skirt called a lungi, most of whom where silently scrutinizing the speed TRs with hands crossed behind their backs.

One emerged from the crowd, explaining to us that he was the manager of a painting operation, which was at work next door slathering the interior of a shop with electric orange enamel. He asked us to survey his men’s work, and insisted on buying us coffee (which we nervously drank from a couple of sticky communal glasses).

He then commenced a long chain of introductions, first introducing us to  his team of laborers, followed by most of his extended family, who, for one reason or another, all seemed to be walking by at that time.

All the while, the crowd of people standing around us was growing larger and larger. They were ringing the bells on the Speed TRs and clicking the shifters. When we finally had gotten through the pleasantries and began asking directions to the temple, we hit a roadblock in communications, culminating with the painting manager insisting that he would travel with us on his motor bike to the temple. We did our very best to decline this offer graciously, tried to pay for our coffee, thanked the giant crowd for their kind attention, and remounted the cycles.

Through a system of extemporaneous field commands, we were able to make our way out of the city and into the farmland that encircles Trichy. Strangely enough, the roads actually seemed to improve out here, and as we rode, we waved and helloed with everyone we passed, young and old, even if they were in the distance, operating a piece of farm machinery. Speaking of the distance, there, in it, was the temple. Looming tall and ornate in the hazy pollution. We were certainly heading in the wrong direction, but we now knew where it was, and that was an important step.

We briefly entertained the idea of cycling along the outskirts of the city in order to reach the temple, but as it turned out, all roads lead into Trichy,  so we had to ride back into the city, in order to get out of it on the northeast side rather than the northwest. By now, we were beginning to know our way around, and made short work of the crumbling streets, sending up our own clouds of the red sandy soil of Tamil Nadu.

Suddenly a man ran out into the street, eyes wild, and waving his hands in the air at us as if to say “Stop the show! Hold everything!” We dutifully brought the speed TRs to a halt next to him, where he began to scream to us. “A great man! Only one great Man!” He then violently pulled up the sleeve of his shirt to show us a tattoo on his arm.

“Only one great man! M.G. Ramachandaran.” The tattoo was of a somewhat blurred male head with sunglasses. “One!” he screamed again, holding up one finger, “Only one Great Man!”

“We non-verbally agreed with him, and repeated the name, M.G. Ramachandaran. Upon hearing this he most vigorously shook both of our hands and we were off wheeling again. The extremes of experience indeed.

Here, dear reader, you might be interested to learn: MG Ramachandaran, or MGR as he is more colloquially known in Tamil Nadu was an actor, film producer, and politician. From 1977 until 1987 he was the Minister of Tamil Nadu. For more info, I highly recommend the wikipedia article on this fellow. We found it quite engrossing when we devoured it on the wikireader.

Back on the road, we found our way onto what seemed more like the correct route, marked by much more intense traffic, and a great number of tour buses. Like tributaries into some great river, we channeled from road to road, until we finally found ourselves joining a boiling mass of all types of traffic to cross a great bridge over a large dried out lake.

So intense was it that on the other side, we decided to stop for another cup of delightful South Indian coffee, and some small chocolate flavored shapes, designed no doubt by some chemist to remain unmelted even in the boiling south Indian heat.

Refreshed by our coffee break, we bid farewell to the small crowd which had once again formed around the Speed TRs, and pedaled toward the temple, which loomed larger and larger in the distance.

When we gained on it, we found the place to be much more of an elaborate conglomeration of structures than anticipated, with many ornate gates and sub-complexes.  I’ll let the photos below speak for themselves.

Wheeling around the complex proved to be laden with obstacles and activity.

Back on the road, it was nearing time to call it quits, lest the exertion and the intensity of the sun induce the kind of fatigue that brings with it imprecise and dangerous wheeling habits.  We looped back, passing schools and byzantine village paths.

To return to the city though, we needed to wrangle once again with some 5km of tangled, crowded, and crumbling roads.

At first, we found ourselves stuck in a massive traffic jam, sandwiched between giant buses, cargo trucks, and auto rickshaws in a great cluster of gridlock, but with our more nimble steeds, we were able to slowly make progress where others could not, and soon we had found our way to a great flyover, which allowed us to soar over the city on well paved, elevated, startlingly empty highway.

Why were the other hoards of traffic not taking this route as well? We may never know. But it allowed us to make very short work of the return. Taking us directly to the train station: an important waypoint for later that evening.

And from there, it was a short 5 minute wheel back to the hotel.

We enjoyed the last bits of our 24-hour stay at the Hotel Femina, lounging and working or correspondence.  The battery backup power supply provided ample current to support the blogging session.

As the sun set, and once again, the street vendors lit up their hissing gasoline lanterns, we climbed on our cycles, fully loaded down with gear, and made our way to the station. Our train to Cochin was easy to find, and in stark contrast to our experiences of India on the pilot study, essentially on time.

As the engines started up, and the giant iron snake began to hiss and squeal its imminent departure, we hurried to purchase some Lays Magic Masalla flavored chips (very highly recommended), some Indian spicy fried lentil snacks called Bhel Puri, and a few packets of Good Day Cashew biscuits.

Now, dear reader, I must note, we had no plan for how to deposit all our luggage onto the train. And as we struggled to enter the 3rd class A/C compartment fully loaded with packs and cycles, we made quite a spectacle of ourselves. Bubbling spurts of Tamil and Malayalam punctuated with the word “cycle” followed us everywhere we went. When we found our seats, there was certainly no place to store the cycles and almost too little space for our packs. Luckily, our fellow bunk-mates were quite friendly, assuring us that we would figure it out, and inviting us to sit down. The two fellows were traveling together to Kerala, and were just finishing a vast meal that had been packed by one of their wives. Seeing our sorry stash of Magic Masala chips and Good Day Biscuits, they began to quite vehemently offer us some of their food.

We, of course declined, though it looked very good. They countered with even more vehement offerings, and assurances that they were quite full (which I believe they actually were… it was a huge meal) and began to refer to a newspaper wrapped, twine-tied packet of “surplus chapati.” Well, I’ve never been one to look a surplus chapati in the mouth, so we accepted, found them to be warm, slightly crisp and some of the best chapati of our lives, and began to relax into conversation with these two fine blokes.

Soon a fellow introducing himself as the compartment mechanic, came over, followed by another who after some misunderstandings we confirmed to be describing himself as the Ticketeer. The mechanic offered us a solution to the cycle storage problem. For a small tip, he would allow us to store the cycles in a pile by the rest rooms at the very end of the train where, there being no further cars, the rear door was replaced by a the kind of roll-down security door used to close down shops in Greenwich Village at night.

This seemed like a good solution, so we did so and returned to find the Ticketeer still waiting, harboring little interest in our tickets, but much in our story. We chatted with him about AsiaWheeling and about his previous life as a field hockey champ until he was called away by the arrival of more passengers, namely two young water filter moguls, who demanded masala dosas and chatted with us late into the night about the Indian water filter business. Let me assure you, dear reader, the Indian water filter market is doing just fine.

As the train rattled on into the night, our bunk mates began to call their families to wish them goodnight. They then dutifully passed the phones to us, where on the other end I found myself chatting with the very small and adorable voice of Indian school-girls, who explained to me in English that she liked to sing, and that she was 10 years old. Finally, when we had all said goodnight — our bunkmates, their families, the Ticketeer, the water filter guys, the mechanic, and the drunk fellow who was seen frequently walking back and forth between the bathroom and his seat, we removed our shoes and set up the bunks. It was time to sleep.

And as the train rattled on into the night out of Tamil Nadu and into Kerala we slept the sleep of those who, more foolish, might think the deck was full of aces.

Our last morning in Malaysia began with a visit to the restaurant that had produced the delightful Nasi Lamak and coconut rice pancakes that Smita had brought back for us the previous morning.

The place turned out to be a splendid little roadside stall, a few plastic table s with an outdoor kitchen, a crack squad of fellows, yelling at each other, and some very serious dedication to the speedy delivery of Indian-Malay grub. It was Chinese New Years Day, and the city was pretty deserted.

Most of the clientele there seemed to have a celebratory Sunday out with the family feel. The coffee was incredible. The food was as good or better than we had remembered it. Ah, KL.

So splendid was the place, in fact, that we were tempted to linger there for some time longer than scheduled. Long enough, in fact, that we were rushing to purchase a few snacks at a local wholesale grocer, and wheel back in time to pack our things up for the cab ride to the airport.

We collapsed the speed TRs in the parking garage at Smita’s residence, taking longer than usual, as we were for the first time, using a set of foam protectors which Tan from My Bike Shop had provided us . Meanwhile, Smita sprung to action arranging and negotiating with the cab company. We were sad to be saying goodbye to Malaysia and KL in particular. Kuala Lumpur had earned a firmly applied asiawheeling stamp of approval. But the open road and the wonders of India beckoned, so we bid Smita a fond farewell, and off we went.

Our AirAsia flight departed from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal, which was some distance from the airport proper. The entire terminal, it seemed, was there primarily for AirAsia flights, and we struggled some time to find, in rather low light and among what must have been nearly a hundred AirAsia counters (some for check in, some for baggage, some merely staffed for the sake of staffing) the appropriate counter for our flight to Trichy. We were finally able to find our counter, which was behind another seemingly random security checkpoint, and made all the more obvious by the large line of Indians, sporting lungis and saris, which poured out from a small counter, that may have at one point proclaimed check-in for the flight to Trichy, but now just displayed a 404 Firefox error message.

Most of the line turned out to not be a line, just people standing around chatting, so we were able to work our way quickly to the front, where, in an act of great kindness, redeeming them from all sour feelings over miscommunicated departure times, minute portions, and confusing service personnel, AirAsia waved the “sports equipment fee” for our speed TRs, marking them as merely fragile luggage and sending us, smiling, over to the luggage loading booth, where we patiently waited for a group of young children to climb off the baggage conveyor belt, where they had been most violently enjoying themselves.  Where were their mothers at a time like this?

Luggage dispatched, we headed into the terminal and joined another large group of Indians masquerading as a queue, but were in reality, just chatting and passing the time.

After eating a few shapes, we perused the airport bookstore, which was chock full of business-guru books for middle managers like “25 Sales Habits of Highly Effective Salespeople,” as well as a selection of unsettling magazines.

After shuffling around in the waiting hall looking for power and discussing the feasibility of a high-design beverage business, we boarded the flight and were soon airborne.

As an American, one assumes international flights should be long.  So we were quite surprised when only a couple hours later we arrived in India.

Indian customs proved to be a painless and quick affair, consisting mostly of head wobbling, and then we were set free into the baggage area, where we were to spend the next couple hours, tortured by thirst, and waiting as a poorly designed, bent, and crumbling luggage conveyor suffered through many,  many bags.

The machine seemed to have been designed for maximum impact, taking the luggage and first hoisting it up a long ramp, only to send it tumbling down a steep but grippy conveyor which would halt from time to time, sending the luggage on it tumbling under its own momentum, end over end, crashing down to ground level again.

We watched with bated breath, hoping that the cycles could handle the descent. Our bags slowly arrived, tumbling harmlessly down the spout, but the cycles were nowhere to be found. We paced and waited out the agonizingly slow process. Finally we saw our cycles begin to climb the conveyor, then the system stopped. It seems part of the cycle must have been caught in the machinery, or perhaps would not fit through some bottleneck in the interior of the system. Whatever it was, it was in our great favor, as the attendants finally, got up from where they had been sitting observing the goings on, and climbed into the interior of the machine to retrieve the Speed TRs, laying them at our feet, safe and sound.

The airport was tiny, sporting only a short strip outside for both pick-up and dr0p-off. After changing our Ringgit into Rupees at a truly predatory rate, we found chartering a ride into Trichy reasonably easy.  Drivers were plentiful, and, of course, the Ambassador was spacious.

As we drove, Scott selected a hotel from the list in the Lonely Planet, and our driver made short work of the journey.  With all the swerving and honking, we were reminded that we were definitely back in India.

At first the Hotel Femina seemed reticent about showing us the room before we paid. This was, of course, unacceptable, but after some hemming and hawing outside, and consultation with the locals about other options for lodging in Trichy, they relented and showed us a roomy unit with its own private balcony and a serviceable bathroom. “Oh good, a shower and a little sit in the Condor’s Nest,” we thought, thinking back to the many fine hours we had spent on balconies and porches in Indonesia. So we pulled the trigger.

With lodging out of the way, we unfolded the speed TRs and took to the street, finally getting some much needed water, locating a much needed Automatic Teller Machine, and indulging in some incredibly affordable and much needed Indian food. All the while, as we wheeled from waypoint to waypoint, I found myself startled at the degree to which India was. Everywhere I looked there were people, transacting, yelling, sounding horns, working, chatting, spitting, urinating, littering, or just sitting and passing time.  At every corner, Tamil men would question us about the bicycles and interact in all manners of communication.

The traffic was much slower than any we had yet experienced, consisting of mostly auto rickshaws and large noisy buses. Trichy, it seemed, was a transit city, and as night fell, it did not let up one bit. Street lights flickered on, and street vendors lit up hissing gas lanterns, and the city just kept churning.

And it was loud. Rickshaws, buses, bikes, and people, everyone was honking, screaming, and clanging bits of metal together. The traffic whipped up a dust that clung my sweaty skin, and the smoke from engines burning oil, the spicy scent of street vendors stirring great pots of boiling liquid, and the sickening sweet smell of the open sewers all blended together into an invigorating potpourri.

Ah, India. The extremes of Experience at last.

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I awoke on the soft sheets of Mrs. Jalan’s guest room after my 16 hours of rest. The bed still called to me, as did the bathroom, but not with the urgency it had possessed the day before. I felt much better. My plumbing was still reeling from the disease which had racked it, but I was able to put some lentil pancakes into my stomach and eat some mango pieces which were served to my by the most gracious and capable house staff. As I ate, I looked down at my hands. Both of them were covered in purple and green splotches. This, it seemed, was the last straw. I logged onto the internet in the house’s most luxurious technology room, and quickly sent off some pictures of my hands, to be examined by AsiaWheeling’s doctors back in the states. Despite this bizarre symptom, I felt on the whole much better. I had also taken a pill to relieve the dysentery, so, despite the impeding journey to Thailand there was little to fear…

…until the Malarone crazy hour hit. This time it hit hard, my system was empty and the Malarone took rein. It was just after Mrs. Jalan’s most gracious driver dropped us at the Kolkata airport, that I began to be wracked with indecision and anxiety. We walked to the Jet airways check-in and a man next to a large contraption asked if we wanted to have our bags wrapped in cellophane to prevent tamper and damage. We declined. But the sneaking suspicion that we perhaps should have obliged him and protected our luggage crept upon me like a begging leper. We checked in, went through security, had our passports stamped, all the while I was, on a certain level, mortified that we might, just might, have made the worst decision of our lives. And our bags would, without the added protection of cellophane wrap, be spit from the universe like a watermelon seed.

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With woody still under the weather, once again, your dear correspondent, Mr. Scott Norton, returns to the writing desk.

We were speeding through Eastern Bihar towards the border of West Bengal when Woody mentioned he wasn’t feeling so hot. His stomach was the culprit along with purple and green discoloration on his hands.

“What do you think this is?”

“Have you tried washing it off?”

“Its probably nothing.”

We both offered explanations about the blotches, but neither of us dare mention leprosy after thee encounters of the night previous. Leprosy takes longer than 12 hours to take hold, right?

The train was three hours late and Woody pounded a breakfast of omelets and toast in an attempt to reboot his system by loading his inbox. “Not helpful,” he groaned.

He put on his flowing Khadi pants, and attempted to coax his body into healing itself.

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We said a very warm goodbye to our man Nikhil and turned back towards the ashram. We were fed a simple and delightful meal of roti, rice and vegetable stew and then retired to our room. While we had much to work on, relating the events of the past few days back to you, oh dear and valued reader, we spend only a small bit of time doing this. The remainder of our last hours were spend chatting with Tejbaal Pandey, one of the more senior member of the ashram. Tejbaal had joined as a young lad, but was now slightly older than us. We spoke of our travels and of the state of affairs in India.

Upon arriving to Varanasi, we had discovered that the train to Kolkata which we originally booked was only viable if it was not late by more than an hour or two. This was not something which we could bet on, since no train we had ridden in India had yet arrived less than 3 hours late. So we had booked alternative tickets. The only option which had space in an AC compartment was leaving not from the Varanasi station, but from a nearby, older hub, in a place by the name of Mughal Sarai, at 1:55 AM.

So we had some time to wait around the ashram before we were to take the cab, being somewhat worried that Mughal Sarai was a whistle stop and we would be sitting alone on an open platform in the dead of night in the poorest province in India, we had arranged with the help of Tejbaal to have a cab come pick us up at the ashram and wait with us until the train arrived (likely late). Shortly before the aforementioned cab was to come, Tejbaal arrived in our room bearing gifts. From a plastic sack, he produced three earthenware vessels filled with lassi, like the one which had been available earlier that day outside the temple, and 3 mangos. He explained that this was some of the tastiest lassi and the best mangoes available. We drank the lassi (it was indeed splendid) and he showed us an efficient and ingenious method for consuming the mangoes. He took each mango and kneaded it in his hands, mashing the interior, until the fruit sagged in one’s hand like a water baloon. Then he plucked off the point at the very bottom of the fruit where the stem had once connected it to the tree and from that hole we drank the sweet mango pulp. As we consumed more and more, the mango skin began to fall apart. And soon we removed the pit and ate he meat off that too, finishing by scraping the last bits off the interior side of the skin with our teeth. Delicious.

With sticky hand and heavy heart, we bade farewell to the Bal Ashram and got in the cab headed for Mughal Sarai.

As we drove, it began to rain, and was pouring by the time the cab pulled up outside the station. It was not a whistle stop as we had feared. It was in fact a sizable station, and well lit. We exited the cab, leaving our bags with the driver, and entered the train station.

We’re just trying to be honest; this next part is raw.

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