My notes from the trip are incomplete, written when I felt like writing and not to journal everything about the minutiae of what we did everyday, even though I did do that on some occasions (J's better at doing that than I am usually, anyway). Writing about our trips was never supposed to be a chore or a burden, for what's the use of taking a holiday if all you're going to do is force yourself to work while on it. This is the modern problem of travel, as stated in an article in one of the local Indian newspapers: the modern usage of vacation time is not for rest and relaxation that may have been more common 50 years ago, when taking a break from work meant exactly that--not working. The modern vacationers like us work hard at our recreation: getting up at 5am to do things or see things, rather than sleeping in, lying about, or some such. J and I are even worse than most--trying to cram it all in, traveling 100s of miles overnight in a train so that you can be there the next day to see things but also capture something of what you're missing, saving the extra cost of one hotel's night along the way, not to mention the experience of the train itself, as the method of the journey can be its own reward.

This means that our return to work does not necessarily leave us very refreshed (nor does the jet lag). I've often joked about how I need vacations from my vacations, to recover from the go-go efforts of traveling. What we get from these trips is different from what those in the past sought from their time off. We seek meaning for our lives in what is not present in our day-to-day work, as we seek to define ourselves in our experiences rather than that which we do to place bread on the table. Traveling also helps us put our normal lives in perspective by breaking us from from the daily routine of our lives and allow us to look at it from the outside and evaluate changes that might need to be made.

It was a trip such as this one that spurned us to leave Washington State and move to DC. Other trips have opened our minds to other opportunities and changes, like how Italy taught us how to cook better and Baja provided the necessary details for my never-published first novel, Darwin's Daughter. So while we may be tired upon our return to work, it is an exhaustion that we do not regret.

This was probably one of our most successful and enjoyable trips. The setting, as colorful and different from our home as anyplace we have ever visited is likely partly responsible, but mainly we think it was all the people that we met that made the difference. Even before we left, we had both noticed how excited Indians were about their country and that we planned to visit, usually suggesting that we go to their hometown or region, where they assured us there were things there that could not be missed. The same happened with Indians we talked to while there, after asking us our travel plans, they invariably lamented that we hadn't included their part of India, even over our protestations that we had limited time and the sheer size of India. "Next time," we said. The scope of what can be seen in Indian is only comparable to the U.S. or Africa or even Europe as a whole. Our Rough Guide to India has a list of 42 things that are the best of India, and we only did two of them (the Taj Mahal and tiger spotting, for what it's worth).

Beyond that, the other thing about the people we met is how genuinely engaged they were, friendly and inquisitive. Not just the relatives of our friends at the wedding, but the guides, the staff at the hotels and parks, our fellow guests, our companions on the train, or even the little boys in the village. Sometimes this was overwhelming (such as with the children), and would have been problematic if we had been introverts. Inevitably, the person you were talking to would ask (1) your name, (2) where you lived, (3) what you did, and (4) if you enjoyed India. What we liked about this is that it gave us the opportunity to throw these questions back at them. I can't think of another trip where we learned as much about the people we met as the history or art of the places we visited.

Sometimes these conversations would deepen, such as when J discovered that one of our guides was a Bhopal survivor or the discussion of religion, both Eastern and Western, that we had with Mohammed, our Muslim guide in Agra. We had expected that perhaps we would come to know some of the relatives of our friends who were getting married better, given repeated exposure over multiple days, but not that we would have a conversation with the old man sharing our train berth area or the surviving royalty of Bharatpur who had convert their palace to a hotel when they lost the ability to tax the locals.

I said to folks several times that what struck me the most about India was how much it had withstood the spread of Western culture, and by that I meant modern American culture, such as McDonald's and malls, at least compared to other places we had visited. I attributed this to the strength of the Indian film industry; elsewhere, Hollywood dominates the world in film, but India's regional film industry and big Bollywood blockbusters fill their market. This isn't to say that India hasn't changed--evidence of the modern world was everywhere, best exemplified by the ubiquitous cell phone. Everyone has one, it seems, and they are both an annoyance (such as the three cell phones shared by the old man and his son on the train) as well as godsends (being able to confirm our location with the taxi driver and our friends). Much more so than anywhere we've ever been, India lives in both the past and the present. Camels share the roads with BMWs. A woman in a full burka walks past a teen in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Some wedding nights were tuit and tie, others were kurta & scarf. The incongruencies kept you spellbound.

We had been prepared for the worst, especially in Agra: we had read reports of mutilated beggars and Oliver Twist-like pickpockets, dead bodies left lying in the streets, poverty and squalor as far as the eye could see. And while those things do exist in India, we saw little or none of it, partly due to our own economic status which meant we stayed in business- or tourist-class hotels instead of backpacker hostels, we ate at tourist or very fine restaurants (or, on the jungle plan, at the resort you were staying in because no other food was available nearby) instead of street vendors. While this came at a price (for example, masala chai tea at a hotel could cost 50-100 Rs; the same from a vendor just off the highway was only 4 Rs). J's comment about this, since she had more experience in visiting developing nations as she had traveled in Africa, was that there seemed to be a difference in outlook. Most Indians seemed optimistic about their prospects and their country in general (although the one sour note that constantly sounded was the population problem), whereas in Africa things seemed to always be getting worse. Everyone in India seemed to be the owner of their own company or starting one; the entrepreneurial spirit went from the tour operator with 250 employees (guides and drivers) to the fellow who offered to jump into the frothy waters just below the Marble Rocks falls for 5 Rs.

Compared to the USA and Europe, India is full of color, while at the same time everything seems to be dirty and drab. The color comes from the bright sarees and other women's clothing, which tends to be in a kaleidoscope of colors no mater what the station or the job (such as the women doing manual road work labor, carting gravel or digging trenches, as well as all the wonderful formal clothes for the wedding). The dirt comes from the dust and the pollution, not to mention the ever-present litter. The dust has no solution, but a campaign needs to be begun to help the trash problem, similar to what occurred in the U.S. in the 70s.

Finally, I'm not sure that we've ever been involved with anything quite like Manasa and Prashant's wedding, at least not on that size and scale. It was both intimate and public, professional and amateur, and it was likely as perfect an occasion as could be. We were quite fortunate to be a small part of it.