So here we are, in Delhi again. Happy day!

We started out with the Taj Mahal. Not much I can say about that. Maybe I'll show you some pictures when I can.

After Agra, we zoomed off to Delhi, where Zaman posted the below post. We're staying in the apartment of a friend of a friend who we met in Delhi here who runs a place called Manzil House, an after-school thing where a bunch of Indian teenagers gather and play music/learn. Their jams are legendary- we'll definitely show you some stuff we recorded. There Kian and my dad went off to Sri Lanka. The Fellowship is already breaking up. But we'll see them at the end of the month in Delhi.

After that Delhi stay, we took a train to Udaipur in Rajasthan. I would have to say that Rajasthan and Sikkim are sort of on the same level for beauty- probably the two most beautiful provinces I've seen in India, although completely different- Rajasthan is desert, Sikkim, mountains. We stayed with, of all the people you might meet in India, homeschoolers. They ran a place called Shik Shantar, which would not look out of place in Errington- learning, homeschooling, recycling, organic food, lots of subversive literature, and solar energy. I gather they're pretty rare people in India. I do know that everybody else we talked to about homeschooling listened to it as if we were talking about splitting the atom, and then said it was a wonderful idea but it would never come to India ever.

I think Indian education works something like this:

Prior to six years old: If you have the means, you dip your kid into five different flavours of prep/pre-school.
Elementary/Middle: You wear a uniform, you get taught by the British system, you go to assemblies where someone pounds a drum and your principal screams "left right left" into a microphone and you all march in a circle, I'm not kidding about this last part by the way. I don't know what private schools are like but I've seen two public schools where they do this.
High School: More of the same(?)
Post-Secondary: You BUST your behind to get a decent piece of paper to show, and hope you get in line before the guy whose uncle is a manager.

I might be wrong about all of this. Ignorance is bliss, as usual.

Anyhow, in Udaipur we climbed another mountain, watched some monkeys, lolled around the lake looking at the white mansion hotel sitting in the middle on an island, and relaxed. Zaman might have something to say on that point. Reminder: a plastic oil jug makes an EXCELLENT bass drum.

After three days of that, we trained off to Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan, where we did all that touristy stuff. Amber Fort, which is almost surreal in its passages and stairways.. think of it as a desert castle on a cliff if you like. Jantar Mantar Observatory, made by a Rajasthan king, measures time/position of sun/month/inclination of earth through the clever use of stones. Forget Stonehenge, think two-second accuracy.

And now here we are in Delhi. Ryan, that lucky son of a monkey, has planed off to Portugal where he'll do exciting things such as not being in India. I do sort of envy him - ever since I took off from Canada I've felt like there's a muscle near my spine that clenched up and won't let go until I step onto Vancouver Island again.

Next? Who knows. Possibly the south, to a former French colony called Pondicheri, where it's not so cold at night.

Indian Feature: Staring. Too, too many people stare in India. It's not spectating, it's just staring. If you're cleaning your fingernails, someone's staring at you. If you're doing your banking, no kidding, someone's leaning on the counter next to you and staring straight at you (this actually happened). If you're just sitting and eating, someone is sure as heck staring at you. It's unnerving.

-Bashu