A handful of images, a couple of corpses.

Part three of India Update Madness.

A half day bus trip took us from Ajanta to Jalgaon, an apparently prosperous transit hub in the center of india. The confluence of several lines at the rail junction probably contributes to their relative affluence. An afternoon train and sixteen hours later we arrived to Agra Cantontment. My greatest fear on these overnight trains is always that of sleeping through our stop - .5 mg of zanax made this concern a reality. our indian berthmates woke us just as the train was rolling out, and i grabbed what i could while adam struggled to disengage his tied-up pack. to my horror, as i turned back towards the train one of our helpful friends threw my backpack (containing laptop and the camera) out the door from the now moving train...it arced through the air before slamming into the concrete platform. a testament to sony quality, there was no damage to either.

thus we headed into the old city of Agra, Imperial capital of the Mughals, or alternately: the Ninth Level of Tourist Hell.

Part two of India Update Madness.

This would have been more impressive had we not already spoiled you with Angkor, but they are still very cool - and centuries older.

Taking advantage of this current bounty of insomnia to tie up some 'loose ends.' Timewarp back to January...we had just left Bombay/Mumbai by train to Aurangabad where adam immediately succumbed to a nasty viral something. On a tight schedule (we had committed our indian departure date a few days prior in bombay) our central indian tour was winding down. i proceeded to check out the ellora cave/temple complex while he recuperated. This is my story.

This would have been more impressive had we not already spoiled you with Angkor, but they are still very cool - and centuries older.

Bombay, or thanks to the Hindu fundamentalist government, Mumbai, has the sprawl of Los Angeles, the density of New York, with the look of London. None of the dry red dust of Rajasthan and without Delhi's pollution. The Limeys truly outdid themselves here. Perhaps taking a cue from their former colonial failures, they anglicized the name of the former city to "Bombay" instead of a name more in line with their intentions of recreating London.

a night train from jaipur took us further south, out of the land of kings and into the state of Gujurat, on the Arabian Sea.

Note: Several nights ago we were fortunate(?) to view Han Taliban Teleporter in it's entirety. Our smug grasp of the world-as-it-is has been irrevocably altered.

The location was right. Indifferent residents, potable drinks, and most essentially, robust gusts coming off the Arabian Sea. Yes, Daman was the place. What we needed was a location. First however, we were going to petition the local higher powers for benediction.

part two - representing america

Quitting Ahmedebad we continued our way south towards celebrated Bombay, stopping just short of Bollywood at the former Portuguese colony of Daman. Established in 1535, they held on for 430 years before India, restless during a lull in Pakistani wars, unnecessarily bombed the airport and church before seizing the region. Coastal ocean zephyrs and a low population of 90,000 held appeal, as we tend to enjoy less wearisome and redundant experiences with the human element when we are off the major tourist routes - away from other europeans and the infrastructure/culture that inevitably develops to support/aggravate them.

today we offer you the latest from our journey to an entirely different front, consigning the sights and stories of passionate and fierce conflict to the flames of our mediated potlatch.

after surviving a trip to the other side of the world, the secret police of pakistan, and the al-qaeda snipers of tora bora, what was there to do?

i would like to take this opportunity to mention that i have again missed the nightlife of Bombay, probably the only urban center in this nation with evening entertainment