Incredible?

*Click photos to enlarge

Gentle Readers,

This one may be long, just a heads-up.

It has now been three days since my return to the UAE from India. Max and I went to Britain's former crown jewel for six days over the UAE's independence holiday weekend. We visited Saad in his hometown of Bhopal who was there for holiday as well.

Grand Mosque in Bhopal. Supposedly one of the five largest mosques in Asia.

While Saad's family's house is in the nicest neighborhood of town, a look across the valley makes sure you don't forget where you are.

I will preface by saying that we were no where near tourist India, we were in INDIA India and did none of one's normal tourist activities. In the words of a good friend, "If you want to see the Taj Mahal, google image it."

There are 9 lakes in Bhopal

We flew into Nagpur, a large industrial city in the center of the country. As we disembarked the plane at 330am, Max and I gave each other an unwary glance as we realized what we had just gotten ourselves into. The international airport can accommodate one airplane at a time and passengers must walk 500 yards to the terminal as the tarmac is in such disrepair, planes cannot pull any closer. There was a roof over only half of the airport, wires both strewn about the floor, and hanging from concrete pylons above ones head. In the airport, we managed to bypass both passport and customs control (unbeknown to us as no one but the security officers guarding the entrance of the parking lot were wearing uniforms, everyone else was plain clothed.) without any problem until we reached the parking lot and had a handful of AK-47s pointed at us, which seemed to be a recurring theme of the trip, but those are stories for another time...

Even outside of the riot scenes, we were the subject of many disgruntled people as our 4x4s were vastly outnumbered by motorbikes on the narrow streets of the city.

Saad and me.

We made our way to the train station via tuk-tuk (those three wheeler taxis you see everywhere on national geographic). The train station was an eye-opening sight to say the least. The train ride was a 7 hour trip, though we did have beds which made it reasonable. We arrived around 1130 and were greeted at the airport by Saad and his cousin marking the beginning of our stay being as much as a local we could be (which was, however, difficult being the only two white people in a city of 1.4 million).

Rather than pay for electricity, many residents attach their own wires to municipal utilities without permission.

Some 1500 year old temple:

Most of our days consisted of driving around in jeeps, lounging around town, racing motorcycles through the streets, and fearing for our lives.

Bhopal night scene. My motorcycle was the red one on the left.

Thanks to the Brits, India drives on the "wrong side of the road." Or in our case, not on the road at all.

As you may or may not know, Bhopal is the location of the worst industrial disaster in history. A white administered Union Carbide chemical plant in the city caught ablaze at midnight some 20 years ago killing nearly 5000 people instantly while exposing nearly 500,000 to the 40 tons of methyl isosyanate (a chemial compound widely used in the production of pesticides, rubber, and plastic) that had leaked from the plant, leaving coming generations with severe health issues. Union Carbide hardily neglected their responsibility to aid those in Bhopal and there is still widespread resentment related to the issue. We happened to be in the city during the anniversary of the event and saw widespread protests.

One of the many riots we encountered. In the background you can see some effigies of white people are being wheeled down the street to where they will be burned.

One day, we drove around a corner into the middle of one of these riots. It was common to see rioters burning effigies of white people, we had many stones thrown at our 4x4, a good number of burning torches were brandished in our direction, and if I knew Hindi I'm certain I would of been highly offended or taken aback by what I heard. But hey, ignorance is bliss, I guess. All in all, we feared for our safety quite a bit but made it back from the trip physically unscathed.

Random lady in a dry riverbed near a bridge.

Our train back to Nagpur had many problems with the emergency air brakes which would randomly engage, bringing the train to a grinding halt about every hour. Here, the dining car throws scraps out the windows to monkeys.

While sometimes a nuisance, it afforded the opportunity to get out and walk around.

Unless of course you happen to stop on the middle of a bridge...

Max and I returned to Nagpur on the evening of our last day in order to catch our 4am flight the next morning. We made a whilwind tour of Nagpur night life, which didn't take long as we spent most of our time back where we started, Shisha Place on the second floor of the Skyline Hotel. We were literally the only people in the club (I use the term generously) and ended up making good friends with the bartenders and management.

The Nagpur airport was, again, quite an experience as I was forced to surrender about 750 dollars worth of personal property to AK-47 wielding customs officials who would not otherwise let us out of the country.

All in all, the trip was quite the experience. I will not say I did not enjoy myself, but it wasn't exactly the little getaway any of us were expecting. I do find solace in the fact that I came away from the trip with many many stories, most of which will be highly inappropriate to share until my nieces and nephews (sorry, Jon) or grandchildren are my age now.

P.S. Sorry for the small number of photos, but I was forced to erase the vast majority of my memory card for the amusement of our favorite customs officials. Good times...