Good Name/Bad Name game

I'll populate this  with actual travel news soon, promise. Stuff's just been so hectic. But on a particularly long train trip from Jaisalmer to Delhi we made recently,  I talked Natcha into playing this travel game I made up, just to keep our brains working and our pop culture senses relatively fresh.

It's called "GOOD NAME FOR A TV OR MOVIE--BAD NAME FOR YOUR GENITALIA."

Simple game: Find a TV show or movie with a name that would would be the worst possible thing to name you genetailia.

And c'mon, you know you name your junk.  We all do it.

Finalists listed here. Scroll down to the bottom of each list for the winners.

[MALE Division]

"Monk"

"Dragonball Z"

"Gentle Ben"

"Woodstock"

"The Thing"

"The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly"

"Gentle Ben"

"Grizzly Adams"

"The Fountainhead"

"Battlestar Galactica"

"Eraserhead"

"The Breakfast Club" (accent on that last word)

"The Sting"

WINNER: "James and the Giant Peach"

[FEMALE Division]:

"Jaws"

"The Comfy Chair"

"The Wall"

"The Thing"

"The Closer"

"Patch Adams"

"Get Shorty"

"Lost In Space"

"Underworld"

"A Fish Called Wanda"

"Pretty In Pink"

"Monster in a Box"

WINNER: "The Last Temptation of Christ"

Suggestions? Hit the comments below.

A few thoughts while natacha's off using skype

-We're about to take our first night train. 14 hours in what apparently will be the low(er) class sleeper car. no a/C but it's night train so we may not need it. wish us luck! -i got offered two freelance gigs while here; managed to refer friends for both of them. friend one booked his; friend two's in the process of connecting with the other. i am an international power broker.

-there are cows fucking EVERYWHERE here. in the streets, the alleys, the backyards, the highways, by the sides of roads. (UPDATE: "fucking" is used as an intensifier here. I never actually saw cows having sex)

-there are about as many stray dogs as there are cows. not cute dogs, no. hungry, mangy, desperate dogs. the look in their eyes is the same as that in the men who try to get us into their retail stall/autorickshaw/travel agency. so far i've only seen one dog that i actually wanted to pet, and that was because it was a hungry desperate puppy.

-There is a lot of shit in the streets, more even than in paris, by a long shot actually. i'll spare you further detail.

-i have seen two different forts here that are simply unbelievable. massive structures that take up entire tops of hills and are so huge that they have anyhere from one to two temples and one to four palaces on the grounds.

Jaw-dropping stuff.

-The song 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen" is truer than i ever realized.

India at 80 KPH

Call it an advantage or a disadvantage, but one of the unique aspects of Rajahstan by road is the things you see from your car seat. Needless to say, driving in India is like little else--you see thatched roof huts next to under-construction A/C shopping malls next to churches--all interspersed with patches of seemingly unarable land that, a half-hour down the road, you see wheat being grown on.

LOVING my Powershot 850 whatever camera for this, as it incredibly captured these images while we were zooming along. More of these at the flickr site and as I can get 'em up.

India Day 3: Boo-yah

It never occurred to me how long I'd wanted to see the Taj Mahal. Maybe all my life. And when we passed through the gate above, to see this amazing structure in its glory, It was an emotional moment for me. Scratch that one off the bucket list.

After four hours of Delhi to Agra traffic, lunch at a tourist trap our driver "recommended" to us (ie he gets free lunch and a commission), we made it to the Taj at the hottest time of the day...and none of that f***ing mattered. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.

And it's not just the structure that's beautiful. Here's a few details from various parts of the Taj:

Here's the interior dome of the mosque:

Part of me just wanted to stay there all day...have lunch...cocktails...do laundry...curl up on one of the marble floors...but or course none of that's allowed. Except for the laundry thing--I forgot to ask.

From there, it was off to the "Ghost City," Fatehpur Sikri, a kingdom built centuries ago, but abandoned due to drought. It's still intact, right down to the walls and temples.

One of them, called the "baby taj," is supposedly the building that inspired the architecture of the Taj Mahal.

One of the temples had an altar covered with little ties of brilliantly colored yarn. If you wanted to pray to someone, for their good health, success, etc., you took a piece of yarn, tied it there, and said a little prayer.

It's an amazing place, but the touts are thick as flies in this place...including some of the most annoying children, constantly trying to touch you, beg you for money, and generally keep themselves entertained at your expense.

We also had a young man glom onto us, offering to be our guide, asking no donation, as he was supposedly the equivalent of a park ranger. We let him, but ditched him when the "tour" stopped by the "best" craft vendor. Odds are he was lying and this was yet another grift. Does that make us sound like jerks? Sorry. I guess you'd have to be there.

From there, we drove another two hours to Baratpur, a town on the way to Jaipur. we chose from one of two guide-"recommended" guest houses, took the cheaper one, and in our first non-AC bed in India, almost got heatstroke as the power quit for most of the night and we learned a valuable lesson about (1) choosing a place with ventilation, and (2) NOT choosing a place that our guide recommends. Well, actually we didn't learn that lesson until the next day. But that's a "day 4" story.

Okay. So day one was great. We landed, the hotel guys came and took us to our mid-priced-but-swanky-for-us hotel (which I splurged on as a sort of "culture shock airlock"). Headed across various highways towards Delhi, seeing two and three people per motorcycle, cars that looked simultaneously new and forty years out of date, and impossibly thin dirty children living under the overpasses. That, and everything around us looked oven-baked. Welcome to Delhi. We got to the marble-floored (did I mention swanky) hotel lobby, and no sooner than we do does Natacha spot a french accent and starts up a convo with the young couple checking in next to us. They're grad students doing a semester in India, and they're helping get two friends of theirs checked in.

So we end up going to lunch with the four frenchies at a dynamite southern indian place in nearby Connaught Place, learning about the dos and dont's of India, and generally having a great time. This barely 90 minutes after touching down in the country. We joined them for a bit of a walk-around CP, spent some time at a city temple where people stopped by to pay worship ($, food, flowars) at the altars of a dozen different gods. As Chuck's girlfriend Debbie warned us, many of these people brought their animals with them, and since you have to remove your shoes before entering a temple, I had my first real exposure to the "everything in India is covered in a thin layer of shit" theory one of Natacha's friend shared with us. We then headed to the room to wash thoroughly and sleep off the 20-odd hour flight.

So that was Day One.

Day Two, we spent walking around CP (the city center) and formulating travel plans. Needless to day, Delhi is an incredibly vibrant city, teeming with life and color. It's also teeming with dirt, traffic, and people who seemed to view us as wallets with legs. Beggars galore, and also what the Lonely Planet calls "touts:" people who latch onto you in the street and try to sell you things, mostly transportation or tours, or they're trying to "direct" you towards the "good" travel agency. A typical tout enconter is this:

You're walking down a street in Delhi. An Indian man keeps pace with you for a while, then greets you, sympathizes with how hot it is, and immediately tries to offer you things. And doesn't stop. And doesn't take no for an answer the first 50 times. Occasionally, you'll get one who says that he's not trying to sell you anything, but is trying to "helpfully" guide you towards the "real," i.e. govenment-approved, travel agency. after the first dozen of them you catch on. And your sense of humor is all that will keep you from an international murder rap.

So after hours of these guys--including one at the restaurant who I though was being a genuinely nice guy, but Natacha knew better--we FINALLY find the ACTUAL government-approved travel agency, i.e. the one that won't rip us off. And it's our second day. And we (mostly I) REALLY want to visit the sights of Rajastan, which hosts most of the "classicly india" sights like the Taj Mahal and the Jaisalmer fort. And we have 13 days before we have to meet Natacha's friend at the southernmost tip of the country. And the sights of Rajastan loop takes most people two weeks minimum. And after hours of Delhi heat and touts affecting our judgement. So we, as I put it, punted. We took the decidedly tourist move of hiring a car & driver to take us around Rajastan.

Now, it's not entirely unheard of to do this. My dad, who's covered more ground than Alexander the Great, does this in most places he goes. People we talked to who'd been here, had suggested it as a viable alternative to India's oft-chaotic bus and train process. And we'd just gotten there, for christ's sake, and didn't know if we could handle the classic forms of backpacker transport, at least not when faced with a deadline.

So we did it, pondered our decision for hours, but were still genuinely glad we'd made one. It's not going to sink us financially...we'll do the night trains and bus station slaloms in the last 3 weeks of our time here.

Anyhoo, as I write this, we've continued to have a wonderful time, despite almost getting heatstroke in the middle of the night, Natacha getting sick for a day but bouncing back in time to go shopping, and my getting my breath taken away by the Taj Mahal. One of the Seven Wonders, folks.

Desperately trying to upload photos and failing. More later!

Day Two/Delhi: In Which We Punt

Okay. So day one was great. We landed, the hotel guys came and took us to our mid-priced-but-swanky-for-us hotel (which I splurged on as a sort of "culture shock airlock" for us).

Headed across various highways towards Delhi, seeing two and three people per motorcycle, cars that looked simultaneously new and forty years out of date, and impossibly thin dirty children living under the overpasses. That, and everything around us looked oven-baked. Welcome to Delhi.

We got to the marble-floored (did I mention swanky) hotel lobby, and no sooner than we do does Natacha spot a french accent and starts up a convo with the young couple checking in next to us. They're grad students doing a semester in India, and they're helping get two friends of theirs checked in.

So we end up going to lunch with the four frenchies at a dynamite southern indian place in nearby Connaught Place, learning about the dos and dont's of India, and generally having a great time. This barely 90 minutes after touching down in the country. We joined them for a bit of a walk-around CP, spent some time at a city temple where people stopped by to pay worship ($, food, flowars) at the altars of a dozen different gods. As Chuck's girlfriend Debbie warned us, many of these people brought their animals with them, and since you have to remove your shoes before entering a temple, I had my first real exposure to the "everything in India is covered in a thin layer of shit" theory one of Natacha's friend shared with us. We then headed to the room to wash thoroughly and sleep off the 20-odd hour flight

So that was Day One.

Day Two, we spent walking around CP (the city center) and formulating travel plans. Needless to day, Delhi is an incredibly vibrant city, teeming with life and color. It's also teeming with dirt, traffic, and people who seemed to view us as wallets with legs. Beggars galore, and also what the Lonely Planet calls "touts:" people who latch onto you in the street and try to sell you things, mostly transportation or tours, or they're trying to "direct" you towards the "good" travel agency. A typical tout encounter is this:

You're walking down a street in Delhi. An Indian man keeps pace with you for a while, then greets you, sympathizes with how hot it is, and immediately tries to offer you things. And doesn't stop. And doesn't take no for an answer the first 50 times. Occasionally, you'll get one who says that he's not trying to sell you anything, but is trying to "helpfully" guide you towards the "real," i.e. government-approved, travel agency. after the first dozen of them you catch on. And your sense of humor is all that will keep you from an international murder rap

So after hours of these guys--including one at the restaurant who I though was being a genuinely nice guy, but Natacha knew better--we FINALLY find the ACTUAL government-approved travel agency, i.e. the one that won't rip us off. And it's our second day. And we (mostly I) REALLY want to visit the sights of Rajastan, which hosts most of the "classicly india" sights like the Taj Mahal and the Jaisalmer fort. And we have 13 days before we have to meet Natacha's friend at the southernmost tip of the country. And the sights of Rajastan loop takes most people two weeks minimum. And after hours of Delhi heat and touts affecting our judgement. So we, as I put it, punted. We took the decidedly tourist move of hiring a car & driver to take us around Rajastan.

Now, it's not entirely unheard of to do this. My dad, who's covered more ground than Alexander the Great, does this in most places he goes. People we talked to who'd been here, had suggested it as a viable alternative to India's oft-chaotic bus and train process. And we'd just gotten there, for christ's sake, and didn't know if we could handle the classic forms of backpacker transport, at least not when faced with a deadline.

So we did it, pondered our decision for hours, but were still genuinely glad we'd made one. It's not going to sink us financially...we'll do the night trains and bus station slaloms in the last 3 weeks of our time here. But I've no doubt shamed myself in the eyes of my buddy James Murphy.

Anyhoo, as I write this, we've continued to have a wonderful time, despite almost getting heatstroke in the middle of the night, Natacha getting sick for a day but bouncing back in time to go shopping, and my getting my breath taken away by the Taj Mahal. One of the Seven Wonders, folks.

Desperately trying to upload photos on this crappy guest house PC, and failing. More later!

The in-flight Taiwan TV photos

Shot with my crappy phonecam but still worth a look. Did I mention they're wacky?

India Day 1: Good God, We're Here

Delhi, that is. As in India. Mercy. HELL of a trip to get here...hell, it took us a day-and-a-half just to get to LAX. We had about a day and a half to finish getting the house ready, didn't leave 'til rush hour, spent the night in a Days Inn where the I-5 and Highway 41 meet, and got in to LA a hearty 9 hours before we were due at the airport. We had a wierd and utterly scrumptious lunch with my Dad at a Oxacan restaurant he found in WLA/Venice...best freakin' mole north of the border.

Then it was errand frenzy for, you know, four hours, packing, re-packing, going to Longs Drugs and asking the Pharmacist's assistant's assistant which over the counter eye lube works better (instead of asking her why so few answers, so much attitude, so little bathing, and what was up with that colony of moles on her cheek?)

Then a lightning-fast dinner in Santa Monica. And Ila & Mort shlepping us to the airport three hours early so we could hurry up and wait. Then me embarassing Natacha by insiting on finishing up my yoga routine by the departure gate.

The plane trip--all two legs and 22 ours of it--were fairly uneventful. Except for my popping an Ambien and waking up 6 hours later in the next seat over. Turns out the little filippino lady sitting between me & natacha had to pee and couldn't get past me. At least that's what I was told.

Caught like 4 movies on the flight(s): Juno (made me cry), Beowolf (hair-raising yet strangely literary thrill ride), and August Rush which, as I told Natacha after viewing it, was "more like Nauseous Gush." Total cavity-inducing suckfest, but Natacha fell asleep on my shoulder ten minutes in and one thing I've learned about being a husband is sometimes it's more important to just be a pillow.

Also some fun little Tawainese TV shows, which I took some phone snaps of and will upload later. Nutty!

Then there was Delhi--meeting frenchies, dodging tuk-tuks, eating fantastic food, disparaging touts, and just soaking up being in India--but I've blown so much time

uploading my photos and writing this post so far that I need to go to bed.

Here's a few photies to keep all three of you reading this. Check the Flickr site for captions that tell more of a story.

We get up in like five hours to go on a twelve-day trip to Rajastan. Can't wait.

Photos from the trip

...to Phoenix, that is. My cousin Jaquelyne (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) Silverman got her torah on and made us all proud. Check out the pix on my Flickr site.