We spent nearly 30 hours on trains headed north to Amritsar. It was early in the morning when we arrived, and the air was not quite cool but was a welcome feeling compared with the rest of India. After finding a place in the old town, we decided to walk over to the Golden Temple, which is the most holy place for those of the Sikh religion. Sikhism developed as a reaction against the caste system and Brahmin domination of ritual in Hinduism. It was founded by ...

We spent a couple of days in Jaipur, the capitol of Rajasthan, looking at the old "Pink City" (it seems more orange to me) and the magnificent Amber Fort. However, being anxious to get out of the center of confrontation between the different castes and continue to outrun the monsoon, we decided to head further west to Jaisalmer in the middle of the Thar Desert. The old part of the town was built inside of a large fortress on a hill that overlooks the de...

Getting to Agra ended up being a bit problematic because it is located in the state of Rajasthan, and the members of the lower caste began striking, planting bombs in the cities, and laying on the railroad tracks and highways to force their issue of getting more jobs. Luckily, most of the fighting had stopped by the time we wanted to go, but our train was cancelled nevertheless because of people on the tracks. So, we bought an open ended ticket on a train to Tund...

Arriving in Varanasi, we were thrust back into the masses, which only amplified the heat and humidity that made my shirt seem like a soaked rag after only two minutes. Eventually, we found our way to a taxi stand which was able to take us only half-way to our hotel because the streets of the old city are very narrow (more narrow than Venice), and we continued on through the labyrinth of streets slowly melting like the wicked witch in the Wizard of OZ until we fou...

Special Report. On the train from Delhi to Varanasi, we actually had the incredible fortune of moving up to first class; where we were placed in a cabin with the President of the Indian Justice Political Party (IJP), Dr. Udit Raj. After seeing the movie Darjeeling Limited, I was pretty un-impressed with the real first class, which was not much more than two sets of bunk beds in a cabin with some carpet and a sliding door. However, having the President's body guar...