Mondaugen's Unknown Architect

Some more travels

Travelers are wretched by nature. They leave the community in which they have a place, to visit ones in which they do not. In these unfamiliar communities, they rely on traditions that respect the stranger, and guard against the traditions that don't. Rest is only ever partial and trust more often built on hope than knowledge. The traveler's joys are solitary emotions, impossible to share fully in spite of tales and pictures. They are strangers moving among strangers. Return to the original community to be known again is never possible, for communities thrive on shared experience. While away, the traveler changes in different directions than the community. The traveler brings only the uncanny back with him: interesting at arm's length, but ever threatening to those who remained. Travelers are wretched by nature.

And yet travelers are the happiest of people. They leave the burdens of community for the freedom of the road. Every step is new and fresh. As the traveler moves from place to place, every problem can be left behind and forgotten and every joy recorded and remembered in some way. Every new place offers unexpected excitement and challenges without the weight of any responsibility except the personal. Traveler are unburdened while seeking hidden joys, and so they are the happiest of people.

There is no synthesis of the happiness and sadness of traveling. Traveling is a coin, not a Moebius strip. But there can be resolution for the traveler. While there is no return home, there are new homes only among other stopped travelers. There is community among people who no longer belong to their origins. Travelers form a third culture, neither the one they left, nor the one they visited, but something between composed of portions equal to the time spent in each place.

How few of us live in stable, unchanging single community? How few of us remain untraveled? How few of us have not visited much of the world virtually through films and books? How many of us consider the traveler to be suspicious instead of a curious new person to visit? So we are all travelers, awkward to some degree in defining just what community in which we're a member. With our doors and windows open to the rest of the world, our houses are losing definition, breaking into fragments of communities. We belong to a church, a club, have a job, know our neighbors, and have our friends and each defines a totally separate micro-community. When switch jobs, we lose one work community and move to a new one. We are all travelers, whether physically mobile or not, wretched and happy to the extent we can feel comfortable in our current set of communities. I always hate it when I find opposites are really much the same thing.

And when I spin too much of this thoughtful and pretentious nonsense in an attempt to bring sense and humility to my mind, I engage my feet in a good long walk out of the house, down the driveway and past the people who know me for better or worse.

And so I shall start telling travel stories again: some actual, some imagined, good ripping yarns, ponderous self-indulgent sludge, amusing fluff and the occasionally plain-spoken tale. I promise to post at least once a month. And I hope you tune in again.

Green Dragonfly

It was during a second canoe trip on the murky waters of Lillinonah that a green dragonfly landed on my arm and stayed a while. Only when I reached for my camera, did it fly away.

We started early, the sun still low. Not a cloud in the pale blue sky. The landing dock was empty except for a few bass boat trailers. The canoe slipped in the glassy water without fuss or haste. Load with gear and family, a push with a paddle, and it was. Land, roads, cars and parking lot forgotten. We were a little molecule of four on the blankness of the lake.

We hugged the shore, stared up at old forest. White oaks, hickories and maples that reached branches down to the water. Crisp green leaves, brilliant reflections of the sun, every shade of green in the canopy. Water a matching flat green.

In places the overhanging branches were tall and long enough to glide the canoe under. Tucked under the leaf canopy at water's edge, out of the sun's heat, cool forest colors, deep browns, yellows and reds. Brushing against branches, bewildered spiders fell on us, groggily made their way off.

We startled a blue heron who flew soundlessly from the forest. Indifferent to us, he pointed like an arrow to a spot across the lake where he already was. We waited, then he was.

A red fox fled a garden along the lake edge, not too quickly for we paddled slowly but kept him in sight. He paused and looked back often. He wanted us to follow, it seemed, and show us a place that we didn't understand.

Behind a canopy of trees, an old stone wall meandered down the shore slope and directly into the water. Cut in two by Lillinonah the Reservoir, old fields were no more. Now forested above and watery below, only the stone walls spoke plainly of the past when we tilled the earth and planted crops in a stony valley with a stream at the bottom.

The wall there wasn't right, a behemoth stranded and forgotten, perpendicular to the shore, a broken neck pose, no longer separating any place from any other. What the wall said made me sad. But the wall had not crumbled into random stones. It held.

But perhaps a stone wall is something different. Perhaps it is a representation of one stone moving through time. Each stone is a memory of the stone at a certain time. The wall indicates the stone's direction. This stone had meandered through a forest, or followed a line prescribed, then fallen in the emerald water, perhaps to drown, perhaps to reach the other side, perhaps to remain at the bottom where it could be assured of not being disturbed. Or worse, perhaps its intent was utterly alien.

We passed docks and lawns, power boats and jet skis, well maintained and ready to make their owners happy with a thrill ride down the lake and back again.

Then the dragonfly landed. First it perched next to my son. I called his attention to it, but if flew away. Then it landed on my arm, near my shoulder. My daughter turned and stared at it with me. I think it stared back, manifold eyes. Its wings twitched. Its green iridescent body and arms were immobile. Its eyes gathered information. It rested. Each wing twitch was a frame in sequence.

I loved the moments I look at it.

Then I reached for the camera to capture the moment. The dragonfly was off in a clatter of wings.

Stepping Out of the Door

The trouble with setting foot outside your door is that grand adventures don't happen often enough. One foot set in front of the other over the threshold of all that is home and hearth usually leads to the grocery store, the post office--work even. And so we read books, imagine on our own and pray for grandchildren with no common sense.

I can think of a whole industry built around making the mundane both unusual and engaging. It was Coleridge's plan, to make the usual strange. He did most beautifully. Nowadays we have The Office to remind us of how insane our sane lives are. But media that finds beauty and magic in our lives without resorting to the sentimental? Can't think of any: just adrenaline junkie shows with lots of people running around either saving the world or looking over their shoulders.

We step out our doors. We find things and people to believe in, things and people to fight, things and people to mock, things to do. But this is not life worth salt. These are all tasks, mechanical for the most part though somewhat spiritual. They are all endeavors that leave us satisfied to some semi-measurable extent. And so we plod to our graves, feeling either somewhat-fulfilled or somewhat-not-fulfilled.

And then occasionally we lift stakes and live in India for two years.

By the way, I never set foot in either an ashram or a call center. Money and God were not my purposes for living there.

Adventures adventures adventures. I have not had adventures, even in India. I lived a life there, no different from others. I stepped out of my door with the same trepidation and resignation that I step out of it here. Another day in the office, so to speak.

Adventures, I am convinced, happen when you step out of your door intentionally, when your foot falls with a finality that wipes away the mundane behind each step and refuses to find any path already taken. Your personal density must be very low, I think, for true adventures, as the baggage of life can only nod you towards the comfortable ruts of yesterday. To crawl through the woods to an uncertain death like a character in Beckett is an adventure. To leave your car in a ditch and tramp without speaking to any family is an adventure. To surprise your family by becoming the parent you always thought you were is an adventure.

They're not too far to find, really, though long distance travel does help adventures occur.

Perhaps now I must step out my door and find them.

The Horror of the Last

The last blog about India will be one on our trip in Rajasthan. I've put off writing that blog knowing it's the last. Our distant adventures in exotic locales are at an end. Life in the Normal, Risk Adverse and Morally Correct US is starting again.

I could continue to blog, of course about something in the US; but the specific topic so far eludes me. There is nothing that presents itself easily.

Woodworking, politics, the art of living, poetry, Shakespeare, hiking in the US, all are possible.

With luck, the new topic will be even more engaging. But for those of you who don't, and find the next blog so different as to be uninteresting, thanks for reading this far.

Pterocarpus dalbergioides

Twenty-two years ago, I got my first summer job in a woodworking shop. I was 17, surly, socially awkward and really interested in how to make stuff. An architectural paneling business needed a kid to sweep, carry, stack and do whatever needed doing that took no skills. I had none of the right qualifications, but the owner was my girlfriend’s dad. So I got the job.

On the first day, I walked into the shop and found everything was covered in bright orange dust. Wood dust was brown, right? So what was this stuff?

“What’s this stuff?” I asked after my first sneeze.

“Pterocarpus dalbergioides” was the answer. I didn’t move. He seemed to soften with a bit of a smile and said “padauk.” I still didn’t move. Perhaps my new boss had just sneezed. “And shut up and get to work” he continued. So I did, mostly, still puzzling over the bright orange dust.

At the first coffee break, I tried to approach my new fellow employees with ‘shop talk.’

“So, what’s the bright orange stuff?” my icebreaker delivered with a wide smile.

“Wood dust, you moron” was the answer, accompanied by the type of sniggering that I deserved.

“Yeah, yeah, but what kind of dust?” I pressed on, pretending not to be a moron.

“Padauk dust, you moron.”

“Oh, I see” I lied then shut up. At least ‘pterodactyl dibertensis’ sounded intelligent.

“We’re paneling a corporate headquarters with it.”

“I see” I added with a thoughtful look, figuring silence was the better part of perceived intelligence.

That evening, I arrived home dirtier than usual and covered in orange dust. Actually, my mother shrieked as my face was red. The dust had mixed with sweat to produce a reddish tone on my skin. I washed off the dust, but not all of the color. I had been dyed red. Only exfoliation got the red out.

When my clothes came out of the wash, they also had a reddish tinge. It never came out.

The next day, my nose did not stop running. I began to worry. At the coffee break I couldn’t help myself and spoke.

“Wow, that dust is toxic. Makes me sneeze like crazy.”

“Wear a face mask, you moron.” At least this reply was helpful. But even with a dust mask, the nasal infection continued.

There was a huge amount of work to be done at the corporate headquarters, and the padauk dust wafted through the shop all summer. One of my jobs was unloading the lumber truck and stacking the fresh boards on the racks. My first splinter was an experience. It wasn’t just painful, it stung like crazy instantaneously.

“Ow ow ow ow” I cried, hopping around the shop looking for a tweezers.

“What’s wrong, you moron?”

“A spinter, a padauk splinter, a big one” I howled.

“Oh shit, let me help.” It was the first genuine sympathy I had gotten from my co-workers. A tweezer was found, the splinter was pulled from my hand with great pain, and blood trickled out. Some splinter that was.

“Better get some antibiotic ointment on that before it starts to fester.”

“No, I’ll be fine.” It was time to assert some poise and stop acting like a baby.

“Moron.”

That night, I awoke with a swollen, painfully throbbing hand. The damn thing was festering.. I stumbled to the bathroom, squeezed a huge volume of puss out and slathered antibiotic ointment all over it. In the morning, my hand felt broken.

At the next coffee break, my obviously swollen hand fetched more sniggers and not a few “morons.” In my frustration, I pressed for information.

“So where the hell does this awful shit come from?”

“The Andaman Islands, you moron.”

“Yeah fine, but where are they?”

“Somewhere around India. Other side of the planet. Why do you care?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Just it’s awful stuff. Why are we building paneling out if it?” and I sneezed again.”

“Look at it when it’s finished, and you’ll know why. Moron.”

So I did, just to spite them.

And man was it gorgeous. Padauk finished with linseed oil gets very dark, becoming deep blood-red with black and purple streaks. The grain is really fine, with intricate eddies and sort of a flaky appearance in places. It was fascinating up close, impressive at a distance. This wood from another planet was wonderful.

I ended that summer with an odd orange tan, a new set of orange clothes and a healthy respect for the toxicity of tropical woods. But the corporate headquarters was stunningly beautiful. I vowed never to work with padauk if I had a choice.

Two weeks ago I spent Christmas on Havelock, one of the Andaman Islands, with my wife and kids. None of them (thankfully) knew me as a snot-nosed kid in my first woodworking job. So none understood when I abandoned them one afternoon to visit Chatham Island, just outside of Port Blair.

“I’ll be back. I just have to visit a sawmill.”

“Huh? Has dad lost his mind or is he just being stupid again?”

Chatham Island is occupied entirely by the largest sawmill in Southeast Asia. It’s the only sawmill in the islands, so all padauk is sawn there, always has been and probably always will be. For a mere 20 rupees, I got to visit the source of the wood I carried, stacked and hated so long ago.

In the Saw Doctoring Unit, I met a sawyer tuning a blade. He had worked at the mill all his life, starting 25 years earlier. I thought he might have sawed the board that gave me that horrible splinter. But he would have been a snot nosed apprentice back 25 years ago, so I didn’t punch him in the nose. But I took his picture.

I found the main sawing floor. The logs are carried from the forests to the Mill on ships. The loading docks are on the same level as the mill, so the logs are rolled directly onto carts and fed into giant bandsaws. It’s quite an operation.

I found a shop, but nobody working. On a table was a block of padauk in the process of being carved into an elephant. The milling machines looked very 1950’s British.

The Mill seemed prepared for woodworking tourists, since there was a museum between storehouses. It told the tale of padauk and other species found on the Andamans. The museum featured some burls (called “cancers”) some wide boards, awful furniture a buffalo, and a dolphin, all equally coated with gloppy varnish.

In a big storehouse, I found a pile of freshsawn padauk, perhaps cut that morning, still damp to the touch. All the wood we used back when was kiln dried, and largely odorless except for the stinging sensation of breathing in the dust. But the fresh stuff smelled wonderful: a bit of cinnamon, a bit of stale socks, a bit of potpourri, a bit of I don’t know what. I lingered so long the stock manager asked if I was all right. I was.

I picked off a large splinter from one board, stuck it in my pocket and walked away. I felt like a moron again.

Andaman Adventures

After six weeks of traveling around India, in Rajasthan and the Andaman Islands, I have more than one story to tell. Instead of a  blog to end all blogs and permanently damage all reader relationships by outpacing Dickens for wordcounts, I’ll hold my tongue as much as possible.

The first installment is about the Andamans in general. The next will be about padauk, a wood that has a certain significance to me. Finally, I think one about Rajasthani Castle Forts is in order. I may throw in a nightmares-of-Indian-travel tale as well, but my stamina may even flag by then.

The Andaman Islands are a marvelous mix of historical oddities and truly pristine wilderness, one of the last places on earth where stone-age and pre-stone age people live relatively undisturbed. Nobody really knows what the Jarawa, Shompen or Sentinalese are like. Some still fire arrows at anyone who tries to contact them. Even the names they use to describe themselves aren’t known by the rest of the world. The few photos of them are marvelously disturbing, as their ethnic heritage seems amazingly diverse, from Africa to Burma and Siberia.

The natural habitat on many islands are equally undisturbed, in spite of immigration from the Indian mainland. The undisturbed bits are visible from all the tiny human settlements. The Andaman and Nicobars are a submerged mountain chain. They have reefs, but also huge rainforests that grow right up to the beach, and mangrove shorelines. This makes them, um, different, from most tropical islands, many of which are coral atolls covered in coconut and palm trees. Sme of the photos will show this lovely oddity.

The pristine beaches and somewhat pristine coral reefs (damaged by the tsunami in 2004) are the main tourist attractions. Who could resist? So we went. Here’s a mostly visual description of where we went, what we did. Sadly, I forgot my camera, so these are shots taken by friends. And I can’t show the best bits, the coral reefs that we snorkeled twice every day we were there, as I had no underwater camera equipment. Sorry.

This is Port Blair, the main port, from the air, looking Southeast. It's the big city in the middle On the left is Ross Island, where the British created their own bit of England in the 19th century, complete with tennis courts, gothic stone church and bungalows in the Arts and Crafts style (or a near enough approximation). Bottom left of Port Blair you may be able to see the Cellular Jail, notorious in Indian history as this was where the British sent the political prisoners during their rule. Conditions were horrible, to say the least.

These are two views of Havelock Island from our ferry. If it looks pristine and untouched, it largely still is, though not if the hotel industry has its way. They're building as furiously as bribery allows them. No one could tell me if the dead trees on the beach were a result of the 2004 tsunami or something else, but I think the tsunami is to blame. It didn't topple the trees, but it undermined their root systems, took away the soil closest to the beach.    

Our hotel really wasn't a hotel, more a group of tents, huts and shacks (can't find that photograph) in a coconut grove just off beach #5. This shot looks from the beach into the resort, to a little hut where we had dinner now and again. The decorations are for Christmas and New Year.

  This is the beach right next to our hotel during high tide. Please ooh and aah over the color of the water, which is perfectly clear, over white sand. clumps of sea grass and corals. The water here is quite shallow--no more than eight feet deep at high tide, though shallower in many places--as it's a bay between islands. You can swim for close to a kilometer before finding the deep water channel.

This is the same beach, #5, at low tide. Now you can literally walk a kilometer out in the bay. Closer, the clumps of coral are exposed. Hermit crabs were the most fun to catch, though the bigger ones pinched in frustration at being disturbed.

Just a marvelous slightly-offshore tree on beach #5.

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This little shrine has a lovely story. Tribes along the Burmese coast built rafts, put shrines or houses on them, and set them adrift. Many of them end up in the Andamans. Fishermen come across them floating along the coast. They're towed back and sold for their bamboo. The rafts are made from big bamboo (8 in diameter and up) logs, which is valuable to the locals as it doesn't grow on the islands. Another much larger raft (sorry no picture) had two stories: a shack below with a fire pit and a platform above, I'd imagine for sleeping.

I heard many accounts about the rafts. One theory suggested the rafts were designed to lure demons away from families beset with troubles. You build the raft, live on it for a while, assume the demon lives with you, then set the raft afloat when the demon is sleeping and escape yourself. Demon awakes miles out to sea. The little shrine suggests some other use, probably not involving human passengers, as the construction was pretty crude (just bunches of different-length bamboo lashed together).

At night, someone would always burn beach debris (coconut palms, leaves, driftwood) to keep the sandfly population down. It made for excellent fun, and an opportunity to create light angles with a slow aperture.

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And this little fellow washed up in the night. I think it's some kind of trumpet fish. We saw them swimming in groups above the reefs. Nice shape but boring colors. Lovely rows of sharp little teeth, though.

It wasn't long before we hired a boat to go snorkeling at a good site. This is South Button Island. From a distance it really looks like a button. Again, I thought I had an image from afar, but can't find it now. The reefs are all around the island, though on one side, the island plunges down vertically, so you can swim by a wall of rock with gloom below. Very atmospheric.

Here are some brave kids, jumping in with no seeming bottom, and no real shore to swim to. I found it mildly disconcerting, this being my first real snorkeling adventure. A few months previous, I swam around Lakshadweep's reefs, but without flippers or a proper mask, since the government resort doesn't keep such things to rent (and there's no other source on the island). Nevertheless, I adored it.

South Button was simply magnificent. I can name very little of what I saw, except a half-eated sea snake, millions of the oddest looking neon-colored fish, and the wildest forests of coral. The Sea of Green in the Beatles' movie Yellow Submarine featured really bizarre creatures. I thought they were flights of fancy due to overstimulation from LSD. Now I know the animators had simply snorkeled around reefs, and based their creatures on fact.

The island itself is very simple, very rural. There are two roads from the jetty, one leading North, the other South. You pass by farms, animals and Indians living much the way they do on the mainland. There are the same animals, ame lazy stray dogs, same bedraggled buildings and same smiles on faces. I do think, though, the tuktuk drivers are bit more bored than usual. As we were a large groupwe often took two tuktuks to the other side of the island. Invariably, the drivers raced each other. I come away in awe that they never lifted a wheel off the ground, ran off the road or screeched tires. This isn't to say there aren't plenty of accidents. A jeep ran off the road right in front of our hotel. Took 20 people to push his jeep back right.

Elephant beach, lovely isolated and with excellent snorkeling right off the beach was a 40 minute boat ride from the jetty. There's no road to the beach, and the forest path to reach it is about 3 km long, part of it through a tidal swamp. So we took local boats there. The boats were leaky affairs with incredibly noisy motors. This was the only downside, as you either held your ears or reached the beach unable to hear anything.

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This is a lighthouse on the way to Elephant beach.

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And this is our boat waiting for us.

Elephant beach was truly lovely, made mysterious by all the dead trees. Some of them displayed the most amazing grain (yes, the woodworker in me is surfacing). Sad to see them slowly rot.

But the coconuts will sprout anew and replace them in time.

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I've saved the best for last, which is Beach #7. It has a bit of fame, considered one of the nicest in the world, but so far is still amazingly undeveloped (though for how long, who can tell). This shot gives some sense of the length and gentle curve. Just off the beach is a desnse forest of ancient trees. You always had a choice of cool shade or hot sun. While there were no elephants on Elephant beach, there were a few on Beach #7. For 20 rupees, you could have a ride. 

This is a little cove on the Western end of Beach #7. We most often settled here for the day. The kids had great fun in the surf, and excellent snorkeling was just off the beach. I saw two hawksbill turtles here, one for quite a long time as it was resting on the bottom and didn't seem disturbed by my presence.

Of course we would stay until sunset, then catch the city bus or a tuktuk back to our place.

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And the sunsets are somehwat memorable on Beach 7.

Hike to the Base of Rat Tail Falls

“It’s great. Great hike. Do it.”

I waited for more detail, perhaps a description, at least an impression: but none came.

The uncomfortable silence ended with more practical questions—how long? where do you start? Is there a path? Each had a vague but acceptable answer. A day long. Start at the reservoir. Just follow the stream up and climb over the rocks as necessary.

The hike to the base of Rat Tail Falls, the bottom of a 975 ft. sheer drop waterfall, seemed a relatively straightforward hike, and vaguely “great.”

“And you should take a rope...”

To hang ourselves with?

“… as parts might be difficult to get up without one.”

This was unexpected advice. My adrenaline glands perked up. School hikes were all along paths and to places that nearly anyone with two legs could reach. Sure, there were dangerous spots, cliffs, rotten bridges and slippery rocks; but nothing that required a rope. This hike would be a new kind of challenge—it sounded like serious stream rock hopping, maybe climbing.

I organized a bus, encouraged fellow hikers to join, and awaited the day thinking about the hike.

The destination itself offered some mystery. A year ago, two Western tourists fell from the top of the Falls. The story went that a Forest Officer had seen their bodies floating in a pool. Peering over the ledge at the top of Rat Tail I tried to see a pool far below where tourists might float. But even with binoculars it was hard to make anything out: snippets of water, rocks and mostly jungle canopy. And while the drop off is sheer, there is just enough slope to prevent seeing what lies directly at the bottom, presumably where the hikers would have landed. The bodies must have been washed down to a lower, visible pool. But visible from where?

A path from the top of the Falls leads along a slope to the South. At certain points you can look back at the falls, feathery silver threads cascading over one another, but the stream at bottom is even more hidden than from above. The water seems simply to fall into a green forest canopy.

The Forest Officer must have had some other path or trail that gave a view down to the base. Then again, the valley was entirely uninhabited, and there was likely no trail leading near the base. I couldn’t completely understand how he discovered the bodies of the hikers. But as with most gossip, I’m sure I didn’t have an accurate or complete story. The tale made me more curious what the base of the Falls looked like.

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In the days leading up to the hike, our group grew from five, to eight, then finally fifteen. One couple claimed to have hiked it already four times and loved it. They were planning on bringing their five-month old son along. Another had hiked it and remembered it was fun. Neither mentioned rope. I began to wonder if I should bring it at all.

One hiker had a small fear of heights, and asked me a worried question about the difficulty. I told her that one hiking companion was five-months old. As we would hike out the same way we hiked in, she could just stop at any time if it got too hard. Her worries evaporated.

Then I began to worry that it would be slightly boring. This was allayed by news that we shouldn’t hike it now since the water levels were high and it would be dangerous. That set us to the task.

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The morning of the hike only ten showed up. I climbed on the bus with a 100 ft. stretch of climbing rope and a knapsack filled with breakfast, lunch, tea, insect repellent, a change of clothes, lots of Frooti and water.

As our bus pulled onto the path along the top of the weir, I looked out over the calmest water I’d ever seen. There was not a ripple save for two ducks swimming. The early morning light was softened by haze and cloud. The hills surrounding were vague but mirrored in the water.

“This is unusual, this haze. Back in Canada, we’d expect it was caused by a forest fire or something.”

Was it unusual? The clouds were very low and the air was hazy. The hills came in and out of view. It didn’t seem unusual.

We descended from the bus, bundled the baby and began the walk to the other end of the reservoir. It was a long hike along dead-flat plains, well over an hour of dusty path to reach the stream. We passed mango orchards. Buffalo plowed a field with a farmer following them standing on a harrow. Women in bright saris bent over rows of potatoes, pulling them up one by one. They stopped to smile and wave at us.

In between two orchards we reached our first stream crossing, from left bank to right bank. It was waist-deep and the current pushed at us with vigor. The water was icy cold and a real relief in the humid, hot morning air.

The group spoke of school politics and personal struggles. Voices were loud. Opinions were strong. I tuned in and tuned out to make statements, observations and the like, but only with effort. Mind was softened with the morning. The issues that would set my blood boiling on a school day were mostly irrelevant and relegated to the back of thought. What administrators did or didn’t do had no force in the world around me, the huge canopies of ancient tamarind trees, the vague hills still covered in morning mist, the dark clouds threatening rain to the East, the patchy fields, the yellow-brown sand underneath.

My mind was filled with the surroundings. I looked up at the hillsides that loomed close and tried to figure out which ones they were. The one to the right must be a Northern slope, but it didn’t look right. I wanted to get my bearings, but couldn’t. The path was clear, though, so I gave up and walked.

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We came to a shrine, dedicated to Meenakshi, in the middle of a grove of teak trees. A faded paper image of her, bird in hand, smiled from a tree. Below was a precious piece of cloth draped around the trunk. Hers was a welcoming face, in a welcoming grove. The teaks towered above, their canopy made a huge auditorium space sheltered from the growing strength of the sun.

“Past this point, the villagers don’t go. We have to start rock-hopping as there are no trails to the base of the Falls.”

A shiver of glee ran through the group. This was where the fun started. No path meant every step was a calculation. Can I jump that far? Will my foot slide on that rock? How deep is that murky water? Should I wade or should I jump? Is the left side a better bet or the right? The river turned puzzle.

The first few rock jumps made me feel the weight of that rope in my pack. I couldn’t jump as far, and the shifting weight pushed me around annoyingly. Maybe I’d ditch a few things when we got far enough into the woods away from the paths of people. Then I could pick them up on the way back.

The sun came out. It livened the forest, livened my spirit. The joy of being on an adventure in the woods blossomed fully. I stopped to try and take in the many sweet especial scenes, the rocks that jutted out of the stream, created eddy patterns of specific beauty, the intertwined root balls that required study to unwind and the occasional peek over the trees at the ever-approaching Falls.

The rock hopping was of medium difficulty, and I marveled at father and five-month old son bouncing along at a great pace and with great ease. He was a natural at it. Some in our group began to fall behind, careful with the rocks.

The group spread out, the faster hikers disappearing upstream. We had agreed to go our own paces. A couple agreed to bring up the rear, not leave anyone behind. All had fun at a different pace.

We came upon a lovely swimming hole with a smashing view of the nearing Falls and waited for the last group to catch up. One told a tale of a lost a shoe, a chase downstream, a successful salvage operation, and much laughter. Sweaty, we plunged into the icy water and lolled about. We almost forgot our quest, distracted by the simple pleasures of being there, in the water, the rush of the stream blotting out most thought.

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Rested and wet, we embarked the next stage, up ever-steeper sections of stream bed, over ever-larger rocks. I stared at a giant, hand-sized spider in a head-level web, then couldn’t find the words to warn a fellow hiker backing into it. He turned to find out why I was sputtering, and looked the spider right in the eye, inches away. His expression was priceless.

Rocks the size of cars gave way to rocks the size of houses gave way to rocks the size of two-story apartment buildings. We climbed up them. We climbed alongside them. We climbed between them.

Only the leaves on the trees remained the same size. Otherwise the evidence suggested we were shrinking.

The steeper rocks created crashing water sprayed everywhere around us, feeding slippery algae and moss on the rocks. The less confident hikers turned green in color. I’m not sure what color my face was, absent a mirror.

With each jump I’d remember the weight in my pack. It would shift and throw off my balance just a bit. And thinking of balance, I’d think of the weight. The rope was not light.

I kept the rope in my bag. Then I thought of the baby. Effortlessly, he had been a passenger, up over the rocks, through the pools. I forgot my pack.

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We came to another pool and gentle rocky slope. The Falls towered above us. The noise was strong. We were close.

“It will get a bit tougher up ahead.”

“Will we need the rope?” I asked.

“Yes, perhaps.”

Mother and baby stopped at this point. Dad set up a hammock under a shady tree, and baby went to sleep. This was a sign, but I didn’t read it.

I was beginning to get tired. Immediately we started ascending rocks more than hopping them. One 20 ft. high boulder had to be scaled via a tree next to it. Thin crevices between rocks offered the only hand and foot holds. The climbs up and around the slippery rocks were treacherous. It wasn’t five foot falls we risked, but 10ft. and 20 ft. falls down into the stream. A simple slip could mean death. It was fantastic.

The exhilaration was tremendous but not conscious. The focus necessary to cheat death was everything. I would look at a hand hold and realize that if I let go, I would probably lose all purchase, then fall with no control down to my death. I would trust that hand hold on the basis of will alone. I did not want to die. I was not going to let go. My fingers would not slip. Then up and over, I would sit and marvel that I hadn’t let go. My will had triumphed. I was alive. But what had I triumphed against?

The eeriness of the stream valley crept up on us. This was no place for humans. The giant boulders were indifferent to our presence. They did not feel us climbing as they slept for millennia covered in moss. Our presence was insignificance. The joy of our will, the conquering climb, was a song drown out by the crashing water and wasted anyway as the stones were not listening nor remembering.

Higher up, the stones changed character. Most were not rounded with wearing water over the ages, but freshly jagged, balanced so precariously on one another a little kick would dislodge them. I looked up. The cliff sides looming closer had nothing growing on them. The strata were nearly vertical. I considered the violence necessary to raise an ancient seabed and tilt it vertical, and I felt a deep seated humility. The house-size fragments around us were mere dust specs fallen from the cliff faces.

We made our way to the bottom of a house-size rock angled sharply down. It seemed to be balanced on two or three very small, sharp rocks that seemed freshly wedged, and not particularly well-wedged. I climbed under and found another hiker stopped, shaking with fear. I could see in the dark profile of a face that realized what I hadn’t felt yet: the huge rock above our heads could slide at any moment, reduce each of us to a thin paste in a heartbeat. My fear met hers, and I felt the urge to urge her on up and out from under, so I could escape fate too. Thankfully I bit my tongue and breathed carefully. A few seconds, an eon, a timeless moment biding existence before death, we stood breathing hard from the climb, under the dark rock. She collected herself. She moved up. I paused a second longer and contemplated if that second was the fatal one before I could make it out from under.

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I recall now a television series about an attempt on Everest. In one episode, a Sherpa spent an hour trying to convince an exhausted hiker not to use his last bit of energy to summit, but to use it to come back to camp. The hiker, so close to his goal, wouldn’t agree for some time. Finally the Sherpa got through his desire and helped him see that his life hung in the balance. The man relented, descended, and stumbled back into camp on the very last drops of his energy. He nearly died from exhaustion as it was. His lack of clear thought and ambition nearly killed him.

Three of our group of nine reached their limits, and decided to have their lunches just above the balanced rock. The rest moved on. I moved on and wondered if the swimming sensation in my head meant anything important.

A fellow hiker seemed to have a lot of trouble. I offered to take her pack. I hung it over my chest for the most part, but took to throwing it up on ledges before ascending, then picking it up when I got there.

Up another twenty-foot tree to swing over onto another building-sized rock, I heard the hiker up ahead say:

“We’re here.”

I clambered up the sloping edge of the boulder to reach its height and took in an overwhelming view. There before us was the full face of Rat Tail Falls, all 975 ft. of it looming directly up. Fifty feet below our boulder was a lake, 100 ft. by 50 ft. wide. The cascade thundered into the lake, pushing mist at 30 mph across the surface.

It was 1 pm. I watched the sun set over the ridge above our heads, casting the valley into shadow.

The black wet rock walls of the cliff face looked like fragmented obsidian. The water of the lake was steel-black. The cascade roared so loud, we had to shout to be heard. The vertical water raged down the jagged face, slapping the protruding rocks and fragmenting into mist. The curtain of water obscured the rocks behind. What was there? We had arrived at the Gates of Hell.

I sat down and ate my lunch, a cheese sandwich. I drank my Frooti. I caught my breath.

The tourists had fallen the full height and into this lake. The cascade smashed against several sharp rocks jutting out from the cliff face. Did the tourists hit them first, and die before they hit the water? At the base of the falls was a huge triangular pile of freshly fallen rocks. When would the next rock be added to the pile from above?

“Let’s go swimming!”

We climbed down our boulder to the edge of the lake. Boulders just jutted down in, there was no shore. Could we get back out? We jumped in. The icy water was over our heads. We swan ten feet and I collided with a submerged rock, cut open my shoulder.

Wind blew water in our faces, little waves slapped us. I swam on my back. The current pushed me away from my goal, the base of the falls. I swam harder. I turned to swim face forward. I swallowed water. I struggled. I couldn’t touch bottom. I reached the end of my endurance and felt I couldn’t swim any more. Exhaustion owned me. I had to rest. My arms and legs were done. I would slip beneath the waves and that would be that.

But I was not going to die. I refused to stop moving my arms and kicking my legs. I ordered them to move. They moved. I swam on. I touched a rock, covered in black slime. I grabbed it feebly, but made my way on top of it. Gulping breaths as fast as I could, I found rest. I sat on the rock as the others swam all the way to the falls. They climbed up and stood under the cascading water, yelling something back. I sat huddled on the rock praying for the strength to swim back. There was no other way to get back. I had to swim back.

I swam back.

As I got to the rocks where we jumped in, another hiker was floating playfully in the water. She smiled and flicked water at my face. Then my toe found mud and sand. I smiled back and flicked water at her. There is infinite life in a smile.

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Back up on the rock overlooking the lake, we rested. I gasped for breath. Others stared.

“Just … got … a … little … winded … while … swimming” I explained.

We sat, ate, thought. Conversation was sparse.

“Do you know the Lord of the Rings? I think the rock faces look like the sides of Orthanc, you know, Saruman’s tower.”

“More like the mountains around Mordor.”

“Yeah. It does look spooky.”

Staring at the steel-black lake I remembered almost drowning much the same way when I was 11. It was during a canoe trip in Northern Wisconsin. We had paddled all day. The others, all older than me, jumped in for a swim. I aimed to follow, not having any clue how tired or how bad I swimmer I was. I got part way out when my arms and legs ceased to function. I called out just as I went down and tried to hold my breath. I was pulled out moments later, sputtering and alive. I was still that same swimmer. And I had cheated death again, this time without calling out.

But perhaps I wasn’t really near death. Perhaps I was only as exhausted as I wanted to be. The understanding that one day we will dies makes us human. This knowledge differentiates us from all other animals. Animals may fear pain, and know when a loved one is gone, but they do not fear or understand their own death. This knowledge of the self’s death is the wellspring of faith, and from that the practice of religion. While we know that we shall die, we don’t quite know what comes after. Through faith we get a kind of understanding, but how many people have real faith? Far too many practice religion without it.

One way we contemplate and understand our own death is by cheating it. We climb rocks to exhaustion. We race cars. We fly planes. We walk out our doors in the morning and go to work. These adrenaline-based activities don’t give us any intellectual understanding of death, nothing we can put in words. Rather the closer we get to our own death, the more easily we can feel it, sense it from within a hidden corner of our brain. The knowledge of our own death is not an intellectual knowledge: it is faith, for what mind can contemplate its own inability to think? We can only feel death with faith.

Cheating death sharpens the contrast between what we are now, alive, and what we will be, not. The closer we get, the more we know, and the more control our will has over the greatest mystery of all, which brings peace.

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“Hey. Do you see the face?”

Someone pointed up at a large divot in the cliff face. There was a face. A half face. A nose to the right of it. A lip. An open mouth. A cry of pain face, half of it washed away by the falls.

“No, no, the other way too.”

There was a woman’s head, an African stylized head facing the other way. But the other face captured me. The sadness was right. But what did it say?

We packed to go. I lurched my heavy pack on. My head swam. The rock under my feet felt wobbly, uncertain. My depth perception seemed oddly pinched. Was I dehydrated? No, I had drunk steadily. I was just tired. Each step had to be a conscious, forced choice. I wanted to make sloppy footfalls. I said no.

I stared back at the huge wall of black wet rock. It said nothing I could hear. It was indifferent. The Gates of Hell could care less about our presence. I smiled back.

The descent began, down a tree, across a boulder, through a crevice. I came to many precipices and thought—no, this must be the wrong way. It’s not possible to have come up that. But then one of us went down without a problem. So I followed to another dead-end. But no, it really was the way we came up. So down we went.

I saw the giddy heights better than coming up. They were impressive. We made our way down bit by bit. My legs shuddered. I did not slip. I wouldn’t let my foot slip. Time slowed down. A step could take an age, time enough to contemplate the color of the moss to one side, the curve of a banyan branch.

We came upon the group that had not continued. They were finishing a leisurely lunch. Sweat on our faces, we smiled back and shared a story or two.

At our first steep, slippery section, I looked up to see a face filled with fear, grit teeth, sweat. At the bottom of the slope, the grimace was exchanged for a smile just as intense. There it was—our common joy at cheating death. Why would she climb these rocks, fearing them so? Fear is a lemon-tart pleasure. Her face alternated all the way down. I’m sure mine did the same.

I did not slip. Not once. I didn’t believe it at the time. And I don’t believe it now. I gained energy as I descended. The rope got lighter. I carried another’s pack as well. I smiled often.

As the rocks shrank from houses to trucks then cars, we came to a water slide, thirty feet of relatively smooth rock on a gentle incline down to a pool, missed or ignored on the way up. We all threw down our packs and slid down, face first, screaming, laughing. There’s not enough death to cheat in climbing. We have to slide down the waterfalls too.

But I had a belly full of death, and chose to carry packs down the slope rather than swim.

The stream grew tame as we descended: the rocks smaller, the forest more civilized, the current slower. Two hours of steady walking later, we came to the placid, horizontal surface of the reservoir, just as mirror smooth as we had left it in the morning.

We waited for our bus on the weir, seated on a neat wall, looking over the water, eating raisins, talking about nothing much in particular, what dinner awaited us, if the traffic would be heavy on the way back up. The sun settled into the haze behind our backs, then fell below the hilltops. The reservoir didn’t move. We all agreed it was the best hike.

Rat Tail Redivivus

I hiked to Rat Tail Falls for a third time last weekend. The first time was a revelation. The second was a visit with an old friend. The third was best.

We hiked, as always, on a Saturday. But since the popular school "Formal Dinner-Dance" was scheduled that evening, our group was small--only five. Most regular hikers preferred to spend the day primping and preening for the big party.

We started early, but got to the trail head late. I missed the stop and our driver kept going. A quiet grumpiness filled the car, a mixture of early morning fatigue, mild hangovers and unacknowledged frustration. We could see the Rat Tail Valley below our road, but the molasses-slow car had to find the trail head first. Early morning mist made the view inexpressive. Everyone almost said something.

Once on the trail, we walked in silence. Feet obeyed, minds wandered. No one spoke. It was best.

Elephant grass six-feet high clogged the trail, made it disappear. The resilient and sharp clumps obscured the ground below and the route ahead. It cut our hands and faces. It pushed back when we pushed forward. I led the group left and right, searching for direction clues to our goal: a hillside with dolmens on top. Twelve-thousand year old dolmens. Dolmens that still stood, unmoved since they were built. Only parts had collapsed. But which way? Mostly down, then up at the right place.

We descended steep slopes, pushing through the thick grass, falling into it, grasping clumps to keep from falling too hard, feeling for footing in a slow, continuous fall, cushioned and controlled. No one spoke. The grass hissed against itself, crunched under our feet. Hips sideways we moved, pushed through the grass. It was all there was: the grass and down. Don't fall.

Silence in the woods is no silence. The hiss of the grass, the crunch of each footstep, your own breathing. The crickets fiddling their legs into a sharp electronic buzz, the leaves playing a thousand tunes on each other as the silent wind rustles them. Monkey calls in the distance. Bird calls that aren't right.

Like a long-legged fly upon the stream, his mind moves upon silence. Thought is not possible in the presence of speech. But in silence it is. And in the woods, I can think. But it is not silent.

I know true silence, perfect, unerring silence. I once spent a night alone in a nuclear bomb shelter in Switzerland. I closed the great, air-sealed door. I turned off the light. I climbed in a bunk. There was no light whatsoever. There was no sound whatsoever. I was terrified. An abyss of emptiness opened up in my mind and I fell into it. I reached and I could not grasp. I screamed and I could not be heard. I listened to the metallic ring of my ears. I despaired. I listened to the beating of my heart and sleep came like a blessing.

Pushing down through the elephant grass suggested a child's game, falling in a dream, swimming, gathering, holding, losing, feeling, breathing. We didn't speak. Preventing death-by-a-fall was our only thought.

Then we broke through the grass onto bare rock and saw the dolmen hill ahead.

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It was magnificent. We stopped, put down our packs and stared at it for a long time.

I admired. I examined details. I compared. I imagined. But I did not understand.

I wondered what the others thought.

The first dolmen was still standing. We climbed inside, then climbed out. We sat and ate oranges on the top.

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The group of seven or eight dolmens I didn't examine much. I knew them well. Still perfectly rectangular with intact roofs after 12,000 years. We climbed inside again.

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No one knows for sure what they were used for. Most are on hilltops, and most can be seen from other dolmens on other hilltops. Were they burial sites? No one has found bones. Were they signal stations? They are silent on the matter. And so they inspire thought. 

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Some dolmens have sired trees, perhaps many generations of them.

We left the dolmens and found our way to the river valley through old shola along navigable paths. We had begun to talk. I don't remember what we talked about. The leisure of not having to fight the elephant grass loosened our tongues.

Then we rock-hopped down the river. We were silent again. There was nothing to say as we searched for safe footfalls.

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On occasion, I would stop and wait for the rest to catch up. The woods around felt ready to speak, ready to reveal, but it didn't. Great rocks in the river bed rested near old trees. The scenes were puzzles with no answers. There was great mysterious beauty all around. I was happy.

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Nettles stung us. Red ants pinched us. Leeches bit us. We bled.

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We swam in the river, ducked under waterfalls, cooled off in small pools. We didn't talk much.

From the top of the Falls, we contemplated the trek to the plain where our car waited. The dry reservoir beyond the mango and coconut plantations seemed so far away, unattainable. We were there in two hours.

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At first the drive back to school was talkative. Stories from previous hikes were told. Opinions were held. Then as the light failed, we quieted and some fell asleep. Evening descended, and there was no more to contemplate.

Kukkal Valley

The District Forest Office gave us special permission to hike the Kukkal Valley last weekend, promising an armed escort since wild elephants have been a problem. However, the rules included a strict ban on bringing our own firearms into the valley, or any "plastic" objects.

Sadly, the armed men did not show up and we hiked it alone. No wild elephants attacked either. Still, we came across bullocks, cows, water buffalo, some distant bison, and a up-close monitor lizard, and a cobra the kids teased with a stick. They thought it was a giant rat snake until the hood came up.

Kukkal is far enough away from Kodai to still offer much real wilderness and few day trippers. However, the British built a proper stone staircase from the plains up to the top, much of which still remains. So while we were in the wild, the path was easy.

And what wild it is.Though the head of the trail offered well-tended farms, soon we passed into a jungle and grasslands that offered lovely, unspoiled vistas. At moments, however, the jungle enclosed us so thoroughly, civilization became an odd memory.

There was a Heart of Darkness moment when we emerged from hours of marching through dense foliage to stumble into the well-tended yard of a giant estate house surrounded by a cardamom plantation. Fearful natives watered the plants as we passed through. Mr. Kurtz, however, was not at home.

The highlights of Kukkal were the two swimming holes. The first featured millions of swarming blue-black butterflies. They made such a sight, the hundreds of dragonflies were easy to miss. The second offered a water slide.

At the second swimming hole, I became pensive and wandered alone upstream. There I found cows eating grass. Their minder wasn't in sight, so I took in the delicious solitude. Then I looked down into the water, and beheld a complete gaur skeleton, undisturbed. I reached down and fished out the skull. I had hoped to find one since I arrived. And here was my luck fulfilled. Thank you gaur.

And finally, what trip back up the mountain is complete without ride on top of the van? Low power lines scraped their pates, but no one was killed.

Pictures to follow:

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Paradise Regained?

At Cochin airport, there’s a Kingfisher Airways advertisement for their flights to Agatti Island in Lakshadweep. “Paradise Regained” is the tag.

Now, I’ve read Milton, and at the time I didn't think he had Lakshadweep in mind. I would venture to argue that Milton never heard of Lakshadweep. Few people outside of India have. Still, it generally pays off to check source material before dismissing the claims of a major Indian corporation.

Paradise Regained opens with these lines:

I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.

So Milton suggested that Paradise Regained is Eden risen again. Fine; but what was Eden like? Next step was to check Book 4 of Paradise Lost, and the lovely description the original garden of Eden:

Of EDEN, where delicious Paradise,
…, Crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairie sides
With thicket overgrown, grottesque and wilde,
Access deni'd; and over head up grew
Insuperable highth of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and Pine, and Firr, and branching Palm,
A Silvan Scene, and as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woodie Theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher then thir tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung:
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And higher then that Wall a circling row
Of goodliest Trees loaden with fairest Fruit,
Blossoms and Fruits at once of golden hue
Appeerd, with gay enameld colours mixt:
On which the Sun more glad impress'd his beams
Then in fair Evening Cloud, or humid Bow,
When God hath showrd the earth; so lovely seemd
That Lantskip: And of pure now purer aire
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales
Fanning thir odoriferous wings dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmie spoiles.

This seemed rather more European in character than Tropical Island. A few banyan trees might mix it up with the coconut palms on Lakshadweep, but I doubted if there were any “Cedar, Pine or Firr” trees around. And I think the islands highest elevation is about 20 feet above sea level--so the chance of anything “steep” or “grottesque” was slim.

Kingfisher Airlines' claim began to evaporate. Anyone still awake, or hve you blipped over this part to loook at the pretty pictures. What a callow age we live in.

I continued and found these lines:

As when to them who saile
Beyond the CAPE OF HOPE, and now are past
MOZAMBIC, off at Sea North-East windes blow
SABEAN Odours from the spicie shoare
Of ARABIE the blest, with such delay
Well pleas'd they slack thir course, and many a League
Cheard with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles.

Lakshadweep is indeed a “spicie shoare of Arabie.” Its population is entirely Muslim and the Lakshadweepians have a combined genetic heritage from Arab lands and India. So perhaps Milton really was thinking of Lakshadweep. Kingfisher Airlines wasn’t lying. But I’d have to check out the smells when I got there. I had only to get on the plane with a school-sponsored field trip to find out. So I did.

Finally, the pictures and story.

The turboprop came in for a very fast landing on Agatti. I barely caught a glimpse of the light blue lagoon before we smacked the runway at a disturbing angle and skidded along to a stop. From my window, all I could see was a rusting air compressor, a collapsing fence and some light-blue water beyond. So this was Paradise?

Out of the airplane, the first impression worsened. The smell was simply salty. No spices. But I withheld judgment as best I could until a complete assessment might be made.

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Next on the agenda was a 20 minute wait in the main airport terminal as our visas were processed. We sat in one room of a group of collapsing sheds. Acoustic tile ceilings sagged ominously, held up only by a thick coat of molding paint.

Once outside, we found the airport parking lot unimpressive.

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Beyond the barbwire gates of the airport, we found a huge pile of garbage and plastic sandbags. Just a bit farther and we were treated to a vast field of garbage and beggar children picking through it. They stopped to smile and wave at us.

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Closer inspection discovered a freshwater well filled with junk.

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Paradise Regained, my eye. This was Paradise Lost.

Garbage as far as they eye could see, and not a can to put it in.

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Our school group soldiered across sandflats covered in refuse to the "Agatti Resort," only 200 yards from the airport. The resort grounds, behind another hefty concrete and iron perimeter fence, featured less garbage and fewer incomplete concrete buildings. A huge dock stretched into the lagoon. The weather glowered. The kids swam. We were in "Paradise."

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The turtles were the first sign of hat all was not ill in Lakshadweep. On the second day, they arrived and stayed, eating sea-grass underneath the dock. Since the wind ruffled the lagoon surface, they appeared as dark blobs until they came up for air. Sometimes they seemed to linger and give us a good look. Some students sat and watched them for hours.

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Then I rented a snorkel and mask from the resort and dove into the lagoon. This was my first time snorkeling, so it took a bit of practice to keep the seawater out of the mask, out of my eyes, out of the snorkel, out of my mouth and out of my stomach.

The first things I saw were unimpressive. Mixed in with the white coral sand, sea grass grew on the bottom a few feet off shore. Sea cucumbers oozed around in the sand looking for I'm not sure what. There weren't many shells or crabs to spot.

The joy instead was in the swimming. I could just float and breathe, staring around my marine enironment. There was no need to struggle to keep my head above water to breathe. I'd never experienced that before. I didn't want to do anything else but float along in the muffled quiet of this underwter world.

Oh, and it helped that the lagoon water ranged from 25 to 26 degrees celsius and is crystal clear--I could see huge distances through my mask.

A sea turtle swam within view, veered a bit, and swam away. It was a lovely moment.

There was a certain richness and beauty to the sea-grass that the shore of Agatti did not have. But my camera only breathed air. The irony was delicious.

It didn't take long before I got bored and peered at the dark shapes perhaps 100 ft. off shore. What might they be? A dark grass on the lagoon bottom? Something else?

So I swam out to them. The first dark shape was a brain coral about the size of the cottages we were staying in, perhaps 15 ft. high by 25 ft. across. The top was about 5 feet below the surface of the water. I floated over it, staring at the hundreds of colorful fish swimming in and around the smaller brach corals growing on it. The mosaic beauty was overwhelming.

I dove down to look at the sides of the huge lump of coral. I found fissures filled with bright yellow fish. A pufferfish bobbed toward me then hastily beat a retreat. A red snapper poked his head out then backed away. I saw a hundred different fish of every size, shape and color. Anther turtle swam by maybe fifteen feet away. Floating through the almost-silence of an underwater forest teeming with oddly colorful creates was exquisite. I longed to follow each. I longed to discover every detail and study it. I floated. I dove. I floated. Time was irrelevant. I couldn't leave. I wouldn't leave. I was in paradise.

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But eventually, I came back to shore. I watched the sun set. I longed to go back to the corals, perhaps out to the real reef. I longed to get the seawater out of my ear, but not even Q-tips helped.

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The next day, we visted the main town on Agatti. A museum offered us an "ancient clock" to inspect. 

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The advertising signs tempted us with local delicacies, but I withstood the temptation.

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The local architecture left much to be desired. Most buildings were in the usual Indian government concrete style, partially completed, and littered with garbage. Mogadishu has more charm.

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But out on the dock, the boats offered respite for the eyes. It seemed there was no Indian government concrete boat design they could inflict on the islanders.

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And then the kids arrived. Lots of them. Wary but very happy kids. They wanted their pictures taken. They thrilled to see their tiny images on the back of my camera, innocent delight. They wouldn't go away.

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Well, perhaps they weren't all that innocent. I guess they have satellite TV on Lakshadweep and have studied American gangster culture.

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Over the next few days on the island, I spent as much time as possible underwater. No, I didn't shirk my responsibilities as chaperone. I just spent every free, reasonable minute swimming with the fishes in a world the utter opposite of Danish Modern.