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Taj Mahal is the beautiful face of India but so are ugly Indian trains

I don't do selfies. Instead, I found a nice Frenchwoman to take the obligatory Taj shot.

It was due to one of the Seven Wonders of the World living up to its billing as the most beautiful building on earth. Eiffel Tower? Take a bow. Ever since I saw you stand over Paris like a Rockette on stage when I was a 22-year-old backpacker, you’ve been my No. 1 gal. Not now. Not after walking through a giant red sandstone gate which perfectly frames the Taj Mahal. It’s true, really. Every hardened traveler who treats crowds like immigration officials say pictures don’t do the “Taj” justice. It’s exactly as wide as it is tall, 55 meters x 55 meters. The four corner minarets make it look like a four-poster bed, providing a romantic image for a building built on love.
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Birthday in Delhi means new friends and victory in Indian rum pong

Robert, Walia, Aga and myself at Delhi's Summer House celebrating my 59th birthday.

My hotel is in Old Delhi which shouldn’t be confused with New Delhi which is the administrative and government center the British built in the early 1900s. New Delhi is lined with white, ornate architecture, huge official-looking buildings where long ago the Indians moved out numerous statues of British dignitaries. Old Delhi is lined with grime, dust, cheap retail stores, construction, wild probably rabid dogs, crazy drivers and cheap hotels you can’t tell from scruffy garages.

My hotel was an absolute mystery to my baffled cab driver. He asked directions about six times, from auto rickshaw drivers who pointed him in opposite directions to vendors selling dodgy samosas from filthy street stalls. After 30 minutes going up and down the same dirty street, screeching past rickshaws and terrified dogs, we finally found C-Spot Hotel. It’s a single door under a vertical sign which could’ve said the Bates Motel and I wouldn’t have cared.
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Periyar Tigre Reserve light on tigers but big on bliss

The Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary is a 777-square-kilometer park with a 26-square-kilometer artificial lake built by the British in 1895.

We walked into the slightly dense forest and the guide pointed out something in the mud. They were paw prints, big paw prints. “Tiger,” he said. They were from four days ago. Not far away were huge round blocks imprinted in the mud. They were elephant prints from about the same time. A male and a female. They were all heading out of the forest toward the lake we were skirting across.
A few feet later he pointed out a bison skull hanging from a tree trunk. A tiger had killed it four years ago at the same spot where we were standing. Knowing tigers don’t like noise, I was wondering if anyone in our group had an AC-DC tape.
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India’s movie industry a $1.8 billion blockbuster but I want my 90 rupees back

India produced 1,602 movies in 2012 (Hollywood averages 120-150) and earned revenues of $1.8 billion in 2011.

movies are as much a part of the Indian social fabric as the cotton in saris. Everyone has heard of Bollywood. It’s massive, much bigger than its richer, more famous cousin in Hollywood. However, Bollywood only represents movies coming out of Bombay, now known as Mumbai. There is also Kollywood (Chennai), Tollywood (Hyderabad) and Sandalwood (Bengaluru). Together, India produces more films than any country in the world. At last count in 2012 they made 1,602. Hollywood averages only 120-150, not including 40-60 independent films. For two weeks in India, I couldn’t go five minutes without seeing a movie poster. Beautiful, very light-skinned women in tight jeans fought for billboard space with muscled, tall, leading men with $100 haircuts. Every corner seemed to be plastered with two or three of the latest films.
Last night I went.
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Kerala’s Backwaters a 900-kilometer labyrinth through quiet India

For centuries Kerala's Backwaters were used for transportation and are still used by most of the area's 10,000 residents.

This was the reason I came to South Asia. They are called the Backwaters. They are a 900-kilometer maze of canals that meander through a thick forest of palm trees. Glassy-smooth lakes flow into rivers that flow into canals so narrow you can touch both sides of the shore. With the lime green palm trees against a turquoise sky, it looks like you combined French Polynesia with Venice and kept out all the tourists.

But you kept the gondolas.

I met my boat captain at 6:30 a.m. I never understood his name but he was a tall, lean man with a gray moustache and gray hair he brushed back atop a long face. He curiously wore a white dress shirt over a black print sarong the Indian men wear tied up like long, baggy shorts.
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India meditation course channels anger into inner silence but how the $#%&#@ does one stay silent?

Meditation is the art of emptying one's thoughts. This is me trying not to think of killing former bosses.

My mind is blank. It is void of thought. It is empty of emotion, meaning, objects. Lust has left India. This time, it’s not because of sweltering humidity that has crushed my libido like a cobra confusing my penis for a hamster. I am flat on my back in a dark, upstairs yoga studio. I face a wall hanging of a woman sitting in the lotus position with five big circles lined vertically on her body. I am focusing on the one on her groin, not for what you might think. The fan cools the studio but my first meditation lesson of my life has cooled any thoughts of intimacy or lust.

The circle on the groin is a focus point. I have emptied my mind as if I shoveled my walk of snow in order to see the pathway. One sentence runs through my brain.

“I want to experience the silence in me.”
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There’s starving in India? Indian cooking class produces a feast fit for a village

Me after Melanie and I cooked a six-course Indian meal in two hours.

I’ve taken cooking classes in Malaysia and Italy but the class put on here by my Kerala Bamboo House is a truly gluttonous affair. Ever since I filled out the menu request the day before, I almost fasted. Hey, again, when in India …
Seriously, the menu I filled out included: starter, Indian bread, vegetarian dish, non-vegetarian dish, rice dish, dessert. The guesthouse has a recipe book the size of a Denny’s menu. Many of the dishes’ names sounded like something you’d chant during meditation.
But I fearlessly dove in due to one inescapable fact: Indian food is fabulous.
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Yoga always stretched my idea of fitness, then it stretched my hamstrings

Yoga is a $27 billion industry with an estimated 20 million practitioners and joined the mob for the first time in India.

My back was already sore from trying to sit upright Indian style (called lotus position in India), a sitting position that has always caused me more pain than dentist chairs. Then the “stretching” started. We kept our legs crossed and put our right arm over our left shoulder and turned our head to the right. We were essentially turning into a figure 8. I looked at Hermione and she was looking straight at the wall to our right. The wall wasn’t even in my peripheral vision. I couldn’t get my head past the wall in front of me.

If I was any stiffer they’d fit me for a coffin.
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On to India where paradise comes wrapped in a sari and a western omelette

Kerala has 265 miles of coastline and the town of Varkala has one of the best beaches in India where you're never too far from a yoga studio.

When we reached Kerala Bamboo House, my eyes popped open as if he’d dropped me off at a Club Med property without tourists. Kerala Bamboo Club is a compound made up of large bamboo huts, connected by cute little dirt paths and an absolutely beautiful botanical garden. As I write this on a comfy, cushioned rattan chair on my little porch, I see four huge trees covered in bright pink flowers. Big leafy maroon plants crawl up a lamp post. Palm trees hover over the entire ground like statuesque models. I hear the soft voice of a woman singing a Hindu prayer. Birds sing as they fly past palm trees with the sun coming up beyond them.

My mouth was agape. It stayed that way when I walked past the office 30 feet away. There I stood atop a cliff a good two miles long. Below me about 100 feet was one of the widest, cleanest beaches I’ve seen in Asia. It stretched the length of the cliff and as broad as a cricket ground. It was golden sand without a speck of rock or garbage anywhere. The sea languidly lapped up against the beach.
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Two hikes, one day: Ella surrounded by trails, vistas — and one rain-soaked railroad track

Rain shortened my attempt to climb Ella's Rock and I didn't even get off the beaten "track."

The trail winds up slowly through a small tea plantation before it wraps around a small hill with a fantastic view of Ella Rock, the seminal vista in Ella. I curiously saw a paved walkway in the middle of the plantation. I took it up and it zigzagged about 15 minutes straight up where I had a major-league panoramic view of central Sri Lanka. In front of me was Ella Rock, truly a rock standing about 7,000 feet with some riveting drop offs. I could see the top through the mist that drifted past it as the sun failed to break through. Behind me were tea plantations, forests and palm trees as far as I could see. I saw only two other people on the entire trail. I felt atop of Sri Lanka again, where tourism has failed to spoil and nature has continued to bless.
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Cricket is baseball on barbiturates but World Cup has Sri Lanka on edge of its lanais chairs

A pickup cricket game in Haputale with cattle on the playing field. Cricket is the national sport in Sri Lanka.

To tell you how big cricket is in Sri Lanka, seemingly half the ad posters around the country feature a national cricket player. If you judge cricket by the street scene, you’d think the entire national team is fueled by chocolate milk. Sri Lanka cricket jerseys are sold in souvenir stands just as predominantly as sarongs and tea. Like every small town in Latin America has a soccer field, every town in Sri Lanka has a cricket ground. If there’s no stadium, there is a scruffy vacant lot with sparse grass worn bare in a long strip between the bowler and the batsmen. I’ve seen pickup games with as much participation as I’ve seen pickup baseball games in Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
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Ella is Sri Lanka’s Hill Country theme park but the beer is cold

The view from my balcony in the early morning mist.

I can tell Ella was once the idyllic Sri Lankan mountain town. Situated high in the hills surrounded by green mountains and terraced tea plantations, Ella (pop. 45,000) consists of just two narrow roads. Main Street (True. It’s called Main Street.) connects the cute-as-a-cat-calendar train station with the town center. Surely just a few years ago Main Street looked like Haputale with little roti shops and small retail stores and markets filled with huge barrels of different-colored grains and spices. Today, Ella’s Main Street is lined with bars and restaurants, all with such “Sinhala” names as The Curd Shop, Chill and Garden View Restaurant. I walked by and saw as many white people as Sri Lankans, all hunched over heaping plates of rice or tall brown bottles of Lion Lager. I’d hear a smattering of German, French, British English, some vague Eastern European tongues. It’s as if Ella was designated as “The Sri Lankan Hill Country Experience” and we all came to check it off our list.
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