temple trees

temple trees, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

the cuttings we took from the vineyard temple tree are fully rooted with big beautiful leaves and one amazing flower. it's our little bit of india growing in our kitchen.

car

car, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

i actually took this with my Ptown motorhead friends in mind... the only people outside of india i've met who might actually build something like this...

next to the taj

next to the taj, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

red sandstone mosque next to taj mahal

taj

taj, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

our first view of the taj mahal, blurry but i like the setting including the surreality of the hot air balloon being inflated off to the left.

desert

desert, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

when you wake up in the desert the minah birds have been eating bugs off your camel all night and there are tiny tracks in the sand and in their fur and little poops down their sides. when you stop for lunch and a herd of goats pass through and add their dung to your camels, little birds and chipmunks come out of seemingly dead and dusty bushes to fight over each little poo ball and scuttle back into the brush with it.

street life

street, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

we didnt take and post enough pictures of regular street life though it was what we were surrounded by and affected by so often. it turns into one of those almost quantum physics situations, though, and maybe the hardest part of being in india for so long for me, personally. the act of being there and observing your surroundings changes them. being white stands out so much that it disrupts the stream of life around you. i'm not a journalist and am uncomfortable with taking someones picture without their permission for the most part. here's one, though, taken from a bus window, i think, in rajasthan. pretty typical little street scene.

mr peanut gets a hug

mr peanut gets a hug, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

and this, being hugged by a very nice musician friend of rohan's, is mr. peanut. mr peanut is one of the unofficial winery dogs. he's not fed by the bungalow staff, though he might be by the workmen in shacks out back. he shows up, generally at night, and runs with the officially sanctioned puppies and dogs through the fields after helping himself to whatever is left in their bowls (if theres no one there to chase him off.) rajeev does not approve of mr peanut and swats him off the comfy chairs on the patio he likes to sneak up and nap on. i think rajeev thought that andy and i (ok, i) fed mr peanut and encouraged him hanging around, but i swear it's not so. he looked healthy enough that i could resist feeding him, but he had such a great personality that neither of us could resist playing with him. we'd go for an evening walk and there'd be a rustle and flash of ginger fur in the vineyards and hurray, mr peanut would join us for our stroll, always polite and gentlemanly as a funny little stray dog could be. the night of the opening party, or rather the next morning before dark as the party stretched out, someone left the downstairs lobby door open and in ran mr peanut to join the festivities. he danced with guests, politely had a cracker or two when it was offered, charmed the hell out of everyone (except for rajeev, who just shook his head low in resignation and admitted temporary defeat to 'that little doggy') and made his guest appearance before disappearing into the night.

scooterpigs

scooterpigs, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

i didn't add a counter to this site until we got back - our connection speed was so bad we just got our business done, tried to keep this updated and reread emails from home 5 or 10 times each... i'm pretty suprised to find so many hits when we've been back so long and never even added most of our final stories and pics. so... i'm adding some here and there now that we're readjusted (mostly) to our lives in SF. it's almost easy to feel as though India was a dream though i know that we're both changed by our trip.
this picture was taken in Bundi. every day we'd leave our hotel and step around a pile of little piggies and puppies napping together, playing, snuffling, and drinking the incredibly foul black water constantly running through the ditch. they get much bigger and less pretty - grown up they are astoundingly ugly, all coarse black hair and jutting hipbones, generally missing an ear and eating garbage or highly suspicious piles from the pavement. supposedly their ears are clipped to varying degrees by the very low caste people who claim them as their own to identify them. in another town a hotelier with a powerful voice and personality told us that their meals were vegetarian but if we asked ahead of time he'd have his cooks prepare us chicken if we wanted. we said that vegetarian was fine but he kept insisting, sure that americans needed meat and even offered pork. it was late and we'd been on trains for hours and i didn't really think when i said something, trying to reassure him lightheartedly that we were fine without meat, about having seen some pigs out on the street that i'd prefer not to eat anyway. i honestly was just trying to joke our way out of the conversation and into our beds and was so sorry when, offended, he drew himself up and responded that those street pigs were not for eating, that indians ate 'pretty pink shiny pigs just like americans.' i felt pretty bad about that until later when i realized that other indians had told me that they WERE eaten - and anyway, i'm pretty sure most of the pigs i've seen in america aren't exactly pink and shiny, either. oh well.

whatdoesitsay??!!

whatdoesitsay??!!, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

found on the ground in an abandoned fort in Bundi, my favorite town on our travels

oh

i miss rohan. and raja. and dylan. and parrots on bamboo scaffolding. and pariah dogs on every corner.

buzzard

buzzard, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

desert life is harsh.

camel

camel, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

i think andy rode this one

palace critter

critter, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

can anyone tell me who this creature is? i know there must be a story....

pretty

pretty, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

andy and laurel indian wine party style

bar shot

scene, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

top of the bar, hanging double bottle lights, bottle projection wall, and balcony view

wall

wall, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

this wall has one side with clear glass facing in for wine bottle display and one side with sand blasted glass and lights for a nice fuzzy projection effect. that works both ways so that you see the same effect from the lobby below. the floor is blue epoxy. to the left in this photo is the glass display area and entrance, to the right is the glass mosaic bar and exit to the balcony. there are large viewing windows where you can see the bottling room at work, but you cant see them in this shot.

crystal palace

glass, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

here's the display area, made of glass to reduce claustrophobia in a small space and, oh yeah, cuz it's pretty and sparkles

bar full o' people

barfull, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

we finally get to see it in action

final touches

final touches, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

there are more pics and adventures to share without respect to actual timelines, but for now we're moving on to heading back to maharashtra to put some final touches on the tasting room for our opening party. here priya (one of our favorite indian friends) and i clean the bottle lamps above the bar.

lengur lounging

lengur, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

the red faced macaques are pretty freaky, little mean sharp toothed drunks looking for a beer brawl, but the black faced lengurs are mostly chill (unless you have something they really want). Hanuman, the monkey king, is supposed to be a lengur.

kid and kid

kids, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

he was snuggling and petting on his goat as i walked by so i asked him and his mom (?) sitting nearby if he'd like to have his picture taken. he really wanted the goat to look at the camera when i took it and then for it to see the little digital image when i showed it to him.

painting detail

painting, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

i love the detail of the foliage. the palaces used to be covered with painting like this but most of it has worn away...there are a few spots that give a glimpse of how bright and vibrant they must have been.

boatbuilders

boatbuilders, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

these guys were very proud, and rightfully so as you can see, of the boat they were building out of popsicle sticks, complete with powered lights and little characters having tea parties on deck.

lady of the sands

desertho, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

we stayed one night near this womans house in the desert where she lived with a man, a toddler and a baby, a few dogs, and a few dozen goats and sheep. she came and sat by the campfire with us for the evening and was very entertained by staring at me and laughing (what can i say? i'm pretty damn funny sometimes). her little hut (with no electricity, of course) is surrounded by giant high tech windmills that our driver said power the border between them and pakistan. the land right around there is covered with ancient coral and sea life fossils. very surreal in the desert.

boys in camel drivers village

puppeez, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

the boys showed us their very new puppies and offered to let me take one (so i'd have something to play with while sitting on a camel for the next 4 days?)

girls in camel drivers village

girls, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

we got to hang out in our camel driver's village for a while with all the kids and have lunch with his family before setting out. this pic was taken while the girls were still warming up to us (the boys are bolder) - later the girls showed us how to play a game involving a stack of rocks and a ball made out of tied up plastic bags. we weren't very good at it.

roomofmonkeez

roomofmonkeez, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

the whole palace was filled with bats, lengurs, and macaques

bundi

bundi, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

and here's a view of the palace from the rooftop of our hotel )the lower left area is home to some 'bad monkeys much biting danger!' the little local boys who adopted us warned us about.
we ran into some pretty scary macaques that wouldn't let us pass and made little angry drunk faces at us if we got too close.

bundi st

bundist, originally uploaded by seamonkeylifeboat.

finally! some travel photos. here's a street in bundi, our favorite town

homehome

2 things in this post.
#1 - we are BACK, unpacking and readjusting in SF.... but we will be posting some more pics and stories so don't give up now if you're still interested. the last few weeks were so busy and all of our pics are temporarily stuck on andy's ipod, but there's plenty of travel stuff and, of course, the opening party for the tastingroom to share.
#2 - i wanted to explain why i posted that last post even though it disturbed some people. india is very very different from the united states in so many ways i couldn't even have foreseen and won't claim to entirely comprehend. i know that everyone's experience there as a traveler is different depending on their own backgrounds, where they travel and who they meet, etc... it's huge and made up of a fascinatingly cohesive patchwork of different religions, geography, tribes, languages... (i would never recommend mumbai to my mom, for instance, but know that she'd enjoy the wildlife parks and temples in rajasthan). we had a great time and learned and saw so much but it wasn't always easy or nice and i felt like it was important in sharing our experience on this blog to not just talk about the beautiful colors and gentle people. this trip was a huge impact on my life for which i'm very grateful and hope i came out a slightly more conscious world citizen at the end. the colors ARE beautiful - men and women love to wear hot pink and bright orange or peacock blue, whole cities are painted pink or blue, hibiscus grow as big as plates, green parrots flit everywhere...and poverty that seems shocking at first reveals a strength of dignity and enjoyment of life and family thats really very inspirational and comforting and gives me, personally, more hope for humanity. part of our experience there, though, involved learning how we reacted to so many new things we hadn't seen before (especially me) whether it's villages of kids who all want to play with you or seeing elephants and camels on the streets or lepers begging or small children sleeping on the floor of the train station in a pile of stray dogs or accidents and deaths and the very un-western reactions others have to them. it's quite a strange, deep adjustment having come from a culture that is based on the importance of the individual as opposed to the larger community. so... that's why i posted something unpleasant like that, if that makes any sense.