Palitana

Bhavnagar

Gujarat, India

March 10, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Kem cho,

The green and yellow aluminum beach chair is lashed to a bamboo platform. The platform is then lashed to two long bamboo poles. Here in Palitana this litter, this contraption, is called a dholi.

I sit. Charged camera is at my side, binoculars strung from my neck, cap atop my head, my day-bag loaded with water and sunscreen. I give the signal. In the late morning sun, one on each end of a pole, the four young dholi bearers deftly hoist yours truly aloft for the two hour, four kilometer (2.5 mi) scenic ascent of 3572 steps. Three thousand. Five hundred. Seventy two. Steps. Six hundred meters. Up.