The other was because both of our flight options to Southeast Asia stopped in Taipei.

In any case, we were not going to miss the opportunity to experience Taiwan’s most famous (and expensive) tea. The flavour – rich, crisp, yet delicate – is perhaps only eclipsed by the tasting ceremony that all purveyors go through before you would buy any tea. Nobody who knows anything about tea buys tea in Taiwan without a tasting.

Pouring tea from pot into serving pitcher

So it was with great pleasure that we found ourselves high atop Alishan, one of the most famous mountains and top tea-growing mountains in Taiwan. We were even more thrilled to find Lian Xing Tea Shop, and better still, with our new friends Janet and Sean to share tea with us. And translate.

Lian Xing Tea Shop

High mountain tea is grown at over 1200 metres of elevation, although the higher the tea was grown the more desirable it is. The tea we tasted on that chilly night in January was a brand new winter harvest (winter’s cooler temperatures yield more succulent leaves; spring harvests are more floral), grown at 1700+ metres. It is a variety of oolong, but the effect of growing at high elevation – cooler temperatures, clean air and an abundance of mist – changes the character from other oolongs grown at lower elevations. The result is a tea that is very crisp, yet it has a creaminess, a richness, that gives this tea remarkable complexity.

Pouring hot water into the tea leaves

All high mountain tea has whole leaves that are left intact. The better teas, though, do all of the picking by hand. The resulting harvest includes multiple tea leaves still attached to a stem or bud. When a machine harvests the tea, you get a lot of individual leaves. This makes a big difference to connoisseurs.

Used tea leaves, unfurled

The tea is made in small batches in a very small pot by western tea sensibilities. Usually, the pot sits in another dish that has hot water in it, which insulates the brewing pot. After brewing, the tea is poured into a serving pitcher, which serves two purposes. One is that it is easier to pour into the small teacups from the serving pitcher. The other is that the tea mixes, which results in uniform servings. The tea cups are also very small, sort of large thimbles. All of these pieces are typically beautiful, and often intricately designed or painted.

Wang Hui-Chuan conducting our tea tasting in Taipei at the Alishan Rinchu Store

The shop owners we worked with were all wonderful people who clearly loved tea and what they did. High atop Alishan we found Tu Lin Che running the Lian Xing Tea Shop and she conducted the whole tasting with a big smile on her face, even though it was the end of what was probably a long day. Perhaps it was because she doesn’t see a lot of white people come through with a passion for her tea, or maybe she was putting on an act for the sake of business. rIAm’s theory is that there were preservatives in the cool, crisp and fresh mountain air. Maybe it was all of those things, but it was obvious Tu Lin Che loved her tea, and I think she loves every chance she has to do a tasting.

Tu Lin Che pours the hot water onto the tea leaves

In addition to the elevation, weather and growing season, the flavour of the tea is affected by the processing methods. Based on grower preference, the elevation of the tea, or to satisfy a variety of tastes, different amounts of oxidation and roasting take place. The process begins by leaving the tea in the sun to dry. After initial drying, the tea is put into large drums and bruised slightly, in order to begin the oxidation. Then the leaves are coaxed into curling up into tight balls (seemingly by magic, but I’m assured there is a method). This process can be repeated several times. Typically, the amount of oxidation is fairly low in order to retain the natural crisp flavour of the tea, but some people enjoy the flavours of different amount of oxidation, and we tried some with 20 and even 40 percent oxidation.

Another feature of the high mountain tea is that it is meant to be brewed multiple times, and all tastings continue through until the tea has been fully experienced. Each brewing takes a bit longer and the character of the tea changes over time. Some people have favourite brew numbers; rIAm, for example, came to really enjoy the second and third tastings, finding the first was too crisp for her liking. The process provides ample time to learn a lot about the tea and the person serving the tea. Of course, for the vendor, it also give them lots of time to make their sales pitch (which was never aggressive).

This great tea can be found in North America; visit tea shops in your Chinatown, but know that it often isn’t easy and isn’t cheap (even in Taiwan). Often, like in Taiwan, it can be difficult to converse in English. It helps quite a bit if you can recognize certain Mandarin or Taiwanese characters (especially the ones for “high,” “mountain,” and “tea”), but unless you really know your stuff, it will be difficult to know the difference between a 300g bag that is $10 from one that is $40 from one that is $80 (note that in Taiwan, good stuff up on the mountain can be $25-$40 for 300g). This makes it likely that the $10 bag is bad quality or a fake coming from China; the $80 bag is probably the real deal, but still, are you getting your money’s worth?

If you’re not sure where to go, your local TenRen Tea Shop, is a good start. Be very clear about what you want and make sure you do a tasting before buying because then, at worst, you buy a tea you like.

The best place outside Taiwan I’ve been to is in San Francisco, the Red Blossom Tea Company (”Formosa Oolong” link for high mountain tea), and oh boy it is well worth a visit. There will be no language barrier, and the store is as elegant as the ones in Taiwan. They have a wonderful selection of teas from around the world, and excellent teaware, but their knowledge and selection of high mountain tea is unrivaled because the owner visits Taiwan – and the tea plantations – in order to buy for the store. Go, taste, buy, enjoy and learn more than you knew there was to learn. Or simply buy online.

Of course, you could also just hop the next flight to Taipei, get on board the extremely efficient intercity train to Chiayi, take the gorgeous narrow gauge train up Alishan (past tea fields), and then find the beautiful Tu Lin Che at her tea shop. I do recommend this option. Afterward, of course, find yourself back in Taipei and visit the Alishan Rinchu Tea Store (pick up some free samples in Alishan from the tea shop of the same name, if you like) where Wang Hui Chuan will navigate your way through an impressive selection of wonderful tea.

Tu Lin Che and her sister in their tea shop atop Alishan Mountain. If they could, I’m sure they’d say “Happy Drinking!”

We had to get a YouTube account! So it is with great pleasure that I introduce you to the new pastabroccoli. The one that talks to you and provides moving pictures! Yes, over at YouTube, you can find us under pastabroccoli.

So what does this mean for you?

Discover when to walk – or run – through a Taipei crosswalk!

Visit an Indian wedding celebration!

Test your knowledge of Laotian cuts of meat!

Be glad you can’t smell the durian as jft tastes this SE Asian delicacy!

And so much more!

We hope to feature more of our videos from Asia in this space, but if you’ve got the itch, go check out our YouTube channel for yourself. It’s commercial-free TV!

And check your local listings for fresh content; we’ll keep filming videos in North America.

We were on flights operated by Southwest Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Lao Airlines, Air Asia, Thai Airways, Aeroflot and British Airways. We traveled by bus, train, boat, motorcycle, car, tractor and elephant. And, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know, through it all we had our trusty Leica C-Lux and Canon Rebel XTi (18-200mm and 50mm lenses) digital cameras.

As you know, our year was extremely well documented with photographs:

30.1 GB, or 14,423 photos, all from Asia (and our brief stop in Los Angeles)
2.22 GB, or 974 photos while in Toronto and Chicago last summer
3.08 GB, or 1,488 photos during our month in France
4.00 GB, or 68 videos from the entire trip

For a grand total of 39.40 GB of photos and video, comprised of 16,953 photo and video files. In case you’re not clear on this point, that’s a lot of photos, even by our standards.

Of course, the actual number of photos we took was substantially higher – though we’ll never have an exact count – because we deleted countless photos in the camera that didn’t turn out very well. And, to be fair, of the nearly 17,000 photos we retained, a goodly portion of them are probably expendable.

But now, one year and one day since we embarked on our grand journey, we can say that our year in photos is up on flickr. The collection has been narrowed to 2,379 photos from Asia, another 313 from France, and 74 from our visit to Toronto and Chicago this summer.

You’ll find lots of photos of food

Not to mention everything else that inspired us to use the camera. And don’t forget, in many cases, the photos come with captions, to provide further insight into our experiences.

We have the photos grouped together in an Asia set, as well as sets for each country we visited: Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Toronto/Chicago, and France. Or you can just click through the regular pages, where you’ll see them in the order uploaded (within the sets, they are in chronological order, oldest to newest).

If you want to leave comments on the photos, or download them for yourself, you need to sign in with a flickr account. Signing up for one is free; it uses the same login as yahoo, if you have a yahoo account.

In any case, with 2,766 photos from our trip on flickr, if each is worth 1,000 words, we leave you with 2,766,000 words (not counting captions, of course). Enjoy.

With all that in mind, I can’t help but think of seeing all of our friends and family in the coming months. Although we got a little bit less of these questions than I was expecting in July and August, it seems inevitable that we will get lots of questions upon our return about what was the best country, the best food, the most amazing thing we did, and so on.

These are not easy questions to answer, but at the same time, totally understandable. In fact, they’re the sort of questions we’ve even considered ourselves. I have a nice long list of superlatives that I was going to turn into a post while in Toronto as a “best of, so far” kind of a deal. Alas, it didn’t happen, and now it is left to be a “best of the year” sort of a deal.

So, what do you want to see included? Let us know through comments and/or by email.

Be creative with these. We’ve got things like “best cultural experience,” “best post system,” “grossest snack,” “best busses,” “nicest people,” and “wateriest beer.” And many others. We want serious, funny, wacky, and whatever else comes to mind. Good things, bad things, strange things and so on.

The trip isn’t over yet, although Asia is, but we like thinking about these things, and we like to make notes about these things so we remember them later on. It’s good plane/train/etc talk.

We can tell you that we both found Taiwan and Vietnam to be most captivating, felt the greatest affection for Thailand’s food, but also feel that if you just want to experience the best and worst of everything all at once, you should go to India.

But what else? Let us know.

Of course, where there are tourists (Indian or foreign), there are people trying to sell things to tourists. In Kanyalkumari there is an endless supply of guys walking around selling sunglasses (and sometimes some other things). The market seemed supersatured to me, so perhaps that goes some way to explaining the following, frequent, interaction (which is typically happening while we are walking). It starts with an Indian salesman and alternates between him (as it’s invariably a him) and me.

“Hello Sir (holding sunglasses).”
“No thank you.”
“Sunglasses sir? (now holding sunglasses out to me)”
“No.”
“Good price.”
“No.”
“Sun cooling.”
“No.”
“Unbreakable (while stretching the sunglasses out to prove his point).”
“No.”
“Sun blocking.”
“No.”
“Very good quality.”
“No.”
“Sun cooling.”
“No.”
“Unbreakable.”
“No.”
“Very good…. (trails off as he gives up following, but still calls out his sales pitch)”
“No.”

Instead of being here until just before our visa expires on 9 November 2007, we leave here on 15 October 2007.

My cousin Michal’s death is certainly a significant instigator in this new plan, and perhaps this is one of the good things that I can try to take from his passing. Changing our plans will mean that we will be returning home one month earlier than planned, and more important, that we will be present for many family gatherings in Chicago and Toronto in November and December.

And besides the gatherings for celebrations, holidays and admittedly some grieving, our new plan will enable us to see many friends and family sooner rather than later.

Early tomorrow we board a train that will take us on a more than 24-hour journey to cover the vast distance between Delhi and Hyderabad, the former being where we leave India from and the latter where have we have spent yesterday and today as we head north from Kanyakumari via Chennai.

Our original plan to head to France after India has not changed, simply because some of those family and friends we want to connect with are scattered across this delightful country. We already had booked our flights to Paris and figured out the itinerary for our month in France long before Michal passed away. All we did for $50 was change the reservation to take us to Paris next Monday instead of a month from now. Thankfully, our family and friends there have been very accommodating in this rather last minute change in plans.

Believe it or not, I am not sad to leave India earlier than plannedanticipated. As I told jft and my family, I have made my dream to see India come true. Whether or not I see another Hindu temple, visit Kolkata and Varanasi and explore another market bazaar will certainly not make or break me. As much of a beautiful and inspiring experience I’ve had, in particular in the last two months of completing a meditation course and then exploring very green, lush and much more laid-back south India, I am also done with the dirtiness, the traffic congestion, the haggling to get a fair rickshaw price and even some of the Indian food, like vegetables cooked to mush in thick gravies. I am proud of myself for pursuing this dream and making it come true, but I can admit, with much thanks to my cousin Michal for putting some things into perspective, when I need to wake up from the dream and move on.

I’m a little sad that while Michal’s funeral is going on in Toronto, I will be on such a long train ride instead of being able to go somewhere more spiritual or special to grieve, pay my respects and acknowledge the moments my family is passing through. I realized though, that train rides in India can actually be something quite special. The landscapes you race and chug past can often be breathtaking, and you often see village and city, slum and mansion dwellers just living their life as you pass by, from taking care of toilet duties by the side of the track to young and old waving at the train, trainspotting being an integral part of the day. And I can’t overlook the interesting people and things you see on the trains themselves. Whole families and lone travellers unpack whole meals, snore and often share their rich, ghee-filled sweets with us. Life proceeds as usual on the train as much as much as it does in the often anonymous places we pass by rail.

So I will celebrate life as I witness it from the train and on the train while Michal is laid to rest. And I will thank India for showing me a slice of her, even if sometimes I didn’t like what I saw or experienced. Good-bye to the land Gandhi fought for. I cannot say when I will return, but I hope when I do, it will be to reconnect to the many friends I found here.

For now, I am ready to go home.

But we’ve been in India for nearly 4 months and so that is where I will stay focused. Because the transport in India seems like a world unto itself.

In order to get from place to place we rely mostly on busses and trains, and the Lonely Planet – the guide we have used throughout – has a section at the end of every stop titled “Getting There and Away.” It’s a very useful collection of the pertinent air, bus, boat, or train options to get to or from wherever you happen to be. It’s this section – these sorts of transports – that are propelling this post.

I should detour (or, as they say here, diversion) for a moment to mention that for getting around a city, we rely mostly on autorickshaws or walking. Traveling by auto is a strange and sometimes scary beast of its own. You just sort of play bumper cars from start to finish, hoping you never actually touch another vehicle, pedestrian or cow. You also have to work hard to get a fair price. Usually, at least. But let’s get back to those busses and trains, shall we?

India has an extensive and impressive, even if overly romanticized, railway system. You can get a train from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. Except when you can’t. But usually you can; when we wanted to go from Jodhpur to Dharamsala we figured it would be a shot in the dark. Turns out, there was a daily train that went directly to the nearest station. Of course, it took about 20 hours.

That’s one thing about trains in India. They aren’t fast. But it does give you time to enjoy, embrace and at times despise the Indian railway culture. For overnight trains, the primary class of service is “Sleeper (SL).” In this setup, at either end of the train car you have a set of toilets. Then you have an aisle down the car, which is roughly dividing the car into 1/4 and 3/4. On the 1/4 side you have two seats facing each other, which both fold down to create a bed for one person to sleep lengthwise (there is another bed above, which is always just a bed). On the 3/4 side you have two long benches facing each other, each of which hold 3 people (so 6 in this area). Up top one bunk is available permanently (sleeping width-wise), while the seat back for the bottom bench folds up to become a middle bunk. (Follow this link and scroll down a little to “Sleeper Class” for some photos)

The thing about SL, is that it’s used by the masses. You get relatively well-to-do Indians who don’t want to (or can’t) pay the significantly higher price for AC, as well as comparatively poor villagers who are on a great adventure. As well as everything in between. Until “bedtime,” which in train culture usually means 9 or 10pm, the seating is somewhat of a free-for-all. Not that it’s supposed to be, but in practice, people sit wherever they darn well please.

When rIAm, Bianca and I traveled from Bhopal to Mumbai, we had three sleeper berths, but unfortunately not together. We did manage to get them in the same car. As we boarded and came to our first seat, we discovered about 9 Indians crammed into the 6 seats (on the 3/4 side), one of which was supposed to be ours. Special. We pressed on and found our one seat on the 1/4 side open, so we set down bags and Bianca got settled in. I soldiered on to find the third seat, which fortunately was in a set of 6 that was only occupied by a woman and her young son. The second seat with Bianca was open and I considered just putting rIAm’s bag under it, but decided to put two down at our third seat. rIAm sat with me where there was room for two and Bianca sat alone, only to discover several Indian men climbed up to the upper berth – Bianca’s berth – and were just hanging out. Another sat across from Bianca. The two above, when queried, seemed to say they would move for Bianca to sleep. We pretty much gave up on our first seat; in the area for 8 people on both sides of the aisle I counted at least 12 Indians. Fortunately for us, the Ticket Collector worked some sort of magic and gave us the seat opposite Bianca and all was fine. Until, of course, a baby started crying and was never calmed down by its mother or father. All night long.

Also consider the case I mentioned above, with rIAm, linda and I going from Jodhpur to Pathankot (for Dharamsala). We had 3 of 6 seats in one set of 6: a lower and upper on one side and a middle on the other. This was fine and dandy, except a grandma sitting in the same area wanted our lower in exchange for her middle because she couldn’t climb so well. We agreed, being nice and all, but when she wanted to sleep, we were stuck having to move. Although we got our “revenge” in the morning when both rIAm and I (we took the two middles) slept way past all the Indians, which kept people from being able to sit very comfortably down below. The real kicker, though, was during the next day when we were sitting. Only the four of us were actually sitting in this area; the other two people who slept in our area were with family or friends in other sections to sit. We arranged ourselves two on one bench and two on the other. It was very convenient for our group of three, as conversation and card playing was much easier. But then grandma shooed rIAm off the bench so she could lay down and sleep.

These really aren’t such serious complaints; they are amusing more than anything else now. Although the crying baby was especially frustrating. But there are plenty of other interesting things about riding the rails.

Typically, in the morning – and especially in the AC classes – seemingly the entire train car heads to one of the sinks (one on either end) to brush their teeth. People and families bring their tiffins – Indian style metal “lunchboxes” – filled with chapatti and food for the trip. And in true Indian hospitality fashion, if they see foreigners with no tiffin (as, inevitably, is the case), they become almost belligerent in offering us food. Indians, it seems, know how to travel by train; we’ve even seen an Indian family string up a blanket to serve as a cradle for their baby, hanging between the seats on the 3/4 side.

Overall, we’ve found train travel to be a good way to travel. It gets frustrating at times to deal with the beaurocratic booking process (you need to have a form properly filled out, but to fill out the form you need information from the person you will eventually have to give the form to – that would be the form containing the information the person is giving you…). And the toilets are often disgusting, at best (not to mention that whatever business you do lands on the tracks, hence the request to refrain from using the toilet while stopped at stations). Plus, Sleeper class can have a pretty high grunge factor. But overall, we know what we’re going to get, it will be a smooth ride, and we’ll sleep reasonably well.

Of course, you can also travel by bus in India. And many, many Indians do. Basically every bus we’ve been on, at least for some portion of its journey, has, at least, all its seats taken. The problem with the government busses, run by each state, is that you often just don’t know what you’re going to get. And, sadly, usually it’s not very good.

From Dharamsala to Delhi we had what amounted to a very good overnight bus. The seats went back pretty far, were very nicely cushioned, and even had a headrest that held your head in place while you slept. Of course, it was really a pretty crappy bus that didn’t handle bumps too well, but they put nice seats into it.

From Goa to Hospet (gateway to Hampi) we had the “semi-luxury” 10 hour bus. It was the only way to get where we wanted to go; in a few weeks the season will really begin and private companies will start offering their services again. In any case, we knew it was a 2×3 setup, but what we got was even less luxury than the minimally-luxurious bus we were expecting. The seats were barely cushioned, and at the end was a vertical pole (for standees to hold, I guess) that effectively gave us the seating space exactly equal to 2cm less than the width of rIAm’s and my rear ends, seated. And the seat in front was about the same distance too close to really fit my knees. Of course, I had the aisle to relieve this problem.

Except I didn’t. Because not only was every seat taken, but people were pretty much literally climbing all over each other to fill up every last space of the bus. I have no idea how the conductor worked up and down to collect all his fares, but I know it included extensive squeezing and sucking-in of guts. I had the distinct pleasure of having one of India’s many plump women in the aisle next to me. (I should digress here to mention – or remind you – that the notion of personal space in India is non-existent).

Fortunately, a few people got down relatively early in the journey, relieving some pressure, but we were still packed in tight. We did come to our lunch stop, though (this is a feature of many Asian bus routes – they make a half hour stop for lunch or dinner at some restaurant along the way). And, after extracating my shoulder from the rolls of this woman’s stomach, I was able to get up and stretch.

The good news was that nearly every passenger went no further than Hubli, which left a bit less than half the journey with a nearly empty bus, when those of us remaining were happy to stretch out across several seats. This generally made up for having been squeezed, poked, elbowed, squished, used as a shelf and slept on during the first 6 hours or so.

The thing about these government buses is that even though some of them take reservations, most Indians don’t bother. You pay 10-20 rupees for the reservation – well worth it to us; we had seats on the above trip – but many Indians would rather pay the cheaper fare when they get on the bus. So everybody fights to get in to get themselves a seat (and sadly relinquishes it, to rIAm, for example, when she shows a reserved ticket to the formerly gleeful Indians in our seats).

India also has plenty of private bus companies, which are supposed to be good value. They provide a coach bus, sometimes with A/C, and offer both sitting and sleeper options. You don’t pay too much more than the government busses, but you get a better ride. And a better sleep. But these are sometimes just as iffy, and in three sleeper rides we’ve had ok, good and godawful. With the terrible ride from Pune to Goa in mind, we’ve pretty much decided that while we may not get a great bus, we at least won’t feel like we’re getting ripped off with the government buses.

So with this in mind, we tolerated a super bumpy ride from Hospet to Mysore in reasonably comfortable seats that very disappointingly did not recline at all. Not the greatest sleep, but no worse than the bad private bus, and not a big financial investment.

Similarly, as we worked our way from Mysore to Mangalore, with some stops in between, most notably to visit a Tibetan colony, we stuck with the government buses (really, the only option anyway). So when we asked at the station which bus would take us to Kushalnagar (the stop for the colony we wanted), it was a great and pleasant surprise to find a nice looking bus (most buses here look like they are on their last legs, after a career in bumper-buses) equipped with super comfortable and reclining seats. All it lacked was A/C, but that was no problem since the temperatures around that area were not too bad, thanks to a bit of elevation and some cooling rains.

The thing about buses, you see, is not that we don’t like them. They are an effective way to get from place to place, often going from city center to city center, and also, typically, requiring little or no advance booking. It’s convenient. But the roads in India, as a general rule, are total crap. Filled with potholes and often crumbling. And the shock absorbers on Indian buses often appear to be non-existent.

So, imagine our surprise, when after visiting with some lovely Tibetans we find ourselves back at the Kushalnagar bus station looking for a bus to Madikeri, a bit bigger place with better sleeping options, and we are directed to a beautiful, air-conditioned, coach style Volvo bus, complete with comfortable reclining seats. It may have taken us 40 minutes to go the final 14 kms due to crap road, but that was one sweet ride. Although rIAm looked at me with shock when I mentioned how much I liked the A/C. She was kind of angry with the irony of it all; we’ve had plenty of bus rides on major routes in 35 or 40+ degree C weather with no A/C. That night, with incredibly nice temperatures outside (we were at even higher elevation), we had A/C. And then again the next day, when we plied the way to Mangalore, on a day that featured incredibly pleasant temperatures. This is a bit like the person who shovels out from blizzard after blizzard all winter long, only to get a snow blower for that last dusting of snow in March. In any case, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation is our new favorite government bus service.

From here on out we will undoubtedly use a mix of buses and trains and face the same question we faced today, for tomorrow’s overnight journey: Take the train, arriving a bit too early but offering better sleeping options, or take the bus, which may be very uncomfortable and super bumpy, providing bad sleeping conditions (but arriving at a bit better time)?

This time? We booked the train.

Next time? Stay tuned.

I think curiousity could play a great role in helping us to understand why others behave as they do, but also to examine our own rituals and purposes.

- Adrienne Clarkson, Canadian journalist and former Governor-General of Canada, “The Society of Difference,” 2007 Lecture of the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium

After almost four months of travel in India, I am still trying to understand the Indian head bobble/wobble, a distinct head movement that Indians use instead of nodding, and which often answers our closed-ended questions (seeking a yes or no response) such as: “are you open or closed?;” “does the bus leave at 8 pm?;” “is this (name of Indian town we are trying to get to)?” The problem with the head motion for us is that we can never tell if it means “yes” or “no,” since other times it can mean “ok” or “maybe” or “i see your mouth is moving and sound is being produced, but i do not understand you, oh fair skinned people with so much hair on your arms.”

I’ve examined the many other places I’ve visited and lived in and they all seem to have a preponderance for nodding up and down to mean “yes” and nodding side-to-side to mean “no.” And really the purposes of these distinct head motions seem quite explicit to me. There is no confusion since one does not mean the other and really, there is no in between. Shoulders shrugging, while showing your palms can often mean “I don’t know.” Or a look of confusion works well. And “maybe” is just said as “maybe,” sometimes with a little pout or mouth curl thrown in for extra doubt. So really, there are a distinct said of head and body movements to mean, yes, no, maybe etc.

Maybe I just haven’t summoned enough curiousity to determine the logistics of the Indian head bobble, and how it is used.

See for yourself what we witness daily, via this video at YouTube.

A search online for “Indian head wobble (or bobble)” will yield many travelers blogs, either bemoaning or trying to decipher the nuances of this very south Asian head movement. Insight from anyone stumbling across this post, would be sincerely appreciated.