Cambodia and Vietnam

Last week we spent 4 days in Siem Reap Cambodia, visiting Angkor Wat. A totally opposite experience from Singapore, but we loved it. Although Siem Reap is much more built up than when I visited it 7 years ago, it still has a really innocent feel to it. Prices are still really low, streets are still made of dirt, and none of the people hassle you too much! A must visit for anyone out there looking to come to SE Asia. Although the temple of Angkor Wat and all the surrounding temples are more crowded, they are still awe-inspiring to visit. Chris and I rented a guy and his motorcycle rickshaw for 3 days to tour the sights. It was great to have our own private chariot take us from temple to temple!

 

Sunset

 

 

Amazing Angkor Wat

 

I forgot just how enormous the temples are and how many temples there really were. They just go on forever. And the detail of the carvings are stunning. It’s amazing to compare these temples to the sights in Egypt and Petra, temples in India, and the Roman ruins previously visited on the trip. How similar everything is in so many ways, and how far apart they were built, in time and distance. It’s so amazing what Chris and I have been able to experience in this once in a lifetime adventure.

So this brings me to our next topic….
Chris and I have decided to come home!
It wasn’t an easy decision, or a fast one. But in the end we think it’s the right one for us.
We have had the most wonderful trip so far. But unfortunately, we’re getting tired of traveling. We want to make sure when we see each of the amazing sights and countries this world has to offer, we see it with the same excitement and amazement that we set out with. We feel like these days our energy is running low and we’re growing tired of making ALL the decisions traveling brings. We’re tired of the scams and the hassle, and well truthfully we really miss our friends and family! I’m sure once we get home and feel the cold, we’ll want to get right back on the road, but we still think this is the right decision at this time.
We know we’ll get back out here again. Maybe not for as long… but there are still so many places we can’t wait to visit. (We are already planning our next trip!)

Anyways, back to the trip… we’re not done yet! We wanted to make sure to see Vietnam before we came home. (As I write this I’m in a big sweater, a scarf, and under 2 thick blankets, and I wonder if this final destination was the right choice for our last leg (I hear the beaches in Bali are nice this time of year)… but alas, we are here, so we are making the best of it!)
Chris and I flew to Ho Chi Minh City from Cambodia leaving the small city and sunshine behind. We spent our time there dodging the motorbikes as we walked around the city! It’s a crazy place to try to cross the road. If you are looking for a break in the bikes, think again. You just have to walk straight and they will dodge you. Some old lady saw Chris standing a the side of the road waiting for a clearing and grabbed his arm to help him walk across! It’s so crazy! We loved it!

While we were there we went on a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels. They were tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the wars. It was a really interesting tour and Chris got the chance to fire a AK47. That was ridiculous. He might tell the guys it was cool, but seeing how powerful and loud that gun in up close, in the middle of the Vietnam jungle, made me sick to my stomach. I can’t imagine what people who have seen war up close have been through. Just being here 40 years later and hearing a first had experience is hard.

Our next stop was up in Hoi An. It’s a cute little town with hardly any cars and Chris and I rented bicycles for $0.75 a day to get us around. Hoi An is famous for their tailor shops (I think there is about 200 shops in total) where you can have anything you want made to measure! It was a fun experience to have something made that fit perfectly the first time we slipped it on. I have to admit, once we each had one thing made, we went back for more!

Vietnam is currently preparing for ’Tet’, their Lunar New Years (like Chinese New year). It is their biggest holiday of the year and the cities and towns are vibrant. There are flowers for sale everywhere, shops and restaurants are hanging bright lanterns and flags, and everyone is buying new clothes, furniture, and appliances to start the new year off right! It’s amazing to see. Sadly it’s also the worst time to travel as everyone is closing up and going home for vacation. Chris and I were lucky enough to be recommended a guide who has been fabulous in taking care of us. We are currently on a 3 day motorcycle trip from Hoi An to Hue along the Ho Chi Ming trail. It’s a pretty cold ride in the rain but Mr. Tu came prepared with rain boots, rain pants, jackets, ponchos and gloves to help keep us warm. Sadly it’s not quite enough and both Chris and I are freezing! We would kill for a hotel with a heater!!! Maybe the hotel in Hanoi will have heat?!? Although chilly, the trip has been beautiful and we’re glad we found Mr. Tu. He has even invited us to spend Tet with him and his family as all the restaurants will be closed! I think it will be a really fun night! Stay tuned for photos!

Me handing out candy to some village kids.

Us at the DMZ. We were really cold at this point.

The rain didn’t help.

Breakfast time!

That’s all for now,

Looking forward to seeing you all again soon. (We come home on the 14th of February)
Miss you,
Ashlyn and Chris.

a brief stop in civilization

Hi Everyone,

It took some convincing, but we left Singapore this morning.  We arrived in Siem Reap this afternoon and after a great week checking out sights, visiting friends and drinking tap water (Yes, TAP WATER!!), we’re recharged and ready for a new adventure.

Singapore was GREAT! We stayed with our friends Owen and Melissa who are there teaching at an international school. They have the most beautiful condo and it was great to see them.  They were awesome hosts and helped us get around the city, and get us into a few places that the locals love and that we would have never known abouton our own.  We had such a good time with them in Singapore that we’ve threatened to post their condo on Trip Advisor with top ratings. Anyone who know’s these two should book a trip to visit them quickly before their guest room fills up and they start charging!

Singapore is an amazing city, and in the running for coolest city we’ve been to on the trip so far (other front runners include San Francisco and Bangkok).  It feels like the most forward thinking city we’ve been to, by quite a ways…as long as you don’t liter or chew gum and spit it on the streets  For a city/country as small as Singapore that has 5 million people, you’d think you’d feel  claustrophobic everywhere you go, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.  It’s incredibly green everywhere, with tons of parks, wide roads and side-walks, and great transit systems…it actually feels quite a bit more crowded in Calgary, which is either really good for Singapore…or really bad for Calgary.  Maybe a bit of both.

We were able to do quite a bit in Singapore.  Here are some of our stops:

The Singapore Zoo is pretty cool.  They’ve designed it so it’s open concept, which basically means that you can’t really tell that the animals are in a cage until you look a little closer.  They’ve got a lot of animals from tropical regions around the world as well as warmer climates.

A White Tiger at the zoo.

One day we went to Raffles Hotel to get a Singapore Sling from the original bar where it was invented.  It wasn’t that good, and our bill for 2 slings and an appetizer was about $70.  Nice.

Singapore’s downtown and financial districts are really modern and seems like a new building is going up all the time. Here is a view of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino from across the bay.  It is designed to look like a ship on top of 3 buildings…

And in that ship on the 56th floor is where they have the worlds largest infinity pool.  Pretty cool sight actually. They were kind enough to let us take an elevator to the rough to see the view and the pool…for $40! We couldn’t get any closer than this because we didn’t drop $400+ on a hotel room in the resort.

A view of the financial district.

We also took some really high cable cars over to Santosa Island. It has basically been developed to take money from tourists in a variety of ways (Universal Studios, 4D movies, etc). Here’s where they took our money… The Street Luge. It was fun! Us with our ultra stylish helmets before doing the street luge.

The street luge course.

They had these solar-powered fans around downtown.  With the heat they had there, they are definitely required…and we were there in rainy season!

What’s that you have Ashlyn?  Tap water??  Sweeeeeeeet!!

This is the pool at Owen and Melissa’s condo.  Singapore is so awesome!

We had an amazing time in Singapore and hope to make it back again soon.  It was even better getting to visit some familiar faces for the stop.  Looking forward to seeing what’s in store for us in Cambodia.

Chris and Ashlyn

105 days… and counting!

OK, we realize it’s been a while.

Not having had much of an internet connection for a while, along with being in paradise and not wanting to be on the computer has made for not too many updates while in Thailand. We have now passed our 100 day mark and it seems like the updates are getting more sparse… as is the photo taking. We’re going to work on that!

We last wrote on New Years Day from Bangkok. Since then we have done some travel in Central Thailand and made our way down to the South Western Island of Phuket and Koh Phi Phi.

Thailand has been a mix of emotions for us. Although it is beautiful, it’s sure not what I remembered. Our stay in the Central part of the country was a nice getaway from Bangkok. It’s still fairly cheap to travel there and you see more Thai people than westerners. We were able to enjoy the wilderness a bit (We hiked a beautiful 7 tier waterfall, rode an elephant and floated down the river Kwai on a bamboo raft), we ate authentic Thai food for a buck or two (and it was the best food we’ve eaten) and stayed at a great little hotel for $13/night.

Here are some photo’s of our trip

Since landing in Phuket it’s been quite the opposite. Phuket and the surrounding islands are overpriced and overcrowded, which makes for a bit of an overhyped experience. Don’t get me wrong, it is still one of the most beautiful places I have been, but it’s really much harder to enjoy the scenery when you are surrounded by hundreds of people at all times. But let me tell you, if you’re looking for a party this is the place to be!

We took these photos when we went on a canoe trip (with 100 other people) through some of the surrounding islands. In my mind it was peaceful and romantic. In reality…crowded and funny. If you can see through the people you can imagine it’s beauty, but it takes some concentration.

Patong beach on Phuket

There is a lagoon... somewhere

We decided to leave Phuket hit up Koh Phi Phi, the gem of the islands. In order to get away from the “scene” made up of hundreds of 18-25 year old party goers, Chris and I decided to spend most of our stay on the North “quiet” part of the island. It sure is beautiful up here and apart from the speed boats filled with 30 people that stop on the beach all day long, it is paradise! unfortunately, paradise seems to come at a high price these days, so we have blown through a chunk of our budget enjoying it!

This was our view every day!

We spent one of our afternoons here on a long-tailed boat touring around some of the close islands and snorkeling. Well, Chris snorkelled. One little mostly unknown fact about me is that I hate fish. Ok, normally snorkeling is fine as the fish are more scared of you than you are of them and when you get in the water they tend to swim away from you. Well around these islands the fish have been fed/conditioned by snorkelers. The boat stops over a reef surrounded by crystal clear water and the sound of the motor stopping must be a sign to the fish that it’s dinner time. Within minutes the boat is surrounded by fish and as you get in the water they just get closer and follow you around. OK, not my idea of a good time. I got in twice, and out just as fast. I know they can’t hurt me! I know! I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I asked the boat driver if he could bring us somewhere to swim where there were  no fish… I don’t think he gets that question very often. I didn’t really get much of an answer, but I think it was a No. Anyways, I got to enjoy the scenery (really is the most beautiful place) while Chris enjoyed the fish!

1 of the 60 seconds I was in the water

Chris and all the fish

SICK!!

Handsome Husband post fish attack

Tomorrow we leave this beautiful Island and fly to Singapore where we will be visiting my friends Owen and Melissa! we are really looking forward to more adventure and a change of pace!

Love and miss everyone!

Ashlyn and Chris

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!
We have spent the past 4 nights in Bangkok and had the best time. After our month in India, Chris and I decided to splurge a bit and got ourselves a really nice room. Money in this city can really go along way and for less money than we spent at any of the seedy motels we stayed at on the US west coast, we were able to book into a 5 star hotel! Let me tell you, money well spent! I don’t think I been so excited the whole trip as I was checking into our room. I mean, you can walk on the carpet in the room, and not feel like you need to disinfect your feet after!!  Here is the hotel:

Bangkok is a fantastic city. I visited it 7 years ago and remember it being dirty, stuffy and poor, and really just wanting to leave it and get out to some fresh air. Well on the contrary. Today Bangkok is a vibrant, bustling, clean city. We are staying in a great neighbourhood, where we can walk to the modern sky train and reach any point of the city. We also happen to be really close to 3 or 4 major shopping malls. Unfortunately most of these malls are full of stores that we couldn’t dream of affording anything in the stores, but if you are looking for luxury retail Bangkok has you covered. Chris and I personally spent more time at the mall across the road, where you can buy fake anything. Much better pricing!

We did the typically tourist route, saw the beautiful grand palace, giant reclining buddha, and took a boat down the Chao Phraya river. We also managed to take in a cabaret… Which was one of the best/worst things we have ever seen. Ok, so the drag queens were beautiful. Some of them you could absolutely not tell that they were men. The costumes were stunning and if they were just putting on a fashion show it would have been brilliant. Unfortunately they weren’t and the actual talent (or direction) part of the show was lacking. Definitely the worst combination of choreography (if you could call it that) and lip-syncing (if you could call it that) that I have ever seen. But it was an interesting night out…

Our most favorite night was New Years Eve. Chris and I decided to find a restaurant near the Central World Plaza, Bangkok’s “Time Square”. We planned on having dinner and then heading out to party with hundreds of thousands of Thai people on the streets. It was a huge party! After dinner, as we were heading down to the ground floor to go outside, the hostess asked us if we wanted to go down or go up to the 55th floor…. Uh, up I guess. Why not check out the view right? So we were directed to a different bank of elevators and ended up in a very swanky restaurant on the 55th floor! We decided to go outside and take in the skyline. Lots of people were eating outside and we seemed quite out of place, so I just kept walking and took a set of stairs up to the roof top patio where a huge party was going on! It was amazing. We could see the view of the whole city! The party going on at CenterWorld Plaza looked so cool from that high up. All of the Thai people were wearing these flashing headbands so the plaza and all of the streets around it were flashing in every colour! You could tell it was gridlock down there, so we made the difficult decision to stay at the party. It was an amazing night and we could see the fireworks being set off from all angles of the city. After chatting with another couple for a while we learned we had totally crashed the party and tickets were around $100 each!!! Whoops! We rang in the New Year dancing on the dance floor on the roof top patio of such and incredible building in such an amazing city. It was truly a night to remember!

Tomorrow we leave Bangkok and head west to the city Kanchanaburi for a couple of days of exploring central Thailand before we head south to the islands. Although we will miss Bangkok we are looking forward to the chang of scenery.
Hope you all had a great New Years Eve! Chris and I both agree that 2010 was our best year yet. I can’t imagine what 2011 might have in store!
Love to you all,
Ashlyn and Chris

TII – This is India

Today we leave India.
We say goodbye to the food, the cows, some of the nicest people we have come across on our trip, the beaches, the corruption, the chaos, and all of the things that just don’t make sense but what make this country like none other. India.
Our flight left on-time today. This is noteworthy because our 6 other flights and all of our train rides in India over the past month, have either been cancelled or delayed. At the beginning of our time here it was frustrating, but now we’ve completely come to accept it. Basically everything that is done here, is a process. There are 4 times more people doing each job than we have at home,  and yet everything is inefficient and slow.  Chris and I have been noticing other tourists complaining lately about how long it takes to do everything, or wondering why absolutely everything in documented in triplicate with carbon paper. After a couple of weeks here, we stopped even noticing these idiosyncracies of the country. Why? TII. This is India. There doesn’t have to be a reason, it doesn’t matter how long things take, we can’t change it. We have embraced it.
Almost all of the people here (with the exception of store owners who basically want to fleece you for all your worth.  AKA…white-skin tax) want to help you and give you the best service they can. They greet you as you come and leave the hotel, open doors for you in restaurants, talk to you about where your from, where you’ve been, how you like India. It’s so friendly. But the difference between here, and well everywhere, is the execution.

Unfortunately the caste system is alive an well here. It is visible in Northern India much more than in the south. This means when it comes to service no one has been empowered to take charge or get anything done. You can ask one man in a hotel standing next to bottles of water for a bottle, but until he gets the direction from his boss and his bosses boss, to ask the “water person” to bring you a bottle of water to your room, nothing happens. You actually have to go back to your room and wait 20+ minutes for it there. Then once the guy arrives, as I’m sure he was instructed, he barges right past you and puts it in the warm bar fridge! They think they are giving you great service, brining it to your room, keeping it “cold”. But in reality you were just thirsty and wanted the water right then at the front desk.
Indians have a very small personal space. No bubble! Coming from a country with a billion people, I get it. It becomes pretty funny when they are serving you and basically breathing down your neck while you are deciding what to order. The other day when the food got to the table one man stood there and tried to spoon the food onto my plate for me. I’m pretty sure if I had let him he would have spoon fed me himself. One night in Northern India we asked for an extra blanket for bed. As it took about 40 minutes to make it to the room, Chris and I were already in bed. I got up to answer the door and get the blanket and the guy barged right by me, put the blanket on the bed while Chris was still in there and and basically started tucking Chris in. It is all hysterical. We are so grateful for all the nice people wanting to give us such great service, everyone truly is so nice, but we also look forward to our home life again where things happen in a more timely fashion!
The past week we have continued to take it easy. We’ve spent some time on the beach, I did some yoga, and Chris took a meditation course. We also both had ayervadic treatments, something the province of Karala is known for. They basically consists of getting naked and having a stranger rub litres of oil all over your body. You have to lay on a table that reminds me of the chopping block my mother uses for roast beef, with the groves around the outside to catch the drippings. As far as relaxing, well, it has its moments. I did a treatment where I had hot oil poured across my forehead for 30 minutes. I guess it was a interesting sensation, but not sure I’d subject myself to trying to get the oil out of my hair, ears, and off my entire body again. Here are a few pictures from Varkala:

Varkala Cliff and Varkala Beach

Dinner with Louisa and Conrad

Christmas Dinner Night!

Christmas Dinner…probably looks a bit different than yours!

Fire Dancers after dinner

Chris and I also did a backwater canoe ride. It was a really neat experience to see how so many people live on these canals. They grow many spices and herbs down south and it was cool to see how they look before they make it to your pantry.  Here are a few pictures from the backwater adventure:

Chris walking in town to find the place.

Our ride.

It was so hot that Chris had to go buy these bandanas to try to cover our heads.

Our Captain

Sunset in the Backwaters

Now we’re off to Thailand for a brand new adventure. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your friends and families. We will be ringing in the New Year in Bangkok. I know we have had so much to be grateful for in 2010. Looking forward to see what 2011 has in store!
Love Ashlyn and Chris

Cows on the beach

Goa

Hello from Varkala, India!  It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner, especially being in southern India.  (Varkala is on the very southern tip of India, just off to the west side of the point, if you’re looking for it on a map).  You’d really have no idea what season it is here, other than the odd shopkeeper that has dressed up as Santa Claus hoping to win a few more western customers.

We’ve just arrived in Varkala after a great week in Goa.  In Goa we stayed in a town called Palolem, which was a little hippy town at the very southern tip of the state.  Louisa and Conrad met us down in Palolem and we’re spending a couple of weeks with them.  We’ve been having a great time with them (as always), and it was really great to see some familiar faces…especially at this time of year.

Back to Palolem, Goa…the town was a little paradise and if we didn’t have a hotel booking in Varkala, we might have stayed there forever!  All of the restaurants were located right on the beach and most of them were made from palm trees and big blue tarps with a bit of thatch thrown on for effect.  Their basic business strategy was to put a bunch of lounge-chairs and umbrellas out on the beach and wait for the customers to ask how much it cost to rent them for the day.  The deal was that you could use them all day if you ate lunch at their restaurant and drank their water, beer, and Tom Collins during the day.  So, for about $25 per day, all four of us could sit on the beach drinking beer and water all day and eating huge lunches that were delicious.  Not a bad deal, for $6.25 each!  We spent a week laying in the sun, relaxing on the beach, playing paddle ball (157!!), telling people on the beach that we weren’t interested in buying their crap, and taking dips in the ocean to cool off.  It may not sound like it, but the week flew by faster than any week we’ve had on the trip so far.  Here are some pictures from our time at the beach:

At night the town was a bit sleepy, other than the ‘Silent Noise’ night, which was a total blast!  There had been some bars on the beach that were getting shut down because of noise complaints, so someone came up with an idea of having huge dance parties that were 100% noise free.  So they bring in hundreds and hundreds of headphones that are hooked up to 3 live Djs that are playing and everyone dances around to the music in their headphones, which you could flip between 3 different channels of music.  We thought we’d go because it sounded fun, and it would be a good way to stay up past 10PM, which was the latest we’ve gone to bed in months.  Easily the best part of the night was taking off your headphones and watching all these drunk people hop around in silence, stumbling around and singing along to the music in their heads…it made for a pretty good show.  Going to the Silent Noise party was good, being four of those drunk party go-ers was great, staying up past 10PM was outstanding, having a full day of travel in India the next morning was poor.  Here are some pictures from the Silent Noise party:

So that pretty much covers our stay in Goa. We would highly reccomend it to anyone! talk to you all on Christmas!

The rest of Northern India…finally!

Happy Holidays!  Well, after a couple of weeks with little to no internet access, we’re happy to be back.  We’ve made our way down to Goa, India following our tour up north and it couldn’t have come at a better time.  It’s hard to believe that Goa is actually in India.  We’re surrounded by beautiful beaches, palm trees, friendly local people, beach-side resturaunts and warm weather.  This is a far cry from northern India, which was beginning to take it’s toll on us!  We’ll update with more pictures on Goa shortly.

We’re pretty backlogged on updates from the past couple of weeks, so we’ll go through them pretty quickly (partly because we already forget some of the stops).

Ranakpur:  We stopped in Ranakpur one afternoon to check out a really old Jain Temple.  After a visit at the temples we went to stay at an Indian resort.  They had a pretty nice set-up at the resort, but somehow forgot to include any heating for the buildings.  It was a chilly night!!

 

Udaipur:  The next stop was in Udaipur, which is a really nice city that is on the banks of a big lake (you’ll have to google some pictures of the lake because somehow we forgot to take any pictures of it…whoops!).  We spent two days in the city checking out some temples and the main palace in town.  Ashlyn and I went to an Indian cooking class in the evening and pretended we knew how to cook!

 

Jojawar:  This was a stop in a sleeply little Indian village.  We still aren’t exactly sure why we spent the night in this little town, but we managed to fill up some time playing cricket with the locals, then a group of about 10 of us spent 2 hours playing hide-and-go-seek.  Yeah.  We were bored.  It was pretty funny to watch a bunch of 20-40 year olds run around like they were 10 years old.

These were some of the kids in town who ran around and begged everyone to take their picture.

Pushkar:  We had another 2 nights at Pushkar which is a very holy city (which means no beer is allowed, but it sure smelled like pot was allowed).  We checked out the holy lake there, then woke up early so that we could hike to the top of a mountian for sunrise.

Bengal shopping in Pushkar

The holy lake in Pushkar

Jaipur:  I’m not exactly sure what happened in Jaipur, so Ashlyn will have to edit this and include some details.  I caught ‘Delhi Belly’ at this stop, so spent 48 hours in bed with a high fever, and setting up semi-permanent camp on the toilet.

Hi! It’s Ashlyn. Ok, here’s my take on Jaipur. Although Chris missed out on the best Fort we saw in India, it was actually a great place for him to get sick. Jaipur is all about shopping! After a visit to the fort (which is pretty much a combination of all of the other forts and palaces we had already visited), I spent the day shopping for jewlery! The shops here are amazing. I went into bangle shops 2 stories high that had more sparkly bangles and bracelets than I even knew exsisted! It was almost as jaw dropping as the Taj Mahal. I couldn’t get enough! But Chris assures me I did get enough. Just a few keepsakes!

The Fort in Jaipur

The largest sundial in the world at a palace in Jaipur

Agra:  The final stop on the tour was Agra, and man did they ever save the best for last.  We didn’t have overly high expectations for how the Taj Mahal would be, only because we’ve seen a bunch of pictures and thought we knew what to expect.  We were blown away by the Taj Mahal, and both of us would say that so far on the trip, it was definitely the most impressive sight we’ve seen.

Delhi and Jodhpur

After arriving at the hotel in Delhi we slept for a few hours, found a decent grocery store and met up with our new tour at dinner time.  We have a good group again for India and have a wide range of people on the trip…definitely more diverse than the Egypt/Jordan tour.

The first night we all went out for dinner and had the most delicious Indian meal of our lives.  We’re not sure if it tasted so good because of the food itself, or the fact that it wasn’t a kabob like every meal for the previous 17 days.  The streets of Delhi are amazing to walk through at night.  There are countless shops and stands with people cooking salty and spicy food and the aroma is delicious! There are people everywhere coming and going, rickshaws, tuk tuks, cars, dogs, cows, and us, all fighting for a piece of the road! And everywhere you look there are neon signs and twinkle lights advertising for anything from the newest silks to plastic surgery. It was a sensory overload, to say the least!

The following morning we woke-up early and went on a walking tour of Old Delhi, visited a Sikh temple, a mosque and had some lunch.  Here are some pictures from Delhi:

Giant statue of Lord Shiva (God of strength).

Chris walking through the ‘holy water’ to clean his sins (and his feet) before walking into the Sikh Temple.   I guess we didn’t need to wear those shower shoes for the past 60 days.

Ashlyn making bread in the Sikh community kitchen.

A shopping street in Delhi.  Just be glad that they haven’t found a way to post smells yet.

The Delhi power lines.  Everywhere.

After Delhi we took an overnight sleep train to Jodhpur where we stayed for day.  They had an amazing Fort that overlooked the blue city. In the afternoon we decided to take a tour into the rural area and saw some more of what India had to offer.

Here are some pictures from Jodhpur:

The Fort at Jodhpur.

The view into the ‘Blue City’.

Ashlyn practicing her pottery skills at a local shop.

A tribal person smoking.  The stand in front of him is for distilling opium to drink their traditional opium tea.  We opted out.

The same guy showing us how to tie a turban.  We had no idea there was so much material!  8 meters of fabric in the average turban.

India or Bust

Namaste from India.

We arrived on the 28th after our surprise stop in Dubai, but the actual Indian adventure started before we even left the airport in Dubai.  Indian people have a slightly different way of doing things.  All things.  Including how they board aircrafts.  Everyone was sitting around waiting for the airplane to board, and all it took was one person walking to the check-in counter to ask a question to ignite the stampede.  Within seconds, every single passenger (other than us) stormed the gate fearing that the plane would leave without them.  And not an orderly storming of the gates like you’d expect back home…it was a massive ball of chaos that resembled a bee-hive that was preparing to defend.  Ashlyn and I immediately broke into laughter and didn’t stop until we were crying.  What were we getting ourselves into?!?  We soon found out that this chaos wasn’t even to get on the plane, but merely to move from one waiting room to another.  wow.

The excitement didn’t end on the plane either.  Before all the passengers were even sitting in their seats there was a line for the bathroom 6 people long.  Ashlyn decided that being one of about 5 women on the plane she would not be using the facilities during the flight.  After a few minutes the crew finally managed to get all of the passengers onto the plane, but didn’t bother letting them actually get to their seats before pulling out of the gate and taxing toward the runway.  Once up in the air, the line up to the bathroom resumed and the flight attendants went into action serving the food and the drinks.  Serving drinks was something special.  It was all about Whiskey for the masses.  They have more than the regular 2 beverage carts working the isles on theses flights.  They had about 4 carts and each one just moved back and fourth again and again between about 6 rows and poured whiskey faster than any nightclub you’ve ever seen.  These guys can drink!  Each Indian man (which was basically the entire airplane other than Ashlyn and I and a couple other Indian women) had 4 or 5 GLASSES of  strait Whiskey.  Then immediately fell asleep/passed out for the remainder of the flight.

As we started to make our decent into New Delhi, the captain came on and told everyone to buckle up.  On a normal flight you might hear one or two buckles click at this point…most people keep their seatbelts fastened for the flight.  Not on Indian Airlines.  At the moment the seatbelt sign came on, EVERY buckle (other than ours) clicked shut in unison.  It was magical and sounded like it had been well rehearsed for months.  Again we looked at each other, broke into laughter and were terrified what we were about to experience on the ground.

As the plane landed, passengers took it as their signal to stand up and remove their carry on items, despite the fact that the plane was still decelerating from the landing.  Once at the gate we were able to push our way out of the plane in a good amount of time.  (That’s how line ups work in India…who ever is the best pusher, gets there first).  Then we climbed down the stairs from the plane and hoped onto the bus that drives you to the terminal.  It was dark, and the bus had no lights inside of it, but we could still see (and feel) the 100 pairs of eyes staring at us.  Apparently staring wasn’t enough so they started to talk in Hindi about us and laugh.  It seemed like a fair trade, we did a good deal of laughing earlier.

On the drive to the terminal we prepared ourselves for the worst after hearing horror stories of scams, beggars, dirt, chaos, stench, humidity, corruption, you name it.  The bus finally pulled up to the terminal and we stepped into the most beautiful airport we’ve ever been in, no crowds, helpful people and smiling faces.  Even the cab stand gave a discount from the fixed rate because we didn’t have the right change.

Great start in India.

Here are a couple of pics:

Ashlyn getting ready for the flight to India while waiting in Dubai.  That’s a Sani-wipe on her face.

The arrivals area of the New Delhi airport.

 

 

Best flight cancellation EVER!!

Well, we landed in Dubai and were expecting to quickly hop on our plane to New Delhi, but quickly found out our flight was cancelled and we would be on the red-eye flying into India.  So we got about 9 hours to check out Dubai!  The city is pretty much Vegas without the gambling and alcohol.  Huge buildings and shopping everywhere!!  Here are some pictures from the day:

The ski-hill inside the Mall of the Emirates.  No big deal!!

The GIANT aquarium at the Dubai Mall

Tallest building in the world.