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

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.

 

 

no more sweaty palms

It’s been 3 days and 2 nights since we set off from Calgary, and it hasn’t been without adventure, good surprises and a whole lot of anxiety! That being said, we write this blog entry from the seahorse motel right on the ocean in Lincoln City, Oregon, where we can hear  the waves crash on the beach, and really reflect on how grateful we are to be partaking in such an amazing experience!!

We spent Saturday night relaxing at the Beatty’s Cabin just outside of Radium.  We thought it would be good to shave a couple of hours off the drive to Vancouver, and we were ready to get out-of-town, so it worked out well.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

This is us crossing the BC border…

Sunday we drove out to Agassiz, BC (between Hope and Chilliwack) and met up with Chris’s Aunt Maureen and Uncle Earl.  They gave us a great tour of their beautiful log cabin and a short hike around their awesome piece of land, complete with Salmon running up the creek and waterfalls on the property!  It was a really nice visit and we look forward to returning one day! After dinner with Maureen and Earl we continued our drive to Surrey. there we found a hotel as close as possible to the Indian Consulate so we could be sure to be the first ones in line the following morning for their 8:00am opening. Who would have known that when we pulled up at 7:30 today there would already be a line 20 people long!

Although I was turned away at first and told to come back at 3:30 for passport pickup, I was able to convince the security guard we were given permission by some man named Alok to pick them up early…it worked! By 9:00am we had our passports in hand and had already made it through US customs.

us with the ellusive passports complete with Indian visas…

The rest of the day was mostly spent on the road, passing unbelievably beautiful scenery. :Lush forests, autumn colours, the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma, and the ending up in Portland. We had originally planned to stay in Portland, but unfortunately when we arrived, so did the rain. After driving around downtown, and by the river, we decided Portland in the rain was not on our list of things to do, so continued on to the Coast. We’ll have to return one day.

The scenery we saw after leaving Portland was probably some of our favorite so far on the trip. vineyards, orchards, tree farms, pumpkin patches! I loved it all! And finally… the ocean.

Here is our first night outside Canada…

Looking forward to whatever tomorrow brings!

Ashlyn and Chris

we’re going on a passport hunt!

Ok, so… the short version of the story is, we still have no passports!

Although we were told it takes 5-7 days to receive our Indian Visas, we are currently on day 11, empty-handed. After checking the Indian Consulate passport tracking site religiously for the past week, and daily calls to the (umm, unhelpful) help line, finally the status of my passport changed! It was being shipped to Calgary today! Although Chris’s passport status hadn’t changed, we  decided to go down to the Calgary office for the Indian Consulate today and see what we could do.

Turns out, my passport wasn’t in Calgary after all. Same story for Chris.  And as you can imagine, they couldn’t do anything …. BUT (thanks to a few good prayers sent out to our travel angels by my mom)…. The Vice president of Visa Services and some head guy from the Canadian consulate happened to be in town on a tour of the facility or something. He over heard my begging and pleading, and well not taking “they might be in by next Wednesday” for an answer! (Wednesday!! are you kidding me?!?!) So, this guy gets on the phone and tracks my passport down in Surry and thinks Chris’ s might be en route to Surrey this afternoon. Together we come up with a plan of driving to Vancouver on Sunday in order to pick up our passports on Monday morning at 8:00 am from the Surrey office! We waited all night but finally at 8:00pm this evening finally got confirmation that both passports (complete with Indian Visas) are waiting for us in BC! YAY!

So although we are off to a late start, and are adding a Canadian leg to our road trip, we think we will be pulling into the U.S. before lunch on Monday! Now lets hope none of the instructions got crossed and our passports don’t get shipped to Calgary as we are driving to Surrey!

We have decided to leave tomorrow and drive to Chris’s parents cabin in Radium to shave 2 hours off the drive to Vancouver on Sunday. We are excited to get going on this trip and have said all of our good-bye’s (some of them twice!) so figure we may as well hit the road! I have never left for a trip without checking to make sure I have my passport 10 times! This seems so strange to set out on a trip around the world with no passports!

This will be our last post from Calgary!!! Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers!

We will miss you all!

Ashlyn and Chris

4 days to go….. maybe

I can’t believe we only have 4 days left in Calgary! Chris and I spent the weekend packing and visiting with great friends and family so although we’re getting really excited to leave, it’s also tough to say our good-byes.

This week we ran into a bit of a snag while trying to obtain our visa’s for India. This has not been an easy process and our applications have now been rejected twice!! They are very particular on these applications! I feel like it is  impossible to guess the right answer! I have heard while travelling to India you need to have lots of patience, as nothing gets done quickly or they way you might want it done. I suppose they really try to break you in to their culture right from the get go with the visa application process!

It states at the top of the form “do not leave any blank spaces. Place N/A on any blank lines”. Ok, seems pretty easy. Wrong! It’s a bit of a guessing game as to how they want you to answer the questions.

Q.5. What is your Nationality … ‘CANADIAN’.

Correct.

What is your past Nationality….. ‘N/A’?

Nope!!!! The answer was ‘CANADIAN’?!?! huh?

Then another question we got wrong is

Where did you obtain your last Indian Visa….. ‘N/A’???

Nope! The answer is ‘NONE’. what???

It’s all very confusing, but we feel after two attempts we may have got it right this time!!! They were shipped back to the consulate Saturday evening.

So at this point we have no Indian Visas, and worse, our passports are somewhere in between here and Vancouver! Although we are scheduled to leave Friday morning, I guess we’ll wait to see when we get our passports back? Departure date is currently TBD!

Back to packing!