where in the heck...

Our East African Adventures…

2009-10-11T16:26:00.002-05:00

Though it has been quite some time since we returned home, we wanted to complete our blog and fill you in on the final leg of our journey, through Tanzania and Kenya in July.

After landing in Dar es Salaam, the biggest Tanzanian city, and checking into the hotel we had booked online a few days before, we heard a knock and opened the door to find a friend of Rutvik’s dad, known to us as “Bashir Bhai,” and one of his sons. This was a very pleasant surprise, especially considering that we had just landed in a new place and didn’t know anyone there. He graciously offered to meet us the following day to help us plan our time in Tanzania.

When we showed up at his office the next day, he roughed out a day by day itinerary for us that included both of the places we had talked about going: Zanzibar, the “spice island” off the eastern coast, and Arusha, the main jumping-off point for African safaris. He said he would arrange our tickets for departure to Zanzibar the next day. The next thing we knew, he had taken care of planning our entire time in Tanzania! And we had the BEST time!

We spent the rest of the day exploring Dar. It is a pretty small city and we walked quite a bit of it during the day to get a feel for it. In contrast to the big cities in South Africa and Kenya, Dar felt less cosmopolitan, less westernized, and much safer. Most businesses were small one location shops or outdoor stands. There is a very notable Indian presence in Dar. We walked to the Tanzania National Museum to find that the sign for the museum was a piece of computer paper tacked to a tree with “National Museum” and an arrow handwritten! Fortunately, it doesn’t rain much there! Later that night, we went on a hunt to find “chips mayai,” a local street food concoction of eggs, fries, hot sauce, and cabbage, which was interesting but didn’t live up to the hype from the other backpackers. Sad to say, Dar was not an overly exciting place to hang out, so we headed out the next day to Zanzibar.

Zanzibar is known for being the “spice island” and has gorgeous beaches and seascapes. We ended up spending most of our time in Stone Town, the main town on the island where the buildings create a sort of mazelike atmosphere, in a way like Venice. There are all sorts of cute cafes and restaurants along the waterfront, though Stone Town is decidedly Muslim so there weren’t many bars. At night, they have a street market set up with all kinds of grilled fish and meat kebabs, that are apparently very good. The octopus dish here is apparently delicious. We got addicted to something that we know as “Mix” (who knows what they actually call it?!?!), which is like an Indian chaat with lentils, tomato soup, fried dough balls, and beans (we think?), best washed down with a tall glass of fresh sugar cane juice!

Coincidentally, the Zanzibar International Film Festival was happening during the time that we were there, so we watched several African made movies, the most touching of which was about a center set up for women to drop off their newborn babies instead of abandoning them at the side of the road somewhere. Most of the producers were there, from all over Africa. Our claim to fame was seeing Danny Glover, who attended and emceed the event.

After a few days, we headed back to Dar by ferry. Bashir Bhai graciously welcomed us into his home for a lovely meal with his family and then took us with his wife and their SIX kids out for a tour of the town. We saw WAY more of Dar than we ever would have otherwise, which was great. It makes such a difference to know people in a place.

The next day, Bashir Bhai sent us with one of his employees on a bus to Arusha, the main starting point for safaris to the major Tanzanian game parks. His employee actually had his wife make us food for the bus since he knew that we were vegetarian and wouldn’t find anything at the few stops along the way. This Tanzanian hospitality was unbelievable! The bus passed by Mt. Kilimanjaro, which was no less than magnificent! So magnificent that unfortunately we were too awestruck to take any photos! Ha. Looking up, we were extremely grateful that we didn’t take on the climb, as we had talked about, though we did later meet several travelers that had reached the summit without much training! Apparently the majority of the problems have to do more with altitude sickness than with fitness. Or at least that’s what we like to tell ourselves.

We got to Arusha after dark and left on our four day safari early the next morning. We didn’t have much of a clue as to what to expect (except to see cool animals, I suppose) since Bashir Bhai had arranged the trip for us. Turns out there were five of us tourists, a driver/guide, and a cook. The British couple were travel agents that had been “made redundant” (laid off) and decided to pursue their dream of traveling Africa top to bottom and the Japanese guy was traveling alone as his wife was 7 months pregnant, a fact which they discovered only after they had paid a large deposit, so by his logic he couldn’t waste the deposit. Hmm…

The safari was AMAZING. We had a seven seater Land Cruiser with a top that popped up so that we could all stand up and look out. We saw all kinds of animals: giraffe, elephant, impala, hippo, dik dik, Thomson's gazelle, blue monkey, olive baboon, vervet monkey, bandit mongoose, buffalo, wildebeest, warthog, zebra, leopard, lion, cheetah, Grant's gazelle, eland, hartebeest, agama lizard, topi, jackal, reedbuck, and impala. (Yes, we did write them down.) We didn’t even know that half these animals existed! We also loved the African trees, like the flat topped acacias and the “sausage trees” that had big sausage-like seeds hanging down.

Going on safari made us want to watch the Lion King all over again. It is unbelievable how much Lion King looks like the Serengeti, with the flat topped acacia trees, big rock formations, lots of flat low grasslands, and stunning bright orange sunsets – nice job Disney! Kel took this one step further when we saw a lion lying in the grass close to two massive rocks. She said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if that lion climbed up on that rock and looked out just like Simba in the Lion King?!” Sure enough, it did! And, even better, another lion climbed up on the other rock and looked out the other way! We could watch the lions for hours, and, though we didn’t see the much talked of “kill,” we were able to watch two lions tag team a group of buffalo, eventually singling one out and making a run for it, though the buffalo was strategic and managed to get away. It was almost magical, like being in another world or watching a parallel universe. As much as Kel talks up the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, there really is no substitute for an African safari to really experience wildlife.

Each night we camped in a different campsite, eating simple meals prepared by our cook, playing cards, and chatting by the campfire. Often, the campsites were in or near the park, so it was possible for animals to come into the camp. One day, Kelli was in the bathroom around 6am when Rutvik heard that an elephant had come into the camp right by the bathroom. He ran to find Kel, who at the time was clueless about Dumbo outside, and she came out to a huge crowd staring toward her and Rutvik running at her. Fortunately, the elephant headed off but this was quite an ordeal while still half asleep!

Originally, we had planned on hitting the beaches on the eastern coast of Kenya, but we had so much fun on our Tanzania safari that we decided we just HAD to check out the Masai Mara in Kenya as well while we had the time. The only difference is that we had no Bashir Bhai in Kenya to help us find a reputable company, so we spent several agonizing days talking to different safari companies in Nairobi, trying to find a quality company that wasn’t too expensive. There are tons of touts roaming the streets of Nairobi, and we struggled to make a decision. Do we go with a reputable company that will charge us a lot for a reliable though likely mediocre experience or do we try a tout from an unknown company that will charge us less but we’ll have an unpredictable experience? We decided to be adventurous, and we GRILLED the company we found to get the best guarantee that we could. We were extremely skeptical and even paid extra to put it on our credit card just in case… and Kelli PROMISED to write a review of the company and post it in several places online, whether it was good or bad. It worked out amazingly! And we have a great recommendation for a budget tour company for you now!

Nairobi itself was, for lack of a better word, intriguing. Based on its reputation and things we had heard from other travelers, we were on edge, especially at first. Our best piece of advice: Do NOT rely on an outdated Lonely Planet Africa guidebook!! Our first night there we relied on a recommendation for a slightly upmarket hotel… and ended up unknowingly staying at a rent-by-the-hour place! As we were told, “the taxi drivers know that one real well…” Eek! Our second mistake was relying on the owner’s recommendation for a cab outta there, as it proceeded to break down just as we turned onto the main street. Nairobi was an adventure and we spent much time exploring the city on foot and especially enjoyed bargaining in the markets, where we were able to successfully negotiate an “antique” mask (with quite fresh looking paint, might we add) from 300,000 shillings to 800 shillings! We have to wonder, do typical tourists actually pay anything close to the starting price?!?! We also found an upscale, very westernized coffee chain called Java House with fabulous mocha frappucinos and free-wifi. We spent many afternoons there catching up on emails, preparing for our big Berkeley move, and savoring the delicious chocolate chip milkshakes and decidedly un-African baked goodies. Preparation for our return stateside. Mmmm….!!

I’m not sure if we had been coming to the realization that we were heading home over the final few weeks or if we were over-excited to be seeing family and friends back home or if we were excited to start our new adventure in Berkeley or if 4 days in Nairobi was too much for us, but by the end of our time in Nairobi, we were ready to head back to the US. What an incredible 10 months we had! We flew from Nairobi to Dubai (about 5 hours) and then flew directly from Dubai to San Francisco (about 16 hours!). After the super long flight, not having driven for 10 months, and spending most of the year on the wrong side of the road, we stepped off the plane, got a rental car, and hopped onto the San Francisco freeway during Friday rush hour. It took no less than 2 minutes for us to get flipped off - twice! Welcome back to America!!

Fun with Numbers - Final Counts

2009-07-29T08:20:00.000-05:00

Counts Updated 7/29/2009

Days on the road: 285
Number of cities visited: 69
Number of countries visited: 11
Number of prearranged visas needed: Rutvik 5, Kelli 2
Number of places stayed: 79
Number of flights: 18
Number of trains: 7
Number of long distance buses: 27
Hours spent in public transport: 648 (via plane, chauffeur driven car, dhow (abra), rickshaw (tuk tuk), taxi, songthaew, shikara, bus, public ferry, motorbike, houseboat, local train, bicycle, Easy Riders, human powered cycle rickshaws, 4x4 shuttle, Land Cruiser jeep, matatu)
Number of native languages encountered: 20 (English, Arabic, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Thai, Burmese, Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Pahari, Punjabi, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Swahili)
Kelli’s milkshake and ice cream count: 81... and we lost track
Rutvik’s cell phones lost (and broken) count: 4 (Darn that public transport!)
Kelli's cameras broken count: 1 (Ziplining with camera on the wrist)
Number of times badly scammed: 3 ((1) Thai "accident" en route to a party on Ko Pha Ngan causing us to pay for two exorbitantly expensive cab rides instead of just one, and (2) Miraculously the cab's meter showed about 7 times the fare we had expected) (3) Durban cab driver rigged his meter and there was no way we were getting out in some random spot in that city!!
Number of blatant scam attempts foiled: too many to count
Number of white guys with Thai "weekend girlfriends": 743 (out of Thailand now...)
Number of books read: Rutvik 20, Kelli 33
Number of movies watched: 55
Number of movies Kelli slept during: 13
Number of mozzie bites: Way too many (fortunately very few in northern India...and very low malaria risk in South Africa - yay!)
Number of Indian aunties and uncles acquired: Lost count after day three
Number of servants regularly working at Rutvik’s 800 sq ft flat in Bombay: 8
Number of holy places visited: 30 (2 mosques, 5 Hindu temples, 3 Jain temples, 2 churches, 1 synagogue, 13 Buddhist wats/pagodas, 1 midnight mass at Le Meridien, 1 Caodai temple, 1 Holy Ganges, 1 Sikh temple)
Number of holidays celebrated: 10 (Diwali, Indian New Year, Aunty’s 50th birthday celebrated multiple times, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Tet, Valentine's Day, Holi, Easter, Rutvik's birthday) Number of holidays missed in the US: 10 (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father’s Day, Fourth of July)
Number of beer brands tried: 19
Number of KPMG locations found: 3 (Bombay, Ho Chi Minh City, and Durban)
Number of visits to American chain restaurants: 44 (McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins, Subway, Domino's, and Swensens..... McD's and Pizza Hut have so many veggie options!!)
Number of hours of yoga: 148
Number of animals ridden: 5 (elephant, camel, ostrich, bullock, horse)

First Impressions of Tanzania

2009-07-05T12:36:00.003-05:00

Reminds us a lot of India (a much less crowded version) – crowded minibuses (called dalla-dallas here), rickshaws, lack of sidewalks, ethnic Indian food, aunties dressed in saris, Bollywood channels, lack of regard for personal space, and chaotic traffic.
The country does not accept US currency older than 2000 due to huge counterfeit circulations of prior series (a necessity to get a visa)
Street vendors sell all sorts of things like spare car parts, q-tips, magazines, bars of soaps and other cosmetics, cigarettes, fruit, etc. to cars stopped in traffic…. Parking for a few minutes could easily be equivalent to a day’s shopping trip back home!
Lots of street vendors selling chipsi-mai-ay, a disgusting concoction of fried chips, egg, hot chili, and cabbage. We had been told by some travelers in South Africa that it was a must try. Yeah…
Surprisingly nothing to do in the city (aka no tourist attractions except a very unappetizing museum).
Tanzania is one African nation that doesn’t share the bloody history experienced by most of its neighbors.
Whether true or not, it feels a whole lot safer to walk around here than it did in the major South African cities.
Very little begging.
Internet is way cheaper than South Africa but cosmetics and books are still overpriced.
Soon does not mean soon (they work on African Standard Time)
Shockingly we did not see any animals on the street – no stray dogs, no cows, not even monkeys – apparently they have all been relegated to the game reserves!

From Cape Town to Johannesburg in 30 Days…

2009-07-05T12:32:00.002-05:00

In our original trip planning, we had decided that we both really wanted to see Africa, and, after talking further, South Africa seemed to be a gentle introduction. We had heard that it was a beautiful country with tons to do and was more developed than the rest of the continent. The only thing we were somewhat hesitant about was the notoriously high crime rates. (The capital, Johannesburg, has the enviable designations of the Murder Capital of the World and the Rape Capital of the World and carjackings are far from uncommon.)

We decided to take the Baz Bus, a bus intended for backpackers that picks you up at your hostel in one city and drops you off at a hostel in the next city so that you don’t have to lug your bags around. We made 12 stops along our path from Cape Town on the southwestern coast to Johannesburg in the northeast. You can divide our route into three diverse regions: highly developed and very westernized Cape Town and the Garden Route, rural village life along the Wild Coast, and real African big city life in Durban and Johannesburg. All three had unique characteristics and showed us the vagaries of South African life.

Cape Town is a strikingly pretty city but quickly reminded us that we were in the Southern Hemisphere where it is winter in June! The eternal summer of our travels so far finally ended, but this may have been a blessing in disguise since there is a huge option overload here – so much to do! Unfortunately, due to the weather, we couldn’t do many of the popular tourist things like climbing Table Mountain or visiting Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held but instead explored the indoor sights that we could while trying to wait out the rain. (For more on Cape Town please see our blog entry – First Impressions of Cape Town). Yet after enduring four days of cold rain in Cape Town, we cut our losses and headed out on what is popularly called the Garden Route, an absolutely gorgeous, well developed, coastal and consequently expensive part of South Africa. It felt much like the US (at one point Kelli even questioned Rutvik why we were bothering to live apart from friends and family because we could be doing the same things back at home).

One of the highlights of the Garden Route for us was the wine towns of Stellenbosch, Franschoek and Paarl. Located barely an hour out of Cape Town, there are 300+ wineries in the area and we did a day long tour that included tastings at 4 different wineries. We are no wine connoisseurs but we would like to claim that we enjoy California wines more (future hometown pride!) and South Africa is known more for red wines anyway, which we can’t seem to enjoy as much. The best part of the wine tour, however, was the absolutely delectable cheese bar at the Fairview winery, where we made at least 2 full rounds of the 10 or so different cheeses on offer. Yum!!

South Africa is also adrenaline junkie central and we signed up for cage diving with the great white sharks in a cute little seaside town called Hermanus. The diving is exactly as it sounds – you boat out to an area where great whites are known to frequent and the diving company baits the sharks towards the boat. A cage is then lowered into the water alongside the boat and about 5 of us could be in there at any one time. As soon as the guide spots a shark, he tells everyone in the cage to hold their breath and duck to see the great beast go right past them! If that isn’t enough, sharks feel through their teeth (like we do with our hands) and a few times they came straight at the cage with their jaws wide open about 3 inches from our hands. It was quite a rush and it was also really fascinating to watch Jaws and his siblings in real life. Pretty ridiculous!

To add to this, Rutvik decided to use the birthday present from Kelli’s mom to jump 216m off a bridge into a gorge also called Bloukrans bungy – the highest in the world. Rutvik has never witnessed such breathtaking scenery in his life – two mountains almost fitting like puzzle pieces with a gorge snaking through the bottom and the waves of the Indian Ocean crashing against the mountains in the distance. On the same day as the jump, the hostel offered a free trekking trip to visit a waterfall and we signed up, thinking it would be a relaxing afternoon hike. Turns out, the hostel owner took us “on a mission” to a secluded waterfall he had learned about from the forest rangers. There was no trail and we climbed through intense African bush (in Kelli’s mind, snake haven!), over thick underbrush and burnt trees, and down a steep ravine until we hit the bottom where we were rewarded with two spectacular waterfalls. There’s something different about hiking when you know that over half of the world’s things that can kill you live on this continent! Suffice to say we were happier once we were safely back in our hostel!

After the Garden Route, we entered the homeland of Transkei, which was an independent country until Mandela decided to merge it into South Africa. The coast here, known as the Wild Coast, is in sharp contrast to the Garden Route. There are few paved roads from the main highways and most of the backpacker hostels are located in coastal fishing villages. They don’t have fast food chains or big supermarkets on every corner.

Chintsa and Coffee Bay, our first two stops on this leg, had two of the best hostels in all of South Africa, located inches away from almost perfect untouched beaches yet hundreds of miles from any upmarket hotels! Unfortunately, it was too cold to lay out and get a tan (ok that doesn’t apply to Rutvik anyway), but we took the opportunity to see the real rural Africa. We visited local villages on tours organized by entrepreneurial villagers and saw daily village life – villagers out in the fields carrying water, gathering firewood, and wearing traditional clothing - and learned a lot about Xhosa culture (the local tribe in the region). We visited the strange village herbalist who had two snakes, a rat, and a piece of bacon (all dead) hanging from his roof and also sampled the dirt cheap sorghum beer packaged in milk cartons at the local shebeen (illegal pub). Ok that tasted like a milkshake gone bad - disgusting! It seemed like men have it pretty easy and drink and hang out all day while the women are responsible for cooking, cleaning, fetching water and firewood, and even constructing the house. Rutvik could get used to that!

Our last stop on this leg was the eco-friendly Bulungula Backpackers, which is 40% owned by the local Xhosa villagers. We needed a 4X4 shuttle to pick us up and take us over really bumpy and what at times seemed unpassable terrain to get to a really remote area on the coast. Bulungula strives to leave a carbon neutral footprint and runs on solar and wind energy. There is no electricity and we used only candlelight at night. Our accommodation was a rondavel (a hut) just like the villagers with mud brick walls and cow dung flooring. The bathrooms had compost toilets and rocket showers – you pour paraffin wax into the base of the shower and set it on fire to heat the water! A very unique experience and a great idea but we did miss our TV and Edison invented light bulbs dearly, especially when we were bored by 6PM!

We also spent a few days in Durban, the third biggest city in South Africa and the second largest Indian population outside of India. It gave us more of a taste of how your average middle-class African probably lives. We saw people going to office jobs, taking minibuses around the city, out shopping, etc. They have massive Western shopping malls and tourist sights alongside townships (slums). We went to a Sea World like place called UShaka Marine World one day, which was cool but touristy. Much more interesting was a tour we took of a local township with a guy that grew up there. It was similar in a way to the tour we took of Dharavi (Slumdog Millionaire slum) in India but the township was much more sprawling (there was space between the shacks), somewhat cleaner (especially because there were proper toilets in places), and less safe. Also, the South African government seems to provide much more assistance (i.e. toilets, houses, storefronts, library, etc.) to the residents here than the Indian government does.

Since there was plenty to do elsewhere and even the locals seemed to be continually warning us about Johannesburg (very out of the ordinary in our minds) and it was FREEZING cold, we decided to only spend a quick night there before our flight out to Tanzania. It was a shame since it has the highly acclaimed Apartheid Museum, the largest township called Soweto, and the Cradle of Humankind, a place that supposedly has all sorts of fossils of early humans!

Unfortunately, along with the beauty of the whole country and the astounding number of things there are to see and do here, another thing that really stands out in our minds is how vulnerable we felt here compared to any other country either of us had ever been to. Violent crime is prevalent and seems to be regarded somewhat as a fact of life. In Cape Town, we had a group of teenage guys come up to us, physically pat our pockets, and ask “Ya got anything in there for me??” We also woke up one morning at 5am to a screaming match between the hostel owner and two Dutch guys because they had brought a prostitute back to their room and she was demanding more money. In Stellenbosch, Kelli’s crappy old running shoes got stolen out of our room (with 6 of us sleeping there) by a local thug in the middle of the night! The very next night, a guy came to check into the hostel and (stupidly) left his car unlocked. Within the 5 minutes it took him to check in, his backpack was gone. In Durban, we were waiting for a bus when suddenly about a hundred people burst down the street chasing a guy. We weren’t sure what was happening, but there were women dancing on the street and people chanting, so we actually thought maybe it was a movie star. Turns out that a guy had tried to steal a woman’s handbag and this massive mob was beating the crap out of him. The worst of the lot turned out to be the “security” that came and dragged him across the street to a back alley still kicking him. There is so much major crime here that the petty robberies are left to street justice! It was truly a stunning sight to watch, so far from the realm of what we consider normal and proper. When you really start to think about it though, it’s very hard to blame these people since they wouldn’t get proper justice in their courts. In Johannesburg, during our short ride into the city, we noticed that absolutely every house or business had armed response security and we saw cop cars with SIX cops inside (when you need backup – shit!). We also heard that people have panic buttons in their bathrooms and above their beds, there are carjacking warning signs all over the city, and people often don’t stop for red lights at night for fear of getting carjacked! What a different life. It’s okay for a short time as a tourist, but we could never live here. It also begs the question in our minds of why the crime is so high here when countries like India and Laos have similar (and probably worse) poverty and we would feel entirely safe walking down the street after dark in either place.

Also, life in South Africa is pretty expensive, especially in contrast to our last four months in India. Believe it or not, we could have spent another four months in India for the same cost as staying one month here! And the quality of life is pretty different too. Instead of having a private room in India with our own bathroom and color TV, we stayed in hostel rooms with shared bathrooms throughout South Africa. We cooked for ourselves quite a bit as opposed to ordering completely freely off the menus in India. Internet and phone were way more expensive and surprisingly much slower in South Africa, so we didn’t talk to our families as much along the way. Also, new books, which you can find on the street in India for a few dollars, seemed to be nearly double the US stated price in South Africa! (We wondered about whether this correlates with how educated their population is?!)

The upside to sharing bathrooms and living space with people and cooking our own meals in the hostel is that we met so many people, like a guy traveling through over 30 African countries, the son of the Iraqi Minister of Communications, and a woman that had been traveling for 14 years and counting!. I guess this is part of the argument for “backpacking” as opposed to staying in the usual hotels. There were a surprising number of gap year kids and “voluntourists” (our opinion is still out on how we feel about paying to volunteer but then again how else do you get to spend a month playing with lions??) We were really lucky to meet a lot of awesome people along the way and trade stories.

The food in South Africa was another big positive. It was amazingly easy to find veg options. Food in major cities and along Garden Route was very much like home – all sorts of cafes, sandwiches, and ethnic foods. The villages and the Wild Coast area have a lot of simple foods like pap (maize meal) and basic curries. Durban, due to the large Indian population, has terrific food, including a local specialty called “bunny chow” – a carved out loaf of bread filled with curry. There are very specific rules about how to eat it – especially no forks allowed! Johannesburg, well, we just ordered a pizza! (Speaking of which, we really think delivery guys there should get hazard pay!)

Even after a month, there’s still a ton that we missed and we’re planning to go back someday, especially in warmer weather! Now it’s on to Tanzania and Kenya for about three weeks before wrapping up our big adventure and setting out on a new adventure – life in California!

First Impressions of Cape Town

2009-06-05T06:11:00.001-05:00

No black people on our flight – to AFRICA!!
Flying in felt like Australia (dry and mountainous), drive from the airport felt like a European city (modern, groomed gardens, etc.), and then reminiscent of India (townships here look like slums)
Every store has barred doors and the street we are staying on has surveillance cameras all over and 24 hour security patrolling
Lots of cafes and trendy food (acai smoothies, organic wraps, fusion, etc.), lots of Caribbean and Indian influence, lots of meat
Within 24 hours of being in the city, some kids came and hustled us, grabbing at our pockets and asking “you got something in there for me?!”
Weird to think about 1 in 4 people around us has HIV (never feels that close)
Signs we’re in the developed world again: can drink tap water, prevalence of chain restaurants and big grocery stores, traffic is organized, credit cards accepted, roads are marked, hot water comes out of the tap without a geyser, tourist brochures are everywhere
Kelli absolutely loves how the cover bands here Africanize American pop songs
They call their traffic signals “robots”!!
Entertaining to walk by boutique stores here and see them selling stuff we actually bought in Southeast Asia and India for a tenth of the price
Never seen a big city with such an insane number of things to do
We’re here in the middle of winter (the end of our eternal traveling summer) and there are so many cool things to do that aren’t open… but in reality this is fortunate because we otherwise might never have made it out of Cape Town. (We have already decided we’re coming back at some point during the summer and with money!)
It’s a very, very cool city… if only they could get rid of the crime!

Mayhem in Amritsar

2009-06-05T06:05:00.003-05:00

While in Bhagsu, we had heard a lot of great things from fellow travelers about Amritsar, a town near the Pakistani border about six hours away that is known for having a very beautiful large Sikh temple made of pure gold and marble. We had a few days before we needed to be back in Bombay for Rutvik’s US visa appointment and decided to make a day trip there on our way back. On the last night in Dharamsala, we were out pretty late and ended up missing the only local bus from Dharamsala to Amritsar at 5 am. Suck. On the upside, this allowed us time to ship a bag full of stuff to Bombay ahead of us. We (read: Kel!) had gone on a massive shopping spree in Dharamsala, buying all sorts of handmade items from Tibet and Nepal (shawls, gloves, jewelry, religious decorations for our new apartment in Berkeley, and even knock-off North Face jackets) and sending it meant that we didn’t have to schlep it with us on the crowded Indian local bus (reference advice for surviving an Indian local bus). It all works out.

We ended up catching a bus later that day to Pathankot, a military outpost halfway to Amritsar. The 5 hour journey sparked the blog entry about advice for surviving an Indian bus, so you can imagine how much we enjoyed it. From Pathankot, we decided to splurge and took a private car the rest of the way. We arrived in Amritsar around 7 pm that night and found that the next day was some sort of holiday (apparently the no moon day each month is symbolic in the Sikh religion), so most of the streets were closed down to traffic. Also, Sundays are always the crazy crowded days in India because that’s the one day off each week and people are out and about. We had to take two cycle rickshaws (since our bags were STILL as big as small people) to a hotel and Kelli realized that she was back to Indian populated India (no foreigners in sight) because the stares began again.

The next morning, we headed to the Golden Temple, a major Sikh pilgrimage site which we had heard rivals the Taj Mahal in beauty. We entered the temple complex through metal detectors along with the usual gazillion people (seriously crazy - check out the pictures). It’s hard for us to get over how the pushing and shoving and chaos of such a big crowd jives with a place of such holiness. We hadn’t eaten yet and it was nearing lunchtime, so, before seeing the temple, we decided to find out where the food was. First things first! We had heard about a free meal (called “langar”) served to all people visiting the temple irrespective of religion, nationality, etc. Over 40,000 people are served on an average day! We asked a passerby where the langar was and someone pointed us toward the alley next to a building. Under Sikh tradition, you are supposed to take off your shoes to walk through the temple grounds but the sun was blazing, making the cement very hot, and, honestly, this alley was dirty and wet with people washing plates, unloading trucks, etc. We really weren’t too keen about walking through all that, but, to be respectful, took off our shoes right before the building entrance. We began to put them in our backpacks when some Sikh woman yelled at us in Hindi and told on us to a guard!! Apparently, it’s not okay to carry them with you. Geez. So we left our shoes elsewhere and walked in to a room of about 500 people sitting on the ground eating.

We asked a guard where we should sit and he gave us a weird look but cleared a place for us near the door. We realized only later that we had actually walked in the back entrance and that people on the other side of the building had been standing in line for hours! The guy at the door apparently took pity on the poor foreigner and realized that we would have quite a time fighting through the line to get thali plates and bowls, so he got them for us and let us eat out of turn. Lucky us!! This foreigner thing really works. The food tasted really good (though you have to get over the fact that it’s served out of metal buckets like gruel) - dal (lentil stew), rice, chapatti (Indian bread), and kheer (rice pudding). The whole place is staffed by volunteers and the kitchen is open for visiting. We watched the chapattis being made. The temple also offers a free place to stay for visitors but the foreigners are separated from the Indians and the men are separated from the women, so we opted to pay for an outside hotel. It is a neat, very welcoming atmosphere.

After lunch, we entered the inner part of the complex. The temple is strikingly beautiful, made of gold with the surrounding part of the complex made of marble. It was blazing hot and the temple was swarming with people everywhere. Kelli washed her feet in the water surrounding the temple, and we made one loop around the inside of the complex. The line to actually go inside the Golden Temple was long, unorganized, and claustrophobic-looking, so we skipped out, deciding to come back someday on a non-Sunday and non-holiday. Instead, we walked in a side shrine and stood in a shorter packed line to give a donation. Standing in line, Kelli felt a deliberate pinch and squeeze from behind – in a temple!! Still have to get used to this whole mob mentality religious experience. Funny to contrast that with the other type of very Indian religious experience – the yogis that go meditate completely alone in the Himalayas for months or years!

Later that afternoon, we hopped into the back of a jeep to drive an hour to Attari, where they have a daily India-Pakistan border closing ceremony. The universe works in strange ways sometimes and it just so happened that the couple that jumped in across from us in the jeep lives in Berkeley! We had fun chatting with them on the drive. Being with a group of 3 westerners, Rutvik was admitted to the VIP section as an honorary foreigner. The US passport rocks once again! The ceremony had the atmosphere of a highly charged football game. The Indian and Pakistan sides each had bleachers filled with spectators and vendors selling popcorn, mineral water, and DVDs of past ceremonies. The Pakistan side seemed subdued whereas on the Indian side, a host was riling the crowd to chant patriotic Indian slogans like “Vande Matram”, “Hindustan Zindabad”, etc. Women were encouraged to dance on the border. Kelli joined in the fun and Rutvik laughed at how she stuck out over all the much shorter Indian ladies! (Made it easier to take pictures!!) The soldiers, each of whom was at least 6”6’ tall, then got into the act. They could kick above their heads and strutted about with their chests out proudly. We were encouraged to see that the spirit of the ceremony was good fun and not hostility – they even shook hands across the border and coordinated the timing of lowering the flags. On the way back, the jeep ran out of oil (after we had already paid of course) but we didn’t want to miss our bus to Delhi so we hopped a rickshaw back into the city.

Later that evening, we got on a luxury overnight bus to Delhi and traveled for about 20 minutes before making a stop. We didn’t think anything out of the ordinary (things are always slow in India). However, after about 30 minutes, we started to pick up vibes that things weren’t right. Rutvik got out to find out what the deal was. No one really seemed to know the whole story, but apparently a Sikh leader had been shot to death in Vienna, Austria, sparking unrest in the Sikh dominated state of Punjab, where we happened to be. They had shut down the highway to Delhi a couple hours south of where we were and had started burning buses and cars, though there was no report of human casualties. The bus was waiting for other buses so that we could form a convoy and continue our trip. A few passengers decided not to risk the situation and headed back home. Everyone on the bus was trying to be protective of Kelli, the lone foreigner, but freaked her out by telling her to “Get out of here as soon as you can. It’s not safe for you here anymore” and advising her to cover her face with a scarf. At that point, nobody had a real grasp of what the situation was and people were concerned that the rioters were angry with the Austrians and wouldn’t bother to differentiate between foreigners. That really freaked Kelli out. A young professional on the bus helped us get a reservation at a nice hotel where we would be safe for the night. We were willing to pay anything at this point and ended up paying about 10 times what we were normally paying for a room on this trip. Luckily, the whole bus turned around back to Amritsar and we immediately took a rickshaw to the hotel. The next morning, we bought plane tickets and hot footed it out of Amritsar. The whole city was shut down, ATMs weren’t working since they had been set on fire in other cities the night before, and the cab driver told us that his company was only leaving the parking lot when called. We drove the long way to the airport, on the back roads, and the driver kept in touch with his company throughout to make sure no violence had broken out along our route. We were SO relieved once we entered the airport and were happy to be heading to the relative safety of Bombay. Later, we saw on the news that the violence had indeed spread to Amritsar that day, though fortunately no people were hurt, just lots of buses, cars, and trains burned. What a crazy 24 hours! Trouble continues to follow us.

A Day in Our Life as Yogis

2009-06-05T05:42:00.002-05:00

We’ve spent a whole month in Bhagsu, India, just outside of Dharamsala, doing an intensive yoga course and teaching English to a couple of Tibetan girls. It’s been super busy but we loved it! Here’s what an average day was like for us:

7 am: Wake up and do kriya yoga (purification) exercises, which include (1) scraping the gunk off of our tongue with a spoon, (2) rubbing the whole inside of our mouths with rock salt, (3) using a “neti pot” to clear out our sinuses by inhaling water through one nostril and breathing out the mouth (this one really works well if you do it right but we had many not-so-fun experiences learning how to do it!), and (4) rinsing our eyes with cool water. There are several other kriya techniques that we learned in class but we haven’t ventured to try them yet as they are complicated and sound pretty uncomfortable….But we plan to try them at some point (probably when we are comfortably situated back home in the States) as we have learned how important it is to purify the body. After the kriyas, we usually lie around watching our newfound favorite waste of time American TV show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader” (the answer is decided “no”) or rush up the street to get a fresh fruit bowl from Unity Bistro. We’re not supposed to eat anything other than fruit for two hours before our yoga class but if we don’t eat anything, we’re absolutely famished by the time our morning yoga class is over.

9 am: Walk up the mountainside (enjoying the beauty or hating the burning of our thighs, depending on the day) to our yoga class for the morning lecture and morning session of hatha yoga. One of our two instructors, Monika or Manu, teaches us about the new asana for the day, including how to hold the proper position, the benefits to the body and mind of the position, and where to mentally focus while doing the posture. The asanas started from basic postures like a standing forward bend and built up to shoulder stands and headstands. We bend our bodies in various ways we didn’t think possible! Unlike what we were used to in the US, we sometimes hold the poses for up to ten minutes at a time! They didn’t teach us any pranayama (yogic breathing) during the first month because they say it is too powerful energetically for beginners. We did experience many purification reactions (headaches, fevers, chills, soreness in the glands, etc.) during the month, so they are probably right! We have been dragging a lot of the month, but overall the yoga has really made us feel good. It’s going to be a challenge to figure out how to fit it in once we get back to the US… something tells us that we won’t have 6 hours a day to spend practicing!

11:30 am: After the morning yoga, we’re typically starving and head to a local restaurant for lunch. We’ve learned a lot about various yogic diets, including ayurvedic and the yin-yang diet and both visited an ayurvedic doctor to learn about our doshas (body types) and the foods that we should eat to rebalance the energies in our bodies. It’s challenging to figure out what to eat exactly given advice from so many people. If you combine the allowed foods from every different school of thought, you are literally left with nothing to eat except boiled cabbage. The yin-yang diet suggests that most people eat too many acidic foods (which basically includes anything good) and that we can build our inner strength, willpower, and balance by eating more alkaline foods. The most recommended foods on this diet are brown rice, whole grains, apples, walnuts, certain vegetables, and herbs. An extreme version of this diet, called Diet No. 7, developed by George Ohsawa, is said to have cured people from all sorts of long term illnesses. In it, you are supposed to eat only brown rice with sesame seeds for ten days. The idea is that 10% of your blood is replenished per day, so by keeping it up for ten days, you give your body a yang shock that is very purifying. On the other side, the ayurvedic doctor told us to avoid brown rice because we were both strongly of the pitta type (fire) and brown rice is considered heating, meaning it would cause us to be more imbalanced. So we spent many a day staring at the menu trying to figure out what the overlaps were and ended up settling on mainly trying to avoid processed food, white flour, and white sugar. It is so easy to eat locally grown produce (the Indian mangoes are to die for) and Bhagsu and McLeod-Ganj both have a big diversity in the food available (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Burgers, Israeli, Italian, etc.) We have become big fans of a Korean restaurant (can you believe they have a great Korean restaurant in the middle of the Himalayas with no Koreans in sight?!) and also a good sushi place – both veg!

1 or 1:30 pm: After eating, depending on the day, we either head over to tutor the girls in English at a café in McLeod or Kelli goes to Monika’s belly dancing class…. Or, if we’re especially tired, we chill out in the room. As we talked about a bit in our last blog entry, tutoring the girls has been a challenge but we’ve had a good time and learned a lot ourselves. They threw us a “drink party” the last week we were there, where we went to one of the girls’ flats to chat and drink juice. They had wanted to make lunch but after finding out that we don’t eat meat, didn’t know what to make so it became just drinks. Haha. Probably just as well since we have yet to find Tibetan food that we like! The belly dancing has given us some time apart (pretty rare these days) and Kel has really enjoyed it. Monika mixes it up each time and incorporates all sorts of things from goddess dances, dancing with scarves, Shakira, to Tarot card reading.

4 pm: Afterward, it’s time for our afternoon hatha yoga session. In the beginning of the course, there was an afternoon lecture as well but as we built our strength and learned more asanas, we practice the full two hours (often plus) in the afternoon as well. The only difference with the morning session was that we do a series of twelve Surya Namaskars (Sun Salutations), a common yoga exercise that is more dynamic.

6 pm: Following the afternoon practice, there is another lecture that is usually quite interesting. Topics range from chakras and energy flows in the body, yoga philosophy, spirituality, purification techniques, healing therapy, meditation, to tantric practices. They usually just scratch the surface on a subject but are enough to open doors to things we hadn’t heard of before. Some things are really out there (at least compared to what we’re used to) but it’s been a ton of fun hearing what kinds of healing you can try. It takes the yoga a step deeper than the gym class workout style that we’ve been used to back home.

8:30 pm: Dinner at a local restaurant. We’re again starving by this point. The café behind our yoga school serves dinner, so we sometimes watch a movie related to the lecture topics with other students from the class… anything from The Tibetan Book of the Dead to The Matrix.

10:30 or 11 pm: Pass out from exhaustion. We did dabble with a type of yoga called Yoga Nidra (the Yoga of Dreams) but we have yet to master that one. Maybe that’s how we’ll solve the not having six hours a day to practice yoga when we get back! And NO we have not joined a cult!

Rules for Surviving the Indian Local Bus

2009-05-25T16:13:00.009-05:00

Based on our recent local bus experiences, here are some tips for those times when you want to cheap out but still (hopefully) make it across the country…

NEVER take a bus not originating from your bus stop unless you are okay with standing the whole way.
Show up early to the bus station and rush the bus when it arrives. It’s important to get a seat in the front of the bus if you have bags… Indians are not kind to people who take up seats and/or floor space for their bags. And don’t bother spreading out too much… chances are incredibly slim that the bus won’t be standing room only (or breathing room only) for at least some of the ride.
Set aside any delusions that you will have any form of personal space. (Even though the back half of the bus was empty most of the way, people getting on the bus still felt the need to sit with us and our load of stuff.)
Remember your fan and deo… it’s gonna be hot. Even if you aren’t sweating, the people next to you up against you will be, so it’ll come in handy either way.
Bring as little as possible with you (unless you’re like us and have just coming off a really wild shopping spree...)
Pay off the guy to put your bag on the carrier (and get it off!) The guy actually told Rutvik to climb up on top of the bus and get his own bag before Rutvik tipped him 20 rupees (40 cents). This will also incentivize him not to peruse the contents of your bag along the way. (Note: You may assume your bag is safe tied down on top of the bus but we’ve seen many buses along the roads with a roof full of people.)
Wear plugs or learn to pass out at will in any amount of noise. (The Indian uncle behind Kelli felt the need to lean right into her ear and clear his throat continually throughout the trip and the driver had no qualms about leaving the hazard horn on during all stops.)
Take food and bottled water with you - you will stop at places where food is a possibility but with your Western immunity (or lack thereof) don’t even think of it… unless your intended next destination is the bathroom.
Be patient – add a minimum of an hour and a half to your planned arrival time. The driver needs time to slow down on the highway to chat with his friends going the other direction and to size up the young Indian girls getting on the bus.
Most importantly, have a really strong stomach – maybe even take some anti-nausea meds… and a sedative! The buses, along with the roads, are not always in top shape – and the combo can be pretty scary. As we were going down the mountain from McLeod, with all sorts of hairpin turns and a fair bit of traffic, we were impressed by how each of the drivers seemed to know their exact turning radius. At one turn, our driver decided that he didn’t have enough room to make the turn and tried to back up before completing the turn but the reverse gear wouldn't catch. As he tried, the bus kept inching forward toward the edge. After a few attempts, all the passengers evacuated and watched as the poor driver continued to try. Somebody was smart enough to put rocks under the front of the back tires to prevent the bus from hurtling down the mountain. He finally managed to back up, and, as we were getting back on the bus, we noticed that the force of the bus on the rocks was so huge that it left big dents in the road.
Anytime something bad happens, look down at your ticket and remember that you’re making it halfway across the country for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee back home.

Hippies in the Himalayas

2009-05-13T04:31:00.002-05:00

We’re now happily situated in a small town in northern India called Bhagsu, near Dharamsala. It’s a beautiful town in the Himalayas and barely feels like India because of the number of foreigners/backpackers and the large number of Tibetan refugees here. Rutvik is one of the few Indians in town that is not a shopkeeper or server! Every storefront here is either a multi-cuisine restaurant, or an ayurveda, yoga, music, or reiki center. We have spent the last three weeks doing an intensive month-long yoga course and tutoring two Tibetan girls in English. This place has really grown on us and we plan to spend another two weeks here before heading back to Mumbai and then on to South Africa.

Dharamsala is known as the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. 2009 actually marks the 50th anniversary of the movement of the Tibetan government to India. One of the first days we were here, we took a Tibetan cooking course from a refugee, who taught us to make all sorts of fancy Tibetan style breads. The recipes were quite simple, but the breads are kind of like origami and really fun to make. These turned out well, but we realized that we were lucky to have picked the day to learn their breads because we have since tried other Tibetan food (small dumplings called momos, Tibetan-style soups called thukpa and thantuk) on several occasions (and really tried hard to like it) and find it barely palatable. The food is VERY bland, though this is somewhat forgivable as we have been told that very little vegetation grows in the native Tibet area, so most dishes are meat-based (like yak), which we obviously aren’t into. We did try the Tibetan butter tea, a mixture of goat milk and yak butter, which must taste better in extreme cold because we couldn’t stomach it. We really tried.

We also spent one Sunday at the small Tibet Museum inside the complex of the Dalai Lama, called the Tsuglagkhang. The museum tells the story of the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1949 and the subsequent Tibetan exodus, mainly to India and Nepal. Neither of us really had much of an understanding of the whole “Free Tibet” movement before we arrived here, but the museum gave us some good background and we have since heard several first hand accounts of people that have made the 2 month trek from Tibet as recently as one year ago. It is a sad situation. China won’t allow the Tibetans to practice their Buddhist traditions or teach their language or culture and are stuffing the former territory of Tibet with Chinese in a further attempt to suppress the culture. Many children are sent here without their parents, who stay back to protect the family’s land in the hopes that Tibet will one day again be autonomous. The refugees must trek through the Himalayas in the dead of winter in an attempt to escape capture by the police. Many lose limbs from frostbite and live here without family, education, or material possessions. Fortunately, it seems that India treats them well, but still the situation is quite tragic. The Dalai Lama is already 74 and has accepted Chinese occupation of Tibet but is getting very desperate to gain autonomy for Tibet before the unique culture truly dies but the Chinese claim that the Tibetan people have been treated fairly and it is unlikely that they will accede to his demands.

We have been tutoring two very sweet Tibetan girls in their early 20s, Dolma and Pooja, in English. They arrived here a little over a year ago from Tibet and spent their childhoods working on their family farms and had never gone to school. Upon their arrival here, they immediately started in a proper school. However, having never been to school, it was too much for them and they both dropped out. They aspire to be shopkeepers one day (and there are plenty of really cool Tibetan handicrafts here to sell), so they realized that they need to be conversational in English to communicate with the foreigners (and Indians too, as their native language is Tibetan). As we had never taught English before and both grew up speaking it, we grabbed a grammar book from the volunteer office to work with but quickly realized that the girls only care to learn how to speak. We spend most of our meetings in a sort of Q&A session, talking slowly and correcting their English word by word. We did get a newspaper one day to try to show them the various sections of the paper and to encourage them to develop more of an awareness of the world. However, the vocabulary was pretty tough and we were taken aback by how little exposure they had to the world. We explained to them who the prime minister of India is, the difference between fact and opinion, what temperature means, etc. It truly amazed us how much we take for granted based on our basic education. Teaching them has really taught us a lot.

We also went to get a blessing from the Karmapa Lama, the second highest ranking lama, who is only 24 years old. Because rumor has it that the Chinese government has the Panchen Lama (who is historically charged with finding the next Dalai Lama when he is reincarnated after his death) and his family in custody hidden somewhere, there is talk that the Karmapa Lama may actually take over the Tibetan government after the Dalai Lama’s passing. The experience of getting the blessing was interesting but anti-climatic. After we registered with our passports at the temple, we watched a group of young monks chanting inside the temple. As they streamed out, chaos ensued as the crowd there to get a blessing from the Karmapa Lama rushed the side entrance to the temple. There was no one really roping in the crowd and Indians love to get right up in your personal space, so it was an exercise in patience to remember the spirit of why we were there. Even inside the temple, we were squashed in a large crowd. Some teachings (seemingly) were played over the loudspeaker but there was no real introduction so we didn’t have much idea what they were talking about. Eventually the Karmapa Lama came out into the temple, sat in a chair, and started chanting a mantra. Again there was no introduction. When he stopped, the crowd stood and got in line to receive his blessing. It was an assembly line and even when you got there, the Karmapa didn't look at you (so it was hard to feel a connection) and he just kind of held out a red bracelet "blessing" for you to tie on yourself. We were later told that he is actually in a deep meditation chanting a mantra during these ceremonies, so his seeming indifference was just our interpretation. A neat experience but not what we were expecting.

Our main activity while we’ve been here has been an intensive one-month yoga course that includes 4+ hours of yoga each day plus an hour lecture each night. The physical part of the yoga has been intense – instead of the vinyasa (flowing) yoga that we were used to in the gym at home, we are learning to hold the poses and to meditate on the flows of energy in our body. We have bent our body in ways we had never thought possible! As a result, our bodies have had various “purification reactions” as we’ve gotten deeper into the poses. The teachers are fantastic and we have been absolutely fascinated by the lecture topics – things like yoga philosophy, energy chakras, ayurveda and all sorts of alternative therapies, purification techniques, vegetarianism, etc…. things you probably wouldn’t hear too many people back in Omaha talking about on the street. The people here are pretty into all of the alternative healing stuff too and we’ve had some great discussions. The female yoga instructor is actually a former NYC belly dancer and Kelli’s had fun going to several of her drop-in classes as well as a women’s shakti retreat to have some girl time for a change. All in all, this is a place where it is easy to get very comfortable and it will be tough to leave in a few days.

Favorites, Shocks, Surprises, etc.

2009-05-12T08:46:00.023-05:00

Updated 7/24/2009

Best Experiences
Afternoon Tea at the Burj-al-Arab
Mall of the Emirates and Ski Dubai
Spending Diwali with Rutvik’s family (rangoli drawings on floor, pooja worship ritual, special foods, meeting the family)
Having a cook / chauffeur / laundry person / yoga instructor… someone to wait on our every move
Seeing Russell Peters Live with Rushin and Kaddu
Romantic shikara ride around Kodai Lake
Watching Barack Obama win the US Presidential Election in Periyar
Chilling for the day on a houseboat in the Kerala backwaters
Getting certified in massage in Ko Pha Ngan
Beach parties on the Thai islands, especially the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan... drinking from buckets, firedancers, hookah, the ocean, cool people
Scuba diving in the Gulf of Thailand off Ko Tao (Rutvik)
Having drinks brought to us in coconuts while lying on the pristine Kata Beach
Seeing schools of colored fish swim right up to the shore in Phuket
Petting a baby tiger at the Phuket Fantasea show
Going into a cave with inner tube and flashlight in Vang Vieng
Waterslide into the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng
Seeing the ruins of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom near Siem Reap
Learning to cook delicious Cambodian food at a local restaurant in Siem Reap
"Fish massage" (where little fish ate dead skin off our feet) in the Night Market in Siem Reap
Doing hand claps and reading to kids at NACA Orphanage in Phnom Penh
Shooting an AK-47 outside Phnom Penh (Rutvik)
Taking a mud bath and soaking in hot mineral springs in Nha Trang
Watching President Barack Obama take the oath of office on CNN Asia in Nha Trang
Riding an ostrich on an island off Nha Trang (Kelli)
Being in Ho Chi Minh City for Tet
Riding motorcycles through the mountains with Easy Riders in Dalat
Watching Rutvik try very hard to maintain his poise when learning that he got accepted by Berkeley and that we'll be moving to California in August!
Making delicious Thai dishes at cooking schools in Chiang Mai
Ziplining and Abseiling through the jungle in Chiang Mai
Jumping off a 165 foot high bungy crane in Chiang Mai
Riding an elephant through the river in Chiang Mai
Participating in the weeklong festivities of Anish's wedding in Ahmedabad
The Indian movie theatre experience (national anthem, samosas and other delicious food delivered to your seat, intermission)
Celebrating Valentine's Day in Bombay with a chocolate massage, dinner at a revolving restaurant overlooking the city, followed by a Chocolate Avalanche at Mocha, our fave cafe
Dousing people with all sorts of colors and water balloons at Holi
Introducing our families in Bombay and spending two weeks touring Rajasthan with Kelli's mom and bro
Camping in luxury tents by ourselves complete with a specially prepared dinner in a gazebo under the stars
Tiger safari in Ranthambhore National Park (despite not seeing any tigers)
Simple elegance of the Taj Mahal
Winning $200 two separate nights playing blackjack at Casino Goa
Getting to live among the very happy, open-minded, spiritual people in Dharamsala
Cooking classes in various locales (Cambodian, Thai, Indian, Tibetan), including the best in Bombay with Rutvik's mom
One month intensive yoga course with amazing instructors, interesting co-students, and a lot of thought-provoking discussion topics
Tutoring two Tibetan girls in English
Learning a bit of belly dancing and participating in a women's tantra Shakti group (Kelli)
Doing some really heartfelt meditation exercises with a really beautiful group of people from around the world
Visiting with an ayurvedic doctor about our doshas and body constitution
Having a delicious free meal cooked and served by volunteers at the Golden Temple among thousands of other visitors
Watching the one-upsmanship of the India-Pakistan border closing ceremony (and dancing on the border to Indian patriotic music!)
Celebrating Rutvik's birthday with family at Flamboyante in Bombay
Visiting wineries (esp. Fairview) in beautiful South Africa wine country
Shark cage diving in Hermanus
Ostrich riding part deux in Oudtshoorn
Spur of the moment bush hike to some remote waterfalls in Storms River
Rutvik jumping off the Bloukrans Bridge, tallest bungy in the world
Visiting the local Bulugha School and enjoying the home cooked meals at Bucc's
Very off the cuff tour of Xhosa Village near Coffee Bay
Staying at Bulungula eco-village way off the beaten path - the 4x4 ride in the dark to get there, compost potties, rocket showers, organic food, cool people, etc.
Visiting a township in Durban with a local guide who grew up there
Being greeted and treated like absolute royalty by Bashir Bhai and his family in Dar es Salaam
Seeing Mount Kilimanjaro ABOVE the clouds
The dreamlike "Lion King moments" on Safari #1 through Lake Manyara, Serengeti, and Ngorogoro Crater in Tanzania, especially the two lions on "Pride Rock"
The dreamlike "Lion King moments" on Safari #2 through Masai Mara and Lake Nakuru in Kenya
Biking/hiking into the gorge at Hell's Gate National Park

Memorable Experiences
Tour of Dharavi slum - most locals haven’t even been (India)
Cramming ourselves into the standing room only local buses, backpacks and all (India and Thailand)
Leaving biscuits on the bed before going out and coming back to cockroaches (India)
Visiting Amma’s and Osho’s ashrams (India)
Seeing all of the fully clothed (saris, collared shirts, and all!) people at the beach (India)
Negotiating at the mall (Thailand)
People flocking to the Bangkok Royal Grounds to pay their respects to the King's late sister (Thailand)
Being in Bangkok at the start of the major political protest (Thailand)
Waking up to the news of the terrorist attacks in Mumbau (Thailand)
"Thai accident" on our way to the Half Moon Party in Ko Pha Ngan (Thailand)
Taking pictures with Santa and winning 40 baht ($1) at a random casino in Burma (Myanmar)
Christmas in a Buddhist country, including midnight mass, brunch, and lots of Santa costumes (Thailand)
Watching the lady boys perform at the Simon Cabaret (Thailand)
Being able to pay in three currencies - Lao kip, Thai baht, and USD - at the mall (Laos)
Walking between markers denoting demined areas at the Plain of Jars (Laos)
Seeing the many amputees as a result of UXOs and land mines left over from the Vietnam War (Laos and Cambodia)
Getting USD (with no option to get local currency) out of the ATM (Cambodia)
Paying in USD and getting change back in local "riel" currency (Cambodia)
Seeing the mass graves and mugshots of genocide victims in Phnom Penh (Cambodia)
Interviewing for UC Berkeley in Saigon (Vietnam)
Sharing a room with some surprise roommates, including a bat that flew in around 3 am, some rats, and assorted insects (Vietnam)
Sledding down white sand dunes overlooking a lake (Vietnam)
A taxi meter miraculously showing 7 times our expected fare for a short cab ride and the driver cutting it in half as soon as we said we pulled out our cell phone to call the cab company (Vietnam)
Mixed feelings from the War Remnants Museum (Vietnam)
Rolling down the hill strapped in a giant zorb ball (Thailand)
Visiting a village of the Karen Long Neck hill tribe where women wear a crazy number of metallic rings around their necks and knees to enhance their beauty (Thailand)
Having a rat run across our feet while walking to the bars (Thailand)
Rutvik's parents forcing him to climb 2 hours up Jainism's holiest mountain without a bathroom while he was the sickest Kelli has seen him so that Kelli could officially become Jain per tradition (India)
Trying to learn a choreographed dance to "Dil Dance Maare Re" (AKA White White Face) for Rushin and Kaddu's wedding (India)
Working outside the US and having a "routine life" for a time in Bombay while consulting for The Clinic (India)
Seeing Slumdog Millionaire with a nearly entirely non-Indian audience in Bombay and having been to many of the places in the movie (India)
People watching among the massive crowd of Indians on Juhu Beach in Bombay on a Sunday evening (India)
Winning an office golf set in the lucky draw at a play with Rutvik's parents in Bombay (India)
Kelli's realization that she was not the only one with pink highlights in her hair after Holi - the light haired dogs and cows were dyed too! (India)
Watching Kelli jump around while waiting for her family to arrive at the Bombay airport (India)
Watching hundreds of washermen beating the dirt out of clothes at Dhobi Ghat (India)
Standing on the railing of a median to watch dabbawallas load people's lunches on both sides (India)
Misunderstanding with an Indian woman at Chokhi Dhani when we asked her to take a picture of us and she very proudly posed for a pic with Kelli's mom instead (India)
Being turned away at the gate of The Oberoi hotel because the restaurant was "full" only to make a reservation by phone a block away and getting allowed in to a nearly empty restaurant (India)
Dipping our feet in the Holy Ganges River in Rishikesh (India)
Rutvik being mistaken for a tour guide at the Jama Masjid and the Beatle's ashram in Rishikesh (India)
Running all over town to get Rutvik's South Africa visa and yellow fever vaccine (India)
Waking up to a screaming match at 5 am in our hostel in Cape Town (South Africa)
Biking around the Cape of Good Hope in the pouring rain (South Africa)
Waking up in the night to a thief in our hostel room and Kelli's shoes stolen (South Africa)
Story of the woman getting stuck in the Tunnel of Love at Cango Caves (South Africa)
Longest bike ride ever to visit Mama Tofu's Xhosa village (South Africa)
Visiting the "sangoma" (herbalist) in his village hut, where he had a rat, two snakes, and a piece of bacon hanging from the ceiling (South Africa)
Witnessing a purse snatcher get severely beaten on the streets of Durban by a huge crowd of regular people as well as cops, with people dancing and cheering for "street justice" (South Africa)
Sleeping in the hostel owners' daughter's room so that we could take advantage of the heating pad (South Africa)
Sleeping under mozzie nets (Africa)
Realizing that we had spent the night in a rent by the hour place our first night in Nairobi (Kenya)
Frustration of negotiating for a safari with touts on the streets in Nairobi (Kenya)

“Near Death” Experiences
Watching Diwali fireworks on Marine Drive
Getting eaten alive by mosquitoes at Amma’s ashram
Driving anywhere in Bombay
Driving 120 mph without a seatbelt on the expressway to Pune
Stopping on the side of the Pune expressway to dig out seatbelt
Dodging buses on a one lane highway going up a mountain on the way to Kodaikanal
Taking the Kerala public buses
Riding a motorbike all over Ko Samui with Rutvik at the wheel
Catamaran ride from Ko Tao to Chumporn
Rickety bridges in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia
Crossing the street in Ho Chi Minh City, especially on Tet
Trekking down slippery rocks to Elephant Waterfall in worn out flip-flops in Dalat
Kelli and her mom's nightmarish rickshaw ride through Udaipur (see related blog entry)
No windshield wipers in the pouring rain on our drive from Rishikesh to Haridwar
Bus ride down mountain from Dharamsala toward Amritsar (see related blog entry)
Being too close for comfort to the Sikh riots over the killing of one of their high priests in Vienna (and Kelli being the only foreinger around)
A group of guys running up to us in Cape Town, patting our pockets, and asking "Ya got anything in there for me?!"
Drinking sorghum beer out of milk cartons at the local shabeen in South Africa
Johannesburg
Kelli getting her brows waxed at an upscale salon in Nairobi... since when has bleeding been involved?!

Activities We've Tried
Abseiling
Bamboo rafting
Biking
Bungy jumping
Camel riding
Camping
Cave tubing
Caving
Cooking
Crocodile watching
Cruising on a houseboat
Dolphin watching
Elephant riding
Horse riding
Kayaking
Massage
Meditation
Mud bathing
Ostrich riding
Ox cart riding
Riding a motorcycle
Salsa dancing
Sand sledding
Scuba diving
Shooting an AK-47
Snorkeling
Trekking
Tubing
Whitewater rafting
Yoga
Ziplining
Zorbing

Best Foods – India
Indian breads (especially the soft, stretchy ones like roomali, kulcha, and paratha)
McDonald’s veggie burgers
“Borbon” biscuits, with tea (India)
Paneer anything
Mint and coconut chutneys
Gobi Manchurian
Pav bhaji
Masala chai
Thalis (from all over)
Daal in all forms
Chaat (pani puri, dahi batata puri, sev puri, raj kachori, etc.)
Raita
Veg biryani
Kitchidi
Upma, dosas, and uttapum
Sabudana
Alfonso mangoes
Sizzlers
Indo-Chinese in general
Anything made by R’s mom or Ganesh, their cook
Lonavala fudge

Best Foods - Southeast Asia
All types of curry (panang, massaman, red, green) with tofu and vegetables (Thailand)
Veggie burgers - in the many forms you find them here (Thailand)
Som Tam (papaya salad) (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia)
Sticky rice (Laos)
Lao-style BBQ (Laos)
Amok (Cambodia)
Khmer Curry (Cambodia)
Nem (Khmer style spring rolls) (Cambodia)
Bubble Tea (Cambodia and Vietnam)
Pho (Noodle soup) (Vietnam)
Khao Soi (Chiang Mai noodles) (Thailand)
Fresh fruit salad with mueseli and yogurt (Thailand)

Best Food - Africa
Bunny chow (South Africa)
African curry (South Africa)
Butternut squash soup (South Africa)
Ngeru curry (Kenya)
Githeri (Kenya)

Worst Food
Tofu Laap (Laos)
Shakshuka (Thailand)
Most Tibetan food except momos (India)

Best Street Food
Samosas (India)
Frankies (India)
Kulfi (Indian style ice cream) (India)
Paneer rolls (India)
Coconut water (India and Thailand)
Noodle stands (Thailand and Laos)
Mango and sticky rice (Thailand)
Fresh fruit stands - mango, chickoo, guava, papaya, pineapple, coconut (India, Thailand, Laos)
Fruit shakes, especially mango and coconut (Thailand and Laos)
Pancakes and crepes (Thailand and Laos)
Falafel (Thailand)
Golas (India)
Indian style grilled sandwiches (India)
Jalebi (India)
Bhagsu cake (India)
Banofee pie (India)
"Mix" (Zanzibar)

Best Restaurants
Kanzaman (Dubai)
Maratha Sheraton (Bombay)
McDonalds, regrettably (Bombay)
The Club, by invite only (Bombay)
Greens Love Shore (Allepey, India)
Mavalli Tiffin Room (Bangalore, India)
Aromas of China (Bangalore, India)
Cafe Ethos (Bangkok, Thailand) ---nevermind!!
Noodle stand outside Jaya Guesthouse (Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand)
Green Peace Restaurant (Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand)
La Matta Italian Restaurant (Ko Tao, Thailand)
House of Fruit Shakes (Vientiane, Laos)
Lao Lao Garden (Luang Prabang, Laos)
Khmer Kitchen (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
Le Tigre de Papier (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
Gon Cafe (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
Godmother Restaurant (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
Ratana's Kitchen (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Aroon Rai (Chiang Mai, Thailand)
Mocha (Bombay, India)
Cream Centre (Bombay, India)
Not Just Jazz by the Bay (Bombay, India)
The Pizzeria (Bombay, India)
Swati Snacks (Bombay, India)
Sardar Pav Bhaji (Bombay, India)
Chokhi Dhani (Jaipur, India)
Zorba the Buddha (Agra, India)
Deoraj Coffee Shop (Rishikesh, India)
Halidram's (Delhi, India)
Souza Loubo (Goa, India)
Blue Tao (Goa, India)
The Plantain Leaf (Goa, India)
Munches (Goa, India)
Cafe Ri Korean Restaurant (McLeod-Ganj, India)
Lung Ta Japanese Restaurant (McLeod-Ganj, India)
Carpe Diem (McLeod-Ganj, India)
German Bakery (Bhagsu, India)
Unity Bistro (Bhagsu, India)
Munchies (Bhagsu, India)
Mama Africa (Cape Town, South Africa)
Buccaneers - home cooked meals (Chintsa, South Africa)
Coffee Shack - home cooked meals (Coffee Bay, South Africa)
Moyo (Durban, South Africa)
Antithi (Nairobi, Kenya)
Java House (Nairobi, Kenya)
Kenya Comfort Hotel (Nairobi, Kenya)

Worst Restaurants
Thai restaurant next to Crystal Dive Resort (Ko Tao, Thailand)
Outdoor Thai Restaurant (Phuket, Thailand)
Okay Guesthouse (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
Garden Bar (Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
Hotel 13 (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)
Snow Lion Tibetan Restaurant (McLeod-Ganj, India)
Gayki Vegetarian Restaurant (McLeod-Ganj, India)
Peace Cafe (McLeod-Ganj, India)

Best Places for a Chill Drink
Café Leopold (Bombay)
Wink at Taj (Bombay)
Dome at Intercontinental (Bombay)
Khao Sarn Center (Bangkok)
Streetside vendors on Khao San Road (Bangkok)
Ark Bar on Chaweng beach (Ko Samui)
Beach bars and bucket stands on Haad Rin beach (Ko Pha Ngan)
Riverside cafes along the Mekong (Vientiane and Luang Prabang)
Riverside bars with slides and flying foxes on the Nam Song (Vang Vieng)
Phoudindaeng Organic Farm (Vang Vieng)
Lao Lao Garden (Luang Prabang)
Pub Street bars (Siem Reap)
Bubble T (Siem Reap)
Random beach shacks (Goa)
Mama Africa (Cape Town)
Around the bonfire at Tube n Axe (Storms River)
Mercury Bar (Zanzibar)

Best Places to Party
Khao San Road, Bangkok
Haad Rin Beach, Ko Pha Ngan
Bangla Road, Patong Beach, Phuket
Vang Vieng, Laos
Baga Beach, Goa

Things that Impressed Us
Architecture (Dubai)
Mall of the Emirates and Ski Dubai (Dubai)
Efficiency of public transport (India)
Number of schools in Kerala (not true anywhere else in India)
Detecting problems in internal organs through foot reflexology (Thailand)
Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom (Cambodia)
How many motorbikes they can fit on a single block in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
How many people they can fit on a single motorbike in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
Tourism infrastructure (Thailand)
Rutvik's dad's plan for developing The Clinic (India)
Efficiency of the dabbawallas and dhobis (India)
Beautiful simplicity of the Taj Mahal (India)
Our yoga teachers Monika and Manu (India)
The lack of animosity at the India-Pakistan border (India)
Watching Rutvik's foot go from scaly to baby butt smooth (India)
Our realization of how true to life the Lion King is (Tanzania / Kenya)

Things that Irritate Us
Hacking of phlegm and spitting tobacco (India)
The Indian philosophy on queues (India)
Lack of street signs (India)
EVERYONE answering their cell phone at the movie theater and TALKING in the theater!! (India)
Foreigners paying 10 to 20 times higher admissions prices compared to locals (India)
Refusal to use taxi-meter, especially after specifically waiting in a line for a metered-taxi for 30 minutes!! (Thailand)
People telling us attractions are closed when they are not, hoping to sell us a ridiculously expensive tour (Thailand)
Monopoly pricing for internet, tours, taxi rides, etc. (Haad Rin beach on Ko Pha Ngan)
Negotiating for transportation anywhere on the Thai islands (Thailand)
US bombing of Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War (Laos and Cambodia)
Continued use of cluster bombs in today's wars (which leaves unexploded ordinance and kills people for decades after the war)
People saying "Hey lady, you wanna buy this or that?!" (Cambodia)
All the motorbikes using the sidewalks in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)
Motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) (not a typo)
How people just say "No" and don't even try if they don't understand you (Vietnam)
How people just don't care if someone tries to scam you (it's just the way things are attitude) (Vietnam)
Lingering anti-Americanism (Vietnam)
How the price changes after you order but you have to pay it anyway (Vietnam)
Idea that foreigners can afford to pay exorbitant amounts of money (All countries)
Nobody says thank you or apologizes even for significant mistakes (Southeast Asia)
How they don't turn on the reading lights in overnight buses, even when it's dark at 7pm (Southeast Asia)
Lack of change available and non-acceptance of torn bills (India)
Lack of sidewalks (India)
General lack of understanding of what a "thick shake" is (India)

Things We’ve Taken for Granted
Hot water
Consistent electricity
Drinking tap water
Ice at restaurants
Soap in public bathrooms
Toilet paper
Western toilets
Having clean clothes
Diet Coke
Not having mosquito bites
Watching college football on a Saturday
Personal space
Being able to use a credit card
Availability of contact lens solution, body wash, ladies razors, and non-whitening moisturizer!!
The customer is always right
US sizes of toiletries, food, etc.
Living in a country without land mines or UXOs
Being able to complain if service is crappy
Being able to trust the police and the legal system
Being able to eat raw veggies and salad without fear of future repercussions
Variety of English movies in cinemas
Not having to sleep under a mosquito net
Feeling pretty at ease walking around the city with purses, shopping bags, etc.
Driving without major risk of getting car jacked
Society that is not forced to rely on street justice

Most Useful Items Packed
Flashlight
Sleeping bag
Jungle Juice mosquito repellant
Hand sanitizer
Soap
Toilet paper
Food pushed on us by Rutvik’s mom
Lonely Planet

Biggest Culture Shocks and Surprises about India
ALL the people!!!
ALL the mosquitoes!!!
Bowing to get money --- from so many people I’ve never even met before!
All the vegetarian restaurants
Everything is cash based (credit cards are extremely rare because Indians don’t like to pay taxes)
How absolutely warm and welcoming the people are
Neverending stares
Nobody letting us pay for anything
Getting gifts delivered to the house by people we’ve never even met

Spa Treatments Tried
Swedish oil massage
Thai massage
Ayurvedic herb massage
Body scrub
Foot scrub
Foot reflexology massage
Shirodhara
Nasia
Eyebrow and lip threading

Animals We Have Lived Amongst (by approx frequency)
Flies
Cows
Dogs
Mosquitoes
Monkeys
Camels
Donkeys
Horses
Elephants
Pigs
Goats
Sheep
Rats
Bullocks
Peacocks
Warthogs
Huge spiders
Scorpion

Two Weeks with Kel's Family

2009-04-16T04:39:00.001-05:00

Time has gotten away from us and somehow more than three months have passed since our last blog entry. Believe it or not, we’ve kept quite busy. Since the last time that we posted from Phuket, Thailand, we have traveled through northern Laos, Cambodia, southern Vietnam, and northern Thailand, and have spent the last two months back in India. In India, we spent a week at Rutvik’s friend Anish’s wedding in Ahmedabad, spent several weeks working with his dad on his medical start-up, The Clinic, in Bombay, traveled in northern India with Kelli’s mom and her brother Jeff, and now are spending some time in Goa, a beach town on the western coast of India. Since it’s pretty impossible to pick up where we left off, we thought we’d tell you about our experiences traveling in northern India with Kelli’s family. We had a great time with some good laughs and there are plenty of fun stories to tell.

Due to the brief time they were in India, we ditched our fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants independent traveler hats and mapped out a day-to-day itinerary and even booked all of the hotels! Our path took us from our home base of Bombay through the historical cities of Udaipur and Jaipur in Rajasthan, on a tiger safari in Ranthambhore National Park, to Agra, site of the Taj Mahal, up to Rishikesh, yoga capital of the world, and finally to Delhi, India’s capital. Landing in Bombay at 2 am, Kelli’s mom and Jeff got quite a different introduction to India than Kelli had gotten a few months ago. Come to find out, the city actually does sleep for a few hours and they weren’t so struck with all the people…. YET.

The “meet the families” went off really well. Rutvik’s family went completely out of their way to make Kelli’s mom and Jeff feel welcome and comfortable in India. They had arranged for a room at a nearby country club and left a gift basket full of Indian goodies for their arrival. Rutivk’s mom made delicious food that they hadn’t tried before and we had some interesting discussions and laughs about differences between life in India and life in the US. It was neat that our families blended so easily, given such different backgrounds, but I guess we really never expected any different.

Kelli was super excited to see her family and enjoyed being able to play tour guide to some of the local sites of Bombay, feeling somewhat like a veteran of the city after spending several weeks there. We hit up all of the major tourist spots, which really highlighted the contrast between lifestyles of the upper and lower class residents of the city. Mishraji, the family driver, had some good fun watching us take videos of the hundreds of washermen handwashing laundry in big vats at the dhobi ghat, the area where most of the city’s laundry gets done, and stand on the median in the middle of one of the busiest intersections of Bombay to watch the dabbawallas get organized. (The dabbawallas are a group of men that pick up lunch tins from individual houses and deliver the hot meals to people at school and work. They’re actually so efficient at what they do that their process has become a six sigma case study at Harvard.)

Mishraji’s amazing (and quite aggressive) driving abilities also provided us entertainment as he managed some particularly challenging maneuvers through the Bombay traffic, like a right turn from the left lane across four or five “lanes” of traffic (if you know Bombay traffic, you will understand why “lanes” is in quotes). Jeff was so fascinated that he got videos of us weaving through the streets while mom closed her eyes to avoid a heart attack from the constant flinching.

We toured Dharavi slum (the second time for us), the biggest slum in South Asia, with over 1 million people living in a 1.7 sq km area, and the real life locale of Slumdog Millionaire. During the course of the trip we saw the various industries being run in Dharavi - recycling, pottery, leather goods, etc., which apparently generate over $665M of commerce each year. We also walked the residential areas of the slum and had to duck through narrow alleys and navigate open sewers and trash heaps. Kelli’s mom was amazed at how organized the slum was and how people were able to survive and lead their day-to-day lives in these conditions. Jeff wouldn’t even touch a bottle of water we bought at the store there and knew he was done when he saw Rutvik step on a dead rat! Rutvik’s family was in parts amused and appalled at Kelli’s family’s fascination with dhobis, dabbawallas, and the slums, things they consider just part of daily life in the city.

We also visited several of the attack sites from the November terrorist attacks. It was interesting to see that the bullet holes were still left in the window at Café Leopold – for posterity or for further investigation it wasn’t really clear – and it was eerie to walk through the lobby of The Taj, the hotel that had been under siege by the terrorists for days last November. The threat of terrorism is visible everywhere in Bombay. You have to pass through security at every mall, movie theater, tourist attraction, hotel, railway station, etc. in the city but sadly often the security is pretty lax and easily bypassed. It’s common that we’ll walk through a metal detector and won’t get stopped even though it beeps and when we walked into the Oberoi hotel, one of the attack sites, Kelli and Rutvik’s mom didn’t get frisked because there wasn’t a female guard on duty. Unless the security is beefed up, it’s unlikely that we’re going to see the end of these attacks anytime soon.

Bombay is a down and dirty introduction to India – both captivating and appalling. At times, it can be disgusting and tiring but it’s also quite charming and easy to love. Rajasthan, where we headed next, is quite a contrast. You feel like you are taking a step back in time, especially after being in the very modern city of Bombay. As opposed to south India, which is a road less traveled, Rajasthan is probably the most touristed state of India, full of old palaces and forts. It was the first time that we felt that the tourism infrastructure existed in India. People were at our service offering all sorts of western-style amenities. With a large number of foreigners, Kelli felt less like a spectacle than before. Having a tourist infrastructure has its benefits, like ice made from mineral water and export quality products, and pitfalls, like more aggressive vendors and highly inflated prices because they assume all foreigners are loaded.

The first two cities we visited were Udaipur, which is known for its gorgeous lake palaces, and Jaipur, which is known for its historical buildings made from pink sandstone. A few highlights:

- Best meal: We had dinner at Chokhi Dhani, a village themed amusement park complete with fortune tellers, snake charmers, magicians, animal rides and traditional buffet dinner. Mom and Kelli got to ride a camel (only one humped although Rutvik claims some of them have two!) for the first time and we all took a bullock cart ride. It was funny to see the bullocks scamper around the dirt track since we normally think of them as slow docile creatures.

- Biggest laugh: We had been stopped several times earlier in the trip and asked to be in pictures with Indian tourists. Couldn’t quite figure out why they wanted pictures with random sweaty white people, but we had fun pretending we were celebrities for a minute. Hilarious then, at Chokhi Dhani, when we stopped an Indian woman and asked her to take a family photo for us. She misunderstood and thought that we wanted a photo with her!! Kelli bit her lip hard as she went to take a picture of a very very flattered Indian lady smiling wide next to a very very stunned mom (with the most unique expression EVER!) We laughed all the way home.

- Best cultural experiences: We took an Indian cooking class (yes, we will be trying to use you all as guinea pigs when we get back!) and saw the most balance defying traditional dancing with local women balancing multiple earthern pots on their heads while executing some nifty moves.

- Scariest moment: We had ducked into an internet café in Udaipur one night to get out of the rain when the power went out (very common in India). We decided to get a couple rickshaws to get back to the hotel. Kelli and mom jumped in one together and suddenly the music was thumping and we were flying through back alleys of the dark and abandoned city with no idea of where we were or where the guys were. We held on tight with our hearts pounding as we wondered whether the driver and his friend were on drugs and where exactly they were taking us. Fortunately, they just decided they’d give us a good scare (which they definitely did) and we ended up back at the hotel with the guys close behind. Phew!

- Biggest surprise: North Indian cities are like zoos, literally. Next to concrete buildings and roads lined with traffic you can also see camels, monkeys, "billy" goats, dogs, cats, donkeys, horses, bullocks, buffaloes, snakes, rabbits, chipmunks, cobras (this one only of the snake charmer variety, fortunately), crows, pigs, warthogs, cows, doves, lizards, peacocks, elephants, sheep, pigeons, and sparrows – to name a few! Northern India is not only ALL the people but ALL the animals as well!

On the long drives between cities, mom had lots of fun taking pictures of all the people and all the animals – women carrying pots on their heads, shopkeepers in turbans, monkeys on the roofs playing, cows in the road causing traffic jams, etc. We’re not in Kansas (or Nebraska) anymore, Toto!

Next we went to Ranthambhore National Park to do a tiger safari by jeep. Staying in the wilderness in tents (well, luxury tents!) was a welcome change from the bustling cities we had visited thus far. Over dinner that night, the locals told us that two tiger cubs had recently been found in the town. While we were certainly hoping to see tigers, we looked back at the luxury tents and hoped that we could wait until the next morning in the safety of our jeep to see the furry felines. Luckily, we slept uninterrupted and had a highly enjoyable three hour safari stalking the wild beasts but unfortunately besides spotting some pugmarks we came away empty handed. The naturalist pointed out all sorts of animals like spotted and sambar deer, peacocks, kingfishers and monkeys throughout which combined with all the animals in the cities made for an impressive array of creatures we had seen in a short time span!

After Ranthambhore, we headed to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, probably the greatest love monument in the world. It was built by Emperor Shah Jahan as the tomb of his late wife Mumtaz Mahal. Rutvik had claimed that, despite all the hype associated with the Taj Mahal, we would not fail to be impressed. He was right - we came away believing that the Taj Mahal is the most stunning monument we had ever seen. It is gorgeous in its purity and simplicity and its design shows tremendous forethought that seems way beyond its time. The four towers that surround the tomb were built leaning outward such that an earthquake or plane crash would cause them to fall away from the structure, leaving the tomb intact. Legend is that the Emperor intended to build a black version of the Taj Mahal across the river. However, he failed and his body laid to rest next to his wife is the only asymmetrical feature of the Taj Mahal. This gave new meaning to one of our favorite Incredible India ads showing a picture of the Taj with the caption “And to think that guys today can get away with giving flowers and chocolates to their wives…” Wow.

Rishikesh, which has grown to be the Yoga Capital of the World since the Beatles spent time with their swami here during the 1960s, was another change of pace. The city is set on the holy river Ganges and is full of many hippie types who come to practice yoga and meditation. Kelli was expecting it to be a quiet town with a peace-loving huggy type environment and was disappointed with the commercial atmosphere the town had developed, the huge number of motorbikes and flies everywhere, and the type of foreigners that seemed to congregate there – as Jeff described, these were more the self-reflective “dirty hippies” than the peace and love kumbaya-singing hippies from the 60s. We spent our days shopping the markets, doing yoga at the ashram where we stayed, and eating good (often organic) food. We did the ritual of dipping our feet in the holy Ganges, which, according to Hindu tradition, absolved us of all sins. (Fortunately, Rishikesh is near the source of the river in the Himalayas, so it didn’t have all of the people washing themselves, cleaning their clothes, and relieving themselves, with dead bodies floating by as you hear about in Varanasi!!)

One day, we walked to where the “Beatles’ ashram” was and found a guard from the Forest Department outside. Rutvik managed to bribe the guard but didn’t have to pay a bribe himself as he was mistaken for our tour guide! Only in India J This wasn’t the last time he was mistaken for a guide, though. In Delhi, which was our final stop, a guy stopped him to ask where he should put his shoes outside of a mosque. That assumption was perpetuated by the fact that Rutvik often paid only a tenth or less of the admissions that the rest of us non-Indians paid to get into the same tourist attraction and his tickets were often printed on crappy paper and did not include “free” audiobooks that we received!

All in all a super fun two weeks! Feel free to browse through our photos on our Picasa site. The photos are sorted by city. In case you missed it, we’ve posted the links to the left.

Christmas in Phuket

2008-12-30T10:33:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! We definitely missed spending time with our families and friends around the holidays. While there is no good substitute, we made the best of it by celebrating on the beach in Phuket!

Phuket is an island though you’d never really know since you can drive right in from the mainland. Compared to the laidback islands we visited off the east coast, Phuket is much larger and has more of a clustered big city feel. Initially, we stayed on Kata Beach, which is the most pristine beach and clearest water we have ever seen. The water was like bathwater, and you could walk out 20m and still see your feet (and even some small fish)! And we were quite impressed by the vendors that came to our beach chairs with fresh fruit drinks served in coconuts and pineapples! Not surprisingly, the beach is dominated by large resorts catering to packaged tour groups and families. While we fell in love with the beach, the food all around Kata was the worst of the whole trip so far and there really was nothing else to do there, especially at night!

After two days in Kata, we moved up the island to Patong Beach, a huge contrast to Kata. While it has its share of resorts, the beach was just okay (still loads of people) but the atmosphere was a lot more our speed – many more restaurants and shops, lots of young people, big bar scene, etc. Phuket is known for a strip of wild bars along Bangla Road – clubs open all night, lots of bar games, go-go bars, and lady boys dancing on every stage and bar table available. And stuff stays open late – which was a welcome change from Kata!

Quick sidebar – Something unique to Thailand is the number of lady boys you see walking down the street. Especially at the bars on Bangla Road, lady boys are out in force. Unlike in many other countries, they are pretty accepted in Thai culture and are even fighting to have their own gender listed on their passports here. They commonly work in bars, restaurants etc. Lady boys are basically men dressed like women who have undergone either a sex change operation or injection of female hormones. They are often quite attractive (of course, Rutvik never thought so…) and can be amazingly hard to distinguish from Thai women – your best bet is to guess based on height and voice. We’ve heard more than a few stories of foreign guys being unpleasantly surprised by their lady “friends”. We went to see the Simon Cabaret (highly recommended by the touts), an all lady boy dance show, which was hilarious with gaudy costumes and uncoordinated dance moves. Before we knew it, we had shelled out 100 baht (about $3) for Kel to have her picture taken with 2 of them. The consolation was that they were the best looking lady boys on offer! An interesting experience for sure.

After debating between snorkeling and canoeing, which must be done on separate tours, we decided to go snorkeling on a one day trip to Ko Phi Phi and Khai Island via speedboat. The water was very choppy and the ride was pretty rough on our backs, but it was a lot of fun to be out on the water. If nothing else, this trip has convinced us that we need to live in warm weather by the ocean! We snorkeled twice – once off the boat into shallow Loh Samah Bay and the second time off the beach on Khai Island. Khai Island had amazingly clear water and tons of coral right off the beach. The fish were totally unafraid, and we could see entire schools of fish swimming right to the beach! We had paid extra to rent fins, which seemed a total rip off until we got to Khai - we would have cut ourselves badly on the coral if not for the fins. We also made a brief stopover on Monkey Beach, where despite being warned excessively about rabies from monkey bites, Rutvik went right up to the wild monkeys with bananas, and they eagerly grabbed them from his hands. So cute!!

We made sure our Christmas days were action packed and we loosened up on the budget a bit (somewhat required to stay in Phuket anyway). We spent Christmas Eve doing some last minute shopping (a lot of fun with only each other to shop for in the markets that we walk through every day – our Christmas presents consisted of pirated DVDs, some knock-off Billabong shorts, a paddle ball set for the beach, a new book for the long bus rides coming up, and, best of all, a sugar scrub/massage) and then went to Phuket Phantasea, a Thai cultural show that is a combination of dancing, magic tricks, and an elephant show. The twenty or so elephants (including some really cute baby elephants) were by far the best performers but the whole show was well done. Pre-show was fun as well – they have a buffet of traditional food and a carnival outside the theater. We want to give a shout out to the really nice Finnish family we had dinner with (who we are sure by now are avid followers of the blog!), who made the experience all that much more fun. We bought some bananas and sugar cane to feed the elephants and played a few games at the carnival. The best was one we’d never seen before - a game where a hen rotates rapidly in a circle shooting out “eggs” and you are supposed to catch the ones aimed at you. Rutvik dominated Kel (obviously) and won her a baby elephant stuffed toy.

After the show, we stuck to the usual Christmas tradition and went to the only midnight Christmas mass we could find, at Le Meridian resort. It was funny to see them set up the whole altar and nativity scene in a small ballroom five minutes before mass started, but it was nice to have the connection with home and the spirit of the season, and it was fun to celebrate with such an international group. On Christmas Day, we went to a nice Christmas brunch at the Holiday Inn (probably the most upscale Holiday Inn we’ve ever seen) that had an international menu – traditional Christmas pudding and cookies alongside sushi, dim sum, seafood, and all sorts of Thai food. We happened to be seated with an Australian family from Perth, who let us crash their family brunch. They were very charming and the mom kind of reminded Kelli of her mom, so that and watching all of the little kids sit on Santa’s lap added a bit of a family touch to Christmas. Good times. Then, we went to enjoy our Christmas present from Rutvik (a 2 hour spa treatment to pamper ourselves), watched Fred Claus (they didn’t have The Christmas Story DVD!), and called the fam back in the US late at night (their Christmas morning). Other than really missing family, we had a great Christmas.

The next day, we took a grueling 14 hour bus ride to Bangkok followed by another 10 hour bus ride to Nong Khai in northeastern Thailand. (Two overnight bus rides on the bumpy Thai roads is something we’re hoping not to have to repeat) We then crossed the border into Laos, where we’ll spend New Year’s Eve.

Here’s to a super fun New Year’s Eve and a wonderful 2009!!

Where We've Been...

2008-12-25T11:35:00.006-06:00

Myanmar (Burma) – Our Run for the Border

2008-12-20T09:37:00.000-06:00

Due to the number of expats living and working in Thailand, the “visa run” has become standard practice. People from most countries can get a 30 day visa on arrival in Thailand, after which time they must leave and re-enter the country to get a new visa. The amount of time (usually 15 or 30 days) you get on the second entry is not standardized and the rules are constantly changing. It seems to depend on which guy you get at the border and what kind of a mood he’s in at the time. Our visas expired on December 19th but we wanted to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Thailand, which is how we found ourselves en route to Myanmar (Burma) on a packaged tour “visa run” from Ko Tao. If you don’t know much about Myanmar, it is ruled by an oppressive military regime called the “junta”. For the most part, you can’t visit the country without a prearranged visa, except that they have opened a few stations along the Thai border to make money providing entry and exit stamps for the purpose of renewing a Thai visa. You buy a “day pass” to Myanmar, but ironically you can’t even enter mainland Myanmar from these entry points. Our experience was as follows: Took a catamaran from Ko Tao to mainland Thailand (which was so choppy that half the boat was seasick), took a bus across Thailand to a town called Ranong, got Thai exit stamp (provided alongside a new arrival card – they know the drill), took a ferry to a place called the Andaman Club in Myanmar. Handed passport to Myanmar officials upon entry. Got taken by bus to the Andaman Club, a deserted upscale casino resort (possibly a big money laundering facility?). Took some pictures with the numerous Santas and Christmas displays set up in the lobby (Random…). Picked up some cheap imported chocolate and a bottle of Bacardi at the duty free shop. Drank some free soda and won 40 baht at video blackjack in the casino. Headed back to pick up our now Myanmar stamped passports and reboarded ferry to re-enter Thailand. Our entire visit to Myanmar was approximately 45 minutes… Bizarre, huh?

Chilling on the Islands: Ko Samui, Ko Pha Ngan, and Ko Tao

2008-12-20T09:34:00.001-06:00

After all the people in India and the craziness of Bangkok, we headed off to a group of islands off the eastern coast of southern Thailand for a few weeks. We took an overnight train to Surat Thani, which is the travel hub for the islands. The Thai trains are much worse than the ones in India. There are no separate compartments and your bags seem unprotected in the aisle. We woke up several times in the night to intense jarring. It almost sounded like the train was going to come off the tracks! The train was also over 2 hours late getting in (we had gotten used to the punctual Indian trains), though fortunately we had booked all of our transport together, so a bus was waiting to take us to the ferry port.

From Surat Thani, we took a ferry to the biggest island, Ko Samui, which has mostly large resorts and caters to package tourists. The island was pretty quiet for two reasons - the monsoon season was just ending and the Bangkok airports were closed due to the political protests. Chaweng Beach, where we stayed, is known for being the most popular Samui beach with the best restaurants and nightlife. We loved having some lazy days to lay out and read on the beach, with the background interruptions of vendors peddling everything from ice creams and fruit shakes to handmade jewelry and henna tattoos. (Rutvik was probably the first brown guy ever to lay out on Ko Samui!!) We also loved running barefoot on the beach just before sunset – rarely do you enjoy the run itself as opposed to feeling great after the run! The best part of Samui, though, was the little area around Ark Bar, where restaurants set up lounge chairs on the beach at night to lay on while you eat, drink, and do hookah. You can get freshly caught fish or choose from a menu of Thai, Italian, and all sorts of other food. Fire dancers perform.every night and people walk around with animals. Kelli got to cuddle with a very cute monkey (somehow the iguana and the python didn’t make the cut). We had a lovely vegetarian Italian meal here to celebrate Thanksgiving island-style.

Though we spent most days on the beach, one day we rented a motorbike to explore the island. With Rutvik driving, this was an adventure in itself, but it also gave us the chance to check out other beaches on the island and some of the local temples and cultural sights. We visited the Big Buddha and the Mummified Monk (check out the picture – this guy apparently foresaw his own death and his body remains “undercomposed” today), got blessings from a monk, sampled the wares at a local rum distillery, toured a local Muslim market, and went to check out the Hin Da and Hin Yai rocks shaped like male and female genitalia! We had a good laugh at the “gas stations” on the side of the road, where we bought gas from liter bottles to fill the bike.

Next we headed to Ko Pha Ngan, the less developed neighbor of Ko Samui, which is known for its monthly Full Moon beach parties and backpacker friendly courses in yoga, reiki, cooking, massage, etc. Haad Rin Beach was ideal - superfine sand, clear water, and blue skies. Because the water was shallow and clear for quite a ways out, it helped Kelli to begin to get past her fear of the ocean, and we took numerous dips in the waves. While the beach was smaller and had fewer vendors than Ko Samui, the crowd was more fun for us - mainly 20-something Aussies, Brits, and Israelis.

At night, locals set up a line of stands, selling beach buckets containing small bottles of liquor and mixers. The vendors get creative and decorate their stands with funny signs and make jewelry out of straws to try to get our business. Our favorite bucket was Thai Sangsom rum mixed with mango juice, a splash of Red Bull, and fresh lime. Like on Khao San Road, there is lots of good cheap late night street food, like crepes, noodles, and fruit shakes. We fell in love with the noodle and “smooty” stand outside of our guesthouse and made friends with the owner. Most restaurants on Haad Rin show movies throughout the day, and, for some reason, episodes of Friends were especially popular. Internet on Haad Rin was very expensive, more than three times the price in Bangkok. It was also strange that laundry and all travel packages from the island cost exactly the same from every shop. We later found out that Haad Rin has a council that sets fixed prices for all these services and shops can be fined or shut down if they don’t stick to the set price structure. More noticeable in Ko Pha Ngan than the other places we’ve been in Thailand are the massive number of stray dogs and all sorts of insects. The mosquitoes were worse than anywhere else (India included, which is saying a lot). Kelli was concerned that she might need a blood transfusion after the first night on the island. Fortunately, they say there’s no malaria there, though we’re not taking any chances and continue to take our pills.

After spending so much time lounging on the beach, we were ready to be more active and signed up for a five day massage class affiliated with our guest house. We spent 30 hours learning oil based full body massage. Our instructor, Wi, was a very sweet Thai girl and an extremely good masseuse. She meticulously taught us how to massage the back, legs, arms, shoulders, head and face using other Thai masseuses as models. One day, while teaching foot massage, she noticed that Kelli had a knot in her foot in an area that related to her intestines. At the time, Kelli hadn’t recognized any issue, but her insight proved spot on later that night and we were pretty amazed. It peaked our interest in reflexology. On the last day, Wi supervised as we gave each other 2 hour long full body massages. We are now Government of Thailand certified masseur and masseuse!

The massage class ended a few days before the island’s famous Full Moon Party. The massive influx of people arriving for the party crowded the beach, restaurants and stores. Walking on the streets became a hazard as motorbikes driven by first timers whizzed by us. The locals take full advantage by spiking the room rates and scheduling lead up parties at different locations every night. There was the Half Moon Party, Shiva Moon Party, and other parties sponsored by local bars. Unless you attend these parties, you miss out on the fun as every other location feels deserted. To get to the Half Moon party, we agreed to take a songthaew (a truck taxi with benches lining the back) at an inflated price, since it was the only way to get to the party, of course. Not satisfied by fleecing us once, however, they staged a “Thai accident” about halfway to the party, parking a truck in the middle of the road so that no songthaews could pass. Not surprisingly, there were plenty of songthaews that simply happened to be waiting on the other side to take us the rest of the way for the same price we had originally paid. Crooks. Such annoyances aside, the parties were hopping, the music was generally top notch, alcohol was moderately priced, and the hordes of crazy people made it all that much more fun. The Full Moon Party definitely lived up to its billing. There were literally thousands of people drinking and dancing on the beach, dressed in costumes and covered with glow in the dark jewelry and body paint. The party lasted all night and a few hardcore partiers were still passed out on the beach when we rolled in the next afternoon. It’s a party we won’t forget anytime soon.

After the Full Moon Party, we headed to the third major island in these parts, Ko Tao, which is scuba diver central and certifies more scuba divers than anywhere in the world other than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. We had signed up for an entry level PADI Open Water Diver course (certifying you to dive up to 18 meters in the open ocean) at Crystal Dive Resort. The academic portion of the course consists of five lectures followed by a final exam. Then you spend several hours in a swimming pool learning the basics of breathing under water, operating the equipment, emergency measures for equipment malfunction, etc. Once we passed the academics and learned various skills in the confined pool session, we were ready for the open water. Kelli did not feel comfortable with a few skills in the pool and decided that she wasn’t ready for the open water dives. Rutvik went on without her. The conditions for the first open water dive were far from perfect, with choppy waves and low visibility. Rutvik was definitely nervous at first but his confidence increased with each dive. By the last dive, the group had mastered most of the skills and spent about forty minutes exploring the coral and fish at the bottom of the ocean. To celebrate the end of the course, every diver jumped off the top deck of the boat into the ocean. The last two dives were captured by a videographer and then shown in the resort bar on the last night. Very cool! We’re looking forward to doing more water sports soon as we plan to head to the Phuket area on the other side of Thailand for the holidays.

Four Nights in Bangkok

2008-12-20T09:32:00.000-06:00

Upon landing at the Bangkok airport, we immediately noticed a difference from India – the number of foreigners. Whereas in India, we could seemingly go days without seeing a non-Indian, there are tons of expats in Thailand. Tourism here is big business and is treated as such. The airport is only a few years old and very modern, catering to tourists with a variety of hotel stands, fast food chains, and information desks. It was very easy to navigate and to find transport, etc. Little did we know at the time, this airport would become “home” to many tourists stuck during the major political protests that followed a few days later.

We headed to Khao San Road, a major stop along the backpacker trail through Southeast Asia. Khao San is like a world unto itself – a carnival of street vendors, street performers, food stands, roadside bars, and massage parlors, with plenty of cheap places to stay. You name it, you can find it somewhere on this street. The food stands sell delicious pad thai, fried rice, fresh fruit shakes, mango and sticky rice, spring rolls, and banana pancakes, along with fried caterpillars, roaches, spiders, and other unidentifiable things that are apparently edible (not for the faint hearted). You can buy all sorts of funny t-shirts, clothes, jewelry, swimsuits, books, and local handicrafts. Rutvik decided to branch out from his usual Brooks Brothers polos (totally uncool with the backpacker crowd) and bought some t-shirts and surfer shorts. We had a good time playing the vendors off each other. There are also plenty of stands where they’ll do piercings, tattoos, and dreads right on the curb. We skipped those and opted for Thai massages instead. It’s hard to say no to the endless touts practically begging to give you an hour long massage for $7!! The roadside bars officially close at midnight (which is our one big complaint), and the cops drive down the street every night to “shut them down” but mainly to collect their bribes from the owners of unlicensed bars setting up shop on the curb. We had fun drinking cocktails out of buckets and people-watching, especially the white guys picking up the Thai girls (and vice versa!). No white guy in this country can stay unattached for long. From what we can tell, these are not typically one night stands – these women actually become “girlfriends” for the entire duration of the trip and sometimes for multiple trips thereafter. (As you might have noticed, we have a count of these pairs going… though in hindsight, it probably would have been way easier to count unattached white guys!) Anything goes on Khao San, it seems. We were offered all sorts of illegal substances and even women, especially when Kelli’s head was turned. We even saw a Thai guy walk a baby elephant down the street around midnight one night, hiding it in an alley as the cops came through.

During the few days we spent in Bangkok, we walked a lot of the city. It is a pain in the butt for foreigners to try to negotiate for transport, and we actually prefer walking anyway. We decided to check out the Grand Palace (the King’s residence) on a Saturday and were shocked to see a massive crowd of Thais at the Royal Grounds adjoining the Palace. It was hard to see much or take pictures. We eventually found someone who spoke some English, who told us that the King’s sister had died a few weeks earlier and people were there to pay her their respects. The King is extremely revered by the Thai people. There are images of him all over the country, and, while he has no official power, his blessing is important for the stability of any democratically elected government. The Grand Palace is beautiful, a blend of European and Thai architecture, but the King’s temple, Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha) next to it is simply stunning. We were also impressed by nearby Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). We’ll let our pictures speak for themselves.

On Sunday, we heard of the political unrest in Bangkok (which we talked about in our Thanksgiving blog entry) on BBC while getting ready and got assurances from a few locals about safety in Bangkok before we headed out for a day of shopping. We first took an extremely overcrowded local bus to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which brought back memories from India (both the number of people in the bus and the number of people in the market!) For all the rave reviews we had heard, we didn’t buy much and were disappointed because we couldn’t fit into any of the clothes meant for the tiny Thais!! We then ventured into the modern part of Bangkok, with Silom, its version of Wall Street, and Lumpini Park, its version of Central Park. Especially interesting were the many Thais participating in outdoor aerobics classes and working out at workout stations set up throughout the park. There was even an outdoor concert that we somehow mistook for a funeral. (The music sucked, what can we say?!) Then we walked to Siam Square, a street of huge modern malls. It was funny to be able to bargain for knock-offs at the mall and also strange to see that the stores were all decorated for Christmas in Buddhist Thailand!

The big annoyance in Bangkok is getting around in the city. We decided that if we lived there, we’d have to get a car and brave the chaotic traffic. There is a SkyTrain, but its route is limited and it is quite expensive. The local buses are overcrowded and seem to change their routes often. The tuk-tuks (auto-rickshaws) and taxi drivers like to fleece foreigners and typically refuse to use the meter. On one specifically memorable occasion, we stood in a taxi line for a half hour to get a metered taxi after we had trouble finding one on our own. We were amazed at how many cabs were willing to leave with no passengers instead of taking us with the meter! When we finally got a driver to agree to a metered fare, he quickly changed his tune as soon as we left the mall lot and instead demanded a fixed fare. So frustrating!

Despite the minor annoyances, we enjoyed soaking up the culture for the four days that we spent in Bangkok… but after that and all the people in India, we were definitely ready for some chill time on the islands!!

A lot to be thankful for

2008-11-27T14:37:00.001-06:00

First of all, we wanted to say that we and Rutvik's immediate family are safe. We thank all of you for your concerned e-mails and thoughts. At the moment, we are happily holed up in Southern Thailand, on the island of Ko Samui.

Trouble seems to be following us a little bit. As we are sure most of you have heard, there is somewhat of a crisis brewing in Bangkok. The middle and upper urban classes believe that the current government bought its way into power. They also believe that the current government is a puppet of the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was thrown out of power on corruption allegations following a coup in 2006, when Kelli was here last. The anti-government protesters have had a few violent altercations with the pro-government side and have shut down both of Bangkok's airports. Their goal is to oust the government and hold fresh elections. After talking to people, the vibe we get is that their concerns are legitimate and that the protesters will not compromise until fresh elections are held. Luckily, this conflict is internal and is restricted to a few areas of Bangkok at this point. The only tourists that are affected are those trying to travel home through Bangkok. Even sitting at this internet cafe on the island, there are a number of people trying to find a way to fly home. We feel safe as this crisis is not a random terrorist attack but a legitimate dispute in a controlled area. We will continue to monitor the situation and change our plans as necessary.

The same cannot be said about the terrorist attacks in Bombay. The planned killing of unsuspecting and unarmed civilians is absolutely cowardly. Rutvik lived through the riots and then the bomb blasts that ripped through Bombay in the 90s. Important landmarks were damaged even then but somehow this current attack is especially jarring. We had visited three of the attack sites, The Taj hotel, Leopold Cafe (a backpacker favorite), and VT station only a few weeks ago. It really hits home when such attacks happen in your backyard, around your own family. We feel SO lucky that everyone is safe and accounted for. For those of you who have never been to Bombay, it is a very resilient city, and, just like before, it will recover in time. Our thoughts and prayers are with people there.

Lastly, we want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. There is so much to be thankful for. We feel blessed to be safe, that our family and friends are safe, and that we have so many people around us that care. We also feel blessed to have the opportunity of this year to live our dream. As we celebrate Thanksgiving island-style, we will be thinking of all of you back at home. We hope you enjoy the holiday with your family and friends. Let's all pray for the victims in Bombay and for a swift resolution to these crises. Peace and love to all.

Assault on the Senses: Kelli’s First Impressions of India

2008-11-21T04:11:00.003-06:00

(This entry was put together a while ago but in all of the craziness, we never got it posted. Enjoy!)

Greetings from India! We’ve been in India for nearly three weeks and have been so busy that we have completely neglected the blog. Sadly, we probably could have filled ten pages a day with thoughts and stories about our experiences here! Since Rutvik is busy finishing up his b-school applications and I’m the one that has been completely blown away by the newness of it all, I’m going to write this one on my own. Maybe R will edit out the bad parts :)

So the flight to Bombay (officially it’s Mumbai, but everyone here seems to prefer Bombay) from Dubai was only about three hours. I’m pretty sure that the Indian lady sitting across the aisle from me stared at me the whole three hours, including the two hours I slept! She’d be staring at me, I’d nod off for awhile, wake up and look at her, and she was still staring. This was the first of many stares I’ve gotten here. Sometimes it’s kind of fun to be the novelty (people want to take pictures with you and kids run up to shake your hand), but really, at this point, I just want to know what they’re thinking – Am I truly a novelty? Are they mistaking me for someone else? Do I have something on my face? Are they jealous? Are they actually making fun of me? How many white people have they seen before? I’ve really been surprised with how few non-Indian people I’ve come across here in comparison to my past travels, especially in Bombay. At first I had thought it was because I’ve been living with a family instead of at a hotel or touristy area, but this past week we’ve been traveling outside of Bombay and the non-Indians I’ve seen have still been quite rare.

Rutvik’s whole family (including his dad “Uncle,” his mom “Aunty,” his brother Rushin, and his brother’s girlfriend Kaddu) picked us up from the airport. The first thing I noticed was the traffic. I had heard it was bad and it was somewhat comparable in Bangkok and Cairo, but India takes traffic (and many other things, as I’ve learned) to a new level! As Rushin drove through the chaos, I asked how on earth people learned to drive in this kind of a place, and Kaddu replied, “actually it’s pretty simple cause there really aren’t any rules!” Apparently that’s all there is to it. The only traffic rule I’ve come up with is don’t hit anything or anyone. Anything else goes it seems. Other than the crazy traffic, my first major impression was the sheer number of people, structures, and things going on absolutely everywhere. ALL the people!! There were people selling things, cooking, riding motorbikes, driving rickshaws, doing acrobatics to dodge other people, relieving themselves, yelling at other people, bathing their kids, knocking on the car windows, etc. And there were brick buildings, surrounded by huts and tents, with all sorts of coverings in between. People will find a two or three foot spot between two buildings and build a house there. Then someone will build a store on top of that. The whole city is just a patchwork of people squatting. It sometimes reminded me of building forts in the basement with my brother as a kid, where the primary goal was to cover as much of the room as possible. There are SO many people and such little space! In the few weeks I’ve been here, I’ve never quite gotten over my initial feeling of “ALL the people!” even outside of Bombay. I’ve always thought I loved the big cities and never realized how much I appreciate open spaces and a few square feet of my own. The other thing I noticed on the drive was that many parts of the city that they pointed out as wealthy didn’t strike me as such. Because of ALL the people, it’s hard for business owners to maintain their outside facades, and especially the surrounding neighborhoods, so often you find that what looks ordinary, or even dingy, on the outside is actually really extravagant on the inside.

When we arrived at the family’s flat in south Bombay, Aunty went in first and came out with some red coloring and rice to do a traditional blessing on my forehead. This was the first of many traditions the family taught me during the last few weeks. Then, when we entered, the live-in cook Ganesh, who has been with the family for years, bowed down and touched Rutvik’s feet as a sign of respect. I have to admit I have been kind of fascinated by the whole concept of live-in help because it’s so different from what I grew up with, but it’s pretty common here. Through talking with Aunty, I learned that she hired Ganesh through a reference from a neighbor upstairs, who had hired another man from the same village. Aunty had wanted someone from the specific region of India where Ganesh was from since they are known as honest and hard-working. When he arrived at their place for the first time, they didn’t speak any common languages. He not only learned both Hindi and Gujarati in order to talk with the family, Aunty also taught him how to cook… and wow, he is good! We were sooo spoiled living at the house! It was weird being able to ask for anything to be made at pretty much any time. My favorite things were fresh juices (like sweet lime and watermelon) and masala tea. I asked for so much juice that he eventually made it by the pitcher! Ganesh lives in the stairwell of the building on the same floor as the family. He works seven days a week but gets two months of vacation a year to return to his village. The family treats him very well. It was amazing to me how many “helpers” came to the house on any given day. In addition to Ganesh, they also have two chauffeurs, a yoga instructor, laundry people, people to clean the house, a milkman, and all sorts of other people. Between these people and the family and friends that dropped by, it seemed like the doorbell never really stopped ringing.

When we first arrived, there was a feast of food waiting for us. Aunty knew that I love “chaats” (Indian street snacks) from my visits to Atlanta, so Ganesh had made pani puri (lentil shells filled with chickpeas and potato curry that you fill with mint water) and some other yummy stuff that I can’t keep track of. We never went hungry. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t feel hungry ever for at least the entire first week I was in India. There was always tons of food around and I couldn’t resist sampling all of the new things I hadn’t seen before. I love Indian food at home, but I can’t believe the diversity here, especially in vegetarian food! Restaurants advertise “veg” or “non-veg” and all restaurants have a plentiful vegetarian menu. There are even certain streets near Jain temples where it is illegal to serve meat. The number of choices for vegetarians is unbelievable. Even the McDonalds and Pizza Hut menus are primarily vegetarian. I have found a new love in McD’s veggie burgers and Pizza Hut’s veggie paneer pizzas!! I am absolutely enamored with the food here. Yum yum yum!

I am also enamored with Rutvik’s family. They are so warm, welcoming, generous, and a ton of fun! Uncle is a doctor and has established his own franchise of clinics around India as well as a medical tourism business that brings people from Tanzania and the Middle East to India for treatment. Aunty helps to administer Uncle’s business and also runs a blood testing facility. Rushin has completed medical school and is training to be an internal medicine doctor. His girlfriend Kaddu works with Aunty to support Uncle’s business. They all work long hours but managed to get away from the office to spend some quality time with us and show us around the city. The whole first week that we were there, our social calendar was pretty much booked solid. I’m pretty sure we met upwards of 60 people during the first week, including family, friends, and business colleagues. Everyone I met (not a single person excluded) was so warm and friendly. Each time I met a new person, they gave me a “cover” with rupees inside as the traditional welcome. It was slightly overwhelming! Between our special treatment in Dubai and these covers, I’m pretty sure the trip has been a money-making venture to date, which is pretty nuts. Most people speak some English, in addition to Hindi and other local languages, so I haven’t had much of a problem communicating, though I lean on Rutvik for translation, especially with drivers and outside workers. It is funny though, sometimes, because Rutvik tells me that they switch from Gujarati (a local language) to Hindi, thinking that I’ll understand that better. I have had a blast getting to know the whole extended family and am finally getting acclimated to ALL the people. At least I can say it’s ALL the kindest, most welcoming, caring people :)

Our First Stop: Dubai

2008-11-09T04:23:00.003-06:00

For the backpackers we claim to be, the trip started off pretty lavishly! In Dubai, we had expected to crash at a family friend’s apartment. Instead, we discovered that he put us up in a swanky Sheraton and gave us full access to his chauffeur and Mercedes to boot. Yeah, tough life, we know! If we got this treatment everywhere, we’d “backpack” forever!

Driving into the city, we could see Dubai’s developing skyline. Each skyscraper had a unique architectural theme, and with all the construction projects we felt that nearly all of the world’s cranes had descended there. It was easy to tell which pockets of the city had been opened to foreign investment (massive skyscrapers and heavy construction), and the few parts of the city that were completed were pretty impressive. Every car in Dubai seemed to be white in color, as if the government had passed a law that every car be white – the locals we talked to were impressed by our observation and told us this is mainly due to the hot desert environment. Apparently, white even has a higher resale value over there! Not surprisingly, gas was under $2 a gallon and this was definitely reflected in the number of SUVs on the road.

We spent our few days in Dubai walking the souqs (old markets) and exploring the city. Some of the highlights:

Mall of the Emirates and Ski Dubai (indoor): Only in Dubai can you see Muslim women shopping for uber-expensive revealing dresses that they never wear in the outside world. And definitely only in Dubai can you see a -3°C ski slope complete with chair lifts inside the mall in the middle of the sweltering desert heat. Suffice to say that they had thought of everything unique you could ever see in a US mall and put it all in one place.
Sitting by the Dubai Creek at sunset, watching the abras (boats), doing hookah, eating amazing Lebanese food… need we say more? Very chill.
Afternoon Tea at the Burj-al-Arab: Kelli had made reservations to celebrate our one year anniversary with “tea” at the Skyview Bar at the seven star Burj-al-Arab hotel, which is shaped like a sail. You have to have some sort of reservation to even get on the property, so half the fun was people-watching and taking pictures. From the bar, we had a birds-eye view of the palm-shaped islands and the 300 islands that make up The World taking shape. Rutvik expected a cup of tea, literally, but along with his tea they brought out a seemingly endless number of yummy sandwiches, pastries, and chocolates. Good times.
Tour of the Jumeirah Mosque: This is the only mosque in the UAE that non-Muslims are allowed into and they had a very interesting talk and Q&A session about Muslim culture that dispelled some of the prejudices that many people have against Islam.

Overall, Dubai seems to be a modern melting pot of nationalities with an embarrassment of riches. People are extremely friendly and between English and Hindi, it was pretty easy to get around (well, that and the chauffeur!). Lots of one-of-a-kind things to see and do, especially if you have money to blow... we'll be back someday!

Obviously we are quite late in posting this and are catching up as quickly as possible! We have been busy :) We'll post about India soon!

the adventure begins...

2008-10-20T16:07:00.004-05:00

We are writing this on the plane an hour out of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The last week has been an absolute whirlwind. We managed to shove Rutvik’s life into his little car (yes, he is a minimalist) and made our way from Atlanta to Omaha with an overnight stop at our old stomping grounds in the Lou. (We couldn’t believe how much things had changed since we left - Wash U looked pretty darn impressive!).

In Omaha, we spent time organizing and packing, finishing up some of Rutvik’s MBA applications, and hanging out with Kelli’s friends and family. We also took a photography class at the zoo with our awesome new Canon (thanks to Rutvik’s co-workers at KeyBank). Hopefully, our new and improved photography skills will come in handy on our travels. Check out a few of our favorite pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kelliblum/ZooPhotoClass

At the end of our photography class, we left ourselves with only one day to get everything done and were still packing the hour before we left the house. As some of you know, our track record for catching flights has been less than stellar, and this time proved no different. En route to NYC, we found ourselves unpacking and repacking our bags to reduce United’s ridiculous baggage fees (weren’t in the budget!). When we got to security, Kelli realized that she had packed some perfume as a gift and ended up having to go back out through security. The airline called out our names over the loudspeaker and Kelli’s family watched us make a run for the gate. Really, it wouldn’t be us any other way :)

When we landed in NY, we discovered that United’s expensive baggage service had lost Rutvik’s backpack, and, after a stressful evening of calls to United, we had to make an early morning stop at LaGuardia before catching our international flight out of JFK. (Katherine, you are a lifesaver!) We managed to be at the gate a full 2 hrs early, a first for us! So far, the flight’s been uneventful and we’re hoping that customs proves the same given Rutvik’s “business” visa…

where in the heck?

2008-10-15T12:10:00.001-05:00

The beauty of a backpacker's itinerary is that there is no real itinerary. However, because of our nature, we couldn't help but plan a tad! We started with a map of the world and a book of cool things going on around the globe (We highly recommend Rough Guide's Making the Most of Your Time on Earth). We had a hard time crossing any countries off the list but eventually settled on India, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

India was a natural choice as Kelli had always wanted to go there and Rutvik hadn't been back to see the fam in awhile. Africa fascinated both of us and we thought it was the type of place best to check out while we were still young. We decided to round it out with some time in Southeast Asia since we were going to be in the vicinity and it's a backpacker hotspot.

At least that's the plan for now but it's subject to change depending on what happens along the way.

Here is our rough plan:

Omaha, USA (Departing October 18, 2008)
New York City, USA (October 18-19, 2008)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (October 20-22, 2008)
Bombay, India (October 22-October 29, 2008) - Diwali!!
Kodaikanal, India (October 30-November 2, 2008)
Southern India (November 3-20, 2008)
Southeast Asia (November 20, 2008-February 12, 2009)
Ahmedabad, India (February 2009) - Anish's Wedding
Northern India (March and April 2009)
Southern and Western Africa (May and June 2009)
Egypt (July and August 2009)
Bombay (August 2009)
???, USA (August 2009)

Definitely let us know if you'll be nearby at any point!

why in the heck?!

2008-10-15T12:05:00.004-05:00

I think the best answer to this question is "why in the heck NOT?!" There is so much world out there to explore and life is short when you get down to it. Both of us have always loved to travel, and since we met in college, we had always tossed around the idea of traveling together, though definitely not on such a grand scale. For many years, we couldn’t even convince each other to visit the other one’s city or meet anywhere in the US. Then Kelli ended up in Atlanta for work (yay KPMG!) last June and Rutvik ended up meeting her in Europe for ten days later last summer. We visited Paris and Munich (OKTOBERFEST!) and spent the nights in a hotel, airport, tent, train station, and 18-bunk hostel room. It was a blast (well, except for the camping where we nearly froze to death) but we realized that we definitely hadn't satisfied our travel bugs with that trip. There was still way too much world left to experience. After we got back, we'd casually joke about jumping ship and running around the world for awhile when we had a rough day, but deep down it was something we both really hoped to do someday. Finally, one night, we said "you know, what if?" After several rather lengthy discussions and plenty of cold feet, we decided that if we were going to do it, there was no time like the present. And so we're off...

how in the heck?

2008-10-15T12:00:00.002-05:00

People often ask us how in the heck we can do this. The two things people seem to worry about most are money and jobs. This kind of trip certainly doesn't come free and without risk, but we decided to take a chance and chase our dreams.

While we won't be funding our retirement accounts anytime soon, it's not nearly as expensive as most people seem to think. Here's why:

Fortunately, the countries we're planning to visit have a lower cost of living than the US. According to Lonely Planet, a day in Thailand (including food, a place to stay, local transport, maybe a camel ride, and a few beers) costs about $30. Contrast that to a typical Saturday night out in the US.
We don't plan to stay in swanky hotels or have a travel agent plot out our every move. Hostels, train stations, and airports will be our domain. However, if you plan to join us, we would be more than happy to sleep on your hotel couch!
Our hobo lifestyle won't require things we typically need to pay for like: new clothes, dry cleaning, gas, car insurance, utilities, etc.
We plan to mooch as much as possible! :)

As for the job question, it's definitely a leap of faith for both of us, but we really believe that the experiences we'll have and the skills we'll learn along the way will make us more attractive to employers in the future. We'll let you know how this all works out when we get back! (At least we'll be used to life on the streets by that point.)