Merry Christmas to Me: I'm staying in Nepal

Sort of. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cara, Jamey, Anthony and I were all on our way out of Nepal, hoping to reach the far west border by Christmas Eve. Our friend, Cab, has been planning a short road trip for the four of us around Northern India. We were to let him know when we think we'll be crossing the border at which point we would figure out a meeting day and point. We had trouble getting in touch with Cab and when we finally spoke with him on the 24th, he mentioned a wedding on the 26th of December that he wanted to bring us to. We had a decision on our hands: leave immediately for Delhi and forfeit our Christmas plans of gluttony and laziness or stay in the border town until the 28th of December at which point Cab would maybe be able to pick us up. Indian weddings are supposed to be memorable experiences, so we decided to rush down for the wedding. We hopped on our bikes as the sun was setting, got stamped out of Nepal and reached the Indian crosspoint once the sun was down only to be told by the man patrolling the immigration office that the border was closed. Great.
When crossing into Nepal, we were also told the same thing, however, we were able to convince the border control to let us through. We spoke with the man on the India border for a minute and convinced him to let us through "past hours", which, for the record, we think is possibly a lie. We go and grab our passports for him to stamp BUT (drumroll...) Cara can't find hers. She looks through all her bags and notices that the pocket which she usually stores her passport in was open during the entire ride between borders. The road between borders, which stretches for at least a 1/4 mile, was gravel and full of ditches. With the help of several border police equipped with massive search lights, Cara unsuccessfully retraced her steps for the missing passport. Nothing.

Fast forward six days and I am sitting in Kathmandu with Cara. Since I needed to go to a U.S. Embassy to get extra pages put in my passport, I accompanied her on the 18 hour ride from the border to Kathmandu. We successfully got her a new temporary passport, were able to get her a new Nepal visa and now are awaiting her India visa which is supposed to be ready on January 2nd. Looks like the two of us will be spending New Year's in Kathmandu, while Anthony and Jamey are in the border town with our gear.

A Sign That I've Been Gone For a While

I cut my own hair today and don't think it looks all that bad...

Reporting from Somewhere in Nepal

Hello, as you have probably noticed, my prophecy of limited internet access in Nepal has proved to be true. So true that by the time I finally get to an internet cafe, I have forgotten what has happened since I last blogged. Keep a hand-written diary did you say? Pshaw, that'd be WAY to easy of a solution. Anyways, my writing-time dramatically decreased whenI got my hands on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I finished reading it about two hours ago which is why I'm struggling to remember what we have been up to over the past week. I want to say that we escaped Voldemort at the ministry of magic but I think I'm getting my worlds mixed up... and yes, I'm officially a nerd, thank you very much.

Two days ago we left the farm located near Royal Chitwan Park, located in the Terai region of Nepal. I had high hopes for this place -- Chitwan is home to one-horned rhinos, tigers, and elephants -- however, the beauty of Chitwan was overshadowed by the beauty of our last farm. The last farm was set on top of a mountain with beautiful views of neighboring hills, lakes, and snow covered mountains. Chitwan is in a sub-tropical flat region where the morning fog does not clear until around noon. The region is pretty, nonetheless, and the family we stayed with was lovely indeed, however, it was a hard transition considering we had been spoiled with beauty at the last farm.

The harvesting season had passed at the farm in Chitwan, so we spent our first day clearing grass, plants and weeds from some of the plots near the house. We learned that we were making space to plant sunflower seeds that had been sent to the farmer by a previous volunteer. The next day we needed to go to town to get money for an elephant ride that our host, Balarm, told us he could arrange. The round trip, he said, would take 3 hours. It took 7. We didn't get anything done on the farm. In town, however, we succeeded in stuffing our faces with samosas and buying what seemed like an endless supplies of cookies, peanut butter, and chips. On the ride to and from town, which we were told was a 45 minute ride but was actually 90 minutes, we successfully got sick of riding on top of busses. We had to fight our way through a crowd onto the bus that would bring us back to the farm. I managed to get a seat on top of a thin metal rod (on top of the bus) which REALLY hurts after 10 minutes of bumpy road.

To tell you a little bit about these buses, Anthony and I counted enough seats in the bus to accomodate 28 people if the bus were to be operated in the U.S. (i.e. one set per passenger). We estimated that said buses were probably holding around 75 people since they stuff the bus full of people and load the top of it with people too. We counted about another 20 on top of the bus with us when we returned to the farm that evening.

We did eventually make it to Chitwan for the elephant ride but because we lost track of time when we got to see a tiger (in a pen, of course) our elephant ride was cut short. Elephants are impressive creatures. Since they don't move all that quickly, I thought they'd be great animals to take self-portraits with, however, I negleted the fact that elephant heads are very large and it is impossible to get an entire elephant head in the frame when the camera is held a human-arm-length from said elephant. I'm glad I tried. I think that by the end of this trip I'll know all the pros and cons of taking self-portraits with different animals -- so far I've only attempted them with dogs, kids (baby goats), and elephants.

Now I am in sitting in an internet cafe in Butwal, Nepal, which is located 43 km north of Lumbini, which is where Buddha was apparently born. We're not going to make it to Lumbini, instead we are going to cycle another 400 (or so) km west to cross the India-Nepal border. We are thinking we will be in India in 10 days or less, which means we don't know where we will be for Christmas. All I know is that we will probably be in a place where we can eat a lot (I'm thinking a Christmas feast is in order).

Butwal seems to be the last major city on the map before we get to India, so there probably won't be any updates for another 10 days or so, which means, I wish you all happy holidays!!!!

Riding on top of buses.

So much has happened since my last post that I don't even know where to start. This morning, Anthony, Jamey, Cara, and I left our first Nepalese farm. The farm, which we were at for 8 days, was located on top of a mountain outside of Pokhara. 10 days ago we packed up our gear, bode farewell to Pokhara, and spent a good hour riding, fully loaded, up a mountain only to find out we were on the wrong mountain. We turned around, spent another two nights in Pokhara and then set off again for the farm. The farm, we were told, was located only a few kilometers outside of Pokhara but was about 6 km up a mountain. The first kilometer was a steep incline up a paved road. The other 5 km were up a steep unpaved, nearly un-bikable road. The dirt was too loose to bike on and there were lots of medium sized rocks in the road to bring the bikes to a complete stop if you did happen to get a stretch of bikable road. All in all, our ride up the mountain was 2 hours of hell. A few days later, Jamey, Cara, and I decided to ride the mountain without our gear and it took 30 seconds of biking for me to start cursing the road. We road downhill for maybe 15 minutes, which left my arms completely red from all the vibrations of the bike going over rocks. On the way back up, village kids started chasing me, which is fairly common and annoying. I thought I would try and out bike them and instead ended up dramatically falling off my bike and smashing my elbow when I hit another rock that unexpectedly brought my bike to a complete stop. I felt like a real rock star when two 12 year-old boys pulled my bike off me, wiped the dust off my butt, and pushed my bike while I gasped at how much my elbow hurt. I had a dead-arm for a good 2 minutes, which allowed me to think about how horrible it would be to have a broken bone on top of a mountain. Then I realized that I barely had a scratch to prove I fell. I am completely fine -- I just couldn't sleep on it that night.
When we arrived on the farm, we found out that the farmer had no idea we were coming. Although we had been told the farmer was expecting us, the coordinator for WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, the organization that we're volunteering through) failed to mention to the farmer that 4 Americans would be arriving. The number of volunteers on the farm went from 6 to 10. Two days later another American showed up unexpectedly bringing the final count of volunteers to 11 (7 of which were Americans).

Our days at the farm were great. It is coffee harvesting time, so spent our time harvesting beans, hulling them, and washing them. When we weren't working, we could be found drinking coffee (or tea in my case), sitting on the mountain side enjoying the view, playing with the baby goats, raiding one of three stores for cookies or chips, or washing ourselves at a roadside spring (there was no running water on the farm).

Our hosts, Surya and Amma were amazing. Amma fed us two huge and delicious meals a day one around 10 am and one around 6 or 7pm. Both meals consisted of rice (and lots of it) with dal (lentil soup) on top of it and a side of one of two vegetables (usually cauliflower and potatoes) and a dab of amazing chutney that consisted of tomato and roasted sesame seeds. Seconds were always pushed on us and I definitely needed to rest more then once after eating.

Today we left the farm. Since the road was so treacherous, we decided to take the one bus down the mountain to the main road. At 9am, we loaded our bikes on top of the bus, put our bags inside, and waved everyone at the farm good-bye from (drum roll please...) the top of the bus. Jamey, Cara, and I rode the bus like any true Nepalese person would (seriously, sometimes buses are packed full inside with about 20 people sitting up top and these are buses riding the main highway!) and let me tell you, I liked the road much more from the bus than I did from the bike. We felt like we were riding a roller coaster ride that was maybe less safe... We figured that should the bus roll off the mountain on our way down, it would be safer to be catapulted off the bus from the top, as opposed to being tumbled down the mountain inside the bus. We got to the bottom safely and, as it now looks, will not be taking any buses in the near future.

We are now on our way to Royal Chitwan Park. Until then!

Pokhara

Anthony arrived in Nepal a week ago and our group is now complete. We've already broken him in to the ways of our group and he seems to be adjusting well to the new culture. On his first night, we slept in close quarters on a floor in a house that had no running water and he was introduced to the squat toilet and bathrooms with no toilet paper. Way to be a trooper, Anthony.

Those details aside, our accommodations in Kathmandu were great. Our hosts, Nabin and Binod were great at showing us around town and making us feel at home in their city.

We are currently in Pokhara, Nepal. We arrived here yesterday afternoon after spending 4 days bicycling with fully loaded bikes over very mountainous terrain. We met some other fellow cyclists on the road, including a swiss couple, Andy and Adrea, who once spent two years traveling the world by bicycle and a french man Bruno, who, if I have my facts straight, has been traveling the world by bicyle for almost 2 years. The journey was tough at times but everyone did a great job at pushing through. The scenery was amazing. As I always say, I'll post pictures when I can. I'm in an internet cafe, so I'm not able to do that yet.

Tomorrow, we head for our first farm in Nepal, which we think is not too far of a ride from Pokhara. We were told that it is about an hour hike from here, which is scary because I'm worried the ride will be a steep uphill climb on a rocky path. We'll see how that goes. As for the farm, it is apparently a tea, coffee, and bee farm. I'm hoping that we'll have the oppurtunity to drink lots of tea and honey. If I were writing this blog two months ago, I'd hope for lots of coffee but I haven't drank much in the past month and the small cup and a half I had today made me sick, so I'm staying away from coffee.

We also just found out that our second farm in Nepal is located in Royal Chitwan Park, which is located in the subtropical Terai region of Nepal. The park is home to one-horned Rhinoceres, Bengal Tigers (i think) and Elephants, to name a few. I am very excited.

36 Hours later

and we finally reached Kathmandu. Apparently, I greatly underestimated train delays in India. What was supposed to be a 17 hour train ride turned into a 27 hour train ride. No joke. The upside was that we were seated in the sleeper section of the train, meaning that each one of us had a bed to sleep on. The downside was that the porters messed up and refused to bring our luggage (three bicycles and three body bags) to the luggage car and instead insisted we put the luggage on our bunks. We were lucky enough to fit everything into our compartment and our things only occupied one bed. We were unlucky in the sense that the entire train was booked, so two of us had to share a small bunk.

The train was delayed long enought to keep us from catching a night bus to Kathmandu but we were able to catch a horse drawn carriage and cycle rickshaw to bring us across the border, argue with the border control to issue us visas 'after hours', and hire a jeep to drive us the 5 hours over windy, mountainous roads to Kathmandu. We are safe and sound in Kathmandu but we definitely had quite the adventure getting here.

Indian Food

Is incredibly good. Except that instead of losing weight, we're gaining it. The day that this picture was taken, we had eaten FIVE, yes, FIVE meals. And I'm not talking about those small portions that some nutritionists and doctors tell you are a healthy regimen to follow when they are small portions. We had eaten a good-sized, very filling breakfast of chapati (indian flatbread) and dal (bean/lentil soup), followed by a trip to a sweet shop where we indulged on every type of vegan sweet in the store. We discovered our new favorite sweet after peanut brittle and jalebi (fried dough soaked in very sugary sugar-water) called Kaju Burfi (cashew paste and sugar). A couple hours later, we had a 4pm lunch of noodles, followed by a 7pm "snack" (that we thought was dinner) of pakora (fried battered spinach balls), samosa, chow mein, and jalebi. At midnight, we were about to crash from all the greasy food we had eaten at snack time, when we were called to the table for dinner that consisted of more chapati, rice, and a vegetable dish, which sounds light but isn't (trust me). Today, I woke up and was glad to have eaten a light breakfast of cereal. Then Jamey went out and got us lunch. We're about to eat pakora, samosa, and chow mein. yum. Maybe I should start a stomach stapling fund to help me lose some of this indulgent food weight i'm putting on...

Suggestion Box

Please post blog topic suggestions below in the comments section! This can be anything you'd like to know about India that I may not have covered or anything else.

Nepal or Bust

We're heading to Nepal tomorrow to meet up with Anthony, our 4th and finally friend on this trip. According to our calculations, it will take us at least 20 hours (possibly more) to reach Kathmandu from Delhi. We'll be taking a train from Delhi to a town close to the Nepal-India border. From there we will be taking a bus three hours to the border and there we will transfer to another bus that will bring us to Kathmandu in 9 - 12 hours. We plan on being in Nepal for a month, so, I must forewarn you now that I will be posting even less often, as we probably will have little to no internet access from November 15 - December 15.

Our trip to our first farm was, as I may have mentioned earlier, by far the biggest learning experience yet. We stayed with a wonderful family that welcomed us kindly into their house but had very different opinions on life than us. The main difference that was hardest for me to accept was that my role on the farm was confined to the kitchen. I believe, from the other picture I stole off of Cara's computer, that I am peeling garlic above. However, I could easily be found peeling potatoes, chopping onions (my least favorite since they make me cry easily), sifting through wheat, or making tea (I'm good at that). Oh, I'm also good at setting the table and filling the water jug.

Greetings from Organic Farm no. 1

The past 5 days have been interesting, crazy, busy, and educational. We successfully reached our farm and picked up a good amount of publicity on the way. Being white (extremely white, in my case) and on bikes with bags that stand out, we gather crowds everywhere we go, which is how we garnered the attention of the first photojournalist. Through a series of crazy events that occurred over the following two days, we picked up interviews for about 3 other newspapers and one tv news show. The news section has not yet run and we're trying to get our hands on the other papers that have covered us (they're all in Hindi).

The farm has also been very interesting and the family we are staying with has been very gracious to us. We arrived on the farm in time for a religion celebration that attracted 250,000 - 300,000 attendees and we were all seated in the FIRST ROW of our gender specific seated areas.

Cara and I got to ride a combine today that cuts down the organic rice that is grown here (among other crops) but I'm now sick from inhaling gas and dust from the machine. Besides that and a few other outing, Cara and I have mainly been restricted to the kitchen (I'm not really joking about this...more to come on that).

We should be returning to Delhi tomorrow evening and then leaving for Nepal by train on Friday (I think). There is a good chance that my posts will be less often over the next week or two.

I'll, of course, try to post updates as often as possible!

On The Road

Cara, Jamey, and I are on our way to volunteer on our first organic farm, which is located roughly 150 miles from Delhi in a town that I do not know how to spell (it's pronounced seer-sah). We've been on the road for two days now and have one more day of biking before we reach the farm. The trip has, thus far, gone smoothly and has not been short on stories. In short, we had a grand send-off and I had a grand arrival to our first city of aRohtak. Everywhere we go, we draw crowds. We took a jeep to the outskirts of Delhi and started our journey there. Within a minute, we had a crowd of ten people surrounding us. Within 10 minutes, we had a crowd of 30, all standing and staring at us. On the road we garnered the attention of a local photojournalist, so don't be surprised if you see us in a local Indian paper, Holla! Also, yesterday was my first time using a clipless peddles system (your feet are clipped into the peddles), so it was only natural that I arrived at our final destination by falling off my bike. Seriously, I fell off my bike. It kind of hurt physically but the real blow was to my ego. I fell off a bike. Enough said. And we spent the night in an office in a gas station (it sounds worst than it was. We actually had an amazing time!)

My time is unfortunately running out at the internet cafe, thanks to the chatty Indians here. I shall be sure to report more.

Almost a Bicycle Bon

Jamey, Cara, and I are shortly back in Delhi today before heading out by bike early tomorrow morning for our first organic farm. The farm is located about 200+ km from Delhi and we're allowing ourselves three days to bike there, due to the amount of weight we plan on carrying. I don't have much info on the farm but, when I do, I will be sure to report back.

The rest of our stay in Rishikesh/Ramjhula/Lakshmanjhula was great and relaxing. Our accommodations were definitely a step down from our accommodations at the Ashram in Haridwar but, then again, we were staying in a room that cost only $2 a night for three people -- that's 67 cents per person per night-- and as you can see from the picture of our shared bathroom above, we got what we paid for. The perks were that our neighbors were two brothers, named Nico and Juanchi, from Argentina that we made friends with and a friendly stray dog that I may or may not have fallen in love with.

During this trip we interacted a good deal with animals. Monkeys, from which I still like to keep my distance, were everywhere and could often be found blocking my entrance to the bridges, hanging on the side of the road, or lounging on benches. At one point we stoped to watch an Australian girl feed a family of grey monkeys (they're supposed to be nicer than the red ones). I watched this with curiosity and (mostly) fear that a monkey was going to attack her. There were no attacks but I still don't plan on getting within reaching distance of one anytime soon. I didn't take any pictures of the monkeys because I don't really like them but Cara took this picture of me near monkeys. My apologies to any monkeys reading this blog, I'm sorry but I just don't trust you.

Cara took it upon herself to feed leftovers to a cow on the street. The cow appreciated the gesture and returned the favor by chasing Cara down the street. I got a kick out of this and reached for my camera, at which point the cow started chasing me, as he mistook my camera for food.


Here is a picture of the cow following Cara.


Lastly, the best discovery (in my opinion, of course) was finding out that some of the stray dogs in India are very friendly. They're especially friendly if you've given them food. They tend to like bread stuffs, such as Roti or Chapati and meat, which we never have. They don't tend to like peanut butter (what dog doesn't like peanut butter?!), fruits, or vegetables. Here is a picture of the dog that kept coming by for food to visit me.

Besides being a great conversationalist (we talked about ALL kinds of things), she is very good at giving sad puppy eyes when I don't have food to give her. This is also the first self-portrait I have done with an animal. Tyra would be proud.

Location Update

We're arrived yesterday afternoon in Lakshma Jhula/Ram Jhula/Rishikesh, which is the yoga capital of the world. We don't have wireless access where we're staying, so I probably won't be updating the blog too often. Of the notable things that have happened here, a young beggar girl mocked me and I watched a cow poop on the street.

It is beautiful here. If I had more time at this internet cafe, I'd go into detail but I can't. Also, I just read that the Phillies won the world series. I'm sad I'm not there to celebrate. Feel free to drop me some info on how Philly is responding.

Jamey's Blog

Make sure to check out his blog too. He goes into more for his reasons for this trip.

www.veganbetweenyourlegs.com

I, er, have, uh, nothing to do with his latest post...

Festival of Lights

Diwali was great. Before the evening Diwali prayers commenced, Cara, Mario (our Austrian friend from the Ashram), and I decided to take a walk around town in hopes of seeing the monks before they make their way to the evening prayer. Besides getting harrassed by a Eunuch, a person who looks like a man dressed in women's clothes that is considered to have no sex, when we left the ashram for a mid-day stroll, our walk around town was amazing. Haridwar is known to be a spiritual city, as it is home to numerous temples and ashrams. When we exited the ashram, the street was litterally littered with men (and some women) in orange robes. It looked like a picture out of National Geographic -- they were walking in the street, sitting on the steps to a temple, everywhere (including on the side of the road squatting to pee, I think we might have seen at least 10 men doing this). I didn't bring my camera with me but Cara did, so hopefully she will be able to post some of the pictures on her flickr site when she gets the chance.

As for the evening, we started with a prayer where we blessed and lit 500 mini candles (Diwali falls on the new moon so the candles are to light the way for lord Ram's return from exile), which were really mini clay bowls filled with ghee and wick, and placed them around the entire Ashram. We then lit a couple fireworks and sparklers then went to eat. Our Diwali meal was officially the first meal I've eaten in India that I did not like. The meal consisted of mainly sweets and a styrofoam like cracker to scoop up the main entree, a vegetable dish, which was the only part of the meal I did liked. The rest of the evening was then spent setting off fireworks and sparklers. I'll upload pictures of the night, as people from the Ashram gave Cara, Jamey, and I traditional Indian clothes to wear for the festival. I'll let you be the judge of how we look.

Happy Diwali Tuesday

Today is Diwali. I woke up at 7am for Yoga, drank some tea, took a shower, ate and am now listening to a marching band that just entered the Ashram. Later I plan to light some fireworks and sparklers.

How's your Tuesday?

(Feel free to leave your hateful comments below)

Hippie in training?

Things are extremely laid-back and relaxing here at the Ashram. I skipped the 4:30 morning prayer and instead woke up for the 7am yoga class. After sitting around for a while, laughing at one of the dogs who has been leashed up for unknown reasons (there are two and they usually run around the place freely) and eating breakfast/lunch I went down to the Ganges with Cara, Jamey, and our new Austrian friend, Mario. We swam for a bit (Jamey watched because he claimed that one of us needs to stay healthy and take care of the others if we catch a disease from the Ganges. How un-Hindi of him...) and then spent the rest of the day laying out in the sun while Mario sang sweet-nothings in our ears, er, I mean he sang us Hindi songs.

The ashram is great. There is a loose "schedule" for the day, which includes morning prayer (puja), morning yoga, tea, more tea, breakfast/lunch, 4 hours of nothing, tea, a class, tea, tea, dinner, prayer, tea, sleep AND best of all, everything is optional. I mainly partake in the tea and the meals.

In case you were wondering how we got to an Ashram, being that yoga is one of the last things I would be known for, Cara is interested in yoga and actually plans on getting certified in February at an Ashram in Kerala.

Going with the Flow of the Ganges

Of the many things we were told about India, one of them was to not expect things to go according to plan. They haven't. Yesterday, we left Navneet and Priya's apartment expecting to catch a night bus to Dharmsala but ended up scratching the Dharmsala/McLeod Ganj idea, due to time constrictions, and instead took a night bus to Haridwar.

The great thing is that when you allow yourself to go with the flow, amazing things occur. In the night bus Jamey sat next to a young man, Prantik, who it turned out was traveling with his two other friends Abhinab and Devandra, to Haridwar and Rishikish. The bus arrived in Haridwar at 4am and we had no plan for our morning and no address for the Ashram we were planning to eventually go to. We ended up spending the morning with the three guys. We went to the river with them for morning prayer, which is when people bathe in the Ganges to purify themselves. They explained to us a lot about the rituals, and showed us to the temples. We ended up spending the entire morning with all three of them, six hours altogether. So far, that morning has been my favorite experience since it was all such a matter of chance that we even met them.

(The picture is, from L o R, Abhinab, Devandra, and Prantik)

I'm currently sitting in a yoga Ashram outside of Haridwar. I wintessed a prayer session this evening and, word has it, that I will probably be woken up for one anytime between 4:00 - 5:00 am. It should all be worth it though, as I spent a good hour lying on the roof looking at the stars from under my blanket, smelling the smoke of the campfire in the distance. For the time being, I can't ask for more.

That is all for now. I've accepted that I don't have the time to report on everything that happens, so I've chosen to keep my posts reletively short.

Off to the Himalayas!

We are leaving for McLeod Ganj, Haridwar, and Rishikish tonight. There is a good chance that we will be out of range of internet, so please don't worry if you do not hear from me much in the next 2 or 3 weeks. Once again, I'll post stories and pics when i get a chance (but don't hold your breath).

I <3 New York (traffic)

As a bicyclist, I've never looked fondly upon New York traffic. After three and a half years of commuting from Brooklyn to Midtown, I would still find myself uncontrollably yelling insults at anyone who wrongs me. Well, I had never ridden in Delhi before. I have a tendency to get the most random songs stuck in my head. Every time I do something crazy, I've started to sing "Ave Maria" except instead of actually singing "Ave Maria" I replace those words with "Holy Be-jesus". Here, let's take a break. Hum the tune of "Ave Maria" but say "holy be-jesus". Kind of fun, right? Right.

Anyways, that song was going through my head during the entire ride. Delhi traffic is crazy. CRAZY. We made it safely to our new Couchsurfing hosts, Navneet and Priya, who live in South Delhi -- but not without lots of nervous laughter and stares from men. At one point, we were riding beside a man who was trailing a refrigerator on his bike.

Surprisingly, cars were reletively nice to us -- as in they yielded to us and didn't try to force us off of the road. So, if any of you Indian drivers are reading this, thank you. Oh, and if you Indian drivers are reading this, please stop staring at me, too.

I will post pictures soon. Until then, check out my flikr site here

First off, I apologize for my lack of posts but I have been more concerned with experiencing Delhi than I have been with writing about Delhi.

The adjustment to India has, thus far, been an easy one thanks in most part to our hosts, Umang and Shiwani whom we found through Couchsurfing.com. We are staying outside of Delhi in a suburb called Gorgaon, which has been referred to as India first upper-middle class neighborhood. In the past 10 years, the area has been developed from largely uninhabited country side and forest to housing communities, shopping malls and office buildings that host numerous US call centers. The area is spread out with lots of open road and the roads are crowded with cars, trucks, cyclists, and animals. As I read in many books before arriving, it is not unusual to find cows in the middle of the road. And while I have only encountered a cow in the middle of the road once, they are found along the side of the road along with a number of stray dogs, pigs, and the occasional donkey.

We are starting to slowly get the hang of the rules of the Indian road. People drive on the left hand side of the road and the main rule to live by is that the biggest car has the right of way. We had not rode our bikes until last night when Umang brought us around the colony and the surrounding area. As we were on small roads with no cars, it was a good way to acclimate ourselves to seeing the area by bicycle and to dealing with stray dogs. Our travel doctor warned us of rabies and since India is crowded with stray dogs, we have been worrying that cycling past dogs may cause them to chase after us. While we were still in the colony, we were confronted with our first two barking strays -- our first reaction was to try and out bike them but Umang slowed down, put out a friendly hand and the dogs immediately became our friends. They ended up running beside us the rest of the night and we acted as their pack, guarding them whenever we bicycled past empty lots guarded by other stray dogs.

Yesterday was the first day that I truely dealt with any type of culture shock. I visited Old Delhi with a new friend I made name Subhashani. We hired a private driver for the day, which cost less than $20 (!) and she showed me around Old Delhi. She was the perfect tour guide, as she is not only a fun free spirit to be around but she has a deep knowledge of Indian history, so she was able to explain everything that we saw. We visited Red Fort, which we reached by metro, since the area was too crowded to reach by car. The metro exit was lined with crippled beggars suffering from polio and the streets were narrow and crowded. It was a 10 minute walk from the metro to red fort. The streets were extremely crowded and narrow, so we spent our time dodging people. As we neared Red Fort itself, people began to hassle us again to buy their goods. This didn't let up until we entered the fort itself. There were two lines for tickets, one for Foreigners and one for Indians. The entry price for Indians was 50 Rupees, while the price for foreigners was 250 Rupees! While in the fort, I was happy to have a break from being constantly bombarded by beggars. That break did not last long -- while no one was pushing me to give them money or to buy their goods, I was not able to escape the constant stare of Indians who had either never or rarely seen a white person. I'd like to think that it's flattering to have people stare at you but it is really annoying after a couple hours of it happening. After getting a bite of street food to try and slowly adjust my stomach to Indian street cuisine, we made our way back to our driver.

The next stop was Lohdi Gardens, which was the perfect end to our crazy day. The gardens were a perfect break from Delhi. With trees, the sound of wild life, and fresh air, it is easy to forget that you are in a busy city. We walked around the gardens, visited some tombs and then set back to our car, which brought us home. All in all, another adventurous day in Delhi.

Stay posted for past and future adventures. As mentioned in my last post, i wrote a lot more on a different computer and shall have it posted shortly, i hope.

All the best,

Bon

India!

Dear All,

I wrote out three days worth of adventures in Delhi, however, my USB stick doesn't fit into the computer I am currently working on, so my travel adventures will still be a little delayed.

All-in-all things are going well. Please stay tuned for updates!

The (almost-one-month) final countdown

Today, I gave in my one month notice of resignation at work. I was kind of really nervous to tell them and the fact that my stomach was still hurting from the barf-fest I had had three days earlier didn't help. This was kind of a big deal since you can't really retract your resignation (right?) and me telling my bosses OBVI signifies that this trip is happening, like fo' realz (save for the fact that I've already bought a one-way flight, bought a bike, bought my gear, am getting my shots, told all my friends I'm leaving...).

Anyways, now that I actually can talk about this trip to my co-workers that means that when they reference future events that I will miss (in both meanings of the word) I can retort with the comeback of all come backs: "I'll be in INDIA [sucka]!".

I guess the whole lesson of this post is that it's fun to be able to talk about your plans with other people (so you can rub it in their face that you're going to India -- jk, kind of...).