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.