The Last Day in the Big Durian

How have 299 days gone by so fast? As I am sitting here typing my last blog in Asia, it is unbelievable how far we have traveled, how much we have seen, how many wonderful people we have met and what an amazing time we've had together. S and I remember when we were 2% done with the trip and now that feels like a lifetime ago. We have really had an amazing adventure together and have grown and learned so much. This afternoon we are having coffee with a college student from Jakarta that we have met through couchsurfing before we head to the airport. At 1AM on day 300, we will board our flight to Beijing where, after a 2 hour layover (enough time to enjoy some vegetable steamed buns), we will catch our 1PM flight to New York. Due to the time change, we will be arriving only an hour and forty minutes after we leave Beijing. Over the last few weeks, S and I have decided to try to play a game- recall every day of our trip. Amazingly, we are pretty easily able to remember many memories from every single day of the trip. I don't think there is any better proof of what an advernture we have been on. We are planning to finish the game on our flight out of Asia. As we close that chapter of our life, we are really looking forward to coming home, even though we will definitely miss Asia.

So excited to see all of you so soon.

Bali

We spent the last week on a secluded beach in Bali. It was extremely relaxing. We've been so exhausted from the trip, that we really needed the 5 straight days of doing absolutely nothing. We read, swam and snorkeled- we didn't even leave the resort once, which is very unlike us. While Bali is very touristy, we stayed in a small village on the eastern coast that is surrounded by mountains which are covered by clouds. We had a very spacious bungalow with an attached balcony that overlooked the ocean. We fell asleep listening to the sound of the waves. The area was beautiful, and we met some other friendly travelers who had also taken a year off to tour the world. They gave us advice about adjusting back to the real world when we return home. We traveled all day yesterday, arriving in Jakarta late last night. We spent the morning sightseeing here. Jakarta is not the most tourist friendly place - it's big and ugly and built for cars, not people, but we still saw some interesting stuff in the old quarter, eating at a Dutch-Indonesian place for lunch. Tomorrow, we are treating ourselves to a night in Jakarta's most luxurious hotel- we apparently have our own butler. We have decided that we deserve it! We are very excited for the amazing buffet breakfast and the option of using its pool, tennis or squash courts.

Pontianak to Yogya

Indonesia

Yogyakarta

Five days ago, we got on a huge ship called the Marisa Nugerra for a 36-hour sea journey to Semarang on the island of Java. The last time we took a long boat ride was in Bangladesh and, while it was very relaxing, the 36-hour journey took 2 days longer than expected, the overpriced food options were limited to potato curry and rice and any crew member aboard the boat wanted "bahsheeh" (tip) before we got off in Dhaka. What made this new boat experience so pleasant is that it actually took an hour less than expected, the deliciously vegetarian food was included and we had a decently spacious private room with A/C, even though it occasionally shut down for a few hours. And no requests for baksheeh.
We spent our first day onland in the not particularly note-worthy city of Semarang before catching a bus to Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of the island. from this point on, we have decided that we can no longer take long bus rides so that has restructured our planning for the rest of the trip.
Architecturally, the city of Yogya is very quaint. The low level homes have clay tile roofs and the narrow alleyways have been fun to explore during the day. Yesterday we visited the kraton, a Javanese palace built in the 9th century, along with the water castle.
This afternoon, we headed to Borobudor, a magnificent Buddhist temple built in the 9th century as well. There were lots of school groups there, each group more excited than the next to take their photos with us. They were very sweet. We had a delicious buffet lunch overloooking rice paddies.
Tomorrow we will visit Prambanon, some Hindu temples often compared to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but we will be the judge of that. We will spend the night climbing up the still active Mount Merapi before catching a flight the next day to Bali.
We have made reservations to stay at a very isolated beach bunglaow in a rural town on the east coast of the island. We hope to be able to use that time to unwind as we get closer to getting back. We are going to take a yet undetermined amount of time to have a real vacation from our very busy, at lightning speed travel over the last 9 months.

Kura Kura Beach

By S:


Hello everyone - today we are back in pontianak. we spent the last week moving up the west coast of borneo and back. To start we had a long, bizarre day-long adventure getting up to sinkawang, which is theoretically only 3 hours away. sinkawang is a basically a small town in a forgotten province of a far outpost of indonesia, so it's really out there. we were back to zero english and tons of staring on the street. there's nothing really to do in the town so we just spent a
day there, before heading south to Tanjung Gundul, which is really just a village of a few hundred people. we were picked up at the road junction to the village by a guy on a motorbike who took us 3km on an unpaved road to beautiful patch of sand and to large wooden huts. here we stayed at kura kura beach, which is a little beach resort run by charlie, a retired, funny scottish guy. he runs the place with help from his local friend widi. the max capacity is only 7 people, and we were the only guests - so we basically had a kilometer long stretch of the most stunning beach
you've ever seen just to ourselves. we stayed for 3 days and got to know charlie and widi pretty well. the house we stayed in was very beautiful and, with windows facing the beach, we watched the sun rise from our bedroom window every morning. the food was incredible- everyday widi made an elaborate, delicious Indonesian meal from scratch, which was even better than the meal before. we each gained about 10 pounds each. we also visited the local school where vickie taught a lesson to some 8-10 year old girls. they were very sweet and were sad that we could not come back to their class the next day. we have some great pictures. we had a great time, and we are learning a lot about indonesian culture and its often
disturbing history.

we returned to pontianak yesterday. tonight we are heading by boat to semarang, which is on java, the country's main island. from there we expect to explore the rest of java before possibly moving on to the islands further east, time permitting.

Kalimantan

By S:

Today we are in Pontianak, Indonesia on the west coast of Borneo. We are currently situated precisely on the equator. Our hotel is literally about 500m south of the actual line. I only just realized today that after all the miles we've done on this trip, this is our first time crossing the equator. It is brutally hot, so we're
switching our schedule to be out from 6am-noon and then stay indoors until dinner. Otherwise we just can't manage it.

We've been totally re-energized by Indonesia. I think we had kind of gotten bored with the rest of SE Asia and were starting to lose some enthusiasm - but Indonesia has changed everything. Almost as soon as we crossed the border we noticed the changes - it's a lot poorer, more crowded and more chaotic. It's almost India-like, but culturally the people aren't nearly as aggressive and in-your-face about everything. People have been very friendly to us so far and we get smiles and hellos from literally everyone we pass. the food is fantastic - it's a shame that this cuisine is so underrepresented in the West, but then again it's heavy on the peanut
sauce and chillies so i might not be an unbiased observer. our plans as of now are to check out some of the longhouses (occupied by headhunters), and the worlds largest flower (diameter over 3 ft and weighs 25 lbs). after that we'll hit the beach for a days before catching a 2 day boat to java. from there, we're not sure.

on Borneo

Malaysia

We have just arrived in East Malaysia. We took a flight to Kuching, the capital of the Sarawak province. It is extremely beautiful here. It is calm and peaceful, unlike anywhere else in Asia. The sky also looks different- the sunsets are beautiful and the weather is warm yet not oppressive. It is very tropical here, with most of the island being a jungle. We have spent the last day walking around the city and tomorrow we are going to an orang utan recovery center to visit our ginger-haired friends. In a few days, we will head over to the Indonesian side of the island.

Singapore Eats

Some of the culinary highlights of Singapore:

Singapore Eats

Short Stop in Singapore

Singapore

Yesterday we arrived in Singapore around 2PM and, after having a drink with a Texan ex-pat named Marlon at the bar beneath our hotel, we headed to Orchard Road, where conspicuous consumption is the name of the game. The 2-km walk is lined with 4-storey mall after 4-storey mall, with movie theaters, food courts, Louis Vuitton and any other name brand designer stores you could think of. The crazy thing was every single mall was packed with people. We were definitely bumping shoulders with the glitterati of Singapore. It was pretty overwhelming, given that we have been wearing the same 3 sets of clothes for the last 9 months, but the Singaporeans are enjoying their new found wealth and they are not afraid to show it in everything they wear.
Today, we walked through Chinatown, which is home to not only Buddhist temples but mosques, Hindu temples and churches. Some of the oldest religious sites in the city are located in this area. We had a wonderful Sichuanese lunch spiced up with plenty of chilies and peppercorns, which made our mouths turn numb. We walked through the business district and picked up some DVDs to watch in our cheap yet huge double room with a DVD player (don't know how we lucked out with that).
Singapore is a very modern and orderly city. While this is not the only police state that we have been to, it is the first one where people seem to follow the rules, being that the consequences are so high. You can get heavy fines for jaywalking, gun chewing, feeding the birds or forgetting to flush the toilet. You get caned for vandalism and the death penalty for trafficking drugs. As a result, Singapore has one of the lowest crime rates in the world and is impeccably clean. I have not yet seen any litter or graffiti and everyone stands on the corner until the little green man tells them they are allowed to walk (like Germany). The latter rule is a little hard getting used to but I don't want the maximum penalty of 3 months in jail. It is the cleanest city I have been to, without a doubt.
We have one more day in Singapore before we fly to Kuching, the capital of East Malaysia.

Malaysian Eats

Food highlights from Malaysia:

Malaysian Eats

KL

We have spent the last two days in the very modern city of Kuala Lumpur. Like the rest of the country, KL is very diverse. The Chinatown and Little India take up substantial chunks of the center of town and we definitely enjoyed eating and walking in those areas on our first day here. We have also been enjoying the Malay's Nasi Kandar, a plate of rice topped with whatever meat or veg dishes you would like. It is quite filling, cheap and really delicious. It is also worth mentioning that almost every dinnner is followed with some durian, which smells bad but but tastes wonderful.
Yesterday, we visited the skyscraper section of town and visited the Petronas Towers, now the largest twin towers in the world. We walked through the extremely modern malls, which are much nicer than any malls in America. We saw the new Tim Burton movie after eating in one of the best food courts either one of us has ever been to.
Along with modernity comes more civilized atmosphere. When you don't want to buy something from a street hawker, they say, "That's fine" and smile. Cars obey traffic rules and are not trying to run you over while you are crossing the street. It's very clean and people are aware of the idea of personal space. KL is a nice city, but it has left me feeling a little bored. After a very over-stimulating 3 months in India, I have come to appreciate a certain degree of chaos, which is somewhat charming and without a doubt exciting once you get the place's rhythm. Yesterday, as our second day of touring this capital city was ending, I jokingly said to S that "I only want to love in a civilized place if our family and friends are there." I was joking but I kind of meant it. That being said, we are very excited to fly to East Malaysia on the 28th. After visiting Melaka and spending a few days in Singapore, we will fly to Kuching, the capital of the province of Sarawak. From there, we very much have an open-ended plan as the weather can make travel pretty unpredictable. We will eventually make our way to Indonesian side of the island and then see where we end up. I think it will be an exciting way to end the trip.

Selamat Datang di Malysia

Welcome to Malaysia!
Family members and friends- we have left Bangkok. Yesterday morning we went back to the hospital to see an ENT specialist about my ear. We checked out of our hotel and brought our bags hoping for good news that we could leave town. After the doctor cleaned out my ear and prescribed new medication, we were in a taxi to the train station to get a train out of Bangkok to Hat Yai, a city on the southern tip of the country. We caught a 3PM train and arrived in Hat Yai at 8AM this morning. We crossed the Malaysian border around noon and arrived in Penang around 2PM. Penang is an island off the northwestern coast of Malaysia that is known for its multiethnicity, thus known as the food capital of Malaysia, and home to well-preserved heritage buildings. We are going to eat at Chinese vegetarian buffet restaurant this evening before we set out to see all the sights tomorrow.

Happy Thai New Year

As my ear pain subsided last night, I decided that I was ready to leave the hotel room for the first time in three days. We decided to go out to dinner and, on our way back from a delicious meal at a street stall, a bucket of cold water was thrown into my right ear. In a fair amount of pain, I rushed back to the hotel room immediately and took some more Aleve. Fortunately, I felt completely fine today and was finally ready to take part in the revelry that is Thai New Year. The tradition during the holiday of Songkran is to arm yourself with a water gun or a water bucket and run around the streets throwing water at people. It is a very festive time and everyone, young and old, is involved. The restaurants and shops have a few employees outside with a huge tub of water bucketing passersby on foot or in a tuk-tuk with H20. If the kids or teenagers get close to you, they will rub white paste on your face, arms, back and neck. It was very fun. We had a great vegetarian meal tonight and are signed up for cooking classes tomorrow morning.

Bangkok

Very Safe in Bangkok

Hello everyone. S and I just wanted to give you a heads up that we are quite safe in Bangkok. As I have come down with an ear infection, we have been hanging out in the hotel, which is far away from where the demonstrations are. We are not going anywhere near the center of town until we leave Bangkok. We will keep you posted on our whereabouts. Love you.

Besides that, not much to report about the city as I have been bedridden and on a course of antibiotics for the last 2 days. Hope to get better soon.

Angkor Wat

The temples of Angkor were just as impressive as we have been led to believe. We hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day who picked up up from our hotel at 5AM. We watched the sun rise over Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious monument. We then spent the next few hours visiting the different temple complexes of Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm, as well as stopping at smaller temples along the way. Angkor Thom's highlight is Bayon- the temple has over 200 serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak. Ta Prohm is amazing to walk through as the complex of temples has been overgrown by trees and plants.
According to recent research, Angkor was the largest pre-industrial city in the world, with the he closest rival being the Mayan city of Tikal in Guatemala, which was between 100 and 150 square kilometers.

Phnom Penh

It is our second day in Cambodia's capitol city and the weather is hot, hot hot. We arrived around noon yesterday, checked into a hotel and headed straight for Psar O Russei, a huge market where we ate from one of the busy food stalls. We had a fifty- cent plate of thin fried noodles with vegetables and then had some Cambodian sweets and dragonfruit for dessert. From there, we headed to the National Museum where we admired over a millenia's worth of Khmer sculpture. The museum was housed in a beautiful early 20th century terracotta building of traditional design. After having a look at the exhibits, we relaxed in the museum's courtyard where we both briefly passed out from heat exhaustion and dehydration. We vowed to always have a large bottle of water with us at all times from then on and then headed to the Royal Palace. The majority of the complex is home of the country's king, which is closed to the public, but we were able to wander around many of the pagodas and stupas. The most impressive of the sights there was the Silver Pagoda, whose floor is covered with 5000 1 kg silver tiles. We had dinner at a really popular local restaurant after a scheming monk at a wat (temple) asked us for money for his personal pursuits.
Today, in an effort to escape the brutal heat, we started our day early, taking a moto-taxi to the Russian market and hit up some more food stalls for breakfast. For an after breakfast snack, we got some durian. We wallked to the Tuol Sleng Museum, a very sad and depressing museum documenting the brutality of the Khmer Rouge during 1975-1979 at the S-21 Prison, which is where the museum is now located. At the museum, there are thousands of photographs of all the prisoners who were tortured and killed there, with all the photos and documents in the rooms where this brutality had taken place. It was very intense and sad how many atrocities like this have already happened in the past and how many like this continue to occur. Don't we ever learn?
We are now back at the hotel escaping the midday heat and will walk around when the temperature starts to cool down this afternoon. We plan to adopt this new strategy of sightseeing as it is going to continue to get hotter as the days pass. Tomorrow we head to Siem Reap and will spend a few days at Angkor Wat.

Now in Cambodia from Phu Quoc

S and I have just arrived in the beach town of Kep in southern Cambodia. We sadly said goodbye to my dad, Heather and Jeremy this morning. We had such a great time traveling with them and are so happy that they came to visit us! We spent the last few days relaxing with them at the beach. Phu Quoc Island is very beautiful, with water that is calm and warm. Two days ago, we celebrated my father's birthday by finding an isolated strip of beach where we looked for crabs, ate lots of fresh fruit and swam without anyone else in sight. Yesterday, Heather, Jeremy, S and I rented motorbikes and rode all over the island. We visited the springs and waterfalls in the north, which were dried up as it has not rained in months then visited Bao Sai beach in the southwest. At first, I was a little nervous on the bike but was really enjoying it by the end.
This morning, we caught a ferry from Phu Quoc to Ha Tien, where we hired motorbike drivers to take us to the border, wait for us to cross and then take us to Kep. We started out the 35 km drive with each of us holding onto the shoulders of our motorbike driver but, once we crossed the border into Cambodia, my driver said he had to go home for an emergency so I hopped onto Steve's driver's bike. Three adults on a motorbike is not particularly comfortable but we arrived safely in Kep around noon. We have just checked into a hotel and are going to go explore the city once it cools down. So far, I have a wonderful feeling about Cambodia. All the border officials were very nice, did not cheat us and were very curious about our itinerary. The landscape along our drive was picturesque, with stretches of farmland as far as the eye could see dotted with small homes with thatched roofs. Kids ran out of their homes to say hello to us as their family's cows grazed in the front yard.
Kep, which was a colonial retreat for the French in the early 20th century, has a nice stretch of beach with lots of Cambodian families picnicking and swimming. This afternoon we will walk along the promenade to the Crab Market and watch the sun set on the beach. Tomorrow morning, we will make our way to Cambodia's capitol city, Phnom Penh.

Mekong Delta

My dad, Heather, Jeremy, S and I have spent the last 3 days exploring the Mekong Delta in the south of Vietnam. After picking Heather and Jeremy up at their hotel in HCMC, we got on a public bus to My Tho, pronounced Me Toe. It was 3 hours, hot, packed and the bus was stopping every 20 minutes to pick up more passengers, who were shoving their cargo between the seats. Once we got in to town, we negotiated with a man at our hotel to take us on a 5 hour boat ride through the delta. My dad, S and I got on a put-put boat and, after having a delicious lunch, visited a coconut candy factory, took a row boat through the delta's narrow canals, and stopped by the coconut monk pagoda- a worshipping shrine for a monk who gave up his wordly possessions and supposedly only ate coconuts for the rest of his life. We watched the sun set and headed back to have dinner with Heather and Jeremy who were jetlagged and having a rest.
The next day we took a car to Can Tho, the most populous city in the Delta. Some highlights of our time there was this funny Aussie named Sean who seemed to pop up every time we sat down for a meal and our massages from blind people, which was quite enjoyable. Without question, the most memorable part of our time in Can Tho was our day-long boat tour with Ms. Ha and Thai-oye, our boat conductor. Ha and Thai-oye took us to visit the floating markets in the delta. Floating markets are boats that sell rice, produce or other goods in the middle of the river. We started our boat trip early so we could see the market at its most lively time. Thai-oye rowed us through the middle of the markets and she and Ha purchased many fruits and snacks for us to try. They also took us to a small rice noodle factory and made Heather and me jewelry from coconut tree fronds.
Tomorrow morning we will catch a ferry to Phu Quoc Island to spend a few days on the beach before my dad, Heather and Jeremy head back to NYC.

Theme Park and Cu Chi Tunnels

We have had a great last two days, although truth be told it is not the same without Izzi and Dave. Trying to recover from our dear friends' departure, we consoled ourselves with a day trip to HCMC's nearby theme park Dai Nam. It was a seriously strange experience. A quarter of the park is a worshipping zone where the park holds Vietnam's largest temple and man-made mountain. You can walk through the "caves" of the mountain where there are many worshipping altars to pray to different dieties. Another quarter has a theme park where you need to pay for each ride, which is totally lame and explained why no Vietnamese people were on any of the rides. For every ride we went on, we were the only 3 people on it. The place was completely desolate and it took 5 minutes to walk from one ride to the next. The park felt very sterile. When we got on the log flume, which was the park's most popular ride because it was so hot, the operators tried to give us raincoats. We laughed at them but wound up being the only fools on the ride who were soaked from head to toe. It was a great way to cool off. We ended the day at their water park, which had 2 huge wave pools. We went in the fresh water pool and cooled off during the hottest part of the day.
Yesterday, S took the day to relax and my dad and I had some bonding time on a day trip to Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi Tunnels. Cao Daoism is practiced by 2 million people in Vietnam and is a mixture of Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism. The temple was quite ornate and we spent the afternoon watching a prayer ceremony at this temple. After lunch, we headed to the Cu Chi Tunnels, bunkers from where Cu Chi guerrillas fought the American and South Vietnamese armies during the war. Our guide showed us different Cu Chi guerrillas' booby traps, holes to hide in (I climbed in it) and we crawled through one of the tunnels, which was awesome. We ended the tour with a nice propaganda film about "evil enemy Americans" disturbing "peaceful and harmonious Cu Chi people". My dad walked out of the film after 30 seconds.
In 30 minutes, we are going to meet Heather and Jeremy at their hotel in town before we set off for the Mekong Delta. So excited to see them!!!

'Nam

Written by S:

My friends from college, Dave and Izzi, joined me in Hanoi on the 16th. We were then joined by Vickie and her father Frank on the 19th. Vietnam so far has been pretty great. The natural scenery here is stunning, and the cities are an elegant fusion of asian and french influences. motorcycles are ubiquitous and the traffic is intense
(though nothing is quite like the traffic in india). vietnam is world famous for its distinctive cuisine, but unfortunately the one big disappointment here has been that the cuisine isn't particularly amenable to vegetarians. on the whole, the food has been disappointing, at least for me. food highlights have been limited to regional fruits like durian and rambutan, both of which i highly recommend if you ever get the chance to try them.

so far we've visited hanoi, ha long bay, hue, hoi an, nha trang and ho chi minh city (aka saigon). hanoi is the political capital of the country, but it still has a smaller town feel to it, and probably the heaviest french influence in terms of architecture. highlights included seeing ho chi minh's preserved body, and the lake in the city that john mccain parachuted into after his plane was shot down. hue
and hoi an are ancient capitols, where the heavy chinese influence is palpable. today these really are small towns, and we were able to bike out to some of the outlying areas to see the rice paddies and beautiful river/mountain scenery. nha trang is the huge beach resort here. we headed to what can only be described as a hippie commune guesthouse about an hour north or city. this had the nicest beach
we've seen in 8 months in asia. totally private and just stunning. saigon is the modern business capitol of the country, and here we can feel the energy, vibrancy and intense pace of economic growth most acutely. today we visited the war remnants museum (formerly named the 'museum of chinese and american war crimes'), where there was a predictably lopsided account of the vietnam war, but it was quite
moving nonetheless.

sadly, dave and izzi left for home early this morning. we had fantastic time together. they proved to be first-rate backpackers, energetic and resilient, and we're thrilled that they were able to make it. moving forward, vickie, frank and i will be heading to the mekong delta region for the next 10 days or so. after that vickie and i will head to cambodia, followed by thailand, malaysia, singapore and
indonesia.

i have a few more notes on vietnam i'd like to share but it's probably
best to save those until after we leave the country.

Back to Asia...

After a very intense week and a half of interviews and demo lessons, my father and I are about to set off for Vietnam this evening. We are meeting Dave, Izzi and S Friday afternoon in Hanoi and will probably head south to Hue that evening or the following. It was great to be back in New York and see my friends and family. Happy to report that this afternoon I have received a few job offers, while the other schools are supposed to be contacting me in the next few days. I feel as though my visit home was very productive and I should have a decision about my job situation this Wednesday. Excited to see my best friend and travel with him again. I have really missed him.

Trinco environs and Old Sights

By S:

From Sigiriya, we headed to Trincomalee, on the east coast. Just a few years ago Trinco was the center of the almost 30 year civil war here, but with the war's recent conclusion, it's now possible to visit. Still, there was a huge military presence around town, with fortified checkpoints every 500m on the road into town. We visited a stunning beach at Nilaveli, huge and with extremely fine white corral sand. The Indian Ocean here is ridiculously warm, and you can stay in the water
for hours. We snorkeled around some nearby corral islands, and saw some tremendous fish.

Next we headed to Anuradhapura, a place of pilgrimage and the heart of Buddhist Sri Lanka. We only had a short time here, but were able to visit a number of the major temples. Yesterday, we returned to Colombo, so Vickie could catch her flight out. I'll spend today and tomorrow here, before flying to Bangkok on the 5th.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has been a wonderful surprise! We arrived on Wednesday afternoon and tried to change our Indian money at the airport. But we had forgotten that it is illegal to take foreign currency out of the country. We were a little stressed but our worries were quickly put at ease when a taxi driver offered to change it for us on the black market. It's silly now to think that we were worried at all. Of course there would be a black market here that was alive and well. We paid our driver in Indian rupees and he took us to the home of the Seneviratnes, parents of S's co-worker, in Kandy. Kandy is the second largest city in the country and it is known as the cultural capital- it was the last city to fall to colonial rule. Kandy is amazingly beautiful and I might go so far as to say the nicest city in Asia- it is really clean, people are really friendly and it is very beautiful as the city is located in a valley surrounded by hills. In the center of the city is a big lake and it is so incredibly peaceful to stroll around.
The Seneviratnes were so kind to welcome us into their home even though they had not previously met either of us. They really made us feel comfortable and really helped us plan out our 8-day whirlwind trip. Daisy cooked delicious food for us that we will never forget. We were so full yesterday after breakfast from the hoppers, jam and multiple curries that we were not even hungry by dinner time.
This morning we headed out early for Dambulla, a town that has amazing temple caves that date back to 2nd Century BC. On our way to the cave temple entrance, we walked past a active monastery and the monks invited us to chat with them. They brought out a large tray of Sri Lankan sweets and bananas and we spent the morning chatting with them. One of the monks randomly asked S if he was a vegetarian and if he was into yoga. After the monk found out he was right, the monks jokingly told S to join them in the monastery and become a monk, but not before they asked me if it was okay. All the while, there were about 10 little monks-in-training standing in the doorway smiling at us and nervously running away when I tried to ask them questions in Sinhala, the official language of the country.
After Dambulla, we took the bus to Sigiriya, which has a 262 m hill that was turned into a palace in the 5th century. We climbed the 1500 steps up to the top, along the way admiring rock paintings of buxom mistresses that were the concubines of the king in the 5th century. We are now about to go enjoy some curry and rice before we head off to bed.

Tamil Nadu

Written by S:

today we are in chennai, and it's our last day here in india. this is a huge, complex, confusing country, and we've covered a lot of ground in the last three months, which is an accomplishment of which to be proud. so far, india has had the best food, many of the best sights, and the craziest people. it's a little sad to be leaving. but on the other hand, this is a totally exhausting place to be a backpacker, and we are ready to move on to more relaxed sri lanka, and then southeast
asia.
since munnar, we've been to madurai, trichy, pondicherry, mamallapuram and now chennai, all in tamil nadu state. tamil nadu is one of the indian states that obstinately refuses to learn hindi, instead preferring tamil, a langauge that has been spoken here uninterruptedly for over 2000 years. apparently they still use the same slang that greek and roman traders heard here thousands of years ago. the
langauge is totally unrelated to the sanscrit-based hindi, which they view here as a form of northern cultural imperialism.

madurai and trichy have two of the largest hindu temples we've seen so far - tall, labyrinthine, and intricately decorated. pondicherry is the former heart of french india, today possessing a bizarre mix of french and indian culture. parts of the town look like you are in mediterranean france, or even martinique. french is still widely spoken here, and it can be somewhat surreal to see traditionally dressed indians jabbering back and forth to each other in perfect french.

mamallapuram is seaside temple town, that's kind of been overrun by backpackers. and today we are just relaxing in chennai, mentally preparing to leave to country. we will be in sri lanka for a week, then i will head to southeast asia while vickie heads home to interview for jobs.

Kerala

Written by S:

In Mysore we saw the famous Mysore Palace. At this point we've seen more of these things than I can count, so they are starting to blend together, but this one, like the others, is a massive monument to luxury, ostentation and waste. The ubiquity of these sorts of palaces in a country where poverty and serious deprivation are so widespread is pretty disturbing and i'm starting to suspect they aren't unrelated. Every time I see one I start thinking about what would have happened had all of these man-hours and physical resources gone into building factories or anything at all productive, then maybe this country wouldn't be in state it is today.

We spent three days in Kochin, which is starting to gain a reputation on the ground as being a little too touristy. I loved it though. As we've found in other places, if you make the extra effort, like avoid the guidebook and walk 10 minutes out of the tourist center, you find totally normal indian life going on all around you. Kerala itself is stunning. All palm trees and lush tropical scenery. We did a daylong
tour of the extensive backwaters there, and I fell in love with the place. It's the most picture perfect tropical scenery you've ever imagined.

We also spent a day at the beach about an hour north of the city. This was our first beach excursion since korea. The beach was beautiful, and we enjoyed the sunset into the arabian sea over dinner. the swimming didn't go exactly as planned though. In case you weren't aware, Indians are extremely, extremely conservative about women's
dress, and the idea of seeing a woman in a bikini is something that is totally foreign and particularly exciting to the young men. Aware of this, we made a serious effort to find an empty spot on the beach so vickie could swim. but on the way we encountered twenty different guys inviting us to go swimming with them. after 30 minutes of walking and 10 minutes of waiting to be sure the coast was clear, we finally thought it was safe. but sure enough, within 30 seconds of vickie
getting into the water, one of the guys we had met 20 minutes ago, having clearly followed us, materialized out of the bushes and began immediately stripping down to his bathing suit. we beat an immediate retreat off the beach, and at least the guy was a little embarrassed, but gender relations still have a long way to go here.

Karnataka

S and I have spent the last week exploring the state of Karnataka. From Hyderabad, we took a public overnight bus to Hampi, which is the site of some the most impressive Hindu ruins in the country. The town and ruins are located in a bizarre volcanic boulder landscape which gives the area a surrealistic feeling. We rented bikes today and toured the site, which is a vast capitol of a former southern empire that was completely abandoned hundreds of years ago. Ruined temples, palaces and old bazaars dot the 27 km landscape. As there are so many ruins covering such a large area, it was exciting to stumble upon an interesting ruin that we had not expected. We obviously only made a small dent in terms of what we were able to see in two days but it was full of delightful surprises. We decided to upgrade to a sleeper bus for our overnight journey to Bangalore. On sleeper buses, the bottom row has reclining chairs and the upper rows have double and single beds. S and I thought we were traveling in luxury and were very much looking forward to a good night's sleep but the bumpy road had us bouncing up and down all night long on our sleeper beds. We spent much of the next morning catching up on sleep in our hotel. Banagalore is the booming IT center of India and is also known as the City of Gardens. The gardens were quite beautiful and the city overall was clean by developed world standards and we enjoyed visiting old palaces ruled by the Wodeyars and the active temples in the area.
Yesterday we took a short bus (3 and a half hours) to Mysore, a city also ruled by the Wodeyars from the 16th century. In Mysore, however, the palaces left by the ruling family are much more ornate and bigger. After exploring the palace this afternoon, we will take our last overnight bus (yay to no more long buses or trains in India!!!) to Cochin in the stare of Kerala. Only 13 more days left in India- time has flown by so fast.

Visiting old friends in Hyderabad

We just had an amazing time with fellow Williams alumna Elizabeth Sewell '06 in Hyderabad and Kalleda, located in the state of Andra Pradesh. She has moved there to volunteer for an NGO and run a youth empowerment program at a rural school in the village of Kalleda. She picked us up on the crazy streets of the capital city Hyderabad and as her host had a business meeting over dinner, he invited all of us to come along and have an amazing meal on his partner's dime. It was great to catch up with Elizabeth and the next day we got on a 6AM train to her village. Kalleda is a small rural town in the district of Warangal where the majority of the residents are farmers. We were greeted by the neatly uniformed school children as we entered the school being run by the NGO Elizabeth is working for. The school is highly focused on spurring student creativity and creating a culture of ownership in the school and education. Walking through the halls I was very impressed with the culture created within the school and how eager teachers were to get feedback from us. We had a great dinner with Elizabeth's boss in the evening and I truly enjoyed listening to this spirited woman's vision for the school in Kalleda. This afternoon Elizabeth gave us a tour of Waranagal where we visited some beautiful temples and old fort ruins.
It was great to catch up with her and we look forward to when our paths will cross again.

The Taj Mahal

We are now in Agra, home to the Taj Mahal. In the last few days we have seen some of the most impressive sights of the trip. The Mughals, who invaded India in the 16th century, left amazingly impressive momuments in this region. Yesterday we visited the Fatehpur Sikri, a sandstone palace and mosque built in the 16th century as the 3rd Mughal ruler Akbar ruled from that area. We then ate lunch at our hotel, which had spectacular views of the Taj Mahal before heading to Agra Fort. In the early 16th century, Mughals captured this originally Rajput (Rajasthani warrior rulers) fort and built over it with red sandstone, enclosing this city capital with a 2.5 km long wall. It was here that Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal and 5th ruler of the Mughals, was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb, who also killed his two older brothers in order to take control of the throne.
In the evening, we watched the sun set at the Taj Mahal along with thousands of other tourists. The Taj Mahal is an amazing structure and it has been carefully maintained over the last 400 years. Built from white marble and inlaid with precious and semi-precious stones, this gigantic monument to love appears to float in the sky. In 1631 Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a tomb for his 3rd wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died during the birth of their fourteenth child. To show his deep love for his favorite wife, he built this marble mausoleum to honor her. Shah Jahan said that "Should guilty seek asylum here, like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin. Should a sinner make his way to this mansion, all his past sins are to be washed away. The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs; and the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes. In this world this edifice has been made; to display thereby the creator's glory."
This morning we returned to the Taj Mahal at sun rise when it looked the most beautiful. Being only a a handful of tourists willing to get up so early, we had the whole Mahal to ourselves. After a visit to Akbar's tomb in the afternoon, we had a tearful goodbye with Andy and Leslie. Their visit has without a doubt been the best highlight of our trip so far and we were so happy to create amazing memories with them. We will definitely miss them and hope they have safe travels. As they drive off to Delhi to catch a plane to New York, we are getting on a 24-hour train to Hyderabad in the state of Andra Pradesh.

Delhi and Udaipur

We are so unbelievably happy that Andy and Leslie have flown from NYC to spend 10 days with us here in India. Until the day we met them, India had been really cold and we often slept in several layers of clothing and blankets at night. From the day they arrived, we have been blessed with amazing weather. The sun is shining, the evenings are cool and, with the exception of Delhi (severe pollution problems), the sky has been bright blue. We met them at our hotel the afternoon after they arrived and spent the time catching up before we went to dinner at Connaught Place. Connaught Place is a very modern shopping area that surrounds peaceful gardens in New Delhi. The traffic was pretty brutal, which made it very difficult to cross the street- quite a welcome to India for Andy and Leslie. The masses of cars and the endless honking was certainly an overload of the senses but we all braved the traffic and made it to a restaurant that served delicious and unlimited Gujarati thalis.
The following day, we had a packed schedule of sightseeing in Delhi. We drove through New Delhi, passing many embassy buildings, the High Court, the president's house and headed towards Chandni Chowk, a section of Old Delhi full of narrow pathways, shopkeepers, cows and monkeys wandering/climbing freely and barbers giving cheap shaves on the corners. We took a cycle-rickshaw through this neighborhood, taking in all the sights before heading to Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque. This mosque can hold up to 25,000 people and Leslie and I looked quite festive in the neon colored polka-dotted smocks that the guards had us wear inside.
From there, we passed the memorials of Gandhi and Nehru and the Red Fort, which were all closed to the public as it was a few days before India's national holiday. We then went to Humayun's tomb. Humayun was the second Mughal ruler in India and this magnificent complex of marble and sandstone buildings and gardens was built by Humayun's wife at the middle of the 16th century. Our last stop was Qutab Minar, a Muslim tower that is 72.5 metres high, making it the tallest minaret in the world. Built in the late 12th century, this tower is surrounded by a nice park and ruins of Jain and Hindu temples that predated it. We ended the evening with a delicious dinner.
We have spent the last three days in Udaipur, the City of Lakes. Udaipur is known as the Venice of the East and, having been to another "Venice of the East" in Suzhou, China, this one definitely takes the cake. The city has 5 lakes and Lake Pichola is the largest one, with many of the city sights around this area. We took a private boat tour and stopped by two palaces built in the middle of the lake in the 16th century. We had relaxing afternoons at our incredibly beautiful hotel Oberoi Udaivilas after mornings spent visiting royal gardens, the City Palace, a crystal gallery collection and some old yet still active temples. We took a cooking lesson one afternoon and also had a yoga session on the balcony of a small palace located within our hotel. Throughout the whole trip, we have continued to pinch ourselves that we are with Andy and Leslie in India. We ate great Indian food every meal, tried some delicious Indian wines and spent the evenings watching the sun set on Lake Pichola or enjoying cocktails on our balconies. We are so excited for the days to come. Tomorrow, we will head to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan before driving to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.

Narinder Singh in Chandigarh

Chandigarh and Amritsar

Contributions by S:
We spent the last two days in Chandigarh, the capital of both Punjab and Haryana. After Indian independence, Punjab lost half its land to Pakistan and its capital city Lahore. Prime Minister Nehru, along with other Punjab and Haryana leaders, decided that the new capital city for these two states would be a symbol for independent India. They hired a group of world famous architects Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Matthew Nowicki, and Albert Mayer to design India's first planned city. Le Corbusier, the main architect, had a very clear vision for this garden city:

The city plan is laid down in a grid pattern. The whole city has been divided into rectangular patterns, forming identical looking sectors, each sector measures 800 m x 1200 m. The sectors were to act as self-sufficient neighbourhoods, each with its own market, places of worship, schools and colleges - all within 10 minutes walking distance from within the sector. The original two phases of the plan delineated sectors from 1 to 47, with the exception of 13 (Number 13 is considered unlucky). The Assembly, the secretariat and the high court, all located in Sector - 1 are the three monumental buildings designed by Le Corbusier in which he showcased his architectural genius to the maximum. The city was to be surrounded by a 16 kilometer wide greenbelt that was to ensure that no development could take place in the immediate vicinity of the town, thus checking suburbs and urban sprawl; hence is famous for its greenness too. (Wikipedia)

On the morning of our second day of exploring, we met a friendly 73 year old Sikh man named Narinder Singh. Retired for the last 15 years after working in various government offices in Chandigarh, he has made it his hobby to show tourists around the city. He prides himself on being able to take you to restaurants where the food is delicious and cheap as well as places not open to the general public. He gave us a private tour of Nek Chand's Fantasy Rock Garden which is a 25 acre garden full of sculptures made from waste and trash collected in the months after Indian independence when millions of Indians moved from Chandiagarh to Pakistan. He also took us to meet the city's Minister of Health and took us to the gov't Publicity Office where he cut out several photos of himself in the newspapers that the employees had saved for him. He welcomed us into the Sikh Cultural Center where his friends arranged for us to stay at a guest room in Amritsar's Golden Temple, Sikhism's holiest temple. He was a really friendly man who practiced Hindi with us and encouraged us to speak it to strangers on the street. He carried around a canvas bag full of pamphlets and newspapers, which he collected more and more of throughout the day. His gold mine was at the publicity office where he looked through all of the packed shelves and took one copy of each of the pamphlets they had. He also had a bag of small gifts to give to foreigners that he stopped to talk to on the street. After he presented them with either a pamphlet, flower or a garland (S and I got all 3), he asked for a photo to be taken to remember the experience. He was very kind and continuously called me his granddaughter the whole day. Day after day, we are just constantly amazed by the generosity of the hundreds of incredibly friendly people we have met along the way.
We are now in Amritsar, the holiest city for the Sikh religion. There is the spectacular Golden Temple here.
In 2 days, we will head to Delhi and meet Andy and Leslie for an exciting adventure around N. India with them for a week. Can't wait!!!

The Forts of Rajasthan

Since Ahmedabad, we have visited Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, two cities with tremendous forts and palaces sitting atop hills. Jodhpur is home to Meharangah Fort, built in the early 19th century by Maharaja Man Singh. It is surrounded by the blue city, thousands of small houses painted indigo-blue to indicate the homes of those of the Brahmin caste.

From there, we took a very noisy overnight train to Jaisalmer, a 12th century sandstone fort and palace. Due to excessive water use by the hotels, restaurants and residents, the desert Fort is slowly beginning to collapse. It is the oldest living fort in the world and there are many restoration groups working to fix the plumbing and overdevelopment problems in order to keep the fort in its original place- atop the hill. Yesterday evening, we packed into a jeep with 7 other Indian tourists to Sam Sand Dunes Park, a pretty isolated area of the Thar desert where we rode camels to the highest point of the dunes and watched the sun set. While I thought the camel ride through the desert was romantic, S found it to be unbearably uncomfortable.
We are in the most touristed state in India - Rajasthan. While is easy to understand why so many tourists come to Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, it does dramatically increase the hassle-factor and we have started telling all the touts that we hate shopping. They are usually stymied by this and leave us alone. Despite the overwhelming amount of tourist infrastructure, we have successfully been able to explore less visited parts of these areas, which has been very rewarding. While exploring some gardens in Jodhpur, we met two Nepali brothers who own one of the millions of tourist handicrafts shops in Thamel, Kathmandu. We shared chai with them while the older brother recounted to us how he met his wife through her accidentally dialing him as a wrong number.

Traveling through the desert has been extremely cold. We have been wearing our thermal underwear and wool socks everyday! Tonight we head to Bikaner where a 16th century fort and camel rides through the desert are the primary tourist attractions. I think we will be skipping out on the camel trek, given S's 45 minutes of pain last time.

Rajasthan- Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Bikaner

Ahmedabad

We have spent the last two days exploring the largest city in the state of Gujarat, Ahmedabad. It is where Gandhi lived from 1915-1930 and from where he began the long struggle for Indian independence. We visited his ashram yesterday and saw several exhibits on his life and his simple living quarters that he shared with his wife Kasturba. We also had a great Gujarati thali yesterday for lunch- they are lighter and sweeter than your traditional Punbjabi thali.
We are coincidentally in town for the international kite festival. In the spirit, kids all over the city are flying their paper kites in the sky. We stopped by the event and, after a great pav bajie (grilled bread with spicy vegetables), watched as kitists from all over the world flew their huge colorful kites. While there is not too much to see outside of the ashram, we have met many nice people (this place does not get a lot of tourists), been invited to several homes and saw our second Bollywood movie. The great thing about these movies is that even though we can only understand about 5% of Hindi, the plots are so visual and unsubtle that we understand 100% of the story. We especially like the 3-4 music and dance numbers interspersed throughout the story- very entertaining!
We today will take a night train to Jodhpur after we have dinner at Ahmedabad's best restaurant- it's in a 1920's mansion and the menu changes daily!!!

Ahmedabad

Bhopal to Mumbai

Mumbai

Today is day 164 of our trip and the last five days have been full of adventures and thought- provoking experiences: having lunch at a family's home, visiting Mumbai's biggest slum and being extras in a Bollywood TV show!!!

Before getting on a 4 hour-delayed train to Mumbai Monday night, we had lunch at the home of Raj Kumar, a very kind man whose family we met in Sanchi the previous day. We took a rickshaw out to their home and spent a few hours talking with them and getting to know each other better. Raj's daughter Umika and nephew Manish were both wonderful and, as they were both visiting their family in Bhopal, invited us to visit them in their respective homes if we visit their cities. Raj's wife Sima cooked a delicious Sindhi meal consisting of a vegetable stew/curry and Umika showed us how to make chai- India's most popular drink. They were so welcoming and generous and we hope to be able to visit Manish and Umika if time permits.

On Wednesday, we spent the morning on a tour of the Dharavi slum, Asia's second largest slum after Karachi in Pakistan. The slum covers about 1.7 sq. kilometers of land and is home to over one million residents. The organization that runs the tour uses 80% of its proceeds to run a kindergarten and job-training/personality development courses for adults. We visited several of the factories in Dharavi- plastic recycling,cloth dying, oil and paint can recycling, and clay pottery. We also visited some residents' homes. On average, there are 4-8 members living in a home and 43% of families have 10 sq. m of space in which to cook, eat and sleep. We visited an elementary school where the teacher was in the middle of a math lesson, which was quite exciting. When the students in the class found out I was a math teacher, they all wanted to show me their workbooks and what they had completed. This evening, I purchased a book about Dharavi and hope to learn more about the community that lives there.

It was on the same day of the tour that we met a really interesting and engaging couple Amy and Jeff. We met them for dinner at one of Mumbai's top restaurants that evening and had a fantastic time with them. We enjoyed sharing our travel experiences and hope to see them some time in the future!

Yesterday morning, shortly after I woke up, the hotel manager told us that a casting agent was looking for Western people to be extras in the Bollywood TV show Powder. I was on board right away and, after some serious thought, S decided to do it too. The casting agent picked us up at our hotel at 6PM where we took a hour and a half 10 km drive through some of Mumbai's worst traffic. While the first few hours we mostly just sat around the set with the other extras, we started filming around 10:30 PM. It was a two minute clip with the main character leaving a train station, bargaining with a taxi driver and then, after talking to a self-centered young motorcyclist, getting on the back of his motorcycle and driving off. S and I, hard to believe, were playing foreigners who just got off the train and were getting on a tour bus. They did about 8-10 takes from 5 different angles which lasted until 3AM. We were provided dinner, chai to keep us alert and 500 rupees (10 US dollars) for our work. It was a long night with lots of waiting around but it was certainly worthwhile!
We have really enjoyed our time in Mumbai- it is a beautiful city with lots of life and character. Definitely my favorite city so far. We catch a train to Ahmedabad tomorrow afteroon.

Ancient Ruins in Madya Pradesh

Khajuraho, Orchha, Bhopal and Sanchi

We have been spending this week exploring ancient Hindu, Islamic and Buddhist ruins throughout the state of Madya Pradesh. We began in Khajuraho, whose 11th century Hindu are adorned with elaborate erotic carvings. We spent yesterday, New Years Eve, in Orchha, a small town of 8,500 people that has really impressive 17th century Islamic palaces and temples. We spent a few hours wandering around Jehangir Mahal and Raj Mahal, whose enormity and architectural detailing certainly holds one's eye. We climbed up the narrow staircases of each one admiring the projecting windows, domes and towers on each of the 4 floors. From the top, as far as the eye could see, we saw smaller temples and ruins dotting the landscape along the nearby Betwa river.
We spent our New Years Eve at a rooftop dinner-dance party at the Sheeh Mahal Hotel, which had amazing views as it was located between the Jehangir and Raj Mahal. A classical music performance with a dramatic transvestite dancer preceded a delicious Indian buffet. We ate dinner next to an '07 Wesleyan couple who have been cycling around the world for the last year and a half. Such a small world!
We have just arrived in Bhopal, in central Madya Pradesh. Tomorrow we will explore more Islamic ruins in the area and hopefully head to Sanchi the following day to see ancient Buddhist temples. We have been having a hard time getting train tickets as this is one of busiest travel times so our plans are subject to change. We'll find out tomorrow morning at the train station.
Happy New Year to everyone!!!