Diu

Diu..pronounced like the French word, meaning God. And for us, it has been a god send. Lying down on the sandy beach, with the sun beating down and a slight breeze with the ocean waves lapping near by has been the best relaxent (I don't think that's a word, but you know what I mean;) I think I know why meditation and yoga have come out of India...all you need to do is step into one of their busy cities and you'll understand the importance of meditation;) We actually went to a free yoga class one morning and it wasn't all that bad...not too much a fan of the spiritual aspect of it, but it was nice to do some stretching and relaxation things. In Jodhpur, we went to return some train tickets and spent nearly an hour and half in a "que" similar to those in Iran...so really just a mashpit in front of the window with everyone squished together pushing to get to the window first. Apparently there was some "order" to the "line" as they alternated between old men and women, but this was rather crude. After finally getting to the window, we discovered we had not filled out one section of the paper, and had to leave the line. Rather pissed (they had let an Indian man stand and fill it out, rather than lose his spot in line) we went near the front and as soon as the next person left, I sneaked my hand over the short Indian lady in front of me and threw my papers into the window saying politely "excuse me but are these correctly filled out now?" to which we were helped almost immediately. Ali was rather amused at my resourcefulness and the Indians around us were quite amused I think at my sneakiness, although they never complained a bit and seemed to think it was quite normal. If I hadn't been soo frustrated, I would have waited docilely another hour in the line. Anyhoo, back to the relaxing city of Diu. Our time has been spent waking up, taking a few hour breakfast with "cold coffee" (delish;) and talking to other travelers, then heading to the beach after a short walk into town and lying on the beach for the afternoon reading and swimming, then heading back to shower and grab dinner then spend the night by the fire talking to other travelers. There is a siesta "hour" here which really lasts from about 1-6 pm in reality. The restaurants don't even start serving dinner until 7 pm here. Many travellers get stuck here for awhile, and it is easy to see why. We've met some really cool people with amazing stories to tell. One, a Canadian, told us about how in Jaipur he got drugged by some food and woke up a day later in his hotel room with his money stolen and a gash on his head. Apparently he was found lying outside some hotel and they found his key and brought him back to his room...pretty scary. And there was a British couple he had met who had taken a rickshaw down from a fort on a hill...along the way they discovered the driver was high and ended up driving off the cliff...the driver is still in a coma, and the guy had broken his arm! we've been pretty lucky thus far...losing some money isn't anywhere near as bad as getting hurt. Last night we had an awesome conversation around the fire talking about travelling and other countries....we had all sorts of insights what from Britain, Canada, France, Denmark and Australia...the Aussie told us about when he went to Papua New Guinea...apparently it is like a fourth world country there, where they eat other people (mad cow disease is prevalent in people), AIDS is high...fastest growing in the world, and the tribes are constantly fighting each other. Some medical friends of his were trying to teach them to use condoms, and were demonstrating on broom handles. 3 years later, they went back to see how things were going and were shocked to find all the women on the island sweeping their houses with brooms with handles topped with condoms! and the men were also very resourceful, discovering that condoms are great for using as tackle for fishing! haha...well, really there is a much greater problem there than safe sex. I mean, really, teaching people to use condoms before they rape and pillage another tribe is rather irrelevant. It's hard to believe what a sheltered life we live back home...but also nice in a way to have such a great safe haven. Our problems are really very miniscule in comparison with some places in the world. Also met this amazing old German postman. He retired at age 53 and has been travelling the world ever since...he's been to India 11 times already. He has really inspired me to go to South America, and the Sputch couple to learn Spanish...so maybe that's what I'll be doing soon. It sounds like such an amazing continent. He went to the island just south of S. America and said it was very wild and untouched. mmm, beautiful countryside with small villages is so much more enjoyable compared to man made mashpits of congestion...hehe, no I'm really not that negative about India, although I think it comes out that I am much more than in reality. It's just that there are so many incredible things that happen here; I guess that's why they say Incredible India...Ali's motto is "impossible India" though, which is also true. Anyhoo, I realized today that I will actually be sad to leave a little...I have finally adapted and started to truly enjoy it, and it is so unlike any place I have been before...perhaps I'll come back during medical school. Sorry for the random babbling, there's just so many different things going on and my brain hasn't quite wrapped around them all yet and they just come pouring out;)

another tidbit about driving here....our driver told us that to drive in India, it is absolutely necessary to have 3 things: good brakes, a horn, and luck. so true. they use the horn incessantly, which is a huge form of noise pollution. you could be walking on the edge of a huge street with no one on it and a motorcycle will come by on the opposite side and honk the horn for 10 seconds while they pass you. I mean really, their use of the horn is absurd and overexcessive! but I have seen some instances where it is very beneficial.

Anyways...onto the really important stuff;)

Street food. man will I miss it. In Jodhpur we ran across a street vendor that took us into his little shop and we sat on little plastic stools as he gave us samples of everything he makes...potato chat (something like a potato cutlet with a bean curry and yoghurt, onions, tomatoes and spices added on top), veggie pakoda, spinach pakoda (fried spinach again with yoghurt and spicy sauces), pani puri (a crunchy empty ball filled with a spicy/sweet liquid...it fills-explodes rather-your mouth with this intense taste...some like it, I felt like puking, but then again, my small mouth can't handle overexpansion;), some yummy chai, and another sweet fried cheeseball with the yoghurt and spicy sauces on top..very interesting although can't say I'll miss the latter two too much. and then there are yummy samosas, and fried peppers with curried potato mix, and all sorts of sweets....ahhh, yes, they will be sorely missed. before coming to India, I was in love with curries...and now, I can't say it's my favorite Indian food. I think I've had my fill of them, although the homemade ones are soo much more tasty than in restaurants. The streetfood however, is to die for. There seem to be many good places to eat in Bombay (where we are headed next, after our 22 hour nonstop bus ride, starting tomorrow morning), and I'm getting excited. Apparently there is a large population of Parsis there (Persian Zoroastrians that left when the Arabs invaded) and they are supposed to have many good restaurants, so I'm excited to try them. I was excitedly talking about Bombay the other night, and Ali was like "but it's a lot farther south and it will be soo hot down there" to which I immediately replied "yeah, but we'll be eating the entire time anyways [in ac restaurants]"...she burst out laughing. For two food lovers, we've been known by the other tourists to be on the gourmet travelling trip across India. not too shabby of a reputation by any means;) Anyhoo, off to the beach now. we're trying to rent a moped to travel around the island...only $2 a day! so let's hope we survive safely;)

Udaipur

We spent an awesome couple of days in Udaipur, a chill town in southern Rajastan province. It was a nice break from the busy, intense cities. It is also known as the city of lakes, as it has a few...but due to the lack of much rain in the past few monsoon seasons, they were just a couple of smelly, dirty ponds...still nice to look at however. Went and saw the sunset from a palace up on a big hill, then checked out a palace and haveli. We met up with the Sputch and Argentinian couples again and had a blast....we all signed up for a cooking course together and learned how to make 3 Indian dishes, along with rice, chapati, parantha, and a yummy desert (golab jamun). It was by far the best Indian food I have ever eaten...so many flavors, and so fresh and not so greasy...you could actually taste the individual spices and vegetables as well as nuts. We were all in heaven except for the Argentinian girl who complained the whole time about it being too spicy (apparently she does this every meal). It was a great experience and really good to have a home-cooked meal finally. I think that in the past 3 weeks, I have only had meat twice...and honestly, there are soo many yummy veggy dishes here, that I don't really miss it. People are much friendlier now and helpful...and when you say no to something, they usually listen on the first attempt, rather than following us around for 5 minutes. Took the sleeper bus to Diu last night, which was soo much better than the train. It was warm and we had our own little cubby hole to lie down in. Diu is an island off the coast of Gujarat province and so far, so good. Ali's got a bit of an upset stomach now, but hopefully we can rent bikes and bike around the island. They are also supposed to have some nice beaches, so it'll be good to relax the next few days. Tonight our hostel has a barbeque with fresh fish, so it should be fun. We are staying in an old church that has been converted to a hostel...Diu apparently was a Portugese colony so the church was from then I believe. Anyhoo, hope you are all doing well and not freezing too much (it's probably in the 80-90s here...and it's only February!)

Reflections thus far...

So things are going much better over here...morale is high;) I think the golden triangle of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur should really be the devil's triangle; the rest of India is so much more pleasant. They are just noisy, polluted cities full of people trying to get as much money from you as possible and they are very good at lying....make you feel like they are genuinely good people trying to help you, until you realize that their uniform is crap, their map false, their cards fake, their government position fake, and every word they uttered completely false. One even went so far as to say there are no buses in Rajastan! Anyhoo, we have come to the realization (along with every other backpacker that we have met...the old folks going on secluded tours dont count as they are in a perfect bliss since they never really interact with an Indians) that every Indian that approaches you is to be assumed to be lying and untrustworthy...and sadly, this has worked wonders to protect us. It is rather unfortunate that it has to be this way, but we've let our guard down many times, and every time we are trampled and used again. I've found the best way to deal is to have a smile on my face and joke around the whole time...things are much more enjoyable for everyone that way.

So some interesting things I've noticed:
sunday/monday is used by shopkeepers to refer to a reversible clothes item
"no hurry no worry, no chicken no curry" is a common saying, along with "anything is possible in India" which is totally true, I might add
men pee constantly on the side of the streets, which contributes to the ever present smell of urine...they even have little "urinals" on the sides of streets which are just protected by a little wall, but you can see everything inside...most don't bother to use them though and simply go wherever they feel the urge...which is intrigueing to me, as it seems that in some regards they have a very conservative culture...but maybe these are just people from the lower classes?

Anyhoo, we've met some wonderful people...a spanish/dutch couple and argentinian couple, whom we've been seeing over the past week and having a blast with. Tonight we have a cooking course together, so it should be fun. The "sputch" couple are medical students and lots of fun to be around...very calm and level headed. the argentinians however, are a hoot...the guy is very calm and laid back, whereas the girl is "just crazy" as the spanish guy says. they were all on the night train with us, except they were in a more expensive cabin...the argentinian girl saw a rat, and got mad when the spanish guy told her it was a just a small mouse...then she went up to her top bunk and saw her pillow and wall infested with cock roaches...apparently at this point she flipped out, and screaming, ran out of the train. her bf rand after her and they ended up hiring a car to the next town;) haha, we had some good laughs about that. apparently the dutch girl simply took out her contacts and went to bed pretending she couldn't see anything...very brave if you aske me;) we had some crackers and bananas for breakfast in a plastic bag which I had placed on the bunk by my head on the train...in the morning we discovered the crackers partly eaten (and plastic wrapper too) as well as parts of the bannanas;) the animals in this country are very well off;) this morning we saw cows on the street with chapatis, and the bus driver through out bread for monkeys on the side of the road as we went. not a bad place to be if you're an animal.

anyhoo, it has taking much longer than usual to adjust, but I think we have finally managed. It's nice to talk to other experienced travellers and realize that we are all in the same boat. At least it seems that now we are finally outsmarting the others and taking better care to protect ourselves, and our money:) anyways...off to cooking some yummy Indian food now!

Jaisalmer

Today was India at its greatest. It was by far our most amazing day yet. We met soo many kind people, laughed very hard, and had some delicious food. what more could you possibly want? First of all, let me just sat that Indian shopkeepers tell you things are reversible, but they just don't simply say reversible, they say "look madam, this skirt, sunday/monday" and then they flip it around. tres cute. We met a little girl who was selling bracelets (of which we had just bought a bunch) and she tried to have us get more. We joked around and tried to sell ours to her. At first she started out at 10 bracelets, 100 rupees, and then went up to 3000 rupees;) it was so cute and we were all laughing a lot. then she helped us put the bracelets on, and many Indian families stopped and came up to us laughing and saying that they weren't bracelets but were anklets. We walked around town some more and some women passed us laughing hysterically. They tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to our "bracelets" and laughed. It was cute. Then we met a really nice shop keeper who was super nice and ended up just giving us cute little coin purses for free. Then we met a group of kids who wanted to take their picture with us....they asked if we were married and then shook our hands (the guys anyways). Their little brother who was probably around 5 then got really excited and shook my hand (trying to marry me;) and then ran off all very shyly. It was funny. They were quite crazy kids. We went into a shop and became friends with Nana (aka brad pitt;) who was an awesome guy. He practically showed us everything in the store and when it came time to bargain, he whipped out his calculator...I was like no no no, put that away. We'll play a game like "who wants to be a millionaire"...you can use your calculator once, your phone once, and your friend once, but otherwise you have to use your head for the price. He was a little worried about this and kept trying to go for the calculator...it was very fun and we eventually ended up getting the stuff...these people are crazy bargainers and are very serious...at one point they really seemed to get pissed at us for offering a price that they thought was too low...whatever, they wanted over a $100 for a few scarves and shirts! and then on our way back to the hotel, we met an awesome family...the kids were outside playing badminton and we stopped and had chai in their house and talked for over an hour...they soon discovered my camera and were having a blast taking photos and dressing Ali and I up...it was a lot of fun. One man from delhi stopped by and started talking to me about Hinduism and the medical problems in Rajasthan (he found out about my wanting to be a doctor) and was telling me about the problems caused by fluoride in the water. all in all it was a wonderful day and we met so many kind people that our impression of India has drastically improved...I mean, I knew all along that the tourist people were probably not good representations of Indians, but there were soo many of them and they were such good liars and cheats that it was very difficult to keep a positive head about it.

anyhoo, Jaisalmer has been awesome. It's a smaller town (population about 60000) in the desert...we spent yesterday out in the desert and Ali went for a camel ride in the sand dunes. We went with a spanish couple who we've been with the past few days and a couple of Aussie sisters and we all had a blast. We've gotten hooked on an Indian show called "dance India dance" which is basically like american idol but for dancing. It's pretty fun to watch them dance. There was a guy on the other night who had gimp legs..no problem, he stuck them behind his head and dance on his hands! it was amazing and he was actually really really good. We went to a Bollywood film...saw Rab nivada di jodi....pretty cool movie and didn't need to know Hindi to understand it;) the clothes and dances were amazing. and best of all, we've eaten some really good Indian food finally:) stopped taking the advice of Indians and went by the guidebooks;)

we're off tonight on the night train to Jodhpur. hopefully it's not as exciting as the last one. it was freezing cold. there was this guy that was the most amazing (and annoying) snorer ever and kept me up most of the night. I finally fell asleep in the early morning only to be woken up early by somone sitting on my feet on my bed...this had happened a few times during the night and I would get up to find someone sitting at the end of my bed staring at me. pissed and tired, I didn't even get up but simply gave them a very firm nudge with my knees...they moved farther down my bed, to which I proceeded with a very strong kick. they got a bit pissed but got up finally to which I was very happy;) they don't have much sense of personal space here I think which can be abit difficult for us. anyhoo, hope it's better this time and I don't get a bottom bunk right in the hallway;) we will sorely miss Jaisalmer.

Vinod and the Taj

Man. I've done a fair bit of traveling lately, but I've never been beaten down like India. It's way intense. Talking to other traveler's it seems like they're in the same boat. There's SOOOO many people, animals, cars, rickshaws, bikes, camels, cows, dogs, bisons and more wandering the streets...you name it, they've probably got it. I think that traditional backpacking is probably very difficult to do your first trip in India...at least through the touristy areas and with limited time. All the other backpackers we've run across have relented and gone through travel agencies to book drivers, trains and/or hotels. Should've probably booked the tix back home, but who can plan for a 3 week trip months in advance? With my ever changing moods, it's just not feasible. Anyhoo, things are on the up and up. We've (thank god) gotten out of crazy Delhi and into slightly less crazy Jaipur (with a stopover in Agra). And our moods have considerably increased. It's not that we were in a bad mood before, but we were a little on edge. Didn't know who to trust or what was legit or not. So far, so good though. For me, I'm just concentrating on breathing;) After my stomach troubles, they conveniently proceeded into a cold, complete with sore throat, drippy nose, and fatigue. I feel like a semi has hit me, and breathing all the polluted air is a huge relief;)

We've had a driver (Vinod) the past few days and he's been awesome. Tells lots of funny stories and looks out after us giving us advice and who to avoid and such. Ali and he always sing "from Chandni Chowk to China" (a recent Bollywood hit) and he's taken to calling her China. The other day she was sleeping in the backseat, and he asked me "is China sleeping?" pretty hilarious. Told me a story yesterday about a Japanese tourist that came and saw a few semis tipped over on the side of the road and was wondering what happened. He told her that they don't have jacks in India to change tires, so they flip the semis over to change the tires....she believed him until he started laughing!! Seems like everywhere I go the locals have funny stories to tell about the Japanese tourists;) He told us how they fly to India just to take a picture of the Taj Mahal and then go right back! He told one guy that a temple was the Taj Mahal...the guy proceeded to take a ton of photos of it and was ready to go back to Delhi! How can you not know what the Taj Mahal looks like, and still fly all the way over to see it?! pretty crazy to me. Anyhoo, Vino's been awesome. and the Taj Mahal...wow, words cannot express how beautiful it was. I'm usually not a fan of huge touristy sties, but this one was incredible. So simply and elegant yet very majestic and detailed. Simply heavenly;) Michelle, Ali and I were all lost for words.

So being an obvious tourist here and going to touristy areas, we've gotten a lot of harassing to buy stuff. Rather than be rude and grumpy about it, it's been a lot of fun to joke around with them, and it makes my day to get a smile from them in return...I'm sure they can't enjoy the grumpy tourists all day long;) So I try to make it fun for both of us, as annoying as it is. I've learned a few Hindi words which has done wonders. One kid was shocked and said "oh Hindi" and left us alone. One persistently buggy kid I told "bas" which means enough, to which he thought a minute and then responded with "bas station is over there madam" to which we both burst out laughing and left on a very cheery note. Another kid I told him I would take his touristy gift for free, to which he laughed and shook my hand good bye. And then there was the cutest little boy in the mosque in Fatehpour Sikri, an ancient abandoned town. He was 8 and knew a few words in lots of languages, even Farsi! He was such a good little salesman and spoke so convincingly I burst out laughing...he was also very persistant. I couldn't resist and gave him and his older brother some gum. Another bunch of boys saw him chewing gum and asked me for some to which the little boy said "no madam has no gum" (which I clearly did since he had been with me for about 15 minutes in which he had gotten the gum)...after realizing it was obvious that I did have some gum and gave it to him he quickly changed his story to "madam has only 5 pieces of gum, to which she has already given to 5 little boys!" what a little shaytun! I always seem to fall for the cute little boys though and he was quite a character.

Did a bit of shopping today. I've never been a huge fan of bargaining, but apparently I've learned some from you dad. I kept talking the guy down and didn't budge much and eventually got it down to a very reasonable level. I was happy but wasn't quite sure how much it actually went for so I asked Vinod and he said the shopkeeper told him in Hindi that I was very smart;) so apparently it went alright. Too bad we were to shocked to do it for our tour;) oh well, you live you learn right?

Unfortunately, (and this really is the saddest thing of all) Ali and I have yet to eat really good Indian food...in fact, I would say so far it's been much better at home. Since becoming sick, I haven't been able to stomach it too much and the stuff we've eaten is just touristy garbage. I'm looking forward to trying some local places again soon once I'm feeling up to par. Tomorrow though we're going to see a Bollywood film in the cinema, so we're super stoked. Jaipur has a beautiful palace and we got to see them preparing to shoot a new Bollywood film inside it....was pretty cool to watch the preparations for it. Anyhoo, here's to better Indian food in the near future.

India 1: Eman 0

Day one in India....Delhi 1, Eman 0. yup, I got a bad case of "Delhi belly" which basically means that the paneer and egg curry kicked my buttay last night. Add on top of that the horrible stressfulness of Delhi without train/hostel tickets and I ran all out of energy. I think if I write anything now it is not going to be too pleasant, so I'm just gonna hold off until later. suffice it to say, todaywas a nightmare, with everyone trying to hound you to go to their office. Even unofficial travel agancies claim to be official government places and "officials" with uniforms on and id's come up to "help" you, but its all a prank. mmmmmeeeehhhh....well we ended up booking all our hostels and train tickets for the rest of our staypretty much and we know we got jipped but retrospectively its nottooo much money for usand it'll be better than being hassled everywhere we go. Needless to say it was a big awakening for us. met a nice older lady who's an experienced traveller who is just as frustrated as us, but we're all happy now;) gonna go see the taj mahal tomorrow, so should be fun!! anyhoo, India so far has been comforting as it is way more develpoped than nepal, which is good after so much time with little electricity. hopefully the next few days will be more relaxing and better for my tummy;) cheerio!

Kathmandu

Kathmandu. I don't know where to begin, other than to say I've never been to a capital city without a street light. Yes, in the entire downtown area I have failed to see one. Imagine Tehran, but with narrow streets and many more motorcycles zipping around. And no sidewalks, so people walking on the sides of the road. Amazingly they are quite "good" drivers because they utilize the horn and aggressive driving skills to finnagle their way cross town. There are all sorts of sounds and smells as well that I never thought to encounter in such a big city. The rooster wakes us up in the morning, and the dogs are plentiful. In addition, a lovely aroma is released when they dig up the dirt streets to unplug the sewage system, essentially "repaving" the dirt road with a darker, more intense smelling type of dirt;) Pardon my French, but that's a very sh**y job. no pun intended.

The tallest building in town is, I believe, only about 5 stories tall. Ali and I climbed up to the monkey temple (named bc of the monkeys that wander around it, stealing food;) a few days ago, which sits on a lovely hill so it has amazing views of Kathmandu Valley. In all directions, as far as the eye can see, there are buildings. They say about 2-3 million people live there, but I would venture perhaps more. Apparently Nepal has more citizens than Australia, with a population of about 26 million. Quite a lot for such a small country. Many people live in rural areas and support themselves off the land. Hiking in the foothills was amazing as we got to see all the terraced hills where they grow many types of vegetation including corn, carrots, potatoes, herbs, rice and more. Viewing the open air meat butchers though has turned me into a vegetarian, at least here. I don't see how the driving cars and flies and open sewage system can add healthfully to the protein;) Houses in the countryside are simple, but better built than in Tanzania....probably due to the heavy rains during the monsoon season. They are mostly out of brick and wood, although poorer people simply have metal siding. They even have electricity way out in the boonies, and I had a hotter shower in the farthest town of our trek than in Kathmadu itself! Although this could be due to the electricity shortages they are experiencing. Ali's Nepali "family" attributed it to the Maoist insurgents in the government who have recently taken more power, however we met a few university grad students yesterday who vehemently denied this and said it was simply due to the lack of rain. I suspect this was due to the fact that they were wary of openly discussing politics (we were in a small local joint, where we ate samosas, tibetan bread, some chick pea soup, and a sweet desert for a whopping $1!) or else they supported the Maoists. Anyhoo, there is suspicion that they are selling electricity to India, as they have never had such sever electricity shortages before until the Maoists took power. Apparently Nepal has huge potential for generating electricity from the water, however they have insufficient means to capture it and the Indians were willing to help if they could get 80% of the power generated...not a fair deal by any means. They are supposedly looking for aid to help them develop better means to obtain the energy. Anyhoo, enough politics.

On our hike we went to Machupuchchre, or Fish Tail mountain, in the Annapurna Mountains of the Himalayas. It was magnificent. We got to see the sunrise from Poon Hill with great views of the range, and then hiked "through" the clouds! Ali unfortunately got a little altitude sickness as we hiked up 4000 feet in one day-the suggested safe range is 1-2000 feet! Luckily she got some gatorade and food in her and got better shortly. Cooking on the trek was tasty, although much I suspect was due to the huge amount of calories we were burning. They made most of the food with ketchup...need I say more. Arman, you would have loved it;) The people are very tolerant religion wise....Buddist, Hindus and Muslims get along sans problem and they seem to be a fairly religious group of people. Temples everywhere, (with lots of people praying) and Buddist prayer flags flying throughout the country. A cool thing we saw on the trek was a corn mill powered by a little creek. It was pretty cool to see how it worked and eventually I'll post the picture.

Yesterday we headed out to Baktapur, an historic town with lots of beautiful old buildings. They are famous for their curd (yogurt) and make a very delicious sweet yogurt. The buildings had amazing wood carving in them...very detailed and beautiful. We also saw them making pots...the "wheel" was literally a wheel....a big fat tire wheel that and old man spun fast with a stick before he proceeded to throw the pots. He managed to produce amazing pots in that one spinning of the wheel. I've never been so impressed, especially knowing just how difficult it is to actually make a pot on an electric wheel! It was a whole family affair as the men pounded the clay, the women dried the pots in the sun and attended to the details. It was really cool to see.

So after 10 days in Nepal, I've managed to learn a meager amount of Nepali. I learned a very important phrase though from our guide Chhining- beware of cat is "biralu hernu." He was so scared of them, it was quite funny. Whenever we passed by one he would put a good 10 feet between himself and the cat. Namaste is the greeting, malaicuchilai is nice to meet you, tapaicostohonuncha is how are you, peribedhonla is by, dhanevat is thank you, boklagyo is are you hungry, dherai mitucha is very delicious, dherai ramrocha is very beautiful, garmi is warm, jado is cold, and titcha is ok. A very cool sounding language and hard to separate the words as they put them all together when they speak. Apparently they can understand Hindi and only differ in the pronounciation of the words. They can watch Hindi movies/music/tv with no problems.

Anyhoo, we're off to Delhi today. All in all, Nepal will be missed although I can't quite say that for Kathmandu;) The countryside is absolutely gorgeous though and the people super friendly and helpful. It's the only place I've been to where the locals make sure you don't get ripped off when riding in a microbus. They actually harangue the ticket guy until he gives you your proper change back!

Nepal

I've been in Nepal for a week now, and I think it's safe to say the Nepali are some of the nicest people I have met. My first encounter was meeting Ali at the airport and getting a cab to our hostel. I was dead tired and the guy asked me if I had been to Nepal before. Through his accent, all I heard was "are you very poor?" to which I paused, a little confused, and then responded emphatically "yes I'm poor, I don't have a job!" He just burst out laughing hysterically with his friends and they were like, man that's gonna be a great story for your friends;) Kind of a funny response given I'm in one of the poorest countries in the world;) anyhoo, the people here are awesome. There are no lewd comments, not too much ripping off, and usually just a general sense of interest. The plane from Bahrain to Kathmandu was interesting...I was definitely the tallest of all the girls and probably the same height as the tallest men. It was a flight packed with Nepali workers returning home....out of 300 passengers I was the only white one. They boarded the women first and when an airport worker saw that I had an American passport, he (embarassingly) let me ahead of everyone else and I was given a business class seat. It felt like a party on the plane although I didn't understand a word. Kathmandu is a very dusty city...not much like a capital you'd picture. There are monkeys, dogs, cows, chickens and more roaming around the dirt streets. buildings are only a few stories tall, but it is a pretty large city. I quickly learned that they drive on the "other" side of the street, which I hadn't known. Things are cheap here. We've hit my record (and probably forever) alltime low of a whopping $1.33 for one night at a hostel. I was pretty impressed. The main food Nepali eat is Dhal-Baat. It's basically rice with a lentil stew, and they serve it to you with some chapati, veggie cury and some pickled dishes. Pretty yummy. They eat it twice a day, for lunch and dinner, and usually only have a cup of milk tea for breakfast.

Ali and I just finished a 5-day trek through the Annapurna circuit....It had amazing views of the himilayas. We hiked about 4-6 hours per day and got extremely tired by the end as it was mostly straight up and then straight down. We still have pain when we walk and get up;) Met an amazing girl from Vancouver though who we spent the first 3 days with, which made for some amuzing conversations as we walked. Our guide, Chhining, whom Ali found through her volunteering at the orphanage, was the kindest boy. He always laughed at my attempts to speak Nepali:) I once said "Nepal dherai mitocha" which I meant to be "Nepal is beautiful" but which really was "Nepal is delicious!" He was very amused. Everytime I said something he couldn't understand, he just smiled an enormous smile and laughed. All in all things are going well here. We've eaten some amazing cheap food...moma (dumplings), noodle soups, and chapati being some of my favorites. They have yak cheese too which is sort of a miz of mozarella and parmesian, and is yummy. We also had fresh milk this morning up in a small village in the mountains which was quite delicious. More to come later...we still have a few more days left in Nepal before heading on to Delhi...hope you all are doing well!