My photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28873916@N04/
Kelsey
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
hey everyone! so i've been back home for around a week and a half and i finally got my pictures uploaded and i put them on a flickr website. it would only let me put up 200 photos and it got a lot of them out of order so i will try to rearrange some of the photos later, and i might create another account so that i can upload the rest of my photos. enjoy!!
Kelsey
Kelsey
Saturday, July 12, 2008
I just spent the last 24 hours with Julia and Stephanie. Wondering why they haven't posted? It's because they haven't had internet for almost 2 weeks. Yep, the entire 17,000 person town of Mundgod doesn't have internet. The school has one computer with internet, but apparently it's a big deal for them to ask to use it.
Stephanie and Julia have done a GREAT job with what they have to work with. With a little less than $500, they (with Kenji and my help) have bought colorful carpets, pillows, bookshelves, books, games, and CD-ROMS. They have made posters saying "Quiet in the Library" and rules for the books/levels, and gotten the sisters in the hostel to translate all of the posters into Kannada so they are in both languages. They have labled all of the books in Kannada with stickers (reinforced with tape) corresponding to different levels of difficulty. They bought audio casette tapes and recorded themselves reading books in English, so the kids can check out the books and listen to them being read in English. I'm really proud of all that they have done, and really feel like with their hard work, they have made this Mundgod library a successful endeavor. You can find some of the pictures at the following website:
Besides doing a great job with the library, the girls have also made friends with many of the D. Ed (teacher in training) students, and have fallen into a really comfortable routine. Their beds are ROCK hard (I slept in it last night and woke up about 20 times) and they have pretty much the same thing every meal (rice, sambar, and maybe some vegetable), but the campus is beautiful, and I think this experience really allowed them to reflect on their time in India so far. They are definitely getting into the culture, eating with their hands, not wearing anything that shows their shoulders or knees, using an Indian toilet and filling up a bucket to pour on top as a flush, taking bucket showers with cold water, etc. They don't seem to be complaining or fighting or anything. Basically, they are doing a great job and enjoying themselves.
Kenji and I parted ways yesterday. He took a bus from Hubli to Goa, where he was supposed to meet Zach and Emily (Kelsey and Natasha have already left). Unfortunately, their train was an express train that PASSED the Goa station, and they ended up all the way north in Maharashtra! I talked to them this morning though and they had taken another train to meet up with Kenji. They will stay in Goa until tomorrow night, when Emily and Zach will go back to Mangalore, and Kenji will fly up to Delhi and then to Nepal. Julia and Stephanie are going to work on the library until Tuesday, and then take a bus to Hampi and then meet Emily and Zach in Mysore next weekend.
As for me, I'm about to fly to meet Chris (my old work buddy) in Chennai for 2 and a half days, then back to Mumbai and gone home!!! I can't believe this trip has gone soooo fast, I've been to over a dozen cities in 28 days, but it feels like it's gone by in a blur.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
More pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2133288&l=68743&id=208301
Kenji and I just met up with Julia and Stephanie, they have lots of stories and plan to stay in Mundgod at least through the weekend, at which point they may travel and try to meet up with the other group.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2133288&l=68743&id=208301
Kenji and I just met up with Julia and Stephanie, they have lots of stories and plan to stay in Mundgod at least through the weekend, at which point they may travel and try to meet up with the other group.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
from the mangalore site
Ok so we have been living in the Catholic orphanage. It's been pretty fun. We had an ice cream party with the nuns the other day. We really enjoy teaching English lessons to the housemoms because they are older (about 20) and so they understand all of our instructions and we have dialogues with them. We are going to start gearing our lessons toward teaching them how to maintain the cottage libraries we are putting in.
The lessons with the kids are a little more challenging because they hardly understand any English so it is hard to give them directions. But those have been fun too.
Right now we are waiting to hear back from some schools and some carpenters before we proceed with any library building.
And a side note, Mangalore has very famous ice cream, so we went with Natasha the other day and just bought hella ice cream dishes. And we found an amazing coffee shop that seems super trendy. They were playing Indian radio (and we really miss music) and they had a bunch of teenagers hanging out. It was just like Starbucks at home... We definitely plan on going back when we get a chance.
Tomorrow there is a special mass at 6:30 am and then the next day the kids are putting on a dance program they have been practicing hard for. It should be really fun.
The lessons with the kids are a little more challenging because they hardly understand any English so it is hard to give them directions. But those have been fun too.
Right now we are waiting to hear back from some schools and some carpenters before we proceed with any library building.
And a side note, Mangalore has very famous ice cream, so we went with Natasha the other day and just bought hella ice cream dishes. And we found an amazing coffee shop that seems super trendy. They were playing Indian radio (and we really miss music) and they had a bunch of teenagers hanging out. It was just like Starbucks at home... We definitely plan on going back when we get a chance.
Tomorrow there is a special mass at 6:30 am and then the next day the kids are putting on a dance program they have been practicing hard for. It should be really fun.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Before I go into details about the site, let me just say a word about our time in Goa:
Goa is the popular tourist destination for rich Indians wanting a luxurious vacation with no garbage on the road or beggars in the streets. However, we were there during the off season, so there was hardly anything open. It was still incredibly relaxing, and far different from anything we had experienced before; much lower noise level, less crowded, cleaner, etc. We laid on the beach, and the four of us (me, Julia, Stephanie, and Kenji) were essentially alone except for a pair of bulls lumbering over near us. We got caught in the monsoon a couple of times. During the worst bout we ducked into a roadside stand, where I bought a few pieces of clothing, and we talked to the lady trying to make a sale in the off-season. She asked us what we were doing here, and we told her "we're building a library"...she looked at us funny, and said, "what's a library?" I thought that was pretty shocking...
Anyway, so last night we took a 6 hour bus from Goa to Hubli, where we spent the night. This morning Fr. Pinto picked us up from Hubli (he drove several hours to come get us), and drove us all to the school. Kenji and I left our stuff in our room at the hotel, rightly assuming that we could come back to get it before the 10:30 p.m. checkout.
The school is in an incredibly rural area, about half an hours walk from Mundagod (which is about an hour and a half outside of Hubli, the next biggest city). It's a huge school, spread out over a large area, connected by dirt paths. The buildings are large, clean, but very simple. The school is for grades K-12, plus a 2 year teacher training program. The grounds house 600 out of the 800 students, who come from all over the state to attend this school. Most of the student sleep on mats on the floor in cottages scattered over the grounds. After the age of 10, boys and girls are on opposite sides of the campus.
The students have a very rigorous day- wake up at 5:30 a.m., go to mass, chores, breakfast, then school from 9-4 with an hour for lunch. From 4:15-5:30 they have a break, followed by study until 7:45. At 8 they have dinner, followed by more studying until about 10, when they go to sleep.
Julia and Stephanie are staying in a cottage with the D.Ed (Teacher training) students, who are about their age. We had a great conversation with Fr. Johnson, the principal of the 8-12 grades. He is young, and just moved into this position taking over from Fr. Melwyn. He seems to have a lot of enthusiasm, and will be a lot of help.
The biggest issue is going to be stretching $450 to create a decent library. Bookshelves are expensive, around $75 (Kenji and my task for tomorrow is to find out exactly how expensive), and books in kannada range from $1-3. The girls also don't have internet, and their phone doesn't recieve calls for some reason, so communication will be difficult, we have to have certain times of day when they will call me.
Kenji and I are probably going to go get good books in Kannada in Bangalore, where we will spend time with a family friend who can help us pick out good books for the children. We will then come back and help the girls in any way we can. It's hard for us to do much though, because there isn't room at the school for us to stay, and Hubli is an hour and a half away. Nonetheless, we will do the best we can. No matter what, these kids don't get that much exposure to the english language, and their current library is pretty shoddy- I think that Julia and Stephanie will make a postive impact, probably larger than they realize.
Goa is the popular tourist destination for rich Indians wanting a luxurious vacation with no garbage on the road or beggars in the streets. However, we were there during the off season, so there was hardly anything open. It was still incredibly relaxing, and far different from anything we had experienced before; much lower noise level, less crowded, cleaner, etc. We laid on the beach, and the four of us (me, Julia, Stephanie, and Kenji) were essentially alone except for a pair of bulls lumbering over near us. We got caught in the monsoon a couple of times. During the worst bout we ducked into a roadside stand, where I bought a few pieces of clothing, and we talked to the lady trying to make a sale in the off-season. She asked us what we were doing here, and we told her "we're building a library"...she looked at us funny, and said, "what's a library?" I thought that was pretty shocking...
Anyway, so last night we took a 6 hour bus from Goa to Hubli, where we spent the night. This morning Fr. Pinto picked us up from Hubli (he drove several hours to come get us), and drove us all to the school. Kenji and I left our stuff in our room at the hotel, rightly assuming that we could come back to get it before the 10:30 p.m. checkout.
The school is in an incredibly rural area, about half an hours walk from Mundagod (which is about an hour and a half outside of Hubli, the next biggest city). It's a huge school, spread out over a large area, connected by dirt paths. The buildings are large, clean, but very simple. The school is for grades K-12, plus a 2 year teacher training program. The grounds house 600 out of the 800 students, who come from all over the state to attend this school. Most of the student sleep on mats on the floor in cottages scattered over the grounds. After the age of 10, boys and girls are on opposite sides of the campus.
The students have a very rigorous day- wake up at 5:30 a.m., go to mass, chores, breakfast, then school from 9-4 with an hour for lunch. From 4:15-5:30 they have a break, followed by study until 7:45. At 8 they have dinner, followed by more studying until about 10, when they go to sleep.
Julia and Stephanie are staying in a cottage with the D.Ed (Teacher training) students, who are about their age. We had a great conversation with Fr. Johnson, the principal of the 8-12 grades. He is young, and just moved into this position taking over from Fr. Melwyn. He seems to have a lot of enthusiasm, and will be a lot of help.
The biggest issue is going to be stretching $450 to create a decent library. Bookshelves are expensive, around $75 (Kenji and my task for tomorrow is to find out exactly how expensive), and books in kannada range from $1-3. The girls also don't have internet, and their phone doesn't recieve calls for some reason, so communication will be difficult, we have to have certain times of day when they will call me.
Kenji and I are probably going to go get good books in Kannada in Bangalore, where we will spend time with a family friend who can help us pick out good books for the children. We will then come back and help the girls in any way we can. It's hard for us to do much though, because there isn't room at the school for us to stay, and Hubli is an hour and a half away. Nonetheless, we will do the best we can. No matter what, these kids don't get that much exposure to the english language, and their current library is pretty shoddy- I think that Julia and Stephanie will make a postive impact, probably larger than they realize.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Bad News
Ok so this morning we found out that the books are running even later and they will not be here until the 26th. That is really disappointing since that means that we will leave India before the books even arrive. We are just trying to roll with the punches though. We are going to spend most of our alloted money on books in both English and the local language Cannata. We can then use those books to start the programming with the kids and the nuns so that we can ensure sustainability when the other books come. And Natasha has family here so they will bring the rest of the books when they are shipped to India. So yeah that was definitely disappointing news.
But we got to the orphanage in Mangalore today. Mangalore is beautiful! It is less hot than the north and it is so green! The orphanage is also a lot nicer than I was anticipating. We have our own cottage with beds and a bathroom that has a flushing toilet! What a relief. And the nuns are SOOOO nice. We just had lunch with them. And we wanted to sit down and talk about plans but they said that Sunday is the day of rest so we must just rest today. Haha so different from our crazy Stanford kid lifestyle of constantly doing things.
There are 120 boys here aged 5-18. We so far have met a few of the younger ones, as they'[ve shyly been hanging around us and giggling when we say hi. I really like it here and it is a lot nicer than I was expecting. Tomorrow we will sit down and start figuring out our library committee and maybe kids to be monitors. We don't have the books yet, but we can do logistics. And we also can do activities with the kids. Like we want them to help us decorate the library and we can do English lessons with them/ play with them. And then we will have all the books that Natasha picks up with our funds. Alright more to come.
But we got to the orphanage in Mangalore today. Mangalore is beautiful! It is less hot than the north and it is so green! The orphanage is also a lot nicer than I was anticipating. We have our own cottage with beds and a bathroom that has a flushing toilet! What a relief. And the nuns are SOOOO nice. We just had lunch with them. And we wanted to sit down and talk about plans but they said that Sunday is the day of rest so we must just rest today. Haha so different from our crazy Stanford kid lifestyle of constantly doing things.
There are 120 boys here aged 5-18. We so far have met a few of the younger ones, as they'[ve shyly been hanging around us and giggling when we say hi. I really like it here and it is a lot nicer than I was expecting. Tomorrow we will sit down and start figuring out our library committee and maybe kids to be monitors. We don't have the books yet, but we can do logistics. And we also can do activities with the kids. Like we want them to help us decorate the library and we can do English lessons with them/ play with them. And then we will have all the books that Natasha picks up with our funds. Alright more to come.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Post from Julia:
hi family!!
so im in new Dehli now but I fly to Goa today with the group. Everything has been amazing. We saw this beautiful temple yesterday of the Ba'hai religion, which is based on accepting people of all faiths and ethnicities, it is a religion for world peace. THe temple is gorgeous, a white lotus flower design made completely of marble, gardens are immaculate and the parks surrounding the area are the cleanest places ive seen so far, families and friends lie around chatting and taking strolls, it almost reminds me of europe, well almost. Anyways we've seen so much in the past week, we went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal which is as immaculate as it ever could be and the surrounding area of red buildings and shrines is just as astonishing. Surprisingly there were almost no other western toursits, just INdians in which case we whipped up quite a gathering. This woman grabbed my hand estatic to meet me and dragged me all around the temple trying to find enough light to take a picture with her and then in turn with each of her children. Then it got crazy groups of 15 men, women and kids would come up at a time to take pictures with the most white looking of our friends. After that every few minutes we would have a new family wanting to shake our hands and take "one shot" with us for a couple hours. It was really surreal, there are just so few white people here its crazy. Later we had dinner with the whole group of eight on a roof top restaurant overlooking the Taj Mahal.
We visted a small village called Pushkar before that where we finally didnt have to dodge traffic or here incessant honking, just cows and camels and pushcarts. We did some shopping and a lot of haggling, which we all are pro at by now. WE celebrated Zachs birthday although he was feeling a little ill so we brought him his chocolate cake with lit incense stick in bed. The next day they took a camel tour into the nearby desert villages and made a gigantic hike in the heat of the day to the top of this temple on top of mount savitri. THe view was breathtaking a small muslim influenced village surrounding a holy lake where God Brahma was said to drop down a lotus flower (the petals leaving the three lakes behind) all in the middle of a hazy desert.
Dehli was crazy with all the urban sprawl and consequences that an overpopulated developing country encounters. But with an alluring culture that still mesmorizes. ALthough the longer I stay here the more I feel like its home. THe routine sets in, the morning heat wakes us as we look around a dingy plain room with a small ceiling fan and sheetless beds, the cold shower if refreshing and quick, arraning our backpacks to start the day just as if we were searching through dresser drawers at home. The first haggle of the day with our rickshaw driver and then cramming into the the two-seater ride with 5 people, Indians staring left and right. The temples, the gardens, the animals and shops, beggars and sizzling food stands. Little kids peeing in the streets and sari wrapped women staring at our western clothes and anglo features. An afternoon nap to escape the extreme heat, scraping dirt from our legs and fingernails. Putting on the ever present hand sanitizer before we eat malai kofta, Dal Makhani, naan and all goobi with our hands oh and dont forget the glass bottled limca or sprite as a needed refresher. It all swings together, the day weve now become comfortable with, you just laugh at all the chaos and say "thats India" and we all nod with a smile.
love you all,
jules
P.S. Least favorite sayings in INdia that i never want to hear again: no no not possible (when it clearly is and they just want to cheat you out of your money), just look at my shop madam loooking is free, you from England?, I like your dress where that from (apparently knee-length dresses with no straps are head turners). oh the list goes on. haha
hi family!!
so im in new Dehli now but I fly to Goa today with the group. Everything has been amazing. We saw this beautiful temple yesterday of the Ba'hai religion, which is based on accepting people of all faiths and ethnicities, it is a religion for world peace. THe temple is gorgeous, a white lotus flower design made completely of marble, gardens are immaculate and the parks surrounding the area are the cleanest places ive seen so far, families and friends lie around chatting and taking strolls, it almost reminds me of europe, well almost. Anyways we've seen so much in the past week, we went to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal which is as immaculate as it ever could be and the surrounding area of red buildings and shrines is just as astonishing. Surprisingly there were almost no other western toursits, just INdians in which case we whipped up quite a gathering. This woman grabbed my hand estatic to meet me and dragged me all around the temple trying to find enough light to take a picture with her and then in turn with each of her children. Then it got crazy groups of 15 men, women and kids would come up at a time to take pictures with the most white looking of our friends. After that every few minutes we would have a new family wanting to shake our hands and take "one shot" with us for a couple hours. It was really surreal, there are just so few white people here its crazy. Later we had dinner with the whole group of eight on a roof top restaurant overlooking the Taj Mahal.
We visted a small village called Pushkar before that where we finally didnt have to dodge traffic or here incessant honking, just cows and camels and pushcarts. We did some shopping and a lot of haggling, which we all are pro at by now. WE celebrated Zachs birthday although he was feeling a little ill so we brought him his chocolate cake with lit incense stick in bed. The next day they took a camel tour into the nearby desert villages and made a gigantic hike in the heat of the day to the top of this temple on top of mount savitri. THe view was breathtaking a small muslim influenced village surrounding a holy lake where God Brahma was said to drop down a lotus flower (the petals leaving the three lakes behind) all in the middle of a hazy desert.
Dehli was crazy with all the urban sprawl and consequences that an overpopulated developing country encounters. But with an alluring culture that still mesmorizes. ALthough the longer I stay here the more I feel like its home. THe routine sets in, the morning heat wakes us as we look around a dingy plain room with a small ceiling fan and sheetless beds, the cold shower if refreshing and quick, arraning our backpacks to start the day just as if we were searching through dresser drawers at home. The first haggle of the day with our rickshaw driver and then cramming into the the two-seater ride with 5 people, Indians staring left and right. The temples, the gardens, the animals and shops, beggars and sizzling food stands. Little kids peeing in the streets and sari wrapped women staring at our western clothes and anglo features. An afternoon nap to escape the extreme heat, scraping dirt from our legs and fingernails. Putting on the ever present hand sanitizer before we eat malai kofta, Dal Makhani, naan and all goobi with our hands oh and dont forget the glass bottled limca or sprite as a needed refresher. It all swings together, the day weve now become comfortable with, you just laugh at all the chaos and say "thats India" and we all nod with a smile.
love you all,
jules
P.S. Least favorite sayings in INdia that i never want to hear again: no no not possible (when it clearly is and they just want to cheat you out of your money), just look at my shop madam loooking is free, you from England?, I like your dress where that from (apparently knee-length dresses with no straps are head turners). oh the list goes on. haha
Post from Stephanie:
hi all,
so a few days ago, we left pushkar on an overnight bus to dehli. kelsey and i got the curtain side of the bed that kept blowing in our faces, so we didn't sleep tooo well. got a hotel in dehli, and watched hbo for the first time in forever. we met up w/ jackie, kenji, and natasha at our hotel, ran a bunch of errands that took forever, then finally to dinner on a rooftop restaurant and a pub for emily's birthday/zach's belated celebration cause he was sick on his real birthday and got incense birthday cake. it was super fun, and we heard music kinda from the bottom floor which is what we wanted, although def no room to dance like we wanted. emily we will do that before we leave india!! planned on watching hbo when we got back, but ended up talking for a while then passing out. next day took a morning train to agra, grabed a hotel then off to the taj mahal!! it was beautiful and a relatively sunny day for monsoon season. but it was deathly hot, and we all looked "jank." kelsey, kenji, and natasha left after our tour to see more sights and emily, me, zach, and julia stayed at the taj to take goofy pictures. if you position yourself right, it looks like you're bigger than the taj mahal so...i took a picture kissing the taj mahal, so did julia and emily. julia did a back bend over the taj mahal, and zach employed his dancer skills to jump over the taj mahal. then we left, and got ice cream and i showered for the second time cause i couldn't stand myself...we all met up for dinner at antoher roottop restaurant w/ a great view of the taj, which is supposed to look cool under the moon. but there was no moon cause either the pollution or clouds, who knows? but the silouhette was pretty cool. i went to the internet cafe to try to use skype, which is a free online phone system for international calls, but couldnt' get through for some reason. went back, packed my bags, said by to the mangalore group and passed out. our elecrticity in the htoel went out at four in the morning and it was deathly hot, so julia and i just woke up for our 6 am train back to dehli. intersting train ride...and super long. finally back in dehli. me julia jackie and kenji went to the bahi temple yesterday which is shaped like a lotus flower, which is one of the more peaceful things i've done on this trip. now we're getting ready to head to the airport to fly to goa, then to the site in mundgod!
-steph
hi all,
so a few days ago, we left pushkar on an overnight bus to dehli. kelsey and i got the curtain side of the bed that kept blowing in our faces, so we didn't sleep tooo well. got a hotel in dehli, and watched hbo for the first time in forever. we met up w/ jackie, kenji, and natasha at our hotel, ran a bunch of errands that took forever, then finally to dinner on a rooftop restaurant and a pub for emily's birthday/zach's belated celebration cause he was sick on his real birthday and got incense birthday cake. it was super fun, and we heard music kinda from the bottom floor which is what we wanted, although def no room to dance like we wanted. emily we will do that before we leave india!! planned on watching hbo when we got back, but ended up talking for a while then passing out. next day took a morning train to agra, grabed a hotel then off to the taj mahal!! it was beautiful and a relatively sunny day for monsoon season. but it was deathly hot, and we all looked "jank." kelsey, kenji, and natasha left after our tour to see more sights and emily, me, zach, and julia stayed at the taj to take goofy pictures. if you position yourself right, it looks like you're bigger than the taj mahal so...i took a picture kissing the taj mahal, so did julia and emily. julia did a back bend over the taj mahal, and zach employed his dancer skills to jump over the taj mahal. then we left, and got ice cream and i showered for the second time cause i couldn't stand myself...we all met up for dinner at antoher roottop restaurant w/ a great view of the taj, which is supposed to look cool under the moon. but there was no moon cause either the pollution or clouds, who knows? but the silouhette was pretty cool. i went to the internet cafe to try to use skype, which is a free online phone system for international calls, but couldnt' get through for some reason. went back, packed my bags, said by to the mangalore group and passed out. our elecrticity in the htoel went out at four in the morning and it was deathly hot, so julia and i just woke up for our 6 am train back to dehli. intersting train ride...and super long. finally back in dehli. me julia jackie and kenji went to the bahi temple yesterday which is shaped like a lotus flower, which is one of the more peaceful things i've done on this trip. now we're getting ready to head to the airport to fly to goa, then to the site in mundgod!
-steph
Hey everybody, this is Jackie and Kenji doing a joint post again. We are in Delhi right now, and we are going to fly out to Goa tonight, which is a beach town. Unfortunately, it's monsoon season, so it will probably be raining. Tomorrow night there is supposed to be a festival which should be fun.
Since we last posted, a lot has happened. The first day we were in Delhi, we just walked around and enjoyed an air conditioned restaurant for at least 4 hours. Dellhi is a lot cleaner than pretty much every city we've seen so far, there are actually parks and grass, and traffic is less chaotic (a little). The next day, we met up with everyone. Kenji met them all for the first time, he thought they were really nice. We went to the train station where we proceeded to get scammed into going all the way across town to buy our train tickets at a tourist office. The tourist office was in our guidebook, which was why we trusted them, sort of. Eventually, after hours of sitting around trying to figure out what we were going to do, we finally headed back to the train station where we bought tickets on the second floor in a room a little bit hidden away. We bought three seperate train tickets, from Delhi to Jaipur to Agra and back to Delhi, for less than $12. After that, we debated on what to do. The girls wanted to go see the sex and the city movie, which Kenji was not happy about. But we ended up going out to a rooftop restaurant for dinner which was really nice, and then later a bar/pub. It was so smoky in there, Jackie's eyes were watering (I guess in California we aren't used to the smoke). Our train left at 4:30 a.m. the next morning, so we got up at 3 after going to bed at midnight. The train was 6 hours, and near the bathroom, so it smelled pretty gross. Natasha had these perfume wipes that helped a lot.
Once we arrived in Jaipur, we found a hotel. From there, we walked around for a long time. We went to lunch at this really authentic local place, where everyone else was Indian. The food was really good, we ate a lot. We didn't even have to order, everyone had the same thing, and they'd come around with trays of food and would refill it on your plate. You could get as many chapattis and as much rice and curry as you wanted for cheap, by Indian standards, which is basically free in the US.
We walked towards the old city after lunch. It is surrounded by walls, except for 4 entrances. We went to a few sites, including a minaret, which was basically a tower in the middle of the city. That was really cool, we got to walk up to the top where it was breezy and we had a birds eye view of the whole city. There aren't really tall buildings in most cities because it's hard to build water systems that can go up very high. This minaret was pretty much the talllest thing in Jaipur. We also walked through the bazaars, where they were selling everything from clothes to floor tiles.
After that, we headed outside the city to two different spots. The first was this huge fort, with walls off the side that looked like the great wall of China, because they stretch at least a mile in each direction. We walked in the heat up to the top, and got drinks at the top. Jackie was feeling pretty tired at this point, because she was running on low sleep (which, for those of you who know her, doesn't work well for her). She also wasn't drinking juice or soda like the rest of us, and was probably losing a lot of electrolytes from the heat.
We then went to the Monkey temple, or Galta as it's called. It was on the other side of a giant hill. At the top of the hill there was a sun temple, where we got little bracelets. The paths was rocks laid down like cobblestones but not shaped. We get to the other side of the hill, and there are a ton of people swimming in this pool thats carved into the side of the mountain. On our way down we were walking by this woman who pulled out a cobra out of a basket right near us. Natasha FREAKED out, and we kind of ran past her. Near the temple, there were 3 pools, one of them, where the people swam, looked a little cleaner, but there was a dirtier one where monkeys were swimming. This guy came up to us and wouldn't leave us alone, he called Kenji WWF guy, Jackie Jackie Chan, and Natasha the dancer. We went into the temple, where this holy man hit us a few times with a feather, gave us an orange dot on our forehead, and asked for a donation. By the way, this temple was really cool because it was in the middle of a little mountainous area, so the view was really nice. By the time we were making our way back, Jackie started to feel really sick, her head was hurting. We pretty much went right back to the hotel. On our way back, we were bargaining with several different guys, and we ended up picking one. The other two rickshaw drivers got really pissed and blocked us in. We reversed and got out of there, but the other two ran into each other and broke off the front headlight of one of the rickshaws. That driver got out and started savagely beating the other driver with one of his sandals. We got out of there in a hurry!
Jackie crashed at the hotel, while Natasha and Kenji went out to dinner. The room was really hot, and none of us got much sleep, although we were all really tired. The next morning we had to go to the train station at 5 a.m. for a 6:10 train. Needless to say, waking up was difficult. In Agra, we got an AC hotel, where Jackie stayed for the day. Kenji and Natasha met up with the rest of the group, and went to the Taj Mahal. The Taj was about what Kenji expected, it was beautiful. Afterwards, Natasha, Kelsey, and Kenji went to a few more sites, while the rest of the group stayed at the Taj, and then went back to their hotel. We went to the Agra Fort, which was a huge fort. On the outside, there was a jungle area, where they used to have lions, tigers, and elephants to protect the castle. It had a good view of the Taj Mahal, and the guy that owned it or built it had a harem of around 400 women. He used to play chess, sitting above a giant chess board where the concubines from his harem would move the pieces. From there we caught bike ricks to a mosque. One of the drivers let Kenji bike for a little while, which was surprisingly hard, considering the skinny frame of the guys who were biking us around. The mosque was beautiful from the outside, but once we got inside it wasn't anything special. There were tons of kids running around asking for money and trying to grab at our cameras. We were taking pictures, and there would be 40 kids swarming around during the pictures, I felt like a missionary.
That night we all went out to dinner, including Jackie, who felt slightly better, on a rooftop with a view of the Taj Mahal. The food took forever, but it was nice to have everyone together. The next morning we had another 4 hour non-AC train ride into Delhi. We got up at 5 for the third morning in a row (the first morning was 3 a.m.), and got settled in the train. About 20 minutes in, guys came with tickets that had the same seat as ours. We argued for about 10 minutes, then they realized that our ticket was actually for the following day. The train counter must have printed out the wrong day, and none of the 5 of us had checked that detail. As a result, we had to stand or sit on the edge of someone elses seat or on the floor for the next 3 hours. We sat, hugging our knees on the ground, for about 2 hours while 40 guys packed in the train, standing room only. Julia fell asleep on a potbellied man with a dirty green shirt. She also sat by a sink that was leaking chewing tobacco water and she had to get up and realighn the pipes. One of the guys was really friendly, and Kenji ended up talking with him for a while. He kept talking in Hindi to his friends, and we're sure he was making fun of us. There is a fine line between nice and creepy, which a lot of Indian dudes tend to flirt with.
Back at Delhi, Natasha left us, so it was just Kenji, Jackie, Stephanie, and Julia. We found a hotel, and went to lunch, then headed over to the Lotus temple. This temple was the cleanest, most beautiful area that we've seen in India. We stayed there for several hours just lying on the grass in a small park nearby. It was serene.
This morning we all woke up and got fruit from the fruit stand. Mangoes and Bananas are super good. We'll miss north Indian food, but have realized that we almost like the authentic places better than the fancy restaurants. From the outside of the authentic places, you feel hesitant to go in, but once you sit down in the restaurant it's fine, and the food is a lot better and less expensive.
That's about all of the interesting things that have happened so far- we'll post again later!
Since we last posted, a lot has happened. The first day we were in Delhi, we just walked around and enjoyed an air conditioned restaurant for at least 4 hours. Dellhi is a lot cleaner than pretty much every city we've seen so far, there are actually parks and grass, and traffic is less chaotic (a little). The next day, we met up with everyone. Kenji met them all for the first time, he thought they were really nice. We went to the train station where we proceeded to get scammed into going all the way across town to buy our train tickets at a tourist office. The tourist office was in our guidebook, which was why we trusted them, sort of. Eventually, after hours of sitting around trying to figure out what we were going to do, we finally headed back to the train station where we bought tickets on the second floor in a room a little bit hidden away. We bought three seperate train tickets, from Delhi to Jaipur to Agra and back to Delhi, for less than $12. After that, we debated on what to do. The girls wanted to go see the sex and the city movie, which Kenji was not happy about. But we ended up going out to a rooftop restaurant for dinner which was really nice, and then later a bar/pub. It was so smoky in there, Jackie's eyes were watering (I guess in California we aren't used to the smoke). Our train left at 4:30 a.m. the next morning, so we got up at 3 after going to bed at midnight. The train was 6 hours, and near the bathroom, so it smelled pretty gross. Natasha had these perfume wipes that helped a lot.
Once we arrived in Jaipur, we found a hotel. From there, we walked around for a long time. We went to lunch at this really authentic local place, where everyone else was Indian. The food was really good, we ate a lot. We didn't even have to order, everyone had the same thing, and they'd come around with trays of food and would refill it on your plate. You could get as many chapattis and as much rice and curry as you wanted for cheap, by Indian standards, which is basically free in the US.
We walked towards the old city after lunch. It is surrounded by walls, except for 4 entrances. We went to a few sites, including a minaret, which was basically a tower in the middle of the city. That was really cool, we got to walk up to the top where it was breezy and we had a birds eye view of the whole city. There aren't really tall buildings in most cities because it's hard to build water systems that can go up very high. This minaret was pretty much the talllest thing in Jaipur. We also walked through the bazaars, where they were selling everything from clothes to floor tiles.
After that, we headed outside the city to two different spots. The first was this huge fort, with walls off the side that looked like the great wall of China, because they stretch at least a mile in each direction. We walked in the heat up to the top, and got drinks at the top. Jackie was feeling pretty tired at this point, because she was running on low sleep (which, for those of you who know her, doesn't work well for her). She also wasn't drinking juice or soda like the rest of us, and was probably losing a lot of electrolytes from the heat.
We then went to the Monkey temple, or Galta as it's called. It was on the other side of a giant hill. At the top of the hill there was a sun temple, where we got little bracelets. The paths was rocks laid down like cobblestones but not shaped. We get to the other side of the hill, and there are a ton of people swimming in this pool thats carved into the side of the mountain. On our way down we were walking by this woman who pulled out a cobra out of a basket right near us. Natasha FREAKED out, and we kind of ran past her. Near the temple, there were 3 pools, one of them, where the people swam, looked a little cleaner, but there was a dirtier one where monkeys were swimming. This guy came up to us and wouldn't leave us alone, he called Kenji WWF guy, Jackie Jackie Chan, and Natasha the dancer. We went into the temple, where this holy man hit us a few times with a feather, gave us an orange dot on our forehead, and asked for a donation. By the way, this temple was really cool because it was in the middle of a little mountainous area, so the view was really nice. By the time we were making our way back, Jackie started to feel really sick, her head was hurting. We pretty much went right back to the hotel. On our way back, we were bargaining with several different guys, and we ended up picking one. The other two rickshaw drivers got really pissed and blocked us in. We reversed and got out of there, but the other two ran into each other and broke off the front headlight of one of the rickshaws. That driver got out and started savagely beating the other driver with one of his sandals. We got out of there in a hurry!
Jackie crashed at the hotel, while Natasha and Kenji went out to dinner. The room was really hot, and none of us got much sleep, although we were all really tired. The next morning we had to go to the train station at 5 a.m. for a 6:10 train. Needless to say, waking up was difficult. In Agra, we got an AC hotel, where Jackie stayed for the day. Kenji and Natasha met up with the rest of the group, and went to the Taj Mahal. The Taj was about what Kenji expected, it was beautiful. Afterwards, Natasha, Kelsey, and Kenji went to a few more sites, while the rest of the group stayed at the Taj, and then went back to their hotel. We went to the Agra Fort, which was a huge fort. On the outside, there was a jungle area, where they used to have lions, tigers, and elephants to protect the castle. It had a good view of the Taj Mahal, and the guy that owned it or built it had a harem of around 400 women. He used to play chess, sitting above a giant chess board where the concubines from his harem would move the pieces. From there we caught bike ricks to a mosque. One of the drivers let Kenji bike for a little while, which was surprisingly hard, considering the skinny frame of the guys who were biking us around. The mosque was beautiful from the outside, but once we got inside it wasn't anything special. There were tons of kids running around asking for money and trying to grab at our cameras. We were taking pictures, and there would be 40 kids swarming around during the pictures, I felt like a missionary.
That night we all went out to dinner, including Jackie, who felt slightly better, on a rooftop with a view of the Taj Mahal. The food took forever, but it was nice to have everyone together. The next morning we had another 4 hour non-AC train ride into Delhi. We got up at 5 for the third morning in a row (the first morning was 3 a.m.), and got settled in the train. About 20 minutes in, guys came with tickets that had the same seat as ours. We argued for about 10 minutes, then they realized that our ticket was actually for the following day. The train counter must have printed out the wrong day, and none of the 5 of us had checked that detail. As a result, we had to stand or sit on the edge of someone elses seat or on the floor for the next 3 hours. We sat, hugging our knees on the ground, for about 2 hours while 40 guys packed in the train, standing room only. Julia fell asleep on a potbellied man with a dirty green shirt. She also sat by a sink that was leaking chewing tobacco water and she had to get up and realighn the pipes. One of the guys was really friendly, and Kenji ended up talking with him for a while. He kept talking in Hindi to his friends, and we're sure he was making fun of us. There is a fine line between nice and creepy, which a lot of Indian dudes tend to flirt with.
Back at Delhi, Natasha left us, so it was just Kenji, Jackie, Stephanie, and Julia. We found a hotel, and went to lunch, then headed over to the Lotus temple. This temple was the cleanest, most beautiful area that we've seen in India. We stayed there for several hours just lying on the grass in a small park nearby. It was serene.
This morning we all woke up and got fruit from the fruit stand. Mangoes and Bananas are super good. We'll miss north Indian food, but have realized that we almost like the authentic places better than the fancy restaurants. From the outside of the authentic places, you feel hesitant to go in, but once you sit down in the restaurant it's fine, and the food is a lot better and less expensive.
That's about all of the interesting things that have happened so far- we'll post again later!
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