This is an e-mail I sent to my parents a few days ago that I figured I'd share with you.
Wow. India is unbelievable. It is impossible to capture the experience
into words but hopefully my national geographic status pictures will
help when I get home. The journey here was super long (30 hours total)
but bearable. Even though my dang personal screen on the plane was
broken (I was seriously worried this meant I was going to have to
read), I was able to look at Emily's for some of it and sleep for
chunks of the trip as well. And guess what??? I saw clips of Indian So
You Think You Can Dance!!! I didn't even know that existed but was so
excited to see it on the plane. Anyways, after meeting up with Kelsey
at the Bombay airport, we found ourselves a hotel and got their at 5
am. We met up that night with Julia and Stephanie. The five of us have
been together since then and it's been so much fun but some definite
culture shock. Even though I was "expecting" to see everything I've
seen (beggars, poverty, etc.), it's still hard to swallow. I think the
most difficult thing to accept is turning down begging children, who
are only 3 or 4 years old, emaciated and have flies all over them.
I've gained a tougher skin in the past few days to touts and scam
artists but have also met some wonderfully nice people here. We got to
Jaipur today after a 19 hour train ride (which wasn't actually as bad
as we expected) and went to Galta, the monkey temple. It was SO cool.
There were monkeys everywhere swarming around us and climbing and
playing all over these ancient hindu temples as if they were jungle
gyms. We had to walk a ways up to the shrine at the top (the whole
thing is kinda wedged in a mountain) but it was worth it. We went in
and spoke with a young Hindu (priest? guru? monk? guide? not sure...)
and he dotted each of our forheads with orange paint and tied red and
yellow bracelets on our wrists. I was SO spiritual you don't even know
(but seriously, it was really cool). We're going to stay in Jaipur all
day tomorrow and then hopefully go further in the desert. We all
really want to go on a camel trek and that would be an AWESOME
birthday activity. Around the 24th we'll meet up with the rest of the
group in Delhi. I feel like I've been typing for days but this is only
the shortened version, maybe because I'm super tired. I'm definitely
taking a lot of cool pictures. By the way, I forgot, we were ALMOST
extras in a Bollywood movie (apparantly that's typical for tourists)
but it would of taken 14 hours so we nixed it. I would have been
stoked, though. Anyways, hopefully I'll get a chance to write again
soon.
Love,
Zach
P.S. Driving in India is OUT OF CONTROL!!! And you freaked out when I
had my permit, Mom. This is crazy!
2 comments:
post some pictures. I want to see also.
Greetings again Zach. I have just read all of the posts and I'm confused. I thought this was like a Habitat For Humanity trip. Why was I thinking that you were going to help build a library? I am going to post this as "anonymous" because I don't want to open an account. But it is I,Me, Aunt Susie. Jackie sounds like an interesting person. She's in med school? I would love to know how you, Ben and Elsa compare your experiences when it is over. Much love to you all. AS
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