Things I learned in India

1. Toilet paper is a privilege, not a right...apply this same lesson to toilets and deodorant.
2. Two people do not need to speak the same language in order to communicate.
3. I can survive and thrive in a third world country.
4. I LOVE to travel and hate to vacation.
5. I love heat, no matter how hot and I hate cold, no matter how cool.
6. People will respond to me the same when I look my worst (my whole trip) as they do when I'm put together.
7. I love adventures, excitement and even an element of danger.
8. I can't save every animal and child in need (not in an ego way but in a "I am a bad person if I don't help every time I see need" way)
9. I like people and I am a shameless flirt.
10. I may live a very "settled down" life for someone my age but I came to the other side of the earth and discovered there is no where else I'd rather be than at home with my children and animals.
11. And maybe the most disapointing for the people around me who had hoped for a different outcome...I learned that no country in the world can cure me of my OCD tendancies if India didn't do it! ;-)  I am just as anal retentive as when I left Canada.


Thank you all for listening.
xo

Back in the arm pit of India..Delhi

  

   I hate Delhi...it is truly a dirty, chaotic city with a lot more unfriendly people then was at least noticable to us anywhere else.  The only fights we've had with merchants and drivers has been here in Delhi...whoa.  So after a nice evening with the last few people in our group before saying goodbye last night, Sarah and I were again on our own in Delhi.  We decided in an effort not to go stir crazy after such an intense adventure to this point, that we would take on Delhi one more time with new eyes...new experienced eyes.  Although not even half as scary to us as when we got here, we still do not enjoy this city very much.  There is one area called Canaught Place right in the center of New Delhi so we grabbed a tuk tuk and asked him to head over there.  As soon as we are already driving (always the case), he tells us Canaught place is closed because it is Monday and at first we believed him because most of India is closed on Mondays and all the little bizarres were so we agreed to check out some mall he knew was open.  On the way over he made the mistake of telling us he is Punjabi, not from Delhi where they speak only Hindi, so after we got to the dumb mall and he agreed to wait around while we checked it out, we went in and walked around while I saulked because I wanted to be at Canaught place.  I noticed a few mins in that no one was speaking Hindi in the mall..only Punjabi, and that is when I recalled being told that tuk tuk drivers, and all drivers really, try and take you to their friends and families stores to support them and also to get commission so we immediately went outside to him and said, we don't care if you think Canaught place is closed, take us there. 

Turns out he didn't even know where or what it was, he was totally bsing us, once we finally got there we bailed out and tried to pay him, he wouldn't take our money and said just to come back in a few hours to the same spot for a ride back to the hotel.  This is a common practice with drivers, they will wait several hours just to get the guarenteed fare both ways and they know tourists are honest people for the most part and will come back to them. 

Our moron made the mistake of parking a good km from where we wanted to be so we eventually didn't even know how to get back to him and just left with another tuk tuk after walking around all afternoon in Canaught place.  Sure enough, we get back to the hotel and who is there angrier then you can imagine...haha  So we explain we got lost and didn't have his mobile number, he calms down and says he wants 1000 rupees for the day of waiting around for us but Sarah snapped on him and they got into a fight over it..in my head as I listen to both wingnuts lose it over 1000 rupees all I can think is, that is 23 canadian dollars...who cares!!?  So I threw 700 rupees at him and told them to both shut it.  He thanked me and Sarah stormed to the hotel...lol

While we were in Canaught Place we had two "interesting" experiences...the first was watching an officer beat a rickshaw driver, I had heard that this happens, that police and officers of any kind sometimes just beat local paid drivers if they are breaking rules and that you are to turn away and pretend you don't notice or you will get a beating too.  Originally, we approached two officers to help stop traffic so we could cross this insane street with no light crossings for miles and as we are talking to them a rickshaw driver was trying to pull a fast one by driving against the traffic because the traffic was lighter on our side of the street than the one he should have been on....so one of the officers leaves our conversation and rips the driver off the rickshaw and starts hitting him...the man tries to run and is pushing his rickshaw back around to go the other way but the officer followed him kicked him over and over and hitting him in the back...I didn't see anymore because I turned away and told Sarah to do the same.  The other officer acted like it was perfectly normal and stopped the traffic for us AND walked us across the street as if they were these friendly, sweet people...craziness

The second was meeting a man who just bought a huge suitcase, he was this very happy, younger man who told us he is getting married to his girlfriend up North is Kashmir next month so he needed a suitcase.  He is a travel consultant in Canaught place and told us after we were done shopping to drop in for a chai and tell him about our travels.  We completely forgot about him hours later but we ended up walking by his office by coincidence and he popped his head out and told us to come in.  It was a nice, air conditioned office (bonus!) he gave us mineral water and had a chai with us while we told him about our tour and then he told us about his finace and showed us pictures on his facebook of where she lives.  It was a funny little experience but a good one.  We said our goodbyes after and all exchanged facebook addys of course..lol and we were on our way!!!

Now we are officially hiding out in our hotel until we head to Beijing! 

Pushkar

Pushkar..the most religious city in Northern India (I might be making that up but I don't think so...either way, VERY religious!!)

So after some decent, some great and some of the WORST hotels etc we've all ever stayed in we finally hit the jackpot!  As a surprise, our guide took us to this luxurious hotel for our last night as a group..it was huge with beautifully manacured lawns, a sparkling blue swimming pool lined with white marble trim...but more importantly...A SHOWER AND TOILET PAPER!!!!!!!!

Our first order of business after lunch and getting settled was a walk into town to check out the city, the difference here from every other city we've been in is that the possession and comsumption of alcohol OR meat, fish, OR even eggs is strictly prohibited and enforced.  In fact, when people joked about smuggling alcohol in so we would have something for at night, our tour guide (a normally chill guy who loves gin) said we would be kicked off the tour immediately.  Now, I won't name names or anything but I may have photographic evidence that some people on the tour may not have found Jitu's threats very threatening..but it was kept hidden to the rooms in the evening soooooo....I would like to go on record though as not being one of those rapscallions...(hint: my roommate's conscience is not as clean)...

After checking out the city and seeing another damn bull go after a kid, who, thank God was a local and clunked it over the head with a bucket before it could get him, we hurried back to our hotel..though not before getting lost and stepping in something very wet and dirty that was never clearly identified.  After myself and one other lucky lady finished washing unknown substance off of our feet we had a lovely dinner back at the hotel before heading to bed.

Today, day #2 in Pushkar, was D-Day for me...it was CAMEL RIDING DAY!!!!  Now, I didn't believe in love at first sight until that fateful day but alas, when I saw Emily the camel..I knew I had to have her...why with her long pink, green, blue and white tassles, pierced ears and loooong eyelashes (jealous) who could resist?  It was actually pretty scary though in all honesty...she was one tall drink of water!  You have to get on, lean back and hope to God you don't do a nose dive off the front of your camel..I have some great, "Oh shit" face shots of people getting on their camels...hahaha

We rode out into the desert, Pushkar borders Pakistan (glad it was a few days after the whole Osama business or I might have been kicking Emily's butt to get us back to the hotel! ;-)  So, there is more to the story regarding Emily and I should probably tell you before continuing.  Emily, until having met me, was having a gender identity crisis...she was born a boy camel but is clearly all woman camel...I mean, she's too pretty to be a boy so when the camel guy called her "Raja" I let him know I had changed HER name to Emily.  He disagreed, repeating, "Raja, boy"
 "Emily, girl."
 "Camel is male, name Raja, 9 years old"
"Emily is a pretty camel"

  Let's just say we agreed to disagree...

Back to the desert..so we stopped in the middle of the desert to watch the sun go down, wow...mountains, sand for miles and the sun going down behind us...unreal actually.  The camel guys built a fire and made a pot of chai..and while everyone was appreciating the scenery with a nice cup of chai I decided, along with Sarah, that we needed to spice this alcohol free party up..so we took the big plastic tarp everyone was sitting on, made it into a sled and tried to slide down a really steep sand dune.  Everyone gathered around the crazy Canadians trying to sled down anything they can get their hands on...with little success on our own, some of the camel guys tried to give us a push...this method also failed so I said, screw it, I'm going down this dune one way or another..(I had a crowd, I hate to disapoint ;-)  So I rolled down the dune...I gained a lot of speed and a lot of weight in sand down my pants...it wasn't thought through to say the least but it was fun for the 10 secs it took to hit the bottom. :-)

Emily took me back to the hotel and I proceeded to the bathroom immediately to remove the sand from...ummm...EVERYWHERE..

The next day was just spent chilling in the amazing pool, eating food and trying NOT to sleep..you see, we had a train to catch at 12:30 AM to get us back to Delhi where everyone was heading on flights home or to the next destination. 

Our over night train was...ug..an experience onto it's own..let me sum it up with what I said to Sarah in the morning after waking up in our pod of 6 people stacked three high on each side, "How do you think I slept?  I'm in a fucking hanging basket"  (I was in the middle bunk which hung, by what looked to be the same chains that hold plants up on people's porches and swing like them too.. 

Back in Delhi, some goodbyes happened immediately and some are pending..for myself and Sarah, the sadest goodbyes are yet to come.  We've made amazing friends here that we will stay close with for years to come.

Peace.

Bidjipur and Udaipur

Bidjipur

Night one in Bidjipur was quiet, we were meant to check out the surrounding villages but we were all exhausted from a rather long, hot trek to the heritage hotel we were staying in out in the country. I had a really crappy massage and then started drinking "Kingfisher" beer and eating good food.  This place also had a fairly decent swimming pool so after a few...or several Kingfishers I may have cannonballed into the pool while everyone was sitting around eating...may have...

Day 2 in Bidjipur was pretty quiet most of the day, pool and lounging but then we headed into the villages, learned some very interesting history of a few different places but probably the most fascinating for me was the story of this one small village of only 200 people and children on the outskirts of main Bidjipur.  This village was set aside by the king for this group of people known as theives and cheats.  They needed somewhere to live but because they were outlaws he banished them from the main town and gave them their own plot of land about 15 min drive away.  To this day it consists of thieves apparently whenever something goes missing in town the police just drive to this village and it's always in one of their houses!  The trade of stealing is passed down at a young age and the children are taught to steal too!  Weird no?

In the evening we went out to this magestic lake where we sat and had chai while starring out at the water, it was the first time since the tour started that I needed to be alone with something that took my breath so I took my chai and found a quiet tree to lean against.  I knew lakes had good memories for me but I didn't realize their impact until I was at one again...BC really lacks in the lake department!

Back on the road, we headed to an old farm house in the middle of NO WHERE and had a roof top picnic dinner by candle light, it just perfectly topped off a magical night.

I went to bed that night very uneasy and sick to my stomach, I tossed and turned in the room until 6am, got up, broke into the reception's internet connection and checked my email..my baby boy, Cooper, died that morning while in the loving care of my wonderful friend.  I am grateful he passed while in the arms of someone that loved him as much as she does but I of course was destroyed.  I ran back to the room and broke down on Sarah.  After a few hours we had to pack up and leave, I tried to tell everyone I was just tired from a restless night but when the "mom" of our group came in and asked me what was wrong I broke down in front of everyone (ug, add humiliation to pain)..everyone was wonderful to me and took good care of me.  Once we arrived in Udaipur that morning, I went straight to bed and didn't come out until that night when everyone insisted I at least come to the cutural dance show and dinner.


Udiapur


The dance was amazing, I have photos and videos I'll post once home in a few days.  It was colorful and intense.  As we were leaving, a bull attacked our group and actually charged one of our group members from behind.  By some miracle he wasn't too badly injured but immediately after the bull charged myself and the one girl in the group is who absolutely terrified of bulls! :-(  I tried to pull her up a flight of stairs with me to safety but she froze and we were split up.  I made it away safely but she was stuck hiding behind an empty tuktuk while the bull tried to manuver around to her.  Thank God our tour guide came running back and managed to scare it off long enough for me to come down the stairs, grab my friend and run for it.

We SAFELY made it to a beautiful dinner on a lake front in Udaipur, the most romantic city in India where I ate a bowl of plain speghetti (I needed some comfort)..then off to bed.

The next day was spent shopping in the amazing markets, taking an indian cooking class (I bailed part way as it was too hot to be stuck in a kitchen) and I went out shopping again.  I met the most famous artist in Udaipur, he was featured on the TV show "Lonely Planet".  I bought a bunch of his small works..beautiful stuff!

I met up with a bunch of the girls from our tour later that afternoon and had a much needed binge drinking night.  We sat on a roof top patio and asked that the beers just keep coming..we ended up just eating dinner up there and then continued our drinking back on the roof of our hotel.  Unfortunately, only gin was available back at the hotel, warm gin at that..so needless to say, I woke up VERY ill the next morning and had trouble getting out of the hotel room, let alone the 6 hour train ride I was about to endure.  I actually had to run for the washroom (or hole in the floor that goes straight down to the tracks below) and  ummm clean out my system?  It was an ugly 6 hours.

To go backward a bit and speak to Sarah's much more interesting evening in Udaipur...she had been dying to get on a motorcycle and just go around the city for a few hours but finding a safe dude who also has a motorcycle would be a task on your own as a traveller.  The great news is our amazing guide is friends with another Intrepid guide who happened to be in Udaipur at the time and who also just happened to have a motorcycle!!  He took Sarah out for hours and miles!  She came back for dinner before heading out again and the smile on her face was massive!  It was awesome!  Ask and you shall receive!

Next up..Pushkar..but right now I need to go spend the last few hours I have with my Canadian friends from the tour before they head to the airport.

Random stuff and experiences

The food

Is mostly amazing..a couple places in more remote areas of the country have struggled with "freshness" if you will but for the most part my taste buds have been spoiled by the flavours here.  The good thing is I will be taking an indian cooking class in about 2 or 3 days so hopefully I'll come home able to recreate the genius here..I doubt it!  For those of you who don't know, there is something here in India called Delhi belly..this is when tourists visiting the country's stomachs distend and you are stuck on the toilet for a good portion of your time here in this amazing country!  I have been pretty lucky, I have not officially had Delhi belly and at this stage I'm not going to get it.  We choose very clean restaurants and street vendors known to our guide personally.  I have had issues in "that" area but nothing that has stopped me from keeping up on the trip!

The heat

It is HOT...no really, you don't get it..it is really really hot.  But not like get a tan hot, like "smog and extreme heat trapped in smog creating an oven in which you sweat to death and breakout terribly" type heat.
Also, in this heat it is really difficult to eat much, Sarah and I have been splitting very small portions of food once or twice a day but no one in our group is able to eat much of anything...TOO HOT.  I have to say though, I LOVE the heat, I just wish the smog wasn't here so I could get a sweet tan and not breakout like a teenager!

Toilets and toilet paper

There is a serious lack of what we in North America know as toilets.  There are these lovely holes in the ground inside buildings/rooms that look like they would contain toilets..don't be fooled..it's a row of holes in which you get comfortable very fast, drop your pants in front of the other women in the pee room and croutch over your hole while the lady beside you does the same..somewhat horrifying..especially with my lack of leg strength.  Thank God for this one woman on the tour who is like a mom to everyone (including her beautiful daughter who is on the tour with her) and she has held me up a few times over my "toilet"...another thing you never leave home without here, toilet paper!!!!  They don't supply it at your local hole so bring your own!

The people

Children love us, women are shy but want to talk and men..well, they come in a few groups: staring/oogling but no conversation, very chatty and want to practice their english, or merchants who are pressuring you like you've never been pressured before to buy their goods.
99% of our experiences as tourists in this country have been very wonderful.  People wave at us and chase our tuk tuks, rickshaws, jeeps..whatever we are in that day and wave and yell HI, HELLOOOOO!  haha We wave back and yell hello and the kids scream and laugh...its fun...everyone here is beautiful, I have loved every person I have met (minus some merchants!).


The animals

This has been a tough one off and on for me..the good thing is I was mentally prepared with all the warning but still, seeing VERY thin dogs panting and trying to escape the heat has been very sad.  They all just wander aimlessly looking for water and food and it is pretty clear most aren't having much luck.  I have, of course, been sneaking dogs water and food even though we've been told not to.  I can't help it! 

The sacred cow..the cows here are odd..they wander through even the busiest streets of India just chilling like they are in the middle of a barn yard..they are hilarious!  I have gotten so used to walking side by side with a cow while shopping that I have to admit, I don't even notice them anymore. 

The bloody monkeys!  Everyone said I would turn on monkeys and they were right!  They are vicious little asses..the good thing is, we actually don't see too many around and when we do we have people there in charge of scaring them off. 

Camels..see cows..so funny!  Just traffic like any other vehicle..the difference is all camels have owners..the dogs and the cows are random.  Goats and sheep are also owned here..

The last animal that we see every day all day in every city and rural village is warthogs, you know, pumba from the lion king?  I've met every Indian cousin he has!

Jaipur, Rathambore, Bundi

Jaipur

My absolute favorite city yet.  As large as Delhi but without the mass chaos, dirt and scary people.  In Jaipur everyone is friendly and helpful, there is ridiculously amazing shopping (I had to hit the ATM a few times in this city!)  Lots of indian shirts, pants, saris, silks, silver and precious stones...Jaipur has an intensely colorful sari market that we took a walk through, there must have been 100,000 saris of all colors, styles and shapes in the beautiful market!

We went to see a bollywood film in a beautiful theatre, but as with anything in my adventures, my favorite part was waiting outside the theatre and meeting some local boys.  I met a 21 year old boy who spoke french, spanish, english and of course hindi..he was incredibly smart.  His dream is to be a tour guide for something like Intrepid (my tour adgency).  Anyway, we are heading into the theatre when two members of our group decide to explore the city instead so we had two extra tickets.  Sarah and I invited my new little friend, Dinesh, and his mate into the movies with us, their smiles were huge!  As a group we all treated them to popcorn and coke etc..it was more fun to watch them watching the movie.  Afterward we found out it was only the second time they had ever seen a movie inside a theatre in their lives because the cost is too much for their familes...it was a beautiful experience.\
(Dinesh is now my facebook friend) lol

After the movie we went out for an amazing dinner and had a great time bonding as a group...I have definitely made friends for life on this trip.

We stayed in a beautiful palace hotel and cleaned up our clothes, bodies etc while we were somewhere that had good water and electricity.  My shower felt like nothing else!!!

After two nights in the beautiful city of Jaipur we headed to Rathambore..

Rathambore

The town itself is nothing..bad food, scary accomodations (Sarah and I slept holding onto one another in one corner of the two beds we had-the other bed had some sort of black crap all over it and bugs everywhere crawling in the sheets..we didn't sleep much!)  The reason we stopped in this town though was to go on a Safari through the jungle.  It is famous for hosting 23 bengal tigers, monkeys, varieties of deer, antelope, birds, lepords and panthers.  For 90% of the trip we were bored because it was all deer and birds..(wow) and the guides could see we were bored so without asking they drove the OPEN jeeps off into the bush where they are NOT suppose to go (we find out later) to try and look for bengal tigers.  Well, we found one!  Let's start by saying I am happy you all didn't read about a tour of morons eaten by a tiger in India!  The effing jeep got stuck in mud and rocks while backed up on a sleeping tiger that was awoken by the jeeps desperately spinning their wheels to get the hell out of there...there was a lot of panic and yelling in Hindi and a lot of amanda crying and screaming into the shirt of the person sitting beside me.  With two mins they managed to spin out and we took off at crazy speeds...they continued at high speeds all the way out of the jungle so obviously they knew we were all in a bit of a "position" with the tiger we awoke.  The guides asked us to never speak of what happened as we left the jungle!!!!!

Bundi..

Beautiful village, great people, we saw a royal palace that has been over taken by monkeys that will attack you if you make eye contact or gesture anywhere near them...awesome...just the kind of stress we all needed after our tiger expedition!  At one point our guide took a big stick and beat the ground in front of the approaching monkeys..some of my fellow travel mates got some pretty funny photos of my face as the monkeys got closer to me...lol

Afterward we walked through the village of Bundi, met some more cool local tribal people and bought tons of fruit at the markets...mmm  I discovered a new fruit only grown in India...I need to find out the name again!  Yummy stuff!
\
Off to Bijipur in the morning..apparently it is stunning!  Can't wait!!