Back in the West

These photos may be in need of captioning - in no particular order they are my leg after falling down some wet steps, Jess' shoes being laid to rest in a mall trash bin, me with the biggest dyke in Holland(!) and the precious little town of Edam.

Less than 20 days in Europe and so much has happened - I suppose that is what can happen when you can drive through multiple countries and experience their unique cultures and languages within a few hours. Flying into the Frankfurt International Airport was like any other fancy, big airport we have been in lately. The public transportation, however, felt very, well, German. It was so clean that it didn't have any smell and instead of using the area surrounding the train tracks as your trash bin, there not only was a trash bin on the train, but next to every set of seats! It was also silent - an experience we have not had in a very very long time. When we emerged into one of Frankfurt's main squares in the middle of a workday, the sight actually caused us to stumble a few steps back in shock - there was no one there! Well, hardly anyone...and the people that were there were not trying to sell anything, befriend us, or try to get our attention in any way. As a contrast, on our final taxi ride to the Delhi airport while sitting in traffic, an Indian ladyboy (I am forgetting the proper term now but Hindus believe they have mystical powers and can curse you) stuck her (his) hand into the car with neatly folded 10 rupee notes between her fingers urging me to add to the collection by smiling, batting her eyelids, and repeatedly jabbing my thigh with her hand. Jess on the other side of the taxi is having fashion magazines opened and thrown in her face while she is simultaneously yelling at the ladyboy to leave me alone. Moral of the story, if something goes terribly wrong for us, it is because we didn't give some rupees to the ladyboy AND the transition from India to Germany felt like we were both coming home to a familiar place and entering an alternate universe as the two countries could not be more of a contrast. That being said, we loved India - there is truly no place like it on earth that we have been to - and being in western Europe has also been spectacular. Drinking tap water, eating salad, and not being grimy at the end of a day are all greatly appreciated novelties for us.

While still transitioning to life in the West we thought it high time to buy a car. Please do not jump to conclusions by assuming that Jess and I are prepping our families and friends for the announcement of a civil union with our decision to buy a minivan, but yes it just so happens that a minivan is the most responsible and biggest purchase that we have made individually or as a unit. We had been told that buying a car in Europe while not being a part of the European Union is nearly impossible, but hey, we like a challenge. We found a guy on the internet in the city of Koblenz near to Frankfurt who sold campervans and also bought them back when travelers were done with them. After realizing that we actually cannot drive manual cars not to mention an old VW Westfalia on the Autobahn, we decided to try our luck elsewhere. We proceeded to spend the next 3 days in the office of a Lebanese man who refused to speak English to us and was referred to only as chief by his trusty assistant and our new friend. Before setting off in the sun with our legally registered, export plate-d minivan, we discovered that Koblenz is actually a lovely city filled with historic buildings, a rich history, and darling people. We then continued on to Cologne, Bruges in Belgium, a few small cities in the Netherlands including Amsterdam, and then back into Germany to Bremen a few days ago and Hamburg as of yesterday. I think this is the fastest we have been moving in the past 10 plus months, but getting in our lovely minivan every few days and driving for a few hours through lovely countryside is not so difficult a task. Here is a varied list of things we have learned recently - Belgian waffles really are better in Belgium, the cheese in Edam really is as good as you would think (Jess snarkily points out how much sample cheese I ate there), blonde children might just be the cutest, our minivan does indeed have a CD player and Melanie C isn't so bad, electrical tape does not permanently repair shoes, Jess is average size for a woman in the countries recently visited, my German is not so shizey, Holland and Netherlands (colloquially) are the same thing, Lebanese men know how to export a car, swans are nearly deadly, Belgian beer really is that delicious, Colin Farell is sadly not running around Bruges, Formula 1 racing might actually be interesting, German bars really look like how they are imitated to be in the states, neo-Nazis exist, Grimm fairy tales can really help a city's tourism, the west is obsessed with cleanliness and there are no smells here, Van Gogh didn't start painting until the last 10 years of his life, finding a parking spot for a minivan is not so easy in a city planned a thousand years ago, and to round the list out, people are kind to us wherever we go.

Jess and I, being of a certain breed, are naturally inclined to plan and perhaps you could go so far as to say that we can even overthink things on occasion. Thankfully, traveling beat that out of us pretty quickly so here we are, in Hamburg, with our minivan embarking tomorrow on a journey into former Soviet occupied Germany and Poland. We decided this yesterday and think it will be great fun - vodka, accordions, perogies and all.
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Ch-ch-changes!

We have been slacking and thus have a myriad of updates to announce. I will proceed in chronological order - first, we have adopted a kitten, or perhaps she has adopted us. While Jess was reading in bed, she heard the most pitiful whining and before she could identify the source, she had a little, black alien kitten curling up under her chin. We have named her Kitten, a classic, and have spent the last few weeks becoming too attached to her whiny, playful little self while being amazed by her growth and progress. As I said, she looked like an alien with huge eyes and protruding cheek bones, and is now just an adorable 6-ish week old kitten who has now worked up to catching and eating little lizards and spiders! We are very proud mothers, yet have failed her in a way by transforming her from a survivor, orphan kitten to a domesticated baby who sleeps only when having direct contact with a warm body (in other words, German neighbor Deiter's method of putting her in a small plastic bucket at night is unsatisfactory for both Kitten and me). We are currently trying to recruit some equally sappy, sentimental kitten-keepers to look after her when we leave, which is quite soon because...

We are officially yoga teachers! After a month of daily practice, leading classes, and putting our bodies in new, unforeseen positions, we are certified. One may think we would be the very vision of health, alas...

We are both sick! Well kind of, mine is self- inflicted as I have decided to do this Ayurvedic cleanse called Panchakarma that has been hip and trendy in India for say, the last 5,000 years, and has just caught on in the greater Los Angeles. Jessica warns me against sharing this as all of the Los Angelinos will judge me for giving into the latest of the Hollywood health fads along with Lindsay Lohan and Madonna, alas the 2 week treatment comes to a close tomorrow and it has been a most fascinating experience. Unlike western medicine that concentrates on curing the physical with medication while discounting the role of the emotional and mental self, Ayurveda takes all three as equally influential on the functioning of the body and its health. The point of the cleanse is to take the toxins out of the body which means that the doctor took a wooden stick and pressed it into very specific pressure points all over my body provoking the organs to release the stored toxins. So for a few days I walked around with 23 years of toxins flowing out of my organs causing me to be weak, nauseas, and a little unhinged - generally a joy to be around. The toxins are now out and I feel very, well, clean. Our fair, sensitive Jessica, however, is legitimately ill and didn't even invite it as I did. She has Giardia, not to be confused with the amoebas that she had a few weeks ago (and may still have), which is a hearty, hard-shelled parasite that is forming an army in her digestive system as we speak. It doesn't take excellent hearing to sense that something is amiss as her stomach sounds like the belly of a ship during a tempestuous crossing of the Atlantic. This most recent development has caused me to pull a mom move. I am not the best at channeling my maternal instincts, but I suppose that when I do, they come full force. We are flying to Germany in less than a week.

Ah the joys of living without plans and commitments...I was sitting at the computer with the task of buying our plane tickets to fly to Germany at the beginning of September and started to think that the next few weeks might be spent in a bathroom instead of on a camel or motorbike as planned. With this very sudden change of plans, lifestyle, and mentality, we will be arriving in Frankfurt with the mission of buying a cheap, used car and embarking on an epic road trip alllll over Europe in what is surreally the final leg of THIS around the world adventure.
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We had a baby!!!

Don't worry mom, that was just an analogy. An analogy that we feel is appropriate given the fact that we have been traveling for 9 months and 3 days. And, it strikes Laura and I that there are some eerie similarities between our 9 months of travel, and the things a woman experiences when letting a baby live inside her. I am told that the first trimester can be the hardest, and it is fair to say that the first few months of our trip were the most difficult mentally and physically. Looking back we really had no idea what we were doing, and that showed. But as time passed, we got more comfortable with traveling, and the major morning sickness feelings passed only to be replaced by little kicks every once in awhile. While those kicks were sometimes uncomfortable, they were also reminders of how special traveling is, and how something like this trip sometimes has a mind of its own. Finally, the last push to the 9 month mark was challenging in a very physical way as both Laura and I found ourselves as sick as 2 girls our age can be, but now, a few days past major sickness symptoms, we are feeling rather proud of ourselves. And we have this incredible trip, that is still far from finished, but at this point we realize that it has become a life all on its own, that often we cannot control. We are just happy to be along for the ride. Please send flowers and stuffed animals to 600 stairs north of Baghsu.

Other thoughts, and emails from concerned friends and family, have lead me to realize that according to the last few blogs, my personal India experience has been nothing but guns and squat toilets. Hence I will now list, for your reading pleasure, 10 wonderful things that have happened to me in India that do not involve train jail cells, men harassing me, or anything you can read about on webMD.

Ahem ...

1. I met the nicest boy and his little sister in Varanasi. He was maybe 12 years old, and just was the cutest. He wanted to talk about everything American, was more than happy to explain the mysteries of cricket to me, and I watched his eyes grow as big as mangoes when I told him I lived near Hollywood.

2. Mangoes - mangoes here are the most delicious!!! We eat as many as possible, and I am always the most satisfied after a meal if I am washing the sticky sweetness of a huge mango off my hands.

3. I watch Laura's headstand improve everyday. This is sometimes comical, but mostly awesome.

4. I had to take a moment to really just STARE at the Taj Mahal. It was that beautiful.

5. We have made some great expat friends, all who have shown Laura and I the ropes. People who do not hesitate to share their homes, or their chappati, or their knowledge of the local bus system.

6. I learned to make Indian food! I am now the proud chef of paneer butter masala (as healthy as it sounds, btw ... That is sarcasm for those who can't pick up on my dry humor on the interweb) as well as Dal Fry, hands down one of my favorite Indian dishes.

7. I have been initiated into the great tradition of Indian crystals and jewelry, thanks to a friend who was shopping wholesale for things to sell when she returned home. I spent hours picking out the most beautiful things, and though I am the skeptic sometimes, I really did feel the energy when I held the funny Merlin-esque crystal magic wand in my hand.

8. Once, after the most frusturating day ever in Chandigarh, and before a sleepless nightbus ride, a very nice middle aged Indian woman struck up conversation with me because she could see that "my face needed a friend." This encounter literally warmed my soul, especially since women are encouraged to be seen as rarely as possible and not heard at all when in public places in India.

9. Because of the climate in southern India, avocados are relatively plentiful in the area where Laura and I are currently. For a girl who grew up with an avocado tree in her backyard, this is a very, VERY good thing.

10. Who remembers the ridiculous white pants that Laura and I had to buy for the 4 day meditation in Chiang Mai, Thailand? Well, they have been put to good use in yoga class, and we do so much yoga, it is fabulous.

How's that for a good time? Xoxo
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Quintessentially India

Ah India, a complex and diverse land...a place where Giardia, Gurus, and Gandhi are all terms commonly thrown around in our conversations these days. We are 10 days into our yoga teacher training course and I suppose we are checking a lot of the 'to-dos' of India off the list - we sit around with our old German neighbor, Deiter, who hitchhiked TO India in 1969 and has more or less been here since, and are educated on such topics as the CIA's successful plotting to assassinate Indira Gandhi (note to government agents: plots by the CIA to kill Indians is a popular theme on this mountain, so beware) and the Bavarian Illuminati's current and past control of society as we know it.

Something else that has punctuated our time here thus far is the confirmation that we have amoebas living in our tumtums - to be in India for three months especially during the monsoon season and hope not to get sick would just be foolhardy so in a way we are feeling like it is a badge of merit. Perhaps this is my opinion as such because I, unlike the lady I share a room with, did not spend multiple days more or less sleeping in a squat toilet outhouse. I recently read that a person should not make her life an open book, so suffice it to say that Jess' symptoms ranged from those of Giardia to Dysentry over the past few days and webMD can provide further elaboration.

While Jess was slimming down, I was taking steps towards spiritual enlightenment, or so I'm told. Our yoga instructor, Shivam, invited a group of us to come celebrate 'Guru purnuma' at his guru's ashram - it is a yearly celebration in India during which devotees visit their gurus and give thanks. As the full moon auspiciously rose in the sky we made our way through a small town of terraced farms. We reached the ashram with our hands filled with Indian sweets and flowers as a gift and were met with a surprisingly casual scene. We walked into a room where a few people were sitting on the floor chatting with a very tall, very thin bearded man cloaked in orange robes and with a pile of dreadlocks wrapped on the top of his head. I understand the inherent skepticism that some may feel when they hear the term 'guru' - new wave cults and quack financial advisors. In Hindi, 'gu' means dark and 'ru' light so a guru is anyone who turns darkness into light for you through his teachings (I think it also helps to be able to sit in double lotus pose - Jess says that if my hips get a little looser and I can get into that position, she will name me her guru. The only setback with this might be the whole discrimination of women as impure and lesser beings detail...). Regardless, this man had the kindest eyes and warmest demeanor so I can see how people would be drawn to him. We spent the night listening to his followers sing devotional music with the accompaniment of a harmonium, drums, and bells and being mildly embarrassed by Shivam who has this habit of flailing his body and head around while singing out of tune during meditation. We slept on the roof of the meditation hall and were woken up early by chanting so I made my way to a grassy knoll to read a book while waiting for whatever it was that was going to happen to unfold. The guru walked over to me and asked what I was reading - I told him it is about the Yoga Sutra and he was delighted to hear that I practice yoga and says he does also. He then asks me if I understand everything about yoga and I say certainly not and ask him if he had any advice for me to improve my meditation. He replies that he will think about it and tell me when it is quieter. Later when more and more of his devotees are coming to give him and us some not so delicious buttery sweets that we are unable to refuse, he points to me while speaking to Shivam in Hindi and beckons me to his side to ask my question again. As you may imagine, the already inclined to staring Indians are really taking in this white girl and her interactions with guruji. While kneeling next to him, he orders Shivam to do something and I am told to follow. I am ordered to stand next to the puja, a religious firepit, and throw ashes into the flame five times while repeating the chant of a group of religious men in robes that have surrounded me and then genuflect with my hands in namaste (prayer) at the base of the altar. Yes, a little strange and idol worship-y, I then returned to the side of the guru and was told to place the red vermillion paste on his toe and third eye while he gave me a blessing. This was all a mystery to me until Shivam very excitedly explained it all to me afterwards. He said that it was a big deal that guruji would actually answer my question, not just let me ask it, and this was because the guru and Shivam both sensed that my energy was 'pure' and 'joyful' (you may recall the conch shell lady in Varanasi saying Jess was the one with the good aura and I was too much of a thinker, but different strokes for different folks/spiritual guides I suppose). Moral of the story, the mantra I chanted is now my 'guru mantra' as it was given to me by one and I should use that in my practice.

Once returned from the ashram, I was met by a very pale, pitiful Jessica and must have been overcome with sympathy pains as we both walked down the mountain early the next morning to make our way to the hospital. I'm not quite sure one could say she has really lived if she hasn't walked down hundreds of stone steps in the early dawn hours with a stool sample in a used coffee can/gherkins jar to a medical clinic overseen by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

In between feeling exhausted and trying to improve our health through a combination of antibiotics, raw garlic, grapefruit seed extract, black salt water, and aloe vera juice (one or a combination of which may possibly be making us manic as we spend hours in fits of uncontrollable, idiotic laughter which is balanced by short bursts of intense agitation - any thoughts medical personnel?), we have enjoyed not planning our next move, practicing a whole lot of yoga, and getting to know those around us. One of our favorites is Sunil, our resident Sanskrit scholar, who is teaching us Vedic mantras as part of our training. He has minimal confidence in his English, but it is easy enough to figure him out through his impassioned singing and his expressive moves as he has been joining us in class. Yesterday he convinced Muriel, a woman in our course, to be tied up with the straps we use in class so that he could put the straps in his mouth and lift her body with his teeth alone. A most interesting mating technique.

An odd note to end on, yes, but the thick fog encompassing the mountain right now that makes us feel like we are on a platform detached from Earth is having a similar affect on my mind.
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The way the Himalayas makes me feel! (they knock me off my feet!)

If you read the previous blogpost written by my fair companion, you will know that Laura and I had experienced a bit of bad luck. At least, I think that's what it's called when a man who assumes you are a fare dodger holds you at gunpoint and then eats half of your candy bar as a bribe to release you from the drunk tank ... I digress. Anyways, suffice it to say Laura and I had a break coming to us and thank the stars in the sky, I believe we caught one. As the attached pictures show, we are in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and we are wonderfully happy about it.

I write to you from approximately 600 stairs north of a town high in the Himalayas called Baghsu. Yes, we do have to climb up and down 600 stairs every day, sometimes multiple times a day. And yes, it is worth it. The peaceful view, the mountain energy, the fact that our booties will eventually look better than JLo's, the incredible people we have met who are as crazy as us to make the same hike everyday, everything is great from way up here. Anyone who knows even a little bit about me will not be shocked by the next statement - Laura and I are spending the next month in this exact spot, training to become yoga teachers. It's official, Jessica will indeed take the final yoga plunge and jump to the teaching side, and I cannot think of a better place to do it. Yesterday, we had a preliminary class with our teacher Shivam. He is everything you might expect from a yoga teacher in India - he wears long, flowly, white clothing, and inexplicably starts asking us existential questions about water in the desert in the middle of meditation. I think that he will be great. The next bit is mostly for our mothers who are interested in the daily schedule - we will train Monday through the morning on Saturday for 4 weeks. We wake at 7AM for a hour long meditation followed by 2 hours of asana practice, followed by a lecture on such subjects as sanskrit and mudras and vedas and anatomy and other such subjects. After a lunch break we start again at 3PM with 2 more hours of asana practice, and at 5 have a final hour long meditation. Whew, if that doesn't satisfy our need for yoga, nothing will. It will be hard, and I am sure the coming weeks will be filled with blog posts of various energy levels, but for now we are both happy and excited.

And, this morning, Laura and I unpacked the packs for the first time in 8 plus months. What a strange feeling. What a GREAT feeling. I think committing a month to this beautiful place will be well worth it, and is probably exactly what we subconsciously need after moving around so much.

That's the big news from here. We hope everyone at home is well and listening to MJ on repeat.

Love love love and sunshine!
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It was just too easy...

Very soon after Jessica's latest post, a series of mishaps coupled with being in the wrong (or sometimes right) place at the wrong time led to the first time in a very long while that our traveling could be classified as 'difficult.' As the events I am about to retell are actually not so harrowing, I suppose this is more of a testament to what good travelers we have become and how often that fact intersects with great fortune and wonderful people/opportunities.
While on our way to the train station in Delhi we were remarking what a pleasant time we had - filled with rest, cooking, and clean laundry. This was made even more pleasant by the fact that Delhi seems to be the last place any backpacker wants to be when in India, with its notorious scams, pooping in the streets, and extreme heat. Indeed, we had had it too easy. Our rickshaw wallah dropped us off at the wrong train station which forced us to get into yet another rickshaw with a man whose business practices Jessica disapproved of so much that her only words for him were, 'no, I do not want to go with you, we don't like you!' Alas, sometimes you are desperate and need to catch the last train out of town and he did get us to the train station on time, so good on him. As a preface to this scene there isn't much to say to quell the nerves of the mothers, but I will say two things: 1) the train system is insane in India, but not in the way that my brother's friend Brian thinks ('I hear people just disappear on those trains and are never heard of again...'), instead we have found the train system to be rather orderly and secure. This does not, however, outweigh the fact that there are over 1 billion souls in this nation and everyone is on a family summer holiday. The trains are also full so missing a train is an undesirable situation as it is not guaranteed that you will be on the next train to your destination. In other words, missing our train was not an option.
2) I promised myself a long time ago that I would never run with a backpack on. Any of my friends from college can attest to my disapproval of our fellow students who had their priorities so maligned as to run to a class not to miss the first 5 minutes and to sacrifice their pride, the cleaniness of their clothes, and the increased risk of stress related diseases.
So there we are, it is 1022 PM, the train is scheduled for 1020, and for the first time, a train is pulling out of the station on time - perhaps since independence in 1947. We ran, oh did we run (or perhaps waddle) with our backpacks, some mangos, and a bar of chocolate after the moving train. Jessica and I have been accused of being eerily similar people -- one difference is the cause of the ensuing scene. Jessica is a more cautious person than I am, therefore, she ended up in the drunk tank and I didn't.
As the train pulled away I took a few long strides, stuck out my arms, and clung to the handrails while imploring the men standing at the door to pull me in. My last sight of Jess was her standing on the platform, arms at her side, palms raised in a gesture of utter disbelief and panic/weighing her options. That was Monday night, I haven't seen her since...

Just kidding! But it did get pretty bleak there for a moment. I found myself in a general seating car and thus had to make my way up to our slightly nicer sleeper car that was of course on the other end of the train. General seating carts, especially on overnight trains, speaking generally (ha) is filled with people who are pretty hard up for cash - this means that they do not see white solo women that often in the flesh or have no qualms about acting as though they haven't. Have we mentioned the staring in India? It is unabashed which, to me, is better than trying to hide it, but it means that we feel like we are in the zoo. Slowly I made my way through the train and finally reach our car when Jessica bursts into the door babbling and hurling herself on me. After a moment, she coherently recounts her travails of the last hour. As the few cars behind the one I leaped onto were filled with people, she had no choice but to jump onto the last one. As the adrenaline of jumping onto a train gaining speed is not enough for a girl who has 1 and a half functioning legs, she is met by a man with a gun, a gun pointed at her, the fare dodger. Jess had found herself in the police car that is used to 1) keep fare dodgers like herself off the trains 2) lock up the drunks and other unruly folks wreaking havoc on the train. Quite clearly our Jessica represents one if not both of these characteristics, so it is only understandable that the officer(after lighting up a dooby) locked her up in the drunk cell before letting her explain her story. I am told he considered letting her go to her seat not after seeing her ticket, but only after she surrendered half of our candy bar to him. After our stories were told and our blessings counted, we fell asleep to wake up in Haridwar, yet another holy city on the Ganges. The city, to our sleepy eyes, was filled with pushy Indian grandma-pilgrim types and a lot of poo so we decided to return to our friend, public transportation, and take the hour long bus to Rishikesh where Jess once again used her line about not liking a person as a reason for not getting into his rickshaw, fair enough. After said unlikable rickshaw wallah dropped us off at the wrong point, we had to walk through yet more crowds of pushy grandmas on pilgrimage before reaching our much anticipated destination.
As many practitioners of yoga know, Rishikesh is the self-proclaimed yoga capital of the world so we were anxious to reach a place we were hoping to spend quite a bit of time. Turns out the world's center of yoga has an off season. Frankly our patience was a bit low as this was the second city in a row that was underwhelming. Once again, this is a testament to the breadth of incredible places we have been over the past 8 months. In an effort to be pro-active, we started to research other cities that offered many yoga opportunities this time of year and settled on going to Dharamsala earlier than expected, but would first stop in Chandigarh for a few days. Chandigarh had been described to us as the Canberra of India. To make that allusion clear, Canberra is the capital of Australia - a wealthy, well-planned city that is also totally devoid of culture or anything else of interest. With this image in mind, we decided to still give Chandigarh a chance as it was not only on our way, but had various 'points of interest' most notably the government sector which was designed by Le Corbusier - one of the gods of modern architecture that I had studied in depth at university.
Something was off in Chandigarh from the start. It is a new city that was designed in such an ultra-modern way as to set the tone for a 'new India' - after having just received independence, there was a desire to show that it could keep up with the first world, but that just isn't India. Chandigarh had everything that frustrates us about India while lacking all of that which makes India such a singular, great place. Frustrations included the black hole where cheap accomodation should be, the cryptic, elusive way in which we had to get a bus out of the place while being told that it was impossible, everybody's inability to tell us where Le Corbusier's buildings were, and the bureaucracy(and military barricades) that finally made it impossible for us to see the buildings. The upside of Chandigarh being a bit of a ghost town is that we were able to scramble onto the top of a roof parking lot to catch a glimpse of some of the buildings before being politely shooed away by some military personnel. Let's just say that the most pleasant time spent in Chandigarh was the hours spent waiting for the bus we were told wouldn't come. Alas, the bus did come and we arrived early this morning in Dharamsala, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas that is home to the Dalai Lama in exile along with many Tibetan refugees. The scenery is beautiful, the feeling calm, and the weather pleasant as opposed to the oppressive heat that has characterized our first few weeks here. Along with all of these positive attributes, yoga opportunities abound and we are in the midst of figuring out if we want to participate in a month long yoga teacher training program taught high up in the mountains by a man in flowing white clothing. Things are certainly looking up for us and we are heartened by the prospect of lots of yoga, trekking, and the absence of long-distance transportation for the foreseeable future.

And since you were wondering, yes, the headline of all the newspapers here, both English and Hindi, read 'The King of Pop is Dead.'
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Making our way North

Well, we can check a few major tourist sights off our list after spending the past few days traveling through Agra (oh so briefly) to Delhi. A few days ago, Laura and I saw the Taj Mahal, and let me tell you that no matter how many pictures you see of that thing, there is nothing like actually standing in front of it. It is the definition of a surreal feeling. Almost an out of body experience to be actually looking at something that you can recall an image of in your mind so easily. As you can all imagine it really is that huge and white and ornate. I know I am a cynic when it comes to this stuff, but I wasn't really blown away by any romantic feelings that apparently some people get caught up in when wandering through the ornate gardens and gazing at the huge central dome. I mean, if some guy built ME a huge white gravestone after I died giving birth TO HIS 14TH CHILD, I would not be in such a romantic mood. Seems more like the guy was feeling a wee bit of guilt to me ... But again I'm a cynic. We spent less than 12 hours in Agra because everyone told us that, aside from the Taj Mahal, not much else is going on. Plus, it makes no financial sense to spend more than one day looking at the Taj, because it is ridiculously expensive to get in for foreigners. Everything in India has 2 prices - one for Indian nationals and one for foreigners. The mark-up for foreigners is extreme. If I could only convince someone that my fair skinned, 6 foot plus self was an Indian national, then I would only have to pay 10 rupees to see the Taj Mahal. To give everyone in the States a sense of what that means, 10 rupees equals about 5 US cents. Instead, Fox and I must pay 750 rupees each, about 16 ish dollars! No fair!!! Oh well, now I know how everyone who is not from California feels when they get to the gates at Disneyland. But I must say that even though we paid 75 times more than the obnoxious group of men who would not stop taking pictures of us, (is that correct? My math is on very shaky grounds these days) the Taj Mahal was indeed breathtaking.
While on the subject of men in
India, let me note that though we are always safe and not in any danger at all (I promise mom) the way we are treated in this country, because we are women, is out of control. I noticed the other day that when we are walking around, I actually keep my head tilted toward the ground and keep my gaze on my feet. If I do look up to check out a cool modern Delhi flat, or to make sure a crazy rickshaw wallah isn't gunning straight for me, I am extremely careful not to meet anyone's eye. I have learned in the past 2 weeks that any kind of eye contact between myself and a man, no matter how incidental, is an open invitation for that man to either catcall and make a huge ridiculous scene, or to start following me and ask me questions that inevitably lead to some proposal of marriage. Neither situation particularly thrills me. A friend, Wes, who lives here in Delhi was explaining that the men literally can't help reacting that way, because of the huge disparity of women in the country. Open any newspaper here in Delhi, and you will easily find some horror story about a newly wed Indian woman being beaten and in some cases killed by her new husband's family because her dowry was too small. India is a country where female infanticide is a huge issue, because female children become quite expensive for a family once they are at the marrying age. Someone clearly wasn't thinking ahead however, because female infanticide has led to a shortage of about 50 million women across India. Hence the marriage proposals and catcalls Laura recieves even when she is wearing a moomoo and sweating profusely and has a streak of dirt across her forehead.
Being back in a big city, Delhi, for the past few days has been lovely. We went to an "excellently curated" modern art museum a few days ago (Laura took a class on curation once). The highlight however was going to a hindu temple complex that operates more like a theme park. There was a boat ride a la the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland (mentioned twice in this blog!) that had the ambitious task of covering "10,000 years of India's history in 10 minutes!" Yikes. Highlights also include an epic movie shown on an imax-like screen about a boy who left home at age 7 to find enlightenment. Advertisements for that proclaimed that the cast had over 45,000 people!!! Almost nothing in India is small.
Tonight we are taking the overnight train to Haridwar. There is an extreme amount of yoga in my future which I am really excited about. We also have some good leads on NGOs with whom we hope to volunteer with in a few weeks time. Love and baci to everyone at home.

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