Michelle and Brent

Wednesday March 26, 2008 - 3:45pm

Today is the day we leave India.

We have spent the past few days seeing all that Mumbai has to offer, and actually enjoying it quite a bit more than other places. Michelle has been able to dress more relaxed, as there are plenty of tourists around to distract from us. We have done plenty of shopping, and in turn had to mail home another package!

We took a "sightseeing" tour the other day with a taxi driver, something that has been offered to us a thousand times over in every city, but one that we had yet to do. So we decided to try it. It was a 4 hour journey that was actually not all that exciting. We thought we would get to see everything, we thought we would have too much time, then we thought we would run out of time...amazing how things can change in such a large and busy city. We got to see a mosque that is in the ocean, connected by a causeway that is covered at high tide, creating an island, which was cool. We saw a few other temples and large gothic-style buildings. We saw the "hanging gardens" on the highest point of Mumbai which overlooked filthy Chowpatty Beach area. Then we saw the Tower of Silence, which is not so much a tower as a building in which the Parsi people (very small minority group) hang the dead to be picked clean by vultures. They believe that both fire and earth are sacred, and therefore do not bury or incinerate dead bodies. Lastly on this tour we went to the cricket stadium, but much like the rest of the sights, we could not go in as access is restricted. All in all it was ok, however we both had higher expectations.

Yesterday we went to see one final site that we did not get to on our tour. This was the Victoria Terminus, the main train station for this bulging at the seams city. It is said that 2.5 million people pass through its gates each day. The building itself was very impressive, old gothic style again and massive! We walked around inside and outside, then started to head back to our end of the peninsula. On the way we found a movie theatre and decided to see "The Bucket List" with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Surprisingly funny. Along our walk home after the flick, we passed the University of Mumbai and a large greenspace with some pick-up cricket and soccer games being played.

This morning, after checking out of our hotel, we wandered down to a closer movie theatre and watched "Juno", which we had seen earlier this year back home, but enjoyed it enough to see again. After that, we ate some lunch at....wait for it...McDonalds! Can you believe it? I am even a little shocked at the two of us, as we usually stay far away from it at home. However we decided to try it because there is no beef on the menu at all. It is completely different. There are more vegetarian options than meat options, and some crazy things you would never expect, nor can I really describe, such as Paneer Tikka Wrap, Shahi Paneer wrap, and McAloo Tikki Burger. We had a Mcveggie burger, a McAloo Tikki Burger, and a sort of Pizza pocket type thing called a McVeg Pizza Puff. All vegetarian for us, but not too shabby. Instead of the famous BIG MAC, they have the Chicken Maharaja Mac, which I found quite amusing.

So now we have the rest of the day to kill, as we fly out at 11:55pm. We will head to the airport leaving around 8, as it could take up to 2 hours to get there, even though it is only 30km or so. We have some plans to hang out in a Barista again, very much like a starbucks.

We stop off in Kuala Lampur en route to Auckland for 13 hours tomorrow during the day, so hopefully we can leave the airport and wander the city a bit.

The next post we do will most likely be from New Zealand, where we will be staying the first couple nights with Michelle's friend Rachel.

Namaste, and goodbye India!

Brent

Saturday March 22, 3:30pm
Happy Holi! Today is the Indian festival of colours. Basically people paint themselves in colours and drink lots of beer and bhang lassies (marijuana drinks) and run around the streets.

So we made it to Mumbai yesterday afternoon. Where have we been since the last post you ask well no where really. In fact we were unable to move from Udaipur where we blogged once and added pics till yesterday. Why havnt we been more adventurous you ask, well... I was sick. And I mean down and out. There was absolutly no moving and no eating for me for a good 3 days. It happened one afternoon and it was probably worse than anything you could imagin. Really. I shocked Brent, although he was a wonderful companion and nursed me back to life. The hotel was a less than desirable place to be when I was sick and i wished very much to be at home in my bed, and my bathroom.

But that is all in the past now and we are moving foward. We took the train from Udaipur to Mumbai, 18 hours overnight and arrived about 3 o'clock the next afternoon. Our arrival was pretty smooth considering we had just entered a city of 16 million. We got into a cab that only tried to charge us 3 times the actual fair, and was a real creeper. But with Brent being a fierce haggler, we were able to only pay twice the actual price. Our hotel is pretty good and comes with breakfast delivered to our room in the morning although the room itself is quite small, the bathroom is clean and a billion times better than the last place where all the terribleness of being sick occured.
We are both in good spirits now that we are away from Udaipur. I believe that our hotel was making us both sick, at least the food there was.

We are staying in the area of Colaba in south Mumbai, about a 4 minute walk from the gates of India, and the port and harbour. We walked down there today which was quite nice. The area itself is wonderful, and less dirty than all the other places we've been so far, even in this, Forbes rated, the dirtiest city in India, 7th dirtiest in the world. Our street is quiet, with lots of big houses and trees. An old part of town.
We intend to do some sight seeing around the city a little in the next few days, get a few gifts for people, and relax till our flight on Wed.

Hope all is well at home and that winter will finally let up some day soon.

On a personal note, Brent and I have each gotten an acceptance to Graduate programs for the fall. We will have to see if many more roll in.

Bye from Mumbai.
Michelle

March 17, 2008 6pm
Look out we just added 5 new pictures!

Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 4:30pm

We left you last in Pushkar, with Michelle feeling very uncomfortable most of the time, and newly covering her entire body when going outside of our hotel rooms. Well this hasn't changed, as she is still covered all the time, but it does seem to be working as the stares we get are less intrusive, and not quite as common (although still there).
Pushkar was an excellent time! Lots of travellers and tourists and tonnes of cool shops lining the streets around the small man-made lake. The day after the last post, we did some fun and interesting things. Firstly, we found a place for Michelle to get some henna work done on her hands (part of the morphing into an Indian woman technique). This was essentially a barber shop sign we found, and one of the men there brought us to his house where his wife (16-18 year old, 95 pound thing with a dilpoma in henna) would spend the next hour or so making Michelles hands very pretty. I also got a little bit done, but just a flower (lotus) on my tricep to see what it would be like to have a real tattoo there (by the way it looks awesome). After that, we had some lunch and signed up for an evening camel trek! This was great fun, but a little painful. It started at 4:30 and went until about 7:30, with a small break after an hour (much needed) and another small break to watch the sun set, which was quite lovely as it was desert area surrounded by mountains. Camels are more fun and feel much safer than elephants, but neither are really as good as one would hope. My butt is still sore, and so is Michelle's back (different areas are sore due to the protective sitting techniques we employed to save ourselves from more pain, specifically for me...if you catch my drift).
The next day we shopped a little bit in the morning and headed to a nice little hotel called the Lotus 'B' House where we had arranged to have cooking lessons with the man that ran the place, Kamal. He was excellent and taught us everything we wanted to learn. We got to try basically everything on the menu and learned how to make it, which is excellent, and definately a skill we both wanted to acquire. The best part was that he was teaching cooking by donation only, unlike one of the other places we had gone to which was 400 rupees ($10) each.
The next day we decided to depart Pushkar by means of bus. We had to take a city bus to nearby Ajmer, then a tuk-tuk (taxi) to a travel agent (that we had set up in Pushkar), then another tuk-tuk to the departure point. It was a little stressful, but we managed. We had reserved a "sleeper" seat on this bus which is the first of such designations on our trip. It was a small double bed enclosed by walls and sliding doors perched above the normal coach bus seats below. Very comfortable for a long bus journey. We arrived last night here in Udaipur (apparently one of the most romantice cities in India) around 8:30 pm. We found a hotel overlooking the lake and lake Palaces (yes thats right, island palaces on the lake, this is where James Bond's "Octopussy" was filmed). This morning, after a well deserved sleep-in, we wandered around and eventually made our way to the city palace, where we splurged for a guided tour. It was very informative and fun. We will spend a few more days here before heading either to Goa (via aiplane if we can find a cheap enough flight), or somewhere else via train/bus (if we can't find a cheap flight.), destination undecided.
Tonight we have plans to watch Octopussy, as every hotel shows it every night at 7. Other than that we will continue to relax as much as possible, gearing up for the finale of India in bustling, chaotic, crazy Bombay (mumbai) in about a week.

Over all, the first 10 days of this trip have had their ups and downs, but it is getting easier, and we are enjoying ourselves, even though we get overwhelmed at times.

Bye for now,

Brent

Wednesday March 12, 9pm
Well we have just come to the end of our first week in India and what a lot of emotions, experiences and ups and downs there have been. When Brent last wrote we were coming to grips with the poverty and dirtyness of Delhi having dove head first into all that is India. We have found our footing a bit better now and are starting to feel more at ease.
We took the train from Delhi to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. The train station in Delhi was our nemesis as we somehow managed to visit it three days in a row. But when we finally took the train it went relativly smoothly. On arrival in Agra, our taxi driver kept insisting he was the best driver in Agra and would pick us up and take us around for the next few days. It took a lot of insistant 'No's' for him to understand that is not what we were looking for. We had picked our hotel just a 5 minute walk from the gate of the Taj.
Dinner that evening at a roof top restaurant was picturesque. We could not have imagined or asked for a more beautiful back drop for our first evening out of Delhi. The sun was slowly setting to our west and the Taj was glowing pink and orange in the north. Amazing!
We were up before the sun the next morning to see the Taj at sun rise which is said to be the most beautiful time of day. Unfortunatly for us it was very foggy and while the experience was awesome our view of the Taj was quite limited. Good luck shined on us because somehow being some of the first few people onto the grounds that morning meant that we missed getting our tickets ripped. So later that afternoon we headed back to see the Taj in all its glory shining bright in the sun. A much better view than earlier in the day. We also managed to see the Agra fort, a massive palace grounds built by the same maharaja who built the Taj. Interestingly the Taj was build as a tomb in honour of his wife.
All this probably sounds pretty good and that spending our days in the shadow of the most glorious monument to love would be carefree, in fact things were very different for me.
When we first arrived in India we thought that we were being very self consicous because we thought everyone was constantly looking at us. Well the feeling didnt change as we thought it would once we figured things out. Nope, in fact everyone is constantly staring at us, and to put in more bluntly I cant do anything without every Indian man within a one block radius staring at me. Apparently I look funny. Anyways its was getting worse and worse, at the train stations and all over. What overdid it was on our second visit to the Taj when groups of Indian men were following us around and trying to take pictures of me. Really awful!
Anyways youll be happy to know that I am now a modest, Indian dressed woman who doesnt go out anywhere without my head covered by a scarf, long sleeves, a long skirt and often sunglasses. I am finally starting to feel comfortable all hidden away, and I only get half as many stares.
After Agar we went to Jaipur by early morning train. The poverty, garbage and squalor along the train tracks leaving the city was hard to take. Once in Jaipur though, where I bought my Indian clothes and scarves things got better. We did a walking tour of the Old city yesterday. Saw some forts and palaces. The whole city named the Pink City is encircled by a large pink wall. I also blogged last night but it all got erased... so here I am again...
Today we are now in the small relaxed town of Pushkar. We took the train again this morning to Ajmer and then a short bus ride over the hills to Pushkar. With a tremendous drop in the population we are relaxing a bit today. It is a great break from the big cities.
Tomorrow we are thinking of taking a short camel trek through some hills. Some henna designs and a cooking class are also under consideration.
On an organisational note, we booked our tickets to NZ for March 26.
Goodbye from under my head scarf.
Michelle