Food Update

I am in food Nirvana. I know, that is crazy for Shanon to say, especially since I am in a 3rd world country, but it is very, very incredible and tasty. About 80% of the restaurants serve 100% vegetarian food (heaven!) thanks to the vast majority of the population being Hindu. Think of the Bombay House but better (and much cheaper) every day! Yesterday, for lunch we had an all yo can eat "Thalis" meal that they kept slopping different curries on our silver platter for 4 dollars total (including cokes). We ate so much that we skipped dinner and breakfast the next day. We have been eating this stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner and have not yet gotten sick of it. Delicious, delicious, and the best part is that you eat with your hands. We rarely get silverware and if we do, it is just a spoon. Its messy and goopey and great! We finally learned after several uncomfortable meals that you are only to use your right hand to eat since the left hand is reserved for bathroom duties. I got a gagging, choking face from a young boy after he saw me tearing my bread with both hands. Very funny! But, we like the food so much here that we ended up taking a cooking class to learn how to make it at home. We will definately have to have a dinner party when we get home.

Aside from the food, we have seen some really interesting things. Udiapur was great and relatively calm. We enjoyed our 3 days there as we wandered the streets checking out the many temples that would pop up and ranged from ancient to just really, really, old. We also checked out Ahar, which is a large area of centopaths or monuments of the old Maharajas of the area. It was an area larger than a football field full of domes. We took a tour of the city palace which was great and we had a wonderful night watching some dancers of the region and a band playing some interesting traditional music. There was even a puppeteer as part of the show.

Mount Abu was ok, but the lake that the town surrounds was tiny (pond sized) and full of algae, garbage, sewage and swan shaped paddle boats. The best part of this town was the ancient Jain temples built in 1031-1230 AD which were all marble but so intricately carved it the whole temples looked like lace. The carvings were of their gods, elephants, buddhas, lotus flowers, etc. It was so amazing, but unfortunately cameras were not allowed so we weren't able to take a photo. The history here in India is so old and interesting. Apparently gypsies originated in the area that we are in, the palaces still have the gold plated elephant seats that the kings would ride in and the forts still encompase bustling cities that sell spices, silks and camels. Much more to see in the weeks to come, I am sure.

Arrrghh, My Senses-The Truth About India

Where to even begin. The sights, smells, tastes and overall feel of India is unlike anything we have encountered, and it's easy to see why people either love or hate traveling in this country (and it's easy to have both feelings in the same day). So far, I think we are leaning toward the love side, but we'll have a final vote when all is said and done. Getting from point A to point B has been at best a nauseating challenge involving the most unsanitary of train stations, tight quarters in a sleeper train (usually with 3-5 Indians invading your personal space), choking pollution while riding in the tuk-tuks, and the death-defying speed and maneuvers of a city taxi. The latest was a 6 hour ride on a "luxury bus", which was more like a public bus spawned from the bowels of hell. To quote our India guide book, "buses are fume-belching, human-stuffed, mechanical rattletraps which travel at break-neckspeed."

After dealing with transportation woes there will be people who will try and take you places you don't want to go, harass you so that you'll buy things you don't want to buy (like this guy). Combine that with the in-your-face poverty, and throw in the occasional elephant or cow; add the ever changing smells that waft through the streets, including nice aromas like saphron, curry or burning incense. Then rip those nice aromas away in dramatic fashion and replace them with the stinging smells or raw sewage, garbage, and animals feces. Such is life on the streets in India. Doesn't it sound magical? Really, it is. Although there are definitely challenges in traveling here, India has amazing things to offer, and the things we have seen and heard so far have truly been worth the effort.

At the moment we are in the state of Rajhastan, and just left a city called Udaipur. For all you Bond fans out there, part of the film "Octopussy", was filmed in the surrounding palaces. The city itself was filled with budget hotels, rooftop restaurants, and overpriced jewelry and craft shops. The tourists come in droves--and with good reason. There is a lot to see here, and it's easy to understand why some stay longer than expected. From there we bused to a place called Mt. Abu, which was a strange stop. It was a little out of the way, and is to Indians as Park City probably is to residents of SLC (minus the snow, etc.). In other words, a nice weekend getaway spot. Interesting to be in a place where Indian people are on holiday...everyone there was a tourist, not just the (foreign) tourists. Although, we seem to be a spectacle wherever we go.

As of today we are in Jodhpur, and recovering from our bus ride I mentioned above. Happy to have arrived and breathing what may pass as fresh Indian air. We'll be here a few days at the foot of a massive sandstone fort, exploring the busy streets, and haggling with the locals before moving on to 'camel country' further North in the desert. There's so much to say about what we see here that I seem to be blabbing about nothing right now. Just enjoy the photos, and I'll try and collect my thoughts if we ever get a moment of peace.

The Streets are Madness

Dogs and cats living together.... Mass Hysteria.

India is absolutely and completely chaotic and unlike anywhere we have ever been. Flying into Chennai from Sri Lanka for the night was an eye-opener, and the pollution was strangeling. We thought Sri Lanka was crazy, well it is a walk in a spring garden after this.

Chennai was too much and we immediately left the next day and flew to Mumbai (Bombay), home of Bollywood and the largest gettho in India. Mumbai was good, being the most cosmopolitan and westernized city in India, it was a nice warm up for a few days before we started moving north. Our ride from the airport to the hotel was shocking and included a lost taxi driver and a slight fender bender (oh yeah, and him trying to make us pay for the damage). We took a breather in our hotel and then hit the streets that were lined with crazy drivers, beggers and vendors selling everything from the most amazing (cheap!) jewlary to silk scarfs and incense. We saw a few beautiful buildings and ate at some great resteraunts and made a trip to Chowpatty Beach in the heart of the city and full of man propelled carnival rides and other random sights. Most of our time in Bombay however was figuring out the "slightly" confusing train system so that we could get out of the city and head to a quieter place (hahaha). After no help from the train "foreign tourist only" window we managed to get the right ticket (we hope) to the right place.

As we drove to the train station with our luggage, through the dirtiest, forgotten, heatbreaking slums (right in the middle of the city, modern city) it was one of the most surreal experiences we've had. These slums are unlike any we have seen before. The poverty and the serious lack of sanitation was unbelievable. I couldn't look out the window, it was terrible. These people are poor. They have nothing and are cursed to a life of begging, the untouchables.

Wow, walking from the cab (surrounded by small kids begging) to the train platform, was the most terrifying and crazy thing in my life. We were literally stared at by everyone as we were the only non-indians there. It was like the record skipped and the whole place turned to watch... We were (and still are) quite a novelty here. Dinner in Jalgon (crazy buisness town that also doesn't see many tourists but a necessary stop for the Ajanta Caves) was complete with a whole slew of kids (maybe 3 families) stopping by on their way out the door to shake our hands and say "Hello" and "Good Bye" and "What is your name". Bizaar. That is my new word to discribe this country.

Ajanta Caves: Absolutely amazing and definately worth the hard work to get to. We spent the day here admiring the ancient Buddist caves (from around 600 BC to 500 AD) which were lining a horseshoe type canyon. There were 30 caves in total and all had beautiful carvings, paintings and Buddha sculptures. They are very well preserved because they were forgotten when Hinduism took rise and not found again until the early 1800s. I guess this is where the Buddhist monks would come to meditate and pray. So ancient. We wandered through them for hours, along with a lot of locals school children on field trips. We ended up being more of a novelty to the kids than the caves and had many kids ask to take our picture with them. Back in Jalgon, buisness center, we would take 2 hour spurts out into the madness to get things done before we would have to head back to the quietness of our room for a breather. Intense.

This country, like I said, is crazy; but there is never a dull moment. We are constently bartering prices, ignoring the pushy vendors and "tuk tuk" drivers, avoiding the random cows and dogs in the street and trying not to inhale as we walk to the train platform. (Another story). There are temples all over and we could sit on the side of any road and be entertained for ever! We could go on and on with random stories already and we haven't even been here a week... How exciting!

Our Stint in Sri Lanka

First of all, Happy New Year from Sri Lanka! We had a great time right on the beach where music, discos and fireworks lined the long stretch of sand from hotels to resteraunts to homes; everyone (tourists and locals alike) were out celebrating. It felt bizaar to be cheering and celebrating the new year while back home, it was only about 10 A.M. on New Years Eve. We missed you all terribly, but hope you had a great holiday season!

Well, Sri Lanka has come and gone. We fly to India today, but I will sum up our short stay (much too short) in one blog. 8 days is not nearly enough time to see this country, especially when it takes 4-5 hours to travel 60 miles by bus or train or tuk tuk, none are easier or faster than the other.

We have jumped headfirst into the eastern way of life, so long western comforts! Sri Lanka is beautiful and strange. I think about 80% of the population are buddist, but there is also a strong Hindu, Muslim and Christian culture as well. Getting off the plane in Colombo, the capital, threw us right into the crazy way of life in these 3rd world countries. The streets are alive and chaotic, with random smells and beautiful women in Sari's and anything from bikes to covered wagons to tuk tuks fighting for space on the crowded (slightly scary) streets.

We headed straight to the slower beach towns in the south from the airport but enjoyed the sights of the cities from our stuffy and overcrowded bus. (Think Jared with a pack in his lap, one under his legs, sharing 1/2 seat with a local man in a sarong). Since we only had a week, we decided to stay in the south where the living is easy and relaxed instead of frantically moving to see more. It is pretty hard to get around here with our backpacks, especially since the traffic moves so slow.



The first stop was a beach town called Hikkadua where we spent the first few nights lounging around. We attempted surfing again, although I did more fighting the waves and currents than surfing; Jared had some good waves, though. The beaches are white sand and the water is much, much warmer than in South Africa. It is also a lot cheaper here where a huge meal and a drink only costs around 5 dollars. Very nice change coming from South Africa.

From Hikkadua we went further south to Unawatuna where we spent the New Years Eve and made it our base for the rest of our time. The southern beach towns of Sri Lanka were hit the hardest by the Tsunami 3 years ago and you can still see the vast damage as you drive along the coast. There are head stones and shrines set up randomly around the towns and streets, a really harsh reminder of all the lives that were lost on that day. Very sad. It was bizaar to be here, to ride on the train route that was caught in the tsunami, where life goes on and most of the towns have been rebuilt. Very hopeful.

The Sri Lankan people are very friendly and helpful and outgoing. Many of them will just stop you in the street to chat about nothing as they laze the days away in the hot humid air. Again, a very different feel than in Johannesburg. Our hostel was not great but only 10 dollars a night, so we made it our home for 4 nights. It is funny how 4 nights seems like such a long time when you are used to moving every other night. Monkeys flew from tree to tree outside our balcony and the sounds of monkey/dog/who knows what fights kept us up throughout the hot nights.

We saw a few other towns by tuk tuk, but unfortunatley our time ran out and we c0uldn't get up to the hill country (which we hear is amazing, oh well, next time). We shortened Sri Lanka by a week so that we could have more time in gigantic India, so watch for more on India. We are 4 months into this trip already, boy how the time goes...

Jo'Burg, Kruger, and the End of Another Continent

After all the horror stories we heard about Johannesburg we were expecting to drive into a city where the sun never was shining, where there were fires burning and the skeletons of buildings towered over abandoned streets where only machine gun toting mercenaries roamed. Funny how preconceived notions can so vividly shape your expectations of a place. As it turns out, Jo'Burg was a pretty metropolitan city, and because tourists are advised to stay out of the city center our stay there was pretty uneventful. We did manage to visit the Apartheid Museum, which is one of the highlights of downtown. This is the real scoop on what has been (and in many ways still is) a very racially oppressed country.

A few days and a bad haircut later we headed north to Kruger National Park. Of all the places to safari in the world, Kruger is known as the head honcho. With the famed 'Big 5' (Lion, Buffalo, Elephant, Leopard, Rhino) all in strong numbers, this is a wildlife watchers paradise. Our excursion consisted of a one night stay in mock-up tribal village (far from authentic, and rather corny) and then two nights camping inside the gates. Every morning we would wake up at 5:00 am (occasionally to a large hyena pacing the outside of the boundary fenceof our camp) and drive through the expanse of this vast park, which is about the same size as Israel. Although we encountered what the guides called a few, "very slow days", it didn't rain, and we were lucky to see all of the Big 5. We tried our best to get photos of everything we saw, but a nice 35mm camera is in order to really capture any great shots. The only animal we missed a photo of was the Leopard, and although he was very close to the road when we saw her, she only stuck around long enough to flash her massive teeth with a growl before disappearing into the bush.

Shanon kept saying we were like little kids in a zoo, and she was right. I don't think we've ever had that much fun looking at a giraffe, an elephant, or even a lizard. Seeing these animals in their true habitat was absolutely spectacular.

After Kruger we spent two more nights in Jo'Burg, including Christmas day. I've got to admit...you get away from all the hype of the holidays and it really doesn't feel like Christmas at all. Pretty weird. Although they do celebrate Christmas here it's not quite as big as it is back home, so we spent the day lounging by the pool at our hostel...and that's about it. Our hostess was kind enough to put some tinsel around the breakfast table, but other than that there was nothing to remind us the day was different than any other.

Happy Holidays to you all and thanks to everyone for being so good to us. Our families and friends mean the world to us, and this holiday season we're thankful for all of you.

Stay tuned for more excitement...after a sleepless night in the Qatar airport we have arrived in a very different (eastern) world. So to you all, Happy New Year from Sri Lanka.

Coffee Bay and the Dragon Mountains

After you spend 4 days at Bulungula it is hard to compare any other stops to it. We left the shuttle from Bulungula and hopped on a taxi (crammed car with music blasting and apparently no concern for speed limits) which wound through villages and crouded markets until we got to Coffee bay, another surf destination and beach hangout.

The room was interesting and located across a river (via rock jumping when the river is low) from the main hostel building. We weren't that impressed with the place, but coming from paradise I think we were a little jaded. Most other backpackers thought this place was "the Bomb". The main beach was a short hike away from the hostel, and because it was raining (of course) we didn't do a lot of swimming, but I did make a friend who helped me build the best sand castle ever. The kids of the village were so cute and since they are taught to sing and dance instead of beg for change and candy, we got a few amazing songs for a small price. Jared even got a one on one soccer match on the beach.

We took a beautiful hike along the jagged coast to "hole in the wall" where only the crazy ones jump into the hole to be washed out to sea, luckily the surf was to rough to do it when we were there. We were talked into doing the hike with a group (aghh) but it turned out to be quite entertaining as there were two British girls who complained the whole time starting with the first 2 minutes. The scenery was spectacular and the toasties on the beach (flame grilled cheese with onion and tomatoe sauce) were delicious.

Jared and I ended the evening, sitting on the edge of a green cliff, with the ipod playing

and waves crashing all around us as the sun set. So peaceful, so great!

We left the coast and spent a few nights in Durban (big city, not much to say) and then made our way to the Drakkensburg Mountains. The mountains here are amazing, think of a mix between Hawaii's tropical lush green mountains and Zions jagged redrock cliffs and that is what these mountains look like. We took a hike through tropical forest and rivers to a beautiful viewpoint of the second tallest waterfall in the world. It was amazing, and the river had great swimming holes where a few were swimming and I managed to fall in. It was great.

Up next is Johannesburg, apparently one of the scariest cities in the world (or so all of the guide books and locals say). I guess if we manage to escape our hostel, we'll see what all the talk is about.

Upclose and Personal with the Xhosa

It's always been kind of a funny joke with us and a few of our friends to talk loud gibberish and make the occasional clicking noise. We're usually in the Utah desert, posing as natives and speaking some foreign tongue--and we always laugh, because naturally, we're just funny people. So, you might understand why Shanon and I smiled, even giggled a little, when we actually heard the the Xhosa speak and got to listen to the 'clicking' first hand. In fact, there are about 4 variations of the click (and many theories why it exists) and it is near impossible for someone hearing it for the first time to slip that 'click' into a word. Very cool to hear, still makes me smile.

Part of our experience at Bulungula was a tour with a village Herbalist, who's name was too complicated to remember, and I didn't have my notebook, so lets call him Herb. He did not speak any English, but a translator from the lodge went with us to interpret. Herb carried a rusty old machete in his hand and led us through a steamy forest. He would stop periodically, and speak in a loud voice...the translator would then give us the description we could understand while Herb hacked at a tree root, tree trunk, or bush with his half-sharpened blade. In this forest he knows the secrets for remedies to common problems like headache, broken limbs, and snake bites, but there are also some much more personalized treatments as well. They described concoctions that will make girls love you, help bring you wealth, make your enemies forgive you, help you win in court, and even help with fertility. Most of these 'remedies' had the same process for preparation which involved grinding it up, boiling it in water and then either drinking it or bathing in it. I thought about grabbing some bark from the ''tree of prosperity'' and running for it, but I don't think it has the same influential properties if I were to try and prepare it on my own.

After the tour of the jungle we stopped in a local village and had a drink with some women who were harvesting beans. Shanon even gave them a 'click' of approval and joined in, while cats, dogs and chickens wandered about in the small blue hut. Then we visited Herb's house (all of them are more or less the same) to see his collection of dried goods and prepared remedies. All it would have cost was one cow and we could have bought prosperity on the spot, but alas, I didn't have enough money in my pocket.

Everything about this place, Bulungula, was incredibly enlightening. These people live in such remote locations in the most basic living conditions, and are spread out across miles and miles of wavy green hills that roll right into the Indian Ocean. The Xhosa travel long distances just to pay someone a visit, have a drink, or lend a hand. There were no real roads (only the very serious 4x4 road we arrived on), everyone traveled by foot, and the landscape was near surreal. Its a simple life that hasn't changed in a very, very long time.