lovin' thailand the 2nd time around

well im glad we went back to thailand cause the first time around i totally hated it but this time its been great! we stayed in phi phi for almost a week and it was great. i got sunburnt for the first little while but now im back to being brown after all that time getting pasty in india. phi phi's just really chill, a lot of time spent at the beach and eating. it was very exciting to eat salmon yummmmmm...

considering i spent a lot of time there i dont really know what i did... just beachin' and drinking some buckets. ooh well i noticed that all the foreigners on the island were either irish or english and ive realized they are not as hot as i always thought they were. ooooh well.

oh but one thing i did too is that one day we rented out a longtail boat and we went snorkelling! oh my god it was difficult for me considering i havent gone swimming since i was i dont know, like 11 years old or something. plus i kept hyperventilating underwater! its just not natural to breathe while underwater. but anyway i saw lots and lots of cool looking fish. so many different and vibrant colours and ranging from tiny little fish to big ones the length of my forearm! also coral reefs and i got to see fishies pecking at the reefs and you can actually hear it underwater. it basically looks like what you see at the local aquarium, very interesting. i dont know what the fish are called but i know for sure we saw pufferfish which is fun. then we went to maya beach which is where the movie 'the beach' was filmed and it was nice but a little disappointing, there are much nicer beaches. but in the water there we saw a few baby reef sharks which was exciting.

the boys engaged in some thai kickboxing at the bar, eug got his first tattoo and then off he went to hong kong. me and mini went off to phuket and checked into the sweeeeetest joint ever! we stayed at the most wonderful little boutique resort on kata beach called the boathouse and it was soooooooo nice. our room was great and we had a balcony facing the pool and the restaurant at our place is apparently the best on that whole side of the island and is the only restaurant in thailand to recieve some sorta international wine award so thats fancy shmancy. so of course the food was soooooo goood. our place was right smack in the middle of the beach and right on the beach so the view from the restaurant was amazing and for the times when i was lazy, i could order room service from the restaurant, how sweet is that!? so i ate a whole grilled sea bass at like 3 pm on one day.

anyway, while the water at the beach we went to on phi phi was always totally washed out and shallow, on kata there were some serious waves. so we went boogie boarding which was interesting... it was fun but i kept getting pulled out by the undercurrent and since i cant swim it was a little freaky. oh and by then i wanted to snorkel again but well not in the ocean so i snorkeled for a few minutes in the pool just for kicks. apparnetly i looked retarded.

so thailand has redeemed itself and is the perfect refresher after months in india. oh and its so nice to be tanned and full of good food!

a sad goodbye to india, hello (again) to thailand

so im back in thailand now but this time im down in the islands. at the moment im on phi phi don which is near where they filmed that leonardo movie, 'the beach'. aaaaaanyway....

so for our last few days in india i just did yoga, fit in 9 hours of painting and shopped till i dropped. it was such good times! i really miss india now, which i guess isnt surprising since i spent such a long time there. but oh the journey out....we took a sleeper bus (which means i got to stay in a disgusting coffin-like box in a bus) to mumbai. which was supposed to take 14 hours. gross already, right? oh but then it turned into EIGHTEEN HOURS. complete with me peeing on the side of the road. and roads that i wouldnt even really call roads. that's not even the worst of it but im not going to further discuss it cause the mere thought of that trip makes me wanna vomit uncontrollably and curl up into the fetal position.

so we arrived at 11 am and i had to spend the day in my dearly unloved mumbai. pros: got to eat at mcdonalds and buy hindi cds and dvds. cons: mumbai. so then it was off to the airport for a nite flight into kuala lumpur, then back to bangkok. it was a truly painful process going from udaipur to bangkok. oh but back on icky backpacker hole khao san road...me and mini were walking down the street proclaiming how they must have really spiffied up the damn place cause it all looks so clean and new! and then when we noticed that we both kept casually glancing down at our feet while walking in case we stepped in cow shit....khao san wasnt actually cleaner....we just werent in india anymore! oh how i'll miss the garbage and cow poopie.

and so it was a nite in bangkok (highlights: mcdonalds with BEEF!!!!! and of course...shopping.)and then next morning off we go to krabi island where we stayed on...ao nang beach? something like that. its been a bit of a culture shock coming from india and it was here that i noticed how wierd it was to walk on actual sidewalks again and that i didnt really remember how to cross the road properly. oh, india!

it wasnt particularly happening and on mini's birthday we ended up at some beach club that only had middle age drunks slobbering all over each other and thai hos. but still fun! oooooh but what i find truly exciting is that i finally got to watch the new harry potter movie! id been trying to watch it since fucking delhi but somehow never could.....so finally we rented a dvd player and bought a pirated dvd and there we have it! wheeee!

and now were on phi phi don as i said and fuck was i ever seasick on the boat over here! another journey id like to forget....but omg my BED here! in india they dont seem to know what a real bed is. i dont think i ever slept on an actual spring mattress the whole time i was there, it was always a thin sheet of foam with flat pillows. oh but my bed here! i have a/c, a spring mattress, fat-ass pillows and a wonderful fluffy comforter! i think i slept for like 11 hours last nite. anyway, its pissing rain down here on the islands but yesterday it didnt so i got a nice afternoon at the beach. white sand and turquoise water, how purdy. oh but now its PISSING rain yet again! the boys have been off since early this morning for scuba diving but i have a gimp lung so i plan on shopping while theyre off. but for now i think its time for lunch! i plan on posting pics REAL soon!

magical rajasthan: land of forts, rats & camels

so i wrote a blog entry yesterday but due to shitty computer circumstances, it's disappeared forever! so anyway, i left of in jodhpur which is now one of my favourite places in all of india. in the old part of the city most of the buildings are painted a brilliant shade of blue and it just looks so cooool. it's also got this big ass fort on top of a hill towering over the city and you get the best view ever from it, i must post pics soon. the fort was the best fort ever and it had a sweet ass audio guide that's got sound effects and music. c'mon, that's cool! the palace inside was gorgeous and it had interesting things like the handprints of all the wives of the maharajah who threw themselves into the fire after their hubbie died. oh the drama.

oh i love jodhpur. especially cause i bought 5 pairs of camel leather shoes there. and cause i had the sweetest room ever. we stayed in a havelli i think its called which is something like an old richly decorated home that was built by super wealthy people. but as you should have come to know, im not a very reliable source of accurate info. anyway my room was sweeeeet and it had one of those big window seats with cushions (i dont think im very good at describing things anymore. in fact my english has gone out the window. i say stuff now like, "we go palace 50 rupees".) and my room had a big painting on one of the walls. aaaaaahhhh.....

next stop: bikaner. there's not much in the town itself, we went to a fort which was i thought anticlimatic after the best fort in the universe (that would be the jodhpur fort) but we made the trek out here just so we could go to the rat temple. but before that, we went to a camel breeding farm which evidently produces something like 50% of all india's camels. there were a lot of camels. and then we went to the RAT TEMPLE (proper name...no clue) which is whaddya know, a temple filled with rats. as in rats running around, eating (in fact pilgrims go there to feed the rats and then after the rats nibbled on the food they eat it themselves. i did not engage in such an activity), sleeping on banisters, drinking milk.... the rats are holy, something like reincarnated dead people? i could be totally wrong but theyre definitely holy. thousands of rats! one of them ran over my foot and i screamed, a normal reaction i think, but i felt like a tool immediately. wierdest (and coolest) and temple in all of india for sure.

then we went to jaisalmer which is a fort city in the middle of the thar desert. in the middle of the town is a massive fort which is apparently the only fort with people living in it...in all of the world. i think. the town's really quite but inside the fort its like a tourist's playground, just shops, restaurants, guesthouses, all catering to tourists. not the best but definitely a stark contrast to the south of india! in rajasthan i have seen more europeans than in my entire life. apparently all of europe vacations in rajasthan, who knew. anyway the best part of jaisalmer is that i went on a camel safari! i was reluctant and didnt go first thing in the am like the boys cause i refuse to expose my body to that much discomfort via sun and camel, but i did go off in the afternoon for an over nite deal. (we opted to do a nontouristic safari which means its not on the tourist route and you dont really see any other people.) so there i was, just me, my camel and my little 10 year old guide who could barely speak english. all alone in the desert. no one as far as the eye could see. and yes, we were lost.

thank chubby ganesh i had my cell phone which astoundingly had the best reception ever out there! after me and eug exchanged a couple of calls and standing atop sand dunes just accepting the fact we were lost, we finally met up with the boys and their mini entourage. we set up camp behind some shrubs and romped around on the dunes. there was a sand/wind storm for a while (which actually kinda hurts) so sand + sweat = us covered absolutely with sand. it was kinda nasty. then we had dinner that was cooked over a campfire. saving grace, a man who walks from dawn till midnight from his village, came by and sold us drinks! id never loved warm pepsi so much in my entire life. hot water is not the yummiest thing to drink when you're hot already.

it was fun out there, id never seen so many stars before and i saw my first (and second, third..) shooting star! i also saw my first and hundredth dung beetle. yuck! they just roll camel shit around in the sand, i have no idea what theyre doing with it. and they fly too and land on you and it hurts cause theyve got pointy sharp feet or something. however, it was amusing to see them leap retardedly into the fire. one of our guides said its cause theyre suicidal what with life being so boring in the desert, no electricity and such. we just slept on blankets spread out on the sand and next morning more running around on the dunes. and then it was camels back to civilization!

then it was a dreadful 14 hour bus to undaipur, my current and last real stop in india. i looove udaipur. their big thing here is that the james bond film octopussy was filmed here. it's really lovely here, there are palaces on this big lake and it looks really nice. one of the palaces (the one in the movie) looks like its just floating on the lake and you cant even go out to see it unless youre booked in (which is thousands of $/nite) or if you're going out for the super expensive dinner. so we can just gaze at it from shore.

we've been having fun here and today was my busiest day in a while. i got up early for my 2nd ever yoga class, then i went to a 3 hour miniature painting class (i painted a cute elephant that i named kumar), then silver shopping, then us girls went to an all women and children festival! it was really kinda wierd but fun, they had carnival rides, popcorn, shopping and loads of women and kiddies. and in a few minutes, im gonna go get fitted for a coat that im getting custom made (actually me and krista are getting the same coat and we designed it ourselves) and im gonna pick up a salwar suit (oh god is that what theyre even called?) that i had made for me. fun times! so im off!

in the blue city: back to sweatin'

so were back in india now! but from where we left off....i spent my birthday at chitwan national park and unfortunately we did NOT see any rhinos or tigers! we went on an elephant safari and it was the most uncomfortable thing ever. they stick you on a basket with one leg on either side of a corner pole and its just so bumpy. also me and angelee's elephant (whom we named maya) liked to lead with her left and i was on the left so i got scraped up real good in trees PLUS i got stung or bitten by some horrendously painful bug a few times. it was special! however, it didnt rain which was great and we went all throughout the jungle which was cool. and we did see wild pigs, deer, peacocks and some crocodiles. so still good!

and that morning we had gone on a village tour with our wonderful guide whom i call 'ketchup'. he's so cool, hes been kidnapped and kept in the jungle for days without food by maoists before! what a life story. anyway we got to go into one of the family's homes which i think was basically made out of mud. the kitchen's super tiny and dark with a fire pit for cooking. and then we went to another home where we got an awesome home cooked meal, i dont even remember my last homecooked meal. it was served in a bowl made out of leaves and we got rice, some chicken, veg and some little fried fish that we had bought from a local fisherman we had stopped to take pictures of. we got to park our asses on the floor and eat with our hand and it was really yummy.

then at nite we went only to the best cultural show of all time! we thought no one would go but it was fucking packed with people spilling out of the little concert hall! i think it was called the tharu cultural show and it was all men performing and they had different performances like dancing with fighting sticks combined. 2 of the most interesting acts was one with women twirling around like mad except they werent women....they were men in drag complete with fake stuffed boobies! plus for some reason there was a man dressed as a clown in that one as well. apparently they dont have women in their shows. and then the other wierd one was one man dressed in a giant peacock suit. trust me, it was wierd.

then it was back to kathmandu and we went out for a nite on the town for my birthday and angelee's going away. not really a nite on the town, but we did eat pizza and cake at a nice restaurant and then go to the one niteclub we always went to. but it was all good cause the dj loves us and played us our extensive request list.

after dear angelee left we went to a place just 15 km from the tibet border called the last resort which is where mini and eug went bungee jumping off a bridge. there is zero temptation for me to engage in such an activity. at the resort is my first time staying in a tent! so its like i went camping. and then the next day i went canyoning with mini without really knowing what canyoning is first. i was under the impression that its like sliding down waterfalls but its more like getting into a wetsuit and harness and then walking (more like sliding without meaning to) backwards at a 90 degree angle down waterfalls! i wasnt so prepared for that! the first couple waterfalls i got banged up a bit and i was like fuck i hate this! but then as you get used to it its ok. the last waterfall was 46 meters high and it looked pretty scary to me! it felt like forever before i was even halfway down the waterfall and then you look down and think fuck, im still seriously high up. but afterwards it was a good experience....but i dont know if id do it again! oh PLUS i got seriously leached! as we were walking back up the mountain (this part, very unfun) i got leached a bunch of times; i had like 4 leaches in my shoes and one on the spot between my chin and neck! how sick is that!? the sickest thing is the leaches make your blood all wierd so you keep bleeding after you get them off but its this gross congealy blood. naaaaasty.

so that was my outdoorsy experience in nepal! then back to kathmandu and then we took a day trip to a town called patan. they had a beautiful durbar square which i guess is like the town square and we had a guide show us around. he was cool and is half tibetan half sherpa! my first sherpa. anyway, the square is just all beautiful old buildings and plenty more temples with kama sutra carvings. there was one temple calle the golden temple that was particularly nice. and then we rushed through the museum which happened to be one of the nicest museums ever and is in a renovated old palace! something you woudlnt expect to find. A+ to patan.

and then after some serious shopping, back to delhi. i didnt particularly wanna stay in delhi but we had to and the up side is that i got a mcdonalds fix. and then of all places, we went to a T.G.I.F restaurant for drinks and chicken strips! the next day we went to one of the markets but then got stuck in a giant downpour so it was time to headback.

by the way, ih ladakh i decided that i need to start shopping since i really havnet bought anything for myself this entire time. but then it got a little out of hand....from then till kathmandu ive bought 3 wooden masks, 3 mirrors, clothes, paintings... stuff thats not so fun to carry around! so even though i bought an extra duffel bag (which is now broken, fuck!) it was time to ship some shit out. so $90 worth of post is now on its way back to vancouver....

this morning after a 15 hour train or something ridiculous like that....we have arrived in johdpur aka the blue city. the old part of the city has lots of buildings and homes that are painted blue, something about mosquitos? i dont know but it looks really cool and rising up above the whole city is a massive beautiful fort. so far i really like johdpur even though we havnet really done anything. so 2 more weeks of india pretty much and hopefullyi can find time to post photos soon!

takin' it easy in pokhara/massive photo post!

so now were in a much chiller town called pokhara and unfortunately seriously heavy rain has been dumping down on us to remind us we're silly and that were here during the monsoon season. but that's ok cause were still having fun! oh and our guesthouse, called the little tibetan guesthouse is the cutest thing ever! its one of the nicest and cleanest places ive stayed, with a pretty garden, and its like $3 per person. i love nepal! yesterday we rented motorbikes and went around in the mountains but it was monsooning on us like nobody's business. however we did see some cool things especially rice pickers and rice paddies which i thoroughly enjoy for some reason.

oh but i forgot to blog about something major! i cant believe i forgot to write about it cause it was one of the wierdest things ive ever seen. back in amritsar, about an hour away is the pakistan border and every evening they have a closing of the border ceremony. and oh what a ceremony it is! first everyone just waits, women on one side of the road, dudes on the other. then when they let you into the stadium seating area (that's right), its like a fucking stampede! women running like crazy, shoes flying, people being trampled if they stop! well practically anyway. so us girls sat in the women's only seats but all the action was really in the men's. it felt like a concert or a festival with people cheering and going nuts. first they select some lucky people to run down to the border and back with indian flags while the crowd goes nuts. there's also plenty of loud dance-y music with an MC or something trying to get everyone pumped. lots of screams of "HINDUSTAN!" which apparently just means india. and then the guards who are all decked out in crazy uniforms and heavy duty moustaches start their thang which includes speed marching and michael jackson style high kicks. this goes on for a while, and the same thing is going on on the pakistan side. then the gates open a couple of times with the indian and pakistan guards shaking hands and such. crowd goes wild. indian and national flags go up, crowd goes wild...flags cross on their way down, crowd goes wild. it's something you just have to see, go youtube or google that shit! anyway, it was greeeaaaat and wildly fun. i wish this kinda thing went down at the canadian-us border.

anyway im gonna attempt at posting pictures all the way back to agra as i mentioned in my previous post. by the way, does anyone even still read my blog!? id like to hear from you! ok so here we go...

at the beatiful taj. some serious photo taking went down here so im gonna try and pick out the best ones. i like this one cause angelee's looking all pretty in her indian suit.

me and eugene doing super asian poses. and yes that's what eugene looks like nowadays.

the taj at sunset on the 2nd day we were there. its so pretty!!!!

me doing the quintessential pinching the taj photo!
we also did jumps and leaps in front of the taj. it took many many takes for me to get this shot so appreciate!

ok and moving on though im in love with the taj and wanna post more pictures of it. beautiful beautiful fabulous leh! this is the view from the leh palace, and then me and mini.

this is inside thiksey gompa during the monk's morning prayer sesh. baby monks!

more of thiksey gompa.
this is a big ol' tibetan prayer wheel.

and here's the thiksey gompa in its entirety. it's amazing looking!

and here's some photos from me and mini's motorbike adventure around leh. me sitting on a rock on a sand dune!

i dont remember exactly where this is, maybe in shey? but i just thought it was a picture perfect shot.

the view from....i think thiksey gompa. through some wax candles that the monks made.

my in the middle of nowhere shot.

and here we are at a giant gaping hole in the middle of the road/ the bridge that was never built. we took a backroad for a portion of our day and here's where we ended up at one point. oh ladakh!

this is at the cultural dance and music show in leh. the women dancers in one of the coolest costumes. i think these outfits are also used for weddings! and the 2nd pic is of the men (including our adorable driver tashi!) doing a dance in celebration of beer! the jugs on top of their heads traditionally was used to hold beer.

ok so even though i have about a million more pics of ladakh id like to post, i have to stop somewhere. so moving on....here we are at the golden temple in amritsar at the crack of dawn!

ok and even though this was totally not allowed, i snuck a few photos inside the temple. it's so cool looking inside, it just had to be done!
ok and here are some pictures taken at the closing of the pakistan border ceremony i was talking about. it just occurred to me that my blabbering about the scene wouldve made more sense if attached with these pictures but apparently i cant cut and paste so here we are. the indian guards in their full regalia!

and here's us cheering on india in the ladies section. angelee, me, joanna and smeghan. the boys were lame-o and sat in the vip foreigners section but we did it up with the locals and engaged in all the cheering and hoopla. oh the good times!

and here's where the pakistan and indian flags meet!ok and now just a couple of pictures from here in nepal cause im tired of bloggin now! kathmandu's really been a whole heap of shopping, eating and drinking but we also got ourselves a stoned and sex-obsessed guide for an hour or so for a tour of the old city. i mentioned before that we saw a living goddess well we saw our 2nd living goddess right in that window. the living goddess is called a kumari and she lives in this building in the old city and she never leaves cept for like once a year during a festival where shes carried around. the kumari's life is fascinating, stuff like they're picked at 4 years old and requirements include zero imperfections on their skin, cant be scared of anything (they put the girls in a dark room filled with severed animal heads or something for one nite and theyre not allowed to show any fear), have to be intuitive, their birthday has to somehow compliment the current king's birthday....and the list goes on. and then as soon as they get their periods or even get a cut or something, theyre back to being mortal! not much fun i think. anyway its fascinating, so go google kumaris! anyway our guide called the kumari to the window so we caught a quick glimpse of her but no photos allowed.

and finally one of the many temple carvings in the old city. our guide was hilarious and loved talking about marijuana and sex. sex and marijuana. and so on. so of course he had to point out all the erotic carvings and i believe this was one of his many favourites.

and so on that note, im off for now! we're leaving pokhara tomorrow am and i'll be spending my birthday at chitwan national park! you can hope for us that we'll get to see some rhinos and tigers!

the taj/ladakh/amritsar/now in nepal!

fuck i havent blogged in ages! ive been totally meaning to but weve been so busy and now there's just so much to catch up on. well last i left it at, we were in agra...doing the TAJ MAHAL. now the taj is a big deal cause when i first plopped down in india, i had read zero material on the country and whenever people asked what i wanted to see, i just said, "ummm....the taj mahal?" and so it was a very big deal.agra as a city is a total pit. but oh the taj! we went to see it twice, the first time was a little anti-climatic cause we went in the afternoon and it was so hot that i dont think ive ever sweated so much in my life. i say that all the time but definitely that was one of the top sweat days. as in sweatin into my poor eyes that were already being scorched out by the sun/sun reflecting off the oh so white marbly taaaaj. but the taj didnt disappoint and the next time we went, we went at 6 am and took the most brilliant pictures and we also had a guide who gave us the low down on the taj. and when i say brilliant pictures, they range from the ones with the taj and its reflection in the fountain pools, to ones of us doing retard jumping leaps into the air in front of the taj. oh it was so good! i love love love the taj mahal. oh and whats also kinda cool is that on the 2nd day that we went, the date was 7/7/07 which was the day the new 7 wonders of the world was announced...and well whaddya know, the taj is now a wonder!so other than the taj, we didnt do too much in agra. we also went to the agra fort which is where shah jahan (as if i know how to spell his name. but the dude who built the taj as, so they say, a "monument to love" for his deceased wife) lived. it was still cool but really now, it cant compete with the taaaaaaj! im gonna go ahead and say the 2nd best thing about agra is this super sweet MALL! i bought badly needed clothes and there was an arcade! seriously, that's cool. i got to play air hockey, chuck e. cheese/scandia-type games and virtual boxing! oh the good times.and so we moved on from agra to delhi where we got to spend the nite sleeping on benches in the airport and then first thing in the am, we were off to leh, ladakh! ok now there's some serious unresolved confusion here. i thought we were going to kashmir which is right under tibet i suppose. but then some people say no, ladakh is ladakh and then some people say ladakh is a region in kashmir.....so as far as im concerned, we were in fucking kashmir cause that sounds cool!leh was so nice, such a change from the rest of india. its at an elevation of 3500 m above sea level so we had to get all altitude acclimatized or whatever. so bed rest the first day and then taking it easy the next. its really wierd you cant breathe well, need to pee lots and some people get pukey. luckily i didnt barf however my lungs never got down with the altitude so even walking totally horizontal, id run out of breath after like 5 minutes. stupid gimpy lungs! oh but i love leh!!!it's definitely not as hot as the rest of india since were up in the mountains (ok here again, im not sure. we were either in the himalayas range, or the ladakh range. i wanna say himalayas....) and also its a total small town and the air is so crisp and clean! and we only had electricity about a third of the time but i have never seen so many stars in my entire life. the nite sky was amazing and the stars seemed so close and whereas back home you just see the big ones, here you could see them all. i even saw the milky way! (i was a total tool and tried to take pictures of the stars to share with you all. it sooo didnt work). oh and damn the people in ladakh are so good looking! a cross between indian and asians yet even hotter. i dont know if everyone feels this way but angelee and her friend joanna totally agree!oh and leh made for good shopping. they say its the closest to tibet that you can get without actually being in tibet so i made sure to buy some dalai lama scrolls and craploads of tibetan prayer/peace flags. and rolling with the whole tibetan thing, lots of gompas / buddhist monasteries.oh wait, before i forget! we found one awesome garden restaurant that we went to like 3 times a day and i got to eat good food for the first time in so long! they even had AVACADOES. that's major man! anyway...one day we hired a driver and off we went in a van to thiksey, hemis and shey. on the map it would appear that these places are like towns but there more like just...places...with a gompa or something in each. in thiksey they had the coolest gompa built up on a mountainside and we were there super early so we got to sit in with the monks as they were doing their morning prayer/breakfast session. that was really cool. they were just chanting and drinking tea and then there'd be drums and horns going off. at one point baby monks (not really babies but oh they were soooo cute!!!!) would go around giving scoopfuls of what looked just like flour to each monk and they'd mix it with the tea to make like a dough and then eat it. then later they also got bowls of some seriously yummy smelling soup and they ate in silence which is when we decided to leave. i wouldnt want ppl sitting there staring at me while eating! anyway that was really cool.the hemis gompa was also good but just couldnt compare with thiksey and then in shey there was an old palace that we went to. the next day was even better cause me and mini went off on a motorbike to see pretty much the same places cause he was sick the day before. but on a bike we could stop all over the place and spend more time in some places so that was good. so id stop at like a riverside where people were washing their clothes next to sheep and goats. we also stopped right next to what looked like giant sand dunes. another nice stop was we took pictures of ourselves in this giant empty dusty plain with just the mountains in the far background. it looked like we were literally in the middle of nowhere. oh and the mountains in ladakh! ladakh looks kinda like the okanagan cept more deserted. the mountains are beautiful and brown and dusty and further off in the distance you can see snow-capped mountains. its soooo pretty, everyone must go to ladakh! that day we also had a mini-picnic under a tree, next to a stream, in the middle of nowhere. the flowing water in ladakh is so nice cause there's practically no rain so i guess its all just glacial run-off so the water is so cold that its almost grey. (not that you can drink it or anything, for future reference!) our only company after a good long while were some cows. oh and the cows in ladakh are so cute!!!everywhere in india, cows are roaming. but they're all narsty looking. all scrawny and...pooey. oh but ladakh cows! theyre so small and theyre all furry! actually all the animals looked just smaller and furrier....like the cute lil donkeys! awwww....anyway, we spent like a week in leh and it was great. oh the last nite we went to a cultural dance show and our driver, tashi, was in it and it was great! they had different traditional costumes for each dance and it was really good. the dancers also sang and if they had a cd, i would totally have bought it! i miss leh already!and so next stop, amritsar! this is gonna sound dodgy in some racial way but tough lovin cause this is my blog. anyway, as everyone in vancouver knows, most indians in vancity are sikh. oh but not in india! and i never noticed that until i arrived in amritsar which is in punjab aka sikh central. (ok its not known as sikh central...but whatever.) anyway, there's no actual point to be made here, i just found it interesting. anyway, in amritsar is the famous golden temple which i guess is like the temple/religious site for sikhs. it's really quite beautiful. everyone has to have their head covered here and you walk inside and it's like a giant pool i guess (which interestingly, has koi fish in it) and at some points in the pool there are ghats, kinda varanasi but on a much smaller scale. all over the place there are holy dudes sitting behind glass reading their...holy book (i dont know what its called. i just asked mini and angelee. no one knows.) anyway in the middle of the pool is the golden temple which looks like....(let the anticipation build....)....a temple made of gooooooold! all over the joint people are walking around, lounging, praying, reading their little holy book.oh and then the temple itself. there is a massive fucking line up to get into the temple (between 1 and 2 hrs) and inside the temple there are a bunch of holy men with the main holy book (oh god this sounds so uninformed) and some of the men are playing these wierd looking instruments and singing. you can actually hear the music from all over inside the complex and actually it sounds very beautiful. again, id totally buy the cd. good sountrack to sleep to. people are just sitting around inside the temple, reading their books or whatever. the temple itself is quite small i think but with 3 floors and its very beautiful inside. i give it an A+!then as you leave they give you a handful of this wierdy sugary greasy shit that i guess youre supposed to eat? theyve got all sorts of rules and one is that you cant even drop a morsel of this stuff on the ground. by the way, i shouldnt call it shit but i dont know what it is so there you go. oh and i dont wanna bitch but damn, sikhs dont seem to know how to have fun the way hindus do! in varanasi it was such a fun and laidback vibe at the gahts but here i got sternly talked to a bunch of times. for stuff like, my headscarf fell off my head, my back was turned to the temple, i was talking, i sat with my legs stretched out, i sat with my knees propped up..... but overall, good times yet again! oh and one nite me and eug stayed up because there was sposed to be some ceremony at like 3:30am at the temple so we went but failed to see it. however we did find that people are at the temple literally 24/7. people are just wandering around, doing the usual, sleeping on the ground. craziness!and as of yesterday, we are now in kathmandu, nepal!!!! yet another country to add to the list. were staying i guess on the backpackers strip and it's crazy here! super cheap accomodation, awesome food (ive already had mexican food and a massive cheeseburger! yay to the return of beef once again! it was like half a damn cow between the buns. damn.), lots of shopping and an actual nite life. im so pumped to be here in nepal!!!oh and what's really cool (except we didnt know it at the time, booo!) is that we were in the presence of, as well as on the plane with, a LIVING GODDESS. there she was, mere meters away from us in delhi airport. just a little girl all decked out in fancy shmancy clothes and with cool looking makeup on. we thought maybe she was in a beauty pageant or something (so embarassing) and then when we arrived in nepal, at the terminal there were hordes of journalists or something with their flash cameras and we were like "oh thats interesting."and THEN! we were just walking by a newstand and there she was on the cover of the newspaper: the little girl was a living goddess! apparently the story goes she went to the US because a documentary was made about her but now they're stripping her of her goddess status because of it! that just aint right! i still say the kiddo's a goddess.and so that's that! i hope i havent bored you all to pieces but so much has happened since i last blogged! i hope to post pics real soon.

"ganga is the life line of indian culture": just some of my varanasi pictures!

ok so this computer kinda blows but i cant find anything better and i desperately wanna post some of the kajillion pics i took in varanasi. i think i'll only be able to post a fraction of what i actually wanna post (evidently meghan's spent the past 2.5 hrs posting 60 pics or something absurd like that so please go check that out to tide you over if you care to do so...) so im gonna just post some of my absolute fave pics.

here's one of my first pics of the ganga river. i noticed just now that you can actually see the burning ghats in the background which youre absolutely not allowed to take pictures of...so feel privileged to be able to see that! (by the way its taken like well over half an hour for me to even put the photos onto the computer, so by this point im really not feeling the whole posting pics thing but im doing some anyway...)

sunrise on the ganga which is very beautiful. i think i took like 50 pictures of the sun rising which was highly excessive and im sure all the locals were thinking, "stupid foreigners, how many pictures can you take of the fucking sun?" ok maybe not but something along those lines.

a bunch of women doing their thang down in the ganga bright and early in the mornin'.

ah by the way, i decided varanasi and the ganga calls for black and white photos so a good fat chunk of my pics are b/w. and the above pic is the view from bablu's...platformy thing.

me and our dear bablu having a muscle demo. im so macho.

i forgot to mention in my last post (at least i think i forgot...), i went into the ganga river! ok so only halfway up my calf but seriously. its fucking sewage water filled with corpses! it took days for bablu to convince me to do it. i told him, im gonna get diseased! but he gave me this whole, "but the river is our mother and our mother would never make you sick" talk and what with his whole holiness thing going on, how could i argue? so in i went! here's me, eug and bablu.
and here's our little princess, bablu's niece kajel. cutest kiddie ever!!! at the ganga, as usual, and the kid's all super dolled up! matching earrings and necklace that're colour coordinated with her polyester suit and with a smidgen of lipstick to top it all off! ok and contrast with me, sweaty and in stinky dirty clothes. god i look like total ass.

here's me getting my blessing from bablu

mini, me and pooge right after getting blessed.

just one of the many pictures taken while wandering along the ganga river.

me at one of the ghats where saris are being dried in the sun. oh the scorching, scorching sun.

here's bablu and some of the other priests performing the evening prayer-type-thing ceremony. evidently called puja. so there you have it! i only took about a million pics of bablu doing the puja deal since i was there like every single night but here's just a few of them

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ok so that took eons and now the internet joint is closing up so im getting tossed out! there's still lots of pics i wanna post plus videos but i guess that'll have to wait. and now im in agra where i got to see the monumental TAAAAAAJ MAHAAAAAAAL today. cept it was ridiculously hot (that is until it started dumping rain) and i sweat more than i ever sweat before in my entire life. anyway it was still great and we'll be back to see it for sunrise. anyway getting tossed out!

holy varanasi & mother ganga!

ok so i realize i havent posted anything in a good long while and that's cause weve been hella busy ever since we left the south. in kolkata we fully embraced the fact that we were at last back in a big city so we lived it up. as in i engaged in absolutely nothing cultural and instead spent my days in malls, watched movies (ocean's 13 was fantastic, fantastic four aka eug's choice, not so much.) and went clubbing. ok so i had to go shopping cause in pondicherry one of the hotel staff threw out a bag of my very limited wardrobe that i had dropped in for laundry....it really sucked. and what sucks more is that shopping in india is not so easy at all. since most chicks wear saris, practically all stores cater more to men. im wearing a lot of stinky dirty clothes lately, im so attractive.

so not much to say about kolkata, i dont particularly enjoy the big cities over here. we just kinda indulged in being able to live western-style once again and binged on the worst (or best, depends on how you look at it) food the entire time. as in it was a mcdonalds-kfc-pizza hut-mcdonalds marathon. oh and damn, its expensive to go clubbing in india! we met a new friend, gill, who took us out a few times and it was a total blast but it'd be like minimum $10 for a drink. i guess that goes hand in hand with our whole, living it up like at home.

and in kolkata, krista has sadly departed from our lil' crew for about a month to travel with her aussie friend but we shall meet her again and in her place, mini has arrived from thailand. im sure eug enjoys having some testosterone around once again. and on a very sad note, one of the girls with angelee, andrea, was thrown off a camel in rajasthan and had her hip broken! it's very horrible and she now has to cancel the rest of her trip and go back to ontario. so for those who know her, send her happy healing vibes and best wishes.

anyway in stark contrast to kolkata, we have now been in varanasi for about a week, the holiest of all holy cities. we were only planning on spending a couple of days here, and in fact we were supposed to leave about 3 times already but i wont get into that, but this is definitely by far my most favourite place in all of india and it's been a total blast. as most know, im not big on anything religious but i absolutely love this city.

we've been getting up bright and early every day (as in a very painful 4 am-ish) to go down to the ganga/ganges river. the river is quite a sight: though the water is polluted as hell and reportedly more like sewage than anything else, hindus go down every morning to bathe, wash their clothes, wash their hair, swim, etc. in the river. they call the river 'mother ganga' and it's all super spiritual. all along one side of the river are ghats which i guess are just stairs leading down the riverbank and there are a few burning ghats which is where dead bodies are burned in big ceremonies. a lot of death going on here, people apparently come to varanasi just to die cause of its.....holiness or something. (you'd think after a week here id be super informed about all things ganga but im not. i read/hear something, and then i forget. im so useless.) so along the river banks there are burning bodies all day long but then something like children and lepers who die dont get burned but instead get attached to a rock or something and get dropped into the river. so we've seen a few floaters.

in fact, one man we met who lives on one of the many boats on the river said to us one morning, "do you know what i saw first thing when i woke up next to my boat? a dead body!" and points out just a few meters from us. and whaddya know, a rotting dead body just floatin around!

anyway the best thing to happen during my entire time in india is that we met bablu, one of the priests who lives at the main ghat right on the ganga river. (he keeps saying he doesnt wanna be famous but he's had his photos published in newspapers, books, lonely planet and everyone knows him so too bad for him.) every morning we go down and hang out with bablu on his...platformy thing. yup that's right, i know its like zero descriptive but i dont know what the thing is called. basically a platform on the ghat where he sits and gives blessings. and then pretty much every nite, we go down and watch him take part in this big ceremony which i guess is like an evening prayer. there's a bunch of priests dressed up and there's music, fire, peacock feathers; there's a lot going on basically. i'll just have to post pictures. and then we just hang out and do whatever. and we hang out with some of the local street kids and bablu's nephew and little niece who is just the cutest little thing ever. she's got massive eyes, is super pretty and looks like a little cartoon character.

we also met a very helpful autorickshaw driver/guide, mr. khan, and he's helped us out loads and has shown us lots of things in varanasi. we've seen a buddhist temple, japanese temple, tibetan temple a ghandi temple.... we were also in sarnath which i guess is an extension or something of varanasi and its touted as 'the birthplace of buddhism' so that was pretty cool. we got to see a bodhi tree which is like the offspring or whatever of the bodhi tree that buddha sat under. or something like that. fuck, im just not reliable for that kinda info. anyway that was very interesting.

mr. khan also took us to a muslim community where they produce silk so we got to see the entire silk making process which was really interesting. and the kids there were so cute, we've been followed around and stared at a lot but nothing compares to the scene that was going on there. adults grouped around us for a while but it seemed like every single kid in the entire joint was just following us around the entire time. and they all like mauled us and wanted pictures taken and their hands shaken; it was borderline overwhelming cept i think we're like pros at crowd control by now. oh and then of course, we were taken to a silk store where, of course, i bought a bunch of silk scarves for no reason whatsover. but they're so pretty!

anyway really, just everyday, not enough sleep and morning and nite at the ghats with bablu. oh but a real standout day was yesterday when bablu took us, kajel (his niece), suresh (nephew) and ravi, one of the local kids, to a hindi movie! ok first of all, id been dying to have just a taste of western food for the longest time cause the entire time in varanasi its been nothing but indian food and really, i cant handle that. and then bam, he takes us to an a/c mall complete with real stores, a real movie theater and food like mcdonalds, baskin robbins and pizza!!!! what the fuck!? when he said movie i imagined a real dive theater cause here in varanasi, there's not an awful lot that's modern going on. well apparently this mall just opened in recent years, we were all shocked that such a thing existed in varanasi and it was the happiest day in my life. ok not really but i was damn happy.

side bar, bablu likes to make fun of me cause the only thing i wish for here is a/c. its almost 40 C here and fuck it, ive decided i just cant live without a/c. the amount of sweating that goes on here is practically nauseating. so he says he gave me my wish, an afternoon of fantastic a/c. how can one not love bablu!?

anyway the movie (which at the moment i cant remember the name..i think 'apne'?) was all in hindi minus a few sentences in english with zero subtitles so that proved kinda interesting. but it was easy to follow and it was like the first time ive seen a non-super cheesy bollywood style indian movie. it was kinda like a family drama and about boxing but they still managed to fit in song and dance numbers!! ok so it was a little cheesy and ultra dramatic but i loved it! and then we took bablu and the kids to good ol' mcdonalds. and it was the best mcchicken id ever tasted. (minus the mcchicken in mumbai. and kolkata. minor details.) i didnt think priests could eat meat but bablu seemed to enjoy his mchicken as much as me! and while me and eug think its super awesome and mini thinks its despicable, bablu gave kajel some mchicken which turned out to be the first time she's ever eaten meat! her first meat experience, and it was at mcdonalds, with us. so magical.

oh and one of the coolest things we did here is that all four of us got blessed by bablu one morning. we got our foreheads done up with the symbols for vishnu and shiva (again, or something like that...), got sprinkled with water from the ganga, had a wreath of flowers put on us, had to repeat i guess a prayer in hindi (ok i basically mumbled my way through the entire thing. it was fucking hard!), and then tossed some flowers into the river to make a wish. it was cooooooool.

anyway im off. i really really wanted to post pictures cause ive taken like a million of them and words just cant describe how amazing this city is. unfortunately none of the computers' usb ports are working here so i'll have to do it later. i was just gonna save this post but im posting it up now anyway since its been so long but check back later cause i'll add pics to it when i have the time!

pretty lil' pondicherry

so im recovered from my brush with death (ok...there was no brush with death. just having 3rd world runs makes you want to die, that's all) and weve been having the best time these past few days. mamallapurum...or whatever it's called was a cute little backpacker's town which was very refreshing because in these past 5 weeks we've seen close to zero other foreign backpackers in india. as in ive only met one. but anyway this place actually had other foreigners and one street completely catered to the crowd so we got good western food and that was fantastic. there wasnt an awful lot to do there, just see some ruins but really im done with ruins. if you showed me one of my own photos of ruins and temples, i probably wouldnt be able to tell you where that picture was taken. there was one giant fucking round boulder that somehow just rested on the slope of a hill which was interesting. how does it not roll down? one shall never know.

a couple of freaky things happened there. one was that somehow everyone in town seemed to know my name. i guess one person i tell then tells oh i dont know..the universe? me and krista were on our little motorbike on the highway when all of a sudden two motorbikes with local dudes on them come up on either side of us and yell "hi diana!!! i know your name! where are you going!?" i was thinking, "how do they know my name!?" whilst krista was probably thinking, "get the fuck away from me before we crash and die!" im guessing thats what she was thinking. so that was freaky cause really, id hate to die in a firey motorcycle accident in india. and that very same trip, the guy on his bike in front of us hit a dog and crashed! it was very traumatizing and all i could do was give him an advil. but it was advil liqui-gel migraine strength! so hopefully my contribution helped.

and now were in a super lovely french colonial town right on the coast called pondicherry aka pondy. its just the cutest! british colonialism just downright sucks when compared to the french. the town itself is very pretty with lots of old french colonial buildings and somehow everything just seems calmer (by india standards that is) and the people dont hassle you.

yesterday we went to one of the wierdest places we've been to so far, a place called auroville. not everyone would describe it as so, but i think its a bit of a cult. by the way, here's the official website for your parousing: http://www.auroville.org/
its a place that apparently belongs to no nation, where money and personal possessions are of no worth and humanity can live in unity. or something like that. i was paying attention to the informational video screening, i swear! basically its a bunch of white new age hippies living without working real jobs and being all good for the earth and humanity and the future and such. they are all about some yoga dude and this dead french woman they creepily (and adoringly) refer to as "the mother". ok seriously, she had good ideas, but how fucking creepy is that!? "THE MOTHER".

so the place is set up in 4 sections...something like residential, international...and then....other ones. and its composed of communes called stuff like 'transformation' and 'serenity'. see, cult-like, right!? and right in the middle of the town is a giant golden globe that looks like science-world called the matrimandir aka "the soul of the city" and inside is a crystal where electronically-beamed sunlight is filtered in and people go there and meditate or something. we werent allowed to go into the matrimandir unfortch. anyway that's auroville! trippy.

and so for the past 5 weeks, minus like one nite out in goa, weve been STONE COLD SOBER. arent you impressed mom? there's just nowhere to party down here in the south! its been a bit shit in that respect actually (but a lot of money saved!) that is until...last nite! me, krista and eug decided to toss back a few drinks on our own and go on a pub crawl! it was great fun minus the fact there wasnt actually a real pub crawl cause all the bars closed at like 11. this doesnt mean we didnt try!

and today we went to the local museum and a paper factory. the workers at the factory were so cute and showed us the whole process and then of course we had to buy stuff. so even though i said i wouldnt buy anything else...well i did. and then we went to the main ashram which, even though ive been reading about ashrams still cant really comprehend what its all about. something about meditating and yoga and way of life. anyway the ashram we went to is where "the mother" is buried and really i found it a bit creepy. but pretty much in the same way i find christianity creepy so no biggie. there they sold lots of pictures of 'the mother' including photos of JUST HER EYES. so she can look down upon you when eating dinner i guess. ick.

oh and of course, the biggest thing: weve eaten BEEF! beef beef beef beef beef. i will never take beef for granted again! for the first time since i set foot in india, ive found beef and ive eaten it. and its been DELICIOUS. so there you have it! and tomorrow we take a bus to chennai and from there we fly up to kolkatta. so its farewell to the south of india...

i had a solid shit!

and that was a monumental moment for me, not even an hour ago, because i had been afflicted with the infamous and dreaded '3rd world runs' aka 'delhi belly' aka 'ooty booty' (meghan just coined this one, shes quite proud). and now i have survived, but barely. where shall i begin, for these last few days have been...how shall i put it...a shit storm? gross. i so gross myself out.

dont get me wrong, i still love ooty, and would rather get food poisoning nowhere else in india. but the agony began a few days ago when we decided to go horseback riding. i was the only one who'd never been on a horse and we were off on a 3 hour ride through the ooty countryside. or...mountainside rather. i was supposed to have this nice gentle horsey but mine was actually quite a bitch and tried to bite krista, hated meghan's horse and broke into a mad run (or what felt like a mad run to me) and bit her horse's head. that nite i solemnly announced to the group, "my inner thighs are seriously bruised and swollen". and so they were. and the next day my entire body ached like a bitch and life began to suck greatly.

aha and then things took a turn for the worse! oh 3rd world runs. i still have zero food in my stomach. i wont get into the deets cause everyone knows what its like so im assuming you feel my pain. cause i surely felt my pain!!! anyway for a full 24 hours or something like that i barely moved from my bed. satellite tv to the rescue, as usual! actually i think brad pitt saved my life for me and meghan stayed up watching 'snatch' and 'legends of the fall' and then magically the next day (as in yesterday) i no longer had runs. which is a damn good thing cause at 6 pm last nite we departed on a horrid journey on a 15 hour 'ultra deluxe' bus. and by the way, when they say 'ultra deluxe' they mean yucky hell hole that wouldnt even begin to qualify as public transport back home. they had bars on the windows for fuckssakes, how is that safe!? and our tire popped which apparently takes eons to fix. and then when we finally got going again, they apparently had to change the spare they put on so alas, we had to stop again. basically it was prolonged hell. and then when we arrived in chennai this morning, we hopped onboard a crowded local bus for a couple hours and now here we are, in mamallapuram. and it's hot. how i miss ooty already.

anyway, i hope the worst is behind me and now we've finally got internet that doesnt totally lick ass so im gonna post some pics!

so i took this picture last nite. remember from way back in january when i posted a picture of a squat toilet in china? ive come to terms with the fact that i have to occasionally use a squat toilet. i still hate them and i'll never like them but fine, theyre toilets. but what the fuck is this!?

apparently this is a toilet. krista's describing it as a female urinal. i'll have to describe it in words cause i could only take a shaky bad photo for i was clenching my nostrils and tried to take the photo as quickly as possible. basically it looks like a trough that a pig eats out of and i guess you just hike up your sari and piss on the floor that is on a slight angle so the pee just flows down into the...drainy thing. id rather save my 2 rupees and piss on the side of the road in front of traffic.

at the local market in goa, a man selling cabbage. wearing a cabbage leaf on his head to top it off.

religious men strolling through the hampi bazaar.



those giant boulders i was talking about in hampi. im in the picture somewhere...








me and krista in hampi, overlooking one of the ruins. my pants are so see through.

the scenery in hampi was really cool. like a journey back in time. woooooooo.

me and meghan on top of some...ruins...overlooking some....ruins.

apparently these are ancient elephant stables.

the maharajah's palace in mysore. unfortunately we couldnt bring cameras inside the palace which was much more impressive than the outside. i still really really wanna watch aladdin.

our one group shot! minus eug that is who took the picture. this is all the people that have at random times, been travelling together in india. from left to right, meghan, andrea, joanna, meghan (2), then in the front, krista, me and angelee. this is in pretty pretty ooty.

tea plantations in ooty. the view was so nice AND it was cool temperature! perfect.

on our little excursion out to coonor, we went to a botanical garden where they had a little man made pond or something plus a children's playground. here are some local tourists making use of the see-saws after we led the way and hopped on them way ahead of them. we are such pioneers.

this is...some view we had in coonor. maybe it was dolphin's nose? or something like that. (perhaps you'll wanna go look at meghan's blog afterwards. shes just so much better at things like...place names and...activities.)

alright that's all the pictures ive got patience for. im really hungry and hoping i can stomach more than half a cracker for dinner tonite so wish me luck!