the monsoon is upon us!

we got caught up in a fort on the top of a hill right on the coast today when a taste of the indian monsoon swept upon us. the thunder and lightning were definitely dramatic from up there but nothing beats hard, soak-through-your-clothes-in-2 minutes-flat rain. yuuuuuuccccckkkk....now 3 of us have decided to finally do some good ol' blogging.

im gonna attempt to put up a bunch of pictures, depending on how much patience i have. this computer better be at least somewhat fast...and were off...

back in luang prabang, laos, this is the procession of monks in the early morning:


and here's a lovely waterfall that we went frolicking in. going home from the waterfall is when eug got leached. LEACHED! you can read allll about that on his blog if you havent already.


and now here i am riding an elephant for the first time! i look freaked out. maybe cause this elephant tried to murder me (sarah, i can be overly dramatic too! and i love you for reading and commenting. i love you 4-eva.)


more elephants! elephants!

im still not done with the elephants. baby elephant!


me, mini and ed up on...lets call it the sacred hill...in luang prabang. a hill filled with sacredness. eugene nods but i dont know if hes nodding in honest approval.




the pretty view from the hill:

and now onto india! oh india. this is the....gateway to india!!!! how very dramatic! in mumbai.

from there we took a boat to the elephanta caves and here's me and the lovely krista with a lovely, lovely family. the 2 little girls are the awesomely cute girls that have become my email buddies! basically what you see here is what many locals now have on their cameras. us + babies, families, women, men, children... so sometimes i figure hell im posing, i should get a picture too!


and this is a diana's eye-view of being a tourist attraction for the locals. actually people also want us to take their pictures...im not exactly sure why but...why not!


and this is at the ellora caves. i was gonna describe the caves.....but i am admittedly completely uninformed so go read meghan's blog. she actually reads her india book thoroughly whereas i not only not read one....but i dont even own one. this is the entrance to the main cave, very impressive eh?

and as a natural progression of photo posting....INSIDE the ellora caves! me and krista have taken to vainly be each others photo taking partner hence there is an abundance of photos of just me. there were 7 of us i swear...its just not that evident in photos....


more ellora cavey goodness.r

and then the next day we went to the ajanta caves. again...read reference meghans blog. what i do know is that the caves were set up in a funky horseshoe shape. that is all.




me and krista sitting up on a ledge in one of the caves. one of the locals was highly concerned for our safety and urgently made us get off the ledge....and then he wanted to see the photo and thought it was fab. photo credit goes to the beautiful (and widely loved by the local men) angelee.


and this is me inside one of the unfinished caves. i thought this one was extra c-o-o-l.


and now here we are in goa! this is at one of the markets and i thought this lady was just absolutely adorable. adorable!!!!



a cow + local tourists + beach! oh india!
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and this was this afternoon, mere moments before the monsoon hit! eugene in the gateway to the fort.

goa!

im losing motivation to blog cause well, im with a large number of people that were actually reading my blog....but im gonna keep going anyway at least for the sake of my mom. mom, everyone elses parents write them, why arent you writing me!???

anyway, were in goa now and we love it! finally, today's the first day where i havent set foot on any mode of transportation and its fantastic. i dont particularly recall the last time i blogged but we saw a bunch of caves and then went back to mumbai to catch an overnite train to goa. the trains here i thought would be worse than all the others ive been on but not particularly. except every time we passed through a train station, there was an overwhelming stench of human excrement. anyway..... and now were in goa! were staying in a great guesthouse right on the beach in a place called anjuna.

we went to a market yesterday and now were all decked out in jingly anklets. im planning my next purchase already: mc hammer parachute pants. im gonna look so hot! last nite we went to the only club thats open here cause unfortunately and wierdly, theres an election going on so no booze past 10 pm! and practically everything is closed cause of the monsoon. we still managed to have fun and it was great going otu with my girls again! and today we just lounged around on the beach so that was great. and now im gonna go eat my dominos pizza delivery. i can no longer focus on the blog cause krista's harassing me to go home so im off!

"Incredible !ndia"

so weve made it hear to india! i really wanted to post some pics but indian internet hates me and wont let me. more like im just impatient but thats not the point.

back in our last week in luang pragbang we went on an elephant mahout experience for 2 days which eug did last year and highly recommended. it was tons of fun we got to ride elephants and wash them in the river and i must say, riding an elephant can be a slightly frightening experience. i like to be dramatic and say i nearly died when on our first elephant ride, i was sitting on the neck and our elephant whom i named mary (and then later on was renamed crazy mary) decided to veer off course and go eat branches....right over a giant ditch. i only got very concerned when our mahout (the elephant's caretaker) put a death grip on my arm and was shouting at the elephant who refused to listen. so that was interesting. then i got to ride another elephant who's blind in one eye and i named bessie. she veered off course as well and bonked her head on a tree. then it started dumping rain and she wouldnt let me off. i had such good luck with the elephants.

to wash them we got to ride them down to the river and with us on their backs they just dunk themselves right into the water up to their trunks. we used big bristley brushes and just rubbed them down good. i got mary again and she pooped during her bath. overall, elephants = A+ good times!

and then for my last couple days in laos i checked myself into a swanky hotel and took a hot bath with the air con blasting which is just completely unnecessary but oh so enjoyable. and on our last nite in laos we headed off to an authentic laos disco! there was first a live band when we got there and they played a very extended version of 'happy birthday' which the locals seemed to love. but then they also played 2 akon songs to which i thought, "is 'i wanna fuck you' really an appropriate song for this place?"

and so me and eug bid a sad sad farewell to laos and headed off on our unmerry way for we were about to depart on a long long journey to mumbai, !ndia (eugenes estimating 37 hours. and im doing the "!" cause thats their whole tourism motto and i find it amusing.) we indulged ourselves by taking a flight from luang prabang back to vientiane (laos air is apparently either termed 'flying tuk tuks' or 'flying coffins') which saved us from going on an overnite bus. the plane is the smallest ive ever been on, with only 15 rows, and it is not for those with a weak stomach. i was very very glad when we landed. and then we took an overnite train to bangkok, flew to kuala lumpur, and then finally to mumbai! and now here we are: me, eug, angelee, meghan, krista, and 2 of angelee's friends from waterloo.

on our one full day in mumbai we took a boat ride to elephanta island which had....caves. me and eugene are both drawing blanks right now to what exactly was on the island. (we are very very tired.) but it was excellant, that i will recall! the most outstanding thing so far is that locals are in love with us. madly in love. we get treated like movie stars and everyone just wants to take photos with us. (or they'll video record us when we walk by which is a little wierd but sure why not) i dont particularly understand the fascination with me since i aint white and im so tanned now im practically brown but its all good fun. people shove their kids our way, want their kids to kiss us, and entire families will get their photo taken with us. actually i just got an email from 2 little girls we met on the island saying they miss me and want to be my friend; now even i think thats cute.

and today's been a long day, we set off at 5 am in a van we rented that had AC!!!! and it took about 7 hours for us to get to our new location, a town called aurungabad. we went to the ellora caves which was absolutely fantastic. basically caves carved into the mountain but the main cave had giant sculpted buildings in it. everyone else knows more details about the caves so perhaps theyve blogged about it now (i am so useless) so perhaps you should read their posts as well.... it kind of reminded me of angkor wat. but really more than half our time was spent posing for the locals' photos but no complaints here.

anyway it is damn hot here but no monsoon yet so so far so good. and though ive been steadily packing on the pounds my entire trip i think finally the weight gain will stagnate cause the heats totally reducing my appetite and im just not loving indian food the way i love...all food. but anyway i think this joint's closing up and we now have an a/c room to look forward to going home to! so hopefully i can post some pictures soon but, mom and everyone home, dont worry, ive made it to india alive!

the h2o ed.

so were still having a super good time in laos and now were in luang prabang which is a UNESCO world heritage town. its really pretty here with lots of old french colonial buildings mixed in with buddhist temples set against a great landscape. cant say weve done too much this time around cause its a damn lazy town and its really hot here. but weve strolled through town, checked out some of the temples, hung out with monks (even though i cant touch them or their belongings cause im a lowly filthy female). today, well the first half of the day, was very busy. we got up to see the procession of hundreds of monks through the streets collecting alms at 6 am. basically the monks just slowly walk through the streets and people sit on the side of the road putting alms, usually balls of sticky rice, into the monks'...collecting buckets (we dont know what theyre called but me and eug figure collecting buckets is the best description). oh and in laos the locals always eat sticky rice. they roll it into little balls and dip it into the different dishes. and then today we had a half day cooking lao food cooking class! apparently jamie oliver filmed a show at that school so we figured it cant be that shit and really we ate more than cooked but it was good fun. and at the end we got our own little sticky rice baskets and a certificate! my certificate says my name is "DLANA CMAN".

anyway i wanted to post water-themed pictures. or more just like pictures off of mini's camera cause its waterproof which can come in damn handy.

ok this has absolutely nothing to do with water but whatever. back to thailand, this ones taken on koh sahn road with the canadian couple, ken and rachel, that we had met way back in china beach and that mini and ed were travelling with while i was in japan. ken's from nova scotia and loves matt mays so you really cant go wrong with him.


and heres basically the only good picture from the full moon party! note that we are totally drenched to the bone but were not pussies, we kept on truckin. also note that i was surrounded by nothing but irish men which can prove to be an interesting experience.


ok and then back to laos! this is from the day we went caving and this is the water cave where we had to pull ourselves along a rope inside the cave while floating about in a tube.


here we are, mere seconds away from embarking on our first ever river tubing adventure.


and tubing away down the river....


and heres us chilling at one of the bars along the river while we went tubing.


ok and me being athletic. or more like everyone else wanted to go kayaking so i had to but it turned out not so bad at all. roughly 5 million times better than cycling.

sabaidee from laos! / all the photos ive been meaning to post...

so eugene has now officially joined us here in vang vieng, laos! we've been having an absolute ball here but im gonna try to exert some discipline over myself here and finally post pictures cause i shouldnt be so damn lazy. so here we go!

lets go back to my honeymoon with joolia (although really, you shouldve already checked out her pictures on her blog!)... us at the osaka aquarium! she actually bought the professional version of this photo and we look all hot and airbrushed in it.


i was ceaselessly amused by these little cartoony animals that went along with every display at the aquarium. oh those japanese; so cute!

me and joolia's idea of absolute heaven: our osaka hostel living room. take out curry, tabloid mags and the LION KING. can you feel the love tonite?


me and joolia riding mechanical furry animals in kobe. we fucking laughed our asses off the entire time as we were moving oh about 30 cm/minute or something super high speed like that.


my beloved moo cow baby and joolia's newly acquired totoro spending quality time together in kobe. now separated, just like me and dear dear joolia. i think im going to cry myself to sleep tonite.


here we are, at the GRANDEST CASTLE IN ALL OF JAPAN-DOM!!!


the a-bomb dome in hiroshima.


me and joolia at the start of our last nite together in fukuoka!! sniff, sniff...


and so then i was back to s.e. asia: bangkok. this is some...temple-y place next to the palace. note the sexy outfit i was forced to put on.



and this is the palace! pretty snazzy eh?


a giant golden reclining buddha, in case you couldnt tell by the picture.


and this was my 2nd place of residence in thailand, koh phan ngan. ok now ive totally forgotten how to spell it but thats life. this was taken on the back of our motorbike at the top of one of the many freaky hills on the way to town.

and now im in laos! laos laos laos! it was dumping fucking rain back in thailand almost the entire time but it is fucking sunny and scorching up here! and weve been doing stuff nonstop so its such a nice change, i love laos. we took a local bus for almost an hour to get from vientiane to this place named buddha park. did i mention that in my last post? apparently i have no short term memory. anyway, heres a hyper technical aerial shot of me and the park.



and after 2 nites in vientiane, weve been living the indian jones life here in vang vieng. on our first full day here i made the massive error of thinking yes, i can indeed ride a bicycle for 26 km, why not? i swear i was duped into thinking it was a short distance. plus i think id forgotten i suck at, and hate, riding bikes. more like i hate pretty much all physical activity but we wont get into that now. plus its what, 35 degrees? i was near death the entire time and my ass had never suffered so much anguish and i still cant sit properly. annnnnnyway we biked out to go caving. the scenery here is absolutely gorgeous and we got to go into one giant cave that was filled with what're they called...stalagmites? and just huge ass caverns. heres us walking with our local guides to the caves, then me and ed reliving our indy jones pose from marble mountain and me just being a tool.





we also went to a water cave where we dragged ourselves along inside the submerged cave by rope while floating in big rubber tubes. i gotta get pics of that off of mini's nifty waterproof camera later. this day also marks the arrival of eugene! complete with fucking DREADS. yes everyone, our worst nitemare has come true. hes even got synthetic hair knotted into his own hair. i have yet come to love it.

anyway, the next day (which i also have no pictures for right now cause we just used minis camera once again) we went on a minority village trek which was lots of fun. we went to 3 villages and in one we visited a school and the kids here are just so damn cute as well! those cambodian babies have some serious fucking competition. our guide was awesome and so much fun. he was big and jolly and acted like a big kid. and he built us a fire and we got a nice bbq lunch next to the river. and then we spent the rest of the day doing what this place is famous for: tubing. basically floating down the river in a tube and stopping at bars along the way. the boys also preoccupied themselves for most of the day with swinging into the river. there was a wide assortment of awkward landings in the water.

and then today the boys rented motorbikes and we basically spent all day riding around in the countryside. it was eugene's first time driving a motorbike so it was quite monumental. we went into another cave today and this one was a little freaky. the other big cave we went into was also pitch black dark but this one was more like muddy tunnels that we were crawling around in. needless to say, today was one helluva dirty day. then the next pit stop we made was at a lovely lagoon that had seriously clear water and lots of fishies swimming around in it. and again, laos is just fucking beautiful, everyone should come here!



and here's a manly shot of the boys on their little playthings. the boys + motorbikes + dirt + road dust + me = the ultimate laos experience.


and by the end of the day, this is what i looked like. dirty dirty dirty. ed's laughing at me for posting this picture but i want the world to know i can also become one with nature and travelling has changed me as a person. or, i can just look really assy and dirty.