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!