In the Mountains

We ended up staying in Rishikesh for about 6 days. We didn't really do much but we walked around a lot. That was interesting enough and it is easier to walk around in the streets there. Skyler took a cooking class from a mother of 5 girls, in their small two room house. I took some yoga classes for free. I learned a little about yoga therapy. It was really interesting. We did exercises for back problems and stomach problems. We did breathing exercises for head aches, breathing problems, and meditation. It is all about balancing out your body as well as your mind because most physical problems come from emotional stress. It felt great but you look really funny doing it. It was strange going from a quiet relaxing room, out to blaring horns and cars racing by, with people begging along the street. It rained on us for the first time in three months and that felt great. We walked up to a nature reserve and checked out a couple of waterfalls one day and saw a village up in the hills. It was pretty laid back and easy. We wanted to go rafting but a bug bite that left a hole in my back is still healing and Skyler found out that he has been hosting a parasite. We had the cure for it the whole time and didn't know it. Our malaria pills are antibiotics and help with all kinds of things, we just hadn't been in malaria country so we weren't taking them. Anyway, the ganges river is not the cleanest and after watching open sewer pour directly in it, we said no to rafting. We planned on going trekking but we decided to wait until we got closer to the mountains. Yesterday we left for Manali. We took a local bus and that was interesting. It was 15 hours of curvy roads, crazy driving and stopping and going. We were cramped because of our huge back and sometimes the bus was full with the isle filled. Sky got a lot of ass in the face. When we arrived it was cold and raining. Our room didn't have heat so we had to adjust fast. We found out that this is not a good time to go trekking because there is to much snow and the weather is bad. Bummer. We came just a little to early. The town is really nice and the traffic is low. We saw some temples that look like carved up log cabins. There were yaks to ride, huge rabbits to pet and snakes too. It was sad. We saw our first leper. It is really beautiful and there is a park you can go three wheeling in and tomorrow we are going rock climbing ( I'm going to be so soar) and to a hot springs. We think that we might not stay to long and try to make it to Darjeeling before we have to leave, in 16 DAYS! We only have a few more spots to hit.

Camel College Without Knowledge

So Pushkar was nice and relaxing but there wasn't much to do there so we moved on to Jailsamer which is close to the Pakistan boarder in the Thar Desert. It is a small town that surrounds a huge old fort. The fort is either 3000, or over 800 years old (we were told both). It is very beautiful and we got a place to stay inside the fort for less than 2$ a night. We went on a three day, two night camel trek into the desert which turned out to be wonderful and disappointing at the same time. When we arrived, we planned on taking Jessika's advise on which agency to book our trek through. We got to our hotel and they showed us their book and I recognized a name that Jessika had given me and the man said, "Oh yes, that is me." We asked if he remembered a guy with dreadlocks and he said yes and the girl had brown hair to her shoulders. We thought sweet, we must be in the right place. I'm pretty sure now that he was lying or confusing our friends with someone else. We went with three people from Argentina and they were awesome. Our guide's name was Tiger and he was the only problem that we had. He seemed ok at first but then he started telling us sob stories about how he gets paid very little and relies on tips from tourists. He said that it hadn't rained in the desert for 10 years and that the village people were struggling because of this. That was a lie because it rained the next day. He told us his very long story twice, but when I asked him to teach me about the desert he could not tell me anything. I asked, "If I was lost in this desert how could I find water?" Tiger said, "Find a village, they are everywhere." This was a true but disappointing answer. The first two days we went through several villages where we got mobbed by children asking for money, or the ring on my finger, or whatever we had. We could always see power lines and hear motor bikes and there were people everywhere we went. It was not what I expected. The last day was much better as far as scenery. Tiger was just weird. He was sitting with Skyler and I and started singing the Barbie Girl song. At first it was funny and we were laughing and then he changed the lyrics to "I'm a bloody barbie girl, I break like plastic, bloody sand in my hair." Creepy!! Then he started telling Sky that he was a bloody barbie girl. I'm glad that it was the last day because that made me feel a little uncomfortable.
Besides our lame tour guide the desert was beautiful. We got to see a couple of snakes and there are only a few species of plants. There is a new species that has been popping up recently and I believe that it is probably invasive. It is very tall, red and white and has three huge hard leaves that spin around in a circle when the wind blows. I think the species is.............. um.......oh yes, windmill. Yes, they were everywhere the first two days. They are used to pump water for the village people. The best part for me was just being around the camels. They are such weird animals. They are huge! Huge gas machines! My camel's name was Victoria. They were all very calm and well behaved. They just eat and fart and when they are told it is time to go they lay down so you can climb on. They eat and swallow and then they bring their food up again and chew it some more and then swallow it again. When they do this the burp travels an amazing distance so if you are ever around camels, beware.
Now Sky and I have moved north to Rishakesh. We are in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is very beautiful and this town is the Yoga center of the world. They also have white water rafting and trekking and camping and waterfalls. I think that we might stay here for a while. It feels great to be in the mountains again.

On to Pushkar

The day after the Holi festival we ended up climbing a mountain, pretty much on accident. The city was much calmer that day the four of us decided that we were going to check out the Pink City area of town. We didn't know where it was except for that it was right next to the huge for on the hill. So we started walking towards the fort. We were tired of the rickshaw drivers ripping us off, and taking us to hotels of their friends instead of where we asked to go. We walked through some neighborhoods and some little boys pulled my pants down. I guess the guys here see us women tourists as there only chance to see or touch a woman or something. If they did that to an indian women they would be punished. Anyway, a crowd of young kids formed in parade like form behind us and showed us to a path that lead up to the fort. They followed us up part way and goofed off and then the rest of the way we were on our own. It was a trail but it was rocky and went along the huge wall of the fort. So basically we walked up and half the way around the fort. It took a couple of hours and we didn't have water the the view was worth it. The city is massive with over 5 million people in it. We finally got to the fort and got some water and food and then explored around inside. Then it started to get dark and we somehow hitched a ride with a local model and her friends back to our neighborhood. She took us to a jewelry shop first, surprise surprise. Then when we were talking back to our hotel some older men that we had tea with during the Holi festival found us and invited us to an Indian gypsy music festival. So we went. We partied from 10pm until 4:30am in a small village outside of Jaipur. There was a temple with flashing lights, live Indian music, kids everywhere, it was crazy. It was actually a small event but it was intense. We felt like we were famous. They all crowded around us everywhere we went. They all wanted to touch us and take pictures with us and dance with us. We got tea all night and they fed us as well. The ladies gave us henna tattoos for free, but then asked for a gift in return, which was rupees of course. It was a good experience and fun but I now just look like I have a diseased hand. It was a really special experience and the hospitality was wonderful but I felt like I was an exhibit almost. Every time they urged me to go up and dance all I could think was (dance monkey dance!!!!)
The older men wanted us to go to their shops the next day and Phil and Carly did but Sky and I went to the hospital. Sky got a bug bite on his knee and it is the gnarliest bite I have ever seen. It got huge and red, then scabbed over, then started to bleed and then he squeezed an amazing amount of puss out of it which left a hole in his leg. I have seen nothing like it before. It could be the most amazing thing I have seen in India. He is fine, we got some drugs and it is getting better now.
Yesterday we got to Pushkar. Phil and Carly are still our travel buddies. It is a small town on a "lake", more like a nasty pond really. There are ghats all along it where you can pay to get blessed in the nasty looking pond but I think I will pass. The surrounding area looks kind of like the foothills of boise. It is really friendly and we got a nice place to stay for 3$ a night. So far we have done a little bit of shopping at the market and climbed up to another fort. I might take a dance or yoga class tomorrow. Who knows, I'm on vacation, I can do whatever I feel like doing tomorrow. Ahhhhhhhhhh. I just found out that I have a job for the summer and I can definitely wait to start working.

Holi Festival in Rajisthan

After about a week of basically doing nothing but sitting on the beach, boogie boarding, and eating and drinking in Goa, we decided it was time to go back to India. Goa was great! It was relaxing and there was good music and we met a few new friends. I can see why people can get stuck there. Sky and I took a 30 hour train to Jaipur Rajasthan, starting on the 9th. The ride was really nice. We met a couple from London going to the same place and we have been exploring the city together. We also met some Indian friends that helped us get a good cheap place to stay. Yesterday, 11th was the Holi Festival. It is the festival of colors and basically the city closes down and everyone runs around throwing colored powder or water all over eachother. Tuesday we were walking around in the street near our hotel and just happened to stumble across a family having a small party. They invited us in and put color all over us and then we danced around to Indian music for a couple of hours. It was so much fun. They gave us snacks and told us to come back the next morning but we all slept in instead. Yesterday was the real Holi Festival and it was quite different. Everywhere we walked people would come up to us and smear our faces with color. Everyone wanted to shake our hands and give us hugs. We started off in a family neighborhood and we got invited into a temple for tea. The people were all so friendly and welcoming. We met a 65 yr old Lady named Kay, from Germany, who we kidnapped into our crew. Then we wanted to see all the real action of Holi and so we jumped into a taxi and found it. We went to a busy street and got more than we asked for. There were a lot of drunk men, little kids and hardly no women in sight. The crowds of people would surround us with there hands all over our faces. Some of the stuff that they had was really nasty and it was very overwhelming. It got old pretty fast, especially when Carli and I kept on getting grabbed by the men. We eventually just jumped into a taxi and went back to our hotel area. Overall Holi was really fun, and we ran into mostly great people. Today we are going to tour the city a little bit and make plans to move on to somewhere else in Rajasthan. So far the desert here reminds me of the desert around Boise. Next we are heading for the Thar Desert for the sand dunes and camel treking. :)

Hello India!

You hear people say all the time, that India is a different world and that it is shocking and unnerving. Sure, it is what everyone says it is but our experience here has been pretty mellow so far except for a few strange events. We arrived in Bangalore at about 10:30 at night and got a prepaid taxi to a hotel that we read about in our Lonely Planet book. The driver took us to the general area, but we had to argue with him, as well as other random people that just happened to be on the street that we stopped at, to take us directly to our hotel. He did not know where it was, but we eventually figured it out and got there only to find that it was closed. So we went to a place next door and it was fine. Bangalore is a city that looks like it is falling apart. It appears that they have started construction everywhere and then just forgot about it. It is very busy and the traffic is crazy as to be expected. All the men wear long pants and collared shirts and all the women wear beautiful saris. I did not see a lot of poverty. Many of the women are quite chubby actually. There are people, mostly children, begging but they don't look that bad off. We saw a could of deformed men begging, but even with their deformity they look like they are pretty healthy. There are cows and chickens, goats and sheep and dogs roaming around everywhere. They have very strict laws about beer. The food thought! We did not know what anything on the menu was but we just pointed to different things and everything that we have received so far has been delicious. We tried to book a train to Goa right away but it was full for a couple of days so we went on a tour to Mysore. It was fun. I mean, it was a guided tour so it was, get on the bus, get off the bus, you have 20 min to get back on the bus. We saw a fort that is 3000 years old, a couple temples and Mysore Palace. Really cool buildings. My favorite stop was at a fountain garden at night with a colorful fountain that danced to Indian techno. The bus that we took back dropped us off in an area that was no where near our hotel. So we had to get a tuk tuk back. Our driver again could not find our place. Before we got in the vehicle he told us 120rps and when we got out a few blocks away from our place, because he couldn't find it, he demanded 175rps. So we got in an argument with him with people from the street again making it their business. We ended up just giving it to him and walked back to our room. It seems silly when you realize you are arguing over less than a dollar. Then, after we had been in our room for only 20 minutes we get a knock on our door. It is two police officers in full uniform with rifles. What?! They were talking to Sky in Hindi and Sky just kept saying " I'm sorry I don't understand. What is the problem?" Eventually they just said goodnight and left. That left us feeling a little uncomfortable. The last thing we want is to get in trouble here. We asked the man at the desk of our hotel the next morning about it and he said that it happens all the time and not to worry about it. I was just glad that we were leaving that city.
So now we are in Goa. Our train ride was a pleasant experience and we chatted and shared snacks with some very nice Indian men that were on vacation. After the train we hopped buses to get to Vagator which was really fast and amazingly easy. It is so wonderful here. It is extremely hot but at least I'm not missing hot showers. There are dreadlocks everywhere, bars on the beach, techno dance clubs and half naked tourists running around the beach with the luckiest cows in the world. If I were a cow I would want to be a cow in Goa. It is very relaxed and friendly and we found a cheap place to stay with a view of a garden and an old fort that we are going to hike to soon. We might stay longer than we originally planned. So for now we are just relaxing on the beach with beers, looking out over the Arabian Sea. :)

The Karen Village, Behind the Scenes

So we are back in Chaing Mai again, and it feels great to sleep in a bed, take a hot shower and hang out in civilization. The two weeks in the Karen Village were.....well.....it was what it was I guess. It was two weeks of roller coaster emotions and lots of confusion. We stayed with a family of four that hosts tours like the one we went on a month and a half ago almost every night. So every night there was a new group of tourists that stayed at the house. The children sang every night and we also heard the same jokes every night. The house was simple but spacious. All made out of wood and concrete, with a metal roof. We slept on a concrete floor with a few blankets under us and a few on top. The family was so wonderful to us. The wife, who we called Pi, spoke very limited english but we had a few nights of playing games and bonding and sharing language through books. She was amazing in that she never stopped moving all day. She got up at 6am every morning, cooked breakfast, then went to the school to teach, then came home and did stuff around the house, then cooked again, and then studied by candle light all night. She had headaches all the time from reading in bad light. The husband Saikam spoke pretty good english and was very friendly but was not around that often and when he was he was with a tour. They had two kids a daughter that is about 11 and a son that is 8. They were amazing children. They often had no supervision, especially on weekends. When the parents were gone they would use huge knives to cut fire wood, to make a fire, so they could make themselves and us lunch. Then they would shower on their own and do laundry. They were so good at taking care of themselves but still played like kids at the same time.

We were a little disappointed with the school. There is about 60 students and three class rooms. There are about 6 teachers and most of them speak a little english but it was very hard to communicate with them. When we first arrived we were told that the children were going camping for a boy scout thing and that we could go along but Sky would not be able to teach until the following week. So his teaching time when from a limiting 2 weeks one week which is almost nothing. We went camping and it was fun to learn about all the medicinal plants in the forest and to watch the kids make their own shelters out of branches and tarps. We made an obstacle course for them in the jungle and and basically just sat around and watched for three days not really knowing what was going on because we could not understand what they were saying.

That weekend we wanted to hike somewhere but our host family did not seem very comfortable with that and one day took us to a waterfall but the other day we were just stuck at the house but locked out and all our stuff was inside. They were so strange about things sometimes. We were always locked out when they were gone, they didn't like us walking around and never told us where they were or when they were coming back.

So teaching time finally came around and Monday was a let the kids rest because they just got off a holiday day. Sky got to teach for only a short time. Then Tuesday was Monk Day. I guess it was a half moon that night or something, so we went to the temple to pray that morning for about 20 minutes. The rest of monk day is apparently set the forest on fire day. The kids just ran around raking up leaves and fallen branches and burned whatever they pleased. We didn't really see the point but they had fun. So that day the kids only got a couple hours of class time. Wednesday was sports day. So they run around just playing basically, no organized games, until lunch. Then they eat a big meal, sit in front of a TV for about an hour and then they try to learn. They were all so tired and unmotivated by the time Sky got to teach, and it was really frustrating. Thursday was the most productive day and Sky got some good hours in. Friday just happened to be the one day out of the year that the kids don't write. That's right, no writing at all, but drawing is okay. So all in all it seemed like going to teach in the village was a big waste of time. The other teachers don't make their students stay in the classroom. Many of them tell the students to just study and then start drawing out plans for their new house or whatever they feel like. I really wonder where all the money that is donated to the school goes. It seems to me that they are just lazy. There are kids that are way too young to be in school that hang out in the classrooms as well as kids that have already graduated and just have nothing else to do. There was one student that was deaf and no one made any effort to teach him how to read lips. He could write but he could not talk and when ever anyone talked to him they spoke gibberish or just made sounds like he did. He acted out a lot in class, surprise surprise. Sky even offered to teach extra on the weekend and they couldn't organize it so it never happened. One glimmer of hope though, was one little girl came by on Saturday by herself wanting to learn more. Sky almost shed a tear.

During the week I was sometimes in the classroom helping Sky and the rest of the time I was walking around all three villages mapping with my GPS. The teachers said that they wanted a map of the area and they wanted to know the distances between. This could be used for education or even for something for the tourists to look at when they came to look at the school. So I made them a nice map with the distances between, the perimeters of the villages, the areas, the male to female ratios, # of houses , average # of people per household etc. The teachers loved it, but when I brought it home to show Pi and Saikam they did not like it at all and got mad when Sky showed it to some of the tourists. Why? Those are questions that tourists always ask. Why does it have to be a secret? So strange.

Besides that we did have a good time hanging out with everyone in the village. The older men were the most welcoming and laid back. They shared their home made rice wine with us and one old man even taught us an ancient fighting dance. There was a lady that lived next door that often came by and gave me bananas. The kids where fun to play with. We ate many interesting foods like tadpoles, beetles, fresh water shrimp, pig intestines, and frogs. The frogs where the best. They would put a whole fish that had been fried on your plate so you had to look it in the eye before you took a big bite out of it's face. The head really was the best part. Sometimes I had no idea what I was eating but we always had rice. Rice, rice, rice with every meal. Rice veggies and mystery meat but very little fruit. I was horribly stopped up for the first week and a half.

So, the Karen live really nice lives. They live in a beautiful place and their life is simple yet comfortable. They are not what they seem when you come through as a tourist. They have solar power, TV, motor bikes, cell phones and more money than they want you to believe. They get funding from Canada and I'm sure they make a good amount off of the tourists. They could do a lot more for themselves if they wanted to but they would rather rely on handouts is the conclusion I have come to. They even tried to charge Sky and I 500 baht for the ride up to the village in the back of a pickup truck while they were running errands around town anyway. It seems to be how Thailand goes. Everyone just wants your money. I don't regret staying there at all and I will stay in contact with the friends that we made there. Sky is even thinking about going back for a longer amount of time next year. Maybe to another village though. It was overall a wonderful experience and it saved us a lot of money too.

So now we only have a few days left in Thailand and we are spending them in Chaing Mai and traveling back down to Bangkok. Then it will be on to India which we are thinking might be the real adventure of our trip.

Back to the HIll Tribe

So we said goodbye to Phuket. No more smoky haze, lines and lines of rubber trees, and beautiful white sand beaches covered with tourists. No more gibbons. No more screaming high school students at 8am. No more motor bikes. :) We were there for a month and it felt like we were there for a day.
On our way back up to chaing mai we had the bus drop us off near a national park called Khao Sok. We hitch hiked the rest of the 40kms to the park. It was still a tourist area but was very quiet and peaceful. Ahhhhhhh. We paid to get into the park but we camped for free for two nights. This park is part of the biggest nature reserve in Thailand and is 160 million years old. It was said by some scientist to be older and more diverse than the amazon. It looked old with big trees, birds everywhere and vines covering everything. It had wild elephants, tigers, bears, deer, gibbons, monkeys, all kinds of snakes and over 150 different species of birds. Skyler and I took a hike the day that we spent there. We hiked up the side of the main mountain and found a good place to swim in a river all by ourselves. We tried to go off the beaten trail a few times but could never get very far. It was thick and well, you know, there were tigers around. Out of all the amazing wildlife that was there we got to see some lizards, spiders, mosquitoes, birds and some beautiful butterflies. No tigers or elephants but I'm sure that only few are so lucky. The forest was so wonderful just to walk around in. It was very refreshing to get away from the crowded tourist spots and big cities. There was a little town right outside the park for food and drinks. The first night Sky and I hung out at the Spirit Bar which was just a camp fire and a tiny stand selling drinks. The guy who owned it also made money giving tourists dread locks. It was fun and very interesting to hang out with a thai hippy crowd. There were also many Germans around. It seemed like anyone else that was white was German.
The day that we left we needed some money and the ATM was out of cash. We needed money for the bus to get to Sarat Thani because we had already bought train tickets all the way to Chaing Mai. We had a mini panic moment and we were asking around at what our options were and some nice thai lady at a mini mart just gave us the money that we needed to get to Sarat Thani. We had no way to repay her but she just gave us her card to say, send me business. It was so nice of her. So we got to Sarat thani and got on our train okay which was a sleeper. Very nice way to travel. Then at 3am the train stopped and everyone started getting off. We were confused until an english speaking thai man told us that a train in front of us had gone off the tracks and we had to get off and catch a bus the rest of the way to Bangkok. So we got off and waited, and waited. Another train pulled up with another load of people needing to be bussed to Bangkok. We had a train to catch to Chaing Mai at 8:30 so we started to get a little worried that we wouldn't make it. Then finally one bus showed up. Suddenly there was a mob of people all running towards the bus. So Sky and I started laughing and ran as well because we knew that we needed to be on that bus to catch our next train. There was young men pushing old ladies out of the way and I caught and old thai lady by the backpack who almost fell backwards out of the door. It was so hilarious, but we pushed out way through and got on. The way sky explained it was, " It was like we were all starving dogs and a bus full of bacon drove up." We got to our train with 15 minutes to spare. It was a long two days of travel.
So now we are in Chaing Mai again. Ahhhhhh, the first hot shower in over a month was the best thing ever. This evening we are getting picked up by a man who lives in the Karen Village that we went to over a month ago. We are going to stay with them for 2 weeks. They said they have a house for us to stay in and that they will feed us while we are there. Skyler is going to teach english and I'm, ah, going to help him i guess and just help out with daily chores that they do around the village. I don't really know what to expect but I'm excited to learn from them. I won't really be able to talk to anyone but I hope that they will show me how they farm and how they make their clothes and how they cook. There will be no Internet or cell phone service so I will be unreachable for two weeks. Don't worry to those of you that might, mother, we are going to be with good people and they have transportation into town if anything happens. So, I will tell you all about it when I get back. Sawatdee Ka!