safe by the sound

The terrible tsunamis of Sunday have fortunately not effected our plans but certainly have made us upset. we are in northern goa, in a beach hut surrounded by palm trees, having perhaps too nice a time. Happy new year to you all~ we love you!

Quiet Moments are Life's Rewards

the title of this blog comes from a picture of a waterfall with these words emblazoned across the top that hangs on the wall of our hotel room in Mumbai. it is ironic of course because our room is separated only by a lattice window at the top from three other rooms, all of which were full of laughing, joking indian men last night. we fell asleep to their cackles and woke to their giggles. bombay is the most expensive place to stay in india, so we are paying dearly even for this sort of accommodation. nonetheless, alp and i are having a fun mini-break in the big city and have walked and found our way around like the hardened travellers we have become. there are beautiful and romantically crumbling british building left from the raj-era and it feels much more cosmopolitan here than other indian cities in the north, like new delhi. we have become intrigued by the parsi community in bombay and pune, as they are actually followers of the ancient element-revering zoroastrian faith and have placed fantastical symbols (like men with horse bodies and wings) about town. traditionally parsis leave their dead on the towers of silence to have their bodies picked apart by vultures and birds of prey. sadly, these places are kept off limits but i suppose that adds to their mysteriousness. we have heard the bad news about the tokyo rose closing and hope that final blow to the coolness of charlottesville will perhaps inspire some of all you to head over here. scoot~ ingrid

Yes we are in Mumbai right now, the only reason being the finding of a metal rigging to go on the back of a 1973 Enfield. We had a meeting on Wednesday in Pune with Bhargavi who is the head of Bapu Trust (click title), an organization helping women and the mentally ill. And the news is that we will stay in Pune for a year working part time with them. Our request was that we work part time so that we can write our book, and ofcourse we will not be getting paid. Finding a job is much easier when you dont want to get paid, because they cant say no. Well we observed that poor Bhargavi was traumatized by another german volunteer. apperantly she was more trouble then she was worth, asking by the hour what to do. We assured Bhargavi that we are pretty laid back and are happy not doing anything just as much as we enjoy doing things. At the same time we will attend the prestigious Iyengar Institute of Yoga four times a week. To the rock climbing enthusiasts out there let me tell you this, Pune is a heaven. There are beautiful cliffs and Iam sure many caves all over Maharastra. So we will be buying a bike tomarrow, and we had to come to Mumbai for the luggage rack because without it we cant take our stuff with us, but being a tourist implement it is especially hand made welded metal. Really grungy but it will do the trick. We are planning to head for Goa on Monday and spend the new year there. Hopefully on a more quiet beach and we will party with the crowd elsewhere. Then we are planning to head further south to Kerala, everyone beit Indian or foreigner seems to think highly of Kerala and we might spend more time there. All of this of course on our bike. We plan to go to Sri Lanka in February for a month where we will apply for the employment visa. So that is the outline of the plan. We feel that all of the things we wanted to do in India or in Asia came together in Pune and are very happy of the outcome of all our previous trials and failures. It is never a failure if it opens another door and who knows if you are heading to where you want to be by failing. Important thing is not to lose motivation. So high-ho to you all,
Alp!

Pheeling Phun in Pune

After a week in Pune, with and now without Manish, we have decided this would be a wonderful place to stay. Manish has gone off to Goa for a film festival and allowed us to further take over his hostel room. It is quiet and extremely peaceful on campus because the school is out of session but the guards are starting to become wary of us, traipsing in and out of the school with no chaperone. We spent four days intensely reading the Illustrated version of the Da Vinci Code out loud. Pune has many charms unique to itself. All of the apartment buildings have names scrawled on the sides and there are delightful old British-looking stone and wood buildings. We have found fresh figs, tasty papayas, and a beer store yards away from the entrance to the school. Walking around the Muslim section of town, we came to an old church-cum-chicken slaughterhouse where nearly one hundred hawks were gathered, swooping down and bombarding trash dumpsters filled with scraps, flinging dissattached chicken feet across the streets. Otherwise, Pune is extremely modern and progressive. Women abound (which is unusual for most Indian cities, where men certainly outnumber their counterparts) and ride around the town on zippy motorscooters, wearing mujahhadin-like headdresses to keep out some of the pollution. Pune also specializes in desserts and we have tasted wonderful creme caramel, chocolate mousse, and homemade ice cream (real reason y ingie wants to stay in Pune). There are several Iranian-style places around too and we have recently shared, over an apple-flavoured hookah, fantasies and thoughts on our upcoming, highly-anticipated novel. Most of the restaurants are outside, with patios, furthering the feeling like we are on perpetual vacation. When we realize some of our plans (i.e. motorcycle purchasing, etc), you all will be the first to know!
There is a new ablum of pictures on Pune, click the title!
I and A

Osho, for shau!

We are here in Pune. Four hours from Mumbai, it is a suprisingly pretty and hopping town. Well four hours on train, three on bus or six on a bus full of people and goods. Our bus yesterday filled the rack on top so mush with goods that on the slightest of incline we wee going 10km/h. Not to mention the Walt like scare I had about the brakes failing. But at the end we arrived then got hussled by rickshaws but at the end we met Manish. He is our friend who is attending FTII, Film and Television Institude of India, and is letting us stay in his hostel room. Very nice guy. He doesn't have it very bad either though since he is letting us stay in his room he gets to stay with his pretty girl friend. The school is out, everyone is in Goa for the International Film Festival so we have the campus almost to ourselves. These kids are funny, they live and breathe cinematography it seems like. We will certainly be smarter when we leave Pune, so watch out! There are lots of pretty banyan trees and I feel this is only the beginning. The south is going to be great and we will write about it. Gorusmek uzere,
Alp

Parting From The Weary Dehli Land

So at last the day has come, we are leaving Delhi this afternoon. After almost not being able to find a ticket to Mumbai, we had to dish out $60 for 2 express aircon 3A tickets and a 17 hour ride. We still consider ourselves lucky though because if we hadn't used the tourist quota we could be in Delhi for another week waiting for a place in a train. We are not sure if we will stay in Mumbai at all or head directly to Pune, where there is a good friend named Manish. Other than all of this, there are grimmer news. I have not been able to penetrate through the buraoucrscy for the turkish military so I am in bad standing, or an escapee as they call it, so back on track with business plans. Perhaps all the better, it seems the best kind of business to be had in India is exporting so I am looking into creating a connection in Istanbul, hopefully with my unlce Yavuz. At the same time Ingrid is looking into ESL courses. We are still predominantly having fun, or faving (new word for having fun). There is another word that I commisioned Ingrid to make which is thwilling, thwurling hair. So is the status quo. If any of you all have made new and useful words lately please let us, and everyone, know.
Alp!

The most beautiful war; Diwali

Just a quick post about Diwali. Indians know how to have fun and as a result there are a lot of burn victims. It was Diwali here a few days ago and staying at the American Embassy while it was going on gave us the sense that we were in the middle of a war. There were sounds of exploxion everywhere, it wasn't like watching the fireworks in US. It was happening all the time and all around. The air was full of smoke even a km away from the nearest fireworks. I also got a minor throat infection from the air. And I of course suplurged $8 on a butt0load of fireworks meself: rockets, flower pots and most fun and crazy of all the hitler ground wheels, which is four rockets mounted on a swastika that spun on the ground. Well it was fun, made me want to learn how to make fireworks, which I will and include on our upcoming novel.
Things are slow here, we hope Esin leaves soon and waiting for documents from US for my stuff, but dont lose faith in us or in our blog as the adventure will take of on two wheels in December. Pir Melinge

Alp!

Answe ring self que stions

We r in Delhi and trying to fix my problematic situation in the world. We posted new pictures, so you can look at them by clicking on the pictures link a few posts back. We have also recieved some critism for not answering our own questions, so we would like to do so. Alp's prefered method of execution is being drowned in freezing water while Ingrid just doesn't want to be executed (and is going to make it part of her life's work to make sure Alp doesn't ever have to actually brave his preferrence). About the answer to one question, y did bush get re-elected? As for what color of poop is prefered that one had a correct answer which noone got ( well only walt answered ), white. poop, as it stands now, is everything that we eat swirled together and thus, can only be the amorphous colour of brown. what if instead of being all the colours, it simply lost all its colour and became pristine white. we would all have a very different relationship to feces then (seeing them as a symbol of purity rather than filth). Also I would like to add that in Ayurvedic science food has three parts, lowest part becomes excrement, middle part becomes body, and higher part the mind.

Alping

kabhi khushie kabie gham (sometimes happy sometimes sad)

So our friends, we are sorry about the outcome of the election, as all of you I am sure are. If you are not, you are reading the wrong blog, this is not Hickbillmcgee's weblog. Well I leave it all to those who can do something about it figure it out. But a leaving thought on political issues; if you consider Osama to be evil because he has commanded the death of at most 5,000 people so far, where is Bush's tally at?
Some good news though, there seems to be an offer from the Turkish government for my paid military service so it is very likely that I will not have to go to military service. Again, if you think this is bad news, you are looking at the wrong blog! So to celebrate we decided to move into a nice room. After leaving our room in Rishikesh at 10 we started for Haridwar. It was Bengali season in Haridwar so all the hotels where full. We had hoped to get a room in this art deco style hotel that used to belong to the king of Nepal, ooohh. Well the ganga in Haridwar was also not as roaring as in Rishikesh, so we decided to head back. After six hours we moved into the Suite at Green Hotel, 50 yards from our previous. There we enjoyed ourselves much. I took a bathe in the ganga so all my sins were washed off but today it is me again.
alp

let me add an admission of guilt. it is my own judgmental attitude that caused me to make my puerile remark regarding the "hippies." for the record, i apologise to all those folks out there and those who identify themselves with this group.
ingrid

ganga ganj

brothers and sisters~ hail from rishikesh, the yoga capital of india. after waking up at dawn on saturday morning for our obligatory ganges boat ride in varanasi, we spent a solid 24 hours on the train heading west to haridwar, then another hour on the public bus to rishikesh, and finally another hour searching for a room in a guesthouse. we were stared at on the train by villagers in the morning, chatted with a college student painfully excited by being able to talk about our foreign culture with him in the early afternoon, and finally proceeded to our correct compartment and met a south indian family on a pilgrimage tour of north india in the evening. alp witnessed one of their compatriots doing early morning yoga in his berth and shrieking like a monkey... and felt great admiration for him.

as for rishikesh itself, it is quite clean and well-planned out for an indian town. it has two large pedestrian suspension bridges over the ganges and countless ashrams with large colourful religious sculptures on the banks. we plan on doing some watercolours in our new colouring book, perhaps by the river, and probably will not avail of the limitless yoga, acupuncture, reiki, massage, etc,etc, oppurtunities available here. by doing so, we would run the risk of meeting too many hippies. eww!!!

i have been a little ill lately, feeling tired and the like. we have availed of all the ayurvedic pharmacies in town however and last night i got some nose drops for my sinusitis that smell/taste like mango chutney! and by the way... that blog entry entitled "the runs" was metaphoric rather than literal. we have fortunately escaped a major case of the runs...

To the Land of the Beatle Yogis

We are heading for Haridwar, then Rishikesh, where the Beatles found their guru, tomarrow on a train that will take 21 hours. Not setting the alarm right, we didn't wake up this morning to take a boat on the sunrise, but we hope to do it tomarrow as we have to get up early for our train anyhow. We sit out on our terrace, which looks upon an ancient temple and the ganges and watch monkeys in the afternoon. It is very strange in Varanasi that these beautifully intricate temples are alot of times adjacent to new buildings that are built almost on top of the temples. There is a Sonic Youth concert going on a lot of places and a lot of times in Varanasi, the one we like the most is right before sunrise, right outside our room. These Sonic Youth imitators seem to live in the temples, probably running from the law for copyright infringement on a number of Sonic Youth songs. They use metal pots and drums and whatelse for instruments, Ingrid suggested that it might be religious or something like that but I am sure they are copyright infringing punk rockers!
We want to give Marie Landragin a big-up shout-out for her tireless and excellent blog commentary. Yo Marie~ big-up! dats right... you see kids, commentary does pay!

?What is your preferred method execution?

The Slow Life of India

Yes, it seems that we have adjusted well to the slow life and have time to think, eat, do nothing, but most importantly correspond with our friends. It is such a great thing, I mean The Internet otherwise known as The Messiah, that we can let be known all our doings to our friends. Just think, twenty years ago to keep in touch with people was much more diffucult, although not as diffucult as 40 or 60 or 600. Ofcourse, if this blog carried any sort of logic with it I should pair the slow life of India with writing personal letters and so forth, but there is only two reasons I am writing this pre-request blabber: 1} my dad's ear is sick so I would like everyone who is reading this to take a moment to wish Acar to get well, 2} no one answered our request at the blog titled "the runs" so if you are ever so kind please do that, so while we are enjoying the slow life of India we don't get bored. I am sure that any kindness one practices is good for not only that person but for the well being of all, so go on, be kind, now!
alp

the best of india, the worst of india

hi buddies!~
having spent a few days relaxing in our homebase of new delhi, new friends colony, we wrenched ourselves out of luxury and headed back for the rails and ended up in varanasi. for those of you unaccustomed to the hype, this is considered the holiest city in india and has a string of ghats lined up along the ganges (in addition to also being the city that was home to my parents in the late-1970s). it is the best of india because it is a real indian city, with fervent pilgrims, a labryinthene old city, and temples and monkeys and beautiful architecture hidden in all the cracks. but it is the most insufferable because (foreign) tourists have been coming here for ages and the locals have perfected their annoying touting tactics. if, as the saying goes, a hindu dies in varanasi and achieves moksha automatically... then i guess these people are fully taking advantage of their certain fate to be as difficult as possible in their last life. to be fair, of course, we have had our mood soured by lack of sleep, double colds, and dissatisfaction over our inability to cook for ourselves. our 100 rupee a night room (2 dollars) is near the most famous burning ghat, Manikarnita, where you can witness people burning on pyres all day and night. alp has joked that the soot in our snotty noses is actually the residue of people!
ingrid

Pictures

Click to go to our photo albums.

Holiest of the Holies

We are making plans to go to Varanasi on Sunday to stay there upto a week or add another stop before returning to Delhi to wait for Esin. Today is Dusshera, the holiday which commemorates the killing of the demon Ravana by Durga and is celebrated by offering liquor up to the goddess and burning huge effigies of the demon.

?if you could answer any question what would it be?

the runs

Alp and i are back in delhi after a serious case of the runs... not the kind you would expect but rather, we suddenly felt the urge to move on from the mountains. we went rather far into the chamba valley, stopping for a few days in the beautiful mountain-rimmed town of bharmour, before deciding to embark on our 23-hour return trip to delhi. the chamba valley was certainly the least touristed place we visited in himachal pradesh but sadly, it did not yield what we were hoping. we were laughed at when we inquired about renting a motorcycle or an abode, so we just had to enjoy the scenery. our plans have changed once again and we are awaiting alp's cousin esin's arrival in delhi, whereupon we will decide our mode of transportation (no more buses) and direction of travel. in the meantime however, we will probably go to benares and "enjoy the ganga," maybe even dip in the holy waters themselves. today though, we are enjoying the lightning speed internet, planning on cooking to our hearts' delight in our wonderful ben's kitchen, and drinking beer in the afternoon. in other words~ we will simulate the american experience. tallyho! by the way!!!!! alp is sporting a mustache now! he looks really cute and i am proud to have such an authentically indian lover!
ingie

yes friends, it is wonderful to eat to your heart's content in restaurants and dhaba's yet there is really no food like home food. we have really enjoyed the himalaya's and as we bid our goodbye also said see ya later. now i am exited to see esin and get motorized. we will head down south and see where that takes us. adios
alp!

ps please folk who are reading this do us a favor, spare 5 minutes and explain your favorite card game (or other travelling game) to us. por favor

Chamba chamba chamba

We are in the beatiful Chamba valley. Arriving first at Dalhousie on a rainy night we found a hotel there and for the first time in India had TV. We made the most of that while not doing hikes and stuff. It was the cleanest town in India that I have seen, with fresh air and an aura of an old European town. After spending two lazy days there we took the bus to Chamba and here we are. It is very nice here but there are a few hindrances to our previous plans. There are no motorcycles to rent so we have to find another alternative and there are no property managers. We both are in the air, and flying, without wings, only with our minds about what to do.

free tibet and palestine and america and.....

thanks for all the wonderful comments... i would use the exclaimation mark key if it worked but sadly it does not. i am so pleased to hear of virginia's unfailingly lovely autumns and of debates for the fast approaching election. my older brother walt sent me a brief article and picture on the mysterious black box on bush's back during the last debate and it is shocking ~~exclaimation point~~. we rewatched fahrenheit nineeleven last night and it reminded me of how hard i must try to get my absentee ballot and vote. after the film was over, a european or isreali girl commented exaggeratedly "why are there no americans in the cinema?" if i had caught what she'd said a minute before leaving the theatre, i would have tried to engage her in a conversation about why that would not be the response i think michael moore was intending to evoke. it seems everyone, even in this enlightment-driven town, is tryng to create and re-inforce cycles of prejudice and dislike. generally, i am telling people that i am from canada, but it makes me a little angry to have to lie. i would hope that some people would see that not all americans are responsible for bush's actions, just as i don't hold every israeli responsible for the decisions of ariel sharon. i feel decidedly removed from the news and what is going on in what is technically my country and this certainly makes me feel a little guilty.

back to never-never land though... alp and i took a wonderfully long hike yesterday to a meadow called triund, with three little chai stalls, a large herd of goats, and a beautiful panorama of the dhaula dhar mountains. it was quite a trek to get there though and we are proud of exercising our little muscles so much. we are excited about leaving for chamba tomorrow though and are hoping it will be the land of honey and beautiful scenery that we imagine.
ingrid

Livin the Western Dream

So we are still in Mcleod Ganj, feeling a lot better. Ingrid's black tongue was due to pepto bismol(i never trusted that pink look anyway), and my bump has gone away. We are having great food, as an example there is this japanese restraurant where for two dollars you get the daily special which is a five course meal and very good. We are going to video halls, and last night we went to a restaurant with beer where we had first an Edwards 5000 Strong, then King Fisher Strong, and then Godfather Super Strong which has a picture of a man on it reminesent of Stalin. We are of course going to everywhere that you can go as well, so don't think we are sleeping all day. In fact we usually wake up at 8. Tomarrow we will take a hike about 15 miles with considarable altitude change and we will rest on Sabbath. Monday we are heading into Chamba valley where we hope to find somewhere to settle down for a while. Our first stop will be Dalhousie and then to Chamba to rent a motorcycle and explore the valley. I will look into business ideas there. We can't wait to upload some pictures which we will do in Delhi probably beginning of november.
alpi

?if you had to cover one part of your body ALL THE TIME where would it be?

In McLeod Ganj

Early this morning we arrived at McLeod Ganj, home to the Tibetan government in exile, and many a good restaurants. The bus ride thru the night was the roughest so far, I was joking that if you could sleep on that bus you should be made rinpoche(highest lama priesthood, i think:). We arrived at 5 in the morning and after being followed by guest house personal, we settled down. Last two days in Manali were delightfully torrential rainy and we got to make the most of it. We camped out in our room, which we called our "island vacation", reading The World According to Garp among other things. Last day in Manali we hung out with our friend Ben and went to the river. We still feel discombabulated after last nights ride, plus I have a bump on my head from hitting the bus flap and Ingrid woke up with a blackish tongue with a taste of gunmetal in her mouth. It is cleanable, but we will go to the doctor tomarrow. Sorry mot nuch humor here now hope humor there.
Alp

Why hike, when you can bike?

Yesterday we hired a bike. I wanted to go for the Enfield but after test driving it i realized that not only all the controls of the Enfield are backwards but the road is too. So we got a ringidink Yamaha with 135cc and after buying 2.5 gallons of gas for $10 (we weren't jipped) we set out for Rothang La. At 4000m it is the pass that goes thru this valley to the Lahaul valley. It was the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen or actually been in. While the valley on this side was green the other side was desolate. We did not go into that valley because I was getting tired. Gaining 2000m in 50km on a 135cc bike with two people, no mirrors and no horn let me tell you friends is not as easy as it sounds.
Alp

We kept the motorcycle for another day as well and today we went south into the kullu valley. the roads were extremely pretty, with lord-of-the-rings-esque trees on the side slopes, and we travelled up one of the hills to have tea with a local shopkeeper. the two major crops, of course, up there are charas(marijuana) and apples. we were offered both magnanimously but left with only the latter. then we continued on to naggar (naggar, naggar, wass my name!?) and stopped in on a wonderful museum devoted to the strange russian family of the roerichs, who were in love with india. nikolai and all his sons were magnificent fanatastical landscape painters and the like. seeing some of the scenary around here though makes it clear however that their surrealist colours and scenes are the stuff of reality in these grand valleys. check out the name on the internet if you are interested (we would but this computer connection is too slow). and finally, on one of those beautiful roads, i rode the motorcycle, which is not all that different from riding my beloved iteljet scooter. i cannot wait to become more than just alp's biker bitch. i will be a biker memsahib, thank you, soon enough!
ingrid


Seeing that we aren't getting very many comments from you all (maybe you are not reading) we decided to make this blog interactive. From now on we will ask a ridiculous question that we urge everyone to ponder. Now for the first one, it is:

?If you could have poop be any color what would it be?

high-ho from Manali

alp and i are writing from the semi-beautiful, semi-over-touristy Kullu Valley in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. we got here after a 18-hourlong bus trip from delhi, drawn-out by when the bottom of the bus got broke. we are staying in a lovely room with a rather alpine feel for 3 dollars a night and eating wonderful food for even cheaper. israeli falafal lafas! tibetan momos! chinese chowmein! and not to mention our recent discovery of the coolest protein source around: yak cheese (which tastes like a combination of parmesan, gouda, and eski kashar). this journey has been a wonderful reminder to me of how alp resembles macgyver. we walk along apple orchard paths and dream up hypothetical horror situations and then plan our responses, and alp has improved our standard of living tremendously not only with the gadgets he thought to bring from america (i.e. tiny towels) but also with our recently acquired immersion heating coil, which makes it possible to drink tea any time, day or night. we are blissfully enjoying our strolls and our muscles are getting stronger, but we miss you all.
ingrida

namaste shanti shanti
we arrives at the manali a few days ago. althoug our buses axle broke it broke not far and didnt take long to fix. it actually broke in the bus man's home town. we have found ourselves all the amenities that make you comfy and nothing extra. we are walking a lot, today we walked more than 12km, and tomarrow we will try to rent an enfield motorcycle. We walked to a near by village where there were hot springs but The private bathhouse was closed and we weren't impressed by the hygiene of the public one. But the water is so hot that you can cook an egg. i here is having a brilliant time with snow white. shanti
alp!

Off to Himachal Pradesh

Okay so before we leave Delhi I want to make a few additions to my comments. First of all 5 people on a motorcycle, a whole family, is ok here. Second, anyone out there who think they got the cool ride with a SUV think again, here you can ride an elephant on the highway, ha. Last thing, for those of you who just can't imagine cows on the road and everywhere well you just have to come here. Ingrid and I are heading up to Himachal Pradesh tonight on a bus. We plan to chill in Manali for about a week and find some shanti shanti.
Alp

Rajasthan

Back from Jodhpur. This city in the Rajasthani desert has the most amazing fort, indigo houses, colorfully dressed women, and extremely enthusiastic people. Ingrid has a lot of acquaintences in this city whom we met and ate their food. So far neither Ingrid or I have gotten sick and we have been eating out, drinking and all except for water and ice. Although I did get a small fly in my ear one night and woke up with the sound of the fly jammin' on my ear drum. I don't think we managed to get it out but we drowned it by pouring water in my ear. Then the next day after we ate at the Khan's house and they said we needed to go see their daughter who lives a little further off and suggested Ingrid and I ride with Selim, head of the household, on the back of a 100cc Hero Honda. I did not straight out refuse this but considering there are numerous dogs, pigs, cows, chicken, kids, people, and dung on the road, I said I was afraid. Riding with 3 or 4 people on a motorcycle is common practice in India. Then they suggested that Ingrid and I ride on the Hero Honda and Selim and his brother-in-law would ride on the scooter, and this would be my test to have their blessing for me and Ingrid, so I said ok. Other than almost running over a small child on the road it was an extremely pleasant ride.
Alp

Alp and I arrived back this morning on the Mandore Express, dirty-footed and sooty-nosed, from our pilgrimage to Jodhpur, the desert city where I did my study-abroad program three years ago. I felt rather nostalgic actually for my good fortune to have lived in such a magnificent fort for three months... Nonetheless, I enjoyed seeing it from Yogi's guesthouse below, drinking Limca (a soda flavoured like Pledge) on the rooftop terrace and living it up in our $7 a night suite. Alp has adapted remarkably well to India, politely stepping around the piles of dung in the street, learning Hindi very quickly, and drinking endless cups of chai with our Jodhpuri friends and their huge families. We walked around in the old part of town and I loved once again seeing all the crazily painted old houses and their intricate facades. I insisted we take a food tour of the Jodhpur and introduced Alp to the town's best makhania lassi (saffron-flavoured butter yogurt drink), local soda pop (Black Horse Extra Strong, 10 cents each), and deep-fried peppers (so called "fried rats" because that is precisely what they look like). After the heat and admittedly terrible air quality of Rajasthan and Delhi, I am dreaming of going up to the mountains. Even though we will not be in Nepal just yet, we will simply see a different part of the Himalayas and hopefully find a beautiful place to have a long-term holiday.
Ingrid

DaDelhi-o

In Delhi now. Today we were in a rickshaw and the righthand tire fell out as we were in the middle of the road! We are well though, and staying in our friend Ben's posh flat. Our plans to go to Nepal have been hindered by the news of the American Embassy evacuation there but we will be listening to news in the meantime. We will go to Rajasthan next week for two days, then we will head up to Himachal Pradesh. We plan to find a nice place there away from the hash crazed Israelis doping up with the best hash in the world in Manali. Although we plan on visiting there as well for a short while hehe:)