ingridAhimalaya

How was Nepal?

2005-11-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

Ingrid and Alp are no longer with the people of Asia. They have joined the affluent masses of North America. The day they left Sri Lanka, they took first a plane then a train. Changing states of mind, time and space transported themselves across to Chennai. That was the next day. They saw there a 400 years old Banyan tree at last, which was one of the most magical things they had ever seen. With glossy eyes they stared at this tree of the Theosophical Society that covered 60,000 square feet and reminesced of the time where such trees were king. Four in the morning they boarded their steel bird and a long time later they arrived in the city of stories and TV shows. Alp passed through the police and immigration peons with fervor and ferocity to meet his maiden Ingrid once more on the other side. They were much loved by members of the maiden's family with whom they took shelter and still currently reside. On a clear day like today you can see the pulses of love they emanate all the way from Shenandoah.
However they don't expect to be able to answer ^that^ question fully.

Bibliophilia

2005-11-14T01:11:00.000-08:00

All our reading material over the past year has come to us fortuitously. I hope these suggestions for literary pleasure will come into your life unexpectedly too.

~Hegemony and Survival, by Noam Chomsky; classic reading for those wanting to accrue evidence to use against the "MAN" for their own personal debating arsenal

~Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell; a wonderfully original, intelligent, multi-faceted novel that will have you entertained and in awe of Mitchell's versitility

~Kon-Tiki, by ?; this real-life adventure of several Scandanavian men crossing the Pacific on a balsa-wood raft is so compelling and wild that we literally couldn't put it down... it deserves a cult following (or perhaps it has one and i just don't know of it, I did see an middle-aged white man in Chiang Mai with a Kon-tiki tee-shirt)

~The World According to Garp, by John Irving; the ultimate read-aloud American novel, it gets better and better and you will remember it and the time you spent reading it with true fondness

~The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood; fascinating, eerie, and important story of how the world in the near future, ridiculously easy to imagine ourselves in this anti-utopia

~The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown; yes, this is airport thriller material in some sense but we read the illustrated version and it was beautiful and wholly worthwhile

~The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami; I didn't know Murakami before this trip but he is a writer that is intriguing on many levels and has an army of books under his belt. A mixture of cherished mundanity with awesome violence and surreality.

~Shantaram, by David Gregory Roberts; an real-life story of an Australian jailbird who makes a new life for himself in Bombay, filled with unbelievably amazing experiences and deserves to be made into a movie with Johnny Depp as the lead (coming to theatres sometime in the next few years)

So Long Ceylon

2005-11-14T00:17:00.000-08:00

Though we can hardly count ourselves learned in the ways of Ceylon, I will be missing what I know best about this place, the beautiful view from the windows of Helaena's flat, redtiled warehouse roofs, the low canopy of emerald trees, pelicans and bats flying at eleventh floor eye-level, and exquisite clouds. The thing I know next best is next door, the fabulous Cargill's supermarket, where the papayas are meaty sweet, the ginger snaps spicy, the oyster mushrooms like angelic clouds, the beer cold and cheap and good, and everything is endlessly affordable. When I say alas alack to myself in anticipation of the exorbant lifestyle price increase we will confront upon landing in New York, I have to remind myself that it will be worth it to see all of you that we love in America again.
so long~
Ingrid

Me Come You're Country

2005-11-08T19:58:00.000-08:00

Folks we did it. It is been months in the making and a global effort but finally Alp has an American visa to get married to Ingrid with. It has been a tremendous adventure, from contemplating what kind of visa to apply for to trying to figure out where to apply from. It has been a rollercoaster ride with the most exciting and scary part at the end. The embassy here has been very nice especially the extraordinarily helpful head counsular officer Marc Williams. The last two weeks have been a bureaocratic wrestling match. My criminal record hadn't come from Turkey and we were thinking that it might be something we can swing considering I lived in America for the last seven years, but it turned out that we really needed that or they did. So I started the phone conversations with Turkey. At this point I should thank God for Skype. It was day after day of talking to the same man who told me he would help me from the first day and sounded so sincere yet managed to do so little for so long. With Eid (Muslim holiday, end of Ramadan) approaching, last week we had two and a half days to get that form out of them, he flip-flopped until Tuesday as to whether he could give it or not. It turned out that they had lost my form completly and not even the duplicate copy that was supposed to be in their records was there. Because of that he was telling me that he couldn't get it signed, he would have to stick his neck out and admit that they had lost it. Luckily for me the telegraph that came from our other extremely helpful attache Ahmet Bey at the Turkish embassy to the Foreign Ministry in Turkey changed his mind completely and against all policy he said send in whoever you are sending and we will give it. This happened the day before the Eid holiday was to start and the next day was only a half day. Then I did most stupid mistake that I could've done and mixed up the time difference and called my Dad's good friend Ozcan Oktu at 11 o'clock, an hour before closing. Miraculously he was at the man's office ten minutes to twelve and got the form, mailed it with UPS and viola! four days later it arrived. I must also thank Ozcan amca here for being so marvelously wonderful, for without him running this last lap, it wouldn't have happened. So now the plan B is scrapped, which involved changing many a flight and train reservations, getting extra visas, and worse possibly getting separated with Ingrid, we are on trak and hope to see you all before and after Thanksgiving; we will have a lot to give this year.
Alp

Yippee and zipididooda to all of you lovely people!
Unbelievably everything Alp has said is true. It has been such a long and arduous process of vicissitudes in feelings and plans that we are breathing a massive breath of relief. And now we can finally reveal to you all what we have been keeping from the blog- the ups and downs- because we had grown superstitious in this labriythine world of visas and didn't want to jinx anything. Ffffeww! And I get to marry the most wonderful thing Turkey has ever exported!

We have been mostly confined to Colombo because of waiting for papers, calling on embassies, going to appointments, and so on. But this weekend, we took out Helaena's Mazda and went inland for two and a half days. Unaccustomed to being in the front seat of a car with power brakes(the first time in over one year), I was feeling nauseated as we were making our way out of the city, into the densely populated suburbs that never seemed to end. The landscape was lush and green though, with many side-of-the-road stands selling corn, king coconuts, and inflatable animal toys. Our first tourist stop was the beautiful botantical gardens outside of Kandy, where we stood under a massive java fig tree that spread its arms out seemingly infinitely and provided shade and perches to numerous shyly kissing couples. Sri Lanka's green spaces seem to be dominated by young lovers, some of whom use umbrellas to shield themselves and their clandestine embraces from view, but who actively lock lips noticably far more than their Indian counterparts. I suppose we Westerners take for granted being in our twenties and being able to make out in our own houses. Then we went onto Kandy, the capitol of the hill country and Sri Lanka's second largest town, where we were sold tickets to a cultural dance performance by someone praying to the Buddha lakeside who managed to convince us jaded travellers that this was our lucky day to be in town to catch this marvellous performance!! and we had to go and see fire-eating dancers and 25 baby elephants! It was our first "cultural performance" in all our travels through many countries offering cultural performances and, though it was interesting, it certainly was a nightly gig. The next day we hopped in the car (which had diplomatic stickers and certainly made us look far more important than our fairly tattered appearances belied) and went north to Dambulla. We were completely perplexed when we could not find a place to eat lunch in either Dambulla or the next town over. Finally, we found some grub in an alley shop next to the bus station and decided to go to the Buddhist painted caves nearby. They were very nice... buddhas, buddhas, and more buddhas in several caves on top of a splendid hill that offered views of the thick vegetation blanketing the area. We spent the night in the next town over, Sirigiya, famous for its massive rock fortress. Our hotel was in a wild garden, where we saw a substantial rat snake writhed around a palm tree, and it proved to a quite a wildlife haven. There were little frogs in the toilet that got flushed down with the first push of the lever and most shockingly, a surprise swarm of thousands of winged flies that poured in to the room and gathered around the lone light bulb hanging from the ceiling, mating and worshipping the light in a mad, disconcerting push to pass on their seed. There were hundreds of wings littering the floor after just a few minutes and we escaped the room for a while to eat a magnificent dinner of Sri Lankan home cooking. The food here is lovely and somehow still exotic for its different use of coconut, cinnamon, and other indigenous spices than southern Indian cooking. The next morning, thankful for the lack of any other memorable interactions with animals, we went to the rock and were dismayed, indeed bummed, to find out the entrance fee was a $20 per person. We decided to abort our mission and boycott the double standard in pricing (Sri Lankans: 20 rupees, foreigners: 2000 rps.) and drove back to Colombo. All in one piece, we had our taste of the Sri Lanka at large that we were dreaming of seeing while waiting in embassy lobbies and happy to return to the comforts of the eleventh floor. Amen.
ingridaisahappygirl

Jackpot in a Curdpot

2005-10-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

Ayubowan friends~
It took us only thirty minutes to fly across the channel between India and Sri Lanka, allowing just enough time to swallow the pizza puff offered by the hurried Sri Lankan airways stewardesses wearing peacock-patterned saris, so it was difficult to believe we really went anywhere, much less to a different country. It took no time to get through immigration and pick up our luggage (which was over our allowance by 10 kilos already~ ouch!) and be met by a driver whom Helaena had arranged to receive us. But driving into Colombo, we were immediately impressed that this is a different country from its big sister up north. The first, and most shocking, piece of evidence was: brilliant orange coconuts. In India they are green, sometimes yellow, sometimes brownish, but never orange! Second, the ladies are allowed to show a bit of leg, if they desire... sometimes their skirts actually came up to just below the knee, which I found fascinating. The signs written in the local script (which I am not certain is Sinhala or Tamil) looked like a parade of little animals. There are pickups and cross-bikes here, a feature that reminded me more of South-east Asia than India. It was a full moon holiday, so the streets were extremely quiet and all the shops closed. Evidently, Sri Lankans have more holidays than anyone due to their civility in having every full moon day closed for business.

We are staying with our friend Helaena, who has the fortune of living in a very posh flat in the Hilton Colombo Residences due to her industriousness in actually having a job and being a junior diplomat rising in the ranks. She has been away in Delhi though and we are anticipating her return along with her three cats, who love to be petted. We are backpackers in disguise here and enjoying the amenities fully (sauna on the third floor, etc.). The view from the eleventh floor is lovely and we can see the Indian Ocean stretching out beyond the city and ships in the seas. We have gone to the US Embassy, which is right on the ocean and smells like saltwater, to get things rolling with Alp’s visa interview. At a shopping mall, we discovered one can buy excellent-quality DVDs for $2 a piece. Most of Colombo seems rather tame and business-like compared to the frantic cities of India but walking up and out of the Fort area, we went into the Pettah district, which was surprisingly intense. It is the main shopping area of the city and it seemed like at least half of the men we passed said hello or were trying to get our attention. The streets were packed with people and, as one shoe salesman pointed out to us, many of them were Muslim women come shopping for the day, not having cooking responsibilities with it being Ramadan. There are so many things to enjoy about being here and I will leave it to Alp to describe some more of them. We feel so lucky to have such nice friends, here and there and everywhere, and are missing all of you~
love~
Ingrid

Howdy?
It is a different world here not only because of the yogurt but the Hilton Residence is not an experience that we have been used to lately and Helaena’s house is very nice plus has very friendly cats. Our place in Pune was luxurious but of course not furnished and when you stepped out the door most of the construction was not finished around us. That was a different feeling. Here everyone is paid extra to be friendly to us so there are lots of “Hello sir and good evening Madame”. Funniest part for me is going down to the sports complex in my faded clothes and sandal look while everyone around are sporting synthetic and nike look. We have not been able to start working out as we planned because of our lack of shoes. But today after shopping around I managed to find a $4 pair of school brand tennis shoes which are my ticket to pumpin iron. And I can’t wait to see the reaction when I finally summon up to courage to use the pool in my longita (the Indian underwear that I have been using at the beaches). So far we are making excellent use of Helaena’s library and learning about detoxifying among other things, and creating a schedule for detox. One last thing I had wanted to do in this trip was to detoxify and in Kerala they had the Panchakarma, ayurvedic detox method, but we kind of didn’t have the time for it and also it involves a lot of throwing up and other uncomfortable things. Of course there is the tourist version where you get massages and hot oil dripped on your third eye. Well instead now we are going for the old trusty sweaty.
Among the novelties that we found in the grocery store number one is the yogurt that is excellent and the cheaper variety comes in clay pots; fresh shitake and oyster mushrooms among others, cheap good stout and Belgian white, sapid ginger beer and fruit and fishes. It is marvelous of course to have flat to enjoy these things.
On the visa front there could be a wrinkle, but I won’t bore you with that before it is certain.
All these wonderful things still don’t keep us from missing everyone who is dear to us. No beer better in the world than the company of family and friends, but the two combined is an experience on a higher dimension. –audience “wah wah”
alp

From the Shark Tooth to the Pearl; Pir Melinge

2005-10-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

I have marvelled lately that all it took to get from the northernmost brushstroke of India, the Line of Control in Indian Kashmir, to nearly the southernmost pencil point of Kannyakumari (or in our case, Trivandrum, which is 60kms shy) was three harried days on the Enfield, and a total of four nights on the train divided over three different journeys taken over three months. When detailed in those terms, perhaps it does seem like an important stage to have nearly reached the end of India, both geographically and literally for our time left here. It seems, alternately, like we have floated here or crawled. And we are disbelieving that we are truly flying away from this vast place tomorrow morning, as we were expecting somehow that our lives would always carry the daily possibility of buying more Mysore Sandal Soap, seeing albinos that look more like they belong to Ireland than India's billions, and being harassed by young men selling drums in tourist areas who insidiously whisper "hello my friend, you like to buy drum?" and expertly run their fingers along a drumskin to produce an unmistakablly annoying psychedelic wooing sound. But we have been blessed with a mission that makes our eventual return less anticlimatic and are boarding our plane to Sri Lanka expecting to leave after one month, triumphant with a fresh new American visa in Alp's impressively arrayed passport (a visa that, I might add, will say officially "To marry Ingrid Hakala Millis, of Falls Church, Virginia"). Our wonderful friend Helaena is going to allow us to be her guests in Colombo and we are anticipating wildly and silently all the great small glories of a new nation, not to mention more passport stamps and stickers.

As for our last few weeks in India, we have confined ourselves to a small area of Kerala. Trivandrum is a busy, sunny city with many varieties of bananas and only thirty minutes from a beachy place called Varkala. We spent slightly over a week there, eating fresh tandoori fish every night, doing yoga in the mornings, breathing deeply after what was far too many months in assorted cities. It took us a while to find the beach, as the main one was far too rough for swimming and full of Indian families staring at the sea, munching on snacks and not knowing what to do with themselves. The northern strand was small, but offered continuous wave action that left me exhausted trying not to lose my bikini and Alp smiling like the little Turkish boy he once was playing likewise in the waves of the Black Sea... that is until we noticed that the surf was foaming with jellyfish carcasses and were unnerved. We gathered drinking water from a spring that flowed beneath the small rust colored cliffs of the seaside and took naps in the afternoon. Back in Trivandrum, we have visited the Botanical Gardens, a very nice wooden palace of the Travancore royal family, and nearly twenty footwear shops looking for replicas of my sandals. I have gotten over my original preconception that South India is terribly different in ambiance and mores than the North... Nearly everywhere in India south of Himachal is hectic, hot, and fun in a similar way. But the men here do wear lungis instead of pants underneath their western-style shirts, leading to a fashion look that Alp and I have described as "business on top, shower on bottom." And there are more curry leaves, mustard seeds, and coconut in the curries. We are sure to tell you all about what we find in Sri Lanka and until then, I wish we knew how to say farewell in Malayalam (the local language and an awfully long pallimdrone) but I imagine it sounds like this: bpoooluuuyuttappam (try saying this with marbles in your mouth).
Ingridkutty

Off of the Shelves, Into the Bags

2005-10-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

Greetings confreres~
We have been a long time without blogging but the sedentary life does render fewer tidbits to share. We have settled into our little pied-a-terre and its quotidian comforts; with no other flatmates, we have the entire place to ourselves to walk around in dishabille, cooking and lounging to our hearts' delight. Our day begins at six, after a few blissful dilatory snooze button pushes, and Alp prepares his sapid ginger honey tea to warm our bodies before heading out the door, across the "highway," through the park, and to the yoga institute. It has been raining extremely regularly so we are usually muddy and squigy when we arrive. Our beginners' classes are taught by a different teacher everyday and they do different things as they please; some yell, some chat, some explain aspects of the postures with particular luculence, but all make for copacetic classes. Iyengar yoga is active and the teachers require punctilliousness in their students to perform the asanas correctly. We are only allowed on the top floor for classes but as we travel up and down the stairs, we can catch glimpses of the general class dangling from ropes, hanging over chairs, and contorting themselves in exciting ways. The redoubtable Iyengar himself is still alive and commanding respect, as we have seen his followers fully prostrate themselves in front of him, and will soon be leaving for America for a five week yoga tour. From photographs in the lobby of the Institute, it seems clear that he was a yoga rock star during earlier tours, teaching hundreds in auditoriums. We walk home and prepare breakfast, alternating daily between a highly evolved version of porriage and eggs with toast, and become acquainted with the world with some minutes of postprandial BBC watching. Then I buckle down for some GRE studying, which I am beginning to enjoy entirely, as it gives me the oppurtunity to learn vocabulary and to shake off some of the effects of the hebetude occasioned by nearly one and a half years outside the realm of academia. The rest of the day is devoted to errand-running, as we always seem to need something or another, or relaxing. And before I bloviate for too long, i will pass this onto my partner in amour~
with love~
ingrid
ps~ if you would like to learn vocabulary like me, go to http://www.dictionary.com and maunder through the word of the day files.

salaam namaste
As the days passed here in Pune I felt a great sense of accomplishment for all the dreams we managed to fulfill, at the same time feeling uneasy for all the more dreams that have been dreamt while we have been in India that are waiting their turn in the future. I have learnt that dreams do come true but never in the way you imagine them, and I can say we didn't worry about the seeming obstacles in our way and our dreams came true in a way better than we imagined. The bike has got a new owner, and with only two days left in Pune it was a close one but no worries, no wrinkles. It is very exciting that we are going to Kerala as we hadn't in February even though we came very close when we were in Coorg. It is fabled to be very beautiful yet at the same time it is the most crowded state in India, which makes me happy that we avoided it on the motorcycle. Ayurvedic tradition is the most alive in Kerala and we might take a class on massage when we are at the beach there. Also very exciting is the new cuisine and the fish that we will find there. I am thrilled to go there as this sedentary lifestyle without work is not the most alluring. Hope all is well with all of you, love you and miss you, and you are all smoking in my nose.
alp
~p.s. go to the photos link, then to the Pune Revisited folder, to see our newest photos of domestic life!

Out of the Luggage, Onto the Shelves

2005-08-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

Our most generous hosts in Delhi have seen us off but not without giving a wonderful birthday celebration for me. Since they came late the night of my birthday that happened the day after and on my birthday I had the most wonderful treatment from my beloved Ingrid. I will not get into details as not to make the angels jealous (makes them kind of demonic). Over the weekend our internet service was miraculously restored and I managed to speak over the internet with many family members, sadly whenever it was time for the sleepyheads in America to wake up we lost connection. We are planning a few calls in the upcoming days as soon as we have the hardware, meanwhile sorry to those that did recieve pranky calls (we could hear but you could not). Following my birthday we said bye to our hosts with gratitude and sadness (hope to see you soon again:) and hopped on the train south to Pune. We loaded the bike on the train with expected hassle but koi bhat nehi. 26 hours later getting it off was more of an adventure. I saw the bike being loaded and because of our luggage rack it is longer than normal bikes so they ended up propping the bike up at a complex angle, I didn't say anything because it was obvious that it was that or nothing. Luckily we arrived in Pune twenty minutes early because when I made it to the front of the train the porters were only opening the door and when I said I had a bike in there they looked and said I had to talk to the officer as it seemed too hard to them to get to it. This was obviously a tactic to evade the labor and I knew if I went looking for somebody the train would be gone by the time I found an "officer". After watching the porters pass 3 minutes just looking in the luggage car and shaking their heads, I jumped in and started dumping and throwing the sacks and crates off to reach the bike. Amazingly it only took about three minutes to get to the bike and then it was out. After that it was again the expected hassle and even the porter who refused to help me asked for bakshish. There was no damage on the bike and soon we were on the road to find accomodation. I have been waiting since Srinagar to bring the bike to our mechanic Pradeep here in Pune and now it is REALLY calling his name for some lovin'. Hope to speak to everyone soon and if you would like to hear from us and we dont have your number please email or comment. With love,
alp!

As we arrived in Pune with our two backpacks and the monsterous suitcase we have been hiding at the Shins' house since November, a short sunshine rain shower began. This seemed rather symbolic to me of the feeling I had being back in Pune: it was nice to be back in the city we enjoy so much but logistical hassles clouded my mind. The accomodation here is far more costly than in any other Indian locale we have visited and we had to take a room for more than we would have liked to pay, simply because we were burdened with too much stuff and no other options. The next morning we started our detective hunt for a short-term flat, because the Iyengar Yoga Institute affirmed that we could indeed come to beginners' classes in the month of September. After one dead end lead, we met with Mr. Modi, who owns a flat in the high-rise building immediately adjacent to the Institute. He was insistent upon renting to us the entire flat, which honestly gave both Alp and I the creeps when we walked in to it because of its wacky feng shui, and asked a price that approximated our Charlottesville rent. We weren't impressed enough to accept and continued to sniff around the rest of the day, turning up ultimately with no other viable options. This morning we were ready to bite the bullet, as my dear ole mom would say, and take the place, hoping the adverse effects of the feng shui would be reversed by six days of yoga a week. But as we were just about to go back up to the ninth floor to have another look, the apartment building watchman surruptiously handed us a card and mumbled some words of direction to find more flats for rent. After Modi wouldn't budge on his price, we contacted the man on the card, a mister Sanjiv Agarwal, and met his wife at their family bungalow to have a look at their flat for rent. Their home was incredibly posh and we were a tad worried about how we would ever be able to afford anything they had to offer. We also felt a tinge of deja vous as we pulled up, remembering how when we first arrived in Pune in December, we went out with our buddies Manish and Priya to see a film and whiled away our time waiting for it to start by sitting on the stone wall facing the Agarwals' bungalow drinking beer and wine coolers. An omen, I suppose. We went to see the place and it turned out to be an extremely large flat in a brand new "luxury" development with good feng shui. It was immediately more palatable than the other place and we decided to take a large bedroom there for the month of September, even though it is still quite expensive. But we will enjoy the kitchen, large-screen television, the view of palms from the window of our room, and its proximity to the Insititute and the cinema and everything else.... We are pretty pleased and feeling fortunate to have the means to fulfill one of our last goals in India of getting a strong foundation in yoga, even if for the short time of one month. Now we are going to celebrate the solving of our accomodation mystery with a meal at an Iranian restaurant, you have to love this city for it's food. We miss you all and are remembering you with love~
Ingrid

Taking Care of Busyness

2005-08-06T02:32:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks we have been staying with the wonderful Shin family. Our plan was to leave Delhi on Monday but as we pleasantly found out they want us to stay longer, so we said yes and will be here until after my birthday which is the 22th of this month for all to know (and happy birthday to all the Leo's known and unknown to us). Here is what we have been upto: there was the idea of getting married in Sri Lanka but as we called the US Embassy there we recieved a cold NO to having our marriage visa processed. So we decided to apply for the Fiance visa which is convinient because we will stay in India a bit longer and meanwhile the clock will be ticking on the processing time, which is a few months. There is still a hitch that we could get refused by the Sri Lankan US embassy for processing that visa as well in which case things will start to get exciting once again. Just this morning we sent the visa package out and it will probably be at least two months before it is processed. Meanwhile we have been visiting the Turkish embassy for soem required documents, regarding my criminal record and marriage status which is nil thank god. Our experience there has been quite different though as we have been having tea at the attache's office and stopping by a few times a week. As he learned we were staying in Delhi longer, he will ask his wife to invite us to tea at his house as well. Things are looking up as we are also graciously invited to stay with Ingrid's friend Helaena who lives in Sri Lankan capital Colombo. I found some of her work there at the www.peaceinsrilanka.org website. We have not acquired our tickets yet but will soon.
alp

now that our travel plans have become less busy, you all will probably be hearing from us a little less often. i don't want to delve into the intricacies of our bureaucratic endeveavors, for fear of really losing your attention and interest in our faraway lives. delhi is muggy with the monsoon rains that almost never come hanging in the air but it is looking green and we are enjoying the shins and their comfortable home, not to mention feeling like we are part of a family once again. with the motorcycle, we are saving much money that would have been going to rickshaw drivers in getting around the city and doing our busyness. it is a different type of stressful driving to be scooting around this city, filled with cars, SUVs, bicycle carts, small lanes, and massive "flyovers." we are becoming addicted to kimchi and acting like kids with the kids; i can tell you alp does a truly artful tiger impersonation.
peas on earth~
ingrid
ps~ we would fancy to know how many people are actually reading this blog. if you read it, please leave a comment with your name, or at least a hint about your name. then we'll have a raffle and send a present to the winner!

Motorcycle Diaries

2005-07-21T01:25:00.000-07:00

After our wickedly taxing trip over the mountains to Ladakh, we spent a week exploring Leh, the capitol of the province. It really felt like we arrived in a different country, perhaps because our journey was so arduous but also because the people and culture are quite separate from India at large. The town looked like an oasis of green in the midst of the stark mountains surrounding it like a bowl and, like all the families that stay in Ladakh through the incredibly cold and long winters, our guesthouse proprietors had cultivated a beautiful garden that we enjoyed staring at. The people of Leh are mixed between Tibetan Buddhists and Muslims, and multiple times during the day we could hear the azan and Buddhist chanting (which sounded hauntingly like Radiohead) competing for airplay over the town. There were a number of fascinating Ladakhi men and ladies with wacky tall hats and traditional cloaks to be seen mingling amongst the flown-in European monastary-freaks and Kashmiri merchants with their pashminas and trinkets. And being local product-freaks ourselves, we were delighted by the jars of preservative-free apricot and piquant seabuckthorn jams, as well as completely foreign things like dried cheese and apricot powder (we succeeded in eating, at some point or another, every single part of the apricot fruit). There were also bakeries with fresh tandoori bread and kashmiri kulcha available throughout the day and their wares tasted excellent when hot with our jams.

After being turned back by a police officer with jubilant twinkling eyes for not having the appropriate permit approaching the highest pass in the world, Khardung La (18,000+ feet), we obtained our paperwork the next day and climbed over to the Nubra Valley. This enigmatic valley managed to have both cool streams bursting with water and sand dunes with wild camels and donkeys, flowers aplenty and barren mountains. We returned after tenting for a few days to Leh and were happy to return to our routine of going to our favourite restaurant, Lamayuru, for stuffed tomatoes and naan. We ran into my brother Walt's future brother-in-law, Doe Young Song, and his travelling companion in the main square of Leh and were thrilled to have pizza with him on one of the many rooftop restaurants.

We leisurely made our way west towards Kashmir, believing that, in any case, the danger of the Line of Control would be far less than the treacherousness of a return trip south to Manali. We stopped in Likir and tented in an apricot grove, with an old Ladakhi couple's home in front of us and they kept us entertained. We visited the admittedly disappointing Alchi monastary and were happy to simply take photographs of the Likir monastary. Buddhist gompas and monastaries aren't the most enjoyable places to visit, often with young monks demanding an enforced donation for what seems like shoddy restoration work. They are all in stunning locations though and it is easier to appreciate them from afar. We next travelled to Lamayuru, the namesake gompa and village of aforementioned restaurant, the most ancient gompa in Ladakh and very beautifully situated. Then onto Kargil, very close to the Line of Control with Pakistan, which was a dusty town dominated with military, as most of the towns in Ladakh are.

After passing huge convoys of military vehicles (which are driven with characteristic machismo by army personnel), we came upon the Zoji La, our last mountain pass and rather low in elevation at only 3500 meters. Despite this, it was a maddeningly ride, as a persistent rain settled in, fog descended, and from what little I could see over the edge of the road through the mist, had steep thousands of meters drops. From the top though we could see a massive camp below on the verdant green meadow full of thousands of Hindu pilgrims hoping to see the weather clear and visit the natural linga in Amarnath Cave. We arrived in Sonamarg throughly soaked and beginning to shake, passing a night there before making the final push to Srinagar. Coming into Kashmir from Ladakh, the change in vegetation and the plentitude of green was overwhelming but sadly, we couldn't fully appreciate it because of the persistent drizzle.

Once in Srinagar, we were embarrassingly filthy and stayed in a hotel for a few nights to clean our clothes and bags. The old city was surprisingly lovely, full of artful and old buildings made of stone and wood in small alleys. We visited the bustling and beautiful Shah Hamdan Mosque and shared apricots with the many curious people who wanted to meet us. We shifted to a houseboat on Nagin Lake to complete our Srinagar experience. Our boat was bigger than our apartment on Monticello Road and done up in a 1930s English style, as the owners said it belonged to a British woman with a wave in her short hair whose picture hung in the living room. It was curious and uncomfortable to essentially have a servant serving us our meals in the dining room overlooking the lake. Merchants patrolled the lakes and invited themselves on to our boat, and we hid often inside the boat to be free of their wily and unctuous come-ons. It was peaceful though to have a little canoe, called a shikara, to paddle out into the shallow lake filled with lily pads, floating vegetable gardens, and blooming lotuses. Nice yes, but we were ready to come back to Delhi. But not before travelling the 300 kilometers to Jammu, the railhead for Kashmir.
cheers~
Ingrid

First I want to say hallo to all the lovers out there... it has been a long time. Now that we are down from the mountain roads and back to travelling in cyber roads, I am exited to be able to communicate with all that read the blog; miss you very much. The roads were tough, all in their own way. The road from Manali to Leh was really most enjoyable as there are no towns on the road and traffic was very low. From Leh onto Srinagar the military presence was kind of annoying if not a bit dangerous as they are vowed against courtesy. The bike did not leave us on the road once which was amazing, many tourist we talked with either had had a bad experience or was under the impression that Bullets are bad bikes. Most of the bikes on the tourist circuit change hands at least every six months and have been around for a long time, but one can't say that sex sucks after having sex with an old whore. Our bike was not a virgin but a widower, and you know those are good (sorry for my language but i imagine the analagy is apt). Leaving Srinagar we thought we would do the 300km to Jammu in one day but for the first time the bike did't start. After kicking the starter for two hours, I got the mechanic and he put a new plug in it and it started (of course I had checked the plug, even put another used plug in it that worked but I guess it needed more of a spark). So it was almost noon when we left Srinagar and the road was so much harder than any of the mountain roads. The asphalt was perfect, which made everyone go quite fast and there very hundreds of jeeps on the road that carried the pilgrims going to Amarnath. The pilgrimage is no longer prostrating yourself for weeks until you reach the destination, rather you take a jeep until you come to the last ten kilometers then take a pony, say your prayers, take your pictures and back you go home more pious, right? You can see a funny picture of how dirty we got by looking at the Eduardo Riaz picture in the new album called Himalayas. Second day towards Jammu started kind of similar, within the first five minutes we got a flat on top of this mountain but miraculously there was a tire wallah 300meters down the road, which made me suspect that they might have given us the flat overnight but the fact that they did not know how to fix a Bullets back tire assured me that was not the case. Luckily I had all I needed to fix the flat except air and that they had, so once again it was noon when we got going but this day was more calm then the previous and our luck held when we arrived in Jammu so we got a ticket for the same night and loaded the bike as well on to the train.
Now friends and family we will try to pass some bureaucratic mountains and if we are successful we shall return to your country well and MARRIED!
lots of love,
alp!

ps link to the pictures from the title
pps there were really funny and insightful roadside signs all along the roads such as:
"if you love her divorce speed"
"mind your brakes or brake your mind"
"better be Mr. Late than late Mr."
"I like you darling but not so fast"
"on the bend go slow friend"
"go easy on my curves"
"no race, no rally, enjoy the beatiful valley"
"slow driving, long life"
"always expect the unexpected"

Desserts in the desert

2005-06-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

At last, after we had our fill of dessert and petrol, we set out from Manali. With only one set of spare clothes in our bags (we can both wear all our clothes at once), a lightened library consisting of Arabian Nights, Joseph Campbell, Vipassana Meditation, and an herb book, the food stuff, mentioned previously, 2 5-litre gasolene cans and a toolbox. The toolbox has a spare chain, two tire levers and wrenches, spare cables, bulbs, spare plugs and points. Not everyone was carrying tools and certainly no Indians. They believe in the gods, mostly Ganesha for luck. Out bags covered in blue tarp and ourselves clad in blue mistry(mechanic) outfits, we left Manali after fresh bread arrived in the bakery. This only proved to be an annoying mistake. As we got out of Manali on the road to Rohtang Pass, there were innumberable shops renting old ski outfits and funky snow capes. We passed numberable cars at first and were glad to see them pull in at the outfit shops. In the 52 kms to Rohtang La, we ended up passing jeeps, cars, and trucks by the hundreds. When we came to the last mile of the climax of the pass, thinking still "one more truck and that will be it," we found ourselves upside down in a traffic jam. As the roads in Himachal are only one lane wide, one time as we were passing a stopped truck that we were stuck behind, we toppled over at barely moving speed. We had no injury and the bike was fine, except the headlamp's glass broke. Once we got up, with the help of the plenty of Sikh tourists looking like old-school pimps in their furry capes playing in the over-touristed snow, we continued to try to maneuouver around. It was unbelievable, there were more cars and jeeps and trucks at the top than we had passes along the way. WIth jeeps and cars of tourists and taxis parked on both sides, trucks and motorcycles trying to get through and many more cars and jeeps trying to turn around. At times, we just waited and walked around one at a time, neither seeing the entire clog at once. The passing wherever we could, we made it out after a few hours. The pass that we had crossed in September last year had completely changed, with walls of snow up to nine feet marking the road. The road was terrible with a massive amount of water on it. But being on a motorcycle, we got out before the cars and trucks could make it so we were alone on the raod. First day's driving was rough as we had to pass so many vehicles, then sit up at 4000 meters in exhaust fumes, then descend the pass half in rivers of melting snow, half in road. The scenery over the pass was immediately compelling though and got ever greater as we drove. We filled our tank and the two five-liter cans at the last gas station we would see until Leh. With 26 liters of petrol and all of us, the bike got heavy but pulled us through to the first night's camping place. alp!

We found an idyllic camping spot in Darcha, unloaded the bike, and ate tuna fish sandwiches with our morning bread. The full moon rose over the grand icy mountains and lit the big sky like daylight. The next morning we approached the second pass, Baralacha La, and it was an unnervingly snowy, puddly mess. After slipping a few times in the sloppy rivers of water on the road, we made it to the top and immediately wanted to come down. Our experience on these high passes reminds me of John Krakauer's explainations of how it feels to be on the tallest mountains of the world- when at the top, all you want to do is come down. Our feet were soaked from the splashing and the incessant bumps ached our bodies, so we arrived in Sarchu for lunch a bit discouraged. The lady who made our food vouched that the road onwards to Pang was better though and that gave the necessary impetus to continue. After climbing switchback roads galore, we made it to the top of Lachlung La, but not before it began to snow and became chillingly cold. The bike slipped on some black ice but we all bounced, nothing hurt, and gritted our teeth to make it over the top. We pulled into Pang, a tiny tent\food stop to see our American acquaintances Bobcat and Daisy waving their welcome to us. Instead of opting for a mattress in the back of one of the food tents, we rolled out our tomb of a tent above the army chechpoint and below a beautiful vista of ochre fairy-chimney-like outgrowths and snowy peaks. Unfortunately, it was was also the bathroom and beer bottle-smashing area of the tent colony and all its animals.
Day Three began with us in wary states of mind as to what surprises would await us on the final, and tallest, pass of the journey. We rode through a vast plain surrounded by glistening mountains and even stopped to meet a nomad woman and give her some water. Unexpectedly, the trip up to Tanglang La was markedly less treacherous than the lower three passes and we stopped for a moment to photo-document our conquering of the second-highest motorable pass in the world, at the breathless altitude of 5300 meters. Once descending, we encountered more marvellous scenery and a road paved enough to enjoy it, for once. Approximately 60 kms outside of Leh, there is a green valley hugged by the most miraculous dusky pink stone mountains and it truly must be seen to be believed. Closer to Leh, we began to see the famous gompas and monastaries for which Ladakh is renowned, as well as incongruous fileds of vivid green crops across the road from sand dunes. As with any true adventure, this epic ride was approaching not fun at times but is amazing to think back on in hindsight!
ingrid

I can now tell a bit about what I may have benefitted from Vipassana Meditation. Physically my posture has been better and no backache after 8-12 hour days on the bike. For the buttocks, when you don't react to your soreness, it is not so bad. The mental concentration one has to have on Indian roads! Mostly because of road conditions, not the drivers. Although we have practiced only a few hours of sitting meditation since the course, the road has been our meditation.
alp

Himalayan Scrolls

2005-06-20T06:02:00.000-07:00

dear friends~
we have been entertaining ourselves with a number of games but one of our favourites and certainly the most productive is the scroll game (aka the poetry game). we trade lines back and forth, revealing only the second line of the two we write each turn. here are two recent ones; perhaps they will do the best job of showing you all our state of minds.

Out of my lips flow
a bird of truth, striving towards the sea
beating the air with its wings
alters the destiny of us all
by showing us just how and when
we are all allowed to drop and fall
some get up some stay down
lucky are the ones who get a call
and answer it with a strength
like a hurricane and full of gall
the soul will soar
until it shan't fall
and we all, and I mean we all,
shan't allow for anymore all.

~~~~~ *~~~~~

Inebriate yourself and
sink to the bottom
and let hair tangle
and feet trail, the sea knotted them
drowning and crushing
before coming out of the fathom
you must reach down into the deep
and untie them, unknot them
when there are no more of them
you will see one line piercing hell and heaven
and you keep swimming until you see
the rise of that glory of the land of seven
shall make the righteous cry
hallejulia HEAVEN

Manali Ani Kaza

2005-06-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

Turkish readers need not get alarmed!
Last week we set out backwards from Spiti valley passing the Jelori pass into the Kullu valley in Himachal Pradesh. Kaza is the last big town in Spiti valley before passing the Kunzum pass into Lahaul and Ladakh. Kaza in turkish means accident. We were driving thru the eastern valleys of Himachal, at one point being very close to Tibet, where we needed permits to go on the road. From Spiti we were goint to drive north to Leh in Ladakh, accilimitizing as we go. In Kaza we learned that the Kunzum pass was not going to open for at least another 10 days so after staying there one night we decided to drive some way back and take the Jelori pass to cross from Rohtang pass into Ladakh. While we were driving thru Jelori we passed a town called Ani which means sudden in turkish. Jelori pass was amazingly beautiful, we could only describe it by magical. It was also the steepest that we will pass, but at 3300m it doesn't rival the two 5000+m passes that we will cross in Ladakh before we get to Leh. Right now we are having a grand time with plum wine, falafal lafas, desert and our old room from September in Manali. Manali means meaningful in turkish; thus the title Meaningful Sudden Accident the names of towns we left, passes and arrived at. We have had no mishap, no accident or no mechanical problems, maasallah. Ingrid is our navigator, native language expert as well as the beautifunk girl in the mechanic outfit; with her directional intuition, being able to decipher signs and her charm we haven't even gone the wrong way once. On our outfits we have the evil eye, Nazar. And now we have all our bags covered in tarp. All the bags have names because after 9 months of travelling and living in one room your bags become the shelfs, the tables and all the surfaces we normally occupy become bags. We have very good coffee from Coorg that we make turkish style and have it with powdered milk. As well as: apple blossom honey, drinkably pure himalayan rose water, apricot oil, bee pollen, mangoesm cherries, apricots, plums, cashews, almonds and herbs of every kind. So don't feel bad for us we are enjoying life like kings and queens. Ingrid also startes sewing though she doesn't do it while we are driving (the roads are a bit rough). But still in three days she has knitted me the worlds most beatiful scarf and earmuffs for herself from yarn of goat wool. All of you take care,
alp

While Alp uses all his third eye energy focusing on the ever-changing road conditions, I bounce along merrily in the back, enjoying the ride because remember- why hike when you can bike? Though technically we haven't covered such huge distances (the MOST we can manage is about 300 kilometers a day; our average speed is 25 km/h), the terrain has been spectacular and everchanging as well. We've seen nearly all the valleys of Himachal Pradesh and each has its own particular gorgeousness. The region of Kinnaur has the fabulous Kinner Kailash mountains staring snowy and gleaming over the high village of Kalpa, where we stayed for six days, relishing the nip in the air and our John Irving mountain readaloud tradition. We were welcomed along the checkpoints of the Indo-Tibetan highway thanks entirely to Alp's moustache. Having that furry upper lip simply erases all the mistrust and lack of understanding between cultures. It seems a moustache is not just fashion~ it is a lifestyle choice, it is a universal symbol of good manliness, it is humanity grown on a face. Spiti was flanked by bleak, sandy mountain banks and occasional snowy peaks. I wanted to take a picture of each moment riding through that epic country and its unearthy beauty. The roads were very deserted, save for the ladies and gents who troll along the road everyday sweeping up the rocky debris that tumbles down from on high, and i felt like we were in a galaxy far away and a time unknown. The small town of Tabo is Spiti looked like a true oasis in the midst of this landscape, with irrigated fields of green and an ancient monastary that looked moulded out of clay by children. The current Dalai Lama plans to retire to this tiny town and so I hope it doesn't exchange its peacefulness for the scene of Dharamshala in the future. After learning that the Kunzum La would require us to wait, Alp managed record levels of endurance to speed us up to Manali. Despite the variable road conditions, the only major obstacles we encountered (both coming and going) was a landslide area that washed away some of the the road between Tabo and Recong Peo. Going we managed up the steep embankment with six extra sets of hands and Alp's steely determination. Now, we are enjoying our honeymoon suite again and resting our bums for the next mountain voyage! with love~
ingrid

10 Days, 100 Hours Later

2005-06-02T06:43:00.000-07:00

Some people go to jail because they are bad, and some go because they are good. Ten days of solitude, silence, and 10 hours of meditation a day; this was the hardest thing we did in a long time. But having said all that if you want to practice meditation this is the course to take, because of its intensity, it allows you to break through a barrier that might take years get through if at all. The experience was intensely personal and requires nothing but the good intentions and effort of the meditator. Perhaps that is one of the hardest aspects of the whole course: one learns that one is entirely responsible for one's experience and his/her reaction to it. No guru helps you achieve peace of mind, no outsider magically alleviates all one's unhappinesses, no thing soothes your aching muscles. The experience is wholly your own... like your life. Perhaps after more time has past and we are able to sit and talk with you all in person, it will be easier to explain our complex experiences with Vipassana.

May all beings be happy

Hopping Hills and Hopping Mad

2005-05-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

After getting thoroughly fatigued by Delhi's polluted air and crowded conditions in the tourist ghetto, we were fortunate enough to spend two days with our friends, the Shins, in south Delhi. With their characteristic munificence, they fed us three well-balanced meals a day and we enjoyed playing with their kids, four-year old Ji-Min who speaks perfect English and her little brother who has hair that stands straight up as if by static electricity and has just learned to walk in the few months since we saw him last. We took the train to Kathogdam and then had a nausea-inducing jeep ride up to Almora to find the bike right where Esin and Uli said it would be. After resting for two days in the hamlet of Kasar Devi, once bright shiny morning we were loading all our luggage onto the bike to start moving across the state of Uttaranchal when we got into the first full-fledged fight of our travels of eight months. The proprietors of our guesthouse changed the price of our room from 100 to 150 rupees, which wouldn't have been a big problem if we had rationally discussed the misunderstanding and they had conceeded that the senile elderly father had made a mistake. But they refused to take any money from us, called us cheaters, and Ingrid lost her temper. After screaming her best in hindi, we went down the hill to Almora and found some police, who listened to Ingrid's excited, grammatically tragic version of the story and were very happy to tell us not to worry about it. Long story short, we didn't pay for our two nights stay and proceeded on to Gwaldam. We have hopped from one town to the next over the past four days in the foothills of the Himalayas and have finally ended up back in the hot plains in the city of Dehra Dun, where we are attempting to conglomerate all our supplies for the trip up to the high mountains following our Vipassana. With only the help of some tarp, a pair of bandannas, and an extra mechanics outfit, we are attempting the next metamorphosis of our identities. As Dignan says in the film "Bottle Rocket:" "On the run from Johnny Law; ain't no trip to Cleveland." Adios.

Delhilation

2005-05-02T01:08:00.000-07:00

Back in Delhi, and it is hard to convey or even understand the elation we are feeling from the streets that are filled with filth yet so magical. No more straight sidewalks to walk on, or putting your legs on automatic pilot while your mind wonders around. You have to be here now, or you'll get run over. Our minor irritations have left us as soon as we came to Delhi and although it is hot here too not like Thailand. We feel happy and our appetit0es are rising day by day. Streetcarts are full of mangos and we are giddily using our Hindi once again, much to Indians' glee. Alp and his moustache remind folks of Bhagat Singh, the legendary freedom fighter, and people give him his due respect. We are staying in a rat trap hotel but Esin and her travelling swiss cheesemaker companion are staying one floor below us. We are spending a lot of time in our cramped rooms, drinking tea and eating mass quantities of the Isins' favourite things (like honey, yogurt, and bread) and talking about our travels. They left the motorcycle in Almora, in the foothills of the Himalayas near the western Nepali border, and we will pick it up in about a week. We'll be waiting for the high passes to open to start our Ladakh and Kashmir trip, so in the meantime we are going to attend a ten-day Vipassana meditation course in Dehra Dun at the end of May. We don't know too much about it but it is ten days of silence, men and women separate, everyone avoiding interpersonal interaction. There are centers all over the world and it is run on a donation basis. Click on the title for the link to the website.

Retro-spek!

2005-04-28T23:54:00.000-07:00

Due to leave South-east Asia in a few hours, I wanted to see if there was anything else I could squeeze out of my mind about this place and our experience here. We have been without TV since 2004, yet we read the newspaper somewhat regularly to get updated. It is unknown to us how you people in America are coping with that President, and Iam not sure even if we really want to know. But if there is anything you would like to vent out do leave it in the comments. When we first arrived in Thailand, we were impressed with its modernity and was a relief for a while from the dirt and clutter of India. For a while I was even unsure if I would recommend people to go to India instead of coming to Thailand, but as we started travelling my thoughts started to change. In Ko Lanta, first place we visited outside Bangkok, it started to become obvious what was missing here that India had alot more. The island of Lanta is filled with nice tourist places, much nicer than Goa in India, but other then the beach there is nothing there. Whereas in Goa when you dive inland there is a sense of purpose beyond tourism industry, of just life as it is. Thailand being so open to tourism with its natural beauty is sort of like an inflated balloon, much on the surface yet hallow inside. All in all it is still worth seeing, more for the food then anything else, but I can guarentee if you wanted to come to a beach for a few weeks and take it easy while eating good food (albeit not for cheap) Thailand is superb. Yet in Bangkok the street stalls with stuff on sticks, noodles and shakes has been our greatest pleasure. We have been doing very little shopping as we don't have a house to shop for, but using the malls to cool off. Our last memorable experience in Thailand was last night as we delibarated for an hour and a half in if $5 was too much to pay for a T-shirt or not. After walking around that long and giving ourselves a backache we finally snapped out of it and got two rockin T-shirts just as the last and best T-shirt stall set up. Then we proceeded to our Chee-Wan #3 joint where we had our luminecent cocktail and finally for the third night in a row to our favorite Tom-Yum stall, where we thought we would get one Tom-Yum for the memory of it. After we had our third bowl and hopefully making some history, we vanished into the alley across.
alp alcazar isin II

Farewell to South-East Asia

2005-04-26T04:42:00.000-07:00

our final days in thailand have found us once again grovelling at the feet of the owners of the Bamboo guesthouse. despite being perhaps the most un-hospitable people in Bangkok, we are forced, like abused housewives, back into the shelter of their large rooms, ornate headboards, and camoflage blanket/curtains. for a mere 50 cents more than what we would pay for a box-like room with space literally only for a bed in other more friendly establishments, we are a two minute walk from our favorite tomyum street stall, which, as if it could get any better, now offers fruit shakes of all varieties to cool one's spicy tongue. we spent the last week in the northern city of chiang mai, awaiting our next set of indian visas. after crossing our fingers, everything turned out rosily with the babus. it has gotten seriously hot and we are not ashamed to say that we spent much of our time there reading books aloud in our room, hiding from the midday heat and enjoying the only reasonably priced bookstores in all south-east asia. we tried to relive the fun of renting bicycles and lazily exploring lanes, but thai traffic is not nearly as langourous as that of laos or cambodia and we were traffic hazards when we weren't waiting for minutes to cross the streets filled with a continuous flux of cars and more cars. to tell the truth, of enthusiasm for temples and cultural sites has waned considerably, though we did make it to one fairly ancient teak wat and chatted with a monk for an hour. in chiang mai, there is a system set up for the many monks in the city to meet up with foreigners and practice their english, hence the term "monk chat." it seemed to me though that the impromtu chat did us as much good as the monk, as we hardly speak to any one but ourselves. monk chat= alp and ingrid's reintroduction to being sociable people.
ingo

Well we have had a few people that stumbled on our path that we had a good conversation with, but a lot of foreigners are of a different mind set then us. As an example let me offer the Chaing Mai night bazaar, which is supposed to be famous yet all you find in six blocks of things is the same thing one after another. Thailand's openness to tourism has created a tourist industry so well trimmed for the vacationer that the street stalls are selling what you are buying in department stores in America. The other is the hill tribe trekking offered in Chaing Mai, it sounds nice yet it is the most intrusive thing you could do and the travel agents fill up minivans and buses everyday and take gawking tourists, some wanting to go there to smoke opium while others go to buy the traditional clothes off the people's bodies. This activity causes the hill tribe to lose their tradition in the fastest time while they get nothing from the money the travel agents make from taking the gawkers up there. These are the mojority of the people that are in our vicinity. Just how would they feel if their christmas party became a tourist attraction they do not think about. But there are also interesting people, just in very few numbers. So the last party we went to you were there too. But we are getting along wonderfully together and we think of this as the longest date we have been on. What you get out of being on the road for this long cannot be called a vacation although it is true that we are not being productive we are priming ourselves, dreaming and storing up the energy and enthusiasm that is required to accomplish them.
al' pino

ps there are pictures of Laos and Cambodia in the pictures link below. And you can help our alienation by commenting.

2548 in Laos

2005-04-17T02:26:00.000-07:00

With another set of stamps in our passports, we are newly returned to thailand after two weeks in laos. our visit in the old capitol of luang prabang coincided with the buddhist new year festival, which was basically a big santictioned excuse for everyone to get drunk, drench one another with water, and parade in the streets. we didn't really party with everyone else but it was an interesting anthropological sight to see foreigners and laos pointing water guns at one another from opposite camps. luang prabang was filled with handicrafts, as stalls set up every evening on the main promenade outside the palace museum, but we failed to buy anything. we have discovered a syndrome in our shopping: when we first arrive in a place with beautiful new things, we are consummed with thoughts of acquisition but as the days go by, our intentions shift and we become satisfied just by seeing the lovely fabrics, colors, and objects on display. if we were settling anywhere or simply there and there on vacation, we would be buying like everyone else but we know that anything we buy will simply have to be carried to the next place we go, and the next, and on and on. we left luang prabang to catch the slow boat up the mekong river, a two-day trip with marvellous scenery. the first day was hardly comfortable though, as we were forced to try and make ourselves comfortable on wooden slat seats but that made the second, with its plush airline seats, all the more luxurious. northern laos along the mekong is extremely beautiful and very lightly populated with people but heavily with bamboo and green. the water and rocks made deep whirlpools in the surface of the water and we saw pink water buffalo grazing along the banks. evidently, around this time of the year, the world's largest freshwater fish is captured in the mekong near the thai/lao border. the giant catfish grows up to 3 meters long and only a few of them are caught every year. one always feels a little silly trying to sum up an entire nation and its people in a few careless words but laos was a very enjoyable country, with pleasant little cities, a huge amount of countryside to be explored, and generally sweet people. i was hasten to add though that in this newly-opened-up communist country and along the tourist route (which i won't pretend we didn't follow), there are many many tourists and touts. it sort of takes the joy out of being in a small port town along the mekong and hearing loud foreigners and their life stories as you are eating your dinner.
ingrid

Not stayed anywhere for more than a week in quite some time now and it is getting harder to pack up and move on. Yet we can manage three full days on the road. When I think back on some of the distance considerations I used to have they seem comical now. We agreed to not write more about our plans as they allude us ever so perpetually and there is no reason to waste your retinal cells on projected futures. We are conflicted about our wanting to see more and wanting to cook our own food again. However we continue to enjoy ourselves and hope the same is true for all of you.
alp

Eats, shakes and leaves

2005-04-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

it is hot like hell in luang prabang. my shins are sweating and alp is losing all the hair on his balls due to the sweltering conditions in his pants. just conveying you a conversation being held right now in this part of the world, "i dont think it is about a relationship, i think it is about two people being together", and i would like to turn around and say then what do you call two people being together, but instead iam blogging as it is much more passive aggresive. so you can tell by now there is not much to say, we are ignoring the sites here with the attitude that why should we go to the sites all the time, why shouldn't the sites come to us sometimes? the truth is, we have seen so much it is getting hard to impress us, beautiful waterfall, yes i would see it if it wasn't 30km away and cost $15 dollars a person to get there only to find crowds of people there, i love waterfalls and have seen very beautiful ones and will continue to see more. the thing is most people here are on vacation and they crave sites so they will go look at anything, i am not saying the waterfall is not pretty but would you like to see a pretty waterfall filled with more tourist than water in dry season? we like to eat, shakes and leaves.

Headache in Laos

2005-04-04T23:13:00.000-07:00

Our passport pages are starting to be real works of art and a major source of pride to us travellers as we have entered our third country in south-east asia. the thais are extremely giving with their stamps and flourished signatures and free visas, while the cambodians and lao authorities have been suitably giving for the amount of visa fees we have paid them. alp is creating quite a sensation and not a little bit of disbelief in immigration officials with his burly mustache, who cannot quite comprehend that the starkly handsome young turk's photo in his passport is actually the same fellow with the mustache, the grin, and the straw hat they see before them. after scooting out of phnom phen into the land of fast cars and highways, 7-11s and tom yum that is bangkok, we took a classy sleeper train all the way to the north of thailand. we spent three days in nong khai, dozing and attempting to do a puzzle while recieving the news that we picked up a case of dengue fever as a souvenier from cambodia. it is not severe, just a bit like the flu. and yesterday we passed the friendship bridge over the mekong river into laos and its capitol vientiane. it is pleasantly more of a large town than a city and the weather has been drizzly and delightful. we enjoyed the tastiest pain au chocolat, almond crossiant, and coffee in our experience in southeast asia yet and are preparing ourselves for more baguettes and pate. next stop this afternoon is the backpacker/countryside village of vang vieng where we plan to spend more than a few days doing little and eating mulberries.
ingrino

ps for the kin who might worry, we got blood tests done in nong khai and the dengue fever is not the hemorraging kind.

pps click the title for our cambodia pictures

ppps it is the year 2548 in thailand!

You try being a Turk and see how it is

2005-03-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

It is very hard not to start every blog with "We", and this is a last attempt at trying not to do that. But we are in Phnom Phen, the capitol of Cambodia and haven't been to the killing fields or the holocaust museum, maybe we will go tomarrow maybe not. Our plans to go to Vietnam have been cancelled by my turkishness as I had to jump thru some bureaucratic hoops that we dont have the time, patience, will, or money to do. So we will head back to Bangkok and then head for Laos. We can get a 14 day tourist visa on arrival there and then... After Angkor there is not much to do in Phnom Phen and it is a big city and the people have gotten a bit ruder around tourist circles. There is still and open invitation to meet in Manali in May and ride motorcycles thru Ladakh and Leh, the highest motored pass in the world. Also if there is interest to meet in Turkey in the fall, we plan to get there by September. So if there is an itch that we can scratch, let us know.
love all who read this blog, and trying to love others who don't,
alp

Angkor What?

2005-03-24T03:55:00.000-08:00

Three day temple tour extravaganza~score! our hopes for ruins galore were not disappointed by Angkor and its vast park of buildings and rubble. starting our first morning by motorcycle-drawn rickshaw, we came to Angkor Wat and its huge promenade over a massive moat before dawn. it was eerily exciting to approach the huge three-domed temple as each moment the light increased, not knowing a thing about what we would see. we climbed all the way to the terrifying top, enjoying the wind and the statues of large-bosomed dancers with hairstyles reminiscent of anime characters, while most of the tour groups below sat at the base, waiting for their perfect "sunrise over Angkor Wat"photographs. The famous temple was majestic but I was personally most impressed with the wackiness of the Bayon, another renowned building with tens of humongous faces carved out of dark stone, peering in different directions with mona lisa smiles. Likewise, the jungle-temple of Ta Prohm also was gorgeous, as it was left by the french to look as it had when it was first found in the latter half of the nineteenth century by an explorer searching after butterflies. there were massive trees towering out of buildings and spilling over walls. the last two days, we decided to cycle around the ruins, which turned out to be a rather serene way to enjoy the scenery. we were even blessed with some fabulous weather this morning as the sky broke into an impromtu mango rain (the rains that proceed the monsoon season and herald the beginning of the mango season) for ten minutes and clouds shaded our path for the rest of the day. Ruin tourism is probably my favourite form of cultural sightseein; it encourages independant exploration, gives one an appreciatation of the landscape of a place, and makes one feel awe for the mysterious collapse of civilizations.
Ingrid

Most of Angkor's high quality structures were erected by the king Jayavarman VII. Angkor Wat, Bayon, and the Angkor City plus a wealth of other structres. What makes the style of this king so apparent, other then the higher quality rock used, is the topless women relief carvings on almost all the walls of the buildings. The man had a harem of coutless women and put their carvings everywhere. What is fascinating is that in a place like Angkor Wat which is located on a kilometer square, making it the largest temple in the world, there are hundreds of these women carved on the walls. The wat is the funerary temple of this king who apparently believed in an Egyptian style afterlife idea. The wat is really impressive with a moet around it that is 150m wide. The circumference of the temple has a wall that has bas relief carving of their creation myth, battles from ramayana and so on. It might take us a while to upload pictures, but we wil let you know when we do.
alp

The Ripping Fields

2005-03-21T05:33:00.000-08:00

Well were we wrong. After the thai border, we journeyed six or seven hours on a road that reminds you of the outback. No asphalt with plenty of holes and bumps. And this of course excited us seeming like we were going to a place less travelled. When we arrived in Siem Reap what we saw was a different picture. Plenty of giant and fancy hotels and civilization. There is an airport in Siem Reap which apperantly brings plenty of tourists with dough. So far we have not ventured to the Angkor Wat, mainly getting ourselves adjusted to carrying three currencies and finding the cheap and authentic food. The latter is proving to be problem as we are overcharged for everything from water to bread. It is a hassle and brings an annoying quality to this town. Unlike Thailand everyone speaks english, at least enough to rip you off. The tourism in this town has made it perfect for tourists and frustrating for the traveller. Tomarrow we buy our three day ticket to Angkor Wat which will make it worth the hassle. And we hope as we venture further into South-east asia this place will be the most touristy place we have visited.
alping

Its like buddha baby

2005-03-17T05:49:00.000-08:00

in honour of our leaving the clean water and cinema halls of thailand for the minefields and temples of cambodia at seven tomorrow morning, i thought i should take some time to catalogue those eccentricities of this fine nation that we have otherwise failed to relate to you all. a) thais, young and old, are addicted to menthol and camphor inhalents and it is possible to see them being shoved up noses everywhere! i want to embark on a nation-wide campaign to inform people of their addiction but i think they are too nasal-cavity-fixated. b) there is a handy bum-sprayer in every bathroom, so that you needn't ever worry about being caught without toilet paper (already an obsolete item to my man and myself... we gave that stuff up months ago and you should consider making the switch yourself. do you really want to rub that shit in?) c) transvestites and androgenous people are an accepted part of the fabric of thai society. we have seen some damn pretty men. most thai women and men have the same body type anyways~ no asses and similar faces. d) even monks don't finish their food, which we think is a crying shame! everytime we approach a table just vacated by a thai party, there is enough food remaining to feed the two of us. e) thailand caters to the hardly exclusive category of male "sex tourists," who come here to DATE their prostitutes and can be seen shopping with them nearly everywhere in bangkok. there are also neighborhoods full of go-go bars, in which dozens of waifs wave their bodies around like leaves, looking exceedingly bored under coloured lights. f) as we have told mimi and jason, there is the charming tradition of spirit houses, which are miniature houses built for the fairies of the premises so that they don't disrupt the proceedings of the main building. some are very lovely looking, so go the Bangkok photos to see an example of them. g) unlike india where the depiction of phalluses is very abstract, thais prefer the more life-like approach and are alarmingly realistic, albeit often times huge. they are fertility symbols and are present at shrines, temples, and even in amulet form. h) we are very fond of the park over the canal from our guesthouse, which daily hosts a gang of people evidently practicing to be in the circus (i.e. juggling, poi, and playing with sticks), gender-bending breakdancers, and a massive aerobics course instructed also by an androgenous lady-man. have you got a clearer picture of why this is such an interesting and enjoyable place? we hope so. cambodia may be a bit behind in the internet revolution so you may have to wait a few weeks to get the next installment of notes from us. you can always rerun our previous episodes. we never did.
with jungle love~
ingrid

ingrida and i were appalled today at the restaurant of the natural history museum where three monks left their table with enough food on it to feed three other monks. this we have been seeing from other thais and had mostly thought that it was due to city ethics. well apart from these shameless monk what i want to say is, organized religion is the same everywhere, buddhism is no different. at first i couldn't figure out why anyone would convert from buddhism to islam, and i am sure there were not so willing conversions but the idoletry here is up the roof. a lot of temples there isn't just one image of the buddha but there are dozens if not hundreds, and it sort of looks meaningless. the feng-shui of a lot of temples is really whack. i can see how a mosque is much more tranquil then a wat. but ofcourse i am not defending one religion over the other allah and buddha know that i love them them both the same. the organization of the religion is really what kills the spirit of the religion. just like organized government but i will not go into that right now, suffice to say that anarshi is the best way, because it is not a description of a way. get the tao?
alp

Southern Comfort

2005-03-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

We are back in Bangkok where the internet is more affordable and sitting in an air-con internet cafe is a more desirable event. We traveled in the Krabi province first going to Lanta island where we were too cheap to go on a snorkeling trip and came back to Krabi for more inexpensive and authentic food. Rented a bike and traveled for a day. Afterwards we took a longboat to Hat Tonsai which is the climbers central in Thailand. We somehow got the best bungalow for the cheapest price on the peninsula where we had a stupendously good time, resting, reading, and coming up with solutions to future problems. The Noam Chomsky book Hegemony or Survival is a great book for getting perspective about American actions, highly recommend it although it is bound to put a fire into your system. On our way back to Bangkok we stopped at Khao Sok National Park hoping to find the largest flower in the world that smells like rotten meat but to no avail. Now we are back in the big city and enjoying it, our plane tickets are scheduled for May 13 now and we will head for Cambodia in a few days. We were going on tuesday but in light of Jean Pierre Jeunet's new film A very long engagement opening on March 17 we will overstay our visa two days to see that and the Motorcycle Diaries, as we will probably not find those movies in our travel ahead and they are worthy for bigscreen. In the meantime we will get our Cambodian visas here in Bangkok instead of at the border which will save us some money in compansation for the twenty dollar fine we will pay for overstay. We have put our pictures up for those with pictographic memory. I miss all of you out there and we will go motorcycling in the himalayas in May particularly Leh, Ladakh and Kashmir if we can, anyone interested in meeting us in Manali? The bike rental is about $5 a day and accomodation will be reasonable since most people don't go that far up north. You can see where we want to go in the photoalbum manali, it will start with Rohtang La and go further this time. I doubt there will be much interneting that we can do until Vietnam once we leave Bangkok so till then,
alp

Liver river diver

2005-02-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

We have arrived in Krabi and waiting to get on the boat to Ko Lanta. The bus ride last night was strange, we got on at 6:30 and they showed a preview of a movie then turned the TV off then the lights off at 7. We thought they were fixing something but the lights didn't come back on until 10 when we stopped to eat. It was a complimentary dinner which was rice in goopy water and some dishes to put in and eat with the rice. There were 4 Thais on the table and all of them barely touched the other stuff and just had their rice. We found this very peculiar because the rice dish didn't even have salt in it. The hole thing was pretty tasty but they wanted none of it. We also noticed that the people on our table left before anyone else, it was sort of a twilight zone affair. Thais also don't seem very big on finishing their food so we thought Walt ought to come here and give them a lesson, maybe he can even convince the King to sponser a nationwide campaign.
alp

coming from india, thailand seems a remarkably organized and prosperous country. its tourist base is greater than that of any other country i have visited, yet very few people speak english at all. alp and i utilized almost every mode of transport in bangkok, including canal boat taxis, tuk tuks (high-octane versions of the rickshaw), bus, skytrain, subway, and river boat. as admitted by miriam's former exchange student guest Goy (who we met our last night in bangkok and ate a special chinese dessert with), the main entertainment in the capitol is shopping. despite never going to Fashion Square Mall at home in charlottesville, alp and i went no less than three times to a seven floor megamall called MBK and watched movies, looked at cell phones, and desperately tried to join in the extravaganza. interestingly, most of the food we have eaten in thailand has been from street vendors, who are everwhere and each specialize in something. the main problem is we often just don't know what that something is (unless you point) because their signs are all in thai. nonetheless, our favourite place thus far was a fish/tom yum soup stall down the road from our guesthouse, which was open until the wee hours and allowed us to sip beer chang along with our fish niblets. and for your information, thais are the world masters of two domains: iced beverages (shakes, cold coffee, etc.) and takeaway food. it is perhaps funnest when these two talents are combined, like when one gets a mango smoothie in a plastic bag with a straw!
swimmingly yours~
ingie

One couple, couple of plans

2005-02-21T23:50:00.000-08:00

So I will understand if some of you out there might stop reading our blog because we say we are going to do something and almost never do, but isn't it more exciting this way with all the twists and turns? We have been in Bangkok for a week now and have eaten many a different things, seen many a beautiful things and at the same time we have been doing rounds to the Indian Embassy for our employment visas. The first day we were told to bring back financial documents and when we did the main-dude told us to come back in four days as he had to do some research into what kind of visa he might be able to give us. Since we were not going to be paid and even though we had no financial trouble, he said it probably wasn't possible to give us an employment visa. So this morning when we went there he had done nothing in the last four days and did't even remember what he was supposed to do. Were we hurt? Not really, because when he hinted that we were probably not going to get an employment visa our little noodles again started to fantisize, so by the time he crushed our plans by saying he could if we wanted to send our documents to the ministry in delhi which would take 3 months or more we already had another fantasy ruling our lives.
The new plan is to extend our flight until May while we travel in South-east Asia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam you name it we will go! Afterwards returning to India with another 6 month visa and attending yoga school then for a few months. Then heading to China and taking the train through Mongolia to Moscow. From there heading to Turkey passing the Turkic republics. The last leg of the journey depends on me being able to lose a few kilos so I can dogde the military by being "unfit to surve". Either we do it or not it sounds cool right now. But I'am with the help of Yavuz trying to figure out if this is really possible. Other then that we will try to apply to paid military in every embassy on our way. I do not qualify but maybe we will find another incompetent that will not know.
Ecological disaster, political insurgance, bureaocratic incompetence we have seen it all and have not suffered anger nor dispear. We believe fate is showing us the way and we are easily being blown around by it. I should thank here our parents who support us and make us feel that there is comfort waiting for us back home. Yet for now we feel we can get a little more ruffed up!
alp!

ps thailand anyone? click the coorg title to link to the pictures.
ps2 for those of you who have juicy thoughts about travelling but think they will not afford it, our 5 months in India cost us $600 a month for two of us, but we did stay 2 months of that with friends and family.

Transnational Valentines Day

2005-02-15T02:34:00.000-08:00

We are recovering from the most exciting Valentine's Day in the history of Alp and Ingrid's lives. A few days ago, Esin sent us off from Mysore and we sat on a train for 42 hours, hurtling towards New Delhi, with the final destination in mind being Kathmandu. However, ten minutes into our two day ride we found out that February 13th was the joyous 10th anniversary of the Maoist insurgency and they were most probably planning on celebrating the occasion with some old-fashioned civil war violence. We arrived in Delhi on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and enjoyed the perfect spring weather that the capitol enjoys for about three weeks a year while waiting for our Korean friends, the Shins, to come home. They are the most delightful hosts and we had a thoroughly tasty Korean meal at an excellent restaurant with them later in the evening. We also discovered that night that Kathmandu was under blockade and virtually no traffic was coming in from the south-east, precisely the direction we would be coming from if we took our final leg of the trip to the Nepali-Indian border in Gorakpur. The next morning we decided to scoot over to Mr. Gupta, my mother's travel agent who specializes in executing last-minute travel plans seemlessly and who also deserves to be called "Mr. Magic" for that reason. After one hour in his office, our breathless anticipation was rewarded with two (cheap!!) round-trip tickets to Bangkok Thailand that very night at 7pm!!! We squealed, we giggled, we were jealous of our own good luck! Following our fateful triumph, we made a trip to Khan Market, the expat shopping center in south delhi, and bought ourselves chocolate and cheese for Valentines, paneer tikka roomali rolls for our intestinal worms, and a Lonely Planet Thailand (though, believe us, we tried our best under the time constraints to NOT support that backpacker mafia publication company). After hastily packing and substantially lightening our packs (including tent, hiking boots, and mats our bags are 22lbs each), we made it to the airport and our flight on Myanmar Airlines went first to the sleepy airport of Yangon (formerly Rangoon), where we ate complimentary cake at a hotel and finally continued onto Bangkok, arriving here at 6am, both without any sleep and Ingrid with a headache. Blearily we made our way to a quiet residential area and a guesthouse, and slept for a few hours. We awoke and finally it sunk in~ we are in thailand, yaaaysss!
scoobydo!
ingrid

Coorg, Curd and Kurds

2005-02-10T03:54:00.000-08:00

About two weeks ago we set out for the Coorg region on our Enfield and the Yezdi that Esin rented. In the first ten kilometers the Yezdi was stopping frequently and we called Hari and said we were bringing the bike back and as if the bike heard this and stopped to stop. So we turned around and headed again towards Coorg. After we passed the bamboo and teak forest area it started to get hilly and chilly. There was coffee and pepper everywhere and it smelled like honeysuckle on the road and roasted coffee in the towns.
Coorg is a small region with a distinctive language, culture and landscape. There is speculation that their ancestors were the troops of Alexander the Great. Also theories that they might be related to the Kurds in the middle east. I don't think there is a real anthropologic study about this. Well now that I have shown you that I read a few pages from a book while we were there what we were really busy doing was eating good home cooking and hiking around. The first place we stayed at was expensive by Indian standards but really beautiful. We stayed in our tent for the first time since there was only a single room available and we didn't want to open the mouth of the sack too much for a double as it was almost ten dollars. Upon coming to the conclusion that we had giardia we started on antibiotics, but it was really the best place to have it since we had fresh water and good food. After finishing the antibiotics we tried to replenish our bacterias by eating yogurt but they have this curd in Coorg that is really not very good which could be a clue to the fact that the Coorgians are Alexanders soldiers since everyone knows the Greeks can't do yogurt right. It was quite a scene at the estate where all the guests were served dinner and we ate and thrashed American and British politics and politicians. As the only American present for miles around, Ingrid endured the lambasting valiently (amidst blushes galore) and tried to be an example that all of Bush's country brethren are not as evil and culturally chauvanist as he. After a week at that place we followed the bumpy road to another estate close to a national park where we stayed a more humble accomodation for the same price and have home cooking consisting mostly of rice and potatoes for the same price. From there we ventured to a waterfall, of which there are many in Coorg. The first day we didn't realize was a Sunday so there were more Indians than water droplets, but then we went there again next day and even managed to bathe naked! And about the national park, we went but were not let in because we were on two wheelers and there was a chance that we would get trampled by wild elephants. We were up for the challenge but they weren't and we just didn't want to rent a jeep and pay money and see nothing that you can't see on the street already. So we didn't go in. On the way back the Yezdi ran out of gas. Here come closer, listen up, never never never run out of gas on a 30 year old bike!!
We are back in Mysore, right in time because our sandalwood soap was just finished. My elbow is a little screwy from the bumpy road but the bike is running great. Tomarrow we head for Nepal and Esin is taking the bike and heading for Kerala.
All the best to you out there and pray to Ganesh for luck and Laxmi for wealth and Shiva for ganja and Krishna for booty.
alp

I know what you all are thinking~ did Alp just say he and his lil lady were heading for NEPAL? but wasn't there just a total governmental overhaul there? didn't the king just dissolve the parliment and cut off international communication for a number of days? And i would say~ yes, indeed. We are going to Nepal. Probably. Our Indian tourist visas expire in one week and we have been mourning the fact that whenever we decide to go to another country, disaster befalls it. All our planning ahead is no match for killer tsunamis and Maoist rebels and insane kings. the final decision for today rests at our taking the train for two days up to New Delhi and leaving the option for other flights out of the country. Uzbekistan? Burma? Mongolia? Let's take an internet poll everybody! Where should Alp and Ingie go next? Or, more aptly, upon which poor country should God next strike down his wrath? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!
love~
ingrida

ps~ click the title to look at our new lovely pictures~ we is three now! triple the beauty!

Horn OK Please

2005-01-25T05:05:00.000-08:00

Esin has arrived, and the three of us have been hanging out in Mysore. Today we rented a 78 model Yezdi. It is a 250cc czechoslovakian bike that has a hard time starting but who can blame it? Nevertheless it looks very neat and we plan to explore the area with the Enfield and the Yezdi. Before we rented the Yezdi the three of us were riding on the Enfield which I must say was boosting my social status as a mustached man quite a bit. One younger policemen tried to stop us, well we were already stopped, but he said riding threesome was illegal and after telling him we have seen 4 or 5 people on bikes, he tried to write us a ticket but I figured we are on a bike and he is not going to run after us so zoomed out of there. Other then that not very exciting things been happening, thank god. There are new pictures of Goa and Gokarna and of Hampi which is worth looking at.
Love to all
alp

Sorry that we have been slacking in describing our recent journeys but riding from town to town can be tiring and we are mostly just happy enough with ourselves when we arrive in a place. But i will stop to tell you all that, after one more beach in Goa called Palolem (which has some of the most delicately beautiful shells in the world's oceans cast upon its shores), we travelled to the hippie-haven of gokarna, just south in karnataka. we slept on the floor in our shack there and enjoyed excellent food in our israeli-infested restaurant/lodge. following that we zoomed up to hampi, which had to be the most lovely place i feel i have seen in india yet. there are loads of ruins from the vijananagar empire and the most gorgeous boulders strewn about a large area of several square kilometers. hopefully we will have the chance to return in the future, so that alp may do some rock climbing and we can ride through the river there in a coracle. we love you all and hope the happiest things for you. thank you ladies for the compliments on the haircut... now esin and i match, which is perfect for the image of alp's harem.
ingi

Too much good

2005-01-05T02:13:00.000-08:00

Picture yourself on a motorcycle passing though strawberry fields and over ochre mountains... and you would have been alp and I one week ago as we left pune with our horse packed and our newly decorated helmets on our heads. Once we got out of the urban areas, the road was perhaps the best kept in india (as good as that scene in dil chahta hai) and we sped 500 kilometers down to northern goa. We arrived in Arambol (what was a semi-sleepy town three years ago) and started to panick because we could not find anything but a single bed, thanks to the 300,000+ tourists that come to goa for new year's eve (including us). The next day however, we scored an idyllic beach shack on the northern end of the beach, complete with romantic/annoying mosquito netting and since then we have been drinking our goan beer or port or cashew fenny as more tourist roll in and ask for room, but we are full. Yes the port is very good and the fenny since drived from palm sap or cashew fruit does not threaten to blind or kill us. However we have only swam once in the last week which is a situation we want to fix. There were minor problems with the bike but because we couldn't ride it to go to the place to get the stuff things were long. It is really nice to have our own transportation and we are thinking of going down south still since Esin's coming is delayed ever further we dont expect to see her before we leave India. But she has travelled in Iran and now is below K2, so she is having a good time. We hope all of you are having or at least trying to have a good time. For us, all is too much good.
alping

ps there are new pictures in the pune album and a new album for goa, click the title a few posts back, and comment for krysts sake, we want to hear you

safe by the sound

2004-12-31T01:08:00.000-08:00

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

2004-12-17T01:18:00.000-08:00

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

2004-12-08T00:51:00.000-08:00

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!

2004-11-30T21:46:00.000-08:00

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

2004-11-28T21:21:00.000-08:00

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

2004-11-17T00:06:00.000-08:00

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

2004-11-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

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)

2004-11-04T07:31:00.000-08:00

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

2004-11-01T00:10:00.000-08:00

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

2004-10-29T00:38:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-25T22:53:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

Click to go to our photo albums.

Holiest of the Holies

2004-10-22T02:12:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-20T01:04:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

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.....

2004-10-10T03:04:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

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

2004-10-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

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?

2004-10-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-29T05:56:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-26T01:46:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

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

2004-09-16T06:46:00.000-07:00

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:)