I just got back to NY so i may not remember everything that happened a few weeks ago but i'll try since that way i don't have to update each person separately, and it'll be good since i can barely remember what happened yesterday. We left mumbai and went to udaipour where there are a few sights to see but the country was on strike b/c of gas prices. Luckily for us we were in a prob the nicest hotel i've ever seen, let alone stayed in, so we did a short tour of the city palace and went swimming for the entire day which was great. What happened on our flight is a perfect example of how retarded india is... our flight to delhi was at 7:45 so we arrived at the airport at around 6:15pm. When we got there we were informed that our flight had taken off at 4:40pm. Now, what kind of retarded airline moves a flight FORWARD 3 hrs? Well, an indian airline, kingfisher to be exact. Anyways, we stayed overnight and flew to delhi the next morning.
Delhi, similar to mumbai, is a total shithole. We were all kind of tired for traveling for so long so we kind of just took it easy in delhi, went shopping for souvenirs and met up with david and sima with who i would travel for the next 2 weeks. Just to give a little background, david just finished law school (and sima is about to start) and was offered a year off from his firm since they didn't have enough work for him so they decided to go to india and work at non-profits. my parents wanted to see david and sima before they left for america that night since david is one of my oldest and closest friends, so we all had lunch and hung out in the afternoon until my family left.
we took a rickshaw back to the hotel and on the way got stopped for about an hr b/c a 2 way street turned into a one way street and there was literally nowhere for our rickshaw to go. What does it mean that a 2 way street turned into a one way street? exactly what it sounds like. The cars going in the other direction decided to come on the other side of the road so that the entire road was at a standstill for 1.5 hrs until a random 12 yr old started directing traffic and we were finally able to slither through. just one example of how chaotic and unorganized india can be.
Anyways, the next morning we had a flight from delhi to ladakh, which is the northernmost region of india and way up in the himalayas in kashmir (which is supposed to be a dangerous region but we didn't really come close to any violence). The himalayas are really incredible, huge mountains that dwarf the rockies but are completely barren except for the tips of them which are snowcapped. Also, most of india is incredibly loud w/ everyone honking and yelling 24/7 but in the ladakh, all you can hear is the constant flowing of streams and the occasional cow mooing. the change of pace was really nice and it didn't feel like india at all. We took the first day to get used to the altitude since the towns are pretty much all at around 12,000 feet. The next morning we woke up to go see leh's buddhist monastery's morning puja, which is basically shacharit for buddhists. The monastery is at the top of the mountain that overlooks leh (the largest city in ladakh) and we watched them blow their horns from the top of the monastery as well as watch them pray their morning prayers. we stayed till about 10-10:30 and then walked around leh for the rest of the afternoon. We had arranged to stay in the owners cousins house in a town about 30 minutes outside of leh called phyang b/c they were having a mask festival the next day which only happens once/yr. this would be our first of many days with no running water and no electricity. We also met up w/ one of david and sima's friends named april, who also happened to be traveling in the himalayas so we tagged along with her and would remain together throughout the himalayas.
It's a tiny town, even for the himalayas, and probably had only a few hundred ppl. As we walked around we met a girl who invited us in for tea w/ her family. We ate and drank w/ them for about an hr before leaving and going back but it was really interesting to see how they live, the way they grow vegetables in their front yard and then eat them for dinner, and they had also taken in a girl from a poorer family a few hrs drive away although she wasn't allowed to sit with us when we all had tea. Anyways, the next day we went to the mask festival which was completely insane. It was basically a bunch of buddhist monks that were dancing around (seemingly drunk) with no purpose that we could understand but were probably playing out an ancient tale or something of the sort. There was one hilarious moment during what seemed to be an intermission where some monks in masks picked up the youngest monks there on their shoulders, maybe they were 2 0r 3 yrs old, and started running around and the kids started crying and couldn't be comforted. The audience seemed to love that.
I forgot to mention that most of the culture in the himalayas is tibetan since china is occupying tibet a lot of them have come to northern india through the himalayas (mostly on foot). Anyways, over the next few days we traveled to various buddhist monasteries, all which appear to be on the top of the world and incredibly remote. We also continued to not have running water and the hotel prices ranged from $3-7/night so were were pretty nasty. The views throughout the himalayas were insane, each town that we passed was green with the surrounding mountains being completely bare. we spent 3 days traveling around kashmir and the farthest we went was about 4-5 hrs out of leh, up one of the scariest mountain climbs that exists in the world into lamayuru. anyways, the himalayas was def one of the top highlights of the trip and it was cool to see such a diff part of india.
once we left the himalayas we flew back to delhi, then took a 12 hr overnight sleeper train to pathankot. We went 3rd class on the sleeper train and unfortunately, one of sima's bag was stolen. thankfully it didn't have her passport or wallet but it did have her ipod and a few other valuables so that sucked. we were then deciding whether to take a toy train which our guidebook said had some scenic views, or a regular cab to get to dhoromsala, which is where the dalai lama lives and has his main temple. We decided on the toy train and prob should've realized that it was a bad idea when the 6 hr ride cost only $0.30. lonely planet said that we shouuld make sure to get a seat so when the train pulled up david ran onto the train and one kid tried to cut him off and he literally took the kid by the arm and threw him off the train and the kid landed flat on his back. Once we got on the train and got seats we realized why it cost $0.30. Basically, it was a nightmare. It was packed beyond anything we'd ever seen and the type of ppl on the train were all the poorest ppl there are in india, which is really saying something. it is impossible to describe how crowded the train actually was and so we just sat there with all our stuff, with ppl sitting so close to us they were virtually on our lap. We realized a few hrs into the train ride that it was actually my bday which added to the experience.
Once we got to dhoromsala we found a place to stay and realized that the entire town was made up of really weird hippies (although really weird hippies is kind of repetitive, but wtvr), most of whom were israeli. we visited the dalai lama's temple which was really interesting and we saw the nuns praying with the monks (even though you can barely tell the diff btwn the men and women b/c they all have shaved heads and they wear the same red robes) as well as lots of monkeys which i enjoyed. We chilled in dhoromsala for a few days, or to be more exact, in mcleod ganj which is the town right next to dhoromsala.
After that we took a train to amritsar which is the home of the golden temple, which is a holy sikh site where they get about 60,000 religious pilgrims a day. The golden temple was really spectacular. It had 4 outer walls in the shape of a rectangle, with a moat and then the golden temple in the middle of the moat. It's called the golden temple for obvious reasons (you can see it in the pictures above) and it was cool to see a crowded place that was crowded with religious pilgrims rather than tourists. Since it's a place for religious pilgrims, they offer free meals for the ppl (which we ate despite the fact that it's the lowest quality food you can possibly have) as well as free accomodations, but we decided to splurge for a hotel room which was prob the right move.
After the golden temple we went back to bangalore, which is where david and sima had been living for the yr. They actually had a beautiful 3 br apt (even by american standards) and we hung out there for a few days and i got to meet some of their friends in india. David and sima both changed a lot over the course of the yr, mainly with their standards for living being lowered dramatically. For example, when i first saw them in delhi i asked them to tell me something cool that happened to them and they told me a story that ended up w/ them getting a box of ritz crackers, which is apparently a delicacy in india. When we were in the himalayas sima saw some powerlines and became extremely excited and said "maybe we'll have a few hrs of power at the next place we go" (which ended up not being the case unfortunately). And one of the perks of their fancy apt was that it had 24 hr hot water, a rarity in india.
One last note - big shout out to abbe pick for forcing me to do this blog... excellent idea.
bye!
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