Todd and Lisa’s RTW trip

Well…Bhopal was more like bo-HELL!! We arrived, it was raining, everything stunk and it was so polluted we felt like we were smokin da tailpipe of a 1950’s bus!! we got a hotel room and hibernated in it. Lisa was just about ready to give up on India….

We got up in the morning, got charged for our included breakfast (typical), and headed out of Bhopal with our bandana’s over our mouths. We took the train for about 5 hours to a town called Jhansi. From Jhansi we caught a tempo, which is a bigger rickshaw, and rode about 40 minutes to a town called Orchha. Our entire view of India changed.

Orchha was a wonderful. It is a small town, that has not been ruined by tourist. No one ran up to us and tried to sell us stuff, no one hassled us, it was wonderful. The children on the street all yelled out hello and ran up to shake our hand. They were all so cute. We spent two days exploring the old palaces and castles of Orchha with the village children. One boy unlocked a temple for us and led us up narrow stairwells to a roof with a wonderful view, complete with wild monkeys and parrots. He asked us all sorts of questions about America, the most memorable being “how many tennis courts are there in USA?”. Another boy led us through feilds of mud to a bunch of temples, along the way he called every animal a monkey, including the bats inside the temples that really freaked Lisa out. Like we wrote above, the people in Orchha really changed how we feel about India.
From Orchha we hopped on an awful bus ride to a town called Khajuraho, also a sleepy village. This place is a little more touristy, so we have to deal with all the hussle, but in between it all we are meeting some great people. Todd had befriended the owner of the restaurant next door to our hotel. He has invited him to help in his kitchen and learn Indian cooking.
Khajuraho is well known for it massive temples from around 900 A.D. The temples have outrageous sculptures all around them (see attached photos… hopefully).

This connection is to slow…. more to come later!!!

We abrubtly ended our last entry due to a nosey Indian man… and a painfully slow internet connection. Khahujaro was wonderful. Going into the Indian kitchen was… we can’t even explain!! We decided to splurge and fly from Kha. to Varnassi, Instead of taking a 6 hour bus to a 12 hour train!! When we arrived at the airport, 30kms out of town, we hitched a ride with a spanish tour group into town. It was very lux., planes and a/c’ed bus!! Varanassi is said to be the holiest place. Every year thousands of people make pilgramages here to die or to wash away there sins by bathing in the river. (it looks to us this river could wash away nothing…its FILTHY). We took a boat along the river at 6 am today to watch. There are burning ghats along the river that cremate hundreds of people daily.

Below are some pics.. probably out of order.. but in india, you take what you can get. Thanks for all the comments, we have been laughing out loud. Oh yeah, when the airport told us we got a discount for being under 30.. Todd goes “Holy Cow”… they looked at us strange and then were like… oh this is the land of holy cow…we were hysterical. You should see, cows (and cowshit) are everywhere!!!

In Orchha there was another festival of Gensha, (who is a god not a goddess like we had said earlier) going on. All the the people were dancing in the streets, riding in the back of trucks, playing music and throwing colored powdered stuff all over. It was really fun!!!

You can see the pink covered boys behind. Aren’t these dresses beautiful!

Here we are on top of the Temple that the boy brought us up. Behind us is the Palace. (ladies, please no do- rag comments).

This is a view in the other direction.. we LOVED it here (click to enlarge)

At the market they sell this bright powder. They call it incense… but it just looks like colored powder to us. It’s the same stuff they put on there foreheads.

In Khajuraho, we turned to the temples for some advice how to have a successful relationship!! (click to enlarge)

And how to have an unsuccessful relationship….

Seriously, this temple below was just one of the 7 temples that are covered in these detailed Kharma Sutra sculptures.

Todd also partook in the Indian custom of gettting a street shave. It was a Hoot!

That’s it for now… we’ll keep you posted!!

Wow… It has been a long time since our last entry. We stayed in Varanassi longer than intended because we got caught up in shopping. Besides being the holiest city, it is also known for its silk factorys. We burned a little hole in our pockets. We moved on from Varanassi to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Our plan was perfect, we thought. We arrive late at night, wake up early go to the Taj, and jet out of the big gross city that evening. EXCEPT…. The Taj was CLOSED. Aparently, the Taj is closed every friday (where is OCD Lisa when you need her). It was like ….. Wally world is closed… we felt like the Griswalds. So, the Taj was really nice from the outside. We took lots of pictures from the roof of our hotel, and looked at some postcards. On the plus side, Agra is known for being a very difficult city because of all the tourists and we got to see a diffferent side of the city… not the Taj Mahal side!!
In Agra we had to wait a few hours at the train station. We were very entertained by tons of monkeys. We were sitting on a bench and felt something. Todd looked up and it was the monkeys throwing stuff at us. They are so mischievious, like 8 year old boys.
From Agra we moved onto a town called Udaipur. It is a smaller village in Rajasthan on a lake. Its where the James Bond Octopussy was filmed. We got a nice little room on the lake and relaxed, and recooperated from the cities for a few days. We intended on renting a motorcycle for the day to cruise around, but Todd failed the driving test!! This is where we hopped onto our first all night bus… Oh what fun!
We arrived in Jaisalmer, in western Rajasthan… the desert. When our bus pulled in we were attacked by touts (people trying to get us to go to their hotel, rickshaw,shop etc.). It was awful. It felt like in the cartoons, when they look at something and it turns into $$. It was the first time that Lisa actually cursed at someone (in India that is). After much hassle, we avioded them all and started walking up to the fort that Jaisalmer is famous for. We teamed up with a couple of european girls that we met on the bus. Jaisalmer is a beautiful town in The desert, but has been spoiled by the huge amount of tourist. It was nearly impossible to enjoy the fort through the constant calls of “come in my shop”, “looking is free, me friend” and “rickshaw, rickshaw”.
So we headed out on a camel safari with Gaia and Claudia (from the bus), and another guy from Bombay. We each had our own camel and started treking!!! There were 3 wonderful desert men with us. We went through the desert, stopping in the shade to cook lunch, it amazing what a good meal they can cook up. True Indian food in the middle of a desert over a wood fire. There are these little villages in the middle of the desert, and it’s like… HUH, why is this here???? We stopped at one and picked up some desert whiskey. Its like the Indian equivalent of moonshine. We got to our dune and stopped for the night. Our desert men, cooked up dinner and we danced and sang (with help from the whiskey) under the stars. Todd was break dancin’. He invented the Camel. It was a perfect evening… Until we woke up with unbelievably sore legs and had to get back on the camels. It was a really fun thing to do, and our little group of people was perfect. We laughed a lot, at the the camels especially. They are such strange animals, and man do they fart a lot!!
We will update the ‘check the map’ link so you can see where we have been, unfortunatly the high speed internet place we finally found doesn’t have a driver reader for us to upload pictures. I guess we take what we can get around here……
We’ll keep you posted!!!

For those of you who believe we are on a relaxing vacation around the world, we would like to share the story of our last few days!!

Objective: Jaisalmer to Amritsar, to see the famous Sihk golden temple.

We left Jaisalmer on a 6 a.m. bus to Bikanear. We arrrived 6 hours later to find out that the 3:30 train we were going to take was full. After MUCH hassle we arranged to take a 9 pm local train to Bethinda, a diffferent station, where we would be able to connect to go to Amritsar. The local train was quite an akward experience. Lisa woke up with about 5 men staring at her. Not looking at her… staring, like they never saw a white girl before. We arrived in Bethinda at 7 am. We are under the impression that Bethinda has never seen a tourist before!! No one spoke English, even in the enquiry office. Eventually we found out that the train to Amritsar had already left, and no busses. Or thats what we think they were telling us!! But.. our commen sense took us to the bus station where we were pushed onto a bus going to Amritsar. This bus was SOOOO ghetto. It was filthy, and had bench seats like a school bus. To top it off, we were in the last row… and believe us when we tell you these busses ain’t got no shocks!! They pack so many people in the bus they are coming out the doors and some people even go on the roof. Also when they let people off at the smaller stops they don’t even stop, they just slow down and people jump on and off. It’s Nuts. We arrive at 1:00 in Amritsar!!!!!

This story is not over…..

The Golden Temple is where the Sihk’s make there pilgramage to. It is packed with Indian tourist. We struggled to find a decent place to stay. By the time we got one washed up and went to eat, it was 4:00. We were a mess!! A little food and a walk around the temple helped us out but we were dragging ass. We were seriously looking forward to a shower and bed!!!!. However, as Lisa fell onto the bed, she spied BED BUGS!!!!!!! It only took us about 5 minutes to pack up and get the flock out of there (mind you, we still haven’t even showered). We read about a freindly tourist guest house outside of town, and decided to head there. We grabbed a cycle rickshaw and started going. Except, our non-English speaking driver had no idea where to go and took us all over town. We even had to get off the rickshaw and help push it up a hill. But, then we arrived at the hotel, got a room (with HBO), took a shower and colapsed!!

Amritsar was really great though. It is spectacular, and amazing to see all the people coming to pray. It is in Punjab, so everyone wears cool bright turbans, pointy shoes, silver daggers and those funny moustaches. It was a hoot, until we got back on the bus, which broke down on the way here!! We are now finally up north in the mountains. We are in a town called Mcleod Ganj. It is a beautiful little village full of Tibetans. It is also the home of the Dalai Lama. This town is great!! It is perfect weather, beautiful mountains and full of Buddhists!! Not to mention they have delicious food here.

We were able to upload but we have been in this cafe to long, so no captions… just pictures. We miss everyone lots. It feels like we have been gone forever!!!

Just a little note– You will notice the picture of Todd reading… of WHAT.. yes Todd finished a whole entire book!! (Davinci Code). Lisa is so proud of him.. who says you can’t change a man!

Thank you guys for your concern about the earthquake. To be honest, It shook the bed and woke us up.. but that was about it. We actually had no idea that it was a major quake. It was probably in the paper… but we don’t read hindu!!!

Anyways, Mcleod Ganj was a very interesting town. It was very taken over by western hippie type people in Indian scarfs. After being in the rest of India it was a big change. One day we even had carrot cake and cappaccino’s for lunch!!!! We have this theory about the place: It’s a symbiotic relationship (we think). The Buddhists/Tibetans have a lot of spirituality, and need money. The westerners have a lot of money, but want spirituality. We liked the food!! Our last day there was probably the best day we have had so far… very spiritual. We started the day by getting 90 min ayurvedic massages (for about $11). Then we went on a hike up through the Himalayas. We were hiking up to a waterfall. The mountains are so huge and gorgeous (and decorated with Tibetan freedom flags). And the air is so crisp and cool. We went way up to the waterfall and discovered this chill out cafe. Seriously.. up in the middle of the mountain, next to the waterfall was this stone house (with no walls) that had pillows to sit on and smoothe slate stones that had been painted by previous spiritual wanderers. We got some chai and started talking to another couple. We ended up hanging out there for hours!! It was sooooo relaxing. It was a much welcomed change. Then we headed back down and got on a night bus (AGRHHH) to an town called Manali. We stumbled off the bus at about 4:30 am battered and bruised. For real.. we had the last row of the bus and our super speady (we arrived 2hours early) bus driver flung us out of the seat a few times. OUCH!!
We took tuk tuk up the hill from Manali to a town called Vashist.

Vashist is a small mountain town, surrounded by apple orchards, waterfalls and tons of marajuana. We now know why it is called weed.. but of course we didn’t pick any or stay an extra day so it could dry. It’s the kind of town where everyone had there own cow tied up in front of there house that was built entirely from stones. It is pretty much the end of the tourist season there because it is starting to get cold, so the town was very sleepy. In the middle of the town is a hot spring, but we didn’t go because we have a slight hygiene phobia in India. We hiked around the mountains a bunch and spent a lot of time drinking chai on the roof with our neighbors who are traveling for 9 months with there 5 year old son. You know where we got the idea from if we decide to do it!! We were in Vashist during the earthquake. wow– we just looked on cnn.com..thank shiva and buddha we are safe!!
Up here in the north is is filled with Israeli’s. Its really ridiculous. Indian people even speak hebrew to us and there are signs in hebrew. Apparently, they like to smoke the pot and rent motorcycles and cruise around the mountains, at least thats what our hotel guy told us!
We are currently en route to our 10 day grand finale yoga retreat in a small village called Uttarkashi. Lisa will celebrate her 28th birthday drinking tea and meditating at 5 am….WHAT!! Guess she’ll have to make up for it on Todds 30th!! We don’t know if there will be Internet or not. The website of the place we are going is:
http://www.sivananda.org/uttarkashi/
Love you all…..

Since we got a few comments on Todd’s hair, we thought we would share the funny story behind it. Todd decided that a hair cut would be a good thing to in lieu of seeing the Taj Mahal. He was looking for a place with electric clippers. Lisa reminded him that we are in a country that cuts grass with scissors (really) and doesn;t have washing machines. After seeing the handy scissor work of some boys, he went ahead and sat down for a cut ( after a good price haggling of course). It got dark, and they lit some candles, and cut Todds hair by candle light. We were cracking up. Todd wanted electric clippers… he didn’t even get electricity. He did get a good haircut though!!

The anticipation of our yoga retreat has been getting us through all of the tough days here. We woke up on sunday morning, headed to the train station to buy the tickets that we need to get back to Bombay after our retreat, then navigated ourselves to the place where we could get a share jeep up into the mountains. The jeep was pretty cool… until they shoved 10 of us into it!! We headed up into the Himalayas, following the Ganges river to its source. The ride was unbelievably gourgeous… and unbelievably NAUSIATING!!! (we think dramamine is the only med we didn’t pack). We got to the town of Uttarkashi (aka ubertushi). We decided to eat some dinner before embarking on the final 10 km. While we were eating we thought it would be a good idea to call ahead. Perhaps we should have thought of this 10 hours prior.
Todd spoke first with the woman at the center, who apparently had no recollection of us, not to mention that the yoga vacation we had signed up for was not happening!!!
Lisa spoke with her the second time, but had to hang up because she started crying.
We were just kinda like “HUH?? why the F- are we in ubertushi then”. It was a little much to try and understand, because this lady on the phone was like “what do you want me to do”. We had all of the information, including this woman’s name, written down in front of us, but it didn’t seem to matter. So, we did what any American couple would do… we bought lots of junk food and got a hotel room with cable TV.
We woke up in the morning, got back into a jeep and headed back down. This time we made sure to sit in the front seats with the driver. We just thought of it as a scenic 2 day jeep adventure through the Himalayas. We also learned that it is not customary for drivers to pull over when passengers are sick, you simply stick your head out the window….. NASTY. We had some serious sickness going on (not from us in the front seats).
Not to worry though, because we are back in the town of Rishikesh, which is legendary for yoga. The Beatles even came here in 1968. Lisa has been testing out some yoga classes and is determined to find another Yoga retreat to end our journey. It’s looking hopeful.
– just a little story while we wait for the pics to upload–
Rishikesh is full of people right now for some festival so here are slim pickin’s on rooms. The first one we got was to loud so we decided to move. We found a place that is set off the main road, quite and very homely. The only problem with the room was the bathroom. It was just that youth hostel kind of grunge. Lisa figured it was best to take the matter into her own hands and clean it herself. She asked for something to clean with. The guy in the front insisted that they did it for us. We were very impressed considering we are only paying 150 rupees a night ($3.50). So, the guy came in, filled a bucket with water, poured it on the floor and left. It hard to even write this story because we are laughing so hard. Lisa went out and politely asked for some soap, perhaps? The guy had to run to the store to get some. He came back with a packet of laundry detergent. Then Lisa made the bold request of a rag. The guy came back with a pair of cotton pants and scissors. Now our toilet smells better than our clothes!!

Here we are in McLeod Ganj hiking to the waterfall

This is a picture of the shiva cafe up at the top. The pic does no justice to how cool of a place it is.

These are all pics of Vashist. They dry corn on there roofs to feed there cows in the winter. We loved this town!!

This one is from the window of our scenic jeep adventure. We made it blurry to give it effect!!

This is where we are now, in the holy town of Rishikesh. The whole town is vegetarian (not even eggs) and no booze!!!

We found a great yoga course to take. This guy is Uber serious though. He grew up at the Sivananda Ashram and is one of Swami somethingorothers disciples. We have class twice a day at 6am and 4pm. So far so good, we are feeling very……flexible. Our teacher believes in the deep powers of … Breathing.. so we have been chanting “ooooooommmmmmmm” a lot.

You can check out the website… www.yogahut.org.

We’ll keep you posted!!

Well…. today is our last day in India. We finished our yoga class and headed into the mountains for our last couple of days. The yoga course was very enlightening. It may have been a little too much enlightenment, but nevertheless we appreciate being able to study yoga from a teacher who is so spiritual, in the area where yoga is so well renowned. The mountians were beautiful. The snow peaked Himalayas were a spectacular sight. Unfourtunatly it was too cold for us, so we left after just a few days and spent the end of our time in a town called Haridwar. Haridwar is the holiest of holiest Hindu towns so there were all sorts of religious wierdos around (no offense if there are any religious wierdos reading this!!) It was very interesting. The last 2 days we have been in transit to Bombay to catch our flight. We left Haridwar at 6 am and arrived in Delhi at 12. We planned on catching a few sights in Delhi before our next train, but first we needed lunch. We wandered around trying to decide where to eat…… we ended up at Pizza hut… and it was the best damn pizza hut experience we have ever had!!! After pizza hut, we went to a chain coffee shop and got lattes, and then headed back to the train station. We loved Delhi!!
We took a 16 hour overnight train to Bombay. We splurged and took the VIP train. It was so nice (comparatively). They fed us and gave us sheets for our berths (we like that word). We actually got a full nights sleep (thanks vitamin A) and arrived in Bombay this morning. We are currently wasting time –translated to wasting money— waiting to do our last Indian bargain for a taxi to the airport. Thailand here we come!!!!!

It is so strange that our time in India is over. It feels like no time ago we arrived here, ready to catch the first plane out of here. Just a few last thoughts about this country, please forgive us if this rambles on….
This country is like a love/ hate place. It is SO gross at times. The smells on the street, the poverty, the spitting and constant lugie sound. The dirt and filth, the people trying to rip you off, the pollution, the bathing in filthy water.. and did we mention the intense nasty smells that smack you on the nose out of no where when you walk down the street. Serious sensory overload….
But then why did we enjoy it so much here???? It’s so crazy, around all of this filth and poverty there is a wonderful country. We have met welcoming and kind people. We have eaten scrumptous food. We have witnessed holy, god hindu things we can’t describe. We have attended to our deep inner-selves (the words of our yoga teacher). We have been so far to the egde that all we could do was laugh our way back. We even saw a one legged man sweeping the street at 5 am!! We have been crammed into busses, trains and rickshaws. We have seen women mowing lawns with scissors. Honestly, we have had an incredible experience…. and it only makes us look forward to the future. So far we still intend on spending it together!!

Now for “Spotlight on Indian Cuisine”
It’s like we just figured out what all–most– of the dishes on the menu are, and now we have to go!! Our favorites are the Chana Masala (chickpeas in a rich, thick brown curry gravy with hints of nutmeg and cinnamon), Veg Kofta (boiled potatoes mushed into balls with some veggies, then fried and smothered in a tomato, onion, cumin curry sauce), Raita (its really only curd with some tomatoes, cukes and onion sprinked with masala.. but its so damn good!) and of course we LOVE the Chapatis (whole wheat flour and water tortillas cooked in the tandori). Oh.. how could we forget our Masala Chai (milk tea with ginger, cardamon, cinnamon and clove)…mmmmm. Yeah and also the Masala Dosa ( a south Indian dish made with a thin rice pancake that really big and stuffed with spicy potatoes served with a coconut chutney and some spicy red soupy sauce) Ok we gotta go eat dinner…. yummy thoughts!!!

—oh yeah, Lisa had a wonderful birthday, although it started at 6 am doing Yoga. Thanks for all the birthday wishes!! I was unable to score any under the counter booze, but don’t worry we had a good time (wink wink).

But we are not complaining about it!!! We arrived in Bangkok safe and tired. We caught a train and a boat and we are now on the Island of Koh Tao. It is more beautiful than we expected. We are researching which place to do our dive certification class, and will tell you all about it once it starts. It is a hygienic shock to our system to be out of India.

Much Love

The water is perfectly clear turquoise, the sand is fine and white, and the mountains are spectacularily luscious and green. We have found paradise. We have become totally relaxed and think we may stay here forever!!! We found a great ’scuba resort’ and have started our PADI open water dive certification course. Acommodations are not to shabby. We have a beachfront bamboo bungalow. We are really sad that our friends that said they would meet us here were unable to (you know who you all are). But we understand… “it’s to expensive”. I mean our BEACHFRONT BUNGALOW is costing us a whopping $5 a day… Saddle up for Bali guys!!!!!

You can see what you’re missing at: kohtaoseashell.com

We have to go to sleep now, because we have to wake up early to scuba dive with whale sharks!!!

Below are a few last pictures from India and the rest from here… Enjoy

While we wait for the photos—— a few weeks ago our ipod broke. It just froze up on us. We tried and tried to fix it. We stared at it hopelessly for hours. How can we make it 7 more months with no music?? and will we have to carry this expensive piece of shit with us??? Believe us when we tell you they dont have apple computers in the internet cafes. Our depression over this issuse has been growing more and more severe. Not only would we not have music, but it was also how we planned on storing our digital photos. Thank god we havent put any on it yet!!!

Well when we arrive here in Koh Toa, paradise answered our prayers (really our curses). We found a british guy here that not only has a mac… but knows how to do computer stuff. It’s not totally a happy ending though. In order to restore our ipod, he had to erase everything on it. So all of our music is gone (and all of Brandans hard work), but at least we have his. And he’s even got LL cool J !! We feel confident saying that the ipod is the most expensive piece of shit we own!!!

INDIA–

Here is Todd being a real man and strapping our bags on top of the bus. please turn head to notice the puke out the window. Like we said, the bus drivers do not stop for sick passengers!!

In India they don’t use silverware- they just smush all the food around and eat with there finger. We figured out how to use pieces of chapati as silverware. We are happy to be using forks again!!

Here are pic's of our Bungalow and its views: