Checking into an ahsram

we have made it to Rishikesh safely. from delhi it took a 4am taxi ride, a 12 hour train, 2 rickshaws, and a 3-4 mile walk. the capital of yoga is pretty impressive. there are ashrams people meditating everywhere. the city that we got to is really buisy. we wanted to find an ashram, but the city had some crazy hectic energy so we didnt sight up for anything immidiately. yesterday we walked up the ganges river. it was really cool. we were walking into the base of the himilayas. we swam with a bunch of kids at a bridge and ran into an american gap year program. the ganges and the himilayas are incredible. after a long walk we ran into a secluded and quiet ashram on the shore of the ganges. after talking with the head of the ashram, we signed up immidiately. im excited about the yoga classes, meditation classes, guided relaxation, breath-awareness class, 6 hours of speech-less silence, and hanging out with olded bearded gurus. we check in tomorrow at 1pm. it is so strict and organized i kind of feel like i am checking into rehab. so good bye for the next week.

Enroute to Rishikesh

38 hours on a train is plenty of time. roarke and i just got to new delhi this morning around 6am, checked into some nasty downtown guest house, and are now wondering around delhi. i have discovered that travelling itself is a fun adventure. i spent probably 10 hours standing at an open doorway on the train and watching the country roll by tree by tree. it was a good place to think. and with nothing else to do, i did a lot of thinking. the only downside of standing/leaning out of the train to breath fresh air was that occasionally i got hit by stuff. once and a while there was a spray of liquid that would hit me at 50-60 miles an hour. i had nothing to do but think, so i came to the conclusion that i was being hit by bathroom liquids for hours. oh well.

rishikesh should be great. as my mom just informed me through here email, it is the yoga capital of the world. so i plan to do some yoga there. apparently you can live at an ashram for a week and live under strict rules and do nothing but yoga/meditation. it sounds cool and i hope it works out. we get on a 5am train to get to rishikesh tomorrow morning. fingers crossed....

Hampi is still the best

Hanging out in Hampi is an unfair amount of fun. i'm having so much fun, i figure that i must be cheating the system somehow. Roarke and i have been able to find i rhythm of life here that is perfect. the last week or so have been great. we have explored all of the temples imagineable, climbed a bunch of rocks, and hung out with a lot of cool people. the last week has been almost entirely climbing and hiking around the huge granite boulders, rice fields, palm trees, and dirt roads. we were able to rent a crash pad from a local guy, allowing us to get a little more aggressive with our climbing. its been really fun, i have definately improved my climbing skills in the last week. in retrospect, it seems like we havent done that much. but, we are having too much fun here to think about stopping. but, i can feel that the time is coming to get back on the road to travel.

currently we are looking for trains to get north. eventually, we would like to end up trekking in nepal by october. but that is too far in advance for us to plan, so we are looking at 40 hour train rides to new delhi. after that loongggggggg ride we would hope to head to the town of rishikesh. we have heard great things from fellow travellers and the source of the ganges river has to be cool.

as our fantastic extended stay in hampi is comming to an end i am excited about all the adventures i have ahead of me. north india and nepal sound awesome and travelling is always a good experience. im always trying to keep in mind how lucky i am to be having fun, staying safe, and staying healthy.

Hampi is the best

Getting to Hampi from Goa was super easy once we got on the train. the ride went through some of the most spectacular green rice fields, jungles, and waterfalls i've ever seen. everything on the train was pretty dirty and smelled like sweat and poop, but ive gotten used to the smell a little bit. and i still haven't been sick at all here, so the weird smells are less scary and gross.

Hampi might be one of the greatest places to be in the world. Hampi Bazaar is a small bustling town covered with vendors, restaurants, ancient ruins, elephants, and monkeys. this is where we are currently staying for about $4 dollars a night. 30-40 miles of huge granite boulders, slow moving rivers, and ancient Hindu, Muslim, and Christian ruins surrounds us. We are having an absolute ball. yesterday we wandered through enormous temples with ornate carvings on every granite pillar to a swim spot we found on the river. it has gotten really hot here anytime after about noon. so, swimming is a necessity. then, we found some great boulders to climb in the shade. Hampi has definitely made it worth bringing my climbing shoes in my backpack. i'm still not very good at bouldering, but there is plenty of time and room for practice here. I was also able to go on a run through some banana feilds, satisfying some of my primal needs. I really enjoyed the run and can guarantee more.

I am becoming a bigger part of the 'asian backpacking community here'. its pretty fun. there are a handful of European backpackers that are doing the exact same thing as us. we've met up with two British girls that we originally met in Goa. we've spent the last few days exploring and climbing with them. it is really nice to share our excitement of adventure and love of this place with new friends.

The plan today is to rent bikes, for about 60 cents, and bike around the greater area trying to explore all of the ruins that we can. We did this a little last night as the sun set. it was awesome. the scale of the buildings and the fact that they seem to be everywhere that we go makes this extremely fun to explore.

we are thinking of moving away from the center of the the town, across the river, to a much mellower scene. the guesthouse would be a lot cheaper and there will be a lot less tourist-related vending. also, that is where international bouldering competitions happen. 'The Hampi Boulders' are calling our names.

we have little to now plan to leave this place any time soon. it is too much fun to want to go anywhere else. i figure that the two biggest worries i have are: what curry to eat, and watch out for monkey attacks. the only sort of plan i have is to get to Nepal by october. we'll worry about travel arrangements later, because we are having too much fun to think about anything else.

The last week was great. Getting out of Mumbai was the best thing that could have happened sooner. as soon as roarke and i got to Goa, everything got better. after arriving in the tourist destination, we realized that tourist destinations arent entirely bad. before i left, i wanted to go places where no tourists went. this is a terrible idea. the label 'tourist destination' simply means that people want to go there. there were plenty of places to stay and things to eat. the intensity of our surroundings and my internal stress level decreased immediately.

for the first two nights, we were staying at a hotel near the beach that was out of our price range. the beach was covered in garbage swept up from the ocean and busy with traffic walking up and down it. This was where we first encountered people begging for our money. a friend that helped us find our way explained, "an american is an atm to an indian". this couldnt have been more true. saying 'no thanks, im ok' gets hard when everyone is constantly trying to sell you jewelry and t shirts. with the ups and downs of staying in a tourist spot well understood, we hiked along the undeveloped rocky shore to the north. we discovered a much mellower beach and town. we wandered down to buy some water and quickly decided that we should stay there. the next day we hiked through the small roads with our backpacks to Anjuna.

we stayed at a place called 'Curlie's'. it had a guest house about 300 yards from the beach for about 6 dollars a night and a beachside restaurant in the sand. nobody was there to sell you anything and there was little trash covering the beach. while relaxing in this village, still recovering from the hectic Mumbai days, we couldnt help but befriend people. Everyone wanted to take our picture, talk with us, and invite them to their houses. at first, we were very skeptical that everyone was trying to scam us or kidnap us. after one invitation, we decided that we trusted these people enough for them to pick us up and go to their house for dinner. we rationalized the decision this way: there is no way that it wont be a good story, and we will bring our leatherman multitools (knives). roarke summed up our fear well by questioning the use of the small pocket knives, "they won't be much good when we are in their cages." but dinner went well. we learned a lot of hindi words and customs and watched cricket and bollywood in their house.

we have just taken 4 or 5 buses to get to a train station in Margao. Margao is terrible and leaving tomorrow morning will be great. we are headed to Hospet and then to Hampi. Hampi should be great. we've heard great things: cheap rooms and food, sacred temples, 'the best sunset in india, rock climbing, and cliff jumping. our hopes are high and we are wishing for the best.

I am here now. Travelling to India went relatively smoothly. After a wild afternoon in Amsterdam, we took a plane to Mumbai. We arrived in monsoon rains that flooded the streets into rivers. Also, there was a big festival for Ganesha (the elephant one). and apparently, nobody works on that day. so, roarke and i were 'helped' by someone who contacted our hotel arrangements and informed us that the reservation was not until the next day. so we got into a strange taxi and drove for about 15 minutes in the flooded streets. This was terrifying, we were not sure how badly we were getting conned. but when we checked in at a new hotel at 1am, we had to pay $100. we fell asleep slowly, not sure of what just happened and i had trouble controlling my nerves. at this point i was genuinly unhappy and scared about what had happend and what could have happend. but the next morning, this morning, was much better.

as the morning light illuminated the world around us, we saw where we where. we looked out of the decrepid hotel building onto the slums of Mumbai. It was undoubtedly surreal. Roarke and i stared out of our dirty window on the sixth floor on a busy 4 lane road and the tarp covered slums. in the first five minutes of staring in awe out the window we saw people driving and walking through the streets with purpose. there was constant movement and bustlying with a few exeptions, a few people pausing to pee against a wall on the sidewalk and someone pooping in the gutter. but odly enough, the high spirits of the young day kept me going. after an interesting omlette sandwich, we called hotel midland (the hotel we were sapossed to stay in) only to discover that we had a succesful reservation the entire time. so, we got picked up and taken to our pre paid room in Santa Cruz, Mumbai. it is outrageous. the smells, the sounds, the colors, the people are unlike anything i've ever incountered. it smells like exhaust, spices, body funk, poop, and rotting food. roarke and i wondered around the bustling city. every tuk tuk (or auto-rickshaw) buzzed by us at speeds that would be frowned upon un the US. We got lots of looks. it is easy to say that were the only white people in this area of Mumbai. i might of seen one when we were walking around, but thats not for sure. after walking around, we returned to the hotel and had some flavourful egg curry on the roof.

tomorrow, we plan to take a minor domestic flight to Goa. apparently it is 'nice' there. i hear it is india 'light'. before i came here i would have frowned un such a tourist destination. but im not now. finding poeple that are also travelling would be nice. it is weird to feel entirely different from everyone around us. the language barrier is prooving to be a bigger deal than i expected. going somewhere that is labelled as a destination for westerners might help with this. my fingers are crossed.

functioning in this environment is much harder than i anticipated. saying totally emotionally stable and sticking to a very fixed budget is prooving to be a challenge. but i feel i will learn how to cope quickly because i have no other choice. missing home, iseasy to do. home is loving and confortable. but i must come to accept that i will not be here forever, and i should enjoy it. I am very lucky to get this chance and determined to enjoy it.

(pardon any errors or typos, internet time is expensive)