Where2Next

The Homeland Revisited

2006-05-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

It seems like forever ago when Tarak and I were attacked the tailors in Hoi Ann because the next 12 days were a whirlwind trip. So there we were in Vietnam, somewhat reflecting over our world trip and going over some of the highlights..and naturally, we started talking about India. Of course, this was instigated by an e-mail from my cousin telling us that his wedding was April 17th and they wanted to let us know and understood that it would be difficult for us to come back. So there we began, first discussing the food we missed (this was ALWAYS the first thing that came up....I mean, when you're vegetarian and in a country where dead dogs are hanging from a string ready to be purchased to be eaten....selection matters). So, we first started with the fruits...chikoo, custard apple, mango, guava, lichi..and then we went for the main curry dishes..and then by the time we had hit the street vendor Indian Chinese food...one of us had already typed in on orbitz to see what a round trip ticket from Hanoi to Mumbai would cost. Now, beyond just the food...we began thinking of our families there and how so very much this would mean to them. I think if we had to pick one thing that we took away from this trip the most, it would be the importance of the people in our lives and maintaining our relationships with them. With that being said, we started thinking about the fact that realistically, if we were back home, immersed in work..we were doubtful that this impromptu trip would ever materialize....so, armed with that..we purchased 2 tickets, completely depleted our bank account, and started making lists of every food item we needed to hit in the next 11 days.
Our flight there wasn't bad, and the awesome thing was that we kept a ton of luggage at the hotel we stayed at in Hanoi..we traveled light (1 backpack). So, we landed in Mumbai, where immediately the sights, smells and the actions that only Indians take, welcomed us wholeheartedly. Let me know explain this actions comment...so, here we are in the plane that is basically just starting to land...and I emphasize "starting to land"....literally 1 wheel is about to hit the runaway...everything is still shaking and moving..I'm still nauseous.the whole bit....ONLY in a plane full of Indians, do 80% of them just start unbuckling their belts and leaping out of their seats to the overhead bins. Mind you, everywhere else (and we can attest to this) everyone just sits frozen until the little "ting" sound of the seatbelt sign goes off. Oh no..but not with a bunch of Indians who love to "hurry, hurry" only to have to "wait, wait"...anyway, the best part of the story is that, of course, the freaked out head steward quickly comes on overhead and tells everyone sternly to sit down..but 1 dude, just didn't want to listen...so, they must have sent the junior stewardess in the aisle to come and regulate. Well, basically there was a showdown between the 2 right there in front of us..and as in any "shoving" show-down, it's a no-brainer..the Indian guy took the little steward dude DOWN and ran up to the front.
Okay..so we landed safely and we were sentimental. We met up our friends Sreedevi,Vishal and Anar in Mumbai and had an amazing dinner at a Punjabi dhaba restaurant and flew out the next morning to Ahemdabad, Gujarat. As we were experts in local transportation...we busted into a rickshaw (that we got of course by walking outside of the terminal, as any local can tell you is much cheaper) and went to the central bus station where we caught an intercity bus to Vadodara (where my aunt and everybody was). Now, our trip was a complete surprise (I'm very big on these..and Tarak let's just say tolerates them)..so, we took a rickshaw and just showed up at my aunt's (masi's) house. Now, not to sound like a cheezy mastercard commercial, but that moment when we walked in, all of the women were having their henna done, and the look on my cousins, aunt and especially my 84 year old grandmother's face was worth every penny of that ticket. The wedding festivities were a blast, and our surprise arrival apparently inspired my parents to come back from the states for the wedding. So, we had 15 people in the house, great food, lots of laughing/talking and just good quality time with family. After the mehindi, there was a garba, the ganesh puja, the wedding and finally the reception. Our 11 days flew by too quickly, but of course, long enough to get sick from eating yummy but sketchy roadside food. And we flew back to Hanoi, where we experienced a little glitch. So, initially as we had not planned for India, we had gotten a single entry visa for Vietnam. Now before leaving Hanoi, as we had left nearly 80% of our stuff outside the airport, in the city, we "thought" we had gotten some type of clearance for a 1 day pass to come back in the city. Now apparently at immigrations..they didn't know anything about any sort of pass and they just put the smack down, and announced that our butts weren't going anywhere except the transit terminal for the next 12 hours...we later found out that it was election time and lucky for us, they were "cracking down" (damn communists-j/k). So, yes a little stressful...but luckily we made a friend in immigrations, who helped us call the hotel and got them to bring all 50kg of our baggage to the airport where he went with Tarak to get and clear for us. So, yet another small adventure survived..but we were banking on that 12 hour break since our journey continued for about the next 2 days...as we then flew to Soeul..to Beijing...to San Francisco..to finally....Houston. Our trip was over...we were finally (sadly) home.

Same Same But Different

2006-04-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

Well, our final adventure in Vietnam started off with a night train to the southern city of Hue. I have to say, whether we’ve just ridden too many trains in the homeland or we are just jaded, but this was one nice sleeper train. Upon arriving in Hue, we didn’t waste much time since we only had a day…we threw our stuff in our hotel and headed to the water for an afternoon boat ride down the Perfume River. Along the river, we stopped to visit some pagodas and went to 2 of the coolest royal tombs.

Warrior Statues at Emperor's Tomb

Warrior statue

Emperor's Tomb

Apparently, back in the reign of the Nguyen emperors (ranging from 1200 to 1800),each emperor built these huge totally elaborate tomb for the emperor they succeeded. It was more than just a tomb. It usually first had a steel pavilion, that listed all of the accomplishments of the emperor, then a temple-dedicated to the emperor and emperoress, a courtyard and occasionally a lotus pond. Well, in the courtyard were these amazing sculptures of foot soldiers ready for battle in gear along with elephants and the whole ordeal. Afterwards, we got back in our boat and enjoyed the sunset along the Perfume River.
The next day we set out for Hoi An…now, this is the place I was waiting for…for the historical significance, or unique culture you might ask…hell no…it was to get a ton of cheap clothes made. As we were taking a bus in from Hue to Hoi Ann, Tarak had to literally calm Anar and I down, as we went from simply admiring the rows of tailors and fun clothes..to pretty much ugly yelps of “oooohhh, I want those pants”…anyway, we settled in our hotel and then quickly set to start the clothes rampage. The best way to describe it is that it is basically this whole area with TONS, and I literally mean tons of tailors with sort of boutiques where they display all kinds of cute clothes. So, basically you can walk up to any tailor and say “hmmm, I like that shirt, but I want it with ¾ sleeves, change the color to red and black and put slits on the side” and it will literally be custom fit to your size and ready in (sometimes) 1 day. You come back for a first, and sometimes a second fitting. Well, Tarak had actually kept one of the cards of the tailors he had used 4 years ago, and we found her. Probably not surprising, we had a LOT of stuff made…we even discovered, you could get custom made shoes..that’s right..they measure both your feet, even taking multiple width measurements (so, if one’s a little bigger than the other, so will be your shoe) and then you pick the heel, the strap and whatever color you want….crazy, huh?? Needless to say, I think Tarak and I had about, oh 15 kg of stuff when we left. And we got some pretty good stuff…obviously, we couldn’t expect super high quality…but we got work shirts/slacks, silk PJ’s (don’t worry, just me), swimsuits (me again), wool coats and Tarak even got an entire suit made. The funny thing was that everywhere we went, when you asked someone, if they could make those same pants or if they had the same shirt we had seen, they wouldn’t immediately say yes, but rather what seemed like the universal response “Same, Same but different”. Well let me just say, that things were more likely to be different than “same same”…but all the sellers use that line so much, that they actually have shirts that say “same, same but different”. We almost bought one, but I think, by that time, we were big time shirted out. Tarak’s tailor, I think, was so touched that he came back and found her (and she sure as heck didn’t mind our business either)…that she treated us to dinner which we had in her boutique. She had ordered all of these amazing local Vietnamese dishes, that we definitely couldn’t find anywhere along the tourist strip. It was nice to get a chance to talk to her and learn about her life and her perspective on life in communist Vietnam.
Besides being knee-deep in getting clothes, we happened to come across some pretty cool galleries and once again enjoyed more Vietnamese coffee with French pastries. ☺

My Son, Hoi An

We also visited this place called My Son, which was about 25 km from the city and was yet another site of ancient Hindu ruins from the Champa Dynasty. Now, since we had already been to Ankgor Wat, it was hard to even compare, but it was yet again amazing to see the reign of Hindu influence so widely spread in the 12th century.

Cooking Class Hoi An

Our last day in Hoi An, Anar had gone back, and so Tarak and I had decided to take a cooking class. It was a definite must do experience. We first took a trip to the market, which was overwhelming with sights, foods and smells (very pungent). We then took a boat ride out to the Red River Bridge Cooking school, where we first got a tour of the amazing herb garden…I mean, superb Vietnamese cilantro and Thai basil..along with this disgusting sweet potato herb that reeked of fish. Anyway, in class, we learned to make eggplant in a claypot, stir fry tofu in pineapple, rice paper and then we actually made spring rolls. We then got to enjoy the fruits of our labor and had a great dinner before our boatride back to the mainland.
Well, our initial itinerary was to go down further south to see the DMZ (demilitarized zone) and the Mekong Delta, but we literally made this crazy spontaneous change in our plans. Even though we would have loved to see more of Vietnam, our hearts were longing to go back to India before coming back home. Since we knew my cousin was getting married and we did keep talking a lot about how much we missed the India, we literally within 2 days had bought 2 round trip tickets from Hanoi to Mumbai. We decided to surprise my family and just show up at the door right before the wedding festivities started…so, just like that, we were heading back to India for a quick 10 days….

Baguettes and chocolate

2006-04-19T00:03:00.000-07:00

Perfume Temple

From the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat, we flew into Hanoi, the capital city of communist Vietnam. This was one of the places that Tarak had already been and I KEPT hearing about...you know things like "When we were in Vietnam....", or "Well, in Vietnam..."...or his favorite line "Like the shirt?...Vietnam..2 dollars"....anyway, it was easy to see why people fall in love with this country. A little similar to Cambodia, in that, there was a definite blend of Asian and French taste but it has its own unique and incredible presence. Just at a glance, we admired the tree-lined boulevards, lakes, parks, an amazing Old Quarter, museums, tons of food stalls serving "pho" and cycle rickshaws as the tourist mode of transport...all in the pace and background of a traditional Asian city. It was crazy to think that this place had been seriously attacked and bombed (thanks to our US of A), and apparently had been dead after the partition of Vietnam in '54. A little known fact, the government was quite reluctant to tourism and the doors opened only in '99..since which, tons of people have been flooding this country. There is an amazing presence of Hoi Chi Minh, and a great respect for him that is publicly displayed throughout the country. It's funny because we grow up thinking and learning the evils of communism, but then you see people living it, who all for the most part, are quite content and always smiling, and it makes you re-evaluate our Western notions.
Well, enough of politics...our first day, after checking into probably one of our favorite hostels of the entire trip, Hanoi Guest House (just to put in a little plug), we headed out via cycle rickshaw to check out the sites. We visited the Temple of Literaure (dedicated to Confucius), One Pillar Pagoda, the Hoan Kiem Lake and wandered around the Old Quarters. The abundance of fresh, warm baguettes and chocolate croissants along with amazing strong Vietnamese coffee was much appreciated after our not so hot meal choices elsewhere in Southeast Asia. We then had dinner on the waterfront (yes, another waterfront) and watched a water puppet show. It was pretty neat...all the puppets had these little tricks they did in the water, and they even had dragons that shot off fireworks. I was fine watching the show, however if there was an English translation, I think maybe Tarak and Anar, wouldn't have been dozing or doing the countdown of how many items were still left. I should share our only negative experience...it was during shopping..now Tarak and I shop the Indian bargaining way...where we look at items casually (the more we like them, the more casually we look at them...very noncommital...this, FYI, is KEY)..then ask the price...then offer half (no more, no less)....and walk away without looking, and then let the people come after us. Well, dear god, Tarak was looking at this belt and then after trying it on, he decided he genuinely didn't want it...Anar and I walked away and the lady kept trying to get him to buy this cheap belt....he, being so nice, kept standing there, politely saying no...well, then the freak lady actually STRUCK my husband with the belt..and not even the strap, but the buckle....so, after I found out what happened...I marched up to her (note, her entire English vocab was probably generously around 20 words)...and I yelled at her like she was 2 "why did you hit my husband?? That was rude and not nice". So, then her posse of friends, who I'm sure were worried about a potential showdown between this girl (who was probably 17, and 80 pounds dripping wet) and the angry foreign girl...well, they came and pushed me away....so, I did what I do best...I gave her a REALLY mean glare and walked away.
Well, the next day, we set made a day trip to visit the Perfume Pagoda. It is basically a bunch of pagodas and Buddhist shrines built into the limestone cliffs of the surrounding moutain. The name of the mountain is "Mountain of the Fragrant Traces"..hence, the name. But the best part was probably the 1 1/2 hour scenic boat ride through rice paddies and the local village to get to the pagodas.

Scenic boat ride

We then set out for a 2 day, 1 night trip to visit the world heritage site, Halong Bay. It definitely was one of the most incredible sites we saw in Vietnam...it consists of nearly 3,000 islands that jet out from the beautiful waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.

Halong Bay

If that name rings a bell, it should, because it's where America initially got involved in the war in Vietnam (I'll just leave it at that). Along with the islands, there are small beaches and caves that make for some amazing views. Halong, which means where the dragon descends, according to legend, was created by the flailing tail of a great dragon that was running down the coast.

Well, after visiting a massive limestone cave we sailed off to the Halong Bay, where we soaked in the great scenery and had a huge feast on our boat. The next morning, we kayaked to this enchanting secluded lagoon admist the Bay.

Kayaking Halong Bay

Then after lunch on the boat, we headed back to Hanoi and as we rested up for our trip to South Vietnam.

Kingdom of Cambodia

2006-04-13T00:14:00.000-07:00

So our next stop through southeast Asia was the incredible country of Cambodia. Now, I gotta be honest...before this trip, all I knew about Cambodia was a vague (and I mean vague) recollection of some cruel genocide at some point in time. And even though our stay was quite short, it was an action packed trip with a ton of culture, history and as always, shopping in the agenda.

Royal Palace

We flew into the capital of Phnom Penh, which sits at the union of 3 rivers and is an extremely charming French-influenced Indochinese city. So, time for a few facts..early Cambodia (super early, 100 A.D) was heavily influenced by India (love it!). In fact, the religion, art and even language took deep root in this period, known as "Funan" era which lasted well into the 6th century. Besides Indian influenced rule, Cambodia was ruled by leaders from Thailand, Vietnam and Mongols before the French just basically took over in the late 1800's. The reason for all of these fun facts..besides the fact that they are of course fun, is that it sets the scene for this city. There is a cool blend of these different cultures and ideas. We didn't have much time but we were able to see the ancient Silver Pagoda, the Buddist temple-monasteries known as Wats, what remains of the French colonial architecture and enjoy a fabulous Italian dinner along the serene riverfront.

leaving the monastery

We actually met up our friends Seema and Anar who were part of our Cambodian adventure tour...and after a nice happy lunch, we were in for a brutally eye opening look at this country's bloody history. So, as I was eluding to, Cambodia's history is not only violent but actually scary recent. The rule of the Khmer Rouge (which began in the early 1970's), started initially as an offshoot from a revolutionary movement against the widespread corruption that was destroying the country.

S21

The initial intention of this regime was to turn Cambodia into a Maoist, peasant dominated farming cooperative, however the way this was gone about was completely appalling in that it was executed as a "cleansing" mission. A couple of the places we visited were S21, which was a high school turned into a torture and dentention center and then the Killing Fields, where in the span of 3 years, 17,000 innocent people were basically taken to be killed and buried in mass graves. An extremely disturbing fact that we learned was that in the 3 year period of Khmer Rouge (1975-1978), approximately 2 million people were killed. It was extremely depressing and quite surreal being there, in those fields, seeing and stepping on the skulls and bones of the victims that still lie embedded in the ground and to know that there were numerous mass graves yet to be unearthed, made us shudder and think that was some type of ancient cruelty from centuries ago rather than just 30 years....it was devastating to see how much evil there is despite how far we've come.
On a lighter note (I'm sorry..there is NO good transition from that..I tried to think of soemething witty but I thought it would just come out tacky) after we drank ourselves to numb those disturbing sights, we headed out to the city of Siem Reap.

Angkor Wat

Here lies the absolutely breathing temples of Angkor, the ancient capital of the Cambodian empire from the 9th to 14th century. We got a 3 day pass to try to see as many of the more than hundreds of temples that were built that basically represented the political, social and religious epicenter of a civilization that had a population of 1 million people (that's a lot of people in the 10th century)!! As I mentioned earlier, this period was heavily influenced by India and therefore in these temples, reside a large number of Hindu sculptures and dieties. The most famous temple is Angkor Wat, which we visited at sunrise and was awe-inspiring in its magnitude and beauty. Some of our favorite temples were the Banteay Srei, Ta Prohm and the Bayon. It was indescribeable walking around and immersing ourselves in these beautifully sculpted relics for 3 entire days.

Ta Prohm

Not to put a damper on things, but of course, these structures were also all heavily bombed and damaged during the Khmer Rounge, but thankfully are undergoing serious rennovation. All in all, it was definitely one of the most spectacular sights on our entire trip and it is amazing that these ancient ruins were just recently discovered in the 1800's.
Next, we went back to Phnom Penh, and relaxed for an evening before we headed out for our last world trip destination: Vietnam!!

Dragon Tales

2006-04-02T01:12:00.000-08:00

After our paradise in Ubud, we explored the island of Lombok and visited the highly touristed Gili Islands...we definitely had some amazing snorkeling and diving experiences....you know...more sharks, sea turtles, stingrays, beautiful coral...same old, same old..:) But then we were off to a much awaited destination.
Besides the Galapagos, the only other place Tarak has been talking my ear off about, is Komodo Island…why you ask….well the Komodo dragon of course…so, we set off from the island of Lombok on a painful nearly 24 hour bus journey to the port city of Sape, off the coast of Sumbawa. Once we arrived we had a SLIGHT problem. The next ferry, which was supposed to leave daily was “scheduled” to leave three days later. We knew if we wanted to see the dragons and some of the countryside of Flores this called for desperate measures. We chartered our own private boat….and let me tell you that this ain’t no love boat...it was a dingy, musty, tiny and overall quite sketchy fishing..yes fishing boat, to take us around the islands for a couple of days. So, anyway, after avoiding eye contact with all of the freaks in the harbor who had some strange fascination with India, particularly Bollywood...and who kept asking us whether we were in the industry or then proceeded to list the names of all 20 actors/actresses they knew…we made some shady deal with the only dude that could speak English. We awoke at 3am and boarded the tiny boat in the pouring rain to join our whopping 2 man crew, neither of whom spoke English, to make the almost 6 hour journey to the islands. Man, we kept wondering if we were crazy..let’s see…small fishing boat…Indian Ocean…no lifejackets….no radio or any form of communication…rough seas, pouring rain……hmmm..yes, we pretty much had lost our minds.

Our fishing boat

It didn’t help that passages from the book Life of Pi kept whizzing through our heads. But, we made it and spent a night on Komodo island. Was it worth it?? I gotta admit that the dragons were pretty cool. Let me explain that they aren’t exactly “dragons”, but in the family of what is called, monitor lizards. How to describe them?? Well they are massive, weighing up to a 100kg, with powerful bodies that can attack and kill larger opponents like freakin’ wild buffalo or horses and apparently can swallow a goal WHOLE (that's just sick). Not to mention their saliva harbors bacteria which can be as deadly as poison. This of course, was exceedingly cool to Tarak…and the fact that there had also been some tourist fatalities, just added to his excitement. Regardless it was pretty amazing to be standing just a few feet from them watching them in awe (and terror quite frankly). We also went snorkeling in Red Beach and saw some incredibly preserved colorful coral and tons of fish but we got attacked by a freakin’ army of crazy jellyfish.

Komodo Dragon

After 2 days of sea adventure, we made it to the island of Flores on the coastal city of Labuanbajo and enjoyed a beautiful sunset and the famous local avocado milkshake (sounds gross huh? But very good). Well, we then set off for a 5 day trip deeper into the island to get a glimpse and a feel of the traditional villages and culture. We went through the cities of Rutung, Bajawa and Moni. Here we got to see the local processing of “arak” (palm) wine, the traditional Ngada people and their customs, and some beautiful lush scenery. We got a chance to walk into these traditional villages where although the religion is primarily Christianity, there is more of a fusion of animism and Christianity which includes many symbolic structures and sacrificial ceremonies. Deep in the island of Flores, lies the spectacular Kelimutu lakes..which are these 3 lakes admist volcanic craters and are believed by the locals to be inhabited by spirits of those who die. The crazy thing is that they are 3 different colors and they keep changing with time. We saw the lakes at sunrise and it was definitely a stunning sight.

Colored Lakes, Moni

Finally, after more near misses, and flight cancellations, we somehow made it back to Bali to spend 1 final night in Ubud before we set off for Bangkok.

Island of the Gods

2006-04-01T22:31:00.000-08:00

Rice fields Bali

So if Malaysia was difficult to grasp geographically, Indonesia is a crazy massive collection of 5000km of islands, rising and dipping across the equator. The instant we landed in Bali, we knew we wouldn't want to leave. We decided to focus our time in Ubud-which has a ton of Balinese Hindu temples, ancient sites, awesome art and handiwork and not to mention, great cuisine. We had decided to splurge (60 bucks a night) and we stayed in this awesome resort called Tjampuhan Hotel and Spa. We were greeted with a glass of rice wine, escorted to our room which was a beautiful bungalow overlooking lush vegetation with a natural hot springs pool. The next morning, we checked out the Monkey Forest Sanctuary (yes, more vicious moneys) where we saw the high temple of the dead. We then strolled around, and immersed ourselves (literally because it's all around you) in Balinese culture and the people.

Bali

We also checked out some of the cool temples around Ubud, the Elephant Caves, the Moon temple, Lake Batur and Gunung Kawai, which houses one of Bali’s oldest and largest monuments. One of the coolest shrines was made from carvings in a rock 7meters high, which in order to get to, we had to trek through a field of beautiful rice paddies. I think one of the reasons why we loved Bali so much is the richness of the culture and its people. As Hindus, it was fascinating for us to learn about the Balinese Hinduism, which is actually quite different from that of in India. Originating from the Majapahits who ruled Bali in the 13th century, it became a mix of the already existing Balinese beliefs and customs, which were that of animism and always present spirits. The Balinese still worship the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, but they also have a supreme god, Sanghyang Widi. And interestingly, unlike in India, where deities are freely displaced in temples, the temples in Bali consist more of intricate carvings rather than any particular diety.

Leaving the temple, Bali

Bali

We also had a chance to see traditional Balinese dancing…Kecak, Barong and Legong. Through these dances, with the accompaniment of a chanting choir, they frequently tell the story of the Ramayan and Mahabharat. The next day we went nuts at the market and the art galleries…we found some amazing paintings and handicrafts. After 3 days, we were sad to end our paradise in Ubud..but we were off to adenture by sea to the island of Lombok.

Sweet and sour pork, anyone??

2006-03-13T20:44:00.001-08:00

The capital of any country is always a great way to learn about its history, culture and the people. On the other hand, capital cities also tend to be overpopulated, over polluted, traffic jammed and crime ridden. However, as far as capitals go, Kuala Lumpur, KL (as it’s commonly called) is pretty cool. We stayed in the heart of Chinatown, and walked around the many food hawkers’ stalls, enjoyed fresh tropical chickoo and parisiman (this awesomely sweet orange looking fruit) and I ate chicken and pork!! Don’t freak out, it was mock chicken and mock sweet and sour pork…we found some pretty cool Buddhist vegetarian restaurants. KL is also home to the Petronas Towers, which rise up 452m, and as the world’s tallest building completed in 1998, its floor plan was based on an 8-sided star that is influenced by the arabesque patterns of Islamic art.

Petronas Towers

Kuala Lumpur

We then took a day trip to Batu Caves to see the well known Hindu temple that has been built actually inside the caves.
After KL, we flew north to Kota Bharu and then took a ferry to the Perhentian Islands.

Perhentian Islands

Talk about complete serenity and beauty…we were lucky to take advantage of the low season (no tourists..cheap rooms) and enjoy secluded white sand beaches and clear blue waters. We just relaxed in our beach front bungalow for about $10 a day; Tarak went diving as I was forbidden in the water with my barely healing hand wound. As if to add salt to my poor wound, Tarak went snorkeling and instead of reassuring me that I wasn’t missing anything…he of course saw a huge 5+foot black tipped shark(which was a little freaky considering he was alone snorkeling in the area), blue spotted sting rays and fish like Nemo..and he told me all about them. Anyway, it was much needed R&R after all of our running around, hiking, and jungle trekking. So after 3 days of lounging around, we flew back to Kota Bahru, had another great mock meat meal and headed to the coastal city of Penang. Penang has a lot of character and spunk…to quote Lonely Planet, it was acquired by Captain Francis Light on behalf of the East Indian Company and was renamed Prince of Wales Island. Afterwards, the city of Georgetown was established which not only has an old colonial district but also a traditional Chinatown, tons of great shopping and of course great food. At Tarak’s insistence we trudged out on a bus ride to visit the “Snake Temple”.

Snake Temple Penang

It houses several pit vipers (poisonous of course) and tree snakes; however they are supposedly “fixed and slightly doped” by the incense smoke drifting in the temple…yeah right..anyway, we also had a chance to see Penang Hill where we finally saw the Rhinoceros Hornbill and the Kek Lok Si Temple. This is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, which was founded in 1890 and is quite impressive with a 3 tiered design…Burmese at the top, Chinese at the bottom and Thai in between.

Rhinoceros Hornbill

The next day we left Penang and finished our action packed 3 week Malaysian travels and returned to Singapore to rest for a night before we head out to explore Indonesia.

The Pinnacles- "Don't Die, Don't Die"

2006-03-12T02:20:00.000-08:00

We're back from a literally whirlwind tour of Malaysia, and I had no idea how much this country has to offer!! But before, I began my sweat filled adventure about the Pinnacles, I wanted to address the requests from our loyal blog commenting buddies, Patrick and Vinney, for a map of Malaysia. If you go to this website, it will blow up and show how Malaysia is made up of Pennisular Malaysia and East Malaysia on the island of Borneo.
http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-577736-map_of_malaysia-i

Pinnacles

Take a good look at these rocks...I sure did when I finally got to the top. The Pinnacles, as they are called, are a forest of razor-sharp limestone peaks towering 45m above the rainforest...and in order to even catch a glimpse of this beauty, we had pretty extensive journey.
We left the northern part of Borneo, from Kota Kinabalu and flew to Miri. From here in order to get to Gunung Mulu National Park we took a little "otter" plane that seated only 10 people to Mulu. Once we arrived in this massive park, we visited the Deer Caves, where tons of bats exit daily at dusk and prepared ourselves for our upcoming 3 day adventure. The first morning we took a small boat ride for about an hour that took us to the jungle entry site, after which we trekked a grueling 9 km in the HOT, HUMID jungle infested with leeches, mosquitoes and other equally unfriendly creatures with ALL of our gear (which I should clarify that Tarak carried oh about 92% of the gear, and I whined about how heavy the 8% I was carrying) to finally reach Camp 5. Here we dipped in the refreshing cool waters of the river, enjoyed the serene beauty and had our first "noodle party". Our Pinnacles group consisted of 5 people, well 6, if we count our absolutely USELESS guide. It was us, a Dutch couple, and this hilarious Japanese guy, Kenta, who was fresh out of university and had enough energy for an entire tourist bus of Asian people. Anyway, we cooked our own food and basically ate Maggi/Raman noodles every night..so after our treks, we always were ready for "noodle party" as Kenta would say. Well, as we were attempting to "carb load" for the next day, I started looking through the comments book (since there wasn't much else to do, except a sketchy deck of cards with like 10 missing)....and I was a little surprised to see so many people talking about how hard it was and how some groups didn't make it up. (foreshadowing, hint hint). In fact, some hilarious person wrote about how if you wanted inspiration for the climb up, sing the song from Sienfeld “don’t die, don’t die”…I laughed at the time….but, little did I know….
After sleeping on basically a row of mats in the open air, and serving as mosquito bait, we all awoke and were ready to go by 630am. Of course, our guide has told us NOTHING...no idea what to expect..how long it will take..what we should bring, etc. Off we go..our guide leaping ahead and literally within the FIRST 200 meters, I trip over some SHARP rock and cut my hand. Only after I let out a piercingly loud scream does the guide stop and come back...I of course, am bleeding nicely and have noticed the cut is deep enough so that some of the fatty tissue is oozing out (sorry)...of course, in the states, this would require an ER visit, some good irrigating, cleaning, stitches and a lovely co-pay. What do we do?? My doctor, Tarak pours 2L of water (that we had boiled from the river-our drinking water for the trip), pulled out the pieces of rocks embedded in my hand and then dumped a bunch of iodine over it. He then busts out some steri-strips and our guide goes and gets this lovely first aid kit. We basically just wrapped it in gauze and I put on this gardening glove (definitely UNsterile) which we luckily bought in Melaka..and then did I turn around head back to the camp??? No, of course not...I asked the guide what he thought and he just shrugged his shoulders. So, I continued 1-handed to do this crazy 2.5km steep upward hike in the hot humid jungle. 3 hours later, and after much cursing (mostly at Tarak for getting me into this) we arrived at "the first ladder"...I, of course, thought we were basically at the top...WRONG!! Now the next hour was pure hell...we were already exhausted, dehydrated, hungry and myself, quite cranky..and then I became terrified. Not only was it tiring, but was FLIPPIN' dangerous..there were these super STEEP ladders and rocks that if you fell, you would land into an abyss of razor sharp rocks and basically die. If that wasn't bad enough, everything was wet and covered in slippery soppy tree roots....I somehow managed with 1 hand to pull myself up to the top, where we scarfed down our PB&Js and a bunch of chocolate, and then admired (and cursed) the Pinnacles. I will admit that the view and the Pinnacles themselves are quite an incredible natural wonder that is unlike anything we have ever seen..Tarak at this point, loves to interject that “well, and I’ve seen a lot and this is pretty unique/awesome”..thanks Mr. 2nd around the world, been to so many countries I can’t keep track of….
But, regardless, I couldn't quite fully enjoy the view, because all I kept thinking was..oh my God..I know I somehow climbed up by the grace of God, but how the HELL am I going to get down these slippery passages with 1 hand? Anyway, the first part down, I literally alternated between praying and cursing. My favorite part (laced heavily with sarcasm) was at this point where I had to climb down the wobbly ladder and place my hand and foot on 2 sharp rocks quite far apart for balance to get down..and Tarak who had gone first, stopped to comment.."Woah! Man, if your foot slips here or you lose your grip, you would fall all the way into those jagged rocks and probably DIE"....thanks, honey...always has my back that husband of mine..at least he could have waited until AFTER I passed that point...But honestly, doesn't this sound like advanced rock climbing?? I mean to me, it was nothing short of freakin' Tom Cruise in the opening credits of Mission Impossible...but even so, in the states, dude, we would have signed 10 forms, waived all liability, taken 3 questionnaires to assess our level of rock climbing expertise and gotten at least a freakin' harness...here...oh no...ask your guide after you CUT your hand open if you could do this 1-handed and he SHRUGS!!! Needless to say, poor Tarak had to endure me for the entire 5 1/2 hours it took me get down...along the way were of course frequent bursts of crying, anger and cursing everything in my way...from mosquitoes to tree roots and of course, our damn guide. But all in all..we did it...when I got down, my poor group (the Dutch couple and Kenta who were all quite worried about me) actually started clapping...I literally felt like I had finished something massive!! And then the next morning we trekked back the 9km through the jungle, to our boats and hung out at the National Park itself.
After Miri, we took off eastward for the city of Kuching, which means "cat" in Malay and it is Sarawak's capital. It definitely was a charming city, with a great waterfront, an amazing museum and great handicrafts.

We spent a couple of days walking around immersing ourselves in

Kutching

the city, along with doing some shopping. We then headed out to Bako National Park where we spent the night. Here we did this incredible hike which culminated along the beach where we saw at least 50 proboscis moneys (the very distinctive noses) searching for food and taking care of their young. It was so incredible to be standing on these planks watching, being completely mesmerized by these rare creatures.

Probiscus Monkey

On our way back to the park headquarters, Tarak stopped (or should I say parked himself) to take pictures of the macaque monkeys…at first they didn’t mind..but he (Tarak) was all up in their faces with his camera, and the next thing we knew, we got growled at and they started running for us…of course, Tarak gets away and I got cornered and attacked (well more like slightly scratched) by a monkey. Tarak ran over and had to rescue me…man, first my poor hand and then being attacked by a monkey.

The attacker

After we left Bako, we left Kuching for Peninsular Malaysia and landed in the capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Borneo Adventures!!

2006-03-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

Mt. Kinabalu

Selamat tengah hari! (This means good day in Malay). So, Tarak and I have spent basically the last 2 weeks in Borneo, the eastern island of Malaysia, having a great time!! The first few days in Singapore were basically a huge culture shock after 6 months in the homeland...I felt like a little Indian village girl...I kept telling Tarak, "wow..it's so clean here"..."wow, it's so quiet...how come no one is honking their horns??"..."where are all of the cows and camels?".."wow, $2 for that meal, that's expensive".....anyway, we left Singapore and made a day trip to our first Malaysian city of Melaka. It was only a 4 hour bus ride, and the city definitely has some unique charm. We took a city tour in a local "trishaw" (basically cycle rickshaw) and it's amazing the combination of Portuguese/Dutch architecture along with Victorian, Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic and Hindu influences. We rode up and down harmony street which housed nearly all houses of worship along this simple street.

A "trishaw" tour of Melaka

Afterwards, we left Pennisular Malaysia and flew to Borneo to the city of Sandakan. Here, we stayed in the Sepilok Jungle Lodge and visited the Orang-Utan Sanctuary. It was pretty neat...it is one of only 4 orang-utan sanctuaries in the world and it has so far, rehabilitated 100 or so orang-utans that have been usually orphaned or injured along the way (so sad). Our little tourist group was allowed on the "public" platform where the orang-utans are fed fruits twice a day, and we were lucky enough to see them come and claim their bananas and milk.

Orang-utang

Initially our plans were to catch a glimpse of Borneo's infamous rhinoceros hornbill bird, however the Kinabatangan river was flooded so we re-routed to Kota Kinabalu National Park. Along the way, we met some fun people, Peter and Sara, who also accompanied us to the park. Here we enjoyed some cooler temperatures thanks to the altitude, and were persuaded to climb Mt. Kinabalu. Although it's no Everest, it is 4100m, and it's the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. Most people climb it in 2 days, and of course, at first we didn't think we were "fit" enough to do that...so what do we end up doing?? Trying to do it all in one day..it was kind of crazy. The initial 6 km was basically ALL ASCENT...it was painful, but the views up the mountain were gorgeous. We saw many orchids, rhodendrons, and the well-known insectivorous Nepenthes (pitcher plants).

The carnivorous "pitcher plant"

Once we got to the highest camp, Tarak and I decided against the last 2km up, since we wanted to actually be breathing for our upcoming Pinnacles trek. This was actually a good thing, since the 6 km trek down nearly killed us...our knees were so wobbly by the end and let's just say for the next 2 days, every time we quickly sat up or down (much worse), we looked like we were little 80 year old women. Afterwards, the four of us we went to the Poring Hot Springs (more like glorified bath tubs) and loosened up our muscles. We then left for the capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu and had a very nice, very long overdue Italian meal including wine!! Our next stop after the state of Sabah, we headed out to Sarawak to conquer Mulu National Park and to see the Pinnacles.

Only in India

2006-02-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

Smile
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

Well, 6 months have flown by..here we are, our last day in India. It has been a changing, exciting and unforgettable experience. This country, as massive and beautiful as it is, has a huge dichotomy. I mean, to see the extreme spectrums of health, wealth and way of life was at times extremely difficult to accept. But to see the people who were at the rough end, always smiling, giving and living life one day at a time put our lives back home into perspective. That happiness is not measured by how much we make, how many gadgets we accumulate or the lifestyles we lead, but through the bonds of relationships with friends and family, the sincerity in our hearts, and truly giving without expectation for any sort of return. It’s amazing how very easy it is to take for granted the opportunities we simply get placed in front of us, and to lose sight of what is really important.
As we have already shared our volunteering, our sightseeing and our family stories, we thought we'd end on "only in India" blog. Besides the incredible food, sites, hospitality, culture and our roots, there are some things that words and blogs cannot capture about this country. Many times in the past 6 months, we've seen, heard and done things that we swear ONLY happen here. On our flickr link, we've posted some of those pics, that I'm sure some of you will very much relate to....so, as we head off to Southeast Asia..with Singapore and Malaysia as our first stop..we leave with a top ten list...
Random things to love about India:
10. Having to look both ways not only for oncoming crazy cars and rickshaws, but camels, oxcarts, cows, and elephants (which are usually close behind some crazy $200,000 phat car).
9. Eating the best chinese food, fresh juices, and almost any type of cuisine on the side of the road(and then potentially paying for it a day later).
8. Not knowing the meaning of full, and feeling like you are going to explode after eating at someone's house, and literally having your plate refilled 4 times because they think you don't look "healthy" enough.
7. Having random people thrust their entire medical file in front of you, and describing their "loose motions" the instant they find out you are a doctor.
6. Having every and any possible piece of land, whether schoolyard, gutter or rooftop be adequate grounds for cricket playing.
5. To go into any small village town, run down street, or extremely impoverished area and still have kids smiling and dancing along to the latest Bollywood remix song.
4. Just when you think there is NO way 1 additional person could fit onto the local train, 18 more people leap on and ride with random appendages hanging off.
3. No matter how nice of an area you might be visiting, shopping around or just admiring, there will definitely be someone either peeing next to you or sticking some random object in their ear (usually their freakin' pinky finger) vigorously cleaning it.
2. Making sure your windows and doors are locked not for robbers but for monkeys that like to wander in and raid the kitchen.
1. Being truly accepted and treated like family, and being given such sincere hospitality by people who you might have literally just met.

Golden Triangle

2006-02-05T00:30:00.000-08:00

We have finished our last travel expedition in India…so sad!! Anyway, we did the classic “golden triangle” route that is much talked about and traveled by tourists. We figured since we spent 6 months in India, we should at least check out the Taj Mahal before heading out. Anyway, we flew into the capital (first point of the triangle) and visited the amazing Swaminarayan temple, known as Akshardham, in Delhi. It was just inaugurated in Nov. 2005, and it is beautifully hand crafted with intricate designs in marble. (picture above from outside-we couldn’t take a camera inside)
Anyway, after catching a few of the highlights in Delhi- Bahai Lotus Temple, Purana Qila (old fort) and of course, the eatery, we headed out the next day for the famous city of Agra (2nd point of the triangle). On the way, we checked out the city of Mathura, which is the birthplace of the Lord Krishna, during the period where his parents were held captive in a prison, and later (very similar to the story of Moses) was rescued and transported safely in a basket down the river. Afterwards, we finally hit the Taj!! As awesome as Tarak takes picture, there was no way to capture the perfect beauty of the Taj. For those of you who don’t know the story, (although most people I’m sure are aware), but it was built in 1631 by the emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial for his 2nd wife after giving birth to their 14th child (I think I would have been dead by child #5). Anyway, it is said, that he was so heartbroken by the death of his wife that the construction began immediately, and 20,000 people from India and Central Asia worked on it for 2 years before it was completed. According to estimates it is believed to have cost $3 million rupees at that time…today equivalent to 70 million dollars!!
Next, we went 40km west of Agra, to visit the ghost fort city of Fatehpur Sikri, which was the short-lived capital of the Mughal Empire between 1571 and 1585, during the reign of Emperor Akbar. Next to complete the triangle; we (re) visited one of our favorite cities in India..Jaipur. Although we had been there earlier for a friends wedding in Dec., the trip was pretty hectic and we wanted to come back and chill out. It is such a cool city..although it’s a capital and a pretty large city..the ambience and the old traditional architecture is definitely worth spending some time. We were lucky enough to be with our friends Rishi and Sonia, who were our Golden Triangle buddies, and whose families hospitality was extremely generous. Man, we ate some damn good food…authentic Punjabi dhabas, onion kachoris, (pyaaz ka kachori), ghajak and our personal favorite, hands down, was Lassiwala’s lassi. (I swear, I wish I could buy stock in that stuff). Besides eating, we visited Nahagarh (a beautiful fort built in 1734 which has an amazing view of the city), Jaigarh, Rambagh Palace, Rani ka Baag, and Jantar Mantar (an observatory begun by Jai Singh in 1728 which has a multitude of huge instruments including a sundial, zodiac constellation tracker and so forth). After packing as much as we could in 4 days, we headed back with our friends to Delhi, amazed at the ease and hassle-free our trip was…as soon as we reflected upon that..there was a massive employee strike in the Delhi airport (they were protesting the privatization of the airports),so we walked to the airports with our bags from some distance away. I swear, this is yet another thing, that as Tarak and I like to say “only happens in India”.

Bidada Sarvodaya Trust

2006-01-28T01:31:00.000-08:00

The past few weeks have been an incredible experience. We volunteered at a NGO in Kutch, the western region of rural Gujarat, called the Bidada Sarvodaya Trust. You can look them up at www.bidada.org. The organization is over thirty years old and started out providing dental and ophthalmologic care to large numbers of patients. The organization had begun expanding its services and especially after the catastrophic earthquake in Bhuj in 2001. Since then it created a multitude of not only specialty health care camps but also a huge rehabilitation center. It is phenomenal that they can make a prosthetic limb for less than 20 bucks. Well, every January there is a massive medical camp where throughout the month, various physicians and specialists come and set up all kinds of clinics ranging from orthopedic, gynecology, general surgery and of course pediatrics. Then they operate on a certain number of surgical cases and even refer complicated cases to Mumbai, which is supported by donors.
Well, we spent about 3 weeks there with our primary focus on a child health care project which consisted of packing a bus full of volunteers, physicians, optometrists, educators to random villages and setting up day camps at the various schools. Here we would basically see anywhere from about 250 to 400 kids ranging from 1st to 10th grade, and would give them screening physicals. But of course, with the poor access to care, and the socioeconomic conditions of the people, it definitely wasn’t just screening…Man, we had NO idea how some of these kids went to school and played like no big deal with massive malnutrition, raging pneumonias, skin infections, thalassemia/severe anemia and congenital heart disease. Tarak set up a two-day pulmonary clinic where people, mainly adults came out of the woodwork (they read an ad in the paper) for a medical opinion/treatment. We were once again amazed how some of these people were able to work and function with how bad their chest x-rays and lungs were. If that wasn’t overwhelming enough, the 2 day pediatric camp at the actual hospital was nuts!!…so basically it was Tarak, me and Shefali (a new pediatric friend from Raleigh) each set up at small tables with TONS of families that had lined up since the night before in massive numbers to be seen at this well known annual charitable camp. I swear for the first 2 hours, every 10 minutes, one of us would shout “Oh my God!” (Shefali), “Woah!” (Tarak) or “Oh shit” (me), which usually would result in the other two running up to see what god awful congenital abnormality or disease the poor child had. I won’t go into details of the crazy stuff we saw, for the sake of the non-medical people (We showed my parents some of the pictures, and my mom just starting making gushing auntie sounds and just started repeating gods name). Anyway, it was definitely an experience of a lifetime, and we consider it a blessing to have been able to participate and provide some service to these people. And the people there were so appreciative and grateful for everything, even when we were frustrated at the severe disparity and gaping holes in the health care system. Well, we hope this is our first of many years of attending the camp!
In between working, we did have some time to play and see some of the surrounding areas(the above picture is the salt flats near the Pakistani border). So, considering we are Gujarati and we have spent a lot of time in Gujarat in all of our trips to India, we can say that the region of Kutch (it means tortoise in Gujarati since the region in kind of shaped like one) is like none other. It is surrounded by the Gulf of Kutch and the Great and Little Ranns (deserts). The coolest things is that in the midst of what seems like inhabitable lands, there are traditional tribal villages that produce some of coolest textiles, embroidery and mirror work, bustling mud hut communities, camels that are always causing traffic jams, and beautiful palaces and Jain temples. We were in Bhuj during Sakranti, or Kite flying festival where the sky is filled with a sea of vibrant colored kites and the entire day is spent on the terrace, eating and trying to cut other people’s kites. From Bhuj, we took a day trip to visit some traditional villages in Hodka, the salt lakes that is only15km from the border of Pakistan, Bhujodi (known for weaving shawls and blankets) and Vijay Villas Palace (the king’s residence). In our time here, we had a chance to make new friends who had also come to serve. In some of our other pictures on the link, you can see our Kachhi compadres…Vaibhav, Shefali, Mike, Rishi, Bhavesh, Jay, Tushar and Monte who definitely contributed to our awesome experience!!

Camel Trekking

2006-01-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

So, right after the wedding, Kaushal, Priti and the two of us headed on an action packed Rajasthan tour. We spent the next day in Jaipur, which is incidentally referred to as the “pink city” as the maharaja (king) of Jaipur painted the entire city pink to honor King Edward, who was visiting at the time. We saw the Hawa Mahal (in the picture above), Amber Fort, City Palace and hung out with our friends, Sonia and Rishi, who were our Jaipur localites and served as great tour guides. That night, we took a night train to Jaiselmer..little did we know that it would be a train ride from HELL!!....Tarak and I, you know by this point, think we’re pretty rough and experienced backpackers..so we thought we’d buy the 2nd class sleeper tickets (as 1st class is usually for AC, which in the cold desert winters, we knew didn’t need) for you know, the lovely 12 hour journey…WRONG!! First of all, the train was late 2 hours..we waited at the FREEZING cold station and we looked around at all of the other 2nd class passengers with thick thick blankets and warm clothing…after the train finally arrived, we thought..good, some warmth…WRONG AGAIN! So, the difference between AC sleeper and second class, for anyone that needs to know, is NOT only the AC option, but HEAT and almost more importantly, sealed compartments, windows and insulation. So, there we were, lying on these ghetto seats, without sheets, blankets…as blasting “bone crushing” wind rushed through every freakin’ open crack in the windows, doors and ceilings. Of course, the stench of the nearby latrine, and no door to block the fumes..was yet another plus. And finally to top it off, the train midway had some type of brake failure or fire hazard (we weren’t exactly sure what was going on besides that smoke was coming in our compartment and that we were too damn cold to care). The city of Jaiselmer was a sight for sore eyes, and then things took a turn for the MUCH better. The city is the oldest inhabited medieval fort in the world, and we were lucky enough to stay at an amazing 500 year old haveli inside the actual fort. There were shops and bazaars galore right outside our residence, along with an incredible Jain temple, and an awesome maharaja and rani palace. It was crazy..the king and queen had separate residences..I actually was a little irritated, that the kings pad was WAY better than the queens…hmm..typical…
Anyway, day 2, we had a chance to take a much talked about, camel desert safari…we left for the sand dunes in the afternoon by jeep, and arrived to experience the incredible desert sunset on camels. Soon after the sunset, we sat by the campfire mesmerized by the sky of stars and the calm of the desert night. We headed back and ate an awesome dinner at a typical Rajasthani dhabi (it was actually called Desert Boy Dhani). The next day, we did some sightseeing, shopping and headed on another overnight train (but this time, we had switched our tickets for AC sleeper..a WORLD of difference) to Udaipur, which is the yellow city. Here we visited the famous City Palace, and then hung out at a rooftop restaurant, listening to live music, eating great food and of course a fabulous view of the Lake Palace. The next morning, our friends took off for Surat and we headed back to A’bad, only to take another (this is our 3rd now) night train to western Gujarat, in the Kuch area, near Bhuj (the area devastated by the earthquake 4 years ago) for our health camp.

Shaadi Rajastani Style

2006-01-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

Greetings after yet another beautiful region of India we've visited!! Well, after chilling out in Ahemdabad, we had an action packed 10 days or so...we went to Mumbai for a few days and rung in the New Year with my best friend Shilpa. And then we were busy with our friends Nehal and Ritu's wedding...it started with a mehindi party in Mumbai that included an entertaining live Qawali (music group that sing urdu ghazals/songs) and then as in the traditional Hindu wedding style, we left with the "jaan" (the entire grooms side) on a train from Mumbai to Jaipur. Try to imagine, over a 100 people, on a 18 hour train ride, taking up almost 2-3 compartments of the train, eating, singing and dancing as we make our way to the brides home city. We were greeted at the Jaipur train station, with garlands (I felt like a celebrity, until I realized all 100 people of our party had garlands on) and we were fed a humungous lunch. Afterwards, there was a Sangeet party, with dances, music and of course a ton more food. There are a bunch of open stalls, and you can go and eat buffet style, whatever you feel like. The next day, we had a precious 2 hours of shopping before the wedding..so, we had some amazing homemade thick lassi (kind of sweet thick yogurt drink) in disposable clay cups and set off to shop. You know, it's funny because I've basically just been shopping with Tarak..and even so, we always get more than we anticipitated. BUT, when there are 2 or 3 more Indian girls with me..that's a definite force that can't be stopped...for instance, we hit this jewelry store (don't worry it wasn't real, but it was fun costume and Rajasthani jewelry), and I swear in about 30 minutes, we basically depleted this man of most of his merchandise. Anyway, Jaipur is known for beautiful handicrafts, jewelry and "bandini" (which is tye-die..not to be confused with the cheezy tie-die shirts back home) saris-so, we had to take advantage of that.
After a few hours of action packed shopping, we headed off with the jaan, to start the wedding. The "baarath" (grooms side) basically dances their way to meet the brides family...our friend Nehal, was actually on a massive, decorated elephant and was all decked out in traditional Rajput gear (Rajasthani warrior including a sword..look closely in the pictures) and was even carrying his little 4 month nephew, Ayush (absolutely adorable, and was dressed in an identical outfit to that of the groom. Nehal's close friends, accompanied him on camels and horses as the rest of us danced beside them (of course closely avoiding the land mines of the animals made in the process) to where finally the brides side, where we all entered the wedding hall and the ceremony took place. It was a blast! The whole wedding took place at Chawki Dhani which was a secluded place that was made in the form of a traditional village that had stalls of food, elephant/camel rides, traditional Rajasthani dancing and much more. And then of course, we ate a Rajasthani thali and stayed until it was time to bid the bride farewell from her family and to be welcomed by her new home. The only thing that was bad...was that it was FREAKIN' cold..now, I know after living in Houston we don't really have real cold..but damn, all of the aunties weren't kidding when they said, the cold of Rajasthan goes straight to your bones. Of course, being in exceedingly thin chiffon saris, with exposed midriffs and cute open toed shoes doesn't do jack for warmth. The night ended with a ton of fireworks lighting the sky (isn't that nuts?? You would think it was some big show in the states). If there is only one thing I can imprint on your minds about an Indian wedding, let it be the food...we ate it seemed like, CONSTANTLY...when you were hungry, when you're not so hungry, and of course, all of the aggressive pushy food auntie's favorite, when you are EXCEEDINGLY full and feel like you might burst.
Anyway, overall it was awesome seeing a bunch of our friends that we hadn't seen in like 7 months, making some new friends, and getting to be a part of a true rajasthani shaadi!!
Oh ya, we wanted to put more pictures on the site but our internet connection was soooo slow. However, we did manage to get some pics uploaded to the Our Trip Photos link.

Hanging in A'bad

2005-12-24T02:24:00.000-08:00

Greetings from Ahemdabad!! Tarak and I have been here for the last week, and will be leaving for Mumbai (another wedding) in a few days. We’ve been staying with my parents, relaxing, and trying to limit our shopping that had been getting out of control. We also contacted our friend Ami’s sister, Anjali who has been here for the past couple of years through Indicorps and got us in touch with an organization called Manav Sadhna. It’s a great foundation-its’ basic mission through the Gandhian philosophy is that of serving the underprivileged through creating and promoting educational and career opportunities for children, women and communities. Their office is in the Mahatma Gandhi Ashram and they have over 38 projects throughout the slum areas, which help over 4,500 children!! The best part of these groups are the simple things they do that have a huge impact. For example, a well known problem is the lack of water sanitation and cleanliness. Well instead of simply preaching it, they put it into action by taking kids off the street, bathing them, dressing them, and letting the kids see themselves in clean new clothes. These habits they take back to their families and communities. Some of kids who have grown up around this center, are now volunteers working to spread the same message of the importance of education.
Anyway, we were lucky enough to set up a few health camps, to perform medical exams on the children in the "anganvadis" (kind of like preschools) and then work in their evening clinic. It was crazy to see these poor kids, who for the most part, were malnourished, anemic and as a result were always victim to chronic skin infections, parasites, poor physical and mental growth and developmental delay. You’d never guess from their smiles, their love and their constant running around that these medical problems affect them.
On a random note, it is NRI season here!! (non resident Indians) (like us). It’s so funny because apparently, the locals make fun of NRI’s…there are even articles in the paper on "how to spot an NRI"..(things like..wearing tacky shorts in the Indian winter, shielding themselves from the sun, carrying around water bottles everywhere they go, packed cereal boxes, etc etc). All of the store owners are ecstatic (it’s their big season)..it’s pretty funny to see the influx of Indian parents and teenagers from the U.S and U.K coming in and just shopping like mad. Man, but I get so mad because I proclaim always to be super FOBy and yet still they spot ME out…I will even have Indian clothes on, hair pulled back, shawl on even though it’s 55°, and NOT shielding myself in the sun, and STILL they say "it’s they way you stand, or the way you carry yourself, or you’re just too tall"…anyway, Tarak keeps telling me to give up..but I will NEVER…

Family Bonding

2005-12-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

It has been another long stretch since our last entry. Earlier in November, my (Tarak’s) family visited us for a few weeks. It was a whirlwind of a trip. We had been so looking forward to their arrival, and after they left, we missed them a lot. After getting settled in (that’s jetlag for 10 adults, 4 kids) for a few days and some preliminary (or should I say excessive) shopping, we headed out to Goa. For those of you who don’t know, Goa used to be a Portuguese colony. What remains can be seen in the white cathedrals, Goan cuisine, especially the curries and last but not least, the festive atmosphere. We stayed at a place on Baja beach called the Villa Goeasa. The accommodations were awesome. It was a nice blend of big clean rooms on the beachfront without the big resort prices. For most of the days, we would hang out on the beach and enjoy the nice cool breeze; people watch, eat panner tikka with some cocktails, watch the sunset and most importantly, play with the kids (best part!!). Our nieces and nephew (Shivani, Dhruv, Anjali and Maia Karina) were ecstatic playing on the beach and in the water. We couldn’t get enough of them. Having our nieces and nephews, and being called “mama” and “mami” (Gujarati term for maternal uncle and aunt) is the best deal…you get to have all the fun without any of the responsibilities!! During the evenings, my sisters would frequent (or more like attack) the roadside stalls looking for deals on Indian handicrafts and designer clothes.
After Goa, we went to back to Baroda and hung out with our own “mama” and “mami”. We even had the chance to visit my mother and father’s villages and meet some of our distant relatives. The entire last week of their stay was filled with shopping, shopping and more shopping. I usually have a high threshold for shopping but by the end of the week, I was exhausted. At end of this week, I went with Alpa (my youngest sister) to Hyderabad to visit her in-laws relatives. You know it was crazy, since the start of our trip 5 months ago, these 3 days were the first time, Sharvari and I had been apart…going from spending 24-7 together, it was hard (a little cheesy, I know). Of course, once the kids left, we totally went into niece/nephew withdrawal...it just wasn’t the same without them!!
We also went back to my dad’s village, Vasad, and spent 3 days at the local school, grades kindergarten through 10th, doing school physicals on over 700 kids. It was a blast! All of the boys would only stand in line to be seen by me, and the girls went to Sharvari. Anytime, I had to examine a girl, she, along with the entire line of girls, would go pink in the face and erupt into giggles in the middle of my exam. It was neat being like pseudo-celebrities…everyone knew about the “doctors” in town..Oh ya, we've added some more photos to Our Trip Photos link.

Kanyakumari and Beyond

2005-11-12T04:13:00.000-08:00

It has now been close to a week since ending our journey through South India. The last leg of our journey consisted of visiting many famous and pilgrimage sites. However, the first place we went after our houseboat adventure in Kerala was all the way to the southern most tip of India, Kanyakumari. It is where 3 bodies of water merge-The Bay of Bengal, The Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. Here we witnessed incredible sunsets, a beautiful island where the statue of famous Vivekanand stands (picture above) along with a peaceful temple, and sandy beaches with fishermen always hard at work (picture also above-those nets look heavy). After spending a couple days here, we started our journey to the north. The city of Madhuri (back in the state of Tamil Nadu) is well known for the Sri Meenakshi Temple (picture above), which is an amazing temple complex. It has 12 highly decorated gopurams (gateway towers) and was completely covered with carvings of various deities and animal figures. After Madhuri, we went to the city of Rameswaram, which is actually considered one of the most holy pilgrimage centers for Hindus, and is considered one of the 4 sacred sites. It was quite a unique experience. In order to do darshan (prayer), we first had to go to the temple at 5am, then we had to “bathe” (dunk ourselves) in the river at sunrise (we actually saw the sunrise, as we dunked ourselves fully clothed), and then walked around the entire temple (dripping wet, mind you) as we were “blessed” (dunked with) with holy water from 22 different wells. Afterwards, we left for the cities of Tanjore and Tiruchirappalli (known as Trichy), which also had fascinating temples, filled with ornately decorated walkways, doors and shrines.
We next had a religious hiatus and headed for Pondicherry, a city completely different from other Indian cities. Although the French rule left 50 years ago, the remnants of a former French colony is easily seen within the architecture, ambience and even some of the local food. We had a chance to visit the infamous Aurobindo Ashram, where many devotees stay for weeks. However, we just enjoyed the food, the clean streets and relaxing by the seaside.
The final leg of our journey was that of going to Tirupathi, which is actually better known than even the Meenakshi temple. It is said that there are never fewer than 5,000 pilgrims at any one time, and in fact in a single day,the number may reach 100,000. (this is according to Lonely Planet, our bible). In fact, it said "it is said the number of people who come to worship eclipses the Vatican, Mecca and Jerusalum". It was an incredible experience to say the least. We arrived in the evening time on the day of Diwali, and we already had gotten some advance darshan tickets. Our waiting time of 2 hours was nothing compared to the 12 hours that some wait, and others who actually walked the 14km hill barefoot to come to the “holy hill”. When we actually entered the temple, we could literally fell the energy and the faith of the people crowded around us. I was moved by the lengths and depths that some of these people, who probably were quite poor, had come to make this pilgrimage.
The last few days of our trip was spent in Bangalore…no more gardens, tea plantations or even temples…basically, Tarak and I went nuts at the malls…HUGE export warehouse sales!!! Anyway, we were are now in Gujarat and await the Patel clans’ arrival in the next few days.

Gandhi Memorial on Diwali

2005-10-31T04:12:00.000-08:00

Gandhi Memorial on Diwali
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

Happy Diwali to everyone!! We are in Pondicherry (former French colony) during Diwali, the most celebrated Hindu festival. It's crazy..every sweet (mithai)shop is packed with long lines, and the whole city is lit up with decorations and filled with literally deafening fireworks. Diwali celebrates the New Year which begins on Nov. 2nd...

Also..we are celebrating our second year wedding anniversary.. :)

The Magic of Munnar

2005-10-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

Well, we are halfway through our South India trip and have seen some incredible sights!! From where we left off, we next headed to Cochin, actually the area called Fort Cochin (the older area). It’s a pretty amazing city. Talk about the religious diversity..we saw the oldest church in India, plenty of mosques and a very strong Jewish community with a 16th century synagogue. We basically visited the sites and then just relaxed in the city. The strangest thing is that we don’t think Indian nationalists (Indian locals) who are vacationing, ever stay in Fort Cochin..they just stay in the actual busy, overcrowded city. When we told our driver Fort Cochin..he had never been there and we all started getting worried as we kept going into deeper and darker streets..and then out of nowhere…it was touristville..or, should I say foreignville…it was nothing but backpackers and white people, cyber cafes and budget hotels..it was great!!
Anyway, after seeing the sights, we all quickly ran for our much awaited “ayurvedic massage". We had read they use special oils which cleanse the body and that it was a “must do”….hmm..let’s just say, it was interesting. We all walked in at our appointment time, into these 4 separate small rooms, with strange music playing and this small bamboo mats on the floor with these 2 small woman (my dad and Tarak, had 2 medium sized men, I think)..and then, in my room, I was told to take off my clothes…so, I, a little shyly took off my top and my jeans..and then she said, “Take it ALL off”…I just stood there in shock and vetoed…I asked for a little towel.she said no..then I begged for a little loincloth thingy(I wasn’t even sure where they would have one)..and she said no..I looked at her little assistant..and she just looked at me (no sympathy) waiting for me to strip….needless to say, it was hard to appreciate an hour long massage when you are butt-naked with their hands getting awfully close to certain risky areas and all you can think of is first, “I wonder what Tarak said and did” and then “how the hell is my mom handling this?”…Afterwards, we all recovered and dissected with each other in detail of the trauma we experienced and then went to an amazing Kathakali dance.
For those of you not familiar with Kathakali, it is an art form, that originated as early as the 2nd century, and literally means “story play”. It is used to portray the Hindu epics, the Ramayana, and the Mahabharata. The actors prepare with extremely elaborate costumes, makeup (takes 2 hours to put on) and headpieces. Interestingly, all of the makeup comes from natural rocks, and they put seeds in their eyes to make them turn red (look at the picture above). Each of the colors, are also representative of good, evil and so on. There were drummers and singers accompanying the dancers who tell the story only by facial expressions and body movements (mudras).
Next, we set out for the gorgeous city of Munnar…I think thus far, this is has been our favorite place. Munnar is the commercial center of some of the world’s highest tea-growing estates. It sits amidst amazing mountain scenary, beautiful tea estates and crisp mountain air. We just sat mesmorized by the view and we actually saw a ton of women, who came and collected the tea leaves, which are then dried and crushed to form the actual ground tea. We went on walks around our cottage, and saw cardamom, sandalwood and coffee plants…our cottage was nestled in between a large tea estate, so everyday we could see the women coming and leaving for work. It was so serene and awe-inspiring. We extended our stay there a day and wished we could have stayed there even more.
Of course, I had to get attacked by another 2 LEECHES!! My god, this one was huge and I threw a big fit in the middle of the tea estates..Tarak, instead of coming to my rescue, busted out the camera..so, you may enjoy the leech under the link, our trip photos. Let me just add, the camera makes that gross thing look smaller than it was..it was huge on my leg. Anyway, we of course, bought some tea, cardamom and headed further south to the backwaters in Alappuzha for our houseboat adventure. We had heard sooo much about renting a houseboat for a day, and going through the backwaters of Kerala and seeing the bustling village in the water. So, we set off in our boat..and it definitely was great…the boats made from bamboo, traveling along narrow canals where we saw people transporting everything from sheep to hay to schoolkids by small boats from one end to the other. It was crazy to see tiny settlements where people lived on narrow slits of reclaimed land only a few metres wide. We also experienced Keralan food, but I think something in the water, did NOT settle well in our stomachs. The scenary was amazing, but I think the hype was too much.
Now, we head off to Kanyakumari, the southern most tip of India.....

Masala Dosa Anyone?

2005-10-20T01:24:00.000-07:00

Greetings from South India!! Well, we started with yet another night train..this time from Baroda to Mumbai and then we flew to Bangalore. We first headed to the famous city of Mysore, well known for silk and sandalwood. Here we visited the amazing Maharaja’s Palace (in picture above) which was absolutely beautiful and apparently built by some huge raja (king) for his wife (I definitely wouldn’t mind one of those). The interior was decorated with stained glass, mirrors and many paintings. There were also a ton of mosaics portraying life in Mysore during the kingdom period and well known Hindu stories. Afterwards, we visited Chamundi Hill, which overlooks Mysore and in which resides the famous Sri Chamundeswari Temple. We took the 1000 steps to the top (and then nearly passed out) and enjoyed some fresh coconut water outside the temple. Afterwards we headed south to the even more well known Udhagamandalam (yes one word), thankfully known as Ooty.
Ooty is apparently South India’s most famous hill station, which was established by the British in the early 19th century as the summer headquarters of the Chennai government. It is a wonderfully quaint place, it is was definitely quite cold. We had to the bust out the shawls, and even considered buying 10 rupee hats they were selling off the street. Interesting tidbit: Ooty is also well known for chocolates, so of course, Tarak and I went to town. Next, we visited the botanical gardens and lakes but what we really enjoyed was getting away from the crowded city and taking a steam engine train to a small town called Koonor. Although it was only an hour ride, the views from the train were absolutely incredible. The cool breeze and the sights of the tea plantations, forests and waterfalls were probably the highlight of the day.
Next, we headed to Kalpetta (some quick geography: we started in the state of Karnataka (Mysore) then we went to Tamil Nadu (Ooty) and now Kerala). We came here especially to see the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctionary and to see the incredible wildlife and hopefully catch a glimpse of some endangered tigers. However, as our luck would have it, all we saw, as my mom so very eloquently put it, “We paid all of these rupees just to see 2 deer and the asses of 2 elephants?”. (She didn’t actually say ass, but the closest Gujarati equivalent). After being disappointed from the sanctionary, we headed to Pookote Lake and took a hike around the outskirts. That also would have been fun, if I had not been attacked by 3 leeches. There we were, the Parghis (my parents), Tarak and myself walking..and we noticed these 4 young guys behind us, who seemed to be picking things off their feet. We kneeled in to see, small little leeches (nothing like Stand By Me style or size)..anyway, so we all checked our feet and didn’t see anything. Of course, 10 minutes later, my feet were BURNING..and I found 3 blood-sucking leeches stuck in between my toes..SICK!! Needless to say, my mom rushed to put some ayurvedic ointment on my feet.
Well, I should mention that it is quite an experience traveling with the 4 of us..no one understands us down here..it’s crazy, they definitely don’t speak Hindi and their English is dangerous (just enough to confuse the hell out of us) and then my God, we just stare at them when they start rambling off in either Tamil, Kannada or Malayalam…but, we did learn a few phrases, we’ve absolutely mastered the sideways head nod (used as the preferred method of absolute confusion to mean either yes, no, or I have no freakin’ idea) and to add the syllable “eh” onto to every word. For example, when we are looking for a particular road..we ask “Aray Hellooo cheta (which means brother), Road-Eh” and then they will do this pointing gesture with waving arms, do the sideways head nod, and hopefully say “straight-eh”..and at which point, we return the headnod and usually Tarak says “thank you-eh”. We next headed further south into Kerala to Cochin where our adventure continues.

Navratri in Baroda

2005-10-14T02:58:00.000-07:00

Over the past week we have been in Vadodara (Baroda) spending Navratri at Sharvari’s masi’s (maternal aunt) house. For those of you who don’t know, Navratri is an important Hindu holiday. Gujaratis celebrate the events occurring in the Ramayan through prayers and traditional dancing for 9 days. For the past week, we leave the house by 9:30pm and fight through the traffic of a ton of scooters/motorcycles and cars all with everyone decked out ready to dance. So then, we spend the next few hours dancing in this huge massive open outdoor field with 8 – 10,000 people, dancing in large concentric circles to the beat of live Indian garba music. By the time we arrived home, we would be ravished and pig out and then crash hardcore. For many years now, Sharvari and I have wanted to experience Navratri in India and finally witnessed this important event. The garba (traditional dance) in Baroda is famous all over India. The crowds are mind blowing who dress up to the max to impress and show off their dancing skills and eye potential suitors. If you’re single, it’s a huge matchmaking and checking out scene. Since the conservative environment usually limits young females from going out at night except during this time of year, you can imagine the crowd. The events are so big that it is televised live throughout the night. We were given strict orders to seek out the camera so our family could see us on TV. As Tarak, who on average is a head taller than most Indian men, was an easy search target and was easily spotted by our relatives on screen. The other most visible people were those came dressed in crazy outfits…huge peacock hats, carrying decorated umbrellas, and even a horse costume.
With all the festivities being over, we take the night train to Mumbai followed by a flight to Bangalore to start our trip to the south with Sharvari’s parents. . Hopefully, history doesn’t repeat itself and we don't miss our connecting flight…

Sikkim

2005-10-05T03:09:00.001-07:00

From one Himalayan land to the next, we have just spent 6 days in Sikkim (state in Northwest India). Just to give you some facts about Sikkim…apparently it was regarded as one of the last Himalayan Shangri-las because of it’s remoteness and spectacular mountain terrain. Tibetan lamas (priests) first introduced Buddism in the 15th century in Sikkim, and for this reason, the hills are filled with ancient monasteries. Sikkim borders Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. In fact, Mahayana Buddhism is the state religion and Sikkim remained a princely state until 1975, where it then joined Indian rule.
Enough factoids…so, we basically from Bhutan went to Siliguri (West Bengal) and from there, caught a shared jeep (this basically means, as many people that can fit into a Tata Sumo jeep and you can bet someone will be definitely sitting on your thigh) to the capital city of Gangtok. In Gangtok, we toured and visited the Rumtek monastery, the flower gardens and the Namgyal Institute of Technology (apparently it contains one of the world’s largest collections of Buddhist books and manuscripts). The next day, we took a day trip to Tsomgo (pronounced Changu) Lake, which is at a height of 3780m and is 18 km from the Chinese border at Nathula. It was absolutely beautiful and cold!! We rode a yak (yes an actual yak) around the lake and ate some more mo-mo’s and veg. Chowmein. The next day, we did a trip to North Sikkim to Yunthang Valley and then spent a couple of days in West Sikkim in the city of Pelling. Here we caught a glimpse of the magnificent Khangchendzonga mountain range-it is 8598m..the third highest in the world (that’s the snow covered mountain in the picture above). It was pretty amazing! And it was actually pretty damn cold..I know my tolerance is rather pathetic..but even Tarak was freezing in our hotel room..of course there was no heat.
Anyway, it was crazy because even though we were in India, Sikkim seemed more like Bhutan in that it was less populated, cleaner and it was extremely tourist friendly. There were travel/tourist agencies everywhere and a bunch of Europeans..especially Germans (man, they go everywhere..first Croatia and now Sikkim). There were also all of these environmental friendly signs..promoting to keep the roads clean, not to spit (tobacco, as many people do) and all of these super cheesy road signs like “if you are married, divorce speed”….and “be gentle on my curves” (they meant the road) and “slow driver, long life” and my favorite “good driver seldom hurt” (I swear to God that is exactly what the sign said). We wished we had more time in Sikkim to do a 10-14 day trek, but we wanted to get back to Gujarat for Navratri…can’t miss dandia/raas!!. Maybe we will come back to do a trek???

Land of the Thunder Dragon

2005-10-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

This title should really be: Tarak goes to Bhutan. For the last 2 years, that is ALL I heard about…you know Sharvari, “Bhutan isn’t a country, it’s a kingdom”…”they only opened it to tourists in 1974 to minimize Western influence”…”it’s like Nepal 65 years ago”..and so we finally went with a local explorers group from India to the amazing Himalayan country. It is quite remarkable in that it still is considered a kingdom, and it tries to limit western influence, by limiting the number of foreign tourists annually. Some small facts: Population: 1 million, Language: Dzongka, Nepali & Religion: Buddhist 75%; Hindu 25%. In fact, as a foreigner, to visit Bhutan, you must spend at least $250 a day…we of course, went as Indians…how you ask? Let’s just say, we looked as “fob-like” as possible and Tarak was not allowed to speak…
Anyway, we first flew from Mumbai to Calcutta and then took an overnight train to Jalpaiguri (West Bengal) and from there a bus to the border town of Phoolsuling. Before we talk about Bhutan...let us tell you a typical India story.. After missing our overnight train (which of course are the only things that occasionally run on time in India) due to a delayed flight, we stayed a night in Calcutta and then made it to Siliguri. While in Siliguri, we went to a national park in hopes of seeing a wild Indian Rhino but missed the elephant safari by 30 minutes..Driving on these roads can be presumed to be similar to those of Iraq shortly after being heavily bombed. Well, as we headed back to Siliguri we were stopped by a road block.. The locals were striking due to the lack of no running water for 3 days..They wouldn't let anyone through..After Sharvari yelled at few people and almost threw down with an Indian Auntie, we used our doctor card to get through. We made it back to join the group after THREE hours..If you didn't know this fact West Bengal is a communist state so they strike for any and every reason possible. Now back to Bhutan..It was crazy, just to walk across the gate from Jaigon (India side) to Phoolsuling, we already experienced a drastic different culture. There were way fewer people, the streets much cleaner and a very simple way of life with Buddhist monks in robes freely roaming the streets. We went on to the town of Paro, which is known for the Tatkshang Goempa (monastery). It was amazing to see how well preserved and beautiful these monasteries were with prayer flags tied to trees all over the country. In all of these monasteries, there were rows and rows of what are called prayer wheels. It basically is a wheel, inside which scriptures are written, and by turning the wheel, it is like chanting the mantras. Pretty cool, huh? It was amazing in the monasteries, to see these schools of young boys in their monk robes living a completely simple, unmaterialistic life. We visited the markets and tried some of the local food, momo’s (basically like dumplings). Next, we went to the capital of Thimphu, where we went on a short hike to a monastery that was perched on the cliffs and then visited the national museum. We should mention (as Tarak loves adding random facts) that Thimphu is the only capital in the world to not have any traffic lights...it was crazy, no traffic lights, just police officers in funny uniforms, dancing, waving their arms to guide the flow of the cars.
We definitely could have spent a month in Bhutan, but we had limited time as we had come with a group. The group we went with, is another entirely different story. We went with 44 nineteen year old girls from Patna Women’s College (can we say raging hormones)…let’s just say there was a lot of dancing to Bollywood music in the aisles of the bus and a WHOLE lot of giggling at the two of us. Well, we left the "kingdom" and are now back into the realm of Western influence!!
We hope you like the pictures..we also put some more pics under links in the right column in the section my trip photos.

Dumping Grounds

2005-09-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

DSCN0543
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

This is a shot of a family whose home is on top of the dumping grounds...they had 2 children with asthma however did not have enough money to have them properly seen or treated.

Govandi Dumping grounds

2005-09-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

DSCN0551
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

This was a home visit that we did to see what type of respiratory complaints people had. It was crazy that amidst this absolute poverty, the children were so friendly and loving and followed us around. The family whose house we went to offered us tea, which would have used up half of their daily milk supply for their kids. We of course refused..

Mumbai Trains

2005-09-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

It has been way too long since our last entry..We have been in India for a month now. It took us a few days to get acclimated to the humidity and heat and are now enjoying the cooler weather brought by the lovely monsoons. We quickly learned (remembered) after visiting relatives in Baroda and family friends in Mumbai that food is the means of showing affection. We ate and ate and over ate until we could barely move. We would have to refuse seconds or thirds even though we wanted more because in the end we would lose the battle and take additional servings. My favorite story is that of Sharvari eating 6 russ gulas, pehda,ice cream, burfee,kaju katree in one day (for those that are not familiar with Indian sweets..just know, it's a huge load).. We stayed in Mumbai for about three weeks to work with a NGO(non-government organization) called Niramaya. It is an off shoot of another NGO called Pratham. Pratham is responsible for setting up small schools in rural and underserved areas in order to improve childhood literacy. This in hopes that the underprivileged will improve their social and economic status. Within these balvadis (schools), they noticed a high amount of absentees due to the health related reasons. Upon further examination, it was noticed that these kids lived and worked in absolutely horrendous environmental conditions, which resulted in constant illnesses and poor nutrition. Our primary objective has been to set up an asthma program primarily targeting the "rag pickers" (children who look through the piles of garbage for recyclable goods). We also have been helping out with a clinic near the dumping grounds where all of Mumbai's garbage is placed...We have included some pictures of the actual dumping grounds (which let us just say are without a doubt the MOST disgusting and appalling site we had ever seen).
On a much lighter note, to get to this clinic was a daily adventure. Traveling by local train in Mumbai is an experience in itself. The trains are the primary means of moving millions of people each day to and from Mumbai proper.. Just try to imagine all these people piling in like sardines (we mean literally sardines) until there is no more physical space with the rest hanging off the edge of cabins. And then getting off the train is a completely different feat...you have to be mentally prepared prior to your stop and then since there is no space, you literally are shoved through to the other side of the train...it's kind of like floating amidst a sea of Indian people. And of course, there are those lovely occasions where you have to jump off the moving train otherwise you will be stuck for a few more stops to come.
As if Mumbai isn't populated enough, we happened to be there during one of the most important festivals in the state of Maharashtra..the Ganapati or Ganesh Festival. Basically it's a 10 day festival where we saw incredible numbers and sizes of Ganesh idols that people brought (sometimes via crates and trucks) to their homes and then on the last day, they sent the idols floating into the ocean.
Overall, we had a blast in Mumbai..we were lucky enough to stay at someone's guest flat so felt like we were actually living on our own in Mumbai. It's definitely a great city..there are some great restaurants, bars/clubs and of course non stop Bollywood. Who knows...maybe we'll settle here???
Well, we just got back from Bhutan and are now in Sikkim...we will be hopefully updating soon with some of our cool pics from the north. Stay tuned!!

Bosnian Coffee

2005-08-31T13:08:00.000-07:00

It has been a little while since our last entry. Afer weighing our options, we decided to go to Bosnia Herzogovenia instead of directly going to Italy. We can say it was a worthwhile experience. Our first stop was a small town called Mostra. It sits a few hours from Dubrovnik by bus and is suprisingly culturally and geographically different from Croatia. There are numerous mountains with lush greenery everywhere. Despite being ruled by many groups, the most influental has been the Ottoman empire. The food has a lot of Turkish influence including the thick coffee (Turkish Coffee) which i drank religiously every day at least once. Our vegetarian selection increased dramatically, we actually ate eggplant and spinach.
After being attacked once again by the hoards of old women asking us for accomodations, we found a place near the center of this town which is divided by a river. On one side resides the islamic community and the other side the Orthodox christians. The segregation occured post-war. Despite seeing bullet riden buildings, the people have adapted to each other and were very friendly.
Then we moved on to the capital, Sarejevo, which was another amazing experience. Although our accomodations had hit a rock bottom (sketchy bathtub that was actually IN the kitchen..gross), we really enjoyed walking around the "old town" as it was called. Cobblestone walkways, antique shops and tons of cafes....we also happened to be there during the Sarejevo Film Festival where we saw a few documentary films from Romania, Croatia and Bosnia. Another incredible experience was visiting "The Tunnel"...during the war in '93 between the Serbs and Bosnians. Apparently, the city of Sarejevo was surrounded by Serbian forces and was cut off from all supplies (food,water, electricity) and life was described similar to that of a concentration camp. After 3 years, the UN was given access to the airport which was made a safe base,however the people trying to cross still would be shot and killed. Anyway, the people of Sarejevo secretly built a underground tunnel, in which food,people and supplies were able to be transported. It was pretty unreal to see the video and the actual tunnel.
Afterwards we headed back to Italy, we stayed a few days in Florence, biked under the Tuscan Sun and visited a vineyard and then had a final day in Venice. Florence was really beautiful...we went to the Uzzi and Academia (Michealangelo's David)..walked around and had great Italian food.

The Pearl of the Adriatic

2005-08-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

We just left the city of Dubrovnik-which by far, is the most beautiful city we have seen thus far...it is on the southern coast, and is encompassed by a fortress. During the many wars, especially during the Serbian aggression, it was sought after and for this reason, heavily bombed. It sustained quite a bit of damage, however it is crazy how well it has been rebuilt to near perfection. We had 4 days here-the first we spent roaming around the Old Town, which was inside these massive iron gates, and was a city of marble streets, narrow alleys, historic churches and statues. We sat at cafes, enjoying cappucinos and chocolate pastries right in the middle of this old scenic town. We walked so much everywhere, trying to make sure and hit all of the "must see" sights and since we were at the mercy of Tarak's compass (on his watch of course) and navigational skills (which is not much-although I have no room to comment at all), we probably walked a "few" extra circles trying to find places. The 2nd day, we took a trip to the island of Mljet where legend has it that Odysseus spent many years. We took a ferry ride there, and then rented 2 bikes and rode along these 2 beautiful lakes, visited an old monastery on an island in the lake, and then took the ferry back and watched the sunset on the Adriatic. The 3rd day, we roamed around Dubrovnik again, (recovering from riding bikes on cheap seats for several hours) and walked the city walls (which took 3 hours!). The place we stayed at was pretty funny..it was this Bosnian woman who initially attacked us (or I should say Tarak) at the bus station. Since he (of course) is so nice, he had a swarm of little old Croatian ladies with signs offering private accomodations. I (the rude one) glared at all of them, because we had not even had a chance to get all of our luggage, let alone, even step off the bus, before they were running up to us. Needless to say, no one was around me. Anyway, we waited for the crowd to thin, and then bargained with her. She, of course, kept talking to us in German and kept kissing and hugging me...we have no idea why..but she was enthralled with us, and (it can't back to bite me) I used to tell Tarak (back in the states) how good I was at German ("German student of the year" and sort)..and there I was, I couldn't even remember how to ask where the bus station was. My high school German teacher would die if he saw my pathetic attempt to recover my lost German (mixed with the Spanish I learned in Ecuador)....
Anyway, we had a fabulous time in Dubrovnik and Croatia!!

Happy Birthday Tarak!!

2005-08-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

This entry is a day late, but yesterday was Tarak's birthday (Aug. 22nd)...I'll leave the age out, as I can only imagine how depressing it must be to have those sort of numbers...j-k.
I thought I would actually finally put some of my photography handiwork (or lack there of) as I dedicate this entry to his birthday!! I thought I would put a few pictures of Tarak's favorite activities in Croatia...Number 1, by far, which should not come as any surprise, is taking pictures. That particular picture is in a fortress in the island city of Hvar, overlooking the sea. The other two are of course relaxing on the beach and enjoying some Gelato!! We spent his actual birthday, a great majority in transit (poor thing)..we took a bus (630am) to Hvar, then a ferry ride to Split and then a 5 hour bus ride...but we finally made it the most awaited and beautiful city of Croatia.....Dubrovnik!! We went for a stroll in the old town, and had dinner overlooking the sea.
Some facts about Hvar Island...apparently, it gets the most amount of sun of any island in Croatia (2724 hours each year!!)..it has become an international tourist hotspot...the town is surrounded by a castle with marble streets and beautiful beaches. The island is also amazingly green, with tons of lavender patches (they sell it EVERYWHERE on the streets), rosemary and everybody, of course, has their own wine. We tried this dessert wine called Prosecco..which was really sweet!
Well, we will write more from Dubrovnik as we will be settling in for a few days, we are considering for the last week to either travel more in Italy or check out Bosnia or Serbia...any thoughts??

Croatia: Italy's Cancun!!

2005-08-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been awhile since our last post, but we've been keeping busy. We only spent 2 short days in Venice riding the ferries and walking through the old towns but it was absolutely gorgeous. We found a quaint little restaurant off the island of St. Marcus and had a great dinner (a huge improvement from carniverous Ecuador).
We left for Croatia and first arrived in Opatija...we initially had heard that Croatia would be a far more affordable place than Italy...NOT TRUE!! Little did we know that August is PEAK tourist season...the Italians flood in with their swimsuits alone and soak up along the beautiful coastline. (If you look on the map, Croatia is literally all coast, and consists of 1,150 islands!!). Anyway, also add on a bunch of Germans to the mixture and the prices go way up...it reminded us of Americans invading Cancun during spring break. It's quite strange, there are only superexpensive hotels (no hostels or any type of budget hotels) and "private acccomodations". You basically stay in a room of a family and they charge you way more than you would think for 1 room...but that's ok..we have gotten over the shock of the expenses and have seen some remarkable sights and stayed in some nice places.
In Opatija, we did some hiking, exploring of the coast and made a trip to Plitvice National Lake Park. This is a UNESCO site and has over 150 waterfalls and was breathtaking. We then set off to the city of Zadar, which dates back over 3,000 years and has considerable history. It has been under Italian, Austrian, German and Hungarian rule..and despite being completely bombed in WWII, it has been fabulously rebuilt. A really cool site was a place called the "Sea Organ" where organs are placed near the sea, and with wind, it makes relaxing sounds, referred to as the "Symphony of the Sea". Also in Zadar, we stayed at in the guesthouse of a very nice local family..they invited us to eat and drink with them...and man, everyone in Croatia has their own grapes and makes their own wine. They kept bringing out different types of amazing wines and Cognac. Another find, were the local cheeses..Pag cheese in particular is quite strong and very good..made from sheep's milk and olives..as soon as we heard no refrigeration necessary, we bought a nice chunk. Currently we are in the coastal town of Split (another UNESCO site as it contains one of the most impressive Roman ruins in existence) , and will be heading off to Hvar Island by a local ferry. (P.S-the 1st picture is the sunset along the coast of Zadar, at the sea organ, the 2nd is the scenic overlook on top a cathedral in the city of Split, 3rd is in the Plitvice National Park and finally of course in Venice).
We'll try to add more pictures in our trip photos sections soon!!

Whales,Birds and Butterflies

2005-08-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight is our last night in Ecuador. We can’t believe 5 wks have passed us by so quickly. Our next stop is Venice, which entails a painful flight back to Miami followed by a layover in Frankfurt prior to our arrival in Italy.
Our last week has had its ups and downs…The downs included a day of (Tarak) vomiting and diarrhea which soon passed. It was crazy, the next day I was starving for some apple cinnamon pancakes. I think I’ve dropped to my all time post high school low of 170 lbs. Since then, Sharvari has been doing her best trying to fatten me up. The ups included a few days in Puerto Lopez. This coastal town is mostly a fishing village and a nice beach (if they’d keep it clean). Many parts of this town reminded us of India with cows, dogs and pigs roaming freely the streets and beach. The weather was nice and pleasant with cool ocean breeze. The best part of our stay was the humpback whales. We learned they recently made their way up from Chile to the coast of Ecuador looking for little lovin’ (mating season) and warmer waters. On a 20 person boat, we set off for about an hour into the Altantic ocean before we caught sight of these incredible animals. Even with the Dramamine, dried ginger slices and constantly looking into the horizon, there were some rough moments for Sharvari aboard the ship.
After Puerto Lopez, we spent a half day in Old Quito which is an UNESCO world heritage site and then went to the cloud forest of Mindo. We only had one day to spent there so we packed it in with all we could do. We woke up around 5 am this morning and went on a guided tour looking for birds. We must say bird watching is an art. Trying to find these fast moving creatures with binoculars can be very frustrating. Our guide would get all excited and point to some bird..let us clarify, point somewhere within a thick patch of forest. So, we would bust out our binoculars trying to quickly find it..however he would already have located it with a telescope for us to see, as we of course are zooming in on some leaf. We saw some really pretty birds and got some good shots of toucans. Lastly, we went to the Mariposa museum and saw butterflies through their life cycle. From being an egg, to a baby catapillar to a cocoon and then onto a mature butterfly. We even saw one being born (rather hatch from the cacoon) and the craziest thing..there was amniotic fluid!! Anyway, we’ve had an awesome time in Ecuador, but now we’re off again. Gelatos and pasta…here we come!!!

Adios Otavalo!

2005-08-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

This is our last week in Otavalo…We’ve saturated our minds with Spanish and now are looking forward to our trip to see the humpback whales. The remainder of our volunteer experience hasn’t been all too exciting. We’ve been given the responsibility to see all the newborn babies who room in with their mothers. So basically, picture a room full of mostly indigenous women (or we should say girls-since some are even 14!!) and then, in walk in us two. We basically look through their charts, examine the newborns and try to do a lot of teaching and anticipatory guidance. Since a lot of these women are on their 6th kid or something crazy (by the age 24), they could probably teach us a thing or do about breastfeeding. An interesting thing we learned is because of the diet of the indigenous women, their breast milk is super nutritious and the kids are always huge. Of course, when we see them in clinic, it’s easy to know when breast feeding has stopped. The kids are scrawny, usually have “bechos” (parasites) and basically live on a diet of arroz, maize and all kinds of gross meat.
Besides the hospital and the language school, we basically just chill out in the town. A few of the panerias (bakeries/bread shops) and heladorias (ice cream shops) know our faces. Because of the lack of vegetarian selection, we end up making our own sandwiches, which are pretty good.
Here are a few pictures of the infamous market of Otavalo. We’ve gotten some good stuff and our bargaining skills rival those of the locals (not really). We’ve mastered the art of first asking “Cuanto questa (how much))?”…and then whatever answer they give, we furrow our brows, look at each other and shake our head sadly and say “hmmm…Muy carro (too expensive” and then (usually) Sharvari (it’s because I have no shame in bargaining) after a long pause, basically offer them $2 and then walk away like we don’t care (but we do)…they’ll usually stop us with a more reasonable price.
Adios amigos!….our next stop, Puerto Lopez and a city called Cuenca!

Chillin' in Otavalo

2005-07-31T16:14:00.000-07:00

When we arrived in Ecuador close to 4 weeks ago, we spent the first week in Quito taking Spanish classes prior to setting sail to the Galapagos. Quito, which is the capital, for the most part, is like most large cities-pollution, noise and corruption. However, sepapate from this “moderno” Quito, is an Antigua which is landscaped by hills, pedestrian only streets, colonial buildings and cathedrals.
We ended up staying in a “gringo” infested area near our language school. The food for vegetarians was just OK except for our frequented trips to the local Indian restaurant run by our new best friend, the Pujabi uncle who would treat us to some killer gulab jambu.
We decided upon a smaller town experience, and left the big city for a town called Otavalo, which is known in Ecuador for the HUGE weekend markets. Otavalo is a pretty quaint town set in the highlands. The population consists of a large number of indigenous people, with the rest being the metistzos. So, we got here, set up camp at Hostel Geriano began taking Spanish classes in the afternoon and spending the mornings working at San Luis Hospital. The hospital is a public one, open to the poor and is quite interesting. We spent our days rounding with the pediatrician on the kids admitted in the hospital. For every medicine, IV and even medical supplies that is necessary for the child, the parents have to go buy and bring back. So of course, the first day there’s already a story (not quite like the Ecuadorian thumb). First we should explain that in morning rounds, there is the pediatrician who’s running things, 2 head nurses following along closely, 4 random college students in white coats serving as pseudo-nurses and now of course, the 2 “doctors from the states”. There’s this boy with a massive pneumonia involving his entire left lung….so of course, after hearing the story, everybody immediately looks at Tarak, to see what the expert has to say. Of course, Sharvari couldn’t let him have his moment, and had to pipe in, (of course in 2nd grade Spanish), “oh, this kid needs a thoracentesis (for non-medical folks-it’s removing fluid from the chest for evaluation). Everybody nodded and agreed, we wrote for some antibiotics (for his poor mother to go buy) and moved on. We saw more kids, then went to clinic and around noon, we thought we were done. We went back up to the pediatric ward, and lo and behold, there was a little metal tray, with green “sterile” equipment and some test tubes wrapped in paper. We thought, hmmm, that’s odd, I wonder what that’s for. The next thing we knew, there was Tarak in sterile gloves about to do this thoracentesis on a 4 year old without any sedation. We ended up using BRUTANE (yes that means the 4 pseudo nurses holding him) and of course, Sharvari was an amazing 1st assistant. Bottom line: we got a bunch of pus, the kid survived, (no pneumo) and we looked heroes.
Enough with the medical story…. Last weekend we took a nice trip up to a volcanic lake, Cuicocha. We hiked around this amazing lake and then had lunch at the “Mirador” which means lookout. Here are some great pics from our hike!!

The Galapagos Islands

2005-07-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

As per the Lonely Planet, a visit to the Galapagos Islands is the wildlife experience of a lifetime, a mind-blowing lesson in natural history set in a barren, volcanic land with a haunting beauty all its own. Here you can swim with sea lions, float eye-to-eye with a penguin, scuba dive with hammerhead sharks, stand next to a blue-footed booby feeding its young, watch a giant 200kg tortoise lumbering though a cactus forest, and try to avoid stepping on iguanas scurrying over the lava.
That this little string of islands, 1000 km away from the mainland of Ecuador, has so profoundly influenced human thought, that the handful of animals which somehow made it out here and isolated for so long lost all fear of predators and developed into species entirely on their own, and that today you can see these unique animals living practically as they have for aeons, is simply astonishing.
That being said….we had an incredible time in the Galapagos Islands. The archipelago has islands ranging from 750,000 yrs old to 3.25 million years old. Each island we visited had different species and vegetation making each day an unique experience. As we explored each island, the animals had no fear, and frequently we could literally touch them without them even flinching. We never imagined how many different species of birds inhabited these islands. Everything from a yellow wobbler to a red footed booby (yes, a booby is a bird and you can only imagine the 5th grade jokes that were told) to a Darwin finch to even a hooded mockingbird (that doesn’t even mock as we learned).
Here’s an idea of our daily itinerary: The bell would ring (yes quite like elementary school) at 7am sharp for breakfast. Afterwards, we would pile onto “dingies” (basically rubber boats) off to explore a new island. There we would go on a 2 hour hike, seeing the amazing vegetation and getting literally into the animals faces. Then we’d hop back on the “dingy” to Daphne (our lovely boat) for a quick change and then onto snorkeling. The water was absolutely freezing, and of course, not surprising I (Sharvari) was the only one in a wet suit. During our snorkeling adventures, we played literally with sea lions (they came close enough to make me scream), saw beautiful schools of fish, sea turtles, penguins (actually swimming or more like a torpedo in the water) and even a few white tip sharks (that will make you pee in the ocean). Afterwards, back on the “dingies” to the boat-where we’d have snacks followed by our meals. By this time, we all needed a small siesta before another afternoon excursion to the beach.
As everything couldn’t have been perfect…there were definitely some rough spots. First of all, thank God for scopolamine patches and dried ginger (thanks to my parents). Otherwise, we would have been vomiting machines, as many times at night,-the boat would be thrashing side to side, and I would hear a “oh shit” which was Tarak being thrown into shower while brushing his teeth, or we’d be awakened by a large “thud”, in which the cabinet next to our heads, came crashing down. Another downfall, was the damn menu selection for vegetarians. All I can say is that I have had EVERY combination of eggs and freakin’ heart of palm (I did not even know what that was before, and now I never want to see it again).
Another thing that turned out well was the diving in the Gallapagos, which only Tarak did. I (Tarak) was a little worried about diving at first since the guidebooks recommend experienced divers, which I am somewhat. However, once I saw what was awaiting below, all fears disappeared. I not saw only tons of amazing fish, but also witnessed at least 30 white tip sharks swimming about 10-15 feet away and even some sleeping in caves. We were so close we could see them breathe!!!. On another dive, the sea lions came up to us and wanted to play. They found our dive equipment interesting and literally came within inches of our faces. They would open their mouths as if they were going to bite us and then swim away. Which each encounter, I couldn’t help but flinch. Then on another dive, we saw giant sea turtles, rays, barracudas and the coolest thing….hammerhead sharks. We saw at least 3-5 schools (10-30 in each school) of hammerheads swimming effortlessly….The Galapagos experience will never be forgotten and difficult to match anywhere else in the world.

Trip to the Banos

2005-07-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hi all!! Well, we had our first weekend journey to a place in the central highlands called the Banos. For those who know some basic spanish, let me first clarify, this was NOT an extended trip to the bathroom. Anyway, it was a gorgeous scene-the small town of Banos is in between the mountains and this lush greenery. There are also natural hot springs that we visited. The hot springs were nice, but I think we went at the wrong time because they were not hot enough for me at all. We also went when all of the Ecuadorians go with all of their gazillion small kids. So, between all of the kids attempting the breaststroke (as we got drenched) and I couldn't stop imagining how many of them probably were peeing or already peed in the spring-needless to say, I didn't stay in there long.
But the next day, we rented bicycles and rode the path from Banos to Puya. It was absolutely amazing-mostly downhill (thank God). We would park our bikes along the way, and hike up (always painfully uphill) to see these amazing waterfalls. And of course, there has to always be some mild drama-well, in order to get to one of the waterfalls, we had to cross this suspension bridge (you know like the ones in the movies-where the damsel has one of her legs that slip through and the hero has to bust in and save her-very frequent in Bollywood). Anyway, I was too cool to fasten my chin strap to my hat, so of course, with the first gust of wind, it blew off down way below. So, poor Tarak, flung himself down this muddy passage to rescue my hat and then had to use the branches to pull himself up. Of course, the people who passed us on the bridge thought we were nuts, because I was screaming at him in Gujrati to be careful and the hat was only $12.
Anway, the last stop was this waterfall called the Rio Verde, which was really beautiful. Of course, our legs were noodles by that time, not to mention my butt was extremely sore from the damn bike all day, and the ride back was ALL uphill..(Tarak was all, oh yeah, I mountain bike all the time...I could do it...whatever)...but we threw our bikes on the back of this pick up truck, sat in the back and rode along the sunset and watched the scenary as we drove back into the mountains of Bano. :)

We are off!!!

2005-07-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

We are off!!!
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

Bright or not so bright and early around 5 am we left for the airport to begin our journey. Sharvari complaints had already begun..."Tarak this bag is too heavy"....as for many of you already know, i kept telling her to keep to the five shirt and five underwear limit...

Where2Next Map

2005-07-04T22:09:00.000-07:00

worldmap
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

This is our tentative route..follow along if you dare

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2005-06-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

IMG_4779
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

South Africa Feb. 2005

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2005-06-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

IMG_4958
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

South Africa Feb. 2005

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2005-06-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

DSC_7453
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

Another test photo...and another engagement photo

2005-06-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

hello

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2005-06-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

DSC_7547
Originally uploaded by taraksharvari.

Engagement Photo

I'm working on how to navigate and use this blog site..

Getting Ready

2005-06-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

The countdown is on... We have 15 days until we leave for our trip. Sharvari is finishing her residency with a bang running her Ben Taub medicine wards while i'm taking the more relaxed route seeing patients in the clinic..More to follow. This post is more of a test run.