$5266 = flights + insurance + vaccines + visa stuff + cvs medicines etc + hotels/food/entertainment/transportation
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Oh hello
We are currently in Yogyakarta, Indonesia! Here's a less intense update.
After my birthday we took an overnight bus to Bangkok. We had no idea where anything was but were saved from overspending with the taxi men by these two girls, one from Norway and the other from Germany. They'd both been there before and directed us to a nice street of hotels off of the tourist-ridden and notorious Khaosan Rd. We didn't do a whole lot of touristy things in Bangkok. Failed at Chinatown, saw the giant (giant!) reclining buddha in Wat Poh after almost being tricked (ok it was just me.. Aarti is too cynical to fall for anything) into taking a 10Baht "tour" of all the temples that were mysteriously all about to close. Sounds like a deal but you either 1) get a tour of temples but then get dropped somewhere random if you don't buy something expensive from the stores they take you to also, or 2) only get taken to stores and have to demand to be taken back to your hotel.
Then we went to Korat to visit my cousin Jason and his wife and my adorable first-cousin-once-removed Wyatt. Amazing that we met up. They knew we were coming, but not if we were going by bus or train. We were supposed to call and say how, but none of the public phones were working. They didn't even realize we had Jub's sister's phone number. And apparently they only had internet at their coffee shop. But luckily when we arrived in Korat one of the bus workers helped us out by letting us use his cell phone to call them. And he even spoke in Thai with Jub to make sure it was clear which station we were at.
The next day was full of adventure at the national park an hour from their place. We had a very adventurous hike- a story best told in person. Ask me about this later. The next day was spent wandering around Korat where we saw a sweet museum about their "wonder woman" (Suranuri), a lady who apparently led some ragtag soldiers to victory?; a temple with stalactites and stalagmites in it, rescued from a cave that was set to be destroyed for commercial reasons; and did some shopping.
The next day we ended up making a stop in Ayuttaya (the previous capitol of Thailand I think) before heading back to Bangkok. We rented bikes and rode around for a few hours touring the ruins of the city. Pretty nice, but hot.
Thennnn... the last country on our list! Time goes so fast/slow. We arrived in Bali and I sadly realized I was missing something :-(. Nothing of any monetary value, just a small present I'd bought. I can't think of anywhere I might have lost it. I have my suspicions that someone grabbed it in the airport since it was on the outside of my bookbag. Who knows.. Oh well. We ran into some Belgian girls who were going our way and shared a cab. Got tips from them on Java and found a hotel.
Next day was full of tourism: silver jewellery workshop, batik and painting stores, rice terraces, monkey forest (pretty crazy place with wacky monkeys.. no trouble from them myself but saw them take a woman's earring out of her ear to try to eat it! ask me later for more details in person), an awesome buffet lunch overlooking Mt Batur (a volcano), and various cave temple things.
Relaxed the next day. Looked around, and got to practice Indonesian on the beach! The ice cream man came by and tried to sell me ice cream for about 5 times the store price. Despite not buying anything from him, he turned out to be really nice and happy to sit for a half hour to practice English with me while I practiced his language. That night there was a huge party on the beach sponsored by Yamaha (because of all the motorbikes here) with a concert and dancing.
The next day was pretty lame since we had booked a trekking trip up Mt. Batur for 1:30am the next morning (you have to leave at this time to drive there and then climb to the top by sunrise) and needed to go to slee p around 6pm. I couldn't sleep, and the midday sleeping threw off my schedule. I ended up taking my malaria medicine on a super empty stomache and I think all those things combined made me feel not so good. But dinner fortunately fixed all that since we had a mountain to climb in just a few hours! And it was great! Our guide was great and took us quickly to the viewpoint where we watched the sunrise, took a bunch of silly pictures, checked out steam vents (so warm!), and saw a bat cave.
Spent our last day in Bali buying movies with Indonesian subtitles (yay fun practice) and lying around on the beach watching sunset.
Now Yogyakarta. We successfully got to the street full of hotels using the bus (I got to ask directions in Indonesian!), booked a tour of Borobudur and Prambanan for tomorrow, and checked into a sweet hotel with a delicious and cheap restaurant downstairs and free internet! We are thinking we might spent a few days here. It seems nice.
Then on to Bogor to see Fengky, Padang to see the city we've thought so much about for the last year, and Bukiittinggi for some more nature adventures, before heading back to Bali for one last day bumming on the beach before heading back to reality.
See all of you relatively soon!
After my birthday we took an overnight bus to Bangkok. We had no idea where anything was but were saved from overspending with the taxi men by these two girls, one from Norway and the other from Germany. They'd both been there before and directed us to a nice street of hotels off of the tourist-ridden and notorious Khaosan Rd. We didn't do a whole lot of touristy things in Bangkok. Failed at Chinatown, saw the giant (giant!) reclining buddha in Wat Poh after almost being tricked (ok it was just me.. Aarti is too cynical to fall for anything) into taking a 10Baht "tour" of all the temples that were mysteriously all about to close. Sounds like a deal but you either 1) get a tour of temples but then get dropped somewhere random if you don't buy something expensive from the stores they take you to also, or 2) only get taken to stores and have to demand to be taken back to your hotel.
Then we went to Korat to visit my cousin Jason and his wife and my adorable first-cousin-once-removed Wyatt. Amazing that we met up. They knew we were coming, but not if we were going by bus or train. We were supposed to call and say how, but none of the public phones were working. They didn't even realize we had Jub's sister's phone number. And apparently they only had internet at their coffee shop. But luckily when we arrived in Korat one of the bus workers helped us out by letting us use his cell phone to call them. And he even spoke in Thai with Jub to make sure it was clear which station we were at.
The next day was full of adventure at the national park an hour from their place. We had a very adventurous hike- a story best told in person. Ask me about this later. The next day was spent wandering around Korat where we saw a sweet museum about their "wonder woman" (Suranuri), a lady who apparently led some ragtag soldiers to victory?; a temple with stalactites and stalagmites in it, rescued from a cave that was set to be destroyed for commercial reasons; and did some shopping.
The next day we ended up making a stop in Ayuttaya (the previous capitol of Thailand I think) before heading back to Bangkok. We rented bikes and rode around for a few hours touring the ruins of the city. Pretty nice, but hot.
Thennnn... the last country on our list! Time goes so fast/slow. We arrived in Bali and I sadly realized I was missing something :-(. Nothing of any monetary value, just a small present I'd bought. I can't think of anywhere I might have lost it. I have my suspicions that someone grabbed it in the airport since it was on the outside of my bookbag. Who knows.. Oh well. We ran into some Belgian girls who were going our way and shared a cab. Got tips from them on Java and found a hotel.
Next day was full of tourism: silver jewellery workshop, batik and painting stores, rice terraces, monkey forest (pretty crazy place with wacky monkeys.. no trouble from them myself but saw them take a woman's earring out of her ear to try to eat it! ask me later for more details in person), an awesome buffet lunch overlooking Mt Batur (a volcano), and various cave temple things.
Relaxed the next day. Looked around, and got to practice Indonesian on the beach! The ice cream man came by and tried to sell me ice cream for about 5 times the store price. Despite not buying anything from him, he turned out to be really nice and happy to sit for a half hour to practice English with me while I practiced his language. That night there was a huge party on the beach sponsored by Yamaha (because of all the motorbikes here) with a concert and dancing.
The next day was pretty lame since we had booked a trekking trip up Mt. Batur for 1:30am the next morning (you have to leave at this time to drive there and then climb to the top by sunrise) and needed to go to slee p around 6pm. I couldn't sleep, and the midday sleeping threw off my schedule. I ended up taking my malaria medicine on a super empty stomache and I think all those things combined made me feel not so good. But dinner fortunately fixed all that since we had a mountain to climb in just a few hours! And it was great! Our guide was great and took us quickly to the viewpoint where we watched the sunrise, took a bunch of silly pictures, checked out steam vents (so warm!), and saw a bat cave.
Spent our last day in Bali buying movies with Indonesian subtitles (yay fun practice) and lying around on the beach watching sunset.
Now Yogyakarta. We successfully got to the street full of hotels using the bus (I got to ask directions in Indonesian!), booked a tour of Borobudur and Prambanan for tomorrow, and checked into a sweet hotel with a delicious and cheap restaurant downstairs and free internet! We are thinking we might spent a few days here. It seems nice.
Then on to Bogor to see Fengky, Padang to see the city we've thought so much about for the last year, and Bukiittinggi for some more nature adventures, before heading back to Bali for one last day bumming on the beach before heading back to reality.
See all of you relatively soon!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
almost done!
5-1 Krabi, Thailand
-omg it´s may already. we feel like we´re almost done and then realize we still have 3 weeks in indonesia ahead of us. wow.
-got up early and caught a van for our 4 island tour. first stop was rah lei. went a new direction along a path through some bushes. come upon a cave wall climbing area. pretty cool. we collect some sweet seashells.
-stop two: some island with a bunch of monkeys who start to close in on these three brave people eating lunch. many pictures ensue. also, snorkeling!! i got to swim with this school of yellow and black fish. kind of freaky at first, but despite being surrounded, i never touched a single one. they are so fast!
-then to chicken island and another island it´s connected to by a thin sandbar. more snorkeling by the shoreline and then snorkeling where it´s deeper. they threw some bread in the water so we could swim with the little yellow fish as they went nuts over the bread. really fun. but then i saw a tiny jelly fish and decided i was done, haha. completely fell asleep on the ride back to shore
-got dropped at a beach different from ours (like the previously day) since apparently high tide means crazy waves on ours. tour group hooked us up with this truck with benches in the back as a ride back to our hotel. realized i got quite burnt (first time so far) and started putting on loads of aloe. my spf 55 from the morning must have washed off sooner than i realized.
-discovered a small ant attack of my dirty laundry. ew. why on earth would they want to go there? spray more permethrin (best purchase ever), then wash a few things. so humid in our room that nothing dries. ugh.
5-2 Krabi, Thailand
This will be shorter since I haven´t even written about this one on paper yet. (I keep a handwritten journal as we go and use that to help me remember things.. my current on is almost full! Good thing I bought a sweet new one in India!)
-went on a ¨James Bond¨ tour. saw the james bond island popularized in man with the golden gun. got taken on a canoe through some caves. had to lie in the canoe at times to get under the very short passageways. soo fun. saw the monkey temple and the incredibly cute monkeys outside. took lots of pictures. sang ¨baby monkey riding on a pig¨ to myself.
-shoppping
5-3 Krabi, Thailand
-slept in, yay
-lunch.. fried noodles and chicken burger. soo good.
-used internet but it was wayy too hot in here and left soon after to get ice cream. crazy chocolate thing.
-more nap time
-dinner, then chocodip, chilling by the water and looking at the stars, a little shopping
-and now you are all caught up!
Hope you enjoyed that. Also a gecko just showed up behind my computer monitor. How fun. Goodnight from Thailand! Tomorrow to Bangkok!!
-omg it´s may already. we feel like we´re almost done and then realize we still have 3 weeks in indonesia ahead of us. wow.
-got up early and caught a van for our 4 island tour. first stop was rah lei. went a new direction along a path through some bushes. come upon a cave wall climbing area. pretty cool. we collect some sweet seashells.
-stop two: some island with a bunch of monkeys who start to close in on these three brave people eating lunch. many pictures ensue. also, snorkeling!! i got to swim with this school of yellow and black fish. kind of freaky at first, but despite being surrounded, i never touched a single one. they are so fast!
-then to chicken island and another island it´s connected to by a thin sandbar. more snorkeling by the shoreline and then snorkeling where it´s deeper. they threw some bread in the water so we could swim with the little yellow fish as they went nuts over the bread. really fun. but then i saw a tiny jelly fish and decided i was done, haha. completely fell asleep on the ride back to shore
-got dropped at a beach different from ours (like the previously day) since apparently high tide means crazy waves on ours. tour group hooked us up with this truck with benches in the back as a ride back to our hotel. realized i got quite burnt (first time so far) and started putting on loads of aloe. my spf 55 from the morning must have washed off sooner than i realized.
-discovered a small ant attack of my dirty laundry. ew. why on earth would they want to go there? spray more permethrin (best purchase ever), then wash a few things. so humid in our room that nothing dries. ugh.
5-2 Krabi, Thailand
This will be shorter since I haven´t even written about this one on paper yet. (I keep a handwritten journal as we go and use that to help me remember things.. my current on is almost full! Good thing I bought a sweet new one in India!)
-went on a ¨James Bond¨ tour. saw the james bond island popularized in man with the golden gun. got taken on a canoe through some caves. had to lie in the canoe at times to get under the very short passageways. soo fun. saw the monkey temple and the incredibly cute monkeys outside. took lots of pictures. sang ¨baby monkey riding on a pig¨ to myself.
-shoppping
5-3 Krabi, Thailand
-slept in, yay
-lunch.. fried noodles and chicken burger. soo good.
-used internet but it was wayy too hot in here and left soon after to get ice cream. crazy chocolate thing.
-more nap time
-dinner, then chocodip, chilling by the water and looking at the stars, a little shopping
-and now you are all caught up!
Hope you enjoyed that. Also a gecko just showed up behind my computer monitor. How fun. Goodnight from Thailand! Tomorrow to Bangkok!!
make that like 8 bug bits. by far my most so far on this trip.
stupid computer room. i even put on bug stuff. just not on my toes or knees. and that´s where i got bit. so dumb.
4-30 Krabi, Thailand
-went to Rah Lei for the day and booked the ¨4 island tour¨ for tomorrow
-this little kid from kuala lumpur deemed himself our tour guide and led us to crawl under some rocks then climb up some other rocks to see phra nang cave. pretty sweet.
-went exploring and found a rope leading up a rock slope with a sign saying ¨slippery¨. wondered if this was the way to the lagoon. apparently they aren´t big on signs here. got confirmation about the lagoon and began our trek. not quite hiking, not quite rock climbing. the only thing to tell you that you were going the right way was this rope that was useful for going down the sometimes muddly slopes. it was really fun and very sweaty. we made it almost to the lagoon, to the point where the trek becomes vertical. we figured we could do it, but didn´t want to take any unnecessary risks since we were all alone out there and headed back (we´d heard the lagoon wasn´t so good right now anyway). also saw the view point. a forest of palm trees looks so nice from above.
-caught a longtail boat back to ao nang. it´s kind of fun wading into the water then climbing into the boat. had some more pad thai and tried red curry, then chocodip for dessert. it is so good here! had a second one :-D
-back in our room i discover a gecko. i tell aarti only because i don´t want it in our room either and i figure she´ll notice me trying to get it out. she is too scared to deal with it, so i, being the slightly less wimpy one, am forced to formulate a plan. i veto capturing it with a glass cup that´s a little too small partially because i think i´ll freak out and drop it. i also veto spraying it with permethrin because neither of us want to kill it and we think it might leap somewhere or something. i grab a large ziploc bag so i can keep my hands far from it and capture it inside (it´s high up on the wall). i quickly close up the bag and run outside, holding it far in front of me. i get a strange look from the man in the lobby. i guess they don´t see this all the time.
4-30 Krabi, Thailand
-went to Rah Lei for the day and booked the ¨4 island tour¨ for tomorrow
-this little kid from kuala lumpur deemed himself our tour guide and led us to crawl under some rocks then climb up some other rocks to see phra nang cave. pretty sweet.
-went exploring and found a rope leading up a rock slope with a sign saying ¨slippery¨. wondered if this was the way to the lagoon. apparently they aren´t big on signs here. got confirmation about the lagoon and began our trek. not quite hiking, not quite rock climbing. the only thing to tell you that you were going the right way was this rope that was useful for going down the sometimes muddly slopes. it was really fun and very sweaty. we made it almost to the lagoon, to the point where the trek becomes vertical. we figured we could do it, but didn´t want to take any unnecessary risks since we were all alone out there and headed back (we´d heard the lagoon wasn´t so good right now anyway). also saw the view point. a forest of palm trees looks so nice from above.
-caught a longtail boat back to ao nang. it´s kind of fun wading into the water then climbing into the boat. had some more pad thai and tried red curry, then chocodip for dessert. it is so good here! had a second one :-D
-back in our room i discover a gecko. i tell aarti only because i don´t want it in our room either and i figure she´ll notice me trying to get it out. she is too scared to deal with it, so i, being the slightly less wimpy one, am forced to formulate a plan. i veto capturing it with a glass cup that´s a little too small partially because i think i´ll freak out and drop it. i also veto spraying it with permethrin because neither of us want to kill it and we think it might leap somewhere or something. i grab a large ziploc bag so i can keep my hands far from it and capture it inside (it´s high up on the wall). i quickly close up the bag and run outside, holding it far in front of me. i get a strange look from the man in the lobby. i guess they don´t see this all the time.
Thailand! Also I hope you guys are appreciating the blogs posts and pics..
because I think I´ve gotten like 5 bug bites while doing this. gah
4-29 Krabi, Thailand
Wow. an adventure. We got one final free breakfast from red inn, then got in a van for krabi. made some friends with the thai people in the car and got lots of offers for help and were encouraged to stay in thailand to teach english.
-transferred to a different van in hat yai. made a stop for food, and then another stop later on where i tried to take out money, but my long pin number was too much for the atm. fail. with no thai money, we skipped on food here. a mistake, since we ended up getting hungry later on in the ride. also tired. also had to pee. the driver more or less told us he was going to take us to ao nang (where we eventually wanted to go anyway) for 100 baht more instead of krabi town. we didn´t have any thai money still but planned on getting some in town when he dropped us off. however, it was not meant to be.
-somewhere between krabi town and ao nang, the engine dies. he restarts it numerous times only to have it die again. we soon realize we´re not going anyway. i can´t stop laughing. so hungry. so tired. still have to pee. no idea where we are.
-this couple who we originally thought was a little demanding soon helped us out as they told the driver they would not pay. we did not get to our destination, and in fact were stuck in the middle of somewhere. none of us had thai money anyway. we ended up walking toward town until we came upon this convenience shop and a lady who spoke english. she hooked me up with a bathroom then called her husband who was a tuk tuk driver. she accompanied us to town with him and brought us to her friend´s hotel. nice place and cheap. we booked a night there. this lady saved us! got some food nearby. pad thai. in thailand. feeling so much better.
4-29 Krabi, Thailand
Wow. an adventure. We got one final free breakfast from red inn, then got in a van for krabi. made some friends with the thai people in the car and got lots of offers for help and were encouraged to stay in thailand to teach english.
-transferred to a different van in hat yai. made a stop for food, and then another stop later on where i tried to take out money, but my long pin number was too much for the atm. fail. with no thai money, we skipped on food here. a mistake, since we ended up getting hungry later on in the ride. also tired. also had to pee. the driver more or less told us he was going to take us to ao nang (where we eventually wanted to go anyway) for 100 baht more instead of krabi town. we didn´t have any thai money still but planned on getting some in town when he dropped us off. however, it was not meant to be.
-somewhere between krabi town and ao nang, the engine dies. he restarts it numerous times only to have it die again. we soon realize we´re not going anyway. i can´t stop laughing. so hungry. so tired. still have to pee. no idea where we are.
-this couple who we originally thought was a little demanding soon helped us out as they told the driver they would not pay. we did not get to our destination, and in fact were stuck in the middle of somewhere. none of us had thai money anyway. we ended up walking toward town until we came upon this convenience shop and a lady who spoke english. she hooked me up with a bathroom then called her husband who was a tuk tuk driver. she accompanied us to town with him and brought us to her friend´s hotel. nice place and cheap. we booked a night there. this lady saved us! got some food nearby. pad thai. in thailand. feeling so much better.
Penang
4-27 Penang, Malaysia
-originally planned to only be here for a night then to go to thailand the next day. realized this was crazy talk. booked our first dorm-style room at red inn, where they have free breakfast, coffee, and internet, all for about 8 usd. yes.
-got some not-so-impressive dinner then planned out our next day. self guided tourism.
4-28 Penang, Malaysia
-made friends with a girl from Canada, Veronique. she joined us as we bussed to the Snake Temple (they have poisonous snakes just chilling all over the place, it´s crazy. but the snakes are totally lazy and don´t do anything but sleep), then back to town for lunch (really good this time), then off to penang hill.. penang´s version of hong kong´s peak tram. this one was steeper! and it was cool at the top and we saw lots of monkeys in the surrounding trees. so cute. then a hindu temple that was soo colorful and probably my favorite so far on this trip (take that, india). we took lots of pictures of penang island (all visible from up there), then headed back down. we had some western dinner since veronique was craving it, and saw some event at a club across the street. very fancy people there. we decided we looked too ¨spiritual¨ to even have a shot at getting in. got some ice cream and called it a night.
-originally planned to only be here for a night then to go to thailand the next day. realized this was crazy talk. booked our first dorm-style room at red inn, where they have free breakfast, coffee, and internet, all for about 8 usd. yes.
-got some not-so-impressive dinner then planned out our next day. self guided tourism.
4-28 Penang, Malaysia
-made friends with a girl from Canada, Veronique. she joined us as we bussed to the Snake Temple (they have poisonous snakes just chilling all over the place, it´s crazy. but the snakes are totally lazy and don´t do anything but sleep), then back to town for lunch (really good this time), then off to penang hill.. penang´s version of hong kong´s peak tram. this one was steeper! and it was cool at the top and we saw lots of monkeys in the surrounding trees. so cute. then a hindu temple that was soo colorful and probably my favorite so far on this trip (take that, india). we took lots of pictures of penang island (all visible from up there), then headed back down. we had some western dinner since veronique was craving it, and saw some event at a club across the street. very fancy people there. we decided we looked too ¨spiritual¨ to even have a shot at getting in. got some ice cream and called it a night.
Ipoh
4-25 Ipoh, Malaysia
-met up with our fist couch surfing host, Kian. really nice and we stayed with him and his family. their house was amazing! and our room had AC and a shower!! we watched some tv with him. top chef and australian biggest loser. neither of which i normally watch, but since we hadn´t seen tv in so long, it was kind of enthralling. and they had malaysian subtitles (which is basically the same as indonesian), which was really helpful for learning as i listened in english.
-went to a night market with Kian and tried some fried ice cream (omg) and a peanut pancake. liking the malaysian food
4-26 Ipoh, Malaysia
-Kian dropped us off in town near a cave temple. we caught a taxi to gua temperung (cave system), but while we were in the taxi, the driver starts saying how it´s farther than he thought and he´d have to charge more. we tell him to drop us at the bus station. we are not noobs to getting scammed. we catch a bus, but don´t realize we need to push this button to get off. end up going 2km past our stop and get off when some ladies push the button for their stop. transportation in ipoh isn´t great and there aren´t any buses or taxis to be seen. we walk towards the cave. 2km later we get to a sign. cave is 2km to our right. we walk some more. it is mad hot. we hear what may be monkeys in the trees. we continue onwards. finally, the caves! we get some ice cream and sit in the shade with a fan.
-unforunately we are an hour or two late and like 10 people short of being able to do the ¨wet tour¨ were you venture far into the cave then exit by walking through the cave river. poor planning, but it´s hard to do this when we´re in each place for such a short time. so far we are failing a bit at malaysia with the KL towers and all. we do the ¨dry tour¨ which is still pretty good, and when the tour guide realizes i know a little malaysian, we end up chatting for the rest of the tour.
-we find this older white guy after our tour and ask him how he´s getting back to ipoh. apparently he´s going somewhere else but he has a car and upon finding out we´d walked there, offers us a ride back to the main road where the buses are. yesssss. he tells us his story. he was teaching in malaysia for a while when he met his soon to be wife. ended up moving there. he drops us at a bus station where we are later joined by some locals. we are all skeptical that a bus will ever come. they begin trying to flag down people on motorbikes for a ride. finally, a bus!
-we get back to where kian dropped us with just enough time to see one more cave temple (not the coolest one we wanted though)
-later that night he drops us in town again, this time at tutti frutti (frozen yogurt!!) where we give in and buy 5 usd worth of it, haha. soooo good. then we meet up with this girl couch surfer, wen. she is amazing! we get chinese noodle soup with her (really really good), then back to the night market where we sample some kaya (a malaysian jam sorta thing) and other sweets. wish we had more time to hang out with her.
-met up with our fist couch surfing host, Kian. really nice and we stayed with him and his family. their house was amazing! and our room had AC and a shower!! we watched some tv with him. top chef and australian biggest loser. neither of which i normally watch, but since we hadn´t seen tv in so long, it was kind of enthralling. and they had malaysian subtitles (which is basically the same as indonesian), which was really helpful for learning as i listened in english.
-went to a night market with Kian and tried some fried ice cream (omg) and a peanut pancake. liking the malaysian food
4-26 Ipoh, Malaysia
-Kian dropped us off in town near a cave temple. we caught a taxi to gua temperung (cave system), but while we were in the taxi, the driver starts saying how it´s farther than he thought and he´d have to charge more. we tell him to drop us at the bus station. we are not noobs to getting scammed. we catch a bus, but don´t realize we need to push this button to get off. end up going 2km past our stop and get off when some ladies push the button for their stop. transportation in ipoh isn´t great and there aren´t any buses or taxis to be seen. we walk towards the cave. 2km later we get to a sign. cave is 2km to our right. we walk some more. it is mad hot. we hear what may be monkeys in the trees. we continue onwards. finally, the caves! we get some ice cream and sit in the shade with a fan.
-unforunately we are an hour or two late and like 10 people short of being able to do the ¨wet tour¨ were you venture far into the cave then exit by walking through the cave river. poor planning, but it´s hard to do this when we´re in each place for such a short time. so far we are failing a bit at malaysia with the KL towers and all. we do the ¨dry tour¨ which is still pretty good, and when the tour guide realizes i know a little malaysian, we end up chatting for the rest of the tour.
-we find this older white guy after our tour and ask him how he´s getting back to ipoh. apparently he´s going somewhere else but he has a car and upon finding out we´d walked there, offers us a ride back to the main road where the buses are. yesssss. he tells us his story. he was teaching in malaysia for a while when he met his soon to be wife. ended up moving there. he drops us at a bus station where we are later joined by some locals. we are all skeptical that a bus will ever come. they begin trying to flag down people on motorbikes for a ride. finally, a bus!
-we get back to where kian dropped us with just enough time to see one more cave temple (not the coolest one we wanted though)
-later that night he drops us in town again, this time at tutti frutti (frozen yogurt!!) where we give in and buy 5 usd worth of it, haha. soooo good. then we meet up with this girl couch surfer, wen. she is amazing! we get chinese noodle soup with her (really really good), then back to the night market where we sample some kaya (a malaysian jam sorta thing) and other sweets. wish we had more time to hang out with her.
Some more
4-24 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
-got up at 6am. painful. headed out for the petronas towers (my favorite buildings!!) and arrived around 8:30am. woops. not early enough. no more tickets for the top. kind of sad, but oh well. took lots of pictures from the outside. then stopped by a tourist info place but mistakenly (not really) ended up in a chocolate store. almost bought white chocolate covered mango, pineapple and papaya but there were too many people there and we didn´t have enough patience for the lines. got samples though! then onwards to the KL tower, but found out that was a little expensive to go out. second fail. got a sundae to make up for it.
-naptime. since we started the day so early we were already tired, and aarti was still getting over being sick.
-decided to make the most of our last night here by seeing the central market. it was good to both of us. i got a ring (something i´d been looking for the whole trip), a dress (my fifth of this trip, haha), and some awesome ice cream
-researched thailand. it looks confusing.
-got up at 6am. painful. headed out for the petronas towers (my favorite buildings!!) and arrived around 8:30am. woops. not early enough. no more tickets for the top. kind of sad, but oh well. took lots of pictures from the outside. then stopped by a tourist info place but mistakenly (not really) ended up in a chocolate store. almost bought white chocolate covered mango, pineapple and papaya but there were too many people there and we didn´t have enough patience for the lines. got samples though! then onwards to the KL tower, but found out that was a little expensive to go out. second fail. got a sundae to make up for it.
-naptime. since we started the day so early we were already tired, and aarti was still getting over being sick.
-decided to make the most of our last night here by seeing the central market. it was good to both of us. i got a ring (something i´d been looking for the whole trip), a dress (my fifth of this trip, haha), and some awesome ice cream
-researched thailand. it looks confusing.
4-19 Goa, India
-packed then hung out at our favorite restaurant for a long time ordering one thing at a time, haha
-got contact info from our best friends in Goa, these New Zealanders we met on the train there
-internet to plan malaysia!
-sweaty bus ride to the train station, and then overnight train to mumbai, aka sweat central.
4-20 Mumbai, India
-arrived at our hotel before the room was ready. not surprising since it was like 6:30am. fell asleep on some chairs in the lobby. then moved to our room and slept there.
-then more laundry by hand. actually got a blister from this. man i love laundry machines..
-finally tried the mcspicy paneer. indian mcdonalds, i love you.
-home to do a phone interview!
4-21 flight to Singapore!
-met up with janmeet one last time and gave him fenny and cashews from goa. he gave us bracelets! sweet
- watched ps i love you on the plane instead of sleeping. woops.
4-22 Singapore
-airport is mad nice, as i´d heard
-this place is so clean
-this place is way more expensive than india
-aarti was kind of sick so i explored during the day alone (totally safe, don´t worry mom and dad!!), then we met up at night to see the sweet buildings and fountains and a street performer named willy along the water. also i went to the malay heritage center and got some practice recognizing words in indonesian! so exciting after all the studying i´ve been doing before and during this trip.
-went on a wild goose chase for internet, only to find it for free in the end. score!
4-23 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
-packed up and walked maybe a mile with all our stuff in the heat. we are true champions. also i am getting so good at carrying aarti´s bag up the stairs, haha. took a bus that had AC (Singapore is not India it turns out) and reclining chairs. wow. slept for most of the way.
-dropped off at a semi random location in KL. near the bus station, but we couldn´t see that from where they dropped us. luckily, we could find our street on the google map aarti made before the trip. yay, our preparation was useful! we managed to navigate ourselves toward the city. meanwhile there was crazy thunder (but no rain thankfully) and we didn´t have any malaysian money yet. found an atm, then found a hotel. teamwork. SHOWER.
-went out to explore chinatown and got some awesome pineapple fried rice and chicken actually in a pineapple.
-packed then hung out at our favorite restaurant for a long time ordering one thing at a time, haha
-got contact info from our best friends in Goa, these New Zealanders we met on the train there
-internet to plan malaysia!
-sweaty bus ride to the train station, and then overnight train to mumbai, aka sweat central.
4-20 Mumbai, India
-arrived at our hotel before the room was ready. not surprising since it was like 6:30am. fell asleep on some chairs in the lobby. then moved to our room and slept there.
-then more laundry by hand. actually got a blister from this. man i love laundry machines..
-finally tried the mcspicy paneer. indian mcdonalds, i love you.
-home to do a phone interview!
4-21 flight to Singapore!
-met up with janmeet one last time and gave him fenny and cashews from goa. he gave us bracelets! sweet
- watched ps i love you on the plane instead of sleeping. woops.
4-22 Singapore
-airport is mad nice, as i´d heard
-this place is so clean
-this place is way more expensive than india
-aarti was kind of sick so i explored during the day alone (totally safe, don´t worry mom and dad!!), then we met up at night to see the sweet buildings and fountains and a street performer named willy along the water. also i went to the malay heritage center and got some practice recognizing words in indonesian! so exciting after all the studying i´ve been doing before and during this trip.
-went on a wild goose chase for internet, only to find it for free in the end. score!
4-23 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
-packed up and walked maybe a mile with all our stuff in the heat. we are true champions. also i am getting so good at carrying aarti´s bag up the stairs, haha. took a bus that had AC (Singapore is not India it turns out) and reclining chairs. wow. slept for most of the way.
-dropped off at a semi random location in KL. near the bus station, but we couldn´t see that from where they dropped us. luckily, we could find our street on the google map aarti made before the trip. yay, our preparation was useful! we managed to navigate ourselves toward the city. meanwhile there was crazy thunder (but no rain thankfully) and we didn´t have any malaysian money yet. found an atm, then found a hotel. teamwork. SHOWER.
-went out to explore chinatown and got some awesome pineapple fried rice and chicken actually in a pineapple.
It´s May 4th already in Thailand
Gah. Just typed up a ton, and then the internet died. Sorry, but it´s going to be shorter this time.
Birthday- lots of sleeping and eating. crazy chocolate ice cream.
4-16 Goa, India
-first time getting our laundry done. amazing
-night market with new friend, present for parents, and hippy music!
-got random people to help me measure my head in the internet cafe with a ruler i printed out so i could order my cap and gown
4-17 Goa, India
-bought some darjeeling tea and learned how to make it!
-saw most of Lagaan, a hindi movie about a cricket game for independence (and about a drought). during the movie a crazy storm happened (totally out of season here) and we ran for cover and the projector died. will have to finish movie later
4-18 Goa, India
Wanted to go to Baga beach, just to the south. Option A- rent a scooter. salesman scared us out of it though, saying we shouldn´t try it and get hurt on our vacation if we don´t already know how to drive one. Option B- take a bus. we just missed it though. Option C- after some people laughingly telling us we could walk to baga, we accepted the challenge. Found this narrow path along the beach. It took us over some rocks, up a hill, along steep ledges (not too steep! don´t worry mom and dad), over a ditch, through some trash, under some overgrowth, and strangely past two men in business suits. Then we arrived in baga. however, we realized we were on the other side of this river thing that flowed into the ocean from all the tourists and restaurants. not to be defeated, we put our purses into plastic bags and decided to ford it. We saw multiple tourists attempting the same thing, walking a few steps in, sinking a bit, then turning back. They were all taller than us. But we are way tougher. One guy watching all of this go down wished us luck. We´d need it. We decided to ford it in two parts. It was shallowest where it branched off into two parts. The first one was easy and we ended up on a sandabar in the middle. The second part looked deeper and the current a bit faster. I tested it out first without stuff to make sure we´d be able to do it, and it was way easier than it looked. We ventured in. Success! By that point we had quite a few people watching us and offering to help us carry our things. But we did it alone. We felt so victorious, you have no idea. That night we went to the famous Tito´s bar where ladies get in for free and also free drinks! Lots of sweet music. It was pretty good, except the expensive (relative to India) taxi ride back home. Oh well. Oh yeah, and the bartender told us we looked ¨spiritual¨. I think he was calling us hippies.
Birthday- lots of sleeping and eating. crazy chocolate ice cream.
4-16 Goa, India
-first time getting our laundry done. amazing
-night market with new friend, present for parents, and hippy music!
-got random people to help me measure my head in the internet cafe with a ruler i printed out so i could order my cap and gown
4-17 Goa, India
-bought some darjeeling tea and learned how to make it!
-saw most of Lagaan, a hindi movie about a cricket game for independence (and about a drought). during the movie a crazy storm happened (totally out of season here) and we ran for cover and the projector died. will have to finish movie later
4-18 Goa, India
Wanted to go to Baga beach, just to the south. Option A- rent a scooter. salesman scared us out of it though, saying we shouldn´t try it and get hurt on our vacation if we don´t already know how to drive one. Option B- take a bus. we just missed it though. Option C- after some people laughingly telling us we could walk to baga, we accepted the challenge. Found this narrow path along the beach. It took us over some rocks, up a hill, along steep ledges (not too steep! don´t worry mom and dad), over a ditch, through some trash, under some overgrowth, and strangely past two men in business suits. Then we arrived in baga. however, we realized we were on the other side of this river thing that flowed into the ocean from all the tourists and restaurants. not to be defeated, we put our purses into plastic bags and decided to ford it. We saw multiple tourists attempting the same thing, walking a few steps in, sinking a bit, then turning back. They were all taller than us. But we are way tougher. One guy watching all of this go down wished us luck. We´d need it. We decided to ford it in two parts. It was shallowest where it branched off into two parts. The first one was easy and we ended up on a sandabar in the middle. The second part looked deeper and the current a bit faster. I tested it out first without stuff to make sure we´d be able to do it, and it was way easier than it looked. We ventured in. Success! By that point we had quite a few people watching us and offering to help us carry our things. But we did it alone. We felt so victorious, you have no idea. That night we went to the famous Tito´s bar where ladies get in for free and also free drinks! Lots of sweet music. It was pretty good, except the expensive (relative to India) taxi ride back home. Oh well. Oh yeah, and the bartender told us we looked ¨spiritual¨. I think he was calling us hippies.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Sorry for being crappy at blogging
There was no internet in Mt. Abu and then we were so busy in Mumbai that no blogging was possible. Now we are in Goa, birthplace of the hippy movement, and so relaxing on the beach hasn't been too time consuming.
Mom, this part is for you: We've been using so much hand sanitizer that my henna came off in a week, we put on tons and tons of sunscreen and bug repellent each day, but still getting a few bites. Apparently asian mosquitos like me more than american ones. But taking the anti-malaria medicine, so it should all be good. Our place by the beach is awesome and we are sleeping under a mosquito net for the first time. It kind of feels like camping, haha. Also, in India we haven't had a lot of fruits. The meals don't really come with them. Aside from buying oranges on the streets, and one time I found some good bananas, we've been lacking.. But here in Goa they have breakfast food at every restaurant, with cereal, amazing fruit crepes, mmmm. So we've (ok, just I have) been having like two fruit crepes a day.
We also have a bit of a scavenger hunt going to keep us amused. People from different countries we've met: Slovakia, France, England, Turkey, Israel, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand (spending lots of time in Goa with these two from New Zealand, they're great!), and Russia. Animals we've seen: cow, horse, pony, goat, sheep, peacock, monkeys, turtle, camel, elephant, parrot, oxen, rat (haha, in the train station. no tail, he was a fierce lookin guy), chicken.
We also have a list of things we want to do when we get back to the US. I hope you're all ready for some serious rockband.
Ok, now for the daily updates.
4/3 Jaipur, India
-internet then took a bus to some restaurants. we are getting pro at the buses here. i don't think many tourists take them, because we get a lot of stares. walked around before heading back, and met this guy in a fabric store. excellent salesman. got something for the parents here (hi mom and dad!), and something for myself. my original plan to buy one thing for myself in each country is failing horribly. you'll hear more about this in goa.. haha.
-went back to hotel and got ready for choki dhani (ethnic village outside of jaipur). got a driver to take us there, and it was great! lots and lots of food. they bring you samples of like 25 different things. and lots of sweets, mm. and elephant and camel rides, a random t-rex statue, ferris wheel, and shopping. bought a necklace for 1 USD.
4/4 Jaipur, India
-went to see our first bollywood movie while in india. FALTU. pretty good. i think it might be the indian version of some american movie. i remember the storyline.. no english subtitles but pretty easy to follow. people in the theater here are more fun. they cheer and clap and whistle, and by the end we were cheering too when things went well for the characters. there was a lot of mcdonalds product placement, and fortunately there was a mcdonalds next door, so we got two of my favorites: the mcaloo tikka and a mcswirl. will miss the mcswirls in the US..
-then back to hostel to wash some clothes (they dry crazy fast with the dry heat in jaipur). oh yeah, and took our first anti malaria pills. i was a little worried because mine are pretty big, but no problems at all.
4/5 Mt Abu, India
-one quarter of the way done this trip, wow!
-walked from Jaipur hotel to train station, very short and early morning, so no taxi drivers to constantly ask if we need a ride. had our first 3ac sleeper coach experience. pretty good. you each get a bed. can't really sit up in it, but if you climb down there are some seats. kept all our bags next to us and slept quite well. unfortunately i didn't screw my water bottle cap on all the way one time and it sloshed out a little and got my purse wet. turns out the color bleeds a little (the purse i bought here). oh well.
-mt abu was crazy hot, and we had to walk a little ways to the bus stop with all our bags. not so much english there either. but aarti was helpful, and getting lots of hindi practice. after like an hour and a half of waiting, got on a bus taking us up the mountain. found a hotel for 4 USD a night for each of us and dinner for less than 2 USD.
-went for a walk at night and was surprised by cool temperatures, different flavors of soft serve all over (my favorite is chocodip.. same as the mcswirl really. vanilla softserve with hard chocolate shell), offers of a very cheap tourist bus, shopping, a fake eiffel tower (took a picture for you, paul!), a giant playing field for cricket and polo, and just an awesome atmosphere overall.
4/6 Mt Abu, India
-caught a tour bus. no AC this time. hottt. saw some sweet temples, including one we had to climb 320 steps for. it was worth it though. the temple was built into the rock at the top and you had to crawl between some of the rooms!. also saw honeymoon point, with views of the valley. so romantic with aarti, :-P. then some amazing jain temples. almost every inch was elaborately carved marble. unfortunately no pictures allowed. and then the highest point on the mountain. took some pictures up there, relaxed in the breeze, then headed back down. last stop: sunset point. it's important to reailze though that in india seeing a sunset doesn't really mean what you think. the sun seems to always sort of disappear behind some haze or clouds before hitting the horizon. oh well.
-oh yeah, and made a friend on the bus. her sister lives in sunnyvale! she might come visit CA next year!
4/7 Mt Abu, India
-didn't have much planned but turned into an awesome day. had a aloo mutter cheese sandwich. was kind of intrigued at the thought of a sandwich in india, but skeptical. ended up being one of the tastiest things i've ever eaten. i know i say this a lot, but still.
-wanted to take a boat out on the lake, but too hot. played uno in the shade instead. this boy came over to give us a magic show but we said no (you have to pay at the end). he ended up watching the game and learning it. we dealt him in the next round, and then another kid later. apparently this was all very interesting, because eventually we had about 20 people gathered around us watching. haha.we are quite the tourist attraction here, some of the only westerners..after that, posed for some pictures with random people, a theme on this trip, then escaped for some more soft serve. a lot more soft serve.
-went on a mini hike along a peak and saw some breathtaking views. hopefully my pictures do it some justice. tried to get to toad rock (rock that looks like a toad jumping into the lake?), but failed and ended up back at sunset point instead. oh well. met this man with crazy long dreds walking barefoot along the trail. ouch.
-later that night had one of the best samosas of my life. will miss indian food when we leave..
4/8 Mt Abu, India
-relaxing day of reading, journaling, and studying indonesia. hoping that pays off.enjoying it though, either way.
-found the route to toad path! just a lot of "stairs"- piles of rocks really, haha. pretty worth it. still didn't look much like a toad, but nice views of the lake from above.
-bought snacks for the long train ride and had our first jam sandwiches. haha. don't know if the jam is different here or not, but they were sooo good!
4/9 Mumbai, India
-omg Mumbai is so hot and humid. never been so sweaty before. arrived and got attacked by rickshaw drivers. almost couldn't get up the stairs while carrying all my bags plus aarti's wheely bag. they also cut her off from me. the only time we've kind of lost it with them. i yelled at them to leave us alone in english and she in hindi, which apparently annoyed them a little, so we ended up walking off as one of them yelled back. not so fun. no worries though. hung out at a restaurant while trying to find janmeet, a family friend of aarti's. took a real taxi to our hotel. mumbai is so different! real taxis, no cows on the street, no ice cream carts all over..
-cleaned up a little and put off showering to hang out with janmeet a little since he came across town to meet with us. we were soo dirty! saw a museum, had lots of chicken for lunch (no meat in mt abu so we were so hungry for it!), ice cream, kebobs, then saw gateway of india. nice, right by the water. talked a bit about trash in india. they don't have many trashcans here, so people just litter. lots of bottles in the water. aarti and i can't bring ourselves to throw stuff on the ground so we end up carrying our trash forever. also, india doesn't have many public (clean) bathrooms. my only two grievances, besides the humidity.
4/10 Mumbai, India
-met janmeet at gateway and caught a ferry to elephanta caves.man-made (i think?) with crazy carvings of gods/goddesses. very impressive. and lots of monkeys around! saw a guy feeding one, but we are too scared of rabies to try that.. will be happy not to pay 25 times the indian price when we go somewhere else. entrance fees here are around 10 rupees for indians, and 250 for foreignors. oh well.
-tried a really good little treat. aampapad. dried mango thing. kind of like fruit rolls at trader joes. making a list of indian sweets i want to try to find back in the US.
-went to marine drive, along the queens necklace. it's this curved street with street lights all along it that looks like a necklace from above. just sat by the water and talked. turns out janmeet really likes Eminem. when he told us detroit was the US city he most wanted to see we were confused until we heard this.
-then dinner of pav bhaji (delicious) along the beach, sitting on blankets with 100s of people around. and kulfi (indian ice cream!)
4/11 Mumbai, India
-went to the main post office here. kind of big and confusing, but an adventure
-found our first grocery store in india. with nutella!!
-met with janmeet to go to this temple. found some bananas on the street along the way. so tasty. was craving these forever. had some sweets at the temple as per usual, and whispered our wishes into the ears of this mouse statue, haha. we'll see if they come true.
-tried to go to a market and then a planetarium but turns out things are inexplicably closed on mondays. went to a park and watched kids play cricket while trying to get less sweaty. really, the heat and humidity are ridiculous.
-went to a mall, and ended up buying all the grocery things i'd been kind of missing from the US- yogurt, cereal, peanut butter!, and then a staples (india is just getting these stores here) where i found an 8 GB memory card for my camera for about 13 USD. yessss. should be good for the rest of the trip now. :-)
-then dinner back near the hotel. had some interesting foods....
-researched goa, then off to bed. also showered. showered pretty often in mumbai. completely unavoidable with all the humidity.
4/12 Mumbai, India
-had a day alone in mumbai. went to see our second bollywood movie. it was called "thank you". not quite as good as FALTU, but the main character was pretty amusing. he always wore fedoras, which maybe explains why every shop here sells them.. and there was a malaria ad at the beginning of the movie. good that they do that.
-shopped along fashion st, and despite it being like a half mile of shops, didn't really find anything. maybe we were just too sweaty to really enjoy it.
-went to the restaurant we first went to with janmeet for another round of chicken lazeez. sooo good.
-had some issues with our train. this was the only one where we were kind of far down on the waitlist. ended up at waitlist spots 2 and 3, so we had to go to the train station to try to figure things out. apparently there's a tourist quota, but that office was closed. looked into a bus departing from elsewhere to goa, but weren't sure if there was space or any more buses leaving that night. janmeet eventually came an hour across town to help us. ran into the guy at waitlist spot 1. german guy. ended up tagging along with us as we got offered tickets for he next day at double the price and then eventually found some regularly priced ones.
-went back to our hotel for the night, then ventured out the next morning for our train. so tiring.
4/13 train + Goa, India
-slept, studied indonesian, read, tried to eat this super messy thing on a moving train (mostly successful, i'm getting good with a spoon + my hands)
-met a couple from new zealand across the aisle from us. nice having more tourists on the train with us. easier to figure out where to get off. apparently they've been traveling for like 7 months. wow. been to england, ireland, france, jamaica, korea, morocco, egypt.. jealous, but that would be too intense for me. ended up sharing a super crowded but cheaper taxi to anjuna beach with the new zealanders and the german guy. had aarti on my lap for way too long, haha.
-booked a hotel with the new zealanders, scared a gecko out of our room for aarti (who is apparently scared of them), then had a dinner of crepes- nutella and mixed fruit. omg so good.
4/14 Goa, India
-got some bugbites the night before. no screens in our room or mosquito nets. we wore bug repellant but still.. got up early to check out other places. found one for 100 rupees cheaper by the beach. had some more crepes than moved our stuff with the help of new zealanders (kelly and nick).
-sat on the beach and were approached by three ladies carrying boxes of jewelry. they divided their forces and each took on one of us.in minutes i had an anklet on each foot, a bracelet on each wrist, a toe ring, and multiple other things draped over my leg. kelly and i both ended up getting anklets, but aarti was strong. these women were good! shopkeepers in goa are intense. "i give you good price" "buy two!" "you tell me your price" "see your friend is buying some" "you're my first customer, you bring me good luck".
-after that we found a restaurant right on the beach and got chairs looking out over the water. hung out there for a few hours. goa is so relaxing. then climbed down to shore on one of the more rocky sides of the beach and tried to watch sunset. again, just disappeared behind some clouds.
-bought a dress i'd been eyeing up, found some internet, water, and then some more shopping- two more dresses and a journal (the one i've been using from my peru trip will definitely be full by the end of this trip. i write 2+ pages a day. can't wait to read all of this years later). as we were leaving, the kid who worked the shop- named romeo- says he'll give us some anklets for 50 rupees. i take a look despite definitely not needing one, and again they had the jewelry on me in seconds. if you try to take it off, they'll put it back on. "come on, tell me your price". found one i really did like, but this one was 450 rupees (ha!). said no and walked off, only to be chased down by the kid yelling "150 rupees!" sold.
-later bought a headband/scarf thing like one aarti already got, and then watched a ripped version of prince of persia at a restaurant over dinner.
-by the end of the day: 3 dresses, 3 anklets, 1 notebook, 1 headband. about 34 USD. most expensive day yet. these people are good. but now it's out of my system, haha. at least until thailand...
-came back to our hotel to drop stuff off before going out, only to find that our bag of cereal that's been fine in all the other places had this time attracted a ton of ants. which also got all over my big bag. ughh. so instead of going out, we shook out all my stuff and sprayed the permethrin (crazy bug stuff) we had left all over the source of the ants in the corner. i have no idea how many we killed that night, but our battle will surely go down in history.
-went to bed under our mosquito net.
4/15 Goa, India
-breakfast cereal and crepe. mmm
-found a cool toy for clifton and tyler (can't wait to show you guys!) and i got it for less than half what the lady started at. some indian first year students came up and were telling us how much they got theirs for, which really pissed off the lady since she was trying to sell it to us for like 7 times the price. ended up hanging out with those kids for most of the day, and got rides on their scooters. people really don't seem to like walking here, ha.
-weird thing: once we got to the beach, i'm pretty sure a bird flew into my head. i thought i got hit in the head with a dodgeball or something, but when i turned, there were no balls, just this bird quickly flying off. not his beak or anything, just maybe a wing.. didn't hurt at all, was just very weird..
-went up a hill and saw some hippies giving people paragliding rides for 33 USD for 20 minutes. a little tempting, but probably too cheap to do it. don't worry mom, looks extremely safe.
-decided to find our way to the elusive Curlies, supposedly the most popular restaurant here. you need to leave the beach, go through a restaurant up some stairs, take a random path, go down some stairs, then other "stairs", then take a left, then up some stairs, then down some stairs through their kitchen. and then you emerge at curlies. i feel like there must be an easier way, but maybe that is part of the charm. it was very nice. got more food and lay in chairs by the water at night. made some friends, and might see them all there tomorrow night (today).
Ok, done. Oh yeah, and just ordered my cap and gown for graduation. printed out a ruler to measure my head, and enlisted the help of some random people in this internet cafe to help me read the measurement, hahah. one of them just finished a trip to indonesia and thailand.. hoping to find them later and get some tips, but meeting up is always difficult in a new place without phones. we'll see how this goes, ha.
miss and love you all!!
Mom, this part is for you: We've been using so much hand sanitizer that my henna came off in a week, we put on tons and tons of sunscreen and bug repellent each day, but still getting a few bites. Apparently asian mosquitos like me more than american ones. But taking the anti-malaria medicine, so it should all be good. Our place by the beach is awesome and we are sleeping under a mosquito net for the first time. It kind of feels like camping, haha. Also, in India we haven't had a lot of fruits. The meals don't really come with them. Aside from buying oranges on the streets, and one time I found some good bananas, we've been lacking.. But here in Goa they have breakfast food at every restaurant, with cereal, amazing fruit crepes, mmmm. So we've (ok, just I have) been having like two fruit crepes a day.
We also have a bit of a scavenger hunt going to keep us amused. People from different countries we've met: Slovakia, France, England, Turkey, Israel, Germany, Belgium, New Zealand (spending lots of time in Goa with these two from New Zealand, they're great!), and Russia. Animals we've seen: cow, horse, pony, goat, sheep, peacock, monkeys, turtle, camel, elephant, parrot, oxen, rat (haha, in the train station. no tail, he was a fierce lookin guy), chicken.
We also have a list of things we want to do when we get back to the US. I hope you're all ready for some serious rockband.
Ok, now for the daily updates.
4/3 Jaipur, India
-internet then took a bus to some restaurants. we are getting pro at the buses here. i don't think many tourists take them, because we get a lot of stares. walked around before heading back, and met this guy in a fabric store. excellent salesman. got something for the parents here (hi mom and dad!), and something for myself. my original plan to buy one thing for myself in each country is failing horribly. you'll hear more about this in goa.. haha.
-went back to hotel and got ready for choki dhani (ethnic village outside of jaipur). got a driver to take us there, and it was great! lots and lots of food. they bring you samples of like 25 different things. and lots of sweets, mm. and elephant and camel rides, a random t-rex statue, ferris wheel, and shopping. bought a necklace for 1 USD.
4/4 Jaipur, India
-went to see our first bollywood movie while in india. FALTU. pretty good. i think it might be the indian version of some american movie. i remember the storyline.. no english subtitles but pretty easy to follow. people in the theater here are more fun. they cheer and clap and whistle, and by the end we were cheering too when things went well for the characters. there was a lot of mcdonalds product placement, and fortunately there was a mcdonalds next door, so we got two of my favorites: the mcaloo tikka and a mcswirl. will miss the mcswirls in the US..
-then back to hostel to wash some clothes (they dry crazy fast with the dry heat in jaipur). oh yeah, and took our first anti malaria pills. i was a little worried because mine are pretty big, but no problems at all.
4/5 Mt Abu, India
-one quarter of the way done this trip, wow!
-walked from Jaipur hotel to train station, very short and early morning, so no taxi drivers to constantly ask if we need a ride. had our first 3ac sleeper coach experience. pretty good. you each get a bed. can't really sit up in it, but if you climb down there are some seats. kept all our bags next to us and slept quite well. unfortunately i didn't screw my water bottle cap on all the way one time and it sloshed out a little and got my purse wet. turns out the color bleeds a little (the purse i bought here). oh well.
-mt abu was crazy hot, and we had to walk a little ways to the bus stop with all our bags. not so much english there either. but aarti was helpful, and getting lots of hindi practice. after like an hour and a half of waiting, got on a bus taking us up the mountain. found a hotel for 4 USD a night for each of us and dinner for less than 2 USD.
-went for a walk at night and was surprised by cool temperatures, different flavors of soft serve all over (my favorite is chocodip.. same as the mcswirl really. vanilla softserve with hard chocolate shell), offers of a very cheap tourist bus, shopping, a fake eiffel tower (took a picture for you, paul!), a giant playing field for cricket and polo, and just an awesome atmosphere overall.
4/6 Mt Abu, India
-caught a tour bus. no AC this time. hottt. saw some sweet temples, including one we had to climb 320 steps for. it was worth it though. the temple was built into the rock at the top and you had to crawl between some of the rooms!. also saw honeymoon point, with views of the valley. so romantic with aarti, :-P. then some amazing jain temples. almost every inch was elaborately carved marble. unfortunately no pictures allowed. and then the highest point on the mountain. took some pictures up there, relaxed in the breeze, then headed back down. last stop: sunset point. it's important to reailze though that in india seeing a sunset doesn't really mean what you think. the sun seems to always sort of disappear behind some haze or clouds before hitting the horizon. oh well.
-oh yeah, and made a friend on the bus. her sister lives in sunnyvale! she might come visit CA next year!
4/7 Mt Abu, India
-didn't have much planned but turned into an awesome day. had a aloo mutter cheese sandwich. was kind of intrigued at the thought of a sandwich in india, but skeptical. ended up being one of the tastiest things i've ever eaten. i know i say this a lot, but still.
-wanted to take a boat out on the lake, but too hot. played uno in the shade instead. this boy came over to give us a magic show but we said no (you have to pay at the end). he ended up watching the game and learning it. we dealt him in the next round, and then another kid later. apparently this was all very interesting, because eventually we had about 20 people gathered around us watching. haha.we are quite the tourist attraction here, some of the only westerners..after that, posed for some pictures with random people, a theme on this trip, then escaped for some more soft serve. a lot more soft serve.
-went on a mini hike along a peak and saw some breathtaking views. hopefully my pictures do it some justice. tried to get to toad rock (rock that looks like a toad jumping into the lake?), but failed and ended up back at sunset point instead. oh well. met this man with crazy long dreds walking barefoot along the trail. ouch.
-later that night had one of the best samosas of my life. will miss indian food when we leave..
4/8 Mt Abu, India
-relaxing day of reading, journaling, and studying indonesia. hoping that pays off.enjoying it though, either way.
-found the route to toad path! just a lot of "stairs"- piles of rocks really, haha. pretty worth it. still didn't look much like a toad, but nice views of the lake from above.
-bought snacks for the long train ride and had our first jam sandwiches. haha. don't know if the jam is different here or not, but they were sooo good!
4/9 Mumbai, India
-omg Mumbai is so hot and humid. never been so sweaty before. arrived and got attacked by rickshaw drivers. almost couldn't get up the stairs while carrying all my bags plus aarti's wheely bag. they also cut her off from me. the only time we've kind of lost it with them. i yelled at them to leave us alone in english and she in hindi, which apparently annoyed them a little, so we ended up walking off as one of them yelled back. not so fun. no worries though. hung out at a restaurant while trying to find janmeet, a family friend of aarti's. took a real taxi to our hotel. mumbai is so different! real taxis, no cows on the street, no ice cream carts all over..
-cleaned up a little and put off showering to hang out with janmeet a little since he came across town to meet with us. we were soo dirty! saw a museum, had lots of chicken for lunch (no meat in mt abu so we were so hungry for it!), ice cream, kebobs, then saw gateway of india. nice, right by the water. talked a bit about trash in india. they don't have many trashcans here, so people just litter. lots of bottles in the water. aarti and i can't bring ourselves to throw stuff on the ground so we end up carrying our trash forever. also, india doesn't have many public (clean) bathrooms. my only two grievances, besides the humidity.
4/10 Mumbai, India
-met janmeet at gateway and caught a ferry to elephanta caves.man-made (i think?) with crazy carvings of gods/goddesses. very impressive. and lots of monkeys around! saw a guy feeding one, but we are too scared of rabies to try that.. will be happy not to pay 25 times the indian price when we go somewhere else. entrance fees here are around 10 rupees for indians, and 250 for foreignors. oh well.
-tried a really good little treat. aampapad. dried mango thing. kind of like fruit rolls at trader joes. making a list of indian sweets i want to try to find back in the US.
-went to marine drive, along the queens necklace. it's this curved street with street lights all along it that looks like a necklace from above. just sat by the water and talked. turns out janmeet really likes Eminem. when he told us detroit was the US city he most wanted to see we were confused until we heard this.
-then dinner of pav bhaji (delicious) along the beach, sitting on blankets with 100s of people around. and kulfi (indian ice cream!)
4/11 Mumbai, India
-went to the main post office here. kind of big and confusing, but an adventure
-found our first grocery store in india. with nutella!!
-met with janmeet to go to this temple. found some bananas on the street along the way. so tasty. was craving these forever. had some sweets at the temple as per usual, and whispered our wishes into the ears of this mouse statue, haha. we'll see if they come true.
-tried to go to a market and then a planetarium but turns out things are inexplicably closed on mondays. went to a park and watched kids play cricket while trying to get less sweaty. really, the heat and humidity are ridiculous.
-went to a mall, and ended up buying all the grocery things i'd been kind of missing from the US- yogurt, cereal, peanut butter!, and then a staples (india is just getting these stores here) where i found an 8 GB memory card for my camera for about 13 USD. yessss. should be good for the rest of the trip now. :-)
-then dinner back near the hotel. had some interesting foods....
-researched goa, then off to bed. also showered. showered pretty often in mumbai. completely unavoidable with all the humidity.
4/12 Mumbai, India
-had a day alone in mumbai. went to see our second bollywood movie. it was called "thank you". not quite as good as FALTU, but the main character was pretty amusing. he always wore fedoras, which maybe explains why every shop here sells them.. and there was a malaria ad at the beginning of the movie. good that they do that.
-shopped along fashion st, and despite it being like a half mile of shops, didn't really find anything. maybe we were just too sweaty to really enjoy it.
-went to the restaurant we first went to with janmeet for another round of chicken lazeez. sooo good.
-had some issues with our train. this was the only one where we were kind of far down on the waitlist. ended up at waitlist spots 2 and 3, so we had to go to the train station to try to figure things out. apparently there's a tourist quota, but that office was closed. looked into a bus departing from elsewhere to goa, but weren't sure if there was space or any more buses leaving that night. janmeet eventually came an hour across town to help us. ran into the guy at waitlist spot 1. german guy. ended up tagging along with us as we got offered tickets for he next day at double the price and then eventually found some regularly priced ones.
-went back to our hotel for the night, then ventured out the next morning for our train. so tiring.
4/13 train + Goa, India
-slept, studied indonesian, read, tried to eat this super messy thing on a moving train (mostly successful, i'm getting good with a spoon + my hands)
-met a couple from new zealand across the aisle from us. nice having more tourists on the train with us. easier to figure out where to get off. apparently they've been traveling for like 7 months. wow. been to england, ireland, france, jamaica, korea, morocco, egypt.. jealous, but that would be too intense for me. ended up sharing a super crowded but cheaper taxi to anjuna beach with the new zealanders and the german guy. had aarti on my lap for way too long, haha.
-booked a hotel with the new zealanders, scared a gecko out of our room for aarti (who is apparently scared of them), then had a dinner of crepes- nutella and mixed fruit. omg so good.
4/14 Goa, India
-got some bugbites the night before. no screens in our room or mosquito nets. we wore bug repellant but still.. got up early to check out other places. found one for 100 rupees cheaper by the beach. had some more crepes than moved our stuff with the help of new zealanders (kelly and nick).
-sat on the beach and were approached by three ladies carrying boxes of jewelry. they divided their forces and each took on one of us.in minutes i had an anklet on each foot, a bracelet on each wrist, a toe ring, and multiple other things draped over my leg. kelly and i both ended up getting anklets, but aarti was strong. these women were good! shopkeepers in goa are intense. "i give you good price" "buy two!" "you tell me your price" "see your friend is buying some" "you're my first customer, you bring me good luck".
-after that we found a restaurant right on the beach and got chairs looking out over the water. hung out there for a few hours. goa is so relaxing. then climbed down to shore on one of the more rocky sides of the beach and tried to watch sunset. again, just disappeared behind some clouds.
-bought a dress i'd been eyeing up, found some internet, water, and then some more shopping- two more dresses and a journal (the one i've been using from my peru trip will definitely be full by the end of this trip. i write 2+ pages a day. can't wait to read all of this years later). as we were leaving, the kid who worked the shop- named romeo- says he'll give us some anklets for 50 rupees. i take a look despite definitely not needing one, and again they had the jewelry on me in seconds. if you try to take it off, they'll put it back on. "come on, tell me your price". found one i really did like, but this one was 450 rupees (ha!). said no and walked off, only to be chased down by the kid yelling "150 rupees!" sold.
-later bought a headband/scarf thing like one aarti already got, and then watched a ripped version of prince of persia at a restaurant over dinner.
-by the end of the day: 3 dresses, 3 anklets, 1 notebook, 1 headband. about 34 USD. most expensive day yet. these people are good. but now it's out of my system, haha. at least until thailand...
-came back to our hotel to drop stuff off before going out, only to find that our bag of cereal that's been fine in all the other places had this time attracted a ton of ants. which also got all over my big bag. ughh. so instead of going out, we shook out all my stuff and sprayed the permethrin (crazy bug stuff) we had left all over the source of the ants in the corner. i have no idea how many we killed that night, but our battle will surely go down in history.
-went to bed under our mosquito net.
4/15 Goa, India
-breakfast cereal and crepe. mmm
-found a cool toy for clifton and tyler (can't wait to show you guys!) and i got it for less than half what the lady started at. some indian first year students came up and were telling us how much they got theirs for, which really pissed off the lady since she was trying to sell it to us for like 7 times the price. ended up hanging out with those kids for most of the day, and got rides on their scooters. people really don't seem to like walking here, ha.
-weird thing: once we got to the beach, i'm pretty sure a bird flew into my head. i thought i got hit in the head with a dodgeball or something, but when i turned, there were no balls, just this bird quickly flying off. not his beak or anything, just maybe a wing.. didn't hurt at all, was just very weird..
-went up a hill and saw some hippies giving people paragliding rides for 33 USD for 20 minutes. a little tempting, but probably too cheap to do it. don't worry mom, looks extremely safe.
-decided to find our way to the elusive Curlies, supposedly the most popular restaurant here. you need to leave the beach, go through a restaurant up some stairs, take a random path, go down some stairs, then other "stairs", then take a left, then up some stairs, then down some stairs through their kitchen. and then you emerge at curlies. i feel like there must be an easier way, but maybe that is part of the charm. it was very nice. got more food and lay in chairs by the water at night. made some friends, and might see them all there tomorrow night (today).
Ok, done. Oh yeah, and just ordered my cap and gown for graduation. printed out a ruler to measure my head, and enlisted the help of some random people in this internet cafe to help me read the measurement, hahah. one of them just finished a trip to indonesia and thailand.. hoping to find them later and get some tips, but meeting up is always difficult in a new place without phones. we'll see how this goes, ha.
miss and love you all!!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
PICTURES
Just posted a heck ton on facebook. Hong Kong + pre trip pictures from the summer + some of Jaipur. More later, need food break.
Sorry parents, but you can see them in real life in June. And then I can explain what you're seeing! Couldn't figure out a non-facebook place with enough storage space for all of them.
Sorry parents, but you can see them in real life in June. And then I can explain what you're seeing! Couldn't figure out a non-facebook place with enough storage space for all of them.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
And the true Asian Adventure 2011 starts
We are now in Jaipur, our third city in India. We parted ways with Aarti's relatives in Delhi and had our first alone experience in Agra, but it was very quick. Now we are in Jaipur for about 4 days, so it's nice. We have time to figure out where things are and how to get places (we even used a bus instead of autorickshaw!). Our "neighborhood" has internet, ice cream, snacks, water, and it's near the bus. So great.
3/30 (Delhi)
-started off the morning with sweet treats and watching indian music videos. interesting thing: there are some videos that are just guys dancing. striked me as weird. i don't think i've ever seen an american music video without ladies in it. and this is sort of like regular life here. after india won the semi final of cricket against pakistan there was a big party of guys out in the middle of a street, blocking the entire road. even a firetruck joined in on the action. and yeah, it was a party of just guys. don't know, just thought it was interesting.
-we were in a mall and there was a big screen and literally 1000+ people watching from all floors of the mall and on the floor. wherever there was a tv, no matter how small, there were people gathered around it watching the match. cricket is huge here!
-met up with Talsma! had delicious ice cream sundae and watched the india/pakistan match. walked around afterward and saw the street party and kids setting off firecrackers. met his sister and her husband who just moved to delhi. had an adventurous time getting home. haha. don't worry when you read this mom: we headed home around midnight by autorickshaw but the driver wasn't totally sure of where the address of aarti's relatives was. so we stopped and asked so many people, getting pointed more in the right direction each time. finally made it there but then the door was closed and they weren't answering their phones (the relatives) or hearing us knocking on the door (didn't want to knock too loud and wake everyone). contemplated heading back to talsma's sister's place, but all my stuff was at the relatives and we had a train to catch early the next morning. finally rang the bell a few times and they woke up to let me in. first mini adventure of the trip, ha.
-amusing note of the day. aarti and i saw this white guy running on the side of the road and it looked so out of place! white people in general tend to stand out here, but someone running for exercise was very strange to see, haha. never thought it was strange before until now.
-one more thing: drove by a movie set! lots of people gathered to see and there were some crazy fancy cars. didn't see any action though.
3/31 (delhi/agra)
-left delhi early in the morning and caught our train to agra
-took a nap in the hostel and then headed out for food and taj mahal tickets. found our way to the tourist place and got both things, and also free bottled water and a ride to the taj! food was about 1.5USD, so nice.
-the taj mahal has crazy security. no food, no phones (although ours got through since i keep it in my glasses case and they just assumed there were glasses in there. we keep it there because we get lots of spamming text messages and if you accidentally press 'ok' it'll charge you and send you recipes or something, ha. very weird. so my glasses case is hard and keeps us from accidentally pushing ok)
-the taj mahal was seriously amazing. apparently now it's the first wonder of the world. totally lives up to the hype. we took a ton of pictures and there were so many people there! i had my first experiences with people asking for my picture because i'm white. mostly it's kids who come up to me, but also a married couple with a baby, haha. so i got pictures with them as well! we hung out at the back of the taj for a while in the shade and talked to this family there. funny moment- the lady we were talking to points to this white kid and says 'he looks like harry potter', and really, he kind of did.
-used the internet instead of going to agra fort (weren't that excited about the lightshow or having to haggle with the rickshaw people to get there and back) and failed at uploading pictures. i just have too many and the internet is too slow. will try uploading them in stages.
-arranged with a rickshaw driver to meet us outside our hostel at 4am the next morning for our train ride to jaipur.
4/1 (agra/jaipur)
-our alarm didn't go off and so we ended up sleeping til 4:30am, when we should have been AT the train station. threw our stuff together real real fast and ran outside. luckily the autorickshaw guy was still there after 45 minutes of waiting. sped us to the train station and we asked so many people while running around with all our bags (i had mine + aarti's so we could run up and down the stairs quick enough) until we found the right train and car. made it just in time. don't know how we did it.
-got to our hostel and booked all four nights. they have jurassic park in their little hostel 'library' (books travelers leave behind i think). then showered. so nice. we hadn't showered for like 4 days. don't worry guys, am hobo-ing it up as expected.
-met up with some guys from couchsurfing and had lunch at a cool place. then they dropped us off near the gates to the main part of the city. we wandered around the markets, checked out the hawa mahal (wind palace) with amazing views of jaipur from the top (didn't realize there were hills/mountains around it!), and i helped this guy on the street write a love letter to his girlfriend, haha.don't worry mom, we just sat in the post office (filled with people and not a sketchy place!). he dictated and i transcribed. he can speak and read english pretty well but said he had trouble with writing. he told us about some less-touristy shopping places as a thank you for our help.
-afterward we tried to get to jantar mantar (an observatory), but were too late. it was already closed. oh well.
-went home and realized we were hungry but too tired to head back out on the bus to the street we'd heard had lots of food. went nearby to this starbucks-like place and got sandwiches. made friends with the guy working there who told us about a good restaurant we should try.
4/2 (jaipur)
-got a call last night from the couchsurfing guy saying he'd paid for a fancy hotel for a friend but that that friend couldn't stay the whole time and so there was a room there for us if we wanted it. checked it out on line and decided it was a little too far away from the main stuff and said thanks, but no thanks.
-went to amber fort. highly recommend this place if you come to jaipur. amazing! be warned you must do some serious stair climbing, but the views from the top are awesome. and the place itself was so nice. just a huge fort on a hillside.
-met a girl there who was traveling alone from calcutta. we joined forces and went with her and her driver to some shopping areas where i bought some gifts, then to the jal mahal (water palace), city palace where i got some mendhi (henna), and then to a mall. had our first indian mcdonalds experience. i had a mcaloo tikka :-P and ice cream. also tried indian ice cream today. very good!
-her driver dropped us off at our place after taking her to the airport and we got to take home some homemade sweets from her mom! we made friends with this israeli couple staying at our hostel, then got ready to go out with the couchsurfing people to watch the finals for cricket.
-we watched the finals in this "club" (not really a club in the american sense of the word) where we had good food and there were so many people and big screen tvs. we finally learned the rules and watched india come from behind to have a seriously spectacular win. everyone was very excited. fireworks and cheerleaders afterward. then headed home.
Having a wonderful time in Jaipur and enjoying all the friends we've been randomly making.All part of the adventure. I think tomorrow we start taking our malaria medicine (sadly mine are large pills, which I hate, gah) since the day after that we venture off for Mt. Abu, a hill station with a lake and hiking. Should be nice. Then Mumbai where we will either stay with people that Talsma stayed with there or book a hostel. Then Goa, which promises beaches, more heat, hippies, and many things to do. Then Mumbai again for like a day before we fly on to Singapore! Can't believe we are already about a third of our way through India.And 15 days through our ~70 day Asian Adventure. It goes fast!
Ok, you'll probably get the next update from Mt. Abu.
Love you all!!!
3/30 (Delhi)
-started off the morning with sweet treats and watching indian music videos. interesting thing: there are some videos that are just guys dancing. striked me as weird. i don't think i've ever seen an american music video without ladies in it. and this is sort of like regular life here. after india won the semi final of cricket against pakistan there was a big party of guys out in the middle of a street, blocking the entire road. even a firetruck joined in on the action. and yeah, it was a party of just guys. don't know, just thought it was interesting.
-we were in a mall and there was a big screen and literally 1000+ people watching from all floors of the mall and on the floor. wherever there was a tv, no matter how small, there were people gathered around it watching the match. cricket is huge here!
-met up with Talsma! had delicious ice cream sundae and watched the india/pakistan match. walked around afterward and saw the street party and kids setting off firecrackers. met his sister and her husband who just moved to delhi. had an adventurous time getting home. haha. don't worry when you read this mom: we headed home around midnight by autorickshaw but the driver wasn't totally sure of where the address of aarti's relatives was. so we stopped and asked so many people, getting pointed more in the right direction each time. finally made it there but then the door was closed and they weren't answering their phones (the relatives) or hearing us knocking on the door (didn't want to knock too loud and wake everyone). contemplated heading back to talsma's sister's place, but all my stuff was at the relatives and we had a train to catch early the next morning. finally rang the bell a few times and they woke up to let me in. first mini adventure of the trip, ha.
-amusing note of the day. aarti and i saw this white guy running on the side of the road and it looked so out of place! white people in general tend to stand out here, but someone running for exercise was very strange to see, haha. never thought it was strange before until now.
-one more thing: drove by a movie set! lots of people gathered to see and there were some crazy fancy cars. didn't see any action though.
3/31 (delhi/agra)
-left delhi early in the morning and caught our train to agra
-took a nap in the hostel and then headed out for food and taj mahal tickets. found our way to the tourist place and got both things, and also free bottled water and a ride to the taj! food was about 1.5USD, so nice.
-the taj mahal has crazy security. no food, no phones (although ours got through since i keep it in my glasses case and they just assumed there were glasses in there. we keep it there because we get lots of spamming text messages and if you accidentally press 'ok' it'll charge you and send you recipes or something, ha. very weird. so my glasses case is hard and keeps us from accidentally pushing ok)
-the taj mahal was seriously amazing. apparently now it's the first wonder of the world. totally lives up to the hype. we took a ton of pictures and there were so many people there! i had my first experiences with people asking for my picture because i'm white. mostly it's kids who come up to me, but also a married couple with a baby, haha. so i got pictures with them as well! we hung out at the back of the taj for a while in the shade and talked to this family there. funny moment- the lady we were talking to points to this white kid and says 'he looks like harry potter', and really, he kind of did.
-used the internet instead of going to agra fort (weren't that excited about the lightshow or having to haggle with the rickshaw people to get there and back) and failed at uploading pictures. i just have too many and the internet is too slow. will try uploading them in stages.
-arranged with a rickshaw driver to meet us outside our hostel at 4am the next morning for our train ride to jaipur.
4/1 (agra/jaipur)
-our alarm didn't go off and so we ended up sleeping til 4:30am, when we should have been AT the train station. threw our stuff together real real fast and ran outside. luckily the autorickshaw guy was still there after 45 minutes of waiting. sped us to the train station and we asked so many people while running around with all our bags (i had mine + aarti's so we could run up and down the stairs quick enough) until we found the right train and car. made it just in time. don't know how we did it.
-got to our hostel and booked all four nights. they have jurassic park in their little hostel 'library' (books travelers leave behind i think). then showered. so nice. we hadn't showered for like 4 days. don't worry guys, am hobo-ing it up as expected.
-met up with some guys from couchsurfing and had lunch at a cool place. then they dropped us off near the gates to the main part of the city. we wandered around the markets, checked out the hawa mahal (wind palace) with amazing views of jaipur from the top (didn't realize there were hills/mountains around it!), and i helped this guy on the street write a love letter to his girlfriend, haha.don't worry mom, we just sat in the post office (filled with people and not a sketchy place!). he dictated and i transcribed. he can speak and read english pretty well but said he had trouble with writing. he told us about some less-touristy shopping places as a thank you for our help.
-afterward we tried to get to jantar mantar (an observatory), but were too late. it was already closed. oh well.
-went home and realized we were hungry but too tired to head back out on the bus to the street we'd heard had lots of food. went nearby to this starbucks-like place and got sandwiches. made friends with the guy working there who told us about a good restaurant we should try.
4/2 (jaipur)
-got a call last night from the couchsurfing guy saying he'd paid for a fancy hotel for a friend but that that friend couldn't stay the whole time and so there was a room there for us if we wanted it. checked it out on line and decided it was a little too far away from the main stuff and said thanks, but no thanks.
-went to amber fort. highly recommend this place if you come to jaipur. amazing! be warned you must do some serious stair climbing, but the views from the top are awesome. and the place itself was so nice. just a huge fort on a hillside.
-met a girl there who was traveling alone from calcutta. we joined forces and went with her and her driver to some shopping areas where i bought some gifts, then to the jal mahal (water palace), city palace where i got some mendhi (henna), and then to a mall. had our first indian mcdonalds experience. i had a mcaloo tikka :-P and ice cream. also tried indian ice cream today. very good!
-her driver dropped us off at our place after taking her to the airport and we got to take home some homemade sweets from her mom! we made friends with this israeli couple staying at our hostel, then got ready to go out with the couchsurfing people to watch the finals for cricket.
-we watched the finals in this "club" (not really a club in the american sense of the word) where we had good food and there were so many people and big screen tvs. we finally learned the rules and watched india come from behind to have a seriously spectacular win. everyone was very excited. fireworks and cheerleaders afterward. then headed home.
Having a wonderful time in Jaipur and enjoying all the friends we've been randomly making.All part of the adventure. I think tomorrow we start taking our malaria medicine (sadly mine are large pills, which I hate, gah) since the day after that we venture off for Mt. Abu, a hill station with a lake and hiking. Should be nice. Then Mumbai where we will either stay with people that Talsma stayed with there or book a hostel. Then Goa, which promises beaches, more heat, hippies, and many things to do. Then Mumbai again for like a day before we fly on to Singapore! Can't believe we are already about a third of our way through India.And 15 days through our ~70 day Asian Adventure. It goes fast!
Ok, you'll probably get the next update from Mt. Abu.
Love you all!!!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
I am going to be so fat by the time we leave India
Hello from New Delhi! Aarti and I are at her relative's place in Delhi and it's been great so far. We arrived around 2:30am on the 28th and met up with the relatives at the airport. They gave us a ride back to their house where we were given tasty treats and soda and talked for an hour or so before going to bed at 5am. Ended up sleeping til about noon the next day. Kind of threw off the whole adjusting to a new time zone thing, but I think we're good now.
3/28- More tasty treats for breakfast, and then a lunch which consisted of eating til we were full and then being given more food. Haha. It's hard to say no. Hung out with Aarti's mom's friend and her son. They took us to a temple and then a market. The mom helped us buy purses for around 4 USD. Good deal. Then came back home for large dinner. I'm pretty sure my stomach is stretching out here..
3/29- Woke up early and caught a tourism bus with an "aunt" and her adorable kid. ..After another large breakfast :-P Went to all the main Delhi sites: Lakshmi Narayan Temple, Qutub Minar, The Lotus Temple, Gandhi Smriti (the place where he was assassinated.. I want to read more about him; this place was a little intense to visit), Red Fort, Rajghat (where Ghandi was cremated), and Humayun's Tomb. Lunch break in the middle of course. Tried dosa. Very good. Then went to Dilli haat (I think that's how you spell it), a handcrafts/food market. Ate sooo much dinner. They ordered a bunch of random things and we had to try it all and there was so much and it was so good we couldn't stop. Hours later my belly still feels full. And a recurring theme of all this eating is that even though the food is really good, it's a little spicy. I'm fine with eating it and only sometimes does my mouth feel too hot, but my nose always ends up running. They love to laugh at me every time I bring out my tissues. I try to be secretive about it but they always see and think it's the funniest. Soon enough though I think I will be able to eat it like them, ha.
Ok, going to try to upload some pictures I think. We'll see how that goes. There's a lot and the internet isn't that fast.
Overall, having a wonderful trip but know that whenever we stop long enough to have time to think, I'm thinking of all of you! Miss everyone!!
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Ok, fail on the pictures. USB ports not seeming to work. Maybe later. Sorry!
3/28- More tasty treats for breakfast, and then a lunch which consisted of eating til we were full and then being given more food. Haha. It's hard to say no. Hung out with Aarti's mom's friend and her son. They took us to a temple and then a market. The mom helped us buy purses for around 4 USD. Good deal. Then came back home for large dinner. I'm pretty sure my stomach is stretching out here..
3/29- Woke up early and caught a tourism bus with an "aunt" and her adorable kid. ..After another large breakfast :-P Went to all the main Delhi sites: Lakshmi Narayan Temple, Qutub Minar, The Lotus Temple, Gandhi Smriti (the place where he was assassinated.. I want to read more about him; this place was a little intense to visit), Red Fort, Rajghat (where Ghandi was cremated), and Humayun's Tomb. Lunch break in the middle of course. Tried dosa. Very good. Then went to Dilli haat (I think that's how you spell it), a handcrafts/food market. Ate sooo much dinner. They ordered a bunch of random things and we had to try it all and there was so much and it was so good we couldn't stop. Hours later my belly still feels full. And a recurring theme of all this eating is that even though the food is really good, it's a little spicy. I'm fine with eating it and only sometimes does my mouth feel too hot, but my nose always ends up running. They love to laugh at me every time I bring out my tissues. I try to be secretive about it but they always see and think it's the funniest. Soon enough though I think I will be able to eat it like them, ha.
Ok, going to try to upload some pictures I think. We'll see how that goes. There's a lot and the internet isn't that fast.
Overall, having a wonderful trip but know that whenever we stop long enough to have time to think, I'm thinking of all of you! Miss everyone!!
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Ok, fail on the pictures. USB ports not seeming to work. Maybe later. Sorry!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Hi from Hong Kong!!
Sorry I am only just updating this now.. been too busy with only one week in HK to use the internet. Here are the highlights:
3/21- got to the hostel around 9pm, checked out all the other hostels in this one giant building (ChungKing Mansion) and got to see in person the places we'd been looking up online. switched into a different one for the rest of the week where the two ladies running it were real real nice. and it was very clean. a combo shower/bathroom is an interesting thing.
3/22- met up w/ Mahalia in Mong Kok (lucy, we totally approve of this area, very full of stuff to do and seems pretty safe.. we also have a restaurant recommendation for you: Yoshinoya). later in the day we met up with Edwin Tang from SEG and he helped us negotiate prices at some night markets and then treated us to some Hong Kong food. I now have a really cute present for my baby cousin.
3/23- went up to the peak on the peak tram. the tram was pretty cool; very steep. too bad it was a little foggy. walked back down and then went to a tea appreciation class which was really good actually. sampled a bunch of teas and bought some to bring back. you'll all be drinking it with me stanford people! then wandered around some more and had thai food near the lan kwai fong area (happening night spot)
3/24- met up with a friend of mahalia's friend(s friend?), kayi. despite it being a distant connection, she was extremely nice to us! we had dim sum with her and her mom, who helped us order (basically we all just pointed at stuff that looked good), then had lunch somewhere else, shopped around, had dessert (custard treat), shopped around some more (didn't really buy anything.. with all this shopping i'm really just talking about looking around), then dinner, then more dessert? really it was a crazy day of eating. very good and verrrry tiring. by the end of this day i was starting to feel how much work traveling can be! oh, and we've also ridden almost every form of transport in hk: airplane, bus, tram, MTR, ferry.
3/25- we took it easier this day. slept in a tiny bit, met for lunch at a place recommended on openrice.com (hk's yelp?), then journeyed a little farther to the chi lin nunnery. this place was soo pretty and peaceful and it made us actually feel like we were somewhere foreign. thus far, it's mostly felt like being in a very large chinatown in the us. lots of tourists, english, easy to navigate and pretty western. oh, and after the nunnery we went to a taoist temple. lots of incense and this thing where you shake sticks with numbers on them to get your fortune. very colorful and some cool statues. we might put pictures online now or later if we have time.
3/26- had to switch hostels this day because kyoto guesthouse was booked (the one with the nice ladies where we'd been staying).. except we wanted to leave to see big buddha before the checkin time of our next hostel. the ladies watched our bags for us for the day (nothing too important inside and they'd previously watched them, so it was all good). we took a ferry, another ferry, and a bus, then journeyed up the 280 stairs or so to the big buddha. who really is quite big. had lunch at the top, came back down and went over to the thai fishing village which wasn't as exciting. had stilted houses though.. then we went out that night for dinner (the yoshinoya place.. basically healthier asian style fast food chain?) and stopped by an irish pub where there was live music (but i was pretty much just trying not to tip over from being so tired, so this didn't last very long). then to bed.
3/27- moved out, got food and batteries at the grocery store (so much cheaper here!!), and now quickly using internet with our last bit of hk monies, then heading early to the airport (kind of rainy here today and not much to do with all our bags on).
ok, that's it. i will try to blog more often in the future! yay for indiaaaa!
3/21- got to the hostel around 9pm, checked out all the other hostels in this one giant building (ChungKing Mansion) and got to see in person the places we'd been looking up online. switched into a different one for the rest of the week where the two ladies running it were real real nice. and it was very clean. a combo shower/bathroom is an interesting thing.
3/22- met up w/ Mahalia in Mong Kok (lucy, we totally approve of this area, very full of stuff to do and seems pretty safe.. we also have a restaurant recommendation for you: Yoshinoya). later in the day we met up with Edwin Tang from SEG and he helped us negotiate prices at some night markets and then treated us to some Hong Kong food. I now have a really cute present for my baby cousin.
3/23- went up to the peak on the peak tram. the tram was pretty cool; very steep. too bad it was a little foggy. walked back down and then went to a tea appreciation class which was really good actually. sampled a bunch of teas and bought some to bring back. you'll all be drinking it with me stanford people! then wandered around some more and had thai food near the lan kwai fong area (happening night spot)
3/24- met up with a friend of mahalia's friend(s friend?), kayi. despite it being a distant connection, she was extremely nice to us! we had dim sum with her and her mom, who helped us order (basically we all just pointed at stuff that looked good), then had lunch somewhere else, shopped around, had dessert (custard treat), shopped around some more (didn't really buy anything.. with all this shopping i'm really just talking about looking around), then dinner, then more dessert? really it was a crazy day of eating. very good and verrrry tiring. by the end of this day i was starting to feel how much work traveling can be! oh, and we've also ridden almost every form of transport in hk: airplane, bus, tram, MTR, ferry.
3/25- we took it easier this day. slept in a tiny bit, met for lunch at a place recommended on openrice.com (hk's yelp?), then journeyed a little farther to the chi lin nunnery. this place was soo pretty and peaceful and it made us actually feel like we were somewhere foreign. thus far, it's mostly felt like being in a very large chinatown in the us. lots of tourists, english, easy to navigate and pretty western. oh, and after the nunnery we went to a taoist temple. lots of incense and this thing where you shake sticks with numbers on them to get your fortune. very colorful and some cool statues. we might put pictures online now or later if we have time.
3/26- had to switch hostels this day because kyoto guesthouse was booked (the one with the nice ladies where we'd been staying).. except we wanted to leave to see big buddha before the checkin time of our next hostel. the ladies watched our bags for us for the day (nothing too important inside and they'd previously watched them, so it was all good). we took a ferry, another ferry, and a bus, then journeyed up the 280 stairs or so to the big buddha. who really is quite big. had lunch at the top, came back down and went over to the thai fishing village which wasn't as exciting. had stilted houses though.. then we went out that night for dinner (the yoshinoya place.. basically healthier asian style fast food chain?) and stopped by an irish pub where there was live music (but i was pretty much just trying not to tip over from being so tired, so this didn't last very long). then to bed.
3/27- moved out, got food and batteries at the grocery store (so much cheaper here!!), and now quickly using internet with our last bit of hk monies, then heading early to the airport (kind of rainy here today and not much to do with all our bags on).
ok, that's it. i will try to blog more often in the future! yay for indiaaaa!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
I feel like I'm turning in the most intense final project of my life
I am printing:
1. airline itinerary
2. emails from the hostel manager in HK with directions on how to get there
3. train confirmations for India
4. hostel confirmations for HK, Agra, and Jaipur
5. maps of HK, India, and Malaysia (both zoomed out and zoomed in on every section that has things we want to see.. not lying when i say this is over 50 pages)
6. keys to those maps (addresses relating to each icon with info about what it is)
Still to print:
7. our intense planning document "aa2011" with information about basically every aspect of this trip. has to be at least 15 pages by now
8. the money document "$aa2011$" with information about who has paid for what so far and who owes whom
so thick
1. airline itinerary
2. emails from the hostel manager in HK with directions on how to get there
3. train confirmations for India
4. hostel confirmations for HK, Agra, and Jaipur
5. maps of HK, India, and Malaysia (both zoomed out and zoomed in on every section that has things we want to see.. not lying when i say this is over 50 pages)
6. keys to those maps (addresses relating to each icon with info about what it is)
Still to print:
7. our intense planning document "aa2011" with information about basically every aspect of this trip. has to be at least 15 pages by now
8. the money document "$aa2011$" with information about who has paid for what so far and who owes whom
so thick
Friday, March 18, 2011
2 days..
!!!!!!
Also I just checked the weather and it should be pretty consistently a high of 90-ish wherever we go. And the flight to Hong Kong is going to be about 15 hours. Of non-stop flying. Yikes.
And lastly, I'm done with school! I'm not a student anymore!
Too many thoughts going on.
Oh and the epic journey of getting the rest of my malaria medicine has finally come to an end. I went when they said it'd be ready but they were trying to do the whole "you can pick it up on the 31st" thing again. And I was like "Ok, listen, I'm leaving the country in like 3 days. I'm gonna need this now." And then bam, malaria medicine.
Also I just checked the weather and it should be pretty consistently a high of 90-ish wherever we go. And the flight to Hong Kong is going to be about 15 hours. Of non-stop flying. Yikes.
And lastly, I'm done with school! I'm not a student anymore!
Too many thoughts going on.
Oh and the epic journey of getting the rest of my malaria medicine has finally come to an end. I went when they said it'd be ready but they were trying to do the whole "you can pick it up on the 31st" thing again. And I was like "Ok, listen, I'm leaving the country in like 3 days. I'm gonna need this now." And then bam, malaria medicine.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Discoveries
Apparently I already own:
1. 9 loads worth of powder of single use detergent
2. .475 oz of 100% deet spray
3. 8 towelettes of 25% deet
4. 2 travel sized shampoo bottles
5. 3 travel sized conditioner bottles
and the best discovery...
I have no idea why I would own this, but apparently I have an adapter that goes from whatever to American. So now I can charge Veronica's phone (that has Indonesian charger) and test it out. If only I can figure out how to turn it on.. (Thanks Veronica! and Lucy!)
And I just bought another 4gb memory card for my camera for $6.47 on Amazon, with free 2 day shipping. Awesome. Yay Amazon Prime. Where the cheap nerds hang out, apparently.
1. 9 loads worth of powder of single use detergent
2. .475 oz of 100% deet spray
3. 8 towelettes of 25% deet
4. 2 travel sized shampoo bottles
5. 3 travel sized conditioner bottles
and the best discovery...
I have no idea why I would own this, but apparently I have an adapter that goes from whatever to American. So now I can charge Veronica's phone (that has Indonesian charger) and test it out. If only I can figure out how to turn it on.. (Thanks Veronica! and Lucy!)
And I just bought another 4gb memory card for my camera for $6.47 on Amazon, with free 2 day shipping. Awesome. Yay Amazon Prime. Where the cheap nerds hang out, apparently.
India: The Route
GoogleEarth file of route
Picture of route
New Delhi: Mar 28-31
Agra: Mar 31-Apr 1
Jaipur: Apr 1-5
Mt. Abu: Apr 5-8
Mumbai: Apr 9-12, 20-21
Goa: Apr 13-19
Picture of route
New Delhi: Mar 28-31
Agra: Mar 31-Apr 1
Jaipur: Apr 1-5
Mt. Abu: Apr 5-8
Mumbai: Apr 9-12, 20-21
Goa: Apr 13-19
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Still Planning
Things we've been doing:
1. We are mostly done with mapping things we want to see in HK and India. We've been talking to a couch surfing host in HK about meeting up and going to a couch surfers gathering. Looking for a host for the first night when it's just me and Aarti. That'd be ideal, but I guess if we don't hear back in the next day or two we should just book one of the Chungking Mansion places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions
2. Finally have all our train tickets for India. Aarti's mom's friend's son did it for us. Turns out it's way easier from India with a non-international credit card.
3. We now have hostels booked for two cities in India: Agra and Jaipur. Looking at Mount Abu now, but most of those places aren't on the usual hostel booking internet sites, so it's a little difficult.
4. Trying to pick up malaria medicine. Never knew it could be so hard..
Step 1: Go to the pharmacy the day it should be ready. Try to pay. Price is way higher than it should be.
Step 2: "Shouldn't I be paying just a copay?" "Oh, sorry, we don't have an account set up for you, can I see your insurance card?" I show him the card and he says it's not the right one. I need some sort of "pharmacy card".
Step 3: Call my parents and ask about this supposed "pharmacy card." They tell me such a thing doesn't exist.
Step 4: Call insurance. Because I now live on the west coast, things close earlier at 5pm EST. Nobody to talk to.
Step 5: Talk to different pharmacist. He hooks me up with the right price. I buy the medicine!
Step 6: While waiting for my new medicine consultation, I realize that they only gave me 30 malaria pills. Because you need to take one pill before you go into the malaria area and 28 pills after you leave it, this is only enough for one day. I ask about this. He says I need to come pick up my refill later on once I finish that bottle. I explain that this might be difficult since I'll be in India.
Step 7: Helpful pharmacist man calls insurance and says I need the medicine sooner. Tells me to come back the next day for the rest of the pills (~16 more).
Step 8: I return the next day. First pharmacist tells me pills won't be ready til March 31st, when I'll already be in India. I feel like there is a serious miscommunication going on between me-pharmacists-insurance people.
Step 9: Pharmacist calls insurance and again explains that I leave on the 20th for Asia and cannot come to Palo Alto then to pick up some pills. They say they can let me pick them up on March 16 (random?).
Step 10: I will go pick them up on March 16th and hope for the best.
Super fun!
1. We are mostly done with mapping things we want to see in HK and India. We've been talking to a couch surfing host in HK about meeting up and going to a couch surfers gathering. Looking for a host for the first night when it's just me and Aarti. That'd be ideal, but I guess if we don't hear back in the next day or two we should just book one of the Chungking Mansion places: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions
2. Finally have all our train tickets for India. Aarti's mom's friend's son did it for us. Turns out it's way easier from India with a non-international credit card.
3. We now have hostels booked for two cities in India: Agra and Jaipur. Looking at Mount Abu now, but most of those places aren't on the usual hostel booking internet sites, so it's a little difficult.
4. Trying to pick up malaria medicine. Never knew it could be so hard..
Step 1: Go to the pharmacy the day it should be ready. Try to pay. Price is way higher than it should be.
Step 2: "Shouldn't I be paying just a copay?" "Oh, sorry, we don't have an account set up for you, can I see your insurance card?" I show him the card and he says it's not the right one. I need some sort of "pharmacy card".
Step 3: Call my parents and ask about this supposed "pharmacy card." They tell me such a thing doesn't exist.
Step 4: Call insurance. Because I now live on the west coast, things close earlier at 5pm EST. Nobody to talk to.
Step 5: Talk to different pharmacist. He hooks me up with the right price. I buy the medicine!
Step 6: While waiting for my new medicine consultation, I realize that they only gave me 30 malaria pills. Because you need to take one pill before you go into the malaria area and 28 pills after you leave it, this is only enough for one day. I ask about this. He says I need to come pick up my refill later on once I finish that bottle. I explain that this might be difficult since I'll be in India.
Step 7: Helpful pharmacist man calls insurance and says I need the medicine sooner. Tells me to come back the next day for the rest of the pills (~16 more).
Step 8: I return the next day. First pharmacist tells me pills won't be ready til March 31st, when I'll already be in India. I feel like there is a serious miscommunication going on between me-pharmacists-insurance people.
Step 9: Pharmacist calls insurance and again explains that I leave on the 20th for Asia and cannot come to Palo Alto then to pick up some pills. They say they can let me pick them up on March 16 (random?).
Step 10: I will go pick them up on March 16th and hope for the best.
Super fun!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Planning
Things we've been doing:
1. mapping out the things we want to see and other important spots in each country (train stations, hostels, etc) using maps.google.com
2. trying to book train tickets for india.. surprisingly, VERY difficult to do. after many hours still no success using https://www.irctc.co.in/ and http://www.cleartrip.com/trains
3. choosing hostels
Next up:
4. packing list
5. which credit/debit cards to bring and how much cash
6. malaria and travel sickness prescriptions
7. bug spray!
1. mapping out the things we want to see and other important spots in each country (train stations, hostels, etc) using maps.google.com
2. trying to book train tickets for india.. surprisingly, VERY difficult to do. after many hours still no success using https://www.irctc.co.in/ and http://www.cleartrip.com/trains
3. choosing hostels
Next up:
4. packing list
5. which credit/debit cards to bring and how much cash
6. malaria and travel sickness prescriptions
7. bug spray!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
1 month to go..
In two minutes it'll be 2/20/11. I leave for Hong Kong on 3/20/11. Can't believe it's so soon..
In other news, went to SF and Rockridge today and visited Jason, Jub, and baby cousin (once removed!) Wyatt one last time before they move to Thailand. Next time I see them I should be celebrating my 24th birthday here and Wyatt will be about six months old and probably crawling around. :-D
In other news, went to SF and Rockridge today and visited Jason, Jub, and baby cousin (once removed!) Wyatt one last time before they move to Thailand. Next time I see them I should be celebrating my 24th birthday here and Wyatt will be about six months old and probably crawling around. :-D
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Japanese Encephalitis
Finally made a decision on whether or not to get the vaccine. Decided to go for it, even though it's pretty unlikely I'd be bitten by an infected mosquito and even less likely I'd then get encephalitis. But I guess in the long run, I'll make back that money and not have brain damage.. hopefully.
Job searching is still underway, and still not fun.
Job searching is still underway, and still not fun.
Monday, January 31, 2011
This just in..
The government of India is officially okay with me coming to their country!
(in other words: my Indian visa is ready for pick up)
(in other words: my Indian visa is ready for pick up)
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Indian Visa Application: Submitted!
They say I can pick up my passport already by Monday! But don't know if I can actually get to the city again so soon.. maybe next Friday or something. The upcoming adventure is becoming more real.
Also I got to see little Wyatt again. Getting so big and even cuter :-D
Also I got to see little Wyatt again. Getting so big and even cuter :-D
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Build Change links
Build Change's handbook for seismic design in Indonesia:
http://www.buildchange.org/tech/BC_BOOK-english.pdf
Good and bad connections:
http://www.buildchange.org/tech/BC_05_Connections.pdf
Article about Build Change in Haiti:
http://www.buildchange.org/pdfs/INNOVATIONS-5-4_Build-Back-Better_Hausler.pdf
http://www.buildchange.org/tech/BC_BOOK-english.pdf
Good and bad connections:
http://www.buildchange.org/tech/BC_05_Connections.pdf
Article about Build Change in Haiti:
http://www.buildchange.org/pdfs/INNOVATIONS-5-4_Build-Back-Better_Hausler.pdf
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Earthquake and tsunami retrofit and loading
I finally read through "Retrofit Design of Mosques as Vertical Evacuation Structures", a booklet put together by some of my friends in our Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) spring design class last year. Here's a link for it: http://www.stanford.edu/~biscombe/Final%20Brochure.pdf.
It goes through:
1. What a vertical evacuation structure is, why a mosque would be ideal, and how you can strengthen it to withstand the earthquake and consequent tsunami loads.
Vertical evacuation means going into the upper stories of a building or on top of a tall hill to avoid the tsunami waves. This is necessary when the water come far enough inland that you might not have time to evacuation horizontally (away from the shore). Mosques are good because people tend to go to religious buildings or community centers after a disaster. Retrofitting means fixing current deficiencies in a structure to make it strong enough for its desired purpose.
2. Initial site and building evaluation.
Is the building tall enough that people would be above the predicted wave height? Are the doors and stairways wide enough for large groups of people to get in quickly? Is there enough space to hold all the people who want to take refuge there? What are the predicted shaking and water levels at this site? All of these factors determine whether the building has potential to be a vertical evacuation structure.
3. Structural evaluation.
Are the floors, beams, and columns strong enough to hold all the refugees? Will the building survive the earthquake, and will it look undamaged enough to inspire confidence as a vertical evacuation structure? Can it withstand wave and debris loading from the tsunami? What method of analysis should you use?
4. Evaluation of retrofit options
What methods are most cost-effective for the current deficiencies? What methods will limit downtime of the building during construction?
You should check it out!
Also there's this document which is referenced a lot in the booklet and has soo much information about tsunamis:
FEMA P646, "Guidelines for Design of Structures for Vertical Evacuation from Tsunamis": http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=3463
Other FEMA documents: http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/earthquake/professionals.shtm
This includes stuff about new buildings, retrofits of old buildings (and specifically schools, hospitals, etc), performance based engineering, homeowner's guides, and information about nonstructural components (which contribute a lot to the total monetary losses after earthquakes.. ceiling tiles falling, glass breaking, etc), and lifelines (roadways that allow emergency response vehicles to get in, telephone lines, water lines, etc).
It goes through:
1. What a vertical evacuation structure is, why a mosque would be ideal, and how you can strengthen it to withstand the earthquake and consequent tsunami loads.
Vertical evacuation means going into the upper stories of a building or on top of a tall hill to avoid the tsunami waves. This is necessary when the water come far enough inland that you might not have time to evacuation horizontally (away from the shore). Mosques are good because people tend to go to religious buildings or community centers after a disaster. Retrofitting means fixing current deficiencies in a structure to make it strong enough for its desired purpose.
2. Initial site and building evaluation.
Is the building tall enough that people would be above the predicted wave height? Are the doors and stairways wide enough for large groups of people to get in quickly? Is there enough space to hold all the people who want to take refuge there? What are the predicted shaking and water levels at this site? All of these factors determine whether the building has potential to be a vertical evacuation structure.
3. Structural evaluation.
Are the floors, beams, and columns strong enough to hold all the refugees? Will the building survive the earthquake, and will it look undamaged enough to inspire confidence as a vertical evacuation structure? Can it withstand wave and debris loading from the tsunami? What method of analysis should you use?
4. Evaluation of retrofit options
What methods are most cost-effective for the current deficiencies? What methods will limit downtime of the building during construction?
You should check it out!
Also there's this document which is referenced a lot in the booklet and has soo much information about tsunamis:
FEMA P646, "Guidelines for Design of Structures for Vertical Evacuation from Tsunamis": http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=3463
Other FEMA documents: http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/earthquake/professionals.shtm
This includes stuff about new buildings, retrofits of old buildings (and specifically schools, hospitals, etc), performance based engineering, homeowner's guides, and information about nonstructural components (which contribute a lot to the total monetary losses after earthquakes.. ceiling tiles falling, glass breaking, etc), and lifelines (roadways that allow emergency response vehicles to get in, telephone lines, water lines, etc).
I haven't been learning as many words as I'd planned
This always happens once the quarter starts. Catching up..
12/27
happy birthday -selamat hari ulang tahun
have to -harus
how much/how much does it cost? -berapa banyak/berapa biayanya?
12/28
today -hari ini
tomorrow -besok
yesterday -kemarin
12/29
1 -satu
2 -dua
3 -tiga
4 -empat
12/30
building -gedung
caution -hati-hati
earthquake -gempa bumi
tsunami -tsunami
evacuate/evacuation -mengungsi/pengungsian
12/31
pants -celana ("ch")
shirt -kemeja
shoes -sepatu
1/1/11!!
water -air
food -makanan
eat -makan
drink -minum
The ones I have yet to memorize..
1/2
boil -merebus (verb), air matang (boiled water)
clean -membersihkan (verb), bersih (adjective)
wash -mencuci (something), mandi (oneself).. like kamar mandi, washroom!
1/3
doctor -dokter
medicine -obat
hurt -sakit
pharmacy -apotek
buy -membeli
12/27
happy birthday -selamat hari ulang tahun
have to -harus
how much/how much does it cost? -berapa banyak/berapa biayanya?
12/28
today -hari ini
tomorrow -besok
yesterday -kemarin
12/29
1 -satu
2 -dua
3 -tiga
4 -empat
12/30
building -gedung
caution -hati-hati
earthquake -gempa bumi
tsunami -tsunami
evacuate/evacuation -mengungsi/pengungsian
12/31
pants -celana ("ch")
shirt -kemeja
shoes -sepatu
1/1/11!!
water -air
food -makanan
eat -makan
drink -minum
The ones I have yet to memorize..
1/2
boil -merebus (verb), air matang (boiled water)
clean -membersihkan (verb), bersih (adjective)
wash -mencuci (something), mandi (oneself).. like kamar mandi, washroom!
1/3
doctor -dokter
medicine -obat
hurt -sakit
pharmacy -apotek
buy -membeli
The beginning of the last quarter
My last quarter of being a student started yesterday. Need to figure out what to take..
The options:
1. Social Dance 3 (1)- taking this one, it's the only Richard Powers one I haven't done yet
2. ESW Peru seminar (1 or 0)- doing this, maybe for credit
3. Nonlinear (3 or 4)- probably not doing this, I think it's more theory then I'll really need. plus matlab and project and final..
4. Earthquake Hazard and Risk (3 or 4)- really wanted to take this one, but it might be almost a repeat of a class I took last quarter
5. Foundations (2 or 3)- probably should learn/relearn some soil stuff, and Lucy is the TA! hi Lucy
6. Sleep and Dreams (3)- I have so many weird dreams about zombies, etc. plus Esteban and Ivan are taking this. and maybe Greg too!
7. Independent study (2 or 3)- could get credit for last spring's ESW design class, plus the stuff I did last quarter and will do this quarter..
8. Women's seminar (1)- talk with some ladies about life, also have cookies
I need 3 units worth of structural engineering, and 6 units of other classes that would count towards my degree in general but don't have to be structural engineering.
In order of preference:
1 Dance + 2 Foundations + 3 Sleep (or Risk) + 2 or 3 Independent + 1 Peru + 1 Women?
1 Dance + 3 Foundations + 3 Sleep (or Risk) + 2 or 3 Independent + 1 or 0 Peru + 1 Women?
Conclusion:
I'm going to sleep in tomorrow; not going to 9:30am Nonlinear!
PS- Got the first of my shots for aa2011 today.. an unexpected expense. :-/
The options:
1. Social Dance 3 (1)- taking this one, it's the only Richard Powers one I haven't done yet
2. ESW Peru seminar (1 or 0)- doing this, maybe for credit
3. Nonlinear (3 or 4)- probably not doing this, I think it's more theory then I'll really need. plus matlab and project and final..
4. Earthquake Hazard and Risk (3 or 4)- really wanted to take this one, but it might be almost a repeat of a class I took last quarter
5. Foundations (2 or 3)- probably should learn/relearn some soil stuff, and Lucy is the TA! hi Lucy
6. Sleep and Dreams (3)- I have so many weird dreams about zombies, etc. plus Esteban and Ivan are taking this. and maybe Greg too!
7. Independent study (2 or 3)- could get credit for last spring's ESW design class, plus the stuff I did last quarter and will do this quarter..
8. Women's seminar (1)- talk with some ladies about life, also have cookies
I need 3 units worth of structural engineering, and 6 units of other classes that would count towards my degree in general but don't have to be structural engineering.
In order of preference:
1 Dance + 2 Foundations + 3 Sleep (or Risk) + 2 or 3 Independent + 1 Peru + 1 Women?
1 Dance + 3 Foundations + 3 Sleep (or Risk) + 2 or 3 Independent + 1 or 0 Peru + 1 Women?
Conclusion:
I'm going to sleep in tomorrow; not going to 9:30am Nonlinear!
PS- Got the first of my shots for aa2011 today.. an unexpected expense. :-/
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