Delhi-cious

Hello all,
I hope you are preparing yourselves to read one of the last if not the last blog for this trip. Yes, sadly it has come to an end. We have to be at the airport in 2 days...back to NY on the 30th....so sad.
So we made it to Delhi today and it really isn;t that bad. Girls, it's like shopping heaven. My head is spinning from all I see. My wallet too but not in the same way, lol. Sightseeing isn't exactly the priority. It's a very busy city. Everything takes a while to get to and the city is really spread out... We only have a day and a half anyway so it's not that much.
We walked around a bit today and I have to say it's not nearly as bad as we thought, I guess a month of getting used to the indian ways got us prepared for the capital. So for the ones who didn't know, I am going to France on the 8th so I only have a week in NY, the calendar is open for whoever wants to share stories. We're landing on the 30th in the morning, I think it's a saturday so if anyone wants to do brunch, let me know.
Ok, this was very nice.
It's only the first of many blogs I hope. Traveling is something I enjoy and I will make sure to have another country to talk about soon.
Thanks to all my followers.
Love,
Izzy

Monkeyed...

This is insane. I actually did get attacked by a stupid f***ing monkey. They were so mean, at the temple they were super aggressive, just like everyone had told us. One got a little upset on me when I took a picture from faraway, I guess he had super eyes cause I really was far away but we had a wooden stick so it was fine. Some other people didn't get so luicky, one got her glasses stolen, another her scarf, she almost choked on it as the monkey kept on pulling it and tightening it around her neck, scary. But then the next day, as we are going down to the bus stop with our bags on and all, there was a monkey in the stairs, I sawit but whatever, he was doing his thing, I was doing mine and as we passed him he jumped on me !!! He grabbed onto my pants and was about to bite me but we all stared screaming so we eventually scared it off. That was thescariest moment ever. I was seriously shaking. They are mean and they are strong. Now we are in Rishikesh, there are a couple monkeys here too but not in the street so it's fine. And now I know better than to even look at them. We saw a big one today, one of the grey one, another breed I guess, with a black face, huge, the size ofa 5 year old maybe, and those really look like you do not want to mess with them.
Anyway, the town we are in is nice, we have a hotel by the Gange, quite nice, another very holly place. After lunch it started raining, it started out as a drip and ended up being gallons and gallons, even icicles at the end. In an hour the water was up our ankles. Insane amounts of water. And brown, bringing all the dirt along with it, a delight ;-)
Hopefully it won't be like that everyday. We're heading to delhi in a few days, 2 more days here first. It's nice to relax a bit before getting to the capital.
Rishikesh is funny, full of sadhus (holy men) and hippies, justlike in the beattles song, ashrams and dreadlocks. We don't really fit here but close enough, a few more months here and we would be just fine.
Alrighty, it's diner time for us.
Lots of kisses.

Shimla

Hello all,
We are now in a town called Shimla, still up in the mountains, there's not much to do here, just enjoy the views. There are a lot of indian tourists and that's about it.
We might go up to the temple later today but apparently the monkeys attack people for food and stuff, they even tell us to get sticks for the walk up, it's kind of scary.
We're only here for the day anyway, back on the road going to Rishikesh and then heading to Delhi. It's sad to think that the end of the trip is near, even if I know I'll have a nice summer.
I'm actually in a bad mood today, woke up on the wrong side of the bed. So by the way, if anyone knows anyone who could cat sit for 3 months I would greatly appreciate. Seriously. I need to find someone for june 8th, all help is required.
Ok, maybe i'll start doing some sight seeing now.
Kisses.

News face

Hello all,
I just posted a lot of new pics on facebook so go enjoy them. I don't really feel like writing much today so I will just say that I went cherry picking this morning, lots of trees around here. And the yaks were pretty cool, a little scary as the horns are gigantic but they kind of look like big cows with long hair. We also saw angora rabbits, they are huge, albino and seriously the size of a dog. Would be a good stew,lol.
Tomorrow we're going on a tour, to the waterfalls and all over, should be really nice.
Have a good night.

Manali joli

Yay, it is so pretty here. WEe got here this morning at 5.30, after a night of no sleep at all. The "road" was a little hard so we couldn't sleep.
But we took a nap and went around today, we're at 2050 meters of altitude, it gets really cold as soon as the sun sets, thank god we kept some warm clothes with us.
There was a festival today so we went and watched for a while, the colours are beautiful, all the kids were playing around, the elders chatting away...Lots of cotton candy and ice cream too. We're probably going to stay here for a few days, there's a mini tour that goes around a few towns and up near a waterfall that we want to do. And tomorrow will be time to be introduced to yaks !!! Oh, and angora rabbits. For some reason i care more about the yaks, i've never seen one before...
Anyway, I'm exhausted, time to get some much needed sleep.
Love,
Izzy

Free Tibet !

We are leaving tonight, going to a town called Manali, another hippie hang out town, with a lot of outdoor activities, like rafting, zorbing ( you being thrown out on the mountain in a big hamster ball), etc. We're going overnight, 10 hours ride, so we can sleep in the bus. It's a deluxe bus, not at all what you would think with our western standart. We almost saw the dalai lama this morning. Yes, almost. We missed him. Everyone started running and we thought someone had gotten killed but no, his holiness was coming out. Tinted windows and police escort, mind you. We went to the movies last night, we saw "Che" and it sucked. The theater is the basement of a grocery store, pretty cool. He also does the subtitles himself so if you don't speak english and you read the subtitles it doesn't make sense at all. The subtitles are so far from what the people actually say, words are missing, when they speak too fast, nothing was even writen, so funny. We almost wanted to go back today but we'd rather enjoy the mountain air...and go shopping. We just did our duty, we bought a free tibet shirt, the national cause around here, and a sticker, for the fridge. We saw 2 short films in a restaurant last time and it is really disturbing to see what those people really had to go through, so now we totally back it up.
I hope you are all doing well. Can everyone please tell me if you received the post cards I sent ?

Momos

That's what the cooking class was all about. It was a lot of fun, and really good, of course we ate all of them. Our teacher prepared stuff in advance but we had to make the dumplings and roll the dough ourselves. I'm so full right now...
I think we're going to the movies tonight, we have the choice between "seven pounds" and "slumdog millionaire" which I have already seen, so will smith it is. That's how good tourism is here, there's even a movie theatre. We went down to Dharamsala this morning but there was really nothing to do, the museum was pretty boring, the fact that we were the only ones in it could have been a sign.
Tomorrow's program is unknown as of yet, massage I think, life here is so hard ;-)
Alright, not much to say today. See you tomorrow.

OM

I'm just writing a quick something, I have to run to a yoga class. Yes I know it sounds good. Especially when you're on a rooftop with the birds chirping and the view over the himalayas. That would be me. We're in Dharamsala, Mc leod Gang to be precise, home of the Dalai Lama. I'm not sure if he's here or not. Either way we can't see him. But we did assist to a buddhist minks ceremony and they were all chanting, it was super cool. Lots of foreigners here, lots of good food too, tibetans all over. It doesn't feel like India at all, I could almost add that it is probably why we like it. We're 1600 meters high, it's still really nice though, just long sleeves for the night. It's kind of a hang out spot here, not much to see but lotws to do, meditate, learn massages, cooking classes (that's on tomorrow's program).... it's fun.
Ok, i'm gonna be late for my painful work out.
Have a good day. Hope all of you are well.

Too much gold doesn't kill gold

Ar least that's what indians think, or thought, when they built the golden temple in Amritsar.
Yep, we're way up north now, we took a 20 hours train ride, believe it or not it wasn't even that long, get a good book and you're set.
We went to visit the temple today, quite amazing, more people took pictures of us than the actual temple but hey, we are very good looking after all. I'm rested today so it doesn't bother me as much but yesterday was tough, men would just not stop staring and it's quite opressing. I don't blame them but it' just annoying. I had been doing good so far, just couldn't handle it yesterday.
The food is good here, we're trying new things, they have more fruits too, funny how geography matters so much on crops.
We're going to Dharamsala tomorrow, where the Dalai lama lives, hopefully we can catch a glimpse of him, it's a 6 hours bus ride, and I can't read in a car or i get car sick so the ride will definitely be longer.
Anyway, we're going back to the temple to catch the sunset.
Lots of love.

Fairy tales don't exist.

Actually they do, but not in June. It's so dry that the amazing lake is close to being dry. The floating palace does not float at all and all that is supposed to be on the lake is waiting on the side of the embarcation port. A tad disappointing I must say. It still looks nice but comparing to what it is really supposed to look like it's nothing. We bumped into nathalie portman yesterday (a famous actress for the ones who don't know), that was pretty funny. And we just walked around a lot. We're going to Jaipur tonight, by bus cause all the trains are full, it's a sleeper bus, so there's a platform to sleep, should be funny. Today is election day in Rajahstan, it doesn't look like anyone is planning to vote though. They said in the papers the heat and schedued weddings will alter the number of voters, who could think there could be so many weddings in one day !
It's about to be lunch time, the curry is calling us.
Lots of kisses.

Taj mahal !!!!!

Ok the taj was really cool. It's so big, doesn't look like that on postcards. We also went for a nature walk a little further, nice and calm. Although the guide says to look at the birds and the butterflies we saw none so it was really just a walk. period. Anyway, we're going to Udaipur tonight with an overnight train again, it's the city with the floating palace on the lake, should be pretty cool.
Have fun.

Agra delight

Yeah that's kind of a lie. We got to Agra this morning, the train ride was actually really good, peaceful and on time. I slept for most of the time. So we went to visit agra's red fort today, really pretty, it's 2.5 kms long, so hard to believe people used to live in it. And we also saw a huge mosque, architecture wise it is exquisite. I know a few people who would really enjoy it. The taj is for tomorrow, it's 15 dollars to get in and only for a single entry so we might as well spend the day there. We're going to Udaipur tomorrow night, another overnight train, at least we don't see the travel and get to enjoy a dull day in the city.
It's that hour of the day when the ground becomes too hot to walk on so it's time for a little mango juice.
Another day, another town.
See you next time.

Que calor !

It's so hot, too hot to do anything. Today was kind of a lazy day. We did got o the post office and sent a package back home so we can get some loads off our sweaty backs.
And I put pictures up on facebook, I don't really feel like explaining them all so just figure that the first ones are Nepal and the few last ones are india. But you can kind of tell right away.
We're leaving to Agra tomorrow night by train, getting there early in the morning so it works out perfectly. We're going to get up at dawn to go on the Ganges one last time and watch the morning rituals and enjoy a few hours of bearable heat. 45 degrees is a little much. At least we drink a lot of water, that's something good for us.
So for the pics, it's just a taste, I didn't put the really good ones as I want to show them when they're printed and explained. But at least you can put images on some of the things i have talked about like the festival with the red powder and the chaos on the highway. Lots of landscapes, Nepal is quite beautiful so I did put a lot of those.
Hope you will enjoy.
Next email will be facing the Taj Mahal.
Love.

Spice market

This was one of the highlight of the day. We took a rickshaw to the spice market, in the back streets of the old town, where none of the tourists really go, it was so cool. We got to walk around so many cool things. Guess I'm gonna have to invite you all for dinner and make curry. We do want to take cooking classes here at some point. At the end of the afternoon we went to the puja again, this time sitting with all the people, it was really awesome, we lit a butter candle and put it in the water, flooding away. It's quite pretty at night to see the river lit by hundreds of little candles.
We're still here for another day, we got our tickets to Agra for the day after tomorrow so we get to enjoy some more spirituality. It actually is really relaxing to walk around here. Indians seem to feed off your vibe, if you're warm and smiling, you might get a smile back and even a hello. It's much more work than in Nepal but still possible.
I read the papers at lunch today and it made me feel happy to be here, all there was was bad news, remindes me of a book I read here, I found it in one of the guest house we were staying at, called "le papillon des etoiles", I'm not gonna tell the whole story so if you wonder why then read it, and learn french to do so hihihihi.
Ok, I'm off to bed.