Here’s a brief description of the places Yvonne mentioned about India.

Khajuraho
The temples in Khajuraho are famous for their erotic (Kama Sutra) sculptures - ooh la lah. Khajuraho is a small town full of bored and weird people. Some of the Khajuraho locals have mistaken me for being: German? or Spanish? - I think they smoke too much dope to pass the time. This small town also boasts 8 Korean restaurants in a 1 mile radius. Apparantly Khajuraho is popular with the Korean tourist groups, it must be the Kama Sutra temples.

Orchha
Famous for it’s Rajput palace, although I didn’t get to see it because I was hugging the toilet and praying to the porcelin god. I was getting really curried out, saw fish and chips on the menu and figured sure why not - mistake should have stuck with the Indian cuisine.

Agra
This is where the famous Taj Mahal is located. This marble structure is quite beautiful and impressive. I thought the Taj was well worth the visit, despite the massive amount of people in Agra.

Jodhpur
Called the blue city due to it’s many painted blue houses - very nice if you’re viewing the city from atop the Mehrangah Fort, an old fort placed on top of a giant rock above the city. We spent a relaxing 3 days in Jodhpur.

Jaipur
Called the pink city due to it’s many painted pink buildings (it’s more salmon pink, not as pretty as Jodhpur). We didn’t do much sightseeing in Jaipur. But we did get together with some old job contacts in Jaipur and we had a great time eating (the local food), drinking and being merry.

Udaipur
The city of lakes, also referred to as the Venice of the East and India’s most romantic city. Also a great place to relax and hang out.

Mumbai (Bombay)
We met Ram, a friend of ours from L.A. who moved back to India a couple of years ago, and we did the eat, drink and be merry thing. Ram was nice enough to let us stay at his place. Ram’s parents we’re visiting from Chennai and we ate his mother’s excellent South Indian cuisine!!
I found Bombay to be not as hectic as Kolkata - but it’s still an insane place i.e. over-populated, massive pollution etc. At least many of the cars in Bombay still have sideview mirrors. It was nice ending our trip in India at the comfort of our friend’s place.
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We’re in now Malaysia, in the modern city of Kuala Lumpur. We’ll be hanging out with our friend Eliza (whom we met back in Mongolia and who happens to lives in K.L. ). Yvonne and I are looking foward to seeing a couple of movies and eating non-vegetarian food. We’re staying in Chinatown, so we’ve already gourged ourselves on cha-sui and crispy pork

Three weeks are almost done and we’ve done some of India’s more historic sites. Yet still we are still meeting people who bring up places we should have gone. All we can say is, “We’ll be back…India’s a big place.”

As it is we’ve been to the following places in order: Kolkata, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Khajuraho, Orchha, Agra, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Udaipur and now Mumbai (Bombay). We will fly out tomorrow night from Bombay to Chennai and directly onwards to Kuala Lumpur.

The food and stomach luck did not last. Eddy got hit hard in Orchha, we think it was because he craved western food and had fish and chips with sketchy tartar sauce. I had it as well, but not nearly as bad. So the following week was eating only on a need basis to get it through our system. Needless to say, Eddy’s skinny self has lost even more weight here and I think I am actually starting to lose some weight as well! Wow! 10 months and nothing noticeable and then India and we can see bones that I haven’t seen in a while.

All joking aside, we are ending India the best way we can think of. We’re hanging out with a friend, Ram, and his mom is making home cooked south Indian food. It’s delicious. Bombay is definitely expensive compared to the rest of the places we’ve been so far here in India. It is also the first place we’ve been able to get a good Indian draft beer. Last night the three of us had three pitchers of it! Needless to say, I was passed out in the car home. Luckily here, it is fairly cheap to have a car service, so we all three can drink to our hearts content and not have to drive.

We took an overnight train from Kolkata to the Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodhgaya. This is where Buddha was enlightened under the Bodi tree. We spent only one night in Bodhgaya and took an early morning train to the holy city of Varanasi.
Varanarsi is situated along the infamous Ganges River. A lot of intersting activity along the Ganges river bank: people bathing in the Ganges to wash away their sins; people drinking the Ganges water; families cremating their loved ones, then spreading the ashes into the river; Dobi’s washing loads of laundry in the river…..
The river bank is not as chaotic as I imagined, it’s actually quite peaceful out here - the narrow streets near the river prevent any cars coming through, therefore no honking horns! It also helps that we just missed a big festival cutting down the amount of people out here.
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Last night we walked over to one of the outdoor cremation sites. We were able to observe: the preparation of the wood; the placement of the wrapped corpse onto the wood and then the burning of the body. It’s interesting how different cultures/religions perform their funeral rituals.
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India - a country of extremes. Extreme: poverty; pollution; over-population……extremely nice people! I thought the Thai’s loved to chat, the Indians even more so.
Favorite quote from a Varanarsi local:
“..Indians are experts at two things - making babies and talking.”
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Food is tasty. I can’t believe these vegetarian meals stuff me till I burst. So far so good no stomach problems - knock on wood.
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Yesterday as we were walking along the river bank back to our guesthouse, Yvonne slipped and landed onto a pile of cow shit
Yvonne was able to kill two birds with one stone. Not only wash the pooh off her clothes, in the Ganges, but her sins as well
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We’re off to Khajuraho tomorrow night - again on an overnight train. I’m so “trained” out.

It’s been a while, so I thought maybe I should say something about our trip. Just checked, WOW, I think the last time I blogged was Dec. 2nd. I had promised some photos of my cooking class then, unfortunately hanging around HK, I never got around to it. Maybe when we visit Ram in Mumbai… In general I am still enjoying travelling and seeing new places and meeting people, fellow travellers and locals alike.

Our time in Vietnam I really enjoyed even with all the US bashing we have to hear on the tours we have joined. Phu Quoc with it’s beach front bungalows that only range from USD 20 to 80 was just amazing. Really missing the sunsets on our private beach front porch.

Laotian food was just yummie! In the North mainly, though. Luang Prabang has the best selection of yummie Laotian restaurants. The Boat Landing (they have recipes posted on their website) and another Laotian restaurant in the northern part of Luang Namtha were the best in that area.

Thailand has got to be my favorite Southeast Asian country to date. It’s hard to beat the variety, the cost and the people. A country I would definitely like to come back to. I am not a huge fan of the hot humid weather, but one forgets that very easily once on a nice sandy beach with cool ocean breezes.

Myanmar, has seen the last of me though. Unfortunately, I think we went under such circumstances that made it hard for us to enjoy the place. A lack of USD and a constant demand for clean crisp USD bills from two people who have been travelling for over 8 months was a little wearing on the nerves. We were lucky to have enough to make it out without too much sacrifice to our comfort and seeing the places we wanted to see. Though the constant reminder that we just have only so much and once used that would be it, was a bit too much to bear for three weeks. So we are glad we went to Bagan. Spent two great days biking around enjoying the peace of this amazing place, but I see very little reason to go back. Everything good about the country is better at the countries that influenced that portion of their culture, be it food, architecture, whatever… I will personally not miss the betelnut spitting and the barefoot tourism. By the last, I mean, the need to take off shoes and socks at all religious sites, even if it is a half hour hike to the top of a religious hill. This would be fine if it was kept somewhat clean, but spitting isn’t banned in these sacred sites. Sure glad for them they don’t have the hoof and mouth disease. By the way the food in general was unimpressive. One more strike against it.

Now we are in Kolkata, India. It’s amazing the pollution. I have not had the feeling of my throat constricting since Beijing. Been here only two days, both days found me waking up having slight asthmatic symptoms. Crazy busy streets, loads of people, huge English buildings all over the place, hot (not by their standards), everyone speaks English (almost), food has been good (we’ve turned vegetarian, temporarily), mishti (yogurt curd) yummie, more to follow… Took a day tour of the city today, had to do more barefoot tourism, and we have no way to wash our feet tonight because we are on a sleeper train to Gaya, to check out Bodhgaya, the place of Buddha’s enlightenment. Oh well, wet wipes will have to do.

Ciao for now!

We’ll we finished our Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) journey, what a stressful and hectic 3 weeks! We had a terrible time, lets just say communism really brings out the bad in people - especially me. Anyway, here’s a brief lowdown of our Burma trip …observations, experiences etc…

- NEVER exchange money at the Yangon airport you’ll get screwed big time. The airport rate is 450 Myanmar Kyat to 1 U.S. dollar. Turns out the entire country relies on the blackmarket rate of approx. 1,100 Kyat to 1 U.S. dollar, you can freely exchange money on the streets. We made the mistake of changing 100 bucks at the airport, I’m still very bitter about being blatantly ripped off. Not a good start and first impression of Myanmar. It’s Myanmar’s way of saying “Welcome now bend over.”
- Heavy military presense all over Myanmar. Large military convoys of trucks and jeeps are quite a common site. High ranking government or military personnel have quite the cushy life, you should see their cars and houses.
- Pagodas and temples everywhere! There’s not a town that does not have a spectacular gold pagoda. The pagodas and temples in Bagan are worth a visit.
- Infrastructure in Myanmar is terrible. Blackouts are quite common, especially in the smaller towns. The phones barely work. The roads are poorly maintained or never maintained at all - not good for the many long and bumpy bus rides. Internet access virtually impossible. The Myanmar gov’t rather spend it’s money on pagodas and the military, forget about infrastructure.
- All the Burmese men wear sarongs, or Longyi’s as they’re called, which is quite cool looking. The Burmese women apply gold makeup all over their faces, which is quite hideous looking. Both men and women love to chew the betel nut and spit out it’s red juices- yuck.
- Myanmar food is similar to Indian food i.e. curries, rice, chapatis, lassi’s etc…but lacking in flavor. Food sanitation is sketchy - the food rarely gets served piping hot, I’m surprised I didn’t get sick - Yvonne wasn’t so fortunate.
- People in Myanmar drive on the right side of the road, but have right side steering cars. Makes for some interesting lane changes on a two lane highway. The drivers have to trust the vehicle they’re passing to let them know when it’s clear.
- Horse and carriage is a cheap transportation alternative out here.
- Lots of English Tudor style homes in the Myanmar hill towns (from the days of British colonization).

Anyway, enough about Burma. So now we’re in Kolkata, India - we just arrived today. What a chaotic place! I feel like a worker ant in a busy colony. It’s unbelievably crowded out here! The constant movement of traffic and people, the smells, noises, dust, litter and pollution - it’s what I imagined our arrival in India would be like. So far nothing dramatic to report, at least we’re off to a normal start out here. We’ll only be in India for 3 weeks - I blame it on Thailand we stayed longer than we expected. Stayed tuned.