Finished up Vietnam and Thailand. Soon to come Myanmar and India.

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.
-
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

We finally got some more photos up. Check out photos of Laos, some of Vietnam and more Thailand and Hong Kong in the Photo Gallery. We’ll try to get Vietnam and Thailand finished soon. Myanmar and India will also be up hopefully in the next month or so.

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.

Podcast 05: Poland | 20:20 min

From Poland: Yvonne talks about some of the highlights of Poland… we’re going the wrong way… we’re all gonna die in the salt mines… depressing and disgusting Auschwitz… Ching Chong!

Download mp3: Ay-Ya Podcast 05: Poland

VOTE NOW!
Please help us to fulfill Eddy’s wish of being “#1 besta” by casting your vote now! After you vote, please check your e-mail and click on the link to confirm. Thanks!

You can vote once a month so if you haven’t voted yet this month, please do!

Subscribe to Ay-Ya Podcast

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.
-
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.
-
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.”
-
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.
-
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
-
We’re off to Khajuraho tomorrow night - again on an overnight train. I’m so “trained” out.