Back Down Under

The rest of our time in Thailand was good. It rained more but it was still nice. One of our sorority sisters, Christina Jacobs Dunlap, came for the weekend from Singapore. 

We left Thailand yesterday and had another long layover in Kuala Lumpur. We got into Sydney this morning at 8am. Today we are going to run last minute souvenier errands and meet up with some of our old Bondi roommates for the night. Then tomorrow we fly out at 2pm back to the States! Can't believe our trip is over, it went by so fast!!! 

Yep, it's still awesome!

Scuba pictures!
Turtle
I found Nemo in Thailand too!

Cuttlefish blending in

Eel!

Octopus

Since my last blog I've been enjoying the sunshine, eating awesome Thai food and went diving. Our trusty Lonely Planet said that since its monsoon season the visibility for diving might not be too good, but its so cheap to dive here ($75 for 2 1-hour dives compared to $200 in Australia for 2 25-minute dives) so I figured why not.

We went diving yesterday morning to Bida Nok and Table Coral City. The water was so warm and the visibility was great for the first dive, and just ok for the 2nd. We saw so much stuff, and a lot of different things than we saw on the Great Barrier Reef. I really wanted to see an octopus and what do you know, a few minutes into our first dive I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was an octopus landing on a rock and immediately blending in. I swam fast to grab our instructor's fin and show it to him. He made it move so everyone else could see it (it seriously looked like a rock!) and it was SO cool. After that we saw a cuttlefish, which is like a mix between a squid and octopus and it changed from brown speckley to clear in a milisecond. Also saw a sea snake, eel and 2 hawksbill turtles. It was awesome. I could dive everyday and never get tired of it. They almost talked me into getting my certification but who knows when I'll be near a good diving spot. I have some credit card debt to pay off first....

But Thailand isn't adding to that debt, being as cheap as it is! Bottled water costs 15 cents, a meal costs about $1.50 and I just got a haircut for $12! It's raining right now (the first and only flaw I've found of Thailand so far) so I'm trying to upload some scuba pictures.

Oh last night we went to a bar that was playing Bruno (an illegal copy of course - they have them for sale all over and I may or may not have bought some...shhh) and per Thailand custom we took our shoes off before entering the store. Well after the movie when we went to leave my shoes were nowhere in sight. A Thai lady working at the bar was trying to tell us that a guy took them but she knows him and he was maybe coming back. Anyway, after about 10 minutes he came back with my shoes and Sarah gave him a mouthful. Apparently he borrowed them because someone took his so he ran home to get another pair, then was returning mine. Seriously dude? Don't take people's shoes...that's just weird.

I can't believe I come home in 10 days! On one hand 6 months has flown by but on the other it seems like forever ago that we were in New Zealand. Either way its been an awesome trip!

India Pictures!

Ok, here they finally are! They are totally out of order but it takes too long to move them around. Enjoy!

Getting turbanized by Shankar, Elizabeth's recommended textile dealer
Shankar's store, pretty textiles!

Jaisalamer city

Camel safari Indian princess

In my pretty saree

Temple

Camel safari shadow

Locals at the fort in Jodhpur

Overlooking the "blue city" Jodhpur

Main market area in Jodhpur

Saying goodbye to our driver, Rajeev. I promise he smiles haha

Jaisalmer Fort, a giant sandcastle!

City Palace, Udaipur

View of Udaipur city

Tourists on elephants. We said no to animal cruelty and waked up to the palace.

Street vendor

Getting henna

Rajeev getting the flat tire fixed

In a rickshaw in Pushkar

Camel cart in Pushkar

View of a temple from inside a tire shop while we waited for the rickshaw to get its flat fixed

Water Palace, Jaipur

Seeing how our hand stamped curtains were made, Jaipur. Thats glitter flecks catching the flash!

The largest silver object int he world. Seriously, its in Guiness. Jaipur city palace

Jaipur city palace

Jaipur city palace

Charming a cobra in Jaipur Amber Fort

Amber Fort, Jaipur

Fruit for sale

Jaipur, the pink city

Jaipur

Monkey with a painted on mustache doing tricks outside our car window, so mean!

Qutub Minar, Delhi

My laptop security packaging from the hotel. haha

India Gate, Delhi

Gandhi's glasses

Gandhi's world peace gong

The Taj Mahal!

I am never coming home

That's right, I don't ever want to leave Thailand. This is the greatest place on earth! It's beautiful, cheap, good food, nice people. What more could you ask for?

This afternoon we took the boat over to Ko Phi Phi Island (pronounced pee pee) and I've been in love ever since. The place we are staying at, Phi Phi Casita, is $13 per person per night and its an adorable air conditioned bungalow. Paradise. There are gorgeous flowers everywhere and as discovered on our walk back to our bungalow before dinner there are also croaking frogs and some sort of animal that sounds like a cow. There are raised walkways and fountains that lead around to the bungalows.

We walked around town after we checked in and bought a thai pancake with nutella, kinda like a crepe but crispier, for like 20 cents. I bought a beach towel for $3 and tomorrow I'm going back for some knock off Ray Ban's I saw for $2. When you ask a price the super nice shop keepers say 300 baht, for example, but them before you even have time to say "that's too much" or "that's cheap!" they say "Ok, 250 baht". Then you can say "how about 200?" and they act like you are the nicest person ever to buy something from them.

Oh I forgot to mention that yesterday while still in Phuket Town we went to a pharmacy and discovered that even their imported beauty products are dirt cheap. The face wash I paid $8 for in Australia was only like $1 here. So I stalked up on some toiletries, even though I didn't need them. I would buy something then before I reached the door I'd find something else I also wanted. Sarah was doing the same thing, I think the pharmacy girls rang us up 5 different times.

Ok, so back to Phi Phi. After the Thai pancake and walking around we met a guy from Cali who works here at a dive shop (my new dream job) and so we'll probably go diving with him in a few days. It's only $75 for 2 dives. For reference I paid $250 for 2 dives in Australia. Fingers crossed that we'll see a whale shark! (I don't think it's their season but a girl can dream, can't she?)

We got pedicures, foot scrubs and mini massages for less than $10 this afternoon. I haven't had a pedicure in over 7 months. My feet look so weird with polish on them! We'll definitely be going back for a $9 hour-long, whole-body massage. Maybe even one each day....and I heard you can get a massage on the beach. Nice. While getting a pedicure I overheard a lady saying that they are testing the tsunami alarm tomorrow morning. Good thing we heard that or I'd be running for higher ground when we hear it. The lady also said that this tiny island we are on lost 1,600 people in the tsunami. I'm glad to be contributing to their economy, even if to me it is so cheap. Haven't seen any signs of the tsunami devastation yet, I think it was cleaned up pretty quickly since this is such a touristy area.

For dinner we went to this small restaurant recommended by the Cali dive guy. We heard the portions were huge so we split the pad thai, which was cooked right in front of us. We also had spring rolls for appetizers and a giant Singha beer each. My portion of the meal cost $4!! Now can you see why I'm never leaving?

We haven't even been here 2 days and haven't been to the beach yet and I already and thinking about when I'll be able to come back. I know the flight is expensive and its halfway around the world but you spend next to nothing while you are here. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a tropical vacay. Forget Hawaii and Mexico...Thailand is the place to be!

Jack talk Thai, Jack talk Thai very well

(Shout out to Meet the Parents!)

Made it to Thailand, safe and sound. We left Delhi at 11pm (we pulled up to the airport JUST as it started POURING rain...monsoon season style!) and had a 7 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur. India has this wacky rule where you HAVE to have your itinerary or paper ticket along with your passport before they'll even let you in the airport. Um I haven't gotten a paper ticket before entering the airport since the 90's. Get with the electronic times India. I had a copy of our itinerary but it only had my name on it, so they weren't letting Sarah into the airport. After sending us to 3 different entrances we finally got snappy with the guys holding machine guns. Eventually one of them with a gun took Sarah's passport and walked inside to the Malaysia Airlines counter to make sure she was on the flight. Yeah, cause Sarah looks like someone who just likes to hang out in airports. It was ridiculous.

I slept for most of the first flight. Then we had a 2.5 hour layover in Malaysia before boarding a smaller plane and a 1.5 hour flight to Thailand. We didn't fly very high at all, I could see the ground for the whole flight. They served a delicious Thai breakfast consisting of coconut rice and spicy shrimp. Yeah, they don't really have breakfast food in their culture. Anything goes at any time of day. We landed in Thailand at 9:45am, checked our extra luggage in the storage room and got the shuttle into town. Had a little difficulty finding our hotel room but we managed to get there eventually. It's pretty decent considering its only $20 total for the night and has en suite bathroom.

Now we've ventured into town a bit, looking for the market, something to eat and internet. Only found the latter so far. We aren't going to hang around in Phuket long, tomorrow we are going to take a boat to Ko Phi Phi and lay on the beach for 5 days. It was raining when we got here this morning so let's hope that doesn't happen everyday. But its SO much cooler than India, its only about 85-90 degrees AND its socially acceptable to wear shorts! Yay! I'm so sick of sweating in pants and long skirts all for the sake of modesty. Haha. Acutally its a lot different than India so far. It's cleaner, there aren't tons of stray cattle wondering the streets, haven't seen any guys peeing on the side of the road and haven't seen much litter. And haven't heard a single horn honk since we've been here. Pretty impressive!

Think dry, anti-monsoon and tsnumai thoughts for us! Time to work on my tan again!

Napping in Malaysia: Part 2

Here I am again, a layover in Kuala Lumpur International Airport. I was planning to use their free wifi to post pictures but that doesn't seem to be working, so I'm using the computer kiosk. I'll try to get pics up soon though!

The flight from Delhi was uneventful. That's always a good thing when flying I guess. So now its 7 something in the morning in Malaysia, our flight to Phuket leaves in a few hours. It's nap time for me till then!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (and Camels!)

Turns out we didn't go straight to Jaisalmer after Jodhpur. No no, we spent one night in the midde of the desert for a camel safari. You would think since I'm such a planner it would drive me crazy not to know where we are going, what we are doing and when. But actually it's been nice, and it's helped me relax a little and not have to know all the time what exactly the plan is.

We drove to Khuri which is literally in the middle of nowhere in the desert. We pulled up to our "resort" which consisted of 6 cow dung and mud huts with straw roofs. Yeah, totally took us by surprise. We were offered a hut to rest in but it was about 110 degrees, not ideal resting weather. So we just sat there and sweated for about an hour until we could begin our sunset camel safari. We each got our own camel, mine was named Ziya I think, and our camel drivers were 2 boys around 15 years old. We rode the camels out to some sand dunes which took about an hour and half. That was an hour too long to be on a camel. Wow it hurts. I can't imagine how some people do weeklong camel safaris...they must walk bow-legged for days afterwards.

We dismounted on the sand dunes and waited for the sun to set. I swear it didn't move any closer to the horizon the whole hour we waited for it to set. Eventually it was covered by clouds and smog so we gave up and got back on the camels. On the way back to the "resort" the boys made the camels trot. Which was even more uncomfortable than them walking, but at least it got us back faster. All in all though the camel safari was a good experience. Sarah gave some gum to local children (who then asked if she had chocolate. Yeah right, in this heat???) and some other boys sang us a song with our names in it while we waited for the sunset. There was even someone selling beer up on the sand dunes out of a bag. There is no way that beer was cold.

Back at the "resort" we had dinner sitting on pillows and eating off tiny low to the ground tables. There was some live music and good food. We had the option to sleep out on the sand dunes under the stars or in a fan-cooled room with a roof so we chose the room. Good thing we did because even though the room was like a hot box I heard that sleeping on the dunes was none too pleasant either. And at least our room had a door to keep the GIANT dung beetles out.

We got the heck out of the desert early the next morning and drove an hour to Jaisalmer where we checked into our hotel, got massages to relieve the soreness from the camel rides and took long cold showers. Nice. Jaisalmer looks like a real-life sandcastle, its a pretty cool town. There is a huge fort up on a giant sand hill that overlooks the rest of the city. Not sure how it doesn't slide down the sand, but its been there for hundreds of years so I guess they have it figured out. We did some more shopping - we had to get big bags made to carry back all the stuff we bought! - and that night our driver Rajeev took us to dinner with another driver and his Swiss tourist couple. We had a few beers and mutton (not my fav) and listened to our driver talk about his wife, 2 kids and girlfriend. I think the whiskey was getting to him haha!

The next day we walked around Jaisalmer fort, some temples and a few havelis which are old style big houses. We also met this guy, Shankar, who our friend from college Elizabeth met when she was in Jaisalmer last year. He sells awesome textile stuff and great prices so we bought stuff from him and he invited us to his house for lunch. We met his wife, kids and sisters who gave us bangles and bindis. For some reason Sarah's hands are too big for bangles, even though she doesn't have big hands, but Shankar's sister was determined to get them on her hand so she lotioned her hands up and even took some skin off shoving them on. Haha it was funny to watch, but I don't think Sarah thought it was. Ouch!

Rajeev dropped us at the train station that afternoon and we said good-bye to our great driver. On the train we had 2 top bunks and there were 2 Austrian girls below us. We talked with them awhile then read some before going to sleep. I actually slept really well on the train - I was probably still tired from the sleepless night in the desert. The 19 hour overnight train ride went by pretty quickly and we were back in Delhi before we knew it. The train ends in Old Delhi and our hotel was in New Delhi. What should have been a simple thing to just get a taxi and drive to New Delhi turned into a 2 hour ordeal. We quickly found out that there was a taxi and auto-rickshaw strike that day. Awesome. So this really nice guy walked us all around the place trying to find us a taxi that wasn't on strike. We only found one guy who would take us all the way across town and he was charging 3 times what he should. So the helpful guy said the best idea would be to take the metro system to New Delhi then try to find a rickshaw, at least then we'd be in the right part of town. The metro was PACKED and we were carrying our backpacks and our new bags full of bedspreads, curtain material, and all the other stuff we bought. Not fun. Oh I forgot to mention that the train didn't have food on it so at this point we hadn't eaten in 24 hours. We eventually made it to New Delhi and found a rickshaw which took us to our hotel, even though he also overcharged. At that point I think we would have paid a million rupees for a ride. We didn't care anymore, we just wanted to get to the hotel.

We had a big lunch, took showers and laid in the air conditioned room. Today we slept in and did some last minute souvenier shopping. Our plane leaves in 7 hours, at 11pm, for Thailand. We are going to leave our India bags in a locker in Thailand so we don't have to lug it around for 2 weeks.

That's right...only 2 more weeks till I come home! I've loved my journey but am SO ready to have my own room, shower without shoes on, not live out of a backpack and have more than 5 shirts! Oh the simples things in life!

Jodhpur the blue city

My sari was delivered to our hotel and we went to Rajeev's friend, Jagdish's house for dinner. Jagdish's wife helped me put the sari on and she did a much better job than the guys are the fabric store. She completed my look with a bindi forehead dot and lipstick! When I was all dolled up like an Indian princess we had dinner. After dinner Jagdish took us back to our hotel via his motorbike. We weaved through small alleys and around sleeping cows, it was an expeirence for sure!

It was raining the next morning when we left Udaipur. It is monsoon season and I guess we've been lucky to not have much rain. At least we spent the rainy day in the car. The drive to Jodhpur took 6 hours and we stopped at some temples along the way.

Our hotel in Jodhpur is an old haveli, hundreds of years old. Rajeev took us to a spice store to buy some Indian spices so I can attempt to cook at home (yeah right, we all know that isn't going to happen). We had dinner on our hotel's roof (at least we thought it was our hotel's roof, turns out it was the one next door. Oh well, still good.). The roof over looked the bustling city markets that surround the clock tower and the giant fort up on the cliff.

Today we walked to that giant fort on the cliff. Rajeev said it was only 5 minutes by walk...yeah....5 minutes straight up. Ok ok it wasn't THAT bad. The fort was pretty cool but the views of the city were even better. Jodhpur is known as the blue city and that was apparent from a bird's eye view of it. Tons of the roofs are painted robin egg blue. It was so pretty.
There were tons of locals at the fort and lots of them trying to take pictures of us with their camera phones. One lady was trying to get a picture with me in it so I turned around and asked if she wanted a picture with me and my face, opposed to the back of my head. She even wanted to hold my hand for the picture and I was happy to oblige. We made our way back down the steep hillside ramp and spent the afternoon lunching on the roof and lounging in the room.

Tomorrow we drive to Jaisalmer, the last stop on our short India tour!

Pushkar and Udaipur

After my last post we walked around Pushkar, yanked our hands away from the women trying to give us henna on the street, bought some bangles and looked at the almost dry lake. We took a tuk tuk back to our hotel and it got a flat tire on the way, so we had to sit in the tire shack while it got changed and listen to a boy play some sort of homemade violin. Goosebumps for sure. I got sick that night which was a bummer but I'm feeling better now. Not sure if its the food or I had some bad water or something. Sarah and I have been eating the same things so I guess I just have a weak stomach.

The drive from Pushkar to Udaipur took 6 hours. Rajeev got a flat tire on the way, guess we are bad luck. Once in Udaipur we checked into our hotel which over looks the lake (this one has water in it) and the town which is white building built up on the hills surrounding the lake. Its a really pretty city. After a short rest Rajeev took us to a fabric store where I picked out a sari - blue, of course. It will be delivered to our hotel this afternoon. After that I told Rajeev we wanted henna so he took us to his friend's house whose wife did it for us. I did not know it took so long. We got our hands done, palms and tops, and it took 3 hours total. The family invited us back to their house for dinner tonight and so his wife can show me how to properly wear my sari. Should be fun! We had dinner on our hotel's roof which had beautiful views of the waterfront city lit up at night. This is definitely the prettiest city we've been in so far.

Today we went to City Palace, the largest palace in Rajasthan. Now we are at an internet cafe that has 1 functioning computer. This afternoon before dinner Rajeev is taking us to a craft market. I'm running out of room in my luggage!

Tomorrow we drive to Jodpur, the blue city.

Delhi

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to India went well. Sarah and I had the two seats on the side. We had a delicious Indian dinner of Chicken Tikka and I read a book - didn't have our own TVs for this flight and they were showing a foreign movie. They did try to please the English audience with an episode of The Starter Wife, but that show is crap so I carried on reading. It took over an hour to navigate through the airport since we had to go through lines for health check (looking for swine flu), immigration, baggage claim and customs. When we finally made it through we looked for our hotel which was supposed to pick us up but couldn't find them. So we got a pre-paid taxi and had a nice driver named Jaipal who was going to pick us up this morning and drive us around to all the sites, but that didn't happen - more on that later.

When we checked into the hotel they didn't have us on their reservation list, hence why they didn't pick us up. I had my online confirmed reservation print out so they knew we had already paid for a room. The deluxe room we paid for wasn't available so they upgraded. Sweet! Or should I say Suite!? Taking a shower was awesome, and so was sleeping in a bed! We cranked the air con up (its SO hot here!) and watched an episode of So You Think You Can Dance from last year's auditions. Emersing ourselves right into the culture haha.

This morning we enjoyed the breakfast buffet - their french toast is intersting...- then waited for Jaipal. His brother came instead and took us past a temple then to a tourist office. Our "scam radars" started going off...lots of scams involved unofficial tourist offices where they sign you up for tours that never happen. Hesitantly we went inside and met Raj, a nice guy that lives mostly in London managing hotels. Jaipal's brother explained that he was now going to pass us off to a tourist taxi driver who would take us around the rest of the day. It ended up being cheaper this way so we went with it.

Our new driver in his "air conditioned" car drove us around to some of Delhi's main attractions including Parliament, the President's House, India Gate, National Museum, Ghandi's cemetary and place of assassination, Indira Ghandi's house and place of assassination, a few sari shops (no, haven't bought one yet...too expensive they are trying to rip us off) and finally after much pleading a legitimate tourist office. At that final place we booked a tour for the rest of our time here in which we will have one driver who will take us to all the cities we want to go to, then we'll get the train back from Jaisalmer. Yes, a private driver for the next 2 weeks. I love how cheap it is here. Let's just home he shows up in the morning.

A few of the intersting things we saw today include Taylor Swift on a billboard for wall plaster and insulation. Do you think she knows she's on that ad? Two young boys riding a camel in town. A wild monkey eating a banana next to a banana vendor which made me wonder if he stole it or paid for it. Begger children trying to sell us books, doing cartwheels, playing drums etc trying to get money. About a dozen men peeing on the side of the road throughout the day. When you gotta go you gotta go I guess. And the craziest driving I've ever seen but surprisingly no accidents. Oh but our first cab driver did get a ticket for running a red light. There aren't lane lines and you can drive wherever you want but apparently you can't run a red light.

That's all for now. Super exhausted (possibly dehyrdation + stress of new city?) so I'm hitting the hay (its 9pm) and saying a prayer that our driver shows up tomorrow morning!

Taj Mahal & Snake Charming

Our driver, Rajeev, picked us up at our hotel, showed us our vouchers to prove he was legit then we hit the road for Agra. It took an hour just to get out of Delhi with all the traffic (and by traffic I mean cars, buses, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, cows, pigs, camels, elephants, pedestrians, dogs). We almost hit a pig crossing the road but Rajeev has cat-like reflexes.

Our first stop in Agra was at Akbhar's Masoleum. It was a neat building and some local ladies showed us some cool echo effects. It was about 100 degrees so we had a quick look before retreating to the air conditioned car. We checked into our hotel, had lunch, then went to the Taj Mahal. I asked Rajeev if there were guides available for hire and low and behold two minutes later our guide hopped in the car with us. Our guide did an excellent job explaining the beautiful love story behind the Taj Mahal and he knew all the cool angles to take pictures from. Of course we did the token 'hold the top of the Taj' picture. For some reason whenever it was my turn for a solo pic he wanted me to cross my arms in front of my body or put them in my pockets, really posed. But Sarah was allowed to do whatever she wanted with her arms. Not fair. We had a good laugh looking at the pictures later though. The Taj was beautiful, inside and out.

After the Taj our guide took us to a store to see how the marlbe and gemstone inlay work is done. He gets a commission from the store for taking us there. We knew this ahead of time but went anyway since I was interested in buying a marble piece. After some help from my bargining buddy Sarah I bought a small marble table top with gemstone inlay work. Its so pretty and even though Ill have to tote it around for 3 more weeks it was worth it. As long as they don't charge my credit card multiple times.

The next morning we were supposed to go to the Red Fort in Agra but Rajeev said in the night there was a big fight between the police and some muslims groups so he said it was safer if we just left right away. He had also called the hotel several times during the night to tell the staff not to let us leave the hotel. Nice guy, I feel safe with him as our driver and guide.

We drove 6 hours to Jaipur, the pink city. 90% of the buildings in Jaipur are painted a terracotta pink which looks really cool. They also have a beautiful pink wall going around part of the city. Once there we went shopping. We looked at a few textile stores and a jewelry store. In the 2nd textile store we each ordered custom made, hand stamped fabric for curtains. Mine are white with silver stamping work. Sarah got grey with silver paisley stamps. We also each bought a queen size comforter overlay that has hand-cut designs in it. Good thing we aren't living together anymore or we'd have the same looking room! The work is beautiful and so cheap. We also each bought a pair of Ali Baba pajama pants. And I said I wouldn't be caught dead in genie pants....but hey, When In India! Plus they are modest and keep me cool. I also bought 2 wrap around long skirts for $4 each. Nice.

We had dinner at a restaurant that had traditional musicians and dancers. The dancers pulled me up from my seat and made me dance with them. Kinda embarrassing but then again its not like I know anyone in Jaipur, India.

The next day we went to Amber Fort where we hired a guide and even got to try our hand at charming cobras! Then we went to City Palace. Good sightseeing, and it wasn't too too hot.

Both nights in Jaipur there were power outages which sucked cause that meant the a/c kept going out, but what can you do. This morning we left Jaipur at 8am and drove 3 hours to Pushkar. So here we are now, in an internet cafe. Tomorrow we drive to Udaipur where Rajeev said is the best place to buy saris! Yay!

Napping in Malaysia

Just woke up from a lovely nap on a bench in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We left Brisbane yesterday (the 3rd) at 11pm and had a 7.5 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, arriving here at 5am local time. About 4 of the 7.5 hour flight was super turbulent so I didn't sleep much on the plane. Plus there were too many good movies to watch in so little time. I chose Hannah Montana the Movie...err, I mean my TV was broken and that's the only thing I could watch. Right....after that I watched a documentary on the part of India we are going to, the Golden Triangle. Very informative and interesting. Got me even more excited. When that was over and I'd given up on trying to sleep on the roller coaster known as our flight, I started to watch 17 Again. Which brings my movie choice maturity level to around 15 years old.

We flew Malaysia Airlines which was pretty nice. There wasn't anyone sitting next to me and Sarah was on the aisle. They fed us dinner - we both chose lamb with vegetables - and breakfast. The rest of the flight they walked around offering juice, water, beer, wine. I stuck to orange juice and water, still trying to shake that sore throat. The flight attendants wore cute traditional Malaysian outfits made of teal embroidered silk. Super adorable, I should have gotten a picture.

The India documentary focused on Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, 3 cities which we are going to visit. They were filming a market in Delhi and panned out to the street showing all the different modes of transportation. They included rickshaw, taxi, motorbike, ox pulled cart, and my favorite...elephant. Yeah, some guy was cruising into the markets on an elephant. Crazy! I also learned that the Taj Mahal was a gift from an emporer to the love of his life, who gave him 14 children in 20 years. She died shortly after having all those kids and he had it built in her honor as her "Heaven on earth". The granite it is made out of is one of the best in the world, and parts of it that look painted are actually gemstones such as onyx laid in the granite. Decendents of the original builders still made gemstone inlaid granite pieces and I already have my eye on a vase I saw in the video. Beautiful!

Well 7 more hours to spend in the airport. We've already browsed through the Hermes and Coach stores. No, didn't buy anything. Sarah had some Malaysian soup as a snack. I'm having fun people watching. So many different cultures walking through this place. I laughed earlier when I heard a final boarding call for Uzbekistan because I'm used to hearing "Final boarding call for flight 140 to Dallas" or something similar. Not here! They are flying to countries I couldn't even pinpoint on a map! Our flight tonight is only about 4 hours, we arrive in Delhi at 9pm. Someone from our hotel should be there with our names on a sign to pick us up...hopefully.

I'll update when I can in India!

Namaste (goodbye in Hindi - hello as well),
Katy

Airlie and the Whitsundays

We spent a week in Airlie Beach, jumping off point for the Whitsunday Islands, and 3 days on the islands themselves. Thanks to the aforementioned “hacking cough girl” (see Soapbox post) I spent most of the week and a half sick. I got antibiotics from the doctor when we went to get our vaccinations for India, and he may have mentioned swine flu. Awesome. I’m still trying to shake the sore throat but I’ve stocked up my medicine bag with all the necessities for India, just in case.

We spent the first part of our week in Airlie just lounging around the town, I spent most of it sleeping and coughing. Then we departed for our 3-day Whitsunday trip. Day One we took a rocky 2-hour boat ride out to the reef where we tied up to a huge pontoon playground. It had a water slide, snorkeling area, scuba area, underwater observatory, glass bottom boat and semi-submersible boat.

Jess and Sarah went scuba diving and I did a bit of snorkeling. The water was really rough and cold plus I didn’t feel too hot so I spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the sundeck trying to warm up. I also explored the reef via the glass bottom boat and semi-sub. I wonder how many trips to the reef I would have to take before I would get sick of it. It is so beautiful and the sea creatures are amazing!

That afternoon we cruised back towards the mainland and got dropped off at Long Island where we spent 2 night. We decided the island should actually be called Too Long Island because anytime there feels like too much time. I don’t know if it’s because everything shut down at the ripe ole hour of 7pm or if we weren’t used to the laid back island life but it got pretty boring, pretty quick. The first night we hustled to order dinner from the café before it closed at 6:30, then we spent some time at the bar talking to some other travelers and the bartender himself. We also joined in the wacky resort games including a flip flop toss and limbo. Hey, anything to pass the time. The next day we laid out, went snorkeling but didn’t see anything, watched a whale in the distance, fed some lorikeets that scratched my hand when they started fighting while I was feeding them, hit the bar, saw wallabies on the beach, then showered and came back for dinner. We totally lost track of the time and when we came back to the main part of the resort the dining area was closed but luckily Jessica sweet talked the chef into giving us a plate of leftover buffet food to share for free.

That night we played resort bingo which we all cheated at but I still didn’t win. Guess that’s what I get for cheating. Winner got a free drink at the bar which would have been nice since there was only 1 bar and they charged a lot for drinks. Monopoly, boo! After everyone else on the island went to bed at 9pm, Sarah, Jess and I got talked into a game of beer pong with two of the resort staff, Ryan from Oz and Marcello from Brazil.

The next morning we woke up early, caught the ferry to another island where we boarded Camira the catamaran for a day of sailing around the islands. Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach, famous for its 90% silica sand that is blindingly white. The sand is so fine that it squeaks below your feet and can be used to clean jewelry. It was gorgeous. After that we sailed over to an area to do some snorkeling which turned into a game of “avoid the jellyfish”. No, not box jellies, they aren’t in season right now. Thank goodness we put on the optional stinger suits! It was pretty good snorkeling, nothing compared to the reef though. Then we sailed back to Airlie Beach.

Sarah and Jessica went skydiving one day. I was there for moral support, and to take pictures in their ridiculous neon jumpsuits they insisted on wearing. Sarah and I had a less exciting adventure to the doctor to get vaccinations for India. I’m now typhoid fever, salmonella and hepatitis A proof. But somehow not common cold/sore throat/swine flu/whatever it is I have that won’t go away proof.

Jessica left this morning and Sarah and I leave tonight for India. Our flight leaves Brisbane at 11pm and we fly overnight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where we have a 12 hour layover before continuing to Delhi, India. We have booked a hotel in Delhi for 2 nights, enough time to get our bearings, get used to things, and buy a plug converter before we take off on our non-stop 2 week journey. We will be staying in Northern India, mostly in the part known as Rajasthan. So much ground to cover in so little time! I’ll post updates when I can!


The skydivers in their awesome neon suits

Pontoon playground on the reef

Feeding lorikeets on Long Island, just before they started fighting in my hand. Beautiful birds though!

Sunset on Long Island

Whitehaven Beach