Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas!!!

Being so far away from home, we weren't sure how to celebrate the approaching holidays. Fortunately India found a way to help us out in a rather unhelpful way (some happened to us and some happened to others):

Our Twelve Scams this Christmas
  1. In our first scam this Christmas our package home was ransomed. We paid $10 per pound to send home a package, but instead of shipping it, the agent decided to hang onto it for a month until we were 2000 miles away. Then he emailed us and told us that if we ever want to see our package again, we needed to Western Union him $90. No resolution yet...
  2. In our second scam this Christmas some travelers were poisoned by a restaurant owner and then taken to a quack doctor who charged their insurance a fortune to "make them well"... the doctor actually continued to poison them so that he could keep them in his hospital longer. Luckily he was caught and this particular scam is over.
  3. In the third scam this Christmas, a rickshaw driver lied to us that the prepaid taxi booth at the train station was closed and our only choice was to hire him for 5X the normal price. He had even taken troubles to build a fake prepaid booth which looked closed. We caught a quick glimpse of the real booth (that was open) on our way out of the station.
  4. In the fourth scam this Christmas, we were misdirected to an overpriced travel agent by a con artist standing next to an armed guard at the train platform entry. Instead of paying $5 each for a train ticket directly from the train station, they wanted to charge us $100 per person. We left the agent and had to push past the guard to the train platform before we were able to purchase a ticket at the correct price.
  5. In the fifth scam this Christmas, we were offered food from a "friend" we met on the train. Luckily we declined (they post signs about this on the trains), although other travelers have been drugged and robbed whilst they tranquilly slumbered.
  6. In the sixth scam this Christmas, travelers are asked by local "friends" to transport some jewels back home in order to avoid customs fees and taxes. They request that the traveler pay $1000 as a sign of "good faith." Needless to say, the gems are always worthless pieces of plastic, and the traveler has no recourse to get back the money.
  7. In the seventh scam this Christmas, we were met at the train station by a hotel employee with the sign for the hotel that we wanted to check out. It is fairly common for many hotels to offer free transportation, so we thought nothing of it until we were taken to the wrong hotel and informed that our hotel is closed. We were tired and didn't even have a reservation at our intended hotel, so we chose to stay at the place where we were taken. The next day we walked past our hotel, which was bustling with guests... pretty effective way to get customers!
  8. In the eighth scam this Christmas, a taxi driver loaded up all of our heavy luggage and drove us away from the taxi stand. He then pulled over and demanded a price which was triple what we had previously negotiated. We finally started to remove our luggage before he agreed to a reasonable price.
  9. In the ninth scam this Christmas, a rickshaw dropped us off more than a mile from our intended destination and told us "it's just 100 meters ahead." Good exercise towing around all of that luggage!
  10. In the tenth scan this Christmas, we bought a bottle of Banana Boat Sunblock to discover that it was a fake and was filled with Shampoo instead of Sunscreen! Fortunately, we caught on quickly (we are very experienced sunscreen experts) and demanded a refund.
  11. In the eleventh scan this Christmas, a man offered Rusty a handshake and then started giving him a hand massage... Rusty tried to pull away, but the man kept saying "no charge." As soon as he finished massaging, he demanded a huge price, so we laughed and walked away.
  12. In the Twelfth scam this Christmas, we were given a "free" tour of the sacred cremation ghats on the bank of the Ganges river. At the end of the tour, our guide took us to an old "holy woman" who he claimed had some connection with Mother Theresa. She gave us a blessing, and asked the names of our family. With each name, she would do some holy thing or the other. After it was over, the guide asked that we make a huge donation to a local hospice in order to seal the blessings. Needless to say, we didn't bother, so if you don't feel quite as blessed this holiday season, it might be our fault!
We hope that you are enjoying life and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love,
Kelsi and Rusty

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

India Warm Welcome

Well, until we saw the Mumbai terrorist attacks on CNN, we thought India was turning out way better than we expected. We crossed the northern border a few weeks ago and were immediately invited to several people's homes. We had dinner with the family of Harendra, a student Rusty conversed with on our first bus ride from the Nepal border to Bareilly, India. Harendra wanted us to meet his family for dinner during the two hours we had before our scheduled train to Amritsar. The family was extremely friendly and kind, but unfortunately we didn't have much time to spend with them.


After visiting with Harendra, the invitations continued. At the train station a little boy around five years old invited us to his home. Then another family invited us over on the train ride to Amritsar, but we didn't have time to accept any other invitations than from Harendra. We couldn't believe the generosity of the people in India. It wasn't what we were expecting based on stories we'd heard from other travelers.

In Amritsar, we visited the Sikh's most holy site, the Golden Temple. It may have been one of the most rewarding cultural experiences we have enjoyed during our travels. On the temple grounds, everyone was walking laps around the temple, and they took us by the hand to join in with them. They even took us into the temple to listen to the music and prayers with them. We were also invited to stay in the Golden Temple guest dormitories for free! On top of the free room, the Golden Temple also provides free meals for all guests no matter class nor religion, so we also enjoyed a free meal there of rice, curry, and chapati (flat bread).

Even though one of the main reasons we went up north was to see a border closing ceremony between the Indian and Pakistan borders in Attari, just 30 minutes from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, we actually ended up enjoying visiting the Golden Temple even more than the border ceremony. The boarder ceremony was very exciting as well though. There seemed to be a few thousand people on each side of the border cheering for their country while the soldiers performed a dramatically choreographed stomp-off with loud national music playing on each side. It was pretty fun to be part of the experience. And luckily, we were there the day before the Mumbai terrorist attacks as the Pakistan border may not be so safe now.

From Attari, we spent a full day from before the sunrise until after the sunset on another crowded (more than you could possibly imagine) and bumpy bus to McLeod Ganj, the city where the current Dahli Lamma lives in India. We arrived in time for a nice Thanksgiving dinner of Tandoori Chicken and Spaghetti as well as some chocolate cake for dessert. We visited the monastery there that evening as well before leaving early the next morning again to head to our next destination, Manali, before making our way to a Dec. 3rd meditation course in Sarnath, India, located thousands of miles away in the middle of India.

Manali, India's extreme activity capital, did not disappoint us. In addition to bungee jumping, white water rafting, and skiing, Manali had an unusual activity called "ZORBING." The basic idea is that you climb into the inner chamber of a giant inflatable ball (see the picture). After being strapped inside by a body harness, they roll you down a ski run... kind of like a Gerbil ball for humans.
Fortunately, the ball was big enough to comfortably (if that is that the right word) accommodate both of us at the same time. Needless to say, it was hysterically funny to see each other flopping around like rag dolls as the ball accelerated and began bouncing off the ground. Aside from whiplash (which a holyman yogi cured... no lie), no serious injuries occurred, so we give it our full endorsement. People who get motion sickness should consider sitting this one out, as vomiting inside the zorb would produce a sort of disgusting shake and bake effect.

We've been covering a lot of ground in the last month aside from the things in this update, so we'll try to get caught up with our going ons in the next week or so.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Twighlight

We've been out of touch for a while and have a lot more important things to update on our blog, but we've been going through reading everyone else's blogs and seeing this Twighlight craze and not getting it. We were actually introduced to Twighlight by Rusty's mom. We downloaded tons of books on our ipods before heading out on our trip including three recommendations from Rusty's mom: Twighlight, The Secret Life of Bees, and A Girl Named Zippie. Denise (Rusty's mom) LOVES all of these.

Well, we'd add the last two to our list of favorite books (seriously good books!), but we both CANNOT figure out why everyone is so in love with Twighlight. Will someone please share with us the redeeming qualities of this book? Maybe the movie's better than the book. We haven't seen that available to watch out in Asia. We're glad we at least are both on the same page as each other in this matter :) Our analysis was a plot without any substance with poor authorship: too many adjectives, too dramatic . . . no moral teachings nor great insights into life nor anything profound to ponder . . . ???