Oh, how time flies!

The Ellora caves were beautiful! You'll have to google it, I have added too many photos in this session, technology overdose!

From Aurangabad we bussed to Jalgaon, which is suppose to be the base for visiting the Ajanta caves. We ended up finding a train/bus combination to Omkareshwar, the town we really wanted to be in, and decided to skip the Ajanta caves so as to avoid being stuck in Jalgaon for 3 days (albeit, a side note is that the owner of the hostel was amazing, spoke amazing english and I (amaris) had a late night chat about the sociological impact of sexual repression and arranged marriages (both positive and negative).... I came out of the conversation with a much deeper understanding of the national (especially male) psyche)

We arrived in Omkareshwar in the early afternoon, and found the 1/2 hostel that we liked more. River view, a group of young Nepalese fellows running the show, and a building full of 30 + hippies and we were set. Omkareshwar is a holy city (town), as the island in the middle of the river (8 km perimetre) is said to be shaped like OM if seen from the sky. Prayer bells rang at dusk and dawn, with chanting heard throughout the day and night. Pilgrims in saffron far outnumber the tourists, and the smell of 'holy' smoking product wafts through the air. No internet, no phones, no restaurants, no liquor....

Omkareshwar was yet another personal transformation, and another example to add to the list as to how India pushes you past your boundaries. Trevor and I were feeling dragged down, tired of the rough that India has to offer. We had tentatively decided that we would cut the India portion of our trip short, and fly out to Bangkok to chase the warmer weather (it is hot during the day, but we are wearing sweaters/scarves/thick socks at night).......

Small side story. Our neighbor (we appropriately called him for the rest of the trip) was a 30 year old expat from Italy, who has lived in India for 12 years, has given up his passport/ID and is calling India home. He is part of a sect of the Hindu religion, and has lived a life of a pilgrim....
Long story short.
On the SE corner of OM island of Omkareshwar, the two rivers of Narmada and Kaveri (both considered Holy rivers) meet, and form what is considered a holy junction that is highly worshiped. We were explaining our current emotional state with India, and neighbor told us to walk to the point of intersection, to ask for what we wanted in our trip, and to dip our heads in the river 7 times (a spiritual/ritualistic significance we didn't understand). ......

The junction of the two rivers ended up being too busy, and we instead walked the perimetre of the island, discussing the entire way why we were unhappy, what we were looking for in our trip, and why we thought it was time to leave (expressing the same questions, asking for what we wanted on the trip as neighbor said to). We had arrived back to our Hostel, happily decided (unemotionally, with no anger or frustration) to make a quick end to the trip, round up what we wanted to see and skedaddle to Thailand.
We walked up to the third floor (our place of residence) and our roomates from the entire floor are sitting cross legged in front of our room (with our neighbor, but had spanned out to block our door) and we were greeted with a session of fresh baked coconut chocolate balls and REAL COFFEE MADE WITH NEIGHBORS PLUG IN PERCOLATOR.

We are now staying in India, and are on the quest for a plug in percolator.

We are on route to Bundi now, a beautiful town nestled next to a lake, also considered a spiritual place. We will update you on what India has to offer for us there......

Omkareshwar from the level of the river - 

The view of the temple at night..... this was the view from our room.

First, some photo evidence that we are actually in India! (thanks Nar and David) ...

This is us, and Nar and David, just about to board the ferry (read fisher boat) to cross the river.

This is Am and Trevor, just after Amaris crying about the monkey's and just before having rocks thrown at us by said monkeys @ Hanuman Temple....

Amaris, at relaxing Hampi reservoir .....

and trevor, on top of the world. fun fact : they have a sign on the road to this lake, that says "watch for crocodiles". as per usual, amaris feared. Nar and David laughed, saying that they had a lake with the same 'wrning' - that it was a gag for tourists. Asshole joke, if you ask me.

Stay-cation

After Bijapur we were looking for a place to relax, breathe deep and see green. We arrived in Pune, headed over to the area that the Lonely Planet describes as the 'backpackers hub' and attempted to look for hostel. No such luck, as this area is saturated with people going to the Osho Meditation retreat (google it, its good for a giggle) and all of the rooms rivaled that of the 5 star hotels in kelowna. We decided that, as we hid in our room for two days in Bijapur and were therefore drastically under budget, that we would splurge and indulge for 2 nights.

and sweet mother of god was it good.

our room had hot water (24 hours a day, read it and weep cries the mother of all things good in traveling) a COMPLIMENTARY bar fridge, 24 hour room service, a living room, large screen TV and and and and - yes, a SOFT bed. We are coming to the realization that North Americans are the only people who sleep on soft beds, and the 2 fluffy pillows each, bodies cleaned & exfoliated with hot water, soft bed and terry cloth towels while drinking complimentary mini bar beverages was just what we needed. We decided that this was our christmas present and anniversary gift combined, and convinced ourselves that we didnt need to feel guilty for living like kings on our 'backpacking trip' - and you know what? As breakfast was complimentary, we only bought dinner for the two nights and ended up being just barely over our budget!


Pune was great, a bustling city that was full and fun to wander around in... our first true city experience here, and it was difficult to find an 'Indian' restaurant.... We have confirmed that the city is not at all what we are looking for in our travelling experience here, but we wanted to visit one and see this side of India.
aaand it was entertaining to listen to the Osho 'meditation retreat' dance to bumping remixed Beyonce trance at 9 am. :) Reaching enlightenment via mandatory HIV testing and $$$. Beauty.

Refreshed, refurbished, and renewed we are on our way to Aurangabad (by bus - sitting in the front, lesson learned check!) which will be our base for exploring the Ellora caves. (actually - time warp, we are currently here, but Amaris has been praying to the porcelain goddess from some unbeknown bacteria for the past 36 hours, an experience I have named the "Aurangabad Episode"... so tomorrow is our first day of adventuring.)

We will update when we've been exploring for a while.

Metamorphosis

( I am going to back track a bit)

Last week we decided to begin heading North.... we are anxious to reach the areas that were our main intentions for the trip (province of rajasthan)... our first stop over was a city called Bijapur. We headed here by bus, from Hospet.

Remember in grade school when we would race to the back of the bus, fighting over who got the primo 'get air on the bumps' seats? Yeah, well, we didn't at the time. We sat in the far back and our rear ends paid the price for it. The road (read : entire 6 hour journey) was having construction done, so it was a dirt gravel road in which we got air my snowboarding brother would be jealous of.

We arrived in Bijpaur in the dark of the night (bus was late due to construction) with no place to stay. Into a rickshaw, drinksfoodshowerbed. Wake up, go for a walk. We were stared at EVERYWHERE we went, and not in a way that made us feel comfortable. We are getting used to the idea of being foreigners, having people interested in us (for conversation or business reasons) but there was literally not a place where we could go without  being watched - completely. An added measure of discomfort was the fact that there were no women in any public spaces (unless they were working) except for me.

We spent a day walking to the Gol Gumbaz, which is a beautiful, epic mausoleum that rivals the Taj.  A dome (the second largest in the world) completely unsupported by pillars, this tomb has something called the whispering gallery - an area where you can speak in a soft tone and be heard across the entire structure. Our trip here was cut short, as we were inundated with people trying to take our pictures and mass groups of people following us around. It seemed that the tourists were more interested in us as an attraction than the attraction itself!



Needless to say, we had our first 'culture shock travelers breakdown" and we ended up hiding in our room for the rest of the day/evening. We realized that we truly felt a difference in the stares here, and that outside the Gol Gumbaz we felt unwelcome and misunderstood.  We were ready to move on to the next place, ready for a change of pace.... and next  came beautiful Pune, our vacation resort in India.

This is the lake we cycled to yesterday - serene. Except for the rickshaw tourists and water wallahs. HA!

We have just seperated from our first travelling companions, Nar and David from Israel. There isn't much that I can say about them that will offer any justice, but I will try. Nar fended monkeys with sticks (I apparently can deal with them, either - albeit  true story, they threw rocks at us), David educated me on the Palestinean-Israeli conflict (he works for an NGO assisting Palestineans in the Gaza/WestBank areas....) and both guided us on an amazing path of spiritual interpretation.

They asked us if we were lost (when we thought it was apparent that we werent) and their stopping literally interrupted our discussing that we wanted our first interaction with others to be one of both spiritual and sociological importance - and there they were.
3 days, two hikes, one monkey attack and a beautiful bike ride through the country later we seperated. I have stayed awake every night since meeting them; they have given me more food for thought than any other experience in my life. Live in love. Beethoven's 9th beats out the rest. Serve each other. Something created this.

 It is all the same, it is all here.

Until we meet again in Israel - thank you.

Who Knows Really...

Well time is becoming less and less important, and all the days are melding into one, as we are becoming familiar with the village of hampi. The train ride here from Margao was quite the experience. Getting on was actually easier than we were expecting, a bit of a panic trying to figure out which coach to jump on in all the mayhem. Once on the mayhem continued into getting the right seats, which was confusing as we knew we were in sleeper class but didn't realize the seats actually fold up into beds three fold high. But again we struck gold and the saint sitting next to us was happy to help. The ride itself was amazing, with waterfalls and monkeys to keep us entertained. We arrived in Hospet earlier than we expected, and luckily the Group sitting with us was getting off there as well and advised us accordingly. Now getting off the train should require a bit of a tutorial, as we were all obviously unprepared for what was to come. In the front of the line, 2 girls from Korea... Big NO NO! We were at a stalemate, i'm thinking the doors are jammed, panic sets in with the possibility of us being shipped off to the next town, because for all we know, we only have six minutes to get off this train. Well I guess the people getting on the train think the same way and therefor caused the gridlock. It was survival of the fittest as two big Indian men went head to head with two Korean girls, i mention there ethnicity as reference to their size. I was however impressed with the two girls who did put up a good match, but inevitably the men won. As soon as they got on the girls got off then the OFF team had stronger players behind it and finally we made it. Tip for travelling on trains in India, ELBOWS ALWAYS UP! We caught a rickshaw from Hospet to Hampi and we decided to take up fort on the far side of the river in Virupapur Gaddi, as we had read it would be quieter. Getting here we were a bit reluctant on it being the wisest choice, but after a couple of days we found a great hostel that fits our budget nicely (7.50 a night) with a CLEAN private bathroom (western toilet included, very nice) and a great relaxed restaurant which serves delicious momos, google momo! We have spent the last few days trekking around to some of the old ruins and temples, all within walking distance but each taking a days trek, having to make sure we get back to the ferry in time for the days finale! I never would have imagined you could fit so many people on a fishing boat, but yes, it is possible! Thinking we have about 4-5 days left here then back to the west coast, not sure yet, but hearing great things about the backwaters in kerala, so we may go there. Who knows is fast becoming our new favorite phrase....  

@





Boulders - like the lego of the gods.

half a world away from any thing close to familiarity... and loving every second of it. we spent a slow paced week in Anjuna Beach, absorbing the sun and the food, and an incredible goan flea market experience, then we moved on. Now in Vagator, just north of Anjuna, we see that Goa is Goa and we are definately in need of India. We have decided the beer here is nothing to be fancied, as the glycerine to glaze ratio isn't in our favour and therefore we have discovered the world of rum (a twix for $3). We started the day with a "choose your own adventure" type hike up to the Chapora Fort, and enjoyed the breathtaking view at the top. The hike back down (the easy way) was nice, but we were stoked that we earned our way up. The final days of goa are counting down, our tans are setting in nicely, and we are looking onwards to the state of Karnataka.

Did I say 28?

Try 35 with 100% humidity (cent percente for those of you at Shambhala). It's great....Trevor has been keeping me from mild, I-am-not-used-to-the-heat-yet panic attacks.

The get-here was interesting enough... flight from Calgary to Frankfurt: spacious, free movies, great food. Flight from Frankfurt to Mumbai: packed to the nines, sitting next to 2 other people, with little to no air flow. Welcome to India, time to get used to it! We arrived in Mumbai on time, but our luggage took 2.5 hours to get to us, so we ended up missing our connecting flight to Goa (to also find out that the connecting domestic flights are in a different airport which is a ten minute cab away. My bad, that was suppose to be my 'area' to research). We rushed to the airline counter, and to be honest I was partly ready to deal with all of the "India scams" I had read - already knowing that it was technically our fault for missing the flight.

Nope! Full refund and a referral to the airline counter next to us where they had a flight for the same price, an hour and a half later (as opposed to the same airline that didn't have a flight until later that afternoon)..... first lesson of humility for amaris. Prepaid taxi and we were on our way to the domestic airport.

I truly don't know what to say about Mumbai, or how Trevor and I can even convey what happened there. We, of course, did not take any pictures (not sure if we needed to look even more like fresh tourists than we already did) and not sure if they would have given an appropriate picture. When we stepped outside, we both agreed later that we were confused to the fact that we had even gone outside. My brain was completely unable to process the images! There were thousands of people everywhere (it was 4 am by the time), the air was thick with smoke, and we were sleep deprived...... on our way to the airport, we had to stop for some sort of security/government check in (I think because we were in a taxi, to ensure that the fare had been prepaid). But, it's not as though we knew this when our non English speaking driver pulled over in the middle of the dark road, turned off the car and got out. It was at this moment that we truly realized the exact kind of travel we got into. 10 minutes, a chat with some nice local children and two aneurysms later (yes, one each, not just for amaris) we arrived at the Domestic airport. One hour flight to Goa. Arrival in Goa - pure ecstasy.

We are now in Anjuna, Goa, in a lovely hostel. We have a private room, with a small bathroom (western toilets, a nice introduction) that is literally next to the beach. We ate toast with beans and had black coffee for breakfast, for a total of less than $2. We are in the right place!

Not sure when we will write next, but hopefully we can add some pictures at that point. If not, just google "amazing indian beach representing joy and freedom" and we are sure you'll find some appropriate images.

Not sure how long we are here for, or where we are going next. Purpose of travel : complete. :)

Much love, keep safe......

@

On our way today!

Visa's here, bags packed, ready to go.

We will update from beautiful, 28 degree Goa!

:)

Visas - the beginning.

Couldn't be more stressed at the moment: 12 day processing time and 11 days before we are set to depart.

We'll see if the @ luck continues.....