Pink Is the Navy Blue of India

Ok I did see a snake today…it was a cobra in a basket at the Amber Palace in Jaipur. I tried to stay as far as possible from it while Peaches was happily taking pictures of it. Altogether a non-event….

We shopped for teas and spices today while yesterday Peaches found the sari for the wedding in Bangalore that she needed, it’s peacock blue and very beautiful. I, on the other hand, decided to go for a kurta tunic with pants in pink with beads and little mirrors, I know it sounds hideous and gaudy, but I swear it isn’t and it is one of those things that will be great to wear in the summers and in Jamaica. One cannot come to India and not buy something pink!

Jaipur is the Pink City, beautiful and interesting. It has an ancient capital, Amber, with a fort that you reach on an elephant and the maharajah’s palace in the old city with also great history and wonderful architecture. I got to ride an elephant for the first time in my life, not a particularly comfortable ride, but certainly a fun one!

At our hotel we made friends with a lovely Southern American couple from Atlanta, Michael and Bo-peep, yes, you read correctly, her name, or at least the one she goes by, really is Bo-peep! They are absolutely adorable in a very Southern, charming sort of way, they have been everywhere and they obviously love to live well and have fun. We exchanged addresses and emails and promised to see each other again ,which is something I definitely see happening.

Tomorrow I hope it will be the last of our really early morning rises, we need to get to Bangalore in time for the Mehendi ceremony, so we’ll try and sleep some on the 3 hour flight and maybe catch up later but I still think a 6.00 am flight is totally uncivilized!

Rushmi & Vikram's Wedding is in Two Days!

The countdown begins. Tomorrow we wake at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m. to make our early morning flight to Bangalore. Rushmi’s mehendi ceremony will take place tomorrow afternoon; The wedding is the following afternoon, and a reception will take place on the 28th. I have been looking forward to this wedding for so long that I can hardly believe we are almost there!

Sightseeing today in Jaipur was another walking tour of fantastic fortresses and palaces, courtyards and arches, carvings and frescos. The variety in construction materials, architectural style and decorative technique across Rajasthan is quite incredible. One palace is more beautiful than the next, and each and every one seems special in its own way and unique for some reason. The mirrored and carved ceilings at the Amber Fort today were absolutely breathtaking.





Also, I got to ride an elephant for the third time in my life, and that's always a fun thing to do, albeit not exactly the most comfortable way to travel. I love how they paint the elephants faces and trunks. The attention to detail and the appreciation of aesthetics in India is really quite incredible. Every inch of every rickshaw or freight truck or even camel is decorated or adorned.


Not gonna lie, I’m a little bummed to be leaving our “luxury tent” here in Jaipur, but seeing as this trip just keeps getting better and better, and the wedding events begin tomorrow, I am sure we still have lots more to look forward to.

See you in Bangalore!

"Get this mother%$#^ing snake, off my mother@&$%ing trail!"

**Mom, before I even begin this story, I just want you to know that no one was hurt.**

Yesterday, we began a two-day romp through the Laotian countryside that was supposed to involve some easy trekking, an elephant ride, and kayaking. It didn't really turn out that way, but it was an adventure nonetheless.

We began our day at the Elephant Village, the starting point for our trek. After our Sapa experience, none of us were really too keen on another intense hike, and we were promised that there was not much trekking involved in this particular tour. You learn to take everything you are told with a grain of salt in Southeast Asia, but we were a bit shocked to learn that our first day would involve 4-5 hours of trekking to get the village where we were to overnight. D'oh.

Thankfully, unlike Sapa, it was a beautiful, partly cloudy and not terribly hot day. We crossed rice paddies, hills, valleys, streams, and enjoyed the vistas through the beautiful countryside just outside Luang Prabang.


Minutes into the trek, our guide (who was great, unlike the Sapa dudes) found a leech on his ankle. While mildly unsettling, it was nothing compared to the LIVE SNAKE we saw on the trail. At one point, our guide stopped dead in his tracks and said, "Whoa, snake!" Just as he said this, Sneaky and I saw a long (probably about two feet) silvery-grey thing dash across the brush. It didn't slither at all--it was VERY fast and appeared to dart into the bushes in a straight line. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

We broke for lunch in the middle of an open meadow, and after one hour of post-lunch walking arrived at the village where we were to spend the night. Hoify is a Khmu (ethnic Cambodian minority) village of approximately 75 families. When we arrived around 3:30 p.m., only the town children and elderly were around; everyone else was working in the fields. They returned around 6:00 p.m.

There are no roads into Hoify, so nothing can be trucked into the village. Everything that comes in must be carried or brought by tractor.



Most people in the village didn't seem too phased by us falang. I imagine they get quite a few tourists coming through. Apart from watching the kids play a traditional ball game, climb trees to pick fruit, the obvious language barrier kept us from more interaction than a wave hello.

Nonetheless, it was really fascinating and uplifting and tragic all at the same time to be in a place where people live such a traditional lifestyle. Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world, and while the NGO presence in Hoify has allowed for the construction of latrines and the harnessing of running water from the mountains into communal bath areas, the poverty can be staggering. At the same time, one realizes that kids are kids, and they can be just as happy playing with a toy car made from garbarge as they would be with a PSP.

Dinner was prepared for us by a widow with three daughters, which is presumably why she was chosen by our NGO-partnered eco-tour company. She runs the three-"room" homestay across the "street" from her one-room house.

After enjoying pork with chilis, bok choy, veggies, sticky rice, soup, and squirrel stew, we cursed ourselves for not thinking to bring along a deck of cards and decided to sample the village's locally-brewed lao lao. The 500 ml beaker we shared was significantly stronger than the stuff we drank at the bowling alley. Our guide told us that it isn't unusual for a Khmu man to drink 1.5 liters of the stuff by himself in one night--the very thought of that nearly made me yak. It also made me realizes why people in rural areas do meth: it's really, really boring to have nothing to do.



Another funny moment was noticing a small child wearing an Osama bin Laden t-shirt. After the three of us gasped, we realized he probably had no idea who the hell was on his shirt, and we were relieved to see his friend in tow in a Scarface t-shirt. There's room somewhere here for a Samuel Huntington/Clash of Civilizations joke, but I'm just too tired to think of it.

All in all, the subdivided thatched hut we slept in (with mosquito netting!) was exponentially more comfortable than Fansipan base camp. Unfortunately, much like in Sapa, we awoke to torrential rains and had to hike the hour back to the Elephant Village in a downpour (thankfully, it was much warmer than in Sapa.) After 20 minutes of elephant riding and still no sign that the rain would clear up, we gave up on the idea of kayaking back into town and tuk-tuked it back.

"Hey, goat! I like your beard. I had a beard like that in A Perfect Storm. You see that movie, goat? Say hi to your mother for me."


Cute enough to make you want to pull an Angelina!