After nearly 7 months out of the US and 8 months on the road, Brandon and I were ready to go home and have a place to call home.  As our departure date got closer, we found ourselves eager to do the things that we could do at home: take baths, wear sweaters, cook our own food, eat avocados.  I'm happy that my mind moved into this mode--it made saying goodbye a little bit easier.

We were all business in Mumbai.  With Christmas coming, we had a lot of shopping to do.  We put most of it off so that we didn't have to carry it in our small packs.  So we spent nearly all of our time shopping in Mumbai.  I even ended up buying a suitcase for all of our wares.

So I don't have too much to report.  We stayed at the Carlton Hotel, right behind the Taj Mahal in Colaba.  Mumbai hotel prices are about twice as expensive as the rest of the country, so we made due with our clean yet shared bath room (800R, ~$17.50) for our final days in the country.  There were lots of souvenirs to be had on the Colaba Causeway and I got giddy negotiating for the gifts.

We took the Metro one day up to Bandra and went jeans shopping.  There were these crowded marketplaces with jeans sellers.  I walked up to one, my waist was measured, told the seller what color/style I wanted and pair upon pair was thrust upon me.  I demanded to try them on, and on my third try I scored.  They were slightly big so they tailored them for me.  My "Diesel's" cost me 500R ($10.50).  Brandon noticed the locals seemed to be paying 400R, so I think I did ok.  Perhaps my bargaining skills are not as good as I thought?

I also bought a winter hat for 50 cents off a street vendor.  This was probably my most intelligent purchase and it saved me once we arrived in frigid Jersey. 

A note on Mumbai - it was absolutely lovely in December.  The temperature was perfect, highs of 80, cooler evenings.  We found the city walkable and the transportation system fairly easy to navigate.  We enjoyed the Pav Bhaji and Bhel Puri, and have plans to cook Pav Bhaji at home.  I like to describe it as "Indian Vegetarian Sloppy Joes."  Mmmm... Indian food.

We grabbed a taxi to the airport and flew home on December 15.  The flights were all on time, customs and immigration a breeze, and entered culture shock, as expected.  Everything was so dark and bland.  I think you only realize how colorful India is when you leave the country. 

India - I will miss you.  You provide so much eye candy and stimulate all my senses, all the time. Now on to process what I learned.

Aurangabad is the launch pad for the Ajanta and Ellora Caves, both World Heritage sites worth checking out if you have the time.  More about them later.

We arrived in Aurangabad after midnight, after a full day of traveling by train from Goa (Canacona -> Thane, Thane -> Aurangabad).  Since we loved Mysore so much, we decided to stay in Aurangabad for five nights, to give ourselves time to recover from the train journey, check out the city, and have time to see both caves.  In retrospect, this was way too much time in Aurangabad.

There really wasn't much happening in Aurangabad.  There's a cluster of restaurants and hotels near the train station, and a fancier shopping street with some international brands.  It wasn't very walkable, but we walked around anyway.

We decided to skip the tours and check out the caves ourselves.  We started with the Ellora Caves.  The Ellora Caves are a short, less than an hour, bus journey from Aurangabad.  We waited for the bus at the station.  Nothing was in English.  A bus pulled up to the berth and there was a near riot as people tried to jam onto it.  We stood back and watched.  Once that bus took off, we met a couple from Sweden also trying to take the bus to Ellora.  We warned them about the rush for the bus.  Lucky for us they were more aggressive than us, so as the next bus pulled up, they managed to elbow and shove their way into the bus and secure 1 seat for us.  We rioted our way onto the bus and jammed onto this seat, thankful to our new friends and the woman who shared the seat with us. 

I wish I had video of this.  It would probably be a youtube hit.  We noticed that people were jumping through the windows of the bus trying to get seats.  One couple even threw their baby in to secure a seat. 

The Ellora caves are worth the bus ride and modest 250 Rupee (~$5) entrance fee.  There are 32 caves - Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain - built between 500-1000AD.  They were all carved out of the stone and built into the hillside.  As there were lots of Indian tourists there as well, we also found ourselves to be a bit of a tourist attraction, with lots of requests for photographs with us.  We mostly said no, unless someone was particularly convincing or aggressive.

A couple days later we went to the Ajanta Caves.  These are also possible to reach by bus, but the ride is longer, 3-3.5 hrs.  These caves are all Buddhist and were built between 200BC - 600 AD.  The cave paintings are in incredible condition despite the years. 

This was the highlight of our time in Aurangabad.  Vinod's family warmly welcomed us.  His wife made snacks and tea, we played with the kids, met all the neighbors, and took lots of photos.  What lovely people!  We are going to send them a package from America, any ideas??

In the end, we were happy to have the time in Aurangabad and meet the Sinkar family. 

Maybe it's because we visited the ever so popular Palolem Beach in late November, but I found it to be really affordable and relaxing.  We had fears that the prices for beach huts would be astronomical but we found a lovely little hut, with a private bathroom, on stilts, with a view of the beach, for 500 rupees (~$11).  Not bad. 

Food was a bit more expensive on Palolem.  We had been pretty good at finding cheap food away from the tourist drag. There were a few restaurants on the street (parallel to the beach) that were a little cheaper, and if you stuck with Indian food, then it was possible to eat a meal for about $2, instead of the $3 minimum on the beach.

The beach at Palolem is the real draw though.  The sand is soft and the beach is devoid of rocks or other things that can rip your feet up.  The water is warm and the dropoff is very gradual.  We walked about 100 meters out and could still touch the bottom.

There were a lot of women selling things on the beach.  You have to be firm with them if you don't want to purchase their goods, otherwise they and all their cohort will show up and lay out their goods.  Also, you need to bargain really hard with them, because you can't easily pick up and leave.  I got a few good deals from them, but only after hemming and hawing and refusing to buy.  "You're killing me," the lady would say.  I'd say "well, I don't need to buy anything from you," and we'd go back and forth.  Fun times.

As this is India, there were cows on the beach.  Photogenic animals they are.

On a few evenings, after a day of sunning and playing in the water, we'd grab dinner on the beach and watch the sunset.  What a beautiful world we live in.

I've been planning on posting about our experience in Goa and Aurangabad prior to leaving India, but it's not going to happen.  Although I have a fantastic connection here in Mumbai, my card reader is acting up again and I'm not in a position to recover everything again.  So it will just have to wait!

In two evenings we will be flying home.  It's a 20 hour journey to Newark, NJ and then we'll spend a couple nights with our friends in Hoboken (thanks Tim and Carmela!) before heading to Mass.  Then a quick hello to mom and dad and off to visit Vermont, find a place to live, and catch up with Sue and Vanessa (who are so kindly assisting us in this process). 

I think I can speak for both of us and say that we are ready to go home. We are both looking forward to seeing our families and spending Christmas and New Year's together.  We're eager to start our new lives in Vermont and so proud to hear about Bernie Sanders' fiery speech the other day. 

On the flip side, it will be tough to leave  India.  It's taken 4+ months but I finally come around to really liking the country.  The adjustment period was a bit longer for me.  We'll miss the warm weather, the food, the friendly people, and the shocker -- the bargaining!!!

More later friends!  From stateside :)

For me, Mysore had all the positives I look for an Indian city.  

• It's extremely walkable and the bus system is clearly marked and easy to utilize.
  
• It seemed fairly clean.
  
• There were lots of touristy things to do but the overall city didn't feel like it was overrun with tourists.
  
• The food was fantastic and cheap.
  

Really, the only thing that we didn't like about Mysore was that we couldn't find any wifi.  Not a big issue but surprising given the size of the city. 

Brandon and I decided that we would love to come back sometime in the future and spend at least a month studying yoga here.  This is the home of Ashtanga yoga and there are lots of studios you can study at.

What is there to do in Mysore?  


We walked around Devaraja market a few times (didn't buy anything) and saw all the fruit and veg sellers, bangle, flower, oil, incense, woodcut, religious memorabilia sellers, etc.

We were fortunate to be in Mysore on a Sunday evening, when the Mysore Palace is lit up with 100,000 lights and you can enter the grounds for free.

We took the bus up to Chamundi Hill.  This is the spot, according to legend, where the Goddess Chamundi killed the Demon Mahishasura (below).  There are a few temples on the top of the hill, as well as lots of little shops.  We took the stairs down (1,000) and surprisingly, my legs felt jiggly.  So glad we didn't climb up.

We also went to the zoo.  Our favorite animals were the jaguars, who were being really playful when we stopped by their cage.  The tigers were beautiful, although all of them except one were kept in small cages.  Two animals I hadn't heard of but thought were really cute were the Giant Squirrel and the Mouse Deer.  

We also took a one hour tour to see how incense and oils were made.  It was really a ploy to get us to buy the stuff and it sort of worked.  We saw some women making incense and an older man who made beedis (cigarettes rolled with leaves).  We didn't get to see any oil production but I did cave and buy a "Black Jasmine" oil that smelled really nice.  Hopefully I'll get it home in one piece.

Some of the food we're going to miss:

More photos coming soon!  I lost my photo of idlis - a breakfast fav.

It finally happened. We got sick.  Part of me thinks this is because we were starting to get proud of our seemingly superior gastrointestinal tracts.  Six months in Asia and we had dodged all major illnesses, until Varkala.

We are not sure the source of the ills.  But lucky for us, our sickness was staggered.  Brandon first and then me.  So instead of lying on the beach, soaking up the sun, we were lying in bed.  I'll spare you the details but let me saw that it's a good thing Indian bathrooms come with a bucket. Despite getting knocked down we both recovered fairly quickly and didn't need to see a doctor.  

Our time in Varkala flew by so we decided to extend our stay five days and cut out Gokarna.  We took it easy for a couple more days and then finally spent our last few days exploring.

Varkala is beautiful.  The tourist town is on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea.  There are beaches with soft, clean sand, and clear water. The power of the surf was stronger than any I'd been in the past, so I stayed close to the shore.

The thing we like most about Varkala were the people.  When we arrived at our guesthouse, Skylark, we found out the owner, Faith, was from Vashon (an island near Seattle).  She went to Evergreen like Brandon and we know people in common.  When we went out to Johnny Cools for cake, we met another expat from Portland, OR and chatted for a couple hours. She had just returned from an evening in Trivandrum where she saw Sting and Sir Bob Geldorf perform.  The owner of the Juice Shack, Umesh, made great drinks and food, but also struck me as a long lost friend.  I met all sorts of people and savored the conversations.

We quickly realized why Varkala sucks people in.  It's a hard place to leave.  But as we have less than a month left in India now, we had to say goodbye so we could see more of the country.

When we arrived in Madurai, the day before Diwali, the festivities had already begun.  There was a noticeable elevation of spirits, joy in the air.  People were out en masse buying new clothing.  And the fireworks were already part of the landscape here.

Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights.  I've gathered it's like Thanksgiving and New Year in the USA, but religious.  Diwali signifies the defeat of Rama over Ravana, good over evil, light over darkness.  On Diwali you start anew, wear new clothes, and blow things up.

Fireworks are an essential part of the Diwali experience.  For three solid days, people shot off fireworks at all hours.  Street vendors sold them, from the small loud ones to the giant fireworks like the ones we'd see in the US on the 4th.  We had a great view from our hotel.  Check out this video I took from our balcony:

The main attraction in Madurai is the Meenakshi Temple.  It's a very famous Hindu temple that has been the center of Madurai for 2500 years (although the current structure is from around 1600).  The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and Parvati (also known as Meenakshi).  We only grabbed photos from the outside as we tried to be respectful of the sacred environment inside.

At the Gandhi museum we learned a lot about the struggle for independence, starting as early as colonization began.  Like US history, the stories of these early freedom fighters doesn't seem to be well known, especially beyond India's borders. 

One evening we went to the "sound and light" show at the Madurai Palace.   We heard a very glowing history of Madurai and its defeat over Mysore (also on our itinerary).  Since it was the day after Diwali, fireworks were still going off around the palace, adding to our "sound and light" experience.

We saw our first movie in India - Robot!  Highly entertaining!  A few interesting things:  we had assigned seats, there was an intermission (good thing, since the movie was 3 hours long), and they shut off the movie before showing the credits.  Weird.  The plot was easy to follow though and lots of fun. 

Finally - and this will not be my last post about food - below is a photo of one of our amazing meals.  Sometimes, when we're really hungry, we go all out and get a thali, a full meal.  This one, half-eaten by me, had a couple of curries, rassam, sambar, curd, mango pickle, and a desert.  Yum. 

Up until now I haven't had a good enough connection to upload videos. Here's one of the monkeys at Angkor Wat:

"No birds," said the man working the entrance to the Kumarakom Bird  
Sanctuary.  Ok, we just traveled an hour by bus to get here, then  
walked around for a half hour or so looking for the place (the sign  
pointing to the entrance had been uprooted and pointed us in the wrong direction).

Seeing we had invested a bit of time and effort into this venture, we  
decided to pay the $1 each and go in anyway.  And the man was right -  
there were no birds. I think there were more birds outside and around  
the park but for some reason they weren't going in.

It was a nice walk and worth the dollar I suppose.  The best part was we met two nice young women on the bus ride who taught us how to say a 
couple things in Malayam, the language of Kerala.

Kottayam was our base for the visit to the sanctuary. We stayed there  
a couple nights.  We arrived via public ferry from Alleppey, which only  two hours cost just 50 cents each.  The ferry is the cheap way to get a  
feel for the Keralan backwaters, without spending a lot of money on a  
houseboat tour.  I highly recommend it if you're being really budget  
conscious. We only spent a night in Alleppey but we loved our meals there (50 cent masala dosas)!  It was Halloween and appropriately, we saw another giant spider!

We left Kottayam and headed to Kumily for another sanctuary - the  
Periyar Wildlife santuary, home to 40+ tigers and loads of other  
animals.  The 4 hr bus ride there was breathtaking.  Kumily is up in  
the mountains, the western ghats, and as we climbed we passed tea  
estates, rubber plantations, and just outright gorgeous views of the  
green landscape of Kerala.

We went on a 2.5 hr early morning "nature walk" at Periyar.  They  
warned us that there would be leeches so I rented a pair of leech  
socks. Brandon decided to stick with his woolies tucked into his pants.

I've never had to deal with leeches before but watching the little  
suckers dive into the mesh of my sneakers was rather horrifying.  I  
swatted them off my socks as best as I could and tried to enjoy the  
hike.

The hike was beautiful. We walked through the forest for about an  
hour.  We saw a tree that had been scratched by a tiger.  Then we entered a gorgeous clearing where bison and wild boar were grazing in the distance. They were the only big wildlife we saw - in the wet season the animals don't have to come out as often for water.

When we got back I took off my leech socks and was surprised to see no 
bites. Brandon wasn't so lucky - he got 11 bites on his feet.

We got back to the hotel to clean up Brandon's injuries. Leech bites 
bleed for a while since the leeches inject an anti-coagulant Into the 
blood.  I decided to change my pants before heading out for breakfast 
and there was a leech on my upper right calf!!  Argh!  Brandon quickly 
grabbed a lighter, lit it under the leech, and it dropped off, fat and 
full of my blood.  Brandon figured that since it was so successful it 
wouldn't be nice to kill it (plus it would have very messy) so he 
airlifted it to the bushes outside.

We spent half the day laid up, waiting for our bites to stop bleeding.  Fun times.

On a less bloody note, we went to a Kathakali performance one 
evening.  Kathakali is traditional Keralan dance.  The performers get 
all made up and use a lot of intricate hand and eye movements to tell 
their story.

Here's a short video I took: 

On a final note - on the main strip in Kumily there were two  
restaurants across the street from each other - Sree Krishna and the  
Lord's Family Restaurant.  Which god makes the best food?

The Lord's Family Restaurant.  Mary makes a damn good gobi masala.