New Delhi day 2 part 3

After we enjoyed our lunch at the Lodi Garden restaurant, we debated on whether to go to the zoo (which may be closed) or heading to the India Gate and heading back to woodcastle afterwords. In the end India Gate won, and we headed out to argue with another tuk-tuk driver over the price of our ride. Whatever a tuk-tuk driver says first is always too much. Its your job to act offended and upset that he would insult you with such a price. You have to talk them down as much as possible, and even after talking them down to a fair price, we usually ended up with a much higher price than if it were metered.  I call this the "white tax".
Our driver drops us off directly in front of the tourist police, who are on hand to try in vein to dispel some of the touts in the area. "Tout" is the term westerners (Europeans) use to describe the hawkers and panhandlers that offer a service. A step above bums, because they offer to take your picture, or sell you some useless crap for a price. Any tourist area is filled with touts in India. They weep down on us like vultures to a rotting corpse, and even when the tout directly in front of the line selling the same exact item as everyone else behind him gets a negative response, the rest still pile up to ask if you want to buy theirs.
The main "service" at the India gate is to take your picture. Its very similar to walking into an amusement park like Kings Island. You walk in, and suddenly some caring worker comes up and offers a free picture that won't take but a second. Of course, a few minutes later someone has a print for you, then they hassle the shit out of you to buy the print. When we say no to one, another one comes up right behind asking, "Take your picture for free?"
Now I would like to take a second to explain "we." When I say "we" in reference to touts, tuk-tuks, ordering food, etc. understand that I mean me. Women are not given the same standing in India as men, so everything... EVERYTHING... goes through me. It reminds me of the episode of futurama when they go back in time to the Roswell New Mexico ufo crash. Leela and the Professor try to go and buy a microwave from a store (before microwaves were available for sale) and the salesman says to the professor "Sir, your wife is hysterical. So I will direct this to you."
So I spend a good half of the day saying "No." or my new mantra "No thank you." saying both while using negative body language, meanwhile Mandy follows behind smiling as if floating on a cloud. I think during the entire time in India, she was only hassled three times. I was hassled constantly.
After passing through the line of touts, we make it to the India gate.

Its very impressive.  Its size is pretty hard to determine, so I paid someone 10 rupees to climb up some scaffolding to show its size.

Just kidding, he did that for free. I'm not entirely sure what work they were doing, but they were doing some sort of work on the India Gate while we were there.  Probably in anticipation of the Commonwealth games. We took several pictures of the gate, so enjoy.

Here one of two fountains that flanked the gate, and as we took these pictures, people were taking pictures of us.

This was a smaller building behind the gate...

It wasn't tourist season in India while we were there, so we kept a running count of the other white people we saw, and the final count for New Delhi was approximately 12. That's 12 other white people in a city with a population around 18 million.  Yeah, we stood out. We were almost celebrity status, especially with Mandy's piercing and my long hair and goat-tee. Strangers would take our pictures constantly, and would also ask if they could pose with us in pictures.  We would gladly strike a pose, and they would walk away with a huge smile.  It has been fun! I wonder how many Indian scrap books we will end up in!
The India gate is impressive, but it is just a gate. After a few minutes there, you have pretty much done all you can there, so we left pretty quickly. We passed by the same touts who hassled us on the way in, and they hassled us again on the way out.  A teacher asked us for money for books, which wouldn't be the first in India we would later find out.  Men pulled back on rubber band helicopters and would let them fly and point them out as they drifted down to catch them, and  then try to sell them to us.  This wouldn't be the last time we would see that either.
One direction of the gate points towards the presidents house, which we wanted to see, but were far too tired to walk to.  As you can see, it isn't close...

Its the one in the middle off in the distance. The other direction from the presidents house, and practically in the shadow of the India Gate (one of the main tourist attractions to New Delhi) was a tent city.

Tent cities are incredibly common, as well as shanty towns and housing built from the most basic of supplies. There are far too many makeshift housing for it all to be made up of untouchables, and they are all over the city in good and bad areas.  All the construction sites I saw had shanty/tent housing surrounding the developments.  The workers live on the job site, work on the job site, and eat on the job site. I can only imagine that when they are done, they just move to another job site and build another temporary house.
We pass by the tent city and walk back to the metro.  Its only a hop, skip, and jump back to our station. Then our short walk back to woodcastle to rest in safety and solitude.  The internet? Taken, again.

Delhi day 2 part 2 (here comes pictures)

The Lodi Garden is a beautiful sprawling park nestled comfy into New Delhi's south side. We arived there after a 2 hour detour thanks to a dishonest tuk-tuk driver. We left him outside next to a police officer who was leaning up against the wall next to the gates we passed through. After the gates, we immediately pass over a bridge that leads us into the park. Somehow neither Mandy or myself bothered to look over the bridge, which we would discover later went over a pond that we spent a good portion of the afternoon looking for.
Mandy wanted to go see the Lodi garden because of the enormous lily pads, so large in fact that they can support the weight of a human.  Ok, well maybe a small child human. Like a one or two year old or something, certainly under 30 pounds.  We came to find those enormous lily pads, and so after crossing over the bridge (and not looking over the side of it) we began criss-crossing the park searching for them.
The first thing worth noting that we came across was some sort of brown building that workers were working on.

Now before I stick my foot in my mouth (in other words sit back and get comfortable while I go ahead and stick my foot in my mouth) let me clearly state that I do not understand the subtleties of the Indian caste system.  Any observations or statements I make about it are from an uneducated outsider looking in at a culture that I am sure is more complicated than its easily accessible veneer. Ok then, on with it. There were "untouchables", or lower caste, working on this brown building  as you can see in the photo.  These untouchables, like most others I saw on work sites had bedding to sleep on at the job site. I'm just making a note on this now, I may talk more about it later in length.
The brown building was next to a rose garden of sorts that was nice, but not nearly as built up as the rose garden in the arboretum in Lexington, so I didn't take a picture of it. There were 3 beautiful hawks in the garden, huge things, the size of vultures... could have been eagles I suppose; they flew away before I could get my camera ready. There are lots of exotic beautiful birds in India, most of them far faster than me and my camera.
We left the roses and to our great surprise there was a towering building just over the hill, tucked in behind some trees.

As we approached to take a clearer picture of it,

we noticed just to the left of this beautiful building was an even larger building!

These buildings date back to the 15th-16th century, and you can read all about them here:

I found lots of things interesting about these buildings, like the intricacy of the carvings on the arches.

And of course, the buildings themselves are quite impressive!

These buildings were the first few we found, but while searching for our giant lily pads, we would find other sights in this wonderful garden. We would walk down beautiful tree shaded paths...

We would even find giant cement "lily pads" (its what Mandy called them anyways)...

As we continued to explore the garden we kept noticing something quite unusual. Well, unusual for India, not for us. The park was filled with couples cuddling! In India public displays of affection are frowned upon, as they are sometimes interpreted as overtly sexual in nature. We discovered that the Lodi garden is a sort of "make out point" for young Indian couples.  No necking mind you, just gently caressing and boy girl and holding.  We would later have a tuk-tuk driver explain, "USA has secrets, they keep them in open. India secrets, they hush hush." It seems that we accidentally found the hush hush make out park, and somehow we felt right at home.
We continued our exploration, and passed an awe struck Indian girl mouth agape at the seen that was unfolding.  Couples caressing! My word! We found it rather cute. We discovered another strange little building, I'm still not sure what its for, but it looks old!

On the other side of this weird little building we found a path that led to a bonsai exhibit.  I liked the little jagged brick path to it, so I took a picture.

This little path led to the bonsai display, which was a very nice touch to a huge sprawling park.

After walking one relatively straight line through the park with no sign of water (hello, bridge?) we made a loop back to find yet another huge building.

 This building had a giant wall around it that we followed.

We followed the wall around to the front, but the gate was locked so we couldn't go inside of this massive fort like building.  When we looked away from the locked gate though we found water!

Precious water! The nectar of life! There also was a very nice stone bridge over it, just large enough for two people to wander over somehow miraculously oblivious to any water below!
Now that we have found the water, we follow it to find the man sized lily pads.  After searching and searching we find lily pads, sure, but not fit for a grown man. Hell these lily pads are barely fit for a newborn.

It certainly is a pretty scene, what with the ducks, and the lily pads floating all around, but not the giant lily pads we were promised by some guidebook. Stupid guidebook. Oh btw, here is the view from the bridge we walked over on our search for the pond...

After the crushing defeat of small lily pads, we decided to go and get some food at a nearby restaurant we found while inspecting the bonsai garden. The restaurant was called "The Lodi garden restaurant" and sat right next to one of the gates to get into the Lodi garden. The closer we got to the Lodi garden restaurant, the more the sky began turning dark.  By the time we reached the gate, a light sprinkle had started, and we could hear thunder in the distance.
The Lodi garden restaurant is less than 20 feet from the gate, which was pretty fortunate. At the reservation station outside the restaurant a man greeted us as a gentle rain began to fall down all around us. By the time we said "Two please." a torrential downpour began, not unlike the daily downpours in Floriday that creep out of no where.  Quite perfect timing on our part.
We ran to the restaurant and got seated quickly. The food was western, which was kind of a disappointment, and it was also more expensive than we would have hoped. They had the first (and only) wifi I found in India, and I took full advantage of the opportunity and updated the Amsterdam post (see below) that I had made on my iphone earlier.
I took a picture to show how 2-3 inches of rain fell while we sat and ate, but the picture didn't turn out very good, so I'm not going to share it.  The restaurant was a great halfway point for our day, and respite from the rain.  The restaurant was not a respite for everyone however. A worker stood out in the downpour squeegeeing the porch in an empty pursuit of dryness.  We watched him squeegee and felt kind of bad for him, but soon enough the rain slowed down. After the rain stopped, we made our way out to the road again, after taking a picture of our dry rest stop.

At this halfway point, I'm stopping.  I'll continue again tomorrow!

Peace and Love,
Allen

New Delhi day 2 (Whenever internet be found) part 1 (all text)

We were not sure what to do on our second day in Delhi.  We were full of ideas, but most of them involved sights in opposite directions.  We narrowed it down to either going north to Red Fort and Chandni Chowk (A massive fort and shopping area respectively) or to go south to the Lodi gardens, Hanuman's tomb, and the zoo. After a bit of back and forth debate, we decided to head south to the zoo, and then to the Lodi gardens.  If we felt up to it, we would then go to Hanuman's tomb.
As we headed down our alley we were greeted by a tuk-tuk driver at the end of our road, where our road and Mickey mouse road meet.  The tuk-tuk driver was very polite, but very insistent that we ride with him.  He asked us where we were going, and I replied "To the station, we will walk." he laughed and asked, "Well where after the station?" I smiled and told him, "To the zoo." He smiled back and told us that he would take us there straight away for only 100 rupees.  I told him no, because the walk to the station is free, and the ride on the metro would be something like 40 rupees for the both of us.
The driver followed us down the road and continued trying to convince us.  He said, "What I tell you is a fair price.  I will take you straight there to the zoo.  If it is the price you are unhappy with, I cannot help you.  You should take a ride from me though." We continued our walk and smiled at him and told him my new found mantra of "No thanks."
By the time we hit Pusa road he was still with us and and then he informs us that "The zoo is closed on Friday.  I can take you somewhere else though." This stunk of bullshit to me.  First off, why would he be fighting so hard to take us to the zoo for 2 blocks if it was closed? Second, this is a well known con in India.  The con goes like this, a driver approaches you and asks you where you are going and you say "I'm going to hotel X" and the driver says, "Oh hotel X? Too bad, it closed. Just last week.  I can't take you there because it doesn't exist any more." But don't fret dear friend, because GUESS WHAT? HE knows a better place that his cousin owns that is cheaper and nicer, and he can take you there straight away! (and pocket a hearty commission)
I figure that is this drivers aim, and feel quite proud of myself for being one step ahead of his game.  After all, why would the zoo be closed on a Friday? We smile at the driver again and tell him, "No thank you. We will walk." and eventually he shrugs us off and we part ways. It would only be when we would get to the zoo that I would figure out what a deal that driver was offering me.  I would soon regret telling the driver "No thanks."
We walk down to the metro station at Karol Bagh and ride our little blue line to the Pragati Maiden station.  This ride passes through the Rajiv Chowk station, which is where the blue and yellow lines meet, which makes the train SUPER crowded.  Rajiv Chowk is an exercise in human flexibility and patience.  Imagine trying to push 100 people into a train car that fits 75. Now imagine that they all ate curry the night before, and that its 27 billion degrees outside. Yeah, its like that.
During this sweaty stinky tug-a-war, I feel a hand in my pocket! My god, I'm being pick pocketed! I scan left and right to see who just picked my pocket, but there are far too many people to have any clue.  This is the first time in my life I have ever been pick pocketed.  I guess its a good think this isn't the first time I've been to a big city.  This isn't my first time at the rodeo folks! So Mr. pick pocket gets a fist full of ass.  Who puts wallets in the back pockets in big cities? I mean, really? What did he expect to find in there? Gold doublooms? No such luck! Pick pockets 0, Allen 1.
We arrive safely at the Pragati Maiden station and I inform Mandy of the pick pocket attempt, we both have a chuckle and continue on our way. We file into the street with everyone leaving the train, not unlike cattle being led to slaughter. We wander around trying to find our bearings, sticking with the crowd into a line of tuk-tuk drivers.  I think about what the other tuk-tuk driver said about the zoo being closed, and I get it in my head that we should do the zoo last, just on the off chance he was telling the truth.  A tuk-tuk driver approaches us and I ask, "How much to the Lodi garden?" and he says "Meter."  I say again, "How much to the Lodi garden?" and he says, "Meter, meter." Then, for some silly reason I say, "Ok."
This is one of the oldest cons in the book of tourist cons.  Meters in India are most definitely for suckers, and I should know better.  Mandy shoots me a look as if saying, "What the hell are you doing?" and I just kind of nod back "I got this." Meters are for suckers because the meter is either rigged, or the driver will at some point "get lost" on the ride, running up the meter. 
Our tuk-tuk driver proceeds to run up his meter for the next hour and a half.  We confirm this about 5 minutes in, as we were somewhat familiar with the city from doing research online before we came.  Mandy makes a note on our map, "Don't pay him more than 50 rupees." I nod back at her.  Our driver, unaware that his con has now turned into our con, continues giving us a free tour of Delhi.  He takes us by shanty towns, shops, beautiful buildings, through good and bad neighbourhoods, he took us everywhere he could think to drive... running up the meter the whole time.
In a rather sleazy part of town we got into a traffic jam and we were quickly surrounded by children beggars.  In the entire time I was in India, I have not seen a child that looked starving. All the kids seem well fed, even the dirt poor ones. The children that I have had beg often are wearing nice clothes, and they beg with a smirk on their face.  In other words, they are doing it for a goof. A goof that may just pay off if they find a dumb enough white person. Well, that isn't us.
These children circle in on our tuk-tuk, begging and smiling as we continue saying "No. No. No." They are wearing nice clothing, and they are speaking to us in English which screams out to me that they have money.  To learn English would mean the children would have to go to school, which means their parents would have to have enough money to pay for school, which in turn means they don't need to beg.
Our driver tries to shoo the children away, uncomfortably looking back at us.  I felt like he was worried somehow their con would mess up his.  This one boy focuses in on me, he is probably about 8 or 9 years old.  He raises his open palm acting out that he will smack me if I don't give him any money.  I raise my hand and bring it down swiftly pretending that I will smack him back very hard if he does.  We smile at each other, and I continue to tell these kids "No. No. No." All at once the traffic clears, and all the kids start to make back to the side walk so they aren't standing in the traffic, all but the kid focused on me.  He keeps smiling at me until our tuk-tuk starts to pull off.  All at once he reaches in and taps me softly on my cheek.  It was all a game to him.  He won. lol
We realise our driver has now driven us back almost to our neighbourhood we started from earlier, and we decided we have had about enough of our free tour. I would like to point out that he drove us in the complete and opposite direction we asked to go for almost an hour.  We are in a completely different part of town than we were just in, and a totally different part of town than where we were supposed to be.  At this point, I'm kinda worried that he will just boot us out where we are, and we will be stuck in the middle of nowhere. 
I confront the driver with the map after passing under a metro station, showing him where the station is on the map, and where the Lodi garden is on the map.  I then say, "Lodi garden? Take us to Lodi garden?" He pulls over.  He looks at our map, then he looks back at us sheepishly and starts laughing.  He then says, "LODI garden. I think you say 'Rory garden'." He tries to laugh it off, but we push on to confront him. "Ok, show us Rory garden.  Where is Rory garden?" (Rory garden doesn't exist) He laughs some more, then says "Very mistake!" and smacks his head in shock. Shock!
Our unscrupulous driver makes an about face and proceeds to go turn for turn down the way he drove us, all the way until we were about a 5 minute drive away from where we started.  Then he makes a right instead of a left.  From there its a short 5 more minutes to the entrance to the Lodi garden.  So, a two hour drive for what should have taken 10 minutes.  Thanks driver.
To be fair, we knew what was going on the whole time... but that doesn't mean I had any intention of paying him for it.  For all he knew we were some dumb white tourists who had no clue where we were, and who knows when he would have stopped had we not stopped him.  He showed no signs of turning on his own. The meter read 180 rupees, which included a 40 rupee charge for time sitting.  The correct ride should have cost around 20 rupees or so Indian prices.  Mandy wanted me to pay him 50 rupees, I settled on 60.
As we step out of the tuk-tuk our driver innocently expresses again, "Very mistake, only 160 rupees." and points at the meter.  Wow, a 20 rupee discount, what a steal.  I give him 60 rupees and say, "No, 60." and he smiles and says, "No 100 rupees minimum for gas." and I say "No, 60." and close my wallet.  He continues a one sided argument for a while as I just stare at him.  Eventually I just say, "Then just call the cops, I'll wait." As I say that, we both look over and see a cop leaning up against a wall by the gate to the Lodi garden.  I motion over to the cop as if I am presenting him as a gift to the driver.  I look at the driver and he just shrugs.  I didn't think so. With our adventure over, and a con reversed, we turn and walk into the Lodi garden.
I don't feel bad because I still paid quite a bit more than what the original fare should have been. My real hope is that I will serve as a lesson to that driver, and he will think twice before running some tourists the complete wrong way. This wasn't the only driver that we ended up paying what we thought was fair (not what they thought was fair) and then just walking off, he was just the most egregious. We even agreed on an unfair price a few times just for the ride, and then stiffed the driver, again telling them to call the police if they felt that wronged by us.  Even when we "ripped off" the drivers, we were still paying far more than what Indians would have paid for the same fare.  I suppose it all evens out somewhere. Even though we are paying more than Indian prices, and sometimes less than they want, it still ends up only costing us no more than 2 dollars on average. Sometimes its just fun to haggle, and sometimes its better to pay what you think is fair and just walk away after services rendered.

Tomorrow's update will start inside the Lodi garden, and it will have lots of pictures to make up for none today!

Peace and Love,
Allen

Woodcastle (home sweet home)

Woodcastle served as our home base in New Delhi, and it is the nicest place we stayed in all of India without question. I can say that because I am writing this on the paper I purchased in Varanasi last night, while sitting on the bed of the last hotel we are staying in while in India.
The staff of woodcastle made us feel at home in a land so foreign and alien, it felt as if we were on another planet, certainly not Earth. Woodcastle was a home base to a city so huge and so busy that if you stop to think, you may get knocked down.  Inside its walls we found our peace, comfort, and solitude.
Outside is where our adventures take place...
Let us take a moment to explore our room in woodcastle before venturing out into the city.  We had a nice king size bed that consisted of two firm twins pushed tightly together, covered with a wool blanket, with two pillows.  The bed and pillows were firmer than I was used to, because we have two layers of memory foam on our bed at home and two pillows as soft as warm butter.  The bed was certainly comfortable enough to sleep soundly once I got adjusted to the time.

The bathroom was a very nice introduction to Indian bathrooms, as it had a western toilet, and a shower with its own water heater.  Some of the bathrooms I would see later would have been quite a rude awakening, so I'm glad I was introduced to Indian bathrooms at woodcastle.
There were three buckets in the bathroom, two make for a bath tub; one 5 gallon bucket acts as the "tub" while the other pitcher inside it is used to pour water on yourself.  The other bucket is for Indian wiping, because they don't use toilet paper in India (which is why you never shake left hands).  Luckily, woodcastle supplied toilet paper, so I didn't have to learn how to wipe Indian style.  Or at least, not at woodcastle.
The floor of the bathroom is the bottom of the shower.  There is no entrance to the shower, the entire bathroom is basically a shower.  There are three drains for the water to go into, one for the shower, one for the Indian wiping bucket, and one under the sink for any spill over.

That's basically the room, a place to sleep and a nice bathroom.  We had a TV too, which had a refrigerator under it.  The most important thing the room had was a very nice air conditioner and very strong fan. The electricity was constant in New Delhi, which means that we were nice and comfortable all day and night in woodcastle.  At night we would watch our TV and try to guess what the hell the bollywood clips were supposed to be about.  We never really figured it out though. One of the obvious ones that was my personal favourite was called "bullshit" which is obviously about politics. Mandy and I both loved the promo for Dabang (we called that video the "pants dance song")which we debated on watching in the theatre, but we decided to wait until its released with subtitles so that we can figure what is going on. lol!
Breakfast is free at woodcastle, with a choice of American, continental, or Indian breakfasts.  We enjoyed the Indian breakfast several times... which we would eat in our room on the bed (Indian breakfast in bed, hooray!)

That is the safe and secure world of woodcastle, which is not why you are reading this though.  You want to see the dirt, the grime, and the sublime India, right?  Then lets venture outside, shall we?
When you leave woodcastle, you leave through 2 very nice wooden doors..

Those two doors are without question the nicest thing in the Alley.  The alley we stayed on was a typical alley for the area.  We had a mix of all types of people, from middle class to workers living in shacks in the alley.  There was even our own pack of dogs...

The alley, like everything else in New Delhi and greater India was in a constant state of construction while we were staying there.  Quite a lot of activity for such a compact little alley, but the noises never bothered us in our room.  The only sound we really noticed in there was a man calling out selling something when he would walk by in the mornings.  Here is a view down our Alley from the bigger road that we connected too..

What you can note in that picture is the stacks of bricks to the left, for building a house or something in the pit on the right. What I found interesting was how everyone who owned the cars on our alley would come out and clean them in the morning.  They took pride in their cars, and didn't want the dust and dirt from construction to get on them.
There were a couple spots where workers were living in shacks in and around our alley, and they had children living with them.  These children were so nice.  They always smiled at us and waved and said "hi".  Everyone in our alley was so nice and always smiling and nodding at us.  Although it may look a bit shady, I never felt the slightest bit uncomfortable or at risk in this alley.  Everyone was very nice.
At the end of our alley is where you meet with the first bout of tuk-tuk drivers and maybe a few rickshaw drivers.  I must make two points here. One is that a "tuk-tuk" is an auto rickshaw, something Mandy thought some people may not know.  Two is that every time Mandy says "rickshaw" she says "rick-a-shaw" even though she knows its wrong.  She insists that "It sounds better".  Cracks me up.
After avoiding the tuk-tuk drivers hassling us for a ride, we continue up our little road towards Pusa road, the closest major road to our little area of New Delhi. Here is the view of the road that leads to our alley, which we affectionately called "Mickey mouse road".

The reason we called that road "Mickey mouse road" was because of the landmark we used to find it on Pusa road.

Make sense now?
This is all leading away from woodcastle and towards the Karol Bagh metro station, which served as a starting point to most of our journeys.  Here is a picture of Pusa road and the metro line, it was taken pretty early in the morning, so its not very busy yet.

The green and yellow vehicle on the left hand side is a tuk-tuk.  They are all over the place in New Delhi.
This was the walk we would take everyday in Delhi, whether we were going north to the Red Fort, or south to the Lodi gardens. We would get east and west by taking the metro from our station, the Karol Bagh station on the blue line.  Here is the station on Pusa road...

These are some of the people and places in our neighbourhood.  Not a whole lot of story here, just the place we were when we weren't out exploring the sites of New Delhi.  I'm going to put up a few more pictures just to show some of the things in the neighbourhood.
This is a view from the top of the station looking at some shops and things...

There was a market about halfway between our hotel and the metro.  Unfortunately when I was out taking pictures in Karol Bagh, it was early in the morning and the market wasn't open.  I had planed on getting pictures of it when we came back through India to return home, but that didn't work out.

As you can see, on the right side of this picture are closed shutters.  Each of those represent a shop that would be open if it was later in the day.  If you follow them down, they go as far as you can see.  We never shopped there, as it was always super crowded.  Now this part is important.  You see the kid on the left obviously on his way to school, and you see how he is running?  For that kid, and me, I need you to picture him in your mind doing a super cool double peace sign, and smiling HUGE like this :D  ok?  Because, as you can see, he is a little blurry in this picture, and that is because he saw my camera and was running to get in frame to strike a pose with two peace signs and a HUGE smile.  He was not happy when he realised he didn't make it in time.  I realised what he was trying to do and put the camera back up for him, but his mom grabbed him and made him stop being so goofy.  SO please take a second and in your minds eye picture that kid with two awesome peace signs, and a totally rad smile!  Thanks!

Ok, thats all for the update today. Tomorrow we will be going to the Lodi garden.  Hope you are ready.

Peace and Love,
Allen

Home again home again jiggity jig

Well, I slept in my own bed last night.  Mandy and I were on planes for ~17 hours yesterday.  I didn't sleep for almost 48 hours.  I stayed up once we got home to try to get back on schedule with the eastern time zone, I made it all the way till 9 o'clock last night.  Have to watch the new office today I suppose!
Just doing some rough estimates, we spent about 52 hours on planes on this trip. We spent about 26 hours on trains.  We spent about 31 hours waiting on planes and trains.  That puts the major transport at 109 hours, or 4 days either waiting for or riding on planes and trains.  I'm not going to guess how much time we spent in tuk-tucks, taxis, or scooters because it would be way too hard to guess.  We took zero rickshaw rides, and walked what seemed like almost all of our waking time.  We walked up and down thousands of stairs, in rain and shine.
Using www.webflyer.com to estimate, I figure that we flew around 47,224 miles. With the circumference of the Earth being 24,901 miles, that means we flew enough to fly around the world almost two times (in a little over 2 days, far less than 80).  Using http://www.tsiindia.com/dindex.html to estimate, I figure that we rode the rail in India for about 935 miles.  I have no idea how many miles we walked or how much we rode in tuk-tuk, taxi, or on scooter... but it has to be in the hundreds somewhere.
In all those travels we spent large amounts of time in 4 different time zones.  We were both north and south of the equator.  We were in and out of monsoon season.  We were surrounded by people who spoke at least 6 different native languages, and countless other languages of tourists and non-official languages.  We communicated quite well with everyone though, with most language difficulties arising from myself.
It seems the American southern dialect doesn't travel often, or at least to the places we went.  I would confuse people by saying things such as, "Where abouts is the..." and "sure".  Most of the people I spoke with didn't understand "sure" as being a positive response to something.  Saying "sure" almost always brought any conversation to a grinding halt.  As long as we spoke proper English, and did our best to leave out the "y'all"s and the "yonder"s, most conversations went very well.

Now that I am back home from this journey with my own computer and reliable internet connection, I'm going to do my best to update everyday.  I say that because, I'm going to try to make these posts digestible and content rich.  Digestible in keeping them simpler and shorter than my natural tendency to write long drawn out multiple page long updates. Content rich by sharing with you all some of the sites and sounds we saw while exploring south east Asia.  I have so much to share, and so many experiences to write about.  I do hope people enjoy this.
So, without further interruptions ... Here comes those blogs I've been promising and talking about for 3 weeks now.

Back in India

Well we are safe and sound back at Wood Castle in New Delhi.  I've basically given up on updating until I get home, were like 48 hours away from being back state side with our incredibly fast internet and my own personal laptop to use.  I'm very glad I didn't bring my laptop on this trip, it would have been a headache to deal with, and I would have been constantly worried about it. 
So, one more day here in India, and then we fly out to Amsterdam tomorrow.  I'll try to touch base on here if I can in Amsterdam, just so everyone knows the flight went well (but don't count on it).  So far, everything has gone according to plan, all the way from New Delhi to Thailand and back. I am not making this up, I have taken over a thousand pictures... so DO keep checking once we get back after the 23/24th.  Things should go much smoother on my own computer! :)
Hope everything is relatively the same back in America!  Supposed to be 93 degrees when we get back, which should be a nice cool breeze after being on the equator for two weeks! 
Look forward to seeing everyone!

Peace and Love,
Allen

When it rains, it pours...

I know this is going to come as a total and complete shock to you all BUT.... the internet is messed up.  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  We are at the bar I found that has internet for 10 MALAYSIAN ringets (Mandy pointed out I said they were Indonesian, which they are Malaysian, since Kuala Lumpur is IN Malaysia... dur) When I walk up to the bar the bartender says, "The internet is slow today.  You may not want to pay for it."  Great, right?  So, its ok for text and what not, but uploading pictures will be pointless. 
I'm going to try to hunker down on the computer in Wood castle tonight and slam one out.  Wish me luck.
Oh, we are safely in Kuala Lumpur and awaiting our flight to New Delhi.  Should be boarding in about a half hour!
Hope everyone is doing well...
Peace and Love,
Allen

Last day in Thailand

Today is our last day in Thailand, and the beginning of the end of our trip. We leave for Kuala Lumpur at about 6:30 in the morning tomorrow, (6:30 pm Monday Eastern time) and have a lengthy 6 hour layover there.  Which is good news for anyone reading this and hoping for one of my delayed full updates.  I made it a point to find the internet the last time we were in the KL airport, as I knew we would be spending a very long time there the next time through.  I found a place that has the internet for 10 Indonesian ringets (a little over 3 dollars US) for 50 minutes.  SO that means sometime Monday night (definitely up by Tuesday morning) you should have New Delhi day 2.  HOORAAYYY
I've been sitting on all the good pictures, and there are tons.  I've been updating them to my flickr, and I'm not sure if thats the best way to do this.  I'm new to blogging, and not sure what is the best way to get info to people.  Today I'm going to try to just upload the pictures here, and see how that works.
There are stories behind these pictures... but I'll get to them later.  For now just brief descriptions so you know what you are looking at.
Picture number one.. Mandy likes FISH!!!!

Picture number two... I like temples! (In Bali you have to wear sarongs in temples)

Pictures number three... A Buddhist temple in Bali

Picture number four... A wild pineapple in Bali

Picture number five... A golden statue of a Buddhist monk in the Monkey temple in Phuket Thailand

Picture number six... A picture from an (as of yet) undisclosed location in Thailand

Picture number seven... Mandy is not always enjoying fish... Sometimes she is quite serious.

Ok, thats all for now.  Trust me, I have incredible pictures to share when I get time.  Someone is behind me now wanting to use the computer for skype, so I got to go.  Be sure to check coming up because one of the big ones is coming.
Also do give feedback as to which is better, pictures embedded or links...
Thanks!

Peace and love!
Allen