Farewell India

I am headed back to Australia today! I don't really know how to write this post because India has been CRAZY. Maybe I'll have a better perspective to understand all of my experiences here once I've left. But in a few words India has been crazy, wonderful, challenging, weird, life-changing, eye-opening, difficult, exhausting, sad, funny and beautiful. 

I want to thank everyone that I have met along the way, it's been so amazing to make new friends. Thanks to everyone that has made India amazing (especially Carl I couldn't have done it without you). I'm thankful to yoga for bringing me here because honestly before I came here it wasn't on my list of places to travel. But I'm so happy I did come because I have had so many laughs, seen so many beautiful things, met people I will be friends with for a very long time and I'm definitely a better person now (I've been joking with Carl that everytime I have taken a freezing cold shower or after an especially long difficult bus ride that it makes me a better person). I have enjoyed India more than I thought I would (low expectations people, low expectation is the key to happiness).

I've learned a lot in the past three months and I'm so happy I came to India but I can honestly say I'm really looking forward to being back in Australia. I can't wait for baby cuddles from Ripley and Taylor. I can't wait to see my friends and hang out on the beach. I'm excited to share my travel stories in person with everyone. It will be nice to be able to truly appreciate a hot shower, fast wifi, electricity that doesn't go out, and a fresh salad with raw veggies. I'm also really excited to be invisible, just another white person among other white people; no one staring at me or people asking for pictures all the time.

I'm sad I'll be missing the holidays with my family back in Colorado again. It's been so long since I've seen them and I would love to spend December skiing and eating food with the people I love and miss most in the world. But alas, I must spend it drinking beers on the beach and taking adorable children to the park. 

Are you looking forward to anything? The holidays, seeing family, a vacation?

I will continue to blog and keep you updated about my life in Australia and my upcoming move to New Zealand. Keep in touch and happy holidays everyone :)

Here are some photos from India. 

Some of the yogis 

On the way to Leh

Leh

Dal Lake, Srinagar 

Manali 

On top of the world

The golden temple

Carl just being Carl <3

My yogi friend Siobhan in cakrasana (wheel pose)

And The Taj

❤️Cawa

Goa

I found the hostel we are staying at in Goa out of pure laziness. Our movie star friends from the Bollywood soap opera set mentioned that they would be staying a Jungle Hostel in Vagator beach. I had no clue about the difference between the 20ish beaches that make up Goa and had no desire to read the vast amount of material about Goa in the guide book. So I just copied our friends and we headed to the Jungle Hostel once we got off the plane from Mumbai. It was a great decision. We kept extending our stay by one day, then two days and finally we just booked the rest of the week (and our time in India) here.

They don't have seagulls on beach in India but they do have cows

And in restaurants...

The hostel has beds for 45 people. Each of the dorm rooms has between 4 and 6 beds. The owners are always around working and hanging out with the guests. Breakfast in the morning is included with our room. There is a great indoor/outdoor common area where people relax on hanging chairs and mats on floor. We have been cooking up huge amounts of veggies for lunch. Carl and I both like to cook and we haven't had access to a kitchen for two and half months. Its been so nice to be able to cook up fresh veggies which we buy down the street for around 100 rupees ($1.50). 

There are a lot of Russians in Goa (and apparently Russian mafia that brings in drugs, among other things) some of the Indian people selling stuff on the beach and working in the shops don't speak English but speak prefect Russian. In some areas all the signs are in Russian. 

The other backpackers turn into friends quickly. Both the Canadian girls and the Australia boys that we met working as extras ended up staying at the hostel so when we arrived it already felt like home. 

Let me tell you, the whole hostel is in love with Carl. The Australian boys are especially in love with him. Whenever we return to the hostel and or run into people out and about there are always shouts and warm greetings of "Carlito!" "The legend has arrived!" "Carl man, how ya doing man!" It's okay, I don't take it personally that a bunch of 20 something boys like Carl more than me.... But seriously who wouldn't love Carl, he is hilarious, happy, completely himself and he really knows how to live life.

Volleyball on the beach

Goa has been a great way to wrap up our India trip. Who can complain about watching the sunset set on the beach every evening and swimming in the ocean everyday. Carl did a photo shoot with one of our instant friends from the hostel and the pictures are truly amazing.

The hostel was organizing a yoga class on the first day we arrived. Carl volunteered me to teach the class (since I was too shy to volunteer myself). The owners quickly painted the roof, put in a railing, and bought yoga mats for the class the next morning.

Yoga class on the roof of the hostel

I was a really nervous for the first class but it will well. Its been so great to get some practice teaching. I have taught a beginners class most morning. Between 8 to 3 people have been attending the class. I am feeling a little less nervous and more prepared to teach some free classes in Manly.  

My friend and one of my roommates during my yoga teacher training, Siobhan just arrived in Goa. She is staying at the hostel with us. She has been traveling around India as well. It's so great to see her again! 

Only a couple more days in India! Thanks again to Carl for taking all the pictures!

I'm a Star! A Bollywood Movie Star!

Mumbai has to be the most expensive city in India. Carl and I could not find a reasonable hotel or hostel (for Indian standards). We arrived by train to Mumbai in the morning. We got a coffee at the train station and called around to some hotels. Talking on the phone in India is the worst; its always impossible to hear the person, and even if they can hear you it's a tradition to answer the phone and just yell hello back and forth 5 or 6 times before any real conversation starts. Also the language barrier is really highlighted over the phone. Luckily Carl is a great travel partner and usually (always) makes the phone calls and answers the phone (because I just hand the phone to him and look confused). We (cough...carl) called the YMCA and had a hilarious conversation when they told him a bed in a dorm room would cost 1500 rupees...That's 25$...for a room at The Y in India! Carl must have asked if the guy was serious and called him crazy 6 times.

We took a taxi to an area of Mumbai called Colaba and walked around to 5 or 6 hotels and guest house looking at rooms. They were all really scarwy, really dirty, no windows and really expensive. One hotel offered to let us stay in a office for 2,000 rupees ($33). It was ridiculous and really humid and hot. After walking up and down stairs looking at rooms, including one at the Salvation Army, for 2 hours we were sweaty and exhausted. We found an okay room with AC for 1,800 rupees ($30).

That night we went to see a movie. We saw Interstellar, which I would totally recommend.

The next day we were sort of at a loss for what to do. We were tried and it was really hot, so we definitely didn't want to go sightseeing. I love libraries and there was one close by so we packed up our coloring pens and electronics so we could spend the day drawing and blogging in AC.

On the way to the library an Irish man stopped me and asked if I wanted to be in a Indian soap opera. They were looking for women to be extras but Carl would be able to be an extra as well. It is a once in a life time opportunity to be in a Bollywood production (mostly because I will never do it again) so we had to say yes. We had no idea what the day would hold. Two Canadian girls were also dragged off the street to join us as extras. We were all put in a taxi and TWO AND A HALF hours later we arrived at the studio. It actually didn't feel like that long because we busy comparing and sharing travel stories from India.

We were led to a trailer surrounded by a mud puddle were we ate lunch. 

The "foreign food" for the extras all had meat in it and we had to ask for vegetarian food

We were told we would get hair, make-up and costumes. This was not the case. No hair, no makeup, no costumes till later in the day. It was just me and Carl in normal clothes walking back and forth. 

The Canadian girls got costumes because they were wearing baggy pants

The main star

Later me and the Canadian girls were given the most unfaltering nurses outfits in the world. Peach is not my color and I would argue anyones color. The shoes they gave me were wildly uncomfortable and then they made all the extras do 20 takes of the same scene where we walked back and forth. My feet were killing me, but on the up side the back of my head MIGHT be on Indian TV. By the time we finished all the backpackers that they pulled off the street were really over being extras. The driver took forever and the man paying us our whopping 500 rupees ($8) took even longer. On the drive back giant billboards with the star from the soap opera dotted the side of the road. 

Just standing around

This was my whole job; walking back and forth

Everyone watching the scene we just filmed 

Hanging out in the trailer 

Blurry billboards of the show we were extras in

Don't worry this pictures doesn't make any sense to me either... 

The Train

After Arga and the Taj Mahal Carl and I took another bus (sigh) to Jaipur. When we got there we found a really nice hotel. It was tucked away from the craziness, with lots of trees and green grass. We had a beautiful marble balcony where we ate breakfast and dinner. Both Carl and I were pretty exhausted from the last two and a half months of hard travel so we only saw the observatory and the "tiger" fort instead of the three billion other old forts, castles and other buildings tourist are suppose to see in Jaipur. Jaipur is huge, we had no idea it was so big till we got a view of the city from the fort.

Looking over Jaipur

We didn't love Jaipur so we started to develop a plan to get out only after a day. We really wanted to take the train because we were sick of buses and everyone we talked to said train travel in India was something we had to do. I'll be honest, I was sort of afraid of why everyone was saying we HAD to do it but nonetheless I wanted the experience. Carl tried to book a train online for almost 5 hours, I am not kidding, 5 hours  (the guy has more patience than I will ever have). 

Here are the problems with an Indian website that millions of people use: It crashes all the time, it doesn't work at ALL between the hours of 8-12am, it will not take foreign credit cards and it says there are tickets available when actually there aren't. So only a couple minor problems...

Once Carl had given up trying to use the worst website ever we went to the train station to try and buy the tickets directly. The TWO men selling the tickets looked utterly confused and they told us there weren't any trains to Goa or Mumbai for at least three days. We couldn't figure out if there weren't actually tickets or the men just didn't understand how the computer system works. We returned home and  our researched reveiled that a bus or plane tickets likely wouldn't work so we were determined to take a train. After extensive research we figured out they release 10% of the tickets for every train the day before. It's called TakTal and you have to be at the train station exactly at 10am in order to try to get the tickets.

The next morning we woke up early and went to the train station. We filled out a form and checked if we did it right with the cashier. He told Carl it was unlikely we would get a ticket. Still we waited in line and old Indian men tried to push their way in front of us. Once we got to the front of the line the cashier actually started entering our passport information into the computer and actually got tickets to Mumbai for the next day! We were surprised but relieved we would be leaving Jaipur the next afternoon and taking our first train in India.

The trains in India are definitely worth taking. We got a bed and seat in the 2AC class. It was air conditioned and not crowded. Every 5 minutes someone would walk by selling chai, snacks or ice cream. We listened to music and watched the scenery go by in the afternoon.

At night we crawled up into our bed and let the train rock us to sleep.... Not really but it sounds way more romantic that way.

This is obvious but needs to be said: trains are so much nicer than buses, so much smoother, you can walk around, there is a bathroom, actually just a hole that empties to the tracks but its better than nothing. But seriously so much nicer. It cost about $45 for 17 hours.  

Sheets for the bed 

Nice bathroom

Getting ready for bed

Dinner time

The food was pretty delicous 

All the photos here are thanks to the wonderful and talented Carl. Thanks Carl :)

Keep in touch everyone. Miss you.

A Guru Dinner

Guruji

If you ask me, Carl and I timed our arrival to Delhi and departure to Arga prefectly. We got to Delhi on a thursday night and were able to catch a ride with a new friend to her hometown of Arga. We met our new friend, Kanika , during a cooking class we took in Dharamsala. After the class Carl asked her if she wanted to join us for drink. She called her boyfriend to meet us and after a couple of hours we agreed we would have to see each other again.

Kanika, me, Carl and our cooking instructor

 Kanika was going down to Arga becasue her family was having a function for their guru at her house. We asked if we could catch a ride with her. She told us that would be no problem and that her driver (!) would pick us up from our hotel the next morning. Not only did we time it prefectly to be able to get a ride with Kanika but we were also able to attend the function for her guru.

Once we got to Arga we stopped by Kanika's house to meet her mother. We arrived at night and her mother served us chai and homemade snacks. Delicous, I tell you, so freaking delicous and bad for you! Deep fried bread, deep fried potatoes, deep fried onions, and samsoas. It was their neighbors birthday so we were also treated to chocolate cake. The birthday woman actually fed Carl and I cake, like she put in our mouths with her hands. So basically it was weird but amazing. How lucky are we to be welcomed into Kanikas home when we just met her a week before, and treated like old friends. 

The next day Carl and I explored the Taj Mahal in the morning and at night we went over to Kanikas for a special dinner for her guru. Let me tell you, it was fascinating! And sort of boring, but mostly fascinating. When we arrived guests were already sitting on the floor, praying or mediating. The front hall is a huge shine to Guruji, including four giant photos, a throne, a minute replica of a throne-swing he used sit on and a picture of his feet. The center focal point is a life size photo of Guruji sitting on a gold throne.

Shrine for Guruji

We arrived around 7:30 and joined the rest of the guests on the floor. It was interesting to see everyone greet and say hello to Guruji in different ways when they entered. It was boring because we sat for two and half hours mediating and watching guests come in. Kanika's father gave a speech about Guruji which was mostly in hindi besides a couple of English sentences now and then, entirely for the benefit of Carl and I.

Kanika serving chai

We already had a little background on Guruji from Kanika so we knew he was no longer alive but he communicates with his followers via dreams. Kanika's parents hold a dinner for Guruji once a month. Over 500 people come and cram into their house, which is basically entirely for Guruji, he even has his own bedroom. The guest had to take turns and rotate to sit on the floor and enjoy dinner. Kanika's mother cooks most of the food herself with the help of some neighbors and friends. The food was delicious and spicy. It was dal and a vegetable curry with chapatis. Four people sat on the floor and shared one plate. Once we finished dinner we went upstairs and talked with Kanika and her friend about Indian weddings and the difference between cultures. We were dropped off at our hotel around midnight. They didn't even serve dinner till 10pm. Can you image going to a dinner party or event in the US and then not serving dinner till 10pm?!

Sorry about the bad photos :(

Carl and I are in Goa now, relaxing at the beach. I head back to Australia to see my babies (not actually my babies, the kids I au paired for) and friends in 10 days!