Mary Bellamy

After the trauma of getting out of Agra, we were prepared to be extra-impressed with Udaipur. And boy oh boy, Udaipur did not disappoint. The city is built around a lake and was the setting for much of the James Bond film Octopussy.

New Year's Eve view from our balcony. Cue the fireworks.

Due to the Gujjar strikes, we arrived on New Year's Eve and found our way to our Dream Heaven Guest House. As the daylight drained from the sky, we settled into an amazing room with a lake view and a balcony. Although our bathrom had two showerheads, I opted to steal the first shower all for myself and washed away the grime of a 20+ hour bus ride. I wandered onto our balcony while Beau showered, and watched with joy as hotels around the lake began setting off fireworks. I called to Beau to hurry up and join me. The complete bliss of being in India, being with the man that I love, watching fireworks light up across a lake...it just all added up to perfection. I wrapped my arms around Beau and started telling him how much I loved him, but all I could think about was my knee. Why was I thinking about my knee at a time like this?


Well, I had to figure out which knee to kneel on so I could ask Beau to marry me. And when he said yes (or rather, when he asked, "Does this mean we're really engaged now?"), we celebrated, and then he asked if we needed to buy a ring. That's when I directed him to my neck pillow, and he discovered that I had ordered a ring before we left and been carting it around the whole time.

Engaged! I ordered a thali for the special occasion.

We went up to the rooftop restaurant for dinner. Hotels all around the lake were having parties and competing to blast their music as loudly as possible. This was especially amusing, given that they all seemed to have the same cd with just a few American songs mixed into it. Thus, "I Got A Feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas was the theme song of the night and has somehow become "our" song. I would have guessed that "My Humps" would have been most likely Black-Eyed Peas song to represent our love, but you can't argue with what the universe throws your way.

On New Year's Day, we set out on a walk across the lake to wander through the shops. We found a music shop, and since we'd been talking about Indian musical instruments for a while, we decided to look inside quickly just to see if there were any prices marked. The shopkeeper quickly hustled over from across the street and started showing off his wares. Bablu came highly recommended, so I had some trust in the guy to sell quality instruments. Having been engaged for all of 12 hours, I was still developing my psychic connection to Beau. So when Bablu showed us two different sitars, I started trying to set up a mental connection to figure out which one Beau wanted. Duh, of course he wanted the electric sitar.

Is very good bargain. Good for you, good for me. Very good.

I set to work bargaining, and Bablu whipped out his calculator and started trying to figure out if I was ripping him off. We went from Rs25,000 to Rs20,000, which is good, but not quite good enough for me. Bablu told me that I was his first customer of the year, so he was offering me his very best deal so that he would have good karma all year long. Bam. There was my edge. "First customer, first SALE of the year, very good karma all year long!" With that, we shook hands on Rs19,000 and Beau was the proud owner of an electric sitar, plus a fiberglass carrying case, all the accessories and replacement parts he'd ever need, and a few lessons with Bablu to boot.

We wandered back across the bridge and decided to check out the cafe next to our hotel for lunch. Dubbed "Soul Meet Cafe," it featured a cushion-covered terrace with numerous lounging backpackers and a sound system that pumped out a constant stream of trance and/or reggae music. Therefore, it was no surprise to find Special Lassi on the drink menu. For any police officers or my mother, I did not get it. Mostly because the waiter told me they didn't have the "stuff" to make it. A special lassi is also known as a bhang lassi, and is made with a liquid derivative of marijuana. It's legal in many parts of India, and Rajasthan has many licensed bhang shops where one could partake. But, as I stated, I did not get it. Because they were out. They were also, it would seem, out of food, and their chef had gone for food but hadn't come back, so we left and got lunch elsewhere.

Lassi of unknown origins.

Later that night, we decided to get dinner. On the way to dinner, we stopped at the Soul Meet Cafe for a pre-dinner drink. Don't judge. My special lassi arrived, and to be honest, it tasted pretty gross. Down the hatch it went, though. As I was drinking it on the terrace, I heard a huge rustling in the trees, and suddenly a monkey landed on our table and ran across it. Not knowing how strong the special lassi was, I asked Beau if that really just happened.

Monkey. Great in theory, until you're tripping balls on a special lassi and it decides sashay across your table.

Yeah, that really just happened. For the record, it took a while for the lassi to kick in. Then I wanted to lay on the bed and listen to music (The Doors and the Grateful Dead, mostly) and talk about foreign policy and investment strategies. Then I suddenly wanted to stop talking and go to bed. An interesting experience, but not one I'm likely to repeat.

The restaurant roof was bliss.

We spent the rest of our time in Udaipur relaxing on our hotel roof, taking boat rides, trying to get pants made (my Hindi may not be great, but the guy clearly called me "jumbo" in English), having a mild breakdown after trying to get pants made, getting pants made at another tailor, and buying bus tickets for our next leg. For the record, India is hard on pants. Nearly every pair I had developed holes, probably from the vigorous laundry techniques.

Up next: Mount Abu and then some more Mount Abu

This city is just so damn gorgeous.

The views from the roof were amazing.

The rooftop dining situation. Get the muesli for breakfast.

 

Private balcony off our room. Also known as the drying rack for my laundry.

I call this one "Study of a Pensive Man."

Going on an obligatory boat ride around the lake.

This? I said I'd marry this?

This hotel was one of our favorites on the trip.

When last we left, Beau and I had been stuck in Agra for days. We finally broke down and bought overpriced bus tickets just to get out of that festering hellhole of touts. I kid. Agra was lovely. (Seriously, try to do it in a day trip or skip it entirely. That place sucked.)

As we were heading back to the hotel, our rickshaw driver started offering to take us to shops. We kept saying no, and he kept offering. Finally I busted out the Hindi and told him "No, take us to the hotel." He got excited that I knew some Hindi, and we started talking Bollywood. When he found out we had been stuck for a few days, he told us he could get us bus tickets for Rs600 each. Good deal, but first we had to get our money back for the overpriced tickets.

The driver dropped us off around the corner from the travel agent. As we approached, I took Beau's arm and started trying to look weak. We told them I drank bad water and we couldn't travel. Sensing that we wanted a refund, they seemed to suddenly not understand English. With a bit of arguing, they peeled off some money and gave it to Beau. Some money, not all of it. Beau told them he had paid Rs900 each. Someone pointed to the back of the tickets and said that there was a 70% refund policy.

I started getting irate (but still acting sick) and asked them how we were supposed to read devangari script. The grumpy man in charge told us to sit down and wait. So we sat and waited. And waited some more. And it started to rain and we were still waiting. My mind started to turn. I asked Beau for his water while we waited and took a few sips to soothe my "upset" stomach. I got a good mouthful of water, gave the bottle back and waited some more. Suddenly, without warning Beau, I got up, ran across the travel agency and stood on the edge of the patio, dramatically heaving until I let the water flow from my mouth. As I stumbled back to Beau, wiping the fake vomit from my mouth with my scarf, I could see him trying not to laugh. Instead, like any good boyfriend, he wrapped his arms around me and asked if I wanted to try to get on the bus that night since I seemed to be feeling better. Bam! Full refund.

I've got a golden ticket. Not to the chocolate factory, but to get the hell out of Agra.

Ignoring the bad karma that lay in wait in my future, we headed back around the corner to our rickshaw driver and went to get our tickets. Rs600 each, we had tickets. And yes, if you're doing the math, I fake puked to save $12. It wasn't the money, it was the principle.

We showed up at the new travel agency at 6:00 for our 6:30 departure. And we waited. 6:30 came and went. 7:00 came and went. At 7:30, we saw our original bus drive by. Finally, at 7:45, our bus pulled up. Right on time (for India).

Bus! Freedom!

We were on a bus. We were on our way to Udaipur.

Things got a little crazy. What happens in the double sleeper berth stays in the double sleeper berth.

Most importantly, we were leaving Agra. Beau was clearly giddy with excitement. We had a double sleeper berth, and we settled in to sleep. Which would have been easy to do if the bus wasn't slowing down for speed bumps every kilometer or so.

And then some time passed and it was morning and we were still on a bus. It turns out that taking a bus to circumvent Gujjar roadblocks means taking the scenic route. The very long, actually-not-so-scenic route. And even that route didn't entirely avoid the Gujjars, as we discovered when our bus came to a stop and was surrounded by yelling men with big sticks. Beau tried to look out the window to see what was going on, but I yanked him inside, hissing that he'd better keep his honky face hidden. After some terse negotiations, the bus was allowed through the roadblock to drop off a few locals, then promptly turned around and sent off to find another route. We were back on our way to Udaipur. Nothing could stop us!

We attempted to slyly take a picture at first.

Until we came to a stop on a hill. The bus had run out of gas. Undeterred, someone jury-rigged a funnel system and attempted to put a few liters of gas in from a plastic bottle. After many attempts, the driver got the engine started, and we were back on our way to Udaipur. Nothing could stop us!

At this point, we just balatantly took pictures.

Until we were a few hundred feet up the same hill, when we ran out of gas again. You really can't make stuff like this up. This time, they sent someone down the hill in a rickshaw, and brought back an open bucket full of gas. They set up a more complicated system using tubes and gravity to fill the tank. It took several more tries, but we were back on our way to Udaipur. Nothing coul---oh hell, let's just jump to the chase. We finally got to the top of the hill, where we pulled into a gas station, and then turned around without getting gas and started going back down the hill to a different gas station. Really.

Finally, FINALLY, we got to Udaipur, got a rickshaw, and got to our hotel. The night did not end there, but that's a story for another day.

Beau is back. Technically, he came back almost two months ago, but I've been selfishly keeping him all to myself. I even skipped yoga for weeks just to spend time staring at him and hoping he wouldn't wake up to find me staring at him. Creepy: You're doing it right!

We did not, however, slack on house hunting. I moved into a ghetto apartment (but it's cheap!) right before his return, but a one-bedroom will never be enough for us. So he arrived in Alaska at 6 pm on a Thursday. At noon on Friday, we were meeting with a mortgage banker. By Monday, we had met with our realtor and handed her a list of eight high-priority houses and 14 medium-priority. Yeah, we had some spreadsheets going. Don't judge.

Next week, we will close on our new house and move in. There will be pictures. And 10 days after we close, I leave for a month in India. It will be Beau's turn to miss me and stare at me while I sleep after my return.

You can blame Google and a name change. I had to change my email address after I got married, and ran into amazing problems trying to access this old blog. It got to the point where I gave up for a bit. Then a few friends told me they were sad I'd taken my blog down. Nope, Google took it down for me. It seems someone was trying to break into my old e-mail (which was still the main account for this blog), and they shut me down as a security precaution. The good news is that they fixed a lot of the Blogger issues in the interim, so I think I'm back.

A few quick and minor updates:

• Beau and I spent a month in Hawaii for our honeymoon. For part of that time, we slept in the back of a cargo van. That was my idea, and it was awesome.
• After 4 months, 2 speeding tickets and at least 6,500 miles put on my car, I got my yoga teaching certification.
• Beau graduated from UAF with a degree in Computational Physics. It's kind of like majoring in Nerdology with a minor in Geek Sciences.
• After graduation, Beau deployed to Afghanistan for 4 months.
• To fill up my time in his absence, I quit my job, put my house on the market and moved to Anchorage.

See? Nothing major. No biggie.

One of these days, I will finish posting all the tales from India. Since it’s been almost a year, those stories are long overdue. Instead of glorious stories of vomit both real and fake, I’m checking in with an update.

Beau and I decided to spend Thanksgiving with family. The nearest family we could find was 10 hours away, but that didn’t deter us. We took a quick overnight rest break in Anchorage, and arrived in Homer around 1 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. His father and stepmother built a house there and finally moved into it in the fall. One of his sisters was there with her family when we arrived, and we had the traditional holiday meal.

On a side note: I’m not sure if I just try too hard to be an iconoclast, but the trappings and finery of holiday traditions bore me. Given the chance, I try to ignore them. I tried to avoid Christmas by going to New Zealand one year, though we ended up at a strange hostel party regardless. That same year, I also hosted Bollywood Thanksgiving, as a way to honor the other Indians. We made a Ganesh in our Lite Brite coffeetable. And last year, India proved an excellent way to dodge Christmas, as no one even blinked an eye on December 25.

While in Homer, I did my best to support the local economy by visiting a winery, brewery and meadery. It was a trifecta of alcoholism. Beau and I also met up with an old friend from Fairbanks for a drink, and watched far too much television. There’s a reason why I don’t want cable. On the drive back to Anchorage, I picked out the spot for our dream retirement house and we discussed architectural features and long-range timelines for making retirement happen.

On Sunday, I had a hot, sweaty date with a yoga studio. I spent 90 minutes in a dimly lit room, contorting my body and sweating more that I thought possible. There’s a reason why that studio has showers for its students. The class was the culmination of a personal 30-day yoga challenge I had set for myself. For a solid month, I did some form of yoga every day. I had my regular hot yoga class through UAF. I attended the Saturday community yoga group. I dropped in on yogalates, Kundalini and restorative classes at a local studio. I practiced at home. I stayed consistent.

One doesn’t just enter into 30 days of yoga lightly, and I had a goal in mind. I was testing out the waters, and I decided to take the plunge. This spring, I will be getting my yoga teacher certification. It’s not going to be easy: The nearest training is in Anchorage, so I will be driving down there for 9 weekends spread out over 4 months. So on top of the cost of certification, there will be gas and hotel expenses. Still, I’m confident this is a good move for me.

I got an extra hour over the weekend. It's not that I'm a time-traveler or that the universe likes me best. Everyone who observes daylight savings also got an extra hour, but I'm pretty sure most people I know used it to sleep. Or play Minecraft. Not naming any names. (Beau)

After popping out of bed all bright and chipper at 8 a.m. (technically, 7 a.m.) on Sunday, I had to figure out what to do with myself. When you're a morning person living with a night person, you spend a lot of time figuring out what to do with yourself. I'm certain that our relationship will improve once we buy a bigger house so that I can move around in it without making too much noise in the mornings. But on Sunday morning, I decided to mosey down to the fabric store and buy myself some supplies. Once I was suitably equipped, I returned home and set myself to learning to knit.

I sew. There's no secret there. I made my own wedding dress (technically, I made two of them). I sew my own clothes frequently. But knitting is not a skill I ever acquired as a youngster. And while it's true that we'll be able to steal lots of sweaters after the apocalypse, eventually the never-ending supply of haute couture will, in fact, end. And then what will we wear? So I was going to learn how to knit.

It couldn't be too hard. I mean, I had bought a book. And yarn. And needles. Easy-peasy. Sort of. But line drawings in books don't accurately convey the complexities of the knit or the purl stitches, so I turned to the Internet. A few YouTube videos, and I was good to go. I seemed to have picked up some pretty advanced techniques, because after just a few rows, my 20 stitches had become 23. I'm now working on what is sure to be the world's ugliest scarf. Every time I decide to try a new pattern, I just hop right in. It's like I have yarn-induced ADD. On the bright side, my husband is contractually obliged to wear anything I make him.

The "winning" in the title has nothing to do with knitting, however. Yesterday I got a suspicious e-mail telling me I was a winner. Instead of being from a Nigerian widow, it was actually from the writer of a finance blog I read. A few weeks ago, the blog hosted a contest, and I idly posted a comment to enter. Ka-ching. $50 Amazon gift card. They already sent me the code, so now I'm carefully assessing my multiple wishlists, trying to figure out how to best spend this windfall. (Where was this two weeks ago when I ordered a bunch of books?)

I'm pretty sure one of the things I order will be this book. I've been half-heartedly meaning to give canning a try, and surely buying a book will propel me into action. (See above, re: knitting) Plus, canning is just another way to build that post-apocalyptic survival skill set. As I told a friend,

I've never been one for pictures, probably because I've never really liked what I see in them. You can call it typical female angst if you'd like. After all, isn't the yo-yo dieter a female stereotype? Are women forever doomed to be Cathy, eating chocolate ice cream and yelling "Ack!" at the scale? Regardless of how active I've been in my life, I've still never been entirely pleased with the way I look. In high school I endured a traditional upper-middle class eating disorder and still felt I was fat. In college, my activity level dropped off dramatically and I took a shine to carbs, thus altering my physique. Even getting an intestinal parasite in Central America in my early 20s didn't do the trick. Oh, sure, I dropped to around 110 pounds and you could see my ribs along the line of my sternum, but still I felt fat.

Partly, I blame my father. It's not that he ever told me I was fat or made me feel bad about myself. To the contrary, he's always been very accepting of me. However, he did give me half of my genetics. And in the gene pool lottery, I somehow missed out on my mother's skinny legs and instead inherited the functional Haley thighs. Yes, I also lucked out and got a small waist, and I've certainly read the research telling me that pear-shaped women are statistically much healthier than apple-shaped women. But still, when I look at pictures, I zero in on the lower half of my body and sigh.

As you may know, my lower half caused me even more consternation last year when I tore my ACL. I went from being a very active dancer and hitting the gym about four times a week to laying in bed and watching four season of Star Trek: Enterprise. I drowned my sorrows in cookies and went into the hospital for two procedures to try to get my knee functional again. I endured more than a year of physical therapy (which my insurance is still refusing to pay for, but that's another story). I was getting stronger, but then I got laid off, went to India and ate my weight in paneer curries for a month. Needless to say, after months of inactivity, I don't really like to look at pictures from India. My goal for the trip was to get Delhi belly and get skinny. I was only 50% successful.

So, without much fanfare, I decided it was time to Do Something About It. It's worth noting that many times in the past I decided to do something about it. But this was different. This time I decided to really Do Something About It. And I did. And I have been Doing Something About It for months. This week marked a milestone. A milestone best represented with a graph.



The graph you see represents my real weight vs. the weight listed on my driver's license. You can clearly see the slow and steady upward creep of my weight since I arrived in Alaska. You can see the point in 2008 when I had to renew my license and decided to be a little less dishonest about my weight. And you can also see how the two numbers never matched up. But you can also see that this week, for the first time in almost a decade, I weigh LESS than my driver's license. Less than the number I made up a few years ago to soothe my vanity.

This is cause for celebration, right? Like with a piece of rich gooey cake! Just kidding - I ordered new shoes instead. And I finally feel ready to tackle my stash of fabric and vintage patterns that I've been hesitant to sew for more than a year now.



And the kicker to all this is that even as my weight has been dropping, my activity level has stayed low. I think the last time I actually exercised was July 29. I've been pretty busy with dance, but I don't really think that counts as exercise. My theory is that all the stress of renovating our house and trying to plan a wedding reception was helping with the weight loss. Yay, stress!

So maybe I don't like looking at the pictures from India. (And maybe I'm trying to only put up good ones of me here.) But I do like pictures like this.

And Beau and I have our tickets to Hawaii for this winter. We'll be island-hopping for three weeks. I'm sure to like some of the pictures from that trip.

Our wedding reception is in 8 days. The wedding reception that we will be holding in our backyard. The backyard of the house that was supposed to have two simple renovation projects this summer. The house that currently has only half of the walls up in the living room, and a bathroom that has a bathtub in it (but not hooked up) and nothing else.

My husband is 350 miles away. Still.
Thanks to a sharp utility knife on Monday, I have one functional hand and 5 stitches in my left hand.
And somehow I have to finish a LOT of the house projects on my own. Because Beau (bless his pea-picking heart) has lofty beliefs that he will arrive Monday night and the house will be completely ready by Friday.

Oh, and I should probably find time to make all the desserts for the reception. And there's that 3-hour workshop and performance this weekend. But I'm not stressed at all.

Google does not make it easy to change your name. This is the problem with picking a username like jane.doe instead of something like teddy_bear1234. Since my name is in my username, when I changed my last name, I had to set up entirely new accounts. I'm going to have to start sharing access to this blog with myself so I can get in here easily to post.

I'm tired. Home renovations have worn me down. Beau is coming into town this weekend, and we are going to spend 4 solid days working on the house. Our wedding reception is being held here at the beginning of September. It's time to get some stuff done. Right now there is nothing in the bathroom but walls and a floor. The living room needs drywall everywhere.

I'm taking a rare night off from work on the house. I investigated the linen cabinet a bit, but it looks like I'm going to have to remove it entirely. I don't feel like starting that project. It's 8:30 pm, and the skies are a clear blue with lots of sun. I want to get on my bike and go for a ride, but I'm too tired. I haven't ridden in weeks, and I've been slacking on running the stairs for a few weeks, too. I need to get back in the game.

I know it's shocking that I posted more the blog whilst abroad than I have since my return. If I could get pictures off my camera (note to self: buy card reader), I could show you a progress report of the summer. Of bike miles ridden and things torn out of my walls. Of things put back in my walls, and other things torn out of other walls. There's an empty spot in my bathroom where a tub used to be. It now rests against the fence outside, and I'm trying to figure out how best to put in a new crossbeam for bathroom floor support so that the rest of the bathroom work can progress. I've left the toilet hooked up in a doorless room stripped to the studs. It's still slightly better than an outhouse, so we've got that advantage over many Fairbanksans.

Partly my work has been stymied by the lack of a truck. We hired someone to install the windows, and he was kind enough to dispose of the bathroom walls, which had ended up on my back porch. But getting stuff to my house hasn't gone as well. Tomorrow I plan to rent a U-Haul truck and go grab the rest of what I need. I may not be able to start until I get that crossbeam in place, but at least I'll have everything here.

I've started a massive purge of my closet. I've got 27 dresses and 19 shoes ready to go away. I'm debating using them to barter help with construction. I figure they're used, but the value is actually higher because they're curated from my personal collection. It feels liberating to be getting rid of some of my stuff, shedding some of my baggage. My life isn't getting too minimalist, though as 28 pairs of shoes remain.

I don't know if it's the getting old bit or the (sadly sub-par) Indian food that Nancy, the twins and I biked out to tonight, but I feel the itchy feet again. I've got the urge to travel, to see a new place. We still need to book tickets for our honeymoon, and maybe that will help me. Or maybe not. Maybe I need to crash a wedding in El Salvador this winter or show up on my friend's new doorstep in Jakarta suddenly. I just feel the urge to be in a crowded marketplace that jars all my senses.

Or maybe I should just rebuild my shower.

Agra is a great and noble city. It is home to the Taj Mahal, one of the most famous monuments in the world. Nearly everybody who goes to India will visit Agra. And I am here to tell you the truth: Agra kind of sucked a lot.

It's not really Agra's fault. It can't help being the biggest tourist trap in the country. And we only planned to spend two days there. But as John Lennon once said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." And so it was that when we got to Agra, we found out that the Gujjars had gone on strike and closed down all transport into and around Rajasthan. They were literally sitting on the roads and the train tracks. Our plans to go to Ranthambhore? Train was canceled. Our hastily concocted backup plans to leave the day after we were supposed to leave? Train was canceled. Our harrowing escape came at great personal, karmic expense. More on that later.

We arrived in the evening and made our way to the hotel. Tourists Rest House. Good place. I highly recommend it. The next day, we met our rickshaw driver from the previous evening. We had agreed on a set price to hire him for the day to take us to various places in Agra. And thus I present the Agra picture porn:

Overall, I was pleased with hiring him for the day. Until the end of the day, when we suddenly found ourselves being brought to shops. Beau quickly learned to follow my lead when I started begging poor and heading for the door. Manish earned his commissions, but lost any tip that we may have been inclined to give.

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and went to the Taj Nature Walk for the afternoon. Naturally we saw Manish as we passed the Taj entrance.


For Rs100 each, the Taj Nature Walk was a good way to pass the time. Sure, you only saw the Taj in the distance, but there were no crowds of people. The few kids that bothered us there quickly figured out that I really wasn't going to give them chocolate or money, and they left us alone. We spent a few hours wandering the paths and startling large, hooved animals.

Then we went back to the hotel, grabbed our bags and went to the train station for our journey to Ranthambhore and tigers! Except remember that little Gujjar strike? No trains were running. Back to the hotel, check into another room, find some tatkal tickets for the next day, with a new plan to skip Ranthambhore and head straight to Udaipur.

The next day we woke up, checked out of the hotel and decided to kill some time by taking a cycle rickshaw around the city. Pedal power is not only cheaper, but slower. We stopped at a travel agent to inquire about bus tickets to Udaipur. These were normally around Rs300. They quoted us Rs600 for a seat and Rs800 for a sleeper. Since we had the tatkal tickets, we went back to the hotel, grabbed our bags, and went to the train station. No trains were running. We hopped a rickshaw back to the travel agent, but they told us the bus was full. Back to the hotel, check into another room, have a small fit.

The next morning, Beau went back to the travel agent, who quoted him Rs1000 for a seat. He got it down to Rs900, then bought two tickets. We had time to kill, so we went to Pizza Hut for lunch. We also documented some hideous wiring.

On the way out, we ran into Manish again. Small town. And then we got into the rickshaw of destiny.

Up next: The Great Escape, Or How We Got To Udaipur

Things have been busy since the wedding! Beau and I had less than two weeks together before we headed down to Anchorage. His best friend was getting married at the end of May, so I took an extra-long weekend from work and we drove down. At the end of the weekend, I flew back to Fairbanks, leaving Beau to work down there all summer.

And me? I plan on keeping busy at home and traveling. I already have two trips to Anchorage scheduled for the summer, and Beau came up for a visit last weekend too. I am trying to schedule a time for someone to come out and install the rest of my windows. Once that is done, I need to have him resolve the bathroom window situation, then the bathroom remodeling odyssey will begin. I'm tearing the room down to the studs and starting over again. Also on the plate for this summer: a simple wall project. I just need to tear down the interior walls, rewire, reinsulate and hang new walls. Easy, right?

One good thing about all these plans is that it supports my love of buying power tools. My parents got me a drywall screwgun for my birthday, and I picked up a double bevel miter saw (with laser marker) last week. I've had my eye on another set of tools as well. I keep hoping it will go on sale for Father's Day. Home Depot must hate dads, though, because it's still full price.

To add to the summer of madness, I will be busy with monthly dance workshops, up to 5 hourlong dance classes each week, plus regular rehearsals and performances. I've been asked to take part in another burlesque show this summer, but I honestly don't see how I'm supposed to fit it all in.

Oh yeah, I also need to plan our wedding reception and honeymoon. The reception is in September, and the honeymoon will be in December.

Beau and I went and got ourselves wedding-ed. And then we had some fun with the photographs.

More pictures to come, when our super-awesome photographer gets us the rest of them!

Our journey out of Delhi and on to Rishikesh did not exactly get off to an auspicious start. Despite having tickets that said New Delhi Station, we soon found out we were actually departing from Old Delhi Station. We went running for a rickshaw, and then stopped to bargain the price down. Our driver flew across Delhi, depositing us at the correct station. Of course, getting to the station is only half the battle. We had to get through security and find our train on the sign, then run to the platform. But no train was there. So Beau ran back, then we ran together out one exit and through a different security checkpoint to a different track. This was the right track, and the train was there, but now we needed to figure out where our berth was. Since we still foolishly operated under the assumption that trains ran on time, we were certain departure was imminent. So we ran down to one end of the train, then turned around and ran back down to the other end. Being calm, rational adults, we yelled at each other the entire time. Finally we found the 1A cars and a conductor gave us our berth number. We settled into our first train trip. We had opted for the highest class, which netted us a room with two beds and a door that closed and locked. Fancy-schmancy.

When we got to Haridwar in the wee hours of the morning., the station did not have any retiring rooms available, so we sat in the first-class lounge to relax for a bit. A few hours later, we set out to wander the streets, with a goal of finding food and the bus station. Food was easy to find. The bus station was easy to find. The right bus was not so easy to find. Rather than having a ticket window, you pay on the bus. I was trying to read the bus signs to find one that said Rishikesh. In retrospect, we should have just waited. Basically, as a bus pulls out of the station, someone stands in the door and yells "RishikeshRishikeshRishikeshRishikesh." People run and jump on the moving bus. And at some point, someone comes around and takes your money. Hindsight is 20/20.

We didn't have a game plan when we got to Rishikesh, other than stay on the far side of the river. When we got there, Beau picked out the Jaipur Hotel. The room was a bit pricey, but the view couldn't be better!

At the end of the suspension bridge was a little plaza where touts pounced on you, trying to henna your hands, sell you cheap bindis and trinkets. There were also several shops selling music, and during the day, they blasted that music at top volume. With our balcony door open, the sound of the market below and the music drifted into our room.

I had a plan. And that plan involved massage. We wandered through the market until I found a place where we could get 90-minute massages for Rs450. Beau and I went into a room divided by a thin curtain. Massages in India are a bit more hands-on than in America. Let's just say my pectorals were soothed. At the end of the massage, she filled her hands up with oil and went to town on my scalp. I was a hot, greasy mess when we left. I lathered up twice with shampoo, and was considering attacking my head with Dr. Bronner's.


The next day was Christmas. Beau woke me up with a gift. He had snuck out while I was showering to buy me a bronze Ganesh for my collection. I had given him his gift (zombie shooting targets) before we left America. We went for a long walk down the road toward some of the ashrams. Rishikesh is noted as a yoga center. This is where the Beatles came to study. We didn't have much time here, because we had to head back to Haridwar for the night. We had an early morning train to Agra!

The hotel in Haridwar was easily the worst place we stayed the entire trip. And not the cheapest, either. But it was close to the train station, and we were leaving at 6 a.m. Next up: Agra, Agra, and more Agra.

Assorted pictures from this leg of the trip:

Yes, this is an India post. Yes, we got back from India more than two months ago. No more needs to be said on this matter.

We packed for the trip Mary-style. I stuffed Beau's pack inside of my pack. And then I stuffed everything we were bringing for the month into this Matryoshka-pack. When all was said and done, it weighed 34 pounds. On a related note, we did not pay for any luggage on any of our flights.

By the time we got to Delhi, we were pretty tired. But one does not simply fly to Delhi and catch a cab to their hotel. No, no! First, you find a prepaid cabbie who says he knows where your hotel is. Then, once you have paid at the booth and left the airport, he says he does not know this location and must call for directions. Then he hands you the cell phone and someone on the other end tells you the hotel is all full. Big snow in Europe. No planes go out, so people not leave. No room in hotel. My Hindi is limited, but I heard him call us crazy as I sat in the back seat of the taxi and kept repeating, "No, we're going to our hotel. No, take us to our hotel." Instead, they took us to a rather specious looking establishment where a "travel agent" was quick to claim that he did not know of our hotel. When I kindly pointed out his computer and told him to look it up, he managed to connect me on the phone to someone who said the hotel was full. I badgered another address out of this person, then returned to the cab. I sat down in the back, crossed my arms and just kept repeating, "B Block. B Block." Our cab driver got mad and decided to drop us off in the middle of Pharganj to teach us a lesson. Too bad we could see our hotel's neon sign from the street corner he dumped us on.

Needless to say, the hotel was not full. The room was questionable but cheap. We later drew a line along the border of the watermark on the wall to watch its progress. The television didn't work, the showerhead fell off, the computers in the Internet cafe were reportedly all broken, and the restaurant was closed. But it was cheap!

You know what does make me happy? Indian set breakfast. Stuffed paratha, dahi and achar. (That's bread, yogurt curd and pickled vegetables.) The hotel next door to us had a nice restaurant we visited most days for breakfast.

Sunny breakfast on the rooftop. It's the little things that make Alaskans so happy in the wintertime.

We spent some of our time wandering the streets of Pharganj, looking for Indian clothing. These turned out to be some of the best clothing bargains we found on the trip. Despite the questionable quality of Hotel Saina, I thought that Pharganj was a good base for exploring Delhi. We could reach the metro by walking 5 minutes in one direction, and the New Delhi train station was 10 minutes in the other.

We braved the metro several times. It must be said that the Indian metro is insane. I'm no slouch when it comes to public transport. But this was utter chaos. People were pushing to get out of the cars while the waiting crowds were pushing to get in. At the other end of the metro, we found our first McDonald's. Behold the infamous (and tasty) Chicken Maharajah Mac.

On our final day in Delhi, we loaded up our packs and checked out of the hotel for a day of sightseeing before an evening train.

First stop: the Red Fort.

Inside one of the museums, we found this picture of the Komagata Maru. Not the Kobayashi Maru. Yes, even in India, I find ways to make Star Trek jokes. You're welcome.

After the fort - lunch! I have a fondness for American fast food chains in foreign countries, so when we saw a Subway, it was a no-brainer.

Actually, there could have been brains involved. Just no beef or pork. This is why I play vegetarian in most foreign countries.

We visited the Jantar Mantar. This great architectural and astronomical monument was also home to an incident involving ripped pants, which necessitated a change in a public bathroom. It was fouler that you can possibly imagine.

Beau snapped this photo when I emerged from the bathroom. I then told him we would never speak of this incident again.

Being a nerd, Beau enjoyed the geeky side of the Jantar Mantar.

No, I'm not trying to climb up the sundial. Certainly not while wearing a knee brace, and definitely not with a heavy pack on!

We had been curious about some of the items for sale in shops. For instance, to my American eyes, this guy appeared to be selling condoms. Since India is not the cleanest of countries and people just tend to drop their trash wherever they are standing, we solved this mystery when I picked up an empty packet one day. Verdict: individual pouches of chewing tobacco.

And that was it for Delhi. Next up: A few wrong turns on the way to Rishikesh.