One Day

So, I was inspired over the Winter break by one of the books that I read, One Day. It follows the relationship of a couple over the course of 16 years or so on one particular day each year. So, Jon and I started thinking about where we've been on New Year's Eve for the last 6 years...

New Year's Eve 2006: Phu Quoc, Vietnam. We hung out at a beach front restaurant; ate their delicious buffet dinner; my ankles, feet and calves were eaten alive by mosquitoes or ants or something; drank too many gin and tonics, apparently, because I didn't even realize that I was eaten alive; and I left one of my favorite long sleeve t-shirts at the restaurant never to be seen again.

New Year's Eve 2007: Koh Phi Phi, Thailand. We just arrived. Fresh off the boat. And look... Jon shaved!


New Year's Eve 2008: Permuteran Beach, Bali, Indonesia. We spent the evening at our hotel with some friends from AES, eating seafood and watching/joining in a Balinese dance performance. But really the other dude in this video is more amusing than me...
New Year's Eve 2009: On an overnight train headed from Jaipur to Udaipur, India. I was recovering from the worst food poisoning ever and my 24 hours spent in a Jaipur clinic. My family was recovering from a couple of days exploring India alone. Kathryn and Mom were hoping I'd participate in some wine drinking even though I was on antibiotics. And my Dad was loading up on EmergenC trying to fighting a cold. This all sounds depressing, but actually we laughed at all and enjoyed our evening train adventure. This is India.

New Year's Eve 2010: Vientienne, Laos. Becky, Jon and I just arrived, unloaded and found some Chimays just in time to celebrate the New Year. At midnight, we were in the middle of the road trying to find a happening spot.

New Year's Eve 2011: Bangkok, Thailand. We saw a movie (Tron), we bowled, we went to Bangkok's version of Times Square, we toasted to a Beatles cover band in an Irish Pub, and we ended the evening with Thai foot massages :)

January

January is the coldest month in Delhi. Day time temperatures are generally in the 50s, but for a house with marble floors and no heat, the inside temperature is in the 40s. Brrr...My favorite hobbies during January are taking burning hot showers until the bathroom is full of enough steam that it looks like Delhi fog on a January morning and standing in front of my hair dryer (on maximum heat) for as long as time will allow...

When I'm not taking hot showers or blowing heat onto my body, you can find me in smartwool socks, sweatpants, my Carolina sweatshirt and my "indoor hat" (my mom and I just named it that because it's cute and warm and comfy inside, but it doesn't cover my ears entirely, so it's not suitable for the outdoors) sitting right next to one of our space heaters. This is what I typically look like during the month of January:

Note about space heaters: They must be plugged into specific outlets - the outlets that can support our air conditioning units - otherwise, all fuses in the same room are blown out.

Thanks for reading. I know it's been a long time since I've blogged. I'm sorry, blog. New Year's resolution: more blogging.

We ate our way through Malaysia truly Asia...

And truly Asia this place really is. A conglomerate of Chinese, Indian, and Malay people. Food of all kinds. Food stalls, most importantly, serving fantastic dishes for $1. Foot reflexology on every corner. And incredibly kind individuals who love their country and welcome their tourists. Malaysia gave us a "Taiwan-fix" providing for us all the things we miss about Taiwan. And then it gave us much more too...lovely beaches, green, lush countryside, clean streets, a fantastic transportation system (boats, trains, taxis and planes...all easy to navigate with low costs), and a bit of the 1st world that I now desire every now and then. We actually ate Krispy Kreme and Wendy's. I know, I know, but hey, when you live in India, a place that will forever refuse to allow any of the Western world enter, you start to miss that Western world.

We went there for break this year and we visited Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi Island and Penang Island.

Highlights:

1. The view from our hotel in KL. Note KFC.

2. The very cool Aquarium in KL where we witnessed a piranna feeding. Jon held a shark. The shark was not too happy. He splashed water all over us. Here is Jon trying to hold the shark for a second time.


3. The food. We ate most of our meals in "hawker style", which looks like the picture at the top of this blog. We discovered a variety of malay dishes that we now love: wang ton mee, a fried oyster dish, roti bread. We found delicious thai stalls where we had our fill of thai style fish - ginger and garlic galore! And always some sort of Asian brew...Tiger, Anchor, etc. A staple travel drink.

4. We made our way up to KL's version of Seattle's Space Needle. At the time it was built it was the third highest needle structure in the world. It has obviously been surpassed many times since then. We got a 360 degree view of the city as we tried to keep up with the awkwardly recorded audio guide. It was cool, all in all. But the really cool part was still to come.

The what we thought expensive ride to the top of the needle came with a couple of other viewing opportunities. You see, the Malaysian govt figured out that the needle itself is a fairly low end tourist destination, so they built a few other travel friendly sites on the grounds. There is a horseback riding center, a zip line, a Formula One 'experience', and best of all, a mini petting zoo.

Normally petting zoos are for kids. In fact, we almost just shined it off thinking it would be fairly lame. Oh how wrong we were. In about 200 square feet lived literally 100's of birds, reptiles and serpants. Best of all, though we didn't know it at the time,we just so happened to be there at 6:00pm...feeding time!

Anyway, before the feed, I was enamored and had to hold the largest lizard I had ever seen. That was nice. But right next to me, I was wondering what the worker was doing holding an upside down chicken over a 15 foot reticulated python. Yup, feeding time...

The first python wasn't hungry, but the two guys that lived next door sure were. It is always fascinating, to me at least, the speed and precision of python snatches. Watching these two strike, pull, and constrict a chicken that was wider than them was impressive and reminded me, somehow, of my wedding day. All in all, the trip to the needle was above and beyond what we had hoped for. A beautiful view of KL turned into a lesson in the hierarchy of the animal kingdom and an opportunity to view a 16-18 foot python gulp down a chicken like I would a cough drop. Highly recommended...especially at 6pm. Or check out our videos of this feeding in picasa!

5. We took a train to Langkawi island. Lovely place. not much to do, but we found a nice place to stay with a great beach, bath temperature ocean water (love that!), and a fantastic food stall located just outside of the hotel so that we didn't have to eat the expensive and no where near as good hotel food.

The next best activity on the island after laying out, reading, swimming and eating is the Langkawi cable car, which takes you to the highest point on the island. This was actually a really fun day with some great views of the island.We also read that the Seven Wells (7 tiered pools created by a waterfall) were a great spot to swim and play on the island. Um, this is what we found....

No thanks.


6. After a few days on the beach, we took the slow boat to china...well, to Penang. A very Chinese-ish island known for its food. Our day and a half here was pretty much planned out based on particular food stalls. We basically wandered around the main city, Georgetown, and sampling one tasty dish after the next.

We did find time to hike around the Penang National Park. Our hike led us to Monkey Beach, which ended up being one of our favorite adventures of the week. We had a nice beach pretty much to ourselves until the monkeys showed up trying to banish one of their members into the ocean forever. It was crazy...we watched the monkey's attempt to attack each other until finally the one being banished just walked right out into the ocean. I thought he was committing suicide until I saw a little head bobbing up and down and heading for a rock out in the middle of the water. Sure enough, he climbed up onto the rock and just stayed out there minding his own business until some tourist swam up to him, scared him off the rock and basically chased him into the water. At this point, a boat picked him up (ie. the boat pulled up next to him, and he just jumped on) and dropped him off on the shore. He took off into the jungle. I hope he found a good hiding spot.

Meanwhile, we turned our attention back to our stuff that we had left on the beach, and low and behold a couple of monkeys were digging around in our bags looking for our lunch.

7. We spent our last night and day back in KL. We visited the largest walk-through aviary in Asia. Um, bird parks are just plain cool. I mean, just look at these pictures! Every time I turned around some crazy bird was standing, flying, sitting, walking right next to me.

7. Our last night in KL was one of our favorite nights. We had mango ice (I LOVE mango ice), Hoegaardens, more delicious thai food from our favorite food stall, foot massages from a quirky, fun chinese dude AND we both had our ears candled. Now, in the words of my husband, that was trippy.

Well, Malaysia, you truly are Asia. We loved it. We'd like to go back...and maybe even live there one day. I guess we'll all just have to stay tuned for that....

Thanks for reading. More pictures and videos in Picasa.

The Monkey Walla

Our very own Jon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDBtp2ZLdtg#watch-main-area

Always pack a first aid kit...

Jon and I traveled to Mussoorie, India this weekend. Mussoorie is a hill station about 300 kilometers from Delhi at 7000 feet. We took an overnight train on Friday to Dehradun, and while Dehradun is only about 250 kilometers (160ish miles) from Delhi, the travel time was 6 and a half hours. But, we slept in our 3rd class cabin with 4 other people and a baby. While I couldn't exactly sit up in my bunk which was the middle of the three, I did sleep quite well curled up in my fleece sleepsack, which was a lot more comfortable than these:



Once in Dehradun, we hopped in a taxi for a 45 minute journey up to Mussoorie. We splurged (ie. we spent $70) and stayed at a Heritage Hotel, the Kasmanda Palace, which was perched on a hill just off the main drag with great views of the town.

We spent the first bit of the day wondering if our room was ever going to warm up with the tiny space heater they provided....not so much. We spent the rest of the day wandering around town only to find....Baskin-Robbins! And lots of shops with the masks from Scream...jigga wha? Addidas, dominos pizza, benneton...um, where are we? Finally we found some delicious tandoori chicken, some ginger honey lemon tea and some momos (tibetan dumplings). Now, we're talking. We ate at Kalsang Tibetan Cuisine a couple of times because Jon said, and I quote, "these are the best chicken momos I've ever had in my life". And let me tell you, we've had a lot of momos in the last few years.


We also hiked up to the (one of the?) highest points in town to check out views of the surrounding Himalayan snow-capped peaks. There we found a church that was built in 1850, some pigs and some great views.

Next we stopped here for some "Fun Pictures".


Not really.

On Sunday, we walked along another scenic road, Camel's Back Road. Named after this rock formation that you see along the way. (can you see it?....look near the top middle)

To finish off our trip to Mussoorie, we ate at Kalsang one last time and then got body massages from this guy.



No, no we did not get body massages from that guy....though, we pondered what it would be like. We said goodbye to Mussoorie and headed back to Dehradun to board our train to Delhi. All in all, it was a lovely weekend...36 hours was the perfect amount of time for Mussoorie and it was great to get away from Delhi, bundle up, read a good book, take some nice walks, and drink lots of ginger tea.


But, wait! India won't let us get away that easily!

Soooo....we boarded our train with plenty of time to spare before it left the station. I dropped off my bag at my seat and went back onto the train platform to buy a chai. As I was walking back to the train, I was thinking about how great the weekend was and about how much I love India train chai. And then, just as I stepped back onto the train, I slipped and watched the floor of the train rush towards my face as I felt my legs crash into the side of the train and slip to the tracks below. First thought, "holy crap, I'm going to fall under the train". Second thought, "my chai!". Ha, it was hot and burning my hands. In the next instant my left leg swung behind me and caught onto the train platform saving me from having to come face to face with the train tracks. A "kind", older man, came up to me and said "Be careful!". Um, thank you, sir, for your wise words. I usually do these kinds of things for fun. Yes, I'm quite the reckless individual.


The steward on the train gave me this look like "oh great, you've just spilled chai all over my floor". "I'm so sorry!" I said. Then, he gave me a bunch of napkins. I assumed that this was so that I could clean off my hands and arms. Later, I thought that maybe he gave them to me so that I would clean up the floor. whoops. I took them and ran into the train car, sat down next to Jon and started doing that cry-laughing thing. Embarrassment, pain in my legs....you know. I then rolled up my pants and discovered a nasty, deep gauge in my right shin. I proceeded to do that cry-laughing thing even harder. Goodness gracious. My Valentine's Day 2010 scar for life. Bruises on both legs. A big bubble on my left knee and a right leg that was twice the size of my left leg. And no first aid kit. Yeah, I had grabbed our "travel kit", but I grabbed the medicine travel bag and not the first aid travel bag. whoops. We had medication for everything under the sun, but between the two of us we had no bandaids or neosporin. So, we used some hand sanitizer and a tissue.

Then, we cracked open a bottle of wine and toasted to my new scar.

Tiger Alert! (yes, this is 2 months late...i'm working on it!)

For Thanksgiving we were blessed with a visit from the Wyatts (Ruth and John, my sister and bro in law)! Minus the part where they arrived 6 hours late at 3 in the morning, the trip was a big success! During their first weekend in Delhi, we did a little sightseeing, checked out the craziness of a local market, got manis, pedis and head massages, went to 2 of my favorite restaurants, visited Mr. Khan the carpet man for several hours (ruth and john bought a carpet! and some pashminas), visited school and spent a morning in crazy Old Delhi. It was a jam packed, but super fun weekend.



On Monday, Ruth, John and I boarded the Taj Express for, um, the Taj Mahal. I introduced them to chai tea Indian style (which they loved. I think John had 4 cups in 2 hours) and peeing in a moving train over a squatter that empties to the train tracks below. We spent a couple of hours at the Taj Mahal taking goofy pictures with our excellent tour guide and enjoying it's beauty. We then dined at a 5 star. Hey, Agra is sketch. We asked our driver to take us to a wood carving shop. He took us somewhere else, of course, hoping to receive a cut for dropping off tourists. I fully expected to walk into some shop where they show us how they make marble inlay pieces or carve wood pieces or whatever...I never expected to walk into the showroom that we found ourselves in. Unbelievably tacky embroidered wall hangings. I couldn't believe it and I definitely quickly had the "church giggles". The kind salesman was very proud of this work, and I just couldn't keep it in. Then, John had to go and ask "oh, this purse is nice...how much is it?". There it goes, "bssppspsp" (while spit bursts out of my mouth). Sorry dude, your showroom looks like Vegas on steroids.


After our day in Agra we went our separate ways. I boarded the train back to Delhi....the freezing cold train. For some reason (smelly, cough, smelly), they love to blow the A/C even in the winter. I was so uncomfortable that I found that standing in between train cars next to two smelly bathrooms for 2 hours was much more enjoyable.

Ruth and John left for Jaipur, and check this out. They were in a berth with a professional photographer, who had just been totally played on the train station platform. A gentleman dressed as a train conductor approached him and asked if he could help him load his bags onto the train. The photographer said yes, handed him his camera bag (doh!), and the "conductor" took off running. Major bummer.

A couple of days later, Jon and I caught the train to Ranthambore National Park, where we were to reconnect with Ruth and John. Having forgot about the crappy train experience 3 days prior, I exclaimed to Jon how much I loved riding the train in India (we had a first class berth all to ourselves and I was drinking chai and delicious tomato soup). Just then, a mouse scurried out from under my seat.

Now...Ranthambore! What a treat that was! Ranthambore is a National Park with tigers and all sorts of animals. We enjoyed doing 2 jeep safaris. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. We saw spotted deer, crocodiles, owls, kingfisher, magpies, a caracal (small wild cat). And, sure enough, we saw him (or maybe it was a her...i forget)
Beautiful! Absolutely a very, very cool experience.

We returned to Delhi the next day for some last minute shopping and massages and facials before Ruth and John boarded the plane back to the USA. Thanks for visiting, you two! xoxo.

this place is funny

1. On Tuesday the painters showed up 3 hours late, and then 30 minutes later, they took a 1.5 hour lunch break. (and no, they were not working before they came to my house)

2. I took Reba on a walk in my neighborhood to explore a fort that is supposedly right next to my house. We stumbled upon heaps of human feces, peacocks and wild boars.

3. On Diwali, little children shoot fireworks - like the real kind. The kind your city shoots off. Yes, your CITY. Here, 5 year olds take care of that job.

4. Beginning this time of year, the weather forecast for Delhi says "smokey".

5. A cow diarrhea-ed on my leg in Goa.

6. Parties for 5 year olds consist of rented bouncy castles, trampolines, Indian puppet shows and balloon fun. AND, even though those in charge don't show up on time because they believe that the party is not until the next day, if you call them, they'll be there in 10 minutes and everything will be good to go in 10 more minutes.