Oh, India....

Hi from Jaipur!

It's hard to believe, and quite sad really that our trip is now more than half over. We have had just an amazing time so far and have attempted to adapt to the heat. Literally the first thing anyone says to us is, "You are in India in the worst part of the year, this is hot even for us." Oh, and it always makes us feel so special. Ha.

I guess the last time I wrote we were in Varanasi, but since then we have visited Agra -- the home of the Taj Mahal and are now in Jaipur, the first big city in Rajasthan. We spent four amazing days in Varanasi, went on sunrise and sunset boat rides in the Ganges River, got scammed out of money, visited the Mother Theresa house on the river bank, watched cremations -- nearly 300 people are burned each day on the burning ghats. We met an adorable old man who happily led us through the city's alleys, bought us chai and made us feel so comfortable in a foriegn city. The back alleys are so overwhelming and suffocating. Cows, HUGE bulls, goats, people, rickshaws, motorcyles, dogs etc pack into these alleys that just reek of fecal matter, urine and dust, people are constantly sweeping the street in front of their shops which just churns up all this shit on the ground and makes it almost impossible to breathe.

From Varanasi we took a night train to Agra, and again we stayed in the lowest class, or sleeper section of the train. There are sort of sections in the train but no real doors, and there are six people and beds in a very small area with just about a foot and a half in between, an upper, middle and lower bunk on each side. We kept the small windows open and the fans going but it was almost impossible to sleep between the heat, the thick layer of dirt and sweat that covered me and the small insects that landed on me every two seconds. We arrived in Agra exhausted but so excited to see the Taj. We spent the morning visiting the Agra Fort and the "Baby Taj" before venturing off to see the real thing at sunset and it certainly didn't let us down. It is perhaps the most breath taking man made structure I have ever seen -- though I will say that the experience is a bit tainted by the hoardes of people trying to sell you Taj Mahal snowglobes and carvings and the ridiculous number of people that you are forced to share the experience with. In addition, the beautiful white marble is yellowing from pollution, though, despite all these things it was still just unbelivable. A reflecting pool lies in front of the actual building and mosques frame it on either side. Huge gardens surround it, and we spent a bit of time lying in the grass in front, somethign I have been wanting to do for months.

After a sleepless night in Agra as our hotel room "had air conditioning" but it in fact did not work at all -- we woke at 4:30 to have breakfast and head to the train station to catch our train to Jaipur. We ate breakfast on the rooftop of our hotel where we could see the Taj glowing in the early morning light. As we ate our honey toast and sipped some "coffee" the morning became alive with muslim prayer. We could barely see each other it was so dark but the air was alive with chanting from all over the city.

Our train to Jaipur was quite late so we had to endure three hours on the train station at the platform with creepy men surrounding us, monkeys cruising the rafters, rats scampering around the tracks and the overwhelming stench of human waste. The train tracks are just full of poop and litter and children looking for recyclables -- it's a hard time to spend any signficant length of time. The ride to Jaipur was nice though, we got to watch the landscape turn into desert, watch as camels starting appearing in the windows and the wind throughthe window got unbearably hot. We were greeted at the Jaipur train station by a nice man holding an SIT sign who whisked us away into a Toyota -- the first large, air conditioned car we have been in in four months and took us to the SIT Jaipur program house where Azimji, the academic director for the first half of our semester in Nepal works. We had a great time catching up and had lunch together before we jetted off to our hotel to relax before getting dinner with him. It was so nice to see a familiar face and someone who we enjoy spending time with so much! We had a delightful dinner and in a few days are headed to Jaisalmer and then back to Jaipur to spend more time with Azimji, then we aer going to all driev together to Delhi and part ways on the 31st! Hopefully I will time to post more before then, but I hope this helps a bit.

xoxox

Greetings from Boiling Calcutta!!

Hello All!!

Sorry it has been so long since I have updated, honestly I have just been overwhelmed by the thought of trying to write about my ISP experience that I haven't sat down to do it. I think I will have to save those stories for when I return state side (on july 4th!!)

I'm currently in India with two of my friends, Aleeza and Salome (yes, we all have very weird names) from the SIT Program. On the 12th we flew from Kathmandu to Calcutta where we have stayed until today. We are leaving this evening to head to Varanasi on a night train! It is unbelivably hot here, by 7am it is often well over 95 degrees and the humidity feels like it has to be nearly 100%. Air conditioned hotel rooms are really the only reason we are still alive. However, we are having a great time, Calcutta is an absolutely gorgeous city compared to Kathmandu. The British influence is very apparent in the city's huge, wide boulevards and tree lined streets. That said, there are still thousands of people everywhere, beggers and garbage lining the streets and men yelling rude comments to us 90% of the time. The buildings though are so old and beautiful and the city is just much more developed than anythign we have seen since we got to Nepal. We saw our first McDonalds and were so suprised, it was like we had almost forgotten they existed. We have wandered around quite a bit, seen the Victoria Memorial, Mother Therea's tomb, a beautiful planatarium, the Indian Museum, New Market etc etc. We are trying to take the heat in stride, but we literally walk out the door and are dripping sweat, and look absolutely horrible. We have also noticed that no one else appears to really be sweating that much, which has perplexed us to no end. We also have seen shockingly few women on the streets which has been very interesting, and I saw for the first time women wearing Burkas, which I can't even begin to imagine must be sooooooo hot. We have been quite frustrated by the language barrier, after being able to speak so freely to people in Nepal. Nepali is actually quite similar to Hindi so we can undrestand it a big but we can't really speak it. I think our combination of Nepali and english has made it very difficult for people to understand anything that we are saying! Also, the food here -- not so great, something about hot food and hot weather that doesn't fly with me -- though i have had the best chicken kababs ever here.

I will try to better in the coming months about updating (and because many of the net cafes are air conditioned i feel like i will often be taking refuge!). Also, I want to say hi to Grammy and Uncle David, as I hear they are avid blog readers!! I miss you both and can't wait to see when I come back in July!

Lots of Love from India!

Roz

Escalating Political Situation

Things are getting a little tense over this way, Nepal even made the New York Times. I thought you might be interested in reading the article.