Cambodia Tahiti-Style

Hello from Sihanoukville,
we have finally come to grips with how to relax on a beach. For some reason we couldn't figure out how to do it in India without becoming bored and restless. But this lovely town on the south coast is pure relaxation. Although it is sad to see the beautiful beach overrun but beach chairs, bars and restaurants that have extended themselves so much so that, come high tide, there is no beach to walk on, you have to weave through the bars and chairs. That said, it is easy to spend the entire day in one of those bowl-shaped wicker chairs eating really yummy curry with a beer or a fruit shake, looking out onto the islands.
It's a bit like Bali where women constantly come up to you and try so give you a manicure or massage or fruit, or kids try to sell bracelets. But unlike any other country, if you say no thank you, they smile and say bye and walk away.
Transport is quite fun here as well. Guys with hats ride around on moto-scooters, and you just hop on for a ride. It was a little scary at first with three of us on this thing, but it's really fun and they drive slow enough. It makes me really want to learn how to drive a motorcycle. Lucky for me, Jon already knows how to do this so I've been pestering him as to what kind of bike we should get when we go home.
So far, the rumors are true that people are just genuinely nice here and so much friendlier than most other countries we have visited. The biggest relief for me so far has been the lack of people staring at us.
On to Battambang tomorrow.

A day in India...

Hi all,
We made it out of India. I didn't think we were going to. For some reason I thought our bad karma had caught up with us and we were damned to live out our days there.

A day in the life in India
So to give you an indication of why traveling in India was difficult, here is a typical day. For this day we had 2 things to do: 1) buy train tickets for our onward journey and 2) take a bus to see the important site in the area. First we tried to buy our onward tickets over the Internet; first thing in the morning we go to the net cafe and just as we were about to make the purchase the power shuts down (typical in India). So OK, no problem, we go have breakfast which undoubtedly is an amazing meal because most of our meals in India were. We go back to the internet place and the power has come back on, so we try again. now just as we put in our credit card details and the page looks like it's processing, it fails with no useful message what so ever. Ok, not a big deal, we'll just go down to the train station and buy the tickets.
Before we leave the net cafe we ask the owner about the buses to the site we want to see. He says the buses stop running for about 3 hours and we should probably take a taxi. Warning bells go off in my head and we say thanks and that we'll think about it. He probably has a friend who drives a taxi and the taxi driver will hike up the price so this guy gets a commission. We go to the train station and are are able to buy the tickets but not without having to force ourselves into the line (or lack thereof) and being yelled at unneccesarily by the ticket vendor who couldn't count and couldn't speak English.
Ok so we have our train tickets and now it's time to see our site for the day. We ask around and sure enough the buses don't stop running and they leave every hour. So we haggle with the bike-taxi driver to get us to the bus station and get the price down to a reasonable amount although it's till about 50% above what locals pay. The taxi driver drops us off directly in front of the bus and the bus driver rushes us into the bus. Warning bells go off again as things are moving too fast but the driver seems like an impatient person so I let it go.
We sit on the bus while more people get on and I keep hearing the word "ticket" through the mess of Hindi that's being spoken. Warning bells go off again and finally I ask the bus driver if we need a ticket. He says no but I'm skeptical, I get off the bus and ask around. turns out I do need a ticket. If we leave and I don't have one then the driver can charge whatever he wants. So we dodge that one.
The bus gets going but not without packing people in like sardines. People are just about sitting on our laps and there are people hanging off the side of the bus and as we go we stop and somehow squeeze more people on. We finally get to our destination and go to the sit; which of course is amazing and ancient, and in great condition. we buy our ticket and are assaulted by people wanting to be our guides and who dont take no for an answer. One is so persistant that I have to stop, confront him, and forcibly tell him to go away. He does.
We finish at the site and wait for the bus to bring us back to town. But of course it's not without hassle as taxi drivers bother us the entire 15 minutes we wait for the bus. They're aggressive and don't take no for answer. Even with a forcible "No!" they still wont go away. We finally make it back to the hotel, have a great dinner and exhaustedly go to sleep.


Now while that doesn't sound like much; doing it day after day can be very draining. We have talked to people who love India, have stayed there for 6 months and would go back in a heartbeat. I don't know why, I would like to go back at some point but the thought of going back soon makes me cringe.

Now in Cambodia
So now we're in Cambodia and having a great time. It's a lot different then India and a lot more relaxing. Not as loud or fast paced and people are a lot friendlier. More to come on Cambodia as we de-stress.

Final days in India + PIcs and a Video

Hi All,

We're down to our last couple of days in India and today we take a train to our last official stop over.
Varanasi
Our time in Varanasi was unforgettable. The best thing we did was an early morning boat ride which took you through the Ganges river and you were able to see everybody doing their ritual baths and prayers. The water from the Ganges is disgusting to say the least. We floated by a gray mass of unidentified origin, I pointed to it and asked our guide and he said "baby". Yes, it was a dead baby floating in the water. Apparently if a baby dies you put it in the Ganges uncremated (cremation is the norm for dead adults, getting your ashes thrown in the Ganges is very holy). A couple meters down there was most definitely a rotting dog. Still people were in there doing there prayers, dunking their heads under and I even saw a couple people drinking the water. It's as different a world as I could ever imagine.

Next
We're continuing our Buddhist pilgramage and today we're off to Bodhgaya which is where the Buddha became enlightened. After that we go to Calcutta to catch a plane to Bangkok and then we catch a plane to Phonm Penh, Cambodia where we'll spend some time seeing the famous Angkor Wat. After that we don't know, but we're getting more and more tired.

Video
Here is a short video of Gay getting blessed by an elephant outside a Hindu temple in Maduri. Elephants represent Ganesh and Ganesh represents good fortune.


Pictures
First set is from Pondicherry a little paradise city that was once owned by the French, and Mamilipurim which housed some ancient rock carvings. Also a trip to the famous Sun temple in Puri.

Second set is from Sarnath, the place where the Buddha gave his first teachings and also Varanasi.

Third set is a random assortment from my camera. Mostly from Allepy, Maduri and Pondicherry.

Cooking Holiday

Hi All,
We just finished a 7 day cooking holiday in Kerela. It was a lot of fun and exhausting. During the day we did some activities and at night we learned how to cook some great dishes.

Some of the activities we did are:
-market tour
-walk around the area identifying fruit and spice plants.
-trip to tea plantations
-seeing how some sweets are made
-taking a boat ride on the river
and my personal favorite...
-bathing baby elephants and riding an elephant

The dishes we learned to cook ran a good range with different kinds of curries, some yogurt-based dishes, a vegetable stew and some breads.
I'm realizing the beauty of Indian food is that it's so insanely carb-heavy. What makes the food special is all the different types of breads you can eat it with. In the west we're familiar only with naan, but that's only the tip of the iceberg here. Here you have a wide of array of breads and dumplings and different styles of rice.

After exploring the rest of the Kerala region we have moved on and we're now exploring the Tamil Nadu region. The last couple days we've spent in Madurai and Trichy and have been getting a good education on how things are done in the Hindu society. We've visited several temples and today we got decided to get a tour with a proper guide. Well worth it, because there is so much imagiry and customs and things we've never seen before that it was great to get a breakdown and have our questions answered. There are a lot of nuisances to the Hindu culture that it's hard to understand it all.
For instance the caste system, that most Hindus in south India adhere to, is very complicated. As far as marriage, a man can't just walk up to any woman on the street or in a bar, ask her out, form a relationship and get married. That would be too easy and in India everything is hard. An eligible bachloer's parents have to ask around within his caste (and there are literally thousands of different castes) if there are any elligible females. The rules for eligability are vast. First and foremost the girl has to be within his caste. He can't marry up and he can't marry down. Next, the man and woman's astrological signs have to be compatable and for this either parents have to meet with an astrologer. If an eligible woman exists, the bachloer gets a picture of her and if he likes what he sees he agrees to meet. After one meeting he'll either say "yes i'll marry" or "no thank you. hey dad, find me another one."

Indian gender differences
I'd like to point out some vast differences between genders in India. Of course I'm speaking in generalities so keep in mind there are always exceptions when applying broad observations to sex and race.

The Woman:
Hindu and Buddhist cultures worship the lotus flower becuase it grows best in the muddy and murky waters and blooms with a perfectly balanced shape. This, as it's said, reflects the nature of what us humans should strive to do. Although I've never read or heard it anywhere, I think Indian women (Hindu, Muslim or whatever) strive, in dress and action, to represent a lotus flower. What I mean by this is; out of the dusty, grimy, loud, desiel fumes, shit, piss and whatever else on the streets; an Indian woman strides through it all, the bright and brilliant colours of her sari (or salwar kameez) always clean and shining. Indian woman are a proud people always walking shoulds back, chin up, spine straight as an arrow always looking diginified and composed. The look in thier eyes is pointed and determined as if in full concentration of what they're doing.
The more dignified of the lot will rarely stare at us as most men do. Their eyes will glance at me for a moment taking in my obviuos non-Indian-ness, then quickly to move to Gay. They'll stare at her for a little longer because I think the Western woman holds a certain amount of allure and mystique to Indian women.
One day, in Daramshala, I had lunch with one of my Tibetan students named Kenchuk. He's a young guy in his early 20's and since it was just the 2 of us boys of course the subject of woman came up. So I said:
"Do you want to marry a Tibetan girl?"
(His English was not very good, so I'm going to 'help' his answers a little)
"No, I don't want to marry a Tibetan girl. My first choice is Japanese and if that doesn't work-out, an American girl would be fine."
"What about an Indian girl?"
"No! Indian women are scary!!"
I can see why Kenchuk would think that, because of what could be thought of as a cold look in their eye. But I think it's more like pride in being a woman and a concentration in carrying herself properly.

The Men:
The men have a certain style of their own. As far as dress is concerned I would classify it as "70's corny". Bell-bottoms seem to be a big hit in the north and when a man becomes of age he does what all Indian men do and he grows a mustache. 95% of all Indian men have moustaches and that's not an exhagerated statistic. When a man gets married he typically loses the bell bottoms and grows a massive belly. The belly also is a source of pride for the men as they'll do things to make it stick out like wear tight shirts or tuck in thier pants and hike the pants up to mid belly (or a combination of all the above). Miraculously, they are able to grow a belly without having the rest of their body get fat.
Young men are a vain group and they'll utilize every opportunity to check themselves out. Sometimes when young men stare at us it's not like they're saying "Hey, your a foriegner, I'm curious about you." It's more like they're saying "Hey, your a forigener. How good do I look to you?"
Young men also have an insatiable urge to harass western women. Which can be dangerous. Our guide book is peppered with warnings like "Woman should not walk alone here..." or "Woman will find it annoying when men..." So it can be a little frightening, as I'm sure Gay will attest, when men stare a little too long.

Next...
We have about 3 weeks left on our India visa so we'll spend some more time in the south and then go up to a northern city called Varanasi which is one of the holiest places in Hinduism. After the education we just got I'm looking forward to it. After that we'll go to the big city of Calcutta and fly back to south east asia where we'll spend another 1.5 months touring around.


Pictures....
This first set is from our Kerala cooking class. The first 3 days we spent with a nice couple from New Zealand so you'll see them in a couple pictures. The pictures are not only of the cooking but some activities we did as mentioned above.

Next set is from our visit to Fort Kochin. The man with the crazy face painting is a performer of Kathikali dance. A pretty wild dance form that told stories using a lot of exagerated face and body movements.

This last set is from Mumbai and Trichy which has proven to be an education in Hinduism. Hindu temples are very animated and there's a lot of noise and interesting looking people running around. The temples you see are an example of Dravidian architecture.