Hello. Hello. Money?

The whole first ten days of the trip I kept wondering where all of the poor kids asking for money were. Before you travel to India, this is something that other previous India travelers tell you about: the poor kids that swarm you and tug on your shirt and how you feel bad for not giving them money because you know they haven't eaten but if you do give them money they won't leave you alone - they'll just want more and all of the sudden the group multiplies and you have to run away.

Ok, that's not what they say, but it is what I anticipated in my brain. And, it wasn't that far off from the truth.

So, this did not happen to me ONCE while we were in Siliguri or while we were traveling to Jaldapara for the elephant safari or during the couple of days we were in Gangtok.

When we got to Jaipur I realized that we were just lucky for that first leg of the trip. Jaipur and Agra are on what I am calling the Tourist Loop. And, these poor kids are *$^&#ing everywhere. They are just begging or trying to charge you for a magic trick or they are trying to sell you postcards or pens or tiny Taj Mahals for next to nothing. Srsly, one girl was going to sell me 15 glass pens for about 2 dollars.

Dawn broke the rules once and gave two kids 10 rupees (25 cents) a piece, at which point a third kid materialized out of thin air. She was nearly tackled by the two who were now demanding money for the third. If she would have loosened her purse strings a second time, I am convinced that three kids would have become seven.

BTW, kids: 4 feet tall. Dawn: like, 6'4 or some shit. Kids win.

These little kids installed some fear into us...I'm not sure how I would've been able to handle a whole two weeks bombarded by them. Some of us even fell off of walls while trying to escape the perceived notion that they were rushing us. Ahem.



It doesn't do it justice to explain this experience to you on this blog. You have to understand our frustration: these kids followed us for at least ten minutes while we tried to get away from them.

The worst part was that you simultaneously felt so bad for them and also wanted to scream in their faces to leave you alone. It left you feeling pretty heartless, but also feeling justified in your heartlessness. Does that make sense?

HOME

So, here I am. Home. After another 16 hours of plane travel and a long (but clean) 6 hour layover at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, I had a refreshing night of sleep. When I woke up, I brushed my teeth with water from the faucet, had pancakes at Perkins, and drank coffee (coffee!) from EVP. Tonight I will eat a cheeseburger or some Glass Nickel pizza. Andy and I already split a gyro yesterday from Uncle Nicks in Rockford.

It's good to be home and breathe the air (how we take vehicle emissions standards for granted!) and to just be able to have some quiet refuge and time to relax. By the end of the trip I was definitely missing some things from home (mostly food - see above) and I was definitely tired of the noise and the exhaust and the massive throngs of people.

But, I kind of miss it already.

While I was gone, I wondered to myself how I would be able to explain how the trip was. I consider myself well-traveled, but this was so different than anything I have ever seen and have no idea how to speak any justice to my experience. I'm gonna try though.

I've got a bunch of time at work this week in the booth, and I still plan on writing about the trip and posting pictures...it will just be a couple of weeks later than I had originally intended.

If you have any specific questions, email me and I will try to answer them. It's easier to know what to say if I'm asked.

PREPARATIONS PART 1

I can't promise there will be more than one part to the "Preparations" post, but I thought I would cover my butt just in case.

I had actually forgotten that I even constructed this blog until right now.

So, things are coming together. I'm trying to make sense of and condense my obsessive lists of things to pack, buy, and do. Get rid of the overlap. Trim the fat. That sort of thing.

I'm real excited.

Thank G-d for the internets and UPS's wonderous real-time tracking of packages. This way I can abate my excitement a little by checking the status of some packages I have coming by looking online. Every three minutes. Srsly.

BTW, the above photo is the doorway of the place that we are staying at in Jaipur. Click HERE if you want to see more.
-M

Set up the Blog!!!

Soooo, I have set up my first blog ever!!! And, if feels kinda weird writing since I got no subscribers. But, I thought this would be cool for the trip to India. So there you have it. And, here it is.