Backtrack to Auroville

The main purpose of my trip back to India was for an internship in Auroville with Auroville Consulting, a sustainable living consulting firm based in the township.  My two months I spent there were nothing short of incredible.  Due to being a cultural melting pot, and a unique and appealing location for people all around the world, I made life-long friends with people from all over the world. Staying at Mitra Youth hostel made all the difference because of how easy it was to meet new people and live in close proximity to all my new friends. There were people from India, America, Belgium, Austria, France, Germany, and I even met two other half-Japanese people like me!

One factor that made this trip so enjoyable was having access to scooter and motorcycle rentals.  It made it so easy to go exploring around town, or meet up with everyone to go to the beach, or for lunch or ice cream in Auroville, or dinner and shopping in Pondicherry.  Often times we would travel in groups of 10 or more scooters and motorcycles, like a straight up foreigner and Indian gang, and ride around town like we owned the place. The freedom of being able to go wherever in such a short amount of time felt amazing. A portion of us did suffer from accidents however, like burning the inside of your calf on the exhaust pipe, or straight up crashing and falling off on the side of the road. I kept waiting for it to be my turn to get hurt, but luckily it never happened! Below is my trusty orange Scooty!

Driving on the scooter to Pondicherry was a terrifying idea at first because of the insane Indian traffic, so I went a couple times riding on the back of people's bikes. Closer to the end of my Auroville adventure however, I had managed to build up the courage to drive there on my own.  Driving was actually insanely fun and exhilarating, like I was in a real like Mario-Kart game, weaving in and out of others on scooters and bikes, busses, cars, vans, and dodging stray dogs and cows that would wander on occasion into the roads as well.  By the last week when I was learning how to ride a motorcycle, I even made it halfway there on a motorcycle!

We would frequent Pondicherry two or three times a week just for a change in scenery.  There is lots to do there, including walking along the promenade, going to the markets (especially on Sunday), getting Paneer sandwiches at KFC, shopping at FabIndia, buying alcohol for the weekend, and eating at the many fine but cheap restaurant establishments around the city.

At the promenade after a great Indian feast:

Near the center of the city in Pondicherry is a temple dedicated to Ganesha, the elephant god of wisdom and prosperity, where this beautiful creature, Lakshmi, lives. She spends all day at the front of the temple, taking coins from people's hands and then bopping them gently on the head to bless them. Of course there's a sadness in her eyes but since she is worshiped like a deity, life could be worse for an elephant in India.

About two hours from Auroville on our motorcycles is the Gingee Fort, where many ruins stand high above on the top of Tamilian hills. The view was so beautiful and the location so peaceful, that we had an impromptu yoga session and photo shoot at the top!

Because I couldn't bear to part with some friends from Dayton, Ohio who were also in Auroville with me and who I eventually moved in with, I traveled once again to the marvel that is the Taj Mahal, and partook in the same tour around Dehli, Agra, and Jaipur that I did the year before.  I saw some old sites and some new, and had the most amazing experience all over again traveling through and getting to see so much of India and its historical structure and temples. 

Every time I return to India my only regret is that I wasn't able to stay longer and see more of the country.  I've spent five months over the last two years in India, and I know I've only scratched the surface of everything that this beautiful country has to offer. I have yet to see the former Portuguese colony and party capital of Goa, the Bollywood hub of Mumbai, Jammu and Kashmir and the Indian Himalayas in the North, more mountains and Calcutta in the West, the list goes on and on. Now I can call Auroville and India one of my many homes around the world, and will definitely return one day in the future!

Nagarkot, Bhaktapur, and the Suspence Killer Gang

The hostel life is all about making new friends from all over the world, which is what happened at the amazing Aloobar1000 hostel in the middle of the Thamel region of Kathmandu.  A group of 10 of us (the Suspence Killers, as we called ourselves at the end of this overnight adventure) made an impromptu decision to go to a town called Nagarkot, a place famous for its views of the Himalayas.  We booked an overpriced van through the hostel that fit all of us, and we roadtripped through steep and windy mountain roads up to the small town.  We stayed in a hotel that fit all ten of us in one giant room in the basement, and paid just over $1 per person for the night.

Because it was cloudy and foggy almost the entire time, this was the best view we got from the hotel (can't complain but it wasn't the snow-capped Himalayas):

That night we started a bonfire in the fire pit on the top of the hostel, and drank and talked and took pictures until midnight when the owners told us that we had to quiet down and go back to our room. That was when the real festivities started, and we played many epic rounds of King's Cup in the middle of the room. By then we no longer had chasers left, and resorted to playing with just a Nalgene bottle of gin in the middle of the ring of cards. It was a total riot, especially when a massive cockroach friend, who we named Diego, started to rampage around the room to add to the excitement.  That night was definitely one of the highlights of the trip!

What better way to start out the next morning, still extremely hungover for some of us, than riding on the top of a local bus to go back to Kathmandu! Technically illegal, but so much fun.  I made the mistake of sitting closer to the front, which meant if I wasn't paying attention I would get smacked in the face by low-hanging branches, or get clothes-lined by telephone wires.  The first happened fairly often, but the latter, thank goodness, didn't happen to anyone although it was a legitimate concern.  Pictured below are 8 out of ten of the Suspence Killers

This was my second time in Bhaktapur, and below is Durbar Square on a normal day. This time around however, there was a huge festival, meaning every inch of ground was covered in bodies. It looked like a sea of black hair and colorful saris, with the occasional 6-foot foreigner sticking out like a sore thumb in the crowd. There were dancers with sticks hopping around in giant snaking lines through the ground, jumping to the beat of bells and drums, singing and yelling things that I don't think anyone understood.

All the colors! 

Kathmandu and the beauty that is Nepal

Looking back, I had too short of a time in Nepal.  I met people there who had been in the country for 5-6 weeks, or longer, climbing to Everest Base Camp, hiking the Annapurna Circuit, etc. and were still planning on staying for longer.  Sadly, I was there during the middle of the rainy season, so random bouts of hurricane-like downpours were common, was were landslides and leeches once one goes farther into the mountains.  No hiking or mountain climbing for me :(

My first impression of Kathmandu when I landed was that it was similar to India. There was the same noise, chaotic roads and traffic, similar colors, smells, and written language covering the billboards and storefronts. They even used 'rupees' even though they were different currencies.

In reality, it was very different from the places I'd visited in India. Although I can't speak for the Eastern Indian states that border Nepal, the main difference is the number of Tibetan prayer flags hanging from the tall trees, buildings, and monuments. There is more of a Buddhist influence, which explains the massive Stupas and Buddha's eyes looking at you from every direction.

My favorite landmark I saw in Kathmandu was the 'Monkey Temple' as all the hostelites called it, or the Swayambunath Stupa, on top of a massive hill overlooking the entire Kathmandu Valley.  Circling the stupa are Tibetan prayer wheels, which you spin while circling the monument clockwise.

This was the view from the top. It would have been unbelievable if it was a clear day!  There were monkeys all over the walls too, it was hard not to get them in a picture.

And of course, the wannabe stars of the show were these little tykes running around and digging through trash, happily eating any morsel of food that was thrown to them.  I found a family of them closer to the bottom of the (ridiculously steep, tiresome) staircase, which is pictured here.

Country Updates! More posts coming!

Sorry for the looooong pause between posts! My time in India became really busy once the internship in Auroville started, and then I couldn't get back into the swing of things.

Since June of 2014 when I published my last post, I've been to four different amazing countries: Nepal in August 2014, and Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala in January of 2015.

In the next couple of days there'll be a large influx of posts about each of these four places, starting with beautiful, mountainous Nepal! Enjoy!

(In a stance against my home state of Wyoming's oppressive laws against the LGBT community that are currently in the process of being passed, here is some street art I found in Kathmandu. Love is Love is Love. Always.)

Survived one week

I've now been in Bangalore for one week, and I'm so glad I had more than just three or four days to spend here! I've mostly been hanging out with old friends and meeting new people in this summer session 1 USAC batch.

One really fun time I had was going to Bollywood night at a hotel's club - They even played some songs I knew from last year!

I also went back to Commercial street and the market on Jainagar 4th block:

All the colors!! 💛💚💙❤️

Goodbye vegan diet, hello paneer!

When in India, there are just a few key things that I NEED to have, two of which require me to cheat on my vegan diet - paneer and streetside chai!

Yesterday my friend took me for butter masala paneer and naan to die for at the Hotel Empire in Bangalore.

Other things I've been up to besides eating good food and hanging out with old and new friends is getting reacquainted with the city - going to Forum mall, rickshawing everywhere, going to ladies night at Loveshack, and of course getting used to these wonderful smells:

Mmmmmm stray animals and raw sewage!

One place that we used to be regulars at is Mocha, a quaint cafe that stands between the USAC apartments and Forum mall. Currently, they're in the process of shooting a Karnataka film there (not a 'Bollywood' film, because it's a local production company). There were an unnecessary thirty or fourty people running around inside while my friend and I were peacefully sipping our smoothies and watching the commotion. While we were there, they were just shooting the same scene over and over again, apparently something funny in Kannada because they never failed to laugh at each take. Even a police officer came inside to witness the action, and probably see if he could play as an extra... Something I secretly hoped too :)

I tried to sneak a picture, apparently this guy is a locally almost-famous actor who my friend had seen on the big screen before.

Once again to India

I'm back in India!!!! After several speed bumps along the way, including all my flights getting delayed and one missed connection out of London, I finally made it to Bangalore again. I decided to keep posting on this blog, because I'm too lazy to make a new one! Yay! 

I was supposed to fly from Chicago to London, then straight to Bangalore, but I missed my flight and had to fly to Delhi instead. From Delhi I bought a new ticket to Bangalore, where i touched down around 8:30pm last night.

Delhi was a hazy and sweltering 117 degrees as my taxi driver told me when I was being driven from the Indira Gandhi international airport, to the domestic one.

Here's a picture of the mighty Ganges from my flight 

And the view of Bangalore from my friends apartment where I'm staying!!

Christ University, where I studied last summer, can be seen waaaay in the back!