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!

Life in the Hills

Hello all!

I made it to Pun Pun Farm without many problems, and I have adjusted completely to the life here!  I'm even friends with Jo Jandai now, even though I was pretty starstruck when I first talked to him.  I am completely surrounded by nature here, but there is also a quaint little Thai village that's a five minute walk away where I can get some good ice cream :) I have the most delicious Thai (mostly) vegetarian meals three times a day, and I usually do about 3-5 hours of farming work a day between meals.  I've also met such a huge variety of people from all over the world, most of whom have done amazing things during the course of their lives to give back to society and to the environment.

This place is my kind of heaven (just like a lot of other places I've seen during the course of this summer).

So far I've done things like feeding the fish in the fish pond and rice patty fields, weed the gardens, make some garden beds, pick vegetables and fruits for dinner, help with the cooking, plant different seeds, replant other vegetables, hike up the mountains to look for mushrooms, feed the chickens, and do some seed saving!
I've also gone on one excursion to a nearby lake, where a house boat can be rented for one night for only 400 baht!  We biked through kilometers of beautiful Thai countryside, and also ate a lot of lon-guns along the way, which are like lychees, and are currently very much in season here.  Tomorrow I hope to go to the market in Mae Tang and do some souvenir shopping, of goods made by the Thai hill tribe people.

Pictures will be up soon!

Part TWO of my trip - Thailand!

I finally made it to Thailand at 6am this morning, and after only 2 hours of sleep on the plane and 10 hours of sleep in the last four days, my friends Rita, Natcha, and I went out to explore Bangkok!

Here we are at the Grand Palace, with its temples and shrines in the background.

Tomorrow I am leaving at 5am to fly to Chiang Mai, and I'll be staying at Pun Pun Farm for two weeks.  I can't wait to see what it has in store for me, and what new things I'm going to learn and experience there.  I most likely won't be able to get online there, so I'll just have to update this in two weeks.  Then I'll try my best to catch up on the rest of my India trip, and the Thailand portion as well!!

Taj Mahal

One more thing is checked off of my Bucket List - see the Taj Mahal!
I'm safe and sound back home in Bangalore after a whirlwind of a three day weekend in Northern India.

More pictures up soon, but here is my cliché Taj pic!

My 5 mins of Indian Fame

Our planned adventure to just New Delhi and Agra has expanded so I'm currently in Jaipur, in the state of Rajastan!  Luckily the hotel has wifi, so I was able to see this gem: I'm in an Indian magazine!!!

Check out page 17 and 19, my interview is on page 19!

Unfortunately they made me sound a little ignorant at the end, making it seem like I thought there was no other view than the American one.  I clearly told the journalist lady that all I learn about in school is the American viewpoint, so it's cool to now learn from the Indian perspective.  I guess you win some you lose some.
My dad and mom are indirectly in the magazine as well, my "Dutch father and Japanese mother"... We're all famous :D

http://www.readwhere.com/read/140501?src=fb#page/17/2
http://www.readwhere.com/read/140501?src=fb#page/19/2

Off to New Delhi!

Sorry for being MIA the past few weeks, I have been super busy with school work and also enjoying the social and night life of Bangalore!
The last few weekends I went up to Mysore, Coorg, and now I'm ten minutes away from catching my taxi to go to New Delhi and Agra.

Many posts to come right after my finals finish on the 31st.

Bye!