Eels, escalators, and elephants

Namaste!

Hello from India! I'm about halfway through all my travels and I'm having an amazing time. Thailand was a little taste of paradise. Actually getting to our destination island, koh phangan, took a little longer than expected due to delayed flights/trains/ferries but we made it a day later and ran straight into the turquoise sea. So after a few nights on this crazy island, including an all night 15,000+ person full moon beach party, we took a boat north to calm, laid back koh Tao. Here I got my open water and advanced scuba certifications! The waters in the gulf of Thailand are crystal clear and full of life, and luckily I can revisit them by watching the DVD that documented my final day of diving. One night in Bangkok and then off to the land of maharajas!

I honestly never thought I would find a place crazier than china, but India fills those shoes! Our first day we toured some sights around new and old Delhi including the red fort, lotus temple and humayun's tomb. The next day we woke up early for the 4 hour drive to Agra. Our afternoon in Agra was spent wandering around the gardens of the taj mahal. Photos just don't do this symbol of love justice. I could spend days there, it's absolutely incredible. And now I'm in Jaipur, staying at an absolutely beautiful hotel watching American tv! It's fantastic! Visiting a few more palaces tomorrow and then back to Delhi the following morning. India has honestly been a little overwhelming, especially after spending 10 days on the beach, so this has been a nice taste but I'm looking forward to checking out Malaysia and watching the packers in the superbowl in Singapore! I'll be eating cheese all day, and hopefully drinking some form of Wisconsin beer. Go green bay!!! Will probably update again once I'm back in china, happy Chinese new year!

It's Travel Time

I'm currently reading a collection of essays about China, 'Coming Home Crazy' by Bill Holm. This Minnesota native touches on just about every aspect of living in China as a foreigner, and I find myself laughing along as I read his stories that mirror a lot of the experiences I've had. He taught in Xi'an but did take a short trip to my area of residence, Chongqing, and described the city as "a humid, coal-burning industrial town at the bottom of a sinkhole surrounded by steep mountains. Photographs of it are always bathed in a fuzzy haze, giving it a romantic, ancient look. There is little romance, however, in chemical analysis of the haze." So as glamorous as that sounds, I'm looking forward to getting away for a few weeks.

My itinerary includes 10 days in Thailand, a week in India, and 10 days in Malaysia and Singapore. So I can't promise too many posts the next month but I'm hoping to bring back lot's of stories, souveniers, and photos that look like these...

Thailand

India



Malaysia

Singapore