Loose of Limits

Have you read my final thoughts on India? They're here . And, as promised, here's our first official country wrap-up, where we'll share the best of the best, the worst of the worst, and the things we still can't reconcile in our heads. We're calling this, 'The Good, The Bad, The "Are You Effing Kidding Me?!?!" But, we'll start with "The Bad," then move on to "The 'Are You Effing Kidding Me?!?!'" and end with "The Good." You should always end things on a high note, right?

When we first left India, I was in a hurry to write our wrap-up post and I've been kicking myself for not getting it done sooner. But, in hindsight, I think it was good to wait awhile to write it. The truth is that, for a month after we left Incredible India, I couldn't quite wrap my head around it. It all felt so surreal and we both struggled to decide how we felt about the vast and confusing country. 

...In the meantime, check out this video I made of a bunch of hippies in Arambol. Ugh...Shave your armpits! Put some clothes on your baby! "Fire twirling" is not an applicable life skill! Read about our time in Arambol here . Check out our pics from Arambol  here .

If you're looking for a retreat from the chaos of India, and you can afford to splurge, Dewalokam Farm Stay is well worth the time and money spent.  After spending a few days with Emily and Anna on the lake in Kumarakom (read here ), we all hopped in a taxi for the long ride just past Thodhupuza, Kerala . Emily and Anna had been introduced to Dewalokam through a travel agent and, when we saw the website for the property, we decided we would splurge and join them. It's definitely not cheap ($170/night), but that price includes 3 meals a day, tea time (tea/coffee and pastries), and all activities on their property. This kind of place is the exact reason why we search to find $8 and $9 rooms to stay in when we can - spending less when it's not important to us means that we can splurge on somewhere fantastic from time to time. Us and some of the Dewalokam staff

You might remember that we did a canoe trip on the backwaters of Alleppey, Kerala, back when we first got to India (see here ). On that trip, we saw a lot of the gorgeous house boats made of teak and palm and were looking forward to sharing the experience with Emily and Anna for months. After we met up with them in Mumbai (see Steph's post here ), we flew down to Kochin and had a taxi drive us two hours south. For Steph and I, it was good to be back into southern India, with the warm weather, palm trees, coconut curries and smiley people.

It feels kind of funny to write a blog post about Mumbai because we were barely there, but we have a few photos, so you get a (short) post! Lucky you! India Gate, Mumbai

Though we had crossed off many Rajasthan destinations of our To Do list because we wanted to travel at a slow pace for our remaining time in India (Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bundi), we had known for awhile that we definitely wanted to visit Udaipur , which is lauded as India's most romantic city. Though most Rajasthan towns and cities are located around or near a lake (sometimes man-made), Udaipur's lake is one of the most beautiful, and the town surrounds its waters, creating an almost Venice-like feel. So, after our disappointing 4 nights at Ranthambore National Park (read here ), we were looking forward to our time in Udaipur. The first sign that things were going well was when we remembered that, remembering my night from hell in the budget-class sleeper car of a train (read here ), we had booked A/C 3-Tier tickets for the overnight (8 hour) journey from Sawai Madhopur to Udaipur. When we got to the train station, we were exhausted and we boarded the train around midnight and ...

When we asked one of our Indian friends back in San Francisco about the countries many parks he recommended Ranthambore National Park  in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan. It's considered one of the best places in the world to view the wild Bengal tiger. At this point there are more Bengal tiger in captivity than exist in the wild. We really wanted to see a tiger but realized even if we didn't it would be nice to see other wildlife and get some fresh air- much needed after the polluted haze of Agra (read here ). We're on safari!

Obviously you can't spend 3 1/2 months in India and not go to the Taj Mahal , and we finally did in early January. Throughout our time in India we met so many other travelers who had visited Agra  (the city where the Taj is located) in Uttar Pradesh, and picked their brains for their advice on the best way to visit this world landmark. In our 3 months in India, over and over, backpackers gave us the same advice: get to Agra, see the Taj, and get out. Everyone told us that Agra, other than having the Taj, was less-than-impressive. However, because of where we were coming from (Pushkar, read here  and here ) and where we were going next (Ranthambore National Park, coming soon), we knew we would actually be spending 2 nights in Agra. Taj Mahal Sneak Peek

Our New Year's Eve revolved around poop. That's right...poop. We had a great time...It wasn't...um....crappy in that sense of the word, but there was a very strange recurring theme of crap. To begin with - dealing with poop is a daily battle in India. Walking down the sidewalk, you will find yourself dodging piles left by dogs, cows, goats, monkeys, camels and, sometimes, even people. You may remember back in October when I blogged about Tom stepping in cow doody , and that wasn't the last time. So, by New Year's Eve and having been in India for 10 weeks, we thought we had dealt with the full gamut of poop-related obstacles and activities. We were wrong! We have wanted to go on a camel safari since we first planned to come to India, and we thought we would make that happen on an eventual visit to  Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. However - somewhere around Amritsar , we realized we didn't have the energy to spend our last month in India bouncing all over, spending...

You can find a variety of "special" things in Pushkar . Special pizzas. Special lassis. Special chocolates. But "special" doesn't mean it's the day's unique offering. In Pushkar, "special" is code for "loaded with marijuana" (which is called 'bhang' in India), so order carefully and never eat anything a hippie hands you. What you won't find in Pushkar: alcohol and meat. Pushkar is a very holy Hindu town, and these two things are strictly prohibited. Of course, I was still sick (beginning with the train ride from hell and continuing with the Best Guesthouse EVER ), so I was happy to do without beer and chicken. We had heard about Pushkar from a few different people, all of whom had said it was a great place to spend a few days and that it was some of the best shopping in all of India. (crazy, crowded, chaotic Delhi markets excepted...except, who wants to mess with that?!?!) So, as December was nearing an end, we decided ...

If you haven't read about our train trip from Amritsar (read  here ) to Jaipur, you should. It's a doozy. (read  here  for the story). While the 14 hour overnight train was horrific for Steph we couldn't have picked a better guesthouse for her recovery. When we arrived in Jaipur, the pink city, we headed to  Rajputana Paying Guest House , where we were greeted by Papa, the father of the house, and one of his daughters. We were whisked off to our gorgeous, clean room and crashed for the rest of the morning. Later that morning they brought toast, bananas, and tea up to our room for breakfast. I went down and chatted with Mama and Papa. They have four grown kids (two of which help with the guesthouse) and are some of the kindest people we have met. Papa is a tiny man who fixed typewriters for 50 years to support his family. I would run into him on the roof when I would go there to read. He would be up there smoking his beedis (Indian cigarette) and through mi...

I had literally never heard of Amritsar (in the state of Punjab ) until we were in India. In truth, we really hadn't researched much about north India at all until we got here. When we left SF, it seemed so far away (in both time and distance), that we didn't really read much. But, as we neared the 2 month mark in India, we had heard tons of backpackers recommending Amritsar, so we started reading about it. Amritsar is the center of Sikhism , a religion unfamiliar to most Westerners. I had once heard it described as a combination of Islam and HInduism and, while there may be some truth to that, it's probably unfair to the religion to compare it to other religions when describing it. It is, of course, its own thing and, while I still don't know much about the religion, know that it's a very peaceful community and that we enjoyed the Sikh people in Amritsar a great deal. There are really only 2 reasons why tourists visit Amritsar; 1-to visit the Golden Temp...

I didn't really know much about Tibet before we visited McLeod Ganj. I knew that China had forcibly occupied Tibet and that, many years ago, people plastered Free Tibet bumper stickers to their cars and boycotted Chinese products, following celebrities like the Beastie Boys and Richard Gere (I'd follow Gere anywhere) in a rant against China. But that's all I really knew. Traveling is such a wonderful thing because you see how the rest of the world lives, both good and bad, and that knowledge is humbling. We were fortunate to have this exposure and education on the Tibetan people while in India, and we learned a lot about Tibet, Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama while in McLeod Ganj. Before you read this post, it might help if you read a little about the Tibet/China situation by reading this or watching the quick video below (Warning: Parts of the video are graphic.)

Remember when we fell in love with Hampi? (read here ) Something similar happened in McLeod Ganj. From the moment we arrived, I was in love. Maybe even in more love (does that make sense? in loverer? in lovest?) with McLeod Ganj. This is me, in love with McLeod Ganj Before we came to India, we hadn't planned on going to McLeod Ganj or the region at all but, while talking with a long-term traveller in Hampi, we told him our plans to go to Darjeeling . He said that Darjeeling is great, but it's difficult to get to and the weather is cold this time of year. With those things in mind, we realized we really only wanted to head that direction if we were planning on spending a good chunk of time there. He suggested, instead, that we head to Dharamsala if we wanted the feel of the Indian mountain town. We were familiar with the Dharamsala area and the small town of Dharamkot because the Himalayan Iyengar Yoga Centre is based there, which is the organization we studied yoga...

We've been on the road now for about 4.5 months, and we've had a lot of questions from our friends and family - so we thought we'd write a post answering some of the more common questions. If you have others, send them to us at stephanieswain2010@gmail.com "Do you miss cozy bedding?" - Question from Lauren Funk You have no idea. Honestly, this must rank with one of the top things we miss. But it's less about "cozy" and more about "clean." We use our sleep sheet almost every night because the sheets and beds don't meet our Western standards of cleanliness. 

We knew that when we decided to stay in Arambol a second week (read here ) and fly to Delhi, India's capitol, we were going be in both ends of the India spectrum in the same day. It was very surreal to spend the morning doing yoga in Arambol and have a comfortable day among hippies and then arrive that late afternoon in the madness of Delhi. We met my mother at the airport, who had just arrived from North Carolina- she has always wanted to come India and decided to join us for a few weeks before heading off to Thailand and Australia. We had decided to stay in a few nicer places in Delhi because the cities can be intense and because we wanted my mom's first exposure to India to be comfortable, so we hopped in a taxi and headed to our home stay, K-One-One , in a nice neighborhood called the Defence Colony. After a good night's sleep, we ventured out into Delhi to explore. Since we were attending Nakul and Kunjan's wedding in a two days we knew this first day in ...

I keep thinking of that commercial that asked, "What's in  your  wallet?" I'm pretty sure it was a bank card ad, but it's got me thinking about what Tom and I carry in our bags each day. We're pretty proud of how we've packed - we have less stuff than most long-term backpackers we come across and, when we aren't loaded down with things we've bought, we can fit all of our things into our 2 large packs without even needing to carry a day pack. These days, we're traveling pretty light. The below list is just our essentials, though we do have a lot of other stuff with us. These are the things we use every day and recommend to other travelers. If you're using this list as a packing guide, please note, this list is what we've been carrying in India - in the south in October and November and in the north in December and January. (For a full list of what we brought with us, visit  this page , but note that it needs a little updating.) Th...

This blog is turning into a Hampi blog, isn't it? These are things we wrote about weeks ago, but haven't posted yet and are trying to catch up...so, sorry about the Hampi inundation. In Hampi, we loved that the town's main road was lined with shops on one side, and with rice fields on the other side. To us, this meant that Hampi had the conveniences we want (restaurants, activities and shopping), but was also full of local charm. (You might remember that we love Hampi. That's still true.) Because we walked and motorbiked around a lot, we saw most parts of the town and we always noticed the family of farmers in a field with their goats and cows. They lived in tents made of straw and scrap material and plastic and were always working. The animals slept around the family's tents and we would often see the women cooking with propane inside the tents. They wore simple clothes, hauled their water to their tents each day, never wore shoes, and, generally, lived ...

Our love affair with Hampi is no secret (read about it here ), and our time there was full of beautiful experiences and wonderful people and we still miss it. And not just in Hampi, but in all of India, we've been so impressed with the practice of religion. Unlike many followers of Western religions, the religious population here is seriously devout, and their religion permeates every part of their lives. While we're not religious at all - largely due to the hypocritical behavior of many so-called "religious" people in our own culture - we have been in awe of the devotion shown by India's religious, including Hindus, Muslims, and even Christians. A Hindu woman stops to touch a holy cow in the market place of Pushkar