Loose of Limits

First - we need to clear something up. We're a bit behind on the blogging, but we're still presenting it in chronological order for the most part. Right now, we're in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and it's December 22, 2012. We were in Hampi in mid-November, 2012. So we're not there now. We're trying to catch up now on blogging and you'll probably read about where we are now in a few weeks time! Get ready for a love fest, folks. We love Hampi . Big time. If they had a Nordstrom shoe department and good whiskey, I might spend the rest of my life there. But, alas, the shoe shopping options are limited and the bourbon is crap, so I find myself still searching for mecca. This is us, loving Hampi

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 ...

Remember when we had a third roommate in Alleppey ? We loved Barry the lizard. He kept to his corner, he didn't make sudden movements, and he didn't invade any personal or private moments.  Well, as it turns out, we're not open to all extra roommates. When we got to Hampi and checked into our guesthouse (much more on Hampi and the masses of chillum-smoking Israelis at a later time), we noticed that we shared our bathroom with 2 frogs. Really, they looked like bumpy toads and weren't very cute. One was about the size of a golf ball and he lived in the crook of the toilet, and the other was about the size of a tennis ball and hung out in the corner. No thanks.  To make matters worse, they would decide to jump towards you the moment you relaxed on the toilet…meaning you could never really relax. We were both dreading taking a shower. The showers here aren't partitioned off. You just stand in your bathroom, next to the toilet and dump water over yours...

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

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...

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?

Sneak Peek of McLeodGanj Writing to you today from McLeod Ganj (near Dharamsala ) in the state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India. This is where the Tibetan government-in-exile resides, including the Dalai Lama. It's a very special place. We are LOVING it. Hampi (which we'll tell you about soon) and McLeod Ganj have been our two favorite places in India, so look forward to those posts. We are seriously behind on blogging because, in stark contrast from the beginning of our time in India, we've been quite busy - 2 weeks of yoga in Goa, followed by flying to Delhi to meet up with Tom's mom, attending a friend's wedding there and then heading up to the mountains, we haven't had a lot of free time on the internet to post. So...here we are now, with lots to tell you - some bad (India really is a fickle b!+@#), but mostly good. Stay tuned.

One of the strange things about traveling for such a long time is that we come across certain places to where one nationality flocks. There is usually no known reason why this happens, it just does. There were the scantily-clad Russians in Goa , the hash-smoking, guitar-playing Israelis in Hampi  and, when we visited Koh Lanta, Thailand , after our 3.5 weeks in Burma (wrap-up coming soon), we were surrounded by over-tanned, blonde-haired Swedes. The main reason we went to Koh Lanta was to brush up on our diving skills before we set out on a dive boat for 5 days. Koh Lanta is a very long island so while there may be a lot of people on the island, there are so many beaches that it never gets too crowded. We stayed on a quiet stretch of Koh Lanta's Long Beach at Palm Beach Bungalows and our hut was only 50 meters from the sea. Long Beach, Koh Lanta, Thailand

After Hampi (read here ), we headed back towards Goa to do yoga for a week in Arambol . Before our course started, we stayed just south, in Mandrem, for a few days because it's a much quieter beach. The two different towns are accessible by about a 30 minute walk along the beach where you pass hippies twirling sticks, hawkers, and plenty of beachside shacks where you can order food and drinks while relaxing on a beach chair. We decided to splurge a little for our time in Mandrem because we were both desperate for a hot shower after sweating like crazy for 3 weeks. So, at $30/night at Cuba Retreat , we were looking forward to the royal treatment. Unfortunately, we were a bit disappointed in our room. It had a great, hot shower, but the room was pretty depressing, and it wasn't even on the beach. Still, we both decided it was worth the stay for the shower alone and spent 3 nights there before moving down the beach to Arambol. We spent most of our time in Mandrem lounging on the ...

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 ...