24 hour countdown

KC & Pastor James

All our baaaags are packed we're ready to goooooo' (if you know it sing a long...currently I am singing it alone, in our sweltering hot bedroom while KC washes dishes). But literally, all of our bags are packed, we wanted to be ready for tomorrow so we could spend time at Church and making the rounds with the students and staff saying goodbye one last time. Also KC is a bit anal and requires that we weigh our luggage. What can I say-its off to casualty with our giant suitcase to borrow their one and only scale!

See? Wouldn't YOU visit her a lot?

This last week has been bittersweet. I wasn't really sure whether I was expected to do duty in Casualty or not, so the first couple days I made an appearance, in fact Monday I actually started IV's and tried to make myself useful. They were really busy.  (Day after holi...everybody drank too much alcohol, and then drank too much insecticide unfortunately as a means of suicide attempt).  But Tuesday I wandered around the hospital going to the NICU to hold Tuktuk(orphan baby who I am sneaking home in our luggage), saying hi to staff, visiting the business office to print our tickets for home, holding Tuktuk, taking pictures with people, holding Tuktuk again, taking pictures with Tuktuk, promising Tuktuk I would take her home (she's really cute) etc etc. I also spent a lot of time putting together and editing the pictures that we wanted to hand out to peopleas souvenirs, thinking that we would be able to just go print them ourselves-you know, like at Walmart-at the Kodak station?  As with all things in India-we thought incorrectly-but we found someone who was supposed to be able to get those pictures printed for us. He told us he would have them for us by today at 5 pm. It is 3:39, we'll let you know how that goes, I don't see it going well, just because of the language barrier and because there were almost 60 photos that needed printed, some with several copies so that the girls could each have one.  Everybody keeps asking for our contact info, so we promised them pictures with our info on the back. Hopefully that works out.

Us at the orphanage

We are working on giving things away that we didn't want to take home with us, books, scarves, gum, etc (the students are loving it) and it is really great to see how happy it makes them to keep as a reminder from the US. Every single person has asked when are we coming back. At first I started saying -'when we win the lottery!' (Probably not appropriate to reference Ben here for 2 blog entries in a row, but seriously ...did you win yet?) But they don't have the lottery...so they just stared awkwardly-and I have now changed the answer to, 'Whenever we save enough money!' This to them means we are coming back next year. Oops.

Me and my nursing student friends

I'll just skip right over Wednesday and Thursday as KC described my illness in detail (sorry) but now I am doing fine-well better at least- so we were able to spend some time with Pastor James at the orphanage one last time. We took pictures of each child with their name & age so we could help them with sponsors. Friday night we had some people over for an 'American dinner' of chicken mac'n'cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, and what I thought were green beans. Turns out they weren't green beans and neither were they very good, but I think everybody liked the meal okay. It was noted that the food was much more bland than what they were used to, but it was the thought that counted I suppose. And hey-Aadi the 2 year old loved my mashed potatoes.

Us with the Chatterjees and Mrs.
Lal (our Hindi tutor)

We have cleaned and scrubbed what we can in the apartment, and given away all of our left over groceries. We have said goodbye to Casualty, OT, and both the classes we taught. We have said goodbye to Dr.Chatterjee as he will be out of town tomorrow and have packed up packages to take to people his family knows in the US. I also took one last peek at Tuktuk, but she was sleeping :(. All that we have left is distributing pictures to people, a trip to Raipur with Dr.Neha for another disco adventure tonight (I'm sure all of Chhattisgarh is excited to see my dancing skills again) and then church in the morning! What had started out as a confusing adventure has really turned out to have some good memories. We are going to miss some of the people in Dhamtari, and hope that we have blessed their lives with our service. Although some people never really fully understood why we came, they were happy to see us and we hope that it brightened their lives a little for those 3 months. I know it probably changed us in ways we will not see until later down the road. Thank you so much for your support!



Love,
Raina (and KC who is still cleaning, I am amazed)

5 days left!

Wow, it's hard to believe we have only 5 days left! Time has really flown by. We returned from our trip to Agra (Taj Mahal), Jaipur, Delhi, and Darjeeling on Sunday, and we are wrapping up our duties this week and getting things packed up.

Us at Amber Fort, shortly before we
hightailed it outta there

Our last post was after we had seen the Taj Mahal, so I (KC) have quite a bit to update you on. After Agra we took a 4 hour train to Jaipur (well known for handmade goods), where we went to the Amber Fort and did some shopping for souvenirs. Before I tell you about our trip to Amber Fort, I would like to start by complaining about how the Indian government rips off tourists. The cost for an Indian to get into the Taj Mahal? 20 Rupees ($0.45). The cost for a foreigner to get into the Taj Mahal? 750 Rupees ($16.70). That's right, only a mere 37.5 times as much. The cost for an Indian to get into Amber Fort? 10 Rupees. The cost for a foreigner? 300 Rupees, 30 times as much. Okay, now that I've vented, here we go. We decided to take the city bus to Amber Fort, and apparently it dropped us off at the exit rather than the entrance (which we did not know at the time). So we walked up a bunch of stairs and went through a couple of gates, and before we knew it, we had walked into the fort through the exit. Now, under normal circumstances, I would have insisted that we find the entrance immediately and pay the entrance fee. However, since I was still quite upset about being ripped off the day before at the Taj, and since I was in no mood to be ripped off once again, we decided to play it cool and take a quick tour of the fort (Brad, we thought about you and how you would have probably peed your pants with nervousness). Now, having seen the show "Locked up Abroad", neither of us liked the prospect of ending up in an Indian prison, so we made it short and sweet and went on our way. It was nice to see, but definitely not worth 300 Rupees each, so we were glad that we stumbled upon good fortune.

Amber Fort

We then did some shopping in Jaipur, where we haggled more than either of us had in our entire lives (and did a pretty darn good job if you ask me). We never paid more than half of the asking price, and found that the best method is just to say "no thanks" and start walking away, then they will chase after you and say "okay, okay, take it". So we bought a lot of souvenirs in Jaipur, then quickly realized we couldn't carry all of it for the next 7 days of our trip...oops.

We only spent one day in Jaipur, then took an evening train to Delhi, thanks to me. Since Raina was in charge of planning this trip, we originally were going to take a bus (5.5 hours, hot, and smelly), but I convinced Raina that we should at lease see if we could get train tickets (4 hours, A/C, and food). It turns out we did get tickets and it was one of the best decisions of our trip (Raina reluctantly agrees). We were both exhausted after a long day of sneaking into forts and haggling, and it was nice to just sit back and relax in air conditioning and be served pretty decent food. We only spent about 8 hours in Delhi, just enough to get some sleep, and took a morning flight to Bagdogra (the closest airport to Darjeeling).

The streets of Darjeeling

Since we had a bunch of extra bags from Jaipur to carry with us, we decided to go to a hotel in Bagdogra and ask if they would store our bags until we came back through in a week, if we promised to stay there the night before we left. They agreed, but in hindsight, we would have been better off taking the bags with us, because that might have been the worst hotel in India. Oh well, it was just one night (that phrase seemed to be used a lot on this trip...). Anyways, we took a shared jeep to Darjeeling, in which they packed 12 people into a jeep clearly designed to seat 8, but it was cheap, and we only got sat on for half of the 3 hour trip. When we finally made it to Darjeeling, we promptly got lost trying to find our hotel, because the "streets" listed on the map are unnamed and usually just a walking path. After about half an hour of walking up steep hills with our heavy backpacks, we found our hotel, only to realize that our room was on the 5th floor and we had to climb 100 steps (yes, we counted) to get to it. Since we were both terribly out of shape and not used to the 7,000ft. elevation, we huffed and puffed our way up and 2 hours later we made it (okay maybe it was only 5 minutes, but it seemed like it took forever). We became quite good at climbing those 100 steps by the end of the week thank-you-very-much. The hotel was really nice and cozy, they had a nice lounge with a wood stove heater (it only got into the 50's during the day), and our room was nice with a fairly comfortable bed.

Picking tea

Since Darjeeling is the tea capital of the world, we had to visit a tea plantation. It was pretty cool to see, and we were given a tour by a "guide" who we later found out is just some random guy who hangs out outside the factory and knows a lot about tea (or maybe he knows nothing about tea but pretends, who knows?). The tour was free (but of course our "guide" wanted a tip) so we were glad we did it.

Spinning sheep's wool

Then we went to the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Center, which was really awesome. People that have been forced to flee from Tibet go there, and they are given work to do and housing. They make hand-made crafts and sell them to local merchants, and also at the center. We saw people making carpets, woodworking, spinning sheep's wool, and various other things.

The red panda - Raina wants one

We also visited a zoo in Darjeeling, and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, which has a museum dedicated to Tenzing Norgay, the first man (along with Edmund Hillary) to climb Mt. Everest in 1953. It was really interesting to see some of the equipment he used and how it compares with what is used today, it's unbelievable how they did it.

Up at 3:30am

Khangchendzonga at sunrise from
Tiger Hill

Wednesday morning we went to Tiger Hill, which is the best mountain viewpoint in Darjeeling, and they suggest you get up early and be there for sunrise, which in the mountains is around 5:00am. Oh, and did I mention Tiger Hill was a 45 minute drive from our hotel? So yes, we were up promptly by 3:30am, outside by 3:45 to catch a shared jeep, waited for 20 minutes for the jeep to fill up, and arrived at Tiger Hill at 4:50am. It turned out that it was absolutely worth it, we got the best view they'd had for a couple of weeks, and got to see Khangchendzonga (the world's 3rd highest) and even Everest (which is rare at Tiger Hill).

That little white smudge you see on
the left? Yep, that's Everest

So we can now proudly say that we have seen Mt. Everest (we just wont tell anyone that it was just a tiny little speck on the horizon that barely even shows up in our pictures).

Raina and Sid (the sloth)

Thursday and Friday we decided to go on an overnight hike into Nepal. Our guide was a 19 year old named Sid, and I had to stop myself multiple times from calling him "Sid the Sloth". It ended up being cloudy both days, so we didn't get to see the mountains (we were supposed to get "killer views" of Khangchendzonga and Everest). We were pretty bummed, but we still had a lot of fun and got to stay in a really nice, rustic, freezing cold lodge in the mountains of Nepal without electricity, which was very peaceful once we smothered ourselves in blankets and quilts and huddled up by the cooking fire.

Raina made me put this one
up. It was cold OK?

The trail

Since there is no electricity, everyone just goes to bed when it gets dark, so we were in bed around 6:30, which was fine with us because we were exhausted and freezing. We met a lot of cool and interesting travelers in Darjeeling, including a couple from Michigan (don't worry, I reminded them how much Michigan sucks). It was nice to hear all of the different stories people had, one guy was in the middle of an 18 month backpacking trip through Europe and Asia by himself, and another couple had been teaching in Korea for 5 years and were on their way back to Athens, Georgia after Darjeeling. It kinda made us wish we had an endless supply of money (you win the lottery yet Ben?) and no responsibilities.

Raina got "decorated" for Holi by
her friends when we got back

Saturday we took a shared jeep back to Bagdogra and stayed at India's worst hotel (see paragraph 5). Then Sunday we flew back to Delhi, nearly missed our flight from Delhi to Raipur, and finally made it back to Dhamtari by 9:30pm. Sunday was also Holi, a Hindu holiday where everyone throws paint at each other. We somehow avoided being doused with paint, which we counted as a small miracle since our white skin is like a giant target.

One more thing to report: after many weeks of bragging that we hadn't been sick at all since we came to India, and all the Indians telling us how lucky we are, Raina finally got sick. She's spent the majority of the last 24 hours in the bathroom. She is feeling better though, and took some antibiotics, so all should be well soon. No problems for me though (don't worry I'm knocking on wood).

We plan to spend our last few days going around and taking pictures of everyone we've met, and we plan to meet up with Pastor James one last time tomorrow. We have really made some great relationships here and I think we will miss it a lot. There have certainly been times when we struggled, but I think God has really taught us a lot about expectations and comfort zones, and we have both grown a great deal as a result. We can't thank everyone enough for your support, this has really been a life changing experience that we will remember forever. We look forward to seeing everyone soon! God bless!

KC (and sick Raina)

Agra, the Taj Mahal and SO MANY PEOPLE

somebody took our picture for us!

      We have officially seen one of the new 7 wonders of the world. After the hassle that it took to get to Agra, Utter Pradesh, we would both have to agree that the Taj is pretty amazing. As a memorial built to his wife after she died, Emperor Shan had a massive mausoleum/mosque built out of white marble that took 16 years (finished in 1648). It was pretty amazing to see all the work that had to be done without modern machinery.  We had oooone small setback when we got here due to my trip planning though-we got it and 2:30, planned on seeing the Taj Mahal early the next day (Friday). The Taj Mahal is closed on Fridays. Oops.
   Nevertheless, we hurried up to go see the wonder before it closed at 5 pm. It didn't take long to walk through it and there are SO MANY PEOPLE there that it was a big crowded. It really is majestic, and a lot of our pictures look fake (yes we had to buy a new camera). You have to take your shoes off when you go actually inside the mosque part (if you have seen Slum Dog Millionaire you know that this is where kids steal your shoes-naturally KC made us store them with a guy who expected a tip so that that didn't happen) and then were free to walk through. You were also not supposed to take pictures of the inside...but literally everyone did. The nice thing is that there is pretty much no trash within the Taj-very different from the rest of India.

A sign at our hostel in Agra

     We had an Indian Thali dinner (a huge plate with several different Indian foods-chippati, 2 curries, curd, and sauces) while sitting on a "roof top restaurant with a view of the Taj Mahal" (the view had a large pole through it but it was nice) to watch the sunset. We met some Australians who gave us suggestions about where to stay in Delhi, and who explicitly told us to NOT book any tours in Rhajastan (apparently theirs was a nightmare). Friday we had absolutely nothing planned, so I made KC get up at exactly 5:18am to walk the 2 kilometers to the Agra Fort nearby, in order to catch a famous picture of the Taj Mahal during sunrise-we walked in the dark.  Of COURSE we got lost, and so actually didn't make it quite at sunrise- (there was a lot of yelling) but it was still beautiful, and I fed a monkey.  We got back to our hostel in time to take a nap before checkout, then attempted to find some nearby bazaars. That in itself is a nightmare. It is hard for us to get used to the people's pushiness. 'You want autorickshaw?' No I don't want a rickshaw thank you 'Good price, cheap price. Taj mahal? Baby Taj?' NO I don't want an auto rickshaw and I have already seen the Taj Mahal. 'Maam hello mam hello, please good price mam' (all the while following us trying to run us over in the rickshaw-one guy actually pushed his Tuktuk into us, then backed it up when we tried to go around so that we couldn't get through ) Finally I lost my temper a couple times and started yelling ' NEIH NEIH I DO NOT WANT A RICKSHAW PLEASE LEAVE ME A LONE' and throwing my hands up which was not very Christian of me and I had to apologize to God later. It would be fine if they would leave you alone after you say no, but they don't-one kid who said he was 6 followed us around for 10 minutes trying to get us into his bicycle rickshaw. There is no way he could have pulled us. I tried to ask him why he wasn't in school-that was a fail. I also yelled at several people in the train station :(.

The Taj on our walk to the fort

    After a lot of walking, crying, yelling and consulting the guide book we found a clothing store made by cloth recommended by Ghandi himself. Most of the politicians (according to the guide book) still wear this material because it is made safely and it is very breathable. Unfortunately it was outrageously priced, so sorry-no souvenirs from there guys. We did find a giant marble emporium which was pretty amazing, they showed us how they carve the marble and had beautiful pieces similar to work in the Taj Mahal, and most of the work is only found in Agra. I absolutely LOVED the table tops-beautiful white marble with intricate inlaid gemstones-but they are thousands of dollars and something tells me that our family and friends did not support us to come to India to buy beautiful marble tabletops for our house.  KC is pretty excited that I bought some small things from there, and that he now has to carry around MARBLE in his backpack :).

The hostel in Jaipur

Our favorite picture of the Taj Mahal

          We took an evening train to Jaipur, and were able to find an extremely cheap hostel right next to the train station. Of course I didn't plan ahead and it was one of the first ones available so KC is a little perturbed but hey I slept on the mattress on the floor quite well so I'm okay with the$6.50 that we spent on the room! Our day is planned to go to the Amjer (or Amber) Fort, possibly ride a camel, and then do a self guided walking tour around the 'pink' city of Jaipur. It is famous for shopping, particular gemstones, but I do not know anything about gems so I think it is safe to say we will not be buying any. After that we will either take a bus or train to Delhi (we are currently arguing about that-the bus is cheaper and we can leave when we want, but KC hates buses and the train is actually pretty comfy!) I am currently sitting at a rooftop restaurant that amazingly has FREE wi-fi (you find that nowhere) waiting on my pot of Chai and enjoying the beautiful sunshine. I promised KC I wouldn't set an alarm today so he is still sleeping.  It is actually quite chilly here (ok 70's compared to 110), esp in the morning, which makes us think that perhaps we are under-dressed for Darjeeling. Guess we will find out if I have to buy a shawl when we get there!
      Ok well we are off  to our day as KC has arrived and said we are already behind schedule. Hope everybody is having a great weekend :)

Raina (and KC)

Week 9!

                 There isn't a whole lot to blog about this week, as KC pretty much covered it with his book that he wrote last week. Also with the camera being "stolen" we don't have any exciting pictures :(. This week we were back in the swing of things with volunteering at the hospital and teaching in the nursing college. KC hasn't had a whole lot of luck with his class-they seem to show up irregularly on a regular basis. He goes and they aren't there, he doesn't go and they are there. My class time changed in the middle of Friday, I'm sitting in Casualty minding my own business (and trying to talk to the 2 new intern students who don't speak English, because they had about an average of 1 patient an hour again) when some of my BSC students come in and say 'please come mam it is your class right now' at 12 pm. I said, no I teach at 3pm-and they said 'no -class time was changed today-med surg is now, go change and come in 5 minutes'. So off I went. I had nothing prepared to teach so I answered some general questions and then they spent 30 minutes teaching me how to write my name in Hindi, and asking questions about the US. They were very excited to find out that I have Facebook and promptly went home that night to request me to be their friend. This week is my last week teaching as we leave for our trip to see the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas, and the teachers needed to have their class back so that they could stay on track with the syllabus.

           KC is now working on drawing the final plans for Pastor James for his new church, parsonage and student hostel. We were able to find a place that sells large drawing paper (that was exciting-one of the students wrote the name of the store in Hindi for me...so we walked down the street holding the piece of paper up comparing it to store front signs to see which one looked the same -and it worked!) and he is making very professional looking plans for the church to pray over and hopefully eventually give to a contractor to build sometime in the future. We are hoping to be able to see him the last week that we are here, and maybe visit the orphanage again.

             This past weekend we were invited to 3 different picnics (KC pointed out that our activities come in spurts...we do nothing, then all the sudden we are invited to everything!) which was fun-we had to turn down one of the picnics with students on Saturday, but Saturday night we went to Gungrail dam with Dr.Chatterjee and his family, as his brother from the US (Nashville, Tennessee) was in town. It was a 'potluck' ...and what in the world do you bring to an Indian potluck??? We brought garlic mash potatoes to give it an American flair. Mom-you would have been proud of our ingenuity. Sunday we spent all day with the OT staff at another dam, where they brought food to prepare and eat there. The cooking is such an adventure in itself. They bring these huge pots and firewood, and then somehow3 hours later we end up with delicious chicken, rice, salad and 'papads' (light crispy fried deliciousness). It is pretty easy because you don't need utensils (you eat with your hands) and you don't have to worry about keeping anything cold (it all gets boiled in a giant pot anyways).  I won't tell you where they got the water for cooking.  We stayed for afternoon tea and then came back around 6 pm. KC and a bunch of the other staff went 'swimming' in the 'waterfall' of the dam, and got soaking wet to cool off from the outrageous heat while I in my white skirt opted to take a nap under a tree instead (it was very nice thank you).

      Wednesday we are taking a train from Raipur to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is, and then from there we hop around to different cities, eventually flying to Darjeeling and the Himalayas. Travel within India is extremely cheap. We hope to see Mount Everest and maybe do some hiking (no not ON Mount Everest!) since we have the opportunity while in India. However, we are glad that we will be heading out of Dhamtari in the end of March as we cannot IMAGINE how hot it must get here in the summer. The coolest days here in March have been hotter then the summer in Ohio. We sit in the apartment and just sweat. I know I know-we will stop complaining about the beautiful sunshine-at least we can be glad that it isn't snowing :).

Raina (and KC)

Back in Dhamtari (finally)

Well after an 8 hour train delay, we finally made it back to Dhamtari after our trip to Goa. It seems that us and travel schedules do not get along very well. Missing our flights on the way to India (all of them), 3.5 hours delayed leaving Raipur for Goa, and 8 hours delayed coming back, we can’t catch a break.

Pastor James leading worship

Sorry its been so long since a detailed blog, its been my turn (KC) and I’ve been procrastinating a bit. The week before we left for Goa was a good week for us. I met with Pastor James again and showed him the plans I had drawn up for his new church, hostel, and parsonage. He gave me some things he wanted changed/moved, and this week I will be revising the plans and giving them to him. We went to Pastor James' church on Sunday (Church of God), and got to experience the passion they have for worship, it was very encouraging. After church, he took us to the orphanage he runs in a nearby town, and we got to meet the children and they performed a song for us. He has 19 orphans total, 9 who are not sponsored, so we agreed to sponsor 2 of them (it costs about $25/month to sponsor 1 child). If anyone else is interested, we can talk when we get home. We are glad we got to see the orphanage so now we will actually know what our money will be going towards, and that it will be used properly.

Pastor James and the 19 orphans

Pastor James also asked me to talk to his seminary students for 20-30 minutes on Monday about my experience with Christianity in the US and what could help them be better pastors. I was quite a long way out of my comfort zone, especially since I’ve had zero theological training, but I prayed about it and felt like I should talk about cooperation and getting along with people in the church, and trying to avoid “church politics”. I used Romans 12 where Paul talks about the different parts of the body contributing and working together, and if one part fails, the whole body can fail. I think it went pretty well and Pastor James seemed pleased. Raina had a good week, she continued going to community health with the nursing students (see last post) and helped Dr. Mousam in surgery one day. She is developing some great friendships with some of the female nursing students and they absolutely love her. I think God is using her more to develop friendships than to help in the hospital.

The happy couple

Doing laps around the fire

We also got to experience our first Hindu wedding last week. It was very interesting to see the different traditions and customs they perform. The ceremony involved tying the bride and groom's hands together and having them make laps around a small fire in the middle of the floor, while the bride's parents threw various spices and oils into the fire, and the guests sang and chanted. It was certainly a new experience for us, and we loved getting to see it. On Saturday, we were invited to go to a "disco" in Raipur by Dr. Neha (one of the residents), which turned out to be a lot of fun (yes, I did dance, but I wouldn't let Raina take a picture of it). Okay, now that we have caught up on two weeks ago, now to talk about last week.

The view from our hut

We left for Goa on Tuesday, and our train was 3.5 hours late. When we finally got there, it was beautiful, as Raina eluded to in the last post. We stayed in a beach hut for 4 nights (which was not nearly long enough to see all of the sights of Goa) at Agonda beach, which is one of the quietest beaches in Goa, and it was very relaxing and peaceful. It was a nice break from the crowds and noise of Dhamtari. We rented a scooter from a boy next door to the huts for about $4 a day, which was a great investment. Driving is not nearly as dangerous in Goa as it is in Chhattisgarh, and I would like to think I held my own pretty well weaving through traffic (although there was one time when we almost d....nevermind our parents are probably reading this). The first day (Thursday) we arrived around 9:00am and spent the day lying on the beach and relaxing, then had dinner at one of the 10+ restaurants on the beach.

Our "trusty" scooter

Friday we spent the morning on the beach, and then decided to venture out on our scooter for the first time to check out some nearby areas. We hopped on the scooter (which had seen much better days) and began our journey. Three things I noticed about our scooter: 1. We probably well exceeded the intended weight limit; 2. The speedometer was broken; and 3. Either the fuel gauge was broken or we were out of gas. It turned out that number 1 and 2 did not cause any problems, however, I chose to gamble on number 3 and just assumed the fuel gauge was broken. So we got out to the “main” road (keep in mind this is the quietest beach in Goa, so therefore one of the most remote) and sure enough, right about smack dab in the middle of nowhere, we run out of gas. Luckily (if you can call running out of gas lucky) we were on a slight downhill so we were able to coast for about 0.5 km (which still left us about 3-4 km from a petrol station). A nice Indian man came up on a scooter behind us and said “petrol?” We nodded yes and he proceeded to make a bunch of hand motions and eventually I gathered that he wanted to push, so I moved into position. He made Raina get off the back and began to push, so then I made the hand motions pointing to Raina who was now getting smaller and smaller behind us, and he stopped and motioned for her to get on with another man who had stopped also (we think he was French). So she did (she claims it was awkward, but I say better than standing on the side of a country road in India), and our little caravan proceeded down the road toward the petrol station. Apparently the petrol station in Palolem in closed during lunch, and wouldn’t you know it we showed up right at the beginning of lunch hour! We were prepared to wait, but another nice Indian man (they are all very nice) offered to drive to the nearest petrol station (about another 3 km) and get us a couple of liters and bring it back. So he did and we gave him a nice big thank you and a tip. Then we drove to the petrol station and filled up (which ended up costing more than the rental, gas is more expensive here than in the U.S.). After this minor setback, we were able to resume our day of sightseeing. We had lunch in Palolem and went to Colomb Bay and Patnem Beach, and it was a very nice afternoon. We got back to the hut in time to play in the waves and catch the sunset over the water.

The vanilla bean - the world's second
most expensive spice behind saffron

Saturday was an interesting day also. Raina got it in her head that we had to go check out this spice plantation in North Goa, just a short 2 hour drive away. In the interest of our marriage, I consented to go (any married man reading this understands). So we set off on our “adventure” and decided to take the scenic route along the coast on the way there (‘decided’ is used loosely, we made a wrong turn but kept going because it was pretty). Road signs, as we know them in the U.S., do not exist in India, and if they do, they are in Hindi, so we had to stop and look at the map about every 15 minutes. Even then, we figured there was about a 50-50 chance we would never make it there.

"Indian moonshine" - the making
of cashew fenney

Finally we made it to Margao (a big city in central Goa) and somehow managed to find the road that led toward the spice plantations. A short time later, we came up to a bridge and I noticed a nice man in a uniform standing in the middle of the road motioning for me to pull over. It turned out he was a policeman, and it also turned out that driving with a license and wearing a helmet is the law in Goa (both of which our scooter-rental-boy failed to mention). He let me off on not having a license, since I showed him my Ohio Driver’s License (then he proceeded to ask if we were Russian??), but he gave us a ticket for not wearing helmets. The damage wasn’t too bad, only 100 rupees (about $2.25), and as long as we showed our receipt, we could not get another ticket that day. Once again, after another minor setback, we were on our way.

Harvesting betel nuts

Three hours after we left Agonda, and after turning around and backtracking about 10 km, we pulled into what we thought was the spice plantation we were looking for. It turned out that it wasn’t, but after 3 hours of butt-numbing riding, neither of us cared and we decided to stay. The spice plantation was less than spectacular, we spent way too much money and didn’t even get to see the actual plantation (they set up a demo plot for the tourists to walk through, and they don’t allow tours of the actual plantation due to security reasons). The coolest part was seeing a little Indian man climb up Betel Nut trees (they look like skinny palm trees) and swing from tree to tree like a monkey, which is how they pluck the nuts. Yes Derrick, they did have Vanilla beans, and they were 3 for 200 rupees (about $5). We only bought 3 of them, so I guess my dreams of getting rich as a vanilla bean salesman were shortlived. After a disappointing lunch eaten off of leaf-plates, we were on our way back toward Agonda. We figured it would be easier on the way back, but we still managed to get lost a few times, although we did make it back in 2.5 hours, and we both did the pregnant woman walk for a few hours because our bums hurt so bad.

Raina spent most of Sunday laying on the beach, while I sat on the porch of our hut because I was sunburned. We tried to soak up as much of the beach as we could since it was our last day, and we ate at our favorite restaurant for the second time. Monday morning we were off on the 9:30am train to Mumbai. Our train was actually on time, and we reached Mumbai at 9:30pm as scheduled.

Mumbai's CST train station

Our train to Raipur was not supposed to leave until 8:00pm Tuesday, so we stayed in a hotel and spent all day Tuesday trying to see as much of Mumbai as possible. Thankfully the hotel offered to let us leave our backpacks in the lobby under watch while we were out and about. In the morning, we took a 1 hour ferry to Elephanta Island, which has 7 caves that were carved out by tribes sometime between 450 and 800 AD. It was nice to see the harbor and the ferry ride was pretty relaxing, although the smog in Mumbai makes it very difficult to see the skyline. After the island, we walked through the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, which is where all of the rich and famous stay, and where the Obama's stayed during their visit last year (also where they had a terrorist bombing in 2008). It was extremely nice and even had high end shops like Louis Vuitton, Doir, Coach, etc. It was the first time since we have been in India that we felt looked down upon, and it was a nice feeling!

Even in India!

We had lunch at Leopold’s Cafe (also a location of the 2008 terrorist attacks), which our guide book told us is a big foreigner hangout, so we checked it out. The guidebook failed to mention how expensive it would be, and we proceeded to eat our most expensive meal in India to date (still only about $25). After lunch we walked back to the hotel to check on our train, and found out that it was running 8 hours late, and instead of leaving at 8:00pm, it was now leaving at 4:00am. We decided to make the most of our time, and took a taxi to Chowpatty beach, which is a nice little fair-type area with a disgusting beach full of trash and toxic water. We steered clear of the actual beach and got some ice cream and did some people-watching. After consulting the guide book, we found out that the most affluent neighborhood (Malabar Hill) with a large park was within walking distance, so we decided to check it out. We walked along the road running parallel to the ocean and tried to enjoy the sunset through the smog. Passing through Malabar Hill without even realizing it (not really any nice houses, just nice high-rise apartment buildings), we finally reached the park as it was getting dark and decided to rest our feet for a while. I would guess we walked over 10 kilometers on the day, so we were pretty exhausted. Unfortunately it was about this time when we think the camera went missing. I maintain it was stolen from the bench at the park, Raina says I lost it, but who knows. So we lost most of our pictures from Mumbai, but thankfully we had already transferred our Goa pictures to the computer (it looks like we'll be buying a cheap Indian camera for our next trip). Anyway, while sitting in the park, we thought it might be a good idea to ask the hotel if they had any rooms available so we could at least get some sleep that night. We took a taxi back to the hotel and they informed us they did not have any rooms, but they could get us one in their sister hotel down the street. He told us it was the “same quality and style”, which turned out not to be true at all, but it was cheaper, had a shower, the beds were comfortable, and it only had a couple of cockroaches, so we were happy. We woke up at 2:45am and headed to the train station, which was just a short walk from the hotel. The train left at 4:15am and we arrived in Raipur at 11:00pm, only 7 hours late.

So now we are back in Dhamtari for 6 days, then we leave again on Wednesday for our trip to Agra (Taj Mahal), Jaipur, Delhi, and Darjeeling (Himalayas and Everest!) Sorry for the novel, but I had a lot to cover in this post! Thank you all for your prayers, we are feeling much more positive and are starting to understand God’s purpose for us! The homesickness is still there, so please continue to pray for that.

God Bless,

KC (and Raina)