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)