away we go!

so tomorrow we must bid adieu to ma inja and each other for the next segments in our journeys. heather is off to europe and then the caribbean and i am kenya bound to visit my wonderful friend anne, whom i haven't seen in three years.

now we are in delhi, trying to buy as much as we can before we have to go.

and just a reminder, tomorrow (may 7) is heather fenwick's 30th birthday. that's right 30. please make sure that you include the number 30 when wishing her a happy birthday.

and on that note i am off to do more shopping before dinner.

some pho'os

just a few random photos for you! um, the following text just randomly popped up on the computer and i will leave it as follows for its remarkable...randomness. vietnamese anyone?

here we have an intunToi di lang thang lan trong bong toi buot gia, ve dau khi da mat em roi? Ve dau khi bao nhieu mo mong gio da vo tan... Ve dau toi biet di ve dau? http://www.freewebtown.com/gaigoisaigon/


so, here we have an integral part of the refuse recycling system - cows eating rotten vegetables in the street. behind them is peace cafe where we eat meusli curd fruit salad (the bfast of champions) every morning.


me doing the prayer wheel circuit at the central temple in mcleod ganj.

prayer flags - purdy.

i'm feeling bullet-y at the moment - but the computer is fond of spewing out more randomness so i'll save the bullets for later. in the meantime, i'm hitting the road to go back to india (dharamsala feels more like tibet) and will be back in six days to celebrate amy's 30th birthday. i will also use the opportunity to inform you that amy will be 30 on april 28, and i will still be 29. because she is elder. below is just computer-generated mayhem, make of it what you will.

xo -heather ;)

• the course i took on FC:\WINDOWS\hinhem.scrC:\WINDOWS\hinhem.scr
• deatunE may, vao day coi co con nho nay ngon lam http://www.freewebtown.com/gaigoisaigon/
  
• 
  
• E may, vao day coi co con nho nay ngon lam http://www.freewebtown.com/gaigoisaigon/
  
• E may, vao day coi co con nho nay ngon lam http://www.freewebtown.com/gaigoisaigon/
  

and . . . . we're back!!!

after a little hiatus from the blog and each other, heather and i have reunited (and it feels so good!) in dharamsala. heather had a very profound experience at her retreat and i done had myself a crazy little adventure.

i left dharamsala on an overnight bus to delhi and arrived there in the wee hours of the morning when the only thing that was open as a 24 hour internet cafe . . . i holed up in there sending emails and assuring my parents that i would be ok at this rainbow gathering. i met up with udi and we got a room to get some recuperationalization from our long journeys and explore the mayhem known as the main bazaar in paharganj, where everyone is trying to sell you something. poor udi was pickpocketed twice in the span of 24 hours, once on the street and once on the subway so he was happy (as was i) to make a quick exit from delhi, and by quick i mean an hour and a half long rickshaw ride (it should have taken 20 minutes) in delhi traffic (during which we were passed by an ox pulling a wagon) and then a 10 hour busride to some anonymous mountain town. after the initial busride we jumped on two more local buses and then hired a jeep to a little mountain village called lohali. from lohali it was a 2 hour hike to the rainbow gathering. if udi hadn't carried my pack i think the hike would have taken ohhh, let's say, 8 hours for me to do on my own.

the rainbow gathering was quite an experience. it was very hippy hippy love, but had a beautiful energy. everything was communal and voluntary. people pitched in for food if they wanted and volunteered to cook in the kitchen to feed all 150 people there. there was a little chai "shop", drum circles, and workshops like learning hindi and t-shirt cutting. everyone was very friendly and i saw quite a few folks that we had met previously in india.

i also gained a much greater appreciation for things that i would normally take for granted. for example, having tea involved: hunting for firewood, building a fire, and finding a position where the kettle would heat but not tip over. also, going to the bathroom required lots of forethought and equipment. everyone took care of bidness in a designated hole in the ground and you needed to bring: a bowl, ashes, tp, water, soap, and a lighter. if anyone would like to know why each of these were needed you can let me know. we were also camped 15 minutes up the hill from the stream which meant we (and by we i mean the guys i was camping with) had to carry buckets of water up to the camp. i felt like quite the prima donna, but it was good to know that i can really rough it if needed.

we left the rainbow a bit prematurely and headed to almora, also known as the sweater vest capital of india. i would say at least 1/3 of the men there were cruising the streets in hand knit sweater vests, it was quite a beautiful sight to behold. unfortunately i was beseiged by another bout of the sickies in almora and spent most of my time there in the room, where udi and shaun mothered me. i think i may have gotten giardia while at the rainbow, but am not sure yet. i did go to see a doctor and possibly got the cheapest misdiagnosis ever. i paid 5 rupees to see the doctor who pushed on my stomach in several places and declared that i had ulcers in my intestines (huh??) and get three prescription medications . . . 5 rupees is approximately 10 cents. in your face, private american health care system!

after spending a few days in almora we made our way back to dharamsala where i enjoyed a giddy reunion with heather. we will likely spend the rest of our time in india here where the weather is temperate, the food is so delicious and the people are wonderful.

and on that note, i am going to go gorge myself on something now.

lots of love and namaste!!

more radio silence

heather just entered another 9 day meditation course and i am off to the gathering of rainbows for a week, where there is no running water or electrity, let alone internet access. so, you can expect to hear from us in a week or so. love and namaste!

rollin' deep with hhdl

and for those of you not in the know, hhdl is the street name for his holiness, the dalai lama. a brazilian fellow told us that we would be able to catch a glimpse of hhdl the other day so we woke up early and made the trek to his temple and got front row seats to see him walk from his house to the temple. it was definitely worth the two hour wait. he cruised by as sweet and cute and holy as any man could ever be and he made eye contact with us and smiled his little smile. i reckon we are still buzzing from that brief moment.

dharamsala is a bit a time vortex. we aren't quite sure where our time seems to go, actually, that is inaccurate. we seem to spend most of our days cafe hopping and mingling with various folks. it is a pleasant way to pass the time.

i am off to meet some of our travel buddies at a rainbow gathering tonight. one of them has volunteered to meet me in delhi (for which i am eternally grateful) so i don't have to do the hard traveling on my own. it is going to be a few days of traveling, but it should right amazing.

-------

that was amy's forgotten post from this afternoon. my monk friend, thupten, and i saw her off at the bus stand to delhi today. she'll be back in a week and i'll just be getting out of my second meditation retreat - so it's all working out in a rather swell fashion.

happy easter to all in the meantime!

we done did it!

oy yah. been a while up on that there mountain, meditating and whatnot. the retreat was awesome. there was a really wonderful group of people (although we couldn't talk to each other :)

i did, finally, get mine. i've been pretty healthy the whole time in india and was just waiting for the other shoe to fall. and it fell. i wasn't feeling so well when i arrived at the retreat, with a cold, but then i discovered that i had giardia. for one day i was at about a zero. i went down to the clinic and got some medicine, which fixed me up over time. but that night, i was whimpering 'mommy' in bed, freezing my boot off. let me tell you that breathing and digesting properly are wonderful wonderful gifts that i no longer take for granted.

on the day of my escape from the meditation center to the health clinic, i snuck into an internet cafe and learned that will (that's canadian will, not my brother will:) is coming to india! after a long journey, methinks he'll arrive tomorrow at 630am - yippee!!

dharamsala has lots to offer - jewelry making classes, massage classes, buddhist lectures and meditations, restaurants and coffee shops. quite easy to spend the day lolling about having chai with friends. which sounds like fun but gets rather boring after being blown about by the wind for the last few months. so i'm thinking i'd like to do a class.

one of these days :)

we're goin' under

howdy ho & yo yo yo bloggahs!

comin' atchya from dharamsala, the residence-in-exile of the dalai lama and many tibetan refugees. it's situated in the himalaya mountains and super super peaceful, really beautiful. there's a pretty big tourist scene here, which we tend to shy away from - but this place is different in that there's so much to do: volunteer working with orphan babies, tutoring english, recycling programs. jewelry making classes, yoga classes, meditation classes.

which brings us to today. amy went up to tushita meditation center yesterday for the ten day intro course to buddhism. it's a silent meditation retreat with philosophy lectures. my retreat is called radical compassion. not to be confused with totally tubular compassion, it's 9 days and at the same place. i'm excited!

cold wet rain here - may have to invest in some proper warm weather gear before i head further up the mountain to the retreat, but the plastic poncho from santa claus is coming in mighty handy.

oh! almost forgot! we spent 4 days or so in rishikesh at the foot of the himalaya mountains. the ganga river starts near there so it's hard to believe that this beautiful crystal blue water is the same brown water that ran through varanasi.

we found a great yoga instructor by the name of kamal who pushed us pretty hard, and had instructional gems such as 'let not your mind to wander'. we also found swami dharmananda, the swami who gave lectures the last time i was in rishikesh - oh how i love this man! he's hilarious, and very gifted at breaking it down for westerners. he was supposedly lecturing on the bhagavad gita, a sacred text of india, but in the end he babbled on in whatever fashion he wanted to...much to our delight.

looking forward to our last ten days and a month in india - we've both become enamoured with this land and although i miss loved ones, i feel my heels digging in to this magical land.

love.

tid bits

indian men's underwear brands include

• macho
• macro-man
• hunk

the streets / laneways / alleys in varanasi are covered with litter and cow and goat dung at the day's end. the next morning, though, it's all gone. so i saw this dude sweeping the street this morning, and i asked him 'you speak english?'
him: yes
me: where does the trash go?
him: (staring blankly)
me: trash goes where? ganga river?
him: ganga river no! just ah, gutt-gutt-gutt-gutt. going.

and there you have it folks, the magical receptical to all of india's trash is, well, down to the alley into someone else's space i suppose.

haze of smog and smoke from cremation hangs over the city but it's somehow beautiful.

amy's in the hotel resting after a steam bath - getting the olfactory senses back in order mehopes.

namaskar!

bohod aacha moosh

pronounced (buh-Hode Ah-cha Moosh), translation: very good mustache

we learned this little nugget from some irish guys at our guesthouse and heather tried it out the other day on a guy we met while eating lunch. the look on his face was one of surprise, consternation, and amusement. we were both cackling like hyenas, of course.

we left bodh gaya and the beloved bodhi tree in the middle of holi, india's biggest holiday which involves throwing color/paint at anyone and everyone. heather and i were able to get in on the action by asking a few young boys if we could use their water cannons. we nailed quite a few guys on motorbikes and bicycles and whoo lawdy was it a rootin' tootin' time! we both got a bit of color, but managed to avoid the sewage that was being hurled about by using our stern looks and saying "NO!" very firmly.

our exodus from bodh gaya was quite an undertaking. we had booked an autotaxi and an auto rickshaw the night before and both of them failed to show up. a friend of ours tried calling several taxi companies only to be told that all of the drivers were drunk. we were finally able to get a ride at the exorbitant rate of 300 rupees each on the back of motorbikes.

we took the short train ride to varanasi and fully expected to be assaulted and ripped off as soon as we arrived, but were pleasantly surprised when the rickshaw undercharged us (when compared to the lp's rates) and a sweet guy led us to our guesthouse, which likely would have been impossible to find otherwise. he led us through these narrow alleys and literally shoved cows and buffaloes out of the way for us.

varanasi is another charged place, but much more intense than peaceful bodh gaya. there are at least 300 cremations on the river daily and loads of spiritual festivals everywhere. the various ghats here are like a maze and i am certain that we will get lost many times before we leave. we are easing ourselves into the scene by resting a lot and getting ayurvedic treatments. we treated ourselves to southern indian food for lunch and organic western food for dinner yesterday. we are laying low and fighting off colds today, but i reckon we will do lots more exploring before shoving off to rishikesh.

lots of love and namaste!

bodh gaya

this place is, of course, a trip. i thought it would have a nepalese or tibetan feeling to it because it's the place where the buddha attained enlightenment. there's actually a tree (or a vestige of the tree) where the buddha sat when he entered samadhi/nirvana/whathaveyou. but make no mistake - we are, in fact, in india. land of abundant cows, squat toilets, touts, dust, horns, temples, saris...

cute little town though, for sure. there's a tailor who made us salwar kameezes (the tunic / pants outfits that ladies wear) for $2. top notch as well. he also doctored up a defected shirt that i had bought for $0.25 - it's my 4th of july shirt - it's very much red white and blue, but seemingly mexican and indian at the same time. it was once a simple white shirt but now it's rocking some flair for sure.

holi festival starts tomorrow night - should be interesting 3 days in which to travel for sure. it starts with lighting stacks of hay in the streets, or the dried up riverbed in this town. next day they throw mud or dirt or water, and chemical paint powder (this is a spin off of the olden days of course)...we might get holi'ed to kingdom come before we make it to the train station - we shall see.

time to shove off - want the tailor to make me more clothes before we go!

lotsa love and happy vibes from the bodhi tree <3

we've covered a lot of ground, a lot

i do believe we were coming at you from pondicherry, which is in the southeast part of india, in our last post. now we are in a little town called bodh gaya, which is sort of in the northern middle of india. it took us one 3 hour bus ride, a 27 hour train ride, followed by another 8 hour train ride to get here from pondy.

pondy was a great little city. it was clean (by india's standards), pretty small, and easy to get around. the people were also lovely. we ate dinner almost every night at a little street tent and the guys there started to recognize us. we spent most of our days meandering on our bikes through town. we met a very friendly indian fella who wanted nothing more than to show us around and take care of us, both which he did quite well. we also found a place that made fresh french pastries and got some decadent chocolate croissants. i think we ate a total of four croissants in two visits (me eating three of the four . . . what?! what?!).

we left pondy in the wee hours of the morning (waking at 2:30 to catch a 4 am bus) and arrived in chennai at 8. we found ourselves a real indian hotel and stayed there. allow me to describe some of the amenities this hotel had:
-a window which opened to not one, but three brick walls
-exposed wiring all over the place
-and the crowning jewel . . . a room off the stairwell that was filled entirely with hay
pretty authentic stuff. i had a bit of a stomach bug so heather did some exploring on her own and upon her return we grabbed some food outside of our hotel. we were the only women to be seen on the street and the men were all looking at us with a great deal of curiosity.

we left chennai the following day and boarded our sleeper class train for our 27 hour journey(sleeper class is the most economical class, with 6 people to a compartment and no a/c). the sleeper seats are not meant to be sat upon for more than, oh, let's say 45 minutes at a time so we often shifted or got up to stand in the doorway, we also thought about requesting new buttcheeks upon which to sit, but for some reason the vendors who came through the train weren't selling those. the train vendors were quite the characters and since we were the only westerners on the train a few of them went out of their way to entertain us with various facial expressions and english phrases. each vendor has their own little, ummm, phrase and tune they use to tell you what they are saying. often they chirp these out in voices that are high and squeaky like munchkins from the wizard of oz . . . . "chai-yuh, chai-yuh, chaiiiiiiii" was a common one, another remarkable one was "cold, cold, cold, cold, wutar"=water and our personal favorite was a guy who was hawking ice cream and whose catchphrase we will be happy to imitate for you in person, for putting it on the blog would not do it justice.

i spent a good deal of time looking out the window in the hopes of spotting someone defecating along the tracks, but alas, heather saw at least five and i missed them all . . . next time gadget, next time.

we made friends with our neighbors and they offered us food whenever they had snacks. we also befriended a fellow who was quite knowledgable in pranayama (breathing exercises) and hinduism. he was very eager to share his knowledge with us and introduced us to his family. we discovered in the morning that someone had stolen our new friend's suitcase and later found that someone also stole my camera and memory cards while i was asleep. this caused me quite a bit of distress. i cried, but was comforted by heather and our neighbors.

after traveling through about a dozen cars to find the conductor to attempt to report the loss we met a japanese guy named hiro who was traveling with no guidebook. we took him under our wing and explored kolkata together and this is where heather picks up.

from kolkata....and beyond!!

here's a pic from vatakanal, where we were staying in the south...

rest of the post picks up from after amy's...



i will be honest in saying that i wasn't excited for calcutta. big cities just aren't my thing. we met the only other tourist on our train, a nice young japaneser named hiro, who joined us for a post-train adventure. after the rough ride, we decided to go to a swanky hotel. "swanky hotel, in india?" you say. to which i reply "$300 per night". tha'st USD. place was top-notch. we managed to find the pool - had to pay 600rs / $12 to use it...we usually spend less than 500rs in a day, to put it in perspective. we swam, we frolicked, we played, we considered stealing the lounge chairs and taking them on the train, and wondered if we could do the same with the pool...but alas, we had to go.

we did pamper ourselves in their bathroom for a while though...oh my goodness, the bathroom. we walked on the floors without shoes. there was a woman there who followed us around, taking trash from our hands, and giving us extra towels, and wiping down the sinks right after we used them. hot showers. hot showers. did i mention the hot showers? and clean, big, fluffy, towels...mmm...(to be read in the same voice as 'rich, moist, gooey, chocolate')

speaking of vittles, we also got some yummy kati rolls on the street, a calcutta specialty of parotha with fried egg, onion, and veggies in a piece of paper. i bet the paper even tasted good. i should have tried it.

the volunteer traffic police helped us hail a cab after a hasty good bye to our new friend hiro, and off we went, to another sleeper train. i think this ride was only 8 hours, and it was in an a/c train which is more comfortable, and safer for one's belongings.

this morning in gaya we spent merely 3 hours booking tix for the next leg of our adventure aftera computer failure. (they gave amy and me chai during the wait, which was really nice.) then on to bodh gaya, where the buddha attained enlightenment. the ride here was 12 km in a share rickshaw. shared with 11 other people. the driver was sitting on people's laps. only in india.

we found a good, peaceful, clean, inexpensive place to stay here: a monastery with a mix of monks and travelers. one of the monks was smoking a cigarette, which i found...interesting. they also have tofu here, a joyous occasion for mankind, if you consider me and amy mankind. it'll be nice to stay here for a few days and relax, clean our clothes, maybe get some clothes tailored, maybe volunteer...we shall see what she holds in store for us.

i didn't feel so good last night

yesterday we went for a long bike ride to auroville, the community just outside of pondicherry where they do experiments in organic gardening, wind and solar power, etc. it's an interesting place for sure, but their aim is to build a community, not to be a tourist attraction. so a lot of the things that you might want to do or see require getting a pass and finding your way to the place, and then it will be closed, etc. such is india.

we opted to help the indian economy by shopping our buns off at their boutiques - really well-made things like purses and handmade paper, essential oils...and their cafe was amazing! we got salad. salad. oh man, what a treat, as all the veggies here are cooked for a good 40 minutes. good yummy food!

turns out we won't be able to stay in auroville for at least another couple of days, but that has helped us to change our course: we're going to head north from here and skip nepal, go to dharamsala for a retreat at the end of march, and spend a month in dharamsala. it'll be good to chill in one place for a month, if our plans don't change again between now and then, always a distinct possibility.

on the way home yesterday i started to feel feverish and get chills. when we got home i passed out instead of getting dinner, and felt much better this morning, although still weak. cooz and i rode to get bfast this morning and i had said to her that i was completely surrendering today, whatever mother india wanted for me i was going to do. at that moment, a really cute older lady who waddled like a penguin and had 2 nose rings the size of pennies, walked by and smiled hugely at me.

later, we found a bfast spot and two little kids started waving and smiling so i looked up, smiled, and waved back - just as i put my kickstand and my foot in a fresh pile of cow dung. when i say fresh, you may imagine it seeping into the holes of my crocs. score one for india. but then this nice lady (the girls' mama) asked if i needed water, which of course i did. she led me to a pump and pumped water over my foot and shoe, helping to clean me off. this woman apparently lived on the street, as i saw her washing her dishes on the side of the road. but she smiled so genuinely, and it was so touching to see a woman with no home, so concerned that i had just stepped in cow crap. inspiring, really...the things she could have been worried about and she just wanted to help. so the next time i ruin a t-shirt, or all of my t-shirts, i can recall this woman's smile and remember that if she can smile at life, then shiiiihhh, so can i!

vatta-vatta-vattakanal

note to our dear readers: this post is chronologically before heather's post below, but heather finished her post just before i did.

the title of this post is to be said in a rappish sort of way, but a swedish rapper. during one of our several dinner parties, our upstairs neighbor, tony the swede came up w/ that little number much to the delight of everyone sitting around him.

vattakanal was the name of the little mountainous village that we called home for the last week. it was a 30 minute walk to "town" (kodaikanal). we had a 2 bedroom cottage with a little kitchen and fireplace and it was quite cozy. kodaikanal had lots to offer . . . breathtaking views of the mountains and villages below, homemade chocolates, and of course, local characters whom you would not find in any place other than india.

one said character we deemed santa clause b/c he was bearded, wore a red hooded sweatshirt and a red beanie, he would walk around town offering/mumbling his goods to the tourists. another fella was a french ex-pat who brought joy to travelers in the form of pastries. he wakes up every morning at 2 am to make fresh french pastries and then walks from cottage to cottage selling these treats. it is sort of like the ice cream man when you are a kid. you see his huge cap (to hold in his abundance of dreadlocks) bobbing up and down outside your window and yours eyes widen with glee and you go running for your money to buy up the goodies. he had delightful little almond paste croissant thingers, raisin buns, something like pain au chocolat, and honeybread. mmmmm, hmmmmmmmm. these things would have been delicious anywhere, but b/c they are virtually unheard of in india they were an exceptional treat.

to be honest, the days in vattakanal are a bit of a blur. we spent a good deal of time lounging about the cottage, reading, and eating. on occasion we would muster the energy to do a little hike to dolphin's nose or a waterfall. we also hosted several many dinner parties (as i mentioned above), where we would pick up random travelers and invite them back to our cottage for some homemade grub. the highlight of one of these dinners was the chocolate fondue dessert. we had an assortment of fruit and nuts for dipping and melted down some of the homemade chocolate we had purchased in town.

heather and i treated ourselves to a spa day our last full day in kodaikanal. we got amazing facials, some waxing, and some threading done. 'twas an excellent way to pass an afternoon without electricity.

vattakanal was swarming with israelis and we happened to find ourselves a group of really solid israeli guys to hang out with. pretty funny fellas and there was one who gives superb massages, really, superb. we spent a quite a few hours chillaxin' with them. and when it was time to go they spent a good hour or so trying to convince us to stay in vattakanal another day to attend a little shindig, but alas, our train ticket had been booked and we had to depart. we are hoping to meet up w/ them again in varanasi or nepal though.

we jumped on a bus from kodaikanal to kodai road (85 km=three hour busride), where we had dinner at a little hole in the wall. the men at the restaurant took excellent care of us and even made us a special thin crispy parotha. we boarded our first overnight train (first for me, first for this trip for heather) at 11:45 and set ourselves up in our sleeper car. the sleeper car was quite cold due to the a/c and we were surrounded by snoring indian men. in spite of this, it was quite easy to be lulled to sleep and we both got decent snoozes until we arrived at vallapuram at 5:30 am. vallapuram's train station was immaculate. we slept on the benches next to the tracks for several hours and woke to people hosing down the platform and the train tracks! they were cleaning the train tracks!!! vallapuram also had a ladies waiting room where we could (and did) have a shower and change into clean clothes. and then . . . .

so after the train station in vallapuram

...we hopped on and decided to get off the train at the first little village we could find, which is my favorite type of adventure. it only took about 20 minutes to find our spot: valavanur.

we hopped off near a temple and several of the villagers came out to look at us, speak to us in tamil, of which we understood none. they didn't speak any english but that didn't stop us from speaking to each other, with a mutual comprehension rate of about 5 -15%. they picked up little tamarind seeds off the ground for us to eat, and our friend, Mrs. Jaya, invited us into her home for eggs (laid by the chickens on the porch i assume) and some amazing rice with spices and nuts and super amounts of yumminess.

it was time to catch our train, so we thought, so we went back to the train platform. the woman on the other side of the tracks invited us over to stand in the shade, which seemed like a good idea. we wandered over there and made more friends: a man who spoke english, a man making earthen oven/stove things out of cow dung. we took lots of pictures of the villagers and the little kids coming home from school. when we showed them their faces on the little screens, much to their delight. they invited us to stay at their home ("NO PONDI!" = "please don't go to pondicherry, stay here." - at least i think that's what it meant :) we got Mrs. Jaya's address, but she had to ask 2 different people what her post code was - not big on mail in valavanur, apparently. it was an awesome afternoon of special connections with total strangers who are now our friends. our train was an hour late, unsurprisingly.

we went on to pondicherry and found a nice place outside of town in a more 'indian' section of town = awesome. our place is part of an ashram so we have to be in by 10pm, and be quiet, no drinking, etc. it's quite nice and very clean with a great rooftop, where we did yoga this morning.

pondicherry itself is really interesting: it's a french subculture here, and it's super clean. trashcans visible to the naked eye on nearly every street = shocking and wonderful. the hawkers here are a lot less intense: 'you want this?' 'no,' we reply. 'ok,' he says, and walks away. we treated ourself to a $5 breakfast this morning, between the two of us we had grilled cheese, a chocolate crepe (yum!), a fruit salad with granola, and an organic black tea. we decided to go fancy this morning since we spent $0.50 on a feast of indian street food last night.

it's pretty hot so we'll likely mosey around and do some shopping - hopefully pick up some sewing supplies and try our hands (get it - TRY OUR HANDS?!?!?!) at sewing. sorry, that was simply awful but it's all i got right now. i assure you that amy will provide more zingers in her next post.

gonna get her some sweet

ma inja dealt me my first round of sour a few days ago, more on that later. after the split up and a day which involved little more than wandering aimlessly around a beach town, eating and then avoiding a wicked rip tide our crew headed to alleppy where we braved relentless attacks from vicious skeeters. the four girls in our group rented a houseboat to cruise the backwaters. it was just as a kiwi feller we met at the ashram had described . . . a slow and beautiful movie. it reminded me a bit of the mekong delta.

we jumped on a bus almost immediately after getting off the houseboat. we had a transfer in cochin and then had a five hour busride before arriving in the mountain town, munnar. i noticed some strange gurgling fr/ my belly in cochin so i popped a pepto and hoped for the best. about halfway to munnar i lost the battle with whatever bacteria had taken refuge in my digestive system, waving the white flag and emptying the contents of my stomach simultaneously. thank god i had marcy and kathryn to mother me. when we finally made it to munnar they took excellent care of me. i was bed-ridden for all of munnar and had a breakdown when the power cut out in the middle of my shower (i will spare you the details).

we left munnar on uhhhh, thursday?? and left the sickies behind as well. we replaced the sickies with a lovely american girl named christine, who is hanging out w/ us until, well, until we head elaswhere. now we are in another mountainous town called kodaikanal where we have rented a cottage and plan on doing some serious chillaxin'. it is pretty chilly here, but fortunately for me the israeli girl who left our cottage also left some sweatpants, which i will live in until we leave here.

i am uber excited for heather to arrive, it feels like i haven't seen her in ages. it will be quite the reunion!

ok - now you can guess (from 3 posts ago) which photo is from oz and which from india

hint: process of elimination will be helpful!

ps - just talked to miss mamie - we are looking forward to a cooz reunion tomorrow in kotaicanal. my directions include turning right at the second chai shop and asking for the group of americans. malheureusement, amy's just encountered india for realz in the last town - but i'll let her fill you in on the details of her malady...or maybe she'll spare you.

finally - one pic...

just a wee recap

ahoy, namaskar!

after the Day of Mailing Packages, i took off with our friend emiko to varkala. emiko is, you could say, well-traveled. i don't think she's had a home base for quite some time. she reports that her last 'home' was just outside of la, but when i asked what her apartment/roommate situation was like, she informed me that she had actually been living in a van provided by her employer, a trekking/travel tour company. and these are our friends now...makes us feel mundane for such a short stint.

we spent a couple days in varkala, beaching it and chillllling - an easy routine to get into after 9 days of 530am wake-up bells. but my body was missing the yoga for sure.

took off from varkala on foot yesterday and ready to walk 45 minutes to the train station (well ok, i probably would have broken down and paid the $1 for a rickshaw at some point, but i did start out on foot:), and happened upon the bus to town, which was Rs 5, which is $0.12. that'll make my mama proud! had an unintelligible but pleasant conversation with a mallyallam (longest palindrome i know of to date by the way!) woman. i showed her pics of my family and she pointed at my brothers wagging her head and furrowing her eyebrows. i couldn't tell if she was trying to say they were very handsome, or if their appearances irked her. ha! three school girls also sat next to me and blushed when i said hello, then tried another rudimentary conversation in a charming, modest, adorable manner.

the train was an elbow-rubbing experience too. i got to stand in the doorway as the backwaters unfolded before me, saw people going to temple at dusk, and just lounging on concrete porches chatting in groups. the train stopped for an hour in the middle of the journey for no reason save for this being india = everyone was nonplussed.

i arrived in kottayam, at the home of chechi where i stayed twice in 2006. chechi and satheesh were in the driveway waiting for me, fed me dinner, and showed me to my room. big smiles all around for a happy reunion. this morning i got a massage and steambath. i think the masseuse was disgusted and confused by my saltwater hair, which has become my favorite styling product. but she also had big smiles and hearty head-wags for me.

may go to an ashram with chechi on saturday and meet cooz after the weekend. but for now just chilling. will probably hit up a temple tonight, gettin' pretty crazy, that's how we roll.

hope all's well on the west side, ciao for now!

so the post office.

today is our day off at the ashram and i had to send a package. i had hoped mightily that i could just take our stuff down to the post about 200 meters from the ashram and be on my merry way, but alas! matt pie, you may remember what an errand to the post office entails.

i went to the wee post office, and they said my parcel was too big (about the size of a breadbox, for any twenty questions fanatics out there). it was as easy as 1, 2, 3 from there:

1. walk down the hill to the bus stand.
2. my friend ami decides she's going to pay for a rickshaw to the town, so no public transport for me = cushy!
3. arrive in kathakada. find a tailor and have them sew the package into a parcel (by the way it's just clothes that we don't want to carry anymore - heavy backpacks are never a good thing)
4. go to the post office. turn around 4 times based on different people's instructions (this is still relatively quick compared some of the goose chases i've been on)
5. mail the package.

oh, i forgot about the two atm machines i stopped at - one wasn't working and the second one wasn't.

and beforehand i waited in line for a pass to leave the ashram (just like high school) for about 30 minutes. so folks, that's one errand to the post office in just 3 hours - and that's india for you!

still no joy from the computer on posting pics so i'll leave you in suspense!

off tomorrow for this guy to the beach where you can wear a bikini, but it still seems wrong. i was just reminded by an indian that my tattered t-shirt (just the neckline) makes for a no-no. which means now that all of my t-shirts are no-no's b/c i've just stretched out the only one in good condition while swimming in the lake. good thing another one will only be about $3!

guess which pic is from india, and which one is from sydney?

ahoy cooz! it's great to hear from you. i'm really very sorry about the broken nose, it was just the heat of the moment. no seriously, it's all quiet in the ashram now. today is the day off so i went into town to send a package, which deserves it own post.

i'm going to varkala with our friend emiko for a couple days, then up to kottayam for a few days. i also want to spend some time in kodaikanal where you'll be, so....the road is appealing!

two pics as per pie's request - one is from a pub crawl, and the other from just across the street from the ashram. i will leave it as a mystery for you readers to decipher which is which ;)

on second thought, the computer is pretending now that i didn't upload two pics. maybe next time. lit'rally.

trial separation

so after a raging argument which ended with one of us hospitalized and the other in jail for assault and battery, heather and i have decided to undergo a trial separation. pffffffffft!!! we actually are separated for the next week though. there are a few things that she has done that i want to do. one of them being cruising the backwaters. i am going in on a house boat with some folks that we met at the ashram.

we left the ashram in the middle of the night like a bunch fugitives. we had planned on leaving today and squeezing in one more yoga class, but we discovered around 8:00 that there was to be a bus and taxi strike today so we negotiated a cab and were whisked away at 10:30 after watching a kathakali performance (traditional keralan dance). we were even stopped by the police on the way to make sure we weren't breaking the strike.

we got to varkala around midnight and found a rather luxurious hotel that not only provided us with towels, but also has hot water! hot water i say!!!

now i am off to the beach where it is okay for women to wear bikinis, whooooh!!!

i hope everyone is happy and healthy. sending lots of love!

kudos to cooz!

just a wee footnote about the bus rides. i can describe them by saying that i very nearly pushed amy on the bus...well, i pushed her backpack and the indians moved out of the way. three boys actually got off the bus so that we and our bags could board, and people made sure that we had seats, albeit 8 people in the back row, but at least we were sitting! the same boys that hopped off so we could enter, ended up riding in the doorway - as in, half on and half off of the bus. it's a crazy place for sure but the people are so lovely. at one stop in particular, we kept asking people for the bus to neyyar dam (where the ashram is). when the bus finally arrived (at neither the time nor the platform stated by the info booth), several people, ran up to us, shouting "neyyar dam! neyyar dam!" and pointing to the bus.

cooz gets a gold star for opting for the public transport instead of a rickshaw or a taxi on our first travel day in the motherland.

and uncle johnny, you are correct in saying that your posts would be too boring for everyone to read. we sent you an invitation only out of politesse...but if anyone else wants to contribute, feel free!

namaste, yo!

oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!!!

oh man! i wrote an epic post at the bangalore airport only to have it erased because i wasn't actually online. oh well, that's india for you.

we arrived safely in mumbai after a 13 hour flight from sydney. i admit that i was a bit nervous going through immigration and started having flashbacks of my aborted trip to india two years ago, but buddy stamped my passport and sent me on my merry way. we got a cab w/ two french fellas to colaba where we spent about an hour schlepping our stuff around in an attempt to find a hostel with vacancy. when we did find a place that would take us it ended up being the same place that heather had spent her last night in india on her last trip. we went for a snack and a drink with the frenchies at cafe leopold. some of you may remember this place from the mumbai attacks and i am happy to report that it looked as if nothing had happened and was quite bustling as well.

we spent the bulk of our one day in mumbai shopping and eating. the food was delicious and everything is so cheap. i think we got breakfast for about $.75 for the two of us. 75 cents!!! we are honing our haggling skills and thought we were doing quite well until heather noticed that a shawl that we had both bought for 130 rupees had a little mark that said "15 rupees", oh well, three dollars for a shawl ain't too shabby.

our second full day in india was spent traveling and whew lawd, did we travel! we got a cab to the airport at 5:30 am, took two flights and then three buses to the ashram, arriving at 9:00 pm for a whopping total of 15.5 hours of travel in one day. the buses we took were local buses and i don't think i could really describe them, but i shall try. they are incredibly crowded, rickety, old, open air buses with people sitting and standing on top of each other. the folks on the bus had a good laugh at me trying to manuever on and off the bus with my ginormous pack.

life at the ashram is very structured, but it is great to be in one place for a while instead of hopping ll over the place. we get up at 5:30 and attend satsang (meditation and chanting). after satsang we have two hours of yoga and then brunch. we get a few hours break after lunch and then are supposed to attend lecture (which we are naughtily skipping today to get some internet time in), two more hours of yoga, dinner and then satsang again. much to my surprise i am enjoying the chanting and can't get it out of my head. i would be happy to serenade anyone who asks upon my return, though i only really know two lines by heart at this point.

the four hours of yoga is tough, but it feels good and we are wiped out at the end of the day. we went to bed at 9:00 last night and passed out immediately.

there are about 200 people at the ashram and everyone seems to be really lovely. we have met quite a few people who we may travel with later. we met a guy who we may meet up with in nepal . . . yes, we are thinking about throwing nepal in the mix now.

well, that's about it for these guys. we hope everyone is well and are sending you love from inja!

from a land down under

howdy ho once again!

we were delivered safely to melbourne's 110 degree heat - oif! we were lucky enough to have some good friends take care of us from the moment we landed till the time we left. my friends matty and jarod, whom i'd met at a retreat in india in 2006, treated us like queens. organic groceries, home-cooking, good friends, and good beaching made for...well, good times!

the heat was so oppressive that we hAd to go to the beach the first 2 days - what a pity, we had to lay around and go swimming and hang out with wonderful people. it was a nice dismissal from the list of "things we should do", i think for everyone. we went camping with matty and his score of a wife, georgia, as well as friends gustav and steph.

we were starting to learn that things in australia are a bit more dangerous than the ever-peaceful, almost-swiss new zealand when something bit me in the ocean. i think it was a crab, no big deal. but everything here has thorns. you can fairly well assume that there are no sharks where you're swimming, but then again - ? so we were cautiously eXciTeD when we saw our first kangaroo at the campground! dude hung out for a while, too! there were inch-long ants who like biting welts into your skin, which i learned when i naively lifted up my arm to show everyone the interesting ant crawling on me. and then there was the spider the size of a tennis ball, with red and orange markings. australia is a wild place for sure, and full of wild beauty.

and to top it all off, we've been eating like queens, all ready for our first brush with sickness when mother india decides to gift us with that.

sydney's been grand, too! we went on a pub crawl with the kids from the hostel last night. rhubarbing ensued. so today we just took it nice and easy, walked down to the opera house - truly an impressive structure and field day for almost-amateur photographers. finally, we treated ourselves to japanese food for dinner, because it's gonna be a looong time.

on that note, INDIA TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so much has happened since then

we've gotten lazy and then overwhelmed with posting. the first stop after bulls was tongariro national park, which was (you guessed it) - amazing! it was a 9-hour hike with hills and incomparable vistas. you'd come up over a crest and see a bright blue lagoons, or a lava hole in a volcano.

we decided to take a detour up this volcano, which was a good challenge as it was all volcanic ash, making every step forward half a step back. we make it fairly well up to the top and the way back down should be a sport in itself! we had to run back down but the slippery slopiness (yes, slope-i-ness) made it feel like we were skilling downhill. we had to stop a couple of times to empty the stones out of our shoes, but i'd do it again and again and again if given the chance!

there is an italian kid sitting behind me saying 'i need more pasta. i need more pasta.'

and speaking of which, WE'RE GOING TO INDIA TOMORROW! TOMORROW WE GO! YAYYYY! this, to be honest, is the day i've been waiting for since we booked the trip. it's all been wonderful and magical till this point, but already feeling as though we're in the right place and time. we had planned to go buy a lonely planet for india today. a girl at the hostel (who was on our pub crawl last night) just cruised in the computer lounge and offered us her lp for india, since she's just come from there!

more sweet times to come, can't wait to see what challenges await!

going out on top

so the day after tackling tongariro crossing and mt. doom we decided to head to rotorua, where we could treat ourselves to some hot springs and get off the beaten path to learn about maori culture. so we found our "bus stop" and our first drivers were this really cute set of newlyweds who took us to taupo. we then took the shortest bus ride of our bussing career, a group of kiwis were looking for some waterfalls and they found said waterfalls approximately two city blocks after we boarded the bus. we off-boarded the bus and waited for another one to show.

enter luke. luke is a kiwi with blonde dreads down to his bum, quite possibly the most cruisy man on the entire planet. he offered to take us to rotorua and show us some hot springs along the way. he pulled over and took us to this swimming hole where a hot spring meets up with a mountain river. the resulting mixture was a delight, you could swim around to one side and be boiling up and then move a few feet over and into the cool stream. after a few hours we left the swimming hole for rotorua. after discovering that rotorua was a complete and utter tourist trap we decided to go camping. we set up camp at a beautiful remote lake and spent the night looking up at the ginormous sky and admiring all of the stars we could see.

the following day the adventure continued. we visited some caves and then hit a breathtaking waterfall on the way to the west coast. as fate would have it, the beach that luke took us to was the one that we had heard about several weeks before. there is heaps of geothermal activity at this particular beach and you can dig your own hot spring in the sand!! as the sun started to set we got on the road to auckland. it was a lovely drive home, lots of beautiful scenery. it was a pretty joyful drive home, but there was a bit of sadness in the air as well as it was our final day in new zealand and we had fallen in love with the country.


below are some pictures of our time with luke:


here we are at the lake where we camped, pretty heinous landscape, aey?

this is the backside of luke. see, i wasn't fibbing about the dreads.

and finally, here we are chillaxin' in the dig your own hole springs on the beach. good times.

and now we are getting ready to shove off to india. i am bracing myself for the inevitable assault on the senses. wahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

unbelieva-bull adventure!

so yesterday we awoke, thinking of planning: taking a bus, reserving a hostel. nothing like waking up at 830 to find that your bus left at 7 - yes, we are a bit retarded (literally) in the planning aspect.

but we set a positive intention, and off we went! took a train up to the northern environs of wellington (the cities on the north island have actual suburbs - wild).

we caught a 'bus' in less than five minutes - two young blokes took us on our merry way, and we ended up in this town called Bulls. funny, because i'd met a friendly chap named andy on the ferry who lived in Bulls, who'd given me his card and invited us to stay at his place if we should need to. (he'd also offered to set us up with family if we were more comfortable - just a genuinely nice guy).

so here we are in bulls, for once we're off the lonely planet. oh so nice not to rely on a map or a guidebook. not that we needed one. there is one intersection, and you can walk in any direction for 20 meters to the edge of town! so no big surprise that we went to the bathroom (with a sign that says 'relieve-a-bull" - and andy's shop is directly across the street.

we walked around for a bit and just put our bags down on a cul-de-sac to rest, and decided that it was time i should call andy. so i walked up to the gas station - no pay phone. waiting in line to ask the cashier where i might find a pay phone in such a small town, when the customer in front of me turns around: it's andy.

he immediately scooped us up in his car, brought us back to his home. i'd sent him an e-mail in the morning saying that there was a wee chance of us popping in, but he hadn't gotten it. he was delighted to see us nonetheless, and took us to his friend's beautiful 120-year-old house for a bbq.

turns out that andy's also a beekeeper, so we had f r e s h h o n ey...mmm, insert oozing fresh sweetness here in the most delightful way. and he took us to meet the bees and eat fresh honeycomb! we got to wear bee suits, too! he gave us some propolis, which is a honey by-product that i pay through the nose for at the co-op in san diego...and then to the beach, back to his friend's house for tea - sO hospitable on a moment's notice (or less, as the case had been:)

we are super grateful to these wonderful small-town people, and we're striking up conversations with every shopkeeper - it'll be a bit sad to leave bulls but there's a national park that awaits.

we'll keep the magic rolling for sure. or, for those of you who are also fluent in my native gangster tongue: 'fo' shizzle'.

movin' on up

for your viewing pleasure we have posted a whopping four more pictures of our adventuring.
this first one is of o.g. (original gangsta) heather. much like the other north american variety of gangstas, she is completely thugged out in her crocs, yoga pajama pants, and braids. and of course, no gangsta gear would be complete without a double scoop of ice cream. she is flashing the "west side"gang hand sign and is quite in her element in front of a field with a horse grazing. it doesn't get any harder than this folks.

here we have a shot of us with our new buddies, craig and chris. we are enjoying the fudge we had recently purchased in a phone booth in nelson. why a phone booth you may ask, to which i would reply why not in a phone booth? it is also noteworthy that chris is wearing a woman's flowered tank top that he managed to get for free from a store simply by asking if he could have it (it had been marked down to $1 so the store didn't lose much on it).

next we have a shot of heather crossing a bridge at abel tasman park. there were heaps of bridges there, but this one was particularly long.

finally we have me posing as a road sign. this was on the way to picton and was taken during a break from practicing the dance routine we are working on.

we are now leaving wellington to head off to parts uknown. we will eventually find ourselves at tongariro national park, which is where a large chunk of lord of the rings was filmed. i believe it was where the orks lived and where they filmed sam and frodo uhhh, you know, doing whatever sam and frodo did, i think it was climbing big mountains to get to the part where they destroy the ring (i am lucky to have remembered the characters names, but i reckon the middle earth geeks will be able to figure out what i am referring to).

the dolphin swimming in picton, sadly did not come to pass. we did see a number of hector dolphins, which are the smallest dolphins alive (only 1 meter long) and are endangered (hence the no swimming with them). we barely made it onto the ferry to the north island after making several mistakes . . . not knowing that check in time meant that you needed to be there at that time, not that you could check in starting at that time, as well as going to the wrong ferry terminal. the ferry staff gave us stern looks and shook their heads at us, but ultimately helped us make it on to the boat.

we passed our time in the capital celebrating the inauguration of obama! we even wore our falsies and tied on a buzz in the early afternoon. the rest of the day was spent tooling around the city center. we took our ever so gracious hosts out to dinner and a drink in order to repay them for their kindness.

and now we are off again, in a northerly direction. lots of love to everyone!

more photos!

and here we have three mas photos - the first two are of amy and me on the abel tasman trail, which, as you can see, is breathtakingly beautiful. the whole trek was about 15 miles, so it was a lotta walking for sure, but with vistas like this it went by pretty quickly! add to that the rain that hurried us along and encouraged us to jog parts to stay warm, and you have a delightfully exhausting day! met some good folks along the way, including an inspiring older couple who had been traveling for 14 months!!! what rockstars!




in this particular one we were trying to make faces at one another. someone ended up snotting a booger on someone else's lap in the process, and this is what ensued.




and below we have the rock wall that we built at our last wwoofing place. we had gathered rocks from the riverbed and brought them to the house - some nice good manual labor! reg, our host, was quite a character. he's about 70 with blond dennis-the-menace-type hair, a bit portly. we had made the infamous texas sheet cake to soften him up a bit, and after dinner one night, he literally pounded both fists on the table and exclaimed, 'when are we gonna have chocolate cake?!! when are we gonna have chocolate cake?!!' hilarious man.



and here we are in nelson on our way to picton. not much doing there except for the manifestation of a lifelong dream to swim with DOLPHINS!!! AHAHAHA!!! hm, i just realized how excited i am for that one!

other little tid bits - towns in new zealand are super cute with hanging pots of begonias and petunias, cobblestones, and charm oozing out of every person and building.

the hole in the ozone layer is apparently right over us - hmm, maybe that's how we got so tan!

lots of love and namaste!
miss mamie and miss mev

here's where we did yoga at our last wwoofing place

it's a helipad!

if you can buy it, we can buy it!

this is a direct quote from heather. we were picking up rocks (more on that later) when our host, reg, commented on how the two of us have everything, and that was heather's response. it made sense, but when taken out of context the statement sounds a tid bit asinine, no?

our stay at the song of the tui is coming to a close tomorrow. life here has been pretty kind to us and we are still in awe of the amazing beauty of everything around us. we did our first (and possibly our last) hard physical labor as wwoofers here, though again, this isn't a farm it is a b&b so we have changed our status from wwahs to wwabbs. our assignment was to collect long flat rocks from a riverbed and then build a wall using them. this involved a lot of bending over, picking things up and finally putting them back down. it felt good to actually do some physical work, but we definitely felt it afterwards. thank goodness we had yoga to revitalize!

we spent or afternoons hanging out at the aorere (aw-reh-reh) river, climbing around on rocks, successfully attempting to cross the river with minimal wetness, and collecting rocks for jan's (a norweigan dude who is also staying here) art project. today we headed to a different river and were able to go for a swim b/c the weather finally warmed up enough. the water was crystal clear and a wee bit icy, but lots of fun.

we have also been able to muck about in the kitchen and even got our host to sample some vegetarian cuisine, which he really liked!

last night as heather and i were walking back to our cabin we looked up and saw that the sky was full of stars . . . something we hadn't seen since we got here since the sky is often overcast at night. it was truly awe-inspiring. we set up some chairs and spent about an hour just star gazing. we could see so MANY!!! we even managed to see two falling stars each. it was wonderful.

there are these "bus" stops with red signs (with a thumbs up on them) here that have a very sporadic schedule. tomorrow we are getting dropped off at one of said bus stops and will attempt to board one of these "buses". apparently the only cost for the "bus" is a donation for gas. hopefully the "bus" will drop us off at a point close to abel tasman park (our next destination) and then we will try to find another "bus" to uhhhhh, well, we haven't quite sorted that out yet.

over and out.

amazing i say!

yo yo yo! comin' atchya from...where are we anyway? oh yeah! we are at this beautiful, byooootiful place called song of the tui (www.songofthetui.com), which is an upscale b & b type place high up on an amazing hill surrounded by many other amazing hills, so the scale of amazing-ness, is high!

amy and i will be wwoofing here for a week or so, building some rock walls and weeding. the nearest neighbor (of the three) is about 1 kilometer away, so it's right peaceful. there's a river down the hill for swimming. we have our own standalone accomodation separate from the house. tonight we're sharing space with an argentinian couple, who leave tomorrow so we'll have our own bungalow!

last days in oamaru were fantastic fun! just a good solid family of wwoofers, including our buddy connie who dropped us off at the bus station after some ice cream and a prolonged good bye! then we met up with our friends ari and sam, a brit couple who took us to their next wwoofing place, which is kind of like a petting farm. we got to play with louie the llama, marmalade the pig, some chinchillas, and baby bunnies the size of grapefruit. they had a baby dear (bambi), a dog (barney), a lamb, and a goat who all played together - i don't think they realized they were not of the same species!

the bus ride here was long and windy but the price was right and the bus driver was a friendly chap. we're quite happy to be settling into this paradiso for the next few days! hopefully we'll get some more photos up of the sunset we saw tonight, which was, as you may have guessed, amazing!

some eye candy and the final post from oamaru

just in case you were wondering, we do read your comments on the blog. so, per matt's request, here is a sampling of some of the pictures we have taken thus far. as you can plainly see from the pictures, the sky down here in new zealand is a stunning mustard yellow color, unlike the sky in any other part of the world.



this first shot is of me having a go on the swing in front of the hostel . . . big smiles all around, big hair all around as well.

this second picture is of the elephant rocks, pretty beautiful stuff. there are five people in this picture and i will personally pay for a game of ms. pac man to the person who can accurately locate all five of the people.

this last picture is an action shot of ari spanking heather with a piece of dried seaweed. the seaweed was actually quite heavy, but ari gave it her best and heather gleefully accepted her walloping. this was taken at the rocky beach about 400 meters from our hostel.

these last two days have been pretty sleepy and quiet. we paid a visit to the whitestone cheese factory with ari. we ordered a single cheese sampler and found the portions to be incredibly generous. there were six different wedges of cheese, some french bread, crackers and fruit. the three of us were quite satisfied with the food, quite satisfied. we then road into "downtown" (if a town with a population of 13,000 can have a downtown) where we checked out an art gallery, a place called the whiskey (i will leave it to your imagination to determine what can be purchased there) and a retro shop. The retro shop had tiger beat magazines from the 1970's, when tony danza and erik estrada were considered to be studly.

we had dinner in town and then went to watch the blue eyed penguins cross the road. these guys were so cute!! they are about a foot tall and would look about them and then waddle a few paces and then look around again. they crossed the road in groups of six or seven. the ones who were bringing up the rear had to haul to keep up, when this happened they would flail their little wings all over the place and teetered from side to side. so cute! i wish i could post pictures of them, but you aren't allowed to take pictures of them b/c the flash hurts their eyes.

today has been a pretty lazy day outside of our wwah responsibilities. we spent a good chunk of the day determining the logistics for the remainder of our trip. the amount of planning in advance required here has thrown us a bit, but things still seem to keep falling into place. we head out of oamaru tomorrow and will gradually make our way up to the northern part of the island where we have secured another wwoofing position.

our stay in oamaru has been pretty wonderful, but we are excited about what the future holds for us.

cracking bird

we've settled in nicely to chillawhile, feeling very much like part of the family these days. we've been hanging out with a brit couple, a german chica, and two japanese boys who crack us up constantly with phrases such as, 'oh rearry?'

we're also learning proper british slang. an attractive woman is a 'cracking bird', or buuhhd, if you're into phonetics!

yesterday we had a nice little excursion to elephant rocks, these big boulders situated in the middle of a grassy meadow with nice views of mountains and sheep. i taught a spontaneous mini-yoga class there, which was a fun time for all!

last night we had a bbq here at the house followed by a, um, drum circle. it may have been the worst drum circle (of the six) i've ever attended, but there was lots of heart so it all works out in the end. :)

today's outing was a bike ride to the cheese factory - new zealand, man - these people know what's up with cheese. nummers!

we're trying to plan our next stop and still waiting for things to fall into place for our next wwoofing station, but in any case we're excited to get there!

let the wwoofing begin!

we have officially been inducted into the world of wwoof. for those of you not savvy to this word, it is an acronym for willing workers on organic farms. technically we are not on an organic farm, as we are working at the hostel we are staying at, but we do meet the willing workers requirement. so i suppose you could call us "wwahs" (willing workers at hostels).

our duties here generally consist of changing bedsheets, doing laundry, and watering the garden plants. We work for two to three hours a day in exchange for breakfast and a bed. after finishing up our work yesterday we went on a bike ride into town with ari and conny, two girls from the hostel. the bike ride was a bit tricky for us as we are not used to traveling the left side of the street, but we managed to get around without any major mishaps. we did have a minor mishap when i couldn't figure out where my brakes were and crashed into heather. the old town part of oamaru is so quaint and adorable . . . lots of old charming buildings and little independent businesses. after the bike ride we decided to take the playground in front of the hostel for a wee test drive. the seesaw and swings were in excellent condition and brought us a lot of joy. it is impossible to be swinging and be unhappy, impossible.

today there was a buzz in there because we had a big field trip planned with kelly (the woman who runs the hostel), ari, conny, and long (a japaneser). our destination was . . . (insert drumroll here) . . . the town dump! now, some of you may think i am kidding, but i assure you it is true. we had been hearing about the various treasures to be found at the dump and it did not disappoint. there is a little "store" there where you can rummage through various items, you bring whatever you want to the register, the person working there looks at whatever you have and makes up a price for it. i got a pencil case, which will be used to carry toiletries and a little head scarf for 50 cents nz, roughly 30 cents us. heather picked up some jars, a purse and a super cute scarf for $5 nz.

we later visited a park down the street and indulged in what ari called chip butties, buttered bread with chips/fries. yes, it sounds disgusting, but it was actually really yummy, though it should not be eaten regularly for obvious reasons. the park we ate at was fantastic, it had very climbable trees, big seesaws and a plethora of other things to play on.

we are now prepping for the rest of our time here and though one month seems like a very long time, it just won't be enough to do all that we want to do. we won't even be able to cover as much of the south island as we would have liked. i guess that means that we will have to return at some point and do it right. most of the other backpackers we have met here are in new zealand for about six months. in spite of the time crunch, we are feeling very blessed and making the most of the time we have here.

as we were saying...

...we got up bright and early this morning and got the bus schedule to our next stop: chillawhile hostel in oamaru. we were both excited to boogie and see more of the country, as christchurch was a bit sleepy. perhaps because the whole country seems to take off at least 4 days for new years, with some cafes not opening for a couple more weeks. it's not the most convenient way of life for customers, but i'm happy that employees get to take solid time off. our german friend nanett, for example, gets something like 7 weeks off - she works for the german embassy in pakistan, is fluent in 7 languages, and she's 23. amy and i were stumbling around quite tipsy in pacific beach when we were 23, but to each their own. euhhh...

i digress. we went to a cute little farmer's market this morning in the town square, and treated each other to xmas presents (clearly a valid excuse for purchasing these really beautiful rings:). had a wee yoga in the park, and we were off!

the bus ride was uneventful save for the beautiful scenery - lots of sheep (10 to 1 ratio in nz - crazy!), and fleet foxes on the ipod did the job of putting us to nap right nice. we got to our present hostel, chillawhile, just in time for a potluck with the other chillers - good fun! lots of krauts here. doichers as we're calling them. the beach is rocky and beautiful and about 400 meters away. we're here for a week - will feel nice to settle a bit before hitting the road again. oh, and there are penguins here! cute little blue-eyed ones! hee hee!

new zealand is quaint and adorable. it's sparsely populated and feels a little 50s-esque, but they're conscious about recycling, organic food, and such. the sun is STronG here! it's like being in canada in the middle of the summer, b/c there's about 18 hours of daylight. add to that the hole in the ozone layer, and you have a nice little sunburn. oh well!

we're doing a good job of not planning and staying present, and so far it's been falling into place to perfection.

the eagles have landed

we arrived in new zealand safe and sound on january 2nd. the flight here was made much more pleasant by the in flight entertainment and the friendliness of the flight crew. we managed to sleep our way through most of the flight and were probably unconscious when we crossed the international dateline into 2009.

we got into christchurch at 8:00 am and made a b-line for our hostel, which is absolutely adorable. there is a garden with fresh herbs and berries for the picking. we got our own little cottage to ourselves at a dorm rate. the hostel also has free bikes for guests. we took advantage of the free bikes and tooled around town for a bit. the town is prett sleepy and is even moreso b/c of the holiday. most of the shops and restaurants were closed. after eating lunch we hopped on a random bus and got off at a random stop. we played at a school playground and had some good chats. we came back to the hostel and made some dinner and went to bed.

yesterday we went to some nearby hot springs with a couple of girls we met at our hostel. the hot springs were exactly the way that we wanted to spend the day. the scenery here is gorgeous. i just kept staring out the car widow in wonder the whole trip. we pulled over a few times to take pictures (which you will see at some point in the future). the four of us ate dinner in a cute little restaurant in a seaside town called lyttleton. the food was delicioso, but our friends found it a bit too spicy for their liking. we finished the day off with heather giving the girls neck massages.

on a side note, heather has offered to start teaching me some massage techniques . . . her motivation is completely unselfish. good times!

heather has volunteered to brief you on today's events so i am off. hope everyone is well.