Sunday, March 21, 2010

once again...time has passes since our last post and so many amazing things have happened. we have been to the Golden Temple, had an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, learned how to cook Tibetan momos, hiked to the top of a mountain, had many monkey encounters, and swam in the ganga...

so much so much so much...everyday is just so amazing here and things just seem to get better and better. we both agreed the The Golden Temple in Amritsar was a huge highlight of the trip. We spent three nights sleeping in the free dorm there with many other backpackers experiencing the wonders of the Temple. We ate at what Luke called "the mess hall" for almost every meal. this was an experience that is quite hard to explain. there is a large hall that serves free food to an estimated 60,000-80,000 pilgrams a day! everything is volunteer based and it is amazing how smoothly things run. people are there every step of the way. you sit on the floor in rows as people walk by with buckets of yummy yummy food and slop it in scoopfulls onto your plate...when you have had your fill there is an assembly line of people to take your plates away and wash them for the next person. it is really quite an amazing operation they have there and it runs 24-hours...it seemed that the Golden Temple was always bustling.

ahh so many more stories to tell...we can't wait to share them all when we are back. we are both looking forward to erich and erin meeting us here next week!

lots of love
luke and rose

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Holi Mt Abuuuu

Hello Hello-
we have been on the run so much we have been so neglectful of this poor little blog. we have so much to share but will pick the best of the best for right now!

Yesterday we experienced Holi, the festival of color, India's largest festival! It was quite an experience. We headed for the hills for this one because we heard it was something that you want to experience for the first time on a smaller scale. We found ourselves in a lovely hill station called Mt Abu in Rajasthan. there were tons of Abu's... The night before Holi large fires were lit throughout the town and as we were observing one of these very fires we were happily greeted by and indian man and his wife who asked us to join him in their walk around the fire. the idea is to remove your shoes and walk once around the fire to "burn" away your sorrows. it was a lovely thing to be part of but the REAL celebration of Holi took place the next day. During holi peeps run around throwing colored powder and water at each other. they particularly like to smear you in the face. we set out early looking to pick a fight and were invited to join a drum circle sitting outside a holy hindu temple. the lead singer was playing a small instrument that we call the box-harpsi-piano. everyone was singing and immediately when we sat they covered our heads, face and all, in color! we sat and enjoyed the music. holi men, pardon the pun, were sitting with us. long beards, long hair, and rose and our german friend felt they were stuck out because i fit in. we enjoyed running around the small city being playful and greeted by many benevolent people playing holi.

by the end of the event we were covered. our clothes were ruined and we were feeling great. we got a few beers and hung out on the roof of our hotel where our room was. after some time we realized we were being robbed. MONKEYS!!! they got our last orange and even tried to make a meal of my beloved earplug. i was tee'd off to say the least (actually it was amazing and i was able to check off "monkey experience" on my "India to do" list) they got a bit aggressive and chased us out of the room when we tried to enter. I came to the rescue with a plastic chair and we locked the windows tight from there on out!!

we are now in the beautiful (yet touristy) town on Udiapur. We will be here for 2 nights then off we go on our much anticipated adventure NORTH! We will be in Amritsar basking in the beauty of the Golden Temple come this time Friday!

Lots and lots of love