halfway?

ding ding ding!!

2 more months! now i’ve been on the road for 6 months. half a year!! it’s weird, back when i went on my one and a half month trip to thailand, i saw people who were traveling on year long trips and thought to myself how crazy it would be to actually travel for that long. it seemed pretty much impossible that i would ever get to do such a thing… and yet here i am, already on the road for half a year. this *might* be the halfway mark for this trip… unless we keep adding countries!

the main difference in the last 2 months as opposed to the other 2 month chunks of this trip is that i actually spent the whole 2 months in just one country. every other place we’ve gone has just been for a few weeks or so, but the last 2 months have all been in india. despite the fact that i havent been jumping around a bunch of different countries, i’ve still managed to do quite a lot of stuff over the last 2 months:

i’ve walked through streets filled with cows, goats, pigs, buffalo, and monkeys; i’ve survived unbearably overstuffed rickety indian buses; i’ve been stranded in small indian towns where no one spoke english; i’ve had people stare at me, ask for my photo, and even had someone ask me to autograph his hand; i’ve ridden a scooter around a small indian island; i’ve taken a “bucket shower"; i’ve seen hundreds of temples, both hindu and buddhist; i’ve hiked up a hill made up of 3,300 steps along w/ many pilgrims; i’ve seen some of the saddest poverty i can imagine; i’ve eaten an unimaginable amount of curry; i’ve learned how to eat without using my left hand; i’ve seen several forts and several palaces; i’ve seen a blue city, a golden city, and a lake city; i’ve taken an indian cooking class; i went on a village safari where i drank opium water and wore a turban; i’ve had some bizarre experiences from drinking special lassis; i’ve watched the sun set over stretches of sand dunes while camels paced up and down; i’ve been in a temple inhabited by thousands of rats; i saw Sting perfrom in Delhi!; i’ve spent 3 weeks living in the himalayas among tibetan refugees; i created a database for a tibetan monk; i was attacked by a monkey; i’ve lived in sub-zero hotel rooms w/ nothing to keep me warm except for hot water bottles; i’ve learned how to meditate and i learned about buddhism; i got to see the snow for a few days and saw monkeys, cows, and monks all trying to deal w/ the storm; i saw a man who was possessed by the tibetan oracle; i saw the dalai lama; i’ve bought clothing and games for homeless children; i wore a fake beard; i’ve stayed in a hotel run by Hare Krishnas; i saw the amazing Taj Mahal; i saw a wild tiger; and i saw human corpses set on fire in the most holy city of india.

phew… it’s been a busy two months!! anyways, as usual, once every two months i’m checking who’s reading this journal. if you’re reading, please post a comment in this post and let me know that you’re out there!

*v