Jonathan came this weekend.
It was a relatively low key weekend which was nice. We both haven’t been in perfect health,
especially Jonathan. On Friday night we
met downtown and had dinner out. It was
nice to not have to eat rice and to get to pick out what I wanted to eat! We even ordered beer to the table – so
refreshing!
On Saturday we went to buy a few things at the market for
Jonathan since he doesn’t really have a place to buy the necessities. We then went to a travel agent and book our
train tickets to and from North India.
On December 15th we will leave Chennai and arrive on the 17th
in Varanasi, India. A very old and holy
city known for its ghats on the Ganges where they say devout Hindus go to
die. We will spend one day there to get
acclimated to life off a train after two full days on a train! From Varanasi we will then head up to Nepal
and eventually arrive in Kathmandu, Nepal.
From Kathmandu we will then try and get to Pokhara; a smaller city that
is known to host “hippies and eccentric Everest trekkers” – according to the
Lonely Planet. Pokhara is supposed to
have the best views of the Himalayas. We
don’t have any solid plans for a few days.
We will then head to Kolkata and spend a day or two. From Kolkata we will head back toward South
India. On the 28th we will
leave Kolkata to arrive In Bangalore on the 30th. We then will probably spend a little time
there and then catch government buses back toward Jonathan’s site. All very exciting!
Once we were finished with our travel agent adventure we
headed back to my hostel. When we
arrived Mahindra (Durqa’s son) was waiting in the house with Jenna and
Laura. He made us boiled eggs. Jonathan and I devoured our eggs. They were delicious! We then all left with Durqa to go to Domino’s
Pizza. Mahindra has had Domino’s before
but Durqa has never eaten Domino’s.
Jonathan and I got a veggie pizza to share and Jenna and Laura got a
cheese to share. The food came to the
table and Durqa looked so disappointed to find out that there was no rice
involved. She took a slice of our veggie
pizza and we all waited with anticipation for her to try it and hopefully love
it! She looked so disgusted upon tasting
the pizza. She then declares that we are
foreigners and we like pizza but she likes rice. Haha!
She is so beautiful. Mahindra,
like all teenage boys, devoured slice after slice of both pizzas. Jonathan, although not a teenage boy, did
fill his stomach right up with pizza and then dropped his head on the table due
to having a head cold! Durqa of course
thought it was because he was drinking a cold drink in a room with air
conditioning.
Sunday morning we had a nice relaxing time. We walked around my neighborhood to wait
until the shops opened so we could buy milk.
We had bought cereal the day before and we were up early to buy that
milk all excited about eating our corn flakes with honey! Oh my, were they tasty – it’s been ages since
I have had cold cereal! We then headed
off to a little mall downtown where Jonathan bought a hot water heater so that
he can take warm showers since his water is always icy cold! And to boil his drinking water, since he has
been getting sick so often. We then had
a fresh sweet lime juice and I put Jonathan on a bus!
I then had lunch at a teacher’s house. It was nice.
She is a very funny lady. Many of
her husband’s family members live with her so their house was crowded with over
joyed people to greet us. They all can
communicate very well in English. They
have a cute little girl who is filled with energy. They served us delicious food on a banana
leaf on the floor of their living room.
It was special and I didn’t feel awkward about it all which was nice. I guess I am just getting used to people
sitting a staring at me while I eat.
They even had a sweet on the banana leaf which was nice and was
obviously done special for our coming.
They all then went and ate in the other room. When they were done we left with the teacher
walking us because we insisted on walking home because we had errands to
run. She couldn’t believe that we knew
the way back to our hostel. Indians just
don’t walk and don’t get why anyone would walk.
She kept asking us over and over again if we got pain in our legs. We all three giggled and insisted that we
like walking. Especially, after being
forced to eat at least two full cups of white rice! Her husband and daughter followed us on his
motorcycle. The little two and a half
year old kept honking the horn on the motor cycle as she sat between her dad
and the handle bars! It was adorable
they would pass us and she would honk.
Then we would walk by them and she would wave frantically at us. We finally convinced her once we got to the
main road that we knew where we were so she left with her family on the
motorcycle. It was cute and sweet. They left to go dress shopping because there
is a huge Hindu holiday coming up this next week. It was a very beautiful weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment