Madarmani Dream Vacation: part 2

Our pool buddy

Cockroach killer, qu'st-ce que c'est?



We were happy to arrive at our dream destination at Dream Hut Resort. We checked in at reception, tired and sweaty. Reception was littered with fold out cots covered with mosquito nets and inhabited by drivers (which is where our driver would live for the weekend - on our bill of course). We were directed to our dream hut by 5 members of this overstaffed establishment and on the way we were stopped to check out the pool. sadly, it was empty but we were promised that they would fill the next day.

The room was... well, let's just say that the $50 (CAD) charge per night was probably based solely on the fact that the room was so close to the beach (slash highway - more on that later). The service was incredible however as everytime one of us shrieked about a cockroach scurrying through the bathroom or across a pillow, at least 5 hotel staff came to our door within under a minute. There cockroaches were so big they took 4 men to wrestle them to the ground and one man to stand around and stare awkwardly at us while the other four played hero.

The restaurant, also staffed by these foreigner rescuing heroes, was extremely accommodating and sure that anything that we requested that they did not have was available for us hours later. Though they happily charged us extra for their effort (ice was 15 cents a cube).

As we were the only foreigners west of Kolkata, the people on the beach were equally as attentive. The beach, which also served as a highway between the two beach towns, was a dangerous place to set up a towel and relax on for the day. Getting to the ocean required looking both ways before crossing the street/beach while also looking down at avoid steeping on crabs. When we did decide to sit on our towels just far enough from the waiter that we didn't get wet, Indian tourists on route to the other town stopped their car beside us to snap our picture.

I will have to confess our disappointment however regarding the pool. Now, please understand, Kolkata is extremely hot and unbearably humid. In our daydreams of our Mandarmani Dream Hut Resort vacation, we envisioned ourselves frolicking in the pool. The "resort" did fill the pool as promised, though to our dismay they pumped water from the ocean, along with sand, algae, frogs and crabs.

Our four hour journey back took a harrowing four hours, swerving in and out of traffic our driver made sure to keep one hand on the horn at all moments. Needless to say, we needed a vacation after our vacation.

Hurry Burry Spoils the Curry; Mandarmani part 1

We spent several evenings of the first and second weeks of placement deciding where to go to for our first weekend off. We decided on a dream vacation by the sea at Mandermani beach. We made a reservation at Dream Hut resort, right on the beach. Dream Hut advertised a pool, a restaurant and air conditioning. We reserved a car and driver through IICP and packed our bags the night before so we could rush off after work for our four hour drive to our destination by the sea.

Half an hour into our dream drive, we got a flat tire. No problem, our spirits still up, Chelsea, Shereen and I stood by while Meaghan helped get the tire off. Now with spare tire, we were on our way singing “On the road again”, making jokes about how awful it would be if we got a second flat now that we no longer had a spare tire.

Ten minutes later we got another flat tire.

Spirits still high we sat in the car wondering what our driver (who spoke no English whatsoever) would do. He got out, removed the tire, sat on the trunk for a while hitting it with his fist, spoke with some onlookers and left for a bit, came back, fiddled with the tire some more and left again. At this point it seemed the word got out that four foreign girls were sitting in a car by the side of the road and slowly the crowd around our car got larger and larger as people stood around staring in the windows, some of whom were eating snacks like one might do at a movie theatre. We took pictures of them and showed them, took video footage to commemorate the moment, ate some awful fruit and masala flavoured freezies that someone bought for us, sang ‘Oh Canada’ for them (for which we received applause) and broiled in the heat of the car. So this is what it feels like to be in a zoo. Luckily no one brought peanuts to throw. Two hours later and our driver returns. Through the help of our friend Atul in Kolkata, several phone calls and text messages later, we find out that the driver has no money to replace the tire and we drive, literally, two blocks to the tire store and purchase two new tires with the promise that the cost would be deducted from the cost of our trip (in his defense this was not his car. He was merely the driver).

On our way, we half-heartedly sing “on the road again”. It is now dark outside and our four hour trip will now take three hours longer than anticipated.

We make it quite far this time before our next mishap. Tires in one piece we pull over in this tiny tiny town on the edge of nowhere. I look up to figure out why everyone is yelling “oh no!” to see steam billowing out of the engine. It seems that radiators need fluid in hot countries. Who knew?

I’m not sure how long this stopover takes but once we resolve this new issue and we are on our way, no one is singing “On the road again”. Meaghan and Shereen are about done by this time, the three of us smashed into the back seat of the car in the heat, our thighs and shoulders glued together with sweat.

We do eventually arrive at our dream vacation spot, nine hours later.

Baby Window

One of the physios invited us to see his new 2 day old baby in the hospital. Honoured to be invited to share such a precious moment with him and his wife (who we never met before by the way), we went. His wife was so warm and welcoming, even after having had a caesarian. This beautiful and pristine hospital had some pretty strict policies. Visiting hours were 1 hour in the morning and 1 hour in the evening. Fathers are not invited into the delivery rooms. Mothers feed the baby twice a day for 15 minutes each time and the babies are kept in the nursery the rest of the day behind a curtained glass window where no one but the nurses are allowed to touch them. At 6pm exactly, the curtains are opened for the hoards of family members to glimpse their new family additions and snap photos. We went down for the baby viewing and shared in this chaotic mosh pit of happy and smiling aunties, uncles, grandmas and grandpas pushing their way through to the baby window. No hard feelings here, just general Indian pushiness with laughter and warm happy smiles, people pointing out their babies to other baby viewers and vice versa. We joined in and laughed an awed with the rest of the group, happy to be included in such a joyous affair. *Sigh*, I love India.

The Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP)

A little information about where we have been working and living in Kolkata for the last 5 weeks.

I had envisioned the IICP to be a fairly grassroots organization with maybe one or two physiotherapists and no Occupational Therapists. Turns out it is a large organization with maybe 8 physios, 2 OT’s, several social workers, many special needs educators and lots of volunteers. The more time I spent there learning about India, the organization and the health care system, the more I realized how truly great this place was. For one, there are about 150 with CP that attend classes there, a family services clinic, a baby clinic, a hydrotherapy pool, respite care and vocational training for adults with CP. We had hands on learning that we would have never been able to get at home. 5 days a week we pretty much lived and breathed the IICP as our dorms were kitty corner to the catering unit, beside the lunch room, down the hall from the computer room and upstairs from the classrooms. This was incredibly convenient of course because getting to work involved walking down a hallway and down some stairs.

Secondly, the people that worked there were inspiring, caring and generous people who openly invited us into their lives. We learned that to work as a physio or OT for a government hospital would pay twice as much as an NGO like IICP, would offer more benefits, more access to private work to make money on the side, and would require working less hours in a week. Needless to say, these therapists are dedicated to their work and extremely compassionate. I loved working with them every day and learned so much from them.

Mother Theresa House

Mother Teresa's Tomb


On our first weekend in Kolkata we visited the Mother Theresa house. The main house is where Mother Theresa lived and is now where her tomb is. We saw her room (though weren't allowed to take photos here), her tomb and a timeline of her life with many quotes from the people that she helped. It was very moving.

We decided to volunteer at one of the Mother Theresa Missions of Charity in Kolkata and went to the orientation where we chose to go to Mother Theresa's "first love", the Kalighat House of the Dying. I was nervous to go but extremely glad that I had this experience. We only signed up for every Tuesday for three weeks because we work during the day and of course we felt that it would have been more beneficial for the people there if we had gone for longer so we could have gotten to know them and the routine better, but hopefully we were somewhat helpful. Our first day we arrived and washed some laundry with other volunteers and then went to help out in the women's section. As soon as the sister found out we were OT students we were sent to do exercise therapy with the women. These women were so sweet. Though it was also very sad. A couple of the women were missing an eye, which made me think of stories I've heard where people are maimed so that they make more money begging. And some women had tattooed wrists, which were possibly put on to mark them by someone who once owned them, maybe for prostitution. I am just making assumptions of course, but as this is a charity, many people are found in living in the street and brought there to die. So sad, but they are well taken care of there which is a silver lining to the whole story. Many of the women just want you to hold their hand or give them a hug. The Kalighat Mission of Charity is a also a very cool and serene place for them to relax, where outside there is a chaotic bussel of traffic, touts and people sleeping on mats by the street.

Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP): Week 1

Our first week at IICP and we attended a full day workshop, met our students that we would be working one on one with (I will call my student K. to protect her privacy), observed classes, took children and adults for hydrotherapy in the 35 degree hydrotherapy pool and observed the adult vocational training services catering and printing units. We were introduced to all the wonderful staff here and then before we knew it, our first week was over already.

I spend a lot of time with K, my assigned student for this placement. She’s a beautiful nine year old girl with giant doe-like brown eyes. She has spastic quadriplegia – a type of cerebral palsy that often causes the individual to have severely flexed knees, hips and elbows and very little trunk strength. In K’s case she is unable to speak and has only a little voluntary movement of her arms so her ability to communicate is extremely limited. One thing I have observed about K is this pouty willfulness that I kind of admire. She can be difficult at times and it is not always easy to get a smile out of her, but it makes me feel really joyful when she does smile. I look forward to spending more time with her and getting to know her better. I’m not sure what she thinks of me yet. I can’t say anything she understands as I don’t speak Bengali. She spends a lot of time staring at the top of my head – presumably at my big frizzy mop of blonde hair. I must look so strange to her and every once in a while I spout out some bizarre cacaphonic gibberish English at her. She is pretty wary of me and I get a little jealous when she smiles brightly for her teacher (who has dimpled cheeks and speaks softly and lovingly to her in Bengali). One of goals for this placement is earn many of those smiles.

Days 11, 12 & 13 – Goa

We were a little nervous on the way to our Goan hotel as no one seemed to have heard of it, but when we arrived we were pleasantly surprised by a beautiful pool and big room with a king sized bed, a bathtub, a TV, AC… you get the picture. We were stoked to have such luxury after nights sleeping on trains, in the greasy sheet motel and in our “fancy” digs at IICP. We didn’t do much in Goa however. We went to the beach and sat around, went back to the pool and sat around, sat in the pool, sat in our air conditioned executive suite, ate some fries, ate a crab dinner, took long baths and then did it all over again the next day. We did however meet a couple of charming ladies from the UK who enlightened us with statements like “I don’t believe in helping people”, “we’re not racist, we just don’t really like Muslims”, and “blind people don’t live in the real world you know”. Well, they were nice people really, they just made some eyebrow raising comments is all.

Day 10 – Kolkata

We only had one night in Kolkata before heading to Goa, but we got to see our dorm room at the IICP and drop off some of stuff that we didn’t need in Goa. It was late and dark in the rest of the building so we weren’t able to see much other than our room and the kitchen. Our dorm is an 8 bed

Corn, Spinach and processed cheese sandwiches, mmm.

The hospitality on the flight to Mumbai was sweet, but awkward. The flight attendant was selling beverages and snack packs to passengers and when he got to us he leaned over and whispered something about a free snack for foreigners. He went to the front and grabbed one of the 395 rupee snack packs that they were selling to the other customers and gave it to Meaghan and I to share. We asked for a second one and I tried to pay for it but he refused my money. He then moved on to the couple behind us and offered them snacks as well, but for the usual cost of 395Rs. Our “faux celebrity” status was starting to don on us.

Days 8 & 9 – Bodhgaya

Meaghan and I had to take a 1:45am train to Bodhgaya. We were shocked when we got to the train station and saw that there were tons of people sleeping on the heinously filthy floor of station as well as on the even dirtier platform. Some of these sleeping beauties were lucky enough to have cardboard or a blanket under them. Meaghan and I sat back to back on our backpacks with cat-like awareness, protecting our treasured possessions. Both of us sick from a cold we inherited from Michel. I was reading a book and a few people, who were already interested in the two strange looking, pale, blonde travelers, became enthralled in my book as well and came up to stare at it, as if they had never seen anyone read a book before. It is mind boggling how people live here. I feel a mixture of guilt and weariness.

The ‘train guy’ tells us that we will arrive in Gaya at 10am and Meaghan sets the alarm accordingly. We lock up our backpacks and I fall asleep across from a very gassy sleeping woman. I spend the night between moments of sleep and nose blowing. At 6:50am we are abruptly shaken awake by ‘train guy’ who tells us that we are at our station. Wide-eyed and panic stricken, Meaghan unlocks our bags and we clumsily jump from the train in our pj’s.

In Bodhgaya we stayed at the Tibetan monastery, which was a welcome reprieve from the bustle of trains. We spent the day walking around town visiting the 25 foot Buddha and the Bodhi tree where Buddha found enlightenment. Despite the spanse of shopping bazaars outside of the Bodhi tree entrance, it was surprisingly serene inside and filled with unexpected tourists – robed monks from other countries sitting cross-legged in meditation and facing the tree. At the giant Buddha statue we became part of the tourist attraction, which started with two young Thai monks asking to get a picture with us. This drew a crowd who queued up to pose with us as their friends took the pictures. We are now cameoed in photo albums all over south east and south Asia.

We left Bodhgaya the next morning on our train (which was four hours late btw) in the first class car.

Day 10 - Bodhgaya to Kolkata to Goa

The train ride from Bodhgaya to Kolkata was relaxing. We met a couple of women on the train who were also travelling in the same compartment, a mom and her two daughters - one who was in her early thirties probably and the other who was about 1 1/2. They were from Kolkata and they were lovely. We adventurously tried the train food and still live to tell the tale, and we slept or read for most of the ride.

We were pleased to discover that Kolkata looks like less of a disaster than Delhi. We found a taxi and went straight to the IICP. After a bit of driving around and asking questions, we arrived to our humble dorms at the institute. A little dissapointed perhaps by the "lack of luxury" haha (though as I am writing this weeks after this actually happened, I must say we have adjusted well to our dorm and now find it quite homey [or homely as they say in India ;) ]).

The next morning we woke up the sound of loud Indian music from our shantytown-ish neighbours,call to prayer, people bathing in the local tap and several types of happy chirpy birds. We packed up and headed to the airport for a much needed "vacation" in Goa.

Days 8 & 9 -- BODHGAYA

Days 8 & 9 – Bodhgaya
Meaghan and I had to take a 1:45am train to Bodhgaya. We were shocked when we got to the train station and saw that there were tons of people sleeping on the heinously filthy floor of station as well as on the even dirtier platform. Some of these sleeping beauties were lucky enough to have cardboard or a blanket under them. Meaghan and I sat back to back on our backpacks with cat-like awareness, protecting our treasured possessions. Both of us sick from a cold we inherited from Michel. I was reading a book and a few people, who were already interested in the two strange looking, pale, blonde travelers, became enthralled in my book as well and came up to stare at it, as if they had never seen anyone read a book before. It is mind boggling how people live here. I feel a mixture of guilt and weariness.

The ‘train guy’ tells us that we will arrive in Gaya at 10am and Meaghan sets the alarm accordingly. We lock up our backpacks and I fall asleep across from a very gassy sleeping woman. I spend the night between moments of sleep and nose blowing. At 6:50am we are abruptly shaken awake by ‘train guy’ who tells us that we are at our station. Wide-eyed and panic stricken, Meaghan unlocks our bags and we clumsily jump from the train in our pj’s.

In Bodhgaya we stayed at the Tibetan monastery, which was a welcome reprieve from the bustle of trains. We spent the day walking around town visiting the 25 foot Buddha and the Bodhi tree where Buddha found enlightenment. Despite the spanse of shopping bazaars outside of the Bodhi tree entrance, it was surprisingly serene inside and filled with unexpected tourists – robed monks from other countries sitting cross-legged in meditation and facing the tree. At the giant Buddha statue we became part of the tourist attraction, which started with two young Thai monks asking to get a picture with us. This drew a crowd who queued up to pose with us as their friends took the pictures. We are now cameoed in photo albums all over south east and south Asia.

We left Bodhgaya the next morning on our train (which was four hours late btw) in the first class car.

Day 7 – Varanasi part 2

This day Meaghan and I decided to spend the day recuperating from the cold we adopted from Michel at our semi-swanky hotel. Not such an exciting day to report on… except maybe for our ayervedic massages.

The sign on the wall that we were directed to read stated “if you would like to show your gratitude to the spa staff, please do not give them money directly. Instead, please put money in the tip box”. We were led into adjoining massage rooms by our two grandmotherly masseurs and were instructed to undress… without them leaving the room. Hmmm. Okay, when in India. Being that these were grandmotherly women I shrugged and complied. Both women stood in my room hotly whispering close to my face “don’t tip box. Management bad. Take money. Tip to us” all the while my masseur undoing my bra for me and demanding that I get entirely buck. The massage came with about a bucket of oil, just enough to deep fry me later. Regardless, it was rather relaxing. I even enjoyed being pounded with a scalding hot bag of herbs. Luckily I had gotten the quieter grandmother masseur, whereas I could hear bits of conversation from Meaghan’s granny who was relaying a long story of how her husband had left her because she had two miscarriages and how my granny’s husband had left her because she had a girl instead of a boy. After the hour (an extra 15 minutes than we paid for) Meaghan and I guiltily tipped them 100Rs each to them personally and 10Rs to the tip box and left, our hair dripping with oil, muscles completely relaxed.

Days 5 & 6 – Varanasi

Varanasi has been my favorite place so far. The lonely planet describes Varanasi as being more chaotic than Agra, with many more touts hassling you. They also comment on the roads being covered in cow patties. They were only correct about the state of the roads. I had to devise a way to scan at least 10 meters ahead and then look around while I walked those 10 meters, then scan the next 10 meters. Otherwise I was always looking at the ground and missing everything that was happening around us. As for the touts and chaos, we found Varanasi much more mellow than Agra.

Meaghan and I stayed at a nice place away from the Ganges. It had a big courtyard, a sheesha bar and a pool. We also had comfy beds, which we were really stoked about after the greasy sheet motel in Agra and the 16 hour overnight train ride to Varanasi where we awoke at each station we stopped at; paranoid and uncomfortable on the skinny vinyl cots.

Our first evening in the hotel we met Chelsea and Michel for dinner at the sheesha bar. I was congested and tired and my lungs felt like they were on fire from the pollution, but luckily Meaghan was her usual charming and chipper self and she befriended some Varanasi university students in the restaurant. One of which was Prateek, a real sweetie that offered to take us to the river in the morning to see the sunrise.

The next morning Prateek bartered a good price for a boat ride up the Ganges. The Ganges is the sacred/heavily polluted river where people come to cremate their loved ones. The belief is that you go directly to “heaven” as soon as your ashes hit the water. We bought flowers and sat with a “priest” of sorts and chanted a mantra with him, then lit candles in dried banana leaf bowls with flowers and released them into the Ganges. I sent mine down the Ganges with my Dad in mind…

The view of Varanasi from the river is really something beautiful. It is amazing to think how long some of the ghats (religious structures) have been there for and that ceremonies that occur along the banks of the river are the same ones practices over thousands of years.

We spent the day walking around the town of Varanasi, playing “prairie oyster hopscotch” so to speak. We observed a ritual in ghat that represented the lingum and yoni where a woman who is having trouble conceiving is dunked in the Ganges (perhaps curing her infertility but gaining an ear infection). We attempted to take a bicycle rickshaw to a bakery, but the rickshaw peddlers really took us for a ride when they said they new where the bakery was that we wanted to go to, but then dropped us off us no where near it. We also enjoyed an exciting stampede down a skinny alley, as we ran wide-eyed, hearts racing and locals laughing at us.

The evening was equally as interesting but perhaps a little more sombre. We took another boat ride up the Ganges at sunset. Our first stop was at the ritual that was being done under bright spotlights with a massive crowd of people watching from boats and in stands. Though this sounds like a tourist attraction, it was still an amazing display of exotic music and ritual that made my neck hair stand on end. The river was lit with hundreds of floating candles that people in boats had lit and sent off.

Then we headed up river to the burning ghats. An eerie surreal site of loved ones being cremated while their families sat quietly by and watched. An even more disturbing site was the tourists taking this as an opportunity to get up real close and take photos. Ugh, gross.

Agra – days 3 and 4

Meaghan and I met up with Chelsea and Michel at there hotel in Delhi. Our first trip in an autorickshaw in India. It was a little terrifying but we arrived in one piece. We left in out hired car for Agra – a 4(ish) hour journey. At one point we stopped so our driver could pay a fare and were accosted by many sellers of things banging on the windows and trying to get into the car, and entertained by a man with a cobra in a wicker basket and man with a small rhesus macaque on a leash(well, I was entertained – Michel and Meaghan, who are afraid of snakes were not so much). On our way into Agra our driver exclained “the only thing that is beautiful in Agra is the Taj!”
Our hotel had given away our reservation so Meaghan and I settled on a dive of a hotel near to the Taj for about 15CAD a night. The sheets literally felt greasy and when we got up in the morning, several men (we assumed hotel staff) were sleeping in the foyer by the front door.

Sooo, it seemed to have eluded us that the Taj Mahal was closed on Fridays L but… we saw the Taj from the outside. To my surprise it was much larger than I had expected. Our next day started super early as we wanted to view the Taj at sunset so we arranged a morning Rickshaw and headed to meet Chelsea and Michel on a rooftop restaurant. Agra was so peaceful and serene at this time of day.

We spent the day driving around with a highly recommended rickshaw driver – Vijay. Our first impressions of Vijay is of this very friendly, happy and welcoming man. We were looking forward to our day. After some shopping and sight seeing, Vijay invited us to his home for tea and to meet his family. We were honoured and took him up on his offer. His home was modest and he his parents and 2 children were curious about us and watched us drink tea and eat crackers and cookies, in semidarkness I might add as the power was out. Oddly though, Vijay never introduced us to his wife who puttered about cleaning. After this mildly awkward experience we headed off again and Vijay requested that we stop to see a “programme”. Unsure of what a programme was exactly and feeling adventurous, we agreed. We entered said program and Vijay escorted us up to the front area that was blocked off for what appeared to be special guests. Up at the front was a man yelling out something in Hindi – this appeared to be a political rally. We took out seats near the stage in the VIP area. Our presence caused a bit of commotion as all the cameramen who were filming the speaker turned and came towards us and stood for what seemed like 10 minutes filming and photographing the four of us. We endured about 20 mins of this extremely awkward experience and then convinced Vijay that we needed to leave. After more stopping at Vijay’s favorite places so we could meet everyone he knew in town (“yes, we go to see … now, he is a very rich man”) we finally ended up at Chelsea and Michel’s hotel and quickly fell asleep. Vijay, who was supposed to return at nine to take us to the train, came at six requesting that we go meet his (rich) friends. We politely declined and went back to sleep. When he picked us up at nine we were unable to talk him out of a detour to this friend’s place. They were very nice and the owner brought out his German luger to show us, Vijay had us look at their many cars and then we left for the train.

The Agra train station was busy for so late at night. We got on the train and found our way to our beds, which were up top. Meaghan and I managed to make our upper bunk beds with the linen that was provided under the light of the overhead florescent without stepping on the man that was sleeping on the bottom bunk. We chained up our bags by our heads and fell asleep. It had been quite a long day.

Day 3

Woke up this morning to the sound of horns honking like crazy. I thought I was at home and we had just won a gold, lol.

Days 1 and 2: Chasing the sun around the planet

On Monday afternoon we left Vancouver and flew to Hong Kong for fourteen hours slash an eternity – without seeing nighttime. We arrived late evening at our hotel, a quaint(ish) hotel on a beach far out of the city. It’s probably a happening place in the summer, but not so much in the off season.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I willingly woke up at 6:30am. We ate breakfast (noodles and oatmeal), took a train to the city, ran around as if we were in The Amazing Race and saw as much as we could in a span of 4 hours. At 12:15pm we headed back to the airport to get on our flight to Bangkok. I mean, Delhi.
Unbeknownst to us, we had a short layover in Bangkok. I was so tempted to get off the plane; however, I resisted and we arrived in Delhi. Not before we were thoroughly disinfected however…
Apparently before you land in Delhi, the law states that the plane interior needs to be sprayed down with disinfectant… enough disinfectant to leave a thick haze on the plane and a glossy sheen in your hair. We were hopeful that this courtesy of disinfecting our plane/ourselves would be reciprocated by our destination city in anticipation of our arrival.
We were mildly, but not surprisingly, disappointed

All jests aside, 3 hours in Delhi so far and I love it already; colourful, cheerful, noisy, and hectic. Coming out of the airport, Meaghan and I were wide-eyed and grinning. Our hotel sent a driver for us who we instantly took a liking to. He kindly made fun of me when I went around to the driver’s side of the cab. I explained to him that in Canada the steering wheel is on the other side. He said, laughing “you’re not in Canada, you’re in India!” We think we may hire him to take us to Agra tomorrow.
Driving to our hotel it was dark and our first impressions are that bombs have gone off all over the city. The streets are strewn with rubble and dirt and it looks like they are in the middle of a big construction project on every block. And of course people drive as if, as Meaghan describes it, they are playing tetris. On the way to our hotel we saw two wedding processions – amazing! They looked like movie sets with bright colours and big spotlights. One procession had a man with a horse and carriage on the way to pick up his bride.
We arrived at our hotel situated in a skinny alley. Across the street is a building that I am pretty sure is falling down. In stark contrast our hotel has a sparkling clean giant window in front with marble floors and red leather couches, teak tables and blown glass light fixtures.
Tomorrow we meet up with Chelsea and Michel and we are on our way to see the Taj Mahal in Agra.
Coming up next: the Taj Mahal

Countdown: four days till departure

Leaving for India in four days. Thoroughly inoculated... but already sick with the flu :(

Hoping I am better on Monday when we leave.