CH-CH-CH-CHaaanges

Hey everyone!!! Thought I forgot about you, eh? Sorry, I actually have a really long blog I've been working on but it's just really hard finding a connection fast enough to upload pictures. I do have one I'm working on though and it will fill you in on the past few weeks. This unfortunately is another quickie to update everyone on what's been going on. For those of you who don't already know (and if you don't, watch the friggin news for goodness sake!) Mumbai had a terrible terrorist attack in the tourist area about four days before we were supposed to fly out from there to Bangkok. Also, protesters in Thailand have taken over the airport and they've had to close it down, thus cancelling our flights. Luckily we have been keeping up on all the news and found out with enough time to change our plans, so right now we're stuck on a beautiful beach in Goa. Awful, I know. :-) We changed our flight and now we leave on the 2nd for Singapore, and we will be backpacking through Malaysia and up to Bangkok. That means more adventures, yay! We will keep you all posted on any more changes and I promise as soon as i can there will be a new blog. Ill give ya a little teaser... we were robbed... we went on a camel trek... and I got food poisoning. Are you excited yet? Better be. Miss you all and thank you so much for al l the comments, they mean the world to me!

Yes we ARE alive!

Hey guys! For all of you who emailed me wondering if we are alive, this is for you! Im so sorry, we haven't been abled to go online for a few days.There's been lots of shinanigans this week. I don't have time to do a big update, and I can't post any new pictures right now but Ill take a second to quickly catch you up to speed. I tried posting this LONG blog our last day in Darjeeling but the internet stopped working and didn't save anything, so I figured I'd update when we got to Kathmandu. We were planning on taking the night bus to Kathmandu but unfortunately a dam broke and flooded to only road to get there. The only way to get there was by plane (or by boat, and in just the past month its crashed three times killing twelve people, to Trevor's dismay I said NO) so we had to pay a ridiculous amount to fly to Kathmandu. The nice part was we flew past Everest, and even though it was quite cloudy it was beautiful. We also met an amazing couple named Katerina (Im sure im butchering the spelling) and David, shes from Norway and he's from England and we've stuck with them for the past few days, exploring the city together. I know what you're wondering, why has it taken so long to get my butt to an internet cafe? In India and Nepal the past four days is a huge holiday called Diwali, and the town pretty much shuts down for it. Diwali is kind of a mixture of Christmas, Halloween, and the fourth of July, and you don't work during the day. Its almost impossible to find an open restaurant in the morning for breakfast, we've ended up having to eat at a few dodgy places because of that but luckily we havent gotten sick from any food. We did get an awful cold in Darjeeling that we're both still suffering from, but at least its not a stomache thing. So anyways we havent been able to update and now Im here but without the connection cord for pictures so Im not going to do a long blog right now. I just wanted to let everyone know we're okay and having a great time in Nepal. Hopefuly in Pochara (sp?) I'll have time to do some serious blogging. I really miss everyone and I hope Ill be able to have a phone conversation with some of you soon. Later!

From Kolkata to Darjeeling

So clearly we made it to Darjeeling, which is the most beautiful place I have ever been. But lets back up, and I'll catch you all up on the past few days. I don't have the best things to say about Kolkata, the two days we spent there we stayed mostly indoors. Being the third busiest city in India, it was an overwhelming first place to go to. The streets are just filled with people of all classes, going in every direction. The first thing I noticed was the traffic. There are relatively no traffic laws, and the taxi we took from the airport definetly gave you a little hair on your chest. The cars just zoom around, honking the entire time for everyone to get out of the way, and letting you know they will not slow down to avoid hitting you.It was common to see about five lanes of cars in what was actually two lanes. Took a bit to get used to. And don't even think about crossing the street, you are putting your life on the line. They WILL hit you. You can't really just sit down outside and enjoy yourself, because women will come up to you with their babies and beg you to buy them milk for them. It's hard enough to say no, and they don't take that for an answer. The follow you wherever you go, and if you do say yes, they will get their friends and their friends will follow you. The one time we tried to visit the markets we got followed by men, trying to get us to go into all the markets, once again not taking no for an answer. One man followed us for about 7 or 8 blocks, trying to persuade us even as we repeatedly said no, and the second he left another man followed suit. We ended up not even going inside the markets and ducked back into our hotel room to relax from the hectic ongoings of outside.

Our hotel We did come across this amazing Indian Museum. It was in this beautiful old mansion and had a bunch of different sections, fossils, archeology, zooology, history, bugs, birds, everything. They had dinosaurs and wooly mammoths! They went through the history of all the different tribes, and displayed what they looked like. It was by far my favorite part, and I even snuck a few pictures!Here are some other pictures I took in Kolkata.
So that was basicly Kolkata. Unfortunately I think we we're both too jetlagged and hot to enjoy it all, but we were just too excited to go to Darjeeling and only stayed for a day and a half. We left Wednesday night and took the 10 hour night train from Kolkata to another town in the foothills of the himalayas. The night train was...well it would have been fun and ruggid, but we got a little screwed. When we bought the tickets they told us one was confirmed, and one was on the waiting list but would be confirmed by the time we got to the trainstation. It was not. It took about twenty minutes into the trainride for us to figure out that we paid for two tickets, but in fact only got one. Best part? It was a full train and Trevor and I had to share a seat/bed. For a better understanding (and sympathy) I took a photo. You can't really see from this picture as well, but they were three beds ontop of eachother not quite long enough for an actual human. And Trevor and I got to share one. Now I dont know if you remember Trevors size, but he is a tall man. Ten hours. And in the morning we remembered the delicious biscuits we bought for the ride. We eagerly reached into the bag only to find that in the night...some creature (could have been anything, we couldnt pinput what) bit a good-sized hole into both bags and ate our delicious biscuits. Not cool, animal, not cool.

Exhibit A

We pushed our hunger aside and got through the rest of the ride. This is our sweet Darjeeling train.
We arent quite sure what town we arrived in, but within a minute of us getting off the train we were surrounded by children begging for food, touching our arms and looking at us with pleading eyes. We found a shared taxi that would bring us to Darjeeling, and as we waited for the taxi to fill, the children stood outside tapping our windows, despite the drivers pushing them away. How do you turn away a starving child? It's very hard to see. We took the taxi (a jeep) away from the small city, and towards the himalayas. Now for the people who visited Courtney, we all remember the cars (i cant remember how to spell Yaas, I know im butchering it) that took us from city to city in Africa. This was equally if not more terrifying. The streets are unpaved, and our driver was apparently trying to break some sort of record to get there. We zoomed around corners, zigzagging around other passing vehicles. I white-knuckled it the entire time. The two and a half hour hell-ride did make for some beautiful pictures. When we got out of the taxi, it was time to find a hotel. We were both sleep-deprived, I was a bit shaken up from the rocky ride, and everywhere we had to go was uphill. This is also at 6000o ft, so even walking was a bit harder. We were so exhausted that the second we got into our hotel room (we couldnt find the one we were looking for so we gave up found some random one that ended up being nice with a gorgeous view) , we passed out. The past twenty-four hours we spent not eating, unbearably uncomfortable on the train, white knuckling it on the terrifying (trevor loved it) taxi up to Darjeeling, caught up with us and we both went into an 18 hour coma. Seriously. So now I think you all are pretty much caught up. Next time I'll tell you all about the beautiful place that is Darjeeling, and all about our time here. Spoiler Alert: Its freakin awesome.
Love you all and miss everyone! And mom, check your myspace, I emailed you a couple days ago and you still haven't read it. Later!

What the hell happened to October 20th?

-Dary! (thats just a continuation of my last blog for you that aren't up with the HIMYM lingo) So we made it! 40 hours of traveling to get here and we are both completely exhausted but we're here! I don't have time to go into the details of the two days in airplaines and airports, but just know it totaly friggin sucked. We got in this morning and took a taxi to our hotel, which is tiny and hot, but it has a bed and after sleeping sitting straight up for two days all I need is a bed. We still aren't adjusted to the time change but decided to stay up all day and walk around, so we could sleep all night tonight. As I'm typing this Im actually getting bored of hearing my own thoughts, does anyone really care about stupid details like that? If not, I apologize, just pretend im writing some profound words right now. To be honest, my brain is still complete mush. I'm sleep deprived and in a new place, my feet are swollen and hurt, I'm tremendously sad and longing for my family and friends, and I don't have enough energy to be charming or witty with this blog entry. Sorry. I've taken alot of pictures but I don't have time to upload them but I will soon. We're in Kolkata for one more day and then we're heading to Darjeeling, which I am SUPER excited for. I miss everyone terrible. Thank you so much for your kind words and emails, I hope to have time to write everyone back soon.
Courtney- Holy shit I can't put it in into words right now how much that meant to me. I want so badly to write you back right now but I know you understand it might take a few days to have time enough to email everyone back. Just know that my heart is aching right now without you, I wish you could be here to experience this with me, but we'll have our day. We'll have our adventure. I love you.

And to everyone else thats reading, just bare with me. My next blog entry will have less about me, and much more about this fantastic journey I'm on. And there will be pictures.

Leavin on a jet plane.

So I have like two seconds to type before I leave for the airport, I just wanted to leave one quick blog before I go. I am currently most excited for three years from now when I get to be a pretentious jerk and start all my sentences with 'well back when I sold all my possessions to move to Thailand...' and  'I remember when I was backpacking throughout India...snarky snark'... awesome.

its gonna be legen- wait for it...

Getting ready!

Hey everyone! This is our Travel blog, today I am finishing packing up my backpack, and saying my last goodbyes. Sunday we start our 36 hours of traveling, and we will end up in Kolkata, India. I don't yet know how often I will be able to get to an internet cafe, but I will update as often I can. Talk to everyone soon!