One step ahead of disaster

We are safe. But between the Cairo bombing on Sunday, and the jet crash in Amsterdam this morning (not to mention the Mumbai bombing and the Thailand airport closing way back in December), we're feeling lucky to be staying just one step ahead of disaster.

Capetown!

We landed late last night after 20 hours of travel from Cairo (through Amsterdam; thanks, Delta) and a teary goodbye to Melissa and mom.

We slept hard after not sleeping for a full day--but we did make good use of our earplugs, having somehow booked ourselves in the "party" hostel. This morning Capetown has offered us a warm welcome, literally and figuratively. It's about 100 degrees, but the streets and air are clean, the cafe culture is in full swing, and the touts that followed us around all of our recent Middle East stops trying to get us to buy something from them are conspicuously absent. We bought travel books this morning and are in the process of developing a plan. Likely: Capetown for a couple of days with hiking Table Mountain, visiting Robben Island and maybe hitting the beach; then to Bostwana to rent a 4WD vehicle and drive up through Chobe reserve to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe; then onto Namibia and the skeleton coast. We're not sure whether we'll travel by land or air. Depends on costs.

Can't belive we're in Africa! Only 5 more weeks left on our trip, but I don't want to think about that.

Middle East-updates soon to come

We have lot of updating to do--hundreds of India photos and hightlights from the last month or so, and info on our amazing time in the Middle East. It was a real unexpected highlight of the trip--Jordan (Amman, Dead Sea, Petra and Aqaba), the ferry across the Red Sea to Sinai, Egypt (Nuweiba, St. Katherines/Mt. Sinai, Cairo and Luxor, including the overnight train with Sam's intrepid traveling sisters Ann and Becky and Luxor with my intrepid traveling mother and sister), and Israel (Tel Aviv and Jerusalem). More to come. Including photos, we hope.

Full text of Thank You note from our favorite hotel in India

Hello Dear Friend`s, Sam & Antha How Are You & How`s Thingh`s There How`s Traveling Going On , We Are Good Here & Hope Your Both Are Well There & I Would Like To say Thanks Lot Lot Lot For Recommend Some Of Your Friend To Our Haveli & They Were Going To Stay Here Tonoght & I Promised You Guys We Will Give Them A Best Service & They Will Say You Back Thanks For That , And Please When Ever You Both Have Time Then Post Review On TripAdvisor If You Post One Each It`s So Kind Of You & Then Definately We Came In First Five & Dear Realy That Our Dream To Came Onec In First Five So Please Spend 15 Minutes For Us & Give The Nice Title`s Of Your`s Review`s & Dear Five Of Five It Will Help Us In Ranking To Move Up In That List & Don`t Write The Price, Bye Bye Have A Nice Time There Wish You All The Best & Do Take Very Good Care Of Your Self & Hope See You Soon Agin, Warm Regard`s Hotel Pleasant Haveli

I have a new favorite drink, and it's not Kingfisher

Unique to Jodpur, the Makhaniya Lassi is the best drink ever. You start with the standard Lassi base--a strong plain full fat curd (yoghurt) with a little sugar-not too sweet. But instead of adding Mango or Banana or any standard Lassi filler, you add saffron and cardamom. The result is mouth watering and lovely to behold-the saffron leaves traces of bright orange streaked throughout, and the cardamom adds small bright green chunks. Yum! I am very sad that we left Jodpur and can no longer have these yummy lassis.

We made it to Jaisalmer at 5 am today on the train from Jodpur. We've pretty much nailed overnight train travel in India. Necessary supplies:
- Eyemask
- Sleepsack (like a sheet but sleeping bag shaped and sewn up the side-packs down light)
- Wool scarf to double as blanket
- Earplugs
- Tigerbalm (to put under your nose to kill the horrible bathroom smell. Even when we're not in 3rd class, we can't seem to get further than a row away from the bathroom. I mean, the hole in the floor of the train that smells like pee.)

Jaisalmer is lovely and we're hoping to meet up with Seema and friends from NYC who are miraculously traveling our very same India route just a couple of days behind us!

Namaste from Udaipur

We arrived in Udaipur in central Rajasthan at 8 am yesterday--our first overnight train trip in India. Sadly, all that was available was the third class car, and let me tell you--I don't recommend it. It could have been worse, but it was very cold, with very bad smells, very loud snoring, and very hard seats. On the plus side, I had just bought a wool scarf, which I was able to use as a blanket. And, we had no attacks of the bad Delhi Belly on the train. So that was good. Plus it was cheap (about $8 for both of s for the 9 hour trip). It was only 2 hours late, which for India travel is not bad at all.

So we made it and Udaipur is a little Indian gem. It's relaxed and clean and lots of buildings have gorgeous rooftop views of Lake Pichola and the floating palace in the middle of it. (For great views of the city watch the horrible Bond movie Octopussy--which was just saw at a guest house last night and rolled our eyes most of the time. The worst of the worst sexist Bond dialogue and cheesy jokes. But it really does have nice views of Udaipur.)

The monkeys in Udaipur are different than the ones we've seen further east. They are bigger, and lanky, with really long limbs, and incredibly long tails, and black faces. And they can jump really far. Like from building to building. Sam nearly got attacked by one last night, walking up some stairs to the roof and coming face to face with a big papa. They stared at each other for a second from about a foot apart, and then the monkey bared its teeth. Sam nearly fell down the stairs.

Yesterday we went for a long walk to the city palace and along the water and took a boat ride out to Jagmandir Island, which is an old palace ringed by marble elephants-then back to the city for sunset. Tonight we'll head to Monsoon Palace high up on a hill above town for sunset.

Holy City Varanasi is Totally and Completely Nuts

Colors, people, corpses burning on pyres, holy men, bhang, cows, goats all mixed together and bathing in the Ganges.