Kim vs. The World!

Arrived in Cairo to... traffic. LOTS of traffic. Insane traffic in the middle of the day for no apparent reason (not rush hour, no accidents). So, take this statement as a monumental one coming from someone who battles traffic on the 401 twice daily... it's BAD. Why?? Because the lovely (read: dirty and loud!) capital city of Cairo has 25 million people (almost the population of Canada!) and it is quite normal for every member of a family in the city to have their own car. So there is constant traffic, at all hours of the day here. Pretty crazy. So that was our first impression of Cairo, but it got simultaneously better and worse from there. Our first venture out onto the streets was to find a famous shwarma place that Samir (the really nice, really old Egyptian dude from our China trip) recommended. It was a long ride (in traffic, of course!) but the shwarmas were good, the pitas and hummous even better. Next we were off to the Egyptian Museum. Our favourite parts of the massive c...

Yup... in another of the joys of budget travel, our around-the-world ticket took us from Delhi to Cairo via MUNICH! It was so strange to be back in a Western country. It was cold outside and the stores already had Xmas stuff stocked in them! We took advantage of our brief 2 hour stop there by reveling in the clean washrooms, reading English gossip magazines, stocking up on tampons, and stuffing ourselves with Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream :) Despite having some of the lovely advantages of home, we realized (as we froze in the hallways) that were not ready to come home yet! It's going by too fast!!!!!! Note: I finally got some time to catch up on my blog! There are many posts below from the remainder of our time in India - Enjoy!

One. Last. Train. ....... ... To Kolkata (Calcutta). We celebrated the start of Diwali on an overnight train that was a few hours delayed. When most of the train was asleep and I was reading, the loudest explosion of sounds erupted on one side of the train... it sounded like either rocks were hitting the train or parts of the train were falling off. We screeched to a halt, the power failed. (Mars woke up briefly, looked confused, and went promptly went back to sleep!). I wandered out to the washroom area of the car to find, as usual with anything of even marginal interest in this country, a group of men gathered around the open train door. They were casually chatting with a train employee who was attempting to fix the problem with a pair of pliers. Haha! As our guide would say "TII" - "This Is India". 3 hours later a real train mechanic showed up and we were on our way. I never did find out what happened, as every time I asked what was wrong, the men treated me like...

Another overnight train (we've stopped even packing for these and just bring a book and toothbrush!) brought us to the holy city of Varanasi. In India, Varanasi is widely considered the most holy place for Hindus, because the great Ganges River changes direction in this place only - it reverses it's flow to run South to North along the banks in Varanasi. For this reason, most Hindus want to be cremated on the banks of the Ganges and have their ashes put into the river. When we arrived in the city, we took a sunset boat cruise. We took part in the ancient tradition of lighting candles and setting them adrift on the river while making a wish. This tradition started when single women would light a candle and wish for a husband, and if the candle stayed lit all the way across the river, their wish would be granted. Us modern women wished for other things more practical things, I think!, but regardless it was a beautiful ceremony (especially since you couldn't see the colour of ...

How was your Thanksgiving? Good, I spent it with the fam and ate lots of turkey.... How was yours? Good... spent the day wandering around the Taj Mahal... you know, the usual. !!! Happy TG to everyone! We couldn't believe that we got to spend it at the Taj. The structure is amazing when you first see it. So beautiful and grand and it looks like it's floating. IT is difficult to believe that the whole thing was built to be a monument and tomb for one woman (Mumtaz Mahal). Sometimes we have to struggle to remind ourselves that we are actually seeing the things we see... the Great Wall, the Taj... it's just so surreal sometimes. We are really truly lucky to be doing what we're doing and this Thanksgiving, THAT (among many many other things) is what I am thankful for. On top of the usual stunning scenic shots, we took full advantage of the opportunity to take as many silly tourist and typical Kim/Mars self portraits as possible! Mars is on the famous "Diana Bench"...

Took yet another hot sticky train to the holy city of Pushkar. The entire city is strictly vegetarian, and conservative dress is strongly suggested. The lake in the middle of the city is supposed to be holy and many people bathe in it, however for the past 6 months, it has been completely dried up! (see pic of the little pond at sunset that was once a lake!) Nothing much else to report from Pushkar except the following: lots of good shopping, a really good falafel stand, and we found another pool to lounge by... which I stayed beside all day in the desert heat (engrossed in the book Shantaram - excellent book!!) and gave myself heat stroke.... which caused me to promptly throw up my falafel on the side of a dirt road while the many curious Indian men tried to offer advice... I was sick for the next 12 hours! And I thought it would have been the curries that did my stomach in, but no, it was the pool lounging :) After a good haul of shopping goodies, we traveled to the capital city of R...

We took a MUCH better (read: less crowded) bus to the small town of Udaipur. This town is famous for three reasons: 1) It was never conquered; 2) it is the home of India's famous "miniature painting" artists; 3) a large part of the 007 flick "Octopussy" was filmed here. Immediately, we took a liking to the city. It was fairly small, and had a great bohemian vibe thanks to all of the artists living there. In the middle of Udaipur is a large lake that has a palace in the middle, and you can see the now abandoned Monsoon Palace high on a hilltop (the glamorous version in the film was quite an exaggeration - we watched the film at one of the restaurants!). The monsoon palace, when we went up there to see a sunset, was swarming with alarmingly large monkeys. I took an (unauthorized?) trip up the dark staircase of the abandoned and empty palace and looked out over the city.... it was a great experience... just me and the crazy pigeons that lived in the roof (see pic o...