a bit behind.

Believe it or not, I am still alive and kicking...I must begin by apologizing for the ridiculous delay in posting. School finished by December 14, and until 7 am this morning, I was constantly traveling; experiencing what can only be defined as a muddled whirlwind. I have a plethora of ridiculous adventures and stories to share, and am hoping to adequately summarize them all in the next few weeks, while somehow organizing my life and getting back into the groove of teaching at the same time. Due to the intense backlog of posts piling up, I will likely not write too much, letting the pictures do most of the talking; we will see how that goes...

 

I suppose the best place to begin is in the beginning, with Ali and I venturing to Rajasthan. We began in Jaipur, the pink city, and explored the entire city in one day, a feat that most travelers deem impossible. Most of the city was chaotic and congested, although it did have quite a charm to it, We spent most of our time exploring the Amber Fort, a beautiful representation of old India and the ancient capital of Jaipur State. We were true tourists, renting the audio guides and soaking up as much historical information as possible (most of which I sadly have already forgotten).

 

 

 Jaipur is known for its textiles, particularly the print making, so we made sure to check out the process, observing everything from the vegetable dyes, the stamp making, and the actual process of printing the fabrics. It is mind blowing to think how much work goes into one simple bed sheet or shirt; it was a great dose of perspective and reality, and we were even able to produce our own elephant print (which looked absolutely ridiculous of course).

 

After Jaipur, we took the overnight train to Udaipur, the Venice of India. The city surrounds itself around Lake Pichola, and in the center is the floating Lake Palace (featured in the James Bond film Octopussy). It was a beautiful city and had quite a romantic feel to it, as long as you could look past the trash piles and extreme division between the upper and lower classes. We spent a day in the City Palace, exploring all the ins and outs, appreciating the ornate details that were in every single bit of marble. We also took a boat ride out to the Lake Palace, stumbling upon the most expensive resort I have seen in India (yes, we definitely were out of place).

 

 

We spent a total of three days in Udaipur, and absolutely loved all of them, it was quite the whimsical place and gave us a great sense of peace, which it turns out, we needed for the next leg of our journey.. which will be described in adequate detail in due time.