hasty hiatus.

I had high intentions today after school of coming home and hashing out a blog right away, but had a minor glich in plans when I made it home to find that I was locked out. Now, you must understand that locks in India are nothing like locks in the States, or most 'normal' countries. Here is a picture of our front door and the safety device which keeps us safe:

As you can see, there is absolutely no way to shimmy the lock or use high tech picking skills to jam it open. And well, I didn't exactly have a sharp lock cutter or saw in my backpack. The biggest dilemma of the whole ordeal was that I really needed to go to the bathroom, and the neighbors were not yet home either...

So, I weighed my options, deciding that to pee in the front yard probably wouldn't be the best idea, considering students are now back, and walking on a trail behind our house that faces directly into our yard. Desperate, I began tugging at every window, until I finally found one that was a bit loose. It just so happened that this window was in direct view from the student's path... after I finally got the window to open, feeling pretty high and mighty about myself and awkwardly climbing up and into the opening I hear, 'Ms. Shriver...what are you doing!?' followed by numerous giggles. Yes, I was busted breaking into my own house, by students who I have to teach tomorrow.

After all of this, I make it inside, but am locked inside because the lock is still bolted on the outside. I decide to just go on as normal when all of the sudden I see two Indian men at the front door looking in at me like I am an animal in a cage. And of course, they speak not a word of English. We stared at each other for a few minutes, with me gesturing to them, and they holding up a request to fix an aqua guard at someone else's house. I'm not sure if the message was communicated or not, but the eventually left with looks of absolute bewilderment on their faces.
Then an hour later Saroj turns up looking equally confused at the backpack lying outside the locked door, and once she came inside I about gave her a heart attack, and had to explain the entire mishap which of course made her incredibly nervous, certain that a theif could get into our home; resulting in 20 minutes of us locking every window as tight as possible.
Now that my house is safely secured from burglars and I am no longer a prisoner inside of it, I can sit back in peace and blog, certain that no Indian creepers, or local village hooligans will interrupt my blogging process.
Back to the travels...

After Udaipur, we took a six hour bus to Ahmedbad, a city that you definitely do not want to spend too much time in. Our plan was to stay there for four hours and then catch a train south to Hotspet and Hampi. But because it is India, and things often do not go as planned, we found ourselves waitlisted and therefore, not able to get on the train, unless we wanted to ride sleeper class, jamming ourselves in a small compartment with about 20 Indians and bribe the ticketmaster to let us ride.

Considering this was a 25 hour train ride, this was not what we wanted to do- so after exploring all of our options, we decided to splurge on a flight to Hyderabad and then take a bus from there.
We got to the airport with time to spare and were thrilled because there was a Subway in the airport (quite pathetic, but this is a really big deal for me). I went a bit crazy and ordered a foot long, bringing half of the meat filled delicacy with me on the plane and eating it that night after arriving at our hotel...not bothering to pull off the meat, which was a definite mistake, resulting in my second stomach infection of the trip.
Not being able to waste time sleeping and moping in self agony, I pulled it together to walk to the bus station and try to book a bus for that night. We did it successfully, with me only feeling I was going to pass out about every half hour- and got on the bus that night. The ride went relatively well and I spent the night lying in the bunk hoping I wouldn't explode all over. Luckily, by the time we made it to Hampi, I felt decent enough to grab my pack and zombie walk to the guest house.

Hampi is unlike anything I have ever seen in India. It is a fascinating ruins of a 15th century city, set in a landscape of endless boulders, rice paddies and banana plantations. The rock formations are a site in themselves, arranged in the most bizarre positions, making you wonder how mother earth created such a scene. 

We spent our time exploring both the boulders and the ruins, and met many crazy tourists who were there to climb. We had a full two days to absorb it all, and were grateful for the experience, especially because in the next year, Hampi will no longer be open for locals, becoming only a National Heritage Site and thus losing most of its authentic Indian charm.

 

 

We left Hampi on an overnight bus, heading to Bangalore Christmas Eve. It was quite odd not being home and surrounded by family, so we just pretended it was simply another day. We did find a bit of Christmas spirit at an Indian restaurant we ate lunch in, which was decorated incredibly gaudy, with loads of red white and blue balloons, and had one of the most unique manger scenes I have ever seen. We celebrated with a delicious South Indian Thali, and two Christmas cookies that mom had sent with Ali, and had a blast playing with all the ridiculous Christmas decorations we found around the city. It definitely was a one of a kind Christmas that ended with us going to bed at 7, needing to wake up at 1am to pick up Kenzie at the airport.