The end is near.

Hi friends!

Well, can you believe it? Today is December 19th and I'm leaving for home today! I really, really can't believe this day is finally here. This date seemed so far away when we bought my ticket back in June and now here it is. Everyone warned me that my time here would fly, and as cheesy as it was... they were right. The past few weeks have been a blur of Indian monuments and sightseeing, bus rides and train rides, samosas and wada (mmmm). But here we go... my last blog (in India). I can't promise I'll stop writing after I get home. :)

Delhi, like I mentioned in my last blog, was overwhelming. Like Mumbai, just knowing you're in one of the 5 largest cities in the world (Mumbai has 19 million residents approximately, Delhi around 15 million) can start to play with your mind. After Ben left, Nate and I had very little energy to do anything... we actually attempted to see the new Twilight movie, simply to escape what I think was finally culture shock, and ended up stumbling into Americaland. There was a movie theater surrounded by American food... McDonald's, Sbarro, Pizza Hut, Ruby Tuesday's and a Bennigan's. We laughed and decided to go for some Pizza Hut... then promptly ordered the most Indian pizza on the menu. I guess some habits are hard to break? We didn't see the movie though, as it turns out they were only showing the OLD Twilight movie and neither of us were willing to shell out 150 rupes ($3) for that one.

The next day we decided it was definitely time to GET OUT, so we headed to the train station to buy some tickets. We were informed by a helpful guy working at the Station (actually wearing a uniform... oh my GOD!) who told us that tickets to Jhansi, the next town, weren't sold at that Station. Instead, we needed to go to one of Delhi's SIX other stations to get the tickets. Or, he suggested, we could go to the International Tourism Office, which often helps tourists from around the world book things like this. We took his advice and headed over there. The man who helped us was great but was unfortunately the bearer of bad news. Every train we wanted to take out of Delhi was booked solid.... for the next ten days. We were at a loss. This had never happened in India before. After a few hours of negotiating on the phone, we finally came to a solution--the only option, really--that included 2-Tier AC tickets (essentially 1st class in the Indian rail system... usually we travel 2nd Class, 3-Tier, one step above the lowest Unreserved tickets. They were ridiculously expensive by Indian standards, about 1300 rupees, but we just went with it. After Jhansi we would head to Khajuraho, Varansi, then Kanha and home. It worked out because at least we already had all of our tickets booked. We were optimistic as we left that afternoon for Jhansi.

AC turned out to be hardly worth the extra money, save the fact that it got us out of Delhi. The people in our compartment were rather unfriendly and rude. Nate and I slept most of the way and listened to Ender's Shadow on audiobook... yes, this has become one of our favorite train ride hobbies. We got into Jhansi at about 10pm and knew right away we would have a problem. We ended up, after a long series of mishaps, staying at the worst hotel of my entire time in India. For 500 rupees--far more than what it was worth. I will save you the details, but the most I can say for that hotel was that we weren't there long. The bus to Khajuraho left the next morning early, so we were in and out of the hotel in about 5 hours. The bus to Khajuraho was uneventful and long.

Khajuraho, a series of temples named for the town they reside in, ended up being quite the polar opposite of Jhansi. The people were helpful, friendly, and everything, to our surprise, was dirt cheap. A clean room in a Yoga Retreat cost us 100 rupees apiece. Because of the way they had booked our trains at the office in Delhi, we were seriously rushed at this point in our travels. We got into the hotel around noon, spent a few hours in the temple complex, then left the next morning as early as we had begun THAT morning. The temples were wonderful, though. I won't get into details of what the sculptures actually depict, but I can tell you that they're all images from the Kama Sutra and when a British officer stumbled upon the temples, he referred to them as "utterly obscene and completely offensive." You can see why we thought this trip would be a funny one.

When we were in the temples, we just sort of wandered around for a while. We stumbled upon a pretty obscene picture that made us laugh, but when I first saw it, I pointed at it and loudly said, "WHOA!" Nate and I heard laughter behind us and we realized that two Indian men hadn't paid to get into the complex but were standing outside the fence by the most obscene pictures, waiting for tourists to go by so they could see their reactions. Priceless.

The next day was absurdly early again (I think I've seen 8 sunrises out of the last 10...), and we were off to Varansi. After two rickety bus rides and a train ride in which an old Muslim Dada (grandfather in Hindi) told Nate that he was the "image of God," we finally got into Varanasi at around 10 pm. We were worried about Varanasi, after having been warned by every Indian we talked to that Varansi was dirty and the people there not to be trusted. We negotiated with a rickshaw to take us to an internet cafe, so we could figure out what hotel Allison and Garrett were in. We got in a fight with the guy, who wanted to charge us too much, so we wandered around for a while until we found another. He took us deep into the heart of the old city, winding lanes and cobblestone streets with no signs pointing the way. I started to get worried about our destination actually being findable when we turned down the smallest lane I've ever seen a rickshaw drive down and he came to an alley and pointed us down it, saying that Shiva International Guest House was down the lane. We asked him to wait... Nate and I were both very skeptical. We wandered through the alley, I tripped a few times, and then we came into a small living area. Once we got inside, an Indian lady asked us, "Are you friends of Simon's?" We said no but then said, "Allison and Garrett?" She smiled widely and pointed us to a door and then, in seconds, our friends opened the door laughing. I was absolutely amazed. India is like this sometimes... where you are SURE you won't find a place, but then all of a sudden you'll stumble down a dark alley and emerge at the end to find you're in a hospitible, cheap hotel where your friends are staying.

Our stay in Varansi was fantastic. The hotel was possibly my favorite that we stayed at, even though our room didn't have an attached batroom. The people were super friendly and hospitable, and we ate some of the best food of our travels at Shiva International. Allison and Garrett had heard about the place from an Irishman they met in Nepal--the mythical Simon. We met him and his friend Shinae, who had gone trekking with Garrett and Allie. We all spent our time in Varanasi cruising the Ganges--the second most polluted river in the world--in a rowboat. We set off the oil lamps with rose petals inside and watched a special Varanasi pooja from the boat that evening. Again, our time was rushed so we didn't get a chance to enjoy Varanasi as much as we'd hoped, but it worked out well.

Garrett ended up wanting to fly back to Pune, so Allison joined us for the last leg of our trip instead. She was excellent company and relieved Nate and I from our stupor induced by too many sunrise bus rides and not enough laughing. We had more long travel ahead of us--7 hours by train to Jabalpur and then another 5 hours by bus to Kanha. We had trouble deciding what to do that day. We considered seriously just trying to stay on our train to Jabalpur all the way to Mumbai and then catch a train back to Pune, but we decided to suck it up and make Kanha happen despite our travel exhaustion. Another early morning bus ride to Kanha put us into the national park around noon, and again we had only an afternoon to enjoy the park. It was worth it--even though we didn't see any of the park's famous tigers, we did see some great wildlife like the huge Sambar deer and lots of birds. We shared our jeep with two birdwatchers--another Irishman and an Indian professor from Calcutta. They made the trip so much better! Even though we undoubtedly would have enjoyed the scenery, their knowledge and excitement about birds made the whole thing much more interesting. The next day--our last day--started bright and early and we commenced with 24 hours of travel all the way back to Pune.

The last two days have seriously been a blur. They've been wonderful and tragic, saying goodbye to Sucheta, Seema, Anju, Tukaram and Subhan at ACM, Allison, Garrett and Nate. This morning, I've already said goodbye to my Aie who has to be at work all day and am not looking forward to saying goodbye to my precious host sisters. All good things must come to an end, I suppose, but I don't know if I'm ready for it to. I wish that my life at home and my life in India could coexist; I could live both lives at once and never have to be away from anyone that I love. But here we are, and I'm leaving the subcontinent for who knows how long... but at least I know that my return will be wonderful.

In the end, I think I have come full-circle: I leave India as I left America four months ago. Happy to be departing but sad to leave, anxious for the coming semester, and excited to see what the future holds. For now, though, it's time for my last Indian breakfast.

Signing off... see you all back in America!