Thums Up!

Thums Up! is a popular Indian soft drink that first appeared after Coke and Pepsi got kicked out of India in 1977. It's supposed to taste like betel nut, which is a red nut that everrryone chews (and spits everywhere) for a mild stimulant effect. When Coke came back to India in the 90s, they bought Thums Up in order to better compete with Pepsi and it's still sold there today.

It kind of tasted like an extreme carbonated version of Coke. I can't say I was a huge fan, but I like how the name is spelled, and the logo.

Source: Wikipedia, of course

Pizza Hut

While we were on hideout in Agra, as you can probably tell, we rediscovered Western food. We saw a Pizza Hut on the way to our hotel and knew that that was where we were going to eat lunch. Walking into the restaurant, it was like we were back in the States. Everyone eating in there was Western, and they were blasting the same 10 cheesy 90s dance songs over and over. The only difference, of course, were the blackouts, when the lights would suddenly go off until the generators kicked in.

Our rickshaw driver was nice enough to take us there and wait while we ate and then drive us back to the hotel. Zach asked for a Pepsi with an entire extra glass full of ice, and then requested a bowl of marinara sauce on the side so he could dip his pizza into it, so that's what I'm talking about in the video.

My masala lemonade was absolutely disgusting and I stopped drinking it shortly after I finished making the video. There were spices floating around in it and it looked like the Ganges River. The entire rest of the trip, I couldn't eat anything that had the word "masala" in it.

Pizza Hut was so good that we went back the next day for lunch. We had the same rickshaw driver who thought it was hilarious that we were going back. That day we had a different waiter, and Zach asked for his glass of ice and bowl of marinara sauce again. The waiter died laughing, and knew exactly what he was talking about. Apparently, the waitstaff was talking about us after we left the day before, and everyone heard the story about the crazy American boy and his ridiculous requests. To save ourselves the trouble of more embarrassment, we had Pizza Hut delivered to our hotel room that night! hahaha!

Breakfast of the Rich and Famous

When we reached Agra, about a week and a half into our trip, we were already incredibly sick of the intense heat in India and the touts everywhere trying to get you to buy something or come into their shop ("Just looking! Just looking! No pressure!"). We decided it might be nice to check out the "midrange" section of hotels in our guidebook and take a day off to just relax and watch movies away from the crowds and the heat. After our rickshaw driver getting lost for literally an hour and a half, we finally came across Hotel Taj Plaza. We were both impressed by the hotel. The room they showed us had an awesome view of the Taj, air conditioning (!!!), a big TV, a private bathroom, room service, and our own little "dining area," as we called it, which was just an extra table with two chairs. It was expensive, but Zach talked the very nice (slightly sketchy) guy at the front desk to give it to us for almost half price. We kind of abused the room service (ie. Zach kind of abused room service) and we never tipped, but we actually became pretty good friends with the hotel staff. The travel agent would give us free rides to the Taj Mahal on his motorbike, and we convinced the guy working at the front desk to let us take a free shower in an empty room after we had checked out.

Anyway this is all a tangent.
About 1000 feet away from Hotel Taj Plaza was a place called the Oberoi, which is the fanciest hotel in all of India, and was recently named the 28th best hotel in the world. Being so close to this place we knew we had to go and see what it was like. In the morning, after waking up at 4am to see the sunrise on the Taj Mahal, we decided we were hungry for breakfast, and what better place to eat breakfast than the Oberoi?

Upon arriving at the hotel, we were already impressed by its extensive fountains and decor.
We went in and everyone was dressed in traditional Indian clothing and spoke perfect English. We asked if we could eat breakfast there and they left us sitting in the lobby for about 10 minutes while they asked their manager if it would be ok. While sitting there, in the amazing air conditioned atmosphere, we enjoyed live mandolin music from a man sitting at the top of a grand staircase and a perfect view of the Taj Mahal from a picture window clearly designed for that sole purpose.
They came back and let us know that it was ok for us to eat breakfast in their hotel, and led us down the stairs to the most colorful, most amazing looking buffet of fresh fruit, cereal, yogurts, juices, jams, and rolls that I have ever seen. It would have cost us $15 each for the buffet, so we decided to take a look at the menu. A quick scan revealed that neither of us had enough money to pay for this meal! I took this picture while Zach had to run back to our hotel for more cash haha!


Anyway, when he came back, we both ordered the pancakes, and they were the most amazing pancakes I have ever had in my life.

We each got a small stack of pancakes, spiced orange butter, a bowl of weird but delicious berries as a spread, as well as real maple syrup imported from the United States! I also got a $5 glass of the best mango juice I had while I was in India, and Zach convinced our waiter to give us free toast. We enjoyed breakfast and the view and decided that we needed to know how much this place cost per night.

We had a whole plan. Zach told the woman at reception that this place was out of our price range, but our parents were coming in November and wanted to stay and were wondering what a room cost. The woman told us it was about $700 (!!!!) a night and then started asking us all these details about our parents visit. She ended up giving Zach her card and he promised to email and work out the details with her later. We thanked the entire hotel staff and went back to Taj Plaza, where we asked our friend at the front desk if he had ever been to the Oberoi. He laughed and said, "This hotel nothing compared to Oberoi. This hotel ant, that hotel elephant!"

More Freiburg

It seems like every day there is a new story about Freiburg in the news. This video is from Good Morning America. They are kind of confused, not only with the horrible pronunciation of Vabuan (which makes me cringe every time they say it), but also by calling it its own city, when really it is just a district of Freiburg.

All this public attention that Freiburg is getting isn't helping me miss it any less! :-(
Oh I'd give anything to be riding on that Vauban tram right now!

My Worst Moment in India

My stories so far have all been about how amazing India and Nepal were and how much fun I had. I honestly had one of the best times of my life the three weeks while I was there, but I have also never experienced so many highs and lows. India is a beautiful country, but it's also intense: dirty, heartbreakingly poor, crowded, people stare at you and ask personal questions, people try to rip you off, and everyone wants your money.
One of the lowest points I had in India happened right after we crossed over by land from Nepal.
We took a tourist bus from Nepal that was 8 hours long, but semi bearable (minus the loud Nepali music blasting from the speaker right over my head) because it was air conditioned, we got free water, and I had my motion sickness patch on.
Once we reached the border, we had to go into the Nepali office and be stamped out of the country, and then the Indian office to be stamped into the country.When we crossed the border around 4 in the afternoon, it instantly seemed more insane. It was much much hotter than it had been in Kathmandu, and everyone was after us trying to get us to ride their rickshaw or get on their bus. We were taking pictures of each other at the border when a little boy came up and asked if we wanted one together. We said we didn't, but he took my camera anyway. I was so sure he was going to steal it! Thankfully I got it back, but you can see in this picture that we are ready to run after him!

We needed to get a bus to Varanasi, and we found one just over the border. We got a seat up front and stowed our luggage underneath. A man who said he was the manager of the bus told us that the seats were reserved and we couldn't sit there, and kicked us to the back of the bus. This should have been our first red flag, but we obeyed. Once we were in the back, he told us a ticket was going to cost something like 375 rupees, and we handed over our money. He came back with another guy and this guy told us that we also had to pay a 250 rupee express fee. We asked him what that meant and he told us that he couldn't explain it in English, but we needed to pay it, and showed us the ticket completely in Hindi except for the number 250, and told us that that's what it said.
Zach started to fight with him, saying that we weren't going to pay for anything that we didn't understand, "WELL," he started screaming at us, "THIS IS WHAT THE TICKET SAYS, AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY THEN YOU CAN GET OFF OF MY BUS!" We were horrified that he screamed at us, and I was scared and didn't want to be stuck at the border all night, so I handed over the money. We asked him what time we would arrive in Varanasi and he told us not until 6:30am. He threw the tickets at us and told us not to lose them, and then I watched him and the other guy get off the bus! I knew that was kind of weird, actually, the entire thing was kind of weird, but we were too overwhelmed to care. We were just told that we were going to be stuck on this bus for the next 14 hours and we weren't sure what to do with ourselves. It was so hot that we were completely drenched in sweat and only had a little water left from our bus in Nepal. I don't think I can put into words how hot and sticky it was on that bus.

We started moving and those two guys that sold us the tickets were nowhere to be seen. Zach went to talk to the driver and found out that tickets to Varanasi only cost 173 rupees. We had paid 625 rupees for ours AND got kicked to the back of the bus. Zach told the bus driver our story and he shouted, "HE CHEATER! WHY YOU NOT BUY TICKET FROM ME!!" and shared the story in Hindi to the other surrounding Indian passangers, who all looked at us and shook their heads. "Many cheater in India," they told us. We had been kicked to the back of the bus so this guy could rip us off and not have the REAL bus driver see it!

So, we were stuck on this bus which drove long into the pitch black night, constantly honking the horn and waking us up every time we tried to sleep. The seats didn't recline, sometimes we drove in circles, it was so packed that people were standing in the aisles, and eveeeeryone was sick. We were the only tourists on the bus and people were just STARING at us unblinkingly. We were still completely soaking wet with sweat, and the body heat all around us wasn't helping. We were extremely paranoid about our stuff getting taken, and with all eyes on us all the time I refused to close mine, even for a second.

The one good thing that came out of this nightmare of a bus ride was that at 2:30am, the bus driver came back to told us we were in Varanasi. At first we didn't believe him. We told him that the other guy said we wouldn't be there until 6:30. "WHY YOU NOT ASK ME! HE CHEATER!" the driver told us again, and assured us that we were in fact in Varanasi. I didn't believe him until I saw a sign that said Varanasi Hotel, and then I knew I had made it. It was an 18 hour day of travel on buses, usually not even on real roads. We were exhausted, hot, sweaty, hungry, and cranky. We hated India. We didn't know what we were going to do, but we promised ourselves right then and there that that was the last time we would get ripped off in the country.

In Search of the Himalayas

Today's story is from Nepal, because I haven't given Nepal any attention in this blog and I loved it there so much. Zach and I almost didn't want to leave and oftentimes in India we wanted to escape back there. It was like a more laid back version of India, not to mention a lot cooler.

Everyone goes to Nepal to see the Himalayas. Zach and I didn't have the time (15-21 days), or the money ($3000) to trek to the Mt. Everest Base Camp, so we had to take matters into our own hands.
We rented a motorcycle instead for $5 each and decided to take it to a place called Nargakot, about 35km away from Kathmandu with supposedly amazing views of the Himalayas. Traffic in Nepal is insane. First of all, the drivers drive on the left side of the road, and there are no speed limits or road rules. This results in crazy traffic jams, the constant honking of annoying vanity horns, passing from both the left and right sides, undefined lanes, and getting hit several times along the way. Basically, it's a free for all, but there is no road rage and you can directly hit someone and just be smiled at and waved away. In some places, the pollution is so thick that you can't see 10 feet in front of you, and everyone was wearing scarves over their faces just to be able to breathe!
Still, it was great to get out of bustling Kathmandu and explore some of the countryside of Nepal. Outside of the city is where you realize how incredibly poor the country is. We passed small children washing their clothes in the river, men performing back breaking work making and transporting bricks, and women in beautiful saris carrying huge bundles of leaves and sticks. Most of the time, the roads weren't paved and a few times we even got stuck in the mud. It was a very humbling experience.


Along the way, we had to stop every 5 minutes or so to make sure we were headed in the right direction. We finally made it and began our ascent up a huge mountain. Halfway there, it began downpouring rain; we were visiting Nepal during monsoon season after all. We were getting soaked and the roads were becoming too dangerous to drive, so we found a small hut on the side of the road and stopped. There were already about 6 other Nepalese guys seeking shelter under the roofed porch of this hut and we asked if it was all right to join them. We had no idea how long the rain was going to last, so we hung out with these guys, who turned out to be our age, and had great conversations in broken English about our studies at university (they were students too), and how the Nepalese dislike the Indians. One guy even took out his cell phone and played some Nepalese music for us.

When it cleared up enough to keep going, we found out that these guys were headed to the same place as us, and they invited us to come along with them. They said they knew of an amazing lookout tower where you could definitely see the Himalayas. After stopping in a restaurant after another downpour of rain, and then stocking up on a bunch of Nepalese junk food, we finally made it.

The lookout tower was very rickety, it would never be open to the public in America. The only way to get up was an old ladder, which had become very slippery with the rain. The Nepalese guys climbed it no problem, and laughed down at me and Zach, who were terrified. We made it up, but it had rained so much and was so cloudy that we couldn't see any mountains! Here is the best view that we got:

All of a sudden, it started to downpour again and we were trapped at the top of this tower! The temperature dropped to about 75 degrees and all the Nepalese guys, and Zach, who had been in South East Asia for the past 8 months, were FREEZING and all huddled together for body heat, while I stood back and laughed--it was NOT cold at all. So there we were: huddled together at the top of a sketchy view tower in the Nepal countryside with 6 Nepalese guys, snacking on spicy chips imported directly from India, listening to the latest Nepalese hits on one guy's cell phone, and NOT looking at the Himalayas. I'm pretty sure that me and Zach are the only people who have ever been to Nepal and not seen any mountains!

Love Aaj Kal

The Bollywood industry is huge in India and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who ISN'T playing the latest Bollywood hit from their cell phone or talking about what the big Bollywood stars are up to. Zach and I kind of got caught up in the Bollywood fever while we were staying in India.
Everywhere we went, we would see these posters for a movie called Love Aaj Kal, and we thought it would be a ton of fun to go and see a Bollywood movie IN India!

We were 15 minutes late for the movie, but bought tickets and went inside anyway. All the seats are assigned, just like they were in Germany, and you could pay more or less depending on which seats you wanted. Before we entered the theater, we had to go through security and I had my purse checked for anything dangerous.

We were the only foreigners in the theater, which I guess makes sense considering that this movie was completely in Hindi! We knew that going in and figured we could make up our own story line. It was a lot of fun whispering to each other in the theater what we thought was going on, although I'm sure the people sitting in front of us weren't too thrilled. I actually think we did pretty well. It was a story of a guy and a girl who kind of had a thing for each other, but they kept moving all around the world: the girl was in London for a while and the guy went to San Francisco (so thankfully there WERE parts of this movie in English). They dated other people but were still best friends and called each other all the time for life updates. Of course in the end they end up together. It was an absolutely fantastic movie; we both loved it so much and are trying to find a version of it with English subtitles so we can actually understand more of what was going on. Every other city we visited in India people were talking about Love Aaj Kal and what a great film it was. When we told them that we went to see it, everyone laughed. "But how you understand?" they asked.

Halfway through the film, there was an intermission and me and Zach decided to buy some popcorn. Everyone got a kick out of the two white kids walking around the concession stand--people were actually pointing and laughing at us! And the concession itself was total CHAOS. There was no line, just people mobbing and screaming their orders out in Hindi to two very busy workers. Zach left me in charge of buying snacks while he went to the bathroom and when he came back, I was still standing in the same spot, totally distressed and being trampled by Indians. Finally one guy in line was nice enough to push through for us and order in Hindi, so we got our popcorn, and it was delicious.

Bollywood films are of course famous for their big song and dance numbers that happen throughout the film. The first big song happened right before intermission and Zach told me that while he was in the bathroom, all the guys were singing together it at the urinals! It makes me laugh every time I think about it. I don't blame them either--here is the famous song from the movie, this has been stuck in my head for the past 3 weeks!

I Go Pakistan?

My other story from our camel safari (see part I below)i:

For some reason, Zach is obsessed with Pakistan. He wants to go there very very badly and talks about it all the time. As you can see, Jaisalmer, where we took our camel safari, is very west in India and is on the border with Pakistan.

While on our camels, Zach asked one of our guides how close we were to the border.
"By camel? 3 days. By car? 3 hours."
"I go Pakistan?" Zach asked
"No problem!" said the camel guide, "I bring you there. Not much money. We take 3 days, maybe 4 if you tired."
"How we get in country?" Zach asked, "No visa."
"No problem!" smiled the camel guide, "We give guard little money and say we sell girls in Pakistan. He like that. We go Pakistan, no problem! You want go Pakistan?"
I could see the wheels turning in Zach's head. Thank God we had a train to Delhi to catch that evening, or else I think I might have been sold for a free trip into Pakistan!
"Next time I come Jaisalmer, you bring me Pakistan," Zach decided. That is one trip I don't think I will take a part of.


"I take you Pakistan, no problem!"

Desert Kids

नमस्ते! Somehow, my blog now lets me write in Hindi and I'm extremely excited, but the only word I know is नमस्ते!

Anyway, I could honestly write an entire blog on the day and a half camel trek we took in Jaisalmer, but I'm going to share two stories (in separate entries) right now.

After we had been riding for about an hour on the first day, we took a break in a tiny desert village literally in the middle of nowhere and were allowed to walk around and explore while our guides prepared our lunch. The children in the village were excited to see 4 foreigners (me, Zach, and the two guys on our trek from France) and immediately came running over to us. Like all kids in India, they begged to have their pictures taken. The photos I have of this sum up the experience better than I can in words:
This kid wanted 10 rupees for this picture! haha!

Seeing me use my camera, they got excited and reached out and took it to try their own hand at photography. They had no idea how to use it and started taking pictures the wrong way! These are two of my favorite pictures of my whole trip:



I decided to step in and show them how to use a camera the right way, and Zach took out his camera to take pictures of me showing them how to use my camera! Confused yet?
They were smart kids and got the hang of it fast!

This is one of my favorite ones of me and Zach--hard to believe that a little kid took it! We said our goodbyes to the desert children and I had to pry my camera out of their hands. One little girl (not pictured) took my pony tail holder and my sunglasses as a parting gift I suppose. I took my sunglasses back but pointed to my pony tail holder and then her, letting her know she could keep it. These kids were so adorable, I had so much fun playing with them in the desert

Best City in the World?

Recently, Udaipur was named the #1 best city in the world by Travel and Leisure.
Interesting list, but where is Freiburg?


I ended up spending 2 extra days in Udaipur while Zach was in the hospital and it was a beautiful place. After dealing with the insane touts in both Agra and Varanasi, Udaipur seemed like a relaxing change of pace (it was a LOT cooler), and I have never met such genuinely nice people in my life. I mentioned it earlier in this blog, but while Zach was in the hospital, one rickshaw driver took me to the hospital twice a day to visit him, and waited with me on the first night to make sure Zach was ok. One time he couldn't use his rickshaw in town due to a festival and took me on his own motorbike to ensure I made it there safely. He never accepted any money from me until the end, when he told me I could give him whatever I thought was appropriate. I gave him a really big tip.

Then there was the doctor who gave me a ride home from the hospital at 11:00 one night, after all the rickshaws had stopped running. He wouldn't let me give him any money for the ride home, even though he had driven out of his way to bring me to my hotel.

There was also the young Internet Cafe owner who gave me free cups of chai whenever I came in because he felt sorry that Zach was in the hospital and I was all alone. Of course I can't forget the wonderful people who owned our hotel would ask me every day how Zach was doing and when he was coming back.

When we weren't spending long hours at the new American Hospital on the outskirts of town, we relaxed in outdoor rooftop restaurants and took the views of the beautiful lake that surrounds the city.
One day we rented a motorbike and took it to the top of a mountain to visit a place called Monsoon Palace, where the rainwater used to be collected to be used by the city. We ran into these kids carrying clay up to the palace and Zach immediately grabbed one bowl off a girl's head and carried it up for her. The kids were all giggling madly and you could tell that he totally made her day, if not her life. Afterward he told me that it was extremely heavy, and he didn't know how those little kids were taking multiple trips up and down with these heavy bowls.


Finally, we made a video from Udaipur about the mysterious Indian Head Wobble, which had been puzzling us for weeks:



Post Script:
I know I said I was going to wrap up this blog, but I can't get the idea of India and what a beautiful country it was out of my brain. So I hope you don't mind if I continue to update this with some stories and experiences I had while I was there, because I'm not ready to let go yet!

Oh and I almost forgot! The James Bond film Octopussy was filmed in Udaipur, and we watched an extremely bootlegged version at our hotel