We are now in Mussoorie. The trip for Delhi to Mussoorie was unnecessarily long, about 12 hours. We hit two hours of traffic on the way where we were basically at a stand still. And for no apparent reason. I guess some things don't change in different countries. But the bus was air conditioned, I could sleep, and I had a book so I was okay. Andrew couldn't get to sleep but he seemed to be amused by watching the traffic. Once we got to Deradun we switched from the tourist bus to the taxis. Andrew and I had to strap our luggage to the top of the car. Then we started to climb up and up and up and up. Then it started to rain. Then we realized our luggage was on top, and that all of our stuff was getting soaked. But the drop off the side of the mountain and the switchback turns were enough to make us forget about it. I took a video for your viewing pleasure, but it doesn't do it any justice. Once it started to rain the windshield fogged up and for some reason the driver did not want to put on the defroster. So then he was wiping down the inside of the windshield and driving at the same time. I couldn't even see the road in front of us. There was a point when the road got too narrow and only one car could pass at a time. Of course, a car then turned a corner and we were head on with it. Our driver refused to back up and let the other guy through, so we waited in a stand still for three whole minutes until the other guy backed up and let us through. It was rather ridiculous. *EDIT* okay, no video now, it would take about half an hour to update on this connection (at 20 Rs a half hour). So when we get a better connection I will upload videos, and I have a tour of the hostel video that I will upload later.* Then we got to the hostel and Andrew and I got a room to ourselves because nobody else wanted to share a bed (pictures). It's pretty nice, except we wake up to the sound of monkeys running across the roof. Our "cottage" is across for the kitchen and once we got settled in we walked out of our room and the cook called us over. He kept saying "dinner piazza." We had no idea what he was saying "piazza?" Then he pulled pizza dough from the oven and said "piazza." Then we realized we were having pizza for dinner and we were very excited. Sunday we met with the principle of the Landoor Language School (which is a three minute walk from the hostel), and got our books. It rained a lot and we didn't do much. It turns out the only access to internet we have is a 10 minute walk from the hostel (which is the reason for the lack of updates). Today was the first day of Hindi classes for us. It was very... intense. We have class from 8:20-12:10 with a break for chai and cookies from 10-10:30. We switch between grammar and script every hour. The script is very difficult, but kind of fun once you get used to the curves and stuff. Well I want time to upload pictures so I'll end it here. I'll try to update again soon. Oh, and Andrew is sitting right here and he says hi.
For the weekend Andrew and I with nine other friends headed out on a Friday to Pushkar, and the largest mammal fair in the world. That's right, the annual Pushkar camel festival. They have a website here. They estimate that 25,000 camels are traded each year. Pushkar is a small town in the state of Rajasthan, a short bus ride from Ajmer. We headed out on the relatively expensive Shatabdi Express Train, which is a fancy seated car train in which they feed you and serve you chai. It's quite comfortable. It also completes the journey a couple hours faster than all of the other trains, which means we left at about 8 am and arrived in Ajmer by one in the afternoon. From the train station we took rickshaws to the bus stand, 2 km away. Then we got into a bus (of course, first we had to switch buses about 3 times because people kept telling us conflicting information), and took the hour drive up over a mountain range to Pushkar. We got into Pushkar and immediately went to our hotel, t...
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