As many of you know, this Wednesday was my 20th birthday! So last weekend Andrew and I with four other friends headed up to Manali, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas, North of Delhi. There are no trains that take this route, so we had to take a bus (our first bus in India). After hearing horror stories about buses, I was a bit intimidated to take one that was expected to be 12 hours long. We took sleeper class, and it was 500 Rs one way (about 10$). I was having a bit of trouble finding out how to book the tickets (you can't do it online), so I called up our friend Niez (the travel agent who we made friends with the first week in Delhi) and he helped us out. We have been actually visiting him every once in awhile and enjoy his friendship a lot. He really did us a favor and got us the ticket for below the price quoted online and got us a free taxi to the bus station. It was really helpful. The bus turned out to be decently nice. It feels a lot safer than the train (there is a guy who works the bus and took care of us the whole time). Although after the last trip, we were sure to bring luggage locks and locked everything down even thought it felt safer. The plus side to the bus is that it is safer, the down side is that it a lot bumpier and the person in front of me reclined their seat all the way as soon as we took off, which was annoying. They also stopped for dinner and breakfast at cheap roadside stops, which was fun. We boarded to the bus at 5 pm. had dinner around 7 pm. then I feel asleep. Andrew had a bit harder time falling asleep but he said he nodded off every once in awhile. When I woke up we were already deep into the foothills. It was absolutely gorgeous. There was a stop in which a lot of the other passengers got off at, so then we all spread out to lie down and look out the window. The bus was expected to arrive in Manali at 6 am, however by 8 am we still weren't there. By this time we were having fun just watching the mountains go by so I didn't care too much. At around 10 am we finally arrived in Manali. We got off the bus at the main bus stand in Manali, which means that we were flanked by rickshaw drivers. We just picked one that seemed nice and let him take us to a hostel in old Manali-I'm glad we picked the one we did. The hostel turned out to be really nice, and decently cheap. It was 200 Rs a night with a really clean bathroom and a great location. Manali is divided into two parts, new and old. New Manali is where all the shopping is, and some large restaurants, it is all ridiculously more expensive (like 800 Rs a night). Old Manali is a 15 minute walk up the road, and across a little river, and the prices are about 1/3 for food, shopping, and hostels. I am glad that we stayed in Old Manali, it was quieter, had little trails leading everywhere, and was relatively cheap! As we were walking up the little path to the hotel, we noticed a sign that said "Bee's Knees Mexican Restaurant" with an arrow. I haven't really talked about food a lot in this blog, but in India besides beef being impossible to get, Mexican food is nowhere to be found. You can find everything else, American, Italian, Thai, but Mexican food has not found its way to India yet. So to see a Mexican food restaurant really made us excited. We walked up the stairs to find out if it was really true. To our surprise, it was amazing. I had nachos for 50 Rs (about a dollar) that were pilled high with tortilla chips, cheese, and a corn salsa. Andrew had a chicken burrito. It was amazing way to start off my birthday weekend. The boys went (Andrew, Will, and Eric) went back to the hotel to take a nap. The girls (Chelsea, Giana, and me) went out for a walk. We shopped around and walked down little paths. We then crossed the little river and decided to go put our feet in it. The water there was so blue and clear it was amazing. Chelsea said it seemed like it was a stream in Disneyland it was so perfectly clean (then we agreed it was kind of sad that the only clean river water we can relate to is Disneyland). We went down the path near the bridge and put our feet in the water and climbed on the rocks. The water was ice cold and felt great. The sun was bright and warmed up our bodies, a nice contrast to the freezing water. We sat and talked and relaxed just playing with the rocks in the water. Then the boys woke up and wanted to go for a walk, so we met up with them and took a different path toward the main river. We had planned to try to cross the river, but the water turned out to be too deep for us to walk across, so we distracted ourselves with just walking up the riverbank. We found a little cove where the water didn't move as fast and Giana put her feet in. It turned out that the bottom of the riverbed was covered in amazing silt clay that felt great squishing your feet in. So we all took off our shoes and covered out feet and legs with the clay. It was a lot of fun. Everything else in India being so different it felt great do to something that felt so much like home. We all agreed that although everything else in India is extremely different, nature remains the same. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, a clean river and mountains always have that same mystical feeling of beauty-that is also a lot of fun to play in. The sun started to set and we didn't want to be out too late so we headed back to Old Manali. On the way we found a litter of puppies that we so adorable. They were outside a family's house that was obviously taking care of them because they were well feed and happy. After seeing so many stray dogs with their ribcages protruding and an angry hardened stance, it was nice to see these small puppies. Of course I couldn't resist trying to pick them all up. Manali is full of orchards, particularly apple. On our way up we passed a little shop that sold apple wine for only 200 Rs a bottle. We decided to get one to split over dinner. We decided to try a different restaurant and ended up at one called Heeby Zeeby or something odd like that. They had a bunch of ambiance lighting and Bob Marley playing. Andrew and I had a chicken pizza and garlic fries which was a lot of fun (although still not quite like at home, they don't use tomato sauce on the pizzas here, so it's not quite the same). We all had a glass of apple wine (which turned out to be good, a bit reminiscent of apple cider and champagne all in one). Then the boys wanted some sweets so we went across the path to the "German Bakery" and got some brownies. All of us were exhausted by this point and went to bed (after a WARM shower!). The next morning we got up, went back to Heeby Zeeby for an "American Breakfast" which consisted of butter toast, an omelet, sausage, and hash browns. It was all similar to stuff at home, although most of it was just a little bit off. They also had a honey lemon ginger tea that was amazing (I had two cups). Then it was off to go zorbing! I realize that many people might not know what zorbing is. A couple of years ago Andrew saw a special on it on the Discovery Channel and when he saw in the guide book that we could do it in Manali, he was very excited. Zorbing is when there is a large inflated plastic ball, with a little ball attached with rubber bands inside. Two people are strapped into the little ball, and pushed down a hill. To get there we went to a travel agent and he booked us a jeep to take the 13 km ride up the hill, wait for us, then take us back down again. The ride up was really beautiful and we were really excited to go zorbing. The taxi dropped us off at this green hill that is obviously used as a ski slop in the winter (complete with the ski lift and everything). There were many people on the slope, most of them trying out paragliding. There was a small section of the slope where a large plastic ball being inflated that was devoted to zorbing. Needless to say it was a lot of fun-although a little disorientating. I thought I was going to get nauseous (I get nauseous just riding the tea cups), but I didn't. First were Andrew and me, then Chelsea and Giana, then Will and Eric. By the end we had a little crowd of Indian vacationers who all wanted to take pictures with us and we very interested in what we were doing. It was kind of flattering, but then annoying when we couldn't get them to go away. We then took the jeep back and had him drop us on in New Manali to check out the shops there. First we had a quick bite to eat, then we all walked around, the boys went to a nature park while the girls shopped. Then it started to rain and we all met up to head back to Old Manali. We waited out the rain (it usually passes within 10 minutes) and walked up the road to Manali. We stopped at the wine shop again (this time kiwi wine) and headed towards the Mexican food restaurant. On the way we stopped at the tourist guy to book our bus tickets back home for the next day. For some reason bus tickets back to Manali were cheaper (400 Rs), some people had told us to expect this ahead of time so we weren't surprised. As we were buying the tickets our friend Summer called us (she had stayed in Delhi over the weekend because she was sick). A bomb had gone off in Delhi. We looked it up online (the tourist agent also had the internet) and it mentioned a bomb in South Delhi had went off and injured 20 people. We were all pretty spooked and decided to go to dinner and then back to the hostel. We went back to the Bee's Knees Mexican restaurant, this time I had a chicken burrito too. Half way through Andrew got up and talked to the waiter and I knew that he was up to something, but I didn't want to give it away. So I pretended not to notice. We were all having a good conversation and sat around talking when Will unexpectedly said he needed to get a beer and Andrew said he'd go with him, so off they went. They came back through the kitchen back entrance. After finishing our food we were still just sitting around. Then the waiter came out with a chocolate cake and candles lit. Everybody sang happy birthday and I blew out the candles. Then I noticed about a ¼ of the cake was already eaten! Andrew said that he couldn't find a whole cake because most of them were sold by the slice, so he could only buy only ¾ of a cake. We all laughed and said that it made it more Indian. We walked up to the hotel and stopped at a couple of shops. Then we got back to the hostel. Some more friends called us from Delhi, 5 more bombs had gone off. Now we were all really frightened. We called all of our friends who had stayed in Delhi over the weekend to make sure that they were safe. All of them had thankfully made it back to their apartments safely. We all decided that we didn't want to go back to Delhi the next day, and would cancel out bus tickets in the morning. The next morning I woke up at 7 and was very restless. I decided to go for a walk to try to find a newspaper. The town was empty and nothing was open yet, but it was still very peaceful to walk around in the cool mountain air. It seemed impossible that in Delhi there had been bombs. We had all talked about how right now "home" could mean three places, where we grew up with our parents, where we go to college, or Delhi. Most of us now considered Delhi a small piece of home, at least a sort of "base camp" for India. So it was startling to think that one of our homes was bombed. In the morning we called our director in Delhi and encouraged us to come back to Delhi, and it was now safe. Uneasily we all got back on the bus and came home. We had expected the streets to be empty, and for everything to be calm. Instead we found Delhi to be full of life, and as if nothing had changed. It seems like maybe in America we usually take for granted our safe streets. Here terrorist attacks are not common place but happen more frequently than in the states. The people here grieve for their loses, and then continue with life because that's all they can do. To stop living is impossible, and to live in complete fear is also impossible. So they have to continue with daily life. For the past couple days, we have been extra careful to avoid public areas, just going to school and coming back home. We realize that a lot of people are really concerned about us, but everybody here is planning on continuing the program and staying in Delhi and that is also how we feel. Andrew went straight to class after getting off the bus and I went home, exhausted. After chatting online with the parents for a little bit I went to sleep until Andrew came home. At 5 we went to Hindi, then came home and slept some more. We had had a lot of fun, and it was a pretty exhausting weekend. Wednesday was my actual birthday; I had a call from my Grandpa the night before and my parents that morning. Andrew made my French toast. He then said that when we got back to the states I could go to Franklin Covey and get myself a new planner. A very nice gift. I have also received cards from Aunt Linda, Grandpa Fuzzy, Nana, and my parents. Thank you all so much, I appreciate it a lot. I went to class on Wednesday and it was cancelled (nice birthday gift!) then I met with Andrew to go to out to lunch. We decided to go to KFC which was a lot of fun and very satisfying. Then we went to Art History class. We had talked about going to Rodeo, and Mexican food restaurant near the museum, with a couple of friends. I thought that only a couple people were going to show up but it turned out that word had gotten around that it was my birthday and almost everybody in the group showed up-at about twenty people we almost took over the entire restaurant! It was a lot of fun. I got a lot of hand made cards and some chocolate, earrings, an anklet, and some Indian sweets. By 10 we were all exhausted and headed back to Will, Eric, and Summer's apartment. We all sat around and talked for a while. Eric had promised me in my birthday card that he would write me a song, so he played his guitar and sung it for me then. It was really cute and I enjoyed it a lot. We then all spent the night at their apartment-it was a great 20th birthday!
As many of you know, this Wednesday was my 20th birthday! So last weekend Andrew and I with four other friends headed up to Manali, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas, North of Delhi. There are no trains that take this route, so we had to take a bus (our first bus in India). After hearing horror stories about buses, I was a bit intimidated to take one that was expected to be 12 hours long. We took sleeper class, and it was 500 Rs one way (about 10$). I was having a bit of trouble finding out how to book the tickets (you can't do it online), so I called up our friend Niez (the travel agent who we made friends with the first week in Delhi) and he helped us out. We have been actually visiting him every once in awhile and enjoy his friendship a lot. He really did us a favor and got us the ticket for below the price quoted online and got us a free taxi to the bus station. It was really helpful. The bus turned out to be decently nice. It feels a lot safer than the train (there is a guy who works the bus and took care of us the whole time). Although after the last trip, we were sure to bring luggage locks and locked everything down even thought it felt safer. The plus side to the bus is that it is safer, the down side is that it a lot bumpier and the person in front of me reclined their seat all the way as soon as we took off, which was annoying. They also stopped for dinner and breakfast at cheap roadside stops, which was fun. We boarded to the bus at 5 pm. had dinner around 7 pm. then I feel asleep. Andrew had a bit harder time falling asleep but he said he nodded off every once in awhile. When I woke up we were already deep into the foothills. It was absolutely gorgeous. There was a stop in which a lot of the other passengers got off at, so then we all spread out to lie down and look out the window. The bus was expected to arrive in Manali at 6 am, however by 8 am we still weren't there. By this time we were having fun just watching the mountains go by so I didn't care too much. At around 10 am we finally arrived in Manali. We got off the bus at the main bus stand in Manali, which means that we were flanked by rickshaw drivers. We just picked one that seemed nice and let him take us to a hostel in old Manali-I'm glad we picked the one we did. The hostel turned out to be really nice, and decently cheap. It was 200 Rs a night with a really clean bathroom and a great location. Manali is divided into two parts, new and old. New Manali is where all the shopping is, and some large restaurants, it is all ridiculously more expensive (like 800 Rs a night). Old Manali is a 15 minute walk up the road, and across a little river, and the prices are about 1/3 for food, shopping, and hostels. I am glad that we stayed in Old Manali, it was quieter, had little trails leading everywhere, and was relatively cheap! As we were walking up the little path to the hotel, we noticed a sign that said "Bee's Knees Mexican Restaurant" with an arrow. I haven't really talked about food a lot in this blog, but in India besides beef being impossible to get, Mexican food is nowhere to be found. You can find everything else, American, Italian, Thai, but Mexican food has not found its way to India yet. So to see a Mexican food restaurant really made us excited. We walked up the stairs to find out if it was really true. To our surprise, it was amazing. I had nachos for 50 Rs (about a dollar) that were pilled high with tortilla chips, cheese, and a corn salsa. Andrew had a chicken burrito. It was amazing way to start off my birthday weekend. The boys went (Andrew, Will, and Eric) went back to the hotel to take a nap. The girls (Chelsea, Giana, and me) went out for a walk. We shopped around and walked down little paths. We then crossed the little river and decided to go put our feet in it. The water there was so blue and clear it was amazing. Chelsea said it seemed like it was a stream in Disneyland it was so perfectly clean (then we agreed it was kind of sad that the only clean river water we can relate to is Disneyland). We went down the path near the bridge and put our feet in the water and climbed on the rocks. The water was ice cold and felt great. The sun was bright and warmed up our bodies, a nice contrast to the freezing water. We sat and talked and relaxed just playing with the rocks in the water. Then the boys woke up and wanted to go for a walk, so we met up with them and took a different path toward the main river. We had planned to try to cross the river, but the water turned out to be too deep for us to walk across, so we distracted ourselves with just walking up the riverbank. We found a little cove where the water didn't move as fast and Giana put her feet in. It turned out that the bottom of the riverbed was covered in amazing silt clay that felt great squishing your feet in. So we all took off our shoes and covered out feet and legs with the clay. It was a lot of fun. Everything else in India being so different it felt great do to something that felt so much like home. We all agreed that although everything else in India is extremely different, nature remains the same. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, a clean river and mountains always have that same mystical feeling of beauty-that is also a lot of fun to play in. The sun started to set and we didn't want to be out too late so we headed back to Old Manali. On the way we found a litter of puppies that we so adorable. They were outside a family's house that was obviously taking care of them because they were well feed and happy. After seeing so many stray dogs with their ribcages protruding and an angry hardened stance, it was nice to see these small puppies. Of course I couldn't resist trying to pick them all up. Manali is full of orchards, particularly apple. On our way up we passed a little shop that sold apple wine for only 200 Rs a bottle. We decided to get one to split over dinner. We decided to try a different restaurant and ended up at one called Heeby Zeeby or something odd like that. They had a bunch of ambiance lighting and Bob Marley playing. Andrew and I had a chicken pizza and garlic fries which was a lot of fun (although still not quite like at home, they don't use tomato sauce on the pizzas here, so it's not quite the same). We all had a glass of apple wine (which turned out to be good, a bit reminiscent of apple cider and champagne all in one). Then the boys wanted some sweets so we went across the path to the "German Bakery" and got some brownies. All of us were exhausted by this point and went to bed (after a WARM shower!). The next morning we got up, went back to Heeby Zeeby for an "American Breakfast" which consisted of butter toast, an omelet, sausage, and hash browns. It was all similar to stuff at home, although most of it was just a little bit off. They also had a honey lemon ginger tea that was amazing (I had two cups). Then it was off to go zorbing! I realize that many people might not know what zorbing is. A couple of years ago Andrew saw a special on it on the Discovery Channel and when he saw in the guide book that we could do it in Manali, he was very excited. Zorbing is when there is a large inflated plastic ball, with a little ball attached with rubber bands inside. Two people are strapped into the little ball, and pushed down a hill. To get there we went to a travel agent and he booked us a jeep to take the 13 km ride up the hill, wait for us, then take us back down again. The ride up was really beautiful and we were really excited to go zorbing. The taxi dropped us off at this green hill that is obviously used as a ski slop in the winter (complete with the ski lift and everything). There were many people on the slope, most of them trying out paragliding. There was a small section of the slope where a large plastic ball being inflated that was devoted to zorbing. Needless to say it was a lot of fun-although a little disorientating. I thought I was going to get nauseous (I get nauseous just riding the tea cups), but I didn't. First were Andrew and me, then Chelsea and Giana, then Will and Eric. By the end we had a little crowd of Indian vacationers who all wanted to take pictures with us and we very interested in what we were doing. It was kind of flattering, but then annoying when we couldn't get them to go away. We then took the jeep back and had him drop us on in New Manali to check out the shops there. First we had a quick bite to eat, then we all walked around, the boys went to a nature park while the girls shopped. Then it started to rain and we all met up to head back to Old Manali. We waited out the rain (it usually passes within 10 minutes) and walked up the road to Manali. We stopped at the wine shop again (this time kiwi wine) and headed towards the Mexican food restaurant. On the way we stopped at the tourist guy to book our bus tickets back home for the next day. For some reason bus tickets back to Manali were cheaper (400 Rs), some people had told us to expect this ahead of time so we weren't surprised. As we were buying the tickets our friend Summer called us (she had stayed in Delhi over the weekend because she was sick). A bomb had gone off in Delhi. We looked it up online (the tourist agent also had the internet) and it mentioned a bomb in South Delhi had went off and injured 20 people. We were all pretty spooked and decided to go to dinner and then back to the hostel. We went back to the Bee's Knees Mexican restaurant, this time I had a chicken burrito too. Half way through Andrew got up and talked to the waiter and I knew that he was up to something, but I didn't want to give it away. So I pretended not to notice. We were all having a good conversation and sat around talking when Will unexpectedly said he needed to get a beer and Andrew said he'd go with him, so off they went. They came back through the kitchen back entrance. After finishing our food we were still just sitting around. Then the waiter came out with a chocolate cake and candles lit. Everybody sang happy birthday and I blew out the candles. Then I noticed about a ¼ of the cake was already eaten! Andrew said that he couldn't find a whole cake because most of them were sold by the slice, so he could only buy only ¾ of a cake. We all laughed and said that it made it more Indian. We walked up to the hotel and stopped at a couple of shops. Then we got back to the hostel. Some more friends called us from Delhi, 5 more bombs had gone off. Now we were all really frightened. We called all of our friends who had stayed in Delhi over the weekend to make sure that they were safe. All of them had thankfully made it back to their apartments safely. We all decided that we didn't want to go back to Delhi the next day, and would cancel out bus tickets in the morning. The next morning I woke up at 7 and was very restless. I decided to go for a walk to try to find a newspaper. The town was empty and nothing was open yet, but it was still very peaceful to walk around in the cool mountain air. It seemed impossible that in Delhi there had been bombs. We had all talked about how right now "home" could mean three places, where we grew up with our parents, where we go to college, or Delhi. Most of us now considered Delhi a small piece of home, at least a sort of "base camp" for India. So it was startling to think that one of our homes was bombed. In the morning we called our director in Delhi and encouraged us to come back to Delhi, and it was now safe. Uneasily we all got back on the bus and came home. We had expected the streets to be empty, and for everything to be calm. Instead we found Delhi to be full of life, and as if nothing had changed. It seems like maybe in America we usually take for granted our safe streets. Here terrorist attacks are not common place but happen more frequently than in the states. The people here grieve for their loses, and then continue with life because that's all they can do. To stop living is impossible, and to live in complete fear is also impossible. So they have to continue with daily life. For the past couple days, we have been extra careful to avoid public areas, just going to school and coming back home. We realize that a lot of people are really concerned about us, but everybody here is planning on continuing the program and staying in Delhi and that is also how we feel. Andrew went straight to class after getting off the bus and I went home, exhausted. After chatting online with the parents for a little bit I went to sleep until Andrew came home. At 5 we went to Hindi, then came home and slept some more. We had had a lot of fun, and it was a pretty exhausting weekend. Wednesday was my actual birthday; I had a call from my Grandpa the night before and my parents that morning. Andrew made my French toast. He then said that when we got back to the states I could go to Franklin Covey and get myself a new planner. A very nice gift. I have also received cards from Aunt Linda, Grandpa Fuzzy, Nana, and my parents. Thank you all so much, I appreciate it a lot. I went to class on Wednesday and it was cancelled (nice birthday gift!) then I met with Andrew to go to out to lunch. We decided to go to KFC which was a lot of fun and very satisfying. Then we went to Art History class. We had talked about going to Rodeo, and Mexican food restaurant near the museum, with a couple of friends. I thought that only a couple people were going to show up but it turned out that word had gotten around that it was my birthday and almost everybody in the group showed up-at about twenty people we almost took over the entire restaurant! It was a lot of fun. I got a lot of hand made cards and some chocolate, earrings, an anklet, and some Indian sweets. By 10 we were all exhausted and headed back to Will, Eric, and Summer's apartment. We all sat around and talked for a while. Eric had promised me in my birthday card that he would write me a song, so he played his guitar and sung it for me then. It was really cute and I enjoyed it a lot. We then all spent the night at their apartment-it was a great 20th birthday!
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