bunty and babli!!

it's been a while - i know, and i'm sorry.

i got back from our whirlwind trip to delhi/agra/jaipur on weds and have been unusually busy the rest of the week because all of the roommates are leaving this weekend so we were doing a lot of last-minute-before-i-leave-india things for everyone.

the trip: AMAZING. there's a weird LA vs NY type thing that goes on between Mumbai and Delhi - and everyone from Mumbai had been warning us about how 'aggressive' delhi was and how it was too spread out and miserable -- completely opposite from our experience. Delhi was beautiful and fantastic and made me hate mumbai a little bit. we lucked out and it rained before we got there and was overcast the entire time so instead of being 115 it was only 95-100 while we were there. the roads were clean and people obeyed traffic lights and we got a driver so we didn't encounter the "aggressive" side of delhi (apparently dealing with taxi's and rickshaws there is always a huge ordeal and they're very adament about ripping you off)-- and on our first night there at twilight we were taken to the india gate which is a huge public park where hundreds of family were eating and laughing and playing and there was bollywood music playing in the background and men blowing bubbles and selling ice cream and children playing in the fountains - it was incredible. i haven't seen a single public park since i arrived in mumbai and this one in delhi was one of the most beautiful and friendly i'd seen - ever.

additionally, our hotel directed us to a tourist agency that took our previously vague itinerary of tooling around delhi for a day and a half and then making our way to agra to see the taj and completely changed it to site-seeing in delhi, jaipur, agra, the taj - seeing all the important forts etc and putting us in better hotels -- all four days taken care of for $150 each. incredible. also - our driver was awesome and spoke english and was funny and perfect. his name was bunty, so naturally, i had him call me babli all week (oooh bollywood film reference!!!) however - the pace was pretty breakneck and i still feel like i'm recovering/absorbing some of the sights we saw.

all in all - i discovered that mumbai is kind of a shithole compared to delhi, and that when i was thinking about coming to india, all of the things i had anticipated were things found in northern india - the kinds of foods, sites, smells, clothing, culture -- all northern india and NOT found in mumbai. eh - you live and you learn.

best sights:

1) the fort in jaipur was incredible and you ride an elephant up the mountain/large hill to get there so that automatically makes it worth mentioning

2) the red fort in agra was beautiful and expansive, but unfortunately for it, right next to the taj so it's kind of the underestimated, underappreciated little brother of a wonder of the world.

3) the lotus temple in delhi is gorgeous and somewhat reminded me of the sydney opera house for some reason

4) no surprise, but the TAJ -- absolutely takes your breath away when you walk through the east gate and see it. incredible. i have no words -- but fortunately lots of pictures.

now were back in mumbai and everyone is leaving. it's a happy time in the apartment b/c everyone is in that 'make the most of it and laugh i have less than 40 hours left here' state of mind - but incredibly bittersweet for me b/c i have over a month left.....and thinking about all of them going home soon is making very homesick/peoplesick/foodsick/familiar things-sick etc. and- to make things worse - i found out that my new roommates don't come until next weekend so i'm alone in the apartment ALL WEEK. probably going to go insane- my one saving grace is that i purposefully saved the final harry potter book for when this time came.

pictures to be posted - for now you'll just have to make do with these three - just to mix things up, i'm in all three pictures -- can you find me?

i'll probably post a lot of whiny lonely posts in the next few days.