India

Hello everyone, its been a long time. I wrote a blog post for Bangalore but quickly discovered it would not be published. To much transpired over that amount of time. I would need 100 posts to do it justice. It will have to be enough for me to say I owe much to the people at the ecumenical Christian center and a special thanks goes out to the kids for rekindling a enjoyment of cricket. (Which I now kind of understand.) Instead I will start in Delhi and try to catch up. In Delhi we had quite the adventure. To set the scene, it's Diwali the festival of lights where Indians celebrate the triumph of good over evil. This means the streets are crowded and the air is full of smoke from the fireworks that go off every five minutes. Lanterns fill the street. Susie and Lauren needed to fill up their phone cards to call their moms, and me (as a guy) went with. Our first attempts failed until we met an Indian man on the street. He took us to a shop that was open. It was there that Susie, who had the wrong carrier, was thinking of buying a new Sim card. Our new Indian friend advised me against it, claiming that I was being way overcharged be because of the festival. We hurriedly left the store and our hero set to work. He called his friends and sent them on their motorbike's on a journey accross the city to put money on Susie's card. It took about 45 minutes but they succeeded. In the meantime we talked to our new friend, who first claimed to work at a hotel, then a hospital, then to have just gotten his degree in accounting. It was a bit sketchy but he was getting us the money we needed. At the end of the night he offered me his motorcycle to drive, insisting my friends could ride with his friends. I had to good sense to decline but let him flag down a rickshaw (the Indian equivalent of a taxi) for us. Not only did he make sure we weren't cheated he and his two friends gave us a loud and flashy motorcycle escort all the way back to the ymca. At this point we were practically falling down with laughter. We thanked him and he road off into the night. Turned out he was alright after all. Of course the fallowing day we took a train to the Taj Mahal and Aggar fort. It is a clichéd place, but people visit for a reason. Its one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I'm afraid our instructors words feel on deaf ears as we stared with mouths with open. The tour (and more importantly pictures) took the best part of two hours. We were again reminded of how blessed we are to be on this trip. The following day we left for Thailand, very sad to be saying goodbye to India. Oh also I will never go to another mcdonalds. Call out to the McVeggie.

Jor