india UGH!

...well, at least the trekking in the wet and cold and the noise and bazillion people in the cities...other than that it was fun! our friend (my old peace corps buddy), anita came in for 3 weeks for the 'india leg' of our trip. we started in delhi, flew to bagdora where our guide met us and drove us into sikkim. the trek started out great with a beautiful day. we were "making a lot of sweat" as the tour guide said, so were down to short sleeves and shorts early into the trek...despite the leeches which we had to fend off with our trekking poles...eeks... day one was the highlight of the trip weather-wise though. our first night we realized our tents were virtually made of cheese cloth with a (thankfully) very durable fly. although bigger than our lil' mongolia pup tent, it was cold and didn't retain much heat. our sleeping mats were as thin as a mouse pad and my sleeping bag had a big tear on the inside. ok, so i'm used to sleeping in my clothes while trekking...and wool socks and scarf, gloves and hat. thankfully by the second night they told us they had 2 "hot water bags" for us to take with us at night into the tent...too bad there were 4 people, but it was one time i'm happy to say i'm bigger and stronger! : ) day one lunchtime, also, by the way, saw me step into some soft moss and fall backwards while yelling some really profane language...into a big healthy crop of nettles. not only did i get nettle stings all over me, but i also busted a bone below my right ring finger...fun. i was ahead of the pack, but luckily our guide was showing us where we were having lunch...the small path on which i slipped and so was close by cause i couldn't even get back up. picture an incline board of nettles...i needed a hand to get up so of course i reached out my right hand for assistance not realizing yet, that it was broken. ugh. so, some of the other highlights were christy's 40 mysterious, huge, welt-like bug bites all over her torso, anita's altitude sickness at 4,300 meters, quite a bit of rain, no place to get warm and dry, and slippery, yak poopy trails. now i'm not totally complaining...we had a lot of laughs in between our slips on our butts and made a nice new friend, sachi, who's from india. she's great and helped us pass the time in a positive way. the food was great, our porters and guides were very patient with us and all in all we had a good time, but were happy to stroll back into yuksam a day early and stay at the poshest place in town! it's good to be done with trekking for a while.

then we went to darjeeling where we soaked up beautiful views without having to trek, sipped on darjeeling teas, shopped, ate good indian food and saved a sweet little starving street puppy with the mange. time well spent.

next, we were in calcutta for a few days. we flew in and immediately the honking started as soon as we stepped foot out of the airport and didn't stop until we were back at the airport to leave. ugh. the streets of calcutta are everything mother theresa said. we went to her home and saw where she lived and then died after 40 plus years of service. geesh, what a woman. an incredible life. saw a few other sites and ate more good bengali food before making our way back to the airport to say good bye to anita and head back to thailand. we had a great time with anita for 3 weeks and were sorry to see her go. we were also truly thankful as she transported a 50 pound bag back to albuquerque for us. huge relief!! thanks anita!!

now we're in bangkok and trying to figure out our next move. i'll post about that soon, but also hope to put some more pics online as the internet is much more available now. much love, j