Wow! So this is India?!

Hey everyone, we finally found a good internet cafe. I wrote this on the 24th, so you can see what we did then. It's the 29th right now, so you should all be sleeping. Hope you're all safe. The next post is from the 26th.

I’m back…and extremely exhausted from our day in Delhi. Last night when we arrived, Delhi was a whirlwind of noises and darkness, it was hard to take it all in. So in the morning, I had a little bit of a meltdown when we stepped onto the sunny streets. The best way to describe it is Times Square but without the skyscrapers, tons more people in the street, and a lot more, er, brown. After figuring out how to leave our area, we made a stop at the tourist travel agent where we spent an hour figuring out the best way to travel to all of the places we wanted to go to. Then we booked a driver for the day and set off for the Gandhi memorial.

 After seeing the movie, the memorial was intense. It was a quiet and sacred place,  so different than the city streets we had just arrived from. The most amazing part would have to be the stone footsteps that marked the path of his last walk. Following the steps you were able to walk where he had, up the steps to the grassy field, to the exact place where he was shot. A little shrine rose above the place where he fell. It was so special that we had to take our shoes off, as if it was a place of worship.

After spending an hour reading about his life story, we returned to our cab and drove to lunch, a popular restaurant filled with tourists. We ordered the usual; chicken tikka masala, shag paneer, vegetable korma…everything we normally got when we ordered in. In contrast to the Americanized version of Indian food, everything was twice as rich in context, flavor and appearance.

As a treat after our meal, right outside the restaurant was a traditional snake charmer, with a wooden flute and all. A small cobra raised it’s head a couple of times and then he revealed a second snake, at which this point I got kind of freaked out and hid behind my Dad.

We took a small detour to a Hindu temple that looked like a red and yellow castle from afar and walked along the marble past the magical court yards and towers. Then we made our way to the Red Fort, a magical palace like structure that was built in the 1600s. We spent easily two hours just walking around the gigantic gardens and court yards. It was a place I could imagine a young princess being locked up in and never getting to see the outside world. Although it sure was a nice place to be held hostage in.

The day slipped away from us and we retreated back to our hotel in New Delhi, where I am right now, my neck cramping from half lying and half sitting. It has been an overwhelming first day and we leave in the morning for Agra. Merry Christmas everyone! I really hope that you’re sleeping in with your family and opening presents instead of riding for 4 hours in a small cab  through lots of busy streets.

Thai

We're here and safe!

Hi Everyone,

We've survived the 12 hour trip and are here at last. We've been in India for about 3 days now. We came from Delhi yesterday and are in Agra right now. I"m currently typing on a 10 year old Windows computer so it isn't able to pick up my more elaborate posts. So for now, we're just letting you know that we're here and safe. I will update in Varanasi tomorrow.

Love to all,

Thai

A Proper Goodbye

Hooray! We're finally leaving! Not that I'm happy to leave my beloved computer and TV, but at least I won't have to fight to not go to school. We thought it would be easier to say goodbye publicly instead of calling each of you individually.  We just finished up all of the packing again, and are doing last minute 'brian checks" (intense searchings to see if we left anything).  And in a about half an hour we will start making our way to JFK...and leave you all behind. So goodbye, bon voyage, aloha, ciao and namaste! See you on the other side. 

Love,

Thai

Dinner at Tiffany's

Hello Again! In case you aren't aware, we still haven't left for India. On Saturday we learned that 6-inches of snow "invaded" Heathrow airport, the airport we were flying into. Heathrow is one of the most important airports because it connects the U.S. to Europe and Asia and vise versa. Hundreds of flights have been cancelled including ours. We are lucky that we were at home when this happened and not in an airport. You may think, "how can a mere 6-inches shut down an entire airport?" Well, for reasons that I can't understand, England gets about as much snow yearly, as we do droughts.  Although they also get 4 times as much rain and clouds than we do. How this works, I have no idea. So because they don't know how to deal with half a foot of snow, we had to stay up, searching for a different airline to take us there. But no fear, we are leaving tomorrow night for Moscow, then an hour and a half layover, and off to Delhi, paying a couple more hundred dollars than before. 

So with a couple extra days to spare, we decided to take advantage of these few days in New York and took on a classic New York Christmas experience yesterday. Starting at Rockefeller Center, we gawked at the tree with the rest of the tourists and my Dad, who somehow had never seen it before. 

Then we made our way to Saks Fifth Ave (request of yours truly) to stare at the beautiful windows. Which the grown ups intensely tried to make sense of, and embarrassingly shouted out what they thought the display was about to the rest of the shoppers. We made a small detour inside Saks to marvel at the Louis Vuitton bags and the Chanel shoes (well, I did). And then strolled along Fifth Ave passing Bendels and Prada and all of the places that my Mom kept talking about with parental disgust. Until we arrived at Tiffany's, where she morphed into her inner Hepburn and looked at the jewels like she came there all the time. 

Of course we couldn't leave without taking a pit stop at the Apple Store, in which Aunt Juliette touched an iPad for the first time. Ironically, we finished the night departing to the Lower East Side to dine at Angelica's Kitchen with Lauren. 

Honestly, I was glad that we could spend one day doing what New Yorkers are supposed to do during the Holidays before we returned to our exotic ways, even though the only thing that I got from Tiffany's is a lollipop. 

I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season so far, and aren't lusting after things that you aren't allowed to have. Happy Holidays and Bon Voyage! 

Thai :)

 Hello Everyone! 


Welcome to my blog! This is my way of giving back to all of you who've donated by showing you the details of my trip to India. I will add of pictures and reflections of our travels, especially of the school in Bodhghaya so that you can see us giving your money to the cause.  This will most likely not be a daily blog because of issues with internet connection, but I'll try to update it as often as possible. I'm very exicted to have you follow me around through India and I hope you enjoy!


I am currently freaking out over the fact that I'm supposed to fit all of my stuff into a outrageously small backpack, but I'm getting there. And also destroying my room in the process. This is what I get for traveling with two expert packers who live on the "less is more" rule. Parents should never bring their teenagers backpacking.

We're also getting the finishing touches done on mailing the last couple of books. We sent about 6 out yesterday, so if you haven't received yours yet, then you should this week. Sorry for any delays. :) And as a little sneak peek, if you haven't gotten one yet, here's what they look like.

By monday we will have landed in New Delhi, and pictures will definitely be taken. As of now, I have to finish up this post so that we can send the URL to you, so I'll make it short and sweet.


I hope you enjoy my little adventure through India and the surprises that come with it. My email is thai@garysinger.com if you want to contact me, and remember that you can always comment down below! Namaste!




Thai