Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Holiday wishes to everyone!

I am flying to Thailand tonight and likely won't have much in the line of internet service until after I finish my holiday travels on January 3rd. I definitely plan to take lots of pictures though, so you can look forward to seeing them sometime after I get back.

Happy Holidays!
Amanda

Me in a Sari

From Sari

Auto Rickshaw Ride in Cochin

I took this video awhile back when Adam and I rode a rickshaw from our apartment over to Fort Kochi. It still ranks as my worst rickshaw ride ever. This video doesn't really do it any justice. But at least note the complete disregard for lanes and oncoming traffic.

A couple videos

Monkeys at Athirapally Falls in Kerala




Fishing at Agonda Beach in Goa

Shopping!

Monday was a holiday here so Yelena stayed in town to hang out with me and go shopping. We hit up most every jewelry store on M.G. Road and were pretty much overwhelmed by the sheer volume of gold. I found a couple gold rings that I loved though. And we found a silver shop with some cute (and cheap!) silver rings.

Houseboat Trip on the Backwaters of Kerala

This last weekend Yelena, Adrian, and Aaron, a friend of Adrian's from the UK, came down to Cochin to go on an overnight houseboat trip out of Allepey. They flew in Saturday morning, stopped to pick me up on the way, and we headed down to Allepey (south of Cochin about 2 hours). We got on the boat at around noon and didn't get off until around 10 a.m. the next morning. It was a beautiful boat ride, and the boat was beautiful too. It was as nice as a nice hotel, with A/C in the bedrooms and nice furniture. We had a crew of 3, a captain, serviceman, and a chef. The food was excellent (sadly my stomach hadn't yet fully recuperated from food poisoning, so I couldn't eat much, but it was good), and the scenery was amazing!

Goa Pictures

Goa is most definitely on my all time favorite places list now. It was the most relaxing beautiful warm place I've been yet. Yelena, Adrian and I headed there on Friday. We were supposed to arrive at around 6 a.m. after flying all night from Bangalore through Mumbai. But due to the Mumbai attacks, we changed our flights last minute and took a direct flight from Bangalore to Goa at around mid day. It really was a better choice anyways though, as we were able to get a good nights rest the night before and then only had an hour flight to Goa. There's only one airport in Goa, and it's more or less in the middle of the coastline. The beach we had reserved huts at was a 2 and a half hour drive south of the airport at a place called Agonda Beach, just a bit north of Palolem. The drive was scenic... plenty of cows and typical Indian roads (i.e. a major two lane highway in India looks to be about the equivalent of a one lane dirt path in the US). We had a nice A/C van though, so we were comfortable. We pulled up to the huts and were informed that one of the huts we had reserved was still being built, another was still occupied by the previous tenants, and the third was available right away. But not to worry, we were promised all three would be ready for us before bedtime, and they were. So we dropped all our stuff in the one available one, changed into more appropriate beach wear and headed out to go lie on the beach. It was a nice warm cloudy day, the most perfect kind of day to be on a beach in Goa. We were soon inundated with curious local kids who offered us dolphin swims and boat tours and the like. We declined all as politely as possible and then just ignored them. Then we did various stages of nothing, or next to nothing, for the next 48 hours. We checked out beach shack cafes for our meals and evening entertainment. Yelena and I walked the length of the beach at a nice leisurely pace on Saturday. We swam in the ocean (the temperature was like bath water), laid on the sand, slept in our huts, read books, and soaked up the sun. Sunday the sun came out in full force, so I escaped to a beach shack cafe to enjoy the view from the relative protection of shade. It was hot as hell, but idyllically beautiful. Hanging out in beach shacks was totally cliche, as we tried the local beverages and food, avoided the local smokes, and hung out with beach bums from all over, including Tibet and Germany.