Yes, I am still alive

I appologize for the lack of blogs.
To give a quick update, Gili Air (the island we stayed on near Bali) was fantastic. The water was crystal clear and the diving/snorkeling was great. We saw 2 sea turtles just snorkeling from the beach! The traveling to Australia was a bit rough, Jarryd's bag got lost, but he eventually got it back (2 days later). Cairns is a lot of fun, we've been going out with everyone from the hostel to the bars and for dinners (everything is so expensive coming from S.E. Asia!). You can't swim in the ocean because of all the crocs and jellies, but there is a massive salt water pool called the Lagoon. We went out for 2 dive on the barrier reef yesterday, they were pretty good, especially considering I saw a white tip and a massive reef shark on the first dive. It cost extra to have a dive master, so we just dove by ourselves. We managed to keep our bearings and not end up in an "Open Water" situation. The lunch was amazing, I ate a massive quantity of Lasagna.
I just booked a trip down to brisbane, stopping for a few crazy activities on the way. It wasn't possible initially because of Easter, but I managed to book it directly just in time! Jarryd wasn't with me so I had to pay for him as well, quite an expensive booking (at least I get the points!).

All Set!

I just finished a confusing search through airline websites and managed to book our flights to Cairns from Bali. For some reason, I had to do a manual connection, booking to Darwin first and then to Cairns. I got the flights for $214 each, which is a bargain compared to the "official" options I was initially given.
I'm sitting in Nha Trang, we had 2 great dives yesterday with plenty of sea life I've never seen before. We were going to to go Hanoi from here, but it's a 2 day bus trip, so we've decided to go halfway, to Hoi An, for at least a day. Hopefully they havenight dives, 'cause they don't have them here. We found China Beach, as suggested by Jarryd's parents, and it's close to Hoi An, so we'll probably beheading there.
After Hoi An we need to get to Hanoi so we can be at Halong Bay, a must see of Vietnam. We fly back to BKK on the 15th, so we need to be hasty. We'll have 13 days in Thailand to revisit the temple and do dives off the islands before heading to Bali from Kuala Lampur for 7 days. Then we arrive in Darwin at 2am and fly to Cairns at 5am. It's a little rough, but I just want to get to australia so that we can enjoy it.
I am deeply sorry for not posting more, but I've been keeping up on my journal and will make it available as soon as I get back so everyone can read it. I posted pictures on Facebook, check them out if you haven't already.

I hope everyone is well and I am very glad to see that Pitt beat #1 UConn twice!

The end of Tigers

So we have left the Tiger Temple. It is quite sad, so I'm trying not to think about it. We have a boat party tonight with all the staff from the Temple, so it should be a blast! Jarryd and I leave for Cambodia at 5:15am, so that should be interesting. I'm sorry for not putting up any pictures yet, I promise I will, but I have several hundred to sort through first.
This is the beginning of the crazy leg of our trip, so we'll see how everything goes! All is well and Jarryd and I are excited to get traveling again.
Cheers, and enjoy your freezing weather, it's starting to get damn hot over here!

Tiger Temple

Sorry again for the blogging drought. We have been at the Tiger temple for a while and we are having a ball! The people are a lot of fun and it is much more lax than we expected. We get a day off every week and go out for drinks on Tuesdays for a "staff meeting."

A typical day is waking up at 7am and walking the 4 month old cubs (who can be very stubborn) to the temple. A few tourists arrive and feed the 4 months and then the 6 week old cubs show up and get fed as well. The monks say their prayer and then we have breakfast. It really is just early lunch w/ all kinds of different food. We walk the cubs back and then do whatever needs doing. I've done painting, burning hay, making toys, deboning chicken, taking out the trash, all kinds of stuff. Then we get a break from 11 to 12. The tourists start arriving and we are assigned to either the canyon, the 4 month cubs, or the baby cub feeding. Each has it's positives and negatives, but basically the hardest part is dealing with asshole tourists who can be dumb and won't listen. We keep our camera's on us at all times, just in case, and can be smothered in 4 baby tiger cubs whenever we want. At around 4:30 we close and the tourists leave. We feed the eagle and the leopard cat and then eat dinner from thai wisdom, which someone picks up. After that it's free time and we chat, watch movies, or do whatever we want.

We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves and I'm glad this internet is working for now. We even have a hot shower here, a rare luxury. I got a free mattress and fan as well, the lucky first volunteer. Tomorrow someone else gets the same.

Anyway, I will do my best to post some photos soon, it's getting late so I'm off to bed.

Calcutta

So we survived our 38 hr train ride. It really wasn't too bad, we arrived in Calcutta at 10:35pm. We took a taxi as were joined by Simon, a guy that was in our car. We decided to find a place to stay together, our first stop was Hotel Maria. As fate would have it, there were only 2 beds left. We flipped a coin and unfortunately Simon won. We left and were picked up by an older man. He took us to another guest house with a decent room for 450 a night. We watched bits of movies and went to sleep only to be woken by an orchestra of noise in the morning. There was construction going on and lots of people. We both cleaned up and are now out getting ready for the Tiger Temple. I will mkae a better effort to write a detailed entry about India when I'm not paying for the internet, which will be after we settle at the temple (there's a restaurant with free internet). I'll try to keep everyone in the know and hope everyone's well.

Goa Chillin

So I'm not even sure how long we've been in Goa, but it's been great. Yesterday we did nothing, and I read the entire book Q&A (basis for Slumdog Millionaire) by nightfall. Our 2 friends for England, Toby and Ewan, have gone back home. Hopefully Maria will meet us up before we leave on Tuesday morning for Calcutta.
We have our train ticket, got money drawn, and we're ready to go. But not before a few more days of this gorgeous beach. I apologize for the lack of pictures being posted (I have taken 574 so far), I will do my best to put some up before we leave for Thailand.

I hope this finds all of you well and I will keep you posted.

Goa

So we've been in Goa for a while and we'll be staying here as long as possible. The beach is gorgeous, we watch dolphins come out of the water from the shore, and we meet new people everyday. The hut we're staying in is 300R's a night, quite a steal.
Anyway, we are currently booking our tickets to Calcutta and then flying to Bangkok. Just got our info for the Tiger Temple, should be interesting. I'm pissed that the Eagles lost, but oh well.
I learned how to ride a scooter today, initially they wouldn't give me one because I didn't know what I was doing. Everything's fine now, just going to relax like crazy for another week and then off to the temple!

One more thing

In addition to the previous post, I forget to mention that one of the pictures of us landed on the inside cover of "The Times of India," a national newspaper! I tried to find the link, but I guess the picture is only in the paper copy. We both have one, so you can see it when we come back.
We also just booked our ticket to Bangkok. Unfortunately, the cheapest airline's website didn't work, so we had to get the next best, which was $172 each, ouch. At least it's done now though.

Playing Catchup

I apologize for the lack of posts, we rarely seem to have a decent amount of time for me to write anything.
Anyway, the Taj Mahal was incredible (and expensive, $15 each), plenty of pictures were taken. After that we were off to Jaipur, I did book a hostel, but our driver put us up in a really nice hotel for the same price. The next day he dove us around Jaipur. We saw an outdoor observatory, a massive fort (one of our favorites so far), got an elephant ride, and had south Indian Dosa (delicious). Our train was later in the evening and we slept like babies on it.
We arrived at Udaipur in the morning and walked around the city. It's really less of a city than it is a collection of palaces along a beautiful lake. After Udaipur we were off to Ahmedabad.
We met up with some friends and went to a massive international summit. We had our pictures taken several times because our friend Maria and I were the only blondes there. After that we went to Ghandi's home and then to a gorgeous temple that was very far out of the city. Jarryd and I got to meet the saint in charge of the entire temple, and he gave us his blessing, a huge honor.
The next day was the kite festival and it was a ball. We went to our host Julian's family's house and flew kites for several hours. I managed to cut 2 kites, lots of fun. Later on we walked around Ahmedabad taking pictures and meeting people. When it got dark there were fireworks everywhere! We caught our train to Mumbai and now here we are. We are spending the night at the Salvation Army Hostel and have a train to Goa tomorrow. We will be booking our flight out of India as soon as I get off this computer.
I hope this finds everyone well (and don't worry, I am keeping a much more detailed daily journal that will be available once we get back) !

Delhi Madness!

So we got in early from our long flight and just managed to find our driver before we were going to get our own taxi. Driving in Delhi is a mixture of Frogger and Operation, it is insane! NYC doesn't even come close. We hit a big traffic jam and sat with our engine off for 20 min, eventually getting to the Hostel. Jarryd passed out as soon as he hit the bed and I went out with some of the guys that took us to the hostel. We had a few drinks and then some amazing curry on the street. We followed that with Chai and gulab jamun, all so very good, I had a fantastic time.
This morning we went out to meet up with friends from NC. I man told us where to go, turns out he was on his way to open his bookstore. It is very hard to tell the difference between genuinely nice ppl and ppl trying to con you or get you into their store. The nice ones are very helpful, and he led us to the government tourist office. We only wanted some maps, but walked out with all our transportation booked for the next week! It was a good deal, $267 for everything, including a personal driver for Delhi, Agra, and to Jaipur (with free elephant ride! haha).
We found our driver and went to find our NC friends, but they had gone somewhere else, oh well. We did the mosque, red fort, tombs, government buildings, gardens, and an amazing indian temple that was maroon, yellow, marble and incredibly clean and beautiful. All in all, a very busy day.
We leave for Agra tomorrow morning at 6:30am, stopping at the Lotus Temple on the way. We will also be visiting the birthplace of Krishna, a Ghost town, and a Bird sanctuary. I just booked our hostel in Jaipur, and after that it's trains to Udiapur and then Admedabad.
Everything is going well, but we are looking forward to being in less predatory places where we can go more than 20ft without being haggled, etc.
Time to eat and get to bed, ttfn

Here we go again!

So I'll be picked up by Jarryd and his Dad tomorrow morning at 9:30am. We'll drive to JFK and the flight leaves for Delhi at 4pm. I already lost a little sleep last night thinking about the trip, who knows what will happen tonight!

So far we're meeting up with people from North Carolina, experiencing a massive Kite Festival (real life Kite Runner, for those of you who read the book/saw the movie), and enjoying a 10 course meal with 500 other indians! Then a few free days and off to the Tiger Temple! I'm not sure what to expect, but after getting a super short haircut today, I don't think I wold mind being bald for a little while.

I'm confident that things will go well and hopefully I will keep up my written daily journal for the duration of the trip (book prospect?).

Regardless, I hope plenty of people follow our travels and enjoy the stories that will unfold on this simple webpage.