The streets of New Dehli
Monkey Temple
Local Celebs(Cameron Diaz)
Varanasi at night
The Wolf pack at the Monkey Temple in Jaipur
Varanasi during the day
The Taj!!
Snake Dancer Man in Jaipur
We have been laggging slightly on the blogging due to our adventurous adventures and some slight travel delays... so to bring you all up to speed!
Jaipur was a fun city- did a lot of site seeing and walking around: saw the monkey temple, the water palace and the pink city. Did some exploring and had a calm, interesting new years where we saw an insight into India culture that varies from our normal new years celebration.
Post Jaipur we hopped on a short train to Agra! On this train ride we became parched and hungry- Bree suggested it would "be a good experience" for Anna-Alyse, Bryan, Catie, and Jessica to venture out at one of the stops to get Chi and snacks. The stop ended up being shorted than anticipated and we all learned a very valuable lesson: when the train starts moving you better be on it or be prepared to run and jump in the nearest door!- needless to say we all got a little cardio workout and an adrenaline rush- but WE MADE IT! even though Bryan's shoes was not so fortunate!
After the train ride excitement we finally got to Agra where we visited the Taj mahal! It was so amazing! Without a doubt it has earned spot on the list of the 7 wonders of the world! Words cannot be said on how beautiful it is and how breathtaking the experience was for all of us. Low and behold we were also local celebrities not only at the Taj but various places in Agra where we were continually stopped and asked to take "snaps" (photos) with the locals. The were convinced that Anna-Alyse was Selena (the singer) and Bree was Cameron Diaz. At times we couldn't even take a group picture because people were jumping in to get in the picture with us.
After a long and fun day in Agra we finally boarded our only slightly late train for our "14" hour train ride to Varanasi. However, when we woke in the morning expecting to only have a couple hours left until our arrival we soon learned that due to delays because of fog and 3 previous train wrecks we still had about 8 hours left. All and all it our train ride turned into a 26 hours adventure! We finally arrived to Varanasi at about 1:30am, but were thankful to have made it safely!
Varanasi has been an incredible experience thus far- we walked around the city all day yesterday and even got to see where they do the live cremations. Even though the live cremations are something taboo to Americans it is a very spritiual and natural way to the end of life here. It is a beautiful ceremony where the deceased are treated with the utmost respect, draped in colorful silks (in particularly the women) and bathed in the Ganga's before their spirits are sent to a higher place.
The city as a whole is old and has a lot of history and charm. It is a very sacred and holy place. There are lots of stairs (we are all going to be quite in shape and have nice buns when we return home!) and alley-way streets. The narrow streets are filled with tons of people and vendors. It is rather cold here, especially at night. But we are all keeping warm and taking in the experience! There are monkeys everywhere here, even on the balconies of our guest house! We have learned they cute appearance is all an act and they are quite fierce! Sadly, Catie has a cold that turned into an ear infection- but is doing much better have we got her some antibiotics from the local chemist!
We start teaching tomorrow which we are all very eager to do! We will teach for about 8 days straight! Can't wait to get that part of our trip underway!
Love,
The 6 Man WolfPack!
(Bree, Catie, Jessica, Anna-Alyse, Bryan and Sam)
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