Ace and I celebrated the three-year anniversary of our first date this week! We celebrated the day of by going out to a nice Korean restaurant…then leaving immediately when we saw the menu. 30 bucks for a bottle of soju (which is about 75 cents in Korea)! 65 bucks for a meal that cost us 5 when we were there! Ok, yes, we’re not starving students anymore, but still….we went across the street to some yummy Chinese food instead We’re celebrating the weekend by spending it in Agva, which is a Black Sea and river-front little town which is a favorite for Istanbullus who want to get away. It’s three hours away by bus- which is about how long it takes to even make it out of Istanbul. We’re renting a little bungalow in an area that’s not accessible by car- we’ll take a little cable car over the river to the facility. The weather isn’t supposed to be great, but we’re planning on huddling in our bungalow, watching DVD’s, hanging out by the fire in the lodge, and just relaxing. Should be great!
Things are pretty normal other than that- Ace is surviving work, and work is looking up for me. Things have been pretty quiet for me lately- I’d actually been getting a little bored- but I’ve gotten a few messages from people interested in starting soon. Last weekend we hosted our first Couchsurfers, which was great. For those that haven’t heard of it, Couchsurfing is a social network site like Facebook, but for travelers. People who are coming into your area send you a note asking if you’d like to meet up for coffee, hang out, show them your favorite places, and/or let them sleep on your couch. When you go somewhere, people do the same for you- kinda a “pay it forward” sort of hospitality mentality. You can build up a global network of friends in no time. We absolutely loved Kamel and Franck (from France) and hosted them for two nights. They spoiled us by doing our dishes and feeding us massive amounts of imported cheese and chocolate. Tonight we’ll have dinner with them again and saying goodbye, as they’re heading back home tomorrow.
We’ve been having some trouble with our landlady, which has been seriously stressing me out. We made an agreement at the beginning of the year that we’d give her 150 extra and she’d pay our bills. Our bills have been over the last few months, so we told her we’d be happy to pay anything she had to pay out of pocket- i.e. anything over the 150, as long as she could get us the receipts or records for the bills. She’s refusing to get copies of the receipts for us and getting extremely upset that “we don’t trust her”, and saying that we need to pay her any time any of our bills are over what she thinks is normal, no matter what the bill total is. I.E. if she thinks our internet should be $20 and it’s $50, we owe her $30, even if all the bills added together are still under 150. I.E., she wants to make a big profit off of us. None of this is in the contract! I thoroughly despise confrontation, but am also not willing to be taken advantage of. Sigh. I’m getting lots of nasty emails, too. This is one of the disadvantages of living abroad…due to the fact that I’m not familiar with the laws, the language, where to go for help, etc., I feel pretty vulnerable and helpless in these kinds of situations.
Wish me luck getting it sorted out…I’ll need it.
Other than that…not much! The wedding website is officially done, so check it out :)
http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=7721822499807563
Lots of love to all of you!
Kait
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Two weeks in India
Well, it’s hard to know where to start with the India trip- so much happened!
Well, I guess we can start by saying we were unbelievably lucky- things almost never go so smoothly in travel as they did for us on our two week vacation in Southern India. People were kind, lodging was decent and cheap, nothing was lost or stolen, transport was time-consuming but not too painful… really, I’d say our biggest inconvenience were buses and trains being an hour or our and a half late. No big deal. Plus we had a blast together
Overall impressions- I had heard so much about what an incredibly challenging country India can be- the overwhelming crush of humanity, the poverty, the scams, the chaos, the insane public transit- that I’d really prepared myself for the worst. Fortunately, none of our experiences were anywhere near as overwhelming or exhausting as we’d expected- actually, not overwhelming or exhausting at all. Part of this might have to do with the places we picked- the south is generally known for being more laid-back and relaxing than the traditional tourist routes in the big cities and north-west.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time- not a cloud in the sky. The people were very accommodating, with the only even moderately bad experiences being with snippy auto-rickshaw drivers and hordes of kids (mostly in the rural areas) whose only English words involved asking for money. The kids saw us as walking wallets, for obvious reasons in a country where the minimum wage is about $2 a day. It was irritating after the 50th time in a row, but most of the kids cracked huge smiles and forgave us our stinginess when we offered to take a picture of them. We got lots of great pictures, as it seemed like every person we met asked for us to take photos of or with them.
The landscape in the areas that we visited was mostly very green and tropical. One of the biggest things that we realized on our trip is that we have to come back. India is such an enormous country, in size and cultural and geographical diversity, and we were only able to get a tiny taste of a few little dots on the map. Many of the lucky travelers that we met were in India for a month or several.
We started out in Cochin, a town in Kerala. The area is famous for its laid-back attitude, lush green landscape, and criss-crossing waters. We spent a night there recovering from the trip, eating amazing meals at local restaurants (we could both eat extremely well for $2 in the right places) and trying to get a feel for things. Then we took a local bus south about an hour and a half to Alleppey, right in the middle of the backwaters, where we stayed in a homestay on a tiny coconut and rice farming island and walked around, getting a feel for local life. We then took a super luxurious overnight trip around the backwaters in our own personal houseboat, with our own personal cook and driver. Amazing!
We then took an overnight train to Gokarna, a tiny off-the-beaten track town with stunning beaches. There was just enough tourist development for us to be able to eat well, use the internet and stay in a fun hostel- no more. The gorgeous Om beach was quiet and tranquil, and we spend one lovely day hiking between beaches and watching cows strut their stuff in the surf. We cut our stay in Gokarna a bit short to move an hour north to Goa, one of India’s bigger tourist areas. It’s known for stunning beaches, but most parts are more developed and touristy than Ace and I like. We headed up there because I was determined to be able to hit a market, which we did, and it was well worth it. I had a great time browsing bed covers , funky sandals, patchwork sari wall hangings and cushion covers. It was well worth the stop, but the next day we decided to move on to Hampi a day earlier than expected.
We booked an overnight bus, which turned out to be quite the experience- we shared a little sectioned off mattress in the back of a big bus. Our spot was just big enough for both of us to sit up and look out the window or lay down and try to sleep- as long as nobody tried to roll over. Most of India’s roads are in pretty bad shape, so we found ourselves suspended completely in midair, then slammed back down on the mat repeatedly on the 13-ish hour trip. Fortunately, we’re pretty great at sleeping, and we both felt surprisingly decent when we arrived in Hampi.
Hampi was our favorite- there’s really no way to describe the landscape- you’ll just have to look at pics on our photosite http://kateandace.shutterfly.com/ We spent a lovely three days, two nights here, scooting around between gorgeous ruined Hindu temples, exploring the amazing landscape, visiting monkeys, and getting blessed by the temple elephant. We then took another overnight train to Bengalore for our flight out. What we saw of Bengalore was pretty nasty- overall, a very dirty, charmless, noisy city- but that was expected. We managed to pass a really nice day there, though, as we’d booked a cooking class. We learned how to cook our favorites in the home of a lovely woman, then went to the grocery store to stock up on spices to bring back. We also watched half of a Bollywood movie in the theatre, something I’d really been wanting to do. We left halfway through, as the movie wasn’t in English and there were no subtitles, but I still got my fix of song-and-dance numbers.
On the trips to and from India, we had 16 hour layovers in Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates. They actually turned out great- we had a lovely day exploring Sharjah on our way to India. Our overall impression was of a very clean, organized, quiet town. Everyone was super polite and the roads seemed extremely wide, quiet and empty after Turkey. On the way back we were able to take a short busride into Dubai, where we hopped on a bus tour and got to see the sights. We were pretty exhausted, but still really enjoyed getting to see the gigantic malls and hotels and wander around on The Palm.
A great trip- we can’t wait to go back and see more of this super interesting country.
Well, I guess we can start by saying we were unbelievably lucky- things almost never go so smoothly in travel as they did for us on our two week vacation in Southern India. People were kind, lodging was decent and cheap, nothing was lost or stolen, transport was time-consuming but not too painful… really, I’d say our biggest inconvenience were buses and trains being an hour or our and a half late. No big deal. Plus we had a blast together
Overall impressions- I had heard so much about what an incredibly challenging country India can be- the overwhelming crush of humanity, the poverty, the scams, the chaos, the insane public transit- that I’d really prepared myself for the worst. Fortunately, none of our experiences were anywhere near as overwhelming or exhausting as we’d expected- actually, not overwhelming or exhausting at all. Part of this might have to do with the places we picked- the south is generally known for being more laid-back and relaxing than the traditional tourist routes in the big cities and north-west.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time- not a cloud in the sky. The people were very accommodating, with the only even moderately bad experiences being with snippy auto-rickshaw drivers and hordes of kids (mostly in the rural areas) whose only English words involved asking for money. The kids saw us as walking wallets, for obvious reasons in a country where the minimum wage is about $2 a day. It was irritating after the 50th time in a row, but most of the kids cracked huge smiles and forgave us our stinginess when we offered to take a picture of them. We got lots of great pictures, as it seemed like every person we met asked for us to take photos of or with them.
The landscape in the areas that we visited was mostly very green and tropical. One of the biggest things that we realized on our trip is that we have to come back. India is such an enormous country, in size and cultural and geographical diversity, and we were only able to get a tiny taste of a few little dots on the map. Many of the lucky travelers that we met were in India for a month or several.
We started out in Cochin, a town in Kerala. The area is famous for its laid-back attitude, lush green landscape, and criss-crossing waters. We spent a night there recovering from the trip, eating amazing meals at local restaurants (we could both eat extremely well for $2 in the right places) and trying to get a feel for things. Then we took a local bus south about an hour and a half to Alleppey, right in the middle of the backwaters, where we stayed in a homestay on a tiny coconut and rice farming island and walked around, getting a feel for local life. We then took a super luxurious overnight trip around the backwaters in our own personal houseboat, with our own personal cook and driver. Amazing!
We then took an overnight train to Gokarna, a tiny off-the-beaten track town with stunning beaches. There was just enough tourist development for us to be able to eat well, use the internet and stay in a fun hostel- no more. The gorgeous Om beach was quiet and tranquil, and we spend one lovely day hiking between beaches and watching cows strut their stuff in the surf. We cut our stay in Gokarna a bit short to move an hour north to Goa, one of India’s bigger tourist areas. It’s known for stunning beaches, but most parts are more developed and touristy than Ace and I like. We headed up there because I was determined to be able to hit a market, which we did, and it was well worth it. I had a great time browsing bed covers , funky sandals, patchwork sari wall hangings and cushion covers. It was well worth the stop, but the next day we decided to move on to Hampi a day earlier than expected.
We booked an overnight bus, which turned out to be quite the experience- we shared a little sectioned off mattress in the back of a big bus. Our spot was just big enough for both of us to sit up and look out the window or lay down and try to sleep- as long as nobody tried to roll over. Most of India’s roads are in pretty bad shape, so we found ourselves suspended completely in midair, then slammed back down on the mat repeatedly on the 13-ish hour trip. Fortunately, we’re pretty great at sleeping, and we both felt surprisingly decent when we arrived in Hampi.
Hampi was our favorite- there’s really no way to describe the landscape- you’ll just have to look at pics on our photosite http://kateandace.shutterfly.com/ We spent a lovely three days, two nights here, scooting around between gorgeous ruined Hindu temples, exploring the amazing landscape, visiting monkeys, and getting blessed by the temple elephant. We then took another overnight train to Bengalore for our flight out. What we saw of Bengalore was pretty nasty- overall, a very dirty, charmless, noisy city- but that was expected. We managed to pass a really nice day there, though, as we’d booked a cooking class. We learned how to cook our favorites in the home of a lovely woman, then went to the grocery store to stock up on spices to bring back. We also watched half of a Bollywood movie in the theatre, something I’d really been wanting to do. We left halfway through, as the movie wasn’t in English and there were no subtitles, but I still got my fix of song-and-dance numbers.
On the trips to and from India, we had 16 hour layovers in Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates. They actually turned out great- we had a lovely day exploring Sharjah on our way to India. Our overall impression was of a very clean, organized, quiet town. Everyone was super polite and the roads seemed extremely wide, quiet and empty after Turkey. On the way back we were able to take a short busride into Dubai, where we hopped on a bus tour and got to see the sights. We were pretty exhausted, but still really enjoyed getting to see the gigantic malls and hotels and wander around on The Palm.
A great trip- we can’t wait to go back and see more of this super interesting country.
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