On to India!
We had a pretty packed and exciting last month. It has been really sad to have to leave Japan, considering how much we loved it, but we also are excited to move on and see more places. India has been a totally different experience from Japan. In Japan, people would be so much more respectful when talking to you or even just walking past on the street. In India, it is the complete opposite. However, even though people will cut you off to get to where they want to go first, there is not a mean spirit to it. It is just the way of life. We are just now getting used to it, even though we are leaving in just about a week! It feels like time is moving so fast; we are more than halfway done with this trip!
During our first couple of days in India we traveled to the city of Agra in the northern part of India. We only stayed for a day but we got to take a tour of the Taj Mahal! It was super cool to see it and learn so much about its history. One of the coolest facts that we learned while there was why the location of the Taj Mahal is so important. As earthquakes are not that uncommon in India, the Taj was built right on the swampy banks of the Yamuna River, giving it shock absorbers! This is just one piece of evidence that the man who built it hundreds of years ago was an amazing architect. (He was one of the 6 great Mogul emperors of India.)
After our stay in Agra, we moved on to the city of Delhi. We were again able to take a tour, this time of the city. After wandering around in the packed spice market in the old part of Delhi, which was a pretty crazy experience, and buying some spices, we got beach in the car, drove past some famous buildings like the president’s house, and ended up at the memorial park for Ghandi. It was a super cool tour and it was really neat to learn a lot about the second most populated city in the world.
We then spent about a week traveling through the very north of India, in the Himalayan Mountains. We visited the towns of Gangtok and Darjeeling. We got some amazing views of mountains as far as you could see. We got to visit a glacial lake near Gangtok, which was beautiful to see a little lake nestled in the mountains and surrounded by snow-capped peaks. One of the coolest things that we did was visit a tea plantation in Darjeeling. We even got to taste some of the tea. This was so cool because this was the same plantation that sent tea to Buckingham Palace in England.
We are now in the southern part of India in the state of Kerala. We are staying in the city of Ernakulam, which is just outside the more major city of Kochi. We are staying in a super comfortable apartment, thanks to my parents’ friends. It has been really hot here, so that's not that fun, but we still have gotten to see some awesome stuff here! Last weekend we drove over to the Thrissur Pooram festival, which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The festival is an annual Hindu celebration that is usually run by the temples. We did have to fight the blistering heat and the tons and tons of people but I think it was worth it to get to see the parade of elephants. Since then we have been taking it pretty chill since Toby and I tested positive with COVID-19, but it has been a nice break from the craziness that was our everyday. Last weekend we were also able to go on a houseboat. This was a super cool thing to do since we got to drive past people’s homes and see how they live. We saw people washing clothes, fishing, and playing in the river where we were. We also got to sleep on the boat, which was super cool too. As I said before, our time is already coming to an end in India, but I am very excited to get to all of the other countries on our list!
