KallyDevi

Well hello again travelblog. I've been on the road again for over 2 months now without actually writing anything in a journal, diary, paper, or online, and it is a little strange considering how nice it was to have this blog record some of my previous journeys. Looking back on those times from my current perspective is really amazing.. So...at the moment I am here in Northern California. I graduated from UNR in the middle of May, shortly after which I took off and headed south to Irvine (LA area) where I stayed for about a week volunteering at a musical festival event. The next weeks after that I spent in Santa Cruz with a friend named Nathan, in San Francisco with my beautiful sister Irena, in Beldentown, Arcata, and Eugene, OR, with other new and ... read more

and here come the rest of the pictures...of the temples we visited in Belur and Halebidu, as well as our time in Pondicherry and around Bangalore. yay!! =)... read more

It's been a while but I'm finally back in the states where i can upload photos...these are some of the photos of my experience in Northern India. I visited the cities of Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, Varanasi, Haridwar, and Rishikesh.......enjoy!... read more

After the weekend in Pondicherry began our last week of school. A large part of it we just spent going to class and preparing for the final exams we would have, but we still tried to get as much done in Bangalore as we could before leaving. we shopped for last-minute items during the days, ate as much indian food as we could in the evenings, and then went out every single night to a different club to dance the night away. it was a lot of fun, despite the knowledge that we would soon be split up...it was a reality that no one wanted to think about, and no one ever brought it up directly. it just sat in the back of our minds, and everyone tried to prepare for it in their own way.. ... read more

The weekend after our trip around Shravanabelagola, Belur, Halebidu, and Mysore, I attended three days of class and then left again with Nia and Renee to go to Pondicherry, a city on the eastern Indian coast in the state of Tamilnadu. It was initially a French colony and the French influence there is absolutely noticeable...there are french restaurants everywhere, the streets have french names, and the people greet you in french as you walk down the streets. i cannot relay the surprise i felt the first time i heard indians speaking french so perfectly...it seemed like such a foreign thing, but they worked it with ease and incredible fluency. i was very impressed. we took another overnight bus with three of our other friends from Bangalore (but who were going there on their own schedule, their ... read more

The weekend after going to Nandi hills we took another trip around the south of india. part of it was USAC organized, but a group of 15 of us left a day early so we could see a couple other areas as well. We left Thursday night on an overnight bus that was supposed to bring us to Coorg at about 6 or 7am. instead what we found was that at 4:30 in the morning there were 15 of us standing in the middle of a foreign, sleeping town with no idea of where we were or what to do. we decided, most logically, to try to find a hotel where to sleep for a couple of hours until daylight came and we could ask around for help. this turned out being quite a mess though ... read more

so the weeks have been passing, on and on like they always do. i realized that i have only about 2 more weeks here before i go back to the states for the first time in 8 months! i'm not sure how i feel about that...in one way i am excited to be able to unpack my clothes and my bags for a while and just be around people who i can understand in familiar surroundings..but at the same time the world is so big, the thrill of traveling is so provocative, and i have been doing it for so long that i don't know if i'll be able to stand staying in the same city for far too long. but if there is any one thing i have really come to understand on my journeys ... read more

So i figured it might be time to write something about Bangalore, since this is now my new home.. Bangalore is a city in the southern indian state of Karnataka. the population is reported to be about 10 million, though i really can't even imagine how they estimate the population of any city in india...so i'm not quite sure about that. but there ARE a lot of people. the first thing I noticed as the plane was landing was how RED the earth is here. while the north was very dry and beige-colored all the time, the south has red earth and real trees..amazing. =) but just like in all of the other places we have visited the roads are packed with cars and noise, the city is quite polluted, and i still can't orient myself ... read more

this blog is coming somewhat late because i am currently in Bangalore, but it refers to the time corey and i spent in Haridwar in the north. Haridwar is our favorite place we visited in north india, even more than varanasi i think, though the two are close.. Haridwar is one of the holiest cities in India, one of the seven holiest places for the Hindus apparently. The name can be split into two - 'hari' means 'god' and 'dwar' means 'gate'...together 'Haridwar' means to say 'gateway to God'. According to Hindu scriptures, Haridwar is one among the four sites where drops of the elixir of immortality, Amrita, accidentally spilled over from the pitcher, in which it was being carried away by the celestial bird Garuda, after the Samudra manthan. The spot where the nectar fell ... read more