What an amazing adventure! India is truly incredible with everything in extreme--extreme beauty, extreme culture, extreme wealth, extreme poverty, extreme traffic, but most of all, this is a country of extremely kind and generous people. Yes, India can be daunting and frustrating at times, but we believe that's what makes this trip so special. It takes a bit of work, but with proper planning, patience and an open mind, what we get back is so much more than any effort we may have exerted to make this trip one of the most amazing experiences of our life. We are seasoned travelers with multiple trips to SE Asia and to some extent, these past trips definitely helped us appreciate and handle India (although nothing can truly prepare you for India except for actually being in India.) We ... read more

June 11 On our way to Agra, we stopped by Fatephur Sikri, (which is a palace and a mosque) during a sandstorm. Sand and dirt blowing up into our faces and mouth, not very pleasant. Maybe it was the long car drive but we were feeling miserable and was not in the mood to be harassed by taxis, tuk tuks and "tour guides" but this little precocious boy of 15 was not aggressive and for some reason, we both found him charming. We agreed to pay for his companionship since we didn't need a tour of the place and quickly realized how smart he was. He speaks 5 languages and just recently finished his studies at the school in the mosque and now looking for work. It's awful to see so many children in India need ... read more

June 5th - We arrived at our hotel which is considered to be the best place in town but that's not saying much... food was horrible and their pool is not a pool but a pigeon fountain, totally gross! No internet access here and nothing else to do right now but to ride camels here. June 6th - We left early to go to the Ghats. Pushkar has 52 Ghats and 500 temples. All devout Hindus try to make at least one pilgrimage to Pushkar and bathe at the holy ghats to wash away their sins, thereby earning themselves a place in heaven. The only problem is... the monsoon season did not begin yet in this area so the lake is all dried up. Just a bit of information... in order to walk around this area ... read more

From Cochin, took a flight to Mumbai, then from Mumbai, hired a car to take us to train station and our driver drove us through the Dharavi slums (as in the movie, Slumdog Millionare), then took an overnight train at the Mumbai CST train station (formally known as Victoria Terminal) to Aurangabad... and boy, what an adventure. When we first arrived at the station, we were overwhelmed by this really nasty awful stench... that smelled of feces. I really can't describe the smell that well but it was the most awful smell I have encountered. Maybe in a lighter description, it smelled as if 100 people used a toilet w/o flushing and if you put your head in the toilet bowl, that is what you would imagine the smell would be like. That was the smell ... read more

Today we went did the Kerala Houseboat that was recommended as a must do. We rented a 1 bedroom houseboat which was really nice. It was really beautiful and relaxing but 6 hours on a luxury houseboat was a bit too long for me. If I was able to do some fishing or prawning, that'll be a different story. The food on the other hand was a pleasant surprise. I usually expect small sandwiches but in this case, I wasn't sure what we will be getting for lunch. They had so much food out that I thought the other men would be eating w/ us but they didn't. The only disappointment is that they made the food catered for tourists that it wasn't really spicy at all. The yellow curry vegetable dish and the grilled spiced ... read more