Well... Its over. I finally checked my bags into the counter and I am sitting here waiting for my flight to depart. Its been an emotional whirlwind the past few weeks that I have spent in Asia. I have had the most amazing time, and I owe a great deal of thanks to the Iqbals. They have been amazing hosts, without whom this trip would not have been possible. Last night we watched the World Cup with most of the people in DOHS. Nabil was still under the weather so I went with Samai and Issam and their friends. They are really into football and go so excited about the game. There were a lot of people there and it was quite exciting. Random fact of the day: In Muslim countries, they are unwilling to install ... read more

Nabil and I went out for our day trip to the Ellora caves and left in the morning. We took a rickshaw to the bus station, but this time we actually took a bus. Im glad we did so that I could have the experience of taking a government bus over a short distance. Aaron was saying that they had taken a government bus for a 5 hour trip - not an exciting proposition - but it was fun for our half-hour voyage. The bus was quite rickity and I was quite pleased when we pulled up near the caves. There are a whole lot of caves at Ellora. The first ones that we visited were Buddhist, and most were in the same style as the caves in Ajunta, though the Ajunta Buddhist caves were better. ... read more

Wow, 19 hours on a train? What are you thinkin? THats prolyl what you are thinking at this point. But 19 hours on a train is not like 19 hours anywhere else. We entrained at 1:30 am and groggily made our way to our berths. I took the top bunk and put all my stuff and me up on the bed. It wasnt the most comfortable situation, but it worked and I fell deep asleep. They had to wake me up to give me blankets. I eventually woke up after hours of restless sleep at 9 am. We had a breakfast of kabobs on the train and then I promptly went back to sleep. I woke again to have a lunch of daal, rice, roti and something very very liquidy which I poured all over my ... read more

Our arrival was at 11:00am after getting up at 4am to catch the train to Jaipur from Delhi. The train was awesome, and only took 4 hours. They served us a meal and brought us tea two times in 4 hours. Plus we had loads of leg room. I still believe trains are the best way to travel. After fending off a number of rickshaw wallahs and autorickshaw wallahs, beggars, children, sales people, their relatives and friends, we were still stuck with one guy that walked with us for more than half a block. Nabil and I thought this was hilarious at first, but we quickly started getting annoyed. He wouldn't leave, even though we were getting progressively more pissed off and agressive towards him. Also, we were getting hopelessly lost. Jaipur is a confusing city ... read more

Today I am leaving for India, we depart for the airport in 1 hour. This is going to be a short post because I have some stuff to do still. Yesterday we went shopping a lot getting things for India - watch, alarm clocks, stuff like that. We looked for neck pouches for our valuables, but couldnt find anything. This morning Swapan went out and got us neck pouches made for us. It probably cost about 2 dollars and everything fits perfectly. Amazing! Anything can be made here and the people are quite ingenious. The ride back to Dhaka on the 21st was fine until we neared Dhaka City when it got dark. It was a scary end of the trip with cars flying around dark rickshaws and cars in your lane oncoming. Lanes here are ... read more