Turkey Day Abroad

Preppin the Veggies with Marley

So Turkey Day this year was QUITE the experience! Thankfully it turned out amazing! So three of my friends and I volunteered to make dinner for around 30 people. Yeah, don’t ask me why we did that, but we did so there was no backing out. We made the list of what we needed and divided it between us four and the hospitality department people who had volunteered to help us. We went on quite an eventful shopping excursion, which included us having to find replacements for American things that weren’t carried her; for example, we had to get veggie soup instead of veggie stalk. No matter though, we were still pretty optimistic.

20lbs of Potatoes Apparently Wasn't Enough

We arrived at the kitchen on campus at 11am to find out that we were still missing half the items we needed, and there was no turkey there yet. We sent someone out four or five times to get the items we needed throughout the day and nearly didn’t have enough potatoes for mashed potatoes. We had to make a call to a higher power, aka our program director, to pressure them to get us more potatoes. So anyways, two o’clock came 

Tom TurkeyStill Intact and Frozen Solid

around and we were still prepping all the veggies and we had no turkey yet. Two thirty came around and we finally got our turkeys, but they were both frozen SOLID and with their heads and feet still attached. That was an experience thawing and beheading and defooting them. I took the feet and legs off, all the while pretending to be a dinosaur. Surprised? No, me neither. We popped them in the oven and prayed they would thaw in an hour or two (they didn’t).

Velociraptor RAWRRRR!

We continued to make EVERYTHING from scratch: the stuffing, the green bean casserole, the pumpkin pie, everything. And I mean from SCRATCH, as in, cutting and peeling raw pumpkins, baking bread to make the stuffing, boiling and cutting the green beans and adding onions and mushrooms to the casserole, everything. It was an experience and we thought for sure that we wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Well, for those for you who know me, you know I am a complete control freak, so it was hard for me to control myself 

Ew

and be a normal human being to my friends, but I did a pretty good job I think! Towards the end though, I started to freak out a little. Our friend Hiral showed up (thank god) ad helped out sooo much doing this and that and helping out just wherever she could; I don’t think we would have finished if she hadn’t come help! Ruskin also came in and dealt with my crazy like a champ. By the time he got there I was a maniac and just shouting directions here and there and freaking out about the turkey and everything being done on time (the turkey was not cooking fast enough, plus we didn’t have a cover for it for almost three hours, so it was a little dry at that point).

The Cinnamon and Nutmeg They Gave Us For The Pies...

We managed to pull it off, though! And I honestly can’t believe it! Here is a list of everything we made: 

Two turkeys (which ended up being delicious, somehow), stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, a full salad, scalloped potatoes, five pumpkin pies, four apple pies, sweet potatoes, normal turkey gravy, and veg gravy. And it was all SO GOOD. As in, might be some of the best Thanksgiving food 

I’ve ever had, if I do say so myself. The stuffing was freakishly on par, there were enough mashed potatoes for everyone to get their fill, and they 

Hiral Coming to Save the Day

were SO delicious, and we even managed to find dinner rolls to top it all off. On top of all the 

American food we also had some Indian barbecue, which included chicken kebabs and a few veggie ones too. I stuck to American food, though, and as you can imagine, ate until I literally couldn’t eat any more.

Fireworks!

So after we were all done eating, our resident direction Jacob told us all to come outside, so we obediently followed and his mini van had been 

backed up to the soccer field on campus and it was just LOADED with fireworks! Apparently that is the new Thanksgiving tradition! So with 

our bellies full we went crazy; it was a pyro’s dream. We set off so many and had a grand old time. Afterwards we headed back in for dessert (the pies were FANTASTIC) and just to hang out. We all headed home around 11pm full of delicious food and smiles on our faces. I can honestly say this was the most fun I’ve ever had on Thanksgiving. I mean, I love and 

The Spread (The Turkey Was On Its Way)

My Plate

look forward to Thanksgiving with my family each year and I did miss them bunches, but there is always family drama, or your sisters or cousins just get annoying, you know, the normal family holiday stuff. Here though, it was just plain fun… well, after we finished cooking and actually relaxed!

All in all Turkey Day this year was a complete success! I only wish that we had been able to take the leftovers home!!

The Group!

Today, my life is just Shelby.

So Full!

Well that Vacation was a Bust! Goa.

Out to Dinner with the Gang

Well that was just the worst vacation ever! So it started out with a fantastic bang, and then just plummeted to almost just as bad as it could get. So, of course, I will divulge all the little details to all of you lovelies… well, almost all…

So we headed out to Goa with smiling faces. Sandy had never been to the beach before so we were all really excited for him. I, of course, am in love with the beach, and Hannah and Melissa love it almost as much. So we headed out, got settled into our sleeper bus, or as settled as we can on a bed that drives, and got whisked away to Goa. We got to our hotel with relatively little difficulty, which was a nice change, and immediately just unpacked the necessities and headed off to the beach. Hannah, Sandy and myself went to the left of all the tourists while Melissa and Lauren went 

Sandy's First Time at the Beach!

to the right. There was a big group of USAC (my program here in India) students who went, so we all just kind of did our own thing and whoever wanted to do it too just came along.

So we headed to the water, Hannah any myself both bathingsuitless and without a care in the world (ok, we had sports bras and shorts on, but still). Sandy’s s face when we finally hit the beach was priceless. He was transformed into a five year old, kicking up sand, running into the water, so of course I joined him. Splashing around in the surprisingly warm water was just what I needed to start off this dream vacation! We spend a hefty amount of time at the beach, then finally headed back to the hotel to get ready for the first night of shenanigans.

So we head out along the beach once we are all fed and ready to go. This guy we had met earlier that day at a little place right on the beach had said to us earlier that if we cam back and paid for drinks and food that he would do a bonfire and get a fire thrower for us. So of course we rounded the troops and headed back after sunset. We made it back and got settled into some tables and chairs right on the sand in front of the place. Well, from there things just got a little crazy, let’s say. I won’t go

Wearing Helmets on the Scooter is a Buzz Kill

into detail, but long story short, this man was a CREEPER and he had his eye on me. LUCKILY I have a solid head on my shoulders and also a solid group of friends, so at the end of the night we escaped unscathed, except maybe my pride a bit, I did accidentally ram into a massive pile of sand on our way home. Didn’t even see it. Oh well.

So the next day was a rinse and repeat sort of thing, or it was supposed to be anyways. We headed to the beach, all was nice and dandy, and then we ate some dinner (I had prawn, in retrospect, not the best thing to eat not completely hot), and then headed back to get ready for another night on the town. Well, I was feeling a bit iffy so I decided to take the night in, I was still a bit tired from the night before so Hannah and I had a TV night and had a good sleep.

The next day I was certainly not feeling my best, but just figured it was the heat getting to me. I went out, tried to ignore it, did some shopping, and then ate dinner and headed home. When I finally crashed after dinner I realized that something was very, very, 

The CREEPER! That's s fake Smile on My Face People!

very wrong. Me being the private person that I am waited until everyone had gone out and then just puked my brains out, or so it felt. THAT is not fun at all, my friends. Spicy food going down is even spicier coming back up. And thus the vacation began to just fall, tumble, and fly downhill.

It began with that, and so I couldn’t eat for a day, but then it started out the other end, so I started to drink more water so I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital, then I started puking up the water, so that was a disaster. It was a brutal three days, and then finally I thought I would get some relief, but NOPE, day number four proved to be just as bad. Even thinking about food made me vomit, and actually, it kind of still does. So I lay in bed, in severe pain, feeling like a gremlin was trying to tear its way out of my stomach, with no 

Fire on My Head

relief. I tried crackers, that didn’t work. I tried toast, that didn’t work either. So I just accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to eat for about five or six days until I got back to Bangalore.

So the majority of the vacation went like that for me. Everyone else had a blast, of course, but I was stuck, miserable, pooping and puking, NOT a fun combo, especially while abroad, especially on vacation while abroad. Oh well though, it happened, so I guess there’s nothing can be done about it now. So the bus ride home was just fantastic. NOT. It was actually not only horrible because I was pukie the whole tome, but it was also infested with bugs. And I mean serious bugs, like cockroaches climbing on us while we were sleeping. It was terrible! But I made it the 

Pre Food Poisoning Plague

whole time without puking, so that was a bonus, and the bus actually dropped us off in our block so we didn’t have to pay as much for a rickshaw home.

SO happy to be home, though. I finally showered, changed into some clean clothes that didn’t smell like the moldy hotel, and even managed to eat some noodles! YAY! I have three more days to recover until class on Monday, I am hoping to be one hundred percent by then, but we’ll see. Oh, we did get home to all of the food in our fridge molded and rotten because the power won’t stay on here, so it just sat in the warm fridge for six days. We had to drag it outside in order to empty it out. SO GROSS. I sent a strongly worded text message and email to our resident director and, thankfully, he has sent the troops over in full force! At the moment we have 

Day 2, Dying in Bed

out cleaning lady doing dishes and washing the floors, we have the landlord supervising the washing machine technician fix that, the electrician has come to check out the wiring in the bathroom, and the internet guy is supposedly on his way. Hopefully everything can get fixed! Would be nice to have a semi-functioning apartment for the next three weeks. Oh, so just got the word that everything is fixed except for the internet yay!! Here’s just a short portion of the list of things that haven’t been working basically all semester: our hot water, the power, the internet, the washer, the bathroom light, the kitchen light, we have a mouse that chews chords, the sink drips, and the list goes on and on. Oh well, welcome to India I suppose!

So that’s all for now. At the moment it looks like my health is on the up and up, knock on wood. Two more weeks of classes, one week of finals, the Northern India tour, then homeward bound for me! I do love India with all my heart, but I am very excited to head home and see 

Day 6, Barf Bag in Hand, Headed to the Bus.

the people I’ve been missing and the food I’ve been craving. Keep an eye out for probably one more blog post about school and then one about Northern India should be up while I am waiting for my layover in Hong Kong on December 14^th!!

Today, my life is just Shelby.

The Home of Slum Dog Millionaire: Mumbai

Gateway of India

So Mumbai was quite the experience. If I could summarize it in one word it would be hot. I have never been somewhere that was so hot and humid at the same time, I honestly don't know how people live there and actually go outside every day, it was so unbelievably hot we would step out of our room and just be drenched in sweat before we even started walking anywhere! Being exhausted form our adventures in Hampi probably wasn't a big help either, plus another 15ish hour bus ride where we hardly got any sleep, not fun. BUT we tried to come into Mumbai with an open mind because, let's be honest, how many times are you going to get the chance to explore Mumbai in your life? So we set out as soon as we dropped out stuff off at our hotel (which took a while to check into because the people at the front desk were NOT accommodating to us only having copies of our passports). We decided that since we were so tired we would just walk to the Gateway of India, explore around there for a bit, and then just come back and relax in the hotel room to prepare for four days of exploring Mumbai. Well, we did make it to the Gateway and we did take a few photos and appreciate the scenery, but it was certainly not the last thing we did that day. On our way out from the

Fishermen's Boats

Gateway we had, yet another, tour guide approach us. This one, though, was asking us if we knew how to buy tickets to the Elephants Islands, which we didn't but wanted to know how because we wanted to go in the days to come. He explained it to us before pitching to us his tour details. We had no intention of taking a tour of Mumbai, and and avoided all the other tour guides harassing us while we were trying to enjoy the scenery, but this one sounded pretty cool, the guy said he had an AC car, he was with an actual program, his father was from Bangalore, and I bargained the price down to only Rs. 700 per person, which is about $14 USD. We decided to go for it, why the hell not, so we all piled into his gloriously ACed van and headed out to the different hotspots of Mumbai.


One of the first spots we visited was Mumbai's version of a laundry mat. This was a massive outdoor project where there were cement tubs all lined up cell block style where people were hand washing clothes. After they were hand washed, they were all hung on clotheslines, without clothespins, though, to dry. How they did this without clothespins was they had two ropes and they just twisted the ends of the

Ghandi's House

clothes between them, therefore not needed any clothespins. Also, there are millions of articles of clothing that pass through the place every day and not once has one been returned to the wrong person. Just amazing.


The next place we went to was the docks to see where the fishermen came in. The water was so dirty, as to be expected anywhere in India, but I could almost smell the smell of the ocean through it. Almost. I thought it was particularly hilarious that their dingies were simply fishing nets stuffed with styrofoam. Regardless, it was peaceful and I liked being close to the ocean again, even for a brief time.


Our next stop was Ghandi's house. Yes, I got to go inside Ghandi's house. It was AWESOME. I love him. But anyways, so we got to go walking around his house, which is perfectly preserved and turned into a museum; you can even see where he sat and meditated during his hunger strike. It was amazing. His library was also perfectly preserved which was incredible. There were tons of photos of his life and

Largest Train Station in the World

even a little exhibit of the events of his lifetime. It was really neat to go inside and see where he actually lived and worked.


Our next stop was just a drive by the largest train station in the world. It was built by the British, which is staggeringly obvious when you look at it. It was actually really strange, Mumbai looked, to me, what I would imagine England would look, except with an Indian twist. The cars looked like they did in old England and there were still double decker busses that were installed before India got its independence. It was quite trippy and really neat at the same time. For being such a huge place for the British to colonize, though, not very many people spoke English, which we found surprising and super difficult to find our way around. If we

Setting of Slum Dog Millionaire

actually learned Hindi in our Hindi class then it would have been helpful, but alas, we haven't. We hit a few more stops, although none as memorable as these few. Plus we were super tired and ready to crash by the time we were nearing the end of our tour. We headed back t bask in the AC of our room (yes, we paid extra for AC THANK GOD) and to watch The X Factor, which we are now all addicted to.


The next day Melissa and I decided that we wanted to do the slum tour that our guide had told us about. It was way too overpriced, but we were really glad we did it; we learned a lot. We went to the same slum that Slum Dog Millionaire was filmed in, and it was trippy; the movie did the slum justice. It was just like you would

Touching the Arabian Sea

picture it: smelly, dirty, cramped, garbage, kids, and people everywhere. It was a mess, but so amazing to walk through. We saw all sorts of different things. Not only did we see the conditions people lived in, which I don't know how they do it and still actually live, but we got to see a massive recycling plant as well. This place clearly had no regulations, the people were working in squalor just to earn a penny, but they were recycling and earning money none the less so I guess it could be worse... although not much worse. All in all it was super eye opening to see the slums in person, I think the smell will stay with me for quite a while, it is hard to forget.


We headed to the beach one evening (called Cowpatty Beach) to watch the sunset. It was really crowded and people would not stop looking and taking pictures of us, which was super annoying, but the sunset was beautiful over the ocean and the city line. We got to touch the Arabian Ocean, although I didn't go in further than my toes because it was super polluted, but others did. They were swimming around in all their clothing, just having a grand old time just playing around in the water. Right as the sun went down, though, we

Amazing Caves

decided to scadaddle because of all the attention we were getting; we hate that.


We did a lot of other stuff in between, including just hanging out in the hotel room relaxing and watching TV, nothing wrong with that! But one other really neat thing we did do was we went to Elephanta Island to see the ancient caves that were carved out of the rocks. It was amazing! These caves were not only massive, but they were literally just carved out of the side of hills. They were elaborate with carvings of deities and gods, with huge pillars with details and steps that had been worn over by age. It was just incredible. There were also monkeys that stole tourists' water bottles if you didn't hide them as you walked past; my roommate fell victim to this, it was hilarious, to say the least.


So Mumbai was quite the adventure, way too hot for me to ever stay there longer than a few days, but definitely a completely new outlook on the way that some Indians live, it was amazing! Soooo good to be back in good old Bangalore, even though the mouse has chewed even more holes in our screen and our bathroom light and washer won't work. Welcome to India.

Today, my life is just Shelby.

Can We Just Stay in Hampi Forever?

The First of Many Sleeper Busses

 Hampi was, without doubt, one of the most beautiful and interesting places I have ever been. I will try to do it justice here, but it will be a challenge because it was just so breathtaking. We began our 10 day journey on a sleeper bus. Now, these busses run overnight and have actual beds, although rather uncomfortable and sketchy, are still better than being vertical and trying to sleep for twelve plus hours. Nothing is close to Bangalore and flights are too expensive. All of the train tickets are booked for the rest of the semester also, so that only left us with the bus option. We we began our journey on a sleeper bus that left from right down the road from out apartment. It was one of the most
uncomfortable rides ever, it is nearly impossible for me to sleep on a bus in general, regardless if I am sitting or laying down, so it was a relief when

Rented Motor Bikes

we finally reached Hampi (after about twelve hours on the bus). We got to Hospet, the nearest town that the bus ran to, and were swarmed by rickshaw drivers. We got one for a fair deal and headed to our hotel in Hampi. The place where we stayed was wonderful. It was called Padma Guest House and if anyone is traveling to Hampi I highly recommend staying here. It wasn't fans, but it is run by a family and they are just so nice they treat you as if you have lived there your whole life.

Just Hanging Out in Some Ancient Ruins

So we dropped off our stuff and were geared up for our adventures to start (I went with two of my roommates by the way, so it was just us three girls). We had decided to give motor bikes a try and then to take a rickshaw tour the next day to hit up anything we missed on our own (which turned out to be a lot). We got the bikes and after Hannah dumped herself and Melissa off, Melissa
 decided to ride with me. Hannah got the gist soon, though, and we headed to the police department to register with them. At first we thought that they were really nice, they asked to hear what little Kannada we knew (the local language in Bangalore) and we laughed about it for a bit, but then one of them started to get real creepy and would ask us if he came to Bangalore could he take us out to dinner and whatnot, and then he tried to call my phone so I could have his number, and it was just getting  really sketchy so we headed out as soon as we could. He continued to call me all day, but I ignored his calls; I'm really

The Ruins Were Amazing

hoping he doesn't make it to Bangalore cause that'd just be too too sketchy. Melissa and I zoomed away on our bike as soon we we got out of there, but Hannah crashed hers into the flower pot right outside the police station so she was stuck talking with the creeper for a while longer. We finally made it out of there though and started our sight seeing adventures.


There were temples everywhere you looked in Hampi; there was even one right outside our hotel. We basically just cruised around on the bikes, enjoying the fresh air and stopping wherever something looked interesting on the road side. We weren't too worried about seeing everything that day, because we were going to be taking a guided tour the next day. I'm sure we were a sight for sore eyes; everyone couldn't stop laughing at the little white girls on the motorcycles. They took even more pictures than they would

Hanging Out with Nandi

normally, which is annoying because people are always taking pictures of us here. Apparently in Hampi's  hay day there were over a half a million people living there, and there had to be at least that. The architecture and the pure manpower it must have taken to build thousands of stone monuments and temples is crazy to think about. There were tons of stone carvings of deities, also. Like Nandi, he was once just a huge boulder, but somehow people carved him with the simple tools that they had. It was just insane to think about all the history that a place like that had, and even when the temples we saw started to mesh together, they were still amazing to look at.


One of the first places we went, per my request, was to the Lakshmi temple. This is, of course, where the sacred elephant Lakshmi blessed people. It

was amazing, and too funny too. The elephant was trained (which was sad, but he is also a very important symbol to many people's religion), to take money offerings from the people standing in front of him, five it to his keeper off to the side, and then bless the person by putting his trunk on their head. For foreigners apparently it costs more because I tried to donate RS. 2 (which is like 4 cents) which is what Indian's pay, and there was no blessing, so I had to donate Rs. 10 (which is like 20 cents) and he did it. And then of course I blew like five dollars just so I could keep touching the elephant. Sorry not sorry.

The sights here were just breathtaking. There were multiple points where we were able to see all of Hampi from high up and that was incredible.

Overlooking Part of Hampi's Ancient Ruins

When we went on our Rickshaw tour we got to see way more than we bargained for. We thought that we had hit most of Hampi when we were on the bikes, because we spent a full day packed with sight seeing, but boy were we wrong. It was actually a really good deal, we each paid about $6 USD for an entire day and it was packed with new sights. Out of all the important stops we made on the tour we had actually only seen one the days before, so clearly we didn't go far enough or down the right roads, which makes sense cause a lot of the temples were dow dirt roads that didn't look important when we were driving around. We saw all sorts of neat places on the tour. We saw this one temple that had been completely buried over time and then dug up by archaeologists. It had a complex water system running through it and once it was excavated water actually started to run

Making Friends Everywhere We Go

through it again which is just so cool to me. We even found a crab there, and who knows how that happened! But anyways, so we saw many amazing things and once again, the fact that nothing in life comes free appears again. We wanted to just walk around on our own and admire the ruins, however, there are people who live in Hampi and make their living by showing people around the ruins. This makes sense, but it isn't really fair because you have nice older women in saris coming up to you and just start showing you around, and you feel obligated to follow them and listen to them, and then they ask for a tip in the end. It's so frustrating because I like to just wander around and ponder my myself, but these people need the money so they seek out the tourists and pretend to be doing them a favor but then ask for money in return. I am so conflicted. I always give in, too. They always get my money. We did meet some really nice people, though, who actually did only want to help us. Mostly Indian's who were visiting Hampi. We met this really nice family, or what I assumed was a family, it could have just been a brother and his three sisters, but who knows. Anyways, we met them when we were visiting Lakshmi the elephant. The brother approached us

Meditating with Ganesha

because we couldn't figure out how much to give the elephant in order for it to touch us. He took pity on us and helped us out, and even shared the crackers they bought to feed the elephant with us. The kids were cute and laughed at how excited I got that the elephant was taking food from my hand. I didn't even care because I was in heaven. They started to ask the typical questions like where we were from, what we were doing in India, blah blah blah. I have started to tell people I am from Canada, because with all the turmoil with the States and the East it seemed like a solid plan. Plus if you tell people you're form Canada they don't ask you a billion questions like they do if you say you're from the states. So I told this poor guy I was from Canada and he got all excited and started asking me all these questions and whatnot. He started speaking French too at some point I'm pretty sure and then asked me if I had any coins from there (which is another common question we get, apparently a lot of people collect coins from all over the world). I was trapped in my lie and I felt bad because this guy was actually so nice and not creepy at all. I stuck to it though and wiggled my way out of it. We kept bumping into them all day, though, and I did feel bad. LYING IS BAD

Driving the Rickshaw

PEOPLE. Remember that.


So our adventures continued. On our rickshaw tour our driver, Raj, would ask us questions about some history or a monument or something. This one rock had naturally been carved out by the weather and into the shape of a god, in some people's eyes. He asked us which god it looked like and I answered Ganesha, because he is my favorite and I figured it was a good guess, and I was right! my prize was getting to drive the rickshaw, which was a hoot! It was a manual, and I don't even know how to drive a manual car, let alone a manual rickshaw, so I just controlled the gas and the steering and he did the shifting. Teamwork at it's finest. We learned a lot from our guide, actually. We were kind of thrown with him at

Boat Ride with a Man Who Looked Like Jesus

first and we were a bit uneasy, but he was nice enough and knew a lot about the history.

And the adventures continued!!! So the next day we decided that we were going to explore across the river on our own. We didn't really have a game plan, and it showed. So we went to the riverbank and wanted to take the little round boats across the river; it was on our list of things to do before we left Hampi. So we get there and the guy was trying to charge us double what we should have been paying, but we finally got him down to a semi-reasonable price. We got in this little tiny circular boat that was half filled with water already and in comes this man who looks like Jesus and only has one leg. He clambered in the boat with us and our driver, or paddler I should say, pushed us off and hopped in. The boat just kept filling with water, but

View at the Top Near the Monkey Temple

luckily we didn't sink. I was also being splashed in the face the whole time which made my paranoia of getting a parasite even worse. We did go under this rock, though, which was cool. There was about a foot of space, so we all had to lay completely flat in the boat (getting soaked in the process) so we could pass under this rock. It was a lot of fun, even though I did get a bit seasick and convinced I now had a parasite.


Well we finally got to the other side and awkwardly clambered out and helped one-legged Jesus get out as well. We started to hike up to a temple that we could see but after looking around it for a while we realized that we really had no idea where we were supposed to be going. We started to hike a bit, but turned around, afraid that we would get even more lost. We saw a white person, but lost them through the trees, so we were alone again. We went down the hill behind the temple and crossed a part of the river because we saw people on the other side and were just praying that they spoke English. We ran into this one man who was actually laughing at us because we were so obviously lost. He spoke English and called us a Rickshaw, thank god. We clambered in and headed to the Monkey Temple. Now, this temple was at the top of a

Honing my Bargaining Skills

small mountain, and in order to reach it you had to climb up over 500 steps. So that was miserable, to say the least. As if I wasn't out of shape already, the altitude just about killed me. We made it to the top, though, and the view was stunning. There were monkeys everywhere too, which was entertaining. After spending an hour or two admiring the scenery, and having a delightful conversation with an italian man I met up there, we headed back down the mountain (much easier to go down than up), and onto the next temple, which we didn't stay long at, and then to do some shopping.


I have almost perfecting my bargaining skills, which I am so happy about. Once I get into the groove, there is no stopping me. This just feeds my already unhealthy shopping addiction. It is really

Hanging Out With Some Cobras

helpful if you tell them that you live in India, so you aren't just any old tourist and you actually know what you should be paying for the item. Usually they are reasonable, and become even more reasonable if you strike up a casual conversation with them about nay old thing. I have actually had some very nice conversations with people who were trying to sell me things. So yes, I got a fair amount of my gifts bought for all you lovelies back at home.


On our side of the river again, we ran into a snake charmer, which was also on our list of things to see and do in Hampi. So of course we stopped, knowing he was going to overcharge us for the show, but still, who could pass up that kind of show? He did put on quite a show but then asked us if we wanted to go any closer. Now, I'm not afraid of snakes, but when you are that close to one your instincts kick in and you can't help but be afraid. We got to hold the basket and pet the back of the cobra's hood, which was terrifying, but it was really neat, too. I had enough very quickly, though, my senses were in overdrive being that close to death, so I put down the basket promptly, paid the man and we headed off to shower off the day and relax on the

Henna

rooftop of our hotel overlooking the ruins. It's a hard knock life, no?


Our last day in Hampi was relaxing, we only had a half a day before we had to leave for our bus, so our original plan was to get up to watch the sun rise around 5am and then stay awake so we could sleep on the bus. Well, we got up to watch the sun rise, but then when we got back to our rom we all fell asleep until almost 10am, so that plan was an epic fail. Regardless, we got up, had our daily "pancake" (which was really like a crepe filled with banana slices, DELISH), and just lounged around for a couple hours. The hotel keeper's cousin, who was 12, came and talked to us for a while. He was so smart it was kind of scary, but adorable because of it. I told him all about college and how to apply for scholarships and he asked his mom if he could go and she said if he worked hard, then yes, he could. I am such a Team Mainer it is not even funny. So we still had a solid three hours to kill, so he asked us if we wanted henna. I said sure, why the hell not, and my roomies followed. We ended up right next to the hotel in his cousins house where she gave us beautiful henna designs. While we were there her mother started to make chapatis and there

Beautiful Paint Bases

were little cousins running around everywhere. It was nice to just be in a house, pretending like we fit in, for a couple hours.


All too soon, though, we had to head out to catch our bus in Hospet to Mumbai. We carpooled, or rickshawpooled I guess you could say, with a girl we met from Denmark who was on our bus as well. We met this really nice guy named Jack at the bus stop who was also headed to Mumbai. He was from Australia and looked, no joke, just like Allen from The Hangover. Hampi, though, without doubt, was one of the most amazing places I have ever been, and I've been to a lot of cool places. Just the history and the feeling you got when you were there was incredible. What I liked most, though, if that everyone was so nice, they treated you like you lived there and weren't just another tourist come to gawk at the temples. I was sad to see it go, and it will definitely be a place I would visit in the future if I am ever so lucky to come back to India, which I hope I will be. Anyways, that's the adventures in Hampi, Mumbai was our next stop in our whirlwind trip, more on that to come.

Today, my life is just Shelby.