Camels, Cows and Cat Crossings

Goodness!  Where to begin?  The logical place would be with Delhi and busy, smoggy, noisy and crowded city with a few lovely little areas.  We visited Birla Temple a Hindu temple and Humayun's Tomb which is an over-the-top burial site in supposed typical Mughal style architecture for Humayun and his wife.  The gardens are restful and magnificent and a respite from the noise and pollution of the city.  We were happy to leave the next day for Mandawa - six+ hour drive but we were glad to get out of the city.
In Mandawa we spent the night in a beautiful Haveli.  These are homes built by and for very wealthy people and many have been converted to small hotels.  Our rooms were wonderful and we were each presented with an Indian puppet when we checked out.  There we visited several Havelis with beautiful paintings as well as the Mandawa fort.  I would definitely say though that the highlight of Mandawa was stumbling upon a wedding party the night before the even.  This involved the groom decked out on horseback following a DJ truck which played loud Indian music.  We could hear it clearly from our rooms and figured, "If you can't beat 'em, join them!"  And that is what we did.  We danced with 20-40 people down the road, following the DJ truck with the groom behind us.  We heard that having foreigners join this activity is good luck.  It sure was fun for us!  Below is a photo from a video I took of Chuck and Paulette dancing the night away.  What fun!
Next day, off to Bikaner and the rat temple.  Anyone who knows me knows how excited I was about visiting the rat temple but I sucked it up, put cotton booties provided by the temple over my socks and in we went.  Chuck had one run across his foot which is supposed to bring good luck.  (Doesn't sound so good to me and I was happy to miss out on that.)
The next morning we headed off to see the Demoiselle cranes which stop to mate and spend their winters in India, crossing the Himalayas from China and Mongolia - not an easy feat.  They are magnificent and there is said to be about 25,000 that visit this lake.
Last night we spent the night in the Thar Desert, slept in tents and rode a camel to watch the sunset at the top of some dunes.  It was really wonderful and my camel, Claudia, did a great job despite his guffawing, belching, grunting and, according to my friend riding in back of me, releasing gas by other means.
Today we are in Jaisalmer as we will be tomorrow.  Nice to have two days in one spot and slow down a bit.  India is a lot to take in and it seems we are often shaking our heads, rolling our eyes, laughing and asking, "Did that really happen?"
Examples:
*Cows in the middle of major highways that stop traffic until they decide to move.
*Stopping because our driver wants to smoke a hookah at a . . . hookah stop?
*Our driver groaning and pulling over to the side of the road because a cat crossed in front of us - a bad luck omen - and waiting until someone else passed so that the bad luck would be transferred to them.
*Avoiding walking down a street today because someone had recently died on that street and going two blocks out of our way to avoid it.
I'm not kidding.  These things REALLY happened.  And there is so much more . . . the music and dancing around the campfire at night in the desert, the strange vehicles and animals (and people) along the way.  And we're only on day five????  Here are too many photos.

Birla Temple

Paulette at the temple 

Humayun's Tomb and the Gardens

Part of Our Haveli and some sights around Mandawa

Our Haveli 

The groom

Paulette and Chuck Dancing with the locals

ALONG THE WAY 

Carrying Mustard Greens

A Hookah Stop

 The Rat Temple

The Demoiselle Cranes 

The Water line with 100's of cranes flying overhead

More Cranes

My Camel, Claudia (a male), and his handler and me in the Thar Desert

SOME WILDLIFE

Ummm, Don't know!

This is painted outside your door when you are married.  It shows the date 

of the marriage and brings blessings to the couple.

Kanchanaburi Town and Province

With five days from my arrival in Thailand until I meet my friends and depart for India, Kanchanaburi seemed like a good choice.  There are things here I've wanted to see and places I wanted to visit, so here I am!  The good news is that my little corner of this rather big town/city is really nice and feels like a small town.  There's a man across the street from my hotel who has a garden full of banzai trees and works on them every evening.  We've talked in that 'I don't speak much Thai, he doesn't speak much English' way.  The other good news is my hotel which is not expensive, has really good food, a swimming pool and nice people who work here.  The bad news is that the air is just foul!  It's worse in the mornings it seems and clears up a bit at night, but still not good.  In this area it's farmers burning their sugar cane fields to prepare for a new crop.  There has GOT to be a better way!
I have spent my 3 full days here busily exploring and saw and did some amazing things.  Erawan National Park is home to 7 waterfalls.  The further up you hike, the more of them you will see.  I made it to five.  (It was a crazy hike with stairs and rocks and roots so five was it for me). It was heavenly!  What a beautiful place.  I spent a great deal of time in number five just letting the water pour over me - so refreshing considering it's been super hot here! There are also many fish, some large that like to nibble which doesn't hurt but is disconcerting, hence my location on the rock.  The fish didn't like the fast moving water!  Ha!  Outsmarted them!
Day two I went to Elephants World - a place that rescues elephants that have been 'street' elephants, logging elephants, mistreated, abandoned.  They take them all.  I paid to go to this place and worked hard while I was there.  We cut elephant grass to feed to the elephants, washed vegetable and fed them to the elephants, made sticky rice with pumpkin over a hot fire and, when it cooled, made sticky rice balls covered in rice powder with ground up grain pellets for the old elephants that have lost their teeth, then fed then to the old ladies.  Then we played in the mud with them and covered them in muck and took them to the river and washed them.  The whole day was hands-on with these amazing creatures.  I feel so lucky!
Today I took the train to Nam Tok - the Death Railway across the bridge on the River Kwai.  Despite the horrible name, the train ride is beautiful on a very old train.  We crossed the Wang Po Viaduct built by prisoners of the Japanese during WWII.  The trestle is so old and made of wood that the train crawls along over it with the River Kwai snaking next to it.  When the train got to the last stop, I walked to Sai Yok waterfall which was nothing like my previous experience at Erawan of having the place to myself.  It was a small waterfall and just crawling with people and children picnicking so I made a beeline out of there, took the public bus (after asking several people who did not speak English but managed to find the bus stop with their help) and went to Hellfire Pass and Konyu Cutting.  This place is so moving.  The name comes from prisoners of war who worked into the night with light from lanterns cutting through solid rock to make train tracks for the Japanese who were trying to make passage from Singapore through Burma.  Over 100,000 Thai, Australian, Malaysian and American prisoners of war perished in the making of this pass which was never completed.  The Australian government built the center and opened the pass trail to the public so that those who perished will not be forgotten. Moving!

Bangkok to Kanchanaburi

Along the River Kwai

ERAWAN NATIONAL PARK

Waterfall One

Waterfall Two

Waterfall Three

Waterfall Fo

Okay, this bears some information.  Thais believe that old trees are inhabited by female spirits.  Therefore, they leave gowns, prom dresses, wedding dresses and fancy shoes to make the spirit of the tree happy.  Nice, huh? This was between waterfall four and five.

And these two photos are of waterfall five from the rock where I sat.

ELEPHANTS WORLD

Eating elephant grass

Making sticky rice pumpkin balls

Where the elephants live

Sisters taking a bath

Below is bathing our elephant here she is - all washed!

TRAIN FROM KANCHANBURI TO NAM TOK

Double Happiness Complimentary Hand Wipes

Wang Po Viaduct from Afar and below as we cross it

AND ON A MORE SOMBER NOTE . . . 

Konyu Cutting

A Quick Trip to Caye Caulker, Belize

I took a short trip to Belize in early December to relax on a warm beach and do some snorkeling.  I accomplished that and more.  Caye Caulker is a laid back island - not much more than a sandbar and easily walkable (the whole island) in 30 minutes from end to end.  I met some great people, did some great snorkeling, ate some delicious meals and saw some amazing wildlife - including swimming with nurse sharks and stingrays and feeding giant tarpons!  Here's some photos.
Some Caribbean flavor . . .

Some sunrises and sunsets                                                                                                                      

Some scenery

And some wildlife

nurse sharks

baby seahorse