New Zealand - Kiwis, Sheep and Meat Pies!

Ahh! Clean air, orderly traffic and no animals running free through the streets. Auckland, New Zealand welcomed our India-weary bodies with open arms and potable water. It was with sheer joy and newly gained appreciation that we leisurely strolled the streets of Auckland, admired the fall foliage (southern hemisphere, reverse seasons, you know) and giddily ate and drank whatever we pleased. Auckland's Sky Tower lights up the downtown city center. A combination of restaurants, bungee jumping from the top, and casino, it's a fan favorite of the large Asian population we've found here. The Auckland University is nicely laid out and has many beautiful architectural highlights, like this church.

And, it seems, water is everywhere. Here is the Auckland harbor, viewed from the museum up on a hilltop. The city reminded us a lot of San Francisco, actually, with the hilly streets, bay views, cool, misty temperature, and genial, laid back atmosphere.In the middle of the city is a large jungle featuring many lush walking paths, where one can easily get lost (or hide!) among the all the greenery and forget that you are still in the middle of the country's largest city. We found new fauna as well, such as this two-tone gerbil-like animal taking a midday snack. After a few days to recoup and explore Auckland, Tiff and I rented a car and our real New Zealand "tramp" (their word for adventure) began! The Kiwis drive by English tradition, on the left side of the road with steering wheel on the right. After a number of misadventures in the wrong lane, and a few bruised curbs left in our trail, we've adjusted fairly well. For the most part we just drive very slowly; luckily, as they say here, you'll see more sheep than people in your travels!Our first stop was Mata Mata, home to Hobbiton, the only remaining set preserved from the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by Peter Jackson, New Zealand's favorite son. It was a great tour, with fanatically devoted tour guides quoting passages from the movies verbatim, citing minute differences between the original novels and the movie, and even encouraging us to put on our costumes if we'd brought them (and apparently many of their guests do, in order to recreate famous scenes!) We'd found New Zealand's version of "Trekkies". And with the high spirits of the guides and beautiful scenery all around us, we couldn't help but get swept up in the magic. In the cafe waiting to start the tour, Tiff catches me checking a wall mural for Hobbits.

Underneath the famous Party Tree, where Bilbo Baggins celebrates his 111th birthday in the first Lord of the Rings movie, Tiffany recreates some of the heel-clicking party.17 Hobbit homes were preserved in the hillside and available for our viewing pleasure.

Nowadays they are guarded by 12,000 sheep that roam the privately owned farm. For the movie, though, which was supposed to take place in England, English sheep were flown in for the movies. How's that for authenticity!?! According to our guide, the New Zealand sheep are still reeling from the embarrassment of not making the final cut. Tiff and I found a new vacation home, right here in Hobbiton!

Being that this was, and still is, a working 1,200 acre sheep farm, the tour included a demonstration of sheep shearing by Matt, the local sheep expert, and let us try our hand at bottle feeding some of the young lambs. This sheep is clearly uncomfortable knowing that Matt is about to shear her naked in front of a bunch of dorky Hobbit fans.
Post-shearing - We had to take this picture twice - the first time Tiff thought the sheep hadn't been shorn when she accidentally pet Matt's woolly chest. The look on her face? Priceless.

This photogenic lamb must be the spokesperson for Sheep Against Lamb Chops.

Our drive led on to Rotorua, a scenic lakeside town that featured sulphur hot springs and smelled mildly of rotten eggs throughout the town.
The lake, however, was beautiful, and Tiffany got a chance to check out their famous black swans up close.

We have been starved for clear blue, pollution free skies for almost 3 years now, and spent a long time strolling along the lake and soaking up the natural beauty. Now we are in Lake Taupo, another, you guessed it, waterside town. Here Tiffany admires the Huka Falls, a stunningly blue rapids that runs through town.

After Huka Falls we visited Craters of the Moon, where we walked through what seemed to be a prehistoric preserve, full of smoking sulphur pits and colorful craters, still alive with bubbling mud lava and periodic eruptions of pumice and ash. Tiffany sampled her first meat pie, a local culinary favorite. These tasty treats also cause uncontrollable napping, and Tiff was fast asleep 30 minutes after her last bite.

New Zealand is divided into two islands, North and South. We are about midway through North Island and have about 4 more days before we head to South Island, where ice glaciers and penguins await!

India - A Country of Extremes

From the desert... to the mountains... I think that's the line in some 'back in the school day' song. Tiff and I escaped the heat, and flew from the deserts of Rajasthan to the crisp, cool mountains of Darjeeling, the old British-colonial hill station at the foot of the Himalayas. Famous of course for their Darjeeling tea, Tiff and I watched ladies spry as mountain goats scaling the steep hills to hand pick the tea leaves. Only women pick tea, apparently, as men have not enough patience and mess up the picking! Here, I try my hand at it. Sure enough, I over picked, or mis-picked, and was shortly hereafter removed from the tea-picking premises.One of the most interesting findings were the people. It was like one big set of "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" understudies, with a distinct mix of Indian and more Chinese looking residents strolling around town. The town borders Nepal, China, Bhutan, thus, the Chinese influence. Above, a young monk makes a breakthrough on the path to enlightenment and excitedly runs to find the other monks, so he can rub their noses in it, thereby forfeiting all the day's gains. Oh well, easy come, easy go.This shot, entitled Happy Buddha's 3G SIM Card, was taken at another one of the many Buddhist monasteries we visited, and reminded me of my dad, at the intersection of spiritual and technological connectivity. The Dalai Lama is widely revered in this part of India and here Tiffany pays her respects.We awoke at 4am to drive up to Tiger Hill for the famous sunrise. It was a little misty, but we could make out 4 of the 5 peaks of Mount Kanchendzonga, the 3rd highest peak in the world (after Everest and K2). On a clear day, we were told, you can see Everest from Tiger Hill as well. Even on this misty morning, the views were breathtaking; we watched the brisk wind blow away the clouds just as the sun broke the horizon and everybody cheered as the day's first light spilled out and the mountain peaks revealed themselves.Tiff was quite the celebrity around town. After signing on as a pledge donor for multiple kids on a school fundraising drive, she quickly gained renown as The White Girl With Loose Pockets and was trailed like the pied piper by little rug rat schoolchildren wherever we went.Our final stop was Lake Tsomgo in Gangtok, at 12,400 ft. elevation and a few hours drive from Darjeeling. Gangtok is only about 15 miles from the China border and we saw heavy military presence wherever we went, and had to get special permits to enter. A great way to finish off India, we hiked through the snow covered trails around the scenic lake, and contemplated all the diversity and wonders that we'd witnessed in this country. Tiff found a similarly blond-haired friend, one of the many yaks available for riding around the lake.
For the record, my shoes apparently have poop magnets attached to their soles. Tiff caught me on camera here discovering Zach's First Yak Poo. As far as summarizing India, I can categorize my experience by the approximately 5 different types of poop in which I stepped over the course of our travels (somehow Tiffany danced around all of it). I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say, the drier the better. Camel and elephant poop (encountered in the desert) trump cow and yak (with the urban humidity and mountain moisture). And human is always bad.

On that note, we are off to New Zealand for a welcome respite from overpopulation. Humans - 3.5 million, sheep - 50 million. Or something like that.

I wonder what sheep poop is like...

Hot...Sandy...Desert...

Tiffany and I finished our tour of the major India sights and the Indian desert, traveling from Delhi, then back and forth through the hot, arid state of Rajasthan. We started off in Delhi, the nation's capital, and visited a religious Sikh temple, which also doubles as a soup kitchen (or a naan and curry kitchen, in this case). They let us help stir a giant pot of curry stew but more out of generosity for the photo op than our actual ability to help cook. They offer free food all year around to anyone and everyone, serving 20-40,000 meals every day!

Next stop, the religious center of India, Varanasi. Varanasi is the Mecca of India, with all Indians striving to travel there at least once in their lifetime. Crowds of colorfully dressed folks of all ages come at dawn to bathe themselves in the sacred river Ganges, which is supposed to absolve sins and cure illness, as well as spread the ashes of their cremated loved ones. It also happens to be filthy, as it receives a substantial amount of sewage along with aforementioned ashes. But that is no deterrent to the millions of faithful (Tiffany and I not among them) who plunge headlong into the river every day. Our first overnight train experience in India was not a pleasant one. We were crammed into a four person, double bunk section about the size of walk in closet, and only separated from the rest of the train car by a sheet divider. As the other couple was a kindly, older Indian couple, Tiffany and I offered to take top bunks. As you can see, they allowed for very little maneuvering space. And these were the second best accomodations on the train! We slept very little that night, as the foot traffic bumping into us throughout the car combined with the deafening snoring of the "kindly" Indian man sleeping below Tiffany.

From Varanasi, we took the train to Agra, home of the famous Taj Mahal, the world's greatest monument to love. Constructed in 12 years by the Emperor Shah Jehan for his wife as a memorial (she died after giving birth to 14 children in 19 years of marriage!), the Taj Mahal is a stunning architectural masterpiece, and was glowing in the dawn sunlight as we watched the first rays of sun strike the glinting stones inlaid around the marble domes.

Here, Tiffany manages to "grasp" the significance of the Taj. In Agra we picked up our trusty driver Rana, who would accompany us and transport us safely through the desert for the next 10 days. Unfortunately, both Tiffany and I were struck down by our first India stomach sickness and spent most of the evening in Agra running to the bathroom, crawling out, and then running back in. As a side benefit, I think I've lost at least 5 pounds so far!

Our first desert stop was Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Below, we visited the giant astronomy park built by a king, or maharajah. He built amazingly accurate sun dials that told time to a 20-second accuracy. Below is a neat looking apparatus that does god-knows what, but it looks neat.For our next overnight train, from Jaipur to Udaipur, I insisted that we upgrade to the best class on the train. Not that I'm a complete wimp (partial, yes) but the price differential was about $40. And Tiffany's peace of mind not having to listen to me whine all night? Priceless. We got the same size cabin but only the two of us, and a sliding glass door to complete our privacy.
Our next stop was perhaps my favorite city so far, Udaipur. Sitting on a huge, man-made lake, the city was serene and quiet in comparison with everything we'd seen so far in India. Below is the Lake Palace hotel, which sits in the middle of the lake and is only accessible by ferry boat. After a sunset boat tour around the lake, Tiffany and I enjoyed the end of our day sipping fresh lime sodas (an India specialty) at a restaurant/bar in the middle of the lake. Now this was more like it! Udaipur is also famous as the setting of the James Bond movie, Octopussy. Every local hotel and restaurant plays the movie every night at 7pm, with complete disregard for Roger Moore's terrible portrayal of 007.

From Udaipur we drove to Jodhpur, the "Blue City", so nicknamed for the number of homes painted blue. Formerly the color of the elite, Brahmin class of priests, it became popular for citizens of all castes to adopt this color paint, perhaps when it became known for its mosquito-repellant quality.
From Jodhpur we drove to Jaisalmer, where Tiffany fell in love with yet another animal, the camel (or technically dromedary, as the one-humped variety are called). We took an ill-advised camel ride into the face of a whipping sandstorm, and even though Tiffany spent most of the time with her eyes closed, our faithful underaged camel guides pulled us through safely. Below is Tiffany with the poor boy that had to drag her camel though the hot, blistering sand, and looking none too happy after the ordeal. By the way, it is just incredible the way animal life and human life are so intertwined here. We see cows, goats, donkeys, camels, dogs, rats and sheep freely roaming city streets, cars swerving and screeching to a halt to avoid them.From Jaisalmer we drove to Bikaner, and rather than visiting the infamous Temple of the Rats, where thousands of rats scurry along the floor of a temple and religious adherents celebrate having their bare feet run across by the furry disease carriers (an even better good luck omen is eating something with rat saliva on it, I kid you not), we decided to visit a camel breeding farm. Tiffany clearly enjoyed the attention of the adolescent camels below, much more I'm guessing than from rats of any age!
So we are now out of the desert, having logged approximately 30 hours in the car and 2 overnight train rides. Tomorrow we fly to Darjeeling and get a close up of the Himalayas to wrap up the India leg of our trip!

Holy Cow!

Before coming to India, I knew cows were sacred, and that they were often found wandering around the neighborhood. But it didn’t prepare me for what it’s like to see cows all over even the busiest cities, meandering through traffic of even the largest cities in India. It’s something you have to see to believe! If you’re a cow in India and you feel like laying down in the middle of a busy intersection, no problem! Cars, rickshaws, bikes and pedestrians will gladly tangle themselves into tons of traffic without a second thought. If a cow in India and you feel like entering a shop to cool off, go for it! The people will probably even feed you!

While the cows don’t help the efficiency in the overcrowded cities we’ve been to, their majestic presence and slow gait does have a calming effect on the craziness of Indian city life. That is, in all but one of the cases we’ve seen…..

We spent two days in Varanasi, one of the most holy cities in India and home to the Ganges River, a famous pilgrimage for Hindus. We were being lead through the narrow streets of the old town by our guide during our first night in town. The lanes are so narrow, that if you stand in the middle, you can stretch your arms out and touch the shop doors on both sides. As we made our way though the tiny streets, we heard a thunder of hooves. Looking ahead, we saw three spooked cows racing towards us. We were able to duck into doorways just in time, but one of the poor old pilgrims wasn’t so lucky and got a bit of a trampling. It’s been our closest near death experience yet, but we figure if we have to go, it might as well be in the most sacred place in India at the hands of the most sacred animal!