He'res a quick update for anyone who's interested. We've finally left Cambodia and are now on this ridiculously long and lifechanging journey through India.
Our last few days in Cambodia were a little sad, busy, and a lot fun. We had a ton of last minute things to accomplish like visas, job stuff, last minute souvenirs and tailored clothes, as well as some goodbye parties. WE tried to soak up everything we love about Cambodia. Some of my students showed up the night before we left and we had a really fun dinner filled with dancing. Cambodians are definitely the best thing about that country... they are so warm, friendly, open and genuine... I will miss that atmosphere a lot. We said goodbye to all of our Western friends we made. In particular, it was hard to say good bye to Shiloh, our roommate for the previous three months. It was a hectic end, and Val characterized it correctly when she said, "We have to hurry up and have fun"
We took a flight to Malaysia where we had a quick taste of Kuala Lampur. We took a bus into the city, had a nice dinner with a random traveler from Poland we met, had a quick sleep, and were back at the airport. Val and I were already talking about all the things in the "real world" we had missed while we were in South East Asia. Such as... Trashcans, water fountains, sidewalks, western chain foods (OK we ate breakfast at Dunkin Doughnuts), air conditioning, and more. Kuala Lampur is a very modern city.
We had a nice 5 hour flight from KL to Mumbai. We got a killer deal for this flight (like less than 100$) because it was the inagural flight of this route for the airline. THe owner of the airline was on the flight, and he went and shook every ones hand. A lot of people posed in a picture with him, which Val and I found odd. When it was our turn to shake his hand, he actually took a picture of me because I was sitting backwards on the airplane instead of forward. Look for me on the next Air Asia advertisement.
Mumbai... holy cow. I have spent the last months living in poverty stricken cambodia, and surviving, so I thought I could take anything. Mumbai is the biggest city in the world with somewhere between 15 and 20 millino people living on this tiny island. That is the theme of the city... overcrowdedness. People bustling everywhere. Its a wonderful sight though and anytime we drive anywhere I cant pull my eyes away from the people. They are so colorful, with even the poorest wearing sequenced saris and hindi dots on the forehead. Theres also quite a sizeable muslim population. THe typically wear all white and you see a lot of women covered from head to foot, with only their eyes showing. I've been taking many pictures, but it seems that Indians are just as curious about us, as we are about them. People stare at us wherever we go (especially men) and a lot take ouir picture. Some even come up and ask to pose for a picture with us. We're lucky because we are staying with a friend of our from college, so we have the ability to see many parts of the city that typical tourists don't get to visit. WE've had the culinary tour of our life.. Each night a new 5 star restaurant serving a different variety of indian food. Taha, our friend we are staying with, does all the ordering so most of the time I have no idea what it is I'm eating... I know theres Chutney, a lot of Naan and other "bread" things, lots of things with lentils... and some other stuff. I will post some pictures as soon as I can and maybe some of you guys can help me identify.
Everything is wonderful. Our next step will take us to Delhi and Agra to see the Taj Mahal. After that, we are headed to the Himalayas. We're no longer going to Nepal because of the Maoist protests occuring there. Instead we're going to Darjeeling for hopefully a similar experience.
INCREDIBLE INDIA!
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