From the town of bedrock-Hampi

The sleeper bus was really funny and surprisingly comfortable. It is made up of bed-sized cubbies lining the walls of the interior. I had an entire bed to myself and slept well through the night. We got into Hampi in the morning and took a rickshaw to the dock of a boat to go to Hampi Island. We were traveling with a German we had met in Palolem, Nick and a Finnish guy we had met on the train down to Goa, Valter. A boat took us across the river (it would have taken 2 seconds to swim across, but swimming was prohibited and it was too deep to walk with our bags). We were awestruck from the minute we got off the bus. Hampi looks like it was the basis for the town of Bedrock from the Flintstones. Massive boulders surrounded the small city and people made their shops on the foundations of old ruins. We got huts and unloaded our things before venturing to a restaurant that had been recommended by some other travelers. During our time in Hampi, it was hot. And the electricity shut off on the island during the heat of the day, so no fans were operating. We rented motor bikes and found an escape in a lake not far from town. We spent the hot hours of the days there bathing in the shade of the rocks and watching local Indians jump from rocks. Barring the heat, I could've stayed for weeks at a time in this town. It was gorgeous and had not yet been spoiled by tourism. I left after two nights there to return to the beach for my final three days in India.

On the way to swimming

View from our favorite restaurant

Puppies who climbed into my bed when I slept outside

Jon and Me

Sunset from the Monkey Temple

Jon giving an old Indian boat paddler a break

Sunrise

Hampi ruins

Walter outside his room

Jon on the sleeper bus

Full Power, 24 Hour Palolem

"I feel right now, like the first time you fall in love (hand on heart, ear-to-ear grin). I cannot stop smiling and I haven't eaten for days." Valter, our Finnish friend, on India so far

For the first time on our trip, we were placed in the tourist section of the sleeper train. It was readily apparent when we stepped on and found, sitting around us, 3 Americans and one Finnish guy. The six of us bonded quickly over the fact that we were all sitting together and shared stories of our journeys so far. The train was over crowded, so just before bed, a group of people got on and sat on the floor surrounding our beds. Moving on the train was an impossibility unless you maneuvered through without touching your feet to the ground. We got in to Goa the next morning around 11. The six of us shared a cab to Palolem beach and got situated together.

In Goa they have this saying. "Full Power, 24 Hour, no toilet, no shower, full power." And they mean it. At our beach side huts, everything we did, the manager said "full power" followed with a hand pound. When my laundry was returned to me..."full power laundry." When I woke up early to watch the sunrise "full power morning." And it was everywhere on the beach. We spent our days laying on the beach, kayaking and meeting new people. We stayed with these travel mates for 4 days and they helped us celebrate Jon's birthday. We met some Swedish people at our favorite restaurant, Moksha's, on the morning of Jon's birthday who were also celebrating a birthday. That evening, at dinner, the Swedish guys brought Jon a piece of the most delicious chocolate cake and sang to him in Swedish. We went with them to Cocktails and Dreams, a bar on the beach and continued celebrating. The following evening, we took the sleeper bus to Hampi, a town about 9 hours away full of rocks and ruins.

Bombay

After Mathura we took a train to Delhi to catch our flight to Bombay. We had a funny train experience because we were in the general class, which is basically first come, first sit, others stand for the remaining 3-4 hours. We were standers and the only westerners in that compartment. Everyone was covered in remnants of Holi. Red nails, splotches of pink behind ears, blue in the parts in people's hair. Everyone, in that sense, had a common conversation starter. "Oh, you played holi?" And then from there, you'd hold a conversation of broken English for a few minutes. We met some really great people on that bus. They helped us push our way through with our enormous bags and found us a spot to put the bags once we were on so we wouldn't be forced to just stand with them for the duration. It was hot and Jon and I were crammed in so close that any movement would cause you to bump your neighbor. We played funny games to pass the time-staring contests and alphabet-type games. After about an hour and a half of standing in it, we ere offered seats by some Indian men who were around our age. Most people jump at the chance to talk to us just to practice their English. Very ambitious. And they're so curious about us-what we do, or aims in life. One boy we met had us fill out a survey with random questions like our favorite actor and food. We got in to Delhi finally and hired a rickshaw to the airport. Two men from the train helped us find a good driver and bargain a fair price. The next thing we knew, we were reclined on a plane to Mumbai. We got in late and hired a cab from the airport. He took us to multiple guesthouses-all of which were significantly more expensive than any of the others we had stayed at. We stayed at a Hotel Volga, which was on the famous Causeway, right next to Leopold's (a bar/restaurant from the book Shantaram). It was funny because Jon had read Shantaram, a book about an Australian convict who lived in Bombay for a time, and I was reading it while we were there. And then, everyone we met from then on had read or was reading it. It felt a bit cliche to even hold it-it was as common as the Lonely Planet's guide to India. Our room was about 5 by 7 paces in area with a fan. We were in hot and humid India now and shed our funny winter gear. Our window had a cage on it and in the night, if you sat at it, you could hear the rats rustling in the alley below. Bombay was hot and muggy-it was absolutely impossible to keep clean feet--as it tends to be for me in this country. We crashed the first night after some cheese naan and a Kingfisher from Leopold's. The next day, we met and Italian couple while waiting for train tickets. We decided to venture through the city with them. They were fresh in to India and were still very enthusiastic about hitting all of the must see marks in the book. It was perfect motivation for us to explore a little further. We went to some temples, Chowpatty Beach and a Muslim Mosque that you could only to to when the tide was out. The following day, we took a tour of the largest slum in India, the Dharavi slum (proceeds went back into the slum). It opened our eyes in a way because I had expected a much grimier slum with no order-the kind I was reading about in Shantaram. With tarp and garbage thatched roofs. Beggers. Chaos. It was quite the opposite. They have multiple serious business operations from plastic production, to making clothing. Shops and schools. If we had wandered there by accident, I don't know that I would've been able to distinguish it as a slum from the rest of the city. That evening we bid adieu to our Italian friends and took a night train to Goa, just in time for Jon's birthday.

Holi Moley!! Mathura and Vrindavan

Since we are very festive, Jon and I decided that the best place to celebrate Holi, the color festival, in the birthplace of Lord Krishna. We took a bus to Delhi, a rickshaw to a bus company in Delhi and then another bus to Mathura. The ride should've taken 3 hours. It took around 5. Jon and I sat in front of the bus, next to the driver, probably so that we wouldn't have the ability to compare the prices of the bus tickets around us-we got a little bit ripped off. When we got to our "stop," the driver stopped along the side of the highway road and gestured with his hand for us to get off. "Mathura" he said. We grabbed our packs and a bicycle rickshaw and headed into town. We passed camels pulling carts, cows roaming freely, piles of color, curious stares and fruit carts. We pulled in to a moderately priced hotel and checked in. That night, we decided to explore the town and inquire about Holi to the locals. As we walked, a man who owned a parcel shop invited us in for a cold drink. Shortly after entering, he smeared orange powder over our faces and hair and yelled "happy Holi!!" That was only the beginning. The next day, the day before the festival, we decided to see the Krishna Temple and scope out the scene. As we were leaving the hotel, we discussed what we planned to wear the following day. Shortly after arriving at the temple, our decision was made for us as my white shirt was doused in blue food-colored water and Jon was smeared with light pink powder and the blue water. The following day, the day of the festival, we dressed in our grimiest attire and headed downstairs. I asked the man at reception to change my 500 rupee note and as he reached down under the desk to do so, he returned with a handful of green, chalky powder the color of Nickelodeon slime and smeared it in my face. "Happy Holi!!" So it started. We continued to the street where we caught a bicycle rickshaw and headed into town. Being westerners, and some of the only ones in the area, we may as well have worn bullseyes on our backs. People stopped on their mopeds, even turned around when they saw us and covered us with color. Within minutes of leaving the guest house, we looked like a middle-school tye-dye project gone bad. We continued on the the Krishna temple where. It was absolutely insane. We couldn't catch our breath at times between the dousing of water and colored powder. At one point, a kind man stopped the chaos and sat me down to clear the powder out of my blinded eyes with his dampened t-shirt. People waited, anticipating the moment I would be fair game again. After a short while, I was all holied out. We returned to the guest house where showers were nonexistent. Our source of cleansing was dumping a small bucket into a larger bucket and pouring it over our bodies. Much of the dye was permanent and after nearly an hour of cleaning, my hair had a green tint, Jon looked like he was wearing one of those clown wigs, and our bodies had splotches of blue and pink for nearly a week.

While we were drying out on the roof, we met a group of Indian men our age who had come down from Delhi to celebrate. They offered to take us around to different temples and act as my body guards against overzealous festival participants. We went to multiple different temples and were treated to snacks in between by our new friends. We ended our tour at a temple, dancing and singing with the locals and visitors. When we returned to our guest house, we all played a game of King's Cup and ended the night dancing and singing in their room. It was a night we aren't soon to forget. The next morning, we were scheduled to fly to Mumbai, so we had to make our way back to Delhi.