Probably the most intense city I have ever been to and probably my favorite experience while in India. I think you could pretty much write a book about the city and still not cover everything. You would have to go there and see things first how to really believe it. It is dubbed as the holiest city in India. Millions of people go there to be cremated or take a bath in the Ganges. To give you a bit of an idea of what we were heading into - here is what the Lonely Planet wrote for the intro for Varanasi "Brace yourself. You're about to enter one of the most blindingly colourful, unrelentingly chaotic and unapologetically indiscreet places on earth. Varanasi takes no prisoners. But if you're ready for it, this may just turn out to be your favourite stop of all." So you can see why Arnold and I were nervous about going there - haha, they make it sound amazing, but terrifying at the same time.
Delhi was a very gentle introduction to India, but not accurate to how the country really is. I don't think I can really explain myself properly to demonstrate the sights and experiences, so I will just tell you a bit about it and hopefully get some pictures so you can see what I mean. I am going to break this post into sections because there is so much to say about it. We had such an unreal experience there and probably won't
every forget it. I think everyone needs to go to Varanasi at least once in their lifetime and give yourself fully to this amazing city. I know what they mean about the "no prisoners" part now, but if you just let go of EVERYTHING (and I mean everything) that won't happen and you will walk away with something special.
Love Melissa and Arnold
(I'm actually excited to write about it (even thought I won't do it justice) but it makes me relive every crazy moment we had there). Pictures will come, I promise (tomorrow when we have a better connection)
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
Henna
Do you remember henna? Not the henna body paint, but the henna hair dye? Well when I was pretty young, I tried it. It's supposed to give your hair a red tone and be all natural. Anyway, I had long forgotten about it until we arrived in India. Everyone here uses it. It's pretty awesome. The best is when the guys who are starting to go grey use it because it turns the grey hair really really red/orange and the rest of the hair is just a dark brown color - so they have colored patches all over their head. Or even better is the BRIGHT orange hair. That is a result of when the man is all grey and uses the hair color. I still don't know how the color turns out that way and when it became a good idea to do that, but they all do it. I have a picture - if I can download it, I will just so you can see what I mean. Oh and they even dye their beards bright orange so it makes it even better. Honestly, it's really funny to see.
Love Melissa and Arnold
PS. The photo isn't the best, but you get the idea. This is pretty tame. LOL
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Love Melissa and Arnold
PS. The photo isn't the best, but you get the idea. This is pretty tame. LOL
A white person in India
So this was a huge shock for me and Arnold. We went to our first sight of the day in Delhi and this girl came up to me (within 5 minutes of getting there) and asked if she could get a picture with me?? "Umm okay" and then it was like the flood gates opened. People would take pictures of me with their phones, camera's, whatever. And it was guys, girls, kids, families etc. They would come up to me and touch me and shake my hand. One family stopped us and asked Arnold to take their picture with me in the middle. It was WEIRD!! Then this family pretty much attacked Arnold and I and because they were so happy to see us. Shaking our hands and taking lots of photos. I must have spent 10 minutes with them getting photos taken. I'm not really sure what the fascination is with white people and why they do it, but it's very common.
Another thing that is pretty funny and a challenge (for Arnold, not me because I don't pay attention) is the amount of people staring at me. I think the fact that I'm not covered up like the Indian women, plus being white makes for a lot of unwanted attention. Poor Arnold said that it's getting on his nerves - at first I didn't notice, but Arnold always points it out. On our flight to Varanasi the guy beside me watched me the whole flight - it was pretty uncomfortable. And then I started playing a card game on my PC and he started to help me out - haha I couldn't stop laughing. And they are not discreet about it either. I think Arnold will be very happy when we leave India.
Love Melissa and Arnold
PS sorry I wrote this while we were in India, but it didn't get posted until now, but I am going to tell you more about this issue and how it really got worse as the trip went on. I think it ruined India for Arnold actually? We have lots and lots of stories, it's just hard trying to find the right words for everything. But over the next couple of days I will try and get everyone caught up on our adventure. Heard Calgary is smoking hot - woohooo... Finally summer has arrived. Miss everyone xo
Another thing that is pretty funny and a challenge (for Arnold, not me because I don't pay attention) is the amount of people staring at me. I think the fact that I'm not covered up like the Indian women, plus being white makes for a lot of unwanted attention. Poor Arnold said that it's getting on his nerves - at first I didn't notice, but Arnold always points it out. On our flight to Varanasi the guy beside me watched me the whole flight - it was pretty uncomfortable. And then I started playing a card game on my PC and he started to help me out - haha I couldn't stop laughing. And they are not discreet about it either. I think Arnold will be very happy when we leave India.
Love Melissa and Arnold
PS sorry I wrote this while we were in India, but it didn't get posted until now, but I am going to tell you more about this issue and how it really got worse as the trip went on. I think it ruined India for Arnold actually? We have lots and lots of stories, it's just hard trying to find the right words for everything. But over the next couple of days I will try and get everyone caught up on our adventure. Heard Calgary is smoking hot - woohooo... Finally summer has arrived. Miss everyone xo
Delhi
I'm not going to lie - I was nervous about going to India. On the flight I had a lot of anxiety. I wasn't scared like I was for Africa, just nervous. I'm not sure why - but I was. Africa is a scary place - a lot of bad things can happen there, but for some reason I feel safer in India - in Africa there was no way we were going anywhere after dark, whereas in India, it's fine (it's funny - I said I felt safer, but India can be just as scary as Africa - aka the bombing in Mumbai, but once again I wrote this a while back). When we first got off the plane into that little walk way, I said to Arnold "hmmm it's a lot colder then I thought it would be" (we arrived
at 12:30am) and Arnold just laughed and said "it's the AC, it's currently +28 out" ... ohh. haha. We left the airport and bam, that heat and humidity hits you hard. It is HOT and I mean very hot. Just 3 weeks ago it was +50 there. Thankfully it cooled down to +36 while we were there.
Anyway, Delhi really surprised us. It is really beautiful and quite "civilized" haha, now I use that term relative to India standards. The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but there is a lot of horn honking and not any real road rules. They drive where they want (lanes don't matter). Go when the light is red and pretty much just use their horn to get around. It's loud and chaotic!. But we really enjoyed Delhi and was a lot different then what we were expecting - I think we were preparing for the worst, but it's actually a great intro city to India.
We hired a driver for the day who took us around to all of the sights and in the middle of all of this noise, we would go to parks or temples and it was so peaceful and beautiful. Our hotel was in a very busy area, but you can definitely find really peaceful places there. Now we are really excited to get to Mumbai to see how it compares.
Love Melissa and Arnold
at 12:30am) and Arnold just laughed and said "it's the AC, it's currently +28 out" ... ohh. haha. We left the airport and bam, that heat and humidity hits you hard. It is HOT and I mean very hot. Just 3 weeks ago it was +50 there. Thankfully it cooled down to +36 while we were there.
Anyway, Delhi really surprised us. It is really beautiful and quite "civilized" haha, now I use that term relative to India standards. The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but there is a lot of horn honking and not any real road rules. They drive where they want (lanes don't matter). Go when the light is red and pretty much just use their horn to get around. It's loud and chaotic!. But we really enjoyed Delhi and was a lot different then what we were expecting - I think we were preparing for the worst, but it's actually a great intro city to India.
We hired a driver for the day who took us around to all of the sights and in the middle of all of this noise, we would go to parks or temples and it was so peaceful and beautiful. Our hotel was in a very busy area, but you can definitely find really peaceful places there. Now we are really excited to get to Mumbai to see how it compares.
Love Melissa and Arnold
I might be on a watch list for Europe....
I'm not 100% certain, but I definitely think I will be stopped next time I head there and will have to go through more security then normal. I think to fully appreciate this story we need to rewind 24 hours prior to going through customs in Zurich.
Everything started off by us being late to leave St. Remy for the train station. We left Remy and had to take a detour because the road to the house was being worked on, then we got stuck in a traffic jam in Remy - how that is even possible I don't know because the town is smaller then Sicamous - there is only one main road. Needless to say it cost us about 12 minutes and made us VERY late for our train. Our train in Avignon, left at 2:15pm and it's about a 30 minute drive from Remy (and I should mention that there is only ONE train a day to Zurich and if we missed it, it would be a mistake that would cost us about $800 CND) - so we were now praying for a miracle because if we caught that train, it would be only be by a minute or two. So you can imagine how that drive was. ;) Haha. Next we were supposed to get gas for our rental car, but that was out of the window. We ripped to the train station pulling in at 2:08pm but still had the rental car - I ran to the platform while Arnold dealt with the car. Much to my surprise the train was delayed by 30 minutes woohooo. We could have stopped for gas haha, but I was just happy we didn't miss our train.
Second problem. I was so flustered by our car ride that I put in the wrong date on our Rail Pass. And holy crap!!! Worst mistake a person could do. I don't want to talk about that whole experience because it wasn't fun. But we got off pretty lightly considering, but it still cost us a bit of money. After thanking our lucky stars we made it onto the train we said going forward that was NEVER going to happen again. We didn't care if we were waiting for hours at the airport/train station. We weren't going to be rushing around like that. HA HA
Arrived in Zurich, spent the night. Got up extra early, made sure we were packed (day one of our new motto). Spoke with the hotel desk about the best way to get to the airport from there. Told us our options and relaxed a bit. We had more then enough time and were feeling good - we even went for a morning stroll and went to Starbucks - and just as a side note. Zurich is fricking expensive!!! Two drinks at Starbucks cost me $15 CAD!!!! hahah amazing, right. Anyway, went back to the hotel, checked out. Got to the train station 10 minutes before the airport train arrived. Sweet!! We were doing it. Going to be early. Our flight was at 12:45pm. We got to the airport at 10:30am. Not bad right. Well this is where things fell apart big time. We check in and head to the lounge because we had so much time to kill. BUT they didn't mention to us that in Zurich you have to clear customs, take a train to the terminal, then go through security and then to your gate.
Our flight starts boarding at 12:20pm so at 12:10pm we leave the lounge to head to the gate. First, the line to get down to customs was 10 minutes. Then once you are down, you have to pick a customs line which was another 10-15 minutes. We picked the wrong one - after spending about 7 minutes in it and not moving
I jumped ship and got a better line for us. Sweet the line is cruising. By this point it's 12:35pm. We get to the customs officer and she told me that I have spent 95 days in Europe and I am only allowed to spent 90 days!?!?!?! WHAT??? Did I hear that right?? What about all those people that backpack through Europe for months on end. My stomach was in knots. What does this mean? are we going to miss our flight? do I have to pay a fine? Do they sit me down and interview me for hours on end as to why I spent so much time in Europe? I could be in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, she was in a great mood, she looked at our ticket and was like "well you are probably going to miss your flight so I'll just let you go, but I'll write a note in your passport". Thank you, thank you, thank you. So we start running thinking we would be near the gate soon. But No, we have to take a train which was 1.30minutes away. Are you kidding me?!?! We might miss our flight and we were at the airport 2 hours before - how could it happen. Ugh.
Needless to say - those next 10 minutes were not fun either. We were running through the airport like two mad people. Seriously, worst 24 hours we could have had. haha, but we made it to India and all is well. If you want entertainment in your life, just travel with us and it is non-stop haha
Love Melissa and Arnold
Everything started off by us being late to leave St. Remy for the train station. We left Remy and had to take a detour because the road to the house was being worked on, then we got stuck in a traffic jam in Remy - how that is even possible I don't know because the town is smaller then Sicamous - there is only one main road. Needless to say it cost us about 12 minutes and made us VERY late for our train. Our train in Avignon, left at 2:15pm and it's about a 30 minute drive from Remy (and I should mention that there is only ONE train a day to Zurich and if we missed it, it would be a mistake that would cost us about $800 CND) - so we were now praying for a miracle because if we caught that train, it would be only be by a minute or two. So you can imagine how that drive was. ;) Haha. Next we were supposed to get gas for our rental car, but that was out of the window. We ripped to the train station pulling in at 2:08pm but still had the rental car - I ran to the platform while Arnold dealt with the car. Much to my surprise the train was delayed by 30 minutes woohooo. We could have stopped for gas haha, but I was just happy we didn't miss our train.
Second problem. I was so flustered by our car ride that I put in the wrong date on our Rail Pass. And holy crap!!! Worst mistake a person could do. I don't want to talk about that whole experience because it wasn't fun. But we got off pretty lightly considering, but it still cost us a bit of money. After thanking our lucky stars we made it onto the train we said going forward that was NEVER going to happen again. We didn't care if we were waiting for hours at the airport/train station. We weren't going to be rushing around like that. HA HA
Arrived in Zurich, spent the night. Got up extra early, made sure we were packed (day one of our new motto). Spoke with the hotel desk about the best way to get to the airport from there. Told us our options and relaxed a bit. We had more then enough time and were feeling good - we even went for a morning stroll and went to Starbucks - and just as a side note. Zurich is fricking expensive!!! Two drinks at Starbucks cost me $15 CAD!!!! hahah amazing, right. Anyway, went back to the hotel, checked out. Got to the train station 10 minutes before the airport train arrived. Sweet!! We were doing it. Going to be early. Our flight was at 12:45pm. We got to the airport at 10:30am. Not bad right. Well this is where things fell apart big time. We check in and head to the lounge because we had so much time to kill. BUT they didn't mention to us that in Zurich you have to clear customs, take a train to the terminal, then go through security and then to your gate.
Our flight starts boarding at 12:20pm so at 12:10pm we leave the lounge to head to the gate. First, the line to get down to customs was 10 minutes. Then once you are down, you have to pick a customs line which was another 10-15 minutes. We picked the wrong one - after spending about 7 minutes in it and not moving
I jumped ship and got a better line for us. Sweet the line is cruising. By this point it's 12:35pm. We get to the customs officer and she told me that I have spent 95 days in Europe and I am only allowed to spent 90 days!?!?!?! WHAT??? Did I hear that right?? What about all those people that backpack through Europe for months on end. My stomach was in knots. What does this mean? are we going to miss our flight? do I have to pay a fine? Do they sit me down and interview me for hours on end as to why I spent so much time in Europe? I could be in a lot of trouble. Thankfully, she was in a great mood, she looked at our ticket and was like "well you are probably going to miss your flight so I'll just let you go, but I'll write a note in your passport". Thank you, thank you, thank you. So we start running thinking we would be near the gate soon. But No, we have to take a train which was 1.30minutes away. Are you kidding me?!?! We might miss our flight and we were at the airport 2 hours before - how could it happen. Ugh.
Needless to say - those next 10 minutes were not fun either. We were running through the airport like two mad people. Seriously, worst 24 hours we could have had. haha, but we made it to India and all is well. If you want entertainment in your life, just travel with us and it is non-stop haha
Love Melissa and Arnold
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Back in the old hood...
After a very crazy two weeks in India we were off to Thailand for Shelley's wedding. We were excited for a couple of reasons (mostly because we wanted to see our family again), but I sort of felt like coming back to my old hood. I was excited to show Arnold around and take him to some of the places that I had gone to when I was here. But I do have to admit I really miss my thai thai buddy. Karley and I came here a couple of years ago and it's just not the same without her, but it is still as cool as the first time around.
We spent the first two days in Bangkok and then headed down to Ko Samui for the wedding. I took Arnold to a couple of the must see places in Bangkok and then to my favourite restaurant - yes, the one in Hangover 2. It was a blast - but it was different seeing the city a second time around through eyes of a married women. LOL. Two things that we found strange, BUT soooo refreshing after coming from the intense mayhem of India is that a) I could wear "normal" clothes again and b) it was soooo clean and quiet!. Now, coming to Bangkok for the first time you might not think of the city as "clean" but after coming from India, it felt like we could eat our dinner off of the streets because it was so "clean". Don't worry, I will explain the clean and "normal" clothes very soon.
So yes, it felt GREAT to be back in Thailand - I felt proud and like it was my job to take Arnold around and show him how great the country was. Today we spent the day at the beach in +30 weather relaxing - ugh, the first time since we left France. The last two weeks have been non stop madness. We have lots to fill you in on and once again sorry for the delay, but the net was not my friend. Plus it was NON stop sightseeing in +36 weather for two weeks. At the end of each day we were ready for bed and nothing else. But I will try to get things posted tomorrow to fill you in on some pretty amazing stories - things to come - me being blacklisted from Europe, Cremations, White Person in India, Taj Mahal, my run in with a cow and Arnold's breaking point... haha ... we have some goods for you guys
Love Melissa and Arnold
We spent the first two days in Bangkok and then headed down to Ko Samui for the wedding. I took Arnold to a couple of the must see places in Bangkok and then to my favourite restaurant - yes, the one in Hangover 2. It was a blast - but it was different seeing the city a second time around through eyes of a married women. LOL. Two things that we found strange, BUT soooo refreshing after coming from the intense mayhem of India is that a) I could wear "normal" clothes again and b) it was soooo clean and quiet!. Now, coming to Bangkok for the first time you might not think of the city as "clean" but after coming from India, it felt like we could eat our dinner off of the streets because it was so "clean". Don't worry, I will explain the clean and "normal" clothes very soon.
So yes, it felt GREAT to be back in Thailand - I felt proud and like it was my job to take Arnold around and show him how great the country was. Today we spent the day at the beach in +30 weather relaxing - ugh, the first time since we left France. The last two weeks have been non stop madness. We have lots to fill you in on and once again sorry for the delay, but the net was not my friend. Plus it was NON stop sightseeing in +36 weather for two weeks. At the end of each day we were ready for bed and nothing else. But I will try to get things posted tomorrow to fill you in on some pretty amazing stories - things to come - me being blacklisted from Europe, Cremations, White Person in India, Taj Mahal, my run in with a cow and Arnold's breaking point... haha ... we have some goods for you guys
Love Melissa and Arnold
Picture Perfect....
oooh boy, I have been slacking big time on the blogging, but for good reason - the net was horrible in India, but we survived and have stories to tell... Yes, yes, I am getting to them, but right now I am going to tell you about what we have been up to in the last two days.
Picture perfect pretty much sums up Shelley (my sister in law) and Agri's wedding. The whole reason for us going to Thailand. They got married on Friday and it was PERFECT! They couldn't have asked for better weather and/or a better location. For anyone who hasn't gotten married - why aren't you thinking about destination because it can NOT be beat. The ceremony took place on the beach followed by poolside cocktails and dinner. Shelley looked so beauitful and Agri was definitely looking handsome. This was my first beach wedding and I was so impressed with the everything. It was a blast - you get to spend a full day at the beach/pool relaxing then head off mid day to get ready and are back at the beach for 4:30 for the wedding. Plus you get to hang out with everyone afterwards and really soak in the beach vibe. Everyone is relaxed and super happy.
It was really nice to see friends and family again, especially after spending 5 months away from Canada. Arnold and I had the honour of being the MC for the wedding (not that I was very good at it) but it was so much fun to be a part of their special day and getting to meet Agri's family. They had an crazy turn out of guests - 50 family and friends all in Thailand for the celebrations!! I think everyone bought tickets ASAP once they found out the destination - I mean really, who wouldn't want to come to Thailand.
The wedding was full of beautiful moments, tears, laughs, good memories and lots of fireworks. Something we will always remember. Thank you again to Shelley and Agri for hosting such an amazing wedding and for asking us to be apart of something so special. Arnold and I want to wish the newlyweds all the best in the future and hope that they move back to Canada soon ;) we miss you guys!!
Congrats!!!
Love Melissa and Arnold
Picture perfect pretty much sums up Shelley (my sister in law) and Agri's wedding. The whole reason for us going to Thailand. They got married on Friday and it was PERFECT! They couldn't have asked for better weather and/or a better location. For anyone who hasn't gotten married - why aren't you thinking about destination because it can NOT be beat. The ceremony took place on the beach followed by poolside cocktails and dinner. Shelley looked so beauitful and Agri was definitely looking handsome. This was my first beach wedding and I was so impressed with the everything. It was a blast - you get to spend a full day at the beach/pool relaxing then head off mid day to get ready and are back at the beach for 4:30 for the wedding. Plus you get to hang out with everyone afterwards and really soak in the beach vibe. Everyone is relaxed and super happy.
It was really nice to see friends and family again, especially after spending 5 months away from Canada. Arnold and I had the honour of being the MC for the wedding (not that I was very good at it) but it was so much fun to be a part of their special day and getting to meet Agri's family. They had an crazy turn out of guests - 50 family and friends all in Thailand for the celebrations!! I think everyone bought tickets ASAP once they found out the destination - I mean really, who wouldn't want to come to Thailand.
The wedding was full of beautiful moments, tears, laughs, good memories and lots of fireworks. Something we will always remember. Thank you again to Shelley and Agri for hosting such an amazing wedding and for asking us to be apart of something so special. Arnold and I want to wish the newlyweds all the best in the future and hope that they move back to Canada soon ;) we miss you guys!!
Congrats!!!
Love Melissa and Arnold
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