The Goa Hike

Hey!! It’s Sloan!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Goa is a really beautiful place. The beaches are really nice and if you’re lucky the waves are GIGANTIC! It’s a good thing we stayed there two weeks. Other than going to the beach everyday we went on hike to a beach all of us were in awe of.






We started our hike at about 2:30 with some other people we met a few days ago named Maggie and Annemarie. We had to go in a direction that we’ve never gone before (mostly because there were no stores or hotels). We came to a bridge and didn’t know where to go. A guy riding on his motorcycle told us that to get to the Blue Lagoon (where we were hiking) we needed to go north. We thanked him and then he started to follow us. After about the sixth time we told him to leave, he left. The road was uphill for a little while then started to level out. We got to a little path and were wondering which way to go. Should we keep going on the road or should we take this little path? We asked one of the people that were living about a half a football field away from where we were standing. They said to take the little path, so we did. We started walking and saw more cows then any other animal, but I saw some dogs, cats and some sheep. We came to what we thought was the end of the path. It was a steep mountain, almost a cliff, and the only way to get down was to climb. We weren’t going to do that because we would probably fall, and Hailey and I were wearing crocs.







We went back and saw a woman who was taking care of cows and other animals. She told us to go down the little path. We never would have thought of that in a million years. When we got down the path, we came to this breathtaking beach. The beach was spotless; there was a little lake you could float down and the dazzling ocean right in front. It was by far the nicest beach I’ve ever seen.

When we started hiking back a dog followed us. Hailey named him Fishy because he was performing a few tricks in the water for Hailey and my mom. He started to follow us and peed every few yards. I thought that he was going to follow us all the way back to Om Sai (the nice little huts we stayed at) but when we reached the main road he turned back to the Blue Lagoon. It was about 5:00 when we got to the huts so we decided to rest and wash up. All six of us had dinner together at an outdoor restaurant called Madhu’s. Hailey’s special request was that we sit on the beanbags. The food tasted good after a long hike.

The Rock Temples

Hello,

Remember Sloan wrote about Ajanta caves? The next day ( January 8) we went to another set of caves, Ellora. We only looked at a couple because we already looked at alot yesterday. Some dude kept nagging us to look at his coins. We told him "After we look at the caves, we'll see your coins...maybe". We looked at a couple of caves while Mommy slept on a bench. Some weirdos wanted to take a picture with us. I refused. We went and got Mommy and started walking towards the big caves. Guess who we saw? Pakaj, the guy we saw yesterday with Sophie. Except Sophie wasn't there. Pakaj said we should all go up to the viewpoint and talk or whatever. Once we got up there Mommy asked him about his job and he started this whole thing about I don't know what. I heard something about opening a new door to yoga or something. I lost him not too long after he got started. We finally said goodbye and walked down. Me and Daddy went into the big cave. There were lots of elephants but all their trunks were cut off. Don't ask me why. Once we saw a huge school tour coming we decided we were done. The guy with the coins came over, and he had one in perfectly good shape. The date said 1717. Yeah right. Me and Sloan each picked out a "real" coin and bought them. Mine was an East India Company coin from 1835. Sloan got a 1919 India Republic King George coin. We got in the rickshaw and started movingbut then Mommy realized she left her scarf thingy at the caves. So me, Sloan, and Daddy got out of the rickshaw and the rickshaw drove Mommy back to the cave entrance. She found her scarf. Yeah! Then we all squished together back in the rickshaw and drove to the hotel.

Peace Out.

Hailey

Ajanta Caves

Hi! It's Sloan.

On January 6th we had a gross night in Jalgaon. Dirty hotel room, dirty restaurant. Mom was miserable (see photo but the rest of us didn't think it was so bad.

The next morning we got a nice driver with a van to drive us the few hours to the Ajanta Caves.

Of course, as soon as we got out of the van in Ajanta two Indian men in white clothing ran toward us. They gave Hailey and I each a crystal and told us that the bus to the Caves was leaving soon. They walked us through the shopping area and got us on the next bus, and told us that we should come to their shops (stalls # 47 and 71) after seeing the caves. We now know that they were only telling us that the bus was leaving so that we wouldn't stop at any of the other shops.

When we got off the bus we got in line to buy tickets for the Caves. Mom started to talk to everyone so we got delayed.

Just outside the first cave a tour guide offered us a tour for 600 rupees. There was a whole school ahead of us and their teacher overheard the guide and told us to say "no." The teacher and the school kids were very nice and the teacher helped to explain everything to us.

All of the caves were almost pitch black, and they were carved out of one piece of rock which I thought was pretty cool. The bad thing was that most of the caves were alike.

There was one that had 3 floors, lots of paintings and had some poles that were also like a musical instrument. If you bang on them then they make a sound. It's really cool.

We asked a woman to take a picture of us, and then all of the school kids started to take pictures too. It was a free for all. One thing that bugged Hailey and I was that the school kids were wasting their film , instead of taking pictures of the caves they were taking pictures of us.

Some other adults got a little overwhelmed seeing American 'midgets' for the first time! They were grabbing Hailey and I (mostly Hailey) and then saying "picture." Hailey got really annoyed so she hid behind me, then she told dad that she wanted to go but of course someone else grabbed her.

When we were going back toward the shops and the parking lot we met some Canadians. The woman's name was Sophie and the man's name was Pankaj, he is originally from India. They teach yoga and have a web site.

Unfortunately the men from the shops (stalls #47 and 71) remembered us and took us right away to their shops. The crystals were real and very nice, but also expensive so we left. We started to walk back to our van with Sophie and Pankaj, hoping to sit down with them and have a cold drink or chai, but a man from one of the stores kept following us holding a set of crystals in his hand that mom had looked at.

He kept lowering his price until he got to 50 rupees which is about $1.

So we bought them. I enjoyed the caves.

copyright 2009

Shankar and Mumbai

We did lots of things in Mumbai but I was looking foward to see Shankar and his family the most. I’ve heard lots of things about them and wanted to see what they were like.

Shankar met us by our hotel at about 7:00 and as soon as we got down greeted us warmly. We got in a taxi and rode over to his house. When we got there we saw it wasn’t really a house. It was a very, very, very, very small room in a building, with a BIG family in it.


There was Shankar, his wife Lalitha, their oldest daughter who's in college, Rohini, another daughter who was in 11th grade named Pooja, twins girls in the 7th standard (that’s what they call grade in India) and a boy who’s ten years old. They have only one room.



It shows just how fortunate we really are even if we don’t realize it. Even if you’re a kid who has an old video game and really wants the newest one, be thankful that you have the old one. There are hundreds of thousands of kids who are homeless and poor and would love to have that video game.


For dinner they served us some rice which was very good. After dinner the twins showed us an Indian dance. It was pretty good. We talked a little more and then noticed the time! It was pretty late so we had to go. It was the highlight of my trip in Mumbai.





Other then that Mumbai was b-o-r-i-n-g for me. We went to get some new glasses for Hailey, my dad went to the doctor because he thought he had malaria. Hailey also took a ballet lesson and we went to a place called the Hanging Gardens. It’s called the Hanging Gardens because it’s hanging of a cliff and you can see all of Mumbai from it. I didn’t like it because it was about 95°, I felt sick and I was dehydrated. Good reason not to like something right?


Getting blessed by a Krishna devotee at the Hanging Gardens.


Warning: Sloan wrote this


Copyright 2009

Boring Baroda

When we first got back to Baroda, I was happy to be back. I got to rest from all the traveling we’ve been doing. After that, I was BORED. Everyday went the same: some school, tea, lunch, play, dinner, sleep. You might think that it was fun, but it wasn’t. I couldn’t play anything except with Hailey or the kids that live around the neighborhood (and they only want to play “basketball”).

There’s this one kid Megh who’s nice. We usually play this game I thought was called the “cup and the teeth” but its really called the cop and the thief. It’s just hide and seek with a different name. I always hide because I have a hiding spot where no one can find me. Usually I just get bored in the little cabinet so I come out. Other than our pathetic New Years party we didn’t do much over the two week span we were there.

But one thing we did was interesting. We went to our local park, Kamati Gardens to have lunch. We when we sat down we saw the same guys walking towards us as before (see Monkeys and People that Act Like Monkeys). They asked us if we liked India, and if we had had any problems. My mom said, “Everybody has been great-the only time we were upset was when you came and stared at us”, her voice shot up, “You, were the very rude. You made us feel like we were animals in a zoo. My husband felt like hitting you.”

At least now we’re traveling again.

Sloan

copyright 2009

Sloan's Udaipur

Be sure to read Hailey's version of our trip to Udaipur, below.

Before you read this let me tell you something: Udaipur is a boring city. It’s just a bigger sized Baroda, that’s all. If you go to India DO NOT GO THERE!

The first day we were in Udaipur my dad and I went to the City Palace (What Hailey did is at the end of this). Like always when we arrived we saw a guy and of course he offered us a tour. We said okay and it began. There were three buildings: one for the king, one for the queen and one for the grandmother.

We went into the kings building and the guide told us all about the City Palace. There were just a lot of rooms in the palace, one for eating, one for relaxing and one for sleeping-there were alot of others, I just don’t know what those were for. When we were walking back to the hotel this man came up to us. He would have been just as bad as Raj but thankfully he wasn’t our tour guide. He kept following us around like a beggar asking us to come to his store. He said he has friends from New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, Denver. But, let me tell you: who would want to be his friend? No one. My opinion: The palace wasn’t so great.

The next and, thankfully, the last day in Udaipur my dad and I went to the Maharajas car collection. He has about thirty cars from the thirties to the sixties. I thought that they were okay. After we saw the car collection we got into a rickshaw and went to where Hailey and my mom were making a Ganesh. We saw the same guy watching them. He probably thought he was so cool because he knew one American song. He kept singing to us: “buffalo soldier, ba ba bam bam walks to America ba ba bam ba ba bam...” It was pathetic. When we were leaving to go to the bus station Raj#2 said “No rupees for me!?” He saw that we were tipping the bell-boy so he thought that he deserved some money too. But of course he didn’t.

Sloan

copyright 2009

Hailey's Udaipur

Hello!

In December me and my family went to Udaipur. Me and mommy were usually shopping or taking an art class. Daddy and Sloan spent most of the time in the hotel watching TV.

The first art class we took was miniature painting-it was terrible. The people at the lesson explained about the materials we would use. The paint brushes were made from squirrel fur-which kind of freaked me out-but they said they didn’t hurt them, they just got some of their fur. The art teacher said it was good for painting ‘fine’ lines. The paints were made out of crushed, colorful rocks and glues. You could also write with the rocks.

Mommy and I each got a piece of paper and an elephant that someone else drew, we were supposed to draw one like it. When I was ready to draw my elephant’s head I realized that I didn’t leave enough room for it and the guy watching me (no, I didn’t make a mistake, he was watching me-not teaching me!) realized it too. This ‘teacher’ took my drawing from me and changed it and then gave it to an artist who erased my whole elephant and drew another one that didn’t look anything like mine. I told mommy and she told them to stop, that we wanted to draw, not them! I think that guy just wanted to show off, but he said “no good” and gave it back to me. I had to redraw my elephant’s body. This was just the first part, drawing the outline of the elephant with a pencil.

Next we had to go over the pencil lines with black paint, then erase the pencil lines. Then we painted in the different parts of the elephant and finally painted in the details. We were there for hours.

We left that ‘lesson’ and went shopping for jewelry, which was everywhere. We saw a man on the old cobblestone street selling sculptures of Ganesh (the Indian god with a elephant’s head) that he made. We asked if he could teach us how to do it and he said sure. The next morning we walked around the narrow, crowded streets looking for our sculpture but couldn’t find him. We met a dude who Sloan and Daddy had already met yesterday. He followed us around asking me questions and saying stuff about the shops we were stopping at. We gave up looking for the sculpture person and we met another one. She said we could do it in two hours. Meanwhile we sat outside the shop with the loco dude singing “Buffalo solider”. Then he did a guitar solo that wasn’t even in the song. Let’s just put it this way: He was annoying!!!

To get away from him we sat inside the City Palace ticket booth. We were there for awhile. A school of kids came and they were all looking at me. Some of the girls were waving and some were just looking. All the boys were just staring. While we were buying postcards some of the kids from the school asked Mommy for her autograph and address. She only gave them her name and email address.

It was finally time for the class. We walked over trying to avoid the loco dude. When we got there, the lady was waiting with her baby and they had a huge rock in front of them. She gave us a saw with spikes on both ends to cut the rock in half. It took a long time to cut it. Mommy found a baby sock to put on the end of the saw which made it easier. After we cut it in half, we took one of the halves and cut a chunk out of that. We took a metal stick and a skinny smooth brick and we chipped at the stone. The woman
drew a design on the stone so we knew where to chip. We chipped for a long time until the statue looked somewhat like an elephant. She gave us sandpaper and we rubbed the elephant until the class was over. There was always someone from the street watching us. We met a family from Israel, a big man in overalls with curly hair covering his face, a Jewish girl from South Africa, and a million Indians that came to stare. Sloan and Daddy came as we were finishing up. Mommy made me and Sloan make a sign for the lady that said “sculpting lessons”. That’s all for now.

Hailey
copyright 2009