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Most likely I'll post some pics as part of whatever update I give, and given that there is no way all three of my daughters will think that they look good in the same photo at the same time, pics will likely be pulled and right there is your incentive to check back every day to see how things actually went before something gets taken down.This section will contain the running commentary from the trip, in regards to the most recent country we have been in. But once I'm able to start the next country, I'll put the historical posts in the "Old Updates - XYZ" tab above. This all assumes I (or one of my kids) will be able to figure out how to make this website work.

If you want to read about the first 28 days and our time in Italy, then click here.

If you want to read about our time in Turkiye, then click here.

If you want to read about our safari in Kenya, then click here.

If you want to read about our beach vacation in Tanzania, then click here.

If you want to read about our amusement park/desert experience in the U.A.E, then click here.

If you want to read about our desert/beach experience in Oman, then click here.

If you want to read about our jungle ruins experience in Cambodia, then click here.

If you want to read about our elephant/beach experience in Thailand, then click here.

If you want to read about our beach/city experience in Australia, then click here.

If you want to read about our adventure/beach experience in New Zealand, then click here.

If you want to read about our under water adventure in the Maldives, then click here.

The Journey Continues - India

Male to New Dehli

To jump directly to one of our days in India, click here:

Varanasi to New Dehli

New Dehli to Kerala

DAY 188

We got up way too early and then I looked at my heel in the light and couldn’t tell if there was something in there or not. I woke up Megan who decided after a while that there probably wasn’t anything in there, but we should keep an eye on it.

We said our goodbyes to the couple who ran the hub as well as their kids and many of the people from the hotel, and then boarded the boat. The hotel we stayed at was not in a great shape - there was water pooling into our bathroom for the first week that we were there. for the fest 4 days they said they would fix it, but then each day we brought it up, they seemed to be hearing about it for the first time. Water was seeping up through the floor - there was no obvious reason for it to be there and we kept bringing it up more for their sakes (if water was seeping through the floor, there must have been a bigger water issue somewhere else. Their first attempt was to put in more caulk to seel it up. However, this just caused the water to back up and come out of the wall and into our actual bedroom. Then they eventually decided to use caulk to build a little ravine and drive the leaking water to the drain in the bathroom. But despite the issues with the bathroom, we really enjoyed our stay because the people were awesome. So nice and they looked out for our kids so well when we were on the boat and snorkeling.

As we pulled away, I reflected on the fact that this trip allows us to see a lot of cool places, but it also has required that we leave a lot of cool places. The Maldives is the first place we have gone that I think we will definitely come back to visit again.

The weather for the boat trip back was calm, but the boat was still bumpy. Liam’s fever was down a little, but still over 100. Liam was sitting next to me as Megan had gotten up and moved to a seat next to an open window. Liam started the ride saying that he liked how the boat bumped, but then started getting quiet. About an hour into the ride I asked how he was feeling and he said “not good”. So for the rest of the trip I had a bag next to his mouth. But after a few minutes he fell asleep and we got to the airport safely.

We were at the airport almost 6 hours before the flight, but couldn’t go check in until 3 hours before the flight, so we hung out in the same waiting area we waited at when we landed and were waiting for our boat.

Eventually we we able to check our bags and we hung out in the airport for a while and boarded our flight. The Air India plane we were on was a bit dated and could using some retooling (could see screws and nails in the seats, etc.) but it got us there fine.

It took a little while to get through customs and when we got to the baggage claim a different flight had their baggage coming out. The screen still said our flight was there too so we waited. Eventually, Lily wanted to sit down because her stomach hurt and walked to the other side of the baggage carousel where some seats were. Luckily she did, because there were our bags, in a little group. Apparently everyone took their bags off of the conveyor by the time we got there!

We went to the meet up point and found our driver. India was one of the few places that we had a tour company arrange everything because we figured that between the language barrier and the potential to get sick eating or drinking something, we decided to go with a guide. It was a little annoying that we had to take a bus to the parking lot to get to the car which was about a 10-15 minute wait, because we are used to the guides showing up and having the cars ready to go.

Since it was about 9pm, it was dark and hard to see the city. But, whenever we went through an underground tunnel, there were always murals on the walls. Some seemed to be celebrating different religions - one had Santa on it. And since I’ve been trained to put everything in terms of Disney, one reminded me of “It’s a Small World” with famous landmarks from around the world. All of it was very pretty and I was surprised to see that there was no grafiti on them, which likely would have happened in the US.

When we checked in, the rooms weren’t set up for 3 person occupancy, so we had to wait for the extra beds to be delivered and we ordered room service. Liam feel asleep before either one arrived.

DAY 189

The next morning we slept in late, and somehow both Megan and I set our alarms incorrectly (her phone didn’t update to the correct local time which was 30 minutes off of the Maldives and my alarm was set for 9:30 PM, a fact that became apparent 12 hours later). So we ran downstairs before breakfast closed. Luckily, we had built in some time to relax after traveling the night before, so we went back to our room after breakfast until 1pm.

We needed to get our laundry done after not doing much laundry in the Maldives. At the time, the hotel in the Maldives charged $1 per shirt and it felt prohibitively expensive. We had asked our tour operator before we got to New Dehli to help us find someplace that was reasonably priced, because we were sure that the hotel in India would also charge a lot, and when we got to the hotel, the price was, in fact a little bit more expensive than the Maldives, and doing the laundry there would cost about $200.

So our guide took us to a place, and since there are 6 of us and we haven’t done laundry in a while, the place counted all of the articles and it was 156 pieces and it cost $196. At this point Megan was ready to walk away, but I just wanted it done, so we paid the price.

Then we went to went to a Swaminarayan Akshardham, which is a Mandir, or a large Hindu temple. Our guide told us that no electronics were allowed inside because some related temple in another city was bombed. I guess that was good for security, but that meant no pictures and the second straight post with no pictures. As we went into the building, there were separate lines for men and women to enter the building, in case they had to pat you down as you went through security.

We walked in and it was huge and beautiful. I’m a big fan of the ornate and repeating columns, which created a neat effect. Apparently, it was only built 25 years ago, giving it more of a feel like the palaces in the U.A.E. than something ancient like in Thailand.

We walked around for a while and they had a few exhibits. The woman who runs the tour and who is our main point of contact told us we had to see all three shows. The guide seemed a little surprised that we wanted to see them.

First, we walked inside the temple portion and there were a number of painting that showed points in the life of the Bhagwan Swaminarayan, an important religious leader from the late 1700s who preached non-violence. The temple itself contained domed ceilings and carved marble, all very ornate.

Then we went into the first exhibit which was a series of animatronic scenes telling Bhagwan Swaminarayan’s life. You would sit in a hall and watch the scene, then you would move to the next one. They alternated English and Hindi showings, so as we walked to the next station we could hear the Hindu part of the next stop wrapping up. For some reason everyone seemed to get up before each section actually ended in order to get to the next one quickly. This exhibit, essentially retold the story contained in the paintings we saw in the temple.

The next exhibit was a boat ride where they talked about the history of India and how things were discovered in India centuries before in other places - gravity, pythagorean theorem, etc. It felt a lot like the Pirates of the Caribbean or the history of Turkiye ride in Vialand, as you slowly went through various animatronic scenes in the boat.

Then there was a movie - we didn’t particularly want to watch it but they said there was a lot of time before the light show so we saw it. The movie was yet again about his life. Kind of interesting because it was more detailed but like all retellings of the life of an ancient spiritual leader was somewhat apocryphal - tamed a lion, snakes in the jungle wouldn’t hurt him, climbed the Himalayas in the winter wearing only a loin cloth, etc. But the message of peace, non-violence and serving others still resonated.

The light show was neat - kind of like a Disney show with fountains lighted up and then projecting images on the temple walls. The one problem was that it was all in Hindi and we didn’t really understand what was going on. I think it showed the holy man as a boy, along with some friends interacting with some gods. But it was entertaining, even without knowing anything.

The show ended and we had to meet up with our guide. At this point we were a little frustrated with him, as he would walk ahead rapidly and weave through the crows to get to the next place without looking back to see if we were following. We are pretty experienced doing this at Disney, but there is a limit to how quickly Liam can keep up and he didn’t have any inclination to slow down for him. Meanwhile, he had us go through all the exhibits without him, so it all was a little bit unclear where to go next. He also told Megan where to meet up after the light show, but she wasn’t 100% clear on where to go and without phones we had no way to contact him if we couldn’t find him. We eventually found him and got back to the hotel and ordered room service for dinner.

Alright, fine. Here is a picture of a a street in India.

Its a little hard to get used to cows in streets. Especially when you are walking past them.

DAY 190

Got up and had breakfast then went off to Jama Masjid (One of the largest mosques in India); built in 1650. It was pretty with the walls surrounding it and it being in the middle of the city. Unfortunately, only worshipers were allowed inside the mosque, so we could only walk the grounds around the mosque. Even though we walked the grounds and didn't go in the temple, we had to cover up.

The girls looked like they were applying to Hogwarts. I was rocking this skirt.

Next, we went on a rickshaw ride around the old town. The rickshaw was a bike at the front pulling 2 people at a time - it felt very much like the tuk tuks in Thailand, but with bicycles instead of motorcycles doing the driving.

These tuk tuks were manpowered.

And I got to take this time lapse.

Who doesn't like a good time lapse?

Finally stopped at an ATM. This was a source of annoyance with me since the woman running the whole trip said not to go to the ATM at the airport and the guides would take us to a place with better exchange rates. That sounded like a good idea, but then our guide never took us to an ATM the day before and he had to pay for our tickets out of his pocket and I had to pay him back. It seemed like another area of miscommunication between the woman running the tour and the actual tour guide, similar to the laundry.

As we went around in the rickshaw we found that bunch of roads were closed so we didn’t get to go down all the narrow streets. The guide said it was likely due to the coming Holiday festival “Holi” (pronounced holy) but later he went up and bribed a guard to open the gate and let us through so it could have also been closed for that reason.

Then we went Raj Ghat (the memorial of Mahatma Gandhi) the place Ghandi was cremated.

Not a great picture, but here it is.

Then we went around the city and he showed us the India Gate (A War memorial), parliament, prime ministers house, etc. Throughout the day, we felt like the guide didn’t do a great job explaining things, so it could have been better.

Next, we went to Qutub Minar (one of the oldest monuments in Delhi and the tallest minaret in the country). This was built between the 11th and 13th centuries. These ruins gave much more a Roman ruins vibe.

These ruins reminded me a lot of what we saw in Italy.

The minaret was impressive, and you could imagine how much more impressive it would have been 800 years earlier, when nothing was built that high.

Once again, people wanted a picture taken with us (or at least Liam).

Liam is big in India.

After that, we went to lunch at a restaurant that was owned by the family of Megan’s good friend from high school (its a small world, isn’t it?). Luckily, the food was delicious, so we didn’t have to lie to her.

The restaurant looked nice and the food was great.

We have generally been a little surprised by India (New Delhi and later in Jaipur). We thought that it would look a bit more like Bangkok (some poorer areas, but some quite wealthy areas). Instead, it reminded me more of Nairobi, in that even the nicer areas didn’t have fancy stores, and American brands were few and far between (we saw a McDonalds and a Dominos, but even the McDonalds was in a building where the second floor was run down and looked like it might collapse). I saw one or two grocery stores that looked from the street that they might have been similar to western ones, but only 1 or 2, the vast majority of shops were small bodegas.

That said, in New Delhi there were a number of nice long avenues with parks/monuments where you might think for a second that you were in a European city (the war memorial looked like the Arc de Triumph), while the park in front of the prime minister’s house/parliament looked an awful like the Mall in DC. Its certainly possible that we never went to the right neighborhoods (Its a huge city), but when you got off of these streets, the streets were crowed with cars and motorcycles. So much so that it was amazing that our driver got us anywhere. We were all pretty much in awe of his driving skills through narrow streets, or busy thoroughfares where other smaller cars/motor cycles just weaved in and his ability to backing up in small side streets never ceased to amaze us.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel and hung out for a while before ordering room service for dinner and then packed and went to bed.

Day 191

This was a travel day where we were supposed to drive 5 hours from New Delhi to Jaipur. We had heard that this was the day that Holi (pronounced “holy”) was being celebrated - the holiday where people put colorful paint on each other, and in the things we had seen on TV, people throw this powder at each other and get covered in different colors. It looked like it could be fun. We had heard that some of the parties get a little crazy - that people drink and do crazy things, and it might not be great for our girls to be caught in a crowd where they might be groped. But we figured that if we could find some low key thing during the day, we wouldn’t mind getting covered in colors. We asked the tour operator if they could help us celebrate and our driver said he would set something up. So that morning, we wore old clothes we wouldn’t mind getting dirty, and I was wearing a bathing suite and swim shirt - admittedly not my best dry land outfit.

About 2 hours into the drive we stopped at a restaurant, and although no one was hungry (except Liam who would barely eat at meal times and then complain an hour later that he was hungry) we felt pressured to order some food since this was where the Holi celebration would be. After Liam ate some food, they put some powder on our faces, but always by dipping a finger into the powder and then putting it on our face, kind of like putting on war paint. Either because we were tourists and they figured we didn't want to be covered, or because our driver didn't want his bus ruined, this left us far from covered head to toe.

Then they played some music and asked us to dance. But they didn’t dance, so Liam was the only one dancing. It was a little awkward as the men at the store just took pictures of us and video. Megan danced a little with Liam and it was funny to watch Liam go out and breakdance, dropping to the floor and spinning around.

Liam loves to dance. I'm not sure where he gets his moves.

So I joined him.

Maybe I do know where he gets his moves. My family seems impressed.

Then we got back into the car and continued to Jaipur, a bit underwhelmed by the “Holi celebration” that we had. As we drove down the highway we passed people on motor cycles covered head to toe in red color dust. A few people on the motorcycles were wearing monkey masks. In other words, a bit different from our experience. We got the hotel around 1:30 and were starting to get hungry,

At this point though, Megan was feeling the urge to go out and try to have a more authentic Holi celebration - it just seemed like it waould be a complete shame to coincidentally be here during this time and then not experience it. So we went down to the reception and asked if there was something we could join and the guy told us there was something at a hotel about 20 minutes away that would go until 3 or 4. This sounded good, so we roused the girls (who were starting to get comfortable lyling in the hotel beds) and headed out.

In the lobby there was a group of younger adults (backpackers by the look of them) that were covered head to foot in colored powder and looked like that they had the experience that we were looking for. I asked, “Where are you coming from?” and they said “The US” and I said, “No, I mean where are you just coming from right now?” They said that they came from a festival but it was over. So we were back to going to the one our receptionist recommended.

We were going to walk there when some tuk tuk drivers outside approached us and we jumped in, figuring that it was better to get there quickly if it was going to end soon.

The tuk tuk driving experience was much more chaotic than the driving experience in the van. In part this was because we were at street level instead of elevated in the van, and in part because the van is so large, it can’t weave in and out of traffic the way the smaller tuk tuks can, so we were moving around other cars a lot more. Plus, my guess is that other cars had more respect for our big van and were less likely to jump in front of it than the tuk tuks. I was holding on tight to the side bar.

A bit easier to smile, when the tuk tuk isn't moving.

We got to the hotel and had to double check Google Maps because there was clearly nothing going on here. I went into reception and asked about the festival, and the guy made some vague motion down the hall. Megan thought he meant we had to leave the hotel and walk around and as we discussed this, he got up and walked us down the hall, down a couple of turns and then outside. Then he pointed down a deserted alley.

It wasn't clear if we were being sent to some sort of trap.

So this seemed even less promising, but we walked down the alley and turned the corner and there was an abandoned lot with garbage and weeds growing, but in the distance we could see some multi-colored fabrics and what was clearly some sort of festival decorations. So we climbed down about 5 feet from the ledge we were standing on and walked through the deserted lot towards the festival.

As we neared it, it became increasingly clear that the festival was no longer going on. That was a real shame because it was so nicely decorated and seemed like just the sort of thing that we were looking for. As we stood there looking at the entrance to the area a few locals came out and asked if we were trying to come to the festival but were too late. We said yes and then they asked if we wanted some powder, and then started putting it our our faces.

We finally got a bit more color.

We weren’t getting covered in powder, and some of the things I had seen on this festival involved people throwing powder at each other (like in the old United Airlines safety video). So I asked if you only apply the powder by hand, and they said that that was the way that you had to do it. So, for the next few minutes, they would take turns giving us more and more powder, applying it by finger or thumb and wishing us a “Happy Holi” each time. I figured that if we were going to do it, we might as well be covered, so I kept asking for more and never turned down an offering. Liam, meanwhile, took the opposite tact and refused to get any on him. We had actually brought some goggles for him in case people did throw the powder, knowing that he wouldn’t want it near his eyes. He was eventually talked into putting some on a woman, but he hated having it on his hands, and immediately wanted us to clean his hands.

Liam wasn't a huge fan of the powder.

As more and more powder was applied, it started to fall off my face and only my clothes. So I could see how after a few hours of this, how you could be covered in the powder, but my guess was that in some of the rowdier celebrations, the powder would start flying.

Then they asked to take pictures with us, and they were so nice, we couldn’t say no. In fact, its worth mentioning that pretty much everyone we met in India was really nice and always happy to help.

Liam seemed to be the focus for them, they took a bunch of pictures of all of us. We asked if there were any celebrations going on that they knew of, and they said that there was a tomoto throwing festival about 20 minutes away, but we decided that it was a little far and we weren’t sure we wanted to do it anyway, so we decided to go back.

This group of strangers really made our day.

The tuk tuk drivers said that they would wait for us, which was nice because we never said how long we would be (or maybe they knew that nothing was going on there and we would be back soon?). So we started walking back to the hotel and I took us on a route that avoided walking along the highway, but it ended up just taking us in a giant circle because things were blocked off. So we decided to walk back through the abandoned lot.

We got back to the hotel, and although it wasn’t quite what we were looking for, overall we felt much better about our Holi experience after going there. The schedule said that we were supposed to visit the Birla Temple, but our driver told us that everything was closed today for the holiday, so we just hung out in the hotel room. The girls said they were tired, so Megan, Liam and I went to the restuarant on the rooftop of the hotel for dinner and brought them back some food.

At the restaurant, there was music and a dancing show. Initially Liam said that the music was too loud, but later in the meal, you could seem him swaying to the music in his chair. That said, he was much more interested in our card game than in the dancing show.

Liam had no idea that there was a woman dancing behind him balancing a bunch of pots on her head, because he was too engrossed in the card game.

Day 192

The next day, we had a full day tour planned and we were hopeful that the tour guide in this city would be better than in New Delhi. He met us at the hotel after breakfast and we went over to the Pink City, which was the old part of Jaipur. It was called the pick city because almost a hundred years ago, when Prince Albert came to visit, the head of the city had the whole city painted pink. Today, the color was more kind of orange/pink in my view. Every 5 years or so, they have to repaint it.

We stopped at the Hawa Mahal (Also known as Wind Palace). There we saw what was essentially a facade along the street where in the old days, the women of the palace would go to sit and watch the people on the street, especially when there was a festival or something. At that time, the women had a veil culture, so going up there and looking through the screens allowed them to watch without their faces being seen.

This looked like a big building, but was only about one or two rooms thick.

Then we walked to the Jantar Mantar (India’s largest observatory). It was build in the 1700s and had all spurts of sculptures to help track the movement of the sun and the stars. The people there followed horoscopes, so it was also used to write those.

This was probably the coolest place we visited in Jaipur.

It was very neat, and at the end of the day, the guide asked us what we liked best and we all agreed it was here. It was like nothing else we had ever seen. There were huge sundials (including the largest in the world) that accurately tell the time down to every 2 seconds. Since during the two equinox, the sun dials wouldn’t work, there were also special ones built that only worked on those two days.

Each astrological sign had its own monument, but obviously Pisces

There were also these spheres in the ground that were missing pieces - imagine two holes in the ground that were shaped as if a ball hit the earth and made an indent. Inscribed on each indent was the orbits of the stars. Each side was missing pieces that if you combined the two, you would get a full sphere. The missing pieces allowed teachers and students to climb into the holes and have lessons about what was going on. All very neat.

After that, we went into the City Palace. The palace itself was quite large and there were some areas we walked through that were just government office buildings, and it wasn’t even clear to me it was part of the palace. But, then we went into the main area and there was some very neat architecture. But then we entered the courtyard and it became more ornate.

The palace was nice although not quite as nice as some of the other palaces that we had seen.

In the palace there were several museums of textiles, costumes, arms, weapons, and paintings. One area there was an artist who drew some elephants while we watched. It was a tourist trap to get us to buy things, but we don’t usually buy things and on this trip, that is especially true since there is nowhere to pack anything. We got to see old outfits from past kings - apparently one was a world polo champion and another loved billiards.

Liam was more interested in the magnifying glass to see the details, than in the details themselves.

After that, they took us to a jewelry place. Jaipur had become quite famous for astrology because of the observatory that the king built in the 1700s, and on the back of that fame, they built a gem industry to make birth stone jewelry. None of the gems were sourced there, but they were polished and put into setting there and sold. We don’t usually buy stuff at these places, but since it was Elenna’s birthday the day after, we got her a necklace with her birth stone in it. The odds of her not losing it before we get home are about 2%.

Then they took us to a textile factory where everything was hand done. There were a few types of designs, and they showed us block printing, where they would carve something and then put it in paint and then use that as a stamp to stamp the cloth. They would do that in repeating patterns. They showed us how they do one with 4 different colors, using 4 different stamps. It was pretty neat.

Everyone got a chance to add a color to the picture. But you had to line it up exactly.

Then they brought us inside and gave us some refreshments and showed us a bunch of cloths - sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, etc. I sat through it assuming that we wouldn’t be getting anything, but Megan seemed interested. We ended up spending much more time than I would have thought we would - maybe because Megan was regretting that we didn’t buy a rug in Istanbul, but we ended up getting a duvet cover and quilt (sent back to the US) and the 4 girls got skirts (supposed to be sent to our hotel). My daughters thanked me for buying them skirts, but the reality is that sitting there hungry, while trying to entertain Liam while they shopped was much more of a burden to me than the amount of money we spent.

Then we went to a restaurant, which seemed a bit more authentic than the German beer garden we went to in New Delhi, but there was still a giant Santa Claus statue for some reason.

Amazingly, this was a little more authentic than some places we ate.

Then we drove to Amer Fort (The capital of the state of Jaipur before it shifted to the walled Pink City). The roads to the fort were narrow, so they wouldn’t let our van up there, so we had to rent a jeep to take us up. We all crammed into the back of a jeep and it was a bit cramped, both on the benches, but also because all of our heads hit the ceiling and we had to duck.

The driver was giving us updates on the traffic on this part of the tour all day, saying that the traffic was about 2 hours long earlier in the morning, which was why we were going later. But we were still pretty much in standstill traffic for a while, so our guide took us out of the jeep and we walked over to see a temple and step basin. In the olden days, the area was sand and it was a place for travelers to come and rest, get some water, pray and sleep before continuing on. Today it was overlaid with stone and the way down to the water was pretty cool - it looked like in M C Escher painting a bit. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed down there.

No upside down stair cases, but a neat effect.

There was also a temple with some monkeys on it.

No one in my family wanted to get closer to the monkeys.

Then, when the jeep circled back around close to us again, we jumped in and it took another 20 minutes to get to the top. At the top we could see around the fort and there was a wall built around the whole town - about 6km in circumference, somewhat reminscent of the Great Wall of China, but on a much smaller scale.

Trump would be jealous.

The guide took us on a tour of the old palace which was neat. We got to see the various reception areas and the quarters of the Rajah’s wives. There were also some monkeys walking around the grounds which Liam and I think is neat, but adds some terror to everyone else’s experience.

The palace was pretty ornate.

Throughout our day, we had noticed people taking pictures of us, sometimes surreptitiously, and sometimes blatantly. Liam defintely seemed the focus for most of the people, but there were a good number of people who took pictures of our daughters or even the whole family. If this was a man doing it or someone doing it without asking it would annoy us. If it was a woman doing it, or asking that we take a picture with them, it was less so.

So we had a couple of families ask to take pictures with us at the Fort, which I still think is kind of funny. I remember when this would happen to us in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, particularly with Lily when her hair was so blonde. Since everyone on India speaks English, you don’t really think of seeing white people as a novelty, but there really weren’t that many around and we rarely saw any white children, so that may be it. Also, when we were in China and this was happening, we were there during summer break and our guide said that during that time people from the rural areas would travel to the cities, so although seeing foreigners was somewhat normal for someone who lived in Beijing, for someone visiting from outside ths city, this might be rare. Potentially the Holi celebration caused a similar effect.

Our kids were famous in India.

On our way back to the hotel, we saw the Jal Mahal (Also known as Water Palace). It was a palace that is in the middle of a lake. What actually happened was that they build the palace first, and then created a man made lake around it. We weren’t allowed to go it, so this view was as close as we got.

I wonder if we can build one in Fayson?

We got home and everyone was tired, so the girls wanted room service to their room, so that was what we all did. My brother Mike had read that there was a special Pikachu you could only get in India, so when we saw that it was there in a gym near our hotel, I got Elenna to join us and Mike and Aimee in a battle to win him.

You got to catch em all and we got this one.

Liam had been complaining about being tired and not wanted to walk on the tour, so I had to make a deal and I carried him for 10 minutes and in return, he promised to stop complaining. And yet, now, he was running around our room with boundless energy. He was on our bed watching his ipad on his knees, when all of a sudden, he fell backwards and hit the marble floor. There was a loud thunk, a sound which Megan says she will never forget.

Liam was crying and we were worried about concussion after Keira’s issues a couple of years earlier. I ran upstairs to the restaurant to get some ice for him. We asked him a bunch of questions to see if there were any memory issues and he kept saying that he didn’t want to answer them, which made us worry that he didn’t want to answer because he didn't know. But slowly he started to answer some questions and we felt like he was ok.

Unfortunately, Liam is a magnet for injuries.

We called our pediatrician back home and the nurse there said he was probably fine and gave us some things to watch out for. We let him sleep for a while (it was around 9:30pm), but were googling hospitals in Jaipur in case we needed help. I talked to the hotel manager about where we would go if we needed to go, and how we would get there, and the language barrier reared its head, as he kept saying he could take us to a hospital now, or have a doctor come now.

Megan is a planner, and wanted a back up plan if Liam looked worse in the middle of the night, so we texted our driver and our tour guide operator. Our driver came to our room with the guy at reception and they said that if we needed anything just call them and they will be here in and get us to a hospital 5 minutes away. The guy at reception asked if it happened about 20 minutes earlier, because he had heard a loud bang, which he assumed was some furniture falling (mind you we were two floors above him). The driver said that he would be sleeping in the van right outside the hotel and be ready to go at a moment's notice. We found this to be really sweet, but it wasn’t completely clear to me if the driver didn’t always sleep in the van or not.

We stayed up until midnight watching Liam, then woke him up to get him ready for bed and he seemed pretty normal, for a sleepy 5 year old. I joked a bunch with him and he smiled and got the jokes. So we went to bed feeling better, although I slept in Liam’s bed because Megan wanted Liam to sleep with her.

Day 193

Its Elenna’s birthday! Elenna has been somewhat upset about having her birthday while we are in India ever since she realized it 6 months ago. She doesn’t like Indian food and was concerned that there wouldn’t be a cake she would like, etc. so she asked that her birthday officially be celebrated on the second day that we are in Hong Kong Disney. I think that this will also give her sisters time to buy her something neat from Disney. The whole day as people would wish her happy birthday, we would joke that they didn’t know her well enough to know that her birthday was still a week away.

Liam woke up the next morning more or less like himself. Its always a little hard to tell with Liam since he is always a bit out of it in the morning - still sleepy and a bit hungry. We checked out of the room, but hotel said that the skirts that we ordered weren’t there. We told the driver this and we headed out to go there to pick them up. On the way he called the place, who maintained that they had delivered the skirts. So we turned back to the hotel, and low and behold, the skirts were actually there.

Liam didn’t eat a lot of breakfast (there wasn’t a lot of food there that was typical American breakfast), so we took a few bananas for the road. I asked the driver to stop somewhere on the way so we could buy some snacks. Liam asked for a banana about 45 minutes in. Then, about 30 minutes later he asked for food that wasn’t a banana (his "sneaky" way of asking for a cookie).

The drive to Agra was pretty straightforward, on a highway most of the time. We started out going through the city and as the drive continued, I was more and more reminded of the drives we had in Kenya, where there would be a lot of houses along the highway, with some farms and things. It was a bit more populated and none of the safari animals were there (except for the odd camel pulling a cart).

We stopped for lunch at a tourist trap restaurant with a bad buffet. The good news was that I found a gift shop that sold stamps for post cards. It had been a while since I had been to a money exchange place, so now the joke was that looking for stamps is my favorite thing to do (finding a post office to actually mail them also has been a full time job). It seems like everywhere in the world sells post cards but very few places actually sell the stamps, effectively making the post cards useless unless you can also find a post office.

When we got to Agra, we went to a viewing spot for the Taj Mahal. This was the one place that everyone in the family (except maybe Liam) was looking forward to see in India. Keira once said that the Taj Mahal is the only thing that she could think of that was in India (couldn’t even name a city, which I guess makes her American).

We had to pay to enter the area, and the guide told the story about how the Taj Mahal was built (took 22 years) and how it was a giant mausoleum for the Raja’s dead wife. We walked through a little orchard type area and then got a great view of the Taj Mahal from across the river. I had heard that it was much smaller in real life than it looks, but I didn’t get that impression.

From where we were, the Taj Mahal might look a little small, but you could tell it would be big when we actually got there.

It is quite a beautiful building and I was getting excited to see it up close and person the next day.

Liam gave it two thumbs up.

The orchard area was also pretty, although there were some monkeys in the area which had my family on edge a little bit. Once again, people came up and wanted selfies with Liam.

This woman didn't even try to get the Taj Mahal in the back of the pictures she took. You came all the way to Agra, but found something better to take pictures of.

As we drove away from the viewing area, there were a bunch of little ramshackle tents that people were living in and I was reminded again about the poverty. That said, Agra as a city looked much more affluent than New Delhi or Jaipur, with a bunch of Western looking shops and what appeared to be a higher end shopping area. There was also less congestion and less honking as you drove down the street. It was quickly our favorite city so far in India, and one where we would have been happy to spend a little more time.

This feeling was in no small part due to the hotel we stayed at, which was by far the best hotel we had been to in India, and we checked in and had about 45 minutes to relax before going out to see a Bollywood type show about the Taj Mahal.

The theater was nice and looked like any broadway theater you might see, with maybe more comfortable seats. They also had headsets on each seat with 10 language offerings, so you could watch the show in whatever language you chose. So the show was done in Hindi, and although the singing and dancing was live, all of that audio was pre-recorded, so the actors lip-synced and pretended to play instruments.

Not quite Broadway level performance, but still entertaining.

The story was of the emperor who loved his wife (didn’t mention that she was his second wife) so much that he gave her all sorts of authority to write laws, etc. She was very wise and kind and the kingdom loved her. When she died, he was distraught and built the Taj Mahal for her, and then he kind of went a bit crazy in grief, eventually being overthrown by one of his sons and put in jail for the rest of his life.

The dancing was good and the outfits were colorful and shiny. The acting was fine, I suppose, since its hard to act to 10 different languages at the same time, so everyone kind of over acted their gestures so you knew who was speaking. Afterwards, everyone said that they liked it. Elenna and Keira said that it was much better than they thought it was going to be, in part because they weren’t paying attention about our agenda that day and thought that we were going to see a 75 minute light show projected onto the Taj Mahal itself (similar to the 25 minute light show we saw in Jaipur). So not a great sign for my kids paying attention, but at least the show exceeded expectations.

Then we went back to the hotel and ordered room service and went to sleep, because we were getting up to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise.

Day 194

When our guide mentioned the morning tour, he said 5:45, and when our driver said he would pick us up at 6 from the hotel, we said 5:45, since we had found that people tend to get the timing of the sunrise wrong, and it is better to be there 15 minutes too early than too late. The plan was to leave, go to the Taj Mahal for a couple of hours, then come back and eat breakfast and check out and then do some more sight seeing.

Everyone wanted to look good for the photo shoot, so Lily was a bit upset at Megan who was about 5 minutes late leaving the room, in part because Megan is almost always the last person ready, but in part because Lily didn’t want to get up at 5am AND miss the sunrise. We drove to the parking area and had the option of walking down the street or getting into a little tram, and our guide had us wait for the tram, which was a great decision because it came quickly and sped us to the gate.

Unfortunately, the security line was a complete mess. There was one area for women and one for men, so Liam and I shuffled together towards the metal detectors. There were 6 of them, but only 3 were working, and since we were on the outside left line and only the three rightmost lines were working, we had to merge in and it took a very long time to get through. Megan told me that there was an Xray machine for bags that you put your bag on the conveyor belt, but the belt and the machine didn’t work, so they pushed the bags through, and then on the other side, the security people took all of the bags and piled them on tables and you had to find your things and then the security people went through them by hand. You couldn’t take the normal things in like explosives, guns, etc. but they also wouldn’t let you take in gum or food since I guess people would leave it on the buildings.

Eventually we got through, but the sun was up by now. The good news (if you can call it that) was that getting there 5 minutes earlier probably wouldn’t have changed that.

Not quite at the Taj Mahal. I wish I knew what this looked like over the actual building.

We walked around the corner and then through an archway and there was the Taj Mahal.

But this is what it looked like when we finally got there.

Its really a beautiful building, and whenever I see anything like that, built 400 years ago, without modern tools, sourcing its building materials for hundreds of miles away, I’m in awe. Our guide explained that the building is completely symmetrical, something that I didn’t ever really notice before but is probably part of the reason that it looks so cool. Even the two buildings on either side of it are symmetrical.

A great photo spot.

Then we took a bunch of pictures.

Every time we got closer, we got another pic.

And then a bunch more.

Some artistic pics and some not so much.

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And a bunch more, getting progressively closer to the building.

I have hundreds of pictures and I didn't have time to go through them all to find the best ones.

When we went to go up to the building, they had us put on shoe coverings so we didn’t track dirt into the building. Up close, you can see how amazing it is to have been built symmetrically - all of the details and angles that had to be put together and done so without today’s modern measuring equipment. Inside was a replica of the tomb of the queen (who was called the Taj Mahal).

We walked around a little more and then went back to the hotel for breakfast and packing. After that, our tour guide took us to a place where they showed us how they did the decorations for the Taj Mahal - how they placed the black marble into the white marble to make the caligraphy and designs. They said that the people working there did the restorations to the Taj Mahal and they were the direct descendants of the people who built it (14 generations later). It was interesting to see.

Liam helping to dig out the area where the colored stone would go.

Then they took us to a show room to try to sell us some marble. One of the neat things about the marble and some of the stones that were placed in it was that they were translucent. So they turned off the lights and put a light underneath and you can see how they glowed. Although everything was very pretty, I didn’t think we were going to buy anything, but then Megan seemed interested in getting something. So we spent a lot longer than I thought we would there, and ultimately bought something that we shipped back to our house. We narrowed things down to two choices, one that everyone except Megan liked better, and even Megan agreed that it was one that better fit with our style, but she ultimately chose the more colorful one (although still more muted that some of the options), saying that the color felt more authentically from India (which we couldn’t argue with), and that if you were getting a keepsake, it should look more authentic (which we could argue with, but didn't really care enough to). One of the things that I noticed there and at the textile place was that once you bought something, you had to tell them 18 times that you didn’t want something else. But eventually, we got out of there and headed to the Red Fort.

Liam and I had to entertain ourselves while Megan debated which marble to buy.

The Red Fort was a giant castle with walls surrounding it, built in the 16000s. It was a very impressive building and we only got to tour about ¼ of it, with the Indian Army occupying the other ¾.

Inside the Red Fort.

Inside was the palace and we got to see where the emperor lived and his 500 concubines stayed. We also saw some temples and mosques and entertainment areas spread through the complex. Finally, we saw the jail where the emperor who built the Taj Mahal stayed until he died. It was a pretty nice area, with a view of the Taj Mahal, but he wasn’t allowed to leave, and was limited in who could visit him.

A lot of cool architecture in the fort.

And of course, there were the people who wanted pictures with Liam.

Another devoted Liam fan.

Our guide asked if we wanted to see a shop where they did some thread work. We were offered the same thing in Jaipur but had said no because everyone was tired. This time I said no because I didn’t want to have to sit through another sales pitch.

After that, we went to lunch at a place where our guide told us we could have a buffet or order a la carte. After a bad experience at the buffet the day before, we asked the guide if there was a better place, but he said that this place was good and brought us there anyway. Luckily, the place was good, and although Liam didn’t like his mac n cheese, everyone else had a good meal.

Then we drove back to New Dehli in a 4 hour trip. When we got to the hotel there was some question around whether we had a reservation, but eventually they let us in. We were back to the same hotel that Elenna left her Apple pen a few days earlier so we asked about it and amazingly, they still had it. We ordered room service and went to bed early since we had to leave the hotel at 4am, to catch a 6am train the next day.

Day 195

Its my birthday! So if Elenna is bummed about celebrating her birthday while in India and having to be in the car for 4 hours, but then at least getting to see the Taj Mahal, my birthday involved getting up at 3:40am so we could drive to the train station and catch an 8 hour train at 6am to Varanasi. I joked that we were getting up so early so that we could celebrate my birthday for more hours in the day.

The hotel came with free breakfast, so when we told them that we were checking out at 4:20am, they said that they would pack a breakfast to go. Megan had read bad reviews about the train, including how it took a while for food to come out, so we were grateful to have something, even if we didn’t know what it would be.

The tour operator said that someone would be there to show us to the train, but our driver said that there wasn’t. He dropped us off in the parking lot and said that we should enter and go over a bridge to our train platform, which the app said was platform 16 but we should check. Megan was stressing out about finding the right train, but we were there at 5:10 and I figured that it would give us plenty of time to figure out where we should be. Even though it was 5am, it was crowded in the street around the train station, with people lining up in the shops and food carts.

Liam thought it was too early to get up in the morning, so he tried to get some sleep in the van.

We walked in and there was a giant screen showing the next 10 trains and the language alternated between English and Hindi, but it was pretty easy to find our train since we knew it left at 6, and it still said platform 16D. We walked into the entrance and there was a door that said it was the entrance to platform 16. So we walked through it and there was a railroad track.

It was a little difficult to tell whether this was our track or not, and the columns that held up the roof had the number 16F on it. So we figured that if we walked a little further down, we would see 16D. After another number with 16, it jumped to 17J and we were now confused. Across the tracks I noticed that there was a sign that said “Track 15” on it, and there was a staircase going up to a bridge that would take us there. We decided to walk up and over and see if Track 16 was on the other side. As we got to the bottom of the stairs, I looked out and saw that on the back of the column to our track, there was what looked like the back of a sign, similar to the “Track 15” sign across the way, so I had us stop and I walked over and had to walk under a rope to be able to go near the track and turn around and read our sign. Sure enough, the sign said that we were on Track 16.

So, now the question was where on Track 16 we should wait. Lily said that maybe the numbers on the columns meant something about which car, and further inspection of our tickets said it was Cabin 4, so we started walking down the track. Then we noticed that there were lighted signs that said C14, then C13, etc and we followed them down, confident that we were headed in the right direction. That is until it randomly turned to E8. I had everyone put their bags down and I went ahead to scout things out, and the signs went back to Cs and we all walked down to C4.

The train station was a bit sketchy, and there were plenty of people lying down and sleeping on the floor. For the most part, it seemed like people who potentially were in between trains, maybe with a few hours in between so they were sleeping, since they usually also had luggage around them. But there also were a number of beggars in the train station who came up and asked for change.

The loud speaker would announce the trains in Hindi and then in English and we heard our train number and saw some headlights, so we got up and walked to the track. The ropes that blocked off the waiting area from the train track was still there, so we had to go underneath. Then when I saw the train pull up, I was pleasantly surprised - it looked more or less like the inside of an Amtrak train, with comfortable seats. We didn’t want to lug our suitcases around, so we packed what we needed in our backpacks and left the suitcases in our New Delhi hotel, since we were returning in a couple of days, so we easily stowed our backpacks in the overhead.

About an hour into the train, they brought some tea and cookies, and then about an hour after that, they brought the breakfast. The breakfast had 2 pieces of bread and then some spicy Indian food, so I gave Liam my bread and a banana from the food that our hotel packed for us (most of the food that our hotel packed was either stale or things like an egg salad sandwich that he wouldn't eat). Then Liam would request a snack, and since I didn’t want to constantly be giving him food, we settled on a schedule of a snack once an hour.

The train was actually pretty nice.

Apparently, while I was entertaining Liam, something was going on on the other side of the train that I didn’t notice. The seats were Keira and Elenna on one side, Megan and Lily on the other, and then the seats went three in a row, and Liam and I sat in front of Megan and Lily, with a stranger sitting next to me. But there was a man and a woman in front of Keira and Elenna, and apparently the man was turned around in his seat and just stared at Keira for most of the train ride. She got deep into her hoodie to avoid him looking at her, but one time she woke up, with her head against the window and saw him turned around backwards leaning against his window and just staring, unabashedly, even when they made eye contact. Meanwhile, Elenna said that she saw the woman in front of them videoing them. So there is that.

The countryside was pretty, with lots of farm land - all very flat. It was strange that so many people seemed to be crowded into the cities when there was so much land where houses were few and far between. We had noticed this in some other countries too, that somehow suburbs didn’t exist there the same way that they do in the US.

We arrived exhausted at the train station and someone from the tour company met us and brought us to our hotel. As we drove through the streets, we immediately liked the city. There were certainly poor areas, but there were a lot more areas of town that looked more affluent with shops and such.

The hotel was nice looking, but the internet didn’t work, and the walls were thin, so Megan and my attempt to take a nap was largely in vain. Then we headed out a ceremony on the River Ganges which was a tribute to the water god. This was on the schedule for tomorrow, so we weren’t sure why it was moving up to today.

They didn’t allow vans in the area, so we had to take a 25 minute tuk tuk ride to the location and then walk 10 minutes. They warned that with traffic it could take 45 minutes and Megan was a bit worried about the safety of such a long tuk tuk ride, weaving in and out of traffic, but the guide assured us it was ok. Megan wondered if the van wasn’t available and that was why we were doing tuk tuks.

It was a bit crowded

The ride was largely uneventful (at least by rides in India standards) and we got out and walked to the river. There was a crowd of people, and although they didn’t allow cars, they did allow motorcycles and scooters, and they weaved in and out of the pedestrians making us all a little nervous about being hit by something. The crowd generally moved along, and when we were jostled aside, surprisingly it was invariably some middle aged/elderly woman who would be barreling through without regard for anyone in front of her.

It wasn't just people and motorcycles that we had to account for.

Our guide took us up to a seating area, and we sat on the steps in stead of the chairs that were set up around us, in theory because that would have cost extra. The seats were good, but the price was that we were there an hour before it began. Liam wanted to battle me with pretend pokemon, and we did that for about half an hour. By the time the ceremony started, Liam was already restless and squirmed around for pretty much the whole ceremony.

As one might expect, the ceremony was in Hindi, so we didn’t understand a word of it, nor did we understand the reasoning for the movements that the people running the ceremony were making (sometimes singing, clapping, moving incense around, moving candelabras around, etc.) The fact that I refer to them as “the people running the ceremony” shows that the guide could have done a better job of explaining what we were seeing. The incense was quite strong, but not really unpleasant. And the place was packed with people, and since it was on the river, boats were docked all around the ceremony, with as many people on the water as there were on land.

It was a pretty neat place to have a religious ceremony.

We had the guide lead us out a couple of minutes before it ended because we were afraid of what the mad rush out would look like if it was crazy coming in an hour early. The walk out was actually a little less hectic - much fewer motorcycles. In the dark, the street was lighted up and many of the shops had neon signs. Again, as someone who puts things in Disney terms, it felt a little like walking down Main Street after the fire works - loads of people shuffling along, shops on either side.

The streets were crowded, but we are used to walking through the streets at Disney. Plus, we were a head taller than most people in the crowd.

We debated whether we should have a birthday dinner as a family, but since we were set to leave at 5:30am the next morning for a river boat ride, we decided that room service would be the quicker way to get everyone ready for bed.

Day 196

I got up a little before 5am to shower and we left the hotel at 5:30 to go to the river. Keira wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed behind. Everyone was really tired and we agreed that three straight days of getting up around 5am was too many.

We drove to where we were the night before, but since it was so early in the morning, the van was allowed to get much closer so we didn’t have to take tuk tuks. Then we got out and walked the last bit, and although it was early, there were still plenty of people milling about.

It was still pretty crowded at 6am.

A word about Varanasi - it is on the river Ganges, which is the longest river in India, and is revered for its curative waters, which flow from the Himalayas. People believe that if they die in Varanasi, they immediately go to heaven, so people who are sick make a trip here. Even being cremated here is supposed to get you quicker to heaven, so the dead are brought here to be cremated. As a result, there are a couple of crematoriums on the banks of the river that run 24 hours a day. So its a bit morbid, but its also a very important spiritual place for the Hindu.

We got into a boat and went up and down the river, watching the sunrise and watching the light hit the river banks. All along the river bank were temples and I loved seeing all of the old walls and architecture. Everything was a few hundred years old, but looked even older.

Sunrise is a great time to be out. Except for the whole "early morning" part of it.

We stopped in front of the crematorium for a little as our guide explained things. It was certainly a little off putting to see the fires and know what was happening. Nearby, people were bathing in the river. Our guide explained that this was a place that most Hindu make a pilgrimage to once in their life (kind of like Mecca for Muslims).

Then we got out of the boat and walked through the city. We were supposed to see the Banaras Hindu Temple and the Golden Temple, and technically we did see them, but from relatively far away. However, at this point, we were all too tired to argue that we should try to go in.

I'm a huge fan of this type of architecture.

As we walked through the old city, we passed the line into the temple and we saw why he didn’t take us inside. The line to get it wound around for quite some time, and we were glad that we didn’t press him to go inside. As we walked down the narrow streets, there were shops on each side, and maybe enough space for 4 people to walk down shoulder to shoulder. But on one side was the line to the temple, and we walked down the other. I should be used to it now, but as I was walking in the back of the group, I got to see how everyone in the line for the temple would just stare at my family as we walked by.

Then we got into the car and drove to the Banaras Hindu University, which our guide said was the largest university in Asia. We drove by school buildings and dorms, and it generally looked like a US university, but had a number of minor achitectural differences that it was clearly in another country. Then we got out at a temple in the middle of the campus and our guide explained some more things about the hindu religion.

It was a little strange to go to a temple and giant statue in the middle of a university, but whatever.

After that, we went back to the hotel and had some breakfast. We had another hour before we were supposed to go back into the car, so I took a nap, but everyone else didn’t, thinking that if they did, they wouldn’t be able to get back up.

Again, Keira stayed back while the rest of us went out to visit the Sarnath Temple, which was built on the site where Buddha gave his first sermon. For this reason, Varanasi is sometimes called the birthplace of Buddhism, making it a major landmark in two religions.

Not much was still standing from when Buddha was there.

We walked around the ruins of some temples that were build around 200BC-300 AD and then went into a museum that contained some ancient artifacts.

We were all dragging at this point, but I didn’t want to eat lunch at the hotel, since the food was just ok, and since we would likely be having dinner and breakfast again there, it would be 5 straight meals there. So we had our guide take us to a restaurant. Elenna agreed to go if she could sleep while the food came. The waiter was quick to point out things that weren’t spicy on the menu because I think he was scared for us. The food was good and I was proud of Lily who always orders something adventurous - she ordered something that the wasn’t quite sure what it was, and the waiter said that they were out and recommended something else and she didn’t know what that was either but said "sure". And she liked it.

Then we went back to our hotel and I went to sleep for a couple of hours. Liam stayed up playing Pokemon on my phone and watching Pokemon on his ipad. When I woke up we started to write some post cards. We got through one, but then when I was looking up the zip code for someone, I noticed that he had snuggled onto my arm and his eyes were closed.

Day 198

We ate breakfast and then drove to the Varanasi Airport and flew to New Delhi. I put a new flight map on the top of the page, if you want to see it, then click here. On this flight, we all got upgraded, and they said that we had lounge access. We got there and couldn’t find the lounge and asked someone who pointed us to a restaurant that was called “the Takeoff Lounge” and we were skeptical but went in. The voucher that the person at checkin gave us lets us in for free and allowed us to use the buffet and get free drinks, but it was a bit strange because some people came in and used it as a restaurant. This plane wasn’t much better than the first Air India flight, with the seats a bit old. But we got there in one piece.

The one good thing about the flight was that as we were landing I was looking out the window (our first flight into New Delhi happened at night, so there wasn’t much to see). But as we landed, the city stretched on for quite some time. And in the outskirts there were areas of forest with groups of houses and some larger buildings that looked like college campuses. The area looked a lot more affluent than the part of town that we stayed in. So its possible that our view of the city is a little skewed by where we were staying. But once again, we were staying in the same hotel, now for the third time, which was half a block away from people living in shacks on the side of the road.

We like to try to watch movies of the places that we are or are going to get a sense of the country, and we tried to find a bollywood style movie in English. First we looked for Monsoon Wedding, but couldn’t find a place that would stream it, then we searched Netflix in India, and it was hard to find something that was rated well and in English. We found a couple of movies but they were 20 years old and nearly 3 hours long, and we figured that if we made the kids watch a movie that was dated and long, we wouldn’t hear the end of it. So we just picked the movie that was listed as number 3 in India Netflix and we figured the kids would like it because it was Keira’s favorite trope - a girl hires a boy to be her fake boyfriend, but then they fall in love for real. Well, lets just say that the movie was as good as it sounds. Meanwhile, it was about rich people in New Delhi, so it showed schools and houses that looked nothing like the city that we saw, but maybe were the ones that I saw from the plane. Needless to say, the kids still complained about it.

The next morning we drove to the airport again for our flight to Kerala. On the way we passed the New Delhi version of “Embassy Row” passing all of the embassies, and the area looked a bit nicer than most of what we had seen heretofore.

Once again we were all upgraded, and once again we were underwhelmed by Air India. The good news was that we were allowed into the Air India lounge, which had good wifi, although the food wasn’t in-line with our picky taste.

We met our guide who brought us to the van. The drive to our hotel was 90 minutes. Kerala was much nicer than any of the cities we had visited so far. There were some run down houses and bodegas, but for the most part it was much more modern looking. The weather was very tropical - warm and very humid. That made the whole place a lot more tropical than the other cities we had visited. In fact, as we crossed some rivers, I was reminded of Florida and the Intercoastal, with some high rises built along the water, with palm trees lining the river.

We checked into the hotel and then went to a Kathakali Dance at a local theatre. Kathakali is a traditional art form of Kerala, kind of like Kabuki, where men wear heavy makeup and put on a performance. There is no talking, so the artists have to use gestures and facial expressions to tell the story. It was actually pretty impressive/freaky to see how many different expressions that they could make with the muscles in their face and the movements of their eyes.

The show was somewhat bare bones but also pretty elaborate at the same time.

They started the show by showing how they put on the makeup, and then went through the different expressions and gestures and what they meant. Then they did the story - luckily they also gave us a two page summary of what was going on, because otherwise we would have had no idea. For people who spoke the language, there was a narrator singing songs, so I assume that it was more clear for the locals.

We got a picture taken with one of the actors.

After that, we planned to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, but there was a smoke in the air that was reminiscent of bug spray. They said it was normal incense, but it was strong and everyone preferred to go back to the room to eat (although the girls always prefer room service anyway).

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Day 199

The next day we ate breakfast and then drove 2 hours to a houseboat. The area was famous for its houseboats that go along the rivers and lake.

A pretty cool place to spend the night.

We cruised up and down the rivers for a while. Liam said he was bored and when we said he should relax and enjoy the scenery, he said that he didn’t like enjoying the scenery, but it was pretty nice.

I like enjoying the scenery.

Then, we saw an ice cream boat go by, so we told the crew that if it came by again, we had to get some, just for the novelty of it.

Apparently, I didn't record the ice cream guy delivering the ice cream, so here is a picture of the coconut that they served us when we first came on board.

The night before, Liam and I had watched Frozen 2, because Hong Kong Disney has a Frozen land. That afternoon, Liam, Lily and I watched Zootopia in my bedroom, because Shanghai Disney has a Zootopia land. Meanwhile, everyone else hung out in the living room and read.

Before we started to watch the movie, I told everyone that I didn’t like the look of the clouds on the horizon and they should probably take their suitcases in from outside or they might get wet. About 30 minutes into the movie, It started to pour and it turns out I was the only one who brought in my suitcase. Apparently, the rain went from 0 to 100 quickly and water came into the living room before the crew had time to get some of the rain flaps up, so when I came out to help move suitcases, some parts of the living room had a quarter inch of water on it already.

The crew was incredibly nice and the food they served for lunch and dinner was fine. It was supposed to be fish, but since Megan is the only one who eats fish, we asked for chicken. Unfortunately, there were some bones in the chicken which grosses out Lily and Elenna a bit.

Not a bad sunset.

There were two rooms on the houseboat and each room was supposed to have an extra bed, and when we started to get ready for bed, we asked for them to set up the bed. I had noticed a set of cushions in the hallway which I assumed was a “bed.” The steward was very confused and said there weren’t extra beds, but when we showed him the reservation, he called someone and set up the one bed with the cushions in the hallway. Once again, he seemed confused that we wanted another bed (I guess assuming Liam would sleep with us, which was possible, but not ideal), and he made another call and got some more cushions from somewhere.

That night we went to sleep and by the middle of the night, it was freezing in our room. Megan didn’t know where I put the remote for the air conditioner and didn’t want to wake me, and I assumed she wanted it that cold, so we both suffered through the night.

Day 200

Wow, 200 days already!

The next morning we got up and I was the only one brave (or foolhardy) enough to take a shower. There was no shampoo, but I figured that some shower was better than none, since the tropical climate of Kerala meant that any time outside meant sweating. The shower was completely open, so water went all over the bathroom, there was no hot water, and once I started washing my hair, some water got in my mouth and it was very salty. When I got out, I felt more sticky than I went in and told Megan not to even attempt it.

Last pic from our boat as we returned to the dock.

We had a half day of tours on our way back to the airport, and the kids had been dreading this day. Not only did the idea of tours in the heat and humidity always make them whiny, but our flight to Bangkok was at 12:45am, with a 3 hour layover in Bangkok, and then another flight to get to Hong Kong. Each flight was about 4 hours, so definitely not enough time to get any sleep, and without any upgrades, we would be doing this in economy.

We had to drive 2 hours to the first stop on our tour, so this is a good place to talk about driving in India. Thank goodness I’m not the one driving.Its pretty crazy how much the van would weave through traffic. In a typical highway with two lanes of traffic in each direction, there might be a motorcycle in each lane and it wasn’t uncommon for the van to drive on the dotted line and go between them. In a one lane road, the van would pass a motorcycle or a slow car/bus and head into oncoming traffic, often missing the oncoming vehicle by mere feet. And it generally didn’t matter if that oncoming vehicle was a car, tuk tuk or bicycle- it seemed that the oncoming vehicle had a responsibility to get out of the way. We also got way too close to pedestrians in my view, but they didn’t even blink an eye as we swerved past. This type of driving was a bit more hair raising (or maybe I just noticed it more) on this van ride, because I was in the first row with an unobstructed view and my seatbelt didn’t work.

The first stop on the tour was a place that did traditional laundry, where the women would essentially slap wet clothes against rocks to get them clean. Unfortunately, there was some sort of meeting there of the laundry people, so no one was actually doing it, and pretty much all we saw were some clothes hanging on clothes lines.

Then we went to a Jewish Synagogue which was about 400 years old. At one point, there was a large Jewish community in Kerala, around 2,000 people so there were 3 synagogues in the area. Today, there was only 1 jewish person in the neighborhood that was traditionally jewish, and there were only 26 Jews in all of Kerala.

Its possible that I have now been to as many synagogues in India as I have in the US.

We walked through a shopping district that the guide said 25 years ago would have had people shouting and yelling about their goods and trying to bargain, but today, they do most of their business online, and their prices are set.

On this street I found a post office, which I’m always on the lookout for since for some reason its so hard to mail post cards (hotels won't do it for us, so we have to find a mail box or a post office). So Liam put one in.

Any day we can mail a post card is a good day in my book.

We walked over to the Dutch Palace, which was built 450 years ago by the Portuguese as a gift to the king to make up for the fact that when the Portuguese first landed, they plundered the area. Later, the Dutch controlled the area and made some changes to it, hence why it is called the Dutch Palace. It was now a museum with some old frescos on the walls and various artifacts on display, such as the palanquin that used to carry the kings and queens 3oo years earlier.

Liam was largely melting down, and the girls were also dragging, so we went through the area relatively quickly. We went to a restaurant to eat and recharge, and once again Liam didn’t really eat much. Instead of this trip expanding his palate since there wasn’t much he liked and he would HAVE to try new things, he seemed to eat fewer and fewer things as this trip has gone on. This was part of the reason he was melting down - he didn’t really eat breakfast, so we gave him some cookies as his only food.

Then we went to a see a church, which was the oldest church in India (almost 500 years old). It was also the place that Vasco de Gama was buried, although 14 years later, his son came and dug him up and brought him back to Portugal. The guide noted that in Portugal, de Gama is a hero, but in India he is more of a villain, since he just wanted gold and to convert people to Christianity and was a bit brutal. This is something that I always intuitively knew, but it was interesting to hear it from someone on the other side of that history. It was interesting, though, that there were a lot of places in Kerala named after de Gama, despite all that.

If I am every buried somewhere, there is no need to dig me and bring me back to NJ. Also, this picture shows the fans hanging from the ceiling that were pulled by slaves using a pulley system hundreds of years ago.

Then we went to see some Chinese nets. I wasn’t sure what this was going to be, but I assumed that it wasn’t going to be particularly interesting. But it was actually really cool. Apparently, they have built these huge nets on cantilevers that they lower in the water, and then after about 5 minutes, raise the nets and catch any fish that swim by. The guide noted that this was a dying job, since now there were big companies with fishing licenses catching fish, but it was still really interesting to see.

This was fishing that I might actually be good at.

Then, as we waited for the van to come pick us up, Liam got to play on a playground for a couple of minutes.

There isn't a swing that Liam won't go on.

Then we drove 2 hours to our hotel. The tour operator had strongly recommended that we get a hotel room to “freshen up” in, and we weren’t really sure we needed it, but got it anyway. And its good that we did, since we had 5 hours to kill and the shower on the boat certainly didn’t do the job.

A few days earlier, Keira had started to feel painful inflammation in her hands, and it seemed to originate from a bug bite on her arm. Then her lip got inflamed. Then the next day she had a pain in her back. She generally felt ok as long as she was taking Benedryl, but one more thing for Megan to monitor and worry about. It seemed that just when one kid started to feel better, another kid started to feel sick.