- We Want Mo:Mo of Nepal! The final adventure we would share with our tour group was travelling to Kathmandu to see the many beautiful temples in the capital of Nepal. The road we took to Kathmandu is the only road that runs from Chitwan to Kathmandu,and is therefore heavily traveled. The not-quite-two-lane road has a mountain on one side, a precipitous drop to the river below on the other, and is in constant need of maintenance. Work to widen and pave the road has apparently been ongoing for years now, but the fact that the road is never closed and is populated by huge shipping trucks day and night has seriously hindered the pace. When we travelled it, one lane was closed for nearly the entire length of the road due to construction, so traffic was left to squeeze into the outside lane.
- Rhinos and Tigers and Crocs, Oh My! When you think of Nepal, what kind of landscape comes to mind? Mountains, right? They have the tallest mountains in the world, so of course the whole country is one giant mountain range. Well that might be mostly true, but when we crossed over the southern border from India, the views that greeted us were of rice paddies in the flat plain, gradually changing to the dense jungle that covers the foothills of the Himalayas. We drove up into these hills from Lumbini, and the scenery looked a bit more like Costa Rica than Nepal.
- The Birthplace of Buddha As was becoming the trend, our troop boarded a bus at 0-dark-thirty in order to get to our next destination. Our time in India was spent, and now we were on the way to Nepal by way of Lumbini. The trip itself was long, yet uneventful until we got to the border. We were greeted by hundreds of trucks waiting to cross. These trucks must be registered to cross into Nepal, and may only transit the border on the day they are registered to do so. This leads to a traffic jam that goes back for miles.
- Holy Floating, Dubstep Prayers, and Fireworks Our sleeper train was an experience to be sure, but a relatively tame one. While Justin had nightmares about his house collapsing in an earthquake, and Dana was trying to forget about the two rats fighting under the next seat, there was sleep to be had, and all of our stuff was there when we woke. We groggily shuffled off the train, into the sunrise, and onto a bus.
- Echoes of an Empire Another train brought us to Orchha, which looks and feels like a small village, but was once at the center of a great Mughal empire. An impressive number of temples and palaces are lurking in the jungle around this small backwater town. We got to stay at our own version of a palace- a fancy hotel, complete with a pool! Considering how worn out we were by then from the flurry of trains, planes, and automobiles, we got a little much-needed R&R in that pool.
- Shah Jahan was the Man A quick train ride from Delhi deposited us in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal and Agra Fort.
- Delhi - The Gutter, the Stars, and the Chaos in Between New Delhi is a city of striking contrast. We checked into our hotel right by the airport at 7 AM after waiting in the immigration line for 3 hours, and found a luxury hotel worthy of Las Vegas, infinity pool included (it was only a Holiday Inn, we weren’t expecting anything fancy). We left that afternoon to walk to the metro, which was a few blocks from where we’d stayed. Right outside the heavily guarded security gates was a much different world. We found the metro station near a busy highway in the middle of a dirt clearing, and walked inside to go through yet more security checks and buy our tokens. Dogs covered in flies lay on the floor, looking about five minutes from death.
- City of A Hundred Spires The Czech people drink, on average, 140 L of beer per capita each year, and as far as countries are concerned, are far and away #1 in this endeavor. When we first heard that beer was cheaper than water, we thought it a joke, but quickly realized that at around 30-50 CZK ($1.55-$2.50) it was in fact a reality. Beer, coffee, and water are all about the same price, so we’re feeling a little dehydrated here…because why would you chose water given those options?
