oh how time passes!

a lot of time has passed since i last posted, so ill update in small doses.

Varanasi: the rest of varanasi was wonderful. it was a bit overwhelming at times, so i dont know if i would have liked it had we not found krishna to show us around. i dont know if i have mentioned our boat ride down the ganges or not, so here goes. we got to the dock at 5am and a boat took us around. we saw many people bathing, playing, washing clothes, a dead goat, a man pooping, old men jogging, and krishna shoving cookies in his mouth. it was quite the morning :) that night kelly got really sick and it was so awful :( for all of us! luckily the nice guy from the hotel let me sleep in an empty room upstairs. i am such a bad friend.

next, we overnighted it to Agra. this is where the taj mahal is. we arrived at 6am and a taxi driver picked us up and took us to a hotel. he was blaring backstreet boys and singing along and we drove by the taj. its a moment ill never forget. his name was waseem and he was hilarious. he played so much 90s pop music and knew all the words. his favorite song was 'show me the meaning of being lonely' by the backstreet boys and we listened to it 1000 times. he took us to a nice place where we could see the taj from the roof. he took kadi and i around to the red fort, baby taj, and some other places. at the red fort, we were bombarded with people wanting photos with us. indians are insane. we were spectacles just because we were white. they were even trying to be sly and pretend to be texting but where actually taking photos of us. so ridiculous. at one point, a hid behind a sign because this guy was "texting" at me, and he slowly peered around the sign to keep taking photos. it was so ridiculous.

that night we went across the river to see the taj at sunset. too bad it was cloudy as ever. there, we met a fellow texan who just graduated from ut. his name was reilly and we made plans to all go see the taj together in the morning.

morning time is the best to see the taj. its still crowded, but its not hot at all. see it was incredible. i felt like i was in a bollywood movie. the inside was a letdown though, haha. it was tiny, dark, and had barely anything in there except for two tombs. the outside was great though. we frolicked all around it.

we had planned to go on a roadtrip with a couchsurfer, and we invited reilly to come with us. he picked us up and we all squished into his small car. it was miserable. he took us to delhi and we decided he was shady so we went to another couchsurfer, shiva. kelly still wasnt feeling well so her and kadi got a nice room while reilly and i stayed with shiva.

the next morning kelly was still feeling ill so reilly and i decided to keep traveling. we got an overnight train to amritsar and shiva hooked us up with an awesome place to stay out in the village. it is a random resort and the owner lets couchsurfers stay for free! and it had a pool! we went swimming every day. and in the evenings we went to the golden temple, which was awesome. the sikh people are so friendly and generous and so many of them wanted to be friends with us. during our time in the village, we visited many peoples homes, got offered so much chai, and made many friends. probably my favorite part of the trip.

in the villages, the people would invite us in, let us sit on the bed, give us chai, and they would play hindi music videos for us. we sat around and tried to communicate. all the kids wanted "snaps" or photos of themselves. it was adorable. the kids here. i cant take it. i wanted to take all of them home.

one day we were invited to a sikh family's home and they made us lunch from scratch. they also gave us fresh cow milk with cardamom and almonds. so delish. they were so generous! they had a big pile of cow poo in the back with a pipe running from there to the kitchen. their gas comes from their cow poo! i couldnt believe it! i was so impressed. our lunch was made possible because of cow crap. incredible india! after that i got a bit sick though. i was dropped off with kadi and kelly in amritsar and reilly got on a train to varanasi. i got sick that night and it was the worst night yet. thanks, india.

the next day we took a bus to dharamsala. we took a 7 hour local bus with no ac. it was quite the trip. i thought i was going to barf out the window because i felt so sick. but we made it to the mountains and felt ok. that bus ride costed us under $4. amazing.

we are now in mcleod ganj, just north of dharamsala. it rains constantly and the hills are steep and green. there are tibetan flags all over because this is a refuge area. it feels nothing like india. we are loving it. :)