Hi everyone. I know that you have been waiting awhile to hear from me and see photos. I think that I might have good enough service to be able to post some photos here…
The last couple of days have been filled with so many different sights, sounds, smells, colors, poverty, beauty, curry, rice, anticipation, bottled water, mothballs, and brown babies that it would take far more than the time I have online to share everything…. but I will do my best!
First, we arrived in India on the night of the 19th…
Customs was a little hairy when the officer was not convinced that Tisra matched her passport picture, but they let us through. Apparently all white people look alike.
Then we met our guide for the week and his daughter. He has been an amazing help throughout the trip so far. He took us to our hotel the first night, which was definitely a place we never would have chosen for ourselves… it was near the airport, off a back alleyway that looked pretty sketchy, but inside the rooms were quite nice, adn we had a great night’s sleep.
The next morning, we got up and headed to the airport to fly across the country to Orissa, the state where the orphanage is located.
We took a commuter plane and it was quite nice. The seats were pretty roomy! The flighte attendants wore sarees in the color of the airline, and they served us breakfast: coffee (sweetened with cream is standard here), croissant with butter and jam, a slice of bread cake, and fresh fruit (which we did not eat, since we had no way of knowing how it was cleaned).
Once in Orissa, we exchanged our money (about 40 rupees per dollar) and were on our way…
Our guide took us to see the Sun Temple… here’s our tickets (250 rupees each for nonlocals)
The temple was pretty amazing with carvings with all sorts of symbolic meaning. The guide focused a lot on the images representing all the aspects of the kama sutra, showing us each position (!!!) and telling us why it was great. It wasn’t until about halfway through the tour when we realized this was because he thought Eric had TWO wives, so he figured we would be into this stuff. We quickly cleared that up! ha!
The noonday sun beat down on us on the temple grounds, and it was nearly unbearable… we had to get out of there and get ourselves some water fast. The only water choice on the ground was from a well pump that didn’t look too sanitary… so we left and decided to go to the beach…
This was our ride from the temple to the cars… we felt like Amazing Race contestants!
And here we are, at the beach! We stepped our feet into the Indian Ocean (technically the Bay of Bengal)…
and then our guide took us to a lovely restaurant for lunch.
I had my first taste of Naan, an Indian bread that reminded me of a sopapilla. Mmmmmmmm…
After lunch they brought out this tray of sugar and fennel. You scoop a little of each into your hands and chew it as an after-meal breath freshener. It totally tasted like licorice! It was pretty cool, and quite refreshing after our meal.
Next we headed back to our hotel. This is a typical view out the car window as we drove around:
Cars, bikes, scooters, trucks, cows, people walking, goats, sheep, roosters, and (although I didn’t see one, Eric did) a monkey!
Our hotel here in Orissa was called the Ginger… my room was a single and cost 1599 rupees a night (about $40 dollars). Nice and minimal. And with the lovely fragrance of mothballs to add to the ambience. It seems a lot of places have mothballs in the sink… not sure of the significance – to mask the stink? to keep away bugs?
We walked across the highway to dinner at a nice restaurant that mimics the outdoors. There was a live band playing outside so we opted to be there watching the musicians. We ordered Sprite to drink, to be safe, but they served it to us in glasses with ice, so we had to pass. We wondered what the waiters thought when they picked up our three full glasses of sprite at the end of the meal!
Afterward, we crossed the freeway again to get back to the hotel. You know. CROSSED THE FREEWAY. THE ONE WITH THE CRAZY DRIVERS. Thank God we didn’t die.
We settled in for the night… it was going to be a BIG day in the morning! We would finally meet DOROTHY!!!
Next post… GOTCHA DAY! ♥ ♥ ♥
by jessie
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