5 tips and tricks to survive traveling 3rd world

Having lived in a few different countries I have felt my own variations of homesickness. I mean lets face it, life outside of the USofA is different. So to combat I have come up with a few tricks to keep that homesickness at bay.

1. Bring your favorite treat (gummies, popcorn, gum, chocolate etc). chances are they wont have it or it tastes different. Even though I have found my favorite treats in each country, after a time you start craving that one thing and it helps just to have a little taste of home to keep you from going crazy.

2. After travelling and at times sweating in places that aren't up to Americas standard of clean, I start feeling like crap... for whatever reason taking some time to really "pamper" myself makes me feel better. Whether that is washing clothes, shaving my legs, putting lotion on those said legs, or going somewhere nice that requires you to ditch the traveling clothes and dress up.

3. Take a rest day and do something "American" like going to a movie, taking a nap, reading a book, finding an American restaurant.

4. Before you leave pack something you enjoy (food, a book, music, clothes, products for great hair) and when you hit those days where you start wondering what you were thinking in going abroad, pull out your "sanity pack".

5. When you first arrive, write down the things that amaze you and that you find fascinating. When you start having days when you cant remember what you liked about travelling pull out that list. Be candid when writing it.

No Shame in stopping at the Krispy Kreme for a donut every time we went thru Bangkok

Thailand offered great, cheap smoothies



Loved the gate art in India





Every now and then we come up with crazy ideas that provide many laughs and stress relief

My favorite thing to watch at big sites is everyone posing, when you don't have the
perspective their photographer does, people look hilarious.

Take a step back and watch all those people..

Sometimes if you just remember the magical feeling of arriving in your dream destination it is enough

Everywhere has a heart warming moment if you look

Watching how excited everyone gets (adults and kids) when they see the magic come alive

What tricks do you have when travelling?

Traveling India's Himalayas, is it for you?

Darjheeling, India

What can I say about this place, I love it. When I think of India, this is not the place I picture but has fast become one of my favorite places. After the heat and chaos of the city it was so nice to go up to Darjeeling and get away from the heat and chaos. The mountains have always had a way of healing my soul and rejuvenating me for another "round" in life.

After flying into the worlds smallest airport, Bagdogra we hitched a ride in a hummer up the step mountain road. *disclaimer if you get motion sickness or if you don't like "thrilling" rides than this trip is not for you. Distance wise it is quite close, as in 45km, but time wise it is a few hours away. The ride was quite the adventure with 12 people in a hummer up the step and winding road ascending deeper and deeper into the clouds.

Along the way our driver stopped to put a covering on all our luggage that was on top, we wondered down the road to see the beautiful lush forest, but before we went to far he warned us to watch for tigers and wild elephants!
Interesting side note, every hummer has a driver and an assistant, many of them ride standing on the back bumper! India is so different then America in more ways then one.

Once we reached Darjeeling (as an american you will pronounce this completely wrong, it is not a 3 syllable word, Dahr-jee-ling… it is more like one word slurred together. Dahrsheling.. it is a softer j… )
Anyways back on track once we reached our home for the week we were in love, it is chillier up there but such a welcome respite from Hyderabad. Up there everyone was a lot more relaxed and just went about their business. We had reserved 2 rooms for the 10 of us, but when we checked in they told us we had to pay an exhorbant amount extra for the extra people, but they wouldn't let us cancel either, finally after much back and forth the head manager (or the owner) came from off property and was amazing, he not only didn't charge us extra but he let us use a 3rd room as well. He cited that since we where helping his country he wanted to help us. (so nice of him, people are amazing!)

Everywhere in town is either uphill or downhill, and our rooms were up the stairs (it is all outside stairs and our place was like a villa I suppose, but each room had its own separate feel… but we did have roof access and that was amazing!
We went into town for some dinner and then headed to bed, the next morning I was wide awake thinking it was noon, but when I looked at my phone it was 6am! The sun rises early here, but it was so quaint to have a cup of lemon tea and enjoy the stillness of the morning.

Once everyone was up we stopped at a bakery and grabbed breakfast pastries to eat on the way to our explorations. We started off in search of the tibetan refugee camp, but ended up taking the back road to Observation Hill. As we walked up the hill we saw a monkey and got so excited, and then another, the top of the hill was shrouded in fog but we continued our walk upwards. Soon we started seeing lines of Tibetan prayer flags followed by more prayer flags and still more. The top of the hill is a place where buddhism flourishes and there are many shrines and temples. I found a quite area and just thought for a while, it was such a magical place, so quite and so
removed from the world. The monkeys would run and jump along the lines of prayer flags.



We eventually walked around the top and were able to talk to some buddhist monks about their life and they gave us a blessing and good luck. I noticed that as the monkeys would try and get close and into the temple all the guardians had to do was pick up a rock and they would scatter, they didn't even have to chuck the rock picking it up was enough. We all began to gather as we prepared to descend the hill and venture around some more.  1/2 the group was going down ahead, Anna & I stopped to wait for a few more stragglers to come down.  (did I ever mention that monkey are curious??)
As Anna and I were standing around a young monkey decided that it would be adventurous and climb my leg.. Not wanting and I'll affects I gently nudged the little guy away from my leg… apparently that was very upsetting, he jumped back 35 feet or so and screamed. All the adults in the vicinity took that very personal and came running with bared teeth at me. Umm yes this was terrifying, I went to back up and tripped on the ledge into a small ditch on the side. So not only do I have monkeys getting ready to end my life, I also happen to be trying to balance and not fall and thus render myself totally and completely helpless. One monkey made it and grabbed my leg and bit down hard (I had made a last minute decision to wear my denim jeans instead of my leggings that morning.. this may have saved my life.. Literarlly) As soon as he bit down I flung him off my leg (natural instinct) which only made them angrier. At this point I realize it is probably the end, I am backed against a wall, and if I turn and run they will be on me faster than an open flame can ignite a dry field.
As I am realizing this I pull my hands up to shield my face and take back mocking death by monkeys…at the same time my friends realized what was happening and my hopeless predicament and came charging swinging bags at these ferocious primates. I can not tell you the amount of relief I had at seeing them.  I tend to be a suffer in silence type, so I don't know if I ever even screamed. I was just so focused on the situation. Oh this whole encounter happened within the span of maybe 2 minutes and I was gifted with instant black-and-blue bruising from the encounter.  Later that night at dinner some of the girls were freaking out over the fact that I was attacked by monkeys and were surprised I was so calm about it. There was one other family in the restaurant with us.. As they got  up to leave they informed us that "next time we want to throw around racial slurs to be mindful of who was around". We were all in such shock. Luckily Matt and Hudson quickly got up and followed them out to explain that I really was attacked by monkeys and it had nothing to do with racial slurs.  Just for the record I never want to try for a better story than that.

Traveling India's Jungle: is it for you???

I recently talked with a friend of mine who had been to India on leisure and believed the only redeemable aspect of that country was none other then the world renowned Taj Mahal.
However during my summer I found 6 additional cities that should be given consideration.

Stop 1: Hampi, India

Gorgeous Sunset over the river valley in Hampi

Back when monkeys where a novelty and cute....

 

Hampi, a quaint jungle town, not for the fainthearted, but rather for those who enjoy an adventure as it is a bit of a journey to get there since there are no close airports. We took an overnight bus, which worked great, that is if you don't mind hearing the horn throughout the night. Other options include testing your luck and will to live by driving, or taking the train into Hospet(the main town outside of Hampi) and then taking a bus, or auto into Hampi. We arrived into the bus station in Hospet in the wee hours of the morning and took a short ride in an Auto to Hampi's center. After all night on a bus all I wanted was a nice comfy bed to sleep what was left of the morning away.  Our auto driver was kind enough to help us get rooms in Hampi, the first option had no AC. Luckily another hotel owner was awake and offered their rooms with AC. It was heaven, and they were very accommodating, there are only family run hotels and no "5 star resorts" directly in Hampi, so the families live at the hotel.

      Ann riding to one of the many ruins

Breakfast we went to the hotel across the street to their roof top restaurant, and this is where I fell in love, ok I became addicted, to Mango smoothies. Hampi does them the best out of everywhere I have been. As a group we met up and rented motorized scooters, with a few of us doubling up. After one slight accident(before we even took off) we traded one scooter for 2 pedal bikes. Both were great, the bikes are not road bikes, just everyday kind of bikes, and in the heat and long distance it was not that fun. (we took turns on the bikes..) The scooters were an awesome way to see the jungle, as they weren't loud, and you could still go along at a leisurely pace.  

 

This was my first venture into a "real" jungle and it felt so magical to me to see all the old ruins pop out amongst the lush vegetation of the countryside. I almost felt like I was transported into a story, like the Jungle Book. I have seen my fair share of ruins, but these were beautiful as they still held much of the original detail. It was cool to see everyone from all walks of life coming back to gather at these sights.



 

Riding back towards Hampi, we came across a lemonade stand. Who wouldn't want a nice refreshing drink or ice cream after a long, hot ride in the jungle. We learned a whole new way to make lemonade, the start with an empty glass coke bottle filled with soda water, the top is covered in a whole lemon to keep out the bugs. Now it is time to juice the lemon, and boy do they juice that lemon. Last of all there are two ways to get your lemonade, salty/sour or sweet. Ann got salty just for kicks, it was good, but I can only take a few sips before I fill sick, it is definitely an acquired taste.

We ended the day by doing a little shopping at the bazaar there in Hampi's center, they have some unique items which was so refreshing after seeing the same stuff everywhere else. The food here is delicious, we went to the "main street" and found a fully-mediterranean-themed restaurant, including a low table and rugs and cushions on the floor. I highly recommend this place. It was called ____ Leaf.

The next day we decided to go swimming in the morning, we were told Lakshmi the elephant comes down to bathe here at the river everyday. We entertained ourselves by swimming out to and exploring some of the ruins in the middle of the river. Just be aware it is mostly men and boys who swim in the river, woman and girls come to do their wash and then spread out there lovely saris all along the steps and they look beautiful with all the color.

 

Finally we spotted Lakshmi headed down to the river, we swam over and were able to help bathe her and in return at the end she gave us an elephant bath. She has quite the following as she gives elephant blessings to the lucky. I followed her but got distracted and soon lost the crowd, not that the temple was hard to find. I stumbled upon a traditional Indian wedding happening amongst the ruins, and in all my swimming glory they pulled me in to participate in the ceremony, saying I would bring added blessing to the couple(they don't get many white people around here I guess). They even took professional photos with me as well.



They invited me to have lunch with them, and I asked if I could bring my friends, we agreed to meet at the bus stop and go with them. I went to find everyone, but sadly we had missed the family or we misunderstood the spot. To end the day we did a sunset yoga session on the roof of our original hotel and then sprinted to catch our bus to Hospet.  This bus was a nicer sleeper bus as it had beds but no AC.  In Hospet we grabbed dinner at the Shanbag hotel.. I tried boost for the first time (similar to hot chocolate) and fell in love with my drink once again.
We headed to the bus depot to wait for our bus, but it wasn't coming... somehow we figured out that although it drops you off at the bus station, it doesn't pick you up from there. We booked it a block & a half and barely caught our bus.

So like I said, if you are in for adventure Hampi is right for you.

Unplanned adventures in Cambodia: Day 1 & 2

Oh Sweet Beautiful Cambodia!!!
Even though our beginning was a little rough, after all who would want to leave Phuket Paradise, you more then made up for it in the end!
We started off flying in on an itt-bitty plane. While normally I love a thrill and a rush of adrenaline, this flight was something else. Being a little plane you really feel all the changes in the wind.

We finally landed at Siem Reap international airport, where we walked inside to distribute the pile of forms they gave to us on the plane to fill out. First off as you walk inside there is a metal-detector type machine you walk thru. Second glance and I realized it was a heat sensor, so if anyone was ill, the officials would know, luckily, despite the beautiful sunburn, I made it thru.  Visa desk, whew never seen anything like it. Behind this tall long desk are a bunch of officials, and they each have a job to do with the visa. The first person you pay $20 (or $22 if you don't have a passport size photograph with you), then proceed down to the end of the desk and wait for your passport. In the meantime while the officials are waiting for the passport to come their way, they keep things real by YouTube-ing it up! Something new.. Health forms, declaring your health, are just dropped in a basket on your way out.

We gathered our luggage, somehow Jamie's always comes out before mine... I don't understand. And head outside to wait for our pickup, courtesy of the hotel. It was great, I always fantasized about rickshaws and here I got a real one!! We hopped in and headed to our place, just a short 15 min away. Driving on our way it was a mix of a tourist town meets a small country town. There are many pizza shops(so random) tucked away in the side streets, and run by whole families.

After check in we both decided to get massages, for $10 they would come to your room and give an hour long massage. Not just any massage, this was nothing like the traditional American massage, and it was delightful. First off you stay fully clothed and just lay on the bed. Then these cute little girls take control of every limb and use their full body to massage as well. So wonderful. We finally came out of our stupor after they left and wondered down to dinner. We have a weird tradition of getting a margherita pizza at every city we stop in, but sadly they were out, tonight and next night as well, but they had our smoothies. So we would never think of complaining.

During the massage I felt a little off, but figured I just needed food since we hadn't really eaten all day. However once back in our room after dinner, my stomach rebelled. But not in a flu or food poising way, my mind was super alert and fine. Jamie laughed because I would leave in such a happy attitude to go puke. Between the both of us we came prepared to nurse a small contingency of helpless travelers. By morning, I was exhausted, so I spent the day sleeping and eventually went out to find Jamie by the pool. I was feeling well enough for some light food, so I asked if I could get some toast, they were so cute and a little confused, but they delivered, which is probably when I fell in love with Cambodia.

I spent the rest of the day by the pool, or sleeping, (mostly the latter). Jamie, bless her heart, was so sweet and just entertained herself, even though I know it drives her crazy to stay in so long. She did explore our street and watched the sunset for both of us. Ending the day with dinner downstairs, we made a new friend with one of the staff. He is quite hilarious, and very helpful. If I could pronounce his name, I would write it down. But I get lost on names after the first syllable. 

So here is to the unplanned adventures!