I’ve spent the last 21 days traveling through south India and it has been a surreal experience. Our travels took us to Mumbai, Mahabelashwar, Goa, Kerala, and all the airspace in between. It’s been filled with some of the greatest memories I’ve ever had on a vacation coupled with some of the worst.

I’ve always been a fan on Indian food, so this trip was perfect for satisfying the foodie in me. I got to taste a multitude of dishes and it really helped that I was traveling with friends that have been to India before and are of Indian descent, since they were able to steer me towards the tastiest dishes. As good as the food was, it definitely gave me a lot of stomach troubles early on in the trip. I guess I was a little too adventurous in my eating since I was cumulatively sick for nearly 1/3 the time I’ve been here!

Along our travels, we discovered a love for King Fisher beer, Uno and negotiating everything we bought, including taxi rides. Near the end of the trip, we managed to fit in the hilarious game of “How much woud someone have to pay you to stay another 3 weeks in India?”. It seems that none of us would even accept $30k. Yikes.

This trip marks the longest time I’ve spent with a group of friends — imagine spending 24 hours a day with the same 5 people for 21 days. Surprisingly it went better than we all would have expected. We got to share a ton of laughs coupled with deep, meaningful conversations. I couldn’t have picked a better group of friends to travel with. Craig, Fil, Chaitanya, Shaheen and Suraj — thanks for a great trip and all the memories that came along with it. You guys rock.

Photos from both India and China will be posted shortly after I get back to Seattle and I have a chance to go through them all. I’ll post up a link to the photos once I’ve completed them and uploaded them to Flickr.

My upcoming travel back to Seattle isn’t going to be short. I’m flying from Mumbai to Seattle, laying over in Amsterdam on Northwest Airlines. My total transit time is just over 26 hours! Wish me luck!

Here are some fun facts about our trip:

I can’t wait to get back to “normal” civilization in Seattle, my own bed and the ability to do laundry at will. Hallelujah!

Greetings from Kerala!

We spent the last 4 days in Kerala, having an absolute incredible time. It’ll be impossible for me to summarize everything in this single entry, so I”ll opt for the highlight which is coincidentally the highlight of the entire trip as well.

After spending a night in Kochi, we headed off to the Kerala backwaters to stay on a houseboat. However, to call this a “houseboat” is not doing this experience the justice it deserves. When I previously heard the word “houseboat” I thought of permanently docked and dilapidated houses that you see all the time on the shores of the waters around Seattle. However, this houseboat in Kerala is like a palace on wheels. Not only down is actually move through the water using a motor, but it also is fully furnished with multi-bedrooms and A/C. It also has a full staff that steers the boat and prepares all your meals. To make the deal even sweeter, it costs us a mere $50 US per night, which included the houseboat rental and all the King Fisher beer we drank.

Earlier in the week, we met 3 women in Goa that ended up sharing the houseboat with us which not only helped cut costs down, but also added some new blood to the mix to spice up our conversations. It also added more people in to play Uno with us which has taken over our down time

The 2 nights we spent on the boat were utterly amazing, filled with great food and unbelievable scenery. I’m anxious to post pictures when I get back to Seattle!

After the houseboat, we decided to splurge a bit and are currently staying at the 5-star Taj Malabar hotel in Kochi. This hotel is amazing, with super luxurious rooms, great amenities and a really posh infinity pool. The houseboat was the nicest from a scenery perspective, but this hotel is off the charts in terms of luxury. WOW!

Tommorow, we check out nice and early (6am!) to catch a morning flight to Mumbai where we’ll stay for just over a day before parting ways to our respective destinations.

For those anxious to see some photos, here is a photo I snagged while waiting for a 1 rupee (yes, 1 rupee) ferry in Kochi. Gotta love the penetration of communism

See everyone on the 11th in Seattle!

I arrived safe and sound in Mumbai the other day and have been desperately trying to acclimate myself to the sudden weather change from 20 degrees Fahrenheit in Beijing to the 90 degrees in Mumbai. Having grown up in Vancouver, my comfort zone seems to be 40 to 80 degrees. Anything outside that range, I’m pretty uncomfortable. In a conversation this morning, however, I decided I would prefer to freeze to death than overheat that’s for sure

My time in Mumbai has been largely unremarkable as I didn’t have too much of an affinity for this city. We went to the famous Elephanta Island for an afternoon where I found out that (a) the elephant that was on this island was relocated to a zoo a long time ago and (b) it’s hilarious to see Chaitanya get attacked by a wild monkey for his bottle of drinking water

Fil joined up with us today and we’ll continue the rest of travels together. We’re leaving tommorow morning for Mahabaleshwar to meet up with Craig, which will be great since I haven’t seen him since before Thanksgiving. Suraj will be joining us closer to New Year’s in Goa and is the first time any of us have seen him since his departure from Seattle in August.

Here are 2 photos we took one from my tiny point-and-shoot and one from Fil’s Fuji F31d.

This one was taken inside the cab from Shaheen’s aunt’s place to the restaurant of the night. The cab had this crazy blue colored light inside that we asked the driver to turn on:

Fil is a genius when it comes to panaromas! This one was taken in the famous Trishna restaurant:

Goodbye Mumbai, hello Mahabaleshwar!