..:: 665. The One With Incredible India ::..

shall backtrack some of my entries. touched down this morning at 7am and had a mad rush to go to work. got briefing by my boss which took 6 hours and everyone was "congratulating" me on my new post being "challenging". ya i get the hint. in charge of careers of few thousand men and women is no joke. at least i can take pride in managing careers of others.

left office at around 7 plus and i was so freaking tired that i had to take a cab back. morning: airport to home to work cost me 54 dollars and back home it was 15 dollars. i seriously miss the 1 dollar auto rides in india...

at home out of a sudden, i dunno why, there was a surge of emotions. flashbacks of what i will be doing if i were still in india, the nice people that i have met just resurfaced. i cried. yes, i also cannot believe. i guess the girls probably cried or teared at some point during the trip, but mine though was a little late but still noteworthy. i didnt cry when i came back from my 6 mth trip to china but a month in india was enough to garner that much tears. i guess i was forced to move out of my comfort zone, explored and had really low expectation (initial reluctance to go india), but ended up being surprised by the culture and its people.

another testament that i heart india is that i rather spend some time blogging my best moments in india than to sleep though i am freaking tired.

things i would miss in india:

1. hagging over price for auto - ultimate fun to see them calling you back or laughing at us when we quote ridiculous price. usually i just laughed with them.

2. 55rs (S$1.50) all-you-can-eat thali. enuff said.

3. 20rs (less than S$1) for 1kg of mangoes. the satisfaction you get from peeling the mango and eating it without cutting is priceless.

4. hoping into clubs in goa for free. party all night, having dj knowing our fave pokerface song. staying just 50m away from the club and 200m away from the beach is just pure heaven.

5. bumping into real hardcore backpackers and hearing their stories. overland trips that lasted few years. those were the people that made me feel like travelling full-time. haiz. also made me realise my ideal partner must love travelling. there is just so much to learn from...

6. my nepalese german baker. shant reveal too much details but i wake up early every morning for this. i meant the pastries.

7. staying in the temple at amritsar. communal eating and just basking in the shining golden temple. watching people so religiously and faithfully praying... their devotion is just a sight to behold.

8. guessing whether the couple is from an arranged or love marriage. met 2 completely different couples. one where the wife loves travelling, even while her station has reached, she was still looking at the pics i took while the husband was nonchalant, completely not interested in travelling.

the other couple who completely took us by surprise when they offered to let us stay over at their place. we didnt look friendly to each other until that mango juice spilled. their hospitality really touched me. the couple with a 5.5 mth son was in delhi for 6 mths before we met them on the train back to bangalore. the couple cleaned the house, made two nice beds for us. the husband even went to buy lunch for us, later groceries to cook dinner and when they knew we have supper in singapore, they made another meal around 9pm. their son was so endearing that i didnt know i could make so much funny noises to entertain the child.

9. naturally be meeting nice people. they were probably the ones that made me cry too. i felt so at home and the bed, it was one of my best sleep. i think what moved me was also their love story which i thought you could only see it in their bollywood movies. girl being older and of lower caste system, parents wanted to arrange marriage for her and told the guy that she was dating. the guy confessed his love and proposed. married "illegally" for the first time before getting approval and understanding from their parents in the second formal wedding. now seeing them fight for their happiness and they truly are enjoying having each other and with their son, no amount of words can describe that feeling.

10. nice weather of manali and scenery from leh. waking up to see the himalayan range, what more can you ask. walking around the neighbourhood, greeting strangers "joo-lay", everyone seems so friendly, even yash could hitchhike without problems.

11. good looking people at srinagar though jammu and kashmir got NO freaking phone reception due to security. guys were more rowdy but they were rare species of good lookers compared to the places we have seen. even yash was drooling and checking guys out. :P staying in a houseboat was fun though the toilet was a bit creepy. having birds watch you bathe, shit and pee just made me feel that the birds make pretty bad audience chirping away while i shit.

12. the AC train rides. should have taken more of those but definitely less of their on-the-board meals. we laughed our heads off everytime they serve main courses - egg briyani, veg briyani, veg thali. always the same thing for lunch and dinner x 2 days. people in our cable understood why we laughed but the poor waiter might be thinking we were laughing at his accent.

13. funny encounters. things you can carry with your heads. so you think you can squeeze (in a vehicle). funny pronounciation.

where is the payphone?
oh ma'am. tart floor.

tart? or so we thought.

third floor.