Change of plans once again – now in Amsterdam!

Alright, I did it again. I changed my plans and SO happy I did it. You come to realize on a long trip like this that you can only plan so much ahead of time. I took guesses on the dates I wanted to be in certain places and guessed the length of time I wanted to visit. But, until you are actually here to experience it, you really NEVER know what the final plans will be. And, now that I am sick, my original plan seems unimaginable. I have plans to fly back to India for a short 3 day stay to shadow Indian homeopathic doctors (oh how I want to do this SO badly!), then back to Thailand for 3 days to finally visit an Island, and then a stopover in Malaysia for another short 3 days until finally reaching Amsterdam. But this plan seems almost impossible now that I am sick :( I just want a comfy and clean bed to rest! I need to shake off this cold! Oh man, time to make sacrifices.

So with all of this came decision making time. Do I change my plans, forgo time back in India, Thailand and a new country, Malaysia and fly directly to Amsterdam? YES. I need to rest!

At this point I am so exhausted I have lost my curiosity and excitement to see new things and meet new people. :( What a horrible feeling. I feel like I am wasting time trying to pass the days by so I can finally truly rest up. Not my cup of tea.

So, I decided to change up my plans and find a flight directly to Amsterdam from Nepal. (When I say directly I mean 3 flights total lasting over 24 hours from start to finish) And that last flight was the worst experience for me. I was so nauseous - I vomited multiple times on the plane. NO FUN!

The hardest part of this decision was giving up my time shadowing the homeopaths in India. I am so very grateful to both Kim and Micki Elia for connecting me with these doctors. And specifically to Dr. Geeta who has worked hard on finding doctors for me to shadow. I am so very sad to have to pass up this amazing opportunity. Through this I have learned that we can't always do it all and have to make sacrifices along the way. This was definitely one of them. :(

Now that I made it to Amsterdam I am SO happy with my choice. I am here visiting with family - my cousin Steven, his wife and baby Amy and Ezra. My bed is AMAZING! I have a clean room, clean bathroom, oh and the kitchen is incredible! I can't wait to start cooking in it!!! Wow - the luxuries that are here. True culture shock! But at first I had no choice but to rest. After MANY hours of sleeping, lots of tissue boxes and remedies, I am just now starting to get my energy back again and feeling like myself again. Oh, how I missed you.

Indian and Nepalese food

Although I was dissapointingly not a big fan of the food, I wanted to still share some of the dishes that I thought were worth taking a picture of. And to clarify - it is not that I don't enjoy Indian food, it was just SO difficult to eat such hot and heavy curries meal after meal when it was SO hot outside. And since eating raw fruits and veggies were out of the question, the food was really difficult for me to eat. Nevertheless, I was fed so I am grateful for that!

Breakfast on the train. Comprised of Vadas - fried lentil/rice doughnuts over rice.With a side of coconut chutney and dahl.




Dosa - (My favorite Indian dish!) Dosas are similar to a crepe most commonly stuffed with a potato curry mixture. The crepe is made from a fermented lentil/rice flour batter.  It is declisious. It is a Southern Indian dish but can be found in select northern restaurants. It is served with a side of a spicy vegetable soup and coconut chutney. 




Fish curry naan bread.




Digestive aids - fennel seed and sugar




Kitchari. This is a dish seldomly seen on the menu, but I often asked for it and I was never turned down. I know about it through reading about ayurvedic medicine (traditional Indian medicine). It is a healing dish that is made simply of rice, pulses (legumes), and few spices. It is cooked for a long time to make it somewhat a porridge consistency.





Really yummy potato dish.





Vegetable Biryani




Nepal had very similar Indian dishes, but the two distinct Nepalese dishes were Dahl Baht (which was what I was served at my cooking course) and Momo's which are seen in the picture below. These are Chinese dumplings. Because Nepal sits between India and China, every menu had both Indian and Chinese options. 

The people I meet along the way

Taking the time to reflect and express gratitude to some more people I have met along my travels. 

Kristal and Ryan, from Canada, were such a great example of a wonderful husband and wife pair who make priorities to travel the world. The two of you brought such a calming energy to our group. I really enjoyed coming to you guys to reflect and share my feelings especially during the hardest times here in India. Thank you.

Janie, from England, has traveled the world more than anyone I have ever met. Her stories were fascinating and the amount of time she has spent volunteering in various organizations around the world inspires me! Enjoy the rest of your world journeys Janie! I am grateful you have come into my life, even if it was for only a short while.

Megan, from the US currently living in AZ, was another grounding energy on our tour and brought up memories of my life and community back in AZ which was a warm feeling. Happy birthday Megan!

Izaak from the US and Abdula from Australia confirmed how much I am in love with google (as they both work for the company). In particular, Izaak and I had a great connection as he is a genuinely caring man. And to top it off, his mother wrote a famous book on Homeopathy so we automatically had lots to talk about! I look forward to meeting her one day! Getting our homeopathy kits out together to help one another when we were sick was a really nice connection. And thank you to Jamie from England who was full of homeo questions for Izaak and I. We loved them!

And then there was the fun group of ladies – Emma and Lucy from England, Jane from Whales, and Gabby from Australia. My most favorite memory with them was  finding the single tuk tuk in town that played the best Indian music and getting lost finding our way back to our hotel all together. Good fun. Thanks girls for making me smile :) At it was a coincident that yet again I was assigned roommates with another 22 year old from England. What are the chances? Thanks Emma for some of those late night talks.

And there was Karen from Toronto (thanks for all the picture taking!), Chris from the US (thanks for all the jokes), and our tour guide Verun from India (BIG thanks for convincing me to visit Nepal!). We all made such a nice team.

It was great meeting all of you!

The best view of the world – the Himilayan Mountain Range!

This was AMAZING! Although I felt sick while in Kathmandu, I knew I couldn't pass up this opportunity. A flight over the Himilayan mountain range. AMAZING!
I will let the pictures speak for itself.
I HIGHLY recommend doing this flight if ever in Nepal. It was INCREDIBLE!

Everest on the left. Standing 29,000 feet!

This album is incredible! Click on the picture below.

Sick in Pokhara and Kathmandu :(

Oh man, this is no fun traveling while sick. It hit me again and this time it has been longer than just 24 hours. I am officially sick :( I caught a bad cold that has now gone into my chest and have a body wide rash. Boo. Zero fun especially being away from home and in a strange place. I just want to leave my hotel room and see this new town. It looks like fun! But nope - I'm stuck trying to rest up. I want to be in my own bed SO much right now! (And since my bed is in storage and I technically couldn't truly rest in it also upset me). And this is making me feel homesick too. Ugh - shake it off Elana.

Since I was sick I don't have much to say about Pokhara or much of Kathmandu. I pushed myself to walk around these cities and the gist I got from them is that they are FULL of outdoor gear stores (which I just LOVE), trekkers are roaming the streets taking a break from their multi day/week/month treks, and these cities seem like a lot of fun to explore. Pokhara is definitely more laid back compared to the busy town of Kathmandu, but although Kathmandu is busier I still really enjoyed the energy there. I think it's because there were so many outdoor enthusiasts roaming around which made me smile. I wish I could enjoy it more. I wish I could go trekking! But I had to keep on resting. :(

Here are some albums with a few pictures. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from Pokhara, because I was just too out of it to take any. But the first album are pictures from a Monkey Temple that we stopped at on our way from Pokhara to Kathmandu. Monkeys everywhere! Lots of fun. And the second album are a few shots of my time in Kathmandu when I was finally feeling a bit better.

A Nepalese Cooking Experience!

The ultimate cooking class experience is about to be told. Let me preface this post with a warning – There will be NO recipes included. Rather, this cooking adventure was filled with giggling, nail painting, and a dance party instead of learning any recipes. It was not what I had thought I signed up for….. it was WAY better!!

The course started out with two Nepalese women picking us up from where we were staying and walking us across this great flat field where we walked right passed cows, goats, and water buffalos with a river passing through. There were rice fields, corn rows, and potato fields. Men were spread out along the fields, squatting while holding umbrellas as they watched their herd of animals. This was a sight to see!  How lucky was I?!

When we arrived to this tiny village we were welcomed by beautiful girls. These Nepalese teenagers showed me a wonderful time! We couldn’t get enough of each other J

Maya was the leader of the group. She was 16 years old and knew the most amount of English (which was still VERY little). Maya took us into her home which was a mud hut and had us sit on a bamboo mat in her kitchen. I COULD NOT believe this kitchen. I thought the Kitchen in India was unimaginable to cook in – this one was even more shocking. We sat in a dark enclosed room, on a dirt floor with two fire pits to hold two pots. The steam in the kitchen EASILY filled the room so girls would hold pieces of fabric on sticks to create manual fan for us. Wow – what an eye opener. I valued my kitchen SO much after this. And I mean SO much! Keep in mind that this picture below has a ton of light because of my flash. It truly was very dark in there.

We peeled potatoes with rusted knives and cut them with curved knives held steady between our toes. We crushed spices and chilies between a rounded rock and a flat rock. We scrubbed plates with muddy leaves and rinsed them with well water. There was no joking around with this cooking course – we were cooking with the locals. It was AMAZING!

 

But, this was only the beginning of the fun. While the rice and lentils were cooking, the girls took us around the village. Before I knew it we are painting each other’s nails and having a dance party in one of the huts. “Boom boom boom boom…. I want you in my room”. Yes, we were dancing to American pop music and having a blast!!!  We giggled like school girls and took so many pictures as the girls really loved seeing their picture on the digital cameras. We had SO much fun! 

 

 

After the dance party, Maya took me around to all of the girl’s huts to show me their bedrooms. The fanciest part of Sunu’s room, age 14, was her hot pink mosquito net over her bed. How lucky was this 14 year old girl? Angelina, age 10, had the luxury for an actual plug in fan. Wow – she was lucky! This was the ONLY prized possession of an electric fan in all of the huts I visited that day. Wow – now she was lucky! Sapana, age 12, had a TV in her hut AND a makeup box. We got even fancier. Her makeup box included the essentials for any 12 year old girl. Face whitening powder, face whitening lotion, bindi’s (sticker between your eye’s), and black eyeliner. Isn’t she lucky? And Maya’s room had none of the above mentioned luxuries. Just a dirt floor and a wooden table as a bed.  Please take a moment to be grateful for those very small things in life we ALL take for granted. Please take just one minute to consider the “luxuries” we have like a mattress, doors, and a shower. 
This room below was a grandmothers room :(

So now that my nails were painted and my body was dripping with sweat from our dance party – dinner was  ready to be eaten! We are welcomed back into the hot and steamy kitchen where we sat on the bamboo mat once again and were served our meal. The girls joined us for dinner and one of the mother’s served each of us one at a time. First on the plate was rice – a big serving worth. Next – Dahl. Third – Potato’s. Fourth – Tomato and Chili stir fry. I have really no idea how exactly this was all made – but I didn’t care. I was SO happy to be eating with my new friends!

And what better way to experience this meal but eating with our own dirty hands??!  Yummy!

This was an incredible experience. Definitely one of the highlights of my entire trip so far. Although I left with no recipes, I left with a full belly, a plethora of memories to keep, and most meaningful to me - the value of the luxuries I have in my life. Thanks Maya, Sapana, Angelina, and Sunu for a fantastic day!! These cultural experiences are what I live for during my travels! They make up the best days!

Click on this picture below for more great shots of this memorable experience!

Chitwan National Park – More elephant riding!

We made it to our second stop – Chitwan National Park. This place was perfect! Check out the view from the deck!

We woke early the next morning for a free elephant ride through the jungle. Oh how my nephew, Noah, is going to love his Aunt Elana on yet ANOTHER elephant!! Here are pictures for you Noah!

It was a fun group activity included in my tour, but I am still not too keen on riding elephants because I feel so bad about these wild animals being domesticated and treated poorly. But, it was still good fun and now my nephew can smile once again looking through these pictures! I miss you Noah!

Elephants roam around the town here in Chitwan. Often you see an Elephant roaming down the major street as it is just another mode of transportation for the locals. I found it strange that when I first saw this I didn’t even think twice how unusual it was. At that moment I realized that I have been away for a while now. If this was my first day on my journey, I would have been completely amazed. Today, I didn’t even need to look twice. It just felt normal. Wow – going back to the US is sure going to be a culture shock now.

Click on this picture for the entire album.

Oh how I love Nepal! – Lumbini

Alright, I DEFINITELY made the right decision. Nepal is beautiful! The landscape is beautiful, the people are beautiful, and it is drastically calmer than India – which is a beautiful thing! All of that anxiety got left behind and now I feel alive and back to my normal self! What a wonderful feeling. I can now really enjoy all that Nepal has to offer!

Our first stop was in Lumbini – where Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) was born. I got to visit the Bodhi tree in which his mother gave birth to him under.  It was incredible! There were prayer flags everywhere. My heart sank. My inner child came out again. It came out finally! Oh how I missed you. I absolutely loved the energy there. I sat under the tree, walked around the tree, smiled at the tree. I just couldn’t get enough of that tree!!!

After visiting Lumbini we set out for a scenic 5 hour bus ride. We went into the lush green jungle of Nepal – reminded me a lot of what Laos looked like. Oh trees! How I have missed you so! Fresh air, slight breeze, and finally some color to please my eyes! It took today for me to truly appreciate what nature does to my spirit. It lifts it so high and brings such inner peace. I missed that while in India. Not once did I see greenery in the places I visited. Just dirt and brown. I am so grateful to be in Nepal!

Click on this picture for the entire album