Fog

I’m tired and cranky. Had a fight with my landlady this morning – no matter. First, my little vacation. I’ll try to make this short, I’m sure you’re tired of my incessant chattering about my trips…plus I really need to get some real work done.

We headed to Gwalior on an early morning chair class train on Saturday. The thick, thick fog that northern India has been experiencing the last week caused our train to crawl along the track reaching Gwalior something like 6 hours after it was due. I enjoyed most of the trip in the chair-class seats staring out the open window, hanging out the door of the train and playing with a little boy named Tej. Gwalior wasn’t much of a town for 2 young women. I don’t think I even want to reiterate any of the “interesting” experiences I had I’ll just stick with the touristy stuff we did. Jen and I found a nice, cheap hotel and headed up to the fort (the largest one in India) to watch the “light and sound show” (yes light and sound show does sound corny and yes it was but it was interesting). The next morning we wondered around the massive (and impressive fort) taking way too many pictures.

In the afternoon we visited an old palace of the Scindi’s (the decedents actually still live in a section of the palace but the rest is left for us tourists) it was fascinating, weird and eccentric.

We left Gwalior soon after that, taking a local bus to Jhansi (or original plan was to stop at Datia and surrounding areas but with the fog we didn’t have time) I love Indian buses. Sure they’re a bit bumpy and the non-existent padding on the chair = a really sore ass but you see so much and they’re so cheap! Once we reached Jhansi we tried desperately to ward off persistent Tempo and auto drivers and headed on another local bus to Orccha. Orccha proved to be a small bustling town. The views were amazing, temples and forts poking out from the trees and landscape in every direction. We spent a day and a half wondering around the “ruins” eating pancakes and looking at the expensive little shops that have popped up obviously to try and take in the tourist dollar.



Then we headed back to Jhansi, realized with the fog and such there was nothing to see and changed our ticket for the more expensive train, hoping it would get us into Delhi at a reasonable hour. 2:30am I finally headed home.

I know that was horribly boring, but I can’t help it. At least this way I remember things.

On another note today is the anniversary of the day I left India 4 years ago and the longest night of the year. Is that suppose to be symbolic?

Anywhoo off to work…so much to do!!