Amritsar and the Sikhs

We added one antenna to our triangle because we weren't quite ready to say goodbye to India yet. We flew 1.5 hours north of Delhi to Amritsar: home of the golden temple, capital of the Sikh religion.
It was 40 degrees and very humid as you will notice by our sweaty photos. But our visit was one of the best, most unique experiences. The Sikh people were so lovely and friendly. Many wanted their photo with us. They were especially intrigued by Brandon's Arabian version of the turban. He had it arranged for him by a man on the street. There are some how to photos below.
We took some photos in front of the temple. Can you tell it was laundry day? Also the ground was so hot and we had to have bare feet so there were some painful moments.
We then went for free (by donation) lunch. The kitchen at the temple feeds 40,000-60,000 pilgrims everyday. It was an amazing operation. We picked up a metal plate and bowl downstairs, waited in line for a few minutes, then entered a huge room where everyone sat on the ground in rows. Men came up and down the rows, pouring food onto our plates or dropping roti into our hands. There was dal, potato curry, rice, and some sort of tapioca. I have never been stared at so much! It was a little overwhelming when we were standing in line to get in the room. We were the only non Indian people there. But I smiled and we chatted with some of the people. The Sikhs liked patting Brandon on the back. We were definitely feeling the love. To top it all off, our tummies felt totally settled after that meal.
We also discovered a restaurant called Crystals. It was confusing, though, because on that corner, there were about 4 Crystals restaurants. 2 were fast food/ ice cream stalls which were not what we were looking for. The original Crystals has split into two because of a family split: one upstairs and one downstairs. I became very confused because of the number of restaurants and the fact that one of them had two floors. We narrowed the search down to the sit down restaurants side by side. Both had security officers waving us into their respective restaurants. So I showed the two 'sit down' restaurants the entry in my guidebook asking, "Is this you?". During this time, Brandon was trying to explain that these two side by side restaurants were in fact what the book was talking about. The restaurant on the main floor got frustrated and waved us away. Our decision was made! We had some really great tandoori fish and the next night we went to the other Crystals (which had the exact same food!)

The Golden Triangle

Here are some of our highlights (in order of appearance) from sightseeing in Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra:
1. Chadni Chowk: directly translated mean 'moonlight on the water'; this place was the exact opposite of its translation. Completely chaotic, crowded, and exciting, this is where I found 4 men carrying an ATM using a stick and rope contraption. Pretty amazing!
2. Red Fort: had an awesome museum and lovely red colour. Highlight of the museum: life size dioramas! The best one depicted a fight between the. British and the Indians in which an Indian lady was on a horse, wielding a sword, with a BABY strapped to her back!
3. Lotus temple for Bahai faith. We went in and prayed. My prayer= thankfulness.
4. The Sufi singers. This was my favourite sight. We joined the masses of pilgrims and headed to a mosque through tiny streets lined with stalls selling flowers and prayer cards. We reached the mosque to find drummers and chant/singers sitting together making some amazing music. It was one of the most soul stirring events I've been to. (I have a video of this which I dont know how to upload via my phone)

Onto Jaipur. Unfortunately our driver, Ali, took us to Agra first. Luckily I noticed and we detoured to Jaipur along some pretty back roads (where we saw lots of cows!). This added 3 hours to our journey. We laughed about it...the next day.
5. The water palace. As you can see in the photo below where we are facing each other, our driver has a future in engagement photo shoots.
In Jaipur, we took our one and only yoga lesson. It was very different! Our yogi was exactly what you would picture: dressed all in white, tiny body, huge glasses. We began by thanking God. During our practice, we heard lots of: 'slowly slowly' and 'now rest and relax the body'. Our class ended with forced laughter which turned into real laughter.
Onto Agra...
6. The Taj Mahal. We saved the best for last. An Indian poet called it a teardrop on the cheek of time. We went at sunrise and it was beautiful.

I don't know if the photos will stay in order so hopefully you can figure out which is which. Also featured, Brandon eating a dosa (like an Indian taco) that took up two plates, Brandon snake charming, and the crab we ate for dinner one night.

Volunteering

We spent 4 mornings with Missionaries of Charity (Mother Theresa's organization). They run an orphanage in Old Delhi. We ended up walking over from our hotel with a family from Switzerland. They had adopted their daughter at the orphanage 12 years ago. The sister in charge wasn't there when we visited the first day so we went the next morning. The kids were having their hair brushed and I asked a nun if we could volunteer with them, explaining that I had called from Dubai a month ago. She said to go in and teach the kids something and she would find the sister superior. The kids were very excited to see us. They smiled and grabbed our hands. There were about 13 kids about 5 or 6 years old. In order to 'teach them something', I decided to sing some camp songs with them. They loved 'Bananas Unite', 'the Beaver Song' ( there are some fun sound effects in this song: chchch), 'head,shoulders,knees,and toes' as well as the hokey pokey. We also taught them 'Duck, duck, goose' which took a bit of practice. We noticed that if the kids weren't choosing one of us as the goose, they were choosing a kid sitting beside one of us. They were very sweet kids who loved our attention. We asked the nuns how the kids came to them and they said sometimes the police would bring them. They said the kids are often adopted by Indians and by international couples. They said that some of the kids were going to be sent to a special orphanage because they had learning difficulties, speech difficulties, or, as they put it, "one screw loose". The nuns knew a lot about the kids and showed them a lot of love. There were also some young ladies who are paid to help take care of the kids. The didn't speak much English, but were very nice. We read the kids some books and the ladies would practice their pronunciation. The ladies were also an asset when we taught the kids 'duck, duck, goose' as they understood what was supposed to happen and explained to the kids in Hindi. We realized the hard way, the next day, that they were also keeping the kids in line. So day 2, we arrived pretty tired and the kids went a little crazy. With no way to discipline them or explain what we wanted from them (because the nuns and the helper ladies left us with the kids on our own), we felt a little lost. We took them down to the basement so that we would have more room to play 'duck, duck, goose', but they wanted to play with the toys they had down there. We took them out to their little playground and played a bit of catch. We had to get one of the nuns to help us to get them to come back inside for some ending of our day songs. We decided to come back more prepared the next day. So, after a long nap, we went in search of some colouring books. On our way, we met a traveller with a small guitar. He sold it to us for a good price happy to be helping the kids out. He turned out to be a lot like my brother A.J. Not just because he had started drinking the water in India, traveled with a small guitar, and had wounds on his legs that wouldn't heal, but also because he was very kind, open-minded, and easy to talk with. Anyways, we found some crayons, colouring books and connect the dots (which we got the hotel to photocopy for free!). We felt like we had a couple more days' worth of activities. The next day, when we got there, the kids were working on their printing. We sat with them, helped them, and drew/wrote some examples in their scribblers. We showed them how our names were written and learned a few of theirs: Pinky, Teena, Ajay, and Asus. It wasn't uncommon for me to glance over and see kids climbing on Brandon, pointing at the items on his t-shirt, or linking arms with him while they wrote. When we set them up later with their connect the dots, Brandon's table had all the boys at it. After writing practice, we sang some songs and the kids were totally mesmerized by the 'geetar'. Many of them imitated the motions of Brandon's guitar playing.
They loved the connect the dot even though many of their pictures didn't quite look like a rabbit. The ears were a little squiggly on some. The girl with cataracts wanted me to show her exactly where to draw her lines. The nuns, who had dropped in, told the kids "botacha!" (very good) when they presented their drawings. They told us to leave our address and they would send us a Christmas card. They said they would pray for us (I felt like I'd just received the best offer ever) and asked that we would pray for them.
Our final day passed just as easily as the third. Brandon gave all the kids a turn to strum the guitar. Only Asus had a tough time waiting in the line we set up. The kids loved strumming the guitar and Asus starting singing a random song, so Brandon played the chords for Twinkle, Twinkle. There was a new little boy about one and a half who joined us. He ran into the room, smiling at me, and put his hands up to be held. I picked him up and gave him a big hug. He did the same thing with the nuns and loved to be held. He laughed and smiled the whole time. He also did some side to side swaying as well as marching to the music. I'm not sure why he was there on the last day, (all the rest of the really young kids stayed upstairs) but I think I will often remember his joy and ability to reach out and love.
(I don't have pictures because there was a sign that you could only take them with permission.)

Delhi

We have been in the Indian capital for three days, but it feels more like three weeks. I prepared myself for the sadness, poverty, and crowdedness. Instead, of feeling overwhelmed by negativity, however, I find myself overwhelmed with humanity and life. I do not feel sad for the people who sleep on the streets (there are lots). Instead, I find people's desire to carry on and carve a life out of this hectic place amazing.
We have managed to stay in one of the most beautiful hotels, the Oberoi Maiden in Old Delhi. I chose this one because it is close to the Mother Theresa house for orphans. We have been volunteering two hours per morning with kids about 3-5 years old. We have even more respect for teachers who teach this young age. It had been tiring us out a lot! We mostly sing songs and play duck duck goose. Classroom management is tough! But the kids are happy to see us so that makes it worth it.
When I was mentally preparing myself for India, I forgot to get ready for people who would 'trick' us. There are some very kind people who led us away from the train station where we wanted to buy tickets, and sent us to the 'information' centre a few kms away. It was a very elaborate scheme that upset and offended me while Brandon felt amazement and respect. It turned out that there were no train tickets anyways, and we would need to hire a car. We hired one with what we thought was a government tourist agency. When we realized our mistake, we went to the government agency. They told us we had been overcharged . To make a long story short, we decided to stick with our original booked tour. Brandon observed that the private tour company was working harder for our money. It was a big adjustment for me to "play" this game for which I didn't understand the rules. We ended up going for dinner with our tour company friend and had the most interesting time! He had a lot to say about history, spirituality, and psychology (in between trying to convince us to book more tours with him!) We understand how things work a lot more now and really respect this complex amazing country. As our tour guy says, "It's incredible!" (thats the slogan for India tourism). He took us back to his apartment which was not big. He lives with his brother in law who went out to get us chicken and then found us a rickshaw when it was time to go.
We had a crazy and amazing time! We also found a lovely cafe near our hotel. Picture below. Also featured below: our first rickshaw ride (during the scam). Did I mention that the Indian food rocks here?!

The Mediterranean Coast

We spent three nights at Onur Motel in Faralya on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. When we arrived, the owner of the motel pointed to himself and said Mike. We therefore assumed that was his name. We were mistaken and discovered halfway through our stay that his name was in fact Onur. We are still unsure of the explanation of our first meeting. We were treated to a delicious homemade Turkish dinner. Yay!
Our first night was a very noisy one. Between the very loud insects, roosters, and calls to prayer, I didn't feel like I got to sleep at all. The next day, we went in search of a different brand of malaria medication. After reading the frequency of the side effects (hair loss, hallucinations, depression, anxiety, hearing loss, etc.), I really wanted to find the alternative.
We took the minibus into the main town only to find that the brand of medicine we were looking for was unavailable in Turkey. One bonus: we found some awesome earplugs which blocked the "ooch ooch" (Onur's imitation of the insect's persistent noise).
We bit the bullet and took our original medicine. So far so good! We still have all our hair and I was already talking in my sleep before we took the medicine, so Im chalking up weird dreams to changing location every 3 days.
We recovered from our fruitless search by relaxing back at the motel. We sat up on their terrace, used the internet, read and enjoyed the cherries and gum (?) that were brought to us by Mike/Onur.
The next day, Brandon went diving and saw two octopi. Turns out the hectapus charm that he bought in Istanbul worked! I 'snorkeled' which consisted of looking at water and sand. Brandon thinks he got made fun of a lot by his dive leader and buddy because he would hear his name, some Turkish, and then a bunch of laughing.
Our last day, we tried to hike down to Butterfly Valley. It was more of a climb down a cliff which had ropes to help you down the harder parts. When we got to the part with the rope, I decided to turn around. Brandon said that if he had been there with his friend Matt Friar, he would have kept going. Sorry to not be as daring as Matt, but glad to be alive, I found us a restaurant in the next town called the Olive Garden. It was right on a cliff, overlooking a beautiful beach, and the food was delicious!
Onur drove us to the airport and when we shook his parents' hands goodbye (they help run the place and his mom does the cooking), I couldn't help but feel just like I was leaving my grandparents'.
Onto Jordan, but first a Turkish ice cream at the airport.

Capadoccia highlights

1. First ever hot air balloon ride over some really cool rock formations. These were caused by the eruptions of the nearby volcano. People lived in the caves in the rocks until the caves starting doing what caves do (caving in). There are also rocks that are called fairy chimneys. It was very neat watching the balloons get ready. When we landed we had some champagne. It seemed a little early at 7:30 am
2. Esbelli Evi : a cave hotel. This is my favourite hotel of all time. Our first room had a door to a cave with an escape tunnel. I told Brandon he was only allowed to hang out in there during the day and it went without saying that he wasn't allowed to scare me from there. The breakfast was amazing and it was so quiet!
3. Underground city! Super cool place where the Christians used to hide from their enemies. We both agreed that we would never be able to live there (especially after being semi lost and going in a circle twice) and that the enemy didn't have a chance. I'm not claustrophobic, but the longest tunnel (which involved some serious hunching) was way too long for me.
4. Ziggy's: awesome mezze and wine. This is where I liked an olive for the first time!

Long story short

Finally it was our last day in Istanbul. We liked it, but were ready for a break from the big city. So it was laundry time.
Power outage = 7 kg of steaming + wet laundry - affordable dryer < No help from hostel manager= taking to the streets in search of a laundromat
Streets= 2 self proclaimed Turkish actors wanting to help us out.
Search for laudromat= drycleaners = 20$ drying job =3$/kilo (weighed wet)
Time to take two of the nicest people in Turkey for tea.
Tea= facebook + email exchange + promise to find Mustafa a Canadian girlfriend - a bit of spray on sunscreen Mustafa wanted to try after seeing me use it
4 pm = laundry pickup time
Brandon convinces the dry cleaner to weigh the now dry laundry
Us = + $7.50 dry cleaner= - $7.50
Final answer: We are pretty glad the power went out :) Sometimes people's kindness is surprising and completely genuine. For anyone interested, Mustafa is the one without the mustache and judging by his enjoyment of spray on sunscreen, he'll fit into Canadian culture well.