Namaste

I have so much to write about in Vietnam and China, and I can't believe I am so far behind. But I wanted to at least check in, and say hello from India - namaste it is here. While other places may not have looked or felt quite as I expected, India so far is exceeding every dream - and nightmare. Our car from the airport was much too small for the 5 of us (I am back with the girls now, we met up in Shanghai, and we are happily joined by Mike, a friend from Korea); our hostel was welcoming and warm (I will definitely thaw out here from my five days in Beijing) and serves free breakfast on the rooftop, but to get there we must walk past the public and doorless urinals at the end of the street. We have already learned when to hold our collective breath and close our eyes (to the man puking out the bus window behind the taxi), but open them again immediately to the delight of the most beautiful textiles I have ever seen - I already bought four new scarves - and buildings that amaze and give photography a real inspiration. It is nice to get a change from Asian architecture and patterns and sizes that we have grown to expect. Here in Delhi we visited the Ghandi museum and his place of cremation, Humayan's tomb which was constructed to look like the Taj Mahal - a preview of what's to come for us - and drove around some of the more dangerous and poverty-stricken areas with a government provided driver for safety. It's a whole other world like I've never experienced, not even in Korea and certainly not in the backpacker-driven roads of Southeast Asia.