DRIVING... SOOO MUCH DRIVING

Basically I am just going to give you what we did today in one one sentence. WE DROVE. It’s was terrible! After the first hour I was feeling pretty good. Second hour hour was getting uncomfortable. Third hour left me numb in odd places. Fourth hour numbed all of me. Fifty hour was pure torture. And finally, sixth hour I was literally planning out what my funeral was gonna look like. I AM STILL NUMB. I have no clue how people survive car rides, because I would definitely die on one of those things.

Anyway, six hours of driving later, we arrived at our hotel. It’s pretty cute. It looks like a place out of a secret garden! There’s flower paintings everywhere, and the place looks incredibly old. The view on the roof though is breathtaking. You can see the fort from here, and all the clustered buildings with lights on them. They are lucky to have such a nice view, because their bathroom is very... special. It has pink walls, floor, ceiling, snd toilet. It doesn’t even come with soap or toilet paper. Tara is trying to get the shower water working right now, but it’s still freezing. But is it even really a shower? It doesn’t even have a curtain, and the water is flowing all over the bathroom. ITS PRETTY BAD. The rest of my family seems ok about this place, apparently just me.

When we got to the hotel, we walked around to stretch our legs. We saw some of the markets that were selling cloth and little trinkets. We saw cows and horses strolling down the street. We even saw about 10 close calls to losing various limbs in all the traffic! The traffic was HORRIBLE. I am already saying goodbye to my arms in legs if we have to go through that again. Motorcycle and little buggy’s were riding crazily on sidewalks and into people, all the while blaring their horns as loud a possible. IT WAS CRAZY. VERY, VERY, CRAZY.

When we got back to the hotel I ate nan bread, and an omelet. Then it was off to bed! Well, after Tara gets the shower working that is. It’s still being a struggle. Welp, night! STAY TUNED!!!

AMBER FORT + MARKET

This morning we woke up. Pretty surprising huh? Then we got ready to see the Amber Fort. When we got there, we walked around. IT WAS AWESOME. There were stairs and tunnels everywhere, so we could travel as deep as we wanted into the walls of this fort. This is where I come in. I was the leader through all this. I wasn’t a great one though. I kept taking all these dark old tunnels that you had to use flashlights to get through. I don’t think we were really supposed to go through those. Going through them though led to many interesting discoveries though. We came across 6 old toilets! Like I was saying, great discoveries. Our biggest discovery, was when we came across the inside of someone’s house. Oops. It was cool though! I think my hidden identity is actually Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, after that, Tara took over. If you ask me, I was WAY better at navigating than she was. Turns out, all she wanted to find was the exit. 

The rest of journey today was spent in the market. We were supposed to go to the market more open to tourists, but somehow we found our place to the wrong one. WE WERE SWARMED. People were shoving things in our face and yelling things like “come buy this!” Or “You like? You like?” 

Our popularity was definitely showing at the market today. It was kind of creepy. If you took a quick glance around, you would see about ten faces looking our way. Don’t judge Tara and I, but we actually started a game. Basically, if a boy looks or at you for an extended period of time, or winks at you, or takes a selfie with you, you get one boyfriend point. I know. It’s really bad. Just hang with me. But the rule is, they have to be your age, and you have to call them out as the act is happening. I have at 14 points and Tara is at 19. She is cheating though! She made up those two rules after she made like 7 boyfriends that did not apply with those rules. Those rules came around when I started in on the game. SHE IS A CHEATER. But yeah. There you go! You probably didn’t want to know that, but there it is anyway!!! 

After that we went and got henna. Me, Tara, and mom. Tara got a flower on her ankle, and mom and I got designs on our wrist and hands. I tried to convince dad to get some of his head, but he sadly declined. BUT IT WOULD HAVE LOOKED SO GOOD!!! Couldn’t you just imagine a little galaxy design on his head? It would make it look EXTRA shiny.

After journeying back the the hotel, eating non bread for dinner, and crawling back into bed, I am dying to sleep. I technically just pulled another all-nighter back in Colorado. Bye!!!

THE END. STAY TUNED.

TAJ MAHAL AND THE RED FORT

Today we woke up and ate toast and eggs, (which was much much MUCH better than that tofu sandwich on the plane). Then we got ready to go to the Taj Mahal! Our driver picked us up around 9, and drove us there along with a tour guide. It was AMAZING. And amazing is even saying the least of it. It was so much more detailed then I had ever seen in pictures. I could imagine why though, because I couldn’t even capture it on camera. It was absolutely gorgeous. While we were there, we actually had a lot of popularity! It was just like China again. People would ask to take selfies with us, and then other families would come in and take pictures, until we were taking a selfie with people from three different families. Even then, while we were taking that big selfie, other random people would come take pictures of that one big selfie! It was crazy. When we were taking family photos people would be taking pictures of us, like they knew us. Some people were “sneaky” and snuck a picture of us in a selfie that they were taking. I could DEFINITELY get used to this. Who wants to move to India with me?

Afterwards, we headed to the red fort. It was really cool. We saw views of the Taj Mahal, and got to look around at the red brick and marble fort. Honestly, I wasn’t fully engaged though, because it was 12am in Colerado. I HATE JET LAG. Technically, I stayed up all night for the past two days. If I wasn’t tired at all, I would think something was wrong with me...

Now it’s time for the good blogging part. LUNCH. Oh how I love lunch. Today’s lunch was especially good!!! It was really expensive though. Our driver keeps taking us to expensive places, but it’s kinda hard to say no, especially when he has really bad English. THIS PLACE WAS AWESOME! They had a fountain, and a big buffe. Surrounding us was a basically a big wall of leaves and flowers. Tara got non bread. I got egg noodles. Dad had Chicken Tika Makini. And mom had... well... u know... the usual. Nothing. She was feeling bad from the rice she had the other day. And she says her teeth were throbbing? I don’t know, don’t ask. So anyway, it was really good! Despite the hundreds of flies swarming our table, I would give that place five stars! Sadly, the rest of today’s journey was in the car driving for 5 and 1/2 hours. I will forever be emotionaly scarred from that long car ride. Close to the end of it, I touched my hand to my other hand and lifted it up. I thought there was a body in the car! But nope. Just my hand. My brain isn’t working anymore. Or has it ever worked?

Now we are in the hotel (which is actually decently nice for once! They actually have a shower curtain!) and we are about to go eat dinner. DINNER. THE ONE THING THAT IS ALMOST AS GOOD AS LUNCH. ALMOST. Welp. Bye friends!!!

 

FROM NEW DELHI TO AGRA

This morning we woke up and went down the street for breakfast. We had egg sandwiches, cereal, tea, a banana, and a chocolate muffin. Just saying, I am 99.999% sure that there was something other then chocolate in there. It tasted... special? Just saying. Afterwards, we made our we down the street to look around. Ok, picture this: There were a bunch of tattered and breaking houses literally stacked on top of one another. A LOT of homeless dogs were just roaming about sniffing everything. The traffic was horrific. Cars were honking every few milliseconds. Cows were just wandering down the streets doing there business in plain sight, leaving large smelly lumps of green everywhere. (Just going to state, those things are squishy! Unfortunately I have plenty of experience with them now). People were all over, selling fruit and clothes throughout the street. Some people were really persistent about getting us to buy items too. Others were just sitting by a fire on the sidewalk. Most of the time, the sidewalk was ignored by drivers, and motorcycles would speed right down them. Get the picture? We walked down there for a little bit, and then headed back to the hotel, because someone was going to be driving us to Agra. He was a pretty cool guy. He gave us five bags of curry chips for the car ride! FIVE BAGS!!! He also took us to an Indian restaurant which was really good. Then he dropped us off at Mehtab bahg. It’s that garden that overlooks the Taj Mahal. It was really beautiful. The garden was HUGE, and it was filled with old trees and small shrubs. We were about a mile away from the back of the Taj, and we could still see every little destail so clearly. We didn’t spend too much time there though, since we would be exploring it tomorrow too. After that, we rode to our hotel. During the ride we saw A LOT of animals. Ready for this? Chickens, goats, camels, dogs, cows, horses, and monkeys. All of these animals were just chilling out on the road, dispite the varying pitched honks being beeped their way. We are meeting a lot of great people on this trip so far. Everyone is super friendly, and is eager to show us around. Most of these people aren’t used to Americans, so they jump at the chance to practice their English. The little boys and girls are especially adorable! Sadly we are experiencing a lot of poverty in India. It makes me realize how truly blessed we are to live in America with our big cars and houses. We don’t have to worry about where we are going to get our next meal, or how we are going to keep our family alive and healthy. I think it’s really important that we are in a third world country, so we can understand more about Gods creation, and how much he has blessed us. I think our trips going really smoothly right now, and we still have a lot to discover and a lot more to learn from it. STAY TUNED!

       

THE START OF OUR TRIP

Hello! Goodness, I haven’t been on this app in a while. Three years, right? Yikes, that’s crazy. Welcome to the cheesy version of this trip to India, which is seeing it through the eyes of Riley. This is going to be very interesting... anyway, back to business. Right now we are on a plane to Paris at 7:10A.m. In case some of you don’t quite understand what A.m means, it is IN THE MORNING, THE TIME IN WHICH RILEY SHOUDLD BE IN BED, THE TIME IN WHICH THE SUN ITSELF IS TOO TIRED TO WAKE UP. This means that Riley is going to be very cranky, and I mean VERY cranky. I also only had a solid 45 minutes of sleep last night. I personally blame that one the three year old kid next to me. And the night before that we woke up at 4. My morning did not start out well either when I had a tofu sandwich with mushrooms and deflated lettuce. Mom said she ordered me a lactose free meal... but I am afraid they might have taken that as a vegetarian meal. Bleh. Oh well. Currently we are 45 miles from Paris. Yay! And then after that, we get to get on another plane. I have been sitting down for a legitimate 24 hours. I am feeling numb. This is not good. As long as a make it past this part though, then I am good. Well, good until the way back, that is. Yesterday we visited the mall of America. It was HUGE!!! A they had 4-5 pretty good sized rides in the place. It was awesome! As usual though, we were a little underdressed coming in there with our suitcases and backpacks on. Right now I am just counting on the fact that we would never see these people again. Hopefully. So, that was awesome! I got a burger and I think that’s gonna be the best part of the whole trip. Did u know there won’t be any burgers in India because they think that cows are there ancestors!?!? What do they expect me to eat? Tofu burgers? The one this morning was bad enough. So, yup. That’s our trip so far! We just landed in Paris are expected to get off soon. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Hello again! I might as well update you before I go to bed. We just got into India, and we have already seen so much on our way to the hotel. I have seen about 10 homeless dogs, a lot of smelly pollution, crazy drivers, torn up streets, and a big brown puddle that I might of accidentally stepped on. Oops. I should probably go to sleep now since it’s two, but I am hardly tired. Might as well try though! Goodnight, and Merry Christmas. It’s not not Christmas for us anymore, but, still. GOODNIGHT!!!