Flying down the Home Stretch

Hi, Linda here,
Well we finally made it to Heathrow, halfway home and uneventful so far, Shhh...shouldn't say that too loud! The girls have had lots of adventures/mis-adventures and dealt pretty well
We had fun the last day in Mumbai, visited the Ghandi Musem,street shopped some more, Chelsea is quite the pro haggler,explored the Prince of Whales Museum and took pix at the big stone Gate of India, on the shore, that was erected for one of the royal heirs in the late 1800's and through which the Brits marched and loaded onto ships to leave India when they gained independence in '48. Actually, we are ourselves the subject of lots of photos by the locals as we are all dressed the same, light-skinned with lots of blonds, people thrust their kids onto our laps and and line up next to us for pictures, we all now feel we are being hounded by paparazzi, ask Maura,especially, but no one has been immune!
Everyone is looking forward to seeing their families and relating their adventures and the journals should be fun reading. We kept lists, from animals walking down the middle of the road to the ranking of Tomato soup at every lunch and dinner stop! We had a great time, India is such a land of contrasts and many of us are looking forward to returning in the future, its been GREAT !! No regrets and you should all visit this exotic and humbling world!
Linda

July 16-17

Hey! This is Lynn! Yesterday (16 July) we had a 6 hour bus ride from Udaipur to Jodhpur. We arrived in Jodhpur after 4 pm, so it was kind of late and we didnt have much time left in the day to sight see. Jodhpur is the blue city which is the color of the bramhins. We saw the clock tower and walked around at the market. Some people bought bangles and tea/spices. We also went into another textile store and saw beautiful patchwork bed covers and wall hangings. We ate late and that's why I couldnt blog yesterday. (It was also our last dinner with Charon, our bus driver, and Amieet, the driver's assistant.)
Today, we finished our tour with Ragu (our tour guide who wore a polo outfit- his pants were big at the top and tight at the bottom) and saw a burial site for the Marathajias (sp off). After that we saw the fort. Both of the places were very nice. At 11 am we left for the Jodhpur airport and took at small flight at 2 pm to Mumbai (the flight was only like an hour). When we arrived in Mumbai all of our luggage made it and took a bus to the hotel. Tonight is our last full night in India!! Tonight we have free time to pack (and Eva wants to play finger-toe) until dinner at 7ish. Tomorrow we plan on seeing Mumbai and then taking off at 2am the next day for home.

See you all soon!

July 15

Hello everyone, this is Maura. Last night we ate dinner and some of us swam on the rooftop pool. It was very clean and so nice. This morning, first we walked to a beautifully carved Hindu temple called Jagdish. After that we took a tour of the City Palace. It is a museum inside the old palace. We saw miniature paintings and all of the different living quarters. After the Palace we went to a garden. It had fountains all over which were controlled by the water pressure from the 4 lakes in Udipur and also a lotus pond with huge carved elephants. Next, we went to a demonstration on miniature painting and then went shopping.
After lunch we went back to the Palace area and went for a boat ride. We rode around one of the lakes and then docked on one of island resturants and explored. Later we went back to the Palace and some of us went to a crystal museum to see the crystal furniture that one Udipur king ordered but died before being able to see it. We have the afternoon free and will be eating dinner on the rooftop again tonight. Tomorrow it's on to Jodhpur!

Poll Results

Sasha the elephants win!
Udaipur so far is fabulous. The hotel rooms are spacious and charming with curtained four poster beds and pillowed window nooks with a lake view. In fact some of us are sleeping in one of the nooks.

We are on our 2nd camera cards so look out for hours of pictures. Tomorrow we will tour the city but tonight we will swim in the roof top pool after we do some wash! The clothes are getting grungy.

Miriam and Linda

Holy Cow

HOLA! This is Jenn. So, yesterday we took a three hour bus ride to Pushcar (sp?). We all loved it! It was an extremely small town that was just like a market. We went on a tour, led by Bobi, and learned about the town. For instance, it hosts the only Brahma temple in the whole world. That was a lot of fun.
After about two hours, we left Bobi for some free time. Some of us slept, some went on the internet, and the rest went shopping. There were so many great things for such cheap prices! Shopping in markets is always great.
More people took picture with this "exotic" group (our appearances are just so different).
Today, july 14, we took a six hour bus ride to Udapur. We've only been here for a little while, so i don't know much about it. I do like it so far. Most of us went shopping again.
Well, everyone is swell. I guess we'll see you all soon!!!

A Day In The Pink City

What's up? Jenna here. Today we spent the day touring Jaipur, the pink city. Jaipur is known as the pink city because many of the buildings and palaces are made of red and pink sandstone. We started the day by taking an elephant ride up to the Amber Palace. After touring the palace we took a rocky Jeep ride back to the bus. We then drove to the Palace on the Lake, but because of the drought it was more of the Palace on the Mud. We also visited the Jaisingh Observatory, where we viewed many historical tools that were used to tell time, date, and astrological signs. Then we toured the City Palace where we saw the textile museum(great for our fashion fiends, Maura & Lynn) and the art gallery. Throughout the day we visited jewlers and craft shops for souvenirs =D. We finished off the day by having dinner at a restaurant called Dineros. We had an eventful and exciting day, but we are pretty wiped out, today was the first day that was truly too hot to handle.
And now it's time for some somewhat interesting facts!
- Mrs. P's shopping habit is getting out of control
- trying to get a photo of camel while the bus is zooming past is impossible
- avoiding sunburn in the desert is not a easy task
- the quality jewlery here is considerably cheap
- elephants make a lovely mode of transportation

Pizza Hut!

Hi everybody, this is Chelsea blogging!
Today we traveled on a bus... for a long time, on a bumpy road. We made some stops on the way- the deserted city and a bird sanctuary- both of which were beautiful. We also stopped along the way at the driver's request to take pictures of... nothing. We weren't really sure why he wanted pictures on the side of the road. Tonight was very exciting for us... we went to Pizza Hut to celebrate Lynn's birthday! Yay! It was really good, and we all missed such fine American cuisine. Our bus driver also bought us all flowers for the celebration which was really nice, and Maura and Lynn (the two birthday girls) got garlands. It was a very fine day.
Everyone sends their love (Specifically Mrs. P. to Sasha =]).
Bye.