I went to Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Bikaner on my way back through Rajisthan.
Jodhpur was nice. It has a grand fort on the hill. When you look out on the city, it is very blue (the colour of the houses). Jaipur is the pink city, Udaipur the white city and Jodhpur the blue city. Jodhpur has a beautiful clock tower in a nice square with a fruit / embroidery / spices market at the center of town. It felt fairly Indian - lots of small local shops rather than more commercial textile / jem / McDonalds type shops. There was also some good food here. The saffron lassi (milkshake) at this one shop was delicious. All they made was lassis and they just pumped them out to people who came in and sat down!
I spent a lot of time here trying to recover from my bad cough and using my steam cup. The steam helped my cough but it just wasn't helping enough. I sat in my room for 2-8h reading and breathing from the steam cup for maybe 6 days here. I have had steam (humifying my apartment to 70%+) really help in the past but this steam cup wasn't having as drastic an effect as I have when I humidify my whole apartment. An 8h steam made me noticable better the next day but I was hoping to be completely cured and after 3 weeks of using it I just had to try something else. This 6 day Jodhpur big steam was my final attempt with the steaming. I get bad coughs (bronchitis) almost every January in Canada and every couple months in India ie often to the point where it can be hard to laugh / talk without breaking into a coughing fit. Ever since I got pneumonia in 2001 during a super stressful, sleep deprived stretch in 4th year university. I think it weakened my lungs a bit. I finally took oral antibiotics in Jaisalmer which helped a lot, then again in McLeod Ganj which completely got rid of it.
While I steamed, I read a lot. I read Interview with a Vampire and Shantiram. Shantiram is a real life story about a bank robber from Australia who escaped from jail, moved to Bombay, lived out in a tiny farming village for 6 months working the farm and learning the local language of Marathi, lived in the slums in poverty as a "doctor" (he had basic first aid training), was framed and put in jail for 4 months where he was beaten and starved, joined the Bombay mafia and fought in Afghanistan for his mafia father. He discovered a lot of shocking, amazing things about India. I recommend this book! (Interview with a Vampire was good too) I keep trying to learn a bit of Hindi from my Hindi book, also.
Next, I went to Jaisalmer. I went on the standard camel trek and it was a blast! It was 2 nights and 3 days in the desert. There were beautiful dunes in some places but a lot of it was more scrubby looking. There were a few small villages with people managing to live very modestly. They need to store water in tanks from the Monsoon floods for the dry rest of the year. I trekked my first day and night with two girls who were also both traveling alone. We had a lot of fun hanging out and exploring the dunes near our camp. The camel guides made an excellent supper (the standard India thali except homemade quality: chapatis, vegetable sauce and rice) using a wood fire and a couple pots. We saw the stars at first but tons of lightning appeared on the horizon and then a huge sandstorm creeped across the stars (the stars just disappeared as the storm advanced) and then hit us. Thankfully, we had a small hut we could shelter in! Another group of camel trekkers near us did not and slept out in the storm under a blanket. Rough! Sand being pelted at you constantly, all night. It was in their ears, on their faces and in their clothes. The two girls trekking with me were only on a 2 day trek so they went home during the second day. Then I joined 2 guys from Iraq and Iran (who were actually raised in Sweden and England). They kept more to themselves and the dunes were less of a novelty. But I switched camels when I left the two girls which was really great because my old camel was less trained and I wasn't allowed to hold my own reins and control him (my reins were held by the guide and I trailed right along next to his camel). But now, I was able to somewhat control my new camel! Only somewhat because he really wanted to follow the guide and didn't listen very well if I tell him to go faster or stop. But I could get him to turn and sit down. And if I turned him over 90 degrees or let him eat shrubs then he'd stop. Also, this second night didn't have a sandstorm. So I slept out under the stars! Finally, on the last day, I got to help collect the camels after the lunch break and to ride bareback! The camels are hobbled (front two legs tied by a somewhat short rope) so they can't run too far away and left to roam freely and munch on trees or shrubs during lunch break each day for a few hours. It wasn't a complete desert - there were a bit of trees and shrubs around. All in all, I had a fantastic camel trek!
Jaisalmer is a pretty little city. It is inside and outside a Fort on a small hill. Shops and guesthouses are actually inside the fort (I stayed inside). It was nice to explore for a couple days.
My next stop, Bikaner, had a rat temple, a palace / hotel and an ok city. I just stayed here 1 day because I heard it wasn't very good. And 1 day was good.
Now, I passed through Delhi and went to Shimla. Shimla is a resort-ey sort of place. Kind of like Mt Abu, earlier in my trip. Or like Banff in Canada. There were tons of wealthier Indian tourists here. There were lots of expensive shops and a nice main street. This street had a Christian church and a fancy, old British colonial government building. There were lots of nice food shops. Interestingly, this main street which was called "the Mall" was a place where everyone seemed to slowly stroll and hang out on. Very good for people watching. Other cities are more spread out but here "the Mall" was _the_ place to be. I wanted to get out of Shimla as soon as I got here, however, because it was too expensive. Cheap compared to Canada but expensive compared to other Indian cities. $10-$25 (or even $60-$90!) for a hotel room when I'm used to paying $2.50-$4.00.
Next, I took the bus to Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj. The home of the Dalai Lama! It was great here! Lots of red-robed, Tibetan monks, backpackers and hippies! It wasn't expensive and there were lots of good places to eat Western food. Amazingly, I had somewhat started to get used to Indian food which I mostly don't like. I kind of missed rice and chapatis. But then I had the standard "thali" (means "plate": rice, chapatis and vegetable sauce[s]) and remember why I don't like them - the sauces are oily and disgusting which leaves me to eat the bland rice and chapatis by themselves. I hiked with my friend, Emeric, from France for a few hours up into the Himalayas. I met Emeric in Jodhpur and then I ran into him again here! I explored the area (esp the two near-by hippie cities: Bhagsu and Dharamkot) and read some books. I made a few friends who were volunteering to run conversational English groups and look after children. I even caught a glimpse of the Dalai Lama at a big prayer gathering. It's nice to take a few weeks in one spot to relax, read and explore.
I find 80% of the Indian restaurant food disgusting. Indians like to put "masala" (spice mix) into everything which usually contains an ingredient which makes me nautious so that is mainly why I find almost everything disgusting. This nausea seems to be specific to me - I see everyone at the other tables gobbling down the same food with delight. It was a big mystery during most of my trip what ingredient was causing this nausia. I was invited for home-cooked food a few times and had no problems - only restaurant food bothered me. I finally found a restarant where I could talk to the cooks (it was a tiny shop which only made rice and dahl which was cooked right at the entrance to the shop!) about the ingredients in their masala (since it had made me nautious). They refused to say much because it was a secret recipe! But they pointed me to standard masala packets / powder sold at this supply store. I found a fancy, packaged masala mix which had the ingredients in English - jackpot! It made me nautious so I made a list of each ingredient which I didn't recognize in order to try it separately. I'm pretty sure that I found it: asafoetida! I tried some asafoetida and both the smell and the taste made me quite nautious. I googled it and it normally makes everyone nautious if they eat too much of it so I must be more sensitive to it. The last two ingredients I haven't tried separately are Cassia and Mace. I ran into difficulty asking for them at spice markets because many Indians don't know the English words for spices.
There is a good feeling here in Dharamsala of Tibetan progess and activism. There is a lot of support for newly arriving refugees. They hike over the freezing Himalayas during the night to avoid the patrols. There are apparently 250k Tibetans in India. They have Tibetan communities (remind me of Hudderite colonies a bit only w/o the anti-modernism or isolation - they are independent, successful, family-like and a bit cut-off from society) all over India (and in Nepal) but especially near the Tibet border. The town has some good volunteer centers and a few of the restaurants are part of the community support / environment groups.
I was about to leave McLeod Ganj when I decided to take a course. In Ayurvedic massage! Massage is a nice skill to have. The teacher had a lot of experience but it might have been better if it was longer. Still, it was great and I learned how to massage! It was 2h / day for 5 days ($40) and 2h is not a long time to teach when there are 6 people in the class. We did each technique once for a minute, switched with our partners then madly wrote down what we learned before he started the next technique. We were theoretically supposed to be practicing another 4h in our guesthouses but everyone tended to run off and do other things. Still, it was good to learn, fun to massage and nice to get massaged. One young couple in the class were from France and were riding a tandem (2-person) bike all over China and India! Their blog is here http://www.adelineetyoyoavelo.top-depart.com/
From McLeod Ganj, I went to Manali and Leh. I stayed 1 day in Manali before going to Leh. Then 3 days in Leh, 3 days in Manali and back to Mumbai via Delhi to catch my flight home! Very rushed!
On my one day in Manali (the one before going to Leh), I went paragliding! Paragliding was pretty awesome! Kind of like sky-diving only less scary without the freefall! I did the medium height. It was 5min and we launched off the mountain after climbing up a ways. We jumped off a sort-of steep grassy area. I did it tandem since I'm not certified to paraglide. The guide was strapped to my back, facing forward and a bit above me so he could see. There was so much mist from the monsoon rains starting to come that it wasn't certain that I could go on the medium level run (too high, the mist prevents us from seeing and gets the paragliding chute wet). I waited a few hours, just hanging out there in the landing / festival field. There were tons of tourists, lots of 30sec low paraglide flights off a small hill and that thing where you strap yourself inside a big ball and it is rolled down a hill! I did the ball thing and it was ok. Lots of force pushed me to the outside of the huge, translucent, inflated ball then a bit hard on my stomach when the ball was brought to a halt! Only $2.50! It was possible I would not go at all on the paragliding due to fog and there were 15 people in town ready to go on the medium one that I took if the weather improved. The fog kills visibility and made the glider chutes wet which causes mildew and damage. I hung out with the organizers for a few hours and my hopes of getting to go grew less and less. Finally we saw a chance and went up. It was a hard half hour climb with the guide and the chute-carrying guy behind us. Poor-chute carrying guy! It was hard enough simply climbing up the steep mountain never mind with a heavy chute on your back! Hard work and low pay ($2.50 / day is a standard Indian wage). He couldn't speak much English but we spoke a little! He was maybe age 20. Normally, my few words of Hindi is way less than Indian people's skills at English. But here, we were about equal! I learned a couple words, even, like snake and rain! (there weren't any actual snakes here, just something that was shaped like a snake) Then it started to rain and mist rolled in again! We kept climbing up anyways, grimly. We got to the top and waited.
We were about to give up when the rain stopped and the mist cleared!!! The guide and the helper frantically set up the chute, untangled the cords and strapped us in! We then had to run like mad down the slope and pull at the ropes to let the wind catch the glider-chute. Our first try failed and got some ropes tangled in weeds. But our second try succeeded! It took all 3 of us running / pushing down the hill and straining to pull at the ropes to get it to catch the wind - it was really hard to do. But after about 5 seconds of straining, the chute caught the wind and we took off! We sailed over the valley and it was spectacular! Much higher than the puny low-level 30sec glide! Everything was tiny and the guide turned different ways trying to catch the thermals which apparently were really bad on this day. But it was great!
Then I went up to Leh. Leh is at 2500m in the Himalayas. The journey to get there is a 16-32h bus ride up and down steep, beautiful mountains. The journey to get there was better than actually being there. The sights were spectacular. I took a deluxe 2 day bus up with seats that reclined. Choosing the bus was difficult for me because I have back problems when I sit for long periods eg 16h/day for 2 days! I hate to sleep on a bus in a seat ever since I threw my back out doing that once in California. But the sights were breath-taking. Moon scapes, rock pillars, waterfalls (many times we drove right across the bottom stream-part of them over a few inches of water!), peaks and valleys. Remote mid-way outposts with harsh cold winds and hardy people. Or sometimes tourist-y outposts, perhaps a bit more sheltered. We stayed the night at a restaurant / bed place right before one of the military checkpoints. They had a couple tables, a small kitchen and tons of beds in their semi-permanent stucture (not a tent but not a building). It was nice getting to know people on the bus during the meal breaks and during this night stop. I made several backpacker friends who I hung out with a bunch in Leh.
Also, I met a friendly Indian solo traveller about my age from the South. An Indian travelling solo without his family is quite uncommon and to them, almost shocking. One of the first questions many Indians ask me is where my family is and why they're not with me! But he simply liked solo travel. Also, backpacking isn't super-common for Indians. Pilgrammages to holy sites and rich-family vacations are more common.
Leh was pretty fun but the highlight was the bus-ride trip up. I hung out with some of the backpackers on the bus in Leh. There were 5 of us who went to the same hotel. Two awesome, counter-culture, dreadlocked guys from Australia. Bill and Eldon. And a guy and a girl from Sweden. The Australians were really accepting guys who kind of drew people together. They were also quite funny. The 5 of us went out for breakfast together then split apart.
I explored the town a bit, and went up to the palace on the hill. It had lots of empty stone rooms and I was the only person there (although a girl left just as I arrived). It was big and had some rooms with great views. There was one room where the caretakers must've lived since it actually had stuff in it - a stove, bedmats, etc. I tried to meet my friends but people got the meeting time and location mixed up so I missed them. I chatted with a shirt seller who told me about how his wife and children lived near Darjeeling (across the country in the NE rather than the NW) and he visited them only a couple times a year. Leh is very touristy and good for his business. He was middle-aged and more relaxed than the average shirt-seller and his shirts were well-made. So I bought one. It is sort of ethnic with an interesting textured pattern and it sort of folds like a blanket across your chest.
The second night was Bill's birthday so he threw a fun party at a restaurant and invited a bunch of people, esp from the bus. (we ran into many of them in Leh since it is a small town and invited them) It was some good times although I arrived late and got quite sleepy after eating. On my way there, I missed a key turn-off in the dark, country pathways out of our out-of-the-way hotel and ended up walking about 1-1.5h through the dark (instead of maybe 30 minutes the regular way). I'd had a drink or two at the hotel before I left so that set my state of mind. It was kind of funny but also rather frustrating as I kept walking into the random darkness trying to get my bearings! I met a few locals and asked them the way and finally found the way.
I decided to take the 17h minibus (~4am-~9pm) down rather than the 2-day slow deluxe bus. It was a bit harder on the stomach to whip around the turns and there were less scenic stops and long bathroom breaks. But it got me down way faster and I'd already seen the sights on the way up. It was actually not so bad to leave at 4am and sleep on it since the seats reclined quite a lot - even more than the deluxe bus. Much better than the jeeps or the cheap government bus. A bunch of my bus friends were choosing to fly out or to go to Srinagar (not quite as hard a bus ride) rather than bus back down the same way (the wearisome bus trip wasn't something they wanted to endure twice). But flights were booked up weeks in advance and I needed to leave Leh after only 2 days. I needed to get down quickly to train across the country and catch my flight back to Canada. Also, there was a risk that the Manali-Leh road would get blocked for a few days by small landslides. There is a permanent road repair crew constantly fixing the road from such problems.
I got back down to Manali without problems and spent 3 days there (since I skipped through it rather quickly on my way up). I checked out Vashisht, a colourful hippie town a couple km away. It had a waterfall and free, public hot spring baths. There were a bunch of good Western restaurants and cheap hotels. It was a lot like McLeod Ganj or even Leh. Manali itself is kind of touristy, a bit bigger and not as pretty as it's 2 near-by satellite towns, Vashisht and Old Manali. I checked out Old Manali a little too.
I met a good group of backpackers at the Vashisht waterfall. We were all from different parts of the world and the rest of them had met in Rishikesh before coming here. An Indian military man with his family invited us all for tea at the place where he was staying. They were quite hospitable and we visited for a while.
I met and visited with Raj, my good friend Katie's boyfriend. He is a waiter at a restaurant in Old Manali. She met him when she was here a few weeks ago. After she and I travelled for a week, I went South to Gujarat and she went North up through Rajisthan and to Manali. She ended up staying here longer than she intended after she met Raj. But she had to break it up in the end. I was quite curious to meet this Raj. He is a good guy. He's from Nepal and works in Goa in the winter (high season for Goa). Then he (and many others) come up to H.P. in the North during the hot spring and summer (high season for H.P.). He spoke excellent English and was quite nice. He lacked High School, I think (had to work to support his family), made Indian wages and worked ridiculously long hours at the restaurant (7am-midnight, or later if any customers wanted to stay late and order drinks - but he got a couple breaks mid-day if business slowed down). He like to party now and then and did well at his job. They liked him in the restaurant in Goa because he got along well with the Goa tourists.
Finally, I needed to high-tail it back to Mumbai to visit with my old students and teachers and then fly back to Canada. I stopped in Delhi a met a couple local Indian friends who I met in Udaipur. They were in IT also and were good guys.
I was only in Delhi for half a day. The bus arrived around 4am. I hit the interesting question: does a hotel charge you for the night as well as the next night if you arrive at 6am? Hotels have different conventions but this one seemed to require you arrive after perhaps 11am or noon. He could see I was tired and knew that I would pay. I had to sleep ASAP so it was worth it. Plus it was a cheap, ok, dorm for $2. So no big deal (although it was interesting hitting that situation).
The subway was not running at 4am and I didn't want to wait 2h for it to start (I absolutely needed to sleep or I'd fall asleep waiting) so I took a rickshaw. They all tried to charge me a ton. Big places like Delhi all overcharge without government regulated taxi-meters. Esp at night. They not only have mandated higher fees at night but also try to gouge you as much as they can on top of that! But I found one who amazingly gave me a good price. There was a catch. He ended up stopping mid-way at this place to get his rickshaw repaired - so he made a fare and got to the repair place at the same time. Only I had to wait 25min! But it was fascinating. 24h rickshaw repair service! 4am! We whip in, they lift the rickshaw and prop it up with a stick so the repair guy can access the bottom of the rickshaw. Boom Shiva! I looked up the street and there were a few HUNDRED rickshaws PLUS another few hundred bicycle rickshaws parked on this street all with sleeping men contorted over the bars and small seats! The repair guy used only a couple of tools - maybe only a screwdriver or something. They needed light so he got a candle! He had that candle right up next to the engine and fuel tank! He paid like 20rp (50 cents) or something for the repair! Less than my fare. I refused to give him the full fare however! I had to wait a long time and he never told me there would be a wait! He was angry and we got this near-by guy to translate for us. I ended up paying most of the fare. It was probably less than $1 and the translator appealed to my sympathy. Rickshaw drivers make pennies compared to rich Westerns but from their point of view they have an excellent, stable job - a wonderful life opportunity in India. A rickshaw driver makes a good husband - he is prosperous. But it's quite competitive to get the rickshaw license (ie expensive bribe, need to know the right person and jump right in when an opening becomes available). And Delhi rickshaw drivers overcharge ridiculously and must do extremely well. But still, compared to my life, he has a tougher lot. And I secretly kind of enjoyed the experience.
Thank goodness for the Tourist Quota trains - otherwise the trains would normally be booked up for a few weeks. Tourist quota train offices are mostly only in big cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi. So in almost all the smaller cities, I just take the bus because I need to move on in a couple days, not in a couple weeks! I can just show up and hop on buses.
So I took the train the very day I arrived in Delhi (arrived 4am, left in the evening). To Mumbai, ~30h. I like the sleeper trains - the beds are quite comfortable. I have funny non-verbal relationships with the Indians I am next to in the sleeper compartments. You can kind of sense a person's personality and develop an understanding with them even when you can't speak. Near the end of the trip, the guy on the top bunk accidentally spilled his meal all over everyone's bags down below. So I had dried food junk stuck to my backpack when I woke up in the morning. Oh, well.
I got off in Mumbai and went on a big cheap-hotel search. Mumbai is such a problem. It's as expensive as Shimla! I found one dorm but it was Indians only (perhaps there's a good reason for that, I don't know). It was raining (start of monsoon season) and the smooth, stone sidewalks were treacherous. Finally I went into the gauntlet. The exit of CST (previously Victorius Terminus), the main train station in Mumbai is a big spot for hawkers and sellers. Bus ticket sellers (who are ready to lie to you to convince you to buy). Hotel touts (who get kickbacks from the hotels they take you to). And hawkers of lots of junk. Hotel touts are not always unhelpful. I normally ignore them and go by my guidebook (to their frustration). But my guidebook has no cheap places for Mumbai. Except the Salvation Army hostel which I stayed in last time and met multiple people reporting bed-bugs. The people who run it are rude and act like people who run things by strict, dumb rules and hate their jobs. It is at least kind of clean and has a free breakfast. But, the bed-bugs make it a no-go. Normally hotel-touts like to take tourists to expensive places which give big kickbacks. And I am ultra-cheap so that's problematic. But it was raining and my pack was uncomfortably heavy to walk for hours. So I found a hotel-tout. He was amazingly helpful. He had a stylin' bandana! And he seemed to have a bit of heart (vs many shark-like or perhaps super-smooth touts). We tried 2 cheap (for Mumbai, expensive otherwise) dorms which were full. We tried 2 more which were only 400-500 rp ~$10-$12.50 (more than I ever like to pay but cheap for Mumbai). I started doubleguessing him. Did he just take me to the full places as a token gesture? Were they truly full or were they somehow in cahoots with him? It's annoying to have to doubleguess everything but India tout-games are normally elaborate. When someone recommends another place, it's amazing how they can secretly get a kick-back. Anyways, the hotels both were less than ideal but clean enough so I took one. It was a bit ridiculous at the end. I was chatting with the hotel manager and the tout-guy kind of indicated that he wanted me to go to my room. And I said "Oh, right, ok, I'll let you get your kickback." And he acted alarmed and chagrinned and said "Uh, what? No, no, I don't uh... You mean you're going to give me money?" The hotel manager then said that I would have received the same fee whether the tout was there or not. Which I think was probably true at that hotel but normally the price goes up. Or the amount you can bargain them down is less. I didn't get the feeling that this was the kind of place that was easy to bargain at. Mumbai hotels are annoying. Expensive and poor-quality. I mean I could have paid $30+ and got decent quality (more like a Western hotel quality) but $30 is ridiculous for India!
Finally, I met with my old students and the teachers. It was dizzifying. The children were so chaotic and my anxiety was very high. I thought that there was no way I could possible teach children again. It was too amazingly difficult to deal with them. How did I do it before? But then, after a couple hours, it was not so bad, really. It was like it used to be. The kids were cute and energetic. After a few months away, my relationship with them had changed. I saw it before when Sofie (another volunteer) left for Dec to travel with Caro (another volunteer) and then returned for a final couple weeks. The kids were a bit distant with Sofie but still knew me well (seeing me every day still). I kind of no longer have power over them as their teacher. There is more distance between us. Some of them remember me and are so excited to see me! Some are more distant and curious. I forgot how tiny they all are! It was great to see them and how they were doing. And to chat with the teachers. I felt very appreciated by the two teachers at Nallasopara, Sunita and Chitra. They need more help teaching - there aren't enough teachers at Nallasopara since it is a new school and money is short. And I had volunteered for a good while so they knew me. It felt good to be remembered and appreciated. They were hoping that I was going to volunteer again starting immediately! I felt a bit guilty that I wasn't and that I didn't have a bit longer to visit. But it was good to see them. Maybe I'll volunteer again in a year or so when I go back.
I wished I'd had another day or two than the 2 days I had to visit. The first day, I didn't even quite make it out to Nallasopara from my hotel, downtown, before noon when they closed the school early due to the monsoon. The trains were all delayed by the monsoon rains. The second day, I woke up at 3 or 4 am, checked-out, train-ed to the volunteer apt (~1h), dropped off my stuff and train-ed to Nallasopara (1.5h). I was way too short on sleep - esp considering I'd stayed up until 2am partying with a few of the other volunteers. I was leaving, they were leaving so we celebrated. Then I caught a taxi to my hotel, slept and hour or so and got up again for a big day of visiting (at both schools since I had only 1 day to do it!) and then catching my flight! My anxiety is high (I get quite nervous and have trouble connecting eyes) when I'm tired so I kind of regretted visiting everyone in this state!
Finally, I flew back to Canada. Via Bangkok (stopping for a night there and catching a separately booked flight) and Tokyo. I got terribly sick and caught a terrible cough starting on the Bangkok-Tokyo leg. On the Tokyo-Vancouver leg I was in serious pain. I sure wished I wasn't on that plane while being so sick. Thankfully I was finally able to sleep a bit. When I got to Vancouver, it had gotten not quite so bad. FYI, It was a 9.5h flight - shorter than my SanFran-Taipei 13.5h flight (the shortest way to go around the globe is around the North, near the poles, so Vancouver is closer to Asia). I met a few interesting people on the bus and planes as often happens. Also, the planes had nifty personalized LCD screens where you could custom-choose your movie / tv-show / flight-info. Only pretty much all of the choices were soso movie-made-for-tv quality. And Air Canada from Tokyo to Vancouver to Edmonton had removed / not-installed their LCD screens (empty LCD screen holes) - I wonder if Air Canada is short of money? But, it was so nice when I lined up for the Tokyo - Vancouver flight. So many people had comfortingly familiar Canadian accents and body language.
It's great to be back in Canada. But my journey is not yet over - I return to Asia in Oct...
(I came back primarily for my sister's wedding on Aug 9, 2008)
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