The Holidays

The holiday season is always different when you're far away from home. It's a little sad for me to say that we're becoming experts on spending holidays in foreign countries, but it won't be that way for so much longer. Nothing is like being with family, but at least I can say that we usually don't spend the holidays alone. In Ukraine it was easy to meet up with our Peace Corps volunteer friends who were in the same boat we were. It was nice to have each other and we got together for Christmas parties, Thanksgivings, and the like.

Because we are always traveling, we don't have too many long-term friends and so things are a little different. The other side of that coin is that we meet new people all the time, much more often than we did in Ukraine. It can be a lot of fun meeting new people, especially when you click! We spent Christmas Eve with an Australian woman we met at breakfast the day before. We took a trip to nearby Sarnath. This is the place where the Buddha gave his first lesson and also the final stop on our Buddhist pilgrimage tour (All four major sites, yay!). We shared the rickshaw fare and also the company, which was great. Her last visit to India was 30 years ago, which is amazing! She told us a few stories, but didn't remember much (it was a crazy time!) It reminded me of my dad who was also here about 30 years ago and he is coming to meet us soon, maybe sometime in the next few weeks.

In the evening we returned to Varanasi and went to a nearby cafe that was having a Christmas party. It was fun. To be honest, it's nothing like being back home, but in some ways that makes it more interesting. We sat down and listened to what I can only imagine to be "The Greatest Christmas Hits of Country Music" while we ate spinach ravioli, pizza, and apple pie. An Italian guy came and sat down with us, so we chatted with him for a while about our recent trip to Italy. Later, the live music started. We got to listen to an Argentinian duo play some self-composed music, some in English, some in Spanish. So we had a very multi-cultural Christmas Eve.

We had met an Israeli guy a few days before that told us about a Christmas lunch at the River Ashram (or as he called it, the Jesus Ashram). Everyone was invited and so we showed up (a little late) to check things out. Apparently the food was amazing! All the other travelers told us about the lasagna and Mexican food they had and how amazing it was. Unfortunately, it was almost all gone by the time we arrived. The good news is there was plenty of dessert left! I ate all the sweets I could handle while we met travelers from Denmark and Colorado. We always get great tips from other travelers about our future destinations.

For example, all the holiday gatherings were passed along to us through word of mouth of travelers. Other things too, "Oh, you have to go on a camel safari in Rajistan!", "Check out the hot springs in Manila!", and "Get to the river early in the morning to see the Ganga river dolphins!" Some people are able to give us better tips than others though. We talked to a guy that had been to Laos about stuff to do there to learn that he spent an entire month on one tiny island dazed and confused. He did say it was the most relaxing time in his life though, I believe it.

For now we're just hanging out waiting to catch a train to Amritsar. It's another long one, about 20 hours, but it's a good jumping point to get to Mcleod Gang, the home of the Dalai Lama and where we may spend New Year's. I hope you all enjoyed your holidays!

PS Heather posted some pictures of our travels thus far on her flickr website. Check them out! www.flickr.com/heathercaturia She's only started posting the pictures we've collected so far, there are more to come soon so check later for more!