dec 31

hoooolllyyy shit. this past day has been over the top. let me tell you about ym bus ride to nainital....

i meet at the tourist office at 9pom as scheduled. someone was supposed to walk me to the bus. at 9:30, the guy shows up. he says "wait here, i have more people coming." i wait, and 3 frenchies show up. very nice people. he leads us down the road several bloicks and then proceeds to hail 2 rickshaws. the bus is now loading in old delhi, about 20 minutes away. so we race rickshaws over there, it was fun. then we stand outside and wait for the bus. the guy departs. after talking to some indians, we decide our bus is here. we all go get on this bus, and it is so full, people are stadning in the aisles overcorwding everything. i am thinking...hmmm..this is a NINE hour bus ride and these epople are going to stand the whole time??? apparently frenchies were wondering the same thing. so the bus takes off and then pulls onto the side of the road. some guy get son and tells some people to get off. they get off. he gets back on and tells us to get off. we get off. we get on another bus, a smaller bus. fine. we take off. we stop. we take off, we stop. this goes on until about 1am. the seats were so close together that i have bruises on my knees. the whole trip, which was supposed to take 9 hours from start to finish, ended up taking SIXTEEN hours. it sucked so bad, my body is aching and my neck is burning and i feel like shit.

the upside os that nainital is even more beautiful than i could have imagined. we are WAY the hell up here in the himalayas, and that is cool as hell! i mean, you would not believe this place! plus, there are monkeys! YAY! i saw a cat hissing at a monkey earlier whihc of course made me happy.

the little downside is that nainital is an indian tourist mecca. and today being new year's (which i didn't think they celebrated) this place is packed to the gills! unbelievable amounts of indian tourists. and the thing abou tthat is that this has jacked up hotel prices. what i would normally pay $5 for is going for $40!!!! i am not exaggerating! so i ended up with this crap hole room, whihc i am paying over $10 for. i will bve able to move tomorrow. at least it is very safe here, so no worries about that.

i am also not allowed to go to any of the festivities because only "familes" and "couples" are allowed. i was hoping to do something fun, but i guess it will just have to be fun with Jo! the couples thing made me feel sad...if jamie were here we could go disco-ing with indians together, but alone i am barred!

i am looking forward to being able to enjoy nainital without all the tourists. i will take a boat ride tomorrow and go for a hike around the city and check out this old mansion up the hill. i think for the rest of today i am just going to take it easy!

hope everyone has fun tonight! be safe!
love
jo