The Deported

Welp, they've I've concluded that India has the stupidest immigration department in the history of the world. Since I didn't register before I'd been in India for 180 days, they'd like to deport me back to the USA. But to avoid official deportation, which would suck pretty hard, the idea is that I have to pay $20 dollars a day for every day I was in india w/o registering (probably ttl around $700), turn in a crapload of paperwork, and then fly back to America for a couple days before coming back to India. See? It's retarded.

So, TRX'll obviously pay the fees and for my flight to the usa. The current plan is that on Monday, TRX'll fly me to New York, put me up in a hotel, and then fly me back to India 2 days later. Flying that much in one week will be lame, something like 36 hours on planes, but at least I get some sweet Frequest flyer miles and a free (for me) couple days in New York. Maybe I'll hook up with old Stevesie and eat vegan food.

Don't Mind The Gap

HI, It's been a while. How's everything going? He did? What jerk. you should break up with him. He's no good. Me? Well, it's been a busy couple weeks. Where to begin... Well, I went back to Nandi Hill, which i got stranded on the first time, but no real issues this time. Except the insane monkeys that tried to kill me. I drove in India too, left side of the road is stange, but I survived. The next weekend, I hung out wiht co-workers visiting from the USA, they were cool and we had fun.

So I bought a plane ticket and a hotel in The Maldives it set me back about 900 dollars. Steph, Tim, and myself went to the airport and immigration would not let me leave India. So apparently i'm an Illegal since I didn't register, so I can't leave india. So I'm out the money for the trip and spent the weekend chilling here in Bangalore. Which had 9 bombs go off on Friday. It's funny how Indians see bombings as a reason to take the day off. Like a snow day in the US. Indians have a "Bomb day". Obviously, I didn't get blowed up, nor do I care about a couple crappy bombs going off a few kilometers from my house. I'm just heavy like that.

The trip - Part 2

Okay, so I'm finally getting around to the other cities I visited. After Shimla, we took the deadly ride back down the mountain and went to a city called Chandigarh.

Chandigarh is the capitol city of two states, and is the cleanest and most organized city in India. It's really just a bunch of gardens and malls all on neat city blocks. We went through a couple gardens and a rock garden, but there's really not much to share about this place. It was kind of like a break from being in India.
More photos here.

chandigarh

After Chandigarh, Rusty and I parted ways with Stephanie back in Delhi, then Rusty and I hired a driver to take us to Jodhpur. That drive was pretty bad, our car didn't have headlights and we had to drive against uncoming traffic for a few hours. Dispite the lack of headlights, our driver still drove very aggrssively. I'm lucky to have made it.

We finally got to Jodhpur, which is in the middle of the desert. It's called the blue city, because everyone in the old part of town has painted their homes blue.

Jodhpur had lots of forts and palaces for Rusty and I to visit. It was a very interesting town. Apparently, here and the next two cities we visited no white people ever go there, so Rusty and I were a specticle. More photos:

Jodhpur

After Jodhpur, Rusty and I went to ahmedabad and Surat. Neither place was anything great, we basically just walked around a lot getting stared at like we were lost. Also, both had lotsa of beggars to keep us harrassed.
Here's some guys who were just excited to meet westerners and they took a bunch of pictures of us, so we took one of them, with me.
It was difficult to get outta there, but we finally reached Mumbai (formerly Bombay). Mumbai was awesome, a lot of really old architecture and cobble-stone streets. It's also very modern, and being westerns there did not make you a specticle. Rusty and I got offered roles as extras in a Bollywood movie, a London night-club, but we had to turn down the job due to time concerns. Anyways, Mumbai was great, probably my favorite city in India. There's some photos of Mumbai here:

Mumbai

So that's that. Check out the pictures.