We're Baaaaack!

So I think we have fully established the point that we are not good at blogging. We got in a good year or more before we got too lazy...I mean, busy. But we're trying to get back into it now and we have a lot to talk about so hang on to your hats, seats, horses or whatever metaphorical object you are holding. Here goes....

When we last left our dashingly handsome and adventurous heroes they were bumming their way around India with a ragged group of explorers from the states and traveling through the jungles of South Africa in search of leopards and the French national teams' pride (still nowhere to be seen by the way).

Since then, our adventures have taken us back to the exotic nether-regions of Syracuse and now back to our home camp in Mumbai. For those who were paying creepily close attention to our posts, you may have noticed something fishy. How curious that we went from December to June so quickly without making a stop over for 10 days in April. Well guess what? We went to Thailand and apparently didn't even bother going through the pictures or mentioning it on our blog.

But now is the time for forgiveness and redemption so if you would kindly look to your right you will see a bucket load of new pictures dating back to our India trip with the Johnson crew, our spring break in Thailand, and all (yes all) of our stops in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.



We're just going to skip the post for Thailand all together, but the pictures are there, so enjoy. We went to another NESA educators conference in Bangkok for 4 days in which we did all the regular stops - temples, markets, river rides, megamalls, red shirt political uprising, etc. We then headed south to the beach at Krabi where we relaxed and soaked up the sun while doing some swimming, eating, island hopping, and our favorite activity of the trip, a kayak tour through a mangrove forest and caves. Very cool.

You may also notice as you are perusing the list of new photos that we have another India trip already under our belt this year. We had our first three day weekend of the year and traveled several hours out of the city to visit some ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples carved from the side of mountains. We flew into the city of Aurangabad which took about an hour, then visited two famous sites: Ellora and Ajanta.

The Ajanta caves are about 90km outside of the Aurangabad, are carved out of the face of a cliff and are known for their elaborate paintings found inside. This was the home of a Buddhist colony about 2000 years ago and the caves consist of large open spaces with high ceilings and shrines for gathering and worshiping as well as smaller rooms where daily life and meditations would have occurred. The caves and temples were also plastered and painted in some areas and there are some amazing, thousand year old paintings to admire.

As Buddhism began to decline in the area, they began to move back south toward the city where they created an even more spectacular set of stone temples at the site of Ellora. What is so brilliant about these temples is that they were not built stone by stone, but rather carved with a chisel out of the side of the hills. All of it, the whole thing.....chisel. There are amazing multi-story temples and plazas all carved straight out of the stone with all of it being one giant continuous piece of rock. Totally amazing.


We traveled with our new friends Reid and Rachel and had a great time getting to know them and enjoying the sights together. We crammed quite a bit into a short weekend including a trip up to the top of an abandoned fort overlooking the city and a stop by the Mini Taj Majal, a near exact replica of the Taj created by the son of the last Mughal leader in Aurangabad. It was planned to be built with the same materials and outline but daddy pulled the rug out from under the project part way through to save money resulting in pieces that are made of beautiful marble and craftsmanship and the rest made from limestone which definitely does not look as nice.


It was a great weekend and even though it was exhausting from all the hiking, it was great to spend time with friends, get some fresh air, and enjoy such an outstanding piece of history. It was also a good warmup for all the hiking we are about to take on over our next vacation. In a couple weeks we have our Week Without Walls trip followed by our Diwali break. For WWW this year, I will be with the 8th grade team which means instead of Matheran again, I will be heading somewhere new, to Sajan/Dabhosa which should be a great time. Then, for Diwali, we will be heading to Nepal to explore the north a little bit and get our first real taste of the Himalayas. So stay tuned for some amazing shots of us summiting Mt Everest....it's going to be epic!! (and by summit I mean taking pictures from the bottom, probably several miles away)

Enjoy all the pictures! More to come soon!

K&E