Fire, Dust, Magic: Burning Man 2014

Mika and I ended our summer with our third pilgrimage to Burning Man, and as always, I am having trouble encapsulating the experience in words. There were so many powerful and wonderful moments at this Burn that will stay with me that it’s hard to narrow it down to describe just a few of them. It’s particularly difficult to express them to those that have never been before, and can only get an idea of the setting from photos or stories. After our first year I tried to give an overview of the magic in a blog post, which you can check out here for a primer.

This was the second year that we were able to enter Black Rock City early with a group of our Portland friends to help construct our camp’s saloon, offering free booze and entertainment in the form of fire shows, acrobatics, and (new and very popular this year) suspension rope bondage demonstrations. We got to bond with the early arrival crew and see the city rise up around us, which is something I have come to cherish. It also allowed us to be cozily set up before the torrential rains temporarily shut down the gate hours after it opened to the general public.

Some of the new burners that did make it in before rainpocalypse 2014 struck were Karel and Marie, Mika’s father and stepmother from Alaska. Burning Man Is a multigenerational event, and her parents fit right in. Karel, a welder and artist, even brought some of his own creations, including a spiked metal headdress for Mika that I wrapped in kevlar wicking so that she could have a fire mohawk of awesomeness (there’s a picture lower down on the page) while she fire-dances. Hanging out with Mika’s family and introducing them to the city was definitely a highlight of this year’s Burn!

There was lots of time spent with friends as well. Early in the week, we got to witness Jeremy and Rachel’s beautiful wedding, made all the more touching by the most badass of first dances in wedding history as the newlyweds spun a flaming dragon staff between them. Completely by accident, we also stumbled across the wedding of our friend Adam, taking place at sunset at the entrance to the Temple. We spent some time with our friend Robyn, who is heavily involved with charity work in Nepal and gave us prayer flags blessed by the Dalai Lama and beads that belonged to an elderly Tibetan monk that she had directed us to meet during our travels abroad. We reunited with Maxine and Diana, awesome and adventurous ladies that we met while backpacking in Nepal and Thailand, as well as my old friend West from Montana. Even more so than in previous years, we made new friends with strangers that we look forward to reconnecting with as we transition back in the “default world.”

The precept of gifting in various forms is another important part of Burning Man, a city that forbids the formal exchange of money. Mika gave beautiful necklaces to many of these old and new friends. Each one had a stone pendant that was a shard of a huge basalt altar from last year’s Temple that she had collected and wire-wrapped herself. Gifting pieces of something that was so incredibly meaningful and significant to the entire community as a whole was really special.

We danced all day and night around the city, catching great sets from familiar artists along with plenty we’d never heard of. Desert Dwellers, Polish Ambassador, Tycho, Kyrstyn Pixton, Dixon’s Violin, Infected Mushroom, Prrisma, and Cosmic Selector were a few highlights, but much of the time we had no idea who was playing and simply enjoyed the vast sonic landscape. Electronic music is a huge part of Burning Man, but live music has its place too and we even caught our friend Rex’s Irish jam session. We spent the whole week surrounded by awesome music, and are now busy updating our music library accordingly.

The large and small art installations are one of the event’s biggest draws, and this year didn’t disappoint (does it ever?). By far the most conspicuous was “Embrace,” a 72-foot wooden sculpture of two figures holding each other. As with much of the large-scale wooden art, it was ceremoniously burned late in the week. This took place at sunrise, the morning after my annual mid-Burning Man birthday extravaganza, and we were unexpectedly interviewed by a Korean news crew immediately afterwards; we may be immortalized there as the ragged, dusty, inarticulate hippies that we were that morning. Another big piece put to the flame was the “Alien Siege Machine,” a ferocious, blood-drenched tower stylized to look like a massive, mechanical version of H.R. Giger’s monster. The crew responsible for burning it staged a pyrotechnic battle first, complete with shooting fireworks at it from surrounding art cars. Other favorite art installations included “Wheels of Zoroaster,” two huge round metal cages filled with flaming wood and laboriously spun with hand cranks to send sparks showering out over the playa, and a man-made rainbow created with a revolving prism and ultra-powerful spotlight. Mutant vehicles are another beloved part of the Burn, as they showcase incredible creativity and ingenuity and provide some of the best entertainment out there. Ranging from little tricked-out golf carts to massive double-decker articulated buses, most have massive sound systems, onboard bars, and the ability to shoot fire. Shouldn’t all cars be like that?

The art cars gather for the burning of the eponymous Man, forming a circle around him that fills in with cheering participants. Before he is ignited in spectacular pyrotechnic fashion, Black Rock City’s finest fire spinning conclaves perform their choreographed dances and routines. Our theme camp is home to one such group, so we sat front and center while our friends wowed the onlookers. Mika and I had many chances to spin fire over the week, an activity that we find ourselves getting more and more passionate about. We have nothing on the Garnish Fire Conclave, though—all 35 of them with matching uniforms and all manner of fire props put on some of the best choreography we’ve seen, yet again. And when the 105-foot-tall Man finally burned (and burned, and burned…he really didn’t want to fall down easily this year), we screamed our heads off with the rest. We came back to his smoldering ashes the next morning to check it out, and found people cooking fresh coffee and bacon on them, as well as a whole lamb being grilled on a spit, hacked up, and given out freely. On top of that, our friends Jorgen and Jared had wheeled out their mobile bar and were serving fruity alcoholic drinks while a DJ in a giraffe costume played funky, good-vibe party music. I bartended with them for what became some of the most memorable and fun hours of the whole week, which will hopefully become an annual tradition.

Of course, not everything about the Burn is fun and games—it is also a place of immense emotional release and catharsis. We spent a significant portion of the week with our very close friends Erika, Kelly, and Andy as we all processed a tragic and personal loss. Placing tributes to loved ones at the Temple of Grace has become one of the most powerful traditions of the burner community, and we made one together to send off a very dear soul no longer with us. The shared outpouring of grief for so many that have passed away is a tangible, overwhelming sensation there, and brings out an emotional side of me that doesn’t see the outside world often. Burning the Temple at the very end of the week brings a greater sense of shared anguish and healing than anything else I’ve ever experienced.

Each Burn has been different, but amazing in its own indescribable way. Every year, I leave feeling revitalized and excited, more connected with myself and Mika and my community, full of joy and happy memories, and like I have let go of some of the stresses and pains of everyday life. Calling it a magical and unique place is not an empty platitude—there really is nowhere in the world like it, and I’ll continue to go as long as I’m able. I cherish the experience, and can’t wait for more. The Man burns in 346 days.

Note: If you’ve got a little more time and want to see more of our photos from the Burn, see the full Facebook album here.

Burmese Days, Filipino Nights, & the Return from Southeast Asia

Yangon is perhaps the best place to see the effects of rapid modernization in Burma, especially when it comes to international corporate development. In a country that didn’t have Coca-Cola until a year or so ago, Yangon is the epicenter of foreign investment. Global hotel chains are now opening locations, multinational corporations are expanding their operations, and large NGOs and relief agencies make their headquarters there. Modern high-rises, fancy sports stadiums, and towering office buildings are being rapidly erected over the old covered markets and crumbling edifices of the British colonial administration. The contrast of old and new is played out continuously in the streets, where ancient Chinese bicycles laden with massive baskets of cabbage or fish weave their way between sleek, European-made sedans, circling thousand-year-old temples that are having Wi-Fi access installed. The rate of development is dizzying, but it happens alongside customs that predate the Burmese civilization as a cultural entity.

During our brief stay in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), we found the cheapest guesthouse we could, located in a run-down but diverse Indian and Chinese district. Colorful buildings erected in the prosperous days of British rule stand stained and cracked, with loose electrical wires and limply hanging shutters. The streets are packed, and become more so during certain hours when afternoon wet markets or evening street vendors set up shop. The lack of waste-disposal systems or societal habits is much more apparent here than more rural and tourist-oriented places elsewhere in Burma, and a lot of facets of life on the street are reminiscent of some of India’s grimier cities. However, we were very grateful to discover that residents of Yangon seem more or less as friendly and welcoming as their countrymen in other regions, which is to say very. We spent a good amount of time wandering through streets and taking in the general ambience, occasionally ducking into donut shops to escape from the hectic pace of life outside (note: donuts, inexplicably, appear to be universally loved by locals of all socioeconomic classes, and a chain of garishly painted and cartoonishly decorated shops across the city called J’Donuts sells decent pastries in sanitized, air-conditioned settings).

Beyond our usual habits of people-watching and street-exploring, we only really visited one tourist attraction in the city—Shwedagon Pagoda. This is the center of life in Yangon and a point of pilgrimage for Buddhists from around the country and significantly further abroad. Rising 99 meters above the holy hilltop where it was built, the massive golden spire is a national symbol held in the highest reverence. While made out of brick, it is covered with genuine golden plates that are routinely re-gilded using donations of gold from devout Buddhists. Thousands of diamonds and rubies stud the upper portions. This central pagoda is surrounded by various shrines, statues, temples, stupas, and other religious icons that also hold high status in local mythology. Locals claim that the structure is 2600 years old, but most historians and archeologists put the number somewhere closer to 1000-1600. Whatever the number, it is an ancient structure that still commands unparalleled respect and devotion today, and it’s worth visiting Yangon just to see. Pilgrims offer prayers around it all day and night, and mingling with them as they burn incense, light candles, and prostrate themselves is an unforgettable and mesmerizing experience.

We left the city after only a few days of exploration to make our way back to the US. We made an overnight stop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we encountered some frustrating bureaucratic struggles related to a package that we had unwisely mailed over from Thailand. This may have colored our brief visit a bit, but we did still have fun exploring the large, modern night market nearby full of cheap Chinese knockoff goods aimed at travelers doing the established Southeast Asia backpacker thing.

From KL we caught a flight to Manila, Philippines where we ran into even more logistical troubles. Somehow we failed to recognize that whole “ante vs. post meridian” thing and had booked our onward flight a full 12 hours later than we thought. The mistake wasn’t caught until we flew in and attempted to change terminals for our LA-bound flight. The realization that we had a night to kill in the Philippines and no idea how to spend it was the beginning of what would become a very strange and memorable evening. It started with a taxi ride to the doorstep of a recommended guesthouse we would discover had closed only days before. Fortunately, our driver had a plan for us—given that it was getting late and we had to catch an early flight anyway, we could stay at an hourly “love hotel” that he visited regularly with his “wife”! He promised that it was a clean, safe kind of place, and not sketchy. So, why not? He dropped us off at the surprisingly modern and open-looking establishment, where impeccably uniformed staff explained the perks of various 1, 6, and 12 hour packages that included meals for two (cheeseburgers, delivered to the room, free of charge). While we were sorely tempted, in the end the room rate was just too high for us to justify being able to say we did it, so we went back to the drawing board using the hotel Wi-Fi. A more reasonably-priced establishment appeared to be just a few blocks away, so we left and naturally got hopelessly lost immediately. Wandering through an increasingly impoverished barrio well after dark, we eventually gave up on finding the place ourselves and enlisted the aid of what is interestingly called a pedicab in Manila (it’s actually a rusty old bicycle with a sidecar welded on big enough for a five year old Filipino to fit into, but whatever). Our driver managed to take us further from our destination than ever before, bringing us to all new levels of being lost in an unfamiliar city (notice a trend?). We finally arrived at the guesthouse, and as we signed in the breathless and flamboyantly gay manager rushed in and up the stairs, inviting us as he passed to a pig roast happening on the rooftop terrace. Mika’s vegetarianism did not stop us from witnessing the spectacle of a slender, freshly roasted whole hog being unpacked from the cardboard box and cellophane it had been delicately wrapped in for fresh delivery. I sampled some, and it wasn’t bad at all. Figuring that our night couldn’t get any weirder, we made one last stop in Manila before going to sleep and waking up early to catch our morning flight—a pub called the Hobbit House. With a huge, round front door, posters and cardboard cutouts of Lord of the Rings characters, and a staff composed almost entirely of little people, the sheer bizarreness of the place made it perhaps the most fitting spot for a halfhearted attempt at nachos and an overpriced cider on our last night abroad.

***

Looking back now at our time in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Burma, and the road home with a little bit of time to consider it all, this was perhaps our best trip yet. Each place that we visited had an incredible amount to offer when it came to cultural uniqueness, natural beauty, fascinating religious sites, engrossing history, delicious food, and extremely friendly and hospitable people. Sri Lanka, with its sometimes divisively mixed Buddhist/Christian/Muslim/Hindu makeup, was probably the most spiritually diverse. Thailand, where we lived for eight months in total, made for a great middle ground between Istanbul, Turkey (which was almost too familiar and modern for our desire for adventure) and India (which was lovely many respects, but also heart-wrenchingly hopeless in a lot of ways). We made closer friends in Chiang Mai than anywhere else in our travels. And it was safe, easy, and fun to travel in, which are obviously all wonderful traits, though they have contributed to it being somewhat overrun with tourists. Burma provided a unique divergence from that, in that we still felt like we were breaking ground to some extent there, and as a result the people were some of the friendliest we had encountered in our travels so far. Also, it was great to experience firsthand the sort of things that Mika and I had both been researching and reading about during our internships in Chiang Mai. We definitely plan to return to this region in the future to continue exploring, and look forward to many more adventures on the road.

City of Life and Death

The most efficient way to get from Chennai, near Maballipuram, to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh is by a 40-hour train ride. We bought supplies and camped out in a comfortable second class coach with a friendly elderly couple from Tamil Nadu and enjoyed the scenery passing our window nonstop for almost two days. When we finally arrived at our destination, one of India’s holiest cities, it was early morning and we caught a rickshaw to the center of the action—the banks of the river Ganges.

Varanasi is a focal point for Hindus because of the river, which is believed to flow from the hair of Shiva. The best way to escape the cycle of life and death and access higher realms of consciousness and spiritual salvation is to be cremated at the edge of Mother Ganga. As a result, pilgrims flock to the City of Light and many older Indians come to retirement homes in hopes of passing away a convenient distance from their point of incineration. Some wealthy families transport the bodies of their recently deceased across the country in order to bring them there. Every night, extensive prayer ceremonies take place on the stone ghats leading down into the water, with Brahmins performing pujas to the gods and devotees singing along with songs played over loudspeakers. Orange-clad sadhus, the ubiquitous, wandering holy men of India, line the stone riverbank and exchange blessings for alms. The overall impression it leaves is of a holy but simultaneously dark place. Death rites take place in full view of passerby, much like at the ghats of Pashuputinath in Nepal. Bodies are placed on sandalwood pyres and engulfed in flames in a system of cremations that runs 24 hours a day in several locations. Around each one, massive stacks of logs are piled against every wall, ready to be weighed on large metal scales. To be cremated on the ghats is an incredibly expensive affair for the average Indian family, so the absolute minimum amount of fuel is generally bought. Ash-streaked Brahmins watch over the fires, pushing any loose pieces of wood or body deeper into the center as a pyre collapses, while ragged dogs and the controversial and disturbing aghora sadhus lurk in the shadows. Aghori cover themselves with human ashes and consume the flesh of cremated individuals in dark ceremonies intended to subvert social norms and demonstrate the depths to which man can sink before enlightening himself. The river itself, one of the holiest things in all of India, is a mess of garbage, sewage, and charred timbers, but this doesn’t stop locals and pilgrims from bathing, doing laundry, or even brushing their teeth downstream. The proximity of life and death’s realities, and the casual way in which these things occur, can be disarming. One need only see a human skull that until a few minutes before was clothed in a face get pushed deeper into a bonfire to start to understand that. Varanasi is indeed a difficult place to get a grasp on—its spiritual intensity is simply too much for many visitors.

We stayed in the city for several days, doing most of our activities in the early morning and late evening to avoid the oppressive heat. At sunrise, we took a boat upriver to watch the dawn ablutions and prayers of men and women in colorful clothes on the ghats. Laundry is laid out to dry on the stairs, while boys skipping school play cricket on the walkways between the flights. Boatmen paint and repair their colorful wooden craft or ferry loads of tourists past the daily rituals of life and religion. At night, we sat amongst the faithful and observed the complex ceremonies of lines of smoke-shrouded Brahmins as they blew conch shells, burned incense, waved braziers and candelabras, and threw flower petals in perfect unison. Afterwards, we bought bowls formed out of leaves and stuffed with flowers and a candle to float them down the river, offering our own prayers. Classical music performances occur nightly on one ghat, while appreciative listeners sit on the stairs above and the tabla and harmonium melodies filter downstream with the ceremonial debris. We wandered the dark, maze-like alleys of the old city, filled with shrines, henna artists, and lassi shops. One evening, fireworks erupted from one ghat to welcome wealthy guests arriving to their hotel via romantic rowboat, providing even the poorest beggar of the urine-stained, graffiti-covered platform with an impressive show. Only one event coaxed us from our comfortable guesthouse during the searing heat of midday—the filming of a Bollywood musical immediately outside. Assi Ghat, where we stayed for the entirety of our visit, is a famous spot and will be the focus of an upcoming movie. Flocks of star-struck Indians crowded around the set, while an irate director continually reminded them to get out of the shot and be as quiet as possible over a malfunctioning PA system. Varanasi is a much-celebrated city across the country, and it seemed only fitting for it to get the glitzy recognition that comes with a modern feature presentation.

 

On a far more personal note, I have some very unfortunate news to share. A dear family friend, Gary Morris, passed away at his home unexpectedly one week ago. Gary was an incredibly talented musician and a friend to many in the town where I grew up, and he and my mother were especially close partners in several ways. It’s weird to imagine my small town and community of friends and musicians without him, because he has been a fixture in it for so long. We’ve known him for the last 30 years or so; far longer than I’ve been around. He was my first trumpet teacher and first guitar teacher, among other things. His obituary, which appeared yesterday in our local paper, can be viewed here. For Montana people reading this, there will be a celebration of Gary’s life on June 23rd, and you can contact me for more information about it.

The Lessons I’ve Learned

Vibrant rolling hills blanketed with tea plantations, purple jacarandas swaying with the wind, serene reflective lakes glimpsed from the back of a moped. Riding through the ever-winding narrow roads of Munnar’s tea estates, the hill station’s crisp mountain air offered refuge from the sweltering heat that dominates the rest of southern Kerala. Upon reaching the dusty town after a wasted day in transit, we quickly hopped on the back of a bike in search of some natural beauty and it didn’t take long to be engulfed in a sea of lush green tea-trees and mountain scenery. Two months into this overly-ambitious India adventure, we have experienced the ecstatic highs and despondent lows of travel in this country. As privileged young backpackers circling the globe we often write about our magical encounters from this journey, but along with exotic foreign wonders there is a darker side of humanity to reckon with. India can leave you breathless with its rich cultural heritage and the next instant bring you to your knees in despair at the injustice and cruelty that we are capable of creating, and on this trip I have been on the losing end of a battle with my own value system. These tough lessons are not for the faint of heart.

You learn things about yourself that you wish you never had to know. You learn the amount of ineptitude and lies you are willing to endure before unleashing fury onto the next innocent fool to mistakenly cross your path. You learn the breaking point at which you find it within yourself to shove off a begging child clinging to your arm, or spray your bottled water at a relentless rickshaw driver. You eventually learn to turn a blind eye to the Indian tourist shamelessly tossing his plastic wrappers into (rare) pristine wilderness, the authority figure requesting money in exchange for special privileges, or the abusive parent slapping her child to the ground, and it is all you can do to keep yourself from screaming. You learn to eat your overpriced meal while starving cripples and elders plead for food nearby. You realize that if you dropped that coin into their cup you wouldn’t be doing it nearly as much for their sake, as for your own.

Being away from home for so long has made me acutely aware of my roots, and through the unimaginable circumstance that India hurls my way, it has challenged and forced me to question everything that I thought I stood for. I find myself desperately trying to retain that part of me that I can still recognize through the numbness. I cling to memories of a parent’s embrace, an aunt’s soft scent, a goodbye kiss from lost loves, and friends whose voices I haven’t heard in over a year. I am grateful to the ones that taught me what love means, through pain and forgiveness, the lessons of how to heal a broken heart. I meditate on what it means to be a part of the injustices witnessed on a daily basis, and not be completely shattered by the weight of it all. When all else fails I try to reconcile my own guilt by offering leftovers to the only pure soul I can find, a stay mutt wandering the street, and smile at how my best friend back home would completely understand.

Long distance relationships are not just difficult with a romantic partner, but with everything I hold most dear: my unconditionally supportive family and friends, people along the way who have irrevocably altered my path and made me who I am, and the hometown which will always claim my soul. This song begins to capture some of what I feel for you.

A Dedication to Love

It seems only fitting to post about our experience at the Taj Mahal on a day dedicated to Love. Despite Brandi’s warning against going to Agra, we couldn’t keep ourselves away from the city that holds India’s crowning glory. Her greatest concern for us was the omnipresent scammers that await foreigners at every corner, and she gave us solid advice about how to avoid them, all of which we failed to apply once we actually made it there. With little sleep or patience, we were reluctantly convinced by the first autowallah we met to hire him for the day as a driver around the city. Aslam, our driver, was a quirky Muslim man who liked to make jokes and playful conversation during our rides. Of course the requisite India experience is visiting the Taj Mahal, and so not wanting to spend a single night in Agra, we made this our first stop. As to be expected, vendors selling all varieties of tourist crap lined the streets leading up to the entrance, and we had to beat our way inside to buy the outrageously priced ticket (in reality only $15, but this “foreigner price” is literally almost 4000% higher than the pittance that an Indian tourist pays to get in). After going through the metal detector and having a thorough pat down and bag search, the security guard demanded I remove the laptop from our backpack because it was not permitted inside the premises. We had been carrying our most valuable items on us, and chaos ensued for the next twenty minutes or so while we anxiously ran around trying to secure a place for it before going inside. When I came through the metal detector the second time around the search involved my pockets, and it turns out playing cards are also not allowed inside the premises for reasons that I will never understand. By this point I wanted to cry and just be inside the damn thing, and we finally made it through security though not in the best of spirits.

These feelings evaporated once we stepped through the red sandstone gateway and witnessed the Taj in all of its magnificent splendor. Pictures can begin to do it justice, but it is an entirely different thing to actually stand before the monument itself. Quickly leaving the hassle of Agra behind us, we stood in awe of the perfectly proportioned building framed by the ornamental gardens, flowing fountains, and its four minarets. The typical touristy pictures were taken (touching the tip of the dome), along with many others as we were incessantly stopped by Indians wanting photoshoots with us. I often feel like we are the royal couple with how much paparazzi we receive here, with or without our permission! After steadily making our way up to the platform that the Taj is elevated upon, we again gazed in wonder up at the exquisite detail of the Arabic calligraphy, latticed screens, marble relief work, and inlay of semi-precious stones.

Fast facts about the Taj: it was built by Shah Jahan (or rather by his slaves) in the 1600s, as a testament to love for his third and favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who had died in childbirth. Both he and his wife are now buried at the site, though the main dome is a mausoleum that holds fake tombs while the real cenotaphs are in a vault down below. The square shape of the building is supposed to represent the material world, while the stunning main dome represents the vault of heaven. Due to the marble platform it is raised upon, a view of the Taj will always have a background of only sky, and the red sandstone mosque and jawab on either side of the monument achieve complete symmetry. The building has remained so immaculately white over the centuries thanks to the occasional application of a concoction of soil, cereal, milk, and lime (formerly used to beautify women’s skin), as well as traffic regulations that allow only non-polluting vehicles to come within several hundred meters of the grounds.

The river running behind the Taj separates it from a large, perfectly aligned park, and we requested Aslam to take us there to view the monument at sunset. Along the way we made a couple of stops for lunch, to a garment boutique (where I was unsurprisingly pressured into trying on several vibrant saris), and to see outside views of Agra Fort and the nearby Baby Taj. Aslam gave us both autorickshaw driving lessons, which we somehow managed to survive. We made it into the Mehtab Bagh gardens as the sun began to sink and watched the back of the Taj Mahal from across the river as the sky melted into dusk. It was a romantic final vision of India’s most famous icon.

Soon thereafter we caught our bus to the nearby town of Fatepur Sikri. Briefly one of the capitals of the Mughal Empire, Fatepur Sikri is an ancient “ruined city” that is known for its large mosque and palace compound. Walking up to the gigantic Jama Masjid Mosque, Neil and I were quickly adopted by Muslim boys who assured us that they were not child-guides, but then proceeded to tour us around the complex and requested baksheesh at the end. We decided to explore the pavilions next door on our own, and were impressed by the enormous courtyards, gardens, and crumbling Indian-Islamic architecture. The Mughal Emperor that founded the city had built three palaces dedicated to each of his three (Hindu, Christian, and Muslim) wives. Far less striking than the Taj but still very eye-catching, these intricately carved sandy red buildings were an introduction to the more desert-like atmosphere that we would soon experience to the west in the state of Rajasthan.

We are majorly playing catch-up with the blog having already been here a month so far, but currently are situated in Mumbai and loving it! Modern and cosmopolitan, Mumbai/Bombay was the perfect place to spend our day of love, and Valentines began with breakfast in bed, long-stemmed roses, and chocolate *a girl’s dream* and ended with fine dining on Pan-Asian cuisine and a Bollywood romantic comedy (or “Bom-rom-com” as Neil put it). This is a far cry from what we’d been experiencing in the preceding weeks—there have been tumultuous ups and downs on this journey so far and a lot to fill you in on—so stay tuned!