VACATION!

So as the 2 people (being hopeful) who read this blog may or may not know I just returned from a 23 day vacation adventure around the wondrous country that is India. The trip went something like this:
Day one:
Take a plane to Delhi, arrive in the morning and take a taxi to the bus stand in Old Delhi. Witness the glory of the Red fort from outside its walls because it costs money to enter. Proceed to walk around the incredibly busy streets until my back hurts from carrying my life on my back. Proceed to loiter at a restaurant for 3 hours. Then walk around more, get to the bus stop at 9 and watch the Delhi traffic pass while I wait for my bus. That night the bus is incredibly and thus no sleep was to be had.
Day Two:
Wake up in what my travel group of 4 thought was Haridwar (aka the start of the Ganges) but instead was Rishikesh (aka the capital of yoga). I was very excited about this mistake as mountains were present. Not white capped but when you watch the sunrise through mountains and its reflected on the holiest river in the world you can't really be disappointed. Then proceeded to walk from hotel to hotel asking about prices until a mystery woman told us to follow her and then ran ahead like Gollum in Shelob's layer. I could barely keep her in eyesight. But she did take us to a hotel where it cost 6 whole dollars a night for a two person room (so pricey!). Spent the rest of the day napping as I hadn't slept in like 48 hours.
Days 3-9:
This time was spent exploring the city, mountains and natural beauty of Rishikesh and reading good books in choice places such as on the beach next to the river Ganga as children attempted a plethora of tricks to fool me into buying pooja. We also found possibly the greatest Restaurant ever whose name will not be exposed for fear that it will end up in the next edition of Lonely Planet. But it was a rooftop tiki bar-type establishment in which you could eat great food ans have a view of the Ganges at night (the best time to see it in my opinion). Overall Rishikesh was an incredibly peaceful place. The feel of the area was so relaxed and it took me until the last night to realize how much I didn't want to leave. It was definitely a place to lose yourself and forget about the complications in life. And for that reason I am appreciative I had the chance to visit it.
Day 10:
In the morning we boarded a bus to go to Haridwar and spent the day roaming the streets looking for the mystery bus stand we were supposed to board our bus on. We finally found it and found out that they had made a mistake and had accidentally booked us for non-AC when we paid for AC. Not a big deal at all but the man thought I was getting mad even after he refunded us. So he offered me a cigarette and when I said no thanks "vine" was offered. I'm not sure if he mispronounced wine or if vine is a euphemism for weed that I just don't know about. Both are about equally plausible. Anyway we once again had a night bus from Haridwar to Delhi
Day11:
Arrival in Delhi and spent the whole day in New Delhi. The metro system there is ridiculously crowded. Especially when carrying frustratingly cumbersome luggage. I never thought a backpack could make me feel morbidly obese. I was hitting someone everywhere I turned. But we finally got to our stop and pile drove through the crowd of people to make it to the India Gate which, I must say, looks a lot bigger in pictures. We spent the day loafing about on the lawn of India Gate and then walking to Connaught Place which is a lovely (and rich) area of Delhi where we once again loafed on a lawn of a nearby park. We then boarded another bus for the start of a 3 day trek to Jaisalmer.
Day 12:
Got into Jaipur in the morning and had to walk straight to the train station to catch our train in time.Trains trains trains! Stopped in Jodhpur and spent the night at a nearby hotel.
Day 13: Woked up at 4:30 to board another train. Road that all day. Then end.
Day 14:
Arrived in Jaisalmer and scheduled a camel trek for the next day. Then wandered around town. Rajasthan is the most colorful place I've visited in India. Turbans everywhere and clothes that are unabashedly gaudy. It is a fun place.
Day 15:
 Beginning of camel Trek! Camels hurt yours testicles. There is no way to sugar coat it. It is a wonderful experience but man was my groin sore afterward. But right before sunset we set up camp and the sunset/night/sunrise in the desert is probably one of the most beautiful things I've experienced. I have never seen that many stars and those moments were incredibly memorable. My camel was named either Maria or Muria. The pronunciation varied everytime I asked. He was a good camel but kept eating, not that I blame him.
Day 16:
Woke up in the desert to incredibly cold feet. It sure gets chilly at night but it warms up quickly as soon as the sun rises. Once we ate breakfast we rode again until noon and had lunch, then took a jeep back to our hostel to celebrate the beginning of Diwali! The night was spent at a rooftop restaurant (a pattern with the rooftop restaurants) watching fireworks among other things.
Day17:
Diwali continues as neighborhood children through M80s that are much more powerful than the ones legal in the states at me. Not as fun as one would think but definitely an experience.
If you could not tell I these descriptions are slowly getting shorter. This is because I am getting tired. But I shall keep wrap it up!
Day 18:
 Left for Goa. 36 hours in buses. Dear god I have enough time in a bus.
Day 19:
Arrived in Goa and met my friend from back home who is studying at Manipal University. It was weird seeing him in India but very cool. I was glad to see him even if it was only for a couple hours.
Rest of the time:
Relaxed on the beach, read more books, did very touristy things and visited a lot of bookstores. A good time but not really an insight to Indian culture, well unless you count Indian shop keepers because they were everywhere. At the end of the time we took a non AC government run bus back to Mysore. Now the government buses are packed. Like as many people as you could fit into a bus packed. So that 17 hour bus ride was quite uncomfortable.
But I'm back to where I have internet and a room and even though my adventures were wonderful I am glad to be back. And thus concludes vacation timez. Good stuff.

I haven't posted in a while so this one is going to have a bunch of random stuff in it:
So what have I done in India thus far which has been interesting. Well for the most part I've been taking classes here, walking around the small village of Hebbal next to my Hostel, struggling in communicating with the locals in Kannada and touring Karnataka (sometimes venturing into neighboring states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala).
Highlights of class include yoga every morning at 6 am, which really kick starts your day though the morning can be rough, learning Hindi, which is going slowly but I am overly proud of everything I learn, and learning to play the Mridangam, an Indian drum native to Karnataka. I finally can sorta play an instrument. Check that one off the bucket list. But thats not all that interesting. The tours are probably the coolest part and so places I've visited include:
-Rural school
-Rural hospital
-Gomatta
-Several Hindu temples
-backwaters of Karnataka
-Mysore palace
-Ayurvedic hospital
-Nature reserve
And I think that's more or less it. The palace was beautiful (it's a palace) and came complete with artifacts given to the former King of Mysore from all over the world. Thrones made entirely of gold and the like. It was cool but I never really get the joy of looking at expensive things. They can be pretty but the materialism is somewhat of a turn off. Don't get me wrong everyone should see a pure gold throne once in their lives but I think this was my least favorite place I've visited thus far. Palace is pictured below.

If were going in order of least to most enjoyable I think next would be the rural hospital. Now this would normally be one of the most interesting places for me. Hospitals are fascinating, though somewhat depressing. However we didn't really get to see anything while there. The cool thing was that it was one of many rural hospitals in which admittance costs approximately $2 and treatments are more or less pro bono. The charge is about half of what it normally would be and that covers equipment etc.
The ayurvedic hospital is next just because it was cool to see the different equipment used. Ayurvedic medicine is mainly preventative and include oil massages, steam chambers (sounds creppy but isn't) and only naturally occuring herbal concoctions to cure anything from a headache to paralysis. I found it hard to believe that bark can cure paralysis but the people there believe it to be so. Whatever works for them, and who knows!
Then the nature reserve. The highlight of that trip was a half hour long soccer (the real football) game played with some local kids using a tiny orange as the ball. They have good foot-eye coordination. The bus tour of the reserve was cool but I had my heart set on seeing a tiger and instead saw a shitload of spotted deer. If you like spotted deer you probably died of happiness at that nature reserve. Below are some of the kids I played soccer with. They rock out.

Also here is a fun picture of some Indian nuns!

They look so happy!

The next area visited were the several temples. These were cool as everyone had the most intricate carvings I've ever seen. They all took like over 100 years to make and most were partially destroyed (like broken sculptures etc)by the Muslims when they invaded India. Thus they know longer function as temples since they have been tainted. Instead they're just tourist attractions. These were cool but as I'm really not religious they didn't affect me s much as some other people. The carving is beautiful and a lot of the sculpted walls depict stories from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata which is super cool but after seeing three I think I've had my fill of temples. Picture below

The backwaters were beautiful and the best part was riding in a boat I forget the name of it but it is pictured above. The man paddling isn't even affiliated with us. He his daughter and his wife were fishing and we asked if we could take a ride and he took all 10 people in the group, then refused payment. One testament of how friendly the people here are. But more on that later. So yea, A boat ride happened and being on that small little boat in the middle of the river felt so beautiful. I could have stayed out there for days but unfortunately it only lasted a couple minutes.
Down to the top two! Well coming in second is the trip to the rural school. If you want to learn a language in a foreign country children are the ones to talk to. They don't care about your mistakes, want to teach you, want to talk to you and are overall just better human beings then most adults. Rural children are no exception and are in fact the least spoiled, cutest, coolest kids I've ever met. All these kids go to school for free as part of a affirmative action-like government program to reverse the acts of caste inequalities etc. The amazing thing is that there is a lot of support for these programs. Tons more than U.S. affirmative action. The highlight of this trip was dancing with the kids. Unfortunately I don't have a picture but we taught them the congo line, the macarena, the cotton eye joe and many moves that aren't really dances. Convulsions might be a more appropriate description. It was great.
And the #1 trip thus far has been Gomatta. This is the largest statue of a monotheistic idol in the world. Said scuplture is of Bahubali, a idol of Jainism. Now I'm not religious but the feel of the place was amazing. The statue stands on top of a mountain. In order to reach it you must climb 614 steps carved into the mountain.

Once at the top and out of breath you finally get to see the statue. There were a group of worshipers there and the statue was so impressive that it just felt spiritual. The statue and I posed below:

If you are wondering why I look so awkward I was attempting to strike a similar pose a Bahubali but apparently only he can pull it off. He is actually doing standing yoga in the immortalized image. But the statue wasn't even the best part. The top of the mountain was covered by stone walls so you couldn't really see the view and on the side there was this old beaten up, end-of-gladiator-like door, and it opened p onto the side of the mountain. What sucks about the U.S. is that we would never have a side of the mountain door. Or if we did it would be off limits. But the view was amazing. And with the wind blowing it your face it was just one of the most peaceful experiences I've ever had. It almost felt like if I jumped off the mountain I'd be able to fly. But I decided not to try it. The picture doesn't so it justice but it is above anyway.

So that is what I've been up to. Yesterday some of my fellow classmates and I went to this party and somehow ended up on stage with a band dancing. That was also pretty memorable. Everyone wants to shake your hand here. It makes me slightly uncomfortable because of this anglo-privileged feel. Like when we was dancing on stage they wouldn't let any Indian kids dance with me, which was unfortunate because it made it less weird. It's a strange feeling. Well thats all for now. Sorry this post is so long. Who knows when the next one will be. 

Nothing really new to post. Just thought I'd share this video that my fellow study abroad student made. Credit goes to Visctoria Harding.
http://vimeo.com/28452601

Holidays=drugs

When we (University Iowa students and I) first got here a seasoned Indian exchange student warned us that a lot of Indian street salesmen in Mysore make up certain holidays and insist on showing you where it is taking place. They then proceed to direct you in and out of side roads until they you find yourself in a remote part of town where they attempt to sell you hard drugs. Now the only thing that worried me about this is that if you've experienced street salesmen from Mysore you know that they do not take no for an answer. Last time I went to the city I spent 30 minutes saying no to the same man and somehow ended up buying a crappy flute.
So I went into the city today with friends and it happened to be a holiday according to a street vendor. It was in the old part of Mysore where all the Muslims lived because it was an Islamic holiday. So we walked for about a mile and the streets started becoming more and more deserted. We were all starting to get tired when we reached an incense shop. We went in to see how the incense was made and were told to come back to see how the incense was made. At this point I remembered the previous warning and became slightly uncomfortable with the situation. Everyone in the group looked uneasy and we were asked to sit down and then it happened. They asked us if we wanted to buy...

Incense! Turns out there was an Islamic holiday going on. I then proceeded to feel bad for assuming the nice man who was trying to show us a cool festival was a drug dealer. 

1st post!

I can't believe I actually made a blog. I feel an undeserved sense of technical saavy. Well I guess I'll begin by explaining the name of the blog. It is an Indian idiom (How appropriate!) which refers to having a no care attitude/being yourself. I just thought it was too cool for school and thus a blog title was born.
For those of you who don't know I am spending a semester in Mysore India. I've already been here for almost a week and a half and I feel like I've lived here all my life. The area I'm living in has beautiful scenery, smells and people and while at times overwhelming this is already one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Highlights include but are not limited to:
-petting an elephant
-playing modified soccer with a group of school children
-traversing the streets via auto-rickshaw
-realizing that one can communicate surprisingly well with very limited knowledge of the language
-pretty much everything else
Well this will be a short blog since I have a scheduled skype date. Post again soon with pictures!