And yes, we are alive, safe, and so very much more.  I think the two most commonly uttered phrases of this trip are “No, seriously this time. THIS is the best restaurant in the world!” and “We are definitely having the best honeymoon ever.”

As I write, we are lying in our large and Europeanly firm bed in one of the more luxurious hotels of the trip, in Florence. We have the first LCD TV we have seen this whole time, have happily had no reason to turn it on yet. We have already been to Venice, Cinque Terre, Lucca, and San Gimignano. Tomorrow we finish our time in Florence and catch a train to Spello in Umbria. Then Rome.

There is far too much to write about, and we are excited to share pictures and stories with everyone when we get home. But we can share a little here, so that you can be properly jealous.

I basically fell in love with Venice. It is every bit the magical place that attracts people in the first place. Our hotel was small and simple, with a bit of a view but perfectly located away from the crowds while close enough to walk to dinner in the evening and skip home 3 hours and a bottle of the house wine (perhaps with some dessert wine) later. Still adjusting to the time, which meant waking around 6am, we would go for a morning stroll and get lost among the canals before the Venetians awoke. Venice, I think, is one of the later-running Italian cities. Completely empty, until the students start making their ways to the various art schools with their arms full of canvasses, folios, and other art student paraphernalia. Then back to the hotel by 9am for our complimentary bed in breakfast. Rolls, yogurt, and my first cappuccino. I still think those may have been the best cappuccinos (cappuccini?) that we have had, but anything with that much cream and sugar can’t be too far from delicious. I am still working on loving espresso though. Then the days were mostly museum, gelato, museum, caffe, church, pizza, wine, museum, lost, lost, lost, pretty sunset, afternoon nap, amazing dinner, sleep, repeat. We bought awesome masks. Highlight: Fried rosemary garnish on a perfectly prepared local fish. The actual dish was amazing, but the rosemary garnish was impossibly crisp, subtle, and flavorful. I will have to replicate this.

Our time in Cinque Terre was almost entirely spent in the second-to-smallest town of the five, called Manarola. It was just what we were looking for. Touristy, sure, but not as overrun as its bigger neighbor Monterrosso, which reminded me of a more condensed and rapidly constructed Avalon, Catalina. Manarola was much smaller. Still developed, but with its own character. We spent our days down at the water, sunbathing and swimming (except for the day when when massive swarm of jellyfish visited. Great stories from that day), and our nights at Trattoria dal Billy, with our favorite waiter Felicce. The town is famous for its dessert wine, Shachetera (undoubtedly misspelled here), which has a unique and delicious flavor, and its own take on limoncello, which they call limoncino and is made from the lemons grown on the surrounding hillsides. Highlight: the incredible antipasto at Billy which must be served on at least 15 small plates and ranged from lemon soaked anchovies to fried polenta.

I am getting the look that says that I have been writing too long on my honeymoon. Needless to say, there is a ton to tell. If I can sneak it in, I will try to post pictures soon. We love and miss you all. THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR GIVING US THE BEST HONEYMOON WE CAN DREAM OF!

P.S. We need Nana and Pow’s and Grandma Ad’s addresses. Email?

It was a hard decision to choose to postpone the honeymoon until after the academic year, but it made too much sense to not. It has been a long year for us both, and now that we know that Claire has a job next year (YAY!), and with my big portfolio review coming up in the fall it is nice to have this time to relax. I am bringing the laptop along to update the people back home, but I have made a NO-WORK pledge to myself. If I learn anything at all, it will be in a kitchen with lots of brick, butter, and basil.

The real question is: will all of the walking on this trip mold me into a sinewy Toranaga, or will the gelato reduce me to being Sandcastle handicapped?

We love Varkala. We are doing a very good job of avoiding the main tourist attractions. The main cliff is covered in shops and tourist restaurants, but if you walk 1km either direction, you are in a completely different world. To the south you find the big resorts that are hidden back among the palm trees. Beyond that, a small beach acts as the last barrier between the tourist area and the villages. A little further and you hit an extremely colorful mosque. Pink and peach walls with sea foam green minarets. Just behind that is the first village, and our friend Shah’s restaurant where we go for lunch and chess and conversation. Yesterday I got whomped by Dylan’s endgame while eating fish curry with my hands and listening to the soundtrack from the Godfather.

We have been invited to celebrate Onam (which is like Christmas in Kerala) with Jayan’s family in the fishing village about 3km south.

So this morning we changed our flights. We stay here until we fly from Trivandrum to Delhi on the 24th. This is definitely how we want to end our trip.

Kerala is an incredible place. Everyone says that they love it here, or that they loved it when they had visited, but no one could entirely explain why. But now that we are here, we get it.

Kerala is a funny state. It is way at the south of India, on the coast of the Arabian Sea. It is the only democratically elected communist state in the world, has an unbelievably high literacy rate, the food is delicious, the people are friendly, and the weather is beautiful. This is paradise.

There is not enough time to write everything, and even if I had a year I could not write it all. I will just have to tell people about it in person when I arrive home (in a week!). But here is a taste:

We spent a few days among the clouds on the top of a mountain that looked like a checkerboard of tea and spice plantations. At night, we slept in a small hut on the border of the wildlife sanctuary. We could see wild boar and giant deer from the observation treehouse just outside our door. Food is flavored with leaves and diced roots instead of dried spices and powders. During the day, we toured the spice gardens and tracked tigers and elephants in the forest (but only saw hornbills and bison). We took a crowded bus through the mountain villages down through the clouds, past waterfalls and fragrant tea plantations, to Kottayam, a city on the edge of the western ghats. We immediately jumped on a government ferry down the slow moving canals towards Alleppey. The canals are lined with fishing villages and tall coconut palms that lean out over the water and bend with the weight of fruit and drying saris. The ferry was packed with men going to Alleppey. We just happened to be arriving on the day of the annual Dragon Boat Races, the biggest boat race in India. The canals were jammed and the ferry couldn’t reach the jetty, so we had to trudge through mud and reeds to get to the stands to watch the races. We were ushered to our seats by the police, and happened to sit down next to Lubna and Jayan, an American ex-pat from Bahrain and her guide. She recommended visiting Varkala, which was already on the itinerary, and mentioned that Jayan was going to be making the drive that night, so we hitched a ride with him. It turns out that Lubna is a producer for CNBC and Jayan is the owner of a hotel in Varkala. Jayan’s homestay is just a large house, about a minute from the ocean, that is bordered by a massive resort and a coconut grove. Our room is simple, but Jayan’s cooking is wonderful, the garden is peaceful, and the conversation is unparalleled. We spent our first afternoon here talking to Jayan and his friend Shah about philosophy and Russian literature, and mostly listening to them debate while we struggled to keep up. The level of education here is crazy. We spend our days here walking along the beach – ocean to one side, coconut palms to the other – down to Shah’s restaurant for lunch. We sit in cozy wicker chairs, sipping tea and eating rice and sambar with our hands, talking about whether we think Tolstoy,  Aristotle, or Sartre had a better understanding of mankind, staring out over the ocean. We walk back to the homestay by way of the fruit stand, buy a big bag of bananas, oranges, tangerines, and pomegranates for about $2, and spend the evening reading in the garden and peeling fruits. If we get hungry, we go next door to the resort for lemon rice and the best dish I have eaten in this country (prawn masala made with fresh spices, prawns caught that day, and lime leaves right off the tree).

If Claire were here, I might never leave.

We will take pictures today to share with everyone. It is almost time to start the walk down to Shah’s.

We miss everyone, and are eager to get home. I just booked the flight from Trivandrum to Chennai, so that we can fly from Chennai to Delhi to home. Things are wrapping up, and we are fully torn between love for this place and love for home. But this is the best end to the trip that we could possibly ask for.

After leaving Jaipur, we went to Bundi. Bundi is a small down dominated by a massive sandstone and marble fort. I’ll post a few good pictures from there. It’s nice, because this city is significantly smaller than the others we’ve been to. The people are nicer, and less concerned about us. They don’t want anything from us, and actually seem extremely helpful. You just have to get out of the big cities…

We stayed in this great (and cheap!) hotel that was a converted haveli. All white marble and wrought iron, with a decent cafe and nice employees.

But best of all: THEY PROVIDE SHAMPOO! I didn’t bring shampoo, so this is a big deal. After not having shampoo for a month, it really changes things. I can run my fingers through my hair!!!! I was starting to think that I would have to shave my head upon arrival at home.

After Bundi, we traveled for 13 hours by rickshaw, bus, and train to Mt Abu. Which is basically paradise. This small mountain town is centered around a man-made lake, and then surrounded by tropical forests. The trees are green and heavy with broad shady canopies, and volcanic rock juts up among the green all over the place.

Yesterday, we took a taxi to Delwara Temple, which is one of the most important temples in the Jain religion. And for good reason. Every surface of the temple is intricately carved with images and scenes from scriptures. The massive columns and domes are all single pieces of white marble, and must weigh many tons. It is amazing to think that they are over 1000 years old. Pictures were not allowed, but could be purchased, so we bought some. I encourage everyone to look this place up, at least on google images, to see what I mean.

We agree that Mt Abu reminds us of Boulder Creek. Cottages and small individual homes nestled in the woods in a foggy/rainy climate. Makes us miss home.

Current Music: Damu the Fudgemunk – Colorful Storms

Current Fantasy: Corned Beef Sandwich and Matzo Ball Soup

Pictures!

Bundi and Mt Abu

It has been a bit since I wrote a post, and there is, of course, more to tell than I could possibly do just now. Where did I leave off…?

Ok, when I last wrote, we had just arrived in Varanasi. The ghats and Ganges were amazing, and the roads were small and filled with cows and motorcycles and people, but we really came to love it there.

We had intended to go to Bodh Gaya and visit the place where the Buddha attained enlightenment, but missed our train. It is so easy to forget that 1:45 am on July 24th is actually what seems like the late night of the 23rd. So we missed our train by 24 hours. Oops. We had reason to be wary of the rickshaw drivers at 3am, so we had to stay overnight in the train station (which is actually worse than it sounds, and I expect it sounds pretty bad). We were both sick from exhaustion and breathing train fumes all night, and dragged ourselves back to the hotel at dawn.

But we got to see the sunrise over the river, which is beautiful. And once we got back in our room and slept for a day and a half, we got to really explore every inch of Varanasi. There are not actually so many inches to see, but there was a very nice cafe that we made our nightly haunt. We met Farwan, the Himalayan native-turned-waiter, and Fifi, the Israeli ex-pat who now works as a photographer in Varanasi. She taught us the greatest card game ever, which we will be sure to share with you all when we get home. We have been playing non-stop since.

We flew back to Varanasi, and then immediately met our private car (swanky) to Agra. It is supposed to be a 2 hour drive, but took 5 hours because of Delhi construction traffic. Have I mentioned that Delhi is terrible?

Agra is another tourist-centered tout pit, with higher prices and lower quality. It is definitely the kind of place you want to come see for a day, maybe spend the night, and then GET OUT! Which is what we did.

But our hotel was amazing. Over-priced, of course, but with a rooftop cafe view of the Taj Mahal, no more than 1 km away.

We woke up at 4:30 am to see the sun rise over the Taj. Totally worth it. It is a little frightening to be walking the streets before the sun is up, what with the roaming packs of wild dogs and all, but we were some of the first in the door in the morning. There must have been about a dozen of us, with the whole Taj Plaza to ourselves.

I don’t know whether the Taj Mahal is stunning because of its own grandeur, or if it because of the stark contrast between it and the surrounding city. Outside the walls, everything is brown and red and dusty. There are dogs and touts and exhaust and rickshaws. But inside there is nothing big clean pools of water, lush gardens, long manicured lawns, and the massive white marble mausoleum towering over everything.

There were so few people with us, that Dylan and I were actually alone in the mausoleum for a few minutes, which is basically unheard of.

Since we were finished after only a few hours, and it was still only about 8am, we walked 2km to the Agra Fort. It is still occupied by the Indian Military, but is a few hundred years old, and built of red sandstone and the same white marble used on the Taj. Dylan was enchanted by this place, and after our tour, we actually did a second circuit of the fort to see it all again without being hovered around.

We took the bus from Agra to Jaipur yesterday (5 hours, meh), and arrived around 5 pm.  The rickshaw touts are a little more aggressive here, but we are getting used to that. Our room is nice, but oddly romantic with gold-leaf murals and a single massive bed. We call it the honeymoon suite, though we don’t really think it is.

Starved, we went directly up to the rooftop cafe and there found our friends Danielle and Charlotte. I don’t know if I have written about them yet, so I will introduce them now.

On our second-to-last day in Delhi (almost two weeks ago now), we met these two bedraggled British girls walking up the stairs towards our room. They had just gotten into Delhi and were having a very similar experience to our own. They were tired, hungry, and completely overwhelmed. We invited them to come sit down in our room under the fan and chat. They had been hassled by a tout and tricked into paying $150 for a trip to “a lake in Himalaya.” It sounded exactly like a scam that I had read about many times, and so I told them, and showed them all of the sources that make it sound like it might actually be dangerous to go on this trip, and they decided not to go. They hadn’t gotten a receipt or a name or anything, but fortunately had met us.

We had dinner together, and they decided to follow us to Varanasi the next day, so the following night, we all met up to go to the German Bakery in Varanasi. Afterward, we rented a boat to watch the prayer and cremation ceremonies from the water. We lost track of them after our incident with the trains, and they left Varanasi early to go to Agra. We have been in touch with them intermittently when we can check facebook, and since we have generally the same plans, we try to meet up with them whenever we are in the same city.

So anyway, we arrive in Jaipur, and GUESS WHO IN AT OUR CAFE! They have been in Jaipur for a few days now, and love it. We sat and talked about Agra, and they told us that they were planning to go to the circus that night before getting a midnight train to Jaisalmer. They had met  British guy (Richard) in Varanasi, who was alone and scared, so they took him under their wing and have been letting him tag along. We decided to postpone dinner, and go along to the circus.

Circuses are jenky to start with. India is super jenky. The Indian circus? Forget about it. First of all, EVERYONE was watching us more than the show itself, wince white people appear to be the craziest thing that anyone has ever seen ever. The show started with a weak acrobatics performance (complete with alarmingly paunchy acrobats and midgets.) that was basically impossible to see because it was obscured by the heavy nets all around. Then we moved on to a very awkward parade of girls carrying flags. All under 16. Some under 10. None smiling. This was when we started feeling uncomfortable, especially when it became clear that the circus is composed of about 5 men, 10 boys, maybe one woman, and 40 girls. The music was a combination of terrible live drums and pre-programed synthesizer music. there was no intermission, but we left early anyway. The girls needed to eat before their train, and food here takes forever to prepare. And we kind of wanted to leave anyway. What a weird circus.

It looks like rain today, and my stomach feels a little anxious, so today might be an inside day. Cards, water, and maybe a movie. I can deal with that.

Pictures!

Varanasi and Agra

Our hotel (with A/C!!!) stands over the Scindhia bathing ghat. There are religious ceremonies and people bathing right outside of our window. We are surrounded by towers and temples, and there is a warm breeze at all times.

It is difficult to navigate Varanasi, because it is entirely composed of narrow streets and alleys. It is easy to lose sight of the sun, and so lose the only compass we have. Still, we are getting the hang of it. We got lost and found yesterday, which is always a good way to get a feel for a place.

The touts are worse here than they were in Delhi, but we stand out more here than we did there, and this is clearly a much poorer area. There are cows EVERYWHERE, and funeral processions, and flowers, and corpses, and sky-high piles of logs, and poop, and packs of wild dogs, and monkeys, and rivers, and rickshaws, and……..

Our wing of the hotel is encased in cages and gates because, as the porter said, “Sometimes… monkey.” There were monkeys walking on our balcony this morning.

As soon as I can actually work from my computer again (that is, whenever there is wifi again), I will upload pictures.

But then we arrived in India. Holy shit.

We have been here for less than 12 hours, and my mind has already been blown more times than in our whole two weeks in China.

We arrived at midnight, which felt like 2am for us. Customs was a breeze.  We found our taxi driver, who walked us to his small, old,  broken-down car. But all of the cars are like that. The air is heavy and thick with humidity and pollution.  I sat in the passenger seat, and the windows were rolled down. The heat is high, even at midnight. No A/C.  We are immediately in bumper to bumper traffic, even before we have left the parking lot. The driver asks me to use my arm to shove the other cars that we are trying to merge between so that we can get in.

Because it took so long to get out of the lot, the cab driver had to pay an extra 20 rupees to the parking attendant. He stopped the car, got out, and fought long and hard over this injustice, and lost. A lot of stress for 40 cents.

We got onto the freeway, and the speed picked up. People drive like crazy here. First we had to swerve around a loosely stacked truck of heavy metal poles. Then we had to pass a pair of elephants. On the freeway. Not even kidding.

Delhi is going through a lot of reconstruction before the 2010 Commonwealth Games in the winter, so there is a lot of new green space on the main roads. 24 hour construction. There were people everywhere. Sleeping in the streets, in carts, in rickshaws, on the pavement, wherever. We turn into a random neighborhood, and pass a statue of Ghandi. Suddenly we are on a dirt road. There are piles of rubbish on all sides in front of tall and dirty buildings. The streets are lined with people sleeping in carts, with wild dogs that bark menacingly as we pass, and with cows.  The cows are fat with short horns and are munching on whatever garbage happens to be before them. The road is dark and shady and, frankly, scary. And the driver stops the car.

Shit. Is this where we are going?  I guess when you are paying 400rps/nt, you get what you paid for. We may choose to splurge a bit more from now on.

But then he backs up and turns around. He stopped because the road was closed, or maybe just blocked by cows. Not really sure. We arrive at the hotel, which is not far from the scary street. It is down a narrow alley, and the lobby attendant is sleepy. He checks us in slowly, and leads us to our room on the fourth floor. The stairs are tall and made of hard marble, and it is a long way up when you are tired with heavy bags.

Open the door to the room. Impressions (in order): First, it is not cooler in here, and the windows are open, and a fan is spinning furiously on the ceiling. There is no AC. Shit.  Second: There are two mattresses, but only one bed. And it has no dressings (thank GOD i brought my own). Third: the door has no knob. Does it close? Kind of, and it locks by a slide bolt at the bottom.  Fourth: we have our own toilet, but with hardly enough space to sit down on it. At least it is not a squat toilet.  Fifth: the bed is foam. Sooooo hot.

So glad you guys all pressed me to bring shoes.  Going to buy some long pants today.

Think good thoughts in our direction. The adventure suddenly got very very real.

Today we flew from Shanghai to Shenzhen. The flight was at 8pm, but was delayed for an hour. We arrived in Shenzhen at 11pm.

From the airport, we had instructions to take the bus from the airport to a metro station, take the metro to the next station,  and then walking directions from there. I, being my intelligent self, thought ahead to write out all of the directions so  that we could find our way. I am so smart.

Get off the airplane. No English. Anywhere. We look up how to ask whether the bus goes where we need to go, the woman at the ticket window looks confused, but says yes, so we buy tickets. The bus is fast, and our ticket lists the name of the four stops, and none of those are the one we need. So Dylan asks the stewardess on the train where we should get off to get to our stop. She doesn’t know. She sort of laughs and asks someone around us whether they have heard of this place. He laughs.

I am not so smart after all.

We realize that we are screwed.

Mercifully, the person across the aisle and behind us speaks English. He asks for the phone number of our hostel, so he can call and get directions for us. I didn’t write that down. He says, “Ok, what about the name.” Didn’t write that down either. I just wrote the directions, which suddenly seem terribly vague and useless.

By this time, half of the bus is involved in our adventure. Dylan is trying to give people information about the place without making us look like complete idiots. I am trying to remember the name of the place. Hostel. Youth Hostel. International? I think it is YHA, but what the hell does the A stand for?

The guy across the aisle from us is laughing. At us. He is calling the number for information on his cell phone, trying to get us an address. Nothing is working. There are a dozen international youth hostels, all with similar names.

I remember. YHA LOFT Hostel. LOFT. That was key. Of course I make myself the hero of this telling of the story, but really, it was Bill.

Suddenly things change. People have been yelling and shouting in Chinese. We don’t understand anything. The cell phone has passed between hands a few times now, and no one seemed to be having success. After remembering the name of the hostel, the guy who spoke English finally hung up the phone and says, “Don’t worry. Follow him.” ‘Him’ being the laughing guy from across the aisle.

This guy is big. Built. Larger than me, and that is saying something in China.

He leaps (not kidding) from the bus and tells us to follow him (in Chinese). I am fumbling with my bags, trying to keep up as he speeds up the stairs to the pedestrian overpass over the highway. He is power-walking, and we are running to keep up. Over his shoulder he calls, “It is raining,” (which it is). And “My English very bad,” to which I reply, “Our Chinese is worse.” We suck.

He calls a cab. We have no idea what is happening, but start to think that maybe he is calling a cab for us and will leave it to us from there. But then he puts his own bags in the trunk. So… he is coming with us? Ok, now we start to worry. Is this a scam? Are we being kidnapped? Do we need to escape?  The guy is talking non-stop with the driver, and he sounds both happy and angry.

Things are happening fast. I catch a sign through the window that looks like something we were supposed to look for. Then I see another sign (KONKA) that we were definitely supposed to look for. We are going to the right place. We drive down another street that I recognize from our directions and realize that we are close to the hostel. But we turn down the wrong road, and stop in front of another hotel. Maybe he is trying to get us to stay there. Maybe he has a deal with them and he is bringing them new clients. At this point, we are just happy to be in a hotel. We are about to just deal with it. But we know we are close.

He leaves his bags with the front desk, and asks them for directions to our hotel, and then beckons us to follow him back out the door. He power-walks through the lobby doors, and back onto the street. A block later, he takes my second bag out of my hand and carries it for me. Then he walks us to the front desk of our hostel.

This man has singlehandedly saved our lives.

While I am talking to the women  at the front desk, telling them that we have a reservation, checking in, showing our passports, paying, he has asked for a slip of paper to write on. He writes down all of his information for us and tells us to contact him if we need any more help.

At the top of the slip of paper is his name: Bill.

We love Bill. We have been toasting him now for 3 hours. If it weren’t for Bill, we would be on the other side of Shenzhen. We would be playing charades with a taxi driver. We would be searching for a wireless internet connection at 2 in the morning in a completely unfamiliar city.

I am struggling now to close this story appropriately. We can not thank this man enough. On one hand, we learned a lot tonight about traveling and what information is important to bring along. On the other hand, we are humbled in a terrible way. Would someone in the US have done this for us? For lonely and scared foreign travelers in the middle of the night?

Cheers. To Bill.

We went to the EXPO… kind of. We got a late start and arrived at the EXPO around 2:30. It costs Y160 to get it, which is only about $20, but feels like a lot more when you are buying meals for Y10 and the best bao of your life for Y1. The tickets only last until 5pm, so we would only have enough time to see the outsides of things and get some pictures. But that was enough for us.

There was no line, so we sped inside. “AWESOME!” we thought. Once inside, there were no crowds! No lines at the pavilions! Lots of space and plenty of seats and resting places.

We should have known that something was wrong.

Apparently the EXPO is divided into two parts. One part is all of the sweet country pavilions with the crazy buildings, interesting food, fun people, and great photo ops. The other side has all of the corporate pavilions. There is one for the rail system. One for the automotive industry. One for oil. One side is awesome and exciting. One side is boring. Guess which side we were on?

Oh, and did I mention that they are divided BY A RIVER?!

So we thought, “OK, we will cross the river on the ferry.” WRONG! There was a two hour line to get onto the ferry. That would basically give us enough time to get to the exit on the other side before we were forced to buy an expensive evening ticket. So we took a sad picture with the sweet side of the EXPO behind us in the distance, hung our heads, and left.

But we had an even better adventure afterward, and it totally made up for things. I’d read about a cloth market nearby, so we confusedly ambled around a place that we hadn’t been before, turned down a narrow road and were suddenly in the midst of a massive fabric market.

The best part of the whole market were the fish. They sell fish in shallow dishes filled with water so that the fish will live, but are packed together so that they can just be picked up and sold. We saw probably 20 different kinds of fish, eels, frogs, turtles, chickens, ducks, pigeons, and many many other kinds of animals for sale. PETA would not be happy.

Aside from some mild departures, we’ve basically stuck to eating Bao.

Yesterday we went to the Shanghai Museum and the Yuyuan Garden. The museum was nice, and the exhibits were very cool, but the presentation was lacking. I thought that the exhibition style made the things seem more boring than they should have been.

We got dinner at a noodle place that we had tried before. It is good and simple, and the price is right. It is just down the street from our hostel, and the ladies are nice. But last night, it was clear that we were both unwelcome and sitting through the middle of something. They wouldn’t turn us away, and we had already ordered by the time we realized that something was wrong. They only ever smiled to us, but were at each others’ throats (or at least as much so as they would be in front of foreigners). We both feel that we barely made it out of there with our lives.

Today we fly to Shenzhen. We arrive at 10pm, and then have to find our hostel in the middle of the night. We’ll see how that goes.

More pictures!