My US Passport

I hold an American passport. Having worked with immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, most of the time I feel very blessed to have it. It opens the doors to any number of wonderful things. To someone from a war ravaged country, it means peace and stability, for someone from a developing country, it means a chance for an education or maybe a job that pays enough to feed your family.

But today, holding an American passport means I can't go on an amazing trip to the north western part of India otherwise known as Jammu and Kashmir.

For those of you who don't know, some film maker made a movie that's very offensive to Muslims. I won't go into the details because you can find them online. But the majority of people in the Jammu Kashmir region are Muslims. Somehow this has translated into demonstrations against the US, attacks on Americans, and flag and effigy burning. The Grand Mufti of Jammu Kashmir (a religious leader, I think) has told US citizens that they should leave the region. The US State department has issued a travel warning for US citizens to leave the region.

Chances are, since I would be traveling with an Indian family, I would be fine. But I have to get permission as a foreigner to enter the region and I'm afraid they would either deny me entry or make us wait for three days in Shrinigar completely throwing off the road trip schedule.

Madhukar very nicely offered to let me go anyway and risk the trip disruption, but I can't screw up someone else's family vacation and even potentially put them in danger.

So I'm not going.

:(

Haridwar

This weekend we took a little trip to Haridwar. It's a bit further away than Rishikesh and a bit bigger. Also, WAY more crowded. Amazingly, this is only a fraction of the number of people who will be there for some of the high holy days.

We stayed in a hotel that faced the Ganges and had AC. 

There were also monkeys. And so there were signs warning tourists about the monkeys.

The view of the Ganges was interesting. 

The view of the street below was more interesting.

We spent Saturday afternoon walking through the streets. Actually, getting shoved, poked and prodded, walking the streets is a little more accurate description. It was a relief to climb some very steep stairs to visit a temple at the top of one of the hills. 

There's also a cable car but the line for that was really really long so we decided to hike it.

I'm glad we did. It was a good hike (although I used some muscles I clearly haven't used in a while).

And of course there were great views of the city.

In the evening, everyone crowds the riverbank to float these little boats with candles in them down the river.

It's an incredible site. But very hot and very crowded.

Then I may or may not have threatened Matthew with bodily harm if we didn't go get some food. I get very grumpy when I'm hungry.

Dinner was stuffed tomatoes. They were tangy and stuffed with cheese. Not bad.

 This morning we got up and walked around the city and took some more photos. 

In this picture, if you squint, you can kind of see the temple that we visited yesterday up at the top of the hill behind me.

Some people say that Haridwar is very similar to Rishikesh. I have to say that I liked Rishikesh much better than Haridwar although both were very touristy. Rishikesh was smaller, cleaner, and had more green space. 

The sheer number of people in Haridwar was overwhelming. 

The noise was constant. I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to the sound of some sort of drums/musical instruments. As nice as it was to be in a cool room, it's even nicer to be back in my relatively quiet hostel room. 

Whether the Weather changes

There's some debate here about when the monsoon season ends. Madhukar says that it started late which means it will end late as well.

Who knows. But it's only 80 right now which makes it pretty cool outside and it looks like even with the rain, it's finally going to cool down.

I follow the blog of an FSO who was in Bangladesh. She posted once that when it got down into the 80's people were wearing scarves and hats. I wonder if it will be like that here. Although living so close to the mountains, perhaps they are more used to the cold than the people of Bangladesh.

I did in fact pull out a long sleeve shirt... more for the variety of wearing something different than because it's actually cold enough to require one. At least it's not hot enough to make it uncomfortable.

But based on the weather report, it doesn't look like the rain is going to let up anytime soon. hiking will have to wait.

Reversible princess dress

Before I left for India, I finished a birthday present for one of my nieces. Her birthday is in October so it needed to be done before I left.

I wanted to make a reversible princes dress: Snow white on one side and Cinderella on the other.

You can't tell from the above photos, but when I tried it on the niece, it looked like I'd made a cross between Princess Jasmine and Cinderella/Snow White. In other words, it was a belly shirt because the top was too short.

I didn't have quite enough fabric to remake the top so instead I added some yellow to the Snow white top and raised the waistline.

 You might not be able to tell from these pictures, but the Cinderella dress also has a raised waistline with silver piping.

In these photos (thanks Heidi) it's not quite done yet. The bottom hadn't been finished and I still had to tack the sleeves together.
I'll post more pictures after she unwraps it for her birthday.

And it's Friday here, so yea for that! I go to Haridwar tomorrow. I may go see the Dalai Lama in the morning but maybe not. I got to see him when he spoke at SMU last year and if he was difficult to understand in English, I can't imagine I would get much more out of his talk when he's speaking in Tibetan. But we'll see.

Paneer Tikka

Last weekend, we took a little trip up to Rajpur road to eat Punjabi food and drink beer. Okay, really, Matthew wanted a beer



and I wanted cheese. 



Cheese Indian style is called paneer. Think big chunks of cottage cheese without the runny stuff.


Paneer Tikka is Paneer that's been marinated in yogurt and spices and then toasted in an oven. Sprinkled with lime, it makes for an awesome lunch.

We also had it with the sauce which is called Paneer Tikka Masala.



Okay, so Songjoo and I drank the beer too... it was spicy! :) But delicious.

Going Away Party

Okay, so I know these are a long time coming but I didn't get them from my photographer until today ;) (Thanks Heidi, you did an awesome job with some pretty poor lighting.)

My amazing friends threw me a rocking going away party.

We had it at this totally shady bar close to my neighborhood. It's not really shady. Just small and mostly inhabited by locals. But there was Karaoke, and you know that's what I like.

Different kinds of popcorn and bar food in summary plastic pails

 

Faye and Jason - Cute couple!

Jenn, Love your hair!

Love this picture of Kim and Daniel

Isn't Faye gorgeous?

We are the Aggies, the Aggies are we!

I have such talented friends

Because you can't do Karaoke Edstrom style without some Coolio!

It was soooo much fun. Can't wait to do it again when I get back.

In other news. I'm planning on going with Madhukar and his family to Leh Ladakh. If you've ever seen the Movie 3 Idiots, you've seen the amazing scenery that is Ladakh. It's at an extremely high altitude and is very beautiful. It's going to be an eleven day road trip.

And yes, it's close to Pakistan, and no, I will not be going to Pakistan. We will, however, be driving through the very southern most part of Kashmir (something I wouldn't want to attempt on my own).

Super psyched! Can't wait to post the pictures.