My Middle Eastern Adventure!: 2011

I was excited to see "Incredible India"!

Wow, this post and the ones to follow shortly after have taken me a few months to finish! I apologize for the delay. Finishing up this school year was insanely hectic, as was packing up my life in Kuwait and moving home to Canada with a 26 day stop over in Europe! So without any further delay........here are the rest of my adventures while living in the Middle East!

I'm wondering if you have seen the "Incredible India" commercials on tv? They play them ALL the time in Kuwait and so we fell prey to them and decided to book a trip to the Golden Triangle cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaippur. There are a few specific sights that are worthy of the "incredible" title, but the other sights, sounds and smells really didn't match up with those exotic looking commercials!!!

Our tour began and ended in Delhi, the capital of India. This was where we walked through the streets and literally through human waste as it was dripping out onto the sidewalk. Yup, that's right.....I'm not even exaggerating a little bit!! Then it began to rain and the bottoms of our pants and sandals got wet and dirty. This was our introduction to the sites, sounds and overwhelming smells of India. LOL

The view out our seedy little hotel's window....

We had a walking tour through the streets of Delhi from our hotel to the Jama Masjid - The Great Mosque. It is actually India's largest mosque.

Walking through the gate.....

Once inside, we had to wear these colourful, yet hideous coverings......LOL!

We saw a lot of interesting things as we walked through the streets and rode on the rickshaws! The one thing that struck me wherever we went, was the crazy splashes of bright colour. I'll spare you the commentary and just post a bunch of pics! ;)

Many women sell garlands of marigolds for religious purposes. Many Hindus often hang them above their doorways into their homes for protection and as an act of worship.

Here is another lady selling flowers for religious ceremony purposes.

This guy was selling these cool looking leaf mats/plates for the offering of food to the Hindu gods and godesses.

At one point it started to rain and the streets started getting muddy!

The people here didn't seem to be bothered by the rain at all!

Rickshaw chaos!!!

Some random monkeys running across the wires.....you have to look carefully.

The crowded streets....

Heavy laden carts.....

I think this guy only sold vegetables that were green....LOL!

This nice man let us take his picture. :)

Tumeric!

Some more veges......even though this one didn't turn out very clearly, I love the colour of her sari and the veges! :)

Kim and I in our first rickshaw!

I thought this was a cool view of the back of Jama Masjid. :)

The grounds around Humayun's Tomb - a Mughal emperor. The tomb was actually built in 1560AD.....so it's kind of old!

I may have been a tad excited about sinking my toes into fresh, green grass......what can I say.......living for 2 years in a desert makes you appreciate A LOT of things!

Humayun's Tomb up close!

The view looking off the back of the terrace.

More of the grounds....

India Gate - a national monument to the 90,000 soldiers of the British Indian Army who died fighting.

Looking in the other direction from India Gate you can see the Parliament faintly through the pollution!

Next stop: Agra and the Taj Mahal!

Us after a few days of rest and relaxation! :)

Enjoying chocolate milkshakes on the beach! I know weird, but we were pretty excited to even have that option!

After laying on the beach suntanning and reading books for 4 days straight, we decided to go tour Angthong National Park for the day. We caught a speed boat from the top of Koh Samui Island and then rode about an hour northwest to the national park. Its made up of lots of small islands. Our first stop was to snorkel off one of the protected reefs.

We snorkeled right up to and under the overhang. Lots of bright and pretty fish! Wish my camera was waterproof!

This was the first time I had ever snorkeled so was extremely excited......us looking dorky! :)

From there we went to Mae Kong Island and hiked up to the top where the "Blue Lagoon" was. It looked more like the Green Lagoon, but it was definitely beautiful! :)

Looking down from half-way up the island's small mountain.

Us at the Blue Lagoon!

After that nice little bout of physical activity, we got back on the boat and toured through the islands on the way to our next stop......an option to hang out on a beach for 2 hours or go kayaking to another tiny beach. We definitely opted for kayaking! :) It was hard to take pics and paddle at the same time, so here are a few. LOL

The colour of the water was incredible!

Here's the tiny little beach we kayaked to. The water was so warm it felt like a bathtub! :)

This water was so shallow!

Monkey Island........supposed to look like a monkey face.

A small cave we went into.....

The colour of the water in the cave didn't look real!

So we saw pics of this odd shaped island in our tour book, but didn't realize that it is famous because it apparently looks like Sean Connery's profile if you look at the right side of it. Ridiculous, I know, but I can totally see it! LOL

The only other adventure we attempted during the week on Koh Samui was a trip to the southern tip of the island to see the Butterfly Garden.