Venice in less than 36 hours… not enough time 6:10 PM

One of the coolest places to backpack through had to be Venice.  The trip down form amsterdam was chaos, our flight leaving amsterdam was three hours late taking off, it was too late to find any type of resteraunts open in Milan for the night, our hostel gave away our room because we came in late, so our hostel arranged for us to sleep in an already occupied room, so we ended up sleeping in a room with three other spanish girls.  they didn’t seem to mind they thought it was funny that they were woken up at midnight only to welcome two complete strangers into their room!! haha.  We woke up 6 hours later to catch a train out of Milan and travel to Venice. 

Venice is one of the coolest cities.  we loved it.  we got off the train and walked around the island until we could leave our stuff at our hostel

For the evening we took a quick 3 hour trip out to Murano, which is a glass making island off the coast of Venice, to check out the hand made glass out there.  It was such a cool trip.  We took a 20 minute ferry out of Venice to Murano.  We walked into almost every shop on that island it seemed looking at cool hand-made glass objects from balloons to spiders to earrings.  It was really cool and we just thought they were to coolest looking glass objects.

When we came back from Murano, Tamanna had few more earrings and necklaces to add to her collection.  They were just too pretty to pass by.  When we got back to the main island of Venice we ended up spending our whole evening in Campo Santa Margherita.  It was full of restaurants and other travellers.  We had a wonderful seafood dinner and enjoyed some gelato apres. 

The next day we enjoyed some 5 euro pizza and fresh peaches.

Venice is an awesome place and I would love to go back anyday, anytime!

Venice VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Europe in a Week 5:13 PM

Tamanna and I decided to turn our trip back to the states into a little vacation in Europe.  we worked it out with our travel agent to give us a week stay in Amsterdam.  Since neither of us had ever been to Italy we decided to make the trip an Italian vacation.  This trip turned into a huge part of our summer and the next few posts will be about this trip.  we went to three places: Amsterdam, Venice, and Cinque Terre.

Amsterdam was one of my favorite places.  It’s a super clean place and there are tons and tons of bikes.

Tamanna and I rented bikes for the day and rode all around downtown Amsterdam.  We went to Madame Tussauds wax exhibit, which had a bunch of pop icons and other famous people molded into wax molds.  these things looked so real it was sort of weird to look eye to eye with some of them.

We had a blast of a time.  we finally found our hostel, Hotel AnneMarie, and put down our packs.  The Hostel was very well organized and it was a pleasant stay.  We stayed in a dorm style room but it was cheap and well located in the city.  After we dropped our bags off we went out and just enjoyed biking through the city.  We found a huge park and had a wonderful dinner.

Right before we went to bed we found the I am Amsterdam statue and took some pictures.  We left the next afternoon on an easy jet flight for Milan en route to Venice!!

For more photos visit our album:

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Trekking to Hippo Falls 4:44 PM

This was the backpacking trip that the Kalra family planned for a family vacation.  It was up in the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh.  I’m feeling a little pressured to see pictures so here are all of the pictures from the Northern India trip.  I mixed in there pictures form Fazilka, Neeralaya, and the Himalayas.

Himachal Pradesh VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Paragliding in the Himalayas 5:12 AM

While we were staying at neeralaya we took a day to go up to a local ski resort. The girls went zorbing at the base while we tried to bargain for a good price to go paragliding.  That's right, I said PARAGLIDING. Something I have always wanted to do and whats a better place than to do it with the Himalayan range surrounding me. The whole family bought tickets to take the gondola up the ski area to jump off each in a tandem paragliding set up. It was so much fun. The big bummer of the day was only Tamanna and I were able to fly. Due to winds the family had to take the gondola back down after waiting for more than an1 hour. I felt bad but I offered to go later. But inside I was stoked to go first. I had always wanted to go.
All my dreams came true once I jumped off the ground with the wing on my back. I had a wingmen who only spoke the himachal language but I didn't care. I was just so happy to be flying above the trees. Seriously one of the best things I've ever done.

Neeralaya 1:39 AM

Once we finally made the long car drive from Fazilka to Manali, which took close to 10 hours I think, we pulled into our luxurious cottage stay!!! The small resort was called Neeralaya and was located at the edge of the owners apple orchid. It was a beautiful place, well located and really felt like a completely different place than the streets of Himachal. The layout of the place reminded me a lot of the cabin on Kenai lake. A small cabin, some gardens, and then the water, the place was great. We spent three nights before our trek.

one thing for sure, both Tinesh and I were ready to buy our own cottage as soon as we arrived, but they weren't for sale.

Delhi and Fazilka 9:22 AM

So to catch everyone up on our lives real quick Tamanna and I have both graduated from BYU last month.  We packed up all of our belongings into our small 1990 Honda accord and drove from SLC to Seattle, where we will both work for Microsoft starting in July.  Ok so currently we have a 2 month break so we decided to spend our 2 months in India this summer. The itinerary was to go visit family in Delhi, Fazilka, go backpacking in the himalayas, listen to Elder Holland in Delhi, then return to Goa. The next few posts will be some photos from the trip.

We stayed at Tamannas grandparent's house in Delhi which was nice. They were amazing people I had to start learning Hindi so that I could talk with them. By the end of our stay my Hindi was horrible but at least we converse with small phrases.  We took a train to Fazilka to meet tamannas other grandparents.  Fazilka is where Tamanna was born and is a small village in the state of Punjab on the Indian-Pakistan border. Tamannas grandparents were super nice and showed us around their farm. They also had a reverse hottub. It was a huge coldtub which felt amazing in the hot hot heat.  Fazilka was fun while it lasted. It was cool to see how the village remained a small town for all these years since tamannas youth. Themarket was the same and so were many of the places she remembered.
Here are some photos of these days:

The blessing of GSM 8:58 AM

For my birthday this year I asked for an Indian sim card with data on it so that for my 2 month vacation in India I could bring my unlocked cellphone either my Samsung Focus or Nexus One and have internet while there. What I didn't know was the cost.  I thought I'd post the costs to show everyone in America how expensive our data plans really are.
Airtel sim card: 50 rs = $1
2gb of data: 98 rs = $2

I love how its super cheap, compared to $30/month for 2gb.  The only network I have been able to connect to is an Edge network but if I remember when the iPhone first came out, all that was availble was Edge in alaska, so its not that bad. I really have enjoyed it though. I have been able to keep up on my emails and stay online of gtalk so now I have quick and easy communication with most of my friends and mother who loves knowing updates on how unsafe some of my adventures are.
Another huge advantage of having a data connection over here are maps. I don't feel lost ever or like I'm traveling out in the boonies. I just open up maps and I can see exactly where I am. Its great. Sometimes I have to even tell Tamanna how to get places cuz she doesn't even know. Maps is a great tool to have when in a foreign place.

Ok enough about me and my phone craze. I promise to get some cool pictures up of northern india because I have tons!!!