Leonard Family Around the World Adventure

Thursday January 10, 2008 Up very early and on our way to the airport – we arrived by 3am. We took a picture with Mr Sing – I gave hime my contact information and got his – ecept for an email address which I hope he will send to me. I told him all of the amounts that we had spent to hopefully ensure he would get his commission. I have grown quite attached to him and hope to see him again someday. I had daydreams of helping fund his dream of setting up a spare parts store front. I gave him 100 US and 500 Rupees – I would have given him all of the rupees I had remaining but I am afraid to go anywhere in India without money – including the airport – who knows what bribe might be necessary – what unique tax might be imposed. We checked in and the ticket counter lady asked for more money – I told her I had paid last night and thankfully had the receipt. We were at the gate by 4 am. I was envious of Allysha's ability to curl up on the chairs and sleep. Pam and I made a couple of ca

Wednesday January 9 th , 2008 Up early this morning about 5am. A busy day – the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and back to Delhi. I spent over an hour blogging. Still do not know if we have tickets for our departing flight. Got a couple emails – our house sounds like it is in a terrible state – the washing machine seems to have failed and even after the first cleanup leaked again. I wonder why they do not just turn off the water to the machine in the meantime? I try not to worry too much. We have to get internet access soon so we can figure out what is going on and what we are going to do. Hopefully tonight. We are well over a month on the road. I am looking forward to our upcoming Egypt segment – I just hope we can get internet somehow. I have not been able to work much during this last week and expect the same next week. I should be able to catch up in Italy where we can slow the pace. I am concerned about what our burn rate is going to be in Italy – everything has been more expensive than ant

January 8 th , 2008 Tuesday Up early – I have been catching up the blogging entries over the last few days. I am writing this on Tuesday January 8 th at 5am so I am only a day behind at this point. This visit to India has been a whirlwind of sites and sensory overload. I have learned and experienced much. I can feel my perspective broadening with each day. We still had no confirmation of our tickets to Cairo – did receive an email from our travel agent (Shonne) that she had a backup plan so I am hopeful we will reach Egypt as planned. I am surprised at how difficult it has been to get internet access and to keep up with blogging. I think it is a by-product of trying to fit so much into this visit to India. Each segment from Delhi to Jaipur, Jaipur to Agra and Agra to Delhi is about 250km. That is about 6 hours of driving because of the road conditions. I actually work on some blogs on the road today. We travel through Rajasthan to another state – our drive pays a tax for oper

Monday January 7 th , 2008 Most of the early morning hours were spent talking to America. I hate to see my iPhone bill. Still not clear what really happened but the Garrets and Wurtzs spent a lot of time at the house cleaning and drying. Our housesitter called our insurance agent Chad and he seemed to get things moving forward. An appraiser and clean-up crew seem to be being sent to the house. The electricity seems to still be out. What a mess this is and so hard to coordinate from afar. I am so grateful to our friends for all of their help. I heard that our neighbor was at the house checking things out – a lock box was to be installed to allow crews access to the house. I have no idea how much damage has been done and I am very concerned. We grab breakfast from out hotel – it is pretty good and our driver and guide show up at 8am. It seems we are in a hurry to get to the Amber Fort where we are to take an elephant to the top of the mountain to tour the fort. There are only 180 elephan

Sunday January 6 th , 2008 Another fitful night sleep – I awoke to find an email saying that our roof was leaking, through the laundry room and into the kitchen. WHAT! The email was not even from the house-sitter – it was from Jake and Wendy – she had noticed the mess and then headed out of Town. It turns out our friends – what great friends we have we love you guys and thank you came through for us and said they would check out the house in the morning. There is not much more we can do and we are already an hour late meeting our driver. We grab some muffins to go and hit the road at 9am for the 260km drive to Jaipur. Endless peoples – roadside stands. Trucks, cows, camels, elephants all sharing the highway. Monkeys on the roadside. Everything is going pretty well until we come to a slow-down – there is road work being down and the oncoming lanes of the 4 lane highway are diverted into the fast lane of our side – we are driving along in this condition for a while until we come to a ne

There was no safe in the room and there were signs posted saying do not leave valuables so we took 2 backpacks – one with our tickets, computer etc and one for carrying on our back. We ate a continental breakfast – nothing spectacular and met our driver promptly at 9am. We stopped at an ATM and I took out about 13000 rupees – a little over 300 American. What a wad of bills. We drove to our first destination where we were told we would meet our guide. We spent most of the journey interrogating our drive Mr. Singh (a Sikh). On the way to the hotel the previous night the greeter had asked an interesting question – what was so great about America. I had provided an answer but it made me think. I said our constitution was one thing, a secular society with freedom of religion and equality for all but neglected After briefly studying the history of India I was amazed at how bloody it's history was and mostly due to religions conflicts. It seemed that under each rule there ws progres

January 4 th , 2008 We got out the door and caught the 5:30am shuttle. There was a man from Philadelphia on out flight. He said he came to Thailand every year to study woodcarving – it was his hobby. I gathered that he worked at an Oil refinery in Saudi Arabia – the biggest in the world. We checked our bags all the way through to India – even though we were switching airlines – crossed out fingers and hoped the bags would arrive. I did pack more intelligently this time ensuring all adapters; computer gear, medications and our India guide were in my carry-on. The security lines were a breeze – even the check in line was quite small – once we found it row W. We had to sit and wait for the check-in to even begin then through custom and we grabbed lunch, purchased some toiletries and books. I got a book about the 1997 economic meltdown in Thailand and a pleasure reading book – Koontz – The Good Guy. We were on the plane and ready to go about 30 minutes late. They served us peanuts,

January 3, 2008 Today is our last day in Thailand – we fly out tomorrow morning at 6am for Bangkok and then on to Delhi. We ended up starting the day out with a river boat cruise in one of the Thai long tail boats. It was relaxing. At the turn-around point we disembarked for about 30 minutes and walked through a garden that had native plants, fruits and herbs labeled. We were also served fresh fruit and juice. It was nice. On the ride back we ended up talking to a couple visiting from Houston, TX. Their children actually were studying abroad – the father was a dual British and American citizen. We talked about politics and the education that our girls were receiving by taking this journey. They seemed to agree with our motivations and supported what we are doing. When we got back we decided to head to a food court near the night bazaar – it took a while to find it but the meal ended up being pretty good. From there we went to a Spa located in the night bazaar and got tradition

January 2, 2008 Last night Pam and I went t a nightclub. We had a couple drinks and then decided to order a bottle of Whiskey. There was a live band and a number of singers. It was fun – nothing great but nice to see what the nightlife was like. We drank about ¼ of the bottle and gave the rest to the table next to us. The waiters would come around and fix a drink the moment your glass was empty. We headed back to the room about 11:30 – and hit the McDonalds across from our hotel. Went to bed and nobody in the family woke up until 11:30am. We lounged around the room and the pool. Pam and Aria – I went out to get Mexican food – it was interesting – Thai influenced mexican cuisine – I actually liked it. Allysha and I stayed in the room as her eye was still bothering her. Eventually the girls decided to hit the night safari – I was tired and my toe was infected and hurting so I stayed in. They said it was a very pleasant excursion and were back in the room by about 9pm – they al