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30 something hours of travel later we are safely in amarillo. Brandon has a high fever and I feel overall terrible. We are going to the minor emergency clinic this morning when they open. Everything feels strange in my stomach, including plain crackers and campbells soup.

my neck is ok. it just feels like i got a swift punch to the jugular, but the swelling has stopped and even gone down. we never made it to the clinic, because the next morning we woke up with cydney feeling terrible. sore throat, upset stomach, and her entire body hurting. the only thing going for us was no fever or chills. so, we spent the day in bed trying to rest and restore our bodies. she is feeling better today, most of it gone except the nausea. our flight is not until 5:30, and she will be resting in the room until it is time to go to the airport. hopefully she starts feeling better or this is going to be an even longer journey back home.
ok, just wanted to give you a little update.
love you guys, and see you soon.

More imagery

Will arrive in amarillo on 22nd of November, notice brandon getting an awkward massage as a cow watches.

We arrived safely in kolkata after a very long night train. Varanasi was fascinating, but we are thrilled to be away from it. Congested with cars, bikes, motorcycles, people, pollution, cows, goats and dogs the city was suffocating. The tiny narrow alleyways were confusing and littered with rubbish and terrible cow diahrea landmines. You cannot imagine the smell. The cow-considered holy- roam the streets of urban varanasi eating whatever they can manage to find (mostly trash and plastic). Sadly and ironically, the cows/buffalo are dying a slow painfull death as the plastic strangles their digestive tract. The holy ganges river is the place of excitement in this city. Millions of hindus come to varanasi to die and end the cycle of rebirth. All day people come to the river to do laundry, bathe, wash their buffalo, and cremate their relatives. The most affecting were the burning ghats where up to 130 cremations a day take place. A giant platform of wood is completed with a corpse that is doused in butter and lit on fire. Seeing entrails and bone of burning corpses was an image worse than the latest horror films. Not all are cremated-children under 10, lepers, small pox, sadhus and a few others are simply caste into the river (more recently tied to a slab of concrete).

The holy ganges has no free molecules of oxygen-making it septic, and is 1.5 million times the amount of fecal-coliform considered safe to bathe in. Everyday sewege and trash flows freely into the sacred waters. People drink the water eagerly as they bathe.

Yesterday, as we were eating lunch brandon was again complaining of a sore neck (as he had been for several days) and upon closer inspection, deep within his beard was a tick that had been feasting since our time in the jungle. We returned to the hotel to get tweezers and the ganga fugi family looked on in horror as I touched a blown out match head to his face. The little sucker came out but he still has a sore neck and a little bit of swelling. We will probably go to the health clinic to make sure its nothing serious tomorrow morning. Anxious to be home, we miss you all very much.

Kolkata-Delhi- 5pm
Layover
Delhi- Chicago- 1am (10hours)
Layover
Chicago-DFW-8am
Layover
DFW-Amarillo- arrive 12:40pm

Backtrack

From the park we took a 4 hour rattleing shrine on wheels to the border of nepal where we got on another 5 hour bus/ rattling honking light up shrine on wheels to Gorkhapur, where we got a train for the next day to varanasi (7 hours). We are worn out tired of traveling and not wanting to spend any more money than we have to so we are coming home. The airlines will charge us 600 dollars to fly from delhi, but if we go back to kolkata (even though it is an extra flight) they will only charge us 100 dollars. So back to kolkata it is on a 14 hour train in the next day or two, then home in time for thanksgiving and some real food.

To Varanasi

Sorry it has been so long since the last posting, we were unable to find a reliable internet source in the jungle or near our new hotel. My (cydney) email account with WT has changed and I am not able to access it until I call (long distance) and set up a new address. Email brandon at motomobile2k@gmail.com . We reached varanasi and took a boat down the river this morning at 6am to see the ghats. It was not as enchanting as we were led to belive and could hardly see anything due to the amount of tourist boats. We have a clean room here with a nice family that owns the hotel. The bathroom is shared but has hot water. From Pokhara we took an air conditioned bus for 7 hours to the Chitwan park. Upon arrival we were mobbed by touts who's job is to get you to a speific hotel (but with inflated rates to pay the middleman). We ignored them and walked into the tiny town from the bus stand. We found the crocodile safari lodge with very helpful owners who helped us plan our entire day at the park. The rooms were hut like with grass roofs and mosquito nets around the bed. We began the next day at 6 with a canoe down the river (a dug out tree that I was sure was going to dump us in the croc infested waters). We made it to a bank down the river and were about to proceed on our jungle walk when our guide paused and gave us a quick briefing. " Now if rhino charges, climb 6 meter into tree, if you cannot climb tree, run around tree-keep between you and rhino, if there is no tree run zig zag. If Bear we make group and make loud noise. If tiger we pray, there is nothing you can do. With a new sense of anxiety we began our walk and found a peacock, a large group of monkeys and spotted deer. Our guide suddenly stopped, crouched low to the ground and peered into the bush, nothing. We kept walking and I stopped because on the road were perfectly shaped giant paw prints-Tiger! Left not too long before we came. Our guide had stopped earlier because he could "smell" a tiger. Fortunately that was as close as we got. We did get to see a giant marsh mugger croc on the bank of the river- they are very aggresive and known to eat people. The term "mug" comes from this prehistoric animal as it sneaks up and grabs people- no lie! Upon reurn we wanted to participate in an elephant bath where we thought we could get closer to these giant animals. Little did we know it was us that would have a bathing. We climbed on top of the elephant from a plaform and it sprayed us with water from its trunk and we fell into the river. We climbed on again-this time from holding the ears and being lifted by her trunk up onto he head. We had more fun-and got lots of pictues. Later we took the elephant safari and got to ride an elephant into the jungle. We were able to see even more wildlife because the elephants disturb it less than people walking or jeeps. Coming to a clearing we came upon a lone rhino grazing peecefully-it was really incredible- we were maybe only 50 feet from the thing! Our overenthusiastic guide took our picture and insisted on making our elephant move quickley (and rather uncomfortably) to cover more gound. We finished the day worn out but pleased with our journey.