Shanghai Baby

I think our travels are finally starting to slow down, partly because India kinda kicked our butts and partly because I have something new to focus on: Danny and I are expecting in December!

I think people occasionally are surprised that we are having a kid while we are so far from home but  things are going well. I'm having a pretty easy pregnancy and everything has been normal and healthy. We have a good doctor at the best hospital in Shanghai. As far as I can tell it is as good as any hospital in the States, except perhaps occasional issues understanding a few of the nurses' English. My doctor is actually American which makes things easier for me since there is no language barrier.

We are going home over the summer so we'll probably stock up on all the baby stuff we can fit in our suitcases while we are there. I've done a little looking around and it seems like most baby stuff here is either poor quality or is way more expensive than in the States but we'll manage.

We occasionally have people ask us if our baby will be American which I always think makes no sense because Danny and I are both American so obviously the baby qualifies. It will just involve navigating some annoying bureaucracy to get the paperwork done. Everything in China involves annoying bureaucracy so it isn't anything new. Not many countries give out citizenship just because you are born there. Even if we qualified we wouldn't want our baby to be a Chinese citizen; there aren't any benefits. Did you know that Chinese citizens have to give the government a 50,000 yuan bond in order to leave the country. I think they are scared people will run away.

Anyway, we are really excited! I'll be finished my first trimester tomorrow! This is a picture from last week. Our baby was almost 2 inches at the time. It is weird how much the baby already looks like a real person, granted a blurry person. I seriously think if you look carefully the profile looks like Danny. Danny thinks I'm  completely ridiculous and it still mostly looks like a blob.

Tongli

Our friend Gary visited from California for a few days so we took a day trip with him and some friends to a water-town called Tongli. For some reason I hardly have any pictures of Gary... I think he was hiding or something. This is the third water-town I've visited out of the six big ones in the area. I read somewhere it was supposed to be the best one, although Danny is convinced it must have been on Tongli's website. It was ok but so far I think Xitang is the nicest. Anyway, they are all pretty similar and it was a nice trip. We walked around and had some Chinese snack food, took a boat ride on the canal, shopped for random souvenirs, ect. My friend Hirra and I dressed up in traditional outfits and had a photo shoot - it cost about $5 each and was totally worth it. Fun day!

Chinese Manners

Tonight on the way out of the subway Danny and I slowed down to let a little girl and her parents ahead of us on the escalator. The guy behind us shoved into Danny’s side and pushed ahead of him. Now he was standing a whole step ahead of us on the crowded escalator.

Danny (laughing to me): I don’t understand these people.

(The rest of the conversation was in Chinese so I’m basing this on Danny’s rough translation and the few words I caught.)

Rude guy on the escalator: Why were you walking so slowly?

Danny (laughing):  I was letting the little girl go.

Rude guy on the escalator: This is China. It isn’t America. I’m in a rush. You can’t do that.

Danny (laughing): Oh, so in China people don’t have manners.

Rude guy on the escalator: He looked very sad and confused, couldn’t think of a retort and walked away.

One point to Danny in the debate between civilized society and Shanghai.

Delhi

For our last night in India we stayed in a really fancy hotel to make up for all the cheap crappy ones along the way. We were both beyond exhausted and ready to go back to China. The last day we went to Humayan's Tomb, another World Heritage Site. It was amazing but we were both hitting the too tired to enjoy it point. We also went to India Gate, which isn't really terribly impressive.

In the evening we met a friend of Danny’s who works in Beijing that was in Delhi visiting his family for Chinese New Year. They cooked an amazing traditional Indian meal for us. I always think it is fun to talk to someone who actually lives in the places we visit and get their insights into the trip. They pointed out the two days we spent in Delhi were the worst air quality the city had seen in 10 years. I thought it was quite a relief because it made us really question how people could survive if it was that bad every day.

Overall, I'm glad we went and we learned a lot but that trip really kicked our butts and left us not wanting to travel again for quite a while. I never went anywhere so filthy and impoverished. We were constantly hassled for money or scammed out of it (not that it was enough money to make much difference.) Even at legit places like world heritage sights the guys at ticket booths tried to short change us. We are reasonably good travelers and rarely get taken in by scams but there were times when it wasn't even worth arguing and we overpaid by a dollar or two just to get out of unpleasant situations. I was sort of prepared for it but things were worse than I imagined. I also felt really stupid for not knowing beforehand that almost everything historic we saw was a Muslim sight and there were very few Hindu sights to see. My favorite part of the trip was definitely the food, which I love and was wonderful as a vegetarian. Unfortunately, the food didn't love me back and I kept getting really bad heartburn and ended the trip with a minor stomach bug. People there were also really surprised and confused that a foreigner would only want vegetarian foods but at least it was available. I think we may finally be traveled out.

Mt. Abu

Mt. Abu was really only on our list of places to go because a friend from India said it was her favorite place she had traveled to in the whole country. Mainly it is a resort town where upper middle class Indians go on vacation. The wasn’t a ton to do there aside from walk around the lake and check out the mountain views. There was a “religion museum with a laser show.” Displays were poorly done but really comical. There is a temple there that is supposed to be the main reason for going but we didn’t end up getting to go because of our poor timing. We stayed in a converted palace that used to belong to some member of the Indian royal family. The building and grounds were pretty but the room itself had very little décor and was sort of desolate. I’m pretty sure our room used to be servant’s quarters or something. It was still pretty relaxing to be in a town where nobody hassled us.

 

Udaipur

Udaipur is a really pretty town with a backpacker vibe to it. The city's claim to fame is being featured in the movie Octopussy, which I've still never seen. Every night lots of restaurants that cater to tourists have screenings of it. Half the time they don't actually play it unless someone requests it though. Visiting Udaiper was much less stressful than traveling around the "Golden Triangle." I think by this point in the trip we both were kind of sick of traveling and less ambitious about seeing sights which had all blurred together in our heads by then. We saw the City Palace and a few other things but mostly took it easy. At night we saw a puppet show which is the entertainment Udaipur is well known for. It was actually pretty cool and it had dancing and a woman balancing pots on her head in addition to puppets. 

 

Jaisalmer

The next day was mostly a driving day as we headed to Jaisalmer, 6 hours away. Our driver took us to yet another shop where he or his company gets kickbacks for taking tourists. They all give little demos about how the products are made. Some of them, like the marble shop’s demo appeal to the art teacher in me but mostly they just feel like you are watching your own personal infomercial and everything they are selling costs way more than anywhere that locals shop. We did end up buying some textiles at one place anyway. It is still much cheaper than in the states and the quality was decent but it is frustrating feeling like you are constantly being ripped off. Our driver always seems to tell us we shouldn’t buy anything without his approval and that anything we buy on our own is too expensive. Half the time it is cheaper to go with his suggestions and half the time he takes us to tourist traps that are way more expensive than elsewhere. Anyway, I was mostly ok with him until the little incident where he offered Danny cold medicine that turned out to be opium. I was really upset. Anyone who knows Danny and me knows we aren’t the type of people who would try that stuff. In the hotel room, after I googled the effects of eating opium and found that it wasn’t quite as scary as I thought, we decided to chalk it up to a cultural experience – as suggested by our friend Erica via facebook. It actually isn’t even illegal in India and it didn’t seem to have much impact on Danny other than making him feel more relaxed which did actually stop him from coughing so much. I’m pretty sure next time we’ll just opt for lots of fluids and bed rest though.

Since I was feeling less than thrilled with our driver I really wanted to just go around on our own the next day in Jaisalmer. We booked a full day camel safari – which our driver said was way overpriced at about $50 a person including all meals. It was really pretty. We went really far out in the countryside by this tiny village that was only about 50 kilometers from Pakistan. The village was small and undeveloped but they said about 500 people lived there. Someone said 80% of the population of India lives in tiny villages. The camel drivers met us and the two guys from Argentina who went with us in the village. We walked along the desert and stopped along the way to where they made lunch and we all rested. It was pretty unspoiled land with sand dunes and lots of tame animals like sheep and camels wondering around. The camel I rode was kind of gross, he kept making weird gurgling noises and sticking out his tongue. The drivers said it was because he was in heat and wanted to find some female camels… lovely. They also made lots of really bad jokes relating to going off to fight the Pakistanis and how crazy desert life is… (not very). It was a really beautiful place. The guys who went with us slept out under the stars but we headed back to the hotel after dinner at around 9 pm. It is really nice to get out of the cities and watch a sunset.