In a whirl

Early this week, my frenetic days in Delhi gave way to more time to see the country. I flew to Pune and met back up with Sarah, who had gone ahead to greet her brother and his fiance at the airport - they're here for two weeks and are now traveling with us.

In a whirlwind day-and-a-half, we bussed out to central Maharashtra to Ajanta and Ellora, two sites where Hindu, Jain and Buddhist monks carved temples and monasteries out of mountains. They are truly stunning, beautiful, stark and eerie places - it is easy to imagine being there 1000 years ago. They were built between 200 BC and 800 AD, with chisels and hammers.

We are now in Kerala, in the south of India, where there are Christmas lights and palm trees and good roads. Our flights here were delayed by 4 or 5 hours yesterday in true Indian fashion - thick morning fog in Delhi tied up flights all over the country. I've decided that it's my new favorite excuse to use when anything goes wrong: just exclaim, 'well, there's fog in Delhi!' It's sure to work. Also in true Indian fashion, I received phone calls notifying me of the delays all throughout the day - which was great in the early morning, but was of very limited use once I arrived at the airport.