April 29 - May 9th

I realize I am running a bit behind now. Internet access is limited these days, but let me get you quickly caught up on April 29 - May 9th. I also graduate tomorrow from Business school - woohoo. I think I will wear my marshall t-shirt tomorrow and my Keck school of medicine t-shirt on monday to celebrate both of those.

April 29th we reached Jaipur. Took care of business that I had for my uncle and we made it back to Delhi safely. I left my last post saying headed to Jaipur and just a couple of days ago there were some bomb blasts in Jaipur - I am safe and far away from Jaipur (though not from terrorists - on that later). Thanks for the emails. Deb - I think your Jaipur plans are probably cancelled now, unless you are still up for it - I am. I figure that's probably the safest place now - I figure the terrorist ran as far away from that as possible. I mean would you stick around afterwards? I'd be gone.

I spent a lot of time in Delhi since I had to take care of many things there. This will kill some travel time later (I think the south is out this time). Here are some things that happened in Delhi:

*Visited family.
*Visited Sonepat - this is the small town where I was born (pics soon). As I get bigger, the town seems smaller every time I visit.
*Started work on a new photography website (I figured I do one productive thing this vacation - this is it - coming soon folks).
*Visited my friends family (talked about him in an old post).
*Had lunch with Pinki (my aunt in relation, but younger than me) - see you did make it on here finally.
*Had several cancelled trips due to my cousin Meetu not being able to get off from work.

Delhi is a very loud city - I think you will understand what I mean if and when you visit. Therefore, Chintu (my cousin) and I took an early morning drive thru Delhi and it was amazing. It was quiet - not dead though. People were carrying on with their work even at 3 am. We even found some roadside shops open. A drive through the streets of Delhi at night is definitely worth it.

I have thought about writing this several times, but it hasn't made it on here yet. I keep showing pics of old things, poor people, culture, etc. In this I have neglected the vast development going on around India. Next to Delhi is a place called Gurgaon. The city is developing like crazy and supports major companies such as Dell, Ernst & Young, Ericsson, etc. The housing values are thru the roof - with apartments hitting over 300,000 USD. It may be a New York in the making. Investing in property here maybe a good idea - there's your financial advice of the day. But seriously, search Gurgaon and see this for yourself.

I am keeping this post short so that you get caught up (currently in Srinagar). I love reading the comments so please keep them coming. In the next installment, I will tell you how I made it to Srinagar and how terrorism affected plans. Not only that, but I was almost attacked by a monkey (sort of my fault). The adventure continues.