![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
We went to India for the first time in 2004, on a trip that also took us to Nepal. We arrived in Delhi, sleep-deprived and unprepared for the way everything in India is turned up to eleven, including the traffic. We visited Agra and Jaipur, Fatehpur Sikri, and then sailed along the Ganges to Chuna, and thence to Varanasi. It was Holi by the time we reached Varanasi, and I've not experienced chaos like that before or since. That was where abrinsky knew he'd fallen in love with the place; I wasn't sure until after we got home again. From Varanasi we travelled by road into Nepal and to Chitwan National Park, and my goodness that was a contrast to the intensity of India.
Finally, and also by road - a long, slow, winding road across mountains, with huge vultures perched by the precipitous drops - we ended up in Kathmandu, where abrinsky was offered drugs within minutes of our walking into town.
The earrings I'm wearing today came from one of the other cities in Kathmandu Valley. I think it was Patan, but it could have been Bhaktapur; I didn't write journals then because I didn't know that I'd want to remember details and neither did I know how quick those details would be to make their escape.
They are silver prayer wheels, which do spin around. I don't know if they really have prayers inside, but I shall assume they do.
I remember the shop and I remember that abrinsky and I had spent the afternoon wandering around with 'Sleepy Pete'. I've never met anyone with quite his talent for dropping to sleep instantaneously, any time there is a lull in the itinerary. He's also the only person (so far) that we've found ourselves travelling with (entirely unplanned) for a second time.
I didn't just buy earrings, I bought a silver bracelet, too. That's unusual - it's normally abrinsky who buys bracelets and bangles.
Finally, and also by road - a long, slow, winding road across mountains, with huge vultures perched by the precipitous drops - we ended up in Kathmandu, where abrinsky was offered drugs within minutes of our walking into town.
The earrings I'm wearing today came from one of the other cities in Kathmandu Valley. I think it was Patan, but it could have been Bhaktapur; I didn't write journals then because I didn't know that I'd want to remember details and neither did I know how quick those details would be to make their escape.
They are silver prayer wheels, which do spin around. I don't know if they really have prayers inside, but I shall assume they do.
I remember the shop and I remember that abrinsky and I had spent the afternoon wandering around with 'Sleepy Pete'. I've never met anyone with quite his talent for dropping to sleep instantaneously, any time there is a lull in the itinerary. He's also the only person (so far) that we've found ourselves travelling with (entirely unplanned) for a second time.
I didn't just buy earrings, I bought a silver bracelet, too. That's unusual - it's normally abrinsky who buys bracelets and bangles.
