We have no idea what the future holds, but after all that, what we do know (in the wise words of my students), is that we are the lucky dogs.
From Goa, we got on the train one more time for a trip up the coastline, drinking sweet chai from the chai wallahs all the way. We arrived at CST, formerly known as Victoria station, and walked the 3 blocks to our tall and skinny hotel. We only had two days in Mumbai, not enough time to tackle the city properly, and so we decided to leave it largely for another trip. Instead we walked the neighborhoods around our hotel, enjoyed the big beautiful buildings, sent postcards, bought gifts, ate good food, and did our best to enjoy the last moments of our trip together.
We had beautiful sunsets (of course), and romantic fresh seafood meals on the beach.
Ben played pick up volleyball everywhere we went...
& just in case we forgot we were in India:
We spent a day on buses traversing Goa province before settling in at Arambol for our last few days of paradise. Pierce and Hannah met back up with us so we could spend two last days together, celebrating the vagabond life :)
full of ruins set in a fantastical landscape of lush green and wild boulder formations. We were a little ruin-ed out by this point in the trip, though, so we spent our first day just soaking it all in, and the second day exploring the area by motorbike. To get to our hostel, we would take a little ferry boat across the river, to and from the main town.
Here was the view from the porch swing outside our door:
We explored the main temple in town, dedicated to Shiva, which was full of mischievous monkeys. We learned a lot from our guide about the architecture and culture of the empires who had based themselves in and around Hampi over the centuries.
The temple complex is ancient, more than 1300 years old, predating many of the other ruins in the area which are remnants of the Vijayanagara empire. In the temple was an elephant, named Laksmi (after the goddess of wealth), who would give you a blessing, a "kiss", in exchange for a coin.
When we rented a motor bike for the day, we were able to make a big loop through the area, checking out ruins both royal and religious. Here's just a sampling of all the things we saw that day.
An underground temple to Shiva:
Many adorable school children:
Locals going about their daily lives, dwarfed by the landscape.
Many statues with barbie proportions:
Hampi was a visual feast, and we ate and slept well besides. It held a different vibe than anything we'd run into in the North, and we soaked that up along with the sunny skies.
After some sticky, smoggy hours, we scored some for that night, an overnight ride that would take us to beautiful Hampi.
When we got to it at last, we found our hostel -- 6 floors of cheap cells and odd colors and a rooftop cafe -- perched a few alleys back from Manikarnika, the main burning ghat.
This ghat was piled with firewood, and at all hours, wandering the neighborhood, you might hear the rhythmic chanting and hurried footsteps of a funeral party bearing a loved one's body, covered in a sheet and flowers, down to the waterside. We pressed ourselves to dirty stone walls and tried to offer respect by not staring when these processions rushed by us.
We spent that day and the next mostly wandering. It was the best people watching you could imagine. The Ganges is the lifeblood of Varanasi, despite major pollution, and it washes the clothing, food, and people of the city. On the many ghats which line the river, boys and men play pick-up cricket, goats and cows sun themselves, clothing dries, people mourn or make offerings, and trade is busily plied. 
On our last night, we ate at a restaurant that had live music, two men playing the sitar and tabla (drums).
It was mesmerizing.
Even after leaving the enclosure we could enjoy. This was the view from the rooftop of our hostel:
When we got back to the hotel, we were able to catch about an hour of news before we lost electricity. The Indian news was in shock over what was happening, but from the start they were raising a hue and cry against Pakistan, something we found a little frightening and reminiscent of the days following 9/11. There was little reaction from most Indians whom we met that day, but throughout the week, a few more people mentioned to us, with either sadness or anger, the "trouble in Mumbai" and we have seen remnants of vigils here and there on street corners throughout the last few weeks. There continues to be a lot of anger and grief covered in the news, but as travelers passing through we have not seen much of it.
The Taj Mahal is the most photogenic building I have ever been near -- it is impossible to take a bad photo and it just seems to glow with its own loveliness. The others were more or less moved, but I believe it is the most beautiful building I've ever seen and I felt totally at peace contemplating it.
After checking out the mosque we wandered through some abandoned ruins behind the hillside, including this tower covered in faux elephant tusks which now sits, somewhat forlornly, in the middle of a field.
In that last, fabulous, room, the king would stand on the center platform and have four experts stand on each elevated corner platform and he'd debate them all in whatever their subject of expertise was!
We followed the antics of the ubiquitous monkeys, did laundry, played cards, and generally slowed our pace for a few days.
Ben and I made it up to the castle and had a great tour of the buildings and old art-gallery, painted directly onto the walls of a building the king had specially set aside for housing the works of arts he commissioned there. To the right is the imposing front entrance, the elephant gate.
Above is the room where the king would have met with emissaries. There is a little room behind a carved screen where the queen could have listened in so as to provide private advice later.
Above is the central courtyard of the palace. On the left you can see several platforms... the lower one would have been used to mount horses or camels, and the higher one to mount war elephants!
Above is an interior chamber, and you can see how much damage has been done to the murals by people trying to scrape off the gold leaf. The palace has only recently been protected, and it is unclear whether it will be restored in the future.
This painting has a cool trompe l'oeil effect... check out where the animals' heads are locked in combat!
This second painting is one of a long series depicting that womanizing trickster, Krishna. Here he has charmed the dresses off all the court ladies and hung them up in the tree!
It was a second class, wooden chair car. The people there were extremely nice, clearing a bench for us and wobbling their heads in welcome. After an hour the train made another, longer, stop and we were able to find someone who worked there and search his list for our names. Despite our concern, the system worked perfectly, we had berths at last, and eventually settled down to sleep the rest of the trip through in a sleeper car,
the main travel class for Indians, and our main means of transport for the next week or so. It has 6 berths to the left of the aisle, and 3 to the right. To the left you can see what they would look like, with the middle bunk up for daytime, or down for sleeping. (Train photos from seat61.com/India)
