It ended up being very busy. We were the last minute guest speakers at a local Bible college one afternoon...that was a bit stressful (INTIMIDATING as all the students are training to be pastors), but it was great to see their passion for the Lord and leadership. We were also able to join our guide Sansar for dinner at his home one night and meet his family...that was wonderful.

David already mentioned the trip out to Nepalgunj... not the greatest experience for him. But once we were there it was great. Nepalgunj is in an area that used to be part of India so it is very similar in a lot of ways...food, mix of people, heat! It is not uncommon to see cows lying down in the middle of the road causing a traffic jam...or eating someone's homework...seriously, I watched a cow chew and swallow about 6 sheets of paper.
We were welcomed into the home of a missionary couple (Rosanna and Alan) whom I know from Canada (well Rosanna's from Canada, Alan's from Scotland)...it was so wonderful to be in a home for a while...they were a huge blessing to us. They hooked us up with Maya Sedan orphanage whom we were able to go and help a bit. That was a blast. We ended up teaching at their school for a couple days and playing with them in the evenings. Just beautiful kids. The orphanage is run by 3 Indian Christian couples (usually there's only 2 couples there at a time though) and they have almost 70 children between the 6 of them. It's an amazing story actually that we will tell sometime if youi're interested.

We also took a couple days and visited Royal Bardiya National Park. Business was really slow there right now...well because tourism is really slow all over Nepal right now...there were 8 toursits in the whole park, including us. We stayed at a really nice spot and went for a full day walking safari one day. We saw some peacocks, a tonne of deer (spotted, swarm and hog), some monkeys (two kinds), lots of bright and beautiful birds, a huge python (yikes!!, from like five feet, but he was curled up in his hole and was apparently sleeping...still the closest I ever hope to be to a snake without some kind of THICK barrier in between), and at the very end of the day we got to see a one-horned rhino (from about 40 yards). That was really cool, we'd been hoping all day to see one. They look like they have armour on. We did also see 2 Gharial crocodiles and a bunch of domesticated elephants hauling lumber. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any wild elephants or a tiger...but we did see plenty of tracks and poo:o)...maybe that's as close as we want to get to a tiger anyways. We really enjoyed the safari...it was a great way to see these exotic animals in their natural habitat (we were usually hiding in the bushes and most never even knew we were there).

While in Nepalgunj, we did hear several bomb blasts, which was a bit freaky but the missionaries there don't even bat an eye. It's crazy what you can become used to...the fact of the matter is, the Maoists are quite strategic in where and when they place their bombs and attacks, so it'd be pretty hard to actually be in the wrong place at the wrong time...but it's stil a whole lot closer than I've ever been!! However, the Lord has really protected us and I don't regret for a minute our decision to come to Nepal.

We crossed the border into India on the 2nd and it's been a bit chaotic for us so far. We came across at a place that is rarely used by tourists and not many people speak English, and had a hectic time getting on a train (not really knowing where we were going, just the general direction). Now, after about 40 hours straight in transit, we have taken a couple days to stop and get our breath before tackling the rest of the country. We are currently in Varanasi, on the mighty Ganges river. This morning at sunrise, we took a boat ride along the river's edge (Ghats) where we saw many people taking their morning bath (cleansing them of their sins), or doing laundry. At one ghat in particular, they perform many cremations and we saw that also...quite creepy.

We are getting on a train tonight to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal) for a little over a day and then on to the state of Rahjistan...very middle Easternish with deserts and camels and big ancient forts. More to come...