A short break in California

January 1-7

Originally, our plan was to fly direct from Chile to Southeast Asia. However, the travel agent could not find a way to make this route cheap enough for us. Instead, we got a great fare for a round-trip ticket back to the US. Since we were to return to the US, Rakesh suggested we take a week off from traveling. With some convincing, I agreed.

Our round-trip multiple flight ticket terminated in Los Angeles. We had bought a separate flight ticket to get us back to San Francisco. Since I wasn't sure how reliable the the flight from Chile was going to be, I made sure that the time of our flight out of Los Angeles would accommodate for the possibility of a flight delay. I, clearly, gave us ample time, as the flight from Chile was on-time and, thus, we ended up with about 7-8 hours to kill!!

So...our travels continued into Los Angeles. After having a hard time trying to figure out a way to store our backpacks at the airport ( a couple of people told us it would be impossible due to the fact that the airport discontinued baggage storage services since 9/11) we found a kind lady who informed us that there was a way... We had to call for someone from a storage area (outside the airport) to pick-up and drop-off our backpacks, all at quite a price. It was better than sitting at the airport for so many hours!!
Getting into and out of downtown Los Angeles was pretty straight forward (just a 30 minute bus ride). Luckily, it was New Year's day and hence a holiday. Downtown, ofcourse, was pretty dead.

Nevertheless, we were given a recommendation to go to a Mexican Pueblito (of all places...haha! We felt like we were visiting Mexico!!). The place consists of a pedestrian area lined with shops/restaurant and in the middle stalls selling touristy items. We had some lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then walked around the deserted town.

We arrived in San Francisco in the evening and was picked up by Rakesh's cousin, Balu. Since we were (and still are) "homeless", we stayed with Balu and his family for a few days. The rest of the time we spent in San Francisco while pet and house-sitting for our friend, Nancy.

After lack of computer and internet use in South America, we were hoping to catch up with our blogging during this in-between period. However, everything else seemed to get in the way, including catching up with a few friends/family (very much appreciated), buying a much needed and cheap laptop (mainly for blogging etc. during the next part of our travels) and, least and worst of ALL....battling with traffic!!! Nancy and Balu kindly let us borrow their cars, but we completely forgot what it was like driving on the roads in California. Unfortunately, we lost track of the time one day and ended up on the highway in the middle of rush-hour....baaaaadd mistake!!! [Rakesh writes:  We never kept track of time during our travels and this was a major handicap in the US]. It was, especially, during our time on the roads when Rakesh and I wondered why we ever decided to come back for this little break....A break that ended up being a little stressfull!!

By the end of our break, we were happy to continue on our travels. This time, to Southeast Asia and to our first destination, Thailand....