11.11.10 - North Shore O'ahu

My week on the Big Island passed by uneventfully. I spent a lovely two nights sleeping in my rental car, which due to my age I was charged a rediculous amount to drive, during which time I hiked the volcanos at Volcanos National Park. There was this one moment where I felt certain that this beautiful complete rainbow that came out as the sun shone for a breif moment as I walked across the cloud-immersed crater floor was there just for my viewing pleasure...it was spectacular, and more so because I looked back up a few seconds later and it was gone. A number of the park's trail's were closed due to the toxic fumes that were spewing out of the volcano, so I wasn't able to do all the hiking that I wanted to, but I did manange to get in 4 miles my first afternoon and 12 miles my second day, so it was quite productive, despite the constant misty rain. After a few days of cold and rain, I headed back to the dry side of the island to spend my time on the beach. I've made a kind of tradition out of sitting on the beach all day, waiting for the sunset. The good beaches are always on the western side of the islands, so every sunset is just gorgeous, melting into the ocean in front of your eyes. While staying on the western coast at a lovely little hostel, I met a fellow New Englander, also from Connecticut, which was so nice because I was able to be my neurotic New England self around him and he didn't take offense. Coming to Hawaii has made me realize that I'm a little more Type A than I thought I was. I thought I was pretty chill until I came here, now I think I'm probably wound more tightly than anyone on these islands. I arrived back in O'ahu on Monday and made my way up to the North Shore. It is renouned for its surfing, and the winter months are when the waves start to get really big. I have always had a healthy respect for the ocean, but I have learned to respect it even more. These waves are huge!! Also, I'm going to blatantly name drop right now, but the boys in my cabin saw Jack Johnson surfing today! One of the guys who comes here every year says he sees him every time he comes, but that he doesn't go to the local grocery store anymore because people notice him. Anyways, that being said, I probably wouldn't recognize Jack Johnson if he crashed into me on a wave, but still it's cool that I'm in the same town, swimming on the same beaches as a famous person that I like! The beaches on this side of the island are beautiful, and not at all crowded compared to Waikiki, but the only down side is that after the sun goes down there is absolutely NOTHING to do here. Unless of course you would classify drinking your weight in shitty beer, getting blazed out of your mind and talking about surfing and farts as "something to do", which I don't. The first couple of days I was here there was a group of really cool girls who were traveling, so in the evenings we would chill together which was really fun, but they have moved on to a new island and I'm still here. I finished the books I was reading, and there is no book store in a bike-ridable distance from here so I'm reading "Tyrannosaur Canyon" right now. It is as bad as its title sounds. As my German friend Silke would say though, this is complaining on a high level. I have met some very nice people, the guys in my cabin are cool, and I love to listen to the constant flow of reggae music that comes in my windows at night. The beaches are gorgeous and there is a bike path that is great for going for runs or bike rides along the coast. The sunset yesterday brought tears to my eyes, and today it was just as amazing, although totally different. All in all, this is still a little slice of paradise, complete with Wifi :) Saturday I'm treking back to Waikiki on the public bus system...wish me luck!

10.20.10 - 10.29.10: O'ahu and Maui

So I started my trip to Hawaii with one more day extra than I had planned: I was unaware that after 36+ hours of travel, I would have crossed the international dateline and arrived in Hawaii on the same day that I had left Bali! Also upon arrival, I discovered that the phone that I had brought with me all around the world with the express purpose of using with my American sim card once I got back to the good old USA, I had forgotten it in Bali. So here I was, a day earlier than my hostel reservation, without a phone. But I was in paradise, so it's ok. It also helped that I knew how to use the payphone and even if I didn't the instructions were in English...ahh good to be back in my home country. I called my hostel and asked if there was availability, and there was so I headed over on the shuttle and made myself at home in Waikiki, and bought a phone. The hostel I was staying at was great, and right away I met some really cool girls from all over the world. My week in O'ahu was long and grueling, consisting of running along the beach road at sunrise, bathing on the white sand watching the surfers, eating as many fresh papaya as possible, hiking up a nearby mountain to see the veiw of Waikiki from above, and having cocktails with new friends in the evenings. From Waikiki I headed to Maui and met up with one of the girls I had met in the first hostel. She had traveled to one of the other islands while I had stayed on in O'ahu, and we agreed to meet up at a hostel in Wailuku. We have had a great time together, but we have also discovered that hostels in Hawaii (and perhaps hostels all over) seem to be a haven for weird people. I hadn't noticed this phenomenon while traveling in Europe, and I haven't really stayed at very many hostels on my trip until I arrived here in Hawaii. In Cairo there was a very strange, silent older man that was at my hostel, who at the end of my stay handed me his buisiness card that read "Philosopher, Adventurer, Lover". Um, thanks, but no thanks. Anyways, so I haven't had much time to reflect on the strangeness of the environments that hostels create until I arrived in Hawaii, and all of a sudden I have been inundated with examples and experiences. I'm assuming part of it has to do with the laid back atmosphere of the islands, but when I arrived at the hostel in Waikiki I was checked in by a tall, blonde young man who seemed to have difficulty counting to six as he marked out my days in the register. I thought perhaps 1:00 pm was just too early for him, but then judging by his bloodshot eyes I thought perhaps he had waked and baked and then gone to work. He was much the same the rest of the week, and I was very surprised to learn from hostel gossip that he was quite the ladies' man, and bedded about a different guest each week. What the attraction is, I could never guess, but whatever. The week only progressed to weirder and weirder guests. Cody (the aforementioned ladies' man) had already had his conquest for the week, and within 5 minutes of meeting her you could tell she was totally f*ing crazy! So why he was surprised that after their one date and rendezvous that she confessed her undying love for him and her desire to marry him, I'm not sure. Upon realizing that she was a nutjob, he stopped talking to her and avoided her alltogether (the first and only prudent move of his that I witnessed in my stay there) and she got upset and moved to a hotel. And if it is not evidence enough of her mental state that I know all of this and I never talked to her for longer than 5 minutes, I don't know what is. After she left, an influx of middle aged travelers rolled in, one of whom smoked like a chimey, listened to her discman, talked to herself and colored all day, and hacked, coughed and snored all night. I had the good fortune of not being in her room, so I was quite grateful for that, but I did get a full report from my friend who happened to not be as lucky as I was. After my 7 allotted days at this hostel, I made my way to Maui to meed up with my friend Silke at a hostel which for their sake will remain nameless. I arrived a day in advance of Silke and set out to discover the town that I was in, only to discover that it took about 15 minutes to walk from one end of it to the other, and that in those 15 minutes I did not witness anything spectacular, or in truth, really very interesting at all. Now perhaps you will think me a bit harsh, but I'm only telling it like I saw it; while Lonely Planet's job is to put the most positive spin on the dumpiest little towns they come across, my job description is nothing of the sort. It was not long before I had met the first crazy person who was staying there. She was an older woman, middle-aged you might say, with a very red face and a very wide bottom, and a mouth that never closed. Literally, the second someone would walk in the room, she would start talking. And talking. And talking. She did not need any encouragement from the listener to continue; in fact, you couldn't get a word in edgewise, and yet on and on and on she would go; she was the energizer bunny of verbosity. Seriously, it was rediculous. And from what I could tell, she had no coherent train of thought, and she had a great many facinations and very possibly delusions related to flowers and the armed forces, around which most of her rhetoric revolved. There were also allusions to frequently written letters to the president about getting the seeds to the right places and not wanting the marines to come after her. I have talked to saner people on my psych rotations in nursing school. As if one of these sort of people weren't enough, there was a male version of her as well! After only 10 minutes of being in the same room as him, I knew that he was married, but only in the eyes of God as for whatever reason I can't remember anymore he wasn't able to legally marry his wife. I knew that he and his wife were stay at home parents, and for income he collected scrap metal. I knew how much he was paying for his phone plan and where he bought it. I knew what a good deal he had found at the Salvation Army before he left for Hawaii. The only thing that remained a mystery to me was what the secret was to making him be quiet. After two nights at this lovely institution, Silke and I decided to get the hell out. We found a room to rent in a beautiful house in La Haina with a courtyard and a pool and it was fabulous. Best of all, there were no crazy people there. We spent the next four day lounging, relaxing, drinking sunset beers and getting up with the sunrise. We snorkeled in the Molokini Crater, and played with the adorable yellow lab puppy that belonged to the lovely lady who owned the house. We watched the Halloween parade down Front St. and ate blackened mahi mahi with papaya salsa that was unforgetable. Basically it was a wonderful week, and one that was made that much more wonderful because I had discovered what a luxury it was to have a bit of privacy amid all the insanity that seems to populate these islands. And true to form, last night when I arrived on the Big Island and had settled in at my hostel with a seemingly normal young lady as my roommate, 11pm rolled around and as I was snuggled into bed and ready for sleep, there came a knock at the door. My normal roommie was already asleep, so I begrudgingly pulled on my pants and went to open the door. There I found myself face to face with my new crazy roommate. She was an older lady, wreaking of smoke (which kind I did not get close enough to find out) with long hair and anklets with jingle bells on them. She jingled around the room in the dark, getting her bed ready, and then promptly fell asleep. Now, you might think this is mild enough, and that I am being overly judgemental in deeming her "crazy" so soon. But to that I will say that there is certain look in the eye and when you see it, you know something is just a bit, well, off. And I saw it in this lady. My deduction was proved correct this morning when at 7am she was up and jingling around the room, having a full on conversation with herself. I rolled over and rubbed my eyes to see who was talking to me, and there she was, nutty as a fruitcake, talking to me about a psychiatrist. I was trying to get my newly woken-up mind around what was happeneing and what she was talking about, but before I could do so, midsentence she walked out of the room, still talking, dropping her lighter as she shut the door behind her. I did not stay at this hostel tonight. I made my way to something a little more centrally located, and am sitting in the common room writing this, and behind me on the couch with a small group of other people is another lady who had monopolized the conversation for the last 20 minutes straight. As I'm sitting here writing and evesdropping, I can't help but wonder if I am one of these crazy people and I don't know it! Haha...if I stay here any longer I might be!

10.13.10 - 10.20.10: Bali

Once again I'm afraid I have been remiss in reporting my adventures here on the other side of the globe. In my defense, internet access in Bali was not the best. But other than that I really have no excuses other than pure sloth. My week in Bali was filled with more gorgeous beaches, volcano vistas, and amazing sunsets. But the highligh by far was the diving. I decided that since I would be in Bali by myself, and I had heard really good things about the diving there, that I would continue my learning experience in diving and take my advanced open water course. So I booked myself at a hotel right next to the beach on a little island off the coast of the Balinese mainland called Nusa Lembognan. I'm feeling a bit guilty for not getting off that little island and seeing more of Bali, but at the same time I saw so many beautiful things under the water that I could not possibly be dissappointed. On the first day after I arrived, my dive instructor was not there yet as she had gotten held up with some troubles obtaining a visa in Singapore, so I decided to go for a snorkel. The first site we went to was on the corner of the island, unsheltered by other land. The wind was high that day so the waves were choppy, and there was a fairly strong current as well, but I jumped off the boat in my snorkel and fins and dutifully followed my divemaster and fellow students, watching them from above as they descended and swam off. I decided to follow them for a bit, as it is a little unnerving to be by yourself floating around in the open ocean, so I swam above them for a while, and suddenly, without any warning, there underneath me maybe 7 meters down was a beautiful manta ray, gliding effortlessly through the water. It was huge! I stopped swimming where I was and just looked down on it as it floated underneath me, swimming off into the darkness of the deeper waters. I couldn't believe my luck...I only had to founder and gag down salt water for about 5 minutes before seeing a manta! After that I struggled and flopped around for a few more minutes before giving up and heading back to the boat. The water was too choppy and the visibility too poor to prolong the agony of constantly choking on sea water. So I opted for tanning on the roof of the boat until the rest of the group got back. I was rewarded for my prude decision, however, with the next site we went to. It was called Crystal Bay, and it was aptly named. The water was clear and still, and as it was a beautiful sunny day the visibility was great. The coral was so beautiful; it streched as far as the eye could see on all sides, bright reds and purples. blues, yellows and greens. I have never seen anything like it. The rest of my week of diving was much the same, although I didn't see any other mantas. I learned how to navigate with a compass underwater (and believe me I am no Magellan), and I also had the opportunity to take pictures underwater, which I will certainly post when I get back. I had a beautiful little room at the hotel, right next to the restaurant and overlooking the beach. Every morning I would wake up to find offerings and incense laid out on my balcony and the sun coming up from the east making the water glow a soft blue. In the evenings I could sit on the balcony with a book and a beer, and watch the sun set over the ocean. In short, I could have spent a month in Bali and not wanted to leave, and in fact next time I am in this part of the world I think I will do just that. I didn't leave Lembognan, so there is so much that I missed, but I really enjoyed my time there. I even got to see the running up to a cock fight...where the contenders show their birds to eachother and see which one gets his feathers all ruffeled up and looks very fierce, and then people place preliminary bets. I was told there that cock-fighting is so popular, that the men will come and wager almost a year's salary on the chance to win. One really does notice the prodigious number of roosters on the island, because they make it nearly impossible to sleep past dawn; they are very noisy animals. I of course had no desire to watch them peck eachother to death, so I did not come back for the real thing. Balinese architecture is also quite a site to behold, but I didn't take any pictures because I felt really weird taking photos of people's houses and their family shrines. I'm sure people probably do it all the time but it seemed a little bit invasive, so I have to be content with my own memory. On my list of things to do when I go back is to hike the volcanoes, visit the temples in the mountains and to see more manta rays! It was a really beautiful week, although it did culminate in a 10 hour layover in Korea, which I could not leave the airport for because I had by accident packed my sweater and was in only a t-shirt and I was freezing. After that I was on to Hawaii! More about that later...

10.4.10 - Leaving Bangkok

I can't believe that I'm coiming to the end of my stay in Thailand! How do two months go by so quickly?? I think it's the amazing company, the great food, and the copious amounts of shopping that has sped time up. In fact, time went by so quickly, that I over-stayed my visa entry allowance by 18 days. When I realized this, I made a trip to immigration, thinking that it would be a quick fix. I would pay the exorbanant fee that was brought on by nothing but my own stupidity and irresponsibility (so I really couldn't be mad about it), buy a proper visa, and extend my stay in Thailand a few weeks. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I could only obtain a 7 day visa after over-staying as I had, and that in order to obtain a 15 day visa, I needed to leave the country. Immediately. Because they charge 500 baht for each day that you stay over in their country. This is how they trap all the drunken Westerners who come here to blow their pension on cheap beer and cute girls. I am not one of those. I am just impossibly irresponsible for no good reason sometimes. Anyways, so from the immigration office, I had no choice but to get a taxi to the bus station, and hop on the next bus to Cambodia. After a 5.5 hour ride, I arrive at the border, and after a quite expensive hour I make it through customs and back again, catching a taxi back to the bus station just in time to make the last bus back to Bangkok. The ride home didn't take quite as long, but all together what started out as a 2 hour errand turned into a 15 hour day trip to another country. And as I was standing on the other side of the Cambodia border, I reached into my purse for my camera to document the fact that indeed I was there, even if it was only for 10 minutes, and my battery was dead. Of course.
I'm so sad to be leaving Bangkok. I had gotten used to spending a lot of time alone, but now that I've been hanging out with friends all the time, I remembered how wonderful it is to share traveling with someone. I mean, when you're alone, you have no one to laugh with at your blunders, and no one to commit them with either! I've eased my anxiety by booking my stay in Bali and am going to continue with diving and get my advanced open water certification. I've also booked my first five days in Hawaii and I'm starting to get really excited about it :) The faster time moves, the closer I am to returning to the States and to real life...that part is not so easy to get excited about, but I'm working on it.
That's it for now...more later, from Bali!

9.22.10 - Continued (Mis)Adventures in Cooking and Speaking Thai

I have now successfully finished three cooking classes, which is enough to obtain a certification in Thai cooking! Yay...except that I thought I had to take five classes to get certified, and my instructor wasn't prepared with my certificate the day of my third class, so I didn't receive my certificate. I will either just pop by the school to pick it up, or I will take another class. I haven't decided yet. It is funny how the dynamics of each class are entirely different depending on the people who are in it. For example, the first class we were a large group of mixed ages but mostly older people. The second class was mostly young people, and mostly Americans. I knew from the moment we were in the market and they wouldn't stop making jokes about the shapes of the eggplants, and by their near-constant commentary over the instruction of the teacher, that it was going to be a long and embarrassing class. And I was correct. By the end of the class our instructor was so exasperated by the loudness, rudeness and apparent oblivion of the American boys to the latter two offenses (well to be fair one of the obnoxious ones was Canadian, but went to high school in the states), that he picked out the quietest student in the class, a German girl sitting next to me, and asked her, "Where are you from? I like you! You are my favorite, so quiet, always listening when I am teaching" and then ended his little rhetoric with a scathing glare at the American boys. They were young, rich boys from the West coast; if these were their only offenses it would have been fine. But to make matters worse, they were fresh out of college and still under the notion that their status as college basketball players actually acquitted them from having to act like normal human beings in real life. It was made all the more note-worthy by the fact that the boys were totally unfazed by our instructor's exasperation, and would actually make comments like, "Is this guy for real?" and "This guy is a total zoo" when he left the room. While it is true that the instructor is a bit eccentric (he's actually very sarcastic, which is funny only because most Thai people are too polite to make fun of others so blatantly), describing him as "a total zoo" didn't quite seem to fit the description, especially because the reason he was being so sarcastic and biting was because of them! But I guess they didn't realize that, as they hadn't experienced classes without themselves in it. I had, and I wished for more of them.

Fortunately, my third class was more like the first, with a group of mostly older people and a few young ones, and only one other American who was as unobtrusive and enjoyable as the basketball players were the opposite. I also met a lovely old Swiss man, who having worked for 50 years at a school for mentally challenged children, was granted an extra 1 month paid vacation. His wife, who is a translator for the deaf at five different schools, could not find five people to replace her and so was unable to accompany him on his holiday. She also apparently hates to fly, so I don't think she really begrudged his going. He was so full of excitement and wonder about everything, and was going to take a few different classes so he could go home and cook for his wife. In addition to him and the American, there was a group of three young Korean girls who were on holiday together; they were so funny, a South African lady whose husband had to come to Bangkok on business and she accompanied him for a holiday, a French woman whose husband was also there on business, and a very shy Scottish man who took the better part of the day to come out of his shell. The dynamics of this class were so fun, and so different from the one before, that I think the food even tasted better.

And then there is Thai class. I had a good week last week; I felt like I was getting the hang of some things, like I could make myself understood, and we all were all laughing and having a good time discussing how much things cost, and where we are from, and if our parents are nice, etc. Then Thursday came and my teacher was a different lady, and I couldn't understand a word she said. She didn't enunciate things the way the other teacher had; in fact she talked as a normal Thai speaking person talks. And for about the first hour I had to remind myself that I am of average intelligence, that I am not, in fact, very stupid. After I got used to the way that she spoke I was able to grasp things more quickly, but it was quite a frustrating first hour of class. Then, on this past Monday, after a weekend comprised of staying out dancing till 5am, shopping all day Saturday, going out with the girls for more dancing, and then sightseeing all day on Sunday, I was exhausted. And the room was such a nice temperature and we were all talking so quietly that I just could not stay awake!! Which, by the way, is so much more embarrassing when you're sitting at a table with three other people, as opposed to sitting in a lecture hall with 50 other people. It's kind of hard to hide the head-bobbing when you are sitting directly across from your teacher. I was so mortified by this, that I have vowed to spend my evening tonight studying Thai in preparation for my class tomorrow, so I must go get started!!

9.11.10 - Myself as a Thai: speech impediments and cooking genius

It has been a week of discovery this week! I had my first Thai language class this week, and I am struggling! That is to put it kindly. To put it accurately, I sound like a 2 yr old with severe cognitive impairment when I attempt to conversate in Thai. I'm not sure if that is a very politically correct way of saying it, but it really is the truth. The class is small (two other students beside myself) but I missed one day of class as I signed up late, so they already had the advantage over me. And, they are Japanese, so I have a feeling that the vowel sounds and the idea of tonality might not be as foreign to them as it is to me. All of this is just me trying to make myself feel better about my absolute hopelessness regarding the acquisition of Thai, which it doesn't seem to be accomplishing anyways so I'll stop now. But I know how to count in Thai, which has given me more incentive to shop; I must practice my numbers after all, and what better way is there? It funny though, my homework for the weekend was to compose and answer 10 questions in Thai. We aren't learning the Thai alphabet (which I'm really sad about) so it's written with English letters and accent marks to denote the tonal changes. We learned how to describe things, and the nice part about it is that to compose these sentences you don't have to conjugate any verbs. In fact, to say, "is your shirt new?" you say literally "shirt yours new, no?" and if the answer is yes you say "shirt new", if the answer is no you say "shirt not new". There is no "is", there is no verb at all actually. But the word for new is "mai" and the word for no is "mai" and the only difference is your tonal inflections. Here is where all the trouble comes. So, I have to confess, I was hoping that Thai cooking would come a little easier to me than the Thai language. Having now done both my first language class and my first cooking class, I would venture to say that Thai cooking is the exact antithesis of the Thai language. It is uncomplicated, easy, and you can adjust it to your personal tastes as needed. Ah if only everything were so easy and produced such amazing results! I am about to lapse into a food coma, so I want to get this out before I do. I had the most amazing morning! First we went to the market, and bought our materials. We got little lessons on the herbs and vegetables used in Thai cooking, then we walked back to our kitchen and began a marathon of cooking. We made 5 different dishes, all of them (other than the rice which was made for us in a rice cooker) in one single wok over a single flame. The key is the fresh ingredients, and then everything else is so simple you wouldn't believe you get the results you do with that little equipment and time! You can add or take away spice, sweetness, bitterness and salty as you think necessary, as all four of these flavors are always present in Thai food, in what seems to always be the perfect balance. We made tom yum soup, pad thai, chicken salad with sticky rice, green curry with vegetables and chicken and for desert a turnip diced and tossed in tapioca flour, cooked, and served in sweet coconut milk. And maybe my favorite part was that all the coconut milk for the recipes we made by hand from shaved dry coconut! So yummy! Another really great part is that I made a friend!!! She is from the Philippines, and she is in Bangkok for work for a month, so we made plans to do touristy things together on the weekends. All in all it was a very satisfying day. And it's only halfway over!! After Julia gets off work tonight, we are planning to head out for a little bit of Bangkok night life with Anna, so I must go rest up a little bit... I am planning on doing lots of dancing to work off the 5 course meal I cooked and ate today, and if I'm going to spend an evening in high heels, I better not be tired and cranky!

9.6.10 - Bangkok

I can't believe a week has passed by in Bangkok already! Julia is back at work this morning, and it looks like this week she won't even have Sunday off so I will be left to my own devices all week long. Fortunately, I have learned how to pronounce the name of the drop-off point for the motor-bike drivers, so I now can get home after running errands. I start cooking classes on Saturday, and I'm really excited about that. It should include a trip to the market, a lecture on Thai ingredients and methods, and then a few hours of cooking...and best of all, I get to keep all my results! Perhaps I'll save some for Julia, perhaps I'll eat them all myself before I even make it home, I don't know. Only time will tell.
Today I'm going to investigate some options for Thai language classes. As I have mentioned in the past, I've been getting started here at home with looking up some Thai language lessons online. The most useful ones are obviously those with voice recordings of English phrases translated into Thai. Otherwise if things are just written, I don't know how to read their alphabet, and I certainly don't know how to make all the intonations necessary to communicate. But I have discovered that there is something for every Thai-language need. In my search this morning, I came across the website Thaiforlovers.com, which is exactly what you might expect it to be: cheesy, romantic phrases translated into Thai. No voice recordings, only things that you would cut and paste into a makeshift love letter or valentine's day card. But don't worry, this will really help you develop your inter-cultural relationship. Which leads me to point out one of my observations of Bangkok social life: it is a haven for fat, washed up, middle-aged white men. They love Thailand. Why, you might ask? Because while Western women view them as how I have just described them (one might say we see them as they really are), Thai women see them as walking dollar signs. This might be a bit of a harsh assessment, but it is the only reason I can think of that would account for the fact that the vast majority of mixed couples I see here are composed of beautiful, young, manicured Thai woman, and an old, fat, ugly white man. The men are either blissfully ignorant of this perceptual difference, or they just don't care because "dude, she's hot". Call me a cynic, but I just don't think that love is blind enough to account for these, um, inequalities. And while Thai men are quite beautiful, somehow I don't think I'm going to have to know how to write "Ten thousand times farewell-yet stay a while. Sweet, kiss me once: sweet kisses time beguile" in Thai. So I will continue in my search for the acquisition of some sort of proficiency in the Thai language. Don't be confused by my use of the word proficiency when I come back to the states not being able to speak a full sentence in Thai. By proficiency I mean being able to count to 10, say hello, goodbye, how much and thank you without being laughed at or unknowingly saying something inappropriate, which, considering the intricacies and complexities of the language, is a feat in and of itself. I'll let you know how it goes.
Yesterday, I went on my first true Thai shopping trip. As my guide Anna (a friend and co-worker of Julia's) explained to me, shopping in Bangkok is not just a means to an end. It is a way of life, a pastime. And I can totally see why. The mall we went to was packed, an amazing amount of products and people crammed into a tiny amount of space. 6 floors of absolute commercial chaos. It was beautiful; there was everything you could ever want and then some. The sad thing for me is that a lot of the clothing shops were "one size fits all" kind of places. Except unlike the massive, flowy outfits that fit under that category in the States, all these clothes were extra small. Apparently "one size fits all" only if you are a tiny Asian woman. And there are no fitting rooms so you don't even have the joy of getting stuck in a garment that is too tight to make you not want to even contemplate trying another one on. Not only are the clothes really tiny, but the stalls themselves are too! At one point I was looking at belts or headbands or something with Anna, and when some other people wanted to come in, all of us had to turn and face each other and shimmy sideways to maneuver ourselves into and out of the store. It struck me that a good 25% of the U.S. population wouldn't even be able to fit into these stores! I'm not exactly slimness personified, but I managed ok; you can imagine though if I were pregnant or had a bit of a beer belly, it could have been a very uncomfortable situation. After a long, arduous day of shopping, Anna and I went for pedicures and manicures at the salon that she frequents. It was wonderful. Top it off with some pad thai, and I went home an exhausted but very satisfied person, if a little more broke than when I left. Until next time ...

8.31.10 - Sawadee Ka, Thailand!

After my arrival in Bangkok on the 14th of August, Julia and I headed out on the 16th to the south of Thailand for a two week vacation on the beaches and islands of enchanting Thailand. It was an amazing two weeks, filled with so much amazing food, drinks, dancing, beach-bathing, sunsets, sunrises, boat rides, motor bike riding, and just a general good time. Now I am back in Bangkok, and have begun the serious business of researching what I want to do while Julia is at work 6 days per week. I have been looking into cooking classes, which I’m thinking of doing once per week. I also have been contemplating the idea of taking Thai language classes.
Learning any new language can be daunting. In fact, Julia and I had a long, inconclusive conversation about the complex irregularities of the English language last night, and the possible means and reasons for the change and development of language. Should the language be made more regular in order to facilitate an easier grasp of converstional English, seeing as how it has become the “universal” language in the sense that it facilitates business and tourist transactions all over the world? Needless to say, neither Julia nor I came to a consensus on the topic. But it did get me thinking about what I love about language, and what makes English so difficult to learn. The English language is full of rules, and then is constantly breaking those rules with exceptions for no apparent reason. We have many tenses, once we don’t even realize we use until we reach the 8th grade and are told that we have been speaking in the present perfect tense. Who knew?
In order to get a better understanding of what I was up against when it comes to learning Thai, I was reading a webpage in which the author stated that Thai is much more simple than English in that respect. There is often no use of past or future tense – everything is in the present tense, and the meaning is changed only by the words used in the sentence (ie the verbs do not need to be conjugated, but always remain constant, and time is delineated by the use of the words “will”, “already” or “in the past”). There are no masculine or feminine nouns as there are in Latin languages. There are no articles or particles (a, and, the), and there is no plural. So by reading this first page you start to think that learning Thai might actually be an attainable goal. This of course is before you have ever tried to speak Thai to a Thai person. Once you have done this you understand why so many Westerners don’t even bother. Although the grammar and syntax of Thai might be more simple, the tonal variations and the vowel sounds of the words are so complex that to the untrained ear you might not ever hear the difference between one word that is spelled the same, but when pronounced in different tones can mean completely different things. The author of this article gives a good example:
“A word can have several meanings depending on the tones, for example the sentence 'mai mai mai mai mai' (with varying tones), can mean the ‘new wood doesn’t burn does it?’. This is where the confusion sets in, such as the word kii, which could mean ‘ride’ or ‘shit’ depending on which way you say it. Even worse is the similarity between glai, where only a falling tone differentiates the meaning from ‘near’ and ‘far’.” (http://www.1stopbangkok.com/speak_thai/tones/, 2008)
So, perhaps at this point you can understand why I am sitting in my apartment writing about the complexities of the Thai language. If not, let me elaborate. I know how to get to the train station. I know how to buy a ticket, what stop to get off at to enjoy some food, go shopping, or visit Julia at her job when she gets off work. I know how to say hello and thank you. I know where the grocery store is, and where the open air night market is. But, once I am done with all of these things and I want to catch a motor bike back to the apartment, I don’t know how to pronounce the name of the drop off point! I can get myself to any number of locations, do any number of things, but I can’t tell the driver how to get me home. Of course I’m not going to sit here in the apartment all day until Julia comes home from work. I’m going to go out and give it a try anyways, once I have done my yoga and gotten properly attired (Thai women always look fabulous I have discovered, and short of wearing high heels, I’m going to try to look fabulous as well if I have to leave the house) I’m going to go shopping and cook dinner for Julia and I tonight. I’m going to make green curry with vegetables and rice, one of our favorite dishes. Not from scratch of course because I don’t have the utensils to make the green curry paste myself, but I’ve discovered that anything with copious amounts of coconut milk in it is just by nature absolutely delicious. Thai food is amazing! Ah well, wish me luck ☺

8.13.10 - Delhi continued

Ahhh so now that I’ve been home, washed the dirt off my face, arms, legs and feet, and slept in my jail cell that I’ve become rather fond of, I feel much better about my trip to Agra yesterday. The plus side of the non-A/C seating was that on the way back to Delhi, I had the whole bench to myself and could stretch out and sleep – it was fabulous. Especially when we stopped for 2 hours so that the rest of the tour group could visit some obscure temple to honor Krishna, whose birthday it was. We had stopped in his birth town for dinner earlier (I had the most tasty samosas and chai ever, and also walked around town with a guide to find the world’s most well-hidden ATM to pay back my benefactor) and I got to watch a terribly cheesy movie depicting Krishna’s kidnapping and reappearance, which I’m assuming is typical to this season. It’s a bit like Christmas in the States I guess; people are all out on the town, shopping for each other and for offerings to leave at the temple, decked out with strands of jasmine in their hair and beautiful sarees on. It was a nice cultural experience, and a few of my fellow travelers took the time to explain to me where we had stopped and why it was important. But when we pulled up to the place where they would go to the temple, nobody told me what was happening and everyone just piled into autos and left. I decided that I would just as soon stay in the bus and sleep. Also it was the perfect opportunity to pee in the woods, which I did promptly once I discovered we would be stopped there waiting for a few hours. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible trip. I arrived back to my cell at 4 in the morning and was able to sleep a few more hours before the heat made it unbearable.
Delhi is hot. Really hot. And dusty. And I think the entire city is under construction; everywhere you go there are roads being torn up, two lanes of traffic being funneled through a passageway barely big enough for one lane of traffic. There are cranes, backhoes, and piles upon piles of dirt which all turn to massive mud puddles when the deluge of rain comes. All of this has the combined effect of making me exceedingly glad that I’m leaving tomorrow. But for now I’m going to make the best of my time here. I’m off to use the internet, then go exploring. Tata!

8.12.2010 - Agra

So my hovel was not any more forgiving in the light of the early morning, given that during the night it converted into my very own small brick oven. It was too hot to sleep under the mosquito net because the meager fan couldn’t penetrate the material. And there is only one outlet in the entire room, occupied by the aforementioned fan, so I couldn’t plug in my mosquito repellant device, which had been working quite nicely for me in Bangalore. Even though I was exhausted from traveling I couldn’t sleep, partly because I was so damn hot, and partly because I was worried about the ceiling caving in on me. I was going to do some research today about the best way to visit Agra (check the price of a bus ticket, train ticket, etc.), so when I got back to my cell last night I asked the night worker what it cost to take their bus tour. He informed me that they only go on Thursday (today) as Friday is their day off, and that I could take A/C or non-A/C. Seeing as how I have from my mother inherited an insatiable desire to find a bargain, and also because when I spend a long time in A/C I often get headaches and sore throats, I chose non-A/C. It might be hot in Delhi, but I preferred to feel the wind on my face to feeling the A/C giving me goosebumps and a head cold on the 5 hour ride to Agra. I realized that I would be much easier to take the bus that would come pick me up at my hostel, and drop me off at the points of interest (the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal) than it would be to take a train to the Agra station, and then be hassled by every auto-rickshaw driver in a 10km radius to swindle me out of my rupees and take me on the scenic route to the Taj Mahal.
So I decided just to go with the non-A/C bus tour. I would be picked up and dropped off at all the proper places, and it would be a set price that would require no bargaining on my part. Now, I might have chosen differently if I had realized that what was meant by “non-A/C” was that I would be sitting in the front of the bus with the driver and 6 other Indian men, all of us on benches as there are no actual seats in the front of the bus. I am once again the only woman, and once again, everyone is staring at me. If there is one thing I can say that I really don’t appreciate about certain other cultures, is that the men can stare all they want and it is not considered inappropriate. But if you, as a woman, so much as look up to meet their gaze you are considered to be coming on to them! Arrrggggg! It is sooooo frustrating! So I appease myself by looking out the window at the beautiful scenery flying past us, and plugging my ears to blog out the incessant horn-honking. The driver is all too liberal with the horrific, high-pitched, dissonant sounding horn, and the flies are biting at the mosquito-bite wounds on my legs. All signs point to a very bad decision on my part. I was greedy about my sight-seeing. I should have just stayed in Havelock an extra day or two, and then flown on directly to Thailand. I could have sat on the beach, gone for an extra dive, hung out with Daniel and my hottie dive instructor Vikas, drank Kingfisher, and worked on my tan. Instead, I thought to myself, “I can’t leave India without seeing the Taj Mahal” when in fact, after seeing it, I rather think that I could have. The problem with seeing huge tourist attractions like this, is that they are swarming with tourists. And along with the tourists come super abnoxious and pushy salesmen. For example, I’m waiting at the bus for the rest of my (non-punctual) fellow travelers to come back, and there is some very persistent seller of carvings standing at the door to the bus and telling me he loves me. Having told him to go away and leave me alone several times has not helped; in fact I’m beginning to think he doesn’t know what the words mean and just likes to hear me say them so I’ve resorted to ignoring him.
The other great charm of this particular tourist attraction, is that if you are an Indian, it costs you 20 rupees to get in. If you are a foreigner, it costs you 750 rupees to get in. And there are absolutely no ATM’s within a 50 km radius of any of the major attractions here. I was told by the driver when we stopped at the first site that there would be an ATM where we stopped for lunch. I hadn’t had time to find one the night before, and I naively supposed that at a site that attracts such huge crowds there would surely be an ATM on the premises. So we stopped for lunch and when I ask where the ATM is, the waiter points to the right outside the door. Thinking I am in luck, I walk out the door and turn right. There is no ATM. Upon further questioning, I discover that the ATM is a 1km walk to the right of the restaurant. And my tour director tells me there is not enough time to walk there and back before we have to leave for the Taj. I tell him I simply don’t have 750 rupees and have to stop before we get there. He has other plans. He commissions one of my fellow passengers to lend me the money (which was humiliating, especially considering 750 rupees is quite a lot of money), and then the bus is going to stop on the way home at an ATM so I can repay him. I don’t exactly look the part of a dependable return of money. I’m sweating like a pig in my white kurta and it looks like I’m trying to be the runner-up for a wet T-shirt contest. People won’t stop staring at me, which I guess is one of the great treasures of traveling India as a single white woman. Don’t get me wrong, the Taj Mahal is incredibly beautiful. And the Red Fort is also quite impressive. But I think spending two weeks in a gorgeous, secluded tropical island and discovering the amazing experience of diving spoiled me. I was so relaxed and at peace with myself. I should have known better than to come back to the chaos of the mainland to tackle Delhi on my own. I should have just bought some post cards and told a couple of white lies and left for Thailand immediately. Ah well, hindsight is 20/20. But now I’m sitting on a bus, sweating and being bitten by flies, and waiting for the rest of my tour group to get back here so that we can head back to Delhi. After today, I am actually looking forward to my jail cell! It’s amazing what perspective can do for you. And had I known that everyone was going to be late, I would have taken the time to pee before getting on this god-forsaken bus. But I didn’t, and god only knows when my next chance will be. Ladies bathrooms aren’t exactly a commodity at the places we’ve been stopping at the roadsides, and men just pee wherever they damn well feel like, so it’s really not fair. I mean, I have no qualms about peeing in the wilderness, but it’s not exactly appropriate for a woman to pop a squat on the side of the road so I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Time will tell I guess?

8.11.10 - Intro to New Delhi

I'm sitting on the airplane to Delhi, and I'm trying really hard to be excited about it, about seeing the Taj, but I'm just not. I miss the islands - I miss the clean air, the turquoise sea, and sitting in the Cafe at night chatting with Vikas and Daniel (dive instructor and really cool traveler, respectively). The only thing I don't miss is beign ravaged by mosquitos, but who is to say that this won't happen in Delhi too? After all, I'm still in the plane. I haven't booked a room yet, but I'm just going to take a taxi to these places listed in Lonely Planet in a pretty centralized area, and then just taking a day trip to the Taj. Guess I'll just see how it goes and make decisions later.
Later that night....
Holy shit!!! I'm staying in a total shithole! Excuse my language, but in this instance it is totally appropriate! I'm laughing just thinking about it because it's obviously totally my doing, and you never know what to expect in India. But word to the wise: when "crusty" is used as a descriptive word in Lonely Planet, it is not a vague term to describe a rustic location, it is actually a very accurate description of a terribly unkempt room! The paint is actually falling from the walls because it is so water logged that it can't stick to the cement anymore. So here I am, in a city I didn't really want to come to, living in what I would imagine to be similar to a jail cell that has fallen into disrepair. And this, my friends, is what happens when you decide to fly by the seat of your pants in Delhi. I'm trying not to think about beautiful Havelock Island, because it will make my hovel so much more unbearable, but just to laugh about it and think of it as a great adventure. Probably the best part about this whole ordeal tonight, is that when I gave the address to my taxi driver, he didn't know where it was. That should have been my first clue. But often in Bangalore the auto drivers wouldn't know where my house was and I'd have to direct them there, so I didn't think anything of it. And maps are pretty much useless as most people never use them and so they don't help you communicate where it is you want to go. Anyways, my driver called the hostel twice or maybe even three times for directions (thank god I had written the number down) and after much turning around and going in circles, I took out my Lonely Planet, looked at the map of the neighborhood, and directed my taxi driver to my hostel. He drives around the city for a living, and I, who have never been to the city, and am not a native of the country, am telling him how to get to a hostel on some obscure street of the Connaught Place district!! Ridiculous!!! I walk into my first choice of hostels and of course there is no vacancy. So I trek to the next one and walk up the skinny steps with all my bags hanging on me like a pack horse. I arrive in the empty lobby and look out on the terrace. There are about 5 or 6 men sitting there in their skivies watching Indian soap operas, and they all turn to stare at me. No one makes any motion to greet me or to come take care of me or even acknowledge that this is a hotel and that I am a prospective source of income. I look around me to be sure that I haven't walked into someone's living room, because this is what it feels like. Then, since no one has greeted me, I say, "hello?" and after a pause, one of the men gets up and comes over to me to begin the proceedings for booking my overpriced hovel-room. At the point in the proceedings where I write in the log book where I am from, the man is convinced that Connecticut is a city, and tries to tell me to write the state, not the city. He thinks I don't understand, and I keep telling him that yes, Connecticut is a state, and yes I live there so I do know that this is true. I eventually resort to pulling out my Connecticut driver's license and show him that Granby is the city and Connecticut is the state. Finally he believes me and says, "Oh, I don't know where that is. Is it in the south?" I tell him it is nearby New York, and then am led to my room by a man in his underwear. Seriously, he was one of the gentlemen sitting on the terrace in the rain watching soap operas, and he is wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else. What the hell??? Where am I? I am in the same country, and yet I am worlds apart from where I just left. My jail cell is hot as hell, and it has one tiny little fan and one tiny little window. At least there are screens. But the door is practically falling off the frame so an army of mosquitos could easily fit through, thus negating the purpose of screening the windows. I decided that if I was going to spend a night in this hell hole I was going to do so after a nice cold beer, so I head to a pub nearby and enter an entirely different universe. The bar is highly air conditioned, darkly lit, and covered with posters of famous American musicians: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, and on the radio Nickleback is blaring circa 1995, and a whole group of young Indians are singing along. To top off the bizarre atmospheric charm, the waiters are wearing khaki newsboys hats and blue collared shirts, as if this is the epitome of American style or something. I am certain that I am one of the very few women in here, and for sure I am the only woman who goes out alone. I may be the only white woman to ever set foot in here, at least one would think so by the way everyone is staring at me, but that can’t possibly be true because this place is another gem in the Lonely Planet guide book on New Delhi so I’m sure others have ventured here before me. Well my food is here, so I’m about to eat and possibly have another beer, then head back to my hovel. Perhaps it will be more forgiving in the light of day?

8.9.10 - Andaman Islands Continued

I am writing this from the safety of my room so don’t be alarmed – I decided to do a night dive while here in the Andaman Islands, and it was the most incredible experience ever!! Everyone I’ve told seems to be very worried that going in the ocean at night is very dangerous because it is when the sharks feed, but the people I went with have been diving for the past 8+ years, and they do a couple of night dives per week, and they are still alive with no shark-bite related injuries. I knew that if I left the Andamans without doing it, I would regret it forever. So I decided to suck it up and just do it. We hadn’t seen any sharks yet, and I hoped my good luck would continue, plus if I was scared there was always my cute dive instructor to rescue me ☺
As it turns out, diving at night is a lot like diving in the day, in that once you get down there, you are so enthralled by the magic that is going on around you that you are not even thinking about sharks. It is a more slow-paced dive than a daytime dive because you are mostly looking for macro-life, and things often hide from the beam of your flashlight so you have to move more slowly. It is so incredibly dark under the water, and at this time it was new moon, so there was literally no light coming from above the water. The visibility is low and all around you is darkness and the weird noises of the ocean; if diving during the day is like being in a different world, then night diving is like being in an alternate universe. When you take your flashlight and shine it upwards, you realize that dancing all around you are little under-water aliens! There are hundreds and thousands of tiny little planktons, all different species, with translucent bodies and little glowing orbs floating inside them. Some have tails like sperm, some look like centipedes, some with rotating propellers on their tails – there are so many varieties you are constantly in awe of this little thing swimming around in the spotlight. If you catch them in your fingers they can fragment as a defense mechanism and then the pieces go on living. Shining your flashlights on coral also bring out the colors in a new way – pinks, purples, reds, orange, blue – they were so beautiful! The fish were mostly sleeping, or they would see the light and hide, but we did see some amazing lobsters and shrimp, and I had to try my best not to think about how delicious they would be grilled and dipped in garlic butter.
We swam for about an hour looking at all these amazing creatures, and at the end of the dive we swam over to the anchor line, grabbed a hold, and turned off our flashlights. All around us the sea was lit up by the glow of a thousand tiny lights – the zoo plankton emit a glow as another form of self defense, to warn other plankton that there might be danger near (in this case in the form of our large, moving bodies), which is a phenomenon called bioluminescence. All around us the plankton were glowing like a universe of stars, and there we were suspended in complete darkness and the only way to tell where someone else was floating was to look for their outline in the bioluminescence around them lighting up whenever they moved. It was like magic – the weightlessness that water gives you made you feel as if you were floating in outerspace, with the stars swirling around you with every move you make. It was breathtaking, so startlingly beautiful. I couldn’t believe that my life had led me here, to see this, to do this; how so many turns of events set into motion months ago had brought me here to this place to be hanging in the darkness, illuminated by life. When we finally ascended and broke the surface, the water was dark, glassy, calm and cold. We got into the boat shivering and had chai and cookies (one of my favorite diving rituals, but even better at night because you are so cold). As the boat started to move and we made our way back to the island, the water was lit up by the bioluminescence created by the movement of the boat through the water and sprayed back to trail us in lights. From the bow of the boat to our wake, the water sprayed back behind us in one continuous sparkling stream, undulating with the ripples of water created by the rhythm of the motor. I don’t even think I can adequately describe how beautiful it was to watch, just perfectly mesmerizing; sitting on the edge of the boat watching the glow dissipate in the water behind us, I felt alive in a new way, like I had been woken up from a long sleep. I knew that at that moment, I was doing exactly what I was meant to be doing, moving in quiet darkness through the effervescent water.

8.4.10 - Andaman Islands Continued

Okay, I have to admit that while I have been lax in posting new entries on my blog as of late, I still have been writing, and adventuring. Internet access has not been what it was in Bangalore, and I’ve been on the move, so I apologize for those of you who have been waiting with baited breath after that cliffhanger I left you with regarding my Andaman Island experience…
So, as I was saying, diving has opened my eyes to a whole new world! I thought I would be so scared, but when you get under the water, there is so many new things to see and so much to be excited about that you’re not even thinking about all the things you were nervous about in the first place. On my second dive we were in a coral reef, and my instructor motioned for me to come over to one of the rocks and hold on to it to maintain my balance while we looked at the cleaner fish. He had told us earlier that if you float still enough, they will come over to you and clean your hand if you put it out, which is what we tried to do. But they spotted all the mosquito bites on my leg and swam right over and promptly began nibbling on my legs! It was so ticklish, and apparently I was just the variety they needed after a constant diet of fish-scum. They form symbiotic relationships with various species of fish and clean them constantly, which I can imagine would grow old after a while. Diving was a new way to experience the beauty of the ocean. I grew up going to the beach every summer, entire days spent in the sand and the water, and I’ve always loved it, but now I have an entirely new appreciation for the complex world that the ocean holds.
The Andaman Islands have a mystical, magical feel that one often finds in places that are largely untouched by humans…from the moment I arrived on the ferry, one look out the window showed me why people move here, fall in love with the islands, and never come home. The landscape is filled with rolling hills covered in palms, greens, mangrove trees and the long-rooted banyan trees as well, all covered by a mist that rises like steam from a bath on a cold winter night. The days here in August are filled with clouds, sunshine, mosquitos (fondly referred to as “mozzies”), and torrential rains. In May, however, it got so hot here that the water reached 31 degrees C – which I believe is about 90 degrees F! All the coral was killed and bleached by the extreme water temperatures. Some of it has already started to grow back, and when you spot the iridescent glow of live coral amid the algae-covered bleached coral it is so spectacular I can’t even imagine what it might be like to have the whole ocean floor look like that. But August is as close to perfect as I think might be possible. Almost every night and every early morning, you are lulled to sleep by the sound of the rains on the tin roofs of the huts and the soft whirr of the fans. The sun breaks through for a few hours in the morning before an afternoon shower or two and then the sun will come back out. I think that in contrast with crazy, busy, dirty, loud mainland India, these Islands seemed even more of a paradise to me. They were exactly what I needed after a full month in Bangalore. Of course, if too many people know how fabulous this place is, it will soon cease to be this amazing. So perhaps I should delete this entry and all others concerning the gorgeousness of the Andamans?

8.2-10.10 - The Andaman Islands

Nothing is every easy while traveling in India. For example, two days before we were scheduled to leave for the Andamans, the second leg of our flight was cancelled. And Sarah faithfully called every single person who could possibly have anything to do with the tickets we had purchased and not one of them could help arrange another flight from Chennai to Port Blaire. They told us our best bet was to get to the airport early and figure it out there. So at 3:30 in the morning on the 2nd we left for the airport, and arrived around 4:30am. In fact, we were so prompt, the ticket desk wasn't even open yet! So we waited till 5am and were first to the ticket desk, and after much deliberation it was determined that they couldn't help us either and that we should have called the airline and figured this out in advance (refer to previous bit to see how that didn't work). We finally just decided to get to Chennai, and then figure the rest out from there. We arrived in Chennai, picked up our luggage and ran to the supervisors desk, where we with some other unfortunate travelers followed the supervisor around like lost dogs waiting for him to get us on another flight. I have never been so happy to be issued a ticket in all of my life. I thought for sure we would be stuck in Chennai for the night, and I didn't want to miss out on any island time. If I had known then how cute my dive instructor was going to be, I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on any diving either but at this point I was still blissfully ignorant.
We arrived in Port Blaire, the entrance way to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Of the hundreds of islands in the chain, only 33 of them are inhabited, and foreigners were just allowed to enter the islands in 1995. The Nicobar islands are still off limits to tourists, and there are certain tribes that are so hostile to outsiders that they have practically no contact at all with the outside world. After the 2004 tsunami, the Indian government flew over one of these islands with a hellicopter to see if the natives were ok, and on the beach they looked down to find a group of men from the tribe, alive and well, wearing nothing but loin cloths and aiming their arrows at the hellicopter.
Anyways, so after our arrival in Port Blaire and all the customary paperwork, we caught the ferry to Havelock Island where our reservations were. After a few hours, we landed at the jetty, and took a rickshaw with us and our collective 50lbs of luggage to our resort. It was so incredibly beautiful! We were the first tourists of the season at this particular place, and it was so quiet and peaceful, just us and the caretakers, the two dogs Frodo and Sam (after the lord of the rings hobbits), and the aforementioned good-looking dive instructor, Vikas. The next morning Sarah and I started our dive classes, which involved getting over the initial instinctive fear of breathing under water, and learning other various skills that would be helpful to have if anything should happen under water like what to do if you run out of air, or if your air tube malfunctions. All of these things while you're thinking about them in shallow water have the potential to really freak you out...I mean, it's scary! But the minute you go on your first dive, and you are weightless (if a little clumsy) and surrounded by things you have only ever seen in National Geographic, all your fear dissappears and you are so enthralled with the magical world in front of you that time goes by at a different pace. You can be diving for an entire hour, and feel as if you just descended. It was beautiful....
But I must go, my time is up at the internet cafe...much much more to say later.

7.30.10 - Bengaluruuuuuuuuu

I can't believe this is my last week in Bangalore!!! The time has gone by so fast, but I think the timing is perfect because one by one, all the wonderful people I have met here have been starting to move on to new places and new things. I thought that by traveling after I moved away from Chicago I would be escaping from the sadness of saying goodbye to people you love, but it turns out I'm just saying goodbye all over again to a whole new group of wonderful people!! I just didn't anticipate this! I thought I would be doing more traveling, not necessarily settling down like I have done. It's been a different kind of experience than I at first imagined that I would have. I thought I would be doing all kinds of traveling and seeing all kinds of places. But instead I have adopted Bangalore as my home away from home, and have ventured out on a few occasions, but mainly have stayed here, taking yoga classes and volunteering at the hospital and hanging out with friends. I just met an Australian girl who is going on a tour of northern India next week. For 21 days she will be with a tour group, accommodation and some meals provided for and will get to see all the major sites of northern and northeast India in the safety of a group. When I heard her plans I had a pang of remorse for not planning ahead like that. If I had, I would have seen a lot more of the country than at this point I have. But I think that staying in the same place, you get a different perspective. You don't see the place briefly, as an outsider, and you certainly don't see it as a local would, but you do get aquainted with a place and know it with a little more intimacy. And, of course, if I hadn't settled down the way I did, I wouldn't have the chance to do this yoga class which I am loving, or work at the hospital, or meet all the fabulous people I have met. All in all I have loved my time in Bangalore. Once you get past the possibility of sudden death by collision with oncoming traffic, you get into the rhythm of the place and learn to appreciate it. You bring a scarf with you whenever you ride in an auto to block out the smog that flies in your face from the exhaust pipes of the other cars on the road. When you are walking you assume that nobody looks behind them before backing out and you act accordingly. When crossing a river you grab a big gulp of fresh air before you cross the bridge so as to avoid the smell of sewage. You learn how to bargain your way to half the price of a still overpriced auto ride. And these things make life here fun and exciting and most of all, new and different every day.
Next stop is the Andaman Islands. I've been reading in my guide book about them, and the sound fabulous. There is a whole group of islands in the area, the Nicobar islands, that aren't open to foreigners. After reading though, I can see why; the indiginous tribes of the Andamans and Nicobars are all but extinct at this point. Colonialism and the diseases and vices brought with it (commercialism and alcohol, mainly)wiped out the Indiginous tribes in no time at all. Globalization comes at a cost, which is apparently quite steep in some of these remote areas. On that terribly depressing note, we will be staying at a beach hut on one of the islands there...and taking diving lessons with a certified diving instructor! I am excited, but I have to admit, that I am a little clausterphobic when it comes to breathing through a tube underwater. However, I know that I'll be really upset with myself if I don't do it, so I'm going to. It's all booked at any rate, too late to chicken out now. I'm not expecting to have reliable internet service while over there...so it will be a while before I can report on how terrifying it is.
After that I'll be in Dehli and Agra to see the Taj before heading out to Thailand to be with my dearest Julia!!!!! I'm sad to be leaving, but so excited for the next step in the journey! And by the time I get to Thailand, I should be able to post some pictures to liven up this overly-verbose blog! Until next time...

7.26.10 Hampi, Part 2

7.26.10 - Hampi

Hampi, I've decided, was just what I needed. And somehow I can't believe it's taken me this long to get here and why I've stayed in Bangalore as long as I have. Part of me wants to just go straight to Goa from here and continue this relaxed, vacation-travel vibe I have going here. But I've already bought my return ticket (I knew I shouldn't have done that) and I have also bought yoga classes for this week and I am too practical to just throw away money like that. So I'm going to go back to Bangalore, have a few more yoga classes and save my money, visit the hospital and the clinic once more, and just generally be a responsible person. Ugh, the whole point of traveling was to get away from responsibilities and be able to fly by the seat of my pants. But I guess no mater how far you go, you can't get away from your own type-A personality.
I'm spending my last few hours in Hampi sitting on my rooftop terrace, looking out over ruins that span from the 7th to the 16th century in origin. There are monkeys playing on the balcony, eyeing me with what could be either suspiscion, animosity or curiosity, i'm not sure which. One of them had his hair parted down the middle and looked strikingly like one of the Three Stooges. The sun is about to set in front on me, sinking behind a landscape strewn with temples and boulders that look as if they have been tossed there carelessly by some giant god, and a strong wind could at any moment begin an avalanche. Given that the landscape has looked like this for centuries however, I have determined that it is not as unstable as it looks.
Today I slept in, having stayed up later that I should have reading an Agatha Christie novel (my newest guilty pleasure), had some breakfast, and headed out to see some more ruins. I walked down the path that I had started on yesterday, in search of the Vitalla temple (the one with the resounding columns). Now, either I am really horrible at directions and I never found it, or it is not nearly as impressive as Lonely Planet made it sound! I walked down the path that pointed me towards the Vitalla temple. And I kept walking past the ruins that I thought for sure couldn't be them because they weren't cool enough. And I kept walking and walked around the boulders, and over some temples that were obviously off the beaten path and were no longer used for religious or tourist purposes, some random rocks with ancient carvings in them that were just lying there amid the boulders by the river. Strange, I thought for sure I would have found it by now. So then I wondered if it was indeed the temple I had seen earlier, and I was getting hungry from all my rock jumping so I decided to head back. On my way I passed by a family selling peanuts and asked them. He told me that it was right up the path from which I had come, just go straight and you can't miss it. Now I don't know if this is one of those instances where they either didn't know what I was asking, or they didn't know the answer to my question and so they just told me something that wouldn't be too discouraging. For example, the other day I got in an auto at 5:20 pm, and when we got to our destination I asked for the time. The auto driver didn't have a watch either, but instead of saying he didn't have the time, he looked around him and then said, "It's 5;o clock madam." I knew it wasn't 5 so I just payed my fare and got out. So, with that in mind I speculated what the possibilities were of the directions being that, well, direct. They both seemed very certain, and their English was good so I was fairly sure we both knew what the other was saying so I guessed that maybe I had seen it and not realized. I also have no sense of what a kilometer is like (as in I know I can walk a mile in 20 min on flat terrain, but I have no idea how long it takes me to walk a kilometer, and for that matter I have no watch so it wouldn't do me any good anyways). As I'm sitting here a few hours from leaving Hampi, I'm wondering if somehow I missed it, the trail being obscured by lots of expanses of rock, and should I go back and try again? But as I mentioned before, the sun is setting and I don't have time before dark to get there and back, especially if it involves more of the jumping from boulder to boulder that I did earlier today.
After my (possibly unsuccessful) journey to the Vitalla temple today, I went to see the sacred center, which is a conglomeration of temples spread out across the top of a hill. Some of these date back to as early as the 7th century A.D. There are is one temple that dates from the 15th century that enshrines a huge sculpture of Ganesha, the Hindu diety that takes the form of an elephant with multiple sets of arms, carved entirely out of a single stone, measuring 4.5 meters high - that's about 14 or so feet for those of my American readers like for whom the metric system holds no meaning without translation. You can see where all the landscape has a played a big part in the art and architecture of Hampi - there is so much stone and rocks here that they probably had to build temples just to clear out a place to put a house up. Anyways, so you walk into the beginning of the temple, and in the back room where there are no windows, there sits Ganesha. The enclosure probably accounts for the amazing condition the sculpture is still in, but still I couldn't help but feel a little creeped out by the way this giant figure loomed out of the darkness of the back room, with a creepy little smile on his face and something different held in each of his four hands. It got me thinking about the strangeness of religious icons and symbols. I feel like I could no sooner worship an image of an elephant with 4 arms and human character traits than I could worship a photo of my first dog Tweed. But then, from another perspective, how much more believable is it to worship a death-defying man who was born to a virgin impregnated by the Holy Ghost? And yet, for centuries people have not only believed these things, but devoted their lifes to them; built magnificent temples and churches and mosques and shrines to worship their respective dieties in; sacrificed animals and children, food, money, time and logic at the feet of these gods. It's interesting to imagine how the religions of the world developed, why they confined themselves to particular regions of the world, and what would have happened if Christopher Columbus, Magellen, Alexander the Great, Attilla the Hun, and all of those such men had left well enough alone and everyone else followed suit. Think of the wars that would have been avoided if everyone had just kept to themselves and minded their own business, not tried to convince others that their way was the right way. But then I guess that if that were the case, I wouldn't be sitting here halfway across the world, looking out over the remains of ancient Hindu temples, marvelling at the sculptural beauty and the sheer manpower it took to build these shrines. I also wouldn't have eaten badam paneer pasanda (an almond-cheese-yogurt-curry with cashews and raisins) and cumin-rice with chapati for lunch, which I think was life-changing. And I wouldn't be listening to the breeze rustle through the palm trees, and the cows mooing in the background and the autorickshaw put-putting up the nearby hill. I wouldn't be watching white and black-faced monkeys jumping from bush to tree to my balcony and back. I also would not have spend $80 on hand crafted Rajastanian silver jewelry today, but that's a cross I'm just going to have to bear. Well, I guess I could do without hearing the auto, but you can't really have all this without that, so I suppose I'll just have to take it.
Well, that's probably enough speculation for you all my readers, and even if it's not that's enough speculation for me; my brain hurts from the use of it. And the leftovers from lunch are calling to me and I wouldn't want to keep them waiting. I had better do some serious yoga before my 10 hour bus ride as well, otherwise I won't be able to walk when I get back to bangalore. Ahh, and I need to buy postcards!!! I didn't realize I had so much to do, so little time. More later...ciao.

7.25.10 - Hampi, Part 1

Bangalore has sucked me in! I have been planning to go to Hampi for two weeks now, and I finally just up and went. Well it's a little more complicated than that, involving lots of investigation and sleuthing to determine how to buy a ticket. I arrived today at 7:30 in the morning and thought I was only 9 hours outside of Bangalore, I felt I had entered another world. I stepped off the bus amid the throng of would-be-porters, trying to cajole me into coming to their guest house...we all have to make a living I guess, and these pushy young gentlemen make a commission from the number of tourists they bring to their respective employers, so I understand the urgency. But they are just so damn annoying!!! I spotted a hostel just across from the bus station that I had read about in my guide book, and bee-lined it there. Luckily she had a room, otherwise I would have been at the mercy of the porters who were waiting outside. The room wasn't ready yet, but I was able to drop off my bag and go exploring.
I walked through the town, past the 15th century temple, down to the river to sit and read my guide book to determine what I should do with my day. It was a cool, misty morning, raining intermittently, and people were bathing and doing laundry in the banks of the river. I had read in the guide book that Lakshmi, the temple elephant, was brought down to the banks of the river every morning for her ritual bath. But I don't have a watch, and I was absorbed in my book, while the kids around me were absorbed in taking my picture on their cell phone cameras while they giggled and pushed their friends towards me, so I was taken off guard by a jingling noise from behind me. I thought perhaps it was a cow feeding on the hill next to me (some of them have decorated horns with bells and other metal jewelry), but I turned around to look and there she was! I was face to face with an elephant! I've seen them in the zoos, but somehow this was entirely different...She was dark grey, almost black with beauiful pink mottled markings on her trunk. She had a bell hanging around her neck, and chains around one foot, which gave her depressing appearance of being a slave. I suppose, in essence, that is what she is, so I guess it was fitting. She had white and red painted markings down her trunk and such long and beautiful eyelashes she looked as if she were smiling.
She was lead down the steps to the banks of the river, and brought into the water. At this point she very unceremoniously pooped into the water, to the delight of the little boys standing behind her. The man lead her into the water while riding on her neck, brought her out into the deep portion of the river and gave her head a good scrub down. Then she turned around and came back. While all this was going on, the Hindu priest was performing ritual cleansing while his alter-boy was chanting. When he was done with his series of annointings and washings, he called some people who were standing on the side of the river into the water with him. They made their way out till they were waist deep in water, and then Lakshmi bathed them! She gathered water in her trunk and sprayed the priest and the others in the water with him, and repeated the procedure a few times. After she was done, she was lead back up the stairs and back to the temple. I went a little overboard with the picture taking, but it turns out that was a good thing because when I went to see the temple, there she was chained up in between the columns, with a big sign written in Hindi and English "No Photo of Elephant". She seemed content enough, munching on the coconuts given to her by visitors, looking calm and serene, very much unlike the uninvited guests that were present: monkeys. They were jumping around, eating her leftover coconuts, trying to steal things from people and just generally creating mischief. I've decided that monkeys here are the equivalent of seagulls on the beach back home; they wouldn't be so rude, bold and obnoxious if people didn't think it was cute to feed them. The only plus side of the monkeys is they can't fly over your head and shit on you while you are relaxing on the beach.
After visiting the temple in town, I hiked through the old ruins, the bazaar where shoping was done and the temples by the river. It stayed cloudy, raining on and off all day which made the rocky climbs really slippery, but otherwise was a very pleasant day. Most of temples that I saw today date from the 16th century. Tomorrow I will go to see the Vitalla temple, which according to my guide book was started but the construction never was completed and it was never consecrated. One of it's coolest features is reverberating columns that were designed to ring with different intonations, like a giant stone-carved xylophone. Unfortunately in the name of preservation, you are no longer allowed to play them.
At the very end of the night, as if to perpetuate the other-worldliness of Hampi, I was sitting drinking my chai and I heard from down the road a trumpet, then clarinet in succession, getting closer and closer to me. As I sat there watching, a ensemble from the temple was walking down the street carrying a covered wicker seat of sorts, filled with something I could not see. There were torch bearers, a drummer and the two instrumentalists, as well as someone who was at intervals breaking coconuts open on the road and spilling them out onto the road. I'm sure I could have asked someone what the signifigance of the ritual was, but I prefered to leave it a mystery, and as the music faded away back towards the temple regular night life in Hampi resumed and I finished my chai.

7.23.10

I totally forgot to mention perhaps the coolest part of my bike trip... I saw monkeys!!!! In the wild!!!! They were sooooo cute, just hanging from the banyan tree branches, eating, watching the happenings of the town. I was warned not to ever feed them and to keep my bag close by as apparently they are accomplished pick-pockets!!
This week I've been doing yoga classes, which have been awesome! I'm going out with friends tonight to celebrate her last weekend in Bangalore, and then tomorrow I'm travelling to Hampi to see the ruins. Will have more, hopefully with picutres, soon.

7.20.10 - Biking in Bangalore

So this weekend I had some choices to make; I was invited by a friend of a friend to go to Mysore with her as she had to visit her family anyways and would have liked the company. But as I was contemplating this, a few of my friends in Bangalore decided they were going to go on a biking trip to the surrounding countryside for a day. I thought that going to Mysore would have been great, especially with someone who knows the city. But then again, biking in Bangalore would be something that I could never do on my own, and might not have the opportunity to do again. So I decided to go with the bike trip, and I was far from dissappointed!
We began the morning a little later than planned, as one of the group had a flat tire to begin with. But once we were on our way it was wonderful, weaving our way through Bangalore traffic, trying not to get hit by an autorickshaw till we made it to the outer limits of the city and then on into the country side. It was a perfect day for a bike ride, sunny but not too hot (I even applied sunscreen although I was worried I wouldn't get a tan), breezy but not too windy. Even the cows seemed to stay out of the way as we were riding through the streets. Our destination was a little over 30 km out, we were going to the site of an old man-made lake, designed by a famous Indian engineer to supply water to Bangalore. A few of the guys went on ahead and made it in really good time, but most of us took our time, stopping for coconut waters and to climb trees and enjoy the view. By the time we got to our destination, it was in the afternoon and we were hungry! We stopped at a roadside store and had the best rice dish I have had thus far in India, which is probably due to the fact that I have yet to be this hungry! We hung around for a while, resting. One of the group wanted to catch the bus back, but we waited and waited to no avail...the bus going in the right direction never came. So we decided to head back with the whole group as it was getting later and there were some ominous dark clouds forming above us, planning to stop at a bus stop on the way if we saw one.
Soon after we started back, it began to rain. Then one of our members had a little accident on the slippery pavement, so we made it to a bar to stop and clean off his cuts, and while we were there we decided it would be prudent to have a beer. After 30+ km on bike, our butts were severely sore...it gave me a very new appreciation for the butts of professional bikers. Serious Lance Armstrong, how do you do it??? We were all in so much pain it was hard to focus on getting home. After the beers though we felt refreshed and the cuts were cleaned and bandaids applied, and we headed back on the road. It had stopped raining for the time being, and I had developed a theory that the faster I rode, the less time I would have to spend on the bike seat, thus decreasing my discomfort exponentially. So I went on ahead of the group with one other rider. We were making really good time, not stopping for breaks, speeding through the back roads, around herds of goats and cows, past rice fields and getting closer and closer to the city. And then the real rain came. We took shelter at a bus stop for a few minutes, which rapidly became full of people who were also trying to get out of the rain. A quick scan of the horizon revealed that this was not like the passing shower of earlier in the afternoon...the entire sky was full of black clouds, with no clear sky in sight. There was no thunder or lightning, just a constant downpour. We decided that we were not going to be able to wait it out, we might as well just continue so we could keep warm by exercising instead of shivering in the bus stop. So on we went, and in no time at all we were soaked, head to toe, with a nice spray of dirt up our backs from our muddy tires. By the time we got back to Bangalore, it was dark, raining, and we looked like two wet rats, blown in by the storm. The restaurant we went into to get some warm food was packed...everyone stared at us, but we were so grateful to sit down for a tea and some food that we didn't care.
Today I am still sore, but recovering. I am taking yoga classes this week, so we did a lot of streching last night I think that really helped. The instructor asked me where I got the huge scrape on my arm and I had to tell him that I got it while climbing a tree. He had a good laugh at my expense, as did the other women in my class! I'll go for class again tonight, and I'm really excited out it. The instructor was just doing some introductory work with me and the other beginners, but every now and again he'd throw in some fancy, advanced move and be like, "okay, now you try", and then he would laugh at us. He made it look so easy, it was almost believable that we would suddenly be able to manipulate our bodies that way. Alas, it is not as easy as it looks. That is the thing I don't appreciate about experts...they make it look so effortless, that you don't realize how difficult it is, until you try and realize what a failure you are!
Sitting here in the cafe, I have been listening for a few hours now to horrible American 1990's dance music. I think it's time for me to be done here...until next time!

7.16.10 - Pondicherry & More

I think I need a planner...I can't keep track of what day it is anymore, and the date has totally eluded me. This is a bad sign. I haven't even had a chance to get on the internet recently! So, I now have a backlog of events to write about, and I'm afraid that it might just result in one long, boring entry. Ah well, here goes nothing.
Pondicherry seems so long ago even though it was only a few days! I'm still adjusting to the way that time moves here, strangely slow and fast at the same time. I was correct in assuming that the overnight bus ride would be the most interesting and adventurous part of my Indian experience thus far. Until I got charged by a cow, but that story will come later. So I arrived at the bus station with Tara and her friend, who was visiting from Mumbai, and the girls who booked the tickets for us were meeting us there. We found our bus, found our friends and got in our seats. Then, the excitement began. We left Bangalore a little after 10pm, and shortly after that we were outside of the city, driving through the rural countryside. The roads are small, unlit by anything that would resemble a streetlight, and lined by jungle on either side. And the bus driver is hauling ass, like the police are trailing him or something! We are not talking about a small bus here; this is one of those busses that you see in NYC with loads of tourists on them. It's long and tall, and not designed for speed racing on the pot hole ridden back roads of southern India. Every time the bus driver took a turn I could swear the bus was just going to tip right over into the palm trees that lined the side of the road. It was dark, and every time I fell asleep I would jolt back awake when I was certain I was going to plummet to my death off of a mountainside in the jungle. The combination of the darkness, and my not having a window seat to be able to see where we were going just exaccerbated my anxiety about tipping over. Listening to the soft snores of other passengers, I was pretty sure I was the only one who was this paranoid. We arrived at Pondi just in time to see the spectacular sun rising over the Bay of Bengal.
After we had gotten situated in the flat we were renting for the two nights, we organized a taxi to take all 12 of us to the beach. With the help of "the Frenchies" (3 friends of Pablo's who were visiting from France) we found a great beach that was kind of secluded and there really weren't any other tourists. Now, this is usually what I look for in a beach; something remote, where you can spread out and read, or play volleyball, or have a beer with out some snotty-nosed kid spraying sand in your face as they run around your blanket screaming. But the corralary to this remote, non-touristy beach is that there are a lot of locals there, all men, and all sitting around watching. No, scratch that. Not watching, staring. For godssake, we went in with all our clothes on so as not to attract unwanted attention, and yet, there they were, sitting on the sand, on the benches, under the palm-thatched huts, staring at us. We were a big group of girls with a few guys with us as well, and the group was mostly Indian people with a handful of foreigners, so it's not that we felt unsafe at all, just annoyed at being subjected to such obvious voyuerism! The water was so warm, and the waves were wonderful, so we spent the majority of the time bobbing around in the water, playing in the surf, getting knocked over by the waves and just generally having a good time. The most ironic thing about it was that here we were, swimming in our dark colored t-shirts and shorts so as to maintain some sort of dignified modesty, and the men who were at the beach were swimming in anything from a pair of old, hole-y tighty-whities to a traditional indian cloth-thong-diaper thing! Why is that ok??? I will just venture a guess that any one of us girls would have looked better in their swim-wear than they did, but of course we were all covered up trying to avoid the attention we were getting anyways! The second day I was a bit more relaxed about covering up every inch of skin possible, seeing as how no matter what we wore we were going to get stared at. Ah, the joys of India!
Pondicherry is an old French colony, and we made ourselves very at home in the Alliance Frances, were we had breakfast and afternoon snack. It was such a lovely atmosphere there, we could come back from the beach and plop our sandy wet-clothed selves down on the lawn of the cafe and just hang out to eat, talk, and drink cold coffees. We also experienced a little bit of Pondi night life on Sunday night at a place called Satsanga were the finals of the world cup was being projected on a large screen. It was a great game, and the place was packed with people from all over, rooting mostly for Spain so it was a very exciting win. The best part about Pondi was the escape from the craziness and business of Bangalore. At nights we could walk down the middle of the street without having to worry about getting run over. On our way home after the match we stopped for a chai at 3 am, sat around under the trees drinking chai and laughing.
The main street in Pondi overlooking the beach is a promenade in true old European fashion, and one of the nights we went for a walk along the promenade and happened upon a dance festival. There was a makeshift stage set up in the middle of the sidewalk, on it was a live band playing a classic Indian dance, and a group of girls performing. They were dressed to the nines in embroidered sarees, bangles, earrings, noserings, and belled anklets with which they kept the beat; it was a really beautiful thing to have wandered to spontaneously. The last day we were there a few of us went to Auroville, which is a commune-like place that was started initially with the idea of being a self-sustaining, non-religious community. Eventually though, people began to worship the man who started it, but the ideals about self-sustainibility remain, as well as commitments to environmental responsibility, including organic farming and recycling. They also had some great post cards there, which made my day.
And of course, no trip would be complete without a little shopping, and a little harmless display of aggression by a cow. We had parked the car and got out to walk down to the shopping district, and right next to our car was a cow, feeding on the old onion skins that were lying on the side of the road. It's not like this is the first cow I've ever seen. Even if I hadn't seen one in the states before (which of course I have) by this time I have become accustomed to seeing them sauntering down the middle of the road here in Bangalore. I've been dying to get a picture of this though, and I don't ever feel comfortable taking my camera out like that in Bangalore, because after all I am staying here for a little while, and I have to walk the same routes frequently. I wouldn't want anyone to know how big of a tourist I am if I might potentially be buying mangos from them later on in the week. So I've waited till I got out of Bangalore to snap some pictures of the signs on the walls saying "Do not urinate here" and the cows. And this was my perfect opportunity: I would never be back in Pondi, and here was this cow, serenely chewing her onion leaves right next to my car. So I get my camera out and walk over to get a good angle, and just as I'm snapping the photo the cow decides that I have no business taking pictures of her eating and she charges at me with her head down ready to send me flying into traffic! I had no idea cows could move that fast!! Fortunately, I was lighter on my feet than she was, and I got out of the way in time, but she really did spoil my photo-op. As I was sitting on the bus ride home contemplating my imminent death by bus driver, I was amazed that I started off that weekend as a stranger, and completed it with a whole new group of friends...the people I've met here have been so warm and welcoming, like I have known them for so much longer than a week, and already I feel like I'm missing out by not spending more time here.
Now I'm back in Bangalore, back to the grindstone of one day of work per week. Today I went on my second outreach to the village with the team from the hospital. This time was much more exciting, as there were three doctors doing consultations, and I got to sit in the room where they were examining patients as well as dispense medications from the pharmacy. Tomorrow I will go early to the hosptial to go on rounds with the doctor and observe his consultations in the office, which will be obstetric as opposed to the general practice that takes place in the outreach clinic. I am really looking forward to that, but before that I have a goodbye party to go to for the Frenchies who are headed back to Paris tomorrow! Well, enough for now... more later!