A Journey to Well Known Places

Quesadilla and margarita baby, I am coming home. I have more than a few trepidations about rejoining productive society, but I am excited to return to the people and places that I know and love. Besides, I am ready to come back. I am fortunate enough to still have a fair amount of money left and no real obligation to come back to (except for Bill’s wedding…..which is in no small part the reason I am coming back now as opposed to a couple months later). The point is I got to choose the time of my return. I am ready to come home. I meet a lot of people that are just beginning their adventure. My year long trip is about average, if not a little on the short side for many of the travelers that you meet in places like this. When I tell them that I have been out for 11 months, but now I going home, they just give me a look like I told them my dog got run over. No, seriously, it is alright. When I left home I had go greater ambition than to go as far and as long as I could. And in certain respects I have. I haven’t run out of time or money. I have just decided that I would rather reconnect with the people and places that I know and love than see another beach or temple complex. India is amazing and amazingly frustrating. There are heaps of places here that I am sure are just fabulous that I am completely brushing off for a night at the pub with my friends and some good TexMex. I was telling my travel plans to my friend Mary’s now husband, Garreth, and since he had been to many of these places there was much to talk about. Someone came up and asked what we were talking about and I replied, ‘Just my trip.’ He added ‘Only his life changing adventure around Asia.’ He was more right than I was. In terms of personal growth my expectations for the trip were minimal. I was less interested in growing than I was see, doing, and eating great things. In the process though I have learned a lot about myself and relearned a lot about people. Taking the time off of working for someone else and instead working for myself has been a grand experience. I have taken 25 years of back to back 2 week vacations. I have ridden almost every mode of transport that you can think of. I have met honest people and crooked people. I have been stolen from, lied to, misled, harassed and consistently overcharged for every good or service you can think of because of the color of my skin. I have also at times felt like a celebrity and an honored guest for the same reason. I feel quite a bit more self reliant than I was before I left. I have learned how to pick myself up again, so now I am much less afraid of falling. I don’t know where I am going to end up or what I will be doing, but I am optimistic about what lies ahead.

Ok, so My Top Five Asian Travel Experiences (In no particular order. Just picking 5 was hard enough):  

1.      The train ride over the Himalayas from the Gobi desert to Lhasa in Tibet

2.      Hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge in the Yunnan province of China.

3.      Three days touring the Angkor Wat area in Cambodia

4.      Learning to scuba dive in Malaysian Borneo

5.      Spending 12 days doing nothing on the Andaman islands in India.

I fly out of Delhi today into Portland. On April 16th I fly into Dallas and I will be in Austin by the first weekend in May. Thank you all for sticking with me this whole time. I hope my ramblings brought you a smile from time to time.

It started in China, not too long into my trip. The first three times I just blew it off. They were Chinese and maybe didn’t get the same exposure as Westerners. Then, in the Gobi desert, my fears were confirmed when a yet a fourth Chinese person point out the similarity and an American and an Israeli backed him up. I look like Bill Clinton. My initial reaction was a little surprise and more self consciousness. The Bill Clinton I remember was kinda fat with big bags under his eyes. I immediately set out to lose a little of my middle. Still it would happen. Eleven months later, a life of travel has reshaped my body. And I still get told I look like American president Beer Crinton. Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysians, Indonesians, Laos, Indians, Czechs, Irish, Canadians all have found the resemblance so striking that they will walk up to me in restaurants, or the taxi driver will turn around and the light and tell me, or shop keepers tell me while I browse, ect. It happens sometimes as often as several times a week. This week alone I have been told four different times. Since then I have come to realize that the image most other people have of Bill Clinton is not one of an out of shape and haggard man, but something altogether more positive. Bill Clinton was handsome and charming, even if a little personally unscrupulous. He is associated with prosperity and reasonable foreign policy; a popular man in Asia it turns out. People are still talking about how much they liked him. Now I take it as a compliment.

I saved one of the best for last. The Taj Mahal lives up to the hype. On my last full day of travel I got up at 4:30am so I could get down to the train station by 5:30 to catch the 6:15 train to Agra. The train only took two hours, but it took an additional 45 minutes of standing in line to buy my return ticket. Then it was off to the Taj. Wow. It is actually a whole tomb complex with large gates and opposing mosques. I know you have seen pictures, but it is hard to convey the scale of this thing. The tomb complex took 20000 people 22 years to build. At one point the British tried to auction it off for the price of its marble, but luckily someone had enough sense back then to save it. The whole complex is symmetrical. There are mosques on either side of the Taj, but only the one facing Mecca is used. The other is solely for symmetry. They are mirror images. If you find an inlaid flower of the on one side of the building, you will find that same flower at exactly the opposite side. I was impressed. Afterwards I visited yet more handicraft emporiums then the red fort of Agra. Also very impressive. The Mughals used the Agra fort as their capital for four generations before moving to Delhi. It has a view of the Taj from across the river that is very nice, but it is neat in its own right. The fort is huge, it used to be home to 30000 people. Now it is home to the Indian military so you can only visit about a quarter of it. It was a full day of sightseeing. I am glad I ended my trip on a high note.

The ancient capital of the Mughals. Thriving sprawling metropolis with sights and sounds that stay with you long after they are gone. I have been four days here and haven’t even scratched the surface. I am staying in the backpacker ghetto called the Pahar Ganj. It is a filthy place. It rains at night and in the morning there is a two inch thick coating of mud, water, trash, and cow shit that covers all the small streets and alley ways. Outside of this area it gets a little better. Traffic is truly chaotic, but no worse than Vietnam. The Mughals were prolific builders and their monuments dot the city. There are some truly amazing things. I can only imagine what they looked like in their prime. There was a big revolt against the British in Delhi in 1857and the city was looted twice.  Once when the former British soldiers turned on their officers and headed to Delhi to make a bid for independence. They turned the city upside down in the months of the siege, taking everything they could find. When the British finally reoccupied the city they systematically slaughtered and appropriated all they could find. They even stripped the valuables from the Red fort. I saw what was left a few days ago and even after the looting it was amazing. I have been hanging out with a group of Israelis lately. They are a fun crowd. Three years of military service is compulsory in Israel. Some of the guys I am hanging out with served in the conflict with Lebanon that happened a few years ago. They come to India en masse to blow off steam and experience a degree of freedom that they don’t have at home. Yesterday we were all talking and one of the girls was talking about the beggar children that and how they were just heart breaking. I realized that India had toughened me up in unexpected ways. This place has rubbed my heart so much that it has left calluses. Delhi is overwhelming. It is wonderful, but not for the weak. It pours salt on bleeding hearts and can empty your pocketbook in a flash if you are not careful. Everyday I hear stories of degradation and poverty. There are so many people trying to get by on so little that it is hard to look through it all to see the beauty of this magnificent country. I have been in India long enough to get a feel for the country, but with only four days left I am not sure I will be able to get into the Indian shanti shanti mindset before I leave. Agra and the Taj Mahal is only two hours away and I am going to do that for a day in the near future. Today I am going to see a Bolleywood movie with some friends. That should be fun.

It is raining today in the Andaman islands, so I as I sit on the porch of my thatched bamboo hut I will say a little about my experiences here so far. I have been on the island of Havelock for 11 days and soon I will head off to Port Blair and, ultimately, Delhi. The first three days here were relaxing, but a little boring. It’s all in the people you meet. I was hanging out with expats from Chennai that came over for a few days to take a diving course. Nice people, but all they talked about was Chennai and I thought Chennai sucked. Since then I have found a good group of people, most of whom are staying on the island for 3 or 4 weeks. I am a little jealous. Not jealous enough to try to change my flights, but that is the kind of vacationing I have grown to really enjoy. The Irish in particular are always lots of fun. There were a couple birthdays and a festive atmosphere every night.

Havelock is a smallish island. There are only two or three roads on the island. Most of the ‘resorts’ are all along one road that runs parallel to the beach. The views are unbelievable. As I type I can look up and see the ocean 150 yards away. The water is clear and calm. The sand is very fine and white.  Because the coast is so shallow and the sand so light the water has light aqua color. You can wade for 2 or 3 hundred yards before the water gets past your chest. If you want to see what I am seeing right now change your background picture to the beach shot that comes with windows. It is like that. So nice, so cheap, so under developed, so chill. There are no touts, tour guides, or trinket salesmen. Yesterday I went with a Canadian to a little shack by the side of the road to buy sea food. The guy didn’t even have electricity; just a giant cooler in a bamboo hut stuffed with crushed ice and loads of fresh bounty from the sea. We bought lobsters and a snapper. Each lobster was 1.75 pounds and the fish was another pound. We took it to a local restaurant and they cooked it up for us. The whole deal was less than 20 bucks. Unbelievable. I am having it again in my last night.

 I am not sure if it is the season or what, but the island is full of coconut trees and they have been falling on a regular basis. They hit the tin roof of my hut with a crash. Several times I have been narrowly missed by falling nuts and even whole branches. I figure if I get taken out by a coconut it is at least more interesting than a car wreck in Texas. Most places have thin tin roofs and it is not uncommon to hear an alarmingly loud crash made by falling coconuts and mangos. What a life eh? Fresh coconuts and mangos with all the fresh fish you can eat all in your backyard. The locals are a friendly helpful bunch, but the concept of urgency is largely lost on them.  It is not uncommon to wait 45 minutes for your food or even to have to order some things two or three times before they actually arrive. That is not such a big deal though, because there is not much else to do and you have all day to do it. My days are spent laying in a hammock staring at the glory around me or reading a book.  At night I usually meet up with other travelers for dinner and beers until they restaurant kicks us out.

I have been on four dives since I arrived and I love it. It is an amazing feeling to float among schools of fish and colorful coral formations. I got inches away from things that I used to see only on the Discovery channel. This time I saw manta rays, sea snakes, octopus, scorpion fish, jacks, tuna, groupers as big as me, lobster, crabs, Nemo fish, and all kinds of other brilliant plant and animal life. The sensation of weightlessness and moving in two more dimensions is really cool. I can’t wait to do it again. I came here to relax and get ready for my imminent return. I did both. Even though I have been a seemingly endless weekend, it is often work to get around. India in particular can be frustrating. Eleven days of ultimate relaxation was just what I was looking for. I could easily have stayed there for a month though. Well, next stop….Dehli.

I spent only two days in Chennai and I have mixed feelings about that. Chennai was more along the lines of the India that I had been expecting. The streets were chaotic and the people were everywhere. In Kochi there were people with their hands out, but not as many or as aggressive as the beggars here. There is an energy here that I didn’t really find in Kerala too. The mystical spiritual India is mixed right in there with the trash and the traffic. Or at least the impression I got from my one healthy day of touring the city. I arrived at 6:30 am and waited around until 8:30 for an internet café to open.  As I waited outside a coffee house a couple young guys sat down nearby and had their morning pick me up. One of them then proceeded to get up and puke in the street several times. It was kind of gross, so I looked away. When I looked back he had picked up my water bottle and was drinking from it. I stared at him and he just shrugged. I wasn’t going to argue with him over 6 rupees worth of bottled water so I told him just to keep what was left. That set the stage for the rest of the day. After internetting I booked a room and decided to go out and explore the city. While barely mentioned in my Rough Guide, a map of the city in the lobby of my guest house had the popular tourist attractions marked with a picture for each one. There is a large Hindu temple in town called Mylapore and it looked really neat, so I thought I would start there. I arrived at about 11am and went to look around. I was immediately seized upon by a guy who worked there so he could show me around. This also happens all the time. I figured I would pay him if the tour was good and not pay him if it sucked. I took my shoes off and he showed me the temple. He gave me a three minute version of Hinduism and told me what each alter was, ect. It was a decent tour, but he asked for no money. He said that I arrived during a big Hindu celebration that there would be a big procession at the temple at 3pm. After he said that the temple feeds and shelters some of the area poor and would I mind looking at the gift shop to help out. I was starting the think that this guy might actually be a legitimate helpful temple employee. ‘Sure,’ I said. Looking is free. “You wait here and take pictures. I will get a rickshaw and come back. We will shop and I will drop you off at St Thomas Basilica (my next destination)” Get a rickshaw??? Where is this gift shop anyway? Now I know I am being taken, but I still think ‘well, maybe it is for a good cause. Maybe it is just a few blocks away on a main street…….’ As I waited my patience shrank and my apprehension grew. This could be expensive and/or uncomfortable. Forget it. Just as I started to leave he found me and steered me towards the rickshaw. Crap, well, OK. “How much will the rickshaw be?” I asked. “Oh, not much. It is close.” OK. I got in and he got in next to me. I was taken to a government crafts store just like the ones on my last tour; just like all the ones in all the countries before it. I went in, looked around and left. Then another, then another. Finally I said, “I don’t want to shop anymore. Drop me off  at the Basilica.” He looked a little put out that I didn’t want to see anymore overpriced shawls or carved elephants, but so what. This time when we got in the rickshaw I asked to get in first so I wouldn’t be trapped in if he demanded a high fee for services rendered. Sure enough, as we drove towards the cathedral he said, “How much for the guide service?” I paid him what I thought the tour was worth (about 150 rupees) and he got angry. “And for the rickshaw?” he asked. “The money I gave you was for the tour and the rickshaw. I think it is more than fair.” Normally tours are 200 rupees he stated as though I should know. “Well, you should have spoken up at the beginning then. Besides I let you take me to those tourist shops and I know the driver gets gas coupons for that.” I replied; wow happy that I was sitting on the outside. We rode for another 5 minutes in uncomfortable silence until the cathedral came into sight. I jumped out and he muttered a terse thanks before the rickshaw sped away. Aside from the being the resting place of the discipline Thomas there was not a lot truly remarkable about the place. It was big and white and looked strikingly similar to many European cathedrals…only newer. I messed around for a few hours and then went back to the temple to watch the procession gear up. It was a sight to behold. Once a year good Hindus give away food to the masses and there was food everywhere. Everywhere. Many kinds of rice and drink were offered to anyone willing to stand in line to get them. The streets were littered with plates of half eaten food. I squished and slipped my way around the temple circuit when I was approached by a beggar. He made the sign for eating and held out his hand. I smiled and motioned for him to follow. I led him the nearby stand with huge caldrons of flavored rice that they were giving out, made the sign for eating, and pointed to it. He actually followed me around for another 5 minutes tapping my arm and holding out his hand. No way buddy. Good day for the hungry, bad day to be a beggar. The procession itself was an experience. Right outside the temple doors groups of girls made lotus designs with flowers and colored powders for the procession to pass over. There were palanquins supported by straining young men and many Hindu icons. The press of the crowd was unbelievable. After 2 hours of waiting and watching I was beat and wearily made my way out of the masses to head back to the hotel. As the crowd thinned I was approached by a kindly older man who asked the basics like where are you from, where do you stay in Chennai, ect then he asked if I would like a cup of coffee. Well, alright. Perhaps a little genuine interaction was what I needed to put this jumble of a day into the right perspective. Beside, I didn’t have anything else to do. So I sat with him and he told me he was a social worker. Cool, we talked about that for a while, traded email addresses, and he wanted to show me emails from his friends from America. Five minutes he said. OK, sure why not I thought. The guy seems nice. He is older and single and I thought he probably collects international pen pals. It would be neat to chat with an Indian social worker from time to time. So we internet. Fine. Now I am tired and hungry and ready to go. One more coffee he says, whew, “OK.” I don’t want to be rude and the guy seems so enthusiastic it would be hard to turn him down. So we sit and order a couple coffees from the scowling waitress. He then invites me to a concert the following evening and it sounds like a good time. I agree to come with him and listen to music and hang out the next day. As we finish he reiterates that he is a social worker and he has a friend that has gone to the gulf to look for a better job to support his family back here in India, but things are not working out well for him. He can’t get a good job is having a hard time making ends meet there and can’t send money home. When I can, he says, I send him some money. Last time I sent him a $20 bill and he was so grateful. Uh huh, I say waiting for the pitch. Do you perchance have any dollars that I can buy from you to send him? Not really I say, being completely honest. I only have $50 bills. What I don’t say is that I only have one left and I am reluctant to part with it. No small bills? No. OK, forget about it.

When I finally arrived at my hotel I was famished, tired from the day and the journey the night before, and I wanted a beer. I walked around for half an hour to find the one recommended by the guide book for its good tandoori dishes and cold beer. “No, I am sorry sir. We do not sell alcohol” said the waiter with a look on his face as though I had offered to pay for 20 minutes alone with his sister in the storage room. FINE, no thank you, I would not like a Pepsi instead. I ordered and ate and paid in under half an hour, then I set out for the one bar I had seen on my quest to find the restaurant in the first place. The Submarine bar, so named for its undersea motif, was about three quarters empty and was blasting Eninem. Cricket was playing on the two large tv screens. Red and blue lasers traced the danced across the tables and walls. FINE. I ordered an overpriced beer and drank it slowly, trying to savor it despite the now thumping rhythms from a bad remake of Queens ‘ We Will Rock You.’ I finished, paid, and made my way back to the hotel where upon I latched onto the first foreigner I found, a girl from France, and related my recent beer story. One of the hotel workers overheard and offered to go get a beer and bring it to my room for a decent price and I accepted. I went up to the roof top expecting to listen to my ipod, drink my second beer in peace, and go to bed. Instead I found two lively hotel workers up there doing some drinking of their own. Lovely. We ended up staying out there until 2am talking about all manner of things including God and politics. The capper though, was when he told me that God incarnate was living just outside of Bangalore and I should pop in and pay him a visit. It seems that God is only willing to take a flesh form again in India, because only the Indians are spiritual enough to really appreciate him. Later in the evening he showed me a picture of God that to me looked a bit more like a wide eyed schizophrenic with bad hair than an embodiment of the divine. But who am I to judge. Unfortunately I had already booked and paid for all of the travel remaining on my trip. My relationship with God will have to remain less tangible.

I woke up the next morning feeling not so hot and planned a low key day of sightseeing. Happily on my way back from breakfast I ran into the couple from Iceland that I traveled with in Varkala. Today was their last day in India. I scrapped my plans and headed off with them. Mostly it was shopping, but I was glad for the company. Eventually though, the hangover got the better of me and I headed back to the hotel. I had just laid down to rest when the phone in my room rings. The manager downstairs informs me that there is an old man asking for me. Oh yeah, the concert. I was supposed to email that guy this morning. I got dressed and went downstairs. Chatted for a few minutes and I told him that I was not feeling well and would not be going to the concert. Oh, he said. And the other thing I asked about, the dollars. Do you have any? Only a $50 I replied. OK, he said. Come we will find and ATM and I will give you rupees for your dollars. I got the $50 by selling rupees to an English girl in Kerala, so I thought sure why not. I felt a little bad for ditching him on the concert and figured this was a way to make amends. We go off searching for an ATM only to find another coffee shop. I didn’t really want the coffee, but it did wonders for my hangover. After coffee he asked to see the money. Much to my alarm he then put it in his pocket and told me a story in injustice and financial hardship, culminating in the offer to pay be half now for the $50 and send me the other half later. OK, he smiled and held out his hand to shake. ‘No, I want you to give me my $50 back’ I said. And wanted to follow with ‘Do you know how many times I have been asked for money in India? Or even how many how many times today? I am harassed, followed, told sad stories, and blatantly overcharged as part of my daily experience. I accept it as part of the Indian package, but I am not giving you any money.’ He relented and apologized and we parted ways. I would like to believe that he has a friend in Kuwait and he really would have repaid the money, but I am not willing to bet $25 on it. Tomorrow I am off to the islands for a little attitude readjustment. I am very much looking forward to that.

Well, having been in this city for going on seven weeks now I figured it was time to do all the touristy stuff I had been putting off until later. I wanted to pace myself and now find that I am a little pushed for time. When I am running late for class I take a rickshaw instead of walking the 2 miles. The same drivers usually hang around the front of my hotel (on  a street of tourist hotels and restaurants) and I take the same two or three when they are available. They know where I want to go and I know that they are not going to take me then demand a high rate for their services. So, the day before yesterday as I walked to my usual breakfast place one of these drivers asked me ‘what is your program today, sir?’ I decided right then and there I would go to the ‘nearby’ beach and check it out. At only 23 kilometers (roughly 12 miles) I thought it would be a short ride, so I arraigned for him to pick me up at my hotel in an hour’s time. The ride took almost 45 minutes and upon arrival my driver settled in and indicated that he would just sit and wait for me. OK. The beach itself was not very large or remarkable, but it was indeed sand, sea and sun. Great. I swam in the ocean and read under one of the palm leave pavilions set up on the beach. After an hour or so I was joined by a large group of gregarious Indian graduate students, philosophers mostly. We chatted and I learned a little about epistemology and Indian culture. It was fun to see them all play in the sea together, holding hands and splashing. Most of them wore all of their clothes in the water; pants and shirt for the men and full saris and scarves for the women. Male/female relations are fairly proscribed here and there was a sort of innocence to their play that you would not see among Westerners in their mid to late twenties at the beach. On my ride back to the hotel my driver suggested that since I was leaving he should take me around to more tourist sights on the island where the colonial British set up shop and then take me to his village for a little taste of rural life. I have done this sort of thing before with varying degrees of success. When I asked him how much though, he replied that money comes and goes. He said he offers good service and at the end of the day I should pay him what I thought it was worth. A pretty good stance to take really; most tourists don’t know the going rate and will generally pay more on a soft sell anyway.  So, I agreed and the following day he picked me up at 9:30. Interspersed with the sights were the universally ubiquitous government approved ‘craft and jewelry’ shops.  These things have cropped up just about 75% of the tours I have been on starting in China all the way to now. They all sell the same overpriced crap and the tour operator/rickshaw driver gets a small commission if you buy something. A driver in Thailand confided that he got a small fee for us just walking in the door, so if we would please just go look it would help him out. I figured this was the same deal so I played along. After the third shop though, I was getting tired at looking at $600 rugs and $30 shawls so just plainly asked him if he got a commission for bringing me, no ‘only 2% for buying.’ Fine. On our way out he stopped at yet another gov’t shop and I told him ‘look if you get a commission then I will go in to help you out, but I have no interest in anything they are selling. If they aren’t paying you we should leave.’ OK he says. This is when the sad story of his wife, the heart patient, came out and all the hardships that he, his wife, and his mother suffer because of the d it was indeed very small. Maybe 140 square feet altogether, but sort of cozy and quiet too. Then we went to meet his friends who were much livelier. I met a man that was recently unemployed from the Indian stock market and he spoke very good English. He talked all about what it was like to live in the village. From his point of view, yes the people did not have much but the people also didn’t need much. They worked little, made little, and lived a good life. He said that apart from rent a family of three only needed about 100 rupees a day ($2.5) to get by. They brought me cashew nuts straight from the tree and showed me how the nut was harvested. We drank fermented coconut juice and took a ride on the river on a very unstable dugout boat. By trade most of the men farmed tiger prawns and tilapia which were frozen in nearby processing plants and sold to Europe and the US. There are seasons for that sort of thing and this is the off season, so they mainly sit around drinking chai and smoking bebes. I had a good time and an ‘authentic rural experience.’ On the way back it started to rain and all the chai and cheap beer they fed me started to fill my bladder. By the time was arrived at the hotel I was soaking wet and fit to pop. I paid the man generously, more than twice the rate suggested by my hotel clerk, and grabbed my stuff to dash inside. The driver stopped me. ‘My friend, ‘he said, ‘It is just a problem I have. I have many hardships and my wife needs to go to the hospital on Tuesday and rent is due soon too. Can you give me just a little bit more? 300 rupees ($7.40) more would cover her medical bills.’ In the last 11 months I have refused toothless old ladies, snot nosed kids, men with no hands, and women with no legs sums which could not even buy a cup of coffee in the states. I have forcibly removed persistent beggar children from my side and yelled at obnoxiously persistent vendors to go away. It is not that I am not sympathetic to their plight. Many of these people really are just plain screwed and your money really does help. It is just that I have disconnected my heart strings from my purse strings.  It is taxing to been seen as a great white walking ATM with everyone you meet trying to guess the PIN. It took about a heart beat for me to say ‘I think I have paid you fairly. Don’t you?’ He got about to ‘Yes, but…’ when I stepped out of the rickshaw and hurried up the stairs to my bathroom.

I just passed the first of two certification exams. I take the next test in about 10 days, then I fly off to the beautiful Andaman islands to soak in some sun and mentally prepare myself for the impending shock of re-entry into productive society.

Oh, the food here is soooo good and sooooo cheap. I am going to be in for some serious sticker shock when I get back. I just had a two egg omelet with spicy peppers, two chapattis (like Indian tortillas), a small saucer plate of vegetable curry, and a small pot of coffee for breakfast. The grand total was $1. Spending $3 a meal here is really splurging. Every once in a while I treat myself to a big plate of rich food at one of the nicer restaurants around and feel pretty decedent. The other nice thing (I think) about eating here is that everyone eats with their hands. Or hand as I should say. You are only supposed to touch the food with your right hand as the left is used for cleaning yourself after you go to the bathroom. This is not some hold over from a less hygienic past as it is in some places. Many restrooms provide have toilet paper or hose. Usually you just get a bucket of water with a smallish ladle and you literally use your hand. Then you wash your hands in the sink. Sometimes there is even soap. Eating with only one hand is a little tricky though. Tearing hot flat bread with one hand is something I am slowly learning to do. Since I have little packets of tissue and hand sanitizer I bring with me most places I sometimes cheat……much to the disgust of the other patrons who look away when they see me do it. Most of India is vegetarian, but the area I am staying in has a large Catholic community and they eat a fair amount of meat. My hotel is near a church and every Saturday and Sunday I wake up to harmonious chanting in Latin. It is neat. I am also not far from a mosque so at night I hear the call to prayer in Arabic and the Latin chanting in the morning.

My classes are going fine. I am scheduled to take my first certification test next week and I am studying furiously so I can pass. This occupies most of my waking time so I don’t have the chance to be bored anymore. I am looking forward to finishing up with the courses, doing a little shopping, and heading to the north of India for more sight-seeing before I go home. I hope everyone is well.

Last weekend I spent a few days on the beach with a couple I met from Iceland. It was so good to get out of Kochi for a few days. I have been in the same town and hotel for about a month now. I am bored and lonely; so the opportunity for a change of scenery and a little social interaction was nice. The beach was not as nice as many that I got to experience in Thailand and Indonesia; but it was a beach with sand, water, and bikini clad Westerners. It was interesting to see the stark difference in clothing of the Westerners and the Indians. Many of the white people wore speedos and string bikinis whereas the Indian men often wore their pants and the women were covered in saris’ from head to toe. The beach was pretty segregated too. The Indians stayed in their little area and the Westerners occupied the other end. There were tons of touristy shops with expensive (for India) trinkets and services. I was going to take a yoga class in the morning from one of the many teachers on the cliff that overlooked the beach, but in the end I decided I wanted to sleep in instead. The area was really pretty though. Most of the restaurants faced the beach so you could watch the sun set over the water as you waited for your food. I really liked the Icelanders. I was a little surprised to learn that there are only 300,000 people in the whole country. I bought a ticket on the more expensive express train on my way back and was hassled by one of the railway employees. I kept trying to lay down and sleep and kept waking me up and asking for my ticket. At one point he told me my stop was almost here and I should get up; which I did and went to stand by the door. Well, my stop was still a half hour away. He just wanted to get me away from his boss so he could ask me for money. I just looked at him and went to sit back down. Then the little weasel came back and stood in front of me with his hand out saying “money.” I showed him my ticket. He said no, “Tips.” “For what?” I replied. “You have provided no service.” “Tips” he said again more emphatically with his hand out looking around for his boss. “TIPS” I said loudly when I say his concern. “Shhh. Yes, tips” he said with a grin. Fine. I took out a 2 rupee coin and handed it to him. He cursed me and walked away. Whatever.