Jedi nights and Yodha's wisdom

It makes me wonder if George Lucas took a trip to India when he was
conceiving the whole Star Wars trilogy. Pictured here is Jedi Rock, in
Kerala, India. Yesterday we went to a palace where there was a
representation of Yodha, a Hindu god. Hmmm...

Honk honk!

Driving here is insane. Every time I get in the car is another brush
with destiny as three full sized cars pass one another at 100 km/hr on
a two lane road. Literally two inches more and the mirrors would
collide. That's not to mention the motos and rikshaws that cruise at
25 km/hr in the middle of the road. So they honk to say "out of my
way!" Or when they're coming around a tight corner, there's the
defensive honk, to let anyone passing on the other side let them know
we're coming.

The honking is kind of out of control. Even our houseboat had a horn,
and honked whenever smaller boats or fishermen got in our way.

"We Have No Shame"

Liney burst out laughing as the 5 foot nothing Indian woman burped.
The tour guide looked confusedly at Liney, till finally she
understood. "We have no shame for what comes out of the mouth, only
from what comes out from behind." Oh India!

House Boating

So, I have a confession to make. I know some of you reading this will
think it's vile, so you may want to shield your minds, but I've never
been to lake Powell and I've never been on a houseboat. Before now.

It's kinda funny, becuase everyone seems to be on the same itinerary.
We ran into two fellows from Oman the other day (who shouted "What,
one man and three women?" when they saw us) who were on the same track
as us for a day or so--we'd run into them at the waterfall, then at
the tea plantation, then at the scenic overlook. All over.

Even funnier is a newlywed couple we met by a dam a few days ago.
They're here for 5 days on their honeymoon. We took some pictures for
them at the dam, then ran into them paddleboating later that day. The
next day we saw them at the wildlife preserve, and again at the
cultural dance (which was more of a cultural eye-show--they had really
expressive eyes. They were as big as saucers and showed emotion so
clearly. Emotion is universal.

So, our married friends told us they would be on a houseboat at the
same time as us--we haven't seen them, but we're glad of that. We have
a houseboat all to ourselves, along with three wait staff.

We thought we'd be floating downstream to Covlon, the next stop on our
itinerary, but it turns out we're just going in circles for the day
then coming back to the same place we got dropped off then driving
down, though there would have been plenty of time to float down (we're
on the boat for about 20 hours). Right now we're docked in some small
town next to a half a dozen other houseboats, waiting for breakfast
and watching a creepy movie called "My name is Khan" about an autistic
man who moves from India to america. It would be a great movie except
for the fact that we bought it for $1.20 and the sountrack and
background noises work fine but the voices don't come through at all,
so we have to read subtitles and listen to music and clapping and
footsteps and waves... really, everything but the voices.

Where anyone can be a king

This is the way to vacation! We get up every morning (ridiculously
early, since I'm still jet-lagged) eat breakfast and jump in the car,
where our driver carts us around to different sites, stops when we
want to, and tells us about his homeland. I'm in the state of Kerala,
"God's own country," as they say Jere. It's amazingly green and
fertile. They grow tea all over the place--apparently it only grows on
angles of 35-45 degrees, so they have filled the mountains with tea
plantations. We even got to go into a tea museum / factory (as you can
imagine, they mostly just dry and grind up the leaves, but it was fun
to see). There are also tons of waterfalls, which kind of amazes me
since they come from the tops of the mountains. Where does all that
water come from so high up? I've added a few pix, but my cell phone
camera isn't stellar, so imagine it all being ten times more vivid and
a thousand times bigger and all around you, and you'll have a glimpse
of how awesome this all is.

Meals cost about $2 per person, and it's all pretty amazing food...
assuming you like Indian. It's a lot of curry, even for breakfast.
Also a bit of toast and some sopapilla-esque fried bread patties.
Tours are super, super cheap. All you have to do is get here. You can
stay in a hotel for a couple of bucks, and rent a car with a driver
for pennies (yes, the driver is included, and yes, you want one. They
are insane here--and not just because they drive on the left!).

I have yet to get sick ::knock, knock:: but everyone else has. I've
been brushing my teeth in the water, in hopes that I can build up an
immunity to it all. Maybe that'll be my downfall. I figure if I've got
4 more weeks in SE Asia, I might as well embrace it!

Pictures from India

So, I don't have any pictures from my birthday on my phone, but I do
have some other ones that are pretty awesome.

Cows. They're all over the place, and they're free to roam about as
they please. McD's specializes in McChicken sandwiches, though I hear
that Hard Rock actually does burgers. I'm not sure how that works, but
I'll run with it. Otherwise the cows wander through the streets and
eat garbage in the dumpster. C'est la vie.

Monkeys. We were walking through the wildlife reserve and there were
these cute monkeys in the street so I snapped this picture.

Paddleboating (2). We went paddleboating up at Echo Point, on a man-
made reservoir. It was gorgeous. We went out then just sat on the
water and talked for a while. Talk about peaceful, serene...
untouched. Amazing!

Tarps. I have no idea where everyone gets so many tarps! Every
vendor's stall has a couple, and even our driver has a tarp chilling
in his trunk. I've seen way more tarps here than I've ever seen in the
US. Crazy!

As long as you're turning 25 and you're still single...

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Quote of the day: "As long as you're turning 25 and you're still
single, you might as well spend it with three beautiful women in
India." I couldn't have said it better myself.

So, I'm in India with Caroline Welty, Amber Jenson and Natalie
Bruford. This morning we drove to Thekkady and rode elephants. It was
awesome. We rode them around in a circle, after they munched on some
bamboo leaves. There were some good photo ops, and it was cool to be
up that high. You could feel their muscles rippling under the pads we
were sitting on.

After that, they took them over to a pit and Liney and I got to wash
them. They furnished us with tough brushes for us to splash water on
their sides and rub them down. I think Liney was a bit disturbed when
she (our elephant) took a leak in the pool we were standing in. Well,
follow that up with sitting on its back getting a shower from its
trunk, and it makes for quite the day.

But that's not all.

We went to a tiger reserve park and took a boat ride (sadly there has
been one tiger sighting in the past 20 years), then went to a
traditional martial arts performance followed by a traditional dance
with some killer makeup. I'll post pictures when I can.

Then we did dinner downstairs at the Orchid Restaurant, a nice Indian
place where we took out all the stops and dropped $12, about four
times our normal meal tab. It involved ice cream, a birthday cake and
me giving cake to everyone in the restaurant. It was a lot of fun.

As you can imagine, following the snotty elephant adventure, we took
showers tonight. As always, the shower is just a faucet in the corner
of the room, which is fine, but it turns out the hot water is out so I
had to wash off in the corner in the cold... Yes! I love it!

Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?

Man, don't nobody understand the words coming out of your mouth!

Name that movie...?

So, it actually reminds me of the first time I went to London, when I
was 14. I went to a Pret a Manger (think Au Bon Pain) and got a
sandwich, and the gentleman helping me ring up my order asked me
something that was completely incomprehensible. I asked him to repeat
himself, but despite saying it 4 or 5 times, I was still clueless.
Finally my dear mother leaned over and said "He's saying 'For here or
take away'--do you want it to go?" and it all clicked. Well, I've had
a few instances here where people have been trying to help me, but I
can't understand what they're saying... I guess it'll be good practice
for me. Too bad mom's not here to help me understand them :-/

Personal Space

So, my first experience with Indians is that they're not very conscientious (relatively speaking) of personal space. On landing in Mumbai, I stood up and walked forward till there was a nice lady who had stood in the aisle. I had 4 hours to make my connection, so I was fine--I left a foot or so behind her till the short fellow behind me pressed his entire body flat against my backside. He was short enough that his pudgy tummy ran right into my buttocks--a less than pleasant feeling, if you can imagine. So I took a step 2 inches closer to the woman, and the guy behind me took a step 3 inches closer to me. I figured rather than push my luck and run out of space in front, I'd quit where I was. We stood like that for another 15 minutes or so before we cleared off the plane.

So, I got in at about 2:00am, and had to pick up my backpack at the baggage claim and transfer it to the domestic side. I was one of the first people there, so I stood by the baggage claim belt, and no fewer than three people ran their carts into me, quite on purpose. By the third time, I was wedged into a small space between two carts, and the woman ran it into me twice, not too gently, before I looked back at her, and she asked me to leave my spot by the belt so she could stand by the belt, despite there being no bags on the belt yet... I was aghast, but figured it wouldn't kill me to step out of her way and wait another 30 seconds for my bag.

I guess you just learn to deal with those sorts of things when you've got 900 million people crammed into a country smaller than the US.

Around the World in 35 Days!

Granted, I've got a bit of an advantage flying by jet, but it'll be a good accomplishment.

So I left Salt Lake on July 15, and I'll be back in Denver by the 18th of July. I just left my beloved New York for Mumbai then Kochi, in the province of Kerala, India. Future destinations include New Delhi, Penang, Phuket, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, for a full loop.

During my three week radio silence over since I got home from Greece, I went to Minnesota to say goodbye to a dear friend, then spent a week in Denver with the parental units, my sister, her husband and their four children, who all lovingly took care of me as I fell ill. It's always great to be with family. Sadly it rained on the 4th, but they still lit off fireworks.

On decamping from Denver, I flew to Salt Lake and met up with Jon and Dan, two buddies from undergrad, and their wives, in Island Park, Idaho, where we played games, swam in an icy lake, went to yellowstone and burned things from marshmallows to old class notes. We figured sending them back to live with mother earth was the most appropriate resting place for them. Except for the marshmallows. That was actually just an accident. After Idaho fun, I spent a week in Utah with grandma Painter in Ogden, where I mostly overcame my illness that beset me a couple of weeks ago. Turns out that unemployment isn't a great time to get sick... I can suddenly empathize with all those uninsured folks. It's almost enough to make me want to get a job... but instead I'm sitting in an airport in Mumbai on Wednesday morning not having really slept since Sunday night. It's been an adventure. I wish I was one of those people who could fall asleep anywhere, but I'm not. :(

Luckily I'm coming off an amazing weekend in New York, which totally makes up for it! Following visiting grandma, I figured I'd spend a few days there before my flight to India. Whenever I'm not there, I forget just how much I love the city and my friends there. (Not that I don't love my friends elsewhere, but there's something special about NY). So, I saw Shakespeare in the Park with Al Pacino (the Merchant of Venice) and In the Heights, and had a really, really fun weekend visiting with people!

Go friends!