I'll start with the last two weeks, they followed a pattern quite literally of yoga, eat, sleep, yoga, eat, sleep. Can't complain.



Now for the last three days, I could write a book, but I'll try to give you an abridged edition. We're trying to head up north again since it's almost the end of our India trip and we have a flight out of Delhi. We left Kochi, our yoga home for weeks, for the tea hill station of Munnar via government bus, and the next day took another government bus down the mountain on the other to Madurai. Government buses are fabulously cheap-- they're how the locals travel. Those 11 hours we spent actually on the bus aside from the collective 6 hours of delays cost us a grand total of $6. And they really can be such a great way to get around. Honestly other Western travelers might call me plain crazy, maybe I am, but they're such an experience. You see so much, more than your greedy eyes could ever digest. You pass through city after city, you hear all the noise, watch people doing their business in the street. There's the people selling live chickens, the PVC tube seller, the watch seller, the fruit stands with their beautiful stands. They organize the fruit into geometric shapes and contrast the colors of the purple grapes, oranges, and limes. There's always attention to detail in India. The goods carrier trucks are truly the most beautiful vehicles I have ever seen. They are battered with years of use, are painted festively and don and wooden, hand carved, hand painted banner across the top, with gods, lotuses, and designs around the words "goods carrier." Though needless to say after hours of staring out the window at everything we can and absorbing the dust off the street into your every crevice and pore on our sweaty bodies we're pretty beat.

Munnar the tea hill station was lovely but really just a stopover to Madurai and this bus journey really takes the cake in ridiculousness. Though not for being unsafe, surprisingly enough. The scenery was some of the most beautiful I've ever seen in my life. The tea estates in the mist and the sheer rock face mountains were so gorgeous, only to be contrasted in equal measure by the absurdity of what was going on inside the bus. The bus driver was playing Indian music videos, and Bollywood films at full blast for the entire 6 plus hours. I had earplugs in my ears and they still hurt. Though I was entranced and now understand the formula for a successful Indian music video. Take of course a lovely young attractive girl, though not Western-thin, size 8 or 10 is great, add a middle aged, mustachioed, overweight male (moles on face?- no problem, horroble shirt?-great) and have them sing a love song. At least half of the scenes must involve bizarre choreography under waterfalls, in a river, and/or in front of waves crashing on rocks at the beach. And there you have your own Indian music video hit. I really don't know wny they are so averse to young attractive men playing leads in India. Honestly, in one film such a character was a villain, and he was beat by the fat middle aged man in a martial arts face off!! There must be something I'm missing.

Ok so Madurai, is mad. It's one of those huge, holy Indian cities where utter insanity is the name of the game. I could never describe it. I have however taken about 500 pictures (no exageration-- digital, baby!) in some frenzied attempt to document it. Visiually I can't get enough of the place, --listening to myself type I am a real visual junkie. Like to look and look and look, I guess-- but such places are exhausting and two days is enough. I'll probably drive myself mad filling up 64GB of memory card space before I can download it if I stay any longer. I promise to upload pictures when I have more time.

And right now what I am doing writing this dissertation on 3 days journey? Well Hernando and I have had our first big-- Oh Shit-- moment. We missed our train. The train we booked today because it only comes once a week and was the single most expensive journey we have booked yet, $100. Which may not sound like much to us lucky westerners, people take out loans so they can build houses with that much here, but Hernando and I are budgeting $300 a week for the 2 of us so 30% of our weekly budget hurts. But what can you do? Well as it turns another train is taking this less traveled route tonight at midnight, so we had to rebuy the tickets and get split up. I'm going ot be in first class! and Hernie in 2nd AC. I however am not looking forward to getting split up from him. I get enough unwanted male attention while I'm with him. And two crazy Aussie girls we befriended in Kochi said they had men touching their legs while they were trying to sleep on an overnight train once. Oh and did I mention that this is a 36 hour train journey?? Lots of re-reading books time. Well must be off, I don't fell like missing this one...

PS. Speaking of re-reading books everyone has to read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy if you haven't already. She is too amazing. That book is a novel but she also authors hardcore political essays about all types of Indian atrocities so I'm completely in love with her.