What a Long Strange Trip It's Been

It has been a long time since I last posted. I have sat down to post and will write and write, but before I am finished I loose interest and don't post anything. So here is a messy collection of thoughts, half finished stories and silly tidbits from the last 20 days. I warn you, it will ramble, it will cut off abruptly, and a lot of it may not make since; but if that is how it comes across, it is because that is how the last 20 days have been. Welcome to India my friends!

Goa:

After 3 weeks, our long stint on the beach has come to an end. Goa treated us very very well. The last 8 days we were in a town called Palolem. It is a crescent shaped white sand beach with thousands of coconut palms. All of the lodging consists of bamboo huts on stilts. Our Irish friends came down from the last town and we picked up a few more brits, (one of them a guy that we met 2 months ago in Varanasi and bumped into on the beach (Hi Murray!).)

Pippa, one of the Irish, had a birthday, so we had a big celebration dinner with two birthday apple pies with candles and all. We spent our time in Palolem lounging on the sand, eating great food, drinking cheap beer, and laughing till the wee hours with our ever-growing crew of new friends; we have cut loose and moved down to the green state of Kerela (only to accidentally run into one of the guys we had been hanging out with in Goa). In Palolem, Natalie and I started taking yoga lessons in the mornings, and swam out to an Island a couple of times. We also found a health food restaurant that had the first green salads we had found in 3 months (yes, it has been 3 months already!) So we browned and toned up and are feeling really good and healthy!

We have a little less than a month in India, and we plan on picking up the pace. After a nice rest, and lots of sharing of travel horror stories, we are ready to dive back in fighting! Also, the south is a lot nicer and people are a bit more relaxed, so we are in good spirits (for now at least!) Right now we are in Fort Cochin, an island just off the coast. It is a big fishing area and they have these huge Chinese fishing nets that they have been using for 600 years.


Kerela:

The south is much nicer than the north. People are friendly. When you smile at someone you get a smile back that is ten times as large. Everyone wants to help you and take a photo with you. In hindsight it may be due to the fact that we have grown accustom to India and we are not so defensive, but for now we will just say that people are more laidback and friendly in the south.

We went to a Kerela classical dance/drama performance which is really strange and crazy. Apparently it is one of the oldest theatre forms in the world.
Here is a pic:


One of the guys from the school where we saw the performance invited us to an annual religious ceremony that has been going on for 400 years. It started at 11pm and went all night long. It was at a temple and consisted of 15 decorated elephants with men on top, and 200 men drumming and playing some funky horns. If felt a lot like what a rave trys to be like. The drumming would build and build and then the horns would come in and the men on the elephants would stand all at once holding up what looked like big feather dusters in time with the music. There were dozens of men holding burning torches in some sort of pattern. Once the music would reach its peak the whole mess would move forward about 80 feet; elephants, torches, drummers, horn players, and the huge mass of humanity would all move up and the whole thing would start again.

We went on a house boat with a Brit friend which was interesting, but not as spectacular as expected. We did get to see a lot of village life and met a 16 year old kid on a canoe that had a fantastic world wide coin/bill collection. He was really keen on getting a US $2 bill (Ma, hope you sent that off!)

Then we hit the beach again (this time Kerela style, with surfable waves and all).

Read this in a Tom Robbins book and found it interesting given the current politics in the US:

"Isn't it a fact that when we give up and quit hoping genuinely, sincerely quit hoping, things usually change for the better?
Zen masters say that when we become convinced that the human situation is hopeless, we approach serenity, the ideal state of mind."

Well, that wasn't so bad! Before I get bored with this I am going to stop. We are headed into the last 3 weeks in India. We hope to hit a few ashrams to get in touch with our spiritual sides. If anything it will be interesting.

Oh yeah, just remembered! The last town we were in... the beach town of Varkala, along with doing yoga, Natalie and I both got Ayurvedic massages. This consisted of getting naked and rubbed down in about a gallon of oil; no towel, full lights. It was so up close and personal that the guy was pushing my bits and pieces out of the way! After the massage I was taking a shower (with the door open due to lack of lighting from the electricity being out) and the guy comes in and insists on washing my back for me! On top of the massage Natalie got a treatment for a cold that was coming on, and it stopped it dead in its tracks.

I know there is more, but when you are paying 30 cents per hour for internet you tend to keep it brief.

Merry Christmas and happy new year and all of that stuff. I will close with this, the best thing about being in India for Christmas is, No Christmas music!!!!