We've been busy. We were so distraught prior to arriving in Mumbai about the hellprocess of purchasing train tickets, that once there we bought every single one at the same time for the month of February. Even that took 5 agonizing hours. You see, you simply can't take the first answer to any question you ask an Indian. If they don't know (who am I kidding? IF...? WHEN!), they will NEVER say, "I don't know..." Instead, they will definitively and decisively make something up. Something about "saving face..." although we seem to be more concerned with the concept: "saving our ass." We obviously quickly learned the process, and installed an "ask-a-minimum-of-four-different-people" rule for every question. Even this has become obsolete. We're now up to six. This is important because Paige waited one line for over 2 hours (after only asking two people - maybe our own fault) only to be told it was a different line, which then this process repeated itself three more times in a row. More on this communication hell later.

So we left Mumbai on the overnight train to Goa - the infamous 60's hippee beach/resort state where transcendental freaks dance topless (and in some frightening cases - bottomless) on the beaches attempting to become one with nature...or something. It's changed quite a bit since then, and on a recommendation from another traveller, we went to a remote little town in northern Goa called Arambol, way off the beaten track and therefore difficult to get to. The town, although mainly inland, does incorporate an absolutely huge and beautiful beach which links up with more beach-like coves to one end. It was here where we found a little room on the side of a hill overlooking the Arabian Sea with only a few random Coconut trees to break up the view. We did absolutely nothing for 5 days, simply enjoying the beauty and relaxation in comparison to the normal chaos that defines every decent sized Indian city.

Getting back to the transcendental freakshow that we experienced on a daily basis there - we would walk along the beach every night at sunset, only to come upon these huge groups of Westerners standing in a big circle chanting, "dancing," swaying, freaking, slapping, screaming, jumping...and many, many more gerunds. We joined the group of Indians standing off to the side watching in fascinating horror, wondering if these experiences with Westerners were leading them to believe that all Westerners were this strange. We're not putting it down, but we did have nightmares about it later. During the day these people would be conveniently oblivious to the local dress code laws - displaying much more skin than I for one really ever needed to see. In the U.S. the "thong" is "worn" on the female. In Arambol, it seemed that every man except yours truly was adorned in a flossy thong. Paige said she'd go topless if I wore a thong, but there was a quick end to that conversation. These people gave new meaning to the term "Sac-Town" (or more appropriately, "SAG-Town).

All water for the community around our "lodge" (restaurant, workers, other travellers, locals, etc.) came from a single open well near our room. Every morning we would wake up to the now normal sounds of violent phlegm hacking and spewing at the well. All day long, Indians would be gathered around that thing bathing, washing dishes, washing clothes (with detergent) in it...and then DRINKING it. The term water HOLE was never more appropriate. For our baths, we had to crawl down the mountain, dip a bucket in the cloudy water (picking out the frogs of course), then carry it back up to our room to strategically pour it over us. We only paid $6 a day for the place (although you're probably thinking you'd have to be PAID $6 just to visit...), but the view was spectacular, and every night we'd sit on our huge porch drinking cold San Miguel beer and watching the sun change from yellow to orange to pink to red until it finally dipped below the horizon. Granted, clenliness was a problem...although we quickly learned that we weren't the only one's having a problem with this. One day we were in the long line at the sole pharmacist in town to buy shampoo. As I finally reached the front, suddenly this tanned hippee-guy cuts in and asks me if it's Ok that he just asks a question. "Go ahead," I said, and he proceeded to ask - in full earshot of 20 people, "DO YOU HAVE HERPES MEDICATION? YOU KNOW, HERPES? HER. PEEEES. DO! YOU! UN! DER! STAND!? HERPES!!!???" I can honestly say that we were all just as disappointed as he was when the pharmacist answered, "No."

We had to endure another 12 hour waiting session in the Margao train station to catch our train heading south, but since we were heading all the way down to Cochin, Kerala, we strategically broke up the 24 hour ride by stopping in Mangalore for a night before finishing the last bit. It is SO HOT and humid in southern India now - we can't even imagine what it must be like during the hot season. Thankfully we had reserved only AC seats on all legs of our rides, which also meant that we got the train vendors constantly pacing up and down the aisles selling food. I mention this because this is truly a lot of fun to watch. These guys all seem to have the exact same vocal tones - as low as you can humanly imagine - and they extend out their vowel mispronunciations until Paige and I can't help but burst out laughing. "Vegetable sandwich" is "WEDGE-I-TI-BULL-SAHNNNND-WIDGE," "tea" or "chai" is "CHAEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" But by far the best is when, in the voice of the devil...as if he had resorted to selling train food, the guy repeats in musical drones, "vegetable cutlet:" "WEDGE-I-TI-BULL GUUUUT-LAYYYYYYTE" I realize that you can't properly appreciate this, so please ask me for a personal rendition next time you see me.

We spent the next two weeks absolutely LOVING the state of Kerala - which appropriately enough means, "land of coconuts." So lush and green and beautiful...breathtaking really. Kerala is also amazingly enough the only freely elected Communist government in the world. We really didn't see a lot of its effects, unless you count the communist flag flown over every business...including the Christian churches. With the change in states, we also noticed a change in mens' dress. In the south, most men wear what's called a "lungee" - which is a large white piece of cloth wrapped around their waste, then tucked up in (and constantly untucked, and retucked). OK, let's be honest, it looks exactly like a huge male diaper. Someone had to say it. We secretly wondered if they all went commando underneath (it can be very revealing), but upon further thought I realized that the only way I was going to find out was one thing I did NOT want to see. Another change was the food. Food in India has been universally fantastic. Once south, however, we definitely noticed the increase of spices. Many HOT dishes. The south is also extremely vegetarian, which was fine with us since we pretty much vowed to stay vegetarian while here due to clenliness problems. Breakfast may be coffee and a plain omelette (by the way, "black" coffee means "no milk." The concept of "no milk/no sugar" is like trying to order an uncarbonated Coke - you aren't going to get it and arguing only makes it worse), lunch is always "thalis" (the fantastic all-you-can-eat meals described in the last update), and for dinner we'll have rice, some kind of masalas, chapati/paratha/puri, and curd. Yes, curd. And it's damn good too.

Arriving in Cochin/Ernakulum (two towns across the water from each other used seemingly interchangeably) also taught us some new information. We seem constantly forced to learn new information. Many times this is a good thing. In this case what we learned was that you should NEVER believe what the store sign name says. For example, what would you think, "WINE SHOP" means? If you answered, "Wine," then join the club. "No wine," was the answer we got. "Are you just out, will you be getting any in?" we asked. "No wine is sold here. Ever." OK...we moved on instead to find an ice cream. After visiting three consecutive shops whose huge signs outside their stores saying, "ICE CREAM SOLD HERE" were what drew us in, we found out that "ice cream shops" probably do not sell any ice cream whatsoever. (You'll be happy to know that we eventually found it around the corner at a place called, "Swastika Sweets" ...no joke) "Hotel" means restaurant, "Lodge" means hotel...and it really doesn't matter anyway because you have to ask at least 6 different people to find what your looking for in the end. Reason is illogical and logic is unreasonable.

In our guidebook we found a place up in the mountains called Munnar that had the distinction of being the most popular honeymoon place for Southern India's newlyweds. We thought that would be the perfect place to spend Valentine's Day, and took a bus ride up into the mountains. We thought that once we left Africa our lives would be conveniently devoid of any more "Chicken buses..." Oh, how wrong we were! We were precariously hugging the crumbling one-lane "road" through the mountains, burning rubber along the edges, speeding up and passing trucks around blind cliffside corners...all the while in a converted run down school bus that was so loud our ears rang afterwards for an entire day. I honestly thought that when we passed the horrible head-on collision blocking the road with blood absolutely everywhere that our driver would take it as a sign to SLOW DOWN, but I'm the same guy who thought a "Wine Shop" sold wine. The truck hanging upside down in a tree on the cliff alongside the road had no effect either. But we did in fact make it safely, kissing the ground until we remembered the "phlegm factor."

Munnar was beautiful. Huge manicured tea plantations that we spent three days hiking through, broken only by the brightly-colored saris of the woman pickers, lush cardamom farms everywhere, and large blankets alongside the road drying freshly picked green and black peppercorns. We really loved this town, it's clean fresh air, and it's stunning scenery - mountains, tea and streams.

From the mountains we spent 3 days in the beachside town of Varkala; nearest to the tip of India that we got. Varkala is a growing resort town that is situated on the cliffs along the Arabian Sea with cheap accomodation (and thankfully running water) and amazing lush cliffside restaurants serving freshly-caught fish and sharks and cooking it all in huge tandoor ovens along with all that naan. Walking along the cliffs you would come to the rise of a small hill and the view would be the pristine aqua blue of the ocean on one side and the seemingly neverending green treeline of dense coconut trees on the land side. A truly phenominal sight.

Leaving Varkala we once again encountered the "ask 6 different people rule" when asking about the bus to Kollam, but unfortunately this time all 6 were wrong. We had logically (?) thought that since two of the six were between 5:15 and 5:30am that we would be safe if we got there at 5am. It was only later - much later - that we found out that NO bus takes that route. At all. All day. Joy. One guy had even said, "Everyone else is wrong, I know what I'm talking about, I'm telling you it's DEFINITELY 5:15am!" ...but he was wrong. He worked there at the station. Luckily we made it to Kollam in time to take the highly recommended "Backwaters" tour.

The backwaters are a huge intricate set of salt and freshwater inlets and "rivers" bordered by dense coconut and banana trees, rice paddies, huge spider-like Chinese fishing nets and the locals who live on the edge of it all. For 8 hours we sat on the roof driking cold Kingfishers and soaking it all it - a definite highlight of this trip and the first thing we'll recommend to other travellers who plan to visit India. The only downside was that some brain-dead foreigners have periodically tossed local kids pens from the boats, teaching then in time to run screaming at all the tourist boats, "ONEPEN! ONEPEN! ONE!!!PEN!!!!" We nearly bludgeoned an old German lady who had apparantly prepared for this, thinking perhaps she was the Mother Theresa of pen distribution, literally pulling a box of pens out of her handbag and lamely tossing them overboard to groups of naked children frantically jumping in the water. One kid had a little too much stamina, running after our boat, hopping bushes, ducking under branches, dodging other people, and the whole time screaming, "ONEPEN!" for nearly 3 miles. We decided these kids need a "One Pen Dash" in the Olympics...or even better, the "One Pen Marathon," or "One Pen Decathalon..."

We ended this relaxing day with the absolute worst bus ride we've ever encountered. Worse than all the others combined. Yes, you read that right. A bus that holds maybe 100 people somehow crammed no less than 250 painfully squished people on board...for over 2 hours. When the bus arrived, we joined the huge throng of people to cram on, elbowing grandma aside to ensure our place. (We learn quickly) Imagine every seat seating more people than it was intended to hold, then in the aisles you have one person leaning over into the laps of the sitters, one person behind them leaning ON them, one person in the middle...and then three more people positioned similarly for the other side. We had no less than ten people pushed up against us at one time (not to mention metal poles and torn seats), and every time ten people got off at a stop, 25 more somehow crammed one. Amazing. When we finally made it, we were so happy we just didn't care that we were completely covered in dirt and sweat...other people's dirt and sweat.

The holy city of Madurai was our next stop and we spent three days exploring the phenominal Sri Meenakshi temple. We were stopped by a wonderful Calcutta family inside who were fascinated to find Westerners in this holiest of holy Hindu places, and wanted to know what we thought. "Absolutely fascinating!" was our nice way of saying, "we're a little freaked out." We also saw a "sound and light show" at the local palace, billed by our Lonely Planet as, "highly entertaining." Ha. You pay either 2, 3, or 5 rupees to get in, only to find it's general admission, and once it started it was a single loudspeaker blaring an old warped tape. There's better quality at the Jack-in-the-box drive thru. We can stand 2 hours on a painfully and dangerously overcrowded bus, but we simply couldn't stand this horrible spectacle, and let after 15 minutes.

Now we're in the huge bustling city of Chennai (Madras), taking care of business prior to (hopefully) heading over to the remote Andeman Islands for a month. We're having a little too much fun, and are so glad to have at least 3 months here in this wonderful country. We also realized that we scheduled our time here perfectly before the hot season...but if 95 degree weather and 95 percent humidity isn't the hot season, we do NOT want to find out what is.

Paige here...Yes, we are addicted to email. Whayagunnadooo? When it's hotter than Hades outside, and the traffic, noise and pollution make us think of a Calgon bath, and the cybercafes only charge a buck an hour, slipping inside an air-conditioned internet cafe is too hard to resist. They are everywhere in big and small Indian cities, so hopefully you are not getting sick of our email travelogues. If so, too bad. Or just enjoy the power of the scroll bar or clicking on the "delete" key. If not, I guess you must enjoy it when Chris and I ramble and throw out unjustified opinions about a new corner of this amazing planet. We apologize if we sound judgemental or offend any of our readers. If we do then we don't deserve the opportunity to travel here and there and be welcomed into these wonderful foreign lands. We are constantly bombarded with new stimilu and some of it's hard to digest. Most of is great, thankfully.

Some real signs (in English) that we have seen in India that have made us chuckle (you can come to your own conclusions about what they might mean):

URINAL ONLY: SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE DUE TO LEGAL LITIGATION (in the courtyard of the restaurant, by the way, it was me asking, so I don't know if they expected women to stand while peeing, and in further complication...I hate to say it, but of all places this was a coffee house, if you know what I mean...)

MORE THRILLING CHILLED (on the label of a beer bottle).

HORN PLEASE OK (on just about every truck bumper, fender or rickshaw back trunk. They do love their horns here).

STD (on the private phone stalls, usually a small office that charge for calling locally or internationally. Unfortunately, there are no public phones or booths so we even have to pay for free collect and credit card calls which is quite frustrating since the calls cost them nothing!)

FOREIGNERS, JOURNALISTS, SENIOR CITIZENS, HANDICAPPED AND FREEDOM FIGHTERS (words posted at the Railway station window for those people who fall into those categories who want to buy a train ticket. Theoretically this line should be shorter than the endless lines for the locals). I asked about the "freedom fighter" one since we felt honored to be included with guerrilla rebels, but they told me this was a term for those who fought for India's independence from Britain. Not ski-masked thugs like we were imagining.

WE REQUEST THE INMATES OF THE HOTEL TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES FOR DISCREET SERVICE (on our hotel menu cover).

These are only just a few of the funny signs we have seen that I have remembered to write down. The spelling of English words is quite flexible in India, such as "Amlet with brains" which we did not order but guessed to mean "omelette".

Another random observation is that bus drivers around the world have a strong fascination and pride when it comes to decorating their bus dashboard and rear-view mirror. Here in India, most choose a 12-inch (or so) picture of their favorite Hindu god in pastel colors, in a gold frame, with a garland of flowers hanging from the corners. Sometimes, there will be a picture of Jesus with blinking red and green lights circling His picture. We noticed the Portuguese Catholic influence in the Southern states of Goa and Kerala was strong. Even Christian Indians like pomp and circumstance and colorful ornamentation. Probably would shock most conservative Puritan Quakers. Back to the bus...blaring Hindi music also keeps the passengers alert for the Disneyland roller coaster rides. Except that amusement parks are required to provide a roll bar or steel guard rail so that the customers don't fly out of their seats, unlike Indian buses. On the last ride, our hand muscles were tired from white-knuckling it for the 4-hour journey. Just like the Jungle Book ride at Disneyland, the palm trees swayed in the breeze and monkeys bounced along the branches. The conductors wear brown safari-like shirts just like at the Magic Kingdom, however, the price of an E ticket is flexible in the Sub Continent; depending on how much the conductor wants to overcharge the tourists.

Another interesting and confusing cultural difference is the head shake. I have to credit the man who explained this eloquently when we went to a local Kathakali dance performance in Cochin. Every once in a while when we get smart, we try to attend a cultural event or festival. Since we never hit the festivals on the right date, we tend to have to go to the "tourist" show put on throughout the year. Hence, only white Western travelers are in the audience which make us feel like the show is somehow less "authentic". Not the case at all in the city of Cochin. The state of Kerala is known for the Kathakali dance performance, which is a theatrical explanation of the Hindu story of Ramayana. Men wear beautiful costumes and bright colorful make-up to act out the Hindu story of gods, goddesses, and demons. Before the dancers and musicians started, the Director came on stage to explain what was to come, what some of the hand gestures meant (each little hand movement is a Hindu word similar to sign language), which colors signified what in the Hindu tradition, etc. The performance we saw was only about an hour long, and the Director explained that this was a condensed version since it typically lasts 6-8 hours in the traditional format and is acted out in temples (which obviously was too long for most paying customers). The two actors in full Hindu regalia did everything I imagined Indian dancing to be, such as bending their fingers in ways we could never do without breaking a bone, raising their eyebrows, twitching their face muscles, and staring out into the audience with such amazing expressions that it felt like they were looking right into our souls. Moving their heads left to right in such a way that they didn't look connected to their necks. I could go on and on but it was unreal and captivating, that words don't do an inkling of justice.

To cap off this amazing experience, the Director finished his narration of the Hindu story and added some of his own philosphical ideas to help his Western audience learn a bit about the Hindu religion. In a poorly described nutshell, he explained Hindus believe in one god, but "imagine" many gods and their incarnations. (In fact, there are something like 220 million gods in the Hindu faith). In their imagination, they create stories and legends of good and evil, wars between the good gods and bad ones. By praying to this or that god, they invoke that god's special powers. He went on to explain how Hinduism is like philosophy and mythology, and then I was lost. I think he could sense that he was losing most of us, so he summed up by explaining why Hindus always have a lotus flower in their religious artifacts. Lotus flowers grow out of a lily pad which only grows in dirty, muddy water. Lilies have meters and meters of roots growing down in this dirty water. He said Hindus can flower out of their difficult, hard circumstances of life. Even if their backgrounds are muddied, they can find truth and goodness to bloom.

Now, about the head shake. This was quite a long story to get to the Indian head shake. Every time we ask a local a question about how to find a street, hotel or restuarant, they usually shake their head left to right. Sometimes the eyes roll as well. Nothing verbal is added. Just the shake. This means "yes" even though our natural reflect thinks they are saying "no". The Kathakali Director thinks a good Hindu explanation would be that Indians are a relaxed people, with little or no work to do, and lots of time to think. To think about the beauty of their surroundings or philosophy of life. To let the wind blow by. Let the wind blow through them. Left to right or right to left. The wind just washes over them, side to side. The head shake. Whereas, in the West, we are workers. We have things to do and accomplish, places to conquer or overcome. We go forward, thus the head goes up and down or from front to back. Onward. Perhaps this is not the true origin of the head shake, but it does give you a new insight to one of India's mysteries. Since they are about 800 million people living in this nation, it's a blessing and miracle that they all get along so well and just let the wind blow by. We have felt very safe and welcomed here. For such a crowded and chaotic living, they always greet us with a warm smile and curious questions. Thank goodness (or really Siva) for Hindu pacivism. If they were an aggressive people, their crime rate would soar.

Until next time,

Mr. Drummund and Mrs. Garrett
chrisandpaige@hotmail.com