The back waters of Kerala

In coming to India and the little research I did. One of the things that I saw that really found a place in my imagination was the back waters of Kerala. An area along the coast of Kaerala India that is known as the Venice of India. What was a mass of back waters and swamps has been turned into a huge system of Canals. The canals are all buried away in the country and there are no real cities to speak of other then the port and colonial city of Cochin that we spent 3 days in before departing on a 2 day voyage into the canals themselves for Beths birthday.

The experience of boating up the canals felt like something off the travel channel or National Geographic. You just had to be there. The boats themselves are like something out of a science fiction novel. The hulls are massive wooden forms that look like an old Viking ship. But the shell of Bamboo and palm above is what gives it it's real character. They reminded me of bamboo conche shells or something. The roofs were rounded like a long oval dome of woven mat with glass paneled windows along the sides and sharp peaks at the front and along the tops. The boats were very nice. Bedrooms with a view and the nicest bathroom I have had in India in six weeks. We had a crew of 3. The caiptain, Engineer, and a great chef. All of them old weathered men of the sea. This was they're life. The food was great. Huge cusine meals served on the foredeck. Where we spent the majority of our days. And snacks of fresh fruit or fried bananas all day long. Hot Tea or coffee. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

We had the crew fill up the ice cooler with beer before we set out on our grand voyage. And the majority of our time was spent with our feet kicked up in our three whicker coushined captains chairs. Enjoying mugs of cold beer, Good music to our choosing, and the sights only the canals can offer. I remember standing up in front of the girls with a beer in one hand and a cuban cigar in the other. While doing an impression of half the people we talked to back home. "Why in Gods name would you want to go to India!" and gesturing around at all the beauty around us. We all had a good laugh. I had so many of those moments with a smile ear to ear listening to Marvin Gaye or Van Morrison and feeling so alive and loving every moment big and small to bursting.

The sights of the canal life in itself were unbelievable. The whole trip was worth just those two days. Life on the canal is just like life anywhere else. But all old school. There are no roads to speak of. The canals are the roads. You have bus stops with longer wooden boats that transport people up and down the river. Or smaller canoes that just ferry from one side of the canal to the other. There are many other whicker house boats like the ones we were on, small fishing boats, and people just canoing from place to place. Old churches stood along the banks. Fisherman wading through the water fishing for freshwater shrimp (they are the size of small lobster). The canal walls are just placed stones and the water level is a few feet higher then all the land on the other side. It's a strange feeling when your scooting along on the river above everything else. It's usually the other way around.

Most of the inland land is green rice fields with thousands of White Egret's flying about in huge waves of white or eating here and there. The birds were a thing to see in themselves. Hundreds of cormarnts flying just a hand span above the water and thousands and thousands of some kind of bird migrating high above us in the biggest "V" pattern I have ever seen. There was also ship yards and house boats being built. There was a small check on the list of life made as well. Scores of huge fruit bats (the size of a hawk) were flying above as well. They fly during the day instead of at night. Which is really cool to see. They have the perfect bat shape,,,except that they are like 2 and ahalf feet from wing tip to wing tip. A bit creepy. they're so big they just glide and flap they're wings really slowly. But I've always wanted to see them and have had my eyes out since I got to India. We also watched a duck round up (for eating) and a thousand other things pass by. I wore Grandpa's hat that grandama gave me. I thought a lot about him. It was after all his birthday and he spent a lot of time on house boats. I told the boat caiptain a few stories of home and the lakes where we live as well as stories of Grandpa.

The canals brach off in countless directions big and small. With small foot bridges arched over some. And every where floating up and down by itself or in huge groups. Is this fresh water plant that has no roots. There are all these round green air sacks to keep it afloat with wispy green algae dragging underneath and violet flowers and bright green leaves above. The canal walls are bordered by tall palm trees up and down the canals. But all the water is fresh water. Like I said. Something you just have to see. Childeren waiting for the school bus boat to pick them up, women washing cloths in the water, people washing themselves in the water.......India in a way I never imagined.

We camped the boat in the middle of a huge lake for the night. Having a feast of a dinner. Singing happy birthday to Beth and even eating cake. Watching the sun set and rise the next morning but with a hot coffee instead of a cold beer. We sat late into the night listening to music, smoking cigars, and loving life. It was a great day to be. One I never saw myself in. I wonder how many more await around the corner. And it definatly wet my appetite for crewing a sailboat some time down the line. To leave land behind for awhile and embrace life in a different manner. Well it is time for dinner. We are in Valcara India. A coastal town with great swimming on the beaches below and everything as far as restaurants and shops are all along the cliffs above where I am now with a great view of the ocean. The sea food selection here is huge. And at night the sea is lite up with hundreds of little lights from all the fishermans boats. Its looks like the night sky. It is an amazing sight. In two days we will be at the southern most point of India. The tip where three bodies of water meet and you can watch the sun rise and fall on the ocean. Last thoughts before dinner. HAppy Birthday Beth. Happy Birthday Grandpa Joe.

Hampi and travels with Wilber into the temple of Shiva

Hampi...A place (A deserted ancient city) buried out in a desert of rocks, rocks, and rocks unlike any place in the world I have ever seen. A place buried in the desert that seems to exist outside the laws and bounds of relative theory. There is a feeling of it being gods first sketches of the world as we know it or perhaps we found the notes that were crumpled and tossed away. A place of India far beyond Newtons theory of gravity or maybe just maybe a small area in the desert where giants like those in childrens tales once lived to decorate the landscape with thier own imaginations. Rearanging it all to the way they saw fit. Like a toddler placind building blocks just so, One on top of the other. It is just one more place on the globe. Yet it was unlike any place I have ever seen. A place of Natural history and of ancient history. One more memory to recall some distant days from now. Maybe one of those days I can figure out how or why. In the short few days I was there I felt like I hardly skimmed the surface. There was just to much to wrap hardly even a thread of thought and understanding around. Like so many things and so many places in life.

Hampi. Hampi is just another spot on the map. Another speck hidden away out in the desert. But is a piece of desert unlike any I have ever seen. In a small way it reminded me of Tatooine in Star Wars. You would look off into the desert and see these small white domed buildings thgat looked like Uncle Owens and Aunt Veru's. (Yes I am a geek) But the Natural rock formations there were the most unnatural formations I have ever seen. If that makes any sense. You'll walk out into these wide open area's of slab rock a few city blocks in size. And sitting out on them all by themselves are these massive smooth red boulders as big as houses with other boulders as big as cars balanced precariously on top of those. I think I shot more photos of rock formations then I did of all the ruins.

There are piles of these rocks that make up small mountains. It'll be just desert one moment and then a huge pile of these boulders with an old ruin or two peeking out the next. And on top of most of those rocks are other smaller or even bigger rocks balanced. Some of them look like jig saw puzzles. Every corner and seam fitting just so. All in all it looks like everything was placed somewhere by somebody. But nobody could due to the sheer size of all the rocks. To say a little it is a sight to see. I spent most of my days there just staring at rocks. You would look from your feet all the way out to the horizon at sights and shapes that do not exist in the natural world.
Hampi. Hampi is also a massive city that was once an empire spread out over many kilometers in every direction you can throw a stone in the desert. From vantage points you could see ruins and temples peeking out in every direction. from horizon to horizon. And 90 percent of it is free. You pack a day bag with plenty of water. Pick a direction and just walk and explore ruins to your hearts content. Some excavated, some in the process of being dug out and excavated, and being swallowed by the desert with walls, domes, columns, towers, statues, temples, and palaces sticking out here and there. I walked for 3 days as far as I could up and down the river and into the desert and hardly scratched the surface. It was big enough that at most ruins your feet could carry you to, It was just you and the desert. Hampi in it's sheer size and for how much was preserved by the heat and the desert is awe inspiring in itself. It is a place full of imagination in every sense.

Two things that I recall quickly are two seperate ruin sites on two different sides of the desert. One was the elephant stables. they were 12 all next to one another in a long line half a city block long. But they were these beautiful buildings with high archways and a different shaped dome adorned the top of each Stable. And running along the front were all these reliefs of elephants walking trunk and tail with fluted gutters of stone and arabian windows. I just love the idea of ancient elephant stables. Or even just the fact that there were royal elephants for that matter.

The second thing was like something out of the Temple of Doom. I walked into this walled in ruin site to the hindu god Shiva. So your basically walking into this little ancient stone city all by your lonesome. With all its rooms, gallerys, hallways and.....dungeons open to the public. So I walk in by my lonesome ( Michelle and Beth went out biking with some friends) and this lone Gaurd starts to follow me around the ruins. He's just an old grey and weathered codger with crows feet on the sides of his yellow eyes and curled withered hands that are all knuckles. I know he's looking to make a few rupies on the side but I'm looking to keep the few I have. So I loose him behind one of the temples as I'm looking to keep enjoying the day alone and the quiet only the desert or deep winter nights can provide. I mosey about a few different buildings and smaller temples thinking I got better luck then I have in the past with other ruppee seeking gaurds or guides. Until I walk into another temple and there he is standing in the Dark shadow of a deep doorway with a lite candel. And I just stop and stare at him as he stares right back, until he motions me to come over to him. There was a moment where I thought that it might be a bad idea and how I wanted to save my few ruppees for a cool drink but the boyish side of me that used to play out in the woods and imagine all kinds of adventures couldn't resist.

I walked over to the old shadow with a small tallow candle illuminating his face in the dark and reliefs of the god shiva fighting demons all over the wall behind him, as they seemed to be revieled momentarily before being swallowed by shadow again. He gestures with one old finger pointing down through a small passage way into the black below the temple. I remember looking from his old pointing fingers and back to his old desert colored eyes a few times before nodding once and without a word ever spoken between either one of us he led away into the black below the desert and the temple of shiva. That small thin candel, no thicker or longer then my own pinky finger was the only small orb of light as we descended down and down into the dark.

We arrived in a hallway that ran around the base of the alter and temple below in a "u" shape. And he whispered in a voice as dry as the winds about things I couldn't understand do to the language barrier of hindi to english and I still don't know more then it was the temple to Shiva and to that extent and no more. There were all these reliefs chiseled in the stone those hundreds of years ago when Hampi was alive and thriving. Before the city mysteriously ghosted away into the desert to be forgotten for those hundreds of years till just the last century when it was found once more and dug up. the city remains but no history of why or how an empire as big as Hampi just dissapeared from memory and history... The reliefs were still covered with small specks of the paint that once adorned every mural. Along the base of the alter itself were images of Shiva and the people worshiping her and him. Shiva has many forms but the form of the warrior shiva was the one that was the most prevalent. Bodies of soliders and demons lay at shivas feet. So there I am with this small tallow candel and this old Indian raisin with our faces right next to each other to be able to see with this tiny candel all these ancient reliefs with him whispering in Hindu in the dark.

What I couldn't figure out for the first 5 minunutes was, "why is he whispering?" I mean we were the only ones on this site surrounded by miles of desert. I thought it added to the whole experience. There was a bit of reverance in those whispers like people do when they enter a church. But there was also a feeling of maybe he broke a few rules by leading me down here and doesn't want any one to know. All the while I've been digging around in my bag for this little handy lighter I had bought some weeks back. the fluid had run out long ago but it had a small LED flashlight built into the bottom of it. It wasn't until a moment before I found the little flashlight that I had a creepy theory on why he was whispering. I noticed a shape for a split second flash by the candel. And I would of thrown it off as my imagination if the candel flame hadn't a waved to the side as if caught by a small breeze or wind. And there was this odd chirping sound I would hear every so often.

Then at long last my fingers found the lighter. Flipping it around in my hand I turned the small slender beam of white light on. At first lighting up a mural of shiva sticking a lance through some poor soliders heart. And then there was that "chirp!" sound again. Not loud but close. I slowly raised the light up the side of a pillar to stop on three little bats that were hanging no more then a foot away from my face. But I Kept my cool and thought "Well that explains it there's a few bats in here!" But then I looked at them closer and realized the spot they were hanging on was really only big enough for three bats to hang out on. I scanned the flash light at the paved stones below my feet and saw not stone at all but ages and ages of bat Guano dried below my feet.

At this point my little old stooped over gaurd is standing shoulder to shoulder with me looking at the same thing. We both stop and stare at eachother for a long three seconds before I had to do the inevitable ...... Yes.....slowly that little shaking light worked its way up the wall and to the ceiling 3 feet above him and only a foot and a half above me. I didn't scream but I did freeze as my little lite started moving all around the ceiling illuminating thousands of little flying rats with wings and fangs. Thousands of little beedy black eyes that seemed to swallow my light just stared back. I don't know how long I was staring till I realized my guide was feebly pulling on my shirt to leave. I got dragged out looking at the ceiling with that weak little beam of light behind me as If I was covering our backs or something. Back and back and back up the hallway we went and not thousands but tens of thousands of little (cute!).....no Ravenouse.... hungry.... deadly..... crazy.... bloodthirsty....... BBAAAAAATTTTTTTTSSSSSSS ..... .... .. .. . eyes stared back at me till I was hauled out of the dungeeon by old wilber (I've decided to name him)

"Wilber!" I said, well not that part but the rest of it I did though. Clapping him on the right shoulder with my right hand. like a tearful moment of two friends parting. "You saved my life down there man!" He looked back at me the same way I had been looking at him in the dark. Neither one of us understanding a lick of hindi or english. "I don't know how i can ever repay you for such an act of bravery as that. I know....I tensed up...I didn't know what to do....How can I ever re...." Old Wilber stood there with a grin showing three old rotten teeth and a hand held out in that universal sign that isn't asking for a hand shake. I pursed my mouth a moment. He did save my life after all. For All I know I could still be standing there fozen in place staring up into the wings of death on that heaping pile of age old bat Guano. So I dug into a sweaty pocket filled with sand and fished out the only two bills I had in there. A 10 and a 100 rupee.

There I stood weighing the right thing to do. Each hand holding a bill. my head turning from side to side. Lookind back and fourtha nd back and fourth to the 10 in the one hand the 100 in the other. Decisions. Decisions. Wilbers head was not looking from hand to the next. just staring at the one hand holding the 100. "Wilber!" I said. "your a brave man and you deserve more then this. But seeing that my life just passed before 50,000 little eye's, I could really use a beer right now. And you could probably get the same for the local price around here with the 10 rupees!" I said handing over the ten and stuffing the 100 back into my dusty pockets and out of his sight. While guiltily shifting one foot back and forth under me. like I just got caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

Wilber looked at me with betrayed yellow eyes. And I stared back in a small moment of Anger for all the money I had given out over the weeks to so many. And all the other money I had lost to so many over priced rickshaws or ceramic elephants and the like. India could bleed a man from his life savings in a week if he wasn't careful. Dollar signs seemed to appear in every set of eyes I had seen since arriving those many weeks back. I had had enough of people looking for my rupees. I had to make a stand somewhere. Doing things out of the goodness of your heart never found a home in India. So there we stood on the steps of the temple shiva in an old fashioned Indian staring contest. I would like to say a bushel of sage blew between us as the time passed, but there is no sage in hampi just cactus...... hmmmm... So there we stood staring unblinking at one another while a cactus blew between us....Which is not an easy thing in India. Staring that is. Beacause every one stares at you all the time without looking away no matter how much you stare back. Inevitably they always win. But only by sheer numbers,,, I mean how do you win a staring contest with like fifty Indians when our on the bus, or at the bus station, or walking down the street, or at the restaurant, or just breathing for crying out loud....They like to stare. "It's rude to stare" has never exisited in the history of time in India as far as I am concerned. But I was not about to lose my staring contest with old wilber. And maybe he was a bit stooped foward with his poor old bent back. beat down over the years by the sun and such. But I swear those heavy lided yellow eyes just kept getting closer and closer and closer till he was practically right on top of me. ( which was impossible cause he's such little desert weathered ...... thing. but thts what it felt like) And then I noticed something.... he was smiling and so was I. He clapped me with one hand on the shoulder and sad something in hindi like "your all right in my book or your a cheap S.O.B." but said with a smile. We shook hands and I walked off into the desert once more toward the setting sun. With Wilber standing back on those steps, arms crossed with a small smile. people in passing. weather on a city street or in the middle of the desert. One small moment. One more person in passing. What impressions do we leave in those passings? When I look back on it all now, I would pay the 100 rupees just to know the thought behind that smile as I walked away.... ... .. .

The pied piper of dancing over the holidays

Our Christmas and New Years in Palolem goa and how I became the Pied piper!

We were lucky and blessed in one major respect while we christmased in Palolem in that we met a great group of people almost right from the get go. We Met Ty who brought the whole family together in a day. A canadian from Victoria British columbia as well as another fellow B.C. resident by the name of Richard (reminded us a bit of Ross from friends and our brother David) and they're was a british couple by the names of Jason and Kat from the U.k. as well as another counter part to our party Vince from France who always wore a white cotton shirt with only one button buttoned. The group of us would meet and have dinner together every night for a week and spent most of our days together as well scouting out distant beachs and the like. But for seven days and nights we and a few other friends (Natalia the beach flirt and Gian or as we referred to him as Jack Sparrow "Johnny Depp" because half the time you couldn't understand what he was saying) roamed the beaches at night in our own little pack or family.

Christmas Eve we ordered up to have a turkey cooked for us all at our favorite restaurant. And what came out....I guess was turkey but it looked more like a peacock to me. I said a blessing over the meal and our time together and then proceeced with the Cunningham tradition of cutting the turkey for everyone. A messy business especially if you saw the turkey but a necessary one made matters easier thanks to Dad knighting me only last year in the tradition of cutting and serving the turkey.

Some many drinks later we wandered down the beach to Cafe Del Mar (The local beach club/bar and were lucky enough to have a fire display for us and what turned out to be a hundred and more people watching by our very own Jason and Kat. Who happen to run a business back home setting up huge break beat parties, raves, and so on. but part of that Business is doing what they do as well. Kat brought out her fire poy and started spinning and dancing the Fire poy across the sands while the clubs music was blazing out into the night. (Fire poy are 2 chains 2 feet long with 2 balls that are sepped in parafin and set on fire on the end) - Large crowds gathered watching and cheering at what Jason called the "Sexiest thing in the world man!" This was soon followed by Jason breathing out 15 ft. bursts of flame into the night above and later juggling and hand juggling (Remember David Bowie with the crystal balls in the movie labryinth the same thing) But almost in a form of Dance. I don't know any other way to explain it but it looked just great. It was one of many great nights to come. But made for a very interesting christmas eve.

Christams day started with an early christmas breakfast before leaving on a package deal to take a tour out into the Jungle and go Canyoning. And lots of cliff diving into a cool clean river below. Jumping from waterfalls and Belaying down on climbing ropes next to one while climbing up on harness and ropes on others. I never thought to be jumping off 30 ft. ledges for christmas. A fuuny thing happened that day. When we got back to the Jeep Jason picked up this beautiful butterfly with a slightly injured wing. It stood there on his finger as he held it up for us to look at. It really was beautiful. And then it flew away from him as gracefully as butterflys fly and right when Jason said "fly free little fella" it drifted right down into this pond and in a second was eaten by like 5 frogs. A moment of terror, Violence, and horror as everyone simultaneously took a step back and went AAAuuuoooooowww!!!!

We all returned in our safari cruiser and headed over to the cool breeze restaurant for burgers and a beer before splitting up for naps and then meeting for dinner. Michelle, Beth, and I returned to our bungalow porch under the shade of palms and surrounded by smooth sand to open our christmas presents that Beth had brought us from home. Three cloth Santa sacks that mom had sowed for us for christmas. All containing our presents from home. Mine had star wars prints all over it.....very cool. But I am under the impression that everyone back home thinks I have a severe hygene problem.....(which I might seeing that I have a mystery rash spreading right now....but thats a different story) My presents consisted of New underwear, new socks, q-tips, 1 new tooth brush, a whole kit that included shampoo, conditioner, apricot scrub, chapstick, tinactin for athletes foot, and a nail clipper, 3 packs of gum, as well as not 1 but 4 packages of travel wet wipes.... I do admit to having a habit of dubious hygene but come on now. I also got food - snacks - and candy from home as well as nice cards and donations from A&J painting to cover the holiday expenses and more. As well as compensations from Mom to pay for our meal. The rest of the meal money we donated as a christmas present to cover half of the groups meal costs. It is after all the season of giving. But we loved all the presents though michelle was a bit miffed about getting some femenine wipes as well. The Gummi lifesavors were a small piece of heavan. And Jenny's after bite has been a saving grace the last week. thank you all. As well as Cousin Dan , Leah , Casey , and uncle Pat for donating me " A New Computer!!!!" for crying out loud....that's a lot Of I owe you's!!!

We had booked Christmas dinner at the swankiest restauraunt on the beach. Everyone arrived at 7:30 for a seafood feast and front row seats on the deck beachside for cocktails sipped out of cocunuts, grilled Tiger prawns, And a few snacks with water and rounds of beer all around. Dinner came on a platter of leaves with stuffed crab, breaded crab, lobster, A kingfish steak, mussels, Squid, fresh bread, rice pilaf, and fresh pineapple with white wine. Dinner was followed by coffie liquers and chocolate cake as we lounged into the night sipping on drinks and watching fire works illuminate the beach up and down. We followed the night up with some sheesha (Tobacco from a huka) and drinks till 5 a.m. at Cafe Del Mar. Over many stories and belly renching laughs all night long. We celebrated christmas till 5 a.m. I finished the night and ran out for a swim and some prayer time in the rolling waves before falling into a good sleep and the end of christmas. A few days later all of the group "family" left save us. Moving onto other places in India, or to Singapore, or back to B.C. A sad day.

New years though was a blast in every way that I wanted a new years on the beach to be. We had met Dom and Kay a young british couple the day before having dinner under a massive banyon tree. We took in another Dinner of good Pasta and olive cheese bread with plenty of cool drinks while curling your toes in the sand over dinner. The beach was packed. At least three times more then what we had seen over christmas. Returning toward cafe Del Mar we sat on the beach having Gin and sprites before elbowing our way deep into the crowds for the new year to begin. Thousands of people crowded out of Cafe Del Mar onto the beach all the way to the tides. Fire works were flying up in the hundreds up and down the beach.

When the clock ticked into the new year we were standing out on the beach in front of Cafe del Mar with literally a few thousand and more people screaming and jumping up and down on the beach. And in good India fashion this happened not once but three times. So much for the times square countdown. The whole stretch of beach and a few dozen palm trees are wrapped in christmas lights. But The beach was busy and the skies were lite up all night with the celebrations of Fireworks. We danced on the beach from party to beach party up and down and all around. Around 5 or 6 I found my bed and set my weary legs to sleep. But it was a great night, with great dancing, resting by huge bon fires with people dancing shadows around it, and several times I just stripped down to my skivvies and ran out into the ocean for a swim to cool down. Neeedless to say I was a sand box by the time I went to bed. But what a night! A night to remember!

O ya, and the strangest thing happened. Where ever on the beach at any time of the night that I would start dancing. The local Indian guys would rally around me. It was the craziest thing. I would just start dancing and suddenly there would be anywhere from 2 to 30 (literally) guys dancing and hopping up and down around me or copying me. I mean at one point I was so sick of dancing with or for all these guys that I walked a ways down the beach away from any party and just started dancing along the tide line alone and within 2 minutes all these guys ran upto me and started dancing with me. It was like I was the pied piper of indians or something.

There was one point where I was dancing in a huge circle in the sand with a few hundred people watching and another 30 or 40 guys following me and dancing around the circle with me copying every hippie move I could throw out there. So it turned into like a huge hippie mosh pit with me running in circles flying through the air in a drunken stupor with another thirty guys trying to do the same thing....you have no idea. Well the numbers just started getting out of hand with how many indian guys were streaming in to dance ( I can already hear the comments coming out of Reondos mouth...) And they all just started jumping up and down around me swinging shirts and going into a frenzy like I had just scored a goal for the national team or something... GGGGOOOOAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! before beth and michelle came running and grabbed me and just screamed run......Ya......so we did,,,,,, till we got down to the next beach party and the whole process would start over again.

Most of the time Beth and Shell just stood back in hysterics telling me I had a fan club. It in a small way reminds me of a very Napolean Dynamite moment for me when I was in high school dancing alone on a stage in front of a couple thousand brothers and sisters who were all on they're feet screaming and clapping like I was Sammy Davis Junior or something. I only have Reondo's eyes to witness my one moment of Glory! But for days and weeks after kids would come up and say "HEY your that dancing white dude!" It was the same all over again in India I have no idea how manys hundereds of hands I shook (Vigouresly) or hugged over the course of the night. Well i guess there was a lot of love though and still reminiscent of back home. the last two days guys in town will recognize me and run for another handshake and say "hey, remember me!" and start dancing a little indian Jig. Craziness.....India...I tell you craziness. I guess I'm the pied piper of Dancing..To bad it only seems to draw young brown clean Indian boys. If only
all that could have worked with the chicks in the clubs back home man. Maybe some day. Happy new years....I love you all -Jeremy.

Finding where the water meets the sand in India

At long last.......The south of Goa India. Me and shell spent a full month in the north of Nepal and trekked through winters first storms and snow in the himalayan ranges of Khumbu and Annapurna. Even Katmandu and delhi were in the throngs of winter and experiencing one of the coldest winters in memory...which is to say 50s and 60s and then snows soon after we left. It seemed that we were always on the forefront of the season. Coming from the great white north of minnesota it semed we brought the snows where ever we went or at least unusually cold weather. Most of which felt like atumun or an Indian summer quite literally. But not the heat we were looking for. With all the shaking and moving we were doing we needed a vacation from vacation. Fate finds you in interesting places never where you dream or Imagine but it happens and you smile. You know life is taking you for a ride. You do control the sails but not the winds. And sometimes those winds carry you down a long dusty road on a last minute decision in a packed bus. To the very end of the road to the last beach in a world renowned state of beachs. And inevitably the beach you end up on is one of the very insperation's that brought you to India in the first place.

Back track 18 months ago when I was working two jobs and still paying off the last of my school det in order to save money to be right where I am now. During that time I was researching where and by what route I should take for this trip. the whole world was open but the himalayas stood out above everything else. I knew I had to go there for sure. Mountains have always had a way of pulling me to them. So through trial and error Nepal ended up being the first place I would go to. Which made India a natural place to follow up with afterwards. Though I had never really had a strong pull to visit there like so many other places in the world. It still had an allure all it's own for the images and culture conjured up even at the mention of the name itself. India. Yet it wasn't till I saw the Movie "The Bourne Supremacy" with matt damon those 18 months ago that I realized something else about india. The coasts along the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal were teeming with remote beachs and a haven for rucsackers and hippies to escape the streets of India. The opening shot in this movie is of matt Damon jogging up a beach at sunrise in Goa India. It looked phenominal in the movie. Imagery and stories personally told have always inspired me to see a place and experience more then anything else. That opening shot of that beach planted the seed that inevitably tipped the scales to get me into india.

Me and shell departed our sardine canned bus after 15 hours of busing south from Bombay and walked out onto the very same beach as in the movie. Into the insperation that beckoned me to come to India in the first place. Of the hundreds of beachs along the coast of india....Fate - (God) and life can be so beautiful in the ways you are led and the places you are led to find them. I stood with feet in the sand, a pack on my back, and a smile on my face as I looked up and down the beach knowing what was happening. The knowing seems even better then the happening. How many times in life does fate happen without the knowing of it. But to know that out there in the world beyond there is a grander plan and a bigger picture happening around us each and every day. A story being played out with threads finer and deeper then we could ever see. Though when we are blessed enough to se them unfolding before us on that golden road of life, that true fated road.....Well it's always a great reminder of how magical and beautiful life really is and that there's more to life then just what your told to do and believe. That life can be as great as you could ever dream it to be and most times far greater then even those dreams. I've always thought that view would or will sum up my wife where ever she is out there.......

Any how fate found us on the sands of palolem India and two days later a group of two grew to three with the arrival of Elizabeth bearing gifts and foods from home. The beach we stayed at was called Palolem beach. A crescent shaped beach of about 3/4 of a mile long and capped on each end with high jungly hills massive boulders that rolled and dotted out into the ocean. In between running the stretch of the whole beach was a thick unbroken wall of towering royal palms. there is no devolpment on the beach at all but hundreds of bamboo walled and palm thatched roofed bungalows on stilts lead back into the forests and town behind. everything where you walked for the next 2 weeks was in your barefeet more often then not. the beach itself had a few dozen traditional wooden fishing boats with a single pontoon lashed to the one side and usually fisherman casting nets or tourists off the other side to swim with the dolphins that swam and played every day along the coast. All day you would watch the boats being hauled in and out to the sea (rolled over grease slicked logs). There were countless dogs wandering and sleeping in groups up and down the beach as well as a single small herd of cattle that grouped every night at sun set and walked the beach being chased and harassed by all the dogs. There were no streets along the beach so there were was never any noise of any type of traffic. Just music from the restaurants and the sounds of the sea. The sun set on the Arabian Sea in front of our bungalows every night. The weather was perfect as well as the tempeture of the sea as well. Two weeks of sun, surf, and sand. Palolem had the right amount of quiet bungalow life and stretch of sand as well as a great night life and social scene.

the beach was ringed with a good 30 or more beach side restaurants and bars where you at tables with your toes in the sand and palmed shade above. There were also reataurants that served real mexican food or real burgers and steaks in town. It was a good break from all the spicey Indian cuisine. Most of the western disha were actually done right and each restaurant displayed huge icey trays of they're fresh seafood. Heaping mounds of massive tiger prawns (Very Big Shrimp), King fish (Look Like Barracuda), pomfrets (Like small halibut), Tuna (SOOO Good!), Baby sharks (hammerheads - sad), clams, mussels, crabs, and lobster all to be grilled in tandoori ovens and spiced to your choosing along with scewered pototoes, tomatoes, green beans, carrots, cauliflower, green or red peppers, Hot Chiles peppers, Onions and the like. Baskets of tandoori baked Naans and chapati (flat breads like thicker tortillas) brushed with garlic butter, stuffed with you choice of cheese to be melted, cloves of garlic or maybe shreeded cocunuts, As well as plates of fresh picked fruits from the the farms inland that produced local Cocunuts, pineapple, bannanas big and small, Papayas, mangos, and watermelon - apples, blueberries, and grapes or limes, oranges, lemons, clementines, Guava, pomegrantes, or grapefruit all squeezed for cocktails, a cool drink, a fruit salad or garnish for this that and everything else. We only found one bad restaurant on the beach in 2 and a half weeks of eating out which adds upto almost 50 meals with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. An average dinner with a few select choices of what fish, what vegetable, what kind of bread and fruit along with a few beers was under ten dollars usually around 5 dollars. The seafood plates were large silver platters with everything served on top of a thick green bannana leaf and little laterns on the corners made from carved tomatoes or green peppers carved to look like flowers opening in the morning but hollowed out inside with small lite candles within them. The dinners were savored and thought about each day waiting for the sun and the heat to recede. But the nights themselves on palolem offered something more then just dinner to look forward to each day.

I have always wanted to spend a new years and christmas in a tropical climate after having 28 of them in the snows of the north. Christmas to me is family but it is also a season and timer of year that I relate to with where I live globaly at the time of year. It is a time of cold, of snow, of long blue shadows during the day, longer nights and a thousand other details and feelings. Thats the way christmas always will be remembered for me but I just want the memeory of one spent somewhere so different from home. I also wanted to see something over christmas that I have only seen in pictures before. I wanted to see a palm tree with christmas lights instead of the pine trees at home that seem to represent winter more then any other tree in the great white north. They are also very symbolic for the druidic tradition of adorning them with lights and ornaments for christmas. There were a dozen or more palm trees lite up and down the stretch of the beach at night. Lights windings they're way high up the slender trunks and some thrown about in the thick green palms. Every restaurants interior and exterior was also wrapped with lights or mettalic frings and dressings blowing in the slight breeze at night. Every restaurant is open air and hanging from the bamboo raters are chinese paper lanterns illuminated in many different shapes of the moon, the sun, and especially the stars. Some lanterns were just oval and rectangular shaped lanterns with images or classical Indian or christmas scenes hand drawn on them or painted. but the way the winds would slightly blow them from side to side on the nights breeze. Shifting the lighting about over the tables and the sand along with the sounds of the palms slightly blowing on that same breeze as well. Each liitle detail made every night so dream like and comfortable. There wasn't any other place in the world I wanted to be. Not even home. Christmas lights adorned everything at night giving the beach a good festive holiday atmosphere and mood. It could of been a hard holiday and a time of lonliness instead of a time of Happiness.

Along with the christmas lights, the beach itself up and down was lined with a few hundred tables at night that were carried out onto the sands for dinner and illuminated with candles as well as bonfires set out between most tables. So the whole beach had a few hundred little candel lights illuminating people at dinner as well as the sillouhettes of those standing around the fires. But the skies above us were even more light then the sand below. We were they're for the full moon toward the end of our stay but the beginning of it the moon set early in the night on the arabian horizon in a blaze of orange. But the stars shone high and bright in the night sky with the lack of light pollution. Swimming at night under only the stars was an experience all its own. A very prayerful and peaceful one. With the exceptional stray thought of sharks that seemed to swim in and out of my imagination. phantoms in the night. ut one thing also illuminated the skies every night and especially on new years and christmas. Every night huge mortars were launched into the skies above to flower out into massive fireworks that would illuminate or mirror on the high tides below. The nightlife was always anticipated each day lolling about on the beach or in the sea.

Days were simple. Rising at whatever time you felt like it. Walking out in your bathing suit, sunglasses, sarong, and your beach bag ( water - books - journal - gum - sunscreen - and a treat). you walk through the palm shaded sands in your bare feet to have breakfast ( Two eggs fried both sides, two pieces of toast - Bannana Lassi or fresh pine apple juice - some fruit papaya or bannana - and maybe a coffie. Then you walk out to find a open beach umbrella with 3 beach chairs and spend 4 or more hours there. In between walking out to cool yourself in the sea from the heat (85)under a cloudless sky ( I never saw one cloud in 17 days at Palolem). Then walk to Cubas Restaurant and lay back in a bean bag with low asian style tables and enjoy some good food and a few cold kingfisher beers and usually meet up with your friends. Spend lunch talking and sharing stories together. Then jump in the ocean once more before going back for some reading and a hammick siesta on your bungalow porch. Wake and walk the beach at sunset listening to your Ipod and clicking off a few picts as you walk the tidal lines. Go back to the Bungalow and put on a dinner shirt and a pair of slacks and meet with your group of friends for dinner at 7. Walk the beach all lite up with lights at night in your bare feet with the sounds of the waves rolling in and laghter among freinds. You find the restaurant you want enjoying a great meal (the food there was great) for about 2 hours and then mozy on down the beach to cafe del mar for a late night of drinks and some sheesha from a huka till the wee hours of the morning before you say your goodbyes and hugs goodnight and setting back home through the sands till you reach your bungalow and fall asleep to the lulling sounds of the Arabian sea rolling back and fourth where the water meets the sand in a conversation that started as the first whispers of life and living.

Then you wake and start the day once more. How I came to love India over those days on the beaches of Palolem.

India From Delhi to Bombay

INDIA! - Good Golly! ..... The very word itself - "India" seems to spring from my mouth in only two ways. There is either a joyful proclamation with hands flung in the air with praise. For the Magic, the culture, the craft, the history, and so many places you could only find in India and no where else in the world. Or the the word "India!" rolls out of your throat like you just swallowed a dead bird. The congestion, the crowds, the worst hygene, the stares, the long lines, all the haggeling, all the cheats, and the men.....oooh tut tut tut tut tut!!! We won't go there. But my first word of advice to all and to any who decide that they want to go to India. Is "Trust no one!" No matter what they tell you, no matter how friendly, it is all a matter of finding a way to get those American dollars into they're pockets. As many as they can get. I know it sounds mean. But I have only met one guy on a packed bus on a dusty road who wanted to talk for the sake of it. They say you either love india or Hate India. I've been In India for 6 weeks now. 3 of those I loved it and would proclaim it as three of the best weeks I have had travelling and for the people I met along the way. But the other 3.........Was by and large the hardest travelling I have ever had anywhere anytime hands down. I can't think of one place that could come close. If anything i'm earning my world traveler stripes over here.

How to Sum up the first 3 weeks in a fun way. Day 1. - our introduction to India. Me and shell arrive at the airport after flying Jet Airways again. Now my favorite airline in the world. for 2 reasons. One our flight was only 1 hour long and we were served a full meal - tea - snacks - and a cool wet towel to wipe your hands and face with. I've taken 4 hour flights back home and all i got was a bag of pretzels and a small cup of sprite. the second reason for jet airways is all the Hieneken you can drink....cool condensation streaming can by can......SO! we get to the airport where we had a fun 11 hour lay over 6 weeks previouse, we fly through customs, we get our bags walk out the door to a pre paid taxi driver so we don't get ripped of(The cars are old vintage mobster cars from the 50s) and head out to the Main Bazaar in Paragange Delhi by the rail station. A place I would later rename "The piss hole of India" All seems fine, they know where to go, which hotel, life is easy and in the fast lane. Quite literally! Some guys pissed off out turban wearing cabbie and he started speeding and chasing them through the streets like a bat out of hell...even after they turned off he took out his vengence on every other pedestrian and driver out there....Welcome to India. The main Bazaar where we stayed was every bit of India but mostly the bad bits which mad it a good bit to experience if you understood that little bit at all.

The streets were narrow and very congested. Thousands of people walking and selling they're wares ( it feels like you are walking through a mid evil village a few hundred years ago with everything and every slogan they yell and sell......"Tin shop....you need metal work done Sir!...TAke a look at my fine collection of belt buckles here my friend....A green shawl for you miss perhaps a beautifull sari...You look thirsty Sir.....I like the look of you ,,for you special price for this monkey leash...Where are you from...Excuse me sir...What is your name...Hello..and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and aaaawwwwwwww IIIINNNNDIIIIIIAAA!!!!!!!!! but usually with a bad word or two yelled before it. But listening is fun even if it is crazy. But the vendors are just one part along with bicycle rickshaws - auto rickshaws - waterbuffalo pulled carts - Elephants - and quite literally a whole herd of cattle mozying up and down the streets eating trash or sleeping to they're hearts content where ever they felt like sleeping. which more often then not seems to be the middle of the road. (this is all over India by the way....cows are worshiped and they Know it, not to say they are smarter then the cows we have back home but they do seem to carry themselves a little more proudly and haughtily as well) I never really thought there were any wild cows left in the world till I walked the streets of Paragangh Delhi. The reason it is aptly named the Piss hole of India, is because of the livestock and human refuge and fieces everywhere. The streets are paved but there are no street cleaners and there are no garbages anywhere. So it all goes to the street. It can be a muddy cakey mess of this that and everything else. the first day we ate at a street side restaurant but the amount of smell and exhaust that was pooring in took the appetite from you. From there on we ate top side on the rooftops of Delhi. Which will remain as my favorite memories of delhi. All the roof top meals looking out on the city. Listening to muslims being called to prayer, the sun sets that you can only see in India. A huge hazy red sphere setting on the heat of the city with the all the sillouhttes of childrens kites flying high, pigeons and a hawk like bird that numbered in the hundreds sometimes that fought ariel battles all day long, and all the adobe buildings, minarettes, and mosques that made up the horizon. There was also one great night on a rooftop in Delhi watching a big Golden Full moon rising over the city.

We spent 2 weeks in Rajasthan on a marathon. (Know more Rhyming now I mean it.....) We saw palaces and forts, forgotten cities and maharajas castles, great empires that long ago vanished leaving so much behind. The deserts of Rajasthan are littered with them. Most sitting all alone as you pass by staring out bus windows. We stayed in towns large and small and all of them Ancient desert Kingdoms. Visiting bazaares and Markets that had been run by the same famalies for generations. There was so much and so much more we should have seen. The hand made crafts and textiles were unlike any i had ever seen anywhere in the world. Elephants, turbans, twisted mustaches, tikas (red spot of forehead), Camels everywhere and they are big, colorful saris of everye hue that women wore, pottery, craft and endless deserts filled with history. But it was also the hardest travelling I have ever had. So after Our friend Andrew flew back home to the states we bought the first ticket out of town to Bombay. And me still for the first time saying about any place i have ever been too.."I hope I never have to return to delhi aka Hell on earth!"

Although one last story of Rajasthan should be relayed. We went to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The biggest symbol of ever lasting love in the world as well as perhaps the most beautiful piece of architeture ever dreamed and ever built. The TAJ MAhAL. You see pictures of this place as a little kid. And everyone wants to see the TAJ. And to be honest it wasn't really high on my list to see. In fact I never really thought I would see it.......It was Amazing and I was very glad that i did see it. It would be strage to travel all of India but to neversee the symbol of it. It would be like going to Nepal but never seeing Everest. And I was glad to add another check to the list of life. It is something you just have to see. It is very magical and some how other worldly. When you go to walk up on the Taj itself you have to leave your shoes behind. Something I have come to admire about muslims. Some how I feel a little closer to the world and a little closer to god above with my feet on the ground. We walked around the out side marveling at the beauty of it. Went in to see the crypts and so much more. The outside has the indented alcoves that you can sit up in away from the sun. So we did. Sitting up on the white marble we talked of the beauty of the Taj Mahal and what in the world could realy come close to it. Was there any thing more beautiful in the world. The Taj Mahal this and The Taj Mahal that and then it just slipped out on its own accord. I suppose there was something I could have done about it. But it's only natural.............So I farted on the Taj Mahal!!!!! And proclaimed it so to Andrew and Michelle. Here we were having a conversation of the most beautiful thing in the world and it had to end like that. Maybe it's a bragging point I don't know. But Andrew semed to thing it was the best and funniest thing that ever happened in India. And from that day fourth if you had to let one loose it was called "dropping a Taj."

One paragrapgh on Bombay. Michelle arrived shoeless. On our 26 hour long train ride from Delhi to Bombay. A turban wearing thief with a strange obsession for womens flip flops stole off into the foggy dawn with them. some weeks later me and shell had our shoes stolen off the porch of our bungalow as well.....strange. Bombay! 2 days there but I liked it quite a bit. Aside form the hundred or so mums all toting babies asking for money for food. You help a few but you can't help them all. And it just hurts to jkeep saying NO! all day long. But there were good things in Bombay. It was very hot for a change, a change we were looking for. And the city itself is very clean and very cosmopolitan. It is also along the coast and on the Arabian sea. We had our western day there. Mcdonalds - then a james Bond movie - then some pizza hut followed cappucianos at a nice cafe. (That day in a taxi out driver ran right into a guy bicyling and of all the things to have he had a huge box full of glass bottles weel you can see the outcome and so did our driver......he just kept driving...the guy was alright but broken bottles littered the street along with a mangled bike!) We ate at the world famouse Leopolds restaurant several times and celebrated michelles 21st birthday......Kind of. The day she would turn 21 at midnight we went out to a swanky night club that was packed with people, Drinks, smoke, and loud music. Michelle claims I gave her to much to drink....I just claim that she passed her 21st intiation rights when she got rid of those drinks in the hostel bathroom a few hours later. The night of her birthday/hangover day we caught a bus south. I wish we had a few more days...we could have been in a bollywood film. I guess that check on the list of life will have to wait. And so we headed south along the coast for the holidays and place where fate was waiting.

Well that's all I will report for today. Sorry it took so long. I was without a working lap top for awhile but thanks to Cousin Dan(especially dan the man!) but also the efforts and kindnesses of- Leah - Casey - and uncle Pat (Who I am supposed to be meeting here in Cochin today or tommorow hopefully) So I have a spanking new flashy lap top. I don't quite feel worthy of how nice this thing is. Like It has expectations of how I should dress or what I should drive. The best christams present i could have got. Any how hopefully tomorrow I can finish up on the last three weeks on the beaches of Goa and the lost City of Hampi. The best of the 3 weeks in India. I will get picts posted as soon as I can. Wi-fi can be very hard to find. I love and miss you all. And we'll be in touch. From the Kerelan coast of southwest India - Jeremy.