The real staff tells me that almost all of the cleanup and initial rebuilding is done. They are now focusing on trying to get long-term community centers/schools/trade shops built to serve as many of the effected villages as possible. Still early in the planning phase, there won't be any hammers being lifted to construct them any time soon.

Retish - I'm certain I just massacred the spelling of that - says what the villages really need pronto are boats. Without boats the villagers can't fish and subsist. Costing roughly $2000 U.S. each, the villagers, who have nothing now, can't afforad them, and their fishing method involves needing at least seven boats for a succesful fishing. This means they need to scrounge up at least $14,000 to re-establish their fleet. In turn, many of them are already abadoning the coast and their traditional way of life for inland territories. Sadly, this is opening the coastline to what some undoubtedly dream will be a resort-building boom.

AID India has given one boat, but because boats are such a precious commodity, boats have become a political hot potato that status and publicity-seeking NGO (aid organizations) are battling over to give. The scenario goes something like this: give a boat, get a picture, post in on your website, say, "Hey, look what we did!" to gather more donations and then disappear. NGOs scratching and fighting for contributions is an ugly sight. Plus, the battle only serves to delay the immediate help these areas need, and AID India is hestitant to get inolved any further.

I am somewhat disappointed that it does not appear I will be immediately getting to the tsunami-effected areas to help - and Retish assures me that help is still needed despite what the heads of any organization says - but there is plenty of non-tsunami related help needed right here in Chennai.

Last night, he and I went to what he terms a "nice" slum to help a group of children with their English - call it after-school tutoring. Their ages ranged from seven to fifteen, and their English at all levels was already surprisingly good considering the dirt and dank circumstances surrounding them. Holding class on a roof top that later served as the stage for an evening mass, we reviewed proper pronunciation and word meanings, clauses and tenses, much of which I had to review and refresh my own memory about. Conjugate the following word as a present past imperfect perfect participle without using "by," or something like that. I just wanted to go, "Look, knowing the name of the tenses is about as useful as having a can opener on a deserted island without any cans of food. Just say it like this..." However, they have to take tests that use these terms - what I've always considered ridiculous and confusing labels - so we practiced them in all their ridiculous and confusing glory.

After all, their ability to read and write English could well be their ticket out of the slum. They certainly won't escape it without being able to speak it. The earnestness with which they want to learn was refreshing and endearing given the - warning: stereotype alert - apparent lazy and apathetic attitude so many kids in the United States seem to possess.

I plan to return there tonight to give another lesson and provide some entertainment with my guitar, with my amazing ability to pronounce their names completely wrong - which they find never-ending amusement in - and for simply being the white-skinned, blond-haired guy.

On the way back to my hotel, I discover that the self-declared biggest and best Christian in the world drives a motorized rickshaw in Chennai. He is certain that Jesus' return is right around the corner, and has a preference for singing Christian tunes that are barely audible over the cacophony of cars, trucks, horns, bikes, people, and other rickshaws buzzing us less than a half-foot away. By the time we reached my hotel, my own rather weak faith in Jesus had strengthened considerably, because it was a miracle we'd made it back to the hotel alive.

To contribute to AID India, who are definitely involved in the recovery effort for the long haul, go to www.aidindia.org.

March 19, 2005 - Mamallapuram

The past five days I have been in India have felt like months. I am dirty and tired, but, unfortunately, this is not from doing any substantial work helping with the tsunami recovery.

A common component of Indian culture is to tell you what they think you want to hear instead of what might be the truth. It appears that my Internet AID India contact, Vivek, whom I apparently will never meet, did just that when he told me that, “Yes! We need your help.”

After spending most of two days hanging around the AID India offices in Chennai as they tried to figure out what to do with me, I was pawned off on Mano, who coordinates an AID India office just south of the city in Kelumbakkam. He is the point man for getting aid to the many villages that dot the coastline and were affected by the tsunami. “Perfect,” I thought, when they said I should accompany him. “I should be able to get down and dirty there.” Dirty, I got. Down, I did not.

The main problem is that I have arrived during a lull in the recovery effort. The initial cleanup and building of temporary shelters has been completed, but the long-term rebuilding has yet to start. Instead, much of the time is spent accessing long-term needs and coordinating the best way to address those needs. In other words, there’s a lot of talking being done – talking in the Tamil language, a language that even most Indians from the rest of the country don’t understand.

In turn, I have been tagging along, sitting, smiling when it seems appropriate and feeling guilty about eating the food the villagers foist on us as our gracious hosts – food that they could certainly use more. I cause distractions and questions and suspicions, and waste Mano’s time as they talk about what I’m doing there instead of how to get the aid they need. On the plus side, the children find me very entertaining, and I can only hope that has some value.

There are also intriguing politics at play in the recovery. The villages that we’ve visited, while still needing help, are doing OK and many have the boats and nets they need to get their lives going again. Yet, they don’t want to use the boats and nets – or at least be seen using them – fearing that their flow of aid from the government and NGOs will stop. In addition, there is no documentation or coordination of what one NGO is doing versus another one. The villages give a list of what they need to each one in hopes that they will receive duplicate supplies. While I understand their desire to get what they can in light of their meager incomes, this has been disheartening to see, especially when I have heard of other villages further down the coastline who have just received their first emergency supply of rice.

As much as I would like to get to one of those villages further down the coast to help, the language barrier and difficulty of coordinating with a different NGO while I am actually here in India deems it nearly impossible. Still, I will dig around though and see what I might be able to do.

In the meantime, I have said goodbye to AID India and Mano. I was simply too much of a distraction and extra burden, something I was hoping to avoid by having coordinated with an organization like AID India before I came over. Damn.

For now, I have traveled further south to Mamallapuram. I plan to spend a day here, and see if I can hook up with another organization. If not, I’ll head south again to Pondicherry. If nothing fruitful evolves there I will head back to Chennai and home.

March 20, 2005 – Mamallapuram
Getting Naked

Confession time. There is another reason I despairingly left Mano and AID India. Compared to being a distraction, burden and getting in the way of Mano and his work, it is very minor, but I have to admit that it didn’t play a role in my decision. The reason: I NEEDED to sleep in the nude. I didn’t think Mano, sleeping mere feet from me, would enjoy having a close encounter with my bare bum. In fact, I’m certain he would not have enjoyed it because of the state of my bum, as well as my whole torso/groin area, which is has been covered with a fiery, itchy, nearly-bringing-tears rash for almost a week.

Now, hold on, before your mind slides down into the gutter and thinks that I’ve been up to some unhygienic hanky-panky or anything of that sort, the culprit is an insecticide I sprayed on my clothes called Permethrin. It’s something the travel doctor I visited in Boulder before the trip recommended, and you can buy it in any outdoors store.

You spray this gunk on your clothes and it stuns or kills any bugs – especially malaria-loving mosquitoes – that land on it for up to a month. I, of course, diligently sprayed all my clothes with this toxic cocktail only to find shortly after I headed into the field here in India that the stuff wants to kill me too. All the close-to-my-skin contacts points of my clothes erupted in a variety of lovely shades from deep pink to blood red. This means specifically my neck, my armpits, and my whole butt/torso/groin area – and I’m talking my WHOLE groin area. Without a doctor or pharmacy, the past week has been a trial of self-control in not itching, one that I have failed in miserably.

Thankfully, here in Mamallapuram the pharmacist was able to give me some sort of topical cream. He also gave me some pills called Cetrimaxx. He said they were antihistamines. A quick, post-purchase Google search informed me that, instead, they are some sort of diet pills. Excellent. Just what I need to do, lose weight. At least the cream seems to be helping and both the itch and color of rash has lessened one degree.

Meanwhile, I’ve had to ditch all the Permethrin-coated clothes I had bought for the trip and buy a whole new wardrobe. In addition, a quick Google search on Permethrin reveals it has been declared a carcinogenic for causing liver and lung tumors in mice. And the hits just keep on coming.

As for Mamallapuram, it has amazing ancient temples carved straight into the rock hillsides, as well as whole enormous rocks carved into monuments. Also, new opportunities to help are revealing themselves. A random meeting with an Italian named Paolo in a sculptor’s studio will be taking me to the local orphanage he has been involved with for the past year.

Till next time, thanks for reading.

March 22, 2005 - Pondicherry

Bare feet and broken glass don't mix, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

I spent yesterday afternoon at the orphanage with which Paolo works. Tears well up thinking about it now.

Thirty-three kids ages 3 to 15, one big mama in charge, and two assistants/teachers, one of whom is an orphan herself. On the upside, these kids do go to the local school. On one of the many downsides, they come home to bare concrete floors on which they have more lessons, pray and sleep, as well as an outdoor play area comprised of dirt, rubble, glass, and a large trash pit in the back corner. Most of their parents have either abandoned them or were so poor that they knew their children would have a better life, more food in their bellies, and an education if they were given up to the orphanage. Truly heartbreaking.

Still, they would each erupt with a sunburst's amount of joy from simply being picked up and spun around. My lunch almost erupted from my mouth from doing all the spinning.

A half hour's play was followed by evening lessons. Wrangeling a group of five, we worked on their English as much as my inability to speak in Tamil and their determined desire to play with the light on my watch would allow. It helped that I had brought some AID India brochures that explained how a tsunami happens in Enlgish and Tamil. Some of the kids were very quick to learn and attentive. Others feel asleep sitting up against the concrete wall.

It hurt to leave them. I can't help question if my short time there was at all useful to them, or if I become yet another person who briefly appears in their lives only vanish like so many others have before. Or, maybe traveling solo is causing me to spend too much time inside my own head.

With this to ponder, I then lost almost an entire day trying to extract myself from Mamallapuram. The town has that certain type of vibe that sucks people in for longer than they intend, which explains the numerous shaggy and tan ex-pats sipping chai and playing chess in the restaurants.

The vibe, as enticing as it was, wasn't what kept me in Mamallapuram though. It was money. A couple expensive purchases - at least expensive by Indian standards, and in comparison to the amount of rupees I had in my pocket - prohibited me from leaving. The problem: to use a credit card in a small town like this you have to draw against it at a money exchange. That works fine except when the phone company decides to go on a random strike for two days so the credit card information can't be transmitted.

As a last resort before Mamallapuram completely sucked me in, I took a 30K roundtrip ride on a motorized rickshaw to the closest ATM. Located in the middle of a surreal town comprised entirely of chemical plants, the ATM had it's own 85-year-old security guard sleeping outside. He, along with the rickshaw driver and an employee of the sculptor I owed money had sent along to make sure I made it back alive, where all too happy to watch from three feet away as I withdrew considerable rupee coinage. They seemed perfectly at ease. I was certain the old security guard was going to jump me at any second. He must not have napped long enough though, because he didn't even move when I left.

Sculptor's bill paid, I caught the bus to Pondicherry. It cost about 75 cents to go fifty miles, which is really too expensive once you figure in the Indian musical that was blaring from the TV screen at volume 11.

Pondicherry was once a French colony town and it's architecture is a strange mix of French meets communist concrete meets lack of upkeep. It's also home to a famous ashram founded, in part, by someone referred to as The Mother, and a neighboring town called Auroville, an experiment of unique social structure and "forward" thinking.

If you hear I've shaved my head and joined a cult, you may want to look for me here.

Over and out.

March 24, 2005 – Pondicherry/Auroville

“Why do you need to build a huge, artificial structure all covered with gold to meditate in,” says the Indian man to my right says to our guide. “I can go under a tree or by the sea or on top of a mountain to meditate, and I think that is the much better way.”

I have to agree with him, and the guide evades answering by saying, "Yes. Yes. OK. That is your opinion and it is your right to think that. I am not going to argue with you. Next question."

I’m the lone white guy sitting among a group of Indian tourists staring at the four-story high, globe-shaped Matrimandir. To picture the Matrimandir – Mother’s Temple – think Epcot Center covered in gold disks. The temple contains a large, round, glass crystal inside that a single ray of the sun’s light hits throughout the day. It is the central meditation sight and spiritual hub of Auroville.

Auroville, roughly translated, means, “place of rich, idealistic foreigners.” The town sits on the outskirts of Pondicherry and was founded in 1968 by a French ex-pat referred to only as The Mother. The goal of Auroville is to put humankind’s progress before all individual desires and passions, to put individual worth before dollar worth, to recognize the divine in all creatures, and, ultimately, achieve human unity through spirituality.

It sounds great. The goals are certainly commendable. In all honesty, I was hoping to find a little spirituality and nuggets of truth here myself. Instead, something about it all makes my skin itch. And this itch isn’t because of the rash that plagued me the first week of my trip. Thankfully, that has all but disappeared.

In addition to my hope of tapping into some spirituality, I had also considered seeing if Auroville needed any help with tsunami relief work. I know the town’s residents have been involved in assisting the local villages in their recovery. But, I decide not to inquire about it because I’d prefer to not spend any more time here than necessary. Most of the residents I see have a pensive, burnt-out look on their faces. It’s disconcerting. Then again, maybe their looks and the place’s vibe is just because most of them are French.

A fellow, lone traveler I met at Auroville, Simar, agrees with my assessment and thinks my frank, American opinion is cool. She says, “Europeans, even if they thought it was all rubbish, would still say they thought it was nice.”

Simar is an Indian anomaly – a female in her early twenties traveling around India alone. She says other Indians are constantly shocked about her solo status, and she doesn’t dare to tell her parents. “First, they would have heart attacks,” she says. “And if that didn’t kill them, next they’d disown me.”

I am grateful our paths crossed for those couples hours at Auroville as well as dinner that night. It was a relief to talk to be able to talk to someone who wasn’t trying to sell me something.

She left Pondicherry that night on a seven-hour, all-night bus ride to Bangalore. Seven hours on a crowded bus that make Greyhound look like a Four Seasons on wheel. Ouch.

My next stop is inland – Tiruvannamalai. There is an ashram there I’ve been told I should check out.

March 24, 2005, 8:30 PM - Tiruvannamalai

This just in...

Arrived in Tiruvannamalai by train to discover there is a festival tonight. It's is in honor of the Hindu god Shiva. Shiva means many different things, but here he particularly represents fire - it's intense light illuminating and destroying the darkness of evil and ignorance. The festival starts at 3 AM and involves a 14K walk around the mountain that the town backs up too. This mountain also happens to mark the site where Shiva appeared as a column of fire, creating the original symbol of lingam. (For those who don't know what is I'll explain in my next post. Not enough time now.)

Not to psyched about the other 50,000 people who will be joining me on the walk tonight, but I can't even imagine what this experience is going to be like.

Be sure to tune back tomorrow to find out.

March 25, 2005 – Tiruvannamalai

Question: What do you do when you see an elderly man dragging himself across the street by his hands?

Answer: Feel your heart break a little bit and walk on by.

The number of homeless and handicap here in Tiruvannamalai is overwhelming. They are in every town of course, but I think the monthly, full-moon festival I took part in last night gives them extra incentive to reside here. The Hindu festival and the mass of people who participate in it each month provide a chance for the destitute to collect a few extra rupees every thirty days.

I’ve read that the Hinduism, which is the overwhelming religion of choice here, helps put believers’ mind and hearts at ease when it comes to the homeless and poor. The Hindu concept of reincarnation – to put it in very simple terms – means that the destitute are either paying for past wrongs or have to survive in this state before reaching the next one. For a white, non-Hindu guy like me it feels cold and wrong to turn a blind eye. Yet, it would be impossible to help all of them. I give a rupee here or a pen to a child there whenever I can. And, even though the idea of reincarnation and I don’t mix, I wish for them to return one or two or ten steps up on the livelihood ladder the next time around.

“Festival” is something of a misnomer for what went down last night. Starting at 3 AM, 50,000 of my closest friends and I walked around the 14 kilometer base of the mountain towering over Tiruvannamalai. Every couple hundred yards there was a shrine or small temple that people would pray at and circle. I circled a few as well just to get a feel for their devotion, but after that I stayed out of the way.

In addition to the shrines and poor asking for alms along the way, there were also people selling: fresh lemon soda, coffee, tea, popcorn, watermelon, devotional tapes and CDs, sweets, potato chips, hand-carved rolling pins, cheap handbags, phallic-shaped balloons, potatoes, white cubes of ignitable gel for adding to the fires that marked each shrine, sugar cane juice and more. There was also one section of fortune-tellers – their cards and caged birds set out before them – that tempted me to sit for a telling. Certain they would not know English, I kept on walking.

At one point, there was a small, rocky hillside people were placing lit wicks that were soaking in little, clay vases full of something flammable. The flames made the hillside appear to be dotted with stars. I decided to light one myself and with that flame sent wishes of love and grace back to all of you in the States.

Almost three-and-a-half hours later, I finished the circuit. With the exception of the busses and trucks that would buzz through the crowd at 25 mph with their air-horns blaring, it was a meditative experience.

Reaching my hotel as dawn broke, my legs were wobbly and my flip flops were at the point of blowing out. Still, my flip flops made me the wuss in the crowd with the soft American feet. Everyone else – kids, elderly, chunky and thin – did it barefoot.

[I said I would explain the lingum in my previous post. It is a phallic symbol representing the male. It is usually paired with the yoni, which symbolizes the vulva, to – I think – represent the balance of male and female within all of us.]

March 28, 2005 – Tiruvannamalai

There really are gurus who sit on top of a mountain and meditate for years. I know because yesterday one farted in my general direction. They call him Baba. He’s been chilling at the top of the mountain that rises from Tiruvannamalai for the past sixteen years. He spent the first eight years sitting cross-legged. Then, just to spice things up, he switched to a squatting position for the last eight years. Each morning he takes his one meal for the day – a cup of milk, a cup of water, a cup of herbal tea, a pinch of sugar and a small ball of brown chili. Maybe it’s the milk. Maybe it’s the chili. Who knows for certain, but something in that mix gives him the occasional toots.

I hadn’t planned on being in Baba’s presence when the 73-year-old let loose. My only intention in making the 2,000-foot climb to the summit was I thought it’d be a good place to meditate; someplace with a great view where I wouldn’t be able to hear the constant blare of car horns.

Instead, as I began the climb at 5:30 AM to beat the heat, I ran into Sankar. Sankar, after showing me a shortcut, immediately introduced himself as one of Baba’s servants. Baba has a cadre of help to keep him and the people who climb the mountain to get his blessings feed and hydrated. For my part, I realized the moment I shook Sankar’s hand that I had just “hired” a guide, and he would be expecting some rupees in the pocket when we parted ways later.

I didn’t mind. Sankar was an enjoyable climbing partner and obviously cared about my safety, the safety of others we came across, and was very devoted to his religion and to Baba. In addition to filling me on all things Baba, he also described what being Baba’s servant entails. As a servant, Sankar, now 54, has been hauling supplies up the mountain for the past 13 years. Three days a week he makes two trips that start at 3 AM – one with milk, one with water. Three other days he makes only one trip with water. Baba gives him Tuesday off.

When we reached the top, there was a hut of plastic tarps and palm leaves being whipped around by the wind. Baba was somewhere inside and about twelve people are lined up outside to see him. Sankar instructed me to get in line. Um…O.K., sure. I was up for whatever might happen. “Where are you from,” asked an Indian next to me. “America,” I said.

He said, “Amirica. You are very lucky to be here. I am Indian and this is the first time I am fortunate enough to be blessed by Baba.” Then the ceremony commenced. We were ushered through the plastic tarps and following the leads of others, I bent down to the ground and got up and left as my forehead was marked with white powder. No Baba sighting yet, but I would get my chance.

Then there were prays said and a giving of Baba-blessed beverages – multiple cups of tea and herbal water. This included the tea grounds. “Yes, yes. Eat the grounds. Very powerful,” said Sankar. Eating tea grounds is like eating pebble-sized, brown-gunk sponges. Edible, but I don’t plan on making it a habit.

Following the drinks there was a procession around a Shiva-specific spot on the mountain, and another that made multiple passes through Baba’s tent. And that’s when I got a glimpse of Baba squatting inside his 3x2-foot rectangle of plastic like an icon in a shrine’s alcove. He had a short gray beard and, not too surprisingly, rail thin.

Again, following the others’ lead I knelt and bowed, and that’s when Baba honked his own horn. I believe this is his special blessing reserved for those who are as obviously auspicious as myself.

All jokes aside, I’ll take all the blessings I can get. And, I certainly mean no disrespect to Baba, Sankar and the rest of the mountain crew. Their devotion and commitment is inspiring. Yet, while I’m certain it all would have been much more meaningful if I had known exactly what was going on and being said, I still found meditating alone on the mountaintop afterwards a much deeper experience.

Back down in Tiruvannamalai, just when I thought it was safe to go back into the orphanage, it turned around and bit me in the ass. I went to an “orphanage” yesterday that I saw advertised at an Internet café. The last line of the advertisement was, “Ask here what you can do to help.” So I did.

The “orphanage” has 24 kids from four to twelve. I spent an hour there working on English and playing songs on my guitar – they particularly liked singing along with the “ABC” song. The man who ran it, Raja, told me how all the children were abandoned or gypsy children. He had gathered from mountain villages which had no schools or medical services. I immediately started thinking of if I could buy them rice for at least a week’s worth of meals.

Only after I left did discover Raja’s story wasn’t quite accurate. A few questions here and there turned up that he’s basically a business man, using the “orphanage” to make money. Before he got into the “orphanage” racket, he sold used rickshaws or something like that. With the exception of maybe a few kids, most of the children belong to relatives. And, despite his claim of never having enough money, word on the street has him quoted as saying, “I can’t go to sleep at night if I have less than 50,000 rupees in my pocket.” He is also currently bankrolled by some Swiss lady.

It pretty much doesn’t get any uglier than this. And, looking back, it was obvious that he maintained an unnatural distance from these children that he said he cared so much about.

I was torn about whether to go back or not. The children should not be punished for Raja’s lies. Yet, taking consolation in knowing there is a Swiss supporter, I’ve decided to try to see if I can be of more use somewhere else during the final days I have left in India.

There are so many people here who are just out to make a rupee anyway they can. Seeing the poverty, I can certainly understand. Yet, it is discouraging too and exposes how base and manipulative humans can be. There are good people with good hearts here though. I have found a few. They are diamonds hidden in the dirt.

March 31, 2005 – Tiruvannamalai

The French expat meditation master who had introduced himself with smart-ass cracks about my American nationality couldn’t help smirking. We were on the rooftop of our guest house. My taxi to the airport and then America was picking me up in a half hour. The sunset was reflecting off his thin, bare chest, his flowing, white cotton pants, his shaved head, and the yellow tint of his Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses. He was smirking due to my answer to his question on why I’d come to India.

I said, “My original intention of coming to India had been to help the AID India organization with tsunami relief, but I quickly realized they don’t need my help.”

I never caught his name so I’ll call him Pierre Louis Vuitton Antoinette. Pierre Louis Vuitton Antoinette, who has been a spiritual seeker living in India for the past 20 years, said, “You realized in a few days what takes most people a couple years to figure out. They all think, ‘Oh, look at these poor people. We must help them.’ But, you are right. They [Indians] don’t need or want your help. They want your money, yes. But, they don’t want your help – not with the tsunami or anything else. They love this chaos. This way of life. It is good for you to have figured it out so quickly.”

And with that we parted ways.

It was by complete chance that we were on the rooftop at the same time and talking. Our paths had crossed numerous times in the previous days without us exchanging a word. Yet, in our brief conversation, he affirmed much of what I’d realized during my trip, as well as easing – though not erasing – the guilt I had about not being able to do more to help. I was grateful for his words of wisdom, even if he delivered them in his blunt, French way.

Now, all I had to do was make it to the airport alive.

Forget spending time in an ashram to focus on meditating, staying relaxed and centered, living in the moment and letting go. Sitting cross-legged on the floor in a quiet room turns out to be the difficult way to master all these techniques. Sitting in the back of an Indian taxi at night, on the other hand, forces you to master them. Because, if you can’t stay relaxed and centered and live in the moment and let go of the notion that you have any control over whether you are about to live or die while you are sitting in back of an Indian taxi at night, then you will probably go insane.

Two lane roads are used as if there are four lanes. Cars and trucks have no taillights, no brakelights. Horns honk and honk and honk. Shadowy pedestrians run in between the speeding traffic. People on bikes materialize out of the darkness like apparitions. Over-sized buses bear down on sub-compact taxis at 120 kilometers per hour. Ox-pulled wagons loaded with towering stacks of hay and random cows mosey along with absolutely no lights or reflectors. Traffic comes at you with their brights blasting and blinding. And, to cap it all off, your taxi driver is dozing off at the wheel.

Three hours of forced meditation later, if you make it to your destination still breathing, you won’t be able to help but think there must be some larger purpose for which you are still alive.

Then, as you get lost within the chaotic airport crowd only to have your driver track you down and hand back your digital camera – the one that contains all the photos from your trip that had slipped out of your pocket while “meditating” during the drive – you’ll be able leave India thankful for having found one more trustworthy soul in the world.

Sidenotes:

People have been asking about the food. It’s all about the rice. All truly south Indian food seemed to be rice-based in either straight rice, pancake or some sort of doughy form. Mix in various curries and spices and – shazaam! – that’s your meal. Very good and in Tamil Nadu, the Indian state I was in, the authentic way to eat it is with your hands. Messy but fun.

Others have asked about the lodging. The nicest place I stayed was a hotel in Chennai the first two nights that cost about $30 a night, which is considered on the higher end of accommodations in India. It was Westernized in that it had a shower and bathtub, occasional hot water and toilet paper. After that, with the exception of staying in the AID India guy’s house, I stayed in mid-priced hotels and low-priced guest houses. Mid-priced meant the place cost about $8-12 a night. Low-priced meant the cost was $2-4 a night. And I found that the extra money for the mid-priced wasn’t justified. I could find a leaky or hole-in-the-ground toilet and the locally preferred bucket bath setup – take bucket, fill with water, pour over head – in a low-priced place that was just as nice as those in the mid-priced places.

April 1, 2005 – Boulder, Colorado

Home. Clean. Orderly. Quiet. Hot Shower. Soft Towel. Cozy bed. Pizza! Ahh.