Currently I'm at an internet cafe waiting for our overnight bus to Bangalore, then from there onto Hampi. We were thinking about seeing Mysore, but there seemed little of interest, so we're probably going to skip it.
Sadly, this internet cafe is not as good as the one in Chennai, so I'm not going to be able to put up pictures. Sorry. There will be pictures up on flickr, though, and not all of them. Speaking of flickr, I said that there would be new pictures from China last post, and it turns out that we had already uploaded them somehow, so I was lying. Sorry.
So, here's my impression of India so far, though bear in mind that it has only been eight days.
India is pretty good. The people are really friendly and nice. I had heard before coming here that the people can really get on your nerves with staring, but I haven't really been bothered by it or found it too infuriating. Usually if someone stares, Shiz or I just say hi and start a conversation. We found that much more enjoyable than staring back or trying to ignore them. Sometimes we're not in the mood, of course, but usually we are.
The food is good, but most everything has curry powder in it. We don't have the cash to eat fancy-pants Indian food, so we stick to cheap restuarants and street food. It's good, but not too inventive. There are wonderful and cheap fruit shakes, though, which are godsend on these hot, hot days.
People and food aside, this place is dirty. Cambodia was slightly dirtier but I still need a shower after four hours outside. The heat makes me sweat and that makes the dirt stick more, so nightly showers are a must. More than the heat, however, is the smell. Everywhere in India smells like a port-o-pottie. It's inescapable and I think of when I worked in a bakery and got used to smelling like freshly baked bread. I thought it a shame to get used to smelling like something so wonderful, so I imagine that the Indians don't really realize how horrible the country smells. Shiz and I are thinking that we might get to Egypt and go "Ah! Fresh air!" in Cairo of all places.
We're only here for amonth, so we can deal with smells and dirt. What makes it worth it are the things to see. Today we leave Trichy, which has a hillside fortress that left Shiz and I gaping when we saw it from the bus. The whole town is flat, and then Bam! a huge fort on a hillside. Awesome.
Before this we went south of Chennai (I can't remember these place names) to some ruins in an old city. The highlight was the city park, which was a regular park with 6th century ruins carved into rocksides. It was really cool to see the city use it's cultural heritage and combine it with a relaxation place that locals can enjoy. The park is pretty big, so you can wander around anywhere only to find that you turn the odd corner and find a elephant carved out of stone from 1500 years past. It's pretty neat.
Another thing about India. If you wonder where moustache fashion has gone, it's here. Moustaches are all the gentlemanly face fashion. Look up the top twenty male political leaders and you'll see lots of 'stash. There is little pencilthin (and hence, many mysteries unsolved) or handlebars, but lots of Freedy Mercury style ones. A number of times I have seen some guy on the street and thought: "Wow, he kind of looks like Freddy Mercury....."
Oh yeah. Speaking of facial hair, You will notice a beard coming on me in photos. The reason is simple: my shaver broke. One tired night I stupidly plugged it into the wall without using the volatage adapter. Sicne then whenever we had hot water I shave with a straight razor (a Mach 3 bought for US$7. US men, that's how bad the rip-off is on those things), but there is little hot water in India. I was keeping the razor to try to find a place to fix it, but our converter and plug-adapter were stolen on a bus to Colombo (from Kandy, that pit of Sri Lanka). My raoz was the only thing whose plug wasn't good from 100-240 volts, so we just picked up a plug adapter and I'm growing face fuzz. I'd pick up another electric, but it would mean that in the US I would have to use a plug adapter everytime, and I'd rather just wait.
Let's see, what else. I traded books recently and got Dune and The Stand for $4 total, which makes me pretty happy. I've been wanting to re-read Dune for a while and I've had this wierd impulse to read The Stand recently.
With no mp3 player, I get some wierd songs on rotation in my head, some good some horrific. Here's small list:
-"J.F.K." by Brad Neely
"Can't Say No" by Helio Sequence
"Lately" by BOAT
"I Want it That Way" by Backstreet Boys
Random songs from Pau