Southern India

I saw Mumbai flash by from a Fiat window. Zipped through the Victoria Central Trian station, Hanging Gardens and Gandhi's house/museum before crawling through the traffic to the LTT (I can't remember the spelling, but it was like Lokimatiyak...?) train station.

(I think I'll write out more details on my adventures once I get to Guam, but right now, not having regular internet access and not wanting to rewrite things I've just written in my journal all the time - but sometimes - keeps some of the stories from you... waiting for more!)

So I took a 17-ish hour train from Mumbai to Udupi (in the southern state of Karnataka) - probably should've gotten off in Kundapur(a) but from the looks of it there wasn't a bus stop there (there was though) - and then a I don't know how long bus ride... maybe only an hour, and now I'm at the base camp for the Eco Village where I'm to volunteer for the next two weeks - I'm thinking no internet after this until I get to Goa, or I'd really like to go to Hampi, and maybe they have internet there?

The train ride was fantastic, minus the cockroaches (fine! journal time, too much to recall in too short of time) GARUNGA!! I can't help but notice the shiny copper backs glinting in the afternoon sun, scurrying across seats and along walls. Just don't crawl on me, please!! I was in a sleeper car with 6 beds on one side of the aisle, and two on the other - I think there were about 8-9 of these little pods through the whole car, and it was a very long train. Very basic, and the bed was quite dirty - I slept on the top one because an older woman had it and I offered to change with her - and a bit small after I hooked myself into my backpack and shared the space (it's like what I imagine sleeping next to a stocky little person would be like... or an Ewok - not saying that those two things are relateable at all, except height-wise...) with all of my possessions; purse and shoes, additionally. Maybe they're only beetles... really small, fast, scary beetles. I'll never know. I'm on a TRAIN!!
-----------------------------------
As the train shook and clammered through the darkness (after the sky was painted pink then fading quickly with the setting sun) the lights and shadows from the people inside the train shone on the passing dark green scenery; flashes of light and silver, making it look at once like a waving sea being crossed by boat.
------------------------
She tried to squeeze her eyes shut to block out the sounds of scuttling cockroaches - she swore she could hear them getting nearer, and she became increasingly paranoid that she would involuntarily feast on hundreds, if not thousands, of them as the train rocked her into an uneasy sleep.
------------------
Being on this train reminds me of the opening scene from "The Music Man" except we're not singing.

------------
The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me. From the old woman in the train who got tears in her eyes when I told her I wanted to have my book (Stay Alive, My Son by Pin Yathay, a more detailed - though no less horrifying - story about Cambodia during the time of the Khmer Rouge) and made me write my name in it after I told her that she had to pass it on after she finished it. I think she told me that her daughter in Boston told her about it... then she told me that she was going to tell her daughter about me; she beamed.

This morning a family took me in a rickshaw from the train to the bus station, but before we went to the bus station, they treated me to breakfast and chai, and it was delicious, and so hard to eat without utensils, but I will learn because this food is heavenly delicious.

Peace and love, all. To tend the farm and other things I must go.

Oh! I'm covered in dirt right now (cleaning a little temple-like monument of a passed yogi...? this morning when I arrived) and paint flecks, but that didn't stop a group of four teenaged Indian boys from asking me to pose in a photo with them. "Seriously?" I said. "I'm flithy." They just smiled and wobbled their heads. "Okay. If that's what you want."

One of the dudes running this place is from Chicago!! Whoa! Granted he's lived here for 30 years, but still. My first unknown American (cause I know my friends in Mumbai...) in India.

More to say, but not enough time!