I had less time than I had thought...

... continuing from the last entry...

so yeah. Where was I. We went to Pondicherry, and it was nice: you could walk down the street without being hassled by vendors (as much) or nearly hit by something moving much faster than you, which seems to be the norm everywhere else.

And because of that, everything was more expensive (but still not anywhere near expensive).

(and the French people we talked to completely poo-pooed the idea of any tourist ever going to Chennai, which was funny. But we could see where they were coming from. If Christoph and I were on our own in that city, it would really be no fun at all. At least until you got it sorted out, which I can imagine would take weeks just doing that.)

This is what a bit of the beach looked like (not at all like Chennai, but for the people):



and



As usual, when we were there, there was some festival or protest or celebration or religious ceremony or demonstration or frankenstein monster-hunt (some had torches lit) or something else like that involving a lot of people converging on some public space, and as usual, we had no idea what was going on. We turned the opposite direction and had dinner on western time, that is, around 7 instead of the customary 9 or 10 pm indian time. So it was not crowded at all.

This dinner was at the fanciest restaurant we could find... though not entirely on purpose - it was written about in our book as having a very interesting blend of Tamil and French flavors in a basically pretty high-class way. So us, sunburned and dirty t-shirted (they were washed until that day, but it doesn't seem to take that long to get a bit ratty looking. and still, they were t-shirts. I think mine had a picture of a big green dinosaur on it, so no, we were not dressed up.) This place was really nice, and we spent about as much as a normal dinner would cost at, oh, say Chili's. Which is a dern lot over here, especially for food. And it was good. I got Saffron Crab and Christoph got the grilled fish.. and and we both got appetizer salads, special Indian beer, and fancy chef's-special ice-cream desserts. It was very good - but I don't know if I wouldn'tve been just as happy spending 1/10 the amount just down the road at a normal Indian place (even at the hotel, where earlier that day we had a fantastic lunch served on a banana leaf with 9 different dishes, all for 45 rupees each, which is about 1.10 USD).

We are a big fan of the food here in general, let me tell you. Christoph said that the food alone was worth the cost of the plane ticket over, and all the sight-seeing and other stuff we're doing is just bonus on top of that.. and it's hard not to agree.

Then we had a leisurely breakfast the next morning, having french coffee, croissants, and omelettes (true, not very Indian after all I just said, but still). Total cost: about 2 USD each. So basically, yeah, we splurged a bit on that too. (Christoph and I still can't really tell the difference between breakfast foods and lunch and dinner foods here, and that morning we really felt like a "breakfast" as we know it.. especially the coffee at that french place was fantastic.)

After we had eaten, it was off to Gingee Fort, pronounced Sen-gee by everybody, which took us a little while to figure out.

The bus ride over there, about 2 hours away from Pondicherry, cost about 1USD each.

- I don't know why I'm writing out the prices of everything in this post. The remarkability of how low the costs can be of some things here never really wore off for me. Other things, like electronics, are about the same. Gas and a few other things that slip my mind cost even more than I'm used to. But good food and travel are really things I value very much, pretty much more than anything, and those are really the cheapest things around here.

Gingee was absolutely stunning. Amazingly beautiful, I already want to go back (especially now that I learned that people are allowed to climb the tallest hill, but it takes hours one way so a whole day is needed. You'll see what I mean).

from the top of the smaller hill:




the smaller hill itself:



another scene (one that makes me think I don't really need to go to Greece anymore):



and the big hill (that we didn't go up, but should next time):



Keep in mind that all of the farmland in these pictures is technically within the fort walls. The fort itself is incredible. As I think I say in a picture caption somehwhere, imagine 3 Edinburgh castles on 3 massive hills connected by ancient 40-foot thick walls, and then put another big fort/city inside those walls. Just incredible stuff. Of course, now it's not used and it's mostly rice and banana plantations. But supposedly it was used as recently as by the British, but I forgot when.

Then we went back home that night.

But before that! (sorry for the jumpiness of my train of thought here..) Walking around the town of Gingee... you'd think that they would be used to tourists, even have things aimed at tourists because of the fort being in walking distance from town, right? wrong! It was a dusty, somewhat xenophobic rural Tamil town. At least the kids seemed to act like they'd never seen a white person before, and (some of them) were thrilled. Here's a picture Christoph took on the way up to the fort:



we met this same crew plus about 10 friends or relations on the way back - at first some called out, calling for more to come talk with us, and little kids as small as probably 2 years old in little yellow dresses would stagger on over to say hi. and let me tell you, I have never seen eyelashes bat as fast as that girls standing the back. (I guess we made a good impression?)

SO they were charming at least. And all they really seemed to want from us was our attention (and maybe a chance to practice their english), which was nice.

Annnyhoo... I'm typing up late in bed and I think Christoph would appreciate it if I turned off the light, so I'm calling it a night.

Tomorrow I may or may not have a chance to talk about Kanchipuram, the silk-weavers, bird-sanctuary, and.. uh... whatever else we may have done by then.

AND: I feel like I've mostly just been talking about what we've been doing here, not as much what it's, you know, like here. That would require a lot more thought and effort, but I think it's necessary to talk on a few subjects.

Well, for another time.
Again.

Leaving tomorrow night! :(
Crap!

back-log blog

Today we seem to have some free time, so I'm going to attempt to tell you about what we've been up to since we've gotten back from Karnataka.

First, we hung out around Chennai again. We went out with Vishaka's friend Shobana to the beach after dark, where it is surprisingly very crowded.

See?



(you can see Christoph and Shobana and Vishaka in the middle right.)

Then we went out to eat at this cool place where you sit on these hammock-benches and eat really really good stuff that neither Christoph nor I had ever had before.

(If you've gone through my pictures you know all this stuff already, though, because it's all in the captions. I'm realizing that I've written most of this before already because it's there... so maybe I'll keep it brief for the stuff already covered.)



This is a picture I need to point out. No explanations, nothing.. Just a cobra-cage with a gaping hole in it. That was at the zoo.

The zoo was otherwise a good time. But not too much to write about.

Then Christoph and I went to Dakshina Chitra, which is a kind of outdoor museum of south Indian life. It was neat. Christoph made a clay pot.

Umm... Let me think...

Then we went to Mamallapuram, or Mahabalipuram, depending on which name you want to use of the person it's named after. (It's like how some people call Washington DC Georgeton DC - I guess nobody does that, but that's the way it works here sometimes. Apparently.)

Mahabalipuram (the more-fun version of how to say it out loud, so the name I'll use here) was really cool. It was like ancient Egypt in India. At least that was my impression. There were tons and tons of temples both built into cliffs and freestanding, and rock carvings that were 4 stories high like this:



Maybe 4 short stories. I don't know the size exactly, but this one's gigantic. (the elephants carved are far bigger than real elephants, for reference.)

Something weird to me about the whole place was that there didn't seem to be any rules, or at least the didn't seem to be enforced, so you could in theory climb all around the whole place.

Like this:



There were some ancient stairs going up that rock that petered away into mere hand/footholds, so we followed those up to the top. I get the feeling that it shouldnt've been allowed because the rock itself was covered in thousand-plus-year-old carvings (then still only on the underside), but everybody was doing it.



Another temple, surrounded by "crouching Nandis." Apparently a Nandi is a bull. I have yet to learn what makes a bull a Nandi, exactly, but they make neat statues.

So we learned a lot and saw a lot that day, and got sunburned - but not too badly.

In the town surrounding Mahabalipuram, I should mention, are dozens upon dozens of workshops, usually opening out (and taking up most of) the sidewalk/street, all with people actively carving stone figures to sell. All of the carvings we saw looked fantastic... apparently the town has been known for millenia for being a town full of stone-carvers, and the trade has been alive ever since ancient times when the temples were made and their walls carved. We didn't buy anything, but if I ever wanted a 1/4 sized black stone elephant with intricate costume and patterns carved into it, I'm sure I couldn't get a better deal with better craftsmanship than from one of those little sidewalk shops.

I don't think they usually sell those ones though. They're probably just for show to attract people to stop and look.

---

Then we went to Pondicherry. ('We' being Christoph and myself.)

Pondicherry was basically the French city in India, and has lots of French-attitude - including in the service! well not really the service.. I was half expecting for signs and menus to be in French and Tamil, like things are in English and Tamil in the rest of Tamil Nadu, but it wasn't the case. We met some French people at "Le Cafe" down by the beach, and they told us that they spend 4 months out of every year in Pondicherry (like French 'snowbirds,' they being of retirement age), and they still can't get over the fact that nobody speaks French anymore.

oopp... time to go for now.. I'll add more later.

well it turns out I wasn't getting any comments...

because they were disabled. Oops!

Feel free to leave your comments on any of my posts (or pictures).

Yet another update with only pictures...

Here's another album from the last few days, when Christoph and I went to Pondicherry and Gingee Fort:

tamil nadu - pondicherry and gingee

I'll write another blog post actually talking about stuff and not just linking to pictures soon.

(and as of this the time I put this little note in, there are captions)

Merry Christmas

I have some new pictures up (with captions! also, the other pictures I had up that didn't have captions now do!)

They are of: Chennai-beach-at-night adventures, the Vandalur Zoo, a cultural museum type place Dakshina Chitra, and ancient cave and non-cave temples (all at least 1300 years old) at Mahabalipuram.

Here they be:

tamil nadu

And.. the plan for tomorrow morning is for Christoph and me to leave for Pondicherry, the supposed "French" part of India (just a couple hour bus ride south of Chennai).

ok, here's the real scoop..

SO. Christoph and I returned from our Karnataka trip a couple days ago, completely exhausted (which is the right way to return from that kind of trip).

How it went was:

Monday, the 17th: we left that night on a night train, Vishaka's dad took us to the station and walked us all the way to our car. We weren't expecting that at all and felt like it was a bit of overkill until we were there.. it turns out that the local train we had to take to get us to the main train station does not have any station announcements and the stations themselves don't have signs, either, so we would've been lost. Mr. Rajaram said that he used to take that train for 20 years, so he calmly stood there in the crowded train with his hands in his pockets while we were tossed around for about an hour, trying to grab onto the posts or whatever we could to keep it so we weren't falling on the massive amount of other people. He said that he knew all the stops by how the tracks under us sounded, and that "you get used to knowing when to get off just from that."

So we were glad he was there to see us off. Also because on the door of our car (sleeper class) it had our names listed as "KEETH" and "TRIS TOPHOL" - which would've been concerning if he didn't explain that the names are basically meaningless for your ticket / seat reservation. Here's what a sleeper car inside looks like:



and



...

So then we got to Mysore in the morning, after waking up about a couple hours before and watching the sunrise and all the mesmerizing farmers fields. It was a very nice view, except that every few minutes or so you could see somebody pooping. Seriously. We think that the workers in the fields wait for the train to go by to start their morning poops.

But in any case, the fields of sugarcane and rice and tons of things we didn't know were all very pretty and neat to see. All of them seemed to have dozens of workers in them at the crack of dawn.. No machines in sight, but plenty of grass-and-reed-houses. I don't have much in the way of pictures from this time because I left my camera in the safety of its bag, and then that bag in the safety of the larger backpack, as there were lots of people that were not riding with the train walking up and down the aisles at each stop. Granted, most of them were selling coffee or tea or something impossible to pronounce (that we never did figure out what it was), but still. Better safe than sorry. Christoph has some pictures though; he has a less conspicuous camera.

These coffee sellers would yell out as fast as possible COFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEE (take a big breath) and repeat. Usually it would sound like "CopyCopyCopyCopy" etc, but the meaning was pretty clear. We never saw anybody buy from them, so we didn't either (even though it sounded like a great idea).

In Mysore we were met at the station by a guy whom I thought was supposed to be a cousin of Vishaka's mom, but it turned out to be an employee of this cousin, who only spoke a little english. I didn't figure out that he wasn't the cousin himself until a few hours later when we left him to go to Bandipur, our next destination. So that was a little embarassing.

He was a signal engineer at the train station, and let us hang out in the signal office, which looked like this:



and this is the outside:



that signal is just for show and it doesn't work. He told us that something like 4 times. It was a little weird.

What we were doing there was waiting for the tourism center to open, so we could get bus tickets. It opened after a couple hours (of us wandering around the station, waking up still) and they told us to just go to the bus station and ask there (which is probably what we would've done anyway...). It turned out that the bus station had a crazy "you just have to know it already" system in place, kinda like the local train before, so it actually took a lot of effort to figure out which of the 12 buses that were there was the one we wanted. (It also didn't help that 'Bandipur' sounded kinda like a few other places with our accents, I think.)

Bandipur, which I suppose I should explain is a large national park and tiger sanctuary, is not a town. We didn't know that until we got there. We just assumed that we could get an autorickshaw to the lodge we had booked, but we were mistaken. It turns out that the basic mode of transport there is jumping in the back of a government truck, which did after a while of watching monkeys and little kids chase each other.



as the kids were leaving

and



a pest!

and



This guy looks like he combs his hair more than I do...

So yeah. Then this was our room (actually its own little house in itself):



The lodge area was nice, and they kept us very well fed. The 2 nights we were there, we ended up going on 4 "jungle safaris" in the jeeps around in the woods, each a couple hours long of bouncing around on the worst roads in existence in some of the least-safe jeeps ever, but we didn't care. It was pretty awesome.



We saw tons of these spotted deer, as well as these wild elephants (in what seemed to turn into a full-speed run - that we felt bad about causing):



We also saw some other kinds of monkeys that would actually leap through the grass like deer in big bounds (one of those strange things you never see in a zoo):



this is what we looked like for the most part:



The morning we left looked pretty, and it stopped raining! (I didn't mention that, did I? well it was raining almost the whole time we were there.)







Nice, huh? We thought so. Look at the rest of my Karnataka album for a bunch of other pictures of animals and things from here.

Then we went back to Mysore, where we saw the palace (the palace there is supposedly only second to the Taj Mahal in India in terms of .. grandeur? size? importance? ..that point was never too clear to me, but it's nice:



This picture was taken moments before about 30 of these school kids swarmed me with friendly questions. Actually it was basically "what is your name?" and "from what country?" about 30 times. I got out of them that they were on a school trip from Bangalore, but when the group started to get uncontrollably large I said I had to go. I only went, you know, about 20 feet away, but they rejoined their teachers after that.

Here's that palace at night (apparently it was rebuilt in the early 20th century after a large fire, and nearly all parts of it are imported from europe, except the lighting and wiring which was from the US):



To the left in that picture is one of two important temples on the palace grounds, similarly lit.

********

The following day we took a 150 rupee tour of the area, which was excellent and lasted about 3 and a half hours. Keep in mind that 150 rupees is about $4.



This is on top of a big hill, one of the most important hills in Hindu mythology, apparently:







That last picture does not show just how large this statue is (which is also carved out of one single rock). It's large.

Then we got back to Chennai after a crazy train ride that was about 3 and a half hours late getting in, almost all of the extra time seeming like it was just minutes away from the final station, so that wasn't that great.

The last couple days we've just been doing things around Chennai again, only now we're not in such dramatic culture shock that we can't function. Still some, but less.

back from Bandipur!

Christoph and I got back safe and sound yesterday from Bandipur, which was where we were looking for oversized cats. (then we were in Mysore looking at a palace and things.)

We didn't see any cats, but we did see tons of other wildlife that we aren't really used to seeing, like for instance, elephants running through the woods. That's tons of wildlife right there. Ha.

I have a good 700+ pictures I'll go through and upload when I can, but as for now... it's time to get ready to go out.

church, temple, and cathedral day

So do any of you know who St. Thomas is? I suspect you may. He was the Apostle of Jesus who stuck his finger in Jesus' stab wound to see if it was real, and he later moved to India in the year 52 AD. He died not too far from here by a lance to the back, in the year 72, but not before creating a brand of Christianity in the area that, frankly, I was not expecting. I am unused to Christianity without it being distinctly also European. (well, it wasn't completely non-european because of the heavy european influence from portugal and great britain, but still, christianity certainly pre-dates europeans here by a long shot.

Now, the cathedral of Santhome is distinctly European in architecture (and only about a hundred years old due to being rebuilt), but the smaller church that is placed on the spot where he died up on the hill, and many parts about the inside of the cathedral - now that is a different story.

I didn't take so many pictures at any of these places due to the overwhelming presence of people at all of them combined with the overwhelming tastelessness of photographing people at a church who are clearly there for going-to-church reasons. But I have a few.

Here's a picture of the sign explaining the following two pictures:




the stone cross is recessed in the middle


and this is the portrait of Mary that St. Thomas himself apparently brought to India, a long, long time ago. Lit by a horrible, horrible, profoundly awful fluorescent light right next to it.

This was also there:


the text reads: HEREIN IS THE RELIC OF ST THOMAS THE APOSTLE (A PIECE OF HIS BONE)

This was just outside:



(if you click on the pictures, they link to their larger, nicer versions within my picasa gallery.)

The cathedral was also very nice... but it was very, very crowded and I was done offending people for the day waving around my camera, so I left it to stay in its bag for this trip (I didn't even tell you about the Hindu temple we were at just before yet..). Subadra, Vishaka's mother, had a good friend show us all around the cathedral and he was extremely knowledgeable as he is the cathedral's semi-official photographer. The cathedral itself, it turns out, also happens to be St Thomas' tomb itself. This actually makes it one of the most important Christian cathedrals in the world, as there are only two others: St Peters in Rome and .. uh.. I forget.. some other St. Apostle-somethingoranother in Spain, that actually hold the tombs of one of the 12 Apostles.

He introduced all of us the the priest in charge of the place, as well as several other nuns and people that he knows there. They were all extremely nice, and I felt more than a little awkward when all these people go out of their way to talk to us (that is, Christoph and myself only, really) about where we're from, how long we're in India, had we been here before, what our plans are, what we think, and so on.

This guy, that is, Simon, gave us each these cards:


..after explaining to us the supposed healing powers of the sand that St. Thomas was buried in. The sand itself is under the laminate of the card within the circle in the upper right corner.

The numbers that look like credit-card numbers all mean something very significant about St Thomas. Apparently, them and the little "visa" wannabe symbol in the lower right aren't just terrible kitsch or whatever silly thing they look like at first, which was what we thought before it was explained to us.

Apparently it looks like a credit card so you can bring it into countries (and keep it with you), notably Muslim countries that wouldn't like religious relics being taken into them for the purpose of worshiping something distinctly non-Islam. Granted, you'd still not want to let them catch you praying to it; but if you have your wallet searched for contraband religious items (does this happen!?) - and the searcher doesn't read english - you'll get away with it because it looks like a credit card.

"huh!" we said to that. "well!"

So now I have one of these cards, though I'm not sure what to do with it.

As for the Hindu temple, no photography was allowed at all. And Christoph and I were given dirty looks every which way, which is primarily what I'm going to remember about it, I think. I also learned a lot, and Subadra was very patient with us, teaching us all sorts of things, but still.. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I say, but that was why I wanted to leave, that's for sure. (not that that kept Subadra from grabbing both Christoph's and my hand and showing us in certain buildings where I'm pretty sure that we were especially unwelcome..)

On a side note: surprisingly, this was the first place that Christoph and I have seen non-Indians - that is, in the form of a couple other white guys - since the airport.

But beyond the social awkwardness, the temple and all of its parts were nothing short of magnificent, and in any other situation I would take hundreds of pictures at every turn. And the festivities that were going on inside were loud, busy, and organized in some kind of bustling way that made no sense to me at all, but somehow always seemed to find us in the way.

But still, I think that Christoph and I are planning on visiting only non-functioning temples from now on - preferably of the Ultra-Historical variety.

And, of course, here are a couple of my favorite motorcycle pictures of today:





The great part about that last one? that's not even the largest family we've seen on one motorcycle. Nope, we've seen lots of 4s, what's really interesting are the 5s.

In any case, it is late, and you may not hear from me for a couple of days. Christoph and I are going to the jungle tomorrow night and I'm not bringing my computer, so don't be surprised if the 22nd rolls around and still no word.

But by then I hope we have lots of good news: involving tigers.

well now I know what the roads are like in the daytime:

..also crowded.

So we went into the city proper today, looking for a travel agent that can get Christoph and I tickets to where Mr. Rajaram decided we would probably like to go to instead of where our tentative plans were for (and we believe him .. apparently this one place near Mysore has everything that we had wanted to see that would've required separate trips had we gone into Kerala). However, after several false leads as to where and if this place actually existed, and then if they were open on saturday, and then if the hotel/lodge we wanted to book in the jungle can take reservations without us having a particular kind of bank account (?!?!), we gave up the fight for the day and had lunch at an old favorite place of Vishaka's and went to the beach where there was some kind of naval demonstration with a good 7 or 8 big, big navy ships being shown off.

Then we went home and collapsed. Christoph and I were as tired as possible, I think.

Then Vishaka woke us up to get our opinion on... the plans that her and her mother made for us! As in, what specific times to leave for the train, hotels, etc. We had no idea that's what they were up to, but apparently they put a lot of work into it for us - and we were too dead tired to realize it and so protest. We were so surprised! We were just thinking we'd go back to the places downtown when they were open on Monday, and maybe get out on the train a day or two later than we were thinking at first, but no big deal, right?

So now that we're awake, and, you know, FUNCTIONING, we need to be sure to not let that happen again - and how to make sure that they know how much we appreciate what they did, but they really don't need to go to such lengths for us!

They felt bad, apparently, because we couldn't really do anything productive all day even though we tried.

But to us, the car ride itself, not to mention seeing all over the city (even if it was just for a lost cause) was really very exciting and well worth the trip.

In any case. I have pictures online of the car adventure from yesterday, as well as a few more from Dubai, all in my Picasa galleries to the left.

I feel that this post does not do justice to even 10% of what I want to talk about - as it was really just a synopsis of what we did yesterday - but that's all I have time for right now.

Talk to you all later!

finally!!!!!

sheesh! it sure took long enough!

Well, it goes without saying this time... I Am In India.

And so are Christoph and Vishaka.

So far we've had some tea and fresh orange juice, and taken showers.

BUT.. Vishaka and I are both missing one bag each. The clothes bag, for me. Boo. Luckily I happened to have a spare shirt in the one bag of mine that DID make it so I'm not COMPLETELY filthy.

First impressions of India? Dark, crowded. That was because the sun just came up a little while ago, and the airport was a huge cluster of people all over the place. And the roads to Vishaka's house were packed with buses, trucks, cars, very small 3 wheel cars called auto(rickshaw)s, old men on bikes, people struggling to collect loose cattle (3 separate incidents of this), and people just standing around in the middle of the road, ALL AT 5AM.

I can't imagine what rush hour would be like.

I'll take some pictures and introduce you to Vishaka's family sometime soon, but now it's apparently time for breakfast.

I am in... ARABIA?!?!?!

So once again, I am lying with the title of this blog.

Right now, I should have arrived in Chennai, but Air Emirates had a different idea, which was to stay in Dubai for the night. So here I am!

We got in around 3am local time, which was when our flight was supposed to leave for Chennai (and when it did). We assume Christoph got on board, and hope that he managed to find Vishaka's parents ok (we emailed them and told them the situation from Paris, and we just now got confirmation that they were, indeed, expecting only Christoph in the terminal. They also made a sign for him. I hope it's not too awkward until we get there...)

But what are our plans now, you may ask? The next flight out from Dubai to Chennai is a long .. uh.. several hours from now. I have no idea what time it is here, but I know that we leave at 9pm, and right now the sun is just about to come up, so I think we have some time.

After our badly, badly desired shower and nap, we think we may take a bus tour of the city with another girl we met on the plane, in nearly the exact same situation (only she flew from chicago to paris, but other than that her schedule is the same as ours).

So I may have a few more pictures tomorrow from this city. But right now, this is what I've got:

















and:


are what our hotel room looks like. Look at that kitchen!!!! It's the biggest one i've ever seen, much less in a hotel room!

and this is the view out of our kitchen window.

I am going to bed now. For a little! Then... onwards! again!

My writing style and posting prowess suffers with 24 solid hours of travel, with at least a good 3 of those waiting in stupid long lines.

More later.

leaving the US!

We finished packing up Vishaka's stuff last night (she was mostly done Sunday, like a Good Girl), and all the rest of everything (a.k.a. my stuff) just now got completed, and put into the car.

Man! We have 2 bags allowed per person, with 50lb limits on each; and believe me, that's exactly what we have. My car is stuffed to the gills with our luggage. And I have a station wagon!

I can't imagine how Vishaka's family is planning on taking us back to their place in their car... not to mention I think they're taking half the family TO the airport to see her for the first time in a couple years!

Oh well. Christoph and I might just get a cab ourselves for all the stuff we need to take.

As for now, it's time to pack up my computer. Next post will be from India!

leaving work!

I am still not in india. The name of the blog remains a complete lie.

I am, however, leaving San Francisco tomorrow (Sunday) to get back home to Kalamazoo by tomorrow night. And because I worked all this weekend (and last) I'm getting monday through wednesday off this next week, so I can finally have some time to PACK! And... SLEEP!

Currently I'm not only on Pacific time, but Consistently-At-Work-Until-3-AM pacific time, so I'm guessing the time zone shift will be pretty dramatic. But I'm also guessing I'll probably spend 80% of the flight time asleep, so it won't actually be that bad.

Just so you my flight schedule: leave Detroit around 9pm on Wednesday the 12th, connect in Paris, then Dubai (where we'll meet Christoph), then finally get to Chennai at 8:20am on the Friday the 14th. Then (theoretically) return on New Years Day, leaving Chennai at 3:30am and get into Detroit at 5:05pm.

Aren't timezones weird that way? 2 extra calendar days to get there, no extra days at all to get back. (but still 22+ hours of flying each way).

And guess how many frequent-flyer miles I'll make just from the detroit-paris legs?

That's right, you guessed it: 17,829 miles, just for those legs alone. Not that I'm going that far physically, but that's nearly enough frequent-flyer miles for a whole free ticket anywhere in the US right there. I'm "platinum elite" for that airline, see?

I'm only "premier" with an airline partner of the other two legs, so those numbers aren't as special (but it's a farther actual distance when combined - by quite a bit).

Want to know how many frequent-flyer miles I have total, pre-trip? Well you're gonna find out: 358,386. All pretty much just from the last year and a half with my job. That's enough for me to take 9 friends to Ecuador and back. (Not that anything like that's being planned, now.) So yeah, Lots. I've been wondering for a while what exactly I should use them on... especially because I have 99% no free time at all with my job, and when I get free time I really just like to spend it at home (for once).. or at least asleep, lately.

With that number of frequent-flyer miles I could also take 6 friends with me to istanbul, or nearly 3 people (back) to india (later), assuming the dates work out.

So anyway. This blog will stop being boring soon, I promise. I'll have real stories and news when: I Am (Actually) In India.

Internet!

Let me give you a little pre-blog entertainment:

Want to see my blog about my camera named Alphonso? There's a link to the left on this page.

Want to see a bunch of pictures I've taken over the last few years? There's another link to my Picasa gallery on the left.

AND HERE'S A TIP: If you want to keep updated on this blog and others without having to check on every single one every single day, wondering if I've updated it, then you can go to Google Reader and get an account with them. (if you already have a Gmail account then you can just use that username and password.) Then you can add a subscription of my website (both, perhaps?) and from then on have a one-stop shop for whenever you want to check on activity of any blogs that you have subscribed to. That is, it will show you my blog posts - as well as any other "feeds" you may have added - without you having to go to all of the different websites themselves to see if they have been updated.

You can add anything to Google Reader that has RSS - it can even be a specific person's wishlist from Amazon.com to see if they've added anything recently, for example.

In any case, that was just a public service announcement because I know some of the readers of this blog may be not entirely computer/internet savvy.

I have about 35 subscriptions on my Reader account so let me tell you, it is a lifesaver. Especially if you like to read the funnies - a good number of my subscriptions are comics.

That's enough internet talk for now. I'll give you all a better idea for my plans having to do with India later.

I am not yet in india. Sorry.

It is now one week and one day before flight #1!

This will be the anticipated blog.

Ta-Da!