You never know what to expect.

In the last 3 days I have"
Went cliff diving
Sat on a 2nd class non a/c overnight train and ate dinner (dal chapati) with an indian family
Slept with bag like it was my girlfriend
Saw crocs in the river
Saw an indian porno (they are illegal) by accident becasue of my new danish friend martin (Skip near the botom for that)
Brushed up on my spanish with some Galicians

If any of these adventures interest you but you do not want to here my rant on indian culture skip ot the part that I starred. (I did not edit this due to its length and my time)



Life is good here in India. It is not by any means a relaxing trip. When I read someone elses account of India they said that Indians are a bit like children. And I thought, wow, how offensive and rude. But the more I am here the more I realize that to some it may appear this way. THere are about 4 trash bins in the whole country. People just pee, spit and poo wherver they want. They never listen to you. You have to scream at people or pretend you do not speak english if you want them to stop hasseling you to use rickshaw or buy some shitty souviner. It gets really frusterating. It is funny to see martin snap at people. Danes are so polite and never rude and avoid conflict at all costs. I saw him snap today at this guy who wanted us to buy some crap on the street. For me I have learned you just need to be an asshole. There is no way around it. I wish thios was not true but there is so many peoples hands that I can shake, tell where I am from or explain where detroit or minneapolis is. The sad thing is that sometimes you have to blow off the nices one because there are so many. It is really hard because some people pretend to be nice but then after you answer the second questions they try and sell you something or invite you to their rickshaw. But I have had some amazing conversations. I spoke about religion with this wonderful muslim man and his family. He was all about peace and relgious understanding and so happy to speak about islam in India and his faith. He was very happy when I said inshallah and sallam when I left. We have also spoken to some people on the street about the trash situation and she claimed that becuase it has been this way for so loing and that indias literacty rate is still not above 70% people are just to undeducated to realized there are polluting there country. I am 100% sure that India will not reach its full potential becuase of the way the people treat the country. In fact I would highly advise against investing anything long term in INdia because of its infrastructure is nonexistant or so poor it might as well not exist. I think the other problem with india is its inefficinecy. Because they used a form of democracy based off of soviet bueracracy there is so much waste. Martin had a funny point, in america or europe we tend to stop inefficincy right away but here they embrace it. It is very frusterating but a wonderful thing all at once. I don't think as a westerner I will ever be able to understand Indian culture or relgion, but I guess that is the beauty of traveling here.


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So Hampi has to be one of the most beutiful and relaxing places I have ever been. I really do miss it. It was hard to leave a place like that knowing that if I am able to come back it will most likely be like any other big indian city. That really breaks my heart so I hope it stays as quiet and beautiful as it is now. After I wrote to you I had a wonderful conversation with this Swedish dude and a bunch of Spaniards from Galicia. Since there english was bad and my spanish worse I endedup talking with them for about 4 hours and by the end I was thinking in spanish. I almost asked something to the indian guy that worked in our hostel in spanish. I was happy about that. My last day in Hampi I got up early ( 9 am) and went bouldering. Hampi is world famous for its climbing and rightfully so. However, since I am so bad and it was so hot I only did a little climbing and left martin and this swiss girl to tackle some easier climbing, stairs. I climbed up to the top of this massive stone hill that overlooks the city only to find that the temple up there was nothing but rubble but offered a great view of the surrounding ruins. After that I got my gear and headed to the lake with this candadian dude that said he would take me on his motor bike since I was short on time. We did a little cliff diving which was about as high as the cliffs in greece for any of you that were on my euro trip. It was a lot of fun and the swimming was great. I had to get back so Martin and I could catch our second class train to Bangalaore then mysore. We ended up having a great conversation with some other spanish guys (I spoke more in spanish) and this Indian dude who talked to us about the current state of India. The train was even better. Martin and I got seated next to this Indian family that had extra food. Mamaji (an endearing name for the older women of a family I think) gave us the best home made Indian dal chapti I have ever had. After Martin got out his guitar and started singing much to the suprise of the Indians around (I was not so suprised becasue they seem to love noise in any form) He is a great singer, I told him he should try out for American Idol and he laughed his ass off. The second class train is pretty ghetto. If you can imagine the worst train in your head, add some dirt... a little bit sewer, some indian stank, and red dust from the surrounding arrid mountains. Its wonderful if you are a traveler and probably smell and look just as bad. I have not shaved and now have a full beard, and most of my clothes even though clean are covered in dirt. If you saw me at home you would probably toss a few quarters my way. My most Indians think we are dirty, I just thought of it that way. Anyways, after we got to mysore we checked into our really crappy hotel and went exploring this this american we met from Seattle who went ot harvard and worked for microsoft. He was a nice, guy but he just complained the whole time about who much he hated everything eh saw and did and martin and I wanted to ditch him but felt bad. We toured the royal marajah palace which was lit up last night and looked amazing and the famous spice market where I bought a lot of fruit (only things you could peel). The mangos, papaya, bannanas, pineapple and these things called chikoo that look like big lychee but taste like a sweet pear are wonderful. After sitting down for some sweet lemong juice martin wanted to go see a movie so we crossed the street and went to what looked like a vergy ghetto but legit bollywood show. When i saw hundreds of excited young indian men I started getting worried becuase it only costed us 10 ruppees about 25 cents. Well the movie started off really wierd... then got even wierder. Martin looks at me funny as this lady takes off her shirt in teh shower to the screams and whistles of hundreds of indian men. It was disgusting, the boobs and the whole scene. We could only laugh and look in disbelief. THis led into one of the most awkward sex scenes I have ever seen in my life. It was hilliarous and disgusting all at once. Because they are not allowed to show the man and women in the same scene (We think) it created for one of the funniest angles and sounds you can ever imagine. However, after five minutes of lauhging we were ready to get the hell out of there as the Indian men started screaming and whisteling louder. We talked to some guy on the street after and he said the movies are illegal but they show them anyway as a few rupees gets you whatever you want with the police. Today we took a local bus to a small town outside of mysore to see a bird sanctuary. IT was really cool, there were thousands of beautiful birds in this small reserve and crocs as well. We took a boat ride out into the river and saw the birdfs and crocs up close. ITs amazing how cheap things like this are, a 30 minute boat ride with a guy who explains to you the birds and whate migratory route they are on costs about 25 cents. IT is crazy. It was really cool to see wild crocs and bats the size of small dogs but even better to get out of the city. I think after Kochin I am going to avoid cities. I have even debated not doing the major cities in rajastan becuase I really like the rural indian life compared to the hectic cities. It is true there is not as much to see but palaces and temples can get boring. Sorry for the long entry. I am gonig to try and put up some pictures but this computer won't let me. Hope everyone is doing well. I leave for kochin via bangalore tomorrow.

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