Monsoooooooon!

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... well almost monsoon. The locals are still calling it a pre-monsoon. It is raining most days and some nights which is an awesome break from the heat. Sleeping is much less problematic and many nights we don't even need our fan to keep us cool. The down side is that our cloths that we hang out to dry never truly dry and things are in general damp but i will take damp over sweltering. The rains come in hard and fast and do not last too long but are frequent and the fact that this isn't considered monsoon to the locals is sort of hard to believe. By the time monsoon will be in full swing, mid-june in this area, we will far away in the mountains of Kashmir and Ladakh. The himalayan range creates a rain shadow for and most of our next destinations are in said shadow so we will not be getting trench foot anytime soon i hope.

There is one week left at ENS Kalari before we make a beeline for the north. So far we have taken short trips of 5 to 12 hours between destinations. Combined, those trips have taken us from Mumbai in central India to our current locale, near the southern most tip of the subcontinent. In our forthcoming train journey we are going to retrace all of that distance plus a whole bunch more in one leg. In total the trip should take between 36-40hours but we are going 3/4 of the length of the whole country so that is actually quite quick all things considered.

For now we are learning the last few elements of our course which is great because we are learning fencing right now. We do not get to use swords, we use equivalent lengths of bamboo, but it's fun none the less. Kalari is definitely the most diverse martial art i have encountered. It encompasses most elements present in all other arts combined and it is now clear why it is considered to be the parent of all eastern martial arts. Where many arts focus on a few elements like locks and submission in the case of ju-jitsu, or arm and leg attacks with kickboxing, Kalarippayat teaches:

arm attacks, leg attacks, joint locks, submissions, flexibility training, long staff fighting, short stick fighting, fencing, sword and shield fighting and the list goes on.

In our course we are not trying to be perfect in our form as we have to learn a lot. Guru has said many times that we should not expect to be perfect as it takes 12 years to master Kalarippayat and our course is very dense. We are expected moreso to remember the many elements we are taught and be able to perform with a reasonable level of skill. So it is not a death camp... which is nice. The mornings are getting to be a bit much and i will be happy to be able to sleep in until 8 am once again but i know that part of me will miss the regime of training this much. Our feet are taking quite a beating as the floor of the Kalari is rock and sand with little pebbles all over so when spinning around or jumping you end up landing on a stone and my feet are quite damaged with little scrapes and blisters. Like many things in life it is perfectly bearable as i know it will end soon.

The village where we are staying has been very warm and welcoming. Nettoor is about as quiet as India gets, which is not at all quiet but it's better than the insane bustle of many of the cities we have visited. On our walk through town we get many smiles and waves. We see many of the people from our class going about their daily routine. The restaurants we frequent all know our favourite dishes and drinks and we even have fishmongers that wave to us as well as a fruitseller who knows what kind of mangoes we want. It is all quite quaint but the road beckons and the mountains are calling our names. Our plan for the last 7 weeks is:
-super long train journey from Nettoor to New Delhi
-spend 3 days in New Delhi
-train to Jammu city, the southern part of Kashmir, spend 2 days
-bus to Srinagar in the heart of the Kashmir valley, spend 3 days
-take a jeep through the bone-crunching-mountain-range-tackling ride to the Ladakh valley
-spend 3 weeks in the Buddhist mountain village Leh and surrounding areas.
-head south to Manali, spend 4 days

From there we will have a couple weeks to get outta India. We have purchased our flights to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia and we fly out of the eastern capital of Kolkata (calcutta). Kolkata is about 1000 Km from Manali and there are many ways we can make the trip. How we choose to will depend on our moods and how much time we actually end up with. We hope to be able to spend some time touring Kolkata but travel times are always up in the air.

I'd best be off as it looks about to rain buckets soon. Until next time, Adios.
love Brian and Jenna

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Comments

[Dean]

Feet
My feet are hurting for you. It may slow down my running. Glad you are young so you will mend quickly!