getting the hell out of bodh gaya, onto the beach! puri!

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july 11


grrrr. i maintain, "tourist offices" in india SUCK. we most definitely do not have to go to mumbai before going to goa, as the lady in the "tourist office" at the train station tried to make us believe. we're also pretty sure that all trains to vijaywada are not booked until next thursday, as they tried to lead us to believe, either. >😞

not that we don't love puri! the beach is nice. our hotel is large and airy and has a lovely mosquito net. but our two favorite travelers, the german journalist and the sick mexican, left this morning... which means we're left with the fuckwit brazilian, englishman, and the two israelis. fantastic. we'd rather be in goa, where there are beaches aplenty and some nightlife. because, really, there's nothing to do here except visit the temples and the beach. and while we were on our religious pilgrimage for the first half of our summer, now we just want to play on the beach, listen to some music , and have a beer every now and then .

so, since the train station here is notsohelpful, we're going to go pay a tourist agency to help us out, seeing as how a train from here to goa would be about 40 hours... and we'd rather stop for a night halfway. or perhaps check on a flight!

sunburn is feeling better. hopefully the guy from the train that we met on the way here, rohit, will show up this afternoon and take us to see the temple and possibly show us how to drive a motorcycle in india 😊 the traffic here is practically nonexistant, so what better place to learn?!

much sunburned love from puri..... -molly

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HA! well, here's a shoutout to everyone in the lake area who now knows about this site from this past weekend's paper. please take everything into context; we have our ups and downs like everyone else, but they are often magnified by intoxicating india.

much love to the lake & to my family and my little bro, the bellyflop king

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random thoughts by mbaade:

there is a cricket sitting next to the mouse .

"one flew over the cuckoo's nest" is a disturbing film and jack nicholson (sp?) does a superb job of acting. i'd seen it years ago and had forgotten the very end until we watched it again tonight. although this ending is notsohappy, i'm always pleasantly surprised when i forget the end of movies and am shocked, again, when seeing them years later.

we're going out with rohit tomorrow to see the temples. we have train tickets for thursday to begin heading toward goa. will be a LONG two days on the train. went out to the beach late this afternoon. lots of wind and shifting sandbars. the waves were crashing out at sea on a sandbar and barely coming into shore; just lots of rolling water. the current kept pulling us north up the coast so kept busy swimming south against the incredible winds. were engulfed by a pod of indian boys and men on a sandbar where some waves were crashing. they didn't speak english. we don't speak hindi. nothing to communicate about except to apologize when a wave would throw us into each other. was nice not to have to speak as we're accosted by men and boys from every angle every day. the ocean is one place where we can usually escape.

it's nice to see women and girls in the ocean, even if they're only in up to their knees. no girls swim; only boys. very few indian women enter, and if they do it's in a full sari. the other day a woman in a purple suit (salwar kameez) was wading out and i caught her eye and smiled, and then i went to say hello. she grabbed my wrist and wouldn't let go. i could hold my ground better than she could and often kept her from falling in the knee-high water, but sometimes we'd both get bowled over and go tumbling. it was fine where we were, but it's not okay when the boys get too close out in the ocean, or when the two girls grabbed me yesterday and tried to pull me out into the surf. they see me swim and think i'm strong enough to hold them, and that's just not true. they would pull me under in a minute as soon as a big wave came. scary stuff.

it feels like everyone is grasping for some part of me here.

over halfway done with our trip and are already starting to think about jobs and apartments in philly. hard not too. we'll see.

lots of posting and notsomuch emailing. i can't concentrate on any specific thing. i haven't written in my journal in days. can't seem to start any of the books i've chosen from the hotel library. the newspaper is about all that holds my attention, and that's probably because i can just skim the headlines and pick and choose what to read.

alright. enough.

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