Gorgeous Goa

Guy painting flag pole on ridiculously long ladder in Panaji (Goa's capitol)

Panaji is a romatic Portuguese city in India.
Large church - with eclectic interior
Look - beach cows!
Excitingly wild coastline in Vagator, Goa
From the top of a hill with a big, ruined fort on it

This is what happens to toilet paper on a windy day on the top of a hill on the coast from the wall of a ruined fort
Ah...the buses...how we love you.
Cat and Jessica on the beach before eating dinner at a beach-front restaurant (the site of huge beach-raves during high-season)
Back in Panaji

India knows how to do colors
beach dogs like fish
Men pulling in nets
I swam to the island in the distance...it took about an hour against the current - I was very tired when I clambered onto the first, slimmery, sharp rock I came to.

Stay tuned....BONUS PICTURES coming next weekend from Jessica's camera (since mine had no battery for much of the trip)

Settled in Boston...pictures from Kerala

Fort Kochin, Kerala - hanging out and touring the backwaters

Artsy, little cafe (with the highest concentration of European tourists found over the summer). Here Jessica is modlingg a walnut-something cake and sparlking lime juice.
Private yoga class for Catherine. For $8 I got a 90 minute yoga class with this guy. He was cool and showed off for me a little bit - which was fun. In this position he lowered his knee down until it touched the ground and then lifted himself back up again.
Ah...the backwaters tour in Kerala on a wooden houseboat...it doesn't get much better than this. Picture-perfect weather, scenary...
Hard to beat this level of relaxation. Here are my knees with my tea balanced on the side-rail of the houseboat.
And then there was the jungly canoe-ride and the eating of the freshly picked coconut...oh yes and the drinking of the quickly fermenting coconut flower tonic (drink it fast, while it is only the alcoholic level of beer!)

Snake Boat Races at Alleppey (sp?), Kerala

Costumed dancing with drummers and people with huge heads before the races
Very striking young woman dancer
Part of the 150 person boat including rowers, cheerleaders, water bailers and those guys at the end doing some combination of steering and ceremonial paddle raising during the race.
When boats sink...
Boat racing after party on a boat amongst the traffic jam of ferries leaving the spectator islands.

Pictures from Goa to follow!

Happy 60th Independence Day, Dearest India!

Today I did yoga on the beach in the morning, had mixed fruit, yogurt and tea for breakfast, rented a scooter and drove to two nearby beach villages (don't worry mom, we only had one small, mini-accident, even though I have never driven a scooter before and didn't even know which knob was the accellerator). I had a vegitable curry with rice for lunch and then passed out in my room for an hour nap. Then we went to the beach and I swam to an island against the current which took a really long time and I was very tired and when I got to the island it was surrounded by shallow, poity and slimy rocks and I just hung on to the closest one for a while until I could come up with the best plan for getting back to the beach. Then I got back to my blanket and read from my book of short stories until the sun went down and then Jessica and I retuned the scooter for the daily rental fee of $5. Dinner included fresh mint tea, freshly caught prawns pan fried in generous amounts of butter, salad and topped off with a brownie covered in what tasted like brownie batter..yes! Now to return to the room with Jessica and see if there are any more 007 movies on our little TV. Need to get up early for a few more hours of beach time before check-out.

I will miss you very much India. Thank you for an amazing summer.

Arrival in Paradise

The rice paddies of Karnataka as enjoyed from the open door of a moving train are fantastic. The strong wind adds a little excitement as I hold the outside rails tightly and watch two women in brightly colored, windblown sarees walk in a zig-zagged path accross the brilliant green fields. Old men wearning a single white cloth fish in small lilly pond lakes with bambooo poles. In northern Kernataka the train passes through a mountain tunnel and the emrald landscape is replaced with blackness. I notice teh smell of the nearby bananna fritter salesman (thank goodness it is not the smell of the latrine again!), and enjoy the warm metal window frame beneath my forearm.

At 2pm we arrived in beautiful Palolem. Large, clean beaches, surrounded by dense palm tree groves and small green mountains in the distance. I swam and body boarded, built a sand castle and walked along the beach. Tomorrow we will rent a scooter and visit the more secluded nearby beaches...

smile.

Cashew liquor and coconut flower wine

My comments on these two drinks:

Fenni - the cashew liquor smalls bad and tastes worse

Kallu - coconut flower tonic (wine) - this drink tastes a little funky but grows on you. During our 7 hour backwaters tour Jessica and I split a litre of Kallu immediately after it was collected from the coconut flowers. Here is a little blurb stolen from another site:

“Palm sap begins fermenting immediately after collection due to natural yeasts in the air. Within two hours, fermentation yields an aromatic wine of up to 4% alcohol content, mildly intoxicating and sweet. The wine may be allowed to ferment longer, up to a day, to yield a stronger, more sour and acidic taste, which some people prefer. Longer fermentation produces vinegar instead of stronger wine.”

What hs happened since the last blog? I'm so glad you asked...

August 12th: after our leisurely breakfast and lunch we rented bicycles for about $0.10 an hour and biked around the perimeter of part of the island. This was the perfect way to get around the beach village island and see the interior village life - and of course buy lots more mini-bananas (we like them very much..they are just so darn cute). From 5-6:30 I had an awesome 90 min Hatha yoga class with a guy who has been practicing since 1970 - his english was pretty good and showed me lots of new yoga positions to work on...yay. Then, from 7-8pm (since it had been such a hard day) - I got a 60 min ayurvedic massage.

August 13th: motored and punted around the backwaters all day and got to see the main local industries: fisherman (collecting fish, muscles, scallops...and sand, actually), muscle shell processors (making the powder for everything from calcium tablets to white paint), rope mking (from the husk of the coconut), and of course coconut harvesting (for food and oils...). Now for an early dinner followed by another overnight train ride adventure!

Singing off,
Yours,
The Cat

Kerala: Allepey's Nehru Snake Boat Races

At 8am Jessica and I caught the "super fast" bus to Allepey from Ernakulem (just a ferry ride away from where we are staying in Kochin). Like most of India's transportation: it consistently gets the job done but is somewhat of a joke: since at about ~0.7km/min we aren't exactly flying down the coast. This is understandable though given the foot-deep potholes and frequent puddle-lakes. Nevertheless I manage to stand and read for a while and only fly into the man in front of me twice because of the violet braking (no doubt due to a stray cow or swerving scooter rider). Once I get a seat I even manage a bit of a nap.

On arrival to Allepey we are greated by traditional Keralan drumming and custumed dancing that launch the day's festivities. We watched the young female dancers with elaborate costumes and makeup as well as teh oversized dancing heads and peacocks that praced around to the beat of the drums.

We took a ferry (which we barely arrived on time for) over to the spectator's island near the finish line. Then began the 3 hour waiting period while the boats warmed up and we waited for the appropraite local government dignitaries to arrive. Luckily for us we ended up sitting adjacent to poart of the Allepey home-crowd: specifically about 40, very happy (read intoxicated) men between 20 and 50 singing, eating, yelling and dancing...and it was all too clear that the abundant police presence wouldn't attempt to exert much control over this boisterous bunch. These men continually handed us food and entertained brief conversations in English explainging which teams were favored, which teams had new boats and how much they cost and how the rowers were chosen for each team. The pictures for this day are great and I wil post them as soon as I can. Just imagine a crew team on a 135 foot wooden boat with a crew of 105 men. Most of them rowing, but several positions are reserved for cheerleaders and at least one for bailing water out of the boat during the race. However, perhaps more bailers could have been used on several boats because at least 3 times yesterday we witnessed a long line of heads above the water..they certainly take "going down with the ship" literally - somehow they would manage to maneuver the sunken boats to the river's edge while staying in their original spots. We met some medical and dental students from the UK at the race and had a lovely dinner with them before heading back to the bus station. Lovely, but long day.

Today we plan to take it easy...slept in, breakfast at the Kashi art cafe (a little piece of european, starbucks in the Keralan backwaters) and will head over for an Ayurvedic massage after this stint in the internet cafe...and then we'l find a little garden restaurant for lunch :)

South India

I want to stay on the green cliff above the Arabian Sea with the strong sea- breeze encircling me.

The vegitation in Goa during monsoon season is so dense that the small roads and nestled houses struggle to stay exposed.

6 August: Around 1pm our war-weary public service group pulled itself together for one last combined effort and gave a presentation to the Chairman of the Rai Fountation. He apparently had met with MIT's Dean Daniel Hastings the day before about strengthening MITs collaborations in India..cool.I stayed up all night with Jessica to finish the report, so the 6th led right into thr 7th...As we were leaving for the airport I had intense "feeling like I am forgetting something"...but it must have just been the sleep that I had forgotten.
7 August: Delhi by airplane to Goa at 11am- (because of Yamilee's flight schedule Jessica and I got to the airport about 5 hours early so we got in an early breakfast and a solid nap ). Upon arrival we took a taxi to Panaji (Goa's Portuguese inspired capital). We went on an extremely slow walking tour of the gorgeous european town with Indian detailing. We had dinner at an outdoor restaurant adn I had the local specialty of prawn curry rice. We stayed in a family run Park Lane Lodge with two twin beds, fan and shared, outdoor restrooms/shower stalls. The gate is locked 10pm - but getting to bed early suited us just great.
8 August: Met up with german girls our age at 8am whom we met the might before and went sightseeing and shopping (although we tried really hard not to) at several beach villages. Panaji by bus to Mapusa for 8Rs ($0.20). Mapusa to Anuja by bus. Taxi to Vegator where we stayed for the night.
9 August: Morning treck through desolate Vegator looking for breakfast and internet. Found both: toast, eggs, (indian) hash browns, and banana porridge :)

Train down to Kerala this evening.