The Agnostic Evangelist

Pura Vida

2010-05-06T11:54:00.001-07:00

The trip to Costa Rica ends in Seattle-type weather, a steady rain, though quite a bit warmer. The rainy season began a few days ago, and, predictable as clockwork, about 4 p.m. every day the rains come for 2-3 hours. It kept everything a bit cooler for the past few days, though, which was nice.

We left Parismina for a three-hour journey that turned into a two-day battle with every form of obstacle the Costa Rican travel gods could throw at us.

As we headed back to the Central Valley, a traffic jam on the main road caused us to divert on a more scenic path that would also take us around San Jose traffic. It also took us down a road that was completely shut down by what we were told was an accident. We backtracked to a scenic little city called Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, where we decided to find a hotel and try for Heredia the next day. Should have been no problem, as it was less than 100 km away.

No problem? Right. In the morning we drove back down the road where the accident was, and this time the area was clear and wide open. Until, about 30km later, with no warning, the road was closed. So we backtracked about 100km to the spot of the original traffic jam, and headed up the mountain on an eerily empty road. Empty because, a few kilometers later, we found out the road was closed by a mudslide.

So we backtracked another 50km to the road we had taken from Cartago toward the east coast, a narrow two-lane highway now the main thoroughfare for every semi going in to San Jose. We spent about five hours doing a 100 km journey just to get to Cartago. The good thing was we got to visit the church at Cartago again and see La Negrita. The thing, I kid you not, is about 18 inches high. The stonehenge scene in Spinal Tap comes to mind.

The other downside of this little misadventure was it forced us, and by us I mean me, to drive through San Jose in Friday rush hour traffic at 4 p.m. (refer above to what time the rain comes every day now). Nerves frayed, and never knowing exactly where we were going because there are no signs and Costa Ricans only give directions with their arms (even to each other, I noticed), we somehow tracked down a sign to Heredia and, after two more hours, found our hotel in Heredia. The second day's journey took almost 11 hours and ended about 80km from where it started.

Heredia was great, a college town with a gorgeous cathedral and parque central, where we found a festival and market. In the morning, after taking in more of the town, we headed back to Alajuela and gave back the rental car in one piece. Not much else to do the rest of the day, as most things were closed for the May 1 worker's holiday.

Today, the final day of my journey, we took the bus in to San Jose to see the sites. There are so many buses from Alajuela to San Jose you just queue up and, when one bus is full, it leaves and the next one pulls right up. Great day to visit San Jose, as it was cool and, being Sunday, the crowds weren't too bad. We saw a couple churches, walked around the center of the Costa Rican government and went to the Museo de Oro, which has gold trinkets discovered in the area, some dating back 1500 years or more.

So that pretty much wraps it up. Hope you enjoyed, hope you all make it some day and experience pura vida, and hope to see you all in the states soon.

Slow creatures

2010-05-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

For the first time, travel plans have gone slightly awry, so I have a little more time than expected to catch up on the blog, but only after a wonderful day amidst the slowest creatures nature has to offer.

We left Cahuita early yesterday and made a stop off for a great tour at a sloth sanctuary. Yes, you read that correctly. About a half hour south of Limon is a little place just off the highway that has dedicated itself to preserving sloths.

After seeing a couple sloths in trees from a long way away, it was nice to be able to get up close and see them, pet them. There's some video of the babies below if I worked this right. Sloths smile — who knew? The tour also included a canoe trip down a river, where we saw one sloth and a wide variety of birds, lizards and bugs.

But the main goal of the day was to find a way to the elusive Northern Caribbean coast. Once you get a few miles north of Limon, the coast is cut off from the mainland by a river, so it requires a boat to access. After 90 minutes in the car and another hour bumping along a road, we caught a water taxi to Parismina, the less known (but more easily accessed) cousin of the more famous Tortuguero.

After about an hour in this small fishing village, which has about 400 people, we learned a few important facts. First, the turtles come to the beach to lay their eggs at night. Second, a guide is required to take you along the beach. To protect from poachers, the police patrol the beach at night to protect the turtles, and they don't like to have strangers out there without someone from the town. Volunteers also come from all over the world to both Tortuguero and Parismina to help move the eggs, either to a hatchery or just around the beach, to keep them from the eager hands of the poachers.

We got extremely lucky with our guide. A young American woman (from Orcas Island, incidentally) was very helpful with information and also mentioned her boyfriend was one of the guides. It turns out her boyfriend, Jerry, is also one of the founding members of the group La Asociacion Salvemos Las Tortugas de Parismina (check out www.parisminaturtles.org for more info) and was a wealth of information during the tour.

We left shortly after 9 p.m. and, after walking along the beach (black sand, incidentally) for about an hour, we finally stumbled upon the biggest turtle I have ever seen, a leatherback looking for a place to lay her eggs. This creature was the size of a large coffee table and weighed about 800 pounds. She flopped around on the sand slowly, using her fins to dig holes in the sand. She never laid any eggs, but we spent an hour watching her until she returned to the sea.

We leave this morning on our way to Heredia.

Here is a video of some baby sloths (hit play below)

Cahuita and Panama

2010-04-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

It is very difficult to stand in any spot in Cahuila, turn 360 degrees and not see some image of Bob Marley somewhere.

The Caribbean side of Costa Rica is very much a blend of both the Caribbean and Costa Rica. This little town, which sits right next a national park that includes both a forest and corral reef, is populated by as many Jamaicans as Ticos, and the majority of the music you hear played about town is reggae. The residents are in general much darker-skinned than the rest of the country.

We stopped here, about halfway between Limon and the Panamanian border, as a close jumping off spot for a day-trip to Panama. The weather here is not too hot, but extremely muggy, and you develop the perpetual layer of sweat almost immediately. The people here are very friendly and the town quite lively despite this being the offseason.

We awoke early to head to Sixaola, which contains about the smallest border crossing I have ever seen. One office and an old, rickety one-lane bridge leads you into Panama. Only one truck can cross the bridge at a time, and it looks like the thing could give way at any moment.

This crossing was far more simple than the Nicaraguan one, and Panama didn't even require a form. We were introduced to a friendly taxi driver named Salvador, who took us around Changuinola, the nearest city of any size to the border.

Primarily because of the Canal, Salvador informed us, Panama has a great deal of American influence. The Balboa is traded at 1-for-1 with the American Dollar, but we never saw one. All transactions were done in US money. Gas is measured in gallons, and the price is about the same as the US.

We wandered about a rather non-descript downtown for a couple hours, then Salvador took us around to see a Chiquita packaging plant and, on my request, the local baseball stadium, where he proudly told us Yankee Mariano Rivera (the Michael Jordan of Panama) once pitched.

Possibly because of the heavy American influence, Panama didn't appeal to me the same way Nicaragua did. It seemed a little wealthier, though not as well off as Costa Rica, but didn't have the character. It's ill-advised to judge a country based on one city for one day, of course, so will have to return and get a better feel at some point in the future.

Next up: Sloths and turtles.

Cartago

2010-04-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Now, back to my tale of dramatic religious conversion. Well, not really. And a word of warning right now — this post is more of a history lesson than the others. The most lamentable tragedy of Cartago, or something like that.

Upon ending up in Cartago, a lively, bustling small city about 25km southeast of San Jose, we found ourselves with a nice balcony view of what turns out to be the holiest Catholic site in Costa Rica (Lonely Planet's words, not ours).

La Basilica de Nuestro Señora de los Angeles is a gorgeous building, about the fourth church of that name to occupy the central square over the past 400 or so years. Cartago sits in the shadow of Volcan Irazu, which has been a thorn in the city's side, burying the place several times over the past few hundred years since it was Costa Rica's original capital. Most recently the volcano erupted in 1963 during JFK's visit to the country and buried the city in a half-meter of ash.

The basilica survived that. It was first destroyed by Irazu in 1635. Then 1723. Earthquakes did major damage to the city and the church in 1841 and again in 1910. There is a black statue of Mary (La Negreta) that has survived all of them, and every August Ticos come from all over the country to pay respects. We went to part of a Sunday night service, which was packed and had wonderful music. I could understand about half of what the priest was saying. Lots of stuff about how great God is and all that.

The town also has a nice set of ruins of a convent they finally decided to stop rebuilding just a few blocks away from the church. Otherwise it is a very friendly, bustling place that extends quite a ways to foothills in the east. We had a wonderful time, in no small part due to a lack of humidity we had not felt since landing two weeks earlier.

All in all, a wonderful 16 hours or so spent and a great reminder of how you can end up in interesting places with no planning or forethought.

Next up, the Caribbean coast and Panama

The calls of Montezuma

2010-04-25T21:07:00.000-07:00

As I sit less than 100 yards from the holiest site in Costa Rica, having just returned from mass, I feel cleansed, though that has more to do with the first non-humid night since arriving in Costa Rica.

But first back to the beach. After two days basking in lovely Samara and Playa Carrillo, we made the unnecessarily clockwise journey around the Nicoya Peninsula to Montezuma, the beach that time forgot. If you look on the map and wonder why you just don't drive straight down the coast, it turns you have to pay attention to tides when you take that road, so we went the long way.

Montezuma was just as described, a hippie beach enclave. Almost immediately we met the town pot dealer. One of the signs of Costa Rica's relative wealth is the lack of people on the street trying to sell merchandise. This did not apply to our friendly pothead, who offered bud every time we passed him.

The second day I took a boat ride out to do some snorkeling nearly Isla Tortuga. After signing up for the excursion, I learned to my chagrin the island is not named as such because it has turtles, but because the locals think it looks like a turtle. Saw some small fish, many colors, but nothing noteworthy. The boat ride up and down the coast made the trip worthwhile, though. The jungle goes right up to the beach most of the way around the peninsula.

After leaving Montezuma and taking the ferry to Puntarenas, we headed south (technically it's more east I think) along the Pacific Coast in search of a non-touristy city. Came up snake eyes on that roll, as we ended up in Quepos, near Parque Nacional Miguel Antonio. Saw a ton of howler monkeys, even more iguanas, some small-dog-sized-but-rodent-looking things, assorted lizards, and a pretty cool crab.

Still in quest of a non- touristy city, we curled back inland for what turned out to be a much more vertically challenging drive than anticipated. Highway 2, the part of which is the Pan-American Highway, climbs up a mountain for, no exaggeration, 50 consecutive kilometers, maybe more. One lane, each way, nowhere to pass, and buses and trucks climbing at a conservative 30km/hr made for a long drive, but I don't think I have ever seen more beautiful scenery. The lush, green foliage mixed with the clouds we drove through made for a spectacular combination, and the view when not cloudy (I'm told) extends to both oceans.

The day finally ended in Cartago, a decidedly normal city I'm looking forward to exploring in the morning. I will include more about this very interesting church in my next post.

Nicas, Ticas and Ticos

2010-04-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

Greeting from the beach. For those of you with Day 9 in the when will Eric get a sunburn pool, congratulations. With the sun directly overhead, it becomes more important to remember sunblock for the shoulders.

But such is the price to pay at the beach. We are in the town, and I use the word loosely, of Playa Samara on the Nicoya Peninsula, about 100 meters from a beach. We are also few miles down the road from Puerto/Playa Carrillo, which is just gorgeous and had fewer than 10 people spread out over a couple miles when I got there this morning. Perfect day for being at the beach, though quite hot and muggy the moment you leave it.

But I should back up a bit. Since I last wrote, all of about 24 hours ago, I have had four days worth of fun. For those of you good at math, yes, I got a bit behind and am now catching up. After leaving Volcan Arenal, we traveled Northwest up to the edge of Costa Rica, preparing to go to Nicaragua, and stopped in a cute little colonial village called La Cruz about 20km from the border. For those of you who have been to Panaji (Goa), India, you have a good feel for La Cruz. The "major" highway went from perfect to very rugged for about a 30km stretch, which seems to be the pattern here.

For those of you not familiar with the relationship with the relationship between Nicaragua and Costa Rica, things aren't particularly cordial, so the border is actually quite an effort. After getting off the bus at Peñas Blancas (the border), you have to fill out a customs form to leave Costa Rica. You then walk about a kilometer with no signs or anything to direct you to the Nicaraguan customs, where you fill out the exact same form again and wait in line to enter, pay $7 for your visa and go in. Going back you do the reverse, paying only $2 to leave Nicaragua.

At any given time, as it turns out, about 10 percent of the people in Costa Rica are illegal Nicaraguan immigrants, and the Ticas (Costa Ricans) are not pleased about it. The Nicos find better paying work across the border. It seems very similar to US/Mexico relations.

Nicaragua, from the short time spent in Rivas, is wonderful. Rivas is a very lively and bustling little town. The downtown market was packed on a Monday morning, with lots of horses, motorcycle zipping around and people selling just about everything. The country is noticeably poorer than Costa Rica. Streets are not as well cared for and there are more people trying more aggressively to get you to buy stuff, though no more so than typical in Mexico.

Of greatest interest to me, however, was the quite impressive little minor league baseball stadium. Frente Sur Rivas is a team in the Campeonato Nacional de Beisbol Superior, which as best I can understand is the Triple-A of Nicaraguan baseball. Judging by the ages of the players, mostly born in the mid or early 1980s, these are not pro prospects, but the stadium is quite nice. I've included a picture here. The grass is well cared for in most places and the stands look quite new, putting it on par with many professional stadiums in the U.S., though not major league caliber.

Yesterday began the beach portion of the trip. We headed over to the Nicoya Peninsula (the one on the Northwest corner) and found the driving very easy and better signed than other places. I'd been expecting a long bumpy section by the end getting to the beach, but everything was paved.

Well, finally caught up. It's nice to have wifi in the room, though we leave for Montezuma tomorrow, so who knows. Air conditioning is the greater priority.

Monteverde and Volcan Arenal

2010-04-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

Greetings once again from Costa Rica, here after a trip through the Monteverde Cloud Forest and to view the eruption of a volcano, the one whose name you can spell.

The cloud forest was interesting, sort of a combi- nation of a rain forest and a temperate forest, in many ways combining the best of both. Though the rain leads to thick, lush foliage with quite a few ferns, many of the trees are covered with moss. The climate was very mild and the threat of a downpour was always there. The climate was a typical Washington/Oregon spring overcast day, but about 10-15 degrees warmer. Also saw a quetzal, though it was facing the other direction.

The night tour was actually more interesting, and we saw quite the assortment of insects, frogs, as well as a sloth and a tarantula. They have a beetle that is solid gold in color, almost like a C3PO version of a regular beetle. The sloth was at quite a distance and barely moved.

From Monteverde we bumped down the hill again, then took a gorgeous scenic drive around Lake Arenal to La Fortuna on our way to Volcan Arenal, one of a number of volcanoes throughout the north-central portion of the country. We saw a treefull of monkeys on the way. The lake is gorgeous.

Volcan Arenal is the one that still spits out rocks of lava, though, which you can see once it gets dark and hear throughout the day. They have a nice observation deck, though as we found out later you can just pull off to the side of the road and watch the same thing. Spectacular, though seeing it from above would be far more impressive.

Next up: Nicaragua and the West Coast

Greetings from the Cloud Forest

2010-04-16T20:53:00.000-07:00

I am writing just a few kilometers from the Monteverde National Reserve, the most famous of several cloud forests. What is a cloud forest? That will have to wait for the next post, as the tour doesn't start until tomorrow morning (early of course).

Am just finishing up my third day in Costa Rica, and am having a wonderful time. The weather has not been too hot yet, though fairly muggy, but have been in the mountains or at higher elevations the whole time.

Until today I was in Alajuela, a small city about 15km NW of the capital, San Jose. Alajuela doesn't have a lot to recommend it, but it is less hectic and provides good access to a number of very interesting places. Costa Ricans in general are taller and have lighter skin than Mexicans. Prices are fairly comparable in most cases to the United States.

On the first day I took a taxi up to a small town in the foothills called Zarcero, a picturesque little town of about 4,500, I'm guessing at about 5,500 feet (Alajuela is at 3,000). The parque Francisco Alvarado, in front of the 1895 Iglesia de San Rafael, was quite impressive — lots of bushes carved into the shapes of dinosaurs, archways, faces, etc. Wonderful town, not too hectic, at least by poorer nation standards.

Day two was a visit to Volcan Poas (Pwouss), one of several active volcanoes in the area. After a bus ride up the mountain, the short path takes you up to a spectacular view of the crater from above. The volcano continually belches steam and emits a sulphur smell when the wind blows the wrong direction. Still an amazing view, and there is a nice walk to a crater that's become a lagoon.

The third day began with the rather daunting task of first renting, then learning to drive, a car in Costa Rica. The traffic here is far better than India, and better than Mexico. Getting out of Alajuela proved challenging, but the highways are pretty good. The road up to Monteverde was not, extremely rocky and slow going, and fairly steep uphill with quite the drop off to the side of the road. Still, arrived before dark, which was the goal.

I just got back from a spectacular night tour, but will save that description for the next time, as I'm tired and must get some sleep. The cloud forest beckons at 7 a.m. tomorrow.

Cheers,
Eric

Getting ready for Costa Rica

2010-04-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how empty a packed backpack can be when you're heading for the tropics. Nylon clothes and Tevas make for a very light pack and a very happy backpacker.

Yep, gonna dust off the old blog, fill the tires, oil the chain and get ready to describe three weeks of exploration in Central America's eco-playland. I'm encouraged by the fact the blog went so well for the first three weeks in India, so I'm hoping I'll manage to keep it up for the duration of this trip.

The plan is to see volcanoes, howler monkeys, tortugas, black-sand beaches and the occasional urban setting, as time allows. I'll try and throw up the occasional picture as well. Let me rephrase that. I will try and upload the occasional picture as well.

If you have any suggestions for places to go or things to see, please leave them in the comments.

Cheers,
Eric

Adios from Kodai

2007-05-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hello, folks,

Well, these will likely be the last photos from India on this blog for a while, as I don't think internet cafes will accept the photos from my camcorder. Tasha and I are leaving Kodai on Saturday morning for 2 1/2 weeks of jetting around India on whatever type of moving vehicle we can find.

The first photos are of us looking as Indian as possible while still being white. The garments we are wearing are authentic. We found out later, however, we had put them on somewhat incorrectly.

The final photos are random images that didn't belong to a certain group, but what can I say, they had to see the light of day.

Tasha in a sari, Eric in a skirt (not the official name of the garment).

Eric in a skirt, John in a skirt. Bad look on both counts.

Eric in a skirt, John in a skirt, Caye in a (real) skirt.

Monkey really needed a skirt.

This guy was walking his elephant down the street as we drove to Alleppey. Not something you see every day.

The Thrissur Pooram

2007-05-02T02:36:00.000-07:00

At long last, here are the photos and some information from the Thrissur Pooram, a two-day Hindu festival. The elephants line up in rows of 15, with three riders per elephant. The center elephant in each line represents a different Hindu god. This is apparently the biggest Pooram in Kerala, if not India.

Thrissur Pooram, Pt. 2

2007-05-02T02:25:00.000-07:00

These are more pictures from the first day of Thrissur Pooram. The last photo is during the main ceremony, where two lines of elephants, with about 300,000 people between them, face off in front of the Sri Vadakkunathan Temple. The guys on top then switch parasols dozens of times over the course of an hour, with drummers and horn players blasting away the whole time. It is called the Elanjithara Melam.

As you'll notice, the elephant in the first picture has no one riding it. He and another elephant had what a newspaper described as "a tiff," injuring 15 people and sending hundreds running. The elephant's name is either Nayarambalam Rajasekharan or Thiruvambady Unnikrishnan (I can never tell those two apart).

More from Thrissur Pooram

2007-05-02T01:58:00.000-07:00

These are from the second day

The Backwaters

2007-04-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

My dad and I spent a day touring the backwaters of Kerala in Alleppey, which are kind of like the everglades in Florida -- a system of channels of fairly calm water surrounding strips of land with coconut palms and Indians of various financial means living on them. The water is quite warm and the scenery is lush.

This was our boat

The Backwaters of Kerala

2007-04-28T22:11:00.000-07:00

The Prom

2007-04-28T22:10:00.001-07:00

The Kodai kids had their prom tonight, so thought I would post a few pictures before I sift through the stuff from the Kerala trip. It looked very similar to an American prom at the beginning, though the had a rather impressive fireworks display (with fireworks that would be illegal in the states). The dress was a little more casual, though as is typical in India the girls looked much better than the guys. Many of the guys were in a blazer and jeans, while the girls all had evening gowns, very few of which were Indian.

I was amazed to see that, after the dining and fireworks, they broke into two groups to watch a movie. I'm told it's a Kodai tradition, but how silly is that? Someone had a bootleg copy of "300," so most of the kids watched that while some went to the campus theater to watch "You, Me and Dupree." After the movie, they reconvened for about a two-hour canteen very similar to the ones they have every week. It didn't seem like many of the kids were really into the dancing. I stayed for about half, and it was all up-tempo. No slow dancing. It would be hard to call it a romantic evening, though a few couples seemed to have a good time.

Anyway, here are some photos.

Richa

Photos

2007-04-28T22:03:00.000-07:00

Kum Seok

Sabrina

Not sure who these two are, but they were dressed really nicely

More prom photos

2007-04-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

The one in the middle is Butool. Not sure who the other girl is.

(left to right) Sarah, Trisha and Sangeetha

Kodai art show

2007-04-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

Went to a student art show last night for the Kodai School. I must say it was quite impressive. Some of the pictures below are quite beautiful. Given the talent of the students at this school in general, I guess it's not a surprise. For comparison with a photo, Kum Seok (from the previous post) is the model on the right of the first picture.
Due to technical difficulties, I am unable to match up the artist with the work. Don't worry -- it's no one you know.

Kodai School students

2007-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

Since a few of you have asked, here are some pictures of "my students." These shots actually will appear in the yearbook (we had to have some in action shots).

This is the whole group -- these are the kids you want with you if you're stuck on a desert island and need to figure a way out.

The legendary Kum Seok -- no matter what happens at this school he is involved. Student council president, captain of the soccer team, soundman in the play, plays guitar in a band, and has done most of the design work on the yearbook after teaching himself InDesign.

This is Butool -- absolute sweetheart and a very good photographer.

Bhutanese princess No. 1. I think this is Yiwang (pronounced Yong), who seems to be the quieter, more stoic of the two.

Bhutanese princess No. 2. That would make this one Namzay, who is a little more outgoing than her sister, though both are very easy going.

More photos from the orphanage

2007-04-14T03:49:00.000-07:00

These are mostly views from outside and inside the orphanage. The empty room with the mats is where the kids sleep. The final shot was in a very dark room where they were having "tea."

Scenes from an orphanage

2007-04-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

I took a trip with some kids from the Kodai school to an orphanage. The students as part of their social experience grade make several of these trips each year. This time they played with the children, had tea and then tried to work with the orphans in English and Math, with varying degrees of success. The children were very excited to have company, and incredibly eager to have their pictures taken.

Pictures from downtown Kodai

2007-04-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, these images are able only to convey the sights of downtown Kodaikanal. To fully appreciate the scenes below, take 10 cars to a barn, step out and take a whiff while your friends all honk their horns in random order.

Pictures from the Kodai School

2007-04-10T02:01:00.000-07:00

The Kodai school

2007-04-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

But first, a word about driving

For those familiar with driving in rural parts of the Czech Republic or similar places, you have not seen anything yet. As far as I can tell, there are three rules of driving, none of which has anything to do with staying on one side of the road or the other. The first, and a principle of physics as well, is that two objects cannot occupy the same spot at the same time. The second is that the bigger vehicle wins and the third is that once someone is behind you, even if you've just pulled a nose ahead of them, they are not your concern and they have to watch out for you. The amazing thing is that buses, cars, motorcycles, rickshaws (auto and regular), bicycles, pedestrians, cows, monkeys and dogs all share the streets and rarely are the injured doing so. It's not efficient, but then neither is carrying 50 pounds of wood six miles on your head for $1.50, but if you have to do it, you do.

But on to the Kodaikanal International School, where I am now officially a guest instructor. After going through some very poor towns, cities and villages, and ascending about 6,000 feet to the school, you will not be prepared for the campus. While the typical buildings are shabby and usually made of whatever material is available, the campus itself looks somewhat medieval. Most of the buildings are made of stone, with narrow walkways and at many places limited lighting.

The second thing that sticks out is the relative wealth. While Kodai (the town) is quite poor by first-world standards, the school is as nice or nicer than American schools. The school has for computer labs, a music building with about a half-dozen piano rooms, and several other rooms with different instruments. They have clay tennis courts, basketball courts, a couple of racquetball courts (cement with netted ceilings), a cricket field that girls were playing softball on yesterday, and many other first-world amenities.

The third thing, and once again I'll expand on this later when I'm more knowledgeable on the subject, is that at least a third of the students here are white, mostly from Europe and Australia. Some were born in India, others are here because their family is here either teaching or doing missionary work. They dress like kids in the US -- T-shirts and jeans are very normal, traditional Indian garb is rare among the students, though more common for Indian faculty members. I just walked past a kid with a Phillies T-Shirt on.

Last post from America

2007-03-31T19:10:00.000-07:00

Well, am just trying to pack everything I'll need for India into two bags. In other words, I have packed two bags full of powerbars, tuna, deet spray and toilet paper. Now I have to cram whatever clothes I can still fit around those.

The plan hopefully is to post here once or twice a week with some photos, so check back when you think about it.

Introduction

2007-02-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

Hello, All,

I'm just setting up this blog in advance of my trip to India and Europe. Assuming there are computers available, and the mosquitos waiting in line are not to big or numerous, this is where I will post profound observations on the nature of humanity. That and all the funny, stupid and foreigner-related blunders I stumble into. And pictures, maybe.

For those of you who don't know, I am leaving on April 2 and arriving in India on April 4. Between now and then I will be getting shot up like a heroin addict with vaccinations and hoping my visa arrives in time for me to go. I will then be in India until May 23, or such is the plan, then spend the summer in Greece, Italy, possibly Spain, England, possibly France, and maybe some other countries, time and funds permitting, before returning August 8.

At some point in the future, I will be putting up a betting pool on how much weight I will lose during seven weeks in India, so keep posted. The winner gets to take me out to dinner when I get back, somewhere all-you-can-eat.

Take care,
Eric