arrival

I am stunned by India. I feel like I have been told a million times what it's like...warned about emaciated beggars pleading through car windows and cows plodding across thoroughfares and air that smells like shitsandalwoodsweatexhaust, beautiful temples stuffed in between cell phone shops and monsoon rains so thick you can barely see...I've been told all this but somehow it didn't prepare me for the fact that it's ACTUALLY TRUE! I have been stumped about what I can write in here because it has occurred to me that there is just absolutely no way to describe it.

Just imagine being in a carweaving at full speed through traffic made up of every kind of vehicle you have ever seen in your life (from honda civics to ancient wooden carts to huge herds of goats), honking so often you are beginning to wonder if the driver has a tic and searching for the wildfire burning down the street only to realize (frightfully) that all that smoke is just exhaust. Add to that people dressed in every technicolor of the rainbow passing by outside and a general fear for your and everyone's life who is within 10 feet of your car, and that can give some ghost of an idea.

Luckily, the town I am in (Mysore) is MUCH more low key than Bangalore (although all of that above explanation still apply), and the place we are staying is amazingly clean, totally comfortable, and pretty much exceeded my expectations about a thousand fold. EVERY room has its own flush toilet, a tall smiling cook named Manu makes every meal for us on plates the size of my torso (I AM OBSESSED WITH THE FOOD), and we have running water, beds, fans, etc etc. I must say I experienced some (ahem) "Delhi belly" on my first night here and am still a little unsure about what is going on in my stomach but I'm not too worried about it. I think it may have something to do with the fact that I accidentally drank tap water on my first day---the ONE extreme traveler taboo that I was SURE I wouldn't break, but our white teacher guy here said the water was purified and I stupidly believed him. Needless to say, well...no negativity. But he could have just said "I don't know" instead of sounding so damn confident.

OK I just got about seven electric shocks trying to plug in my camera and am now paranoid to be anywhere near the computer so I'll leave a couple of pictures here (If I can figure out how) and then run as far away from the computer as possible.

looking for salwar kameez (this is about 1/1000th of the mess we made)
the street we live on