Kanyakumari and Varkala

A few sardine-tin packed trains took Poni and I to Kanyakumari, the very southern-most point in India. We watched the sunset. That's what we went there to do. Afterwards we headed for some darshan in a thousand-year-old Shiva temple. It was just a little pin-prick of a town. Eeerily free of mosquitoes, allowing me to lounge outside at twilight on the balcony of our hotel room, watching the Indian men smoke, drink tiny chais, tie their lungis up and down. If I must be reborn after this life, I wish to be born as an Indian man. (follow that link down to the entry posted Sunday, Feb 7th...I was there btw!) I could go on and on about their impeccable taste in fashion. They have perfected the art of "chilling out". They always look like complete BAD-ASSES.

Yet another train with people stuffed and hanging out the doorways took us to Varkala. We found a hotel room big enough to be our mini yoga shala. Cheap and run by very pleasantly and adorably stoned lads. Everywhere there are adorably stoned Indian men, many who claim, strangely enough, to be from Jamaica. White people are all over this place, trotting around with their thighs and shoulders and cleavage glowing in the blazing tropical sun. It seems a bit rude to me that Western people should dress in such a way in sacred India, but the tourist market seems to have expanded significantly, and all the shops along "the Cliff" overlooking the beach sell all kinds of tiny clothing for the pale and wealthy. I can't wait to make clothes.

Speaking of clothes, I am obsessed with Lady Gaga. I think about her for hours on end. Then I think maybe it will be good for me to have a job soon.

We got massages. Amazing massages. I have had fish. Amazing fish. And we have been to the beach, and played in the waves. Poni and I have splashed in our own waves. Waves of nausea, waves of sleeplessness, waves of social interaction, waves of awkward miscommunication, waves of emotion spurred by the awkwardness. We seem to know how to ride waves really well, actually. Or we are getting better.

Tomorrow we rise early to go to Kollam for our houseboat tour of the backwaters of Kerala. This is our "splurge" for the trip, though we tend to do a lot of splurging. Just us, our cook, our driver, and the jungle floating by...