Brief recap because the lengthy one would require surgery

It seems that in order to get me to write a long email or blog update, I have to sleep for an amount of time that could be misinterpreted as a coma.

In that case, lets begin with a recap that will help me bring all the memories of less than a month ago to the forefront so I can easier salvage them on more lengthy forays into the miracles of writing.

Miss Erica Raber came into town around the 10th of December, well it should have been the 10th, but unfortunately she was delayed in London after British Airways decided to perform midflight brainfarts, followed by mental collapses while on the ground, and a serious hiccup in neuron transfers while talking to the pretty lady. Luckily her intelligent, wonderful personality managed to convince them to let her come to India still, where she expected to find me waiting patiently by the exit gate... consider this a foreshadow of a longer story to come later...

I had rented a house for the two of us for her two weeks in Bangalore. Houses without nonfunctioning plumbing.... smell. More on Bangalore later...

Attempting to get your visa extended/registered, I'm not sure which, I just know I am one of the few who managed to do it without a bribe (although with the amount of running around they made me do it probably would have been cheaper to hand over the mulah, but I've got standards!), can be difficult in India. Letting it be difficult so you can spend more time with your best friend helps the stress level...

We got on a bus to Madurai, where we spent Christmas, chilled out with Gandhi's sandals and had super clothes made, then went late night to Thekkady, where we had a horrible time trying to hunt down elephants, although with the proximity to their watering hole, size of their footprints, and fear our guide was showing as we pushed our way through leech infested jungle, I think we may have been worse off if we had found them. Sore disappointment over our failure to find them was tempered by the excellent banana pancakes at the Coffee Lodge near the national park. All I know is Erica is a PIMP for handling all the walking we did that day!

Heading West we stopped by Kumily where we searched for a medicine she had found as the only cure for a skin rash that had been plaguing her for the past decade. While we didn't find it, we did find an alternate that was similar and didn't work at all. Afterwards a restaurant tried to poison, and then place the blame on...us. I'm still not sure how that worked, but when I explain it more, maybe you can help me understand.

Varkala has been described as a beautiful wonderful place...it is more, think palm trees, beaches, fresh fish, kind people who openly admit they're trying to rip you off, nice drinks, and all the Coconut, papaya, banana, you could imagine. Erica petted her first elephant while evan could tell you a couple things about having not enough cushioning on the elephant spine... or hairs...wear pants...and bike shorts... The only regret i have is that we didn't do Varkala last, that way the north would have seemed nicer after some days on the beach to reflect...

Heading north to Kochi, everything was free, except for rooms, food, and walking expenses... everything else was free!!! Young Indian men should come equipped with one of those electric dog collars that only activate when they get to close to Foreigners, especially foreign women...

Coimbature- smelliest place on earth, worse when you're freezing in a trainstation

Mumbai- the cab tried to cheat us, the tea shop cost twice as much and we walked 6 km in the hot sun, but there was good pizza and even if the indian tourists wanted to take pictures of themseleves with us, WE DIDN"T LET THEM!!

Ahmedabad- There is nothing like a long train ride in your own special bed with nobody else in it to make you feel special, then you get out of the train and are assualted by Rickshaw taxi drivers of whom you can imagine and hoping for spontaneous combustion to occur to, walking, and finally out of the seeming mist but actually smog, comes trotting a camel with enormous super crazy big feet. And we saw the world's largest incense stick, and smoked hookah in a cool bar that redeemed the whole city in our eyes. And...

Jodhpur - The sleep bus was fun, the fear in the eyes of our rickshaw driver when we told him our destination was fun, meeting and instantly despising the host of our hostel...not so fun. But we manage to find the two most comfortable shawls imaginable...agoorra-rabbit's wool, and ah ve some great conversations with a bunch of people while climbing and getting lost in market after market, fort after fort... I guess I could write more on this too

Jaipur - I think the reason I didn't like the city was because it was pink, but the Ice cream was delicious, rhe rooms comfy and warm, and life almost good.

Bharatpur and Keoladeo National Park - Its surprising that Erica would rather be in a large smelly city wandering around lost, than a hot, silent jungle riding with no clue as to where we were. Luckily the bicycles had no natural balance points so rather than worry about tigers or finding humanity we simply tried not to fall over... but yeah the city sucked, who else can say they saw 100's of different bird species in a single day... not me!

Agra - A description of Fatehpur Sigri warrants placement here, but I won't. We saw everything in Agra, and wandered around for far too long, but the Taj was worth it, oh was it worth it... there was some other things you could say about it, but... you'll have to wait.

Delhi - We left from there

Bangalore - As a simple southern city, i can not tell you how much I did not respect its wonderfulness, yet after dealing with the pollution, sheer humanity, and disgusting personalities found to the north of Mumbai, I can tell you that I have deleted a lot of emotion where I might have been attempting to swear at those rotten bastards...weelll I've restrained myself well until now, lets keep it down. Bangalore was nice.

Obviously, more to come