what's is called in english?

real question: sometimes the trail was pretty slippery, and it turns out that we were walking on a recently dried river bed. it was slippery because of the green creek slime that is slippery that covers rocks. well, it's still slippery when semi dry.

question: what's the green creek slime called? apparently there is a word for it Hebrew and in the local languages, so there MUST be an English word for it.

ideas?

it's confirmed: i don't like leeches

i left Mysore (which was no eyesore) earlier this week and came to Madikeri, a small village in the hills close to the state, Karela (so i'm close to the western coast of India). It's much cooler here and i've actually had use for my jacket.

i went on a guided two day trek with a great Israeli couple (the Israeli's know how to snack! i'm impressed and thankful. i've been holding back from buying Indian snacks and bought some accidently once by by pointing at it. it was like indian potato chips / trail mix.colorful, crunchy, and spicy)). yum.

the trek was beautiful, and we walked through the forest and were shown the different spices and flowers, learned about the alchohol they make from palm trees (bummer, i didn't get to taste any), and saw bugs and snails on major hormones.

the worst part of the trek was the fact that it's leech season. yep, get out your warm feet and go hunting for leeches. we had to do leech checks several times, and, given my intense phobia of worms, this was pretty unpleasant. they move surprisingly quickly and are VERY sticky (gives new meaning to the word"leech".) the only way to get them off is to tug on them, and they stretch and resist. then you have to roll them in your fingers and flick them away. Y-U-C-K!!!! i don't ever need to do that again.

tomorrow i'm off to Ooty.

dollar store

i've decided that India is one huge Dollar Store! with everything being so cheap, it's easy to just buy a dollar of this, a dollar of that. a little too easy perhaps.

the touts are everywhere, and i believe i have have been duped
several times already. so with them, it's here $5 there $5 instead of $1. I think i'll have to be on a rupee diet. i've been
out of the safe guidance of Ted for two days and i've spent probably nearly as much.

rats, the stuff i wrote about mysore just got lost....will have to post later.

onward ho! (short)

managed to get out of chennai and down to Mamallapuram (the Indian version of the simplified British name - Mahabalipuram. go figure). was great, cute little town. no time to post details now.

off to Mysore on an overnighter. (skipping Bangalore. Chennai has been great, as i've had the best host, but enough big city experience for now)!

hope to post every 3-4 days (Indian time).

(i'm finally correcting posting time.)

21 sept: did you mean to ask me to lunch?

communicating with people around here is a bit difficult.

Ted's complex has cleaning people who come daily to, well, clean. turns out, they also will bring you lunch (for 20Rp ($0.50)) if you want. i did not know this.

so Saagen (sp?) apparently asked if i wanted lunch brought to me. but, if he knows English, i don't understand any of it. we communicated through random gesticulations and head nodding. our conversation went something like this

gesticulate
am i eating soon? yes.
head nod and expecting look
ummmm, yes, i will eat.
head nod and expecting look. more gesticulating
ummmmm, yes, i am hungry. yes. you're hungry too. i see. you can eat. that's fine. yes, you eat.
head nod and expecting look. more gesticulating and waiting.
ooooh, you can show me someplace to eat! yes . i pay, we eat. ok yes yes. (vigorous head nodding)
synchronous head nodding

off we go. it was very confusing, as he was assuredly wondering why i was walking with him; after all, he thought he was just going to bring me lunch. much confusion. rest easy --- we did manage to get food: dosai at a little shop. yummy.

Ted told me about the lunch arrangement when he got back. and there was light.

aside: my luggage is here!

21 Sept - "baby gone" and "golden soup"

ted has taken me to some restaurants and it's been GREAT! my fears of missing out on the indian cuisine for fear of fire-level hot-ness are quelched.

a few nights ago we went to one restaurant called "miami" which sits (stifflely enclosed) on the beach. as usual, the menu had little meaning to us, and the explainations from the waiters even less. we still tried to some vegetarian suggestions. after elevated levels of talking, we nodded to two dishes. when the first arrived, he presented us with it: "baby gone" (I am amazed that Ted could decipher this).

Ted joked, "baby gone? where's the baby?"
smiling, the waiter acknowledged, "baby gone. baby gone"

as usual, more nonsense questioning and answering of sorts lead to no more enlightenment, but we were happy to have "baby gone" and our other dish.

the dishes were great, and after a bit of poking at (and a lot of eating of) the "baby gone", i realized what we were eating --- "baby corn"

the golden soup is code word for beer, because Miami doesn't have a liquor licence. clever fellows. thank Shiva.

addendum: Ted and I were at a very cool temple (Mahundeeswarar (say that three times fast, just dont' ask me to spell it again), and met a man there who had fine english, but Ted had to translate my questions for him.

20 sept 05 - i made it

i made it to chennai on monday. my luggage is still at the eiffel tower, or perhaps at the hermes shop in dubai. it will join me on thursday. ted patiently waited for me to fill out paper work and gather my daily compensation for lost luggage (a generous $50 / day. so i got $50 total. i think it's indian math.)

ted lives in a mansion with fast internet connection, so i can pop on pretty easily for a few days.

haven't seen to much of chennai itself yet, but already the experiences are many. ted took me to the hospital where he works where we had many conversations in english which might as well been in tamil, since i could understand nothing. i knew he was saying something in english, and he wrote down the addresses in english, but understanding what he was saying was just impossible. (diane mentioned this would happen, but i didn't realize that she really meant it was impossible to understand). surreal.

gotta go for now, more later. off to get a sari or sarton (sp?) with my daily comp money!

first entry - 28 hrs : on my way!!!!!!

hi folks,

ok, here's my first attempt at "blogging". let me know if this post works...

so, it's now 1am on Monday morning (17:00 Sunday in Miami, FL), and i'm in Dubai. yep. after a late departure from miami on saturday, i arrived in paris at 10:55, which was just too tight to catch my 13:10 flight out to Chennai (it was a mad house in Paris, and i received the typical french nose treatment at my first attempts to make my flight. a foolishly futile attempt, as anyone can attest to if they have flown in/out of paris and know i had to switch terminals).

i have a 2:45 departure and Ted, the oh so gracious cousin of my friend Laura, is meeting me at the airport when i arrive at 8:30 Monday. thank you Ted!!!

i had the good fortune of sitting next to a man from India on route to paris, and he has the meals all lined up in my head starting with idli and "south indian coffee" for breakfast. he also cautioned that the food may be too spicy for my western wimpiness, so this may be all that i can eat for a while. i will work on it, as mastering eating the cuisine of india is a goal.

ok, better test out this posting.