Gokarna, India

All we have been doing since we got here is relaxing. It is so nice to be on a warm beach soaking up the vibes here. We are at Kudle beach...a 20 minute walk over a headland from the nearest town...no road. It is a small little traveler/Hindu pilgrimage area. The town is getting ready for Shivaratri (on the 26th), a large celebration of Shiva, one of the most worshiped deities in Hinduism. We are going to stick around for it...they are building some huge wagons with flags and carvings all over them for the festival.
In the meantime, we are practicing with our poi and staff on the beach (poi are 2 wicks on the end of a chain that you light on fire and dance with; and the staff is the same on either end of a stick). By the time we get back to Tahoe, we hope to be good enough to light them for our friends.
Guess that is all to write at the moment. We have been really taking it easy here... if only everything in India was this mellow.

Kerala, India

We've been on the move this last week, and are finally settling down for a few days. We took a 3 hour boat tour along the "backwaters" of Kerala (the province), which took us to Amma's Ashram. They call her the "Hugging Mother" and she is considered "one of the world's most influential spiritual leaders." Unfortunately, she began traveling 3 days before we got there (she travels 5 months out of every year), so we didn't get to meet her. On the plus side, 400 devotees from the ashram are traveling with her, so it was relatively quiet there during our stay. As you can see from the picture of the pink towers, this ashram is big...it is not abnormal to have 4000 people there in a day. Although we missed her in India, she will be at her ashram near San Francisco, CA shortly after we get home. How ironic.

The next day we continued on our backwaters tour, ending in Allepey, a small, transitional town on our way to Cochin. Now we're here enjoying the plethora of culture, arts, and entertainment it has to offer. Dana has been enjoying all the fresh seafood that can be bought right on the water next to the Chinese fishing nets. To complement this, restaurants have sprung up right in front of the fishermen ready to cook whatever you buy. Quite a symbiotic relationship.

Along with seafood, Kerala is known for Kathikali dance. A type of drama-dance that involves intricate costumes and dance movements that are a type of sign language. You actually only go to see a portion of the drama...the entire play takes about 9 days to perform. The one we saw was about a demoness who tries to seduce a god by changing herself into a beautiful girl...a Hindu story.

Instead of leaving Monday as we planned, we bought tickets at a local art cafe to see Pandit Ajit Singh, a sitar player. This town has so much to offer and we are trying to see as much as we can before we head on.

Madurai, India

So we are wasting time waiting for our overnight train to Quilon. Today we just relaxed ...well, as much as you can relax in a chaotic city with no parks and an over touristy temple where touts abound.

We added a picture of Chris modeling his new suit that he got tailored in Pondicherry (the town next to Auroville). Lookin' good.
Dana felt jealous so she got some things made in Madurai. Its a semi- traditional outfit called a salwar kameez (the orange long shirt in the picture and a green pair of pants to go with). Madurai is known for its fabrics and has a market filled with tailors that are busy sewing anything and everything. What ever you order, you can pick it up a few hours later. I should do all of my shopping this way!