Happy New Year

Currently in Ooty, a mountain town in Tamil Nadu, we celebrated our New Years a day early... and are still hurting. After visiting Jolly World to ride the gokarts with a fellow American traveler, we got a little too pumped up and started the festivities at 5pm. The night ended at a basement bar/lounge, with a dance floor that only allows men to grace its presence with a female partner. I kid you not. Apparently in this town it is unheard of for a man to dance by himself, or far worse, with another man, yet they found ways around that. Bevin helped out some of those poor souls by offering herself up as the world's worst dance partner. Kingfisher was the end of it all for us, and we autorickshawed it back to the YWCA at 11.30pm. We are such lightweights now.

In actual world news, we have seen nothing but media coverage surrounding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. We were intrigued to see India and her people's reaction to news, but have had little luck. Indians really do not like to talk politics, especially Pakistani politics, and probably don't like to do it with tourists either. As our time in India is growing fairly limited, just shy of two weeks left here, we have been reflecting on what we have seen and learned. The best description of India was provided by an older German couple we met that had traveled here 8 times in stints of 2 months or more. They said you will never figure out why Indians do the things they do, but that is what makes this country so intriguing, and that is why we come here, to try and figure it out.

We close wishing you all a happy new year! Talk to you in 2008.

Christmas Greetings

So the sun came out today... and prior to our departure from Goa, we wanted to share our Holiday greetings (chances are few for a good internet connection in Gokarna, our next stop). We hope you all have a white Christmas, we will be enjoying ours on the white beach. If for some reason you can't view the video below, please check it out using the YouTube video link under Extra Special Links on the right side of the page.

Go Go Goa...

Stan, Bevin, and Bevin's stomach of steel made it to Goa, after a 10 plus hour bus ride. We can not even explain how uncomfortable these bus rides are... and how we hope to never have to take one again, until we get to Thailand of course. Our accomodation is a hut on the beach, complete with a mosquito net, cold shower and western style toliet. Within 2 hours of our arrival it began to rain... and has not stopped since. You all have to deal with snow, we can handle a little bit of a drizzle. The best sights so far: two cows chillin on the beach, a drunk Irish man rubbing Stan's belly and a beach homage to disco Jesus.

Will keep you up to date on our days of extreme excitement on a rainy beach.

Peace.

Stan's Birthday....

is today! That's right. Send him some birthday greetings, particularly since I have ruined big birthday plans by contracting my first case of Delhi belly. So we are are stuck in Hampi for two more days, which in the end has actually been a nice quiet break from all the air and noise pollution we encountered in Rajasthan and a way to prepare ourselves for the partying we will be doing on the coast. We should be able to make it to Goa by Wednesday... and then we will be celebrating STAN. Maybe we will get a decent internet connection there so we can get more pictures up.

Hope you are all enjoying the winter snow! Christmas greetings to come.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention... Stan has taken up the harmonica, what a delight!