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.