India is .....

Ian and I have been developing simple ways to explain to people what India is like, a few that we have so far are...

India is ....
a place that takes a big spoon and stirs you all up
a completely different world
a developing nation with third world sectors
beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep

ill try to post more as we think of them.

loves

Bag milk

Ian and have rented a two bedroom apartment in the French quarter of Pondicherry for three days. The decision was made while we were staying in mallapuram in a super budget under renovation roach infested place that had regular two hour power outages. While the hotel was one of the worst the 40 degree c temperature's as well as the outbreak of cholera and swine flue made going out a bit of a gamble. If those factors were not enough to get us into a nicer place when we both started developing sever rashes we packed our bags and changed towns. Town changing was not too complicated, tho if we had less stuff we might have been able to squeeze on the first five buses, but bus number six was fine. We passed through coastal farmland that was beautiful, mid west on the Atlantic coast, with palm branch huts. It was easy to imagine how much damage this area suffered during the tsunami. As we were travailing along the first rains of the season started. Three thoughts on that 1 rain creates such wonderfully fresh cool and clean feeling air 2 it's awesome when you bus fare guy gets out to repair the windshield wiper with twine 3 the lack of sufficient if any drain system creates widespread flooding mixing the sewage up even more. Just as the rain was dying down and the lighting was taking out power lines we walked into a French restaurant owned by a pleasant elderly French man and inquired about a room. That is how we ended up staying in this apartment. It's about 20 usd a day but it has wifi and a kitchen. The wifi is great, I am making this post using the I touch and we have no need for Internet cafes. The kitchen is also great giving us control of our food prep sanitation. Yesterday we went to the
market and bought lots of fresh food to eat while we are here and this morning I had my first encounter with bag milk. I was able to open and poor it just fine however I do not understand what to do with the milk remaing in the bag. My solution was to put the bag in a bowl so the opening was up and put the bag in the fridge till Ian wakes up and he can use the rest. On a side note is was so lovely having cold milk to poor over fresh cereal and into my hot coffee:) we belive the our rashes were most likely heat rashes since they have been getting progressivly better since we got ac. I hate to admit it but it's possible that south India really is too hot this time of year.