Check out Andrew Backus' Blog

War Eagle! I am working on a blog update including a few of the gaps between Sri Lanka and the present, as well as information about what I am doing in Jharakhand with KGVK, an NGO with multiple health, education, and agriculture initiatives. Andrew Backus, my travel companion for much of this trip, has an excellent blog detailing some of the trip that I have not written about (like the beginning of the NOLS course.....)

Please follow the link provided below to check it out!
Andrew Backus' Blog

or copy and paste http://shiftedparadigm.wordpress.com/ 
into your address bar 

India's Duplicity: Beautiful Faces and Scars

"Do you know "Quit Playing Games with My Heart?" It is by Backstreet Boys.....It is my favorite song, all time."
    I keep a straight face, not wanting to offend my new friend Nitesh (Nitesh, if you are reading this, I am sorry....but i found this funny) who is a 32 year old employee of HP and lives in Ranchi, where I am currently headed on the Jharakhand Express. We met the previous afternoon in the Anand Vihar train station in Delhi when he became the first Indian man to ask ME a question about Indian travel. I was sprawled out on a bench reading "The Perfect Storm" and eating peanut butter out of the jar when he approached me and asked if I knew where he could store his bag while he waited for the train to arrive. As the train station was under construction, the cloakroom where travelers can usually store their bags was not yet built. I had found this out the fun way......by dragging my bag around the station and asking people who looked like they might know what was going on, piecing together the puzzle of broken English.

"Mean mugging" with train friends

    Now the cross-dressing Indian man/woman, made-up like an Indian princess, claps his/her hands in my face and asks for money. He/she interrupts me as I am sitting in the doorway of the train, legs dangling from the car, writing about my new friends on the train and watching the countryside with a breeze through my hair bringing the smell of dung being dried for stove fuel more pleasant than all the cities I have been in. This is my favorite place to ride. I can think more clearly in the doorway, all my senses stimulated in a way that brings out my creativity...everything in my head makes sense and I have, I believe, clever thoughts. That is until I pull out my notebook to write them down and my moment of clarity retreats at my ideas flutter with the wind out of grasp of my conscious mind.

    "Nahi" I say...."No." He/she pats my face and claps his/her hands again. "Nahi!" I say with more conviction......He/she walks away. It is interesting that I draw more attention than the cross-dressing beggar man/woman walking through the train clapping his/her hands and muttering repeated phrases. Here is a brief rant I wrote in my journal last night, at midnight, after being in the train station for 14 hours, as November 24th became November 25th bringing Thanksgiving with only a loaf of stale Tibetan bread and a jar of peanut butter, waiting for a delayed train that would eventually come at 2 A.M...........Reliability is relative.

Rant Begins

    It was funny at first, comical....then I had a 40 day break in the mountains where every man, woman, child, and goat I passed bid me "Namaste" and continued on their path. I was a mountaineer, that was my identity, more so than being white. But now, after half a dozen weeks in and out of Indian cities......I am tired of being so damn interesting! I run down the streets of Kolkata and every head turns. Back home I would wonder if that girl giving me the double-take thinks I am cute, but here, where I am bearded and pouring sweat, I know she is giving me what I now recognize as the look of "white-struck incredulity."
    In the US, parents have to kick their children under the table for staring; in India there is no age or maturity distinction. I enter a room with my backpack on and people snap pictures with their phones as I walk by. Try sitting in a luggage rack on the second class train for 28 hours....every time I looked up from my book I had half of a train staring back. When I met their gaze, there was no quick averting of the eyes....they stared at me openly. One man on the train told me in broken English "They all think, why you on train in general class, second class.....why not AC car, first class?.......you white." I told him that I was white, not rich. As I write this rant now in my journal, there is a man in a green sweater wrapped in a tan shawl on the train platform 7 feet to my right who's eyes are boring into the side of my head (I don't have to stare....peripheral vision) This isn't the first time I have wanted to turn, face him, and say "A BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!!!"

                                              End of Rant

    It may be appropriate to call this rant a low point for the day, which had been a low point of a day.
16 hours in a train station waiting for a delayed train eating stale bread and peanut butter. This rant does effectively convey the occasional spikes of frustration that occur while traveling somewhere that is as unfamiliar to you as you are unfamiliar to it.
    India has received me in a Bipolar manner, like a manic/depressive disorder. Sometime manically wonderful, sometimes depressingly sad/frustrating, sometimes a middle ground close to normalcy.......normalcy is also relative. This is the nature of India as I have found it. As I roll through the countryside, steaming through city after city, I see a large comfortable looking house with ramparts. Not 40 yards later begins a shanty-town. These houses, if you can call them houses, look like the accumulation of garbage in a river slew. All manner of offcast is used to hold together the shreds of tarps, plastic bags, rocks, leaves, bamboo, and tires that make up the roof as well as the burned out cars, broken bikes, mud, bricks, tree limbs, and rusted tin that wall in the packed residents who take refuge from the coming night.

    In the slums of Kolkata, similarly constructed, you are equally likely to hear a laugh as a sob. Some slum dwellers go through their daily routine "with downcast eyes and despair, as if living was a habit they just couldn't shake (Che Guavara)" while others sing with joy at the coming of the day. Sometimes, it is my despair, not theirs, that I project upon them. While walking to Motherhouse one morning, I passed the carcus of a water buffalo that had been slaughtered, gutted, and all parts deemed unusable by the butcher thrown into the street. The smell of blood and meat with the buzz of flies mixed with the usual smells of slum and sounds of morning in the streets. Rickshaws passed by, cows and goats were herded through, and not a second glance was given to the naked children sifting through the intestines, fighting the crows, picking off any tiny morsel of missed flesh and depositing them into the folds of an older girl's stained dress to save for later. The older girl in the dirty dress holding scraps of meat close to her belly does not look sad, in fact she is smiling. She has a small bounty held right outside the stomach it will eventually fill. For every one of India's beautiful faces, you turn her cheek to find a scar.
    In Delhi a policeman tried to pull a taxi tout on me, telling me he would talk to the taxi and make sure it was a fair price. The policeman and the taxi driver talked in Hindi, then the cop motioned towards the door and said to get in. 3 months in India had taught me to always ask how much before I did anything, so i queried "Kitney Kah?"
    "Oh, only 800 rupees.....ok you get in now"
    I made a comment to the effect of "wow.....you're a police officer and you're still trying to screw me" and walked away, negotiating my own taxi for 200 rupees.
    The next day, after being told by a man that there was no bus to take me to McleodGanj, that I would need to take his taxi that would ONLY cost 600 rupees (He's a taxi driver....he's lying) I began to walk down the road in a direction that I hoped would eventually take me to a bus station. A man on a moped stopped behind me, asked where I was going, and said "oh, that is nearly 5km, can i give you a ride?" We weaved down the road, my backpack making us slightly unstable, and arrived at the bus stop where my brief friend told the bus conductor "hello...this is Cole, he is a student, please make sure he gets on the bus to McleodGanj." In only a 10 minute period I had seen both faces.
    On a 28 hour train from Kolkata to Delhi, my Chaco sandals were hidden from me by someone on the train who disliked my white face in the second class car while another man bought me tea and samosas, refusing repayment, pushing me back into humanity's main current when I had just been wallowing in a cynical eddy of its river. Later he helped me search the train, which was cattle-car packed, asking everyone to look under their seats until we eventually found them under a duffel bag on the other end of the train.

    This is how I have found India. Her sun rises on a land that is wealthy beyond money and filled with vibrant life, but sets on despairing poverty and a wretchedness in the being of her poor. It is the same land and the same sun. It is the same people and even the same day. There is a complicated duality of life unfamiliar to my western eyes. Rich and poor. Hospitable and hostile. Breathtaking and breath-stopping. Pure and polluted. Laughter and tears. Blink your eyes and you will see both. This country I have seen is impossible for me to fully describe, but begs to be written.

Kolkata: The City of Glimpses of Joy

"Closer....closer....I have secret"
     I shift along the blue bench as the man with no arms in his blue shirt and only one leg in his blue pants motions with a dark, scarred stub from his mouth to my ear.
"Closer" he says, and I lean in until my chin nearly touches the coarse, stained cloth of his top. Close enough to feel the acrid vapors of antiseptic filling my nostrils. Close enough to brush the sharp grey stubble of his cheek against mine. Close enough for him to make his practical joke possible as he sticks the point of his right nub into my ear and begins to laugh raucously. I just received a wet-wily from a man with no fingers, using instead the flesh covered tip of his  humerus. This man, who can no longer walk, but is reduced to skooting around Kalighat on a piece of plywood with wheels propelled by his remaining leg, is unable to feed himself or raise a cup of chai to his lips, but can still use what he has to make a joke.
    This is not unusual for Nirmal Hriday's "Home for the destitute and dying" in Kolkata. In a house where all residents have reached the title of "destitute" or "dying", there are glimpses of normalcy, undertones to the general atmosphere of men and women seeking a peaceful place to die, or just shelter from the slum necropolis of Kolkata.
    How to describe Kolkata, Mother Teresa's organization, or even India? Travelers know what only other travelers can understand. Regardless of your prowess as a wordsmith or photographer, the experience, emotions, senses, and feelings from a moment can never fully be conveyed. How do I describe the simple happiness I gather from my bed, 3 old couch cushions on a piece of plywod, not having bedbugs to someone who has never woken up covered head to toe with red dots? The absurdity that is India, as lonely planet aptly describes it, "promises to jostle your entire being." More than two months traveling in India and Sri Lanka has preceded my arrival in Kolkata, but the poverty present is on a scale that I have yet to experience. The small oddities become the norm, so yesterday when I was walking down the stairs of a building after meeting with the supervisors of Calcutta Rescue (NGO that runs mobile clinics through the slums) and i looked through the front doorway of a third floor apartment and my stare was met through a metal gate by a goat wearing a party hat and horns adorned with bright tinsel.....well I was not that surprised. TINA. Although, walking through the slums built of any available scraps of wood, cloth, or metal as dirty children run through the smoke-fog from burning trash greeting you loudly with "Ha-looow" and sometimes "chaco-lot?" blasts the western view of poverty out of the malarial, shit-stench water that often floods these shanty towns.
    I have been here for one week now, and have yet to write as I find it difficult to express appropriately. At 7 o'clock AM I arrive at Motherhouse to eat breakfast with the other volunteers for Missionaries of Charity. A simple meal of bananas, bread, and tea sustains us as we walk to our respective volunteerships. For me, it is a 30 minute walk through the heart of Kolkata and into the slums where we come to Prem Dan, currently housing the staff and patients from Kalighat while its facilities are renovated. I help a pleasant Sikh named Binder finish bathing patients: a brisk, cold, exposing process. This is not a slow, warm sponge bath, but a quick, cold bath on a hard bench. We carry the patients by their armpits and legs, stretchers and wheelchairs are cumbersome in the close quarters, and few are to be found anyway.
    This is where the full extent of years of poverty, and the compliment of its harsh realities, are realized. Malnutrition can be seen in their protruding ribs and wasted muscles. One man's knee, the joint itself, was twice as wide as the flesh of his thigh, not because his knee was large, but because his thigh was so small. Massaging the non-elastic skin, I felt like i was holding a wrist, not a muscle made to hold a man high and power his body forward. Have you seen pictures of Auschwitz? Come to a slum and it will not be just a history lesson. Scars are remnants of abuse and hard work. Amputations and infections, the lack of available medical care.
    Next, we give the patients tea. As they drink, if they can drink, we begin the massive amount of laundry. Four basins are set up, filled with water, and the volunteers sit and begin to wash. Gloves are pointless as they rip while washing, so you dip your bare hands and arms into the basin which eventually becomes a vat of human waste soup, soaking into your skin a smell which the cold shower at Hotel Maria is unable to completely expunge. Donations of washing machines and dryers have been turned down by Missionaries of Charity in the past: volunteers don't need repairs, though they do sometimes break. We talk and laugh, the volunteers, while doing laundry, though I try to keep my mouth closed when people wring, pass, or dip the clothes and sheets....brown droplets splash everywhere.
    I tell myself not to think about it, to block out the training I had drilled into my head this past summer about body substance isolation and protocols for a health care setting. I decide whether to breath through my nose and smell the stench or breath through my mouth and taste the stench. I let the diminutive man with the mental handicap and two growths the size of grapefruit hanging from his neck like ripe thyroid fruit ready to pick put his hands on my face and smile as he ties a bracelet made from twine around my wrist. I try to sit with the men and talk to them, though they know little English and I know less Bengali. Women and men are kept separate and I rarely have interactions with the women patients. The female volunteers have an easier time bridging the language barrier. The women want you to sit with them, hold their hands, caress their heads, and sing them songs. Most of the men patients want you to go away so they can go to sleep. In some cases the patients suffer from a state of delirium.
    Roopa, a woman small in stature but big in her smile, was the highlight of my first two days in Kalighat, and is still one of the few women patients with whom I have had prolonged contact. She came to me, smiling widely, and talking in understandable English. She pointed to the side of her head where her right ear once hung, but is now flat and scarred. "Infection" she said, then pointed to her bandaged foot. "Toes only two....infection....better now." She took my hand and the hand of another volunteer as she said "you paul will be my son, and you my daughter (In India, when I tell people my name is Cole, they often pronounce it Paul, even if they write it correctly), and we will live in US.....what is A-U-B-U-R-N?" she asked as she looks at my shirt, spelling out my university's name.
   Roopa sings and dances on one foot, smiling and talking, and the Mashis tell me she is crazy, though I don't believe it until she has a mood swing the next day and begins to hit me in the chest and yell at me in Bengali. I look at one of the male patients sitting on a bench who gives me a toothless smile and twirls his finger around his ear in the universal sign for crazy, then says "woman mental." Even smiling Roopa, who I pondered her admission to Kalighat, is there under the qualifier of "destitute."
    A french journalist visiting Kolkata to write an article about Missionaries of Charity recently interviewed me, as well as several other volunteers, about our experiences with the organization. I told her what I now write, that you can not compare Missionaries of Charity and its houses with western hospitals or other programs in "developed" countries. In the past, Mother Teresa has received criticism about its standard of care to those it serves, and I do not agree with or condone all of its practices, but the care and quality of life that the sisters, mashis, and volunteers provide is better than the care that those patients can get anywhere else.......none. Patients have consistent meals, a bed, cleaner clothes than they came in with, and the smile of volunteers who care for, talk to, and hope that they have made a positive difference in the patient's life, even if they do not show it.
    Volunteers flock readily to the Motherhouse to eat breakfast and go out into the community. Everyone is here for a different reason, though few for any sort of recognition. Two of my friends who just left entrusted me with several thousand rupees and directions to donate them to Missionaries of Charity, but not tell the sisters who it was from. All recognition truly goes to the sisters and mashis, though they don't want it either. At the end of the day, I take an autorickshaw with other volunteers back to Sudder St. where we live, dancing to the disco lights and singing with the Hindi music in the small cramped cab. We go to dinner or to the bar for a beer to unwind. If we want to take the day to travel, we get on a bus in the morning and go to one of the attractions around Kolkata. We are visitors.....the sisters of Missionaries of Charity live this life, day in and day out, and I give them every bit of respect I can, though as I said, they don't ask for it.

Rejection Timeline: The 5 days from Sri Lanka to India

Fri, 10/22/2010
2:00 pm-Leave Arugam Bay by Took-Took for bus station in Pottuvil
2:30-pay 100 rs to see cobra
3:00-leave Pottuvil
4:00-stop in city between Pottuvil and Batticaloa. Take Took-Took to another city
4:45-Board another bus to Batticaloa
6:00-Arrive in Batticaloa. Took-Took to train station
7:00-Taken to security administrator of train station for trying to sleep in the lobby. Went from telling us to leave to inviting us to sleep in the train and welcoming us to use the bathroom
9:30-Soldiers with AK-47s sit on the bench and talk to us....we're celebrities....comedians of course

Sat, 10/23/2010
12:30 am- 30 stray dogs begin howling and fighting inside the train station
1:30-Dogs stop howling
2:00-Take temperature with thermometer....101
4:00-Pack up sleeping pad so none of the passengers of the incoming train will know we slept illegally on the platform
7:45-Board train to Colombo
3:30PM- arrive in Colombo, Took-Took to Internet cafe
5:00-Took-Took (same one....stalker) to Negombo (closer to the airport) and book a room at hostel
7:00-Dinner of pizza, walk on beach, watch Sri Lankan wedding
9:00-Update blog, use skype, go to sleep.....hard

Sun, 10/24/2010
10:00 am-Took-Took to market
10:10- buy Sri Lanka cricket tank top
11:00-Arrive at airport
12:45pm-Traveler's worst fears are realized. Customs official sets the precedent for the next 4 days by saying "NO", you can not get on this flight. All offices closed for the weekend, go to the High Commission of India in the morning
1:30-Bus back into Colombo
2:00-Took-Took to YMCA, book room for $# each
3:00-Find High Commission, go to Buddhist temple, see elephant, walk around city, find dinner in hole in the wall restaurant
8:00-sweat through the night and wonder if we'll end up in a bathtub full of ice, missing our kidneys
12:00-Bed bugs begin to bite.....do bed bugs lay eggs?

Mon, 10/25/2010
8:30 am-get to High Commission
9:30-Get into High Commission
9:40-Man at front desk says "NO" you can not com back to India, refuses to accept our forms. Gave us a number to call....of course its disconnected
10:30-Go to US embassy
10:31-Get into US embassy......AMERICA
10:40-Claire Lovebreed (who speaks English as a first language) explains our predicament. We call local officials, only to realize all officials capable of making a decision are gone for the next two days
10:41- Andrew and I both say "OH SH*#!
11:00-email my mother with details as well as the High Commissioner of the High Commission (redundant title?)
5:30pm-leave on train to Kandy to try High Commission there
8:30- arrive in Kandy, get room at hotel
9:00-Call mother
9:05-Andrew becomes afraid of my mother as I inform him we now have 2 congressmen, a senator, a lawyer, and the principal of an international school trying to contact the High Commission (the next day, a wealth businessman in Colombo would be added to this list)

Tues, 10/26/2010
9:00am-Arrive at High Commission
9:01-told "NO" go to this place instead. didn't even make it through the front gate. Took-Took to Visa outsourcing center
9:45-Told "NO" you need to go back to the High Commission with this slip of paper at 3
10:00-2:00- Book ticker from Delhi to Denver, activate online management of visa card, eat lunch, call two nuns at mother teresa clinic in Kolkata who spoke very quietly....I am not sure what they said to me, but it seemed nice?
2:30-Most unpleasant woman in the eastern world at the High Commission says "NO, you sit down." After 2 days of dealing with this woman, Andrew and I would come to believe she should be made into an action figure names "Super Secretary", complete with green sari and bindi and such catch-phrases as "no, you go away now" and "NO, go sit down" as well as the super powers of incomprehension that allowed us the opportunity to practice our slow english and the ability to ignore desperate travelers.
     "Ma'am, is there any way we can talk to the officer"......(Super Secretary look at the wall).....Repeat question.......(Super Secretary pretends to answer phone)......Repeat question......(Super Secretary turns her head slowly and stares at me......"NO.....you go away now"
3:30-I wait to wake up, then realize it is not a dream. Walk back to the hotel cursing the Super Secretary. "This is your passport.......yes, i lost my old one......where did you lose......trekking in Uttarakhand......India?......yes.......where did you get this passport?,,,,,,US embassy, delhi.......India?.......yes......but you lost your old one, where?......Uttarakhand, in the Kaffni glacier......India?......yes.....but how you get this one.....I went to the US embassy in Delhi....India?......yes.....do you have proof?.....I have the passport, it is a valid passport......prove the passport from new delhi.......US passports don't say where they are issued.......you got this Delhi?......yes......and your old one, where?.......Glacier, crevasse, gone, India(said with hand motions for emphasis).......Go sit down
4:00-8:00-Skype and email various people involved with our issue. Put in contact with Hiran Cooray

Wed, 10/27/2010
10:00am-Call Mr. Cooray, no news yet
2:00pm-call Mr. Cooray, no news yet
2:30-go to high commission armed with copies of original passport, original visa, and the regulations about the 2 month rule from which we highlighted the section describing why we should be let back into India
2:30-3:00-Andrew and I battle the Super Secretary who employs all her catch phrases and super powers, but was eventually defeated as we gained entrance to the officer's office for a meeting with Sanjee Jain, our new new best friend. Mr. Jain was very pleasant and after 10 minutes granted us our permission to re-enter. Ecstatic, we wait in the lobby for our passports to come back from being stamped and give the Super Secretary looks as she stares back with her Madussa-esque malice. We view this not as "beating" the government, but as a triumph over the secretary herself.
4:00-Get stamps, call people with the good news
4:30-8:30-celebrate

Thurs, 10/28/2010
6:10am-train from Kandy to Colombo
11:00-arrive at airport, told by JetAirways that the flight is full, but we will be put on standby...check back at 1:00
12:00-Given Heineken by drunk, though jovial, Ukrainians waiting for their flight
1:30-told we will be able to get on the 2:40 flight
2:10-go through security....have our seats changed.....bumped to 1st class!!!
2:30-drink coconut water and start watching the movie "killers" while stretching my legs in the more than ample room allowed me
2:32-clean my face with the cool towel the stewardess provides me, realize how dirty we both are as the white towel is now covered in brown marks
2:38-get moved back to economy....there was a mistake (obviously)...but they are very sorry
3:10-In the air, we are served complimentary Foster's beers.....almost makes up for having to touch elbows with the people sitting next to me

Smiles and Citizenship: Kicking and screaming my way back to India

    So now the Sri Lanka chapter of our trip was coming to an end....or so we believed. The last night at Beach Hut we had a bonfire. Andrew and I introduced the family to s'mores. Though we didn't have graham crackers (milk short cake crackers) nor proper marshmallows (they were square) we did manage to make a delicious snack to munch on for the dozen people gathered around the fire, listening to music, and singing as the waves crashed on the sand only 30 ft away.
    The next morning we paid our tab ($160 for two people for 8 days, several meals, countless fruit lassis/milkshakes/coffees....not a bad deal) and said goodbyes to our diverse group of friends. A short took-took ride later and we were waiting for the bus to leave Pottuvil and take us to Batticaloa, where we would board a train for Colombo.
   "Cobra? Cobra?"
   "WHERE!?"
   The man points into his bag and, wide eyed, i nod yes....I REALLY want to see the cobra. Out comes the wicker basket and as the top is removed, we hear a hiss and the king cobra lifts itself aerially, rotating, looking for the protagonist who awoke it form its solitary slumber. During this display, the snake charmer is twitchier than the serpent as his eyes dart back and forth from one side of the street to the other, looking for police. Snake charming is illegal in Sri Lanka.
    We leave Pottuvil on time (This NEVER happens! it must be a good omen for our return to India.......hahahahaha.....NO) and arrive in Batticaloa a few hours north of later. After a Took-took drive to the station and dinner of chopped roti, we head into the second floor of the station to explore. We find a deserted lobby in the hotel above the station, change our previous plans to sleep in the field we had found on the way to the station, and set up shop behind a room divider, laying down sleeping pads and bags. Unfortunately, we are found and taken to the Security Administrator of the train station.
   "So.....you want rooms?"
   "No, we just want to sleep on the floor.....can we sleep on the floor?"
   "You need rooms?"
   "No....we have no money...can we sleep here in the waiting area?"
   "No, it is illegal, you can not stay here."
   I smile constantly, using every bit of tact that my mother taught me as a child.
   "Ok...I'll check, you stay here"
We sprawl over the benches, exhausted from travel, and i have a 101 fever. 10 minutes later, the Administrator comes back.
   "Hello, you can stay here on the platform, it's no problem. Or you can sleep in the train, more comfortable. wait for other train to leave then go in...you can use bathroom too"
   It's not the first time that my smile and citizenship have allowed me to do what I had just been told was prohibited. It is an unfair double standard, but the officer specifically told us "you will be allowed because you are American. If anyone else come, say this, we way no...it is illegal." This trip is the first time that I have been so acutely aware of my fortune and being born a citizen of the United States of America.
   Not only were we allowed to sleep on the platform, we were somewhat of celebrities. As we set our pads on the benches outside the train, soldiers with AK-47s came and sat down next to us, talking about our stay in Sri Lanka. What a spectacle with my beard and board shorts sitting in complete comparison with the clean-shaven camo-clad Singhalese soldiers and their machine guns.
    We eventually were left in peace by the soldiers, only to be awoken a few hours later by the 30 or so stray dogs howling and fighting inside of the station (wonderful acoustics....made it sound like 300 dogs.) Morning comes gratefully and we board our train to Colombo, where after spending the night in a upscale hostel in Negombo, we taxi to the airport. Walking through the front door of the airport, we are hit by the cool of the air conditioning, to which we had been un-conditioned. We attempt to check in our carry-on bags.
   "Passports please"
We give the man at the counter our IDs...he takes one look and says a word that will set a precedent for how every sentence we hear from an official of India in Sri Lanka will begin for the next 4 days...."NO"
   "No, you can't go to India....no stamp....sorry"
   Despite our arguing that we have multiple entry visas, the man at the counter continues to refuse to accept our baggage and eventually defers to a senior customs official to handle the situation.
   "New rule says if you leave India, you must be gone 2 months, then you can come back. Go High Commission tomorrow, get stamp says "permission to re-enter", and come back, I let you in.....we re-arrange flights once you have stamp."
  No amount of arguing, reasoning, or pleading would sway this customs official from his decision. We decide to spend the night in the YMCA of Colombo in wait for our first attempt at gaining permission to re-enter stamps in the morning. At three dollars per night apiece, the YMCA is exactly what we paid for: dirt, dinge
   We go to the High Commission in the morning and wait in line, eventually making it through security and to the enquiry desk (yes, spelled like this....everything is a little off....you can get Maxicanswiming in the poold too) where the confrontational, unhelpful, unpleasant man at the desk tells us "NO, must have life or death emergency...i will not take your forms to the officer (the man who actually gives us the stamp.)" He does give us a number to call (which of course is disconnected....TINA) and points towards the exit.
   What do US citizens stranded in Sri Lanka, unable to find an English speaking official, do when the need help? Go running to Mother America of course! We locate the US embassy, which is close to the High Commission, and proceed to explain our predicament. Unsurprised and unfazed, Claire Lovebreed, our new best friend, explains to us what has occurred.
    Due to a bombing in Mumbai in which an American citizen was implicated, India recently changed its policy regarding tourist visas so that the holder of the visa must wait 2 months in-between exit and re-entrance. This rule was not publicized memo-ed to all members of the Indian government, and is not always enforced.
    So....when I was at the Indian consulate re-obtaining my visa, and I asked "I plan to go to Sri Lanka in 2 days, stay there for 10 days, then return to India where I will stay until December 17....Is this ok? will I be able to come back into the country?" he said"yes, no problem, you can come back, it is fine."
   And that is how I came to be on a night train to Kandy. Of course, timing would be perfect and the Indian government inefficient enough that when Andrew and I need a visa official to give us stamps on our visas, the only two officers authorized to do so are out of Colombo for the next 2 days! Claire advised us to go to Kandy to try our luck at India's other High Commission in Sri Lanka, and if we are unsuccessful, to return to Colombo and try some more. Essentially, this is a test of our flexibility and patience....how much bureaucracy can two budget-limited, sleep-deprived, frustrated-as-heck college students put up with?
   It was nice to have an American to complain to though. Essentially, the Indian government and its citizens are like my little brother and me, respectively. I can make fun of my little brother. You can make fun of my little brother to someone else, but don't you dare make fun of my little brother while I can hear you. So, despite out frustrations...we must hold our tongues. Complaining about the many headed beast that is Indian government will get us nowhere....
   With all of this said, i would like to clarify any confusion on my feelings about India, Sri Lanka, and the people of both countries. The four unplanned days we spent in Sri Lanka were very frustrating and I feel like this post and the next are fueled by that frustration. Though there have been some people with whom we have dealt who were unhelpful, uninterested, and generally difficult, this is not the case for the majority of the people with whom we have had contact. Most people we meet have set a standard for hospitality and geniality that is difficult to match. The exception is rickshaw drivers and vendors in more touristy areas who want to capitalize on every opportunity (read tourist) who walks along. I have taken to speaking spanish when they ask me "you want room? you want took-took? you want postcards/stamps/hash-hish/jewelry/shawl/shoes/haircut (actually, i took him up on this one...i was in desperate need of a haircut and beard trim).    
     The benefit of this.....I have not been challenged yet by a young postcard entrepreneur who when I said "lo siento, hablo solamente espanol" was able to make my match by saying "oh, muy bien, quires postcard o zapatos nuevos?"

Hahaha look at the silly Americans sleeping on the train platform

    I'm still alive, despite my new mode of transportation. We are now well established as "The Americans". We went to the Beach Hut common area to meet one friend who was going to take us to rent surfboards and walked away with 12. On this night we had cooked our own dinner and our reputations as "the American climbers who cook for themselves" preceded us. The Beach Hut has a wonderful atmosphere and everyone is welcomed into the family with open arms as long as you are easy-going. The usual gang consists of Andrew and myself, Sarah and Lauren from England, Oskar from Sweden, Ante from Finland, Bruce from Australia, and whatever combination of Spaniards, Israelis, Austrians, or Kiwis may want to grab a bite or surf. Beach Hut has superb food (all on a tab system so you don't even have to carry cash) and after 7 nights and many meals/beers/coffees/milkshakes/lassies the damage was only about $80 each.
    There are 3 main places to surf in and around Arugam Bay. "The Point" is in the bay and has steep waves breaking over a reef (I spent 20 min digging a piece of coral out of my toe last night.) With two breaks, it is the most popular and very convenient since it is within walking distance.
    Whiskey Point is several miles away. You can take a Took-Took there and back for 700Rs. Andrw and I, with our new-found motorcycle driven freedom, were not about to pay 700Rs. Tom Moore would be proud of the rope job I did lashing my surfboard to the side of my Bajaj 350cc motorbike. Unfortunately, after going there and back once, Hakeem (the man we rented the bikes from,) saw me in the process of tying 3 boards and loading 2 British girls (Lauren and Sarah) onto the bike. He was not happy.....since we did not file any paperwork for the bike (do you have a license? yes, ok.....no, no, you don't have to show it to me) if something had happened he could be held liable. This was the end of our taxi service.
    Peanut Farm I drove to with Lauren today, but have yet to surf. Maybe one day we will, maybe we won't. Maybe we'll go to Yala National Park to see the elephants, pythons, and crocodiles. Maybe we won't. Bonfire at sunset? Ok....laid-back is an understatement to the mellow that envelops the residents of Beach Hut and Arugam Bay.
    Despite the seeming lack of direction, this rest stop in paradise has been productive. I am nearly finished with my research paper detailing the consistencies of crawfish in a small bog in south Alabama, my journal is closer to being caught up to the current date, and I rode the best wave I ever have yesterday. Being a beginner, I tend to let crowded waves pass and do my best not to drop in on anyone (a common courtesy of surfing.) A large wave rolled in and was breaking beautifully. None of the more advanced surfers were in position to catch it and I got to have a long solo ride down the beach. I have enjoyed surfing the few times that I have been. The sun, beach, waves, ocean, and fraternity of chill boarders make for a wonderful sport. This wave and the ride it gave me are the first time I have loved surfing.
    Philip and his father left this morning. Goodbyes were said over a farewell breakfast of banana/coconut pancakes topped with honey and vanilla ice cream from Hakeem's beach spot (yes the same Hakeem from whom we rented bikes. He also runs a hotel, restaurant, board shop, and taxi service.) Philip is on his way to Nepal to do a two week trek that will take him to Everest base camp and back down.
    Our current plan is to fly back to Chennai on the 24th and meet up with Dilip, our NOLS instructor from south India. I no longer plan to go to Uganda to volunteer, though I hope in the future I will again have that opportunity. I have been advised by the US Embassy to limit my travel between countries with my emergency passport. It may be valid, but it looks fake and draws suspicion from customs officials (coming into Sri Lanka the customs official kept scratching my face with his thumb nail thinking it was fake and would rub off. Getting back into India will be an adventure.) Also, with the destruction caused by the monsoon, there is more than enough work to do in India. Dilip has offered to put me in contact with a few of his friends who work for relief organizations and have been helping first to rescue and now rebuild the lives of those displaced by the seasonal storm. From Chennai we will go shortly to southeastern India, and then meet up with Dilip in central southern India, hopefully finding ourselves in a position to be helpful. An overnight train will then link us to Kolkata, where I plan to stay for 5 weeks.
    I would like to mention, primarily for the benefit of the generous donors for my volunteer efforts, that during my recreational travel I am spending money that I have saved for the past few years for such an occasion. The money donated to me is set aside and will be used only for an expense that is directly related to volunteering. One possibility mentioned was helping triage for the first aid center of a displaced persons refugee camp. If this works out, I plan to donate a few hundred for food expenses to the camp. Lodging and food in Kolkata, as well as a flight back to the states I will pay for with donated funds and the rest I will give to Missions of Charity.
    In the letter I sent to friends and family describing vision for this trip, I wrote that they would be able to see the direct results of their donation. I plan to deliver on that statement. Philip's father, a Harvard graduate and CEO of a bio-tech company, spent 14 months traveling in India, Nepal, Taiwan, China, and other Asian countries before going to graduate school. When I talked to him about Kolkata he told me "All of this you are doing is cool. You're in Sri Lanka surfing. You've been climbing in the Himalaya and you're traveling around India. Kolkata is the coolest thing you are going to do. It's going to blow your mind and it's going to change your life. Of all the things you're doing, that's the best one." That is the best summary I have of the simultaneous excitement and trepidation with which I view the last portion of my stay in India. Though I already see how this trip has changed my world view, helped me to evaluate my priorities, and expanded my previous notions of flexibility; it sits heavily in the front of my mind that this worldly traveler and successful businessman is telling me that the adventures of the last few months will pale in comparison to the experiences I will have in what was once India's capital city.

I have more to post but I am EXHAUSTED!!!! once in India i'll get a non dial-up connection and put up the high altitude pictures and Sri Lanka pictures, as well as the rest of the post. I slept on the platform of the train station (yeah, i really am that cheap) with a 101 degree fever so I didn't sleep well. 10:30 here now with a REAL BED, thanks for reading!!!

Cole....please call me....I haven't heard from you since you got to Sri Lanka and neither of your phones work

    "Oh yes....this part of Sri Lanka is very famous for its gangs," Tamir said as my heart skipped 7 or 8 beats. "There are gangs everywhere. Beautiful gangs in the river and in the mountains. People from all over the world come to see."
    "Oh, gems," I say.
    "Yes, gangs, this is what I say."
    Andrew and I are on a bus in the heart of Sri Lanka en transit between Colombo and Ampara. We boarded the bus at 5 p.m. and payed for our tickets (640 Sri Lanka Rupees, $6 U.S.) At 8 o'clock we looked at our receipts that told us we were traveling 370 Km and realized that 370 Km, with 370 people packed on a bus, averaging 30 Km/hr with all of the stops we were making....we would get to Ampara around 2 in the morning. The large monk looked at us as we laughed and kept his vow of silence at our lack of preparation.
    To anyone who has looked at a map of Sri Lanka, this is perfectly clear. Unfortunately, Andrew and I are not in that category. We altered our travel plans in India for a spur of the moment side trip to Sri Lanka at the urging of our friend Philip. Philip and his dad were coming to Sri Lanka to relax and surf at the Hawaii-esque Arugam Bay near Potuvil on the eastern coast of the Island. We booked the earliest flight available so we could meet them before they left Colombo and ride with them in the car they had booked for a week. Andrew and I slept in the Delhi airport, caught a 6 a.m. flight, and were in Colombo by 2 p.m. Unfortunately Philip's driver refused to have more passengers so we arrived to a text telling us to take a bus and that they had already left Colombo.
    "Hey Baba, be flexible," I said, imitating out mountaineering instructor Dilip from the NOLS course.
    So.....this is how we came to be on a Sri Lanka Sardine-mobile hurtling around corners, breezing past the cows and water buffalo loitering in the road, wondering what language is even spoken here, and generally trying to scare the living hell out of every man, woman, child, and goat within reach of our sycophantic bus driver's proximity of terror.
    "This bus driver is crazy, no?" said Temir, who makes this ride often to receive management training. "You are brave. Most Europeans won't take the bus, especially at night.
    "For Temir, a native Sri Lankan, to tell me this bus driver was crazy by his standards validated the conclusion I had already reached. The following morning I would recount to Philip's father, "72.....that's the number of times I thought I was going to die."
    "Have you found it easy to get around so far?" asked Temir.
     "Yes it's been very easy. Everyone assumes we have no idea what we are doing or where we are going, which is true, so they have been coming up to us and helping us find where to go."
    We did make it though, arriving in Ampara at 2 a.m. We got our packs and the bus left. So did everyone else who had been on it. Gone, disappeared into the night and our friendly and helpful Temir had gotten off at a previous stop so there was no familiar face of which to ask which way to the hotel. We were able to find a few people sleeping in the streets and asked "Hotel?" along with the action of putting our heads on our hands as if it were a pillow. We were directed first to the police department and then to the hospital. Ampara is tiny and none of the locals spoke English so we did what we had been doing for the past month and a half in the Himalaya....we pitched a tent in a nice grassy spot behind the Town Hall.
    We woke up to my booger being baked by the 100 degree sun (that's what I call my small 2 man tent that is a lovely booger green.) While we were packing, a woman and her young son watched in fascination as the crazy, bearded, white boys emerged sweating from the booger-sauna and walked to the bus station. Following the direction of Lonely Planet (which we looked up online in the Sri Lanka airport,) the best way to find your bus is to walk around and yell where you want to go. It worked well in Colombo, with only a few redirections to other buses, and it continued to work well in Ampara, and then in a town between Ampara and Potuvil.
    "Potuvil?" we ask. "Yes, Potuvil" "When does it leave?" "10:00." It was 9:40 and we had no breakfast. I stayed with the packs and Andrew went to grab some roti (triangles of flat bread stuffed with various combinations of potatoes, curry, and greens.) Not 1 minute after Andrew got off the bus the driver turns the key and starts to pull out.
    "Wait wait! I thought you said leave at 10:00?"
    "Oh.....it's ok, we leave early."
    I ran into the station not knowing where Andrew had gone, but a panicked white boy draws attention in these parts and people began pointing towards a shop across the station. I couldn't see Andrew so I yelled his name. Inside he threw the money down, grabbed the food (It's ok if we leave Andrew, but I wanted that food) and came sprinting back. We got on the bus and the driver laughed at his joke and we were on our way.
    It was nice to see the countryside in the daylight as the whole ride the night before had been in a darkness, sleep deprived, knee-jammed blur. Today was much more leisurely and we soon arrived in Potuvil and the Arugam Bay.
    We dropped our packs at the Stardust hotel where Philip and his dad had told us to meet them (txt from Philip: We only made it halfway. Meet you tomorrow) and walked along the collection of stores on the main road. A man stopped and asked us if we wanted to rent motorbikes. My mother's voice and worst fear was in the back of my head as I asked "how much?"
    Though I am not normally an advocate of motorcycle travel due to safety, there is very little traffic in this part of the country and the roads are in excellent condition. $10 a day secured Andrew's and my rides for the next week. We had a crash course (haha....crash course) in driving as Andrew had never ridden a motorcycle before and I had only driven a dirtbike. Now we are enjoying the beach and the countryside, more to come later...