Happy Holidays
Myung and I have been taking much the same route I took almost a year ago, though a little in reverse. We went to Mamallapuram, Pondicherry/Auroville, Kanchipuram (where I didn’t go before), Trichy and Madurai before going to Kerala where we are now. For many pictures from these places, you can go back to last January’s blog entries. I’ll insert a few here. This is the shore temple in Mammalapuram.
Mammalapuram is on the must see list of places in Tamil Nadu, so it’s nice to see there are some normal locals there.
I didn’t post pictures of Trichy last time, so here are a few. It’s the Dravidian temple scene again.
Here is a similar picture, though this one is of a similar hall in Madurai.
Okay, enough with the travelogue. On a personal note, Myung and I are getting along quite well. I’m having a wonderful time with her. We feel like “doing” these places in about the same way. That is, we are comfortable in about the same standard of room, we like to eat at about the same standard of eateries, we can handle the public transportation approximately equally, and we seem to basically feel fine wherever we are without needing to stay all that busy. For me it’s been nice to share my experience with someone. It’s almost always been mine alone, with maybe a few people reading this blog. And, of course, there is the personal attachment and goodies which seems to be getting better all the time. It’s been a month and a half now and really doesn’t feel like it’s going to come to an end. We talk about that, and I think we are on about the same page.
That brings us to our plans. She has a few months at least before she needs to return to Korea or China to tend to her business concerns. Her Indian visa expires on January 11, and she wants to go to Nepal for a couple of weeks then go to Thailand and Laos. My passport expires March 17 and I cannot enter Thailand or Laos with such a short time remaining on it. So, I’m going to return to the US probably on January 10, just before she heads up to Nepal. I figure it will take about 6 weeks at the most to get a new passport. While I’m waiting on that, I’ll take care of taxes and my business and other stuff. Then, so far, the plan is for me to meet up with her wherever she is, maybe Thailand. This is a little scary for both of us. While we are apart, we may redefine what seems now to be arguably sane, but we are both looking forward to it. It’s only been a month and a half, so we’re just bumbling forward and hoping for a stroke of luck.
We’re in Kerala until tonight, and taking the night train to Goa. We’ll lounge there for about 4 days. With only three and a half weeks left, we’re having to actually budget our time and have an itinerary if we are to see the things she wants to see. I’ve seen most of it, but I don’t mind because, as I said, it’s nice to be able to share the experience.
I’ll close with a picture of the back of an ambulance in Pondicherry. When you look at this, bear in mind that this is India and I would be shocked, SHOCKED, if an Indian ambulance company would ever stall the negotiating on ambulance fare in order to get another deal going.
