I AM HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year!!!! And apologies for the lengthy time between posts. It's been a case of: A) No time to find an internet cafe, B) Finding an internet cafe, but one with a painfully slooooooooooowwwwwww connection, C) Being too hungover to compose a coherent sentence, or D) Some combination thereof.

As luck would have it, though, we just arrived in Mamallapuram and none of the factors noted above apply. It's another gorgeous little beachtown, Nic & I upgraded from the Sea Breeze Annex to the Sea Breeze itself AND we are staying an extra night here in lieu of Chennai, which appears to have few if any redeeming qualities no matter who you talk to. We'll take a couple-hour taxi ride to Chennai on the 9th, where we meet up with the truck to begin the final four-week leg back to Kathmandu.

Our room is fabulous . . . a patio! twin beds! (you wouldn't think that would be luxurious, but we have been sharing the tiniest of doubles in all hotels this leg), a ceiling fan and AC! a TV with a working remote control! (with HBO! but also with commercials!), a big bathroom with actual towels and toilet paper! floors that you can walk on barefoot without acquiring an inch of black grime! yards from the beach! with a restaurant that has iced coffee! and apparently, because nothing is ever perfect, big rats that will invade our room come sundown!!!! Sigh . . .

We've covered a lot of ground since the wonderful land of Ooty and the oily realms of Ernakulam . . . an overnight houseboat trip in Alleppy, a three-day New Year's Eve/Goodby to Ben & Richard & Kirsty drunkfest in Varkala, a stop at the very southern tip of India --- which featured an overabundance of gorgeous, shirtless pilgrims (the Southern men are QUITE good-looking), the temple and delicious Shopper's Shop with western-type groceries in Madurai, MORE temples in Trichy, illegal rum-drinking necessitating multi-person negotiations and moving to the darkest reaches of the restaurant (Meridian - YUM!) and final approval by a former Indian powerlifter named Prince in Trichy, restaurant revolt and a creepy ashram involving "the Mother" (now deceased) in Puducherry and now - as mentioned - Mamallapuram. For your (lengthy) reading pleasure, I will provide some highlights below:

Ernakulum (post-Ayurvedic Hell)

• Went to the Malabar, a rooftop restaurant/bar in which Nic & I were the only females. The males at our table talked about how they should only date women who are half their age + 7 (a bracket which falls roughly between jail bait to slightly over legal drinking age). The males who were NOT at our table were leering locals. Many of whom were HOT locals who were half MY age + 7 (if that). One of whom gave me a letter before he left which started out with "Hi Dear, U R the most beautiful face I ever saw in my life" and ended with his cell phone number.

Alleppy

• HOUSEBOAT TRIP, need I say more. Many flashbacks to college days and fraternity housedances on Lake Shasta. Late-night philosophical talks enhanced by bottles of dark rum, red moon's reflection glowing in the water, Annie falling in the hole on the pathway between the two boats (now you see her, now you don't!), the other boat begging for beer because they didn't ask the beer runner to buy the right amount. (Three guesses as to who the beer runner was for both Boat #1 - the beer runner's - and Boat #2 - not the beer runner's. Two guesses as to why Boat #2 didn't buy their own beer in the first place. One guess as to whether or not the beer runner let Boat #2 have any of Boat #1's leftovers, of which there were two bottles. Which the beer runner carried openly and happily to the truck the next day.)

VARKALA

• A.K.A. vERGala for a variety of reasons that shall not be exposed to public posting.
• Receiving end of great and desperately needed mani/pedi.
• Purchase place of two ill-fitting tee-shirts (tight under the arms and too long at the bottom, neither of which is a good look, as you might suspect).
  
• AMAZING, fresh-caught fish at cliffside restaurants overlooking the ocean. Marlin, butterfish, snapper, tuna, giant prawns, regular prawns, tiger prawns, silver pomfret . . .
  
• New Year's Eve fireworks. New Year's Eve dancing. New Year's Eve sunrise, as I didn't go to bed until after 6AM. Note: "New Year's Eve" = "locals squeezing females' boobs, slapping females' asses, grabbing females from behind and grinding against them while simultaneously squeezing their boobs --- and the ever-popular pretending to shake hands, then going for full frontal body press with tongue-kissing attempts." (OK, to be totally fair . . . the locals were also hugging & kissing guys as well. It was equal-opportunity body tagging.)
• New Year's highlight: One of our drivers (I will spare him some potential embarrassment and not actually write his name, but it's four letters long and begins with an "A") was so drunk on New Year's Eve that when he went to the bathroom and had to take an unexpected dump sans toilet paper, he just reached into the USED toilet paper bin and picked out some that looked clean and used that . . . and he thinks it all seemed perfectly logical and environmentally-friendly.
• New Year's lowlight: A big chunk of the good ones decided to cut their trip short and leave the truck permanently (Ben, Richard, Kirsty, Mike, Rosie). Boo hoo . . . but, if we're being totally honest here, there is a hell of a lot more room on the truck and that is NEVER a bad thing.

ALL THE REST (Cape Comorin, Madurai, Trichy, Puducherry)

• Bay of Bengal meets Indian Ocean (and did I mention the hot male pilgrims), crazy temples, more good seafood, ever more truck drama (who sits where, who rooms with whom, those who help with EVERYTHING vs. those who don't help do ANYTHING at any time, those who share snacks on the truck vs. those who don't, THOSE WHO STUFF THEIR SNOTTY KLEENEXES BETWEEN THE SEAT CUSHIONS INSTEAD OF WALKING ONE FUCKING YARD TO THE TRASH BIN vs. those who don't, those who bitch about the place where group dinner rezzies were made but who would never in a MILLION JILLION YEARS think to make them themselves vs. those who think making group dinner rezzies is a thoughtful gesture sure to be appreciated, those who bitch about the kitty vs. those who don't . . . do you get the picture?!?)
• And I think that's enough for now, don't you????

Truly hope that 2008 is off to a wonderful start for everyone, that any resolutions made have not already been broken and that you spend some time pondering the following question (a "if you HAD to pick one of the following without ANY additional considerations/modifications" game we play frequently on the truck):

One of the following happens EVERY time you start a new conversation:

• An onion plops out of your mouth, OR
• A big, hairy wart pops up in the center of your forehead and stays there for a couple of minutes.

Which do you choose and why?

Love & Mistletoe Kisses - Stormi