TRAVELERS HONEYMOON [PART 1]

Do you know the average length of a honeymoon?

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Frist, I would like to start by saying that my partner and I have a bit of a different perception when it comes to living in the mydst of Babylon. Sure, stress plays it's part in our life here and there but drama is just not our thing. In most cases drama shows up when people aren't listening to one another. Misunderstandings are the root of most problems.

When you're open to other ways of thinking, you can actually listen to someone. The best part is that you don't even have to change your beliefs if you don't want to.

Just Be True To Yourself and Others...and Listen!

Secondly, I would like to say that we got married twice. Yes we had two weddings, no divorce, just two different ceremonies (and parties), two weeks apart from each-other in two different places thousands of miles apart. One in the desert, one by the sea!

We like to travel and decided to spend some time in India and Europe for our Honeymoon. I can still hear people at work asking me why would I go to India to begin with, let along on a honeymoon...isn't it dirty over there? I had no answer for them!

In Europe we were going to live in a converted van. Again at work I was expected to answer all the black magic my colleagues blurted out... must be nice to be rich, taking such long "vacations". It's been a long time since I've taken what these guys are calling a "vacation", I take trips and most of the time I spend less money traveling than I do at home (but your average babylonian will mostlikely never understand how).

So yeah, you read it write, your math is right too, we had ourselves an Eight Month Lune De Miel. I think something got lost in translation. It turns out the average length of a honeymoon is a whole Eight Days! Oops...

Let's tell the tale:

Now that we've got our visas...we know our plane tickets are good!

To get an India visa, we needed a plane ticket and it all has to fall into place at the same time. If they refuse your visa, you've bought a plane ticket for the wind... We're ready to go!!!

Our first two weeks were spent in Mamallapuram, a small tourist ghetto full of bars, restaurants, shops and hotels. We meant to only stay a few days to get out of jet lag and get our bearings before heading to a small village to teach english. We were to volunteer at the Vallalar Nersury and Primery School in Kanjanur.

After just a couple days Jessica was offered to work on a race track for 1000 rupees. Her job was to stand, in red spandex and white knee highs, holding an umbrella over a driver at the start of every race. It ended up being a pretty long day for $20 pay in the sun....though they had a nice table spread in their VIP tent where they could retreat to and eat, time permitting.

The day after the race Jessica fell really ill... stomach cramping up with pain, head ache and diarrhea, she had obviously caught a nasty bug! We first tried the pharmacy, two days later our antibiotics form the U.S. and than the doctor who took stool and blood samples. She had five different bacteria swimming around in there!!!

The doctor put her on a saline drip with antibiotics and other medicines for about four hours. DON'T EAT THE SALAD!

We were in a small dark clinic where electricity was not always on point and hygiene didn't seem to be top priority. The toilet room was filthy and stunk, like a public bathroom of a bus station in a third world is expected to stink. They were all sorts of bugs and traces of rats going about their business...

The next day my pour bride had to spend another four hours on the drip and was given handfuls of pills to take for a week. Needless to say once she was better we were very careful of the food we ate.

At the end of it, it we had staid two weeks in Mamallapuram, there was things to see and people to visit and now That Jess was all better we could do these things together again. We met David, an English chef, he had come here for a few months to visit a friend and learn South Indian Cuisine while working in tourist restaurants. He told horror stories from the kitchens that were mostly about hygiene and rats. Sometimes David would only get a free meal for working.

Mamallapuram has a large influx of foreign tourist but the town lacks a certain sense of business...The restaurants are very laxed, the timing of the service is off, there seems to be no sense of urgency and waiters tend to forget orders quite often but most importantly everyone lacks promotion. They could move flyers around town with a few different languages to attract more people. In Cuzco they'd promote a restaurant through some sort of event or a free item, live music or a movie night. David helped a couple businesses make big bucks on the days he'd work, hopefully it helped get the ball (or the coconut) rolling!

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This town is known for it's large community of granite and marble sculptors. Clusters of small sculpting studios line the streets before entering the sites where temples are carved entirely out of rock.

Before Jessica fell into the traps of some food borne nasty bug, we walked around old frescoes carved out of the rock, depicting life size elephants and numerous gods playing or telling their stories of happiness and horrors.

She plays

He plays

Check out the big round rock called Krishna's Butter Ball. For some reason I don't have a picture!

As we crossed this park dotted with sculpted structures, making our way through the goat inhabited area, we found ourselves on top of the site and sat a while just looking. We felt so good, we were in India and this was a beautiful moment without harassment. No beggars, no hustlers, no rickshaws and none of that in your face chaos that you find most of the time here.

We followed the music and sat down again further down near a pond. We were next to a bright white temple the size of a New York City bedroom and we just listened again...this time it was magical.

The music was hypnotizing. The sounds of ancient string instruments and talking drums tickled by soft chanting told us to sit, listen and feel a while...

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In between us and the music was a pretty pond covered in lily pads without rubbish...that could my embellished memory but since it was a sacred site, it should be true!!!

We walked to the music when the time felt right and we found a nice temple dedicated to Kali Mama. Like I said before, the area is a sculptor's paradise, even here outside the temple were a few people working on large pieces of granite. The music had become muffled in the sounds of grinders and hammers. They were working on new stone deities for the temple.

Jessica nearly walked into the temple forgetting to take her shoes off, which created a bit of anxiety in the temple...but with polite smiles and uncomfortable laughs everyone realized we had no idea this was a no shoe area!

The week my wife was sick I had made friends with Mark. He is a sculptor from Brighton, England who comes to Mamallapuram in the winter months to work in his studio. Every year sculptors from around the world come for the opportunity to work on large blocks of stone; something they could not afford back home. When sculptures are sold, some of the profits are used for materials and some goes to a charity that puts kids in schools.

This was a very inspiring place for me, as I had a project in mind called The People's Caravan, I was able to meet artists from various places in India and Europe. Our Honeymoon was off to a rough start but was the beginning of a beautiful adventure.

To Be Continued...

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Next Week:

A visit from a couple travelers...and their rides

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