What an adventure. I spent 5 nights in the beautiful Indian state of Kerala. It was absolutely amazing. I rode an elephant, and bought a silk rug. We had the greatest guides and gave everyone of them a nickname, our favorite of course was “DJ Mo Money” he was the bus driver for most of our trip. Originally he was “Yoyo sir smokes alot”, but that just wasn’t as fun to say. Sassy aka Sasquatch was also fun, but he could only understand our dirty jokes. We never found Makak in the jungle, no matter how hard we looked. Dolly took us into the jungles of Thekeddy, he wore sandals as we tried to fight against the wrath of the leeches that sprung from the ground. I found out later after being separated from the group that we were supposed to be very quiet and stay with the others, apparently forest elephants like to kill things that are alone and make loud noises. Getting separated from the group made me think back to Goldratt’s theory of constraints, and I figured it must have been a sign when I saw “It’s not luck” in the airport bookstore. I just had to get it, I definitely have too many books on this ship now.
All of this was during the time of the elections, the communist party or LDF seemed to be very powerful. Our guides were mostly fans of the UDF party though, the “Hand” party, it looks like things are going in that direction. We were told that corruption is a large problem in the government. Communication was a little difficult for most of the journey, but because almost everything was planned we didn’t really have to say much.
I uploaded a few pictures, but the best parts are the videos. Bandwidth on the ship is simply not enough to upload videos. Some might consider this a good thing though, the video of the leeches on Cameron’s ankle is filled with blood.
The crew on our houseboat got so drunk from our drinking games that they couldn’t keep it in. They were hilarious, and we are now their “best friends”. Indian food is delicious! Casualties of this country include one pair of shoes that seem to be irreparablly damaged from our hike into the jungle.
Singapore in 3 days! Clay and I are planning on having lunch with Justin Ngyuen.