This is NOT the Ganges folks

Welcome to Madras, as i am going to fondly call it from now on. Having seen the ocean today, the Bay of Bengal, for the first time... i have decided that this is Madras, the old name, not Chennai, the new one. You can see it when you see the Ocean. Its' a long story.
It is strange but... just in the course of one day, of just a few hours' outing's experiences provide me with so many things i want to tell you. My mind rushes.
It has taken me 3 days to get to the sea. and everyone knows how much i love the sea. i decided to walk there from a place i had to go before that, since on the map, i figured it was a good walking distance. and it was. through the hot and busy, bustling businessy streets of Madras. Just being out in the street for any length of time sucks the lifeblood out of you. Sensory overload, even as i walk head down, not making eye contact, not taking any chances, all business, me. I have noticed that if you smile at the women, they will always break out into the widest tooth filled smile that lights up your whole day, but i have found it is simpler and safer and easier to just keep my eyes on the road ahead. No one bothers me.

I could tell i was getting closer to the water by the air that began to cool. Then a sea salt breeze hit me, I began to get excited. The smell and feel of the cool sea air.... i breathed it in with relish after the choking exhaust fumes i have been sucking up the past couple days. it feels like i have been here a week at least, and it has only been a miraculous 3 days. it is easy to loose track of the days, i get lost in time. i dont' know why. i have to seriously sit down and keep track, and tell myself the day and time several times throughout the day so i remember.

Crossing the last thoroughfair and passing a church, i see it. the sea. i have to walk past some piles of rubble and crumbling buildings, down some steps past some people sleeping under a tree and i realize... this is the last frontier, no man's land. this is the first time i have stepped out of the city hustle and bustle and rickshaws running you over and people and dogs, in 3 days. one more seaside road i cross and i am on sand. there is alot of garbage, just like anywhere else here, but i am already used to and resigned to this. i've seen it before in other countries, perhaps not quite as bad as this, but you get used to it. the sand is fine and the wind is blowing hard and strong from off shore. there are people, mostly young people or people taking breaks from their work. alot of men, and if there are women, they are with men, or in groups. i assess the situation. there are goats! in front of me are a whole herd of goats, wild, grazing on some greenery on the beach. weird. i look out and see that there is a couple, sitting at the edge where the sand makes a ledge before the surf, so i carefully choose a spot near them, where i can bask in the safeness of their proximity. I am relieved to find that even though i have been living in the lap of comfort and coziness at home in canada for so long, that i haven't lost my common sense and street smarts and am able to assess and adjust according to the given situation.

My instincts are right and after about 2 minutes, 2 guys sit down a couple feet away from me and say hello. i don't look at them, but instead i look over at the couple, the man of the couple smiles and gestures to come over. I waste no time in gathering myself up and coming right over. They are a wonderful couple of people and i am grateful for their invitation. They immediately understood my situation and were on the same wavelength as me. both spoke some english, so we shared some stories for a bit. Boys were swimming in the surf and i wanted so much to stick in a toe, but it just wasn't the place. plus i am unsure about the safety of the water, even for my toe. so for now, i am erring on the side of caution. always.

i ache for nature, i pine for the mountains, i yearn for the ganges and a community of quiet yogis with whom to live.
Today i bought a plane ticket to Delhi and from there i will head straight to Rishikesh in the himalayas. I've made the decision to change up my trip a bit. I have come to india for that, to be in the ashram, not to be living in the city, this crazy city where there is only me and 7 other foreigners in total it seems. so even though there was the course here i was interested in, i've put no money down on it, so no money lost on it, plus the cost of living here which i will save if i am not here, i have weighed the options and decided that i want to go.
so there.
it is fun to be on my own and be able to change my mind like that, and it affects no one but myself.
today i saw a man ridign a horse through the gnarly traffic. the horse was spooked, cause its crazy , honking and people speeding within inches of one another. today i discovered that the horn is used for many things... it is used to say a friendly "hey, i'm right here, just so you know"... or "hurry the hell up, what is taking so long" or my favourit today i noticed "i'm coming through at top friggin speed so you better get out of the way cause i'm not slowing down for nothing". i saw a school bus do that today actually, and a motorbike, but the school bus made me laugh. its a different kind of honking too, different honks mean different things, just like dog barks. the get the hell out of my way one is just the most incessant, urgent series of non-stop honks that you can't mistake for anything else.
The room key, when i go in your room, fits in a slot inside the door that activates the power to the room. isn't that interesting? so when you leave, you have to take the key and therefore must shut the power off. what a great idea.
the technology, i must say, is totally out of sinc with how some other things here are so primitive. i actually saw yesterday, in my meanderings, the biggest big screen flat screen t.v. box, on its way in or out of a house that looked not much bigger than the t.v. itself in a neighbourhood that clearly lacked interior plumbing. how is that possible? just another one of the oxymoron you see here everyday.
i have a feeling that i will spend many months adjusting to life here, and being uncomfortable with it at every step of the way, only to find myself heartbroken to leave. there is something about it, there is magic amongst the filth. there is life and warmth.
even the traffic reminds me of quantum physics. how one participant of the traffic knows what another part on the other side is doing at any given time which makes you think it is not seperate entities but one cohesive entity. sort of exactly like a flock of birds.
i could never drive here. there are no lanes, no traffic lights, it seems like a gian game of pole position and there are rules, obviously, that i don't think i could ever pick up.

I am learning that if i want people to understand my english i have to speak with more of the indian lilt in my voice. which makes me laugh because all my friends at kamloops dodge teased me so much about practicing my indian accent, and funnily enough, that is exactly what one needs to do. for example, they don't usually understand the past tense, instead of saying "i said, i thought, i walked" you have to say " i was saying, i was thinking, i was walking" for them to understand. funny huh. and i have also learned to seek out someone more highly educated to speak english, because just joe blow on teh street usually does not, but say a pharmacist, a doctor, or even a .... well, there's no way to really tell, really. cause today my rickshaw driver (some of whom are very poor and uneducated) spoke very good english and he is a student of political science at the university. so there no telling.
Where i bought my plane ticket... boy that place was a zoo. 6 people working behind a counter only about 8 feet long. talking on phones and to customers in front of them.... everyone was yelling to be heard above everyone else, so that the sound was escalating into a 6 ring circus, replete with cellular ring tones going off with all kinds of crazy music.... 6 ring circus.
but i got my ticket and it was relatively cheap.
i fly out saturday.
ok, i better sign off now,
time is high.
lotsa love to all